You will look at the cardboard snails and you will look at the cardboard snails

Cinnabon

Summary: (mall rats 7, final part!) Joel ruins a special moment, leading to another stupid argument, leading to him fucking the daylights out of you on his couch. Lovingly.

Tags: AU where yeast is not dead and we can all bake and be happy. Cordyceps is no longer in the flour/sugar either (work with me) Cinnabons, 69, dirty talk, unprotected Piv, creampie because it’s me, strang3lov3. soft dom joel because again, it’s me, strang3lov3. Strange highs and strange lows, that’s how my love goes. You get it.

A/N: As always, thank you @papipascalispunk for editing ❤️ you’ve helped me so much on this series and you have no clue how thankful I am for that. Definitely abusing your talents for the next shit I wanna write! And thank you to everyone who’s read and reblogged, commented, all of that good stuff. This was a blast to write!!!

This may not be the absolute end of these two, so you might get an update on them here and there, most likely in the form of yet another lovers quarrel. But I have so much stuff planned and I hope you continue to keep up with me ❤️ excited for the new year and to share what else i've been writing with all of you 🩷

It’s early in the morning in late December when you’re walking up to Joel’s porch, holding a basket full of ingredients and a dusty copy of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook. You knock on the door, no answer. With Joel’s poor hearing, sometimes it’s better to knock on his back door. He seems to hear it better, closer to his bedroom and all that. You make your way to his back door, where you find Ellie quietly opening the window next to the door, no doubt sneaking back from a friend’s house. You startle each other, “Ellie, hi,” you say. You wrinkle your nose, she smells like weed. You can’t help but smirk.

“Oh,” she says, “Hi. I’m not– I’m just–”

“I won’t tell Joel,” you smile. Ellie’s staring at your basket of goodies, where one of your lacy Victoria’s Secret thongs sits on top of a blue Cinnabon apron. “I’m just…baking. For Joel. Are you gonna be home today?”

It’s Ellie’s turn to smirk at you, as she opens the window the rest of the way and lifts herself inside the house. You hear her heavy footsteps before she unlocks and opens the door for you. “I can disappear,” she replies, “I require payment, though.” 

“I’ll leave you a plate outside your door.”

“Deal.” 

Ellie goes to her room probably to change clothes, and you go toward Joel’s kitchen. “I want two of whatever you’re making,” Ellie calls out before slamming the back door again, probably going back to her friend’s house. That girl certainly knows how to negotiate. You can’t help but love her for it.

Joel usually wakes up early, but he’s not on his recliner where you expect him to be. Must be in bed. You smile to yourself, picturing Joel coming downstairs in his pajamas, hair messy and sighing in pleasure at the sweet aroma of butter and cinnamon. 

You’re making Cinnabons this morning. Well, cinnamon rolls, as Betty Crocker puts it. When you and Joel were in the Barnes and Noble at the mall picking up books for Jackson’s library, you had stumbled across Betty Crocker’s Cookbook. Flipping through the pages, you found a recipe for cinnamon rolls and thought back to that first time in the mall with Joel, where he explained what a Cinnabon was, and then lied about his sweet tooth. 

There were loads of recipes, many interesting pictures too. You brought the book to Joel and pointed at a picture of some odd, translucent dome-shaped food item. He told you it was called Jell-O, and that no one misses it. You wanted to take the cookbook back with you, but there wasn’t room in the duffel bag. And you couldn’t bear to rip out a single page for one recipe. That would just be cruel.

At the end of the day, you went back to Tommy’s office with Joel. Joel usually walks you home, but he didn’t that day. Said he was running late for game night with Ellie, so he took off quickly. Tommy told you he’d walk you home, though.

As you and Tommy went through some of the books, he heard you sigh disappointedly, “What’s gotcha down, hon?”

“There was this book I wanted, but we didn’t have room.” 

“What book?”

“Cookbook,” you replied, “I wanted to make a recipe for Joel.” 

“Ah,” Tommy murmured, flipping through the pages of an old picture book, “Which recipe?”

“Cinnamon rolls.”

“Oh man,” Tommy groaned. He checked his watch, then looked at you with a light in his eyes. 

“I’ll take you back there right now to get that book.” 

“You’d do that?”, you asked.

“For you, of course. But I got my motives. Ya gotta hook me up with some of those rolls.”

There are few things that make you feel as loved and appreciated as when Tommy’s eating your food, showering you in the sweetest compliments and praises. No problem, you’d gladly share your baking with him. So Tommy took you back to the mall. You led him to the bookstore, picked up your book and went on your merry way. Tommy still hadn’t gotten to check the mall out for himself, though. So he wandered through the same areas you did, through the food court you and Joel picked through all that time ago. At the Cinnabon stand, he tossed you a blue apron with the word ‘Cinnabon’ embroidered at the chest. “Bet ya could make Joel turn bright red with this.”

You picked up what he was putting down immediately. And, thinking about it, you had a lacy thong that would match the apron perfectly. You remembered the blush on Joel’s cheeks as you tried on lingerie at Victoria’s Secret, how he mumbled something about lingerie being a waste of time before fucking you in the dressing room, still wearing your pretty pink chiffon babydoll. You wondered if faced with a big, gooey cinnamon roll sitting in front of him, and you in nothing but an apron and a thong, he’d still lie about that sweet tooth of his and his disdain for lingerie. Cause for an experiment. 

–

In Joel’s kitchen, you prepare the recipe. You prepped the dough last night, giving it plenty of time to rise. All you have to do this morning is prepare the cinnamon-sugar mixture and the icing. Oh, and put on that apron and thong. Not too hard. 

Once the rolls are assembled in the pan, you put them in Joel’s oven and change into your little outfit, feeling a little breeze on your bare ass. Good thing Ellie’s gone. As you’re waiting for the rolls to bake, you lean over Joel’s kitchen table and flip through the pages of your cookbook. The Jell-O still has you perplexed. 

Some time goes by. You’re reading about the Jell-O, how Betty Crocker said that it was great for parties and baby showers and other things like that. The slam of the glass door behind you startles you. You whip around, and there’s Joel with bright red cheeks, looking shocked and horrified. Through the glass door, you see Tommy in Joel’s yard. He waves at you, smiling. You wave back.

“Jesus Christ,” Joel grumbles, quickly pulling the blinds over the glass door to protect your modesty, “You gonna explain why you’re bare assed in my kitchen?”

“I thought you were sleeping,” you reply.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he grumbles, as the egg timer you set prior goes off with a ding. You open the oven and pull out the cinnamon rolls with a pair of potholders, giving Joel a perfect view of your entire ass. “Oh my god,” he groans. When you turn around, he’s pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head, always so dramatic. You reach for the Pyrex measuring bowl full of icing you prepared and begin drizzling it over the warm cinnamon rolls. “You drive me fuckin’ crazy. You’re somethin’ else, you know that? I never know what–”, Joel stops speaking, and you look back at him once more. He’s intrigued, eyes wide. The pastry has pulled his attention away from your nearly-bare body. “Those uh– those cinnamon rolls?”

“Cinnabons,” you correct him, pointing to the embroidered logo on your chest, “But yeah– cinnamon rolls.”

“Right,” he murmurs, stepping closer to you. He reaches into one of his drawers for a fork and pushes you out of the way. 

“Joel,” you complain as he steals a bite of the cinnamon rolls, right out of the pan. He blows on it first, careful not to burn his tongue. When he tastes the pastry, his eyes flutter shut. He moans softly. “You said once that you missed Cinnabons,” you explain, speaking softly. Joel reaches for another bite, right out of the pan.

“Mhm,” he mumbles, mouth full of dessert.

“What’s the verdict?”

“Cinnabon’s better,” he answers plainly. 

Your face drops. “What?”

“Yeah this–”, he takes another bite, “S’no good at all.”

He’s fucking with you. Probably gonna say something dumb like how you should give him the pan, let him dispose of those no good cinnamon rolls for you. “Dick,” you punch his arm for scaring you like that. He doesn’t mind. 

“You made these for me?”

“Yeah,” you say quietly, “For you.”

“For me,” he repeats, a soft smile on his face. You’re kind of baffled at his mood change, but you know what they say about men and food; the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, all that stuff. He steps closer to you, backing you against the countertop and turning off his oven, still wearing that smile, like he knows something you don’t.

“But I owe Tommy and Ellie one, too,” you continue, voice a little shaky. You’re nervous, why is he making you nervous? Joel sets his fork down and stares at you, lovingly, tenderly. “I made two batches before this, fucked both of those up. And then I ran out of sugar, actually. Tommy had to steal me some more.”

“I love you.”

His words hit you like a ton of bricks. He says it plainly, no frills. Just out with it. 

“You do?”

“Mhm,” he hums, “I do. Still would like an answer as to why you’re half-naked, though.”

Your face heats up. What were you saying? The cinnamon rolls, right. 

“I was– I don’t know. I had to knead the rolls by hand. The recipe said a stand mixer would be easier, but I didn’t…”, you trail off, feeling a little fuzzy, like you can’t think straight, your train of thought slipping away from you, “Didn’t have one. I love you too, actually.”

“I know,” he replies softly. He never doubted it for a second. Lord, he’s so handsome. His eyes sparkle more than usual, his fluffy curls untamed. The flannel he’s wearing suits him perfectly, and you can’t help but stare, stammering quietly. He reaches for your face with one hand, wrapping the other around your waist and pulling you close to his body, “I’m gonna kiss you now.”

Oh, fuck. You squirm out from his hold, away from the counter he held you against. Joel looks absolutely baffled as you smile sheepishly. “Can you grab me a plate for the Cinnabons?”, you ask, “I need to leave one by Ellie’s door.”

“I’d like to kiss you first, if you don’t mind,” he says, walking towards you. You keep walking backwards, around the kitchen table. Joel follows you as you look through his drawers for a spatula, opening and closing cabinets with shaky hands as you try to find a plate. Where are his fucking plates? Joel reaches for your hand to stop you. “Will you let me kiss you?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Joel’s missing something here. Has to be. You love Joel. Joel loves you. That’s been established, just like, two minutes ago. And you’ve been intimate with him many times before. The next logical step in this series of very out of order steps would be to kiss you. Unless…“Are you nervous?”, he asks.

“About what?”, you ask, “Kissing?”

“No, underwater basket weaving. Yes, kissing,” he sighs, “You seem nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” you lie, “I’d just like to be the one to do it first.”

“Oh,” Joel replies, still a little confused, “Yeah, naturally. Makes sense.” He takes you by the hand and leads you to his living room, sits you on the couch and takes his place next to you. “Lay it on me, then.” 

“I can’t just–”

“You can,” he interrupts, coaxing you gently, “Come closer.” You scoot closer, but it’s not enough for Joel. Still wearing nothing but a thong and an apron, he lifts you by your ass and places you on his lap. Joel wears an expectant look on his face as you adjust yourself on his lap, feeling so awkward and out of your element. You’ve kissed people before, this should be no big deal. You’re not sure why you’re so nervous with Joel, especially when you’ve done everything else with him. 

“Joel, I– I don’t know where to put my hands.”

“Right here,” he whispers, placing your hands on his shoulders, “Or here,” he moves your hands to his jaw, his patchy beard prickly under your fingertips. “Wherever you want.”

“I like your shoulders,” you whisper, dropping your hands back to his shoulders. One of your hands slides to the back of his neck, playing with his soft curls. 

“S’good,” he says. And oh, his eyes. Brown and so warm, inviting, so beautiful. 

“Close your eyes,” you demand, intimidated by his stare. “Sorry. Close your eyes,” you repeat, softer. 

“My bad,” Joel replies, his eyes now shut. You’ve never noticed how pretty his lashes are before now. They’re gorgeous, so long. “They’re closed now.”

“Okay,” you breathe. 

“You got it,” he encourages. 

God, this is daunting. You close your eyes, lean forward…and smooch him right on the cheek. There. Easy. 

“Doesn’t count,” Joel murmurs through a smile, eyes still closed. Fuck. You adjust yourself on his lap, lean forward and…nothing. Joel waits. And waits. And waits. 

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” you say, trying to will yourself to just do it.

“Okay, sweetheart. You got it,” he whispers. But you don’t kiss him yet, and Joel keeps waiting, feeling himself beginning to grow hard as you keep squirming on his lap, adjusting yourself some more. “Hon?”

“Yeah?”

“Any minute, now.”

“I know,” you say, “I’m gonna kiss you.” But you adjust again. A minute passes with you on Joel’s lap as he waits patiently for you to finally kiss him. Another minute. And then you lean forward and – nothing. 

“I’m gonna count down from three, and then you’ll kiss me. How about that?”

Yeah, sounds like a plan. 

“Okay,” you reply. 

“Three…two…”, Joel counts, and you prepare once more to kiss him, “One,” Nothing. Joel sighs, “You’re killin’ me here.”

“I was about to do it, Joel.”

“Uh huh.”

“I was,” you argue, “You just keep talking and–”

“Oh, you’re so full of shit. You’re the one doin’ most of the talkin’, like usual.”

“That’s not true,” you argue, but are interrupted when he opens his eyes. That’s not supposed to happen. He wears a mischievous grin as he sits up and his hands begin to slide up your sides. Your already pounding heart begins to beat even harder, faster, because Jesus Christ, he seems like he’s about to kiss you. “What are you doing?”

“Ya got three more seconds to kiss me. Three…”

“Joel, not funny,” you scold as he takes your face in his hands. 

“Two…”

You’re beginning to panic, “Joel–”

And then he fucking kisses you, the bastard! No tongue, just a sweet, gentle peck. It’s despicable. You shove him back on the couch and glare at him, “You kissed me!”

“How awful,” Joel says with mock sympathy before he leans forward and kisses you again. You shove him again, harder.

“You asshole. I was gonna do it.”

“No, you weren’t,” he replies plainly. He tries to kiss you again, but you keep your hands on his shoulders, pinning him to the couch cushion. Joel’s smirking, but you’re scowling.

“Yes, I was.”

“Okay,” Joel laughs, “We can redo it, then.”

You sigh, “No, Joel, we cannot redo it. You already ruined it.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“Shit. S’too bad,” Joel feigns a sympathetic pout as he wraps both hands around your wrists that pin his shoulders, removing them from his body. He pushes your hands behind your back, holding them tightly as he kisses you again. And again, this time a little longer. Your lips begin to slide against his, and…god, they’re soft. The bastard.

“You’re ruining–”

“For the love of god, you’re drivin’ me fuckin’ nuts,” Joel mumbles against your lips. 

“I was supposed to–”

“No. You had your turn. We’re doin’ it my way now,” Joel says, “That means,” he kisses you, “M’gonna kiss you,” another kiss, “And fuck you,” another kiss, “As I please, because I love you,” he whispers. He kisses you before he maneuvers you to lay across the couch cushions, now pinning your wrists above your head under just one of his hands “And you can’t do a thing about it. Got it?” 

“I–”

He doesn’t let you argue further. Always so stubborn, you. “Good girl. Yeah, you got it,” Joel kisses you again. It’s different this time. Deeper, hungrier, messier. So much tension, time spent dancing around feelings, and it’s all out there now. His tongue slides past your lips and he tastes like cinnamon and sugar. You’ve been depriving yourself of him for too long. “And after all this, I’m gonna eat some of them cinnabons you made. And I won’t share, either.”

With his free hand, Joel unzips his pants to free his cock. “You know what you do to me, trouble?” he asks, breathing heavily. “Got me hard as a fuckin’ rock with all that squirmin’ ya did instead of kissin’ me,” Joel lifts the bottom of your apron up, exposing yourself to him, already dripping wet as he pulls off your soaked thong. You could have expected the ensemble wouldn’t have lasted long. And how are you already wet? One second you’re arguing about a stupid kiss and the next, he’s got you pinned beneath him and you’re dripping. You gasp as Joel gathers your slick with his fingers before stroking his cock, dipping his head back down to kiss you. He kisses your lips sloppily, then your cheek and down your jaw, your neck, nipping at the skin and soothing the marks with his tongue. It feels hot and passionate, and loving and dirty; all the best things at once. 

“Oh, god,” you moan as he kisses further down your body, still stroking his cock. He pauses momentarily to pull the strap of the apron over your head, then lifting your ass to untie the apron in the back. He pulls the fabric away from you quickly, tossing it on the floor. He kisses your chest, dividing his attention equally between your breasts. Pinching, twisting one nipple, kissing and licking the other, then switching. He leaves them wet with his spit as he kisses down your body, stopping before he reaches your pussy. “Joel,” you whine, “Please– need your mouth on me.”

“Oh, convenient. Now you want my mouth,” he breathes, teasing you.

“Please, I need it, need you,” you beg. 

“Wouldn’t ya know it, I need your mouth too.”

“So? Me first.”

“God, you’re a brat. Nice try,” Joel pulls away from your body, taking off his clothes quickly, “Said we’re doin’ things my way. Tryin’ somethin’ new today. Scoot,” he motions for you to move to the side. “On all fours, now. Come on, up,” you scoot to the side where Joel tells you to, slightly confused as you take the position. Joel takes his place next to you, wrapping his arms around your thighs and pulling you down to his face. “Sit,” he tells you.

“Joel,” you begin to protest. Surely he doesn’t want you to actually sit on his face, right?

“You trust me.” It’s not a question. He knows you trust him, he knows you know he’ll take care of you. Of course he will. His voice is firm, confident, “I need you to sit,” as he pulls your center to his mouth, wasting no time in pressing kisses into your folds, slick and sticky with your growing arousal. Your breasts are pressed against his soft stomach, hands gripping his meaty thighs. Freeing an arm from its place at your hip, Joel wraps his hand around his cock, rock hard with a swollen blushed tip. He uses his other hand to reach for your head, pushing your face towards his member. “Take me in your mouth,” he says. “See? We’re compromising. S’what people in love do.” What an asshole.

Wrapping a hand around his thick cock, you guide his tip to your mouth, pressing wet kisses against the smooth skin. He tastes like he always does, familiar and masculine, salty and sweaty, as you trace over his swollen veins with your tongue. Joel groans against your cunt as he parts your lips, your tongue still painting delicate swirls on his skin. 

“Yeah, attagirl,” he praises in a raspy voice, “Best of both worlds, ain’t it?” Joel laps at your cunt, moaning softly at the way you taste, your arousal almost as sweet and delicious as your cinnamon rolls from earlier. He keeps you held firm against his face as he licks you, alternating between drawing firm lines with the tip of his tongue and fat stripes with his tongue flattened. 

“Mmmm,” you moan, voice muffled by his cock. You’ve got him as deep as you can take him, your nose nudging his balls slightly as you cup them gently in your hand. Joel surprises you when he dips his tongue into your pussy, tasting every bit of your pussy. You stop what you’re doing, the only thing your mind can focus on is the feeling of his tongue working magic inside you.

He swats your hip, “Know it feels good, but it goes both ways, sweetheart.”

“Please, Joel,” you beg. 

“You know the rules,” he says, “You stop, I stop. Keep goin’, you’re suckin’ my cock so good, sweetheart. So good. Always do, you know that?” You begin to bob your head on his cock once more, Joel rewarding you with wet, sloppy, open mouthed kisses against your pussy. It takes everything you have to focus on his pleasure when he attaches his lips to your clit, sucking gently on the sensitive spot and humming against you. It’s not long before that familiar feeling begins to build in your stomach, your first orgasm washing over you. 

You gasp for air, “Oh my god, Joel,” as he works you through your climax. Joel never lets up, not once. He keeps sucking, licking your clit, his facial hair tickling your skin and only adding to the overwhelming sensation. Once more, your peak begins to build. “I’m– fuck, I’m gonna come again.” 

“S’the fuckin’ point, my love,” Joel mumbles quietly, and you can feel his smirk. Despite the rules, you’re not even sucking his cock anymore, your face instead resting on his body, haphazardly stroking his length as pleasure erupts from your core. You’re a moaning mess, pussy dripping and soaking Joel’s face. 

Joel gives you a moment to catch your breath. Underneath you, he places one last kiss right on your clit before he gently slides himself out from your body. You’re hardly coherent as he meets you once more, this time his face inches above yours, caging you in his arms. His cock bounces between your legs and he leans down to kiss you again. His lips are wet and you can taste your arousal on his tongue. “Look at that, I stole another one,” he taunts. 

“You’re a dick,” you breathe against his mouth, your body betraying you as you can’t help the smile that forms on your lips.

“Yeah, yeah,” and in one swift motion, Joel lines himself up with your entrance and pushes into you. He kisses you again, swallowing your gasp as he parts your insides, letting you feel every inch of him. God, he feels good. You’ll never tire of that stretch, that delicious feeling of being completely full of him. 

“Oh, Joel,” you moan. He pulls out slowly, then slides back in at a harsher pace, grunting when he bottoms out inside of you. He takes both of your hands in his own, pinning them above your head as he rocks his hips. It’s tender yet dominant, just how everything is with Joel. Just how you like him. 

“Love this pussy,” he purrs, “An’ I love you so much,” as he fucks you deeply, intensely. You whimper through his thrusts, each stroke fluid and firm and intentional. He knows your body like his own. “Takin’ me so good, sweetheart. You always do.”

You writhe underneath him, relishing in the pleasure he gives you. His name and sweet whisperings of love are all you can speak, each word coming out in soft, broken cries. The wet, sticky noises of your pussy fill the room, along with your moans and Joel’s grunting, groaning, and heaving breaths. You tilt your head to the side, arms still pinned beneath Joel’s hands. You kiss his wrists and bite his skin there gently.

“Come with me, baby,” he coos, adjusting the angle and finding that sweet spot inside you, that spot he knows and loves. He lets go of your arms, one of his big, masculine hands now on your waist, the other thumbing your clit. “Give me one more, sweetheart.”

It’s all it takes. His words send you over the edge, your pussy squeezing him, walls fluttering and pulsing with every thrust of his cock. “Fuck, Joel,” you whimper as he fucks you through your orgasm. You wrap your legs around his body, the heels of your feet bouncing against his ass, simultaneously pulling him into a tight embrace with your now free arms. Everything about this moment with Joel is perfect, the way he smells, his hot skin, how close and safe you feel with him. It sends Joel over the edge, too. With your name on his lips, your cunt gushing and pulsing around his cock, he spills inside you, painting ribbons of himself deep inside you as he helps you ride out your own climax as long as he can. 

He pulls out of you with a soft groan. He cleans you quickly with his t-shirt, a warm smile on his lips. He kisses your forehead, then sits back against the couch, catching his breath. You sit up too, and Joel holds out his arm as an invitation for you to curl into his side. Your head resting on his shoulder, you stare at him. All of his beautiful features, warm brown eyes, his smile lines, his aquiline nose. And then, you do it. You kiss him. Long and deep, passionate. Hours could be passing, you don’t know. 

Joel breaks the kiss. He pulls away from you, no longer smiling warmly. Instead, he wears his teasing grin. “Finally,” he smirks. He holds up his hand for a high five. Fucker. You roll your eyes, lifting yourself off the couch and buttoning Joel’s flannel over yourself. You make your way to the kitchen, finding a plate and placing two cinnamon rolls on them. You reach for an old pencil that sits on the window sill, scribbling ‘Ellie’ on a piece of nearby scratch paper and leaving it next to the plate. A deal is a deal, after all. 

“Don’t leave me hangin’, now,” Joel calls out to you from the living room. You turn around and he’s waving his hand, nagging you about his abandoned high five. 

You flip him off. Asshole. 

Doctor's Orders

Synopsis: Sukuna catches a cold, and isn't able to make it to your guys' planned lunch. Luckily for him, though, you still take the food — as to-go.

A/N: i have a lot of works planned, but im kinda slow, thankfully i have a lot of free time now so i'll try to pump out as much sukuna content as i can

PS: i got sick the second day of writing this, why world? whyyyyy? also, i hated writing this. i am not proud of this whatsoever

Taglist: @starlets-things

You

Hey

R u dead or smth??

You're late

Delivered 25m ago

Those were the last text messages you sent Sukuna, before picking up two hummus wraps and drinks from Sunny's Diner. The two of you were originally supposed to meet up there and have lunch together, but the pink-haired teen wasn't answering his phone, at all.

Now, you stand before his front door. A to-go bag tucked under your arm, and another hand rapidly knocking on the door.

Mr. Itadori — Sukuna's grandpa — wasn't home, you assumed, so you were alone in this.

Sighing, you decided to do this the old fashioned way.

It took you less than five minutes to climb the tree outside of Sukuna's bedroom, and five seconds to crawl on a branch to his window.

Finally, you pressed your face up against his window, and saw Sukuna — still in bed — with the blankets covering all of his body.

You aggressively knocked on his window, and saw him moving under the blankets before sticking a head out. He immediately fell back onto his bed at the sight of you.

He looked awful; there were bags under his eyes; his hair looked like a bird's nest, not to mention, he was sweating all over.

"Open the window!" You shouted, loud enough for him to hear, but quiet enough to not disturb the peace in the neighborhood.

Despite being outside, you could practically imagine his groan at the sound of your voice.

Sukuna knew he had no choice, though, so he begrudgingly got out of bed, and walked — no, wobbled — over to his window. His arms felt like Jell-O as he opened his window, and you crawled into his bedroom.

As soon as your feet touched the floor, you felt a familiar weight fall upon you, before you crashed into the wall and onto the floor. You were in a pile of tangled limbs.

"Sukunaaaaa, oww!" You rubbed your forehead.

You tried to stand back up, but the boy's body would not give you the chance to.

"Get off of me, you slug."

"I'm good." He mumbled into your neck.

"You're too heavy," you pushed at the older's shoulders until he finally rolled off of you.

You sighed in relief. "Thank God."

You stood up, pulling Sukuna with you. Despite his size, you had to practically hold him, and yourself, up.

"You look like shit." You cupped his face to get a good look at his condition.

"Wanted to look like you."

"Well, you failed. I'm flawless."

You maneuvered the boy to his bed and let him flop down onto his stomach, before you rolled him over on his back to a more comfortable position.

You grabbed a blanket and placed it onto Sukuna, and you sat down on the side of his bed, your hand placed just inches away from his head.

"So, like, you gonna tell me what's wrong?" You raised a brow.

"What do you think, dumbass. I'm sick," he coughed, "duh." Sukuna quickly retorted, curling onto his side in order to put his head on your lap.

"How'd you get sick?"

Sukuna glared up at you.

You sigh, carding your fingers through his pink, unruly hair. He hummed, clearly content. And if you didn't know better, you would probably assume he was purring.

"Oh! I almost forgot," you rummaged through your bags; Sukuna grumbled at the lost feeling of your hands in his hair almost immediately. "I got food for us. Since someone decided not to show up."

You placed his hummus wrap — covered in foil — onto his bedside table, and set yours likewise.

"Have you eaten yet, 'Kuna?"

"I haven't had breakfast," he murmured.

"You could've just said a quick 'no'."

"Girls are so bossy."

"Hey—"

Sukuna cut you off with a whine. "Ughh, my throat hurts. And my head is throbbing."

You rubbed your chin with your thumb and index finger. You put the back of your hand against Sukuna's forehead. "You have a fever."

"Really? I couldn't tell."

"Take off your shirt," you demanded.

"In your dreams."

"More like my nightmares," you giggled, before helping Sukuna to remove his shirt.

You stood up to walk to his bathroom; Sukuna was quick to pull you back by the wrist. Even when he's sick, he's still got a strong grip.

"And where do you think you're going?"

You tugged your arm out of his grasp, "Don't."

You managed to enter the bathroom — without any more nagging from Sukuna — and grabbed a towel, soaking it in cold water.

Then, you walked back into his room, and placed it atop his forehead. Sukuna immediately went to remove it, before you swatted his hand away.

"Get this thing off of me. It's freezing," Sukuna scowled.

You had to restrain yourself from putting him in shackles, "This is literally helping you. So, shut up. You talk too much."

"This is literally," he coughed, "my house. Don't tell me what to do, girl."

"Doctor's orders."

"Nuh uh, you're far from a doctor. More like a witch instead," Sukuna snickered.

You rolled your eyes, already used to Sukuna's antics by now.

"Do you have medicine anywhere in the house?" You asked, caressing his cheek and rubbing it with your palm.

"Mmhm." He nuzzled his face impossibly closer into your hand.

You sighed, "C'mon. Work with me here, 'Kuna. Where's the medicine?"

A long break of silence, "'m not gonna tell you."

"Tell me, or else, or else I'll — ," you thought for a moment, "or else I'll tell your grandpa. And you know how he takes of people when they're sick."

Sukuna's eyes immediately shot open. He knew his grandpa's old fashioned ways.

"It's in the cabinet in the kitchen. The one above the fridge."

You struggled to reach, having to stand on your tiptoes, but at last, you brought a bottle filled with red liquid and a measuring cup to Sukuna's bedroom.

When you entered, he immediately started to move away from you. Alas, he only had so much room on his bed.

"I would rather die, than drink that shit." Sukuna pointed at the cup with his finger.

"Then die," you quipped back, shoving the cup — that you filled with medicine — into his hands.

Sukuna glared at you, but you remained unwavering in your demand. When he realized there was no point in trying to argue, he leaned his head back and drank.

"Weirdo," you sneer.

"What's the problem now?" Sukuna placed the now empty cup on his table and fell back onto his bed, covering his eyes with an arm.

"You drank the medicine like it was a shot."

"Doesn't matter."

Sukuna began to cough, and cough, and cough. He sat upright.

You rubbed his back.

Sukuna felt utterly selcouth. He never had someone help him through a sickness. Sure, Grandpa was always there, but he's different. Sukuna's had tutors, coaches, people whose jobs were to help. But it wasn't your job.

"Why?" Why do you help me? Sukuna asked.

You know why. But those words never left your mouth. Instead,

"Shh. Be quiet. Let me take care of you."

At the end of the day, you knew why you were helping Sukuna. And Sukuna knew how you were helping him.

You tucked him in, raised the blanket up to his shoulders, adjusted the towel on his forehead, and kissed his forehead.

"Don't overexert yourself," you walked to the door, "I know you will."

Sukuna wanted to call your name, have you stay by his side, run your soft fingers through his hair for just a little longer, but his throat itched, and he didn't even have the energy to cough or sneeze. So, alas, he shut his eyes, and dreamt instead.

how people can change

steve harrington x gn!byers!reader

word count: 4,427

warnings: swearing, like one use of y/n, mentions of season one steve's bullshit, mentions of death, enemies to friends to more type beat

a/n: my very first *full* steve fic. look at us. who woulda thought? not me. i've been working on this since february. don't look at me, i know. i know. but i think i've gotten some sort of hold on how i'd like to write steve. some of the dialogue (season 2) isn’t mine. (also the title is a lyric from strange by celeste!) let me know what you think, okay? i love you. steve loves you. don't tell me if it's bad.

————

November 1984

The door slams behind you with a deafening thud, and you take the extra five seconds to lock it. You know, that action no one else in your family seems to be capable of performing. 

The house is quiet, and you step over the map of Hawkins sprawling over the hardwoods, careful not to damage Will’s work.

Your keys clang against the table, knocking into your mother’s ashtray. It’s dead quiet again, and you freeze at a subtle interruption in the silence. There’s a muffled sound coming from somewhere else in your home, and frankly you’ve had enough of everything the last couple of days. Which is why Joyce sent you home to get some sleep, to clear your head. 

There’s no denying that you have a soft spot for Will. He’s always been your buddy. And you love Jonathan, you do, and he’s got this sick ability to know what you’re thinking or feeling before you do, but he doesn’t need your protection like Will does. 

Will is your best friend. And he’s got one hell of a support system with you, Jonathan and your mom behind him. He deserves the world. You’ve always thought that. 

You quickly infer that it’s a walkie making the sound, based on the staticky crackle, the slightly muffled voice of whoever’s trying to get through from the other side.

Yours is off—you know it is—so it has to be Will’s. Jonathan was too good for a walkie-talkie.

You step down the hallway, pushing your younger brother’s bedroom door the rest of the way open. You scan the small area for it, listening.

“Code red! This is a code red! I repeat, this is a good red! Shit, is anyone there?”

You snatch up the device, extending the antenna.

“Dustin? Is that you?”

“Jesus christ! Where have you been?” Dustin exclaims, and you swear you can hear someone else interfering with his words.

“Sorry! I wasn’t home. What’s wrong?” You sit on the edge of Will’s bed. It’s so much comfier than yours. 

“It’s Dart! He’s, he’s just…you know what? It’s a long story. Where are you right now?”

This time you definitely hear another voice, and maybe even music.

“Dart? You kept him, right? I fucking knew it, Henderson! You’re so not a good liar.”

“That’s for sure.” You can’t place the voice, not over the walkie and over Dustin’s rambling, but you do catch that and it’s enough to leave you curious. 

The boy starts to argue back, but you cut him off. “Dustin, who are you with?”

“Uh,” he coughs, “Well you see, um…Steve Harrington. I’m with Steve Harrington.”

Dustin gets a severe eye roll from said partner-in-crime, but he brushes it off. 

“What?” You’re so confused. How did that even happen?

“I know! But everyone’s been MIA!”

“Oh my god,” you say, and Dustin can practically see you face-palming.

“Look,” he shoves a handful of rogue curls back under the brim of his hat. “Can you just meet up with us? The old junkyard?”

You push off of Will’s bed, and start walking through the house again, retrieving your things. So much for a nap or eating anything other than hospital Jell-O. What are you gonna say? Fuck no? 

“Yeah, yeah, I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank god,” Dustin breathes. “See you then. Over.”

You make sure to check the batteries in Will’s walkie before you go, and then you’re back in your car again, backing out just as aggressively as your mother (something you said you’d never do). 

————

“Yeah, Farrah Fawcett. You tell anyone I just told you that, and your ass is grass you’re dead, Henderson. Do you understand?” 

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

Dustin goes quiet for a minute, watching each step he takes. The train tracks are old, and there are one too many loose nails for his liking. “So what’s Y/N got against you, man?”

Steve adjusts one of the gloves he’s wearing, trying not to think about the fact that he’s gonna smell like raw meat for who knows how long. “Uh, I don’t know, exactly. Never really talked to them before. But I’d assume it’s the–”

“The assholery?” Dustin interrupts. 

“Dude.”

“What? It’s true.”

“No, yeah, you’re right.” 

Dustin catches the slip in Steve’s attitude almost immediately. “Hey, they’re good, okay? I don’t think you’re a total dick, if that means anything. You’re trying and that’s what matters, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, we will. Thanks, Henderson.”

Dustin gives Steve a winning smile. This kid could rule the world, he thinks. 

“Anytime,” Harrington. He lifts his hand up, awaiting a fist bump that Steve returns without a second thought. 

————

You wander down the trail of raw meat you’ve found, not bothering to even question what's happening or where the meat came from. Frankly, you don’t really want to know. 

At the end of your path, you catch a glimpse of familiar curls, even if they are crushed under the red brim of a hat. 

“Dustin?”

The boy practically gives himself whiplash turning around to face you. 

“Holy shit, I’m so glad you’re here. It’ll be nice to have someone older than me who’s not a total pain in the ass.”

“Hey, I heard that.” 

The voice pulls your attention away from Dustin. When you look up, Steve Harrington is walking out of the biggest vehicle in this abandoned lot: a school bus. He’s wiping his hands on his jeans and pushing the ends of his sleeves up.

Dustin looks at you. “You guys have to be acquaintances at the least, right?”

You nod at him, feeling your face burn. If there’s a word for a less-than-acquaintance, you don’t know it. But that’s probably where your relationship with this boy lies. King Steve isn’t really someone you just miss. 

But yeah, you know him. You know he’s a dick. 

“Hi.” Steve pushes his sunglasses up into his hair and crosses his arms. 

“Hi.”

You only look at him for a moment before your eyes are back on Dustin. The younger boy notices the tension radiating from you, and honestly, he gets it. Steve Harrington wasn’t exactly the person he’d planned on spending his day with, but here he was. Desperate times call for desperate measures or whatever.

“So what are we doing?” You ask.

Dustin puts his thumbs underneath the straps of his backpack, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little. “It’s a long story. Best if we talk while we work.”

You roll your eyes at him, but follow the thirteen-year-old wherever he wants to go. You’re not sure you could deny Dustin Henderson anything. 

————

You watch as Max, a young girl you’ve just met, stomps up the steps of the ladder you’ve rigged inside the mess of a bus that you’re camped out in. 

Your chest aches because what Dustin just said to her was rude, it was rude, and you can’t believe the two of them. You sit, arms crossed and leg shaking up and down, glaring at Steve.

You find it hard to believe that after everything you’ve learned tonight, about Dart, about Mews—which you’re never going to get over because you only visit Dustin’s house for his cat, never him—that this is what they’re doing now.

“That’s good,” Steve says. “Just show her you don’t care.” 

Dustin is pacing, hands deep in his pockets. “I don’t,” he breathes.

Steve winks. Watching the two of them is like watching a tennis match. You don’t even like tennis.

“Why are you winking, Steve?” 

You drag your hand down your face, sick of hearing this stupid ass conversation. When Dustin sits, the constant clink of metal where Steve keeps flicking his lighter open over and over starts to give you a headache. 

“Fuck, Steve, would you quit it already?” 

He scoffs, snapping the lid to his Zippo closed harder than he had been before. “What’s your problem?”

“You’re pissing me off, that’s my problem.”

Steve’s brow furrows. He doesn’t really understand the sudden need for aggression. 

“Is this really the time for you to be yelling at me?”

“Is this really the time for you to be a dick?”

Dustin jerks the antenna on his walkie down, clearly sick of the two of you. “Would you children stop bickering? This is a life or death situation we have going on here.”

“I’d prefer death,” you proclaim. 

Dustin glares at you. “I can arrange that if you’d really rather die, than act civil for one evening.”

“I think all of the civility,” you gesture vaguely with your hands, “went out the window when you asked me to come help fight demo-dogs.”

Steve snorts at your words, and you glare at him, an “oh, is that funny?” look on your face. 

Dustin rearranges the hat on his head, stuffing his curls underneath it once again. “Alright. I’m gonna go check on our status, you two…work shit out, okay?”

“Dude,” Steve starts, “I’m older than you. I don’t have to listen to your instructions.” He gestures vaguely with his hands.

Dustin flips him off, and that’s the only response Steve receives, leaving the two of you alone in the bus.

You remain quiet, hoping that if you do you might just disappear or dissolve into the cracked leather of the seat you're sitting on. Then there really wouldn’t be any form of confrontation.

Steve starts flipping the lid to his Zippo open and shut repeatedly again, but this time it doesn’t annoy you. In fact, it gives you something to focus on, and you know that if you had one you’d be doing the same exact thing. 

You wonder if he’s nervous. Or just bored. 

Your knee begins to bounce when you realize that he’s looking at you, that he’s stopped messing with the lighter. But you refuse to look back, staring instead at the way the moonlight glints off of the metal in between his fingers. 

“So what’s your problem with me?”

The way Steve says those words is so unlike the way he’s spoken the rest of the day, the way he’s behaved with Dustin, that you feel a pang in your chest. 

He sounds like he used to. 

“Did you even hear that? How conceded you just sounded? Like it’s funny that I might have a problem with you, king Steve?”

Obviously the use of his nickname hits a nerve. He shoves the lighter back into his pocket and sits up, tucking his hands under his knees. 

“Would you just cut the shit and tell me what your problem is then?”

You sit up, matching his stance. There’s a part of you that wants to piss him off. You ache for it. 

“You’re a dick, that’s my problem.”

Steve scoffs. 

“That’s it? Like I don’t already know that?”

You roll your eyes, oblivious to the fact that all three of the younger kids you’re with have their heads hung over the escape latch in the top of the bus, listening eagerly. 

“You think I’m just gonna put up with you, Harrington? I’m sorry, did you forget the slut shaming you and your shitty friends did publicly last fall? Because I sure as hell didn’t. I didn’t forget that you walk around like you fucking own the entirety of Hawkins because you’re swimming in daddy’s money. I didn’t forget that your girlfriend took my best friend away from me.”

You stop, and Steve just looks at you. You realize how heavy you’re breathing and subconsciously watch the steady movement of his chest, trying to match the pace and calm down. You hadn’t meant to get worked up like that. But sometimes…sometimes shit just happens. 

Steve sighs. Honestly he feels a little sick. And he could argue with you some more, say that you don’t know what you’re talking about, that that’s the past, that he’s getting better. But that feels shallow. It feels meaningless. Because he knows it’s true. That in worrying about only himself or getting the girl or impressing whoever, he hurt loads more people than he realized. 

It’s such bullshit, he thinks. This life he’s been living.

“You know, I’ve gotten plenty of earfuls about my actions from Dustin, I promise you that much. He can be very mean.” 

You snort, considering there’s absolutely no denying that. “He’s a smart kid.” 

Steve nods. He’s trying to think of a way to respond. He’s not good with words. 

“Look, I-I know I’m a dick, okay?” he starts. You decide to be brave and look at him. He seems to like that. The eye contact. It’s like it lets him know you’re paying attention. He doesn’t get a lot of that, not away from school. 

“The thing with Nancy,” he gestures with his hands, looking away from you and at the wall of the bus, like it hurts him to talk about or something. “I don’t know. My solution to not getting what I wanted was apparently to take it out on her. Tommy H. proposed the idea, and I didn’t stop it.”

“You know I cleaned it off, right?” he continues. 

You uncross your arms and sit up, criss crossing your legs instead. “No. I didn’t know that.”

“It’s okay. It’s not like I broadcasted the information across Hawkins. Tommy and Carol don’t even know.”

Oh. The fact that they didn’t know tells you that he did it without needed recognition. He did it because he wanted to.

“I just—she saw it. And then there was the whole thing…”

You start to grin before you catch yourself, but he sees it. 

“It’s okay, you can laugh. I got the shit beat out of me.”

“You deserved it.”

He can’t argue with that. He won’t argue with it. “You’re right. I did. I said and did a lot that day that I regret.”

You nod, and then you’re both just looking at one another. It’s quiet out here, the same quiet you get at home, where you can hear the crickets, where you know there will be lightning bugs in the warmer months, free to roam uninterrupted by human activity. 

Steve pushes his hair from his forehead, and though he sees you track the movement of his hand, he doesn’t point it out.

“What did you mean about your friend?”

If you’re being honest with yourself, you hadn’t intended for that to come out, but being in such close proximity to Steve in this moment had just made everything spill out. 

You try to wave him off. “That was a whole thing. I didn’t mean to spill my guts like that.”

“No, it’s okay, I want to know. If you want to tell me, that is.”

You nod, chewing at your thumb nail now. Steve has the urge to reach forward and pull it free so you won’t hurt yourself, but he doesn’t. Instead he stays still and quiet, watching you contemplate a while. 

Eventually he decides to keep going. 

“I’m trying, you know,” he tells you. You look up and it gives him that little push to continue speaking. “To be better. I know you think I’m a total dick, and you’re not wrong, I know that, but I really am trying to be better. To be a good influence on those little shits.” He quirks his head upwards where he knows all three of his charges are eavesdropping, without a doubt. 

You take a second and look at him. Really look at him. He seems to carry himself differently, though it’s not something you’d notice if you weren’t looking. He’s not dressed like his mommy picked out his outfit. He looks messy. The mess draws you in. 

“I believe you. And I-I know I shouldn’t stereotype you, but it’s just—”

“I am a walking stereotype,” Steve grins. So do you.

“Yeah. I guess so. But I believe that you’re working on it. I suppose some people don’t remain assholes forever.”

“Yeah,” he chuckles, though a little distracted. You still haven’t told you what you meant, but that’s not what’s really bugging him. 

There’s this pull inside him. This longing for a friend. A real friend. Not someone he knows just because their dads were up each other's asses, or someone he just sits with at lunch because they’re of the same status quo. 

And he just feels so alone right now. What with Nancy, this girl he thought he was in love with and everything, but clearly she doesn’t feel the same. What’s he even supposed to do with that? Did he ever actually know anything about her? 

It doesn’t matter. 

What matters is that he’s sitting here with you, hanging out with thirteen-year-olds and hiding from creatures Steve’s brain can’t even begin to decipher. 

“Barb,” you say. Steve panicked a little internally at the mention of her name, considering. But he keeps his eyes on you, focused on each word that leaves your mouth. “She was my best friend, in middle school that is.”

He nods. Oh. Oh. 

“We were still close when we got to high school, had a little group and everything, right? And even though high school kinda fucks everything up, I didn’t want to believe that would happen to our little partnership, you know?” 

He nods again, trying his best to pay attention. He’s trying harder than he ever has in school. He probably shouldn’t ever say that out loud.

“Anyways, she was my best friend. She was all I knew, and then we got to lovely Hawkins High, and she met Nancy. Nancy and I never really clicked, even when we tried. I guess it’s because I’ve always thought she was a pretentious bitch—sorry, Steve—but I don’t know. We just fell apart after that.”

“So Barb had Nancy and I had…no one. And the way my brain saw it was Nancy took my best friend from me, and then Nancy started seeing you, and so I saw those two from across the cafeteria, lounging with the popular kids. With you. And then she died.”

Steve is looking at you in a way he’s never looked at you before. Like he’s in awe of you. And it’s not anything negative. It’s warm. Understanding. Like something you’ve said has straightened something out in his brain, sorted something he couldn’t figure out on his own. 

“S-so it was like we took her from you, in a way?” he asks. 

“Yeah. And you didn’t. God, you didn’t. But it just felt like this…” you trail off, searching for the right words.

“Domino effect?”

“Yeah! Yeah. Exactly. And it’s not your fault, not at all. But I guess I already saw you as some dickish rich kid and that gave me another reason to stay the fuck away from you. And now that I’m saying it out loud I realize how awful it sounds because people change, you know?”

“No, I get it. I’ve been an asshole, and I’m sure I still am—Dustin can attest to that—but there are rich assholes that don’t change or probably won’t ever change. I know a few of them.”

You go quiet again. Steve doesn’t want you to stop talking. He’s starting to think he likes the sound of your voice. 

“It’s good that you’re changing, Steve. I’m sorry I said you were such a dick.”

A breathy laugh leaves his throat. “It’s okay, I promise. I’m sorry for…everything.”

“Maybe we can make a truce or something. Start over. It’s not like we really know each other that well anyhow.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool. Whatever you want.” He means that. He thinks he’d do whatever you wanted him to. 

“Okay. Maybe we can just try and figure it out.”

“I’d like that,” Steve says. He stops himself from proclaiming that he wants to try and fix this with you. Because you’re listening to him. You’re not mad. He doesn’t want you to disappear on him after this. 

You give him a small smile and he swears he might cry. Not that that feeling lasts. 

“Hey!” Dustin is leaning down into the bus, hands clasped together. “I’m so glad we’ve got this handled, but we’ve got a code red, so let’s get this show on the road, yeah?”

————

June 1985

The door to the back room swings open, a frazzled boy rushing in. You drop your candy wrapper on the table, and Robin keeps talking about the girl that you missed coming in this morning. She was “such a babe.”  

“Hello?” Steve stands in front of the both of you, hands on his hips. You have to fight back a laugh. 

Your eyes find Steve’s immediately, and you swear they soften, but maybe you’re imagining it. You nudge Robin’s leg where your foot is propped up on one of the supports under her chair. 

She stops flailing and looks up, seeing Steve’s hand raised where he’d been about to snap to get her attention. She quirks a brow. “Don’t you snap at me, Harrington! This is important shit.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Could you two come and help me? I’m dying out here!”

It’s one of the hottest days of the year, and Scoops has had a line since it opened at ten. 

You look at your watch. “My shift doesn’t start for…fifteen minutes.” He rolls his eyes at you, though the gesture is void of any malice it could possibly hold. 

“Yeah, well this is supposed to be my break, so get out there, Buckley!”

She stands, though she’s pouting. “Come on.”

“You took the job,” he says, shoving her through the door. Robin gives him a look that you can’t see, but you can practically feel it from across the small room. 

Steve lets out an exaggerated sigh, ripping off the hat he’s been wearing and throwing it on the table in front of you. 

You watch him rummage through a bag before he emerges from its depths with a banana and throws himself down in the chair across from you, lifting your leg up from where you’d moved it to occupy the seat Robin had abandoned. His hand is warm on the bare skin of your calf, and he shifts the chair some, laying your leg across both of his. 

“Steve.”

“Huh?” He peels the banana, aggressively fast actually, and rips off a chunk, popping it into his mouth. 

“Why do you have a banana?” 

He meets your eyes. “Snack, duh.” He chews, and then gestures at the closed window. “Been working up a sweat out there I think I deserve a break.”

You grin at him, and he feels like he might hit the floor. 

“Want some?” Steve pulls off a chunk and holds it out to you. 

“Did you wash your hands?”

He gasps, mid-chew, and forces himself to swallow. “D-did I—yes, I washed my hands, mom, I’m not four.”

“Eh,” Robin’s voice breaks your little bubble. She’s pulled the window open–that way she can eavesdrop– propping herself up on her elbows. 

That makes you laugh, and when you smile your cheek is full of banana and Steve swears something is breaking inside of him. 

“Gang up on me then why don’t you,” he says, handing you the last piece he’s got left. He tosses the peel in the trash, “what do you want anyhow, Robin?” 

“Your break is up, and her shift has started. Let’s get to slinging ice cream, shitheads!”

You wipe your hands on your shorts and hop up. Steve doesn’t move, just looks at you. 

“C’mon, Steven. It’ll be lunch sooner than later.”

He grins. His eyes look tired and you wonder if he slept any last night. He told you once recently that he doesn’t always sleep well, that sometimes he has to listen to tapes in order to keep his head from being so busy, to keep the thoughts from being so loud. 

Steve has told you a lot since last fall. There’s a significant bit more that you know that’s more than what he’s given Robin, but you know he’ll let her in. He just needs the time. 

Though sometimes you think he might be giving you everything. The parts of himself he’s never shown anyone else. Because you’ve been such a good listener, and Steve’s never really had that before. 

He wishes he had the balls to tell you more. But he can’t fuck it up this time. Not with you. You’re too good.

Steve is your best friend now. You know that. He knows it.

If yourself from a year ago could see you now, she’d probably knock your fucking teeth in. But he’s just so much more than you thought. You’re not sure you’ll ever forgive yourself for not thinking there could be more in him, though he’s told you not to be upset. You’ve told him the same when he berates himself for not having paid you more attention in school.

It’s the past. You can’t live there. And today, you’re scooping ice cream for pre-sticky kids, for shitty pay, but it doesn’t matter because you have him. You have Robin. 

You stick out your hand, and Steve takes it without a second thought. His palm engulfs yours, skin warm and a little calloused. 

“We can watch whatever you want tonight.”

He squeezes your hand. You and Robin are supposed to have a sleepover with him tonight. He suggested he sleep in a guest room and you two have his bed, but Robin said she needs to be cuddled. You said you’re not letting him sleep anywhere but his bed. 

“I thought you wanted to watch Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

“I always wanna watch that. But you can pick first, Stevie.”

Stevie. His stomach flips at that. You don’t let it out often, but when you do it’s like Steve might just die right there. 

He straightens, deal clearly made, and you pull him up–not that you need to. 

You push through the door with him, and immediately regret it. It’s like the soccer moms can smell your fear, and you know it. 

“Breathe,” Steve says. “Dustin’s here.”

He is. The entire party. That you can deal with. 

You think you could deal with an absurd line and angry mothers for the rest of your life if it meant assembling Dustin and Lucas’ weird orders. Even if you have to endure Will’s questioning looks and his pleas that you bring some ice cream home. If you have to listen to Robin’s word vomit.

If it meant spending time with Steve, you’d do it. 

God, how shit changes.

————

please let me know if you liked this! feedback is always appreciated!! comments and reblogs mean more than you know. <33

Jell-o

Thank you @squirrel-fund for this week's @galladrabbles prompt!

Previously on No Sleep 'Til Nashville, Mickey finally let Ian in. Now, he's taking over ...

---

Hey. Is this thing on?

Gallagher’s been doing an okay job telling this story, but now it’s my turn. And none of that past-tense, passive bullshit. I’ll tell you everything the moment it happens, okay?

You’re gonna witness every mile, every pit stop, every tacky decision my ex makes for this wedding. His abysmal choice in groom. Some godawful silver balloon arch. Those lime-flavored vodka Jell-o squares he loves so much.

Damn, I can’t wait to see the scowl on Keith’s face when Ian and I start playing tonsil hockey on the dance floor.

We’re gonna fuck some shit up.

AITA for yelling at someone, making them cry, and indirectly making them loose their friends

This happened several years ago but it plays on my mind sometimes. Everyone in this story is 15/16 at the time, in our last year at secondary school, UK. (🏎️ for finding this)

Myself, my girlfriend at the time [F], my best friend [B], F's friend [D], and a few of our other mutual friends were hanging out at lunch break. There aren't enough chairs at the table so F and I leave to go get extra. I come back and nothing seems amis.

Adding in some context now. No one in this story is cishet. We were all painfully awkward queer teens who haven't figured ourselves out yet. So we were all bottom of the social ladder, very much 'losers'. Me and F were, to my knowledge, the only 'same sex' couple in school. So by this point I'm used to people constantly making remarks about our relationship, but that's usually from ppl I didn't know or care about.

D is the only person, at this point, at school who's openly trans and genderqueer. They got a lot of hate for it. A lot of people harassed them and they didn't have many friends. I think for transparency's sake I have to say, I didn't really like D, we just didn't jell, but I made an effort to be kind and include them bc it's hard being queer in secondary school and I'm not gonna add more hate to that when me not getting on with them was my issue not theirs. And as a fellow victim of bullying I wasn't gonna exclude them from our friend group

Back to the story. As soon as we're back in classes, B tells me that D leant over to them while me and F were gone and said that it's "so sad seeing A and [OP] together" because "I took F's first kiss" and "poor [OP]". I trusted B's word on this as at that point we'd been best friends for several years, they weren't a shit stirrer, and had no reason to lie. In fact, they were confused D even said that to them since they were barely friends and knew B was best friends with me and would tell me they said that.

Hearing this really annoyed me. While I knew F and D had dated in the past, that didn't and shouldn't have effected mine and F's relationship in any way. And they'd been broken up well before I knew either of them. It's none of D's business who F kisses, and it's a shitty idea that because they'd dated before their later relationship first didn't mean as much. It felt very much like a dick thing to think never mind say about me and F. Also, B was my best friend, who did D get off to shit talking me to my best friend?

Anyway. Usually at the end of the day, several of us walked home together, and this group included D. I get to the spot we usually wait first and when I see D I confront them. I ask them why they'd say that and if they've got a problem with me. They don't deny saying it or really explain themself at all, they just look guilty. At first I kept calm. I knew D was F's friend and I didn't want to put a wedge in their friendship because of any issue I had with D. But, I keep asking why they did that, and if they've got something against me. If they're gonna shit talk me yanno. Then D starts crying.

I know it probably shouldn't have but this made me really mad. So I start yelling at them, saying something along the lines of 'so you're going to be an asshole to me and then you're gonna start crying?' and 'you started this, why are you crying?'. They start saying something along the lines of 'I didn't mean it like that' so I ask how did you mean it? And that they knew it wasn't something fine to say, because they said it behind my back and not to my face.

By this point, other people are watching, some of which were our mutual friends. I keep demanding they explain themself or at least apologize to me, but instead they run off crying. I don't follow them. If they're going to remove themself from the situation then fine.

People start asking what the hell that was about and I explain briefly to the people I knew and told the people I didn't to mind their own business. Someone I don't know tells me Ds gone to the head of year and I tell them I don't care, let them, I didn't do anything wrong. (This later amounts to nothing as no teacher ever comes to speak to me about this, so I doubt D did go to the head of year at all)

Eventually the people who were curious about what happened leave. All of the group who walk home together show up, including F. I explain to F what happened and they're upset that D said that about me, but wasn't happy to hear that D left crying.

For the rest of the school year, D ends up avoiding me. Literally staying out of my way, moving if I even glanced over at them. I thought they were overreacting. I never threatened them, and they were the one who chose to be an asshole first. I felt they were making this much more than it needed to be by avoiding it all together. We barely had an argument before they left, but anyone would have thought I'd attacked them or something. But because I obviously was always around F, D didn't have anyone to hang out with anymore. F was their only real friend and their other sort of friends were in our friend group.

No one told them they couldn't hang out with us anymore. (I'm pretty sure because they started avoiding me, I never ended up speaking to them again.) I know they still spoke to F still, but it seemed like their friendship was heavily damaged by it all.

D later ended up dropping out and finishing the school year through home schooling. I believe this was in large part due to the harassment they got for being genderqueer openly. (I remember on several occasions standing up for D and telling people to stop being transphobic assholes behind Ds back after this argument happened. Just because we didn't get along doesn't mean was gonna let that shit slide.)

I feel like I could be the asshole because due to this whole situation, D stopped hanging around their friends and through that lost a lot of the support they had. And obviously, I did make them cry.

On the other hand, no one stopped them from hanging out with their friends. They chose to avoid me and the situation. A situation they started by being a dick to me with zero provoking. They never apologized or recanted what they said. It's hard to feel bad that they lost their friends because they were being a shitty friend

Luckily, from what I know from friends of friends, D is doing better now and is around ppl who support them

This got a lot longer than I wanted but I believe I got all the details in there.

So, wita?

What are these acronyms?

I have an idea similar to this prompt. (Ok, not really, but the prompt reminded me of the idea that's been rattling around my noggin.)

When Slade arrives in Venezuela with his damaged ex-Robin in tow, he orders Jay into the shower since the kid smells like dogshit. (He considered hosing the boy down but decided that was too much work when the kid’s arms and legs still functioned. Mostly.) Jay's still traumatized by the last time he set foot in a shower, and just crouches on the floor, unmoving, except for the trembling that shakes his entire frame. While the hot water floods over him, he grits his chattering teeth and squeezes his eyes shut, trying desperately to think of anything except the feeling of the Clown's hands all over his naked flesh again, those pasty-white fingers crawling over his skin like so many roaches skittering over a pile of trash. An hour later, long after the water turned cold, Jay limps out, covered only by a towel wrapped around his waist. He’s visibly uncomfortable—shoulders hunched, head sagging, eyes downcast behind a curtain of stringy black hair plastered to his skull, scrawny arms crossed over his gaunt chest in a futile attempt to hide his ruined body from view. The kid’s shaking like a leaf; dripping wet, yeah, but still crusted with what looks like dried blood, dirt, and probably his own shit. Goddamn it. Slade's annoyed. That pasty-faced asshole neglected to tell him that he'd have to play nursemaid or he'd have demanded double. Fast as a striking snake, he grabs the kid by the skinny arm, drags him back into the bathroom, rips off the towel, then shoves him back under the shower and turns on the hot water. The pathetic kid lets out a whimper as he stumbles to the wet floor, then he's cowering in the corner of the shower, bony knees pulled up to his chest, fleshless arms curled over his head. Hard to believe this mewling heap of skin and bones is the same loud-mouthed little prick he'd brawled with, who'd given him a bloody nose on one occasion. The Clown really did a number on this brat. Not only is he afraid of his own shadow now, there's hardly an inch of skin not marked by cuts or burns or punctures or abrasions. Slade even spotted some words carved into that skeletal torso. How long had this kid been a guest of that psycho? He idly wonders as he picks up the bar of soap and lathers the tattered oil cloth before tossing it on top of the boy. The boy jolts at that like he'd been kicked in the ribs. Slade folds his arms over his chest and stares down at the sniveling hunk of human Jell-O. "Get yourself clean, or I'm taking you out back and using the hose. Don't think you'd much fancy that." Slade waits for another "yes sir" as the boy slowly uncurls, although he'd already warned the kid to knock that shit off—he wasn't into whatever fucked up roleplay those two had going on. But a trembling hand only reaches for the cloth then starts to scrub his filthy body. Well, at least the kid's obedient.

Not Very Ideal, Is It?: A Hermit's Hollow ficlet

@majickth hi majick! Here's the thing, I hope you enjoy!! Took me two days to really get it going, but I think it turned out alright in the end!

-------------------

There was a bright light in the room when Grian's eyes opened. That was Grian's first mistake, opening his eyes. The room was too bright, and his head was pounding. When trying to pick himself up, it felt like his entire body was made of lead, and his head felt like it was moving through jell-o. It didn't help that he heard someone vaguely talking near him. He couldn't hear precisely what what being said, it all sounded like vague muttering.

"Wh.. huh.." He groaned and squinted, trying to look in the direction he heard the mumbling.

"Oh! Thank goodness, you're awake!" The voice chirped. "I was beginning to think they'd given you too much. I tried to tell them that I'm the only one who really needs that high a dosage, but no, they didn't seem to want to listen."

The figure talking was in mostly black, very pale, with a red tie. He looked disheveled, almost.

"Wh... what?" Grian rubbed his eyes to try and see him better, make out any other defining features. A moustache, that was about all he could really make out.

"Oh, right. Silly me." The man laughed softly. "You're still coming off of the stuff.. Here-" Grian saw him carefully reach out to set him upright, without jostling him too horribly. "That might help your head get a little clearer."

"Thanks.." Grian muttered and blinked, vision still a bit blurry, but clearer now. To the point where he recognized the man in front of him. "Are you..."

"Mumbo Brewster? Yes, I am." He grinned. "Pleased to meet you, stranger. I assume you've seen my face over town?"

"You certainly make a habit out of appearing in pictures." Grian snorted under his breath.

"Oh, no, that's not me." The stranger, Mumbo, shook his head. "Can't be. I've been here the whole time."

"What..?"

"Yeah, no." Mumbo shrugged. "That's not me in the pictures. Well, not physically me anyways."

"So... what, is it some kind of projection? Illusion?" Grian rolled his eyes.

"Yes, actually."

"What."

Mumbo laughed. Grian didn't think this was very funny at all. But oh well. Maybe Mumbo just had a fucked up sense of humor. Hell, he would too if he'd been locked up for months. He was going a bit stir crazy thinking about it, honestly.

"I should.. probably explain, shouldn't i?" Mumbo snorted once his laughter had quieted. Grian rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, that might be helpful, mate."

Mumbo cleared his throat. "Right, yes.. well, I'm sure you've at least heard of the Watchers cult, and the spirit, I call him pervigil oculus."

"You're losing me." Grian muttered. His head was starting to hurt again.

Mumbo let out a sheepish laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. "I should do the in detail explanation when you're not coming off the drugs."

"Ya think?"

Mumbo did his best to explain, in as little words as possible. Easy to comprehend words, especially when Grian's head was still effectively mush. He thought he got the concept.

"So.. those were the purple eyes I've been seeing around, in pictures and shit.. and surrounding the blurry figure of you-"

"That's not actually me. It's an illusion they created to make people think they actually got me."

Grian eyed him up and down, unamused. "You look pretty got to me, friend. But what do I know, I'm no expert."

Mumbo made some kind of noise that sounded vaguely like a soaking wet cat, protesting. "I- well- not,, they don't have me like they want me-" he squeaked as he heard Grian snort and mutter "That's what she said", shaking his head and letting out a huff. "That's not what I meant. For Watchers, they're not very observant. Typically, those that are plain mortals are easier to possess, and therefore, make their puppets."

"Right... and you're not-"

"Definitely not." Mumbo smiled at him, all teeth, or fangs, should say. Fucking great. "But since you are, or at least I assume, that's why they had their eyes on you, as opposed to anyone else in the Hollow."

"So that's what this is.." Grian muttered as he rubbed over the scar on his arm. An almost perfect rectangle. "Right... and.. what happens if they do possess me?"

"Then it's goodbye to,,, What'd you say your name was?"

"Grian?"

"Right, Grian. Say goodbye to the Grian everyone knows. You'll be a husk of your former self."

"That..." The journalist shuddered. "That's not creepy at all."

"Good thing they won't get you then! Not as long as you stay in the Hollow!"

"Mumbo.. I'm not in the Hollow. I'm in this mess with you."

"Oh. Oh right. Oh dear, that's not ideal, is it?"

It wasn't ideal. None of this was. It hurt Grian's head even more to think about.

Focus on one thing at a time, Gri. One thing at a time.

Step one, getting out of this mess.

If only he could figure out just how to do that.

Personal pet peeve is when I see animators I follow post storyboard shots of a scene and the final product got rid of everything that made the board pop

harry styles series recs

✩ all credit to the authors ✩

series

moonchildstyles

aster (tattoo artist harry)

full story masterlist

harry is a tattoo artist and y/n just wants to know if he's like this all the time or if he just doesn't like her

citrine (witch harry)

full story masterlist

harry's a witch and its been a long time since he's been around anyone new, but there's no way he's getting y/n out of his head

chiaroscuro (vampire harry)

full story masterlist

y/n needed a job but this place is strange and the owner is even stranger

prosecco (older harry)

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harry is just on the edge of 30, and y/n is someone he's sure he shouldn't get involved with. until she seeks him

out, anyway, and he realizes no one has ever really shown her how she should be treated.

gravity (camboy harry)

full story masterlist

y/n hated physics but harry loved it, but both of them have a couple of secrets

jawllines

harry just wants whats best for y/n

1 2 3

Harry can’t decide what’s worse; Y/N fucking someone in her house which Harry was normally the only one invited to, or Y/N fucking someone in their bed and smelling like them for that vague second that wasn’t Pink Petal Tea Cake.

harry thinks y/n is just adorable

1 2 3 4 5

“You’re so sweet; like a berry, Poppet.” 

harry's a real shit vampire and y/n has clue (maybe)

1 2 3

Blowing off his little comment, Y/N slides up besides him, “Do you need any help?” She asks, “And before you go on that spiel about how you’ve handled your own laundry for a whole 3 some odd years, I wan’t to be able to pay you in some way if you won’t take my money.”

Harry thinks on it for a while, nibbling down at his lip, before he slides one of his floral shirts over to her (it’s burgundy, loose, and floaty), “These are hung, but the cotton shirts are just folded.”

“You know,” Y/N works on picking up a hanger in the mass of clothes on his bed, “For 20 something, you’ve sure accumulated a lot of clothing in the last few years. More than Cher,  I’d reckon.”

Chuckling, Harry decides not to ask if 120 years still counted as a few. 

harry is smitten with a human, and y/n hates cranberry juice (a lot)

1 2 3

It probably went on for only a few seconds, but to Y/N it felt like hours until he drew away, and she whines again, having not realized that her nails were digging into his forearm. She lets go, turning in his lap to face him and she sees him licking at his lips. Her head is foggy, and her body feels like Jell-O, and she giggles at the thought of having Jell-O legs before leaning her head against his shoulder.

“You need to drink cranberry juice.”

His voice sounds far away.

Y/N passes out.

y/n is taking care of harry's boss and she's absolutely smitten

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

“S’not that,” he flickers his ash on the ground, blowing out another puff of smoke to the side, and Y/N only notices then from the way that his elbow is placed on the table, his bicep is unintentionally flexing, and she’s staring at the way the fabric strains against his muscle, “You’re just cute, is all.”

Y/N felt her entire body flush hot, eyes widening at how forward he’d been, heart kicking up to ramp against her chest as she darts her gaze from his, mouth hovering open and she doesn’t know what to say. Does she say thank you? Does she compliment him back? Y/N had been out of the flirting field for so long she has no idea what to fucking do in return. 

So instead she swallows thickly, turning to face him again, “You shouldn’t smoke,” she tells him seriously and his brows raised in that way they do when she’s amused him, “You’ve been listening to people hack and cough all day, you’d think you’d been scared out of it by now.” 

He seems to consider this for a moment, his eyes searching her face – for what, she doesn’t know, but searching nonetheless – before he purses his lips, bends down, and buds the cigarette out on the ground, keeping the end nestled in his fingers. Y/N was pleasantly surprised…nobody had ever so willingly put out a cigarette before in front of her, “You look surprised.” Harry comments.

“Yeah,” she answers truthfully, “Um, I just – I really wasn’t expecting you to listen.” 

harry is a grumpy mechanic and y/n can't stop talking

1 2 3 4

he furrow in Harry’s brows deepened, “So your ride wanted to get his cock wet and now you have no way home?”

“It was – really, it was my idea, actually! He was trying to say no to her, but I cut in and told him to go ahead and do it but I lied about having a way home. Don’t think he would have let me take the Uber, you know?” she sighs, scratching at her cheek lightly, “Niall is nice, so he – he deserved to have a good night.”

Harry stared at her for a minute, silently, and Y/N was still making herself twist back and forth on the chair waiting for him until he finally spoke again, “Your self-preservation skills are shit.”

“Oh,” her eyes widened, “Do you think so? I thought that they were at least a little okay.”

gurugirl

tales from a modern incubus

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Harry is almost as old as time and he's got a lot to say. But right now he's hunting for the perfect female to carry his heir (as he must do every century). When Harry meets you, a pastor's daughter, he finds himself strangely obsessed with you in every way but you’re a good girl and Harry is definitely not your usual type. Will the handsome demon corrupt sweet (y/n)?

don't stand so close

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In which Anna has a crush on her best friend's author-dad, Harry Styles, and one day he realizes he feels the same. Nothing good can come of a secret relationship, but nothing good can come from telling everyone the truth either.

lukesaprince

the roommate series

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After Y/N’s best friend and roommate Alex decides to move out, she’s desperate for someone to take her place. Alex seems to have found the solution in a British fresh-to-New-York musician who ticks all the boxes. He just happens to be insanely attractive and charismatic... what could go wrong?

jarofstyles

level up

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Harry has a massive crush on Y/N, the nicest and most popular girl in school or nerdy!harry

dirty business

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harry lands his dream job at his dream company and the bosses wants him (businessman!harry)

lone wolf

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Warmth was something you shouldn’t live without, but he did for quite some time. Power at fingertips would never replace what was missing but when you were a leader, sometimes it’s all you have to go off of. The croons of howls echoing off the trees become home.

Until you get hit with it. Everything you’ve been waiting for, plopped into your lap and you everything falls into place. Or so it should. Love, lust, everything in between. A soul mate granted by mother moon and the fates watching behind a screen.

sk8er boi

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Harry decides to help Y/N with her needs when her boyfriend isn’t cutting it or badboy!harry

teenage dirtbag

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he's just a teenage dirtbag and she hates to loves it or frat!harry

💜🗝licorice cookie confesses kinda....🗝💜

-_-_--_-_-__-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-__--__-_-_-_--_-__-licorice cookie sits at his desk surrounded by crumbled up attempts at a love letter AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH SHIT SHIT SHHHIIIT I CANT GIVE THIS TO THEM ITS NOT GOOD ENOUGH I..I GIVE UP IM OUT. 💜 batcat : ugh.... if you can't write the letter just tell them in person..... . Wh...what no NO THATS A HORABLE IDEA WHAT IF THE GET MAD O..OR I SAY SOMTHING WEIRD AND THE GET GROSSED OUT OR- 💜 batcat : THEN ILL DO IT FOR YOU batcat swoops up snatches the love letter and Flys out the door. ..........wh.WAIT HEY NO BAAT CAAAAAAAT WHERE ARE YOU GOOOOING. licorice cookie runs out the door chasing after batcat but quickly loses him must not be easy having scoliosis..... bat cat catches y/n in the halls and quickly rushes over with the letter handing it to y/n and running off Y/N : OH! batcat...thank..you? Y/n opens up the letter and scims through it before rereading it as if the thought the read it wrong the do this atleast 8 times before there brain registers no the indeed read it correctly and that this is licorices hand writing licorices pink jell pen and licorices love letter to you. -_-__-_-_--__--_-_-_-__-_-__-_-_-_-_-___-_--licorice cookie sharply turns the corner eager to catch up with you before you read the letter but to his utter failure there you where stairing at him with the most unreadable expression he just stands in place wondering if you despised his existence now. Licorice: u..uh y/n did you read the let. Y/n : yes I read the letter.... licorice: I YOU where not supposed to...uuhh...eerm.....are you mad... .Y/n: licccoooriiice .Y/n steps closer to licorice cookie and grabs him by the robe. Licorice: WH...WHAT A- -_-_-__-_--__-__-_--_-_-__- Y/N pulls licorice into a long kiss wrapping there arms around the stunned boy before inserting there tounge into his mouth exploring and tasteing ever part part of him before pulling out to breath Y/n: Hu huf.. you taste good<3 y/n unwraps themselves from licorice before skipping off back to whatever the where doing before leaving the stund confused boy a blushing mess..............-_-_-_^-^-^--^-^-_--__-^--__--_LATER. Dear diary AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THE KISSED ME THE KISSED ME THE KISSED MEEEE MEEEEEEEEE I DIDNT THINK THE WOULD KISS ME BUT THE DID THE KISSSED ME HHEHHEHEHEHEEHEEEEHEHEHHEHHE -_-__-_-_-_-__-_-_-__-_-_-__-_-_-_-_-_-_--__--_-_-_-_-_-<-<<-<<<--<-<<-<-<<-<-<-<-<<--<<-<-<_--<<-<-><--<-<-<--<-<-<<-<->-<-<--<->-<-<-< writers note : idk licorice is cute we have this big spooky alien balloon and it glows its just sitting in the living room its funny lookin looks like a giant green but plug lol*_<>-*<>

Cheesecake but make it DEPRESSING AS FUCK AND MAKE YOU CRY ABOUT TIM AGAIN (AKA have my personal headcanon about WHY Tim likes cheesecake that has nothing to do with canon at all)

The whole "Tim likes cheesecake" thing started off as a fatphobic cheap shot at Tim Sutton (possibly, although I'm fairly certain he debunked that claim) and then became a meme and now the MH community is trying to distance themselves from it But... What if we didn't? What if we fixed it instead? And yes, we CAN fix it. Lets take a look at my headcanon, shall we?

First of all, eating an entire cheesecake in one sitting is such... a Tim Wright thing to do. No, no, no. Stick with me. Look at Tim. Do you fucking think that man has eaten an actual meal in the past 72 hours? Please, he's probably had like six cups of coffee, an apple he grabbed on the way out the door, a bag of peanuts he found in Jay's car, and half of Jay's hamburger and the rest of his fries which Jay forced him to eat out of guilt because "Tim, c'mon. Have you eaten at all today?"

Not to mention, he's running off of exactly 3.5 hours of sleep at any given time, and all the 5 hour energies and cups of horrible gas station coffee in the world ain't keeping him conscious. And you know that man hasn't consumed more than 500 calories PERIOD over the past 3 days.

I'd have to channel my inner MatPat and reverse engineer Tim's height and age to figure out his weight and thus his needed caloric intake per day (which I did, assuming he's in his early 20s and knowing his height is 5'7, the average weight would be around 155 pounds. Knowing that he's both a heavy smoker and an alcoholic, both factors that are known to contribute to body weight, not to mention his stockier build I would put him closer to 180 pounds, giving us a basal metabolic rate of 1,760 calories. Considering the fact that he probably has to run away from various threats such as the Operator and Alex, and also probably has to run after Jay to stop him from doing stupid shit, I'd say he gets exercise 4-5 times a week, bringing his total daily calories needed up to 2,580), but it's safe to say that however many calories he needs? He ain't fucking getting them. Not to mention, he probably hasn't slept either. He's running on less than empty. So he eats an entire cheesecake in one sitting while relaxing on the hood of Jay's car. He needs food in his stomach to keep him going, and he needs the temporary sugar boost to keep him awake for at least another hour and a half. Why cheesecake? Here comes headcanon #2: Tim associates cheesecake with freedom. Tim spent most of his life in a mental hospital. Meaning he spent most of his life eating hospital food. As someone who briefly lived in a hospital (not a mental one, but still a hospital) I can tell you first hand that the food there (at least in the US) is SHITTY. Like, only slightly better than cafeteria food. Imagine eating cafeteria food for three meals a day, every day. The most sweets you get are probably a cookie or maybe Jell-O. Maybe pumpkin pie during the holidays or a cupcake on your birthday. That's it. You sure as HELL aren't getting cheesecake, unless someone buys it for you- and lets be honest. Who's out here buying little Tim cheesecake in the mental hospital? No one. So Tim sees commercials for cheesecake on TV. Probably Philadelphia Cream Cheese or Cheesecake Factory commercials. Doesn't matter. The point is, it's not the food- it's the freedom. The family. The being somewhere other than a fucking hospital. THAT is what Tim really wants. It's all he ever wanted. So when he finally gets the hell out of the hospital and gets a job and a place to live, maybe he's going to try cheesecake, right? That boy's *never* had it in his life. And so it suddenly becomes his comfort food. He always associated it with freedom, and now that he is free, the association becomes even stronger. And he eats an entire cheesecake. Why? Because he can. He may be constantly on the run, he may be afraid for his life, but he's still free. He's not trapped in the mental hospital, alone with no one who cares about him. He's free. He's an adult. He can do whatever he wants. He can eat an entire cheesecake if he feels like it- and no one's going to stop him. Not the Operator, not ToTheArk, not Alex- NO ONE. It is an act of defiance- an act of freedom in the midst of captivity. *MatPat voice* BUT HEY, THAT'S JUST A THEORY- A "FEEL DEPRESSED ABOUT TIM WRIGHT'S HORRIBLE LIFE" THEORY

“If no one’s passing to Jamie we can always drop him to midfield.” 

Okay, so I’m don’t think Nate’s motives for suggesting this back in 2x03 were entirely motivated by an understanding how to best utilize Jamie, but he was the first to suggest that our number 9 might play in another position. That, in combination with how they both spotted Colin being open in the lastest game against City… I am very interested in seeing how Nate’s to Richmond will jell with the team’s Total Football approach and Jamie’s new position in it.

Roy does say that Nate’s great at the things Roy is shit at, and back in 3x07 Jamie had to be the one to tell the coaches how to best use him in their new game plan. You have to think that if Nate had been there, Jamie probably wouldn’t have had to that, yeah?

Think there might be something here. Something intriguing. 

Something Awful

When you had won that radio contest, you had no idea the time you were in for.

The reward was straight forward: corner side seats for an Impact show, and a back stage tour after the show with one of the wrestler. Just your luck, you got Jake Something.

He was lively for having just done a fifteen minute match.

"And here are the lockers and benches. Don't mind the smell, that's just Jonah here." He slapped the ass of Jonah, who had been bending down in his equipment bag at the time.

"the hell man?" He said back.

"Your right. My bad. Go on bro, get revenge" Jake turned and thrust out his ass for Jonah to slap, but the big man just shook his head at Jake and left.

"Aw, don't leave me hanging. Come on. You finish it" Jake said.

He turned and aimed his ass at you. He was the only one who had yet to change out of his ring gear. He was glistening with cold sweat, and his shorts were so tight he must have been poured into them. He was still standing there waiting. You reached out and gave his cheek a light tap. It was like slapping a sponge. It was wet, and jell-o like.

"Weak," he said. "Keep the sweat. It's a souvenir"

The tour continued.

It ended with him showing you the tiny, talent bathroom. "We get the finest of facilities. Tiny sink, cracked mirror, and the piece du resistance, the toilet yours truly here took a monster shit in two minutes before his match" he looked at you, gauging your response. Not to his liking he kept going a step more. "We're talking a pipe clogging, king kong gorilla finger, mirror steaming dump."

That one did it. He saw you cringe a little. He smiled wide. He liked it.

"Where did they put you up. The contest I mean?" He asked.

You had been given a cheap motel room a few miles from the show.

"What? Shit. Fuck that place. Come back to my room. It's three blocks away and in a ..." He trailed off, absentmindedly pulling his shorts from his crack. "Well this hotel is also a shit hole, but it's a nicer shit hole than where they shoved you. Come on"

You thought about it

"come aaaawn" Jake said. "I got a boring night ahead of me. We can change that. You want me to beg?" He looked at the ground. The floor was wet. The sink, you noted, was dry. Eagerly, Jake dropped to the ground, his hands and knees splashing in. "Come on, be my roomie for the night" he brought his soaked hands up, begging you.

What could you say? You agreed.

"Fuck yeah!" He said. He sniffed his hands as he stood up. He put a heavy hand on your shoulder, gleefully wiping it on your shirt. "Good news bad news: good news is we're gonna have a great night. Bad news: I don't think that water on the floor"

You could tell his hotel room was going to be a mess as soon as the door opened. It was a suite with a kitchenette. Cans lay open and dripping on the counter: refried beans, spam, Manwich mix, black beans, red beans, and kidney beans. Three cans of jalapeno and cheese flavored slime rounded it out.

"Help yourself to some leftovers if you want, I gotta piss real quick" he said before turning into the bathroom.

You moved to the stove. There was a pot of brown and vaguely yellow sludge on the stove. It was ice cold and congealed, with large chunk of spam floating around in it.

"Trust me, it taste just as good as it looks" Jake says from the bathroom. He had left the door wide open. Just seconds later you hear a thunking splash as he lets out an exaggerated moan. "Augh, that's the stuff." He says. There was no way that was real. It sounded like someone has turned a hose on and was filling a pickle bucket from forty feet in the air. "Wait, wait, wait, wait" Jake spurted out. Suddenly the bathroom rang out with a short, deep, growler of a fart. "There it is. Can't have a rainstorm without a little thunder, right?"

He came out. No sounds of washing, no flush. He went straight for the slop on the stove.

"Not hungry? Eh, more for me then" He grabbed a tub of sour cream that had been sitting on the counter for who knows how long. He dumped it in. He mixed it in and the slop took on a softer brown color. Without hesitation he grabbed a spoon and began to shovel it in his mouth, not caring how badly it was smearing around his face. "This is my go to road meal. Just dump it all in a pot and you can eat for three days"

Suddenly how he smelled made sense. He still hadn't changed. His sweat had dried into a crusty salty layer.

"I like to watch some anime when I get back. Lets see what's on" He said. He punched you in the shoulder and lead you over to the small couch. It was a three seater, but the far side was taken up by a small punching bag. Jake told you he travels with it wherever he goes, so he can get some workouts in whenever he wants. He sat you down in the middle seat. There you were, a punching bag on one side, and a reeking Jake Something on the other. He put his arm around the back of the couch like he was your date at the movies. Only he looked like he did it just to expose his sloppy, hairy pits. He had to be doing this on purpose. How could he not know what this smelled like. His pit was right at your head level too. If you leaned to the side your head was likely to get stuck under his arm.

he turned on the tv. Old School, original Dragonball had been cued up. Specifically the section where Krillin fought against Bacterian. On the screen, a big, fat, hairy fighter who delighted in using his stench to win his matches. To your left, a big, hairy, wrestler, who was giving off a smell that could wilt fake flowers. It was like looking into an animated mirror.

"Fuck yeah, I love this part" He hit play and you watched him gleefully fidget as the larger fighter punished the smaller, he was particularly fond of when this big man sat on the smaller and farted. "Slick fucking move, right?" He rewound the scene and played it again.

"I've always wanted to do that, but I can't find anyone willing to take the bait." He took two beers from behind the couch. He cracked one open, took a sip, then handed it to you before opening the other for himself.

You weren't too sure what he was talking about.

"I'll play it out for you. So it's near the end of the match. I slam my opponent down, face up, on the mat. I go to drop on them but plot twist: they catch my ass and hold me off. I call out to the crowd. Maybe a fan or a plant. I hold out my finger and ask them to pull it. Then I make this face." He grunted, then made an over exaggerated sigh. "You know, so the crowd knows I just cut a beefer. The guy underneath me faulters, then boom. My ass drops on his face".

He drained his beer and crushed the can in his hand. He looked a bit sad. "No one's ever agreed to do it. Probably because I would" he let out a wet and sonorous belch. "I wouldn't fake the farting."

You choked on your beer.

"See you get it. Farting is awesome. Funny I mean. You know. It's funny. I fart all the time in the ring. Refs call me 'Jake Something—must have died in his ass because God damn that reeks'" he said.

The big greasy boy looked sad again. "I guess not letting me play out being bacterian is the price I have to pay for all those locker room farts, and ring farts, and hotel elevator farts..." He trailed off.

He looked to vulnerable. You reached out and put your hand on his shoulder. It was sticky. The sweat had cooled into a slime like coating. You assured him he'd find someone.

"Would you do it?" He said, looking down at you.

You were no pro wrestler. You doubted you could even pretend well enough to fool the crowd at a local show, let alone a packed impact event.

"No we can do it here. In the room. Right now. No need to worry about getting in the ring in front of anyone."

How could you say no to him. He was so genuinely begging you with those big, stinky, puppy dog eyes. No one had to know about it, and who would even believe you if you told them anyway.

"Fuck yeah let's do it" Jake said. He got up and began moving the junk to the edge of the room. He pulled the bed from the wall for easy access. He propped his phone up on the nightstand and stood before you.

"Don't worry, I'll try not to break you" he said

Before you could say anything it was on. Jake wrapped his arm around your head, specifically forcing your nose into his juicy pit. "Oh and Jake opens with a Pits of Hell, aw man I'd hate to be the guy trapped in there" Jake roared, playing the part of the color commentator. He whispered for you to pretend like it reeked.

You didn't have to pretend. His pits were like wet, aged blue cheese. Pungent and salty.

Your slammed down as Jake pins you to the bed. He grabs you by the hair and holds your face to his. He contorted, then let out a deep, slow belch onto your face. Your stomach turned. It was sour from the beer, but at the same time beefy from his homemade slop.

"How is he still standing after a blow like that. Jake's not gonna like this, he's gonna unleash his most potent weapon!" Jake slammed you to the bed again. This time on your back. You had just enough fight left in you to reach up and hold off Jake's ass from falling on your face. Your hands clutched his wet, sweaty cheeks. You could feel the heat radiating from them as your hands sunk in. For such an athletic guy his ass sure was supple. "What's this?" Jake said, continuing his color commentary. "He's holding his finger out to the fans. He's asking someone to pull it. My god, no, that poor man under him. Jake don't do it!" But he did. He pulled at his own finger.

Bellow you saw his shorts quiver as he cheeks flexed and belched forth the toxic miasma from with in. It sounded like a wet balloon blowing a raspberry in your face, but smelled like the inside of the only working portable toilet at a construction site on a ninety seven degree summer day. It would be over soon. Your arms buckled and Jake's screaming asshole fell towards you.

It stopped short.

Your arms had locked at the shoulders and were propping the foul haunches up just a few quarter inches from your face. Your nose delicately tickled the fabric that stretched across the valley of his ass— a valley now being forced apart by your own hands.

He was caught off guard. You were supposed to go weak and be smothered between his bulging man mounds. He growled happily. "Oh so that wasn't enough? Well if your asking for it, Jake's got a little something for you"

His filthy hand reached towards your face. His salty, and tangy two middle fingers found your lips and shoved there way to the back of your mouth. You felt like gagging, but that may have just been the smell. With his other hand he reached under your head and softly began rubbing your face across his crack. He gave a soft moan. "Yeah I bet you hate this. I don't care if you dont, it works better for me if you hate it"

You didn't love it, that's for sure.

Jake was quiver. His words were strained. Strained like a man who was holding back his lusty ardor for the sake of making it last longer. "You know I just to a... Oh God" he ground his as deeper into your face as he choked on his words. "I took a big. No huge — monstrous. King Kong sized shit right before we sat down. I didn't wipe. I didn't think your face would be. Fuck. Your face is right where my nasty hole is"

He choked on his own lust. "Wait wait. Here it comes. On my count start sniffing. If you don't, I swear by Rikishi and saint Big Show I will shove your head up my ass." You could hear him foaming at the mouth. He started to count down. With each number he called out he quivered a little more. When he reached zero he pressed your face deeper into his ass. "Now now now!" He shouted. He twitched one final time before his guts spasmed. His asshole opened up and let out a wet growl. It was a beastly fart. You could feel it rattling his insides as it slowly belched it's caustic brew over your face. It was so thick you could feel it washing over you. Fearing what he might do, you sniffed deeply. Oh how you wished you hadn't. It smelled like a dairy barn at the peek of summer. It was the type of foul that you could never get used to. It burned your nose and soured your stomach. You're eyes watered and rolled back into your head. For a moment you thought that this was it, death by fart.

But you lived.

Jake let go of your head and let you drop onto the bed. He fell backwards, spent, he lay looking up at the ceiling.

"Someone call the Ghostbusters because I think I slimed myself on that one"

You tried to breath, but the air was no less fresh in the room. You may never get the smell of Jake's ass out of your nose. This was your world now. "Your good." Jake said. "I'm gonna talk to some people and get you some season tickets. No, life time backstage passes. This is better than any massage i've had after a match. Total relaxation. I'm gonna introduce you to Big Show, Rikishi, Kevin Owens, Mark Henry Aw there gonna love you. "

This really was your world now. You couldn't escape. You were just going to be past between wrestlers one after another, sat on, gassed, and worse. All because you had to enter that radio contest. "There gonna fucking looooove you"

25k Celebration - Short Story

NEON Short Fluff Fic: “Eavesdropping”

Hey guys, to celebrate my fic NEON – A Separated Sibling AU reaching 25k hits, I wrote a short fluff story that puts you in the shoes of the rat-man himself and shows you how he has been feeling about the newest addition to the fam. You don’t need much pre-knowledge to enjoy this story. Basically, this plays after the events of ‘Shadows of Evil’ (or chapter 20 of my fic) and sees a Leo who grew up with Draxum losing his odachi, learning about the Hamato clan and slowly adapting to his new life in the lair. (Thank you to my twin @leonrose55 for suggesting this prompt! This wouldn’t exist without you!) A million thanks to everyone who has been supporting this fic, you guys are the best, and I hope you enjoy this respite! ;)

For every parent comes the day when they must admit to themselves after they believed to know everything about their children that this simply wasn’t true anymore. Ever since my three sons started to act and think and say things, I couldn’t anticipate I had to accept that they were on their road to becoming their own independent…well…turtle mutants. I found it curious that for the newcomer to our lair, it was quite the opposite. From the beginning, I had no idea what to make of Leonardo, and each action he took only unsettled me more. I was never completely at ease when he was around, anticipating him to be a mere extension of one of Baron Draxum’s plots when all he in fact did was eat and nap and sometimes crack some worryingly violent jokes. Routine can change many things. As we started our training so he could learn how to wield two katanas, Hamato style, I had plenty of time to not only study his movements but also his subtle reactions. What face did he make when he had been close to winning? How would he react when he was exhausted and continued the workout anyway? I didn’t unlearn his patterns like with my sons, I learned them from its fundaments, and I got the sense I was far off from knowing even the basics. And all of this I noticed because, on this particular day, his focus had been off, and I was quite taken aback by myself because I could immediately tell. I swiped him off his feet, swords clanking to the ground. “Shit, not again,” Leo grumbled, getting up and grabbing for his weapons. The way he complained non-stop yet never actually stopped with his training reminded me so much of myself. (Admittedly, I hadn’t been the best of students.) “Your stance is off,” I pointed at his left foot, “and are you aware that you’re holding one sword with its backside up?” The turtle blinked and stared down at his hands. “Oh,” he mumbled and quickly corrected himself. I sighed. Some days simply be like this. “How about we do something different for today’s training?” I suggested and Leo’s eyes widened behind his black bandana. “No, it’s fine, we can keep going,” he insisted. Sheesh, I thought Purple could be ambitious about his projects at times. This one was on a whole other level. It was like failing wasn’t supposed to be part of his dictionary. “I’m not saying we will stop training. We are only changing up the pace…Have you seen my amazing Lou Jitsu adventures where I use dual sword fighting? Jell-O Jell-O Rush 1, 2, and 3?” I puffed up my chest. Leo blinked at me with an unchanged expression. “Uuuuh, no?” Stroking my whiskers I made my way to the tv room. “I know you have your reservation about how efficient it is to learn from the source materials, but I assure you these are worth your time! I also think Raph never finished his pack of wasabi peanuts yesterday and it’s lying around here somewhere.” I anticipated him to complain, at least try a counteroffer, or make a snarky comment about my acting career. All of those things had happened before… That’s probably why I needed a moment to process that Leo immediately picked up one of the big cushions, snatched the snack packs I mentioned, and settled down in front of the projector. Were the therapy sessions with Orange showing their effect? Or did Donatello do some brain-altering experiments on him? (I wouldn’t put it above him to mess with our ‘guest’ like that.) He noticed I kept standing at the entrance of the room and threw a glance back at me stating: “Hey, I learned my lesson about human movies and how they can teach you cool moves to fuck shit up a while back, I ain’t complaining.” I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that and since that was usually the case with Leo, I shrugged and accepted this as a rare instance where the fates seemed to have pity on me. “Plus,” he threw two brightly green-coated peanuts into his mouth, “stolen snacks taste the best.” The almost childish-mischievous gleam in his eyes oddly enough made him look more like his age and so I couldn’t bring myself to chide him for such comments. There were too many other moments where he visibly locked up and the iron-clad harshness in his demeanor made me believe that he had seen and experienced things, a teenager shouldn’t have. I made my way to my precious chair that had just the right dent from years of sitting in the same spot and selected the first installment of the ‘Jell-O Jell-O’ saga.   For the first half an hour or so, Leo was looking at the screen and it couldn’t have been more obvious that he wasn’t focusing on what was going on in front of him. But once my previous incredible human Self picked up the swords and hacked through the multi-colored jelly, Leo got transfixed to the projector. He took in those combat movements like a cake sponge that was soaked in cocoa. (Memo to myself: stock up on sponge cake) By the time we had moved on to the second part, the turtle was hooked just like the other three would be invested in their favorite Lou Jitsu moving picture. (I loved their debates on what movie they preferred and why especially before I revealed my identity.) “The way Lou Jitsu used the swords like a twirling staff,” Leo mused out loud, “that’s brilliant! So effective against backstabbers! I hate backstabbing except if it’s done by myself.” Yeah, sometimes I just plain-out worry about this kid… “That’s a technique from Yagyu Shinkage-ryu. A style that focuses on disarming your opponent and getting the upper hand, rather than killing them,” I explained and surprised myself by remembering the official name. Seemed like some things my grandpa taught me stuck with me even after all these years. “Huh, never heard of it. Doesn’t sound very useful…in the movie, it looked really strong though,” Leo popped the last peanuts into his mouth before adding: “Can you show me some more of it in the next training session?” This was, without a doubt, the first time he had ever directly asked me a favor. I needed a heartbeat or two during which I said nothing, and he apparently also realized what he had done. He hectically crumpled up the empty pack and went on without any pause between the words: “I mean, it’s whatever. You don’t have to do that.” I couldn’t help but return with a smug smile, “I’m not sure if you’re ready for such advanced techniques, still! Let’s see what we can do.” “Fuck, I shouldn’t have asked,” Leo grumbled drawing his legs closer to his torso, “just start the next movie already.” “Sure,” I snickered. I must admit that as we had filmed this final part of the epic Jell-O saga we had run out of ideas for the plot and so I wasn’t even offended when I heard low reverberating snores and saw Leo leaning against the leg of my couch, mouth half-open and drooling in his sleep. “Do you intend to watch the rest of the movie from beyond the door, dear son?” I called out and my fine hearing made out familiar steps approaching me from behind. “Sorry,” Raph apologized in a hushed voice, “I was looking for the snacks that I left here yesterday and then I saw you both talking, and I didn’t want to intrude and then I…” I waved my hand at him to signal that it was all good. “We tried something else for training,” I explained, and with a glance to the ground to my right I added, “he seemed a bit out of it. Did anything happen recently?” The big turtle shrugged even if his eyes had a very slight nervous twitch. He had developed that habit after I had told them all about the Hamato, which made me wonder if that had really been such a good idea. “He is more focused,” Raph began, occasionally pausing between words, “in a good way, I think. Since he lost his odachi he’s forced to stay at the lair much more. Because…no portals.” Even if he wasn’t the most eloquent of the bunch, which was Purple no doubt, he was often on point. “Oh,” Red appeared to remember something else and told me: “We talked about going out for pizza for April’s birthday tomorrow. He wanted to come with us but commented on how he didn’t understand human birthday traditions and after we explained a few things to him, I guess, he wanted to say something else about that and then didn’t. Left to train with you before we could ask him. Maybe he wanted to comment on how yokai birthdays worked?” “Perhaps,” I mused, “even during my years in the hidden city, I never learned much about their cultures. I assume he knows a lot more than I do.” In the background, a giant Jell-O monster exploded on screen. The special effects budget had been tight for this production, so looking back at it was a bit jarring. “Did you hear that?” I questioned my oldest, “how he asked me to show him more of that fighting style? I’ve never seen him interested in anything except for what Mikey cooks for dinner.” Raph cocked his head a bit and returned, “yeah, well, he keeps catching us off-guard whenever he listens to anything we say. Wish it would be the other way around, though.” The credits rolled, and we both regarded the red-eared slider. His bandana slipped off on one side a bit and slightly covered his eye. It was quite a silly sight to behold. I wondered, not for the first nor for the last time, how things would have been if I would have left with four instead of three small turtles that fateful day. How differently he would have turned out if he would have grown up amongst those who had been mutated along with him? Would he have then no scars and know fewer cuss words? Maybe he wouldn’t always carry several hidden blades around with him because he feared he would be ambushed and killed. And maybe he would have more time to grow up. Imagining such a different reality, I mourned for the loss of something that had never existed. A special kind of melancholy was reserved for those who tend to dwell on the ‘what-ifs’. “What do we do with him? Should we leave him here?” Raph asked and tore me away from the thoughts that I had slowly sunk into like quicksand.   “I wanted to watch a show at 10, it’s the semi-final of the Great British Bake Off.” I wasn’t keen on missing that and I wasn’t sure Leo would appreciate waking up to see humans baking cakes in the most stressful ways possible. “I think if he keeps leaning against your chair like that, he will wake up with a stiff neck and then he will curse a lot more and there are words I don’t want Mikey to know about yet,” Red considered, showing so naturally concern for his younger siblings, it made my heart brimming with pride. “How about you try to carry him to his room?” I offered. “I guess Raph could do that,” he said slowly, walking around to bend down and scoop him up. Awkwardly he extended his arms and readjusted his position before he got one arm under Leo’s knees and kept his back upright with the other. That whole scene reminded me of when Raph attempted to approach the various cats that would sometimes sneak into the lair. For some reason, they didn’t like the snapping turtle. Leo kept snoring and I followed both out and to the troublemaker’s room. We dimmed the lights and once the big guy had settled the smaller turtle into his bed, I put his blanket over him with deliberate and ever-so-careful motions. “Wow, he’s really out of it,” Raph whispered to me as I moved a step backward. “Guess it shows that he’s making an effort, to train and go on your missions and be a part of our little group. Not that he would ever admit it,” I returned. “Nope, never,” Red grinned. We sneaked out of the room, and I wished my oldest son a good night. Returning to my tv room, I hummed a pop song from my youth to myself and thought about my worries that we couldn’t read Leo at all. Based on my conversation with Raph, it seemed like we could tell what was going on with our newcomer quite well already.

---

…Eight…Nine…Ten. I opened my eyes as their footsteps grew more distant. I dared to breathe deeply and unevenly and drew my blanket up. What the hell just happened??? I had dozed off during the last movie and when I woke up, I heard Raph and Splinter talking. And not only that. Their topic of the day had been el yo. It felt like awful timing to be like: ‘Hey I’m awake now. No, I have no idea you guys been chatting.’ I was sure they would have believed I had faked it from the beginning. But still, I wouldn’t have expected things to escalate, and for Raph to pick me up and carry me to bed. I almost blew it at this point. Feeling all the blood in my body rush to my head I flopped around to lie on my belly and press my face into my pillow. Gotta be honest with you guys. I had seen my opportunity to catch them red-handed. I’m mean things like talking shit about me, complaining about me, or admitting to eating my secret cookie stash. (SOMEONE seemed to know about it, whomever that fucker was.) Instead, they only said nice things. What a bunch of weirdos. Perhaps they were testing me? Seeing how long I could keep up the act? I turned my head to the right to get some air since my pillow was slowly suffocating me. From my toes up to my nose, everything was kinda tingly and the corners of my mouth moved up without me actively wanting to. This had been a great birthday, after all. Their talk about April’s celebration coming up made me unsure of what to expect of such a day. At my old place, this date merely meant I would get a yearly examination of my vitals and another entry in my experiment file. On the surface, it sounded like such a hassle to organize and execute and ‘something you should look forward to.’ That last point was Mikey’s words, not mine. After what happened today, I think I knew what he meant. Birthdays, even if nobody knew about them, could be days where you get to just sit down and watch action movies and get to steal snacks and didn’t even have to walk and sleep as much as you like. I could get used to this. Feeling my smile expanding and with Splinter’s and Raph’s words resounding in my head, I huddled deeper into my soft bed.