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lindsay00000008 · 18 hours

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Flight Risk Pt. 2

[Previous part - Flight Risk Pt. 1]

Pet Whump Series - Carewhumpers

CW: systemic pet whump, dehumanization, brainwashed/drugged/conditioned whumpee, self/internal-conditioning, struggle with memory loss, speech impairment

Recap: Frank steps away and Honey's head raises to find him. But the room is getting a little fuzzy, and the lights are too bright. Arms find hers and prop her upright before pulling her to slide to the edge of the table.

"I get my cert in a few months, so we'll see if they still like me, yeah? I'll grab the cage."

Honey's limbs fold gracelessly as she's lowered into a padded cube by stiff hands. A more friendly hand lifts her chin and brushes her bangs out of her eyes, then rubs a finger on the bridge of her nose soothingly. The too-bright lights are doused when a lid goes over top and clicks.

"Wait," comes a voice, and the light flickers. Luce's scent envelops her as the flannel drops to cover her head and shoulders. Honey pulls it close and curls on her side, feeling the soft walls of the space give slightly as her knees press into it. She feels cocooned and safe.

She's jostled slightly, and the cube moves. Wheels, she thinks. She blinks open her eyes to see movement. The world floats by behind a metal grid, obscured slightly by the dangle of her collar and leash, coiled up and zip-tied to the grid beside a drip bottle. Hamsters, she thinks.

A lot of noises pass by. Beeping, whirring, shoes, doors, and finally a hollow metal clang. The cube jolts, tilts slightly, then levels out. The sound of castors on metal echoes. A slap over the top of the cube, clicks beneath, a tug. Finally everything stills. Footsteps lead away.

The light is dim. Honey is very drowsy. But it's hard to fall asleep with all the noises about - things hitting the walls of the small room, animals yapping and metal rattling, and people speaking loudly to one another about ratchet straps and ETAs. A large bang of doors closing, mechanical parts clanking.

After a while, everything is dark and calm. Sound comes in starts and stop, whirring loud then quiet. Honey's cube shifts slightly, jostled with the others in the room, but it doesn't feel unsteady. She lifts her face to peer through the gridlines.

Taking up most of the space are crates of fur-pets, stacked two-high and secured with a strap. A barking starts up as she watches, making her grimace.

Don't they know to be quiet? But it doesn't seem like any humans are in the space. Maybe it'll be ok.

Still, the sound makes her chew her lips nervously.

Along the opposite wall is a large cube. She assumes it's the same as hers. Inside is an ally-pet, draped in a stylish brown leather coat and matching knee-high boots. It sprawls - as much as it can sprawl in the small cage, it's body much bigger than hers- legs splayed apart and its spine hunched. Honey proper herself against the side of her cube to get a better look.

The other pet stares at Honey across the space with what she thinks might be malignant curiosity, but when the pet's head droops at a silly angle and its eyes blink slow and liquid she realizes it's just relaxed. Is that what she looks like, staring back at it? She giggles before she can stop herself, the sound foreign and reminding her too much of Luce. She smacks a lagging hand over her mouth, hitting her nose painfully. A pet shouldn't try to imitate their owner. That's bad.

Her eyes water. She misses Luce. And ever since that pinch on her neck - the needle, a syringe, it's called. Drugs in it. Drugged? No, they helped me, Frank helped me be calm. They helped me be calm, and being calm helps me be good - but she doesn't feel like she's being good. She's looking around too much, being loud. Making noises like Luce. She could hurt herself, pretending. Did hurt herself, smacking her face like that. She should put her head down and go to sleep.

But the room is loud now, so loud, all of the sudden, and it tilts, making Honey want to box out her limbs and press against the sides of the cube. The cage. She feels terror prickle beneath the syrupy weight infusing her body. Her stomach flips when the room shakes and seems to bend in on itself. Frank left his warm hand on her brain, smoothing away wrinkles and loose neurons. But his grip is unsteady. The fear seeps in.

She yelps before she can stop herself, the fingers of one hand slotting into the cool metal grid, the other gripping tight to Luce's flannel, as if a sudden wind might whip it away. The air is still. But it sounds so angry.

"Hu-Hey!" a shout from the other cube has her flinch. Are there humans in here? She should have been quiet. She's been bad, untrained, hopeless, just like they said.

"J-jus, ap-plan, play-een. P-plane." The other pet's eyes find her, its voice hoarse and loud over the whirring and barks. Plane, she repeats in her head. Plane. She knows what that is. Took one to Montana, before high school. Broke my foot on that trip, dad was angry...

The other pet is being bad. It could hurt itself. She should ignore it. But she finds its eyes across the space and she doesn't want to look away, even as her own lids flutter and her vision blurs. He has those sweet brown eyes... like that guy I dated in college.

That thought is so vivid, so distracting. She catches it and holds it, holds on so tight that by the time she realizes its gone, she has no trace of it. The pet across from her closes its eyes. She should do that too. She doesn't feel like she's in danger anymore. The cube sits level and still, the humming noise even and loud. Not angry now, she thinks. Sleep licks at her, drilling into her bones as the humming envelops her. Honey drags Luce's flannel over her eyes, puts her hands beneath her cheeks, and sleeps.

Taglist:

@octopus-reactivated, @3-2-whump, @paperprinxe, @whumpsoda, @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees, @decaffeinatedtimetraveler94

Comment to be added/removed (not sure if y'all want to be added for all pet whump posts in this big series or just any future parts of Flight Risk, or both! Feel free to specify)

P.S.: I wanted a way to distinguish human from animal pets, while keeping the dehumanization aspect (so no "pet-person" or "human-pet"). I use Ally-pet = human, fur-pet = animal. Is there a tumblr term for these already?

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movedtodykedvonte · 1 year

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The fact that people do not make Spamton nearly as doll like as he should be physically is a shame.

Spamton is a puppet! A doll! He def works differently physically seeing as he was literally turned into one. The guy probably can get water logged and would dislike the rain or pools of water. Different colored threads on his body or sealed cracks as that’s how he’d have to heal himself now. No organs so he probably just stores items inside himself, I mean, use all the free space!

I think him having more life-less or uncanny attributes should be focused on more.

#do fucked up doll things to him hes a puppet #no offense but i personally need less puppet head normal body spam and have him be all the way fucked #like he probably is hard wood or porcelin #hollow with a lot or not mechanisms in him.#its one thing to make him mentally fucked but you gotta get the physcially there too #like imagine him being able to spin his head around due to being a doll or pulling a frankie stein and operating his body parts when they #arent attached #make him fucked #utdr #spamton #spamton g spamton #undertale #deltarune

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totally-not-an-awkward-okapi · 9 months

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I posted my Mirage design once and was immediately so embarrassed that I didn’t draw him for 3 years, so time to rectify that.

#I wanted to focus harder on him being a mechanical creature #so that meant so much time figuring out his vehicle mode which you don’t even get to see.#I genuinely never registered he’s supposed to be a formula 1 car so I got to dip my toes into that for a bit to figure out his alt form #i ended up switch him to a Red Bull Racing RB18 just because I perfered it’s aerodynamic curves #the other benefit was really emphasizing that he’s a fairly small and very light bot #for reference the RB18 weighs 1760 lbs and is about 200 inches long #in bot form your average human comes up to his knee #which I think adds a dimension to his avoidance of dirrect conflict- most bots could literally just chuck him #I tried to emphasize that by including the hollow arms of the Henkei! Henkei! Mirage toy he’s mostly based on #god sorry I have a lot of thoughts about this boy #my art #tf mirage

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mosovi-vian · 1 year

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And I will stay alive for my future self, so they can one day learn to be kind to who I was as a child. And I will teach them to honor who we used to be, so they can remember the comfort of what once was our untempered flesh and gentle soul. Me and myself are each a fresh wound and a rough scab, bearing respectively the gift of green faith and honed will.

This has been in my draft for a while because I was determined to post this only after I knew what I should write underneath it. I’ve read a lot on the concept of healing the wounded inner child since even before my c-ptsd diagnosis. However, I’ve sought as much comfort in my little self as they had in me. Looking back, I was an impressively emotionally-intuitive kid. I remember well how I used to think, the things I would write to my future self; they were wiser and gentler than I could ever hope to be as an adult. Needless to say, the little poem above is inspired by the aforementioned experience. Sure, big me is armed with a more developed pre-frontal cortex and access to invaluable resources (coping mechanisms, therapy, on and offline communities) , but I struggle to rediscover/reinvent my identity. Little me was the biggest vestige of my lost personhood. So yeah, this might be just a huge self-indulgent projection with my favorite character, but thinking that post-S3 Hunter would also be in my shoes is not completely baseless. 16yrs old Hunter is the fresh wound (a lot of things happened before his teen years, but I’m going to interpret the events of Hollow Mind - which happened when Hunter was 16 - as the ultimate boiling point in his trauma timeline, hence the ‘fresh wound') and 20yrs old Hunter is the rough scab. Each version of Hunter could be dealing with a different set of trauma-induced symptoms. I think his loyalty to Belos kept him going as a child. Being doubtless was important to Hunter back then; it held his sense of self together. And maybe when he survived and was rewarded the time and space to grow into his own person and live for himself, there was this lasting emptiness. I feel this sort of emptiness even today. My only reference of what ‘wholeness’ felt like was when I was obedient to my family. I equated self-abandonment as the righteous norm. The symptoms I deal with today are definitely different from when I was Hunter’s age pre-time-skip. Now that Hunter is in a safe space and an adult post-time skip, he might also need to seek that strength from his younger self. Reminding himself of how far he’s come and the parts of him that he'd like to keep from his past. The parts that he knows in his bones are purely his - not instilled by Belos, not inherited from Caleb.

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norrisleclercf1 · 10 months

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Just The Beginning

Pairing: Lando Norris x Reader

Words: 2.2K

Requested: Yes / No

Request: Hey! First of all i love your writing like every time you post I go WILD anyways.. I’ve been thinking a lot about kind of a prequel to the mini lando series in which Lando and reader have been trying for a baby but haven’t been successful and as they loose hope, reader gets sick so lando goes to the pharmacy to get reader some medicine and when reader wakes up he calls him like “maybe bring a pregnancy test too” and lando is like “omgomgomg it can’t be” and he gets like super excited and anxious and everyone at the pharmacy is like “first time?” Anyways, turns out reader is finally pregnant with Aiden?!! 😭😭😭

Rating: R because of difficult topics

Warnings: Difficultly getting pregnant, losing hope, feeling of failure and not good enough, relationship difficulties, ANGST, fluff, I'm sure there are more warnings, please read this carefully if you have trouble reading this topic

Synopsis: Lando and you have wanted to be parents for the longest time, but maybe it just wasn't meant to be

Mini Lando / New Addition / Mini Lando Masterlist

"Lando, don't get your hopes up." Hands placed over your mouth as you watch the timer on your phone. Lando nods, but you can't miss the excited smile he tries so hard to hide.

"I won't. I promise." You refuse to look at the white and blue test on the counter before you two. Three years married, Carlos and Charles having children, and the two of you getting baby fever a year ago have two of you trying to have your own children. "Lando, stop." You snap, placing your hand on your husband's bouncing leg.

"Sorry." He stops, rubbing sweaty hands on his jeans. He knew you didn't mean to snap, but the tension was intense after multiple negative tests and tears. The shrieking beeps of the timer have you jumping, head dropping as you can't look at the test. "Want me to look?" Lando's voice held no excitement.

"Please." Standing, he grabs the test. How was he to tell you it was negative again? It was already a thought in your mind that you might have problems. "It's negative, isn't it?" Lando turns, your red eyes boring into his sad ones. "That's okay, though. We can try again." He places the test down, reaching for you.

You stand, leaving the bathroom, heading to your office, and slamming the door. Lando flinches, hearing the soft echoes of your cries. He wanted nothing more than to hold you, yet for the past three months, you shoved him away every time that negative popped up. Sliding down the counter, he buries his head in his arms, his own tears slipping down his face.

Wiping his face, he sniffles and stands, heading to your office. "Y/n, please open the door." He begs, just wanting to hold his wife. "Go away!" You scream something thumping on the door. "Okay." Lando whimpers out. "I'm going to.....I'm going for a driver. I'll be back." You let out a chest-rattling gasp hearing the soft thuds of him walking away.

You don't know when you stopped crying. The feeling of being hollow was all you could make out. Lando was still not back; you wouldn't blame him if he never returned. He wanted to be a father so badly, and while you could give him everything, you couldn't give him this. Lando wanted to talk to you, but you couldn't voice those dark thoughts you kept having.

How could you tell the love of your life you felt like a failure? The man who loved you more than driving that he should leave you and find someone else who could give him children. The terror that gripped you at the possibility of Lando doing that left you sick. The empty promises you two whispered to one another, the baby names, the pictures of the future that were slowly slipping away.

The mechanical whirl of the garage door opening gets you moving. Heading back to the bathroom, you throw the test away just for it to join the rest of those false hopes and dreams. The garage door opens and closes with keys jingling as you clean your face. You plaster a look of calm. You mastered the look and act of you're fine.

"Baby?" Lando's voice carries through the house, drawing you out of the bedroom. "I'm here." A loud sigh as he rounds the corner. Those doubts rile up hearing that sigh. Was he sighing because you're still here? Because he came home? Regretting marrying you? "Hi." His soft smile greets you.

"Sorry about earlier. I need to start dinner." Lando watches as you sidestep him, heading straight for the kitchen. "Forget dinner. Let's go out, get some fresh air." Closing your eyes, you try hard to clamp down on the anxiety that creeps into your bones. "No, I want to stay home. I'm tired." Lando nods, swallowing hard as he walks away. He always walked away, never wanting to fight with you anymore.

He was giving up. Lando would leave you soon, and you don't blame him. You failed.

Dinner and the house were silent for the rest of the day.

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"She refuses to talk to me." Carlos hums, sipping his beer as the two watch Y/n play with little Santiago. "Have you tried therapy?" Lando bristles, as mentioned. "If she would talk to me, Carlos, I would mention it." He hisses, tearing the label off his beer.

"Don't get snappy with me. You two are made for one another, and this is just a....rough patch." Carlos smiles, waving at his little boy, who Y/n bounces, talking to Carlos's wife. "This isn't a rough patch Carlos. She wants children, and I....I can't even give her them." Carlos's smile fades, turning to look at his dearest friend.

"Have you two ever been to a fertility clinic? Tested? Anything?" Carlos knew what Lando was like. If anything went wrong, he put all the blame on him. It doesn't matter if it's an outside force. It was automatically his fault. "No, I'm terrified to mention it. What if she feels like, I'm placing all the blame on her?" Lando pulls his eyes away from you, and you look so damn happy.

For the first time in 4 months since that day in the bathroom, you looked like a shell of yourself. Holding Santi, you look alive. "Lando, you two clearly haven't been talking. Talk to your wife, and I know it's terrifying. But, what if you never talk, and this breaks the both of you?" Lando shakes his head no. "No, no, that's not possible." Carlos sighs, patting him on his shoulder.

"Did you have a good talk with Carlos?" Lando jumps, hearing your voice as he drives the two of you home. "What? Oh, yeah, it was fine." Lando shrugs, and you sigh. Carlos's wife had told you to start small and that it was best to start a conversation with your husband. "What'd you talk about?" Lando cringes at the question, not wanting to talk about it.

"Nothing, just the upcoming season and all that." You nod your head, anger bubbling in your chest at him, avoiding the conversation. "Nothing? Did you talk about nothing for the entire day?" Your husband's eyes slide over to you, the anger evident in your voice. "No, we didn't talk about nothing the entire day. But you wouldn't know that as you refuse to talk to me." Lando snaps, and you blink, shocked at his raised tone.

"Refuse to talk to you? I'm always talking to you, Lando! You're the one who refuses to even look at me!" Lando adjusts himself in his seat, trying to calm himself down. "Really? Really? Y/n, the last time we had a real fucking conversation was the morning you took that test. After that day, you refuse to let me touch you. I can't even approach the topic without you shutting down. My wife is gone and refuses to let me help, much less know the problem." Lando slams the car into park as you stare at him, shocked at this anger.

"I'm furious with you, dammit!" Lando throws the door open, storming to the front door as you follow, watching him reach a specific door. "Don't you dare go in there!" You scream, trying to stop him, but he throws you off. "Don't!" He throws it open as you stare at the empty room, with only one object in the middle.

"You can't even walk in here. This is our baby's room, and you keep that door closed. Why? What is it that you can't talk to me anymore? I'm your husband, and we've......do you not love me anymore? We haven't had sex in months; tell me that you blame me. I know you think it's my fault. Say it!" He screams at you pounding his chest as you stare at one another, crying.

"Blame you? Blame you!" You laugh, stepping foot into the nursery Lando built and decorated himself for the first time. "You want to be a father so damn bad! Do you know what it's like to hold Santi or Anthoine when we're with our friends? To see that look in your eyes and then the one of disappointment when you look at me?" As you step deeper into the room, you wipe the tears from your eyes. "Every damn test, that look grows with more hatred, and I know you hate me. I'm the wife that is failing at giving you children, Lando. I'm the reason why!" You laugh.

"I don't blame you, Lando." Spitting out the words, you stand inches from one another. "I'm scared I'll wake up one day, and you're gone. You left me because I'm a failure as a wife for not giving you children. I'm terrified that....that." Lando stops you, hugging you tightly as you collapse in his arms. "I don't think you're a failure. You are the strongest person I know, Y/n." Hearing those words, you gasp out loud as you cry loudly.

"I love you, and we will have children. One day. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but we will have children one day."

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One Year Later

Therapy was going well for the two of you, and you could finally talk about everything. Lando how he felt he was to blame and not good enough. You, how you felt like a failure and that Lando would leave you. Everyone could see the change in your relationship, how you both looked lighter and happier. Your therapist suggested taking a break from trying to have children, and you did.

The two of you talked of the pressure it put on both of you, that it was a weight on your chest. Lando agreed that waiting would be best, and if the two try again, talk to a specialist first. Traveling around the world and just enjoying yourselves as well was communicating was important now. The nursery door was kept shut, but you added small things here and there.

Except right now, you've been bedridden with the flu. Everything smelled horrible, and the food tasted gross. You've been throwing up and just wanting Lando next to you the only time you've felt a semblance of being your healthy self. "I'm going to the pharmacy. Be back." Lando whispers as you wave him off. You can't do another day like this.

Laying in bed, you can only think everything over for the past month. Month. Maybe it was your period, you've never really had to go through this often, but it did happen. Except.....

Eye flying open, you scramble to grab your phone calling Lando. "What, is something wrong?" Lando's panicked voice fills your ear after the 2nd ring. "No, um...you remember last month when we got a little careless?" Lando chuckles, the memories very clear as he thinks about you and where he- "Wait? Do you think?" Lando's eyes widen as he tries so hard not to get excited.

"I...I don't know. Pick one up. Please." Lando agrees as a soft ding of the pharmacy lets the workers know someone has walked in. "Hi, can I get some anti-nausea meds and a pregnancy test?" He can't help the giant smile that fills his face. The lovely older lady behind the counter smiles at him. "First time, sweetie?" He chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Kinda? I mean....this is." She raises her hand, stopping his stutters. "I understand; I hope it all goes well." Lando slaps the money on the counter and rushes off with a wave. Running home, no need to announce he's back as you're there grabbing the test.

And here you are again, sitting on the same tub ledge. Watching the seconds tick by, the same hope and feelings of doubt cover you both. Neither of you says anything, both jumping out of your skin at the shrieking timer.

Reaching for the test, Lando snaps your hand down. Holding it. "Wait, just wait." He breathes, staring at you. "Whatever it says, it doesn't matter. It's not my fault nor yours. We're not failures, and we will have children one day. It doesn't matter how or when, but we will love them no matter what. And I'll love you until I die. Okay?" You nod, swallowing as you stand, grabbing the test.

Your hands start to shake as tears begin to fall; Lando sighs. "Hey, it's okay. We should make that appointment, huh?" He laughs, trying to lighten the mood as you shake your head no. "It's positive." You whisper, his head snapping up, not believing your words. "What?" Standing up, you laugh, showing him the test. "It's positive." You repeat as he covers your shaking hand, trying to read the test.

"It's positive? It's positive!" He laughs, scooping you up as he spins you around. The two of you laugh and cry. "We're going to be parents," Lando whispers, holding you close. "We're going to be parents." You repeat, neither of you believing this; Lando giggling. "Aiden." You pull back, confused why he'd say that name. "Aiden, if it's a boy, Odette if it's a girl." You smile, kissing your husband gently.

"It's perfect." He nods, hand lying on your stomach. "I will love you for the rest of my life. You have no idea how loved you already are."

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deadsetobsessions · 5 months

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Trigger Warning: blades, mild torture, injuries, and what amounts to suicidal thoughts and actions (he lives at the end but he does need a hell of a lot of therapy)

Tim shudders, as best he can while bleeding and bruised and broken.

The Red Hood is above him, mechanical voice melding into the raspy deeper tones of an Older Jason Todd. His voice is hollow and cruel as he digs his blade into Tim’s flesh. It hurts. But, Tim thinks dazedly, having Robin, Tim’s Robin, hating Tim hurts worse.

“Wow, Replacement, no last words for the person you stole everything away from?”

Jason’s mocking him.

“Okay.”

“What’s that, Replacement?”

Tim is so incredibly tired. And the blade held to his neck is starting to look like comfort. Tim thinks-

“My last words. You- You want to hear it?”

His hero’s face tilts, green eyes sparking something deep within Tim’s memory. But he’s so tired.

“Sure, let’s see what kind of recruitment pitch you’ve got for me, Replacement.”

Cruel. So cruel. Mocking him with false warmth. But false warmth is better than the coldness of Drake manor, the coldness of Bruce’s grieving form or Dick’s smile, sometimes when he thinks Tim’s not looking.

Ah, Tim knew it. His Robin will always be better than any other heroes, even if the false warmth makes his heart hurt worse than the broken ribs he’s now sporting. That Hood is pressing a knee down on to keep him immobile. Not that Tim could move anywhere considering both of his legs are broken. Tim wonders what it is about him that makes it impossible for people to muster up warmth towards.

“Do you know why… why heroes are so… so loved?” He wheezes out. He doesn’t wait for a response from Hood. “It’s because… they choose good- they choose to better the world- to save people, even if… even if they weren’t saved themselves. No matter how much- the obstacles, there’s always, an obstacle. But they try anyways.” Tim has to wrap this up. He’s losing coherency. “It’s why… it’s why this is okay. You… you’re choosing to save… to save Gotham from the Joker. Ev’n if you weren’t saved yourself. You’re not… good. You kill.”

Red Hood- Jason, snarls. Tim, blinking slowly, admires the man’s green eyes. “That’s fucking right-”

“But, you can be. Y’re helping.” And because this is important, because Tim has an alter set up to mourn Jason, “You were my hero,” Tim says, and Jason stops short, expression blanking. “So. I’ll help- help remove an obstacle so… so you can keep helping. Helping people like… like me. Or, not like me. Something.”

With that, Tim summons the rest of his strength and presses his neck towards the blade, starting the process to slit his own throat.

Jason flings the knife away, expression crumbling in horror as he stares down at the child he just tortured.

And as Tim’s voice fades, as blood spills out of his neck, as Tim gives him time to retrieve the knife, Jason breaks.

Oh, Tim thinks. His eyes weren’t green. They’re supposed to be blue.

——

Jason sits beside the medical cot, the steady beeping of the heart monitor grounding him as he held two fingers on the kid’s- oh god, he’s a fucking kid, Todd, you monster- pulse.

Jason will grovel when Tim wakes up. Because he turned into the kid’s Joker and Willis and if there’s anything Jason won’t ever allow himself to turn into, it’d be those two. He crossed a line. If Tim wants him to rip his liver out and present it to him, Jason thinks he’d do it on the spot.

Fuck. He fucked up.

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rustedhearts · 7 months

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hard learnin’ (gator tillman x fem!reader)

summary: gator punishes you for flaunting what (isn’t) his.

uses she/her pronouns and female anatomy.

✶ main masterlist

tags: spanking, oral (m receiving), spitting (a lot of it), canon-compliant misogyny, mean!gator.

for @loveshotzz <3

the tillman barn. early morning.

“I told you—not to—do it.”

Every few words came with the snap of leather on flesh, cracking off the barn walls and exciting the horses stomping in their stables. Your fingers gripped the metal of the corral with all their might, digging into your chest against your will. Every strike of his heavy duty belt had you lurching toward the dirt and hay. Your socked feet were picking up pebbles, unprepared for an assault at such an early hour.

But you did get yourself into this mess.

“M-m so-sorry,” you hiccuped, listening to the corral clang on its hinges after a particularly rough hit.

Gator huffed, glaring down at your swelling, discolored flesh. “Yeah, now you are. Weren’t so sorry last night, were ya?”

And you weren’t. You weren’t sorry when you got dolled up in a tight little black dress and called up your friends. You weren’t sorry when you scampered down to the dive and climbed up on the bar to pour drinks. You weren’t sorry when you let that guy drag you to the dance floor. You weren’t sorry when you drunkenly scrawled some version of your phone number on a napkin and tucked it in his pants.

But you were sorry now. Gator always made sure you were sorry.

“Asked you a question, brat.” Another hard strike, slicing through the air and down on your bare ass. Your pajama pants sat around your ankles.

But the thing about Gator? He acted like you were his. His property, his possession, his girl. Yet when the time came to possess you, to have you—he fell short. Never claimed you as his girlfriend, never promised long term commitment, never made you feel like it was true. He always left you hanging.

You sniffled, willing away hot tears stinging in your eyes. Your nose burned and tingled, and you kept glancing toward the door of the barn in hopes Gator’s daddy wouldn’t come waltzing in to hold witness to your humiliation. He heard the sounds of Gator’s punishments once before and patted his son on the shoulder later at dinner. Gotta keep ‘em in line, son. You despised it. How him and his father thought they could do whatever they wanted because they ran the town.

But you loved him. It was your own damn fault.

“Shakin’ like a fuckin’ leaf, sweetheart,” Gator chuckled. He paused a moment to spit on the dirt: a sharp smack of saliva landing near your feet.

“H-hurts,” you whimpered, knees buckling to ease the sting.

Gator huffed, eyes rolling behind you. He gave you a mild lash on the thigh in reprimand. “Get back up.”

You stomped your socked foot, whining into a pout. “I’ll make it up to you, Gator, please!”

The buckle of his belt—a wide silver embellishment—tinkled as he let the leather droop. He cocked his head, inspecting your welts and swelling bruises as he thought. He fished into the pocket on his thigh and pulled out the strawberry-kiwi vape, taking a quick, hissing hit. He sighed as it furled out, tongue clicking.

“Fine. Since you’re just gonna keep complain’ anyway. C’mere.”

You shakily lifted from the corral bars, spinning around. Reaching down, your fingers curled into the elastic band of your pajama pants, but Gator whistled sharply.

“Hey. Uh-uh, leave ‘em.”

Huffing, you sulked and dropped your hands. “Why can’t I—“

“You talkin’ back?” Gator cocked his head again as he stuck the vape in his mouth.

You watched his cheeks hollow with a deep inhale. The mechanical vape click made your blood boil. You wanted to hike your pants up, march over there, and spit in his face. But his shoulders looked so broad in that stocky black sheriff’s vest. His hair was recently trimmed, lined up neatly around his ears and neck. The way those camo pants hugged his hips made you clench. And the belt still sat in his hand, silver gleaming menacingly in the soft yellow of morning light.

With hot cheeks, you huffed again and looked down. “No.”

Gator tucked his vape back in his pants and spit toward the left. His fingers drummed on the stiff lining of his vest, and he nodded down toward the ground at his feet.

“Well…it ain’t gonna suck itself.”

Your knees thumped to the hard ground instantly. You crawled his way slowly, glaring up at the smirk on his face when he had the audacity to shuffle back just to make you come. He chuckled, but stayed in place until you stopped at his feet. You sat back on your heels in the dirt and unzipped his pants, slipping him out into your palm.

“Ooh, shit. C’mon don’t play w’ it, baby, open your mouth.”

He hooked his hands into his vest when your mouth closed over him, chin tipped back toward the roof of the barn as he groaned. Warm pleasure enveloped him, but on the ground, you were freezing cold. Your ass and thighs ached pressed against your feet, fingers growing numb against his thighs.

But maybe if you did a good job, he’d be sweet again. Maybe he’d hold you tonight when he got home from work. Maybe he’d kiss you all over like he did sometimes, tickle you when you pouted too much. Maybe he’d be kind.

You worked your mouth over him languidly, and Gator groaned without shame. He dropped his belt to the dirt with a thud and wrapped his hand in your hair, guiding you around. You knew just what kind of suction, just how much tongue, how to look at him and where to put your hands—you knew him so insanely well. It was a goddamn shame.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, hips jutting toward your mouth. “Suck that dick.”

He grunted as he thrust in and out of your mouth, reveling in the wet squelches of your constricting throat. He dropped your hair and you heard the click of his vape again. The fruity smoke tickled your nose when he blew it down on you.

You lifted your eyes, blurring hot with tears. And as you found Gator’s pink-cheeked face, his own eyes hazy with pleasure and bliss—he opened his mouth and spat one out.

A wad of warm spit sizzled on your cheek, and you flinched at the smacking impact. Your mouth stilled around him, suction loosening.

“Oops,” Gator chuckled above you, sticking the vape near his mouth again. “Did I getcha, hon?”

Though a humiliated fury surged in your chest, you kept your lips closed around his cock and did your best. He wanted you to get irritated with him. He thought you were so cute when you got all riled up. And he liked being the one riling you.

Gator’s thumb pressed into your cheek, massaging his spit into your skin. Your eyes fluttered closed on their own will, soothed by his touch. He was rarely soft like that. Your involuntary moan had him bucking into your mouth again, hand moving to scrunch in your hair once more.

“Fuck, you’re a dirty bitch. No better than…an animal,” he groaned. “God, fuck ‘m gonna cum.”

You put him as far back in your throat as you could manage, nose nudging the furry patch on his pelvis. The vibrant, neon green of his vape entered your periphery when it pressed against your cheek under his hand, both of them coming to brace your head now. Gator liked you to swallow his seed. He thought it was dirty, disgusting—but that’s what he loved about it.

“B-better—swallow it,” he ordered through tight teeth. You bobbed your head in compliance, watching the veins in his neck strain around the collar of his t-shirt and behind his vest.

He pinched his eyes closed, jaw agape, nose scrunched up—and a strangled moan sliced through the barn as he spilled into your mouth. It slipped down your throat in a thick, sticky coating that had you cringing. He huffed and squirmed as he softened on your tongue, and you suckled at him absentmindedly as he slipped out.

Tucking himself back into his pants, he patted an open palm on your spit-sticky cheek. You swallowed again to ensure it was all down, and waited for him to give you the okay. God, your ass was still burning.

Gator sniffed, reaching down for his belt. He was just slipping it through the loops of his pants when a distant clang caused his head to snap up.

“Fuck, get up. My dad’s gonna be out soon.”

You wobbled as you got to your feet like a brand new fawn. You peeled your pajama pants back over your hips and secured the strings, doing your best to brush off the dirt and hope it didn’t stain. The soft fabric did little to muffle the acute sting of Gator’s strap.

“Come on,” he hissed, yanking your arm to pull you close.

He kept a close eye on the front of the barn as he hurried you out back, dragging you through the dirt the whole way. Roy Tillman would have his few hours on his horse at the ass crack of dawn like he always did, and Gator would wait until he was told what to do to make his daddy happy again.

You wouldn’t see him again until near morning.

“You’ll wait at home,” he instructed, heading toward his truck. “You hear me? No runnin’ around.”

You huffed as you slid in, crossing your arms. The truck jostled when he slammed the door after him, and the engine started up with a coughing growl. He whipped out of the dirt patch driveway, heading down the trail toward your house (where he yanked you from your bed not too long ago).

“Why can’t I just stay at your house?”

Gator scoffed, putting his vape in his mouth again. “Dad don’t like strangers around.”

Stranger somehow stung worse than anything else. He just spent an hour attacking your ass for going out without him—but you were still a stranger?

“Your dad’s an asshole—“

Gator slammed on the brakes, sending you hurtling forward against the seatbelt. Once you fell back, his hand latched to your jaw, fingers pressed tight into your cheeks. The look he fixed you with was sharp and mean.

“You watch your fuckin’ mouth.”

He tossed your head away harshly, and you glared down at your knees. He shook his head toward the windshield as he took his foot off the brake and sped down the street.

“Looks like you still have some learnin’ to do.” Gator hollowed his cheek around that stupid fruity piece of plastic again. The smoke slipped into the cold autumn air.

“Don’t worry. I’ll set ya straight, hon.”

#rolly!#gator tillman #gator tillman smut #gator tillman fic #gator tillman fanfic #gator tillman fanfiction #gator tillman x reader #gator tillman x you #gator tillman x y/n #gator tillman x reader smut

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steviewashere · 26 days

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Make a Home Out of Hurt

Rating: General CW: Death of a Grandparent, Mourning Tags: Post-Season 4, Post Canon, Grief/Mourning, Established Relationship, Alternate Universe — Future Fic, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Sad Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has Absent Parents, Steve Harrington Mom is Okay, Steve Harrington's Dad is an Asshole, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson Takes Care of Steve Harrington, Moving in Together

Had an evil little thought. Also, all these Fenton bunnies I mention are real! My nana collects Fenton. (She's alive, don't worry, but I thought about her the other day and it spiraled into this.)

🏡—————🏡 We’ve already seen this neighborhood, Eddie thinks, but won’t say.

Even though they have. They’ve driven by the same three houses. Yellow, pastel pink, and navy blue. White door, white door, brown door. Bushes and bushes and a bushel of red roses. One garage, no garage, no garage but large driveway. He’s seen them. Over and over and over.

And each time they pass the last one, the leather of the steering wheel squeaks. And each time, Steve makes a muffled sort of noise. And each time, Eddie wonders if resting his hand on Steve’s shaking shoulders would anger him or mellow him. And each time, the car gets just a little slower as Steve loses his control more and more.

We’ve already seen this neighborhood, Eddie continues to think, but knows he’ll sit here with those words. He’ll sit in the passenger seat. Window cranked as far down as it’ll go—half-way since Dustin busted the actual mechanism. Beemer’s been through a lot, so it’ll be here for Steve’s end all breakdown, too. With the radio volume low, playing the same double-sided tape on repeat, flipped by Eddie because Steve’s hands have been shaking: The World We Knew by Frank Sinatra. Because it was her favorite. Nana’s favorite. Nana Harrington’s favorite.

On the fifth drive through, Steve finally parks the car. At the end of the long, slow winding driveway. He looks out the windshield, hollowed and not quite here. With limp hands in his lap. Messy, greasy hair he couldn’t bother to style. Eye bags so heavy, Eddie barely believes he can hold them on his face.

Eddie can follow his line of sight. To the edge of the white picket fence, worn down a little with age, scratched up from the curled nails of an old brown dog, carved with her son and daughter-in-law’s initials, and eventually stained with yellow handprints from baby Steve. Yellow because, as Steve has echoed, “Lello, Nana. Lello like your dress. Your favorite!” Well, Steve’s favorite too, he just won’t acknowledge it’s because of his nana. Eddie knows that the paint has faded a bit since then, given that it’s been fifteen years since Steve’s had hands that small, but Eddie can see him. In his little white and red striped t-shirt, hidden by a pair of nicely pressed denim overalls, white sneakers, and his mom’s bobby pins in his hair—something she did because it just wouldn’t stop growing so fast and thick. Or so Eddie’s been told.

He’s been told a lot in the last week. Since the call came through the landline of their apartment. Since Steve had gone silent and collapsed to his knees and wailed, screamed even. Since he dressed himself in a suit that fit well, but looked out of place on his curled in body. Since…since the obituary was finally in his hands at the funeral, and he got so sick in the church’s restroom, Eddie had to drive them home in a daze—a quarter worried, a quarter tired, and half hanging by a thread. He thinks he’s heard everything, but what is love if not more than everything? If not all the words in every language, all known objects and unknown, every species and race and sexuality and identities combined?

He’ll hear everything. Until their old and grey and forgetting everything.

“There used to be a tire swing on that tree,” Steve states flatly, pointing at the weeping oak in his nana’s front yard. It’s crooked like it’s been kissed by the wind. A lot withering because the weather’s been harsh on her. Grey against the navy blue of the house’s siding.

I know, sweetheart, Eddie wants to say, so soft it gets lost between them. Instead, “Yeah? Bet it was a good tire, too,” he coaxes, still soft, all sweet. Even if he’s heard it each time they’ve passed by.

Steve nods once in his peripheral. Sniffs. “Yeah,” he states wetly, “one of the expensive ones. She didn’t want it to pop under me. Didn’t…She didn’t want me to stop using it.” His head dips down, looking at his fingers, where they’ve begun to absently trace the seams of his jeans. “I stopped,” he whispers shamefully. “You think she got mad because I stopped?”

“No, baby,” Eddie answers honestly. “I think that she was happy you used it at all. Think she was always just happy to see you, Steve.”

A sharp intake of breath next to him. “I used to come over here when my parents were gone. Or when they’d scream at each other. Or when…when they’d forget I existed,” he relays, quiet as a mouse. “When they’d forget, Nana would open the door and kiss my cheek and make me something to eat. I was always too skinny. So she made me casseroles,” he explains, a wisp of a smile. Gone in the blink of an eye. “She’ll never make ‘em again, though. She won’t—”

“Steve,” Eddie calls gently, a small warning. A siren before the tsunami.

“—Love me again,” Steve sobs, “Nana won’t love me again.”

“Oh, baby,” he breathes. Eddie steps out of the car, rounds over to the driver’s side, and yanks the door open. Carefully, he unbuckles Steve, scoots him so that his legs dangle over the side, and pulls him down into a gentle hug. “Baby,” he coos. “Just get it out, honey. I’m right here. We’re right here. I’ve got you.”

And Steve cries. Again; though Eddie’s lost count. He squirms against Eddie’s chest. Head nestled to his neck. Crying big sounds that sound too large, even for his adult body. Sounds that carry boats, that poison with oil spills, that home orcas. He slobbers onto Eddie’s skin, grand globs of hot spit that gargle in his throat before launching from his mouth. His unshaved stubble scratching at the side of Eddie’s face—where his skin is sensitive and smooth and will most definitely be raw with Steve’s aching.

He sobs until there’s no more tears. Until he’s a whimpering, shivering mess on Eddie’s chest. Bunched up and small and fisting Eddie’s t-shirt like a lifeline. Squeezing the fabric in his hands like two lemons.

Eddie runs his hands up and down Steve’s spine. From the small of his back to his hunched shoulders, squishing him. He sways them ever so gently like the rustle of the old oak tree. Hums something incoherent and unrecognizable. If only to get Steve to stop shaking.

“Eds?”

“Hm?”

He takes a long, slow breath. Breathes out, “Why’d she give me the house?”

Eddie pulls them apart. One hand on the middle of Steve’s back, the other cupping his left cheek. Swiping at the tacky tracks from his tears. “I’m not sure, baby. Maybe she loved you so much that she wanted you to have it? To always be safe there?”

“Shouldn’t she have given it to my dad? I don’t…” Steve’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion, his mouth frowning. “I don’t deserve her house?”

“Sweetheart,” Eddie sighs. “She chose you for a reason. You, Stevie. Not anybody else. Just you. If she wanted to give it to her son, she would’ve. But she didn’t. She thought of you, put you in the will, and now it’s yours.” When Steve doesn’t respond, Eddie gives him his moment of silence. Running his palm up to Steve’s shoulders. Pressing his thumb into his supple skin. “You may never know her intent, but she probably had a reason. It was a home you came running to, where you felt safest, where you felt…loved. Grandmothers always have this air to them, like they just know things about you before you say ‘em. Maybe she just knew you needed her and her space before you even realized.”

Steve sniffles. His eyes are still wet. Bloodshot and tired. Rumpled all the way around, exhausted and quiet. “She used to play with me in the yard.”

I know, Eddie thinks once more. He goes with the topic change though, if that’s what Steve needs.

“And when we played hide and seek, she always made sure to look until I was found. Because she didn’t want me to feel forgotten, her words.” Steve’s fingers are fidgeting with one another again. Picking at his fingernails, peeling at hangnails. Eddie moves down and takes them, rubbing soothing circles into their backs, just so Steve doesn’t harm himself on top of everything. Steve continues, hushed, “When I’d stay the night, she would sleep with me. Hold me close to her. Scratch my back and scalp and tell me stories…all the way until I fell asleep.”

“Kinda like I do, huh?” Eddie asks.

Steve nods. “Yeah,” he croaks. “Think that’s why I feel so loved and safe with you.”

And Eddie hasn’t cried, not really, not yet. But this may be it. Because he knows, beyond everything, that Nana was special to Steve—so special that just one negative comment, one complaint, one little fuss about her was enough to get you shunned by him. He’s seen it play out with Dustin, he’d been banned from coming over for two weeks. And with El, who didn’t understand quite yet, but had lost conversational abilities with Steve for two whole days—ergo, the Silent Treatment.

This means something. It means everything. Eddie kind of wants to cry about it.

But he reigns himself in for now. Because Steve needs him like water. For somebody to just be there and be present and be patient. Through it all.

“You wanna head inside,” Eddie offers, “I’ve got the key in my pocket.” He gestures loosely to the inside of his vest, the safest pocket near his heart. When Steve nods, Eddie leads them inside silently. Opens the door first, per request made by Steve days prior. Sets his shoes by the front door—not told to, but just out of respect. Hangs up his jacket, his vest. Takes Steve’s jacket, too. Unties his Nike sneakers. Smacks a quick kiss to his cheek. And then he waits by the front door for Steve to say or do something.

The first thing he does is gasp. Eyes roaming the hallway, the living room, and the fireplace that connects the kitchen and living space together. He takes a few tentative steps before stopping in front of a tall, full China cabinet.

“Her Fenton bunnies,” Steve breathes.

Eddie slowly approaches behind him. Wraps an arm around his waist, tugging him into his side a little. “Are these the ones your mom was talking about on the phone?”

“Yeah. I just…Didn’t think my mom was telling the truth,” Steve murmurs. “She told me Dad didn’t want these. Takes up room or whatever. But they’re so pretty here, how could you not want these?” His left hand reaches for the knob of the cabinet. Twisting it gently as to not rattle the glass shelves. With the doors swung open, the bunnies under the cabinet’s lighting are free to touch. And so Steve picks one up, carefully in his hands like it’s alive. Maybe it is, Eddie thinks for a moment, alive with her spirit.

He breathes silently by Steve as he investigates the glass item in his hand. Running his thumbs over the ears. Down the smooth back.

“Satin glass,” Steve states, “It’s like touching the fabric, which is so weird. Nana used to talk about it all the time, but I never believed her. She never let me touch. You wanna?” He holds the bunny up to Eddie’s face. In offering, for him to pet. So he runs a slow thumb down its back. And sure enough, soft as silk, cold to the touch. “All of them are here.” He replaces the silk, purple bunny on the shelf. Picking up a chromatic shifting one next. “Carnival glass,” Steve explains, “it’s heavier than the other one, feels like. But so shiny. Think Nana used to say it was amethyst or something, but that might be what the color shift is called?”

“You sure listened to her well,” Eddie murmurs, “know a lot about this.”

Steve chuckles, a little choked to Eddie’s ears but he makes no comment. “Yeah, I guess I did. Mom used to say that I had selective hearing. That I listened when it was something I cared about.”

“And you cared a lot about Nana,” Eddie concludes.

“Yeah,” Steve whispers, “cared a lot about Nana.” He sets the carnival glass bunny back on the shelf. Standing idle in front of it all, taking it all in. “She has one upstairs, in a different glass cabinet. It glows green under the special blacklight upstairs. Said it was radioactive.” He chuckles again. “I gave her that one. As a gift for Mother’s Day in…I think ’77? Mom helped me pick it out—she was nice about the bunnies, about finding this stuff. She loved Nana, too. And she…” He laughs low in his chest and Eddie blossoms a little at the sound, unheard in so long. “Mom would pull out the long box of tissue paper and gift bags from the crawlspace. She’d unfold the prettiest gift bag—this one was a little brown one, covered in peach colored peonies. Stuffed some off-white tissue paper in that one. Wrapped the little yellow—well, it was supposed to be yellow—Fenton bunny in bubble wrap, covered it up with a bunch of caramels. Gave it to Nana, and she squealed! Apparently, she already knew it was radioactive? Thought it was the best gift ever. Which, ouch Nana, I gave you other bunnies for Mother’s Day, c’mon.”

Eddie snorts. “Maybe that’s what earned you the house? That radioactive bunny was probably the key to her heart,” he jokes. Though his stomach turns at the possibility it wasn’t appropriate to make.

Steve laughs loudly, though. Shaking his entire body with it. He slips his hand into Eddie’s back right pocket, sighs, and leans against him relaxed. “Dad should’a tried harder if he wanted Nana’s heart,” he comments, “all it took was a damn bunny.”

“Among other things, I’m sure.”

“Probably,” Steve sighs. “I think she was just excited to have a grandkid. She had a weird relationship with my dad. They didn’t get along very well. So maybe she was sorta…trying again?”

“Stevie, I think she just loved you. There doesn’t have to be some grand, deep meaning behind it. I think she just loved your company. How your laugh fills a room and your smile is seen from across the yard. And how you’re always polite, despite having reasons to not be. Maybe because of your terrible puns and how awful you are at quoting Shakespeare? You charm everybody, Steve,” Eddie monologues. “There’s not a reason to not love you.”

For a moment, the room falls completely silent. Distantly, there’s the slow tick of a wall clock. A few birds singing out in the backyard, where the bird bath probably is—only known through Steve’s memories. A slight hum from the radiator. The cars passing by on the main road just around the corner. Hawkins is quiet when there’s mourning; maybe it’s felt through the whole town, through the soles of Steve’s socked feet, from the beating of his ever love absorbent heart.

She died November 7th, 1993. Just a few days ago. Maybe it’s the anniversary of Will Byers going missing that Hawkins is feeling. Maybe it’s just tragedy. It’s love persevering—even in the most dire of situations. Where Joyce Byers was screaming about where her son may be, all those mismatched theories, and the ways in which the town thought she was crazy—even when they believed her and cried over her son’s body being pulled from the water. Where Will is actually thriving now. Where Sandra Harrington no longer is, though she was a fixture in several communities and families, Steve’s own being included.

“How’s your boy doing?” Wayne asked the day after her funeral. Eddie had shrugged, admitting he wasn’t sure because Steve had gone terribly quiet and sick. “Tell him I’m sorry. That he has a home with us. That he can come over and cry and I’ll make him hot cocoa. Alright, Ed?”

God, even Wayne knew. And there was silence after his condolences.

There is so much silence.

Until, finally, Steve asks, “Will you live with me here?”

“Wh—What?” Because surely he didn’t hear that right.

“Live with me here,” Steve repeats, a little more urgent. “I don’t think I can handle this place alone. And…I know how to use her gas stove. I can make you the spaghetti dish she used to make. And the casseroles she used to bake. We can open up her recipe box and I’ll teach you how to make her apple pie—the one she gave me for your birthday two years ago?

“And we can read your Lord of The Rings books on the porch on the bench she has out there? Grill in the backyard when we have everybody over. Robin can have the room that used to be my nursery. We can…We can live our lives here.”

Stunned, Eddie gapes momentarily. Before gripping harder at Steve’s waist, drawing him closer even when there’s no more room. Two solid bodies connected from shoulder to foot. “Are you sure, Steve? You don’t wanna—“

“You’re my family, Eds. I have loved you since that bullshit in ’86. We have seen each other through our absolute worst. Of course I’m sure. Of course I want you here,” Steve swears. “I know what I’m getting into. Even if it hurts to look around here right now. But you’ve been here by me through one of the worst heartbreaks I’ve ever experienced. I want you here—preferably always.”

“Stevie,” Eddie breathes. He reaches out with his free hand and cups the right side of Steve’s face. Swipes over his glistening cheekbone. Under his shadow beaten eye. The tickling brush of Steve’s bottom eyelashes on the tip of his thumb. And he kisses him tenderly, with every word he could ever imagine to say, all emotion he could ever feel, with an intensity seen in atomic bombs. He pulls back to see Steve’s eyes closed. Flushed and bright in the cabinet’s full white lighting, doors still open, and fragile glass bunnies as witnesses. Promises, “I want to, Steve. I want to be here with you. Through it. All of it. As long as I get to love you.”

And on his thumb there are fresh tears, gone cold but skin scalding. Steve’s lips trembling with silent cries. His eyelashes fluttering. Him and him and him. Beautiful and raw and open. Gentle like flowers and strong like wind. Aching and romantic and with a heart the size of the universe itself. Because Steve Harrington is everything—

Or so his nana has said. But Steve doesn’t know. And that’s Eddie’s own secret.

“Okay,” Steve mutters, “make a home with me, Ed.”

🏡—————🏡

#stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #angst and hurt/comfort

158 notes · View notes

softshuji · 11 months

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𝟎𝟐:𝟏𝟗𝐀𝐌 | 𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐈 𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐔

Title: Baby's Breath

Summary: Rindou wishes words were easier for him, but he loves you, and he's determined to show you, in the only ways he knows. Link to master list here! REBLOGS APPRECIATED!

cw: afab! Reader, mentions of sex, some suggestive content, reader and Rin are married, lots of kissing, petnames (pretty boy, Princess) some light praise, mentions of infidelity (not from rindou or reader), rin is a cute husband.

Rindou has never told you he loves you.

The words are too thick and heavy in his mouth, the red colouring on his cheeks too apparent, especially in the way it curls towards his ears and neck. He wants to, of course he does, but he knows that the words are often thrown around, without merit, that simply telling you he loves you doesn’t prove the fact at all.

So no, Rindou has never told you he loves you and every time he thinks he’s coming close, the metal sheet slams down on his chest and the corrugated wall of his defences rises from his bones. It’s a mechanism perhaps, to shield himself from the things he doesn’t understand, the things he fears. He can never be hurt if he never loves, so why love anyone?

Rindou has never told you he loves you, but he wakes up before the sun has fully climbed the sky to watch the weak and watery sunlight paint your skin. The clouds shift and cloak the room in darkness again and Rindou presses a feather-light kiss to your back, your shoulder, the hollow dip in your chest. His deft fingers tuck the hair behind your ears and you frown in your sleep and roll over, taking him with you as he presses his forehead, his cheek, to the place where he thinks your heart is. He smells the lingering perfume on your skin, hidden underneath layers of sleep and sex and resists pressing a kiss to your flesh again and again, wondering if you can hear that soft and unsteady drum of his heart.

When you wake, he makes coffee, leaving it hot in the pot as he dresses. He watches you fiddle with the jar of honey or jam and gestures towards it, relishing in the way your eyes trail down his biceps and shoulders as he pops the lid.

He holds back the smirk as he usually does. He likes that you think it’s a secret when you stare at him and lick your lips, and he flushes against his will, as he always does at your boldness.

‘Thanks Rinny,’ you say, your lips brushing over the corner of his mouth and Rindou shrugs as if it’s no big deal, his heart clamouring against his ribs. He wonders one day if he’ll get over it, if the novelty of having you as his wife will ever wear off. He’d have thought it would by now, five years into a happy and stable marriage, but he hopes it doesn’t. He hopes, as embarrassing as it is, that the excitement and wonderment of being your husband never leaves, that he’ll get to wake up to that new feeling every day, make love to you like it’s the first time every time, kiss you like he’s 19 again and there are endless springs ahead of you. God Ran would have a field day if he knew that.

Rindou has never told you he loves you but he picks up flowers as he leaves work almost every weekend, scouring the aisles for chocolates and cards and sweets and when the cashier swipes him through she asks if it’s a special occasion. He replies that it is, that the occasion is just that he wants to show his wife he loves her. Even if he can’t say it, he adds it as a mental afterthought. And when he comes home, you run and jump into his arms and he pulls you close, inhaling the scent of you, pressing his face to the curve of your neck.

‘These are for me?’ You hold the bouquet of forget-me-nots and daisies, baby’s breath and carnations, and your heart softens as it always does. ‘Did I miss something? What’s the occasion?’

‘Can’t I just get my wife flowers?’ He says and pulls you by the hips till your chests are touching, lowering his head till his lips meet yours. Every kiss is passionate, tender, soft. His hair curls forward, tickling your cheeks as he bites down on your lips, his tongue gentle and tentative in your mouth, running over your bottom lip as his hands slide around you.

‘I love you,’ you whisper against his mouth, and he kisses you deeper, harder in response, like a dying man given water in the desert. You know he’s smiling from the sudden flex of his jaw in your cupped palms and it’s all the answer you need.

Rindou has never told you he loves you but he leads you to his studio by the hand, plugs the headphones in and watches your face as he presses play. It’s a sacred thing, this moment of yours, where he shares the thing he spends so much time on, the thing that keeps him up late some nights. But it’s very much worth it when you smile for him, your head bobbing in time to the beat, and Rindou blushes from his neck to his ears when you tell him how great it is, how proud he ought to be of himself. He says it’s no big deal, as if you hadn’t noticed the shadows under his eyes getting deeper with every passing hour, hadn’t noticed him chew on the end of a pencil as his brows crease in concentration.

It’s funny actually, considering the person he was before he met you. The kind of man who assumed that all he ever really needed in life was his brother to return home to, as if the silence of a penthouse wasn’t deafening and the tick tock of the wall clock didn’t constantly remind him of just how lonely he felt.

I only need Ran, he’d say to himself over and over, a mantra, a litany, a prayer kept tucked under his pillow at night. He’d shift his hand towards the cold side of his bed, the linen unwrinkled, smooth and untouched, and even as he pressed a cheek against the cotton, something inside him would cave and he’d curl around a pillow and stare at a spot on the carpet, hoping to conjure some warmth for the prickling that settled along his skin, a sensation that no amount of alcohol was ever able to get rid of. He’d wonder, fleetingly, if he deserves such comforts after the things he’d done.

Except now, he curls around you, and his nose buries itself in your hair or the crease at the nape of your neck and the thin chain he wears kisses the dip between your shoulder blades, and he’s so close that you can feel his breath on your chin. And maybe, just maybe, in moments like that, he feels a little less lonely, a little less cold and even though that anxiety of being undeserving still punches a hole in his chest, he knows you’re there, a beacon as bright as the sun.

And you realize, as he murmurs against your skin, how long it’s taken to get to this point. That there was a time in which he’d shrugged it off, the kindness, the tenderness, the soft touches. When he’d flinched as you cupped his face and traced the cut of his cheekbones and lips, and you’d wondered at what manner of horrors he had seen to react to you like that. When he had tried to push you away and you’d refused to move, had still held out your arms for him to come back to when he was ready to accept that he deserved to love and be loved too.

You turn around to face him and he frowns at you, at the cold rush of air that comes from the separation of your limbs tangled with his. You hold his face and press a kiss to his lips, the curve of his chin, his throat, your fingers brushing back the loose hair escaping his ponytail.

‘You’re a pretty boy you know that?’ you say, your voice sluggish and heavy with sleep, your forehead dipping to touch his. ‘The prettiest boy there is.’

His lips part in surprise and you have the visceral urge to kiss him again and again again till your lips are sore and you’re entirely spent. You think his lips might actually be your favourite thing about him.

He tuts under his breath and feigns annoyance, his voice tinged with embarrassment and when he says, ‘go to sleep Princess,’ it is with mirth and a hint of love, a pinch of the multitudes he has for you.

Rindou has never told you he loves you but his hand is on your back when you jolt awake at 3AM, clutching the sheets and gasping for air, your heartbeat so fast it makes you dizzy. When the nightmares are frequent and harsh and it’s hard to shake the terror of being out of control, Rindou is there, his lips close to your ear, a hand rubbing soothing circles against your skin.

‘Shhhhh…,’ he says as you get your bearings, and you hold onto him, your fists tightly clenched with anxiety. His hair is still matted to his forehead, clinging to his shoulders and tufts stand on end from where his cheek has been pressed into the pillow. ‘It’s okay Y/N.’

His voice lulls you, and you focus on his heartbeat under your cheek, the tears free flowing and fast, and he doesn’t mind that you cry on him at all but rather strokes your hair till you sag against him again, your breath evening out as you’re pulled back into sleep, a murmured "that's my girl," that you cling to.

He won’t mention it when you wake, but the gentleness is there all the same. A hand on your lower back, a kiss to your temple, the softness in his actions all the more apparent. You like that he doesn’t bring it up, that he trusts you enough to deal with it in your own way, but is there all the same.

And over time you've noticed the way he softens around you, how on guard he is with others, a snake poised and ready to bite, the tough shell melting away the minute you’re alone, the way he instinctively leans into your touch when you brush an eyelash from his cheek. It’s all so familiar, so comfortable. He doesn’t mind that you’re opinionated and strong, that you talk for hours but rather inclines his head in your direction as he listens, and his eyes pierce into yours with such intensity that your hands will fidget with the hem of your shirt and the hairs on your neck prickle with embarrassment.

In those rare moments when you find yourself saying something he doesn’t agree with, he steps forward and silences you with a kiss and you’re torn between indignation and softening against him, and the latter always wins over and your hands will find purchase on the planes of his stomach as his abs flex underneath you and Rindou knows he’s won again, as he always does.

So even though the three words are heavy and thick in his mouth, and he wants nothing more than to have the courage and ease to say them, he can’t. Or rather doesn’t. He knows the words are often thrown around without merit or credibility, that it’s something anyone might say at any time. He’s seen it before. A man mutters the words against a woman’s neck as her legs clench around his hips, conveniently forgetting he has a wife at home he says the same thing to, and Rindou’s lip curls in disgust as Sanzu leads them through the club. Something inside him feels sick and nauseous and he blocks the sound of them out, focusing instead on the plush carpet underneath his feet and he thinks of you, and wonders if you’re waiting for him to come back home.

So no, Rindou has never told you he loves you, but he does. He really does, and he hopes you know it all the same, that his actions speak for him, enough to say what he’s too afraid to. Maybe one day he might have the courage to do so, he hopes that you wait and believe him till then.

a/n: I think I actually wrote this more than 6 months ago btw, but I was looking through my docs and realized I hadn't posted it yet. I'm proud of it even now, it's just so self indulgent and cute. I hope you all like it (and my love of course, for you!)

taglist: @reiners-milkbiddies @mxnjiros @islascafe @prettyiolanthe @sugusshi @snakegentleman @haitaniapologist @lonnie19 @nafarsiti @bejeweled-night-33 @ranscutedoll @the-travelling-witch @orchid3a @rottingreveries @qiiuusoup-xo @hoetani @sinfulseashell @welcome-to-the-internet-it-sucks @nikokopuffs @obitohno @tetsutits @burnishedcrown @sweet-seishu @sin-and-punishment @keiskyutie @mochimiyaas @theaonlax @bertholdts--butt (if you'd like to be added, let me know!)

#tokyo revengers #tokyorev x reader #haitani rindou #rindou x reader #tokyo revengers x reader #rindou haitani #tr

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stealanity · 6 months

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[ kim sunwoo ] ꕤ unashamedly

pairing : sunwoo x reader genre : fluff, suggestive warnings : kissing, a lot of kissing and suggestive words count : 827

you knew it was a bad idea to be at home with sunwoo AND all your friends, but they'd all insisted on spending one last evening together before the start of a new school year of hell — and who were you to say no to haknyeon's pleading eyes? that's how your living room turned into a summer camp, the floor strewn with inflatable mattresses and blankets, each with a more ridiculous design than the last. eating your popcorn and watching with a judgmental eye as eric did you-know-what in the corner of your living room, you suddenly felt arms around your waist, making you jump slightly.

not bothering to see who it was, you felt a chin take its place on your shoulder, and a head stick to yours. to no one's surprise, the scent of sunwoo's perfume tickled your nostrils, while your eyes darted between all your friends who seemed absorbed in the film playing on your television. « why are you so clingy? » you whispered, thinking how lucky you were that no one suspected that you were now a couple and no longer just friends, even if your sudden closeness should have tipped them off. sunwoo shook his head negatively, daring to place a kiss on the hollow of your neck when everyone else was looking away, « i miss you, » he muttered against your skin, moving dangerously up your jaw to reach your ear, « i want to kiss you. »

a shiver ran down your spine, as you spied around you to make sure no one had seen or heard what he had just said and done. turning your head towards his, your gaze met the piercing brown color of sunwoo's pupils, the smirk on his pretty lips giving you the strange urge to unscrew his head. but your heart, which was now racing in your chest, had other desires — especially when you had the misfortune to squint at his mouth, which seemed to be screaming at you to kiss him. « we can't, we're not alone. » you replied, your hand mechanically caressing his forearm, paying no attention to anything going on around you. but sunwoo knew how to be persuasive : so he moved a little closer to you so that the tip of his nose caressed yours, before standing up as if nothing had happened, beckoning you to follow him.

what you did. unashamedly.

moving along the almost pitch-black corridor leading to your room and out of sight of others, your body was suddenly drawn against something warm and soft. sunwoo's body pressed against yours, his arms firmly encircling you as if to prevent you from escaping. « hey love, » he whispered against your lips, and you could hear in his words the smile that clung to his mouth, « did you miss me? »

wrapping your arms around his neck, you rose on tiptoe to place a light kiss on his lips before speaking, in a barely audible whisper, « you're here to kiss me, save the nice words for later. » — a scoff leaves his tongue just before he closed the distance between you both completely, capturing your lips in a hot, desperate kiss. sunwoo's hands wandered under your pyjama top, his delicate fingers caressing your warm skin, without a second thought that anyone could have surprised you. he lifted you slightly off the ground, taking you by surprise while taking advantage and slide his tongue against yours, sighing against your lips at the simple sensation of finally being able to kiss you the way he wanted to. sunwoo was an incredible kisser — the best you've ever known, and the only one capable of driving your heart crazy and your stomach full of butterflies.

after long minutes of kissing, reversing roles and finding yourself with your back pressed against the wall behind you, a noise is heard in the hallway entrance, before an expletive forces you to separate your mouths from each other. despite your jerky breathing, your lips fuller and pinker than usual, and your hands nestled in each other's clothes, you turned on the light next to you to discover with horror eric's mocking face. « i knew it ! we knew it ! » he shouted, running back to the living room with a crash, « jacob you owe me $50 ! »

sighing, you looked up at sunwoo, who was smiling with a half-sorry, half-happy smile. hitting his arm, your boyfriend pretended to be in pain and grimaced, « all because of you and your impatience ! » you say, before he cuts you off and kisses you again, pinning you in place. then he pulled away slowly, smiling like an idiot in love, and you'll swear you really want to unscrew his head, « now at least, i can kiss you whenever i want. »

and that's what he did. in front of your friends. unashamedly.

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its-tin · 5 months

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My shot at @abbeyofcyn’s CTIYS!

Fun fact this is actually my first time ever doing something like this (or even posting art in general) and I might have gone a bit overboard with it. I coloured it twice because I had two ideas wanted to try both. My finger needs rest and I can’t fathom that Ibis is telling me that I spent 16-nearly-17 hours on this lol. But! I’m happy I did. This was so much fun to do! I only recently started with digital art and I decided to try and do new things with this. Who knew shading could be so enjoyable? I also found it very entertaining to try and shove as many small details as I can into this (an example being in the first one, Donnie’s bags (?) actually being Leo’s (he has them in the show :] ) that he *cough* borrowed to store interesting things he finds in the apocalypse).

ANYWAYS ENOUGH YAPPING HERE IT IS!

First one (what I call my normal attempt): “Gold”

(I actually forgot that his mechanical arm is green too and only realised it when I was late into the second one lol) I wanted to emphasise with the colours that they are still in the apocalypse, but it’s but brighter with those you care for. They’re the most valuable thing in the world, and hence, Gold! I also wanted to try doing a golden hour scene and MAN did I struggle. But, I’m proud of it :)

Small trigger warning! The next one contains a bit of blood and implied death.

Second one (Angst tehe): “Hollow peace”

(MY QUALITY NOOOOO-) This was actually my first thought on the CTIYS before I changed my mind and started on the other. I had the thought that maybe Leo “failed”, losing them in some recent battle and now is just chilling with their ghosts and ow that hurts saying aloud. They stumble upon a new area, and it’s so peaceful and beautiful, but Leo can’t enjoy it. He wouldn’t even know how to. He can’t remember how to feel, how to think beyond ‘survive’. He’s failed everyone and everything. He cries without knowing for what. He’s a husk caring for the hauntings of his kids, they’re the only thing keeping him alive. And as long as they’re still here, still smiling at him despite him being a monster and failing them, he still has a purpose. He will live on.

Wow I talk a lot. Anyways go follow @abbeyofcyn they’re super cool and post amazing art. They inspire me so much on so many different levels and I am very happy to be able to do this. Rad person with stunning fanart and stories.

(Incredible line art done by @abbeyofcyn (sorry I’ve tagged you thrice in one post))

And here’s the link to the Original Post if you want to try yourself! I recommend, but you do you. :D

Thanks for listening to my rambles and have a lovely rest of your day/night! :]

#Abbeyofctiys entries #I don’t know what to tag this as #Rottmnt #?#That works for now #Remember to stretch and hydrate :)#Abbeyofctiys

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wszczebrzyszynie · 6 months

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would love to know absolutely anything abt doc in ur au... ur design is so lovely to my doc infested brain

Im not even sure where to start? Doc is not a prominent character, but hes important to other characters stories, namely Grian and Scar ... He is, above all, a master of mechanical modifications. He doesnt trust any form of genetical modification (in the form it is now its a very young, experimental and lawless field of science, although he wouldnt even call it that; its not that its risky or new, its... tactless, to him. He sees it as a disgrace to science as a whole), himself being more machine than a human at this point; he almost lost his life to an explosion. The entire left side of his face is mechanical, as are his arms (which are also switchable; he can switch his arm or hand for a different tool, depending on what he needs at the moment. Similar to Impulse, except Impulses arm is a normal budget one and therefore not very accurate, while Doc is possibly one of the richer man in the galaxy). After Tango helps Zed with his... splitting situation, Zed actually starts working with him

Doc himself is not a criminal. Hes one of the... middle men, willing to work for whoever he respects and whos willing to pay him, whether that be for crime or for a government (he is friends with Ren, who himself is mechanically modified in smaller amounts)

He lives in a hollowed out moon. No ones exactly... sure, how hes done it, or even if the moon was a real moon in the first place, but the entire thing is mechanical. Its impressive and also very intimidating. He probably has a few smaller moons similar to his main one; a lot of them look abandoned at first but they very much arent and he will hunt scavangers down. Which is how Tango gets to meet him

Ive mentioned Skar and Grian before because they are stupidly indebted to him. They... tried to rob him, caused a lot of destruction, so much so that it went way over both of their bounties combined. So instead they now have to do everything in their power to get the money for him and not end up dead. Sometimes he feels some sort of pity for them but then he remembers theyre both old and also wanted criminals. He has the unexplainable ability to track them everywhere; they dont know if he planted some sort of chip in their brains, or if hes just connected to every camera in the galaxy, but they cannot escape him

#space mining au #docm77

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songforeddiemunson · 3 months

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Haunting in Blackwood Hollow Part 2

An Eddie Munson x F!Reader Miniseries

Series Summary: It’s the year 1991. Eddie and reader check into a rented house in the Appalachian woods, joined by Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin. Unfortunately for our gang, things in Blackwood Hollow are never as they appear.

Tropes: established relationship, Jonathan x Nancy, no mention of the events from ST, smut, comedy, fluff, scares, bit of whump (but nothing too crazy)

Series Warnings: Swearing, drinking and weed use, sexual and scary situations, minors please DNI.

Chapter Two: Fool Me Once

Chapter warnings: naughty language, mentions of drinking, weed use. Smut, p in v sex, bit rough (you like it) wrap it before you tap it. Spooky situations

Author's Note: Thanks so much for the smut inspo, @hiscrimsonangel (with this post haha iykyk)

Word Count: ~3K

PART ONE

You stayed up quite late that first night catching up with your old friends, drinking cans of pilsner or oversweet margarita mix from sticky solo cups, laughing your asses off, the ouija board forgotten and back in its box. No longer a big fan of heavy drinking yourself, you cut yourself off after just a few drinks, preferring the more mellow buzz of herb than bubbles.

Jonathan got quite drunk, which was a riot, and his friendly ribbing of Steve always increased in that state, to the delight of everyone in the room. Despite Steve’s history with Nancy (and subsequently Jonathan), the three of them managed to become great friends.

Robin bemoaned what she referred to as her perpetual spinsterhood, making you all laugh; “I don’t think you can legally call yourself a spinster at 23,” Steve said. “Just enjoy not being tied down yet,” he finished, causing the rest of the room to tease him for projecting, considering he couldn’t seem to find his one-and-only either (but he pretended he didn’t mind, fooling nobody).

Steve dated plenty, but Robin struggled with it more than he did for obvious reasons. The two of them were roommates for a time in Indianapolis before going their separate ways. The catalyst; one of Steve’s hookups once implied she would like Robin to join them in the bedroom, which horrified them both so much they ultimately got separate places but still lived on the same block. Robin managed a coffee shop and spoke about her wish to try out for the Indianapolis Philharmonic, which thrilled her but made her so nervous she became nauseated whenever she thought about it for too long. Steve had been employed as a junior high school basketball coach for the past year and decided he would like to go back to school for academic sports; he loved working with the kids.

Nancy filled in the group regarding her grad school studies at Columbia University in New York City for journalism. It was hard work but, true to form, Nancy was excelling, and she had a bright future in print journalism in the city. Jonathan had relocated to be with her and was working as a freelance photographer when he wasn’t working in the kitchen of a popular Brooklyn restaurant. He had ultimately decided not to pursue college and chose to support Nancy instead, thinking that would be the best chance for them as a couple. It caused a lot of friction at first, with Nancy initially pushing Jonathan to go to college, but they were able to work through it and had come out stronger.

After high school Eddie had tried his hand at being a musician, mechanic, bartender and assorted other odd jobs with limited success, and ultimately decided to attend vocational school to become a tattoo artist, which was truly his calling. All the doodles he made for Corroded Coffin and the Hellfire Club paid off, and he was one of the most sought-after ink artists in St. Louis, earning enough for the two of you to live in a nice apartment, despite your modest salary as an administrative assistant for a dentist’s office.

You were all thriving, and it was wonderful to celebrate each other’s successes. The wedding rehearsal was the following evening, and you looked forward to catching up with the younger kids there– “kids” who were all legal adults by this time; a fact that none of you could believe nor enjoyed thinking about. You were all relieved that you weren’t staying with them, despite the less than ideal location in which you found yourselves; those kids were like a pack of ferrets on cocaine, especially when they were all together. It would be too much, so you stuck with your own age bracket.

Finally, around two in the morning, Robin decided to turn in. Nancy and Jonathan followed about fifteen minutes later, leaving you and Eddie alone with Steve.

You stretched and yawned. “I think it’s time for bed. You coming Eddie?”

Eddie waggled his eyebrows at you. “I don’t know, am I?” he asked, his voice dripping with hyperbolic innuendo.

You laughed and gave him a smack on his tightly bedenimed rear end. “Just get moving, Munson.”

“Yes ma’am,” he saluted, while Steve rolled his eyes.

It turns out that mercifully, someone did actually change the sheets.

A blessing, honestly, considering you were currently tangled up in them, with the sharp bones of Eddie’s pelvis almost painfully pressing into the soft flesh of your thighs. The bed, old and squeaky with a metal frame that resembled something out of a cold war era prison, was a loud testament to the rhythm of your sex. You couldn’t be bothered to care much, since it felt incredible. The few cans of PBR you had chugged didn’t hurt either.

Eddie had you pinned to the mattress, caged between his arms as he nuzzled and suckled your neck, punctuating soft kisses with nips that would surely leave a mark. You enjoyed it like this sometimes, when he would manhandle you just a bit, claiming you, marking you, and fucking you roughly into the mattress. Sure, there was a time and place for soft lovemaking, but sometimes, you just wanted to be nailed.

“Feel so good baby,” he murmured into your ear, barely more than an exhalation, most of his efforts being concentrated on slamming his cock into your depths. You could barely do more than wiggle and squeal with the way he had you immobilized, which seemed to heighten every sensation. Even his breathy little grunts and gasps were sending you into the stratosphere. You clawed at his back, and the resulting moan in your ear helped bring on climax number three, and you bit into Eddie’s shoulder to stifle your cries.

Eddie’s pace began to falter, and he grasped your waist roughly with his fingers as he shuddered and thrust to his own completion, ending with a final grind of his hips against your sensitive clit, making you yelp. “Ha,” he burst triumphantly; he could be a cocky shit when it came to the pleasures he could draw out of you. He also wasn’t wrong.

After a tender kiss, Eddie rolled off of you and retrieved his boxers from the floor, sliding them on before fumbling around on the bedside table for his smokes. He lay back down with his back propped up against the pillow, lighting a cigarette and sighing contentedly. He looked at you and grinned.

“You think everyone heard us?”

You chuckled. “I don’t see how they couldn’t,” you said, as you dressed in a tank top and sweatpants. “This bed is so squeaky, it almost wasn’t worth even trying to be quiet.”

Eddie laughed. “You sound so cute though when you try,” he said as he flicked his ash into the ashtray on his nightstand. “All squeaky and whiny,” he finished with a wink.

“How dare you,” you joked. “I’m a vision of propriety.”

“Properly fucked, you mean.”

“Eddie!” you scolded, laughing.

“I’ll take it back when it stops being true darlin.’”

“You’re the worst,” you countered.

“You love me,” he said.

“Dammit, you’re right, I do,” you said. You bent to kiss him, and as you pressed your lips to his, you felt him smile.

“I love you too babe,” he said.

It was incredible, how he could still make your heart beat faster after all this time.

You headed into the ensuite bathroom and started to go through your usual bedtime routine of brushing your teeth and washing your face. You were suddenly struck by how exhausted you were; between traveling, cleaning, drinking (and smoking) and some vigorous sex, you were thoroughly spent. You glimpsed through the open bathroom door that Eddie had picked up his paperback of Needful Things, and was reading it by the light of the table lamp.

You clicked off the bathroom light and were just about to exit when something caught your eye out of the window. You peered closer to the thick glass to get a better look.

There was someone standing below on the lawn.

You couldn’t make out any details, but you had the sudden, hair-raising sense that whoever it was was looking right at you.

You jumped backward in alarm. "Eddie!” you shouted.

He was out of bed and by your side in an instant. “What?! A rat? Why are you standing in the dark, babe?” He peered around the room intently.

“No, down there!” You pointed out the window, down onto the grass, but now the figure was gone. “But…but it was there a second ago…”

Eddie bent to the glass for a closer look, brows furrowed. "I don’t see anything. What was it?“

"A person! They were definitely standing down there. And babe– I swear it was looking at me.”

A look of intense wariness crossed his features, and he straightened, all business. "Are you sure?“

"Yes! It was right there!”

“Stay here.” He was out of the bathroom like a shot. He quickly pulled on his flannel pajama pants and strode from the bedroom. You waited with your heart in your throat as you heard the front door below you creak open. You watched out the window as Eddie came into view on the lawn, carrying a fireplace poker in one hand. He clicked on a flashlight and began to sweep the property with it. It was late, and the shadows from the trees that peppered the property created long ribbons of darkness across the grass that the lights from the house were unable to penetrate. You realized that it must have been difficult for Eddie to see out there, even armed with a flashlight, and you broke into gooseflesh at the thought.

Screw this, I’m not leaving him alone out there, you thought to yourself, and left the bathroom. Eddie hadn’t turned on any of the lights in his wake, and in the darkness the house had taken on an even more sinister quality than when you had arrived. You tried to push it out of your mind, dismissing it as the aftershock from your scare. It permeated regardless, with a nearly palpable weight. You hurried downstairs and toward the front door, clicking on lights as you went. The downstairs area was deserted; everyone else must have also turned in. You quickly scanned the entry area for a weapon, finding only an umbrella. It would have to do.

You stepped outside, eyes sweeping the lawn for Eddie, hearing only crickets as you peered into the trees. In the moments since you had taken your eyes off of him he had disappeared from view. Your heart was pounding and your breath misted around you in the chilly night air. You crept forward slowly, and you found that your eyes were having difficulty adjusting to the darkness. The shadows were too inconsistent. Anyone could be watching me from those trees and I’d never know it, you thought. Dammit babe, where did you go?

“Babe?” you called softly. Silence. “Eddie,” you called again, a little louder this time. Was that a twig snapping?

“What?” said a voice, from directly behind you.

You squeaked with fright and whirled, striking out with the umbrella. "Ow, what the fuck?!“ Eddie bent forward, clutching his head.

"Oh my fucking god Eddie! You scared me!”

He rubbed his head in irritation where you had whacked him, mussing up his curls. “What are you doing out here? I asked you to stay inside!”

“I’m sorry! I couldn’t just stand there waiting for you. Are you alright?” you stood on your toes to get a better look at your boyfriend’s scalp, but thankfully there was no blood.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, then sighed resignedly. "I didn’t see anything in front, so I circled round the back to be sure. There’s nothing out here that I can see. Are you sure you saw someone?“

"Positive.”

“Your eyes couldn’t have been playing tricks on you?”

“Edward,” you said, your voice taking on an acerbic tone. “You know I’m not prone to hysterics.”

“Fair enough,” he shrugged, and hugged you to him. "Maybe it was Steve or something.”

“If it was, where is he now? I didn’t see anyone when I came downstairs.”

Eddie could only shrug at that.

Once back inside, he bolted the front door. "Seems solid,” he said. He went around the house and checked to be sure all the windows and the back door were locked, and when he was satisfied, you went back to the bedroom together. As you passed Jonathan and Nancy’s room, Jonathan opened the door and poked his head out, his hair mussed and sticking up in every direction.

“Someone scream?” he mumbled blearily.

“Eddie saw a spider, go back to bed,” you said. Eddie shot daggers at you with his eyes, but a slight upward curl of his lips belied his irritation. Jonathan only nodded and closed his door.

Back in your own room, you undressed and crawled under the covers, snuggling up to Eddie.

It was quiet for a moment, but the wheels in your mind were still turning. “Maybe it was just a local cutting across the lawn on the way somewhere. They may not be used to the house being occupied,” you offered.

"Maybe,” Eddie replied, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Will the light bother you if I read for a while?” he asked.

“Not at all,” you said. "Going to sleep with the light on will be okay with me tonight.”

The following morning you shuffled downstairs for breakfast, rubbing the sleep from your eyes as your housemates warmed up the oatmeal or ate the boxed cereals that Nancy helpfully supplied the previous evening.

“Did anyone see or hear anything strange last night?” you asked the group as you poured yourself a cup of hot coffee.

“I think I did,” Steve began. “Some sort of instrument I think. What was that Robin?”

“Bedsprings,” Robin stated simply as she swallowed a bite of peaches ‘n cream flavored oatmeal, looking the worse for wear.

“Uh, besides that,” you said, feeling the blood rush to your cheeks. Eddie laughed.

“Don’t hate,” he said.

“I heard Eddie scream at a spider,” Jonathan said, and this time it was your turn to laugh.

“It was NOT me, and it was not a fucking spider!” Eddie yelled, offended by the notion.

“No,” you said, quelling your giggles. “It was actually me. I– I thought I saw someone outside last night, watching me when I was getting ready for bed.”

Steve sat forward, suddenly wide awake. “Wait, really?”

You nodded. “Eddie went out to look for whoever it was but he didn’t find anything.”

“Oh shit,” Robin said, “that’s the last thing I needed to hear. Can we go to a hotel now?”

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” Nancy said. “Maybe it was just a local?”

“The nearest neighbors are a quarter mile away,” you said.

“I dunno,” Jonathan chimed in, “you hear stories about cannibals living in the woods in Appalachia…”

“That’s a gross stereotype,” Robin scolded.

“Feel free to ignore him,” Nancy said with a sigh.

“My mom was from Appalachia!” Eddie spat.

“Okay, nevermind,” Jonathan said, as he shrank down in his seat and went back to his oatmeal.

“Well if it wasn’t a local, what could it have been?” Steve asked.

“Maybe messing with the ouija board woke something up,” Robin said, and though you normally didn’t place much stock in those things, you felt something akin to an ice cold finger trail down your spine. You shivered.

Steve chuckled. “You can’t be serious.”

“No really!” Robin cried defensively. “In the movie Witchbo–”

“I am not using a shitty 80s horror film as a guidebook!” Steve shouted.

“Whatever,” Robin said. “If you guys get murdered by an evil axe-wielding ouija spirit, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

You laughed it off along with everyone else, yet the idea wouldn’t leave you. It was unsettling, to put it mildly.

Unbeknownst to you, Eddie was studying your expression. You did always wear your emotions on your sleeve, and he could sense your unease.

“So,” Eddie said. "What’s everyone wearing to the wedding?"

His umber eyes slid over to yours as the conversation devolved into fashion and hairstyling chatter.

Thank you, you mouthed to your boyfriend, and his Mona Lisa smile wordlessly said, I’ve got you. And he did, that much you would never be unsure about. Regardless of what was happening in your life, Eddie Munson would always have your back, which made you feel very lucky indeed.

You didn’t know it yet, but it was a sentiment you would come to rely upon much more in the days to come.

To Be Continued...

More is coming! As always, comments and reblogs are the lifeblood of every fic writer!

MASTERLIST

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fic #eddie munson smut #eddie munson series #stranger things fic #stranger things series

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gilverrwrites · 3 months

Note

belphegor possesses jacks body, reader who is grieving jacks death finds comfort in belphegor? maybe a bit of a crush..

Close As Strangers

Belphegor/GN!Reader

Author note: I tried to keep the exact nature of Jack/Readers relationship ambiguous, so you can fill in the blank as you please. Similar with Bel/Reader, but it has very much enemies to friends/lovers vibes.

Rating: Teen +

Genre: Hurt/comfort, angst

Words: 1624

TW: Grief, arguing, manipulation, crying, very minor mentions of gore, mentions of death, unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Please remember: You are allowed to make a big deal out of things that are really big to you.

“See something you like?” Your heart feels hollow as you watch him wiggle his Jack's brows at you. Blackened, bloody skin peeks out from the top of his sunglasses. His words, his movements, the whole thing made you feel sick.

“No.” You respond curtly, intending to stop there. You can’t help the bitter word vomit that continues. “Just you, defiling the body of someone I love.”

Belphegor inhales through his teeth in mock pain. Not a hint of sympathy or remorse. When he alters his stride to walk closer to you and drapes an arm over your shoulders, you’re too shocked by his audacity to pull away.

“You know, babe, I think I know a way to help you feel better about all this.” He says, offering you a smile that is too sharp, too smug for Jack's face.

“What?” You ask, your eyes darting back and forth between his face and his unwelcome arm.

With a gesture to his Jack's body, he answers, “You could love me.”

You scoff, ready to respond with something harsh and mean, but when you look at his face again, his expression has changed. His head tilted back, chin pointed out, mouth closed and stretched into a familiar smile. There’s that empty feeling again. You know that’s not Jack, but that’s his face, his smile, and at that moment, you couldn’t snap at him like that.

Before you can think of a response, you’re both distracted by the sound of a shotgun being cocked. Dean, who had been walking a few paces behind, presses the barrel of his gun between Belphegor’s shoulder blades.

“Get your arm off them and keep walking.” It’s an empty threat, and all three of you know it.

Dean wouldn’t shoot Jacks's body any more than you could insult it. Even if he did, it wouldn’t do anything.

Regardless, Belphegor, with a smirk, releases you and picks up his pace, but not without raising those scorched brows at you one last time. “I like it when he’s bossy.”

“If we’re all gonna work together, you’ve got to shut up.” You call after him, slowing your footsteps until you fall in line with Dean.

“Awwwh, I’m starting to have an effect on you.” He calls back, refusing to give you the last word, and you concede, crossing your arms over your chest and walking in silence.

"Are you thinking about me?” The sound of Belphegor’s Jack's voice so close to your ear, the feel of his unnatural breath against your skin makes you almost jump out of your skin, makes your body tingle in a way it definitely shouldn’t have. “Is that why you're so unfocused?"

"You wish.” You retort, snapping your head to face him. Admittedly, you had been slacking off, unable to keep your mind off the chaos that had been the last few days. Particularly Jack.

Belphegor doesn’t appear offended by your response. Hands in pockets he offers you a casual shrug before stepping back and leaning against the nearest wall. The two of you were alone, guarding the back entrance of the High School. There had been a lot of debate about who would be ‘left with’ who and for what purposes. It seemed nobody wanted to leave you alone with Belphegor, but nobody else wanted to be stuck with him either.

“What were you thinking about then?” He asks.

Without processing, without thinking clearly, you reply. “You. No, I mean Jack. I was thinking about Jack.”

“Am I sensing a little Freudian slip?” That smile is back, the one that’s too much for Jack. But for a moment, you think to yourself that it actually looks attractive in a roguish sort of way.

Feeling flushed and guilty at your laps of judgement you look away. Hiding your expression. “No. It’s just… I don’t know.”

“It’s just hard to differentiate us sometimes?” He offers, in a tone much softer than you’d come to expect. You know he has self-awareness, but you’re surprised he’s showing it. When you nod your confirmation, he continues; “It must be hard. I mean, I’ve seen loads of people die, probably millions, killed most of ‘em. But no one that I ever cared about. At least, not for a loooooooong time. I don’t really remember it.”

When you hear his feet against the concrete you watch him from the corner of your eye. It only takes a few steps before he’s in your personal space again, but he’s slow and calm. His face is solemn as he gently places a hand on your shoulder. You think he’s trying to comfort you, maybe? But it all feels wrong.

“I’m just saying, I can tell the two of you had some kind of connection. If you want to talk about it, I-”

“Stop.” You shrug his hand off and turn your back to him completely.

“Stop what?” You don’t know if he’s faking it to play with you or not, but the confusion and the hint of worry in his voice, Jack's voice stings.

“Stop being nice to me.”

“Fine, maybe you didn’t care about him all that much.” The softness and uncertainty is gone in an instant, replaced with pure venom.

You’re grateful your back is to him. It takes everything in you not to spin around and go off on him. A part of you knows you’d likely lose your resolve the moment you look at him anyway; you’re inches away from the brink of tears already.

“Oh, blow me!” Is all you can muster.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Malice, all malice. It sounds so wrong.

“I’m gonna sweep the building.” This is too much, and you can’t cope. You need to clear your head. “Don’t follow me. In fact, just don’t move.”

You don’t turn to look at him as you leave, if he says anything, you don’t listen.

You hadn’t told the Winchesters or Castiel about your spat the night before. So here you were, patrolling quarantine with Belphegor. Alone. Again. You’re certain any one of them would swap with you if you asked, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to do it. They were hurting too. Besides, you figured after last night that Belphegor and you needed some kind of conflict resolution; you were just surprised when he broached it first.

“You haven’t insulted me all morning.” Belphegor nudges your shoulder with his own, and you can’t help the quiet chuckle that escapes you. “What’s up?”

“No… Yeah.” You’re not really sure what to say, so you offer him the only thing you know for sure. “My head is a mess right now.”

“I know.” He gives you that relaxed shrug you’ve begun to associate with him. There’s no way of knowing how earnest he’s being, but he seems surprisingly understanding, for a demon at least. “This whole situation is a mess, and you’re grieving. Can’t blame you.”

“Thanks. And thank you for helping us.” You smile at him, it’s a weak smile, but he smiles back and that tingle from last night returns. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“I know one way you can make it up to me.” You hold your breath in apprehension. Certain he was about to spoil the moment. “You can talk to me.”

Still tense from your moment of dread, you respond immediately and defensively, “We are talking.”

Clearly unbothered by your cautious reply, Belphegor goes on, “You can talk to me about Jack. It's not good to keep it all bottled up.”

You feel bad for assuming the worst. You’ve felt bad for a long time. How good would it feel to get some of that off your chest? How easy would it be to talk to Jack about it? Only, this isn’t Jack. This is Belphegor, who, for all his apparent kindness, is still a stranger. A dangerous stranger.

“I really don’t think I can do that.” The tingle on your skin is gone, replaced by the ever-lingering emptiness.

“Why?” The familiar venom creeps back into his tone.

“Because y-” As much as you want to tell him it’s because you can’t trust him, you don’t. You can't afford to lose his assistance right now. “Why do you want me to?”

“Oh what? Because I’m a demon I can’t care about you? Is that it? I find that offensive.” There’s a tinge of humour in his voice, but you’re still shocked by how accurately he hit the hammer on the nail. So shocked, in fact, that your only response is to stare at him slack-jawed. “You don’t have to be strong and good all the time, you know? Let me help you. I’m begging you to let me help you.”

He stops his strides, forcing you to halt with him and turns to look at you straight on, jaw clenched as he impatiently waits for you to say something. Anything.

In that moment, with explicit permission to be vulnerable, the tears you’d held back last night, the tears you’d been holding back for a long time, finally come out. It starts slow, a tear rolls down each cheek, and you sniff to try and hold them back. You press your jacket sleeve to your eyes, but for every tear you soak up, another falls, until you’re heart-pounding, blurry-eyed sobbing.

When you feel Belphegor’s cold hands on you, you don’t pull away. You let him come close, you let him cup your face and use his thumb to wipe your tears, you let him guide you until you're chest-to-chest, your face cradled in the crook of his neck, you let him caress your neck and rub your back. You let him Jack lean down to whisper in your ear. “It’s okay. I’m here, don’t worry.”

#belphegor x reader #spn belphegor #jack kline x reader #supernatural reader insert #gilverrwrites

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kopivie · 8 months

Note

okay so i’m obsessed with your hades wrio so i have to know,, does he compromise? like in the original myth of hades & persephone he decides to let her back into the over world 6 months out of the year,, does he use something akin to the pomegranate seeds? id love to hear your thoughts lol

i'm so happy you like it! thank you so much for reading my silly little rambles, heh ♡ but i've been giving this a lot of thought because as of right now, i'm not 100% sure on what would act as the pomegranate seeds in this au. this is gonna be a bit of a brainstorm post, so bear with me:

it's evident that wriothesley loves and adores you enough to want to monopolize you, but he also knows that if he keeps you here for too long, you may grow to truly hate him. he can't have that, so he lets you go.

to some, the pomegranate seeds in persephone's myth symbolizes the indissolubility of marriage. i'm not quite sure if our hades!wriothesley would make you ingest something quite like that, but i do think he would give you a small mechanical device developed by the best mechanics and engineers in fontaine. this device would act as a timer that would go off on the fall solstice each year, which would signify that it was time for you to return "home".

hades would be gentle about it. he knows that you're suffering without organic plants and the initial love (or infatuation) you felt for him was dwindling by the day, so he pulls you aside one evening to propose the idea. he will send you back to the surface on the spring equinox. wriothesley will watch your expression change several times, but he will continue:

you deserve to thrive in the warmth of the sun. you need the long days and short nights that spring and summer provide. you deserve to be happy.... but there's a catch. the world in the fall and winter is no different from the fortress of meropide year-round; you will return to the fortress on the fall solstice to stay warm and cared for with wriothesley, who will ensure your happiness.

i think out of sheer desperation, you agree to his terms. if i were to circle back to the whole pomegranate seed thing, i don't think that would be necessary. like maybe it's just the prolonged time away from wriothesley that allows for your emotions to settle; the dust clears, the anger fades, and you're left feeling... hollow. you feel lonely in your bed at night. in the warmer months, you feel like the euphoria you feel is best shared with a companion -- with a loved one. what would wriothesley think about picnics with you on a grassy hilltop? would he go swimming with you? surely he'd ask you for flower crowns for sigewinne, right?

the time you spend away from wriothesley are freeing, yet simultaneously agonizing. you miss him.

so when the timer goes off on the fall solstice, you're actually eager to return to wriothesley's side. he's taken aback by your change in demeanor around him when you come back to the fortress -- you're shy around him, you get flustered so easily, and he can feel your lingering gaze from a mile away. but it's certainly not an unwelcome change. it's like a fresh start, where the two of you can now blossom into each other without the threat of resentment looming overhead.

i'm kinda giddy just thinking about the previously overconfident wriothesley being reduced to a smitten lover once more when you come back and actually return his feelings.. it's so cute! he wasn't expecting you to warm up to him during your time away, but now that you aren't giving him the cold shoulder or appearing visibly reluctant to accept his kindness, he doesn't really know what to do.

#[ 📬 — inbox. ]#hades!wriothesley x reader #wriothesley x reader #heavy sigh...#he's so cute #but also so intimidating

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eddiessluttywaist · 1 year

Text

desiderium

an eddie munson series

AGELESS/BLANK/UNDER 18 BLOGS ARE NOT WELCOME TO INTERACT. PLEASE RESPECT MY RULES AND BOUNDARIES.

summary: eddie’s odd, forgotten childhood friend seeks him out when he needs her more than he realizes.

pairing: bsf!mechanic!bartender!eddie x eccentric!bsf!fem!reader

word count: 4,752 words

content/warnings: eventual smut so MDNI, angst, swearing, loneliness, mentions of drugs and crime, mentions of imprisonment, family issues, feeling unwanted, slight bullying, anxiety, nightmares, insomnia, depression, loss and grief, mentions of spit, super brief mention of alcohol and vomit, very brief mentions of breakups and inappropriate sexual relations (nothing reader or eddie are apart of). i think that’s it!

a/n: this is my first attempt at a slow burn series so i hope it’s good! i’m also trying a new setup with photos instead of gifs ^ i’ve seen a lot of other people do it and i think it looks really cool so! also creds to who owns and posted these photos! they’re not mine, i just made the collage!

part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5

Eddie Munson had grown bitter since you last saw him. To be fair, the last time you saw him was when you were kids but still. You always knew him to be boisterous. Adventurer Eddie. Eddie with the weird ideas and cool drawings. Eddie who made you laugh until your stomach cramped and you would cry out that he was going to make you wet yourself.

You didn’t know it as a kid but even then he couldn’t catch a break from the world around him, and apparently it never stopped spiraling even when it beat him into a hollow shell covered in grease during the weekdays and alcohol—and occasionally vomit—on the weekends. He was worn down by his own worries that never seemed to cease and miserable stories of others admitting things they should’ve never said aloud. Sometimes the stories were fun or at least amusing, but mostly just depressing. This was Hawkins after all.

This wasn’t an Eddie you knew. Had someone told you that man in the garage wasn’t him, you simply would’ve nodded and kept going on your journey to find him.

But it was him, and you were positive he was meant to be back in your life. No matter how much it was hurting right now.

You didn’t know why he left at first. It was as if he ceased to exist, and sometimes—when you were all alone at night—you wondered if he had been a ghost. If he had been an imaginary friend, but surely not? He had his own home you hung out in. His own dad who let you guys eat too much junk food and stay up too late. He looked and sounded real when he would scarf down several bowls of honeycomb cereal with those slurping noises you always hated and would whine at him over. He felt real when you would play wrestle—and unfortunately very real when he won and would pin you down while slowly letting a string of saliva stretch down towards your face in an empty threat. He never really did it, but it was gross all the same, and when he’d let up you’d punch his arm as hard as you could.

One day, you asked if your parents remembered him and your father scoffed at the question while he stared at the newspaper, but at least he acknowledged you at all. Meanwhile your mother had all her focus on putting her earrings in and checking her makeup in the small mirror on a wall surrounded by family photos. Those framed pictures felt emptier than the looming threat of Eddie’s spit touching your face.

“Well his father’s a bottom feeder stuck in prison,” your dad flicked his paper to straighten it out again from where it had begun to bow backwards. “And his kid is probably no better. You’ll make other friends.”

You never understood why he was so cold about the loss of your only friend. You’ll make other friends. Yeah right. No one liked you. Everyone made fun of the way you sat idly on swings just to kick on occasion as you focused more on the book in your hands, or the way you’d squat down and give all your attention to a bug in front of you. Either a line of ants that you regarded with pure intrigue because you wondered how they always filed so neatly and did their best to stay together. Sometimes you left crumbs by them just to see if you could watch them pick them up. You’d watch snails and show them the attentiveness and respect you felt they deserved as they slowly trudged along—so determined, you thought. You’d watch butterflies and try to keep track of all the different kinds you saw. A lot of them were small and fluttery with those buttery white wings, but sometimes you saw a monarch and your eyes would grow large with excitement.

You cried when Zachary McKay would stomp on the anthills or teased you about how the French ate snails—something his dad would say was just more proof of how odd Europeans are. They were one of those arrogant “We love our Country!” households with an “I can do whatever I want—America is the land of the free” ideology and it showed in their unbridled and privileged ass of a child. You didn’t inform him that one Spring of the wasp nest that formed on the underside of the slide he frequented. Maybe it was mean, but you were content in silence over on your swing when you heard him crying out in pain one day. He developed a crush on you in high school that dramatically contrasted how he treated you in grade school—and even tried to make a move at Maddi Ecker’s 17th birthday party—but you could only think of the ants and the snails. You turned him down and he was horrible to you again.

You eventually did make some friends, other odds and ends throughout your school, but it wasn’t the same as it was with Eddie. Maybe it was childish and stubborn, but you could feel it deep in your gut that he was one of a kind. So you couldn’t let him go. All those years you ached for your friend who you considered lost. He always came up with wild stories and (when you were still relatively young) you imagined he had become a pirate and was lost at sea. Or became a gunslinger in the Wild West and didn’t draw fast enough. Maybe he went to slay dragons and wound up a burnt crisp of a human. That last one made you cringe the most, but he probably would’ve liked it the most. He loved mythical creatures the way you adored real creatures. By high school you weren’t as naive. You heard about his dad—caught with multiple charges of grand theft auto, a hit-and-run in one of said stolen cars, and dealing drugs. The hard shit. Not weed or shrooms. But the kind of stuff that really ruins lives.

You always thought Eddie had a good home. His dad didn’t hate him the way you were sure your parents hated you, and he had a nice house. It wasn’t a mansion or anything, but they really didn’t need anything beyond a one story and a sizable basement with only two of them. In hindsight, you supposed he couldn’t find a home in that childhood house anymore than you could with yours. Yours lacked love. His lacked a reliable source of income.

Over time you heard about the night with all the sirens and social workers. The night he turned into a spirit that had finally moved on—an imaginary friend that your growing mind ceased to conjure. He lived with his uncle over in Indiana, rather than your small town in Ohio. Even in your mid twenties, he flashed in your mind like a small blip on occasion and it still twisted your stomach.

You thought of asking if you should go to him whenever you remembered, but you thought you needed a sign. What if you showed up too early? And you messed up any possible grand plans? So you avoided indulging in questions about him to your tarot cards or over your pendulum map. On occasion you caved and just asked a simple question: is he safe? It was a yes every time you broke and just had to check up on him, and the answer reassured you for long enough until the next time the concern rose up to unbearable levels.

But then you started getting those dreams. Sometimes they were just memories playing from deep within the archives of your mind. Sometimes they were nightmares of yelling at someone to go away, only to realize it was Eddie far too late—and when you wanted to run after him to correct the mistake, you couldn’t move as quickly as you knew you were capable of.

It went on for about a month before you finally broke. Your eyes had snapped open, accidentally waking yourself in the middle of saying what you had been shouting to Dream Eddie out loud into your pitch black room. You glanced at the time. 11:11 PM. You felt your heart skip a beat before you shoved yourself out of bed. You had to take a moment to steady yourself against your bedpost from the sudden movement making you dizzy, but then you were flicking on the light and digging through your belongings. You didn’t even give yourself a chance to wipe away at the thin sheen of sweat over your skin from August heat mixed with a cheap fan that really didn’t make that much of a difference, and the stress from the events that had played deep in your mind while you slept.

With a shaky breath, you smoothed out your map on the floor where you were squatting, and steadily held your pendulum over the center. Does he need me? You finally asked and watched as the chain connected to a sphere of rose quartz slowly began to circle. It sped up and then began to dart in different directions before finally swinging back and forth between both of the “YES''s on the piece of cloth.

It took a little over a month to arrange your departure from your life in small town Ohio—not that small town Indiana was really all that different. You had briefly been back at your childhood house after your lease came to an end for the apartment you shared with a friend (who didn’t want to renew because she wanted to move in with her boyfriend, and you didn’t have the heart to tell her that the card spread you had laid out all pointed towards a breakup). All of this to say you didn’t have a lease or mortgage to tie you down. You certainly didn’t have a boyfriend (you haven’t had one since college), and you didn’t even like your job at the local mart so it was easy to give your two weeks. Your parents were just as sick of your presence now as when you were a child, and were willing to help you in every way possible to get you to just leave again. Had you not been so focused on your end goal, you might’ve taken a beat to really feel the hurt that always came with parents who only came to your aid when it meant keeping you at arm's length. But you couldn’t focus on it and really (for the sake of your mental health) you shouldn’t focus on it. All of your energy went towards Eddie who seemed so far, even if he was supposedly just a few hours and a state line away.

You didn’t have a place yet, which was a mistake on your part for rushing, but you could stay in a motel for the time being. The prices were pretty low anyways and the owner seemed pleasantly surprised by the sudden source of money and company. The lot belonged to her husband who had passed a few years back, so now it was only her running the place. Her daughter helped sometimes, but she had another job to focus on—only coming to help when the older woman was ill. So even though she appeared kind of grumpy at first, she really softened up to you when you wound up padding out of your room the first night and asked if she wanted to play Go Fish. You had been feeling antsy and lonely, and you were right to assume she felt lonely too.

Over the past week or so, you found a friend in that creaking, groaning motel. You did have a bit of a tendency to befriend the adults around you more often than kids your age when you were younger and it still happened now, apparently. A shrink at university pointed out once that it had to do with the lack of guardianship and guidance growing up. That you were trying to replace something that had always been missing, but you didn’t go back to him after a couple sessions. You didn’t like how patronizing he was, telling you things you already knew. And when you asked your dowsing rods if he was sleeping with any of his clients, the two pieces in your fists whipped open in a blatant “Yes!” But he wasn’t around now to make you feel low with his supercilious commentary and his notes that he always scratched down right in front of you. Your parents weren’t around to remind you of how utterly unlovable you can be. It was just you, Martha at Hawkins’ Blue Bird Inn, and hopefully a pleasant reunion on the horizon.

Today was the day to finally see Eddie, and Martha urged some confidence into you this morning before sending you on your way with the directions to the garage. No matter how many times you clarified he was just your childhood best friend, she got that sly look about her that always showed when an adult was all amused about the novice in front of them being openly or involuntarily blind to love.

So there you were. On a mild Wednesday morning in late September, standing before Thacher Tire after a lot of asking around, a lot of time flipping through Martha’s phone book, and even more odd looks. You let out a careful breath, doing your best to reassure yourself with the knowledge that the people you spoke to knew his name in the first place. He had to be here, and even if he wasn’t working today he should at least be employed here. Maybe you could be told when to come back to speak with him or where you could find him outside of work. Would they share something like that? People don’t tend to care about privacy in small towns, that’s why everyone knew (generally) where everyone else was. Maybe if you clarified that you’re an old friend, they wouldn’t treat you as a customer and tell you where he would be.

You were wringing your hands as you eyed the door in front of you. The glass looking in was worn from age and weather, clearly cleaned so people could see through it, but there seemed to be an aging to the corners where the rectangle of glass met the surrounding wood that couldn’t be scrubbed out. It felt like a portal looking into what could be, and you suddenly felt yourself getting anxious with what exactly meant could be. You had a knack for catastrophizing, and spiraled in all of the worst case scenarios until you were running back to your car and abandoning the lot.

“Trust me, it’s not as scary as it seems. Going for those intimidating opportunities is always better in the long run than letting ‘em slip away,'' Martha murmured to you before biting into the sandwich you brought her.

You bought typical fast food that you always came running back to when you were stressed, but she didn’t like the grease. You learned that over the past week when you brought up your bad habit, and her nose scrunched up at the mention of crappy burgers and overly salted fries. Instead you got her a tuna sandwich from the nearby marketplace, and she shared her big jug of iced, sweet tea with you.

“I haven’t seen him for over ten years…,” you sigh, toying with the crackling paper that was wrapped around your cheeseburger. “What if I’m the only one who clung onto our friendship? What if it’s stupid to him?”

“Mm, us women always do hold on longer,” she hummed thoughtfully and you refrained from your urge to correct her old-fashioned view of gender dynamics for the sake of staying on topic. “I still think you should go for it.”

“What if… what if it’s not what I think it’ll be? What if I’ve turned him into someone more fictional than Eddie in my mind, and when I’m faced with how he really is now I just… I dunno…wish I didn’t come here?”

“They never are what you conjure up. They’re always better up here,” she pointed a bony finger to her temple and you focused on one of the curls in her short gray hair for a second before bringing your gaze back to hers. “I still think you should go for it.”

You huff out a laugh at her repetition, smiling sadly to yourself as you look down at your hands and notice the thin sheen of grease on them. Maybe Martha’s right. Maybe this food is gross. You grab a few napkins from the brown paper bag and wipe at your fingers.

“Just think of it this way: is it worse knowing the truth or worse never knowing?”

Eddie had been having a shit day. Actually he had been having a shit week. If he let himself truly indulge in his pessimism, he’d be acknowledging that he’s altogether just had a shit life, but he was trying not to fall into that trap. It would make him the kind of depressed and bitter that made him snap at others and then feel guilty about it—which only made him feel worse about himself.

He hasn’t been sleeping well, a sudden flare up of his insomnia throwing off his circadian rhythm. He thought with how busy his schedule was that he’d knock out the second his head hit the pillow, but he only seemed to be exhausted until he finally laid down. Then was when his thoughts randomly chose to run and his heart would race with the sudden surge of anxiety-inducing thoughts. He was beginning to feel so overwhelmed by everything that his eyes burned with the beginnings of hot tears but he wiped at them carelessly with the heels of his hands before they could become too real. In his mind, they didn’t exist until they fell.

Eddie ached with exhaustion that only seemed to let up when he could actually get a shot at some rest. He ached with loss and grief. He ached with pure misery and painful seclusion and a silent trailer—besides the occasional buzz of electricity through his lamp that he turned back on when he realized he wouldn’t be sleeping anyway, or the groan of the old mobile home settling against its cinder blocks. The upcoming season made itself known through the ever growing chill that formed at night and occasionally blew through every crack and crease of the trailer, making him shiver and pull his blankets up before inevitably growing hot again and kicking them away.

He missed his friends that he rarely saw. Everyone is busy nowadays. He missed Wayne who… god, he couldn’t even think about it. He missed Chrissy who lit up his world Spring of ‘86 just for them to drift apart. People seemed to drift from him a lot. People seemed comfortable with forgetting him and giving a brief call only when they got a pang of guilt at any reminder that they were getting awfully close to leaving him behind. But who was he to drag them down? It was heart-aching enough to live the way he did sometimes, let alone when people acknowledged just how heart-aching it was. Sometimes he even missed his dad, but he always avoided thinking too hard about him before it could sink his mood to a new level that would be hard to crawl out of.

He hadn’t been able to fall asleep Wednesday night until early into Thursday morning. He settled into a deep rest around 4 AM just to be abruptly woken up by his 6:30 alarm to make sure he was at Thacher’s by 7:00.

“Fuck off…,” Eddie groaned out loud and slammed his fist down onto the alarm clock, never lifting his face from where it was planted right against his worn pillow.

He laid there for what felt like forever, but was really only a few minutes before he finally peeled himself out of his spot. Forcing himself from the comfort of his old mattress was never easy, especially when he couldn’t rely on any excuses he made up as a teenager to just flop right back into his bed. He had to get up. He had to work.

He went to make his usual toast just to see there was only the end piece left in his loaf of bread, and let out a guttural groan of frustration as he tilted his head back. He forgot to stop at the store. Grumbling a bitter so that’s how today’s gonna go under his breath, he shoved the sad excuse for a slice of bread into the toaster and then began looking through the kitchen for something else to satiate him until lunch.

He wound up eating what was left in his jar of peanut butter with a spoon after slathering the small piece of toast with jelly. He didn’t have time to clean a travel mug (which he forgot to clean last night) so he took a regular one with him on his commute, and wound up dumping his coffee all over himself mid-sip when he had to stop short for a kid suddenly biking across the road. The young teen laughed at the close call and made his way to the other side of the street. Eddie glanced down at his drenched t-shirt and coveralls, releasing his third irritated groan of the morning while he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling of his van before focusing back on the road and moving his foot to the gas. He focused on taking deep breaths as he gripped the steering wheel and made his way to the shop.

Thankfully, Linda had already started a pot of coffee in the break room which he happily drank and patted at his wet clothing with one of the blue shop towels. Staining was inevitable and it really didn’t matter with the coveralls anyways, but that didn’t mean he had to be damp. Taking that moment at the start of his shift helped with his mood, but the amount of customers bitching over the phone about how long it was taking to get their cars back were steadily draining him back into a surly mood. The most he had to look forward to and keep himself from unnecessarily snapping at someone was the fact that it was almost the weekend—and yes he would still have to work nights at The Hideout, but at least he didn’t have to get up early.

Never knowing was decidedly worse.

You had concluded this after ruminating on it all night—with and then without Martha’s help. And despite all of your anxieties that were just barely buried under the surface, you made yourself go to the garage again.

An obnoxious, tinny bell sounded and a dull voice said from behind a counter: Welcome to Thacher Tire. What can we do for you?

You approached carefully as if you moved too quickly, the depressing gray and beige setting around you—which held far more meaning for you than just fixing cars—would suddenly melt away and you’d wake up.

“Do you know where I could find Eddie Munson?” you asked in a soft voice, and the woman obnoxiously chomping at her gum looked up at you over the top of her glasses before looking back down at the paperwork in front of her.

“He’s in the garage. Is he working on your car?”

Your heart jumped and although you hated to lie, you did.

“Yes,” you said probably too quickly, but it seemed nothing could get this woman to care.

“Wait over there, please,” she spoke in a voice that was just as greige as her place of work.

You thanked her meekly and shuffled over to one of the worn, faux leather and hard plastic seats. The room smelled of cheap pine air fresheners and the potent combination of oil, and that specific rubber scent of brand new tires. The space with the front desk and the waiting area was small enough to be cramped if it was a busy day, but since you were the only visitor at the moment you didn’t have to be confronted by the full potential of such limited space. You toyed with your hands and tried to pay attention to the fuzzy television in one corner of the room, but you couldn’t help listening in on the receptionist’s call.

“…’s a girl here to talk to ya… uh-huh… yeah I know… uh, no I don’t think so. I doubt it. Her voice is different from the one that keeps calling about the Ford. Might be though... ‘Kay.”

You anxiously wiped your sweaty palms over your jeans as you heard the clunk of hard plastic settling back into its cradle. What if he didn’t remember you? What if he did, but didn’t care? What if he thought you were weird for showing up? What if he grew up to be someone who stomps on anthills?

Your head shot up at the sound of a door opening and then closing from the back, and a man in filthy coveralls approached the woman behind the desk. He had messy, curly bangs settled on his forehead and the rest of his long hair was in a low ponytail. He was sweaty and clearly exhausted as he wiped at his forehead and left a swipe of grease in his wake, speaking quietly to the receptionist before making his way over to you. The closer he got, the better you could smell the grease and sweat and bitter coffee, but it didn’t deter you. What truly threw you were the circles under his eyes and the sort of pale cast to his skin that people got when they were fatigued or ill. You weren’t sure why a part of you expected to see an eleven year old kid approach you with a god awful buzz cut and big brown eyes, even after fourteen years.

This was it. This was your moment. The time to reclaim your best friend, and have the greatest person you had ever met back into your life. Why was your throat suddenly so dry? You swallowed anxiously and then parted your lips to speak and-

“Miss, I know you’re waiting on your car to be fixed before the weekend—I promise I’m working as quickly as I can.”

You tried not to cringe at the use of “miss” and looked up at him with wide, sad eyes wondering why he didn’t see an almost ten year old girl with a messy braid in her hair that she did by herself, complaining at him to chew with his mouth closed.

“I lied,” You said bluntly and the man stared at you in a way that felt blank and still despite his wonderment.

“I-I don’t have a car here. I just wanted to talk to you.”

He eyed you curiously, his hands slowly wiping onto an old rag. It looked like it had been used so many times, you doubted it was even picking up any filth on his hands but just moving it around instead. He was clearly thrown off by the sentiment which brought a sort of youthfulness to his face in that moment of curiosity before his features hardened.

“Listen. I’m sure whatever prank you have conjured up is hilarious, but I’m tired and trying to do my job.”

“No-- no, no,” you tried to clarify, shooting up from your seat. “I—I-”

But he was already swiftly stomping away from you towards the back, muttering to the receptionist with a quick and surely rude comment about you on his way. You were moments from being politely asked to leave, you’re sure, but the woman hesitated with a gentle expression when she saw you approach her with glossy eyes.

“Could you please just give him this?” you asked in a soft voice that you did your best to keep even, but of course it wobbled just enough to be humiliating. You could feel the heat in your face and (even worse) the moisture in your eyes so you did your best to avoid eye contact.

You outstretched your arm and she met you halfway with a nod, allowing you to drop the old friendship bracelet into her palm.

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