#i i guess lover because it has higher highs?
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Reputation or Lover this or that. Ready for It or Cruel Summer? End Game or Paper Rings? Delicate or The Archer? LWYMMD or Me!? So It Goes... or I Think He Knows? Gorgeous or London Boy? Getaway Car or Death by a Thousand Cuts? Dancing With Our Hands Tied or Cornelia Street? Dress or False God? This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things or I Forgot that You Existed? Call It What You Want or Lover the song? New Year's Day or Daylight? Reputation or Lover?
#ok lets do this#cruel summer#paper rings#the archer#lwymmd#i think he knows#london boy#getaway car#cornelia street#dress#neither#lover the song#daylight#i i guess lover because it has higher highs?#taylor swift
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forgive me for what is likely a basic ass request but... steve has a crush on eddie's best friend? smut optional but encouraged :) (love, j.d. aka mypoisonedvine)
✶ ┄ LOVE YOU, ON PURPOSE (i)
part one | part two
summary: steve harrington took extra care to avoid the local freaks of hawkins. having shared custody of a fourteen-year-old forced him into a bitter friendship with one, he's steadfast in his refusal to befriend the other. that is, until you start working at the groove beside family video. steve claims he only fell for you because you tripped him. (17k)
pairing: steve harrington / eddie's bff!reader
tags: strangers to friends to lovers, mutual pining, protective eddie, canon divergence TW swearing, bullying, some smooching, talks of insecurities, reader is doubtful of steve's intentions because steve used to be a dick <3
a/n: this request has been sitting in my inbox for ages. ages, i tell you! i wrote the outline the day it was sent in and ended up turning the blurb request into a full on 30k+ word fic. i'm sorry for the wait j.d. (and to everyone else who's been waiting patiently for me to put this out). i quite literally put my heart, soul, pussy, and so, so many hours into this. please enjoy! feedback is always appreciated! xoxo
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Something happens and I'm head over heels.
It would be a total disservice to call you Eddie’s best friend.
It wouldn’t even feel right to call you his platonic soulmate or his sister from another dimension. Not when the two of you are essentially an extension of the same human being. It’s a twin flame on steroids — your mirrored souls make the rest of Hawkins believe in some sort of higher power. There’s no way it wasn’t destiny that placed the two of you together at exactly the right place, at exactly the right time.
Your entwined spirits could’ve been a beautiful thing.
It’s too bad you’re both total fucking freaks.
Unfortunately, being a couple of metalheads who spend their free time creating fantastical worlds in silly little board games hasn’t become cool yet — for some sad, strange reason. It leaves you and Eddie as the town’s token social pariahs. The kind of misfits you only spot when you care enough to look — laughing too loudly at the lunch table or sharing a cigarette in the alleyway between school buildings.
The kind of weirdos who get your attention without trying. The kind that people only look at when they need something to make fun of.
With that being said, everything Steve knew about you came from the people that hated you.
Tommy Hagan said that you and Eddie had been fucking since the seventh grade, that the two of you had gotten close between blowjobs and fingerbangs in the old chemistry classroom. No one’s quite sure where it came from, but they believed him without thinking twice. You and Eddie tried to squash the rumor for years before leaning into it full throttle.
“And these are the freaks,” Tommy announced when he approached your lunch table. He was giving Billy Hargrove a grand tour of the high school, or rather the shithole, and detoured like you and Eddie were some kind of sideshow attraction. Him and his goons ogled at you like zoo animals.
Steve idled some feet away, not as interested in the bit as the rest of them. He was even less interested in entertaining the new kid on the block thateveryone else seemed to be obsessed with.
“Hey, Tommy...” Eddie sing-songed through a mouthful of PB&J. You’d given him the other half of your sandwich, because you always give him the other half of your sandwich. “Hope you’re not comin’ back to ask for a handy again. I already turned you down, remember?”
A dumb grin took over the boy’s freckled face. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned over to the California boy. “I wouldn’t get too close to them. Don’t know where their hands have been, you know? If I had to guess, I think Punchy got Munson’s rocks off in the janitor’s closet before lunch period.”
Neither of you were particularly fazed by the laughter that erupted all at once and threatened to swallow you whole. Instead, you smiled with bits of grape jelly smeared on your chin. “I bet you think about it a lot, don’t you, Tommy?”
You really lived up to the nickname. Punchy. You weren’t entirely sure where it came from — your fierce temper, perhaps, or maybe your intense personality. Either way, it suited you.
Vicki Carmichael once said that you bit a guy on a date one time. Barry Jenkins, a tennis douchebag who thought the world revolved around him because his dad owned a string of local laundromats. He took you on a date in his mom’s Impala and assumed making out in the backseat gave him free rein to stick his hand up your skirt.
The asshole sported a red mark on his neck the next day.
When people asked you about it, you smiled with all your teeth in place of any real answer.
Carol Perkins loved to comment on the state of your wardrobe, telling anyone who would listen about the time she caught you rifling through the $1 bargain bins outside the thrift store. She liked to joke that you were stealing from them. “Because she can’t even afford a couple measly dollars. It’s kinda sad, honestly. I feel a little bad for her,” you overheard her saying once.
You were smoking a cigarette in the stall and watching through the crack of it while her and her friends touched up their lip gloss.
“Wait, really?” Tina wondered, stopping mid-swipe of mascara through her long lashes to gape at the girl beside her. Because, god forbid, they don’t have someone to make fun of.
Carol snapped bright pink bubblegum between her teeth. She looked offended, almost — manicured brows furrowed and shiny lips snarled — like the idea of her taking pity on you was insulting. “No,” she snapped in response.
You’re pretty sure it’s the only rumor about you that’s got any bit of truth to it. Or any rumor of hers, really. The thrift store was great and all, but you firmly believe that your best pieces come remanufactured straight from Eddie Munson’s closet.
So it isn’t any wonder why the two of you seem to dress so similarly — all leather jackets and distressed jeans and hand-me-down t-shirts that are either too big or too small. The both of you take little care in your appearance, wearing only what you feel good in. And sometimes that means wild hair and baggy clothes that swallow you whole.
To make it worse, you and Eddie even talk the same. You’re both loud and brash and have very little awareness of personal space. You aren’t scared to make a scene or use your voice when you think it’s being stifled. And when you love someone, they know it, because you won’t leave them the hell alone.
These are all the things that Steve hated about Eddie. So he hasn’t quite figured out why he’s so damn in love with you.
But he is.
Quite dreadfully so.
Head over heels and stumbling since the day he met you for a second time.
It was the spring of 1986 and The Groove had just opened up. Steve had heard murmurings of a record shop taking over the empty outlet adjacent to Family Video but had no idea it would nearly run them out of business. The shiny, new music store attracted all of their usual customers. People were more excited to buy new cassettes than rent movies they’d seen a thousand times already.
Steve didn’t mind, though. He liked it best when the store was empty. But all of his friends — a closeted lesbian, a basket case, and a couple of fourteen-year-olds — seemed to have the same affliction that was plaguing the rest of the town.
He tried not to be offended when Robin said she was going to spend her break next door and not with him in the closet-sized break room.
He failed.
Robin spent her half-hour and then some meeting you. She returned forty-five minutes later with a blushing face and a bleeding heart. Suddenly, there were two people in Steve’s life that couldn’t seem to shut up about you. As much as it annoyed him, he let her gush about you anyway, because that’s what best friends do, after all.
But Steve knew you once upon a time. Or he thought he did.
You were a loudmouthed metalhead who wore all black to blend in to Eddie’s shadow. You created fictional characters because it was easier than making friends with real people. You were strange and awkward and mean and gauche — the total opposite of this heavenly, mystical creature Robin was making you out to be.
But then it became this whole… thing.
With Robin and Eddie constantly talking over him about you, the rest of the kids were as confused as Steve was. And as they so often tend to do, the group decided to take matters into their own hands and make the short trek to meet you formally. Steve figured that their answer would be final. When those teenagers hate you, you know it. He learned that the hard way
They’re gone for a little over an hour and come back with a thousand stories and various tapes they say you gave to them for free.
Lucas has got a new Beastie Boys cassette and a proud smile on his face as he recounts the promise you’d made him about catching his next basketball game. “And she said she really liked my ranger,” he brags less than humbly, telling the older teens about how you’d heard stories about his track record in Hellfire campaigns. There’s a sudden suaveness to his voice as he bounces his brows up and down at them.
Max scrunches her face in disgust. She clutches a Kate Bush tape close to her chest, like it’s a prized possession she never wants to let go of. She rolls her eyes at her boyfriend (or maybe ex-boyfriend, but Steve can never keep up these days) and makes her own conversation with Robin. The two girls are the only ones with more than half a brain cell between them, or so they claim.
The redhead tells her that she plans on bringing her broken skateboard over to your store soon. She says the thing’s been wobbly for days, and Robin nods along like she knows all about it. “Well, apparently, she has some tools and knows how to fix it. Said the trucks just needed to be reinforced or some shit, I don’t know, I’m just glad it’s getting fixed.”
“Wait, why didn’t you tell me?” Steve asks her, confusion contorting his words along with his features. He crosses his arms and leans against the counter. “I could’ve fixed it.”
“You don’t know anything about skateboards,” Max monotones.
“Okay, but you don’t even know this girl! She’s a total stranger, Max. That’s dangerous.”
She rolls her eyes. “She’s nice, Steve. Way nicer than you—”
That makes him scoff.
“—And you’d know that if you got to know her.”
It’s Dustin’s turn to gush about you next. His opinion, for a reason Steve has never been able to place, arguably means the most to him. And the kid is just absolutely fucking beaming about you. He holds a Star Wars orchestral vinyl in his hand — the brand new one he’s been talking about for weeks but couldn’t afford.
He talks of the collection of DnD figurines you were painting behind the counter and the promise you made to make one for his bard come the next campaign.
Dustin gazes at Steve, wide-eyed and nodding like he’s as amazed by the revelation as Steve is. “She’s cool, Steve. Like… really cool.”
The boy thought that Robin just had a crush, that Eddie was just being Eddie and overdramatizing all of his stories about you. But you’re everything they said you’d be and then some. The kind of stranger you meet that takes your breath away, that makes you sad in the understanding that you’ll never see them again. Dustin is grateful you don’t have to be a stranger anymore.
You sounded… nice. More than nice. They painted you out to be a fucking angel, the way you took care of a bunch of kids you barely knew for the better part of an hour. You weren’t the freak everyone made you out to be all that time ago.
They talk a great deal about your looks, too. Dustin, mostly. Lucas had received a glare and a half-hearted punch on the arm from Max when he said how pretty you were — even though she ultimately agreed with him. The curly-headed boy uses too big words to describe the renaissance painting you are, all heavenly morose and beautifully strange.
“Hey,” Eddie scolds from the sidelines, mostly playful. “That’s my sister you’re talking about. Bring it down a few notches, ‘kay?”
Steve is silent for the rest of the day after that. He’s not pouting about it like Robin keeps saying he is, just reserved in his reminiscence.
He can’t tell if he’s intrigued or annoyed. They talk about you the way people used to talk about King Steve — with a borderline obsession for someone they don’t really know. And deep down, he knows he’s just jealous. Jealous that no one talks about him that way anymore. Jealous that none of the kids have ever talked about him that way.
It leaves him skeptical and wanting to see the real thing for himself.
Steve opts to meet you on his lunch break the next day with a tight chest and sweaty palms, like a part of him knew it was going to change the trajectory of his life for the foreseeable future.
The door dings with his arrival. The record store smells like earth and nostalgia, a bit like flipping through the pages of an old book. Vinyls sit in rows and in towers that rise to the ceilings. Colorful cassettes, of which there are thousands, have nooks and crannies of their own. Posters decorate the walls along with various patterned records — there’s hardly a blank spot in the entire store.
And when Steve sees you for the first time, he only sees the back of you.
You’re in all black, just like he imagined you’d be. A sliver of skin at your midriff is showing from where your too small shirt has ridden up your torso. And your hair is as wild as ever, though a little longer than he remembers. You’ve haphazardly pinned back the ornery strings with a sparkly pin, but it doesn’t do much to tame them.
A breeze of warm wistfulness washes over him at the sight of you. A reminder of a life that used to be his, that you were a part of only passively.
It’s your smile that does him in. Maybe because you’ve never looked at him with it. As far as Steve’s concerned, no one’s ever smiled at him the way you do, and you barely even know him. You hadn’t seen him in over a year and if you shared any words in the past, it wasn’t anything more than snarky one-liners. But here you are, looking at him with sunshine anyway.
“Hi,” you beam with the warmest grin he’s ever seen, swiveling in your chair to face him. “Welcome in.”
He’s too stunned by the sight of you to respond. He just stands in the doorway, all wide-eyed and gaping, like he’s the first to see an angel on earth. And it’s strange because you’re far from perfect.
You’re blousy and a little disheveled, like you’d been running late that morning. The lack of makeup allows your imperfections to shine through in a way that makes you somehow more alluring. And you’ve got paint splattered like freckles on your cheeks, the culprit being the figurines you’re painting behind the counter. If you know you’re dotted with shades of red, blue, and green, you don’t show it.
“Can I help you find anything?” you ask him, still kind even though he’s acting like a fucking weirdo. That’s supposed to be your thing, not his.
Steve grasps for something to say but comes up short. His lips part and then close again in an embarrassing pattern that resembles a fish out of water. It makes sense, though; it’s a bit how you’ve made him feel just now.
When he realizes he can’t make out anything intelligible, he shakes his head. “Uh… nope.”
He’s leaving before he even realizes he’s leaving. The door dings again and he’s on the other side of it, long legs carrying him the short distance to Family Video at record speed.
He swings and slams the egress shut in quick succession, as though the ghost of you had been chasing him. He leans against the glass pane and exhales a heaving sigh, eyes squeezing shut as he recoils at what he’d just done.
He always knew that King Steve had died some time ago, but this was a new low.
Robin watches from the front counter with wide eyes. “…Did you forget something?”
Steve sighs a big, hopeless sigh, then peeks his eyes open. “My dignity.”
“She’s cute, right?” she asks, already knowing the answer. Her brows bounce in time with the smirk on her painted lips.
“Yeah, she’s cute,” he answers, all mad because it’s obvious. “She’s fucking— she’s beautiful.”
“Aw. Look at you,” she sing-songs and tilts her head to her shoulder. “I think your heart grew three sizes today, Stevie.”
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
I never find out 'til I'm head over heels.
Steve, all caught up in his boyish misery, has no idea that he’s enraptured you in a similar way.
You hadn’t cared very much for the guy in high school. You didn’t really know him then, and you didn’t particularly want to. King Steve was rich. King Steve was pretty — too pretty. King Steve got attention from pretty cheerleaders and overaggressive douchebags alike.
King Steve didn’t need any affection from the local freakshow.
But, by some strange turn of events, he’d managed to make nice with your best friend.
The way Eddie talks about Steve, his words always dripping with a distant venom, it sounds like they still hate each other. Maybe they do. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to admit that they hang out far too often not to be friends.
If you were still in school, you probably would’ve judged him for it. Being friends with the boy whose buddies made your life hell certainly warranted some degree of ridicule. But now, having graduated and trying to move on from it all, you can’t find it in yourself to.
High school might as well have been a lifetime now. There’s no use in holding onto old ghosts.
If Eddie could let that shit go, so could you.
He drops by after school to keep you company like he always does when he doesn’t have a campaign to prep for. It’s his favorite pastime, perhaps a close second to Dungeons and Dragons. He gets to hang out with his best friend and swim in an ocean of music while he does it. As far as freaks go, Eddie Munson considers himself the luckiest.
He likes to hear you talk about everything new you’ve gotten in while he rifles through the old stuff that isn’t selling as well. You happily let him take what he wants for free. And what he doesn’t take, he doesn’t pay for either, because you cheat the system with your employee discount and then wipe the record from inventory. Just to be safe.
“I love having a criminal for a best friend,” he jokes every time, without fail.
Eddie stays by your side until the sun sets. He parts only to flip the sign at the door to closingfor you, then plops himself back on the counter again. His legs hang off the side of it, sneakers occasionally thudding against the wood when he kicks them back and forth too hard. He scans the back of an old Lynyrd Skynyrd vinyl and bobs his head to the rhythmic bass as the song fills the empty store. He’ll take this one home, he decides.
You keep on painting like you have been all day, breaking only to assist customers or stretch your aching spine. The forest dragon had been far more work than you expected — made of pretty purple leaves instead of scales and blowing blush-colored flowers instead of fire. The little piece of clay has resulted in a day of back-breaking work.
You’ll be damned if Eddie’s next campaign isn’t the most stellar looking one yet.
Focusing on that makes it easier not to bring up Steve.
You want to. You just don’t know how.
Eddie’s friends were Eddie’s, and you don’t get involved where it doesn’t concern you. Besides, you did sort of give him shit for hanging out with The Hair way back when. The last thing you want is him taking the piss out of you about it.
You don’t want to sound like you care too much. Even more, you don’t want it to be obvious that you’ve been thinking about the boy all day — making yourself sick as you stew in what could’ve run him out like he did.
“Saw your friend today,” you remark, feigning a sort of absentmindedness, as you swipe your brush along the petals of your dragon. “King Steve.”
“Oh, you met him?” Eddie wonders, more intrigued by your words than you expected he’d be. He says it like you didn’t already know the guy — like this new Steve was a totally different person you needed to be reacquainted with to really know.
“I wouldn’t say met him exactly. He just, like, popped in for half a second and ran out.”
With your back facing him, you don’t see the shit-eating grin that pulls at the corners of his mouth.
Eddie was waiting for Steve to crack and finally see you. He knew he’d bite after the way the kids had talked about you — Dustin, especially. Because even though he claims he doesn’t have favorites, he’s got a very obvious soft spot for the boy. And he knew Steve would like you because everyone likes you. When they’re not clouded by judgment and high school hierarchies, at least.
He’s still got no idea how a guy that trips all over himself at the sight of a pretty girl could’ve ruled Hawkins once upon a time.
“Fucking idiot,” Eddie laughs to himself, already gearing up for the shit he was going to give Steve the next time he saw him.
But you see the boy before Eddie does. Steve comes back the next day, an hour or more after opening, less frazzled than the day before. The nearly twenty-four hours he had to prepare himself for the angel he was going to see allowed him not to make a total fool of himself when he stepped into the store again.
And you wouldn’t say it out loud — hell, it’s not even something you want to admit to yourself — but you’d been hoping he’d stop by again.
You thought Robin would come by and drag him with her, or that Dustin and his friends would come around before Steve dropped them all home. Frankly, you didn’t really care what brought him back. You just wanted to see him again.
Steve’s different than the boy he used to be. Enough that it was obvious from a measly thirty-second interaction. He used to be a charmer who could talk his way out of anything. Not to you, of course, he wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to you. But then he stops by out of nowhere, in rare form, stumbling all over himself and looking like he didn’t recognize you at all.
You’re still trying to figure out if that was a good thing or not.
He’s mystified you in a way he probably isn’t used to. Most girls like the hair and the arms — the super buff, super strong arms that fit so nicely in his uniform — or the fact that he’s got money and a reputation that precedes him. But you’ve never given a shit about any of that.
You’re more enchanted by the way nothing could even begin to conceal the soft, shy boy that King Steve had apparently turned into.
The door chimes above his head when he enters. The scent of earthy nostalgia is already familiar to him — lavender, sage, and something deeper. Steve considers it progress when he plants himself a few feet away from the door this time. If he runs out again, he’ll have to make an embarrassingly longer escape.
You turn away from your nearly finished figurine to greet the new customer. The practiced smile unconsciously widens at the sight of him. “Hi!”
“Hey,” he smiles with a curt nod. He regrets the half-wave he gives you the second his hand shoots up.
“You gonna run off on me again?” you tease and swivel in your chair to face him completely.
You’re wearing a Hellfire shirt that’s just slightly too big for you. It probably belonged to Eddie before it belonged to you. And you wear a corset-looking thing over top of it, a sheer number with a lace embroidery and a ribbon that’s tied in a bow at your belly. It doesn’t cinch you in the slightest, though, more for decoration than practicality.
“No that was… I just—” Steve huffs out a laugh as he tries and fails to come up with an excuse. He figures anything is better than the truth — that he saw how pretty you were and his brain forgot how to work because he’s the lamest person on the planet.
So he chucks a thumb over his shoulder and fibs. “I left something back at Family Video. Had to run back.”
“It’s okay. I was just teasing,” you assure. “Uh— Are you looking for anything specific?”
“No. Not really. Just… new records to add to my collection, you know?”
“Oh, you collect vinyls?”
He doesn’t realize that’s what he’s just said until you repeat the words back to him.
He’s kind of just talking out of his ass and hoping something sticks. That line does, apparently, because you’re beaming at him instantly. He’s scared to say no because then you’ll stop smiling. And he can’t have that.
“Yep,” he answers with a nod. The stack of records collecting dust in his den has to count for something, right?
He can’t find it in himself to regret his little white lie when it has you lighting up like a christmas tree.
You toss your paintbrush down when you rush from behind the counter to meet him. You seem to have forgotten that you’d just dipped the thing in purple paint. The thing splatters shades of lilac all over the limestone bench. And, in your haste, you nearly smack yourself with the leaden slab as you raise it to pass by.
Steve’s eyes widen when you narrowly dodge the weighty thing — then jumps, startled by the dense thwap that echoes through the small store when it slams back down again. He’s almost worried that it might’ve busted the hinge.
You cower at the loud sound but move on with a commendable finesse, too focused on him to care about anything else.
“That’s so cool! I’ve always wanted to collect, but records are so expensive, it’s crazy,” you ramble as you walk up to him, totally unthinking in the way you grab his forearm and usher him to the back of the store.
Your sheer black skirt swishes at your ankles as you walk. The dainty fabric is patterned with sparkly stars and crescent moons. He notices you wear a pair of dark shorts underneath for modesty. Steve tries his best not to stare at your ass. He almost succeeds.
“We actually just got in a couple of Dio records — The Holy Diver, you know, the one that just came out. I’m pretty sure there’s only, like, a couple thousand of these things in the whole world — which is totally fucking bonkers if you think about it,” you explain in one breath, laughing, before stopping abruptly in your tracks. Steve nearly runs into you when you turn around to face him.
You laugh again, a sadder one, this time at yourself, as you bring your palm to your forehead. “Sorry. I don’t— I don’t even know if you like Dio. I mean, of course, you don’t, right? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… rambled like that.”
You’d just been so excited and Steve had just been so different that you forgot who you were talking to. Hawkins High Royalty, Prom King, Biggest Flirt and Life of the Party in the yearbook.
As far as you’re concerned, Eddie Munson is your only friend. He’s the only person in the whole world you can be yourself around and never get self-conscious about any of it.
But sometimes you have moments like this one with a total stranger. Moments where you lose yourself in the conversation and your own jumbled thoughts. Moments where you talk and talk and talk until something thumps you on the head and you realize how annoying you’re being. This time, it’s the musky smell of his cologne that knocks you back to Ms. Click’s history class. The crisp breeze of bitter nostalgia makes you shiver.
Steve can see the way you get so suddenly aware of yourself and how the cognizance of the moment makes you writhe. He tries to bat away the lingering insecurities with a smile.
“Love ‘em,” he responds with a nod. He raises his brows and scoffs, grins and crosses his arms over his chest. “I mean, Dio? God, they’re like… top ten bands of all time, at least. Maybe even five.”
That isn’t totally true. He doesn’t know much about the band to have an opinion, but he’s pretty sure he might’ve said he hated them once. That was only because Eddie wouldn’t stop talking about them, though. Steve could learn to like them, if it means so much to you.
That’s exactly how he justifies spending $60 on four records.
He tells himself that he’ll listen to them and think of you, that it’ll be a solid conversation starter the next time he sees you.
You had a whole damn rack dedicated to all your favorite bands — “I put it together myself,” you’d bragged with a proud smile. S it’s a wonder Steve didn’t walk out with the entire damn store. Because you just kept on smiling and talking, so happy to have someone to care about what you had to say, and he ate up every second of it.
He’ll have to work overtime to keep his pockets from hurting, but it’ll be worth it. Because he’ll get to keep talking to you and indulging in all the things you seem to love more than life itself.
You’re still rambling as you ring him up. Steve notices you haven’t stopped yourself like you did before. His lack of dismissal has made you more comfortable, it seems. He likes that.
“I think we’re also gonna get a couple cases of Def Leppard cassettes tomorrow, which is super sick. I think I might have to start collecting, honestly. Tapes are whole lot cheaper than records, you know,” you tell him as you scan and bag all his vinyls. “And it’s also, like, a fucking stellar album. I don’t think I’ve stopped listening to Photograph since it came out.”
“Photograph. Right. Love that one,” Steve nods with a kind smile as he props his elbows on the counter. He doesn’t particularly care that he’s not entirely sure what you’re talking about, or that he’s never actually heard the song. He’s starting to realize you could talk for hours and he wouldn’t get bored.
“Oh, is that your favorite too? Eddie’s more of a Foolin’ kinda guy.”
Despite the fact that he’s never heard the song or this album in his life, he nods anyway.
He sort of spent the first eighteen years of his life faking just about everything — it kind of came with being the King of Hawkins High. It’s a talent that hasn’t yet left him, it seems, lying through his teeth to impress people. It’s almost become a second nature to him.
“Foolin’s good, yeah, but I think Photograph is obviously better.”
“Obviously, right!” you exclaim with a sunshine-coated laugh. “That’s exactly what I told him! But he’s way too hard-headed to be wrong about anything, so…”
“Well, I’d like to put it on the record that I firmly agree with you,” Steve replies so smoothly that his tongue must be dripping with honey. It’s so easy for him to fall into King Steve mode — when he isn’t forgetting how to speak and running off, that is.
You’ve learned a lot Steve in the past half hour. He likes metal, but leans more toward rock. Particularly all the metal and rock that you like. He hasn’t once had a differing opinion than you, besides telling you he heard Eddie playing a Metallica song once that he didn’t particularly care for. The second you tell him it’s one of your favorites, he backtracks instantly, blaming the Munson boy for being too sloshed to play it properly.
And you don’t miss the way he’s looking at you just now either, with his chin toward his chest as he peers up at you with warm amber eyes. He’s the charmer that he always was. It makes you remember, again, just who you’re talking to.
“We have a lot in common, King Steve,” you lilt with a playful grin.
He deflates at the use of the old nickname. You see the light in his eyes flicker for a just moment before he’s ducking his gaze away from you completely. He tries to brush it off with a laugh. “Yeah, I’m not— I’m not really King Steve anymore…”
“No?”
“Nope. Just… Just Steve these days.”
When he looks back at you, he finds you nodding at him, almost in approval.
Most people are upset to find that he’s changed so much. They hate that he’s no longer the recklessly stupid dumbass they used to get drunk with.
Not you, though.
“Cool,” you mumble, smiling softly, as you hand him his bag and receipt.
“Uh, I’d love to, you know, come take a look at those tapes when you get ‘em in,” he says as he walks backward towards the door, finally making the brash offer he’s been thinking about this whole time. “Maybe I can bring lunch and we can—”
“Well, Hellfire’s been doing campaigns during lunch recently. And Gareth’s out sick, so I’ve been subbing for him, you know, so…” you interject awkwardly, shifting your weight on your feet. You hate to turn him down, but Eddie might just kill you if he has to get a substitute for the substitute.
“Oh…” he nods, softly puckering his plump pink lips that you can’t seem to stop staring at.
“But I don’t think they’re coming in until late, anyway,” you add quickly. “So, you can stop by at closing, if you want?”
“No, yeah, that’s cool. So cool,” he replies, a little more flustered than he’d been just moments before. He’s just happy that your rejection wasn’t a total refusal.
You try to bite back the wide grin threatening to take over your mouth. “Okay… I’ll catch you later, then, Just Steve.”
“See you,” he waves right before startling himself when he backs into the basket of clearance tapes sitting just beside the door. He barely catches the thing before it tips over completely. He flashes you a shaking smile afterward and finds you covering your mouth with your hand while you try not to laugh too loudly.
He wishes you’d just went ahead and laughed at him. He wouldn’t have even cared that you were laughing at him, if it meant he got to see you smile.
And even though he’d just gotten done making the biggest fool of himself, he walks back to work feeling like the coolest man alive. There’s a foreign strut in his step that hadn’t been there before he saw you. It doesn’t leave him when he realizes he’s gone slightly over his break and that Keith is manning the counter in his absence.
The man mumbles a monotoned goodbye to the customer he’d just checked out.
She turns around and Steve realizes he recognizes this girl — Mindy or Mandy or maybe Monica — from Mr. Kaminsky’s class way back when. She did all of his homework for him before and after letting him fuck her on her twin-sized bed in her all pink room. That’s when Steve was conquering girls like they were Mount Everest, way before Nancy, when King was a title he wore with pride.
But he’s still so stuck in his head with thoughts of you that he doesn’t even see Mindy-Mandy-Monica or the flirtatious wave she throws his way.
“You’re ten minutes late,” Keith scolds, with his dead tone and his deader eyes.
Steve only shrugs, uncaring if it came out of his paycheck because — “I just got a date with the hottest woman on the planet,” he boasts with a puffed out chest and too smug smile.
It doesn’t lessen Keith’s anger, just diverts it. Because he knows exactly who he’s talking about. And so does Robin, as she pops her head out from behind the man from where she sits at the computer. “No way,” they chorus in disbelief at his words.
Steve nods. “Yes way.”
“Eddie’s gonna kill you,” Robin remarks with the shake of her head.
He knows she’s right. He just doesn’t care.
Eddie’s always been protective of you. Everyone knows that. But the two of them were friends now — or somewhat good-natured acquaintances, at the very least. He would’ve been mad about a year or more ago, if King Steve had decided to suddenly woo his best friend.
But it’s different now. He’s different now. Eddie knows how much everything’s changed, it’s just a question of if he’s willing to rehash old wounds.
It’s a good thing Steve knows how to take a punch.
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Don't take my heart, don't break my heart.
Steve finds you again the next day less happy than he’s gotten used to.
The record store is dim and the red sign at the entrance has been flipped to closed, but the door is left unlocked — for him. The warm scent is a distinct contrast to the frigid spring night, a cozy high hemp and lavender, but your absence is noticeable and terribly heavy.
Steve lingers in the doorway, his shadow looming like a giant before him from the moonlight streaming in from outside.
He calls for you in the emptiness.
“Uh… Punchy?”
He’s relieved when you answer. The “back here!” you shout to him is muffled and far away. He follows the sound of your voice, filled suddenly with a childlike consolation.
The yellow fairy lights dangling over his head guide him through the aisles of cassettes and closer to you. Through a cluttered backroom, Steve finds you standing just outside an opened door — left ajar, for him.
The smile you flash when you see him is as dim as the closed-down store. It lacks all the sunshine you usually look at him with, shades of stormy gray rather than the usual yellows.
A look of concern flashes across his features — furrowed brows and inquisitive twinkling eyes — as you take a drag from the lit cigarette caught between your pointer and middle finger. You muster your best grin, but it flickers like a shoddy radio signal.
“Punchy, huh?” you tease.
Steve’s brows pinch together as confusion floods his features. It takes him a moment to realize what he’d said and the nickname he’d used — and he doesn’t want to be dramatic or anything, but he kinda wants to die. It’s embarrassing, he thinks, to hold on to an old high school monicker. And, fuck, if you hate it half as bad as he hates being called king, he deserves a slap to the face right about now.
You laugh instead of ball your first. He’s able to smile meekly in relief. “Oh. Shit. Sorry, I… I don’t think I even realized it came out.”
“No, it’s okay,” you assure when you see him getting all apologetic. “Eddie still calls me that all the time, so… Old habits die hard, I guess.”
Steve tries to move on, but it’s hard to when you’re so obviously gloomy. He hates how reserved you’ve gone in your quiet, not talking up a storm like you had been the last time he saw you. Now you’re just… a storm. It’s a little like sitting next to a rumbling rain cloud.
The rumbling rain cloud beside him takes a drag of her cigarette.
“You okay?” he asks and sounds like he really cares.
You didn’t think King Steve was capable of caring about anything other than his hair, but he looks down at you like he can feel every blue bolt of your doom and gloom. He makes you feel seen in the void of your sadness despite all the years you spent being invisible to him.
“Uh, yeah. It’s just the tapes. They didn’t come in,” you answer with a shrug. Smokes leaves your mouth and lingers in white clouds in the air. “So I’m a little bummed.”
“Oh…” is all Steve says and his pink mouth forms a too pretty ‘o’ shape that you can’t draw your gaze from.
The following silence makes you momentarily cautious. Insecurity runs cold over you because no sane person gets this about upset over a broken promise of a couple cassettes. It’s stupid, you know it is, but you were really looking forward to them. It’s like promising a kid the most metal present ever and then snatching it out of their bare hands.
Now, over the course of a couple hours, you’ve managed to convince yourself you won’t remember happiness until you get those stupid tapes.
“Sorry,” you apologize to him for a reason he can’t place. You shift your weight on your feet and peer at him from beneath your lashes. “I know you were looking forward to them, too.”
You extend your hand and offer him the cigarette between your fingers like it’s an olive branch. He takes it from you with a distant smile, then opts to laze against the brick wall like you are. He stays a respectful distance on the other side of the entryway.
“It’s okay. They’ll come. If I’m being honest, you know, I was kinda more excited to see you.”
His admission is brazen and a tad bit brash, even for a certified ex-douchebag. It lacks all of the usual honey-coated flirtation that usually tints his tone when he’s talking to a pretty girl. Because he wasn’t trying to make you swoon — though he certainly wouldn’t have minded if you had. This wasn’t some romantic advance, just a proclamation of his own personal truth.
A flash of shock contorts your features. “Really?”
“Of course,” he answers, breathing out a laugh that exits along with the smoke in his lungs. “I love talking to you. You’re… You’re cool, you know? S— Super cool.”
His face screws up at his stuttering, and he shakes his head at how the words sound leaving his mouth. His cheeks glow cherry red beneath an orange street lamp.
“Super cool, huh?” you repeat with a giggle that’s bright enough to illuminate the velvet night. “I don’t think anyone’s ever called me that before.”
Steve scoffs when he passes the cigarette back to you. Because, lately, that’s all he’s been hearing about you. From Eddie, from Robin, from Dustin — every good thing a person could say about someone else, they all say about you.
He’s starting to understand why.
Because you’re sweet. Like, pure sugar poured on the tip of his tongue kind of sweet. You’re bright like sunshine and soft like summer rain. You’re a shot of pure espresso for a boy who thought his life was at a dead end. He’s not entirely sure how he ever could’ve thought you were some deep, dark, devil-worshipping freak.
“I don’t believe that,” he dismisses with the shake of his head.
You breathe out a sharp exhale and a puff of nicotine-coated smoke. “I’ve been the town pariah since I was eleven, Steve. Everyone thinks I’m some kinda delinquent who’s in a cult because I play a dumb board game. So, no. No one’s ever thought I was cool before.”
“Still?” Steve wonders with a twisted face. “You graduated, like, a year ago. Are... Are people really still on your ass about that?”
“A little,” you answer with a shrug, trying your best not to look as affected by it all as you feel.
Steve feels his chest swell with the fiery urge to protect you. The same one he gets when Dustin tells him about the assholes at school that are bothering him. He wants to defend you from the same sort of assholes that he used to be. The impulse is borderline primal, rooted somewhere deep and far within himself, because god knows he’s got a terrible track record when it comes to winning fights.
“Shit, Punchy… I’m— I’m sorry.”
You sputter out a laugh at the apology, louder when you realize he’s using the nickname again.
He can’t relate to any of this. The trials and tribulations of being persona non grata everywhere you went were certainly lost on him. Steve might’ve lost his touch somewhere down the road, but he’ll always be crown royalty — the kind of guy you think fondly of when your wonderyears are long gone. But you? You’re lucky if people don’t cross to the other side of the street when they spot you coming.
Perhaps that’s why his words warm you so much. Because, despite all that, he’s trying to make you feel better anyway.
You give him a tender smile and a dwindling cigarette.
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s whatever, you know? I think it’s because I still hang out with Eddie all the time. Like, people see us and remember what fucking freaks we used to be,” you say with a laugh, then start to ramble without thinking. “We saw Tommy Hagan at Melvald’s the other day, and he looked at us like we caused him severe PTSD or something, like, he looked terrified. I honestly felt a little bad.”
Steve smiles, wide-eyed, equal parts intrigued and unsettled by the reminiscent glimmer in your eye and the daunting giggle that spills from your lips.
“But I wouldn’t leave Eddie, you know?” you blurt, suddenly serious, like you’ve taken offense at the very thought. “Not even if it meant people stopped being so mean. ‘Cause I love him and everything… Even though he’s a pain in the ass.”
“Oh, he’s a total pain in the ass,” Steve agrees and flicks the butt of the cig between his fingers. “He loves you too, though. I can tell. The asshole never shuts up about you.”
“He talks about me?” you ask, voice fragile and pitched higher than normal.
Steve doesn’t like the way you say it. He hates how you look at him even more, with a scrunched up face and eyes that flicker with embers of shock. Like you don’t believe it, like you think yourself unworthy of it.
“You’re all he talks about,” the boy assures, feeling so suddenly brave and wanting to make you feel brave too. He hands the cigarette back to you. “I don’t blame him. If I were him, I’d never shut up about you either.”
The contorted look of confusion on your face untwists itself, and your features fall flat with disbelief. A smile pulls slow at your mouth. Your eyes glitter an orange gold beneath the streetlight. They flit over to the boy beside you just long enough to take the stick from him.
“Steve Harrington…” you lilt, almost scoldingly so.
It makes him smile. “What?”
“Stop flirting with me.”
“Well, that’s very presumptuous of you,” he retorts playfully. “Who’s to say I was flirting?”
“So you weren’t then?”
“Maybe a little,” he shrugs with a knowing, practiced smirk. “Can you blame me?”
You don’t seem impressed by his not-so-subtle attempt at flirting, and he isn’t at all used to that. The bravado and the puppy dog eyes are his one-two punch — any other time, he’d have a phone number tucked safely in his pocket by now. But you’re not biting.
“I’m so not your type,” you dismiss with the shake of your head.
“Yeah?” he challenges, shoving himself off the brick wall with his shoulder and making the short trek over to you. He plants himself next to you, leans with one sneaker crossed over the other, and smiles with a playful twinkle in his eye. “And what’s my type?”
“Nancy Wheeler,” you answer without missing a beat. “Pretty girls.”
“Well, I think you’re very pretty—”
“Not like her,” you interject with a foreign firmness that Steve hasn’t seen from you until now. You’re still smiling at him, though, still kind but looking like you don’t believe him. Like you think this must be some kind of sick joke that he’s taking too far.
You can entertain Steve. You like Steve. Mostly because he’s totally different from the douchebag you remember him being — the douchebag you were expecting him to be.
You find that he’s terribly clumsy and not overtly good with words. He says dumb jokes that don’t come out right and smiles in relief when they make you laugh anyway. He’s soft like peach fuzz or a fluffy cloud, mushy like warm chocolatey gooey goodness, and not at all like you remember him.
But then he does this. He morphs into something else, changes shape right in front of you. He smiles at you with little of his dumbassery behind it — all smirks and faux longing gazes with the intent of making you swoon at his feet. He grins down at you and all you see is the teenage boy who would’ve never looked at you that way four years ago. Hell, not even one.
It reminds you of who he is, who he used to be, and who you are now.
You haven’t changed so much since high school. You’ve matured a little, sure, but there was never an asshole exterior that you felt the need to outgrow. You’re still loud at times, unaware and ignorant of the world around you. You still play lightsabers outside Eddie’s trailer in between lengthy Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. You still pretend like the lingering glares from all the people you used to know don’t bother you.
They do, though. They always have.
You look at Steve and you see this butterfly — someone made of rainbow colors and mostly mature. He’s growing, and you’re stuck in the same cocoon you’ve been wrapped in since freshman year, still fumbling around and trying to figure out where you fit.
He’ll always be the pretty butterfly he always was, with his pretty little iridescent wings that catch the light and all the attention. He’ll feed off the applause he gets while you’re sitting on the sidelines. The girl who’s destined to stay bundled in her cocoon forever only hears all of his praise — never watches, never receives.
“You and I are completely different people, Steve Harrington,” you declare with a grin that tells him you’ve already made up your mind.
The boy doesn’t get it, though, why you seem so upset by the idea. Him and Robin were completely different people. Him and Dustin were, too. The two people he adored — tolerated — most in the entire world weren’t a single thing like him, and it was better that way.
You don’t seem to share a similar philosophy, though. You take a drag from your mostly gone cigarette and mourn what could have been; if only he had been the town freak or you had been born the pretty girl next door.
“That doesn’t have to be such a bad thing—”
He’s abruptly cut off by the sound of muffled rock music and the bright yellow headlights of Eddie Munson’s van. The two of you shield your eyes when he whips into the desolate parking lot and parks in front of you. The sudden intrusion feels like being blinding like the sun after you’ve found such comfort within each other in the dead of night.
The stifled Def Leppard song — or maybe Poison, Steve can never quite tell the difference — is brought to a sharp halt when the engine shuts off. The headlights dim. The metallic slam of the driver’s side door sounds so much louder in the darkness.
Eddie rounds the front of his van and eyes the two of you rather suspiciously. The boy inhales deeply, puffing out his chest and splaying his hands on his hips. “…What’s going on here?” he squints at you.
You give him a terribly manufactured sunshine smile and bat your lashes his way, like you’re pretending to be un-innocent. “Nothing…” you sing-song.
Eddie rolls his eyes at you, then turns his attention to Steve. They’re not really strangers anymore, but he still feels the need to treat him like an outsider anyway.
“Harrington,” he says in the place of any real greeting. “Don’t you have other shit to do? Like, I don’t know, a shift as the mannequin at the GAP or something?”
Steve can’t find it in himself to get self-conscious about his fitted-sweatshirt, khaki-slack combo when the insult comes from a guy in a decade-old leather jacket, unwashed t-shirt, and ripped jeans.
“Very funny,” the brunette monotones.
“I’ll see you around, yeah?” you ask when you turn and walk backwards towards Eddie, like there’s a gravitational pull dragging you to him.
You say it to be polite mostly, but you’re hoping for an affirmative — a promise that you’ll have another night like this one, where he sees you just to be seeing you. Hell, you’ll even take a nod if that’s all he’ll give you. And when he does, he gives you a tiny smile that almost makes you trip over yourself.
Fuck, you think to yourself, like your brain is talking to your heart. We just agreed not to do that.
Before you get in the van, you walk by Eddie and bring your cigarette up to his mouth. You coax the stick between his lips with your pointer and middle finger, opting to let him take the last couple of hits because he never turns down a free smoke.
The passenger door shuts once you’re tucked into the seat of it. The sound it makes punctuates your absence. Steve feels all of its emptiness.
He eyes Eddie from the distance, immediately noticing the darkened skepticism dancing in his dark eyes.
The boy’s always felt the need to protect you. When the entire town got spooked about stories of some satanic panic and started treating you like monsters, he wanted to shield you from the boogeyman everyone turned into.
Steve wasn’t one of them, the bad men. But Eddie loves you and it’s made him doubtful.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Steve feels the need to say, as though he’d been caught with his pants down and not just sharing an innocent cigarette with a friend.
Eddie takes the final few puffs of it and exhales rather dramatically, lips pursing to blow it in his direction though it’s too far away to hit him. The boy throws the filter to the concrete and extinguishes the ashes with the toe of his dirty sneakers.
He waits until the white smoke has fully dissipated to speak.
“Damn right, it isn’t.”
That’s all he says. He doesn’t even look at Steve when he says it, or when he rounds the van and hops into the driver’s seat next to you. Steve squints when the too bright headlights come alive again in time with the roaring engine and dated rock music. His tires screech when he speeds out of the back parking lot.
The tin can he drives nearly tips over when he turns too sharply onto Main Street.
Steve doesn’t get a chance to get a good look at you before you’re gone completely. It makes him all boyishly upset, knowing the hours without you will be most agonizing, but the empty feeling is eclipsed by the warm relief of not getting clock cleaned by Eddie Munson.
Damn right, it isn’t. Four words. That’s all he gets. But they’re daunting and coated with a lingering foreboding that feels almost like a threat.
So, by all accounts, Steve probably should’ve known there was no way Munson was ever going to back down that easily.
Eddie comes back the next day, a thundering storm cloud of the boy he usually is, head wild with curly hair and a million thoughts.
The door dings far too gently for such an aggressive arrival. Metal bangs against metal as the handle collides with the window pane. He stomps to the counter in several quick strides, dark eyes darting around the half-empty store — obviously searching for something.
Robin, manning the front counter, is entirely unable to be threatened by him. The all black, chunky metal rings, and crazy hair stopped being so intimidating when she found out you called him Eddie Spaghetti. Now, it’s all she can think about when she sees him.
Even as he stands ahead of her, obviously upset, all she sees is a very cartoonishly angry Eddie Spaghetti, and it takes everything in her not to laugh.
“Where’s Steve?” the boy finally wonders when he realizes the boy’s not in the front.
“Uh, he’s in the back, I think. Why?”
Eddie doesn’t humor her with an answer. He just storms past the counter and makes a b-line for the break room.
Robin watches him over her shoulder. “You’re not supposed to go back there!” she half-heartedly shouts, but makes no further effort to stop him from doing so.
He finds Steve working beneath the dim yellow light of the back room. There’s a warmed-up container of leftovers on the small round table on one side of the room and a stack of unorganized tapes on the counter on the other. Steve multitasks between both and hums something summery under his breath — The Beach Boys, maybe.
He’s too distracted to notice Eddie’s abrupt appearance. It’s the subtle click of the shut door that gets his attention.
Steve’s confused at first. His head snaps over his shoulder like a ghost must’ve closed the door on him. He realizes that it’s just Eddie, and he’s so innocently relieved that it’s almost humorous, then confused all over again. His brows pinch together and through the chicken tender jutting out his check, he mumbles: “You’re not supposed to be back here—”
“Yeah, I got that part,” Eddie interrupts in a monotone.
He swallows. It’s as thick as the tension that settles between the two of them, made heavier by the lengthy silence. He crosses his arms over his chest, stands up a little straighter, and bares his neck when he lifts his chin. “I want you to leave her alone.”
Steve scoffs and chews through his mouthful. “Leave who alone?”
“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” Eddie squints with an unusual sort of seriousness. “I don’t want you messing around with her anymore, man. I’m, fucking— I’m so fucking serious right now.”
The clarification makes Steve laugh. He shakes his head and goes back to piling the myriad of tapes into organized stacks on the counter. “We were just talking, Eddie. I don’t need the lecture, okay?”
“We both know it’s never just talking with you.”
“What? Are you in love with her or something?” he retorts, trying to make a joke of it.
Eddie, for the first time in his life, isn’t amused. “Oh, god, get over yourself, dude. I know what kinda guy you are, alright? I’m not gonna let you hurt her.”
His words hit Steve like a pot of boiling water. It prickles his skin, leaving blisters and burning red blotches in its wake. He’s all but on fire with his anger, less offended by the accusation than by the person it comes from.
Steve and Eddie aren’t friends by any means. They’re just two guys with shared custody of a bunch of teenagers, bonded in their want to keep them all safe. But through their lighthearted animosity, is a sort of understanding: neither of them are the assholes the entire town claims them to be. Eddie isn’t apart of some satanic cult. Steve isn’t a douchebag that uses women as accessories. And that’s just a silent agreement they’ve both come to on their own terms.
But now here they are, talking like it’s 1984 all over again and they’re strangers who hate each other’s guts.
“No. I’m not gonna hurt her. Because we’re just friends, Eddie.”
The boy just shakes his head. He scrunches his nose like he’s wincing, then laughs — a big, dramatic laugh that fills the tiny break room. He begins to pace, waving an accusatory ringed finger Steve’s way. “No, see… That’s the thing. I don’t think King Steve is capable of being ‘just friends’ with a pretty girl.”
Steve rolls his eyes with a heavy huff. He comes to the conclusion that Eddie’s just projecting and that there’s no use in arguing his case. He shoves a black VHS tape into its designated sleeve and slots it in with the rest of them, muttering under his breath, “I’m not King Steve anymore…”
“What?”
“I said, I’m not King Steve anymore!” he yells, a bit louder than he intended to.
He drives a tape onto the pile with an unexpected aggression. It hits the wall with a resounding thud. His arms flail wildly at his sides when he turns to face Eddie again. “God, you guys act like people can’t change! I’m not the asshole I used to be, alright? Jeez…”
Eddie exhales sharply through his nose in the place of any real reply. Deep down, he knows all that. He knows it’s all true because he would’ve never befriended him otherwise. Steve Harrington — the king, the rich kid, the douchebag — turned out to be a pretty damn good guy.
And maybe if Eddie didn’t love you so much, he’d be able to wrap his head around all that.
But does. So he can’t.
He saw you two together the night before, sharing a cigarette behind The Groove — albeit a little too close for his liking — and suddenly, it was junior year all over again.
You’re stressed out about the ACT and college acceptance rates, none of your clothes quite fit you, and you’re trying out bold things with your makeup that don’t quite fit you either. You grin wildly up at Eddie through the vibrant lipstick smeared on your lips, laughing at his half-hearted attempt to cheer you up.
And Steve is a senior, standing on the other side of the hallway — with his pretty clothes and prettier hair — and he lets all of his friends laugh at you. They make fun of your un-styled hair and the way your shirt makes your boobs look, and Steve doesn’t find any of it particularly funny but he lets them mock you anyway.
Eddie sees you together and forgets about the man Steve is now. All he sees is a boy who never stuck up for you, for either of you, who let his best friends make your lives hell because his reputation mattered more.
And it wasn’t like it was his job to defend you, because it wasn’t. Not really. It’s just that you would’ve done it for him, if the roles were reversed. Eddie, too. Neither of you would’ve let a lamb be led to the slaughter quite like that. It was the Hellfire motto, after all — to protect the little sheep from the creeping wolves.
That’s where the difference lies. It’s where the mistrust settles deep and where the root of all of Eddie’s worries lingers.
But Steve has done more to prove himself than Eddie likes to give him credit for.
He takes care of a bunch of kids like it’s his job. He runs Robin to and from school most days out of the week, on time each morning — which, for a guy who showed up late every day for four years, was definitely saying something. He even comes to Eddie’s shows when he’s not too busy working the graveyard shift, never minding that he sticks out in his collared shirt and slacks — a pretty boy amidst a crowd of freaks.
Fuck. Steve Harrington was a pretty alright dude.
But you’re better than alright. You’re better than good. Better than perfect.
If you got your heart broken, Eddie thinks he’d feel all of it times a thousand.
Steve’s been through his own kind of heartbreak, though. He’s slapped a bandaid over his own bleeding heart, and it’s made him soft. The good kind of soft — the kind where he sees a bug on its back and has to flip it over because it hurts too much to let it suffer. Eddie knows he’ll be that kind to you. Kinder, even.
“Yeah, you better hope so, Harrington,” the boy concludes with a slow nod of his wild head. He steals a chicken tender from the styrofoam box it sits in, like it’s some kind of power move, and waves it at him like a condemnatory point. “I hear you do anything — anything — to her… And your ass is grass.”
Eddie takes a hearty bite from the strip, then tosses it back into the container again. He spins on the ragged heel of his sneaker and stalks out of the break room, punctuating his absence with the slam of the door. The ancient thing gets lodged and doesn’t quite shut all the way, so he has to double back and shut it fully.
Steve is left dumbfounded, in more ways than one.
“…He just ate my chicken,” he mumbles to himself with a frown settled deep between his brows. But there’s a lingering tension in Eddie’s storming out — a tangible fog within his words that settles something heavy in the Family Video breakroom that doubles as storage.
It feels almost like a blessing.
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Won't escape my attention...
The more time you spend with Steve, the more confident you get.
You visit him at work more often, caring less and less about bothering anybody when you realize they all wanted you there. You let yourself ramble in front of him, too, not stopping yourself nearly as often as you used to. Steve guesses you started to believe him somewhere around the millionth time he promised he liked hearing you talk.
You turn to glitter in his presence, becoming more unapologetically yourself and glowing with it — with all the things that used to make you insecure, things that King Steve would’ve made fun of you for some time ago. Everything you were scared made you too different, is why he liked you in the first place.
And Steve gets to watch it all play out right before his eyes. You inch slowly out of the protective shell you’ve built around yourself and bloom like springtime flowers. He’s grateful he gets to witness it, even more that you feel comfortable enough to do it all in front of him.
You’re hardly as timid as you usually are when you saunter into Family Video. Rather than tiptoeing in and apologizing for intruding, you burst through the front door with a beam and a high-pitched squeal. You’re as bright as every star in the galaxy combined; even dressed head-to-toe in black, you’re more blinding than the sun.
Eddie’s leather jacket, either stolen or unenthusiastically lent from the boy himself, swallows your upper half. You wear a piece of Metallica merchandise beneath it. The thing is cut up to your ribcage. The jagged edges in the fabric, likely from a dull pair of kitchen scissors, tells him the chop was intentional.
A leather skirt clings effortlessly onto you, revealing the pudge of your stomach and the curves of your hips. The thing is donned with two spiked belts and several chains hanging loosely at your waist.
Steve is dozing at the counter with his chin propped on his first when you walk in. He’s half-asleep until he sees you. The shot of espresso that walks in makes him instantly forget how tired he is.
“Guess what?” you ask with wide, sparkling eyes as you skip to the counter with your hands behind your back.
Steve always hated that question. Usually, it came from Dustin or Robin — or, god forbid, both of them — followed by a “No, seriously. Guess.” It left him with no choice but to humor them until they ultimately caved and told him something he couldn’t have guessed in a million years.
He isn’t so annoyed now, though. In fact, he smiles. “What?” he replies.
You pull your bottom lip between your teeth, as though in a futile attempt to conceal the wide grin on your face, and take your hands from behind your back. You flash him the cassette tape you hold in the palm of them, a blue and yellow thing with the angled Def Leppard logo printed on the cover.
“No way!” Steve finds himself exclaiming like he’s the number one fan of the rock and roll band. He isn’t; never has been, really. But he is a fan of you. All of his excitement, all of his bright and shining smiles — they’re all for you.
“They came in last night— when I was off, of course— and I opened this morning and there was a whole damn tower of these tapes! I’m the one who does the tape towers, okay? Plus, I’ve been doggin’ my manager for weeks about the things, so I can’t believe they came in and no one told me, you know?”
Steve gets lost in your rambling right along with you, nodding because he never wants you to stop talking. His twinkling gaze follows you back and forth as you pace in front of the counter. You gesticulate wildly with your hands, nearly elbowing a customer when they get too close to the line of fire.
“And she was all like ‘I can’t control when they come in,’ And I was like ‘well, you can’t control when I come in either, I’ll be taking a long lunch now, thank you’—” you recount, albeit at a slightly louder volume that shocks anyone who doesn’t know you. People shoot you lingering side eyes from over the aisles.
Steve doesn’t care. He’s even happier that you don’t seem to either. You feel comfortable enough with him now to stop caring about the rest. When you stop yourself, you do it because you’ve said everything you need to say, not because you feel like you’ve annoyed him in some way.
“Anyway,” you conclude with a sigh. “I wanted to run it to you personally because, besides Eddie, you’re the only person I know who cares as much as I do.”
You smile sweetly at him, peering at him through your lashes, so suddenly timid — no longer the boisterous girl lighting up the whole room. Steve notices that you do that a lot, go from loud and sunny to shy and glimmering. Eddie does it too, sometimes, but it’s not nearly as cute.
“My wallet’s in my locker,” he tells you when you hand him the tape. He cocks his thumb over his shoulder with his free hand. “Let me go grab it. I’ll be, like, two seconds—”
You reach over the counter and take him by the arm, wrapping chipped maroon nails around the crook of his elbow to keep him from straying too far. Shock coats his features at the suddenness of your touch and the way it makes him buzz.
You scoff. “Are you serious? I’m not gonna make you pay, you weirdo.”
“No?”
“Of course not! It’s a gift.”
“Well, gee, Punchy. Considered me flattered,” he concedes with a faltering smile.
You laugh at his half-hearted attempt to be charming.
He rests his crossed arms on the counter and leans over the top of it in an effort to be the slightest bit closer to you. He gazes up at you with honey eyes and raised brows and a big, dumb smile. “And, you know, flattery... it goes a long way with me.”
You arch an un-manicured brow at him. “Does it, now?”
“Yep. So much so, I’m willing to break a few rules and let you pick out a couple of movies. On the house.”
It’s dumb and it’s sweet and so terribly innocent. He wants to give you so much than that but he’s got about eighteen dollars to his name, so all he can do is offer you a few measly VHS tapes. It has you beaming like he just offered you the world.
“Steve Harrington,” you scold playfully. “I didn’t know you were so naughty.”
He falters. His resolve slips and, for no more than half a second, his brain forgets how to work.
He’s not quite sure how you manage to do that to him all the damn time. You make his brain shortcircuit and his belly quiver and his vision swim. He’s known you for a while now, long enough that the lovesickness should’ve well worn off.
Steve’s worried that there’s no cure for you, that he’s in it for the long haul now — upset stomachs, heart palpitations, and all.
“Well, I’m full of surprises,” he shrugs and sways on his feet. “What’s your poison, Punchy? Molly Ringwald? Robert Downey Jr.? The John Hughes type?”
You can tell he’s joking. You squint over at him and rest your elbows on the counter top your face-to-face.
The wintergreen mint on his breath makes your head swim.
Your rouge-tined lips are so close he can taste them — he wants to, desperately so.
You don’t miss the way his gaze flits to your mouth, lingering there for no longer than a blink.
“Try Night of the Living Dead,” you challenge.
“That is so dreadfully on brand for you,” he manages to reply without much stuttering. He’s surprised he’s able to get any words out at all, with the way his heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest.
“I’m nothing if not predictable.”
Steve doesn’t respond as he leaves the counter to get what you asked for. Silence is easier than saying that you’re the most surprising thing he’s ever met in his life.
When he returns, he brings the entire film franchise with him. All three movies are stacked in his arms and he scans the backs of them, hoping Keith won’t notice that they’re being rented free of charge.
“Have you ever seen them?” you wonder.
He shakes his head. “No. I saw one of them at a drive-in a long time ago, but I wasn’t exactly paying attention, if you know what I mean—” he answers with a soft laugh, quick to cut himself off. It was supposed to be a dumb joke, but both of you know what he was insinuating and it makes everything awkward.
Robin would’ve slapped him on the back of the head if she were around to hear it.
He would’ve deserved it.
“Well, you missed out,” you scold, not quite meeting his gaze. “They’re actually pretty good.”
“I’ll try and watch ‘em sometime then.”
“Tonight?” you offer suddenly.
Steve furrows his brows. “…Huh?”
“I mean, like— I don’t know… I thought maybe we could watch them tonight,” you stammer with your eyes turned down toward the counter, where you draw invisible patterns onto the granite with the tip of your finger. “Like, together… if you want.”
Steve is momentarily speechless. He’s spent weeks plotting how he was going to ask you out. It would come to him in waves. He’d feel like he’d concocted the most perfect, foolproof plan right before realizing there was no way in hell he could ever go through with it — all in the same fleeting thought.
But here you are, biting the bullet for the both of you.
He’s grateful. He thinks he’s dreaming.
“That sounds…” Steve trails off with the mindless nod of his head. “Yeah. No. Totally. That sounds… really cool.”
A wide smile pulls at the edges of your lips. You purse your mouth to the side in attempts to conceal it. “Cool,” you murmur all cool-ly, like his affirmation isn’t heaven to your ears.
“Uh, not to sound like a total douchebag or whatever, but my dad— he’s got this theater room and everything, and my parents are almost never home,” Steve rambles as he puts all three movies into a paper bag. Then his eyes go wide and his face glows cherry red. “Not like that! I didn’t mean it like— That sounded really weird… I’m sorry—”
You giggle at him, at the way he can pretend to be so suave, and then reveal all the marshmallow fluff he tries to keep hidden a moment later. “It’s okay, Steve. I got what you meant.”
He writes his address on a yellow sticky note with the Family Video logo printed in green at the very top. His handwriting is boyish and sloppy, the sign of a boy who never did care much about school. Some letters are connected, others far apart; some written too big, while others are too small. You find it endearing, but Steve knows it’s just because his hand was shaking something fierce.
He leaves his number written at the very bottom. Just for good measure.
“No funny business, alright, Harrington?” you joke, waving a ringed finger at him as you walk backward out of the store, heading back to your own job.
Steve bites back a smile. Once upon a time, he was all funny business. No girl was ever going to invite King Steve over and not expect some heavy petting. And he wants so badly to kiss you — fuck, he wants to kiss you all the time — but the want to spend innocent time with you eclipses all of those boyish feelings.
He yearns to be close to you. Like magnets. Or a moon and the ocean’s tide.
“No funny business,” he promises.
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
You keep your distance with a system of touch.
It isn’t until you arrive at the front gates of the Harrington home you realize you’ve never been in the suburbs of Hawkins before.
You grew up on the very outskirts of town, where there were more trees than people or houses. The block was half rundown already and horribly secluded. The only interesting thing about it was the winding trail through the woods that led to the anterior of Forest Hills trailer park.
That’s where you spent the bulk of your time, practically living with Eddie and Wayne in their one-bedroom trailer, until you felt guilty enough to go back home for a day or two. Your parents would inevitably remind you why you ran off in the first place, and then the cycle would start all over again.
It was all just far enough away from Hawkins that you could pretend like the town’s bullshit didn’t exist. The freak from the wrong side of the tracks didn’t belong on Maple Street or Fairview Road or Laurel Avenue. That was for people who could afford new shoes every school year, who could go clothes shopping and not feel guilty about cutting into their food money, who were set up with trust funds before they were even born.
But here you are now, on Fairview Road, seven o’clock sharp, and standing in front of the biggest house you’d ever seen.
You ring the doorbell and flinch when it’s louder than expected. The chime is light and jaunty. You wonder if it’s been programmed for the change in season.
Steve answers no more than a couple seconds later. He swings both French doors open, arms spreading wide like the smile on his face.
He’s traded in his slacks for comfier jeans and his vest for a form-fitting sweatshirt he’s bunched at the elbows. You realize, then, that you’ve never seen him without the forest green Family Video jacket. It makes him look naked, almost, like a totally different person — no longer the dork who works a measly nine-to-five with his best friend and visits the freak next door on the off chance his manager won’t dock his pay for it.
The vest had humbled him to a certain extent. Now he just looks cool. Like the boy people would either praise or avoid like the plague, for fear of getting in King Steve’s path — just a little bit more mature looking now, with his chiseled jaw and scruffy chin.
It makes you feel a little stupid from where you stand on the porch ahead of him, wearing the same thing he’d seen you in earlier that day. He’s got no idea you spent the past couple of hours agonizing over what to wear. For the sake of not seeming crazy overzealous, you opted not to dress up. Now you’re scared he thinks you just didn’t care enough to.
But you do care. So goddamn much that’s it scary.
You never had to worry about what you wore or what you looked like before you left the house, about what you had too much of and what you lacked. Now, it’s all you can think about.
If Steve notices anything at all, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps on smiling at you, too happy to see you to care about what you’re wearing. He’s just glad that you showed up.
Truth be told, he had a six-pack and Robin’s number on speed dial on the off chance you canceled on him. He was preparing himself to wallow in self-pity and spend the rest of the night ranting to his best friend about the bleeding heart he had for you. Because, as far as he was concerned, you were far too good to be true.
You were beautiful and funny and kind and perfect. You treat him like you’ve known him for years, like he didn’t spend so many of them avoiding you in attempts to keep some measly title that didn’t mean shit. You were too perfect. Sometimes, Steve gets scared that he just made you up.
But whether you’re a dream come true or the real thing, you’re standing on his front porch anyway, with a smile and a bottle of grocery store wine.
He saves the beer in his fridge and the wallowing for another day.
Steve escorts you through his lavish living room and to the downstairs area that’s got a movie screen hanging on the walls and a couple of leather couches sitting in front of it. The coffee table in front of them holds a myriad of glass bowls — popcorn, various candies, and more popcorn.
“You planning on throwin’ a party down here, Harrington?” you tease with a soft chuckle, trying to conceal how your heart’s about to burst at the mere sight of it all.
“Well, I just— I didn’t know what you liked, and I didn’t— I wanted to make sure you had something to eat, you know,” the boy stammers out. He brings the palm of his hand to rub at the back of his neck. “So I just… I got… everything.”
“It’s a good thing a like everything then, huh?” you smile at him as you pluck a Red Vine from its dedicated bowl. You rip off an inch or two with your teeth and then talk as you chew: “I hope you’re prepared for all of this shit get eaten, Harrington. I can get quite ravenous.”
Steve nods to himself and tries not to smile too big. “Sounds entertaining… Maybe I’ll just watch you instead of the movie.”
It was supposed to be a joke.
But then you settled down next to him on the couch, keeping a respectful distance but sharing the same fuzzy blanket, and he has to physically force himself to drag his gaze away from you.
He was right about what he said before, you were far more entertaining than the black and white film projected ahead of him — grabbing handfuls of popcorn at a time and quoting the movie through the mouthful.
It’s a tad bit barbaric, the faintest bit off-putting, and otherworldly levels of endearing. It leaves him virtually unable to take his eyes off of you.
He didn’t think you could get more beautiful, but you keep on proving him wrong.
He’s starting to realize he doesn’t know shit.
You’re slowly coming to the same understanding.
You’ve heard stories about Steve. Usually from gossiping cheerleaders standing in circles at their lockers or whispering in the back of a classroom. Doomed as the freak and all but banished from the inner society of Hawkins High, you became an observer. You were so invisible that people sometimes didn’t realize they were talking right over you, sharing secrets they wouldn’t want someone else to get a hold of.
But apparently you were the exception. Because you weren’t a someone to them.
They talked about how kind he was, how well endowed, how they were meant to go on some stupid date but missed their reservation because Steve got a little too handsy beforehand, and how they spent the rest of the night with their hands shoved down each other’s pants at Lover’s Lake.
You were seeing, firsthand, how much he’d changed. How he made his promise of no funny business and how he was sticking to it — no teasing you about the whole thing with a knowing smirk and flirtatious honey eyes, no urging to close this distance between you, no tiny touches on your arm or thigh in the hopes of heavier petting.
He spends the entirety of the first movie perfectly respectful. Just like you’d asked him to be.
And it was nice, knowing that you weren’t wasting your evening with some asshole who was only spending time with you in the hopes of you putting out later. But it leaves you the faintest bit empty. Hungry. You long for his touch like a missed meal. Starving and feeling it all.
It’s not even heavy petting you want, you just want to feel him next to you — to press yourself into his side and to warm yourself with him like a blanket.
But you weren’t a pretty cheerleader or a girl dripping in expensive clothes and daddy’s money. You were the weirdo, the freak, the loudmouth nerd, Punchy — all names you wore proudly, like lit-up signs or steel armor.
Until now.
Now you think if you weren’t Punchy, if were you someone different, then maybe he’d want to touch you more.
The first hour and thirty-seven minutes of your favorite movie are strangely agonizing.
Your hands itch with the desire to touch the boy next to you, and they busy themselves with the bowls of candy and savory junk food splayed out on the table in front of you. It’s mindless more than it is anything. You’re absentminded binging does nothing more than half-distract you from the thoughts raging rivers in your skull.
You don’t even realize you’re doing it until your hand falls into an empty bowl of popcorn and finds nothing but kernels at the bottom of it.
It makes Steve laugh, thinking you were just too into the movie to notice — having no idea it was him taking up all your brain power.
He leaves to fix more snacks for you while you slip the second VHS into the movie player. He returns with a bowl of freshly popped popcorn and two beers after the wine bottle has been sufficiently emptied. When he plops down next to you again, it’s in the same spot he’d been sitting in all night — a couple of excruciating inches away.
Under the guise of sharing the popcorn in his lap, you make the too bold decision to slither in at his side. It’s innocent at first — your thighs just barely graze and your elbows bump when you dip your hands into the bowl. And it’s still innocent some thirty minutes later, when you find yourself resting your head on his shoulder with your legs curled up behind you.
Steve tenses when he feels your temple pressed against him, but only for a moment before he relaxes again. It makes him all suddenly warm and self-aware of every movement he makes. He tries not to breathe too heavy or shift too often, for fear it might jostle you too much. He doesn’t want to stop feeling you against him like this, even if it’s got his skin prickling with a searing form of anxiety.
“Don’t tell me you’re falling asleep,” he jokes.
“Of course not. It’s way too riveting,” you scoff, even though he can feel you cuddling further into him. Your cheek rubs against the soft cotton of his sweatshirt when you look up at him. He turns his head to peer down at you and his nose nearly grazes your forehead.
He finds you with a certain glint in your eye. It’s borderline playful, like it so often is, but coated with a sweetness that drips over him like honey. “You like it so far?” you wonder.
“Yeah,” the boy nods quickly. He couldn’t tell you what had happened the past two-and-a-half films, but he could tell you how your jaw tenses when you chew and how your smile curls just before you laugh out loud and how your eyes widen every time you quote the movie. “It’s really good. I like it.”
You beam at him before turning back to the projector again. You shift to get more comfortable against him. “Good.”
By the third movie, you’re somehow even closer.
Truth be told, Day of the Dead wasn’t your favorite in the trilogy, so it left your mind wandering to far off places — namely, the pretty boy sitting beside you. He goes to put the tape into the projector, feeling immediately cold without pressing into his side, and when he returns he tries his best not to beg you to cuddle against him again.
“My shoulder’s gettin’ real cold over here,” he tries to joke.
You see right through his beckoning, though. It makes you happy to know he wants it just as much as you do.
“Just say you wanna be next to me, Harrington,” you tease like you aren’t happily obliging him. You snuggle into his shoulder and rest your head against him while your arms curl around his bicep.
“I wanna be next to you,” he repeats, a playful smile on his lips though his gaze softens with sincerity. “Is that so bad?”
You shake your head against him in reply. Suddenly as mushy as the boy beside you, you turn to look up at him. “Not unless it’s bad that I wanna be next to you, too…”
“Nah. It’s not bad,” he assures in something short of a whisper. “Guess I’m just glad I’m not the only one that’s so far gone.”
He doesn’t elaborate on what he means by that. He doesn’t have to.
Perhaps it’s the admission that this boy is so far gone for you that gives you a sudden burst of confidence. Maybe it’s the comforting feeling of being seen, of knowing you’re no longer alone in your similar far gone-ness. Each feels like rays of sunshine to your skin and has you pressing your lips to his wanting ones without much thought.
The plump pink of his mouth are magnets for yours. They meet and lock together with little effort, almost destined to do it. It’s a soft, meager, and lingering little peck that sucks you both in a little too easily. It’s hard to pull away from him, but when you do, your lips click in protest.
Then there’s a look, then a deafening silence that says more words than either of you were capable of forming in that moment. His amber eyes dart between both of yours, asking a question without saying a goddamn thing. One that you answer with your own softening gaze.
And it’s almost better than the kiss itself, the swirling feeling in the pits of your stomach, the knowing of what’s about to happen.
A silent plea and a blink later and his lips are on yours again.
It’s an awkward mess of yearning mouths and tangled limbs as the both of you fight to find purchase on one another. Your fingers knot in the collar of his sweatshirt, pulling him impossibly closer, while his grip the bare skin of your waist from where your shirt had ridden up. His touch makes you buzz, like a static shock or a bolt of lightning.
Steve makes several observations when he feels you melt into him like honey on toast. He notices how you press yourself into him, like you won’t be satisfied until you’ve swallowed him whole, and how it has you kissing him like you’re scared he’ll pull away — like you’ll open your eyes and he won’t be real.
You’re as domineering against his mouth as you are in real life, still as all-consuming and overpowering as the girl he’s gotten so familiar with.
He doesn’t realize how you’ve settled so intently on top of him until his back meets the pillowy cushion of the leather couch. You don’t either, until he exhales a sharp gasp against your cupid’s bow. Then you part from him, for the first time in several minutes, breathing in the oxygen your lungs had just begun to scream for.
Steve finds you with kiss-bitten lips and glassy eyes that look upon him with a softness that he didn’t know existed until now. He smirks with his own swollen and pinker mouth like he isn’t glowing red beneath you.
“I thought you said no funny business,” he manages to tease through bated breaths.
You don’t bother to make up excuses for yourself. You’re already on top of him, all over him — you’ve already kissed him like you would’ve died if you hadn’t. Now, you’re straddling him, caging him between your legs and under your torso. You’ve settled on top of him with a comforting weightiness, like you’re building a home in the familiarity you’ve sought in him.
“I lied,” you mutter with a lazy shrug. A sly smile pulls slowly at your lips until you’re all but beaming sunbeams down at him. He revels in your warmth. “’S not my fault you’re so damn cute.”
It’s easier to blame it on him for all the reasons you’re attached to him like a magnet to his metal, your moth to his flame. You part his lips with your mouth, rut your tongue against his own, reveling in the foreign familiarity of it all, and then blame him for the way you can’t seem to stop any of it.
Steve doesn’t seem to mind, though. The way his hands find purchase on your hips, petting the warmed skin there and sometimes squeezing to pull you further down onto him, tells you that he has a similar yearning to melt with you. He lets you kiss him all slow, allows you to taste all of him, and doesn’t rush you in your process. It’s comforting, tender. Free.
He’s not used to being on his back like this. Usually, he’s the one taking control. It’s his mouth that does all the work. So, it’s strange to be under you and to have you above him. But it’s more pleasant in an even stranger way not to be rushed — not to have to do all the work. His mouth opens so obediently for you and finds an effortless rhythm with your lips and your tongue.
It’s the easiest thing he’s ever done in his life, kissing you.
He delights in every ounce of the warmth and unfamiliarity you press to his mouth, and tries to shove down feelings of unworthiness that simmer in his chest while you do so.
You don’t part until your mouths are numb and tingling with it.
Your lips are more vibrant in their color, aflame and swollen from being so ardently kissed and sucked and bitten. Neither of you mind making out like a couple of teenagers. It’s comforting to know that things won’t go further than a couple soft touches on burning skin. It was never supposed to be anything more than that, anyway. It was just about being close to each other.
You’ve almost succeeded in your effort to melt into the boy beneath you, when you hear the distant sound of a door opening and closing again. Muffled voices follow — unknown to you but obviously familiar to him.
You part from him without thinking, like you’re a couple of kids again who’ll get in trouble if your parents ever found out what you were doing down here. Steve groans at the loss of you and in annoyance at the sound of his parents. His heavy eyes fall shut and his head leans back to the couch cushions as he fights to swallow down all of his anger.
His parents never really come around these days. They’ve got a bigger home in the city, closer to his dad’s work, and they choose to stay there most days of the week — month.
They used to make excuses for why they left their only son behind. It’s five minutes from your dad’s firm. There’s more opportunity for your mom’s real estate business. Oh, don’t be so selfish, Steven, you’ll finally have the place to yourself. It’s a win-win for all of us.
Steve didn’t want their excuses. It was actually easier with them gone.
But they come around every now and again, whenever it’s most convenient for them, and treat their arrival like something that needs to be celebrated. Like they aren’t supposed to be with their child in the fucking first place. And they somehow manage to pick the most inconvenient times for him, like they know he’s in a bind and want to see him struggle to get out of it.
Usually, it’s when he’s in between paychecks — when they want to take him out to some fancy dinner he could barely afford anyway, but especially when he’s hardly making it until payday. Now, it’s when he’s got the prettiest girl he’s ever seen on top of him, and he’s all hot and half-hard. Steve doesn’t want to let them ruin the moment, as good as they are at it.
“It’s okay. They won’t come in here,” he assures when he feels you tense at the unexpected company. “My mom will go to the bedroom and my dad will go to his office. We’re good, I promise.”
You figure he’s right. The voices grow more and more distant. Heeled shoes click up and up the stairs while heavy stomps head the opposite way. But you’ve already been so woefully knocked out of your stupor that you’re scared it’s too late.
Your lips are numb and the credits are rolling and you’re on top of this beautiful boy and you have no idea how you got there.
It’s almost frightening, the way Steve had consumed you mind, body, and soul by just existing next to you. You become dreadfully hyperaware of the whole thing — of who you are, who he is, and what you’re doing. You lose all your softness and turn to ice, hardening and shrinking back into yourself.
“I should—” you start before clearing your throat when the words come out heavier than expected. “I should head out anyway.”
“Oh,” is all Steve can say. “Right.”
You stare down at him, chest still pressed against his, nose nearly touching the tip of his own. “I just— I have to open tomorrow and everything, so—”
“No. Yeah. Yeah, I— I get it.”
You make tricky work of untangling yourselves.
His legs twist with yours when you both try to rise from the couch at the same time. Then your ring gets stuck in the fabric of his shirt, but not before his belt buckle gets somehow caught in yours. It’s like fate is protesting the imminent parting, but neither of you are paying attention to the signs.
He walks you to your car and chuckles under his breath as you scurry to the front door.
You’re not-so-distantly terrified of running into his parents. They probably wouldn’t mind that he’s sneaking around with a girl, surely that they’re used to, but you’re almost certain they’re not used to girls like you. Girls with wild hair and leather skirts and chunky boots and too bold makeup.
You’re not the girl next door. You’re the girl parents warn their sons about. “Leave that girl alone,” they say. “She’s nothing but trouble.”
You tell him all of this on the short trek to your half-broken-down car when you catch him laughing at you about the whole thing. You say it in jest, lighthearted and trying to make a joke of it. But there’s an underlying melancholia to your tone that reveals every truth you’re trying to evade.
“They don’t care enough about me to give a shit about a girl I’m with, I promise,” he confesses with a laugh that sounds more like a sad scoff than anything else. His chocolate eyes turn gold beneath the yellow street light. He smirks at you. “Besides, I don’t know if I told you this or not, but my middle name is actually trouble, so… I think we might be a match made in heaven.”
You roll your eyes at his attempts to flirt with you, though his lack of finesse makes you smile. “You’re an idiot, Steve Actually Trouble Harrington.”
“You really know how to say goodbye, don’t ya?” he grins when you reach the curb where your tin can car sits.
“Yeah, I’m pro,” you shrug with a teasing glint in your eye, then you beam. “I’ll see you around, ‘kay?”
“Totally,” he nods, suddenly forlorn at having to leave you like he hadn’t just spent the past four hours with you.
Themetallic click of your car door opening sounds much louder in the emptiness of the suburbs. You glance at the boy right before you sink into the driver’s seat, feeling your heart swell with something short of yearning — anticipation.
You weren’t actually a professional at saying goodbye, you find, because you’re realizing how hard it is to leave him.
“Steve!” he hears you shout from across the lawn when he’s halfway up the drive.
He turns around, expecting to hear you tease him some more or tell him you were having car troubles. Neither would’ve shocked him. You’ve got a smart mouth and a shittier car. But you keep on surprising him, all but launching yourself into him before kissing him harder than he’s ever been kissed before.
Steve tenses against you at first, then relaxes again in record time. He sighs in the comfort of having your body pressed so intently into his and your arms wrapped around his neck to pull him somehow closer.
You feel the breath of his exhale fan against your cupid’s bow. It makes you smile, and he feels the expression contort against his lips. His hands rise to the widest part of your hips without thinking. It’s all muscle memory now.
And even though he’s spent the better part of an hour kissing you, this one is so obviously different. This wasn’t just to pass the time. This was more than just to feel him — it was to tell him something. He hears every word you don’t say, but rather press like a stamp to his mouth.
He’s breathless when you pull away. You meet his flushed face with a mischievous grin.
“What was that for?” he wonders breathlessly, but doesn’t waver with his hold on you. He quickly notices that yours doesn’t either.
You shrug in response. “‘Cause you’re pretty.”
“Yeah, well…” he tries to play off like he’s not blushing like crazy. “You’re pretty too.”
Your beam ebbs into a teasing, tightlipped smirk. “Stop flirting with me, Steve Harrington.”
You shove him away with a rougher hand than you realize before you walk away from him. Steve rubs at the ache in his chest with the palm of his hand.
Your playful teasing and your lingering kiss is the only thing Steve has to remember you by when you turn on your chunky heeled boot and head off down the driveway again. He’s frozen, mesmerized by the sight of you and reeling at how you manage to drive him crazy without trying.
Your eyes find him again just before you duck into your car, and you see him still looking at you — mouth agape and eyes wide like you’re some kind of rare find. You figure you must be, in some way. Girls like you aren’t supposed to like guys like him. Vice Versa. Tale as old as time.
The boy stays locked in his stupor until the sprinkles whir on. The spurts of freezing cold water spray all over him and his pretty hair and expensive sweatshirt and his vintage jeans. “Shit!” you hear him swear as he rushes for cover on his front porch.
He’s quickly soaked and freezing cold, but he smiles anyway when he hears the sound of your giggling behind him. It’s as animated as your personality and spills from your mouth like so many rays of sunshine, just a little too loud for the quiet midnight suburbs.
It’s perfect, he realizes. You’re perfect.
#published by bug#steve harrington x reader#stranger things x reader#stranger things imagine#steve harrington imagine#steve harrington smut#steve harrington fic#steve harrington x you#steve harrington x y/n#steve harrington#st oneshots#stevie oneshot#punchy x steve
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Tara Carpenter NSFW Headcanons (18+)
a/n: hold your cunts, it's abt to get spicy. and tara is just so mommy here, fuck.
> masterlist
She’s a switch, but she lowkey loves it more when she’s on top and who’s in control.
Her sex drive is high, higher than Sam’s even. I guess it runs in the blood?
Prefers vanilla sex than kinky sex, because she gets more turned on when she sees you getting high with her dirty praising.
Talking about praising, she has a praise kink, either receiving or giving both works for her.
> “Oh baby, look at you being such a good girl for me.”
She loves it when you both scissor, just feeling your wet and hot pussy against her own dripping cunt drives her crazy.
When shits gets a bit heated though, oh you are one fucked mf’er.
Buys and uses dildos that barely fit you. They’re long, thick, and veiny, just how she loves to see it pumping in and out of you in a drunken gaze.
> “T-Tara baby.. I don’t think it’s gonna fi—” A moan interrupted your sentence, when Tara suddenly forced the silicone dick inside you. Your head drops on her pillows from the burning feeling on your core, panting from being full and filled up to the brim by your lover’s cock.
“See princess? I told you it would fit.”
Your skin would be filled with marks, bites, bruises, and hickeys, especially your tits. She became a titty person when she saw your pairs for the first time.
Loves to fuck you missionary style just to see your melons rocking back and forth from her thrusts.
> Tara smirks as she looks down. There you are underneath her, legs spread wide open as she rams the strap on inside of you, your wetness running down onto her sheets, as your round perky breasts are jiggling from her rough movements.
“Fuck Y/n, you look so hot right now.”
After having sex, she would stay in bed with you for a couple of minutes until you’ve calmed down from your high, then get up to go to the bathroom to get a towel and clean you up. Tara then goes back to bed with you, and you both cuddle naked while sleeping in each other’s arms.
#jenna ortega#jenna ortega smuts#tara carpenter#tara carpenter smuts#scream#scream smuts#wednesday addams#the fallout#vada cavell#headcanons#xiihyunn
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bitter orange — okkotsu yūta [1/3]
pairings. okkotsu yūta + f! reader/original character (main); past!orimito rika + f!reader; past!okkotsu yūta + orimito rika
warnings/themes. mentions of death, jealousy, hints of obsession and possession. just a lil dark romance practice (which is barely any dark romance tbh who am i kidding) sprinkled with food motifs but i dont know what im doing im just here for the vibes :P mostly sfw with nsfw themes but nothing sexual bc im too scared to go down that dark path (also no use of y/n bc i started writing with an original name and it unfortunately stuck lawl... can be treated as either or it doesnt matter tbh i cant write anything outside of 2nd person anwyay)
word count. 2.8k words nothing too crazy xd
playlist. knuckle velvet, ethel cain; velvet ring, big thief; pure, cigarettes after sex; only in the dreams, the marias; be my mistake, the 1975; mary, alex g
next
it’s been a long time since
i have seen my beloved.
the moss has grown on
that abetachibana tree
PART ONE: ichigo daifuku
Gojō Satoru tells you that love is the most twisted curse of them all.
He had said it in passing after your first solo mission, right as you were entering the car back to Jujutsu Tech before talking your ear off with his lame jokes. The mission had consisted of exorcizing a curse that had persistently haunted an abandoned apartment complex in Omotesandō, assigned to you by the higher-ups in accordance with your newly promoted rank as a Grade 2 sorcerer, having decided that a Grade 1 was doable enough for someone of your caliber. The curse itself wasn’t anything special, though, only repeating gargled confessions of its love to some ‘Chiyo-chan’—whoever she was—the whole time you were dodging its attacks, which was incredibly annoying. You liked your battles in silence, quick and succinct, but curses make that difficult to achieve.
Gojō muses it could have been a past lover, this Chiyo-chan—its love for her having cursed itself. You didn’t really care. If you keep up the good work, complete your required missions and get another recommendation, you could be ranked a Semi-Grade 1 by your second year, then a Grade 1 by your third and nothing else after that because unless you were someone like Gojō Satoru, then you are capped forever at Grade 1.
“So anyway—snacks you like?” said sorcerer asks, finally done with his previous tale. Something about an old coworker. “Mochi, senbei, or taiyaki? Personally, I'm a mochi ice cream type of guy!”
You look at him.
“Why are you here again?”
“... Is your memory that small, Ume? I was proctoring you,” he tuts, mouth turned downwards. “Congrats on the promotion, by the way.”
You shrug. “Ichigo daifuku is good, I guess.”
He smiles, wryly.
“You’re joking, right?”
+
The building facing your childhood home had been home to Orimito Rika, an unsuspecting property with a decent front yard and the occasional street cat or two often shooed away by her irate grandmother. “Mean granny,” you’d often call her, the insult drowned out by your hushed giggles as you played with your dolls. Rika wouldn’t say anything about it, wouldn’t dare verbally agree with you, but she would always nod her head down, the corners of her lips turned up too high.
You didn’t particularly hate the old woman, but there was a certain kind of satisfaction to saying it behind her back after all the times you’ve caught her looking at her granddaughter in unbridled scorn, your own little form of revenge. You could never understand how her only remaining family could look at her like that, not when Rika was so beautiful and kind; like the cherry blossoms during spring, falling gently along with the wind. Sure, she could be a little cunning at times, and none of the other kids at school liked her because “something’s odd about her, can’t you just hang out with us instead?”—but that’s what makes her interesting, right?
Rika isn’t weird, she’s pretty, and you’re the bee drawn to her. She’s only older than you by a year, ten instead of nine, but she always played with you, taught you how to make flower crowns at the park, and when you walked home from school she’d always hold your hand. Her smile is blindingly bright, the sound of her voice a song you couldn’t stop listening to. Selfishly, you wish it would always be the two of you together; playing with your dolls, walking home with your hands intertwined.
But when she came back from the hospital, so did Okkotsu Yūta.
You could never see what she saw in him; he was short and just a little bit pathetic, always trailing after her like a lost puppy at first. You could push him off the swing and he'd move on with a sniffle, the kind to give up the plastic shovel even though he desperately needed it to finish his sand castle because he didn’t want to fight a girl. He smiled shyly and hid his hands behind his back, looking at you like he was looking for your approval. Of course, you never gave him the time of day, because it felt like he had stolen Rika—your Rika. It was supposed to be just you and her, but that wasn’t the case anymore. Now there was Okkotsu Yūta, who held Rika’s other hand after school, who took away her attention from you so easily.
“He’s so cute, isn’t he?” she asks often, a light blush dusting her face.
“I guess,” is your reply.
“Ne,” she calls, presenting to you a small, black box. You look at it in apprehension, wincing when she eventually opens it. “What do you think of this ring? It was my mom’s. I’m gonna give this to Yūta-kun, do you think he’ll like it?”
The ring was immensely simple, a silver-colored band with a small diamond in front, glinting under the light. Nevermind the fact that it was too big for a child’s fingers to fit in, Rika presented it to you as if it held all the answers to the world. Although her parents were dead, and she had definitely stolen it from her grandmother’s dresser, the ring spoke full of promise. When she takes it out of the box and lets you inspect it, it feels heavy.
“... You really like him, don’t you, Rika-chan?” you ask, quietly.
Rika looks at the stupid piece of jewelry, painfully smitten.
“Mhm,” she affirms. “I really like Yūta-kun. I want to be with him forever! Of course, I like you too, Ume-chan. You and Yūta-kun are my favorite people in the world!”
You close the box, handing it back to her. When Rika looks at you expectantly, you realize then that you could never bring yourself to take that happiness away from her.
+
The koinobori flies.
“It’s so pretty!” Rika exclaims, eyes wide and staring up at the sky where the huge, windsock carp moves around. It’s bathed in all sorts of colors—from red to blue to white to green—dancing along the azure expanse in commemoration of Children’s Day. The weather is just right, not too hot nor too cold, and the wind caresses your skin gently, the sun not too harsh. It makes the color of Rika’s hair shine in all the right ways, adds more sparkle in her already bright eyes. She’s wearing a yellow sundress, a nice change from her usual blue one. The cream-colored hat you let her borrow covers her face with the shade, but her smile remains bright and blinding. She looks pretty.
She gives you all of her ichigo daifuku, and shares Yūta’s snacks. She doesn’t even like chimaki.
“Are you sure, Rika-chan?” you ask, looking at the two sweets in your hands.
She beams. “You like them, don’t you?”
You keep them with you until the end of the event.
The day passes by incredibly fast, your little trio having exhausted yourselves from running around the park alongside the other children. Yūta chases Rika around the park, and you watch them squeal and laugh at each other and hold hands. You watch them take a nap under the shade, their pinkies intertwined, and you watch as the ugly color of green blinds your eyesight. You leave them be.
Sometimes, you wish you’re the colorful koinobori flying in the sky. You’d let Rika hold on to you, let her fly and hear her amused laugh as the wind tickles her skin. Sometimes, you wish Yūta slapped the ring away from her hands when she handed it to him. Wish he stomped it on the ground and at the same time stomped on her heart. Wish he didn’t take it with a huge smile and agree that he’d marry her when they get older; he’s not the one who’d wait long lines just to get her the best ichigo daifuku, not the one who’d jump at the other kids when they so much as think of insulting her, and he won’t be the one who’d choose to stay with her when she’s all gray and old cause he’s a boy, and boys would never do that.
Sometimes, you wish he never liked her at all—because he never deserved her in the first place.
Okkotsu Yūta could never love Orimito Rika like you.
+
He sits beside you at lunch.
Rika’s been bedridden for the whole week, which subsequently ruins your week. Yūta doesn’t seem to mind her absence all that much since he doesn’t see her a lot during classes anyway, but they’re supposed to be engaged. He should always be thinking of her, should be acting as miserable as you even at the unripe age of nine. He looks too okay with her absence when he shouldn’t be.
“What’s this?” you ask, pointing at the small bag of snacks he had placed on the cover of your bento.
“Hm?” he looks up. “Oh, it’s norimaki senbei.”
“... And?” you prod.
He tilts his head. “You don’t want it?”
“... I don’t want it.”
He looks at you thoughtfully.
“But you like them, don’t you?” he asks though he’s acting like he already knows, like you’ll take it regardless of what you say. It’s annoying.
You look at the seaweed-wrapped rice crackers—the stupid norimaki senbei—in mild contempt. “Why are you giving it to me?”
Yūta’s smile is small, knowing. “Because you don’t like sweets.”
You frown.
+
She’s a sweet girl.
You think of Orimoto Rika like that because it’s true—she smiles sweetly, she speaks sweetly, and she likes sweet things. She tells you that her favorite snack is ichigo daifuku, the very same confection you always begged your parents to buy for you just so you could share them with her. It pays off all the time because then she’d look as sweet as the daifuku itself, her cheeks as red as the fruit within it. She also likes hanami dango, but she doesn’t like the green part because she doesn’t really like the subtle taste of yomogi, so you eat the rest for her because she doesn’t want to waste it. She likes cold tea instead of hot, sweet instead of savory, like yuzu iced tea or bubbly ramune in comparison to the nutty taste of hōjicha. When you go to the store, she always gets the kompeitō with some random anime character on the packaging because those were the “cutest kind of kompeitō,” and Rika likes cute things.
She also likes the color pink, but when you ask her what her favorite color is she’d say it’s blue. It’s blue not because she wears that blue dress all the time, but blue because it’s the color of Okkotsu Yūta’s eyes, bright and round and always looking at her. Rika likes it that way—she likes how Okkotsu Yūta is always looking at her with his blue eyes, unwavering and full of adoration for her and her only.
You think Orimito Rika is a sweet girl, but sometimes she’s more than that. Sometimes, when the other kids get brave enough to drag you away from her, tell you to stop hanging out with her, they say it’s because Rika doesn’t like anyone else but Okkotsu Yūta.
Sometimes, when they tell you that, you wonder if Rika liked you at all, way before Okkotsu Yūta came into the picture.
But most of the time, you don’t really care. Even if Rika didn’t like you, you’d still like her. Even if she’d only have her eyes set on Okkotsu Yūta with his stupid blue eyes and his stupid norimaki senbei and stupid chimaki that he shared with her on the fifth of May, you’d still like her because she’s Rika—beautiful, kind, and wonderful Rika.
She has things she doesn’t like, too, such as other people but never Yūta-kun or Ume-chan! She likes it when people compliment her and praise her looks and give her free stuff like ramune or ichigo daifuku or Sailor Moon-themed kompeitō from the store, but sometimes she tells you that she dislikes this certain group of girls from Yūta’s class, dislikes the boy assigned as your seatmate, her homeroom teacher, the “weird” guy who works at the konbini a street over, and dislikes it even more when her grandmother looks at her and tells her she killed her own father without even saying anything at all.
You know all those things because you know Orimito Rika. You like her even if she holds intense dislike for the people outside her circle, people who tick her off just a little for you to see her smile crack at the edges and go stiff, the little twitch of her brown eyes, and most importantly, you still like her when all she wants in the world is the attention of the boy who wears her deceased mother’s ring.
You’ll always want sweet girls like her.
+
“Where’s Rika-chan?”
“Her grandma won’t let her go out today,” Yūta says, sitting next to you on the bench. “So it’s just you and me.”
He says it dejectedly, but it’s not enough for you. If he was really sad, then he’d be as sad as you are, so you start packing your belongings. “I’m leaving, then.”
He startles, standing up. “Huh? W–wait! Don’t leave just yet!”
“But Rika-chan’s not here,” you frown. “There’s no point in hanging out today.”
He falters, looking down at the ground.
“Even if she isn’t here, we can still play together…” he offers, looking up at you timidly. “We’re friends, too, aren’t we?”
The green-eyed monster stares at the silver chain wrapped around his neck, the ring acting as its pendant tucked underneath his shirt—like an unattainable treasure trapped inside a chest with the key thrown away somewhere you cannot find it. We’re not friends, the monster says with a snarl, stay away from me.
If there is one thing you know, then it’s that you have never wanted to be friends with Okkotsu Yūta, not after he took everything from you. He can butter you up by sticking to you during class and sitting next to you at lunch and even offering you some of his not-ichigo daifuku, not-yuzu iced tea, and not-colorful anime-themed kompeitō but you will and have never liked him for the green-eyed monster will always sit on your shoulder so long as he wears that ring on his person, a physical manifestation of his promise with Rika. Your Rika, even if that’s not really the case.
You will never like Okkotsu Yūta, because—because he—
“... What’re we even gonna do?” you ask, slowly.
He immediately brightens up.
“… Wanna get ice cream?” he offers. “There’s a new flavor I wanna try!”
His suggestion does not entice you at all, but when he stands there with an outstretched hand waiting for you to take it, like it’ll matter if you reject him, you find yourself at a crossroads. But you make your decision soon enough. Like it’ll matter, like the green-eyed monster isn’t there, staring.
“Okay,” you say, moving past him to start walking. He blinks incredulously at the blatant rejection before gathering himself and following after you, a prep to his step regardless of your actions.
You try to ignore the warmth of his body next to yours.
He’s too close.
+
“Yūta-kun’s birthday is in a few days,” Rika announces, lying on your spare futon. “Did you get him anything?”
You didn’t. “... Yeah.”
“Really? What is it?” she cranes her neck to face you. “What’d you get him?”
She doesn’t want your gift being better than hers, it checks out. “Um… just a toy. A garbage truck.”
“Oh, okay,” she turns back to face the ceiling. “I made him a scrapbook with photos of us. I worked really hard on it… do you think he’ll like it?”
“He’ll like anything you give him.”
She’s already given him a ring—what else could compare to that?
Rika smiles. “I guess… you’re right.”
Soon enough, she goes to sleep, breathing softly beside you as your fan fills the silence of the night. You continue staring at the ceiling, making out the little dents despite the lack of light. You squeeze the hand that holds your under the cover, before closing your eyes.
You hear her softly breathe on a steady beat alongside the fan whirring in the corner, and you close your eyes, squeezing her hand tighter underneath the covers of your too-close futon.
You’ll have to ask your parents for some money tomorrow.
+
“Rika-chan isn’t here again,” Yūta says dejectedly. “Her granny’s too strict.”
“She hates her,” you say quietly.
Yūta looks at you, confused. “What’d you say?”
“Nothing. Your birthday’s coming up soon, what are you doing that day?”
“Uwah—you remember?”
“Rika-chan told me.”
“Oh, well,” he smiles sheepishly, “we have school that day, but after that I’ll be celebrating at my house. I’m thinking of just inviting Rika-chan and you over… um, so, will you come?”
“I’ll go if Rika-chan is going.”
He blinks, before a smile blooms on his face. “Okay! I’ll see you, then.”
+
It happens when you aren't there.
It never should have happened at all.
Orimito Rika is pronounced dead at the age of eleven, her body unrecognizable under the heavy weight of a blue truck.
#yuuta okkotsu x reader#jjk#yuta okkotsu#jujutsu kaisen#jjk okkotsu#jjk x reader#yuuta okkotsu x you#yuta x reader#okkotsu yuta x reader#okkotsu yuta x you#okkotsu yuuta#yuuta okkotsu smut#jjk imagines
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Do you/Lya/Lyah have any opinion on Avery? I don't think I've ever seen him come up on the blog before.
Right right, of course...
Personally, I feel Avery and the Great Hawk are the two most "lack of content" LIs. I don't know man, I just think Avery has so much potential, their social position, their status, how they have so much money, are they involved in the town's crime system, do they know about the UB or UF and if yes do they benefit from those?... So many questions and yet I can't seem to find answers in the game, at least with just the basic level of a perfect prized sugar baby that goes on a date with them once every week.
I know maybe Vrel had answered those questions somewhere on their blog, but that does not count. I want in-game content and the sole Cafe grand opening event is not enough. Avery has so much potential, I need to emphasize it one more time, and, if I could be so bold as to assume, by getting closer to them, PC can have more opportunities to discover the Town's government system. Big company? Fucking hell they can have a fucking helicopter to come to pick PC up from school, lol show off. Inside influential? Relationship with Quinn? Bla bla economic and political stuffs.
What I mean is, I guess, yeah pirate and Island sound nice, and yeah more religious mysteries and rank-climbing on the Temple server are nice too, minus we still can't fuck Jordan,... But I'm still quizzical at the political system of the town and how they decided to make Avery so unappealing... I will elaborate more about this later since my PCs have different opinions about Avery.
Even if the devs aren't planning on getting too deep into the political or economic sides, maybe I could at least expect something more... emotion-related kind of development? What's in there for me if I don't want the money, but to get closer to Avery and be an actual soulmate-lover-partner? If Avery is only there to be an emergency ATM then they don't necessarily need to be a LI?? What kind of "love interest" can make you stay so uninterested and emotionally detached like Avery? Or is that what actually is meant to be in a relationship with a middle-aged successful businessperson? Okay? If that's so I guess I placed my hope too high. Sorry Avery to me you'll be the first one out if this is a dating game show if you keep up that husband-who-going-for-business-trips-all-year-long-and-getting-cucked-because-the-wife-he-left-home-is-fucking-horny attidude.
Okay now that some of my bitching is over (lol not I can bitch forever) let's proceed on how my PCs see Avery through their POV.
Lya basically doesn't even know he exists. Mind you, her early game phase was confusing, she can't remember just some man she met only once at the Park? And because of the game mechanics, she only grew more and more confused because why the fuck does a man she had never spent time with one day just get out of his car and demand she get in or get beaten?? "I never knew you??" she thought to herself as she frantically reloaded the save file to go in another direction.
Then she came across the social tab only to see "Avery thinks you're insolent." in a tab she never really paid any attention to. No love, just 100% Lust, that's normal, the barbarian in the forest is the same. But there's another scary-looking icon - 100% rage. What? What did I do? He looked like any random man in a car, randomly pulled at her, and demanded an encounter. She never wants a car fuck, she hates car smell, she doesn't even get on a bus if not strictly needed even so she always... Oooooh, she sees, he's special, he has a place in the higher-up Social tabs, among other certain boys at school, this Avery person is a Love Interest, and she fucked up her potential relationship with him even before it started, without her knowing.
Oh well, whatever, he has a fucking "Rage" stat, he seems violent and has angry issues, so he's not a good person, like Robin or Sydney, and fuck it if he looks old enough to be her parent if she ever had one? Judging by his expensive suit and car, he's rich, so if he's so bitchless to the point of beating a young orphan because she refuses him, he can go fuck himself. Lya had more than enough to worry about.
But then stuff happened. The trauma Chobi was spat out, Whitney tried selling her, she saved him only to continue to be bully. She snapped. Lya's first phase officially ended, and she approached her second phase - the depressed phase. She sold Whitney, got Kylar's ass into prison, and then dismissed Avery too, and that's the end of the story. Even now, looking back, she has no regret. She never knows Avery.
Lyah has a more lenient view of fem Avery. He was born with Lya's experience and his creator's - my wish to explore more potential of the world so his attitude toward the LIs is more laid back. He knows how to benefit from them and handle them.
He sees Avery as a lonely older woman and is willing to accompany her as a rented escort, no more no less. And if she wants more sexual things, she'll pay higher, so there's no problem, he's willing to go with her flow. The only drawback of going on dates with Avery is he cannot sleep in Robin's bed those nights. But that's something he can work with, he needs to visit the Hawk sometimes anyway.
If you ask him what he thinks of Avery, Lyah will answer with something like: "I feel kinda sorry for her. She must have been too focused on her career when she was younger and now she's awkward with her own love life. Gaining that much power and wealth in this town as a woman is not an easy task, and she's willing to pay to have some little company, fair and square, is that how I should put it?."
Then he would stop to think a little, and chuckle: "Lucky me, never had a real "parental figure", otherwise it would be pretty awkward to be seen with her, I admit. But, I know as long as I act professionally she won't get mad and target Robin. Also even if she does she won't cause nearly as much trouble as Kylar so I don't see any problem going out with her once every week."
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the amount of fics ive read with vash having fangs and biting good LAWD 💕💕😩😩 can we please get some Vash smut with him covering his signigicant other with bites?🫸🫷
Vash biting (nsfw)
Yes, yes to teethies!
This man's canines honestly make me shiver.
Warnings: afab reader, oral (f receiving), love bites
You’ve been lying on the bed, just how Vash loved you to: sticky with sweat, panting and wiggling under his hold. His strong hands holding your legs by the calves, while he was slowly pressing sloppy kisses to the insides of your thighs. You’ve been overwhelmed by the sensory feelings of his warm mouth, wet slick tongue on you, his hair tickling your sensitive skin, his breath fanning over the wet spots on your legs left after his kisses. Then you’ve felt a sharp pain as well, whimpering and opening your eyes to look at your lover with raised eyebrows.
He turned his gaze back at you with a guilty and flustered expression, his forehead glistening with sweat, his eyes resembling ones of a guilty child. “Um…sorry Mayfly…you were just so soft and pretty…I…I couldn’t…” he gulped audibly after the confession, and he looked so devastatingly adorable at that moment, that you could just giggle and plop back to the pillows. “Never took you for a kinky person in bed. To think that just few months ago you’ve been so shy you couldn’t look me in the eyes for longer than a second in this predicament.” You said with an airy laugh.
Something dark glistened in his eyes at your words, and he sank his canines into the plush of your thighs once again, a bit gentler this time, which was compensated by more bites immediately following it. Now that he’s shown this little weakness of his, he couldn’t stop, huffing and groaning and biting you again and again, ascending higher up your thighs after each bite. Nuzzling just below your aching core and rubbing his cheeks against the upper portions of your thighs he purred out “Sorry sorry, guess your silly plant man has his weakness out in the open now.”
“Well, you can continue with this weakness of yours, because I think it is now a guilty pleasure of mine. Bite me all you want, baby. It is kinda hot, you know?” you said with laugh, but there was mirth present in your voice not hidden by the lighthearted giggles. Vash huffed, making you wiggle under his hot breath and moved lower to at last pay attention to your leaking pussy, sliding your panties to the side with two fingers, and pressing his soft lips against your sex. He kissed it, licked it, nipped at it and bit tenderly your lower lips, sucking them into his mouth.
Between all this stimulation, the soft caress of his plush lips, the wetness of his saliva and your cum, the sting from his continuous bites of your tender flesh, his nose brushing just there on your clit so deliciously, it took you only few short moments to unravel under his overly eager affections. He wasn’t stopping while you were mewling and shuddering under him, just hardening a bit his hold on your legs to keep you in one place, alternating between soft long stokes of his tongue and nibs on your clit, that made you see and count all the stars in universe.
When you returned from your high to your shared bedroom, opening heavy lids and gazing at your lover, you couldn’t stop yourself by bringing him to your face level, hands planted on his cheeks. Pressing slow, open-mouthed kisses, you made sure your tongue slipped past his canines a few times, feeling a slight scratch. Vash moaned and giggled at your actions, stopping the kiss and pressing a few more bites to your neck.
“You should not restrict yourself from now on, toothy boy” you said, your fingers caressing his hair, a fucked-out smile plastered on your features.
If you enjoyed the work, please reblog!
#vash x reader#vash x you#trigun x reader#trigun x you#trigun headcanons#vash headcanons#vash smut#lion writes
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Brilliant people have said everything that needs to be said about this much much better and I don't got anything substantial to add but I just have to get this off my chest cause y'all I'm still in disbelief
like this is a grown ass person btw oh I simply have to laugh😭
this perfectly exemplifies literally everything cringe af and wrong with these "assigned welcomers". this is just my scapegoat but there are way worse I've seen
First of all, get a job. how, at your fossil age, do you have time to spend all day scrolling through every single iwtv related post and arguing with people who say anything even slightly damning about lestat (which mind you, is literally just objective facts about things he did). I'll dm you a McDonald's application hell I'll even put in a referral for you out of the goodness of my heart.
Second, Lestat is not a real person. he's fake, a made up character, the figment of someone's imagine, non-existent, people hating him will not affect your life in anyway shape or form. He didn't assign you as his PR agent I promise you'll live. "They'll never accept him" ok and?!?
Question, and I'm genuinely asking, is this their first time in a fandom? why is someone having a different opinion about a character they love enough to send them into hysterics like?? 13 year olds on anime twitter have a better grasp on reality that y'all do get a grip!
And like the above posts have talked extensively about, I most definitely noticed whose posts a specific bunch of them love to go under to share their dog shit "explanation" that nobody asked for. When a black person sees Louis being brutalized by his white lover what do you expect their reaction to be? oaur wow this white french slut is so pussy cunt slay period queen? "but louis is flawed too" do you hear yourself? do you listen to yourself when you speak? can you activate the barest hint of brain activity to understand why we would react differently to what we're watching than you would and that knowledge of the source material has nothing to do with it? Just because you read those shitty books and posses no empathy for black people in media doesn't mean you gain some higher understanding of "gothic romance ".
"No but the thing is you don't understand this is a gothic romance and they're supposed to be monsters and lestat has suffered saur much and he's also the real main character so you must love him" so now how exactly does that negate their point about him being an abuser? quickly! sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up when black people are sharing their thoughts on the show cause who the fuck are you fr and what convinced you that you have the right to argue with them about THEIR experiences. that tweet that said white people act like God left them in charge, yeah.
Funny enough, half the people that are so gung ho about him now didn't even fw him at all when they only read the first book. wow it's almost like you were allowed to sort out your feelings about him on your own without insects disguised as people in your mentions calling you slow for not licking his feet.
I despise so much in this fandom. From the bottom of my heart I really truly do. I don't know what I was expecting, I guess more common sense and maturity because the average age in the fandom is quite high compared to other fandoms I've been in but nah, just mfs screaming and crying bc ppl don't jump up and down and scream yipee! everytime their white fav commits abhorrent, disgusting crimes.
I was so caught up in the euphoria of an anne rice property finally being given to skilled creators who'll pick it apart and say something poignant with it that for a moment, I forgot I lived in a world where majority of its audience would sadly be the anne rice crowd.
#gag is the first time watchers don't even hate lestat as character#they all think he's brilliantly written#but because they're not calling him mother and liking edits of him to club music#those roaches have decided to take personal offense#interview with the vampire#iwtv#louis de pointe du lac#lestat de lioncourt#amc iwtv
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Everything Has Changed — Rhaenyra Targaryen x GN!Reader
Summary: When Viserys urges Rhaenyra to marry, the princess storms off to her only place of sanctuary, where you comfort her.
Words: 1k
Pairing: Rhaenyra Targaryen x Gender Neutral Reader
Warnings: Arranged marriage at the end (full circle moment or nah? I don't know), sad Rhaenyra (If I missed anything else, lmk!)
I'm posting this here because my other account isn't showing up in the tags. I have no idea why. This was a request by an anon. This fic can also be found in my other acc!!
not my gif.
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“—and I have given you my answer, Father! I do not wish to be married off to some lord!” was the angry reply of Rhaenyra. As her sworn sword, standing outside the entrance at all times in case someone seeks to hurt her came with the job. You can feel the vibration coming from Rhaenyra shuffling her feet, pacing around the room as if that will help her prove a point to her father. Given the King’s opinion on the subject, you believe he will not change it for Rhaenyra’s own desires. Viserys can be merciless if the situation requires it.
Viserys makes a movement with both his hands to show his irritation, both of their voices growing higher and higher. Any attempts of warding away eavesdroppers will be nugatory. “EVEN I DO NOT EXIST ABOVE TRADITION AND DUTY, RHAENYRA!”
Rhaenyra wavered. Her father ne’er spoke to her this way. It was another sharp cue that everything has changed. No longer would her father wave off her shenanigans or flash a proud smile her way as she defies his orders. She became his political headache. That’s all he sees her as these previous fortnights. So she storms out of the room, not wanting to bid a proper farewell. She would show him. Rhaenyra would show him that she will make a new order of things. Wait and see, father. Wait and see.
You were not given time to blink when Rhaenyra ran by, only giving a nod in your direction. “Princess Rhaenyra!” You cried out, shoving past your fellow guards who make no attempt to join you in following the princess, making you curse them under your breath along with whoever brought them here. They don’t do their jobs correctly. The only reason they’re stationed in the castle is because of their names. If they weren’t born in such families, they’d have to work as hard as you. To your dismay, ranting won’t get you anywhere; much less change the decree that they will have a higher station. Rhaenyra is the priority here. You cannot allow yourself to get distracted.
“Stop following me, Y/n!”
“It is my duty, Princess! You’re my responsibility!”
In the end, you lost sight of Rhaenyra. With your weighty armor hindering your ability to catch up, you had to skid to a stop. “Where are you, Rhaenyra?” You remove the helmet from your head, propping the metal against the wall. If a thief were to stumble upon it, there would be nothing you can do. You’re willing to take that possibility, however, if it meant boosting your odds of becoming quick enough to pursue the crown princess should she cross your line of sight.
There is a solitary sanctuary that Rhaenyra might be in. This hunch is the greatest theory you have. Besides that, you could not possibly take another guess on Rhaenyra’s whereabouts. You set off to the direction of the Weirwood tree, keeping yourself on high alert.
You were correct in your assumptions.
Rhaenyra sat underneath the tree, eyes puffy and red like the fire Syrax would exhale, except it was much darker. She sees your shadow approaching and sighs.
“Tell me what’s on your mind, hm?” You drop down alongside your lover, cupping her face using your hands gingerly. Rhaenyra places her own hand on top of yours, wordlessly requesting to keep your gentle touch there.
Her eyes close and she holds her breath. “Perhaps my father wouldn’t pressure me for marriage as much if I was born as a son instead. No one respects me because I am not a boy.”
You shift your hand so you could slip it between Rhaenyra’s quivering fingers. Her grip was loose, dissimilar to your firm one. She was half-expecting you to take pity on her. When Rhaenyra sees nothing of the sort, she isn’t sure if she feels relieved or saddened.
“I do, ‘Nyra. I respect you. You are not a son. You are a warrior; everything a ruler should be. It may be the topic of controversy right now, but I know that when you ascend the Iron Throne, you will prove that all the people who doubted you were wrong. It’s only a matter of time, my love. They will see one way or another.”
Most of the internal battle betwixt rationality and the hope inhabiting the princess’s body was put to a stop. Rhaenyra leans her head on your shoulder, unperturbed by the armor still on your body as a result of innumerable instances of her “accidentally” sleeping on your shoulder after a long council meeting. You would try to move her body to her own bed, where she would not wake up with a stiff neck, but she can always tell when you badly attempt at transferring her to the comforts of her silk sheets.
“But that’s not happening today, right?”
You smile sadly, placing a kiss on the top of her head, silver-blonde waves tickling your mouth. “Not today, my love. We can only hope for someday.”
“‘Someday’ is adequate for me.” She said. Rhaenyra has a lot on her mind, but when it comes to you, she has no trouble sharing her thoughts. She wants to tell you everything, ranging from her secrets to the promises she whispers in your ear when she thinks you are asleep. “As long as they are with you, ‘someday’ is bearable. I want you by my side, always.”
“I am your sworn shield, Princess. My order is to stay close by. It would be hard for me to get away from you even if I wanted.” Although you laugh wholeheartedly, it dies in your throat as you see King Viserys in the pathway, staring right at you. You couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, but you knew you had to protect Rhaenyra.
“Shit.” Rhaenyra tenses. “Father, I –”
You could not let her take the fall for this. “It is my fault, Your Grace. Rhaenyra is innocent. She didn’t do anything wrong. I should not have –”
“Save it.” Viserys says, running his hand through his hair (what is left of it, anyway). I should have known, he scolds himself for not being able to spot it sooner. Yours and Rhaenyra’s lingering gazes were more than just friendly gestures. It was romantic! “Rhaenyra is to wed you by spring’s end.”
What in the seven hells?
#rhaenyra x reader#rhaenyra targaryen x reader#princess rhaenyra#rhaenyra targaryen#viserys targaryen
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yet another wip tease
“High school’s a lot easier on you than middle school was, huh, mijo?”
Lance shrugs. “I guess. Low bar, though. Drowning at the bottom of the port-a-potty sludge is better than middle school.”
His mother laughs so hard she chokes, even as she pretends to scold him for such nasty imagery. Her laughter makes him smile, satisfied.
“I suppose that’s true, Lancito. But look at you so far! You’re braces are almost off, you and Vero figured out your skin, your grades are excellent, you’re having fun in your math class. And you have more than one friend, now! I know that’s been hard for you. I’m happy for you, cielo.”
Lance nods, agreeing with her, up until that last part.
“Wait, hey, I don’t have more than one friend.”
Mamá raises an eyebrow. “Hunk and that Keith boy you talk about all the time, yes? The one who walks you home every day?”
Lance flushes. “Keith’s not my friend! He’s my rival! We’re sworn enemies!”
Mamá’s eyebrow lifts higher, along with the corners of her mouth.
“Rivals? Rivals who help each other with homework —”
“We do not help each other, we monitor each other’s progress to get a leg up—”
“—who join the same clubs —”
“He happens to have some similar interests! Coincidence!”
“—a rival whom you speak about daily —”
“With disdain!”
“—and whose laughter makes you blush?”
“Flush with anger!” Lance insists, although the blush he has now does him no favours.
“Keith is not my friend! He’s horrible and ridiculous and his laugh is weird and loud and his hair is a stupid mullet and his confidence is annoying and his laugh is weird —“
“You said that, already,” Mamá points out with a grin, and Lance falters.
“That’s because it’s extra annoying!”
“I see,” she says. She very clearly does not see. She very clearly thinks this is funny, because she is mean and doesn’t love her youngest son.
“You’re a mean mother who hates me,” Lance pouts.
Mamá snorts. “Okay, mijo. Whatever you say.” She stands, tucking in her chair and making her way over to the kitchen. She pauses as she passes Lance, still pouting, and brushes a kiss to his forehead.
“Bring your friend over for dinner sometime, Lancito. I want to meet him.”
Lance huffs, but says nothing else as she walks away. She won’t believe him, anyway.
(He does invite Keith over, but not because he wants to or anything. He does it so he can show off his fossil collection to Keith, obviously, and establish himself as the superior dinosaur lover. Keith’s excitement at the fossils and their subsequent several-hour-long geek fest means nothing.
Obviously.)
#this is for my other childhood friends (rivals) to lover au!!! that i just conceptualized today#it’s moving much faster than my other one so it should be up sooner#vld#voltron#lance#lance mcclain#lance’s mother#keith#keith kogane#klance#pining lance#in denial lance#like. a lot#rivals to lovers#pre slash#pre klance#teasing#lance & lance’s mother#modern au#autistic lance#my writing#fic fragment#wip tease
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I’m gonna give Chimon the benefit of the doubt. I can buy that the first kiss was a shock and initially awkward. The next kiss(es) has to be better though or atleast open your fucking mouth. He’s worked with Perth long enough that there really isn’t any excuse at this point. If we continue to get a half committed performance from Chimon that will bring down my overall personal grade of the show. It’s already been sliding because they’ve been rushing development. Moving from one plot point to the next at 100mph. The realism and believability of the main couple is the most important thing that I look for in a bl. If I’m not sold on that then it brings down my enjoyment level of a show.
That’s absolutely fair! I’m in a similar boat myself. It’s definitely not the best in terms of execution and the show is made worse for it, but I’m still enjoying it enough to want to keep going. So far Kang and Sailom still feel believable to me (if only because they’re both 17/18 and very clearly have no experience with romance at all) and the next few episodes are going to test that in terms of their romantic relationship and I look forward to it. Kang is quickly becoming a character I enjoy watching, especially because of the way in which his family and his history are teased without everything being revealed. I am also still enjoying Sailom and his angst and his want for better for himself. I’m even here for Guy and Nawa (they’re not the enemies to lovers we were expecting, but they are the enemies to lovers we seem to be getting and I’m okay with that) and Pimfah and the student teacher (who’s name I can never seem to remember and I feel bad about that fact but it’s also my fault because every time her face appears onscreen I think of Maggie and NLMG and yeah…)
I’m a fiction writer by interest so I’m usually here for the story telling and development. Believably is definitely a big on for me as well, but I usually try to reserve my judgement until the end. If I enjoy the ride, I’ll usually score it higher, even if the show doesn’t altogether make sense/is coherent. However, I completely understand why you may not feel the same, everyone looks for different things when they go into a show. If at the end of the show, it’s just a bad now, well I guess that will be egg on my face and I’m okay with that.
My approach to any BL is to go into it with tentative optimism, varying levels of excitement and low expectations. It is very rare that my expectations are high going into a BL. The only one I can think of right now that I had high expectations going in is I Feel You Linger In The Air, which is meeting and exceeding my expectations every week. I didn’t even have high expectations for Only Friends and that show is very good as many of us knew it would be.
I do hope the show gets better and the pacing and the kisses get better, but I guess we won’t know until we get there. Still I’m on this ride until the end and I’m glad you’re going to join me Anon. It’s gonna be a wild ride either way but for now, we can only hope the ride is worth it.
#anonymous#dangerous romance#dangerous romance the series#welcome to the clown car anon#now let’s see if it takes somewhere that’s at least mid by the end#it’s gonna be a ride either way so let’s have fun with it#i do also have a tendency to enjoy bad bls#so take of that what you will#everybody likes different things and that’s awesome#we all know how talented perth and chimon are#so i’m remaining optimistic about it#but i get that others aren’t#and i think both points of view are okay#let’s just hope for the best and see where it takes us#haha#thank you very much for sending this to me#cap answers asks#cap speaks
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Do you think Jared Padalecki is some some shape or form part of the LGBT but in denial? I do remember him talking about loving freely. Also I promise this is a legit ask, im not joking lol
Hello Anon, thank you for the ask. I see you are asking a tinhatters related question, which I am not one of them. I'm sure you've seen one of my tarot reading related posts where I said I don't believe Jensen is of the straight orientation and therefore am going to guess this is related to why you're asking me this in particular. With this being said, I believe at best Jared is "bicurious" and is to me not a huge stretch to say slightly bisexual but definitely leans more towards women. He has a bromance with both Milo and Jensen (probably Jensen more because he does more con panels with him and worked with him longer type of deal).
I've said this to multiple people via private messages and maybe in a post or 2 I have reason to believe at least some of the SPN former cast read the blogs, Jared being one of them. I've said this before to others via PM more or less that I believe that J2 have been more or less "feeding" people with certain statements that some say imply they are secretly lovers. I recently read a post from someone who said they came across one of Jared's former teachers who years ago apparently said "he's married to her [Gen]?" with her eyebrows raised when seeing photos of them together, and laughed apparently when seeing Jensen and him together but kept her mouth shut. Can't seem to find this post at the moment but I saw it not too long ago.
Looking at Jared's younger photos and even hearing his voice in some older clips where he was in high school, I get the impression that he may have started puberty more or less on the later side of the normal range if not slightly later (say between 15 and 16 is what my guides say). According to Kidshealth.org, boys often start puberty between the ages of 9 and 15. I believe that when boys start puberty a little later based on what my educational background and science says, this puts guys at higher risk of bullying and perhaps when they show less sexual interest in school they are assumed to be gay, even if they have had girlfriends prior to really hitting puberty like he did. He was said to have dated while he was class President in 8th grade dating the class Secretary. As someone on Reddit said "Mr. President dated Ms. Secretary. How scandalous." Priceless LOL. Apparently the OP who posted these photos on multiple subreddits had a crush on him back then while in 6th grade, oh the things that you can find on Reddit at times....
I understand Jared has some prom photos floating around like on Reddit of him with a girl who might be the same girl as he was seen with in a couple photos where they were what looks like a basketball court (high school girlfriend I am assuming), and also one in middle school with a middle school girlfriend. Some might say he was "pressured" to marry Gen and was "pressured" to hide his sexual orientation being raised Catholic and whatnot. I've also seen multiple movies and TV shows where he kisses women and can tell he does not mind and even enjoys kissing women. He has somewhat open sexual energy in my opinion which makes him more comfortable with things like a "surprise kiss" from Milo which seems more and also walked up to Jensen and air kissed him to which Jensen said "bro get away from me" in 2006.
My impression overall is that if Jared were to be LGBT, it would be technically bi but leans towards women a lot more if not is merely "bicurious" if this makes sense. Certainly not gay by a long shot ha ha. With the said like that Sandy gave for a post talking about no longer being a beard for someone, I do not think she would publicly acknowledge being a beard and believe this should not be taken as a literal confirmation she was "Jared's beard". I'm not going to talk about the disrespect the tinhatters have for the wives because I think everyone is going to be subject to criticism and questioning at times, it's just part of life (but not gonna lie, some of them definitely don't respect either Danneel or Gen at all despite their claims they just want them to be happy). I have my criticisms of everyone and praises for some ha ha. However, I will say it is also is disrespectful of both Jensen and Jared saying they're unfaithful, dishonest men living double lives but I don't feel like getting started here.
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Audio ARC Review: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
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Publication Date: May 2, 2023
Synopsis:
Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
My Rating: ★★★★★
*My Review below the cut.
My Review:
I LOVED this book. So much. I even preordered the audiobook after listening to only 30% of the audio arc. Because I knew I would love it and want to read it again.
This is the brutal magic-school-that-is-trying-to-kill-you book of my dreams. The challenges and tests are trying to kill you. The entrance 'exam' is trying to kill you. The other students are trying to kill you. The dragons are trying to kill you (if you are found not worthy). But if you make it? You become a badass dragon rider.
And then the plot thickens. And goes exactly where I hoped it would. I only guessed a tiny fraction of what happened - just enough to be very pleased with where everything went.
I loved the characters. I loved violet, and how hard she worked to overcome her body's frailty (EDS, I'm guessing), and how sharp her mind was. I loved how Xaden insisted on calling her 'violence' from the beginning -- seriously, best nickname/pet name EVER.
The love story was perfect. The brutality of the school and the students was perfect. The dragons were perfect. Just, chef's kiss, it was absolutely EVERYTHING I wanted, gimme the next one now.
The audiobook was narrated brilliantly and I felt like I was right there for all of it. The characters had distinct voices and personalities that brought them to life, the intensity started high and only cranked higher as it went on, and Rebecca Soler's voice was pleasant to listen to.
10/10 100% recommend. Seriously, if you like brutal magic schools / dark academia / dragons? Read this now.
*After some thought, I would like to recommend this to Sarah J. Maas fans. This (especially the romance) is what she was trying to do with ACOTAR, only so much better. Even if you don't like Sarah J. Maas (like me) I definitely recommend it. But also if you want that Feyre / Rhysand vibe without some of the more questionable aspects... this is it.
*Thanks to NetGalley and Recorded Books for providing an early copy of the audio for review.
#fourth wing#rebecca yarros#for fans of ACOTAR#dark academia#dragons#netgalley#arc review#shilo reads#audio arc#best books of 2023#favorites
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BURP-CANON: Ace Trappola
I was actually going to stop for the night after doing the burp-canon for Malleus, buuut then I realized no less than three people asked for Ace, so…I guess I’ll give him a shot. XD
Ace Trappola, much like Kalim Al-Asim, isn’t actually as high on my list of crushes from Twisted Wonderland as you might think. And, once again, it’s for the same reason: he’s great for stuffing - freaking PERFECT for stuffing, in fact, it doesn’t take a genius to put together why everybody and their sister seems to love the thought of him all bloated and burpy - but when it comes to vore…ehhhhh, less so. He’s got SLIGHTLY more potential than Kalim though, I’d say, simply on account of his personality and mentality in comparison to the adorable Baby Otter, so he ranks a LITTLE higher. And he’s clearly quite popular, since - disregarding the fact three people all asked for him - I know a lot of folks in this kinkdom/fandom REALLY love him. So…let me see what I can do with him.
Ace, of course, is a canonical glutton…and TECHNICALLY canonically a bit burpy, too. (In the English release, the translation for one of his voice lines shows him belching, buuut he doesn’t ACTUALLY burp…weird and lame…) In many ways, I think I would describe as the “basic belcher” of Night Raven college. What do I mean by this? Well…I think of Ace as a sort of jack of all trades, but a master of none, when it comes to being a big eater and all that comes with it. Yeah, he’s got a big appetite, but he’s nowhere on the level of characters like the Octavinelle Trio, the Savanaclaw Trio, Sebek and Malleus, etc. He’s sort of on the “large-medium” range of big eating: constantly hungry, constantly eating, but with some VERY stiff competition from other humans, and lots of people who can just blow him out of the water. This applies to his belching, too.
Ace, much like Ruggie, is something of a troublemaker: a trickster in his own way. He’s also exceptionally tactless, always speaking his mind flat out. He’s also somewhat dichotomous in terms of his smarts: he can be sneaky and bright in his own way, but he can also be a complete freaking idiot in other matters. Given his loud, energized, blunt, mischievous personality, it stands to reason that Ace doesn’t show much in the way of manners, and doesn’t hold back with his gas. He’s the sort to let out a great big burp during lunch, and when others complain, he just smirks and comments on how talent should be shared, not held back. (This may or may not precede him letting out another burp.) He actually can’t perform any great tricks (although he’s not against learning them), but he makes up for it just by being VERY abrasive and loud. Ace has decent oral hygiene, and doesn’t have the INSANE diet plans other characters have, so his breath isn’t actually that bad at all (in fact, even when he hasn’t brushed recently, it usually smells sweet, thanks to all the fruity and sugary things he likes eating so much). However, his gas can be a little stale, simply because…well, again, burps usually don’t smell good, in general. :P
The one thing you need to know about Ace, beyond all else, when it comes to his gas, is this: with the possible exception of Floyd and Ruggie, no one at NRC is as much of a shameless, constant, persistent kink-tease (and playful sort of kink-shamer) as Ace Trappola. And when I say no one, I mean NO ONE: that includes even Leona. In his case, he’ll usually only tease people he is in a relationship with. Ace is a different story. If he finds out someone, ANYONE, has a “thing” for big belches, he will NEVER let that go. It doesn’t matter if they’re a lover, or just a friend, or possibly even neither of the above! Nothing brings Ace more joy than seeing them get flustered and teasing them whenever a ripe one rips free from his gut. He’ll belch and flash a teasing grin, commenting on how big his latest eruption was while the other party tries to sink into the floor. After a while, it just becomes normal to both sides.
Of course, Ace is one of those characters in the category of “most likely to give himself a tummyache,” and for all of you indigestion lovers out there…yeah, a sickly, bloated Ace will definitely be an extra gassy Ace. Bubbling ripple after bubbling ripple will leave his belly even if he physically tries to stop it, leaving him a groaning, green-gilled mess every time. At least each burst of gas gives him a LITTLE bit of relief…that’s the last time he’s eating all the tarts in the fridge…
…Well, no it isn’t, but…he’ll pretend it is.
#headcanon#burp canons#kink-related#belching#burping#stuffing#ace trappola#disney#twisted wonderland
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In Heart
D&F: Here is the last of the three fics! Hope you enjoy it!
Lily: And happy April Fools!
Map bot never minds helping DJ and Freddy with their romance. Heck, she’s a sucker for the whole thing. Even when it’s a secret affair. Fazbear Entertainment’s policy forbids romance because of how nasty the altercations can be when something goes wrong. She’s seen some of them: the notorious Romeo and Juliet employees whose “quiet” relationship blew up into a fierce argument that divided the human staff for a few weeks. The food employees whose subtle romance at the food court turned sour one day and begin sabotaging each other’s stations. Oh, and there was also the music department’s fiasco that was a “war” between employees! All of it dating back to two humans who were in a relationship “on the down low”, and one of them decided to steal the other’s work for a raise.
Map finds them interesting, more so than the ones that the humans watch in the break room. She loves watching the affection, the caring nature that blossoms between lovers, and the cute little things they do for one another. The bot even got to play a part of them. Mostly delivering, covering…and cleaning.
So…so much cleaning.
Although Map bot isn’t one for disasters, seeing the disasters of these romances were fascination. The ripple effects they had on the work force, the destruction it creates, all to suddenly fade away as if they never happen. Love is a complicated thing that can either become a beautiful scenery, or a violent spiral. So, for DJ to reveal that he and Freddy confessed to each other. Well…she has done EVERYTHING to keep such a sweet relationship safe and whole.
One of them is helping these two with their long distance problem.
Map had researched everything on long distance relationships. The chances of them being successful are…not particularly high. In fact they have a very…VERY low percentage. From higher chances of cheating to occur to simply falling out of love. While neither Freddy or DJ will ever cheat on each other, or stop being in love, it was something the bot didn’t want to leave to chance.
“Done!”
The S.T.A.F.F. Bot stares up at the grinning music man. The disc jockey had been working on a new song, humming out certain parts to see which instrumental tune would fit best. Even playing it over to the staff animatronic for opinions. Map bot had been leaning against the stage, pondering for a while. “Freddy is going to love this one!” Map bot’s eyes widen. Of course! “WAIT.” She gazes up at the robotic spider, “WHY NOT ADD SOMETHING ELSE TO IT?” DJ tilts his head, “Add something else?”
“A GIFT CARRIER!” suggests the bot. The animatronic spider blinks, “Gift carrier?”
“A GIFT CARRIER DELIVERS THE GIFTS THAT YOU WISH TO GIVE TO THE PERSON OF INTEREST FOR YOU!”
Map remembers seeing those carriers coming in the megaplex, bringing gifts and handing them to the one of the employees with a song and a smile. “Neat, but uh…” The music man hesitantly scratches his cheek, “I can just send the song I made through text.”
“BUT THAT IS WHAT YOU ALWAYS DO!” Map bot raised her voice. Her hands animate as she continues, “YOU SHOULD MAKE THIS MORE INTERESTING THAT WILL DAZZLE FREDDY!” Seeing the surprise on the giant animatronic’s face made the S.T.A.F.F. Bot calm down. “A-AT LEAST FOR TODAY!” She added. DJ rubs his chin as he thinks on it. “Yeah…I guess I should!” He smiles, “Here’s the music!”
The worker animatronic receives a message with the music attached. Yes! Now to get this in motion! “I WILL ALSO MAKE SURE HE RECEIVES IT IN THE MOST ROMANTIC WAY WITHOUT DRAWING ATTENTION.” Map bot promised. The disc jockey chuckles as he watches her rolls away with a thumbs up. He then pause as he realize something.
“Just remember not to draw attention to yourself!”
==============================================
Map bot understands to keep things on “the down low”. As a S.T.A.F.F. Bot, staying out of everyone’s attention is simple. No one pays that much attention to the staff animatronics, they are basically invisible. Anything they do go unnoticed, unless one does something serious enough to warrant that attention. Like glitching out, getting destroyed, ruining anything, things that don’t happened too often…Well the “destroyed” part does, but that’s totally different topic. Point blank, a S.T.A.F.F. Bot can easily get away with doing anything without drawing any gazes to them.
Which is why she rolls along to Fazerblaster with six heart shaped balloons in each hand.
Freddy happened to turn around just in time to notice her. “Oh! Hello, Map bot!” The orange glamrock greets, “Are you delivering all of this to someone?” The bot may not have a mouth to visibly show it, but her happiness just radiates from her. “YES.” She beamed. “TO A VERY SPECIAL BEAR, FROM A LOVING ADMIRER!” The animatronic worker even did the twirl she remembered seeing a carrier do one time. To add a bit more to the flare, she decides to play the gift for the lead singer.
He gasps, “This music!” His ears wiggle as excitement sparkle in his stare. Now to finish it off by giving the robotic bear his gift via text message. “FOR YOU!” Map said. The look on Freddy’s face as his cheeks flush, she couldn’t help but feel pride. “This is so sweet!” The bot’s chest puffs up the more she listens, “Although…” Her eyes opens, catching the hint of confusion on his expression.
“He could have just sent the song to me through text.”
The S.T.A.F.F. Bot’s eye twitches. “HE WANTED TO DO SOMETHING INTERESTING.” She answered with annoyance. The glamrock bear quickly raises his hands, “I know, and I appreciate it!” He then begin fiddling with his fingers. “I am a bit more…simple, is all.” admits the bear animatronic. All Map bot could do is stare at him. All that hard work…gathering spare balloons, finding the machine to blow them up, even the strings used to tie the balloons took a while to obtained. Yet, the lead singer still prefers simplicity. Her shoulders slump.
Freddy blinks, “Map?” The bot doesn’t reply. Instead, she shoves the balloons into his hands. “ENJOY.” She said. Dejected, the staff animatronic heads out. “Wait.” Map bot stops. She glances back at the concerned glamrock. “Is something wrong?” He asked. The S.T.A.F.F. Bot wonders if she should tell him the reason. What if it ends up causing the animatronic bear to feel insecure about the relationship? Then again, she didn’t want him to continue worrying about her…“I WAS THE ONE WHO SUGGESTED IT.” Map bot reveals, “AS A WAY TO HELP.”
“Help?” Freddy tilts his head. Sighing, the animatronic worker turns to him. “ONLY THIRTY-ONE PERCENT OF LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS ARE SUCCESSFUL. MEANING THAT THERE IS A SIXTY-NINE PERCENT CHANCE OF FALIURE.” She explained. The bot drops her head in shame, the one time she decides to fully insert herself in a relationship willingly and she messes up. A hand gently pats her shoulder. Surprise, she gazes up at him.
“Map bot, thank you for your concern.” The robotic bear warmly smiles at the staff animatronic, “However, I can assure you that our relationship will not fall apart so easily.” A sad expression appears on Map bot’s face, “I AM SORRY…” The glamrock leader chuckles, “Do not be sorry! It was actually a very interesting gesture to suggest!” Seeing the happiness radiate from Freddy gave the robotic worker assurance that things are still well.
Good…
“In fact…” the orange glamrock smiles, “If you do not mind, I wish to use your service for today as well.”
=============================================
“No way!”
DJ couldn't help but be happily surprise at the sight. Map bot had returned to the DJ Arena, wearing the space gear from Freddy's attraction as requested from the glamrock leader himself. She even has the fazer-blaster in hand! “FROM THE INTERSTELLAR DELIVERY SERVICE, YOU HAVE A MESSAGE FROM THE SPACE RANGER HIMSELF!” says the staff animatronic as she poses. She then plays it out loud:
“Thank you for sending me such a lovely gift, my dear Titan! I hope that you enjoy mine!”
The music man burst into laughter as his hands covers his deep red face. It’s the first time the bot has ever seen him like this! A warm feeling within her swells. Once the laughter dies down, the disc jockey lowers his hands for her to see his bashful gaze. “Maybe doing this wasn’t so bad, after all!” He chuckled.
In the end, the two animatronics came to an agreement to let Map bot do her gift carrier idea. Albeit, only under special occasions and for them to be minimal. She gladly did so whenever the opportunity arrives. Though, with how extravagant the Pizzaplex tends to be on the holidays, she finds herself going a bit overboard during those times. Still, the S.T.A.F.F. Bot is thankful to be able to help the two romantics in any way she can.
#FNAF: SB#DJ x Freddy#DJMM x Glamrock Freddy#DJ Music Man#Glamrock Freddy#Map bot#spacetunes#fanfiction
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i was tagged by @planteria ty!! <3
S: fav tropes, actively seek out, will almost always read unless done too horribly (bad writing/characterization)
A: love it but won't always read/look for. really just side stuff thrown into what i usually love. if it's not written that well, i probably won't read either
B: generally enjoy if thrown in but not important, don't look for and don't read too often, but if i see it i might check it out if it sounds good enough
C: not a fan, but if it's in a fic that looks good, it won't turn me away too fast
D: if this is in a fic, i guarantee i'm not reading it. even if it has some S tier tropes of mine
id and explanations under the cut!
tagging @quenchiestzukka @zukkaoru @zukkas @that-was-anticlimactic and @dykevirgo
[image id: S tier tropes: angst, canon divergence, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, humor, in vino veritas (drunken confession), first kiss, mis-communication, mutual pining, slow burn / A tier tropes: sharing a bed, coffee shop au, fake relationship, fluff, hurt comfort, huddle for warmth, pwp, time loop, crack fic, amnesia fic / B tier tropes: established relationship, fix it fic, gen fic, high school au, magic au, missing scenes, college au / C tier tropes: unrequited love, unhappy ending, arranged marriage, soulmate au, baby fic, body swap, major character death, historical au, love triangle, fairytale au, pregnancy fic, royalty au / D tier tropes: ABO, bang or die, dark fic, cross-over, sex pollen. / end id]
alright so the thing is. i’m a sucker for getting together fics. which is why i dont love established relationships, i just need to see all the action as it happens. i have both angst and humor listed under S tier because when either of them is done right i literally cant get enough. but also bc i need fics for different moods. crack fics are very hard to get right, but when they are good they are Great imo. and like sometimes i just need to see my silly blorbos in silly situations. coffee shop au is A tier and ngl that’s probably because i read A Lot of zukka. and tbh i havent read a time loop fic but if you know one pls tell me! the concept is just so appealing. pwp is there bc i like it better when there’s a plot but yk. sometimes you gotta. amnesia fic is listed there bc im a dramatic bitch and also like. well. theres this one amnesia fic that changed my life idk if youve heard of it
so i dont love high school aus bc i guess im just not that interested in high schooler’s lives anymore lmao. college aus are fine but theyre not my favorite, also they stress me out bc they remind me of. college. missing scenes and fix its are not listed higher bc i feel like you need to be Really Good to get them right and most of the times there are no missing scenes and the thing doesnt need to be fixed.
my c tiers include tropes that i highly highly dislike, but they don’t make me cringe or actively repulse me lol. either that or i just dont read them because theyre sad and im weak.
ty jen this has been so much fun!! <3
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Maximum activity of the Orionid meteor shower
Orionids 2022
From October 2 to November 7, the Orionid meteor shower manifests itself annually. The maximum activity of the flow falls on several nights — from October 20 to 23.
The Orionids are not a very bright and noticeable shower, at least in the present era. But it is quite famous - primarily for its connection with the most popular comet in the Solar system - Halley's comet - it is its progenitor.
Most meteor showers come from comets. Approaching the Sun, they thaw, small pebbles and dust are released from their ice captivity. It's like - the ice cream has melted, but the nuts remain - they continue to move along the comet's orbit, but with slight deviations. Over time, the entire orbit of the comet is filled with meteoroid content, and its greatest concentration, of course, is near the comet itself - the source of all this.
The orbits of some comets lie in close proximity to the Earth's orbit. And when our planet flies into this meteoroid swarm, we become witnesses of starfalls. There is no need to encounter the comet itself - it is enough to meet the products of its vital activity.
The Earth crosses the orbit of Halley's comet twice a year - in May (this meeting gives rise to the Eta Aquarids or "May Aquarids" meteor shower) and in October (and this time the meteors seem to be flying at us from the constellation of Orion - Orionids). May Aquarids are traditionally brighter and more active - because in May we get more closer to the comet's orbit. But Aquarius is a southern constellation, and in the month of May it is practically invisible in the northern latitudes, so all the charm of the Eta Aquarids goes to the inhabitants of the southern hemisphere - there the Eta Aquarids are compared with our beloved Perseids (the most powerful meteor shower of the northern sky).
The Orionids are very visible in the northern hemisphere. Their radiant (a region on the celestial sphere from which shooting stars - meteors) scatter) is located within the constellation of Orion. And Orion is perfectly visible in the northern latitudes in October. But the activity of the Orionid shower is noticeably lower than the activity of the Aquarids - in October, our planet approaches the orbit of Halley's comet not so closely.
One can guess that the activity of the shower generated by a certain comet is the higher, the closer the comet itself is to the Earth, because most of the meteoroids are concentrated around it.
Note: terminology needs to be clarified. Some astronomy lovers get confused in it.
A meteoroid is a celestial body of small size - from fractions of a millimeter to several meters. Its encounter with the planet's atmosphere can cause the phenomenon of a meteor (the glow of evaporating and ionized gases) or even the precipitation of a solid residue on the surface of the planet, if the meteoroid is large enough.
A meteorite is a solid remnant of a meteoroid that has fallen to the surface of a planet.
A meteor is an optical atmospheric phenomenon caused by the heating and evaporation of the substance of a meteoroid that entered the atmosphere from outer space at high speed. (Characteristic speeds are from 20 to 100 km per second. For the Orionid stream, this is 50-70 km per second.)
A bolide is a bright meteor. Usually fireballs include meteors, the brightness of which exceeds zero magnitude (0m). There are fireballs with a brightness exceeding the full Moon, but most often they also simply burn out in the atmosphere, although it is the flight of the fireball that can end in a meteorite fallout.
I participated in observations of the Orionid meteor shower in October 1985 as part of a special expedition at the Crimean observation station. Halley's Comet was then approaching the perihelion of its orbit (perihelion is the closest point to the Sun in the orbit of a celestial body). The activity of the flow was unusually high. And every night for two weeks we counted several hundred "shooting stars". On the nights of the maximum flow - October 20, 21, 22 - about 700-800 meteors were recorded.
But now - 37 years later - Halley's comet is approaching the opposite point of its orbit - aphelion. Now it is the farthest from the Sun and from the Earth, and the concentration of meteoroids in that part of the comet's orbit where we meet it is minimal. Therefore, the peak activity of the shower is also low. It is estimated at 15-20 meteors per hour.
What is 15-20 meteors per hour?
No, it's not what you think.
Most people assume that with this amount of shower activity, they are guaranteed to see 1 meteor in 2-3 minutes of observation. But these are vain hopes.
It is assumed otherwise. Let's imagine that the radiant is located at the zenith - directly above the head of the observer ... no - above the head of a group of observers (presumably 10 people). In the region of the sky limited by a radius of 30 degrees from the zenith (and in total - 60), each observer registers a certain number of meteors, which he reports to the secretary. It happens that a certain meteor is seen by just one observer, and some events are confirmed by a large number of group members, because there is such a parameter as the attentiveness coefficient. It is different for different observers. Beginners can have 10, 15 20%. Experienced observers can notice up to 70-80% of all meteors available to the eye in the designated area of the sky. But no one sees all the meteors. And only when comparing all the evidence received from all members of the group, taking into account the personal factor of attentiveness, the total number of meteors from a certain stream is calculated for the average hour of observations. These calculations involve a correction for the state of the atmosphere, the height of the radiant above the horizon, the degree of illumination or twilight skyglow, and much more.
What is the conclusion from this?
If you're a beginner and don't watch meteors all the time - a few nights a month - your attention quotient is probably low - no more than 20%. This means that under ideal conditions (in the absence of the Moon in the sky, urban illumination, a transparent atmosphere and the location of the radiant at the zenith), you will be able to notice only every 5th meteor.
Add to this urban smog. street lights, low radiant position... well, you get the idea - if you manage to see at least one "shooting star" in an hour. You are lucky - make a wish.
But be that as it may, spending the night (or at least an hour) under the twinkling October stars is a great choice, because in addition to the meteors of the Orionid shower, meteors of other streams or out-of-stream meteors in general are regularly lined with the night sky - there are also such, because interplanetary space is by no means empty, and there are quite tiny celestial bodies in it - the size of a small stone or a berry, which, when meeting the Earth, will please you with a beautiful celestial phenomenon, and they themselves will disappear, merging forever with our planet.
Recommendations for observations
The radiant of the Orionid meteor shower is located in the northern part of the constellation Orion, near the border of the constellation Gemini. The best guide for finding the radiant in the sky is the orange-red star Betelgeuse - Alpha Orionis. The radiant will be a few degrees north of Betelgeuse. it is from this direction that meteors will fly across the sky.
The radiant will rise at about 22:00, but will rise to a height sufficient for observations only by 3:00 in the morning - it is not very effective to look earlier.
True, the Moon will also rise at about 2 o'clock in the morning, But it will not interfere much - its phase will be 20%, and the Moon will look like a thin old sickle - the brightness of the Moon will be insignificant - urban illumination is much stronger.
By the way, the next night the Moon will practically not manifest itself in any way, being in the sky only in the morning. And the flow activity will still be maximum.
It is necessary to observe meteors with a wandering eye - not clinging to individual stars, but trying to contemplate the entire sky, as far as possible. And you need to do this in maximum physical relaxation, throwing all daytime thoughts out of your head. In this sense, watching meteors is an excellent meditation, and it brings its own positive changes.
About future
In a couple of years, Halley's comet will slowly but surely begin to approach the Sun again, which means that the activity of the meteor shower, having passed the pit of oblivion, will again begin to gain activity. At first, it will be imperceptible and very slow, because now the comet is beyond the orbit of Neptune (Neptune is the most distant known planet in the solar system, but Halley's comet is now even further), and its speed is low. But closer to the middle of the century, the Orionids will again manifest themselves as a noticeable meteor shower of the northern sky, and in 2060-2061 it will pour starry rain on the mortal Earth, because it is then - in the summer of 2061 - that the most famous of the comets, Halley's comet, will visit us again.
Let's save life on Earth at least until this astronomical event!
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