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lunatic-fandom-space · 3 years

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Comparing RWBY and YGO DM: The Handling and Evolution of Themes

Hey! Its been a hot minute since I last posted anything RWBY-related but Im laying in my bed right now and Im sick and bored so I guess we're doing this. Today I will do my best to analyze what I percieve to be the main themes and messages of both of these shows, or more specifically, how theyre handled narratively. Im mostly focusing on that part because, while these series do have similar themes and messaging, they are still a few things in which they are wildly different. And with that, lets start with this essay-post-thing!

1. Theres something we need to adress first

Okay so, before we can really talk about this, theres something I feel the need to clarify here: Neither of these stories was "planned from the beginning".

Now, I dont think a story being planned from the beginning or not nesscessarily makes the story any better or worse by default, however, it is still important to acknowledge because the way the story is planned is going to affect every facet of it. Things are not going to be foreshadowed properly, things are gonna be set up only for nothing to come of it, the story might drastically change directions, characters might act differently, etc, etc.

And, this is bit off-topic but, it's much better to just admit that the story was not planned than trying to pretend that it was. Like, there are a lot of reasons why I tend to be so forgiving towards YGO even though its not very good, but one of them is definitely the fact that, as far as Im aware atleast, the guy who wrote it isnt pretending to have had this big master plan all along and neither is the fandom. With RWBY on the other hand... yeaaaah, its kinda the opposite. From what Ive seen of RWBYs fandom, there seems to be this pretty popular narrative that everything was planned even though it clearly wasnt. Thats pretty bad and honestly lowers my opinion of the writers so much more than if they would just admit to not having a proper plan.

Like, I initially consumed YGO like this: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh (aka Season 0), like, a quarter of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga (I still havent finished it)

In all three of these we have the character of Yami Yuugi, or just Yami. Broadly speaking, he is an ancient egyptian gamer spirit who lives in a magical puzzle that has not been solved for 3000 years until this highschooler named Yuugi Mutou comes along and solves it, thus setting him free and allowing him to possess Yuugi and have access to the vague magical powers of the puzzle.

In Duel Monsters he's perfectly fine most of time, morally speaking. There is an instance of him almost murdering a guy and its a bit unclear what exactly happens to those he mindcrushes but overall he's very much a pretty good guy. In Season 0 most of what he does is set up these games for bad people, where they will go insane no matter what they do. From how I understand this whole Shadow Game, Penalty Game stuff, if you lose a Shadow Game, you get violent and intense hallucinations and you will always cuz yknow, gamer spirit. But if you try to cheat, which most of the bad people do in this show, you get violent and intense hallucinations as a punishment.

Since the two anime are generally considered two different continuities, its perfectly fine that Yamis characterization is wildly different in both of them. But in the manga both of these characterizations appear, basically one after the other with no real arc or consequences, for that matter. Why is that? Simply put, someone thought it was a good idea to try to turn an episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror manga into a more traditional, more plot-driven battle shounen. From what Ive heard, it was apparently largely because of network interference or something, but the point is, it changed directions incredibly drastically with little planning and everyone knows this and I can understand that for the most part.

In RWBY we have the character of Blake Belladonna, who, in the first 3 volumes/seasons atleast, was this aloof, more toned down loner-type character with a pretty strong sense of justice. She's an in-universe marginilized racial minority and she clearly cares about racial injustice. The way its initially framed makes it seem like she had a very hard life and no stable support system, which is what eventually pushed her to join a Civil Rights group/Terrorist organization (good god, the Faunus subplot is so awful, I could write a whole essay about it but Im already de-railing rn so I'll just save that for later).

Then, in volumes 4-5 it turns out her father is actually like, the mayor or chief of this island-place called Menagerie and she grew up in this big mansion with multiple guards/servants. Oh and also, apparently "space is a commodity" on there, so theres that. She still retains large parts of her personality but she's kinda like, worse somehow I think. I cant really describe it in a meaningful way but I hope you get what Im saying anyway. Then in Volume 6 she confronted her emotional abuser Adam (sorry for not mentioning him sooner but yeah, he was like, her abusive boyfriend, which is something that a lot of people disagree with but I wont really say anything about it either way because I dont really feel any specific way) with her friend, Yang, and ended up killing him.

After all that, she pretty much lost the rest of her personality, as well as her arc about all the Faunus stuff. She just kinda became the meek, generically nice, recovering abuse victim. Why? Well, the actual reason is that they didnt plan out shit and are just kinda flying by the seat of their oversized clown-pants and if they and the fandom just admitted it, I would have less of an issue. I still wouldnt be as forgiving towards RWBY as I am towards YGO because the crux of the issue, for me, is just that I dont particulary like RWBY but also like. Do you really expect me to take MKEK seriously as writers after admitting to not have a timeline because iT wOuLd CaUsE pLoThOlEs?

However, since they want us to believe that everything was planned out from the beginning, the explaination would be.... Idk, they deliberately butchered one of their main characters?? Because.. they hate her?? Maybe????

So yeah, that was quite a detour however, I would like you to keep this mind going forward.

2. Themes of the Early Series'

First, what do mean by 'Early Series' for both of these shows respectively? Well, for YGO that would have to be Season 0 or if youre reading the manga, everything pre-Duelist Kingdom. Basically, the part of the series thats a episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror series.

For RWBY that would be the first three Volumes, also known as the Poser-Era. Back then it was just kinda an action series that took place at Anime Warrior Academy (also known as Beacon) with some pretty bare minimum worldbuilding, character-driven plots and developments but now its more of an epic high-fantasy story with more of an emphasis on plot as opposed to just action.

The themes and messages in Early YGO are kinda vague, very confusing to me and if you were to follow any of it literally that would be pretty bad. For now Im just gonna say the main themes are Friendship and Identity and mostly focus on the Identity aspect.

Now, it took me a little while to figure out RWBYs deal but I think the main themes for Volumes 1-3 are also Friendship and Heroism. Once again, I'll mostly focus on Heroism and touch on Friendship more briefly later.

I dont have much more to add to YGOs themes right now, so I'll briefly go over Heroism in RWBY.

In RWBYs setting there are these man-eating monsters called Grimm that have basically infected the planet. In order to deal with that, they have people called huntsmen and huntresses that kill them and protect people. Theyre trained at special academies like Beacon and go on missions there and stuff like that. Our four main characters, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, are training to become huntresses and one day they go on this mission to clean up a grimm infested city block with one of their teachers. Obviously, that takes a long time so they have to camp out in one of the empty houses. Weiss, Blake and Yang cant sleep because theyve been thinking about this question that their teacher asked them when they were fighting grimm: "Why do you want to become a huntress?"

They have a heart to heart and we find out about their motivations; Weiss wants to bring honour back to her family, Blake want to distance herself from the White Fang (that terrorist organization I mentioned earlier) and as an extension from Adam, Yang wants to have a life of adventure. They also talk about why Ruby wants to be a huntress and it turns out that she judt wants to help people. Unlike the others, she has no motivation besides that. We're meant to listen to that and look at her as a sort-of personification of Heroism: kind, but not naive, strong and most of all, selfless. The others on her team are not portayed as bad for not being like Ruby by any means but we are clearly meant to admire her the most out of all of them.

Okay, now comes the part Ive been looking forward to the most:

3. How did these themes evolve in the Modern Series'?

Alright, before we can really delve into the way they evolved in YGO I'll have to give you a brief summary of the character progression. At the start of DM, during the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yami Yuugi is just that; A darker Yuugi. Hes more confident, bolder, his voice is deeper, hes somehow taller, more ruthless, all that good stuff. Notably, he doesnt actually seem more skilled than Yuugi even at the start of this story, but he's still dependent on Yami. Yami on the other hand, has no identity of his own or even hints at one at this point. He's just The Other Yuugi.

Then during the Battle City arc, they find out that Yami was actually a pharao prior to being sealed in the puzzle, he just didnt know because of amnesia, I guess. So now they need to find out his real name and then send him to the afterlife because hes meant to be dead, but not before saving the world from being swallowed by darkness, which is also a thing they have to do now.

Then we finally get to the Memory World arc, where Yami, Yuugi and the rest of the gang astralproject to ancient egypt via puzzle magic. Yami is trying to figure out what the hell is going on and who all these familiar people are, while Yuugi & Co are trying their best to help him. Then some weird shit happens and it turns out that all of that is not just Yamis sealed away memories, but also a giant D&D Shadow Game that will destroy the world if Yami loses. So now theres Pharao!Yami who is still clueless on the metaphorical and literal playing field and Player!Yami, who is kinda controlling himself now? I guess?? Yamis opponent, The Spirit of The Ring, has something similar to that going on where hes both controlling and properly participating in the game. So Player!Yami is now fighting against Player!TSoTR, Pharao!Yami is now fighting against Thief King Bakura (who is like, the human, ancient egyptian version of the Ring Spirit) and Yuugi is now fighting against Yami Bakura (who is like, the human, modern japanese version of the Ring Spirit). Yuugi gets Yamis real name, he and the gang go over to Pharao!Yami and tell him his name, meanwhile Player!Yami is also somehow helping as well and they defeat the Ring Spirit, thus saving the world. Then they travel to modern Egypt, the Ceremonial Duel happens and Yuugi wins, sending Yami to the Afterlife where he can finally rest and that was the series!

I originally wanted to recount the stuff that was going on with the Ring Spirit and his host as well because they parallel eachother, but this summary is already far too long and I think youll get the point without me needing to explain any more.

My point here is, that the story went from being vaguely about Identity, maybe? to being very clearly about Self-Discovery and Learning to Be Independent. I think this is a very good way to evolve the messaging of your story. How does RWBY track on that?

Well, uh... its not great. I will acknowledge that they have tried to introduce new themes and ideas since, even though I wont really be talking about them in this post. But yeah, the whole Heroism thing really regressed.

Like, I didnt explicitly say it when I was explaining grimm earlier, but theyre not going away. The grimm have always been there and people who sign up to become huntsmen and huntresses are effectively signing up for a job that will never truly be done, no matter what they do. Characters like Ruby and even more minor ones like Phyrrah have shown us that that doesnt matter when youre a hero. No life isnt worth saving, no grimm isnt worth killing, no criminal isnt worth arresting. Then, in volume 6 they find out about Salem. Salem is the Big Bad of the show, shes immortal, controls the grimm and is supposed to be very powerful.

What do our heroes do? They give up. Sike! They were just mindcontrolled by monsters or some shit, of course they didnt give up their mission (which is to bring an Important Macguffin to a city called Atlas, sorry I didnt mention it)!

But then they arrive in Atlas (which is llike, a city thats floating over another city called Mantle) and yknow, they do some plot stuff thats not really important right now until the city gets invaded by Salem and this big grimm army she has.

What do our heroes do? Well, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and some side characters are chilling, drinking tea in a mansion and Yang and the B Team were actually trying to do something, but even those efforts seem incredibly minimal.

Oh wait, I also forgot to mention that Ironwood (a fairly minor, vaguely antagonistic character up until now) wanted to lift Atlas even higher to save Atleasian civilians from danger while leaving Mantle vulnerable to Salems invasion.

What would be the most heroic thing to do?

A) Let Ironwood lift Atlas, get as much support as they can down to Mantle and save as many Mantle civilians as they can from the invasion

B) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas but then split up in order to protect both Atlas and Mantle civilians

C) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas and then dont do anything else

Congrats! If you choose C, you think exactly like the writers!

And I just

This is so mindboggling to me, I feel like I shouldnt even have explain how this is bad. And like, it wouldve been so easy to actually make them seem herokc through their actions, to make it seem like they did try but no.

I have never seen a central theme be this botched, how in the world did they do that? Why did they think it was a good idea for Ruby "The Embodiment of Heroism" Rose to sit in a mansion doing nothing, no planning, no organizing just ..... God, how are they this bad? Like, this doesnt even have anything to do with it being planned in any way, this is just straight up incompetence

4. Very briefly touching on friendship

The friendship is awful and its not solely because they all have the same opinions. They barely interact with eachother outside their designated pairs which leads to it all feeling incredibly hollow. Theyre also practically indistingushable from one another now, which is a shame because it wasnt always like that. Like, I dont think the characters were that well-developed in earlier volumes but they were very well-characterized. But now we've gotten to a point where you can literally copy and paste one characters dialogue onto another and literally nothing changes, it really sucks.

5. Some closing words

Damn, this took way longer than I thought it would and now Im pretty exhausted. I have no idea how yall always write these but props to you! I feel like this ended up a bit rambly but overall, Im pretty proud.

Please let me know what you think of the points I brought up! Id also really appreciate some tips on how to get better at these longer posts because I am planning on writing more in the future (not the near future, probably but yknow).

Thats all I have to say for now, thanks for reading!

#rwde #rwby critism #anti mkek #yu gi oh #ygo duel monsters #yu gi oh analasis

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neverheardnothing · 4 years

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rewatching joe iconis and family lincoln center performance at 4 am instead of packing or sleeping just to feel something and i have so FEW and so MANY thoughts and yall are gonna hear em all. no i will not put this under a cut. im going to be an absolute bastard about this.

i love the story joe tells about why he's singing mitb as the first song so much. like. the spite of it all. the defiance of it all. the pride of it all. the dig it or fuck off and disappear of it all. the joe iconis of it all.

“i know exactly the song im going to sing as my first song at the american songbook series.” i love that he highlights the fact that this is the american songbook series.

then immediately jumping right into broadway here i come with molly hager, the other song he is most known for!!!

every time i think about this performance i think about how this was the first (?) time this song was performed by them since the closing of bmc.

and then lance rubin comes up to sing try again. which is the only time that i know of that anyone but joe has sung this song.

i remember a remark made during watching it live that having someone else sing the song made it seem so clearly more about joe and his career. but also having lance sing it immediately makes me think of bbh closing early which yeah is part of joe’s career but also lance’s.

and also the line “if you’re an actor and another actor gets the part you auditioned for” reminds me of how lance found the auditioning process of acting and the whole [not acting part] of an acting career to be terrible which is why he quit to then become an author and the juxtaposition of him singing try again is Something. but also he DID try again he is just applying his efforts to a different creative field and it’s working out great for him. good for lance rubin.

lol i haven’t even talked about the actual performance aspect of this song anyways it’s very different from the two versions ive seen of joe doing it. he plays it a lot more comical. i love it.

sidenote not specific about this performance, but i love love LOVE the line and the music at “use the stairs, walk to the street. see the people, feel the heat, and apply yourself again.”

and also the line “when they cast you out to sea, there’s a lifeboat manned by me called try and try again” will never not make me think of bsol/last on land and bonus lance was also in that show! it just keeps circling around.

everything about these past 3 songs performed at this venue in this set list order in this moment at joe’s career is honestly so wonderful. like you had a songs about an anxiety attack, a suicide/loss of self in success, and repeated failures before this song all sung by individuals. two of these songs were written at points where joe felt frustrated/sad with his career. one written in the aftermath of specific frustration about the first closing of be more chill. one an actual song from bmc. like what a SETLIST for your first three songs! fucking michael in the bathroom, broadway here i come, and try again. truly something.

THE WHISKEY SONG!! i love hearing joe sing so much. while i think we can all agree he’s not the most skilled singer there’s something special about hearing a composer perform their own work. he adds like 3 levels of charm to make up for lack of singing skills lol. just a very charismatic guy.

lance rubin back on tamborine for the next bit of the song and he’s like laughing through it. not completely sure what he’s laughing about honestly but this Is a comedic song (after 3 real downers of songs) and also joe was playing it up.

jared weiss down on the floor with his guitar playing along. that’s its own bullet point.

audience cheering as more family members start coming on stage! i love that the band is getting cheers. love that!!!

the camera isn’t on him but from the audio, nick blaemire is presumably running around giving high fives to people in the audience.

i can’t exactly tell with the camera angle and the lighting but i think that more family members get up from different seats in the audience or at least enter in the back and walk through the audience to get to the stage during this instrumental break. reminds me of how joe loves theater that physically touches you. giving you high fives in this case.

love liz lark brown. she plays it pretty like. frenetic and frazzled. love it.

amara, badia, danielle, will, and nick are just chillin sitting on the steps of the stage. 100% contributes to the vibe of this song. top fuckin notch.

SOMEONE screams AH during the drunk part of the song and i cannot figure out who but it gives me so much life.

jared pulling lance down to the floor with him.

jason going “man.... this place is a dump” like i LOVE the irreverence.

everyone actually getting back up and also converging On the stage during the (kind of) acapella break.

and now your whole gang is up on the stage at the fancy ass appel room singing your what sounds like a mostly upbeat fun song but is actually about self medication with alcohol and it’s a fucking jam. i love the 3 solo songs and then bringing in everyone for a big group number.

sidenote not about this specific performance: the lyrics “i’ll pour some more and then—AND THEN?—i’ll pass out and then—AND THEN!” the and thens were not on the things to ruin album and i wonder why not ALL the time. was it just deemed extraneous? or was this an innovation after the album was recorded?

i love that you can see the band singing along.

yesterdays / i can’t relate. i love this song i fucking love it. i love the synthy keyboard that was an active choice made. which means that joe is not the one accompanying jared in this song.

jared: i hate today. joe: *snorts in the background*

“i like music you can hold” -> old records black suits, susannah’s obsession with music which was of course in vinyl format back then

will once said hearing lgw was very exciting because he’s first and foremost a fan of joe’s so he was hearing a new joe song for the first time and the world got just a bit larger and i think about that quote a lot in relation to this song because i was like Oh i Get What He Means now because this is the first new joe song i heard since like getting into his work and i felt that world getting a bit bigger.

jared’s monotone chorus on top of the girls underneath is so good. it’s so fucking good i cannot.

liz lark brown velociraptor fuckin classic. specifically in this performance the weird ass electric guitar noise at “there’s a dinosaur” is SO good. i love it.

i know people say Trans Vibes from next song (jeff) but this song also gives me trans vibes. i think joe inadvertently writes stuff trans people relate to because of his propensity to write for People Who Are Different.

people cheering as will takes off his jacket hell yeah.

i am way more used to the jeremy morse version of this song and really consider it more his so it’s so fun to hear will sing it.

i love the canon of the “oh”s so much.

after will sings “i go to the window looking out and what do i see? myself just staring back at me.” and someone in the audience AUDIBLY goes “oh.” like what a MOMENT. way more subtle than when someone screamed “WHAT” at the “naked korean girl” reveal during the pipe night performance but on the same tier of Great Audience Reactions.

smooth fuckin gliss bro i love it. arms out by side. i love it.

Classic Jason Sweettooth Williams Singing Helen. but this time they added like some REAL like. oh god i have no idea how to describe it. electric crunchy electric guitar noises. and it’s so good.

i havent mentioned this yet but in the background of every song people who are not in it or are backup vocals are just sitting and jamming along and it’s so nice because me fuckin too.

honest to god just have to give a timestamp for this but bullet point for whatever the fuck eric is doing in the background here.

will and katrina circling each other singing directly into each other’s faces. so good.

the Unexpected dynamic change and following crescendo i am Living.

katrina rose dideriksen riffing up top. yes. YES.

joe starting to play helen sharp and then forgetting part of his introduction to the song is so good.

the inevitable laughter at any performance of this song at “it is not lost on me you’re all here at my show”

i know nothing about the movie death becomes her so i honestly always just think about joe when this song gets performed. also thinking about how in the youtube premiere of this song, joe was talking about how lauren was shouting out the names of all the musical theater composers joe is jealous of.

right place/wrong time. i read a bsol review a while ago about how katrina rose dideriksen was underutilized and gotta say i Agree holy Shit let her sing More.

i also remember how joe once said this song felt the most personal to him and that he cried when writing it

police siren piano.

the first time in this entire song they sing in sync is at the line “i wonder if his/her life is just like mine” and i just start screaming.

when eric and katrina turn to each other for the first time and start singing At each other!!!!!!!!!!!

honey! thinking about jen ash tep talking about how Each performance of this song gets Wilder and Wilder.

love it when nick just gets off the stage and starts singing to people in the audience. apparently one of the people was will’s mom lol.

ACAPELLA BREAK!!!!!! joe just fully gets up from piano and starts WILDLY clapping along!!!!

woman of a certain age! i remember when the live show happened the album had not come out yet and then when the yt premiere of it happened it Had been out for a week or so.

piano note elevator bell

the electric guitar is doing some fucking weird ass things in this song and i am living so fucking much for it.

the riffs badia does are so fucking incredible i immediately paused this video to go and watch her sing big fat ruby again just because i wanted more badia content.

the story behind old flame is so good and joe waiting until the last fuckin moment to give her the song is so fuckin funny.

i love love love these types of joe songs that are like 7 minute long story epics like right place/wrong time and the actress and ammonia and old flame.

“the best way to get past the past is to shoot it in the head” and then the audience cheers and i fucking love it. my commentary is getting shorter. it’s 6 am and i’m tired can you tell. i also just had a lot of thoughts about this early on and less thoughts about later on.

revolution song. the deep ass fucking electric bass is So good i Will go apeshit. like honestly that might be my favorite smaller detail of this song. like i imagine if i were in the room it might be loud and deep enough that i could feel it In my chest. like you can Feel the revolution coming.

i love the faster tempo revolution song has in the cabaret version.

i also love the cabaret specific lines of “evolution in the institution”

joey is a punk rocker was honestly not ever on the list of songs i thought would get performed here but im so glad that they did. like the obvious choice would have been veins for annie golden but they went this route. obsessed with this choice. obsessed with the fact that amphibian replaced this song as the act 2 opener. obsessed that annie is the one singing this.

i am never not screaming about wave and yall know this. just throwback to me losing it in the tags in a reblog of picture of the wave passage going on about how it really does mirror joe’s career and bmc specifically. and again this song being performed for the first (?) time since bmc closed makes the “so today on a hill in las vegas” and onward part SO fucking sad i literally just started crying. the entire song being in past tense up until that part. i will just go die now.

will in the yt premiere talking about texting the line “our energy would simply prevail” in the leadup to bmc coming back.

find the bastard. for some reason when this happened live i thought it was gonna be outlaw that was performed.

i swear to god it is literally physically impossible for me not to AT LEAST mouth along to “what’s your name, what’s your name” during this song

NAMES ARE FOR ACCOUNTANTS.

MY NAME IS AWFUL LONG AS IT’S THE LYRICS OF THIS SONG.

the goodbye song. it’s never not sad. i love love love that this song is the final song every concert. i also love the recent lore of finding out that penny dreadfuls was the encore song at concerts before they became too long and it had to get cut.

finally gonna mention the background car lights. what a beautiful backdrop.

also since im always on my wrol bullshit i love how fucking clearly you can hear him at the end

accelerando accelerando accelerando. insert [joe iconis peaked when he wrote the accelerando in the goodbye song post of mine].

katrina singing an octave up is always SO fucking impressive i am so impressed by her voice she is so fucking good i love her so much

the bows are so fucking sweet i love them.

goodnight it’s 7 am.

#teresa talks #also as my life gets Increasingly busier i decide to come back #social media truly a cesspit i can never escape #many no thots head empty full yes no <3 #im very tired #iaf #joe iconis

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curlytemple · 4 years

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niche interests list

okay sure yes this is fun! i havent posted a thing like this in such a long time. thank you new gal pal @scottspack for tagging me!

pigs????

alright first lets throw it back to preschool! my fav childhood toys were my baby doll (snookums) and a plush pig that my grandma got me that i just called ‘pig’ ...i watched the babe movies countless times, and piglet? that anxious little guy GETS ME bro. when my preschool did a nativity play and my class got to choose an animal to be in baby jesus’ manger, my mother recalls me saying that i would be a pig because jewish people (jesus christ) wouldnt eat me. she has no idea how or when i learned about kosher foods. ironically despite my namesake i was too afraid of the movie charlotte’s web to watch it more than once because the scary farmer tries to kill wilbur for being small and the pretty spider dies.

sugar creek gang

OKAY this is a book series from the 40s-70s about a group of christian little boys in indiana who went on adventures in the woods and helped people. my dad read a LOT of chapter books to me as bedtime stories when i was little (see also the mandie series, nancy drew and the hardy boys, little house on the prairie) but sugar creek gang is one that really hit. i read all 36 books with dad and at least once again on my own. there was a series of 4 or 5 movies in the early 2000s when i was the Perfect age to have a crush on most if not all of them. this might be too much detail but i have to tell you about these boys. we WILL not be revisiting the heavy religious themes.

the narrator is bill who is Good and Kind and wants to be a doctor when he grows up. his best friend is a chubby boy nicknamed poetry because he memorizes and quotes poems, he is the Detective of the group. BIG JIM is the leader of the group who is supposed to be like, 14, which was very cool and hot, to me. and yes there is a little jim, who is the baby of the group. then there is CIRCUS who is known for his climbing and acrobatics, and his FIVE SISTERS AND BEAUTIFUL SINGING VOICE. dreamboy. i’m almost done listing boys, i promise. a boy called dragonfly who is allergic to everything and hella superstitious. later in the series a new boy named tom moves to town and tom has an older brother bob who is NOT A CHRISTIAN (bully)

tangentially, the buttercream gang, a movie from 1992 that was almost definitely made by some christians who grew up reading the sugar creek gang series which i’m guessing on vibes alone. will spare you Good Boy details but scott is in love with his best friend pete who moves to chicago and falls in with a bad crowd and scott just refuses to stop LOVING HIM. very gay christian film in retrospect.

peter pan

so i know liking disney’s peter pan isnt niche, but it was the way i liked it. tinker bell stan from day one, i watched all of those disney fairies movies, even the ones that came out after i was definitely not intended audience. there was an online pixie hollow game where you could design your own fairies and play mini games where you gathered dew drops or something. had a HUGE CRUSH on jeremy sumpter in peter pan (2003) then i got really darkly obsessed with the idea of growing up when i was 12 or 13, and everything peter pan was deeply My Shit for my entire adolescence. i read the original book and every other twisted version of the story i could find and seriously freaked myself out about wasting my youth.

shug

you’ve probably heard of jenny han now, or at least the netflix adaptations for to all the boys i’ve loved before and the sequel ps i still love you (always and forever, lara jean, coming soon?) but before she wrote THOSE, she wrote my first ever Favorite Book, about annemarie “shug” wilcox, a girl in the summer before starting middle school. it is SO engraved on my heart i cannot explain. i felt so incredibly understood and cant even tell you how many times i read it. thinking about all of the ways it made me feel SEEN is actually making me very tender so i’m gonna go on.

the summer series

on the subject of jenny han, since she was now my Favorite author, when she came out with the summer i turned pretty in 2009, i was ALL IN. it’s not summer without you, and we’ll always have summer were published the next two years. a coming of age series about a girl isabel “belly” conklin who stays at her mother’s best friend's house at the beach in the summers. i really could talk about it forever yall. i actually dont know how to be succinct about it. i will try. her mom’s friend has TWO BOYS. one brother, jeremiah, is the golden boy and her best friend who is in love with her! the older one CONRAD is her childhood crush who's just sort of around while belly is firmly getting over her childish feelings and going out and experiencing teen beach life with jeremiah for the first time and figuring out who she is and wants to be! by the end of the summer he admits he feels differently about her (hence belly internalizing this as The Summer I Turned Pretty) and they get together. this is already too much so i will just say that the next two books deal with a PROFOUND LOSS and the selfishness of grief and the SELFLESSNESS OF CONRAD and i will absolutely lose my shit if netflix picks it up for a second jenny han series adaptation.

pappyland

this was a kids show in the 90′s that features a character named Pappy Drew-It, an artist dressed like a 49er who lives in a magic cabin in pappyland. there’s tons of characters and music and life lessons but the meat of every episode is a detailed drawing how-to (pappy is actually a cartoonist, michael cariglio) and i have a hard back cover sketch book from my grandpa that i FILLED with drawings that pappy and DOODLEBUG taught me to do. there is a running gag that pappy always breaks his crayons.

boy meets world

i KNOW this is beloved by many but i’m counting it because i’m simply too young to have such an obsession with it! the show ran from 1992-2000. i was born in 1996, but reruns on the disney channel and abc family cemented it as one of my favorite shows. cory and shawn, closer than brothers, shameless homoromantics, shawn is cory’s first wife!!!!! truly showed me what a best friend can and should be!!!!!! the great love of your life!!!!! TOPANGA, the og weird feminist girl who said stop shaving your legs and start speaking your mind, ladies! the characters are so richly developed that they are real people to my heart. YES every character on this show is in their late 30s-early 40s and YES i feel like we grew up together. in season one they’re in the 6th grade and we follow them all the way to COLLEGE. countless poignant life lessons, often literally dictated by the wise and hilarious MR. FEENY, cory’s next door neighbor and somehow one of his teachers for YEARS. my love was only solidified by the 2014 girl meets world reboot, centered on cory and topanga’s daughter and her best friend. (which was literally cancelled because disney didn’t want to transition from a kids show to a teen show, something essential to the original. also because that teen show would have had CANON LESBIANS. extremely shameful move in 2017!) boy meets world lives rent free in my heart and i will never evict it!!!!!!!

i consulted my mother when i got stumped for more and she reminded me that i had obsessions with the impressionist art period and babies and ANYTHING fairies or pixies, and i was way too young when my love of the canadian teen after school special degrassi began. she also said bob ross, which i was hesitant to include because he’s been super ~trendy in recent years, but to be fair (To Be Faaairrr) she’s right! i don’t think people really watched the joy of painting as much as i have throughout my life. best sick day show of all time.

lastly i could honestly list anna herself as a niche interest, my mom actually metioned that ive always hyperfixated on my girl friends (gay) but i’ll just note that YES friday night lights, YES barry lyga novels. love to share so many things with you, niche or not, they’re niche in Our Mind.

#with the baby obsession came an obsession with adoption #my aunt and uncle adopted and when i learned that there were ORPHANS whew #i was in preschool judging people for getting pregnant when there were SO many babies without mommies #she had a good point!#also does being a niall girl in 2012 count

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kendrixtermina · 4 years

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Now here's an all new theory for where the procrastination comes from

Like the uni councilors thought of like generic selfhate insecurity or like spineless ppl pleasing (nope an anime cured me of that when I was 13 - thst sounded more like what that ladys own problems might be), fear or failure & wanting to spite my father, eveb that getting ahead through "talent" was an unfair advantage bad tainted and evil, or that "talent" meant being beholden and controlled by others (definitely somewhat right - we worked on that, it helped, the second guy was defs much much more helpful & compatible cause he focussed a lot more on strategies than wannabe-maternal pep talks) but there was always something else there that wasnt getting touched

In tje end I dont think I have talent and in any case what really matters is attitude toward "living the examined life" for example whst you do. What you notice.

Now I did notice that things get harder to do precisely because I actually want them(whereas a lot of ppl get distracted from stuff because they dont really want it) - at the same time I can totally function or pick up new habits in day to day life its not like I have some "hardware problem" like, say, ADHD or the like.

Like of course its some emotional knot it couldnt be anything else but I feel they didnt identify what kind of knot? Certainly not that first lady. If im trying to get clarity and you give me reassuring pep talks you just freak me out more for the love of god tell me whats happening. Nothing worse when a Doctor says "it will be over soon" rather than explain the procedure

Fear of/ distraction from wanting itself never really occured to me thats not a common stereotypical fear that ppl talk about.

Let me get this straight I never thought I was better than anyone I knew very well that I'm not. I thought of both those things as ways not to get bullied, maybe get somewhere where I feel that im in the right place.

If I look back at really breaking experiences it was times I really really wanted something and then I couldnt do it or some outside party stepped on my fingers. That Tori Amos Music Video where she escapes from a psycho killer's trunk and then the passerby's dont help her? That was my most favorite music video in the world for years maybe still is.

Like I was told I could maybe skip third grade and I poured all my energy and passion and strenght into that everything I had to do well, make friends with the new class i was so highly motivated I aced all the exams I felt so happy & fulfilled just being in thst flow state all the time... i wanted this more than anything. Maybe it was the first time I really wanted something beyond vague dreams or base desires. But the homeroom teacher hated my guts and put the kibosh on that; Probably because I was unwittingly repeating some of the artogant classist shit my father spouts without realizing how hurtful it is. my parents thought it wasnt worth going to the higher ups for that but having to essentially redo 4th grade in a crap school in the different town we moved to was one of the worst times of my life. Also I didnt find out that the teacher had hated me/acted in a petty way until years after I thought I just failed. That there was a possible place I could have belonged but turns out I really belong nowhere after all.

All my effort was for nothing. It was such a joy - i mean these days even getting code to work or solving math problems has that same joy - but all that effort and joy and wanting did was that... im tearing up and searching for the words to even process this tbh. I think I denied that joy, told myself that I was just a stupud kid thinking I was a special snowflake. It didnt even matter.

Rather than insist on staying up late to make sure my homework was done I just stopped caring and hardly did another piece of homework in my life just faking it on the spot or coasting through. It could have gone another way maybe if it werent for the bullies and my father the chief bully or if only I was more determined but it was like "okay I dont care anymore I just dont care" and I think thats stayed my default response to dissapointment to this day.

This TV show didnt turn out like I wanted? I dont care its just a tv show.

My father treated be with hatred all my life? Its okay I dont care about him and I dont want his love anyway.

Like there were other times when I thought I could be happy.

Like I really wanted to go to this boarding school for gifted kids. Again I thought maybe incorrectly that this would be a place where I can belong and not be bullied it was never about being better than anyone.

Again I wanted it I clamored and cried and made noise nonstop. Maybe I still hadnt wholly lost contact with willpower back then. I still thought of myself as strong willed.

And my father made me regret it. It was around the same time that mom briefly considered divorce maybe I was just the stress valve. Or he took it personally as wanting to get away from him. Duh he abused me of course I wanted away from him. He was such a suffocating control freak! Mom said yes first then he spoke to her and suddenly she followed everything he said. Thats when I really realized how emotionally manipulative was how abusive... i mean one of my first conscious memories of him is thinking "oh crap I will be just like cinderella" but he really laid it on so thick so transparently even a 10 year old could tell its manipulation. If you do this you dont love your mom. If you do this you dont love your siblings. If you dont obey me your mom will kill herself. No she wont you jerk even my 2 year old self could tell youre abusive.

The most cruel thing he did was briefly say yes. Again I got so happy. So invested. Just bending all I was towards that even though he bombarded me with abuse and mental torture.

And then on the day we were supposed to leave he said no youre not going.

Maybe I actually did say I didnt want to go because of one time he was doing this constant scientology type torture on me

That same reaction: "I dont want it I dont want anything so please please let me be"

Ppl think of bad childhoods as a game that you win if yoz turn 18 -or 28 maybe - without killing yourself. But its not. Every year you live it can take away from your potential. Every day less than you have to live it

He sure didnt let me have sucess with his overcontrol and abuse. Anything I was proud of he rules. When I graduated from school with a fairly good but not perfevt final score he humiliated me. When I turned 18 he humiliated me. Everything I did was a burden even just feeding and washing me. Hed give me unwanted white elephant gifts then bitch about how giving them to me ruined his life cause he had to work so muxh "Ingrate Ingrate Ingrate" Butch I never asked for anything I want nothing!

But as I had to eat I did in fact have to ask things of him and I hated it so much.

No wonder that I turned out afraid of wanting things eh?

Hed seen some poster when we went to see tje school I wanted to go to - not by the school by an individual student - about the history of abortion portrayed in a positive way or at least that was his official reason why I couldnt go. Again I had wanted something badly with all my being and again all my being availed nothing. Irrelevant like I didnt exist. All my screaming gone unheard.

And this is so silly cause im not a child anymore I have control and if I were to stop procrastinating I could have money and gave even more control.

I havent even spoken to him in years now hes no longer relevant. Its not about him its about thus bad pattern I picked up.

I like how this books handles it with the idea that certain experiences dont create the type but that it nakes you uniquely suceotible to certain kinds of hurt or certain misunderstandings.

Because with all this discourse about bad message free media ive really come to think that while it can and should be minimized its not possible to eradicate cause human mibds are so quicl so fallible to extract overgeneralizations and make it mean something abput themselves

Like an immature statistical learning model easily overtrained by noisy data.

Another time I was nearly happy was when I started looking for work, doing my thesis...

Same pattern I was engaged, happy to be engaged talking to ppl at both work and in the uni work group loving it all so much...

my life had started to feel meaningful again. And it had gotten to that point in part because of my ex-fiance. Yes the councelling heloed taking up meditation helped, getting high on morning glory that one time helped a whole lot got more self esteem from that than I ever got from my father.

But that all started because of my ex fiance.

He was an i tellectual type and he had a sense of purpose about him like hes a legendary character and everyone around him became legendary too. And he found me useful! Others had called me "walking dictionary" with mockery and scorn he called me his google and it meant love and admiration. Maybe I got a bit of an ego trip off of tjat but I also really stupidly dumbtastically loved him I bragged of him to anyobe who listened everything he did seemed fascinating abd interesting and meaningful, but also I just loved the sweet gentle warmth of being next to him in the morning. Once again I was happy and everything was joyful even when it was hard, I felt strong and meaningful and useful and I let myself openly want things.

And then it all blew up. Worse yet i was so mistaken abozt him it really shook my confidence in my own judgement or any sense of clarity. I was si confused during the fucking breakup like I hadnt been since I left my father's house.

Google hah! More like his personal Alexa! It turns out he didnt respect or like me at all.

I couldnt even be sad or angry cause it was all my mistake. The one feeling I allowed - and even that took me weeks to identify - is dissapointment. Heavy leaden dissapointment i didnt even kniw that was a feeling you could feel so strongly. I didnt even do anything wrong you have to open yourself to have love. He could habe choosen to love me he just simply didnt. He probably thought he did but he wouldnt evebn do something as simple as not make fun of my voice or clean when I am sick.

Once he started putting me in the "wife" role he just became unable to see me. His loss really cause I think he wanted to keep me from all those annoying texts and email he had the nerve to write.

By all means I was right to trust but also right to leave later but still my sense of certainty and purpose and meaning was totally shaken. He did the sort of romantic stuff I didnt think was real. I knew I loved him when we had this conversation about water on mars. He got me the perfect books for my birthday! He said I was pretty and a genius and looked just like an actress. He got me this titanic esque heart pendant with stars. We were stuck at midnight in a train station that one time and he pulled out a picnic rug two plastic glasses and a shampain bottle. It never worked out but he said he might take me to see the LHC! I really thought we would be buried in the same hole folks!. He had read that same steven Hawkings book that I loved. One of the rather few books he actually read as I would find. Sigh.

And I fell right back into that same old pattern. Dont care about anything dont want anything it would be stuoid unrealistic and silly to want.

When I first came to uni I also had this feeling of hapiness and belongingness and wanting, I was putting in an effort, talking to ppl more.. and when things went wrong the slightest bit I pulled by hand back from that like from an open flame.

And here I am years later most the sucess or contact I get is comments on my fanfictions.

I thought I was doing that, or drawing, because its Stakes/Evaluation-free (going by the fear of failure theory) or because at least with the ffs gratification/payoff for effort is immediate compared to original stuff or uni work. Its a nice little niche at least.

I mean I do care about it its not "just" distraction but maybe ive been profaning it in that way... and so etimes I dont even do that and go for full unadulterated undebatable distraction; Line to 7 I guess. Tje only reason I spoke face to face to anyone else than the delivery guy this week is that I had some doctors appointments.

But not its distraction from stuff Im too lazy to do or even from pressure like I always thought. But from wanting things.

So the original fiction went great while it was a distraction from school not so much when its one of the things I most want and actually have the time to do it.

Even thought thats the most practiced skill I have that I never stopped working on since I was 10. 🤦‍♀️

I mean they already explained that its basically like meditation. Or weeds. Or popup ads. Youve got to click them away as they pop up.

I always told myself thst I didnt have to be happy... and thats not even untrue actually but it would sure be neat to be happy again one of these days.

#enneagram #enneagram type 5 #feelings #enneagram 5w4 #5w4

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espytalks · 4 years

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i’m still on hiatus as of writing this, but by the time i post this i won’t be.

ive been watching a lot of netflix lately, and i’m pretty much just going through my “to watch” list, so i thought i’d give some thoughts on some of the show’s ive watched so far.

this’ll probably get super long.

oh shoot i forgot i had this post as a wip. i went on a phase of watchign shows for a bit when i tried to step away from tumblr for a bit a few months back. this is definitely super long, so heads up if you click read more, you’re gonna scroll for a while.

avatar:

i watched this show all the way though at least twice, and many scattered episodes several times over the course of years, up until i stopped watching tv altogether, which was quite a while ago. at some point i realized the last time i watched it, i didn't know i was asexual. it kinda made me realize why i didn't quite get the romancey bits when i was younger.

i don’t want to spoil the show on the off chance you haven't seen it, cause this is one of those i think is best watched unspoiled, but even if ya know it, the show is incredibly fun to watch.

it has amazing fight scenes, fantastic animation that still holds up (impressive for a kid’s tv show of it’s time, if you ask me,) and incredibly complex and interesting characters that change and grow along with the plot, which raps up nicely by the end of the third season.

10/10 one of the best shows of all time, even outside of animation. amazing rewatchability, too!

BNA:

all i knew of this going in was from gifs a friend kept reblogging.

it’s basically a zootopia-esque story, about a human who has turned into a beastman, which are these human-like creatures that can also turn into animals? it’s kinda weird but ok my suspension of disbelief has worked harder before. it’s also pretty short (12 or 13 episodes i think,) so the story is pretty packed together and moves pretty fast.

i loved the animation. it’s an anime from studio trigger, and i LOOOOOOVE that animation style!! hoooly shit guys it’s SOOOO GOOOOD!!!!!! the colors and general feel of the show visually is just top tier. lots of interesting colors and shapes and expressive poses and expressions! i’d recommend it purely on it’s aesthetic, cause it’s gorgeous.

unfortunately, i think the story kinda sucks. i don’t think it detracts from the show much, but i felt like a couple of the story twists (especially towards the end) kinda came out of nowhere, or where kinda crammed in there as best they could to make it fit. the best twist i think was with shirou, which was set up in episode 1, and i pretty much was expecting that reveal.

tbh, the best episode was the filler one, where michiru plays baseball with some bears. idk man it was just fun. wish there were more episodes like that, where she just got to have fun being a beastman. I did like how the bears stuck around after that episode, though.

8/10 i’d say it coulda been better, but it's till good for what it is. ya can’t have a perfect show, and i’d say it’s still fun. i’d watch it again with someone, cause ey, i liked it. i think i was mainly dissapointed cause i was expecting a lot more, and i watched it right after avatar, which i think IS a perfect show. i’d watch it again, though. it’s good!

She-ra and the princesses of power:

all i knew going in was that someone i watched on youtube thought it was good. i may have seen gifs at some point, but idk. no one i know watches it, or at least they don’t talk about it if they do.

if you liked mlp, you’d like this. it has some very almost corny “friendship is powerful” messages, and it’s obviously girly. it’s still good for all audiences imo, but the sheer girliness of it may be hard to get through at first. it mellows out as it goes on and the story gets a bit darker, but those themes of friendship and love don’t go away. tbh, “power of friendship” is one of my favorite tropes, and this show has a lot of it.

aesthetically, this show id my fucking JAM! PURPLE!!! PURPLE EVERYWHERE!!!!!! HOLY SHIT EVERYTHING IS PASTEL AND PURPLE GUYS I LOVE IT! 10,000/10 man i love purple. The animation wasn’t as good compared to the last two shows i watched, but i mean, i came from anime. that’s not a fair comparison.

i also really liked the story, especially as it went on. Early on, Adora and Catra end up on separate sides of the fight, and it was really interesting seeing the two’s progression in the story. I especially love Catra. i think her progression was interesting, and complex, i loved seeing her manipulate her way to the top. also she’s tsundere, in a way that i actually liked.

i should say i kinda didn’t like Bow at first. The first two-ish seasons, they really played up the girliness with him, but he gets more interesting later on, and ends up really likeable to me. He reminds me of my character Carter, though, in that he’s a male character that is very feminine and ain’t afraid of it. it was kinda jarring at first, but i can respect that.

also, the show has tons of gay characters, and at least one nonbinary one (though they’re a neutral character that initially aligned with the villains. take that how you will.)

9/10 i think the beginning is a bit too over the top girly, but ya kinda jive with it as the show goes on, and the story gets darker as it goes on, kinda like avatar. if ya liked that, follow it up with this. Also, hnnnn purbleee’

Kipo and the age of the wonderbeasts:

i had no idea what to expect going in. all i knew was what i saw in the promo.

it’s a post-apocalyptic type of setting, where animals are mutated, and most are sentient. humans live underground in secret societies called burrows. kipo is separated from her dad when her home gets destroyed, and meets up with a couple of humans and a mutated bug in order to find her burrow. things escalate from there, there’s more going on, but alla that is spoilers, so i won’t elaborate.

it seems like it’s currently in progress, (i just finished season 2, and i’d bet there’s at least one more season) so i can’t judge it as a whole just yet. it’s interesting, and i like the idea, but tbh i didn’t find it quite as engaging as everything else ive watched so far? I like it, and i’m invested enough to watch the next season whenever it comes out, though. hopefully whatever’s next changes my mind, though.

i think i mainly just didn’t like the characters much at the beginning? but as i’m thinking about it, they’re starting to grow on me. i like kipo the most, cause she’s a goofy nerd who’s kinda just being nice to everybody, and it’s making her a lot of powerful friends who’ll have her back. i like how kid’s cartoons try and teach ya that being nice is a good thing.

7/10 it’s not bad, and i’d recommend it, but i feel like this story isn’t quite for me. it’s got a lot of potential to end up as something i’d really like by the end, though, so i’m gonna keep my eye on it.

Glitch techs:

i’m gonna write a bit before i watch it, but all i know is that its a show a mutual reblogged somethign about once. i think it was the theme song? which, if i remember correctly, was awesome. it looks cool, like a scifi show about kids who save a digital world or smthn.

ah so i never watched this show. will update y’all if i do, but i mean, i got into yougioh gx recently instead so it’ll be a while before i get back to this show. also, kipo got a new season since i started this, and i havent finished it yet but what i saw so far is really good.

#espy talks #does anyone else think reading stuff you wrote in the past feels cringey? or do i just don't like myself

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heizerux · 5 years

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About Stormy Weather 2

Let’s cut to the chase. This was a filler/recap episode.

Is it disappointing? Yes 😞

They did my girl Aurore wrong with the episode title and not even giving her the attention she deserves. And about nothing new happened. Chloe still hasn’t learned to actually be better. There’s more. But those are about a few things that REALLY got to me (to be brief).

Is it bad that they even have this episode? Not exactly. It just wasn’t done well.

Now that I’ve briefly got out of my system on why I was disappointed, now let’s look at the details and minor brightsides of it (I guess?) and more on why I’m disappointed.

This was an episode to establish the questions we’ve had. (Honestly did we even need these? Actually, not really. But it’s nice they even bothered.) Some of these questions are:

How’s Aurore?

Is Chloe really fully changed?

How does Nathalie REALLY feel? Like with her own words? How LONG has she been with the Agrestes? And will Gabriel keep this shit up?

How’s the dynamic between Ladybug and Chat Noir now since they’ve been fighting for a while?

How’s everyone else (Alya and Nino specifically) doing?

Will Marinette ever tell Adrien that she’s interested in him?

Will Adrien pick up on that???

Pretty much here’s how they answered these, as well as what I took from these answers:

How’s Aurore? Naturally I’m gonna open up with Aurore here since this was supposed to be HER episode again. We see her being bullied by Chloe and then she get it’s gets to her. THAT’S how Aurore is doing. The only few things I liked about her here is learning she and Marinette are friends. But that’s IT. This could have been HER moment. HER episode again. We could of known more about HER. Instead what do we get? Just like 3 minutes tops of her and boom. Defeated, and not even checked up on. I know she’s a side misc character but damnit *slaps table*. . . We really were cheated with her comeback. This wasn’t her episode and it shouldn’t have been titled “Stormy Weather 2”. I’m sad about this.

Is Chloe really fully changed? Nope. So I knew her development wasn’t even started yet (as we’ve seen), but like damn. We see how being hero twice has gotten to her head. It’s disappointing, it really is. The only “bright side” is that at least they’re establishing here that she clearly still has changing to do instead of saying she’s fully changed, which she isn’t. Probably even alluding to what we’re gonna see next with her. Obviously by that last glare, Marinette (as Ladybug) isn’t giving into her shit anymore. (That or she’s disappointed in how Chloe doubled back too.)

How does Nathalie REALLY feel? And so we see. She, as expected, hates her fucking job because it’s too demanding, but LOVES the Agreste family. We now, with her own words, which are rare, learn just how long she’s been with them, her feelings for the family, and that she canonically cared for Emilie and has now fallen for Gabriel. She’s also still sick from Heroes Day (so they didn’t forget that’s a thing, thankfully). Which now only implies that from this point forward, she’ll be Mayura more often, and get even sicker (a life for a life, anyone?)

How’s everyone else doing? That Ninalya (Djwifi) content. . . My heart! 💕💖💕💖😭💖💕💖💕 So they show us Nino is pretty much now a Césaire (lol), and that they both do talk about their hero duties when they’re alone. The good in seeing this? They can actually keep it a secret from the public and this shows their hero potential (unlike Chloe). The bad about it? It’s their disadvantage (as we already know.) Now what we didn’t need is all that recap footage. (That time slot could have been used for my bby Aurore 💜💙💜)

How’s the dynamic between Ladybug and Chat Noir now since they’ve been fighting for a while? Well :) (Filler aside) We see that Ladybug is A LOT more fonder of Chat Noir than before. This time she’s loosening up her humor during battle when she used to be all “stop joking! This is serious!” Then they go on to recap on shit that we already know like that they trust each other and *yawn*. But one thing I did notice, and like about this, is that look she gives him as he runs off.

It’s almost a look of that says “I’m starting to view you as more than a partner. . .” (Will they show it in the following episodes. Boy do I hope.)

Will Marinette ever tell Adrien that she’s interested in him? Okay so not only does she drop off Adrien’s homework, but you notice something? Not only did she volunteer, but she didn’t fluster while doing so. When she delivers it, she’s not panicked about it, instead she’s just nervous about talking to Nathalie and disappointed she couldn’t give it to him in person. Then what happens next? She FINALLY takes Kagami’s advice and does something. Once she’s done, she’s not regretful and doubtful about it anymore when she used to be. Sure, we went over shit that marks she “changed”, but it’s really around this part in the episode that she ACTUALLY changes. From here she’s a new confident Marinette, pretty much. The recap was still unecessary.

Will Adrien pick up on that??? *sigh* no lol.

Okay, real quick, BIG APPRECIATION for Plagg’s “Oh shit” face when he sees Adrien notices the handwriting.

So into Adrien and his love life, we see that his head is too in the clouds to fully notice the amazing girl that is MARINETTE. I will say I love that Plagg keeps trying to steer him in the direction to LOOK AT MARINETTE. (Mentioning how Gabriel wasn’t mad Adrien was with her when he snuck out and hinting that she’s VERY available more than once.) When he finally notices the handwriting, he’s SO close to putting it together. Plagg for a sec is shook about it (since it hints he’s closer to piecing she’s LB), but then he re-tracts because he’s a clueless child and now is left on the conclusion that it’s not her. Okay -_-

So now that that’s done, let me just add on why I think that last part where he retracts marks something.

Anyone find it odd that the episode ended specifically with Adrien noting that “Marinette couldn’t have written the letter (can’t be in love with me) because she’s just a friend that’s into fashion. Besides there’s Luka.”

Luka. . .

. . .

You guys hear that?

Right as soon as he says that, sad music plays. Like he “lost” something.

Then Adrien as if slightly disappointed, insists it was probably “someone else”. . . Because there’s Luka. . .

And then the episode ends.

(My own thought: I think this is here to mark off that not only Luka is coming more into play, but maybe that it’ll affect Adrien more than he thinks? It may be that his change to come is that he stops looking “up in the clouds” and starts looking in front of him.)

haaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!

And that’s about one of the few things that got me in this episode (among Nino and Alya and Mari getting confident for once). Because it means shits gonna get interesting among the ships👀. . . *sips tea*

I’d touch the development issue but after carefully going over the fact that both season 2 and 3 were written around the same time, I do have a hunch stuff is kind of out of order there. But that’s a topic for another day. (Probably one I’ll rethink and retouch fully after this season is done.) So let’s get back to the real question:

So wtf was this episode?

Well, this is just my take, but judging by the brief glances at Stormy Weather 2’s LEVEL of power, it’s there to set what we’re gonna be seeing from the episodes forward. If this looks intense, then we haven’t seen intense, yet (ya feel?)

For certain ppl (I’m one of these ppl) Stormy Weather from S1 was THE pilot episode to the whole show and the first episode seen. It set up what we were going to be seeing of the show. So if there had to be an explanation, my take is that’s why they picked her again to mark off a recap and brand new starting point for what’s to come.

TLDR: This episode probably wasn’t just meant to show what’s changed, but to mark of what WILL change moving forward.

It’s not perfect, I’m still not happy with how it was delivered, but that’s probably what they were going for.

They probably should of just called it “The Story So Far” or something, honestly. Not Stormy Weather 2. Aurore did amazing. Her screentime didn’t :( But in the end, it’s probably there to mark the start of real change.

Since that’s maybe the deal, then changes we may see here moving forward and so on are:

It’s probably gonna mark Marinette as being comfortable around Adrien and no longer hesitating as much as she did, but of course Luka will be more in her life (and Adrien may or may not realize he isn’t as okay with it?? That’s just what I wanna see honestly lol). Chloe will probably realize that she can’t keep expecting to be handed a miraculous just because she says so, which then could mark her to ACTUALLY start changing. And so on.

Anyway we’ll see what the next episodes bring. I noticed they’ve only been showing us the uneventful episode first and leaving the more “juicy” ones for later dates. . .

As long as this is, I actually kind of rushed through it so my apologies if it’s all over the place :(

#sorry about the dots #spacing on mobile sucks #ml season 3 #ml thoughts #ml salt #ml speculation #sort of #ml spoilers #stormy weather 2 #miraculous ladybug #mlb #ml #miraculous ladybug and chat noir #personal

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angrylizardjacket · 5 years

Text

and then there was light [3] {Roger Taylor}

Anon asked: Prompt: angst Roger and y/n because he’s jealous after a party

A/N: 5981 words!! What?! Like, it’s not explicit, but I might have given the reader a slight praise kink. Some sexual content. There is mentions of cheating, just to let you know if that makes you uncomfortable. There might be a problem with pacing but like... suspend your disbelief. Also.... you’ve got a big storm coming.

[part 1] [part 2]

Your grip is white-knuckled on the armrest as you felt the plane rumble beneath you; anxiety is clutching at your chest as the world falls away beneath the wings of the machine and you’re rising into the sky. Roger isn’t outright laughing from where he’s sitting next to you, but it looks like he wants to. Thankfully, for his sake, he contains himself, resting a hand on your thigh, rubbing it in a gentle, comforting rhythm.

“You’ll be fine, love, these things hardly ever crash, and if this one does, it’ll make the news, probably.” He shrugged, and you glared at him, trying to push down the anxiety curling in your stomach.

“You’re the single least reassuring person I’ve ever met.” You snapped, but he just grinned wider, his hand moving higher on your thigh, your legs part just a little, out of instinct, and you’re too anxious about the flight to even blush at it.

“I could distract you instead.” He offers, giving your thigh a gentle squeeze. Something eases in your chest and you relax your grip on the armrest to put your hand on his. “Love?” He asks, watching how you’re leaning your head back against the headrest, eyes closed, like you were trying to go to your happy place, wishing you weren’t trapped inside this plane. His hand twitches to move away when he doesn’t get a response, but then your own hand is guiding his a little further up, and you’re wearing a little, playful smile, though it’s strained. Roger has to bite back a laugh.

“Could you please wait until the seat belt sign is off?” John’s voice interrupts both of you, pressing his face into the space between your headrests where he’s sitting behind you, sounding characteristically exasperated.

“Or wait until we land, like any decent human being.” You can hear Brian’s sigh from where he’s sitting beside John, his words followed by a world-weary sigh.

“You were both cuter when you thought we didn’t know.” Freddie says, matter-of-factly, and Paul hums in agreement, the two of them sitting in the two seats in front of you.

“So were you.” Roger snaps back, leaning back into his chair, sullen at the sudden onslaught of bullying from his band-mates. “And get your bloody face away from mine.” He smacks John’s forehead with his free hand, which has the man retreating, but you’re silently thankful. Despite this, you’re also flushing with embarrassment, which is only quelled when Roger flips his hand over on your thigh to lace his fingers with yours, giving your hand a comforting squeeze.

It’s weird, to be in public, well, sort of public, and to be allowed to actually be with Roger. You’ve always been so hyper aware of his image, careful to keep your distance where prying eyes might be lurking, the last-performance kiss notwithstanding, but here, in the relative safety of first class - and god, that was a mind-boggling realisation - he’d wrapped his arm around you. Once the seat-belt sign has been turned off and the in-flight movie has started, he pulls you into his lap on the luxuriously spacious seat. Everyone on the flight has headphones to listen along to the movie, and the plane is almost silent as everyone looks to the overhead screens. It starts innocently enough, except sitting on Roger isn’t exactly comfortable; he’s got one hand resting on your thigh, innocent enough, and the other on the armrest, but you find yourself shifting every few minutes trying to get comfortable, but it isn’t really working.

“Are you right there?” Roger moves your headphones off of one of your ears, speaking low and quiet, only to you. When you look at him, he’s not even looking you in the eyes, he’s looking at your lips, and you feel your chest tighten, though in a very different way to the plane taking off earlier.

“What?” And you shift again, trying in vain to get more comfortable before you feel him hard and pressing against your ass through his pants, and it dawns on you. After a moment, you lock eyes with him, finally, and wiggle again, deliberate, suppressing a smile. He leans in to kiss you, rough, insistent, his hand on your thigh moving dangerously higher.

“Let’s not ruin everyone’s movie,” he breathes as he pulls back, his hand moving to give your ass a light tap, and you take the hint, taking off your headphones and making a beeline for the bathroom. You find yourself waiting for almost five minutes in the stall before there’s a knock at the door and Roger’s whispering your name. You haven’t even fully locked the door before he’s pulling off your shirt, murmuring about how you both had to be quiet, though he was grinning in that way that made you melt, and made you want to be anything but quiet.

When you head back to your seats none of the others comment on it, though they do seem pretty enraptured with the movie. Your anxiety at flying had dissolved; you’re feeling all warm and syrupy in the afterglow, and Roger clicks down the armrest that separates your two seats, and shifts so that you he can still wrap his arm around you, but you’re sitting next to him, your legs stretched out and arching over his. He puts his own headphones back on, smile supremely satisfied, and you give yourself a little, mental pat on the back, but don’t bother with your own headphones, resting your head on his shoulder and falling asleep, feeling secure and safe with his arm around you.

When you land, you find yourself whisked almost directly to the new tour bus, and you suddenly find yourself filled with a new uncertainty. The space, at least compared to what you were used to, was lavish, not a single road case in sight.

“You guys live like this?” You crowed, eyes wide as you raced through the spacious vehicle, plopping yourself down on the cushioned bench beneath the back window while the rest of the band, and the crew travelling in this bus started getting settled in.

“Well yeah, was the other bus really that different?” Roger asks, joining you, sprawling himself out across the seat. The sheer absurdity of his question takes a moment to sink in, but after that you’re laughing, loud and a little bit uncontrollable, mind alight with memories of hot, bump afternoons riding along at the back of the equipment bus, sat atop a road case, holding a light and gels and trying not to touch the drum kit where it was stacked up beside you.

“God, I would have killed for a cushion.” You breathe, wistful, relaxing further, if it were possible, into the seats. After a beat, you look around at where everyone’s gone quiet; Freddie and John were setting up a board game and Brian was lounging on one of the sofas running along the inside of the bus; you’re pretty sure Roger’s the only one who hears you anyways. “I much prefer it to flying though,” you admit, shifting until you can rest your head on Roger’s shoulder.

“Really?” He asked, voice quiet enough that only you could hear it. “I thought it was a pretty decent flight.” And he reaches up to pinch at your side playfully when the bus starts up. The two of you dissolve into play-fighting, which the others don’t pay much attention to, entertaining themselves as the trip to the first destination began.

“You’re- you- they call you Spotlight, don’t they?” The voice that greets you before for the first crew meeting is bright, eager, faintly accented, and when you turn, you see it belongs to a sweet looking boy with big, brown eyes, clutching at a clipboard. Laughing a little awkwardly, you nod, and his whole face brightens at the confirmation. “I’m Robbie; I’m stage managing, and they’ve got me operating the lights.” He sounds so damn excited, it’s a little endearing, and after a beat, he’s peppering you with questions about the American leg of the tour, which you answer with ease.

You’d been worried, not that you’d ever admit it, integrating into a whole new crew; the American tour was staffed with people you’d been working with for years, and here, everything and everyone was new to you. Seeing Robbie smile, so kind and welcoming, it felt like you could breathe.

“How the crew?” Roger asks, and he’s stuck with fond deja vu, sitting behind his drums, watching you cut a whole new set of gels. You’re humming something he can’t quite pick, but you seem happy enough.

“Yeah good,” you concede, only half paying attention as you work, “they’re nice, very welcoming.” You tell him, and he makes his way to you, sitting beside you on the drum risers, picking up some scraps of the gel. After a moment, your hands still, and you watch his, smiling with confusion, before looking at him. “What-” but he’s looking back at you, and he leans in to kiss you once you look up. Putting the gel and the scissors down, you take his face in his hands, giving him an endearing smile.

“I’m working.” You said softly, but he just grinned, leaning in to kiss you again. It’s fun and easy to be with Roger at times like this, times when neither of you had to worry about what other people thought, or who saw you together; you were happy and so was he, and that’s what mattered.

It gets a bit harder, you realise, when in Glasgow you’re leaving the hotel with the band and a few paparazzi come after you; at first they’re shouting at the band but then they spot you where you’re by Roger’s side, trying to keep your face hidden. You see your picture in some gossip rag the next day when Robbie gives it to you with a long suffering and apologetic look.

“The boss wants you to be more careful about being seen.” He’s rolling his eyes at the boss’s words, however, when you ask him what he means, you learn that you’d been photographed with them in America, and people were starting to speculate that you might be part of the tour group. The Boss thinks it reflects poorly. The rest of the band is in the photo, but you’re the one being accused of being a world-travelling gold digger in the article.

When you tell Roger, or more specifically show him the article and make an offhand comment about not really being seen with the band in public anymore, he throws the magazine across the hotel room, scowling.

“They’re printing lies, Spotlight, what do you care?” He asks. You’re gentle when you step towards him, resting your hands on his shoulders.

“I care about my career and my reputation, Roger, you understand, right?” Voice soft, you don’t move until he looks at you, expression a little hurt. “I know I’m not a gold digger, but if I want to get anywhere in life, I need other people to believe that too.” You explained, and he didn’t exactly seem happy about it.

“You’re fantastic at your job, babe, isn’t that enough?” He asked, and you felt yourself flush, suppressing a grin at the praise.

“I wish it was.” You told him, voice a little forlorn, and he leaned in to kiss you, a silent agreement to your request. After a moment you pulled back, actually letting yourself grin. “You think I’m good at my job?” You asked, giggling, and Roger’s expression brightened as he huffed out a laugh.

“You know I do.” And it’s the most gentle you think you’ve ever heard him, the sweet sincerity shifts as his hands come up to rest on your hips. He knows all too well the effect he has on you when he compliments your work. “How many times do I have to tell you?” He asks, a single eyebrow raised, teasing edge to his tone.

“I mean, if you told me too much I think we both know I’d never get anything done.” And your fingers are nimbly undoing his fly. With a cheeky grin, he kisses you again, rougher, biting at your bottom lip before you pull away.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He muses, watching the way you wet your lips, smiling at him. “You’re very good at other things too, love.”

“I know.” You watch him through your lashes, biting your lip to keep from laughing as his whole face lights up and he’s snorting out a laugh at your response, and you fall to your knees, already pulling down the waistband of his jeans.

He doesn’t like that you insist on leaving the hotel at different times, becomes a little clingy in the mornings when you go to get up, but he always manages to tug you back down to him, and you get lost in the way he smiles in the early morning sunlight, the feel of his lips on yours, the way he laughs softly against your skin.

Despite this, he keeps his distance around other people. The band he doesn’t worry about, but he stays up by his drums during lunch, and sometimes during the after parties you attend, he’ll disappear for a few hours at a time, and you find him at the bar, reasonably hammered, surrounded by fans fawning over him. He always goes home with you though, so you try not to feel too jealous.

“Hey, Light? I’m getting lunch, do you want anything?” Things start going downhill the day Robbie pops his head in during your lunch break; you’re at the top of a ladder, fiddling with the angle of a parcan, and Roger’s at his drums.

“No thanks.” You call back, chipper, shooting the ASM a smile, and when he leaves, Roger frowns at you.

“Did he give your nickname a nickname?” He punctuates it with a laugh, but it sounds more angry than anything else.

“That’s Robbie,” your explanation does not seem to placate him. You’d been spending a lot of time with Robbie, the two of you bonding over both having worked on Bowie’s last tour. “He’s German.” You add, as if the fun fact might warm Roger to him.

“I know how to pick accents.” He snapped back at you, and you actually stopped your work to look at him, a little shocked and defensive at his tone. He’s not looking at you, he’s gone back to watching the door.

“He’s the ASM, Rog, chill out, we work together.” You tell him. He doesn’t respond, and all you can do is go back to your work, a squirming discomfort making itself known in your chest.

He disappears after the show that night, not coming to find you after bump out like he usually would, and you try to assume the best; that he’s too high from adrenaline and the endorphins of such a good show that he’d wanted to ride the hype the rest of the band. It wasn’t deliberate, you told yourself.

“You going to the after party?” Robbie asks carefully, hands in his pockets, still wearing his own theatre blacks. You realise you must look a little lost, and when you decide that you are, you tell him, and he offers to walk with him. He’s sweet, excitedly gushing about how he can’t wait for the Munich show so he could see his girlfriend, and you find yourself enthusing about how exciting it is to be travelling around Europe. Once you step foot in the pub, the two of you part ways, Robbie heading for the bar, and you seeking your own boyfriend.

His whole face lights up when he sees you, and the anxiety that had been building in your chest dissipates when he wraps his arms around you, spinning you around.

“I’m sorry, I got caught up.” He told you, but he doesn’t kiss you, just pulls you down to the sofa with him where Freddie’s in the middle of an animated discussion with Brian.

It happens again at the next stop, he leaves you behind and you make your way to the after party talking with Robbie. He’s kind, sweet, looking forward to marrying his high school sweetheart. If you’re being honest, it’s nice to have someone to talk to who understands your side of touring, being another interchangeable face to the talent you’re helping, someone down to earth and . He gushes about how jealous he is of your friendship with the band, starry eyed in the cool night air.

Again, when you arrive at the venue, Roger’s already there, and he doesn’t get up this time, just beckons you to him with a bright smile. It doesn’t ease your discomfort like you hoped his smile would.

“Are you mad at me?” You ask gently one night; the two of you were walking in relative silence, side by side, not touching for fear of paparazzi, you try to justify.

“No, why?” He asked, and you look at him, eyes narrowed as you examine him, and his smile is a little far away when he looks back at you. After a long moment of silence, he takes your hand, pulling you both to a stop, facing each other. He wraps his arms around you, still giving you that far away smile, and he kisses you. “I’m sorry I keep leaving you behind, love.”

“So you’re not mad at me?” You confirm, stepping back and taking his hand, continuing to walk.

“Of course not; should I be?” And the way he says it, so perfectly fucking harmless, has the hairs on the back of your neck standing up.

“No!” You defend, and he’s laughing easily in the moonlight.

It keeps happening, sporadically, and it always seems to coincide with whenever he sees you and Robbie together, or Robbie comes in to offer to get you lunch, and you know what’s happening before you dare to admit it.

On some of the nights where you opt to go straight back to the hotel, you’re woken by him flopping into bed beside you, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you to him, warm and protective, at odds with the discomfort in your chest.

“Missed you.” He yawns, smelling of alcohol and cigarettes, and one time, of faint, fruity perfume that you don’t recognise. When you ask him, he says that someone spilled a cocktail on him, and you realise you can’t even tell if he’s lying or not.

“You jealous?” And you can hear the sleepy smirk in his words, and your own tired mind is unguarded, unfiltered.

“A little.” You whisper into the silence of the hotel room. He doesn’t answer you, but his grip on you tightens, and he hums, the meaning of which you can’t decipher. It takes you a long while to get to sleep after that.

It comes to a head a few weeks later, however, the night they perform in Paris.

“I miss her so much.” Robbie bemoaned you as the two of you walked together, his arm tucked into yours as he waxed poetic about his now-fiance. “She sent me a care package and I swear I almost cried in front of the sound operator.”

“Why?” You laughed, and Robbie groaned.

“I opened it in the bio box because I picked it up from the front desk on my way here, like right after checking in.” By the time you get to the after party, the music is already blaring, and like always, you split up to go your respective ways. Roger greets you warmly, making room for you on the sofa he was sprawled on, wrapping an arm around you as he continued his conversation with a starry-eyed groupie, who didn’t even acknowledge your presence. You make conversation with John, who’s hovering near the arm of the sofa, bopping along to the music, looking a little bit longingly at the dance floor.

Roger goes to get a drink a little while later, smiling and asking if you’d like anything, and as soon as he’s gone, Robbie, now quite plastered, pours himself into the empty seat.

“I called her- Spotlight, I miss her so much - and she told me she loves me and she can’t wait until I get home; should I walk back to Germany? I wanna see her.” He asked, words blurring together a little from his accent and his inebriated state, and he rests his head on your shoulder.

“This is Robbie; he misses his fiance.” You explain to a confused looking Freddie, who’s expression melts into one of adoration, and he ‘aww’s at that. Robbie is starry-eyed for a long moment, before he turns to you.

“Should I walk to Munich? I miss her.” He reiterates, and you burst out laughing, petting his head fondly.

“No, don’t walk to Munich, you should go home, we’ve got a big day tomorrow.” You tell him, and he groans, clearly not having received the answer he wanted. Instead, you get to your feet and offer him your hand. “I’ll walk you back, we’re staying at the same hotel.”

You find Roger at the bar with one of your arms around Robbie’s shoulders where he’s pretty much legless, the lightweight. There’s a muscle jumping in Roger’s jaw when he sees you, and you hesitate, giving him a confused look.

“Hey, I’m just going to take Robbie back to his room, okay? I’m probably going to bed after.” You tell him. He doesn’t smile, just offers you the drink he got you and blinks slowly when you wave it away. “I’ll see you later, okay?” You ask gently, hoping to get a response from him, but he’s just giving Robbie a sour, calculating look. Robbie is transfixed by the lights behind the bar and does not notice.

When you finally get Robbie into bed, much later than you would have thought since he insisted on stopping at everything that caught his interest, and taking five minutes of standing still and explaining how beautiful his fiance’s eyes were, he’s still wearing his shoes. Once under the covers, he grabs your hands and looks you in the eyes, suddenly serious.

“You’re good. You’re a good sort, Spotlight.” He tells you, his accent coming in just a little thicker with his sincerity, and he pets your hands, before abruptly turning away from you and pulling the blankets up to his nose, clearly tapping out for the night.

The room you shared with Roger was just a few floors up, and you’re in the elevator when you realise you’d left your keys in your room. You usually did, you always went back with Roger, so you usually didn’t need them. When you approach the door, you think you hear murmuring from the other side, but it could have been from across the hall, you don’t think about it too much as you knock. There’s a giggled ‘shhh’ from the other side of the door that’s less easy to play off, but you’re tired enough to think it’s just mostly-asleep Roger. You knock again, but no-one replies. It’s too late to knock too much, and you know he’s a deep sleeper, so with a heavy, tired heart, you make your way down the hall.

“What do you want?” Paul’s frowning at you when he opens the door, wearing his blue pyjamas, squinting at you.

“Keys to the bus please, I need somewhere to sleep, Roger’s not answering.” You tell him, and punctuate it with a yawn. After a beat more of watching you, as if assessing your motives, he disappears back into his room and reappears with the keys.

“Don’t lose them.” He warned, before closing the door on you.

The sofa in the bus is long enough that you can spread out, and you find someone’s fur coat to use as a blanket. It’s comfortable enough, a little cold, and it’s only when you hear a banging on the door and feel the sunlight on your face the next morning that you get up.

Opening the door, you see Roger standing there, looking up at you, waiting for entrance. Moving back to your makeshift bed, you take a seat, giving him a confused smile.

“I... didn’t think you’d actually be here.” He already sounds like he’s in a mood, bitter, but a little bit hesitant.

“Of course I stayed here, I knocked but you didn’t answer- what was up with that?” You asked, punctuating it with a yawn, rubbing the sleep from your eyes. He watched for a moment before he slid his sunglasses down his nose to glare at you over them.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, voice a little hoarse and scratchy, moving from hesitant to just quietly angry, the venom in his words hurting like a physical slap, and you sat up straighter.

“I’m-” And you’re searching for the words, but none come to mind.

“Why are you still on this bus?” He explains in a hiss. After a beat, he slides his glasses back up his nose, and turns to look away from you, a clear dismissal.

You’re at a loss as to how to explain that you’re here because... well, you’re always here, it’s where you were now. He’s the one who’d brought you here.

“What do you mean? You’re the one who wanted me here.” Standing your ground, you don’t dare let your voice betray how confused and hurt you were feeling.

“Yeah, well now I don’t.” He snapped. His words hit you squarely in the chest, and he leaves you in your shocked, dazed silence, moving to the back of the bus. “Fuck off back to the equipment bus, since you prefer it so much better.” He snarled, and that’s what unfroze you.

“Christ, I don’t get paid enough to deal with whatever this is and ride in that bus, so that’s a resounding ‘no thanks’. And more importantly; what the fuck has gotten into you?” Emotion comes crashing back into you, rage tearing through you like a tidal wave, and you turn on him, jaw clenched.

“’Whatever this is’” he snorted, low and bitter, “yeah, but you get paid enough to fuck that little, brown-haired cockhead?” He asked, and your eyes went wide.

“Who? Robbie?” You asked, voice dangerously calm. “You think I’m fucking Robbie? Our assistant stage manager? Who just proposed to his girlfriend at our stop in Munich? That brown-haired cockhead?” You snarled, advancing on Roger like a predator cornering her prey, bitter tension gathering across your skin.

“Was he the one crying on your shoulder last night at the after party?” Roger raised an eyebrow, but the sting had left his words. Narrowing your eyes, you confirm with a single, venomous ‘yes’. “Oh.”

“Is that why you locked me out last night? You thought I was-”

“I was angry, okay?” He cut you off, sitting down at the back of the bus, and though his tone is angry, his demeanour, the way he’s avoiding your gaze and fiddling, it’s... almost guilty. In that moment, it was as if you’d been splashed with cold water, an icy realisation slithering down your spine.

“What does that mean?” Voice level, you try not to jump to conclusions, but your heart is already sinking. He doesn’t answer. When he turns away, you see a hickey on his collar that wasn’t there yesterday. “Roger, what did you do?” You asked, and the hurt was already bleeding through into your words.

“I was... I was so fucking angry.” It’s not a real answer, it’s not even a real excuse. The way he says it, jaw clenched, heart in his throat, he’s all but bleeding guilt, too proud to ask for forgiveness.

“Bullshit.” Your can feel tears welling in your eyes and threatening to spill, but your hands are shaking with anger, hurt, betrayal, and you don’t even care. “You’ve been weird for weeks, you were just looking for the first out you could get.”

“Y/N.” He stands, reaches out to grab your shoulder, but you step back, out of his reach.

“No.” Your voice is firm, but your lip is quivering. “I don’t want you to ever touch me again,” wrapping your arms across your chest, looking at his outstretched hand with disdain through your tears. “Being angry isn’t an excuse. Jumping to conclusions isn’t an excuse. I get that it must be fun fucking around with the girl who makes you work for it by your standards, but,” shaking your head, you sniffle, holding yourself a little tighter with one hand, you wipe away your tears with the other, “the moment you have to work, have to put in a little bit of fucking trust? You couldn’t even do that.”

“Spotlight, please-”

“I’m in fucking Europe for you, Roger! What in your fucking, dumbass mind thinks that I’m someone who travels halfway across the world with someone just to cheat on them?” You’re yelling now, grateful to be alone and worrying that others would join you at any minute. You didn’t want them seeing you like this.

“For me? You’re here for work! I’m opening doors for you in the industry that you’d never have opened yourself!” And he knows even as he’s saying it that it’s the wrong thing to say, but he’s too furious at himself, lashing out at the only person he could. He watches as your expression turns shocked, before shattering, and you start bawling your eyes out, holding your face in your hands. Regret floods through him, but as he steps forwards to comfort you, you yell for him to fuck off.

“I can’t- I can’t leave can I? If I leave the tour, they’ll think the tabloid are right, that I’m some dumb groupie.” And you turn, distraught, and curl up on the sofa along the inside of the bus, still bawling, loud and ugly, great heaving sobs wracking your body as you realise the full extent of what had happened, and what it would mean for you. “You’ve ruined my fucking career.”

“That’s a bit of an overstatement.” He can’t even bring himself to apologise, sitting back against the window of the bus, watching as you curl yourself into a ball, the only sound filling the silence being your sobbing. It hurts, his heart is fucking aching, but he couldn’t admit it. When you raised your head to look at him, your eyes red rimmed and lip trembling, he feels only a white hot guilt fill him from the inside out.

“You don’t get it, this industry is about who you know, and if all I am is some girl who Roger Taylor fucked, flew across the world, and got bored with, it doesn’t matter how good at my job I am, I’ll just be another groupie with aspirations.” And you bury your face in your hands again.

“We could... pretend like nothing happened, until the end of the tour.” He offers, quietly, the weakest hail mary pass you’d ever heard, and you roll your eyes at him.

“I’d rather have my dignity, thanks.” You spat, taking in a deep shaking breath as you finally sat up, wiping fruitlessly at your eyes as tears continued to flow, though you tried to pull yourself together.

“You’re not under contract, you can leave if you want.” And it might literally be last on the list of things you’d wanted to hear at that moment.

“I get it, Roger, you don’t want me around.” You snap, standing. “You are who you are; I was stupid to think you were better than that.” You sniffled. When you turn and leave, he’s silent, replaying your words over and over again in his head until he’s absolutely livid at what he’s done.

When the rest of the band returns almost a full half an hour later, he’s trashed the entirety of the bus, even going to far as to rip up the cushioning on the bench beneath the back window.

“So you’ve heard the news I take it.” Brian looks at the scene before them, voice and demeanour both surprisingly nonchalant, and Roger, breathing heavily amid the carnage, gives him a sharp look. “Spotlight’s heading home, something’s come up with her family.” He explains. Behind him, John’s already started picking up a fractured mug, and Freddie is just frowning at Roger.

“Yeah?” Is all Roger says, snatching up the cushions from where he’d thrown them, and flopping himself onto the back bench, facing away from them all.

“She’s just talking to the production manager if you’d like to say goodbye.” Freddie offers, carefully neutral, and Roger suspects he knows something’s up with the story.

“She doesn’t want to see me.” He huffed sulkily, and the others lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. They can tell it’s a touchy subject but they don’t pry. They don’t hear from you, don’t even know how to contact you if they had been able to, instead they watch Roger pick up different girls night after night, trash hotel rooms, and grow shorter when interacting with the crew, especially the assistant stage manager.

“I am who I am.” Is all he says, lips around a cigarette where he’s chain smoking in the empty theatre at lunch when Freddie finds him and finally asks what’s wrong. Freddie wants to ask what happened, wants to ask why you really left, but he knows Roger well enough to figure most of it out. Roger’s a ticking time bomb nowadays, so he doesn’t pry.

The band doesn’t talk about you, not when paparazzi and reports yell out asking where you are, not to the crew, they barely talk about you to each other, and they never talk about you around Roger.

The bus is quieter now.

Roger’s louder now.

There’s an ache in his chest that won’t go away, that he’s filling with meaningless sex and too much booze because he can’t stand waking up alone, and he still thinks about what you said, and the way you had smiled at him before it all went to shit. He remembers how you’d risked your life for a light beneath his drums, and sometimes at breakfast he finds himself thinking about how you’d thrown a plate of food in his face before you were even real friends, and he wants to yell, to scream, because how could he be so fucking stupid? You’d seen him for who he was, and chose to be with him despite it, you thought he could be better than his reputation, but he’d just managed to prove he wasn’t.

It hits him when he’s got his hands on some girl whose name he doesn’t know that all he can think about is you, and he hates himself when he leans into the fantasy, not that the other girl notices. He’d rather fuck around than admit he’d developed feelings for you, and so he does, and pretends like he doesn’t miss your sleepy, morning grin, or the casual way the two of you would chat as you were rigging the spotlights for the band.

The day he finds out they’ve replaced you, the kid they’ve got is at the top of the ladder during lunch when he walks in, and he’s hit with such a sense of deja vu that he stops in his tracks.

“I was told this is the best time for me to get work done.” Her voice, thank god she sounds nothing like you, is hesitant, with none of the calm confidence you exuded at the top of the ladder.

“It’s none of my fucking business.” Roger snaps, and turns on his heel and leaves, pretending like it hadn’t felt like he’d just seen a ghost. He gets another drink.

#roger taylor #roger taylor imagine #roger taylor x reader #bohemian rhapsody #borhap #bo rhap #bohemian rhapsody imagine #ben hardy #ben hardy imagine #and then there was light #queen #queen imagine #content #the angry lizard writes

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slut-for-fandoms · 5 years

Text

Paint me yours (kth x reader) PART 1

Pairings: Artist!Taehyung x reader

Genre: smut, fluff, angst (in the following chapters)

Summary: You are an art college student who struggles with finances. Until one day, on an exhibition of the arising artist Kim Taehyung, when the same boy offers you a job as his model. Would it be just a simple job or would it complicate your life in ways you have never thought it would?

Warnings: none in this one (perhaps my bad writing and lots of mistakes?)

A/N: So here is the first chapter. I really don’t know what to think about it as i haven’t written anything in more than a year (so sorry guys but now I am back, yey) I really do hope you like it and please let me know what you think and whether you would like to be tagged in the series ♥ Enjoy

Euphoria. Excitement. Happiness. Exaltation. A complete symphony of colors and emotions. Blue, purple, violet, azure - blended in such a way that glues you to the masterpiece. At places it seems unfinished, raw, as though the creator has been in a hurry. But at the same time it is so detailed that you wonder how long it took him to create it. It represents a woman, or to be more precise, a young girl. Long hair composed with ochre, amber, honey and a hint of gold, covers half of her pale face. Her lips are the perfect combination of red, cheery, wine and auburn. An orderly chaos of colors.

While everything seems just as raw painting, the most capturing features are the eyes. They are so detailed and express the condition of the girl. The sparks that make her look tangible grabs you on a roller coaster of thoughts and feelings and somehow makes you even experience the same state. I move to the next painting.

Sadness. Affliction. Pain. Torment. The contrast between the used shades is much deeper. Pale yet dark. The more I look at it, the more it captivates me. All of the creations I saw were beyond amazing, complete masterpieces but this one… This one is different. One look and I got this strange feeling in my guts when we anticipate something bad, something that might hurt us.

The background is composed of dark shades, while the girl is sculpted of the pale range of colors. Again, the most detailed parts are the eyes. You get the feeling as if a soul was trapped inside the drawn girl that shows how much she suffers. The more you contemplate, the more you assume that the darkness around her represents the cruel world, while the bright yet shaded colors shows how fragile and broken she is. Is it from the world? What destroyed her? Who made her look like a shattered vase which parts are no longer going to form its beautiful shape?

Holding my glass of champagne I took some steps back and sat on the settee opposite the painting. Thanks god it wasn’t that low as they use to be in other galleries. I crossed my legs which caused the hem of my black dress to roll up slightly. As an art student, I tend to visit many exhibitions in order to get inspiration, gain knowledge of the new and unorthodox styles and improve mine. I can’t say I am complaining as we are given free access to any kind of such events. This is beyond amazing as now I am contemplating the art of one of the rising artists – Kim Taehyung. Honestly, I have never seen him but the critics consider him the new Van Gogh and now I understand why.

When I came I was so uneven about it, all the people here were rich and classy and I, a broken student with a cheap dress borrowed from her friend, had no place here. Everything was out of my league and I felt like garbage disfiguring this place.

“You seem really immersed into the picture.”, someone chucked, bringing me out of my thoughts. I looked up and saw man in golden suit and two glasses of champagne in his hands. His smile was so bright, genuine, that it made me blush slightly, “May I?”, he titled his head towards the settee as if asking if it was free.

“Ye- yeah, of course”, I stuttered and put a lock of fallen hair behind my ear.

His smile grew bigger and he took the free seat next to me.

“Here.”, he gave me one of the glasses. I looked up at him confused, “I saw that you have already finished yours so…”, I looked at my glass which was empty. I might have stayed there for a way longer time that I have thought. I left the glass on the floor next to the settee.

“Thank you.”, I gave him a smile, although inside I was feeling embarrassed, “Very fond of you.”, I said after taking the offered glass.

“Well, I just wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I have left such a beautiful lady sitting here by her side. The champagne was just an excuse to approach you.”, I bit my lip and tried to hide myself due to the blush that crept on my face.

“You are even more appealing when blushing.”, okay, I have never believed I could become so red but here I am.

“Please, stop.”, I stuttered through the smile that just grew bigger on my face.

“Why?”, he tilted his head and asked me with that sweet smirk still placed on his face, his eyes never leaving my figure, “you don’t like honest people?”, as a response I chuckled and tried to gain my dignity and look at him. Why was I such a blushing mess around this… stranger…a handsome stranger?

“It is just that you are the first one to approach me this evening.”, a slight feeling of sadness made my stomach turn as I recall the events, pardon, the lack of them from this night. I started playing with my hands as something as pity overwhelmed me.

“Well-”, his deep baritone voice made me look at him. This time he was facing the painting in front of us which gave me the opportunity to survey him. Soft pink lips, sweet roundy nose, medium long light eyelashes. Skin in the color of bronze and a golden suit that make him look like a god. Aristocratic hands with long fingers, adorned with rings. The way he is holding the glass gives you the thoughts that a prince is sitting oppose you, “It is their lose.”, he states after locking his eyes with mine. And then I’m completely lost. They are just like the sad girls’ in the paintings – full of emotions. I see the same spark that leads directly to his soul. It captivates you. There is love, care, tenderness that make my heart skips a beat. But also you can spot something wild and intriguing. An abyss of feelings kept locked deep inside.

He took a sip of his champagne which caught my attention and made me break the eye contact. How could such a simple action as drinking makes me wanna grab the brushes and paint this gorgeous creature on the canvas?

“I can’t say I am complaining of that.”, I followed his movements and took a taste of my drink, “They seem like they are here only for talking. All of them are just chit-chatting and just at times spare a glance at the paintings. It – It just looks like a gathering of the rich and bitchy class.”, suddenly he burst into laughing. Oh that sound… It was like a soft melody for my years I could listen to all day. It was so infectious and addicting.

“What?”, I asked confused but with a smile plastered on my face.

“I couldn’t have said it more correctly. I’ve met everybody in the gallery and yet you are the only one contemplating the works.”

“Isn’t that what we are supposed to do on an exhibition? But apart from that, these paintings, these masterpieces…”, I took a breath like looking at the sad girl opposite me, “they are captivating. There is life in them, there is soul. Undoubtedly the artist is one of the best I’ve ever come across. Many have the ability to draw, few have the talent to create a masterpiece, something that makes you stop and think. And these here, they indeed convey more than a hundred words.”

“And where do you think that comes from?”, he asks me in that deep voice of his. I turn my attention back on him to see the man already looking at me with a stern expression showing nothing.

“The ability to make a painting live?”, he nodded his head in agreement, “Pain.”

“Pain?”

“Pain. It is always the pain. Why do you think the greatest artists are those who have suffered the most? Sadness, sorrow, ache, agony… they are different than the other feelings. When something good happens to you, you are happy for a short moment. Usually those moments tends to be forgotten way easier than the moments that our soul was in pain. It is just that the affliction we bottle inside us ruins us in the end. The knots in our stomach, the suffocating feeling in our chest… they are tormenting us and we all need a way to express them somehow, to try to get them out of us. And the answer is always the art. It doesn’t matter whether it would be with a brush or a pen in our hands, if we are going to compose a poem, song or just draw something. We just want the pain away. For its tight fist around our hearts to weaken, for its dark thoughts to leave us at peace at night, for the tears to stop rolling down and choke us.”, I paused in order to take a sip of my champagne, feeling his eyes following my movements, “That is one of the reasons why I like this one so much.”, I continued pointing at the work before us, “It look as if not only the model had been sad, but also the artist.”, when I turned around he had a sad smile on his face. For a moment I saw the abyss – full of sorrow and regret, pain and affliction.

“You can’t be more right.”, and once again, as he looked up, the door to his soul closed with that stern expression, “That is why I don’t know whether I like this work or not.”

“It recalls a bad event?”

“It recalls the day I painted her.”

My eyes were so wide that surely they were going to pop out of my head. I opened my mouth, then close it, then opened it again. I was so shocked that I could say nothing.

“I still remember how heartbroken she was.”

“You- you are the artist?”, my voice raised an octave higher and I cursed myself.

“Surprised?”, he asked smiling at my shocked expression.

“You just caught me off guard.”

And then the rest of the night kind of slips my mind. I don’t really know how long we’d been talking through various topics. Whatever felt like hours had only been half an hour once I saw the watch on my hand.

“Unfortunately, as a host, I need to make a speech. It was nice to meet you -”

“(Y/N)!”, answering I took his hand as he helped me get up from the settee.

“(Y/N).”, he said tasting my name and I could not miss the way his tongue rolled and the deep voice that sent shivers down my spine, “A beautiful name for a way more gorgeous girl.”

“Why are you trying to make my blush so hard?”, I asked trying to hide my face.

“I don’t know. I just like it.”, he shrugged with a smile, “Can I ask you something, (Y/N)?”, is it just me or he just lowered his voice on purpose while saying my name.

“O-Of course.”, out of nervousness I started playing with my own hands which only made his smirk grow bigger.

“Would you like to be my model, darling?”

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shikastemari · 6 years

Text

spy - n. u.

pairing naruto uzumaki x yamanaka!reader

request

word count 4,895

when it happens after Pain destroyed the Village

warnings THE ANGSTIEST SHIT I’VE WRITTEN IN MY LIFE

a/n this is actually one of the first stories i’ve ever thought about. i wrote it months ago but just now i decided to give it a chance and post it and yeah, i gor a little carried away while writing it.

btw i’m witnessing the biggest writer’s block i’ve been through and that’s why i haven’t posted anything lately. hopefully it’ll be gone soon enough and i’ll be back to write as easily as i used to.

masterlist on my profile bio

Naruto Uzumaki.

The first time you heard his name was in one of your missions. You were spying some old guy who was owing bad people money, and you had heard Naruto's story by accident. The guy who defeated the leader of the Akatsuki all by himself, even someone as the legendary Sannin Jiraiya couldn't. During the time, you have heard a lot of girls sigh in desire for the boy, as also heard a lot of man being inspired by him - to become even stronger than people said he was.

So, when you finished your mission, it was no surprise for you someone decided to hire you to dig some dirty on Naruto. You have never accepted a mission on Konoha before, keeping your boundaries up since you know your uncle and his family still lived there, and you would never do anything to hurt your blood. But the offer was too good to decline.

Last time you have seen your uncle and cousin, you were six. Your mother was a foreign and her pregnancy had so many complications. The day you were born, she made a promise, she would take you back to her country, to become a ninja there. Your father, the brother of the Yamanaka clan leader, was madly in love with her and never said a single no at her direction. When the time came, not only he didn't fight against your mother taking you away, as he decided to leave the village himself. Uncle Inoichi helped him, knowing it was the only thing he could do to help his brother achieve happiness, but in the process, your father ended up being labeled as a rogue ninja.

The Bamboo Village was a nice place to live, and your parents were always happy there, even though you missed your old life and family deeply. You had a cousin, who also had the same age as you, so you two had grown up together and she was basically a sister to you. Leaving her behind was the hardest thing you wish you had encountered in your life, but it wasn't.

Your mother died a year after you moved country. Her disease was unknown, the doctors said they couldn't do anything but to ease her pain until the time comes. That was what you and your father did. Took care of her, stood by her side, until she was gone. To these days, you still missed her deeply. As honoring your mother wishes, you and your father didn't go back to Konoha after her death. Instead, your father taught you everything he could about the family jutsus, and it made your heart melt every time he told you how good you could become. Maybe better than him. Or even Uncle Inoichi.

He passed away five years after that, on a battle against the Land of Lightning. Even though you wanted to stay in Bamboo Village, you knew you wouldn't survive there. So that when you started to use your jutsus in espionage. You went city from city, village from village, country from country, learning from the best. The requests came right after. In your line of work, you kept your name hidden. You didn't want to drag the Yamanaka name to the mud, or even give something to your enemy to use as an advantage against you, wishing you could always keep your reminiscent family safe.

So, when your feet took you back to Konoha's, you couldn't help but feel sick. Regret and worry filled your whole body, since you counted with your family accepting you with open arms, but you knew it was a shot in the dark. Since Pain's attack which destroyed the entire village, you didn't exactly know where the Yamanaka clan was staying, so you followed your plan and walked around the village, asking if someone knew where Ino Yamanaka was.

It didn't take long, actually. Apparently, she was a recognized and respected kunoichi and you couldn't stop feeling a little jealous. What would they think about me if I have stayed? The thought flooding your head as you walked towards the place a girl told you Ino would be.

She was sitting on a pile of wood, with seven ninjas surrounding her. They were laughing and talking about how stupid what someone named Rock Lee have done to an old lady. When your eyes laid on her, you felt your heart skipping a beat. She looked exactly like before, the only thing which was different was her hair, it was so long.

A guy with the Byakugan was the first to notice you, which didn't actually surprise you at all. You have heard about what those eyes could do. Looking around them, you could see there was also a girl who could use it. This group look like they would be a pain in your ass if you didn't pay close attention at them.

"Can we help you?" A pink haired girl asked, and your eyes widened for a second. That was Sakura? No way.

As your eyes passed through their faces, you started to recognize some of them. Shikamaru was standing next to Ino, with Choji by his side. You also recognized Kiba, who you remember having an innocent crush on, because of Akamaru, which was huge now. Your heart was literally shrinking inside you by that view, already pondering the pros and cons about ignoring the mission you had been given. But you could not give up now, there was too much involved.

"Staring is creepy, have your family never taught you that?" Ino questioned, her eyes narrowed at you.

You shook your head, smiling. "You would know, Ino-nee-chan, still a bitch, I see?"

Ino's eyes popped up as she gasped, taking her hands to cover her mouth. Everyone else were just shocked by the way you talked to her, but you were sure she recognized you. Once she got up from the wood she was sitting and ran in your direction, giving you one hell of a tight hug, you felt your body relax for the first time in a long time.

"Nee-chan!" she said between the tears, it took every strength in your body not to do the same. It was still a mission, the hardest one you have been to, but still a mission. "I thought I would never see you again!"

"Wait, is that y/n-chan?" Kiba asked out loud. "Holy shit, you got hot!"

Ino and you laughed as Sakura punched the poor guy, sending him meters away from where he originally was standing. So, Sakura had a monstrous strength, just like you heard Tsunade-sama having.

"Daddy will be so happy when he sees you! Where is y/f/n-ojisan? I've missed him so bad too!" she exclaimed.

You swallowed hard, knowing too well there was no way to dodge this moment. "Mhm," you shifted your weight from one leg to the other. "My dad died when I was 12, during a battle."

"Oh," she said, the air getting heavier around you. "And why you haven't contacted us after that, y/n-nee-chan?" she asked, her tone clearly hurt. "We could have helped you."

Another question you predicted. "I tried to honor my mother's wish for as long as I could but..." you trailed off, breathing deeply to keep going. "I just wanted to be with my family again."

She hugged you again, crying her eyes out. Shikamaru came closer and pushed the girl from you.

"Ino, what a drag, let her breathe for a second," Shikamaru eyed you, from head to toe. You remember him being very - very - smart when you were kids. His eyes stopped on your lips, and you noticed his cheek blushing. Pressing your lips together to repress a smile, you couldn't push away the memory of you accidentally kissing him while playing one of Ino's idiot games. It was your first kiss, and probably his too. "Eh, welcome back, y/n-chan," he scratched the back of his head.

"Thank you, Shikamaru-kun," you grinned back at him as you were wrapped in someone's arms.

"Y/N-CHAN, YOU WERE DEEPLY MISSED!" Choji screamed as he hugged you, a little stronger than you wish, the air escaping from your lungs.

"Choji, I can't breat-" you said, but it seemed more like a whisper. Happily, he understood and let you go, being embarrassed.

"Sorry, I jus-" you caught him off guard wrapping your arms around his neck, bringing him closer. He smiled, hugging you back, but this time, not as strong as before.

"Ino-Shika-Cho," you said, looking at the three of them once Choji put you on the ground. "I certainly missed this formation."

"So, who is this girl?" A blond guy said from behind them. His blue eyes were locked on yours and you could see a little bit of distrust there.

"This is y/n, Naruto, Ino's cousin," Sakura answered, walking towards you to embrace you. "Getting on Ino's nerves were never the same after you left."

"Well, we did know how to do it, right?" you smiled at her, but your eyes were still locked on Naruto's. There was your target, right in front of you. You kept talking and catching up with your old friends, as well getting to know the others you didn't. The boy with the Byakugan was called Neji, and the girl Hinata. Apparently, they were cousins. There was also Rock Lee, Tenten and Shino - who you slightly remember running away from when you were little because of his insects.

Ino grabbed your hand, saying you two had to go. The first part of your plan was going good so far, but you couldn't stop feeling like shit the whole time. You knew you had to shake those feelings away, or you wouldn't be able to see your uncle Inoichi. He surely wouldn't trust you at first, and would search for something suspicious as talking. Your father always said he was by far the best Yamanaka shinobi that ever existed.

Well, you were about to prove him wrong.

As expected, Inoichi didn't recognized you. Once Ino said who you were, his eyes almost popped out from his face in shook, it was a good thing for you, strong emotions were used to prejudice the jutsu. He asked you a million questions, and you were honest in all of them, because you were sure he would enter in your head soon or later. Even that he seemed happy to see you, you could see he was holding himself back to ask you to see inside your head, and not because of you, but because of Ino.

So, once she was asleep on her bedroom, you went to find him on the kitchen. You knew he would be expecting the right moment to tell you, and what moment was better than late at night?

"Go ahead," you told him.

He pressed his palm gently against your head as he began to scour your mind. You made sure the first images he was going to see was you playing with Ino as children, you leaving the village with your parents. He also saw your mom dying, how miserable your dad was but his strength and love for you keeping him on track, your trainings - but not all of them -, the days he mentioned and talked about Inoichi and Ino, the times he wanted to give up everything to come back to them but he couldn't because he wanted to honor your mother memories.

Inoichi's jutsu on your head were getting more and more weak, you could literally feel it. Even though he was a master to find others people secret, he could still be manipulated to see what you wanted him to see. You knew all it would take was one more scene and he would be done with it.

So, you showed the day your dad put on his fighting clothes, saying he would be back soon enough and went to the war. You showed him the endless hours expecting for him to come home, as you stood there alone in the dark. The times you heard a noise outside and thought it was him but it was wind or some rotten bamboo which fell on the roof, and then, the time you decided to look for him, going straight to the war field. You showed him as you found your father's body in the middle of the others endless bodies there. How you cried over him, tried what you knew about medic ninjutsu - which it was so little. You literally showed Inoichi how your heart broke that day and he couldn't take it, breaking the jutsu so he could wipe away his own tears.

You remembered something you father told you long time ago.

"Inoichi is the best in searching for information in someone's head," he said during one practice. "But growing up with a brother like that, I had to find out some tricks so I could keep some things as secret from him. I didn't want my brother to know everything about my life."

And just like that you knew, Inoichi could be the best at searching for information, but your father was the best at hiding it. Your life goal was to become even better than your father, and you completely manage to do it.

After that day, Inoichi never tried to get inside your head again, you knew it was too painful for him. So, he took you under his wing, taking care of you just like he used to when you were little. Every day was getting harder to separate your feelings from the mission, as you trained with them, eat with them and everything else. Inoichi even wanted you to become a Konoha's ninja, and he was going to ask the Hokage - who apparently was in a coma - if it was possible.

"So, I heard you are making a huge success in the Village," Ino said one day, after practice. "Naruto and Kiba are fighting to see who is going to ask you out. Today I even caught Shikamaru staring at you a little too long, which by the way, it's kind of shocking. I have seen him showing interest in one girl in my life, and if I am correct, which I am, she really likes him. So, you should stay away from him a bit."

You laughed at her. "Naruto, huh?" you asked, happy because your mission would be easier than you thought. Going out with him would help you to extract information from him without being suspicious.

"So, he is a favorite. I will make sure to tell him that," Ino said, confusing your happiness like you actually wanted to go out with Naruto because you liked him. "He is so popular with girls now, it's kind of weird. Actually, the fact he wants to go out with you is weird too, because he used to like Sakura a lot."

You were grateful you had someone as chatty as Ino as your cousin. She herself had given you tons of infos, in Naruto and the rest of their friends. She was also making everything easier for you, but every time you thought about leaving after finishing your mission, your heart broke into two. She would never forgive you after finding out what you were about to do.

The hang out with Ino's friends were a good part of your day, because it was the only part of the day you let yourself to be the teenager you were supposed to be.

This time, you all went to eat barbecue. During the whole night, you guys laughed and told stories about life, trainings and missions. Stories were by far your favorite things to hear, and those guys have tons of them. But your favorite one by far was when Naruto defeated Nagato - the real Pain. Even you, after a short time, could see how big Naruto's heart was.

At the end of the evening, everyone said goodbye. When Ino said she had to do something with Choji, things got a little suspicious.

"But Naruto will walk you until my house, right, Naruto?" Ino asked him, directly.

"But your house is really far..." He trailed off as Sakura elbowed him, realization hitting him right away.

"I suppose I could go wit-" Kiba got interrupted by a screaming Naruto.

"No way, dattebayo! I will do it, I need to lose all the calories I got from this barbecue anyway. Y/n-chan, do you mind?" His smile was genuine, and you couldn't help but to smile back.

"Not at all, Naruto. I would really appreciate it," you answered in return, making his smile even bigger - if it was possible.

It didn’t take much until you realized Naruto was someone easy to be around. He always tried to mask his insecurities with cocky jokes and wide smiles, and you found to be strangely found of him. Walking side by side, it was almost shocking that the person next to you managed to defeat someone so strong as Pain. You crossed paths with Akatsuki once in a while on your missions, and you knew better than anyone how lucky you were for being alive.

“Y/n-chan, would you like to hang out sometime?” Naruto blurted out, his cheeks tinted with a light pink.

“Isn’t that what we are doing?” You smiled at him, poking his side with your elbow.

“Yes, but I mean, like a date.” He scratched the back of his neck, his eyes focused on the road ahead.

“I would love to.” You shrugged, but inside, your heart was flipping around. The worst part was when you realized it wasn’t because your mission was finally working, but because you wanted to go out with him.

“How about tomorrow?” He questioned, as soon as you arrived at the Yamanaka’s house.

“That would be perfect. Until then.”

Things followed. The first date, the connection between you two was undeniable, but you still tried to keep your mind on the prize. You analyzed every single word that came out of his mouth, but your heart couldn’t stop but beat faster every time he would smile or say something sweet about you.

You accepted his invitation for a second date, a third, a fourth, until Naruto became a constant on your routine. There were days where you would see him more than you would see your own cousin Ino, and you lived with the girl.

For many times, you wanted badly to let it go of this mission and just live. A normal relationship with someone you were crazy about, a nice family who loved you and supported you, loyal friends, out of the chart teachers… It was everything so tempting, but something buried inside your head didn’t make you give up completely for it, so every night, you wrote down on a parchment the new discovers from Naruto and everyone around him.

The last drop of resistance on your body melted the day he asked you to be his girlfriend.

You choked on the ramen you were about to swallow, staring in disbelief at the blond guy sitting across the table, his cheeks tinted by a nice shade of red.

“I know I surprised you, but it would be nice if you said something.” Naruto pointed out, scratching the back of his head, nervously.

A movie played on your head, those ones that you would figure that they passed when you were about to die. Everything you could remember since you left Konoha marked you in a way you would never recover, that for sure, but did that mean you could never find happiness? For the first time, you felt what it was like. For the first time, sorrow and hurt wasn’t the feelings that you went to the whole day through, fighting them to the back of your mind.

Naruto was there, offering everything you have ever wanted, and you had the guts to say yes.

So, you did.

His face lightened as someone had just told him he had won a whole year of free ramen. His happiness was by far the favorite thing you had witnessed in your life, along with the kiss that followed after it. For once, you forgot about your former jobs, your former past and mostly, your former pain.

During months, everything was just fine. Both of you had to deal with some difficulties on your way, but nothing that would damage your relationship. You ended up finding out about Sasuke and how badly Naruto wanted to recover him back, how deep Naruto and Sakura relationship was, strong as a brotherhood. Ino also loved to have you around, and even though you didn’t have a team, InoShikaCho didn’t hesitate to take you under their wings.

One day before the big war, you and Naruto were packing the stuff you would need to take to reunite the Alliance force. He was going through your draws, as you were going through your closet, as you heard his breathing getting faster.

“y/n, what is this?”

You turned to face your boyfriend with your old parchments on his hands. By the looks of it, he had read a couple of them, and the confusion on his face broke your heart as you didn’t know what to say.

Every single day you told yourself you should get rid of those things, but you never remembered. The guy who hired you never went after you because he didn’t even pay you, at first, so he didn’t lose anything by you not doing it.

“Naruto, I can explain.”

“So do it, because from where I’m standing, it seems like a parchment with a lot of private information of mine.” Naruto threw the paper and it ended up in front of your feet.

“You have to understand, Naruto. There were a few things I have done to survive that I am not proud of.” You took a step forward, but Naruto raised his hand as signing for you to stop.

“What you were going to do with those, y/n?” He demanded, his eyes turning red for a second before coming back to the usual blue.

“I was hired to spy on you, that was the motive that made me come back to Konoha.” The tears started to pool on the corner of your eyes. “But that was before. I didn’t give them anything about you. I couldn’t, I love you too much to do it.”

“You came to Konoha decided to betray your own family?” His tone mirrored the despise on his eyes.

“I would never do anything to hurt them.”

“But me, it was okay?”

“You don’t understand, Naruto. Spying was everything I knew before I came to Konoha. I was hurt and alone, needing money to survive. I wanted to honor my mother wishes but I couldn’t.”

“Do you really think I don’t understand the concept of being alone?” He hissed, turning his gaze away from your face. “I’ve been alone for the most part of my life, y/n. I grew up with people running away from me out of fear and you came here to tell me that I simply don’t understand? What is there to understand now?”

“That I’m crazy about you. You changed me, made me see things in a point of view I didn’t even know it was possible. You were gentle, kind and I believe you can change the whole world just by being in it, Naruto. I am sorry that I didn’t come here with the best intentions, but I am a totally different person from before.”

“I think we should take a break.”

“A break? We are going to a war tomorrow!”

“It’ll be better for both of us if we are focused on the battle ahead. We’ll talk when we are back.”

“Except that you can’t be sure that both of us are coming back alive.”

That hit him, hard. You noticed how shallow his breath became, how he had to swallow hard before opening his mouth again. “Come back alive.” He said, for last, before leaving you on the empty room.

The next few days, you had barely seen Naruto. He didn’t tell anyone about your former plans, which just made harder to explain people why you two weren’t together anymore. You ended up being designed to the same battalion as your cousin and her team. Even though you knew it was a war to protect Naruto and the bijuu inside him, every second of your day was filled with worried by him, and the constant lack of news was even worse than the nonstop fighting.

After finishing the coast, your whole group were designed to assist Naruto on his battle. Of course, you were the one running as faster as you can, so you could reach him faster. No words were needed in this case, all you want were to lay your eyes on him to make sure he was alive.

The moment your heart skipped a beat was exactly when he entered on your sight. The blond guy that you loved with all your body cells was standing there, he seemed hurt and tired, but not even as near to give up. That being the trait which you loved the most on him.

The whole battle was a long one and the adrenaline never stopped running through people’s vein, yours mostly. When Naruto decided to divide his nine tail chakra with everyone, was the first time he realized you were there. He hesitated before touching your hand, and you pressed your lips into a thin line when he jerked back to keep a whine that threatened to escape from your lips inside.

Before moving to the next person, he shot you a sad grin. “I’m glad you alive.”

As fast as he came, he disappeared on the crowd. You didn’t even have the chance to check if it was a shadow clone, just his dust from the run near you now. Despite it, it seemed you couldn’t look away. Following Naruto and paying attention to his surroundings was basically your task. So, the moment you saw one of the ten tailed monsters going straight at his direction, you didn’t think twice before jumping in between them, avoiding Naruto to get a hit on his back.

But you got the hit right below your chest, taking away all the air from your lungs.

Naruto just was fast enough to end the creature as you fell against the cold ground. You fell the warm blood spreading through all your clothes, your conscience slightly fading away.

As soon as Naruto reached you, the tears were already pooling in the corner of his eyes. “No, no, no. Stay with me, y/n. I told you not to die, damn it.” He looked around, looking for someone. “SAKURA, HELP ME.” He screamed, his voice cracking at the end.

“Naruto, it’s okay. You’re okay. That’s what matters.” You managed to say and honestly, you wanted to speak even more, but the pain running through your body was unbearable, every breath feeling like someone was stabbing you.

“SAKURA! WHERE IS SHE?” Naruto yelled at someone near, you couldn’t see who it was. “Do you know anything about medic ninjutsu? Can you help me?”

Someone bent near to your body, sobbing. “You stupid! What did you do?”

A weak smile crossed your lips, in relief. “You should be used by now, cousin. I’ll always protect those I love.”

A green chakra was leaking from her hands, pressed on your wound. But it wouldn’t work. You could feel your organs shutting down, one at time.

“Ino, talk to me.” Naruto hissed.

“I can’t, the damage, I can’t.” The blond said, crying.

“It’s okay. Both pay attention at me. Ino, thank you for everything.” You managed to say, but she cut you off.

“I just lost my father, please. Please. I can’t lose you too!” She leaned in over your body, and you had to cough a little. A warm feeling appeared running down your cheek and you weren’t sure if it was blood or tears.

“Ino.” You said a little bit stronger. “Take care of yourself, and the boys too. They need you. I love you, sister.”

“I love you!” She yelled, before Shikamaru pulled her back from your body.

A small part of you still wanted to laugh, they were still on a battlefield on a fucking war and here they were, acting like they had all the time in the world.

“Naruto.” You used the last strength on your body to look at him. “Hi baby.”

He was crying silently; his hand was holding yours so strongly and you didn’t even feel it. “Please.”

“I am sorry for not staying alive. Don’t you ever forget how much I loved you. Thank you for teaching me what love really meant.” You swallowed hard. “Take care of Ino for me, and please, stay alive.”

“I will. I love you too. I love you so much.” He hugged your body and you noticed the pain was smaller, as almost not existent. You smiled to the sky and closed your eyes, just waiting. Far from there, the sound of a someone crying harder reached your ears, and then, everything went black.

#naruto #naruto fic #naruto fanfic #naruto oneshot #naruto imagine #naruto uzumaki #naruto uzumaki imagines #naruto uzumaki oneshot #naruto uzumaki imagine #naruto x reader #naruto uzumaki x reader #naruto uzumaki and reader #naruto x ooc #naruto x s/o #naruto angst #naruto fluff #naruto uzumaki angst

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your-iron-lung · 5 years

Text

No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross 10

aka ‘The House That Dripped Blood’; available to read on AO3 HERE

Story Synopsis: Some weird low-key occult parties start popping up that Steve can’t in good conscience ignore and takes it upon himself to investigate. Billy gets caught up in the consequences of his meddling, and isn’t it funny? For all the strange things the Upside Down has thrown his way, it’s werewolves that Steve has trouble accepting exist.

Chapter Word Count: 7927

Pairings: Eventual Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington

Genre: Supernatural/Drama/Horror-ish

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Next Chapter: 11

Notes: if you follow me you may have noticed i havent posted in a while- this is bc i spend all my time playing ffxiv instead of setting aside determined amounts of time to spend on writing/drawing and i have a bunch of artist alleys coming up that im ill prepared for and im terrible at budgeting UH YEP bad excuse but WHAT CAN YA DO here we are

(ive also set up a ko-fi account if you want to give drop me some tippy tips if u enjoy the word things i do) ((no pressure tho))

"Bigfoot."

Hopper leaned back in his chair; let it creak and groan under his weight until he knew it was at its limit, and then pushed it a little more. He studied the no-nonsense expression on the hunter before him, and intrinsically knew that the man was speaking truth.

"Bigfoot," the old man said again, speaking a little sterner than he had before once he recognized Hopper's amiable expression of disbelief. "I seen't him out in the woods just the other day."

The aging man had lumbered into the police station almost immediately after Hopper came in, bundled in some worn hunting gear that looked almost as old as he was. The deputies had offered to speak with him after hearing his initial claim, but they'd been refused when Callahan couldn't stop smirking. The old hunter had insisted on speaking with Hopper, who leaned forward now, taking the stress off of his chair to take a sip of the coffee Florence had brought in for him. He didn't look at the old man as he drank.

"So let me get this straight," Hopper began, setting his coffee aside to rub at his forehead, "you came in first thing in the morning worried about a missing friend of yours, but now you're telling me you're worried about Bigfoot."

"You know me, Jim," the hunter said, a slight hint of pleading desperation edging out of his voice. "You know I ain't some crazy old coot. I ain't seen Lamm in a long while, and yessir I'm worried 'bout him, but when I went out to his cabin to check on him I seen it: I seen Bigfoot!"

As incredulous as the claim was, Hopper believed him- not about it being Bigfoot, exactly, but he believed that the man had seen something out there in the woods, and it had the possibility of being that something he'd spent the last two weeks fruitlessly searching for.

Regardless, he didn't want to let the old hunter know he was taking him seriously. The last thing he needed was for his community to think he believed in this sort of nonsense, but people in town were going missing, and people he knew were getting hurt: if his only lead should turn up in the form of an old man believing he'd caught sight of an urban legend, then so be it. He'd follow it through, but he'd be subtle about it.

"You sure it wasn't just a trick of the light or something, Wes? You know your eyes aren't what they used to be," Hopper remarked casually, softening his voice to let him down easy. "And this isn't the first time Lamm's gone missing; you know he's one of those types of shut ins. Remember those weeks he was gone hunting 'vampires'? He's the kind of guy who lives in his own head more than he lives out here, he'll turn up again on his own time."

The hunter's lips twitched into a frown. "Alright, maybe Lamm is a little off kilter," he relented, averting his eyes for a second, "and maybe it weren't Bigfoot, but the tracks it left were huge 'n mighty, by God, and I ain't seen nothin' else like it before. If it weren't Bigfoot, then at the very least it had big feet, Jim, and I ain't never seen feet quite like 'em."

Interest piqued, Hopper became more attentive. "How's that?"

"Well, they was stretched out lookin', for one." The hunter paused, tilting his head slightly as he tried to recall the details of what he'd seen out in the woods. He held his hands up, spaced apart in an approximation of how long the prints he'd found had been. "Human lookin', almost, which is what had me thinkin' it coulda been Bigfoot. They weren't the tracks of somethin' native 'round here, and I only caught but the barest glimpse of it, but it was tall, Jim; taller'n you or I."

That sounded right; the prints he'd found and unsuccessfully tracked were, as the hunter said, 'huge 'n mighty' and matched the description of what he'd just been told. It didn't take an expert's opinion (though he had consulted one) to discern that the markings just weren't natural. Hopper set his mug of coffee aside and pulled out a notepad from one of his desk drawers. He uncapped a pen and held it to the page for a moment before writing down a few preliminary notes for himself on the top line.

The hunter cocked his head and leaned forward to look at what he was writing and said, "That don't look official."

"Because it's not; this one's just gonna be between us, alright?" Hopper said, looking up to meet Wesley's blue, watery eyes. He held the stare long enough to get his point across, waiting for a sign of affirmation before looking back to the notepad and pressing the tip of the pen to the paper. "Tell me where and when exactly you saw this 'Bigfoot' of yours."

The day was cold and grey at its start, with harsh, biting winds ushering in thick clouds that blocked out any hope of the sun ever making an appearance. Steve eyed the sky apprehensively as he made his way back to his car, wary of the way the clouds looked as though they might start dropping hail on him at a moment's notice. Billy feigned disinterest as Steve opened the rear passenger door and leaned in to shove the box of things he'd bought at the Hunting & Camping store into the backseat. Even with his vision obscured in part by the sunglasses he'd elected to wear, he didn't miss the strong look of annoyance that graced Steve's features when he came around to the driver's seat and entered the car with a pout.

"That guy give you a hard time or something?" Billy asked as Steve buckled in and put the BMW into reverse, turning in his seat to hastily jerk the car out of the parking lot. "Why do you look like someone shit in your cereal?"

Steve clicked his tongue. "He just kept asking what a 'kid like me' needed with a bunch of chains and rope and shit. My god, he just would not let it go, like he thought I was trying to build my own sex dungeon or something. Fucking annoying."

"You mean that's not what we're doing?" Billy asked, grinning a bit at the way Steve's face pinched up in disgust. "What'd you say?"

"I told him the truth; said it was to tie up a werewolf. 'It's a full moon tonight, y'know? Gotta tie 'em down or they go all crazy on you', I said to him, and you know what he said to me then?" Steve asked, speeding out of the little downtown shopping area Hawkins played host to and sounding every bit as gossipy as Carol did when she caught wind of a scandal.

"How the fuck would I?" Billy drawled, turning away from the conversation to watch the scenery pass by disinterestedly.

"He said, 'Damn fool kids will never learn'," Steve said, ignoring him. "'Damn fool kids will never learn', like, what the hell does that mean?"

Billy shrugged. "Who knows? As long as he accepted daddy's plastic then what does it matter?"

Steve clicked his tongue again in annoyance and rolled his eyes. "Fuck you."

Feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on, Billy declined to retort. They rode on in silence, the chains in the box Steve had bought clinking together softly in the backseat before the radio was finally turned on to mask the sound.

Regardless of whether or not Steve actually believed something was going to happen to Billy that night, he couldn't deny that the whole day leading up to that evening just felt… off. From meeting up with Billy earlier that afternoon to go by the camping store, to grabbing lunch together before heading over to the Henderson's house, it all felt wrong.

It was something Steve had difficulty pinpointing the origins of, but as they began work on clearing out enough space in the cellar for Billy to do whatever it was he thought he was going to do, he soon came to realize that the feeling of wrongness seemed to stem from Billy himself.

Few words could better describe Billy than 'annoying' or 'smart-mouthed', but he'd been uncharacteristically tight-lipped all day. He'd become a remarkably dull version of himself, and Steve wasn't sure quite how to handle that.

Usually one to argue and bite back at everything Steve said, when he'd begun dishing out instructions on how best to clear out some floor space in the cellar, Billy hadn't talked back to him a single time; merely lit a cigarette and blinked at him slowly, silently acknowledging what had been asked of him before getting on with it.

It was unsettling. Steve could almost say that he hated how submissive Billy was because of how used he'd gotten to the back-talk and smart-ass remarks Billy usually had ready for him, and though, yes, there were times he had wished for this kind of attitude from him, the silence and absolute subordination coupled with all of the other behavioral changes Billy was exhibiting were enough to set Steve on edge.

Billy kept tonguing the gaps in his teeth where they'd fallen out over the course of the week, and he never seemed to realize he wasn't alone. Sometimes he'd jump at the sound of Steve's voice, or shake his head and crease his brow in confusion when he turned around to see Steve moving stuff somewhere behind him, but arguably the worst part of it all was that he stank.

He'd tried to mask it with an overabundance of cologne that had nearly suffocated Steve when they began working in closer quarters, but buried beneath that was a hint of something that smelled awfully rotten. If he had to, Steve could liken it to the stench of the monster they'd encountered in the woods, but he chose not to, instead chalking it up to a severe case of nervous b.o. or something. The implications that the scents could be related bothered him too deeply to believe, and even then he wasn't sure he really wanted to know what the source of the smell was.

The stench of decay emanating from Billy's person was worrisome enough on its own, but with so much to do in order to get ready before sunset, Steve had a hard time figuring out where to primarily apply his focus: there were simply too many things going on for him to worry about one thing more than another.

The giant hole in the wall that Dart made to tunnel out of the cellar was his immediate concern, but Dustin had done a good job of hiding it from his mother by placing a tall shelf in front of it, essentially blocking it off. That didn't mean it wasn't entirely inaccessible, but Steve wasn't sure what more he could do about it. In all honesty, he'd forgotten about it until he'd tried to move the shelf aside and then found himself peeking into the eerie tunnel. He'd knocked over several things in his haste to put the shelf back in place, but Billy hadn't seemed to notice it, and if he didn't, maybe he wouldn't think to use it if- or when- he lost himself to whatever supernatural effects he was experiencing.

"Big if, though," Steve muttered aloud to himself. Turning away from the shelf, he looked over to where Billy was inspecting some old power tools, turning a nail gun over in his hands before setting it back in the box he'd pulled it out of. "So, are we good or what? This baby-proofed enough for you?" Steve asked, startling Billy out of whatever ruminations he'd been lost to.

Billy looked at Steve blankly, face impassive and emotionless. He frowned, and then looked around himself as though he'd forgotten where he was. When he spoke, his voice was monotone and devoid of his usual arrogance as he said, "I don't know, Harrington; is it?"

"You tell me, man, this was your idea." Steve watched as Billy returned his focus on the box of tools he'd originally been rummaging through. Picking up a hammer, Billy balanced its weight in his hands before gripping the handle tightly. Steve distrusted the look in Billy's eye as he held it. "What are you, a child? Quit rifling through their shit, put it back," he said.

Billy didn't reply or even acknowledge that he'd heard him. Ignoring Steve's demand, he stepped up to the abandoned work bench to splay his left hand out over the wood and lifted the ballpeen up.

"What the fuck are you doing? Put it down," Steve said again, his voice rising slightly in pitch when he understood what Billy was doing. He started towards him in an effort to stop him, but halted when the hammer was brought crashing down.

It missed his hand, but the force of the impact splintered the wooden table's surface. Steve gaped as Billy turned around, a cocky little smile turning up his lips.

"Someone could get hurt real bad down here if they weren't careful, huh, Harrington?" he said, a fierceness that Steve hated to admit he'd missed charging his voice. "But we've been real careful cleaning this shithole out, haven't we, pally?"

"You sick piece of shit, give me that," Steve snapped, snatching the hammer away from Billy's pliant grip. "Fuck you, Hargrove; you could've just said you wanted to move this shit out of here."

"Had you pegged as being more of a visual learner," Billy sneered as Steve threw the hammer back into the box of tools. "Your concern was touching, though, really."

"You're the one who came asking me for help, fuckface. Begged me, almost, if I'm remembering right. 'Oh, Steve, help me, I'm so scared of fake movie monsters!'"

Steve hadn't meant to rise to the taunt, but Billy's insufferable attitude had him stooping to his level as he hoisted the hefty box of tools in his arms and lugged them over to the stairway. Billy laughed dryly at Steve's mocking tone.

"We both wish that fucking thing had been fake," he said as Steve placed the box on the ground at the foot of the stairs beside the box of supplies he'd bought earlier. They were both quiet for a moment, their attempt at a conversation dying as quickly as it had been brought on.

"Only one thing left to do then," Steve said morosely.

Billy blinked and turned to face the stairway, eyes rising slowly up to where the cellar doors were propped open wide. Steve felt the guilt of having to lock him in prematurely and had to remind himself that he wanted to be locked in.

"Better hop to it then, Harrington," Billy said lowly, lips curling back into a familiar grin, but without all his teeth in place to flesh it out, Steve found the display to be more unsettling than annoying. "Let's get this sex dungeon set up."

Steve grimaced. "Not even in your wildest dreams, Hargrove."

"Nothing's off the table in my dreams, pretty boy." Billy breathed out a small laugh at the disgusted look on Steve's face, but the grin he'd been displaying slowly fell away. "Is it getting dark yet?"

"Uh, kind of, but the sun hasn't set yet," Steve replied, stepping up into the stairwell to check the status of the sky. It was as dull and grey as it had been all day, the overcast weather acting as a harbinger for the snowfall the local meteorologist had foretold was coming. "If you took off those fucking sunglasses you'd be able to tell."

"These are for your benefit as much as mine," Billy snapped, frowning suddenly.

"Yeah, okay, whatever that means," Steve said dismissively as he began to fish out the cords of rope from the box, letting them spool out onto the ground before gathering them into his hands. "How do you uh, how do you want to do this?"

"Aw, is this kitten's first time tying someone up?" Billy purred, not moving from where he stood in the middle of the cellar, directly under the light. "Who knew 'King' Steve's favourite flavor was vanilla."

Steve rolled his eyes as he brought the ropes over, wrinkling his nose at the mixed smell of rot and cologne that got stronger with proximity. "I've dated girls kinkier than you'd know what to do with," he retorted as he gestured for Billy to hold out his hands.

"Oh please," Billy said with a snort, "there are no kinky girls in Hawkins or I would've found them by now."

"You're obviously not looking hard enough," Steve muttered in response, gesturing again for Billy to hold out his hands.

Shrugging out of his leather jacket and tossing it over the work table he'd splintered, Billy held his hands up obediently and watched stoically as Steve wound the rope around his wrists, binding his hands together roughly.

"What's should our safe word be?" Billy teased, smirking as Steve wound another, longer length of rope over the original knot.

"There is no safe word because this isn't a sex thing!" Steve insisted angrily.

Flustered, he sighed irritably as he wound the long part of the rope around Billy's waist, hating how close he had to get in order to make sure the rope was tight enough, though Billy seemed to be enjoying how close he'd gotten. He kept shifting his weight around, trying, it seemed, to get Steve into a more compromising position. Annoyed, but determined to finish, Steve did his best to ignore Billy's constant movement and the disgusting, rotten musk that was wafting off of his person to finish tying him up.

"Why do you fucking stink so goddamn badly?" Steve finally asked with a scowl, repressing the urge to gag as he tied the ropes off into a clumsy knot. He stumbled away from Billy, reaching up to pinch his nostrils shut so he wouldn't have to smell the rot anymore, but the rancid scent seemed to have lodged itself deep into his nose. "You smell like a dead Calvin Klein model or something, holy shit, did you use a whole fucking bottle?"

The amusement Billy had held while taunting Steve left his face. His smirk shrunk into an awkward grimace as he looked away in embarrassment.

"I don't know, alright?" he admitted bitterly. "It doesn't matter how much I bathe, and between that and my eyes I have no idea what the fuck's going on with me."

"What about your eyes?" Steve asked hesitantly, unsure if he really wanted to know the reasoning behind why Billy had insisted on wearing sunglasses all day.

Billy faltered for a moment, hesitating briefly before reaching up and plucking the sunglasses off his face. With both hands bound together, he awkwardly folded the legs against the lenses and tucked them into the collar of his button up. He turned his gaze to Steve, who couldn't help but suck in a slight breath of surprise.

His eyes were so bloodshot they looked ready to start bleeding straight out of the sockets. There were hardly any whites left in the sclera to be seen as Billy winked at him, looking immensely uncomfortable at the way Steve was gaping openly at him.

"Do they- hurt? Or whatever?" Steve asked, unconsciously taking a few steps forward to get a better look. In the dim lighting of the basement, even the blues of Billy's eyes looked reddish.

"What's it to you if they do?" Billy snapped, suddenly irritable. He squared his jaw and looked away, unable to face the amount of concern Steve was showing him.

The worry Steve felt for the both of them in that moment grew stronger as he backed off, letting the matter of the changes in Billy's physicality drop, despite how alarming they were. "If I don't hear anything an hour after the sun goes down, I'll let you out," Steve said abruptly as he walked backwards towards the stairwell, grasping for the hand rail behind him blindly, unsure why he was so reluctant now to let Billy out of his sight. It was what they'd agreed upon earlier, and he said it meaning for it to sound reassuring, but the way Billy's lips twitched made it apparent he didn't interpret it that way.

Billy didn't respond.

"Well, uh, I guess that's it then," Steve said as he bent down, placing his box of chains atop the box of tools Billy had been messing around with before lifting them up together to carry them up and out of their man-made dungeon.

The cellar doors shrieked loudly as they were closed, a high pitched agony that erupted when the metal grinded against itself uncooperatively. Steve didn't mind that so much as he hated the sound the chains made as he wove them through the door handles, reminding him of what he was doing and who he was imprisoning as the steel rattled sharply against the doors. He winced at the commotion, but continued to loop them through the small door handles until no more could be fit between them. He tested their sturdiness by attempting to pull them open, and to his pleasure, they remained shut. The doors were secured; the cellar, as far as he was concerned, was now a suitable prison. All that was left of him now was to play the role of the jailor appropriately.

He stared down at his handiwork for a moment before the cold, blowing winds prompted him to seek shelter. Already a few snowflakes were fluttering out of the sky, flying into his cheeks as he turned away, re-gathering the box of tools in his arms and headed for the door Dustin promised he'd leave a key for.

Searching under the backdoor mat, Steve found the promised key, and true to the rest of Dustin's word, the entire home was empty, save for the cat that chirped a greeting for him from atop the kitchen counter. With a deep intake of breath Steve glanced at his watch, stepped inside, and shut the door behind him, wondering if he really was prepared for the worst. In the trunk of his car his bat waited for him, ready to be put to use just in case shit really did hit the fan, but he found himself questioning if he'd really be able to use it; bludgeoning monsters to death was one thing, but turning it on a boy he knew was only a monster figuratively was something else entirely.

For both his and Billy's sakes, he hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Shrugging out of his thick coat, Steve set it down beside him as he took a seat on the Henderson's couch. He glanced at his watch again, dismayed by the fact that time wasn't progressing as fast as he wished it was and sat in anxious worry about what the rest of the night might have in store.

But at least he was comfortable and warm.

The cellar was not.

It wasn't the cold that Billy minded, so much as it was the anticipation: when would the transformation start? Exactly at sundown? A little before? A little after? Would he actually end up transforming? And why the fuck did the word 'transform' make him so damn uncomfortable? The unknown factors surrounding his circumstances were almost worse than any of the physical symptoms he'd been experiencing as of late, and he'd been experiencing a lot.

Anxiety wasn't something Billy had a lot of experience with, but it was the only thing he could think of that explained why his heart had been beating oddly all day. It was running at a notably higher rate, as though he'd been playing basketball or working out extraneously, and brought on palpitations he wasn't used to dealing with at the elevated speed.

In short he felt terrible. His whole body ached like it was going through puberty again. Both his arms and legs were sore in ways that mimicked the aches that came with growing pains when he'd had them, but he couldn't understand why he would begin to hurt in that way again. He hadn't had the energy to work out in two days despite eating practically anything he could get his hands on, so the soreness in his limbs was unwarranted. Either his body was preparing itself for the coming night, or he was having an incredibly drawn-out heart attack.

Standing at the foot of the stairwell, Billy felt the cold permeating in through the closed opening and moved away to find a better spot to wait. He wanted rub his arms to bring some warmth into them, but couldn't with the way they were bound. Already the ropes were beginning to dig into his wrists, rubbing uncomfortably against his skin as he realized he wasn't actually that cold anyway, despite the frigid weather; his body temperature had been on a steady incline leading up to now, leaving him with a rosy complexion and a near constant fever, the long-term effects of which left him feeling severely disoriented.

He could barely remember meeting up at Steve's house only a few hours ago to carpool to his kid friend's house, riding with the windows down in spite of the severe wind-chill as they went into town to get lunch and buy rope. Even though they'd ridden together, he couldn't remember now if they'd actually talked about anything or not. All he could remember were the low tones of the radio and the resonating throbs of the wind as it swooped in through the open windows, rushing to fill the audial space between them. It was as though his mind had been steeped in a fog, and he couldn't accurately think through it: everything was clouded over, incomprehensible, like waking up the morning after a bender and being unable to remember everything he'd done the night before, but knowing all the same that he'd taken part in some memorable shit.

Would there be pain, he wondered, and would it come on as suddenly as it had to the character in the movie he'd made Steve watch? Even though 'American Werewolf' was just a movie, stories like that had to spawn from some sort of truth, didn't they?

The dim little lightbulb that hung overhead flickered briefly, drawing Billy's attention to it as he took a seat at the work table's bench, wishing his eyes weren't a dry and sore as they were.

Coming from above, he could hear the muffled sounds of a TV show permeating through the cellar's ceiling. He couldn't help but think ill of Steve in that moment, but if their situations had been reversed, he probably would have been doing the same thing; he couldn't fault Harrington for finding a way to pass the time, though he wished he had something similar to do for himself. There was nothing interesting to hold his attention, and time passed at a dreadfully slow rate.

Stretching out on the bench, he laid himself down slowly, mindful of which parts of his back hurt the most, and gazed up at the cement overhead disinterestedly. He listened to the muffled sounds of the distant television, trying to conjure an image in his mind that corresponded with what little dialogue he could hear, but the rapid beating of his heart overpowered the noises coming from the TV. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing in an attempt to lower his heart rate, but it just kept going, pounding in a determined rhythm that seemed to be quickening with each passing minute. A bead of sweat trickled down from his scalp and over his ear as he wondered if the tingling he felt in the tips of his fingers was because of the cold or from the ropes being tied too tight.

He flexed his fingers, opening and closing his hands into a fist to try and bring sensation back into his fingertips, but to no avail. They remained numb, and the cause of which eluded him.

Frowning, Billy stiffly sat up and began to pinch at his skin, belatedly realizing that the numbness was spreading slowly down the lengths of his fingers, a sensation that sent a chill running down the length of his spine.

"Oh," he said. "Oh shit."

The pain, when he finally did begin to feel it, started in his feet. There were still thirty minutes before the sun went down.

Billy licked his lips nervously as he tried to get his boots off, his numb fingers and bound hands fumbling uselessly with the laces as the pain centralized in his toes and grew in sudden intensity. He was no stranger to pain, but this was unlike anything he'd ever felt before: it was sharp and stabbing, with each throb of pain stemming from the bones in his toes, as though they were growing more pointed in an attempt to pierce their way through his skin as they elongated. He could feel them cracking; each joint slowly popping free of itself as the bones began to push themselves forward.

"Oh, shit," he repeated, and could hear the muffled sounds of a laugh track from whatever sitcom Steve had turned on upstairs roaring in delight as he struggled to finally pull his boots off.

The stabbing sensation didn't relent, even once his shoes lay discarded by his feet. He peeled away his socks with shaking hands and stared down at his toes.

They'd turned a bright, beet red and were bulging like they might burst apart, his skin bubbling up around toenails that were already starting to peel off. He couldn't help the whimper as he tentatively felt them, a pain like touching a freshly popped, skinless blister causing him to draw his fingers back.

It was real. It was happening.

Sweating freely now, he reached away from his feet to brush his dampened hair away from his forehead as sweat rolled down the sides of his face. He paused when he felt his hair pull free from his scalp, clinging to the back of his hand stubbornly. Billy stared at the loose, curly strands with a horrified expression and reached up with a shaking hand to grab more. When he pulled, a handful of his hair came away easily, eliciting another whimper from deep within his throat. Disgusted and frightened, he threw his hair away to the floor.

Breathing quickly, he hastily rubbed his hands free of the loose strands in a panic and tried to calm himself. His whole body trembled as he breathed in deeply through his nose, wondering if he should try to call out to Steve to alert him that the worst case scenario was indeed unfolding. Another laugh track from upstairs came through the ceiling as he felt a sharp, sudden stab of pain in his ribs, prompting him to gasp loudly and curl forward over himself. He could actually feel some part of his ribcage shifting inside his torso as he tucked his arms in to his sides. Any lingering thoughts of trying to remain calm left him as he transitioned from panic to full on fear.

He stood up not knowing what he was going to do, but regretted it instantly: as soon as he put weight on his foot, his ankle collapsed in on itself and brought him to the floor. A shout almost came out with his fall, but he managed to internalize the pain as he was used to doing and grit his teeth as his foot essentially broke itself in half.

The central part of his foot that arched snapped without warning. Billy swore loudly and reached for his foot instinctively, wanting to hold the break in place, but he couldn't bear the agony that came with the contact. Warm tears leaked from his eyes, and when his other lateral arch also split in half, he couldn't help but cry out.

From up above, the noises coming from the television ceased. Steve must have heard him and was listening for him now, trying to gauge whether or not he should intervene. Billy clenched his jaw tighter, determined to keep quiet, but gasped loudly when two of his molars gave out under the pressure, snapping to the side and coming loose of his gumline. The copper taste of blood filled his mouth as he spat the teeth out, shuddering uncontrollably when he felt the vertebrae in his spine begin to pop, one by one, pushing up against his skin that was quickly beginning to feel too tight.

Huffing in great breaths of air, he panted heavily as the bones of his tones finally pierced through his skin, causing most of the flesh surrounding them to burst open like little balloons. Blood splattered across the floor in gruesome, miniature arcs and Billy finally, finally became undone. He shrieked, unable to keep silent any longer as new appendages could be seen inside the flayed bits of bloody skin, slowly growing outward, already a part of him.

Warm tears of pain streaked down his face in thick lines as the skin of his feet continued to be ripped apart, making way for more muscle, new flesh. He wiped at his eyes helplessly and thought he could hear Steve's voice distantly calling out his name, asking if everything was alright.

He blinked, his vision blurred by the tears that would not clear away as he pulled himself over to the stairway.

Shaking wildly all over, Billy stretched out on the floor, realizing belatedly that the waistband of his jeans was growing tighter and tighter. Hissing sharply, he cursed himself for not having the foresight to undress himself as he hastily tried to undo his belt. A pain similar to the initial agony he'd felt in his toes was beginning to manifest itself in his fingers as both of his hands slowly began to turn red, swelling up under the bonds of the rope as he fumbled with the buckle, desperately trying to get it to come free.

"Fuck!" he shouted in frustration, his clothing growing ever tighter as his body continued to bloat. He felt like he was being pinched in half with his belt acting as an unneeded tourniquet. "Fuck! Fuck!"

"Hey! Talk to me Hargrove, what's going on?"

Steve's worried voice trilled down through the cellar doors as he continued vocalizing his frustrations. Billy felt an organ in his abdomen shift out of place before popping, prompting him to groan and curl in on himself before he threw up. His couldn't undo his belt as his vision began to darken.

"Hargrove!" Steve shouted, banging a fist against the steel door. "What the hell's going on? Talk to me!"

"Fuck you!" Billy screamed, unable to articulate anything else as he tried to rub the blackness out of his eyes, but the more he pressed his fingers to them, they more they began to hurt.

A pressure was building up behind them the more he rubbed, and as it increased, his vision grew ever darker. He kept blinking, over and over, feeling his eyes bulge out of their sockets and against his eyelids, trying now to keep his eyeballs in place. He was hyperventilating when he finally went blind, the pressure behind his eyes becoming intolerable eyes before it finally came too much, and his eyes popped free.

He felt them slide out onto over his checks and onto the floor, the slimy, blood-slick nerves leaving tracks of blood on his face as he became totally and completely blind.

"No," he whispered to himself, retching again on the floor as he scrambled across the cement, trying to find the stairs, unable to see. "No, no! This isn't real!"

Beyond the cellar doors, Steve had his ear pressed against the slight crack between the panels, desperately trying to understand what was going on. He wasn't sure what to make of the noises he was hearing, unable to determine if Billy was just trying to mess with him or if he was in actual distress.

"Hargrove," he said impatiently, turning his head to try and peak in through the crack to get a glimpse of what was going on, "you gotta start talking to me, man; what the hell's going on down there?"

"I'm fucking blind," he heard Billy shout, his voice rife with fear. "I can't see anything!"

His voice was shaking as he spoke, and Steve knew then that whatever was happening was legitimate; Billy wasn't one to openly show weakness.

"Okay, stay calm," Steve stammered, but he wasn't sure if that was actually sound advice or not. "It's- it's going to be okay, okay?"

Billy howled, and Steve understood that the pain that carried with his voice must have been terrible to get him to shriek like that. He licked his lips anxiously, not knowing what support he could possibly offer him. He continuously opened and shut his mouth, words of encouragement dying on his tongue before he could manage to speak them.

And then, all at once, the cacophony of agony ceased.

Steve couldn't hear anything over the rapid sound of his breathing for a moment before he finally spoke: "Hargrove? Is… are you okay?"

"Hurts." Billy's voice, quiet, strained, and barely audible over the sounds of things (flesh, fabric) slowly tearing, sounded disconcertingly like he was speaking with a throat full of water. It was gargling and grotesque; completely unlike the smooth, honeyed voice he'd become known for.

"Okay, what, uh, what… what hurts?" Steve whispered in response, fear quieting his previously urgent tone.

"Everything."

"Shit," Steve said to himself, backing away from the cellar door panels as the sounds of something large and heavy being knocked over made him jump. "Just, uh, stay calm," he said, though he wasn't sure if he was saying it to himself or Billy. From down below, he heard Billy groan loudly before going silent again.

Steve's heart was pounding as he hesitated, unsure of what to do. All the details of Billy's haphazardly concocted plan fled his mind as he tried to think back on what they'd agreed to do if something ended up happening, and his first instinct was to open the doors to go down and check on him. He looked at the chains wrapped tightly around the door handles and bit his lip before crouching down and pressing his eye to the crack.

The overhead light wasn't bright enough to reveal much, but at the base of the stairwell there was a small circle of illumination. Steve squinted, ignoring the cold of the steel as he pressed his face against the door, trying to see all that he could.

Blood stains. Torn bits of… something he couldn't quite make out. Dark masses on the stairwell; lots of evidence that pointed towards Billy transforming, but no trace of Billy himself.

"Hargrove," Steve whispered, and then shook his head to clear himself of his cowardice. "Hargrove," he said again, louder and with more emphasis, "dude, you have to talk me through what's happening down there."

He waited, unconsciously holding his breath as he waited for a reply. It was steadily growing darker as the sun slowly sank, making it all the harder to see into the cellar from the tiny slit. Frowning and unable to see anything, Steve turned his head and pressed his ear against the door. From somewhere in the depths of the cellar he could hear something breathing heavily. It was moving, too; he could hear something shuffling, moving around the floor space cautiously.

When he turned his head again to see through the crack, he caught a glimpse of... something large and hulking cross under the light, tall enough to set the lightbulb swinging. He couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath of air, his lungs and throat burning with the sting of the cold weather. The thing- whatever Billy had become- halted just outside the rim of light. Entranced, Steve found he couldn't move as it emitted a low, threatening growl that sounded more like a man impersonating a dog than an actual beast.

From his limited viewpoint, he couldn't see the way the muscles in its legs were tightening, or how it had begun to crouch; he didn't have time to react as it sprang forward, jumping up the stairs in a single leap to ram itself against the doors.

The chains held the doors shut, but the sudden impact smashed the metal against Steve's nose and soon all he could smell was blood as it drained out of his nostrils. He fell backwards, holding his nose as the Billy-creature growled again. Horrified, Steve could only sit in the snow and watch as the doors lurched forward when Billy rammed against them again, trying to escape. The second impact loosened the restraints, and all Steve could do in that moment was watch as they rattled uselessly in place, beginning to slip through the handles as they hadn't been properly locked into place.

Cursing to himself, staggered to his feet and rushed to grab the chains, but as Billy threw his body against the doors again it soon became obvious that even if the doors stayed shut, they were about to pop free of their hinges entirely. Blood dripped down over his lips and onto the metal panels as he tried to think of what he could possibly do to counteract the damage Billy had done. In an act of desperation, he threw himself against the steel and hoped that his added bodyweight would be enough to keep them in place.

If it managed to do anything, he couldn't tell. Almost immediately Billy was throwing himself against the doors again, nearly bucking Steve off.

"Stop!" Steve cried out, grasping for the chains to hold them in place. His fingers scrabbled against the cold steel links even as Billy let out another deep, throaty growl. With the doors as loose as they were, Steve was almost certain the doors wouldn't survive another body-slam. "Give it up, Hargrove!" Steve said again, desperately. "Just- fuck, Billy, stop!"

He braced himself for another impact, but it never came. Eyes closed in anticipation, Steve blinked them open and exhaled shakily, his fingers trembling as he let the chains go. Crystalized air puffed out in front of his face over and over as he rolled off the doors and stood up unsteadily, trying to wipe away the blood that had already frozen over and turned to crust on his upper lip. Somehow, miraculously, his pleading had worked, but before he could take comfort in that fact, other disturbing sounds began to creep back up to him from down below.

Things were being tossed around; the metallic clang of old paint cans being bounced off the floors and walls mixed with the hoarse, angry vocalizations of the creature Billy had become made his blood run colder than the air currently was. The noises Billy was making were at once both animalistic and human, deep and throaty and more akin to the bellows of a moose than a man or wolf.

Steve stood in front of the cellar doors not knowing what to do. Already their plan was falling apart, and he was quickly becoming aware of how vastly unprepared he was to handle the situation. He wanted the security of the bat in his trunk, but didn't trust himself to leave the doors unattended for the length of time it would take him to run back inside and grab his keys to get it, but he felt so weak without it.

Another loud, crashing noise came from within and Steve stilled, listening intently. Faintly, he could hear Billy snuffling about, and after the sun finally completely descended, all was quiet. His nose was throbbing as he stood attentively, but when nothing more could be heard, his stomach sank.

With trembling hands and his mind screaming at him to stop, he knelt by the doors and slowly unwound the chains from the handles. The fact that he couldn't hear anything coming from within didn't sit well with him; he had to make sure Billy was still down there.

He tried to shift the chains as quietly as possible, but with how nervous he was, he had a hard time keeping his hands steady. They rattled noisily against the door, grating on his already frazzled nerves as they slid free. Heart pounding madly, Steve carefully pulled the doors open and took the first step down into the cellar.

It was silent. He couldn't hear anything as he hesitantly took a second step, mentally berating himself over and over for being stupid enough to walk defenseless into the lion's mouth. He had no idea what Billy was capable of now, or if he'd even recognize him enough to (hopefully) have enough sense to not harm him. The lightbulb that dangled freely from the ceiling was swaying, throwing its light around erratically, showing him glimpses of the gore that lined the steps.

Eyes wide, Steve gagged at the sight of the flayed strips of bloodied skin that were splattered near everywhere. He had to avert his eyes as he took another step, making slow progress as he was careful not to step in any of the mess. At the bottom of the stairs he warily peered around the walls, hoping he'd only stuck his head into the lion's mouth figuratively. To his immediate relief, but long-term dismay, there was no trace of Billy to be seen in the space of the cellar.

Exhaling deeply, Steve tried to even out his breathing as he came to stand in the middle of the room, looking around to assess the damage. As the swinging lightbulb steadied, he turned towards where the shelf that was hiding the tunnel had been and found it on the ground, knocked to its side and several feet away from where it had originally been positioned. His shoulders drooped at the realization of Billy's escape.

He went and stood before the opening of the tunnel and felt all hope of remedying the situation vanish. A numbness overtook him as he recognized his responsibilities of keeping Billy captive had changed; he was the only one who knew about Billy's circumstances, and he was the only one who could do anything about it now. Distantly, and much further away then he would've liked, he could hear the muted, labored sounds of Billy's breathing as he escaped confinement through the underground system.

The burden of his responsibilities threatened to overwhelm him in that instant, but instead of letting himself be overtaken by despair, Steve took a deep, steadying breath and rolled his shoulders back. He hesitated for only a minute before he took charge and ran in after him, disregarding his urgent need to turn back and get his bat out of the car. There was no time, he thought; no time to get a weapon, no time to get a flashlight. If Billy was now as the werewolf in the woods was, then he was capable of speeds greater than Steve could muster, and every second mattered. If he lost his trail now, then it would be lost to him entirely. There was no time; he had to go now or he wouldn't go at all.

Alone and unarmed Steve ran, chasing after Billy into the dark, cold tunnel, hoping he would be able to catch him in time, and dreading the repercussions that would come if he couldn't.

#harringrove #harringrove fic #billy hargrove/steve harrington #billy/steve #steve harrington #billy hargrove #werewolf!billy #slow burn #long fic #stranger things #stranger things fic

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