#in my mind all of it is canon if you string the time lines together right
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Rex, trying to give a motivational speech but then it evolved into him casualty talking about his really really fucked up cadethood:
“-I mean yeah all the other kids bullied me, hated me even, and no one liked me or even came near me. Come to think of it I did get shuffled around a lot, but that’s just because my entire original batch was decommissioned. And yeah I did have a lot of near death experiences, but I only needed to be resuscitated a handful of times. Ha, there was that one time a trainer threw me off a platform because they were sick of dealing with all my paperwork, but I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and hauled myself out of the ocean. You know what they say; you want something done you gotta do it yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you! I think I came out the other side just fine and I’m stronger because of it! :)”
The entire 501st: “…whAT THE FUUUUUCK!”
#kix: I’m getting you a counselor immediately#Jesse: I want a list of people who have harmed you immediately#Echo: can I offer you emotional support in these trying times?#fives: I know our upbringing is ass to begin with but damn that’s super extra fucked up#Dogma: *is calling the command squad up rn*#Hardcase: what Jesse said but im going to hunt them down for sport with a flame thrower#tup: *now has like 100 new fears and secon hand trauma from Rex’s story’s alone*#y’all writers are going hard with all the Rex angst and whump keep up the good work#in my mind all of it is canon if you string the time lines together right#captain rex#fives#echo#hardcase#jesse#kix#Dogma#tup#commander cody#star wars#tcw#star wars: the clone wars#the clone wars#the 501st legion#the prequels#arc trooper#clone trooper#Rex is severely traumatized#just smiling through the pain#forgetting all of your childhood trauma and putting the rest in a box for later works wonders for the mind#my post
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Baby Fever
Warnings: breeding kink, rough smut implied, smut-ish stuff, some minor choking, smut talk (breeding smut talk...if yk...yk). MDNI this is only for the grownups (18+).
Authors note: this drabble is canon to the HHP storyline > : ) I had this in mind for a few days and wanted to quickly draft it for yall to hold you guys off until the treat comes out this weekend 😉
What a gorgeous morning it was; the sun beaming brightly and the fresh, crisp Spring air filled with the chirping of birds, and the newborn flowers blooming in greeting. You woke up alone, figuring Heeseung was downstairs in the kitchen, considering the minor commotion you overheard from the bedroom. You got up and figured that on the first day of Spring, what better way to greet your lover than to wear the dress that he absolutely loved seeing you in. It was a purple mini floral, rather form fitting despite the subtle empire waist line, which gently showed a hint of your curves. The front had a stringed, lace front that tied the scoop neck line together, cradling your breasts and proposing the faint curves of your cleavage. It was both sexy, and pretty, especially when paired with sheer, black, thigh-high stockings, edged with a beautifully elegant damask pattern that subtly hid beneath the hem of your short dress. Your hair was left freely down, since that was the way he always preferred you wore it. He loved your hair.
Every single night, he would run his fingers through your strands, rubbing them together to savor the silkiness of the texture. He never cared to use a brush because it took away the pleasure of feeling that softness of your locks. The way he would drape the length of your strands over his knuckles and rub it against his cheek, inhaling the floral scent of your shampoo, which always ended with him leaning in to suck on the back of your neck. If anyone should think that his behavior with your hair is absurd, you wonder what they would think when he looks into your eyes, or take his time to feel your skin...guess that will be saved for another story.
After conducting your morning hygiene, you walk down the stairs. Gripping on the ball tip of the large banister, you playfully swung your way around to face the open view of the kitchen and dining area, immediately making eye contact with Heeseung.
He smiles as he stands on the opposite end of the large kitchen island, with his palms plastered on the surface top and leaned over just slightly over a mug, more than likely containing his favorite coffee drink. He was dressed all in black, a black fitted tee, lightly tucked in black fashionable fitted cargo pants, with a black hat. The lines located at the corner of his lips was all that the bill of his headpiece would allow you to see as he smirks upon seeing you enter the kitchen.
"Oh, y/n! It's so good to see you."
Shocked by the voice from the side, you turn to view over shoulder and saw Steve, one of the frat tenants that lived with Heeseung and the other roommates.
"Hi Steve. When did you come back from vacation?" you ask with a delicate smile as you greet him, when a young woman appears from behind him with a small bundle locked in her arms. "I got back last night, it was so late and I didn't want to wake anyone so I stayed at a hotel. But, let me introduce my sister, she just had a baby two months ago and was in town so I decided to bring her over to meet everyone."
You smile gleefully as you greeted Steve's sister. "Oh nice to meet you." you delicately spoke as she does the same. "It's nice to meet you, your y/n, right? Steve was just introducing me to Ethan and mentioned you, it's so good to meet you."
Your peripherals caught on to Heeseung remaining stagnant in his stance, eyeballing you, Steve, and his sister, Lauren. He takes a sip out of his cup, his eyes never breaking away from you.
"How far along in college are you?" Lauren asks, in which you respond sweetly as you both continue talking about college life. Heeseung remained as he always did when around other people, a bit standoffish and quiet, glaring over and keeping an eye on you. At least he was being a bit more pleasant since he knew Steve, being roommates under the same roof for years now. It was typical, everyone, including the frat tenants, all knew that Heeseung "Ethan" became a walking malice since he began dating you, and it was evident that he cared for no one or anything other than you...you wonder what they would think if they ever knew that there indeed, was an "Ethan" entity that was more than just an english version of his birth name.
"Would you like to hold the baby?" Lauren gains your attention back as she presents her bundle of joy. "Oh...um sure." Cradling the small child, you held him tightly as you cupped him against your bosom. "Wow, you're so good with him." she remarks surprisingly as she straightens her dress and heads to the bathroom to freshen up.
That was to be expected. With all the time spent babysitting for your neighbors while in high school, you were quite used to holding and handling a newborn baby. You sat down on the dining chair and laid the baby against your chest, gently patting and rubbing his back, all the while he drifted off with his head nestled against the crevice of your cleavage.
"Looks like you're ready to be a mom." Steve joked aloud, meanwhile Heeseung kept sipping on his coffee, occasionally eyeing you from the corner of his sharp gaze.
"Noooo." you chuckled out. "I used to babysit for my neighbors, they had a baby that I would look after often." You explained, keeping eye contact on the baby's soft head as you gently palmed the back of it, rubbing the tip of your nose against it.
After some time went by, Steve and Lauren departed to spend a day in the old town, leaving you and Heeseung alone in the frat house. With all the other tenants away to enjoy the ongoing Spring festivals, the house was completely empty, and would be that way for the entire day.
"Can we go out for a walk?" you ask as Steve and Lauren walked out the door. Heeseung gently sets down his cup and issues a subtle nod. "Okay, I'm going to get my phone." you smiled out as you walked up the stairs, with him slowly following close by. Guess he needed to get something from upstairs as well.
He opens the door for you, a traditional habit, and allows you to walk in first. Halfway in the room, you barely caught your breath as you felt a sudden shift in motion with a firm lock around your waist. Nearly levitating you from off the ground, Heeseung swooped, and flung you on his bed, following suit and hovering over your body as you turn to face him. You stutter out a gasp from shock as your hair lays in a massive spread, with a few delicate strands across your face. There, you were met face to face with the devil.
His eyes dark, and his smirk was devious, but you could tell by the minor shine in his iris, he didn't swap over to his other side. The bill of his hat kept the shadow to grace over his face as he stares down. With one hand gripping your shoulder, the other reaches up and starts to pull the string tie at the front of your dress. He pulls, dreadfully slow as you feel the flap of your scoop neckline coming undone; one by one, he pulls each string until the opening was completely loosened. Your nipples peek from beneath the expanded laced string as your dress holds its remaining form. The hem was rolled slightly up from the swing of his strength when he threw you on the bed, exposing those thigh high stockings in full. Chuckling deeply, he pulls the last string on your dress as he spoke out in a shallow tone. "Does my girl want to be a mommy?"
You shook your head subtly. You were just being helpful, there was no way you thought about having children, besides, it was far too early considering you were still in your first year of college, not to mention you were still on birth control.
"N-no..."
"Mm...I think you do." he responds in an antagonizing manner and gently shifts the pieces of hair away from your face. He props himself steady with his palm plastered on your collarbone, and raising his body to rests on his knee caps. There, he takes advantage of your already spread thighs, and reaches in under your dress to scoot your lace panties off to the side. Once you were completely exposed to the cool air, he reaches in and with flickering fingertips, he tickles the sensitive flesh in between your plush folds. You gasp and moan out soft giggles, as did he. With a dark chuckle and biting down his lip, he remains propped to display the full sight of his abdominal region, where you admired the view of his hand reaching down, gently unzipping his black trousers, and his strong veiny hands fishing out the massive and swollen muscle that caused you to gasp at the mere sight of it. You reached up, grabbing onto his forearm as he remained on your collarbone, feeling his thumb swiping over the contours of the bone. Anticipating for what he was going to do, you felt yourself riddling with a burning sense of desire and passion.
You watched as the girth of his shaft and the bulbous tip disappear under the material of your dress as he leans in, and feeds it through, piercing your fleshy barrier until it finally makes its way in. He buries his face into the crook of your neck and speaks against your skin, "no more taking birth control."
"Uh...uh huh...."
"I wanna hear you say it."
"I-I'll get....get off it..."
"Let me take care of you....let me fuck you."
"Mm...mmhmm..."
He raises his form and once more, he props himself up by the extension of his forearm and palm planted beside your head on the bedspread. With his strong hand, he raises it as the tips of his fingers drag along your skin. Gently, with his fingers gracefully wrapping around your throat, he gives a faint squeeze, just enough to make you gasp a separate moan. With a dark and devilishly handsome smile, he gleams under the shadow of his hat; there it was...that eerie and rather handsome smile of malice and passion formulates on that face of his.
"Ready?"
You nod somewhat hesitantly. Bracing for intense pleasure, you knew all too well what was about to come, especially when feeling the throbbing sense of his tip as it barely lies inside you. "Y-yes...yes daddy..." you whispered, grabbing hold of his wrist as you prepare for a momentum that is unlike anything this world could replicate.
"Yeah?...come here, let’s do this, mommy."
> : )
#heeseung x reader#heeseung scenarios#heeseung smut#enha x reader#heeseung hard hours#heeseung hard thoughts#heeseung fanfic#enhypen hard hours#enha heeseung#enhypen smut#heeseung yandere#heeseung imagines#enhypen heeseung#enhypen heeseung smut#heeseung#heeseung au#heeseung enhypen#heeseung x you#lee heeseung smut#lee heeseung x reader#yandere heeseung
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bloodsport – II
prologue | part one | next
characters: vladimir makarov
summary: you never realized how boring captivity could be. you hate to admit it, but makarov is the only interesting thing around, and perhaps the closest thing you have to an ally in this place.
genre: angst, slowburn, enemies to ?, fem!reader (callsign: petra, no desc.)
warnings: semi-proofread, cursing, canon-typical violence, descriptions of blood/injuries, inaccurate medical procedures, reader gets harassed :/, reader kills a dude, russian written by a non-russian speaker (please correct me if it's wrong!!)
word count: 3.7k
note: the temptation to write the filthiest makarov/reader/yuri fic is slowly taking over my brain. i'm begging activision to reveal my ex-war-criminal husband already bc i have two hands for a reason
true to his word, you don't see makarov for the rest of the day. after you're brought back to your cell and locked away, you take the time to rest and gather your thoughts. the lumpy bed provides little comfort as you try to sleep, but it's better than the cold floor. you manage to drift off eventually, even with every voice and sound in the corridor stirring you awake.
when you finally drag yourself out of bed the next morning, blinking away any lingering exhaustion and gently stretching your sore muscles, the sky is still dark. the storm that was raging all night had subsided for now, and through the single barred window on the back wall, you can see groups of soldiers outside. running drills, training in marksmanship, transporting supplies, patrolling the grounds - it reminds you of the bases you've visited with the team.
the team. you trudge over to the only other furniture in the room, the metal chair that you moved to sit near the window, and plop down onto the seat unceremoniously. with how muddled your mind has been since the conversation with makarov, you've hardly had time to think about them.
they're alive. you just need to keep telling yourself that. they'll come for you as soon as they can. all you can do until then is keep faith and survive.
as a pair of boots stomps down the hall towards your cell, you begin to ponder if taking matters into your own hands is the only way you'll escape. you're just as capable as the rest of your team, surely you can find a way out of this crumbling prison.
you turn your head at the sound of keys jingling. a guard is standing at your door, unlocking it, before looking at you. "let's go," he says, thick accent lacing every word. "you're on a schedule."
with a small wince, you rise from the chair and cross the room. the guard starts down the corridor, heading in the opposite direction that you went yesterday. you follow close behind, clammy palms wringing together. it almost feels like you're restrained again, with metal cuffs digging into your wrists and binding you, keeping you from struggling or defending yourself.
after descending a staircase and passing a few corners, you reach wherever the guard was taking you. he pushes a door open and ushers you inside, revealing a sizeable shower facility. you send him a cursory glance, confused as he motions for you to step further into the space.
"shower." he mutters, standing by the door. you wordlessly turn to the showers, then back to him.
"do you mind?" you ask, nodding towards the door. "i'd like a little privacy. it's not like i can tunnel my way out."
he shakes his head at first, refusing your request, until you decide to do the same, silently staring at him. a beat passes between you until he spins around, grumbling something along the lines of "hurry up," and exits the room. once the door slams shut behind him, you let out a relieved breath and walk over to one of the many stalls.
you scan the area before carefully undressing, paying close attention so as to not mess up your bandages or strain any of your healing injuries. you quickly dive past the thin curtain and toss your clothes over the curtain rod.
a string of curses fall from your lips when you twist the knob and cold water pours out of the shower head, prickling like ice against your skin. cleaning yourself up whilst protecting your bandages is a difficult task, but you manage to keep them relatively dry. you were in need of a fresh set, anyway. grains of sand and dust leftover from al-mazrah is washed down the drain, and as you start to adjust to the freezing temperature, some of your muscle aches follow suit.
a few minutes of relief pass by as you try to relax, though the bliss is short-lived when you remember your conversation from yesterday. you hate the thought of listening to makarov of all people, but did he have a point? are you truly just as bad as him, even with good intentions being your motivation?
you're well aware of what your job entails. as captain price so bluntly puts it: we get dirty, and the world stays clean. you know that some missions leave a sour taste in your mouth and a doubt in your mind. are you truly doing the right thing? can you do better? is there a way to save everyone?
as you shut off the water and attempt to dry off with a clean towel left on a small bench nearby, you realize that you're giving makarov exactly what he wants. he brought up the topic with the intent of messing with your head. he's trying to break you - for whatever reason, you're not sure. all you know is that you can't give up. you have to stay strong for the team.
you pull your clothes back on, nose scrunching at the uncomfortable feeling of damp gauze sticking to your skin. the guards seemed to bounce between civility and cruelty depending on the moment; perhaps you can catch someone in a good mood and request a replacement.
the door swings open and you jolt, spinning around to face the intruder. the man from earlier is standing in the doorway, a look of disinterest evident even through his balaclava. "you are done, yes?"
clearly he isn't the person to ask, you think, following him into the corridor. he leads you back down the same path as earlier, through winding halls and up a set of stairs, stopping once you arrive at the cell you call home. you keep an eye out for anyone along the way who looks to be doing well, searching for a person to seek help from.
no one catches your attention, leaving you only one option: the guard currently locking the door behind you.
"uh– can i ask you a question?" you turn around to look at him, wrapping your hands around the iron bars. he sends a small glare in your direction, but pauses nonetheless.
"what?" he murmurs, standing up straight.
you lift your arms, showing off the damp and gradually loosening bandages. "any chance i can get these changed?"
his eyes flit down to your arms, then back to your face. he sighs, heavy and deep, and grumbles out a reply. "i will get the doctor."
with that, he leaves your sight, lifting a hand to his radio and saying something that you can't understand. "should've agreed to those fucking russian lessons from price," you mumble, staggering across the room and sitting on the bed while picking at your loose gauze.
it feels like an hour passes by before you hear someone coming down the hall again. by this point, you were assuming that the guard had forgotten about you.
you sit up from your slumped position against the metal frame and are immediately greeted by a new person on the other side of the door. an older man, nicely dressed and carrying a heavy bag that you fear will topple him over, regarding you with a grin that feels out of place in this shithole.
"you must be petra," he starts, pushing the door open and letting himself inside. he keeps his distance, both hands visible and wrapped around the handle of the bag in front of his body. "doctor tarkovsky." he continues, introducing himself. you nod, watching closely as he approaches you and places his bag on the bed next to you. the chair is dragged over, much like the other day, and he sits.
"the work you did... you saved my life, doctor." you mutter, allowing him to take one of your arms into his gentle hold. he hums in reply, taking great care in undoing the dressings.
"спасибо, but it was not me that saved you." he chuckles softly, eyes briefly lifting from your arm to meet your gaze. "the commander was responsible for that. by the time you arrived here and into my care, he had managed to stabilize you."
he mumbles something to himself about "his military days" while dropping his gaze back down to your newly exposed skin. your eyes follow his, and you wince at the sight of burn marks and stitched lacerations. a cold breeze enters into the room through the window and stings as it sweeps over you, making you clench your hand into a tight fist.
"the commander? you mean makarov?" you ask, forcing yourself to look away and stare at the wall behind the doctor. the same man that put you here is the one that kept you alive. go figure. you glare holes into a random brick, trying to make sense of it. based on the few interactions that you've had with him, as well as the many things that price had to say, that kindness seems out of character.
the fact that he hasn't tortured you to the brink of insanity is odd enough.
"yes, he demanded that i give you the best treatment. said he wanted you alive and in good condition." the doctor rummages through the bag next to you and begins to clean your wounds and apply new dressings, deft hands making quick work of the process. you remain silent as he wraps your arm in a new set of bandages, waiting for him to finish.
you finally speak once he's halfway through rewrapping your other arm. "is he always so... touchy?" you murmur, almost a whisper.
"touchy?" he repeats the word.
"i think i pissed him off yesterday," you say, tongue darting out to wet your chapped lips. "ended up slammed against a wall. is he always so quick to anger?"
after securing the bandages on your arm, the doctor leans back and shakes his head. "commander makarov is usually the calmest person in a conversation," he replies with a surprised huff. "whatever you said or did must have struck a nerve, made him lose his temper. even the soldiers working under him struggle to do such a thing."
you furrow your brow at him. he waves off your befuddlement and gets started on treating your other injuries - namely, the large gash on your side and the burns on your back. as he's loosely wrapping your back in gauze, he makes another comment.
"it could be that you angered him, rather than what you did."
"i angered him?" you parrot back to him, craning your neck to look at him over your shoulder. the doctor nudges you forward again and hums affirmatively.
yet another thing that doesn't make any sense, you think. besides your affiliation with the one-four-one, there's nothing about you that should stand out to a man like makarov. you don't possess any top secret intel or really hold any importance to anyone outside of your team; so, why is he treating you so strangely? is it a game he's playing, trying to mess with his real enemy, the captain?
are you merely a pawn, a bargaining chip between two forces much bigger than yourself? makarov is dangling your life like bait, hoping to catch a better prize. you squeeze your eyes shut and take in a deep breath, considering your options.
makarov would only hold onto you for one reason. drawing out captain price. that means price is alive, at least to makarov. if you stay here, you might be able to confirm this plan for yourself. however, if you can escape and deliver all the intel you've collected so far, you could prevent the plan from advancing any further. no matter which option you choose, rotting away in this prison cell won't help.
as kind as the doctor is, he's still one of makarov's men. you can't trust him. you're on your own.
"so, is it going to scar?" you inquire with a smile, fixing your shirt after he pulls away. he moves to gather his things, reaching into his bag and handing you a dose of painkillers.
he sighs and sends you another smile of his own. "the burns aren't deep enough, thankfully, and the lacerations shouldn't scar so long as they're properly cared for. you are very lucky."
"guess i am. thank you, again."
you swallow down the pills - dry, much to your chagrin - and give him a small wave as he exits the room, the iron door closing behind him with a soft clunk. the guard from earlier reappears to lock it moments later, leaving you trapped in the cell once more.
⋆⋆⋆
another five days pass by, and you mentally curse whatever higher power put you here. your routine remains largely unchanged: at roughly seven o' clock, one of the guards stops by to take you to the showers. by seven-thirty, the doctor arrives to change your bandages. you're given your only meal around noon and left to your own devices until eight in the evening, when the doctor arrives to change your bandages again.
you are slowly beginning to heal, at least. the lack of nutrition was stunting the process, but according to the doctor, you were still on the mend. it won't be long until you can get the stitches taken out.
you've spent several of these past one-hundred-and-twenty hours wondering if that's what makarov is waiting for. he wants you alive to torture, to indulge in breaking something fixed by his own hand. maybe the doctor is in on the plan. you wouldn't be surprised to discover that he's reporting your healing process to makarov, giving him a countdown of sorts.
as you rest on the cold, hard stone floor, with your back propped up against the side of the bed, tossing a rubber ball that you pocketed at the wall, you question if your paranoia is getting the better of you.
the rubber ball rolls across the ground after you throw it at the wall. it starts to come back to you, before bouncing off the edge of your boot and heading towards the door. you lazily follow it with your eyes, until you notice a person standing at the other side of the bars, their gaze transfixed on you.
it's a man wearing an outfit similar to the doctor's, though you can easily tell that he's substantially younger. in his late thirties to early forties, you estimate. he carefully kicks the ball out of his way after entering the room. you watch him like a hawk, an uneasy feeling washing over you.
"i'll be handling your care today." he announces, plopping his similarly-designed supply bag on the mattress. you pull yourself up to stand and dust yourself off, taking a healthy step back from him.
"something happen with doctor tarkovsky?" you ask as the younger man rummages through his bag and slips on a pair of latex gloves. he shakes his head, not even bothering to look at you, and continues searching through his supplies.
"tarkovsky is busy," he responds, motioning for you to sit. you hesitate for a second, but ultimately decide to shake off the nerves and follow his orders. "i'm going to start with your back today." he adds. you nod, moving to face away from him and lift your shirt up.
he's silent while replacing the gauze, and you're not sure whether you prefer that or talking. his touch is slightly less gentle, which you chalk it up to less experience. eventually, he moves on to the gash on your side, settling in the normal chair with an expression that you find hard to decipher.
your unease is suddenly validated as he cleans the stitches. his unoccupied hand comes to rest on your thigh, just above your knee, catching your attention. your eyes fall from the wall to his hand, then to the open bag at your side. laying near the top of it is a scalpel - small, but lethal in the right hands. you clear your throat and shift, bouncing your knee under his hold, testing the waters.
instead of removing his hand, he slips it just barely higher. you squint, gnawing at the inside of your cheek, debating on acting now or waiting a little longer. maybe he doesn't realize it.
as his hand slides higher, though, gloved fingertips digging into the plush of your thigh, that notion goes out the window. you slowly lower your hand closest to the bag and place it on the mattress next to it. the younger doctor pulls back, examining his work, his thumb rubbing languid circles into your skin. you act while he's distracted.
with trained proficiency, you grab the scalpel from the top of the pile and shove the man forward, slicing across his neck in one swift motion. he stumbles backwards, reaching up to desperately grasp at his throat as he chokes on the blood pouring from the open wound.
"don't fucking touch me again," you seethe, fixing your shirt and holding the scalpel in a white-knuckled grip. the sounds of him tripping over the chair and falling to the ground alerts the guards stationed in the corridor, who immediately rush through the door with their guns drawn and pointed at you.
they're shouting at you, but you can't make out what they're saying over the blood pounding in your ears. you turn away from the dying man and stare them down, unmoving from your spot in the middle of the room.
after a brief standoff, the guards suddenly look over their shoulders and shuffle away from each other, revealing a familiar face. one you haven't seen in almost a week, and assumed you wouldn't see for a while longer.
makarov steps to the front of the small group as the ringing in your ears begins to subside. his eyes dart from you to the man lying on the ground, having choked to death shortly before he arrived at the scene. he chuckles, low and controlled, and turns to the guards.
"убрать этот беспорядок," he mutters, waving towards the corpse. the men holster their guns and move past him, lifting the body up and carrying it out. as the group disappears down the hall, you find yourself alone with makarov. the scalpel slips from your fingers and clatters against the floor, pulling his focus back to you.
"well? are you going to punish me for that?" you ask plainly, the pool of red still visible in your peripheral vision.
"should i?" he counters, casually sauntering across the room. his gaze flits from yours to your cheek, which you soon realize is wet with the man's blood.
you shrug, shoulders drooping. "i killed one of your men. most people would punish a prisoner for less."
he wipes the blood off your cheek with his forefinger and huffs softly, seemingly pleased with the situation. it's only now that you notice his slightly disheveled appearance; his white dress shirt is untucked and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing off his forearms that are covered in a light layer of dirt. minor cuts and bruises bloom on his skin, resembling self-defense wounds.
"i could never expect a member of the one-four-one to accept capture quietly," makarov remarks, picking the chair up off the floor. "i'm surprised it took you this long, if anything. i was expecting to receive reports by the second day."
he raps his knuckles against the seat twice, urging you to sit. you end up mirroring your first interaction after he sits on the bed across from you, elbows resting on top of his knees.
you grab a set of cleaning wipes from the bag forgotten at the foot of the bed and offer them to him. "so, i'm assuming you're not here to share the fun story behind those obvious self-defense wounds?" you tilt your head to the side, regarding him with a sarcastic smile.
"like i said in our prior conversation," he takes the pack from your outstretched hand and haphazardly wipes his arms clean, the lack of care enough to make you inwardly flinch at the potential pain. "once traitors are found, they are dealt with."
"seems like they got to you first," you snort.
besides a pointed glare, he doesn't dignify your comment with a response. instead, he takes your arm into his hold, removing the old bandages with almost the same level of indifference that he treated his own injuries with.
"ow." you grunt, a bit overdramatic. in truth, his touch isn’t any less gentle than the doctor you just killed.
"stop complaining." he responds bluntly.
"maybe be more careful, then." you snap, tugging your arm back. you're being intentionally difficult, pushing his buttons, but you deserve to be a little shitty to the man holding you hostage.
makarov grabs your elbow, one of the few relatively uninjured parts of your arm, and yanks you forward, until your free hand slams down onto the space next to him to catch yourself from falling. he leans in, your noses nearly touching, and sneers.
"this is the extent of my kindness, petra." he tightens his hold when you try to create some distance, locking you in place. "do not tempt me to withdraw it." he whispers, dark eyes boring into yours.
you swallow back a whimper as his grip tightens again, blunt nails digging into healing skin, nodding in reply. he releases you a moment later and resumes his previous actions, quickly yet effectively rewrapping your arm. you grudgingly decide to cooperate for the other set, making it go by much faster than the last.
"tarkovsky said you're usually pretty calm," you mumble as he secures the bandages in place. "is it the one-four-one that frustrates you so easily? or, am i just a special case, hm?"
makarov, clearly interested in continuing the running theme since your first meeting, does not respond. you really should get used to it. you say nothing more as he stands up and grabs the discarded supply bag, walking towards the door. he pauses, holding the door open, and you nearly miss the words said to you over his shoulder.
"anyone else would be dead already."
translations:
спасибо (spasibo) - thank you
убрать этот беспорядок (ubrat' etot besporyadok) - clean up this mess
taglist: @sofasoap, @roosterr, @rohansregret, @lonesome-doves, @thorrsexual, @miss-nob0dy, @woodeelf, @fbs-fc-ur-mommy, @soap-mactavish, @itsyellow
⋆ feel free to ask to be added to/removed from the taglist! (18+ only please <;3)
#call of duty#cod#cod mw2#mw2#call of duty x reader#cod x reader#mw2 x reader#makarov x reader#vladimir makarov x reader#cod makarov#vladimir makarov#sylph.writes
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would it be possible to ask for a laurance x reader where they share a romantic date stargazing? mcd preferably!
𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃𝐍'𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐄
𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: mcd laurance x fem!reader
𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: you hadn’t been able to see much of laurance since he had taken on more night shifts for guard duty. you both missed each other's company, so he promised to come get you after his shift to spend a night with you.
𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒: fluff, it's established you and laurance are lovers (canon), headcanon lore on laurance and ungrth? constellations based on mcd lore
𝐂𝐖: none
𝐀/𝐍: idk how i feel about how i wrote this one, hopefully you still like it! idk i love the prompt but i feel like my brain was scattered writing it (also guys writing kiss scenes is hard btw)
𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓
you had been anticipating seeing him all day, barely able to contain yourself once he came into view. sleepy eyes light up when his gaze lands on yours.
“darling, it’s too cold out here,” he sighs, his steps quickening when he realizes you’re standing outside of your doorway. “you’ll get sick.”
your hands wrapped around your arms, the thin dress you wore not enough to shield you from the chilled night air of phoenix drop. quickly, he unclasped his cape from his armor, draping the thick material around your shoulders.
“i’m fine.” you insist, leaning forward to wrap your arms around his broad, armor-clad shoulders. “besides… i couldn’t wait to see you.”
he sighs again, weakly giving in to your argument as he leaned in and buried his nose in your hair.
“i’ll change first, and then we’ll go.”
he takes your arm in his as the two of you walk to his home, letting him change out of his clunky armor into a soft linen shirt and pants. before you could turn for the door, he grasps out onto your arm, pulling you forward and securing a thick cloak around your shoulders. after he deemed he had fused enough over your warmth and comfort, he places a fleeting kiss to your forehead. soon enough the both of you are walking side by side through the moonlit streets, hands laced together.
he had told you he had a spot in mind, a place he had gone to a few times before to clear his head. as you passed through the front gates laurance pulled you closer to him and scanned along the tree line, something that was probably an instinctual habit as a guard. his hand gently held your own, securing you against him when you passed over ditches and roots along the forest floor.
for now, the two of you didn’t say anything, only listening to the faint bristling of the breeze through the tree leaves, the soft footfalls of your steps, and the distant noise of night critters. finally, the two of you come upon a clearing, the trees breaking their cover from the moon and revealing the clear, constellation-filled sky.
soft white light reflected down onto the grass and beautiful white flowers that sprouted around the small field. laurance doesn’t release your hand, his rough hand engulfing yours as he guides you to the center of the clearing. you both lay back into the soft flora beneath you, gazing up at the twinkling lights above.
“i used to do this back in meteli.”
you lightly hum in response, squeezing his hand.
“when i was a kid, too. it’s how i met ungrth.” you look over to see him staring up at the stars with a wistful look on his face. “i stupidly wandered too far one night and got lost. i was upset at something that happened at the orphanage.”
“good thing you met him.”
“yeah,” he lets out a quiet chuckle. “if i had entered the territory of another wyvern, it wouldn’t have ended so well. a scrawny kid like me would’ve been easy pickings.”
“he used to point out constellations,” he continued, leaning closer to you as his free hand points up to a string of stars. “that’s the matron, see how it looks like a praying maiden?”
you nod. “was it named after irene?”
he nods, looking at you briefly with a small smile before he shifts his hand over to the left.
“that one over there is the protector, it looks like a knight with his shield. and above it is the wanderer.”
you watch him trace out different constellations, both ones that he was taught and others he has made up for fun as a child.
“it’s beautiful.” you breathe.
“yeah.” laurance softly replies.
you turn to see his gaze already fixed on you, gray-blue irises darting around the features on your face. he lifts his rough and scarred hand—proof of his hard training with no gloves—and brushes away loose strands of hair that have fallen in front of your face.
blood rushes to the surface of your skin, heating your cheeks as his fingers tenderly brush against the side of your face and trail down to your jaw. his thumb lightly traces over your lips, his eyelids heavy.
“the most beautiful thing i’ve ever seen.”
he gets up on his elbow, body shifting to lean over you. your eyes flutter shut as his lips ghost yours, breath stuttering in anticipation.
you wait a moment. then another.
“may i?” he whispers.
you grab the sides of his face with your hands, patience running out as you tug him down against you. slightly chapped lips clash into yours, not hesitating for a moment as they quickly mold against the shape of your own. he continues to gently caress your face, his touch stealing your breath away as his fingers trail down to your waist. his hand slides underneath you and lifts you closer to him, as if he couldn’t stand having any distance between the two of you.
“beautiful.” he whispered.
the kiss breaks, allowing you to finally catch your breath. his forehead rests against yours, your breaths mingling as he leans down to steal another chaste kiss.
slowly, he parts from you, looking down at you as he rests on his elbows. his eyes drift to something above your head, and he reaches out to pluck it from the ground. one of the clearing’s white flowers comes into view, as he spins the stern in his fingers, observing the soft petals closely.
“all of the stars in the sky and any flower i pick couldn’t compare.” he whispers, tucking the sweet-smelling blossom behind your ear.
©starhvney, 2024. please do not steal or repost my works as your own.
#aphmau#aphmau mcd#mcd x reader#x reader#mcd laurance x reader#laurance x reader#mcd laurance#aphmau minecraft diaries#minecraft diaries
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Captain John Price x Female Reader Dark Romance
Chapter Specific Warnings: canon-typical swearing, chasing through the woods, strong suggestive themes, dirty talk, showering together
Word Count: 5.2k
A/N: Part Nine of Dangerous Pursuit (for @glitterypirateduck)
Making one last effort to run, you utterly fail, only for Price to drag you back and seek punishment.
Chapter Eight // Chapter Ten
ao3 // taglist // main masterlist // dangerous pursuit masterlist
Open land. Distant tree line.
Out here, where the lights of the city are so far they’re invisible, you stew in sticky silence. Nature is loud but it’s also soft, and the thoughts in your head are the only distraction.
It is a maddening sort of tune. A rushing waterfall of information you cannot seem to switch off. It eats away at you, making you question everything again as if you haven’t done this countless times. Like you didn’t think about escaping the entire time you were in the car.
The new safehouse feels just like the one from three years ago. It too is isolated. A decrepit barn in the middle of nowhere with an interior that is at odds with its exterior appearance. But unlike the safehouse from three years ago, there is no underground bunker. There is no room for Price to lock you up in.
You should be grateful, but it only makes you feel vulnerable. There is nowhere in this barn for you to hide. Price is breathing the same air as you, standing in the same large room, and so near that all you need to do is turn in his direction.
On the lefthand side of the barn is paved ground where the black SUV is parked. Price is currently shutting the barn doors while you stand next to the car. It is still warm as you lean against it, taking in your surroundings.
To the right of the paved section, the floor rises slightly, a step up into an open space. This room is sectioned off by partitions and half-walls. Directly in front of you is a small cooking area with a square folding table and two chairs. Next to that is a worn couch and coffee table that is covered in scratches. As you peer closer at it, you notice a hunting knife embedded in the top.
“Not as nice as the other one,” says Price, startling you out of your observation.
“Not as nice as what?” you ask, unsure of what he means.
“As the previous place.” He means the house you were in just a few hours ago.
You glance around at the interior of the barn. “It could be worse.”
When you turn toward Price, he is right there, shoulders nearly brushing as he gazes down at you. His brow is soft and full of concentration. His gaze keeps dropping to your lips to observe your mouth. The memory of him kissing you on the elevator flares hot in your mind. The brand of his touch renewing to invisibly sear your skin.
“You’ll be safe here. Obolensky won’t find you.” Price’s voice dips to a softness that threads through your chest like a long ribbon. It squeezes tight and you find yourself leaning into him even as a small voice in your head tells you to resist.
Half of you says to trust him, and the other half tells you to run. It’s such an odd sensation, this tug-of-war that won’t cease. Every memory you have of John is laced with uncertainty, and even after all this time, part of you remembers how he made you feel. This closeness is only a reminder of how much you still ache for him, and how desperately you desire to flee.
Three years. Three years and still you cannot rid yourself of him.
“Alex might consider my disappearance a blessing,” you murmur.
“Maybe,” shrugs Price.
“You said he likes to take care of things himself. But he sent others to do it.”
“I did,” affirms Price, his mouth turning downwards into a slight frown. “Why are you bringing this up?”
“He sent others. I disappeared. No one has to know he failed except him.” Your gaze falls away from Price’s face. You stare at your feet. “And I don’t ever want to see him again.”
It’s the truth. The man you were growing to love only wants you dead, to string you up for his client like a hanged man. And yet, Alex couldn’t execute the act himself, something he always goes out of his way to do.
Price lightly brushes your chin, pushing your head upward, returning your gaze to his face. “I’ll make sure you don’t.”
The promise is meant to reassure, but you question whether Price means he’ll keep you safe by preventing you from crossing paths with Alex again or that Alex will no longer be alive to seek you out.
Because he might try if he still draws breath. There is no reason to find sympathy in your heart for the man. Not after everything.
Price’s thumb brushes just below the curve of your bottom lip before his grip there draws you close. You know what he’s doing. It’s like the elevator all over again. Your body tingles with the way he guides you to his lips. Price’s head dips, and your head tips to the side, welcoming him.
This distance between you shortens. Shortens some more. Panic swells suddenly and you turn your face at the last second. Price’s lips brush against the corner of your mouth. But he doesn’t draw away in defeat. Price’s hand unfurls, grabbing the bottom of your face. It’s not a harsh hold, but it is dominating, and curls something hot and needy between your legs.
“We can’t,” you reply, already knowing the question forming on Price’s lips. “John. We can’t.”
“Who says?” he asks, some raspiness leaking into his tone, the hunger there thick and palpable.
You were completely wrong. This place is much more isolating. There is all this space—both inside and out—and yet it’s suffocating. The need to bolt—the desire to run—revives within you, creating a miasma of anxiety that won’t leave you alone.
Giving in to John will only make things worse.
“Let me go.”
Price drops his hand immediately, but the separation is only a brief respite. He stands so near that you can pick up the slightly woodsy scent of him. You haven’t seen him smoke a cigar but you can smell that too. It is faint. Distant. Clinging.
Price brushes past you, the contact much too close and yet not close enough. He steps up onto the raised floor, heading for the kitchen area, opening the minifridge and peering inside. It’s empty minus a few items. Price pulls them out one by one, examining each.
“Expired,” he mutters, putting them all back.
“No food?” you ask, following him.
He glances over his shoulder. “There’s food. It’s all in cans or boxes. Dried stuff. Things that will keep. Does that bother you?”
“No,” you reply, shaking your head.
From here, you have a better view of the space beyond. There is a half-wall that separates the kitchen and communal space from the back area. There are beds. One is large, likely a queen, shoved into the corner. Next to it is a wooden table with various equipment on it. One looks like a massive two-way radio. The rest of it you don’t recognize. Beside that are two more beds, bunks that are bolted into the wall. As you step around Price to peer beyond, it reveals an open shower and a sink. The toilet is in its own space but separated by a curtain.
Everything in here is out in the open. There is literally nowhere for you to hide.
Price leaves you alone after that, as if he’s sensing your unease, but he’s also working. The laptop he has out in front of him is sturdy like you could smash it repeatedly against the ground and it would still hold its integrity. When he isn’t on the computer he’s talking on the phone, speaking softly. You can’t hear him, and while that stokes your curiosity, it also doesn’t help your anxiety.
It festers, and while you try to distract yourself with a book, it hardly keeps your interest. You’re stuck here, completely at Price’s protection and mercy. It is a comfort, and yet it isn’t enough. The silence and the book only give your mind time to process and stew and think about all your options.
Which makes the next part easy.
Slipping away this time is easy.
When night comes knocking, Price offers you the large bed, which you happily take. He picks the lower bunk, kicking off his boots and sliding in without another word. Maybe he is too tired—too exhausted—and has sunk into a deep sleep because you crawl out of the bed, dress yourself, and make it to the barn doors without incident.
The locking mechanism is simple but old. There is rust and it’s large. Clearly, Price doesn’t expect anyone to come out this far in search of you, which is a blessing, but makes the whole thing far too easy.
A trap, your brain spits, flaring hot. It’s a test.
You shove the thoughts down until they’re completely in shadow. You’ve already made the decision. You’ll see this through, even if you fail. You have to try.
The barn door creaks when you open it, and you flinch at the noise. You immediately pause, listening in the dark, waiting for Price to emerge like a predator after prey.
Nothing.
No hand appears from the shadows to latch on to you. No voice calls out, commanding you to stop, to turn around and come inside.
There is only silence, and the soft droll of insects.
Price did say he’d chase you anywhere. Do you truly believe him? Would he run after you? If you make it to the road and then back to the city, would Price be right on your heels, hunting you down to bring you back?
As you push the door open a bit wider, you slip through the space you’ve created, wiggling as you make it out into open air. The ground is wet. It rained and you didn’t even realize it. You don’t have a coat, but that hardly matters at the moment. There may be a slight chill in the air, but there is no wind, and a coat might overheat you once you start walking.
Getting back to the main road is the priority.
You can follow it back to the city.
You can—
“What are you doing?”
You whirl around. “John,” you gasp, as if his appearance is a surprise.
“You’re running,” he states, because it’s the truth and you both know it.
You stand there in the dark, watching Price as he crosses his arms over his chest. He lingers just outside the open door wearing nothing but a white shirt, cargo pants, and boots. His dark hair is messy, clearly tussled from sleep.
The worst part about it is that Price doesn’t even appear to be annoyed or angry. His face is entirely neutral, as if he knew you’d try this and was only waiting for it to happen. Of course he would. You tried to run from him yesterday. Even then, you only made it to the door.
Denial is silly. So, you don’t try. You don’t say anything.
“Are you going to make me chase you?” When your reply doesn’t come, Price sighs loudly. “Am I that bad?”
“I want to make my own choices,” you finally snap, because it’s the only thing you want in all of this. Every choice is being decided for you. All you want is a voice.
Price unlaces his arms and extends them outward. “You’re making a choice now.”
“But you’ll just drag me back!” you shout, throwing your hands up to the sky in exasperation.
“Exactly,” shrugs Price. “You’re making a choice to run. And I’m making a choice to track you down when you do.”
He steps forward, and an old, primal instinct in you flares hot, burning in your muscles.
“If you care about me at all, John. You will let me go.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not how this works, love.”
“Then tell me how it works.” You move away from him. Just one step, but Price notices, his gaze dropping to your foot before returning to your face.
“You’ll run anyway.” Price’s response has the hint of a growl on the end. The neutral expression is gone. Price’s gaze is intense. Heated. He wants you to run. He wants to chase you down.
The idea of the chase, of Price stalking you through the woods only to drag you back to the barn is like the first bite of real food after a long sickness. The thoughts that swirl in your head, the images of what he’ll do once he captures you repeats and shifts in your mind. They are drenched in red, but not in the vibrancy of violence. They are dipped with wanton lust, of skin against skin, of mouths moving against each other and across bare flesh. You think of yourself trapped beneath him. Writhing. Moaning. Begging for him.
Yet Price is correct. You will run regardless of what he says. It has been building in your blood like bricks. It was always going to come to this. It is what you do after all. Run and run and run because running is easy. Running has always been easy.
The tension in your limbs snap. Releasing, you turn on your heel, taking off toward the tree line. The air is crisp and cold as it enters your lungs. It stings your bare skin, an icy bite against the heat of your flesh. The ground is wet. Slick. Your shoes slip in the mud, but you manage to stay upright, pumping your legs as best as you can, breaking the tree line and entering the wood.
Price is sprinting after you. You can hear his boots hitting the ground, the rapid inhale and exhalation of his breath. Twigs snap beneath your own shoes and his. Even with your labored breathing that is slowly becoming rapid, you do not lose Price’s pounding footfalls. You hear them clearly.
You do what you know you’re supposed to do. To weave and duck, to not run in a straight line. With the trees, that’s easy, but there are still obstacles for you, and they’re slowing you down. A wrong move might send you tumbling. A wrong move might throw you right into Price’s path.
Chancing a glance over your shoulder, you spy him just a few feet behind. He is gaining, tearing through the path you’ve made like it’s nothing to him. You are no match for a man who chases people down for a living.
Why did you even think you had the possibility of success?
And where would you have gone once you made it out of the trees and to the main road? That is deserted too, especially at this time. You would have slowed down anyway, and Price would be on you in seconds.
The moment you turn your gaze back to the path in front of you, you nearly hurtle into a tree. Stumbling, you go to move around it, but you are too slow, and you’ve lost precious time. Every second counts, and you were too distracted to keep yourself on the path ahead.
Price is on you, wrapping his arms around your waist. Natural weight carries you both down to the ground. The trees block the moonlight, and the little that floods in obscures the ground that is quickly heading toward your face.
But you don’t land like you think you will—with a blow to your skull. Price shifts his body, turning toward the ground, moving you out of the way completely.
It is Price that lands in the mud.
You inhale. He exhales. Back and forth in shuttering silence, chests heaving as the exhaustion from sprinting starts to set in.
Price is on his back and you are draped over him, cheek pressed against his hard chest, hands holding on to him like an anchor. His arms are still wrapped around your waist, pinning you against him. The two of stay like this for a few breaths as if the situation is unfathomable. That the very idea of the two of you splayed out in the mud is part of the plan.
But it is you that finally breaks. It is you that finally moves.
Your hands press against his chest, palms flat. Shoving yourself away, you intend on returning to your feet, to stumble off and make another pass at freedom. But Price is larger. Stronger. His arms tighten, and then he’s rolling over, pressing you down into the sludgy mud.
You are pinned. Trapped beneath him. But not in the way you imagined.
Trying to beat your fists against his chest is useless. Price is a fucking wall. Solid. When you buck your hips to try and throw him off, it only rubs your pelvis against him, and the hardness that replies back ceases all further movement.
“Filthy girl,” he purrs. “Said I’d chase you.” He smirks and you want to slap it right off his face.
“Get off me, John,” you growl. The mud is already seeping into and beneath your clothes, cooling your skin, making the chill worse.
“Where were you running to?” he asks, breathing still slightly labored. “Where?”
“Away from here,” you reply sharply, smacking his chest. It is in vain. Price doesn’t even flinch. If anything, he’s amused, and that only drives your frustration higher.
“Running from me or this place?”
You want to wound him, to tell Price that it’s both. That you’re running from him as much as you’re running from the safehouse. But it’s a lie. You don’t want to run from him. Even though you’re frustrated with him and at the situation, freedom is the one thing you crave. Choices are important, and Price is giving you none. Yet it is not freedom from him. Price is not your master, and you are not a bird in a gilded cage.
He's trying to protect you and keep you safe the only way he knows how.
“Get. Off. Me,” you mutter, the mud now fully covering your backside and rapidly seeping elsewhere.
He inclines his head. “As you wish.”
Price abruptly pulls away, bringing you with him. He effortlessly tosses you over his shoulder. He turns, heading back to the barn. When you try to knock your fists and feet against him, Price’s rebuttal is a sharp slap to your ass.
“What the fuck!” you yelp, momentarily stunned.
“Stop moving. I might drop you.”
“Maybe that’s what I want,” you grumble, only to be rewarded with another slap to your right cheek.
Every step sends his shoulder into your stomach. You cling, hanging, just trying to stay aloft. Breaking the tree line, Price eases you off his shoulder and to your feet. The moment your feet hit the ground, you try to bolt, but Price holds tight. Using your natural weight, you attempt to destabilize him. To send him stumbling.
But Price is strong, and easily retains his grip.
Price drags you along, but you complain the whole time, muttering obscenities under your breath as he pushes you through the open barn door, slamming it behind him.
The two of you stand there, staring at each other in the silence of the barn. Price is splattered with mud which means you cannot be much better. You feel it in your hair and between your skin and shirt. It’s on the both of you. It’s fucking everywhere.
You make one more pitiful attempt to run. Price just rolls his eyes, hauling you into his arms again. He starts walking, stepping up onto the raised flooring, walking right past the kitchen area and beds to plop you onto your feet in front of the open shower.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you splutter. “You can’t toss me around like that.”
Price briefly glances at you before reaching past your shoulder to turn the dial on the shower. There is a rattling sound of old pipes jumping, and then clear water bursts from the shower head. The system might be ancient, but the water falls from the shower head like rainfall. It looks lovely, like something you’d have in your own home.
“John,” you prompt, leaning into his line of sight, but he isn’t listening. He’s completely ignoring you.
You try again. “John—”
Price grabs your upper arm and drags you under the falling water. It’s still ice cold.
“Fuck!” you shriek like a stabbed banshee.
In moments, you’re soaked through, shivering. Beneath your shoes, brown water pools before slowly creeping toward the drain. Leaning down, Price unties the laces of his boots, kicking them off to the side, away from the shower. They’re covered in mud, leaving brown splotches behind.
Then, Price steps under the spray beside you—joining you. The water finally starts to warm, as if it knew the exact moment Price would enter in.
“Shoes off,” says Price as his hands slide under the white shirt, guiding it up and over his head. That is also tossed aside—just like his boots—and you’re momentarily stunned by Price’s broad, bare chest.
You want to touch him—to run your fingers through the soft hair there that slowly trails below his pants. Just yesterday you saw him without a shirt. That too startled you, but right now you’re blazing. He is nearly on top of you, and all you’d need to do is raise your hand a few inches. That’s it. That’s all.
“Shoes,” he repeats, eyebrows rising slightly.
You bend to comply, the warm water rolling off your body as you take off your shoes and hastily kick them to the side. The mud is gone, but they’ll take forever to dry. When you return to standing, Price’s hands are on you. With one sharp tug, he rips your top open from neckline to hem, exposing your breasts to him, the room, and the water.
Your nipples pebble instantly.
“Jesus Christ, John,” you gasp, covering yourself up.
Price’s gaze isn’t even on your chest. He ripped your top without looking there at all, keeping his attention on your face. From there, Price continues, removing his belt and pants with ease. Then it’s just the two of you standing under the cascading water, steam rising to the rafters.
There is Price in his gray boxer briefs and you in a pair of sweatpants that are just a smidge too big. They are quickly starting to slip over your hips from the sheer weight of the water as it soaks into the fabric.
You reach for the waistband, only to miss, finding empty air and wet skin. It’s already gone. The sweatpants are at your feet. Price’s gaze briefly darts downward before returning to your face, that fierce hunger you saw there earlier returning in full force.
“Eyes up here,” you snap, pointing toward your face with two fingers while still covering your bare chest.
Price’s mouth twitches, the corner twisting into a hint of a knowing smile. There is a brief pause between that smirk and his next movement. Price’s thumbs slide beneath the waistband of his boxer briefs, and then those too are gone, putting the two of you on equal footing.
Bare. Standing close. Wet. Warm.
You don’t dare look down. Even though you want to. Even though your body heats from the mere idea of just how intimate this is. Price’s gaze stays on your face, and that is somehow more intense than if his gaze roamed over your body.
Reaching over your shoulder again, Price grabs a bottle off one of the shelves. He pops open the lid, turns it over, squeezes clear liquid into his palm.
“Wash,” he says. “Or I’ll do it for you.” He offers you the bottle of body soap.
“Fuck you,” you mutter, staring him in the eye.
Price clicks the lid shut. Puts it right back on the shelf. “You offering?” he purrs, stepping closer into your space. You take a step back, only to bump into the shower wall. “Just turn around, love. Spread those gorgeous legs. I’ll do the rest.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” you retort, grabbing the soap bottle and opening it up much too aggressively. The plastic lid is no match for your strength. It goes flying across the makeshift bathroom.
Price places his hand next to your head, anchoring himself there, trapping you against the wall. “I would,” he answers. “But so would you. Don’t deny it.”
Squirting some of the liquid into your hand, you return the bottle to the shelf and begin lathering the soap between your palms. Sighing, Price drops his hand from the wall and brings it to his other palm, lathering his soap up as well.
Price does not step back, and you do not push forward. The water falls between your bodies, the two of you staring each other down as both of you run the soap over your arms, chest, and stomach.
You won’t back down.
You won’t break first.
When you scrub your hair, lifting your arms up above your head, exposing your breasts, that is when Price’s gaze drops, focusing in on the way they lightly shake and bounce from your movements. You don’t hide. Instead, you give into the movement, taking extra care to exaggerate their gently sway. His lips part slightly like he wants to put his mouth against them. To taste and know them. The sudden thought brings a heat between your legs, and you find yourself squeezing your thighs together as a way to hide the fact you want him.
“Like what you see?” you tease, feeling bold in that moment.
Price’s gaze darts upward, and darkens. The hunger there is thick like rich butter. You could easily cut it with a knife, spread it around on fresh bread, savor the salty bite.
“Answer me honestly,” he rasps, and your hands immediately drop from your hair, the sudsy shampoo running down your back to greet the drain. “Do you miss him?”
Do you miss him.
Him.
Him.
Meaning, Alex.
“No. I don’t,” you whisper, because it’s true. After everything that transpired, your heart might ache, but you don’t miss him. If anything, you’re fucking angry.
Price licks his lips, and then his hand is coming up to wrap around your throat, creating a necklace of possession. He doesn’t squeeze, just lightly presses you harder into the shower wall, his own body leaning in until the two of you are nearly touching.
“Answer me. Honestly. Did Obolensky ever fuck you like I did?”
Your lips and mouth and tongue begin to form the shapes of words—the shapes of sounds—but you’re too stunned to speak, unable to comprehend why Price is bringing this up now.
Price leans in a bit closer. “Did he kiss you better? Taste you better?”
He is so close. With noses brushing, your head tilts upward, seeking his mouth—seeking him.
Price’s lips make the faintest contact with your own before drawing away again. “Answer me,” and these words are a growl.
“No,” you answer. “Never like you.”
Alex was always kind, always gentle, but never quite did it for you. He always made sure you finished, always made sure that you were satisfied, but you were never completely there. Something was missing, and that something is passion. Alex was comfortable and safe—which are all good things to have in a relationship. But he never wanted to explore anything further, and now you know why. It was all fake. A ruse. A fucking joke. At least, to some extent.
Price is all protective passion. He is safe but in a completely different way.
The sigh that leaves him is audible. It’s an exhalation of relief. Price’s eyelids flutter, then close as he inhales. On the second exhale, he opens his eyes, and you instantly melt, silently swearing that you’ll give this man anything.
“What should your punishment be for making me chase you? Hm?” Price’s hand tightens a bit, not enough to constrict your breathing but enough to show dominance. “Or should I decide for you.”
“John,” you whimper, one hand wrapping around his wrist while the other comes up to land on his broad chest.
Price rests his forehead against your temple, the line of his nose pressing softly against the side of your face, just to the edge of the cheekbone. “Could fuck your hand. Give you just the head. Bend you over so I can watch my cum drip out.”
His lips brush over your skin, and his other hand not holding your throat falls to your waist, squeezing, pulling you flush against him. Price is hard, and that is very clear by the way his need insistently pokes at your stomach.
“What do you think, love?” he asks, continuing. “Keep you spread wide. Do it again. Maybe even a third time.” With his hold on your throat, Price lightly turns you head in his direction. Your lips are just a second from meeting. “Then I’d fuck all of it into you. Make you mine.”
Price’s lips meet yours. Finally. Finally—and yet it’s fleeting. It’s a chaste kiss, and completely at odds with how he’s speaking to you.
“You remember the feel of me inside you, love? Because I remember you. You were bloody perfect around me.” Price closes the distance, and this time the kiss is deeper. Fiercer. “Made for me,” he growls into your mouth.
“John,” you moan, only wanting him to follow through. To fill you, then fuck you ceaselessly.
You know that’s how he’d do it. Draw it out. Make you hunger for him. Then take you in whatever position he desires. You’d take it all. You’d accept all of it. There is nothing that has ever compared to those moments in the safehouse and at Thirst. There is nothing that compares to those moments between, when he was gentle and soft and full of concern for you. Even the overbearing protectiveness is somehow sweet.
Price’s reply is to seal the two of you together, pinning you against the wall of the shower, claiming your mouth in repetitive desire that seeps into your muscles and bones, leaking into the marrow until the two of you are utterly fused.
The water isn’t nearly as hot as it was, but it’s still warm, and it only adds to the heat building between you. Price might have one hand at your throat, but the other explores, running up and down the sides of your body. Seeking. Searching. Touching.
Those thick, calloused fingers of his press between your legs and you readily open for him. Enough for Price to slide the rest of his hand between your thighs. He finds your clit, then your entrance, and there is no hiding just how needful you are.
“Fuck, love. Fuck.” Price adjusts his legs, spreading them slightly to anchor himself on the wet floor. One finger presses and slips inside easily. “I will fuck you,” he groans, emphasizing his words with a light thrust of his finger inside you.
He licks his lips. Exhales. “But there’s a punishment to be dealt.”
The chase. The mud. Time to pay up.
“Give me your hand.”
taglist:
@glassgulls @km-ffluv @tiredmetalenthusiast @spicyspicyliving @childofyuggoth @coffeecaketornado @aykxz98 @kayden666 @36namey @miss-mistinguett @keiva1000 @tapioca-marzipan @cherryofdeath @pertinentpostmortem @enfppuff @kittytiddywinks @berarenado @daemondoll @saoirse06 @ninman82 @no-oneelsebutnsu @marispunk @thewulf @darling006 @hayleybarnesx @lxblm @ferns-fics @ooldcardigan @beebeechaos @enarien @sw33tsnow @kessi-21 @makayla-666 @lifes-project @burn1ngw00d @heeheehoohoohahahihi @lulurubberduckie @ravenpoe67 @jade1605 @miaraei
#captain john price fanfiction#captain john price fic#captain john price fanfic#captain john price smut#captain john price x fem!reader#captain john price x f!reader#captain john price x you#captain john price x reader#captain john price x female reader#captain john price imagine#captain price fanfiction#captain price fic#captain price fanfic#captain price smut#captain price x reader#captain price x f!reader#captain price x fem!reader#captain price x female reader#captain price x you#john price fanfic#john price fanfiction#john price fic#john price smut#john price x reader#john price x you#john price x fem!reader#john price x f!reader#john price x female reader#call of duty smut#call of duty fanfiction
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PKMN ScarVio DLC AU ~ Possessed!Kieran
Just finished the page for my contribution to the good ol’ Toxic Chain theory :OOO
I recently finished the Teal Mask and finishing up the Indigo Disk DLC and while i really did like the fact that Kieran’s actions were all his own and makes him a much more realistic/relatable character, I am feeling a little robbed we didn't get a possessed!kieran + i really did not like the direction they took w/ Mochi Mayhem. I felt like it was WAAAY too silly/comedic for my tastes (if you liked it more power to you tho!), and wish we had more lore/backstory and involvement of Pecharunt and the Loyal 3 respectivally.
so i wanted to try killing two birds with one stone and try to mash ID and MM together somewhat! So heres some sketches and concept stuff ft. My PKMN!Violet sona. And also make this AU ANGSTY AS FUCK-
im not a comedy/crack/silly person when it comes to stories involving manipulation/mind control type of stuff because i just get second hand embarressment for those under doing wierd stuff while not aware so if your looking for a “silly haha!” AU with this type of concept ive got bad news for ya… this AU aint gonna be for you-
Starting off… my design for when Kieran is fully possessed by Pecharunt!
I still really liked the fact that Kieran was like. FULLY aware and in his own mind/body during ID; so i want to keep that in this AU too - for the most part.
id like to think that once making a deal with Pecharunt and offering himself to it in order to become stronger, the little peach would slowly feed him mochi that would “numb the pain and guilt if he ever feels doubtful.” At the time of Pecharunt’s debut to the start of ID, pecharunt is extremely weak and thus, its influence isnt as effective or strong. However, when we meet Kieran again, he’s definately beginning to change. throughout the story, we see Kieran’s spiraling descent into madness as he becomes more intimidating and cynical.
i dont have a specific spot where hed have this outfit change, but ill figure it out lol.
However, i def think it would be a bit after his panic attack/mental break down when we defeat him. Since at this point he couldnt uphold his end of the deal with Pecharunt, it has no choice: he offered his body and mind to it to get stronger, but he couldnt keep it up. So now, he has to pay the price.
(This would be right after the Ex-Champ bit - fuck you Draydon)
however, instead of telling himself to get stronger like in canon… he mumbles something indescernable and unintelligable… and then he starts… laughing?
“K-Kieran…?”
“Uh… yo, earth to ex-champion… you doin’ alright-?”
Suddenly… he glares at us… no. He glares at you, tears streaming down his face but an animalistic and crazily wide smile is plastered on his face as he stumbles back up, hugging himself while letting out what one would think is the most maniacal, despairing, crazy cackling laughter one could hear.
That's when you see it - his eyes, formally a light yellow, now a bright yet darkly sinister shade of violet-magenta. The scrunchie he was wearing began growing two strings of toxic chains that waved around like tentacles, and lifted him up in the air like stilts, purple smoke filling the area.
what was happening… whats happened to Kieran.
no, whatever that was…
Thats not Kieran.
The bottom sketch is a small scenario i had in mind!
i want pecharunt to have a larger role so here they are! After returning the teal mask to me and carmine and running off, he stumbles upon an injured and weak Pecharunt, and secretly nurses it back to health. Behind everyone’s backs the two spark a friendship/partnership!
i like to think pecharunt has good intentions and did genuinely want to help kieran get stronger, but i like to think that the toxins it gave to Kieran not only began to mess with Kieran’s mind, but with Pecharunt’s too.
how exactly? No idea just yet lol- ill figure that out later on down the line lol. Along with the loyal 3’s roles in the story as well.
Heres a few for fun and more funny sketches i made to fill up the empty space lol-
also feat. Moi, yuma and shinigami jykghhfjhfdjhygjuy-
QUICK DISCLAIMER! IM NOT SHIPPING MYSELF W/ KIERAN SINCE HES IMPLIED TO BE A TEEN AND IM A LEGAL ADULT!! the DLC came out when i was 17; almost 18 (released a few days before my bday actually!)
i like to think that when this story and AU respectively take place, Kieran is 14 while im 16 turning 17 that fall in Teal Mask (Carmine being 18 or 19?), then in Indigo Disc Kieran is 16, im 18, and Carmine is 19/20. So me and kieran are 2 years apart, while me and Carmine are 1-2 years apart.
Its mostly because id like to think me and kieran’s dynamic is similar to a close friend i have irl and wanted to write it as such while retaining the canon story too. If that makes sense lol.
And one more sady drawing when kieran is freed from Pecharunt’s control!
i think i speak for everyone that we needed a scene where we hugged kieran after all the shit he’s been through-
justice for my baby boy kieran. :,,,))
AAAAAAANNNNNNDDDDD THATS ALL I GOT FOR NOW!!
what do yall think :000
any suggestions/ideas, critiques, whatever is on your mind about this AU is appreciated!! Im gonna get back to my remnant designs lol-
#pokemon#pokemon scarvi#pokemon scarlet and violet#pokemon kieran#rival kieran#kieran pokemon#pecharunt#mochi mayhem#the teal mask#the indigo disk#pokemon au#villain kieran#villain!kieran#toxic chain#toxic chain au#my art <3#rain code yuma#yuma kokohead#shinigami#rain code shinigami#pkmn self insert#pokesona
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love is so embarrassing / ted logan
PAIRING ted logan x fem!reader
SUMMARY you continually give your all to a jock who could care less - ted makes you realize there's mucb better options out there. namely, him.
TAGS ted logan x fem!reader, high school, prom, og!boyfriend is a complete dick, best friends to lovers, fluff, angst, loser!ted, kissing, cursing, canon-typical lingo, most excellent
QUOTE "just watch as i crucify myself, / for some weird second string, / loser who's not worth mentioning, / my god, love's embarrassing as hell," - love is embarrassing by olivia rodrigo
WORD COUNT 1.7K
WRITTEN 12.30.2023
ted -
you stormed into ted's bedroom, slamming the door behind you. ted watched from his bed with an expression of mostly shock, mingled with a slight bit of awe. you flopped onto his bed, buried your face into his pillow, and let out a feral scream. he placed down the magazine he'd been flipping through and held a finger next to your side, weighing the pros and cons of poking you to elicit a reaction. before he had time to do so, you immediately sat up with an angry pout and offered him the most sympathetic look you could while so angry.
"sorry, it's just . . . i hate him. i hate him! he said we would be spending the whole night together, but yet again he's made plans with his 'friends' and he's 'so so sorry.' honestly, i'm getting sick of it!"
oh, you were angry about that boyfriend of yours. ted wasn't a fan at all - the way he treated you was most heinous. he didn't really seem to care about you - if anything, he treated you like a side piece. no, Ted didn't like him one bit.
"don't be sorry," ted said, flashing you one of his trademark grins. somehow, just with a smile, he was always able to make you feel better. "I hate him too! a dickweed like him doesn't deserve a babe- i mean, a girl - like you."
your lips spread into a thin line, which he supposed was an attempt at a smile. "thanks teddy," you responded softly, patting him on the thigh. you tried to think about something else, move the topic of conversation away from your good-for-nothing boyfriend. "so, whatcha doing?"
"me?" ted asked, a little suprised that you were interested. you had spent a lot less time with him and bill ever since you started dating that douchebag. sometimes, he thought you had forgotten about him completely - and that made him feel totally bogus. thus, his eyes sparkled in excitement and he began to talk very fast because when was the last time you two had some time to just chat? "i'm just looking at these totally awesome dudes, to get uh - uh -" he glanced upwards in an attempt to remember the word he wanted to use. "well, i'm writing music for wyld stallyns and stuff."
"oh, cool!" you exclaimed. "can I see?"
"no!" ted responded, perhaps a bit too quickly. he didn't want you to see the many failed attempts at writing a most bodacious love song for you. "they're still, er, works in progress, dudette!"
"oh, well, all right!" you paused, lost in thought, before you asked, "wanna go watch a movie?"
you -
you had felt the guilt creep in rather quickly once you realized how much you'd been procrastinating on hanging out with your best friends, bill and ted. you had been so hyperfixated on your boyfriend that you had completely forgotten about your weekly movie night and failed to meet up with bill to help him paint some posters for a wyld stallyns. you decided to apologize by treating them to a day at the mall, buying ice cream and movie tickets for all of you.
while you and bill chatted vehemently about perhaps the coolest sci-fi film you've ever seen, ted was a bit preoccupied watching your so-called boyfriend get a bit too cozy with cindy. cindy, who most considered to be the prettiest girl in your grade, was head cheerleader (though you had always been the prettiest, in ted's mind). you noticed that ted was being uncharacteristically quiet and followed his line of sight. immediately, your jubilant expression fell to something much more hardened.
"of course he's here. why wouldn't he be." he somehow always found a way to ruin your best days - and who the hell was that he was copying up with?
"hey, wow, look over there!" bill said all of a sudden, pointing to the lower floor of the mall, in the opposite direction. you didn't notice the look that bill gave ted and glanced to where he was pointing. there was nothing there.
"i don't see anything," you said with furrowed brows, completely distracted now and confused as to what exactly bill had spotted. ted had rushed to your side and looked down as well.
"what? i don't-" ted let out what sounded like a small whimper of pain (you didn't see bill step on his foot). "oh yeah! duh! the thing, you didn't see . . . the thing?"
"what thing?" you asked exasperatedly.
"come on!" bill exclaimed, running towards the escalator. ted barked out a laugh before quickly following him in pursuit.
"wait, guys!" you didn't realize until you jad gotten home - they were distracting you from your so-called boyfriend. you couldn't help but smile the rest of the day.
ted -
you and ted walked off the bus together, laughing your asses off as you made the slow walk to your houses. the two of you had lived next to each other for as long as you could remember. the bond between the two of you had remained strong ever since.
ted watched as you through your head back with a bark of laughter and he admired the way your grin split your face, the way your hair tickled the nape of your neck, how the sun twinkled in your beautiful eyes. he was snapped back to reality when you had straightened out your head, your entire back even, and stared in suprise at someone sitting on your front lawn. they held a boombox, romantic music blaring through the speakers. they held a sign, one that made ted sick to the very depths of his stomach. will you go to prom with me?
ted had been planning on asking you that very same question later today. but it was too late - you were running up to that douchebag, your arms thrown around his neck as you shouted "yes!" rather a bit loudly. that sound is punctuated in his ears for the rest of the day.
later, when you were both sitting in his room doing homework (well, you were doing homework - he was sulking while pretending to write about history stuff) he placed down his pencil. this drew your attention.
"what do you see in him?" ted asked.
"what?" you responded with furrowed brows, obviously not yet accustomed to the sudden change in conversation.
"what do you see in him? your boyfriend? he's not - not smart or anything. not that funny. not even that good at football."
you leaned back and closed your math textbook. "what's that supposed to mean?" he felt uncomfortable now, at your offended tone, and wondered whether he should have spoke up at all.
"he just doesn't treat you right," ted grumbled. "you deserve to be treated most excellently - and he certainly does not treat you as such. you saw him with that girl at the mall."
you nodded slowly before gathering all your books together in a rush, fury painted all over your face.
"where are you going?" ted asked innocently.
"away from you," you responded harshly. "you know what i think, ted, I think you're jealous that i have a date for prom and you don't. don't pick on my boyfriend because your miserable."
"what, no, that's -" you held a hand to his face as you left his room, slamming the door behind you. "non-non-heinous, man."
you -
you smiled for the picture your parents took with you, your boyfriend, and bill and ted (the boys were glaring daggers at each other, not to your awareness). as you were ushered out the door, you were met by the sight of a limo out front.
you felt someone snake a finger under the strap of your dress, pulling it back and snapping it against your skin. you let out a yelp, slapping your boyfriend in the arm, half-serious. "ow!"
"well show a little more skin next time, missy, i thought we were having a fun time," he responded with another cruel chuckle. you wrapped your arma ariund your shoulders with discomfort, pulling the straps of your dress further upwards. yoy glanced towards ted, his teeth clenched and fists crumpled. maybe he was right. maybe he really was a douchebag. it was time you didn't let him treat you like shit.
"well if that's all you cared about tonight, getting your dick wet, then i suggest you find another easily-manipulated girl to be your prom bitch," you barked back sharply. as soon as you realized the words that had left your mouth, you slapped a hand over your mouth. bill arched a brow at ted in suprise, who let out a snicker.
"you find that funny, logan?" your (ex-)boyfriend said to ted.
"yeah, i do," ted responded, blowing out his chest, trying to seem tough. only a second later there was a sickening crunch, a blow dealt to his jaw. he fell down to the ground, his face turned away from you. you rushed over to ted, asking if he was okay. you only heard your ex scoff and walk back towards the limo.
"ted, let me see your face," you said gently. he turned his face towards you and you let out a gasp. his jaw was all bruised up. "oh god! i'm so sorry!"
"cool, dude! battle scar!" bill exclaimed excitedly, letting out a chuckle. ted pushed himself to be sitting upright, a grin spreading like an infection across his face.
"i totally pissed him off, didn't i?" ted asked, obviously very smug with himself despite having just been punched square in the face. "I told ya he was bogus."
"i should have listened to you earlier," you responded sheepishly, wincing at the memory of raising your voice at ted. "I wish i could make it up to you."
"well, there is a way . . ." ted trailed off, looking towards bill. he responded to ted with an ostentatious thumbs up, and ted returned to your gaze with another lazy grin. "go to prom with me?"
#ted logan x reader#ted logan x you#my writing#fanfiction#my fanfiction#my fic#writing#fanfic#— [ glizzy posts ☆ ]
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2 centimeters
Squealing Santa 2023
Genshin Impact - Kaeya & Diluc
A/N: Merry Christmas, Mango-anon! That's right, I'm your @squealing-santa this year!
Heheh, isn't it funny that we changed the roles? After getting a gift from you in last year's SS, I tried to come up with something just as special - hopefully I made it up to your expectations!
Also, I couldn't find any canon info about the characters' height, so let's just go along with this one, yeah?
I just want to wish you a happy holiday season and thank @hypahticklish for hosting the event again!
Summary: When you are decorating the place, 2 cm can make a lot of difference.
Word count: 1338 words
“I think I remember this one, brother,” Kaeya chirped happily as he gently pulled another decoration from inside that old chest. Pinching the string that was attached to the toy to hold it up to his line of sight, Kaeya admired the golden, star-shaped object as it brought him some old memories from his childhood. “Hah, last time I saw this one, we still-”
“Care to do something other than reminiscing?” Diluc interrupted, with a frown on his face. Letting out an audible grunt, the redheaded dropped another box on top of the counter - also full of decorations.
By the end of the year, the people of Mondstadt had the tradition of decorating their houses to celebrate the arrival of winter and to cherish the moments they had together throughout that year. At least, most of the people did it.
Diluc wasn’t sure when it was the last time he had bothered to do something like this. He was even more clueless about why he decided to do it this time. Maybe his change of heart had something to do with the traveler or the latest events? Maybe after spending so much time with that spoiled bard was, at last, affecting him? Maybe was he sick? Diluc didn’t know - and did it really matter at this point? He looked to the side, spotting Kaeya’s smug, amused glance at him. Diluc rolled his eyes.
“My, of course, brother. I just couldn’t help myself… All the sweet memories coming back to my mind,” Kaeya mused poetically - mostly to annoy his brother even further. “I’m sure the winery will look just as lovely when we are done decorating it.”
Kaeya quickly got back to his feet, starting to hang a few garlands near the entrance, adding the ones that resembled small berries and snow flakes to enhance the composition even further. The captain smiled, proud of his work. “What do you think, Diluc?” Kaeya sighed proudly, placing his hands over his hips as he admired the results of his efforts.
However, as more seconds passed by and there was no sign of answers from his dear brother, Kaeya repeated himself, this time also looking back. “Diluc? What do you… think…”
“Just- agh, just a second,” Diluc grunted, gritting his teeth and stretching his arm as high as he could. Standing on the tip of his toes and leaning against the shelves, Diluc tried to place a bright, golden star on top of a tree - a spot that was clearly out of his reach.
Kaeya scoffed quietly, surprised that his brother would find such difficulties in such a simple task. “Do you need a hand? I could lift you if you want-”
“Shut it,” Diluc groaned, planting his heels back into the ground - and if looks could kill, Kaeya would’ve been sent to Celestia right at that moment. Diluc, already having his patience running short, looked at Kaeya’s work.
His eyes, despite all the charming decorations, focused on a garland that hung right in the middle of the composition. Diluc did the math inside his head and that thing was standing almost as high as the tip of the tree and, with no stairs or chairs around, it seemed that Kaeya managed to reach that spot effortlessly. Diluc felt that sight leaving a scratch on his ego. “Yeah, it’s decent I think,” Diluc huffed.
“Decent? Well, it’s still a compliment from you, I suppose, so I’ll assume I did a good job,” Kaeya crossed his arms, with a smug look on his face. The captain looked around and, after a few hours of work, they were almost done with the winery’s decoration: all that was left was the golden star in Diluc’s hand. “Let me finish that for you, brother.”
“What?” Diluc arched his eyebrow, turning his attention back to Kaeya.
“I said: let me finish that for you,” Kaeya repeated while approaching Diluc, reaching out his hand, waiting for the star to be handed to him.
“There is no need, I can do it myself,” Diluc narrowed his eyes and Kaeya chuckled. “What’s so funny?” The winery’s master muttered, getting back on the tip of his toes as he tried to reach the top of the tree.
“How tall are you?”
“W-what?” Diluc gasped, feeling a faint heat taking place in his hands. “What’s with this all of the sudden?” The reddish tones began to take a brighter shade around the tip of Diluc’s ears, almost matching his hairtone.
“Just curiosity,” Kaeya giggled, standing by Diluc’s side. Kaeya placed a hand over the top of his own head and moved it, hovering it just a couple of centimeters above Diluc’s. “Oh, I’m taller, indeed. I never noticed you were the smaller one…”
“S-so?” Diluc sighed annoyed, getting even angrier when he saw the way Kaeya looked at him. “It’s just… what? 2 centimeters? It’s not that much of a difference, it might even be thanks to the heels of your boots.”
“Well, brother, you see, 2 centimeters can make a lot of difference,” Kaeya teased, looking up to the tip of the tree. “Come on, let me help you ~”
“I don’t need your help,” Diluc insisted, determined to shut his brother by placing that damned star on top of the tree.
“Suit yourself.”
Kaeya watched carefully as Diluc tried to reach that spot again, holding the golden star with the tip of his fingers, barely keeping a hold on it. Almost there… so close…
“G-gah!” Diluc squeaked when he felt a pair of hands holding him by his waist. He felt another electric shock spread across his body when fingers dug into the spot - with just enough pressure so they could get a grip on his body.
“Q-quit squirming, you’re kind of heavy, you know?” Kaeya grunted, nearly getting hit by a flailing limb. With some effort, Kaeya managed to lift Diluc, getting him high enough so he could reach the top of the tree. “Hurry up..!”
“I- agh, aham tr-tryihihing!” Diluc choked on a laugh, struggling to reach out and place the star when all the nerves on his body were telling him to press his arms down his body. His brother being Kaeya, Diluc couldn’t be sure if that… feeling was a mere accident or something planned. “S-stohop squeehezing me lihihike t-that, you- ahah- ack!!”
“H-hoh?” Kaeya gasped, still managing to pull a tease in a situation like this. Diluc’s squirming was making it harder to keep him high up, but Kaeya would rather have them both falling to the ground than lose a chance to provoke Diluc like this. “H-how can you be… heh, this ticklish being this… short?”
“I’m nohot!” Diluc groaned, hitting Kaeya’s leg with his heel (mostly because of how his leg flailed than because he wanted to).
“You’re not what? Short or ticklish? Because it looks like you’re both” Kaeya squeezed Diluc’s waist again and a strangled laugh escaped his brother’s lips. Kaeya smirked. “J-just put the star over there, my arms are getting tired.”
“If you- ahah, f-fine!” Diluc groaned in defeat, grabbing the tree with one hand and pulling it closer. Finding it more difficult than it should be, at last, Diluc managed to place the golden star in place, quickly tapping his brother’s hand. “D-done! Put me down! Puhuhut me down!”
“As you wish, brother,” Kaeya said, lowering his brother back down until he could place his feet on the ground - safe and sound. “See? It wasn’t that hard, was it?”
Diluc breathed deeply, telling himself mentally this wasn’t the time to call Kaeya names and deciding that, just this once, he would let it slide… that, of course, under one condition. “One word about it…,” he threatened Kaeya - so brotherly-like of him.
“Huh? Or what?” Kaeya provoked him again, poking Diluc’s side and making him jerk away with a sharp gasp. “Come on, asking your big brother for help it’s nothing to be ashamed of…”
“Kaeya, no.” Diluc warned, wrapping his arms around his torso, “I’m serious. Kaeya, nohOHOH!! KahAHAHayea!”
#squealing santa 2k23#squealing santa#ss2k23#SquealingSanta2023#genshin impact#genshin impact tickling#diluc ragnvindr#kaeya alberich#ragbros#lee!diluc#ticklish!diluc#ler!kaeya#merry christmas#<3
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It's Quiet Uptown
Note: Okay, I know I have a bunch of requests in my inbox, and I'm so sorry BUT!! I got into a Hamilton phase and now, you all are gonna have to bear with it with a songfic.
Also, for the sake of this fic (and for my convenience), I'll refer to Vil's father as his stage name, Eric.
This takes place at the first alternate ending of my Vil's Younger Sibling fic. Find that here, but it's part of a series, so keep that in mind!
(tagging: @dr3amscap3)
Warning/s: Angst no fluff, Death, Slight spoilers for Chapter 6, Canon divergence, Spoilers for Chapter 5, My attempts to change some lyrics to fit the situation
Vil's fingers press on the piano keys, his hands already knowing the notes and chords of every part of the song. Every cue to step on the pedal. From his posture to the elegance of his fingers, nobody would have thought that Vil was grieving.
There are moments that the words don't reach
There is suffering too terrible to name...
It had become almost habitual at this point, keeping up a mask to hide his true emotions. It was a skill actors and models always had to have, after all.
He just has to look perfect. No emotion, not even a flicker, not even the tiniest amount of weakness must be shown. Nothing must be out of place.
He is perfect. He needs to be perfect. He is fine. He's moved on. His past is behind him. He needs nothing else, no one else.
He is whole...
The door opens, a small creak and a set of footsteps signifying the entrance of someone. Weary and puffy purple eyes look at Vil as he plays the piano. The sight was normal all the time, but Eric can't help but feel that something was missing.
In the Schoenheit household, the sound of piano chords was always accompanied with the sound of violin strings. Vil and his younger sibling would always be playing music together. And Eric loved coming home to hear the sounds his children would make together.
But [Name] wasn't here. They no longer are here, and perhaps that is why the sound of the piano on its own never felt right. The violin in the corner of the room is untouched, left in its case all in the back of the room.
Eric walks closer to Vil and the piano, listening and lightly humming along with the music. The two stop for a moment, expecting a certain violinist play a wrong note or add a new melody. [Name] always changed the line, they changed the melody every time.
But there was nothing. Just silence.
Vil buries his face in his father's chest, his tears soiling Eric's dress shirt, but the man couldn't care less. Eric pats his son's back, running a hand through his hair in the hopes of soothing his eldest son.
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable
Eric doesn't cry. He can't cry. Not right now, when Vil need him to be strong. It tires him to cry, but it tires him even more having to acknowledge the truth every day.
There are moments when you're in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down
...
The Schoenheits give up their crown
And learn to live with the unimaginable
Vil heaves a sigh as he walks around town. Eric had pushed him to take a stroll, perhaps to try taking his mind off of everything. Eric had a waver to his voice that made Vil know that his father only made him go out the house so the man could cry on his own.
I spend hours in the garden
I walk alone to the store
The hustle and bustle of the town was normal, everyone was living their lives. The townspeople had gotten used to having the Schoenheit family just nearby, and mostly left them unbothered. It was a slow and silent day, to Vil at least.
From one of the houses nearby, a certain wolf beastman looks out the window, seeing the model walk past. Jack can't help but frown a bit, watching how Vil walks and stands tall, but his eyes have a faraway look to them.
And it's quiet uptown
I never liked the quiet before
Vil plops down a bouquet of [Name]'s favorite flowers by the tombstone, taking a clean rag and wipes the grave meticulously. There was barely any dust or dirt on it, thanks to Vil's weekly visits, but he couldn't stop himself.
I visit their grave on Sunday
Placing some flowers on the floor
At the very least, Vil could still pamper his younger sibling the best he can. The actor blinks multiple times, the tears in his eyes making it hard to see his surroundings properly. A Purple Emperor butterfly lands on the flowers on the floor, resting its wings.
...
And I pray
That never used to happen before
Vil sighs, burying his hands in his pockets, burying the lower part of his face behind his scarf. He mumbles to himself, whispering apologies and reminiscing memories of [Name]. Vil can't help but manage a pathetic chuckle. He would always scold them for mumbling and hiding their face.
If you see him in the street,
Walking by himself, talking to himself,
Have pity
Vil always told [Name] to be proud of who they are.
But Vil can't even follow his own advice, for once. Not when guilt and self-blame eats him up on the inside.
"[Name], you wouldn't like things right now, it's too quiet right now..."
He is working through the unimaginable
...
Eric walks through the city, trying to ignore the press and paparazzi following him incessantly. The man, for the first time in what feels like the longest time, wishes he had bodyguards with him or that he had simply not gone out at all.
His hair has gone grey, he passes every day
They say he walks the length of the city
But he knew that he had to leave the house. If he hadn't, then he would have been stuck in his youngest child's room, looking through every picture for the millionth time that day.
He looks across the street, seeing a father lifting up his daughter, a proud smile on his face as he plays around with his children, his wife laughing and taking pictures of the moment. Eric feels a pang in his heart, wishing that family nothing but happiness.
Eric remembers the first time he held Vil, the first time he saw [Name]. He remembers his children's first words, their first steps, he wouldn't even need a photograph or a video to remember it. When he saw [Name] smile for the first time, Eric remembers his exact words and thoughts in that moment:
"You knock me out, I fall apart"
Can you imagine?
...
"Look at where we are, look at where we started." Rook places a hand on Vil's shoulder, looking at him in concern.
Vil looks back at him, keeping back his emotion. He must be perfect, and not a single speck out of place. But the hunter could see and hear very clearly, how Vil was clearly too stressed for anything. It was a wonder how the dorm leader could handle going back to school like this.
"The students don't deserve me, Rook-" Rook shakes his head and gently shushes Vil. He can't bear seeing his Roi du Poison so anguished, but knows that there isn't much he can do. Despite this, he tries anyway.
"Shh, hear me out, that would be enough."
Vil huffs and shakes his head in return, his thoughts spiraling back to the VDC tournament. His foolish decisions that led to his sibling's death.
"If I could spare their life... if I could trade their life for mine..."
Vil trails off and glances at Epel, who was despondently playing with his food. Normally, Vil would have scolded the first year for doing so, but he didn't have the heart nor the energy to do so.
Rook sighs and makes Vil face him, holding him by the shoulders, trying to comfort his friend.
They'd be standing here right now, and they would smile
And that would be enough.
"I don't pretend to know the challenges you're facing. I know there's no replacing what was lost, and you need time."
"But don't be afraid, you'll know when you're ready. Just let me stay here by your side. That would be enough."
...
Vil briskly walks over to Epel, who was going back to the dorm from club time. The dorm leader had been trying to talk to the first year for a while, but it's been hard getting Epel to speak or even look at Vil for more than three seconds.
If you see him in the street
Talking by his side, walking by his side
Have pity
"Epel, do you like it right now? It's quiet right now.."
He is trying to do the unimaginable
But Epel ignores him, walking faster and faster until he starts running to the mirror, leaving Vil alone in the hallway.
...
Epel walks as Vil tries to catch up with him. The first year's blue eyes gaze at the wall and the floor like it was the most interesting in the world. He can't bear looking at his dorm leader.
See them walking in the hall, staring at the wall
Taking in the glances full of pity
Not when Vil looked so much like [Name]. Not when looking at Vil reminds Epel of the friend he lost too quickly.
Then a butterfly flutters nearby, and Epel glances at it. His meemaw always told him that butterflies symbolized the dead, and he tears up. He could hear [Name]'s laugh from when they messed around when [Name] was staying in his house. And then he heard their scream, when the rubble fell down and crushed them under it.
Epel stops walking, his gaze distant but fixated on the butterfly fluttering around him. Vil takes this as a chance to try speaking to Epel, but the first year beats him to it.
"Look around, look around, [Name]..."
It was an absent-minded murmur on Epel's part, but it brought Vil to tears as well. The two didn't speak, only stood next to each other, watching the butterfly land on an apple tree, eating an apple that fell to the ground.
They are trying to do the unimaginable
...
Every class he goes to, Vil always notices the Purple Emperor butterfly following him. Some of the other students have pointed it out, Rook especially. The hunter would say that [Name] was always watching over him.
There are moments that the words don't reach
There's a grace too powerful to name
But Vil won't believe it ⸺ he can't believe it, rather. Why would [Name] watch over Vil, of all people? It was a foolish thought, after all. Vil was the reason why [Name] died. So why would they follow him when they could simply rest in the peace that reached them too soon?
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable
...
Vil watches [Name] as they play with the butterflies that float around them. The younger Schoenheit had a ghost of a smile on their face as the beautiful insects fluttered about them. And Vil eyes the scene with wide, unbelieving eyes.
They are standing in the garden
Vil by [Name]'s side
The older Schoenheit slowly walks over, hesitantly approaching his younger sibling, who was acting like nothing had happened. Like it was all a dream.
As though sensing their older brother's presence, [Name] turns around, the small smile on their lips still there. And they do something Vil never thought was possible.
They take his hand...
[Name] opens their mouth to speak, looking up at Vil with a sad, accepting smile.
"It's quiet uptown."
Vil's eyes widen and the dam of emotion is released once again. He falls down to his knees, clenching his eyes closed as tears run down his cheeks, ruining his makeup. Gently squeezing his younger sibling's hand, he presses it against his cheek, trying to prove to himself that [Name] was indeed here.
Forgiveness. Can you imagine?
And for the first time in a long time, Vil smiled. Happy tears fall down his face and he looks up at [Name]. Then he notices a small flicker in [Name]'s expression.
Their eyes darken.
Their smile turn into a smirk that looked almost evil.
And then Vil realizes where he was.
Forgiveness.
Vil quickly jumps away, narrowly dodging a pile of rubble that fell right where he was a second ago. The Schoenheit rubs his eyes, wiping away the tears and gets his magic ready to defend himself.
Vil isn't in a garden. He isn't in home. He's in STYX, getting tested on because he overblotted and survived, though Vil wishes he never did. His heart aches, and he can't help but curse the Shroud brothers in his mind for bringing sweet [Name] into this.
He curses the world for having the gall to create a version of his younger sibling based on his memories just to attack him. For getting his hopes up, for getting him to think that [Name] was still with him. For making him go against his sibling once again. For making this the last time he'll see [Name] 'alive' and well.
Can you imagine?
#twst#twisted wonderland#twst platonic#twst sibling reader#twst angst#vil schoenheit#vil angst#gn reader
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Dimentio Analysis
My thoughts on this Dimentio post, recently shared with me by @iukasylvie! The post: https://altermentality.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/flair-for-the-dramatic/.
! CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SUPER PAPER MARIO !
Okay before I address the article, I should establish my own Dimentio headcanons. I see our silly jester as a sociopath, in that he can't feel love in the same way as other people. Like Bleck, he has a void inside of him, but Dimentio fills it by feeding off of others. Basically, he likes playing around and taunting people because of how emotionally reactive they are, it's how he fills himself up. Mimi's his favorite to mess around with because she's VERY reactive. As for why he wants his own world: he wants to put on a show. The whole of existence, dedicated to entertaining him. The only characters I can liken this to are the Celestial Toymaker (DW) and the Collector (TOH).
Now first off, the article references SPM in the context of "commedia dell'arte", which was a form of theater in Italy during the Renaissance. This form of theater had three types of characters: innamorati (the star-crossed lovers), vecchi (the powerful elders of society), and zanni (the clowns). The common plot of these plays? Two young lovers, hindered by the elders, who end up turning to the zanni to reach a happy ending.
Of course, Dimentio is a zanni character type. He may not help the Count reach his happy ending directly, but his actions do lead to the wedding with Tippi so, in a sense, this does fit the archetype. And of course, I don't have to tell you who the innamorati characters are. Anyone who knows a lick about Shakespeare probably already knows the love story of Blumiere and Timpani uses a pretty strong "forbidden love" trope, but it's interesting to see this somewhat supported by other forms of theater arts! To say Nintendo and Intelligent Systems had commedia dell'arte in mind when writing SPM's story would be a stretch, but it's always cool to see some elements match across different eras and types of storytelling.
Moving on, does Dimentio care about the other minions? The article eventually concludes that yes, he must, because how could you live in a castle with four other people and not grow to love them? My headcanon lines up with this pretty well--after all, Dimentio words the Count's lie about creating a new world as a "betrayal", and a betrayal facilitates caring enough to trust someone in the first place (points at Olly's entire arc with Olivia in The New Void). But Dimentio doesn't know *how* to love, and his version of "care" is different. He likes having the others around, but as players in his game, as entertainment. That's how he sees it. He fixates on them specifically for a reason he'd never care to explain.
New Void Spoilers Below.
You could say he fixates on Luigi, too, which might seem strange when they had far less time together. Shipping aside, I think canonically Dimentio fixes on Luigi because he's the key to everything, he's a highly valuable asset and Dimentio knows it. In the New Void, this isn't exactly the case. Dimentio doesn't have anything to gain by making Luigi suffer, it's just pure fun. Sure, he COULD torment some Shaydes or D-Men instead, but they're dead and they're boring. Dimentio's also been in the Underwhere for...awhile, and Luigi is a familiar face. In his own way, Dimentio's been a little lonely. It's just that, his way of acting on this feeling is to turn it into a game of psychological warfare...
New Void Spoilers End.
Overall, the strongest part of the article is the description of Dimentio's ideal world. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of darkmarxsoul's Chaos Trilogy, but this depiction of Dimentio's universe might be the best I've ever seen. “Dimentio’s goal is to maximize the amount of drama in the universe…a world with the dials of mortal anguish and despair and even joy set to maximum volume, and the banishment of the mundane. A world where he pulls all the strings to ensure this happens. The Ultimate Show.” Chilling! It's like Bill Cipher's whole Weirdmageddon deal, except rather than maximizing weirdness, DImentio would be maximizing drama, flair, and theatrics. All the world's a stage, and whatnot.
I LOVE this idea for a world of his so much that it's a wonder I haven't started writing fics centered around it already! All these new people living what they think are just ordinary lives, not knowing that it's all being orchestrated by a being that craves mere entertainment. Life as a musical, maybe a comedy tomorrow, or maybe a tragedy next week--all because Dimentio wants it to be. I mean, that's absolutely horrifying when you think about it! Enough for a brief existential crisis maybe! But it's also very cool >:)
In summary: what do we think about Dimentio? I think he's a sociopath who doesn't understand love but desperately wants to be entertained. The article's description of Dimentio's ideal world is scarily accurate and also has a LOT of fanfic potential. Dimentio himself is fun and silly, but also dangerous and probably not someone you'd want to interact with in real life.
As this is my opinion/interpretation, I'm too biased to say whether or not this aligns well with canon. But what do you think? Do you think this all fits Dimentio perfectly, or do you have other thoughts?
#paper mario#super paper mario#dimentio super paper mario#dimentio spm#headcanon#fanfic ideas#character analysis
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alright, i’m having a lot of feelings™ about giyushino & i have to talk about it because otherwise i will implode. i’ve liked the idea of them together from s1, like most people who ship them seem to; but then i stopped thinking about them much due to obsession with other ships, and also because after their initial altercation on Mount Natagumo they don’t really get much screentime together, so i just lost interest.
but in my modern day obamitsu AU (you can find my ao3 link on my page!), i’m featuring giyushino as a background ship, & i am starting to catch fucking feelings myself from writing them. (if you head off to read the fic, there’s only two chapters posted so far & Giyuu + Shinobu are not in it yet, but will be very soon.)
so, here we go. gimme a moment to ramble about what inspired these HCs / character analyses before i get to the meat & potatoes.
youtube
street lights by killedmyself is one of my favourite songs despite the fact it being really more of a piece of audio art than a song - it’s mainly a movie dialogue sample mixed with sad boi lo-fi beats, but i play it all the time because it somehow hurts so good. so i was listening to it when thinking of the aforementioned modern AU, & i had an epiphany like “holy fuck, this is exactly how a giyushino relationship would go down, whether in a canon AU or any other story.”
the sample in the song is from No Strings Attached, a typical romantic comedy/drama about two close friends who have a deep understanding of each other and casually have sex, but the guy catches feelings and the girl wants nothing to do with a relationship.
(honestly, most people would probably find this movie boring - it’s a basic white het ship storyline; i only watched it because of the song, & the conversation in the song is literally the best part - otherwise the movie is hella bland & i wouldn't care if i never saw it again LOL so i’m def. not saying “go watch this” here.)
anyway, i’m listening to this song, and i’m like “omg, i can hear Giyuu & Shinobu saying every fucking line.”
basically, in my mind, Giyuu & Shinobu would start hooking up just for the sake of it - probably as a result of a quiet development of closeness born essentially out of convenience (they are always at the Ubuyashiki Estate together or working together), and then one night boning goes down. they’re attracted to each other; they like each other as people; and then the sex is good, so it keeps happening.
& very quickly, sad boi Giyuu, who is typically self-isolated and depressed, starts crushing hard. he’s alone and he’s desperate for human interaction and affection, even though he doesn’t realize it - and Shinobu is beautiful, and he admires her. plus they’re starting to have a lot of sex; & it’s pretty common for that to bloom some sense of love, ranging from base level attachment to infatuation to real feels - and it gets to the point where Giyuu wants to be with her.
but Shinobu doesn’t want the same thing. she cares about him (more than she can admit), but she’s fiercely independent and immensely dedicated to her work (with all her research and crafting of medicines & poisons). she puts this work above absolutely everything else with self-denying devotion - her happiness doesn’t matter; like she tells Tanjirou, she’s angry, and all that matters is success. a relationship for her would be a distraction, & she doesn’t need it - doesn’t want to deal with it; too many emotional ups & downs; too much drama; too much risk; too much intimacy with someone else, which actually terrifies her. so when Giyuu tells her he wants a relationship, she rejects him.
now let’s take the samples that slap me in the face with giyushino feels from street lights, which i can literally hear coming out of their fucking mouths.
Shinobu: You know me, this stuff freaks me out. It's fake. What’s wrong with what we’re doing? It’s working, we don’t have to fight -
Giyuu: Maybe I wanna fight.
Shinobu: Yeah, well I don’t.
Giyuu: What are you gonna do - you’re just never gonna feel anything? How are you gonna do that?
Shinobu: I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.
^ this exchange already starts murdering me because i feel like once Giyuu realizes he has legitimate feelings for Shinobu, and is wrestling with his own self-denial and inability to accept love from others because of how much he hates himself - he sees that Shinobu does the same thing - she doesn’t want to feel anything too deeply because she’s traumatized from Kanae’s death. she doesn’t want to love anyone else in a way that makes them more important than anything else (though, yes, we have to also acknowledge her love for Kanao here, but i imagine that's it for her - no more), so that she can’t experience loss again. she’s scared; she protects herself by being self-sufficient and dedicating herself to her work.
she's also stubborn asf, and sincerely believes in herself and what she's capable of, and so "I don't know. I'll figure it out." is literally what she would respond to this challenge.
Shinobu: I don’t need you to take care of me. I take care of myself. That’s what I do.
^ destroying me because this is exactly what Shinobu does. this is her MO; her armor.
Shinobu: Why don’t you go find some other girl who’s not gonna hurt you?
Giyuu: Because I love you.
^ help. why are they like this. it’s because Giyuu’s so alone, but when he feels, he feels deeply (seen even in his initially inexplicable sentimentality for Tanjirou & Nezuko from the beginning, all the way to when we finally hear his backstory with Sabito). he’s smart and intuitive, he can see right through Shinobu - right through everything she does to protect herself. he also doesn’t give up on people he cares about, and his sad boi meter is off the charts - he probably thinks he deserves rejection. plus we have Shinobu pushing everyone away so hard because she can’t handle it.
also going off the HC here that they’re casually hooking up throughout this: oh boy is this a mess of confusing emotions for both of them, both struggling to keep it bottled up, and Giyuu is clearly the weaker link. he just would be. he’s too sensitive.
Giyuu: It’s obvious, I completely love you - there. You’re such a wimp.
Shinobu: I am not!
Giyuu: Well then be with me.
^ why is this dialogue like, canon. it’s their personalities to a T - the way they push at each other in a way of making fun of each other; the way Giyuu is honest despite his problems with feelings; the way strong, independent Shinobu would be so offended at him calling her a wimp (which he totally would fucking say) - calling her out on how she blocks out feelings for others to stay focused on her mission so she can protect them, but so she also can’t get heartbroken, because she can’t go through that again.
*cough*
anyway. there’s my roughly 1k word count essay on how i envision a romantic giyushino dynamic. i’ll be trying to work this into my modern AU - but considering Giyuu and Shinobu are secondary characters, i don’t know how much i can explore this; still, i don’t have the full fic planned out, so nothing’s off the table.
but seriously, this shit hits me in my gut so hard i could probably write an entire fic about them just on this premise lol.
anyway, yeah. woke up at 7:30, made a cup of coffee, sat down on the computer and just wrote this essay out of nowhere in an hour because suddenly giyushino is also ruining my life.
#giyushino#shinobu x giyuu#giyuu x shinobu#giyuu tomioka#shinobu kocho#tomioka giyuu#kochou shinobu#kny meta#kny#demon slayer#kny headcanons#character analysis#headcanon#kny au#why did i wake up and the first thing i needed to do was write this essay#for a ship i really like but isn't an otp#i eat sleep and breathe demon slayer#all i can do is think about these characters#my writing#writing inspo#my fanfic#ao3 writer#ficlife
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the zhu-vatore family: lily's in-game dialogue
I'm having a lot of fun dressing up premades in historical costumes & making relatives for them. I'm not really paying much attention to any sort of in-game canon/time period, but I did draw from Lily's dialogue from Werewolves to guide me when I created the extended Zhu-Vatore family. Lily has a lot to say about her cousins and most people haven’t seen it all, so I extracted all of her lines using S4Studio. You can download all of the strings from Werewolves on SFS (this includes every other character's dialogue + book descriptions etc)
tl;dr Caleb/Lilith and Lily are first cousins through their mothers. They were close as children until they all transformed. They are all at least as old as Lily looks, and are quite possibly much older. Just not as old as Kristopher Volkov.
lily's dialogue:
"When I was a child, I was very close with my cousins, Caleb and Lilith Vatore. Our mothers were sisters, and we spent most of our childhoods together. Lilith always had a dark side, but Caleb was a gentle soul."
"I remember when my cousin, Lilith, first told me she'd met a fascinating man named Vlad. After that, she started spending a lot of time "training" with him. I thought she meant they were workout buddies. It wasn't until later that I found out she'd been lured to the dark arts." [sidenote - i think it's hilarious that lilith is such a god damn jock that lily's mind immediately went to "workout buddy"]
"We were young when my cousins Caleb and Lilith were turned into vampires. Lilith was turned by Vlad, and Caleb by Miss Hell. Vlad came for me as well, but I hid in the underground tunnels—which is how my own transformation, of a different nature, came about. I stayed there, half feral, and I tried to make it work with my cousins when they visited. After I discovered Moonwood Mill and my pack, I learned that they'd officially moved to Forgotten Hollow. It's upsetting."
"After I was turned into a Werewolf, things with my cousins, Lilith and Caleb, were never the same again. I'd already felt they were changing under Vlad's influence too quickly, but after my own transformation, there was something natural that pushed us apart. More than anything, I want to rekindle the relationship we had as children."
"I was older by the time I met Kristopher and learned to control my powers. That's why I'm elderly and he isn't, despite him being my senior. I struggled to determine if I should pursue immortality or not. After thinking about it, the answer was clear. I have unfinished business with my cousins. Perhaps once that's settled, I can rest."
"Not all Werewolves feel this way, but I don't enjoy the Full Moon. I spent too much of my life out of control. When the full moon rises, it reminds me of those times. Truthfully, I'd be cured if I could, but I'm not sure that I'd ever see Caleb or Lilith again if I did. I'm too old without my abilities to keep me alive."
#ts4#sims 4#sims 4 werewolves#lily zhu#caleb vatore#lilith vatore#sims 4 vampires#vatore#moonwood mill
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Le cœur a sa mémoire :(Heart got his memory)
Another theoretical analysis about Underverse! More specifically about Error's character, his development, his personality and what might be going through his mind in the context of the series.
When you look at Error's behaviour in Underverse and compare it to his behaviour in the original comic, you quickly realise that it's not the same. And when you browse through the various versions of Error to be found in fandom, whether in fan fiction, comics or simple gags, it's this version of the Underverse that's found with varying degrees of nuance. In other words, a serious, grumpy, tsundere Error who hiss at the first person he meets. And... I'm really not a fan of this Error, because in my opinion it's less interesting and, above all, leads to received ideas that head straight for the cliché highway. Why do we have this skewed image of the character? Is it really inconsistent and unworthy of his integrity? Is this a bad thing, and does Underverse follow this line? Should we limit ourselves to saying that Underverse isn't canon so there's no reason to criticise constructively or even try to find connections?
Obviously not, because with a bit of imagination (and philosophy), there's (almost) always a way to put the pieces of the jigsaw together to give it concrete form! First of all, let's dissociate the Canon version of Error from its Fanon version.
In terms of personality, Error Canon is more like the Collector in The Owl House than the vampire-spider Miguel O'Hara in Spiderverse. An unhinged and paranoid Collector, but all the same. He's chatty, he smiles, and has no trouble talking to anyone, whether it's the creators who ask him questions, his prisoner Swap!Sans, or that strange visitor, the Sans that Fresh usually owns. It's a far cry from the grumpy, withdrawn character who refuses all human contact. In the comic, his reticence is often relatively controlled, and in any case, if he does do any harm, it very rarely comes back to the Gaster blasters. When Swap gives him a completely off-the-wall speech about friendship, yeah, he abandons him temporarily in the Anti-Void to teach him a lesson, but even in a panic he doesn't hurt or attack him. When he thinks he's being manipulated by Darkblitz8, he hangs her high into the air with his strings, but nothing more. Then he calms down straight away and quietly puts his hands back in his pockets and says, "What a nice lady, I love making new friends."
"Love. Making. New friends."
Yes, that's Error saying that, can you believe it? It's said as a joke, but OF COURSE he's sincere... And for a thousand and one reasons. What I mean is that, like every Sans else, he more has a tendency to hide his thoughts behind jokes or false humour than to reject or attack others. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's a tendency.
The only time he pulls out his blasters (outside of destroying AU's) is when he gets a surprise hug from behind and when FRESH shows up out of nowhere. So it's relatively legitimate (but only relatively because there's nothing legitimate about exterminating your neighbour Ú^Ù).
Nevertheless, the Fandom version and the original version have one thing in common: Error is completely anti-social, fearful of others, and hates himself viscerally without admitting it to himself. But the "Tsundere" version is highly caricatured, with temperaments that are sometimes the exact opposite of what Error is! He is portrayed as cold, distant, incapable of not shouting when something displeases him, and so on. But in reality he answers questions, accepts a handshake from a stranger and even describes it as "pleasurable", talks about his tastes, admits word for word that he likes having people to talk to, concedes to requests... The only sensitive subjects are his personal problems, which include Papyrus, Toriel and, of course, himself.
But he hates glitches, right? The AU's and all that, he hates them?
Yes, he hates them, but subconsciously he makes a dissociation between the mass of shapeless glitches and an individual. When he goes to destroy AUs, they're glitches. When he meets someone at random and starts to build a human relationship with them (Swap), he almost forgets that he's supposed to hate him.
Canon Error plays the villain, but in fact he's a frightened little beast in denial about his extreme loneliness and strong self-hatred. This also fits the fandom version, but in a kind of misunderstood inverse: not only does he lose all his glitched, unpredictable, paranoid and nightmarish side, but above all he also loses his cute and childlike side, naive, unaware of social references like the term "ship", with surprising tastes and a real desire to form bonds when he feels it's safe to do so. As a result, he loses that strange duality that creates a feeling of unease, a mixture of fear and attachment, because we sense that he has totally human emotions but is too deranged to be able to be a truly healthy friend with anyone... He can hardly even be described as a narcissistic pervert, because he has already shown real compassion and even if he blames people for his misfortune, he won't tell them directly or make them feel guilty about it; he's more likely to say it to himself. He's more direct when he's in "destroyer" mode, but it's still accusations about people's glitch state in a general sense, like a "hate you all". No, he's not even just an asshole, he's just.... Insane. We forget that he's insane.
Also, when he feels threatened, Error will automatically step into his villain role with sardonic laughter and striking retorts. The Fanon version, on the other hand, will spit in the person's face and express his anger. He's rational, hateful, sinister, a killjoy and stable in his tempestuous character. Of course, there are fanarts and gags where the cute side is brought out... But they're usually just gags, and in fanfiction and comics they're rarely shown and often anecdotal without much imagination...
OK, I've been talking about the Fanon version for a while now, but does Error in Underverse have this problem?
Well...
No ┐( ∵ )┌!
Firstly because in Underverse it's moderate, and he's presented in situations where it's understandable (the majority of his interactions are with Ink, his sworn foe so obviously he's going to be on the defensive), but also, we'll see later, because the series raises an important side of who Error has become over the course of time, and confronts him with an ultimatum, where his status quô goes is smashed to pieces.
I'm not in favour of Error being ultra-aggressive and cold in stories in general because I find it makes him interesting as a dead rat, but portraying him as more serious, intelligent and aware of the world around him isn't a bad choice. How can we explain it?
Well... He grew old, that's all.
The Error of Underverse, and by extension of the Fandom, is a character who has evolved, been revisited and experienced in many different ways. He's gone from the "guy who messes things up in the AU's" to the "Destroyer", his overall power too has increased as fans have seen his potential for danger, which may be a parallel to the fact that he's... simply trained and toughened up as he goes along? There's nothing to stop us imagining a future based on the Canon we've been left with. He simply accumulates memory. Even the fact that Ink and Error are enemies, it isn't canon, but... Well, it makes perfect sense, because by putting universes in danger, of course he had to face the protector at some point!
Error has visited AU's, encountered situations that have taught him lessons... He has grown in maturity. Fine, he still gets nought for emotional maturity, but he has grown anyway, which is normal and a good thing (because if the characters never evolved in an open world, we'd be a bit bored all the same).
That said, there's a rather annoying glitch that's going to mess things up a bit...
It's her again, Ma'am the Canon description ! ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧
In Canon, canonically, in real real real real.... Error is incapable of evolving. It's in his nature, quite simply. Because he's an "error".
According to Crayon Queen, the ending of Error's comic should have gone like this: Swap! Sans, as a result of being exposed to the Anti-Void, becomes an error in his own right, an erratic and unhinged being whose character and memory become dislocated and distorted. He retains his positive and heroic character, so it doesn't make him a villain, but he remains unpredictable and difficult to follow, and therefore dangerous. Error will feel horrible about this and will even be confronted with a deep guilt that will convince him to let him go. "Blueberror" will then be guided into the Omega Timeline by Core Frisk where he will go to live. And Error will find himself alone again in the Anti-Void, alone in this white nothingness, alone in the middle of All. As time goes by, he will forget all about the experience and return to the person he was before without questioning, for such is the destiny of errors. Corrupted things with no hope of salvation.
Yes, it's tragic, but that's the way it is! And Passive!Night is dead, get used to it!
(Never! QwQ)
(*Rubbing her hands) What if we tried to slip through the cracks and get round this restrictive element, all the while respecting the character and his universe?
Come on, let's get started?
We're off!
So why does Error lose his memory?
Because he's an error, all right. But is that all? Aren't there other remarkable factors that make him forget?
Already, exposure continues to the Anti-Void, where living leads to harmful consequences. To explain why, I had theorised that, being the opposite of the Void, it was the Core of the Multiverse, also known as the Great Whole, where codes intersect and aggreate. –I've done some research in the meantime and the Doodlesphere can't really be a Core, because it's Ink's 'private' dimension. It's an empty zone (perhaps an empty AU which is recognisable by its nature as a white or off-white nothingness without, however, corresponding to the properties of the Anti-Void) where the painter has grouped together some sort of links to access the AUs. It's a bit like a custom Doc document with thousands of URLs, but not a Heart.–
Exposed to the Anti-Void for too long, some of our codes end up merging with the dimension; we lose some, we receive some, until we become errors, a bit like a slow dissolution. Our memory is obviously affected. At the moment of transformation, but perhaps also as we continue to be exposed to it?
If you don't like this theory, there's also the fact that, well... It's a void. White. No wind, no heat or cold, no light, no shadow, no palpable matter. EVIDENTLY it causes an alteration in the brain and memory. If Error left the Anti-Void for somewhere less... Creepy, it's easy to imagine that his continual amnesia would be less severe.
And finally, the last and most important reason...
Error is alone and bored shitless.
Now let's going to do a bit of philosophy, because philosophy of the real world is science of fiction.
What is Memory (and owh shet I don't have fucking idea of the nuances of vocabulary in English philosophy–) ?
(Well in French "Souvenir" is meanging like memory and "Mémoire" the global uniting of the memories, I suppose there exists a term to make the nuance but I don't know enough about it so... Let's say that Souvenir = memory and Mémoire = Memory, okay?
Sorry ...TwT)
So, roughly speaking, it's the collection of our memories recorded by a stade of consciousness of a moment that was present but is now past. Not to be confused with storage medium: there's a lot of information recorded by the brain that we can't remember (in Error's case it's most certainly out of order too, at least in part).
The conditions for a memory are as follows: to fixate on an object, situation or person in order to take aware of it. Reflecting enables this to happen, because reflecting is about taking the initiative and interrupting the flow of thought in order to consider a specific idea; thinking that you've had that thought. It's like a computer: there are lots of images stored inside, but you won't have access to them, or only with difficulty, if you don't think about printing them out in physical format. In any case, to have a Memory, you need a trigger, something that connects you to reality and makes you say: I remember that.
And Error doesn't have that. There's nothing memorable about his life as an anomaly. He is alone, all the time, in a nothingness where nothing happens, where there is nothing beautiful. A memory is only a memory if we have a consciousness of a past and a present. But Anti-Void has no day, no night, no timetable, no real time. And the only time Error goes out is to kill masses of people he doesn't care about and doesn't even consider to be living beings. He doesn't care about the AU's he destroys. If we were to make a scrapbook of his holiday memories... It would be limited to sewing, sleep, Undernovela, destruction, conversation with imaginary people (his dolls or even us), Outertale, sewing, sleep.
He's alone and he FEELS alone. So lonely that he hears voices in his head, so lonely that he talks to his own dolls. He needs others. We can even assume, in the Canon at least, that he's an extrovert.
Yes, I just said Error was extroverted, and that's extremely weird 😅
But really, it's not so crazy. An extrovert is defined by the way the person resources themselves. Introverted, by being alone, extroverted, by seeing people. It's perfectly possible to be extroverted AND asocial and anti-anti-anti-antisocial. And there you boned a bit.
I'm not making any claims, what I can see is that Error has a certain ease in expressing himself and talking about himself (as long as it doesn't have to do with his problems) and that he's quite talkative. But then, maybe he's something else, intro or ambi, because in his condition of absolute solitude, ANYONE would have an immense need to be with other people.
Besides, don't you think that in his comic, the longer he lives with Swap, the more logical, stable and thoughtful he becomes? It's experience that accumulates. It's the Memory that works. Because with Swap, a friend at last, he can remember what's going on and realise how much time has passed. When he learns to knit with him, when he watches Undernovela with him, when he answers the creator's questions with him, and so on.
It's only after Swap has gone that Error closes in on himself again, letting the Anti-Void devour him once more.
To have a Memory, Error needs to get out of Anti-Void AND have a face, someone he can see fluently to remind him of his past experiences. And who fills that role perfectly in the Fandom, I'll give you three guesses?
Ink.
This is arguably the strongest no-canon relationship in the Undertale Multiverse. His exchanges with Ink, whether it's a confrontation, a tempestuous dialogue or a bullshit funny, all these little interactions help to forge an emotional bond between the two nemeses.
Whether fans develop this into a rivalship, a bromance or a romance, who cares,
EVIDENTLY Ink is very important to him.
EVIDENTLY he sees him, in some twisted way, as a friend.
Because Ink's the ONLY stable, long-term human relationship he has. And the only way to keep that bond is to keep destroying over and over again to get the painter's attention, and maybe even other people's attention. And given that Error's incapable of being healthy with anyone, because he hates himself too much and is too afraid of other people, what better way to show his attachment than with an "I hate you"?
I'm going to use a really stupid reference here, but Error has a bit of a Dory memory. She forgets everything as she goes along, but from the moment she meets Marlin, she forgets less and less. All she has to do is look at his face and she remembers everything they've been through. And afraid he'll abandon her all alone again, because she doesn't want to forget again.
What if that's what Error was afraid of in Underverse, when Ink 'abandons' him to go and play with X-Gaster? What if he's afraid that if he loses him, all his progression he accomplished so far will go up in smoke?
Ink is Error's Memory. It's very ironic.
And the icing on the cake is that Ink has a lot in common with Error: faced with extreme loneliness in a white void, loss of Memory, ignorance of the conscious state of the beings around them... Ink expresses this suffering through a desire to protect, and Error through a desire to destroy (it's superbly explained in THIS comic you'll found just after validated by the creator, I recommend it!) Isn't he the perfect friend? The funny thing is that in Underverse, the roles are 'reversed'. Ink is prepared to destroy everything, while Error is prepared to do anything to save what attention he has left. OK, he destroys the AU's, but he doesn't care about the AU's, he cares about Ink. He had the chance all along to do it, but he waited until the ultimatum. Because his battles with the painter and his status as quô are vital to him. He was pushed to the limit to commit the irreparable.
If that, is not two lunatics walking on a beam, I don't know what is.
I'm extrapolating here, but imagine that the odd island in the middle of the sea had been requisitionee by Error to be his new den precisely because he'd had enough of the Anti-Void and the memory loss it was causing him? Perhaps, having had a truce with Ink, he no longer felt the need to protect himself from him by staying in the Anti-Void (since Ink has a great fear of white spaces, it makes a good lair) and he was able to move in later. After all, the only time we see him in the Anti-Void is when Ink kicked him back in the arse and in the 2nd Xtrascene when he's snoozing. It's as if he's been sleeping off his wine or something, as if he's gone back there in a fit of rage to forget everything again in frustration at seeing Ink having fun without him. Haven't you noticed that the dolls and the footstool he sits in only exist in his dream? And that when he wakes up, he's on the floor with nothing around him? Why didn't he sleep in his footstool? It's as if he's actually moved all his stuff, except his souls, since they're best kept in the Anti-Void by Ink. The footstool isn't on the island in Xtra scene 1, but it is in Comic the Truce, Error moved it. Maybe he really leaved the Anti-Void and is only using it as a repository for souls? All this just to... Stop being mad? Live a more or less normal life? Become aware of who he is and... Simply be?
Very capylotract but I love this theory xD
And I also think that Error doesn't just see Ink as a tool or a means. I think he really thinks the two of them have a special relationship. Because he's romantically inclined, which is suggested by his Sans past, his taste for Outertale and the fact that he watches a rosewater series with a ship where his alternative version and the alternative version of the woman he loved are in a misunderstood and forbidden relationship, because he's afraid but also wants to be loved deep down given that he's incapable of giving himself self-esteem, because he shows intense frustration when Ink doesn't show him that it's mutual...
And because RIVALSHIP! It would be a perfect match for the Joker/Batman relationship in the Lego Batman movie and I think it's HANDSOME!!!! (*shakes fan-girling head)
(I don't know if Jakei will go with what I have developed but whatever she does will still be super awesome, I wouldn't worry about it ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧!)
.
Error belongs to @loverofpiggies
Ink belongs to @comyet
Underverse belongs to @jakei95
#undertale au#undertale#error sans#theoryunderverse#undertale multiverse#underverse#underverseanalysis#headcanon#ink sans#anti-void#ask-error-sans#errink#errorink relationship#rivalship#rivalshipping
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Happy House
Steve's always had a safety net of other people's expectation to fall back on but after it becomes clear Nancy doesn't want him the same way he wants her, Steve has to face the reality he doesn't know who he really is. All it takes for Steve to come into his own is one metalhead, one summer, and one roadtrip.
AKA PUNK!STEVE. PUNK!STEVE. PUNK!STEVE. Canon divergent. Post Volume 2.
24K words, Eddie Munson x Steve Harrington.
____________________________________
The first time Steve thinks everything he knows is bullshit is right after Nancy shatters his heart for the second time. When the end of the world seems to be hanging in the balance by such delicate threads, Steve thinks maybe he can tell her how he really feels, he can make it right. So in the RV, he confesses the thing he’d been biting back. He confesses the very thing he’d been so worried to admit to because doing so would mean he would be putting everything on the line. What is one supposed to do when their life is on the line besides have a dramatic confession in a stolen RV while in the back of his mind he worried about the metalhead he was working to clear of murder charges and simultaneously thinking he wants the kids but is it wrong to want beyond that too? Is it wrong to think of Eddie too as he confessed?
Nancy told Steve what he sort of already knew but wasn’t ready to face: they were headed in two different directions. They’d always be a part of each other’s lives and stories, but not in that way. She didn’t want him the same way he wanted her and it sucks to hear. It’s a frozen blade to his chest, the biting sting of pain cut only by the chill of the realization that Nancy would not be his for real this time. Even if he was wrong, the care was not. It’s his only saving grace. Caring is not wrong.
Caring just hurts like a bitch.
“Harrington, I don’t think a unibrow suits you,” Eddie says with a small laugh as he shuffles closer to the bed.
Steve stands, approaching him softly, a hovering hand in the between space--a distance clearly not close to Steve’s body and a distance not quite breaching Eddie’s sphere of space either. When Steve got to the room, Eddie was missing from the bed, though Steve could hear something from the bathroom, so he assumed Eddie was in there and didn’t want to intrude. “Oh you can say it. I’m sure you can smell the smoke from the gears grinding.”
Eddie settles onto the edge of the bed first and listens to the way Steve laughs. It’s short and hollow. “What are you thinking about?” Eddie asks.
Steve, once he’s sure Eddie is squarely back on the bed, settles into the seat just off to Eddie’s right. He shakes his head. There would be no way he could truly articulate it anyway. It was stupid. Steve was supposed to have his whole life together—he’s supposed to have it all and it’s supposed to be easy. But it all seems to be falling apart. He can’t even get into Tech. Nancy doesn’t want him. He’s worked at Scoops and subjected himself to the green vest of Family Video. Steve’s put his life on the line for Eddie. He adores Dustin, Lucas, Eleven, Will, Mike, Max, Robin--hell even Erica. But even in all that, even though Steve cares, he doesn’t know what the fuck it all means. He doesn’t know what the fuck life is really supposed to be about if it’s not about settling down. What is life if not a string of met expectations like a checklist?
“It’s nothing,” Steve returns. He’d hoped his visit would go like the others--them mostly shooting the shit, Steve catching Eddie up on what’s happening with the rest of the party and Eddie regaling all his glorious stories of being in a hospital. There is enough drama amongst the older women that Eddie is happy to pass the latest gossip over to Steve. “You don’t need to worry about me. You need to focus on healing up, getting better, you know. Tip top shape.”
“I think my left nipple will forgive you for such careless words,” Eddie laughs. It’s gone--totally and fully by the razor teeth of the bats.
Steve sometimes tries to actively forget the extent of Eddie’s injuries when the nightmares get really bad. When things get bad, Steve finds himself still watching the surgery doors fluttering close in front of his face, but in the gaps of the doors swaying open and then close he watches Eddie’s bullet belt being torn off his waist, the fabric of his Hellfire T-shirt being cut in one go and Steve fucking winces at the sight because he knows Eddie made that himself. Steve really tries to forget how thick and hot blood is when it’s seeping through clothes.
“Really, it’s nothing,” Steve says again.
“Was it something Henderson said again? The little shit could really stand to keep his ego in check.” Eddie tries to offer it like a joke, tries to see what levity could do in terms of getting Steve to open up. But Eddie means the question genuinely.
Steve watches the glint to Eddie’s eyes--a glaze that almost looks like tears but isn’t really a watery substance ready to fall. But something else is in that gaze. Steve can feel it dripping as if he’d held out his hands to catch it. He rubs his hands on the front of jeans, to shake the feeling that maybe he could tell Eddie. “No, it’s nothing. Really, but he is a little shit.” He offers a laugh at the end of the sentence, but his hands still feel like they’re full of something--Eddie’s gaze probably. And they’re a little wet too; Steve’s sure it’s nervous sweat. “What happened with that nurse you said was cute?” Steve asks, instead to take the conversation off himself.
“I mean, she’s had to clean my bed pan when I couldn’t stand so I think it’s safe to say it’s not going really anywhere,” Eddie laughs. He can see the nerves on Steve, his constant rub at his thighs like he keeps trying to get his hands clean. Whatever it is that’s going on with Steve, he’s not going to give it up easily. So Eddie lets it go for now.
“You’ll be out of here soon,” Steve offers. “We’ll get you back into the dating scene.”
“The dating scene never really existed for me. More like the quick fuck scene.”
Steve’s first reaction is to immediately dismiss Eddie’s retort. Eddie’s cool--nice, and funny, even if Steve was initially put off by Eddie’s lack of personal boundaries sometimes. And right behind that reaction is the realization that when Dustin approached Robin and Steve at Family Video about Eddie being missing after the death of Chrissy Cunnighman, Steve’s first reaction was to call him Eddie “The Freak” Munson--a name that had been bestowed upon Eddie unfairly Steve realizes now.
As inaccurate as the moniker was, it is a reminder that the entire town held the same belief. Just like Steve had. Well no, just like King Steve would. Steve sees Eddie better now, not perfectly, just better. Eddie is nothing more or less than human, who had taken Dustin and Mike in when it seemed like the prowls of high school would swallow them whole and spit up their bones. Just as Steve’s sight had been previously blinded, a lot of the towns would be too. A lot of the people in the dating pool would be blind too.
The silence makes Eddie squirm so his mouth opens and the words are spilling before he can stop them. “Seems like now it might be a pity fuck scene. Or someone thinking they can take a walk on the wild side.”
Steve hisses at the jab. “Dude, c’mon, no. You deserve better than that.”
Eddie shrugs. “Just because I deserve better doesn’t mean I’m going to get it.”
All the air in Steve’s chest leaves through his nose and mouth. He wants to refute Eddie’s statement. Steve so badly wants to tell Eddie that he deserves better and he’s going to get it. But Steve’s no good at this. He’s no good at comfort. Though he cares, though he wants to get the words off his tongue, they get scrambled in his brain and he’s left sitting lips slightly parted, pushed back into the chair. Steve’s floored. What kind of perspective was that to have? Wouldn’t things get better? They would have to right? Eddie deserves some peace and quiet in his life after everything’s happened. Steve wants that for Eddie.
“No, no, don’t-” Steve gets out and the rest of it dies when Eddie merely shrugs. Eddie’s gaze drops down to the hospital gown covering his lap and just beneath that are the sweatpants he managed to sweet talk his nurses into letting him wear.
“Does the truth make poor little Steve uncomfortable? Hate to break it to you, dude. But this town will murder me the second they get the chance. If they smell anything like an opportunity I am a dead man. No one wants to date someone like me. It’s a fate I’ve accepted a long time ago.”
“Just means you gotta get out of this town then. I thought you had the opportunity to?” Eddie had briefly mentioned the government trying to strike a deal for his silence.
Eddie shrugs. “Wayne and I don’t have much and we can start over. But everyone’s-no matter where we go- is going to know. This shit is making national fucking news. My innocence doesn’t mean shit to people.”
“So, Dustin, Max, Robin, Lucas, Nancy, Jonathan, Mike, Hooper, Eleven, Erica, and I aren’t people?” It’s a low blow but Steve’s going to fucking take it.
Eddie huffs. Of course, what else would one expect from Steve “The Hair” Harrington. “God, you’re so full of yourself. No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
Steve shrugs. “That’s what I heard.”
“Then you ought to get the hair out of your ears and the wax too while you’re at it.”
“Well that’s rich, comin’ from you,” Steve returns, gesturing to Eddie’s hair. The scoff Eddie gives ends with a smile. Steve wonders in the moment if this is a real argument or not, but he adores that for the briefest moment that Eddie and he can share just the smallest tufts of laughter.
“Look, Harrington, all I’m saying is that the world’s good for people like you. You’ve got it all. Looks, money, and you’re not an asshole. I’m the freak in case you forgot. There’s no hope for me.”
For a second, the sadness on Eddie's face is overshadowed by the temporary bleariness and Steve shuts his eyes, head tilted back. He gives it a second and the focus returns for him. “Eddie,” Steve laughs, “you don’t know how wrong you are on that.”
“Do tell how wrong I am,” Eddie counters. “Is this about Nancy?”
Steve shifts a bit in his seat. It is about her and it’s also not about her. “She--it’s--only a little.”
“Steve Harrington, do not lie to me. Is this about Wheeler or is it not?”
“I’m not lying,” Steve defends pushing up and out of the seat now. He wants to laugh. Nancy is only a small part of it. “It just doesn’t seem fair.”
“If I didn’t know any better I would say that you care.” It comes out with a tuft of laughter behind it. Eddie’s attempt to break the tension that seems to have brought a tight line to Steve’s shoulder. But all it does is make Steve pause in his pacing and whirl around to Eddie. Steve’s stare is hot. Eddie shrinks back into the pillows.
“I do care. A lot. It’s not fucking fair what’s happened to you or Max. It’s not fair this backwards fucking town can’t see you like I do or how Dustin does or how Wayne does. They’re all pretending anyway. None of them are fucking happy. It’s all a sick fucking game we’ve been told to play anyway. And I hate that I wanted to give my heart to Nancy. Because I don’t know who else to give it to or how else I’m supposed to salvage my existence. I just don’t know what any of it means.”
Eddie sits up against his pillows a bit more. There it was--the thing that had been eating Steve away when he first came into the room. “Steve’s gone punk.”
“Whatever you want to call it, Munson, I don’t really care. I just--I hate this feeling. I hate feeling like it’s useless, pointless.”
“What-what if you didn’t do what people expected from you? I mean, hell, you’re halfway there already. Why not just be you, Steve?”
Steve grips the rails at the button of Eddie’s hospital bed, head hanging heavy on his neck. “I don’t know who I am. All I’ve got are the voices of everyone else in my head.”
Eddie slides in closer, feet dangling off the left side of the bed, but he tilts his head to try and get a look at Steve’s face. “Do-do me one favor, yeah?”
Steve exhales before bringing his head up. Whatever Eddie’s going to ask, it can't be worse than what anyone else has demanded of him. “Yeah.”
“Promise me this summer, you let yourself be Steve. Not what your parents want, not what you think Nancy would want, not even what you think I want. Just be Steve, okay?”
“What part of I don’t know how didn’t you quite get?” It’s snarky and a bit hot as it leaves Steve’s lip but his smile breaks through whatever malice he might’ve been trying to put behind the words.
Eddie’s hand inches up to the base of the foot rail. There’s still inches between his fingers and Steve’s but Eddie notices the heat. He’s close enough. “Maybe-maybe I can help.”
Steve watches the short nails on Eddie’s thick fingers, like they’re going to save him. Maybe that’s what he’s wanted his whole time. Someone to save him and show him who he really is. “I-I’d like that.”
“Deal,” Eddie exhales.
_________________________________________
Eddie keeps one arm wrapped instinctively around his torso in the passenger seat of Steve’s car. It’s not a sharp pain that Edie feels. It’s a dull ache, but the bumps in the hurried repaired streets jostle everything in Eddie in a way he wasn’t aware of until now, until he was tending to wounds that ached when bounced. For all it’s worth Steve is doing about 5 below the speed limit and crawling over bumps so it’s not as bad as it could be. The slowness, Eddie thinks, is more likely to kill him the the soreness of his healing injuries.
“You’re sure your parents won’t mind me and Wayne? Like we won’t be in the way?”
Steve sighs at the question. Eddie’s asked it four times since Steve brought it up. There were still parts of the trailer that survived and needed to be salvaged. Wayne did what he could and Steve helped, but there was still a little bit left. In the interim, it was still being decided what the best thing for Eddie would be. Though he’d already talked about how this town wanted his head on a stake, he hadn’t talked about getting out of it. Wayne had already voiced his concerns for Eddie’s safety and stated that it could be a good idea to move to another city, if another state was too much for Eddie. Steve worried Eddie was dragging his feet because he wanted something bad to happen. Steve can’t even fathom what would cause Eddie to have a death wish--a second time, and this one much less heroic than the first--but it didn’t feel like Steve’s place to ask. So he did the next best thing he could think to do--because Steve cared--and offered them space at his place for a few weeks.
“I’m not dignifying that question with an answer again,” Steve answers finally, pulling to a stop at the red sign.
“Look, it’s just I don’t want you to run into any trouble trying to help us out. We’re not exactly the town’s favorite nephew and uncle duo right now.”
“Good thing I’m not listening to the town on this call.”
Eddie exhales harshly. He kept asking because he needs to know why Steve’s so okay with housing the two of them for what wasn’t really a definite and finite length of time. Wayne only asked for a few weeks but Eddie wasn’t sure if he’d make miraculous grounds on the recovery front because if so, that window that Wayne asked for would shorten. Why would Steve offer his own house when Wayne had been staying in a perfectly fine motel? Surely Steve’s parents would have plenty of thoughts.
Eddie’s question is answered when they pull into the Harrington driveway. Only Wayne’s car is there. Eddie’s van hadn’t survived the town’s red hot vegance. Steve pulls all the way into the garage and helps Eddie into the house--a gentle hover as Eddie looks around the looming massive house. The house is silent--too silent. “Your parents aren’t even home are they?”
Steve gives a shrug before realizing he’s a step behind Eddie. The action is unnoticeable to Steve exhales before speaking. “It’s going to be a quiet summer for them up in New York.”
“And you’ve had a hellish summer in Hawkins.”
“Summer’s not over and it hasn’t been too hellish just yet.” Steve waves for Eddie to follow after the statement and Eddie lingers for a moment. He’s not sure what Steve meant by the tenderness dripping behind the words summer’s not over. But maybe it’s just a wistfulness that Steve’s sort of always had.
“I tried to get Wayne to take one of the rooms upstairs, but he’s stubborn. There’s a den next to this room. He’s been bunkering there on the couch. There’s a full bathroom just around the corner too, fully stacked with towels. Kitchen’s not too far is it?”
Eddie shakes his head no, taking in the sparsely decorated walls. It’s the art that makes Eddie sure he’s too poor to breathe on and the white sheets on the bed make him worry for a moment that should any of his bandages leak it’ll be hell to clean. Eddie realizes as he stands at the foot of the bed that this is worse than the hospital. At least there, the blood and other bodily secretions are expected. Here it feels like Eddie’s sneakers are going to leave behind mud prints and if he dare touches a dresser, the wood is sure to show the oily stain of his fingers though he swears his skin hasn’t been drier after being in the hospital.
Steve watches Eddie’s frozen stance and steps in through the door, pushing off the molding. “You okay?”
“I don’t feel like I can breathe in this place. It’s….very clean.” Eddie’s not proud of what became of the trailer. Wayne worked nights and tried in the day to clean up but he never made it far. Eddie most definitely didn’t help out on that front. He was usually out, trying to forget what had become of his life. It was easy to distract himself with survival--need money to eat, band practice, gigs at the Hideout, campaigns on Fridays all to escape the vicious wheel of survival but still needing to survive to even enjoy the coping mechanisms.
“Maybe we can go through some of the stuff Wayne and I managed to save and add a bit of you to the room. I don’t know. It is rather boring,” Steve admits, taking in the white walls that his mother never touched but only to put up the artwork. “I’ve got some spare sheets in one of those hall closets. I’m sure.”
“One of them? How many do you have?”
“Two upstairs. One down.”
“Thre-three fucking hall closets,” Eddie stutters out.
“Three hall closets,” Steve nods. “It’d be one thing if the house was ever full enough to warrant it. But--” Steve pauses there with another shrug and then waves a hand around as to emphasize the stark emptiness. “You and Wayne are the most people who have been extended stay guests.”
“Your infamous ragers aren’t being counted?”
“I didn’t know or care about half of those people. No, they don’t count.”
Eddie hisses, not in pain that is physical but at the verbal wound. “I think I was at a few of those parties.” Eddie and Steve both stare at each other because Eddie knows he was only there at the parties as the town’s dealer. He’s sure Steve won’t remember his appearances. Eddie never stayed long--having learned to always show up an hour after the party started and to leave only after about 45 minutes to an hour after he arrived. “I don’t expect you to remember though.”
“I’d remember now. Even with all the fog that’s in my brain, I’d remember now,” Steve offers with a stern nod.
“How many lumps have you taken to the head?” Eddie asks with a bit of laughter falling behind his words. There’s no way that Steve would care that much about Eddie. Not enough to promise not to forget him.
“Too many,” Steve exhales with laughter. “Do you need help getting settled in?”
It’s just clothes so Eddie shakes his head. “I think I can manage.”
“I’ll go look for those spare sheets and then change them for you.” His fingers drum over the door molding as Steve exits.
Eddie waits for a minute to see if he can listen to where all the hall closets might be. But there’s just the buzz of electricity. Eddie gets his bag from the corner of the bed into the spare single chair in the corner. He doesn’t bother getting anything into drawers. Instead, he peers his head out of the door and spots the hallway that leads to the den. Eddie follows it, being able to catch the faint sounds of voices as he gets closer. Wayne’s stretched out on the couch, a blanket already thrown over his chest.
The TV’s volume is low--Eddie is sure as noise to help Wayne fall asleep and he can see now as he takes in the deep green of the room where he passed the bathroom on his way in. Eddie backtracks, peers into the bathroom and notices two toothbrushes in the holder, toothpaste, and two things of mouthwash. He steps further into the bathroom, inspecting the shower and spots the bodywash he normally uses alongside Waynes and the addition of two more bottles. A separate shampoo and conditioner. He’s careful as he bends forward to read the labels. Moisturizes and strengthens damaged dried curls. Eddie snorts. No doubt something Steve bought and Eddie would give it a shot because Steve was asking him too. But reading it feels a bit gimmicky.
“Shit, is that you kid?”
Eddie turns to the sound of Wayne’s gruff voice. He places the bottle onto the counter, feet carrying him before he truly realizes. Wayne smells of cigarettes. And just beneath that harsh scent, Eddie catches the rumble of Wayne’s voice as he continues on. “Harrington’s a sneaky one. Told me he’d get me up before getting you.”
Eddie can’t find the words to reply, just buries his face in Wayne’s shoulder. He doesn’t really care if Wayne was or wasn’t there to pick him up from the hospital. He doesn’t care what Steve did or didn’t do. Eddie’s just so fucking grateful to hug the one man in his life that’s given a shit. “I’m sorry, Wayne. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Oh, no, no you don’t have to be sorry.”
The tears start, initially just a burning in the back of Eddie’s eyes, but he feels them slip down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry, pops.”
Wayne’s careful as he tightens his hold around Eddie, a squeeze mostly around his shoulders, but the two men are wrapped as tightly as possible around each other. His chest tightens at the realization this is the first time in nearly 4 years that Eddie’s called Wayne pops. He started when Wayne first took Eddie in back when he was ten. But by the time Eddie landed into his junior year of high school the name slowed. Wayne never took it personally. Eddie would have to learn to navigate the world on his own in some ways. He’d done that so much prior to Wayne, of course after a few years the initial novelty of having a parental figure would dull. Wayne still got on his ass about grades. Wayne was the one who taught Eddie how to do laundry. Wayne was the one cleaning splinters out of knees and teaching Eddie how to keep up a car by changing the oil. Wayne was the one that had to dish out some level of discipline when the offense required it. It wasn’t all fun.
But now, Wayne has his son back--alive. It’s all he could ever wish for. “I’m just glad you’re back, son. You’re safe now.”
___________________
Steve plops the box down, a bit unceremoniously but still gently enough to attempt to save anything fragile from certain death on the kitchen table. Edde pushes himself slowly up out of the seat, popping the folded in cardboard flaps. He tries to suppress the groan, but his body is still readjusting to extra movements.“These are all the posters we managed to save,” Steve notes. “There’s a couple more boxes with trinkets. Your guitar--it’s packed away too.”
Eddie hadn’t really thought about his guitar in a while. In the hospital, he spent most of those first couple of days just trying to piece together that he was in fact alive and not stuck in some sort of strange lucid dream. Then after that, he was overtaken by government officials, shoving papers and pens into his face. It only lasted a couple of days until he told them all to fuck off and that once he was out, he’d entertain their offers. But now, at the mention of his guitar, he realizes the initial freeze and then release.
“Sorry,” Steve continues, noticing the way Eddie seizes up.
“No. It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, I might not have begged you to come down to The Upside Down or forced you, but still, shit that went down wasn’t fun.”
“Yeah, fun isn’t the word I’d used either,” Eddie laughs, pulling out his Screaming for Vengeance Judas Priest poster.
“Did you want the other box too? I think it’s some cassettes and magazines.”
“If-if it’s not too much?”
“Don’t make it sound like a question.” Steve taps the back of one of the wooden chairs and throws his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
Eddie nods, fingers just grazing the Anthrax banner. He shouldn’t be watching Steve this long. The damned yellow sweater that Steve had tossed in his face not even two weeks ago was hanging back on Steve’s shoulders and it looks maybe just slightly too big, like a mother does when she wants to get an item to stretch for the next impeding growth spurt. Or at least what Eddie imagines a mother to do, because Wayne did that once for him. But it works for Steve, the sleeves pulled up on his forearms and instead of sweatpants, he’s in jeans, like he imagined having to do something more involved than just hanging posters in the guestroom Eddie was hunkering down in for the next few weeks.
Eddie shakes the thought from his hand and rifles through the contents of the box. Steve returns a few minutes later, slipping the next box more gently onto the table. “Want a hand going through this?”
“You’ve seen everything once already,” Eddie snorts, but nods.
It is fate that right on top of the box Steve cracks open is Eddie’s Summer of 1986 edition of Heavy Metal Magazine. Steve tries to stifle his laugh, flipping the magazine around to show Eddie the cover of the half nude woman in just bikini bottoms. And even Steve knows calling the strings on her illustrated body a bikini bottom is a stretch.
Eddie catches the movement from the corner of his eyes and glances up only to be met with the Morbius Gravius cover and snatches it from Steve’s hands. The raised eyebrow and teasing smirk make Eddie’s chest hot. “Fuck off, Harrington. If I went up to your room and looked around, I’m sure I’d find worse.”
“You’d find not much,” Steve snorts, pulling out cassettes now. He reads over the names of the bands. “What is half this? Like Dio? Judas Priest? You don’t have any like ABBA? Not even like Queen? Queen’s rock right?”
When they first rummaged through Eddie’s musical collection in the panic to save Nancy from Venca’s mind control, Eddie defended that what he had was music. Of course, it had been Robin doing much of shouting, but Eddie watches Steve reading through the tapes, song names falling from his lips in hushed whispers. His brow is scrunched as it clearly washes over him how out of his own league he is.
“It’s metal,” Eddie answers.
“Metal?” Eddie nods at Steve’s question now that both of them have locked gazes. “So no Queen?”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “No, I don’t have any Queen. They are technically rock, yes. But like, it’s just different. What do you feel when you listen to music?” Edie asks. He can’t quite get the words together on his tongue, still trying to settle his heart at the pure and genuine curiosity and confusion on Steve’s face.
“I mean, when it’s a song I like, I feel like I’m not physically in the same place. Like if I’m in my car I don’t feel like I’m there, if that makes sense? Like I’ve been transported.”
Eddie wags a finger in Steve’s direction. Steve catches the little peak of tongue that Eddie sticks out with his excitement falling from him in short burst. “It’s that. That’s how I feel when I listen to metal. It’s all about escaping, all about being the things I’m not in real life. I’m not a dragon slayer, or would’ve never considered myself a demo-bat slayer and I still don’t. That’s all Eleven. But like, I put on Judas Priest or Dio and I’m not Eddie The Freak Munson anymore. You know? I’m so much more. I’m something different. It’s fun. It’s a little escape from the shitty world.”
“The world is bullshit,” Steve agrees.
There’s a bit of disbelief that still bubbles up in Eddie’s chest. “Big whoop, your parents leave for one summer.”
Steve doesn’t want to make this a pissing contest. Though he’s come from money and had by all means everything and so much more, he’s still had his fair share of shit. “It’s not whatever happened with you or your dad. I mean, I can’t say my dad and I would ever have to create a faux bond while being taught how to hotwire a car, but I’ve been alone by myself since I was thirteen for stretches at a time. My neighbors would send their nannies and shit to make sure I was fine. But I’ve been by myself or years now.”
Eddie furrows his brows at the confession. “They’d just..leave you?”
“My dad’s always been traveling for work. My mom…she’s cares. But Dad’s got her on a tight leash too. She’d stay behind more when I was younger but as I got older he wanted her with her.”
“But you’re their fucking kid? Like what in the hell do they expect from you?”
The strength and volume to Eddie’s cry causes Steve to wince just a little. He’d woken with the pounding in the back of his head. Steve wasn’t unfamiliar with it, but since The Upside Down, the headaches had come back with a vengeance. Steve exhales, eyes still shut before blinking back to reality. The high noon sun almost blinds him again. He’d forgotten how bright it would be in the summer and with all the windows feeding into the dining room from the kitchen and the front door, Steve almost wishes he’d grabbed his sunglasses to help him make it through the day.
Eddie catches the rear back and the flash of pain on Steve’s face. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“No, not your fault. Just,” Steve shrugs, “it happens sometimes.”
“What happens?”
“Headaches,” Steve returns, delving back into the box. “But yeah, definitely not something I loved having to deal with with absent parents. But I mean, I like to think I didn’t turn out all bad.”
“The middle part of high school year would beg to differ. But I think in the end, you turned out alright.”
Steve scoffs, trying not to laugh too much with the pounding at the back of his head. “And then everything I was told to care about sort of became delusional when I found out Hell was literally under Hawkins and Russians wanted to re-open the gate that El had already closed and then this Vecna creep comes out of the woodworks. And I thought maybe other people had it sort of right. Keep quiet. Keep your head down. Marry a nice girl. Have a family. Then that turns into even bigger bullshit because the nice girl doesn’t want me again because I fucked it up once and sure I’m different now but so is she. So everything feels pointless except anger.”
“Being angry sometimes is okay, you know.”
Steve jumps, not realizing that Eddie’s moved closer to him until he spoke. The cassette Steve had been staring out rattles but Steve manages to catch it before it hits the floor. “God!”
Eddie holds up a hand. “Headache again?”
The thump of his heart is echoing in the back of his skull. But Steve ignores it. Meds don’t really help so he just toughs it out. “No, you damn near gave me a heart attack!”
“I didn’t even have to avoid squeaky floorboards. I practically stomped my way over here,” Eddie laughs. “But I-what if I told you a lot of people are angry about the same things your angry about? Like what if you’re not alone in realizing the system is utter bullshit and that it’s okay to think the things you really wanted were just childish dreams.”
“You’re going to have to say that in plain English, dude. I’m not the brightest bulb in the bunch.”
Eddie winces at Steve’s self jab. “You don’t have to be book smart to be considered a whiz.”
“Tell that to every college I applied to.” Steve places more tapes onto the table, now longer really reading the names of them, but still needing to do something with his hands. Why would Eddie care about Steve enough to try and keep him from stating what was quite obvious? Steve passed high school because he was a jock. Coaches wanted him in games and at meets and in order to stay on the team he needed at least a C average in his classes. Teachers were more than happy to give him multiple attempts or extra credit just to keep him in games.
“Well, I don’t believe it. Not in the slightest.”
Eddie says it with so much conviction that it makes Steve’s toes curl in his socks. Though his cheeks are definitely warm, Steve looks up to Eddie still just a couple feet from him. His big eyes drip with sincerity of his tone. “Are we going to redecorate that room or not?” Steve asks.
Eddie shakes his head, a sad smile on his face. “Yeah, sure, you already did the hard part and got this stuff out.”
There’s so much more lingering on Eddie’s tongue-how he wants to tell Steve to be kinder to himself, and how he wants to ask if Steve took anything for his headache, and how he wants to ask if anything actually helps the headaches because they might be something more given how much Steve’s been squinting, but he says nothing. Eddie grabs the Anthrax banner, his Judas Priest post, and some D&D illustrations that survived and goes back to his room. Steve insists on being the one to hang the items and Eddie doesn’t put up a fight.
They dig through more of the tapes and Eddie keeps a tiny stash in the room. Steve lingers at the sight of a few, but doesn’t ask about them more in depth. Just gazes. Eddie slips those into a second pile and Steve never really seems to notice. What Steve does notice is Eddie’s insistence to help return the boxes back into the garage. Steve gives him the lighter box on purpose.
The garage is cooler as they step into it and Eddie takes in a back wall lined with gold trophies. Some silver and bronze is thrown into the mix. He stacks his box into the corner Steve directs him to and then walks over to the back wall. Steve’s name is engraved into most, if not all, of the medals and trophies. “I know you were an athlete,” Eddie laughs. “But I didn’t know it was like this.”
“Sports were the only thing my dad sort of paid attention to and I didn’t feel like an idiot when I played,” Steve answers. He’s blunt and Eddie spins to catch if there’s something more to the words. But Steve doesn’t look upset about anything. In fact, Steve looks rather bored at the confession.
“Did you actually like any of the sports you played?” Eddie asks, shuffling two steps closer, but still maintaining the few feet between them.
“Swimming,” Steve answers, glancing down to the ground.
Eddie realizes this is an honest answer, with the way Steve’s shoulders round down. The detachment is the front and this here is the core. “Over your precious basketball?”
Steve’s laughter is soft. “Yeah, I mean, basketball is fun. It was great when I was on the court. But being in the water is totally different.”
“Different how?”
“I get to forget.” It’s a simple sentence; four words in total but everything in Steve’s chest unravels with it. “I don’t have anything else to worry about because it doesn’t exist in the water. The only thing I have to worry about is hitting that wall.”
Eddie’s first inclination is to gag. How dare he relate to the likes of Steve “The Hair'' Harington? But in the end, Eddie makes a noise from the back of his throat. It's an agreement. It’s understanding. “Perhaps, I should put a guitar in your hands. Show you what escaping really means.”
Steve snorts. “Let’s not. But maybe, maybe I can give one of those bands you like a shot.” The moment the sentence is out of his mouth Steve regrets the offer. The noise, even just the thought makes his head throb.
Eddie shakes his head with a tuft of laughter falling from his lips. “Maybe when you don’t look like your head is splitting you in half.”
“I’ve had worse,” Steve counters with a shrug.
“Just because you’ve had worse doesn’t mean you can’t cut yourself some slack. We’ve got tomorrow and the next day. I don’t think I’m going to be a miracle recovery. There’s time.” Eddie takes a beat, watching Steve’s brow line for any side of adversity to the statement. When he finds none, he continues on. “I made a promise that I have every intention of seeing through.”
Eddie hadn’t forgotten and Steve mostly definitely hadn’t either. Steve was sure Eddie wouldn’t mean it enough to carry it through. Now it’s staring him in his face. While Steve promised he wouldn’t forget the present, Eddie hadn’t forgotten the past. What could easily be seen as a last ditch effort for comfort Steve is something that feels like it’s bubbling right beneath the surface. Who would Steve be at the end of all this? Would he be someone he liked? Would Eddie still like him? What would reveal itself?
______________________________
Steve slips the headphones on, flipping the last few frames of his hair up to fit behind the headband. Most days Steve liked his hair, he took pride in it. But now, as Eddie slips the first tape of the day into the walkman and Steve wonders if it was really worth all the fuss. But it’s who he’s always been. What would Steve be without it? And before Steve can fully scoff and scold himself for the thought, tell himself that’s the whole point of what’s happening here, his ears are bombarded--drums, bass, and guitar all thumping in a clash of threes with a brief pause between them.
Steve listens intently--slowly catching onto the pattern and taps it onto his thigh. But it all goes out of the window just as quickly as Steve manages to catching on. The drum crashes down and rhythm guitar takes on and Steve freezes, unsure if the sound was supposed to switch so abruptly as it did in his ears. His hands go up, almost to the point of taking the headphones off. He hovers, hoping the drums and guitars all lead to something that he can follow but he can’t quite keep up.
“How do you hear yourself think?” Steve shouts.
Eddie snorts and reaches up to slip the foam off Steve’s ears. “So maybe Anthrax was a steep beginning. And you don’t. That’s the whole point.”
Steve watches Eddie switch out the tapes. His taped up torso exposed to the air of the room, having never put a shirt on after his shower. A habit Steve noticed over the last few days. He wonders if it’s just easier to let the bandages be the shirt or if it’s something Eddie usually does. Not that Steve is truly complaining. He joked that now Eddie’s shoulder would see the light of day for the first time in years, but really it’s not a bad sight to come downstairs to Eddie in the kitchen, the lines of his back still prominent even if he’s stretching out for a box of cereal.
“What are we doing next?” Steve asks.
“Holy Diver. One of my favorites and it’s a little bit slower than the first one. Should maybe be more your speed.” Eddie motions for Steve to get the headphones back on and Steve nestles them back over his ears again.
There’s silence--muffled by the foam over his ears--and then right behind it is the starting cry of an electric guitar. Steve can follow the drumline of this song easier, find himself tapping it out on the wooden kitchen table even. “It’s the same old song / You gotta be somewhere at sometime / They never let you fly.”
“You are the driver / You own the road / You are the fire go on explode.” By the time the chorus comes around for the third time, after a pretty fast paced guitar solo that pushes Steve back into the chair, he’s mumbling along to the lyrics. Eddie can tell where he’s at in the song and bobs his head, hair flying up around him just a little. Steve laughs watching Eddie mouthing along to the lyrics and Steve can hear his own butchering of the lyrics but Eddie only seems to encourage him, arms working in the motion of the drums.
Steve pulls the headphones down, still laughing at the thrashing that’s consumed Eddie. “I feel like I could kill a man,” he teases. He’s not sure what he really wants to convey. Even though he can hear the next song starting, the howling and haunting wind, but his heart still feels like it’s soaring from the first song.
“And that, sweetheart, is the magic,” Eddie returns, slipping the headphones back onto Steve’s ears. Steve bangs his head to the mellow beat of the next song, the cathartic thump of the bass and guitar as the drum taps high in the background. If every song could make him feel like this, he thinks he’d escape into these notes constantly too.
The cassettes have been long forgotten as the night settles, between the musical escapes and rummaging in the kitchen for a halfway decent meal that Steve manages to throw together, the boys find themselves lingering on the pool chairs staring up into the clear sky. Eddie knows he shouldn’t. But Steve’s hand comes up to close the flame off to the wind and Eddie leans in every so slightly to catch the butt end of the cigarette in the flame. When Eddie notices the trail of smoke and can taste the nicotine billowing back into his mouth, he pulls away. Steve doesn’t waste a second before keeping the cigarette he’d been holding between his lips firm and then catching the end in the flame too.
“These’ll kill you,” Steve teases.
Eddie laughs, lips still holding the stick to his mouth. “Then let them fucking have me.”
It feels fitting and a little weird even to Eddie’s ears. Yet another choice he made that could kill him. But at least this one would take years. It wouldn’t happen in all of seconds or minutes if the gods really wanted to be cruel. Eddie rests his free hand on his stomach, right over the scarred skin hiding away in the t-shirt. It’s a green t-shirt about some campsite not far away and Eddie is about 90% sure it’s from a gas station. He imagines Wayne having to pick it up not even ten minutes into one of their rare camping trips when Eddie was younger and split mustard onto the shirt he’d originally worn. He can’t remember exactly now, but it’s fun to imagine that as the scenario. Because Eddie would’ve soiled his clothes immediately.
But the scene is fleeting as Eddie traces the thick line on his lower stomach. One choice and it could’ve taken him out of the world in minutes. And it was. It was going to take him away in minutes, but part of Eddie’s not so sad about it the end of his own life. He worries now that he would’ve been leaving grief behind. A grief that’s easier to package in heroism, but grief all the same. It would still hurt no matter the reasons for it.
“I don’t remember you being around in elementary school,” Steve says.
It would feel strange and out of place if not for the fact the entire week and a half they’d been together had been a random burst of confessions. But something about this feels different. Eddie lulls his head to the side, taking the cigarette from his lips with one hand and takes a look at the lights of the pool reflecting back onto Steve’s warm face.
“I wasn’t,” Eddie answers.
“I only sort of remember you in middle school. You had a band.”
Eddie nods again. “Still do. Or still did? Unsure of where it stands right now.”
“Your hair was different.”
“Buzzed. I shudder at the thought now.”
“You’ve always wanted long hair?” Steve asks. He pushes up now, instead talking up into the sky he faces Eddie. “I mean, it’s your look. You know. If I ever had to point you out in the crowd, I’d look for the hair.”
“I-I don’t know if I’ve always wanted long hair but when I came to live with Wayne, he wasn’t exactly prepared to handle a kid let alone my hair so he cut it a few months after I got settled. It’s the worst I’ve cried in a long time.”
Steve hums. “I’m sorry--that you had to go through it.”
“It’s all good now. I got the hair in the end. And I don’t fault Wayne. He didn’t know and I wasn’t actually responsible enough. I mean, hell, I’m probably not responsible enough right now. But I was sort of dropped in his lap, I’m just glad he didn’t put me out on the street,” Eddie laughs. It’s hollow and mostly just an exhalation through his nose.
Steve feels awful for prying, but he slides to the edge of the seat. The light, at the angle, catches the edge of his peripheral and he loses Eddie for a quick moment before he’s able to blink his vision back. Steve knows he should probably say something, but it’s not like he can’t handle it right now. His hand with the cigarette comes up--automatically-- after the thought that he should seek help. Steve tries to will away the tremble in his hands with another drag. He would get help, in time of course. But not right now.
“You can ask,” Eddie returns after Steve's silence lingers for a while. “Everyone always does.”
“I don’t want to pry if you don’t want to say.”
Eddie inhales deeply, then swings his legs over the edge to face Steve. The two of them are like mirrors right now. Hunched over the edge of their chairs, cigarettes pressed to lips but neither one of them taking a drag. Eddie watches as Steve’s hand shake just a tad but he covers it well, gripping the edge now of the pool lounge chair. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Steve returns. “I’m not the one who almost had his intestines eaten out.” It’s a low call, not necessarily a blow, but it’s a distraction and it’s Eddie who anyone should be worried about. His body was the one worse for wear.
“I mean that tail really did want to go for the jugular,” Eddie teases, using his two fingers to motion to Steve’s neck. There’s a faint line if you get close enough--most of what had caught Steve was in his torso and his neck bruised terribly for a couple weeks. But even the skin that had broken hadn’t broken deeply.
Steve barks out his laugh, head dipping back just a little, letting his chin fall out further than normal. It’s almost like he’s trying to show it off. “Someone told me biting back was metal though.”
“It was!” Eddie returns, the clear enthusiasm lifting his voice to echo through the night. Their laughter catches onto the other, mixing with a soft echo until it floats up and away from them. As the silence falls back again between them, Eddie finishes the last of his cigarette and then grinds out the rest into the ashtray. “Mom passed away when I was young. I was 4, maybe 5. Then it was my dad and I. Clearly, as you’ve seen, I picked up a few things along the way. But it was always on the run, bouncing, laying low. I barely managed the first few years in school and when he got picked up for good, I became a warden of the state. Mom didn’t have much family but he did, so after about two or three days of them making calls to family, I got told to pack my things and was plopped down on Wayne’s front porch.”
Steve nods, putting on the butt of his own cigarette. His hands have settled now mostly. “Looks like we’re both inductees into the Shitty Dad club.”
“So your parents just leave you?”
Steve shrugs. “Yeah, like I said. The older I got, the more Dad would take Mom with him and I would just sort of get left behind. Mom’s--” Steve pauses. How does he explain that his mother is the one that calls most often? She’s the one that tells Steve how to cook his favorite over the line while he’s at the stove and forgets what to do next. She’s the one that always brings him back something when they’ve been gone. But she’s always the one that never fights to stay behind anymore. She never rocks the boat enough to get what she wants. Meek is only word that comes to mind, but he hates calling his mother that.
He continues on, “She’s just her, you know? Doesn’t make a lot of noise. Really tucks her tail and tries to keep peace.” And here’s now that Steve realizes it’s why he does the same. Even when he says no, he always inevitably cave.
“Keeping the peace isn’t always a bad thing,” Eddie counters. “Sometimes rocking the boat makes too big of a wave. Capsizes the whole boat.”
Steve shakes his head, a snort leaving his nose. “Yeah, until you realize you’re just doing what everyone wants from you and you don’t know what you want. Tuck your tail and forget who you are.”
“Well--so far, what have you learned? Who is Steve?”
“Steve’s a fan of Dio.”
Eddie pumps his first. “One thing. A good thing, I might say.”
“I know I don’t want to be the man the father is.” This is less of revelation for Steve as it is just a tangible utterance of the thoughts he’s always had. But what Steve really wants is to be everything his father hates because it means Steve will be doing something else, something so deeply him and for him that it won’t matter if his father disowns him. “I know I want so deeply to be my own person, you know?”
“I get that. What-what did young Steve want to do with his life? Before your parents fucking abandoned you. What was his dream?” Eddie asks.
The question nearly knocks all the air out of Steve’s lungs. Does he actually remember what his younger self dreamed of doing? Can he actually picture a dream from his younger version that wasn’t begging or pleading for more attention from his father? “Shit, dude, you ask harder questions than Nancy.”
“Wheeler does have the art of deduction down. I’m much more of a brute straight for the kill question.”
The noise Steve releases from the back of throat is agreement but he settles back, head dropping to look up at the stars. What did younger Steve want? “I used to want so many things. Star athlete, and even that didn’t get my dad’s attention. Thought if I was a lawyer it would be impressive. But right now, man, I just want to be happy. I don’t care if that means slinging burgers, I just want to not hate my life for once.”
“No one can fault that. I think we all want happiness.”
“What about you?” Steve asks. “What did or do you want?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Eddie snorts. “Wanted to be a rockstar. Still sort of do. Music’s the one thing that sort of keeps me sane. I hate what I have to do--with selling. It makes me my father, you know. But Wayne and I--when things get tight the money’s always good. I’m scared though. I don’t want to get caught up like my old man either, you know. I see the rock and roll lifestyle and worry I’m not going to be able to control myself. Everything is to the extreme with me and I can’t risk it. Wayne would kill me before the drugs could.”
“You just need someone to ground you when you make it big, is all. Someone that remembers how you look when you wake up and don’t brush your hair,” Steve retorts. He laughs as Eddie throws him the middle finger. But Steve doesn’t utter any other words behind the sentence even though they do burn his tongue.
_________________________
Eddie feels the warmth of Steve’s presence. He tries to pretend that the music that’s not playing anymore is somehow distracting enough that he doesn’t catch the scrap of Steve pulling the seat out. He tries to pretend that Steve’s forearms, bare thanks to the short sleeves, aren’t inches from his own. He stares down at the manual and pretends like he’s really interested in the classification on the wraith as an undead shadow.
It’s all for nothing. Steve inches in a little closer. Fingers tapping at the wooden table beneath both of them. Eddie watches Steve’s digits move. A tip and then tap. Tip. Tap. Eddie smiles, eyes casting up as Steve’s gaze drifts up and away. Steve’s fingers tip-pinky- and tap-ring finger. Tip-his middle finger. Tap-his pointer finger. Tip. Tap. Steve’s eyes shift up and away until he drifts them slowly back to check if Eddie is still watching. Of course Eddie is, so Steve jerks his gaze away again.
It’s dramatic. It’s silly. But Eddie still giggles, slowly pulling the no longer in use headphones down to his neck. His chest is warm, something like comfort that Eddie would never name for fear of losing it, settles into his gut. “Can I help you, Harrington?”
“Oh,” Steve starts, a faux shock settling onto his features. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. It’s a shame how I could’ve missed someone like you here. In my own kitchen.”
The words are sweet as they fall into Eddie’s ears and what could so easily be construed as a dig at Eddie is clearly a thinly veiled flirt. But Eddie tried not to get his hopes up. Eddie saw it—the sort of gooey and slightly aloof act Steve put up. He’d seen it with all the girls Steve flirted with in school, but always rolled his eyes at it. How could anyone fall victim for such an act, so rehearsed it hardly seems natural? But now, Eddie can’t deny the charm’s results—it is giddy that makes him warm but it is the sincerity with which Steve leans in at being caught that is the deal signer.
“What—what are you working on?” Steve asks. He can tell it’s not school work. There’s drawings of creatures on one half the page.
“They’re old D&D notes I’m trying to salvage.” The pencil Eddie wrote it is in fading. Some of the pages are crinkled. Clearly wet and then dried and in the mixture of that some of the pencil has been washed away.
“That—who’s that?”
“Oh, that’s just a monster. Nothing fancy.”
Steve gently tugs at the new notebook Eddie is working in—black ink this time and Eddie lets him drag the pages over his way. Steve takes in the parenthesis around ‘modified’. “So what’s a wraith?” he asks, fingers tracing over Eddie’s heavy press.
“Simplest terms—a shadow creature.”
Steve glances back up to Eddie’s face. Eddie drags his teeth over his bottom lip. There’s more to wraiths than that. But he doesn’t want to bore Steve. Even just this conversation has the heat burning Eddie’s cheeks. Why would Steve even care enough to ask more or want to know more? He tries to study Steve’s gaze. Is it genuine? Is it just a game?
“Looks like you changed this one up a bit? Why?”
“Oh, well, I was using it for a campaign. I needed shadow creatures but the players were 150 experience points from leveling up. These creatures don’t normally give players experience points but I also knew what was coming up later once they traversed the cemetery. As much as I love being a hard DM, I want my players to have a fighting chance even if it’s a little slim. The games are supposed to be fun. Not a downer. So I made the wraiths a little tougher, made it a challenge so that it'll be worth it in the end.” Eddie worries that if he says more it’ll sound either too preachy and defensive. He worries if he keeps going Steve will lose his look of intrigue.
“And what happened? With the players?”
Eddie glances down to the table, flipping the pen between his fingers. “Why-why do you care?”
“Because you care. It-I mean it sounds sort of interesting. Like there’s real fake stakes.”
Because you care rings around Eddie’s drum and rolls into his brain. He loses his breath for a moment. “They leveled up. Made through the maze in the temple by the skin of their teeths. So they needed the level up.”
“So, how do you play?”
“With dice,” Eddie snorts but Steve shakes his head. Even Steve had deduced that. Eddie stops his laughter at the action. “Do you mean like mechanics?”
“Yeah. Like what do you roll and how do you know if it’s good?”
Eddie holds up a finger, scooting back in his chair. His heart races and he hovers in the squat between rising and falling back into the chair to make sure he does have to curb excitement. The need to pause doesn’t make Eddie pause enough to consider why he’s so unsure. Eddie doesn’t ponder why his excitement sparks and then hits the breaks. Defense mechanics rarely come with instructional manuals. “Let me get my dice and then I’ll—are you sure?” Eddie’s need to confirm Steve’s actual intrigue interrupts his earlier thought.
Steve nods. “Yeah.” His smile grows wider watching Eddie’s growing smile. It’s contagious to watch the way Eddie’s face glows with his excitement. Steve’s sure he’lll get some of the mechanics and maybe not all of them. But he still wants to give the game a shot, still wants to know more about what Eddie pours his time into.
“Okay. One second.” Eddie’s jog to the room is short, but the entire time he feels his stomach flip at the smile on Steve’s face.
___________________________
The middle of the week, even if it is the summer time, is supposed to be a little dead. Sure kids are out of school. Sure adults have to work, but it’s supposed to be a slower pace to the madness that creeps in during the weekend. So when Steve suggests taking Eddie with him to Steve’s trip up to the records shop in town, Eddie hesitates just a moment. He hadn’t been out of the house in public for the three weeks he’d been with Steve. He spent time outside, dipping his toes into the pool, lounging in the sun, but Steve always went to get the grocery alone.
Wayne’s night shifts hadn’t changed and so Eddie kept it quiet around the house even if it killed him just a little. Most times Steve would keep him company but there were only so many rounds of Black Jack and other board games between school work before the urge to do literally anything else crept in. Eddie tried to swallow the itch to just get out. Wayne would tell him in pieces the state of the town. Hopper, in his resurgence, tried to keep the town from going bonkers. But Hooper was the only man who had come back from the dead and this town was surely up to its limit of supernatural events.
Eddie breaching the public would surely only give fuel to fire. It would be begging for trouble if anyone decided to make trouble and with Eddie still not fully recovered he worried that his capacity to defend himself was lower than normal.
But it’s a weekday. It’s dead anyways in this town. That’s what Steve had said and it felt like sound logic as it warred with Eddie’s own barking desire. Surely, most people would get out of Hawkins after the “earthquake”. Surely enough people would take the sign of divine intervention that Hell was just beneath Hawkins to get the hell out of it. But some wouldn’t. They’d hold steadfast until the end and it was those people that worried Eddie.
But it’s a weekday. The town’s halfway dead anyway. So Eddie caves. He slips on one of Steve’s muscle tanks. T-shirts dragged against Eddie’s skin in a way that constantly felt like an itch he couldn’t satiate so he’d resorted to raiding Steve’s closet when he could. Though both of them were roughly the same size, Eddie maybe a pound or two heavier than Steve, Steve’s athletic wear did have the right amount of bag to it that made it more bearable to wear real clothes.
Eddie ducks down to the den and spots one of Wayne’s flannel draped over the arm of the couch. “You wearing that, pops?” Eddie asks, pointing to the red plaid.
“I guess not now,” Wayne laughs.
“Thanks. We’ll be quick.”
Wayne pushes up, closing the few feet between them. “Just be safe, alright?” His hand comes down on Eddie’s shoulder. His worry pinches his brow, making the sun aged and weather torn face look even older.
“We will be,” Eddie promises.
It’s a quick hug. But Eddie still squeezes tightly at Wayne before he gives a final nod and slips back down the hallway.
Steve’s leaning against the door of the house, striped polo crisp and tucked into his jeans. “Ready?” he asks, watching Eddie slowly approach as he slips his arms into the extra layer.
“Guess so. I think our next order of business is to go through your closet, Harrington. You look like you’re ready to go golfing, not dig through punk and metal records.” While Eddie didn’t know a lot about punk music, the beauty of the radio is that it held a station for everyone. It was easier to flick through the radio stations and gather a semblance of what intrigued Steve. And Eddie was looking to try and keep a new Holy Diver tape as Steve had now taken up ownership of his copy.
Steve looks down to the clothes. “I like this shirt,” he defends. It wasn’t his favorite. But it was one of his most loved shirts.
“You’re as bright as the green on a traffic light.”
“Green is punk,” Steve huffs, closing the door to the house behind.
“You wouldn’t know punk even if it punched you in the face.”
The thing about the jab is that no one is actually supposed to get punched in the face. Because they’re going to the record shop on a weekday. Where it’s supposed to be slow and it’s supposed to be quick and they’re supposed to be safe.
But not even five minutes into Steve and Eddie’s exploration, as Eddie holds up the 1980’s tape for Kaleidoscope for Steve to drool over and to add to the pile with the latest release of Candy Apple Grey, two boys from the basketball team approach Steve and Eddie from behind Steve. Eddie’s eyes widen--which feels like it should be impossible as they’re already to big and brown-- but it’s just enough for Steve to whip around to see what the problem is. They’re not even boys that Steve thinks he’s played with before he graduated. And if he did, they were freshman or sophomores so they were mostly likely benchwarmers for Steve’s remaining years.
“Wouldn’t think you as the type to show your face around here again?”
Steve knows the question isn’t for him, but he slips in front of Eddie, even if he’s on the other side of the table. “Fellas, we’re not looking for trouble.”
Steve’s statement lands him as the recipient of hot stares and he thinks it’s better this way anyway. One of the boys, who’s refused to give up the letterman jacket even in the heat, sneers at Steve before speaking, “I wouldn’t have thought you as the type to be the freak’s lackey, Harrington?”
“We’re friends, asshat. I’d suggest you get some,” Steve returns.
“Our friend is dead because of him,” the slightly shorter boy barks, finger point behind Steve to Eddie. “Jason fucking died during that earthquake.”
“Jason was blinded by grief. He threatened Sinclair with a gun if you remember--a freshman.” It reminds Steve that he definitely wants to get Lucas with someone that could teach him how to fight. At the very least, he needs to be able to land a punch and how to take one if it ever came his way.
“Sinclair used to hang out with those satanists! It was in the yearbook.”
Steve plants his left foot forward. “No one here is worshiping Satan and no one has.” He’s not really fit to take a fight right now; his own injuries are still aching him. But he knows he’s in better condition than Eddie. Through all the fights that Steve’s fought and lost, he’s learned not to be cocky enough to throw the first punch unless the situation demands it. Right now, the situation does not demand it.
“Well,” a shaky older voice cuts in. “It seems like you young fellas are disturbing my customers.” The entire group turns to spot an older man, flannel tucked into his jeans, smiling over at the two basketball players.
“They’re freaks,” the taller boy spits.
“Freaks, punks, metalheads, bubblegum pop, I don’t care. But they’re fine men who look like they came into my store fit to make a purchase. You two hooligans are only here to cause trouble. Now, I suggest you two leave now. Lest I make a call to the authorities--Smith and Wesson.”
It’s only clear now that on his right hip the brown leather holster. His hands settle onto his waist above the grip, but it’s all he needs to do before the two basketball players turn tail. They throw out hollow threats--about if they catch Steve or Eddie again, it’s going to be over for them and Steve wants so badly to tell them to spray paint the theater sign if it really matters to them that much so what’s left of this town can see how childish the two of them are.
Perhaps, that’s the beauty of getting older is that reflection finds you in multiple ways: scrubbing your own vandalism off signs, black and blue eyes for children you’d probably die for if necessary, two basketball players blinded by their own grief they want to externalize it in a fight, or the soft touch of a metalhead who’s shaking like a leaf.
Steve turns now, noticing how Eddie’s snuck behind him. “You okay?”
“Yeah-yeah, I’m okay.” It shakes just like Eddie does as the sentence leaves his mouth.
Rather than making a scene of it for Eddie’s sake, Steve holds up a copy of Holy Diver and gingerly reaches for the tapes in Eddie’s hand. “I’m good to check out if you are.”
Eddie only manages a nod and Steve slings his arm around Eddie’s shoulders. Before the pair leaves, Eddie thanks the older man who intervened, who only shrugs in response. “No problem, son.”
If Eddie had been thinking less about his own self, he’d realize a deadtown as small as Hawkins means news would travel fast. By evening just as Eddie’s helping to put away the last of the dishes the phone ring, Steve gets to it and all Eddie hears is “Harrington residence” followed by sporadic “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir.”
Eddie, dish towel still in hand, peers from the kitchen into the living room where Steve’s standing at the phone. The receiver is up to his ear, but he’s turned so Eddie only sees the back of him. Curiosity bubbles but the longer Steve stays quiet and mutters out “I understand, sir,” and “Yes, sir,” the more Eddie thinks it might be Steve’s dad calling.
Eddie inches in a bit closer when he spots Steve putting the phone back onto the receiver. “Fuck you!” he roars. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. You’re not even here anyways! You bastard!”
The telephone book which Eddie had left by the phone after he and Steve used it to call the record store to make sure they’d actually reopened flies from the table to the floor by Steve’s sweeping arms.
“You fucking asshat! You’re not even here!” Steve cries. “You’re never here!”
And like the sentence takes everything out of him, he slumps to the floor. Eddie’s follows him down and sits so he can see Steve, back resting into the bottom half one of the one sitter chairs next to the phone. Steve buries his face in his drawn up knees and Eddie scoots in, his knees knocking gently into Steve’s. “Your dad?” Eddie asks.
“He’s so stupid,” Steve spits. His face raises and the tears are streaming down his cheeks, eyes red and his nose starting to leak just a little. “And I’m pathetic. I never say anything back! I’m just as stupid.”
“No,” Eddie urges gently. “You’re not stupid. You keep the peace, like your mom. That’s all. Sometimes it’s the only option.”
Steve’s sob cuts him off with a bit of a hiccup. “He’s only worried about himself. He doesn’t care that you almost died. He doesn’t care that I like you. He just doesn’t want ‘his good name tarnished’. He doesn't give a single shit and I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him he’s such an asshat, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. The words, I got scared. I’m a fucking fake.”
Eddie shimmies in even closer, one hand falling to Steve’s socked foot. “Steve Harrington, you are the least fake person I know. Now that I really know you, Steve. Man, you’re sweet. You care. You’re not fake. Not in the slightest. Being scared is not being fake.”
Eddie felt fake too in the boathouse after running. But he’d been scared too. Fear is an emotion stronger than almost anything else. It’s always easier to give grace to others. But maybe if Eddie said it enough to others he’d believe it about himself. Steve only sighs, shoulder slumping. Eddie gets it--the dejection that comes with guilt.
Eddie holds out the slightly damp towel to Steve. “Your face is leaking a bit.”
Steve scoffs as Eddie gestures around to his own face, but takes the towel regardless. “Thanks.”
Steve Harrington, you are the least fake person I know.
It echoes in his brain as Steve stares at his own reflection in the bathroom. He’d been tossing and turning the entire night, unable to get himself to relax enough to sleep. Not even his attempts to masturbate and tire himself out seemed to calm the buzzing of his mind. The guilt crept back in. He felt like a child talking to his father on the phone. He couldn't get his words out: The Munsons have been here for almost three weeks now. I like them. They make great company. Wayne’s teaching me how to work on the car. Eddie’s learning how to cook. I think if Eddie wanted, I’d teach him how to shoot ball. They’re sweet people. Eddie is sweet, even if he’s not always great at adhering to space social rules.
The thought kicks his heart into another gear, hitting sharp at his ribs. It’s not just having Eddie and Wayne around that Steve likes. Steve likes Wayne before being the gentle one even if he feels inadequate at times father figure he’d always wanted. Steve likes Eddie--as loud and brash as the exterior was, he was kind and sweet beneath it all. Steve likes it when Eddie plops down next to him at the kitchen table, fingers cracking open the D&D manual that managed to survive and tries to teach Steve about some of the characters. He never delves into full mechanics, mostly because Steve gets lost somewhere between the addition and the roleplaying, but the more Eddie talks about it, the more Steve tries to get a better handle on it.
Steve likes Eddie.
The same way he liked Nancy.
He knows that if Robin likes girls, then guys can like other guys. But what is it called to like both?
Steve likes Eddie the same way he likes Nancy--and he’s not sure if he’d call it love like he sees with other folks. But he knows it’s a deep ache and a deep care. When Eddie can’t stand the shirt he’s wearing, or wants to borrow something from Steve, Steve is happy to offer his closet up. When they got cornered in the record store, the only thing Steve wanted to do was keep the attention off Eddie.
Now in the haunting yellow fluorescents of his bathroom, Steve can only see his father reflected back. The man that would scowl at Steve’s newfound revelation. The man who would no sooner kick Steve out of the house, cut him off financially. Steve doesn’t see who he’s attempting to become. All he sees is his father and just behind that the kid who begged for attention. A perfect haircut that his mother always made sure that he had a long standing appointment with the barber for.
As he’s gotten older, his hair falls into something long but always perfect the way it hangs around his face because his mother told him once she liked it long. She thought it suited him, but he just had to keep it out of his face, so she could always see his eyes. Steve’s the amalgamation of everything he was told to be by others. In the blurry reflection, Steve sees something else--a resolve. Though he’s got snot on his lower lip a second time in the day, Steve knows he wants nothing more than to be himself.
There’s light under the door and it lets Steve know that even at the late hour, he’s not disturbing Eddie. So he knocks, twice and then waits. He can hear rustling something like paper and maybe the sheets and then Eddie’s filling the space the door opens too and he’s shirtless, sweatpants hanging low on his hips. “You okay, Steve?”
Steve blinks, looking back up to Eddie’s face. It’s not lost on him that Eddie’s used his first name to address him properly. “Do you know how to use clippers?”
Eddie rears back. “Uh, no, I don’t actually. Pops-Wayne does though.”
“Pops?”
Eddie shrugs. “I-he feels more like my dad than my actual one.” He’s not embarrassed by the slip up. It feels more natural now than ever before. “He switched with someone else this week, so he has morning shifts this week.” Eddie peers back at the clock, a little after midnight. It would probably piss Wayne off, but he’d never show it if they woke him now.
“I don’t want to disturb him now.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m already up,” Wayne returns leaning into the wall, arms crossing over his chest. “What’s this about me?”
“Why are you up, pops?”
“If you really must know, had to piss.”
Eddie snorts at the retort. “I did ask. Steve here,” Eddie starts looking back to him to make sure it’s okay to continue.
Steve takes over at the look. “I-I asked Eddie if he knew how to use clippers. I was going-” The words falter, his throat quivering and closing up on him. Wayne only peers at Steve calmly, nothing on his face twitches though Steve is sure he’s putting two and two together. Eddie puts a hand on the middle of Steve’s back. “I want to cut my hair,” Steve exhales.
“I know my way around some clippers. What you want to do to it?” Wayne answers, pushing up. He closes in, one hand coming to rack through Steve’s hair. His attention doesn’t leave Steve’s strands, eyes raking over it in quiet assessment.
“A mohawk, buzz the sides down and leave the top sort of long.”
“Oh, how cute,” Eddie teases, nudging the bottom of Steve’s shoulder blade.
“We can do that,” Wayne answers. “Get ‘em the clippers, a towel, a comb, and a trashbag.”
“You-you’re sure?” Steve questions.
“If you are.”
The thing about the Munson men, Steve is starting to realize is that while they were sometimes blunt with words, they always meant them. When Steve returns with the clippers, trashbag, towel, comb, and hair clips, Wayne’s waiting behind the chair from the kitchen table in the middle of the bathroom. Eddie grabs the materials and starts to help assemble them, putting the guard and ensuring it’s the right number that Wayne asked for before getting the garbage bag open and placed onto the floor under their feet.
Wayne clips the towel around Steve’s shoulders, one hand reaching from the comb on the sink counter. He uses the sides of his pinkies along Steve’s temples. “How high you want to buzz to go? I’d reckon lower down to start and then if you want to take more off, we can. Can’t put no hair back once it’s gon’.”
Wayne’s smile is gentle as he huffs out laughter and Steve nods before speaking. “Sounds good to me.”
Wayne combs through, parts off and clips up the hair that will remain. The clippers start with a click, buzzing filling the confines of the bathroom. Steve tenses at the sound. Is he really going to do this? Will this take away his father’s face?
“Just breathe,” Eddie mouths, when he catches Steve’s eyes.
Steve inhales deeply through his nose and let’s it all out through his mouth. The sound of the hair catching and losing the fight against the blades sounds like a choke and for a moment Steve’s worried he’s has too much hair and will break the clippers and be stuck with one bald spot right on the side, but he watches Wayne glide the clippers down along his clap and to the nape of his neck. Steve watches each clump fall down his shoulders and to the floor beneath them.
The hair tumbles down and down and with each stripe Steve’s chest squeezes. He can’t tell if it’s regret or the excitement. But Steve keeps his eyes on each clump until the buzzing of the clippers stops. When they do, Steve takes in the line, a couple inches from the indent in his hairline. “You can go higher,” Steve tells Wayne once he’s done cleaning out the clipper. Steve’s finger traces the line he’d like Wayne to follow.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” Steve answers, not a shake or squeak in his voice. Wayne nods, turns the clippers back on and takes the line up higher. Another few minutes of silence around the buzzing settles around the group.
When the clippers stop for the second time, Steve turns to the side to take in the sight of his own scalp. It’s not a super close crop, to the extent of being totally bald, but it’s close enough that he can see between the strands. His chest releases and his laughter falls from him, hand coming out to rub over the cropped sides. Just behind the laughter are tears, but the tears that come with relief.
“What do you think?” Wayne asks.
Steve works to get the words onto his tongue but he can’t stop his laughter, the awe striking his core.
“I think he likes it,” Eddie returns. “But I think we might need to wind up Steve again to find out for sure.”
There are no words really for Steve to get out so he pushes out of the hair, careful that his hair is all over the place and pulls Wayne in for a hug. “Thanks, Wayne.”
“Anytime, son. Anytime.”
It’s an easy enough clean up but Eddie is all too happy to take Steve by the back of his neck and duck his head under the shower, to rinse away any of the cut strands that still linger. The boys laugh, Steve keeping his eyes closed and allowing Eddie to direct his body. The water hits the tile and bottom of the tub in echoing plops. “Don’t tell me this turns you on, Munson,” Steve teases as Eddie grunts, directing Steve back upright.
“You wish it did,” Eddie huffs, taking a spare towel to rub it over Steve’s head. “You look good,” Eddie adds on softly, Steve’s eyes blinking open slowly.
The heat rises on Steve’s cheek. Eddie’s gaze is intense, eyes flicking over his face and then up to his hair, then back down to his face again. Steve reaches up, rubbing at the back of his neck, buried under the towel now. “Th-thanks. For being there today.”
“Of course,” Eddie returns. “Happy to help.”
The two of them are inches from the other. Eddie’s hands rests on the ends of the towel, elbows bent like they could either fall or reach up, but they do neither. Steve’s bringing his head down just slightly, like he could move in for something more, but doesn’t. They are in a limbo, unsure of the other is reading the situation right.
“Can I tell you something, Steve?” Eddie whispers.
“Anything,” Steve returns.
“I thought the time of you throwing your body into dangerous situations for me was over. But I want to say thanks, for earlier. For defending me against those shitheads.”
“Of course.” Steve returns it firmly, like he hadn’t considered his actions anything other than what should’ve been done.
“I don’t want to think I’m crazy,” Eddie starts. His chest feels like it could burst. He wouldn’t call his tactics subtle by any means, but he was playing a little coy. He had too. But now, he can’t keep his eye off Steve's pink lips, how inviting the look especially when his tongue flicks out to wet them, teeth grazing over the skin in a sign of nerves.
“You aren’t,” Steve returns. He slips in closer. “May I?”
“Please.”
Steve groans at how softly Eddie answers, almost like a beg but a rush of relief with it too. Their lips meet, a touch light enough that it hardly registers outside of the tingle that travels up both their bodies. Eddie brings his arms down, around Steve’s waist to tug him in closer. Steve cups Eddie’s cheeks, heads tilting even more to deepen the kiss. And once they press in close, their shared warmth reminds them both that the other is real.
Steve pulls out of the kiss first and Eddie chases him down for one more. “Eager beaver, aren’t we, Eddie?”
“Now I’m Eddie,” he snorts.
“You’ve always been Eddie,” Steve whispers, dropping his forehead to Eddie’s. “And I don’t want you to be anything other than, okay? Fuck with my father thinks. Fuck what this town thinks. I always want you to be you.”
“Isn’t it easier to give such grace to others?” Eddie retorts.
“Well, I’m getting there,” Steve defends. “It’s a bit of a process.”
“Indeed.”
“Stay with me tonight?”
Eddie laughs, head pulling back slightly with the action. “I already am. I’ve been living in your house for three weeks.”
“No, well yes. But I mean, in my room with me.”
“Oh, Steve Harrington, I am not that easy. One kiss will not have me jumping into bed with you.”
Steve groans, his laughter falling from him before he can stop himself. “Fine, fine, just promise me one thing?”
Eddie’s brow arches and he nods for Steve to keep going. There’s no telling what is about to come out of Steve’s mouth.
Steve grins, pulling Eddie in closer to his chest. “Dream about me.”
“You wish, sweetheart,” Eddie laughs, sealing his lips around Steve’s. He can’t risk spilling the truth that he already had been dreaming of Steve, though it dances on his tongue. Instead, Eddie thinks he can burn the words directly onto Steve’s tongue and let him know how it tastes.
____________________
Dustin knows something is up. He’s not sure what it is. But when Steve and Eddie picked him up after a month away at radio camp, he noticed the grins they had. They’d laughed more on that drive that Dustin ever remembers seeing or hearing Eddie and Steve laugh before. It felt nice after all they’d been through to have moments of levity. And now, Dustin sits on the bench, the sun beaming down on the back of his neck and he watches in the distance as Eddie dribbles the orange basketball. A sight he was sure he’d never see.
Lucas stands off to the side, a spare ball tucked under his arm, while Steve demonstrates how to shoot the ball. Dustin still can’t believe half of Steve’s hair is gone--or it’s more like two thirds of it shaved off. The sight nearly gave him a heart attack when he spotted Steve and Eddie on the hood of Beamer. Maybe he could see Eddie shaving his hair into the mohawk. Maybe he could imagine eyeliner and nail polish on Eddie, but now it’s on Steve. Steve’s nails are painted black. Steve’s hair is shaved off. On the radio, guitars played where Dustin was so used to Top 40. Steve still looks normal from this distance. Even in the basketball shorts and the gray t-shirt, it’s still undeniably Steve in the distance but up close he’s different. Everything is different up close when it comes to Steve now. Dustin is sure if he blinks enough Steve will show up with piercings next.
Eddie’s shot hits the rim of the basket and bounces back. Lucas manages to take his ball and bounce the rogue ball back to Steve. Eddie’s swear is loud in the otherwise still hot air of summer. Dustin continues watching, guarding the bags he called it. On the other end of the court, he can faintly catch the sound of Max and Robin failing miserably to keep up with the game. Mike and Will are decent enough in their match. But it’s clear they’re not really playing as much as they are trying to kill time on the court since they are here. Dustin continues to watch Eddie and Steve and Lucas. Lucas laughs as Eddie’s missed shot but chases the ball down and tosses it back. Eddie catches it with quick hands to avoid it colliding with his stomach.
“Got the waters,” Nancy announces, putting the cooler down next to Dustin. She catches Dustin’s gaze glued on Steve, Eddie, and Lucas. “You can join them. I can watch the bags.”
“Are Steve and Eddie acting odd to you?”
If Nancy is honest, she hadn’t noticed it at first. As the weeks passed, she was focusing more and more on college. But when she turned up to Family Video to return the VHS she’d rented to find Steve’s head shaved, she wasn’t sure if she should ask. Steve had the thing about his personality and looks that gave him the ability t always pull off a style effortlessly. But then she noticed the smile on his face, how much happier he seemed and she didn’t want to pry maliciously.
“They seem happy,” Nancy states in return to Dustin's question.
“Yeah, but they’re acting like a couple?” Even Dustin sounds unsure at his own question.
Dustin watches Steve catch onto Eddie’s wrist just as Eddie attempts to walk away. Steve holds out the basketball, a soft pleading look crossing his face. He holds up one digit like he’s only asking Eddie to try one more time and Eddie caves eventually. He gets back to the free throw line, dribbles the ball a few times, bends his knees and arches the ball up into the air.
The ball falls, running the circumference of the rim and then falls through the net. Steve and Lucas cheer before Steve engulfs Eddie into his chest. His lips fall somewhere into the thick of Eddie’s hair.
“They are dating!” Dustin screeches, pushing up from the bench. He takes out into a jog. Nancy starts for a couple steps behind him, to slow him and give him a warning that it’s okay. But then she catches Dustin’s laughter. Maybe it’s not a bad sign.
Dustin approaches just as Eddie and Steve pull apart and he collides into the back of Eddie, arms wrapped around Eddie’s waist. “When were you going to tell me?”
Eddie turns, trying to see who has grabbed him only to catch the top of a baseball cap that he knows belongs to Dustin. “Tell you what?” Eddie laughs.
“About you and Steve.”
Three words and Eddie’s chest feels like it’s going to burst. Part of it is fear. Eddie glances for a moment at Lucas. How would Dustin and Lucas take news such as this? It isn’t like being gay is necessarily taken with open arms. Sure the kids might not care, but the wrong people with this news would create a witch hunt all over again. Dustin’s laughter rings out and his squeeze remains around Eddie’s waist. Lucas has taken to whistling, looking up and away though it’s clear he’s smiling. Eddie looks back to Steve, like he might be able to save Eddie. But Steve only shrugs, pinkie hooking around Eddie’s.
“Didn’t think we’d have to tell anyone, really,” Steve returns, smiling. “Felt pretty obvious.”
Dustin pokes his head around Eddie’s sweaty back. “I left for a month! It was not obvious!”
Eddie’s chest releases. Dustin’s imploring isn’t meant to be malicious. Just a curiosity and excitement that needed confirmation. Lucas laughs, one hand attempting to cover the grin. “Dude, it’s been so obvious. They were holding hands on the drive over here. And when would Eddie ever, and I mean EVER, even think about learning to play basketball unless he wasn’t dating Steve?”
“Hey!” Eddie returns indignantly. “I’m better than that.”
“You called it tossing balls into laundry baskets and let’s face it, as long as I was a benchwarmer you didn’t really care,” Lucas scoffs. “They told me what you made them do during the championship game, finding a replacement.”
“It was the final session,” Eddie defends.
“And I made the game winning shot, which only two of my friends got to witness--Steve and Robin. That shit sucked. I wanted Mike and Dustin to be there, share that moment with them. Even you, if I felt like you’d give it real though. I mean, I would have never known I was going to do that, but I did. I did make the game winning shot and the people that mattered the most to me weren’t there. Because of you.” Lucas doesn’t look angry. His brows furrow and Eddie can’t miss the look of sorrow that bleeds over Lucas’s features.
Just as much as it mattered to Eddie that he got the finish out his campaign, Lucas wanted people in his corner too. “I’m-I’m sorry, man,” Eddie offers softly. It feels lame that he can only offer an apology. But Eddie means it. He takes a step closer to Lucas, “I-I never thought about it like that.”
Lucas taps the toe of his shoe to the asphalt beneath them. “Yeah, I mean, if sports weren’t my thing, I think I’d get it too.”
“Are you playing next year?” Eddie asks. He could catch a game or two throughout the season, possibly embarrass Lucas with a sign like an obnoxious parent on the sidelines. If needed, Eddie could and would really show up. He’d do it in a heartbeat even if the entire gymnasium hated his guts.
Lucas shrugs. “Given that Jason held a witch hunt for your head and how I lied to the team to cover for Dustin and you, no, they don’t really want me on the team anymore and I’d like to just survive high school.”
Shit. Eddie hadn’t thought about that either--how the team had been the leader of the witch hunt and how much it would impact Lucas. “God, guess I fucked up a lot for you.”
Lucas shakes his head, looking up to Eddie. “I mean some of them were assholes, but I have the friends that matter still.”
“I’ll let you borrow Steve whenever you want a one-on-one game,” Eddie offers with a grin, pointing over his shoulder.
Lucas grins. “You’ll be the ref? Steve cheats.”
“Absolutely,” Eddie returns, throwing his arm around Lucas’s shoulder. “Sorry again.”
“No sweat,” Lucas nods. “But in the meantime, another go for it?” Eddie huffs, but takes the ball as Lucas holds it out. Lucas laughs, watching Eddie go for another shot. This one too swims around the rim before falling in.
“So,” Steve laughs, settling onto the lounge chair next to Eddie. The night has settled in thickly around them. The stars shine brightly above them and the trail of the smoke from Eddie’s cigarette is visible. Eddie turns to the sound of Steve’s voice and he continues on, “I’m your olive branch with Sinclair?”
Eddie’s heart still races at the sight of the buzzed sides. Every couple of weeks, Steve settles down in the bathroom that Eddie and Wayne share and Wayne trims down the sides. Eddie’s only done is once, knowing that he could quite possibly be taking up the mantle sometime soon. The cut looks good and Eddie hadn’t been lying about it when he said it the first time. Eddie pulls the cigarette from his lips. His sigh is heavy, more smoke coming out of his nose and mouth. “I-I didn’t even think about what it would mean to Sinclair, you know? He did make the game winning shot and that is a big deal.”
Steve reaches out, sliding his fingers over Eddie’s elbow. “You can do better now. Now you know.”
“I’m going to need you to write a rule book on basketball,” Eddie returns, half a smile curling his lips.
Steve nods, a bit of a snort leaving him. “I might be able to do something like that.”
Eddie sits up, moving now to swing his legs over the chair. “How’s your head?”
“My-my head?” Steve questions.
“Do-do you have a headache? We were out later than planned in the sun.”
Steve rubs his left hand over his neck. He hadn’t thought about how often he mentioned his head hurting, not enough for Eddie to notice it at all. “It’s-it’s fine today.”
Eddie nods at the answer. “Did you get spots in your vision earlier?” Steve had asked Eddie to drive his car back and Eddie at the moment hadn’t thought too much about it when Steve asked. There was the good old charming Harrington smile and Eddie gave easily into the ask. But now he’s wondering if there’s something more going on. Steve would never just allow anyone to drive his car.
“Uh,” Steve starts, turning his gaze away from Eddie. He had noticed the spotty vision during the last part of the game he played with Lucas, but hadn’t wanted to draw any attention to himself. Perhaps, in all the weeks he’d spent with Eddie someone was paying attention even if he didn’t want them too.
Eddie pushes forward, hand reaching for Steve’s hand. “It’s just me.”
Steve exhales harshly. “Yeah. Happens sometimes.”
“How many concussions have you had?”
Steve pushes now to face Eddie. His fingers thread through Eddie’s and he can feel the quiver in his throat. Eddie knew something was wrong. There was no denying it. “Please don’t tell the others, okay? I’m-I’m already the dull one. I don’t want them to worry, Eds.”
“Steve, you’re not the dull one, and never will be. I-I won’t tell the others. But what can I do when it happens? The vision, the headaches?”
Steve shrugs. “Just be there? The headaches come and go. I just--I don’t want to be the weak one. I’ve lost too many fights as is.”
Eddie nods. He doesn’t like this--knowing that Steve’s been having issues after so many concussions. But he’s not going to out Steve’s business when Steve’s not ready. “Yeah, I can do that. I just--maybe soon, you should consider professional help?”
Steve kisses Eddie’s knuckles. “Thank you.”
It’s not lost on Eddie just how Steve avoids making any promise on getting any help. He gets it. It can feel easier to tackle some demons by yourself, but this is a demon that Eddie is sure would only get worse and never get better if left unchecked. Though, Eddie can’t really say anything. Steve was risking a lot by letting Wayne and Eddie continue to stay here. The conversations about leaving became less and less frequent. Would Steve and Eddie last if Eddie decided to leave Hawkins? Would either one of them even be safe if they stayed in Hawkins? What about the kids? What would become of them should they leave?
Steve hadn’t been answering any of his father’s calls--four of them if Eddie’s count is accurate. His father calls at the same time each time. Steve’s been sure to let Wayne and Eddie know about the time so they never mistakenly answer a call. It’s not keeping the peace, Eddie knows, but Steve is surely sending a kind of message to his father. Eddie’s heart races with every turn of the knob on the front door. There were bigger and bigger questions they’d have to answer but it seemed like Steve was more than eager to le them always remain for another day, for some other time.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Steve whispers into the palms of Eddie’s hand. Eddie’s cigarette is dangling between his fingers and Steve’s careful to take it and put it out on the ashtray between them.
Something like a laugh crawls up Eddie’s chest. He tries not to think too much about the way Steve’s warmth invades his bubbles. Eddie tries not to let his own worries be overcome by the kisses Steve litters over his neck. Steve’s crawled into his lap and Eddie happily accepts the weight. “Steve,” Eddie warns. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Just trying to love on you? That a crime now?” Steve teases into Eddie’s scarred neck.
“N-no,” Eddie exhales as the feeling of Steve’s warm tongue. “But you’re avoiding something.”
“I don’t think so,” Steve hums, hands creeping up under Eddie’s t-shirt. He takes it slow. It can be hit or miss on getting any further than kissing with Eddie sometimes. Steve doesn’t want to push any boundary Eddie doesn’t want crossed, but Steve is definitely not looking forward to the conversation he can feel coming. The future isn’t a worry for Steve. He’s only mindful of what he has now. Time is a luxury and Steve’s spent too much time worrying about the future. It would either be there or it wouldn’t, but Steve’s not going to let the present fall through his fingers because he couldn’t slow down enough to enjoy it. Not anymore.
Eddie takes hold of Steve’s hips, pulling him to a full seat on his lap. His mouth falls slack just a little at the nibble of Steve’s teeth over his jaw and earlobe. He knows what Steve is going, but Eddie wonders if one more day could really make all the difference. If in the end, what would it cost to give into his fleshly desires one more time before putting his foot down on the conversations the two of them really needed to have.
________________________________
In reality, another two weeks goes by. Two more calls that Steve ignores from his father. No one’s talked about anything. It’s easy to say right now they’re just happy with the time they have. Eddie worries, as Steve curls up on his chest, that Steve’s waiting for something to force his hand. The sun isn’t quite at high noon, but Eddie knows the morning is nearing afternoon. He can lay for another minute or two carding his fingers through Steve’s hair before he wakes the man awake.
Another minute won’t kill them.
But the creaking of the door might. Steve’s father barreling into Steve’s room will surely be the thing that can do them in. Steve’s father catching them in bed, though nothing even happened last night except for Eddie following Steve up the stairs after dinner and lying in bed together as they laughed too hard at jokes that maybe weren’t that funny in the grand scheme of things. But it’s not anything needed to have happened. Them laying together, clearly curled up into each other is enough.
Eddie’s instinct is to jump. But Steve’s in his arms. So Eddie squeezes and Steve groans. “What, Eds?”
“Out!” Steve’s father yells. His voice is hard and his face in pinched with clear disgust. “Out of house!”
Steve jumps, now pushing up from Eddie’s chest and the mattress. His own heart is hammering in his chest. He thought he had another two weeks before his parents would return. And maybe it wasn’t smart to ignore every call. But still, Steve is supposed to have more time. Fuck. more time. He was supposed to have more time. The yelling--his father Steve assumes--makes his ears ring a little. His body is jostled, hoisted up he can tell. The sun is bright and Steve keeps trying to blink his vision clear but the ringing is doubling down in his ears. A quick blink reveals his father in his face, shoving him into his dress. The ringing has created a pounding that creeps up from the base of Steve’s skull. He can’t really hear what’s being said. A hand comes to his face, a sting spreading up from his cheek to his left eye.
Steve expects that, but his hands come up and now his vision is clearer when his eyes open. He presses down on his father’s grip, trying to get the breath back into his lungs. “Please,” he squeaks out.
“Get off him!”
Steve exhales and inhales deeply at the release around his throat. He takes a few deep gulps of air, working a hand over his throat again. When Steve can stand, Eddie’s at his side. “Stevie, can-can you squeeze my hand? Squeeze-squeeze my hand if you can hear me?”
Steve laughs just a little but squeezes Eddie’s waiting hand. “I can hear you.”
The exhale is visible but then Steve’s father is still yelling, now pushing himself up from the corner Eddie shoved him into. Steve’s father’s grip is hot and tight as he reaches into Steve’s head. “You disgust me. Get the fuck out of my house! Your hair, you’ve ruined yourself! And in bed with this boy! A boy! Fucking heathen.”
“You’re a bastard, you know,” Steve laughs, head still bowed by his father’s grip. Laughter falls from his mouth but it’s hollow and dry. Steve reaches up, pressing firmly into his father’s wrist. The grip loosen and Steve spins, taking in the fright behind the anger in his father’s eyes.
Steve reaches up, hand cupping around his father’s throat. “You’re such a fucking bastard. I can’t believe I wanted to be like you. I wanted the money. I wanted the big house. And then I realized you’re truly overcompensating. Mom’s miserable but you need the trophy wife so you string along with trips. You need the trophy son because it’s how you prove yourself in this word. You have to have status or you’ll be nothing. Who are you Dad? Really? When you look in the mirror do you like what you see? Or do you see the miserable old bastard you’ve become? Your wife is bored with you--rightfully so. I’ve heard what you’ve got going Dad--doesn’t sound like much. And oh, god forbid, your son, forget about it. Being a star athlete was never enough for you. But now, now you catch wind that I’m hanging around Eddie and you come running back to save your good name. Oh, what’s the town going to think about Steve Harrington liking girls and boys now. What will become of the Harrington name now? But you know what, truly, Dad, I say this with love, it’s going to die with you. I can promise you that. Kiss that Harrington name good-fucking-bye. Being a Harrington sounds miserable.”
Eddie steps in, hand reaching for Steve’s elbow, noticing the color changing in his father’s face. Steve loosen the grip. “Steve, let’s just go.” Eddie’s not even sure where they would go, but at the very least it won’t be here.
Steve watches the solemn film taking over Eddie’s face. Steve could leave. He should leave. He should leave such a waste of an existence behind. He nods, and Eddie shuffles over to the backpack Steve keeps hanging on the outside of his closet doors. Steve grabs two handful of underwear and socks. He snatches shirts from the hangers, slips on a pair of jeans and then grabs a couple more pair before stuffing them into the bag. He doesn’t worry about anything in his bathroom and then escorts Eddie downstairs.
Eddie goes straight for Wayne, a shake at his shoulders. It doesn’t take much for Wayne to stir and when his eyes do open and he catches Steve’s head popping out of the collar of a shirt and the footsteps from above, he nods. “Sorry Pops. Didn’t mean for it to happen like this.”
“Oh, son, we never plan for it. Mr. Harrington causing trouble?”
“A ruckus, as you might say,” Eddie laughs, a bit of a smile turning up on his lips.
“I’m going to start grabbing some things for you, Eds,” Steve starts, tugging on his shoulder just a little. Eddie falls into the weight and Steve presses a kiss to his cheek. Wayne smiles at the action but only for a second before grabbing his bag he kept near the sofa.
“I can help you?” Eddie offers to Wayne.
“Oh, I think these old bones will be alright. Just grab what you can from the bathroom, yeah? And put a shirt on please.”
“Aye, captain.”
It’s only a six minute ordeal. Eddie grabs a shirt from the drawer, not even opting to change out of the sweatpants before he slips into his shoes and then heads back to the shared bathroom to grab soap, their toothbrushes, the clippers, and the nail polish Nancy had gifted them. Well, it’s technically from her and Robin. It’s like being on autopilot, though Mr. Harrington is screeching from above, stomping as he goes, the three of them work to gather what they can fit into a single bag.
By the time any of them look up, Hopper’s truck is pulled into the front of the house. He meets them at the start of the driveway. “Got a call about a disturbance, said to have gotten physical.” Hopper’s gaze falls between Steve and Eddie, the way their hands slip apart and Steve’s neck looks red.
“We ain’t mean to cause problem, Jim. We was just headed out actually.” Wayne isn’t one to ask too many questions. Whatever happened before they woke them would be between them.
Jim nods, looking out to the car parked on the street. From below, he can see bodies pacing about, things being thrown around from the window. His gaze falls back to Steve and Eddie. They stay close together. “I’ll give you ten minutes. Ten minutes to get a head start. And if I were you three, I’d get as far away from here as I could before stopping. And as a tip, Indy might be a tad too close. Crossing state lines does technically make a case federal, but I’ll do what I can.”
“We’ll take it,” Steve returns. “Thank you.”
“It’s starting now--your ten minutes is ticking,” Hopper returns, passing by the group. They rush for their cars, Wayne calling out for Steve to follow behind him.
The ten minutes doesn’t feel nearly long enough. By the time Steve notices the 11:27 click over on the radio, they’ve just barely reached the highway to take them out of town. But perhaps, Hopper knew it would be just enough time to not look so suspicious. Eddie doesn’t move to touch the radio. Though normally he’d whine about having some music, the only thing he can do is keep his sights trained on the tags of Wayne’s car. There’s tapes Eddie wants to grab he thinks now. Things he sort of wishes, he told Steve to ensure he had because there’s no real way to replace them. But the further they get from Hawkins for less that desire feels as steep. Perhaps, it’s good to start anew.
“I-I hope you got everything,” Eddie teases after another fifteen minutes pass.
Steve laughs, bringing one hand down to Eddie’s knee. “I did.”
It’s two hours on the road before they pull over. Wayne leads them into a gas station and Steve gasses up his car while Eddie gasses up Wayne’s so he can make a call and then grab snacks. The air is hot, as to be expected, but Steve finds that he doesn’t mind it as much. He’s not sure where they are going. Perhaps Wayne knew of people elsewhere. Perhaps, it would just be three of them. But he doesn’t really care. He can start over. He can finally be free of every ounce of expectation. That’s the beauty of it all. To have nothing but what Steve wanted truly and deeply.
As Wayne steps out, Eddie moves in closer to Steve. “What-what did you mean that you wanted to get rid of the Harrington name? Like take on whose last name?”
Steve grins, quickly reaching for Eddie’s hands, dragging his fingers over Eddie’s. They have to be careful here. But Steve can’t help himself. “Maybe marry a Munson. Take on that last name.”
Eddie’s cheeks light up red and he punches at Steve’s shoulder. “You can’t go around saying shit like that.” It's a clear embarrassment painting Eddie’s face, but he does find himself intrigued by the idea. Could he and Steve really have it all? Had Eddie even realized when he wanted that? Not that Eddie thought he’d really survive the witch hunt. He’d hoped. But it didn’t feel quite feasible. Eddie wasn’t the type of person that was supposed to have it all.
“I think I can. I think I should,” Steve laughs.
The boys get back on the road soon after and even the silence of the car kills Steve. He doesn’t reach for the radio. Instead, Steve does the very thing he hates. He thinks about the future. No doubt his father would be calling to have him cut off financially. Maybe he should’ve asked to stop by an ATM to grab some cash before they got too far. But now it seems risky. Maybe something about the transaction could be tracked and Steve doesn’t want his father to have any clue where he’s gone.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Eddie returns.
“I’m thinking maybe when you wanted to have that conversation two weeks ago, I should’ve had it,” Steve answers.
Eddie laughs a little, remembering how he and Steve hadn’t even made it to the stairs, instead they clambered their way to Eddie’s room that night. “Sometimes, I have moments of genius.”
“But we’ll make it, right?” Steve asks. He’s never necessarily been in a position like this before, where he’s never sure of his next move. He’s always had a backup. He’s always had his father’s money and aloofness to fall back on it. Now he only had his own wits about him.
“Steve, the one thing I know how to do is survive,” Eddie returns. “We’ll make it.” It’s a soft reassurance, but Steve feels it in toes. We’ll make it.
The cities and towns as they pass by them twinkle in the setting sun. It’s a sharp line between twilight and the night but when it falls, Eddie watches the lights past by him as he continues down the highway. He’s still not sure where Wayne is leading them but it feels less important when Eddie catches the snore erupting from Steve’s lips. They’d made one pitstop about fifteen minutes before the sun fully set and Eddie offered to take over to for Wayne so that he could sleep since Steve said he was okay to continue on, but Wayne had refused.
Now, it leads them here, night holding them as they pass by more and more cities that Eddie will never know the names of. He tries not to think of possibilities. Just follow Wayne. Don’t drive too fast, you can’t past him. You can’t wake Steve. Thus, it leaves Eddie to a world of imagination as he keeps a car link and a half between him and Wayne. Wayne never talked about family outside of Hawkins, which made him always think it really was just Wayne that he had left. But maybe it’s a first or second cousin who had been so far away from that when calls were made all those years ago Wayne just happened to be the closest.
Eddie imagines that maybe Wayne had actually accepted some help from the government and just hadn’t told Eddie because of reasons only Wayne would have. Either way Eddie imagines it, nothing quite prepares him for when he sees the sign about entering Dayton, Ohio. They’d officially made it a federal case about two hours ago when they crossed over officially into Ohio. But now they were slighter deeper into the shitstorm that would befall them should Hopper not be able to keep it as quiet as he wanted to for them.
Eddie pulls into the spot next to Wayne’s, reaching over to gingerly shake Steve’s shoulder. He snaps awake and Eddie is sure the startle he had this morning is coming back to him. “Just me. We’re in Dayton, pulled over at a motel for the night, I think.”
Steve nods, falling back into the seat for a moment. “I can split it with Wayne.” He clears the corners of his eyes, trying to get himself conscious enough to process fully everything that is happening.
“C’mon,” Eddie offers. Wayne won’t go for it, but that’s for Steve to learn and not Eddie to tell him.They grab their backpacks and Eddie realizes his is fuller than he anticipated. He pulls it into his lap, and makes quick work of the zipper. His notebooks stare back at him--no manual, but a couple tapes too and clothes. It’s three-fourths clothes but if it weren’t for the click of the plastic boxes hitting, Eddie would’ve never known. “You’re a sap you know.” His eyes are misty.
“I know. I snuck a few of mine in there too, so don’t lose that bag, alright?”
“Never in my dreams.”
Sleep is overrated. Steve’s learned to take it when it comes and when it evades him, he takes that in stride too. The good thing about the arrangement of Eddie and Wayne sharing the bed and Steve taking the couch is that he doesn’t have to worry about waking anyone as he sits up. To be alone--it’s a thought that seems to stir Steve’s gut. He’s not alone, he knows. Eddie and Wayne are there. But there’s no safety net. Steve’s never not had a safety net.
The pool water is cool--not cold like one might suspect. It’s cool and the second his head goes under Steve feels the silence of his worries. He just needs to keep his hands cupped, his head twisting side to side so he can make laps. Air when he comes up, steady when he goes down. The water slips over his skin and Steve doesn’t have to worry about how he’s going to support himself on his own. He doesn’t have to worry about how he never really got to tell his mom that he doesn’t truly blame her. He’s pissed that she didn’t do more to stand up for herself, but he doesn’t fault her. Steve gets to let all that slip over his skin just like the water.
Steve taps one end of the pool, flips, and pushes off with his feet. His lap takes him back to the side of the pool where his clothes reside. Another flip. He goes back to the opposite edge. Steve taps the wall, flips and reaches like he was taught to do. But his hands hits something solid. He rears back, getting his feet down towards the floor.
“What the hell?” Steve sputters, wiping at his face. The water is dripping down form the mohawk onto his shoulders and down his back.
Eddie wades, in front of him, the water lapping at his chest. The 8 foot section giving both of them just enough feet so that they’re not touching directly at the bottom of the pool floor. “I noticed you weren’t in the room.”
“I-I couldn’t sleep. It’s nothing.”
“When is it ever nothing with you?” Eddie returns.
“Just wanted to clear my head. You’re going to drown out here.”
“I can swim, I’ll have you know. You’re going to take ages to try out with that forest on your chest.” Eddie seals the tease with a tap to Steve’s shoulder.
“You’ve never complained about it so far.”
Eddie rolls his eyes with a laugh. Sure he hadn’t, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t use it as ammunition later on. A silence lingers between them. Eddie catches the long stare in Steve’s eyes. I get to forget. “I’m not going to let you fail, you know? It’s okay to be scared. But I-like I said earlier, the only thing I know how to do is survive. I did it in Hawkins, I’ll do it here in Dayton. I won’t let you fall, Steve.”
Surviving sounds awful, having to work to the bone. But perhaps, if Eddie is there it wouldn’t be so bad. “World just sucks, you know, Eds? It’s fucking awful.”
Eddie wades in a little closer, hands cupping Steve’s cheeks. “It is awful. Utterly awful,” he concedes. “But if here is where you forget for the briefest of moments, then do it. Forget it just for a minute.”
“I get it now. Feeling like a cog in the machine.”
Eddie laughs. He doesn’t mean it maliciously. It’s just this is only a taste of what waited for them, Eddie knows. But everyone crawls before they walk. This is just the crawl. Steve would walk faster than he anticipated and whether he wanted to or not. “You don’t know nothing yet. But you will soon. Just forget for a while, yeah? I’ll get us towels.”
Steve nods gently, hand coming through the water to take hold of Eddie’s elbow. “Thanks.”
“Of course.”
Eddie cheeks at Steve’s face only for a brief moment before turning and swimming back to the edge. His body is lean as he pulls out of the pool and Steve watches for longer than he should. “Take a picture, big boy. It would last longer,” Eddie teases, feeling Steve’s hot stare on his back.
“Get me a camera and I will,” Steve returns.
____________________________
The shrill of the phone makes Nancy pop up from the kitchen table. Her feet carry her in a light jog and when she gets the receiver to her ear, even before she can state that it’s the Wheeler residence, Robin’s voice is filling her ears. “Nance? Nancy please?”
“It’s me, Rob. It’s Nance.”
“They’re in Dayton, Ohio. They’re safe. I mean, they probably aren’t all that safe, but safe enough you know.”
Nancy nods. “Ohio, sounds good. We can’t tell Mr. Harrington that we know.”
“He’s never known about me, I don’t think,” Robin returns. “You know? Steve and I wre close but his parents wern’t exactly around.”
“Yeah,” Nancy sighs. It was something she noticed too and Steve was all bravado so she never broached the subject. “Okay, just as long as they’re safe. I don’t-I don’t know how to tell Mike or the rest of them. Or if I should?”
“It might literally kill Dustin, if he never knows,” Robin laughs.
“I just-I don’t want them telling the wrong people.”
“Those kids have kept literal government secrets under lock and key. I think they’ll be fine. What did Hopper say? Did you talk to him lately?”
Nancy listens, the creak of the stairs making her heart race. She hears laughter and knows it’s just Holly moving about up stairs. She puts the receiver back to her ear. “Mr. Harrington’s not pressing charges the last I heard. But given the bruise around his neck, I think it’s safe to say he might’ve got what he was gunning for. Hopper told me the three of them were packed and ready to leave by the time he got there. My guess Mr. Harrington came back home earlier than usual, but I don’t know. Hopper won’t tell me much. I don’t think he really knows much either. Perhaps Hopper is getting soft on us.”
The two girls giggle at the sentence but the worry does settle in Nancy’s stomach. She just hopes that Ohio treats them well, better than Hawkins. She hopes for Steve and Eddie’s sake they have not traded one sleepy town for another.
“Do you think we should gather the kids, take them for ice cream and break the news? Like parents do when they’re announcing their divorce?” Robin questions in the silence that bestows them.
“I don’t know that’s how parents do it,” Nancy snorts, nose scrunching up a bit.
“You haven’t been to the McDonalds in my neighborhood then.”
“I have a feeling they already sort of know something is up,” Nancy listens again for the creaking of the floorboards. “Maybe ice cream isn’t such a bad idea.”
“See! The parents do have the right idea, I told you.”
“I’ll pick you up in fifteen,” Nancy states. “I hope you’re going to be better at this than me.”
“I can promise you I won’t be,” Robin returns with a cackle.
It’s a mostly tense car ride. As more and more of the kids slide into the hatchback, the less they converse, all watching Robin and Nancy. Dustin notices the path first. He shifts in his seat, but the more the neighborhoods pass by, the more his suspicion grows. Just a mile or so in the distance Dustin spots the golden arches. The words are bubbling up on his tongue before he can stop himself. “Who died? I swear to God if someone died again and you break the news to me in a McDonalds, I will lose my shit,” Dustin huffs out. “It can’t happen again.”
Nancy and Robin share a moment’s glance. “Good news first?” Robin questions.
“Who died?” Dustin insists. He’s had to handle it once already. He can handle it again if he has too, but he’d rather not.
The urgency leaks into his voice and before Nancy can turn the car off, Robin’s twisting in her seat. “No one’s dead. Steve and Eddie are just not coming back to Hawkins, is all. They’re in another state now.”
“Dead?” Dustin urges. “Just say it.”
“No,” Nancy returns, facing the kids. “They went to Ohio. They’re in Ohio.”
The relief is visible. “Ohio is good,” Dustin returns. “When do we get to visit?”
It’s not what either one Nancy or Robin envisioned, but they’ll take it. “So ice cream?” Robin offers.
____________________
Three weeks--that’s what it takes for them to get semi stable. It’s a tight squeeze in the one bedroom apartment. But it gets the job done for now. Steve reaches into the fridge and spots the bag with his sandwich sitting at the ready for him. Eddie fixes a sandwich for Steve and Wayne every morning when Eddie has the morning shift at the diner. Steve fixes the sandwiches in the morning if he has the opening shift for Eddie and Wayne while he’s fixing his own. It’s just what they do now to make it through. Steve knows which one is his because Eddie almost always puts a doodle onto the front of the sandwich bag and Wayne’s always as his name.
Today is an owlbear--Steve knows because he made the mistake of saying he sort of like the way the creature looked. It was a mindless quip, one that he hadn’t thought would haunt him but it seemed that it was right now. “Thank you Eds,” Steve laughs, slipping the bag into the lunch pail and grabbing an apple from the page in the bottom of the drawers. The walk--Steve’s job is only a few blocks down from their apartment complex--is never long nor is it boring.
“You got some spare change, Stevie, love?”
Steve keeps a couple bills, mostly singles, in his front pocket just for Gladis. She stays in the alleyways between buildings and Steve runs into her nearly every morning. “Just for you,” he grins, slipping the two dollars into her hand.
“Oh, you always so sweet. Where’s your boy?”
“Work, I hope,” Steve laughs. This neighborhood though it was rough didn’t really seem to mind Eddie and Steve’s relationship. Perhaps there were bigger things to worry about--keeping bills paid, keeping food in the fridge. “Rent’s not free,” Steve laughs. “Get something sweet with that okay? I mean it.”
Gladis waves and Steve continues on, slinging the backpack higher up on his shoulder. Steve’s glad in the moment that it’s still summer. The morning is definitely warm, but not unbearable. He fears what this trek might look like in the dead of the winter. He’s down a winter jacket at the moment but had his eye on a leather jacket with a heart patch on the arm in the thrift store about half a mile from the apartment. He prayed it would stay until he could scrape together the spare cash for it. So far it had, maybe it was a sign.
With the cost of living and with Eddie using the car to get to his job, his own two feet were his best option most of the time. Steve’s sure he could’ve asked to borrow Wayne’s car but it would leave the older man without anything during the day and it felt a little unfair. So Steve walked to work and when there was enough spare cash took the bus around the city if he had errands to run that demanded it.
The coffee shop’s bitter smell is sharp as Steve walks through it. The afternoons were generally quiet which were usually a safe bet for a shift. Mornings could be a whirlwind and evenings usually filled with kids from the local college. Bobby waves at Steve upon his arrival, her bangles clicking on her wrist with the action. “Morning!” she calls out right over the steamer.
“Afternoon,” Steve grins, moving towards the employee lounge.
Bobby scoffs at his return and then calls out, “Blond Americano!”
Steve shrugs his backpack off, slinging it into his locker and then grabs an apron from the rack before moving back to the front. His first instinct is to go for the sink to wash his hands and just as he finishes he spots the line two more people in line. He smiles rattling off hs standard greeting and then leans into the counter, fingers poised over the register. “What can we get for you today?”
“Is it silly to go for a hot chocolate in the summer?” the young woman asks, a small grin lifting her cheeks.
“No, never,” Steve laughs, pushing the hair that’s falling in front of his face back some. He’d have to ask Eddie for a haircut later tonight if he wasn’t too tired after his shift and if Eddie hadn’t passed out from his either. “So a hot chocolate? Need something sweet?”
“I bombed a test, I’ll take anything sweet right now.”
Steve taps at the keys. “Sorry about that test. Maybe next time?”
She sighs, but nods, reaching for her pockets. “Yeah, I can try again. I thought`` learning a trade would be easier.”
“What are you studying?” Steve asks, grabbing at cup. “Oh, for here or to go?”
“Here please,” she answers, watching him fish out the saucer too. “And I’m studying to be an electrician. I’ve always been better with my hands than anything else.”
Steve nods, grinning back up at her. “Sounds cool. I’m sure you’ll ace it next time.” He takes the bills and hands her back the change.
“Thanks,” she takes a pause, eyes falling down to the nametap clipped to the front of the apron. “Thanks, Steve. I appreciate.”
“Of course. That drink will be right out for you.”
She nods, then moves down to the other end and Steve rings up the next customer after her. He keeps watch of the way the older man stares down the young woman. Steve keeps a clipped tone as he rings up the black coffee. “It’ll be right out.”
The words seem to hardly register as the man slithers down to the back end of the counter. Steve works to warm up the pastry--a strawberry danish and the hot chocolate for the girl--but keeps flicking his gaze down to the end of the bar. He’s seen more times than he’d like to admit where men don't know the line. It’s hard--not knowing what move will get him axed from this job but not being able to stand the discomfort on their faces.
And as much Steve knows he needs this job, it doesn’t matter in the end. The girl steps away, arms folded across her chest as she waits for her drink, bag still on her shoulder. Though she was staying in, it’s clear she didn’t want to settle down with the sight of the man still on her. Steve abandons her order in favor of pouring the hot coffee of the older man. Steve sets the paper cup down, rough enough that he worries for half a second the lid won’t keep the steaming contents contained.
“Black coffee!” Steve bellows.
The old man hardly moves, eyes still trained on the young woman.
Steve waits, eyes boring into the side of his head. One moment passes. Then two. “Black coffee,” Steve calls out again.
The man doesn’t budge again.
“Sir! I have your drink ready,” Steve calls out. Bobby passes behind him, ready to grab the hot chocolate but he grabs onto her biceps and stops her.
Bobby’s mouth gapes, like she’s going to protest, but she notices the hot and narrow sight of Steve on the older man in Carhartt.
“Sir,” Steve calls out. It’s the last time he’s going to be polite.
This time the man slides in, leaning down to whisper into her ear and she flinches, taking a couple more steps away. She doesn’t seem to respond to whatever he was saying and that’s all Steve needs. He pops the lids, rounding the back corner of the counter, leaning just enough to toss the liquid across the woman and not hit her, but dump the steaming liquid onto the man.
The man howls, eyes zeroing in on Steve in an instant. “Bastard,” he huffs.
“Sure am. Get out,” Steve grits out.
“You dumped a drink on then and then force me out?”
“You’ve been in her grill for the last five minutes and clearly she wants nothing to do with you,” Steve seethes. “You’re lucky it’s just you losing out on a couple bucks. Out!”
The door chimes above the door but Steve’s not paying attention to it. He drops the cup to the counter behind him, waiting for a flinch, anything that looks like an invitation. The man huffs, and puffs, spit flying around them and all the while Steve pushes in close, putting his body between the man and the young woman. Each step forces the man back, closer and closer to the door that chimed.
And though the words are hot and Steve gets called a slur, the man backs away. All the way out the open door.
“If I catch you in here again, you’re fucking dead,” Steve hisses out.
“You just started--rough day already?”
Steve turns to the voice, Wayne grinning at him. “Bastard,” Steve huffs.
“Yeah--there’s a couple of ‘em around I heard. C’mon.” Wayne waves back inside, his body being the one holding the door open. Steve slips through, returning to finish the order for the woman while Bobby services Wayne.
“Thanks-thanks for that. You didn’t have to do all that,” she stutters out.
“No, you should feel safe enough to get hot chocolate after an already rough day without facing harassment.” Steve pushes over the pastry. “It’s on the house,” he says, nodding down to the plate.
“Oh, I can’t. I didn’t pay for that.”
“I insist.”
She nods, a shy grin painting her face and then she looks up through her lashes. “Could-could I at least get your number? Since you’re a knight in shiny eyeliner.”
Steve laughs. “Original, I will say. But I’m-I’m already spoken for. Sorry.”
“No, no! That’s my fault. Of course a guy like you already is. Lucky girl. Th-thanks again, Steve.” She scurries off to a table in the back corner--furthest away from the counter--before Steve can return the gratitude.
“You’re welcome,” Steve mutters to the empty air in front of him, knuckles tapping into the worn wood of the counter. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her. In some ways Steve is flattered but he knows the soreness of hitting flat on the flirt. A couple hours later, she drops the dishes off in the waiting bucket. She pauses only for a moment and a few extra bills fall into the tip jar before she makes a beeline for the door. Steve watches her go, but doesn’t stop her speedy exit.
The night is heavy and maybe it’s just the hours on his feet that are traveling up to his shoulders. Steve makes it though, all the way to the apartment building. He reaches into his pockets, fiddling with his keys and then traveling to the second floor. He falls into and through the front door. The sound ot the jangling keys alerts Eddie who greets Steve at the door a few moments later.
The kiss to Steve’s cheek makes him smile, even if it’s brief. “Hey, Eds.”
“Hey, Steve.”
“You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit,” Steve whispers, bringing his gaze down to Eddie from the previous locked gaze on the ceiling. “How was your day?”
“Shit,” Eddie snorts. “There’s leftovers and before you groan I’m off tomorrow and going grocery shopping so it’s the last day for the week.”
Steve laughs, taking hold of Eddie’s waist. The two fall chest to chest and Steve’s glad in that exact moment that even if it’s a tight one bedroom apartment it’s full of Eddie. “Sounds good. But have you actually started the shopping list?”
“Not exactly,” Eddie returns. He’s always been a bit of a by the seat of his pants shopper, and it wound up not to be the most sound way to operate, but he hadn’t died yet. So for the time being, Eddie would continue such traditions but always make sure that he got whatever Steve did put down on the list too to make up for his lack of self control in the cookie and snack aisle.
“Egg--always need eggs.”
“I figured,” Eddie hums. Steve presses his lips to Eddie’s forehead, over the fringe bangs. “Your expensive sandwich meat, too I’m sure.”
“It’s fresh and I’m allowed to splurge considering I eat the goddamn turkey sandwiches every day,” Steve mumbles against Eddie’s skin. “I’m too tired to think of a shopping list right now if I’m honest.”
“By the time you finish a hot shower, a bowl of Eddie’s most famous cornflakes can be right up.” Eddie presses his nose into the collar of Steve’s shirt. He always smells the same after a shift--the bitterness of the coffee mixing with the sweetness of the pastries constantly being warmed up around then.
“Actually, sounds fucking wonderful.”
Eddie pats Steve on his back, an action meant to encourage Steve to push off the door but all it does is make Steve sink. “Or we stand here for just another minute.”
“Please.”
“Anytime,” Eddie whispers. “Anytime.”
_______________________
Steve knows he’s down for the count well before he even fully wakes for the day. The apartment is small and sound carries a little too well within the walls and through them. Even though Steve and Eddie had moved out of the place they shared with Wayne four months ago, the reality is still that they’re not at a point to afford anything grander than what they have. It might sound ridiculous to have even entertained the thought of letting the party, minus Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan, stay with them in the apartment. But at the time, it seemed like it made the most sense.
But now Steve barely wants to open an eye. He’d been doing well. Thanks to Eddie’s insistence about getting to a doctor when Steve woke to blurry vision and terrible ringing in his ears, Steve had been following a pretty strict regime to help repair any damaged neurological pathways. However, today seems to be a day that no matter what he’d been doing before he’d have a sure reminder that he’d always be a little bit broken.
Nothing can repair a brain back to what it once was after several concussions.
As fate would have it, Steve is up before Eddie. Eddie, though he was good about getting up for work, could and would sleep half the day away. Steve knows he’s not alone in the bed because he can still hear Eddie’s snores and around his torso is Eddie’s arm. Steve sighs, letting himself fall deeper into the mattress for a moment, fingers brushing up and down the forearm wrapped around his waist. It’s not all bad. It’s warm at least. Though the faded cologne and faint scent of detergent lingers about them, there’s also something distinctly a mixture of grease from Eddie’s job and the bitters of coffee from Steve’s that also mixes in with the sheets and their clothes.
It’s not all bad, minus everything in his head screaming at him. Hopefully it was only a morning spell. But even then, Steve still needs to last through the morning. “Eds,” Steve whispers.
More snores.
“Eds,” Steve tries again louder, fingers wrapping now around the elbow. He gives Eddie’s arm a shake and Eddie’s snores cut out sharply.
“Hmm? Yeah? Who died? Someone hurt?”
“My brain,” Steve laughs, eyes still closed as he drops his head to the side of the pillow in the direction he assumes Eddie’s voice is coming from.
Steve’s suspicion is confirmed when Eddie runs his fingers down Steve’s cheek. “Be right back,” Eddie whispers, pushing up from the bed.
Steve lies, eyes still closed and then something cool and plastic is pushed around his ears. With a squint, Steve looks through the tinted lenses and sighs. The sunglasses help when medication can’t. And right now, there was nothing medication wise that provided Steve with release. The specialist--which Eddie and Steve would be paying off in increments for at least the next year--stated that the only thing that would help Steve is slowing down and lifestyle changes. Not ideal, but at least it was something they could try to work towards together.
It’s an exhalation of pure relief that Steve releases. “Thanks.”
“Now, don’t need me for the next ten minutes please?” Eddie snorts, curling back into Steve’s side. “At the minimum.”
“I’ll try,” Steve laughs. From the front of the apartment, through the thin door, he can hear the kids already up, TV going and they’re no doubt rummaging through the food in the kitchen. A moment or two later, Steve catches a hint of smoke in the air. “That’s if our apartment doesn’t burn down before then.”
Though Steve goes to push up, Eddie pushes him back down. “I’ll go. Your head.”
“It’ll always be fucked,” Steve laughs.
“No one told you to get in all those fights,” Eddie hollers back, through the closing bedroom door. Even Eddie knows some of them were definitely justified, but maybe not all of them. But the thing about Steve is that when it came down to it, he’d do whatever necessary--body, and brain be damned.
Eddie shuffles to the kitchen, catching Lucas and Mike cracking open the windows to the apartment to let the smoke out. “Who’s trying to meet the hot firefighters in this city, huh?” Eddie teases, watching the group attempt to act as if nothing is going on. They fail but Eddie doesn’t have the heart or the clarity of mine to tease them about it.
The door behind Eddie creaks open and he looks over his shoulder. Steve shuffles his way out of the room, slow careful steps. Even if Eddie wanted Steve to be anything else, he’s a little glad Steve is this--a caring soul even if he needed someone else to remind Steve of the perks of taking care of himself too.
“Hot firefighters?” Max teases. “Perhaps I’d like a look.”
“I’m right here, Max,” Lucas huffs.
“I told you the setting was too high,” Dustin interjects.
Eddie nor Steve move any faster to help. The group’s already been caught and at the very minimum now everyone is awake. Eddie opens one of his arms up, knowing Steve will want to rest into him there soon. Just as quickly as the whole ordeal seems to start it just as quickly dissipates. Will and Dustin fuss with the toaster. Mike readjust the fan that Eddie and Steve keep near the windows to pull the cooler air in so that it’s blowing the smoke out and Lucas and Max seem to be in a lover’s quarrel. It doesn’t seem serious.
“I like my apartment smoke free,” Steve calls out, pausing next to Eddie. He slides into Eddie’s waiting arm. It’s easier here, to give Eddie some of his weight and knowing he’ll be there. Steve almost thinks it might’ve been a mistake to leave the bedroom at least for right now. Perhaps, it is something Eddie could’ve taken on himself, but Steve’s here because the last thing he wants is his actual apartment going up in flames because a gaggle of teenagers couldn’t handle a toaster.
Eddie rubs his hand up Steve’s spine. “Doesn’t look like these hooligans care one bit.”
“They’ll learn to,” Steve grumbles in return to Eddie’s jab. Caring hurts like a bitch, but it is always worth it in the end.
#steve harrington#steddie#eddie munson fic#eddie munson fanfic#steve harrington fanfic#steve harrington fic#steddie fanfic#steddie fic#nancy wheeler#mike wheeler#will byers#jim hopper#wayne munson#stranger things#robin buckley#lucas sinclair#dustin henderson#h writes#stranger things fanfic#stranger things fic#eddie munson
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❛ i’m sorry that i can’t save you. ❜
This one was so much fun to write!! I didn’t include the prompt exactly, but it’s close enough for government work (you’ll see what I mean). Also, major warnings for canon compliance, major character death, comic spoilers, etc so I’m putting it under a read more bar
‘I’m sorry that I can’t save you.”
—
When Hob opened his eyes, he was sitting on a rock. A cold, damp rock. It was raining, the water soaking through his nightclothes. His legs dangled in empty air, the cliff beneath him a sheer drop, but he wasn’t scared. Heights had never bothered him. His hair was stuck to his face uncomfortably in thick strands, so waterlogged that the slight breeze did nothing to shift them; all it did was make him shiver, gooseflesh rippling over his wet skin. He lifted an arm to push his hair off of his brow and his elbow brushed bare skin.
“Dream?”
As soon as he said it, he knew it to be true. Dream of the Endless was perched beside him, one leg propped up, his arm slung over the bony joint. His other elbow dug into his thigh, lending a slumped appearance to the entity that Hob had never seen before. He seemed… defeated.
“Hello, Hob,” Dream said without looking up.
“Hello, old stranger,” Hob replied, risking a glance around them. They were in the Dreaming, he realized, though not a part that he had ever visited before, not that he’d recognize it even if he had. The rock pillar they were sitting on stood alone, overlooking a vast battlefield, smoking even in the downpour. The landscape was pock-marked and devoid of life; there was destruction as far as the eye could see. It was a desolate sight. Hob turned to Dream, half-expecting to see the same wounds on his pale skin that had laid waste to his realm, but could see no visible blemishes.
“What happened, my friend?”
Dream was silent for a long time, and Hob waited. He had time. He wasn’t sure that Dream did, though.
“I granted my son his final wish,” Dream said at long last, his words so quiet that they almost washed away in the rain before reaching Hob’s ears. He thought that maybe that was on purpose. The Dreaming obeyed its master. “I granted him peace.”
Hob could feel the cogs working in his mind, slowly reaching a destination that he wasn’t sure he would like. And when it finally dawned on him, he could only gape.
“So that means-“
“Yes,” Dream confirmed. “The Kindly Ones and my sister are on their way as we speak.”
“No,” Hob cried, jumping to his feet, rage and panic coursing through his veins. “No, that’s not- You can’t- Dream, no!” He felt a sob clawing up his throat and slapped a hand over his mouth to contain it. Nothing could stop the tears from welling up in his eyes, joining the rivulets of rain that streaked his cheeks. “You can’t give up, you can’t- You can’t-“
He couldn’t bring himself to say it. The word was lodged in his throat, as large as life itself; he couldn’t breathe around it.
“It has already happened, Hob,” Dream said. “There is nothing that can be done. It is over.”
All at once, every ounce of fight left Hob’s body and he collapsed back to the ground like a puppet with cut strings. He let his weight fall against his oldest friend, leaning into his side like the physical contact could stop the inevitable. He didn’t try to stop the sobs that bubbled up. Together, they sat. Together, they waited.
When Death appeared some time later, she found Hob and Dream side-by-side, heads resting against each other, both staring dry-eyed into the distance. At the sound of her wings, they turned as one.
“Hello Dream,” she greeted. “Hello Hob.”
“Hello Death,” Hob replied huskily, his throat clicking with the effort of speaking. “It’s been a while.”
She smiled at him, the sad sort of smile that only someone in her line of work could perfect. The sort of smile that told him that she didn’t want to be there anymore than he did.
“Dream,” he said, pulling his friend’s attention back to him for the last time. “I’ll never forget you. Thank you, for everything. And… I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
“Dream,” Death said kindly. “Take my hand.”
With one last glance to Hob, Dream reached up and let his fingertip brush against his sister’s. With a flash of light, Hob woke up.
From this prompt list!
#angst#sandman comic spoilers#dream of the endless#hob gadling#death of the endless#the sandman#my writing
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run it back, sunshine
*
Pairing: Jay White / Kazuchika Okada
Rating: General audiences
Prompt: "I need advice" (time passes) "never mind I already did the stupid thing"
Notes: This is loosely canon with my fic here, and Lepak’s followup, but you can read it as just canon with Jay’s backstage comments at WK17 if you like.
*
I need advice
It’s 4AM in Japan. I don’t know why I’m sending a line message to one of the worst guys out there for advice, any kind, but it’s not as if Ishimori is contracted for my Bullet Club anymore.
The afternoon sun hits my glasses, the taste of smog on the DC air flaring from the approaching van. I duck behind the concrete. Breathe, one more baby, one more, breathe with the Switchblade, and one more after that. Three times. Three times you’ve found yourself here, but it’s not too late. Just turn around, go back.
He’ll be here at any time. I have to go, have to–
There he is.
Okada looks– put it bluntly, he looks tired, trailing behind Tanahashi with dogged resignation. There’s a bitterness to the slash of his lips that betrays him. Gold, I called myself this week. Neither of us have gold.
I shuck up my jacket to my shoulders, sweating underneath the hood. A hot springtime in DC, Capital Collision, and I’m not on the card. I’m not even here to watch.
Again, Jaime?– yes again, third time’s the charm, I’m going to get it right this time.
I check my phone before I move. Maybe Phantasmo will stop me.
Maybe I could have texted Juice, if I really wanted to be held back. The setting sun hits Kazuchika’s cheekbones, turning back for a wry smile to Rocky, and my feet are already hitting the ground. I duck in the door just as the last straggler leaves it to swing shut. Just like I planned.
It’s a small arena. No Tokyo Dome, no Madison Square Garden. My heart beats in my throat. There’s a good chance I won’t get a moment with him alone, and maybe I’ll flinch before I say what I mean, stumble it out two months from now, or swallow and choke on the words when I blink first and Finlay leaves his mark on me –
– but no. There is a room with his name taped to the outside, one of the coaches rooms. Tanahashi too. Prima donnas. I tug my hood up, knock once.
“A minute,” he calls back. I knock again, praying my Japanese hasn’t atrophied in a few months. “Tana-san, is it that urgent?”
“Not Tana.”
There’s only a second of hesitation. Then the door swings open, he’s staring at me with that skeptical feigned anger New Japan loves to slap on his posters. He steps aside, lets me in. It really is a small room. No windows, barely space for the desk that’s been shoved against the wall.
“You keep meeting me like this.”
I kind of shrug my shoulders, slipping off from the hood, the sunglasses. The fluorescent light is clinical against his bare chest and shins. Probably for the best.
“So what is it this time? I lost the belt.”
I wince. Is that what he thought I was there for? It’s not as if I explained it any better. “Look it wasn’t – about the belt, Kazuchika.”
If his name means anything to him, he doesn’t show it.
“Was it about how it was worth it? That’s not–”
“Stop. Stop, I’m sorry about that, at least,” I throw up my hands. Peace offering. I don’t want to – well, I want to fight. It’s heady all around me, the smell of his sweat in the tiny concrete room.
“So you regret it,” he steps forward, almost angry, and I can feel my breath hitch. Breathe. I could – kneel right now. I could walk away with nothing, again, but I think he’d still leave thumbprints on my throat. That might even be worth it.
But it's not what I want.
“I regret– coming to you with something about me. Yeah,” I manage to string the sentence together, and it comes out right. “Do you – do you remember when you asked me to go fishing with you?”
His anger falters, gives way to genuine surprise. A thrill goes through me, same way as it always does digging in the knife. If I mean it this time, mean it the right way–
“When – back when you were in CHAOS? You laughed at me, told me I wasn’t listening to you.”
“You weren't," I shoot back, always have to run my mouth when I start, and damn the intensity of his eyes.
“Did you listen to my question, then?”
“You– you’re right. You’re right. Would you go fishing with me now?”
“Now,” he repeats-- not angry, but...curious.
Dig the knife in. Now or never.
“Listen. I lost New Japan. Do you understand? I’m gold now. Bullet Club Gold, which means nothing, I have nothing to my name,” if I could say this in English, I’d have a hell of a lot more to say. Maybe it’s better that Japanese is the best I can do. I point to the door, “Out there – you can’t touch me. You can’t out there. But. There’s an outside. And there. You can– if you want to – you can.”
He looks thoughtful. Thoughtful when he reaches a hand up slowly, brushes a strand of hair off my forehead. “That's what this is about.”
“Fishing.” I repeat, breath caught in my throat. I’m not going to kneel. Today, anyways.
“Fishing. Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Let’s go fishing.”
“Good luck with your gold, Jaime,” and he smiles. That small one, wry like a little secret. Maybe I came because I like that smile. Too much, after all that's said and done.
“Good. Good,” I move mechanically, pat his shoulders with both hands. It’s stupid, really, “Good luck with your match.”
When I duck past Tanahashi on my way out, hood up, sunglasses on – if he recognizes me, he doesn’t say. He maybe hesitates. I remember how he thanked me.
Outside, I hear my phone beep. Jesus, Phantasmo has terrible sleeping habits.
hey im up
what do you need to know how to beat a lucha guy
if you decided you didnt like bangbang gang its too late
Never mind i already did the stupid thing
oh. you okay?
I stare at the question. I’m okay. Fishing okay. And then a new message pops up. Still under the title 🔪🎈💥. Needs a new name.
Is this still Jaime?
Yeah it's me
Thinking about fishing already?
Potomac River has some good spots.
That sounds good to me
The cursor blinks at me as I stare at the empty slot for his name. ⛈️ would work. He’s earned that.
I save ☀️ in the empty slot, and walk out into the city sunset, my steps just a little lighter.
#wrestleprompts#njpw#wrestling shipping#kazuchika okada#jay white#fluff#my fic#i can have a little stupid fluff. on tumblr. as a treat#i have sooo much jay angst I want to write but i also want to think about jay and okada sometimes. u feel me#jaykada
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