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ascendantfantasies · 4 months

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You were sweet and innocent and not really ready for the outside world. All the elders said so. You needed more training. You weren't ready for the journey with a mentor. You certainly weren't ready to be allowed outside the cloister's walls without a guardian.

You weren't ready.

The mindflayers changed that. They didn't care what you were ready for. You were snatched and infected and ultimately dumped out in the chaos of the wrecked ship on a far-flung corner of Faerun.

You knew all the prayers but that wasn't what the real world required. You broke your oath defending a woman who had saved your life. You fought against filthy goblins and hideous spiders. You spoke with devils and befriended Sharrans and warlocks. Your elders would disown you.

You let an undead monster drink your blood.

You let that same undead monster lead you into the woods to a secluded grove and carefully peel all your clothing off.

He smiled and made promises and he caught you up with an arm around your back and held you there like you weighed nothing. You'd never seen a naked man and now here you were with one smiling up at you. He held you close and your whole body lit up at the touch.

He smiled, teeth showing.

You were ignorant. Painfully ignorant. You didn't even understand what you didn't know. He smiled with teeth and you tilted your head back for him in offering.

Your own gods had already forsaken you. Your oath was broken. You could return home to be chastised and punished and try and make amends. You could have spent the night praying. You should have spent the night praying. If you were truly good, truly devote, you would have prayed.

You didn't.

You tilted your head back in offering to an undead monster that hungered for blood.

He took it. He sank his teeth in as he rolled you to the ground and pinned you with strong hands and cool skin and a moan that was almost a growl. A monstrous thing at your throat.

His hands moved. He was confident and lapped at your throat as he spread your thighs and his fingers slid into you. You gasped and squirmed but there was nowhere to go. His fingers were cool and slick as they worked against you.

The first sensation brought fear. A touch where you weren't expecting it. Too intimate. Too much. The fear dissolved quickly into pleasure and warmth.

The bite started as pain and settled into a deep drawing warmth.

The fingers were much the same.

They pressed deep and you struggled against it until the pleasure started to build. He was still licking blood off your throat with long slow strokes of his tongue. Soft. Thorough. His mouth and his fingers working on the same rhythm as all your defenses fell.

The evil of the undead was a lesson you had been taught. It fell to his flashes of vulnerability and humour.

The evil of having your blood stolen fell to the easy warmth and comfort of drifting as his mouth moved against your throat.

You had been taught that your body was a temple but they'd never actually explained that you weren't supposed to let people slide their fingers deep into you and rub slow steady circles against very sensitive places.

He pulled back as you were squirming and arching and breathing so hard that you couldn't think straight. He retreated and looked down at you as you lay spread out beneath him. You were flushed and half delirious with blood loss. You twisted your hips and he grabbed hold of you and pushed you back into the grass.

You were outdoors. You looked up towards the moon.

"Look at me," he said immediately, his thumb on your chin, drawing you back. His lips were stained red with blood and you looked up at him. The heavens forgotten. The gods forgotten. There was nothing but the fingers on your face and your blood on his tongue as he licked his lips.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"You."

He was all you wanted in that moment. You were too ignorant. Too sheltered. You didn't know what you were asking for but you asked for it anyways. You put your pleading into the tone of your voice and the look in your eyes and even the needy little clench of your fingers on his hips.

"Good," he whispered into your ear and then he did something with his fingers that made the warm building weight in your stomach erupt into a wash of pleasure. You arched and he pinned you down. All that paladin strength rendered useless by two fingers and a bit of pressure. He was smiling against your neck and whispering happy little bits of encouragement as the pleasure crested and you cried out into his shoulder.

"Are you done?" he asks with just the tiniest edge of condescension.

"I'm fine," you mutter.

"That's good," he tells you and then he's rolled over onto his back and pulled you with him. He is casual and confident. An expert. He puts you exactly where he wants you. You feel him - hard and ready - prodding at the entrance to your body.

You are not fine. You are not ready. You are shaky and inexperienced and in so far over your head. Hands on your hips. Your body hot and trembling in the aftermath of that rush of pleasure. There is nothing you want more in that moment than to make him happy.

He puts you into position easily. The hand on your hip is unavoidable. Inevitable. You don't even think to question it as he guides you into position and then pulls you into him.

The tip of his cock grazes your entrance and you smile. The next brush of contact is more insistent. He has one hand on your hip so you're held close as he prods against you. He finds the right place and laughs, low and happy.

"You want this, don't you?" he says.

His hand on your hip keeps you close but doesn't actually force you down. Steady but not aggressive. You squirm a little and he moans. HIs cock rubs against your entrance. Wet and slick. The promise of that trembling rush of pleasure is there in every bit of contact between your bodies so you lean in. You push your hips down against him.

"That's good. There you go, darling," he murmured as his hand tightened a bit on your hip.

Gravity and his hand and the hot need building in your stomach work in perfect concert. You slide down. The initial stretch and then a sharp spike of pain. He doesn't let up and you're too disoriented to do anything but let it happen and you feel like you're being forced open.

He shushes you, his voice gentler, his hand gentler, he sits up to pull you into a hug. You bury your face against his neck as you try to find an angle that you can take his cock. His hand is on your hip. Guiding. He coaxes you into a very slow rhythm. Your body sliding up and down his cock.

It's incremental. Slow as hell. He's confident and smiling as he look up at you with bloody teeth and his hand on your hip. He pulls you a little deeper. Rocks your hips against him. Lets you slide back a bit before pulling you down again. Slow and steady until he's buried inside you.

"That, was your virginity, wasn't it?"

"Don't," you say.

"I can smell the blood, darling," he says.

"You're all mine, aren't you?"

You're full and breathing hard around it. The stretch makes it hard to think. The hands roaming your body make it hard to think. He has long fingers and very careful hands. Cool and confident and sliding up your hip. Fingers tight at your waist. Those eyes. Watching. His eyes are always watching you.

"Aren't you?" he askes again.

"Yes. I am all yours," you say.

"Good," he murmurs. "Let's make sure you enjoy it."

He holds you down for a moment and it is far too much. The stretch of his cock inside you makes you whine. He presses a thumb against your clit and rubs quickly and harshly. You clench and cry out and he laughs as he rolls you onto your back.

"Two," he whispers into your ear as your body shivers and aches.

"Two?" you echo.

"Two orgasms."

"Oh."

"How many do you think we can wring out of you? Sweet little virgin girl. Five? Ten?"

"Ten?" you ask incredulous.

"Oh, that's a challenge," he says as he pulls you back in to kiss as he starts to thrust into you. You gasp and whine and he kisses you through it. You grab hold of him, arms around his neck and face buried against his skin as you tremble.

He pulls you in tighter and your body gives way as he slides in deeper. You let out something dangerously close to a scream as he finally bottoms out in you and your body is pressed into his. You squirm which just makes you feel more full and rubs your clit against his stomach.

"Perfect," he tells you.

You are panting but he's over you now and you're spread open for him. He pushes your knee up and slides in a little deeper. You didn't know that deeper was possible.

"Good girl. You're doing so well."

He pushes you to another orgasm and you are left shuddering under him. You grab hold of him and press your face against his neck as he sets a steady rhythm of his hips pressing into you. The line between pain and pleasure is very blurry.

"Astarion?"

"You're perfect. Keep going.," he says.

So you do. You keep going as long as it takes to satisfy him.

#earlygame!!astrarion #paladin!!tav #corruption kink #loss of virginity kink #first sex scene

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aemiron-main · 2 years

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cannot stop thinking about mike’s fear of losing people and how that could tie into his refusal to admit to his feelings for will. because if he assumes that a.) will is straight and/or b.) that will doesn’t reciprocate his feelings

mike already feels like he’s failing in his relationship with El. he’s been feeling that for the past god-knows-how-long. i think that El amicably breaking up with Mike and Mike realizing that they can remain friends afterwards is going to give him more confidence when it comes to his feelings for Will.

Now, I don’t think that byler would break up/need to remain friends, I think that mike’s worrying unnecessarily about that. However, I do think that if mike’s even aware of his own feelings, that he automatically assumes they’re unreciprocated, especially considering the dumpster fire that is his self-esteem. So, in order for him to even be able to confess his feelings, he needs to know that he’ll still be friends with Will even if he did mess up a romantic relationship between them, because Mike very likely assumes that he’ll mess up a relationship and lose Will again.

It’s interesting because in s3, Mike says “I can’t lose her because I love her,” or something along those lines regarding El. I think that this ties into mike’s fear that if he can’t love El, he’s going to lose her. That quote from s3 tells me that Mike’s love for El and his fear of losing her are TOTALLY intertwined- but he’s not afraid of losing her because he loves her. He loves her because he’s afraid of losing her.

Even when he’s taking to Will in Jonathan’s bedroom in s4, and talks about “if I had said that thing, maybe Eleven would have taken me with her.” He doesn’t talk about how he regrets not saying it because wants El to know that he loves her, doesn’t even say that he regrets not saying it because she wanted him to. His reason for regretting not saying it is because he thinks that if he had, maybe El would have taken him with her. Maybe he wouldn’t have lost her.

Mike has such a deep, deep fear of losing people. Even interdimensional monsters aside, he’s already insecure about his friendships in terms of his friends liking him for who he is (like how he puts up a front at the roller rink/when he first gets to California, how he changes his interests when El shows no interest in his hobbies, the way he sees himself as so disposable that he was willing to jump off a cliff to save dustin’s baby teeth). He’s been so emotionally dismissed by his parents that he can’t process the idea of someone wanting him, so he needs them to need him.

He’s lost/almost lost Will so many times, watched them pull his body out of the quarry, watched him be possessed by the mindflayer, and going back to the emotional loss, felt the distance between them in California. He’s lost/almost lost El repeatedly, thought she was dead. He even felt like he was losing Lucas in s4 with the basketball-dnd conflict.

Mike is terrified of losing people, and justifiably so. And to mike, the pain of losing someone is going to be 1000x worse when it’s his fault that he lost them. When, in his mind, Will inevitably rejects him, or on the miracle chance that will doesn’t immediately reject him, Mike ruins a romantic relationship between them and therefore ruins their friendship.

Mike can’t lose Will again. He can’t lose El again. And to Mike, the solution to not losing El is to love her, even though he doesn’t. And the solution to not losing Will is not to love him, to push those feelings down.

Despite the fact that in reality, it’s actually the opposite: Mike’s attempts to love El are just pushing her further away from him, and Mike’s attempts to not love Will are pushing Will away from him.

(and when I talk about Mike not loving El, I mean romantically. I know that they love eachother as friends, absolutely, platonic elmike for the win, but I mean this in a romantic context.)

#stranger things #byler #mike wheeler #will byers #byler analysis #st4 #milkvan #elmike #mike wheeler analysis #mike's mental health

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atsadi-shenanigans · 5 months

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Feeding Alligators 13: Psycho

You meet Kahga. Intrusive thoughts turn violent.

On AO3.

And a psycho bitch she is. You catch the raised voices the second y’all enter into another cavern. A man and a woman arguing. Something about “she’s just a child” and your raised blood pressure makes your neck feel too thick.

It almost bursts the capillaries in your eyeballs when you get down the stairs to find two, grown ass adults standing around a little tiefling girl stuck in a pit. Your vision goes hazy when the woman calls out what has to be a venomous snake.

The little girl screams.

Gale is opening his mouth to make y’all’s introductions. You shove past him.

You can’t do anything about goblins or mindflayers, tadpoles or bandits or goddamn otherworldly racism. But you can damn well stop this bitch from murdering a fucking child.

“What’s going on?” you say.

The woman unleashes some racist-ass fuckwit bile. It twists up all over her face, making the man beside her flinch and frown. And, yeah, making the girl cry more. That’s also probably because the snake is clearly some kind of sentient motherfucker—and is finding this whole thing fucking fantastic.

You’re wearing a cover. You need these people to like you. You’re supposed to make yourself small and quiet and disappear into the background. You’re tall for a woman—eye level with Astarion—but people see your frame and they see your slouch and the way you look down and they make assumptions.

Beneath all that, you carry anger. Always did. “The devil” your mother used to call it. It’s what kept you going. What kept you alive all those years. It’s what finally got you out and kept you out.

Adults are terrifying when you’re three feet tall and they’re calling you a devil. You know all too well, and you ain’t standing for that.

These two aren’t the only druids in this cavern. There’s about five or six, and an actual goddamn wolf to boot. So as much as you wanna grab that bitch by the back of her floofy up-do and smash her teeth out on that stone floor, you gotta play it cool. You gotta show her what she expects. Buy yourself time.

“Yeah, I’m gonna stop you right there,” you say. “I don’t actually care that much. We heard you got a healer ‘round here?”

You’re at the front of your group. You can almost feel some of them startle behind you.

This bitch, this Kahga, diverts back to “devils” this and “parasites” that. Swerves over to suggest the snake should bite the girl.

Gale makes a sound as if to interrupt.

And again, you steamroll him (so much for sticking to the background). “You know, it’s gonna make it real difficult to get all them horned people outta here if you go and kill one of their kids. Tends to upset people.”

“Ah, a bleeding heart for devilspawn,” Kahga says. She gives you the same kinda look you give to surprise shit on the bottom of your shoe.

“Nope. Just want a healer and wanna be on my way. I don’t want to deal with whatever shit mess you’re fixing to kick up here. People are harder to march off when they’re rioting, and they tend to not be picky in who they rip apart in the process.”

Her expression cools. Goes all evaluating. Then she looks to the girl, whose arms are pressed as tight to her sides as she can manage, her whole body trembling with the effort of not moving.

“Have much experience with that, do you?” Kahga says.

Only the history of it, and the scars it leaves behind.

“Some,” you say.

Another pause. You make sure you’ve got enough clear space in case you need to swing your staff. A club to the side of the head might knock her down and fog her up long enough for you to get your boot on her throat,

Her jaw clenches. Then she breathes through her nose. “I suppose you have a point. Teela, to me. But if I catch so much as a glimpse of you, devil, the viper will find her mark.”

Said to a child. Bitch all huffed up like she’s some big, scary snake herself. But you come from snake country; you’ve lopped off your fair share of fanged heads.

You let the kid run outta there. Keep your gaze on Kahga. She makes an effort to straighten her spine and square her shoulders as the other druid shakes his head and stalks off.

“I suppose you’ll tell me I’m a monster,” she says. She knows she’s a bitch, it just ain’t stopping her. That’s the worst kind. The ones who think they got a reason.

“I don’t really have an opinion,” you lie, watching the others disband now that the show’s over. Still too many of them in this room. You wonder how often Kahga leaves, and if she happens to find her way into any dark alleys by herself.

She snorts. “Quite the mercenary, then. I know your type. You handled those goblins well enough. Why don’t you extend your services to those devils?”

She propositions you for the tieflings. You make noncommittal noises, tell her you’ll think about talking to some Zevlor person, and she literally dismisses you from her presence after pointing out where the healer is.

It’s a struggle to keep your face blank. Keep your teeth from grinding, and your grip on your staff loose, lest the whitened knuckles give you away. When she turns away, the image of cracking her over the head pops into your skull. But you don’t, no matter how satisfying that would be. You take your own leave and the group trails along after you.

“You know,” Astarion says, sidling up to you. “I didn’t think you had that in you. You don’t quite seem the type.”

You glance at him for a second. Then to the doors in front of you. The one on the right holds the healer. But the one on the left is filled with bookshelves and beds. A dorm? You veer left. Astarion starts to correct you, but you don’t even slow. You can’t lose the initiative here. These ass clowns seem down for letting all this shit happen, and you ain’t gonna give them a chance to realize what you’re doing.

There’s an elf druid (druid elf?) browsing the central bookshelf. Beds line the walls of the room here and there. It’s all very symmetrical, which is kind of funny if these guys are so ~in tune with nature~. They look like someone trying too hard: stone slabs with moss for bedding to keep the sleeper’s spine from cracking in half, you assume. And here, by the door, a bed slightly bigger than the others. One eye on the elf perusing, and you edge over to it.

“Can I ask y’all a favor?” you say. “I need y’all to snoop while I get that guy’s attention.”

Lae’zel looks bored, Gale has been frowning at you the entire time, but both Shadowheart and Astarion perk up.

“‘Snoop’ for what, exactly?” Gale says. So the meaning is making it through translation. Awesome.

“Anything weird or suspicious. Y’know, snoop.”

For a second, he holds your gaze. You don’t blink, don’t back down. Keep your face still and calm in a way you know people take as a challenge. This is the test. They’ll either go along with your batshit plan, or they’ll head off and do their own thing.

Gale blinks first. You try real hard not to sag in relief. Astarion has already fucked off to the nearest nook, and it’s up to Shadowheart to usher Gale somewhere useful. Once they’re dispersed—Lae’zel remains, turning your own unblinking stare at you, which is fine and totally not intimidating at all—you take another breath, plop down on that bed, and kick your muddied boots right up to lay down.

“Hey!” the druid elf says, because you called it and that prick was watching you the whole time. “Get off of there, you wretch! How dare you. That’s Mistress Kahga’s bed you’re soiling.”

You’re careful not to let your lips twitch, even as sweat prickles along your spine. Instead, you plaster apathy onto your face. Look to your boots and the mud flaking off onto the moss. Look to the fuming druid.

“Whatever,” you say and slide your boots back down, making sure to wipe as much as you can on the bed.

A disgusted shiver shudders through you.

The druid chokes and marches over.

Lae’zel glares at you—a very “what the fuck coward thing are you doing now” kind of look—and squares up as he nears.

“You,” the druid says. “Who are you? What are you doing in here?”

You’ve lost sight of Astarion. Gale and Shadowheart slip behind that central bookshelf. You take your time answering. Size him up, like you’re imagining the best way to hurt him. What you’re actually doing is examining his clothes—the fur and bits of feathers are actually part of the whole skins he’s wearing. Which is fascinating. Your dad’s people used to make feather cloaks, but near as you can tell, the feathers would be gathered and sewn in. But this fella right here must have found a bird big enough to make a whole ass tunic outta the hide. Which means they got some giant ass birds here.

“Who’re you?” you say.

His lips press so tight. Dude seems to be fifteen seconds from spitting on you. He gives you some fancy name (got to be an elf thing, between him and Astarion), and he’s apparently the librarian, only he doesn’t use that word.

Gale appears across the room. He looks a bit lost. Not the sneaking type, you guess.

“Well that’s nice,” you say to Mr. Librarian. “What’cha got to read in here?”

“Nothing for the likes of you. This is the collected wisdom of thirteen generations of Emerald Grove archdruids. It’s not for outsiders.”

Shadowheart leans into view. She makes a motion to the bed you’re still plonked on. Kahga’s bed. Considering the things you kept under your own pillow back home, she definitely needs to rummage here.

“Huh,” you say and kick off. Shadowheart ducks back as you lead Mr. Librarian to the shelves. You pluck up and random book.

Mr. Librarian sputters and tries to snatch it from you. He’s shorter than you, so you’ve got the height advantage and the width to block him as you open the thing.

“Put that down!” he says.

“Why?” you say. “Did I find the sex stuff?”

He swipes at you again—jokes on him; you can’t read. You spin and draw him away so Shadowheart can slip past y’all. You lift the book sideways and flip roughly through the pages for that extra dash of asshole. And then scoff and toss it at Mr. Librarian, whose face is tomato red at this point.

All this has brought you to the edge of this shelf—and given you a clear line of sight to Gale standing around awkwardly. So you march over to the shelves behind him.

“No, you can’t go in there!”

You go in there. Grab a scroll this time. Pseudo-pirouette away and unfurl it (harsher than you mean to, and you feel a little bad) and the end rips halfway off.

Mr. Librarian makes a wounded sound and stills. Stares at you. Behind him, Shadowheart ruffles through Kahga’s bedding with suspiciously practiced ease, and lifts her head to give a negative shake. Gale just stares at you. Which leaves…

Flash of white. Astarion casually leaning against the center bookshelf with what can only be classified as a devilish smirk.

“Guards!” Mr. Librarian shouts. “Someone get in here!”

You shove the ripped scroll at him and steamboat your way right out of the dorms.

“Please tell me you found something,” you whisper to Astarion as the lot of you duck into the actual room where a short woman waves glowing hands over a bird. Y’all squeeze yourself behind the central pillar and wait a moment to see if anyone follows you. Luckily, they leave you be.

Astarion shifts way closer than he needs to. “A hidden chest locked up tight, with a letter inside asking for a secret rendezvous enough for you?”

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate iii #astarion #fanfic #astarion x tav #it's a goddamn isekai #i'm not sorry #no betas we die like men #feeding alligators

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bluerosesonata · 7 months

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Enya (Tav OC)/Astarion- to be named, to be known

[author notes: Takes place before the invasion of Moonrise. Contains vague Spoilers for Act 2 and Astarion’s storyline.

I still have not finished the game (currently mid act 3. yes I’m in the crypt and suffering) so be kind and don’t tell me Jack shit.]

[AO3 link ]

Given everything that was going on in his life, Astarion reflected, this whole situation was a bit absurd. Here he was with a mindflayer parasite eating holes in his brain, monster hunters on his trail, a demonic contract carved into his back, working with a team of the weirdest people he had ever met to kill a necromancer that refused to die— and yet somehow, four simple words had him out in the woods, pacing, feeling the most anxious he had in weeks.

“Can we talk later?”

It was clear Enya had meant ‘alone, in private ’— and the gentle cadence of her low voice implied ‘about Us.’

Us.

A few nights ago, Enya had used that word to ask him about— well, whatever was going on between the two of them.

It was an apt, but aggravatingly simple way to describe it. Enya and Astarion. Astarion and Enya. An elf and a Tiefling. A man and a woman. Us.

If he was a normal man, maybe that’s all it would be. Just another word your lover(?) used to talk about the two of you. But he wasn’t a normal man, and the word had unexpectedly made him…ache. That he…liked it.

And that worried him.

It certainly didn’t help that just a few days ago, the whole thing with the drow lead him to tell her how he wasn’t…what people wanted him to be. How he didn’t…well, he didn’t hate sex. That would be an oversimplification of things. But it had become something he just…Did. A wretched routine for a miserable little puppet. And that he was still not quite used to being his own person.

Astarion fully expected her to be upset. Annoyed, even. But in response, Enya just said that she…cared about him. That she never wanted him to do anything he didn’t want to. She quite literally embraced him— not as pretense, not as foreplay— but held him, in a way he hadn’t been touched in…god knows how long.

It was all… too perfect.

She was too perfect.

That was what really put his teeth on edge about all of this. Because there was no way she was actually perfect. Enya was a very good liar. Astarion had seen her get away with feeding people some of the most bald-faced bullshit he’d ever heard, and had them asking for seconds. On its own, he considered this a positive trait - it made her a powerful ally, and had gotten them out of a lot of scrapes. But Enya could also have an irritatingly tender heart.

So it wasn’t impossible she’d just been paying him lip service. That she’d shown him hope and gentleness and kindness all in preparation to cruelly, completely shatter him, just like— he stopped himself, rubbing his temples.

No. That wasn’t fair.

This…wasn’t like that. She wasn’t like him. He was getting himself worked up for no reason.

No matter what happened, he told himself, he would survive this.

He always had.

From about 20-odd meters away, in the shade of a copse of trees, a shadow watched Astarion pacing, her indigo skin blending gently into the blues and greens of the wooded twilight. She sighed to herself, her pronged tail flicking in irritation. You’ve really mucked this up, haven’t you?

The very fact she could just stand here and not be noticed by him was a testament to how badly she’d messed up. He was usually quick to notice traps, and he could almost always tell when they were being watched. But now…

Why didn’t you just say something normal? Something like, ‘I want to spend some alone time with you,’ or literally anything else, she scolded herself.

Well, actually, she’d specifically decided not to say something like that because it sounded like wanting to have sex, which would be more than a little gauche right now. For all her so-called eloquence, she couldn’t find a better way to put this besides “talking later.” She absentmindedly ran a taloned finger over the silver rings set into the cusp of her ear, and bit her lip. No time like the present, I suppose. She stepped out into the evening light, and called out to him.

A bit later, they sat side by side, on a fallen log nestled into the hillside, where they had a lovely view of the setting sun. It could have been romantic, even— if the two of them weren’t buzzing with anxiety. Their respective parasites, resonating with one another’s distress, only made them even more attuned to the already obvious tension.

For a few minutes, nothing was said. They just sat there, not looking at one another— not even using the tadpoles to delve deeper, for fear of what they would see— as the sun crept lower and lower in the sky. At the same time, both broke the silence.

“So…”

“Sooo….”

The tension couldn’t sustain itself. They both chuckled and grinned sheepishly at each other, sharp canines for sharp canines.

“You’re wearing your hair loose,” Astarion observed. Enya nodded, giving a weak smile as she tucked a long strand of purplish-red hair behind her ear. Typically, her long hair was neatly rolled up, braided, and pinned into a configuration almost reminiscent of folded wings. Today, it hung wavy and loose, tumbling over her bare shoulders, framing her collarbone, partly obscuring the centipede tattoos on her cheek and shoulder.

In truth, this small change made Astarion feel even more nervous. It felt…significant. Almost like he was being tested, somehow.

What about? He had no clue. But it made him feel wary, like the two of them were dualists circling one another for an opening, or animals sizing each other up for a fight.

On top of that, Enya’s hair being loose made her long, slender neck even more appealing, and it was taking a lot of self control for him to not glance at it. He forced himself to look into her eyes— her lovely, blue-orange eyes, with sclera black as pitch— but he saw something there that made him look away.

There was affection, yes, but under that…

Guilt.

Ah. So, this is it, then.

“Can I…hold your hand?”

He offered it limply, numbly. Possibly for the last time. Sure. Why not.

Careful to be gentle with her talons, Enya held his hands in hers, gently rubbing her thumbs all over in small circles, almost like she was trying to return circulation to his pale hands.

She loved his hands. They felt somewhat incongruous with the speed and nimbleness they moved. They were not particularly slender, nor were not particularly soft or rough (unlike her fingers, callused from plucking lyre strings) but they were still strong and quick with a bow. His nails were short, unvarnished— but he clearly worked to keep them clean and buffed, which she found very charming and dandyish of him.

They were so… different from other hands she’d held in her life. Pale, of course. Always moving, always being used in conversation. Not cold, like you might expect for someone who was dead, but pleasantly cool. She liked that, since Tieflings always ran a little warmer. (Or so she’d been told.)

“So… I’m sorry for the way I called you out here.” He didn’t respond. “I just thought, given how much I know about you, you deserve to know more about me.” After all, we might not get another chance, but she left that thought unvoiced.

He blinked.

“I- erm, you…what?”

Enya grimaced.

Oh dear. I’ve broken him.

“Well, only if you want to. You don’t need to—“

He sat up straight, drawing his hands back from hers, and the atmosphere shifted rapidly. Enya watched as he opened this mouth slightly, then shut it, his face flashing through several emotions— confusion, relief, joy, irritation— before settling on indignation, brow furrowed. His hands were still pulled up and back, fingers curled, as if someone had told him to surrender with his hands in the air, and then called him something particularly offensive.

“Darling, do you have any idea what I’ve been through today because of your little theatrics? I—“ he shut his mouth promptly, possibly realizing he was about to admit he had been emotionally compromised. Instead of admitting this, he gave a little huff of a laugh, crossed his arms, and looked away, pretending to be angrier than he actually was. “Well, out with it, then. For your sake, I hope it’s interesting.”

She couldn’t help but smile, and a tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, a direct contrast to the irritated, dismissive little wave he then gave for her to continue. Enya paused, trying to find the right way to begin.

“It’s funny. Bards typically have a story or a poem for everything and every occasion. But here I am telling my own, and I’m suddenly at a loss for words.”

“The beginning is a traditional place to start,” Astarion replied glibly. Seeing her brow furrow, he softened his tone and added, “…If that is important to you, that is.”

“No, no, you’re perfectly right,” Enya conceded. “The problem is,” she said, trying to pick her words carefully, “I…am not entirely ready to discuss some aspects of it, if that’s all right with you.” Seeing his slight frown, she added, “I’m not keeping it secret, okay, it’s just…” she made a vague, hopeless gesture. “The timing isn’t quite right.”

It was unfair of her, she knew. It was unfair to know the dark rooms of his past, to see the pain that was there, then ask that he not open certain doors inside of her. He looked pensive, then sighed.

“Could you at least promise me that whatever it is isn’t someone or something that’s going to try and kill us? Because I am quite over this camp having those come to light on a weekly basis.”

“No. In that regard, I don’t think it will be a problem.”

Her bitter smile must have said more than she thought, because his face softened.

“It’s all right, darling,” he smiled, “What’s romance without a little mystery, hmm?”

She considered it.

“Divorce, usually.” He lit up at that.

“Ohhh, now that would be novel. I’ve never been divorced.”

“Have you been married, though?”

“Now now,” he chuckled, “A gentlemen never tells.” She rolled her eyes in response, which made him laugh.

“So.”

“Yes.”

“Astarion, I….” Enya stopped, sighed. Fidgeted a bit. “My name isn’t actually Enya.” A single raised eyebrow.

“It’s not a criminal thing,” she assured him quickly, “and I have gone by Enya for a while now. It was a nickname I picked out for myself when I started working in Baldur’s Gate,” she explained with a sigh. “But I haven’t spoken my given name out loud to anyone in over a decade, and…” she trailed off. Maybe this was stupid. Why did this matter, really?

“Well,” he said, breaking through her thoughts, “I’d love to hear it, darling. Or we can just write this off as a waste of an evening. Your choice.” She pointedly ignored his little jab.

“My name- the name my parents gave me- was Lízellenya. Lízellenya Merlo.” He repeated it, softly, sounding it out, and despite herself, she felt a blush creep across her face. He asked her how she spelled it, then said it again, softer. It was strangely lovely when he said it, she thought.

“It’s a lot of syllables,” he said at last, making a face. “I can see why you changed it.” She burst out laughing.

“You always know just what to say,” she sighed, wiping away a tear. “Honestly, even as a kid, I didn’t like it very much.“

“I can only imagine. And Merlo? Like the wine?” She smiled.

“No, like a blackbird. Mehr-lo.” His brow furrowed.

“How the hell is that like a blackbird?” Enya shrugged.

“I dunno. It’s just what my dad said once.”

The two of them quietly watched the stars slowly fill the night sky.

“You know,” he said slowly, unsure of himself, “There are a lot of things I don’t know about you. Nor you about I. Perhaps we could change that. We could make a little game of it — a question for a question.”

“That’s…uncharacteristic of you,” Enya replied, suspicious. “What happened to all that stuff about mystery?” He smiled, sharp teeth gleaming in the twilight.

“Call it a…passing fancy. If you’re not interested, though—“

“No, no. It sounds…fun, actually. Maybe. As long as we make a few rules.”

“Such as…?”

“If either of us gets a question we don’t want to answer, we can pass. No digging. Just move on. Okay?” He nodded.

“Quite reasonable of you. I agree.”

She turned toward him.

“All right, Astarion. You go first.”

“Hm, well…let’s start with something simple. A little dry, maybe, but important to know. How old are you?”

“Astarion, really…” Enya chuckled.

“Ah, older than thirty, then.” Another fit of giggling. “Oh, please, that’s the only reason younger women ever get flustered about their age. I’m over 200, darling, I really don’t care. Just answer the question, please.”

“Fine, fine— I’m forty-two. Forty-three in a few months.”

“I see,” he replied crisply, “now, a follow-up question, because that means nothing to me— how long do Tieflings live, exactly?“

“Mmm, that depends— with or without an illithid parasite in their brains?” He gave her a withering look. “Okay, okay, sorry. A bit longer than humans, I think. 20 years longer, maybe 30 more. It’s not even a drop in the bucket compared to—“ she gestured to all of him, “you know. But the oldest I’ve ever met was 80.”

He was quiet a moment, taking that in.

“That’s…unfortunate,” he said eventually.

“Please don’t start acting like I’m on death’s door.”

“We are, though. All of us. Plus you’re always having us stick our necks out for some sad sack. One of these times it’s going to stick.” Enya grimaced.

“I regret agreeing to this.”

“Oh, come now. You haven’t even asked me a question yet.”

“All right,” she sighed, “What’s your favorite color?” He made that same little huff of a laugh again.

“That’s your question? Really? Anything at all, and you ask-“ he caught her gaze. “ugh, fine.” He shifted his sitting position, and sighed. “Seeing as I’m not five years old, I don’t have a favorite color.” he gave Enya a look clearly intended to be piercing, “But lately, I’ve found myself quite fond of blue.”

Enya simply stared at him, arms crossed expectantly, and raised an eyebrow.

“What, nothing? That was good! You have to admit that was clever!”

One of the things that Enya had learned about Astarion is that most of the time, if you just stared at him in silence for a bit, he would either fold like a house of cards, or work himself into a lather. Sometimes both.

“UGH, fine, goddamnit…” he muttered with a distinctive whine in his voice, “I- I don’t know! I know it’s not red. God knows I’ve had enough of red. Black? Maybe?”

“Black’s not a color.”

“The hell it isn’t!”

“It’s a neutral.”

“Oh, For fuck’s sake...” he grumbled, “well, what’s your favorite color then? Hmm?”

“Is that your next question?”

“Sure! Fine! Since it’s clearly of the utmost import that one has a favorite color.”

“Green,” she replied without a moment of hesitation, “Emerald green. But I like seafoam green and turquoise as well.”

“God. You’re insane.” Enya gave him a smug smile.

“I have been told that is a part of my girlish charm.” She crossed her arms. “My turn again, then. What’s your last name?” He cringed.

“Pass.”

“Okay. Fair. Won’t press on it.” A small, dissatisfied sigh. “Then…have you had many lovers in your life?” He gave a hiss-like exhale, his lips pressing together into a flat line. Enya realized quite suddenly she had crudely, stupidly stepped into something quite sensitive.

“Shit, Astarion, I didn’t mean—“

“Yes,” he answered, interrupting her. His eyes looked hollow and flat. “I have.” When his eyes flicked to meet hers, the intense look in them made her feel like the game had…changed. “Many. Very, very many. Does that hurt your feelings? Does that…bother you?”

He had gone very still, in a way that reminded Enya of a creature on the hunt— or was it was like an alerted deer freezing stock-still, bracing itself to flee…?

Either way, she thought, I should tread carefully.

“No, it doesn’t bother me. Is that your question for me?”

“No. I’ll ask the same of you. How many lovers have you had before me?”

That’s not really the same question, she wanted to protest, but the look in his eyes and his unnatural stillness made her think better.

“That’s…difficult to answer,” she replied slowly. The sweat was starting to bead on her neck. “Do you just mean, sexually, or…relationships?” He gave her a flat, charming smile.

“Whichever you think is more important.”

She didn’t need to roll high on investigation to know that was a trap, and they both knew it. The real question was, would she tell him? She shut her eyes and exhaled, knowing that she had gone still now, too.

“Three formal relationships. But…like you? Just the one.”

“Man or woman? Or neither?”

“Woman.”

“How long?”

“Around three years.”

“What was her name?”

Exhale.

“Pass.”

They both relaxed at the same time. Whatever had its claws in them seemed to dissolve, like someone’s concentration had broken during a spell. They sat in that quiet relief for a moment, both troubled by their own thoughts. When he met her eyes again, the look he gave her would be bordering on apologetic, if it didn’t look so pained.

“What do you mean by…’like me’?” His voice was soft. Not accusatory. Just…lost. Confused.

There was no point in lying to him. She turned back to the horizon.

“Our relationship was…intense.” Life changing. Inevitable. “She didn’t know what she wanted from me.” Until she did. “And she had her demons. It didn’t end well.” She met his eyes, silently begging him to let it go. “But that’s where the similarities end. Back then I was young, and I was stupid. That’s all.”

He wasn’t happy about it, and he knew she could tell. He wanted to ask more.

He wanted to ask, ‘what am I, to you?’

He wanted to ask, ‘am I just another episode in a long line of tragedies?’

And most of all, he wanted to ask her, ‘what are the odds that the two of us will end any differently?’

But instead of pressing, he gave her a tight smile.

“You’re still young, my dear. And judging by your plans to have us fight an immortal necromancer on his own turf, you’re still incredibly stupid.” She felt a smile tug at her lips.

“Hey. That makes you stupid for following me.” The moon had risen by now, full and bright, washing the two of them in silver.

“Astarion.” He turned to her.

She wanted to ask, ‘If we are cured tomorrow, will I ever see you again?’

She wanted to ask, ‘When I tell you everything, will you resent me for it?’

But more than anything, she wanted to ask, ‘Since we could die tomorrow, would you hold me tonight?’

Instead, she just asked, “is it okay if i kiss you goodnight?” He smiled, and she smiled back. Under the moonlight, fangs met fangs, and talons gently intwined with pale fingers.

For now, they both thought, this would do.

#im about to post SO much self indulgent fic here bro.#bg3 #bluerose-ocs #bluerose gate 3 #bluerose txt #bg3 OC x canon #tav oc #Lízellenya #Lízellenya/Astarion #bluerose writing #bg3 fic

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blitzendoggo · 2 years

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Headcanons and Canon info Mass List

Unlike my Ao3 version of this, every time I get new canon info or a new head canon it will be it's own chapter because I won't be using this as a reference sheet.

~~~

This has to be broken into chunks just so I can keep it organized so lets start with:

Places:

Vontral- the main continent and is flat

Riftreach- New York city but in Egyptian style. Built over the rift and everything goes up because going underground is basically illegal

Gada-Yama- Business hub full of Moritermes (termites) with a temple to the death god directly under the mound

Wainua- city that half in the sea

Abellio- TBA, I'll update this once I rewatch the first episode of s2

Ruins of Inanis- TBA, I'll update this once I rewatch the first episode of s2

Aragdus- TBA, I'll update this once I rewatch the first episode of s2

Franklin- Home of the Franklin castle where the "Frankies" are trained. Frankies are really tough mercenaries

Firetounge Outpost- Thought to be a volcano island, is actually a mindflayer lookout/faciality.

Lotterton- nicknamed Slaughterton. Crime town where our heroes started their journey.

Is- Mining town.

Parian- Where the Victora festival happens and Dramaticus (and other famous fighters) live.

The United Federation of Goblin Territories- read the tin. Its a Goblin society that the governments of the world let exist

Bowenburg- Classic fantasy town. Where Glib's magic school was.

Characters:

Glib

Canon:

Poison Dart Frog Vampire

Acidic skin that only affects fabric

Was turned into a vampire in early twenties is pushing thirty

God of Death, maybe?

Glib as a human was painfully average. Just a generic person

Warlock with a (dead) kraken patron

Name has always been Glib

Has a fear of heights that was developed after crashing the bird with Canyon

His slime has a slight blue tint

Maybe has hollow bones (? Panda said it before immediately saying he was bullshitting that)

Body temp is ice-cold

Anger issuesHE'S THE MOST HANDSOME FROG YOU'VE EVER SEEN (rolled a 23 for hotness)

Hates Skeezvol

Headcanon:

Glib has a caffeine addiction, so he drinks blood coffee (coffee made with blood instead of water)

Glib can't touch fabric, so his blankets/bedding are made from furs

When Glib was human, he would run his fingers through his hair as a nervous tick, and its one of the few things he misses about being human (with the others being that he wants pants and to be tall again).

Adopted by a fairly rich Grung family when he was born, which is why they called him Glib.

Grew up in a mansion in the woods

Is always the last one to wake up

Has Gambit-style Cards

Canyon

Canon:

Full name is Mystery of the Canyon

Very Blunt and violent

Is infused with chaos magic

Headcanon:

Sheds constantly

Covers his mouth when he laughs because he used to self-conscious of his sharp teeth.

Puts up a constantly relaxed front, but is much more aware than he acts (hence high intelligence)

Is a decent cook, but will shed in the food

Is not allowed to have caffeine because after being given one cup of mild coffee he had zoomies so bad that Callisto had to "sedate" him with magic

S.G.

Canon:

Genderless-Changeling (with pearlescent white skin) from a village with an unusually high number of psychics (which includes themself)

Master gaslighter

Is allergic to lemonlimes (which is a fruit that grows in Vontral)

Does not have facial features/looks like a mannequin

Massive crush on Captain Mercury

Has a godcomplex

Has a salt lamp Genie named Djarrid

Kermit just lives in their armor

Was homeschooled

Crime background that takes place in Is

Thinks Skeezvol is a 14/20 (possibly because of crown?)

Thinks Human Glib is very average

Is a 7/20 because of no features

Is the God of Wealth now

Considers Glib as her best friend

Headcanon:

She cannot cook to cave her life.

Like nearly burnt down the kitchen trying to boil water levels of bad

Doesn't like coffee and will only drink super sweet teas

Has the best bed, no matter where they go

Mr. Goodbid

Canon:

Half-elf hitman

Has a glorious mustache

Works in contracts

Hates kids

Drinks whiskey

He always smiles (but when he's angry/scared it's thousand-yard stare style)

Loves Pirates and Business

Doesn't actually like bug people, just their city

Has daddy issues (Naethan why?)

His constant smile comes from Dramaticus' persona

Has never missed a Victora festival

Wears contacts

Has a negative 1 to constitution

10/20

Very selfless

God of law

Suit is white with a green tie

ACAB Goodbid

Headcanon:

Full name is Johnny B. Goodbid

Has a massive family and is the oldest of six

His siblings are Garry, Ein, Thomas (who married Linx and has an adopted little girl named Ruth), William, and Mellany

Is an amazing cook and does all the cooking for the team

He owns Capri Suns as a money laundering front that became its own business because it was just that good.

Goodbid either drinks black coffee or sweet-iced tea, no in between

Is traumatized from being attacked by the ghost under Riftreach so it terrified of ghouls

Almost went to train at Franklin Castle, but decided against it

Skeezvol XIX

Canon

An old man, 4'7", human, blind (no eyes), long beard, frail-looking, barbarian

Immortal but will be killed by a mistake made by a frog man

He sees through tremor sense

Is a nat 1

Headcanon:

Lost his eyes while teleporting around, but because he's immortal the surgery didn't kill him

Zalkas

Canon:

6'7" Acid-Dragonborn paladin

From the Order dimension

Has two kids (at least one daughter named Leviathan) who play soccer

Was a commander in the Order Army

Its on-sight when he sees S.G.

Is ridiculous strong

Owns a tavern after accidentally killing the pervious owner

Has a trident and sickles as weapons

Wants to be friends with Glib

Speaks infernal

Scared of bugs (denies it)

Horrible at lying and is very blunt.

Headcanon:

Unofficially adopts Rolf once they return to the tavern

Misses his kids and wife, but does not want to return to the Order Realm

Is completely Asexual and Panromantic but does not understand the difference between romantic and platonic attraction.

Prophis

Canon:

Is an elf chaos God

Is Bisexual

Has a dead(?) sister

dating Callisto (1/2 of Eldritch Gays)

Is a natural 20/20, this man is so hot

Headcanon:

Mom friend

Loves kids

Will shut down Callisto if he starts throwing a tantrum

Loves to sing

Is a morning person

Loves making flower crowns because he and his sister used to make them together when they were young

Palnaros

Canon:

Moves like a marionette

Upside down head

Centipede body

You know your nightmares? Yeah its just that

Headcanon:

Voice is unnaturally high and disjointed

Would hold onto vowels for longer than he should when speaking

When moving he would make a creaking/cracking rubbery sound like stretching dried out leather over old wood and twisting both.

Callisto

Canon:

A very powerful sorcerer

Dating Prophis (other half of Eldritch Gays)

Is also very hot

Is Gay, but respects women

Headcanon:

Is not a morning person in the least

Only likes Prophis' singing

Used to love kids but now tolerates them (they reminded him too much of Prophis for the millennia that they were separated)

Simps for Prophis so much. Like he is a prideful man, but if Prophis told him to bark, he would not hesitate.

Bello

Canon:

Three-foot tall Chaos Butterfly from Not-Here, Chaos Dimension

uses he/they

Eats(?) stars

Wants to find flowers, doesn't know what flowers are

Wings are made up of shifting change-glass

Is kind of oblivious

Speaks Celestial

Likes riding on people's shoulders/head

Slightly illiterate

Headcanon:

Wings have an ever-shifting heat to them that moves with the changing colors

Blob

Canon:

Glib's familiar

Vampire-bat squid

Was sarcastic, is now traumatized

Has a slight stutter that gets worse when he's anxious

Love language is physical touch

Appears out of a puddle that forms under/near Glib with a splash

Headcanon:

Is so traumatized by the kraken's death that he won't leave Glib and when they sleep, he lays on Glib's chest

Doesn't actually leave Glib, too afraid that something will happen to them.

Dramaticus

Canon:

Little Wooden-Puppet Man

Barbarian fighter that lives in Parian

Is a very famous celebrity

It the God of Light

Is afraid of fire

Headcanon:

Was called Pinocchio until he started performing

Aldor

Canon:

God of knowledge

Is dead

Was a stick in the mud

Looked like a really young 80-year-old

Headcanon:

AroAce

Not completely emotionless, but damn close

Reylias

Canon:

Air Genasi

Was the leader of chaos faction

Is the god of monsters

Killed the Kraken

Sociopathichas a chaos sword that can become a whip

Headcanon:

Was raised by Prophis and Callisto but once Prophis was put away in the portal, Callisto couldn't handle raising Reylias by himself so he put him into an ageless sleep until the factions split and Callisto woke him up, changed his memories, and made him the leader of the chaos faction so he could find his dad again

Rolf

Canon:

5'7", skinny, ginger, dark eyed Paladin

Techincally the smartest PC in game

Wannabe Cult Leader

Is 16

Is a shut in

Terrified of bugs

Headcanon:

Gets adopted by Zalkas

Has a single mom and has never had a father-figure

Lady Katarina the (Formerly) Wicked

Canon:

Snow-owlen, beady-red eyes, 3'6", and wears a blood-red cloak

Was an evil lady, had a crisis, and is trying to be better

Is feared by almost everyone

Worked with Mindflayers and thinks they are super sweet and fun/easy to work with

Headcanon:

Loves animals and would never hurt them

Kyland

Canon:

Prophis' dead sister

Died of a sickness

Psychic

Is brought back to life?

She has her memories from before she died.

Headcanon:

She's younger by Prophis, but not by much and Prophis used to braid flowers into her hair when she was upset

Djarrid

Canon:

Pink salt-lamp genie

Vaguely Russian

Licking the crystal results in a chaos affect happening

Doesn't remember his "real" name

Headcanon:

Is afraid of Prophis because he saw him as Palnaros too much

Doc

Canon:

They/Them

Rambles a lot

Has a lizard

Is from the future

Saved S.G. when they were younger

Headcanon:

Is on the Spectrum and is hyperfixated on the dimensions/time travel

Captain Mercury

Canon:

Hot merman

Is the God of the Air

Has a sentient ship named Sky Skimmer

Himbo

Walks by using wooden legs

26-years-old

Headcanon:

Is Gay, therefore doesn't realize that S.G. is flirting with him because he thinks that she knows

Has a slight crush on Goodbid, but is too much of a himbo to realize that its a crush and not just ''extreme friendship"

Barium

Canon:

Gold warforged from Is

Goes by Barry

God of metal

Was stuck as a statue for maybe 700 years?

Headcanon:

While in the statue, he spent his time by singing work songs

Friday

Canon:

White horse with a green mane

God of Fate

BIG GIRL (could fit four people on her back easily)

Headcanon:

She considers Goodbid and SG to be her parents, and that why she wasn't made at them.

Extra Information:

Canon:

Inside Goodbid's briefcase is the main set of the office and it smells like shoe polish and mustache cream

Vontral is flat

There is a star invasion maybe going on?

The Earth Dimension is inhabited by Shadar-Kai (Shadow Fay) and were rule by Skeezvol

Headcanon:

I refer to Goodbid, Glib, Canyon, and S.G. as Team Chaos

Team Chaos is a queer-platonic Polycule. They do not know that they are a queer-platonic polycule and think that every friendship is like this.

Goodbid's briefcase has doors, but all the hallways lead back to the save room.

#d&dorks #pandaredd #sir_superhero #momoiscariot #nikhilclayton #naethan apollo #glib #Mr. Goodbid #s.g. iguess #headcanon #headcanon list #there will be more updates as seperate posts

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omgkalyppso · 1 year

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Etoile/Astarion aaand 99?

Thank you for the ask! What a silly, stupid, appropriate song for them. I don't think we'll actually get a clear cut ending to whatever's going on with the mindflayer worm, but I needed to put something together. Have some song lyrics, and then my writing below the cut. Reference to weird vampire dynamics / desires / daydreams?

Why do I try When in your eyes, I just melt again And you'd only stay until our tan lines match Oh, it's over In your, in your Range Rover And I don't, don't know why I want you But you look so pretty When you're breaking me (down)

Astarion found Étoile in the the woods, less than five minutes from the source of their salvation. In the morning the ritual would be complete and their travelling band's illithid parasites would be removed. Étoile didn't need Astarion to tell them that he was leaving, their gaze, resigned and sympathetic, made plain their understanding.

The silence of their recognition buzzed like the flies on the wind, like the lonely birdsong in the trees. Sunlight filtered faded through the canopy, and Astarion found himself almost wishing it would rain; the sting of the water would have been fitting against his undead skin, and at least then his last memory of his companion would be in darkness.

"I had hoped we'd have achieved more," Étoile said, "before finding our solution."

"Your solution," Astarion said sharply. He raised a finger to articulate his point as he stepped forward, almost bitter but not quite, because he very simply did not believe the group was considering their options clearly for themselves.

Étoile's lips stretched in disappointment, their golden gaze flickering away as they sought a fitting goodbye, or perhaps a plea. They were not as hollowed as someone more emotional would be; even with their heart on their sleeve, not quite in tatters, Étoile was suitably composed. They clearly knew, as elves and other long-lived races did, how frequent endings were, how shattering, how temporary, how eternal.

Astarion would at least free them from the incremental distress of trying to find their words.

"I cannot stay," he said, in a tone that mocked the seriousness of the bridge they were abandoning between them. Yet his smile was genuine, with the self-assurance of having not lost himself to this rediscovery that Étoile's companionship had allowed him. He had learned what of him remained beneath Cazador's orders and his hatred, and more importantly found that his nature was unchanged; much as it might frustrate others, it was ... a comfort, one he could carry. "Lae'zel will be bound by her oaths and her honor to seek my end for having refused treatment for my parasite. And if I cannot be sure in defeating her at this juncture, then I am soundly unprepared for Cazador."

Étoile stalked closer, and Astarion didn't balk, but he did wonder whether at Étoile's current quiet indecision. He went on, "I have no reason to invite Lae'zel to follow you, by offering somewhere that we might meet, however far in the future."

"And you would never venture so far north as to find me when your goals are achieved ... or..." Étoile wrapped a careful hand around Astarion's elbow, warm and bracing. They shook their head, reestablishing themself and their fragile confidence, blossoming as Astarion rested a hand on the back of their forearm. "I'll try not to worry about you," they said instead. "You've come into yourself, and you're stronger now than you were. A dandy from Baldur's Gate."

"Battle hardened," Astarion agreed with a taunting smile, sharp teeth expressing his delight. "With your blood to thank."

"It would be appropriate if I sprouted tentacles for you to deal with in response to that," Étoile scoffed. Astarion pretended not to notice how the humor in their tone clashed with the unshed tears that crept upon them.

"It would be appropriate if I drained you here, lover, on my way into obscurity," Astarion said instead, picturing Wyll's confused outrage upon stumbling upon their corpse, and then the moments that would precede it, where Étoile's heart would jump in their chest, legs kicking out in desperation. "Would you even fight it?"

Astarion knew they would, and smiled about how Étoile's nose scrunched in discomfort.

"You will survive longer without me," Astarion said, lifting his hand to drift the backs of his knuckles upon their cheek. "And I thank you for not insulting me with empty promises about navigating another way to defeat my enemies, free of the worm."

He leaned in, barely, inviting Étoile to do the same as they had these long weeks, as if for a kiss, but in the instant they should have met, rogue- and vampire-like, he was gone.

#long post #oc tag: étoile #my writing

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mirageformed · 2 years

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@sunderedhearts -- billy & steve in vecnaland ♥

Billy couldn’t have imagined the direction his life had taken. Hawkins had felt like a prison sentence, with prison being the preferable choice. A backwater town in the middle of a hick community. If his dad was trying to find a way to punish him, he’d picked the perfect place in the middle of god-fucking-nowhere.

Billy would never feel like he fit in with the mundane and quiet, but in that first week one person had stopped all the noise, all the anger, the violence simmering beneath his heated skin. Everything came to a standstill, like he was rubbernecking his own car-crash. Even a song like SHOUT AT THE DEVIL blasting at max volume from a stereo and the party-goers chanting his name over and over weren’t enough. Love at first sight sounded like such a bullshit, made-up concept, the kind of cliche line he’d use to win a girl over. The irony that someone as cynical as him had, whose heart had shriveled up beneath the hot sun and laid to rest on cracked soil.

Fast-forward a year, and he’d realized there was more to the silent town than what met the dull-eyed stares of the people who lived in it. An entity from another world had tried to break through to their side, using monsters of its world, the UPSIDE DOWN, to incubate the people who had unfortunately been captured. Billy had thankfully avoided that disgusting imagery. But when the dogs grew and failed their mission and the first gate was sealed up tight, that monster had to find a new host and a new army to build.

Billy had miraculously survived the ordeal, sacrificing himself as he broke through the Mindflayer’s control. He woke up months later, in a clinic far away from Hawkins. Billy had stayed there until he was well enough to go back, arriving a week before his birthday when a whole new crisis was unfolding.

Now, all that had quieted down. After everything with Vecna, everyone had packed up and moved away. Nancy and Robin had gone off to Boston. Eddie took his van and hightailed it to a new start. He actually flipped their principle the bird when he’d received his diploma and they hadn’t heard from him since. The kids had all disbanded and Max and her mother had packed up to move back to California. Owens had come through with his end of the bargain. But Billy had stayed, even though Susan had said he was welcome to come along. He was alright with Hawkins, because all he really wanted was to be with Steve. Billy would have been happy to leave, go back to sunshine and salty ocean breezes. However, unless Steve suggested it, they’d stay were they were.

❝God, you have so many of these.❞ Words he’d repeated more than once with a laugh filled with warm affection spilling through his voice. So many little beauty marks just covered Steve. Billy hadn’t considered things like that eye catching on others. But with Steve, he wanted to find each one and see if there was MORE.

He pressed his lips into the cluster on Steve’s stomach, the shadow of teeth and redder, larger bruises coloring a trail up to his chest and throat. Billy followed his marks upward, alternating between gentle and harder kisses with teeth biting into soft flesh.

#sunderedhearts #🦁 ⊱ ʀᴇʙᴇʟ ʏᴇʟʟ ⊱ BILLY.#🎥 ⊱ ʟɪɢʜᴛ ᴜᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ɴɪɢʜᴛ ⊱ IC.#some softness before heartbreaking disaster :'D

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filmsthatdonotexist · 2 years

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Filming on water sucks. We know this from the history of disasters with filming at sea, from the production nightmare with the robot shark on Jaws to the loss of an entire goddamn set on Waterworld.

Which is a problem if you want to make a pirate movie, as the graveyard of bombs from that subgenre can show. But, what if you cut the Gordian knot and just decided to make a pirate movie without the water?

That’s what Maria Crux did with Asterium, originally scripted as a homage to pirate movies in the same way as; say; Indiana Jones was to vintage film serials or Star Wars to vintage sci-fi.

The move to space was natural, given the general lower-end budgets they were used to working with (If you’ve seen any Cannon or Empire films from the era, you’ll have a rough idea) but also the popularity of sci-fi and fantasy after Star Wars blew the hell up.

But, while there were obviously significant changes for the changes in genre (Much to the original screenwriter’s begrudging annoyance), the larger DNA of the script is very visible in there, with the tropey ideas of “descendant of pirate queen rediscovering her heritage, buried treasure, a crew of misfits against an unjust order, hell even a mysterious apparition of “ghost pirates” (Even if the nature of the “ghostliness” was altered to something that somehow at once was more sci-fi but also far stranger).

But, the items that were added were gorgeous; at least as one could do on that budget, from the elephant-person imperial-pursuer-turned-first-mate who managed to have one of the most compelling arcs despite not having a single line of dialogue, to the extended homage to Melies’ A Voyage To The Moon with the living planet, to the final battle for the real treasure known as the Starmaker, amongst many others.

Even still, with the budgets, there were corners cut, the modelwork for all but the main ship was mostly kitbashed from various mass-market sci-fi model ships combined with more standard sailing ships, and most notably all the ship interiors are the same set, simply decorated differently, but through smart shooting it did seem to be a good use of budget, which they managed to put back into the excellent creature effects.

Critics back in the day mocked the combination of age of sail aesthetics and moderate magic with space travel, both unflatteringly comparing it to the Force from Star Wars and lots of jokes about how in god’s name they’re breathing in space.

But, in retrospect, the lack of explanation has been seen as a plus rather than a minus, and it is seen as an earlier example of more overt science-fantasy in modern film, as opposed to Star Wars’ more subtle use of such.

Some have said it was a knockoff of Spelljammer, but that would only be the case if it didn’t come years before that setting ever saw print. Though the tropes they share even beyond the age-of-sail-in-space can more be chalked up to convergent conceptual evolution based on simple ideas, IE a humanoid form of an African megafauna with a big gun, a one-eyed living asteroid with teeth, spidery slavers. Tho ironically the very blatant knockoff-Mindflayer costume use in several scenes goes unnoticed!

While it tested extremely well, and the studio banked heavily on it being a potential ticket to the big leagues, Asterium sadly has a reputation of something of a box-office bomb. Some say it was due to too much competition, as with many of the cult-classic genre films of the era, there were too many good films coming out at the same time and it got lost in the shuffle.

Some say it actually did extremely well on home video and was actually a massive money earner for the studio in the long-run, but issues over rights involving said screenwriter's attempt to adapt his original script as its own film kiboshed plans for future elaboration. The unknown reasoning behind the abortion of a planned action figure line pitched several years after the fact perhaps adds to this.

Either way, Asterium is perhaps upper-lower-end on the production side of the canon of 80s sci-fi/fantasy cult-classics, but still a welcome romp of 80s science-fantasy goodness, and well worth watching.

That is, if you can find it...

#films that do not exist #fictional media #unreality #misinformation #pirates #science fantasy #science fiction #fictional histories

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platypanthewriter · 3 years

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Third Time's The Charm (Mindflayer: Take three)

Day Two of Harringrove AUgust, prompt: Darkside AU

Billy’s eyelids felt as dry and crisp as potato chips as he tried to force them open. He could hear the shuffle of shoes against the linoleum, and the beeps and whirs of the hospital equipment, and then something brushed his face. Cool fingers.

“Open your eyes, William,” said Steve Harrington’s calm voice, and Billy jerked back in the bed, blinking at the dark shape hovering over him. His bandages tugged, and he flinched at the deep ache in his chest.

“Harrington,” he tried to say, but it came out more of a hoarse wheeze.

“I pushed you too hard before,” Harrington said, “—with no reward, but I think I know how you work, now. You want this boy, don’t you?”

“What,” Billy breathed, staring.

“You want him to pat you with his fleshy paws,” said the thing that was not Harrington, and Billy laughed sharply as Harrington’s hand stroked up his bare arm, and ran a thumb up his jaw. The thing smiled. “You want to taste his saliva.”

“Gross,” Billy choked out, shaking, but the thing leaned in, and Harrington’s lips were warm on his own.

“You will help me,” said the Mindflayer, pulling back, “—and you will have what you want.”

“Let him go,” Billy whispered, with no actual hope that it would. “What—what do you want?”

“You know what I want,” it said, and Billy’s stomach churned, remembering. “And if I don’t have it, I will—”

“Wait, I—I’ll do it,” Billy breathed.

It wasn’t hard to pick a victim—Billy’s dad may have been completely reasonable in hating his faggot son, but he was shitty to Max too, and Susan, and Billy’s mom—and there weren’t a lot of people he figured would listen to Billy Hargrove.

Problem was, Billy’s dad didn’t want to be lured out. Billy stared at the phone in the phone booth, thinking, and then tried saying he was injured at the abandoned drive-in theater on the edge of town—his car had broken down—and his dad just suggested he learn to not drink and drive.

As Billy tried to think of something more convincing to say, the Mindflayer grabbed the phone, and said “This is Steve Harrington, sir. We could really use your help. Bring the sheriff.”

There was a pause, and Billy knew his dad was repeating the name Harrington, like he always did talking about the richest family in town, the ones with the life he wanted, the people he wanted his family to match up to.

“See you soon,” said the Mindflayer, but it was frowning with Steve Harrington’s face, and Billy wondered whether Steve was the one who’d grabbed the phone.

Billy’s dad didn’t take long, pulling up to the phone booth in the parking lot of the abandoned drive-through theater, and slamming the door of his car. He hadn’t brought the sheriff. Harrington grabbed his arm as he reached for Billy—and Billy didn’t have to watch, now, what the Mindflayer did with its victims.

He sat gripping one of the dilapidated benches, curled over to puke at the sounds, until he heard shoes scuff towards him again, and looked up to see a smile on Steve Harrington’s face. The Mindflayer knew which muscles to contract for a smile, Billy reflected distantly, but it didn’t look quite like a person, more like a doll, a ventriloquist’s dummy’s wide-stretched grin.

“Get up,” the thing said, and Billy staggered to his feet as his father—not his father, anymore, he reminded himself, another thing—drove away. The Mindflayer yanked him up when he didn’t move fast enough, nearly yanking his arm out of its socket as it slammed him against the bottom edge of the old projection screen. “Time for your reward. Take what you want,” it said. “Do you want to put things in his holes?”

“No!” Billy wheezed, wincing as it clenched Steve’s hand on his shoulder to hold him in place. He screamed as his collarbone broke under the force of its grip. It fixed Harrington’s mouth over his, hot and clumsy, and Billy tried to just let it happen, his brain a jumble of pain, lust, and terror as Harrington’s grip closed around his neck, and teeth clonked into his—until Harrington’s voice sounded different, suddenly, low and urgent.

“Let me,” he said. “Let me, let me, you’re killing him—you can’t—if you kill him, he can’t help you—”

“Harrington,” Billy gasped, choking for air, and then Harrington was really kissing him, one hand steadying Billy’s jaw, the other against Billy’s side, holding him steady as he staggered.

It was so good, Billy thought, his stomach twisting with revulsion, the pain of his broken collarbone making him pant as his eyes filled with tears.

“You taste like puke,” Harrington said, making a face, but he leaned in again, his brown eyes open as his lips met Billy’s and opened against them.

Billy moaned, a little—he couldn’t help it, not with Steve Harrington’s actual hands on him, and Steve’s tongue against his. Even possessed by a monster, Harrington looked kinda smug, and Billy hated him still, a little, for barely knowing Billy existed, and all the things Billy’d done by himself to survive, because he didn’t have anyone he could call.

Harrington had friends, Billy reminded himself. Billy didn’t need to think too hard about kissing Harrington, because Harrington’s friends would come, and they’d stop the Mindflayer, and help him, and Harrington wouldn’t come to himself a bloody mess at the mall, barely able to keep from murdering a child.

Somebody’d probably put a bullet in Billy’s brain, he thought, hissing in pain as Harrington shifted closer, and the broken edges of Billy’s collarbone scraped together. His brain filled with the white noise of pain, and he shuddered as he felt the new scraping agony of his collarbone, and the old, dull ache of his wound at the mall.

Harrington’s hands were careful, tipping Billy’s head to kiss him deeper.

His friends would kill the Mindflayer for good, Billy thought, humming a little hysterically against Harrington’s lips. They’d make sure Billy’s body didn’t get used again, either to transport a monster, or as leverage. All Billy had to do was keep the Mindflayer distracted, until then. Until they saved Harrington, and put Billy down.

“Enough,” came the still, calm voice from Harrington’s mouth, and the smile, as he stepped back.

“Who else do you want me to lure out here,” Billy asked, his hands flat against the wall of screen behind him to keep himself upright. The Mindflayer’s face twitched, and Billy wondered, his whole left shoulder and side pounding with pain, whether Harrington wished Billy’d let him die.

The Mindflayer suggested Steve’s girlfriend, Wheeler. “We need him to stop fighting,” it said, smiling as it staggered and nearly fell. Billy walked away, breathing through the pain as he tried to get far enough away to call without the Mindflayer hearing.

He stepped into the phone booth and ruffled through the pages until he found Henderson—the kid he’d seen Steve with, the one whose name he was fairly sure of, because he hung around Max. “The Mindflayer has Harrington,” he said, flatly. “You gotta...trap him, or something. Better than you did me.”

“What in the hell,” the kid started, and Billy sighed.

“We’re at the drive-through theater,” he said. “He’s gonna be suspicious if I try to lure him anywhere.”

“Max has been looking for you,” Henderson said, and Billy bet she had.

“Hurry up and do something,” he said, watching the Mindflayer, in Steve Harrington’s body. It waved. “It’s gonna kill me,” he said, feeling a weird calm distance at the words, “—and I’m pretty sure he’s not gonna stop it, this time.”

“Shit,” Henderson said. "We'll need some time to get ready."

“Oh, also,” Billy said, nearly high with pain, adrenaline, despair, and the taste of Harrington’s kisses. “I gave it my dad. That’s important, right?” he asked. “You probably need to know that too.”

“Holy shit, you fed it a person?! Your dad?!” Henderson yelled, and Billy nodded, running his tongue over his teeth as he sighed.

“Yeah, I’m a monster.” He snorted a laugh and hung up, wandered out to sit on the bench next to the Mindflayer, and watch the sunset. After a couple of hours of staring at the sky, he reached over and squeezed the Mindflayer’s wrist.

“You’ll let him go if I do everything you want?” he asked, and the Mindflayer smiled again.

Billy’d thought he’d be reassuring Harrington by asking—even if he didn’t believe for a second that the Mindflayer would just politely leave—but then he remembered that Harrington could probably tell the same thing, and that he, Billy, was a moron.

When the sirens started, Billy winced. “I called the sheriff,” he said. “Told him I wanted to turn myself in. Told him I...took you.”

“The sheriff,” repeated the Mindflayer, focusing its unblinking stare down the road.

When the sheriff arrived, it wasn’t in his usual vehicle—it was a huge old Jeep, and he scrambled down with a groan, stretching until his back popped, and wiping sweat from his face. “Get in, boys,” he said, sighing, and jerking his thumb at the Jeep. When Billy was slow getting up—any motion of his arms flexed his collarbone, and his legs felt shaky on their own—the sheriff grabbed him by the shoulder.

Billy swallowed back a high noise in the back of his throat, realizing wildly that there was no reason to believe the Mindflayer had Harrington, no reason to believe him, only a waste of space they’d all seen possessed before, now making threatening phone calls. He closed his eyes, grimacing, and waited for the gasoline to soak him, or the muzzle of the gun to be pressed to his head, but the sheriff just watched Harrington walk towards the Jeep.

Harrington—the Mindflayer, Billy reminded himself—yelled, and he opened his eyes to see him lying on the ground, while the deputies, Hopper, and some other people held him down with their feet. Billy stared, watching the thing try and pretend they were wrong, laughing and pointing at Billy. They were wrapping his whole body in what looked like duct tape, wrapping his arms to his body and his legs together as he thrashed and swore.

It was probably assuming it would kill them while they drove, he realized, and opened his mouth, but they just tossed it into the Jeep and closed the doors, just watching it, like the Jeep was gonna take the Mindflayer back to the future, or start driving itself, or something.

Harrington started screaming. His feet banged against the inside of the tailgate, and the sheriff wandered back over to Billy.

“They trained us in those Jeeps for the National Guard, and for ‘Nam,” he said, with satisfaction. “The heaters can melt the snow two meters around, in January.”

“What,” Billy asked, completely lost. The sheriff put his hands on his belt, and Billy held his arms out, wrists together, expecting the cuffs, this time, but the man just shook his head, his lips thin.

“Go siddown, kid,” he said. “We’ll get you back to the hospital.”

Billy awoke again to the beeping of hospital machines. His arm was in a sling, and he remembered his broken collarbone, wresting his eyes open on the ceiling, and a dark shape. He flinched, hissing with pain, and Harrington’s voice came again.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I just—I feel like—”

“Fuck,” Billy breathed, shutting his eyes again.

“It seems wrong to thank you for...that,” Harrington muttered. “But you—your dad—you’re why I’m alive, so. Uh. Thanks.”

“Whatever,” Billy sighed, wondering if he sold everything—his car, his records—if he could afford a plane flight back to California, and out of this conversation where the straight boy he’d masturbated over—who’d gotten possessed, who Billy’d groped and kissed while he was possessed—thanked Billy for helping him murder Billy’s dad.

“...so. Yeah,” Harrington said awkwardly, and Billy snorted a laugh.

“Fuck off, Harrington,” he whispered, his throat raw.

“You did all that to save me,” Harrington said, blankly. “All it had to do was take me, and you helped.”

“I got a history with that thing,” Billy reminded him, rolling his eyes.

“You’re a really horny bastard,” Steve said, still vaguely, like he was figuring it out, and Billy started laughing so hard he hurt. “Y’know who else pulls pigtails,” Harrington said, darkly. “Kids, that’s who. Children. Fucking...kindergartners.”

It wasn’t even that funny, but knowing Harrington knew, and wasn’t pissed off, was such a relief Billy couldn’t stop giggling. His eyes blurred with tears.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Harrington said, belatedly, and Billy breathed out a sigh he didn’t even know he’d been holding.

“...d’you know what they’re gonna do with me?” he asked, hoarsely.

“What?” Harrington asked.

“I wasn’t possessed,” Billy whispered, laughing, a sharp painful bark. “Why am I—am I going to jail, or—?”

“No,” Steve said, blinking at him. “No, you saved me. We’ll figure it out.”

“Can’t believe you wanna be in the same room as me,” Billy laughed again, shutting his eyes and cringing through the pain.

“...oh,” Harrington said, and Billy winced. “I don’t...I don’t mind if you’re in love with me,” he said, and in the cold blue light from the hallway, Billy could see a smirk on Harrington’s stupid face. “I know you’d do anything for me now, right,” he said, grinning.

I don’t love you, I just wanna fuck you, Billy thought of saying, or I’m a fucking faggot, I’d do anyone, or I thought I was gonna die anyway, moron, something to shock Harrington out of looking illogically happy to find out Billy was willing to commit murder if Steve Harrington was a hostage. “...fuck,” Billy whispered.

“Oh! I know...your um, your...dad,” Harrington said incomprehensibly, grimacing. “But uh, Max and Susan are okay,” he said, squeezing Billy’s hand, like that was a thing now, and Billy stared at him, remembering squeezing Harrington’s wrist, when he thought they’d both die. “Thanks for saving me, Hargrove,” he said again, his hand tight over Billy’s, and Billy swallowed, watching his face. “Now go the fuck to sleep.”

Harrington sat beside him the whole night, his warm thumb stroking Billy’s wrist after Billy’s eyes drifted closed.

#Harringrove #Harringrove AUgust #Darkside AU #Flayed!Steve #Possession #Billy's terrible horrible no good very bad day #gets better

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stevebillyrecs · 4 years

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Not-So-Fluffy Holiday Season Recs

Ho-ho-ho, it’s that time of the year again! Where we all drown in thoughtful gifts, family bonding, and mistletoe kisses! If you’re looking for something other than just pure fluff (like me) but still want to get your holiday season fix, this is the rec list for you. That’s not to say that there won’t be any fluff, just that it’s not the sole focus of the story!

Included: Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Eve fics containing family drama, smut, heavy plot, or just some good ol’ angsty pining. Also, still a whole lot of fluff in between the non-fluff. Not included: Fics about any other, especially non-Christian holidays… because I couldn’t find a single one. Sad!

24 fics under the cut!

mistletoe and other holiday propaganda by brawlite / @brawlite & ToAStranger / @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger (54k, E)

Everybody wants something for Christmas. It just so happens that the only way for everyone to get what they want is for Billy and Steve to pretend to be dating over Christmas break. It’s really the only option.

Yule Shoot Your Eye Out by eternalgoldfish / @eternalgoldfish (3k, T)

Steve moves to Indianapolis to avoid Hawkins, but Billy doesn’t get the memo. Now it’s Christmas, they’re snowed in at work, and Steve is giving up on holidays. Merry Christmas, I could care less.

been crawling series by kate_button / @un-buttoned (8k, E)

The crop top was right there on the main aisle in the women’s section. Steve’s not entirely sure, like, why it exists, but he’s not disappointed about it. The rest of it came together pretty quickly (and cheaply) after that. So anyway, that’s how he finds himself drinking jungle juice out of a red solo cup looking like the twenty-two-year-old-man version of Karen Smith, animal ears and too much skin, bada boom, costume. I’m a dog. Duh.

You Get the Mistletoe and I’ll Be Your Santa, Baby by LazyBaker / @granpappy-winchester (2k, G)

Steve’s looking at him and Billy’s wearing Steve’s itchy and warm handmade I love you sweater, looking right back. They’re sharing a blanket.

nothing is finite (in the evening light) by Philosoferre / @babyhargrove (22k, T)

“It’d be convenient,” Billy adds. He’s looking at Steve expectantly, but he’s still a little guarded. “And, uh. Road trips, you know. They’re supposed to be fun and shit. Don’t make this a bigger deal than it is, Harrington.” Steve finds himself smiling; he doesn’t bother trying to hide it. Billy narrows his eyes curiously. "Sure,” Steve says. Or, Steve and Billy go on a road trip to Hawkins for Christmas break. Both of them might be very much in love.

If You Kissed Me Now by socknonny / @socknonny (1k, T)

When Steve kisses Jonathan under the mistletoe at the Byers’ Christmas party, it’s only for a joke. But for some reason, it sets Billy off, and Steve won’t leave him alone until he understands why.

Christmas in the Benz by flippyspoon / @flippyspoon (6k, E)

Steve escapes a crappy Harrington Christmas only to find another crappy Christmas refugee.

Under the Moon by ImNeitherNor / @imneithernor (3k, T)

“Hargrove?” The voice yanks Billy back into the present and he stands up fast enough to make himself dizzy. He blinks twice, shifts his boots in the snow, and looks over to where the voice had floated from. Standing in his Members Only jacket with that fucking bat over his shoulder, Steve looks at him like he’s seen a ghost. Billy clenches his fists and notices how Steve’s eyes trail to the blood on his mouth, the blossoming color on his cheek. “You’re bleeding,” Steve points out, like Billy doesn’t know that. “Really fucking observant, Harrington,” Billy curls his lip up and flicks his tongue out, over the split, and Steve’s eyes follow it like they always do. It’s a visceral thrill up his spine but anger eats it up. Steve is off limits and, as much as Billy wants to lick into his mouth and feel those lean muscles against his own, he isn’t stupid.

I don’t want a lot for Christmas by r0nj4 / @a-station-on-your-way (1k, M)

Steve buys a Christmas present and has mixed feelings about it.

well damn, billy, i can't control the weather by obsceme / @hartigays (7k, T)

narrator: and there was only one bed all of us, collectively: (gasps) and there was only one bed

Last Christmas by shocked_into_shame / @bornwithoutsin (2k, E)

It’s Billy and Steve’s first Christmas together, and Steve will not stop singing that fucking Wham song. Billy doesn’t mind, though, because Steve agrees to make it up to him.

Thankful For by ChrisLeon / @vgorodye (8k, NR)

The ad read: ‘No one to bring home for the holidays? Looking to piss off your parents? I’m your guy. 22 y.o. ex-con, never graduated high school, proud owner of a Camaro one year younger than I am. I can play anywhere from 18 to 29 depending on if I shave or not. Currently working as a line cook and late nights at a bar. If you’d like to have me as your strictly platonic date for Thanksgiving, but have me pretend to be in a serious relationship with you to torment your family, I’m down.’ Steve knew it was bad idea. He clicked on it anyway.

Five Days (To Midnight) by Blink_Blue / @winters-blue-children (7k, E)

It's been months since Steve left Hawkins and walked out of Billy's life. He's back for the holidays and Billy gets one last chance to make things right. They have five days together. Five days left of the year. Five days to cherish.

Time after Time by lemonlovely / @lemonlovely (10k, E)

“Really, Harrington. Stop avoiding the question. Tell me.” Those blue eyes flashed like an animal's in the dark depths of the Camaro. He repeated himself, enunciating like Steve was particularly slow. “Why. Would I have seen. Your wallet?” Steve glared down at Billy, feeling like they were caught in some kind of a staring contest that he hadn’t actually initiated, but also didn’t particularly want to lose either. Which seemed to happen a lot when he was around Billy – and that hadn’t been a lot for a few months. He’d been avoided like the plague, or maybe it was the other way around. Jesus Christ, apparently Billy was really gonna make him say it, as much as Steve didn't want to. He grit his teeth together. “Because.” Steve said. “I think I might have left it in…the backseat of your car. You know. That night. And I need it back.”

Deck the Fucking Halls by XxmerthurcatxX / @callmelilyshameless (700, T)

Billy hates Christmas but he loves Steve.

Mountain of Dreams by socknonny / @socknonny (1k, E)

Steve's drunk, and someone is singing.

Rivers 'Til I Reach You by tracy7307 / @tracy7307 (10k, E)

“I know lifting's a bad idea but I’m feeling.” Shame twisted up in Billy’s gut, and he toyed at his lasagna with his fork. “I don’t feel as. I don’t know. Confident.” His muscle mass was not as bulky as it used to be -- his abs and biceps just a shadow of what they once were. He had a soft little belly now. And then there were the scars. Dark pink floral patterns of scars all wound over his back, sides, and abdomen. Suddenly the thought of shirtless summer weather struck dread in his heart. For now, long-sleeved henleys and sweatshirts provided the perfect way for him to hide. It was literally the only time he’d been thankful for winter. “Hey,” Harrington said from across the table. He paused until Billy looked up to his eyes. His tone grew delicate and serious. “I’m not fucking around, okay? You. Look. Good.” And the way that Harrington looked at him -- brown eyes soft, his gaze lingering on Billy’s face. On his eyes. Well, maybe he meant it. “Yeah?” Billy asked. He felt his face heating. “You think so?” Harrington took the last bite of his lasagna. “Definitely.”

I Play Along with the Charade by moonflowers / @eatingmoonflowers (7k, T)

Billy'd been keeping an even closer eye on Harrington after that night at the Byers' - only natural, right? Thing is, watching and wondering never was enough for Billy.

in the wilderness life becomes by lymricks / @lymricks (3k, T)

Back in Hawkins for a winter break, Steve and Billy remember what it was like and learn about what it could be. Or, three old memories of Hawkins and one new one.

Bah Humbug, Billy Hargrove by LaVeraceVia / @laveracevia (14k, E)

“It’s okay, Billy. You’re not in any danger. No one can hear us,” Harrington says, and something about his tone—it’s not right. It’s too calm. Too…what? Certain. It’s too certain. Steve Harrington doesn’t talk like that. He means to say are you fucking high?, but what comes out instead is, “Who are you?” “Would you believe me if I said I was your guardian angel?”

merry christmas (i don’t want to fight tonight) by gothyringwald / @gothyringwald (1k, T)

Billy stands alone by the wall, beer in hand, a string of lights twinkling cheerfully above his head. Across the room Stacy Brent corners Steve under the mistletoe, pointing at it with one artfully manicured nail and smiling suggestively. His stomach turns and his blood heats. He chugs his beer, wipes his hand over the back of his mouth, jaw clenching as Stacy leans in.

Tell me, baby by socknonny / @socknonny (2k, M)

Steve finds Billy chopping down the worst tree in the entire Christmas Tree Farm.

A Love Thing by tracy7307 / @tracy7307 (2k, E)

Even five months after recovering from his injuries, Billy still has residual effects from the mindflayer. It's Christmas. Steve wants to help.

Happy Holidays From Your Least Favourite Homosexuals by bry0psida / @bry0psidawrites (1k, T)

Steve's family haven't had any contact with him since he came out as bi. He gets wind from Robin that he's being excluded from the family Christmas Card. Billy has the solution.

#harringrove #harringrove fics #harringrove fic recs #stranger things #reclist #trope:christmas #trope:thanksgiving #trope:newyears

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hawkinsschoolcounselor · 5 years

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Will Byers: The Great Debate

I know I still have some requested analyses to do, but I’m in a rotten mood, and I need to vent.

This whole debate on Will and whether he is gay has me infuriated. Yeah, I know I’m heavily biased due to my identification with the character, but I’m still pissed. The assumption that Will isn’t gay until they explicit state it is solely based on heteronormativity. In pop culture, people are simply assumed straight until proven otherwise. It’s the reason why they were able to hoodwink everyone with Robin in the first place. With just a mention of her saying she was obsessed with Steve in high school, everyone assumed the two of them would be a thing by the end of the season. That was a totally acceptable assumption to make. Thinking Will is gay? No, they need to tell us that.

There are reasons to think Will is gay, and certainly more than the casual fan probably realizes. I will go over them here, not that I need to lecture anyone who actually reads this on the topic.

1) Will is stated as having sexual identity issues in the original character summary.

Let’s just get this one out of the way. Yeah, it’s not known to the average viewer, but it’s still valid. Sure, they could have since deviated from the original plan, and by itself it may mean nothing, but it’s supporting evidence.

2) Will is bullied for being gay.

This is another one that doesn’t mean anything by itself. Will is bullied for being gay by both his father and the local bully. They could have used any number of similar characteristics, but they went with gay. Will is small, sweet, and honest, so there’s possibilities like mama’s boy, sissy, etc that could have gotten a similar point across without bringing in sexuality. It’s not just a passing mention. It comes up when Joyce talks to Hopper, and he even asks if it’s true. Troy is an absolute monster as he twists the knife in Mike’s wound. Troy bullies the other three for cruel, but accurate, reasons. He mocks Lucas’ race, Dustin’s lack of teeth, and Mike’s face (Mike kinda got off easy if you ask me). Now Troy may or may not be correct, but he probably thinks he is. He digs into each character’s deepest insecurities. He exists to tell us this information. If Will’s sexuality is unimportant, then why have Troy bully him the same way Will’s own father did? Troy simply could have made fun of him for being poor.

3) Will is especially close to Mike

This is made clear in every season. Yeah, they’re best friends, but Will and Mike are depicted as special. From the very start, Will can’t bring himself to lie to Mike. Yeah, I know, you can excuse the whole “It was a 7.” thing as just him foreshadowing his ordeal, but why set it up with Lucas telling him it’s ok as long as Mike doesn’t know? Mike is similarly shown as close to Will, with him being the most concerned. Dustin and Lucas are clearly worried too, and upset when the body is found, but Mike is shown taking it the hardest. They’re telling us the two of them share something special. Season 2 doubles down on this hard. Mike is the only one Will trusts with what’s happening to him. Mike is the only one he is shown remembering other than is mother. Mike is ultimately the one who breaks through to him.

4) Will is extremely jealous when Mike and El get together.

I don’t know why this one is hard for people to see. Maybe they’re just not looking for it. Yeah, some of it is just some good, subtle acting. Will is upset every single time Mike is shown showing affection for El. It technically starts in the Season 2 script with Will’s eyes being on Mike as they were all dancing. I know I’ve seen a clip of Will glancing over and looking upset, but I don’t remember that from the actual release. Was that a deleted scene? If so, its removal is conspicuous, especially with that released script. The jealousy is still apparent throughout Season 3. The sad looks on Will’s face whenever Mike and El are together, when Mike says he loves her. The anger he shows towards Mike, and only Mike, despite Dustin and Lucas similarly being focused on girls. I know I’ve seen people say he smiles when El dumps Mike. I honestly can’t tell, but he does look away, suggesting he doesn’t want his reaction to be noticed.

5) Mike is able to evoke emotion in Will

For the most part, Will is a quiet kid. He’s soft-spoken and has an innocence about him. He has a little frustration in Season 2, due to people treating him differently (though he leaves Mike out of his accusations), but he’s generally a go with the flow guy. Mike has the power to calm Will, to cheer him up, and make him cry both good and bad tears. Even in Season 3, his D&D annoyance is a slow build. It’s ultimately Mike’s rejection that sets him off. It’s specifically the fact that he feels he’s losing Mike. They were building that frustration alongside the D&D the entire season to that point. Is it really that much of a stretch for D&D to be a metaphor here? He jabs Mike over El when Mike tries to apologize, accusing him of throwing everything away over a “stupid girl.” Now, this “stupid girl” is supposed to be a friend of his, one who has helped save him twice. Will looks around Castle Byers at a D&D book and a drawing of Will the Wise. Both are accompanied by flashbacks beginning with Mike’s voice. He tears up the photo from Halloween, the night of the Crazy Together moment, right down the middle where Mike and Will are depicted. Will ends up destroying Castle Byers, berating himself the entire time, before collapsing in anguish. Yeah, it can be open to interpretation, but it’s not hard to see that Will could be calling himself stupid for thinking he and Mike shared something special now that El is in the picture. I’d like the people who think Will just isn’t ready to grow up to explain to me why that scene felt more like a breakup than a friend fight.

6) Will seems relatively trauma-free

Now, this is actually an issue I have with the show, as Will, along with pretty much the entire cast, should be amazingly traumatized. I bring it up only to counter the idea that Will has lost a portion of his childhood to the Upside Down, and so he’s not ready to grow up. Will has lost about two weeks of his childhood. He showed some issues in Season 2 before getting possessed, but he’s also shown enjoying his childhood as well. Just because we rejoin his life when bad stuff returns to Hawkins it doesn’t mean he had no life in the interim. He didn’t spend every day since getting rescued from the Upside Down in a hospital or deprived of his friends. There’s honestly no reason why Eleven would be more ready for adolescence than Will. If anything, Will should be associating his trauma with D&D and avoiding it like the plague. It should be causing him post-traumatic stress. He should want to get as far away from reminders of what happened as possible. A game with mindflayers and demogorgons isn’t something he should want. He has a reason for wanting D&D, and it’s not that he’s still a kid inside, because he still had other interests before Season 3, like comics, drawing, and the arcade.

7) Will not liking girls doesn’t just mean he doesn’t like them yet

This is the other counter argument I’ve noticed: that Will just hasn’t matured to liking girls yet. While it’s not unbelievable for a boy his age to not start sexually maturing, there’s really no indication of this. He isn’t just uncomfortable dancing with the girl in Season 2, he flat out doesn’t want to do it. He also has no problem with Max joining them for Halloween, stating that Dustin and Lucas were excited about it so he ok’d it. He understands boys liking girls. He shows no real hostility towards Dustin or Lucas for it. When he tells Joyce he’s never going to fall in love, it doesn’t sound like a kid who finds the idea of dating gross. He sounds sad as he says it. When Mike says it’s not his fault Will doesn’t like girls, Will is stunned into silence. Now Mike doesn’t know if Will is gay, and Will may not really know either, but it cuts deep.

In conclusion

By no means is my interpretation definitely correct. I could be absolutely wrong. But why is my interpretation seen as ridiculous? My theory isn’t perfect, but I have evidence. I have rebuttals to alternate interpretations. If we’re not meant to think Will is gay, why does it seem like they keep giving us reasons to? If it’s not important, people from the show could easily just say so. Noah and Finn end up having to awkwardly respond to questions they may not even have the answers to.

It’d be very strange if the Duffers and their team somehow painted themselves into a corner by accident. It’s possible, sure, but I don’t see how it could keep happening. Finn had said they had other takes of “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” including one that added “yet”, but stated that they ultimately went with the one in question. Well, I mean, they chose to go with that one. I don’t know why, but neither do the people saying Will is just immature. We speculate, and if I speculate that they went with that one because that’s the storyline they’re going for and are trying to keep it under wraps, then I should be allowed to do so without being scoffed at. I may be biased because of my bisexuality, but they’re also biased because of their heteronormativity.

#stranger things #will byers #mike wheeler #byeler #stranger things 3 #spoilers

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sirsparklepants · 5 years

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I’m really in my feelings tonight about both Stranger Things and physical disability so in grand fandom tradition I smacked out a fic about it. I make no promises about accuracy to either Billy’s injuries on screen or actual rehabilitative medicine in the 80s; this is based on my own experience entirely.

—

The chest wound wasn’t the worst of it, really. Probably would have been if he’d been awake for it, but the first six weeks after Billy almost died, he spent in a medicated haze somewhere so classified he never knew the name of the facility or the faces of any of its staff while they worked out if that thing was still in there somewhere, hiding. By the time he was transferred to somewhere a little less secure, he was mostly knitted up there, if shockingly weak.

No, the worst of it had come a few days into week seven, when a surprising number of tearful reunions had been gotten out of the way (he blamed getting weaned off the morphine). A nice woman with a sweet voice had come in to explain to him exactly what the extent of his injuries were. Turned out humans just weren’t meant to hold a demonic force from another dimension. It, him, the Mindflayer, he didn’t know what Billy was capable of, really. It made him go longer, work harder, than his body could take - that and the strain of fighting it, of breaking through enough to save Karen Wheeler, to rev the engine, to turn on him at last, had… damaged him. The woman used words like “cortisol” and “parasympathetic nervous system” and “pervasive joint weakness”, and Billy stared at her blankly. When he finally understood what she was getting at, he squeezed the rails of his bed until his knuckles turned white.

“Get out,” he said, through gritted teeth. He didn’t yell. There was a fury boiling in his gut, but he didn’t yell. He was always yelling. Neil, the Mindflayer. Billy didn’t yell much any more, and it had nothing to do with the lingering ache in his diaphragm.

It wasn’t fair, he wanted to say, childishly. I lost almost everything else, and now I have to lose this too? He’d always been proud of his body, not just how it looked but what it could do, and now both of them had been taken away. Not completely - even with the scar, his face still looked nice, and it wasn’t like he was paralyzed. But he’d never play basketball again. He’d struggle, tinkering with his Camaro. And he’d never be able to work himself back up to cut enough that people would ignore the scars littering his chest.

But not much in his life had been fair, so after half an hour of staring sightlessly at the wall, feeling the tears creep down his face but not feeling the raging storm that used to come with them, he called the woman back in.

So now Billy had a physical therapist. He had braces for his wrists and his knees. He had exercises that he would have sneered at before all this, when he lifted weights so the burn in his muscles would drown out the burn of humiliation, of helplessness in his gut after a confrontation with his father. He had an on-and-off shooting pain down one leg and in the ball of the opposite shoulder joint that made sleeping on his side an agony. He had a prescription for that shooting pain that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. He had a burning resentment whenever he watched sports on TV or kids ride by on their bikes past his living room window as he cursed and sweated his way through his PT.

It wasn’t so bad, he guessed. Better than being dead, at least if it wasn’t a bad day. At least he was already used to the pitying stares people gave him in the street, although it was unusual that it was for his own sake and not because of a gift from his dad. At least he could work on it, even if his PT said he went too hard and might offset his progress. Billy had to find something else to calm that burn of helplessness inside him, though. Since everything, it just kept building up.

#billy hargrove #fic #stranger things spoilers #stranger things season 3 spoilers #eyyyy guess who forgot to stick their italics in while transferring from gdocs #writing while drinking is fine but edit and post sober y'all don't be me #my fic

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elenoremalfoy · 5 years

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wake up (billy hargrove x reader)

beware: season 3 spoilers ahead. proceed with caution.

request by @jodibullock1; a happier ending for billy. literally anything where he ends up okay (like he deserves.)

description: the end is near for everyone, especially billy, but if there’s anyone who has a chance at getting through to him—it’s you.

wake up. wakeup. wakeupwakeupwake—

when i finally came to, robin and steve were hovering above me. i could see mouths moving, lips forming words, but couldn’t hear them over the roar in my head.

or wait, no— the roar grew louder, as if it were coming from behind me.

trying to turn around, the flashing lights whirling above me, i realized where we were. on the second floor balcony of the starcourt mall.

in the middle of the end of the world.

i felt hands at my waist, under my arms. steve was attempting to help me to my feet, and robin was lighting the wick of a firework—

a firework?

she threw it down into the food court, where it erupted. flares of red and gold and green forced the monster back and away from two lone figures. through the midst of chaos and the mindflayer’s staggering, it wasn’t easy to make them out.

but then it hit me.

the last few minutes rushed back to me and the only thing i could think to ask steve was “billy?”

he looked back at me and in his eyes i saw all i needed to know. it wasn't good. i had to get down there.

“hey, hey, hey!” steve grabbed me by both arms, having guessed what i was about to do. “he’s not all there anymore, he’s not billy. do you get that? if you go down there, there’s nothing we—” he gestured between him and robin, “can do to protect you from him.”

“steve,” i said, my voice wavering. my best friend, my comrade, steve-the-hair-harrington was on the verge of tears. “i know.”

“a little help over here, guys!” we looked to see robin launching another rocket of a firework at the beast. unfortunately, it found our hiding spot behind the counter of a restaurant, and shot a tentacle out our way.

it missed, hitting the stall next to us, but it likely wouldn't next time. as it recoiled, i saw it nearing nancy and johnathan, who were opposite the balcony from us.

“go,” he said, “but you better come back.”

“is that an order, dingus?” i tried to laugh, but it didn’t come out right. i hugged him quickly, just in case.

“you bet your ass it is, nerd.”

“affirmative, sir,” i said half-heartedly. steve let go first, and i jumped over the counter. with one leg over the side already, i stopped. “hey robin?”

“yeah?” she had a match between her teeth and was preparing to light another. i knew she had no idea how badass she was, but i made a mental note to tell her later.

“pass me one of those, will you?”

“i'll do you one better.” she gave me three, ruffled my hair, and sent me off.

i didn’t go far though. i hadn’t planned to just yet.

i reached the edge of the balcony and called out to the mindflayer. “over here, asshole!”

“get down!” i looked back to see steve and robin, both utterly confused. “i said get the hell down!”

in front of me a tentacle was making its way towards us, but was thrown off course. something on the ground level had caught its attention.

“no, wait!” i swore, taking off my sneakers. there wasn’t anytime for thinking. “hey, this way, buddy! over here!” i flung my shoe, and it stopped. i tossed the other, and it growled.

fumbling with the lighter i continued to call the beast towards me, hoping to buy el the time she needed to get out of there. eventually, robin and steve caught on and they began throwing kitchenware, their shoes, whatever they could find.

the monster roared and finally headed our way. i waited for it to get close. close enough that i could count its teeth before i lit the firework and tossed it into its gaping mouth.

and then i darted for the escalator, using the middle of it as a slide to save time. a trick i'd learned from robin earlier.

now on the ground level i could see billy and el. they were only a few feet away, and she was...el had her hand resting against his cheek and he was crying.

steve had been wrong. this was billy looking back at el, this was billy shaking with emotion— with the same mix of fear and strength i'd seen burning in him a thousand times before when we were alone.

“billy,” i said, caught so off guard that i stumbled forward. my voice was so quiet, too soft to have been heard over the screeching of the mindflayer and fireworks, but somehow, someway, he’d heard me.

his eyes traveled from my bare feet up to meet my gaze. my name fell from his mouth, and my heart lurched inside my chest. he was still in there. we still had time.

i broke out into a sprint, needing to be by his side, when suddenly the wind was knocked out of me. i watched billy’s eyes grow wide, his scream piercing the air, before i realized he was getting smaller and father away.

the monster had gripped me in one of its many arms, and i could barley breathe as i was lifted into the air. luckily, it hadn’t pinned my arms, and if i could just reach my pocket—

“we don’t need you,” billy said. i looked down at him confused, until i realized he’d been taken over again.

“billy, wait,” i sputtered, still rising up towards the skylight. “please, let me go!”

“we just need el. she’s the key,” he told me. i tried wrenching free, but being this high up, there was no point. if i got free or if this thing decided to let me go, i'd be dead as soon as i hit the ground.

“we’re going to stay here,” he assured me, in that cold and distant voice, “and she is going to let us.”

el. he meant el.

who had disappeared from behind him. wherever she was, whatever she was doing, i just hoped she’d make it fast. the hold that this thing had on me was so tight that i was starting to lose oxygen up here.

“i don’t understand!” i struggled to find the words. something, i had to do something to stall him. “you don’t want this billy. this isn’t you.”

the sound of fireworks had ceased, and i guessed that they’d all run out of them. shit, shit, shit. i dropped mine before i was caught.

“all this work, all this pain. we’ve been building it for her.” below me, billy laughed and shook his head. “you think you and your little friends can save the world? there is nothing that any of you can do now!”

“i'm not trying to save the world, dumbass!” i was now fighting against the tightening grip for any bit of air i could get. “i'm just—trying to save you.”

he sneered and the monster howled with him, its mouth opening up directly beneath me. i was fuming with frustration, knowing that if i couldn't get through to him now, then i would done for pretty soon. unless el was ready.

“billy, please!” i cried, “please, you have to fight him. you have to wake up! think about me, think about your mom, think about max—your little sister, maxine.” i broke off, gasping for air. “if you do this, she’ll be all alone. you don’t...want that. i know you don’t! because then she’d be just—like...you.”

the grip that’d been cutting off my circulation eased up a bit and i took that as a sign that i was breaking through. his body went rigid with tension, but i didn’t let that stop me. i knew he hated being reminded of his mother, but i didn’t see another wound to press. i was out of options.

“she’s doesn’t know, does she? she doesn’t know what it’s like to be you. max never even knew her, but you...you called every night for a year. do you remember telling me that?”

billy knelt to the ground, now trembling. i could see the sweat beading off of him from here, soaking through his tank.

he was doing it, he was fighting.

“billy!” i tried to hold his attention. “do you remember? last christmas...we traded necklaces. after you told me about her, you gave me her necklace. i swore i’d never take it off as long as you’d wear mine. you promised me.”

i could taste blood in my mouth, but otherwise felt entirely numb. “look at me, damnit!”

he did, and i was able to realize that his trembling had actually been sobbing. he looked at me and the rest of the world went blank. there was only him.

he was trying to say something, but i couldn’t hear him. not until he allowed himself to sag against the floor entirely. my name. it was just my name over and over again, and then he was apologizing. to me, to max.

“let me go, billy,” my voice broke from somewhere inside my chest. he twitched, trying to pull himself towards me. “you don’t have to do this. please, just put me—”

suddenly, steve and robin and lucas were tackling billy, pushing him backwards and breaking our connection.

“now!” i heard nancy scream and suddenly fireworks were fired in their direction, and i—

i was falling.

i didn’t feel it at first, it was as if i were frozen above the still open jaws of the monster, and then in a rush of wind and blood and dread, i was hurtling straight down into the void.

i knew this would happen, had known the risks, and had been willing to die if it meant getting him back and keeping my friends safe, but all i knew in that moment was fear, blind and terrible fear.

i never even got to scream before the world cracked beneath me and everything froze.

actually froze.

i could feel the strain of the world trying to balance itself out, hanging with me in the air. along with several bits of debris and sparks of light and the echoes of flesh tearing.

that being the only warning, i was still holding my breath when the monster finally combusted, and i was slowly, carefully lowered to the ground. i heaved as much air as i could into my chest, while looking around to find el.

i found her atop the balcony, holding tight to mike. they were both staring up at the sky that was no longer red.

the gate was closed.

we’d done it. it was over.

we were safe.

i whirled in the other direction to find the rest of the kids standing around billy, his body lying limp on the ground. max was kneeling over him, crying and...my stomach dropped.

no. no. no, no, no, no, “billy!” i cried, my voice still breaking.

i was next to him in the time it took my heart to beat. every second felt excruciatingly slow. he couldn’t be gone, he couldn’t be.

“hey! hey, billy, wake up.” i’d crumpled down next to him, and max leaned back against lucas, burying herself into him.

i brushed the hair away from billy’s face, and tried to assess the damage. to look for a wound, where was the wound, there had to be a wound, but aside from a few bad cuts and bruises i couldn't find anything lethal.

“billy? billy, come on, wake up!” my hands returned back to his face, and i discovered a trail of blood coming from his nose, his ears, a thin line of red appeared between his lips, and then he coughed.

“get him on his side now!” i didn’t even recognize my voice as my own. “he’s alive! max. max, look he’s alive, he’s okay. we’re okay.”

i tugged him on his side with the help of the kids, and beat between his shoulder blades in an attempt to force the blood out of his system to keep him from drowning in it.

he began spitting it out, and gasping for air, his eyes snapping open the moment he was able to take in a deep breath.

“billy,” max said.

i cried watching them together and allowed steve to wipe the blood from my face while robin tucked herself into my side.

we were gonna be okay.

billy let maxine wrap him in a hug, and only pulled away when he began coughing again.

i braced a hand on his back to make sure he wasn’t going out on us, but then he was laughing. when he looked at me, he smiled. the sort of smile that if i'd been standing would have made me weak in the knees. instead i started crying, and he pulled me into him.

“i'm okay,” he said into my hair, as he held me close. “we’re okay.”

“don’t mock me, asshole,” i pulled away to look at him again. “i thought you were dead.”

“i know,” he rested his forehead against mine. “i know, and i'm sorry. all those things i did, all that pain i caused, all those people i—”

“shhh,” i placed both hands on his face, one thumb over his lips to stop him from spiraling. “billy, it’s okay. you’re here now and you’re you again. that’s all that matters, okay?”

“thank you,” he said, turning to kiss the palm of my hand. “thank you.”

he grabbed my chin and tilted it towards him. before he could finish thanking me again, i pressed my lips against his. he returned the kiss with the same urgency, the both of us still having to part for air more often than usual.

i felt him smile as he gave up trying to hold himself upright. we fell slightly backwards, him leaning mostly against me for strength. i laughed into the kiss. i was alright with that as long as it meant he was here with me, at the edge of the end of the world.

a fate that we’d all managed to escape again.

note; request are open & warmly encouraged!

elenore malfoy (@elenoremalfoy)

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ottorocket808 · 4 years

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Chapter Nine: The Gate

Ahhh!!! Their reunion is so fuckin cute and sweet and here comes Hop to fuck it all up. What would give you the indication that he would be mad at El? She wanted to see him she did go see him and you threw a fucking hissy fit. YOU got in the way all he wanted was to know she was safe he would’ve done anything to know that she was alive. I’d be pissed at him too you let me believe she was dead for a year and you want me to understand?

Aww group hug!!! She noticed Dustin’s teeth! No more purring Dustin we do this in the mirror before a date or dance. Skip Max not sure if that was leftover from seeing them at school or because she doesn’t already know her. Joyce with that motherly love she’s been lacking. You already know she’ll let you see him you saved his life. We have our final puzzle piece to close the gate.

Karen... why did you answer the door like that? Billy stop flirting with married women that’s how you get shot! I always hate that line obviously older woman I didn’t know so and so had an older sister heheh lame ass line Karen you thought he was here for Nancy meaning that you can tell he’s young control your hormones. Todd only pays bills there he can’t be slangin pipe with any type of accuracy if she’s being this obvious with a child.

Now ain’t the time Dustin. STOP UNDERESTIMATING HER!! She destroyed your cabin without even trying she’s the one who opened the gate in the first place if anybody can close it it’s El. It’s interesting that it took this long to connect that dot

Fuck you mean you not leaving Mike?! You did it earlier for a day and a half and before anybody says anything about her not knowing she didn’t even ask. Steve you were never a shit boyfriend she played with your heart because she didn’t want to be alone if she couldn’t have Jonathan and she should’ve said something to that effect instead of letting you feel like it was you.

Dammit Hop can’t you let these kids be cute together for a minute without you interrupting?!

Yup that mild coronary you’re having because she hitchhiked home you deserve but you can tell that she learned and grew a lot since she left she needed to leave regardless because of what happened while she was gone. I get it Hop but if you hold too tightly you’ll kill her spirit and she’ll resent you instead of loving the safety you provide.

Bitchin’

Dammit Dustin we just wasting good food? After all this if they just set it on fire I’d be pissed. That thing is stupid slimy it sounds disgusting.

Just let him pace in peace he literally just found out she’s alive and now she’s tossing herself back into the fray with hundreds of Demodogs runnin loose anybody would be worried especially when you have to sit on your hands and hope that everything goes ok.

This is the start of a trend with Max that pisses me off El isn’t a pack mule or a work horse yes she’s strong as shit but she bleeds just like the rest of us backup and assistance ain’t ever been a bad thing when fighting a war.

It ain’t a fact until it happens. Here comes Billy!! ‘If he finds out I’m here he’ll kill me, he’ll kill us.’ Proceeds to post up in the window where he can clearly see her?! The sucker punch was a bitch move Hargrove.

I’m pretty sure that part of the reason that he doesn’t want Lucas around Max is that it’s hard to control someone with friends if I know you have nowhere to go you won’t sneak out and if she does it’d be to the arcade which is probably closed by now so she’d be on her way back if she wasn’t here. Will he actually strike her is my question he says he’ll kill her will he really? Or is she just being dramatic not wanting to get in trouble for sneaking out?

Another trend is that they don’t help each other literally one has to be being beaten half death before anybody moves to help.

It really seems like the hype of Steve got to Billy way more than Steve himself did. I’ve never heard Steve refer to himself as King Steve other people do that. Screaming that Billy’s gonna kill him is so far from helpful it’s painful. How much of that shit is lethal she could kill him. It doesn’t really work like that Max if his dad says come get you because you snuck out of the house again he has to collect. What the hell is Billy supposed to tell Neil when he finally wakes up? His dad doesn’t seem like the type to accept failure.

Ok isn’t the word I would use determined is better.

I would freak the fuck out too she’s 13 and driving a car with me in it while not actually knowing where she’s going and speeding down a dark road with a box on the gas pedal because she can’t actually reach it.

That high pitched scream was for sure Lucas.

They’re heating the woods around the house too because the windows need replacing because Hop made a El cry like a big ass bully.

Well Steve he has a point.

Mama Steve makes a good point too.

It kinda pissed me off seeing Hop out El to the Doc at the drop of a hat he could forge a birth certificate and drag her to another lab and it would be his fault for trusting the wrong person.

The inflammed Butt Hole strikes again people should really stop shining light at it. How did it get in your mouth past your mask? Where the hell did they get this equipment??

Jonathan would let The MindFlayer live in his brother indefinitely Joyce wants it out and she wants it out now. Jonathan doesn’t have a do whatever it takes mindset and he would’ve messed everything up. He was quick to turn that heater down but Joyce is currently being choked and I hear him say ‘mom!’ But see no hands entering the frame to help her.

We will never speak of this Mama Steve.

In an interesting twist Nancy saves his moms life. I wonder if Will has a scar because of that. So nobody wondered where the inter dimensional blac smoke went?

RUN BABIES AND MAMA STEVE RUNNNNNN!!!! Protect your baby Mama Steve!

It’s like they don’t even realize they’re there maybe it’s a priority thing El is the more pressing threat so even though they’re in pain gotta stop her.

She’s damn near face to face with it and even though she’s disintegrating his tentacle he’s still trying to take her over and stop her. Even though a lot of people didn’t like The Lost Sister Chapter it helped El to boost her power using her own pain and anger therefore helping her close this massive gate my baby is growing up and she’s so strong I’m so proud.

Sweet El/Hop moment I still don’t like him but he means a lot to her.

Hawkins lab is closed but vulnerable. Again if this was real Nancy would’ve destroyed her entire family. But it’s a plot line so I let it go.

Hey Hop her name is Jane Ives you didn’t actually adopt her this still really feels like kidnapping.

Aww it’s Snowball time

Will learning to dance is adorable, I don’t think Mike will ever like forced pictures, Lucas is gonna toss Erica out the window and Max looks cute Billy looks kind of lost he needs to learn proper communication gotta get that hair right Dustin.

Steve is the big brother we all wish we had. Dustin is a dork and I love him. Don’t be talking about my baby’s Steve inspired mullet. She enjoys torturing this boy. I don’t think calling someone Zombie Boy is a good way to show interest Will looked scared and he’s been to The Upside Down. I still wanna fight these girls he’s a sweet kid a bit of a dork but he is a good guy and they made him cry. This is the best thing Nancy does all season. ‘Girls this age are dumb.’ You led your 1st boyfriend on for a year still dumb.

Hardcore RIP BOB moment.

This song is so damn creepy. They are like puppies in love it’s adorable look at them go ah it’s so sweet. And now I’m pretty sure the creepy song is for The MindFlayer being gigantically creepy in The Upside Down.

#strangerthings2 #Stranger things #The Gate #Chapter Nine #stranger things season2

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