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meangirls-imagines · 3 months

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Forever Will Last

Description: reader and reneè hit a bit of a rough patch after the vanity fair oscar party.

WARNINGS: 2,677 words of angst and happiness and fluff. reader plays for the us women's soccer team and angel city. guest appearances by christen press, tobin heath, and ali krieger.

y/n's heart broke as she saw the video.

"towa bird and reneè rapp make their red carpet debut as a couple"

as she sat on their couch, medal in hand, she felt her heart shatter into a million pieces. she had just gotten back from winning the gold cup and opted out of celebrations with her team in hopes of celebrating with her girlfriend.

she was going to propose to reneè that night. and now here she was, almost shattering her phone with how strong her grip was on it. she never really understood why adam never liked her, but she never thought it would go this low.

he had proposed towa and reneè be in a pr relationship so that way the world didn't find out about her and y/n. plus, it would help launch both towa and reneè's careers. y/n didn't really have a choice, having to agree to the stunt. a little piece of her died every time she had to see towa and reneè close.

she had composed herself enough to get up and pack some things. the season was starting soon and she still had training to go to. she grabbed all of her essentials for that and some extra clothes, finding the ring while packing. tears stung in her eyes as she put the little box on the bed.

she found a piece of paper, deciding to leave reneè a note instead of a text. she took a deep breath, leaving the note on the bed and leaving. as she got in her car, she looked back at the house that once felt comforting to her. now, it just felt empty and hollow.

she got in her car, having a destination in mind, and left without looking back.

reneè and towa stumbled in the house hours later, towa laughing at the blonde who tripped over her dress. reneè had drank a lot but had sobered enough before she arrived home. "reneè, get yourself together. you don't wanna wake your girl up." reneè nodded and her and towa hugged before the girl left.

reneè tiptoed to the bedroom, ready to take this dress and makeup off before melting in her girlfriend's arms. she missed y/n so much at the party. all she wanted was y/n to be with her, showing off her hot, soccer playing girlfriend. she and adam had gotten into a fight before she had left for the party, the man taking her away from watching her girlfriend play in the gold cup.

he had even gone the extra mile and held reneè's phone for her so people would actually believe that she wanted to be there. her and towa had enjoyed themselves, but even her friend could tell that the blonde didn't wanna be there.

as she opened the bedroom door, she found the room empty. her heart dropped as she spotted the letter and the ring box on their bed. y/n was nowhere to be seen. she looked in their bathroom.

nothing.

their guest room.

nothing.

the blonde was on the verge of tears. her girlfriend was nowhere to be seen. she spotted the note once again and with shaky hands, opened it, tears finally spilling down her face.

reneè,

i never thought i would do this.

before i say anything, i want you to know that i love you with every fiber of my being.

but i can't do this anymore. i can't sit back and watch someone else get to show you off as theirs. i don't think i was ever okay with the idea but if it helped you skyrocket into stardom, i just went with it because i wanted to see you succeed. the world deserves to see you shine. which is why it's so hard to have to let you go.

i feel like an anchor. like i'm holding you back. you deserve to shine, stargirl. just not with me.

i wanted to be with you forever, but i guess forever wasn't meant for us.

you deserve better reneè, and i really hope you find it.

i'll always love you.

shine on stargirl.

y/n

reneè was sobbing, leaving tear marks over the already dried ones on the note. she had no idea y/n felt like this. she couldn't imagine how the girl felt seeing her and towa do things that she wanted to do with reneè.

reneè opened the ring box and sobbed harder at the beautiful diamond ring inside. she turned her phone on to call and notifications began pouring in, breaking reneè's heart even more.

her little brother had texted her a play by play of the gold cup final, expressing his excitement to see y/n again after her game winning goal. her parents had even texted her about the game. she went to twitter and saw the highlights of the game, sniffling as she watched y/n make the game winning shot to eventually win the final. she cried again when she saw a picture of y/n holding the cup and the gold ball awarded to her.

she immediately called alyah, telling her to come over.

y/n sighed as she trekked up the familiar path to a familiar front door. she knocked three times and waited for the person to answer. the door opened, revealing christen press. she took one look at y/n and pulled her into a hug.

christen had a gift for knowing when her adopted daughters needed a hug. as soon as the older woman's arms wrapped around y/n, the dam broke. she began to sob in the woman's arms. hearing the commotion, a worried tobin heath and ali krieger came around the corner, their hearts breaking at the girl crying in christen's arms.

tobin went to grab the bag y/n dropped as ali guided the two into the living room.

the women had no idea what had made y/n cry like this, but they were going to get to the bottom of it. quick.

back with reneè, alyah and reece had made it and were both consoling the blonde. she had since changed into one of y/n's national team hoodies and sweats. "reneè, have you tried calling her?" reneè shook her head, not saying much as she fiddled with the diamond ring on her left hand. alyah sighed, looking at reece for help.

the boy sighed and leaned forward. "nae, did y/n tell you how she felt about the stunt?" the blonde nodded. "the day adam brought it up, she expressed her concerns about it. i took them to heart but adam just brushed her off." alyah sighed. reece continued. "have you seen some of the videos fans make of you and towa? because if i didn't know you, i would think you're dating towa."

reneè looked at him confused as he pulled out his phone, opening TikTok.

video after video, reneè began to understand. if she saw videos like this of y/n and one of her teammates, she was sure she would react the same. alyah, while also seeing the videos, had tried calling y/n, but no one was answering. she just hoped y/n had the same support system that reneè had at the moment.

after explaining what she had been feeling and what was the breaking point, y/n waited for the older women to speak. tobin spoke first. "well, i think you two need to sit down and talk about how you feel and if reneè is open to finding a new team. i don't think she should work with someone that wants her to not be herself." the other woman agreed.

ali took y/n's hands in hers. "y/n, listen to me. you cannot let that girl go. she makes you so incredibly happy and i don't want you to lose that happiness. you and reneè were made for each other. please do not let her go." y/n laid her head on christen's shoulder. "i just don't want to hold her back from her full potential. she deserves the world and i'm not sure i can give her that."

the women's hearts broke at the girl's words. after y/n's last breakup, they had seen how the girl had closed in on herself, her insecurities being blared to the public. when she met reneè, they saw a sliver of the old y/n back. they didn't want her to close back in on herself after she had worked so hard to overcome that.

back with reneè, after much talking with alyah and reece, she knew what she had to do. she grabbed her phone, calling adam.

"we need to talk."

the nwsl season opener had come to quick for y/n's liking. angel city was playing bay fc for their home opener. y/n had been staying with christen and tobin for the remainder of the offseason. she hadn't talked to reneè since that night, but christen had been keeping up with the blonde for y/n. the girl was shocked when she learned that reneè had fired adam and gotten a new manager.

christen and tobin had tried to get y/n to talk to reneè but the girl wouldn't budge. she stood by her choice to let reneè be the star she was meant to be. as the team took their places in line, y/n stood next to ali riley as they read off the rosters for the opening game. the woman rubbed y/n's back gently. "you okay joey?"

y/n chuckled at the nickname. ali had given it to upon their first meeting. "yeah. i'm fine. just nerves." she didn't wanna tell the older woman she wished reneè was here to cheer her on. the defender smiled at her and they took their places on the bench, ready for the game to start.

reneè smiled at the usher who scanned her ticket as she stood off to the side, waiting for her brother, parents, alyah and reece to join her. her new manager, julie, had joined them too. reneè had fired adam on the grounds of being too controlling of her life, and she found julie shortly after.

after explaining the situation she was in, julie had immediately gotten with towa's manager and released a statement explaining that their relationship was no more than a stunt and that they are very close friends and collaborators. renee's fans had blasted adam on all socials about what happened and were very much in support of reneè.

the blonde had decided that she wasn't going to let anyone get in the way of her getting what she loved. and she loved y/n and wanted to spend the rest of her life with her.

so, diamond ring on her hand, and one of y/n's jerseys on, she and her group walked to the vip section of the stadium and waited in anticipation for the game.

obviously, with cameras in 2024, people began to notice the blonde sitting pitch side with her family. people took pictures and posted them on socials, speculating.

@reneefan2: ARE RENEÈ AND Y/N TOGETHER? BE STILL MY HEART

@y/nisthegoat: GUYS I JUST SAW RENEÈ RAPP AT THE ANGEL CITY GAME AND GIRLY HAD ON A Y/N JERSEY AND A VERY INTERESTING THING ON HER LEFT RING FINGER!! OMG

@reneerappnews: Reneè Rapp spotted at the Angel City home opener, sporting a y/n y/l/n jersey. *photo attached*

@uswntfan13: guys. reneè just took a picture with my friend and when we asked who she was here for, she just smirked and said "my baby." OH MY GOD??

come halftime, the entire stadium and world seemed to know that reneè was at the game, except the person she was here for. y/n had never really been the person to check her phone during halftime but some of her teammates were and when they saw reneè here, they all shared a knowing look, deciding not to tell y/n.

after the halftime pep talk, the teams made their way back onto the field. at about the 65th minute, y/n made her way to the ref to sub in for sydney leroux, who happened to be wearing the captain's band. the crowd started to scream louder as the hype video for y/n began to play on the jumbotron.

reneè noticed and pulled out her phone to take a picture. as they showed y/n getting ready to sub in on the screen, she snapped the picture, posting it to her instagram story with the caption "captain, my captain ❤️". she locked her phone and began to watch the game, tracking y/n intently.

at around the 85th minute, angel city got awarded a corner kick. with the score being 0-0, the home fans watched in anticipation to see if this was going to end the game or send it into extra time. y/n paced around in the box, waiting for the right moment.

ali riley put her hand up, signaling the kick, and shot the ball into the box. y/n jumped, and thanks to her jumping ability, headed the ball into the back of the net, scoring.

the stadium went wild, as the team huddled around y/n, screaming and cheering. they all got back into position and played the last few minutes of the game before the final whistle blew, signaling the end. the stadium erupted as the players shook hands and did their laps around the stadium.

as y/n was signing a young girl's jersey, christen came up behind her and hugged her. "i'll take over here, there's someone who wants to see you." y/n nodded and hugged the little girl and turned to walk back in the direction christen came from. as she walked, she noticed tobin standing next to someone but y/n couldn't see who.

as she got closer, she recognized that blonde head of hair anywhere.

reneè.

the girl stopped walking and looked at reneè in shock. she wasn't expecting the girl to be here, of all places. the blonde had finished her conversation with tobin and spotted y/n standing a few feet off, frozen in shock. the blonde smiled and walked the remaining distance to y/n stopping a few feet in front of her.

"hi." y/n shook herself out of her shocked state to answer. "hey."

reneè took this as her opportunity to speak.

"i'm so so sorry baby. i should've known to shut that shit down before it started. i thought you were okay with it and i was wrong. and when i came home that night and you weren't there, a piece of my heart went with you. and then i saw the note and the ring." at the mention of the ring, y/n's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. she then noticed the diamond sitting on reneè's left hand.

reneè noticed what y/n was looking at and smiled. "yeah. i found the ring. and reading your note helped me realize what i had to do. i did have some help." she looked back. y/n followed her sight and saw reneè's family, alyah, reece, preath and ali all standing off to the side, bright smiles directed at y/n.

y/n gasped as reneè took the ring off her finger, gently grabbing y/n's hand and placing it in her palm.

"will you ask me?" y/n blushed as she slowly got down on one knee.

"reneè, i never imagined proposing to you while all sweaty and gross from a game but here we are. from the moment we met, i knew you were the one i wanted to spend the rest of my life with. you bring light into my world, filling it with joy and laughter. i cannot imagine a future without you by my side. that being said, reneè mary jane rapp, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

reneè had tears running down her face as she nodded. "yes! a million times yes!" everyone around them cheered as y/n stood, sliding the ring back on reneè's hand. reneè leaned in and kissed y/n so passionately, it was like the rest of the world disappeared around them, letting them have their special moment.

twitter the next day erupted at the post of one picture by the official USWNT instagram page:

reneè rapp and angel city forward y/n y/l/n are ENGAGED! we wish the couple nothing but the best as they enter this next chapter of their lives! welcome to the family, reneè!

#renee rapp x reader #renee rapp #renee rapp imagine

397 notes · View notes

anto-pops · 1 year

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Secrets - Ominis Gaunt x Female! Reader

Summary: After slinking out of Hogwarts for five long, stressful hours in the dead of night, you returned to a pissed off Ominis who is beyond fed up with your blatant disregard for your well being. The last thing he wants to do is let you off easy, so he patches you up and elects to 'punish' you for your infuriating secrecy.

Alternatively summarized as really, really shameless Dominis smut.

Yes, this is the most gratuitous thing I've ever written. No, I will not be taking questions at this time.

Word Count: 9.5k

Warnings: 18+, aged up characters, explicit sexual content, rough sex (seriously)

Full fic can be found here on Ao3 with much more informative tags

It was well after midnight by the time you returned to Hogwarts. You would have come back sooner if it had been up to you— seeing as you weren’t particularly keen on slinking through the school’s deserted corridors in the dark. But you were tired, bruised, and lacking a good amount of blood that had left your body through the deep slice in your leg, so naturally you moved slowly.

At least with the late hour, you would be able to avoid Ominis. There was no way you could deal with his particular brand of ire right now.

You didn’t mean to keep these things from him, but he was a chronic worrier. Every time you left the castle walls for something– be it for potions ingredients, or to help out in a nearby village– Ominis would grouse about it. While he knew you could handle yourself in most situations, he was convinced that you continued putting yourself in danger simply because it was the only thing you were used to. From the moment you entered his world in your fifth-year, you had been fighting for your life and solving other people’s problems without so much as a spare thought for yourself.

He made it very clear to you that he wasn’t a fan of your heroism. “It’s not your job to fix everything,” he had told you one night after you missed dinner to take on an entire Poacher camp by yourself.

You knew that. But that didn’t mean you wouldn’t at least try to help where you could.

Which was precisely why you had agreed to travel to Marunweem in the first place. The town’s doctor had sent you an owl requesting your assistance after a caravan of medical supplies was raided by Ashwinders. The grimy bastards had holed up in a cave a mile outside of the village for the better part of a month and had been robbing its denizens left and right, leaving the townsfolk too terrified to leave their homes and run the risk of getting hounded.

Finding the slippery fuckers had been easy enough. What you hadn’t counted on was the second group of them that returned to the camp half-way through dispatching the first bunch. Their arrival had caught you off guard, which was the only reason one of the Scouts succeeded in hitting you with a Diffindo charm when your back was turned. You had been effectively handicapped for the remainder of the fight, limping around to dodge more curses and charms alike, but it wasn’t anything you couldn’t handle. In the end, you had made it out victorious, leaving a pile of Ashwinder bodies behind in your wake.

Climbing the staircase to the Astronomy Wing was a trial in and of itself; your leg stung fiercely every time you lifted your knee to take another step, the torn skin pulling uncomfortably and throbbing with every minute movement you made. You were all too grateful to reach the top landing, the massive, oak entryway to the Room of Requirement revealing itself before you’d even reached the wall. A small mercy.

The heavy door swung shut behind you as you limped straight from the entrance over to your potion’s table. There was only one thing on your mind, and you already knew you had no vials of Wiggenweld left, so you started methodically gathering what you needed to brew a fresh batch. You lit the burner and added Horklump Juice to the cauldron first, letting that simmer over low heat while you riffled through a drawer to grab a rag.

“Aguamenti,” you murmured under your breath, saturating the cloth with water before firmly pressing it against the jagged gash in your thigh. The fibers burned the raw skin underneath, but you grit your teeth through the pain, whimpering softly as you turned back to your Wiggenweld potion. Healing magic was always something that had eluded you– despite your best efforts– and as a result, you didn’t trust yourself to properly stitch your skin back together with a spell.

As you picked out a handful of Dittany to toss into the bubbling mixture, the telltale sound of clothing shuffling reached your ears. After the hellish night you’d just lived through, your instincts had you whirling around with your free hand hovering inches away from your side, ready to draw your wand from its holster in a heartbeat.

It was Ominis. Shit.

He was sitting on the couch on the opposite side of the room, bathed in the silvery moonlight that streamed through the skylight overhead. Your tunnel vision upon entering the room had allowed you to overlook his presence entirely– but he’d also made no move to make himself known. His sharp, angular features were drawn into a tense expression, and his fingers tapped impatiently against his crossed legs, betraying just how pissed he actually was.

Fuck.

“Ominis, what are you doing just sitting there? You scared me, why didn’t you say something?” Your heart hammered against your sternum so hard, you were certain that he could hear it.

“What am I doing?” Ominis’ voice was like a whip, cutting through the air as viscerally as the Diffindo charm that had sliced your leg. “How about you tell me where you’ve been for the last five hours, or why you’re bleeding out and trying to fix it with a potion instead of going to the Hospital Wing?”

There was a split second where you considered denying his claims, but you knew it was pointless. He had likely heard you mewling and smelled the blood the moment you walked through the doors— and besides, lying would only upset him further. “I had to deal with a few Ashwinders in Marunweem,” you confessed, wanting desperately to leave it at that so you could focus on dealing with your leg.

Ominis finally stood from the couch, his imposing presence amplifying as he strode across the chamber with his wand clutched tight in his white knuckled grip. “Since when are ‘a few’ Ashwinders getting the jump on you? Don’t sugarcoat the truth, I’m in no mood for your tip-toeing.”

You sighed as the blond planted himself directly in front of you, the slender fingers of his free hand reaching for your shoulder, and once he found you, he followed your arm down to where you held the rag against your thigh. His brows slammed down at the grating confirmation that yes– you were hurt, and he tsked disapprovingly before nodding over your shoulder at the potion’s table. “Sit down, I’ll do it– and turn off the burner.”

Once again, you found yourself hesitating, if only because your pride had never allowed you to easily accept assistance from other people. But the rigid set to Ominis’ shoulders had you complying relatively quickly, afraid that if you protested him helping, he would really let you have it. So you cranked the burner knob to the off position, then shuffled over to the other end of the table.

A soft hiss slipped through your teeth as you shifted to hoist yourself onto the flat surface, the movement pulling at your wound painfully, and you instantly felt Ominis’ warm hands around your waist. He helped you hop up on the table, letting you get settled as he pried the rag away from your thigh. His ministrations were soft and thoughtful; a stark contrast to the unyielding, vexed expression on his face.

Your trousers hung in tatters around your injured leg, fluttering listlessly around your calf, so Ominis tore the remaining fabric away and discarded it to the floor. His wand flared briefly as he summoned a collection of Wiggenweld potions beside you, handing one to you soundlessly.

As you worked the cork out of the top, you muttered, “When did you brew these?”

“I didn’t,” Ominis replied evenly, taking the damp cloth from your trembling fingers to re-saturate it with water. You jolted in place when he pressed it to your thigh, but the tender sweep of his thumb across your unmarred knee soothed you instantly. “They’re technically Sebastian’s. I’m sure he’ll be less than pleased to find them missing from his trunk, but he’ll understand.”

Humming your acknowledgment, you finally popped open the vial and knocked back its contents, relaxing into the table as the liquid warmed your insides and worked its magic. When Ominis pulled the rag away from your leg, you were pleased to find that the bleeding had subsided significantly, but the skin was torn too deep to fully stitch back together after one dose of Wiggenweld.

The blond lifted his wand to cast a diagnostic spell, setting the blood-soaked cloth off to the side before a lyrical chant slipped from his lips. Vulnera Sanentur was far from an easy spell to cast– much less master– but Ominis did it without a second thought, never once lifting his head as he expertly worked to mend your skin. You knew that he had taken to studying healing magic after your sixth-year, but you hadn’t actually seen Ominis use any of what he’d learned until now. The feeling of your skin pulling together was strange, but not uncomfortable, and you watched wide-eyed as the gaping wound closed up and left only a faint, pink scar behind.

“When did you become so proficient with healing spells?” You asked him as he stood straight, summoning a few Dittany leaves into the palm of his hand. He twisted them between his fingers and wafted the scent towards his face before holding them out to you.

“Around the same time you and Sebastian started using yourselves as shields in Crossed Wands. Now hold these on top of the area for a bit, otherwise the scar will linger,” he instructed you matter-of-factly, and his stern tone made your shoulders sag. You truly hated it when he was upset with you.

“I really am sorry, Ominis.” You muttered remorsefully as you accepted the leaves, and his brows pinched together at the sound of your dejected tone. “I didn’t mean to upset you with all of this–”

“I’m getting rather tired of sitting idly by while you throw yourself into danger. What is it going to take for you to realize that what you’re doing is incredibly careless? What happens when the next spell hits a little higher and kills you, hm? What would I do then?” His frustration rolled off of him in thick, potent waves that made your stomach churn with anxiety.

“Ominis please, I know you care about me, but there are things I’m obligated to do– especially as a wielder of this ancient magic. No one else can do what I can–”

“I really don’t care about everyone else,” he practically growled the statement and closed the miniscule space between the two of you so that he could brace his arms on either side of your hips, caging you between his long, lithely muscled arms. “All I care about is you and your wellbeing, but you have this infuriating ability to do the exact opposite of what I ask. Why? Sometimes I get the feeling you see me as more of a chastising parent than your boyfriend.”

Hearing that made you scowl, “That’s absurd, of course I don’t see you that way. I just hate to worry you with these things–”

“Well, I am worried. I’ve been worried. You used to be more careful about these excursions of yours, but now you’re beyond reckless. You used to listen to reason and now you’re too stubborn for your own good.” His eyes were like burning pools of moonlight, piercing through your very soul as he leaned forward to trail his hand up your arm and across your shoulder. “I have a growing distaste for your rebellious streak. Why must you insist on being so disobedient?”

Something about the word disobedient had your retort shriveling up in your throat, and your mouth snapped shut with an audible clack of teeth while your eyes flickered between Ominis’. His expression was drawn tight, but there was something else there– something domineering about the way he spoke to you. You’d seen this side of Ominis before, but it had been a long time since you’d actually done anything that worked him into such a state. Uncertainty washed over you like a bucket of cold water, and you swallowed around a lump in your throat.

Ominis’ hand on your shoulder continued to rise, the tips of his fingers ghosting over your clammy skin until they splayed outwards and he was holding you loosely by the neck. There was no helping your startled gasp at the brazen move, and you stared wide-eyed up at him as your nails dug into the surface of the table. Your silence was palpable, as was the shiver that coursed through you, and Ominis acknowledged both of those things with a taunting smirk.

“What, nothing to say now? Has it sunk in? Have I finally gotten through that ironclad head of yours?”

You honestly didn’t know what the hell was going on in your head. Things had shifted so suddenly that now instead of feeling remorseful for aggravating your boyfriend, you were keenly interested in seeing what treatment you’d won yourself by doing so. “I-I’m sorry, Ominis–”

He tightened his hand briefly to angle your head to the side, pulling another gasp from your parted lips, and he hunched forward to nuzzle his face into the crook of your exposed neck. You could feel his lips smiling against your pulse, betraying exactly what he had in mind for you, and you whimpered pitifully under him.

“I didn’t ask if you were sorry, I asked if I made myself clear; I don’t like you putting yourself in harm's way, but I especially loathe it when you try to keep things from me.” You felt the pinprick of his nails digging into the soft skin below your jaw– not overbearingly tight– but it made you acutely aware of the placement of every one of his fingers, and the sensation had your heart skipping beats one after another.

“I know, I understand,” you whispered, your voice airy and fleeting. “I wasn’t going out of my way to keep secrets– I just came here to take care of my leg, I wasn’t expecting you to be waiting for me–”

His teeth nipped at the skin of your neck, pulling another gasp from your throat and cutting your rebuttal short “Would you have told me about it if I hadn’t caught you slinking in here tonight?”

“E-Eventually–” you started to say, and in a flash Ominis was pulling away from you to glare fixedly in your direction. His grip on your throat stayed gentle but firm as he angled your face back to his, and one of your own hands finally shot up from the surface of the table to wrap around his slender wrist.

“No lying,” he hissed, nearing closer so that his lips were mere inches away from yours. “You and I both know you would sooner tangle with Devil’s Snare before telling me you’ve been galavanting through the Highlands taking on dark wizards by yourself.”

“I would have,” you bit back at him, the conviction in your tone making him draw pause. “Maybe I would have omitted a few details, but yes, I would have told you. I don’t make a habit of not telling you things.”

“And yet, here we are.” The ghost of his breath danced across your lips, your mind flooding with unrestrained fantasies and ideas that were made all the more potent at the feeling of his thumb brushing against the curve of your jaw. “Sometimes I feel like the only way to keep you out of trouble would be to restrain you and lock you away in your bedroom. At least then I could make sure you stay safe.”

You hated arguing with Ominis. You despised making him doubt your sincerity. It made you anxious anytime you knew he was upset with you, in large part because he got angry with you so rarely. But right now, an offhand comment like that was doing more to frazzle you and fuel a slew of unholy thoughts that had no business existing at the same time he was scolding you.

What the fuck was wrong with you?

Ominis elected to release his hold on your throat at that moment, jarring you from your thoughts, and he dropped the appendage to your thigh. Your breathing hitched when he trailed his palm lightly over where your wound had been minutes earlier, and he shook his head disapprovingly at you. The scar was still evident under his touch– the Dittany leaves he’d given you still gripped loosely in your fist, unused.

“How does your leg feel? Any other wounds I need to know about?” He asked you, almost somewhat… cunningly.

The sudden change in topic wasn’t unusual, but it was the way he presented the question that made you pause before answering. You decided to humor him and testingly lifted your knee, pleased to find that doing so didn’t cause you burning pain any longer. “No, and it’s a lot better actually. Thank you.”

He seemed to contemplate his next words carefully, his wand-bearing hand sliding up your forearm to lightly grasp your elbow as the other skirted higher up your leg, stopping to toy with the frayed fabric of your torn trousers. “Don’t thank me yet. Come with me.”

In a flash, Ominis had tugged you off of the table, his grip on your arm like a vice as he began leading you further into the Room. “Ah– Merlin, Ominis, what are you doing?” You nearly tripped over your own feet, but the blond’s unrelenting hold on you kept you upright as he pulled you behind him down the narrow staircase that led to the larger portion of the vast chamber.

“Such simple instructions and yet you fail to follow them,” he muttered, more to himself than to you. “At this point, I’m convinced you’re doing it on purpose to get a rise out of me, so consider this your punishment.”

Ominis knew exactly where to steer you when he reached the bottom step– with or without his wand– and the nervousness you felt was greatly overshadowed by the ripe anticipation that blossomed in your gut. He threw his shoulder against the door to the bedroom to shove it open before hauling you through the entryway, immediately getting to work to show you exactly what sort of ‘punishment’ he had in mind.

—

“Stop whining and use your words.”

Ominis’ sharp voice cut off your guttural moan, and he removed his hand from your throbbing core once again, killing your building release for the nth time tonight. You couldn’t help it; you sobbed at the loss. The imposing blond man leaned forward, whispering his response along your jaw slowly and playfully nipping at the skin as he moved down. “The sooner you apologize, the sooner we can cease this incessant game.”

You’d been here for some time already, sprawled out on your shared bed in the Room of Requirement with Ominis circling you like a hawk. Every so often he would elect to touch you again, giving you a modicum of reprieve from the burning tension between your legs, but not before pulling his fingers away right as you were on the cusp of your climax. The two of you had been going at it for close to an hour now, and it was suffice to say you were losing your fucking mind.

Your wrists had been tied snug together and bound above your head, rendering your hands useless as your boyfriend toyed with you to his heart’s content. You were a flushed, panting mess underneath him, hopelessly writhing against the sheets in search of more of anything. The ache between your legs was tantamount to torture.

As you drew your knees together in a feeble attempt to create some friction for yourself, Ominis felt you fidgeting and sat up to stop you in your tracks. His long, elegant fingers gripped both of your legs and spread them apart, leaving you fully exposed to him as a throaty whine sounded from your lips.

“Please, Ominis–” your raspy voice cracked on his name, drawing a dark chuckle from him that sent a thrill down your spine.

“I don’t know why you’re begging when you know you should be apologizing,” he chidded you, tilting his head to the side to cast a taunting look in your direction. “I know what you want, but what about what I want?”

“I-I already said I was sorry,” you gritted through your teeth, momentarily grateful that Ominis couldn’t see the piercing glare you fixed him with. How many times did he want you to say it? “What more do you want me to do?”

He moved into your space so fast, it made you gasp and press harder into the mattress. His eyes were stormy and swimming with emotion as he growled, “I want you to mean it. Every word. Apologize for keeping secrets and for making me worry– then you can start begging me to come.”

Ominis brought his hands to your chest to drag his blunt nails lightly down your front, stopping the appendages over your pert nipples to pinch the sensitive buds, and your stuttered apology caught in your throat at the feeling. “Hah– I am sorry Ominis, I really am. I’m sorry I scared you, I’ll tell you everything from now on– n-no more secrets– ah–”

The wet warmth of Ominis’ mouth came over one of your nipples, followed by the sharp sting of his teeth clamping down, and it had you moaning and arching into him further. You heard his throaty laugh, blearily lifting your head in an attempt to get a better look at him, but he was already moving back to sit on his heels with his hands tracing burning circles on your legs.

“Hm, that sounds better,” Ominis murmured down at you, trailing his fingers tentatively over the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. You had half a mind to shift your hips closer to him– desperate to finally have your release after so long– but you knew doing so would just set you back even further. The urge to please Ominis any way you could was bone deep, so you fought down the desire to move, remaining a twitching, keening mess atop the sheets.

“Please,” you whined softly, tugging pathetically on the rope bindings around your wrists. “I want you so badly Ominis, gods– I want you to fuck me, make me cum for you. P-Please, Ominis, please.”

He didn’t respond at first, his hands stilling against your legs as he swallowed around the lump in his throat. You sounded divine begging for him like this. It almost made him want to cave early and finally give you what you wanted… but that would be too easy, especially considering it was your sneaking around that had landed the two of you in this position in the first place.

No, he intended on playing with you a little while longer before wrapping things up.

“You know I like taking my time,” Ominis purred down at you, and there was no missing the teasing undertone to his voice.

The tension in your gut seemed to worsen in that instant, and you honestly could have cried.

Ominis’ hands left your thighs to brace on either side of you as he leaned forward, a predatory glint in his milky blue eyes. His head dropped into the hollow of your throat, flicking the tip of his clever tongue against your pulse before licking a broad stripe down the vulnerable column of your neck. You shuddered at the bold move, whimpering at the expression he bore when he pulled back to smooth down your hair affectionately.

“So I will take my time fucking you, and you’d best believe I’ll have you screaming my name so loud you won’t be able to speak afterwards. I’ll bend you in half– fuck you so hard that we break the damn bed– and you know what?”

It took you a second to realize he was asking you a question, but the most coherent response you could muster was a soft whine. It was enough.

“When you’re shaking under me, fucked out and sensitive from finally getting to come…” Ominis smiled, licking his lips as he bent forward again to whisper devilishly in your ear, “I’ll keep fucking you, hard and fast until you’re brainless and drooling and all you can think about or say is my name.”

You were positive you were already brainless. The filthy, wicked promises dripping from Ominis’ mouth left plenty to the imagination, and you were a damn good visualizer. With a low growl, he sank his teeth into the curve of your shoulder, biting and sucking an angry mark into your clammy skin. You moaned in earnest, all too pleased to finally be moving forward with things. You didn’t think you’d ever wanted to come so bad in your fucking life.

When Ominis pulled away, you half expected him to start marking up the other side of your neck, but instead he backed off to shift around and swing one of his knees over your bare chest. He held himself precariously over you, refraining from smothering you with his body weight, and in doing so you were faced with Ominis’ straining, confined arousal mere inches from your lips. You huffed out a needy breath.

“Be a good girl and take it out,” he instructed, a coy smirk stretching across his face.

You squinted up at him then, giving the rope around your wrists a pointed tug, and he felt the motion reverberate through your prone form. He only laughed at you, shifting slightly to rub his clothed erection against your lips teasingly.

“Use your mouth if you can’t use your hands.”

It took you a second, but when you finally understood, your mouth parted on a long, low moan as your hips wriggled excitedly. Taking a moment to collect yourself, you drew in a deep breath before zeroing in on the catch of your boyfriend’s trousers. You surged forward and dragged your tongue up the thick outline of his cock, tracing along his undoubtedly uncomfortable arousal until you were kissing your way up the fly to the button.

Ominis just listened, half amused and half extremely turned on as you struggled to figure out your plan of attack. You nuzzled briefly against his groin before throwing caution to the wind and deciding to just go for it. Hooking your front teeth over the edge of the fabric above the button, you absolutely allowed them to scrape over Ominis’ light happy trail, relishing in the shiver it drew from him. You tugged the material down, and with a helpful push of your tongue, you managed to get the button through the catch.

You didn’t bother to hide your excitement; a giddy noise weasled it’s way past your lips, and you grinned smugly to yourself. Ever the perceptive one, Ominis felt his waistband loosen and gently raked his fingers through your mused hair in silent praise. That was the extent of his congratulations, though, before he was tugging on the strands softly to urge you towards the significantly easier zipper. You caught the thin bit of metal between the tip of your canine and clenched your teeth, dipping your head to pull it down, and your victory was marked by the barely there sigh that snuck out of Ominis’ parted lips.

The blond elected to take pity on you then, sitting up on his knees just enough so that he could shove his trousers and briefs down around his hips. His fingers moved slower when he got to the front of his waist, tilting his head to the side before carefully peeling the restrictive fabric away from his groin, and his cock sprung free and arched proudly against his taut stomach. Taking himself in his hands, Ominis shamelessly angled his cock towards you and slapped the leaking head against your cheek a few times, leaving a streak of pre-come across your face that you feebly tried to lick away, to no avail.

You nestled fervently against his shaft, your enthusiasm palpable and more than enough to make Ominis’ head spin. He was positive he wasn’t meant to be feeling such warm fuzzies when he was supposed to be wrecking you as punishment.

Then again, you’d been a little too interested in his idea of payback earlier, so nothing was really going according to plan when he thought long and hard about it.

“Ominis,” you breathed, dragging his attention back to you restrained between his legs. Your soft lips brushed against the head of his cock then, your quick tongue flicking gently at the sensitive slit, and the sensation had him shivering as his breathing kicked up in anticipation. “Can I suck your cock?”

“I thought I answered that question already,” Ominis murmured, nudging his hips forward so he could smear warm pre-come all along your flushed lips. Your tongue darted out to lick at the slick trail, staring up at him with such intensity that you were certain he could feel your eyes on him. “You want it?” You nodded, licking your lips again as you tried leaning up to run your tongue over the head, but Ominis chose that moment to pull back just out of your reach. The whine that fell from your mouth was like music to his ears, and Ominis felt you begin wiggling your hips impatiently.

There it was. Ominis’ goal was to work you into a needy, frantic mess— he wanted you begging and moaning for him until he was sure he had shattered your composure entirely, and somehow he had a feeling that was what you wanted too.

Ominis’ fingers spread through your unruly hair and tightened a fraction as he pulled your head towards him, using his free hand to angle his impressive length towards your mouth. “Open.”

He could feel and hear your hot breaths against his achingly hard cock as you stuck your tongue out in invitation, and Ominis couldn’t help the sharp pang of lust that shot through him at the way you just… obeyed him. It was exactly what he’d wanted from the moment you walked into the Room tonight.

Breathing a quiet laugh, he went ahead and slapped the slick head of his member against your tongue, hissing softly when you immediately swirled the muscle around the head to lap up the copious amounts of pre-come he was already dripping with. The lewd, wet sounds coming from you beneath him were enough to leave Ominis twitching between your lips against his better judgment, and he tipped his head back as he lost himself in the blissful strokes of your perfect tongue.

“Ominis,” you breathed after a minute, your lips brushing lightly against his cock entirely purposefully. “Please fuck my mouth.”

Merlin.

He needed a fucking second to process that, his eyes widening up at the ceiling at the same time a predatory grin split your face. The shock was quickly buried, however, and Ominis regained some semblance of control when he tilted his head down at you and tightened his hold against your scalp. “Hm, I don’t know. Have you been good enough to get your mouth and your cunt fucked?”

You squeezed your eyes shut, chills breaking out all over your skin as a shudder coursed through you. Ominis loved being able to feel your physical reactions to his words, and he smiled despite himself. He was willing to bet that if he checked, you would be unbearably wet between your legs, staining the sheets preemptively with pooling slick.

“You don’t think so?” You asked him, voice low with arousal.

“It’s debatable,” Ominis moved back again, easily dodging your attempts to take him back in your mouth with an annoying smirk. “You’ve been pulling at the ropes for a while now, I can hear the fibers rubbing together.”

You flexed your fingers on cue, your brows furrowing as you shook your head. “I was only shifting.”

“Oh? How am I to know if you’re telling the truth?”

Ominis languidly stroked himself with a degree of confidence that made your mouth water. Your eyes flicked down to his cock, any ounce of shame evaporating from your body as you wet your lips and forced yourself to remain well behaved. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

“That’s unscientific– and also highly unlikely given the circumstances. How about this; you know I’ll always inevitably get the truth out of you one way or another. I’ll fuck your mouth, but if you’re lying to me, that’s all you get. All night.”

Your jaw dropped, utterly appalled by the threat, and your drawn out silence told Ominis that you had absolutely been fibbing– but he just flashed you a sly grin as he continued to lazily work his hand up and down his shaft. He let you mull his words over, noting your audible gulp before you were muttering under your breath, “Honest witches have nothing to hide.”

“Alright then,” Ominis hummed in amusement, sitting forward on his knees once again. “Open up, sweetheart.”

You did so all too eagerly– ecstatic when Ominis finally guided his cock into your mouth, the wet heat making him groan low in his throat, and the sound got louder when you moaned and closed your lips around him firmly.

Fuck.

Ominis slid deeper into your mouth, over your wet tongue, then oh– into your throat, and you had more than enough experience to be able to relax and take his cock nearly to the base. His thighs shook on either side of you, his hands finding their way back to your hair to hold you in place, and you took the liberty of hollowing your cheeks around him and swallowing.

“Bloody hell,” Ominis moaned, his eyes pinching shut at the blissful feeling as he rocked his hips back. He moved just enough for you to be able to breathe, but after nearly an hour of dealing with his erection pressed uncomfortably against his trousers, that was about the extent of his patience.

He got to work setting a steady rhythm, sliding his cock in and out of your incredible mouth, your tongue, hollowed cheeks, and the tiny movements of your head enough to leave him gasping your name. Your eyes were glued to him– unable to help but watch as a bright flush started to creep up the neckline of Ominis’ shirt and spread over his angular cheeks. In the heat of the moment, the urge to run your hands up his torso came over you, but the rope around your wrists stopped you in your tracks, making you whine around your mouthful. Ominis sighed and sped up some, encouraged by your muffled noises and the unrelenting, insane ministrations of your tongue against the underside of his cock.

Ominis grew braver and rolled his hips perfectly in time with the shallow bobbing of your head, the tip of his shaft sliding into your throat for just a moment, and your choked moan betrayed exactly how much you liked it. Your whines turned pleading as you quickly adjusted to the intrusion, half brainless with need as you worked to pleasure Ominis the best that you could. The hand he had curled around your disheveled strands of hair moved your head in sync with his hips, giving you a small bit of leeway to angle your neck otherwise if you so chose, but you planned to do no such thing.

“F-Feels so good, darling,” Ominis grit through his teeth, letting his head fall forward as waves of rapture danced down his spine. You made a throaty sound in response, your sucking growing sloppier with Ominis’ rushed bucking, but that was the farthest thing from a problem in his mind. The messy, wet sounds from his cock slipping out of your mouth before you greedily swallowed him down again were fucking addictive.

It was all too easy to let himself be overcome with the sheer euphoria that came with being encased in your mouth, but the incessant, growing fire in his gut was becoming too much to bear. He was getting dangerously close, and he hadn’t spent all that time with his fingers buried in your cunt to ignore it entirely now. So as much as it pained him to, he shook the desire to come from his mind and tugged your head back. You pulled off of his cock with a shaky breath, thick strands of saliva and precome dangling between your lips and the swollen head.

He hardly waited before he was shuffling down your body to give himself the space to start undressing, beginning with the top buttons of his shirt– and if you spent a little too long watching his deft fingers skirt down the row of clasps, he certainly didn’t need to know about it. The shirt fell open, revealing his smooth, pale chest, and he shrugged it off his toned shoulders without looking away from your spot on the bed. It never failed to make your stomach flip– how he always managed to zero in on your presence no matter where you were.

With some impressive side stepping, Ominis shed his trousers and briefs together, kicking the offensive attire away from the edge of the bed so he could crawl back to you undeterred. He felt his way up your body, goosebumps breaking out over your skin in the wake of his fingers, and when he found your lips, he was leaning down to crush his mouth against yours in a heated kiss. He swallowed your mewls and gasps easily while he slid one hand up your raised arms to the rope around your wrists, running his fingers along the edge of the restraints in silent question.

“Leave it for now,” you whispered against his plush lips, and he smirked. “I like this.”

Your voice was still rough from swallowing his cock, and the blond couldn’t help but notice— a spark of arousal shooting through him as he nodded and kissed you again. The two of you stayed like that for a moment, breathing hot against one another as your hearts raced in time and pulled you both away from the desperate precipice you’d been riding.

“You’re shaking, love.” Ominis observed, feeling the small tremors reverberate through your body against his own. His hand trailed back down your arms while the other stayed propped under him, giving him better leverage to lean over you and press a chaste kiss to your temple. “I think you’ve more than made up for everything by now, what about you? Want me to take care of you? Will you be good for me?”

“Yes,” you rasped out, sounding ten different kinds of seductive without even knowing it. Ominis swallowed thickly, tensing when he felt you writhe in place against the mattress, your hips ever so gently brushing against his throbbing cock. “Please Ominis, I’ll be good– I promise– I’ll do whatever you want–”

He silenced you with a suffocating kiss, fucking his tongue into your mouth and rendering your brain a useless pile of mush as he splayed his fingers around the curve of your jaw. It left you entirely at his mercy as he practically stole your breath from your lungs, licking and biting at your lips until they were swollen and throbbing, and your nails dug fitfully into your palms in response to the mounting pressure between your legs.

“You sound so pretty when you beg, love. So eager to please,” he whispered against your mouth in-between kisses. “So I’ll fuck you, but you can’t come until I say so. Understood?”

There was a good chance you were about to combust.

You didn’t think you were going to last long with Ominis’ cock inside of you, but if telling him that ran the risk of not getting fucked, you would rather say nothing. Still, your displeasure was voiced in the form of a pained groan, and your frustrated sigh against your boyfriend’s lips dutifully conveyed your feelings on the matter to him.

“Don’t complain. Here I thought you were going to be good for me,” Ominis mused sarcastically, obviously teasing you with the promise of being filled up. “I never did find out… were you behaving earlier?”

Dammit. You couldn’t stop the whine that ripped from your throat as you tried to duck your head out of Ominis’ unrelenting grip, to no avail. His hold on your jaw stayed firm, forcing your eyes to remain glued to him while he unabashedly rolled his cock against the curve of your hip– as though to remind you of his earlier promise.

“You weren’t, were you.” It wasn’t a question. You licked your lips, honestly considering your options when Ominis angled your head to the side to nuzzle his face in the crook of your neck. “Don’t you dare lie. If you tell me the truth, I won’t be mean to you.”

Your eyes slid shut, minutely shifting your hips towards the tantalizing feeling of Ominis’ cock pressed against your hip, before you shook your head and choked out a meek, “No.”

“Hm, of course not,” he murmured playfully, biting at the shell of your ear, then your neck, and he moaned softly when you tilted your head further to the side to offer more of yourself to him. “But I already knew that. Better late than never, I suppose.”

In a flash, Ominis had released your face and was sitting back on his heels, gathering your knees together so he could pin them to the side and give himself better access to your ass. Before you could question him, he brought his free hand down and landed a good, echoing slap against the sensitive skin of your rear, leaving you arching helplessly off of the sheets with a wanton moan. With your wrists still bound, all you could do was flail your legs in Ominis’ hold, but his broad hand kept them pressed against the sheets– forcing you to bear the sting for a moment before he was soothing the spot with his warm palm.

“O-Ominis–”

You were cut off as he spanked you again, a shrill cry ripping from your lips as your spine rounded in your feeble attempts to escape, but Ominis held you in place despite your writhing. “Is that enough of a warning? Do you promise to be good?”

“Y-Yes, yes, Ominis, please–”

The pressure on your knees let up as Ominis shifted you back into your original position, only this time he nestled himself between your trembling legs with the heavy head of his cock dragging deliciously over your incredibly slick entrance. He slipped his hand under the crook of one of your knees, bending it back to give himself more room to rock his hips as he said, “I hope so.”

“Please, don’t tease me anymore, Ominis– I can’t take it,” you gasped out your pleas, cracking your bleary eyes open to gaze up at the striking man towering over you. Those luminescent, unseeing eyes of his were seemingly alight behind the messy strands of blond hair that fell forward in his face, and the positively immoral expression he bore had you repeating his name like a broken mantra that filled him with renewed vigor.

Ominis stifled a moan, biting the inside of his cheek as he finally pressed into you, and he let his eyes roll back at the feeling while you groaned with unrestrained contentment. You were fucking beside yourself, your hands twisting fitfully in your restraints as you let out a long, stuttered string of words that didn’t properly form, and by the time Ominis was fully sheathed inside of you, your patience had run out.

“Merlin, Ominis,” your head flew back against the pillows, pathetically rocking your hips back in search of more, because his shallow grinding wasn’t going to begin to cut it. You craved this– you needed to get fucked through the bed, needed for Ominis to rail you like the world was ending– you needed more. “Ominis!”

“F-Fuck, sweetheart,” He wheezed out, hugging your leg to his torso as he panted heavily from how unbelievably tight you were, and how incredible you felt. Part of him wanted to be gentle with you– to roll his hips smoothly and evenly to build you up slowly and perfectly– but Ominis knew what you wanted. Even if he didn’t, you took it upon yourself to educate him with your next breath.

“Ominis, fuck me, please,” you were practically sobbing, rutting down onto his cock with what little movement you could muster on your back. “Come on, fuck me– please just fuck me already– please, please, ah–”

Getting you this worked up took no small amount of effort. Ominis took immense pride in the mess he’d made of you for a brief moment, sighing when you squeezed tighter around his cock and moaned his name again. “You sound so fucking good, love,” he hummed, giving you a slow little grind that left you overcome with urgency. “I told you I’d take care of you.”

Before you even had time to moan in response, Ominis was readjusting his grip on your leg, shifting the one still against the sheets further to the side so he had more room at his disposal when he pulled back and fucking rammed his cock back into you.

He didn’t waste any time in keeping up this way, either.

You were utterly delirious.

Ominis fucked you so hard and so fast, it seemed like it shouldn’t even be possible. The slap of his hips against your ass reverberated loudly off the stone walls of the bedroom, but it was overshadowed completely by how loud you were screaming.

It was everything you’d wanted. Probably more so, because Ominis was fucking railing into you with some insane stamina, breathing loud moans of his own, gasping your name, and you couldn’t even find the brain power to beg for more. Every time he pulled back and left you nearly empty, he was fucking you open again with the force of his cock, jolting you up the bed until you were bracing your bound hands against the headboard and utilizing your newfound leverage to push back onto him.

Ominis allowed you to rut against him for a few thrusts– enough to appreciate the lush sound of your ass bouncing against his hips– until the urge to take you over completely filled him. He moaned then, the noise low and savage, and he moved so that he was leaning over you with the knee he’d been holding flung haphazardly over his shoulder. Pressing into you further, you gave a whimpered protest at having your efforts cut short, but Ominis ignored you entirely in favor of spreading you wider to accommodate his larger frame.

With you pinned beneath him in complete possession, Ominis wasted little time in fucking you harder, faster– his long thrusts switching to deep, hammering ruts that drove the head of his cock clean past your sweet spot so intensely that it damn near knocked you out.

If you could use words at all, you would have tried to warn Ominis that you were about to come. There was no fucking way you couldn’t. You were so full of his cock, your throat raw from screaming, and you were being held down and fucked like you were merely a toy with your hands grasping pointlessly at air.

You felt Ominis before you heard him when he loomed over you to groan hot in your ear, his cock reaching deeper and hitting you even better than before, and when you were right there– tense and tight and wailing Ominis’ name over and over– he fucking growled his warning against your temple, and you broke down and sobbed.

“Don’t you dare come.”

Your noisy, brainless pleas fell on deaf ears as your boyfriend continued owning you, never letting up as he kept you pinned to the bed and chased his own pleasure. You were close– so fucking close that you didn’t know what to do with yourself besides cry and hope to whatever Gods existed that Ominis would have mercy on you.

Pulling at the ropes around your wrists frantically, your garbled cries blurred together in a barely intelligible string of ‘please’s at the same time it started to hurt from how long you’d been on the cusp of your climax. Tears streaked down your face, frustration and desperation and too much pleasure twining together with the pain of holding back, and before you could figure out what was happening, Ominis was looping one of his arms under your back. He tugged you so you were arched towards him, your front held flush to his chest as he bent you precariously upwards, all the while maintaining his unrelenting pace.

“Come on, darling, come for me,” Ominis urged you, his hot breath ghosting over your sweat-slick skin and making you shiver with delight for a multitude of reasons. He planted his feet firmly against the bed, bucking his hips up with a precision that left you boneless in his arms while he slammed his cock right into that mind-numbing spot so perfectly, and then you couldn’t hold back anymore.

Your orgasm was earth-shattering.

The world seemed to flash a brilliant white around you, making you oblivious to everything in existence but the guttural moans slipping from Ominis above you, and for a good, long minute, your mind simply halted. You were vaguely aware of yourself gasping as he stilled his movements, having the good grace to remain idly in place while his gentle hands willed you to relax.

“I have never heard you scream that loud,” Ominis groaned, sounding equal parts wonderstruck and pained– which probably had everything to do with his still-hard cock twitching inside of you. He gingerly lowered your prone body down onto the mattress, relishing in the weak, fucked out whimper the action pulled from you. “Are you alright?”

You tried saying yes, but it came out sounding more like a croak than a reassurance. Ominis chuckled darkly, sliding his hands down to your hips as though he were about to pull out, but your shaky legs wrapping around his slender waist stopped him in his tracks, and the movement had him choking on your name as he pressed down to hold you still.

“You want me to keep going?” Ominis asked, his voice incredibly tight and strained from the way your pulsing walls squeezed around his cock again.

This time, you managed to get your tongue to obey your brain and formulate a full sentence. “Y-Yeah, please Ominis. I want you to fill me up, please keep going.”

Ominis’ head fell forward, his fingers digging into the skin of your waist for a modicum of restraint. The tone of your voice was seriously doing him in, as was the way you seemed to suck him in deeper with your legs. “You have to tell me if it’s too much.”

You made a tiny sound of agreement before melting back into the mattress as Ominis’ hand slid up your thigh, lingering for a moment on the tiny scar you’d failed to heal earlier. He said nothing of it though, instead leaning down to kiss you hungrily before taking advantage of your legs coiled around his back, rocking into your tight heat once again.

The stark contrast between his earlier pace and his current one was almost dizzying. Ominis’ possessive snarls gave way to worshiping moans, and the hands that had previously pinned you down now reverently trailed up your torso to lovingly run his fingers up your chest, then your neck, and finally over your tear stained cheeks. It felt incredible; his cock moved so perfectly inside of you while his hands pressed and soothed whatever part of your body they could make contact with, but his restraint was still there. He had to be going insane– you’d been at this for an eternity, and he still hadn’t gotten to come yet. If his strained moans and trembling hips were any indication, he was holding back big time.

“Ominis,” you murmured, forcing him into you harder with your legs, and the drawn out groan he let slip reflected his need all too well. “Come on, Ominis, please. I can take it.”

“Fuck–” he blurted, his tempo faltering for a second before he braced one of his hands beside your head to once again pull nearly all the way out. When he snapped his hips forward again, he filled you with a hard thrust and ground into you so fiercely, the friction against your clit made your spine round off the bed with a keening moan.

His gentle, easy pace fell away– his breath fanning warmly against your cheek as he kept up his firm, grinding thrusts. By some impossible miracle, you felt a familiar heat building in the pit of your stomach, your pleasure being drawn out of you for the second time all too easily. You were still overwhelmingly sensitive from earlier, and it allowed you to feel everything Ominis gave you even more vehemently.

Ominis elected to drop his hand from your cheek down to your clit, rubbing tight, titillating circles over the nub as he continued spreading you open on his cock, and your scratchy voice filled the room as you threw your head back to wail for him. It felt too good– too perfect. You didn’t even know such euphoria existed, much less that your boyfriend could bestow it upon you so thoroughly.

“Gods, I can feel you– are you close again?” Ominis buried his face in your neck to whine against your sweaty skin, barely maintaining his rhythm any longer– just desperate to feel you around him. “I’m so close– fuck.”

“Yes, yes,” you croaked, wanting so badly to wrap your arms around his shoulders and curl around him like a second skin, but the rope around your wrists denied you, and your arms ached from the position they’d been left in for so long. “Me too– please Ominis, please– me too.” You threw your head back with a gasping cry as Ominis bucked harder into you, his hands grabbing and pulling at you as your combined sounds spiked higher and louder the closer you got.

When Ominis finally came, he sank his teeth into the marred expanse of your shoulder, biting down to stifle the string of curses that threatened to spill from his mouth. The sharp pain intermingled with the burning pleasure between your legs, and that was as much as you could bear before you were falling over the edge with him.

Ominis’ body tensed, his hips grinding into you as you twitched and gasped under him, and the rich feeling of him emptying deep inside brought you to new heights you’d never experienced before. He spent an ample amount of time just whimpering against your pulse, wrapping his arms around your waist to hold you tight to him. His lips parted on a soft moan when you held him back best you could using your legs, and he brought one hand out from under you to follow your shaky arms up to the headboard. You felt a telling tug on the rope around your wrists, and in a heartbeat Ominis had expertly undone the knot that tied you to the bedframe.

As much as you wanted to wrap your arms around him, the appendages were practically useless. You felt pins and needles dancing down your shoulders, which didn’t do anything to help with your hyper-sensitivity. But all in all, you’d never felt so satisfied in your fucking life, and you turned your head to press your lips against Ominis’ messy head of hair graciously.

He shuddered at the feeling, lifting his head to gaze affectionately in the direction of your soft breathing. “Are you alright, love?”

You hummed contentedly and nodded, flinching ever so slightly when you felt Ominis slide out of your overstimulated walls. He bent down to claim your lips in a heated kiss, chasing away any lingering tension in your body as he ran his hands down your sides dotingly.

“You were so good for me, darling… so well behaved. You sounded so pretty falling apart on my cock,” he whispered his praises against your mouth, making you whimper, and you felt his expression twist into a smug smirk against your parted lips. “No more secrets, though. The next time you want me to fuck you senseless, you need only ask.”

You agreed embarrassingly fast, vowing to forever voice every last whisper that crossed your mind from this moment forth. Especially if it meant garnering treatment like this more often. What other sinful secrets was Ominis hiding from you?

As sore and achy as you were, a very big, very shameless part of you seriously couldn’t wait to find out.

#ominis gaunt #ominis gaunt x you #ominis gaunt x reader #ominis gaunt x female! reader #ominis gaunt smut #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fanfic #ominis gaunt oneshot #dominis #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #my writing #longest and most depraved thing I've written thus far to be completely blunt #I'll see myself out now

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neptunes-sol-angel · 4 months

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Pick the picture(s) that you're drawn to the most, then scroll down for its corresponding message for insight on what's next for you in love.

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Pile One ♡

I strongly feel that most people in this pile would be considered as someone who is inexperienced in love, maybe you guys are bookworms, maladaptive daydreamers, and writers yourselves when it comes to visualizing your future, different settings for how the world could be, and breathing life into the people that you haven’t gotten the chance or time to get to know yet. What’s next for you in love, is practice. You’re upgrading from being Bambi by becoming the Great Prince of the Forest by taking risks before you are able to know and find what is right for you. Some of you may believe in holding yourself tightly before you meet “the one” but the message is that you are being unfair to yourself by putting your life on hold to revolve it around someone who is also learning too, but isn’t waiting like you are doing. This doesn’t mean to be reckless or to feel coerced into going along with people you don’t have a good feeling about just for the sake of finally being in a relationship. This stage is about exploration and enjoying yourself before you meet your life partner. If you resonate with being a bookworm, you could be the type to read romantic fictional stories on a platform like wattpad, and while it serves its purpose which is to make you feel good, it could create an irregular perception of love for you, like subconsciously romanticizing traits that are toxic or wouldn’t be something that you would actually like if you were to actually experience it. For some, it could be re-evaluating your attraction to individuals, like when you crush on someone, you could find that they really look good, but do you yearn for more from them? Your path in love could be redirecting you to pay attention to how a person makes you feel than what you get from them on a surface level of interaction.

Pile Two ♡

There was someone in your life that you once felt like you couldn’t live without or took something from you that seemed irretrievable, but you’re being blessed in a way that’s shutting all of those lies down. You’re getting you back, in whichever way that it applies. This could be your motivation to take care of yourself, to do things that made you feel happy and at peace before this dwindle ending happened, like going to the gym, arts & craft, writing, solo trips or going out with friends, and even something simple as such as looking good for yourself, but it’s not limited to what was mentioned. This could even look like getting closer to who your deity or deities and spiritual maintenance. The best way that I can describe this, is that this phase in love is like this big circle of energy, stuff that was taken or borrowed from you, that’s being marinated before it is returned because it isn’t just aspects from the past, it’s also the time for creation. This whole entire time, your rain of tears that were collected from this heartbreak were observed yet not ignored, but transmuted into this empire that you’re building off of the corpses of failures that you’ve experienced with not just people but life circumstances, maybe when that break up happened it just seemed that more tragedies kept following you after that and it drove you into insanity like when does this pain ever end? Although you can’t forget about it, you’re learning how to soften from these things that stung you in the past, so that you can keep moving and consolidate your wishes. For some, this is personal, and an era that you’d like to be selfish with in order to see what else you can create, like developing a strong daily routine, starting that business, or maybe even working on yourself so that you can heal others, while the other side of this collective will open their hearts again to a new love which can be romance, friendship, or even adoption that is just as equally healing.

Pile Three ♡

The next thing in love for you is learning how to stop trying to win. I’m picking up multiple scenarios for this but the premise is that people in this pile are in love situations where there is no winner, and if there is, let the other person be the one to have it so that you can walk away and stop blocking yourself from better to come in. Some of you are in a long battle with a person by competing with them on who has the upperhand in the situationship, this involves the runner and chaser dynamic constantly reversing and both of you keeping tabs on each other when you’re supposed to be in no contact. The second scenario is sticking beside someone who has a wandering eye but trying relentlessly to get this person to choose you the way that you choose them. The third scenario is in general, trying to prove yourself in order to gain love from others by manipulating yourself and even them to win their affection. There is this storm brewing, you can even call this a tower moment, that could happen to finally get you to see the many ways that you are downplaying yourself with people who have stayed in your space and energy for far too long. You’re going to surrender from these situations to know what it means to pick yourself up and see how beautiful and worthy you are to the extent where you’ll be baffled by how much you’ve been settling for people who don’t deserve you. This phase will come with new connections, but what makes it different is realizing your authority in this by realizing how possible and freeing it is to choose people that choose you. Once you realize that you’re the prize in this game, let the winner take pride in being the fumbler, and be proud of yourself for not being the one to fumble you.

#divination #intuitive #psychic #pick a card #tarot #spirituality #pac #tarotblr #pick a pile #pick a picture #tarot community #love reading #love readings #valentines day

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tiredstrain · 1 year

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know you’ll wear my makeup well - sirius black x reader

cw: gn!reader, just banter, sirius being The biggest flirt in the world, yk the usual

a/n: title from g.u.y by lady gaga. i can’t stop listening to it. this is a result of that :]

sirius black has no issue with makeup. he thinks it looks great on other people, but he’s never been curious enough to test it out on himself.

“siri, can i do your makeup? please?” you ask.

sirius black is suddenly significantly more interested in testing makeup out.

he’s sat on the couch, nose in his phone and a blanket up to his shoulders. he always thinks it’s too cold, no matter how high you set the thermostat. he looks terribly comfortable, you think, which is why you really didn’t want to disturb him. but, desperate times.

he sees you’re hiding something behind your back. probably a makeup bag, he realizes, because you know he wouldn’t deny you of anything. maybe remus is right, maybe he’s getting too soft.

he laughs quietly. “why would you want to do that?” he asks, just cause he wants to see you squirm. just a little bit.

you shrug. “it would be fun. and you would look really, really good. i think.”

he clutches his chest. “am i really so hideous that you think i need makeup to look good?”

you roll your eyes. “yes, you’re painfully unattractive. now let me in,” you say as you pull the blanket away from him. he grumbles the whole time, 'but i was so comfy', until eventually you’re settled in his lap.

there's a moment of quiet where sirius is content to just lay back and let you put various powders on his face, but after about two minutes he gets bored. surprise surprise.

"what're you doing?"

"concealing."

he peeks one eye open. "what're you concealing?"

you copy the face he's making. "your skin. duh."

"duh," he snorts. "y'know, sometimes i miss the days when you were all shy and intimidated by me."

"remember how that lasted for a week, and then i saw james make you laugh so hard you blew champagne out of your nose? and then you started screaming about how bad it stung?"

"true, but what a week that was."

"yeah yeah. close your eyes."

another thirty seconds of quiet. "now what are you doing?"

"eyeliner."

he grins big. "oh i'm gonna look so rock n roll. so edgy. can't wait."

"actually," you sigh, "i'm just gonna give you blue eyeshadow and call it a day."

"nonono no need for that. as you were. make me look like a rockstar." you both hold your breath as your pencil traces around his eyes.

another bit of silence. you wonder, briefly, how often sirius would let you get away with this. doing your own makeup has become boring, just another part of your morning routine. with sirius, though, it's fun again. it's doing something for the first time again. his face is sharp where yours is soft, angular where yours is round. it's a completely new playing field.

"am i beautiful yet?" his voice brings you back to the present.

"i don't have enough makeup for that."

he gasps. "you wound me, you really do."

"shh, be still. we're almost done."

you clean up the eyeliner, brush out his brows, apply some tinted lip balm, then give yourself a minute to gawk. he’s so pretty. it's unfair. you'd made a joke early in the relationship about what deal he made with the devil for his bone structure, which kept his ego inflated for weeks, but now more than ever you're convinced his looks have to be supernatural.

you go too long without adding any makeup, so sirius blinks his eyes open. he's always been able to read your expression easily. now is no exception.

"that good, huh?" a smug smile takes over his face.

"what can i say? i'm very talented."

"i'm sure. lemme see the artwork." he makes grabby hands towards nothing, just waiting for you to find something reflective for him.

"referring to yourself as artwork… just when i think you can't get more vain," you mutter as you dig a compact mirror out of your makeup bag.

you watch in real time as sirius takes in just how good he looks. he clocks the contour that makes his cheekbones look unreal, the eyeliner that makes his eyes seem the brightest they've ever been, and the lip balm that even he gets distracted by.

"how would you feel about doing this every day?" he asks, wide grin replacing the smirk he was wearing.

"fine, until remus and james see it and then i also have to do their makeup every day."

"no just me. they can find their own personal makeup artists."

you smile. you think of a joke about them just doing each other's makeup, but it's lost as you go back to inspecting your work. you really are good.

sirius seems content with you ogling him while sitting in his lap for all of thirty seconds. “you’re really gonna have to do this every day if this is the reaction i get,” he says as he brings his hands to your hips and rubs long, rough strokes over them.

“yeah?” you say as you mess with the neckline of his shirt.

“mhm. i like being stared at, actually.”

you bend down the slightest bit. it’s gratifying the way sirius immediately leans up to meet you in the middle. “never would’ve guessed…”

#sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black x y/n #sirius black x you #marauders #marauders era #sirius black fluff #sirius black drabble #sirius black blurb

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bloody-bee-tea · 3 months

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IntiMarch 2024 Day 7 - Change it up

The prompt for this was "I want to show you something"

Suguru learned to be okay with his life—for the most part—but sometimes he really fucking hates it. Hates his technique and his body and is weakness and lately, he most of all hates the fact that he wants to have Satoru around all the time because that only makes the other things worse.

Satoru is in perfect control of his techniques, after everything that happened with Toji and Riko, and he’s not shy to boast about it, too.

Which only makes Suguru feel even more inadequate because he barely has a grasp on his technique and most definitely no control at all, as the spikes showing up in random places on his body are currently proving.

It’s the reason he’s always wearing such baggy clothes; he never knows which features of a curse will show up on him after he swallowed it but like this most of them can be hidden away without anyone around him being any wiser.

And this is where the Satoru problem comes in.

Satoru is handsy and clingy and doesn’t hesitate to hang himself off Suguru every chance he gets. Which is usually fine, Suguru doesn’t mind it at all—likes it maybe a little bit too much—but right now there’s a very real danger that Satoru might try to drape his arm over Suguru’s shoulder and be stung by a goddamn spike for his troubles.

And then he’d find out that Suguru has basically no control over his technique and is basically a walking monster to boot.

“Yo, Suguru!” Satoru calls out, quickly catching up to Suguru and Suguru just knows that he’s going to jump on his back the moment he’s in reach.

He’d welcome that usually—even though he would complain, just to keep pretences up—but the spikes are still shifting over his skin and the curse is churning in his stomach and Suguru cannot let Satoru find out about this.

So he stops and turns around to him, effectively halting Satoru’s momentum.

“What?” he asks, more annoyed than he really wants to be but he’s upset and he feels sick to his stomach and he just wants to go home.

Or pull Satoru close to his side and that is most definitely something he can’t do right now.

His annoyance puts a damper on Satoru’s mood, because he slows down before he comes to a stop almost an arm length away from Suguru and it seems it stole the words right out of Satoru’s mouth, too, because he doesn’t actually say anything.

“Let’s just go home, please,” Suguru finally says when it becomes clear that Satoru is not going to say anything and he pretends he doesn’t see the way Satoru’s face falls at his words.

“Fine,” is Satoru’s lacklustre answer and Suguru feels bad for all of a second, because that is when a spike shows up on his neck, high enough that his uniform doesn’t hide it.

Thankfully it’s not on the side where Satoru is walking but Suguru breaks out into cold sweat anyway.

For some reason the features of the curses don’t usually show up so high on his body; his neck and face are mostly spared and for that Suguru is thankful. It would be hell to hide if things like the spikes would show up regularly where the entire world can see. He’d have to wear a facemask and a blindfold, and unlike Satoru, Suguru couldn’t pull it off.

“Are you—is everything okay? You didn’t get hurt, did you?” Satoru asks when they are about halfway to the subway and Suguru shrugs.

“No, it’s just—the curse,” he vaguely says, unwilling to go deeper into it, but just as unwilling to completely lie to Satoru about this. Satoru at least knows that the curses usually make him sick, because throwing up on a regular basis is really hard to hide, and in moments like this, Suguru is thankful for that because Satoru understands without asking further.

“You want to hang out later? Watch a movie or something?” Satoru asks and Suguru winces.

The curse has been at it for at last half an hour now; experience has shown that it won’t quiet down for at least another hour if it’s already been going that long.

Suguru’s silence must have been too long because Satoru forces a smile on his face.

“Or not, never mind,” he says, trying to sound flippant, as if he doesn’t care at all, but Suguru knows him better than that.

He knows that Satoru cares and he knows that he’s hurting him whenever he brushes him off like this but Suguru can’t help it.

Satoru is going to be so fucking grossed out when he finds out and he probably won’t want to have anything to do with Suguru afterwards. He keeps reiterating that they are the strongest, but Suguru isn’t even strong enough to handle the curses he swallows; surely Satoru will be disappointed on top of everything else after he finds out.

And Suguru is in no rush to have that happen.

“I really don’t feel so good,” Suguru finally says, desperately trying for a compromise, anything to wipe that fake look off Satoru’s face. “Can I decide when we’re back at the school?”

The train ride should give him at least another forty minutes. If he can also manage to talk Satoru into taking a shower when they arrive, he should be safe.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Satoru mutters and despite everything Suguru leans in, quickly, to press their shoulders together.

“I’m sorry,” he softly says and Satoru deflates.

“I know, I know, I shouldn’t always be so pushy after a mission,” Satoru gives back and flashes Suguru a quick smile, a real one this time. “But it just—ending a day like this alone in my room sucks. I’d rather have you around.”

It warms Suguru from head to toe to hear that and he is about to lean in again when spikes break out almost all over his body.

He rocks back on his feet, praying to all the deities he knows that nothing is visible through his clothes, but of course Satoru noticed the aborted movement and a frown mars his perfect face again.

And Suguru hates himself for putting it there in the first place.

~*~*~

Suguru weighs the orb in his hand carefully. He dreads swallowing it, even though the abilities of that curse will be useful in the future. But the immediate aftermath of him absorbing the curse is going to be a whole fucking nightmare.

The curse practically only consisted of maws and Suguru doesn’t need to be a genius to know that they will show up all over his body.

He shudders just thinking about it, and he wonders if he’ll ever get used to the feeling of not being completely in control of his body, of not being able to keep his form stable.

It freaks him out more than he likes to admit and showering after a mission is sometimes so upsetting to him that he throws up, without any aid of the curse settling in his stomach.

“You gonna eat that?” Satoru carelessly asks with a nod to the orb still in Suguru’s hand and a flash of anger goes through Suguru, hot and white and entirely unfair.

It’s not Satoru’s fault Suguru’s technique fucks with him so much. And it’s definitely not his fault that Suguru keeps this particular part of his technique a secret.

“Don’t feel like it right now,” Suguru gives back, pocketing the curse for later, but Satoru must have noticed that something is off because he gives Suguru an apologetic smile.

“Wanna catch up on that show we were watching?” he asks, shuffling his feet and Suguru opens his mouth to say yes, because he does want to do that, but the orb in his pocket feels as if its burning straight through the fabric.

Suguru knows that he’s not going to be able to concentrate on anything before he gets this over with but that also means that he needs to stay locked up in his room for at least the next two hours.

“Not today,” he gives back, trying to sound not as snappish as he feels but when Satoru works his jaw, he knows that he failed.

“Yeah, right, because you never do feel like doing stuff with me anymore,” Satoru snaps at him and Suguru would love to argue that point but the thing is—Satoru is right.

They are being sent almost exclusively on grade one or even special grade missions and those curses are so much harder to assimilate. The side effects of his technique last maybe ten to fifteen minutes with lower grade curses but the stronger they are, the longer they are warping Suguru’s body into something that isn’t his anymore.

And that also means he has to find more and more excuses for Satoru.

“That’s not true,” Suguru tries to argue, because he would love to spend the rest of the day with Satoru, curled up on his stupidly comfortable couch and trash talk whatever is on the TV but he can’t do that.

Not today.

Probably never again right after a mission and just the thought makes Suguru’s eyes burn.

“Right. I see how eager you are to get away from me, Suguru, there’s no need to lie about it. Fuck, if you don’t want me around, just tell me to fuck off, it would be easier than this—this stupid limbo where I always hope you’re going to say yes.”

Satoru is breathing hard by the end of his little tirade and he’s just as angry as he’s hurt, Suguru knows him well enough to be able to tell that, but there is nothing he can say in his defence.

He does want to spend time with Satoru, but he can’t say that without having to explain why he sometimes can’t. So in the end, he stays quiet.

“Can’t even tell me that, huh?” Satoru eventually mutters, and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I get it, Suguru, no need to pretend anymore. I’ll just—not be around anymore, I guess,” he dejectedly says, and walks away without giving Suguru a chance to reply.

He can do nothing but watch Satoru walk away, his shoulders drawn up so they almost touch his ears and he looked so upset that it breaks Suguru’s heart.

Suguru opens his mouth to call after him but closes it when he realises he doesn’t even know what to say.

It’s not until Suguru is safely back in his own room, the orb still in his hand, when he realises that he’s losing Satoru. He’s losing him without ever having told him the truth about his technique and this is what Suguru is afraid of, isn’t it? Losing Satoru.

But instead of losing him because Satoru thinks of him as weak or disgusting, he’s losing him because he’s being distant and evasive and that might even be worse.

Suguru never meant to push Satoru away like that, never meant to make Satoru turn away from him but it’s happening anyway.

And if it’s happening anyway, maybe it’s time he comes clean about his technique and his loss of control.

Mind made up, he walks over to Satoru’s room, but even though he’s resolved to do this now, he can’t help the shaking of his hands. He just hopes Satoru won’t notice.

He knocks and almost thinks Satoru isn’t there, that’s how long it takes him to come to the door.

“What?” Satoru bites out when he spots Suguru and Suguru’s heart falls when he sees how red-rimmed Satoru’s eyes are.

“Did you cry?” he blurts out, because he has never seen Satoru cry before and Suguru knows he made a mistake the moment Satoru’s face closes off.

“Get fucking lost,” Satoru hisses but when he’s about to slam the door shut, Suguru pushes his foot in.

“I want to show you something,” he says. “Please.”

“What the hell do you want to show me? How much you dislike my presence?” Satoru gives back, and he wants to sound angry, Suguru knows that, but it comes out shaky.

Suguru hates that he’s the cause of all of this.

“It has nothing to do with you,” Suguru whispers out and fights the urge to reach out to touch Satoru. It surely wouldn’t be welcome right now. “It’s all me. And after this—you might not want anything to do with me, anyway.”

That makes Satoru frown at him.

“Well, now I’m curious, so you better make it good,” Satoru finally says and opens the door again, much to Suguru’s relief.

It’s only short lived though, because now he has to go through with it. This is it. And it might still break whatever he has with Satoru.

“Can I—?” he motions towards Satoru’s room and after hesitating briefly, Satoru steps aside to let Suguru in.

“So, what is this mystery thing you want to show me?” Satoru asks once Suguru is inside his room and the door locked behind them again.

“I—” Suguru falters, because he didn’t really think this through, didn’t prepare how to break this to Satoru at all and now he’s at a loss. “It’s—”

The orb is still heavy in his pocket and Satoru is getting angrier by the second, Suguru can tell, so he needs to say something fast.

“I can’t control my technique,” is what he finally blurts out and then winces when Satoru narrows his eyes at him.

“So now you’re going to lie to me?” Satoru bites out and Suguru lets out a harsh breath.

“I’m not, it’s just—controlling the curses is just one part, right? When I absorb them, I don’t have any. Control, I mean. And they—” Suguru has never told anyone about this and he finds that it’s much harder than he feared it would be.

“They what?” Satoru finally prompts him and Suguru deflates where he stands.

“They change me. Temporarily, but still.”

“Change you how?” Satoru demands to know and he’s getting impatient, Suguru knows.

“It’s best I show you,” Suguru says, voice shaky. “And—I need to take off my shirt for that.”

“Right,” Satoru says, and his tone alone lets Suguru know just how much he doesn’t believe him.

Suguru doesn’t waste any more time though, he slips out of his shirt and then unceremoniously swallows the curse before he can change his mind again.

“And now what?” Satoru asks after a few seconds and Suguru is just about to tell him to fucking wait for a hot second when the first maw manifests on his stomach.

“And now this,” Suguru faintly says, and just the sight of the maw on his body, where none should be, is enough to make him want to crawl out of his own skin.

He hates this so much, hates how this makes him feel like a stranger in his own body, how it disconnects him in ways that shouldn’t be and he looks towards the ceiling when a second maw shows up, unable to stomach the sight anymore.

“Oh,” Satoru breathes out, and he takes a wary step back.

Suguru feels like crying. Of course Satoru would be disgusted.

“Are you turning into a curse?” Satoru warily asks, and Suguru notices the nervous flick of his fingers, as if he wants to form the finger sign for red and Suguru goes cold.

Satoru wanting to kill him for this hadn’t even factored into his fear but he realises now that that might have been stupid.

“No,” he still forces himself to say. “It’s just—it’ll be like this for an hour or so. The most prominent features of a curse will show up on me like that for a while after I ingest them, before they settle down. It’s not—I’m still me. Mostly,” he adds with a wince and Satoru relaxes.

“Does it hurt?” is the next thing he asks and Suguru mutely shakes his head.

He feels it, sure, but it doesn’t hurt; it’s barely even noticeable at all.

“Okay, then—what? Why were you so cagey about this?” Satoru asks and Suguru glares at him.

“This is—disgusting, Satoru, and creepy and all kinds of wrong. Why the hell would I want you to know about this?”

“It’s completely involuntary?” Satoru asks, finally stepping closer again. “Are they going to bite me if I touch them?”

“What?” Suguru incredulously asks because those words cannot have come out of Satoru’s mouth right now. “Why the hell would you want to touch them?”

“I don’t know. Can I though?” He looks at Suguru with a hopeful expression and in face of that much curiosity, Suguru can do nothing but nod.

Satoru carefully touches his fingers to a maw high on Suguru’s chest and he only gets bolder when it doesn’t move at all.

“So it’s just—the feature. You can’t do anything with it.”

“I’m not the one doing it, so of course not.”

“But can you?”

“Huh?”

“Can you make those features appear even after they have settled?” Satoru wants to know and Suguru blinks at him.

“Why the hell would I want to do that?”

“Well, I mean, these maws might not be helpful but if you can manifest a spike when a curse is trying to hit you, that might be good during a fight. But mostly—” he falls silent, biting at his lower lip in contemplation and Suguru grinds his teeth together.

“What, Satoru?”

“The curse last week, the one with the flowers,” Satoru slowly starts. “Could you like—make them appear in your hair? Like a flower crown?”

“What for?” Suguru wants to know because surely, that doesn’t have any kind of practical use.

Satoru shrugs.

“It would be pretty?”

“It would be—what?”

“Pretty,” Satoru repeats. “This curse, the one with the maws. It was such a vibrant purple. Can you make that your hair colour?” he wants to know and Suguru flinches.

“Don’t say that,” he bites out, because it’s hitting somewhere that hurts him, still, after all these years, but Satoru doesn’t seem to catch on.

“Then it would match your eyes, you know. They are such a nice purple, too.”

“Don’t talk about my eyes,” Suguru hisses out and turns away from Satoru, trying to hide his eyes, even though Satoru very well know what they look like.

“Suguru?” Satoru unsurely asks and he carefully places a hand on Suguru’s shoulder.

There’s a beat of silence before Satoru speaks again.

“Purple is not your eye colour,” he finally says and Suguru flinches again.

“It’s not,” he forces himself to say. “It’s—the first curse I ever swallowed had eyes like that. I never managed to change it back and now—I don’t remember what it was before.”

“I see,” Satoru whispers out and drapes himself over Suguru’s back, despite the fact that there’s at least one maw on there at the moment. “I’m sorry. For suggesting something like that at all.”

“I just don’t—why would you even say something like that. It’s disgusting.”

“The maws might not be pretty,” Satoru agrees but feathers his fingers over the one on Suguru’s chest despite his words. “But not all aspects of all curses are ugly. Remember that snake you wanted for it’s venom? It had such pretty, iridescent scales. They were glittering so much. I just think it would look amazing if you could dot them along your throat,” Satoru admits, trailing a finger over Suguru’s skin there.

“And I understand why you’re upset about your eyes but they really are pretty,” he then adds, much more quiet and Suguru slumps against him.

“You don’t mind?” he wants to know and he means the maws and his eyes and his inability to control any of it.

He just hopes Satoru understands.

“I don’t mind at all,” Satoru gives back and noses at Suguru’s cheek. “Is this—you were kind of giving me mixed signals for a while there,” Satoru whispers against his skin. “Is this okay?”

“I was afraid you’d turn away from me for this,” Suguru admits and leans into the contact. “I told you today, because you were turning away from me, just not for what I feared.”

Satoru hums at that.

“Should have blown up in your face sooner then,” he gives back and kisses Suguru’s cheek. “I like you, Suguru. I’m in love with you. Maws and all,” he cheekily adds and it’s enough to make Suguru laugh.

“I’m in love with you, too. Annoying brattiness included.”

“Hey,” Satoru complaints but still presses a kiss to Suguru’s cheek.

Or at least he means to when a maw shows up right there and Satoru rears back.

“No offense, but I don’t think I want to kiss that. Who knows where that has been.”

Satoru’s reaction still sent a thread of trepidation through Suguru but he forces it down. Satoru clearly doesn’t seem to mind too much and it’s more than valid to not want to kiss a curse maw. And besides—it gives Suguru an opening.

“Maybe it’s time you move on from my cheek then,” he says and turns around in Satoru’s arms, so their noses brush together.

“Maybe it is,” Satoru agrees and leans in the last bit, to finally claim Suguru’s lips in his.

It’s good; better than anything Suguru ever dared to daydream about and he never wants to stop. When Satoru moves back, he makes an unhappy noise in the back of his throat.

“So about those flowers,” Satoru asks, carding his fingers through Suguru’s hair and undoing his bun in the process. “Think you can do it?”

Suguru sighs out and tips his forehead against Satoru’s.

“Can I just—this wasn’t easy, today, Satoru. Gimme a day and we can figure out what I can and can’t do, alright? Today I don’t really feel like it.”

“Fair,” Satoru immediately agrees and kisses Suguru again. “As long as you feel like doing this, it’s fine.”

Suguru would love to tell him just how much he’s feeling this, but he thinks showing Satoru might work just as well.

(He does figure out how to make flowers grow in his hair, how to make it purple and green and blue, almost like Satoru’s eyes, how to make glittering black scales show up dotted over his skin, encouraged by the way Satoru kisses love and pride and happiness into his skin whenever he manages to do it. It’s a good incentive to learn to wield his technique more effectively. And it helps for the admiring looks he gets from Satoru as well.)

#bt writes #jjk #satosugu #geto suguru #gojo satoru #getting together #geto suguru's technique #secrets #hurt/comfort #first kiss #mild body horror

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venuiscmind · 1 year

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I hope I’m not too late.

inspired by die hard by kendrick lamar and me being sad ooph.

Summary; Ellie comes back :)

Definitely not edited but proof read by a very tired me.

Pls send requests btw

When Ellie had looked up at you with her green glassy eyes saying “I can’t” you felt as though your entire world had crumbled at your feet. You simply looked at her because that was all you could do.

You looked at the hair she had cut after an especially bad night, which you had styled for her, the hands you had patched up and kissed affectionately after you had settled back into Jackson. The skin you had put ointment on when the sun had begun dancing over Jackson and had stung her because she had sat outside for too long and lost track of time staring at the clouds in the field.

You had walked up behind her and ran your fingers through her hair as she wrapped a hand around your thigh and nuzzled her cheek into you. Maybe this would be enough for her you thought. Cradling her head, you prayed to whatever was out there, that they would listen to you and make this enough for her.

You carded a hand through the field, as you guided her back into the house. You could feel her eyes piercing your skull and could feel the emotions that her body held. You didn’t stop walking however.

You would always be here to guide her back, you hoped she knew that much at least. You squeezed her hand and when she squeezed back you felt a tug on your heart. You kissed her in that field, the golden stalks waving you both goodbye when you got into the house.

You could feel it though. The dread that had slowly been suffocating both her and you, encasing the farm. Maybe that was why it hadn’t exactly surprised you when Ellie had said the words. You could feel the sting behind your eyes and your chest. You knew your eyes were reddening as had hers.

You always knew while she had loved you with all she could, she would always have to leave. She simply wasn’t at piece here. Maybe she was never there at all. She was though, physically at least. You had turned your back on her but could hear her approaching you and wrapping her calloused hands around your waist.

She murmured into your skin, that she loved you, that she would be back and that she would beg you to forgive her. She turned you around and pressed your foreheads together. You let out the sob that you had been holding in and let your lips and face fall. You kissed her with everything you had and held onto her like she was all you had because it was true. She put her hands around your waist and kissed you back letting the sun rays hit her through the windows of your shared home.

She pulled away giving you a final look and turning around before she changed her mind, Ellie knew this could not go on. She couldn’t spend a night in piece without trying to find her. Then she could get back to you. She picked up her bag and quickly opened and shut the door in one movement, wiping her eyes when she was in the golden fields.

You however had had enough. A week into waiting you packed up everything you had and moved back into your house in Jackson welcomed back by an apologetic Tommy which you had shaken off.

Weeks turned into months, watching the summer pass you by, hoping that Ellie woud knock on your door after the weeks had forced you both to change. You took on farming assignments.

You couldn’t bear to go on patrols anymore after a rancid dream ending with you finding Ellie just outside of Jackson’s walls. You had simply sat up with your knees huddled up to your chest after that. You knew Ellie had changed after that patrol. She had turned into something else that seemed unstoppable but that did nothing to stop you from letting worry consume you all hours of the day.

After assignments you imagined her back in your bed, counting her freckles, dancing with her in the kitchen, giggling when she had to kneel when you twirled her, the smell of smoke when she tried to make you breakfast or waking up to her already looking, blushing at getting caught and grinning wolfishly at you.

You were past your breaking point, eventually giving up on assignments but both Tommy and Maria who had patched things up were more than understanding had covered you. You confined yourself to your house not being able to stand the pitying looks of people who had watched you over the summer.

You would wait for her here you thought. You watched the moon wax and wane and the sun rise waiting for her to walk through the streets and look up at you, as raw as she had left.

You had dreamt of her that night. You could tell by the streaks that had been left on your face and by the heaviness of your limbs. Then, as the sun poked again through your curtains you felt her. You could feel the weight of her gaze first, then you felt the bed dip, like a planet bending the space beneath them. She grazed her knuckles against your face as you awoke.

You could stay like this forever you thought. Then nothing would have to change. It would be like nothing had changed, like she hadn't left you to bloody the hands that stroked you at dawn.

But you opened them, blinking at her. And there she was, watery eyes looking down at you. She leaned down and kissed your cheeks as you wrapped your arms around her to welcome her back into your world.

You stripped off her jacket and pushed off the soiled tank that she had no doubt been living in for the past few months and her jeans too. You let her hands roam around your body, and she slipped inside you like she had just been there yesterday. She belonged here you though as she kissed you taking all the air you had.

After, you huddled, sitting with her under the bedsheets, watching the sun rise. You belonged here with her like this.

#elle williams #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams x you #ellie williams smut #ellie williams x reader smut #the last of us #the last of us ellie williams #tlou2 #ellie williams imagine #ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams fanfic #ellie williams oneshot #ellei williams tlou2 #ellie williams blurb

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ginaluvr · 16 days

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rating the changes between tmr book and movie

anyone who read the books first knows that the movie trilogy ended up telling a completely different story. i've been a big fan of the books forever so i thought i'd rate the significant changes made in the first one since it's generally the same plot. scale is 0-5 with 5 being good change.

the gladers initially not remembering their names: 3/5. maybe it was done to raise the stakes and make it more disorienting.

there are no real buildings in the glade: 1/5. this implies they had to start completely from scratch when they first arrived, which makes the maze seem like a test of survival rather than willpower and psychology.

leading on from that... the maze is actually outdoors: 0/5. you're telling me they had rain and lots of greenery in an outdoor structure in a desert climate? and the gladers had no real shelter provided? it also makes the test of their determination less powerful, because in the books, the maze was an indoor structure. the fact that they could technically climb the walls and see the outside world in the movies removes some of hopelessness and frustration for me.

ben is a runner: 4/5. makes sense! especially since we never learned how he got stung as a builder in the books.

the gladers are allowed to have a bit of fun: 5/5. i love the bonfire scene. i think it's a realistic change that a bunch of teenage boys would want to let loose every now and then.

they were there 3 years instead of 2: 4/5. i mean, sure.

no one has ever seen a griever before and survived: 0/5. makes no sense at all because the gladers are aware of the changing as a process! if no one has ever survived encountering a griever, where did they get this precedent from? how did they recognise that ben was stung? perhaps this info was just newt being dramatic since it comes from his dialogue.

they don't have grief serum until teresa arrives: 1/5. again, doesn't make sense. the changing being a process they're familiar with which brings back memories after they get the serum is entirely destroyed in the movie. this is the catalyst for a lot of the events in the book and it loses all its function.

several of the characters are different in personality: varies. thomas is more typically 'cool' in the movie and less curious and, to put it bluntly, less annoying. i don't like this change much, his constant curiosity and eagerness to learn and discover was a huge part of who he was in the books (if you know mbti, all i have to say is he was an INTP in the books and an ISTP in the movies). then we have minho, who was way less brash, hot headed, and reckless in the movies (he was also made into an ISTP while he was an ESTP in the books). i think alby is a bit different. i like both portrayals of alby, but i think he seemed nicer and more chill in the movie, probably just because the actor was very charismatic. this works because he can easily be charismatic as a leader. but him also being a stressed out kid with too much responsibility in the books, leading to him lashing out more and being less calm and collected, makes sense! gally is a bit nicer, actually rational at times, in the movie. he's also not, like, pathetic and embarrassingly petty. these are all traits in the book which emphasise the fact that he's a scared kid, so this also isn't my favorite change ever.

thomas gets memories back in his dreams: 1/5. unnecessary and completely removes the high stakes of him having no recollection of his involvement with WICKED.

minho doesn't find a dead griever: 3/5. at least they still accounted for why alby had to go into the maze. i still wish they did it.

alby was alone in the glade for a whole month: 1/5. it is not logical that someone would be able to run a whole farm and build shelter all alone at 15 years old without any help. it also doesn't make sense that he wouldn't have gotten killed in the maze on accident.

teresa doesn't come up one day after thomas: 2/5. i guess it doesn't really matter, but this is just one element of the timeline being quite different that wasn't necessary to change.

minho helps thomas save alby in the maze: 0/5. this is thomas's first big act of heroism and the thing that makes minho respect him. they should've kept thomas doing it alone.

the grievers are completely different: 2/5. i understand that this is probably a design issue for the movie, but the book concept of the grievers is better.

the maze is completely different: 1/5. i don't like the movie maze... why is it a circle. the idea of the 8 square sections that are repeating and consistent makes the maze so much more frustrating and bewildering! also that part in the movie where the walls start to fall and the floors come up... why. there's also no code hidden in the walls, which was a very cool element.

no cliff/griever hole: 2/5. not terrible because this would be hard to show on screen. but the fact that instead, in the movie, there is just a visible section that the runners never found before is a bit unrealistic.

gally never went through the changing: 0/5. gally's hatred for thomas in the movie is baseless, while in the book it's clearly about suspicion and fear. he's an understandable antagonist in the book.

thomas and teresa don't have telepathy: 3/5. would've been hard to portray on screen. takes away from the depth of their connection, however.

the gladers give up too easily: 0/5. this one bothers me! when all the other runners in the movie randomly quit their jobs. the whole point in the books is that they'd never do that.

thomas is looked to as a leader: 0/5. when he starts giving orders in the movie and leads the charge into the maze.... ughhh. again i think they tried to make him a more cool and admirable protagonist, but i think a big part of the books is that thomas never saw himself as particularly special, or a leader. he couldn't have done anything he did without minho's, newt's, alby's, teresa's etc skill, authority, support. they were a team and a family. instead, in the movie, they start to follow him without question when he was barely there five days.

the grievers don't only kill 1 glader per night: 2/5. adds tension but also takes away from the fact that the maze again wasn't a test of survival.

alby's and chuck's deaths were essentially swapped: 0/5. i really dislike this change. they took away the fact that alby's fear changed him, and that his last act was both selfless and scared. in the movie he just died on accident. then i think chuck actually chose to sacrifice himself in the movie, when in the books he was forced to as a variable by WICKED. this absolutely takes away from the utter pointlessness of chuck's death, and it's also ooc for a scared 12 year old to choose to die when he so badly wanted to escape.

thomas had no real reason to sting himself: 0/5. he already had memories coming back in dreams and they already believed they had found an escape in the maze. he literally had no reason to go through the changing in the movie and it's a bit overdramatic for no reason.

people take gally seriously as a leader: 2/5. this only happened because alby got killed off early in the movie.

this is one of my least favorite changes so i saved it for last. nalby erasure: 0/5. the movies definitely take away that alby was newt's best friend and the person he cared for and protected most. likewise, in the books, thomas's favorite and most prioritised glader (along with teresa) was actually always minho. although thominho wasn't erased as much in the movies, the fact that those two pairings were the strongest bonds we ever got between the boys in the books isn't really there in the movies. i think the movies allowed people to forget that newt being canonly gay actually means alby is his most likely love interest!

#i think needless to say this is not hate to the cast!! i loved them they were all cast so well #the maze runner #the maze runner books #tmr thomas #tmr minho #tmr newt #tmr gally #tmr alby #tmr teresa #nalby #thominho #tmr chuck #i have never posted about these books before but i’ve loved them for over a decade so here we are

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dozing-marshmallow · 7 months

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Hey pooks, how was your day? Hope it was good!! I was wanting to ask if you can do an Ezekiel x jealous Yandere gf? Like she has the personality of Alice Liddel (from Alice Madness returns) please and thank you!!

Drink lots and eat healthy

-Yandere Anon

Hello! <3 my day has been great, thank you so much for asking and for your generous reminder to stay well! I hope you‘re having a marvellous day yourself and you too are taking care of yourself.

Thank you for the request!💜

EZEKIEL X JEALOUS! YANDERE! GIRLFRIEND! READER HEADCANONS

You had grown up with Ezekiel and done all things you could imagine living in the country with him- rolly polly down the hill, tie a worn out tire to a tree, play hide and seek, raise bunnies together!

With no existing blood ties of your own, it was a delight to be welcomed by the Miller family and share the goods you grew.

Example, Ezekiel’s family was responsible for the eggs, milk and wool, you were responsible for reaping vegetables and fruits.

Such as now, where you had circled around your field margins, with fragile hands clasping onto every matured berry, every ripened crop, every fallen apple, into your weaved basket.

“Yooo (Y/N)!”

It was meant to be midday, yet here Ezekiel was, out of his homeschooling lessons to be out on your field.

Could it have been bunking or a mini holiday? Either way, you don’t complain; a smile instantaneously capers on your lips as you rush out from your hedgerows to greet him,“Ezekiel, hello! Hello hello, my love!” you see he is just as happy as you, which is quite rare!,“Say, what’s gotten you so happy today? Is it because of me? You’re happy because of me, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

“That’s a given yo.” your heart flies like a feather,“Guess this! Zeeke’s got it in the gaaame! I’m gonna be on tv and rock itt!”

Your eyes widened. Ezekiel? On TV?! He’s gonna be famous!?

“Yep!” he nods, picking up one of the apples from your basket,“That new reality show Total Drama something is gonna be my starting point in the world of awesomeness!”

“...A reality show? Total Drama?” your enthusiasm sucked away, killed like the flowers you plucked from the bush.

Ezekiel was planning on going on a reality show for some time and he didn’t tell you? Why didn’t he tell you? Is there something he’s hiding from you? Is there someone he doesn’t want you to know?,“Who else is gonna be there?”

“Dunno.” he shrugs, taking a clean bite of the apple that wore a crown of water droplets,“Twenty one other dudes that’ll I only know when I get there.”

“...Can I come with you?” it was a risky question, but who said the chances were completely zero?

He spits out a seed to the side,“Sorry holmes,” your heart stung,“I don’t think it’s possible. Unless you sent something in, they won’t let you on, know what I’m saying?”

“...Okay.” That’s fine, right? I mean, it is just for a show, right? A show without you. Where he’d be surrounded by different people every single day. Different girls, different guys... Could it be possible for any of them to overthrow your placement in his life in that time? No... Ezekiel wouldn’t get over you that quickly. It’s not possible for him to find someone else he likes he does you, right? So soon? It’ll be fine, won’t it?,“Um... How long will you be gone for?”

“Eh, probably the whole summer.” he said like it was no big deal.

W-Whole summer?!

“You can’t! Not for the whole summer!” Dropping your basket to cage his being in your suffocation, you screech,“You'd no sooner tell me you want to break up! Break me up... Do you not know how much I need you...? Without you, I have nothing holding me back from ripping my hair out of my scalp to bear the loneliness... Don't go... Don't go..."

Ezekiel was used to these outbursts, so he let you replace your scent with his for a little longer in the windy silence before he assures,"Chiiiiill bird, you know I’m not gonna break up with you. It’s just one summer eh? It’s not forever.” after you let him stand on his own, he begins to bend down by your feet to restore the fruits that had bounced out of the basket back in,“Besides, if we’re gonna move to a better place, I’m gonna need to win the money for you and me. I finally get to be a man providing for the missus!”

“That’s true...” you knew Ezekiel’s parents had tried their best to give him the best traditional homeschool a kid could know, so one day, he could go to the city- The possibilities of work were very scanty here and the transport system wasn’t the best... It takes hours just to get to the nearest supermarket. All the more work on you to grow your own food... Not to mention, everyday with him was already like a summer day,“I don’t care where we live. We could live up on a tree or under a bridge. As long as you’re with me, I’m happy. I’m complete. Who knew every word that comes out of your mouth could be as nourishing as food?”

“You know no other gal could be as cool as you are.” he stands up again,”I’m always gonna have space for ya riiight here.” there he lays his hands on his chest.

His comment had tranced you into giggles, and fingers into fiddling with your apron. An urgent need to get that old junk of channels and screen working again smothers your thoughts,“...Tell me more about this show.” you have to make aware of your rivals.

It’s been a whole year and Ezekiel’s teacup was still full.

In spite of that, you had kept pouring his portion of tea. Your tablecloth was wet, dripping to the floor with the substance that was once so warm.

Don’t panic (Y/N). There’s no way Ezekiel would run away from you. That’s not Ezekiel. You know Ezekiel, you love Ezekiel!

So...why isn’t he here-

You had thought if you kept doing the things you did, he would come back.

Who stole you away from me?

You stand up from your chair. The grandfather’s clock chimed its ancient cry.

Were you at home this entire time? If so, why wouldn’t you tell me? Who has been keeping you busy?

Nobody, it would seem.

His parents were just as troubled as you were.

“You mean... He hasn’t come back at all?” While you didn’t go inside, from the corner of your eye, you had caught something damning on their dinner table.

Are those...missing posters?

They’re missing posters...

Ezekiel’s face is all over them.

You walk back to your cottage with a heavier mind.

...

Ezekiel didn’t elope.

Something had happened.

Something savage.

Something irreversible.

You clash the walls of your teeth against each other and your neck went dry.

What did you do to my baby?

He had taken away the one thing that made getting out of bed worth it everyday.

The thing that composed a smooth life.

The thing that made blood have a sweeter colour.

Stepping out of the dinghy, you scrape your shovel across the collapsing floorboards of the dock.

I’m here, you smiling bastard. Ready or not, here I come.

#tdi #tdi x reader #total drama #request #td ezekiel #total drama ezekiel x reader #total drama ezekiel #yandere reader

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samueldays · 3 months

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A friend recommended Deadworld Isekai to me the other day. To damn it with faint praise: it was good enough that I finished reading all three volumes, and the author has a solid grasp of spelling and grammar.

It has the usual LitRPG problem of re-reifying abstractions to produce weird round-trip-translation nonsense that has become the heart of the LitRPG genre, one of the most finely polished turds in the world.

The thing that stood out to me as the most 'fixable' problem, though, was the fake suspense and the fake threat. Oh no, the protagonist is in over his head, however will he survive? Oh no, the protagonist is on the verge of death, what asspull deus ex machina is going to save him now?

The cast is too small and the premise too specialized for there to be a serious threat of replacing Matt as protagonist, and once you've introduced CRPG Healing you can't threaten injury short of death, so I roll my eyes at every new danger, confident he'll be perfectly fine (and powered up!) a chapter later.

I want to contrast this with Lord of the Rings, which looms over the wider fantasy genre so much that it gets taken for granted, and I sometimes see people thinking of it in terms of the popular cliches that were copied the most. But I feel it's pretty good about threatening Frodo, and that's less copied.

At some point in The Return of the King, the reader has seen Gandalf die and Boromir die and the Fellowship broken, and then parts of the Fellowship met new cool people, and then those cool people started dying too, with Theoden bravely dead on the battlefield and Denethor horribly dead in attempted murder-suicide.

It starts to look like Frodo might die, IMO, it's genuinely plausible that Tolkien will kill off another major character at this point. The deaths are mounting, Frodo's psyche is fraying, and the savvy reader sees Sam is right there to take over if Frodo dies. The main protagonist will probably still survive because that's how stories go, but it's not all that obvious.

It looks like death when Frodo is stung by giant spider and carried off by orcs, but it's much less of a deus ex machina to hear that the spider was using paralytic venom to save a meal for later. Frodo isn't getting a sudden powerup or new ally, it's just a spider being a spider.

With no magic healing, several magic items lost, and Frodo increasingly traumatized, the quest gets closer to Mount Doom. Here Frodo puts on the Ring, which is not how these stories normally go! No heroic last-minute surge of willpower. Frodo is sick and tired, looks at the Ring of Power, and decides that in fact, he would like Power for himself.

Gollum bites Frodo's finger off, falls into the lava, and the Ring is destroyed nonetheless. Tolkien again makes it look like Frodo might really die in the resulting volcanic eruption, now that his importance to the story is over and the Ring is destroyed and the rest looks like cleanup from the army marching on Mordor in the other plot thread.

But the book isn't over yet. If you're reading Lord of the Rings in print, you can feel there's another hundred pages left to go at this point. Frodo is saved, Aragorn is crowned, our heroes are victorious, there's celebrations and marriages and vacations and songs.

Then Frodo heads home at long, long last and finds Saruman got there first and started polluting the Shire.

The last surprise is that Saruman dies really fast. The rest of the book is appendices. What, you expected a hundred pages of Frodo fighting the Shire Wizard War? Nope, we're done here! Also Frodo has to leave, Sam takes over at the very last. It's a good series of plot twists, without being a plot swerve.

#all #sam reviews #literature #litrpg #lord of the rings

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knight-dwx-09 · 1 year

Text

Stuck together

More and more of the clones surrounded him like a zombie, attacking relentlessly without any care, one destroyed and two take their place. WBY seem to handle their end pretty well mostly because the cat focused on him more than them.

His sword run through one of the clone before decapitation its head. He then immediately scanned the situation where he saw the cat run towards Ruby. Not wasting a single second, he chased with everything he got and tackled her away from Ruby.

Both of tumbled together with him on top her stomach at the end, sword raise once again, however she managed to knocked the sword from his hand and instead backing away, Jaune reeled back his fist which she simply smiled smugly.

She changed into a scared Penny once again in a split second, though the smirk immediately wash away from her face as he punched her, breaking the illusion upon the contact. She hissed and grabbed both of his hands from moving or attack, making it a stalemate for both of them.

He suddenly got a reckless plan that might bite him in the ass, though most of his plan did work out in the end so he give a try.

Out of the blue, she felt a warm crept into her body, like her body were being powered.

“What’s this? Do you honestly believe this can kill me?”

“I may can’t kill you with this.” He forced every bit of his aura, not caring if he use all of it. “but perhaps I can force you out.”

The cat widen her eyes in realization what’s he doing.

“I WON’T LET YOU!!!”

But it was too late, his aura had already enter her body.

He suddenly found himself in a nice house. He scanned the place, puzzled at where he was.

“Okay… this is… different.” He muttered.

“You are just a trouble maker.” A sudden voice from behind surprise him as he turned around.

A man and a woman who face were covered in darkness, looking at a small brown hair girl with disgust clear on their face before yelling her to go to her room as she simply listens to them.

“What are these?” Jaune asked to himself.

The surrounding began to change in a quick moment. Now, he stands between a familiar orange hair man with green overcoat and black leather gloves who was touching a brick wall as the girl stood near by.

“It’s that Roman?”

Before he can process it, it shifts to two different scene play out the same time in each side. Roman giving an umbrella to her and she give an white coat to him.

Like the last two memories, it switched immediately to Neo, slowly trailed behind him to somewhere else as the building he was just in blazes away in the distance. Seeing Neo who almost resembled the girl he was watching, it make one thing clear.

“Is this her memories?”

His semblance had never done this. It could only powering someone else’s aura and make their semblance even stronger and that’s it. He wondered if something has happened to him as he observed her memories of her and Roman adventures.

The last memory he watched was her, running through the rubble at the fall of Vale and desperately searching someone. She stopped in track as her body began to tremble ever so slightly when she find something else. Hands reached out in denial, tears stung her eyes, she couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it. In front of her was Roman’s hat and scarf but the man was nowhere to be seen.

It seem like this give her mental shock, not knowing what to do or think of it. Worried about her, he step forward to try comfort her.

She suddenly screams.

Jaune get blown away from the memory into a black space and a strong wind currents suddenly rushing through the place, skidding a bit as he shielded his face.

Every hatred, anger, pain, every negative emotions, he could sense all of it, swirling like a massive hurricane that suffocate and weigh him down. How could someone have this much darkness inside their heart. Did she endure all of this everyday?

He pushed through the storm as more her feelings and thoughts entered his soul, screaming in rage about the world. And there she was, in the middle of it, curling up like a small and powerless girl.

When she brings her head to him, he could feel it, loneliness in the cold world and desperate yearnings for a home as one line entered his mind.

“Please… please help me…”

Seeing her like, he could not help but reached out and grabbed her hands.

Light emitted from both of them in the physical world, blinding everyone.

Jaune skidded across the ground on his back from the sudden force while a blue and white shoot out of Neo’s chest. He pushed himself up to meet with a angry cat as the unconscious Neo slumped behind it.

He was glad she’s alright.

“Damn you! Why won’t you stop interfering.” The cat hissed.

“As if I will let you do as you please.” He spitted with venom, stepping forward to end it.

And stumbling over himself to his knees with wide eyes.

Something was wrong, his body wouldn’t listen as his aura flickering like crazy. It’s not like his aura were depleted from using it, if so, he could just recharge it in minutes like usual but he can’t even feel his aura nor activate his semblance.

The curious cat looked at him, confused why he suddenly fall to his knees then surprised before gaining a sinister smile.

“HAHAHA!!! This is perfect! I can’t believe this chance have finally presented itself to me.”

“What the hell are you on about?” He managed to rasped out.

“Oh! You don’t see it?” He shakes its head amusingly. “You are so focus on extracting me you didn’t even realize it.” The cat stared deep into his eyes. “You’re empty.”

It jump onto Jaune, slamming him back down to the ground. Usually, he could just shove the cat when it was its small form and yet, he couldn’t do anything.

“Do you really think amplify someone who doesn’t have any desires would do anything? No a slightest chance. It’s like you trying to save a abandoned doll. No matter you do or try to do, it’s pointless effort cause there’s nothing to amp. But, that’s not what you did.” It lean closer to his face.

“Like what I’m doing to control everyone by giving a part of me to them.” It then place a pawn right on his chest.

“You give yourself to save her.”

“You relinquished your soul to replace me in her, forcing me out merely because you want to save her. And now, you are essentially an empty vessel just for me.” The cat chuckled. “How ironic it is, the rusted knight, the hero who will sacrificed himself to save others, now will help me to go to Remmant and find out why the creator left me. You really are a hero, Jaune. You have no idea how long I longed for this moment.”

After that comment, its body slowly sink into his chest. Pain course through him as he tried to resist but it was futile attempt as the cat invaded his body.

A moment pass after the cat gone from the physical world, “Jaune” began to raise like a doll. First his fingers twitched then the upper body lift from the ground, gazing down at his own arm as he tightening and loosening it, grinning creepily.

He stand up on his feet and stared at the sky with his light blue cat eyes.

“I will never say this out loud but it feel so good to finally have this body. I must say Jaune, you really do have a good and strong body compared to that little girl.” He roamed his eyes to his new host as he flexed a bit.

Finally, it can walk through that stupid door and search why did the creator left.

A sound of collective gasp caught his attention, turning to the three shock girls.

“Oh right, you three girl are still here.” He scoffed. “Get out of my way, I don’t require your little red anymore, I already got what I need.”

This cause them to snap out as all of the huntresses pull their weapons on him.

“You aren’t getting anywhere with our friends.” Yang cocked her weapon, eyes was now bright crimson red eyes from rage of her friends being used like a tool.

“We won’t leave Jaune behind.” Blake transformed Gambol Shroud into katana.

“get out from Jaune now.” Weiss threatened with her weapon.

“Or what? You gonna kill him again?” He taunted but neither of them didn’t back down nor fall for it. Annoyed a bit, he collected Croceo Mors and face them. “Well, at least I have chance to give this body a run before enter Remmant.” He smiled.

But suddenly.

“Oum… that feel so weird.”

This startled the villain as he take a step back,

The cat didn’t say that, his mouth just move on his own. Shaken up by this, it searched into the soul of Jaune where he find the boy, still awake.

“How are you still here?” He screamed, in turn making the other lowering their weapon as they watched in bewilderment.

Slowly, the body was getting harder and harder move until the curious cat unable to control the body anymore. In panic, it tried to escape but that quickly became useless as it was trapped, not having the ability to leave the body anymore.

Why can’t I get out?

Even its own voice won’t come out.

The cat had now become the passenger.

With Jaune in control once again, he place a hand on his head as he slowly groan in pain.

“Are you Jaune?” Blake asked hesitantly.

“Of course I am, what make you think that?” He rubbed his forehead to ease the headache.

Blake and Yang just stay silent, not knowing how to tell him. So in the end, Weiss was the one told him.

“Jaune…” She called out.

“Yeah.”

“The cat… it’s inside of you.” Weiss informed.

“Wait what?!” Jaune shouted in alarmed.

This wasn’t the outcome I had hope for nor the best. But I can still used this. The cat mumbled inside his mind.

And that was the prove that the cat was indeed in his body. The lying, traitors, evil cat was inside of him. He doesn’t know what to do with that information. Should he scream at the top of his lungs? or should he kill himself?

Okay Jaune, this is a little awkward to tell with our past relationship but… seem like we are stuck together… forever.

He didn’t reply, or more like he doesn’t have the strength to speak anymore but the cat continue on with its rambling.

Well, it’s not a lot different with what we were doing before. I follow you around, talk to you as you retell your story, and play games too like before, now just from inside of you. I know we get off on the wrong foot a minute ago, but don’t worry, we are going to be the bested friends in the whole world at the end.

Jaune simply do the only thing he could at that time. Drop to his knees and wish it’s a dream.

Everyone look at him in pity while Ruby, who just come out of her cocoon, looked confused at everything.

————————————

An: Alright, just want to say this. There’s a chance that I will revamp this later time. I was planing on shorter post but it got out of hand so that’s why this has become a mess. However, from now on about this idea, it will be a lot shorter and probably in “chat story” so this never happens again.

And @spahhzy, I’m sorry for this mess of a story. Oh! I almost forgot, this idea was from the person I just mention. So thank for giving me a permissions to used your idea.

#jaune arc #rwby #rwby jaune #rwby volume 9 #rwby curious cat #yang xiao long #weiss schnee #blake belladona #ruby rose #neopolitan

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aarcanevillains · 7 months

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The truth doesn’t hurt

Masterlist

Peter, after a realisation with his cousin, finally tells Erik the truth- and it’s a better reaction than he expected.

Warnings: none | cousin OC

Peter stared down at his cousin’s son, the six year old babbling about his newest obsession while Lili cooked the trio dinner. James, like Peter, was growing up without a father- and just like Peter it wasn’t really by choice and for some reason that stung more than usual today. His heart ached for his cousins because he realised something… Peter at current had the choice to change that.

Erik Lensherr is his father. Magneto is his dad.

According to Liliana at least James’ father isn’t a major terrorist so points to her he guesses.

He blinks down at the kid who is now staring blankly at the TV, a long day at school finally catching up to him again it seems.

“Pietro, James. Dinner!” Lili called, that soft polish accent loud and clear as she did (the proud Eisenhardt accent Peter’s uncle- his mums brother and Lili’s dad- would say)

“Coming Mama.” James called back.

Peter zipped the two into the kitchen, James giggling like a madman as he did, settling them in for dinner.

“Thanks for watching him today Pete.” Lili said for what was probably the tenth time since she came home from work. “But… are you okay?”

“Yeah I’m okay why wouldn’t I be okay I’m perfectly fine.” He said at what many would say was a fast tempo (which he would then say it was Andante at most thank you).

“Because you haven’t said a word since James started talking about dinosaurs and you love those giant lizards Kyzun.”

“Ah.”

“Pete quiet today.” James interrupted, food being shovelled into his face at an alarming rate- where Lili definitely didn’t shoot him a scathing glare at that. Peter only shoots one back that says *after James goes to bed*.

And so he waits till then to ask for her opinion on his troubles.

“Just been thinking.” He admits and waits for the usual teasing jab they would share but she’s quiet, listening. “I have the chance to tell Erik he’s my father and I haven’t taken it yet.”

“Why is that?” Liliana asks with a frown.

“I don’t know… I’m scared?” He shrugs. “Either he’ll think I want to replace Nina or he’ll hate me because I’m.. well I’m not the best son in the world so…”

“I’ll rip him to shreds if he thinks that. Peter there isn’t anything wrong with you for one and for another you know it’s the right thing to tell him.” Lili pats his arm. “You said family is important to him yeah?”

Peter nods slowly.

“Then let him know he isn’t alone.”

“I know I should… but what if Erik is already gone when I get back to the mansion?”

“Then you make the bald man find him and you tell Erik everything. You make sure he doesn’t leave until you tell him.”

Peter stands, pushing down those nerves threatening to stop him for the thousandth time.

“I’ll tell him tonight.”

“Give me a call tomorrow about it yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His palms were so fucking sweaty.

Like really fucking sweaty. Worse than Alex trying to drill Scott on the plasma beams and accidentally burning a few (a lot of) really expensive antiques and then Charles going on a rager about how fucking stupid this idea to train inside the house, away from the bunker, was while Kurt stared into your soul for ruining a perfectly good book case… no his brain was not trying to plan an escape route.

His knuckles hit the door before he knew it, three sharp knocks surprising even himself as he heard the door unlock and creak open.

“Peter.” Erik said as way of greeting.

“Hey Erik.” Peter said in kind. “Uh…”

“Do you need something?”

“No-yes… yes I need some help.” His shoulders dropped. “It’s really important and uh.. can I come in?”

Erik frowned in contemplation before moving to the side. Peter was never this… scared to look someone in the eye and Erik was half ready to call out for Charles should the boy do or say something worrying or dare he say stupid.

“How can I be of help?” Erik asked after some long seconds of silence. He was notably irritated which only made Peter more nervous, he felt sick even.

“I was babysitting my cousin’s kid and I got to thinking… he’s gonna grow up like me.” He started, easing into the plan he had haphazardly thrown together.

Erik’s irritated stare softened a little. Peter was sharing personal information, according to Charles Peter didn’t like to share that sort of thing unless it was something… fun.

“Like you?” The metalokinetic prodded.

“Without a father figure.” Peter gulped. “And like me it’s not really on purpose. Neither of our dads even know we exist but Lili… she wants James’ dad to know- she just doesn’t know how to find him and she fucking tried.”

“I do hope she can find him then. I imagine anyone would want to know if they had a child. I certainly would… family is important no matter the circumstances.” Erik sat on his bed, patting it down for Peter to join him.

“You would want to know?” The speedster said quietly. Erik only nodded. “I found my dad.”

Erik’s brows rose, a smile tugging at his lips.

“That’s excellent, no? Have you told him?”

“I haven’t, I’m just… I’m scared.”

And though Erik still wandered why Peter came to him, thought he could be of any help he placed a hand on the twenty-six year old’s shoulder and squeezed. “Why?”

“He’s a… powerful mutant… Because he lost his new family not that long ago. Because he scares a lot of people.”

“Does he scare you?”

“Not anymore.” Erik nodded again. “What would… how would you react if I came up to you and said hey… I’m your son and I’m twenty-six but you’re my dad!”

Erik frowned, not expecting that kind of question.

“Well I would not be disappointed. Perhaps miffed I did not know sooner and angry that I hadn’t been there for you because and know this Peter I would have raised you.”

Peter’s brown eyes widened, something shining by the corner of one that Erik suspected was a tear and his heart well… it aches for the man.

“Do I know your father?” Peter seemed to freeze at that before tentatively nodding. “Practice what you want to say, with me I mean.”

Why was Erik doing this for him? Peter was so confused and yet relieved all at once before snorting out a laugh. He nodded and turned to face him.

“Twenty-eight years ago you met my mother. Dated for a little under two years and after your break up and her move to America she found out she was pregnant with me and my twin sister… my mama is Polish you see so I actually have a traditional name- Pietro.” The slight crease in Erik’s brow told Peter that something had started to click. “She decided to americanise our names for school but anyway… her name was Ma..”

Peter gulped.

“Ma?” The former terrorist tried to joke, to make Peter feel better. “You’re doing well so far Peter, a strong start.”

“Her name was Magda Eisenhardt.“

Erik felt a twist in his chest, a lurch in his gut. He knew that name.

Peter’s mother is Polish… Peter’s real name is Pietro- a name he and his former partner had cooed over once they heard it. Magda… Magda Eisenhardt.

Peter’s silence seemed to be louder than any other sound, than when Banshee would scream or when any explosions echoed.

“But… Maximoff?”

“Mama remarried, we took his name and now I have a little sister.” Peter said quickly. “Her name is Anya but my twin is Wendy which is actually-”

“Wanda?” Erik pulled Peter in for a tight hug. “Like Magda’s mother’s name.”

“Yeah.” Peter relaxed into his father’s hold.

“Thank you for telling me. I wish… I wish you had told me sooner I would have-”

“Stayed?” Peter quipped.

“Yes. I would have tried to stay.”

“Don’t force yourself to stay.”

“I have a son… a daughter.” Erik pulled back, looking at Peter- Pietro… he looks like Magda, he looks like him. “I still have family.”

“Yeah. Yeah you do.”

After moments passed and both men had taken deep breaths Erik asked quietly.

“Your cousin? Is she Aleksey’s daughter or through your step father’s sibling?”

“Uncle Aleksey is still alive and kicking but yeah Liliana is his. He’s still a great brother for ma…”

“And she has a son?”

“James.” Peter smiles brightly. “A six year old with more energy than me some days.”

“I think.” Erik starts. “If you’d allow it I’d like to get to know you, your sister- my daughter- and your family if they would too.”

Peter smiles. He hadn’t expected the immediate warmth, the utter joy on his fathers face the fact that Erik didn’t think he was trying to replace Nina.

Lili was so going to make fun of them both for crying on each others shoulders.

Worth it!

#x men #x men fluff #Peter Maximoff tells Erik the truth #Magneto is Peter’s dad #erik lensherr #peter maximoff #pietro maximoff #Peter Maximoff fluff #Erik Lensherr fluff #x men oc #Liliana Eisenhardt

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incarnateirony · 1 year

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This might be the wildest take yet but... Roxy is Cas? But Dean doesn't know. And as he tells the story, he thinks she was the villain. Because he's our unreliable narrator. But then we find out The Truth.

You are actually very very very very very very close but like 1° off. I'm using voice to text on this so pardon if this ends up coming across funny but.

Do we remember nihilism. Where Pamela was this complicated construct of Dean's own thoughts reflecting back at him? A sort of reflection of wanting what he couldn't have?

It's the same thing. The Akrida work similarly to the shadow on the face. We see them as monsters. They hide in our darkest memories that can be our most beautiful gardens if we Face the truth. We might see them as nuisances. Flies, roaches, whatever else. But Castiel always preferred insects over angels. He loves bees. These are just worker bees. They can sting you. They can be scary or even dangerous. But they're really just tending the garden and the garden doesn't work without them. So Roxy and the others are transmutating leaden grudges into gold.

Just like we know, or some of us know, that she isn't the villain really, neither are these bugs. We actually have to go back to the place Mary got stung by the birds and the bees. And the trauma. And the doors that she fears opening. But her garden and her future is inside of it and it's time to start dreaming about what to come next. And so it is for Dean as well.

Right now, there is a light in the road calling him home. Dean is dead or dying. In the very least episode 6 he was still in the barn. We know the whole know thyself thing. I had myself. I knew myself. Dean only knows who he isn't. Not who he is. Roxy is the dissonance of that until he opens the door. The final door. Which he may just find in the closet like his dad's music box. Or a mixtape. That their son accidentally broke playing over and over and over again trying to drown out the noise hearing Dean and Castiel fight about him. Because Jack just wanted to make himself small. He didn't mean to go bad. But that door has Generations at the same trauma behind it and that buzzing trauma drove the empty into death's Library seeking silence. Almost not too unlike Millie going into the atrium to speak with Ada. She just had to get away from that handwriting. Get away from that music. Get away from all of that loud trauma.

We are at the point of an aeon bounce. We are actually still in season 12 while Dean is dying in season 15. Roxy is coming through the cracks. Rips that were born the moment Jack started being born into this world. Because he exploded outside of time and always is and always was and was always there Union and that trauma was always there

That's why death went mad and needed sealed. Death is supposed to be benign.

Roxy is just Dean's interpretation of the truth. That's why it's roxy. Rocky's bar. Pamela. His perfect woman. Right now Jack and Castiel are trying to call Dean home in the light in the road. They are trying to call him. There's a phone booth. Not unlike the end of advanced thanatology. Listen close to everything she says. It's only people thinking that they are a threat that has determined them to be a threat. Roxy is just trying to get Dean to open his door and quite frankly show up for his own wedding in heaven and he's running from her. Because she's actually Castiel but he can't face that. Well Roxy isn't castiel. Roxy is Dean. He's that little trauma leech and that reflection trying to fix his garden and fix his broken tape deck. But the queen is trying to call him home God damn it. Castiel noticed that their code name is the name of popular musicians. He became full and his soul went to heaven big surprise. You can call him queen bee. Roxxy wasn't the queen.

Such a shame to ruin such a beauty though. Whether that be Mary and traumaLisa's bleeding uterus, or Kelly being ripped open like the worlds to give birth to Jack, or Castiel subsuming The One for Jack in rediscovering who he was. And that being taken out on the kid. The same trap, the same grudge, the same truth. Dean's perfect woman has always been a man. And he spent his whole life running from that. And if he doesn't stop running, he's going to fade away into emptiness. He needs to find the Ostiuum. The road. The path. The opening. Giggity goo. In order to be in The Occultumstiel, the Occultumstiel must be in you. All the squishy bits of your real body, her hands are all over it. And nothing can stop what's Coming for all Humanity to make it full. Let's just stick with a Mouth for now.

#winchesters codex

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la-fille-en-aiguilles · 2 years

Text

Deadmen Don't Decide

(Deadmen Got No Luck, part III)

Steve Harrington x Henderson!Female!Reader

SYNOPSIS (I ADVISE YOU DO NOT READ IT IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE 1ST PART YET): this is a Steve Harrington AU, in which after a mission gone wrong, you are thrust into a world where you’re a rising actress playing yourself in a series called Stranger Things... which retraces the past year of your life almost down to a T. Now you have to figure out what happened, but most importantly - what’s real and what isn’t.

New to the series? Try fighting Vecna here - Then wake up in 2021 here.

A/N: I don’t know where all this angst is coming from, but it’s just hitting me like a tsunami every time I sit down to write. It’s also a bit slow moving, but I promise things are going to pick up in the next few chapters! Thank you for bearing with me!

Shower has always been a kind of your thinking temple. Granted, the topics have usually evolved around “what to wear to your shift at Hideaway to avoid giving ideas to handsy assholes” or “are demodogs’ blood and saliva toxic to the skin”, and not, you know “what a girl to do stuck in some parallel universe after dying in her own world”.

At least there was some consistency in the way common sense gradually seeped out of your thoughts as time progressed; much like water swirling down the drain at your feet.

Hot streams hitting your head and shoulders like needles, you spent at least twenty whole minutes studying your body - or rather, what it could have been if Upside Down has never existed. Your skin was soft and lovely to the touch, no scar tissue in sight. If it weren’t for the bluish bruise on your right knee, you would probably feel overwhelmed by the unnaturalness of it all. Marks on your body were what you were used to; never in your wildest dreams you would have thought that this ugly blue patch of skin would help you to hold on to some kind of sanity; confirming that amidst of it all, you were still you.

The wound on your forehead also stung a little when the water first washed over it; and you actually felt thankful for the pain, the sharpness of it grounding you - making you feel alive.

Last time you were in your world, you were dying of a blood loss. As far as you’re aware, you died of blood loss, in Steve’s arms.

So now, you’re what, undead? Reincarnated? Worst case scenario, you would expect yourself to come back to life as a cockroach or - if karma was really out to get you - Tommy H. But now that you’re here, surrounded by the faces you love with minds you know nothing of - you decide, that maybe, there is a fate worse than waking up as a raging asshole one day. Maybe, the scariest of all is to wake up as yourself - with the people you cherish most in the world not knowing who you really are.

You refuse to dwell on it too much - on how your entire world turned upside down in a matter of hours. Now is not the time to grieve, because you haven’t given up yet. Once again, you find yourself being a woman on a mission.

If there is a way out, you’ll find it. Whatever it effing takes. You need to understand exactly what happened - and that without raising any more suspicions. You need to blend in - the last thing you want is to end up in a white room with cushioned walls. So no chance of “I’m from some kind of a parallel universe in which Vecna is real and out for blood” being a conversation starter.

The thought that you might still be stuck in the Upside Down, with this entire world being a figment of your imagination and one of Vecna’s ways to torture you did cross your mind. But then, if you were, in fact, unconscious, would you be feeling any physical pain?

And, come on, replacing Steve Levi’s Straight Leg Harrington by Joe Hug Your Ass Fit Keery is very much outside of your realm of imagination.

When you return back to your room, the Steve / Joe is still nowhere in sight. Turning on the lights and trading a skimpy silk pyjamas you found under your pillow for an oversized gray t-shirt, dug up from the dirty laundry, you collect every single piece of information you can find in the room; some of it useless; some of it not - and dump it on your bed for further investigation.

What looks like the most important finding of all is a bounded stack of papers with August 8, 2021 etched upon it, the one your eyes found at the foot of the bed earlier. Marked, dog-eared, with coffee stains here and there, it’s a story filled with dialogs. It’s the Stranger Things script.

Just as you’re about to turn over the first page, the soft knock on the door calls for your attention.

“Come in”, you beckon Joe in, without taking your eyes off the starring actor’s list of names.

(Keery’s sound of steps is exactly the same as Steve’s, down to the last tap.)

Finn Wolfhard. Millie Bobby Brown. Sadie Sink. Maya Hawke - your eyes devour words off paper.

All of these names mean shit to you. But the names right next to them: Mike Wheeler, Eleven / Jane Hopper, Robin Buckley… These are the names of the people you would kill to see again. Steve Harrington - Joe Keery.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” the man of the hour breaks you out of your thoughts, before they can send you spiralling downward towards all of the things - people - that you’ve lost.

Biting the inside of your cheeks, you tear your gaze away from the printed words, and venture a look at him.

Joe has changed clothes and taken a shower. His hair is still a little wet, and he’s wearing a simple molten brown cotton shirt this time with a pair of light grey joggers, the elastic of his underwear showing.

And you are definitely not staring.

“Like I’m still here,” you lay the sarcasm on real thick, hoping it takes the attention off the way you just gawked at him. “All tucked in, like a big girl, see?” You gesture towards your blanket-covered legs with a snicker.

A mischievous smile flickers across his face, and it has you stalling again, reminding yourself that he is not Steve.

“Well, don’t expect me to be impressed. Now, once I see you eat with a spoon and all…”

His words startle a chortle out of you.

“Oh, I’m a menace with a spoon”, you inform him zealously, raising your chin to look at him, only to find him already staring back, sparkles from the fairy lights above your bed dancing in his eyes.

“Oh really?” he folds his hands over his chest, as if deciding to indulge you for a minute. Bastard, you think, you’re enjoying this as much as I do. “I couldn’t tell. Not with all the ice cream you demolished on the set of Scoops Ahoy”.

Before his mentioning of the Starcourt can weigh on your chest and spin your mind down the memory lane and a never-ending sequence of million questions (how does he know about Starcourt?!), he drops the backpack you didn’t realise he was carrying on the floor and fishes something out of it.

“Prove it”.

Your eyes grow wide as you read the words on the pot of ice-cream he’s holding.

“Is that- Is that Cherry Garcia?!” you just blink at him in shock, momentarily forgetting where you are and who you’re with, “No way”.

All you see is Steve shrugging as he squats in front of you, so that your eyes can meet on the same level.

You feel a shooting pain rip through your chest, something awful; but it isn’t the reason you feel pressure grow behind your eyes.

“If you don’t want it, then…” he pretends to want to take the pot away from you, drawing his hand back; and before you know it, your fingers wrap around his wrist, and you are snatching the ice-cream out of his relaxed hand, his smiling eyes watching you closely.

You press the icy thing to your chest; it frostbites your skin through the t-shirt, but you barely take notice. All you can do is stare at this man before you - close enough to touch and yet so far to do it - because you know he is not Steve; but for a briefest of instants, it almost feels like it’s just you and him, on your regular Movie Night Thursday, with his shitty parents inexistent, as always. Almost like you’re together again.

This Joe person is going to be the death of you - provided that you aren’t dead already.

“What?” he asks as he stands up, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, unblinking eyes fixed on you.

“Nothing,” you quickly retort, dropping your gaze to the script, still laying next to your thigh. You clear your throat, tears pulsing in the back of it, just to fill the silence.

Joe slides a spoon into your lap without a word, and you bite down on your bottom lip with all your might.

He’s not Steve. He’s not Steve. He’s not…

“So here’s the plan,” he derails your train of repetitive self-conviction, making an effort to sound nonchalant. “I’ll sleep on the floor - kind of like a guard dog. If there’s anything you need, just, I don’t know, kick me?”

A watery laugh escapes you as you look up a him, and you pray he doesn’t notice how painful it sounds.

“I’ll try to remember not to step on you tomorrow morning”, you promise him, your gazes lingering on each other again.

Joe rubs his bottom lip with the very tip of his thumb; there’s certain softness to the air around the two of you - thick and zephyr-like, all sweetness and gelatin. The two of you are paralyzed, and you’re not sure if it’s the intimacy, in which you’ve slipped so briskly; or the terror of losing control over the rapid thumping of pulse at the base of your necks.

“So uh- What are you reading there?” Joe asks shortly, and then thinking it a bit abrupt, adds: “Anything interesting?” You watch him kick his ass into gear and start unfolding some kind of a thin foam mattress he produced from his backpack. He lays it parallel to your bed, and you get the feeling that he is desperate to keep himself busy right now. He doesn’t look at you.

You almost tell him that he doesn’t need to do this; that there is enough room for both of you in your bed; but you bite your tongue. Steve is a friend - Joe is a stranger, you have to remind yourself again. Harmless, maybe - but still a stranger.

“I was just-”, you flip through the pages in your lap, rubbing the tip of you nose. “Refreshing the memories, I guess”.

You feel Joe approach to take a better look at the papers - and then you’re hit with the smell of him, musc, something spicy, and velvety. It goes to your head.

He grunts.

“Cool. Although I don’t think the Duffers are going to let you in on Stage 3 just yet. Don’t get me wrong, Lovebug, but with your stitches,” he motions around his own forehead with his pointer finger - “you look like you went against Vecna - and lost”.

You would have laughed at how close to the truth he actually came if you paid attention. But everything that comes after Lovebug gets lost in the roar of blood in your ears.

The pet name rips an almost visceral reaction out of you. Maybe it’s because it sounds so well-used, like his lips have been saying it for ages. Maybe, it’s because he looks exactly like Steve, your Steve. Or maybe, it’s because you know that he’s all you have now, and that you may never see, touch or talk to your Steve again.

“How long-“, you suddenly feel like you need to learn how to speak again, letter by letter. “How long have I been unconscious, exactly?”

Joe studies you carefully. He’s weighting his words. “Long enough to give us all a scare of our lifetime, for sure”, he finally ends up saying, and you know he means it by the way the electric lights reflect in his dark eyes, stark white on spotless black. “A couple of hours, give or take”, he nods his head, pressing his lips together in a thin line.

“The longest couple of hours of my life”, he adds in a murmur after a pause, looking away.

Before you can even begin to unpack the meaning of it, he scratches the back of his head, his cheeks turning peony pink.

“I, uh- “, he swallows. “I brought some groceries for you,” he gestures behind his back towards the kitchen. “I’m going to go and put them away in the fridge. Call me if you need me?”

“Yeah,” you breathe out, and drop your gaze back to the script, refusing to watch him linger for a second at the foot of your bed. When he leaves, you drop your head down, taking a deep breath.

You close your eyes for a moment, and give yourself a pep-talk. One, he’s not Steve. Two, you’re a woman on a mission. Three - you need to find a way out.

And so, with a renewed sense of determination and a spoonful of ice-cream, you begin to read.

Your skin is glistening in the warm afternoon sun. The car window is rolled open; gentle breeze caressing your cheeks and twirling the ends of your still-wet hair around your head in cheery pirouettes. You look up, watching the wide blue expanse of the cloudless sky; your brother’s light snoring from the back seat mixing eerily well with the soft music flowing out the car speakers.

“I can’t believe they’re finally asleep,” you hear Steve whisper as he makes a right turn into your street. His eyes are fixed on the road, the corners of his lips turned up in amusement. “Do you think it was the canoe that knocked them out or-“

“Oh, it was definitely the burrito”, you don’t let him finish, grinning at him. “I’m pretty sure Dustin still has avocado on his cheek”.

Steve whips his head back at your words, and his eyes spot Dustin tucked in between Mike and Lucas; surely enough, there is a smudge of squashed avocado just above the right corner of his lips.

Steve turns back to face you with those big chocolate eyes, and you exchange glances that test your self-control. Before either one of you can burst out in gloriously loud laughter, you look away from each other; you’re going as far as pressing the back of your hand to your lips. When Steve’s BMW finally comes to a halt in your driveway, your house looks boring and stale; nothing like the fun day you just spent with Lucas, Mike, Dustin Will and Steve at the Lover’s lake.

You never want this to end.

As you un-click your seatbelt, you turn to face Steve; he’s already looking at you with a nostalgic air - like he’s already missing you. “So uh- how did the whole re-looking of the attic go?” He is a man catching at straws, and you are more than happy to lend him a hand. Neither of you wants to leave the peacefulness of the car with the kids sleeping in the backseat just yet. That’s what you’re telling yourselves, at least - when in reality - neither of you wants to say goodbye. “The colors turned out okay?”

A smile slowly grows on your lips, a ring of an idea going off in your head.

“Do you want to check it out?” you whisper back, feeling a bit giddy. “Give Dusty 5 more minutes to sleep?”

Steve’s eyebrows pop up, almost reaching his hairline. His mouth falls slightly open, and he’s nodding a bit frantically.

“Um- Yeah, sure. Let’s check it out”.

The two of you get out of the car, trying not to make too much noise. You feel the squishy grass mattress underneath your sandals; when you reach the porch, Steve is hot in your tracks. Your Mom isn’t home yet, so you open up the door with a soft click and silently beckon Steve to follow you to the stairs. The steps on the way to the attic grow narrower. Your foot almost slips once, so you grab the railing, your palm landing squarely on Steve’s fingers. Your back touches his shoulder, and he’s quick to stabilise you with his hand on your hips.

“Easy now”, he whispers in your ear and something goes off in your chest, like a firework.

In five more steps, you make it to the attic. You swing open the door and the sight is beautiful, the room bathing in the sunlight coming through the open window.

“Huh”, Steve lets out in surprise. “I wasn’t sure about this sunflower explosion color, but I guess it works”.

That’s right. You and Dustin have painted the floors of the attic in rich, almost golden yellow.

“Thanks to your advice to use a primer, I think it actually looks even better than in a can”, you share in delight, looking around, your hands on your hips.

Steve nods, making his way further into the attic to look at the walls of the room.

“And what color are you going to paint the w-“

A breaking sound echos in the mostly empty space. A woof escapes Steve’s chest as he crumbles on the ground, you rushing to help him stay up, but falling on your ass right behind him instead.

You can’t explain why, but a contagious laugh falls off your lips as you spot Steve’s foot, buried in a hole in wooden floor. He seems to notice his predicament at the same moment - rolling back, leaning into you, with his other foot in the air, he laughs, and laughs, and laughs: until your voices are uproarious sounds of joy, your bodies touching. You look at him from above as his head presses against your chest - and you can’t help but giggle as soon as your eyes meet.

“Are you-“ you are fighting for breath trying to grip Steve’s shoulders to bring him into somewhat sitting position. “Are you okay?” You can’t help another melodious giggle that squeezes it’s way through your lips, and you slap a palm of your hand over your mouth.

“I’m sorry I’m laughing”, you manage through laughter wrecking your body. “This isn’t even remotely funny. Are you okay?” As he sits down, his upper body facing you, you reach out to him again, your palm lying flat on his chest.

He is still a chuckling mess as he looks back at you; his hand covers yours as he bends forward, unable to resist another urge to laugh out loud.

“I just made a giant hole in your floor!” he exclaims, wiping the tears under his eyes as you let go of him, the absence of his warmth feeling foreign. He gestures to his foot. “I- I swear I can fix it. I can maybe stop by tomorrow-“

“Steve,” you try to interrupt him, your hand landing on his shoulder in what’s meant to be a reassuring gesture.”You’re fine, you don’t have to-“

“-I have to fix this, I have to-“

“Steve!” You raise your voice a little bit and make a “stop it” face at him, which shuts him up almost immediately.

“Okay”, he says, his face still lit up. “But you gotta tell me how much I owe you for this shit”, he picks up a piece of wood from the floor and waves it around, making your guffaw.

When he stretches out a hand to you, you take it. His skin is a little dry and calloused, as his thumb draws a circle at the base of your forefinger. The two of you stand up, your gazes locked, your digits intertwined.

“I uh- I better go,” Steve says, not making the slightest effort to step away.

“Stay for early dinner”, you blurt out, not letting go of his hand either. “I can whip up a mean frozen pizza.” Steve’s gaze softens, another sweep of his thumb on your hand setting your skin on fire.

“Alright, yeah, frozen pizza sounds good. I’m gonna go wake the dipshits, because they certainly wouldn’t want to miss it”, he drops his gaze and lets go of you to scratch the back of his neck. “You’ll be alright, manning the stove?”

You roll your eyes at him playfully.

“I’m a big girl, Steve. I tie my own shoelaces and everything”, you tell him enthusiastically.

He responds with a huff.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he parries, winking at you. He backs out of the room, his body still facing yours. “Call me if you need me?”

You wake up fighting for breath.

You chest feels too small, too fragile and too hot, as your hand slaps against the papers by your pillow with a flop; you’re trying to stay upright, but your shoulders shudder at every intake of air.

“Hey,” you hear a familiar voice, as you see someone’s silhouette emerge from the floor in the dark. “Hey, hey, hey, you’re okay. You’re okay, I’m here“.

Just for a fleeting moment - you believe it’s Steve.

But then you can feel Joe’s hand squeeze your shoulder as he sits on the edge of the bed by your side, his dark worried eyes shimmering in the moonlight - the two of them look so much alike, but the illusion is gone as your brain sobers up.

You make out his furrowed eyebrows, the outline of his nose with a slight bump and the curve of his neck - and you know he’s not Steve, but you can’t help but slowly move closer to him anyway. Joe doesn’t ask any questions, just wraps his hands around you, as you press your forehead against his firm chest.

“You’re okay, Love”, he whispers again and again, and you let his voice drown the dream out; it wipes out the vision of Steve’s smile, and his ridiculous need to always fix everything. “Whatever it was, it was just a dream”.

You don’t know for how long you stay in this position; Joe doesn’t complain, just holds you in the silent and dark room.

At some point, you’re slipping down on your bed again, your back turned to Joe, facing the wall. You squeeze your eyes shut as you’re trying to keep your breathing in check. It’s when you feel him gently pull the blanket higher up your shoulders, and hear him lie back down on his makeshift bed - that you let the silent tears roll.

When you open your eyes again, you are momentarily lost. Nothing in the room speaks to you; until you push off the bed to look around, and your palm comes in contact with the paper of the Stranger Things script.

Memories click quickly into place, conjured by your sleep-deprived mind and you groan, falling back onto your pillow, face first.

You have no notion of time anymore. After having dreamt of better days - having dreamt of Steve - sleep was out of the question, so you spent the rest of the night finishing reading the script. You could swear the sun was rising, its early morning rays bleeding through the curtains, when you finally reached the end.

Sitting down and drawing your knees to your chest, you swallow hard as Steve’s laughter from your dream rings in your ears; you squeeze your eyes shut and drop your head, trying to make the sound go away. It’s too much for you right now, and you can’t let it take over your mind. If you do, you’ll fall into pieces, and you do not have the luxury to do so right now. You need to be laser-focused on the mission - as in understanding what exactly happened and finding your way back.

If you were hoping that the script would help you figure this all out - man, you were in for a surprise. Just when you thought that there was nothing that could rock your boat at this point - you literally got transported into some kind of a parallel universe? future? where your friends and family’s doppelgängers shoot a show about your life - it freaking got overturned, and now you’re feeling like you’re drowning, not having a clue what you’re even supposed to feel anymore.

The Stranger Things script turned out to be an almost perfect recollection of what happened to you during the past week. The feeling is unsettling, as you got insights into conversations you weren’t even a part of, but you are pretty sure the way they’re described in the script is exactly how they went.

It’s like being a spectator, a powerless observer - of your own goddamn life.

There were a lot of things that left you in different degrees of stupefied as you progressed with your reading - the biggest of them being, Vecna did not die at the end. But then again, neither did you.

This is where the two stories differ - in the show, you don’t get a chance to pierce Vecna’s heart with a blade because Steve Harrington holds you back. Robin tries to stall Henry Slash Vecna Slash One by throwing another Molotov cocktail at him; just the time Nancy needs to recharge her makeshift gun and fire, sending Vecna falling through the wall and onto the ground outside.

And the fucker somehow survives.

So, in the show, you make it. But Max doesn’t. All that’s left of her is her body, a shell, and her mind is either dead or gets swallowed by a place even Eleven can’t reach.

What if, you think, too dazed to even begin to understand what this would mean, what if that’s what happened to you? What if you’re in a sort of a suspended situation - half dead, half alive - and none of this is real?

And most importantly - how the hell do you figure this out for sure?

You’re not yet ready to admit defeat and succumb to the terrifying thought that maybe, Y/N Henderson has never really existed; maybe, you are what everybody here believes you to be - a girl with a weird-ass name and ambitious acting career aspirations who took the “acting” part too far and fell one sandwich short of a picnic. Maybe, your name is really Love and you have achieved a truly fucking monumental level of unstable in life after that unfortunate fall.

The idea should be freaking you the hell out - you know that. All it does is drive you up the wall instead. This has got to be the biggest “fuck you” Vecna has managed to pull off so far. A parting gift that keeps on giving. After attempting to kill you, he has done everything he could to put you in a place where you would doubt your own fucking existence - let alone the existence of the people you love. All of those memories, feelings - are what? A product of Love’s insanity? Crazed visions of demented imagination?

Fuck you, Vecna. Fuck you, buddy.

This is the fight you are not going to win.

Huffing in frustration, you throw your legs over the edge of the bed, full of restless energy. As you let your gaze dart around, you notice that Joe is gone. The room is empty, no sign of him ever having been there in sight.

It’s better off this way, you decide as you get on your feet and head for the kitchen. No time for distractions. You need a plan, fast. God knows for how long your brain is going to be able to take this, before it finally gives up and prays for a solitary. Stage one - coffee. There’s gotta be coffee in this place / universe / world, right? You’d need at least that to brave whatever’s going on outside of the confines of the trailer.

Stage two - recon, or information gathering. You are now pretty comfortable with all the strangers’ names; here’s to hoping that all of them look like their real counterparts. Whether you want it or not, you have to face them, if only to learn exactly what happened yesterday.

And, finally, stage three - concocting an exit strategy. If there is a way out, you’ll find it. If not, you’ll die trying (yay, you think, something new and different for you).

When you reach the kitchen, you freeze by the table, your eyes fixed on a coffee machine that looks a bit more modern than the one in your home.

Okay, maybe a lot more modern, like a goddamn robotic experiment - but that’s not what staggers you. There’s hot coffee in the glass recipient, and a bright red sticker is glued to its surface.

Thought you could use some after staying late last night. Your phone is charging in the bathroom in case you’re looking for it. - Joe.

And here you thought he has fallen asleep by the time you turned the night light on to continue to "read” (as in spy on your own fucking life, broken into dialogue sequences and words like “menacing industrial synth music playing” thrown in here and there).

You try not to think too much about it - and by it you mean Joe’s subtle way of taking care of you - like it’s a reflex, a given - as you move closer to pour yourself a cup of burning liquid.

A soul-shaking BANG! of the entrance door in front of you comes as an excellent exclamation point to end your mind’s misplaced wandering before it could even begin. The door hits the wall with such force, you jump out of your skin and all the way to the ceiling, screaming and grabbing a remote control from the kitchen isle, holding it in front of you like a knife.

There’s a tall girl with sandy hair and a fringe standing in the entrance, grimacing at the sound of your shriek, squeezing her eyes shut. You heart thumps painfully in your chest, and you cry out before you can think twice about it:

“Robin, what the hell?! You scared the shit out of me!” You throw the remote back where you found it, burying your face in your hands, trying to level out your breathing.

A giggle escapes girl’s rosy lips as she scrunches her nose apologetically, stepping all the way into your kitchen. Making herself at home, she slides a sugary-smelling cardboard box on the table and jumps in for a hug without a second thought.

The second her arms wrap around you, the anger escapes you. You’re completely silenced as shock takes over; this isn’t Robin - but the girl looks exactly like her.

You probably should have gotten used to it by now.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you”, she mumbles in your ear as she squeezes you harder. “It’s just- My hands were occupied so I kicked the door in”.

Softly pushing you at an arms length, Maya (you recall) searches your face for a moment.

“Still doing that method acting thing, I see?” she smiles at you, and the room suddenly seems bigger. “It’s you who scared the shit out of me, Lovebug. Don’t you dare- Don’t you do this ever again!” With these worlds, she pulls you into another hug, and you let her, despite your inner woman on a mission screaming in protest.

Just as Robin, Maya hugs with her entire body. There’s a comforting presence about her that puts you at ease, the kind you only feel around people you have known for your entire life - or with whom you fought to stay alive, side by side.

You can’t tell whether it’s because the girl just looks like Robin - or because there’s something else there. Tiny, slithery doubt worms its way intro your fragile mind, as much as you don’t want to let it. You don’t know her - but it sure feels like you do and have done so - for a very long time.

When she releases you, she takes a moment to study you - it’s a caring look of a friend who has been there for you for years.

“That”, she points to your forehead, her eyes glowing with reassurance. “Will heal fast”.

“I’ve seen worse”, you mutter under you nose, remembering how a demogorgon slashed your side open at Byer’s when Nancy and Jonathan decided it was a good idea to lure the goddamn thing in.

“I brought you donuts”, she chases the memory away as soon as it pops in your head, nudging the carton box open and letting the smell of sugar spread. “I don’t have any work scheduled until later today and you weren’t answering any of my messages on WhatsApp, so I decided to swing by”.

There is so much for you to question in that sentence, you decide to focus on what you think matters.

“And by work you mean…?”

“Shooting that mental hospital scene with Natalia. Since we can’t have you for the Upside Down forest part today”, she answers easily, pushing the box towards you. “I brought your favorites too. Dig in”.

With ease that suggests that she’s been here a thousand of times before, she moves forward, sidesteps you, produces two cups out of a hanging kitchen cabinet. She stops dead in her tracks as soon as she turns to grab the coffee.

She noticed the sticker, you realize, and are surprised at the blush creeping up your neck.

“Joe told me you were feeling better last night”, she smiles at you knowingly, pouring you both a cup of coffee after a beat. “Quinn looked relieved when he heard him say it. I think he’s going to pay you a visit today, too”, you don’t think you imagine the suggestiveness of her tone.

Internally, you throw your head back and groan.

Riiight. Joseph Quinn. Aka Eddie Munson.

It wasn’t that hard to put two and two together, especially when he was all everybody was in such a hurry to talk to you about. Is Love - you - dating Eddie - Joseph? Well, does a Demogorgon shit in Upside Down?

It’s either that or you’re some kind of best buddies. Or fuck buddies perhaps?

So many goddamn options, and you are mentally prepared for neither.

“I was going to go see him,” you lie unabashedly, grabbing what looks like a caramel-glazed donut from the box, looking at Maya like you’ve got nothing to hide.

“Oh, he’s free now”, she offers cheerfully, and you curse this world six ways to Sunday in your head. Here goes your plans to avoid this version of Eddie Munson until you’re out of here. “He must be chilling with Gaten at the water station. The filming of their next scene starts in like, an hour. He’ll be so happy to see that you’re okay. Yeah, why don’t you go change so we can pop by? I’d hate for you guys to-”

You can’t seem to put a word in the edgewise. Maya rambles on and on, extremely eager to get your ass out the door and into Joe Quinn’s arms…

Or is that what she wants you to believe?

You’ve seen enough at your job as a bartender at Hideaway to know when people are lying - or hiding something. Hell, you called bullshit on Nancy and Jonathan pretending they were just friends even before they knew they weren’t. And don’t even let you started on Dustin trying to pretend like Mews ran away (although, to be fair, it was Steve’s inability to hide a single thing from you that earned you the truth).

Fact of the matter is, your girl Maya here is hiding something. The jury is still out on what exactly.

You listen to her for one more minute; exactly the time it takes for you to finish the donut.

“Why are you pushing this?” is all you say, narrowing your eyes at her intently.

You know you’re right on the money when Maya stutters and goes silent. She actually has the decency to look guilty as she puts her cup to a side with a sigh.

When she looks back at you, you’re somewhat taken aback by the genuine concern seeping out of her big eyes.

“Okay, before you say anything, I know your sex life is none of my business-”

You feel the shock register on your face as your eyebrows swish up, reaching your hairline. Stunned into silence - again - you realize your brain cogs are not turning fast enough for this conversation. In the meantime, Maya goes on:

“-but you are my best friend, and-“

“What in the ever-loving world are you talking about?” you measure your words, fighting an inability to compute.

Her face grows ashamed.

“You and Joe K!” she squeaks, and your stomach drops.

Woah. Hold on. Rewind. Play it again.

Something must have changed in your expression, because Maya steps closer and throws herself into yet another never-ending ramble:

“Please, Love, hear me out”, she begs, standing in front of you with conviction. “I’ll say this once more and then I will shut up for eternity, okay? Joseph Quinn is hot,” she asserts, like it’s universal truth. “Just because I don’t ship you guys together doesn’t mean I’m blind, alright? And I guess he’s really smitten with you, and you kind of look cute together… Like, I don’t know?” She throws her hands into the air and you step back to avoid getting smacked, your eyes huge in your face. “Kind of like a baby holding a kitten? Super PG-13. And then there’s you and Keery”, she smiles like she can’t help it. “The looks you give each other! I feel turned on, and I’m not even a part of the interaction! Standing between you two is a suicide mission - without meaning to, you are crushing everything that keeps you from each other. That’s like soulmate-level shit right there, okay?” she bites her lip, exasperated. “I just thought maybe, since you wanted him to stay with you last night, you have finally-“

“Nothing happened between us!” you finally burst out, waving your hands as if trying to stop her words from reaching you - shielding yourself from them.

“Well, not yet!” Maya parries, without skipping a beat. “But it will. And when it does, do you really want see Quinn’s heart shatter into a million pieces, because of what everybody knew was going to happen all along?”

You wish you had more time to compartmentalize everything - starting with her words and ending with your own feelings on the topic - to pull a practical reaction out of the variety of all the available ones.

But you don’t - so naturally, the words that come out next are laced with emotion. You don’t even know anymore if you are playing along, or if it’s a genuine concern, falling off your pale lips.

“Who knows?” you ask, defeated.

“Knows that you have feelings for Keery? That you belong with him?” just like Robin, Maya doesn’t shy away from speaking her mind. “Gaten. Me. Joe, obviously”, she rolls her eyes. “Both Joes, actually, and the two of them are in deep denial. Sees?” she points out mercilessly. “Everybody else”.

Great. That’s- That’s great.

You’d think you drowned puppies in your previous life in Hawkins, that’s how bad of a bitch karma is being to you right now.

If someone were to tell you a couple of weeks ago you’d be stuck in a love triangle with Steve “The Hair” Harrington and Eddie “The Freak” Munson you would have laughed your ass off, rolling on the floor, and then advised them to get their heads checked - in that order. Now - you’re feeling strangely emotional about the problem that isn’t your own - technically speaking, they’re not in love with you. They’re in love with, well, Love. But why the hell are you feeling like this is somehow your fault? And, even worse - like you are torn between the two, when you know fucking neither?!

Your mind frantically inspects its thoughts for a reasonable explanation. It’s because it’s Joe - who walks, talks, jokes and cares like Steve does. And also, because, it is, effectively, your problem now.

“If it’s because of the age gap…” Maya speaks again - or, rather, huffs in disapproval.

“Age gap”, you parrot back to her stupidly, unblinking. Excuse me?

“Well, Keery’s what? Thirty?” she squirms as if trying to remember. “Ah, I Googled this just yesterday!”

You watch her produce that weird thin metallic device out of her pocket and tap something on a lit up surface; nothing registers - or so you think - except for the uncontrollable screaming in your head.

This world’s Steve is thirty fucking years old.

If there’s a time for you to wake up, now would be ideal - before you explode in a fit of hysterical laughter - and get locked up for life.

“Called it!” Maya confirms triumphantly, tucking what appears to be her phone away in her pocket. “And you’re 21 on Friday. So if it’s the age gap that you’re worried about, whatever Joe you pick it’s pretty much the same.”

You catch yourself thinking you’d rather not know how old this world’s Eddie is. Save some brain cells.

“Okay, I’ll talk to Ed- Joe. Quinn”, you try name after name, scrambling for the right one, just wishing for this conversation to end. “Tomorrow?” you suggest, and your voice sounds a lot like you’re begging. “What day is it today, again?”

Maya eyes you disapprovingly.

“It’s Wednesday,” she says somewhat drily. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation, Love. It’s your birthday in two days. Quinn has-“

“Dude”, you cut her mid-sentence. “I don’t think I understand anything”.

And isn’t that the God’s honest truth.

The tension in Maya’s shoulders drops at the sight of you. God, you must look like a train just hit you. Confused, pathetic and almost physically sick. No wonder her eyes soften and she reaches out to squeeze your shoulder.

“Gonna sound like a cliché,” she warns, “But what does your heart tell you?”

That I need a goddamn drink.

“That it’s over”, you admit, feeling like you’re ruining someone’s life. “Between Ed- Quinn and me. It has to be”.

There is no way in the world - whatever world you are in - you can pretend that you’re in love with Eddie Munson, that much is clear. If there’s a sure way to blow your cover - it’s to pretend you’re carrying a torch for him, when, clearly, you are hung up on somebody else.

The thought makes you pause, your mind going silent. You feel your heart flutter gently in your chest.

Somebody else. Ever since the shit has hit the fan, the inner voice has been stubbornly bringing you back to everything Steve every time it got the chance, and now it-

Doesn’t?

Your stomach flips, the sensation catching you off guard. The emptiness that settles in the pit of it at the realisation is almost enough to shut down your brain.

This is what fear feels like. You recognise the signs. For the first time in a very long time, you are scared.

With the alien feeling clutching your very being in its cold, clawing hands, you are still brave enough to admit that in the world where he only exists on paper and on camera - unlike Joe - you are fighting to hold on to Steve.

And while you spare no effort - you’re not sure for how long you’ll last.

My (stunning, beautiful, fantastic) tag list: @vulgarfuckinvirgo, @carpediem1219, @555stargirl555, @rqmanoff, @mvaldez7821, @sundarksposts, @the-winter-spider, @flicksturz, @theghostpeach

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #steve harrington x henderson!reader #steve harrington au #stranger things imagine #stranger things au #Steve Harrington x female reader

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