#here's a thing i wrote
Text
Fandom: Shadow & Bone (TV)
word count: 5,415
Whumpee: Kaz Brekker
Whump tropes: explosion, human shield, self sacrifice, burns, touch aversion, unconscious, caretaking
This is my longest fic to date and frankly there could be more. This is unbeta'd cause I was too excited to get it posted to wait for anyone else to read it 😅
Gifting this to @bocularteletheric because of our shared love of Kaz whump, please enjoy ❤
Read on Ao3 or continue below~
~~~
"Are you really sure this is the best use of our time, boss? I was rather hoping to be keeping warm with a drink and a rousing conversation over a hand of cards this evening," Jesper griped for the third time.
Kaz sighed as he used the head of his cane to lift the top of a crate, glowering into it as he surveyed its contents- or lack thereof for that matter. It was the eighth crate he had opened on this particular venture and nothing of interest to show for it. The first five were partially full with various items, none of which were of any use to them. The rest of them were empty, nothing but dirt and grime from the sloppy mud road that led to the compound that the barn sat upon, nestled deep in the forest outside of the city.
“The source I have is reliable, they said it should be here,” Kaz snapped out, letting the lid drop with a hollow thud. Dust puffed around him, tiny particles glinting in the moonlight coming in through the gaps in the wide slats of the barn wall, shooting beams across the otherwise unlit building. The moon was full and bright tonight, the use of a lantern unnecessary for getting around except for deep in the shadows.
“And what, pray tell, did they mean by ‘it’? What are we even looking for?” Jesper turned, throwing his hands in the air.
Kaz turned and shot him a piercing glare, his brow downturned in annoyance. “You’ll know it when you see it, okay? Trust me on this.”
Jesper dropped his hands, his shoulders slouching forward as he threw his head back. “Where did Inej go anyways?”
“Checking the house and smaller out buildings. Shouldn’t be long before she joins us.”
“We’re going to be here all night, aren’t we?”
“We’re here as long as it takes.”
“Fine. But the next three rounds at the club are on your coin.” Jesper snapped his gloved fingers and pointed at Kaz, cocking his head and raising an eyebrow, his expression clear that this wasn’t a negotiable option.
“So be it. Check the crates in the loft would you?”
“Always gotta send someone else to the precarious heights and dangerous situations, don’t you?”
Kaz turned to him, giving a pointed look to the ladder as he tapped the corvid head of the cane against his chest.
“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Jesper took a step back as he started to turn towards the ladder.
The world seemed to focus into a pinprick for Kaz as Jesper turned, a glint of silver flashing near his ankles caught his eye as Jesper moved through the moonlight.
“Jesper, wait!” Kaz yelled, lunging forward to grab the collar of Jespers coat, snatching him backwards before he could finish his step. He heard a faint ping as the tripwire popped apart, the scraping of metal, or was that flint on steel? He wasn’t sure, but he definitely knew the sound that followed, the crackle of burning gunpowder sputtering across the floor. He didn’t spare time to see how much time they had or where the line of powder led, instead he used the momentum of his yank on Jespers coat, propelling the gunslinger around and then shoving him forward in the other direction, away from the general direction of the gunpowder and towards the door.
Jesper stumbled, barely able to put his feet in the right order to catch himself with the way Kaz was throwing him around. He finally caught himself and took off running, feeling like he was dragging Kaz with him as the thief kept a tight grip on his jacket collar.
Kaz knew they weren’t going to make it. He could hear the violent reaction of the gunpowder snapping across the floor become muffled as it reached its destination. They weren’t going to make it. But he could do his best to make sure someone got out of here.
He lunged forward, tackling Jesper around his torso, forcing him to fall forwards so he crumpled under Kaz's weight. One hand around Jespers waist and the other over his head so he couldn’t raise it, Kaz spread himself over the gunslinger just as the world exploded behind them.
Searing pain ripped through the back of his shoulders, the force of the explosion threw him even further and his head slammed into a support pillar of the barn.
Everything went black and he knew no more.
~~~
Everything hurt.
Jesper groaned as he regained awareness. He didn’t think he had been out for long, maybe a few seconds, but the impact had been harsh. His whole body ached, squeezed into a tight ball as he was. His knees were pressed to his chest, one arm trapped underneath him where he was flopped onto his side. He could feel a weight against nearly every angle of his body, wrapped around him like a warm and heavy blanket.
A warm breath ghosted against his neck and he tried to open his eyes, wincing as he attempted to uncurl his legs. The muscles protested but he managed to push himself to his knees. He hadn’t even realized the weight on the back of his head was a hand until it flopped to the floor, limp and wrapped in black leather.
“Kaz?” Jesper coughed as smoke made its way into his lungs, cast off from the flames licking at the rubble of the barn around them. The support beam in front of them still stood and a section of the mezzanine from above had nearly fallen on them, half of it held up by the beam so they were tucked under a dangerous lean-to. He tried to clear his throat but only managed to inhale more smoke, his eyes starting to burn as well. “Kaz, are you okay?”
He received no response to his query. He twisted around, searching for where he had felt Kaz slip off of him when he moved. He found Kaz was slumped on his side, his face lax and pale in the flickering light of the fire around them save for a shadow down the left side of his face, a shiny and dark crimson smear that started at his hairline and followed the angles of his face. Blood.
“Kaz, wake up. We gotta get out of here,” Jesper coughed again. He placed a hand under Kaz’s head, lifting his face towards him. “Kaz!” He yelled as loud as smoke infested lungs would allow, shaking him gently with no reaction.
“Alright then,” he huffed, shuffling around in the tight space so he could get behind Kaz, “You’re probably going to hate this, but let it be known that I tried to wake you up and I don’t exactly have another option, asides from leaving you here and that is not happening-”
The words died in his throat and fear bubbled up as he caught sight of Kaz’s back. His jacket was smouldering in places, flames dancing across the fine material in others. Jesper frantically tore his own jacket off and threw it over the flames, hastily slapping it down to smother the fire. He held it there for a few seconds, gasping for breath until he felt sure it would be extinguished. He cautiously removed his coat. His throat tightened and he had to clap a hand over his mouth as the contents of his stomach threatened to reappear. “Oh saints, Kaz…”
Most of the back of Kaz’s coat was gone, as were chunks of his vest and shirt, the fact he wore so many layers might have actually saved him for the most part but not enough. Wherever the clothing had burnt away were angry burns pocked with wounds that weeped blood around pieces of shrapnel buried in his flesh.
Jesper clenched his eyes shut and tried to control his breathing, he could feel his hands starting to shake and that wouldn’t help either of them right now. Lifting Kaz in any way that touched his back was out of the question so he shuffled around to his front again, grabbing his wrist instead and hauling him into a seated position, ducking his head under Kaz’s arm against his side and shouldering him in the stomach to drape the limp body across both shoulders, holding on tight to his arm and leg to keep him from falling off.
“Thank saints you’re even lighter than you look,” he huffed as he got his feet under him, snatching Kaz’s cane from the floor before carefully standing up.
It took time to get out, awkward as it was carrying a body over his shoulders while picking his way through rubble and fire. He was trying to inhale as little as possible, trying to keep the smoke out of his lungs, which just made them burn even worse.
He barely made it out of the front door when the mezzanine collapsed, a burst of sparks showering around them as Jesper stumbled. He caught himself on one knee, unwilling to let go of Kaz as he tottered dangerously. Just when he thought he would lose the battle with gravity and they would both tumble to the dirt, a hand caught him around the chest, keeping him upright.
“Jesper!” Inej was right in front of him, he had to squint to see her. His eyes burned but he couldn’t let go of Kaz to wipe them.
“His back,” Jesper managed to cough out, “be careful with his back.”
“Okay, put him down, I got him.”
He felt the weight on his shoulder shift and held on tighter, panicking for a second before realizing Inej had snaked her arm under Kaz’s chest to help get him on the ground again. Once his burden was gone Jesper fell forward, catching himself on his elbows as he coughed hard enough to gag into the dirt. Every breath he managed to drag in felt like gravel in his throat, rattling through his spasming chest.
When the coughing started to abate and he managed more wheezing breaths between fits, he felt gentle hands on his back and he rested his forehead against his arm. He managed to gasp out “Kaz…”
“He is alive but in bad shape, we need to get him to a healer.”
He nodded before pushing himself back to his knees, turning so he was next to Kaz again. Inej had managed to get him on his side so his back wasn’t touching anything. Jesper avoided looking at the mess that was his back, instead focusing on his face. He was dirty with soot and blood, and a shock of hair had fallen forward onto his face, obscuring the wound and brushing against his cheek. Jesper pushed it back and rubbed his thumb over Kaz’s forehead, frowning at the lack of reaction the contact received. It was so unnatural to see his brow smooth and relaxed, unburdened by troubles.
Inej’s hand touched his elbow and he suddenly turned to her, grasping her shoulder as he inspected her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, I was in the other building.” She cleared her throat and turned her eyes down to Kaz, but Jesper could see her eyes were red. She had already thought them dead, which a look at the flaming pile of barn behind them would have been a reasonable conclusion to come to.
“We’re going to be okay,” he said. “He’s going to be okay.” He squeezed her shoulder once before letting go and pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll find the cart.”
It took him precious minutes to find the horses and the cart tied to them, spooked as they were by the violence of the explosion. He calmed them, shushing them quietly with gentle strokes. They trembled under his hands, he didn’t blame them at all because he could feel his own hands starting to shake again too. “Calm, calm. Shhhh.” He whispered, though whether he was talking just to the horses or himself too was up for debate.
By the time he managed to lead the horses back towards where he left Inej and Kaz, Inej was back on her feet, looking like she was about to come searching for him.
“They were spooked.” He said in explanation and she nodded in response, already getting into position to assist. Between the two of them, they got Kaz into the back of the simple wooden cart that they had driven out and within minutes they were back on the road, Jesper at the reins and Inej sitting cross legged next to Kaz on the floor.
~~~
Nearly an hour later they pulled in front of the inn that they had hired a room at for the night.
“Do you know anyone in this city, Inej?” Jesper asked her quietly.
“Not personally,” she shook her head, “but I do know there is a healer here somewhere, I will inquire.” She spared a look at Kaz before hopping out of the cart and hurrying into the inn.
Jesper stood from the driver's seat and stepped over it, into the back of the cart to crouch behind Kaz. Inej had positioned him so he was on his side, the best they could do for his injuries with no supplies along with them. He hadn’t made a sound the entire ride back to town and that worried Jesper. He reached over him, placing a hand in front of Kaz’s face, biting down on his bottom lip and holding his own breath until he felt the faint movement of air on his hand as Kaz exhaled.
“Once again, you’re going to hate this, and I’ll apologize about it later, but if you’re not going to get up, I’m going to have to get you upstairs somehow.”
Jesper went to his front, getting his arms under Kaz’s armpits and pulling him to a seated position before gently and awkwardly shifting him towards the back of the cart. He jumped down and slipped an arm around Kaz’s waist where the least amount of damage was. Most of the burns were across the back of his shoulders, starting just where his neck and shoulders met and growing less severe towards the bottom of his shoulder blades, spanning the entire width of his torso and down the back of his arms.
The change in position caused Kaz’s head to flop against Jesper’s shoulder and he heard a faint groan. “Kaz?!” Jesper whispered, bringing the hand that wasn’t around his waist up to touch his face, tilting the thief’s head back so he could see. “Kaz, can you hear me?”
Kaz’s eyes fluttered open and Jesper could see how hard it must have been for him, fighting his way back to consciousness. His eyes were cloudy and he looked confused, scared even, but too weak to do anything. He didn’t seem to recognize Jesper at all.
"Pl-please," he pleaded with Jesper. His voice sounded so small and terrified. "Please, just let me go."
“It’s okay, you’re alright, I’m trying to help,” Jesper kept his voice low, trying to sound comforting. Every other comfort instinct of his had to be thrown out the window when dealing with Kaz, his hands ached to gently touch his face, to push his hair back and just touch him in a way that would bring comfort to Jesper.
But even the arm around his waist, his head lolling against Jespers shoulder, even just being a physical support was a forbidden line that he had already crossed, it hurt him so much to see Kaz in pain and to be contributing even further to that discomfort even if his intentions were to help.
Kaz twisted against his shoulder, trying to squirm away from Jesper. One hand came up to push against his chest and just that movement brought out a strangled cry, his eyes turned white as they rolled back in his head and he went limp in Jespers arms.
“I’m sorry,” Jesper whispered, pushing back the lock of hair that had fallen over his face.
~~~
Inej took a deep, steadying breath as she entered the pub that made up the main floor of their accommodations. Tables and chairs were scattered around, most of which were empty at this time of night, and a large counter to the right where a big man with a bushy red beard poured drinks for the handful of patrons still sitting at the bar. He nodded at Inej as she entered, recognizing her from earlier. When she approached the bar rather than turning up the narrow staircase to the rooms on the upper floor he raised an eyebrow and moved to the end of the bar to meet her.
“You seem troubled,” he said in greeting.
She lowered her voice, not wanting to bring attention. “We are in need of a healer. Does Eleanora still reside nearby?”
He gave a curt nod, rubbing his hands with a towel. “She does, not far. I will send my son to retrieve her and bring her to your room. There is an entrance to the rooms from the back if you’d rather privacy from prying eyes.”
She dipped her head in thanks before slipping out the door again, where she found Jesper had Kaz sitting more or less upright on the back of the cart, ready to drape the thief over his shoulders again. She whirled around as the door slammed behind her, a young boy with red hair stumbling over his own feet as he looked at them, his wide eyes catching on the unconscious man that Jesper supported. He gave Inej the same curt nod that the innkeeper had and took off down the street.
“Around back, let’s get him upstairs.”
The back stairs were even narrower than the ones from the front which made progress slow and awkward. Jesper supported most of Kaz's lanky form while Inej climbed the stairs behind them. Jesper doubted she could catch both of them if he slipped and they fell backwards onto her, but he trusted she would catch Kaz so he wasn't injured any further at least.
By the time they made it to the room, Inej heard a commotion at the bottom of the steps and the red headed boy came bounding up the stairs. "Mz. Eleanora is coming, she wasn't far behind me."
Inej nodded in thanks and shut the door as he tried to crane his neck to see around her. A boy his age didn't need to see the bloody wounds that marred Kaz's flesh.
Jesper was standing in the middle of the room with Kaz more or less standing with him, holding him up with arms under Kaz's armpits and letting him slump against Jespers chest.
"She's going to want to see the wounds, we need to get his clothes off. Use one of your knives, cut it off. His jacket's a loss anyways."
Jesper could only stand and hold Kaz upright while watching as Inej carefully slipped her blade under the fabric, slicing through the back of the collar and moving towards the sleeves. Every cut was an attempt to keep fabric from touching skin in the removal process.
He felt it moments before Kaz started to come around again, every muscle in his body going tense as a groan hissed out from between clenched teeth. His forehead was resting against Jespers collarbone but when the gunslinger looked down he could see ropey muscles flexing around the sharp angle of his jaw.
"Inej stop," he warned moments before Kaz suddenly threw himself backwards, a mad scramble to get out of Jespers arms, to get away from the hands touching his body.
"Kaz, it's me! It's Jesper, it's ok, I've got you," Jesper rambled, trying to keep his voice as calm and comforting as possible, which was difficult as the other man struggled against him. "Inej is here too, we're trying to help."
Inej smartly didn't try touching him, standing back and tucking her blade away again. She had cut away enough fabric already that they would be able to remove his top without issue, but she didn’t dare try to take any of his clothing while he was already panicking.
"Kaz, you need to calm down, you're hurt," Jesper said.
"Let go of me," Kaz whimpered. His hands curled towards his own throat to keep from touching Jesper and he pushed outwards with his elbows, trying to leverage Jespers hands off of him.
Inej threw the scratchy quilt off of one of the beds, revealing the relatively soft bed sheets underneath and frantically waved at Jesper to set the injured man down. The beds were not much more than a metal frame with a latticework of straps that supported a thin mattress, not the most comfortable of beds but fine for a night or two when needed.
It took effort, their boss was gangly but stronger than he looked and he fought hard, especially when injured and afraid. His eyes remained closed as he writhed in Jesper’s arms, frantically trying to push away from him even as his legs refused to bear his own weight, the only barely conscious thought being the need to get the hands off.
“Kaz, please!” Jesper cried out, flinching as gloved hands scrabbled against his face, blindly searching for something to grasp, whether that would be his eyes, hair, or throat, whichever they found first.
He tried to keep moving Kaz towards the cot while being weakly assaulted, determined to not drop Kaz right there in the middle of the floor.
In the struggle he didn’t hear the door open behind him until he felt a slight thrum in the air and someone quietly commanded “sleep” right beside him, a hand reaching around his shoulder, one slender finger gently tapped Kaz in the middle of his forehead. Jespers stomach turned as for the second time that night he watched Kaz’s eyes roll back in his head and he fell bonelessly limp into Jespers arms, almost slipping completely out of them before Jesper tightened his grip.
Inej was there in a flash to help support the injured man, one of her blades glinting in the light as she resumed the task of removing the burnt and bloodied clothing. A couple quick and efficient slices and they were able to pull the material away from his back and arms, the ruined clothing being left in a pile on the floor to be dealt with later.
“Get him on the bed.”
With a grunt Jesper managed to shuffle the last couple steps towards the bed and gingerly lowered Kaz onto the sheets, Inej slipping in beside him to support Kaz's head as it flopped off of Jespers shoulder. Together they positioned him on his front, Inej moving the pillow away so he wasn't stifled by it and wedging it under one of his arms.
They barely had him situated before the healer, Eleanora, was there, her skirts puffing out as she sank to her knees at the side of the bed and summoning her powers with a twist of her hands. She lightly traced around the edges of the angry and blistering skin.
“There is a lot of damage,” Eleanora said quietly. “I will need one of you to help remove this shrapnel before I can work on everything.”
Inej glanced at Jesper, already knowing he likely wouldn’t be able to stomach it. He stood frozen next to the foot of the bed, one hand on his hip and the other clamped aggressively over his mouth. There was a sickly pallor to his skin and his thumb and forefinger were pressed hard into the spaces below his cheekbones. It was like he couldn’t tear his eyes off of Kaz.
She touched his elbow, startling him out of his trance and he gasped, his hand breaking away from his face to latch onto her shoulder. She kept her hand on his arm, squeezing it gently.
“Sit down. Before you fall down.” She said, guiding him to the bed next to Kaz’s. The cots were close enough to each other that if the two men sat across from each other their knees would be touching.
He flopped onto it, bracing his elbows against his knees and resolutely determined not to look anywhere but at Kaz’s face as the other two worked on his back.
Inej perched herself on the edge of the bed, trying to leave a space between Kaz’s hip and her own. She already felt guilty for all the times they have had to touch Kaz without him being able to consent, and she knew he wouldn’t have even if he was consciously able to do so.
She tried to keep from thinking about that as she started plucking out the pieces of shrapnel, mostly slivers of wood from the crates, barrels, and barn that had surrounded them when the blast occurred. There were a lot more than she had been expecting, a variety of sizes. She dropped them on the floor by her feet as she worked, another thing to clean up later.
There were two bigger pieces near his right shoulder blade that each began to splinter as she tried to pull on them, threatening to leave part of themselves behind in his flesh if she wasn't careful. She winced before pulling out one of her blades yet again, using the sharp tip to make the hole in his skin just a bit bigger in order to get every sliver of the wood out.
She glanced up at Eleanora, who nodded in approval with her lips pressed tight together before she focused her attention on those newly bleeding wounds.
“He’s hurting.”
Inej looked at Jesper in surprise when he spoke, so quietly she didn’t catch what he said. “What?”
“He’s in pain, look at him.” Jesper gestured towards Kaz’s face.
He was right. Kaz’s face was twisted into a deep grimace, his jaw tight and sweat starting to bead on his brow. The hand upon the pillow that was wedged under his arm was clenched tightly, grasping the edge of the pillow in a death grip.
“The wounds are significant,” Eleanora said, not taking her eyes or hands away from the task at hand. The smaller injuries that had marred the backs of his arms were already back to a healthy pink. “Some of these burns are severe enough he may not even feel them, but as I heal them the sensation may return. It’ll feel worse before it feels better.”
Inej felt her breath catch in her throat at the same time Jesper choked on a sob. She grasped his knee and immediately his hand was on top of hers, desperately holding onto her.
“He would hate this. He hates being touched, it’s like a visceral reaction whenever someone so much as accidentally bumps against him.” Jesper started to ramble, unable to keep his mouth shut in his own distress. “Even as friends he doesn’t let us touch him.”
Eleanora looked between them, noticing now how neither of them had laid hands on him since getting him onto the bed. Even removing the shrapnel Inej had been so careful to avoid touching him, only using the tip of her blade when necessary. Eleanora pulled her hands back slightly, leaving an air gap between her fingers and his skin.
“I didn’t know, thank you for telling me. It’s not necessary for me to make contact when healing but some people find it comforting.”
Inej nodded and smiled at Eleanora, understanding where she was coming from but grateful for her accommodating his needs. With the shrapnel removed, she tucked her blade away and slipped off the cot and onto the other next to Jesper, carefully looking him over to see if there were any injuries he hadn’t fessed up to yet. He seemed visibly shaken but otherwise fine. He had a couple coughing fits on the way back into town but she hadn't heard anything more in a while. His eyes were locked on Kaz’s face still, watching him like a hawk for any sign of awareness.
His breath caught for a moment as Kaz’s eyelids fluttered. “Kaz?”
Kaz whimpered in response, slow and painstakingly opening his eyes just a tiny amount. He blinked at them, his eyes hazy and clouded with pain. Inej reached out and placed her hand on the mattress right near his hand, just in front of his face where he looked slightly confused at it before focusing on his companions' faces again.
“Oh saints, his head,” Jesper whispered, reaching out and hovering his hand over the area where blood had been seeping out along his hairline. Crimson still encrusted the side of his head where it had dried what felt like hours ago, now pressed into the sheets with how his head was positioned.
Eleanora shifted her attention there for a minute, making motions as if she was pushing her magic into Kaz’s skull. As the wound sealed up, Jesper and Inej could see when he fully came aware, his eyes clearing slightly. He was still tense with pain, but the confusion when he looked at them was gone at least, replaced with recognition as he looked up at his Crows watching over him.
~~~
He hadn’t expected to wake up again. But when Kaz came back to awareness, he wasn’t sure that he even wanted to.
Every nerve in his back screamed as though the fire still burned upon it, the pain causing muscles to tense and spasm against his will and amplifying it, resulting in a never ending spiral of call and response of torment.
Something slipped into his head, an odd sensation of a chill inside his skull and it was like he had awoken with his eyes already open, as though he had already been awake but not aware of being awake for a moment or two.
As his eyes came into focus he could see white sheets that were pressed against his cheek. Right in front of his face he found Inej’s hand and he focused his gaze to travel up her arm, to her face set in a mask of barely concealed concern. Next to her sat Jesper, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, not even trying to disguise his concern. Jespers lips twitched into a sad smile that didn’t reach his watery eyes.
Kaz’s hands ached, clenched tightly as they were but he recognized the familiar feeling of the soft leather that hugged them, grateful that they hadn’t been removed. He could tell the layers of clothing he wore like an armour around his torso were gone though.
That chilled sensation that brought back his awareness now traced over his back, momentarily cutting a trail of relief through the searing pain. The pain was so great that the relief was often short lived, but it never stopped moving, skimming along the edges of areas that just felt like… nothing.
He took a deep breath, which caught in his throat for a moment as the movement of his rib cage pulled on muscles that protested vehemently and he had to close his eyes against the pain. When he opened them again, Inej had shifted off of the other bed and knelt on the floor to be closer to him. Her hand never moved from the edge of the bed, not moving any closer, which he knew she wouldn’t.
Slowly, he relaxed his hand, letting go of what he realized was a pillow that he had been holding so tightly to and reached for the edge of the mattress, curling his fingers around it mere centimeters away from Inej’s hand. Close, but not touching.
He felt at peace in that moment. Knowing two of his most cherished Crows were with him, watching over him. Trust didn’t come easy for him, but if there were any two people he could rely on, it would be Inej and Jesper.
The pain flared up again and his whole body tensed, once again amplifying everything. His hand clenched and he wound up with a fistful of bed sheets, his eyes screwing shut with a strangled whimper.
He vaguely heard Jesper begging someone to do something, he’s in pain, though Kaz couldn’t say who he had spoken to.
He didn’t have an opportunity to find out as the cold sensation returned to his head, and with a brief burst of relief he succumbed to the black again.
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at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
you create because you're greedy.
#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME#there is no replacement here bc i am not filling a position. i am just writing#and the writing is what i need to be doing#writeblr#this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to#edited for the typo wrote it and then was late to a meeting lol#i love u people who mention my typos genuinely bc i don't always catch them!!!! :) it is doing me a genuine favor!!!#my friend says i should tell you ''thank you beta editors'' but i don't know what that means#i made her promise it isn't a wolf fanfiction thing. so if it IS a wolf thing she is DEAD to me (just kidding i love her)#hey PS PS PS ??? if ur reading this thinking what it's saying is ''i am financially capable of losing this'' ur reading it wrong#i write for free. i always have. i have worked 5-7 jobs at once to make ends meet.#i did not grow up with access or money. i did not grow up with connections or like some kind of excuse#i grew up and worked my fucking ASS OFF. and i STILL!!! wrote!!! on the side!!! because i didn't know how not to!!!#i do not write for money!!!! i write because i fuckken NEED TO#i could be in the fucking desert i could be in the fuckken tundra i could be in total darkness#and i would still be writing pretentious angsty poetry about it#im not in any way saying it's a good thing. i'm not in any way implying that they're NOT tryna kill us#i'm saying. you could take away our jobs and we could go hungry and we could suffer#and from that suffering (if i know us) we'd still fuckin make art.#i would LOVE to be able to make money doing this! i never have been able to. but i don't NEED to. i will find a way to make my life work#even if it means being miserable#but i will not give up this thing. for the whole world.
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#black leg sanji#red leg zeff#one piece#comic#fanart#sanji vinsmoke#< the tag I use more often so just for easy navigation on my blog.#my dog of 17 years passed the other night and god knows I suck at processing things#I wanted a way to distract myself but I couldn’t Really distract myself so.#when I woke up after drawing this comic I hated how I wrote the end part#my brain was muddled so words weren’t coming to me the way I wanted it to#I was going to change it before posting it here but that feels… disingenuous. so I’m keeping it#my puppy’s name was Sunny. it’s silly of me but it makes me feel even closer to one piece now#anyway sorry for rambling#I miss my big baby
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Well, Hello, Sailor
written for @steddiemicrofic | prompt: ‘pin’ | wc: 388 | rated: T | cw: slightly racy photos?
“Oh my god,” Eddie gasps.
“Oh my god,” Steve echoes, groaning.
Eddie hadn’t meant to drop the box, but it was heavy; it had been a rescue from the back of Steve’s closet as they moved his stuff out of his old apartment (preparing to move into their new one, together), and it had been full of forgotten papers and old magazines and – photos.
The stash had spilled out in front of Eddie like it had been waiting for him, full-color and glossy and glorious.
There’s Steve posed front and center, on his knees and looking back over his shoulder at the camera. He’s wearing a little pair of navy blue shorts and a little red ascot and precious little else. The shorts are indecently high-cut, hugging his ass like they were made for it, but it’s the sailor hat settled jauntily on top of his head that really makes it for Eddie. Steve’s eyes are wide and sweet, as if he’s been caught by surprise, with his lips parted in that inviting way that haunts Eddie’s dreams, even though he can technically see it any time he likes now.
He’s the very picture of a perfect little pin-up boy.
“Oh my god,” Eddie says again, unable to get much else out.
“It was– uh, for a magazine,” Steve stutters out. “I forgot I even had copies of that shoot.”
“Uh huh.” Eddie nods, still staring, mesmerized, at the pictures in his hands.
“It was during college, after my dad cut me off. I needed another job, and this paid, like, surprisingly well, and–”
“It damn well better have,” Eddie says, finally smirking up at Steve. “I bet they made bank off of you, baby.”
Steve pauses, blinking. “You’re not– upset?”
“Why would I be upset?” Eddie asks; honestly, he’ll only be upset if Steve tries to pry the photos away from him before he’s had a chance to thoroughly inspect them.
“Just– some people have gotten… jealous, I guess?” Steve shrugs, glancing away.
“Other people can look if they want.” Eddie leans over to press a reassuring kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth. “I know I’m the only one who gets you live and in person.”
Slowly, Steve smiles. “Well. If you like the sailor shoot, I bet you’ll love some of the others.”
“Others?”
#steddie#eddie munson#steve harrington#steddie microfic#stranger things#no I don't know what this is#but if I sit on it any longer I'm gonna edit it to ruins so here take it don't look at me thank you#(this was actually fun to write though)#solar wrote#eddiesteve
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Dannymay 2023
15. Full Hazmat AU & 23. Rogue Gallery
#danny phantom#dannymay2023#full hazmat au#rogue gallery#(the thing I love about full hazmat au is that unless Danny shows his face)#(it would be totally reasonable to assume that he is an adult)#(especially if you don't want to believe a child beat you)#comic#(just gonna add this here since it seems to be coming up a lot)#(This is not a fan art of any specific fic!)#(When I do fanart of fanfiction I always link the fic and tag the person who wrote it)#(I know this is not that original idea and people have already linked multiple good fics in reblogs)#(And I'm sure there are probably even more with similar concept)#(BUT this is still not fanart of any of them)
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eddie’s going on a tinder date with a cute guy named steve.
he likes his freckles, brown eyes and cheeky grin. they don’t have much in common but the conversations they have in the app messages flows suspiciously easily. he’s a bit in love and antsy at the table as he watches the door anxiously for his date.
he sees person after person walk into the bar and his beer is dripping condensation onto his hand as he grips it, nerves shooting through the roof. eddie glances at the table and then back up to the door when a guy walks in and if eddie wasn’t waiting for his date, he’d want to go talk to him.
he’s cute, hot even, floppy brown hair and a charming grin, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat as he looks around the bar. his shirt clings to him in just the right way and his jeans fit him a bit too perfectly. eddie can’t help but stare and then the guy is staring back while he waves, ducking his head as he walks over.
“hey, eddie,” the man breathes out, his cheeks tinged pink from the wind. “sorry i'm late. parking was a bitch.”
and eddie’s confused. because this guy has brown eyes but not the ones he expected. freckles that are more spread out and distinct, trailing down to his neck instead of blanketing his face. his smile is perfect and he’s looking at eddie like he knows him. eddie’s a bit stunned, gaping at the guy with a slack jaw, because he’d remember someone as handsome as him if they’d met before.
“…hi?” he says like it's a question, taking a sip of his beer to do something with his hands.
he watches as the man’s eyebrows crease in confusion and the way his shirt stretches over his chest as he takes off his jacket. “it’s- i’m steve? you are eddie, right?”
eddie can feel his own eyebrows raising, wiping off his damp hand to fish his phone out of his pocket. he quickly finds steve’s profile, ignoring the messages they've sent each other over the past weeks that leave his stomach filled with butterflies, and pulls up the profile picture steve uploaded.
looking at it closely, he glances at who he thinks is steve, at the freckles dusting over his face and the toothy grin he's flashing at the camera. he's not exactly they type eddie usually goes for, but he's witty and sweet and knows about dnd, apparently, so what's not to love?
but then he looks at the other person in the picture that's slightly out of focused next to ‘steve’. looks at the two moles stark on the side of his neck, his pink tinted cheeks. the floopy brown hair and the pretty brown eyes and-
“steve?!” eddie exclaims, looking between the man in front of him and the picture on his phone. “you’re steve?”
the guy- steve- grins sheepishly, leaning on his elbows over the table to look at eddie’s eyes phone. he’s close, too close, close enough that eddie wants to-
“ohh,” he says and scratches at the back oh his head, eyes downturned with a blush trailing up his neck. “yeah, maybe i shouldn’t have used a group photo for a dating app.”
“so who did i think you were?”
their eyes meet and even in the dim bar light, eddie finds himself falling into the specks of green he sees. steve looks at the phone quickly then back up with a smirk. “my best friend, tommy. he’s kind of an asshole, though. you’re better off with me.”
“is that so?” eddie leans back, taking a sip of his beer, and really takes in his date that he now knows is steve. his toned arms, his broad shoulders, his pretty pink cheeks and pretty pink lips.
“what, are you disappointed?”
steve smiles gently and it lights up his face in a way eddie isn’t expecting. between the way he looks in a dingy bar and the way talking with steve is easier than any date he’s had before, he can’t imagine what disappointment he could ever possibly feel knowing that his date is who he is.
suddenly there’s a foot hooking around his ankle and it sends goosebumps tingling up his spine. steve’s smile softens just a bit and eddie can feel himself mirroring it back, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“i don’t think disappointed’s the right word.”
crossposted on twitter!
#my writing#wrote this yesterday randomly on a twitter threda so i wanted to post it here too#ignore how unrealistic this is i just think steve would suck at dating apps#he absolutely would be that guy that uploads a pic from a friend's wedding and hopes that ppl know which one in the pic is him#steve harrington#eddie munson#steddie#steddie drabble#steddie meet cute#steddie fic#long post#ignore typos as i wrote this while tipsy#stranger things#stranger things fic
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part one -> 📱💞🚙
part two -> 📱💞🚙
It only takes a week for Steve to show up at this door again. He knocks on the door late at night and he’s panting as if he’s run all the way there, “I had to see you” he says and it's overdramatic and kind of romantic, and Eddie barely resists the urge to jump in his arms and kiss him. Or check if there’s a filming crew and it’s raining because of how much this feels like a movie, but it’s a beautiful night outside.
“Come in,” he tells Steve, immediately turning and running around the living room, throwing away empty food containers and tidying up a bit.
Steve watches him amused, but stands by the door, hands in his pockets, “So…” he says, “Came home today to find Chrissy, Vicky, and Robin all sitting at my dining table with their heads buried in a phone”
Eddie looks up at that, because what the fuck? He looks at Steve confused and Steve nods, like he agrees with Eddie.
“The three of them lifted their head at the same time, it was kind of freaky honestly,” He keeps going and Eddie chuckles, curious as to where this is going, “They wanted me to see this,” Stevee finishes, lifting his phone up, the first episode of the van series playing, right at the part were Eddie first sees Steve and blushes while looking at him.
Back in reality Eddie is blushing again too, Steve saw the van series, he knows. Steve knows. “Steve…” he starts even though he has no idea what he’s gonna say.
But Steve doesn't let him try, doesn't let him think. He takes two long steps towards Eddie and kisses him, hard but short, pulls away holding Eddie’s face between his hands, and brings their forehead together,
“I didn't know,” he breathes.
Eddie shakes his head, “How could you not, I was so obvious I-”
Steve just kisses him again, once more short and sweet before pulling back, “You never said.”
Eddie wraps his hands over Steve's wrists, just holding them there, moving his thumb over Steve’s pulse slowly. He can feel how hard Steve’s heart is beating, can feel it match the rhythm of his own heart. And he wracks his brain, trying to remember if he ever did ask Steve out, or if he ever stated he liked him out loud.
He ends up laughing at the stupidity of it. Everyone knew Eddie loved Steve, except Steve, “I’m- I don't what to say. I'm sorry I-” he starts but Steve shuts him up with a kiss again, “It’s okay, I know now”
This time when they kiss, Eddie doesn't let Steve keep it short. He keeps him close, kissing him deeper, harder, longer, until he doesn't know where he begins and Steve stops.
The next day a new video gets uploaded.
“Goooood morning!” Eddie says, even though it is clearly noon, from the passenger seat of his van, “Guess who is ready for their road trip!” he smiles and pulls the phone away from him, so both he and Steve are in frame. Steve is driving, eyes on the road but a huge smile on his face, Eddie’s hand is clearly visible on Steve’s thigh in the shot before Eddie moves the phone back to his face, “We’ll keep updating you guys, can’t tell you exactly where we are going cause we’d like a little privacy,” he says and wiggles his eyebrows, a soft gasp and a whispered and heated ‘Eddie!’ is heard in the background, “But we will upload videos from where we’ve been in a few weeks!” he films Steve once more, who looks at Eddie with a big sappy enamored smile on his face and then films the road for a few seconds, the world passing by the window. Finally, he twists the phone back to his face and says, “Oh! And don't worry about who’s going to drive… we’ll switch” and he winks and ends the video.
the end
☕🥐💕 coffee? by a roadhouse?
#stranger things#steddie#eddie munson#steve harrington#modern au#rv au#i wrote something#this was so fun guys i hope yall like the end#yall are so sweet i love it here
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Can't help falling in love
summary: 5 times Aemond was in love with you + 1 time he finally confessed his feelings
warnings: friends to lovers (at the age of 9, 10, 15, 17, 19), a pinch of angst (Aemond healing after losing his eye), but overall so fluffy and sweet you may want to skip dessert
words: ~ 5500 (I got reeeally carried away with that love confession)
1.
Aemond is weeks away from his tenth birthday and he feels as miserable as ever. That feeling is an iron weight upon his heart, his mood irritated and face features grim more often than not. He is still without a dragon — and it’s the only thing he can think of, day and night, steadfast and stubborn in his obsession that most of his family finds to be blown out of proportion. It might have stang him less if only it wasn’t for the constant teasing and pitiful jokes that added to his distress and the never-ending heartache. He learns to keep a straight face and act as if he doesn’t really care, but deep down he does, way more than he’ll ever admit.
His training sessions are a way to channel his anger, and he lashes out at a straw man, again and again, clinging to the thought that, at least in these moments, he is not entirely powerless. He keeps his focus on the target, attentive to Ser Criston’s advice — “Soften your knees”, “Keep your feet light, your hands heavy”, and for a couple of hours he forgets about his misery.
It’s when the training comes to an end, the dreaded realization sinks in again, and Aemond is lost in his thoughts, mindlessly twirling the wooden sword in one hand, his gaze wandering around the yard.
And then his eyes fall on a bright green spot — and all of a sudden, he sees you. A girl of his age, the hem of your green dress a bit dusty, boots covered in dirt, a few strands of hair fallen loose, a coy smile on your face. You meet his gaze and wave at him excitedly.
Aemond looks dumbfounded. A girl in the training yard. Waving at him. He blinks once, twice — and in the next moment, you're standing merely a few steps away, glancing curiously at his sword.
"It looks so hefty! Is it heavy? What is it made of?" a string of questions, your voice sweet and joyful.
There’s a brief pause and maybe you mistake his stiffness for arrogance as you are quick to add:
“Oh, my manners!” gasping but showing no actual regret. “Forgive me,” you curtsy, your smile growing even wider. A timid smile appears on his face in return and he finally comes to his senses.
“It’s made out of red oak. It’s not very heavy, you get used to it,” Aemond raises the sword, letting you take a closer look. Within another blink of an eye he finds himself talking to you, your questions endless and maybe a bit naive but he genuinely enjoys it.
That’s until you both hear a loud cry:
“Lady Y/N!” your nanny comes running in, out of breath and scowling. “I told you not to wander around...,” she chokes on her words at the sight of the young prince. She curtsies, too, but it isn’t nearly as cute as when you do it.
She sprints decisively in your direction:
“It wasn’t very polite of you to interrupt the prince’s training, you little menace!”
And then Aemond, to his own surprise, moves to stand in her way.
”Y/N didn’t interrupt a thing,“ he disagrees, lips thinned into a tight line.
The nanny stops and looks at Aemond dubiously, switching her gaze from him to you.
Ser Criston is the one to resolve the conflict — he comes from behind, with a polite smile plastered on his face.
”Young lady can watch from the balcony. The guests are very much welcomed,“ he calls for the maid to escort you and your nanny up there. While you’re away, he looks at Aemond with a grin:
”Already wooing the ladies, my prince? Let’s hope you are as good with your sword as she thinks you are.“
He does make Aemond work for it but the prince fights back, winning one bout after the other. He keeps glancing at you and you wave at him every single time.
Aemond is too young to know what love is, too shy and guarded to even entertain the thought of it. But when you look at him, with your childish grin and your eyes bright with mirth, he doesn't feel lonely anymore.
2.
It's been two weeks since Aemond lost his eye and he hasn't left the bed once. The pain is still blinding, burning and constantly making his only eye water. But what hurts even more is the humiliating disability. The triumph of claiming Vhagar died down, and now the prince was faced with the harsh reality he needed to adjust to and the process wasn't an easy one. The fever has only recently gone down, leaving his body weak and freezing from the lack of movement, but he couldn't bare the thought of stepping out of the room.
His mother wouldn't leave his side and even Aegon often came to visit, clearly blaming himself for not being there for his little brother. Yet their presence barely brought Aemond any comfort and most of the time he would pretend to be asleep to avoid any conversations. He knew they only meant well and he was being cruel but he couldn't help it as his pride was shattered and he gave in to sadness.
That is until one night he wakes up to a weird sound. He's only half-awake when he hears a vigorous tapping that clearly comes from the outside. Except it's not from the other side of the door — but rather outside his window.
He's startled by this guess and suspiciously walks closer. It takes him a few seconds to focus his gaze and discern a human's silhouette — and then another few to realize that it's you standing on the window sill. He feels like his heart will jump out of his chest as he rushes to open the window.
You climb through and clumsily drop to the floor. But before he can get worried, you are on your feet again, eyeing him with concern.
“Oh, Aemond,” your gaze and voice are both so soft, it makes his lower lip quiver. You carefully approach him and put your hand on his shoulder, gently sliding it on his back in a soothing motion and then cuddling him. He welcomes your company with a sigh of relief. You smell of oranges and you give the best hugs.
"They told me no one was allowed into your chambers," your hushed whisper burns his ear. "The silliest thing I've ever heard!" you pull away from him, still lightly panting, cheeks flushed and hair messy. "I knew I had to find a way to come see you."
You examine his face, frowning at the scar that's still healing.
"Does it hurt?"
He only nods, afraid that if he opens his mouth, he won't be able to hold back a sob. You move closer, resuming the gentle motion of rubbing his back.
Ever since that day in the training yard, you kept in touch, regularly sending each other letters, chatting about everything and nothing, sharing your little secrets and observations. You recently mentioned that your parents allowed you to come see him again, but with the tragic change of events, Aemond completely forgot about the preplanned visit.
"I will take his eye," you say out of the blue, caressing the unharmed side of his face, your voice laced with anger. Aemond thinks he might've heard it wrong.
"...Whose eye?"
"Luke’s! I shall take his eye, as payment for yours," you tell him with zero hesitation. For a girl of your age, you’re way too eager to plan such a thing, yet he somehow has no doubts that you can actually do it.
Aemond shakes his head:
"You shouldn't," his voice quiet but firm. "The King was very adamant about that, no payment is needed."
"Well, maybe he is too old to think straight," you retort. "You are his son and you lost an eye! Justice must prevail," you tilt your head at him, clearly thinking that you’re in the right.
And he knows that you are but he also knows no justice will be served. It’s the last straw for Aemond — he looks away in shame as tears, hot and angry, start falling down his cheek. You waste no time hugging him again, letting him cry on your shoulder, and the two of you stay like that for what feels like an hour.
And then, in the comfortable silence of your embrace, he hears you asking, very seriously:
"Are you sure I can't take his eye?"
At that moment, he can't stop himself from letting out a laugh — a weak one and barely audible, but still, he laughs, for the first time in two weeks, and you are the sole reason for it.
Your cheek is pressed to his, your fingers running through his hair, and Aemond realizes he can't lose you.
He begrudgingly persuades you that taking Luke's eye isn't worth the trouble.
3.
By the age of fifteen Aemond becomes quite accustomed to the eyepatch and it gives him a boost of confidence. Losing an eye only made him train harder and his persistence pays off when he’s the one to win, time after time, no matter who his opponent is. His hair grows longer, now silky smooth and with no sign of his boyish curled ends, his face features sharpen. He learns to walk with his head high and hands clasped behind his back, mastering the intimidating look that makes most people want to stay away from the one-eyed prince.
His tricks could’ve never worked on you, though.
You come to visit him a few times a year, and he eagerly awaits your arrival. All the days in between, you keep talking through letters, them getting longer as you get closer. He keeps those letters locked in a hidden compartment of his table. And sometimes, for no specific reason — or maybe for the reason he can’t yet formulate — he is drawn to reach for them, which always ends with him rereading the letters for hours. Some of them he knows by heart and yet it never stops him from having the pleasure of seeing your handwritten stories and little jokes that were only meant for him.
Today is no exception and Aemond is so enthralled by reading, he almost misses the knock on the door. The sound brings him to reality but he is in no hurry to react. The knocking comes again, and the prince groans, annoyed at the maid's persistence. He carefully puts the letters back and goes to the door, armed with his cold gaze.
And then he opens it — and it's you standing in front of him.
Aemond barely has time to register what's going on when you launch yourself at him, your arms immediately enveloping him in a tight hug, your laugh ringing in the air. He hugs you back and, while you can't see it, he's grinning from ear to ear.
“I swear you’re getting taller every time we meet!” you look up at him, beaming, and he lets you in. “I soon will need a ladder just to hug you properly".
"I’ll be sure to let my body know of your disapproval," he sneers and you stick out your tongue.
"While you are at it, shall you also work on your friendly face? I overheard the maids being frightened to go into your chambers," you try giving him a scolding look but end up giggling at his reddened cheeks.
"I am friendly enough!"
“Yes, nobody glowers quite like you,” you snicker and flop right on the floor, the move always making him smile. Aemond tried persuading you to sit on any other surface that’s actually meant for sitting but you insisted that his fluffy rug works just as well, so he eventually gave up, deciding to join you. He never complained since.
Before he knows it, he’s immersed in the conversation while you enthusiastically share the recent news and everything that’s happened to you on the road. Only about half an hour in, he notes a small bag you're clasping in your hands.
“You come bearing gifts?”
“Oh, I almost forgot I had it,” you laugh, abashed. “I decided I should bring you something to replace this crumpled-looking thing".
It takes Aemond a minute to realize that you're talking about his eyepatch. But he has no time to protest as you silence him with a gesture of your hand:
“I took it upon myself to count for how long you’ve been wearing this one already,” your tone gets serious. “I must say, that number is disturbing.”
There's a moment of silence and then he clears his throat, his voice unsure:
“Very kind of you to think of that, I shall replace it later on.”
He reaches his hand to take the bag but you quickly cover it with yours, fingers brushing over his, and he freezes.
“Are you still not convinced that I can take a look at it?” you try to make eye contact but he averts your gaze.
“Aemond, I was with you and I think I’ve seen enough back then — none of it scared me.”
“It is not a sight for the faint of heart,'” the prince mumbles, his bravado faltering.
“Well, I don’t remember fainting the first time. You should have more faith in me,” you try to reason, holding his hand.
Aemond ponders for another minute — or maybe ten, he isn't sure, and you patiently wait, not wanting to press him any further. Then he finally makes a decision and, after taking a long, sad sigh, he removes the eyepatch and looks at you, the sight of him is the very definition of insecurity.
You stay silent for about five seconds before concluding:
“Oh, it healed so nicely!” with no hint of uncertainty in your voice. Your smile reassures him a little as you peer at the sapphire, looking very pleased.
"The gem compliments your eye very well," you give him your verdict, taking the new eyepatch out.
"We might have a different understanding of what a compliment is."
"This is me trying to say that I really like the way it looks," you chide him lightly. "And I consider myself to be quite understanding, thank you very much. Will you stop pouting and let me put it on?"
At this point he surrenders, giving you permission, and you move closer, giggling with excitement. You gently fix his hair, making sure it’s all combed back, and then lean to put the eyepatch on. You have a habit of biting your lower lip when you're too concentrated on something, and Aemond can't help but gaze at that part of your face while your teeth graze over the pillowy surface.
He’s never let anyone this close — and not just in the sense of physical proximity. The moment is very intimate, and the softness of your movements tugs at his heart. He is suddenly very aware of the very short distance separating you two, and he holds his breath. You are oblivious to his stare and soon lean back, satisfied with the result and glaring at him with something akin to fondness.
He wishes he could paint a picture of you right at this moment, so tender and caring and sitting by his side.
He also wishes he could kiss you — and that thought scares him to death. And yet, once it appears, it never goes away.
4.
Aemond is seventeen and his life has been pure torture since you stopped visiting him. He hasn't seen you in over half a year (seven months and eleven days, not that anyone's counting). It's not your fault as your father has unexpectedly fallen ill and you couldn't leave his side. The prince exhausted the maester with questions, asking for advice to write back to you, worried sick that your separation would be stretched for way longer than he could handle.
Luckily, the Gods took pity on him, and he was glad to learn that your father got better, and you will come to the King's Landing soon. Your visit coincided with Aegon's birthday, but Aemond didn't care about the feast, his mind only occupied with the thought of seeing you. He was both nervous and excited to the point of not even hiding it, which led to Aegon teasing him relentlessly. Helaena, on the other hand, wholeheartedly supported Aemond's sympathy for you.
“She will be delighted to see you, too, I am sure of it,” his sister tells him the day before the event.
“But the reason for it might be of a different nature,” Aemond remarks, and Helaena gives him a compassionate look.
“You will never know her true feelings unless you ask,” she encourages. “The two of you are so close, I consider Y/N part of the family.”
Aemond knows that he’s of age and his mother hinted that, despite him showing no interest in courting, some ladies still found him attractive. He dismisses the idea but then finds himself thinking of it from time to time. When the realization forms in his head, it’s nerve-wracking but oh so compelling — he thinks he would’ve really wanted to marry you. He just doesn’t know how to tell you about it.
The day of your arrival comes, and Aemond wakes up at dawn in anticipation, determined to confess his feelings. He tries to come up with a speech, but it feels wrong and sounds weird, and he decides it will be better to improvise. He all but runs to the courtyard to be the first one to greet you. However, when you step out of the carriage, smoothing your dress, and your eyes meet, Aemond stops dead in his tracks and the world around him stands still.
His confidence might’ve blossomed — but not nearly as much as your beauty did. Somehow in those recent months, you’ve matured into a woman that takes his breath away.
It’s not a drastic change, it's all in the details: the contours of your face are more defined, the cheekbones prominent, your hair knotted up high in a perfect style and even your pace is much slower and gracious. You walk towards one another, both suddenly cautious. But when you are a couple of meters apart, a well-known smile appears on your face and you hold your arms out to him and he finally hugs you again, after all this time. Aemond relaxes, inhaling the familiar scent of fruits that you undoubtedly munched on your way here.
“You look exactly as I remembered you,” you say as you slip from his embrace.
“And you are a sight to behold,” he breathes out, taking you in, and your cheeks heat up at the compliment. You’ve never been shy with him before, so this is also new. He wonders what might’ve caused this change.
As the two of you walk around the castle, it feels a bit awkward at first, and you keep glancing at him with emotion he can’t read. But Aemond is too happy to see you to give it much thought, and within an hour you ease into the conversation, too. By the time the evening comes, the tension disappears, and you are laughing at his sarcastic remarks again, and he savors every second of it.
The feast in honor of Aegon is lush and crowded, but you stay by Aemond’s side, enjoying each other’s company, and he only has eye for you. When the music gets too loud, you sneak out and soon find yourselves in his chambers, just like in the good old days. Aemond is in the middle of telling you about Aegon’s recent foray to the Flea Bottom, when you say:
“It’s just the two of us,” your fingers sink into the fluffy rug. “You don’t have to wear it with me. You know it, right?”
He wears the eyepatch with everyone, only taking it off before going to sleep. Moreover, he actually cherishes it because it’s a gift from you. Aemond hesitates:
“I thought you quite liked it.”
“I only gave it to you because yours started to look like it was pulled off a dead man’s body!” you laugh.
Before he can think of an answer, you lean closer — your shoulder brushing his, your hand touching his face, the same gentle warmth he remembers so well, — and remove the eyepatch yourself. The sight doesn’t bother you in the slightest as you confess:
“I accept you the way you are, Aemond,” and then, a moment away from him opening his mouth and saying the thing that’s been on the tip of his tongue for the duration of the day, you add: “That’s what friends are for — and you are my best friend.”
And just like that, with this word alone, his plan goes out the window.
A friend. Aemond can’t even be upset at the reveal, because, honestly, being your friend feels like a blessing in itself and he wouldn’t trade it for the world. How could he be so selfish and foolish to even think about risking it all, risk losing you?
So he keeps his feelings to himself, locking them away deep in his heart, and doesn't argue with you.
Maybe he should have.
5.
By the age of nineteen Aemond reaches the conclusion that he wants to take the risk. Otherwise, he thinks he might actually die as his heart can not hold all his feelings anymore. In two years' time, there isn’t a single thing about you that he hasn’t come to love, and keeping it a secret becomes harder with each day.
Aemond is ridden with doubts to the point where he can't hide it any longer and he decides to seek advice — and the prince can't think of a better person to talk to than his mother. Unbeknownst to him, Alicent was the first one to notice. Years ago, when you were kids, she quickly sensed the effect you had on her son, and it brought her joy as she watched the two of you get closer with time.
So when Aemond bursts into her room, anxiety radiating off of him as he starts jabbering away, his pacing erratic and voice trembling, it takes her about a minute to realize what's going on.
“My dear, I think you must talk to Y/N,” she approaches him, an understanding look on her face.
Aemond cuts his speech short, eyeing her with wonder:
“You don't seem surprised.”
“Your affection for her is as bright as a fire blazing,” Alicent chuckles. “I believe Y/N is the only one who doesn’t see it.”
“Should I tell her...?” he doesn’t dare say it out loud, not yet.
Alicent briefly takes his hands in hers, squeezing them.
“You should tell her the truth.”
Her encouragement gives him a dash of hope, lifting a weight off his chest. Aemond knows in an instant that the letter won’t cut it, and you must have the conversation face-to-face. Fortunately, your next visit is in a month, so his suffering won’t last for much longer.
Aemond almost reaches the door but then sharply turns to his mother again, his cheeks flushed:
“Will you give me your approval?” and this time, he looks straight at her as he wants to see her genuine reaction.
Alicent smiles, quick to reassure him:
“Yes, Aemond. Your betrothal would only make me happy.”
The prince feels elated, almost euphoric, as he finally goes to meet you and runs the remaining distance from his chambers to the yard. But when he sees you, the smile disappears from his face because he notices that something is wrong.
You look visibly upset, your eyes watering and fingers fumbling with the dress, even though you try to force a smile in return. The hug you give him is weak and you keep looking at your feet.
“What is the matter?” he’s never seen you this sad, but you brush him off.
“It’s just a headache, no need to worry.”
Yet that’s exactly what he does, offering to call for the maester, or to prepare you a warm bath, or bring you some tea...
“A cup of water would be nice, thank you,” he leaves you in the hallway to go and get it himself, the task only takes a couple of minutes. When he returns, you stand with your back to him, your shoulders are shaking — and he hears quiet, muffled sobs. If it wasn’t for the nearby table, he would’ve thrown the cup away, his focus on you alone. As he rushes to envelop you in a hug, you don’t fight it, instead nestling your face against his chest, not hiding your tears anymore.
Aemond gives you some time before asking again:
“This doesn’t look like just a headache. What is the cause of your anguish?” now he’s the one running his fingers up and down your back.
You let out a sound that’s a mix between a groan and a whine.
“My father says I am to be betrothed soon. He says I am of age already and... and he wants me to meet some of my cousins,” you sniffle. “I told him I have no wish to get married but he refuses to listen,” you bite your lip, not wanting to cry again.
Surely, that’s not how Aemond wanted to ask you. But he decides to take his chance.
“Mayhaps there is another way out that could make you feel better.”
“Please don’t tell me Vhagar will burn them down,” you jest but the smile doesn’t reach your eyes. Aemond thinks your idea isn’t that bad — but he has to try his first.
“If he insists you should marry but doesn’t have a particular candidate, maybe you can pick one yourself?”
“I’ve met all my cousins — and half of them are imbeciles, the others are too old to survive a wedding,” you scoff.
“Then pick someone you are not related to,” Aemond suggests.
“Do you have a particular candidate in mind?” when you ask with a tinge of annoyance, you don’t think he will answer. And then you look at him — and see him grinning before he says:
“Me”.
You glare at Aemond with eyes wide and mouth agape, the expression frozen on your face for a good minute.
“Are you laughing at me?” you manage to say.
“I wouldn’t dare,” his nerves are as tight as a wound-up string.
In the blink of a moment, your face lights up. You're looking at him indecisively, searching for words, agitated. But Aemond mistakes your confusion for rejection.
“At the very least you will marry someone you know,” he tries to reason — but it backfires, wiping the joyfulness off your face. Taken aback, you inquire:
“You pity me?”
He doesn’t grasp the poor choice of his words yet.
“You pity me and that’s why you want to marry me?” you give him a look of disbelief, your eyes glossy, and he can't get his head around what just happened.
“Oh, it was so silly of me to think that...,” you choke back a sob, putting your hand over your mouth.
Never in his life he thought he would be the reason for you looking so heartbroken. Aemond covers your hand with his palm — and you let him, as he tries to gather his courage.
“Y/N, I only meant to say that I —”
And then you recoil, snapping your hand back.
“Aemond, don’t,” you take a step back from him, then another one. “You have said enough. Please, let me be,” you turn away and leave the hall in a hurry before he can utter another word.
... 1.
He finds you at your usual spot, under the blossoming cherry tree. You’ve always said you liked the color of it, little white flowers reminding you of early spring, your favorite time of the year. You don’t know that Aemond insisted on planting that tree specifically for you. Just so he can sit nearby and, as you were basking in the sunlight with your eyes closed, he would get a chance to look at you with all his unconditional love and have those moments engraved in his memory.
Come to think of it, he had so many memories of you — and every single one of them was bliss, and he can recall them so easily like it was yesterday.
And so he does.
“When we first met, you wore a green dress,” his voice startles you, but you don’t turn to face him, sniffling with your arms folded. “It was the color of forest trees. Black lace around the hem of it, the matching hair ribbon that you kept losing,“ he keeps his distance, his hands shaking.
"Yes, I remember it pretty well," you sigh, avoiding his gaze, baffled by his sudden outburst.
"The second time was when you climbed through my window, almost gave me a heart attack," there’s a hint of a smile in his voice that you catch even without looking. "Blue dress, you tore a huge piece of it and couldn’t care less. You were the first person to make me laugh in two weeks even though it seemed impossible. But not with you."
He sees your eyebrows furrowing, hands sliding down to rest on your knees.
"Helaena’s name day came next, your dress was bright pink. Luke tried to make fun of it and you threw a cup full of water in his face. To this day, it’s one of my fondest memories."
You dare to look up at him, perplexed, your eyes wet from crying.
"Three months after was the light-blue dress, then the peach one and the brown one. Then the white one which didn’t survive the horse riding lesson, and Helaena gave you one of hers. Light green, too long for your liking, even though you pretended otherwise to please her," the corners of your lips tremble, your face softening.
"Then for a year you only wore violet, much to your nanny’s dismay as she thought it made you look ill. And I thought you were the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, no matter what dress you were in," he can’t take his eye off you.
Your face expression melts into a stunned one.
"I didn’t realize it back then. Or maybe I didn’t know how to call it. I just knew that your visits only brought me happiness," he takes a step toward you, uncertain, but you don’t move from your spot.
"When you were fourteen, you picked the autumn colors — orange, dark yellow, deep red. Your started braiding your hair, tried to braid mine," you can’t hold back a smile. He was fussy when you first voiced the idea but he ended up loving the process so much, he would allow it just to feel your fingers flowing through his hair.
"I think you actually enjoyed it", you mumble, and Aemond smiles, too.
"I did. I enjoyed every minute that I got to spend with you."
You stand up then, feeling your pulse quickening.
"The day you brought me the eyepatch, you wore emerald green. I was terrified to show you the scar," he pauses, catching his breath. "You assuaged my fears with your kindness. But then I was terrified to learn that I wanted to kiss you".
You think you are dreaming. Is it possible that you fell asleep under the tree? You don’t want to get your hopes too high, but when he looks at you like this, your own fears start melting away.
“Then was the black dress, the grey one, another white one. The golden one you wore to meet Vhagar,” when he saw you that day, he almost forgot how to breathe. You showed no sigh of apprehension as you fearlessly approached the dragon. He was absolutely besotted.
“And then came the agony of not seeing you for over seven months,” he closes his eye for a second, overwhelmed. He almost misses it when you speak:
“Seven months and twenty-five days. Not that I was counting,” his eye snaps open, instantly on you again.
You gravitate toward each other without even noticing. Aemond’s heart skips a beat when you’re at arm's length, your eyes shining and lips slightly parted. Even in the state you're in, you look so beautiful, it's mesmerizing, and the words are stuck in his throat. You are the one to break the silence:
"Aemond, please don't give me false hope," your heartbeat is too loud, you don't hear your own voice. He does.
"I do not wish to marry you out of pity," Aemond takes the last step. "I want you to be my wife because I'm in love with you," he wipes away the remaining tears off your face, his fingers linger, making you shiver. "I've been in love with you for quite some time. For a few years, actually," his voice gets low. "For what feels like an eternity," Aemond murmurs.
"Why haven't you told me?" you pout, nervously toying with the collar of his shirt.
"I was afraid you didn't feel the same. I still am but maybe... Maybe I am wrong?" his gaze is fixed on you, one of his hands following the contour of your waist, your body warming at the touch.
"Tell me that I am wrong," he whispers, begging.
You look at his lips, the soft curve of them that you’ve dreamt of for so long.
Aemond always thought yours were the most kissable he’s ever seen.
You don’t know who closes the distance first — but his mouth is suddenly on yours and the sensation leaves you disarmed. Kissing him is like being swept with a wave of tenderness, and you’re floating in it, his lips so fervid and supple — truly perfect — your head is spinning. The kiss is not awkward nor modest as you hastily cling to each other, his hands gripping your waist, your chest pressed into his.
Aemond feels like he’s drowning, and he wants more of you — all of you, and then your fingers tug at his locks, eliciting a groan from him, and it is simply a miracle that his heart doesn’t explode. You move in impeccable sync, in the passionate harmony that erupts from years worth of mutual pining. His lungs burn but he resists the urge to break the kiss and stretches it out the best he can until you are breathless, too.
"Never knew that you were so fascinated by my wardrobe choices," you tease, and his hum turns into a chuckle.
“You know what my favorite memory is?” you ask, your forehead resting against his.
“When we were thirteen, and you were teaching me how to hold a sword. I tackled you to the ground and scraped my knee,” you both smile at your then enthusiasm. “And you set everything aside to spend the rest of the day with me even though it was hardly a wound. And I remember thinking,” you hook your finger under his chin, “that there’s nowhere else I would rather be than with you, with this favorite boy of mine.”
The air around you tense, and you are enchanted by each other.
“Did that help to prove you wrong?”
“I may need some convincing,” his breath fanning over your lips.
“You can take your time,” you laugh — and then the sound of it is muffled by his athirst mouth.
His favorite memory will be this.
And every other moment with you that's to come.
author's note: I'm sorry if this came out messy and rushed. I tried my best to write a shorter fic (this is short for me lmao) and idk how I feel about it. I much rather prefer them longer because I'm a sucker for stories about two people getting to know each other and falling in love BUT I get it that others don't want to read long ass fics (which kinda breaks my heart but I'm being so very brave about it)
anyways, I hope this was bearable, thank you for reading!
💙 the longer version of this fic might have looked like this (yes, this is a shameless plug! because I adore this one to pieces!! bite me)
💞 my masterlist
🎵 the title is a quote from Elvis Presley's song (duh). there are quite a few covers of it but one of my favorites is by Twenty One Pilots. there's also a female version — by Ingrid Michaelson — and I think both of them fit the story really well.
P.S. I'm also on AO3 (lol, who isn't), in case you prefer to read fics there.
English is not my first language, so feel free to message me if you spot any major mistakes!
#aemond targaryen#got the idea out of the blue (oh the things I do instead of sleeping...)#wrote it in two days#pretty sure it's once in a year kind of miracle#my expectations are low though and I will probably never write anything like this again lmao#anyways I think I should get back to actually adding the tags and shut tf up#here’s a SPECIAL tag that I call 'the woman Aemond is in love with stands up for him'#I already used this trope twice and WILL use it again watch me#my stuff#aemond x reader#aemond x y/n#aemond x you#aemond targaryen x y/n#aemond one eye#aemond one eye x y/n#aemond targaryen fanfiction#aemond targaryen fanfics#aemond targaryen fics#aemond targaryen x you#aemond targaryen fanfic#hotd fanfiction
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Hi,
So I was kinda annoyed, that there is no easy way to get into the qsmp lore at the moment.
So a few days ago I made this video (there really isn't a good way to summarize everything in under 10 min, but I tried my best):
youtube
And here are some of the many (manymanymany) drawings I made for it:
#qsmp#qsmp fanart#my art#my art qsmp#im not gonna tag everyone on this server....#also I'm not exporting my animations again so here are really only the static drawings#also also I wrote the script in like two days from memory at new years#just wanted to flex my knowledge#still had to check a few things with the wikis though to be sure#Youtube
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(cw: g!p fem reader, somno, breeding (like a lot))
wonyoung almost always passes out after you cum inside her. she says it just makes her feel so warm and full and sleepy that she just can’t stay awake! this means a lot of the time she’ll fall asleep with you still inside her and pulling out tends to stir her awake so you end up falling asleep like that too! you’d hate to wake her up after all, she looks so pretty when she sleeps.. maybe from time to time you’ll start softly thrusting inside her, chasing your release so you can dump more cum in her.. she’s already such a deep sleeper and it’s like the more you cum in her the more soundly she sleeps. you’ll hear her sigh a little in her sleep and relax even more every time you pump her full 🥺 she always wakes up leaking so much with her pussy all sore but it’s all worth it with how well rested her is! sometimes you just can’t help yourself though, putting her legs on your shoulders you’ll just start pounding into her cunt. she’s so messy from both of your cum that you’ll just slip out and roughy bump against her swollen clit making her jolt. even with how rough you’re being she’s just barely awake, looking up at you with half lidded eyes and spreading her legs so you can fuck her deeper 😵💫 sometimes you’ll wake up to wony half asleep bouncing on your cock, pouting when she says, “couldn’t sleep… need you..” :(( pulling her off your dick just to lay her on her tummy and fuck her to bed, being sure to cum in her at least a few times to make sure gets a deep enough sleep hehe. it’s a nearly nightly occurrence, you either fucking her to sleep or just waking up in the middle of the night with a hard on and the only thing that’ll get rid of it is painting wonys tight walls white 😋 moans in her sleep while you pound away at her, and just barely stirs awake at the sounds of wet slaps before drifting right back off into dream land hehe
#ive smut#ive x reader#ive imagines#jang wonyoung smut#jang wonyoung x reader#wonyoung smut#girl group smut#girl group x reader#g!p reader#was gna post my piss kink wony thing i wrote but i got embarrassedddbskdhd 🧍#so here’s a short somno wony thing instead#wonyopout
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It's the Perfect Time of Year (Somewhere Far Away from Here)
Fandom: Uncharted 4
word count: 6,705
Whumpee: Nathan Drake
Whump tropes: grief, bar fight, beaten, choked, knocked out, caretaking
Read on Ao3
~~~
It’d been a rough few months, there was really no other way to say it.
After the loss of his brother, it was like Nate lost the ability to care about himself. He poured everything into the search for Sir Drake, reading books and diaries day in and day out until he found something that pointed to a physical location that he could go investigate. Some days when he would get lost in his books it was like he would forget he had a body at all, only remembering to eat or drink when Sully placed something in front of him. He would fuss over having food or drink placed near some of the books and maps, worried that Sully would soil some of them with crumbs or water rings. At first Sullivan took offence that Nate would think he would ever be so careless, but whatever got his attention and brought him back to the present, even if it was only for a short time.
Sully didn't usually hang around between calls from Nate, he'd be there whenever Nate needed him to be, and he did have other stuff he could be doing when he wasn't flying the kid around the globe. But after Sam, and then after Rafe… Nate didn't ask him to stay, but he didn't send him away either. And Sully wasn't about to ask first, knowing if he did Nate would insist he was fine even though he clearly wasn't. He could see the ever growing list of leads, but Nate never set a plan in motion to go after them yet. Was the thought of all that time to be undistracted during travel time daunting? Afraid if he didn’t have his mind distracted by books and maps he would fall headlong into the grief?
So they stayed put, and as long as Nate wasn't telling him to leave, Sully found stuff to do nearby. He found himself taking on the role of house-keeper, not that it got particularly messy since Nate rarely left the room he had claimed as his study in their tiny rental house near the beach, but if Sullivan didn’t sort through the mail every so often it would’ve been ignored until the lights went out and the water stopped dripping from the tap, not that it was super reliable even when the bills were paid on time. He kept the kid fed, nudged him to sleep when he would yawn so hard his jaw looked like it would unhinge, and not so graciously sent him to the shower when he started to stink to high heaven.
Sully felt triumphant when he finally convinced Nate to leave his books, just for an evening, to stretch his legs and think about something else for a little while, to sit in the company of people other than Sully. Begrudgingly, Nate slumped in the passenger seat of the Jeep, his elbow braced on the window frame as he stared out at the greenery whipping past. He mindlessly rubbed his chin with his thumb and didn’t say a word the entire drive. Sully glanced over at him, getting the gist that Nate wouldn’t be that much of a conversationalist quite yet this evening before he flicked on the radio, upbeat Spanish music poured from the tinny speakers of the old Jeep and he tapped along to the rhythm on the steering wheel.
Two songs later they were pulling up to the ramshackle building that was the local bar. The faded sign posted above the door depicted a caricature of a chicken with a comically large cigar clenched in its tooth lined beak. In the weeks they had been in town, Nate had never been there but Sully was a frequent visitor, on the nights he didn’t want to cook anything or was tired of being cooped up in the house and needed a buzz. Nate eyed the area sceptically, and the locals leaning against the railing of the roofed front porch eyed him back.
“Evening, amigos!” Sully called to them, relighting his cigar as he swept past them. Several of the guys grunted a half-assed greeting or nodded in Sully’s direction, familiar with his presence, but kept their sights on Nate as he followed behind the older man.
Sully shoved the front door open, holding it just long enough for Nate to catch it on the way in. Eduardo was in his usual spot behind the bar, pouring a line of drinks for the gaggle of people leaning on the bar already. He glanced up as the door slammed shut, his eyes lighting up with a grin as Sully snagged a pair of stools near the end of the bar.
“Sully!!” the bartender yelled jovially. “What’s good?”
“Everything, Eduardo, look who I finally convinced to join me!” Sully jabbed his thumb over his shoulder in Nate's direction.
“Ah, is this the fabled Mr. Drake?!”
“The one and only,” Sully exclaimed, cringing as the wording hit him too late. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Nate’s lips twist into a frown. He flopped onto the stool next to Sully and crossed his arms on the bar. “My usual, Eddie, make it two.”
“You got it,” Eduardo gave a thumbs up and wandered off to the other end of the bar, grabbing a couple of glasses off of the bar mat as he went.
Sully leaned towards Nate, bumping their shoulders together. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, I get it.” Nate shrugged, looking around at the decor of the bar. It was cleaner inside than the rundown exterior led one to expect. “It’s just a phrase.”
Sully nodded sadly, watching Nate as he looked pretty much everywhere except at another human in the bar at that moment. Neon lights that advertised various alcoholic drinks hanging on the wall above them cast his skin in a blue tinge and the blue-ish colour of his eyes appeared almost black.
Sully saw when his eyes caught on something on the wall across the room and followed his gaze over the gaggle of other patrons to see what captured his attention. A large framed picture hung as a focal point above the pool table, surrounded by smaller framed photos of a variety of people, the backgrounds of many of them showed the ambience of the very bar they were hung in, heads tilted in laughter, glasses raised in salute. A viewer couldn’t help but smile at the joy that poured out of those photos. The large photo in the middle of it all showed two men, each with an arm wrapped around the other and clinking together tall glasses of frothy beer with the caricature of the cigar smoking chicken from the faded sign outside emblazoned on the glasses. The eyes of the man on the right were crinkled shut, his smile wide and you could almost hear the laughter he must have been emitting as the photo was snapped, the man on the left had a mischievous glint in his eyes and a barely controlled smirk moments from erupting into laughter as well.
Sully smiled sadly at it, remembering the history behind the photo that Eduardo had told him just a couple weeks before.
“That’s Eduardo and his brother. They opened this bar together nearly twenty years ago.”
Nate's eyes flicked between the photo and Eduardo pouring drinks at the other end of the bar, vaguely nodding as he recognized the resemblance between the man and the younger version in the photo. He was the one on the right, captured in laughter.
Eduardo swept back towards them with their drinks, setting the glasses down with a satisfying thump on the solid wood bartop, rubbed smooth by decades of glassware and elbows sliding across it. He snatched a wooden bowl from further down the bar, one of several scattered around and plopped it between them, offering a selection of salted nuts. He glanced between the two men, measuring the mood between them until he saw Nate still vacantly staring at the framed photo.
“Ah, another patron captivated by my brother's charm?” Eduardo grinned, almost as wide as the photo, his eyes crinkling into a now familiar pattern of crows feet caused by decades of laughter. “Ignacio had that charm around him, he drew people's attention effortlessly.”
Nate focused on Eduardo and swallowed hard before speaking. “Had?”
“Fifteen years he’s been gone now,” he said with a smile, “I miss him every day, more than anything, but I cherish every memory I had with him.” Eduardo leaned his hip against the lower service side of the bar, folding thick arms across his broad chest as he gazed fondly at the photo. “I was the kid brother who annoyed him whenever he wasn’t working, and sometimes he had to travel far for his work and I wouldn’t see him for months, but he always came back for me.”
He shoved off from the counter, excitedly digging into the pocket of his black linen pants he produced a flat bottle opener. The scuffed red colour of the metal was only visible in small areas, the edges of the material worn and shiny down to the bare metal all the way around the rounded rectangle. He flipped it around lovingly in his hands. “He got me this when he went to Colombia when I was sixteen. He had so many stories of the places he saw, people he met. When we opened this bar he promised he would take me there, but he got sick before we could become even slightly financially stable with this bar.”
Sully glanced between Eduardo and Nate, worried how these stories might affect Nate’s already fragile grief. Nate seemed to be stuck, his head absentmindedly bobbing and his eyes glazed over, as though he were operating on autopilot and only half listening. Eduardo also seemed to have drifted off into his thoughts, smiling softly at the bottle opener in his hands.
Sully cleared his throat. “Well, I hope you can make it there yourself someday, beautiful country, coffee’s great. Say, what is Isabella cooking up back in there, it smells amazing.”
Eduardo shook himself from his reverie and slipped the bottle opener back into his pocket and stood up straight. “Oh Sully, you’re going to love it, I’ll grab you a couple bowls right now!”
When he disappeared into the kitchen, Sully turned to Nate. “You okay still?”
Nate didn’t say anything, merely shrugged one shoulder and stared at the bowl of nuts in front of him. Sully put his hand on Nate's shoulder, squeezing tightly a couple times.
“It’s hard, kid. I know it’s hard, but look at Eduardo. It’s a heavy weight to bear right now but it’ll get easier. It just takes time.”
A flicker of doubt crossed Nate’s face. He couldn’t see it yet and probably wouldn’t for a while.
“We-” Nate’s voice broke and he cleared his throat before trying again. “We never really had any pictures of the two of us. Not since we were kids. I can remember seeing some when I was really young but we didn’t really have much with us when we went to the orphanage, let alone pictures. And if mom had any, they didn’t end up with her books.”
Sully nodded sadly, looking down at the countertop. He had boxes of old photographs in storage back home, his mother had taken photos of everything, even the kittens that had been born to a stray cat under their back porch when he was barely 3 years old, so there were boxes of albums and even more shoeboxes of loose photos. Photos that were deemed precious enough to pass on, full of faces he didn’t even know the names of from when his mother was young, before his time. She had treasured them, and he kept them safe even if he didn’t necessarily understand the context of many of them.
There were albums full of family vacation photos, from when they had packed themselves into his dads Studebaker Coupe and travelled through the southern states during the summer. Albums full of school photos, from the home shorn bowl cut in grade 2 all the way through to the regrettable mullet and barely there moustache he wore with pride in highschool. At the time he didn’t get it, he didn’t know why his mother insisted on taking photos at what seemed like every little moment and carefully preserving them in her albums.
He gets it now.
“I’m sorry, kid.”
Nathan picked up his glass and swirled the amber liquid around, the ice cubes tinkling against the glass and shrugged. “Nothing I can do about it now.”
Sully picked up his glass and tipped the rim towards Nate’s. “To Sam.”
Nate swallowed hard but lifted his drink to clink against Sully’s. “To Sam,” he echoed. Together they thumped their glasses against the bartop and took a drink. It was the first drink Nate had had in weeks and he grimaced at the burn down his throat. “Awful stuff. He would’ve loved it though.”
“He had better taste than you, that's for sure,” Sully said with a chuckle, pleased to see a half hearted grin on Nate’s face.
“He would whip us both at pool too, but I think I could take you.” Nate said, tilting his head to gesture at the pool tables with his chin.
“I’ll take that bet. After we eat though, I play better with a full stomach. Isabella’s food is going to knock your socks off!” Sully shot back the rest of his drink and slammed the glass onto the counter before sliding off the side of his stool. “I’m going to hit the head while we’re waiting.”
He headed off towards the washroom at the back of the room, stepping past the big group of people gathered around the bar. A woman with long dark brown hair sat on a stool with her back against the edge of the bartop, gracefully holding the rim of a stemless wine glass between two fingers, her eyes following as he walked passed. Sully tilted his head towards her with a smile as they made eye contact. Next to her stood a big guy, leaning against the bar and draping his arm across her shoulders, pressing himself into her space and laughing obnoxiously at whatever his buddy next to him had just said. When he saw Sully smiling at the woman, his expression changed to fury.
“Keep walking, old man.” He growled and he pulled his arm closer to her neck possessively.
Sully gave a half assed salute and nodded, carrying on his way around the corner and down the narrow hallway.
As he finished up his business in the washroom he heard loud voices from the front room, opening the door he paused to listen as the voices carried down the hallway.
“I said, are you looking at my girl?” Sully recognized the voice of the big guy with the girl under his arm at the bar.
“No?” That was Nate, sounding confused. “I wasn’t looking at her, I was look–”
“Oh, so you think she’s ugly then, is that it?”
Sully started down the hallway as Nate sounded even more bewildered. “No, she’s very pretty, but I wasn’t–”
“Oh, so you were looking at her, huh?”
Sully made it around the corner just as the guy shoved off the counter, stalking towards Nate, who was leaning back with his hands raised slightly in front of him.
“Look man, I’m not looking for trouble.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have come here.”
Before Nate could react, the big guy swung at him with a hard right hook across the jaw, knocking him off of the stool and he hit the ground hard. The big guy stalked forward, towering over Nate as he scrambled on the floor, managing to grab the leg of the stool as he pushed himself to his feet and took a few steps back, wielding the stool like a weapon to defend himself.
“Hey, leave him alone!” Sully called out and he pushed through the group, trying to get to Nate.
“Sit down, old man.”
Someone behind Sully slammed their hands into his shoulders, causing him to stumble and he fell forward, catching the edge of the countertop just below his ribs and all the air was forced out of his lungs. He slumped to the floor, retching as his body automatically tried to drag in air that his lungs couldn’t remember how to deal with. People were stepping over him, kicking his legs as they tried to get around him, not paying him any attention as he struggled to breathe.
After an agonizing long time, he finally managed to take a productive gasp of air, his eyes watering as he took another heave that turned into a cough, which nearly turned into gagging.
Another kick to his shin motivated him to gather himself together, grabbing the edge of the bar he pulled himself to his feet, bracing himself against it as he continued to try to catch his breath.
A thin hand with soft skin settled on Sully’s shoulder and he turned to find the pretty girl from before looking at him with concern. “Are you ok?”
Sully turned his head away from her to cough into his shoulder before smiling widely at her. “I’m good, love!”
“Your friends not,” She said, tilting her chin in Nate’s direction.
Sully turned just in time to see Nate brandish the stool he was holding like a bat, swinging it towards the big guy's hip. The guy caught the stool, using it and Nate’s grip on it to yank Nate towards himself to pull him off balance.
Nate leaned into it, using the forward momentum to try to tackle the guy around the waist and pushing him back against the bar and sending drinks and plates tumbling to the ground.
Eduardo emerged from the kitchen, yelling loud and fast, so quickly that Sully couldn’t keep up but he caught “Carlos” in the rapid fire Spanish.
‘Carlos’ was clearly the brute that was grappling with Nate, yelling out as his spine hit the edge of the bar top. He clasped his big meaty hands together and slammed them down, driving both fists into the middle of Nates back. Nate grunted and his arms released, collapsing against Carlos’ legs.
Carlos fisted his hand into Nate's hair, yanking his head back before driving his knee into his nose. Blood spurted out immediately as Nate fell backwards, hitting the floor with his arms splayed out, dazed. Carlos stalked forward and knelt on the floor, one knee on either side of Nate’s hips as he straddled him.
“Get off of him!” Sully yelled, rushing forwards and trying to grasp Carlos’ raised fist as the big guy grabbed the neck of Nate’s shirt with his other hand, lifting his head off of the floor.
One effortless shove and Sully was sent stumbling backwards, caught before he hit the floor by Carlos’ posse, who latched onto his arms and forced him to his knees, pinning him in place. A front row seat as Carlos started whaling on Nate.
At first Nate weakly tried to fight back, becoming aware enough to bring his hands up and desperately trying to untangle Carlos’ hand from his shirt, trying to get his fingers in between Carlos’ fingers to try and pull them away but it was useless against the iron grip that he had.
The big guys fist landed with a sickening crunch against Nate’s cheek, his head jerking to the side as blood from his nose spattered across the floor. He went limp immediately, his raised hands flopping against his chest uselessly and head lolling against the floor as Carlos jerked him into an upright position again, pulling back for another punch.
Sully could only yell as he struggled against the men holding him down, barely aware of what curses he screamed at Carlos and the other men as Carlos pummeled on Nate, who already hung unresponsive in his grip, his head limply rocking back and forth with every hit. Sully struggled against the men, trying to kick at them until his knee slipped out from under him and he was slammed face first into the floor, now stuck pinned to the floor and even more helpless than he started.
Finally Carlos released his grip on Nate's shirt and he dropped to the floor, his arms splayed out on either side of him. For a moment Sully felt relieved until Carlos' hand wrapped around Nate's throat instead. Sully could see how the pressure of his thumb across Nate's Adams apple immediately interfered with his ability to swallow, his head tilting back as he unconsciously tried to breathe.
The discomfort roused him back to semi-consciousness though, his eyes opening to slits as his hands flailed for something to latch onto.
He weakly tried to pry the hand away from his throat, to no avail yet again, before reaching out for Carlos's face or his throat, anything he could latch onto to try to fight him off. It was a useless battle, even being on the tall and lanky side he didn't have the reach that his much bigger opponent did and he was in such rough shape already.
Sully started yelling even louder, fighting like hell to get some sort of leverage against his captors as Nate's eyes rolled back in his head and his hands flopped to the floor again, succumbing to the lack of oxygen.
Just as he passed out, a pair of hard soled leather shoes hit the ground just in front of Sully, Eduardo joining the fray via a leap over the bar with more athleticism than Sully would've expected from the pot bellied proprietor.
"Get off!" Eddie yelled as he delivered a powerful kick to the side of Carlos' ribcage. The force of the impact sent Carlos toppling over, his grip on Nate's shirt dragging the unconscious man over with him, rolling him onto his side.
Eduardo jumped on Carlos, kicking him in the back of the knee as he tried to get up and wrapping an arm around his neck, capturing him in a chokehold.
The resulting uproar from the posse was silenced at the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked. Straining against the weight on his back Sully turned his head to see the barrel of the gun poking over the top of the bar, aimed at the two holding him to the floor. He recognized Isabella's voice as she spoke, her voice a dare that any sane person knew better than to challenge.
"Get out."
The men holding him down slowly moved back, clearly familiar with her no nonsense disposition. Eddie had the winning personality that brought the customers in and coming back, Isabella was the one that made sure they left when they were no longer welcome.
As soon as the hands were off, Sully scrambled towards Nate, tripping over his own feet and then Carlos' as Eduardo disentangled him from Nate and dragged him towards the door.
"Shit, Nate," Sully muttered as he gently rolled Nathan onto his back. His breath hitched in his throat as Nate flopped against his leg. Sully snaked a hand under Nate’s shoulders and carefully lifted his upper body off the floor, cradling Nate’s head against his shoulder. “C’mon kid, open your eyes.”
There was a slight fluttering of Nate’s eyelashes but he didn’t wake.
“C’mon kid,” Sully muttered, gently tapping his fingers against Nate’s cheek. The skin on his face was already red and angry, Sully could tell that soon he’d be riddled in bruises and swelling up. The bottom part of his face was covered in blood leaking from his nose, following the call of gravity as it ran down across his cheek, pooling in his ears and wetting his hair. His jaw hung loose and Sully could hear the labour each breath took, catching in his throat. “Hey c’mon, Nate.”
Nate’s eyelashes fluttered briefly again and Sully saw a flicker of blue.
“C’mon kid— Nathan!” Sully could feel the desperation building in his chest the longer the younger man remained unconscious and he raised his voice, his hand clutching onto Nate’s shoulder and shaking him.
Nate’s head lolled against Sully’s shoulder and his eyes rolled open. He winced, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment again before finally opening them. He blinked blearily up at Sully, his brow furrowing in pain and confusion.
“S-Sam?” Nate struggled to sit up, frantically looking around as he grabbed at Sully’s shoulder. “Sam, what happened?”
Sully felt as though his heart had dropped in his chest at the name. “Hey, take it easy, don’t get up yet.”
“Sam—” Nate faltered as he looked up at Sully and finally realized who it was leaning over him. Sully could almost see the gears turning in his head as he sought for an answer, heard the hitch in his breath as the memories surfaced, and felt the tightening of his hand on Sully’s shoulder moments before the anguish poured over him, his blood covered face crumpling when he realized his brother wasn’t there. That his brother would never be there again.
Sully pulled Nate closer, wrapping his friend in a tight hug. Nate collapsed against him, exhausted and in pain, both physically and emotionally, surrendering fully to the support offered as sobs ripped through him.
They sat there on the floor for a while, Sully cradling Nate against his chest with his back turned to the rest of the bar as Eduardo and Isabella escorted the rest of Carlos' group off of the premises. Sully felt like he could finally relax when he heard the lock on the deadbolt click into place and the neon bar lights in the windows flicked off.
Isabella settled on her knees in front of Sully with a pack of frozen vegetables wrapped in a kitchen towel in her hand and offered it to him. He gratefully accepted it and encouraged Nate to lean back again.
“Hey kid, let me see ya,” He said quietly. “Your face is going to be big as a melon if we don’t deal with it soon.”
He pressed the cold towel over Nate’s eyebrow and cheek area, quietly apologizing as Nate winced at the contact. His hands fumbled upwards, feeling for the ice pack and taking control of it so Sully could let go, instead just holding Nate steady in the awkward halfway to seated position they had wound up in.
Eduardo approached and Sully heard him and Isabella conversing in Spanish until Isabella stood and went back into the kitchen, while Eduardo took her place on the floor, laying a large hand on Nate’s shoulder. “My apologies, Carlos has never been a pleasant man to be around.”
“Are we going to run into trouble trying to get out of here?” Sully asked.
“No, Carlos is Isabella’s little cousin. He knows better than to mess with her, or his mother if she opts to tell on him.” Eduardo replied with a smirk.
Isabella returned with something wrapped in towels propped on her hip and held out her empty hand towards Sully. “Give me your keys, I will drive your truck. Eduardo will take you out the back.”
Eduardo leaned forward, offering to help Nate get to his feet as Sully fished the keys out of his pocket and handed them over as he stood. Nate groaned as Eduardo pulled him up, his eye that wasn’t already swelling shut falling closed and his head tilting back as he slumped against his chest. The improvised ice pack fell from his fingers and hit the floor, which Sully quickly picked up, choosing to hold onto it until they got him settled in the vehicle.
“Take it easy, I’ve got you,” Eduardo reassured him. Nate grunted in surprise, his eyes flying open as Eduardo bent over and then scooped Nate into his arms, carrying him bridal style into the kitchen and out the back door. Nate hissed a bit at the pressure against his achy body, but didn’t outright complain. He looked exhausted, beaten down and ready to pass out at a moment's notice.
Sully pulled the door closed behind them and then jogged ahead to open the back door of the car parked right behind the kitchen, an old BMW from the 60’s. He opened the door and slid across the back seat before turning to help Eduardo lower Nate into the back seat, getting his arms under Nate’s to pull him close enough to rest his head on Sully’s lap. Nate whimpered at the jostling, squeezing his eyes shut in pain.
“Sorry! Sorry kid, you’re alright, I’ve got you,” Sully tried to reassure him, running his hand through Nate’s hair. Nate clung to Sully’s knee as Eduardo finished manoeuvring his body onto the back seat, his legs awkwardly bent so that the door could be closed.
“Here, let's get this back on,” Sully said as a warning before placing the ice pack against Nate’s cheek. He couldn’t be sure, but he might have heard a muffled ‘thanks’ from Nate as Eduardo’s door slammed and the car engine roared to life, a couple gentle revs needed to keep the engine from sputtering out before he shifted into gear and eased the car out of the alley, heading off towards their rental.
The Jeep was parked out front already when they arrived, the lights on the porch and front room lighting up the area so it was easy to see as the three of them worked on getting out of the old car. Eduardo offered to carry Nate again, which Nate rejected, resolutely attempting to put one foot in front of the other on his own.
Which worked out for a few steps until he staggered and nearly fell before Sully got his shoulder under Nate’s armpit, wrapping his arm around the younger man's torso. Nate gratefully leaned against him as the pair of them slowly made their way up the short staircase to the porch.
Inside, Isabella was already working away in their kitchen. Sully recognized the towels from the package she had left the bar with haphazardly folded on the table and an unfamiliar pot on the stove that she was heating up.
Nate lurched towards the hallway leading to the bedrooms, and Sully helped him along all the way to Nate’s room at the back of the house. Books littered nearly every surface in the room, including a few on the bed that they carefully avoided as Nate sat on the edge of it. When he felt half confident that Nate wouldn’t immediately tip over without support, Sully quickly gathered the errant books and stacked them on the edge of the small side table.
Nate started to waver, dully staring at the wall ahead of him as Sully bustled around him until he gently pushed Nate backwards, guiding his head to the pillow and then lifting his legs onto the bed. Nate sighed heavily as he settled into the bed.
Eduardo knocked on the partially open door, leaning in without waiting for a response to hand over a baggy of ice cubes wrapped in a towel and a damp face cloth. Sully gratefully took them and placed the cold package against the darkening bruises around Nate’s throat, causing him to wince. The door clicked shut behind him, leaving the two of them alone as Sully started to wipe the blood from Nate’s face.
“Sorry kid.” He was being as gentle as he could, but even the slightest touches seemed to hurt.
“I can’t remember what his voice sounds like.”
“What?” Sully paused, confused at the statement.
Nate took a shaky breath, the one eye he could open welling up with tears. “Sam. I already can’t remember what his voice sounds like.”
Sully took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it rush out.
“It’s only been a few months and I can’t hear his voice in my head anymore.” Nate stared at the ceiling but Sully wasn’t sure just how much he could even see through the tears. He choked on a hiccup before he started to ramble on. “When mom died Sam said a few weeks later that he couldn’t remember what her laugh sounded like. I think I was too numb to think about it at the time, but he was right. I couldn’t hear her voice anymore.” His face twisted into anguish as a sob ripped through him. “And now I can’t hear him either.”
Sully felt his own heart break as his friend fell apart in front of him. It wasn’t something he had thought about before, and for a moment he denied it to himself. Of course he could still hear what Samuel sounded like. But when he tried to imagine it, he could remember conversations that they had shared, but the things that Sam said… they were just words in his head now. The actual sound of Sam’s voice wasn’t there anymore.
Nate started to curl into himself, one hand latched to his forehead and covering his eyes, the flesh of his fingertips turning bone white at how tightly he clenched onto his own head. The other hand pressed against his throat, the already sensitive and aching muscles feeling like they were going to be torn apart as he choked on the grief clawing its way up his oesophagus, rending a pain that he felt to his very core. He rolled to his side, towards Sully, curling into a ball as much as he could. His knees collided with Sully’s back and he blindly latched onto his friend, burying his face in Sully’s shirt as the tears and sobs continued. It felt like the tears would never end. There was no end to this ocean of anguish, he would never find the bottom and he would never find the surface again, never be able to take a proper breath and he would drown right there on dry land.
All he could do was fall apart and see what there was left to pick up if this pain ever ended.
And all Sully could do was try to hold onto the pieces. He held onto Nate as best as he could, one hand rubbing up and down his back, the other carding through his hair as the young man trembled against him. He subconsciously tried to reassure him, murmuring platitudes of “It’s okay, it’s alright, I’ve got you.” He didn’t know what else to say, he’d never been good with words, but it felt more important to just say something even slightly reassuring rather than letting him wallow in silence.
He didn’t keep track of the time, it wasn’t important, but eventually Nate fell into a fitful sleep. Sully carefully extricated himself from Nate’s loose grip and gently lifted his head to stuff the pillow underneath him. He grabbed an extra blanket from the wardrobe in the corner, spreading it over Nate and tucked it in.
He spotted the towel that had held the ice pack and tugged it out from under Nate’s arm, now fully melted but thankfully not having leaked everywhere and returned to the kitchen with it. Eddie and Isabella were gone, a note left on the counter in Eddie’s chicken scratch writing letting him know the food Isabella had brought was packed in the fridge and one of them would be back before lunch the next day with more and if they needed anything at all, to give him a call and then his phone number scrawled underneath.
He flicked off the lights, grabbed a kitchen chair and carried it back to Nate’s room, where he settled in next to the bed with his feet propped on the foot of the bed, resolving to not let Nate wake up alone during the night.
~
Two days passed in near silence. Nate slept through most of it, only interrupted by Sully bringing him food that Eddie or Isabella delivered twice a day. Everything they brought was like magic, something soft or a soup that would be easy for Nate to swallow with his achy throat, but still hearty and filling, even with the small amount that Nate would manage to pick at before going back to sleep.
On the third morning, Sully was sitting in the living room, his back aching from spending the nights sitting next to Nate's bed, half heartedly working on a crossword puzzle in a newspaper that just wasn’t working out with the words he could think of. He was about ready to give up when he heard the shower turn on and he glanced at his watch. It would be a reasonable time for breakfast and Eddie’s new habit of stopping by with lunch wouldn’t be for another couple hours. If Nate was feeling well enough to get in the shower by his own volition, maybe he would be up to having breakfast.
Sully puttered into the kitchen and opened the fridge to see what he had on hand. It had been a while since he made it to the market in the next town over so there wasn’t much, but there were a few eggs, the last chunk of a block of cheese, and some milk in the bottom of the jar. Enough to make some omelettes, he supposed. He’d need to visit the market today and restock, they wouldn’t be able to rely on Eddie and Isabella’s kindness forever. Maybe he could ask Eddie to stick around and keep an eye on Nate while he slipped out for a bit.
This would be that much better with veggies, Sully mused to himself as he whipped the eggs into a slurry. On a whim he opened the freezer door and found the bag of frozen veggies that Isabella had given Nate to use as an ice pack at the bar. It was funny, but also absolutely not at all. With that mix of emotions, he ripped the bag open and poured it into the pan to mix with the eggs and cheese.
He had just plated the omelettes and set them on the small kitchen table with a pot of coffee when Nathan emerged from the hallway wearing a clean long sleeved shirt with the sleeves pushed to his elbows. He held onto the strap of his backpack slung over one shoulder, and in the other hand he clutched a small leather bound journal. He looked haggard still. The swelling around his eye had gone down so he could sorta open it, but the flesh was still black around the socket, the rest of his face mottled with shades of purple and green.
He looked surprised to see the spread on the table.
“Do I need to pack my bag or can a guy have breakfast before we hit the road?” Sully asked as he pulled out a chair.
“We can eat.”
“Good. You know how cranky I can get without a meal to start the day.” Nate smirked at Sully’s comment as he dropped his bag and placed the journal on top before taking a seat at the table.
“Isabella brought this last night, freshly squeezed,” Sully said as he poured orange juice from a glass jar into cups.
Nate picked up his cup, swirling the pulpy liquid around. “Sam always hated pulp in his juice. Said it wasn’t right to drink anything with that sort of texture.”
“To each their own,” Sully said, picking up his glass. He was about to take a swig when Nate held his glass up, extending it towards Sully.
“To Sam.”
“To Sam,” Sully echoed.
It took time, but eventually Nate seemed like he was doing okay. Sully never wanted to pick at that particular scab, not wanting to open up the well of grief even if he knew he would always be there to help Nate deal with it, so he waited for Nate to say something first if he needed to.
It was nearly 15 years later when Sully heard Nathan mention Sam’s name again.
#here's a thing I wrote#uncharted 4#uncharted fanfic#nathan drake fic#title from a BNL song called Pinch Me
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Félix: kidnapping is a love language
Kagami: you have no social skills, idiot
*two weeks later*
Félix: okay, so when Marinette's at her most vulnerable, I'll gaslight her into thinking I'm her boyfriend, so she'll follow me into an abandoned building where we can put her in an altered mental state and present to her my family's life story in the imaginable most cryptic play of theater she has ever seen, which will reveal to her our horrible secret and the fact that her abusive father-in-law is also her arch-nemesis
Kagami: you're so big brained, bae 🥰
#I LOVE THEM BUT GOD THAT WAS THE LEAST SELF-EXPLANATORY WAY TO GO ABOUT THIS#fucking theater kids /lh#miraculous ladybug#ml spoilers#ml representation#ml representation spoilers#maybe they do team up nicely with Marinette because can ever be simple sfdgdfhgjfhg#I'm so pumped for the final ohmygodddd#also did you know I wrote a story in highschool where the son of the villain revealed his family's true nature to the MC#in a cryptic fairy tale. where he assigned his father as the evil prince who moved into the king's family and married the pricess#who ended up comatose and waiting for revival?#the moral of the story is we're all insane here and I cannot believe I literally wrote 30k about this#and not have the gall to diss on feligami they are the MVPs fgdhjdfhgfjgk#also props for being so much more useful going about this whole thing than Luka <3
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<– • –>
#zu art#comic#post dark cream#dream!sans#cross!sans#ink!sans#aim!sans#undertale#undertale au#utmv#they did it guys!! a whole year later we're finally here :'D#NO Ink that's not the right way to lift a child up >:'0#(baby boi's just like a kitten who was picked up by the scruff ;w;)#god I tried SO many expressions for Ink until drawing just what I wanted \(//∇//)\#*strangles him* (affectionate) <3#*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･''･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*#15!! THOUSANDS!! of you guys omg... \(//∇//)\☆#it feels like I wrote the 10K post just yesterday?? :'D#our party's gettin bigger—#to each of you reading this: thank you so much for supporting me and enjoying things together╰(*´︶`*)╯♡#let's have more fun! ;D#UPD fixed cause there was no!! string!! for Dream's bow xd
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I'm late, I'm sorry, but here's the full fic from this WIP post yesterday!
[CW: bullying, references to canon racism and violence, mentions of recreational drug use]
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Steve makes it to the bathroom down the hall from the shop classroom—the one that’s far from the cafeteria and always empty during lunch, where people really only come to smoke, anyway—before he completely loses his shit.
“Son of a bitch!” He’s almost screaming as he hauls off and punches the wall of one of the bathroom stalls, putting every ounce of anger and frustration and humiliation into it, hitting it so hard that the whole construction rattles.
“Motherfucker,” he hisses, shaking his hand out, because it had hurt, and then he winds up to do it again, to make it hurt more, because at least he’s in control of that much, at least it’s anything but what he’s feeling right now.
“That’s a good way to break your hand, y’know,” a voice comes from the doorway, startling Steve into pivoting and aiming his fist at whoever is coming after him now.
He stops short when he sees nobody but Eddie goddamn Munson standing there, cringing into a startled flinch to protect his head as Steve nearly swings at him.
“Jesus shit,” Steve barks, dropping his fist and stepping back, shaky with adrenaline. “You walk like a fucking ghost, Munson.”
Munson peeks out of his defensive crouch before straightening up and sending a meaningful glance at the stall wall. “Somehow, I don’t think you would’ve heard me even if I was making all the noise in the world.”
Steve shrugs, his shoulders staying up near his ears in a defensive slouch. He can feel something dropping out of his hair and down the side of his face, and he feels the humiliation all over again as he tries to swipe it away.
“What do you want?” he asks, beyond caring if he sounds rude; he thinks he’s entitled, considering.
This time, Munson shrugs, a rolling, casual thing that belies the sharp look in his eyes. “Came to see if you were okay, I guess.”
Steve snorts. Is he okay?
Like, in the grand scheme of things, the answer is a really shaky “maybe.” But lately? It’s more of a resounding “no, not fucking really.”
Aside from everything else – aside from the nightmares, aside from the headaches, aside from the fact he’d had to drop basketball after his concussion, aside from having no real friends or allies at school now that he and Nancy aren’t together – aside from all that, there’s Billy fucking Hargrove.
Hargrove, who had taken all of a month to start pushing Steve’s buttons again. Who had taken less than a few days after that to realize that Steve wasn’t going to push back.
And then he’d started looking for the boundary line, pushing and pushing, shoulder-checking Steve in the hall, tripping him in the single class they share, knocking shit out of his hands, shoving him when his back is turned, all the while spitting names and insults, until it had culminated into today’s fiasco: dumping a carton of chocolate milk over the top of Steve’s head in the middle of the cafeteria with a deeply unconvincing “oops.”
It had gone dead silent, every eye in the room on Steve’s red face and Hargrove’s triumphant grin, while Steve had only been able to stand there, shaking with startled rage as milk had sluiced out of his hair and seeped into his collar and down the back of his shirt, knowing that he couldn’t retaliate.
He couldn’t.
He’d marched out of the cafeteria, shame and anger growing as voices had bloomed up behind him, already gossiping and speculating.
So, no, actually, he’s not really okay.
But instead of saying any of this to Munson, he just scoffs and turns away, looking towards the sinks.
“Wouldn’t have expected you to care,” he says, injecting as much lazy indifference into his voice as he can, trying to armor up the way he used to. “The number of speeches you’ve given about how much me and my group suck, I’d have figured you’d be the first to say I deserved it.”
Munson doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Steve doesn’t look back to see if the barb landed. He doesn’t really care, he just wants the guy to go away so Steve can finish his meltdown and clean up in peace.
“Not your group anymore, though,” Munson finally says.
Steve shrugs, pulling a wad of paper towels from the dispenser; might as well move on to cleanup if Munson isn’t going to fuck off. He guesses his little breakdown can wait until he gets home.
“Hasn’t been for over a year, now, right?” Munson goes on. Steve says nothing, using a dry paper towel to try to blot up the mess. “And whatever you were like then, you’re… less like that now. Like, anyone paying attention can see you’re kinda trying something new this year.”
Steve ignores the way that makes something catch in his throat. “Thanks for the endorsement,” he drawls. “I’ll put it on my college apps: Not as much of an asshole as I used to be.”
“It’s a start,” Munson says, and Steve glances up in time to see him shrug in the mirror.
“I guess,” Steve mutters.
“And, uh – hey, I grabbed your stuff,” Munson says, holding up the binder and notebooks that Steve’s attention had glossed over until now. “Some of it’s kinda… milky, sorry.”
Steve blinks. “Uh. Thank you,” he says, stunned for a moment into sincerity.
Munson shrugs again, putting Steve’s stuff up on the narrow shelf on the wall that no one ever uses to hold things because it’s probably never been cleaned. Not like Steve’s stuff is clean now, anyway.
Steve turns back to the sink, wetting a few of the paper towels and waiting to see if Munson is going to leave now.
“What I can’t figure out–” nope, apparently he’s staying, “–is why you’re in here punching the wall, instead of out there, punching Hargrove.”
At least that makes more sense; he’s here out of curiosity, not concern.
“I mean, most people would’ve hit him for that,” Munson goes on. “I would’ve.”
But Steve’s already shaking his head before Munson’s finished speaking. “Not worth it,” he says firmly.
“What, afraid of a little suspension?” Munson asks, almost teasing. “Pretty sure the school would let their golden boy off with a slap on the wrist.”
“Not anybody’s golden boy anymore,” Steve snaps, scrubbing a wet paper towel through his hair in a vain attempt to get some of the rapidly-drying milk out. “I dropped basketball, remember? Didn’t even go in for swimming this year.”
“Oh, yeah,” Munson says, like he’d genuinely forgotten. “Sorry, not really into the whole… sports scene. Like, at all.”
Steve shrugs. “Whatever. Not important. I don’t give a shit about being suspended. I don’t even care if he hits me back. Not like I need another knock to the head at this point, but – whatever.” Steve shakes his head. “It’s just that he could– there are other things he could do.”
In the mirror, Munson’s eyebrows go up. “What, does he have blackmail on you or some shit?”
Steve raises his brows right back. “If he did, do you really think I’d tell you?”
Munson tips his head to the side. “Yeah, okay, fair enough.”
“Anyway, he doesn’t have blackmail, he has… leverage, I guess.” Steve lets out a harsh sigh and gives up on his hair for now, wetting a paper towel to try to get some of the milk off his face and neck, instead.
“…are you allowed to tell me what that is?” Munson asks after a moment.
And for a moment, Steve thinks about it. The only people in school who really know are Nancy and Jonathan, and he’s asked them to follow his lead in just – not talking about it. He hasn’t told anybody any version of what happened in the Byers’ house, or why Billy seems to have made him his personal stress ball. But who the hell would Munson tell? All his nerdy friends in his game club?
(No, no, that’s not fair. Steve doesn’t even know those people, and he’s trying not to be that guy anymore. He doesn’t have to be nice, but he shouldn’t be unkind.)
(The point stands, though – who would Munson even tell?)
“Do you know why Hargrove beat my face in back in November?” Steve finally asks, avoiding Munson’s eyes in the mirror by focusing very hard on getting the tacky milk off his hairline.
“Well, I’ve heard most of the rumors by now, I think. Heard Hargrove’s version of events, as has pretty much everyone, I’m sure. Haven’t heard yours, though,” Munson says, his voice tilting up in interest. “I just figured it was because he hated you.”
Steve lets out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, you’re not wrong. But also…” He pauses for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “There are these kids I babysit. Sort of.”
“Sort of?” Munson presses.
“Well, most of the time it feels like they’re just ordering me around like a bunch of entitled shitheads. But I make sure they get where they’re going without, like, disappearing, and that they don’t have so much unsupervised time that they manage to get themselves killed,” Steve admits.
“Uh huh,” Munson says; he sounds… a little confused, but not disbelieving. “And you ended up with this gig, how?”
“It’s Nancy’s little brother, and his little nerd friends,” Steve says (he’s allowed to call them nerds because he knows them, and it’s true. And besides, it’s affectionate).
“Aaand you’re still doing it now? Even though you and Wheeler aren’t…”
Steve shrugs. “They grew on me. But that’s– that’s not the point. One of the kids is, uh. Hargrove’s stepsister. And the night me and Hargrove got into it, I guess she wasn’t supposed to be out.”
“Ah,” Munson says.
“Yeah.” Steve sighs, giving up on the milk as a bad job; he probably should’ve run off to the gym showers instead of a shitty bathroom. He turns and leans back against the sink, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at the floor near Munson’s scuffed sneakers. “So he came looking for her.”
“So… Not that I’m advocating handing over children to pieces of shit like him, but – like, wouldn’t it have been the technically correct thing to do, to send her home with what is legally a family member?” Munson asks.
Steve passes a hand over his face. “She was terrified,” he says quietly, feeling a little like he’s betraying Max’s trust by saying it out loud, by saying it to a stranger. “She was terrified of what he would do if he found her there, where she wasn’t supposed to be. Terrified of what he would do to one of the other kids if he caught them together, since he’d specifically warned her to stay away from him.”
“What’s wrong with this other kid?” Munson asks, brows furrowed.
“Nothing,” Steve bites out. “He’s smart, and he’s brave, and he’s, like, slightly less of an asshole than some of the others, but what Hargrove cared about is that he’s black.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Munson snaps, and Steve’s hackles raise, ready to defend his kid all over again if he has to, but before he can get anything else out, Munson goes on. “We already knew he was a racist piece of shit, but – a fucking kid?”
Steve subsides. “Yeah. A fucking kid. So I told them all to stay inside and I went out to try to head him off. Or at least keep him out of the house. Which, obviously, I failed at.” He lets out a derisive little laugh, aimed solely at himself. “He knocked me on my ass, knocked the wind out of me, got past me– and by the time I was able to get up, he was already– he was inside, and he had that kid by the collar, up against the wall– one of my fucking kids–” Steve breaks off, the same rage and terror from that night choking up in his throat again. After the day he’s had, his emotions are all too close to the surface, too near to bubbling out, and he rubs at his nose, trying to stave off the angry, exhausted tears he can feel pricking at the corners of his eyes. “So I decked him.”
“Good!” Munson exclaims, and for a moment Steve actually manages a real smile.
“Yeah,” he says. “Then he hit me back, which, like, obviously. I was expecting him to, but– I mean, I might’ve actually won that fight if the fucker hadn’t hit me in the head with a plate.”
The expression that crosses Munson’s face is almost comically shocked. “What?”
“Yeah,” Steve says again, running a hand over his jaw, thumbing almost unconsciously at the still-fading scar where the porcelain had sliced him open. “I’m a little fuzzy on shit after that. Like, I remember being on the floor, and him kneeling over me, and hitting me, and hitting me, and then– I dunno, nothing.”
Distantly, Steve realizes that the expression on Munson’s face has turned from ‘comically shocked’ to ‘mildly horrified,’ but he’s a little too lost in the blurry memory of that night to do much about it.
“Holy shit, how are you not dead?” Munson blurts out.
He looks like he immediately regrets asking, but Steve finds he’s actually grateful for the question. He’s glad to move the conversation along.
“Max.” He smirks over at Eddie. “Hargrove’s stepsister. I guess she, uh– threatened him with a baseball bat? Saved my ass.”
That’s a deep over-simplification, but Steve can’t think of a way to explain the presence of heavy sedatives in the Byers’ house, and, anyway, she had threatened him with a baseball bat. The kids had all taken great joy in reenacting the way Max had nearly neutered Hargrove with the nailbat, actually; it’s almost like Steve had been there (and conscious).
“Holy shit,” Munson says, and whichever part he’s referring to, Steve is inclined to agree.
“Yep. So I was out fucking cold at the time, but the kids all insist that she got him to agree to leave her and her friends alone, but…” Steve shakes his head. “Hargrove is a fucking psychopath. I don’t trust him to keep that promise. So, at least if he’s focused on me, he might leave her alone. But if I hit back…”
“You think he’ll retaliate by going after one of your kids,” Munson says, only a hint of teasing in his words at the end.
“I know he will,” Steve says; Hargrove had implied as much more than once. He crosses his arms back over his chest. “And they are my kids.”
Munson throws his hands up, as if in surrender, but he’s definitely smiling now.
“I’m serious,” Steve insists, close to smiling himself. “They think I’m stuck with them, but they’re the ones stuck with me.”
“Lucky them,” Munson says, and– what?
“What?” Steve asks.
“Look, you’re either a better actor than, like, everyone in the drama club, or you at least seriously believe what you told me, which is more than I can say for Hargrove and whatever shit he came up with about the two of you getting into it over… what, his car was better than yours? He’s better at laundry ball? I don’t fucking remember, and it doesn’t really matter, because it was clearly and pathetically fabricated,” Munson says with an authoritative nod. “You, at the very least, really give a shit about those kids. So, yeah. Lucky them.”
“Well,” Steve scrambles for a moment, trying to cover the way he actually feels like he might start fucking blushing, “if I’d known all I had to do to change your mind about me was tell you about a fight I lost, I’d have done it ages ago.”
And now Munson’s back to smirking at him. “Seeking my esteem that badly, Harrington?”
“What? No. I mean – not– not specifically yours, it’s just… like, there’s not really an easy or fast way to make up for being kind of a dick for the last… while.” Steve runs his hand through his hair, stopping with a grimace when he remembers the drying milk. “You just have to keep not being a dick and hope people give you a chance. So, like, compared to that, convincing you was easy.”
“And all you had to do was get a severe concussion first,” Munson drawls.
Steve rolls his eyes. “I didn’t say it was severe.”
“You got hit with a plate,” Munson deadpans, and Steve can’t quite help the resulting flinch, at which Munson almost immediately softens. “Sorry.”
Steve shakes his head. “It’s fine.”
Mouth screwed to the side, Munson eyes Steve for a moment, glancing over his shirt and up to his face before gesturing at him. “You want some help with that?”
Steve blinks at him. “What?”
“Your whole… hair situation. You could bend ov– like, you could lean over the sink and I could, uh. Try to rinse it for you. Or whatever,” Munson offers, awkward but apparently sincere.
It sounds like a stupid as hell way to try to rinse his hair. The sinks are small, and not exactly high off the ground; Steve would have better luck just going to the locker room and showering it all out. His soap is there, too, and an extra shirt.
On the other hand, Steve really doesn’t feel like leaving the bathroom yet. He’s pretty sure lunch is going to end soon, and encountering everyone during passing period sounds like a nightmare. In here, with Munson, it’s quiet. It feels almost safe.
“Yeah, sure,” Steve finally says, and Munson looks nearly shocked that he’s accepted.
Credit to him, though: he doesn’t back out. He just slides his jacket off, tosses it up over the wall of one of the bathroom stalls, rolls up his sleeves, and gestures for Steve to lean over the sink.
“Hot or cold?” he asks, going for the taps.
“Hot,” Steve answers immediately; he doesn’t need any other cold liquid on his head today.
“Hm.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Munson says airily, turning on the water. “You just kinda strike me as a cold shower guy. Like, up at dawn, go for a run, take a cold shower – all that weird jock shit.”
It isn’t intended to mock, Steve realizes as Munson tests the water temperature—the school pipes take forever to heat up—but to tease. It’s a joke, and Steve is invited in on it. And anyway, it’s… actually kind of close to the mark, so Steve doesn’t say anything at all for a moment as he puts his head as close to the faucet as he can get it and Munson places one cupped hand over the back of his neck and uses the other to scoop water over Steve’s hair.
“Cold water is better for your hair. Not that you’d know anything about that.” Steve finally says, hoping that his own teasing tone carries even with the way he has to raise his voice to be heard over the running water.
Luckily, Munson sounds amused when he answers. “Oh! Shots fucking fired. I see how it is!” Even as he’s pretending at being offended, his fingers stay gentle against Steve’s scalp as he tries to scrub out the dried mess, and Steve fights very, very hard not to shudder.
He can’t remember when the last time someone touched him with gentle intent was. Maybe he’d gotten a hug from Dustin last week?
Shit, that’s fucking pathetic.
He tries even harder not to lean into the touch, into the surprisingly kind hands on the back of his neck and on his scalp, tries hard not to act like some kind of touch-starved weirdo and make Munson regret offering to help.
The irony of the fact that Steve is trying not to act like a freak in front of Eddie Munson is not lost on him.
After another couple of minutes of Munson manipulating Steve’s head this way and that, doing his best to be thorough, he lets Steve go entirely and shuts the water off.
“That’s probably as good as I’m gonna be able to get it,” he says, pushing another handful of paper towels at Steve as he stands up.
“Better than I could’ve done here,” Steve says with a shrug, rubbing the paper towels over his hair and grimacing as he can feel it frizzing in about a hundred different directions.
When he finishes, he turns to look in the mirror, watching in real time as it droops over his forehead and tickles at his wet shirt collar. Munson stands next to him, watching without judgement, but with what feels like an inappropriate amount of fascination.
“Well, I’m not going to lie to you,” Munson says at last, “you look a little like a sad, wet dog.”
Steve’s eyes snap to Munson with a glare. “Gee, thanks.”
“Some people are into that!” Munson insists, holding his hands up placatingly. “That droopy aesthetic, with the big, brown puppy eyes. Someone might just wanna scoop you up and take you home to take care of you. It’s a thing.”
Do you want to? – the question comes immediately and unbidden to Steve’s head, and he quickly shakes it away. They might be on amiable terms right now, teasing each other a little, but he isn’t sure that wouldn’t be a bridge too far.
(He isn’t even sure it is teasing. For a moment, he’d had the genuine urge to ask.)
“Anyway, I think most of the mess is out of your hair, but I’m pretty sure your shirt is toast,” Munson goes on, gesturing to the brown stain around the collar, over one shoulder, and probably down the back.
If he’d been wearing a darker color today, it might’ve been alright, but of course today he’d chosen light blue. Steve sighs, plucking at the front of the shirt. If he can’t salvage it, he might as well ditch it; it’s getting uncomfortably stiff and tacky with the dried milk, and he’d honestly rather stick it out in his undershirt for as long as it takes him to get to the locker room than walk around with evidence of Hargrove’s little stunt all over him.
He untucks the shirt and yanks it over his head, no need to be careful of his hair, emerging from the depths of it to find Munson staring at him in a stunned sort of silence.
“What?” Steve asks. “If it’s wrecked, anyway, I might as well get rid of it. I’ve got a spare shirt in my gym locker I can go grab.”
Munson blinks at him, almost like he’s trying to clear his head. “Or!” he practically shouts – possibly louder than he meant to, since he continues more quietly, “Or, you could just ditch for the rest of the day. I mean, you have any particularly interesting classes after lunch you feel the need to attend?”
“Not really,” Steve admits with a huff of a laugh. “But leaving after that feels a little like– letting Hargrove win. Like I’m retreating or some shit.”
“Nah, don’t think of it like that.” Munson tosses an arm over Steve shoulders, waving his other in front of both of them, like he’s trying to show Steve a grand vision and they aren’t both just staring at the ugly tile on the bathroom wall. “Think of it as cutting class and getting free weed from Hawkins High’s most esteemed dealer.”
Steve turns to look at Munson, staring at him more closely than he’s ever had reason to, and realizing there are tiny freckles on his face. “What, seriously?”
“Sure.” Munson shrugs. “Lemme smoke you out, Harrington. Seems like a good way to let your stress go for a bit – though I am just a little biased.”
“Why?” Steve asks; he doesn’t understand the sudden turn this day has taken, the sudden and bizarre kindness offered that he doesn’t even know what he’s done to deserve.
Munson’s eyes slide away from Steve, though his arm notably stays draped over his shoulders. “Been where you are. It’s not great. And, I mean, if it had happened last year, then, admittedly, I probably wouldn’t have given as much of a shit. Jock on jock violence, whatever. But you,” he glances back at Steve, “you’re genuinely trying to be, like, a good person. And I don’t think you should be punished for that. I think, in fact, that you could probably use a friend.”
“I…” The words stick in Steve’s throat, because what the hell can he even say to that? On anyone else, Steve would have assumed an ulterior motive, but Munson had infused it with so much awkward sincerity that Steve can’t help but realize it’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s said or offered to do for him in… he’s not even sure how long.
His silence must stretch on a little too long, though, because the hopeful light in Munson’s eyes fades a bit, and he begins to slide his arm off of Steve’s shoulder. “Or, y’know, you can tell me to fuck off, because I’m, like, way overstepping some boundaries, and–”
“We should go to my place,” Steve blurts, while grabbing Munson’s wrist for some insane reason.
“What?” Munson blinks over at him, (understandably) startled.
“My place. We should go there to smoke. If you still want to.” Steve could cringe for how stilted the whole thing is coming out. “I want to be able to take a real shower.”
Munson stares at him for a moment longer before laying a hand over his heart with a gasp, suddenly leaning heavily into Steve’s side and forcing Steve to wrap an arm around his waist so they don’t both lose their balance.
“I see how it is!” Munson gasps dramatically. “My sink shower just wasn’t good enough!”
Steve holds in a laugh. “Your sink shower was… fine. But I’ve got milk dried in other uncomfortable places, so unless you want to wash my back for me, too, we should go back to mine.”
Munson’s gaze snaps back to Steve, something a little odd in it, and – oh. Oh, that hadn’t sounded quite like Steve had meant it. It had sounded a little like an offer of the kind you don’t go around making to just anybody.
Steve braces himself, waiting for the reaction (he doubts if Munson would get any kind of physical, but there will probably be an awkward pulling away and sudden remembering of something he has to do literally anywhere else that afternoon), but all Munson does is break into a sly smile and say, “I could, but I’d have to charge you extra.”
Steve can’t help it: he laughs, giving Munson a good-natured shove, who finally releases Steve but doesn’t stumble more than a couple of steps away.
“Meet you at my place?” Steve offers, balling up his shirt and dropping it on top of his notebooks as he grabs them from the shelf. “Half an hour?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Munson gives him a corny little salute before grabbing his jacket from over the stall wall and preceding Steve to the bathroom door.
“Munson,” Steve finds himself calling out, just as the other boy’s hand closes around the door handle; Munson glances back and Steve fights the urge to look away. “Uh. Thanks. For, like… yeah. Thanks.”
Whatever meaning Munson takes out of Steve’s absolutely eloquent verbal vomit of gratitude, it makes him smile. “No need for thanks, man,” he says. “I’m honestly a little surprised to say it, but the pleasure was definitely mine.”
And then he disappears out the door, leaving Steve in the bathroom wondering how the hell his day had taken this turn, and just what destination it’s leading him to.
And thinking that he’s honestly a little excited to find out.
#steddie#steve harrington#eddie munson#stranger things post s2 AU#stranger things#this one is a bit long just as a heads up; about 4.6k#is it good? I dunno but I had fun writing it and you guys seem interested so here we go!#eddiesteve#solar wrote
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Hello may 31th anon! Look at that, another year behind us and a new one to come. Have a nice day! ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡
#may 31th anon#hello friends!! (｡’▽’｡)♡ how are you!! I missed you so much!#I'm sorry that once again i have not been posting but I did that thing again where I got scared of posting#I do not know why but it is the same with physical paper diarys#I have 3 diarys and they all have 1 entry#I think one just says 'I am ten'#what have you been up to!! did you do something fun? is it summer too where you live? c:#my tumblr messages seem to be broken! I'm sorry if you wrote something :C it just says 'no new messages' despite also saying new messages#not a lot has happened here! I got a tomato plant and then I got very invested into the tomato plant and I have eaten three tomatos so far (#my roses are also doing well!! I just got a new yellow rose and since she got here she only made orange flowers#I do not know the meaning of that#but I am very thankful! ( ˊᵕˋ )♡ I love it when things are orange!!#I've been trying to buy an orange shirt for the past 2 weeks but they always sell out before I get to them#I'm also thinking about buying a jean jacket#I have not worn a jean jacket for at least 15 years because one time in 7th grade tthe girl behind me said#that I was wearing a cool jean jacket and I just assumed that this was bullying for no actual reason#but maybe she just thought that it was an acutal cool jean jacket#we'll soon have out 10 year school reunion#maybe I should ask her#is anyone else going to a secret Sherlock phase again#I just want to see that silly little hat again#would sherlock holmes wear a jean jacket#have a nice day everyone!!#see you soon hopefully!!#♡＾▽＾♡
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Dustin is the only one who can communicate with a cursed man, who turned into a bat. Can be read without context, I suppose?
Steve is hanging out at Dustin's house (he gets lonely). Dustin does his hw, pointedly ignoring how Steve is petting the bat he told him multiple times is actually a human being.
Steve: I think, he likes me
Dustin:
Steve: don't you look cute, little thing
Steve: come here, come to da-
Dustin immediately turns in his chair. Steve stills under his glare, refusing to look his way.
Dustin: don't you dare finish that sentence
Steve: but-
Dustin: it's a grown-up man you're holding
Steve: he doesn't mind?
Steve looks at his chest, where the bat is plastered, wings all over his shirt.
Steve: you don't mind, do you?
The bat nods eagerly.
Steve: see?
Dustin: I have a better question for you
Dustin: do you hear?
Steve: now, that's just rude
Dustin: I'm not talking about your hearing, dumbass
Dustin: I'm talking about the Bat's thoughts
Dustin: do you hear them?
Steve: no?..
Dustin: obviously.
Steve looks at Dustin, then at the bat, then again at Dustin.
Steve: what's he's thinking about now?
Dustin: he...
Dustin:
Dustin: DUDE.
Steve jumps, the bat leaves his chest to sit at the Dustin's desk. It does some weird moves with its wings, clearly arguing about something.
Dustin: I don't care
Bat does some wiggling.
Dustin: keep it in your fucking non-existent pants
Bat looks warily Steve's way for a moment. Dustin's arms are now crossed over his chest and he looks pissed.
Steve: what's happening?
Dustin: nothing
He makes a pause, clearly listening to the bat.
Dustin: don't touch him anymore
Bat stills.
Steve: why
Dustin: I'm just repeating his words
For some reason, Steve's expression changes.
Steve: I- I just assumed he liked it too
Steve: I'm sorry I didn't ask for permission
Dustin: it's not-
Steve: I didn't mean to make him uncomfortable, I'm sorry
Dustin: Steve-
Steve: I- I probably should go, sorry aga-
Dustin: STEVE
He only now notices the bat crawling up his shirt. He stops in the middle of standing up to cup a hand around it, so it won't fall.
Dustin: you didn't make him uncomfortable
Dustin: the only one who's uncomfortable here is me
Steve: I'm not sure I follow?
Dustin: you make him... happy?
Steve: you mean, he likes me?
Dustin: I mean "he wants to fuck you", but close enough
Steve: oh.
#can't believe I didn't post that one#I wrote it back in October#steddie#stranger things#stranger things ficlet#dustin henderson#steve harrington#dustin and steve#eddie and dustin#alternative universe#au#hoh steve harrington#this was supposed to be a fic but I completely forgot it existed#so here we are
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