[ SUBJECT INTERVIEW: ÍVARR ]

NICKNAME:

NOT "Gramps". Not for you, anyway. Just my name.

GENDER:

Male.

STAR SIGN:

Why, checking if we’d match? Hah. Was told I’m a Scorpio. 'That check out?

HEIGHT:

With platforms or without?

ORIENTATION:

If we vibe, nothing else matters. An incubus with neat taste in personalities, I guess.

NATIONALITY / ETHNICITY:

So, some Scandinavian blood in me - half, actually. Can speak the language, too - 'least something neat daddy gave me, not that the fucker's outdone himself in parenting. Mom’s an American, born in Badlands. Ever heard of her clan? Messed with witchcraft a lot, and summoning even more. Know what I’m getting at? A perfect fuckin' match, weren't they?

FAVE FRUIT:

- Yeah no. Don't even start with anything citrus. Especially don't peel this shit in front of me, alright? Nasty shit. [Interviewer]: - Just wondering, how do you feel about cardboard boxes? [Ívarr] : - Ain't purring for you, man. But nice one.

FAVE SEASON:

Fuck summer. You ever felt what's that like - the real winter nights? Pitch fuckin' dark - quiet so thick you hear the snow falling. First time I saw those snowflakes as a kid - can swear I thought they were bees.

FAVE FLOWER:

Cherry blossoms? The fuck I know, man. Ask my mainline, I grab whatever he likes.

FAVE SCENT:

Expecting me to be like - "Muahaha, the smell of fear"? Seriously, it's apparently a pheromone released in your sweat or some shit. C'mon I'm joking, it isn't my fav - keeps stinking up this damn city. Alright, a freshly baked cake is something I'd kill for.

COFFEE, TEA, HOT CHOCOLATE:

Yeah coffee I guess? Rich, strong, black, with a splash of something fun, make it whiskey.

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP:

Woke up just yesterday 'cause my mainline was pulling back my eyelid, imagine? Scared the fuck out of him, no seriously, can sleep through a fuckin' bomb and I'm not joking. Average hours - a shitton honestly? That's how I got my very first cat - Dad got enough of me breaking down every single morning, cause fuck mornings. And he'd be like - this is Snowy, she's gonna live with us and she already had her breakfast, so get the fuck up. How'd I argue with Snowy? You don't mess with Snowy.

DOG OR CAT PERSON:

See? Check it out - cat fur. Here too. I'm claimed, man - gave up cleaning it up a long time ago. Not to be dramatic, but if there's anything human in me left - it's for them. Fur kids, all mine, what can I say. Two of them adopted - and you bet each of them has a bigger personality than an average gonk.

DREAM TRIP:

Dream trip, jeez... Somewhere not fucking hot?

FAVE FICTIONAL CHARACTER:

Balrog has style, y'know? Gotta be honest, I feel for the dude. Imagine yourself sleeping deep within the mountains for thousands of years to get awoken by a bunch of motherfuckers? I'd go nuclear too. And this one too, ehh you know GoT? The Targaryen, her, yeah. Burn them all, girl. Boss move.

NUMBER OF BLANKETS YOU SLEEP WITH:

Man, your questions. I dunno, a half? With my ass covered, or not at all. Bed king sized, lights out, make it pitch black with the window open and you got me passed out.

RANDOM FACT:

One doesn't have to actually summon a demon to get them to come play, d'you know? There's one watching you through my eyes right fuckin' now. Should I introduce him?

Late to the party, but I remember many of y'all have more than one OC or just created new pixel babies that haven't participated yet, so I'm tagging (with no pressure):

@therealnightcity @wraithsoutlaws @sammysilverdyne @theviridianbunny @th3irin

@a-pirate @chessalein @halkuonn @luvwich @shimmer-like-agirl

@kdval @cybersteal @cyberholic77 @chevvy-yates @morganlefaye79

@anxious--ace @mhbcaps @wormskul @silver-samurai @androgymess

@winkyblinkyandstew @astarionhistears @valsilverhand @drunkchasind @themermaidriot

@pinkyjulien @skelior @medtech-mara @lokiina @timaeusterrored

@tokyofuturnoir @aggravateddurian @sifofasgard @elfjpeg @aurorartz

@lucky38-2077 @dustymagpie @gloryride @stannussy and anyone else who wants to! Also pls DM me if you don't wanna get tagged🖤

GhostGaz Week - sweet talk // missed connection

I'm so so so excited to have participated in @ghostgazweek this year! It's the first time I've done an event like this and it's brought me so much joy. To everyone who has read and commented on my work this week, thank you! I'm so excited to play with some of these concepts some more.

CW: Relationships between coworkers, mutual pining, front of house/back of house relations, Phillip Graves (derogatory), kissing, a taste of dirty talk

“Takin’ my ten,” Kyle tells his manager, pulling his phone from his pocket. Price nods, waving him off and assigning Kyle’s tables to Alex and Nova. He swings into the kitchen with an absent wave as he checks his messages and steps out back.

“’M no’ sayin’ ye have’ t’ declare yer love in front o’ the whole bloody team.”

Kyle perks up at the sound of Soap’s voice, but back-of-house gossip is going to have to wait while he tries to figure out what his off-again situationship is complaining about now. Or not - the meltdown in his messages is not worth dealing with. Just as he’s about the round the corner though, the growl of Simon’s voice freezes him.

“That’ll do, Soap.”

Kyle has to bite his lip to keep from gasping. Simon isn’t the head chef - that’s Farah - but he might as well be her right hand. He’s the glue of the weekend dinner rush. Level headed no matter what, rarely raises his voice above a raspy muttering, huge hands that Kyle has seen split an apple in half without a hint of visible effort. Whoever he dates is going to be envied by the entire front of house. Partially because he’s bloody gorgeous. But partly because he’s just the perfect man.

“Nae, yer gonna listen t’me,” Soap insists. “I promise, ‘e’s interested.”

“’E’s not,” Simon says. “Already tried flirtin’ wit’ ‘im. No dice.”

“Leavin’ a note wit’ yer phone number - in a pile of other notes with phone numbers - is no’ flirtin,” Soap says, and Kyle can imagine the despair on his face just from the tone of his voice. “Do you ken ‘ow many o’ those damn notes ‘e gets in a night?”

“Exactly. And he’s got a bird.”

“They broke up last week,” Soap hisses. “She’s shacking up with her ex.”

Kyle would snicker at how close he sounds to pulling his hair out but…

Kyle’s situationship ended last week. Because she moved in with her ex and Kyle doesn’t want to go through that roller coaster, again. And Kyle’s the flirt on shift, so he gets the most notes and phone numbers on receipts…

“’E’s got better prospects,” Simon says. Kyle hears the flick of a lighter. “Gorgeous, competent, charismatic? Kyle could have anyone.”

“And ‘e wants you, ye daft fucker,” Soap groans. “Steamin’ Jesus the two of ye. Just fuckin’ tell ‘im.”

“Tell you what,” Simon grumbles, muffled by his cigarette. “If he comes out here before my break’s done, I’ll tell ‘im.”

“Then ah’ll go in an- Oh you mother fucker! 30 seconds?”

Simon sounds amused when he says, “Tick tock.”

Kyle probably couldn’t ask for a better dramatic entrance, so he rounds the corner with a, “What’d I miss?”

Soap yelps and clutches at his chest like an old woman. Leaning against the wall, Simon looks about as surprised as he ever does, which means there’s a hunted look around his eyes, but he mostly looks tired and resigned. He settles into his thousand yard stare and takes a long drag.

“Gaz-bear!” Soap exclaims. He circles behind Kyle and shoves him forward. “Simon has something to tell you that is of a very personal nature. Do not let him distract you with talk about the kitchen! I love both of ye and ah’m tellin’ Price to fire both of ye if ye don’t talk!”

And then he’s slamming back into the kitchen, leaving Simon and Kyle alone in the alley.

He could play coy, but Kyle’s a bit giddy. “You like me, Simon?”

Simon grunts, contemplates his cigarette as he says, “Wondered ‘ow much of that you ‘eard. But don’t worry, I’ll keep professional.”

“God no.” Kyle can’t imagine anything wants less. “Tell me when you wrote me that note.”

“Dunno," Simon shrugs. "6 weeks after that shit with Graves?”

Two years ago, before Price took over, Phillip Graves had been the manager. He’d been a nightmare, harassing hostesses and firing anyone who dared to point out he was bad at his job. After the tenth straight day of a front of house person running into the kitchen to cry, pursued by Graves himself, Simon had had enough.

“I c’n make this a much more hostile working environment if tha’s what we’re aimin’ for.” The big beautiful bastard had shoved his knife a good quarter inch through a cutting board. The reverberation of the blade had rung through the painfully silent kitchen. All of the back of house looked to Farah for direction. She'd looked at Simon. Kyle, Nova, Alex, and the girl they’d been consoling by the fridges had all held their breath.

“I could fire you,” Phil spat.

“You won’t. You fuck with this kitchen, you’re losing your job,” Simon had answered. The fact that he had looked and sounded bored had scared and aroused Kyle in equal measure. “So ‘ere’s what’s going to happen - Keller and Garick are supervisors now. Pay them like it. You got a problem with front o’ house, you talk to them. Another girl comes runnin’ in here, then I‘m coming out there an’ you and I are ‘avin’ words.”

Graves had sputtered, looked around at everyone gathered, then spun on his heel and left.

Three months later, he’d gone missing. Two weeks after that, Price had arrived, greeting Farah and Simon like old friends and preparing to make the restaurant the best Kyle had ever worked at.

What did it say about Kyle that rumors that Simon had gotten rid of Graves for good only made him more attractive?

“That was more than a year ago,” Kyle says, sidling his way under Simon’s arm and leaning into him. Kyle’s not a short man, but Simon is tall and broad and warm under his work tee. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Simon takes another drag, and looks down at Kyle out of the corner of his eye. “I’m not exactly dating material. And you had a bird.”

“I would have dumped her in a heartbeat,” Kyle admits, startled when Simon barks a surprised laugh. “I would have! Fuck, I could have been sneaking out here with you for seven months? I’ll break up with her again right now.”

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” Simon laughs, smashing his cigarette into the wall and dropping the butt into flower pot turned butt bin. He doesn’t move his arm from around Kyle’s shoulders.

“We’re dating now,” Kyle declares. “We’re boyfriends.”

“Movin’ kinda fast,” Simon points out.

“I’ve been in love with you for more than a year. Catch up,” Kyle dismisses. “My lease is up in four months, and I’m movin’ in with you. Now kiss me.”

Simon doesn’t hesitate. His lips are just the slightest bit rough. He smells like cigarettes and spices, and he turns to bracket Kyle against the wall. One large hand finds it’s way to the small of Kyle’s back to pull him in and press their hips together.

“Fuck,” Simon growls when Kyle moans against his mouth. “Pretty, pushy thing. Gonna be this demanding all the time, Gorgeous?”

“I have a lot of time to make up for,” Kyle groans, nibbling kisses along his jaw. “You should let me blow you.”

“Oh, should I?” Simon’s rumbling laugh sends shivers down his spine. “Should let Farah and Price catch you choking on my cock?”

Well, if Kyle was half-hard before, he’s rock hard now. “God, yeah, let me.”

“Not yet,” Simon growls, and that yet sends sparks flying through Kyle’s veins. His next kisses are just this side of too rough, tongue and teeth making Kyle’s lips so sensitive. Finally, he pulls himself away to pant into Kyle’s ear, “Let me take you on a date, huh, Gorgeous? Let me take you out, wine and dine you. Wanna know all about you, wanna talk about something other than work for more than five minutes. Then I’ll take you home and lay you out. Kiss you all over, suck that gorgeous cock of yours, yeah?"

“Jesus,” Kyle hisses. He tries to rock his hips into Simon’s, but strong hands hold him back. “Yeah, okay, yeah. Kiss me again.”

Simon laughs, dips down to give Kyle another closed-mouthed kiss. “Gotta head back in.”

“No,” Kyle pants. “Kiss me again.”

Simon growls into the next kiss and shifts to press his whole front into Kyle. When he pulls back, he presses a thumb against Kyle’s lips. “Be patient, Gorgeous. Gotta get through work tonight.”

He knows he’s pushing it, but, “…kiss me again.”

Simon’s lips are achingly gentle for a moment and then they’re gone as he takes a step back. “’M goin’ inside, now.”

“Thai food after work?” Kyle pants.

Simon chuckles and adjusts himself. “Yeah.” He swoops in for another brief peck. “It’s a date.”

How rude those fairies are for not giving you food

Here, have three whole berries

🫐

Hell yea 3 berries aquired!!!!

One of them seems to be amazed by my ability to summon berries out of thin air the other is still not impressed

oh lmfao edited to add. the thirty tags are maxed out but i have to work in the wordplay of: call this post-it notes

speaking of [happening to think about, then for a separate reason talk about, the film “stand by me,” an adaptation of the stephen king short story “the body”] last night, & tumblr ads reminding me, i did turn around after listening to the podcast ep extensive, research enhanced analysis / discussion of specifically the book like hey yeah yknow what. i’ll watch the It films; not the miniseries / the one with tim curry, which i saw the first half of but wasn’t really inspired to commit to the latter half. and you Know like yeah i’m truly interested in the choice to build on [stephen king kicking his legs like “whaaat are some Problems kids could have.....um being a girl.....being jewish.....having a stutter.....”] with “what if someone was gay or some shit” like yeah right on, which idk that steve ever wrote into any vaguely primary characters even though it’s markedly made textually relevant. and the cultural alignment for kleinsen enjoyers is still very funny. i forgot about even the arm cast business till halfway through. even the [break it again] joke kind of manifested lmao

anyways the point is i’m like, my two primary modes of [this experience] being expressed via [mad men meme In The Cinema seriously considering the material] and [the shot of that guy in the alternate titanic ending where he’s like ahahahaha throwing his head back and the camera is overhead zooming out a little bit] and the like Oh Hey. This Is All Coming Together? kind of [that madman cinema meme] moment hit in The Second Part because it’s like, it’s Remarkable for a stephen king story to have Adults Who Are Friends. which is where it can be cross referenced with Stand By Me, which is about kids who are friends, but Framed by like, this story is written in the future by the main kid, who wanted to be a writer & now is, mostly about his friendship with this one other kid who was like “hey man you can & should be a writer. believe” and that classic [stephen king High Concept stories] central plot impetus / definition which is “the one where some kids go on a trek to find/see a dead body” and then ending with Adult Main Kid with that classic / standout remark “i never had any friends like the ones i had when i was twelve. god, does anyone?” which is included even in the film via seeing him type it out on bulkier ye old computer terminals while his kid is now twelvish i guess and talking to a friend. after also musing on like, yeah that bestie who hyped me up the most and who i saved in turn, with a gun, tragically died. iunno where those other two kids in the group are, living kind of underwhelming lives out there probably but whatever. lmfao like man i dunno write them a letter, call them, you could do a little digging here and get in touch. but yeah it’s not gonna be Exactly The Same as when you were kids, nor exactly the same as it was when things aligned to have a brief but dramatic adventure, nor when you Could just all spontaneously decide you wanna go walking & camping to find a body & then just up & do that. but like, you can consciously make & maintain friendships i prommy my man lol. like “it’s great when things align so you Happen to have these friends when you’re twelve and you all like offer each other emotional support and can understand each other like nobody else can. but then you Will all just drift apart” like, i mean, will you. you can have friendships beyond what you just Happen to have / hope that the magic alignments will just continue falling into place for you so that those friendships still exist

and probably part of it is that it’s really mostly About the two kids who are friends even though there’s four of them, i.e. the protagonist & the moral support bestie, as well as the fact that this is a short story so there’s presumably only so much time to focus on characters at all really or delve into any setup and bg lore and whatever all else, i dunno. but thinking how it’s like, oh hey, in It it’s kind of its own serendipitous alignment of elements there to be like, here’s a group of adults where it’s peak relevant that they’re friends, for once. because afaik that really just doesn’t happen in sking stories, like, yeah adults kind of have friends but it’s Not Very Deep / it’s just kind of convenience about working together moving plots along & it’s like yeah uh i don’t fucking know i guess we see each other / hang out for dinners or post dinner drinks together or join forces about whatever fucked up shit and just talk about that, mostly....and probably people are just dropping off like flies eventually, the protagonist man of that [sooo many protags who are just some fuckin middle aged guy who’s a writer] type, and it’s also in part just because like, characters don’t really matter that much / have to be particularly distinct / Are Disposable when plenty of the point is to go “was that fucked up or what?” about whatever’s happening, so yknow you go “there was once just some fuckin guy, i dunno, he probably has a wife he’s paternalistically protective of but maybe also resents and maybe a kid or two or something, whatever....” like, being the main character doesn’t really matter, it’s just this avatar through which we are told a story of some fucked up shit and to whomst any fucked up shit can even happen, being other characters also really doesn’t matter

so it’s like huh, stand by me / the body as obviously this Ode To Twelve Year Olds’ Friendship And How Your Emotional Support Of Each Other Defines The Entire Path Of Your Life Though Mostly For The Main Character, Everyone Else Fucked Off Or Whatever like right yeah, but with that difference of how like clearly as an adult this isn’t gonna be about this guy going like “hey yeah where are those still living scamps today,” he’s reminiscing only, he’s talking about how he now doesn’t have any friends like the ones he had when he was twelve....then what changes in It is like, hmm how are these adults where the fact they’re friends actually is peak relevant? how does one remain friends with even Any childhood friends there huh. and then the fact it works out like that is like aha, well it’s because they don’t lmfao. that everyone happens to scatter to the winds at some point when it maybe will eventually rear its head amongst even their own adult guardians like hey, yknow, maybe let’s not live in murderville. or coincidence. whatever. where the point is that like oh also, everyone just magically forgets the goings on as kids including the existence of their friends, but is about to be reminded of them / remember all that, for a specific external reason rather than [adults are like hey let me try getting in touch with that mf] and already plot and magic is relevant to all of this. they’re not going to have gotten together for the shittiest high school reunion if not for the connection of Friendship, this is about adults but it’s about that childhood plotline still, so Twelve Year Olds’ Friendships still stands / is relevant, so we can even fathom these adults having a connection, b/c yes they Didn’t have it as they got older there, but now they’re jumping back into it actually, b/c magic, and because also this is Directly About (Childhood) Trauma which was also like, hey damn, even outside the stephen king oeuvre & its tendencies (solid & wretched), this is also transcending grievances i so often have with Horror, as someone who likes horror and doesn’t like horror but likes horror but doesn’t like it, and just like. questionable employment of [you Are bothering to focus on Character, and their emotional arcs being entirely relevant to the story here] when sometimes it’s like, do you need a story? the strength of horror shorts to just go “was that fucked up or what.” do you need the characters with the emotional arc relevance at all, or is it just a little avatar walking around with enough vague motivation to have / see / make fucked up shit happen? are they particularly characterized to play into some Metaphor, what’s that metaphor, is it shit, is the execution of it shit. and oftentimes Trauma is just like, idk, it’s like well here’s this person’s Weakness, and it being horror that’s more likely to make it into a Fatal Flaw, like way to have trauma you dumbass, if you were so weak as to fail to just get over it already / Overcome it, you just might be killed for it

annoying, shallow and hackneyed, insulting, etc, and it’s also like, the Individual Focused emotional journey like and here this character who’s been weakly propped up by the Stronger people supporting them will have to go through the crucible of being alone, facing down their Issue like their trauma, and getting through it in this big dramatic one and done way so they can finally stop being a pussy and an obstacle to others. or else fuck it up & die. and it’s like do you know how this works lmfao (no) why shouldn’t the support help. why should it Have to go away. why shouldn’t everyone be crowdsourcing their emotional support amongst their group lmao and never needing to “overcome” it Forever, alone. and that’s at least mostly what gets to go on in It lmfao, like, so obviously this is About Childhood Trauma. whereas It = any of the forces that make people act in ways that create, facilitate, or simply passively allow trauma. (or just some shit that really fucks shit up sometimes i guess.) and you have kids who get caught Alone getting got. but then you have a larger group of some twelvish year olds who are like alright fuck this then, and that’s enough to get through it, the same way that naturally in the less magical / more literal realm of their lives, that friend group & joining forces & providing this like actually (relatively) safe and supportive environment amongst themselves is what protects them & makes everyone a lot more of a force to be reckoned with than they are when out / caught on their own. and it just doesn’t happen to be about choosing to write about like, and then all these kids got picked off one by one anyways, despite their efforts, f. which like i guess it could be, but when the Point is so Directly about the emotional support some kids get from each other / that they Are crowdsourcing protection re: their individual vulnerabilities, that wouldn’t really emphasize that Point so much if regardless of the [having a friend group] everyone was fucked anyways. or the fact that like, again, this is About trauma and what can create it and how that can persist and all, the Magic Rules are about the emotional component of it all, when it’s like, oh this just so happens to be a magic murder entity that’s picking off kids but also prefers to torment them and/or like idk takes the route of going “oh you’re gonna hate this” and hooks up their consciousness via usb cable to the zillionth dimension void & then sips their life force through a crazy straw, or, as it would be to clown entities, a normal straw, and i dunno, that if the usb is unplugged vs eternal living death then the torment juice can give people the interdimensional premonition / telepathy across space & probably time shine(tm) like good for them i guess. call that hypervigilance?

and then that like, into the Adults timeline, not only is there this cheat like woops a stephen king story where adults are friends b/c they’ve reconnected the usb cables where the [friends like the ones i had when i was twelve] has now become immediately relevant and active again, i was like, mad man cinema contemplation meme a bit confused going into the second half until i realized some particular fact of the plot And it was slowly like....we’re kind of goofin huh, is this Being Funnier? b/c i mean, the first one wasn’t not ever funny or like otherwise not super solemn & heavy, and also i’m just Used to horror to the point it’s not gonna like bother me probably, i was watching alone and turned off the lights b/c i couldn’t adjust my screen’s lighting levels & the overhead light in here was gonna create glare via the mirror behind me, and i didn’t think anything of it at any point, i had to also be like “@ me, okay stop saying ‘me’ the moment you realize anything [A Scary Moment] is transpiring for no especial reason,” and yknow, it’s like a roller coaster to me, or i’d say like being tickled except actually i hate that one & will start physically fighting lol, where it’s like yeah aaaaaa but it’s fun & i’m Humored really, i’m experiencing the [horror & comedy are two sides of the same coin], when i’m startled or going like oooh that was, to be sure, creepy, it’s still like, ahaha, i’m figuratively tickled, going :] at the screen, i especially liked the same [ooh hehe yeah that’s eerie] type of moments in both halves like yeah very [your standard marble hornets enjoyer] of me....but anyways so then it did take me an extra few moments maybe in the second half like oh is this Markedly More Humorous? oh it is, then....sort of unexpected but then it immediately makes sense and was Fascinating like, oh, this is so In Conversation With the first movie and with the Overall Story here lmao. like, we are illustrating the Perspective Shift, the [kids timeline] is still relevant and defines everything that’s going on, but they Are adults now and That itself is relevant. b/c otherwise it’s like, it Is just the same situation played over again lmfao like damn we were the [kids fight & defeat a murder sewer clown monster] and now we’re the [adults fight & defeat a murder sewer clown monster]. and Of Course It Makes Sense for there to be overall more Drama for the kids, who are more so just living & immersed in their normal lives in that storyline, and of course, Are Kids, where like anything “was that fucked up or what” that’d happen would be more intense & threatening, and sure applying that perspective like, not only “yeah i’m just experiencing some media, but if that was really happening in life that’d be fucked up, if it was happening for real to me, i’d be like, whoa uh oh holy shit aaaa” lmao, and then an Additional layer of “and if i was twelve” like “yeah aaaa oh shit” way compounded by that, naturally. 

but then i’m Also like, listen, i’d be more like halfway through my 27 yr time jump but i’m the adult with cptsd lmao and so i’m Madmen In The Theatreing because of this angle as well, and intrigued, positively, by the uptick in levity about everything. wherein it’s like okay, it’s sure Also true that like, undo the [and if you were twelve] angle, but The Same kind of fucked up shit happening would of course still be like well this sucks, and is startling, to Anyone who’s an adult, right. But Also like, again the way it’s relevant to touch base with the [kids] timeline, because that’s Defining Everything, this isn’t just “and they’re adults which means everyone’s just tougher than they were when they were kids” and That’s That, it’s like, these are adults who were these specific kids with specific experiences vulnerable to and exposed to bonus trauma, and now this is a “time to jump back in to a head on confrontation with that” plotline but As A Group again rather than this being just the story of like any individuals, or just the main kid/guy, who is now to be sure the [the middle aged writer guy of a stephen king story] lmfao, congrats....and you had [repressed memories but like, magically extensively encompassing] as the device here to as what allows for this outlier scenario of like “but how can adults possibly maintain friendships formed organically in their youth? well, they didn’t lol. but now they’re back.” and the past Has to be relevant and freshly Active because again, this Is directly about trauma lol, not just about whatever broader thing and anyone might secretly have this Hangup or two that’ll get them got. and they all Know this lol, this may be some exclusive knowledge more broadly, but this is Not a secret amongst this group of adults like ah yes my marinating issues that nobody suspects i have....which is a bonus to [even though they’re adults in a stephen king story they don’t all or even mostly have to die] and then like, as i am trying to get around to, that it’d be Different being just any adult approaching this as a new situation to them vs being an adult With Trauma(tm) lol like. the way that one might go “well, this would suck for anyone, but i have a different vulnerability b/c [cptsd involving this shit]” but Then Also the resilience that nobody should have to have and it’s technically a “strength” even though then actually people interpret their [lack of honed ability through direct life experience to cope indefinitely with traumatic experiences] as the strength, a la “wow why’s that person put up with that, i wouldn’t stand for it b/c isn’t it So Clearly Bad & Unpleasant?” victim blaming mentality and people “used” to that shit “putting up with” said shit, which other people would throw up their hands like Wow Just No and walk away from. which in turn isn’t a “weakness” lmao like, there’s no moral judgments to being someone w/trauma or someone without it. that people shouldn’t Have to have cptsd or Resilience, of course, but then that they do. i’m certainly relating to like, yeah it’s Magic Rules / Exaggeration the way that only people young enough can detect & deal with this shit directly, the first time around, and then that they still have access to it as adults presumably b/c of that exposure as kids and because [the childhood trauma doesn’t just Go Away b/c you grew up, even though Also people just think that it ought to or like wow so immature or wow you’re Letting it affect you too strongly still, huh] etc. and anyways, relating to like, yeah enjoyed the way some adults would just be cool & generally supportive, but i also only had so much access to such adults, all Through parents or via school where it’s like, yeah but all the adults there have to Make Sure You’re Behaving Properly in various ways that lead to [punitive] ends and if anyone’s being like particularly supportive / understanding that’s a personal individual choice & they’re probably going Above & Beyond. kind of impressed how useless, and actively unhelpful / counterproductive, any adults were later on when i was dealing with it all the more / had it coming to a head in ways lol, didn’t have an epic friend group i hung out with at twelve or ever who Knew Me that well or i shared anything with or got lifechanging emotional support from, but there Were occasions of like, yeah these peers get it, huh. and now with the perspex of [cptsd having adult] it’s like, yeah, i’d have repeated dreams of parents showing up & i start physically fighting them off with like a shovel and shit lmfao. even now when i rarely have dreams ft. like a more general monster / menacing figure, like i did last night, go figure, Dream Me is always like Oh Okay and immediately physically charges them unarmed lmfao. (also had a dream cameo where some guy on a home computer who was making up like building / engineering schematics? was a Wrole like omg hey buddy. unfortunately a limited interaction, that plot got quickly waylaid by the one where i launch myself at some entity. booo) i can be like “ah, here goes the adrenal response” mostly only noticing sometimes when it’s like, my physical tension has gone to the point of [i can notice my legs/knees shaking], i can also Not Notice It / not think of it b/c you know, it’s like this is truly mundane / everyday shit, in the Relative / Comparative way that it can be. it can be stealth mission time to do some ordinary shit like you live in a survival horror game. it can also go “yeah i could very easily see how if, say, there was this manifestation of trauma / the shit that causes/facilitates/sustains/allows it, i’d go sicko mode on that shit just immediate physical attack” lmao. i know if i’m startled it’s like, that can be a) ordinary, and/or b) unpleasant, and probably c) immediately followed by my being ready to go sicko mode, possibly being a bit pissed off lol. like i can’t even be worried like oh no it’s nighttime what if something was menacing. like yeah that’d be scary and suck, i might get got, i’d also immediately be pissed off like fucking try me you asshole. and it’s like, again the way comedy is A Framework, it’s not what happens when a situation is Lighthearted, Unserious, Frivolous, etc. the like, obvious fact like wow people who are funny can be sad? can have had some fucked up, Serious experiences? can even joke about that? like yeah of course humor can be Deliberately Employed To Cope, including to even communicate about shit, where you’re cueing hard like, i’m not necessarily collapsing under the weight of this right now but it’s a reality and when i’m telling you about it with Humor it’s not in turn asking for you to fix it or even do anything about it at all except be listening to / comprehending the info i’m giving you. and that even looking back on shit can be funny To You because it’s just like, sure Elevated and can be a bit absurd. so it’s like oh yeah of course it’d be funnier, in a way characters are aware of & actively interacting with lmfao. like of course any adult would be like “jesus christ. yikes. aaaa” lol while also being more inclined and able to tackle bullshit right off, but Also being specifically an adult with the [this is your childhood trauma] can be like, yes i’m both still affected by and vulnerable to this shit, but i’m Also less vulnerable than some rando might be, actually, and prepared to / more used to this, and able to go “jesus christ yikes aaaa lmfaooo ahaha” about it. like, i feel that lol. 

paragraph break just because that one was getting Extra long: oh and also the matter of Genre Awareness, that this isn’t just some fucked up shit that happens to be scary and fuck your shit up, but this is expressly an antagonist coming after you with the intention to be scary to you, and you Know that, you are aware you’re in a Horror Genre situation lmao, so meta, surely helpful. and sure sometimes i felt the like comedy vs horror; comedy vs drama sometimes didn’t transition perfectly like, my kind of feeling ambivalent at this one point like uhhh is this scene more straightforwardly dramatic? hmm i guess it was. well anyways. but that’s fine, meanwhile continually delighted even to realize like, here we are going over this all again but with this Shifted Perspective / Framework, we’re clearly goofin a bit. and like how i can clap & cheer like ooh yeah that was creepy lmfao, i got Got comedically like idfk dozen times or what all. ahehe....not to mention the [i Am going insane. society] experience of scrungy expression spit take coughing laughter when overlaying [titanic guy going HaHaHaHaHaHaHa XD as the camera lifts away from overhead] upon [mad man serious contemplation of cinema png] while experiencing like wow the gay Text is more textual than i though, more extensive, turns out i had some things to go into entirely afresh without going “oh yeah, i remember what i osmosis’d about this” to then go :0 =0 about, or that i didn’t quite get Everything through osmosising that i did recall, to then spit take about and become titanic guy fifty times over. i Am a bit joker mode, you really just have to be. and laughing about [when stephen king and PPL go “you know this type of guy” and we all go “yeah i guess. i know Of them [possible knowing looks amongst ourselves, or to the camera]” and then they go “you know how they’re—” and then our answers of “maybe like gay or some shit” overlaps with their “just another heterosexual amongst all the rest of us, unless we’re gay, but we’re talking about how all the protagonists we write are cishet i guess?” like. haha. what an alignment, good for everyone in the overlap....oh and i was like ahahaha when the podcast discussion of The Book Specifically nevertheless had one guy knowing the lore already that the stephen king cameo here as Some Secondhand / Pawn Shop Type Place Owner Guy was someone who, in stephe’s (not a typo, making stephe as = steven happen, with particular enunciation of the ph vs v) own written text as the description of That Guy in the book, is like, this gay caricature who is like wearing some mesh or i think they said it said “fishnet” shirt and like clearly reading this gay porn mag. because how else would someone be gay lmfao? how else would you Know you’ve encountered one of them?? lmfao like, a) i also agree with the podcasters who are like, stephe’s a coward for not staying true to that specific description he wrote when cameo’ing as that person, and b) like, people are gay, stephe....but classic matters of [running down a hallway going Noooo and knocking shit down behind you while being chased by [the way stephen king writes about [take your pick] and/or just like, what do you think is going on in life re: [take your pick] exactly, stephen king, i swear] lol)

anyways This has turned into [gif of the guy emphatically pointing at a laptop and also at some unseen listener to this Serious Monologue] because i have endless things to say about anything. the point it it’s like, well hey i think that was remarkably successful re: choosing to have Characters with Emotional Arcs tied to a Metaphor in this horror media, when usually i’m like, the execution of this is so shit that it’s like, just don’t have characters lol, don’t try to make it a metaphor (although you know, difficult for it not to be tied to anything irl, so don’t be unaware of how it Could be), if it’s gonna be this kind of a mess. the fact that like, you can’t have [trauma] be a character weakness fatal flaw that gets them got b/c they weren’t individually Strong Enough, b/c this is All About a) having & interacting with that [trauma] first and foremost and b) how having a group of relationships affects that (helpfully). my pleasant surprise about how like yeah of course you can’t just make the exact same movie again but i wasn’t necessarily expecting a noticeably more outright comedic angle for round two, but duly kinda delighted by it, and that felt very Appropriate and Verisimilitudinous for the new angle of And You’re Completely Grown. that stephen king Rarely writes about relevant friendships and all the more rarely to never writes about relevant friendships between Adults but whoops, that happened here, b/c there was a magical workaround where “drifting apart” was not entirely congruous to the real life literal actual way that’d happen, and b/c the way this is about childhood trauma means that the Rest of that childhood is relevant to adulthood / adult identities, and he ends up with “god, does anyone?” being answered by “yeah, sometimes” lol. and yeah being a deh enjoyer / being haunted byer / analyzer means anytime something is About the connections someone, say a young person for one, might make and how that can be relevant to All Their Issues, i’m sitting up & taking notes like oh ya don’t say. that stephen king shit overall is like, well this is Interesting and i could talk all day but i’m also like, personally more ambivalent and bound to run over like hey stephe i’m shoving you around, bitch. until we form an unlikely, begrudging alliance to instead go after stanley kubrick, then boo the the shining movie, but whatever. the the shining book ending, one of the few things i particularly remember from actually reading that one, is true like, stephen king endings tending to be a hot mess that maybe aren’t super successful but here we are and it was like, why’d it get so goofy all of a sudden lmfao like i’m telling you with the schrodinger’s boiler that’s old and temperamental and if you don’t maintain it it’ll blow up probably, and that the way things end in the book is the [middle aged dime a dozen writer man protag] being possessed by a hotel is like oh fuck me lmfao, not the boiler i can’t maintain myself even though i’m possessing a hotel, it hasn’t been maintained, and then as always in any of these stories things go off the rails and yakety sax starts to play while after hanna barbera cartoon scrambling in place for a second, your haunted hotel avatar starts sprinting to the basement or wherever it was but Too Late, it blows up and the hotel dies kind of. and that’s kinda fun and funny lol but yknow, put it back in. beating up kubrick aside, i’ve seen all of? nigh all of? wasn’t paying much attention. the movie and it’s like oh okay whatever. but as with like [anything stephen king] and my not even being born till the 90s, it’s like, i can’t possibly experience this afresh, we can all agree that surely this is the best known stephen king work b/w book & film adaptation, even among biggies that really just permeate pop culture overall, who can know what i’d think if these things were New and pre [own significant influence on relevant genres / mediums] or also i was a younger reader/viewer at the times as people could often be. but i was like....expression where you scrunch your face up and look to the side like “are you seeing this” bemusement like...this is. fine i guess? it’s not really scary lmfao. and regardless, resurrecting kubrick to beat him up. but on that note it’s also funny that god knows why i ever mentioned the hypothetical of watching the shining once in passing to my mom, it would’ve been humorous / not in earnest b/c no way would i have been suggesting we watch that or even that i had watched it necessarily, so i Think i must’ve just been informing her of some things that were on tv at that moment with some goofy but technically accurate suggestions like that one, and she is a bit indignant like clearly disapproving of the general idea because, as she says, she doesn’t think it’s Right to tell kids they should ever be afraid of their parents. but between “but like. they go axe murder possessed by a hotel mode here, wherein i think it’s very appropriate?” and [someone who watches It and keeps looking into the camera one zillion times / is fascinated by the fact it’s like oh wow, any horror talking about What If You Had Trauma that isn’t like fundamentally misguided throughout and probably egregiously insulting about it] i take a perfectly comedically timed pause and then we freeze frame on my doing a spit take Laugh into my own drink. not actually in the real moment lol, i just Say Nothing and file that one away lmfao

oh and as a little postscript here i want to shoutout my going “just like Watch Your Step in goosebumps the musical the phantom of the auditorium” where it’s like, schrodinger’s warning about how a kid could just up and accidentally die via this trapdoor or like anywhere anytime, but you don’t really realize that b/c you’re kids, but I’m Telling You. and like, he’s right in general to be sure, you can just die, as well as unknowingly right of course like oops yeah some kid did just up and suddenly die via this trapdoor, grimly. and that’s Stand By Me / The Body handshake emoji It, like of course that mortality is ever relevant particularly in horror, but that also it’s like, kids realizing the reality and Proximity of that, like You Can Die, this could be you or could’ve been you. [horror, and it’s middle schoolers] wins again

hiii! i hope you’re having a good day/night ^_^ i was wondering if you could wirte either sam or dean winchester with a bimbo reader!! smut or fluff i dunno ahhh TY!!

☆ ┆.ᐟ ᰍ ︵ this took me so long m'so sorry ml !! ۫ .

☆ warning ; tad bit suggestive i mean. it's dean ,,

“pass me the fuckin’ uh..” dean ran his hand through his hair, crouched beside baby. it was a one in a million day where dean had no shit to do, so he found himself doing checks on baby even if she was in perfect shape. doesn't mean he can't check in on his girl, whilst his girl is sat on the precariously stored chair. yeah, he'd told you if you fell he'd absolutely laugh at you however he knew full well that he'd literally perform an act of magic on you to keep you safe.

“uh, screw driver?” you bat your lashes at him, legs rocking as you typed on your phone, snorting out a laugh at the emoticon that charlie had sent you. of course, you liked to help dean out. but the weather was so good, and the sun was good for your skin, or so that forum that you read at the library when you went with sam said. also, you and charlie had a lot of gossip to catch up on, so.. you weren't on your game as much as you usually were.

a soft laugh slips past dean's lips as he shakes his head, looking back at the toolbox in your lap. you watch as he gets up, his hands a little stained with car oil, which in fact, does not suit the white colour of your babydoll top, clinging to the curve of your chest. which dean took much pleasure in, but besides—so you squirm back a little when he comes closer, “dean, you cannot touch me with your hands like that, i love you, but no—”

“relax, sweetheart, just tryna get a wrench,” dean teases, “can't a guy get a wrench? jeez,” he raises his hands teasingly before he carefully grabs a wrench from the tool box. not before swiping his thumb over your nose which causes you to squeal, and he quickly makes his way back to baby before you can retaliate.

“dean!” you gasp, rummaging for your pocket mirror in the pockets of your baby pink hoodie, finding it and soon looking at yourself in the mirror. a little smudge of darkness glistens on your nose and the pout you give dean makes him cackle a little.

“c'mon, it adds character, don't you think?” he does a little tinkering under the car, to which you have absolutely no clue what he's doing. did you want to know? no, not really. you wanted to know why you had oil on your nose! you knew why, but why dean did it was a mystery, and you huffed.

“you'll know what character is when i'm done with you,” you mumble back sassily, giggling when you see the surprise fill dean's gaze. so, he rises from where he is, and saunters his way back over, having used a rag to wipe down his hands so you wouldn't throw a little hissy fit.

“is that right, hm?” his green eyes lift to yours, and leaning against the chair, he bites his bottom lip. hell, he likes when you get fiesty with him. “gonna show me character?” his low, gravelly voice cooed softly as his hands brushed over your sides.

this knocked you down a few pegs, because to be fair, if your bombshell of a boyfriend is speaking like that and holding you like this, well, who isn't gonna get a little flustered. “uh—yeah, character.” you do notice how his eyes flit down to your cleavage for a vague moment, and you speak up, a little uncharacteristically but in a way dean adores—“eyes are up here, deano.”

a groan slips past his pink lips, and you soon find his green, piercing eyes hooded and looking up at you. “tease,” he mutters under his breath, and a flush dusts his skin that he never expected to happen. “think i know where your eyes are, doll, just enjoying..” he traced a finger over the lace containing the spill of your tits, “the view. know you're enjoyin’ mine.”

you thought he wouldn't notice! you'd been staring at him for a while now, considering the fact he'd blessed you with the sight of not only his arms in a tank but sweats? your man was a slut, you couldn't even deny it. “dean, stoppp,” you mumble, getting a little heated as he brushes his fingers over you. “shut up.”

he pouts playfully, pressing his forehead gently against yours. lifting his thumb to your glossy lips, he pulls it gently before letting it go, a giggle slipping past his lips. “now you're being mean, pretty baby,” his hands slide down from your chest to your thighs, squeezing them gently. “mean to your ol’ dean?”

you push at his chest playfully, tapping your acrylics against his chest with a little laugh. this causes dean to dig his fingers into the meat of your thigh a little and pull you against him. “you were bein’ mean to me first, dean!” his brows raise, “you know exactly how. oil? nose? coulda’ gotten it on my top!”

he rolled his eyes at your behaviour, it's not like that top was expensive anyway. you two got it when dean had literally stolen 20 dollars from a wallet he found on the floor this one time. but that's besides the point. “can always get you a new one,” he shrugs his shoulders, flashing the signature winchester smirk. “kinda always been itchin’ to rip this one anyway. doesn't do that body justice.”

“dean,” you two were literally outside the motel, you couldn't do anything like dean was absolutely suggesting. and judging from the way his hand was sliding up under your skirt to cup your ass, well, he was suggesting a lot. he gives a gentle squeeze, growling softly before he lifted you up off of the chair, causing you to squeal. “dean!”

he swung you over so you'd sit on the hood of the impala, watching as your little skirt hiked up. a grin played on his lips and he sighed softly. “how'd i get so lucky, huh?” dean lifted ring clad fingers to brush the side of your face. “grumpy hunter like me.”

“fine ass hunter like yourself,” your retort was instant.

“i didn't say it, you did, so it ain't braggin’,” dean wiggled his eyebrows instantly, drawing you impossibly closer as his hands groped at your thighs gently. he was clearly a big fan of your body.

“dean, there are people walking past,” you nudge him, not before placing a glossy kiss to his cheek. he shrugs, glancing over at a passing woman and her boyfriend on the street. in usual dean fashion, he gives your ass a pat and winks at the couple, not that you realise.

“well, maybe, they wanna piece of this fine ass,” he squeezed, looking up at you through his lashes. “they'd have to go through me, first though,” literally before you can even realise it, you've been hiked up over his shoulder with your ass practically out.

“dean, my skirt!” dean acts oblivious, but slides a hand over you to keep the view at bay, a laugh slipping past his lips. “relax, sweetheart, i got you,” does this calm your nerves? no, not really, but, you relax into his grasp.

“you're the worst,” as you shake your head, your earrings shimmer under the dim lights of the motel as you make your way in. dean's practically a deer in headlights looking at you before he focuses again, and taps the doorframe of where sam's in.

“keep an eye on baby, alright? got some uh, things to be doin’, sammy,” it's like sam didn't even have to ask as he saw dean give you a playful swat on the ass, herding you to the bedroom. 

“yeah, sure, whatever,” sam was ninety-five percent sure he might have to go do his research in the impala because knowing you two? you were loud.

tags ┆.ᐟ ᰍ ︵ @onlynextdoor ۫ .

☆ 𝜗𝜚 ( your honor, i loveeee himmmmmmmmm.... lmk if u wanna be tagged in spn works lolz

Hello! I’d like to request the mercenaries with a fem mercenary reader who is a shapeshifter and has a pretty chaotic personality? Basically Nimona from the movie Nimona lol

Watched the movie finally, and now I'm gay for ballister. Thanks for that xoxo. be on the lookout for something on him because i want to chew him and hit him like a tennis ball

Also, it's safe to say I got a little stupid with this one 💀

Mercs with a chaotic! reader

Warnings : swearing, light mentions of gore, talk of body parts, medic.

CHAOS CHAOS CHAOS *jevil laughter*

Probably get along really well with Pyro and Scout not gonna lie because Pyro likes to burn shit (Even though I'm pretty sure they think they're spreading joy and colour) and Scout is pretty hyper in general, willing to go along with anything as long as it's fun.

*burns down barn*

"huddah huh huu hud."

"Yeah, loving the colour too, pally. Really makes the wood boom." *evil chuckles*

As soon as Pyro learns about your shapeshifting ability, they're all over you. They want you to play 3 different characters at their tea parties simultaneously and transform into a unicorn so that they can ride you into battle and fulfill their wildest dreams

"Hud hudda hu hubuh huuuuh HUDDAH!!"

"Okay, okay, fine!" *transforms into a unicorn* "Get on."

*excited hu noises*

"HUDDAHHHH!!"

Besties 💗🌈🔥✨️

Some of the older and quieter mercenaries are NOT gonna be having a field day with you and your silly little personality.

Sniper hates it THE MOST. He doesn't like people that much in general and can barely keep up with the hyperactive chaos that is you, so he mainly sticks to watching you burn shit down from afar.

"Did'ya really have ta' do that much?"

"Yeah. Why, you not liking it, pissboy?"

"..."

"That's what I thought. Don't be a hero, buddy."

Although he doesn't appreciate your snarky attitude, he likes how you can shapeshift. He really likes animals and will sometimes scope in on you when you transform, nodding with approval and whispering a little, "cool" that he hopes nobody hears.

Spy thinks you're a nuisance around the base but definitely sees the usefulness in your shapeshifting abilities since he kinda almost does the same damn thing, just with his goofy masks. He respects you for that, if anything, at all.

Do not ever expect to replace him or get remotely close to him in espionage, though. If you are at the same level as Nimona, you're not great at directly impersonating humans, and he will tease you about it.

"What was that, today?

"What was what?"

"The 'Oh Mon deu! Ack! Oohh! I dropped my baguette' if that was meant to be an impersonation of me, know that it was terrible, and my lawyer will be contacting you."

"I dunno, I think it was pretty accurate." *shrug*

Medic loves you. Sorry, not sorry. Loves you. Does get tired of you sometimes, but not all the time. He's generally also very *bzzz bzzz chaos organs* so he's happy to indulge in whatever you want to do which usually involves the absolute destruction of everything.

Medic is also incredibly fascinated by your shapeshifting ability. Do not sleep around this man while shape shifted because he's poking and prodding everywhere while you're out.

"Ohoho... how peculiar" *pokes open nerve*

"YEOUCH WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"

*nervous chuckle as he hides a bucket of blood and from your view*

Engineer tries to be that guiding light he thinks you need. He's a friend, a father figure, a colleague, whatever you need. He's a nice Southern gentleman with a slightly insane twist. Encourages you to be careful around the others, but if you aren't, he's not complaining. Makes the job easier if everyone listens.

Heavy is pretty chill with you. He's neither annoyed nor pleased that you're around. He relatively keeps to himself, medic, and his guns.

Actually, do not touch his gun. Do not pretend to be his gun either.

Soldier and Demo like your charisma. You can be a pretty fun drinking partner for demo, and a nice soldier when you're willing to follow orders (which isn't usually) but as long as you get the job done with as much destruction as possible, Soldier is saluting you almost as much as he does the American flag that is hanging next to his bed.

"ANOTHER GREAT DAY, TODAY! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND I MIGHT RAISE YOUR STATUS, CADET!"

"SIR YES SIR! or something I dunno, fuck this is weird..."

*walks with soldier, ignoring the screams of the dammed behind you*

He makes you transform into an eagle and has you sit there on his arm for a while, admiring you fly. It's brought him close to tears on many occasions.

Whenever he gets married to Heavy's sister, Soldier is making sure that you are THERE as an Eagle. He'll pay you to fly across the sky and make majestic bird noises.

Overall, some very mixed experiences. But a fun concept either way.

what do Bullfrog and Rayman/Ramon like to do when they're cuddling with the reader? 😊

Thank you for the request ! 

It’s like , very late for me right now … but I got a burst of inspiration as soon as I read what the request was about : this is something that I’m always happy to write … just wholesome affection between the reader and the boys , love this prompt very much :,) ❤️

I hope this turned out okay ! 

I’m probably gonna pass out after this lmao , it was worth it tho :,)👍

Details : use of gender neutral reader ; 

established relationships ; 

no warnings needed 

Bullfrog 💚

The number one rule this frog has when cuddling with you ? He wants you to be as comfy as possible , and if you want Bullfrog is going to bring something to drink for the both of you : a nice cup of tea , some juice … anything goes , as long as you like it .

< Here’s your tea , mon amour … be careful , it’s still hot . > 

< Thanks love , you’re the best ~ > 

If you’re someone who happens to get very flustered when he speaks French , Bullfrog will have the time of his life whispering sweet nothings in your ear while holding you in his arms … 

The way you blush is just so cute for him ^//^ 

< y/n , ma bien-aimée, tu es merveilleuse à tous points de vue … ~ > 

< B-Bullfrog pleasee ! ~ > 

One silly personal headcanon that I have is that Bullfrog gets especially relaxed by sounds of streams of water streams , waterfalls and other similar things , so I imagine that he would be very happy to have them as a bit of a background ambience while snuggling close with his beloved … 

He probably saves all of those “10 hours of waterfall sounds to sleep and relax to” compilations , he just likes them a lot :) 

Rayman 🧡

Now this man … 

This man doesn’t get as many chances to cuddle you as he’d like , given that he has to deal with so much while working on his show , so you can be sure that Rayman will make the times he can be with you truly special … 

< Aw … did you light up all these candles for me ? > 

< Mhm , I sure did . Cuddles with my lovely y/n need a bit of atmosphere after all ~ > 

< Hehe , you’re always so sweet Ray , thank you ~ > 

Rayman loves to just lay his head on your lap while staring up at you … it’s such a nice moment of intimacy , especially since it’s a position that makes it easy to snatch a kiss or two … or maybe three ;//) 

< Here , come a little closer y/n … god , I’ve missed this so much … ~ > 

While he likes to be able to talk to you while you cuddle ( especially since you’re possibly the only person who he can be fully sincere with ) , Rayman adores to just listen to anything you may want to say while snuggling close to you and let the sound of your voice relieve him from all his troubles …

He is just so glad to have you , he can’t stress about it enough ! 

Ramon 🖤

I think it’s safe to say that after everything that’s happened , Ramon has become even more physically affectionate than before : he just really needs all the reassurance he can get , so one thing he’ll do when you cuddle is wrap his hands around your waist to prevent you from even thinking about getting up …

< Ah geez , is that my phone … ? Can I just check real quick who it is ? > 

< No . Might be another one of Eden’s tricks to try and locate us . > 

< Heh … are you sure it’s not also an excuse to keep me from getting up ? > 

< Hmm … I dunno what you mean ~ > 

He really loves to bury his face in your chest : the sound of your heartbeat and your warmth are like a shelter from the outside world , and Ramon longs for nothing more than having you as close to him as possible . 

It’s also so very relaxing for him to be able to be vulnerable at least for a moment … he just can’t begin to express how important you are to him , but he’ll do his best .

< y/n … I love you so much , you know that … ? 

You’re … heh , literally everything I could ever ask for . > 

If you end up falling asleep while you cuddle together , Ramon is going to be watching over you for quite some time , looking at you while occasionally leaving little kisses on your face …

He won’t rest until he’s sure that you’re safe , he won’t allow anything bad to happen to you … not now nor ever . 

What's Eight Plus Seven?

Part One🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five

Pizza order successfully placed, Steve dials Robin's number next. He doesn't need to talk long, just... hear her voice. Maybe get some verbal support.

"Buckley residence."

"Thank God it's you," Steve sighs in relief to hear Robin's voice on the other end. There was a little bit of dread that her mom might have answered and then he'd be stuck on the phone while she tried to chat with him.

"Whoa. Was hosting the nerdfest that bad?" Robin asks, laughter in her voice.

"Uhh," Steve starts, because he's eloquent like that.

"Oh no. Was is that bad? What happened?"

He feels a flood of warmth for Robin's immediate concern. "No, no, nerdfest was fine. I, uhh, mostly I'm calling because Eddie and I are gonna, like, hang out and talk and I just- I dunno. Wanted to hear your voice, first."

"Oh. Really? Well. Here's my voice. This is you hearing it."

He laughs at that. "Thanks. It's just, I think it's gonna be, like, a bathroom floor kind of conversation, except in my living room on a couch."

"Oh! I can be there in ten if you need me."

"Nah. This is just- me needing to hear your voice, and also a warning that I might have to crawl through your window and fall apart on your bed later. Just don't know how this is going to go."

"I'm here if you need me. Are you going to talk about Freshman First Day?"

"We, uhh, already did. Mostly. There's been apologies and now we're gonna talk. Get to know each other. Play 20 questions, I guess."

Robin laughs at that. "Alright. Ask him if he's ever going to get me the sandwich he owes me from back in November."

"What?"

"You know, his whole cafeteria speech thing? Stepped right on my ham and cheese. It did make him slip and almost brain himself, and he did apologize. Told me he owed me a new sandwich. I never got it. Ask for me."

"We'll see. Okay, I'm going to go but, thank you. Love you."

"Love you, too. Window will be ajar."

Steve hangs up, then opens the fridge. He debates grabbing them beers but opts for soda. Back in the living room Steve finds Eddie sitting like a normal person on the couch, one leg bouncing relentlessly. Even with his superficial knowledge of Eddie, he can tell he's nervous. Not nervous Eddie would be perched on the back of his couch, ruining the cushions with whatever junk is on the bottom of his shoes. Probably.

"Soda?" Steve offers, plopping himself on the other end of the couch, hand outstretched for Eddie to take the beverage.

"Thanks." The bouncing of Eddie's leg pauses for a moment while he's opening and chugging half the can in one swift motion, then the bouncing starts again.

"Hey, man, relax. You didn't seem nearly as nervous when you were trying to sneakily hang out earlier."

Eddie lets out a big sigh. "Yeah, well, I didn't know you hated me then."

"I don't hate you."

"Oh, shit, no. Not what- I meant, like, past tense. Hated as in, used to hate. Not present tense."

"Ah. Well, I don't think I 'hated as in used to hate' past, like, three months into my freshman year. This is going to be the most self-absorbed shit ever, but, like, once I became popular, I couldn't be bothered to hate you. Didn't have the time to put towards that."

"Oh, of that I've no doubt. That was absolutely the read everyone who tried to interact with you got."

Steve ducks his head to hide his own embarrassment by fiddling with the can in his hands. "I thought you wanted to do, like, 20 questions or something."

"Oh. Serious? You'll do it?"

"Yeah."

"Right then. What even are the rules for 20 questions? Is it 20 questions each, or in total asked?"

"I dunno, man. I don't think people actually keep track. I think we just ask questions until we're done with talking. I guess the rules are don't lie, and if you don't want to answer a question, then don't. Pass on it, or whatever."

Eddie nods but he's still nervous, leg still bouncing. A look on his face so close to fear it makes Steve ache a little. He knows too well what far looks like on Eddie, experienced a week's worth of it.

Steve can start. Ease them into this. "Do you got a favorite color?"

Eddie shifts then. Turns sideways on the couch to lean against the armrest and face him. "Wait. One more rule. No mocking answers. You may laugh once at an answer."

"If you are about to tell me it's hot pink, I cannot follow that rule."

"It's not hot pink. Jesus. It's, uhh, brown, actually," Eddie says, rolling his can between his hands. "It used to be red but. I dunno. When I think of red, now, I think of the sky in the upside down and how that was almost the last thing I ever saw. I think of blood, and bleeding out."

And here he thought he was easing them into this with the most basic of questions. Eddie's already being vulnerable. "Follow up question, if you'll allow it. Why brown?"

"What's wrong with brown?"

"Nothing. Just thought you'd pick black or something," Steve gestures to all of Eddie.

At that, Eddie looks down at his mostly black outfit, the only part of it with any color is the DIO album art on his shirt, then back up. "Fair point. I guess brown just makes me think of home. The wooden porch, the paneling, brown dirt road that leads to the trailer. It's also, like, a good eye color. Exhibit A," He waves his hand in front of his face, batting his eyes exaggeratedly. It pulls a laugh from Steve.

"I can't argue that," Steve waves towards his face, where his own eyes have been described by many a girl as ranging from hazel to honey, but Steve just thinks of them as brown. "Your turn, man."

"You, tragically, had never heard of Ozzy before we met. What's your music of choice, and why is it the Top 40?"

"Like everybody didn't hear you singing along to I Wanna Dance With Somebody last week when it came on the radio at the Byers' Barbecue-"

"Whitney is a national treasure and I will not be slandered for knowing the words to any of her songs."

"Yeah, yeah. I guess it was just the Top 40, but really I don't have a preference. I just let other people pick the music. And, uhh, with the multiple concussions I don't listen to as much music as I used to. The migraines are brutal. It's never the music that brings on the migraine but like, it never helps, y'know?"

Eddie is nodding. "I do know. Like when you get sick and vomit, you avoid the last thing you ate, even when it turns out to be the flu and not food poisoning. Like, you know it wasn't the mango milkshake that made you throw up, but you avoid the mango flavor anyway."

There's definitely a full story in that somewhere. Maybe Steve will ask about it later. "Kinda? I don't avoid music but I don't think I've put a record or cassette in the player in months. Anyway, my turn. How'd you learn to play the guitar?"

"Wayne. He started teaching me before I live with him. Just a few chords when we'd visit every so often when I was little. Really got to learn after he took me in. I was eleven, if memory serves."

"Am I allowed to ask about your parents?" Steve interrupts.

"Yeah. Speaking of parents," Eddie's nervous again, bouncing his leg.

"It's your turn. Ask."

"I know the high school reputation. Big house, no parents. I might have even snuck over a few times to sale here when I knew a party was happening. Rich kids will pay whatever price you name, y'know? So, guess the actual question is, what's the deal there, with your parents?"

Steve would laugh except he has no memory of ever seeing Eddie at his house prior to all the fuckery that's gone down. He was too in his own head to bother with other people back then. And the real kicker? He probably bought from Eddie, at his own house, with his supposed grudge and all. God, he was such a dick. "Yeah. Lots of business trips, for them. The used to ship me off to spend a month with my grandparents when I was little, so they could take those trips. Guess once I was old enough to watch after myself, those trips started to happen whenever, instead of just over summer."

"What, they left you here alone as a kid? Even during the school year?"

Eddie sounds so scandalized it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Steve says, "I wouldn't say kid. I was fourteen, so, like, a teenager. But, yeah, gone a lot. More and more with each passing year. I mean, they've been back, but like, for a day or two. Mom switching out what jewelry she wanted and dad bit by bit emptying his office." He pauses with a frown, remembering now the last time he did see his parents face to face. "It was about halfway through senior year. The last time they were here. They didn't even come to my graduation."

Eddie sucks in a breath and Steve can visibly see him hold back some choice words.

"Anyway, long sob story short, I'm still just a rich kid with absent parents. They don't charge me rent or anything, but I pay to keep the lights on."

"That just adds so many more questions to my list."

"Well, it's my turn now, so. What got you into Dungeons and Dragons?"

Eddie looks surprised, and then guilty. "I've always liked fantasy. And, uhh, my Freshman First Day, the DnD booth was set up in the cafeteria, an okayish looking dragon drawn on the poster taped to the booth's edge. And, uh, I approached..."

"No one told you to fuck off?"

"I didn't tell you to fuck off."

"Might've hurt less if you had," Steve hadn't even meant that to be insulting, or insinuating, but it doesn't land. He'd been aiming for teasing and missed the mark, given the way Eddie jerks back, like he's trying to put more distance between them. "Oh, shit, Eddie, I didn't mean- I was-"

The doorbell rings out and both jump, turning to the front door like it might bite them. The bell chimes again, and it's then Steve remembers he ordered pizza. Wordlessly Steve gets up and deals with that. Pays for the pizza and gives a tip, stops in the kitchen long enough to grab some napkins, then folds himself back onto the couch, placing the pizza box on the cushions between them.

The time away from the couch, less than three minutes in total, Steve thinks, was enough to calm Eddie again, since he starts the teasing, "greasy pizza box directly onto the cushions! That'll never come out you know."

Steve shrugs and grins, flipping the box open to grab a pizza slice. "That's a problem for Future Steve."

Eddie grabs his own slice, and they just eat their first slices in silence before Steve breaks that, "I really wasn't trying to- earlier, I was trying to joke. About Freshman First Day. Not, uh, not like, pick a fight. So, if you still want to talk, I think it's your turn to ask a question. Any question. A big question."

"Alright. A big one. Who is Christopher?"

"Okay. Uh, just, give me a moment. I'll answer and I'm gonna be real honest right now with you, so just let me get through this, ok?"

Eddie nods, reaching for a second slice of pizza.

Steve gathers his thoughts, and speaks. "Christopher was my cousin. His family lives in Washington, so I don't see them much. You know that 'shipped off to the grandparents' thing I told you about earlier? Christopher, and his younger siblings, Amber and Robert, also came out to visit.

"I think my grandparents loved to have us all there. My cousins were there for family time, and I was there to just... not be in my parent's way, I think, but the reason why doesn't matter. The important bit. Christopher was two years older than me, and I thought he was the coolest person in the world. I wanted to be just like him. That last summer we spent together, he told me all about the game of Dungeons and Dragons he'd played with his club at school.

"It made me want to play. I was a kid who loved fantasy, too. I had to pretend to leave that behind when I got into middle school; too afraid of disappointing my dad for still liking make believe. I didn't know at the time that making him proud was just something I'd never achieve.

"Anyway, Christopher introduced me to the game, told me the entire campaign they'd run at his school, and then sent me those books. He's the reason I was at the booth that day. If Christopher could play sports and be a nerd, maybe I could, too? But, uh, that didn't go how I planned in my head. And, then. Then," Steve stops here, a knot in his throat but his eyes dry. It's not that he doesn't still mourn the loss of Christopher, it's just that the tears have dried up long ago. "Christopher committed suicide, that year. Halfway through the school year. I think... I think even if I had joined your club, if you had let me take that flier, I would have dropped out after the funeral. I'd wanted to join so bad so that Christopher would be proud of me."

The room has lost focus, now. Steve is staring forward but he doesn't really see Eddie anymore. It's like he's fallen into his thoughts and nothing else exists anymore. "It's a bit fucked up, but being older than me, I think I looked for approval in him that I didn't find in my dad, or maybe I wanted to be him because his parents were so proud of everything he did and I wanted that. Approval. I- it's- I think I used to confuse the two. Approval and love. Maybe I still do? I dunno.

"I guess I just wrapped all that up, the need for approval, Christopher's suicide, my love for fantasy, and shoved it in the same bottle deep down that I kept my anger at you in," Steve blinks himself back into the present. Takes in Eddie's face, a mix of sad and fond, like he wants to wrap Steve in a hug. Steve would probably let him. "That wasn't fair to you. I'm sorry."

Eddie shakes his head no. "You don't have to apologize to me, Stevie. I get it. You wore your jockness that same way I wear The Freak. Like armor. You weren't wrong, earlier, when you said we were dumb kids who learned to lash out and hurt first, so we couldn't be hurt. I was fucking, no, I am still like that. I mean, I just lashed back out at you when all you did was point out how I'd acted to you."

"Yeah, well, life gives everyone a shit hand sometimes. I used to capitalize on that. Kick people when they were down. It's- it's humbling and, like, awful, to unpack that. I know I'm still working on it, but I didn't have to do it alone. Robin and Dustin have been there for me. Great. They call me on my bullshit and it's easier to take then, hearing it from people I know who care about me."

"Guess I better ask find someone to call me out then."

"Haven't you already?" Steve asks, gesturing to himself.

Eddie barks a laugh. "I- yeah, I guess. You sayin' you care, Harrington?"

"Of course I do, man. We wouldn't be doing this -talking about deep shit and getting pizza grease all over my couch- if I didn't."

He watches Eddie turn red, and hide behind his hair. "Could just be doing it for the kids."

"I could. Guess you'll have to trust I'm not. That I also want a do over."

Eddie shoots him a big smile, dimples on full display, and Steve's happy to let go of his grudge if it means Eddie will smile at him like that more.

-

((Looks like there's going to be one more part. Thought this would be the last one but the boys wouldn't cooperate so next part.))

Jongerry prompt: reunion after one thought the other was dead?

Tim wasn’t sure what to make of the guy. 

They met in an awkward almost-collision at the institute’s front door, Tim rearing back in surprise, the other flinching away from the sudden movement. He was lanky, and probably would’ve been tall without the permanent slouch to his spine. His hair was a dull shade of mousy brown, and looked like it had been hacked short with kitchen scissors. His clothes hung loose and ill-fitting on his body. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

Tim took a wild guess. “Here to make a statement?” he asked.

The man grimaced. “Maybe later.”

“I’d make it quick if I were you,” Tim chuckled, holding the door open for him. “Jon was in a good mood before lunch, and those don’t tend to last long.”

Halfway through the door, the man froze. “Who?”

“Jon Sims, the head archivist,” Tim said carefully. “He’s the one who takes statements, so…”

“Oh.” The man’s face was blank. “He’s… that’s… down in the archives, yeah?”

“I can show you how to get there?” Tim offered. Whatever statement this guy had, it must have been rough.

"Sure, thanks," the guy said distractedly.

In spite of the accepted offer, the guy quickly pulled ahead, and Tim found himself trailing behind as the scruffy stranger led the way to the basement stairs. Before long, he was jogging to keep up.

That was why, when the man suddenly stopped at the top of the steps, Tim crashed straight into his back.

"Hey, what did you—"

A hand closed tight around his arm, stopping him from shouldering past. The man had gone still, staring intently down the steps. There was nothing to see except the bottom of the stairs, and the mouth of the hallway that led to the archives.

"Smell that?"

Confused, Tim sniffed. At first all he could smell was dust and old paper, but then, beneath it, as if carried on a draft, came a familiar musty, wet stench.

"Damn worms," He muttered. "We've had a bit of an infestation—dunno if you saw them on your way in—"

"I'm gonna need you to shut up and go back outside," the man interrupted. "Maybe pull the fire alarm on your way out, get everyone out of the building."

"Excuse me?" Tim demanded. The man was already releasing him and moving on, so Tim grabbed him before he could make it two more steps. "Hey, what the hell are you—"

"Listen." The man turned, deftly winching his arm out of Tim’s grip. "I have had a very long day. I was hoping it would end with a long shower, a change of clothes, and a minimum twenty-minute hug from someone who means the world to me. Instead, there's something very nasty down there that I need to deal with. Kindly piss off."

Tim's blood ran cold. "You—you mean Prentiss is—" He stopped. He had a million questions, but maybe just this once they could wait. "My friends are down there."

The man spared a moment to look, if possible, even more exhausted than before. "Great. Fine. Stay close and don't fuck me."

***

Tim's head swam with the gas. His body felt strangely detached as he heaved the fire extinguisher against the wall, again and again until he felt the plasterboard give way. His strange companion drew back as if preparing to do a run-up, and Tim hurled himself into the space and finally broke through.

His first view into the dimly lit storage room was of three familiar faces with varying levels of shock, alarm, and growing relief.

"Hey, guys!" Tim gasped out.

Sasha was already struggling to her feet; Tim was about to go in for a hug when he was roughly shoved out of the way. A gas canister landed on the floor with a heavy thunk as the stranger lurched his way past Tim.

A strangled cry broke the shocked silence, and it took Tim a moment to realize it had come from Jon. His friend was sitting on the floor, propped up against a stack of boxes, one leg wrapped in bloodstained bandages. He stared at the man in blank, silent shock.

The stranger moved as if to lunge, but stopped when Jon held up a shaking hand.

"Wait." Jon's voice broke. He was fumbling something out of his pocket, wincing when the movement jarred his leg. "Wait, just—" 

"Mmhm," the man said in a strangled voice, fidgeting but staying where he was.

Jon finally wrestled his wallet out of his pocket, ripped it open, and pulled out a photo—a Polaroid? His eyes flickered between it and the man standing over him.

The wallet fell to the floor. With a sudden burst of energy, Jon heaved himself upright, and managed to stand for all of a second before his leg gave out and sent him pitching forward. The man caught him before he could fall and yanked him into a hug.

"What the fuck, Gerry," Jon choked out.

Sasha was eyeballing Tim frantically, but all Tim could do was shrug back.

"I'm sorry," the man—Gerry—mumbled, face buried in the side of Jon's neck.

"I thought—she told me that you—" Jon stared blankly over Gerry's shoulder, looking at the others without seeing them. "Where have you been?"

"Couple of hunters picked up our trail in the woods in Pennsylvania," Gerry answered. "We split up. They caught me. Didn't kill me, just… didn't let me leave either. Sorry I didn't contact you right when I escaped, I just—I was afraid I'd get your hopes up and get killed on the way home."

In the silence that followed, Martin let out a strangled "Um."

Jon jumped, and his teary eyes focused back on them. "Oh. Right. Er." He tried to pull back, without much success since Gerry was the only thing keeping him upright. "E-everyone, this is Gerry."

"You just finished telling us he was dead," said Sasha.

"Yes, well." Jon managed a watery smile. "I've been wrong before."

"We had a moment about it."

"Right." Without warning, Gerry reached down and swung Jon up into his arms in a bridal carry, ignoring Jon's squawk of protest. "Let's go. We can talk later—and we will be talking later—"

"Gerry!"

"Seriously, I turn around and you're fighting the Corruption with fire extinguishers, and you're the bloody Archivist."

"Put me down, you absolute—"

"No, you've got holes in your leg." Gerry shouldered past Tim and stepped back into the tunnel, carrying a disgruntled Jon with little apparent effort. "You three coming, or what?"

"i thought you got possessed-" ft. luffy!

ft. luffy x fem!reader

set-up: you're pms-ing and he is such a dumbass. but that doesn't mean he isn't out here being the bestest boy ever. (please excuse his dumbassery, he was dropped on his head as a child)

warnings: none! very wholesome lol

- please dont get confused, this man has no idea how periods work - like how is it humanly possible for you to bleed and then stay alive and kicking? seems made up tbh - one eventful evening (before you both started dating), you and nami had to sit him down and give him a long-ass biology lesson, explaining what the whole phenomenon is, what pms-ing is and yada-yada - before this, he firmly believed that every once a while a demon possessed you all (and he saw absolutely no issue with that, what a fucking icon) "ohhh" he's laughing, "so that's what it is? i thought you guys like got possessed" "excuse me?" nami's on the verge to hit him in the head again and you're wondering if the constant hits are the reason luffy's braincells are (half) dead "i see, i see. i get it now" - he lied, he still doesn't quite get it - but its fine - so, it is just another random tuesday and (post-dating) you know syou love luffy. but holy shit, if he yelled "YN DOLPHIN!! LOOK LOOK A DOLPHIN! SUGEEEEEE" and giggled again, you might yell at him. you really do love him but if he stole your food one more time, you're convinced you might smack him too. "luffy" your voice was unusually low, devoid of any warmth, "stop that." "whatt" he whined, grinning afterwards as he scooped up more food from your plate "luffy. i said STOP IT." your voice rose higher and silence hung uncomfortably over the dinner table - luffy just looks at you dumbfounded - the way you're fisting your hand on the table and looking at him has the crew afraid that youre gonna murder the captain in cold blood - well, i mean ur considering the possibility too, so, you mumble a half-ass apology and return back to your room to be alone - lying against the soft sheets, you can smell the citrus detergent and oh boy, now you feel guilty - i mean god, that's luffy, that was nothing out of the ordinary for him. why did you yell at him? fuck, are you a horrible girlfriend?? - oh boy, now the tears are welling up too - "yn?" luffy whispers as he slips into the room, closing the door behind him and now you're really crying - i mean look at him, why did you yell at him? - "im so sorry, i don't know why i yelled at you, that was so shitty of me-" "hey, it's okay" he's hugging you tight, "you did nothing wrong, i can be a little bit dumb sometimes. i should have not taken your food" "what? no, i am not mad about that. i, i dunno-" you sniff, "maybe i'm just pms-ing?" "huh??" - took a while for him to remember but now that you've jogged up his memory, he looks so guilty, so, he spends the entire evening apologizing and offering you food, he even promises that he wouldn't point out dolphins every time he sees them (you had to reassure him that he can continue doing that)

- but now onwards, this lovely himbo tries to keep in check what he's saying, often giving you a lingering look as if asking "this is fine right?"

- but now you've got your personal defender!! - ussop made a joke and you're not laughing (because it wasn't that funny tbh) and luffy is ready to smack ussop and tell him to "not annoy" you. zoro is being dumb and luffy can see it on your face that he's pissing you off lowkey, so, he will actually tell zoro to not be a dick - mf just starts picking up fights left and right for your sake and now you have to give him another long ass lesson to make it stop - ps: he does not stop. - this man turns into a chihuahua, anything bothering you must be struck down. - very, very observant from now on too. he needs to make sure you're feeling good - also asked sanji to make your favourite desert - he just loves you so much and wants you to be as comfortable as possible (still doesn't know how female anatomy works though-)

a/n: omg i luv him such a dumbass

zoro's link <3 sanji's link <3

“the sunset strip”

warren rhodes x fem!reader

warren’s band might actually have a shot at fame, but where does that leave you? a high conversation confronts the issue.

word count: 1k

Warren passed the blunt to you. The two of you were laying on the floor of his band, staring up at the beige ceiling.

“We’re going to California, man,” he said casually, laughing with a slight cough.

You turned your head to the side and furrowed your brows. “The fuck are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere.”

He shook his head, his curls shaking with it. “I didn’t mean you. I mean the band.”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

He flicks his sunglasses on top of his head and met your eyes where they were. “You wanna come? We’re gonna be something.”

You laughed. “You’re nothing here, no offense. What are you gonna be in the sunshine state?”

He took the blunt back. “Pretty sure that’s Florida, girl.” He took a long drag from it.

“Is it?”

He shrugged. “I dunno geography. I’m in a band. I don’t need to.” He grinned.

“If you’re touring you do,” you pointed out.

He propped himself up on his elbow. “Billy’s serious about this. We’re going to Cali, and we’re gonna be big. We know this guy.”

A snort escaped your lips, a belly laugh following. “Gimme that shit.” You gestured to the weed, and he handed it to you. You took a drag and sang, “California, California dreaming on such a winter’s day,” dragging out the last word.

“Y/n, listen to me, girl,” Warren pleaded. You gave him a skeptical look. “There’s no winter in California.”

You scoffed. “Oh, sure there is. Way up North it gets cold.”

“We won’t be way up north. We’re gonna be performing on the sunset strip. People from all over are gonna be coming to see us.” He brought his other hand up to play with your sprawled out hair. “You could come with us,” he suggested quietly, looking at the strand of hair he twisted between his fingers.

“I thought you didn’t mean me.”

“I mean us and you. Billy’s girlfriend is coming. You’d like her.” He proposed this looking you straight in the eyes, the hair he held falling back to the carpet.

“But I’m not your girlfriend,” you whispered. Your heartbeat was picking up and you got the feeling this wasn’t a good conversation to have high on marijuana.

He sighed and laid down on his back. “I know.” The silence that followed was excruciating. The blood was rushing to your face, and it felt warm to the touch. You were still staring at him while he looked straight up. You put the blunt out and sat up, feeling a sudden confidence within you.

“Warren, what are you saying?” You crossed your arms, and gave him a firm stare, which was really just a facade.

You’d never seen him look so serious. Hell, you’d never send him so much as act serious in the six years you’d known him. He didn’t face you. “You know what I’m saying,” he mumbled.

“Tell me what you really feel.”

He turned his head and showed you his infectious smile. “I feel like you know what I’m feeling.”

You bit back the smile that he always knew how to bring out of you. “Warren, I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I.” He sat up, his glasses falling off of his head. He didn’t spare them a glance as he crawled toward you.

You fought hard to keep the smile off your face. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” he said innocently, but you knew he knew exactly what you meant. He came closer until he hovered above your legs and his arms boxed you against the wall.

“Warren, be serious.” You were basically laughing at this point, his nose coming to nudge yours.

“I’m serious about you, girl.” The shit had the nerve to grin at you while you gave up all hope of holding a straight face. “Loved you forever, but we got nothing here. Come to the sunset strip with us.”

You couldn’t hold back you laugh. “That’s some poetic shit, man, you should take that up with Billy.”

“Hell, I’ll write a song about you myself.” He leaned in and kissed you then, arms wrapping around your waist as he pulled you up against him. You kissed back feverishly, slinging your arms loosely around his next.

He pulled away and gave you a toothy smile. “So, my girl, what do you say?”

You bit your lip, fighting the smile once again. “I guess I could tag along.”

He said, “That’s what I like to hear,” before leaning back in.

Please don’t think of me as a male artist.

..is what i used to feel, for many years, even when I finally came out as trans. In a way, its one of the factors that kept me from pursuing HRT (which im so glad i finally did.) After only one year, my feeling on this hasn’t evaporated completely but i suppose I kind of don’t care anymore about how I am interpreted, as a person/artist, ect.. It isn’t something i can be in control of anyway, which upsets me less than it used to.

Sometimes in the past, the way i write characters has often been analyzed by the gender I am, or appear to be - that my male characters were written like how a woman writes men (too emotional/vulnerable, ect) , or how my female characters are written thoughtlessly- like how a man would. (too horny, stupid, violent, ect.) Its not a new way to analyze a story but I can’t say that it doesn’t annoy me. It could still be true that my characters/writing could fall into sexist/problematic archetypes, but gendering my work based on the way my characters act always reminds me of the “you draw like a girl/boy” comments, which used to be more frequent when i was a teen.. But the idea that boys = angular, good at cars! Or something and girls are, i dunno, gonna draw sexy anime men or something. Even as a teenager, i hated this idea that my art was “girl art.” Truthfully, i always viewed my art and myself as an artist as genderfluid, maybe even a type of drag performance, where i can explore any gender and not be limited by my body, it was my escape from that. Which naturally, it became my place to explore gender presentation and eventually helped me “crack my egg” of realizing i was a trans man.

I do think its important to reflect or regard my work as the art made by a trans man, or transmasculine person. I feel more and more just like “just a dude” these days. I am also a gay man. I think those things are important to my work. I think that the analysis of my work in regards to my identity as a person is important to reflect on. I also think the steps I took to get there were important, that transformation and my continued exploration of my older selves and more “label-less” self in the art i make. That’s a private space for me, that I happen to share with the world too. I feel the audience is part of my work too, I welcome it even. I have become part of the audience too and I look at my work as if I’m also a stranger. The older my work gets, the more of it I can study, the more I can see plainly how I got here and also it feels so confusing how it did. I try to study my art to help me find where I want to go to next, a map to guide me. 

In some ways, I feel more lost than I did before, where all my instinct was pushing me was just to grow and explore as much as possible. Now, I don’t have that same type of energy that I used to. Its not a bad thing, its just different. There’s a sense of duty and commitment and a sense of dread of the time it takes to do what I feel compelled to do on this step of my journey. I am trying to focus more on the things I used to think I was incapable of before and I’m trying to remember the things I used to think were so effortless. I can tell my art is sharper but it feels almost like a mimicry of my older selves - at least when I revisit old work to continue its journey past where its been frozen in time. Comics take a long time, after all, it's normal that after a few years - a story might be yours, but it feels like it belongs to the past of you too, maybe more than it does in the present. I like the commitment I have to my comics though, its not a burden to me. The feeling is strange anyway. 

I tend to think that 1-3 years of a project being made, those are the honeymoon years of the relationship. But you hit a wall in 4-5 years and sometimes you’re in denial about it, you try to keep the dreams and feeling alive as you drag it forward, and sometimes the project really reaches its end around 8-10 years and it becomes a type of empty promise to return to it. Not that this is true for every artist, every project, ect. But I think its a natural lifespan for comics that I’ve observed, and it's because it is uncomfortable to face morality and the morality of our own art. Art is this escape, and when it becomes a job - or an uncomfortable mirror into these things about ourselves, about our failures and promises we couldn’t manage to make, the pressures of the audience, the boredom of the task if you have already told yourself the story a thousand times and you have no longer a desire to continue it, ect - its a normal and natural feeling to want to drop it off a cliff. Blow it up, start over fresh - I know the feeling! Its happened many times. But its kind of temporary? Then, it cycles back to nostalgia - and the desire to create and recreate and reform the past to something tangible again.. uh

Sorry, sorry.. I am getting far from the point I started with. Not that any of this makes too much sense, I feel like writing it anyway. It bothers me that the fantasy of art to me, is the ability to dissolve yourself and stop existing, you are the creator creating. You don’t need to be confined by, really anything. It is in “your control” now, and you surrender your own control by falling into the art and letting it “lead you” places. This is a very seductive process and while it might temporarily be fulfilling (even when done for a lifetime) cannot really.. What.. completely fill the void of whatever you’re chasing down there? Its nice though. At least, when I think about when i first started drawing comics, it was to draw Vash the Stampede (from the original 98 anime series, i hate the new one. We’re not talking about there here) coming out of my television after a thunderstorm and he had to just live in my house now. It was the closest thing I could do to actually manifesting that as reality, of making this amazing anime husband come to life to just like live with me now and be my boyfriend. In a lot of ways I don’t see my pursuit of writing ocs, specifically male ones, really much different from this same desire of like “i can just make my perfect boyfriend!” born out of the loneliness I felt in my heart, and the fear that there is no boyfriend out there for me so i need to frankenstein my own - and this boyfriend will be poifect in every way. Or like, crafting the perfect “relationship” in replace the lack of one, or just the fantasy of watching very abstract extremes come to life in various puppets i crafted, beating the shit out of each other for entertainment. But to subject all these.. Abstract Internal conflicts as simply like a “boy author thing” or “girl author thing” is like.. Tiring. Are we really not past that? (Of course not.) 

Like there’s some hidden truth to the way someone might write/draw, the way that “makes sense” in retrospect once the identity of the author is analyzed and discovered.. How can you make sense of the self, let alone the other .. and In a way that’s permanent? And gendered? Does art now have an inherent sex characteristic? But I cannot deny that I do want my art to look and feel like part of who I am, what I have chosen to sexually identify as - a transgender, a man, a faggot. I DO identify as a sexual deviant, but that is hilarious because I have been single for so long at this point I can’t even remember in a tangible way what that felt like and I question if I ever felt it or experienced it “for realsies” because of the experiences I have had or havent didn’t feel very fulfilling or romantic, despite that being something I desire so much - and so I feel like a failure. And to create art just based on the fantasy of desire rather than the lived reality, can it even really display what that would actually be like. So its embarrassing, right? 

I have worked on my art a lot and I have often thought, or come to the conclusion (true or not) that my singleness is the result of my pursuit and dedication to art - which is the pursuit of self isolation and protection from harm. From influence, from acknowledging that life can exist and someday end. And when you work on projects for years and years, the pride/shame dichotomy only gets more.. Weird. It gets weird, guys! It always was weird, but.. I just think about so many my heroes, my art inspirations, working decades on their art.. I follow in their footsteps too and it feels scarier and lonelier than I expected it to be. And the more and more I realized that as a reality, as my 20s faded away, the more I kept walking. I wasn’t gonna stop now, even if I could, I don’t want to and its not hard to do other things too. I have a slower pace than I used to (thank god) and gets slower but I’m still moving. 

I don’t post or write my little art journals as much as I used to. Mostly cause I don’t really have anything good to say and it kinda feels embarrassing to post them too LOL. But.. whatever!! Its been a weird four months of me being off work and I’m about to go back to being a normal working person again.. But its like, its weird to tell people about your art when they ask about what you do. Its like “oh yeah, i draw webcomics” and they wont get it, you’ll say - “yeah its 8,000 pages long” and they’ll say, “thats a lot!” and it is. They’re very nice about it, but there’s a lack of satisfaction there with what that means. I don’t expect it, that’d be dumb as hell. Its nice to take a break from it too, to discover other sides of myself I never let shine because i stayed indoors for a decade, but its a weird feeling too. Like, what will it mean in the end? I don’t really know. 

I don’t think I need “success” to feel like this was worth it, its not like a trophy is gonna come in the mail for the good workTM I’ve done - there is no closure to the work I make even when a story finishes. I have to keep going regardless of that, and its strange to know it won’t ever feel done. But I am so thirsty for that temporary itch to be scratched, it keeps me working every day for the “maybe” of what that might feel like. Kinda silly, really. Is it my “male” pride that demands recognition? Would respect be given more freely if I had “remained” to be perceived as a woman, for subverting the expectations for what a woman can/can’t write? (lol) Is my value as a person determined by that sort of thing in my art? I don’t think of my pride as gendered, but I know its there and I know because of who I say I am, my pride will be gendered by others. I think when I was a woman, that pissed me off more than now because.. Well.. I wasn’t even living as the way i wanted to. I still don’t really live as the way I want to, the way I want to be perceived, but even being on HRT for a little more than 1 year, without much else lifestyle changes, I feel a little more at peace not mattering what others will take away from me or what i write about. I have a lot of my own expectations for myself and what i write about and that concerns me far more. 

I don’t really know how else to end this, I’m going to eat chocolate now. Oh, to answer your question (?) if you might have this one: can I think of you as a male artist, kosmic? sure. I am one after all.

1000: Dog

Though he agonises over the Capybara card for a long moment, Eric picks the Dog card. He would rather keep being able to think. Like before, the Dog card vanishes in a flash of blinding light while the other two cards turn to dust.

As he gets ready for bed, careful to clean under his new foreskin, Eric notices two things. Firstly, his cock’s neediness and discharge seem to have dropped to a high, but still humanly possible, point. Second, some ink from the Dog card seems to have become embedded in his palm.

“Okay,” Eric says to himself. “Guess I can expect things to get equally extreme with whatever this card turns me into.” The thought frightens and thrills him in equal measure. Eric goes to bed excited to find out how the Dog card will change his life.

The next morning, Eric wakes up hard and leaking, just like he’s gotten used to the last few days. He considers masturbating, but that sounds so boring. No, he deserves to fuck someone, in the mouth or the hole.

“Get up here,” he texts Blair. He opens up his desk drawer and pulls out a bottle of lube that he bought at the start of the year. When he remembers the boy who bought it, little limp-dicked cut Eric, Eric finds himself sneering a bit. What a bitch that guy was.

Eric shakes his head violently. “What the hell?” he gasps. Whatever’s happening to him this time, it’s intense and fast. “I… That’s not me,” he tells the box. He has to keep in mind who he really is and resist these urges if he wants Blair to like him. He’s—

There’s a knock on his door before Eric can collect his thoughts. Startled, Eric struts to the door and opens it, realising at the last moment that he’s naked, his hard cock sticking straight out from his groin with a trickle of precum running down its length.

Blair looks sleepy and cute, Eric thinks in the back of his mind. “Good morning, handsome,” Blair says, his voice thick with sleep. “Gonna feed me breakfast again?”

“Gonna fuck you,” Eric grunts, grabbing Blair by his perky ass as he walks into the room.

Blair smirks in reply. “And what if I want to blow you?”

In response, Eric pulls down Blair’s flannel pyjama pants, making him squeal in surprise.

It’s hot and rough. Eric seems full of an energy he never knew he possessed. As he enters Blair—he barely needed any lube, his cock is so leaky—Eric feels pumped, swollen with masculine power. Blair, barely able to think as Eric slams into his prostate, watches in horny amazement as Eric’s skinny muscles thicken and define themselves with each thrust, until he cums, his shredded new body shuddering as he fills Blair up.

Barely looking at Blair, Eric pulls on a pair of shorts. He hears Blair open his mouth, probably to ask if they can get breakfast, or play video games, or something else boyfriend-y. Eric suddenly can’t stand the thought. “Sorry,” he says quickly. “Gotta go to the gym.”

“Oh,” says Blair, a bit crestfallen. He looks hot, lying on Eric’s bed with Eric’s copious load leaking out of his asshole. “Want to hang out later?”

“I dunno, man.” No. Eric suddenly knows he’s going out tonight.

Eric’s never been to the gym before, but he instinctively knows what to do. He hits chest and arms for an hour, then goes to pose in the changing room. Even with his defined new muscles and masculine shape, though, he suddenly thinks that he looks small. He looks weak.

Even though he knows his clothes used to be different, before being washed in his precum transformed it all into bro clothes, Eric’s happy with the way his new stuff shows off his body. He goes out to the closest gay club and dances the night away, facefucking a tiny twink he meets on the dance floor to get out a load. Somehow, Eric can’t imagine hooking up with a guy bigger than him.

Eric ignores Blair’s repeated texts all day Monday. Instead, he goes to the gym to hit back, then roams around campus with his shirt off, enjoying the late June sun. Some big fratty guys chuckle at the sight of a lean, short guy like Eric showing off his body, so Eric flips them off.

At this point, he notices that ink that stuck to his hand has spread further. It’s reached up his arm and started to edge onto his chest. On the underside of his wrist, where the tattoo started, is a snarling dog face. When he gets back to his dorm, Eric searches his whole body and grins when he finds a small banana tattoo forming just under one ear. The tattoos make him look badass!

On Tuesday, Eric doesn’t bother paying attention in class. His cock is getting pent up again, since he hasn’t dropped a load in a guy since Sunday night. Instead, he chats up some twinky bottoms on Grindr, feeling precum ooze from his half-chubbed cock as he tells them how slutty he’s gonna make them feel. He feels powerful, like he’s been riding a growing high since Sunday, even though every glance in the mirror makes him cringe at how small he looks.

That night, Eric invites the twinks over one by one. He grunts and groans in a deepening voice as he fills each one up with a thick load, hoping that all his neighbours will hear him and know what a man he is. Each time he cums, Eric feels his tatts spread a little further across his body, patterns sharpening with every thrust.

Eric makes up for not going to the gym on Tuesday by spending the whole day there on Wednesday, hitting a full body circuit like the beast he knows he is. When he spots a twink watching him from the treadmills, Eric winks at him and follows him into the changing room. They fuck in the shower, but when Eric walks out, letting his softening cock swing and shed drops of cum on the bathroom floor, a huge jock is standing at the sinks. Eric thinks he saw this guy at the front desk when he first arrived.

“That’s against the rules,” the jock grunts at Eric. “Gonna have to ask you to leave.”

“What are you, a homophobe?” Eric asks sharply, pulling his gym clothes back on. “I still have the rest of my workout to do.”

“Keep it out of the showers, bro,” the guy says. “Go fuck in your dorm like everyone else.”

At ‘everyone else’ Eric sees red. He’s not ‘everyone else.’ He’s better. He’s got the muscles, the manliness. He’s got the fucking magic cards! Eric throws a punch before he knows what he’s doing, and the jock goes down like a sack of flour.

Standing over him, Eric feels exhilarated. Yeah, that’s what happens when you question his manliness! Curling his lip at the guy, Eric leaves the locker room and continues his workout, hitting chest again.

As he does, though, Eric feels the high he’s been riding all week start to ebb. He just assaulted a guy! In the mirrors, Eric watches as the thick musculature he suddenly gained while fucking Blair shrinks down, becoming a taut, defined physique a few steps beyond where he was when he picked the card. It’s like he’s waking up from a trance, his head clearing. Eric still feels cocky, proud of his body, but he doesn’t feel quite so defensive and abrasive all of a sudden.

(thanks to @idesofrevolution for the inspo pic)

The jock’s back at the front desk when Eric finishes with his workout. His face looks a little bruised, but nothing like he just took a hit hard enough to knock him out. “Uh, hey, man,” Eric says, scuffing his shoe on the floor. He’s fighting his new personality traits just to apologise. “Sorry for, uh, punching you before.”

Surprisingly, the guy chuckles, continuing to work on something on the computer. “No worries, Eric,” he says. How does he know Eric’s name? “I know you’re kinda touchy. You didn’t hurt me.”

“I knocked you out!”

“What?” The jock looks up at Eric for the first time. “Bro, I know you’ve got, like, small man complex or whatever, but we were, like, play-wrestling. I know what your real punches feel like.” He laughs again and goes back to his work.

By the time he gets back to his dorm, Eric’s pretty sure he’s entered some kind of different reality. People are treating him strangely. To make sure, Eric opens up his conversation with Blair. He cringes at the number of messages Blair has sent that Eric’s left on read. “Hey bro,” Eric types out, “wanna come hang out?”

The “Yes!” arrives embarrassingly quickly, followed shortly after by Blair.

“Oh, did you just get back from the gym?” Blair asks, when Eric opens the door. “That’s really hot! Can I suck you off?” He’s suddenly right in Eric’s space, trying to take off Eric’s shirt and shorts at the same time.

Before he can think about it, Eric finds himself saying, “Sure, if you don’t mind tasting the twink I fucked in the shower.” Why did he say that?

But Blair just grins at him and sinks to his knees. “You know how to get me going.”

Eric doesn’t know why he avoided Blair all week. His mouth feels so good wrapped around Eric’s thickening cock, and he’s so good at opening his throat when Eric grabs his hair and starts to facefuck him. It's good to have a consistent fuck now and again.

After, Eric resists the urge to kick Blair out, and they end up chilling on Eric’s bed, playing some video games. “Sorry for blowing you off all week,” Eric finally says, after a long silence.

“No worries,” says Blair, surprising Eric again. “I know you need a good variety of guys to fill up or whatever.

Eric is absolutely sure something about the world changed in response to his card choice now.

Blair keeps talking. “You should invite me up next time you have a bunch of twinks over. I’d love to suck your balls or eat you out while you fill them up.”

Eric’s cock jumps and oozes a bit of precum at the thought.

The rest of the time until Saturday night, Eric figures out his new normal. He’s still high strung and defensive, and he goes to the gym almost every day. But he actually feels attracted to bigger guys again, and he can fight down his aggressiveness.

Having Blair back is great. On Friday night, Eric brings the jock he punched back to his dorm. Turns out, Aaron’s okay with gay sex as long as it’s not happening in the gym showers, and he’s a really needy bottom. While Blair fills Aaron’s mouth, Eric takes his ass.

On Saturday evening, Eric begs off spending the night with Blair again. “This has been a lot more sex than I’m used to,” he says. He wants to take some time picking his card tonight.

Blair acquiesces, but promises to come by on Sunday morning. “You’re not ignoring me for half a week again,” he tells Eric as he leaves. “I’ll come up here and suck you in the shower if I have to!”

It doesn’t sound like an idle threat.

As soon as Eric sits down to consider the box, it pops open, and he draws his cards. He spreads them on his desk to get a good look at his options for the week. He can’t wait to see how its symbol gets added to his tattoos.

The first card has a simple scene on it featuring a colourful rainbow. There’s some glitter stuck to the card as well, though Eric can’t tell if it was part of the card’s design or was added later. In the background, behind the rainbow, the lines of the landscape seem to come together somehow to create the sense of a scantily clad male body.

The second card shows a stylised drawing of a bull’s face. It looks stronger than Eric could ever imagine, and with his new gym habit, he can imagine a lot. He would bet that, if this bull’s face was attached to the body, it would be absolutely thick with muscle.

In the centre of the third card is a simple drawing of a clock. The hands are rushing around, and in the background Eric sees the faded outlines of things like weights, birthday cakes, and calendars. Could the cards have the power to change more than just Eric’s body?

Or vote here on strawpoll: https://strawpoll.com/xVg7j6wQznr.

See Eric's whole journey with the 1000 cards here.

Did your pick not win the vote? Send me an ask telling me what card Eric should have picked to see what could have happened.

my stray keeps me up at night

← PART 1 | PART 3 →

wc: 4.4k

pairing: dabi x pro-hero gn!reader

warnings: injury and violence description, allusions to murder, suggestive

Dabi could reach your apartment in his sleep. 

Up to the fourth floor, take a left off the elevator, tenth door on the right.

It’s like there’s this pull, this red string breaking through the haze of his injury to guide him here. He figures he’ll listen to fate, or the universe, or whatever bullshit this is, if only this once. He needs help, and in his mind, you’re the only one who can do the job. You kinda owe him one anyway, after all the times he’s saved your ass.

Weakly, he brings up a hand to rap at your door.

It only takes a few more rounds of incessant knocking (it’s damn near two in the morning, after all, and pretty things like you need your rest) before you’re swinging the door open with furrowed brows. A look of disbelief then annoyance overtakes whatever drowsiness remains before your eyes meet his.

“Took ya long enough.”

“Dabi,” you seethe, yanking the collar of his jacket so he stumbles through your doorway. Your eyes flit down the hallway, checking the length of it for prying eyes before snapping the door shut. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Dabi’s smirk is lazy, teasing despite the blood pooling against the fingers pushed into his side and rippling down his temple. He feels the pull of a loose staple on his cheek, and more blood joins the fray. “It’s nice to see you, too, little hero.”

“How do you even know where I live?”

“Dunno. Call it villain’s intuition.”

The glare you fix him with is oh, so pretty. “Bullshit. First that damn note, and now,” you shift to take in all the blood, his hunched posture, the way he almost leans into the hand gripping his collar, “this.”

Dabi cringes at the bite in your tone, but he’s losing energy and he’s losing it fast. He’s not here to fight, or to be scolded for that matter. “‘M sorry to show up like this.” Both of your gazes flicker down to the droplets of blood marring the smooth wood in your entryway. It just barely misses your welcome mat. “And ‘m sorry about… that, but if you want your answers, ‘m gonna need your help first.”

“Just-just,” your brain practically short circuits as you try to rationalize what you’re about to do. “God, fuck this.”

Your heart hammers in your chest as you curl an arm around his waist. He shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t be doing this. And yet, you haul him off to your bathroom all the same, ignoring the sinking feeling gnawing at your stomach, and praying he doesn’t notice the red rose that still sits on your kitchen counter.

Dabi plops onto the toilet seat after pushing it closed. “What now, doc?”

“Well,” you dip beneath the sink to dig around for the med kit you know is under there somewhere, and though you’re not looking at him, you feel your cheeks burn. “I need you to take off your shirt if I’m gonna clean your wound properly.”

“So quick to take off my clothes,” he tuts, but you still hear the rustling of fabric as it’s discarded. “You’re takin’ advantage of an injured man here, doll.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.” You roll your eyes as you manage to pull the first aid kit from the back of your cabinet, and setting it on the counter, you finally take the time to look at him. There’s blood and scarring… everywhere, to the point that you aren’t sure where to start or what to look at.

“See,” he continues, “I knew it. That look you gave me last time in that alley told me everything-” Dabi’s interrupted by your fingers prodding at the stab wound that rests just beneath the scarring that curves up his left side. He winces. “Shit. Warn a guy, wouldya?”

You, at least, have the good sense to look apologetic as you kneel in front of him to take a closer look. “Sorry, sorry. I just-” you stop for a minute, and Dabi realizes that you look pensive, almost sad on his behalf. “There’s a lot here, Dabi. What happened to you?”

“Listen, if you’re just gonna sit there and pity me, I’ll take myself elsewhere.”

It’s an empty threat, you both know it is, especially given that he doesn’t move an inch. Dabi figures that he couldn’t will his body to move even if he wanted to, not with you perched between his spread legs, looking up at him with a tenderness he hasn’t seen, hasn’t felt, in years. He’s so fucked.

Curious fingers skim along the edge of his scar. A fingertip brushes a staple and Dabi holds his breath. “I’m not pitying you. I just want to help.”

He mutters something about “fuckin’ heroes and their damn bleeding hearts” but he allows your exploration of his skin to continue. He watches your face shift before you’re rising again to grab a towel, and wetting it under running water, you set to work cleaning up some of the blood.

“‘S all of this yours?”

Dabi thinks for a moment. “Nope.”

All you offer him is a quiet hum before the bathroom falls silent, save for the dull drip drip drip of the leaky faucet. You try to be as delicate as you can, fingers mere ghosts over his skin, towel moving with nothing but a feather’s touch.

“Lucky for you, it’s not as deep as it could be. Shouldn’t be too hard to clean out and stitch up.” You risk a glance up at him to take in the blood drying on his temple and cheek. “Then I’ll deal with that.”

With Dabi’s approval, you crack open the first aid kit and pull out a bottle of saline and a pad of gauze.

“What? Think I can’t handle a little alcohol?” He asks, watching you soak the gauze in the solution.

You sigh, sitting up a little further to get closer to his skin. “No, it’s just…” you start to delicately dab and wipe at the wound, and Dabi’s thankful he’s not met with that familiar, sharp sting. “I read somewhere saline’s a little gentler than alcohol. It’ll heal better.”

“And you’re concerned about my healing process, why?” Dabi knows he’s pushing your buttons, knows he’s pushing his luck, but the question falls from his lips with little hesitation. 

You want to tell him that you’re not, really. You’re just doing your job. But at this point, with his blood in your entryway and that flower on your countertop, you know you’d be lying. You shrug, but refuse to lift your gaze, focusing instead on cleaning the wound as thoroughly as you can. “You promised me a next time. It’s only fair I do the same.”

“Ahhh,” Dabi straightens a bit, and from the change in his tone, you can tell he’s smirking, “I see what’s going on here. First you get me to take off my shirt, then you start flirting. Are you sure you’re even a real doctor?”

You use your free hand to pinch the exposed skin on his right hip. “Shut up. You’re taking it the wrong way.”

Dabi gives you another smug smile and a little hum from somewhere deep in his throat. “Whatever you say, little hero.”

Tossing the bloodied gauze into the trash, you set to work sterilizing and threading the needle. “Now onto the worst part.” Before the needle pierces his skin, your eyes shift up to meet his. “You ready?”

“Ready.”

With his confirmation, you set to work stitching the wound as neatly, and as quickly, as you can, wincing in time with Dabi and cringing every time he groans and clutches at the fabric of his pants.

“Fuucckk.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” You add another stitch, and another. “Almost there.”

With the last of the stitches in place, you add a sterile dressing and dump the bloody needle into the lid of the first aid kit. You’ll clean it later. “All done.”

Dabi takes a moment to admire your handiwork. “Not bad, doll. Not bad at all.”

You move to stand, taking his chin between your fingers. The wound on his forehead is easy enough to clean, you tell him. Just a graze, no stitches. There’s not much you can do about the loose staple, so you clean what you can. He’ll have to deal with the rest himself.

He stares up at you as you work, eyes flickering to yours before moving down to your lips. Have your eyes always been this pretty? Your lips this… pouty, kissable? They have, he decides. It’s just taken him this long to notice. With the revelation, he wants to touch you. He wants nothing more than to bring you closer and finally put an end to the tension that’s been mounting beneath his skin since your last meeting. You can feel his hands shift, hesitating where they rest on either side of your thighs, over his knees.

You don’t know what spurs him on, what draws the truth from Dabi’s mouth, but whatever it is, has his hands curling around your hips as he finally tells you, “I followed you home.”

The adhesive of the bandage presses into his skin. “What?”

It’s as if all the air has been sucked from the room. Your hands still, and all you can do is stare, mouth slightly agape, losing yourself in the deep turquoise of his eyes.

“Last time. I followed you to the hospital, trailed you on your way home when you were released. Figured out what apartment you lived in.”

“Wh-”

“I needed to know.” He rises to his feet, ignoring the pull of his stitches. Dabi’s grip tightens, and he drags you closer, so close you’re nearly chest to chest. Your heart hammers against your ribs at the intensity in his voice. “I needed to know you were okay. Took me a bit to find the bastard that did it, but when I did, I went to that warehouse.” He smiles, as if recalling a fond memory, “And I torched them. I torched them all.”

What he doesn’t tell you is that the ghost of your lips had haunted his dreams for days. He doesn’t tell you that the thought of finally making you his, of sullying that pure, sweet hero image of yours buzzes beneath his skin like an itch he can never quite scratch. Despite who you both are, what you both stand for, he yearns for your gentle touch and soft voice like a plant longs for the warm, golden rays of the sun.

You’re gripping at his belt loops like a lifeline. You’d known all along, could tell what Dabi had done from the note and the news, but, “Why?”

“I told you.” He ducks his head a bit and tilts it to one side, voice nothing but a gravelly whisper. “I wasn’t gonna let him touch you again.” Dabi’s lips are dangerously close to yours, and the faint smell of smoke and dried blood fills your lungs. You can feel them move as he tells you, “You’re mine. And we have unfinished business, don’t we, sweet thing?”

You blink up at him through your lashes, tongue like lead in your mouth. The promise from last time reignites in the space between you, stirring warmth in your cheeks. The air is thick, but you swallow and smile. It’s not in your nature to break a promise. “We do.”

A smirks tugs at his lips, brushing against yours. “I want you to say it, doll.” His thumbs ease circles into your hips, sneaking beneath the hem of your pajama shirt. Their pads are smooth against your skin. Dabi’s eyes are half-lidded as he urges you, “Tell me what you want.”

Hands leave the fabric of his pants and migrate up, up until your palms are pressed to his jaw, fingers grazing the hair at the nape of his neck. “Kiss me.” Silence, and then, you seal your fate, fulfill your promise with a single, desperate plea. “Please.”

Dabi’s lips are on yours in an instant, hungry and hot as he kisses you. He’s crowding your space, guiding you back until he traps you between his body and the bathroom counter, hips pressed to yours. His hands slip beneath your shirt and your own grip his hair. Long forgotten are the bloodied clothes and towels on the floor, the faint smell of them clinging to the air. You’re no longer a hero and he’s no longer a villain, not here in the privacy of your bathroom, not with his lips on yours and his hands burning holes into your skin. You’re just… you. You shed the moniker, the sense of duty that comes with being a pro, and allow Dabi to devour you.

You moan against him when his teeth nibble at your lip, and he returns it when you pull at his hair. Though the kiss comes to a screeching halt when, in an attempt to lift you onto the counter, Dabi pulls away to suck air through his teeth. He presses a hand to his side and huffs.

Your chest heaves. “Maybe we should stop.”

He dips his head to kiss up the column of your throat. “Don’t wanna.”

“Come on. You clearly can’t do… this with that stab wound. Why don’t we have something to eat?”

A bite lands against your skin. “I can think of something else I wanna eat.”

“Dabi.” A hand curls around the nape of his neck as your head tips back, giving Dabi the access he needs to suck a mark right against a spot that even the collar of your hero costume won’t cover. You’re losing your resolve, and you don’t really want this to stop, but he can’t afford ripping the wound open (and you really don’t want more blood splattered around your apartment).

He soothes the mark he’s left with a kiss. “You’re making this really difficult, doll.” Nosing at your neck, he mumbles, “Kinda hard to stop when you’re saying my name so pretty.”

“Dabi,” you warn, though your voice lacks the raw desire it had mere moments ago. “C’mon.” You smirk, tone dipping into a purr. “What’d you tell me to do last time? ‘Go home, lick my wounds, and then we’ll talk about…” You guide him away from your neck with a steady hand, eyes narrowed in on his lips. “... this?’”

Dabi hates that you’re throwing his words in his face, hates it more than admitting you’re right. He clicks his tongue with a sharp roll of his eyes, following it with a low groan and a peck against your lips. “Fine.” He mumbles something about you being a pain in the ass before he asks, “What do you have to eat?”

You chuck Dabi’s clothes and your soiled towels, all of which are thoroughly doused in stain remover, into the washing machine and pray they come out stain free. Then, you set to work taking bleach to the blood in the doorway and the tiny specks in the hall. It’s easy work, and when you’re done, you find that Dabi’s made himself particularly comfortable in one of the seats at your kitchen counter, looking a little too smug to be wearing an old sweatshirt and pair of sweatpants of yours.

You move to stand in front of the open refrigerator. “I’ve got…..” Your eyes scan the shelves. “Week old lasagna, leftover pizza… um.” You’re not hungry, but none of this stuff sounds particularly appetizing to you, either. “I have cheese and eggs, a single green apple, and….” You pull a container of blueberries from the produce drawer and cringe, deflating. “... Moldy blueberries.”

You throw an apologetic look over your shoulder. “Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to buy food lately.”

When you turn around, you find Dabi delicately tracing his fingers over the wilting petals of the rose. Domesticity flashes behind your eyes like an arrow to your heart, and you find yourself frozen to your spot near the fridge. Dabi glances at you and, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t be, his palm immediately drops to rest flat against the granite countertop. A rosy hue breaks out across his nose, but it’s gone in a blink.

“Is the lasagna homemade?”

“Mhm,” you hum, pleased. You waggle the glass container in his direction. “Made by yours truly. One piece left, and it’s got your name on it if you want it.”

Dabi tilts his head with a nod, offering you a small smile. “I’m sold. I can’t remember the last time I had a home-cooked meal.”

You plate the piece and stick it in the microwave before fixing Dabi with a confused expression. “Really? I’d think the villain lifestyle would afford you an oven, at least.”

“Funny, doll. Real funny.” Dabi chuckles, but there’s no joy behind it. “Haven’t slept on a mattress in weeks, much less had a nice lasagna made by someone like you.” The implication makes you stiffen awkwardly. He gestures to your apartment and back to you. “Definitely can't afford all of this shit like you and your hero friends can. Let’s put it that way.”

You’d never really given much thought to your apartment, to your lifestyle. It’s comfortable, a far cry from the penthouse apartment Dabi had assumed you had, but it works. It’s nice, even. As you watch the plate of lasagna rotate in the microwave, you suppose you should’ve known the League wasn’t exactly well off. You kick yourself, guilt churning in your stomach.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, doll.” Dabi offers with a shrug. “I can see those gears turning.” The microwave dings and you tear your eyes away from it to look at Dabi. “I know what I signed up for.” A pause. “‘M sure it’s the same for you.”

Do you? Do you really know what you signed up for? Does any hero? With Dabi in your apartment and uncertainty brewing in your gut, you aren’t exactly sure you can answer that.

The microwave door snaps open and closed with dull metallic clicks, and you slide the steaming plate of lasagna across the counter. A fork follows it a second later. “I guess you’re right.”

The fork scrapes across the plate as Dabi takes a bite into his mouth. With a cheek full of food and a small smile, Dabi lilts, “Course I am.”

After a bit of small talk and, surprisingly, many compliments about your cooking abilities, Dabi’s dirty dishes join the ever growing pile in your sink and you’re interrupting yourself with a yawn.

Dabi’s quick to reach out and pinch your cheek with a rough hand. “Awww,” he coos sarcastically, smushing your cheek, “is baby sweepy?”

You slap his hand away and guide him down the hall to your bedroom. “Shut up. I worked all day, thanks very much. And I was rudely awoken at 2AM by some dude bleeding on my doorstep.”

“Sounds like an asshole.” Dabi’s arms stretch high above his head, pulling the fabric of your sweatshirt up with them. You pointedly look at the bed and not the exposed sliver of skin. “Why didn’t you tell him to fuck off?”

Pulling the pillows from one side of the bed, you shrug, “I’ve got a soft spot for strays.”

The smile Dabi fixes you with makes your heart leap in your chest. “I’ll keep that in mind.” His expression shifts when you move to leave the room, pillows in hand. “Where are you going?”

“To the couch?”

“Why?”

“So you can have the bed?”

“This is your apartment.” Dabi seems scandalized, pointing to your bed. “And your bed.”

“And? The sky is blue, your hair is black.” You shrug. “What’s your point?”

“You’re just gonna… let me sleep here?”

An exasperated sigh passes your lips before you can stop it. “I’m not arguing with you about this at…” you glance around him to check the clock, “... almost three thirty in the morning. Okay? I don’t care.”

“If this is about what I said before-”

“It’s not.”

Dabi relents, but you can see something brewing behind his eyes. “Fine, fine.” A lazy grin gets thrown in your direction. “We’ll save sharing it for next time, right?”

You turn on your heel without responding, and he calls, “Hey, I’m teasing.”

After dropping your pillows onto the couch, you move into the bathroom to start your nighttime routine. By the time you come back into the bedroom, face clean and breath fresh, Dabi, much like before, has already made himself comfortable beneath your sheets. He’s star-fished, spreading his limbs wide to take up as much space as possible.

“This shit feels like a cloud.” His eyes slip closed, and though his mouth is obscured by your comforter, you can tell Dabi’s smiling. The sweet, familiar pang of domesticity strikes you again, a sense of comfort and ease you know is just out of reach sitting heavy on your chest. The illusion breaks, if only for a moment, and you’re reminded of your role in the world. Of Dabi’s. And it hurts.

Dabi cracks open a lid. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

He sits up on his elbows, pinning you beneath a serious gaze. “You’ve got this look on your face, like you’re somewhere else.” The alarm clock on your bedside table ticks from 3:30 to 3:31. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

You move to draw the curtains, and shut the alarm off. If you’re sleeping in the living room, you don’t want it waking Dabi up. “‘M just tired.”

Dabi continues to eye you as you come to stand beside the bed, stopping to inspect your face for a minute before he rolls his eyes. “Sure, little hero. Whatever you say.”

Ignoring the comment, you ask, “Need anything else?”

“How ‘bout a kiss?”

You scoff. “You can’t be serious.”

“C’mon,” Dabi urges, insistent fingers gripping at the hem of your shirt, “you wouldn’t deny an injured man a goodnight’s kiss, would you?”

“You’re impossible.”

A hand curls around your jaw, gently coaxing you down towards Dabi’s lips. “You like it.”

This kiss is nothing like the previous one. The heat is gone, the crippling desire absent. In their place you find the slow, lazy drag of affection and drowsiness, and as Dabi’s hand cradles your cheek, you struggle to decide which you like more.

When you move to pull away Dabi follows, pecking your lips one more time before letting go. His eyes don’t open right away as he bumps his nose into yours, “‘M holding you to it, you know.”

Your brows furrow. “To what?”

His eyes open and you’re met with brilliant, earnest turquoise — mischievous, but hopeful. “Next time.”

You push his chest and chuckle. “Keep saying that, and you’re gonna have to start paying rent.”

Dabi’s mouth drops open, hand clutching his heart. “You wouldn’t dare. How would I ever afford it?”

“Figure it out, tough guy.” You draw a circle around his forehead in the air between you. “You’ve got a brain up there somewhere.”

“You’re mean.” He tells you with a pout. “Does the public know you’re this mean? I think they should know the truth.”

You move to stand by the doorway, and when you turn to take another look at him, you stick your tongue out. “Goodnight.”

He sighs, shuffling beneath the covers again. “G’night, doll.”

The couch is lumpier than you remember it being, digging into your ribs as you wiggle around to get comfortable. You’re not going to get much sleep tonight anyway; what’s wrong with adding a little back pain to the equation? You’re sure you won’t regret it in the morning (yeah, right). 

Your phone’s alarm pulls you from a dreamless sleep at exactly six o’clock in the morning, and kickstarting your routine is painful. You practically have to drag yourself down the hallway to get cleaned up, washing your face and brushing your teeth like a zombie, movements sluggish and heavy. When you’re done, you creep into the bedroom to pull your work bag from the closet and slip into some civilian clothes. You’ll change at the office.

Dabi’s none the wiser to your intrusion, sleeping peacefully with his cheek squished into your pillow and your covers tucked up under his chin. The sight makes you pout, and you’re pushing the hair from his forehead with delicate fingers before you can stop yourself. Your heart takes another arrow when he mumbles in his sleep, pushing his head into your hand like a cat. Kicking him out doesn’t even cross your mind.

On your way out the door, you leave him a note that reads: “There are eggs in the fridge. Please don’t burn my apartment down.”

The walk to your agency does little to wake you up despite the cold biting at the tips of your nose and ears. By the time you get there, you’re more annoyed than anything, back aching and eyes tired.

“Hey,” your sidekick greets, a sly smirk on her face. “You have fun last night?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve got” she huffs a laugh through her nose, gesturing to your neck, “a little something. Might want to cover it up before your patrol starts.”

You rip open your locker and crane your neck in the little mirror that hangs there. Fuck. The love bite. You’d been so groggy this morning, you forgot all about it. Rifling through your bag for some makeup, your annoyance only grows.

“So,” your sidekick prods, pulling on her boots, “were they cute? I wanna hear everything.”

You think about Dabi wearing your clothes and eating your food. You imagine him still curled up in your bed, fast asleep. You make eye contact with her through the mirror as you try to bite back a smile, voice half-hearted and teasing. “Eh, he’s alright.”

“Just alright? I don’t believe that for a second.”

The moment you opened your door and pulled Dabi through it, inviting him into your home and taking care of him, there was no going back. You know that. The water has risen far over your head and your lungs are already filled with it. And as you spread concealer over the mark Dabi’s left on your neck, sharing a laugh with your sidekick about late-night trysts, you decide you’ve already sunk this deep, you might as well let yourself drown.

Hello!! What would Spy, Scout, and Engie be like with a s/o who is startlingly good at voice impressions?

Dang, Anon, kept ya waitin’ long enough?

Thank you for your patience! I hope that this brightens your day.

Gonna do bullet points for this one just because I think it’ll work better. Apologies that this one isn’t as long, this is a really creative prompt! I just didn’t want to keep you waiting any longer. 💚

Mercs With A S/O Who Does Voice Impressions

Characters: Spy, Scout, Engineer (Team Fortress 2)

Warnings: none come to mind

Spy 🥖

•Spy discovered your hidden talent one day when you were asking him if he wanted to accompany you out for a quick grocery store run…on what happened to be a rather rainy day.

• “(Y/N), mon bijou, as much as I love being around you, the rain will—”

• “… ‘ruin the new shoes I just got, and I can’t have this suit getting wet either’.” You’d been working on that one for a while. Spy stared at you, actually slightly slack-jawed.

• “…pardon?” “Didn’t know I could do that, did you?” “…no, no I did not.”

•Honestly? He’s just a little jealous. That was kind of his thing? I dunno, man just wants to be a bit special.

•That being said, as you start implementing this into your talks with him more and more, he finds it to be yet another quality that makes you lovely.

•He’ll tease you at times. “How can I be sure you aren’t an enemy spy?” You laughed at this, resting your hands on his shoulders. “I dunno, do these feel like the hands of an enemy spy?”

•Biting back a laugh, he shakes his head and pulls you closer, dipping you into a kiss. As he draws back, he smirks. “And those feel like the lips of my love…very well. You must be the real one.”

Scout ⚾️

•You actually first utilized this ability of yours as a hail-mary during a fight. Scout was close to bringing the briefcase to safety when the enemy Scout suddenly charged.

•Seeing this, you looked over at Heavy, hoping he would be okay with this. “‘GOOD TIME TO RUN, COWARD!’”, you mimicked. Instinctually, the enemy Scout flinched in terror. Giving yourself just enough time…

• “Heavy! Thanks for the help, man.” “Scout, I was not over there…” “But I heard you right behind me…” The gears in his head visibly turned.

• “Oh! That would be (Y/N). They are very good at that.” Jeremy’s mouth dropped open, only to immediately curve into a huge grin. “(Y/N)…for real??? Do it again!”

• With a proud grin, you obliged. “‘(Y/N) can sound like giant man!’ See?” Scout howled with delighted laughter.

• “Whoa-ho-ho, that’s freakin’ SICK, (Y/N)! Why didn’t you ever show me you could do dat?” “I dunno, it never really came up in conversation.”

•From that point on, he’d ask if you could “do the thing” all the time. You almost always agreed, his reactions were the cutest. He’d actively show it off, with your permission.

• “Yo, my baby here, watch ‘em. …ain’t that cool?!”

•Scout was actually pretty decent at impressions himself (you already know where he got that from), and sometimes the two of you would go back and forth for a while, cracking yourselves up.

•There came a time where you rolled your eyes at one of his requests. That seemed to make him a little nervous.

• “Hey uh…(Y/N)…do you want me to stop askin’ you to do the voices?” “Huh? Oh…I mean, if I’m tired, maybe.” “Arright…I know you’re probably sick of doin’ it, but I just think it’s so cool.”

•You giggled. He looked all lovestruck even now. “I’m glad you think so~” “You really are the coolest, babe, you know that? All around. I’m the luckiest guy in this whole place.” “Awww~”

Engineer ⚙️

•The first time you did this, it was to try and mess with Dell just a little.

• “‘Needa dispenser here!’” “Scout? Where’d you need that dispenser?” “I have no idea whatcha talkin’ about.” “What? But I just heard ya!” “Hardhat, I wasn’t even over there!”

•You only got away with this a few more times before he caught you midway through. His head turned quick enough to see your mouth moving.

•With the way his goggles and hardhat covered up some of the more expressive parts of his face, you couldn’t tell if he was genuinely mad or not. “(Y/N), that’s you doin’ that, ain’t it?”

• “Yeah…” Your face flushed slightly with embarrassment. “…sorry. Got carried away.” Shaking his head, the serious expression began to break somewhat, chuckling. “Ah, no harm no foul, I s’pose. Just uh…not while I’m workin’, maybe?”

•With a smirk, you mimicked him perfectly. “‘Alrighty, partner.’” “Hoo, that really is uncanny, ain’t it? How do you do that?” Holding a finger to your lips, you snickered, and you could tell he was rolling his eyes at you.

•A week or two later, while you were on break, you heard him calling you. “Engie?” Following his voice to his workshop, you looked for him. He was nowhere to be seen in here…but you’d sworn his voice had come from here.

•Looking down, you saw a new machine on his desk. Looking closer, you saw a speaker.

• “Checkmate, darlin’!” With a hearty laugh, Engie leaned in through the doorway. “Okay, you got me…” It was your turn to roll your eyes, but you couldn’t help but laugh.

•The two of you actually would utilize this on the battlefield if you had the energy for it, getting the other team mixed up. Both of you got quite the laugh out of it.

•He never really asked you to do any of that on your own time though.

•One night, he even took you on the side after using that technique. “Hey, (Y/N)…you know I love hearin’ you as yourself more than any of your impressions, right?” He wrapped his arm around your shoulders.

•Laughing, you rested your head against him. “Yeah, don’t worry, I know.”

• “Alright. Just wanted to make sure.”

I just keep thinking about baby daddy!steve. he got you pregnant accidentally and y’all aren’t technically together but you kind of are

You open the door with a hand on your slightly swollen belly, and Steve doesn't miss it. He redirects his gaze back up to your eyes, and his own shine with measured excitement.

"Hi," He grins.

"Hi," You stand protectively in front of the door, eyeing the bag in his hand, "What's that?"

"Groceries," He holds the bag out for you to see, and there's tapes stacked on top of a cantaloupe, "And movies. I thought you might be tired of Sixteen Candles."

"Never," You try to tease, but he notices the way your hand reaches for the bag in his own.

"I can carry it," He tugs it back into his chest, "It's heavy."

"I can handle it," You promise, arms still outstretched, "Just give it to me, Steve."

His brow furrows, "It's fine, Y/N, I can do it."

"Steve, just-"

"No, I've got it."

"Give it to me!" You huff, and he freezes.

"Why can't I come in?" He asks, and you see a flicker of anxiety flare up in his eyes. His mind is spinning, calculating a thousand reasons why you don't want him in, the first of which happens to be another man.

"'Cause there's- nothing, Steve, no reason, I just- I just want to be independent. You know? Do stuff for myself."

"Y/N, I can do it! I want to do it," He huffs, "Because of me you're about to push 8 pounds out of your.." He hesitates, flushing red as if his dick hadn't been inside of them, "Y'know, nether regions."

"Nether regions? Steve, give me the bag." You tug at the paper, but he steps away.

"No! Come on, just- please, now I have to know."

Shame floods your body, seeping into the crevices of your brain and the dips between your toes. You take a single, deep breath, then step aside to let Steve in, stalking towards the kitchen in hopes that he'll do the same and ignore the glaringly obvious disaster in the living room.

Of course, he doesn't.

"Babe," He pauses, setting the bag on the couch and propping his hands up on his hips, "I said I'd assemble the crib next week."

Splayed out over your carpet is a very much deconstructed crib, wooden pieces strewn about and screws littering the floor. You're surprised you haven't stepped on one yet, and you see Steve nudge one out of a pocket of plush with the toe of his shoe.

"I wanted to do it myself," You attempt weakly, "I just.. I don't know, Steve. You have your own life. I don't want to derail it because I wasn't on the pill."

He gulps, you can see his throat dip as he stares at you, saddened.

"I didn't mean to derail yours because I didn't have a condom," He murmurs, his soft voice a perfect compliment to the dim lighting in the room, "But here we are. And- and listen, the last thing I'm gonna do is step away. That's not.. what parents do."

You try not to think of his house, giant and empty. His parents' room, that hasn't been slept in for god knows how long, and his, an island in the middle of the dead sea.

You decide right then and there, that independence isn't worth taking away his closure. He needs to be the father he never had, and you won't stop him just so you can feel impossibly strong.

You clear your throat, intent on changing the subject without having to tell him why. Your eyes flit to the movies in the bag, and catch the first title, "Top Gun?"

"I heard some girl in the store talking about a beach volleyball scene," He flushes impossibly redder, "I dunno, it seemed like something you'd enjoy."

"I hope it's not too distracting." The toe of your shoe brushes against the ground, scuffing the carpet and bending the fluff the opposite way, "Because we should try to finish the crib before tonight. I, uh, don't wanna trip over it in the dark."

The smile that blooms over his face has the potential to flood the dim room with blinding light, and for the first time since you'd held the pregnancy test in your hand, you're confident that you'll not only survive, but that you'll enjoy yourself along the way.