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#he!!!!!! literally hates everyone besides his sister!!!!!!!!!
the-nightmare-theater · 4 months
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me if i see one (1) more person severely mischaracterize bedman
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propertyofwicked · 29 days
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speed demon - LN
warnings: speeding + dangerous driving, references to sex
short fluff :) fewtrell!reader -> can be read as a stand alone or an extra to the secrets series!
my take on a BTS of the quadrant athletes video with willne and bambinobecky :) p.s hey caitlin i know ur reading this
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lando’s girlfriend was a concerning driver. growing up in the english country side, especially with her racing-mad brother max, she became very accustomed to driving at insane speeds down backroads, learning where the swerve potholes and where all the cameras were. honestly, put her in an f1 car with a good song and watch max verstappen crumble.
her brother and his friend could speed around race tracks, y/n preferred real roads.
the only flaw in her driving ability arose when lando, who notoriously hates being a passenger, sat to her left, gripping any hard surface he could as his girlfriend threw her car around a corner.
“y/n, angel, you know i love you - but why do you drive like you had somewhere to be 10 minutes ago?”
“this is a good song,” she answered with a shrug, which only confused him further, yet she slowed down, glancing at the man besides her, “it’s got a good bassline. you literally drive at like 200 miles an hour and yet you’re getting stressed about me going 80 on an empty road?”
“the difference between you and me is that i wear a helmet when i drive that fast.”
“no one is stopping you from putting a helmet on in my car, lan.”
“erm, i think the national speed sign meaning 60mph should be enough that i shouldn’t need to wear a helmet in your car y/n.”
“god you’re so dramatic, lando - has anyone ever told you that?”
“yes. you. the last time i complained about your driving, you little speed demon,” he said, finally laughing quietly at the situation.
in fact, they were late. they were supposed to be at a quadrant shoot in 10 minutes, but still needed to pick up will and becky from the station near to the warehouse they were filming in. when they finally reached the station, lando jumped out of the car to meet them, leaving y/n to sit in silence, queuing a few songs for the short journey to the shooting location.
“y’alright y/n?” will asked, climibing into the back seat of her car, becky climbing in from the other side.
“i’m good, thank you will. how are you?”
“im good, however i’ll let you know how i feel after ive experienced your driving,” he joked, earning a guilty chuckle from lando who was buckling himself back into the passenger seat. her hand rose, slapping his arm lightly.
“hey! my driving is not that bad.”
“let them find that out for themselves, angel,” he responded, dramatically rubbing his arm, feigning pain. she ignored him, shoving the car into gear before jamming her foot onto the accelerator, the loud engine loud enough to wake the dead.
when they did arrive at the shoot, will had gone silent, his face paler than usual. becky was still smiling and chatting, but her face conveyed the same level of fear as wills. the group of them walked into the warehouse, where max was already waiting.
y/n walked up to max, taking him in a small embrace before stepping back to let him greet the rest of the group.
“will? you good man? you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” max said, taking a step back to look at the man a second time.
“yeah, yeah, im good,” he responded, smiling sheepishly. y/n absentmindedly played with her car keys, the jingling of her key rings raising max’s attention.
“lando let you drive? jesus, no wonder will looks like he needs a fresh pair of trousers,” max laughed, doubling over.
“why does everyone think im such a bad driver? i have not crashed once. never. not a single crash. the same cannot be said for you or lando, max,” she exclaimed, beginning to feel offended at the accusations.
“in all fairness, lando warned me. i thought he was joking when he said she loved the accelerator more than she loves him,” will replied, the colour coming back to his face as he smiled. max shook his head at his sister again, before directing will and becky round to the sofas, running them through the plans for the day.
y/n felt a warm pair of arms snake around her body from behind, lando’s head coming to rest on her shoulder. he turned his head to look at her, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek.
“im not actually a bad driver, am i?” she mumbled to him.
“no angel, people are just jealous of your sheer ability to drive at dangerous speeds and do it safely,” he responded, he meant to be sincere but y/n could feel the sarcastic undertones.
she shook her head at him, pulling away from his embrace, but his hand reached out, latching onto hers, before pulling her back into him. this time her chest melted into his, her head tilting to glance up at him.
“i hate this scarf,” she announced, but stretched her neck up to presses soft kisses along his jaw.
“ouch. why? i like it.”
“’cos it covers your neck. i love your neck,” she said, smiling up at him again.
“i know you do angel. your love for my neck is the reason i have to wear a scarf for the shoot today,” he said, laughing, his hands moving from her back to push loose strands of her behind her ears. a blush rose up her cheeks at the memory of the night before, as her fingers moved to pull the scarf down slightly looking at the bruises beginning to darken on his skin.
she hadn't meant to, but she had found herself on top of him last night, legs straddling him as his pushed up into her. with max only a room over, she needed to find an outlet for the noises she wanted to make and his neck fell victim.
“whoopsies. but im sure the lando girlies would love to see you with hickies.”
“i’m sure they would,” he said, grinning at her still and nodding slightly, “im sure your brother would love it to,” he added sarcastically, glancing over to the man in question who was now handing becky a script.
she tutted in response, pulling his scarf back up to covering his neck. lando’s head tilted down to look at her again, using his hands on her jaw to pull her face up closer to his. his lips pressed soft kisses to her forehead and cheeks before finally planting a soft but quick peck to her lips.
“lando did you want to stop getting it on with my sister and come and do your job?” max bellowed from across the room, pulling the two apart.
lando decided he should probably drive the two of them home that day, and let max take the others back to the station, but the moment the car moved off from where it was parked, he stalled the engine.
"formula 1 driver but can't drive a manual without stalling it. that's embarrassing - now who can't drive?" she joked, laughing at him as he restarted the ignition.
"still you," he replied bluntly, his foot slamming down on the accelerator sending the car flying across the car park.
"please don't destroy my car," she begged quietly at the sound of her engine about to take off, "a man i quite like bought it for me and id hate to make him angry when he has to buy me new tyres."
"ill just buy you another car," he joked as he returned to the speed limit of the road ahead, his hand moving from the gear stick to rest on her thigh, grabbing lightly at it.
"you're not a bad driver, you know that, don't you angel?" he said after a few minutes of silence. he'd admit that she wasn't the best driver, but she was still skilled even if slightly reckless.
"i know," she said, her voice still heavy with the annoyance from everyone's teasing.
"you would be great at karting, you know?"
"stop it - i spent my entire childhood trying to avoid karting please do not bring it into my adulthood," she begged, albeit jokingly.
"why did you avoid it? im sure max would've loved to race with you," lando asked, glancing to his side to look at her face, her head leaning on the door panel.
"it was max's thing, i guess. i didn't want to do what he did. i wanted to be my own person. i still do," she said with a shrug. lando's hand moved from her thigh to grab hers, pulling it up to his face to press a kiss to the back of it.
"i'm glad you're unapologetically you. i don't think i could cope with two max's in my life. or two of you for that matter."
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spaceycowboys · 2 years
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starry eyes sparking up my darkest night
pairing: aemond targaryen x female!tyrell!reader
summary: aemond has only wanted two things in his life. a dragon and to marry the pretty tyrell girl, now he has both. 
warnings: smut, literally almost all smut very little plot, virginity loss, oral sex (female receiving), fingering (female receiving), creampie, breeding kink, light innocence kink, light size kink, use of pet names, blood is mentioned two (2) times, aemond has a huge cock i don’t make the rules, and breeder balls, eye patch gets taken OFF when aemond fucks his lady wife, implied jealousy, implied voyeurism (? just incase?), out of character aemond (?), i think thats all?
notes: i am a whore for a villain. aemond is so hot i love him. this is a side blog, i just didnt want to post on my main blog, im fairly rusty at writing smut, so any and all feedback will be greatly appreciated!! please interact if you see this because i think tumblr hates me:((!! title credits: call it what you want by taylor swift
word count: 5.3k
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The wedding had been lovely, truly, but you think everyone could tell your heart wasn’t really in it. Few smiles reached your eyes, and you couldn’t lie that a part of you had felt slightly devasted you were being married in the Dragon Pit in the sight of the Seven, and not the Godswood in Winterfell that you’d come to love during your time in Cregan Stark’s presence many years ago.
You’d thought it was a grand wedding, perhaps too grand for the marriage of a second son, but Aemond is a Prince, so what did you know, besides that and the feeling that the Hand and Queen were trying to sway your father’s loyalty to them when King Viserys joins his late wife, perhaps even go as far as to hope for the favor of your lady mother’s family.
An extravagant weeklong event. Tourneys and hunts and beautiful dinners with lots of dancing. Many lords and ladies had come, many of your friends from childhood present and even your eldest brother. It made the evening feel less lonely for you to be in the presence of people you know so well.
You had been surprised, however, to see the Princess Rhaenyra present with her husband (uncle?) and their children. You heard often of the animosity between the two families, and you were sure she wouldn’t have come. You’d been even more surprised when she had approached you at, a smile on her pretty face.
“Lady Tyrell, you make a most beautiful bride,” She smiles fondly at you.
Aemond tensed next to you, so did the Queen when her next words left her mouth before you could even let out a proper thank you for her compliment, “Though, I must say I am disappointed that your father had not chosen my own son to be your husband. We were heavily in discussion regarding it.”
Your eyebrows furrow as your head turned over in the direction of your father who was seated to your left, “I must say, Princess, I did not know I had many suitors.”
“Why would she want to marry your Strong son, dear sister, when she had better offers?” Aemond spit the words out hatefully at the same time you try to answer her, glaring over her shoulder at the son in question. Jacaerys.
You’d met him on a few occasions, and he was a kind boy. A little closer to your age than your now husband. You didn’t think you knew him well enough to warrant any sort of affections from him, but you suppose that doesn’t matter, since you’d only met Aemond once as children before your father received the letter of the marriage offer from the Hand of the King.
“Aemond,” Alicent had hissed through gritted teeth, “this is a joyous occasion, one you had wanted so desperately. So, please, do not.”
Your now husband huffed out a bitter laugh before grabbing his cup and drowning the rest of his drink. You furrow your eyebrows at her words and look to Aemond slightly confused. He wanted to desperately marry you?
Rhaenyra ignored his comment and stayed looking at you, eyebrows having a slight furrow at your words, “You are a beautiful young woman and you come from one of the great houses, I can promise you that your father was drowning in marriage offers. But I do hope you will be happy here, with my dear brother.”
She walks away before you could say anything, tensing to stop a flinch when Aemond slammed his cup down harshly.
“That fucking cunt. How dare she come over here and say all those things. As if we did not just get married. As if your husband is not sitting right fucking next to you.” He was seething, and it honestly shocked you. You have barely even spoken to him; you really didn’t think he even liked you much.
“Aemond, you will watch your mouth in front of your wife,” Alicent spoke out, slightly baffled that he would say such things in front of you, in front of your family.
Your father is tense next to you, and you place your hand on his own and squeeze. This can’t be that bad. You can endure it.
As you look at Aemond, you can’t help but wonder if he will even be so bad. As if he can hear your thoughts, his hand moves to rest tenderly on your own.
The rest of the evening blurs together until Aegon stumbled his way over to where you were seated, “I believe we should be approaching the bedding ceremony soon, dear brother?”
And though his words had been directed at your husband, you felt his lust and drunk eyes on you. The mention of the bedding ceremony had you tense, and Aegon’s eyes don’t do anything to soothe your nerves.
“There will be no bedding ceremony.” Aemond spoke without a waver in his voice. What?
Aegon’s head snapped towards his brother, “And why the fuck not? It’s tradition.”
Aemond hummed, unamused, “I will not make a spectacle of my lady wife.” His words make your heart soften slightly
“She will not be your lady wife for long if there is no proof.” Aegon tried not to sound as desperate as he felt.
“There will be blood on my sheets come morning and a babe in her belly,” Aemond spoke as he stood up, towering over his older brother before he moved his face close enough to where no one, except you- much to your embarrassment, “though I do suppose if you are that concerned, you may stand outside my quarters and listen for the confirmation that my marriage has been consummated.”
Aemond takes your hand and pulls you from the room after that, moving quickly as if attempting not to be noticed.
“Why are we not doing the bedding ceremony? Is it not tradition? Will we not get in trouble?” Your voice is slightly panicked at the idea of getting in trouble for not doing what you are supposed to do, causing him to stop outside the door of his chambers and look at you.
“I would not feel like a very good husband if there were a bunch of old men with greedy eyes seeing your bare body before I got to see it,” He looks serious, and he sounds it as well. Though his voice lowers slightly into a possessive tone when the next words come out, “I also would not like anyone to see it after I do.”
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Large hands take the many pins out of your hair before gently starting to unknot and remove the many intricate braids the servant girls spent hours doing not long ago. It feels like a waste, makes you feel as if you are a spectacle for viewing and gawking at only.
Which you suppose you are- if you were being honest with yourself. You’d been lucky to inherit not only your mother’s beauty, but as well as the charm that all the women from your lord fathers house seem to have.
You wonder why he insisted that the handmaiden leave, from what your mother told you it was typical of them to prepare you for the upcoming moments.
Your hair is abandoned for the strings at the back of your dress once Aemond has removed all the braids. The air is cold on your back and your hands are shaking when his own move to touch your bare skin in a way that no one else has. One hand is on the nape rubbing in an almost affectionate way as the other moves to pull the extravagant gown from your body.
You didn’t think you could get anymore tense than you already were, until your wedding dress dropped from your body unceremoniously onto the cold ground.
Goosebumps cover your body as you’re fully exposed to the cold air, despite the fire going in the fireplace. His hands move to map your body, starting at your shoulders and slowly moving down to your hips.
His lips on your neck causes you to gasp in surprise, your belly warming at the feeling of not only his lips on you but his hands on your hips, squeezing softly at the skin and biting back a grown when the reach your ass.
His mouth moves from your neck to your shoulders, leaving wet, open mouthed kisses on your skin as he makes his way down your back. You close your eyes at the unfamiliar feeling stirring inside you, a surprised gasp escaping you when a dull bite lands on your hip.
You feel his smile against your skin as he does the same to your other hip before he stands up to make his way around your body.
He stands in front of you, fully clothed still despite having taken off all of your clothing, leaving you bare for him to feast upon with his eye.
Aemond’s hands are calloused and rough, you assume from years of sword training and dragon riding, as they caress your face. His bright eye locked on yours, watching for any reactions. Thumbs trace under your eyes, over your nose, and your lips.
“Have you ever been touched this way?” His voice is quiet as his hands move down your neck towards your collarbones.
“No, my Prince,” Your voice pitches up at the end when his mouth finds your neck again, his teeth piercing your skin again.
“Not even your own hands?” His tone is serious but the smirk you feel against your skin lets you know he’s teasing.
You feel your face heat up at his implication. “No. Never.”
Aemond lets out a pleased hum at your words, soft voice stirring something primal in him.
His mouth is on yours before you can think of something else to say. His lips are a little dry, something you didn’t notice when he kissed you earlier at the wedding. One hand grips your hip as the other tangles into your hair, tugging lightly causing you to gasp. He takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth.
It’s an unfamiliar feeling, all of it is, though. You’re overwhelmed and throbbing at your core.
Can he hear your heartbeat as well as you can? It’s pounding in your ears along with a rush of heat that takes over your whole body.
His tongue coaxes yours to move against it, and you wonder if this is how it’s supposed to feel. If you’re supposed to feel this good. Are you even allowed to feel this good? Your handmaiden had told you on many occasions      that men only cared for their own pleasure, and you would be feeling a lot of pain. This didn’t feel like anything she described.
Aemond pulls his mouth from yours and looks at you with a hooded eye, pupil so blown you can’t see the blue of it. There’s a light flush on his cheeks as he looks at your swollen lips.
“You are quite beautiful, my lady.” It’s said so quietly, you wonder if it was supposed to be a secret. You’d like to know all his secrets, you think.
When you don’t respond, his mouth attaches itself to your neck. A sharp pain if him biting is followed by a light sucking as if to soothe it.
You aren’t sure where to put your hands, they’ve stayed at your side due to your shyness and uncertainty.
“Have you been with many women?” The question leaves your mouth before your mind even processes that you’ve asked it.
His mouth stops moving against your skin as your blood runs cold, shaking, and wide eyed when he pulls away to look at you.
Sharpe eye studies your features, like a lion about to eat a lamb. Or, perhaps, a dragon ready to burn a rose.
He steps back, taking your hand as he sighs and looks away from you in, shame?
“When I was thirteen, Aegon took me to a brothel. Told me it was time to get it wet,”
You grimace at his word choice, but when you see how he’s looking at you, you squeeze his hand.
“To put it lightly, my dear lady, it was not a very nice experience. I have been with very few women since,”
Shame fills you at his words, and before he can continue you speak quickly, “I am so sorry, I did not mean to push you into speaking about an event you-“
His hands are back on your face, holding your cheeks, “You are my wife.” It’s a statement, and his words come out slightly harsh, “You are entitled to every piece of me. I will tell you everything you wish to know about me,”
His kiss is full of fire this time, claiming your lips with such an intensity. His body is pressed full against yours; you can feel his toned chest through his shirt. The fabric is soft against your chest, and as if they have a mind of their own, your hands start grasping at them hem of it desperately.
“Aemond,” It’s the first time you’ve spoken his name that way, he likes the way it sounds. Desperate, needy. Maybe he just likes that it comes from you.
Aemond was nine the first time he saw you, still had both eyes back then. You’d been visiting the Keep with your father. The King wanted updates about something, Aemond didn’t know or care what it was. All he knew was that you were the prettiest girl he’d ever seen.
You had such grace and were so kind. Helaena didn’t have many friends at court due to her fascination with insects. But you held all the creepy crawlers she held out to you, spent the day reading to her so she didn’t have to pull herself away from the bugs.
You were younger than him, but he didn’t care. He liked the way your voice sounded as you read to Helaena, how you laughed when she would whisper out name ideas for her bugs and then look to you to see if the name suited the bug, how you smiled at him when you would catch him sitting just far enough to not be seen but to hear.
You left with your father, and then a year later he heard a servant that you’d been taken to Winterfell to see how you’d pair with Cregan Stark.
After he lost his eye, he told his mother it was a fair trade, and that he’d gotten Vhagar in return, so it didn’t matter. But after he heard Rhaenyra speak of you to Daemon, of her hopes to marry you to Jace, he back tracked.
When they returned to King’s Landing from Driftmark, he told his mother he felt like he deserved to choose his future bride- and that he would want you in return for his lost eye. Truly the rest was history; she brought the request to Viserys stating that it was the least he could be given after what was taken from him.
Viserys allowed it but stated that it would have to be on your father’s terms on when and how if he agreed. It was no surprise that he did agree, though. Lord Tyrell is a proud man and agreed after a few years of discussion and persuasion.
“My lady,” Your thighs involuntarily press together at the way he says it, like he owns you; and he does.
He smirks at the way your body reacts to him just speaking, “May I touch you?”
You moan and breathe out a whine, “If you’d like,”
He pulls away from you just enough to remove the shirt from his body, and then he grabs your hands and places them on his chest.
“I’d like it if you would touch me as well,” His request comes out confident, almost like a demand. Almost everything he says causes more and more heat to flood your body and your lower stomach.
Your shy hands trace over the whole expanse of his chest, rubbing, squeezing, light scratching. Your eyes stay on his face, drinking in every reaction. The way he opens his mouth and lets out a breathy gasp, how his eye closes, and head goes back when you scratch lightly over his pectoral muscles.
With a sudden surge of confidence, you slowly move closer and place a light kiss on his neck. A quiet groan leaves his mouth in response, and you take it as encouragement to continue. A hand moves to your head, lightly holding the back of your neck in place as you suck and bite as he did to you.
You don’t register that he’s been moving you backwards until your knees hit the bed, causing you to gasp and pull away.
Both his hands are back on your face as he slowly lowers you so you’re lying flat, you go to question him when he doesn’t join you, but to your confusion he moves to his knees between your legs.
“What are you-“ The question dies on your tongue when you feel his hands move up your thighs and close to your core.
This is definitely not normal. You’ve never heard of this being part of any bedding. In a panic your hands rush to his face as it gets closer to your core, “What are you doing?”
His eye finds yours and studies your face before smirking, “Just lay back and let me make you feel good, wife.”
Before you can respond you feel his tongue on you, no- in you.
“Oh, gods.”
It’s really unlike anything you’ve ever felt, it’s nearly overwhelming. All you can feel is him. His hands on your inner thighs holding you open for him, his fingers gripping so hard they’re surely leaving bruises, his tongue, gods his tongue.
A finger lightly traces at your entrance, teasingly. The finger makes its way inside you as he sucks on your clit.
“Aemond,” He pulls away at his name leaving your mouth, eye finding you with your head back and hands clutching the bedding at your sides so tightly your knuckles are turning white.
His free hand reaches for one of your own, intertwining your fingers, eye not leaving your face as he adds another inside you, scissoring the two of them lightly while his thumb rubs circles on your clit.
“Do you feel good?” His tone is slightly cocky, but when your eyes look at his face, you see he looks slightly shy.
Before you can respond, his fingers curl inside you and you’re eyes are squeezing shut as a sharp whine leaves your mouth. He hums thoughtfully at your reaction before doing the same thing again, again, again until.
“Oh, please, please, please,” Your nails are digging into his skin, so hard it may be drawing blood, and your thighs begin shaking by his head when his mouth finds your clit again. His fingers don’t falter inside you until your voice pitches up due to the overstimulation.
You finally open your eyes and watch as he sticks the two fingers that had just been inside you into his mouth before looking at you with a smirk as he leans his head back down to lick from the bottom of your cunt back up to your clit.
Wheezing, your thighs move to close themselves as both your hands reach for his head to push him away from you.
Aemond lets out a laugh as he pulls away from your cunt and crawls up your body. Big arms cage you in as he looks at you with something akin to adoration.
“You taste so good,” He says it in such an attractive manner, you’ve never though any words like that would sound so good coming from someone’s mouth. “Would you like to try it?”
You flush at his words, embarrassment filling you before you nod shyly. His smirk deepens as he presses his mouth to yours.
You moan at the feeling of his mouth back on your own, gasping when his hands places itself on your breasts and tweaks with your nipples, and Aemond takes the opportunity to shove his tongue in your mouth when you do.
The taste is slightly sweet, slightly bitter. Tangy, would be a better word, maybe like a Dornish wine or an orange. His cock is straining in his pants as he presses himself up against your cunt, the size takes you by surprise. It feels large, much bigger than his fingers and much too big to fit inside you, but between the feeling of his hands on your breasts, the heat coming off of his bare chest where your hands dig into his shoulders, and the taste of yourself on his mouth as his tongue maps out the inside of your mouth.
A surge of boldness fills you and you remove a hand from one of his shoulders and reach between the two of you, grabbing lightly and unsurely at his cock. The action causes him to pull away from you as a surprised moan leaves his mouth.
There’s a fire in his eye as he looks at you, watching you as you look up with him with uncertain yet shining eyes at everything you’re feeling for the very first time. At his hands no less.
A smirk crawls it’s way back on it’s face, “Do you want to make me feel good, little wife?”
“Yes,” Your answer causes him to let out a pleased hum, but to your confusion he pulls your hand away from his cock.
“Next time I’ll teach you how to please me the way I did you. I don’t want to overwhelm you this time,” His eye holds tenderness as he says the sweet words that light your body on fire.
“This is not how I expected tonight to go,” Your shy words cause a sympathetic smile to show on his features.
“Many husbands don’t care for their wife’s pleasure,” His hands are untying the laces on his pants as he moves up from the bed to strip himself of them. Pride fills him when your eyes widen at the site of his cock.
It’s long and thick, it sits hard and proud up against his stomach, almost hitting his naval. It’s as pale as the rest of him, slightly red at the tip. A bead of precum drips from the tip and down his shaft, your eyes follow it to his balls. There also big, no surprise. The hair so pale that if there is any, you can’t see it. They look heavy, almost uncomfortable.
“Does it hurt?” The question spills out of your mouth, and Aemond wants to laugh until he sees how serious you are.
“No, it’s just uncomfortable,” You’re wide eyes find his face again, another question that almost makes him laugh.
“Will it fit inside me?” You really don’t think it will, or if it does, it’ll be in your stomach. The though makes you nervous.
“We’ll go slow, if you’d like,” He crawls back on top of you, hands finding your thighs so he can fit his body in between them.
His cock is hot against the skin of your thigh, the tip lightly brushes your folds causing you to shiver. His hand grabs at the base of his cock, guiding the tip from your clit to your hole, then back up. Little gasps leave you every time it bumps against your clit or catches on your tight hole.
Aemond holds a lot of restraint, but he can only hold so much, “I’m going to put it in now,”
He looks to you for you to consent, but tenses when your hands shyly reach up at the leather straps of the patch covering his eye.
“Can you take this off?” Your eyes hold no fear, just slight uncertainty.
His face doesn’t change at all, “I’d rather not scare you-“
“I am bare before you, as your wife. You could be bare for me as my husband, as well.” You’re voice doesn’t shake at all, for the first time all evening, he notes.
With a sigh, he takes his hand from your thigh and closes his eye as he takes the patch off. He doesn’t want to see your inevitable reaction of fear or disgust before you turn over and have him take you from behind.
Aemond flinches when he feels your hand tracing his scar, from his forehead, over the sapphire in place of where his eye should be, down to where it ends.
He hears you take in a shaky breath before your mouth is diving up towards his, and for the first time all evening you’ve taken control of something. He enjoys it, the way your tongue forces its way into his mouth.
He kisses you back with the same amount of energy, sucking on your tongue and nipping at your lips until you pull away. His eye studies you, the lust filled look in your eyes and flush covering you with swollen, wet lips.
“You may take me now, Aemond,” The words are but a whisper, but he hears you clearly.
His cock is, now, painfully hard as he nods and tightens his grip so he can carefully guide himself inside you.
He hisses though his teeth at the feeling of your cunt, slick and warm and tight, enveloping his cock. You’re the tightest thing he’s ever felt.
An animalistic feeling nearly overcomes him. He feels a primal need to shove his cock all the way inside you, rip through your maidenhead and fuck you full of him. He want to see your blood on his cock as he thrust inside you, fill you full of him, fuck you so hard there’s no questioning if his seed took tonight.
The feeling is slightly different for you. The stretch is uncomfortable, and it stings slightly, it causes you to feel so full you may burst or overfill. He goes slow, like he promised, but you can feel his body shaking above you as he restrains himself from taking you like an animal.
When he reaches the barrier of your maidenhead, he halts, “I have to push a little harder, here,”
A flash of fear flashes through your eyes for a brief moment before you nod for him to continue.
With a shaky exhale, he pulls back slightly and then pushes forward sharply, a little too sharply. Because the next thing he knows you’ve got tears streaming down your face and his pelvis is flush with yours. It’s hot and so, so tight. It, you, feel so fucking good.
His mouth is hanging open slightly as he breathes heavily, trying to gain control over himself. When he looks down at you, he feels guilt coarse through him.
“Oh, fuck, I’m so sorry,” You take not that while his voice doesn’t sound sorry, his eye shows that he is. Hands reach for your cheeks so he can wipe the tears that have been falling from your eyes away.
You remove an arm from around his shoulder and move your hand to grip at a wrist that is by your face, “It’s okay-“
His voice is strained, “Oh, fuck, it’s not. I told you we would go slow,”
His eye holds guilt, but you can’t help but notice how beautiful he looks above you. No eye patch covering his features, his hair, though still pulled back, slightly messy, sharp facial features gleaming in the moonlight and the light from the fire.
He thinks you look unreal. Hair, still slightly curled, sits around you beautifully, eyes are gleaming with stars in the despite the tears from the pain still lingering, lips bruised and swollen from his own mouth.
“You can move now,” He looks unsure at your words and goes to speak his protests, but you interrupt. “Take me, husband.”
He obliges to your demand, pulling his hips back before pushing them forward. He goes slow at first, in and out at a steady rhythm, relishing in the moans and gasps and whines that leave your mouth, the chants of his name Aemond, Aemond, Aemond.
He dips his head to kiss your cheeks, down your jaw and latches onto your neck, sucking bruises into your skin as he starts thrusting deeper, harder. His pelvis grinds against your clit, and between that sensation, the pace of his thrusts when his cock hits the same spot his fingers found earlier and up to your cervix, his mouth on your neck, it doesn’t take long for your cunt to start clenching on his cock harder.
A deep groan leaves him at the way your cunt grips his cock, sucking him in and trying to keep him there forever. He would gladly stay inside you forever.
He pulls away from your neck to look at you, wanting to look at your face as you cum around his cock, as you feel his cum inside you.
Your eyes are rolled back so far he can only see the whites of them, bruises litter your collarbones and neck, marks of him all over you. Your nipples are hard and brush against his chest as your back arches while you lose yourself in the pleasure.
His balls tighten up more the longer he looks at you, and he moves his thumb to your clit, pushing you over the edge after one, two, three circles over it.
“Aemond!” Your voice sounds heavenly when you moan his name. His hips don’t falter their pace nor does his thumb stop rubbing until your cunt has loosened its vice grip on his cock. He fucks you through your orgasm and through the aftershocks before he grabs one of your legs.
You’re still shaking from your orgasm when you feel him lift your leg up and over his arm and onto his shoulder before he’s leaning over you. Your eyes shoot open at the newer, deeper angle.
“I don’t think-“
Before the sentence can leave your mouth, his hips pick up a pace very unlike the one you had just grown accustomed to. Your eyes cross as your hands shot up to his shoulders, trying to push him away and stop the overstimulation.
His head is thrown back in deep pleasure, groans and low moans of your name leaving his mouth as he listens to the wet slap, slap, slap of his body meeting yours. His pace picks up and becomes less rhythmic as his orgasm hits him.
You cry out his name with tears running down your face as your cunt clenches down for a third time, squeezing him so tightly that all he can do is push all the way in and let his cum flood you. His hips lightly move back and forth, fucking himself and you through your orgasms as you feel his cum fill you so much it starts slipping out around his cock and down your ass.              
He stays inside you as your shake in the aftermath, feeling sweaty and sticky as he presses his cheek against your own, breathing you in and just feeling you for a while before he finally pull back just enough to look at you. Bodies still pressed together, cunt still plugged with his cock to hold his cum in, to make sure it takes. To make sure his son is filling you.
His eye is holding yours in a stare, and a soft smile takes over his face as you smile up at him tiredly. He feels something warm ignite in his chest as you look at him, the glow of the orgasm, the smile on your face, a sparkle in your eyes that looks like stars.
Aemond presses his mouth to yours before you can say anything. He wonders to himself if he can light your world up the way you’re already doing his.
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wineauntie · 2 months
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hughes!sister who gets in trouble with her brothers for something she posted on insta or tiktok wtv you want. im thinking she’s a teenager and whatever she posted was like her vaping or doing something she shouldn’t be. like maybe it was on a private story but somehow one of the brothers friends was on in and they sent it to luke or something and she gets in trouble.
OH, NO! – hughes brothers x sister!reader (ft. ethan edwards + mark estapa)
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summary: where a fun night out turns into a morning after problem
note: I kind of deviated from the ask a little so I hope that’s alright! Reader is the youngest hughes sister!
warnings: fem!reader, use of y/n, luke being a snitch, underage drinking, vaping, references to partying + getting blackout drunk, hangovers!
word count: 1.3k+
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Going to college meant two things; the first was that you were getting the best education you could be to follow your dream and the second was attending parties when you kind of didn’t want to be there.
Your two friends, Mark and Ethan had convinced you to go with them despite your wanting to rot in bed with Netflix for the night. You'd known Mark and Ethan through your brother, Luke, and despite them being older than you, the three of you were as thick as thieves and they were adamant to knock you out of your introverted shell. So, when they'd physically barged into your room and demanded you go out with them, you put your reservations behind you and you'd gotten dressed up.
Mark had agreed to be the designated driver for the night so you and Ethan could drink. Now…technically you were underage and not allowed to drink, and by technically, you mean literally, but hey! It was college, who cares!
Well, it turns out that you should've cared.
You found yourself blinking heavily and stretching your arms above your head as you let out a deep groan. The light was pooling into your dorm room from your half-cracked curtains as you woke up from your deep sleep. A splitting headache wracked through your head as you buried it under your pillow with hopes of erasing yourself from the cruel world that allowed you to suffer from a brutal hangover.
You sniffed as your phone lit up from beside your head. You hadn't remembered placing your phone under your pillow but given the fact it was there, lighting up every few seconds, you hated your past self for doing so. With a grimace you tilted your phone to read, your eyes widening at the influx of texts from all three of your brothers.
You pulled yourself out from beneath your pillow and grasped your phone tightly as you opened the texts from Luke first, your heart dropping to your stomach as you read them.
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In a frenzy, you clicked onto Snapchat, your trembling fingers slipping across the screen as your nausea grew– you couldn't tell if it was from your hangover or the 'hangxiety'.
With a gulp you clicked onto Ethan's private story, watching as he took videos of the party you'd all attended. You spotted yourself in the background of the first video talking to a friend from your major in the background as Ethan and Mark hyped you up from behind his camera— all unbeknownst to you.
That wasn't bad at all, all you were doing was innocently chatting-
Oh no…
Oh, god no.
Your jaw dropped as the next video began to play. It was taken several hours and several drinks after the first video and this time, Ethan also seemed to be equally drunk as he cheered you on, as the camera panned to Mark looking rather unimpressed and worried.
You felt the worst type of panic fill you as you replayed the video. The vibrant and upbeat music filled your ears as you watched yourself and three other girls chug your drinks and dance atop a large wooden table as everyone around you cheered and passed more drinks up to you guys. You'd somehow acquired sunglasses sometime during the night and were rapping along to the song as you took a vape and a drink off of the boy you'd been talking to in the previous video.
The next video had Ethan up on the table beside you, filming as the two of you sang along to another song at the tops of your lungs. Both of your faces flushed and graced with dopey smiles, with drinks passing between you as well as smoke drifting in and around you.
And the last of the story had been a photo of Mark and you, with your arm around his shoulders and his around your waist as he guided you towards the car, Ethan had taken it as a selfie but only his forehead had made it in.
Oh, you were so screwed.
You'd gotten so drunk that you couldn't even recall half of these events happening. Panicked, you clicked into your messages again, only to see that Luke had decided to share his findings with your older brothers.
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If the world had the power to strike you down, you wished it would. You ran a hand through your hair and let out a frustrated sigh, feeling the weight of your poor decisions pressing down on you like a heavy blanket. The room spun around you, and you struggled to piece together the events of the previous night.
How could you have been so reckless?
With shaky fingers, you turned off your phone, hoping desperately that the ground would swallow you up and reveal this was all some alternate reality. But deep down, you knew the damage was done, and there was no way to undo the embarrassment you had caused.
As you sat there, feeling the sudden shame wash over you in waves, your phone suddenly rang, startling you out of your thoughts. You glanced at the caller ID and saw that it was Quinn. Taking a deep and heavy breath, you bit your lip as you answered the call.
"Hey, Q," you whispered, trying to keep your voice steady despite the nervousness gnawing at your insides.
"Hey, y/n/n," his warm voice replied, his tone surprisingly calm. "I just wanted to check in and see how you're doing."
You swallowed hard, bracing yourself for the inevitable lecture that was sure to come. "I'm… I'm okay, I guess," you admitted, feeling a lump form in your throat. "I just woke, but look, before you start, look I know I messed up."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line, and you held your breath, waiting for Quinn's response.
"Are you feeling okay?" Quinn's voice came through the phone, filled with concern.
"Not really," you admitted, feeling a lump form in your throat. You couldn't tell if it was the embarrassment, anger at Luke for snitching or the raging headache that caused your eyes to well up. "'m embarrassed."
"I'm not going to lie, y/n, I didn't expect to see you like that. " Quinn said gently. "And yes, I'm shocked but, more than anything, I'm worried about you. I've never seen you in that state."
Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you realized how much you had let him down. "I'm okay," you said, your voice trembling. "I messed up, Quinn. I know that. I just–I was having fun and…I don't know what came over me."
Finally, he spoke, his voice gentle but firm. "Yeah, you did mess up," he admitted. "But we've all been there, don't stress. College is the time for making mistakes and learning from them and yes, having fun and drinking are all a part of the experience. The important thing is that you're safe and that you're okay."
Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you listened to his words. Despite everything, he still had your back.
"Thanks, Q," you said, your voice thick with emotion as you sniffed. "I really appreciate it."
"Anytime," Quinn replied, his tone softening even further. "Just remember, we're here for you, no matter what. And next time, maybe think twice before getting on top of a table and chugging drinks, huh?"
You let out a shaky laugh, feeling some of the tension drain from your body. "Yeah, definitely," you said. "I've learned my lesson, believe me."
"Good," Quinn said, sounding relieved. "Now go take care of yourself, okay? Take an Advil and get some water and rest. And if you need anything, don't hesitate to call."
"I will," you promised, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips. "Thanks again…I mean it."
"Anytime, kiddo," Quinn teased, his voice warm with affection. "Take care." There was a soft beep as you hung up, your hands scrubbing your eyes as you tried to bury the memory of the videos.
As you went to tuck your phone off to the side, you saw a text pop up, and this time, instead of embarrassment or rage, it caused feeble laughter to slip through your lips and shake through your body as you read it.
j 🤝 "maybe next time get Edwards to ditch the camera and one Advil and pancakes should cure you. Glad you're having fun 👍"
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itsvelyria · 3 months
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"types of smiles the f1 boys would love from their s/o"
happy show-your-loved-ones-you-love-them day!! 🤍🤎
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Charles Leclerc
the shy smile: he fell in love with you when he saw that smile for the first time. he always knew you were too good, too nice to this cruel world and despite all the hardships you’d faced, you somehow still retained that innocence from childhood. that shy smile, all gentle and modest — he liked to think you reserved it solely for him, made his heart flutter like a schoolboy with their first crush all over again. your lowered eyes, radiating a certain charm he could never put to words. it was like he was cleansed from all the negativity that accompanied his line of work. maybe it would be better to say he was your devoted follower, begging his goddess for just a glimpse of her smile every so often.
Carlos Sainz
the loving smile: it wasn’t like Carlos had never had a crush before, hell he’s been in a long-term relationship before. but never has he felt the pull to you so strong before, even as you are right across him, laughing at something his sister said. his mind can only focus on the way your eyes sparkle at dinner with his family, mapping the crinkles beside them. and as the gaze he is dying to have land on him does, the bright smile shifts, edges softening into fondness, the slight raise of your eyebrows asking what he needed. he reaches across the table, greedily needing to feel your warmth too, wanting this moment to last forever.
Danny Ricciardo
the smirk: he can see it taunting him even from a few feet away, in the neon pink glow of the club. you were teasing him, challenging him after a casual remark about how you had no game. the glances you send up at the second level where he hung by the railing shoots sparks of green fury in him. he should have known better; you were nothing if not confident and it was evident in the guy you had been grinding against for the past 15 minutes. he hated everything about this, his skin felt like it was on literal fire, and he had half a mind to go down to the floor to drag you away. perhaps Max had a point, maybe he needed to face the reality that he had feelings for you.
George Russell
the warm smile: miles away from your hometown, new cities every week, away from everything and everyone he'd ever known, you were his anchor. your presence grounded him when it felt like the world was spiralling away and he had absolutely no control over anything. he waited as you spoke to a member of the team, the warm smile on your face taking the tension out of the new girl. it was the same smile you brought to restaurants and parties, making the people around feel at home. it was the same smile you gave him in his moments of uncertainty. you bounded over happily, saying something about the same school, with the new girl trailing behind and as he smiled at his colleague, something in his brain told him that things may change and ebb away but your smile could never.
Lando Norris
the proud smile: his whole life, he’s been working to be the best – to stand on the topmost step of the podium and hold that trophy up, to have people acknowledge him as a great driver, the best in the world. and he’s one step closer, the first race win of his career, a step towards greater things. he could feel the elation emitting from his entire team, but the pats on his back and cheers from his team couldn’t compare with that beam on your face. even all the way up on the podium, the only thing he was focused on was your face and how it resembled a mother hen looking on her chick. he pumps the trophy higher, the sense of pride bursting in his chest and all he could think about was how he was going to be a better driver, a better man, for you.
Lewis Hamilton
the comforting smile: it was the slightest tilt of your lips, the light from his nightstand outlining the soft frame of your body. the smile in your voice was easy to detect even as he laid his head on your tummy, exhausted from a long day of endless meetings and emails. sometimes, he wonders why he works so hard. his life has already amounted to so much and he had accumulated enough life experience to know the most important thing was family and his sweetheart. and then its nights like this, when the world beyond your sanctuary is dead asleep and everything fades away, leaving only what mattered: the gentle vibration under his head and your sweet lullaby and smile telling him nothing was more important than this moment right now.
Max Verstappen
the smiling eyes: the Internet had never been a nice place to him. sneers and belittling comments deterring him from ever going on there if he had a choice. but as a 3-time World Champion, his social media obligations were more important than before. when you two started dating, he wanted to keep it private. everything bad in the world, in his opinion, had no chance of ever hurting you as long as he was around. which is also why he never brought you to races. the fewer the interactions between you, the less there was for the media to scrutinize. but it was moments like this, as the camera pans to you in the garage. your face is hidden but your eyes are bright and admiring him in his element, your name broadcasted with his beneath, told to whoever was watching, that he bookmarks the image in his mind.
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weebsinstash · 4 months
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something that I think would be, truly one of the worst things about the yandere Batfamily really truly is their power to make any and every problem you've ever had completely go away in no time at all
it can be such an awful feeling to see that you struggled in vain with something that was nothing at all to someone else. You could have significant issues that have followed you all your life and have had traumatic impacting effects on you and these people could come in and sweep that all away. Student loans you've been paying off for years, if not a fraction of your lifespan, still burying you in debt? We are talking fucking decimal points on the scale of Bruce Wayne's wealth. That bad leg from an old work injury? Let's grab you one of the best doctors in Gotham, if not the entire world, fuck, we may even get you a doctor or medicine that isn't even human-made! Y'all want a magic leg? We know this chick who can speak backwards, you want a magically healed leg?
Crippling loneliness? Eternal sunshine and objectively best Robin Dick Grayson is here to brighten your entire world since he knows what it can feel like to be hurting and alone and he's literally like the heart and soul of the entire manor besides Alfred
Chronic pain, an undiagnosed disability, or maybe you're not confident in your fitness? Jason has extensive knowledge of injury recovery, physical therapy, and overall knowledge about human biology and musculature and how everything correlates
Family issues? Daddy issues? Let Resident Troubled Kid Expert Alfred Pennyworth be your new grandpa. He's dealt with more than one temperamental snappy individual, and he'll use his patience, experience, and wit to wear down all your stress and hostility. It's hard to keep being cruel to someone who's nothing but kind to you, and he has plenty of patience and delicious baked treats to hold out until you give in
Honestly just the fact most of them are so fucking young would get under my skin. You could be approaching your 30s and be sitting here at the Wayne family dinner table as their weird sister/mom/girlfriend/whatever and being all "I've just always had these struggles my entire life, I dont know what's wrong with me, I feel like I can't control how I act or feel and I hate it" and someone like Tim who depending on the source material and where you are on the timeline is a literal teenager with extensive knowledge of criminals and psychology is just over here, "oh, that? You have chronic childhood trauma, recurring resurfacing conflict related ptsd, severe abandonment issues, emotional regulation problems that are probably biological, and also you probably have autism, and there's nothing wrong with any of that :)" and then he turns to Bruce and starts talking about how his school is taking a trip abroad to Greece while you sit there processing that everyone around the table has extensively psychologically evaluated you and you probably have your own file on the Batcomputer (you do. It's excessive.)
It's just. The psychology of having all these problems you've struggled with be wiped away by someone else like it's nothing and how, that can result in making someone feel all the more worthless and helpless. Oh, Bruce was able to just make all your problems disappear? Clearly YOU weren't trying hard enough. Tim is able to suss out what's wrong with you? Well YOU'RE the dysfunctional idiot who was born wrong, and YOU were the one choosing the wrong doctors. You're watching all these young teenagers or young adults be vigilantes and travel the world and learn multiple languages and you're like. Normal guy Steve from the grocery store. You know? They take control of your life and make you feel like a side character in it, because everything you do is now attached to them, and all of them and all of their adventures are so... spectacular
And really, someone with a meaner heart, and maybe someone more blunt like, say, Damian, could perhaps come in and make some comment, "see? This is why you needed our assistance in caring for you" and what are you gonna do, NOT act like they basically fixed your entire life in less than a year's time, with the one objection of kidnapping and imprisonment? You're just over here, "um yeah, actually, I'm an adult and I can take care of myself, you don't need to TAKE CARE OF ME???" meanwhile Bruce and Alfred are exchanging knowing looks while you speak as if the old butler hadn't needed to help you call your doctor and other important urgent matters because being on the phone with strangers gave you such intense anxiety. Ok yes sure honey you are a lovely functional adult and your brain is big and beautiful and perfect 🥰 now shut up about going to live back home on your own, go play Xbox with your new brothers or go bake something with Grandpa while the world's greatest detective sits down in the Batcave using the Batcomputer to track down and "have a friendly chat" with that one childhood teacher that gave you that one really specific trauma-
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spaceyaemonds · 1 year
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starry eyes sparking up my darkest night
pairing: aemond targaryen x female!tyrell!reader
summary: aemond has only wanted two things in his life. a dragon and to marry the pretty tyrell girl, now he has both. 
warnings: smut, literally almost all smut very little plot, virginity loss, oral sex (female receiving), fingering (female receiving), creampie, breeding kink, light innocence kink, light size kink, use of pet names, blood is mentioned two (2) times, aemond has a huge cock i don’t make the rules, and breeder balls, eye patch gets taken OFF when aemond fucks his lady wife, implied jealousy, implied voyeurism (? just incase?), out of character aemond (?), i think thats all?
notes: REPOST FROM MY OLD BLOG. i am a whore for a villain. aemond is so hot i love him. this is a side blog, i just didnt want to post on my main blog, im fairly rusty at writing smut, so any and all feedback will be greatly appreciated!! please interact if you see this because i think tumblr hates me:((!! title credits: call it what you want by taylor swift
word count: 5.3k
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The wedding had been lovely, truly, but you think everyone could tell your heart wasn’t really in it. Few smiles reached your eyes, and you couldn’t lie that a part of you had felt slightly devasted you were being married in the Dragon Pit in the sight of the Seven, and not the Godswood in Winterfell that you’d come to love during your time in Cregan Stark’s presence many years ago.
You’d thought it was a grand wedding, perhaps too grand for the marriage of a second son, but Aemond is a Prince, so what did you know, besides that and the feeling that the Hand and Queen were trying to sway your father’s loyalty to them when King Viserys joins his late wife, perhaps even go as far as to hope for the favor of your lady mother’s family.
An extravagant weeklong event. Tourneys and hunts and beautiful dinners with lots of dancing. Many lords and ladies had come, many of your friends from childhood present and even your eldest brother. It made the evening feel less lonely for you to be in the presence of people you know so well.
You had been surprised, however, to see the Princess Rhaenyra present with her husband (uncle?) and their children. You heard often of the animosity between the two families, and you were sure she wouldn’t have come. You’d been even more surprised when she had approached you at, a smile on her pretty face.
“Lady Tyrell, you make a most beautiful bride,” She smiles fondly at you.
Aemond tensed next to you, so did the Queen when her next words left her mouth before you could even let out a proper thank you for her compliment, “Though, I must say I am disappointed that your father had not chosen my own son to be your husband. We were heavily in discussion regarding it.”
Your eyebrows furrow as your head turned over in the direction of your father who was seated to your left, “I must say, Princess, I did not know I had many suitors.”
“Why would she want to marry your Strong son, dear sister, when she had better offers?” Aemond spit the words out hatefully at the same time you try to answer her, glaring over her shoulder at the son in question. Jacaerys.
You’d met him on a few occasions, and he was a kind boy. A little closer to your age than your now husband. You didn’t think you knew him well enough to warrant any sort of affections from him, but you suppose that doesn’t matter, since you’d only met Aemond once as children before your father received the letter of the marriage offer from the Hand of the King.
“Aemond,” Alicent had hissed through gritted teeth, “this is a joyous occasion, one you had wanted so desperately. So, please, do not.”
Your now husband huffed out a bitter laugh before grabbing his cup and drowning the rest of his drink. You furrow your eyebrows at her words and look to Aemond slightly confused. He wanted to desperately marry you?
Rhaenyra ignored his comment and stayed looking at you, eyebrows having a slight furrow at your words, “You are a beautiful young woman and you come from one of the great houses, I can promise you that your father was drowning in marriage offers. But I do hope you will be happy here, with my dear brother.”
She walks away before you could say anything, tensing to stop a flinch when Aemond slammed his cup down harshly.
“That fucking cunt. How dare she come over here and say all those things. As if we did not just get married. As if your husband is not sitting right fucking next to you.” He was seething, and it honestly shocked you. You have barely even spoken to him; you really didn’t think he even liked you much.
“Aemond, you will watch your mouth in front of your wife,” Alicent spoke out, slightly baffled that he would say such things in front of you, in front of your family.
Your father is tense next to you, and you place your hand on his own and squeeze. This can’t be that bad. You can endure it.
As you look at Aemond, you can’t help but wonder if he will even be so bad. As if he can hear your thoughts, his hand moves to rest tenderly on your own.
The rest of the evening blurs together until Aegon stumbled his way over to where you were seated, “I believe we should be approaching the bedding ceremony soon, dear brother?”
And though his words had been directed at your husband, you felt his lust and drunk eyes on you. The mention of the bedding ceremony had you tense, and Aegon’s eyes don’t do anything to soothe your nerves.
“There will be no bedding ceremony.” Aemond spoke without a waver in his voice. What?
Aegon’s head snapped towards his brother, “And why the fuck not? It’s tradition.”
Aemond hummed, unamused, “I will not make a spectacle of my lady wife.” His words make your heart soften slightly
“She will not be your lady wife for long if there is no proof.” Aegon tried not to sound as desperate as he felt.
“There will be blood on my sheets come morning and a babe in her belly,” Aemond spoke as he stood up, towering over his older brother before he moved his face close enough to where no one, except you- much to your embarrassment, “though I do suppose if you are that concerned, you may stand outside my quarters and listen for the confirmation that my marriage has been consummated.”
Aemond takes your hand and pulls you from the room after that, moving quickly as if attempting not to be noticed.
“Why are we not doing the bedding ceremony? Is it not tradition? Will we not get in trouble?” Your voice is slightly panicked at the idea of getting in trouble for not doing what you are supposed to do, causing him to stop outside the door of his chambers and look at you.
“I would not feel like a very good husband if there were a bunch of old men with greedy eyes seeing your bare body before I got to see it,” He looks serious, and he sounds it as well. Though his voice lowers slightly into a possessive tone when the next words come out, “I also would not like anyone to see it after I do.”
                                                        εїз
Large hands take the many pins out of your hair before gently starting to unknot and remove the many intricate braids the servant girls spent hours doing not long ago. It feels like a waste, makes you feel as if you are a spectacle for viewing and gawking at only.
Which you suppose you are- if you were being honest with yourself. You’d been lucky to inherit not only your mother’s beauty, but as well as the charm that all the women from your lord fathers house seem to have.
You wonder why he insisted that the handmaiden leave, from what your mother told you it was typical of them to prepare you for the upcoming moments.
Your hair is abandoned for the strings at the back of your dress once Aemond has removed all the braids. The air is cold on your back and your hands are shaking when his own move to touch your bare skin in a way that no one else has. One hand is on the nape rubbing in an almost affectionate way as the other moves to pull the extravagant gown from your body.
You didn’t think you could get anymore tense than you already were, until your wedding dress dropped from your body unceremoniously onto the cold ground.
Goosebumps cover your body as you’re fully exposed to the cold air, despite the fire going in the fireplace. His hands move to map your body, starting at your shoulders and slowly moving down to your hips.
His lips on your neck causes you to gasp in surprise, your belly warming at the feeling of not only his lips on you but his hands on your hips, squeezing softly at the skin and biting back a grown when the reach your ass.
His mouth moves from your neck to your shoulders, leaving wet, open mouthed kisses on your skin as he makes his way down your back. You close your eyes at the unfamiliar feeling stirring inside you, a surprised gasp escaping you when a dull bite lands on your hip.
You feel his smile against your skin as he does the same to your other hip before he stands up to make his way around your body.
He stands in front of you, fully clothed still despite having taken off all of your clothing, leaving you bare for him to feast upon with his eye.
Aemond’s hands are calloused and rough, you assume from years of sword training and dragon riding, as they caress your face. His bright eye locked on yours, watching for any reactions. Thumbs trace under your eyes, over your nose, and your lips.
“Have you ever been touched this way?” His voice is quiet as his hands move down your neck towards your collarbones.
“No, my Prince,” Your voice pitches up at the end when his mouth finds your neck again, his teeth piercing your skin again.
“Not even your own hands?” His tone is serious but the smirk you feel against your skin lets you know he’s teasing.
You feel your face heat up at his implication. “No. Never.”
Aemond lets out a pleased hum at your words, soft voice stirring something primal in him.
His mouth is on yours before you can think of something else to say. His lips are a little dry, something you didn’t notice when he kissed you earlier at the wedding. One hand grips your hip as the other tangles into your hair, tugging lightly causing you to gasp. He takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth.
It’s an unfamiliar feeling, all of it is, though. You’re overwhelmed and throbbing at your core.
Can he hear your heartbeat as well as you can? It’s pounding in your ears along with a rush of heat that takes over your whole body.
His tongue coaxes yours to move against it, and you wonder if this is how it’s supposed to feel. If you’re supposed to feel this good. Are you even allowed to feel this good? Your handmaiden had told you on many occasions      that men only cared for their own pleasure, and you would be feeling a lot of pain. This didn’t feel like anything she described.
Aemond pulls his mouth from yours and looks at you with a hooded eye, pupil so blown you can’t see the blue of it. There’s a light flush on his cheeks as he looks at your swollen lips.
“You are quite beautiful, my lady.” It’s said so quietly, you wonder if it was supposed to be a secret. You’d like to know all his secrets, you think.
When you don’t respond, his mouth attaches itself to your neck. A sharp pain if him biting is followed by a light sucking as if to soothe it.
You aren’t sure where to put your hands, they’ve stayed at your side due to your shyness and uncertainty.
“Have you been with many women?” The question leaves your mouth before your mind even processes that you’ve asked it.
His mouth stops moving against your skin as your blood runs cold, shaking, and wide eyed when he pulls away to look at you.
Sharpe eye studies your features, like a lion about to eat a lamb. Or, perhaps, a dragon ready to burn a rose.
He steps back, taking your hand as he sighs and looks away from you in, shame?
“When I was thirteen, Aegon took me to a brothel. Told me it was time to get it wet,”
You grimace at his word choice, but when you see how he’s looking at you, you squeeze his hand.
“To put it lightly, my dear lady, it was not a very nice experience. I have been with very few women since,”
Shame fills you at his words, and before he can continue you speak quickly, “I am so sorry, I did not mean to push you into speaking about an event you-“
His hands are back on your face, holding your cheeks, “You are my wife.” It’s a statement, and his words come out slightly harsh, “You are entitled to every piece of me. I will tell you everything you wish to know about me,”
His kiss is full of fire this time, claiming your lips with such an intensity. His body is pressed full against yours; you can feel his toned chest through his shirt. The fabric is soft against your chest, and as if they have a mind of their own, your hands start grasping at them hem of it desperately.
“Aemond,” It’s the first time you’ve spoken his name that way, he likes the way it sounds. Desperate, needy. Maybe he just likes that it comes from you.
Aemond was nine the first time he saw you, still had both eyes back then. You’d been visiting the Keep with your father. The King wanted updates about something, Aemond didn’t know or care what it was. All he knew was that you were the prettiest girl he’d ever seen.
You had such grace and were so kind. Helaena didn’t have many friends at court due to her fascination with insects. But you held all the creepy crawlers she held out to you, spent the day reading to her so she didn’t have to pull herself away from the bugs.
You were younger than him, but he didn’t care. He liked the way your voice sounded as you read to Helaena, how you laughed when she would whisper out name ideas for her bugs and then look to you to see if the name suited the bug, how you smiled at him when you would catch him sitting just far enough to not be seen but to hear.
You left with your father, and then a year later he heard a servant that you’d been taken to Winterfell to see how you’d pair with Cregan Stark.
After he lost his eye, he told his mother it was a fair trade, and that he’d gotten Vhagar in return, so it didn’t matter. But after he heard Rhaenyra speak of you to Daemon, of her hopes to marry you to Jace, he back tracked.
When they returned to King’s Landing from Driftmark, he told his mother he felt like he deserved to choose his future bride- and that he would want you in return for his lost eye. Truly the rest was history; she brought the request to Viserys stating that it was the least he could be given after what was taken from him.
Viserys allowed it but stated that it would have to be on your father’s terms on when and how if he agreed. It was no surprise that he did agree, though. Lord Tyrell is a proud man and agreed after a few years of discussion and persuasion.
“My lady,” Your thighs involuntarily press together at the way he says it, like he owns you; and he does.
He smirks at the way your body reacts to him just speaking, “May I touch you?”
You moan and breathe out a whine, “If you’d like,”
He pulls away from you just enough to remove the shirt from his body, and then he grabs your hands and places them on his chest.
“I’d like it if you would touch me as well,” His request comes out confident, almost like a demand. Almost everything he says causes more and more heat to flood your body and your lower stomach.
Your shy hands trace over the whole expanse of his chest, rubbing, squeezing, light scratching. Your eyes stay on his face, drinking in every reaction. The way he opens his mouth and lets out a breathy gasp, how his eye closes, and head goes back when you scratch lightly over his pectoral muscles.
With a sudden surge of confidence, you slowly move closer and place a light kiss on his neck. A quiet groan leaves his mouth in response, and you take it as encouragement to continue. A hand moves to your head, lightly holding the back of your neck in place as you suck and bite as he did to you.
You don’t register that he’s been moving you backwards until your knees hit the bed, causing you to gasp and pull away.
Both his hands are back on your face as he slowly lowers you so you’re lying flat, you go to question him when he doesn’t join you, but to your confusion he moves to his knees between your legs.
“What are you-“ The question dies on your tongue when you feel his hands move up your thighs and close to your core.
This is definitely not normal. You’ve never heard of this being part of any bedding. In a panic your hands rush to his face as it gets closer to your core, “What are you doing?”
His eye finds yours and studies your face before smirking, “Just lay back and let me make you feel good, wife.”
Before you can respond you feel his tongue on you, no- in you.
“Oh, gods.”
It’s really unlike anything you’ve ever felt, it’s nearly overwhelming. All you can feel is him. His hands on your inner thighs holding you open for him, his fingers gripping so hard they’re surely leaving bruises, his tongue, gods his tongue.
A finger lightly traces at your entrance, teasingly. The finger makes its way inside you as he sucks on your clit.
“Aemond,” He pulls away at his name leaving your mouth, eye finding you with your head back and hands clutching the bedding at your sides so tightly your knuckles are turning white.
His free hand reaches for one of your own, intertwining your fingers, eye not leaving your face as he adds another inside you, scissoring the two of them lightly while his thumb rubs circles on your clit.
“Do you feel good?” His tone is slightly cocky, but when your eyes look at his face, you see he looks slightly shy.
Before you can respond, his fingers curl inside you and you’re eyes are squeezing shut as a sharp whine leaves your mouth. He hums thoughtfully at your reaction before doing the same thing again, again, again until.
“Oh, please, please, please,” Your nails are digging into his skin, so hard it may be drawing blood, and your thighs begin shaking by his head when his mouth finds your clit again. His fingers don’t falter inside you until your voice pitches up due to the overstimulation.
You finally open your eyes and watch as he sticks the two fingers that had just been inside you into his mouth before looking at you with a smirk as he leans his head back down to lick from the bottom of your cunt back up to your clit.
Wheezing, your thighs move to close themselves as both your hands reach for his head to push him away from you.
Aemond lets out a laugh as he pulls away from your cunt and crawls up your body. Big arms cage you in as he looks at you with something akin to adoration.
“You taste so good,” He says it in such an attractive manner, you’ve never though any words like that would sound so good coming from someone’s mouth. “Would you like to try it?”
You flush at his words, embarrassment filling you before you nod shyly. His smirk deepens as he presses his mouth to yours.
You moan at the feeling of his mouth back on your own, gasping when his hands places itself on your breasts and tweaks with your nipples, and Aemond takes the opportunity to shove his tongue in your mouth when you do.
The taste is slightly sweet, slightly bitter. Tangy, would be a better word, maybe like a Dornish wine or an orange. His cock is straining in his pants as he presses himself up against your cunt, the size takes you by surprise. It feels large, much bigger than his fingers and much too big to fit inside you, but between the feeling of his hands on your breasts, the heat coming off of his bare chest where your hands dig into his shoulders, and the taste of yourself on his mouth as his tongue maps out the inside of your mouth.
A surge of boldness fills you and you remove a hand from one of his shoulders and reach between the two of you, grabbing lightly and unsurely at his cock. The action causes him to pull away from you as a surprised moan leaves his mouth.
There’s a fire in his eye as he looks at you, watching you as you look up with him with uncertain yet shining eyes at everything you’re feeling for the very first time. At his hands no less.
A smirk crawls it’s way back on it’s face, “Do you want to make me feel good, little wife?”
“Yes,” Your answer causes him to let out a pleased hum, but to your confusion he pulls your hand away from his cock.
“Next time I’ll teach you how to please me the way I did you. I don’t want to overwhelm you this time,” His eye holds tenderness as he says the sweet words that light your body on fire.
“This is not how I expected tonight to go,” Your shy words cause a sympathetic smile to show on his features.
“Many husbands don’t care for their wife’s pleasure,” His hands are untying the laces on his pants as he moves up from the bed to strip himself of them. Pride fills him when your eyes widen at the site of his cock.
It’s long and thick, it sits hard and proud up against his stomach, almost hitting his naval. It’s as pale as the rest of him, slightly red at the tip. A bead of precum drips from the tip and down his shaft, your eyes follow it to his balls. There also big, no surprise. The hair so pale that if there is any, you can’t see it. They look heavy, almost uncomfortable.
“Does it hurt?” The question spills out of your mouth, and Aemond wants to laugh until he sees how serious you are.
“No, it’s just uncomfortable,” You’re wide eyes find his face again, another question that almost makes him laugh.
“Will it fit inside me?” You really don’t think it will, or if it does, it’ll be in your stomach. The though makes you nervous.
“We’ll go slow, if you’d like,” He crawls back on top of you, hands finding your thighs so he can fit his body in between them.
His cock is hot against the skin of your thigh, the tip lightly brushes your folds causing you to shiver. His hand grabs at the base of his cock, guiding the tip from your clit to your hole, then back up. Little gasps leave you every time it bumps against your clit or catches on your tight hole.
Aemond holds a lot of restraint, but he can only hold so much, “I’m going to put it in now,”
He looks to you for you to consent, but tenses when your hands shyly reach up at the leather straps of the patch covering his eye.
“Can you take this off?” Your eyes hold no fear, just slight uncertainty.
His face doesn’t change at all, “I’d rather not scare you-“
“I am bare before you, as your wife. You could be bare for me as my husband, as well.” You’re voice doesn’t shake at all, for the first time all evening, he notes.
With a sigh, he takes his hand from your thigh and closes his eye as he takes the patch off. He doesn’t want to see your inevitable reaction of fear or disgust before you turn over and have him take you from behind.
Aemond flinches when he feels your hand tracing his scar, from his forehead, over the sapphire in place of where his eye should be, down to where it ends.
He hears you take in a shaky breath before your mouth is diving up towards his, and for the first time all evening you’ve taken control of something. He enjoys it, the way your tongue forces its way into his mouth.
He kisses you back with the same amount of energy, sucking on your tongue and nipping at your lips until you pull away. His eye studies you, the lust filled look in your eyes and flush covering you with swollen, wet lips.
“You may take me now, Aemond,” The words are but a whisper, but he hears you clearly.
His cock is, now, painfully hard as he nods and tightens his grip so he can carefully guide himself inside you.
He hisses though his teeth at the feeling of your cunt, slick and warm and tight, enveloping his cock. You’re the tightest thing he’s ever felt.
An animalistic feeling nearly overcomes him. He feels a primal need to shove his cock all the way inside you, rip through your maidenhead and fuck you full of him. He want to see your blood on his cock as he thrust inside you, fill you full of him, fuck you so hard there’s no questioning if his seed took tonight.
The feeling is slightly different for you. The stretch is uncomfortable, and it stings slightly, it causes you to feel so full you may burst or overfill. He goes slow, like he promised, but you can feel his body shaking above you as he restrains himself from taking you like an animal.
When he reaches the barrier of your maidenhead, he halts, “I have to push a little harder, here,”
A flash of fear flashes through your eyes for a brief moment before you nod for him to continue.
With a shaky exhale, he pulls back slightly and then pushes forward sharply, a little too sharply. Because the next thing he knows you’ve got tears streaming down your face and his pelvis is flush with yours. It’s hot and so, so tight. It, you, feel so fucking good.
His mouth is hanging open slightly as he breathes heavily, trying to gain control over himself. When he looks down at you, he feels guilt coarse through him.
“Oh, fuck, I’m so sorry,” You take not that while his voice doesn’t sound sorry, his eye shows that he is. Hands reach for your cheeks so he can wipe the tears that have been falling from your eyes away.
You remove an arm from around his shoulder and move your hand to grip at a wrist that is by your face, “It’s okay-“
His voice is strained, “Oh, fuck, it’s not. I told you we would go slow,”
His eye holds guilt, but you can’t help but notice how beautiful he looks above you. No eye patch covering his features, his hair, though still pulled back, slightly messy, sharp facial features gleaming in the moonlight and the light from the fire.
He thinks you look unreal. Hair, still slightly curled, sits around you beautifully, eyes are gleaming with stars in the despite the tears from the pain still lingering, lips bruised and swollen from his own mouth.
“You can move now,” He looks unsure at your words and goes to speak his protests, but you interrupt. “Take me, husband.”
He obliges to your demand, pulling his hips back before pushing them forward. He goes slow at first, in and out at a steady rhythm, relishing in the moans and gasps and whines that leave your mouth, the chants of his name Aemond, Aemond, Aemond.
He dips his head to kiss your cheeks, down your jaw and latches onto your neck, sucking bruises into your skin as he starts thrusting deeper, harder. His pelvis grinds against your clit, and between that sensation, the pace of his thrusts when his cock hits the same spot his fingers found earlier and up to your cervix, his mouth on your neck, it doesn’t take long for your cunt to start clenching on his cock harder.
A deep groan leaves him at the way your cunt grips his cock, sucking him in and trying to keep him there forever. He would gladly stay inside you forever.
He pulls away from your neck to look at you, wanting to look at your face as you cum around his cock, as you feel his cum inside you.
Your eyes are rolled back so far he can only see the whites of them, bruises litter your collarbones and neck, marks of him all over you. Your nipples are hard and brush against his chest as your back arches while you lose yourself in the pleasure.
His balls tighten up more the longer he looks at you, and he moves his thumb to your clit, pushing you over the edge after one, two, three circles over it.
“Aemond!” Your voice sounds heavenly when you moan his name. His hips don’t falter their pace nor does his thumb stop rubbing until your cunt has loosened its vice grip on his cock. He fucks you through your orgasm and through the aftershocks before he grabs one of your legs.
You’re still shaking from your orgasm when you feel him lift your leg up and over his arm and onto his shoulder before he’s leaning over you. Your eyes shoot open at the newer, deeper angle.
“I don’t think-“
Before the sentence can leave your mouth, his hips pick up a pace very unlike the one you had just grown accustomed to. Your eyes cross as your hands shot up to his shoulders, trying to push him away and stop the overstimulation.
His head is thrown back in deep pleasure, groans and low moans of your name leaving his mouth as he listens to the wet slap, slap, slap of his body meeting yours. His pace picks up and becomes less rhythmic as his orgasm hits him.
You cry out his name with tears running down your face as your cunt clenches down for a third time, squeezing him so tightly that all he can do is push all the way in and let his cum flood you. His hips lightly move back and forth, fucking himself and you through your orgasms as you feel his cum fill you so much it starts slipping out around his cock and down your ass.              
He stays inside you as your shake in the aftermath, feeling sweaty and sticky as he presses his cheek against your own, breathing you in and just feeling you for a while before he finally pull back just enough to look at you. Bodies still pressed together, cunt still plugged with his cock to hold his cum in, to make sure it takes. To make sure his son is filling you.
His eye is holding yours in a stare, and a soft smile takes over his face as you smile up at him tiredly. He feels something warm ignite in his chest as you look at him, the glow of the orgasm, the smile on your face, a sparkle in your eyes that looks like stars.
Aemond presses his mouth to yours before you can say anything. He wonders to himself if he can light your world up the way you’re already doing his.
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thrumbolt · 6 months
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Top 5 most annoying Tamlin scene misinterpretations
1. ''There is no such thing as a high lady'' I hate this one, because it is always taken as some sort of proof that Tamlin is a raging misogynist who doesn't want an equal woman by his side or some similar type of nonsense. I don't know where this is coming from. Tamlin never wanted to be a high lord. He would probably welcome for someone to take over most of the work so he could just keep running through the woods. He also has absolutely no issues with taking advice from women in power (Ianthe? Hello??). His first reaction to the high lady question is literally this:
“Is everyone just going to call me ‘Tamlin’s wife’? Do I get a … title?” He lifted his head long enough to look at me. “Do you want a title?”
And let's not forget that Feyre's first reply is ''No, I don’t know if I can handle them calling me High Lady”. To which he then answers that she doesn't have to worry about that, since ''there is no such thing as a high lady'' because the magic choses the title and it keeps chosing males. Also this whole scene happens while he eats her out. Not that it's relevant or anything, just saying...
2. ''Tamlin killed Rhys' family'' No. Tamlin's dad killed Rhys' family. I have no idea how Tamlin doing it is ever the takeaway from that whole story. Let's just quote the actual scene:
“Tamlin’s father, brothers, and Tamlin himself set out into the Illyrian wilderness, having heard from Tamlin��from me—where my mother and sister would be, that I had plans to see them. I was supposed to be there. I wasn’t. And they slaughtered my mother and sister anyway.”
Yeah okay, Tamlin gave the information (supposedly) and was there (supposedly) sure, but it's highly unlikely that he was so willingly. Let's not forget that it's established that Tamlin was afraid of his father, that Tamlin's father is worse than Beron (who, I might remind you, tortures his sons) and that Tamlin was friends with Rhys at the time - which neither family approved of. Even Rhys doesn't actually believe Tamlin did anything besides being spineless:
''I didn’t care that Tamlin had been there, had allowed them to kill my mother and sister, that he’d come to kill me because he didn’t want to risk standing against them.''
In the end we don't know the details. Tamlin could've been tortured and tied up or whatever. Making him watch could've been a cruel form of punishment for being friends with Rhys. We don't really know until SJM graces us with Tamlin's side of the story.
3. ''It's really Tamlin's own fault that the spring court fell'' Alternatively also phrased as: 'Feyre just opened everyone's eyes to Tamlin's incompetence' and....honestly? This low key makes me question the reading comprehension of people.
Yes, Tamlin made a deal with Hybern, which was extremely risky, but the war was coming regardless (as we learn from Rhys in the first half of ACOMAF) and the spring court would be the main target because of its location next to the wall. Inviting Hybern into his lands in a trade is actually a pretty smart way to avoid a lot of death on Tamlin's part - plus he needed help to rescue Feyre and get her out of the deal she had with Rhysand (people forget that Tamlin didn't know Feyre didn't actually need rescuing from the guy that was abusing her in front of him in ACOTAR).
So yeah anyway, Feyre did several things to make the spring court fall: 1. She manipulated the solstice ceremony to make herself seem cauldron-blessed in the eyes of the people, 2. She made a sentry accuse Ianthe (who WAS doing sneaky shit) which essentially did nothing except putting Tamlin on the spot in front of Hybern, so he was kind of forced to throw the sentry under the bus. Good job Feyre, you got a poor sod whipped! But it also built resentment within the soldiers, which was her plan all along and 3. before leaving, she did this (let's just quote the whole thing):
''I had a people who had lost faith in their High Priestess. I had sentries who were beginning to rebel against their High Lord. And as a result of those things, I had Hybern royals doubting the strength of their allies here. I’d primed this court to fall. Not from outside forces—but its own internal warring. And I had to be clear of it before it happened. Before the last sliver of my plan fell into place. The party would return without me. And to maintain that illusion of strength, Tamlin and Ianthe would lie about it—where I’d gone. And perhaps a day or two after that, one of these sentries would reveal the news, a carefully sprung trap that I’d coiled into his mind like one of my snares. I’d fled for my life—after being nearly killed by the Hybern prince and princess. I’d planted images in his head of my brutalized body, the markings consistent with what Dagdan and Brannagh had already revealed to be their style. He’d describe them in detail—describe how he helped me get away before it was too late. How I ran for my life when Tamlin and Ianthe refused to intervene, to risk their alliance with Hybern. And when the sentry revealed the truth, no longer able to stomach keeping quiet when he saw how my sorry fate was concealed by Tamlin and Ianthe, just as Tamlin had sided with Ianthe the day he’d flogged that sentry …When he described what Hybern had done to me, their Cursebreaker, their newly anointed Cauldron-blessed, before I’d fled for my life … There would be no further alliance. For there would be no sentry or denizen of this court who would stand with Tamlin or Ianthe after this. After me.''
So, the sentries left Tamlin because of a lie. A fake story. Without sentries, Hybern decided to take over rather than just be guests and had a prime spot to attack the summer court in turn. Which is also why Tarquin is extremely pissed at Feyre - not Tamlin. So no, Tamlin wasn't a bad high lord. His only real mistake was ever trusting Feyre.
Sure, some argue that Feyre thought Tamlin genuinely sided with Hybern and might be a threat to the rest of Prythian, so taking him down would make sense for her even outside of petty revenge. But there's just one problem with that: Feyre is a mind reader. She could have just.....checked. lol
4. ''Tamlin didn't do anything Under the Mountain'' This one really gets my goat because it's not really true? Things Tamlin did to help Feyre: 1. He sent her away to the human realm. (People forget this, but he basically doomed his court to protect her ass - it's not his fault she came back!) 2. He made Lucien check up on her. (Yes Lucien was Feyre's friend but he still acted under Tamlin's orders!) 3. He ignored Feyre as to not rile Amarantha up even more (Come on, have you seen Amarantha? It totally makes sense) 4. He tries to get to Feyre, begging Amarantha to stop even as he is tied up, bleeding out from a stab wound to his chest that he can't heal because he has no powers - like what do you want him to do??? 4. He literally kills Amarantha the second he is able to
Also personal conspiracy detour: That music that Rhysand supposedly sent to Feyre was SO originally supposed to be Tamlin, you can't convince me otherwise. I will never not believe that this wasn't just a lazily done quick change when SJM rewrote book 1 and 2 to account for the boyfriend switcheroo. Attributing the music to Rhys makes absolutely zero sense. He's not a musical boy at all, come on! Music themes never come up with him again either! Meanwhile Tamlin played for Feyre before, is generally a musical guy COME ON! /conspiracy detour over
5. ''It's Tamlin's fault that Nesta and Elaine got turned to fae'' No. No it's not. He knew nothing about this. Ianthe did this on her own accord because Feyre told her where her sister's lived. Tamlin actually attacks (!) the King of Hybern over it (to no avail, but still).
Some people blame Tamlin for keeping Ianthe around afterwards, despite of what she did. Those people I want to refer to point number 3 in this list. Ianthe was working with Hybern. Tamlin tried to be buddies with Hybern for reasons. No, he can't just throw out Ianthe.
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lovebugism · 1 year
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forgive me for what is likely a basic ass request but... steve has a crush on eddie's best friend? smut optional but encouraged :) (love, j.d. aka mypoisonedvine)
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✶ ┄ LOVE YOU, ON PURPOSE (i)
part one | part two
summary: steve harrington took extra care to avoid the local freaks of hawkins. having shared custody of a fourteen-year-old forced him into a bitter friendship with one, he's steadfast in his refusal to befriend the other. that is, until you start working at the groove beside family video. steve claims he only fell for you because you tripped him. (17k)
pairing: steve harrington / eddie's bff!reader
tags: strangers to friends to lovers, mutual pining, protective eddie, canon divergence TW swearing, bullying, some smooching, talks of insecurities, reader is doubtful of steve's intentions because steve used to be a dick <3
a/n: this request has been sitting in my inbox for ages. ages, i tell you! i wrote the outline the day it was sent in and ended up turning the blurb request into a full on 30k+ word fic. i'm sorry for the wait j.d. (and to everyone else who's been waiting patiently for me to put this out). i quite literally put my heart, soul, pussy, and so, so many hours into this. please enjoy! feedback is always appreciated! xoxo
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Something happens and I'm head over heels.
It would be a total disservice to call you Eddie’s best friend.
It wouldn’t even feel right to call you his platonic soulmate or his sister from another dimension. Not when the two of you are essentially an extension of the same human being. It’s a twin flame on steroids — your mirrored souls make the rest of Hawkins believe in some sort of higher power. There’s no way it wasn’t destiny that placed the two of you together at exactly the right place, at exactly the right time.
Your entwined spirits could’ve been a beautiful thing.
It’s too bad you’re both total fucking freaks.
Unfortunately, being a couple of metalheads who spend their free time creating fantastical worlds in silly little board games hasn’t become cool yet — for some sad, strange reason. It leaves you and Eddie as the town’s token social pariahs. The kind of misfits you only spot when you care enough to look — laughing too loudly at the lunch table or sharing a cigarette in the alleyway between school buildings.
The kind of weirdos who get your attention without trying. The kind that people only look at when they need something to make fun of.
With that being said, everything Steve knew about you came from the people that hated you.
Tommy Hagan said that you and Eddie had been fucking since the seventh grade, that the two of you had gotten close between blowjobs and fingerbangs in the old chemistry classroom. No one’s quite sure where it came from, but they believed him without thinking twice. You and Eddie tried to squash the rumor for years before leaning into it full throttle.
“And these are the freaks,” Tommy announced when he approached your lunch table. He was giving Billy Hargrove a grand tour of the high school, or rather the shithole, and detoured like you and Eddie were some kind of sideshow attraction. Him and his goons ogled at you like zoo animals.
Steve idled some feet away, not as interested in the bit as the rest of them. He was even less interested in entertaining the new kid on the block thateveryone else seemed to be obsessed with.
“Hey, Tommy...” Eddie sing-songed through a mouthful of PB&J. You’d given him the other half of your sandwich, because you always give him the other half of your sandwich. “Hope you’re not comin’ back to ask for a handy again. I already turned you down, remember?”
A dumb grin took over the boy’s freckled face. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned over to the California boy. “I wouldn’t get too close to them. Don’t know where their hands have been, you know? If I had to guess, I think Punchy got Munson’s rocks off in the janitor’s closet before lunch period.”
Neither of you were particularly fazed by the laughter that erupted all at once and threatened to swallow you whole. Instead, you smiled with bits of grape jelly smeared on your chin. “I bet you think about it a lot, don’t you, Tommy?”
You really lived up to the nickname. Punchy. You weren’t entirely sure where it came from — your fierce temper, perhaps, or maybe your intense personality. Either way, it suited you.
Vicki Carmichael once said that you bit a guy on a date one time. Barry Jenkins, a tennis douchebag who thought the world revolved around him because his dad owned a string of local laundromats. He took you on a date in his mom’s Impala and assumed making out in the backseat gave him free rein to stick his hand up your skirt.
The asshole sported a red mark on his neck the next day.
When people asked you about it, you smiled with all your teeth in place of any real answer.
Carol Perkins loved to comment on the state of your wardrobe, telling anyone who would listen about the time she caught you rifling through the $1 bargain bins outside the thrift store. She liked to joke that you were stealing from them. “Because she can’t even afford a couple measly dollars. It’s kinda sad, honestly. I feel a little bad for her,” you overheard her saying once.
You were smoking a cigarette in the stall and watching through the crack of it while her and her friends touched up their lip gloss. 
“Wait, really?” Tina wondered, stopping mid-swipe of mascara through her long lashes to gape at the girl beside her. Because, god forbid, they don’t have someone to make fun of.
Carol snapped bright pink bubblegum between her teeth. She looked offended, almost — manicured brows furrowed and shiny lips snarled — like the idea of her taking pity on you was insulting. “No,” she snapped in response.
You’re pretty sure it’s the only rumor about you that’s got any bit of truth to it. Or any rumor of hers, really. The thrift store was great and all, but you firmly believe that your best pieces come remanufactured straight from Eddie Munson’s closet.
So it isn’t any wonder why the two of you seem to dress so similarly — all leather jackets and distressed jeans and hand-me-down t-shirts that are either too big or too small. The both of you take little care in your appearance, wearing only what you feel good in. And sometimes that means wild hair and baggy clothes that swallow you whole.
To make it worse, you and Eddie even talk the same. You’re both loud and brash and have very little awareness of personal space. You aren’t scared to make a scene or use your voice when you think it’s being stifled. And when you love someone, they know it, because you won’t leave them the hell alone.
These are all the things that Steve hated about Eddie. So he hasn’t quite figured out why he’s so damn in love with you. 
But he is. 
Quite dreadfully so. 
Head over heels and stumbling since the day he met you for a second time.
It was the spring of 1986 and The Groove had just opened up. Steve had heard murmurings of a record shop taking over the empty outlet adjacent to Family Video but had no idea it would nearly run them out of business. The shiny, new music store attracted all of their usual customers. People were more excited to buy new cassettes than rent movies they’d seen a thousand times already.
Steve didn’t mind, though. He liked it best when the store was empty. But all of his friends — a closeted lesbian, a basket case, and a couple of fourteen-year-olds — seemed to have the same affliction that was plaguing the rest of the town. 
He tried not to be offended when Robin said she was going to spend her break next door and not with him in the closet-sized break room. 
He failed.
Robin spent her half-hour and then some meeting you. She returned forty-five minutes later with a blushing face and a bleeding heart. Suddenly, there were two people in Steve’s life that couldn’t seem to shut up about you. As much as it annoyed him, he let her gush about you anyway, because that’s what best friends do, after all.
But Steve knew you once upon a time. Or he thought he did.
You were a loudmouthed metalhead who wore all black to blend in to Eddie’s shadow. You created fictional characters because it was easier than making friends with real people. You were strange and awkward and mean and gauche — the total opposite of this heavenly, mystical creature Robin was making you out to be.
But then it became this whole… thing.
With Robin and Eddie constantly talking over him about you, the rest of the kids were as confused as Steve was. And as they so often tend to do, the group decided to take matters into their own hands and make the short trek to meet you formally. Steve figured that their answer would be final. When those teenagers hate you, you know it. He learned that the hard way
They’re gone for a little over an hour and come back with a thousand stories and various tapes they say you gave to them for free.
Lucas has got a new Beastie Boys cassette and a proud smile on his face as he recounts the promise you’d made him about catching his next basketball game. “And she said she really liked my ranger,” he brags less than humbly, telling the older teens about how you’d heard stories about his track record in Hellfire campaigns. There’s a sudden suaveness to his voice as he bounces his brows up and down at them.
Max scrunches her face in disgust. She clutches a Kate Bush tape close to her chest, like it’s a prized possession she never wants to let go of. She rolls her eyes at her boyfriend (or maybe ex-boyfriend, but Steve can never keep up these days) and makes her own conversation with Robin. The two girls are the only ones with more than half a brain cell between them, or so they claim.
The redhead tells her that she plans on bringing her broken skateboard over to your store soon. She says the thing’s been wobbly for days, and Robin nods along like she knows all about it. “Well, apparently, she has some tools and knows how to fix it. Said the trucks just needed to be reinforced or some shit, I don’t know, I’m just glad it’s getting fixed.”
“Wait, why didn’t you tell me?” Steve asks her, confusion contorting his words along with his features. He crosses his arms and leans against the counter. “I could’ve fixed it.”
“You don’t know anything about skateboards,” Max monotones.
“Okay, but you don’t even know this girl! She’s a total stranger, Max. That’s dangerous.”
She rolls her eyes. “She’s nice, Steve. Way nicer than you—”
That makes him scoff.
“—And you’d know that if you got to know her.”
It’s Dustin’s turn to gush about you next. His opinion, for a reason Steve has never been able to place, arguably means the most to him. And the kid is just absolutely fucking beaming about you. He holds a Star Wars orchestral vinyl in his hand —  the brand new one he’s been talking about for weeks but couldn’t afford. 
He talks of the collection of DnD figurines you were painting behind the counter and the promise you made to make one for his bard come the next campaign. 
Dustin gazes at Steve, wide-eyed and nodding like he’s as amazed by the revelation as Steve is.  “She’s cool, Steve. Like… really cool.” 
The boy thought that Robin just had a crush, that Eddie was just being Eddie and overdramatizing all of his stories about you. But you’re everything they said you’d be and then some. The kind of stranger you meet that takes your breath away, that makes you sad in the understanding that you’ll never see them again. Dustin is grateful you don’t have to be a stranger anymore.
You sounded… nice. More than nice. They painted you out to be a fucking angel, the way you took care of a bunch of kids you barely knew for the better part of an hour. You weren’t the freak everyone made you out to be all that time ago.
They talk a great deal about your looks, too. Dustin, mostly. Lucas had received a glare and a half-hearted punch on the arm from Max when he said how pretty you were — even though she ultimately agreed with him. The curly-headed boy uses too big words to describe the renaissance painting you are, all heavenly morose and beautifully strange.
“Hey,” Eddie scolds from the sidelines, mostly playful. “That’s my sister you’re talking about. Bring it down a few notches, ‘kay?”
Steve is silent for the rest of the day after that. He’s not pouting about it like Robin keeps saying he is, just reserved in his reminiscence. 
He can’t tell if he’s intrigued or annoyed. They talk about you the way people used to talk about King Steve — with a borderline obsession for someone they don’t really know. And deep down, he knows he’s just jealous. Jealous that no one talks about him that way anymore. Jealous that none of the kids have ever talked about him that way.
It leaves him skeptical and wanting to see the real thing for himself.
Steve opts to meet you on his lunch break the next day with a tight chest and sweaty palms, like a part of him knew it was going to change the trajectory of his life for the foreseeable future.
The door dings with his arrival. The record store smells like earth and nostalgia, a bit like flipping through the pages of an old book. Vinyls sit in rows and in towers that rise to the ceilings. Colorful cassettes, of which there are thousands, have nooks and crannies of their own. Posters decorate the walls along with various patterned records — there’s hardly a blank spot in the entire store.
And when Steve sees you for the first time, he only sees the back of you.
You’re in all black, just like he imagined you’d be. A sliver of skin at your midriff is showing from where your too small shirt has ridden up your torso. And your hair is as wild as ever, though a little longer than he remembers. You’ve haphazardly pinned back the ornery strings with a sparkly pin, but it doesn’t do much to tame them.
A breeze of warm wistfulness washes over him at the sight of you. A reminder of a life that used to be his, that you were a part of only passively.
It’s your smile that does him in. Maybe because you’ve never looked at him with it. As far as Steve’s concerned, no one’s ever smiled at him the way you do, and you barely even know him. You hadn’t seen him in over a year and if you shared any words in the past, it wasn’t anything more than snarky one-liners. But here you are, looking at him with sunshine anyway.
“Hi,” you beam with the warmest grin he’s ever seen, swiveling in your chair to face him. “Welcome in.”
He’s too stunned by the sight of you to respond. He just stands in the doorway, all wide-eyed and gaping, like he’s the first to see an angel on earth. And it’s strange because you’re far from perfect. 
You’re blousy and a little disheveled, like you’d been running late that morning. The lack of makeup allows your imperfections to shine through in a way that makes you somehow more alluring. And you’ve got paint splattered like freckles on your cheeks, the culprit being the figurines you’re painting behind the counter. If you know you’re dotted with shades of red, blue, and green, you don’t show it.
“Can I help you find anything?” you ask him, still kind even though he’s acting like a fucking weirdo. That’s supposed to be your thing, not his.
Steve grasps for something to say but comes up short. His lips part and then close again in an embarrassing pattern that resembles a fish out of water. It makes sense, though; it’s a bit how you’ve made him feel just now.
When he realizes he can’t make out anything intelligible, he shakes his head. “Uh… nope.”
He’s leaving before he even realizes he’s leaving. The door dings again and he’s on the other side of it, long legs carrying him the short distance to Family Video at record speed. 
He swings and slams the egress shut in quick succession, as though the ghost of you had been chasing him. He leans against the glass pane and exhales a heaving sigh, eyes squeezing shut as he recoils at what he’d just done.
He always knew that King Steve had died some time ago, but this was a new low.
Robin watches from the front counter with wide eyes. “…Did you forget something?”
Steve sighs a big, hopeless sigh, then peeks his eyes open. “My dignity.”
“She’s cute, right?” she asks, already knowing the answer. Her brows bounce in time with the smirk on her painted lips.
“Yeah, she’s cute,” he answers, all mad because it’s obvious. “She’s fucking— she’s beautiful.”
“Aw. Look at you,” she sing-songs and tilts her head to her shoulder. “I think your heart grew three sizes today, Stevie.”
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
I never find out 'til I'm head over heels.
Steve, all caught up in his boyish misery, has no idea that he’s enraptured you in a similar way.
You hadn’t cared very much for the guy in high school. You didn’t really know him then, and you didn’t particularly want to. King Steve was rich. King Steve was pretty — too pretty. King Steve got attention from pretty cheerleaders and overaggressive douchebags alike.
King Steve didn’t need any affection from the local freakshow.
But, by some strange turn of events, he’d managed to make nice with your best friend. 
The way Eddie talks about Steve, his words always dripping with a distant venom, it sounds like they still hate each other. Maybe they do. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to admit that they hang out far too often not to be friends.
If you were still in school, you probably would’ve judged him for it. Being friends with the boy whose buddies made your life hell certainly warranted some degree of ridicule. But now, having graduated and trying to move on from it all, you can’t find it in yourself to. 
High school might as well have been a lifetime now. There’s no use in holding onto old ghosts.
If Eddie could let that shit go, so could you.
He drops by after school to keep you company like he always does when he doesn’t have a campaign to prep for. It’s his favorite pastime, perhaps a close second to Dungeons and Dragons. He gets to hang out with his best friend and swim in an ocean of music while he does it. As far as freaks go, Eddie Munson considers himself the luckiest.
He likes to hear you talk about everything new you’ve gotten in while he rifles through the old stuff that isn’t selling as well. You happily let him take what he wants for free. And what he doesn’t take, he doesn’t pay for either, because you cheat the system with your employee discount and then wipe the record from inventory. Just to be safe.
“I love having a criminal for a best friend,” he jokes every time, without fail.
Eddie stays by your side until the sun sets. He parts only to flip the sign at the door to closingfor you, then plops himself back on the counter again. His legs hang off the side of it, sneakers occasionally thudding against the wood when he kicks them back and forth too hard. He scans the back of an old Lynyrd Skynyrd vinyl and bobs his head to the rhythmic bass as the song fills the empty store. He’ll take this one home, he decides.
You keep on painting like you have been all day, breaking only to assist customers or stretch your aching spine. The forest dragon had been far more work than you expected — made of pretty purple leaves instead of scales and blowing blush-colored flowers instead of fire. The little piece of clay has resulted in a day of back-breaking work. 
You’ll be damned if Eddie’s next campaign isn’t the most stellar looking one yet.
Focusing on that makes it easier not to bring up Steve. 
You want to. You just don’t know how. 
Eddie’s friends were Eddie’s, and you don’t get involved where it doesn’t concern you. Besides, you did sort of give him shit for hanging out with The Hair way back when. The last thing you want is him taking the piss out of you about it.  
You don’t want to sound like you care too much. Even more, you don’t want it to be obvious that you’ve been thinking about the boy all day — making yourself sick as you stew in what could’ve run him out like he did.
“Saw your friend today,” you remark, feigning a sort of absentmindedness, as you swipe your brush along the petals of your dragon. “King Steve.”
“Oh, you met him?” Eddie wonders, more intrigued by your words than you expected he’d be. He says it like you didn’t already know the guy — like this new Steve was a totally different person you needed to be reacquainted with to really know.
“I wouldn’t say met him exactly. He just, like, popped in for half a second and ran out.”
With your back facing him, you don’t see the shit-eating grin that pulls at the corners of his mouth. 
Eddie was waiting for Steve to crack and finally see you. He knew he’d bite after the way the kids had talked about you — Dustin, especially. Because even though he claims he doesn’t have favorites, he’s got a very obvious soft spot for the boy. And he knew Steve would like you because everyone likes you. When they’re not clouded by judgment and high school hierarchies, at least. 
He’s still got no idea how a guy that trips all over himself at the sight of a pretty girl could’ve ruled Hawkins once upon a time.
“Fucking idiot,” Eddie laughs to himself, already gearing up for the shit he was going to give Steve the next time he saw him. 
But you see the boy before Eddie does. Steve comes back the next day, an hour or more after opening, less frazzled than the day before. The nearly twenty-four hours he had to prepare himself for the angel he was going to see allowed him not to make a total fool of himself when he stepped into the store again.
And you wouldn’t say it out loud — hell, it’s not even something you want to admit to yourself — but you’d been hoping he’d stop by again. 
You thought Robin would come by and drag him with her, or that Dustin and his friends would come around before Steve dropped them all home. Frankly, you didn’t really care what brought him back. You just wanted to see him again.
Steve’s different than the boy he used to be. Enough that it was obvious from a measly thirty-second interaction. He used to be a charmer who could talk his way out of anything. Not to you, of course, he wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to you. But then he stops by out of nowhere, in rare form, stumbling all over himself and looking like he didn’t recognize you at all.
You’re still trying to figure out if that was a good thing or not.
He’s mystified you in a way he probably isn’t used to. Most girls like the hair and the arms — the super buff, super strong arms that fit so nicely in his uniform — or the fact that he’s got money and a reputation that precedes him. But you’ve never given a shit about any of that. 
You’re more enchanted by the way nothing could even begin to conceal the soft, shy boy that King Steve had apparently turned into.
The door chimes above his head when he enters. The scent of earthy nostalgia is already familiar to him — lavender, sage, and something deeper. Steve considers it progress when he plants himself a few feet away from the door this time. If he runs out again, he’ll have to make an embarrassingly longer escape.
You turn away from your nearly finished figurine to greet the new customer. The practiced smile unconsciously widens at the sight of him. “Hi!”
“Hey,” he smiles with a curt nod. He regrets the half-wave he gives you the second his hand shoots up.
“You gonna run off on me again?” you tease and swivel in your chair to face him completely.
You’re wearing a Hellfire shirt that’s just slightly too big for you. It probably belonged to Eddie before it belonged to you. And you wear a corset-looking thing over top of it, a sheer number with a lace embroidery and a ribbon that’s tied in a bow at your belly. It doesn’t cinch you in the slightest, though, more for decoration than practicality.
“No that was… I just—” Steve huffs out a laugh as he tries and fails to come up with an excuse. He figures anything is better than the truth — that he saw how pretty you were and his brain forgot how to work because he’s the lamest person on the planet. 
So he chucks a thumb over his shoulder and fibs. “I left something back at Family Video. Had to run back.”
“It’s okay. I was just teasing,” you assure. “Uh— Are you looking for anything specific?”
“No. Not really. Just… new records to add to my collection, you know?”
“Oh, you collect vinyls?”
He doesn’t realize that’s what he’s just said until you repeat the words back to him. 
He’s kind of just talking out of his ass and hoping something sticks. That line does, apparently, because you’re beaming at him instantly. He’s scared to say no because then you’ll stop smiling. And he can’t have that.
“Yep,” he answers with a nod. The stack of records collecting dust in his den has to count for something, right?
He can’t find it in himself to regret his little white lie when it has you lighting up like a christmas tree. 
You toss your paintbrush down when you rush from behind the counter to meet him. You seem to have forgotten that you’d just dipped the thing in purple paint. The thing splatters shades of lilac all over the limestone bench. And, in your haste, you nearly smack yourself with the leaden slab as you raise it to pass by.
Steve’s eyes widen when you narrowly dodge the weighty thing — then jumps, startled by the dense thwap that echoes through the small store when it slams back down again. He’s almost worried that it might’ve busted the hinge. 
You cower at the loud sound but move on with a commendable finesse, too focused on him to care about anything else.
“That’s so cool! I’ve always wanted to collect, but records are so expensive, it’s crazy,” you ramble as you walk up to him, totally unthinking in the way you grab his forearm and usher him to the back of the store. 
Your sheer black skirt swishes at your ankles as you walk. The dainty fabric is patterned with sparkly stars and crescent moons. He notices you wear a pair of dark shorts underneath for modesty. Steve tries his best not to stare at your ass. He almost succeeds.
“We actually just got in a couple of Dio records — The Holy Diver, you know, the one that just came out. I’m pretty sure there’s only, like, a couple thousand of these things in the whole world — which is totally fucking bonkers if you think about it,” you explain in one breath, laughing, before stopping abruptly in your tracks. Steve nearly runs into you when you turn around to face him. 
You laugh again, a sadder one, this time at yourself, as you bring your palm to your forehead. “Sorry. I don’t— I don’t even know if you like Dio. I mean, of course, you don’t, right? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… rambled like that.”
You’d just been so excited and Steve had just been so different that you forgot who you were talking to. Hawkins High Royalty, Prom King, Biggest Flirt and Life of the Party in the yearbook. 
As far as you’re concerned, Eddie Munson is your only friend. He’s the only person in the whole world you can be yourself around and never get self-conscious about any of it. 
But sometimes you have moments like this one with a total stranger. Moments where you lose yourself in the conversation and your own jumbled thoughts. Moments where you talk and talk and talk until something thumps you on the head and you realize how annoying you’re being. This time, it’s the musky smell of his cologne that knocks you back to Ms. Click’s history class. The crisp breeze of bitter nostalgia makes you shiver.
Steve can see the way you get so suddenly aware of yourself and how the cognizance of the moment makes you writhe. He tries to bat away the lingering insecurities with a smile. 
“Love ‘em,” he responds with a nod. He raises his brows and scoffs, grins and crosses his arms over his chest. “I mean, Dio? God, they’re like… top ten bands of all time, at least. Maybe even five.”
That isn’t totally true. He doesn’t know much about the band to have an opinion, but he’s pretty sure he might’ve said he hated them once. That was only because Eddie wouldn’t stop talking about them, though. Steve could learn to like them, if it means so much to you.
That’s exactly how he justifies spending $60 on four records. 
He tells himself that he’ll listen to them and think of you, that it’ll be a solid conversation starter the next time he sees you. 
You had a whole damn rack dedicated to all your favorite bands — “I put it together myself,” you’d bragged with a proud smile. S it’s a wonder Steve didn’t walk out with the entire damn store. Because you just kept on smiling and talking, so happy to have someone to care about what you had to say, and he ate up every second of it.
He’ll have to work overtime to keep his pockets from hurting, but it’ll be worth it. Because he’ll get to keep talking to you and indulging in all the things you seem to love more than life itself.
You’re still rambling as you ring him up. Steve notices you haven’t stopped yourself like you did before. His lack of dismissal has made you more comfortable, it seems. He likes that.
“I think we’re also gonna get a couple cases of Def Leppard cassettes tomorrow, which is super sick. I think I might have to start collecting, honestly. Tapes are whole lot cheaper than records, you know,” you tell him as you scan and bag all his vinyls. “And it’s also, like, a fucking stellar album. I don’t think I’ve stopped listening to Photograph since it came out.”
“Photograph. Right. Love that one,” Steve nods with a kind smile as he props his elbows on the counter. He doesn’t particularly care that he’s not entirely sure what you’re talking about, or that he’s never actually heard the song. He’s starting to realize you could talk for hours and he wouldn’t get bored.
“Oh, is that your favorite too? Eddie’s more of a Foolin’ kinda guy.”
Despite the fact that he’s never heard the song or this album in his life, he nods anyway. 
He sort of spent the first eighteen years of his life faking just about everything — it kind of came with being the King of Hawkins High. It’s a talent that hasn’t yet left him, it seems, lying through his teeth to impress people. It’s almost become a second nature to him.
“Foolin’s good, yeah, but I think Photograph is obviously better.”
“Obviously, right!” you exclaim with a sunshine-coated laugh. “That’s exactly what I told him! But he’s way too hard-headed to be wrong about anything, so…”
“Well, I’d like to put it on the record that I firmly agree with you,” Steve replies so smoothly that his tongue must be dripping with honey. It’s so easy for him to fall into King Steve mode — when he isn’t forgetting how to speak and running off, that is.
You’ve learned a lot Steve in the past half hour. He likes metal, but leans more toward rock. Particularly all the metal and rock that you like. He hasn’t once had a differing opinion than you, besides telling you he heard Eddie playing a Metallica song once that he didn’t particularly care for. The second you tell him it’s one of your favorites, he backtracks instantly, blaming the Munson boy for being too sloshed to play it properly.
And you don’t miss the way he’s looking at you just now either, with his chin toward his chest as he peers up at you with warm amber eyes. He’s the charmer that he always was. It makes you remember, again, just who you’re talking to.
“We have a lot in common, King Steve,” you lilt with a playful grin.
He deflates at the use of the old nickname. You see the light in his eyes flicker for a just moment before he’s ducking his gaze away from you completely. He tries to brush it off with a laugh. “Yeah, I’m not— I’m not really King Steve anymore…”
“No?”
“Nope. Just… Just Steve these days.”
When he looks back at you, he finds you nodding at him, almost in approval. 
Most people are upset to find that he’s changed so much. They hate that he’s no longer the recklessly stupid dumbass they used to get drunk with. 
Not you, though.
“Cool,” you mumble, smiling softly, as you hand him his bag and receipt.
“Uh, I’d love to, you know, come take a look at those tapes when you get ‘em in,” he says as he walks backward towards the door, finally making the brash offer he’s been thinking about this whole time. “Maybe I can bring lunch and we can—”
“Well, Hellfire’s been doing campaigns during lunch recently. And Gareth’s out sick, so I’ve been subbing for him, you know, so…” you interject awkwardly, shifting your weight on your feet. You hate to turn him down, but Eddie might just kill you if he has to get a substitute for the substitute.
“Oh…” he nods, softly puckering his plump pink lips that you can’t seem to stop staring at.
“But I don’t think they’re coming in until late, anyway,” you add quickly. “So, you can stop by at closing, if you want?”
“No, yeah, that’s cool. So cool,” he replies, a little more flustered than he’d been just moments before. He’s just happy that your rejection wasn’t a total refusal.
You try to bite back the wide grin threatening to take over your mouth. “Okay… I’ll catch you later, then, Just Steve.”
“See you,” he waves right before startling himself when he backs into the basket of clearance tapes sitting just beside the door. He barely catches the thing before it tips over completely. He flashes you a shaking smile afterward and finds you covering your mouth with your hand while you try not to laugh too loudly. 
He wishes you’d just went ahead and laughed at him. He wouldn’t have even cared that you were laughing at him, if it meant he got to see you smile.
And even though he’d just gotten done making the biggest fool of himself, he walks back to work feeling like the coolest man alive. There’s a foreign strut in his step that hadn’t been there before he saw you. It doesn’t leave him when he realizes he’s gone slightly over his break and that Keith is manning the counter in his absence.
The man mumbles a monotoned goodbye to the customer he’d just checked out.
She turns around and Steve realizes he recognizes this girl — Mindy or Mandy or maybe Monica — from Mr. Kaminsky’s class way back when. She did all of his homework for him before and after letting him fuck her on her twin-sized bed in her all pink room.  That’s when Steve was conquering girls like they were Mount Everest, way before Nancy, when King was a title he wore with pride. 
But he’s still so stuck in his head with thoughts of you that he doesn’t even see Mindy-Mandy-Monica or the flirtatious wave she throws his way.
“You’re ten minutes late,” Keith scolds, with his dead tone and his deader eyes.
Steve only shrugs, uncaring if it came out of his paycheck because — “I just got a date with the hottest woman on the planet,” he boasts with a puffed out chest and too smug smile.
It doesn’t lessen Keith’s anger, just diverts it. Because he knows exactly who he’s talking about. And so does Robin, as she pops her head out from behind the man from where she sits at the computer. “No way,” they chorus in disbelief at his words.
Steve nods. “Yes way.”
“Eddie’s gonna kill you,” Robin remarks with the shake of her head. 
He knows she’s right. He just doesn’t care. 
Eddie’s always been protective of you. Everyone knows that. But the two of them were friends now — or somewhat good-natured acquaintances, at the very least. He would’ve been mad about a year or more ago, if King Steve had decided to suddenly woo his best friend. 
But it’s different now. He’s different now. Eddie knows how much everything’s changed, it’s just a question of if he’s willing to rehash old wounds.
It’s a good thing Steve knows how to take a punch.
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Don't take my heart, don't break my heart.
Steve finds you again the next day less happy than he’s gotten used to.
The record store is dim and the red sign at the entrance has been flipped to closed, but the door is left unlocked — for him. The warm scent is a distinct contrast to the frigid spring night, a cozy high hemp and lavender, but your absence is noticeable and terribly heavy. 
Steve lingers in the doorway, his shadow looming like a giant before him from the moonlight streaming in from outside. 
He calls for you in the emptiness.
“Uh… Punchy?”
He’s relieved when you answer. The “back here!” you shout to him is muffled and far away. He follows the sound of your voice, filled suddenly with a childlike consolation. 
The yellow fairy lights dangling over his head guide him through the aisles of cassettes and closer to you. Through a cluttered backroom, Steve finds you standing just outside an opened door — left ajar, for him.
The smile you flash when you see him is as dim as the closed-down store. It lacks all the sunshine you usually look at him with, shades of stormy gray rather than the usual yellows. 
A look of concern flashes across his features — furrowed brows and inquisitive twinkling eyes — as you take a drag from the lit cigarette caught between your pointer and middle finger. You muster your best grin, but it flickers like a shoddy radio signal. 
“Punchy, huh?” you tease.
Steve’s brows pinch together as confusion floods his features. It takes him a moment to realize what he’d said and the nickname he’d used — and he doesn’t want to be dramatic or anything, but he kinda wants to die. It’s embarrassing, he thinks, to hold on to an old high school monicker. And, fuck, if you hate it half as bad as he hates being called king, he deserves a slap to the face right about now.
You laugh instead of ball your first. He’s able to smile meekly in relief. “Oh. Shit. Sorry, I… I don’t think I even realized it came out.”
“No, it’s okay,” you assure when you see him getting all apologetic. “Eddie still calls me that all the time, so… Old habits die hard, I guess.”
Steve tries to move on, but it’s hard to when you’re so obviously gloomy. He hates how reserved you’ve gone in your quiet, not talking up a storm like you had been the last time he saw you. Now you’re just… a storm. It’s a little like sitting next to a rumbling rain cloud.
The rumbling rain cloud beside him takes a drag of her cigarette.
“You okay?” he asks and sounds like he really cares.
You didn’t think King Steve was capable of caring about anything other than his hair, but he looks down at you like he can feel every blue bolt of your doom and gloom. He makes you feel seen in the void of your sadness despite all the years you spent being invisible to him.
“Uh, yeah. It’s just the tapes. They didn’t come in,” you answer with a shrug. Smokes leaves your mouth and lingers in white clouds in the air. “So I’m a little bummed.”
“Oh…” is all Steve says and his pink mouth forms a too pretty ‘o’ shape that you can’t draw your gaze from.
The following silence makes you momentarily cautious. Insecurity runs cold over you because no sane person gets this about upset over a broken promise of a couple cassettes. It’s stupid, you know it is, but you were really looking forward to them. It’s like promising a kid the most metal present ever and then snatching it out of their bare hands.
Now, over the course of a couple hours, you’ve managed to convince yourself you won’t remember happiness until you get those stupid tapes.
“Sorry,” you apologize to him for a reason he can’t place. You shift your weight on your feet and peer at him from beneath your lashes. “I know you were looking forward to them, too.”
You extend your hand and offer him the cigarette between your fingers like it’s an olive branch. He takes it from you with a distant smile, then opts to laze against the brick wall like you are. He stays a respectful distance on the other side of the entryway. 
“It’s okay. They’ll come. If I’m being honest, you know, I was kinda more excited to see you.”
His admission is brazen and a tad bit brash, even for a certified ex-douchebag. It lacks all of the usual honey-coated flirtation that usually tints his tone when he’s talking to a pretty girl. Because he wasn’t trying to make you swoon — though he certainly wouldn’t have minded if you had. This wasn’t some romantic advance, just a proclamation of his own personal truth.
A flash of shock contorts your features. “Really?”
“Of course,” he answers, breathing out a laugh that exits along with the smoke in his lungs. “I love talking to you. You’re… You’re cool, you know? S— Super cool.”
His face screws up at his stuttering, and he shakes his head at how the words sound leaving his mouth. His cheeks glow cherry red beneath an orange street lamp. 
“Super cool, huh?” you repeat with a giggle that’s bright enough to illuminate the velvet night. “I don’t think anyone’s ever called me that before.”
Steve scoffs when he passes the cigarette back to you. Because, lately, that’s all he’s been hearing about you. From Eddie, from Robin, from Dustin — every good thing a person could say about someone else, they all say about you. 
He’s starting to understand why.
Because you’re sweet. Like, pure sugar poured on the tip of his tongue kind of sweet. You’re bright like sunshine and soft like summer rain. You’re a shot of pure espresso for a boy who thought his life was at a dead end. He’s not entirely sure how he ever could’ve thought you were some deep, dark, devil-worshipping freak.
“I don’t believe that,” he dismisses with the shake of his head.
You breathe out a sharp exhale and a puff of nicotine-coated smoke. “I’ve been the town pariah since I was eleven, Steve. Everyone thinks I’m some kinda delinquent who’s in a cult because I play a dumb board game. So, no. No one’s ever thought I was cool before.”
“Still?” Steve wonders with a twisted face. “You graduated, like, a year ago. Are... Are people really still on your ass about that?”
“A little,” you answer with a shrug, trying your best not to look as affected by it all as you feel.
Steve feels his chest swell with the fiery urge to protect you. The same one he gets when Dustin tells him about the assholes at school that are bothering him. He wants to defend you from the same sort of assholes that he used to be. The impulse is borderline primal, rooted somewhere deep and far within himself, because god knows he’s got a terrible track record when it comes to winning fights.
“Shit, Punchy… I’m— I’m sorry.”
You sputter out a laugh at the apology, louder when you realize he’s using the nickname again.
He can’t relate to any of this. The trials and tribulations of being persona non grata everywhere you went were certainly lost on him. Steve might’ve lost his touch somewhere down the road, but he’ll always be crown royalty — the kind of guy you think fondly of when your wonderyears are long gone. But you? You’re lucky if people don’t cross to the other side of the street when they spot you coming.
Perhaps that’s why his words warm you so much. Because, despite all that, he’s trying to make you feel better anyway.
You give him a tender smile and a dwindling cigarette. 
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s whatever, you know? I think it’s because I still hang out with Eddie all the time. Like, people see us and remember what fucking freaks we used to be,” you say with a laugh, then start to ramble without thinking. “We saw Tommy Hagan at Melvald’s the other day, and he looked at us like we caused him severe PTSD or something, like, he looked terrified. I honestly felt a little bad.”
Steve smiles, wide-eyed, equal parts intrigued and unsettled by the reminiscent glimmer in your eye and the daunting giggle that spills from your lips.
“But I wouldn’t leave Eddie, you know?” you blurt, suddenly serious, like you’ve taken offense at the very thought. “Not even if it meant people stopped being so mean. ‘Cause I love him and everything… Even though he’s a pain in the ass.”
“Oh, he’s a total pain in the ass,” Steve agrees and flicks the butt of the cig between his fingers. “He loves you too, though. I can tell. The asshole never shuts up about you.”
“He talks about me?” you ask, voice fragile and pitched higher than normal.
Steve doesn’t like the way you say it. He hates how you look at him even more, with a scrunched up face and eyes that flicker with embers of shock. Like you don’t believe it, like you think yourself unworthy of it.
“You’re all he talks about,” the boy assures, feeling so suddenly brave and wanting to make you feel brave too. He hands the cigarette back to you. “I don’t blame him. If I were him, I’d never shut up about you either.”
The contorted look of confusion on your face untwists itself, and your features fall flat with disbelief. A smile pulls slow at your mouth. Your eyes glitter an orange gold beneath the streetlight. They flit over to the boy beside you just long enough to take the stick from him.
“Steve Harrington…” you lilt, almost scoldingly so.
It makes him smile. “What?”
“Stop flirting with me.”
“Well, that’s very presumptuous of you,” he retorts playfully. “Who’s to say I was flirting?”
“So you weren’t then?”
“Maybe a little,” he shrugs with a knowing, practiced smirk. “Can you blame me?”
You don’t seem impressed by his not-so-subtle attempt at flirting, and he isn’t at all used to that. The bravado and the puppy dog eyes are his one-two punch — any other time, he’d have a phone number tucked safely in his pocket by now. But you’re not biting.
“I’m so not your type,” you dismiss with the shake of your head.
“Yeah?” he challenges, shoving himself off the brick wall with his shoulder and making the short trek over to you. He plants himself next to you, leans with one sneaker crossed over the other, and smiles with a playful twinkle in his eye. “And what’s my type?”
“Nancy Wheeler,” you answer without missing a beat. “Pretty girls.”
“Well, I think you’re very pretty—”
“Not like her,” you interject with a foreign firmness that Steve hasn’t seen from you until now. You’re still smiling at him, though, still kind but looking like you don’t believe him. Like you think this must be some kind of sick joke that he’s taking too far.
You can entertain Steve. You like Steve. Mostly because he’s totally different from the douchebag you remember him being — the douchebag you were expecting him to be. 
You find that he’s terribly clumsy and not overtly good with words. He says dumb jokes that don’t come out right and smiles in relief when they make you laugh anyway. He’s soft like peach fuzz or a fluffy cloud, mushy like warm chocolatey gooey goodness, and not at all like you remember him.
But then he does this. He morphs into something else, changes shape right in front of you. He smiles at you with little of his dumbassery behind it — all smirks and faux longing gazes with the intent of making you swoon at his feet. He grins down at you and all you see is the teenage boy who would’ve never looked at you that way four years ago. Hell, not even one. 
It reminds you of who he is, who he used to be, and who you are now. 
You haven’t changed so much since high school. You’ve matured a little, sure, but there was never an asshole exterior that you felt the need to outgrow. You’re still loud at times, unaware and ignorant of the world around you. You still play lightsabers outside Eddie’s trailer in between lengthy Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. You still pretend like the lingering glares from all the people you used to know don’t bother you. 
They do, though. They always have.
You look at Steve and you see this butterfly — someone made of rainbow colors and mostly mature. He’s growing, and you’re stuck in the same cocoon you’ve been wrapped in since freshman year, still fumbling around and trying to figure out where you fit.
He’ll always be the pretty butterfly he always was, with his pretty little iridescent wings that catch the light and all the attention. He’ll feed off the applause he gets while you’re sitting on the sidelines. The girl who’s destined to stay bundled in her cocoon forever only hears all of his praise — never watches, never receives.
“You and I are completely different people, Steve Harrington,” you declare with a grin that tells him you’ve already made up your mind.
The boy doesn’t get it, though, why you seem so upset by the idea. Him and Robin were completely different people. Him and Dustin were, too. The two people he adored — tolerated — most in the entire world weren’t a single thing like him, and it was better that way.
You don’t seem to share a similar philosophy, though. You take a drag from your mostly gone cigarette and mourn what could have been; if only he had been the town freak or you had been born the pretty girl next door.
“That doesn’t have to be such a bad thing—”
He’s abruptly cut off by the sound of muffled rock music and the bright yellow headlights of Eddie Munson’s van. The two of you shield your eyes when he whips into the desolate parking lot and parks in front of you. The sudden intrusion feels like being blinding like the sun after you’ve found such comfort within each other in the dead of night.
The stifled Def Leppard song — or maybe Poison, Steve can never quite tell the difference — is brought to a sharp halt when the engine shuts off. The headlights dim. The metallic slam of the driver’s side door sounds so much louder in the darkness.
Eddie rounds the front of his van and eyes the two of you rather suspiciously. The boy inhales deeply, puffing out his chest and splaying his hands on his hips. “…What’s going on here?” he squints at you.
You give him a terribly manufactured sunshine smile and bat your lashes his way, like you’re pretending to be un-innocent. “Nothing…” you sing-song.
Eddie rolls his eyes at you, then turns his attention to Steve. They’re not really strangers anymore, but he still feels the need to treat him like an outsider anyway.
“Harrington,” he says in the place of any real greeting. “Don’t you have other shit to do? Like, I don’t know, a shift as the mannequin at the GAP or something?”
Steve can’t find it in himself to get self-conscious about his fitted-sweatshirt, khaki-slack combo when the insult comes from a guy in a decade-old leather jacket, unwashed t-shirt, and ripped jeans.
“Very funny,” the brunette monotones. 
“I’ll see you around, yeah?” you ask when you turn and walk backwards towards Eddie, like there’s a gravitational pull dragging you to him.
You say it to be polite mostly, but you’re hoping for an affirmative — a promise that you’ll have another night like this one, where he sees you just to be seeing you. Hell, you’ll even take a nod if that’s all he’ll give you. And when he does, he gives you a tiny smile that almost makes you trip over yourself.
Fuck, you think to yourself, like your brain is talking to your heart. We just agreed not to do that.
Before you get in the van, you walk by Eddie and bring your cigarette up to his mouth. You coax the stick between his lips with your pointer and middle finger, opting to let him take the last couple of hits because he never turns down a free smoke.
The passenger door shuts once you’re tucked into the seat of it. The sound it makes punctuates your absence. Steve feels all of its emptiness.
He eyes Eddie from the distance, immediately noticing the darkened skepticism dancing in his dark eyes. 
The boy’s always felt the need to protect you. When the entire town got spooked about stories of some satanic panic and started treating you like monsters, he wanted to shield you from the boogeyman everyone turned into. 
Steve wasn’t one of them, the bad men. But Eddie loves you and it’s made him doubtful.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Steve feels the need to say, as though he’d been caught with his pants down and not just sharing an innocent cigarette with a friend.
Eddie takes the final few puffs of it and exhales rather dramatically, lips pursing to blow it in his direction though it’s too far away to hit him. The boy throws the filter to the concrete and extinguishes the ashes with the toe of his dirty sneakers. 
He waits until the white smoke has fully dissipated to speak.
“Damn right, it isn’t.”
That’s all he says. He doesn’t even look at Steve when he says it, or when he rounds the van and hops into the driver’s seat next to you. Steve squints when the too bright headlights come alive again in time with the roaring engine and dated rock music. His tires screech when he speeds out of the back parking lot. 
The tin can he drives nearly tips over when he turns too sharply onto Main Street.
Steve doesn’t get a chance to get a good look at you before you’re gone completely. It makes him all boyishly upset, knowing the hours without you will be most agonizing, but the empty feeling is eclipsed by the warm relief of not getting clock cleaned by Eddie Munson.
Damn right, it isn’t. Four words. That’s all he gets. But they’re daunting and coated with a lingering foreboding that feels almost like a threat.
So, by all accounts, Steve probably should’ve known there was no way Munson was ever going to back down that easily.
Eddie comes back the next day, a thundering storm cloud of the boy he usually is, head wild with curly hair and a million thoughts. 
The door dings far too gently for such an aggressive arrival. Metal bangs against metal as the handle collides with the window pane. He stomps to the counter in several quick strides, dark eyes darting around the half-empty store — obviously searching for something.
Robin, manning the front counter, is entirely unable to be threatened by him. The all black, chunky metal rings, and crazy hair stopped being so intimidating when she found out you called him Eddie Spaghetti. Now, it’s all she can think about when she sees him. 
Even as he stands ahead of her, obviously upset, all she sees is a very cartoonishly angry Eddie Spaghetti, and it takes everything in her not to laugh.
“Where’s Steve?” the boy finally wonders when he realizes the boy’s not in the front.
“Uh, he’s in the back, I think. Why?”
Eddie doesn’t humor her with an answer. He just storms past the counter and makes a b-line for the break room.
Robin watches him over her shoulder. “You’re not supposed to go back there!” she half-heartedly shouts, but makes no further effort to stop him from doing so.
He finds Steve working beneath the dim yellow light of the back room. There’s a warmed-up container of leftovers on the small round table on one side of the room and a stack of unorganized tapes on the counter on the other. Steve multitasks between both and hums something summery under his breath — The Beach Boys, maybe.
He’s too distracted to notice Eddie’s abrupt appearance. It’s the subtle click of the shut door that gets his attention.
Steve’s confused at first. His head snaps over his shoulder like a ghost must’ve closed the door on him. He realizes that it’s just Eddie, and he’s so innocently relieved that it’s almost humorous, then confused all over again. His brows pinch together and through the chicken tender jutting out his check, he mumbles: “You’re not supposed to be back here—”
“Yeah, I got that part,” Eddie interrupts in a monotone.
He swallows. It’s as thick as the tension that settles between the two of them, made heavier by the lengthy silence. He crosses his arms over his chest, stands up a little straighter, and bares his neck when he lifts his chin. “I want you to leave her alone.”
Steve scoffs and chews through his mouthful. “Leave who alone?”
“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” Eddie squints with an unusual sort of seriousness. “I don’t want you messing around with her anymore, man. I’m, fucking— I’m so fucking serious right now.”
The clarification makes Steve laugh. He shakes his head and goes back to piling the myriad of tapes into organized stacks on the counter. “We were just talking, Eddie. I don’t need the lecture, okay?”
“We both know it’s never just talking with you.”
“What? Are you in love with her or something?” he retorts, trying to make a joke of it.
Eddie, for the first time in his life, isn’t amused. “Oh, god, get over yourself, dude. I know what kinda guy you are, alright? I’m not gonna let you hurt her.”
His words hit Steve like a pot of boiling water. It prickles his skin, leaving blisters and burning red blotches in its wake. He’s all but on fire with his anger, less offended by the accusation than by the person it comes from.
Steve and Eddie aren’t friends by any means. They’re just two guys with shared custody of a bunch of teenagers, bonded in their want to keep them all safe. But through their lighthearted animosity, is a sort of understanding: neither of them are the assholes the entire town claims them to be. Eddie isn’t apart of some satanic cult. Steve isn’t a douchebag that uses women as accessories. And that’s just a silent agreement they’ve both come to on their own terms. 
But now here they are, talking like it’s 1984 all over again and they’re strangers who hate each other’s guts.
“No. I’m not gonna hurt her. Because we’re just friends, Eddie.”
The boy just shakes his head. He scrunches his nose like he’s wincing, then laughs — a big, dramatic laugh that fills the tiny break room. He begins to pace, waving an accusatory ringed finger Steve’s way. “No, see… That’s the thing. I don’t think King Steve is capable of being ‘just friends’ with a pretty girl.”
Steve rolls his eyes with a heavy huff. He comes to the conclusion that Eddie’s just projecting and that there’s no use in arguing his case. He shoves a black VHS tape into its designated sleeve and slots it in with the rest of them, muttering under his breath, “I’m not King Steve anymore…”
“What?”
“I said, I’m not King Steve anymore!” he yells, a bit louder than he intended to.
He drives a tape onto the pile with an unexpected aggression. It hits the wall with a resounding thud. His arms flail wildly at his sides when he turns to face Eddie again. “God, you guys act like people can’t change! I’m not the asshole I used to be, alright? Jeez…”
Eddie exhales sharply through his nose in the place of any real reply. Deep down, he knows all that. He knows it’s all true because he would’ve never befriended him otherwise. Steve Harrington — the king, the rich kid, the douchebag — turned out to be a pretty damn good guy. 
And maybe if Eddie didn’t love you so much, he’d be able to wrap his head around all that.
But does. So he can’t.
He saw you two together the night before, sharing a cigarette behind The Groove — albeit a little too close for his liking — and suddenly, it was junior year all over again.
You’re stressed out about the ACT and college acceptance rates, none of your clothes quite fit you, and you’re trying out bold things with your makeup that don’t quite fit you either. You grin wildly up at Eddie through the vibrant lipstick smeared on your lips, laughing at his half-hearted attempt to cheer you up. 
And Steve is a senior, standing on the other side of the hallway — with his pretty clothes and prettier hair — and he lets all of his friends laugh at you. They make fun of your un-styled hair and the way your shirt makes your boobs look, and Steve doesn’t find any of it particularly funny but he lets them mock you anyway.
Eddie sees you together and forgets about the man Steve is now. All he sees is a boy who never stuck up for you, for either of you, who let his best friends make your lives hell because his reputation mattered more.
And it wasn’t like it was his job to defend you, because it wasn’t. Not really. It’s just that you would’ve done it for him, if the roles were reversed. Eddie, too. Neither of you would’ve let a lamb be led to the slaughter quite like that. It was the Hellfire motto, after all — to protect the little sheep from the creeping wolves.
That’s where the difference lies. It’s where the mistrust settles deep and where the root of all of Eddie’s worries lingers.
But Steve has done more to prove himself than Eddie likes to give him credit for. 
He takes care of a bunch of kids like it’s his job. He runs Robin to and from school most days out of the week, on time each morning — which, for a guy who showed up late every day for four years, was definitely saying something. He even comes to Eddie’s shows when he’s not too busy working the graveyard shift, never minding that he sticks out in his collared shirt and slacks — a pretty boy amidst a crowd of freaks.
Fuck. Steve Harrington was a pretty alright dude.
But you’re better than alright. You’re better than good. Better than perfect. 
If you got your heart broken, Eddie thinks he’d feel all of it times a thousand.
Steve’s been through his own kind of heartbreak, though. He’s slapped a bandaid over his own bleeding heart, and it’s made him soft. The good kind of soft — the kind where he sees a bug on its back and has to flip it over because it hurts too much to let it suffer. Eddie knows he’ll be that kind to you. Kinder, even.
“Yeah, you better hope so, Harrington,” the boy concludes with a slow nod of his wild head. He steals a chicken tender from the styrofoam box it sits in, like it’s some kind of power move, and waves it at him like a condemnatory point. “I hear you do anything — anything — to her… And your ass is grass.”
Eddie takes a hearty bite from the strip, then tosses it back into the container again. He spins on the ragged heel of his sneaker and stalks out of the break room, punctuating his absence with the slam of the door. The ancient thing gets lodged and doesn’t quite shut all the way, so he has to double back and shut it fully.
Steve is left dumbfounded, in more ways than one.
“…He just ate my chicken,” he mumbles to himself with a frown settled deep between his brows. But there’s a lingering tension in Eddie’s storming out — a tangible fog within his words that settles something heavy in the Family Video breakroom that doubles as storage. 
It feels almost like a blessing.
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Won't escape my attention...
The more time you spend with Steve, the more confident you get. 
You visit him at work more often, caring less and less about bothering anybody when you realize they all wanted you there. You let yourself ramble in front of him, too, not stopping yourself nearly as often as you used to. Steve guesses you started to believe him somewhere around the millionth time he promised he liked hearing you talk.
You turn to glitter in his presence, becoming more unapologetically yourself and glowing with it — with all the things that used to make you insecure, things that King Steve would’ve made fun of you for some time ago. Everything you were scared made you too different, is why he liked you in the first place.
And Steve gets to watch it all play out right before his eyes. You inch slowly out of the protective shell you’ve built around yourself and bloom like springtime flowers. He’s grateful he gets to witness it, even more that you feel comfortable enough to do it all in front of him.
You’re hardly as timid as you usually are when you saunter into Family Video. Rather than tiptoeing in and apologizing for intruding, you burst through the front door with a beam and a high-pitched squeal. You’re as bright as every star in the galaxy combined; even dressed head-to-toe in black, you’re more blinding than the sun. 
Eddie’s leather jacket, either stolen or unenthusiastically lent from the boy himself, swallows your upper half. You wear a piece of Metallica merchandise beneath it. The thing is cut up to your ribcage. The jagged edges in the fabric, likely from a dull pair of kitchen scissors, tells him the chop was intentional.
A leather skirt clings effortlessly onto you, revealing the pudge of your stomach and the curves of your hips. The thing is donned with two spiked belts and several chains hanging loosely at your waist.
Steve is dozing at the counter with his chin propped on his first when you walk in. He’s half-asleep until he sees you. The shot of espresso that walks in makes him instantly forget how tired he is.
“Guess what?” you ask with wide, sparkling eyes as you skip to the counter with your hands behind your back.
Steve always hated that question. Usually, it came from Dustin or Robin — or, god forbid, both of them — followed by a “No, seriously. Guess.” It left him with no choice but to humor them until they ultimately caved and told him something he couldn’t have guessed in a million years.
He isn’t so annoyed now, though. In fact, he smiles. “What?” he replies.
You pull your bottom lip between your teeth, as though in a futile attempt to conceal the wide grin on your face, and take your hands from behind your back. You flash him the cassette tape you hold in the palm of them, a blue and yellow thing with the angled Def Leppard logo printed on the cover.
“No way!” Steve finds himself exclaiming like he’s the number one fan of the rock and roll band. He isn’t; never has been, really. But he is a fan of you. All of his excitement, all of his bright and shining smiles — they’re all for you.
“They came in last night— when I was off, of course— and I opened this morning and there was a whole damn tower of these tapes! I’m the one who does the tape towers, okay? Plus, I’ve been doggin’ my manager for weeks about the things, so I can’t believe they came in and no one told me, you know?”
Steve gets lost in your rambling right along with you, nodding because he never wants you to stop talking. His twinkling gaze follows you back and forth as you pace in front of the counter. You gesticulate wildly with your hands, nearly elbowing a customer when they get too close to the line of fire.
“And she was all like ‘I can’t control when they come in,’ And I was like ‘well, you can’t control when I come in either, I’ll be taking a long lunch now, thank you’—” you recount, albeit at a slightly louder volume that shocks anyone who doesn’t know you. People shoot you lingering side eyes from over the aisles.
Steve doesn’t care. He’s even happier that you don’t seem to either. You feel comfortable enough with him now to stop caring about the rest. When you stop yourself, you do it because you’ve said everything you need to say, not because you feel like you’ve annoyed him in some way. 
“Anyway,” you conclude with a sigh. “I wanted to run it to you personally because, besides Eddie, you’re the only person I know who cares as much as I do.”
You smile sweetly at him, peering at him through your lashes, so suddenly timid — no longer the boisterous girl lighting up the whole room. Steve notices that you do that a lot, go from loud and sunny to shy and glimmering. Eddie does it too, sometimes, but it’s not nearly as cute.
“My wallet’s in my locker,” he tells you when you hand him the tape. He cocks his thumb over his shoulder with his free hand. “Let me go grab it. I’ll be, like, two seconds—”
You reach over the counter and take him by the arm, wrapping chipped maroon nails around the crook of his elbow to keep him from straying too far. Shock coats his features at the suddenness of your touch and the way it makes him buzz.
You scoff. “Are you serious? I’m not gonna make you pay, you weirdo.”
“No?”
“Of course not! It’s a gift.”
“Well, gee, Punchy. Considered me flattered,” he concedes with a faltering smile.
You laugh at his half-hearted attempt to be charming.
He rests his crossed arms on the counter and leans over the top of it in an effort to be the slightest bit closer to you. He gazes up at you with honey eyes and raised brows and a big, dumb smile. “And, you know, flattery... it goes a long way with me.”
You arch an un-manicured brow at him. “Does it, now?”
“Yep. So much so, I’m willing to break a few rules and let you pick out a couple of movies. On the house.”
It’s dumb and it’s sweet and so terribly innocent. He wants to give you so much than that but he’s got about eighteen dollars to his name, so all he can do is offer you a few measly VHS tapes. It has you beaming like he just offered you the world.
“Steve Harrington,” you scold playfully. “I didn’t know you were so naughty.”
He falters. His resolve slips and, for no more than half a second, his brain forgets how to work. 
He’s not quite sure how you manage to do that to him all the damn time. You make his brain shortcircuit and his belly quiver and his vision swim. He’s known you for a while now, long enough that the lovesickness should’ve well worn off.
Steve’s worried that there’s no cure for you, that he’s in it for the long haul now — upset stomachs, heart palpitations, and all.
“Well, I’m full of surprises,” he shrugs and sways on his feet. “What’s your poison, Punchy? Molly Ringwald? Robert Downey Jr.? The John Hughes type?”
You can tell he’s joking. You squint over at him and rest your elbows on the counter top your face-to-face. 
The wintergreen mint on his breath makes your head swim. 
Your rouge-tined lips are so close he can taste them — he wants to, desperately so. 
You don’t miss the way his gaze flits to your mouth, lingering there for no longer than a blink.
“Try Night of the Living Dead,” you challenge. 
“That is so dreadfully on brand for you,” he manages to reply without much stuttering. He’s surprised he’s able to get any words out at all, with the way his heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest.
“I’m nothing if not predictable.”
Steve doesn’t respond as he leaves the counter to get what you asked for. Silence is easier than saying that you’re the most surprising thing he’s ever met in his life.
When he returns, he brings the entire film franchise with him. All three movies are stacked in his arms and he scans the backs of them, hoping Keith won’t notice that they’re being rented free of charge.
“Have you ever seen them?” you wonder.
He shakes his head. “No. I saw one of them at a drive-in a long time ago, but I wasn’t exactly paying attention, if you know what I mean—” he answers with a soft laugh, quick to cut himself off. It was supposed to be a dumb joke, but both of you know what he was insinuating and it makes everything awkward. 
Robin would’ve slapped him on the back of the head if she were around to hear it. 
He would’ve deserved it.
“Well, you missed out,” you scold, not quite meeting his gaze. “They’re actually pretty good.”
“I’ll try and watch ‘em sometime then.”
“Tonight?” you offer suddenly.
Steve furrows his brows. “…Huh?”
“I mean, like— I don’t know… I thought maybe we could watch them tonight,” you stammer with your eyes turned down toward the counter, where you draw invisible patterns onto the granite with the tip of your finger. “Like, together… if you want.”
Steve is momentarily speechless. He’s spent weeks plotting how he was going to ask you out. It would come to him in waves. He’d feel like he’d concocted the most perfect, foolproof plan right before realizing there was no way in hell he could ever go through with it — all in the same fleeting thought. 
But here you are, biting the bullet for the both of you. 
He’s grateful. He thinks he’s dreaming.
“That sounds…” Steve trails off with the mindless nod of his head. “Yeah. No. Totally. That sounds… really cool.”
A wide smile pulls at the edges of your lips. You purse your mouth to the side in attempts to conceal it. “Cool,” you murmur all cool-ly, like his affirmation isn’t heaven to your ears.
“Uh, not to sound like a total douchebag or whatever, but my dad— he’s got this theater room and everything, and my parents are almost never home,” Steve rambles as he puts all three movies into a paper bag. Then his eyes go wide and his face glows cherry red. “Not like that! I didn’t mean it like— That sounded really weird… I’m sorry—”
You giggle at him, at the way he can pretend to be so suave, and then reveal all the marshmallow fluff he tries to keep hidden a moment later. “It’s okay, Steve. I got what you meant.”
He writes his address on a yellow sticky note with the Family Video logo printed in green at the very top. His handwriting is boyish and sloppy, the sign of a boy who never did care much about school. Some letters are connected, others far apart; some written too big, while others are too small. You find it endearing, but Steve knows it’s just because his hand was shaking something fierce.
He leaves his number written at the very bottom. Just for good measure.
“No funny business, alright, Harrington?” you joke, waving a ringed finger at him as you walk backward out of the store, heading back to your own job.
Steve bites back a smile. Once upon a time, he was all funny business. No girl was ever going to invite King Steve over and not expect some heavy petting. And he wants so badly to kiss you — fuck, he wants to kiss you all the time — but the want to spend innocent time with you eclipses all of those boyish feelings.
He yearns to be close to you. Like magnets. Or a moon and the ocean’s tide.
“No funny business,” he promises.
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
You keep your distance with a system of touch.
It isn’t until you arrive at the front gates of the Harrington home you realize you’ve never been in the suburbs of Hawkins before.
You grew up on the very outskirts of town, where there were more trees than people or houses. The block was half rundown already and horribly secluded. The only interesting thing about it was the winding trail through the woods that led to the anterior of Forest Hills trailer park.
That’s where you spent the bulk of your time, practically living with Eddie and Wayne in their one-bedroom trailer, until you felt guilty enough to go back home for a day or two. Your parents would inevitably remind you why you ran off in the first place, and then the cycle would start all over again.
It was all just far enough away from Hawkins that you could pretend like the town’s bullshit didn’t exist. The freak from the wrong side of the tracks didn’t belong on Maple Street or Fairview Road or Laurel Avenue. That was for people who could afford new shoes every school year, who could go clothes shopping and not feel guilty about cutting into their food money, who were set up with trust funds before they were even born.
But here you are now, on Fairview Road, seven o’clock sharp, and standing in front of the biggest house you’d ever seen. 
You ring the doorbell and flinch when it’s louder than expected. The chime is light and jaunty. You wonder if it’s been programmed for the change in season.
Steve answers no more than a couple seconds later. He swings both French doors open, arms spreading wide like the smile on his face.
He’s traded in his slacks for comfier jeans and his vest for a form-fitting sweatshirt he’s bunched at the elbows. You realize, then, that you’ve never seen him without the forest green Family Video jacket. It makes him look naked, almost, like a totally different person — no longer the dork who works a measly nine-to-five with his best friend and visits the freak next door on the off chance his manager won’t dock his pay for it.
The vest had humbled him to a certain extent. Now he just looks cool. Like the boy people would either praise or avoid like the plague, for fear of getting in King Steve’s path — just a little bit more mature looking now, with his chiseled jaw and scruffy chin.
It makes you feel a little stupid from where you stand on the porch ahead of him, wearing the same thing he’d seen you in earlier that day. He’s got no idea you spent the past couple of hours agonizing over what to wear. For the sake of not seeming crazy overzealous, you opted not to dress up. Now you’re scared he thinks you just didn’t care enough to.
But you do care. So goddamn much that’s it scary. 
You never had to worry about what you wore or what you looked like before you left the house, about what you had too much of and what you lacked. Now, it’s all you can think about.
If Steve notices anything at all, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps on smiling at you, too happy to see you to care about what you’re wearing. He’s just glad that you showed up.
Truth be told, he had a six-pack and Robin’s number on speed dial on the off chance you canceled on him. He was preparing himself to wallow in self-pity and spend the rest of the night ranting to his best friend about the bleeding heart he had for you. Because, as far as he was concerned, you were far too good to be true. 
You were beautiful and funny and kind and perfect. You treat him like you’ve known him for years, like he didn’t spend so many of them avoiding you in attempts to keep some measly title that didn’t mean shit. You were too perfect. Sometimes, Steve gets scared that he just made you up.
But whether you’re a dream come true or the real thing, you’re standing on his front porch anyway, with a smile and a bottle of grocery store wine. 
He saves the beer in his fridge and the wallowing for another day. 
Steve escorts you through his lavish living room and to the downstairs area that’s got a movie screen hanging on the walls and a couple of leather couches sitting in front of it. The coffee table in front of them holds a myriad of glass bowls — popcorn, various candies, and more popcorn.
“You planning on throwin’ a party down here, Harrington?” you tease with a soft chuckle, trying to conceal how your heart’s about to burst at the mere sight of it all.
“Well, I just— I didn’t know what you liked, and I didn’t— I wanted to make sure you had something to eat, you know,” the boy stammers out. He brings the palm of his hand to rub at the back of his neck. “So I just… I got… everything.”
“It’s a good thing a like everything then, huh?” you smile at him as you pluck a Red Vine from its dedicated bowl. You rip off an inch or two with your teeth and then talk as you chew: “I hope you’re prepared for all of this shit get eaten, Harrington. I can get quite ravenous.”
Steve nods to himself and tries not to smile too big. “Sounds entertaining… Maybe I’ll just watch you instead of the movie.”
It was supposed to be a joke. 
But then you settled down next to him on the couch, keeping a respectful distance but sharing the same fuzzy blanket, and he has to physically force himself to drag his gaze away from you. 
He was right about what he said before, you were far more entertaining than the black and white film projected ahead of him — grabbing handfuls of popcorn at a time and quoting the movie through the mouthful. 
It’s a tad bit barbaric, the faintest bit off-putting, and otherworldly levels of endearing. It leaves him virtually unable to take his eyes off of you. 
He didn’t think you could get more beautiful, but you keep on proving him wrong. 
He’s starting to realize he doesn’t know shit.
You’re slowly coming to the same understanding.
You’ve heard stories about Steve. Usually from gossiping cheerleaders standing in circles at their lockers or whispering in the back of a classroom. Doomed as the freak and all but banished from the inner society of Hawkins High, you became an observer. You were so invisible that people sometimes didn’t realize they were talking right over you, sharing secrets they wouldn’t want someone else to get a hold of. 
But apparently you were the exception. Because you weren’t a someone to them.
They talked about how kind he was, how well endowed, how they were meant to go on some stupid date but missed their reservation because Steve got a little too handsy beforehand, and how they spent the rest of the night with their hands shoved down each other’s pants at Lover’s Lake. 
You were seeing, firsthand, how much he’d changed. How he made his promise of no funny business and how he was sticking to it — no teasing you about the whole thing with a knowing smirk and flirtatious honey eyes, no urging to close this distance between you, no tiny touches on your arm or thigh in the hopes of heavier petting.
He spends the entirety of the first movie perfectly respectful. Just like you’d asked him to be. 
And it was nice, knowing that you weren’t wasting your evening with some asshole who was only spending time with you in the hopes of you putting out later. But it leaves you the faintest bit empty. Hungry. You long for his touch like a missed meal. Starving and feeling it all.
It’s not even heavy petting you want, you just want to feel him next to you — to press yourself into his side and to warm yourself with him like a blanket. 
But you weren’t a pretty cheerleader or a girl dripping in expensive clothes and daddy’s money. You were the weirdo, the freak, the loudmouth nerd, Punchy — all names you wore proudly, like lit-up signs or steel armor. 
Until now. 
Now you think if you weren’t Punchy, if were you someone different, then maybe he’d want to touch you more.
The first hour and thirty-seven minutes of your favorite movie are strangely agonizing. 
Your hands itch with the desire to touch the boy next to you, and they busy themselves with the bowls of candy and savory junk food splayed out on the table in front of you. It’s mindless more than it is anything. You’re absentminded binging does nothing more than half-distract you from the thoughts raging rivers in your skull.
You don’t even realize you’re doing it until your hand falls into an empty bowl of popcorn and finds nothing but kernels at the bottom of it. 
It makes Steve laugh, thinking you were just too into the movie to notice — having no idea it was him taking up all your brain power. 
He leaves to fix more snacks for you while you slip the second VHS into the movie player. He returns with a bowl of freshly popped popcorn and two beers after the wine bottle has been sufficiently emptied. When he plops down next to you again, it’s in the same spot he’d been sitting in all night — a couple of excruciating inches away.
Under the guise of sharing the popcorn in his lap, you make the too bold decision to slither in at his side. It’s innocent at first — your thighs just barely graze and your elbows bump when you dip your hands into the bowl. And it’s still innocent some thirty minutes later, when you find yourself resting your head on his shoulder with your legs curled up behind you.
Steve tenses when he feels your temple pressed against him, but only for a moment before he relaxes again. It makes him all suddenly warm and self-aware of every movement he makes. He tries not to breathe too heavy or shift too often, for fear it might jostle you too much. He doesn’t want to stop feeling you against him like this, even if it’s got his skin prickling with a searing form of anxiety.
“Don’t tell me you’re falling asleep,” he jokes.
“Of course not. It’s way too riveting,” you scoff, even though he can feel you cuddling further into him. Your cheek rubs against the soft cotton of his sweatshirt when you look up at him. He turns his head to peer down at you and his nose nearly grazes your forehead. 
He finds you with a certain glint in your eye. It’s borderline playful, like it so often is, but coated with a sweetness that drips over him like honey. “You like it so far?” you wonder.
“Yeah,” the boy nods quickly. He couldn’t tell you what had happened the past two-and-a-half films, but he could tell you how your jaw tenses when you chew and how your smile curls just before you laugh out loud and how your eyes widen every time you quote the movie. “It’s really good. I like it.”
You beam at him before turning back to the projector again. You shift to get more comfortable against him. “Good.” 
By the third movie, you’re somehow even closer.
Truth be told, Day of the Dead wasn’t your favorite in the trilogy, so it left your mind wandering to far off places — namely, the pretty boy sitting beside you. He goes to put the tape into the projector, feeling immediately cold without pressing into his side, and when he returns he tries his best not to beg you to cuddle against him again.
“My shoulder’s gettin’ real cold over here,” he tries to joke. 
You see right through his beckoning, though. It makes you happy to know he wants it just as much as you do. 
“Just say you wanna be next to me, Harrington,” you tease like you aren’t happily obliging him. You snuggle into his shoulder and rest your head against him while your arms curl around his bicep.
“I wanna be next to you,” he repeats, a playful smile on his lips though his gaze softens with sincerity. “Is that so bad?”
You shake your head against him in reply. Suddenly as mushy as the boy beside you, you turn to look up at him. “Not unless it’s bad that I wanna be next to you, too…”
“Nah. It’s not bad,” he assures in something short of a whisper. “Guess I’m just glad I’m not the only one that’s so far gone.”
He doesn’t elaborate on what he means by that. He doesn’t have to.
Perhaps it’s the admission that this boy is so far gone for you that gives you a sudden burst of confidence. Maybe it’s the comforting feeling of being seen, of knowing you’re no longer alone in your similar far gone-ness. Each feels like rays of sunshine to your skin and has you pressing your lips to his wanting ones without much thought. 
The plump pink of his mouth are magnets for yours. They meet and lock together with little effort, almost destined to do it. It’s a soft, meager, and lingering little peck that sucks you both in a little too easily. It’s hard to pull away from him, but when you do, your lips click in protest.
Then there’s a look, then a deafening silence that says more words than either of you were capable of forming in that moment. His amber eyes dart between both of yours, asking a question without saying a goddamn thing. One that you answer with your own softening gaze. 
And it’s almost better than the kiss itself, the swirling feeling in the pits of your stomach, the knowing of what’s about to happen.
A silent plea and a blink later and his lips are on yours again. 
It’s an awkward mess of yearning mouths and tangled limbs as the both of you fight to find purchase on one another. Your fingers knot in the collar of his sweatshirt, pulling him impossibly closer, while his grip the bare skin of your waist from where your shirt had ridden up. His touch makes you buzz, like a static shock or a bolt of lightning.
Steve makes several observations when he feels you melt into him like honey on toast. He notices how you press yourself into him, like you won’t be satisfied until you’ve swallowed him whole, and how it has you kissing him like you’re scared he’ll pull away — like you’ll open your eyes and he won’t be real. 
You’re as domineering against his mouth as you are in real life, still as all-consuming and overpowering as the girl he’s gotten so familiar with.
He doesn’t realize how you’ve settled so intently on top of him until his back meets the pillowy cushion of the leather couch. You don’t either, until he exhales a sharp gasp against your cupid’s bow. Then you part from him, for the first time in several minutes, breathing in the oxygen your lungs had just begun to scream for. 
Steve finds you with kiss-bitten lips and glassy eyes that look upon him with a softness that he didn’t know existed until now. He smirks with his own swollen and pinker mouth like he isn’t glowing red beneath you. 
“I thought you said no funny business,” he manages to tease through bated breaths.
You don’t bother to make up excuses for yourself. You’re already on top of him, all over him — you’ve already kissed him like you would’ve died if you hadn’t. Now, you’re straddling him, caging him between your legs and under your torso. You’ve settled on top of him with a comforting weightiness, like you’re building a home in the familiarity you’ve sought in him.
“I lied,” you mutter with a lazy shrug. A sly smile pulls slowly at your lips until you’re all but beaming sunbeams down at him. He revels in your warmth. “’S not my fault you’re so damn cute.”
It’s easier to blame it on him for all the reasons you’re attached to him like a magnet to his metal, your moth to his flame. You part his lips with your mouth, rut your tongue against his own, reveling in the foreign familiarity of it all, and then blame him for the way you can’t seem to stop any of it.
Steve doesn’t seem to mind, though. The way his hands find purchase on your hips, petting the warmed skin there and sometimes squeezing to pull you further down onto him, tells you that he has a similar yearning to melt with you. He lets you kiss him all slow, allows you to taste all of him, and doesn’t rush you in your process. It’s comforting, tender. Free.
He’s not used to being on his back like this. Usually, he’s the one taking control. It’s his mouth that does all the work. So, it’s strange to be under you and to have you above him. But it’s more pleasant in an even stranger way not to be rushed — not to have to do all the work. His mouth opens so obediently for you and finds an effortless rhythm with your lips and your tongue. 
It’s the easiest thing he’s ever done in his life, kissing you. 
He delights in every ounce of the warmth and unfamiliarity you press to his mouth, and tries to shove down feelings of unworthiness that simmer in his chest while you do so.
You don’t part until your mouths are numb and tingling with it. 
Your lips are more vibrant in their color, aflame and swollen from being so ardently kissed and sucked and bitten. Neither of you mind making out like a couple of teenagers. It’s comforting to know that things won’t go further than a couple soft touches on burning skin. It was never supposed to be anything more than that, anyway. It was just about being close to each other.
You’ve almost succeeded in your effort to melt into the boy beneath you, when you hear the distant sound of a door opening and closing again. Muffled voices follow — unknown to you but obviously familiar to him. 
You part from him without thinking, like you’re a couple of kids again who’ll get in trouble if your parents ever found out what you were doing down here. Steve groans at the loss of you and in annoyance at the sound of his parents. His heavy eyes fall shut and his head leans back to the couch cushions as he fights to swallow down all of his anger.
His parents never really come around these days. They’ve got a bigger home in the city, closer to his dad’s work, and they choose to stay there most days of the week — month. 
They used to make excuses for why they left their only son behind. It’s five minutes from your dad’s firm. There’s more opportunity for your mom’s real estate business. Oh, don’t be so selfish, Steven, you’ll finally have the place to yourself. It’s a win-win for all of us.
Steve didn’t want their excuses. It was actually easier with them gone. 
But they come around every now and again, whenever it’s most convenient for them, and treat their arrival like something that needs to be celebrated. Like they aren’t supposed to be with their child in the fucking first place. And they somehow manage to pick the most inconvenient times for him, like they know he’s in a bind and want to see him struggle to get out of it.
Usually, it’s when he’s in between paychecks — when they want to take him out to some fancy dinner he could barely afford anyway, but especially when he’s hardly making it until payday. Now, it’s when he’s got the prettiest girl he’s ever seen on top of him, and he’s all hot and half-hard. Steve doesn’t want to let them ruin the moment, as good as they are at it.
“It’s okay. They won’t come in here,” he assures when he feels you tense at the unexpected company. “My mom will go to the bedroom and my dad will go to his office. We’re good, I promise.”
You figure he’s right. The voices grow more and more distant. Heeled shoes click up and up the stairs while heavy stomps head the opposite way. But you’ve already been so woefully knocked out of your stupor that you’re scared it’s too late.
Your lips are numb and the credits are rolling and you’re on top of this beautiful boy and you have no idea how you got there.
It’s almost frightening, the way Steve had consumed you mind, body, and soul by just existing next to you. You become dreadfully hyperaware of the whole thing — of who you are, who he is, and what you’re doing. You lose all your softness and turn to ice, hardening and shrinking back into yourself.
“I should—” you start before clearing your throat when the words come out heavier than expected. “I should head out anyway.”
“Oh,” is all Steve can say. “Right.”
You stare down at him, chest still pressed against his, nose nearly touching the tip of his own. “I just— I have to open tomorrow and everything, so—”
“No. Yeah. Yeah, I— I get it.”
You make tricky work of untangling yourselves.
His legs twist with yours when you both try to rise from the couch at the same time. Then your ring gets stuck in the fabric of his shirt, but not before his belt buckle gets somehow caught in yours. It’s like fate is protesting the imminent parting, but neither of you are paying attention to the signs.
He walks you to your car and chuckles under his breath as you scurry to the front door. 
You’re not-so-distantly terrified of running into his parents. They probably wouldn’t mind that he’s sneaking around with a girl, surely that they’re used to, but you’re almost certain they’re not used to girls like you. Girls with wild hair and leather skirts and chunky boots and too bold makeup. 
You’re not the girl next door. You’re the girl parents warn their sons about. “Leave that girl alone,” they say. “She’s nothing but trouble.”
You tell him all of this on the short trek to your half-broken-down car when you catch him laughing at you about the whole thing. You say it in jest, lighthearted and trying to make a joke of it. But there’s an underlying melancholia to your tone that reveals every truth you’re trying to evade.
“They don’t care enough about me to give a shit about a girl I’m with, I promise,” he confesses with a laugh that sounds more like a sad scoff than anything else. His chocolate eyes turn gold beneath the yellow street light. He smirks at you. “Besides, I don’t know if I told you this or not, but my middle name is actually trouble, so… I think we might be a match made in heaven.”
You roll your eyes at his attempts to flirt with you, though his lack of finesse makes you smile. “You’re an idiot, Steve Actually Trouble Harrington.”
“You really know how to say goodbye, don’t ya?” he grins when you reach the curb where your tin can car sits. 
“Yeah, I’m pro,” you shrug with a teasing glint in your eye, then you beam. “I’ll see you around, ‘kay?”
“Totally,” he nods, suddenly forlorn at having to leave you like he hadn’t just spent the past four hours with you.
Themetallic click of your car door opening sounds much louder in the emptiness of the suburbs. You glance at the boy right before you sink into the driver’s seat, feeling your heart swell with something short of yearning — anticipation. 
You weren’t actually a professional at saying goodbye, you find, because you’re realizing how hard it is to leave him.
“Steve!” he hears you shout from across the lawn when he’s halfway up the drive. 
He turns around, expecting to hear you tease him some more or tell him you were having car troubles. Neither would’ve shocked him. You’ve got a smart mouth and a shittier car. But you keep on surprising him, all but launching yourself into him before kissing him harder than he’s ever been kissed before.
Steve tenses against you at first, then relaxes again in record time. He sighs in the comfort of having your body pressed so intently into his and your arms wrapped around his neck to pull him somehow closer. 
You feel the breath of his exhale fan against your cupid’s bow. It makes you smile, and he feels the expression contort against his lips. His hands rise to the widest part of your hips without thinking. It’s all muscle memory now.
And even though he’s spent the better part of an hour kissing you, this one is so obviously different. This wasn’t just to pass the time. This was more than just to feel him — it was to tell him something. He hears every word you don’t say, but rather press like a stamp to his mouth.
He’s breathless when you pull away. You meet his flushed face with a mischievous grin.
“What was that for?” he wonders breathlessly, but doesn’t waver with his hold on you. He quickly notices that yours doesn’t either.
You shrug in response. “‘Cause you’re pretty.”
“Yeah, well…” he tries to play off like he’s not blushing like crazy. “You’re pretty too.”
Your beam ebbs into a teasing, tightlipped smirk. “Stop flirting with me, Steve Harrington.”
You shove him away with a rougher hand than you realize before you walk away from him. Steve rubs at the ache in his chest with the palm of his hand.
Your playful teasing and your lingering kiss is the only thing Steve has to remember you by when you turn on your chunky heeled boot and head off down the driveway again. He’s frozen, mesmerized by the sight of you and reeling at how you manage to drive him crazy without trying.
Your eyes find him again just before you duck into your car, and you see him still looking at you — mouth agape and eyes wide like you’re some kind of rare find. You figure you must be, in some way. Girls like you aren’t supposed to like guys like him. Vice Versa. Tale as old as time.
The boy stays locked in his stupor until the sprinkles whir on. The spurts of freezing cold water spray all over him and his pretty hair and expensive sweatshirt and his vintage jeans. “Shit!” you hear him swear as he rushes for cover on his front porch. 
He’s quickly soaked and freezing cold, but he smiles anyway when he hears the sound of your giggling behind him. It’s as animated as your personality and spills from your mouth like so many rays of sunshine, just a little too loud for the quiet midnight suburbs. 
It’s perfect, he realizes. You’re perfect. 
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sixosix · 6 months
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I DON'T WANNA HURT YOU (I JUST WANNA BE) | LYNEY
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warnings 3.5k words, vague descriptions of wounds, lyney crushing already, cesar appearance:(
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“This is crazy,” Lyney whispers frantically as they stumble over their steps, eyes wide and darting all over the place. “This is insane.”
“Lyney,” his sister whispers sharply, “she can hear you.”
Lyney swallows and steals a quick glance at The Knave, yet she’s staring ahead. But with Lynette’s words, Lyney notices that she’s gotten a bit closer than before. She was listening. Not that Lyney really cared.
Lyney tightens his grip on Lynette's hand as they advance further inside. He shudders at the scathing feeling of numerous curious eyes on him, uneasy about the idea of those gazes focusing on his sister. Though he can't see her while she's hiding behind him, he senses that she has tucked her ears and tail.
“A bond stronger and thicker than blood.” Lyney blinks and realizes that The Knave has been talking to him this entire time. She doesn’t quite smile, but it’s something close as she lays her hand atop their heads. “You’ll find a family here, Lyney, Lynette. From this day forth, you’re my children, and I, your ‘Father’.” With the claws of her hands in Lyney’s view, he feels as if that’s more threatening than a promise, yet Lyney feels warm all the same.
As ‘Father’ signals for Lynette to step forward and introduce herself, Lyney remains steadfast and refuses to loosen his grip on her wrist. He scans the crowd and feels like he’s looking at mirrors—orphans staring back at him, all of whom have been compelled to build a new and found family. Someone among them waves. Lyney takes a moment to collect his thoughts before reluctantly waving back.
And then he meets your gaze. Your cold and hateful gaze.
Lyney doesn’t know what he did for you to look at him in such a way. His heart skips a beat or two, enchanted. He wants to ask, but as soon as ‘Father’ asks him to tell everyone who he is next, you have turned away and walked off, disappearing into the long hallways. Lyney’s eyes never leave your figure until you’re completely out of sight.
“Lyney,” he says, hopefully loud and confident enough for it to reach your ears. It most likely wouldn’t.
As ‘Father’ dismisses the crowd and declares her leave, Lyney guides his sister over to the other orphans, their hands clasped together. They navigate the unfamiliar surroundings, their gazes and steps wandering.
The warmth envelops him, akin to stepping into a hot shower after being left out freezing in a rainstorm. It’s been too long since he experienced that—his recollections are filled with images of his shivering form, attempting desperately to share heat with his sister, whose lips are blue and trembling. The sensation is a distant memory. It's been too long since he last felt this way.
“Who was that who left just now?” Lyney asks.
The kid is sitting criss-cross apple sauce on the floor, a plate by his feet. He picks at his food. “Hm?”
Lyney points in the direction you’ve stormed off to.
The boy snorts as he follows Lyney’s gaze. “That was Y/N. Everyone knows who she is.”
We literally have just arrived, Lyney wants to snap, but he sees no point in picking fights when ‘Father’ has just promised a bond stronger than blood or whatever. There would be no bond to match what he has with his sister—he’s sure of it.
“And…? Why did she leave?” Lyney questions slowly. He watches the kid slurp the soup until it’s empty and clean and feels his stomach growl quietly in envy.
“No one knows,” he says halfheartedly. “It’s not worth the trouble. Provoking a confrontation with Y/N is signing up for a beating, and you wouldn’t want ‘Father’ to single you out when she’s the standard. Stick with your sister.” The boy sounds terribly bitter, as if having experienced it first-hand.
“Right.” Lyney has no idea what any of that means, but his pulse thrums, excited at the prospect of a mystery.
His sister fidgets beside him. Lynette eyes Lyney warily as if reading his thoughts. Don’t cause trouble, Lyney could hear her telepathically. I wouldn’t dare, Lyney communicates with his smile.
Lyney thinks he can never be as brave as you. He wonders how you manage to stand alongside ‘Father’ so frequently and maintain such composure—looking as if that’s exactly where you belong.
You look more like a soldier than an orphan, Lyney thinks. It’s beautiful in all the wrong ways.
While he diligently enjoys his homemade warm breakfast (it’s already his second plate), Lyney poses some very crucial questions to a new friend.
His name is Freminet. He jumped out of his seat when Lyney tapped him on the shoulder as a greeting, and he said he was expecting Lyney to get annoyed by his reluctance to speak, but all Lyney told him was that he was used to his sister already. Freminet warms up to them after. Well, mostly Lynette, but befriending her means would mean you should expect her brother as well.
Lunch ended, then came a new routine Lyney had to familiarize himself with.
“Where is she going?” Lyney asks in a murmur, eyes chasing your footsteps. The other orphans remain seated while you were the first to scurry off, foregoing the attempt to clean your plate. Were you so important to be able to do that?
“To train,” Freminet says simply, his eyes glued to stacking porcelain plates. He slides the chair back and heads to the kitchen.
Lyney follows after him with glasses in hand. “To train?”
Freminet nods. “We should follow. Is Lynette…?
Lyney glances off to the side, an unbidden smile tugging his lips as he sees Lynette curled up on the couch by the fireplace, eyes shut and body language relaxed. Like a cat hoarding a warm window. “I’ll get her.”
As much as it pains him to interrupt his sister’s sleep, he doesn’t know what ‘Father’ will do were they to miss a routine in the House of the Hearth. He doesn’t want to risk finding out, either.
She grumbles and sends him a biting glare but obliges all the same. They tail after Freminet.
You reemerge back into view, a weapon on your side, your face serious.
The other orphans head to the side and come back with different kinds of weapons. Lyney’s eyes bulged out of their sockets when small Freminet pads over to them with a great sword twice his size. A claymore, Freminet said, unbothered as he practically dragged his weapon around.
“This is crazy,” Lyney whispers to his sister again, who jabs his ribs with her elbow.
Lyney has never touched a weapon in his life. A butter knife here and there to cut bread nice people give him, but that is nothing compared to the long one you’re carrying. Freminet gestures to the corner of the room where it lays a chest cracked open, heaped with rusty weapons.
Unfortunately, Lyney doesn’t see any more of the weapon similar to yours. Lynette eyes the sword with muted interest, so Lyney takes the other weapon available.
He’s familiar with a bow and arrow; he’s seen how people wield them from afar and in plays. That doesn’t make it any easier when he has to hold it in his tiny hands. Lyney feels his muscles strain as he pulls, wincing at the ache that unfurls in his arms. Lynette clumsily swings around with her sword.
He cranes his neck to observe the other kids sparring, stumbling when his gaze wanders, catching you looking at him. There’s a smile on your face, but it’s not a kind one. You chuckle under your breath, then turn away.
Lyney doesn’t know what comes over him. One second, he’s at the corner of the room; the next, he’s forcing himself into your view.
You’re prettier up close. Lyney nearly misses his lines.
“I’m Lyney,” he says, face pinched with a seriousness that hopefully he conveys well to fight the blush threatening to creep up.
“I know,” you say, fixing him with a blank stare. “You saw me when ‘Father’ introduced you.”
“Do you think you can teach me?” Lyney then shows his chosen weapon as if he’s offering it to you.
You appraise him for a silent moment. Lyney shuffles on his feet. “I don’t like bow users.”
The statement hangs in the air awkwardly, with Lyney unsure of what to make of that.
“Lyney,” a soft voice calls after him. He turns and sees Lynette looking at you and her brother. “Hello.” She waves shyly at you.
“Hi.” You don’t quite smile, but Lyney feels it there. He realizes you resemble Father’s attitude quite a bit, just a ghost of it, never visible when genuine. “Lynette, right? How’s the sword?”
Lynette takes a moment to answer as if unsure what to respond to that with. “I like it.” Her gaze flits to Lyney, curious. “What’s wrong?”
Lyney feels caught, for some reason. “I just introduced myself.”
“Should you need it, seek me out if you want me to train you,” you tell Lynette, staring right ahead. Lyney feels as if he’s older than you, yet the way you carry yourself has him feeling young and small, a fawn prancing around a tiger.
You must have seen whatever face Lyney is making. “A bow is further off from a polearm than a sword; it’s nothing personal.” But the sickly sweet smile you flash at him feels very personal. However, instead of feeling miffed by this bold start of war, Lyney feels himself grinning.
“So you’re not good at every weapon?”
You start walking. “Astute observation for someone who isn’t good at any weapon.”
He trails after your steps with ease. “Hey, have we met before?”
“No.”
“You’re not acting like it’s a ‘no’.”
“Will you please let me train in peace?”
“Only if you agree to make me your sparring partner.”
You pause, sizing him up. Lyney attempts to hold a straight posture, but he noticeably deflates when you unleash a mocking laugh. “Surely you’re aware how idiotic of a request that is?”
Lyney then realizes the whole room is pin-drop silent, watching with bated breath for Lyney’s next move. And he is, of course, nothing but a performer.
“The harder the challenge to overcome, the greater the benefits to reap,” Lyney says with full-body confidence. Lynette snorts quietly because he stole it from a children’s book they found in a dump.
“A challenge,” you murmur, head tilted. “Is that why you look at me so strangely? You see me as a challenge?”
Lyney has no idea how he looks at you. “Uhm, yes?”
You seem satisfied with the answer, though. You roll your shoulders back and nod. “Very well.” Jeez, do you always talk like that? “I will be your sparring partner.”
Lyney babbles in confusion when you start walking further away before whipping around and pointing the tip of your polearm in his direction. “Try to land a hit on me. Do your worst.”
Long-distance is a bow user’s advantage. “Are you sure?”
You narrow your eyes fiercely. Lyney blinks and fumbles with the weapon in his hands. It’s begun to feel heavy now that he’s acknowledged its presence. He screws one eye shut and aims right for your head, then watches in awe as your polearm spins in a perfect circle and deflects his arrow.
“Again,” you demand, unbothered.
You are so cool.
Lyney tries again, unsurprised when he fails. But you swipe at your weapon this time, batting off his arrow as if an annoying fly. He tries once more, realizing belatedly that with each flimsy shot, you’ve been moving closer and closer.
His breath catches in his throat when you press the tip of your dull spear inches away from his nose.
“You’ve got guts to face me head-on,” you say, poking his skin, “but you’re new, so I can’t praise you for your naivety.”
He blinks. “I wasn’t—”
“Here, in the House, you prove your worth. Loyalty is your worth. How can you prove your loyalty if you can’t even live up to your words?” He releases a heavy breath when you lower your weapon, standing idle by your side. Goosebumps blossom on his arms. “Overcome me if you see me as a challenge.”
Lyney doesn’t know how to say that he sees you as a person. He’s breathless, in cold sweat—and he might be a little in love.
Lynette has become more adept with her sword under your guidance. Lyney can’t quite get the arrow to where he wants it to go, but his grip has been getting firmer—more sure and confident. He is still too far off from beating you, however.
But that’s not all that they’ve been practicing. Months have passed, and they must master other important skills if they are going to prove their worth.
Whenever they can, he and his sister sneak off to meet up with a talented individual that was kind enough to lend his knowledge to them. He’s caring and doesn’t push when they don’t answer honestly—exactly who they need, considering their identities.
Cesar pats his head, “What’s got you so distracted, bud?”
Lyney blinks up at him, schooling his expression carefully. “I was just thinking about a new trick I want to polish.”
“Hmm.” Cesar studies his face. Lyney feels a little uncomfortable. Can master magicians like him read minds? Will Cesar look into Lyney’s and ask about who it is? “You know, the more you try to cover something, the more it’s likely to show up.”
Lyney flushes down to his neck. “Um.”
“Did you meet someone you like?” Cesar grins, kneeling down to his eye level. “It’s okay. I won’t tell your sister if you want to. Though she probably knows already, that smart lady.”
Lyney shakes his head rapidly, hands waving all over to hide his unguarded expression. “There’s nothing to tell!”
Lyney wasn’t lying: there’s really nothing. He hasn’t made any progress with you. You look at him as if you see a scrap of paper, and Lyney should really back off and move on, but he likes the expressions you give him when he speaks to you either way, scrunching in annoyance or grinning in a way that makes his heart dance with fear and anticipation. It feels more human compared to when you stand across him with the air of a seasoned warrior.
“You’re a good kid,” Cesar says, toppling Lyney’s top hat over when he ruffles his hair. “And you’re going to grow up and become a wonderful magician. You will meet all kinds of people with your talent; don’t be afraid to let them in.”
This is a bit sudden. Nonetheless, Lyney dips his head in a nod.
“Lyney,” Lynette calls out, peering from the dove snug in her palm. “It’s sunset.”
“Right.” ‘Father’ is returning, and Lyney and Lynette are finally privy to a dangerous mission for the first time together. He looks back up at Cesar, who has this distant look in his eye that matches his smile. “Master, thank you for all your guidance. We will never forget all you’ve done for us.”
Lynette rises from where she’s been kneeling, bowing along with her brother. “Thank you.”
Cesar laughs heartily. “Just look for me if you kids ever need anything else apart from magic tricks, alright?”
Lyney and Lynette don’t doubt it, but they don’t need to trouble Cesar with their problems. As Fatui, they must uphold their sworn secrecy, no matter how kind and understanding Cesar would be.
“We should head back,” Lyney says. Her hair has been whipping around her face for far too long, hindering her actions during their missions. Lyney can’t really tuck them behind her…ears, so he reminds himself to buy some hairclips for her. “I don’t want to miss dessert.”
“You should try tying your hair,” Lyney says, sighing when a stray strand flicks her in the eye. “And yes, let’s head back. ‘Father’ will be assigning us to a new mission, right?”
Lynette has a delicate skip in her steps, and Lyney is content with the conclusion of a successful mission. Yet the air feels stifling when they arrive. ‘Father’ is nowhere in sight, and there’s a crowd of orphans huddled by the sofa, a first aid kit littered by the coffee table.
Bewildered, Lyney taps one of their shoulders and asks, “What happened?”
The girl farthest to the scene and closest to the twins sighs. “Y/N snuck out to a mission not meant for her. And, well, you can assume how that went.”
Lyney’s heart sinks to his stomach. “What?”
“See for yourself,” she says, pushing Lyney and Lynette to weave through the cluster of murmuring people.
Then, he notices you—your face contorted in a scowl, your body swathed in bandages. Lyney’s eyes catch it swiftly: the burns of your skin and the wince that flickers in your expression when someone gets a little too close.
“Everyone, please return to the dining hall,” Lyney says before he can even think about it. “Space!”
They don’t move, but they pause to look at Lyney. His jaw ticks. So they can rush to gossip but not direct orders?
“Now!” he barks out, gesturing to the other room. They follow, albeit unsurely, as their stares linger. The whispers subside as they do, birthing an upsetting silence that has Lyney running a hand through his face as you stare at the twins warily.
Lynette nudges Lyney, murmuring, “I’ll look for Freminet. Unless you want me to stay?”
Lyney nods, meeting Lynette’s eye. “Don’t worry.”
Your expression clears when Lynette shuts the door softly behind her. Lyney sits on the armrest and lets his eyes rake over your wounds, studying them. They all look nearly fatal, but they look as if Lyney and Lynette have come too late—no longer fresh, leaving an unpleasant taste on his tongue. What would’ve happened if you were not treated quickly?
You glower at him. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Lyney keeps his face carefully blank. “I just wanted to tell you that I’ll still be requesting sparring sessions after you’ve healed.”
Your stare became incredulous, but anything is better than the wounded look on your face when the orphans fret over you. “Fine.”
He isn’t even certain if you want him close. What hangs on his back is a bright Pyro vision, the same element that has seared your skin. If it were him, he’d be wary of himself.
“Why did you do it?” he asks quietly.
Your reply takes a while as if you debated with yourself whether you can trust Lyney or not. Luckily for him, you come to the right conclusion. “I don’t have a Vision. I don’t have the ‘potential’. They all said—Father said I could be the next director, but I don’t feel worthy.” You look back up at him. “I don’t think you would understand—”
“You wanted to prove yourself,” he finishes.
Your forehead creases, face shattering at the reminder of your mistake. Missions as perilous as these are meant for Vision users for good reasons. Regardless of someone’s skill with a weapon, it becomes an uneven playing field when there are circumstances that affect those without Visions, or even when facing enemies as highly trained as you yet have the advantage of using their elements with their surroundings to their advantage. Most of the time, those without Visions who take on missions meant not for them don’t make it out alive.
Had Lyney not received his Vision on the day he needed it, he and Lynette wouldn’t have survived. But you…
“This is all I have, Lyney,” you murmur lowly. Lyney hasn’t heard you say his name before.
“Still, you shouldn’t have done that,” he says lightly, trailing off when you gaze to the distance. “What happened out there?”
“Cecilia was too young, even with a Vision. I thought that if I teamed up with her, I could protect her and prove that I’m as good as you Vision-holders and… Well, something went wrong. It was my interference, most likely.”
Your gaze flicks back to his face, brows knitted. “It was stupid, I know. This was the first time I did something as foolish as this, under no guidance from ‘Father’.”
Lyney has an inkling; it was suspicious you pulled this off a few days after he and Lynette got their own Visions. There were barely any orphans who didn't have theirs, either. Were you feeling…?
“I still think you’re too far ahead of me,” Lyney says, hoping you’d pick up on what he’s putting down. “I don’t know how to beat you just yet.”
And then you laugh. Lyney jumps back in surprise at the full-blown laughter bubbling out of you. He’s never heard you laugh like this, and he doesn’t know why he can’t bring himself to tear his eyes away. He can’t let anyone take your joy from you now that he’s seen how bright you are with it.
“You can go, Lyney,” you say. “Don’t worry about me. Whatever punishment ‘Father’ decides to give is mine alone. I can see it in your eyes—you were planning something.”
Lyney sags, pouting. “I wasn’t really—”
“We’ll spar in two days.” You smile, and Lyney’s protests die on his tongue. “Once you prove that you can defeat me, I’ll let you help me.”
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y/n: i don’t like bow users me, leveling lyney to 90: haha yeah i know right
TAGLIST @thenyxsky @aeferkssr @1mewo1 @lacrimae-lotos @meigalaxy @hyacinth-daze @miwafei @popochakku @svasilios @heyhazelnut101
side note i am SO in love with this song so this chapter is very special to me. also hope u liked it... this was longer than last chapter!! tell me what u think if ure still reading all the way here
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weasleykisses · 7 months
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Astronomy I (Sirius Black x Reader)
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A/N: You think you hate Sirius Black. As James’ sister though, you see an awful lot of him. If only you weren't desperately in love with him, and he wasn't the most handsome boy you'd ever met. 
word count: 5.6k
You didn’t mind hanging out with your twin brother. He was exciting and funny, always making you laugh aloud from his antics. You actually enjoyed his company, unlike how some others were with their siblings. You assumed he liked your company.
At least, he enjoyed your company when you weren’t fighting ruthlessly with a certain boy with long raven-colored hair and an awfully smug smile on his lips that never left his face. You couldn’t stand Sirius Black. He was just…just a womanizing pervert with no life. It was hard sometimes getting along with your own brother when his best friend was so miserable to be around.
You didn’t even mind your brother’s other friends. Peter was quiet and a great listener. He wasn’t anything special,  but he never got on your nerves either. Remus was practically godsent, helping you with homework and sitting with you when you had classes without any of your friends. He had this way of making everything so calm and tranquil when he entered the room. 
You were roommates with Lily, your brother’s crush since the first year at Hogwarts. You also hung out with Dorcas and Marlene, sometimes Mary, sometimes Alice and Frank. You could appreciate most of the people you found yourself surrounded by. Everyone but him.
At least, that’s what you wanted everyone to think. You actually really enjoyed your time with Sirius, much more than you should have. He was just so perfect. The guy of your dreams, literally. You often woke up in the middle of the night after having dreamt of him kissing you, calling you his girl. 
Only, he wasn’t interested in you. To him, you were just his best mate's twin sister, just another bro within the group. You didn’t know where he got that impression either. You were smart and considerate of others, unlike the majority of the marauders. You wore dresses and painted your face with makeup to highlight some of your more feminine features. You were a girl with feelings, not simply “one of the guys”. Peter and Remus didn’t see you like that. 
That’s why you found yourself absolutely furious with him all the time. You hated him so much. You hated the way he made you feel like your heart was about to beat out of your chest. You hated the way he smirked when you got flustered. You hated everything about him because he wasn’t yours. It wasn’t always that way either. You used to like him in your first few years at Hogwarts, but over time you started to catch feelings and you weren’t very tolerant of the heart break you felt whenever he inevitably flirted with other girls. 
That’s why you sat with your arms crossed, trying to zone out his incessant flirting with Marlene McKinnon even if she was gay as fuck. The way he complimented her beautiful blonde hair, and winked when she smiled at him. 
Peter was talking to you about something that happened in his History of Magic class that afternoon, but you weren’t listening. You’d checked out a long time ago. 
“Whatever, McKinnon, I’ve got a hot date with a Ravenclaw later. Your loss,” he joked, and she shoved his shoulder playfully. He respected that Marlene was in a committed relationship with Dorcas, but he couldn’t help flirting with everyone. Well, everyone except for you. You’d nearly bite his head off if he did. 
You immediately felt uncomfortable at his comment, now knowing he had another date with, no doubt, a gorgeous girl. He would probably snog her, maybe even hook up if he was feeling promiscuous. Your stomach turned like you might be sick all over the coffee table. 
Your brother piped up from his spot beside Lily near the fireplace, “When are you gonna settle down, Pads? You have a new girl, like every week.”
Sirius grinned and shook his head. “‘No plans on slowing down any time soon,” he declared, “I don’t think there’s been a girl to catch my eye yet.”
You deflated. Of course he would say that. You didn’t know why you always got your hopes up. He wasn’t the type to settle for a single girl. He liked to spread his affection thin amongst many suitors. 
“Aw, that's no fun. Don’t you want to find your true love?” Lily asked, leaning into James happily. You were happy to see your brother finally with the girl of his dreams. He’d spent enough years running after her, that was for sure. 
Sirius shrugged. “When I meet her, I meet her. If not, I won’t be disappointed.”
Except, Sirius Black did have a girl that caught his eye. In fact, you’d done so pretty long ago, before he could remember really. Only, you were insistent that you despised him, fighting with him since the third or fourth year. James’ pretty sister, the one that loved astronomy, cauldron cakes, and unfortunately,  scowling at any attempt he made to flirt with you. 
He wanted you. You were always endgame in his eyes, the girl he would marry and spend his days huddled up in a cottage with. One day, he wanted to give you everything you could need, anything you asked for. It was the only thing he saw when he thought about his future. 
You sighed, thinking about the girl he must like. You imagined he liked someone with soft long hair, sparkling eyes, a button nose and plump pink lips. Maybe she was intelligent and kind, or clever and sexy. You were rough around the edges. You weren’t the most attractive girl at Hogwarts, nor were you particularly intelligent or charming. You were fairly plain in comparison to some of the showstopping girls that you surround yourself with. Lily, for example, was drop dead gorgeous. 
“Come on. There must be one girl you fancy,” Marlene teased.
Sirius smirked. “And so what if there is? I’ll never tell who.”
“My guess is on that Hufflepuff in our charms class. She’s always sneaking looks at you,” Peter suggested, and Sirius didn’t reply, letting your mind wander. It simmered in your mind, the thought of Sirius and that Hufflepuff girl, you thought her name was Penelope, if you remembered correctly. She was a cute girl with sweet eyes and a soft voice filled with joy. 
You didn’t notice, but your lip quivered just a bit. Your heart had sunken down in your stomach like a boulder. With your shoulders turned in on themselves, you looked down at the carpet, trying to focus on the gold and red pattern instead of the discussion at hand. 
Why did you feel so sick at the thought of Sirius liking another girl? He was just a friend, if that. He was more like a friend of a friend that you eventually only begrudgingly hung out with. So what if he liked that stupid hufflepuff girl with her sparkly pink eyeshadow and her perfect nose and a voice that rivaled a siren’s song? It didn’t matter to you. 
Only it did, and when you felt that familiar wave of tears coming through, you shook your head. 
“Oh, Y/N, where are you going?” James asked, and you exhaled, trying to avoid the tremor in your voice.
“I forgot I have to run by the library and study that chapter on dittanies before that test tomorrow,” you said, and Remus looked at you, confused. You didn’t have a test in Herbology for another week. Only he knew that as he was in the same class as you. 
You picked up your bag and started making your way out of the common room. You heard Remus say something behind you, but you were too focused on rushing away from the conversation. You left out the portrait hole, letting the first of your tears run down your face when you were in the hallway. You sniffled, pressing your face to your puffy cardigan sleeves. 
The door opened behind you and you tried to cover up your little crying fit, but upon seeing Remus Lupin walk out, clearly looking for you, you let your guard down. You could trust him, out of everyone in the group, he was most likely to keep your secrets. 
You let yourself sob, shutting your eyes and pressing your palms to cover your eyes. 
His hand found your back and rubbed soothingly. “It’s okay, Y/N. Forget about him. He’s an idiot,” he assured, and you only cried harder. There was nothing much to say. 
“I just fucking hate that I like him, Remus. Why him? It’s so stupid. He’s so stupid,” you cried, so angry with yourself. “I’ll never look like those girls. I’ll never be like them. I’m stuck being boring Y/N.” You wiped at your tears, trying to stop yourself from being such a baby. 
He let out a heavy sigh. “Why do you think of yourself like that?”
“How can I not? Sirius won’t even flirt with me. I’m that disgusting that the biggest flirt in the entire world won’t even jokingly compliment me,” you told him. 
“Sirius is complicated. I’m sure it’s not what you think.”
“Yeah, right. That’s why I’ve never had a boy ask me out the entire time we’ve been at Hogwarts,” you groaned, “Give it up, Moony. I’m just the worst.”
“Have you considered boys might be too intimidated to ask you out,” he suggested, leaning down to make eye contact with you. “You seem to forget your brother is Quidditch team captain and you exude quite a lot of attitude.”
You rolled your eyes, an awkward smile on your lips. “I’m not intimidating.”
“You kind of are. I’ve even noticed a few boys look at you positively smitten this year, might I add.”
You smiled, leaning into his side to give him a little hug. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Rem.”
“That’s just what friends do,” he told you, hugging you back. He was probably the only person in this world that knew about your crush on the disowned Black. He encouraged you time and time again to just shoot your shot and ask him out, but you denied it every time. You just continued to argue with the boy, too scared to be nice to him and fall deeper into this pit you called love.  The downside was that you sort of chose to be an asshole. Sirius really didn’t deserve it, he didn’t do a thing wrong. You just couldn’t handle your feelings of inferiority mixed with intense emotions for the boy. 
You didn’t know what the next steps were, but you swore to yourself you wouldn’t let Sirius Black hold you back anymore. 
____
It was Christmas, so you and your brother had packed your things to spend the holiday at your house. Normally, you would be ecstatic to go home and enjoy yourself, only the past few holidays since Sirius was disowned, James decided it was time to start inviting Sirius to the family gatherings as well. As much as you loathed having to see him during your vacations, you agreed that it was the right thing to do inviting him. His own family was awful and cruel, and he didn’t deserve that sort of treatment anytime, much less so close to the holidays. 
“You know the drill, Black. This room is yours now. It’s got a bathroom over there, and obviously you can use any of the soaps, shampoos, whatever you might need,” you told him, pointing to the attached bath beside his bedroom. “You can also use the wardrobes and the closets if you want to unpack the clothes you brought with you.”
You didn’t know why your parents assigned you the role of showing Sirius around the house when you could have been the one to show Remus around, as he was also staying at the house. James was off showing their tall friend around instead, and you envied him. Whenever you were with Sirius, you just felt so awkward. 
He was so handsome. He was charming and beautiful, with just enough snark to be interesting, but not enough to be rude. He was handsome but not so much he wasn’t manly and rugged. You had to stop yourself from staring at him as you walked him around the huge house you lived in for your entire life. 
He hummed, looking at you with those stunning brown eyes. “Your room is right beside mine?”
“Yes, not that that matters at all.”
“What if I have a bad dream and need someone to comfort me?” he asked with a smirk, and you just rolled your eyes. 
“You can go to James’ room if it’s that serious.”
He sat on his mattress and tested the softness, seemingly satisfied with it. He waved you over to sit beside him, and shockingly, you did as he asked, sitting yourself at the edge of the bed with your legs crossed. He looked all around the stunning dark blue room, complete with intricately painted curtains hanging from the windows and a quilted comforter on the bed beneath them. The ceiling was painted to mimic that of an observatory. It was actually one of your favorite rooms in the house, the observatory themed guest bed. You figured Sirius would like it as he spent a bit of time in the Astronomy tower on dates with random girls. 
“So…Your parents are always so nice,” he attempted to start a conversation, “I’m really grateful they let me stay here.”
“It’s really no problem. We have plenty of space, not to mention my mum is glad to make double the portions for Christmas dinner. She’s quite the chef,” you assured him. “She’s always asked me to have friends over for the holidays, she’s just happy you all are here.”
“What are the plans for today?”
“I was going to head to the village and get some gifts for everyone. I usually wait until the last moment, so I don’t have much time left, do I?”
“I’ll come with you.”
“What? No. I never said you were invited,” you argued, shaking your head. It was supposed to be your peaceful day out by yourself, or with Remus if he decided he wanted to go. You didn’t want to deal with Sirius Black trailing behind you flirting with everything that could breathe. Not to mention he would probably comment on all the things you picked out for everyone. “Y-You can’t come!”
“What would your mum think if she knew you weren’t being polite to your guests?” he teased, and you groaned, pressing a hand to your forehead. He was right. Your mother would certainly be upset to find that you excluded one of your “friends” from the festivities on purpose. “I guess you’ll stop by to get me before you leave, then?”
“Fine. I have to go get dressed and gather a couple of my things before we leave so I’ll come by in a little bit. I still have to find out if Remus wants to come, too,” you told him, standing from the bed and smoothing down your sweatpants.”
“Alright, Darling. Don’t be too long,” he called as you walked through the doorway, pretending you didn’t hear him so you wouldn’t have to reply. Your chest tightened a bit at the term of endearment he always used rather than call you by your name. It always made your heart jump and butterflies flutter in your stomach. If only he really meant it. He was just like that with everyone, regardless of how he felt about them. 
Sirius Black didn’t like you. He was a womanizing jerk who couldn’t settle down even if someone paid him to. He was selfish and inconsiderate with other people’s feelings.
You shut the door to his room and turned down the hall to find Remus and your brother, most likely in the other spare bedroom where Remus would be staying. You approached the room across from your brother’s and knocked on the heavy wood, waiting for a reply before twisting the knob.
“Come in,” James called, and you entered, peeking your head in to see Remus shuffling through his trunk while James laid across the king sized mattress. “What’s up?”
“I was just about to head into town to get some last minute shopping done. I wanted to know  if either of you wanted to come.” 
Remus shook his head. You frowned a bit when your brother also shook his head, indicating that neither of them wanted to accompany you. Normally, you wouldn’t care if you had to go by yourself, but without Remus or your brother that meant you would be alone with Sirius, and that was most definitely not preferred.
“James and I are gonna help your mum with some Christmas baking. She’s letting us decorate the sugar cookies,” Remus told you. You were a bit jealous at that. Decorating the sugar cookies was one of you favorite Christmas activities, but you figured Remus and your brother had it covered. You nodded. “Why? Did you need someone to come with you?”
“No, I’m fine going on my own. It’s just that Sirius invited himself along and I don’t want it to just be me and him…” You sighed.
“Pads isn’t that bad. I don’t know why you insist on being so cold to him. He’s a good friend to all of us, including you,” James told you, as if you didn’t already know that. Remus nodded, and gave you a look that said all you needed to know about his opinion on the matter. Remus hadn’t forgotten about the night you broke down crying, sobbing about how you so desperately had fallen in love with the raven-haired boy and he would never feel the same way for you. 
You turned on your heel to leave the room, waving goodbye to both boys as you shut the door behind you with a soft click. You headed back down the hall to your room, pulling open the door to your closet and sifting through the rack of clothes. You eventually settled on an outfit. 
You slipped on your skirt, a sweater, heavy winter coat, and boots thick enough to endure the snow fall outside. You weren’t consciously dressing to impress, but looking over your ensemble, you wondered if you just somehow managed to pick clothes that you knew would catch the eyes of a certain someone, that being Sirius Black. You tried to convince yourself you didn’t care about his opinion, but you most definitely did. You wanted to look beautiful to him, for him to actually notice you as something other than the sister of his best friend. 
As far as you could tell, he thought of you as a sister, a younger one that he could push around and tease as he pleased.
You shook your head, mentally cursing yourself for having such ridiculous thoughts. Sirius was just a friend, a close friend who you could even consider family, even if he annoyed you quite often. There was no reason to get all dressed up for him. You certainly tried to tell yourself that as you applied your eyeliner and smudged it the way you liked it. You definitely told yourself that when you put on your most shiny lip gloss that smelled like candied cherries. Just a friend.
You grabbed your wallet, shoving it into your jacket pocket before leaving your room and heading to the door beside yours. You knocked gently, hoping that maybe he might miss the sound and you could leave on your own. He didn’t though, as the door quickly opened and you were met by dark hair and eyes to match. He didn’t let you see, but his eyes scanned your figure and he gulped, swallowing down his gasp at just how well you looked in your casual clothes. 
“Are you ready, Black?” you asked, and he nodded. You started down the hallway of your home, working your way down the stairs and out the front door, waving to your father on the way. He sat in the living room, as usual, reading the Daily Prophet. Sirius waved as well, bidding a farewell to your dad politely. 
The town was only a couple minutes walk down the road from your house, so you didn’t bother apparating there. You stepped outside onto the crunchy white snow covering the ground, sighing at the feeling of the winter air blowing past your face. You loved winter. It was so beautiful, with the white covering all the trees and buildings in a winter wonderland sort of way. Christmas was your favorite holiday as well. 
“What do you plan on getting for everyone?” Sirius asked, catching up to you as you walked down the sidewalk. 
“Probably a new novel for Remus. I’ll get James some quidditch equipment, some pads or something since he’s wearing down the ones he had now,” you told him. “Maybe I’ll get my mum some new earrings. She likes pearls so probably something like that. My dad, I’m not so sure about. I’ll have to see what he likes when I get there.”
He nodded in agreement. “Anything for me?” he finally asked, and you actually laughed. He furrowed his brow and poked you in the arm. “Why is that funny?”
“Because you’re a pain in my ass, Black, and you want me to get you a Christmas present?”
“Well, that’s not very nice of you,” he said, and for a moment, you thought he might actually be a little offended. You turned your gaze to look up at him, only to see him smiling a bit with the corners of his lips. You scoffed, shoving his shoulder with your own.
“Oh, yeah, and what did you get me?” you asked him. 
“Nothing. All you deserve is coal for Christmas. Not even Santa Clause himself would bring a nasty girl like you anything.”
“You are so rude.”
“Only for you, sweetheart.”
The walk to town was quite peaceful actually. The two of you teased each other endlessly, but there was no real arguing, not like you would find yourselves in Hogwarts when he would flirt with everything that passed him by. He was corrigible when in a private setting like this. It almost felt like the two of you were on a date as you window shopped. 
You two even stopped at a cafe on your way around, you getting a sweet cauldron cake while he drank some butterbeer straight from the tap. 
He watched you closely as you eyed down certain displays in the windows, taking note of what you liked and what you absolutely hated. He was particularly interested when you stopped and admired a piece of jewelry, a necklace with a gold chain and setting for the heart shaped, pink stone in the center. You stared at it for longer than anything else in the entire town, and he took note of that. 
You noticed the way he admired the record store, with all the old 60’s records lining the aisles. He liked the wooden record player, saying that he’d never had one of the muggle contraptions, even though he thought they looked pretty cool. They were classy, he said, just like him. You could only roll your eyes with a smirk, finding his ego to be quite hilarious. He always acted so cocky but really he was just as insecure as the rest of you. 
You had grabbed a couple things for everyone, Remus, your brother, your parents. You considered it a productive day out as you walked back home. He carried your bags even though you told him not to. It was endearing, and you felt your heart skip a beat when you caught him in the corner of your eye looking down at you with that gentle look in his eyes, like he truly enjoyed spending his time with you, regardless of how much you complained. 
You bid him farewell when you entered the house, hurriedly grabbing your bags and rushing off to your room, locking the door behind yourself so you could throw yourself into bed, practically screaming into your pillows. Why was he so wonderful? Why did he make you feel so special, like you were the only girl that mattered in the entire world? It made you feel like shit knowing that’s probably how he went through so many girls at Hogwarts, endlessly flirting with them until they felt just like you did. 
You weren’t anything special, you thought. You were just like the dozens of other girls he’d romanced. It broke your heart.
____
Christmas morning had come, and you were ready in your pajamas that your mum provided you, saying that you had to wear them for the family photos. Personally, you felt a little old to be wearing a set of pajamas that matched those of your twin brother, but your mother insisted. You were the green and red plaid set as you left your room and headed down to the living room where the most grand Christmas stood with all the little gifts scattered beneath it. There were gifts from your parents to everyone, including your guests. 
Your brother showed up second, followed closely by Remus and Sirius, who were talking quietly with each other as they entered the room, only to shut up when they noticed you sitting there on the carpet beside the wrapped presents. You smiled so brightly Sirius thought it might blind him. 
He was quick to mock your outfit of choice though. “17 and still matching with your brother, Y/N? Aren’t you a little old for that?”
You scowled and brushed off his comment, knowing he was just being a pest for no reason. Your parents entered the room, your mother holding a plate of cookies decorated quite messily by your brother and friend. You couldn’t tell what the one you picked up was supposed to be, perhaps a stocking or a Santa hat, you weren’t sure. Not that it mattered, it tasted delicious regardless. 
You opened some of your gifts, the first one coming from your parents. A new polaroid camera that you had been asking for, wanting to take as many pictures of your friends and you during your final year at Hogwarts as possible. Remus had gotten you a new cardigan, and your brother got you some perfume he knew you were running out of. You hugged everyone after opening each gift, thanking them brightly for what they had gotten you. 
They thanked you for the gifts that you got them, even if they were last minute presents. They still loved them. It wasn’t until James was reaching further under the tree before he found a couple more boxes hiding in the low hanging branches. One was addressed to Sirius while the other, a tiny box was addressed to you. 
You picked up the last gift waiting for you under the tree, shaking it gently when you noticed it was Sirius’ handwriting. You suspected it might be a gag gift, something silly or prank-like. He didn’t say he was going to get you a gift at all, much less something meaningful. 
But then again, you said you weren’t getting anything for him either. So much for that. 
He tore open his last present, blinking when he saw what was in the box underneath. It was a beautiful, new cherrywood record player, the same one he was admiring in the village when you went to the record store earlier that week. He stared at the box, and then lifted his eyes to meet yours. You refused to look at him, far too embarrassed. He wasn’t supposed to know you were the one that bought it for him. It was addressed anonymously for that reason. 
“Y/N, I don’t know what to say,” he stumbled on his words for perhaps the first time ever since you met him. He struggled to find the right thing to say. All he could muster was a “Thank you”, staring down at his present in awe. 
Secretly, while he was off looking at records in the store, you’d asked an attendant to send the parcel through the mail to your home so you didn’t have to carry it all the way home. That way, Sirius didn’t know you bought it for him either. You wanted it to be a surprise.
“I saw you looking at it, so it only made sense to buy it for you,” you told him, trying to fight the flames threatening to rise in your cheeks. 
“Well, you should open your gift too,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck as you looked down at the tiny box in your hands. You untied the ribbon on top and set that on the floor beside you. Hesitantly, you opened the box, revealing the necklace you’d been eyeing down in the store the other day, the one with the pink stone and sparkly golden chain. 
You looked at the chain for a moment, gawking at how stunning it was before lifting your eyes to meet Sirius’ gaze. You opened your mouth to say something, anything really, but no words came out. 
James whistled, peering over your shoulder at the piece of jewelry. “Wow, nice one, Pads. It’s just her style, that’s for sure,” he commented. 
“Thank you, Sirius. It’s lovely.”
“It’s nothing really. It was the only thing you really seemed to like when we went to the village together.”
But it wasn’t nothing, really. It meant everything to you as you clipped it around your neck, taking a hold of the pendant and admiring it. When you looked up, your mother was trying to get photos of the two of you, motioning for you and Sirius to sit beside each other. You couldn’t say no to your mother, so you sat beside Sirius, maintaining space between you two until she urged him to wrap and arm around your shoulders. 
You felt strange pressed to his side, smiling for the camera. It felt different, being by his side in his arms like this, as a family. For a moment, everything felt so perfect. Him holding you in his arms, your mother smiling brightly at the two of you while your father and brother watched content. Remus watched from the sidelines with that knowing smile on his face, one that made you flustered at what he was proposing behind that grin. 
You felt the same that night, when you climbed onto the roof of your house, on the old shingles. You laid back on the roof, staring up at the half moon above you with a sigh. The necklace hung from your neck, and you didn’t think you would ever take it off. It was your favorite gift you’d ever received, if you were being honest.
The window beside you opened and there he was, sticking his head out the window to find you, tilting his head to the side. “Do you always come out here?” he asked, and you nodded. 
He climbed out his window and laid down beside you on the just slightly sloped tiles, folding his arms behind his head. “What do you want?” you asked, sounding a bit harsher than you wanted. You bit your tongue from saying anything else that might come out worse than you intended. 
“Nothing, just wanted to see what little miss Y/N was doing all on her lonesome. Just watching the stars, huh?”
“It’s one of my favorite things to do, after all.”
“I forgot. You’re a total astronomy nerd.”
“I just like the stars, the way things align just perfectly.”
He hummed. You couldn’t see, staring up at the sky, but he turned his head to face you, watching your profile as if it was the most gorgeous sight he’d ever behold. He wanted to roll over and kiss you, to hold your cheek in his palm and press his lips to yours, to taste your lip gloss and the hot chocolate you drank after dinner. He wanted to brush your hair behind your ear and fall deeper into your soul. He wanted to drown in everything about you. 
The necklace he bought you looked just right around your neck, and he was happy you were still wearing it. He wanted everyone to know that you were his girl, the one that he’d given his heart to. He could care less about all those other girls when he had you, if only you were within arm’s reach. 
“Do you think the stars will ever align for you? Give you everything you dream of?” he asked.
“I think we all have to work for what we want. The stars don’t control our destiny,” you replied softly. 
He looked back at the sky with a smile across his lips, finally feeling at peace after wishing for so long that you would let him have a moment with you where you weren’t trying to argue with him or run away like you usually did. “Wise words from a wise girl.”
“Wise? We’re talking about me, not Moony,” you laughed, “I’m just as lost in life as you are, Black.”
“I might be lost, but I do know one thing. I’m glad to be here with you.”
“And I’m glad you’re here, too.”
Part Two coming soon
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harrieatthemet · 3 months
Text
Newborn
It's a miracle he hasn't chewed off all 10 fingernails yet.
this is long but whatever!
There's an abundance of nerves so dense it may as well have it's own seat in the Range Rover; plenty enough to go around with seconds for anyone interested. With the stereo at a whopping maximum volume of 2, and unbearably loud fidgeting in the driver's seat, you're well versed enough to know something is just eating away at him.
"The only thing louder than your nail biting," you tease from the backseat, "is the sound of your heart beating in your chest."
You watch his eyes briefly flicker their attention to the mirror, greener than ever as they widen a bit to catch a steady glimpse of your reflection from the backseat. And all he lets out is a quick sigh before he tightens the grip of the wheel (10 and 2, the entire time), eyes out of your peripheral vision as quickly as they came in. He only waits to nervously shift his weight in his seat for the umpteenth time until he gets to another red light.
"S'it bothering you," his tone is so flustered and apologetic, you almost feel bad for joking, "m'sorry just, y'know, nervous."
For the first time since the hospital departure, he turns in his seat to fully face the second row of the car. He's envious of you; so calm and collected, radiant with joy even after a grueling delivery. And he sucks in a calming breath when he trails his glance to the tiny baby snuggled sweetly into the car seat beside you, swimming in her baggy pink flower pajamas and endless mountain of hospital-gifted blankets.
He's done this ride before. He remembers it so fondly as, easily, unarguably, singlehandedly the best drive of his entire life. And it feels like it was only yesterday when he was bringing Angel Baby home for the first time. It's exactly why he's so fucking nervous.
"Har, we're good," and as you patiently insist, you're adjusting the frilly white blanket on the newborn beside you, "but you're driving 9 miles per hour. I literally just saw that woman on the scooter pass us for the third time."
"Hey she's bloody fast on that thing, you saw her!"
"Pretty sure she's missing a wheel," you snicker, "so what's actually bothering you?"
He doesn't want to say it. Like, he really doesn't want to say it. Not just because you both have already discussed it over a dozen times in the past week alone, but because he doesn't care to tarnish what should be a wholesome moment.
So instead he says nothing. Not for a long time, he doesn't let the silence linger but for a minute he says nothing; he barely breathes. When your hand reaches out though, and finds it's way to his shoulder to give it a reassuring squeeze, he releases that breath before letting the words soon follow.
"What if she hates 'er," and the way he's blurting it out tells you he's been sitting on this for hours, "or worse, what if she hates me and-and, I dunno, (Y/N) m'nervous. Y'remember wha' she said!"
A very shallow sigh of disapproval innately makes it's way passed your lips. It isn't because you're annoyed with him. The guilt is natural and, by nature, he only ever wants angel baby to be happy. But it's stemming from the fact that you're only physically capable of providing so much assurance. Not to mention he practically begged for another baby.
"Harry she's two," you remind him, "she told your mother she didn't want legs so she wouldn't have to go for a walk."
On the other hand, though, the imminent addition to the family was not a hit for everyone in the household. Angel baby did not take kindly to the impending addition. And you know exactly the incident he's referring to. Sure, she's definitely well immersed into her terrible two's stage, and you'd like to chalk it up to that. But she's never been keen on sharing Harry with anyone, even you sometimes. So the idea of now having to share him with a sister presents itself as an incredibly challenging hurdle.
"She'll be fine," and as you say it as soothingly as possible, you can see he begins to ease up "she's got a built in best friend now."
Those exact words are playing on a loop the rest of the trek home. Each stoplight that brings him closer to the front gate of the house, he's mentally psyching himself up; the best thing to say when he walks in, how to ease her into the role of being a big sister, the right way to bring you in with the new baby. He's so consumed in concocting the perfect delivery that he doesn't even realize he's already pulling past the open gates.
"This is your house," and already he's gone full blown with the baby talk, "y'live here with me 'n mummy 'nd a sister who... might not like you very much fo' a bit."
Though he masqueraded it with a sweet, gooey, charming little baby voice, your squinting eyes are loaded with displeasure so he understands it was not well received.
He takes a moment before opening the door; adjusts the hospital bags in his arms, takes in a breath before allowing it to roll out, lays a gentle kiss to your temple. Then he decides to stretch out his arm to press his thumb on the door handle.
It's a bittersweet moment. He's itching to see angel baby after two long days with out her. And he knows there's family, both yours and his, waiting eagerly to get their eyes on their newest 8 pound family member. But his heart sings when he hears the pattering of a familiar set of bare feet down coming from down the hallway. Immediately, he drops the bags in the foyer to make his way out from the front entrance and down towards the living room.
"Go see m'love," he hears Anne coo sweetly, so he rounds the corner, "who could tha' be?"
For the moment being, despite the fact it's fleeting, he tables the introduction to the newborn once he lays eyes on angel baby. Well aware of the fact you're just in the next room over, a brand new bundle of joy toted in your arms, he feels a surmountable sense of joy now that angel baby's in eye shot; hair unbrushed and a mess from what one would assume was a successful nap, head to toe in a watermelon printed pajama set, eyes wide with sheer joy and arms outstretched to intercept him. To which, he eagerly accepts as he crouches down to let her crash into his chest before sweeping her up.
"There's m'girl," he hums, hand tucking her hair from her face before showering her with kisses, "how's m'angel, hm? Still sleepy from y'sleepover this weekend? Missed me as much as I missed you?"
He can almost feel his heart melt to mush in his chest as he cranes his neck back, listening in awe as angel baby spares no detail in her weekend with both sets of grandparents and Gemma. Most of it is borderline incoherent, though her elaborate expressions and dramatized recounts of events has him entranced.
"Where's mommy?"
"Oh yes" Anne's near double over in excitement, inviting herself into the conversation as she rubs small circle on angel baby's back, "where's (Y/N)? M'about ready t'explode, m'so excited!"
There it is again, that nervous feeling bubbling up in his stomach again. He's excited too; wants to show off the adorable little baby that completed his growing family, watch his mother and sister fawn over her. But he doesn't want to blow it on his first go. Most importantly, mere forethought of angel baby feeling like second place is enough to make him wanna start crying.
So he's going to try to ease angel baby into her new role as a sister while she's still fresh out of a nap and giddy with excitement. And while he still has the balls to actually go through with it.
"Mummy's here poppet," his tone is so sweet and fragile it'd break from the weight of a feather, "n' I think she's got something really, really special for you."
An animated expression paints itself across her face; eyes wide and doe-like as they twinkle in giddiness, her smile tripling in size. It's only a matter of seconds before she's writhing in Harry's arm, desperate to break herself from his grip to place both feet back on the floor.
There's no reason he should feel this guilty and this nervous. He's hot on angel baby's heels as she turns her skips into a light jog, traipsing down the hallway towards the front entrance sitting room as fast as her short legs will allow.
Anne's awing is low in tone, hands flying to her chest as she delights in the sight she's taking in. And as she goes to get a better look, making idle chatter with your parents and gushing to Gemma, Harry's eyes are darting back and forth as though he's waiting for angel baby to go right into orbit.
Momentarily, he anticipates an alternative outcome. Angel baby runs right up to you with arms wide open. He does that thing that gets him every single time - where she melts into the kisses you deliver all over her face. She hasn't killed the newborn yet, or thrown herself to the floor in existential despair. That's gotta be good start.
"Hi bubba, I missed you so, so much" you place a kiss to her forehead and she smiles contently, completely ignoring the baby in your arm, "but I have someone who wants to meet you!"
She squeals with joy, jumping up and down, "A puppy!"
"No baby," you laugh, and Harry swears he's about to spin off the fucking planet, "even better, a baby!"
"A baby dolly!"
She's either choosing to disregard the fact that the baby perched in front of her is 100% a real human being and not made of plastic, or she's genuinely oblivious. Regardless, Harry's panic is quickly becoming your panic. Because now you're both teetering on anxious, though Anne is swift to pick up on it and comes to aid.
"No poppet, not a dolly," Anne mewls, crouching down beside angel baby in front of your lap, "s'your baby sister. Mumma and Daddy brought y'a real sister."
And now it's fully set in - sheer panic. He's quick to jump into action though.
In quick strides from across the other side of the room, he very gently inserts himself beside you on the couch. You aren't catching on to what's to come and he chalks it up to you still being a little tired. Why wouldn't you be? He doesn't want this to go south, so he shifts himself on the couch, knees spread a bit so angel baby can lean on his leg and look over at the . If anyone could be the buffer here, he thinks he's the best bet.
Harry coos, "Say hi t'your baby sister!"
"No"
You side eye your husband beside you, who is staring at angel baby as though he's trying to to mentally coerce her into actually wanting to like the infant. He doesn't know where to take it from here. Angel baby is so viscerally displeased and uninterested at not just the concept of a sister, but the literal physical sister sitting inches away from her face.
"Dunno if that I love my big sister onesie seem t'be working." Gemma cracks in attempt to lighten the mood.
"No?" Harry repeats, though soft, but with the undertone of frantic as he glares at his older sister, "What do y'mean, button? She's really nice, 'nd
"My daddy!"
"Oh I told you," Harry's voice is a hushed squeak as the internal panic collides with irreconciable guilt "(Y/N) I told you!"
He can't imagine things getting worse than this. Until, of course, it does. Because as soon as the infant yawns and squirms a bit, Harry reaches over to your lap on instinct to adjust the hospital cap still clad to her head. And that was enough to get angel baby to strike. She leans right over alongside Harry with her fingers spread and palm flat, going to give the baby a shove before dominantly announcing another 'my daddy.'
A slew of gasps and stern no's come flooding out by all your familial spectators, even including yourself as you angle your body away from your 2 year old with a vengeance. Harry's stomach has completely flipped upside down, especially when angel baby bursts into tears and collapses to the floor.
The temper tantrum has ensued; she's a puddle at Harry's feet, back flat against the multicolored sherpa carpet as she rips out wails that could shatter every glass flower vase throughout the first floor. And naturally, it sets off some cries of distress from the new baby. In a second Harry might join them both.
"Jesus Christ," you exhale quietly, "this is fucked."
Your mom, noble as ever, does her best to step in and peel your daughter off the floor to bring an end to the (literal) swan song. Even now you have to admire the theatrics and flare for drama. She's truly emulating her father.
Her father, who is in an isolated frenzy in his attempt to asses every possible way to rectify this nightmare. Harry's not afraid to go low and opt for the last possible resort.
"Button," he exclaims, like he's just conjured up the best idea of his life, "she got y'a gift! A super big, really fun, totally awesome gift!"
The wailing comes to a slowed stop before an altogether halt. With eyes still watery and cheeks stained with tears, she peels herself up from the floor in what feels like slow motion until she's level with Harry. And she looks up at him with those eyes and that look - the one that you know will have Harry in the palm of her little hand in a matter of seconds.
"A gift?" she says it through a sniffle, "Like.. a barbie?"
She sniffles a few times more in an attempt to collect herself and, God, Harry can't help but fold, "Four barbies!"
And he doesn't care that your face shoots him one of those 'we should discuss this first' looks because she's finally reeling in the crying. And she's finally starting to take to the idea of another baby to share the spotlight with because she goes to lean on your knee now - right next to the baby as a show of solidarity. That's a win to him, even if he had to get there with shameless bribery.
"Harry," you whisper sternly, "remember.. about the gifts... and not spoiling her."
It's like talking to a wall, because he doubles down, "And a new dream house! If y'really sweet t'her, maybe baby sister will buy you tha' little pink limo for 'em too."
"Harry!"
"What?" He shrugs, but quickly evades your glare, "th'limo l'look great with th'house! 'Nd they can't walk everywhere!"
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ballad-of-the-lamb · 2 months
Note
I've been bingeing your art in this blog for, like, the last hour. Sooo much good stuff!
Can we hear more about notable members of the Cult? Cheese Parm's s/o and such
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cult info below cut b/c i'm gonna be typing a lot;
Everyone listed here are basically the main runners/cast when it comes to plot relevance in the story in itself. there are plenty of cast & characters that aren't- but they wont pop up for anything other than background characters perhaps staring on in horror at god antics or one another's antics.
we'll start from the top;
GALLOWS [ girlyed cheese ]
the most recent member of the cult to be saved specifically by the lamb themself from sacrifice within Darkwood.
a lot of cult conflict will begin with the uninitiated, the unknowing. and the influence of the twin gods will be seen on her in real time as the story progresses.
she is generally a very generic playful-but-tricky fox character, but there's a lot she hides; much like the rest of the cult members. her past is not happily talked about, or seldom is.
she was a native to Darkwood. She is chaotic because of it.
she was meant to be burned at the stake.
EKPYROSIS [ asbestos ]
This word derives from a Greek word for a great fire. It represents a belief held by some scholars of Stoicism, that says that the universe has no beginning or end, and instead is destroyed and remade in a great conflagration in a cyclic manner. Just as life & death ever are.
Her name stands out among the rest of the cult because it was the name that the Lamb bestowed upon her upon being given the title of disciple. Just as Narinder took Baal & Aym to learn from him, the Lamb took her.
Her previous name is not known to anyone mind the Lamb themself, Narinder, and cheese parm.
She is more inclined to using and being influenced by the eldritch artifacts & relics the Lamb or Narinder tend to return with.
She leaves an uneasy and terrible 'uncanny valley' feeling tenfold within her vicinity, which makes her hard to be around. It is not just being outright creepy- but it's a lot more akin to literally feeling reality dip and bow around you into something not quite right.
She does not move like a normal person. The way she walks, runs, jumps- it's all too impossible to replicate without someone shattering every bone in their body.
When she speaks, her voice is delayed from her mouth. And it doesn't always line up perfectly.
most notably; cheese parm hates her. for good reason.
OTHERA [ bong water ]
An average cult member on the surface. They are a caretaker, they are matronly, they work as the local therapist. Generally just likes taking care of people.
When the Lamb, Disciples, & Narinder aren't around to listen to confessionals in the booth they are typically who does.
It's an unspoken rule to not make them angry or let them get to '1' when they start counting down from 5.
He is typically known for the reason morale is good. A good shoulder to rely on.
He is the third oldest member of the cult, resurrected multiple times over to serve his purpose, next to cheese parm & his sister. they are also the only one that asbestos seems to actively fear besides cheese parm.
EUNOMIA [ they/theminem ]
Eunomia was a minor goddess of law and legislation, whose name means "Good Laws", and is specifically a goddess of order according to good governance.
The second disciple. Known for learning the use of the Lamb's personally created curses specifically, though does know the ones Narinder passed on. They do not deem themselves worthy enough to use those.
Generally a very angry & spiteful person for a multitude of reasons. It mostly comes down to 'bearer of the curse' and the curse being knowledge.
They are the only one really permitted to 'backtalk' due to how much they actually do know their place.
they are very heavily disciplined under the rule of self-flagellation, and know the tenants and rites better than anyone else in the cult. even the head ritualist.
as said on paper. cheese parm's s/o. the significantly scarier one. they have not had a reason to be scary in a good couple hundred years! don't make them start now.
has 2 adopted kids w/ cheese parm they raise.
PANKRATIAST [ cheese parm ]
The Pankration is a sport of unarmed combat that featured in the ancient Olympic Games in Greece. This specific association fits as he's specifically an unarmed fighter first and foremost.
While not a disciple, is considered one generally in 'importance' to the higher ups of the cult. While he is no more important than Gallows, Othera, Minced Meat, or any other average member- he has the veteran's respect.
Was given a name by the Lamb, and since he does not speak, it's not like he can correct anyone otherwise.
well. doesn't talk. only ever communicates in vague grunts and noises that voice displeasure or a neutral 'ok'
Generally considered stoic, he does not feel strongly about most things.
The village executioner. The head missionary. Bartender. Does all the jobs no one else wants to do, and even others when no one else does it.
Smells of gore & wet dog constantly.
Knows. Remembers. Knows why death is broken, knows how it broke, will not tell Lamb or Narinder. He is a Witness.
Knows all the weaponry the Lamb uses & can use it just as effectively on a physical level.
The first of the flock. Will be there even when there is no more flock to have. As it will ever be, pinkie promised back in the Silk Cradle back where he was first found.
ILONA [ taco bell qsdea ]
a specialist in alchemy, cooking, & plants. Tends to the farms, gardens, & warding stones.
The first of the cult members Narinder warmed up to directly after descension. They brought him food every day, they gave him supplies, and other than the Lamb- they were the first to not be terrified of him.
They are very blind and often need a guide when they are not allowed to use their clicks and noises to find the way.
They are immune to Gallows' tricks and run off of the 'fae logic' of most things.
Their name means 'joy'. A name they decided on after speaking to Narinder for a time.
The first cult members recruited directly after Narinder's descension.
Immune to the horrors Somehow. There is something hiding behind those big ol eyes
Can fly. They have wings attached to their arms, and for it, require special clothes.
will be involved a lot in narinder plots
MINCED MEAT [ childbirth gambino ]
head cook but kind of as a threat. the lamb put them there for a reason. they are pretty mid.
constantly paranoid and in a state of fear or unease. Does not sleep because of it, and instead compulsively cooks almost all day and night.
most random screeches or noises in the cult come from this little guy
absolutely scared shitless of the Lamb.
The first Dissenter since the Lamb's ascension. They were made an example of. Now they will never. They have seen god's wrath, and would rather die.
narinder likes to bully this thing by hissing at him in the night
attached to beansnesed'd bsbisebies hip when in the chapel or out and about.
the prime example of 'the lamb is not a good person.'
ALOPE [ deep dish pizza ]
cheese parm's little sister. and borderline clone. she copies everything he's done up until adulthood when she started to become her own person. though it's been hundreds, if not thousands of years, she's still trying to figure out who she is.
made a pinkie promise to the lamb, just like cheese parm, to always be there. and she has!
ripped as fuck. like, more than cheese parm. huge. absolute beast thing.
the lamb prevented a fated death in her, the first time he ever did so, and for it her title is technically 'Saint Alope' within the cult for being the act of a miracle.
like her brother, never speaks vocally, never shows her face. gets across feelings through vague grunts. uses sign language where cheese parm does not.
the fastest in the cult. rivals narinder in base speed without using necklaces or unnatural abilities.
uses two ritual dirks or daggers at any given point, throwing knives, things of that sort. protects the village next to cheese parm, and you'll never hear her coming. totally, absolutely silent.
190 notes · View notes
kennahjune · 5 months
Text
the moment mike accepted steve into the party
he didn’t get it. what was so good about steve harrington?
yeah, he was good looking and strong. but other than that? nothing. in mike’s eyes, he was still the asshole rando that dated his sister. and he didn’t plan on that changing.
until march of 1985.
mike had been held back after class for falling asleep. it wasn’t his fault. he couldn’t ever sleep unless someone else was with him. and there was no way in hell he was gonna cuddle with nancy. besides, he was good at the class— so no need to pay attention really.
at least miss noelle didn’t call his mom.
dustin, lucas, and will were waiting for him in the hall. oh, and max, cause she was actually kind of cool.
“what was up with miss noelle?” lucas asked as they walked down the hall.
“pissed i fell asleep in class,” mike said dejectedly. max snorted from beside him.
“maybe just don’t fall asleep?” she asked rhetorically.
mike huffed and flipped her off. “you sound like my dad.”
dustin shuddered from his other side. “ew. not cool man.”
mike rolled his eyes. “it’s true! my dads always like ‘just don’t this’ and ‘just don’t do that’ instead of actually helping! It’s so annoying.”
will came up and bumped arms with him while they finally left the school. classes were done and they were finally left to do what they wanted.
“uh oh.” came from lucas. mike sighed, catching sight of what— or who— lucas was “uh oh-ing” about.
“just don’t look at them,” max said under her breath while she averted her eyes to the ground.
“that never works,” retorted lucas.
“you have any better ideas? just keep walking.”
great. the one day nancy or jonathan aren’t picking them up and they run into noah and joey.
in 1983, el had gotten troy and james to back off— even scaring them into moving. but el’s not here right now, so she can’t help with noah and joey— the party’s most recent tormentors.
will stepped closer to mike and mike nudged his hand with his. everyone pulled in closer to each other in hopes of concealing themselves and the others. of course, it didn’t work.
“hey hey! look man, it’s the circus!” mike saw noah nudge joey beside him.
“shit,” dustin cursed.
and ‘shit’ was right. no one wanted to deal with noah and joey. especially with the mood mike was currently in after being held up.
“seriously what hell is it, tanner?” mike addressed noah directly.
joey whistled lowly and took a sharp step forward. will and dustin both flinched pretty hard. max gave a twitch but lucas and mike held their ground for the most part. noah and joey got a kick laughing at dustin and will.
“awwww they’re scared, joey! like a bunch of babies!”
mike forgot how stupid kids sound most of the time. they could call him a baby all they wanted— nothing will ever compare to watching will get possessed and then watching bob die.
mike still reached out and grabbed someone’s hand. he thinks it was lucas’.
joey and noah were both a good bit taller than mike, which meant they were also a good bit taller than everyone else in the party. they liked to use their height to their advantage but mike had dealt with monsters twice his height. it wasn’t scary, just annoying at this point.
still didn’t help the fact that they didn’t want to deal with this.
mike had zoned out, because next thing he knew he was being shoved to the ground. it probably wouldn’t have hurt too bad if they weren’t outside in the parking lot. mike felt his chin bust on the pavement in a sickening repeat of ‘83 with troy and james.
will was there in a second with dustin, helping him up off the ground and dusting him off. dustin held his hands while Will held his face, frantic over the now gushing blood that he could feel running down his neck. he was trembling. why was he trembling?
he faintly heard yelling and assumed lucas and max were arguing with joey and noah.
“just fuck off, murphy!” he heard max yell at joey. “we’ve literally done nothing to either of you and yet you make us hate our fucking lives!”
“aww, noah, she thinks we actually care! isn’t that cute?”
mike stood up with the help up dustin and will. but that only served to turn noah and joey’s attention onto him. well. better on him than on max.
“so whatcha gonna do, wheeler? gonna push me like troy? gonna wimp out and go cry to mommy and daddy?”
mike actually considered pushing joey. but that’d probably just make thing worse. if el hadn’t been there last year to save his ass from troy mike would’ve gotten pummeled.
but it was a serious option he considered.
dustin stepped in front of mike and shoved joey back. mike didn’t even realize how close he’d gotten. wow. he was really out of it today, huh?
“back off murphy.”
mike wanted to hug dustin, but at the same time he wanted to smack him upside the head for putting himself in the way. it’s easier when they target mike. just let them target him. he doesn’t care at this point.
dustin stayed arguing with joey and stopped only when there were multiple shouts from max, will and lucas.
noah had pulled max’s hair and in return was shoved to the ground by lucas. but noah had taken will down with him and now will struggled with lucas and max to get noah off.
mike saw red, and in a moments notice had noah off of will and on the ground. he was vaguely aware of dustin and max cheering him on with dustin and will watching.
it didn’t last very long until noah shoved mike hard enough that he fell backwards and busted his head on the ground. again.
at this point he was working himself towards a concussion. just like steve, he thought deliriously. and speak of the devil.
“aye!”
mike, dustin, lucas, will, and max all looked up, startled by the familiar voice and claps.
“what the fuck are you shits doing, huh?”
steve fucking harrington was suddenly right next to mike on the ground, kneeling and helping him sit up.
“shit, you ok mike? that’s a nasty scrape you got there. i have bandaids in the car, let’s go get you one, yeah?”
mike just nodded. he really wanted to know what the fuck steve was doing there and why he seemed to intent on helping.
“who the fuck are you?”
steve stood with mike halfway to the car, the rest of the group following, mike noticed. joey and noah stood idly in the parking lot, seeming put out by steve’s sudden appearance.
steve’s eye twitched and mike watched him bite the inside of his cheek. mike watched in real time as steve recognized joey and noah and seemed to piece together exactly what happened. he scoffed. not what mike was expecting.
steve gently nudged mike towards the car and knocked his knuckles on dustin’s hat. “you kids go get in the car. max you can toss your board in the trunk.”
dustin seemed to want to protest but even he could see how pissed steve was. even max was keeping quiet. lucas and will were quick to follow instructions and headed to the car. mike was right behind them.
lucas tried the back door (knowing mike got shotgun for the bandaids and possible concussion) but the handle only wiggled. “locked.”
“did he give one of you the keys?” asked will.
they all shook their heads. they didn’t have to wait long until steve was back with them at the car.
“why aren’t you guys in the car yet?”
“locked.” informed will.
“ohhhh. oops.” steve unlocked the car and helped max put her skate board in the trunk. when he hopped into the drivers side dustin and lucas were hounding him with questions.
“why are you here?”
“I thought we were walking home?”
“what the hell was that?”
“what did you do to noah and joey?”
“settle down and shut up, would you? nancy mentioned you guys were walking home so I came to grab you. you’d think that after everything they’d be a little more cautious. and also, language, henderson. I am so not taking the blame when you end up slipping in front of your mom.”
“awww you were worried steve.” max teased.
steve scoffed. “‘course I was, red. and it turned out I had every right to be. anybody wanna explain what that was?”
suddenly the car was quiet.
steve clicked his tongue.
“fine. guess you’re all coming to my house, huh?”
there was a sudden uproar in questions and “what the hell?”s.
“listen! i’m not letting any of you shits go home until I one; know for sure mike doesn’t have a concussion—“ steve eyed mike and he felt himself flinch. “—and two; before I get the whole story.”
there was a bunch of grumbling from the backseat, but mike himself stayed quiet throughout the rest of the ride.
“oh! and mike—“ mike looked at steve briefly and barely caught the box of tissues tossed at him. “—put that on the scrape for now, yeah? I’ll clean it properly when we get to the house.”
mike nodded and held a wad of tissues to his chin.
when they pulled up to the harrington house, everyone was inside quickly. everyone went to use the phone in the living room to call their parents and when mike went to follow he was grabbed gently on the shoulder.
“can you head to the kitchen and grab out the med-kit? I need to make sure they don’t drive my bill up.”
mike knew it was meant to be used as a distraction. but he’d take it. so he headed to the kitchen before realizing he didn’t know where the med-kit was. he rifled around in the cabinets for a bit before finding it stored away under the sink.
mike pulled it out and waited at the kitchen island. he noticed that it was a pretty heavy kit. and it seemed to be used a lot judging by the lack of dust and how it had a couple of bandages peeking from the crease.
everyone piled into the kitchen, book bags dumped in the living room and shoes discarded by the door. will sat on a stool next to mike and dustin and max hopped on the counter. lucas took a seat on the other side of mike.
“ooookay. ah! there it is.” steve opened the kit and grabbed out a brown bottle and a few cotton balls. mike noted how he seemed to know where everything in the med-kit was as if he used it on a daily. he filed the information away for later.
“what’s that supposed to be?” mike eyed the bottle with weariness.
“just peroxide. it’s meant to clean the cut. I know for a fact that that parking lot is fucking filthy and I’m not risking an infection due to gunk in the wound.”
steve put a cotton ball to the open top of the bottle and tipped the bottle over. “i’m not going to lie and say it doesn’t hurt, cause it does sting a bit. but it also definitely helps in the long run.” steve held up the cotton ball as if in question.
mike nodded and looked up, giving steve more room to see the scrape. mike gripped will’s hand and hissed when the cotton ball first dabbed, but the pain soon subsided.
“now this part isn’t too fun either but it’s kind of needed. how attached to that shirt are you?”
mike looked down at that faded, off-white with blue stripes shirt he was wearing. “not very. why?”
“ok, good. this won’t ruin the shirt but you might have to change is all i’m saying. I need to pour the peroxide directly on the scrape to clean it out properly. “
(I know that hydrogen peroxide actually tends to damage tissue and delay healing but they didn’t really know that in the 80s so bare with me.)
mike shuddered at the thought. “I don’t have clothes to change into.”
“I have an extra shirt in my bag.” offered lucas. “I had gym today.” he clarified when he got off looks.
“that’d be perfect, thanks sinclair.”
lucas jumped up to get the shirt and came back in with a white t-shirt with red sleeves. he set it on the counter for afterwards. lucas wordlessly took mike’s hand that will wasn’t holding.
it wasn’t long before the scrape was clean and steve was putting away the kit. while everyone else ran into the living room to watch movies and raid steve’s snacks, mike took the shirt and went to the bathroom to change.
when he came back out (after looking at the funny bandage on his chin— because seriously, what kind 17 year old just had dinosaur bandaids in their med-kit?) mike was quick to join everyone in the living room before steve could pull him aside again.
honestly? fuck that guy.
(but when mike sat between will and max on the couch he couldn’t stop thinking about how soft steve was when taking care of the scrape. he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about how old he was when he last felt that gentleness.
the answer was 7. mike was 7 when his mom deemed him old enough to deal with his own cuts and bruises.)
steve eventually held out on his promise of getting information. and after their first movie he forced them all onto the couches while he stood in front of them.
“so am I actually going to get an answer this time?” he stood with his hands on his hips and a dish towel thrown over his shoulder. mike remembered this same stance from not even a year ago, when they were trying to talk him into going in the tunnels.
steve almost reminded mike of his mom for a moment. but mike doubted his mom would go this far if she ever found out about the bullying. (mike refused to admit that he liked the idea of steve fretting over them like this. the idea made him almost sick to his stomach.)
everyone refused to look at him. max looked dead ahead at the wall, lucas kept his eyes trained on the floor, will was messing with his jacket sleeves and dustin was paying extra attention to the ceiling.
mike chewed the inside of his cheek.
“what the hell do you wanna hear from us, steve?” he asked. “that we’re being bullied? that they picked a fight with us first? that we’re nerds and freaks and weirdos?”
will, dustin and lucas flinched with each insult. max refused to look at anything other than what mike assumed was the odd spot on the wall. mike saw steve’s left eye twitch— the one he was always getting punched in.
“that what they told you?”
mike scoffed. “that’s what everyone told us. we’re the school circus!” his voice raised at the end and will flinched violently next to him.
“mike..” dustin uttered from beside max.
“sorry.” he mumbled, finally letting his gaze drop from steve to the coffee table in front of them.
steve sighed quietly.
“noah tanner and joey murphy, right? they both have older siblings, noah an older brother and joey an older sister.”
that made head snap to him.
“what—“ lucas started.
“mitchel tanner and annie murphy are their names. mitch is on the swim team, annie on the cheer team. they’re both barely passing their classes and aren’t exactly the kindest either— in fact I watched mitch shove freshman into a door yesterday.” steve continued, his voice soft as if he was simply talking to himself.
dustin’s and lucas’ jaws were on the floor, max and will were looking at him as if he were insane.
“so— wait—“
“you know their older siblings?”
“what the hell does that have to do with anything?”
steve smirked. and mike was /scared/. he’d seen steve smirk before, when he was dating nancy, when he said something particularly bitchy.
but this. this smirk was plain /mean/.
“would be a real shame if.. I dunno, their coaches suddenly find out about the poor sophomores they make do their homework. or worse— principal higgins finds out. who are mitch and annie gonna blame then, huh?”
dustin sputtered, “you! they’d just blame you, wouldn’t they?”
steve shrugged. “sure. but then they’d know why I did it. their brothers fucking with my kids.”
he said it so calmly. as if it was just the plain truth. as if he wasn’t scared to admit it.
if this is how he’s treated, being of steve’s “kids”, then shit. he may not be all that mad after all.
steve pulled the towel off his shoulder and walked back into the kitchen, a call over his shoulder about ham and cheese sliders and chips for dinner.
but none of the kids were listening.
lucas turned dustin who turned to max who turned to mike who turned to will who looked back at all of them with the biggest grin mike’s ever seen on his face.
ok. so maybe mike gets the hype the steve harrington.
(and if the next week of school went by with no issues, with noah and joey looking at them in /fear/? well. mike had steve to thank.)
230 notes · View notes
healmydesires · 11 months
Text
I wanna hear you say my name (j.m)
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pairing: joel miller x fem!reader
summary: Your shower is still broken and you’re on your period, leaving you a frustrated mess. Thankfully, Joel is here to help you out, in more ways than one.
word count: 5,1k
genre: fluff + smut (kinda filthy idk) (mdni 18+)
tags/warnings: pretty new relationship but the feelings are established, age gap (reader is in her late 20’s, joel is in his early 50’s), soft!joel, dom/sub dynamics, soft!dom joel, sub!reader, menstrual mentions, menstruation, period sex, piv sex, vaginal fingering, multiple orgasms, creampie, shower sex, some breeding kink, overstimulation, size kink, praise kink, lots of pet names… like an insane amount.
a/n: the title is inspired by the song touching by v. cartier. I reeeaaally recommend that song, it’s so good. I’m literally obsessed with his music. tbh all of my fic titles are lyrics from my fave songs. anyways!! this is direct part two of / same universe as “forever in your eyes”. obviously you can read it on its own but it has some details from the other fic. another self indulgent piece… always wanted to write about period sex 😭 anyways I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I hope you enjoy it <3
ao3
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The soft knock on your door has you groaning, struggling to roll from the spot on your couch you’d occupied for most of the time since you’d arrived home from patrol. Your mood is heavy as you wonder who would have the audacity to disturb you while you are finally in a position you are comfortable in. You’re feeling quite literally exhausted and in so much pain. You feel like your uterus has been constantly kicked in. There’s nothing more frustrating than having your period. At least it feels like it’s the most frustrating thing in the world right now.
As you take a peek in the peephole of your door you see your grumpy but soft neighbour — that is also since recently your boyfriend, standing on your front porch. The man that you’ve been in love with for months.
“Joel!” You croon excitedly as you open your door for him. Without hesitation, your arms automatically wrap around his chest and your body flings itself into his as he steps into your home.
“Good evening to you too,” He chuckles warmly at your display of affection. He dotes a soft kiss against the crown of your head, his broad body enveloping you in a tight hug as he wraps his arms around you. “You’re so cuddly tonight.” He smiles down at you as he tries to release his strong hold on you to get a better look at you. A loud whiny, wordless protest leaves your lips as he tries to let you go, complaining as he shifts away from your tight hug.
“I’m sorry, it’s that time of the month.” You mumble before borrowing your head into his chest again. He hums as your arms grip against his waist, diving under the soft fabric of his flannel, refusing to let him budge an inch away from you. “Besides, what’s wrong with hugging the man I love?”
“Nothin’ wrong with it. Just an observation.” He chuckles as his hands come to cradle your head, then pressing soft kisses to your forehead. Butterflies erupt in your tummy at his affection. Joel knows you well enough to know there’s more going on. “What’s wrong baby?”
“I hate that I can’t take a shower because the shower head is still broken and I feel dirty right now. I have been using my sister's bathroom for a week now and I hate that I always have to come disturb her.” You groan as you continue to hide your face in his chest, heat rising up in your face at your embarrassment.
“Sweetheart, look at me.” He asks softly, as he shifts his body slightly from yours. Slowly you look up into his eyes as your bottom lip pouts outwards. He chuckles as he shakes his head amusedly at your expression. His palm comes to lace over the curve of your jaw, thumb rubbing over the pouty twist of your lips. “How about this? You come to my place, use my bathroom, maybe stay the night and I’ll come fix your shower tomorrow? That way you’ll feel a bit better tonight.”
“Okay, I’d love that.” You nod slowly as you bite your bottom lip with a shy smile, loosening your grip on his body. “I do need to get some stuff first though.”
“Alright darlin’, go get everything you need. I’ll be here waiting for you.” He winks at you, making you heat up with warmth before you sprint upstairs.
—-
His arms are cradling you softly, your back pressing into him and your head falling lovingly against his chest as you’re being held in his bed. His hands shift to the front of your stomach, palm expanding to rub lovingly over your belly in an attempt to soothe your pain. Just having him with you is somehow easing the grumpiness you’d been feeling all day. The warmth and tenderness of his embrace makes you feel a lot more relaxed.
“Thank you… I’m happy that I’m here.” You advise with a timid smile as you move your head to look at him, letting him know how truly joyful you felt when he came to check up on you. “I am grateful to have you.”
“Anythin’ for my sweet girl.” He whispers before he presses soft kisses to your temple. His head tilts lower, the curve of his lips coming to rest against your ear. “I’d do anything for ya.”
His fingers slip lower, caressing your pelvis, his touch becoming a bit more intimate. Your cheeks heat up at the action, leaving you a bit flustered at his touch. Despite everything, despite the fact that you wanted to cuddle a bit before heading in the shower, the hormones are acting up. His touch feels heavenly to you.
Your hands move to grip his, interlacing your fingers together, squeezing them.
“Joel… we can’t.” You whisper, your breath hitching. You slowly turn around in his hold, looking at him bashfully. “I mean… I do want to. I just. It’s like there’s a crime scene between my legs.”
“Hmm… doesn’t mean much to me.” He mumbles before his lips move to your jaw, nipping and kissing at the skin. A whine leaves your lips as he litters your skin with his affection. “Besides, I once read somewhere that period sex often relieves the pain.”
“Really?” You whisper under your breath. You feel your body flush at the implication of his words. His hands move back towards your tummy, his thick fingers trace lightly against the hem of your jogger shorts once more. Your hips rise as a little whimper leaves your lips. Soothingly he massages your pelvis, providing you a lot of warmth and comfort.
“Really.” He murmurs as his lips move against your neck, kissing the delicate skin.
“B-but it’s gross, and it’s all bloody and—” you say, stuttering over your words as he sucks a mark onto your neck, trying to tell him that it might not be an enjoyable experience for him.
“Baby, I ain’t afraid of a little blood.” He groans as he moves his head slightly away from yours, looking into your eyes directly. “Whatever you need, I’ll give it to you.”
“You don’t think it’s gross?” You whisper timidly, you bite your bottom lip as you look at him.
He shrugs with a smile. “Why would I think it’s gross?”
“I-I don’t know. I mean it’s bloody so…”
“It’s not gross to me at all, I promise.” He smiles reassuringly before leaning down and capturing your lips in a sweet kiss. As you’re both kissing languidly, his hands are still busy tracing your lower tummy, eventually slipping underneath the band of your sweat shorts. His lips make their way down to your ear, nipping at your earlobe as you whine against him. Automatically you feel your body relax, slumping against his bed as you allow him a lot more access to the flesh of your neck. He responds by drawing his lips slowly down the expanse of your neck, sending a shiver down your spine.
The things you’d let him do to you.
“Joel,” The hitch in your breath has him chuckling, the rumble of his voice transcending through your skin.
“What?” He whispers, his words so quiet you barely hear them against the pulse of your neck. Joel could read your body like no one else — could push exactly what buttons he needed to create the reactions that he wanted from you. Your relationship is still quite new, yet he knows you so well. He waits patiently as you try to find ways to tell him what you need, his lips skimming lower towards your collarbone as his fingers caress your pelvis over your underwear.
“S-shower, please.” You finally give in with a whine, kind of admitting to him that you want this.
“Anythin’ for my baby girl.” He whispers as he kisses the soft skin of your neck. Slowly both of you move off the bed, his tall and broad frame is close to you, as he guides you towards his adjacent bathroom.
You almost trip over the doorway, a giggle leaving your lips as Joel’s arms come to wrap around you. “What are you doing sweetheart?” He chuckles as you slowly spin in his arms as laughter continues to bubble inside you before your head falls to his chest. His arms tighten their hold on you as he places a soft kiss to your forehead.
“I almost tripped,” you giggle, eyes moving towards his beautiful face, taking in his scruffy beard, eventually your eyes lead to his lips. As soon as your eyes meet again, he leans down, capturing your lips in a loving and sweet kiss.
His mouth moves, slow and passionate. Joel kisses you like he has all the time in the world. You love the feel of his lips on yours, you are certain you could kiss that man all day.
You part your lips slightly to catch your breath, inhaling slowly as you taste Joel and only him. His tongue sweeps across your lips making you whimper. The wet muscle wraps itself against yours a moment later, hot and wet and steady as he tastes your mouth and kisses you deeply.
Your tongues slowly swirl and dance against each other as your hands try to find purchase on his arms. You feel your core clench around nothing and become even more wet as both of his hands travel from your waist to your ass, squeezing it in his hands and pushing your body closer to his.
Just when you think you can’t take it anymore, Joel pulls away, giving you the possibility to breathe in some air again. You feel like you might die when he looks at you intensely as he licks his lips.
A small moan slips past your lips as his hands caress your cheek, then tilting it to the side as Joel moves his head as he traces small nips across your jawline, ending just by your ear. Your hips are softly grinding up into his and he slowly pulls away from you.
You feel drowsy and hot all over, your mind all over the place, your heart beating insanely fast. You’re breathless and Joel chuckles deeply as he takes in your state.
“You okay baby?” He says as he looks at you with amusement.
You quickly come back to your senses, grabbing the collar of his flannel, surprising him, bringing his lips down to your mouth. “I want to undress you,” you whisper against Joel’s lips as your cheeks flush with heat. He moans against your mouth as his hands grip your hips in his hands.
Automatically, your fingers reach up to begin their work undressing him, plucking each button open, one by one. They dart over the curve of his chest, your hands continue to move as you expose more of his body. By the time his shirt is fully off, you pull back from his lips, taking joy in watching the broad and the softness of his torso heaving as his breathing quickens.
Your hands continue to roam over his skin, skipping over the tanned smoothness of his muscle. His physique was broad, soft in the right places. His body was absolutely something that drew you in — he was so big and just so tall, something you enjoyed revealing in, allowing his form to spark a certain energy inside you that you felt heating up between your legs.
“Turn the shower on.” He grunts, voice low as his thick and long digits begin to hastily pry the belt buckle of his pants open. Without question, you obey, moving from his embrace to walk across the room to the shower stall. As you step away, your departure earns you a light, playful slap across your ass, to which you yelp in surprise.
“Joel!” You scold him, as you look at him shyly, looking at him backwards. His pants drop with a clang to the ground. His shirt is still half open as he lets you admire him. Your gaze moves slowly, all over his body. Eventually it falls to his dark boxers, his thick erection straining against the material.
He senses your approval, as you look at him lustfully while you appreciate him, and acts quickly. Shifting forward, his arms wrap around you, bare upper body flush against your clothed one. His arms are firm, as they surround you, hugging you against his chest.
“Why am I the only one that’s practically naked?” He questions with a low grunt. Before you can respond his hands are tugging at the hem of your shirt, peeling it over your head. Once the material drops to the floor you hear his breath hitch. He admires you, as his eyes roam over your bare chest.
You bite your lip as heat overwhelms your face. “J-joel—” You whimper loudly and before your brain can register what’s happening, Joel drags his tongue across your neck, tracing a line around your jaw before returning to the crook and lightly dragging the flesh through his teeth. You feel your core clench around nothing as he latches onto your neck, lapping at your sensitive flesh and sucking the sensitive skin.
Joel groans against you and you feel his sound vibrate through your neck and it raises goosebumps across your whole body, he has a way of bringing that electric chill through you. Slowly, his mouth moves back up to your lips, kissing you deeply.
He undresses you unhurriedly, while you both continue to kiss each other passionately. Joel seems determined to devour you whole, determined to make the most of this desperate kiss.
Once the last piece of clothing falls to the floor, he pulls away slightly as his hands caress the length of your arms, admiring your body with a lustful yet tender gaze. Silently, you pray that Joel hadn’t seen the attached thick pad, despite knowing the stark red marks of blood stood out against the white pad attached to the inside of your underwear.
“You’re so, so beautiful baby.” He says as he moves his hands to your face, cupping your cheeks, tilting your chin as his lips ghost against yours. He slowly glides his lips against yours, nudging them open. You part your lips wider, urging him to kiss you more and deep. You want to give him everything you have to offer.
You whine against his lips as you feel his hands move from your face to your waist, all the way to your ass. You pull away slowly, his pupils are dilated as he licks his lips before he squeezes the flesh of your ass in his hands.
“F-f-fuck, Joel…” you whimper as you pull yourself away from his hold completely. “We should get in…”
He stares you down hungrily for a moment before his gaze drifts to the shower. “Good idea, sweet girl.” He says cheekily.
You quickly step into the shower with one foot and reach for the shower handle, turning the shower on. Immediately, water shoots from the shower head mounted to the wall, the spray wetting your arm.
“Alright, that’s done.” You say with a joyful smile, before you feel his hands around your waist again, as he leans down to kiss your neck.
You giggle at his affection, loving the feeling of being wanted. Once the water heats up, you step into the shower completely, you sigh contentedly as the water cascades down on you, the warmth already relaxing your muscles. You turn to face the water, closing your eyes as you let it run off the back of your scalp, your hands coming up to rub over your face.
Soon, you feel the front of his body against your back. His erection presses against your lower back as you whimper against him. Joel’s hands are sliding against your hips, pulling you impossibly closer to his body. You can feel your breath growing shaky as you respond to his movements, turning your body around in his embrace. Your arms encircling his back, your body leaning towards his.
His eyes catch your gaze before they close, as he moves you backwards as the spray of water falls on him. Almost instantly, his broad body is glistening wet, his hair getting soaked against his head. His arms are strong and thick as he reaches up to slick it back. The gentle movement of him flexing his forearm ignites a surge of pleasure jolting through your core. He moves his hands back to your hips, holding you closer as he opens his eyes unhurriedly.
Your arms automatically wrap around Joel again, his wet skin warm and inviting as your body slicks against his. You lean up, your lips moving towards his own.
He gladly meets your lips halfway, as you’re standing on the tip of your toes. Joel kisses you slowly, teasingly, like he has all the time in the world, his hands squeezing your hips, pressing his own hips against yours as he finally deepens the kiss. You gasp as his hands knead your ass, giving him the opportunity to slide his tongue inside your mouth.
“You’re truly the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.” Joel murmurs against your lips. His own lips become more and more eager as he backs you slowly against the shower wall. You hiss slightly as the cold wall hits your back but the uneasiness is short lived as Joel tucks his face into your neck, his lips pressing soft open mouthed kisses below your ear. “The woman of my dreams.”
“Joel…” You mewl as he shifts his hips back slightly, causing his throbbing cock to move from its position of pressing hard against your lower stomach. He bends his knees slightly, bringing him down a bit as his tip slides against your thighs, prodding its way between them before travelling upwards to rub enticingly against your clit.
He rolls his hips forward, nudging the head against your entrance, turning you into a whimpering mess. You feel yourself clenching around nothing as your pussy begs for attention. Glancing down, you see a smeared streak of red down half of his shaft. It is so wet and red. If Joel had seen it he doesn’t seem to care. Joel reaches up to grasp the detachable shower head. His free hand runs down your body, as he caresses your soft skin.
Joel’s hand brings the shower head between your legs, standing back slightly as the water sprays from your pussy, as a rusty brown river flows towards the drain. The warmth of the water as the sprays hit against your core feel so good, it has you whining at the pleasure. It stimulates your sensitive pussy so well. You lean into him, his broad frame envelopes you instantly in a tender embrace. One of his forearms remains steady between your thighs, as the water pulses against you.
His lips meet yours in a heated kiss. You feel so overwhelmed, your heart hammering against your chest as you roll your hips against the strong pulses. You moan as he slowly moves his head to kiss and nip at your jaw.
His eyelids hang low as he watches you, his eyes concentrated on each roll of your hips, each grind of your pussy against the stream. Your body trembles the closer he moves the shower head against you, feeling so close to your release, you try to move your hips along with it more. You’re a whimpering mess for him against the cold tile wall. One of his hands dig in your hips, guiding your body the second he notices you slowing down. Turning the shower stream setting to another, harder setting, as he moves it against your dripping centre, specifically your sensitive clit, does it — makes you double over as you cum.
Your head leans against his chest, as you try to catch your breath and try to tone down your little noises of pleasure while you slow down your movements against the water pulses. One of his hands slides over your back as his arm pulls you closer against him while he pulls the shower head back with the other.
“You did so well for me baby girl.” He whispers against your skin as he presses a soft kiss against your forehead. The water flows back against your bodies, as you both stand underneath the stream. His mouth moves from your forehead down to your lips. The kiss starts off gentle and tender, but soon evolves into something more passionate and deep. He brings your body impossibly closer to his, and you can’t seem to quite catch your breath.
You open your mouth to swipe your wet muscle against his lips, Joel’s lips slowly opening up for you to slip your tongue inside. Your tongues dance against each other slowly, his taste is so delicious, making you whine against his lips.
His hands travel from your back, all the way down to your waist, his hands occasionally squeezing your flesh. One of his hands slips all the way down to your wet heat in between your legs, while the other is holding your body close to his. All the while he’s kissing you deeply. You whimper when his fingers pass by your sensitive bundle of nerves.
His fingers slide up and down your slit, slowly spreading your outer lips for him to slip two of his fingers inside you. You cry out as he rubs his fingers against your walls. You feel your body trembling and you try to grind your pussy slowly against his fingers. He presses his palm against your clit as he gradually picks up the pace of his hand.
Your legs almost give out on you at the pressure against your clit combined with his fingers playing with your sensitive spot inside. You’re a mess of his name, you chant his name over and over again. Eyes are squeezing shut to the point of tears as you continue to grind and buck your hips against his hand. He steadies you with his other hand as he smiles against your lips. He swirls his tongue against yours as you mewl against his mouth. Your thighs tremble so hard as your noises start to become more high pitched. You feel quite literally so dizzy as he keeps pleasuring you under the warm stream.
“Come on kitten, come for me.” He groans against your mouth.
You slowly open your eyes, meeting his playful eyes as you pull your mouth from his to cry out loud as your hips stutter against his hand as you come undone. You tighten and untighten around his fingers as you ride out your high. After a while he slips his fingers out of you, chuckling lightly while you whine as you slump against his body. Both of his hands catch your body and he smiles softly down at you.
“Always doin’ so good for me. Such a good girl.” He whispers as his mouth moves to kiss your neck. He peppers and licks your skin as you continue to tremble against him.
“P-please Joel… need you so bad.” You whimper desperately, needing him so badly to just take you. To enter your tight pussy with his thick and long cock. You whine as his lips move to yours, catching your lips in a scorching kiss, the loss of him leaving you empty and craving.
Joel lifts one of your legs up, hiking it up around his hips as he keeps you close. A gasp leaves your lips and you move to press your forehead against his as you breathe heavily. The other hand moves to slip his length against your wet heat. You tremble and whine as you anticipate his next move.
“Ah, Joel… I love you.” Your lips embrace him once again, kissing him deeply. As your hips shift desperately forward, driven by your need to have him enter you, they roll directly against his tip as he slips the head of his cock finally inside your little pussy. You let out a long broken whine as he continues to push gradually more of him inside you. Your walls try to accommodate his girth as he moves deeper inside your tight, wet walls.
“Fuck, I love you too sweetheart.” He groans softly.
Once he’s fully inside you, you whimper against his lips. It feels so good, the feel of the fullness of his member, his raw and throbbing cock deep within your walls. You feel one of his hands finding one of your hands, lacing them with yours and he presses it against the wall as the other one holds your leg, keeping it secure around his hip.
“You okay?” He whispers as he checks up on you.
You smile as you nod, “Y-yeah, just give me a moment.”
“Anythin’ for you baby girl.” He leans up to kiss your forehead as your eyes drift close.
You feel yourself slowly adjusting to his size, your pussy still pulsing around his cock. You bite your lip as you continue to squeeze around him, your eyes slide open unhurriedly meeting his intense gaze.
“Please, p-please move.” You whine out pathetically.
He nods quietly and starts by fucking you slow and deep. His hips drive forward, moving through you before drawing his tip out completely. He repeats himself, so slowly, and with intention. It feels as if he is taking his time to enjoy the sensation.
He grunts as he drops his head to your ear to kiss and lick at the sensitive skin there and to whisper sweet nothings as he sets a pace.
“More, more—” You mumble, whining and he makes a loud noise — a noise somewhere between pained, and desperate, he only nods before he picks up the pace, the pressure building between your hips once again.
You hug him against your body as his both arms come to brace himself against the cold tile wall. The sound of skin slapping against wet skin, his hips hitting yours coupled with both your quiet moans and the wet squelching of him moving hard and fast inside you, echoing off the tile walls with the sound of the running water — has your cheeks heating up furiously.
He fills you up so perfectly, stretching your tight wet hole so well, he feels like pure heaven.
“Fuck, kitten you feel so good…” He breathes heavily, grunting here and there as he continues to fuck you harder. A particular hard thrust coupled with one of his fingers moving to press against your little nub has you gasping for air. The presence of his thumb flickers over the sensitive bundle of nerves, swollen and juicy with your arousal.
You whine as you feel the leg that’s hiked up around his hip, sliding off his body. Your fingers dig in the skin of his back making him groan. He quickly moves his hand to grab your leg again, keeping it in place as he picks up his pace once again.
“Fuck, I’ll never get used to fucking this sweet little pussy of yours. All raw.” He grunts as he moves his hips with deep and fast strokes. “All mine.”
Your pussy continues to clench repeatedly around his thickness, begging for him to fill you up with his cum. You whimper, whine and moan against him while your body trembles, his fingers still circling your clit with his other hand as he hums against your mouth.
“I can feel you milking my cock, baby girl. Begging for me to make us cum.” Joel’s hips stutter slightly as you clench particularly hard around him, feeling every ridge and vein. His intense gaze is on you as he moans loudly. “Your pussy is so wet, feels so fuckin’ good.”
“J-Joel, baby, want to cum so bad.” You beg as you whine against him, your nails digging in the skin of his back once again. “I want you to cum inside me so bad.”
“Cum for me, my pretty baby. Show me that I’m the only one who can make you cum like this. Cum all over me, sweet girl.” He whispers with a groan as his fingers apply more pressure on your clit.
“Fuuuuck, Joooeel—” You come with a loud cry, your body squirming against his as you hold his body closer to yours, your nails digging in his back, scratching it. This orgasm feels more intense than the others, feeling so overwhelmed by the pleasure you’re feeling.
It takes only a few more seconds — his pace increasing, the sound of skin slamming against skin filling the room, the room and him smelling like pure sex. As he stutters, hips shifting erratically into you, you feel the first hot spurt of his cum bursting into you, painting your inner walls. You look up as Joel looks completely fucked out as he continues to cum inside you. Your walls squeeze hard around him as pleasure continues to course through you, milking every last drop of his cum.
You feel both of your bodies slump against one another, as one of his arms moves to support himself against the wall while his other hand is still holding your leg up around his hip.
Eventually, as both of you are able to catch your breaths, he slowly moves to put your trembling leg back down after pulling out of you gently. You whine at the loss and he chuckles lightly at your reaction. As soon as he’s completely out of you, the sticky liquid begins to dribble out of you, creamy and thick oozing out of your heat. Joel supports your shaking body as he wraps his arms around you, embracing you tenderly.
“Fuck, baby… that was amazing.” You whisper as he presses kisses against the crown of your head.
“You know I’d do anythin’ for you darlin’. Besides, I loved it just as much.” He winks, looking at you as he moves his body away from yours slightly.
Once both of you are cleaned up, you both head downstairs in comfortable clothing. Joel moves to the kitchen, making your favourite meal to make you even more relaxed. You sigh happily as you lean the front of your body against his back, wrapping your arms around him. He hums softly as you embrace him, appreciating your affection.
“Thank you.” You mumble against his shirt.
“Anytime sweetheart.”
For a while, you stay like this, enjoying each other’s warmth and company as he makes dinner. Feeling so loved and at home. You’ll never get tired of loving Joel.
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nilsavatar · 7 months
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DAY 2 - EATING OUT
Parings: Ao'nung x Fem!human
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Genre/Warnings: NSFW/MDNI, no use of Y/N, SMUT in the end, fingering, praising, size difference, soft-dom Ao'nung, fluff Ao'nung, oral (f receiving), slow-burn, ANGST, mention of KirixSpider. All characters are AGED-UP.
Summary: After Kiri's seizure, against all odds Jake convinces Ronal and Tonowari to agree to the temporary setup of a human camp at Awa'atlu. Ao'nung is against it, but meeting Spider's twin sister will change his mind about the aliens. Or at least about her.
Word Count: 6,6k
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In the eyes of any Na'vi, human beings knew nothing but destruction. They killed, they plundered, they looted, they stole.
Ao'nung was no exception, despite never having had a chance to meet one. His opinions were based on tales — far from flattering —, testimonies from the not-too-distant past, and the tulkun carcasses moored offshore. A single precise hole pierced their palate to the brain. Too precise to be an accidental wound. Therefore, when his parents agreed for a temporary lab to be set up near Awa'atlu following Kiri's seizure, Ao'nung fiercely opposed it. Never had he leveraged his title as he did that day.
"I appreciate your stance, ma‘itan (son), but you are not yet olo'eyktan. Until then, you will do as you are told."
He might have done as he was ordered, but that did not imply that he would become familiar with the ketuwong (aliens). Or so he believed. One thing about humans still eluded him. Something that would systematically dismantle all his beliefs.
Their immense complexity. Capable of atrocious cruelties, harbored in them also an incredible goodness. A combination of oxymorons made up the intricate human nature. Malice and kindness. Destructiveness and creativity. Cowardice and tenacity. Ignorance and intelligence.
Hatred and love.
Even the lowliest creature, as that who’d usurped and appropriated his world as if they had the authority, had beauty. He saw it in how they dealt with Kiri and the kind smiles they looked at Lo’ak from afar. They seemed to empathize with his discomfort and the feeling of being different, as they were just as out of place as he was on Eywa'eveng (Pandora). Even in the sympathetic or unaffected strains with which they accepted the coldness and suspicion of the natives. Neytiri included.
When contemplating the woman, the boy frequently pondered the reason for the intense hostility; after all, her husband was formally one of them. He knew their story though, as everyone on Pandora. His father himself was a constant reminder of it by the almost inexplicable condescension he reserved for the Sullys.  The legendary Toruk Makto and Palulukan Makto. The chosen ones who led the clans to victory against the Sky People. The same ones who now walked among the reef people with their tails between their legs. Quite literally.
He experienced firsthand the feeling of being a letdown and living in the constant shadow of a flawless sibling.
Tsireya. His sweet little sister, the family's ray of sunshine, was both loved and hated by him. At times, he found comfort in the idea that, if she did not exist, perhaps their parents would be less strict with him.
Na'vi and Terrestrials weren’t so different after all. The same conflicting feelings coexisted in their hearts. The same inconsistency. Like loving an alien in an artificial body, but abhorring his origins. And now that he had a way to deal with them every day, even if from a distance, he realized more and more how much they had in common. At first glance, they might have seemed absolutely diverse. Humans were so small in comparison, so vulnerable. A simple, well-aimed kick could have shattered their fragile bones. They looked delicate, their skin velvety soft. Women at least, from what little he had deduced observing the only human girl on the island. 
Celeste Socorro.
Besides her small size and complete unsuitability to survive on the satellite, her colors were all wrong and seemed to lack uniformity with other specimens of her species. A commonality, it appeared. Their hair varied between disparate shades, their complexions tended to be warm and earthy, and there was no trace of blue excluding the irises of some of them. Celeste wasn’t one of those, though. Her eyes were black; a sun-dried bark brown color made it challenging to distinguish the pupil unless carefully scrutinized. Straw-blond strands, often gathered in a loose ponytail, ran halfway down her back. A few unruly wisps fell to the edges of her mask. Like other humans, she had a sense of modesty that he couldn’t get. Her body was almost entirely veiled by clothing, which didn’t compliment her frame.
Another reason for calling her odd was he couldn't explain why he was interested in her. He should have felt disgust, or at least indifference, but instead, none of this seemed to shake him when his eyes rested on her petite figure. Indeed, he had even found himself looking for her in the crowd. It usually took place at times of maximum distraction. When none of his duties could occupy his day and he loitered around the village. Thoughts wandered, confused until they took the form of the girl. He was frequently bombarded by reality itself. As if to shout in his face that he could not elude her.
Today was no exception. Irritated as never by Celeste's visage intruding on his mind to pay attention to where his heavy legs were taking him, her voice infiltrated his ears. Looking around, Ao'nung realized he was right near the Sullys’ marui. Inside, Kiri was styling Celeste’s hair, while the girl held in her small hands a monitor depicting a scan of Kiri's brain — something he had learned in that brief time in contact with the aliens. From the way the halfbreed rolled her eyes, she was familiar with her friend’s rather authoritative recommendations. 
He had a certain fascination with tawtute (human) contraptions, despite having a fictional feel to native eyes. They were the preserve of a technological development aimed at minimizing the fate of their physical weakness.  He somehow admired their perseverance, their intellectual flare, their nearly utopian idea of progress, but at the expense of what? They had lost any kind of attachment to their intimate and spiritual sphere, chasing answers that did nothing but create new questions and new quests. That same progress that had been born with good intentions to improve their conditions, to help, to save, had repeatedly set them against each other. Because, apparently, the instinct of prevarication and the lure of power were stronger than anything else. Devoid of unified purpose, they were nothing more than a dull shell of flesh.
An incredibly cute wrapper if they had asked his opinion about the human girl without an avatar.
“Even though I know he isn’t our father, he has his memory. He’s built on his genetic code. I can’t help but wonder if a side of him loves us. If he loved our mother.” The silence that had fallen was suffocating when she spoke again. “It seemed like it when he recognized us. The way he looked at us. He wasn’t just surprised; his eyes were the same Jake has for you. He had the eyes of a father, even if it lasted only for a moment. Spider and his mouth,” she mumbled in a bitter laugh. “That’s the only way I can keep my wits, knowing that my brother is in his hands.” 
Brother, he didn’t know she had a brother. But thinking about it, he made a brief connection to the human boy the Sully siblings often mentioned, and everything became tremendously obvious. Ao'nung wondered about the number of others who shared their situation. Terrestrial children born on Pandora. Normally, that would have made his skin crawl, but not today. Not as he eyed Celeste.
“We'll set him free," Kiri said with the sweetest of smiles adorning her face in a purple blush. Her gaze lost in emptiness as expert fingers danced over the fragile scalp of the girl sitting in front of her, intent on sorting the top section of her hair into soft braids and joining them in a single one. The remaining locks fell in graceful waves over her shoulders and around the small of her waist. Celeste snorted sourly, "When? When will your father decide to stop burying his head in the sand?" Her friend’s hands froze as she winced at the viciousness of those words, at the suffering that flowed from the rigidity of her posture. Her expression, once infused with tender hopefulness, now radiated immense sadness. Kiri knew deep in her heart that her parents would do nothing to take Spider back. Neytiri despised them as humans and Jake… Well, Jake felt pity for the Socorro twins, he saw himself in them. Having them around was like reliving the half-life he had before he became Omatikaya. A feeling for which he would give anything to never have to face it again, to bury it along with his past. Because, in a way, he felt like he had stolen the serenity he now had. From Tsu'tey. From Grace.
From Tommy.
They’d all lost their life for him to gain something instead. He’d gained a home, a mate, a family. Enough for him to no longer be invulnerable. If once he had nothing to lose, now he had everything to lose. He would do anything, make any gesture to safeguard what was his greatest strength, but above all, his greatest weakness.
Even sacrifice an innocent kid.
"Cel-" “No, don’t make up excuses for them. Don't insult me by saying they're waiting for the perfect moment to rescue him. They ain't gonna do that. As long as Quaritch doesn’t pull enough strings to force your parents out, no one will do anything.” Celeste’s eyes burned like glowing embers as she stared into Kiri’s liquid amber ones. Sorry to bring this up. I hoped our reunion would be better. The joy of seeing you again, my BFF, my sis, lingered with me. But… you bailed on us and left us to face the RDA alone.  The Omatikaya are standing up to defend the rainforest. The Timpani are their allies now, and the Tawkami are helping with the injured. All this while you were here checking out the sights, learning the way of a new clan. But, as soon as you needed us, you remembered the ones you left to die.” Kiri knew her friend was right to be resentful, to feel wronged, that her heart was bleeding in terror over her brother’s plight, but now she was being unfair. ”Did you think we asked for this? Hiding among strangers? We lost everything. Our home, our people, our status. We don’t belong anywhere, we just have ourselves.”
However distorted by the mask, Celeste’s expression was all too eloquent. She knew way too well what it felt like to be at the extremes of a stray cat. “It’s always about you, huh? But we're talking about Spider here. Quit whining about how much you miss him, moony-eyed whenever you talk about him. When Neytiri decided to leave him behind, you didn’t fight back. You didn't protest when Jake said it was too risky to go back for him.” “Why did you?” “With Neteyam holding me back! A fully grown male Na’vi clutching a small human girl as if I were a viperwolf puppy? What could I have done? Tell me.” Kiri couldn’t answer. “Exactly. Nothing. I am powerless before you.” The tawtute woman stood up toward the entrance furiously, but just as she was about to cross the threshold, she turned one last time to implant her shining, weeping eyes on her dear friend. It's scary to think what they're doing to him. They’re probably brainwashing him with nonsense. The more he stays with them, the more they drive him away from us. Spider's heart is tough, but we Sky People can be corrupted in a jiffy. Especially when they know how to get under our skin and give us a sense of belonging. When on the other side, they have our father.” “Nash and Mary are your parents. Norm, Max. We are your family!” “This is right if you leverage on logic. But let's be real, when has logic ever worked?” A heavy sigh lightened her lungs. “Sorry if I’m dumping it all on you. You have nothin’ to do with it, you have no fault except lovin’ him as much as I do.”
Maybe even more.
“It’s just—.” The tremor in her voice prevented her from finishing the sentence, but the meaning was painfully clear. Celeste was worried about Spider. She was terrified. “We lost him. Even if he manages to come back to us, he will never be what he used to be.”
Perhaps following her hadn't been the smartest choice. They hardly knew each other, and this sudden concern of his was undoubtedly misplaced. Why would she, a human, want to open up to him, of all people? The Metkayina prince, who had never had the courtesy to hide his dislike for her people. Who had never reserved a kind word for the Sullys, let alone for an abandoned little human girl like her.
There was the risk she would misinterpret his intentions — Lo’ak had warned her about him. At worst, she would take him for a creep. But he just couldn't help himself. The way she had come out of the marui, the scowl on her face, plain to see despite the stark reflection of the sun on her mask, and her hunched shoulders. Everything about her, whether it was her warm smile as she played with Tuk, the dedication with which she analyzed every new thing that came her way. Even the misery that filled those intense dark eyes, now flickering with tears, drew him in.
Celeste sat on the seashore. The heavy combat boots, which seemed to have seen better days, had been tossed to her right side as now the waves' soothing motion caressed her feet. Her toes fiddled with the sand while her gaze wandered to the horizon. The gentle breeze from the ocean tousled her half-leaved braids, dragging with it the distant calls of animals.
Ao’nung stood dumbfounded behind a palm tree, trying to gather the courage to approach her. What could he have said to her? It’s not like he could just show up and sit next to her, engaging in who knows what sort of conversation. Up to that point, they had hardly spoken to each other, leaving out forms of convenience. The guy wasn’t Lo’ak or Neteyam. He wasn’t someone familiar enough to even just sit beside her in silence, for his presence would be comforting to her. Nor did he own that innate coolness and likability Rotxo had. Maybe it would be the girl herself who would come to him.
“Don't bother taunting me now that there's no audience. I'm not in the mood for your immaturity.”
Well, roughly. At least it could be considered an icebreaker.
“I don’t plan on messing with you.” "Stalking must be a habit of yours, then.” That had taken him by surprise. He was convinced she hadn't noticed, but the girl had read right through him. She was more receptive and aware of her surroundings than he imagined. And to say that Ao'nung had even been careful to cover his tracks. “I remind you I grew up in the middle of the forest. It’s called mere survival,” she stated as if she had read his mind. “You’re just an open book,” confusion painted on his face (he didn’t know what a book was), “You’re very expressive, it’s easy to catch what you’re thinking.”  “Is that so?” commented in a whisper as he took a seat to her left. “It explains a lot of things.” “If you’re not here to torment me, what brings you here?”. “We started off on the wrong foot.” “That’s an understatement.” “I expected Lo’ak to tell you about how I behaved when they arrived. About the incident at Three Brother Rocks.” “Another euphemism. Anyway, I didn’t need to be updated on the hard time he had here with all of you. I was prepared for what was going to happen. I don’t blame you, you know? Probably if the roles were reversed, we humans would have done the same thing. It’s only natural to fear the difference, especially when they have done little to show their good side. But if you’re trying to apologize, it’s not me you have to ask.” “If it’s all right with you, I would simply like to sit here. We don’t have to talk.” She sketched a smile. “Something tells me that even if I told you I’d rather be alone, you’d still stay.” Ao’nung seemed to weigh his next words, although an eloquent smirk was making its way onto his lips already. “This is still my island. No one can tell me to leave.” “The island of your clan.” “Indeed.” “The Metkayina have so many islands, I’m sure the next chief can go wherever he wishes.” “I suppose so, but this future chief wishes to be here,” he deftly twisted her words, a hint of sarcasm dirtying his voice. “Of all the territories of my people, this beach is my favorite. It’s secluded, hardly anyone ever comes here. It’s not a suitable spot for fishing, perfect if you’re looking for solitude and a place to empty your mind.” “It’s your safe haven, then. My bad if I took it from you, I didn’t mean to.” She made to leave, but Ao’nung stopped her. The grip on her hand was incredibly light, cautious, almost caring. “I don’t mind sharing it with you.”
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“Despite growing up among you, I am always surprised how different the concept of personal space is between humans and Na’vi.” “Are we intrusive?” he chuckled. “You touch quite a bit! Especially the hair,” she gave him an elusive smile. “To braid each other’s hair is a way of strengthening bonds. We take care of one other.” “On Earth, we call it grooming. it’s a socialization technique.” “What I said.” Celeste was careful to add that specialists used this term to describe behaviors observed in the animal kingdom. Although they also fall under it, people dislike to be compared to animals, and the Na’vi were no exception.
Styling her hair had become a routine since they had established that uncanny friendship. If it could be called that. Celeste wouldn’t have been sure where to place it, really. So many were the unspoken things between them. Talks that couldn’t be addressed without prodding the touchy attitude of one or the other. She felt a strange sensation in her stomach from the occasional intense glances. As if her insides were all of a sudden twisting around, tearing her breath away.
Although they had not put up posters, it was pretty obvious that Celeste was getting close to someone local. People began asking questions. 
As if catching them together frequently wasn’t already a blatant response.
So many minor details that make up a bigger picture. Starting with the very braids and nacre pearls that adorned the girl’s hair, in a style that differed altogether from Omatikaya customs. And ending with the perpetual jubilation that seemed to have taken the place of severity over Ao’nung’s face. This one aspect clearly demonstrated that something was happening between them.  The attitudinal shift was way too remarkable. He was no longer so grumpy or difficult to deal with. He now seemed to have grown accustomed to the human presence in the village, even paying daily visits to the lab, driven by curiosity and eagerness to learn. His interactions with Sky People were nearly quotidian, so much so that he had adopted some English terms into his linguistic repertoire. A language he was picking up incredibly fast and had become common ground with the Sully siblings. They had yet to reach a point where they could call each other friends, but it was a step in the right direction. Who knew it would take the influence of a tawtute girl for them to establish a truce.
In any case, this had not been enough for Neteyam and Lo’ak to stop keeping an eye on her, still weirded out by that unexpected connection with such an asshole — somebody who seemed to show his genuine side only to her. They didn’t trust him fully, although he had shown he respected her and was the sole one able to bring a sincere smile back to her beautiful face.
They were her brothers after all. Their duty was to protect her.
As the man traced an intricate weave of braids starting at the crown of her head and extending a little further back anchored by bright blue beads from Nom’s Delight, Celeste didn’t miss the opportunity to tease him. “You’re better than I thought at this,” she said, observing the effort he was putting into it through a hand mirror. “When you have a sister, you are forced to learn.” “You’re the one who makes her look so fabulous with those hairstyles. I thought was your mother doing.” “She would like to, but she’s got no time. So...” “You act like it bugs you, but deep down you love doing it for her.” No response other than a resounding snort and an eye roll that did not escape the mirror. “it’s nice. It’s your way of showing her your love.” “I guess we all end up succumbing to our sisters in one way or another.” She chuckled, “I assume so.” A sudden veil of sadness darkened her eyes, although the shadow of an affectionate smile lingered on her rosy lips.
“And... how are things? Got used to the reef yet? You have met no one like us before.” The sudden change of subject served as a clear distraction from thinking about Spider. But, however poorly, it succeeded as an attempt, Celeste was still grateful to him. “To be honest, I saw pictures of you. I already had an idea of what you looked like. Yet seeing you in person is a whole other thing.” She was staring at him. “May I?” she asked, extending her hand toward the stake on his arm. Celeste was surprised at the hard but flexible texture. She had imagined it cartilaginous, but there was clearly a muscular structure underneath the fin-like membrane. She traced the entire outline of the excrescence. From the elbow to the wrist and then along the back of the hand where the pinky finger started, which appeared far more robust than the Na’vi of the forests. Like the rest of their frame. Taking advantage of her own petite figure, the girl wedged herself under his arm so she could analyze his back muscles. Defined and prominent, they followed the line of a chunkier ribcage.  If the Omatikaya sternum had always seemed pronounced, the Metkayina’s was bulky.
Ao’nung trembled under the imperceptible touch of her fingers as they came down to graze the base of his solid tail, and he blushed. A violet-pinkish tint colored his nose and cheekbones, making the azure of his eyes even more vivid. He had to hold his breath as he turned just enough to hide his face.  In vain. “I’m sorry. I went too far. It’s a susceptible spot, isn’t it?” "It's all good," he shrugged and shook his head. "Hey, fun fact, humans used to have tails," she said with a chuckle and a hint of guilt. As if it were an attempt to make it up to him. “Well, it wasn’t really a “tail” per se. It was more of an appendage. 25 million years ago, this mutation happened. It left only a handful of caudal vertebrae to form the coccyx.” Ao’nung stared at her raptly. Although he didn’t understand a significant part of what she said (too many specific English terms were mixed in with the Na’vi), it fascinated him to hear her talk about such distant and complicated topics. “Believe it or not, we have a small tail when we're embryos that eventually merges with our spine.” “I can’t picture you with a tail.” ”Me neither. A human with a tail,” she laughed. “I’ve heard of rare cases of babies being born with a tiny stump, but it is removed.” The boy scratched his throat, another slight blush clouding his cheeks. “Which one do you like best?” “Hmm?” The way she tilted her head doubtfully was tremendously adorable. “Which kind of tail do you prefer? Ours or the forest people’s?” The girl took her chin between her teeny tiny fingers. “Actually, never crossed my mind. I didn’t really consider how it looks, just how well it adapts to the environment. You Na’vi are built differently than us humans, with a physical differentiation that we do not have. Nor do other species that lived on Earth, as far as I know, with rare exceptions.”
Like dogs, she restrained herself from saying that. Celeste supposed he wouldn’t like being compared to a pet, in scientific terms or not. "But if I had to pick, I guess yours is more unique. To the forest natives I am used to, though, so…” The answer he received did not meet his expectations, yet it sufficed for Ao'nung's pride. In its own way, it was equivalent to being told he was better looking than Lo’ak or Neteyam. Or whatever other male there was in the Omatikaya clan.
“Want to check out anything else? Dunno, the stripes or the nictitating membrane. But I gotta submerge my head for that one or it won’t come out.” He said the last sentence in a pensive tone. “There is one thing I would like to look at. That's not really a physical trait, it's more of a cultural thing.” “What is it?” “Your tattoo.”  Not waiting for an answer, she took his arm between both hands, running her gaze over the elaborate tribal pattern that dyed much of his arm black. From the wrist to the deltoid, and a small portion of the trapezius and pectoral. Segments, waves, and stick figures that showed achievement, status, and social position. Each addition was a rite of passage, a goal attained, and his role in the clan. The art of tattooing was a widespread practice. All tattoos were considered a gift from both Eywa and the clan. They were unique and told the story of the individual’s life. In particular, arm tattoos represented the more exposed protective shield of the seawall, meant to protect the Metkayina from dangerous wildlife lurking within their oceans. Thus a hunter, a warrior, somebody strong who could provide for the clan. "This one's more pigmented," Celeste noted. “It’s recent. It symbolizes the secure embrace of the central island. Someday, I'm gonna be the olo'eyktan. I'll be responsible for looking after my people, both inside and out, keeping them safe and leading them.” Absentmindedly, she traced the outlines of the design imprinted at hip level and outlining the pelvis, causing him a shiver that she pretended to ignore.
“You know, how I learned about Metkayina is kinda funny.” The sentence sounded totally random, but it still aroused his interest. The Socorro twins weren’t the sole human children born on Pandora; others had preceded them during the first colonization attempt. They were the fruit of unlikely loves and irrepressible passions that took place on sleepless nights at headquarters. Where the risk of accidental death and the fear that they had not really lived took over, silencing all appropriate doubts. All those children were grown up enough to survive cryo, unlike Spider and Celeste. But although they had left Pandora, a trace of them remained.; a legacy from when the base still communicated regularly with planet Earth. Cartoons. Of them all, the little girl’s favorite was the Little Mermaid. A veritable obsession, Spider and Lo’ak would complain, earning a tugged smile from Neteyam and a frown from the child herself, for, from that moment on, legends about mermaids became her main interest.
“It is uncertain they exist, but here on Pandora there is a sea folk who are close to them.”
"As foolish as it may sounds, when I was growing up I wanted to find one.” Ao'nung let out an amused snort. “Silly, isn't it? They are an Earth legend, it's impossible to find them here on Pandora. Yet, the thing I wanted most in the world was to see one. Even if only from a distance. When Jake would take us to play near the coast, I would always stare out to sea, hoping to catch a glint of the sun bouncing off the scales. After all, what could have been more extraordinary than a fish-tailed human who could breathe underwater. It gave me an inexplicable sense of freedom, hope. I guess I wanted to be one of them to escape the reality of being born in the most inhospitable place possible for my species. A child who belonged to nothing and no one, confined behind a mask. You know, it was right around that time that I first heard about you. From Norm." "Norm?" "The scientist I came here with." The boy's lips drew a silent O. "Norm showed me documents about you, explaining your communion with the sea. How your bodies had adapted to swimming and apnea.”
"Like mermaids!" She commented ecstatically, with childlike wonder in her big brown eyes. Norm laughed, "Something like that.”
"I think you are the closest thing to a siren. Or a sea monster." He attempted with a sly expression to which the man replied with a smile and a quick shake of his head."From the way you describe them, there are female specimens." "On no, there are also tritons, their male counterparts. They just aren't mentioned often in fairy tales. In the past on Earth, role diversification was very pronounced between men and women. The latter were discriminated against to the point that they weren’t allowed so many things, including traveling by sea. Women aboard ships were said to bring bad luck." Ao'nung's disgusted expression said a lot about his opinion on the subject, Humans really are that stupid. Yet, he didn’t utter a word, preferring to keep listening. "Since legend has it that the people of the sea feed on human flesh-and the only seafaring people at that time were men-they were described as women of rare beauty and a bewitching voice. By singing they hypnotized sailors who, dragged underwater, drowned."
"You tawtute have interesting stories," he said dangerously close to her face in a melodious voice. "Sorry to disappoint you, but my legs do not turn into fishtails in the water, and my voice has no such power," he smiled cunningly, and Celeste was tempted to deny that last statement. "I do confirm, though, that I have a taste for human flesh. I could eat you in one mouthful."
Her heart lost a beat. The allussiveness at the bottom of his eyes made them a very dark shade, of the usual vibrant blue there was hardly a trace left. Ao'nung wanted her. Here and now. On that same beach that 
had been more often than she could count witness to their growing closeness. More than she wanted to admit. She would be lying if she claimed not to have noticed how the Na'vi looked at her, with a fondeness she was not used to. How his hands rested that extra moment on her. Perfect reflections of the behavior she also displayed toward him, unable to restrain herself. That candor was disarming though, totally unsuspected.
They weren’t just friends, that was evident by now.
But as she searched for something to say that was not unintelligible babble, he did something even more surprising. Gently he pulled Celeste onto his lap, with one hand encircling her back, and the other tilting her neck back just enough to bring her face close to his. And slowly, without ever looking away, he rested his forehead against the glass of the mask. He closed his eyes, inhaled and finally placed his lips against the surface. Parochial in the face, at first the girl did not know what to do, yet a little encouragement — Ao'nung's fingers pressing a little more on the nape of her neck — was enough to induce her to approach the glass. It was weird to describe what she felt. Despite the barrier, on the other side she felt the pressure of Ao'nung's kiss, his lips molding against the smooth surface.
Their first kiss. Just as strange as them.
She sensed him smiling against her lips as he returned the kiss. He sank his face into her neck and, for a long moment, the two just breathed, reveling in each other's warmth. After the gentle start, her fingers slid over his ankle and up his calf, then over the knee that brushed against his pelvis. Certain that no one would find them there, what was left of Celeste's clothes scattered across the sand. Believe it or not, Ao’nung was the sweetest man in the world in bed, cuddling her by whispering sweet nothings in her ear. Their bodies rocked together as they listened to the creaking of palm trees and the rustle of the sea sliding against the shoreline. And she melted in his strong arms, malleable as clay. There was something indescribable in the mischief that shone through his eyes, soon replaced by impatience as he laid her on the ground. Celeste shivered as he positioned himself between her legs. The coils of her stomach tensed as he brought her shins to the sides of his head and anchored himself to her thighs. It was very tender and affectionate the way he caressed her, "Don't hide from me." Slowly she opened her legs, allowing a glimpse of the folds, wet and glistening. She yearned so much for him to touch her, but even without speaking Ao'nung had already noticed, staring at her through impossibly black eyelashes. He slipped two fingers into his mouth, smeared them with saliva, and brought them back down to slide over her clitoris. Without warning he peeled back the fabric and pushed them inside, swirling them upward, and she gasped. He removed his fingers only to put them back in her mouth and swirled his tongue around to taste some of her flavors. He kept his eyes on her as he emitted a little mumbling around his phalanges, his 
smile was salacious, "Tasty." She was about to say his name when he lifted that last flap of fiber between them and purred. A small smile pressed against his knee pleased by such surrender. He kissed him softly, languidly, but when he dragged. his lips over her inner thigh, his voice was dangerously excited, "You don't know how long I've been waiting for this." She was breathing heavily, absolutely humiliated to be there, with her legs spread apart and her vulva squished in the face of the raven-haired man who seemed so eager to have that perfect face splattered with her. On the beach to boot. Ao'nung leaned forward, arms firmly hooked at her knees to block her movements, "Let me know when you're about to come," for a handful of fleeting seconds she let her heavenly smile return. He watched her features, savoring every single expression as she turned into a disaster of sobs and gasps, "I want to eat you.” Jaws teasing the elastic skin, tongue titillating her clitoris, phalanges rhythmically violating her, reveling in the way her heels tapped on his massive shoulders, how her back arched in unnatural poses. As his fingers churned in circular motions to stimulate that much sought-after spongy pad, she felt mounting inside her the nagging sensation of having to go to the bathroom, just at that crucial moment. She tightened her pelvic muscles. "A-ao'nung... s-stop… I have to p—" "It's squirt," quivered the man's voice, one corner of his mouth lifted higher than the other, staring at her so haughtily, so victoriously, "Relax, let go," he hissed.
"N-no, please, I'm not comfortable." "Making people uncomfortable is what I do best." He wanted a show. That sentence seemed to cast a spell on her, because with another hit, she felt something thicken in her pit, she clung to the boy's hair, "I can't hold it anymore!" The man lifted his fingers and, before she could lament the loss, replaced them with the tip of his tongue. His wet fingertips held her widened opening, diving between her thighs to devour her in a way that made her gasp and tug at her dark locks, "God, Nung... I'm going to...," escaped her by closing her knees around his head. Ao'nung growled upon hearing that new nickname as he lapped at every crevice between her walls. The tip of his nose brushed against her spongy nub continually, but only when he moaned did he decide to gather it between his lips, sucking it greedily; the same with which he moistened them when the spray hit him. The final stimulation he needed to climax. "At last," he exclaimed panting as he ravenously cleansed her. She felt the viscosity of her own arousal sticking in her inner-thigh where Ao'nung's moist cheeks brushed against her. She was stunned, breathless and exhausted as he rolled onto his back and laid Celeste on his chest. A proud smile colored his face. He stroked her chin, relieved to look him straight in the eye, those sharp, criminal eyes, and haphazardly dusted the grains of sand from her hair and later from her body.
Blissing in the warmth of the sun, the tenderness of his embrace, and the comfort of his heart, Celeste snuggled against his chest, closed her eyelids, and dozed off. A soft smile adorned her lips.
In Ao'nung's arms, she was finally home.
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For the tattoo description I took inspiration from this AMAZING picture, created by the indescribably talented @cinetrix
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Special thanks to @pandoraslxna for the prompt!
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