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saekkas · 1 year

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𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐘 𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐒

summary: romantically cliche things the boys do when they're in love with you.

includes: isagi, nagi, reo, yukimiya, rin, sae, kunigami, kaiser, karasu, bachira, aiku.

notes: this might just be the most lovey-dovey thing i've ever written in my life.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐍: goes out of his comfort zone, does anything he can so that you're always smiling when with him, makes butterflies erupt every single time he opens his mouth.

kaiser, sae, isagi, karasu

"can't you let me see? we've been doing this for hours!"

his hands are around your face, shielding your vision. you can see nothing but darkness, only small spots of light from the gaps of his fingers. he's been nothing but romantic for the whole day, eager to celebrate your anniversary on a day off. he's taken you to a popular italian place, which he's booked under your name from two months ago, and brought you to a science and art museum that's produced more than a hundred lock screen worthy photos.

all the while keeping his hands around your eyes every time you move onto a new spot. he's determined to make this the best day of your life, and with the way it's going, he's gotten his wish.

"calm down, we're almost there." his voice is right by your ear, tone completely warm as he chuckles at the shiver it brings. "since when were you the impatient one in the relationship?"

"can you blame me? how am i supposed to know you aren't leading me into a trench in the middle of nowhere?" there's only silence, and you can only assume he's grown tired of your whining. "it's a perfectly plausible scenario and you know that. what if-"

"we're here," he says, this time whispering lowly as he stops your movements, placing his chin on your shoulder. "i hope you like it. it's my last present for today."

you blink your eyes when he finally takes away his hand, trying to get used to the onslaught of brightness. you gasp, realizing belatedly that he's taken you to the canopy of your joined apartment. he's taken two chairs from your kitchen, along with a high desk from your work room, and transformed the space into a private space for two.

"this is beautiful. i can't believe you did this for me."

his hands are warm as they trail down your waist, wrapping you snugly against his chest. you can feel the soft breath coming from his mouth, and the telltale signs of a five o'clock shadow as he nuzzles into your neck. "do you like it?"

"i love it. i love you." you stand in silence for a while, taking the time to take everything in. you snap out of your trance like state when he takes your hand, pulling you towards the seats. "thank you. you've completely made my present for you look like trash."

there's a shadow of a smile on his face, bright even under the darkness of the ink blue sky. you'd print it if you could. you'd freeze this moment, this day, so you'll get to experience it forever, in a never-ending loop, if you could.

"two tickets to meet my favorite team is far from trash, but i'll accept the compliment."

that shadow of a smile turns into a grin, and you realize you never want to experience a day without his smile for the rest of your life if you could.

the lights from nearby buildings look and feel as if fireflies, surrounding you in a peaceful hue. his eyes are a different shade today, far brighter than they usually are. his embrace far warmer.

you suppose love does that to the best of people. and you suppose you're lucky to be able to get to experience it with him.

"i have something for you."

you quirk an eyebrow as he leans down to reach for something under his seat. it's rectangular, medium-sized, nothing special looking, and yet your heart's beating against your ribcage, threatening to let loose and engulf him whole.

"i thought this whole set up was supposed to be the last?"

"i lied," he chuckles, handing the object to you with soft eyes. "open it."

the wrapping is shabby at best, and you bite your lip, both endeared and amused by his actions. you tear it gently, gasping when the cover of your favorite book looks back at you. "i..."

the cover feels smooth under your fingers, and you can only choke back a sob when you flip onto the first page, finding his scribbled writing right under the author's autograph. the next pages are similar in different ways, filled with little notes and highlighted words at the edges. his thoughts immortalized for you to read.

"you annotated a book for me?" you sniffle, wiping away the tears before they fall onto the pages. "and got the author to sign it?"

"why are you crying?" he asks out of pure sweetness, nothing but love looking back at you from his eyes. "isn't that what a guy does when he's in love with a girl?"

you only nod, still at a loss of words as he leans down another time, this time placing a cool box on the desk. "gelato?" he asks with a laugh as he places two of your favorite flavored dessert in between you. "can't have my love crying on our special day, can we?"

you learn that the gelato isn't the last surprise either. his last present comes in the form of a ring and a promise made under the night sky.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍: holds every single one of your things, will not let you move a single finger, proudly shows you off as his.

aiku, nagi, kunigami

"i have two hands too, you know?" you laugh, your shoulders shaking as you lean against the apartment door's entrance. "i can bring my own things."

you watch with thinly veiled amusement as he shakes his head with a stubborn frown. his footsteps are heavy, the added weight of all your shopping bags dragging him down slightly. you move slightly to the left, pushing the door open wider so he could enter.

"i'll get you something to drink. hold on," you say with a pointed look before making your way to the kitchen to fetch a water bottle. walking back, you giggle at the sight of him peeking into the paper bags. "here."

the palm of his hands are slightly calloused against the skin of your thighs as he all but drags you onto his lap. the couch sinks under your joined form and you raise an eyebrow when he looks up at you with puppy eyes.

"what?" you ask, slightly suspicious of the pout on his face after the few seconds of silence. "you want something don't you?"

"show me?" his tone is dripping in honey and his hands rub circles on your back as he tries to persuade you. "wanna see my girl all dolled up and pretty."

you sigh at his request, your heart weak at his show of affection. "fine. you better pay attention though."

he hums, nodding his head excitedly as you take the bags and bring them into the bedroom with you, ready for a fashion show.

"i'm not wearing every single one so i'll show you my favorites." the dress you have on is innocent, fun. one you've picked exactly for picnic dates and ice cream runs. it's a baby blue color, white lace trimming your waist with a bow to match. "what do you think?"

his eyes roam from your head down to your feet, and you blink at the silence that coats his answer. "do you not like it?"

he blinks back, as if breaking out of a gaze before he stands, leaning down to press three pecks onto your lips. you watch as he walks back to the couch, tilting your head at the coy smirk on his face. you feel dumbfounded when he waves a hand, motioning for you to try the next one.

the second outfit is far simpler. white top matched with a leather jacket and boots. there's no other sound besides the fan by the edge of the kitchen and his footsteps as he leans in to press another kiss. only two this time.

you snort when you realize when he's doing. if there's anything your boyfriend will do, it's charm you with whatever weird stunt he has up his sleeve. "you are impossible. what is this? your version of america's top model?"

"i don't hear you complaining." he walks back to his seat, watching you with lidded eyes and a small smirk filling his expression. "next one?"

you snort, changing into the last outfit for him to see. this one's far more intimate as you've bought it for special occasions. the dress is a dark maroon, it sinks down to the floor with a plunging neckline that is a wonder to the eyes. you watch as he stiffens, becking you forward with a come-hither motion on his finger.

you sway your hips as you walk, looking at him with a coy smile that he most certainly loves. before you have the chance to lean down, he shoots up, pressing three kisses on your lips, and another on your exposed chest.

his hands wrap around your waist, tilting your chin so that you meet his eyes. "next one."

"that was the last one." you quirk an eyebrow, squinting when he grins. "what?"

"try my clothes. i'll give you full scores for every outfit."

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒: gets you anything and everything that reminds him of you, reminds you of your worth every day, charming to the point that your mother wants you to marry him asap.

rin, yukimiya, bachira, reo

"hey, i know you're a big-time pro-athlete now but that doesn't mean you need to spend all your money on me."

your boyfriend has a thing for splurging. he buys things that are almost always useless and insists on gifting them to you with a big shiny bow wrapped around it. he isn't much of a spender for himself, insists on wearing his clothes until they're somehow falling off his body but with you? his pockets are loose, wallet seemingly always filled with credit cards.

an investment for the future, he calls it.

you don't know whether to laugh at the absurdity of his words or cry because this handsomely talented individual actually sees you as part of his future. he's calling you as his future. talk about sweeping a girl off her feet.

"they're pretty. i thought you'd want to see them."

the bouquet that he sent is nothing if not pretty. it's a stunning piece of work, an arrangement of many different kinds of vividly colored flowers wrapped into a huge bundle. it's hefty in your hand and you'd be lying of you said that it isn't a treat for the eyes.

"you could have taken a picture and showed it to me through text, eh?" you walk forward, smelling the flowers in your hand, and carefully place them on the desk to put in a vase later. "you didn't need to ship it all the way from paris."

you watch as the pixelated version boyfriend shrugs, a sweet smile forming on his lips at your words. it's nighttime where he's at, and it shows through the darkness of the hotel window he currently resides in. the video shakes as he holds his phone, moving away from the window and onto a bed.

"do you like it?" he asks, propping a hand behind his head and on a pillow. "the florist recommended that one for you. she said it had a special meaning."

"yeah? tell her she has amazing taste and is very kind if you ever meet her again."

he hums, eyes hazy and laced with sleep. you smile when he tries to stifle a yawn. "you should go to sleep. it's late there, isn't it?"

"it's fine." he yawns like a puppy is your first thought when he does let it out. there's an air of tiredness around him, clearly drained from practice and a match. you giggle when he yawns again, this time stretching his hands above his head like a cat. adorable. "i wanna talk to you for a bit more. i miss you."

you soften at that. "i miss you too. just three more days, right?"

he nods at that, the smile never leaving his face. the smile, you've come to realize, is reserved especially for you. "i told the florist to write a note for you too. is it there?"

you hum, placing the phone against your mug to look for it. you've been too distracted by its beauty that you never noticed the small piece of white paper that's attached to one of the flowers' stems. the first thing that catches your eye is the list of flowers the bouquet is made from and their meaning.

roses; love, warmth. dahlia; eternal love, appreciation, commitment. chrysanthemums; loyalty, happiness, joy. ranunculus; charm and attractiveness. anemones; anticipation.

the second, is the beautiful cursive handwriting that details, "i'll love you until the last one withers."

you look back to your phone, smiling brightly at him. "thank you. this means everything to me." there's an air of happiness that surrounds him at your words, his smile brightening along with yours. there's a glint in his eye that you're suspicious of, yet you don't get to call him out for it.

"i'm glad you like it. i'm gonna head in now. i'll text you in the morning, okay?" he hums, padding from his bed and turning the light off, bathing him in a moonlit glow. "call me when you wake up."

"okay." there's always a bittersweet feeling in saying good night to him, in saying temporary farewells. your shoulders slump slightly and you nod, blowing him a kiss. "night. sweet dreams. i love you."

"i love you too, angel."

the line disconnects after a few minutes of silent staring and you sigh, turning away to find a vase for your newly bought gift. it's only when you're gently placing the flowers in that you realize one's different from the others. you chuckle, holding the fake flower to your chest. picking up your phone, your fingers glide across the screen, sending him a text you hope he'll see when he wakes.

you: who knew you were such a romantic

you: i'll love you forever. thank you. you mean the world to me.

your fingers stop as you take in the flower once more, every single one of its petals has been painted a different color. it's smooth against your hand, and you grin when you lift it to your nose to sniff. it smells like him.

you: send me your hotel address. i'm sending you a gift.

you: me.

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thelukesalvez · 7 months

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Luke Alvez x Reader: Concussed

Request: do you think you could do some type of situation with luke where he has to clean a cut on your forehead or something? like that cute awkward moment 😭 (i hope this makes sense)

Word count: 2.9k

Warnings: blood mention

A/N: Plsssss I miss him sm, enjoy!!

Every single day, you fought actual, literal bad guys for a living. The worst of the worst– the kind local police needed help handling. You drew your weapon more than you could keep track of and chased unsubs down the street at least once a month.

And yet, it was the bird feeder that did you in.

To be fair– you figured technically, it was the ladder that you were standing on in a feeble attempt to hang the bird feeder that was the real culprit. But as you sat in the grass with a bruised ass and ego, you figured the details weren’t really that important.

Once the initial shock from the whole ordeal wore off, you slowly started to stand up– emphasis on the slowly. Because it became inherently clear as soon as you tried to move that you’d been hit in the head harder than you initially thought.

“Fuck,” you hissed as soon as your fingers grazed the sensitive spot on your forehead. When you pulled your hand away, you were horrified to see the thick, crimson liquid coating your fingers. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” you winced, bracing your hands on your knees while you stood the rest of the way up.

“You try to do something nice… like feed the fucking birds, and look what happens,” you muttered to the universe. “You fall on your ass and get concussed by a goddamn bird feeder.”

A concussion would definitely help explain the absurd amount of talking you were doing to absolutely nobody.

With what little dignity you had left (which was practically zero) you picked up the smashed bird feeder from the ground and trudged across the lawn towards the open garage door. After setting it down near the overflowing trash bin, you dragged your feet the rest of the way inside.

You made it about two feet before you heard a knock coming from the front door.

Frowning, you wondered who the hell would be knocking at your door at 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning. Your curiosity made you forget all about your almost-certain concussion, as you slid across the kitchen towards where the knocking continued. Because you weren’t a total idiot (bird feeder to the forehead aside) you peaked through the curtains cautiously, hoping to catch a glimpse of your visitor. Everything inside of you loosened the moment you laid eyes on Luke– the newest member of your team and your neighbor only four houses down (which you’d learned from a brief conversation with him only days ago).

He was dressed in a plain, gray T-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts, his muscular calves on full display. You watched for only a moment longer, trying to control the butterflies suddenly flying rampant through your stomach. Luke had only been a part of the team for a couple weeks, but you were already learning that he had this sort of effect on you. Something about his smile– or the way he laughed, or the way he told the funniest jokes, and always knew what to say when someone was having a tough day– or the way he so obviously cared about the people you helped and was always so empathetic… Come to think about it, you adored just about everything about Luke.

Before he could catch you gawking over him through the window like an absolute lunatic, you snapped the blinds closed and made your way to the front door. As soon as you swung it open, you were faced with arguably the most handsome man you’d ever met.

“Luke, hi!” you greeted happily.

But his face went from excited to horrified to angry in the blink of an eye.

“Y/N, what the hell?

His beautiful, warm eyes went dark as they swept over the length of you. And that was the moment you remembered what you currently looked like–

With all the excitement of seeing Luke, you had totally forgotten that you’d fallen off a ladder and mauled by a bird feeder only moments ago.

His shock quickly turned to anger as he took a step forward, so that he was standing right in front of you. “Who did this?” he asked, his tone solid and protective. His hand hovered near your jaw but didn’t quite touch you.

“What?” you shook your head, and winced as soon as you did. “No–”

“Y/N, who did this to you?”

“No one–” you said quickly. “I mean– I did. Not on purpose–” you clarified. “I fell.”

“You fell?” he asked in disbelief, his tone softening just the slightest bit.

You nodded. “I was trying to hang the bird feeder, but the ladder slipped on the leaves on the lawn. It was stupid–”

“Jesus,” Luke winced as his fingers ghosted along the edge of your jaw. You couldn’t help the sudden, sharp inhale through your lips the second that you felt his touch graze your skin. “I could’ve helped you with that, you know. Why didn’t you ask–”

“Because I didn’t think bird suet would be the death of me today,” you admitted feebly. You hoped the dirt and blood from your fall was at least hiding the blush creeping up your neck and cheeks.

A soft chuckle escaped Luke’s lips, but the look of concern remained.

“That’s a pretty nasty cut,” he said. “Let me help you clean it up.”

“Oh that’s okay,” you waved him away. “You don’t have to do that–”

“Did you even notice that you had blood all over your collar?” he asked, nodding slightly.

You look down quickly and groan as soon as you see that your beige pullover was stained in a dark shade of crimson.

“I think you’re probably a little concussed,” he added. “At least let me make sure you’re not dealing with anything worse. I used to help the medic sometimes in the field. Plus– I brought homemade muffins.”

Your eyes widened at the sight of the plastic container being raised in Luke’s other hand. “You brought baked goods?”

“Muffins– yes.”

A wave of emotions washed over you. You didn’t have the best dating history– there was the guy who kept you a secret from his entire family (wife that you had no idea about included), then there was the guy who would cancel all your dates to spend time playing video games with his friends. And how could you forget about the guy who would conveniently “forget” his wallet every time you went out.

And now here you were– standing in front of a man you’d known for only a couple of weeks and he was bringing you homemade muffins.

“I–” you stammered. “I don’t– I can’t–”

“Woah,” Luke said, taking another step forward. “Maybe you should sit down. I think you’re more concussed than we thought.”

You shook your head. “I’m not concussed. Or… I probably am. But I mean, I’m just shocked–” you admitted. “No one’s ever done something like this before.”

“You said pumpkin muffins reminded you of home– and then you said later that day that you were feeling homesick. So–” his voice trailed off. You thought you might have detected a hint of embarrassment in his tone.

Your eyes widened even more.

“This is making me sound way creepier than I am–” Luke stammered. “I just… I was baking anyway, and I had a can of pumpkin just lying around... I didn’t go out of my way or anything in a weird way…”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” you said, meaning it. “Seriously, Luke. Thank you. I don’t… I don’t know how to repay you.”

“How about letting me help clean that cut up?” he asked, throwing you a cheeky grin.

The corner of your mouth curled into a smile. “Fine,” you agreed, finally stepping back to let him inside. After closing the door, you turned to find him setting the plastic container down on the counter.

“Where’s your first aid kit?” he asked.

“Uh, under the sink in the bathroom,” you said, still convinced you hadn’t processed any of this yet.

“And the bathroom is…” his voice trailed off.

“Oh–” Luke looked so damn natural standing in your kitchen, you forgot he’d never actually been here before. “Down the hall, last door on the left.”

“Got it. Be right back.” With that, Luke was taking his uncharacteristically long strides down your hall before disappearing in the bathroom.

For the first time since answering the door, you raised your hand and touched your temple. Wet liquid still coated your forehead, despite how much time had passed since the accident. Maybe it was a good thing you were agreeing to let Luke help.

He was back in an instant, holding a damp washcloth and the small first aid kit you’d ordered online months ago, but hoping to never use.

“In here,” he nodded towards the kitchen. “The lighting’s better.”

You nodded, realizing he really didn’t have to explain. You and your concussed brain would follow him just about anywhere. Your eyes really widened when he patted the counter, indicating that he wanted you to sit on it.

You didn’t even question his logic though. Instead, you swiftly slipped onto the lip of the granite counter and waited aimlessly while Luke fished around your first aid kit for what he needed. You were level with him now, your gaze trailing down the length of his thick, muscular body. You studied the lines and curves of his skin better. You noticed every crease– every laugh line, every freckle. God, was he always this beautiful?

Out of nowhere a smirk spread across his lips. “You’re staring.”

Blinking harshly, you tilted your head towards the ceiling, the bright light hitting your eyes and making you wince. “Fuck,” you grunted, dropping your head and squeezing your eyes shut.

“Shit, you okay?” he asked carefully, dropping the kit to cup your cheek carefully. You felt the pressure on your neck ease as you allowed yourself to lean into his touch.

Carefully you opened your eyes and nodded. “Yeah– just the light.”

“You’re definitely concussed,” he stated, eyes traveling from yours to the cut on your forehead. “Did you hurt anything else besides your forehead?”

“Is the gash not enough?” you asked dryly, missing the feeling of his touch the moment he moved his hand.

Luke chuckled. “Oh, the gash is plenty. Just checking, though. Here–” you felt his touch against your face again. This time, his fingers grazed along your chin, tipping it slightly. “Can you lift just a bit for me?”

You nodded and moved your head in the direction he gestured. “'Atta girl,” he said, your stomach churning at his praise. You felt him press the washcloth to your temple gently, swiping up dried blood. As he neared the actual wound, you found yourself tensing up. But when you gripped the sleeve of his T-shirt, Luke didn’t even mention it. Instead he traced his thumb up and down your jaw soothingly and whispered reassurances. “I’m sorry, I know, I know–”

“It’s okay,” you said through gritted teeth. “It’s my own stupid fault. Too bad you didn’t show up just a few minutes earlier, you might have actually gotten to see the show.”

“So remind me again how this happened– you fell off a ladder?”

“Well, sort of,” you explained. “I was trying to hang my bird feeder– on the tall branch. But the ladder slipped on the leaves, which I’ve been meaning to rake for weeks now… and when I fell the bird feeder sort of fell too… on my head.”

You dared to steal a glance towards Luke. The second you did, you noticed him biting back a smile.

“You can laugh,” you said defeatedly. “It’s completely ridiculous. A little stupid, too.”

“It’s not stupid,” he said, composing himself.

“We took down a six foot unsub last week,” you reminded him. “Yet the bird feeder is what does me in.”

“Well… when you put it that way,” Luke smirked.

“If anyone at work asks, you have to lie for me,” you pleaded. “Tell them it was something heroic.”

“I’ll tell them you saved a baby bird from a tree. Instead of letting it fall to its death, you broke the fall with your forehead.”

“That makes me sound so noble,” you laughed.

“Get ready,” Luke warned as he dabbed some alcohol on a gauze pad.

“Shit,” you muttered, trying to brace yourself, not even thinking as you moved to grip his bicep.

“Squeeze as hard as you need,” he said softly. “Ready?”

You weren’t. But you nodded anyway.

The stinging sensation ripped through you, causing an onslaught of swear words to escape your lips. You gripped Luke’s arm desperately, your fingers digging into his skin. If you weren’t completely consumed by pain, you would’ve noticed how strong his muscles felt beneath your touch.

“Almost done,” he murmured, dabbing a few more spots before finally setting down the gauze. “There. Breathe.”

You nodded, your eyes still snapped shut as you attempted to inhale and exhale.

“Good job,” he soothed. When you opened your eyes, your breath hitched when you noticed how close Luke’s face was to yours.

His jaw tensed, shadows dancing across his face, and you immediately wished you could lean forward and just kiss that look of concern right off from his lips. Your eyes lingered on them for a beat too long– because you heard Luke clear his throat and tilt his head back.

Embarrassed, you looked down at your hands folded in your lap.

“Last step,” he said quietly, pulling a large bandaid and some antibiotic cream from the first aid kit.

You nodded, shaking yourself out of the desire before holding your head up to give him better access to your cut. Carefully, Luke placed the cream and bandage over your cut. “There,” he murmured softly.

His hand shifted on its own accord, fingers moving to brush loose strands of hair that had fallen into your face, before traveling down the length of your jaw, chin and neck.

God, he really was beautiful.

Luke smirked. “Thanks.”

“What?” you whispered.

“I think you’re beautiful, too.”

Oh, shit. Had you really said that out loud? And was that the concussion speaking or just this intense, surreal intoxication you felt for Luke?

Involuntarily, you sucked in a breath, and then you did something you knew you wouldn’t have been brave enough to do unless you really were concussed– you leaned forward and pressed your mouth against Luke’s without a second thought. It was a soft brush at first, testing to see if he wanted to pull away. When he didn't, you slid forward on the counter and wound your arms around his neck.

Luke’s other hand, the one that wasn’t cupping your face like he was afraid you’d break, landed on your hip. His fingers dug into your side as he pulled you closer to him. Your body fit against his like it was made for kissing him.

Your hands found their way to the nape of his neck, where you twisted your fingers amongst his curls. He moaned in approval, and you smiled into the kiss– into him, and it was nearly devastating when he pulled away and didn't smile back.

And then Luke was sinking his teeth into his bottom lip and taking a step back. “You’re concussed,” he said. “I’m sorry, this can’t happen– you’re… not in the right state of mind.”

Embarrassed, you slid off from the counter and wiped your mouth with your sleeve. “I’m sorry–” you stammered. “I didn’t realize you didn’t want to–”

Before you could slip past Luke– to run or hide or whatever the hell you could think to do– he shook his head and gently placed his hand on your hip, guiding you until your back collided with the counter. “I want to,” he said clearly, lowering his forehead so that it was pressed against yours. “God knows I’ve wanted to since the day I met you.”

It took a minute for his words to find meaning in your own brain. But as soon as they did, you looked up at him hopefully, your eyes widening. “Really?”

“Fuck, yes,” he rasped, his thumb wiping a tear you hadn’t even realized was falling. “Are you kidding me? I don’t just bring pumpkin muffins to anyone… That was my attempt at making a move.”

“Instead I got clocked with a bird feeder before throwing myself at you,” you groaned. You leaned forward and rested the non-injured side of your head against Luke’s chest.

“If I didn’t think you had a pretty severe concussion, I would more than welcome you throwing yourself at me,” Luke assured you.

You scoffed. “The concussion may have given me the courage to throw myself at you, but I’ve been wanting to do it way longer.”

You felt his chuckle vibrate beneath you. “I’ll tell you what…” he began, his hand sprawling out against your back. “You still want me after you’re not concussed, and you won’t have to throw yourself at me ever again.”

A shiver ran down your spine– your body thrilled with the idea. “Deal.”

“In the meantime, how about I hangout here? Make sure no more bird feeders fall on your head.”

You smiled against his chest, unable to contain the feelings he elicited inside of you. “I’d like that,” you admitted.

#luke alvez #criminal minds #luke alvez imagine #luke alvez x reader #luke alvez fic #luke alvez x reader imagine #criminal minds imagine #luke alvez x reader fic #luke alvez x reader fanfic #criminal minds x reader

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property-of-sevika · 1 month

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Title: Fuck the Pain Away Tonight

The night she came home to me so defeated and angry was one I’ll never forget.

Not because she was bloody and upset … but because I learned that it was possible to fuck pain away.

She ripped her already ripped shirt completely off and spiked it in the trash. Then she kicked the trash can, leaving a deep dent and then hurriedly began undressing in the kitchen. Everything she took off was ripped or blood stained. I watched her take everything off and slam it in the trash angrily.

“My love … what happened? Can I help you baby?” I am in the kitchen with her because I’m genuinely concerned and not actually gawking at her noticeably beautiful body.

Now Sevika is only in her underwear… and she is about to say something but instead just shakes her head and speeds into the bathroom.

I peek in the door of the bathroom. She rarely ever closes it.

She can’t hold it in, “Babe, my team fucked up tonight and tomorrow is going to be hell at work.” She growls and snatches the shower curtain out of her way so hard I thought she would break it.

I step in and place myself between her and the shower, “ Sev, babe, let me help you. You’re home now.” I turn on the shower for her so she doesn’t rip the knob off. “Don’t worry about it until you’re actually at work tomorrow. Breathe deep. Let’s get you cleaned up. I’m here for you. Come on my love.”

She inhales deeply and smirks at me, “sweetheart you’re right. I really can’t deal with that shit right now.” She strips naked and steps in the shower.

I wash her back and shoulders while she stands there attempting to relax. My baby is really trying to obey me. So hot!

I got more butterflies from the fact that she wanted to listen to me more than the fact that she’s butt naked in front of me now. I see her naked everyday anyway. But she doesn’t always just listen to me so easily.

When her back is clean I kiss her shoulder blades and then proceed to scrub her butt and legs. It’s not the first time we did this… I wash her back and she washes her front pretty often. It was one of our most domesticated habits and honestly we do it to save time and prevent her from breaking things in the small sized shower… let me be clear… she is a big woman. She is tall and muscular, built to scare, fight, and defend. I’m extremely attracted to her. Doesn’t matter that I’m almost an entire foot shorter than her.

When she’s clean she steps out the tub I hand her her towel. Sevika rarely shows this soft side out in public, but usually when we’re alone she opens up. She kisses my forehead and says, “baby I love you. You’re all I needed.”

I feel so warm inside. I feel so loved. I feel so needed.

Then she whispers in my ear, “I need you.”

“You got me babe,” I partially giggled from the tickle and partially from the flattery.

“No I mean I neeeeed you need you. I need you now… please” she let her velvety words flow out sensually straight to my core.

I could never let this woman beg me.

She’s my world.

I immediately start stripping. It was nice that she was complying to me earlier but I still love being submissive to her.

She lets her towel fall to the floor.

Our lips come together like magnets. Her muscular arms slide around me and she lifts me up. Each one of my legs wrap around her waist. We continue kissing as she carries me to our bedroom.

Within a minute my back touches our soft bed and she’s lowering herself on top of me. I pull her impatiently but she holds herself up to pull the last bit of clothing off of me.

Then our bodies touch.

Skin on skin.

My eyes roll back at the sensation of her finally on me. Butterflies rush through my core as she begins to grind me. She grabs my knee and gently presses me open for her to sink down on me.

“Fuuuuck yesssssss Sev…mmmm” I feel her pressing perfectly in between my legs. “Take me however you want me.”

I can’t see her face but I know she’s smirking.

She starts rocking harder, I can hear her breathing faster and louder. I want tonight to be about her. My only goal is to hear her cum. I will put her to bed happy tonight.

We’ve been together long enough to know that she will grind me for a little bit and then be able to cum if I eat her out right after. That’s my plan and that is what I did.

She started off on top and I did my best to turn her on and give it to her exactly how she wanted.

Then when her rhythm stuttered and she began moaning my name I knew it was time to flip over and I would use my mouth to bring her so much pleasure she’d be asleep 10 minutes afterwards.

I buried my face between her gorgeous brown legs and licked and sucked until my muscles hurt.

I love feeling her legs shake beside my head. I love feeling her try not to squeeze my head too tight when the pleasure begins to overpower her. But most of all I love hearing her voice when the orgasm rushes through her. It’s one of the only times I hear her sound so feminine because she’s blinded by ecstasy.

When we’re done I lick my lips and kiss her from her stomach to her neck.

I have to stop her from trying to repay me. I push her down as soon as she starts to sit up.

“Baby no, tonight was about you. Let’s go to sleep now. It’s ok my love.” I reassured her. I know she’s tired. Today was long and stressful and I want the very last thing she experiences is this fucked out bliss she’s in right now. I kiss her chest and neck and tell her it’s ok again.

“Babygirl I love you. I’m so happy.”

She falls asleep covered by my warmth and love.

I fall asleep knowing I fucked her pain away.

#sevika x reader #sevika #arcane #lgbtq positivity #love #lovers #lgbtq #hot as fuck #muscular #adult work

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lunarw0rks · 8 months

Note

can we get a little more of firefighter soap-

firefighter!soap not having a date to one of the fundraisers at the firehouse, so he invites you!!

definitely didn't sneak into his captain's files to find your contact information — that would be silly. but luckily, you find it amusing, and sitting in that hospital bed for days was agonizing.

you'd be daft to pass this up.

showing up to the firehouse, seeing families of the other firefighters, civilians and their children, tables of food, and prizes for the raffles. it's not packed full of people, however a higher turnout than you expected.

and then, most importantly, soap.

wearing his uniform; black slacks that hugged his thighs tight, and polished black boots that gave him a clean-cut look. a fresh shave on his face, still emanating aftershave. and his shirt with the sleeves rolled, to expose his biceps. and over his heart, displaying his badge and the three digits on the outside of the firehouse.

"look at ye, up and walking." he'd say, giving you a friendly side hug while clasping one of your hands. twirls you around slightly, as if to examine how well you've healed.

still, there are small bandages on your body, bruises that finally started to fade, and the soft cast on your wrist. but none of it diminished your beauty.

spending the entire fundraiser at his side, introduced to everyone on his team, and their families. you were out of your element but buzzing with nerves — and as cliché as it was, butterflies. every time you look at him, you remember the relief of seeing his face for the first time; how he cradled you in his arms and pulled you from the flames.

by nightfall, it was mainly the younger crowd left or the older couples without children needing to sleep. through the speaker, top hits played faintly, echoing off the tall walls of the firehouse. there were string lights lining the industrial staircase, attempting and succeeding to give the space an inviting feeling.

each time you looked at the banners and homemade signs, you imagined which ones johnny worked on. picturing him up on one of the ladders, making sure his strips of tape were straight. most of the raffle prizes had been claimed already, leaving miscellaneous home items, or overpriced bath kits.

"are they supposed to be drinking? aren't they on duty?" you chuckled, pointing a finger at two of his fellows, trying their best to hide the beer they smuggled into the party.

johhny shook his head, flashing the whites of his teeth warmly, "aye, they're in for it once all the guests leave."

"oh, is that what i am? just a guest?" you cocked a brow, taking another sip of the punch. he shakes his head, refusing to take his eyes off of you as you walk side by side through the firehouse as if giving you a silent tour of the place. as if he wanted you to show up more, which you wouldn't mind.

"don't do tha' sad face," he finished off his own red cup, tossing it into one of the trash bins. of course, you couldn't resist exaggerating your frown, just to prove your point.

you both made your rounds again, reaching the nearly cleared raffle table. "you know what, i'll get you a prize. how about that?"

intrigued, you tilted your head and nodded, waiting to witness his offer. "lay it on me then."

"let's see..." his fingers roamed along the slim pickings. beer-themed socks? you weren't in a frat. a fuzzy throw blanket? hm, slightly better.

he picked up one of the promising prizes. "oh, what about this? something to add to your beauty routine, eh?" he held up one of the cheap sample kits, sure to irritate your skin more than help it, so you scoffed and acted more unimpressed than you actually felt.

his effort was endearing, and frankly, it was entertaining to watch a tough guy scramble to appease you.

he mumbled a hm, extending out another box to you, which only resulted in more faux disappointment.

"a pressure cooker?" you chuckled. "a fundraiser at a firehouse, and they're giving away pressure cookers..."

he contemplates, clicking his tongue in agreement. he hadn't thought of how hypocritical that was until now. "it's good business, besides, putting out fires is good for the ego." he set the box back down, meeting your gaze for a few seconds.

a small grin appears on his face, "especially if something beautiful comes from the flames." he adds, waiting for the inevitable hitch in your breathing that you try to hard to conceal.

you do just that but end up giving his toned arm a light smack, reminding yourself that there are indeed still people around. and that flirt was as cheesy as the dip bowl you were standing next to.

"what? too soon for that joke, love?"

#firefighter!soap #soap call of duty #john soap mactavish #soap mw2 #soap mactavish #soap mactavish smut #soap mactavish x reader #soap x reader #soap x fem reader #soap x you #soap x y/n #mw2 #call of duty #task force 141 #rachel speaks #not writing #mw2 fanfic

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zyonsay · 8 months

Text

Monarch Butterflies

Fem aligned people may read but not f3tishize my work!!

Summary: You're a rook that Ghost grows fond of

Reader: Male

Warnings: Smoking/Vaping, Scars? (Not sh)

Now playing: Trash Magic by Lana del rey (unreleased song)

AN: Its 1:50 am here and the fic gets shittier the more you read but im more pleased with this one than i was with the old one. Also i renamed this one! I might rewrite this again in the future... Have fun pookies! [:

The deafening noise of the helicopter blades overrode every other sound at the base. The hair of the young man descending from the Helicopter stairs was swirling in the stirred-up air, making it hard for him to see anything at all. The pilot chuckled at the rookies obviously intimidated posture. “Go on, make yourself at home!”, he yelled. The youngster felt a bit more confident now, even if it was only a tiny bit.

You slung your bag over your shoulder and began walking towards the entrance, since you were told you’d be greeted there. You were meant to be at this place, but your low self esteem made you feel as small as a mouse. But you did graduate at the top of your military training, so you packed quite a punch. Other people would describe you as ambitious but sweet, which some dickheads saw as an invitation to pick on you.

“Soldier, Welcome!”, a man with a quirky fisherman’s hat greeted you. You offered him a warm smile, inhaling deeply before you spoke. “I’m assuming you’re Captain Price?” The air smelled fresh and was slightly cool, running a chill down your spine. The bearded man grinned at you, “Yes, indeed. And you are L/N F/N?” You saluted hastily, “Yes sir!” His grin widened a tiny bit. “At ease soldier, let me introduce you to my boys.”, stepped to the side, revealing a group of soldiers, all of them looking very unique.

“Hi, I’m Kyle but you can call me Gaz!”, the young man with an incredibly beautiful face smiled at you. You offered him a small nod while you were wondering what the hell his skincare routine was. “Soap MacTavish! Lookin’ fahrward to working with ye!”, his thick Scottish accent very apparent. He held his hand to you, giving you a hearty handshake. You eyed the next man carefully, examining his clothed face, which only revealed his dark brown eyes to you. “Ghost.”, his words felt like a cold hand crawling up your back, gripping your soul and ripping it right out of you. Your knees felt weak, and your posture shrank ever so slightly.

The rest of the team has introduced itself to you, each and every individual letting their character shine through. But that clamming, cold feeling still hasn’t left you. “So, rook. You can’t just fuck around and find you, so I’ll assign you a mentor. We don’t want to waste your potential, now do we?”, he paused quickly, looking at you intently, smiling. “…And maybe that bastard will learn something too.” He then directed his smile towards Ghost, causing him to roll his eyes at his Captain. “Lieutenant, would you please show our rook around?” Ghost only responded with a sigh and began walking away, not waiting for you to catch up. You quickly scurried after him, not before quickly saying goodbye to the others.

Ghosts’ steps were big, your smaller form was struggling to keep up, but you’d never admit that out loud. “Here are the barracks.”, he curtly nodded towards a big entrance, numbered with some ungodly long cipher. He also showed you the multiple gyms that the base offered, peeking your head in to check out all of the machines available. The washrooms were pretty close by, allowing you to quickly use the toilet, since you didn’t get the chance earlier.

Your mentor has proven himself extremely important to you, even if he was a bit gruff sometimes. “AIM STRAIGHT YOU ASSHOLE” or “GODDAMN IT, ROOK. KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED” could often be heard over the radio during your missions. But the more time passed, the closer you two got.

“You want one?” Simon offered you a cigarette as you two were standing outside of the base, a cool gust of wind passing through. You shook your head, thinking it might just be impossible to even light one with this wind. “Nah, got my vape.”, your voice was barely above a whisper. Your Lieutenant shrugged indifferently, picking his lighter out of the pockets of his jeans. He’d never tell you that, but he cared deeply about you. To him you were like a younger brother and he’s willing to defend you in any situation.

This day came way too fast, ripping you out of the daily routine you’ve been following for over a year now. A heavy, awkward silence fell over the base. The one-four-one knew what would happen, today you’d be joining the Forze speciali italiane (Italian special forces) and would be permanently deployed there, meaning you won’t be part of the 141 anymore. Most of the guys have already said their goodbyes, some of them had a pained expression on their face, others (Soap lol) were bawling their eyes out. But someone has been avoiding you all day. Simon. You urgently wanted to talk to him, knowing it would eat you up from the inside for eternity if you didnt.

You hesitantly knocked on Simon’s door, waiting a bit too long for a response. A muffled “Come in” could be made out over the steps of some soldiers down the hall. You entered the room, carefully closing the door. Your friend was sitting at his desk, writing something on a piece of paper. You sat on his bed, like you’ve done many times before. You two were silent for a while, both not sure what to say. Then you slowly began. “So… how are you?” Simon turned around in his chair and looked at you intently. “Shut the fuck up.” Just a few seconds later and you were pulled into a tight hug. This was all that it took to make you cry like a little child, sobbing in your friends’ arms. You were surprised to hear Simon sniffling too, was he crying? As you two parted, you saw that he was indeed crying as his eyes were red and his blond eyelashes stuck together because of the tears.

You looked at your shiny wristwatch, standing up again. “I really gotta go. I’ll miss you Si.” You offered him a warm smile.

And with that you were gone.

The smell of fresh cut trees adorned the air, leaving you content. Your hair was dancing in the wind, looking a lot like the flames of a hungry fire. For the past five years you’ve been part of the Italian special forces, being an important asset. You’ve worked your way up the ladder and could now proudly call yourself a Lieutenant. In the past years you have collected a lot of experience but not all of it good.

“We’re here L,t.”, the pilot pulled you out of your thoughts. As soon as the helicopter had landed, you jumped out and moved towards the all too familiar entrance.

“Rook! Or rather Lieutenant!”, Price greeted you warmly, patting you on the shoulder in a dad-like manner. You laughed, chit chatting with him as you continued walking. You met Gaz, Soap and Roach, making idle small talk with them, when Simon appeared out of thin air, as usual. He stared at you, not believing his eyes. “Y/N…?”, he whispered hesitantly. You walked up to him, happy to see your friend again. Tears were welling in your eyes, you thought you might never see him again. Simon hugged you with his strong arms, gripping you tightly, scared that you might just be a phantom of his imagination. You looked different, more mature, but also like you’ve seen some shit. You were still his friend from back then, but there was a hint of seriousness in your aura. Maybe it was also the gigantic scar across your whole face, indicating a serious injury, as it barely missed your eye. You guys definitely had a lot to catch up on.

"I missed you, idiot."

#gay #ghost cod #ghost x male reader #male reader #cod x reader #cod mw2

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earthtoharlow · 8 months

Text

Teach Me: Teen Idle

Series Masterlist

Jayla quietly unlocked the front door, breathing a sigh of relief that the lights were off. Perfect, she thought. Everyone was still asleep. She turned around and gave Nova a thumbs up before walking inside and quietly closing the door behind her.

There was a huge party tonight that was hosted by the basketball team, and Nova being the social butterfly she was, was able to get them both invited despite them only being freshmen.

The only problem was that the party was in the next town over and didn’t start till 11pm. She knew that her father and stepmom would never let her go that far for a party, especially that late at night. So Nova convinced her to sneak out the house after dinner.

The plan worked perfectly as her parents went to sleep immediately after putting the twins, Jasmine and Jackson to bed.

Jayla took her heels off at the door and tiptoed to the kitchen, feeling dehydrated after having spiked punch at the party. As she stood by the refrigerator drinking water, she heard a sound behind her.

Fuck.

Slowly turning around she saw her dad and step mom standing in the doorway with their arms crossed.

FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

***

Jack signed as he crumbled up the piece of paper and tossed it in the trash. Nothing he was writing was coming out the way he wanted, deciding to call it a night. He turns off the lights in the studio and walks back towards the bedroom. As he passes by the twins door to check on them, he smiles at the sight of them together in the same bed. Sometimes at night Jasmine would get scared and would hop into her big brother (by 3 minutes) bed. It always warmed his heart to see. Not wanting to disturb them, he quietly shuts the door and continues down the hall.

When walking past Jayla’s room Jack noticed the light on in her room, she was probably still awake with her nose pressed inside a book. Opening the door, and peeking his head in, he started to speak.

“Jay bear, it’s time to put the book—“ Jack stopped in his tracks when he noticed she wasn't there. He took a couple deep breaths before freaking out. Jayla could be in the kitchen, she always liked a midnight snack. Quickly but quietly running down the stairs into the kitchen, Jack was scared to see she wasn’t there and even worse Jayla’s house key wasn’t sitting in the spot it always was.

Fuck

Jack immediately ran back up the stairs and into his bedroom, hopping into the bed.

“Ariel, Ariel wake up!” He whispered loudly, quickly becoming impatient and started shaking his wife awake.

Ariel opened her eyes and sat up when she saw Jack’s scared expression. “What’s wrong?” She asked and looked over at the clock on the bedside table. Yawning when she read the time. 12:47 AM

“Jayla isn’t in her room!”

Ariel gave him a questioning look. “What do you mean, Jayla’s not in her room?” Immediately kicking the cover off of her so she could get out of bed.

“Did you look in the kitc—“ Jack cut Ariel off, “yes! she wasn’t there and her house key was gone!”

Ariel could tell Jack was about to have a panic attack, “It’s okay, we have her location on our phones!” They both grabbed their phones from the chargers to check her location hoping to find some answers.

Their breaths got caught in their throat when they read

No Location Found

Jack’s face went from red from worry to red from anger.

“Baby, I think she sneaked out.”

Ariel immediately frowned. That didn’t sound like her daughter. “There has to be a good explanation for this…”

Jack’s curls moved as he shook his head. “I remember hearing Nova talking about some party the other day but I didn’t think much of it. I’m positive that’s where they are.”

He was silent for a moment before grabbing his phone again. “Well, I figured out where they are”

Ariel looked down at his phone, Jack was on Nova’s Instagram. In Nova's Instagram story she posted a video singing an old drake song that came out before she was born.

But that was the least surprising part, what Ariel and Jack noticed first was the slight slur in her voice and the red solo cup in her hand.

She wasn’t drunk but she was tipsy.

And that’s what upset Jack the most, not only was she drinking but her friends were drinking as well. No one in the video seemed sober. That thought alone made Jack’s thoughts race. Her mother, Alyssa was hit by a drunk driver. She was tragically gone in an instant.

Jayla was getting older, and Jack knew that she was going to do what she wanted no matter how much Jack and Ariel tried to preach to her about being safe.

The only thing there was to do now was to pray she got home safe.

***

It was silent for a few minutes as the three of them stared at each other. Ariel took a step back knowing this was going to get ugly.

Jayla was the first to speak. “Um. Hey guys…” giving an awkward wave. When no one said anything, Jayla tried to speak again but was stopped in her tracks when Jack raised a hand to stop her.

“How was the party?”

Jayla stood there nervously, not knowing how to respond.

“You know the next time you want to try to sneak out the house make sure you tell my niece, Nova, not to put it on her Instagram story for everyone to see.”

Jayla cursed to herself under her breath. Nova must have forgotten to put it in her close friends.

Jack suddenly chuckled. “You won’t be able to tell her because you’re grounded for the next 4 months.”

That’s when Jayla finally spoke up. “DAD?! FOUR MONTHS?! You can’t be serious!”

“Oh I’m more than serious, young lady.”

Ariel was biting her lip nervously behind him. Knowing she would have to let him get this out.

“Not only did you sneak out of the house, you went to a party almost an hour away at lord knows whose house, and was underage drinking! You turned off your location because you knew what you were doing was wrong and unacceptable!”

“BUT DAD—“

“Don’t “Dad” me, Jayla. I’m so disappointed in you, how could you do something so stupid?!”

Ariel suck in a breath, knowing Jayla wasn’t going to take that well.

“So now I’m stupid? How nice of you dad” Jayla was mad now, arms crossed over her chest.

Jack ran a heavy hand through his hair. “I said what you did was stupid not that you are stupid.”

“What’s the fucking difference?! You know, I really hate you sometimes.”

The kitchen fell silent. Ariel was shocked at the admission, Jack’s face fell in almost disbelief. Jayla had never said anything that mean before, especially not to her father.

Ariel decided to break the silence. “Jayla…you don’t mean that. Your father and I were just worried sick. We had no idea where you were.”

Jayla shook her head, not even bothering to apologize. “I just went to a silly little party, what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that everyone at the party was underage drinking which can lead to drunk driving.”

Jayla just rolled her eyes. “I don’t get why you care so much Ariel. Dad I understand, but you aren’t even my real mom.”

The only thing that could be heard in the kitchen was Ariel’s gasp. You could hear a pin drop. Jayla grabbed her KY necklace nervously. She wanted to take that back as soon as she said it but she knew it was too late.

Ariel stood there frozen and hurt not wanting to believe that she actually said that.

“Get out.”

Jayla turned her head towards her father, confused.

“What?”

“You heard me, go pack your things and go spend the next couple days at your uncle’s house. Clay or Urban. One of them will take you in.”

Tears started falling down her cheeks. “But…”

“You’ve said enough, tonight.”

Jayla opened her mouth again but quickly shut her mouth when she saw the serious look in her dads face. Ariel wouldn’t even look her in the eyes.

Jayla nodded and left the kitchen and ran to her bedroom.

Jack turned to his wife who still hadn’t said anything. “Baby..” Ariel just shook her head. “I’m going back to bed, I have to be up early for parent teacher conferences.” Ariel turned around and headed back up the stairs, she finally let the tears that she was holding back fall.

***

AN: 🥲 no words tbh

Tag List:

(message me if you'd like to be added or removed)

@heavyhitterheaux @hoodharlow @neon-lights-and-glitter @babiefries @toocriticalharlow @mace23477 @jackmans-poison @dstark-0706 @harlowsbby @itsyagirljaz @leftapricotprofessorlover @xxkoolkatxx @comehomeimissyou @minkookie95 @harlowcomehome @jackharloww @wabi-sabi1090 @violetslays818 @w1ldthoughts @katiaw2 @hufflewhore128 @realwifeofjackharlow

#jack harlow #jack harlow x reader #jack harlow x y/n #jack harlow reader #Jack harlow x black oc #teach me #jack harlow concepts #jack harlow blurb

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gwiyeounsonyeon · 11 days

Text

Growing Pains End (MWC 13, 14!)

Pairing: RE2 Leon Kennedy x Male(Intended) Reader Summary: College AU! Leon takes you out. Words: 2,282/200 Warnings: I think the reader was referred to as a guy but I might have deleted it, I'm throwing this in here just in case Notes: I really wanted this to go on longer, originally I had it planned out for a few more chapters, at least five extra but I didn't want to overwhelm myself. Maybe if I get better at writing longer-form stories without getting exhausted I'll write five more chapters with Leon and Reader after college.

☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆

The beginning of the movie was pretty decent but very quickly you were snoozing for the rest of it and only came to when the end credits rolled. Thankfully Leon didn’t seem to notice you’d fallen asleep and as you walked out of the theater side by side you listened intently to the retelling of his favorite parts, unable to stop yourself from thinking he was really cute with the way he was so animated as talked. The way he waved his hands around to emphasize what he was saying, the big smile on his face as he talked, and if you looked close enough at him you could see little dimples in his right cheek. Your stomach exploded uncomfortably in butterflies and your heartbeat quickened, you avert your eyes from his face and dump the empty bag of popcorn in the trash, and fidget with your, now empty hands. You both stop so he can grab his bike from the rack and once he’s got it, he starts walking while talking about what you assume to be the end of the movie, leaving you no choice but to follow after him.

Throughout the conversation you zone out, the softness in his voice making you sleepy again but soon he stops to rack his bike once more, “I just wish they gave the guy a better ending…” He pouts and you zone back into the conversation just now realizing you were standing in front of some diner, “Hm?” Your brows raise as he leads you inside, greeting the hostess who seats you at his usual table. “You come here a lot?” You follow the hostess to a booth by the front window and sit down opposite to Leon, “Sometimes, yeah–and since exams are starting soon this is a great place to study.” You nod and look around, the waitress hadn’t come by yet and the hostess had disappeared somewhere into the kitchen. “You nervous about exams?” You fidget with your menu, not really hungry enough to get anything. Leon shrugs and nods “A little, I mean… I think I'm more nervous about becoming a sophomore.” You nod in turn feeling a little sympathy for him, “It's not too bad, do you know what you wanna major in?” You push your packaged straw around the table starting to feel a little nervous, this all seemed too much like a date. Leon perks up immediately and nods “I came here ‘cause of the STARS criminal justice courses.” You furrow your brows feeling a little confused, “I thought STARS only donated the football team.” Leon smiles and shakes his head, “The football stuff was only done this year, STARS was originally the first big donator for classes and stuff, they help fund the whole left wing.” You nod, not having a good idea of what he's talking about but you’ve been in the left wing once or twice, it's full of a bunch of law stuff that you’re not interested in at all.

“So, you’re gonna be a cop.” He nods enthusiastically “I’ve known my whole life that I wanted to be a police officer, it's always been my dream to save people.” You watch his hands as he plays with his napkin, you can't help feeling really small next to him. He's got all these great plans and here you were studying for a major you had no idea if you wanted to keep or not. “What about you? What are you majoring in?” You open your mouth to say something but the waitress comes out first, “Sorry about that.” She smiles and sets two glasses of water on your table, “What can I get for the two of you today?” She pulls out a little notepad and pauses, waiting for either of you two to speak up first. Thankfully Leon takes the lead “Can I have my regular?” He turns to you with a big excited look on his face, “You have to try that one, it's just a burger but it's so good.” He points to the menu and you nod, “Uh… Yeah, sure. I’ll have that.” You don't really feel hungry, your stomach feels fluttery and nervous, the waitress smiles and takes your menus. Before she leaves she winks at Leon, “He’s cute, kid.”

You don't get it but Leon goes bright red and sputters awkwardly, “What’s that mean?” His face goes a darker red and he hides behind his hands, now you’re even more confused. You go to speak but he beats you to it, mumbling from behind his hands, “I… um…” He drops his hands so he can take a long sip of his water, “You have to promise you won't laugh, okay?” He looks at you, the flush had died down a little but his cheeks were still bright pink. You nod and he takes a deep breath, “For… I dunno, like, a few weeks… maybe a month um…” He clears his throat, you put your hands in your lap and fidget under the table, your heart rate picking up slightly. “I uh… i've really liked you––a- and um… i've wanted to ask you out but…” It feels like your heart is going to beat out of your chest, your hands feel a little sweaty and there's a lump forming in your throat. “I- I’ve talked to her about how to ask you f- um forever a- and when I did, she was right. Uh- it wasn't as hard as I thought.” When he finishes he looks relieved but you feel like you’re about to have a heart attack.

“Wha- um.” You stop to clear your throat and gather your thoughts, you have no idea what to think, all of this feels like it's happening so suddenly. You see Leon lose a little confidence and your stomach does this weird flop, you have no idea what to say, you don't even know what to feel. Does he want to be your boyfriend? Does he just want sex? Is this all an elaborate prank? Is this even real, are you dreaming? You have to be dreaming, you pinch yourself under the table but you dont wake up in your bed. “W- s- so… uh… it’s just- j- just a date?” You stutter lamely, starting to feel very conscious about how weird you're acting “-I mean… you’re not… like, asking to be my boyfriend, are you?” He looks a little upset and your palms grow sweatier, you lean back against the plush booth and rub the sweat from your palms. You feel like you might have a heart attack, your heart beating wildly against your ribcage, you press your hand to your chest hoping to quell the feeling.

Leon’s eyes follow your hand and his expression falls into an off sort of look like he’s deep in thought; “I want to, uh––e- eventually, I mean..” He finishes anxiously, looking back up at you to see your expression. He must've seen something in the way your looking at him because he relaxes a fraction and moves his hands from his lap to the table as your hand drops from your chest. “B- but we obviously don't have to do anything like that, if you don't want to I mean, it was just. I just didn't want to wait any longer to tell you and I had no idea how to tell you-” He’s rushing things out like he's starting to get anxious, fidgeting with his glass of water, but you stop him with a sigh. “I- Leon….” Your hand moves up to rub at your forehead, the ache from earlier coming back full force as you try to figure out how to navigate this situation. He seems to take your actions as rejection, wilting in his seat like a forgotten flower.

“It's fine just…” You let out a wry chuckle, “Why me? Like, of all people?” He perks up a little, sitting up straighter when you ask the question. “Why?” You nod, he doesn't give your heart any time to rest as his expression is taken over by something bashful and sweet, your heart skips as a shy smile works onto his lips. “Why not?” He asks shakily, trying to work up his confidence, “I- I… You’re so…” He fumbles nervously. “I’m not sure how to…” He huffs, starting to get frustrated with his lack of eloquence. “I just do, okay? Y- you’re like, really hot a- and you're funny…” He takes a deep breath as the words tumble out, “And I can't stop thinking about you, like––when you laugh i- it makes my heart beat really fast a- and when you smile a- at me–and just when you smile in general, it makes my stomach feel fuzzy” His cheeks go pink as he talks, gesturing wildly with his hands.

You feel like you might cry out in shock or awe, or like you might have a heart attack for real this time because your heart rate would put anyone else up into a hospital, But you don't keel over and die. Because Leon is right in front of you, and he's confessing to you that he thinks you're hot and these things that you worry over constantly gives him butterflies. Your fingers feel a little chill from the adrenalin that zips through your nervous system, your hands shake slightly as you look around the diner, no one seems very interested in your conversation but you can't help feeling a little paranoid. Your brain screams at you that this is a bad idea, that you shouldn't be doing this but you can't help yourself. You stand from the booth, for a split second Leon looks dejected but that shifts to confusion as you make your way around the table to sit directly next to him.

“... I… This…” You make an aborted gesture between the two of you, unable to get your thoughts straight, and not really sure why you came to sit next to him. You take a deep breath and look around the diner again, all of these faces, so many more important things happening, some probably happening before your eyes, and here you are getting all choked up over a little crush. With that in mind you sober up slightly, you will your heart rate to slow and your hands to stop shaking while you straighten your back, “Im not… good at this kind of stuff.” You start, your anxiety leaves a chill within your chest and makes the hairs on your arms stand on end but you push through, not wanting to feel like a scared baby anymore. “But that… I dont think that means I dont want to try…” Leon perks up a little from beside you, and you feel like you might cry from relief. You had no idea how good it feels to get these things off your chest, “I…” You take a deep breath and clear your throat. “I like you, obviously-” You see Leon shift beside you but you keep your gaze firmly on the table in front of you both.

“But it doesn't mean that e-…” You take a sip of your water, your throat feeling a little dry, “I have a lot of flaws and a lot of insecurities a- and I dont…” You pause as Leon’s hand envelops yours, “I dont care.” He says stopping to chew on his lip anxiously. “I- I mean, me too obviously. Everyone has to be like that, I think…” He's trying to comfort you and it works, your chest feels warmer and you feel a sting behind your eyes that could be tears or joy that someone is finally saying this to you, too many awful exes, too many nights alone. You swallow down the lump in your throat and turn to him, finally looking at his face; The look he has is so painfully sincere, his eyes are raw and open and pleading, like he's begging you to read his mind, to feel what he's feeling. “But I don’t uh… I- I don’t think you should keep worrying about that stuff…” He trails off.

A spike of warmth floods your face as his eyes glance down at your lips, you lick your lips self-consciously and his eyes follow the movement. “‘Cause–” His voice comes out scratchy and he cuts himself off to clear his throat, “Because, I’m still going to like you anyway.” You forget about the diner, the other people in the building, everyone else in the world, it all gets pushed to the back of your head. Your breath catches in your throat, the world seems a little fuzzy and you feel like you’re on a merry-go-round, spinning as fast as you can and watching the world pass by you in a blur. You dont know who leans in first, but it doesn't matter. Leon kisses you like he looks at you; soft and hesitant but determined, it makes you feel dizzy, and when you pull back you aren't sure how to catch your breath.

“Okay…” You whisper shakily, your thoughts feel skewed. You hear the bell to the diner ring and Claire and Luis enter grinning like kids getting candy, they sit in front of you and Luis chuckles, “I didn’t think it would take you this long.” Your face goes red and you hide in your hands, suddenly very embarrassed. Claire laughs loudly, drawing the attention of other customers. “God, you guys are something else, you know that?” She says grinning, you feel her kick your shin lightly under the table, glad to see you come so far from the hell you were in almost a year ago now.

☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆

A/N - I really enjoyed this chapter and writing more long-form stuff, it made me feel so good seeing it finished. The only thing I wish I'd done was plan it out more and go about it differently, when do this again I probably won't do it for a writing challenge, or do it all in a few days consecutively

#x male reader #resident evil leon kennedy #resident evil leon #resident evil 2 #resident evil #re leon #leon s kennedy #leon #leon kennedy #leon kennedy x you #re2 leon kennedy #re leon kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #x reader

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kihyuni3 · 1 year

Text

Beautiful Brown Eyes (Heeseung x Reader)

Enhypen Heeseung x genterl neutral!reader *FLUFF*

(There are some mentions of possibly having a kid, but not seriously and there are no gendered pronouns mentioned for the reader)

Summary: Spending a quiet night together with your long-term boyfriend Heeseung, a simple joke between him and some friends starts to get you thinking about a possible future.

Warnings: mention of children (ew)

Word Count: 1,369

This is my first fic in so long and I wrote it a little bit tipsy so it might be absolute trash so please be gentle with me. Also, it is completely unedited so please ignore any mistakes.

It wasn’t unusual for you to watch Heeseung while he played video games. You were comfortable enough in your relationship to realize that any time together, even if the two of you were doing something completely independently of one another but in the same room was still quality time. So here you are again, working on your own hobbies while Heeseung plays his game online with his friends.

He was always so passionate about his game and his team and you found that somewhat attractive, while this passion was not as nearly as sexy as his passion from performing on stage, it was still passion and confidence and that happened to be your boyfriend’s charming points; Every once and a while you found yourself pulled from your own craft to simply watch him as he called out plays to his teammates or simply sat pouting his lips as he concentrated on his game.

“Baby.” He called out, not turning away from his screen, pulling you out of your trance. You hum in question letting him know that you were present and listening.

“I want to show you something.” He says finally swiveling his gaming chair around to look at you, a sly smile showing across his face.

You get up from your place in the room and move toward him to entertain whatever thought he wants to share. Usually, it’s something inconsequential like his win streak in the game or a funny username that he came across in online play, but if he thought of you while seeing it, it didn’t matter what it was, you would always entertain his little efforts.

As you approached his gaming chair, he snuck a hand around your waist gently pulling you towards him. Despite the fact that you were still standing, your side was pressed into his as he stared up at you with admiration. At this point, you could see that he was no longer in a game and instead on the character selection screen of the new collaborative first-person shooter that he and the rest of Enhypen had been obsessing over recently.

Looking away from you briefly, Heeseung moused over a character in the selection options causing it to appear full screen across his monitor. Despite knowing nothing about the game this character seemed oddly familiar to you. After a brief inspection, you realized that between the features, the style, and the programmed mannerisms of this character it seemed like a perfect mix between you and your gentle boyfriend.

“This is the new character they just released.” He spoke gently, his hand tightening around your waist. You knew there was more he wanted to say so you simply looked at him expectantly waiting for him to continue his train of thought.

“The boys were saying that if you and I ever had a kid that this is what they would look like.” He let out softly, with a small chuckle. This thought made butterflies grow in your stomach. Despite not knowing whether you actually wanted kids and the fact that this was just a simple joke between Heeseung and his friends, the idea of having a future with the man in front of you made your heart swell.

The blush had only just begun to spread across your cheeks before a squeeze at your waist pulled you out of your thoughts.

“Let me see.” You say quizically before leaning forward to inspect the screen more carefully. You could hear him laugh softly behind you as you continued to study the character in front of you. There was definitely a resemblance, one that was noticeable even at first glance. But the more you look at the character the more you realized there was something missing.

“I don’t see it.” You declared boldly, causing him to throw you a confused look, coupled with a tilt of his head.

His strong hold on your waist turned into a pull that guided you to sit across his lap. You now sat on one side of him with your legs thrown over his lap. The arm of the chair was digging slightly into your back, but you cherished the closeness you had with your boyfriend, so you chose to stay in the position you shared with him in his chair.

“Really?” He asked, scrunching his eyebrows in. “I thought it was pretty striking.” While he didn’t ask directly, you knew he was prompting you to tell him why you felt that way.

“Well, I think it’s close but…” you started, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling yourself closer to his face.

“If we did ever have a kid,” you say with a playful pause, causing him to cling to your every word. “They would end up having your…”

“Beautiful.” You kiss his right eye gently.

“Deep.” Followed by his left.

“Brown.” Then a gentle peck onto his lips. A kiss which he follows up by chasing after your lips as you pull away.

“Eyes.” You finish resting your forehead against his own.

“But this character has green.” You finish, brushing your nose along his.

He leans in once more to peck your lips gently. You can tell it takes a lot of discipline from him to stop himself from kissing you deeper.

A moment of silence settles over the room with just the sound effects from the game coming occasionally as you looked at each other as if you were each other’s whole world. You weren’t entirely sure how long you were looking at each other, seconds, minutes, but you knew that you wanted to stay with Heeseung, taking in his touch and his warmth for as long as you could; Never wanting this moment to end.

“Let’s get married.” He says abruptly, breaking the comfortable silence that was previously held between you. This caused you to laugh. A sound that he loved so much and only caused him to smile as wide as he could, taking in the happiness on your face at his words, even if you weren’t taking him seriously.

“Where did that come from?” You asked between laughs.

“I don’t know.” He said seriously, but with a wide smile still pressed across his face “I couldn’t help it, it just came out.” You both continued to laugh.

“I mean it though.” He said more seriously, looking you straight in the eyes. “I want to marry you.” Your smile fell as you realized he wasn’t playing around.

“You know we can’t do that,” You said softly, wanting to agree, but also having to be rational about both of your lives at that moment. He gave you a dejected look for a moment. “But maybe someday.” This brought back his smile that you loved so much.

“In the future, we can get married.” You said, watching a brightness return to his eye as you indirectly agreed to his proposal. “And then maybe if we have a kid we can see if they really do look like that.” You say, gently referencing the forgotten character still idling across his screen.

“Definitely.” He whispers hopefully, finally giving into his desires and leaning in to kiss you passionately.

For the rest of the night, you sat on Heeseung’s lap in his gaming chair, laughing and talking about the future as he continued to play, although not as invested as he was at the beginning of the night. It was nice to imagine a future with him, one you couldn’t visualize with any of your previous partners. Yet now you couldn’t wait to see what was to come as your relationship developed.

Looking at his face as he concentrated on his game, and also making you laugh you realized that here he was, the love of your life, and you couldn’t wait to see what the future held for you. Who knows, maybe you would end up naming your future kid after some stupid video game character that made you fall even more in love with the man before you. It was hard to say, but you were definitely excited to find out what lay before you and our relationship. And you knew you would never get tired of staring into those beautiful brown eyes.

#enhypen reactions #enhypen drabble #enhypen scenarios #enha reactions #enha drabbles #enha scenarios #enhypen fluff #enhypen soft hours #enha fluff #enha soft hours #heeseung #enha x reader #enhypen x reader #enhypen x y/n #enha x y/n #enhypen heeseung #enha heeseung #lee heesung x reader

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charcadett · 1 year

Note

MILO please please please headcanon request for what it would be like being part of Team Skull and dating Guzma after TS disbands?

Hiii Charlie. Okay unsure how I feel about this one because I never finished the Ultra Moon post game or watched the anime so I’m sure there’s something he’s ACTUALLY doing. But man. I have no idea what that is.

Dating Guzma After Team Skull Disbands

- While Team Skull disbands and ceases annoying trial goers, they also technically stick together. Most of the members who stuck around still live in Po Town, including you, Guzma, and Plumeria. The first order of business is cleaning up. Although the result isn’t perfect considering it's being done by a group of people who are essentially twenty-something college dropouts. Of course, in true dropout fashion, this results in a massive trash-burning bonfire. The blaze lasts until Nanu drops by, asking if anyone is aware that that is illegal. He’s hit with a resounding no.

- “What do you mean? People burn wood and shit all the time,” One grunt says.

- Nanu picks up a large stick another grunt was using to stoke the fire. “I see a mattress, at least five plastic bags, and… ten tires. That’s incredibly toxic. Get away from there.”

- The cleaning operation results in Guzma finally cleaning his room. The chest of Buginium Z is given elsewhere to be distributed to trial goers rather than hoarded, his bed is made, the carpet is vacuumed, and the throne is tossed in a dumpster. Much to your dismay. There was no denying the inherent hotness of the throne, even if its removal frees up a significant amount of space for decorating. An activity Guzma leaves to you. He can do the heavy lifting, but interior decoration is not his forte. If it were up to him, his mattress would be on the floor, and he’d use a crate as a table.

- Guzma deals with a lot of toxic masculinity. Being vulnerable, especially in front of others, is hard for him. Guzma's working on that right now. It’s still hard for him to tell you how he feels, to talk to you if he’s jealous rather than intimidate the other guy into submission, but he’s working on it. He wants to be a good partner to you and he knows this is the best way to do it. His compliments are clumsy for a bit. Guzma can tell you how hot you look with little issue. When it comes down to more intimate details, he clams up. He does notice the little things. Your laugh is nice. It makes him get butterflies in his stomach when you smile at him, he loves the way his heart flips when you kiss him, though these are things he’s unable to articulate well. He gets better eventually. For now, you smile while he stumbles his way through how pretty your eyes are.

#pokemon x reader #pokemon imagines #pokemon headcanons #guzma x reader #ft nanu for like five seconds #imagine every so often he drops by po town to make sure its not on fire or something #i bet he has like #nightmares that lord of the flies happens in there #he wakes up like ‘its not my problem if they kill each other’ but checks every morning anyways #just in case

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passivenovember · 1 year

Text

West.

(For my darling @cuepickle , ILYSM!)

Washed in fire-cracker light from a pit in Steve Harrington’s backyard, Billy swallows an entire topaz ocean from a can and stops wishing for California.

Because he’s piss-drunk, crinkling aluminum in his fist to keep from reaching out, into the flame, to prove that it’s all a dream. A feeling that will pass. And Steve’s smoking through Billy’s pack of Marlboro reds, one right after the other, the little train that could.

It doesn’t make Billy angry. It used to. Because he wanted to be the lighter in Steve’s hand and the smoke in Steve’s lungs and the blood rushing, confident, through his veins, and he never knew it.

That’s the thing about Billy. If it’s not coming from a textbook, he’s slow on the uptake and eager to swing out of misplaced anger. But once he figured out what this was, catching butterflies in his hands, he settled for friendship and he’s happy about it. Thrilled and content to share his cigarettes until the stars stop spinning like they’re caught in a washing machine, and he hopes against hope, that. Steve’ll stay put.

That they’ll sit close enough to touch all night long.

That even though people keep trying to drag Harrington back into the house, where they’ve got a game of beer-pong going and the stereo thumping so loud Billy thinks the Earth might crack open–he hopes that Steve will stop searching for tomorrow’s bright spring rays, too.

So, Billy stops dreaming of California.

“This is nice,” Steve says. The wind tousles his hair, kicking up notes of leather, coffee grounds, and vanilla ice cream. Billy wants to bottle it and make a fortune.

“Yeah,” He determines, instead. There’ll be time for masterplans and grand crimes later when Harrington’s the first to fall asleep.

Steve leans to scratch his leg, staring out at his empty swimming pool. “You’re having a nice time?” He asks, and Billy thinks all the color is gone from his face. But maybe it’s just the shadow of the new year closing in. Maybe it’s the moon.

Billy wants to make him smile. “Yeah.”

“That all you can say, Hargrove?” Steve glances over, cheeks red from the cold.

And he's gorgeous.

Billy's never seen anything like him in all the world, so he keeps a textbook full of moments exactly like this one. He never loses track of them, leafing through their worn and well-loved pages whenever he's lost in seas of brown.

A smile plays at the corners of Steve's lips, "Me too," he says, soft and secret and so like an eclipsing planet even though beyond a scraggly line of ferns and balding oak trees, tripping all the way along a path of bronze sandstone, all of Hawkins is getting trashed on the sloppy seconds from the Harrington’s Christmas party.

Steve doesn’t mind it. He’s got the world in his hand, a wristwatch that’s stopped working, and all of Billy’s attention focused as a searchlight, on his pretty, pretty face.

The whole cheerleading team is probably wondering where they are.

Billy can’t get his legs to work, they’ve turned to vanilla pudding. “What’d you get for Christmas, richie-rich?”

Steve shrugs and turns back to the pool. “Pair of Nike’s, that new Queen record, a pack of cool-ranch sunflower seeds, some kettle corn-–”

“Wow, Momsie and Papa couldn’t roll the savings account for you? Aren’t you an only child?”

“I got a Playboy desk calendar, too,” Steve passes his-their-Billy’s cigarette without a second thought. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

Suddenly the backdoor opens, and a pinpoint of yellow flashes in a sea of dark, dark winter.

Billy uses his free hand to shield his eyes.

Steve clicks his teeth, annoyed when he shouts, “I’m busy,” to the short, pissed-off figure that calls his name into the night.

“It’s fine,” Billy tells him, swinging his legs over the side of the pool chair so he can get his feet under him, “They’re probably lost in there without you.”

“No,” Steve snaps. The thick gold band he stole from Billy’s gym bag after training camp this summer taps a frantic tune on the metal chair beneath him.

And Billy gets the sense that this isn’t a casual conversation.

That Steve’s got speeches and roadmaps snaking like candy-land fields in his mind, a clear goal trapping them in this moment on the last Friday of winter break, two hours past midnight on the first day of a brand new year.

Steve looks at him. Studies him.

Says, after a long, weightless moment, “There’s something I want to talk to you about,” and Billy’s mind goes a hundred and one places. None of them good, all of them baring teeth and claws and spikey bones from years of rotting decay.

"Feeling brave, Harrington,"

Steve grins in spite of himself, "Maybe,"

And somewhere behind them, the pinpoint of light goes out.

Steve takes a deep, uneasy breath. “I’ve been thinking about graduation.” He starts, and the world tilts sideways.

Frosted blades of grass crunch underfoot of someone drawing closer and closer to whatever grenade Steve’s about to throw on their perfect, carefree night. A stranger, or friend, or–-

Neil, for all Billy knows, is set to get a front-row seat to Steve’s admission.

I know what you are, Billy imagines him saying, kind eyes finally slicing Billy open after so many months of liquid care, I know how you feel about me and what happens in your gym shorts when you see my ass in the showers. I’ve seen how you fuck yourself open on your fingers imagining that I’m pressing myself inside you because we’re in love with each other–-

Steve gulps down the rest of his beer and turns, so their knees knock.

It hurts, and it doesn’t. He swallows panic, anyway.

Billy gets like that at the first sign of trouble. Sensitive as an overripe peach. All those times they put their hands on each other and Billy doubts Harrington knows that he bruises easily. That he carried Steve’s fingerprints on his skin for weeks after--

“It’s just,” Steve says, eyes cast to the ground. To the crust of the Earth, knocking politely on the lid of Billy’s sneakers, “When I think about my future, it gets fuzzy.”

“Yeah, that’s normal, I think.” Billy turns, eyes straining through the darkness to find the owner of those clandestine footsteps. The yard is empty. He passes the unlit cigarette back to Steve and wonders, through a cloud of haze and terrifying anxiety, if he imagined the whole thing.

Maybe they’re alone, after all. Maybe Steve will go easy on him. Maybe—

Steve lets the cigarette fall to the ground.

“Wasteful,” Billy says, trying to cast light on the mood.

“I don’t care, I’ll buy more."

On the tip of Billy’s tongue, he feels red-hot jealousy inflate like blown glass. Typical, he wants to say, you rich bitches don’t give two shits about the resources you deplete or the mouths you take them from, and still–-

Call it a habit.

Billy’s trying to file his own edges down. Doesn’t want to be that guy to Steve anymore, the one who says those things and means it, because–-

Billy bites down until he tastes blood to stop from saying something stupid. But the thought comes an hour and four beers too late.

Steve won’t look at him and Billy’s trying to find the hole in their lifeboat before their friendship sinks. There’ve been a lot of parties this break. A lot of weed smoke, a lot of tequila shots, and stolen six packs exchanged for frozen pizza, and Billy thinks for an endless moment that maybe he said something, once.

Got shitfaced and lost in the pink feeling when Steve carried him home and put Billy to bed and crawled under the sheets with him, so close but not touching, until they both fell to dreams.

Maybe Billy got too comfortable in their safe, easy friendship, and ruined everything.

Maybe Steve knows.

“My future,” Steve tries again, eyebrows pinched in a way that’ll give him wrinkles before he turns thirty-five, “It only makes sense if I imagine–-”

“Jesus Christ, It's fucking freezing out here."

Billy cranes his neck and Robin appears, windswept and higher than a kite, balancing along the abandoned edge of the pool. Her cheeks are red from the cold despite the insulated overalls that still hold last month's mustard stains, and the leather jacket she stole from Billy’s room and never gave back is slung around her shoulders.

They stare at her for a long, breathless moment.

“Y’all scared me,” She says, rubbing her hands together, "Am I interrupting something?"

Billy turns back around, "Not really," He says, at the same time, Harrington snaps, "Kinda," All teeth and none of that sappy best-friends-who-can-read-each other's-minds bullshit that he keeps on tap.

“You knew we were out here,” Steve clarifies. He flicks a cluster of ash from his sun lounger. “You were standing at the door, calling my name.”

“I was calling both your names.”

“Bullshit,” Billy tells her, chuckling.

“Not shit,” Robin says, plopping down on the pool lounger next to him, “I called both your names and when I heard Steve’s voice I thought maybe you went into the woods together.”

“How much dope have you had tonight?” When Robin waggles her eyebrows, Steve frowns, “We wouldn't go into the woods. Don’t go into the woods, Bucks.”

“Too late, I already did,” Robin snatches their cigarette off the ground and takes the lighter that’s offered, pinching the filter between her front teeth, “It’s fucking freezing out here–-”

Billy grins. "You already said that."

“We were talking,” Steve bristles. His eyes are narrowed, pools of honey covered in bees and wasps and he doesn’t say what Billy so clearly sees between the lines. We were talking–-

And you interrupted us.

Robin frowns. “What could you possibly be doing out here that couldn’t happen inside?”

“You mean the very same inside that’s caught under the mind-numbing cadence of Wham! and the watchful eye of half the school?” Billy shrugs, “Wasn’t my bag.” Billy takes robins-his-Steve’s cigarette and tells the truth. “Harrington’s waxing poetic about the future.”

“My future,” Steve says.

“His future,” Billy clarifies.

“Jesus Christ. It’s the last Friday of winter break, can we please not do the college thing?”

“Quick, check her head for bumps,” Billy deadpans, stealing his cigarette back. It’s comical, coming from Mrs. SAT herself.

Robin knocks her shoulder into Billy. Hard. “I’m serious. You guys put too much pressure on yourselves.”

“I got into UC Berkeley and it was my first choice,” Billy teases, “Don’t worry about little Hargrove, he’ll be shouldering summer road trips and bags of dope in four years' time.”

“Four and a half years, let’s not jump the gun,” Steve says, He fiddles with the sanded edge of his beer can, a thousand and one thoughts racing by like taxi cabs behind the curtain of hair on his forehead. “I can do that, now,” He says like it means something.

“Steve,” Robin begins softly, “What’s wrong?”

“God, nothing,”

And Billy’s smart enough to know when a bomb’s set to explode. Harrington’s got fire in him, it burns on a simmer like the focused light from an oil lamp, high in a tower overlooking the sea. He’s good at steering conversations and batting his spindly shutters to get what he wants.

It’s what makes him the King.

And Billy has to physically swallow his own tongue to stop from saying that Robin’s efforts are pointless.

Steve’ll talk when he’s ready if he ever gets there at all, and to be honest, Billy hopes the train doesn’t arrive tonight.

Billy’s feeling selfish.

Wants so desperately to skip the big, emotional conversations and for the light to return to the sky. For the last Friday before the spring semester to lose twenty pounds so it can fit, cookie-cutter and all, into the mold of Billy’s senior year. He doesn’t want to think about the future, there’s plenty of time for that.

Mostly, he wants to go inside and get drunk.

“C’mon,” Robin tries, kicking the toe of her boot and Steve’s sneaker together until he grinds his molars, “You can talk to us,”

Billy groans.

“Just because Hargrove and I are going to the same school-–”

“Buckley, leave the kid alone.”

Steve is silent for so long that Billy grows a headful of gray.

"I don't care about Berkely, I just care about California," He says. He looks at Billy, peers right through him and Steve’s eyes are glittering like a million wayward stars. Like he might cry. “I wanted to-–”

Billy springs to his feet.

“Jesus, can we just go inside?” Billy’s fingers itch for the comforting cylinder of aluminum. He wants to dance, and he’d take Cher or Madonna. George Michael–-

He pats the seat of his pants, instead, so it looks like he’s searching for something to smoke.

He doesn’t miss the hurt that flashes, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, across Steve’s face.

“Alright,” Harrington crumples his beer can and tosses it, sharply, into the dark hollow of his swimming pool.

“C’mon, Steve, Bills is just being an asshole,” Robin’s nose wrinkles. She’s trying really hard to look serious and interested and sober. “What were you going to say?”

“It wasn’t important.”

“It was important enough for you to hold Billy hostage for the last hour and a half,” She takes the last puff from her cigarette, losing steam in this conversation, “You know Heather Duke was playing twenty questions, trying to figure out where Billy ran off to?”

“I don’t care about Heather Duke,” Steve says bluntly, “What makes you think I would ever give a shit about–-”

Robin is unphased, “Seems kinda like you give a shit about Heather Duke.”

And all at once, Steve snaps.

It’s like watching a tree fall in the woods. Silent, and then all hell breaks loose and the world ends.

“You didn’t have to come out here,” Steve says, about as even and gentle as the aftershocks of a hurricane, “You could’ve stayed inside with everyone else.”

“God, you’re such an asshole when you drink brown beer, it makes you delusional-–”

Billy sits back down.

“--Shoot me for wanting to make sure my best friends are okay,” Robin tells him, dry as an old desert bone.

“We were fine,” Steve snaps.

“You drank a bunch of beer and then fucking vanished.”

“If you think I’d ever let anything happen to him–-”

“--Harrington-–”

“--You’re out of your mind, Buckley.”

“Fuck you,” Robin throws her cigarette at Steve’s face. “Come find me when you’re done acting like you’re the only one who’s got feelings,” She says, and then she’s off. Stomping across the frosted lawn until the french doors slam shut behind her, harsh and final.

Steve kicks his sun lounger.

“Hey, easy, pretty boy.”

“We were having a private conversation,” Steve snaps. When he looks at Billy his eyes are glossed over, wet, huge, and afraid. “We were talking, and then–-”

“What the fuck has gotten into you?”

Steve frowns, spine going taught like the string of a bow, poised to kill.

Billy shrugs, confused to the very core of him. “In all the months I’ve known you and crashed on your couch and gotten piss-drunk in your shitty fucking car I’ve never seen you act like this. Robs mentions Heather Duke and-–”

“What, you care about Heather Duke, all of a sudden?” Steve scoffs like Billy’s the most irrational, irritating, piece-of-shit guy on the planet. “You know her dad bought her a nose job, like, two weeks before you moved here?”

“Oh my god, who gives a shit? I’m here with you. Right? I’m right here,” Billy shouts, uncaring for how his voice echoes against the bark of a million barren, dying trees, “Can we try and have a good night? It’s the–-”

“If you say it’s the last Friday of break one more fucking time–-”

Billy wonders what crashed Steve’s yacht into the rocks. What’s got his panties bunched up, and why Steve feels like he’s got any authority to stop Billy from getting a few good orgasms in before sunrise.

He doesn’t get the chance to ask.

Steve rubs the wet from his cheeks. “Forget it,” He says, “Let’s just. Let’s go back to the party, alright?”

“Steve-–”

But he’s gone.

Before Billy even has a chance to say that everything will be alright, Steve’s gone.

It’s another hour before Billy has the courage to chase after him.

—

In a room full of piss-drunk kids and aluminum barrels and honey-comb ashtrays that look like they’ve spit up all over Mrs. Harrington’s nice coffee table, Billy drinks the edge away.

Steve said he was going back to the party but he’s nowhere in sight. Robin’s missing, too, and Billy has no doubt they’ve hugged and made up. They’ve got a Care Bear cut to them, you know, can never go to bed angry.

Billy imagines that they’re in the mast bathroom right now. Swimming in Ma Harrington’s jet tub, or painting their toenails in the guest bedroom that overlooks the west-facing tree line. He wonders if they’re drunk enough to talk, hushed and trepid, about their fears.

Billy wonders if he’ll ever fully fit in with them. If he could ever belong anywhere else.

Eventually, the house starts to empty. Tommy H. says some dumb shit about being hung out to dry, all, if Harrington wanted to fuck the weird girl in a quiet house all he had to do was say something, but everyone else is too drunk to fake a laugh.

Billy tells him he should move the party to his. “Your parents are in Aspen, right?” Billy wonders, swallowing the last sip of his last beer for the ‘85 season.

“Yeah,” Tommy H. slurs, so he uses Billy’s head as a push lever to stand on the coffee table and knocks Mr. Harrington’s ashtray onto the carpet. Says, “Hey guys, afterparty at my house,”

No one in their right mind wants to go home plastered.

So the house clears.

Billy sinks into silence about as easily as a rock in the ocean. It swallows him, the distant drone of the heater is his only companion as he vacuums drifts of cigarette and marijuana ash from the carpet.

He runs the loud machine about the whole room to tidy up, imagining that with this invention Billy is cleaning up the last, terrible dregs of a very long year.

It’s freeing.

Billy’s weightless, so on cloud nine that when someone thumps on the floor upstairs he wonders who could be so high above him. Higher than his crown of mussy curls, taller than God himself.

Billy takes the stairs leisurely, focusing every free inch of brainpower on putting one foot in front of the other.

And the thing about Steve’s house is that there are a million long, winding corridors that Billy can’t navigate even when he’s operating at peak performance, you know. Drinking lots of water and eating root vegetables and laying off the cigarettes and following the thread of gold that trails after Steve like toilet paper stuck to his shoe.

Billy’s shitfaced and out of breath by the time he’s run out of guest rooms to investigate.

There’s no one here, Billy thinks.

No one but me, and the pipes–-

“Billy?”

Steve’s in his pajamas. He looks a little bit like Winnie the Pooh, in red flannel, rubbing at his eyes like maybe something woke him from a deep, dreamless sleep but Steve isn’t angry about it. Because he sat up all night waiting.

“Thought you left,” Steve mumbles, eyes squinted as if every bulb in the house is burning at once.

“Why would I leave?”

“I thought maybe I pissed you off and you went home with someone else,” Steve pads forward, voice soft and warm with curling tendrils of exhaustion.

Billy wants to touch him. Billy aches to run his fingers through Steve’s hair and pull and tug until the guilt is smoothed from his face.

Most of all, Billy wants to kiss him.

And he’s so used to that feeling sitting like a hot coal in the very center of him, heating words and emotions to boiling until they bubble up and spill over in ways Billy could never stifle, even with a lid to the flame.

Billy’s so used to it that he shrugs, instead. “I’m wasted,” He admits, because it takes the sting away from the thought that Harrington’s suspicious of him. That once the alcohol burned everything away, Billy whored himself out. Chose someone else. Abandoned ship even though–-

“I know,” Steve smiles softly, “Me too.”

“Where’s Robin?”

“Asleep,” Steve confesses. They stare at each other for a moment and Steve’s expression melts. His smile is washed away, happiness swallowed by grief. “Listen, Billy–-”

Billy pads toward the bedroom. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“But I–-”

Billy takes his shirt off, slipping out of his boots and trousers on autopilot. There have been so many nights exactly like this one, so many beer-filled memories of slipping under the covers and feeling Steve, warm and soft, curl up behind him.

But it’s almost like a switch has flipped and after their friendly spat by the pool, they’ve been sucked into an alternate dimension where the awkwardness that stuck like wet paint to their friendship and never really dried.

Steve stands next to the bed, now, teeth rattling from the cold.

Everything’s quiet.

“I was an asshole,” Steve tells him.

Billy’s exhausted. “Stevie, get in bed.”

“Things are changing so fast and I just-–”

Billy’s already half asleep. “I don’t give a shit about that, Steve, it’s alright,” Billy settles in with Robin. She snuffles, rolling over until she’s settled enough to begin drooling slick over Billy’s left nipple.

He lets his eyes slip closed, breath calm even as the mattress feels like it’s lost at sea.

Billy cracks open one eye, glaring up at Steve where he’s watching Robin and Billy with a small, sweet curl to his lips. “Come cuddle, you shithead,” Billy mutters, knowing he’ll be embarrassed about that tomorrow.

Steve looks afraid. Young and frightened and so uncertain.

It’s a strange, unusual look to see on Steve’s face.

Billy’s heart pinches, shuddering painfully in his chest. “C’mon, Harrington, I’m cold,” Billy tries again. He knows he won’t be able to fall asleep without Steve. It’s a dorky, pathetic development as ancient as the stars.

Even when he’s home, lounging in his own bed on Cherry lane; even when the days are decent with no fights and swinging fists because Billy did his chores and minded his tongue, when there’s nothing to cry about and nothing be up early for, Billy doesn’t dream as easy as he does here.

With Steve.

So Billy shuffles toward the edge of the bed, smirking when Robin flips over onto her stomach. “If you get in here with me you can tell me all about it, alright?”

“And you’ll listen?”

“And I’ll listen,” Billy swears.

Steve bites his lip. He shuffles for another few seconds and then gives in, laying on the other side of Billy.

And Billy is too drunk to notice the way their bodies naturally curl around each other. Like clinging vines and stone houses, soft greenery seeking warmth. Billy puts his face in the crook of Steve’s neck, pushing into the calloused fingertips that trace the curve of his spine.

He’s warm.

He’s already asleep, dreams lapping like warm ocean water against his toes.

“I was thinking,” Steve says, “About the future?”

Billy makes a noise, floating on Steve’s mattress.

“I just. I want you–” Someone’s snoring. “Goddammit, Robin.”

Billy curls away from the sound, slinging one leg over the waist of that soft, murmuring voice to stop it from disappearing. It blends in with the texture of the night. It slips away but that doesn’t matter.

“Billy?”

Billy dreams of the boy it’s attached to, and he falls asleep, succumbing to the mystery of the future.

–-

“This is your fault,” Robin says. She dips a green bean in tarter sauce and licks all of it off before chewing, “Well. Mostly it’s your fault.”

It’s fish-fry day. Reminds Billy, like a spot of paint on a big bright canvas, just the tiniest bit of home. He’s in a good mood, taking his time with his mashed potatoes, hasn’t even cracked open his Pepsi, and it’s like the afternoon catches on a low-hanging branch and pops open. Ripped at the seams.

Billy’s slow on the draw, mouth smeared with lazy ease. “What now?”

“Steve,” She says. Like duh. Like, “It’s your fault.”

Billy stabs his last fish stick. Imagines blood and guts, little water-logged voices screaming in pain, “You’re full of shit.”

“I’m full of astute observations,” Robin tells him, looking around and leaning forward like anyone in first lunch gives a damn about Steve or either of them, for that matter.

Billy’s cool died, right along with his heart, the first time Steve smiled at him.

“You really need to pay more attention to the people around you.” Robin continues loudly, “Just because we don’t have 20-pack abs-–”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Buckley?”

“You were there. You saw how Steve blew a fuse.”

“Wasn’t like he was running in tip-top shape anyhow,” Billy spots Heather Duke across the room, batting her lashes so hard it looks like she’s got something in her eye. "Are we really talking about this?"

She waves.

Billy doesn’t wave back.

“Stop making fuck-me eyes at your girlfriend,”

“Buckley,” Billy warns, eyes snapping, poised to kill, on Robin’s face, “You’re on thin ice.”

“I’m always on thin ice,”

“More than usual,” Billy clarifies. He leans forward, close enough that he hopes his tarter-sauce breath kills Robin on the spot. “I’m not taking the blame for the Princess’ shitty New Years' mood.”

Robin doesn’t plug her nose. “Well, you should.”

“Why, because I’m a reformed asshole and that makes me a scapegoat for everyone else’s neurosis?”

“No,” Robin says dryly, “You’re probably the only person on the entire planet who can let him know everything’s going to be okay.”

Billy flops back in his seat, scrubbing at his face and tugging at his hair like maybe if he buffs hard enough, he can be a new person. Shiny and clean. The type that does shit like this, who can open like a spring flower and not care about the bees.

Eventually, Billy inflates again. “Steve hasn’t said anything to me about anything.”

“He’s probably embarrassed.”

“--The guy who brags about being best friends with a Middle Schooler–-”

“Okay, then he’s worried you’ll reject him,” Robin says.

And.

The first boy who ever had a crush on Billy pulled his chair out from under him. Billy cracked his head on the desk and had to get four stitches. Billy’s mom drove him to Urgent Care and said boys only do that when they’re in love with you.

Because they can’t find the words, she’d told him.

In retrospect, it makes sense to Billy that his mother would say that. All she ever knew was love the color of fresh bruises.

But the thing about Steve is, he’s full of words.

He drips honeyed dad jokes and terrible made-up song lyrics about the cowlick that floats in Billy’s hair when he’s had too much to drink. Steve spins stories about the future and says things like when we’re at college together and when we’re roommates and I get to trap you forever by my side–-

He’s stuffed to bursting with sunlight and easy promises.

And the thing about Billy is, his whole life has been about death. Rebirth, too. Over and over and over again. He’s had to rework what love looks like from all sides, proving to himself time after time that nice boys don’t leave bruises when they hold you in their arms. They don’t crack skulls and split lips with anything but their teeth.

And when blood spills, it’s all by accident.

They clean it up with their mouth. They spit it out again, and it's golden healing.

Billy’s pretty sure he falls through the chair.

Or maybe, the legs break out from under him. And the Earth crawls away, nursing split crust and shattered plates. And the cosmos burns up, like. In one fell swoop.

That first crush times a million and Steve isn’t even here.

“What,” Billy rasps. He clears his throat. Chokes and tries again, climbing up a mountain of truth. “What does that mean?”

Robin won’t look at him.

Billy leans forward. “He’s worried that I’ll stop hanging out if he’s vulnerable with me?”

Robin’s cheeks are red. So pink Billy would chew a roll of HubbaBubba to color match with the fuzzy damp of her skin.

“Did Steve say Friday was my fault?”

She picks at her food.

“Robin,” Billy says.

Robin shakes her head. She won’t look at him.

Billy grinds his teeth, “Robin.”

“No, Billy.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“I’m not getting involved–-"

“You’re getting a head full of mashed potato if you don’t tell me what you’re talking about,” Billy scoops what’s left off his tray, gripping the handle of his spoon so hard he’s sure his palm starts bleeding.

“Billy,” Robin starts.

Billy raises his eyebrows in a venomous threat, leveraging the spoonful of mashed potatoes he’s got locked and loaded.

He’ll do it. He’ll fire the first shot and every blow that comes after and Robin knows he will.

She shifts in her chair, “I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

“It’s a little late for that.”

Robin shakes her head. “I was supposed to keep quiet.”

“Dammit Robin, why the fuck are you speaking in riddles? Why are you acting like you can point fingers and pin blame all from the comfort of your fucking high horse and not get your shit rocked for it?”

“I’m not on my high horse–-”

“Bullshit,” Billy slams his spoon on the table. “You can’t tell me that everything is my fault and not speak the fuck up.”

Billy won’t stand for it.

Robin frowns. “Maybe ‘everything,’ was a bit dramatic.”

“Ugh, Robin.”

“Maybe I should’ve chosen my words a little more carefully,” She dodges the mound of potatoes that goes flying, cheeks red as the sun. “I would’ve. If I could do it over again, I would.”

“Spare me.”

“You know I can’t control my mouth once it gets going, I get, like. Verbal diarrhea.”

Billy jerks into motion and starts gathering his lunch scraps.

Because he’s got a thing about blame, at the root of him. Being saddled with the weight of everything. Everyone’s shit mood and shit decisions and shit consequences, all smeared down the front of his heart just because he’s strong enough to hold it.

Robin stares at him as he slings his backpack over one shoulder. The calculus textbook he’s read twice cover to cover, sits like a familiar childhood blanket against his shoulder blades. His heart rate slows, everything grinds to a halt, and that’s when he realizes that Robin’s about three seconds away from crying.

At lunch.

In the lunchroom.

“Steve’s been such a good friend to me,” Robins says quietly. “He’s never aired my shit, you know? Or put himself in the middle of something that didn’t concern him.”

“Steve’s a good person, he wouldn’t do that.”

“But he could’ve,” Robin scrubs at her face just to make sure it stays dry. “I guess I'm still a little pissed off about Friday.”

Billy slides out of his backpack. “I don’t really blame you. Something’s bothering him, I’ve never seen him flip his lid like that.”

“I’m really worried about him, Bills.”

“And you think I’m not?”

“No, I know you are, it’s just,” Robin bites her lip again, so hard Billy worries that blood will trickle onto the Formica table top. “Have you talked to him about his acceptance letters?”

“His college acceptance letters?”

“Yes,”

Billy blinks, more confused than he’s ever been in his life.

He’s embarrassed to admit that it’s been the farthest thing from his mind. After Billy got into Berkeley and Robin followed close behind, like a toppling domino hellbent on majoring in Forestry, Billy just sort of assumed, that–

“Steve didn’t get in.”

Robin studies her picked-over lunch tray and the table beneath that, like maybe the wood grain will hold the key to the universe if she stares hard enough.

Billy slips into his backpack.

Robin jerks up at him, frowning, “Where are you–”

“Steve’s got free period next, right?”

“Yeah–”

“I’ll be back in time for Calc.” Billy kisses Robin’s cheek, immediately wiping the taste of nosey lesbian from his lips.

Chapter Management

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Chapter 2

: as long as you followChapter Text

Whatever Steve’s supposed to do with his life is a distant cloud on the horizon until it’s not.

And as his father would say, hardly glancing from the dotted line splayed on the desk in front of him, that Steve’s wrapped in a Molotov of distraction.

He’s never had to work a day in his life, really work, because Steve’s mother wanted him to have a bright and easy childhood. And because of the angelic grace given to him as the result of a long line of lovers who wanted better for their love, Steve won’t make anything of his life.

He digs his heels into that truth, ever his father’s son, making sure to take chunks out of it.

He wants to gather that harshness into a pile and create something else. Build a home or a treehouse or a getaway car.

So he drinks and smokes and fucks his way down the river. Past roiling clouds of semester finals and homecoming games , never really clocking that behemoth milestone in the distance.

Until Billy, who makes Steve so crazy he feels radioactive.

Billy talks about the future all the time. With a curl to his lips and a beer in his hand, ribs and knuckles bruised. When I’m finally out of here and I’m back home, standing in the summer waves—

He makes grand statements. He could sell Steve a plot of land at the edge of the world, his bare feet dangling in the cosmos because anywhere is a step up from here.

And at first, college is a welcome ticket out of Hawkins and away from Billy and all the confusing, fucked up things he makes Steve feel. But then, just as quickly, it becomes about doing everything in his power to stop the wedge of the future from coming between them.

It becomes about giving Billy something to hold onto. It becomes about all those gnarled things his father told him about failure and family names.

Steve’s future starts to look less and less like what he’d never fully imagined. It doesn’t belong to himself, or to his father, but to Billy.

Just like everything else, it.

It becomes about mortaring a foundation and building a thatched roof to come home to when the stars grow cold.

But love doesn’t change his transcript.

And all the money Steve would rather die than take from his father to make every problem swallow itself doesn’t chip away at reality. For Billy, doors, and windows have opened into bright, golden pastures flanked by possibility as deep as the Pacific ocean, and Steve.

Steve will only hold him back.

–-

He chews on that for a while.

It grows thick and gummy from unsheathed worries and unshed tears and Steve wishes, into the empty well of his endless swimming pool on New Year's Eve, that things were different. That all the money he’s sitting on like a lucky dragon with a pocketful of coins could change the fork in the road.

Steve tries to ignore it.

Billy’s leaving in four months and he’s taking Robin with him and Steve wants that. Wind in Billy’s hair, you know.

Life.

It’s killing him. Robin knows, but only because Steve was wasting away.

She thinks he’s being a dumbass. “Just talk to him,” She says, “You never know what he might say, right? He could–”

What? Steve doesn’t tell her. Billy could give up his dream and stay here in Hawkins and rot and rot and hate me forever.

Billy asks him, “What the fuck has gotten into you,” That night and so many times before. Astute and scholarly and beautiful like an open flame when Steve can’t fake any more smiles.

Billy’s got to fly away. And Steve, regardless of whether he’s earned his wings, wants to jump after him.

–-

He’s parked at the quarry and the sun’s playing peek-a-boo.

On the hood of his car, Steve digs at his jean pockets and tires to imagine that the future could be like this. That maybe, without Robin’s big mouth and Billy’s fierce protection, Steve could find spots of sunlight to bask in so he won’t freeze to death.

But, really, every day is overcast.

He’s tired of pretending otherwise.

So it’s fitting that right as Steve considers walking ten extra feet to the lip of the rocky ground, Billy’s car pulls to a thundering halt and almost skids past the rope barrier, careening off the cliff and into the raging waters below. Steve imagines jumping after him. He would. He–

“You didn’t get into Berk,”

There are countless clouds on the horizon. “Nope,” Steve says, and he pop’s the P because it feels right. New Year New Steve–

Billy shoves him off the car hood. “You’re an asshole.”

Steve can’t fight anymore, “I know,”

“Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?”

There’s so much he could’ve said then. And now. And always.

I love you, he tries, staring out at a distant line of trees, I want to give you the world.

Steve shrugs his shoulders. “Nothing will change it.”

“Your parents have money, Steve,” Billy tries, and that’s just like him. Steve’s biggest cheerleader.

But Steve lost, alright? The game. The guy.

“It’s not any kind of money I want.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Billy shoves him again. His eyes get caught on Steve’s collarbone, tracing the line of his sweater. “Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?”

“‘M not cold,”

“Your lips are almost blue.”

“So I’ll freeze to death,” Steve admits, like. Big whoop.

But then Billy’s shrugging out of his jacket, “Here,” He says. Pissed and venomous like it’s going against his personal code of ethics to keep Steve alive when all he’s ever been is a dumbass with a hazard sign taped to his ass.

When Steve doesn’t take the warmth that’s offered to him, Billy steps close–

So close Steve gets wind of the ylang-ylang oil Max got him for Christmas

–and drapes the jacket over Steve’s shoulders.

It’s sweet.

It’s exactly the kind of thing Steve would’ve done for Nancy, back when he thought he knew what love was supposed to taste like. It chokes him up, gets those huge, impossible words lodged in the back of his throat so when Billy lights a cigarette and hands it over, Steve nearly chokes to death.

He lives.

Billy sits on the hood of the Beemer. “What are you gonna do now?” He asks.

Steve puffs on the Marlboro, “Maybe I’ll work at my dad’s office.”

“You’re not doing that, Steve.”

“Okay, then I’ll go missing,” He passes the cigarette back over, trying to brush Billy’s skin with his fingertips one last time, “Maybe I’ll die if I’m–”

“What happened to Marine Biology?” Billy shifts on the hood of the car so his knees press, sharp as knives, into Steve’s hip bone.

He looks so open. Earnest and dead-set on solving all of Steve’s problems for him, making a way, and forging a path in fire when the road won’t yield its secrets. It’s so Billy, so exactly the reason Steve loves him, that. He can’t hold onto it anymore.

“That was a lie,” Steve admits, “I don’t know shit about biology or the ocean beyond what I’ve seen on the History channel, I just. Wanted to be with you.”

The truth lands like cold water on Billy’s lap.

Steve flicks ash from the end of the last cigarette he’ll ever share with Billy, and. Thinks this is what love tastes like. Truth and smoke and clear, bright wintery air.

“My whole life, nothing and no one ever really made sense. For so long I was avoiding every turn that brought the future because I didn’t know what it was supposed to look like, but then–”

“But then?” Billy asks, so quiet Steve almost misses it.

He takes a deep breath. “I met you,” He admits.

And it feels good.

It’s almost as good as flying, so Steve takes a deep breath and says, “I met you and everything made sense. You talk about the ocean so much that I really did want to learn more. I thought, if he loves it then I could, too. Because I love him and I would do anything, be anyone, if it would make him smile. I wanted to study its ways and become fluent in its language so when you spoke, I could talk back. I wanted to be good enough to make you love me, good enough to take you away from here, But I’m not.”

Steve scrubs a hand across his face.

“You don’t need me to take you away from here, though. I think I always knew that. You’re strong enough to do that yourself. I’m sorry I’m not good enough, Bill.”

The sun disappears behind a bank of thick, gray clouds, and Steve imagines freezing solid.

It’s fitting. A neon sign that proves Steve was right.

Billy takes the cigarette when it’s offered to him. He doesn’t say anything for so long that Steve starts the grieving process, truly dawning a black veil for the death of what was and what never will be.

Steve slides off the hood of the car.

“Do you want to see the West with me?”

He looks over his shoulder. The wind kicks Billy’s curls into his face, hiding his eyes so he looks like a mysterious figure, an ancient God, offering the world on a silver tray.

“I,” Steve mutters, “I don’t understand–”

“You can’t stay here.”

Steve stands his ground. “I can. I have to.”

“I’m not letting you go,” Billy determines. Because he’s beautiful and stubborn and when the wind flows into the east, his eyes bore holes into the cosmos.

Billy slips off the hood of the Beemer, heels cracking so even though they’re standing on even ground all of a sudden, Steve imagines toppling through the crater left behind and voyaging to the center of the Earth.

Billy must pick up on Steve’s master plan.

He sets his jaw in a cut line that has always and will always mean business. “You can’t offer me the world and then take it away because you’re scared,” Billy tells him. He steps close, fingers toying with the hair at the base of Steve’s skull. “I want to get out of this fucking town, Harrington,”

“You should,” Steve blubbers. He’s crying, when did he start– “You should run away and never look back, you know?”

“I plan to,” Billy says bluntly, “And you’re coming with me.”

“Billy–”

“Here’s the plan,” Billy wipes at Steve’s tears, his own eyes dry and resolute. “Over spring break, we’ll take that trip to California just like we said we would. We’ll smoke a lot of dope and I’ll teach you to surf and Robin and I will look around campus–”

“--That sounds great-–”

“--And we’ll find an apartment,” Billy insists, somehow eclipsing the sun and the entire vast, endless spread of the Earth behind him. “We’ll find an apartment, and you’ll go to community college and even if you decide to write terrible poetry and do nothing else for the rest of your fucking life, it won’t matter. Because we’re gonna grow old together, okay?”

He grips the ends of Steve’s hair and tugs, yanking until Steve finally cracks a smile.

“Okay,” Steve says.

When Billy kisses him, it’s like falling apart and fusing together, over and over again until Steve is made new.

Somewhere between the past and the future, the sun escapes the bank of clouds

They hardly notice.

#harringrove #gift fic #angst and humor #fluff #angst with a happy ending

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fitzs-space · 1 year

Text

Watched Labyrinth last night with @galacticjay1, and my brain worms took over.

So woe, hermitcraft Labyrinth au be upon ye

Gem as Sarah, main character energy unfortunately but someone's gotta do it. she's the type to just end up in situations. that way the baby Toby can be her puppy Winnie. [alt option would have been Scott, cause Scott's got the vibe to just be in places, but he could not be bothered to actually go through the labyrinth]

Bdubs as Hoggle, just look at him. the tolken short guy whos forced to help and will complain every step of the way about it, and will completely kissass up to their boss. Also both having a prized possession always kept at their side [the Clock, and the bundle of jewelry]

Scar as Jareth the Goblin King, Yea. Who else.

Etho as Ludo, just vibes really. Quiet dude willing to help and can just do wild shit for no good reason. [alt option was Doc, cause he's got the tall brute force energy to him as well, by they said it didn't fit. Docs got more of a higher energy to him then what would fit]

Rens Sir Didymus, Dog Knight. eccentric mf who screams out soliloquys going on about saving the fair madden they have devoted their time and service to, is that Sir Didymus or Ren? yes. Ok those are the main ones, now onto the other characters met in the labyrinth in approximate order of appearance

Xisuma is the worm. look at that mf and tell me I am wrong, one of the lines is this dude asking Sarah to come in for a cup of tea. Id apologize to the Xisuma enjoyers, but this is tumbler and people know he's a bit of a wet paper bag kinda guy.

Impulse and Skizz are the door Guards, The guards have no idea what's going on and neither do those two. I know its Technically the "Four Guards" and It could be team Zits, but the vibe isn't there fully. the type of mfs to mislead someone by pure accident[Skizz], and also cause its a lil funny[Impulse]

Martin as the False Alarms, their entire roll is to dramatically shout false warnings at the people who pass. If I didn't make the man who abuses the voice effects on his GoXLR as the rocks who wait to shout at people, I'd be making a mistake. [listener ass bitch] Also there is straight up a line where one of them goes "oh please, we don't get to shout these very often, its only our job" in some posh voice, then go back to the deep dramatic shouting. and that's just Martin man.

Grian and Mumbo as the Door Knockers, vibes [its also funny to make everyone's favorite guys as characters only seen for five minuets at most] If any two guys are going to be subjected to living their life forever constantly shouting at each other barely being able to understand what the other is saying, it'd be those two. Grian would be the Left, would also scream if he couldn't hear someone [Watcher allegations also] Mumbo as right because the ring in his mouth could be drawn as his mustache

Tango's a Firey, look at him. Cartoon ass bitch, the entire scuffed greenscreen dance sequence is on par with his thumbnails. I know there are supposed to be five of the dudes, but shhhh Zedaph would also fit with these fuckers. the type of guy who could probably detach his head, but still knows that there are manners and its rude to throw someone else's head

Pearl as the Junk Lady, she's the cleaning lady and collects trash, was it ever a question? And Pearls gremlin voice is the exact same as the Junk lady's voice

Doc's the lil fairies at the beginning of the labyrinth, everyone say thank you to Doccy for butterfly truthing Doc.

Jellie as just all the goblins, Scar the Jellie king instead of the Goblin king. The threat of Winnie getting turned into a cat is kinda funny, also there's the Humongous? that's a Jellie panda

the only main characters Im missing is the Wise Man and the Hat, I just do not know who to put them as, maybe Xb and Keralis cause of vibe? or Xb and Hypno cause of the horsehead farms bit. I do not know.

All that will come from this is me maybe drawing Ren and Scar as the characters, feel free to do what you want with this, my brain just needed to scream about this really

#hermitcraft #hermitblr #labyrinth #dont ask man #Hermit labyrinth au #got my grubby minecraft enjoying hands on the silly david bowie puppet movie #im not tagging the characters

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glacierruler · 6 days

Text

Are We Flying Towards The Future Or Crashing Into A Distant Dream

Ao3

Masterpost | Next Chapter

Creator Chose Not To Warn!

Sanders Sides Fanfiction

Pairings: None this Chapter, Whole Fic is Eventual Analogical

Taglist: @cutebisexualmess @oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat @duck-in-a-spaceship

If you asked Virgil whether he enjoyed getting up at six in the morning to be at a job he hated he would just glare at you until you went away. However this job was essential to his brother going to college, so Virgil didn’t complain. Plus the trades he got were usually pretty good, even if he didn’t get first pick. 5 trade goods every successful air ride was really good all things considered. Better than daily trades, even if some flights did take all day to get to their destination and back.

His job was also essential to help his brother trade for college. Due to how hard it was for them to get the parts to trade, Thomas only took two classes a semester, but that was still thirty mechanical pieces they needed to get so he could attend. Fourty if Thomas was to get books with them. Virgil was just thankful that the school food was measured in weight instead of amount of a specific item. He at least could trust that thomas would eat if he had two pounds of materials on him.

Still, getting up at six only to work until almost midnight some nights made him slightly wish that he got more items than 5 per trip. It was extremely taxing and he hated heights. Not to mention the amount of passengers that did not like to listen when he said they’d get their luggage back. Although, Virgil was always glad when inspection time came around, as it was a day where he only got 5 items, but he was essentially on the ground the whole day.

Each airship in the Butterfly Compass had one team that ran it, with backups just in case someone wasn’t there. They each had designated stopping and loading stations along with routes that they weren’t allowed to change. There were of course, emergency stops along each way, but Virgil had never had to use one of them before. His crew consisted of him, Logan, Remus, Emmet, and Emile. Logan and Emmet were in charge of driving, Emile catered to the passengers as best he could, and Remus was on septic tank duty at each stop. Which he was weirdly happy about in Virgil’s opinion, but he couldn’t complain. He loaded boxes, and luggage onto the airship along with spot cleaning between each stop. There was an official cleaning crew that came in at the end of shifts and deep cleaned everything, but other than that he and Remus were the only sanitation for their specific airship. Overall it was a good gig, the amount of goods and the variety he got were amazing compared to most places. And he was comfortable living in his apartment.

Still, he couldn’t help but yearn for more, yearn for a better living space; somewhere he could comfortably have his sewing area instead of it being cramped, yearn for a bedroom slightly larger with walls that weren’t so thin; tired of attempting to rest when his neighbors wouldn’t shut up, yearn for his brother to comfortably afford college without having to struggle through a horrible job that was often taken for granted. He might not like the fact that his brother was learning how to manipulate aether, a dangerous mystical energy, but he would support Thomas in what he wanted to do.

Which really meant he should get up right now. Ditching his onesie and hoodie for his work uniform, Virgil started his workday. Walking out, Virgil noticed Thomas asleep on one of the contractions he was supposed to be manipulating with aether.

“Thomathy! Wake up! You’ve gotta get to school soon, and I can’t wake you up later today!” Snickering a bit as Thomas attempted to swat in the direction of Virgil’s voice, he walked over to his brother and slowly shook him awake, “C’mon, you’ve got school, I didn’t trade in that silk last week for you to skip!”

“Whatever, daaad.” Thomas replied, stretching before standing up. It always annoyed Virgil that Thomas was taller than him, despite that, Virgil could still lift his brother up if he tried to. After all, he wasn’t hired to place cargo on airships for being weak, although he had surprised the manager when he was hired as his stature made it so no one expected him to be able to carry heavy things.Which was fair, he wasn’t exactly tall or buff, but he still wished people wouldn’t underestimate him because of how he looks.

Still, he wanted things to better. For him and his brother. Having moved from the countryside to the city had been a brutal but necessary change after their parents’ death, a terrible accident. Virgil hadn’t been at the house when it had happened, he’d been off fixing things at the workshop, but Thomas had and Virgil wished he had been there in Thomas’s stead. Of course, there were some positive things that happened with the move, Virgil’s paperwork to change his name had officially been pushed through. It had only taken three months to get the local government to officialize it. But that did mean that he didn’t have to go by his old one. He is also somewhat certain that his name change greatly improved him getting a job which wasn’t great, but it did mean that Thomas could go to college.

After watching his brother lazily wake up, Virgil went on his way to work, taking the bus to the nearest stop. Still nearly a mile away, but Virgil could walk that distance with some ease. Entering through the doors, he watched as Remus caught his eye and perked up.

“Virgil!!!” The lavatory cleaner screeched, and Virgil was so glad that it was too early for anyone to be there yet, “what are you up to today?”

“Work,” Virgil replied, raising one eyebrow up at the taller man. “Why are you asking?”

“Aww, so you’re not part of some plot to destroy the government? Make things easier for us folks at the bottom of the food pyramid?”

“When would I have the time? Anyways, talk like that is going to get us in trouble. We’ve got to meet up with Logan and the others.”

“Boo, you’re no fun!” Remus sneered lightheardedly, before patting Virgil on the back and steering them towards their airship. Usually Virgil would freak out at this, but because Remus already knew he was slightly different than the rest of them, he was just wondering what types of goods he would get today. Food and mechanical trinkets were always the first to go, along with most valuable items. However, there were usually things that were worth a few bits of meat or metal scraps themselves. And Virgil, with his time working in his family’s workshop and with the equipment there, knew a thing or two about how to make metal scraps into mechanical parts. He did wish he could have been a proper tinkerer, but at the time it hadn’t been an available option. Either way, reminiscing about his wants would get him nowhere, so Virgil pulled himself to the present and kept walking to his airship.

“Ah, you two are considerably early,” Logan, the pilot of the aircraft stated, not used to either of them being so early. Especially since their services weren’t necessary for prepping the airship to fly.

“I’m hoping if I’m early I’ll have a good day.”

“I’m hoping the airship blows up!”

“While I do not care for your superstitions, nor your friend’s semantics, I suppose I can at least understand your motivations Virgil.” Logan adjusted his tie, before walking towards the loading dock, “well, since you two are here, you might as well accompany me in the general preservation methods we use to ensure the safety of everyone who boards today.”

Internally groaning, and ignoring how his stomach twisted at the thought of entering the aircraft, Virgil followed Logan onto the airship and helped inspect the area.

The airship was a neat craft, all things considered. Comfortably big and spacious, having enough space to hold up to fifty passengers at a time and three layers. The Loading dock being the upmost layer, while it offered a nice view, it was also the most dangerous layer. No one was allowed to stand on it, and were always quickly ushered to the second layer. This layer had fifty seats on it, all of them pretty roomy, while taller people were still cramped, Virgil could move around this area pretty easily. Up front was sanctioned off, and was where Logan drove the airship. The third layer was where the luggage went and was employees only. The crew had a breakroom in there, a place to rest without being in the way.

Virgil and Remus were always in the break room the most, as most of their duties were for when they were off the aircraft and they were of little to no use while it was in the air. Emile hopped in every once in a while, when he wasn’t being summoned by the passengers, and Emmet and Logan barely ever went into the breakroom at all as both of them always had to be there to pilot the shape on the slight chance that something wrong happened. They only tended to look in the crew room before and in between flights.

Inspecting the rooms, Virgil noticed a scrap piece of metal in the middle aisle of the airship. Going to pick it up, he realized that it wasn’t part of the ship, the metal used on it wasn’t the same quality as the scrap.

“Hey, Logan, do you know what this is?”

Logan walked over to where Virgil was, and looked at it. “Ah, it’s part of a tool of some sort, however based on how this broke off I’d say it would be nearly impossible to find a use for it. Nothing that would have been used to build the airship, but there is a probability that the cleaning crew accidentally broke something in here. Search for any sign of imperfection.”

“Got it,” Virgil replied, doing his best not to roll his eyes at the information he had been able to figure out for himself. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“Ah… tossing it out would statistically be the best course of action in this scenario.”

“Alright.” When Logan had walked away, Virgil pocketed the piece. If it was a scrap piece of metal then no one would care for it going missing, and he was sure he could do something with it, make it a tiny machine to give to the college for his brother’s college fund.

#glacier's writing #glacier's fanfics #fanfiction #fanfic #sanders sides fic #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #ts virgil #ts remus #ts logan #logan sanders #virgil sanders #remus sanders #emile picani #ts emile

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