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#this goes for EVERY cluster
cluster-c-chaos · 2 years
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also this is the last thing for now, but when I was first figuring this stuff out (pre-diagnosis), I googled "is it possible to have more than one personality disorder?" and found the answer to be "yes, but steer clear of someone who does!"
so I just wanted to say... if you have more than one personality disorder, you are still worthy of good things. you can still live a good life. you can still have strong connections to other people, and you can still learn to love yourself. having a personality disorder doesn't make you a bad person, and neither does having several personality disorders
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revletter · 8 months
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Seeking test readers To heck with it, I posted it! 😀😱
⭐Cluster Luck⭐
(featuring Mario, Mallow, Geno, and Croco)
HI HELLO I have never published a fanfic on the internet before, ever in my life. But between starting to read Brandon Sanderson novels and my favorite game being BACK AFTER 27 YEARS... I've been on an all-time creative high.
If you like the idea of any of these things:
• Geno being otherworldly, going full nerd about a star critter, and getting slightly riggity-wrecked
• Mario cursing in Italian and generally having a terrible time of things
• Mallow being surprisingly emotionally intelligent and occasionally more perceptive than the adults
• Fluffy, fluffy fluff (but also action!)
...then I made this fic for you.
You can read it here! I hope you enjoy it! And if you'd be so kind as to let me know what you think, it would make my little dweeb heart very happy! 💙
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bbibbirose · 4 months
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ok what
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Someone needs to tell this boy to read the terms and conditions if we enter any sort of relationship lmao
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naomiholden · 2 years
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me staring at my unfinished sense8 au gifset in my drafts like ,,,,
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rocicrew · 1 year
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i am too tired to write but head goes brr brr with aus
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thingswhatareawesome · 7 months
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¨
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bonewreath · 1 month
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𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞! ** 𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫
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summary: modern au; ellie moves to a big city to escape the past. she goes to her first lesbian bar, where she meets you.
cw: porn with…a whisper of plot; alcohol use, fingering (e!receiving), strap-on sex, bottom!ellie, slightly sub!ellie, she’s whiny here
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Ellie’s never been to a lesbian bar.
It’s surreal - banners of colorful pride flags are strung across the room, some of which she can’t even identify. Distressed and faded posters are plastered on the stone walls, advertising drag shows and queer punk bands with names like The Cranky Dykes and T-Girl Social. Nearly every patron is tatted or pierced, and there’s more platform boots and fishnet clothing than Ellie’s ever seen in one place before. Before she’d moved to the city, Ellie had lit up with excitement at the thought of visiting a lesbian bar. But now, in her worn Harley Davidson tee and a pair of jeans with unintentional rips at the knees, she feels very much out of her depth. 
Steeling her nerves, she internally reminds herself that this is exactly why she’d moved in the first place - she needed new experiences. She needed unfamiliarity. What she’d left back in Texas was her normal, and she planned to build a new normal here. One that was the antithesis of everything she’d known before. 
The bar isn’t completely packed, but she does need to push past dancing, sweaty bodies, girls sucking on each other’s faces, and chatting cliques to get to the edge of the bar, where more clusters of people are calling out drink orders and thrusting wads of cash tips at the bartenders. By some miracle, an empty barstool presents itself after a drunken patron with a mohawk stumbles out of it, and Ellie swoops in to snatch it before someone else does. She sits there for a good few minutes, trying to capture a bartender’s attention, until someone shuffles up beside her and sticks a hand out to wave one over. And, of course, they notice immediately, heading over with a towel slung over their shoulder. Ellie sinks lower into her seat, cheeks burning.
“I’ll have a spicy marg,” the woman beside Ellie says, voice projecting loud enough to hear over the clamor of music and chatter. The bartender nods, then goes to step away, but the woman next to Ellie stops her, speaking with that attention-commanding voice.
“What are you having?” 
The bartender’s gaze shifts to Ellie, still hunched over and beet-red in the face. She flushes impossibly redder when she looks up at the woman who’d just ordered, realizing that the question had been directed at her. 
“Oh,” she blurts, posture straightening. She glances at the woman, anxiety flaring, then back at the bartender. “Um, an old fashioned. Please. Thanks.”
Just as quickly as they’d come, the bartender disappears again, off to pour precisely-measured shots and mix cocktails in shiny silver shakers. Ellie’s hands are in her lap, fiddling restlessly, when she finally forces herself to look up at the woman who’d practically had to order for her. 
You smile at her when she meets your gaze. Though she’s trying to be subtle about it, you can feel the way Ellie drinks in your every feature, eyes flickering over your face, then your body. It’s obvious that she likes what she sees, because she has a hard time looking you in the eye again. 
“Thanks,” she says. “I’ve been trying to order for a while.”
“So I saw,” you respond, but not unkindly. You take a moment to look her over, although you’d already done plenty of that before you’d even approached her - you had seen her from across the bar, looking forlorn, her leg bouncing beneath the edge of the bar as she tried (and failed) to order herself a drink. Her lack of confidence is what piqued your interest; it was hard to believe that someone that gorgeous wasn’t oozing arrogance and self-importance. She’s all lean muscles and shaggy hair, her forearm decorated with a sprawling fern tattoo. You could already imagine yourself running your hands through that hair, kissing the length of her sharp jawline, pulling those narrow hips up against your own. 
At a lesbian bar, a hot girl who couldn’t carry herself with confidence usually meant one of two things: she’s fresh out of a breakup, or she’d never been somewhere like this. You’re determined to find out which of the two applies to her.
“What’s your name? I haven’t seen you here before.” You angle your body to face Ellie, popping your hip out as subtly as you can. 
Ellie, determined to keep her eyes on your face and not the curve of your hip or the delicious sliver of cleavage peeking out of your square-neck top, peers up at you from behind her bangs. “Uh, yeah, I’ve never been. I just moved here. I’m Ellie - what’s your name?”
You tell her your name and she repeats it slowly, like she’s tasting every syllable. “Pretty.”
Your drinks arrive before you can fumble for a response. 
“Spicy marg, old fashioned,” the bartender lists as they slide your drinks over the smooth wood of the bar. Ellie murmurs her thanks and you nod at the bartender before they disappear, your hand curling around the glass. 
“Cheers?” You tip your drink towards Ellie. She clinks her own glass against yours and the two of you take your first sips, the bitterness of the alcohol burning its way down your throat. You feel it settle in your stomach, warm and satisfying. 
“So,” you begin, licking jalapeño and lime-tinged tequila from your lips. Ellie’s eyes follow the movement for a moment before she catches herself and looks away. “Where’d you move from?”
Ellie smiles shyly. You watch her index finger trace the rim of her glass. “Texas.”
“Oh?” One of your brows lifts. “And what made you want to move here, Texas?”
“For one, I’m gay.” 
“Thank you for stating the obvious.”
She lets out a little laugh, and the sound makes you want to grin - you take a sip of your margarita instead. 
“I just… Couldn’t be there anymore,” she elaborates. “It wasn’t right for me. I needed to start fresh.”
You don’t say anything for a moment, letting Ellie’s words sink in. Clearly, something severe enough had happened to make her want to shed her life in Texas like an old skin. And this lesbian bar, filled with every unique kind of queer this city had to offer, was part of this new version of Ellie - the version she’d chosen to build from the ground up. You’re struck by how brave Ellie must be for that. And yeah, maybe she’d struggled to order a drink for herself, but that didn’t take away from her bravery - not when she’d willfully chosen to uproot her life, a decision most people could never follow through with. 
“I’m impressed,” you say honestly. “And I hope the city gives you what you’re looking for.”
The corners of Ellie’s lips twitch, and that pretty blush fights its way onto her cheeks again. You’re about to say something when you hear the first notes of one of your favorite songs thumping through the speakers, a few other bargoers cheering to express their own excitement. 
“Dance with me,” you say to Ellie, reaching forward with your free hand to grab her forearm. She looks up at you like a deer in headlights.
“I can’t dance.”
“Doesn’t matter, just follow my lead. C’mon.”
“I don’t know if—”
“Didn’t you come here to try new things?” You curl your fingers around Ellie’s wrist, and she lets you pull her to her feet. You’ve made a good point, and she doesn’t argue again - just follows you to the dancefloor, where dozens of others are already moving to the beat of the music, hips rolling, heads nodding. The lights pulsate in the vibrant colors of the rainbow, the crowd painted shades of sunset orange, hot pink, deep indigo. You sip your drink and start to dance, turning to face Ellie; she’s gaping at you, unmoving. 
“Come here,” you say, having to shout over the music. Ellie steps closer to you as you move to the rhythm, hips swishing. You’re wearing a pair of flared pants that makes your ass look incredible, and after Ellie finally starts to dance along with you, you turn around to bring your backside closer to her. As if by instinct, Ellie’s arm loops around your waist - she presses her palm into the front of your pelvis, rolls her hips against your ass. You grin, wide and self-satisfied, as you lift your drink to your lips again - only to realize it’s almost gone. You make a mental note to head back to the bar after this song, but for now, you enjoy the last few drops of your margarita, revelling in the feeling of Ellie’s hand, strong on your hip, as she presses ever-closer into you from behind. 
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Ellie’s in awe of you. 
The way you’d strolled up beside her at the bar, posture proud, buying Ellie a drink and flirting with her like it was easy, natural. The way you’d let your eyes wander over her figure, not shy at all about the lust in your gaze. The way you’d dragged her to the dancefloor and ground your ass back against her, smelling like lime and tequila and something headier, something distinctly you. 
Now, after two strong drinks and several songs-worth of dancing with you, Ellie’s so turned on she feels like a live wire, sparks erupting from her every nerve. 
On the dancefloor, Ellie had looped her arm around your hips, leaning in so close she could smell the liquor on your breath. You’d needed to fight down every urge to kiss her first - you weren’t even sure if she’d ever kissed another woman before, and you’d already done enough to pull her out of her shell for the night. But Ellie had leaned her forehead against yours, noses brushing, eyes fluttering shut… And your mouths had crashed together in the sort of kiss you’re going to have a very hard time forgetting.
After making out in the crowd like that for god knows how long, you’d invited Ellie back to your apartment. Which brings you to your current predicament: Ellie’s backed up against the front door, your hand under her shirt, fingers dancing over every inch of her deliciously solid abdomen. If Ellie’s inexperienced, she’s doing a fabulous job of pretending she isn’t. But you’re not sure just how innocent she is now, as she moans unabashedly into your mouth, your hand squeezing her tits over her sports bra. 
“Hey,” you breathe, pulling back from the heated kiss you’d been sharing. 
“Mm?” Ellie blinks at you, dazed. You want to ruin her. 
“Is this okay?” You peck at her lips, then her cheek. “We don’t have to… Do anything. Not if you don’t want to.” 
Ellie’s bangs are gorgeously tousled, and she looks at you like a kicked puppy - all round eyes and furrowed brows, worried you’re taking something from her. “But I… I want to.” 
“You sure?” 
Ellie nods. 
“Have you ever been with another woman before?” Your stomach twists at the directness of your own question, but you really want to know. Need to know. A bar hookup might not be the best way for her to pop her cherry - or, at least, her gay cherry. 
Then again, it’s not exactly unheard of in the community.
“Yeah. I have,” Ellie says, her hand reaching out to grab your hip. 
You find yourself wanting to pry, dig deeper for more information, but there’s no real reason for it. She’s not entirely new to this. She wants you. That’s all that really matters, right?
So you take her to your bedroom, let her undress you with shaky, calloused hands, kiss her slow and sweet while she unbuttons her jeans and kicks them aside. You help each other undress until you’re both naked, and then you’re stumbling into bed, your legs straddling Ellie’s hips as you kiss down her neck, stopping to suck pretty purple bruises into the sensitive skin. Ellie makes a noise somewhere between a moan and a whimper, sending another white-hot jolt of arousal through you. Your cunt is spread over her pelvis, and you grind down against her like that, letting out a pleased sound of your own.
 “God, you’re so hot,” Ellie mutters, watching you roll your hips as you kiss down to her chest. She reaches for your tits, squeezes them in her palms. 
“Yeah?” You smile, sharp and wolfish, down at Ellie. She looks at you like she can’t believe this is happening - like she can’t believe you’re real. “Gonna let me fuck you, Ellie?”
She moans at the obscenity of the question, nodding quickly. “Yes, god, please fuck me.”
“Mm,” you hum, “need to get you ready first, baby.”
Ellie’s breathing is ragged, her hips lifting, seeking friction. You climb down her body until you’re settled between her legs, pulling her knees apart to give yourself access to her center. She’s fucking soaked - you bite your lip at the sight of her, clit swollen and puffy, labia shining with arousal. 
You start with one finger, dipping into the wetness pooled at her entrance and spreading it up to her clit, drawing sharp breaths and staggering moans from Ellie’s kiss-bitten lips. Every sound she makes has you yearning to hear more, more. You slide your middle finger into her clenching hole and groan when you feel her walls open up smoothly around the digit. She pulses around you, hot and slick. When you begin pumping your finger in and out of that tight heat, Ellie’s noises become even more drawn-out, even more frantic - you look up at her and find her eyes already on you, dark with lust, a desperate, pleading expression etched onto her face. 
“You’re so fucking pretty, baby,” you coo at her, revelling in the way her pussy tightens at your words. 
“I–nngh, fuck–I need…” She trails off, jaw clenching. 
You fake-pout at her, puff out your lower lip in faux sympathy. “What is it? What do you need?”
“Need more,” Ellie pants out.
“I can give you more, sweetheart,” you reassure her, “all you had to do was ask.”
So, you give her more. You slip another finger inside of her, press the heel of your hand against the sensitive nub of her clit; your fingers curl upwards in the warmth of her cunt, finding that spongy, sensitive spot that’ll make her see stars. She whines - actually fucking whines, high-pitched and desperate, as if to say yes, right there.
“Shit, oh my god…” Ellie’s hands are clutching the sheets, knuckles blanched. “‘M so close.”
You don’t let up, and it only takes a few more moments of your careful ministrations before Ellie’s falling apart, a mess of jolting hips, strangled gasps, and a rush of wetness. You watch her come undone, wishing you could committ the sight to memory. After, you lick your fingers clean.
While Ellie’s spent and recovering from the height of her orgasm, you shuffle to the side of the bed to reach for your nightstand. You roll open the drawer, rummage around, and return to Ellie’s side with a tiny bottle of lube and your strap, the harness made of powder pink fabric. The brunette sighs contentedly when you lean over to kiss her, swiping her sweat-damp bangs away from her forehead. 
“You taste so good, did you know that?” You press another kiss to the corner of Ellie’s lips, feeling the way they twitch into a smile. 
“I really doubt it,” Ellie says.
You scoff. “Don’t doubt my taste.”
“Mm, okay. Fine. I believe you.”
Fighting your own smile, you move back to sit on your heels, cheeks heating when you notice Ellie’s eyes roaming over your naked body. 
“Need something?” 
Ellie nods, then sits up and pulls you in for another kiss, her hand on the back of your neck. “I want you to really fuck me now.” 
“Oh yeah?” You grin at her, your hands making their way to her tits and smoothing over her pebbled nipples. “Think you should learn some manners, Ellie. How about please?”
Her expression goes soft - eyes rounding, mouth pursing. 
“Please,” she says, and her voice is so sweet, it might rot your teeth. “Please fuck me.”
And who are you to deny her what she needs?
As it turns out, Ellie’s pussy was made to take strap. She’s leaned over, face down in one of your pillows, her ass propped up perfectly to give you access to her cunt. Still soaked from her last orgasm, she hardly needs any lube, the strap pushing into her all the way to the hilt without any resistance; she keens when you’re fully seated inside of her, a sound that makes your own pussy throb with need. Every noise she makes is pure heaven - you wish you could record them all, listen to them when you’re in bed at night with your hand between your thighs. 
“Fuuuuck,” Ellie cries out when you hit that sweet spot with the tip of the strap, her head shifting to lean on one side, allowing you to see the look on her face - the roll of her eyes, the way her lips part to let out each of her gasps and moans. 
“How’s that feel, princess?” You ask as you pound into her from behind; you admire the way her back arches deeper, like she’s encouraging you to fuck into her further and further. 
“S-so good,” Ellie stutters weakly. 
“Yeah? Doing so good for me, baby,” you pant. Every slam of your hips against Ellie’s ass makes her grunt, a pleased little sound, short and needy. 
That tiny grunt turns into an impatient whine when you pull out of her entirely, a lewd, wet noise accompanying the motion. 
“Why’d you stop?” Ellie asks, voice small. She cranes her neck to look back at you and the expression on her face is absolutely pathetic.
You give her ass a playful smack, admiring the way it recoils from the contact of your palm. “Want you to flip over. I need to see you come again, you looked so pretty the first time.” 
She does as instructed - she’s already so good at following directions, you’ve learned. When Ellie’s on her back, her face, neck, and chest tinged red with equal parts arousal and exertion, you lean in and whisper praises to her, lining the strap up to her entrance and pushing into her again. 
“Hold your legs up, sweetheart,” you instruct, pushing her thighs up until they’re folded against her body. She nods, panting, and lifts her hands up to hold her legs in place. You slip deeper into her like this; Ellie goes cross-eyed, lips pursed into a pretty “o” shape as you fuck her senseless. It doesn’t take much longer for her to get close again, and when her legs begin to shake with the effort of holding them up for you, you tell her to relax.
“Play with your clit, hm? I want you to come.” 
Ellie nods. “Y-yeah, I can do that. For you.”
“Just for me?” You grin.
“Mm, just for you.”
Her hand shakes as she brings it between her legs, drawing sloppy circles over her clit with her fingers. You keep fucking her, hips snapping restlessly, every lewd squelch of her cunt making you gush wetter and wetter. But as desperate as you are to come, you’re more focused on Ellie - the way she bites her lip, her entire body tense with her impending orgasm. She warns you before she finally tips over the edge: an endless chant of right there, I’m gonna come, you’re gonna make me come, oh my god…
You’re not sure how long you lie there on top of Ellie, still buried inside her, before her breathing finally rights itself again. You spend that time kissing all over her face and running your hands through her auburn hair, untangling a few knotted locks in the process. You’re both covered in a thin layer of sweat, bodies glistening, but neither of you seems to mind. Content to lie there together, you rest until Ellie pulls you in for a kiss - one that turns needy and sloppy not long after. 
“Can I taste you?” Ellie asks between kisses, her lips shiny with saliva. She says it with such hope, like she’s not sure what you’ll say. But you’re still drenched between your legs, inner thighs sticky with it. 
“There’s nothing I want more right now,” you confess. 
So Ellie finds a place between your legs, mouth latching to your clit like it’s muscle memory. You curl a fist into her hair and guide her every move, murmuring instructions, which she follows like the good girl she is. The night continues that way - all whispered pleas and tremoring orgasms, tangled limbs and slick-coated fingers, until the two of you finally doze off, wrapped in each other’s warmth.
And Ellie thinks she’s made a good decision, moving here. Trying something new.
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Make It Back
A/N: A right of passage- sticking the reader character into the 'Andrea shot Daryl' scene :) Reader goes OFF on her, so be prepared lol. Sorry if you love Andrea
Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem! Reader
WC: ~4k
Warnings: talk of Daryl's injuries, falling down the cliff, Walker attack- nothing too graphic; Andrea shooting Daryl but just grazing him; mentions of gore/blood- nothing too graphic; angst, comfort, fluff, cuddling; Daryl being sassy; reader character fighting with Andrea (yelling match)
Summary: You confront Andrea after she shoots Daryl, thinking he's a walker. With your anger taken out on her, you then comfort Daryl as he spends the night in the Greene farmhouse.
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You heard the gunshot. Everyone on the farm did. You just didn’t know exactly what had happened.
Following Lori’s lead, you jogged around the house, hoping it wasn’t another accident like the one that almost killed Carl. It was a single shot. Why would anyone risk a lone round out in the open like this? On this beautiful farm.
Once you circled the house, landing in a clump of Herschel’s family and a few others from your group, all you saw was sun. Its rays were blinding yellow as they cut over the tall, deep treeline on the edge of the meadow. It was the middle of a gorgeous day.
You heard Rick scream. It was a booming, worried thing. Then he screamed again.
“What the hell is going on here?” Herschel bellowed. 
You moved closer to the field, the gravel of the driveway turning to grass under your feet as you neared the van. Dale was standing beside it with his hands on his head, panic clear in his figure as he looked out to the scene in the pasture. 
“Shit,” Andrea said as she hastily climbed down the ladder from the top of the van. She started whining, more to herself than anyone else. “No, no, no, Daryl.”
“What?” you asked, a cold shock running down your spine from the back of your neck to your heels in the dirt. “What? What about Daryl?”
“I-I thought he was a walker,” she said.
Your head whirled to the cluster of men at the treeline. You tripped, your feet rooted to the ground in horror and misunderstanding. Was Andrea actually saying-
“I shot him.”
You bolted at her confession. These days, you were used to running, having done plenty of it through the woods to escape walkers. Then, you had to be careful of roots and puddles and dead bodies and the trees slowed you down, making sprinting difficult. Now, as you watched Rick fall to his knees in the distance, reaching for Daryl’s head after it hit the ground, speed came easily to you. The open meadow of freely growing grass under the clear blue sky was practically a racetrack.
Andrea panted behind you and the useless coins in Dale’s jeans clinked together, but you were faster, your feet agile in their swiftness. Your boots didn’t pound into the dirt like theirs. You sped to Daryl, only slowing when Rick threw one of Daryl’s arms over Shane’s shoulder and took the other one over his own. Daryl’s body fell limp against them, his feet dragging.
As the men caught their balance, you took Daryl’s face in your hands, seeing it drenched in blood.
“He’s unconscious,” Rick said to you. “We’ll get him back to the house.”
You nodded, otherwise silent. 
Andrea, however, let loose her apologies and worries in a shrill voice that made everyone around tense up like their limbs were attached to drawstrings. 
You didn’t listen to her words. Or T-Dog’s or Glenn’s and you didn’t notice Rick pull something from Daryl’s neck. Only the grass had your attention as your mind ceaselessly spun. Your boots pushed the tall blades around, making them sway with your every step. The shades of green were glowing in the slowly setting sun until they were marred- darkened by the looming three-headed shadow making its way across the field. Daryl’s blood dripped with every step, leaving red droplets behind with the last of the dew.
“I’m sorry,” Andrea said. When she touched your arm, you jumped, jarred back from the peace of the meadow and into the grisly present.
You didn’t answer her.
Daryl was still unconscious by the time Rick and Shane laid him down in the bedroom. While they’d carried him into the house, you beelined straight to Maggie, asking for a rag and some warm water. You ducked into the bedroom and dodged the panicking men so you could sit on the bed and wipe as much grime from Daryl’s face and hands as you could manage before leaving Herschel in peace to bandage his wounds.
When the door to the bedroom closed you out, you sat on the floor in the hall. Earlier, you had wondered if what Rick told you was true, if Daryl was only unconscious. If the bullet had truly only grazed him. You only fully believed Daryl was alive when you washed his face clean. His brow even crinkled when the wet cloth touched it. He was in there still. 
Lori sat down quietly next to you in the hallway. She patted your knee. She didn’t have to say anything. You knew her well enough by now to know what she thought. You’re a good friend to him, she’d say. And he doesn’t have many.
You leaned your head back against the wall with a soft thunk and closed your eyes. It was tranquil there for a moment before a familiar, unwanted voice interrupted. 
“Can I talk to you?”
You opened your eyes to see Andrea standing above you and Lori.
“Now’s not a good time,” you said. It was awkward and uncomfortable. “I’m waiting for- for some word.”
“I’ll be quick,” she asked, sliding down the wall and sitting beside you.
Andrea had a knack for rubbing you the wrong way at the worst times. You wouldn’t call yourself a ‘strong personality,’ but she certainly was. Whatever it was deep down in you was constantly butting heads with whatever lived in her core. You disagreed with her most of the time, but tried your best to be patient and gracious given the losses she’d suffered and the emotions clearly wracking her. Still, you couldn’t help but feel she went about most things all wrong.
Like insisting she speak to you now.
So you stood up. You asked Lori to come find you when Daryl woke or when you could go visit him- whatever came first- and you left the house. The turmoil in your chest almost made you scream. But instead of letting it rip through you, you sucked in a deep breath and walked down the front steps. To be alone.
“(Y/N), wait.”
You could tell it was her by the sound of her voice. 
“Andrea,” you warned, “I’m not in a place to talk right now.”
“To anyone? Or just to me?”
“Does it matter?” you asked, spinning around in the gravel to face her. “Can’t you just respect that I’m- I’m trying to-”
“What?” she shouted, hands in the air. “Trying not to yell at me? What if I want you to? What if I want you to scream at me? Tell me I’m reckless! Tell me-”
“Tell you what you need to hear? That’s not my job.” You were calm, considering the outburst in front of you. “Just leave me be.”
“No.” She ran in front of you, standing with her feet spread wide, blocking your path from the farm house. Like a child. “I need to… I need to apologize. To you. For what I did to Daryl.”
A laugh escaped you. “Apologize to me?”
“Yes. And-”
“You know who you need to apologize to, Andrea?”
“Daryl, I know, but-”
“And Herschel and Rick and Glenn and T-Dog, and everyone else you put in danger when you decided to not do what you were told.”
You watched her jaw clench and set in place. Lowly, she said, “I don’t need to be told what to do.”
“Apparently you do. Apparently you don’t have your head screwed on straight!” you said.
“What’s that supposed to mean-”
“No, Andrea!” you cut her off with a stabbing shout. “You’re gonna follow me around like this and beg for a piece of my mind? Let me give it to you! Lord knows no one else here will.” You took her arm, leading her away from the front of the house where your temper- or loss of it- wouldn’t disturb Herschel’s family. When she tried to talk over you, tell you she knew what she was doing with that gun in her hands, you snarled at her. “Shut up! I’m speaking now.”
***
You didn’t realize that the hidden spot you led her to happened to be just below the bedroom Daryl and the other men were in. You had no clue that your every word rode the breeze up and through the window above where Rick, Shane, and Daryl could hear you as clearly as if you stood right before them.
And you didn’t know Daryl was already awake.
Shane, arms crossed over his chest, peeked out the window at the sound of Andrea’s voice. He whistled to Rick. “Catfight.” 
“What?” Rick asked. He followed Shane’s gaze and shook his head when he saw you. “Nah, (Y/N)’s good. She’ll keep her head.”
“Wouldn’t be so sure,” Daryl grumbled. “Girl’s got a temper.”
“Never heard anything out of her,” Shane said.
“Thas ‘cause you ain’t never heard her complain ‘bout you.”
“Man, shut up,” Shane growled over Rick’s chuckles. “If (Y/N) gives Andrea a talkin’ to, that’s one less thing on my list.”
Daryl violently shifted the pillow under his head. “Dun even wanna know what’s on yer list.”
Shane shushed him, spitting on the window screen, and nudged Rick. “Wanna listen to her.”
***
You stuck an accusing finger at Andrea, keeping her staring at you and squinting into the low sun. “You need to understand, there’s no ‘girl jobs and boy jobs’ here. It’s not that simple. Just because you don’t like doing laundry and washing dishes doesn’t mean you get a gun to flaunt around by default.”
“They’re wasting my skills!” she hissed.
“Those guys,” you pointed out to the pasture, where Daryl went down, “Rick, Shane, Daryl- those guys are trained with those weapons. They were fucking cops and hunters, Andrea! That’s why they get the guns right now, not because they’re better than us, or whatever the hell story you’ve told yourself.”
“Then I should be trained the way they were,” she said. “Before they took it from me, I had my own gun for years-”
“After what you did today, I hope you never get your hands on another gun! You put every one of those guys in danger today. What if your aim was further off, huh? What if you shot Glenn? Or Rick? You could have killed him right in front of his boy! Right after Carl got back on his feet, doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does!” 
“Are you sure?” The sun was beating down on your back. The heat of its rays added to the roiling in your gut, making sweat drip down the side of your face and pool on your lower back. Its slick had your t-shirt clinging to you. “Are you really sure? ‘Cause if your shit aim was a half an inch better, you would have killed him today! One of our own. And you’re acting like you barely care- you’re here apologizing to me?”
“You’re closest to him,” she grumbled. “I was trying to be-”
You spoke over her meaningless words. “Daryl is an asset to this group. He keeps us safe, feeds us- he was coming back from looking for Sophia and what thanks does he get? A fucking bullet to the head. You took down a good man today-”
“I thought he was a walker!” Andrea screamed in defense.
“So what?” Your throat ached from its work and Andrea flinched. You forced a calming breath before you continued slowly and deliberately, hoping some of your words would actually stick in her head. “We are so lucky we’re allowed on this property. That we found this doctor.”
“I know.”
“And he asked one thing in return. No guns. You were told by Rick, by Shane- no guns. You saw- you thought you saw one walker and you waste a bullet on it? That one gunshot could have led a whole herd to this house, Andrea. What would have happened then?”
“I get it, okay?”
“I don’t think you do. Four men went out there to take down that walker. They explicitly told you not to shoot that gun. And you did it anyway. And for what? Pride?”
She stared at you. Then she shrugged flippantly. “I wanted to do it. I knew I could do it.”
“Well, I hope it was worth it to you.”
***
Shane whistled again from his spot in the window. “If we ever need a lawyer, she’s the one.”
Daryl laid his head back on the pillow after holding it in the air to listen carefully to your argument. His cheeks, ears, neck and chest were hot and flushed from your words about him. 
“She still down there?” he asked. 
“No,” Rick said. He rounded the foot of the bed and walked towards the door of the bedroom. “I’ll go check on her. She’ll wanna know you’re alright.”
“He’s red as a tomato,” Shane said, slapping Daryl’s foot, “but alive, right Daryl?”
“Barely,” he grumbled. 
***
It was Lori who found you first. She grabbed your wrist and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Daryl’s okay,” she said. “You can go up and see him now.”
You ran your palms up over your cheeks and into your hair, feeling the sweat that had gathered. You sighed. “Maybe later. He should probably rest.”
“He was askin’ for you,” Rick said, appearing behind Lori with a hand on the small of her back. “Go on up.”
At that, you nodded and headed for the bedroom.
Miraculously, you didn’t run into anyone else as you made your way through the house. You would have been embarrassed to see one of the Greenes after what had gone down today in the pasture or even after scolding Andrea, whether anyone had heard you or not.
You couldn’t quite get yourself to open the bedroom door, even as you stood before it, hand on the knob. There was no talking or snoring or shifting of sheets from the inside and you debated if you would be a disturbance or a comfort to whatever mood you’d meet inside.
Finally, at length, you pushed it open.
Daryl was shirtless, legs tangled in the thin sheets on the large bed. He only took up a small portion of it, though he was laying almost diagonally across it so he could watch the door. Of course he and his tracker’s ears had heard you open it. He looked at you with narrowed eyes. 
“Hey killer,” he said.
You rolled your eyes. “Don’t even.”
You stood in the doorway, watching him. His arm was tucked tight under his head as he looked away from you and down into the sheets. He tucked them up all around him, blocking his injury and most of his skin from view. You knew why, but ignored it. You instead stared at the bandage tied around his head. It made his short hair stick up wildly, like a bloody coyote in the woods. 
“You wanna be alone, or you want me to stay?” you asked, hanging onto the doorknob. 
He shrugged. “Dun matter ta me.”
That was the closest to a yes you were ever going to get. You closed the door behind you with a soft click and walked to the emptier side of the bed to sit on its edge. “You need anything? Water, or-”
“Got it,” he said, blindly pointing to the nightstand beside the bed.
“Kay.” The air in the room was hot, but since the sun was setting lower and lower each minute, you knew there’d be a breeze blowing through the lacy curtains soon enough. You wiped your brow again. “How are you feeling?”
“��Bout as bad as I look.”
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
You breathed out a laugh. “You looked like death itself before, though, so this is an upgrade.”
He glared at you, but it was playful. For him, you knew it was. “Well, I was shot.”
“Yeah.” 
You swallowed hard at the reminder. Next to his glass of water was the bowl and cloth you’d brought to him earlier. You reached for it now, wringing it out some before bringing it to his forehead which was as damp with sweat as yours was. 
“What else happened out there?”
“Nuthin’,” he said, shrugging off the cloth. 
You didn’t budge and asked again. “You look rough, Dare. Herschel said there was something with your side too? I saw all the blood.”
He was quiet, attention again on the sheets as you dabbed at his forehead and cheeks. There was still blood on his chin and grime on his neck- mud and something else you didn’t care to guess at. You stopped at his shoulders. It was clear he didn’t want you looking anywhere near his chest or back, buried in the sheets. 
Then you noticed him watching you.
“You…”
“Hm?” you pushed.
“You were worried? ‘Bout… ‘bout me.”
“Of course I was. Still am. You’re one of us, we’re all worried-”
“I fell. And a couple’a walkers found me.”
Panic shot through you like lightning, branching through your veins and up your limbs. “Walkers?” No one told you. No one said anything about a bite or scratch or anything- “Is that, the injury on your side, it’s from a walker?”
“No,” he was quick to correct. “Nah, I fought ‘em off. Didn’t get me.” “Christ,” you whispered. You squeezed your eyes shut, desperate to keep the unshed tears stuck in your eyes.
“When I fell down the cliff, I took an arrow through my back.”
It didn’t-couldn’t-register. “You fell down a cliffside?”
“Twice.”
That was all you could take. The emotion, the stress and panic of the day, of the weeks past, caught up to you in one drowning swell. You felt your lips tremble and tried to keep them shut up tight, tried to count the bumps in the washcloth still in your hands, dripping on the knee of your jeans.
“Ay,” Daryl said, gruffly. He took the washcloth from you and smacked your arm with it before tossing it near its bowl. “Dun do that. Dun- dun cry fer me-”
“Argentina?”
“Wha?”
It made you laugh. It was a wet, snotty laugh and the curve of your cheek pushed out a fat tear that carved its way down your face. “It’s a song,” you said.
“Don’t start singin’ neither.”
You chuckled again, losing more tears and the fight to not cry in front of Daryl. 
With a painful grunt, he moved himself on the bed, opening a spot for you. He patted the empty space, mumbling. “Come on.”
You kicked off your boots and laid down on the bed, mirroring him. One arm supported your head, while the other tucked tight against you, keeping to your own space as you looked at him. His teeth dug into his lip over and over as he studied the hair and freckles on his arm as if he’d never seen it before. 
“Were you scared?” you whispered.
After a long while, narrowed blue eyes met yours and he nodded.
“Out there alone.” Your voice broke, shaking with the tight breath in your chest. 
“S’alright. M’back now.”
You flopped on your back, away from him for a chance to breathe. You were losing your grip and you didn’t want to break in front of him. You were there to support him, not force him into comforting you. But the thought of him in fear and suffering alone was stubbornly lodged in your throat. 
“When I was out there climbin,’ that’s what I was thinkin’ ‘bout,” Daryl said. “Thought ‘bout comin’ back. Seein’ ya. Knew I had ta get back.”
His words hung in the air. They were soft and open, his voice less harsh than usual. 
“That’s right,” you said. Using the collar of your t-shirt, as sweaty and dirty as it was, you wiped the tear tracks from your face and cleared your eyes.
“Now we both look bad as I feel,” Daryl said.
“Shut up,” you said. But you laughed.
The air felt clearer now. It wasn’t so stifling hot and you watched the transparent curtains dance in the breeze coming in through the window. Again, you turned to him, laying on your side, able to study him more. Daryl, however, seemed like he couldn’t bear the attention. His flitting gaze fell on just about everything in the room except you until he seemed to settle upon the safety of the bare ceiling above, studying it as if it were a map to a hidden treasure. Like a cure to the world’s mess.
“You okay?” you finally asked.
“Did you mean it? What ya said?”
“When?”
One of his hands flew up, gesturing toward the window. “Earlier. To Andrea.”
You hummed, lips glued together for a moment. “You heard all that?”
He chuckled. “Loud and clear. She deserved it.”
“Mm. Just lost my temper.”
He grunted, agreeing. “But’cha- what ya said ‘bout me.” He struggled for the words, throat and mouth working for the right thing to ask. “Said I was a good man, ya mean that?”
“Of course.” You sat up, moving your face into his line of vision. You made him look at you. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. And I wouldn’t be here with you right now if I didn’t think it.” Your fingertips grazed his skin, tickling down his cheek until they turned the other way, your knuckles running the same path for good measure. “You are a good man. I see you. I see the things you do and no matter how much you like to hide it, I know you have a big heart. I’ve seen it.” You gave him a soft shove on the shoulder, teasing. While you were there, close to him, you brushed the hair off his forehead before returning your hands to yourself and laying back flat on the bed.
He grunted and pressed his lips together, staring at where your face had been, the spot that was just the bare ceiling now. Then he shrugged away from you and turned to the opposite wall and grumbled, “S’not what I asked, girl.”
“Gave ya some extra bang for your buck, that’s all,” you said. When he didn’t turn or even chuckle, you bent towards the floor for your boots. “Want me to go? So you can get some rest?”
He gave you nothing in answer. You at least hoped he heard what you said, took it to heart. But, you thought, that’s what you get for blubbering all over his bed. Only slightly bothered, you leaned towards the nightstand to see if he had enough water for the evening. Then, you’d leave-
“Dun haf’ta go,” he mumbled. 
“Oh.”
“So long as ya don’t go all girly ga-ga on me again.”
You narrowed your eyes at him as he peeked at you over his shoulder. “You mean telling you that I actually care about you? Then don’t go tryin’ to die on me again.”
He flopped over. “Ya think I wanted to fall off the damn cliff? Fuckin’ horse threw me off.”
Setting your boots back down, you settled into the bed next to him. “Horse shoot you with your own crossbow too?”
“You shut your mouth, girl.”
“Mhmm.” you hummed, grinning.
Like two parallel beings, you laid opposite each other, close, but not touching. You used your own arm for a pillow and tucked yourself under the sheet of the bed. Daryl looked past you, as if watching the door as another breeze blew through the room.
“Here,” he said, shimmying up towards the head of the bed and sliding the arm of his uninjured side under your head. You laid close, tucking your arms into your chest so only your elbows and your knees crossed over into Daryl’s space.
At least, it was that way until he leaned down into you, resting his chin on your forehead and letting his other arm drop over your side. You let loose a sigh at the touch- he’d made it back.
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Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 1
Eddie doesn’t even know why he’s at this stupid party. It’s full of jocks showboating for their girlfriends, their girlfriends clustering together and giggling like watching Tommy Hagan do a keg stand is somehow dreamy. He’d had an entire beer spilled on his shoes, been heckled out of the kitchen and into the backyard, and left to brood out by Harrington’s ostentatious, heated in-ground pool. And it’s barely been an hour.
Within that hour, he’s made enough money to buy two month’s worth of cigarettes. That’s the rub of it all, isn’t it? Counting his time with packs of cigarettes, and bald tires that need replacing. And stupid things like food for their barren fridge and heat in the trailer once fall fully bleeds into winter. Wayne can only do so much, with rolling blackouts hitting the plant, and rent increasing a little more every year.
So Eddie goes to parties full of people he hates, lunch box secured to his person with the chain at his hip, switchblade stuffed in his back pocket. Just in case.  
This party is only ramping up, people trickling out from the overstuffed house to loiter on the back porch, occasionally stopping by to procure his services. As the first hour dwindles into the second, Eddie’s supply is getting dangerously low. 
He’s just considering leaving when he notices the King himself trailing after two girls he vaguely recognizes as the two that have been haunting the edges of the jock table the past few weeks. 
The brunette is scowling, hand wrapped tightly enough around her redheaded friend’s wrist to make the skin turn unnaturally white as she yanks her along none too gently, her short legs making ferocious strides that have both her captive friend and Harrington stumbling to keep up. 
Harrington’s got his hands up like he’s placating a spooked horse, talking too quietly for Eddie to hear over the pounding beat of the music. The girl isn’t spooked though. Despite being the shortest of the group, she looks like a predator on the hunt, just waiting for a slip up to make her kill. 
Whatever Harrington is saying must not go well. The brunette shoves her friend behind her, stabbing her finger into his chest, voice rising in rage. “–know he meant it, Steve!” she yells, flatting her palm to push him back harshly. She spins on her heel, continuing her trek past Eddie’s spot by the pool and out toward the open gate to the driveway. “As long as he’s here, we’re not going to be!”
“Don’t be like that Nance,” Harrington placates, following in her wake. “Tommy’s just drunk.”
“I don’t care about Tommy!” Nancy snaps. “I care that you’re friends with such a despicable person.”
“Nance–”
“I thought you were better than this, Steve Harrington,” she says. 
Then they’re both through the gate and gone. Harrington doesn’t follow. He stands there, staring where the girls had been, back to Eddie. He’s still as a statue for a long, endless minute before growling, low and angry, pulling his fist back and punching the side of his house. 
The hit makes a meaty squelching sound of breakable skin striking an immovable object and parting under its pressure. It almost echoes through the yard in the silence between songs, the whispering from all the onlookers starting up just before the next top forty song begins blaring.
Harrington spins, glaring out at the clustered people on the porch, hands on his hips, blood dripping down onto the green of his sweater, the light blue of his jeans. It’s a little thrilling to see the King bloody, even at his own hands. Like a true royal, he snaps, “go inside,” voice demanding obedience. And they do obey, scuttling back into the house in small clusters, shutting the sliding glass door behind the last of them.
Harrington sighs, shoulders drooping as he lifts his injured hand up to look down at it. He still hasn’t noticed Eddie in his spot by the pool.
“Trouble in the kingdom, your majesty?” he asks, jumping up from his cross-legged position on the pavement to saunter up to the other boy. He leans into his space, smiling coyly as Harrington leans back like he carries an airborne disease. “Anything this lowly court jester can do to help?”
He looks shocked at Eddie’s presence, like he never even considered that his decree wouldn’t be obediently followed by everyone in his backyard. 
Eddie smirks, fishing in the pocket of his jean vest for his cigarettes. He taps one out, and holds it out–ever the consummate servant–to Harrington, who curls his lips up in disgust and takes a step back away from him. Eddie shrugs, stuffs the pack back into his pocket and fishes his lighter out of his jeans. 
“Munson?” Harrington asks, squinting like he’s never seen Eddie before, despite living in the same janky town, and going to the same schools for the past five years. “Who invited you?”
Eddie takes his time lighting his cigarette and taking a drag, marveling as the little divot between Harrington’s eyebrows grows deeper with every passing second. He holds the smoke in, feeling it settle his nerves as he stares daringly into Harrington’s eyes. He doesn’t look away as he exhales, smoke blowing into Harringotn’s face. He doesn’t cough, just gestures his hand in front of his face impatiently to clear the smoke, looking one more insolent move away from smacking Eddie in the face.
“Someone has to sell party favors to Hawkins’ elite,” Eddie replies, shaking the lunchbox where it’s resting just below his hip. 
Steve scoffs. “Well, the party’s just about over so why don’t you fuck off, man.”
He gestures behind him to the open gate. Eddie takes another drag, ashing his cigarette on the pristine concrete below him. Harrington balls up his fists before immediately releasing the tension with a wince, shaking out his injured hand.
“Looks like it’s in full swing to me.” Eddie gestures to the sliding glass door back into the dining room. The curtains are closed now, but Eddie can see the darkened silhouettes moving to the beat still pumping through the house.
“I’m kicking them out.”
Harrington crosses his arms, seemingly once again forgetting about the bloody state of his hand. He’s almost pouting now. Eddie has the insane urge to boop him on the nose. He takes another drag.
“Upset your little girlfriend wouldn’t put out?” he asks, jutting his bottom lip out, trailing a fake tear down his own cheek with his free hand. “Poor little rich boy.”
“What the fuck is your problem, man?” 
“Me?” Eddie asks, dropping the burning filter of his cigarette to the ground and using the heel of his boot to smear it into the pavement. “I’m dandy. Who wouldn’t want the undivided attention of the King?”
He smiles then, condescending and bright, planting his feet as Harrington’s gaze darkens further.
“I always knew you were a freak,” Harrington snarls, drawing out the F sound like he’d rather use a different word that begins with the letter F.
“And a startling comeback from the King!” Eddie calls, showboating like he’s DMing for Hellfire in the dingy drama room. “How many F words did your Daddy teach you?”
Eddie didn’t realize that Harrington wasn’t angry before until all the light leaves his eyes. They go blank, soulless, like there’s no real person behind them. He uncrosses his arms, fists once again clenched, not even seeming to realize that it further splits his knuckles as he takes a threatening step forward. It’s a little scary, the way one question seems to have flipped him into an entirely different person.
Note to self, do not mention the absentee Father. Eddie takes a step back on reflex as Harrington uses his bloody finger to jab into his chest, hard enough to sting. Eddie looks down as blood smears, idly grateful that he’s wearing black. 
“You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” Harrington spits.
Eddie, having never learned to bite his tongue, opens his mouth to crow about this new F word in Harrington’s repertoire, when he hears a sound behind him. 
It sounds almost like the foxes that sometimes chitter in the woods surrounding the trailer park. But there’s something wrong with it. It’s high pitched and cutting in and out, like a record skipping again and again. It’s staticy, reverberating behind him like the static of the television between channels but worse. A recording of television static sped up too fast and fed through three long distance phone calls. 
Eddie’s hands tremble, something animalistic coursing through him at the sound–fight or flight kicking in with only one option left. In front of him, Harrington’s gone quiet, eyes wide and unblinking as he looks fixedly past Eddie’s left shoulder. 
Then, abruptly, the sound cuts out, replaced with a guttural growling so deep he can feel it pulsing through his muscles, urging him to run. It unsticks his feet, but before he can dart through the open gate, or maybe to the shut sliding glass door to hunker down with the other party-goers, Harrington shoves him backward. Hard.
He loses his feet, loses his breath, until he’s choking on chlorinated water. He comes out of the water spluttering, coughing up water until it burns, his layers of clothing doing their best to drag him down into the bottom of the pool to drown. 
His eyes are closed against their stinging, ears clogged with water where he’s struggling to tread in the deep end of Harrington’s stupid heated pool that the King himself just shoved him in.
It’s a low enough moment that Eddie can feel his mind covering up the impossibilities of the night, paving over the impossibilities to rewrite the story to make sense: King Steve saw him, set up some speakers to spook him, and then shoved him in the pool. Nothing unexpected there.
But then Eddie opens his eyes. 
Harrington’s on the ground. Harrington’s on the ground fighting against the grip around his wrist, pulling him toward the water Eddie’s struggling to stay afloat in. 
It’s not a person dragging him, not a practical joker wearing a suit. It can’t be. The thing is standing upright, sure, but it’s too tall, too thin, too featureless. Its forearms are uncannily long, fingers twisting and look as if they have too many joints facing the wrong directions where they curl around Harrington’s wrist, claws sharp enough to make him bleed. Its ribs are showing. And there’s no face at all, just creased flesh puckered together where a mouth ought to be.
At least, that’s what Eddie thinks until Harrington struggles harder, fingers of his free hand digging into the crack in the pavement, momentarily stalling their forward momentum. Then, the seams where its head connects open, like a flower toward the sun, if each petal was fleshy and covered in dozens of sharp looking teeth. And it screeches, ear-splitting and horrible, as if reprimanding Harrington for not laying imobile like a good little live meal.
It tosses Harington into the pool. He hits with a splash, immediately flailing out, smacking Eddie on the side of his face. Eddie reaches out on instinct to pull the guy toward him, trying to keep the both of them above the water line while Harrington reorients himself. 
It shouldn’t have taken long. Harrington is the captain of the swim team. He should have been able to kick his feet under him and been off to the other end of the pool within seconds. 
It wasn’t fast enough.
Eddie doesn’t even see it move, it’s so fast. He’s holding onto Harrington, arm slung around the other guy’s waist, clutching tightly at the front of his sweater. Then, Harrington’s being pulled forcefully to the bottom of the pool, Eddie along with him. 
All of his orifices are burning from the chlorine–throat, nose, eyes, ears. He feels blind, deaf, lost, anchorless, except for the feel of Harrington’s skin beneath his hand, so he clutches, hooks his hand through the guy’s belt to keep his hold.
There’s a sensation, like meat parting around him. Then he’s breathing, sucking in oxygen, eyes still closed, head spinning. Harrington’s ribs are rising and falling rapidly. It lasts only a moment, the pair of them breathing and touching and panicking in tandem.
Until there’s that sound. Foxes chittering strangely, but it’s echoing now, weirdly like they’re in a cave forty feet underground. 
Eddie opens his eyes. The sky looks wrong–darker than it should be, and it almost looks like it’s snowing. One of the flakes hits Eddie in the cheek and he rubs at the spot, feeling it flake apart and smear across his face. Not snow. Dust? Ash?
They’re in some sort of pit made of concrete, cracked under the force of the sickly vines crawling across its surface. It’s deep enough that Eddie’s not sure how they’re going to get out. 
It’s not until he sees the ladder at the edge of the hole that he realizes where they are: impossibly, in the bottom of Harrington’s pool, somehow drained of water and decayed and made wrong, in a matter of seconds. 
The chittering turns to a growl. Harrington jumps up. Eddie’s hand, where it’s still tucked into his belt, jerks violently up with him, pinky getting stuck between belt and pants as he hastily tries to extract it. Harrington darts away, and Eddie’s pinky pops. It’s barely audible beyond the growling, but he feels it as a release of pressure and then sharp pain.
Eddie looks down at his now free hand. There’s chaffing on his palms, and his pinky sits at an awkward angle, already swelling around the knuckle where it connects to his hand. 
Nausea rolls through him–shock, maybe–at the sight. More than the pain, it looks like another wrong thing in a long line of wrongness that makes up his night, this time, attached to his own body. He heaves, water spilling out of his mouth, burning with chlorine as Eddie forces his eyes away from his hand.
Harrington’s across the pool, holding some sort of pole with a torn net at one end, thrusting it into the creature’s mouth, farther and farther. But the metal’s warping, almost decaying under the saliva in the thing's face, pole becoming shorter and shorter until It’s almost upon Harrington.
Without thought, Eddie jumps to his feet, stumbling behind the thing and bashing his lunchbox into its head. 
It’s probably the surprise of the hit that makes the thing stumble. Harrington wastes no time, jabbing the rest of his pole, fast and deep into its maw. It wails, the strike fast enough to get through whatever was melting the metal, piercing something deep inside the thing.
Eddie’s not stupid enough to think it’ll stay down. He skirts around the thing, latching onto Harrington’s wrist and pulling him along in his wake. He doesn’t hear the pole clatter to the cement of the bottom of the pool, hoping that means they have a little more time, doesn’t dare turn around to look as Eddie drops Harrington’s wrist to climb, hand over aching hand, up the ladder and out of the pool. 
Nothing looks better once he’s topside. The sky is still wrong, filled with ash and discolored light. There’s vines up here, too. And it’s quiet, so quiet he can hear every sound Harrington makes as he scrambles up the ladder behind him. 
Eddie doesn’t wait for him. He runs, fast as he can to the sliding door to the house, wrenching it open and falling past the curtain into the house. He hopes, hysterically, that no one sees him making such a fool of himself, hopes somewhere deeper that someone does and will put themselves between his fleshy body and whatever comes through the door behind him.
But no one’s there. Harrington’s kitchen is dark, the living room past it dark as well, a disturbing red glowing faintly through closed curtains like he’s landing himself in a scene straight from Evil Dead. There’s no shadows of partygoers moving, no top forty, no drunk teenagers to spill beer on his shoes.
He stands, frozen, something horrific building in his throat, like a scream or a sob as he stares, unmoving, curtains moving against the small of his back until something slams through them, pushing him to the cold linoleum. 
He pictures teeth, swears he hears a growl, but when he twists wildly from his prone position to scoot backwards on his ass, arms preemptively raised, he sees Harrington sliding the door closed and clicking the shitty plastic lock into place. 
It's hilarious, like the thing they’d both seen back there would be stopped by a little piece of plastic, or doors, or the safety of his house. Eddie bites back a laugh that’s fighting its way up his throat like chlorine, burning and not where it’s supposed to be.
Harrington’s back is shaking with the force of his pants as he yanks the curtains closed. He pivots, face devoid of anything as he bends down and yanks Eddie up by his wrist hard enough to sting.
“Harrington, the people–” he starts, but his wrist is yanked harder as he’s led up carpeted stairs and into a bedroom.
Eddie gets only a sense of plaid and emptiness before he’s being shoved into a closet, Harrington stumbling in behind him and closing the doors quietly and squatting down next to where Eddie had fallen. The outside of their thighs are pressed together. Something hysterical bubbles up his throat again at the irony of the moment. He bites his lip against it.
Harrington’s feet are beneath him, ready to jump and fight anything that might follow them up here. Eddie can’t seem to get his ass on the floor, the lethargy of shock making him complacent, the knowledge that he’d never stand a chance if that thing makes it into the house making the effort of vigilance not seem worth it.
Harrington looks fierce, like he really is in a scary movie, an action hero, the final girl, the one who’ll get to the end of the movie by any means necessary. But Eddie can feel his body shaking where their legs are pressed together. Eddie gets the insane urge to hold his hand.
It feels like hours pass like this, Harrington at the ready, Eddie succumbing to his sleepy shock, before Harrington slowly lowers himself to sit on the ground beside Eddie, knee overlapping his as he sits crisscross, still looking at the door.
“Harrington, what–” 
“I don’t know, Munson.” His voice is a sharp whisper, biting in its carelessness. He doesn’t even look away from the closet door.
“Your house is just empty, man.”
That gets him a scoff and a loosening roll of his shoulders as Harrington finally turns his head to the side and meets his eyes. Eddie tries not to notice the way it slides his thigh more firmly atop his own.
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Harrington demands, and for a moment, Eddie’s afraid he somehow heard his thoughts, another in a long line of indignities in this new world they’ve found themselves in, but he continues, “–the people? Not the flower monster that tried to eat us, or the red sky, or the shitty vines all over my house?”
“People means help! Who’s going to help us now?” Eddie demands, voice rising higher than it should. He swings his hand wildly, less of a gesture and more of a limb seizing with panic until it hits the closet’s wall with a hollow thwack, sending a bolt of pain from his pinkie finger down his wrist. 
Harrington turns violently, almost climbing in Eddie’s lap in his bid to both cover his mouth and wrench his hand away from the wall and clutch it tightly in the space between their chests. Eddie bites his own lip at the pain of the squeeze. It’s dark, but he can see the way Harrington’s eyes are widened with fear, the whites too visible.
“Shut up,” he hisses, hand squeezing a little tighter around his cheeks. 
They sit in the silence of the moment, staring at each other, ears straining for the sound of anything coming for them.
All is silent. Harrington’s hands ease away and he slowly shuffles out of Eddie’s space. 
“Sorry,” Eddie says, almost reflexive. 
Steve doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t turn away either. They’re still both staring at each other. Eddie’s too tense to feel awkward about it.
He sits in the silence. He’s never been good at it—the quiet. It eats at him, picks away at his skin until he’s back in a run-down apartment with a Father in jail and Mom gone from the room even as she rots away on the couch. The silence eats and eats and eats, until he can almost smell the mildew of the always-closed windows, can feel the springs of his old mattress digging uncomfortably into his back.
The springs prod him, and he blinks into the closet, Harrington’s finger jabbing into his side.
“Don’t crack on me now, Munson.” He’s not smiling.
“Aww,” he replies, trying to make his tone its usual cloying flirtation, “didn’t think you cared, your highness.”
He twists his mouth up at the side. It doesn’t quite land on a smirk—he can feel the way it wobbles. If Harrington notices, he doesn’t call him on it.
With a roll of his eyes, Harrington responds, “like you said, no people means no help, means you’re all I’ve got.”
“Don’t sound too happy about it,” Eddie mutters, but the house is too quiet and they’re sitting too close together.
Harrington scoffs, but he leans back further, settling fully on his ass for the first time since he’d dragged Eddie into the closet with him, like all he needs to feel at ease is Eddie being a dick to him. He’s not sure whether or not that’s infuriating or charming, but the knot in his throat that feels suspiciously like tears breaks loose when Harrington leans back on the heels of his hands.
There’s something to the ease of Harrington in this moment that makes Eddie wonder if he’s ever actually seen him at ease before. When Eddie had watched him across the lunch room, eyes unwillingly drawn to the jocks table, his shoulders were always relaxed, mouth always turn up at the corners, but there was still something so stiff about him. Eddie’s not sure he’s ever seen him lean back like this.
It's almost like, without eyes on him—or with only Eddie’s—his body has gone ragamuffin. A marionette with all it’s strings cut. It’s like. Like—
It’s like hiding from a horrific Lovecraftian monster in the alternative dimension version of his own closet with Eddie Fucking Munson is the first time Steve Harrington has felt comfortable in his own skin. Either that, or Eddie’s spiraling.
“Stop staring at me, man,” Harrington says, draping a hand over his eyes to block out the nonexistent light.
It’s only then that Eddie realizes he has been staring. He snaps his gaze to the floor, running his fingers through the soft shag of Harrington’s fancy carpet. It’s things like this that got him marked as queer within weeks of moving here.
“What’re we gonna do, man?” Eddie asks, like a broken record.
Harrington sighs, drooping further into the carpet. “I vote we go to sleep and hope this was all a bad dream.”
And as if his word had been decreed, Harrington stretches out as much as he can in the confined space, using a pile of dirty clothes as a pillow, and closes his eyes. The side of his leg ended up pressed across the entire side of Eddie’s thigh.
Eddie stares, struck dumb by the audacity of Harrington checking out in a moment like this. When his silence gets no reaction, he slumps down, dragging his cheek into the soft carpet as Harrington slumbers beside him. It feels like hours until he falls asleep.
Part 2
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pinkmirth · 1 year
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I think we need some headcanons of cowboy Reiner
— ( save a horse, ride a cowboy! )
༉‧₊˚. — synopsis: just a cluster of fluffy and smutty headcanons for none other than the love of my life, cowboy reiner!
༉‧₊˚. — contains: (2k words of…) cowboy!reiner x fem!reader, (black coded), fluff, nsfw/smut, modern au, southern setting, established relationship (married), fantasies of having a child, breeding kink (‘cause this is reiner we’re talking about duh!), mentions of pregnancy, bondage kink, oral (m!receiving/blowjob), cowgirl position, doggy-style, creampie, reiner calls himself “daddy”, use of the petnames (mama, sugar, darling, honey, cowgirl), reiner calls you “woman” once, lowercase intended, minors shoo!
༉‧₊˚. — mira’s note: oh absolutely, nonnie! here are some thoughts I have on cowboy rei-rei 💕 (check masterlist for other reiner fics!)
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this man is always covered head-to-toe in classic cowboy attire— embroidered cowboy boots, blue denim jeans with a lasso hanging from his belt loop, and a trusty old cowboy hat. he’s got the whole getup, and he looks even sexier in it every time you see him! though, his best look by far is the shirtless one. it’s the highlight of your day when whenever it gets too warm outside, because he’s soon to peel off his top. from across the farm, he can feel your eyes burning into his lightly-tanned skin as he does the most mundane chores. his muscles tense and flex with every move, pecs gleaming with sweat. he shoots you a smirk, folding his arms across his bare chest. “y’like what ya see, honey?” you pray the weather’s even hotter tomorrow.
it warms his heart whenever you come around to watch him do his daily chores around the farm. your presence motivates him to work harder, so he can continue to provide for you and sustain your comfortable lifestyle. you try not to be too much of a distraction, but you can’t help wanting to be closer to your husband; so you tug at his leather belt and pull him in for a kiss. that gets him giddy like nothing else. “ya know how much i love it when y’do that… gimme another,” he puckers his lips, and you giggle. “i don’t wanna keep you sidetracked for too long, rei. you were busy before i got here,” you caress his stubbled cheek and he pouts in response, leaning forward to receive another pillowy kiss. “jus’ one more, mama.”
cowboy reiner loves to cook and bake! he often goes on farmer’s market dates with you, walking hand in hand as you help him pick out the freshest ingredients and spices. you chat and laugh amongst one another, dropping carrots and apples into the hand-woven basket that reiner made for you. after arriving back home, he allows you to relax in yours and his shared bedroom while he whips together a hearty southern meal for the two of you. he shouts from across the house, adorned in nothing but a short pair of checkered boxers and a flimsy apron, “supper’s ready, darlin’! come on down ‘n eat!”
he’s great with animals! reiner cradles an adorable month-old horse in his strong arms, feeding milk to the baby with a soft smile. it’s just about the sweetest thing you could ever see! all the little foals follow him around the ranch because they love papa reiner just as much as you do <3 he’s built something of a connection between himself and his beloved herd, which is why he’s able to bring the horses over to their stables with no hassle whatsoever. this man could practically be a veterinarian with all the animal knowledge he has!
he’s a locally known rodeo champion! reiner wins the prize for longest bull-riding every single year. he should allow someone else a fighting chance, at least 😭 but he’s just effortlessly good at anything he puts his mind to! he skillfully rides the beast with such ease, leaving the crowd in awe. courtesy of his natural-born strength, he hardly ever gets tossed off. reiner’s got medals galore hanging on his wall from every competition.
as a southern man, he’s very family-oriented. his loved ones are of the utmost importance to him, and he’ll always put family first before anything else. he utterly adores you, and can’t wait to start a tiny lil family of his own with you <3 when I tell you this man cannot wait to be a papa, I mean it! there’s no denying that reiner would be an amazing father, considering that he’s so caring and attentive. he knows the best tickle spots to target, and the silliest faces to make to get a child cracking up (both of which he discovered through spending lots of time with gabi when she was small.) he constantly daydreams about dressing up his little one in tiny boots and overalls and carrying them up on his shoulders. (yes, I’m pushing the daddy rei-rei agenda on this fine weekend!)
cowboy reiner has manners like none other— the epitome of a true gentleman! he’s a great listener, is always so patient, opens doors for you, pays for your things without hesitation, gives frequent massages, carries you when you begin to feel tired; the list goes on! he’s just so kind and selfless, and never fails to show it. cowboy rei-rei is truly the perfect husband. “your feet hurt? well c’mere, sugar. i’ll carry you. it ain’t too much for me, y’know i can handle ya! jus’ hold onto me. i gotcha, okay?”
cowboy reiner is a grown man who can wholly appreciate your body and every striking detail about it. he scrutinizes the small dotted beauty marks scattered across your skin, your cutely patterned stretch marks, the curves and crevices of your soft tummy and thighs, and he fucking loves it all. makes it a habit to kiss up and down your body, just to give you a well-needed confidence boost. this man right here surely knows how to make a woman feel special! “listen t’me— you’re so fuckin’ gorgeous, y’know that?”
(nsfw) — reiner loves when you treat him to a surprise blowie during work. he’s up to the usual, arranging things around the barn and tending to the animals. you then make your entrance, wrapping your arms around his waist to hug him from behind. your plump lips curve into a sensual smile as you ask him, “can I steal you for a moment, baby? it won’t be for too long, I swear it.” in an instant, he's allowing you to pull him away from his duties, unknowing of where you’re taking him, but also uncaring because he’d allow you to do whatever you please. he follows you with the goofiest smile plastered on his charming face, because he knows that he’s about to receive the most knee-buckling blowjob of his entire goddamn life. you bring him into the hayloft, pushing him against the red-painted wall until he’s flat against it. you drop to your knees and bring his jeans down with you. “fuck, darlin’… kiss the tip ‘fa me.” he moans lowly. you do as he wishes, suckling on his cockhead with the most beautiful, glistening eyes. you’re so eager to please, and it makes him throb on your tongue. with a hand at the back of your head, he guides you further onto him until you’ve swallowed the entirety of his fat dick. reiner ruts his hips, fucking into your wet mouth. you always know just how to make him feel so good, so loved. he adores you like nothing else. “oh, that’s it, honey, right there… atta girl.”
(nsfw) — the bondage kink on this man is insane, I tell you! cowboy reiner loves to keep your hands tied behind your back and watch you squirm against the rope. “rei,” in a breathless whine, his name falls from your plush lips. you wiggle your ass in the air for him, anticipating his next move. he takes you from the back, raw-dogging your pussy with a merciless pace. you truly wonder where he gets all this unparalleled energy to drill you into the bed, especially considering all the hard work he puts into maintaining the farm every day. one large hand of his stays planted on your waist, hastily grabbing, while the other holds onto your tied hands for leverage. he delivers harsh, deep-reaching thrusts, with his firm hips sharply smacking against you from behind. your wrists struggle against the rope, and he can tell just how desperate you are to touch him. his gaze is fixated on your soft body; every jiggle of your ass and ripple of your thighs is more hypnotizing than the last. you mewl for him, stuttering out something along the lines of ‘t—too much!’ … reiner leans down until his chest grazes the arch of your back, so that he can say, “quit alla-that whinin’, woman.” he clicks his teeth, flooding your ears with that sexy southern drawl of his. “y’can take it all, you’ve done it before.”
(nsfw) — we all know it, the entire goddamn fandom knows it: cowboy reiner has a massive fucking breeding kink! he wants nothing more than to get you pregnant by stuffing your pliant womb with his thick loads of cum. giving you a creampie makes him go completely wild; he watches his seed drip down your slit with hitched breath. a sight such as that is enough to get him hard all over again. the lust takes over, and he’s thinking with his dick for the next three rounds. plowing into you and rubbing at your puffed clit with calloused fingertips, reiner asks, “want me to come inside you? hm?” he gently holds onto your chin, directing your gaze to him. you dazedly look at your husband, pulsing around his thick cock. seeing how fucked-out you are makes his chest swell with the utmost pride. his greatest achievement is being able to please you. “tell me how bad y’fuckin’ want it, baby.” he rasps. your pleading moans urge him to release for you. his warm, pearly arousal seeps into you for the nth time that night. all he wants is to fill you up until you’re walking funny, with your leg shaking from all the stimulation. or, at least until that little stick comes out positive one day. having you grow plump with his child is his ultimate fantasy. “you’d look so stunnin’ as a mama, carryin’ my baby… don’t’cha think so, sugar?”
(nsfw) — reiner likes to let you wear his cowboy hat while you ride him. mounting onto your husband with your legs on either side of his hips, you straddle him. your dainty hands are planted on his broad chest for balance. he pulls off his iconic hat, hair cutely tousled from wearing it all day, before sitting up to place it on your head. “since you’ll be the one ridin’ tonight. giddyup, cowgirl.” he teases with a slick grin. you tip the hat with a breathy laugh before sinking down on his fat dick, maintaining sharp eye contact with him as your throbbing cunt takes him in little by little, until your clit’s grounded and snug against the dark-blonde tufts of his happy trail. his warm palms rub along your body as you swivel your hips, slamming down on all nine girthy inches that he has to offer. he watches your tits bounce, one manicured hand of yours squeezing at your left boob while the other holds onto his hat that rests upon the crown of your head. you rock back and forth with fervor, and he swears he can feel every spongy ridge of your contracting pussy. he throws his head back onto the pillows and gazes at you with the prettiest set of honey-golden eyes, hooded and lust-blown. gravelly moans fall past his agape lips as he spurs you on, giving your ass a thorough smack, “bounce on it, jus’ like that— yeah, fuck daddy’s cock.”
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hellodarling1357 · 3 months
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Battlefield Confessions (Cassian x Reader)
Just a short one to get the writing juices flowing again, it's been a tough week!
I'm (very slowly) getting to all my requests and I'm so sorry it's taken me so long! I've loved all the ideas so much but have been in the middle of moving and a heap of other drama so been a bit distracted lately.
Anyway, I couldn't not write about a mid-fight love confession so here it is!
Enjoy 🥰
Word Count: 1,050
You and Cassian had been treading around one another for years. It was always a situation of right person, wrong time, and a constant will-they-won’t-they amongst your friends. It wasn’t until a heated screaming match in the middle of the battle against Hybern where Cassian was berating you about risking yourself to protect him from an unnoticed Hybern soldier that it all came out.
“It was a stupid, reckless move, Y/N. You could’ve gotten yourself killed.” Cassian had shouted as he slammed his sword down into an approaching soldier, pulling you back as he did so.
“Funny that, coming from you,” Barely jumping out of the way as another solider advanced, flipping your dagger into him as he stumbled against Cassian’s hold. “Aren’t you the one who had your wings shredded, and then had all your organs hanging out a few months later? Not to mention all the times when—"
“Alright, got your point,” Cassian panted in a moment of reprieve as he eyed the battlefield. “Doesn’t change the fact that you risking yourself for me is not worth it and goes against every order you’ve been given, from both Rhys and myself. Don’t do it again.”
“It’s not up you to decide what I think is worth risking… On your left.” You shouted at the sudden appearance of a small cluster of soldiers that sent Cassian’s Siphons blazing, the red light blasting into the majority of the group, leaving the rest as easy pickings for the two of you as you fought against them. “As I was saying,” You panted, “I’ll decide if I think you’re worth it or not and, as it happens, I do, so stop complaining.”
He let out a scoff at your words, shaking his head and contemplating sending you back to the row of tents to help the healers to get you out of the fray if this was how you were going to act. Before he could say as much, he just had time to push you aside as a soldier snuck up on the two of you and raised his sword behind your back. Cassian was quick in disarming him, sending his lifeless body to the ground as he reached out a hand to help you up.
“You alright?”
“Yeah,” Your voice was a bit breathless, but you blinked the shock away as Cassian quickly looked you over for any injuries. “I’m fine, Cass.”
“Okay, okay. Look, I need you to go check in on the others. Find Madja, ask her if she needs any assistance.”
Anger bubbled inside of you as you realised what he was doing.
“I’m not leaving.”
“Y/N…” He gave you a look, the look he usually reserved for out of line soldiers, but you knew him, knew it was just a tactic to try to get you to listen.
“No. I’m not one of your soldiers, you can’t just order me away because you don’t think I’m capable enough.”
“Y/N, you know that I know you’re more than capable. But right now, I need you off the field, it’s a liability having you here.”
“A liability?” Your voice was cold as you looked over the male in front of you. “After everything that we’ve been through, everything I’ve done to prove… How dare you say that to me.” If it weren’t for the battle raging around you, you were certain that tears would be welling in your eyes.
“No, that came out wrong. Look, it’s just—"
But you weren’t listening, didn’t want to listen as he came up with whatever excuse he had forming.
“It’s just what, Cassian?” You were yelling now, glaring at the General with fire in your eyes as the sounds of the battle muffled against the growing tension.
Cassian looked as though he had a battle of his own raging through his head as he glared back, finally muttering “fuck it” as he marched over to you. Unsure of what he was doing, you pulled yourself to your full height, ready to fight if he was going to attempt forcing you to leave. But as Cassian stopped in front of you, close enough that your chests were almost touching, the look in his eyes had you balking. He reached for you then, one hand cupping your cheek and the other playing with the end of your braid. And as he crashed his lips to yours, your body went utterly still, unexpected shock taking over all of your senses.
He pulled back, looking you over before saying “it’s just that,” he repeated from earlier, “I am so utterly and completely in love with you that the thought of you being out here is a liability because I can only focus on what you’re doing, where you are, if you’re okay. My head isn’t in this battle while you’re here with me, so I need you to go.” You stared at him before being pulled aside, your ears met with the sound of clashing swords as another assault of Hybern soldiers were released on you. The bodies piled up around you, leaving you gasping for breath and wiping blood from your hands.
“That,” Cassian panted, “is why I need you to get out of here. I was so distracted I only just saw them approach, another second and it would’ve been too late.”
You pressed up onto your toes, stretching until your lips met his in a hurried, frantic kiss. “Well, I’m definitely not leaving now.” You said against his mouth.
“Y/N…”
“I love you too, idiot. And you’re stupid if you think I’m going to leave your side after that.”
He knew there was no arguing with you, that it would be a waste of energy and even more of a distraction from what was happening around him. Instead, Cassian squeezed your hand as he said, “Let’s just get this over with,” shoulders rolling as he observed the fight around you.
“Let’s. Then we can go home and finally act on this. I knew you liked me.” Despite the battle and death piling around you, a cheeky smile graced your features
Cassian rolled his eyes at your wink, unable to contain the smile that tugged at his mouth. Even in the middle of a war you found ways to make him laugh and he couldn’t wait until this was all over and the two of you could finally stop beating around the bush and start a life together.
***** As always, please send me any requests you have or just drop in for a chat 🥰
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epick-cluster-b-blog · 8 months
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sometimes it's okay to go along with a pwNPD's need for praise or attention.
pwNPD need acknowledgement or praise in some capacity. please be patient with us. it's okay to humor us every once in a while and give us the attention that we crave. for example, asking us to show off an accomplishment. asking us questions. letting us talk about whatever we want for a bit. the only thing that's important is that you do not cross your own boundaries (or anyone else's, for that matter).
you may think that doing this is unhealthy, because it's reinforcing grandiosity and the pattern of begging for praise. while for some people that may be true, the alternative is starving us of attention, which often does more harm than good. we don't learn to live without it that way. it is not your job to "fix" us. sometimes the best thing you can do is play along.
please just note that there is a lot of nuance to this situation, but my general rule of thumb is that as long as no one's being harmed, it's okay to engage!
oh and by the way, the same goes for other cluster b disorders, and even people without cluster b disorders. attention is something that everyone needs every once in a while. it's just that us cluster b folks tend to need it in excess.
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just-j-really · 6 months
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"I just don't get it," Hob says, for the fifth or sixth or possibly twentieth time that night, glancing over the rim of his cup at Will, who's sitting on the other side of the room, cuddling with his soulmate in an armchair that's really too small for the both of them. "Why everyone's so hung up on soulmates."
It's all anyone's been able to talk about tonight- and sure, that's fair, it is Will and Ann's engagement party, but Hob has overheard the phrases 'oh you're so lucky you found each other so young' and 'why did you wait this long?' far too many times for one night. Will and Ann met as toddlers; they've never had another option and Hob cannot fathom why everyone seems to think that's a good thing.
Case in point, even his little group of Unmatched friends react to his statement with varying degrees of exasperation.
Hob is just sober enough to be aware he should probably shut up, and drunk enough that he keeps talking anyway. "I mean, I've seen 'soulmates'," he says. "My parents were soulmates, both my siblings met theirs, half of my friends are paired off by now. It's not like I don't know how soulmates work. Soulmates are..." he takes a moment, gathers his thoughts, and even though he's not entirely sure what he's about to say, the moment the word leaves his mouth he knows it's exactly right, "Stupid."
His friends laugh uncomfortably. "You're an idiot," Andrew says, not unkindly.
But Hob's on a roll now, an argument that's been simmering in his chest for years spilling out of him, the exhilaration of speaking making the words come easily. "You literally don't have to stay with your soulmate. No one has to! Everyone just goes along with it because everybody else does. But not me. I've made up my mind," he says, setting his cup down and straightening his shoulders. He's been bullshitting a bit but he means this, knows down to his bones that this is something worth staking his life on. "I'm going to meet someone perfect who isn't my soulmate, and I'll marry them instead."
He feels like he should do something solemn to mark this occasion. Stand up on a table, maybe.
Instead, most of his friends laugh at him again. "Hobs, that's the literal definition of your soulmate. Someone who's perfect for you," Gwen points out. The laughter is teasing, and Gwen's tone is more reassuring than anything else, but still, Hob finds himself frustrated.
"But there's so much more out there. So many people to fall in love with," he insists. "Shouldn't I know who's perfect for me better than anyone?"
And his friends tease him for somehow being sappily romantic in his opposition to sappy romance, and he laughs along with them and points out that his perfect person will be more understanding than them, for sure. And he's genuinely a bit hurt, but Gwen bumps his shoulder apologetically and he thinks that destiny has nothing on these friends he's made on purpose, who know him well enough for these unspoken gestures. And there's movement in the corner of his eye.
Hob looks up.
The most gorgeous man alive is standing in front of him. He's tall- probably taller than Hob, even- pale and willowy, with a mess of soft-looking black hair. His eyes are a deep blue Hob didn't think existed in real life until this moment. He looks like the slightly magical prince in a fairy tale got loose in the real world and decided to become a goth. He's perfect.
"Did I hear you say," the man asks, his voice soft and deep all at once, resonant in a way that Hob's never heard before, "you have no intention of meeting your soulmate?"
Not if he's you, Hob thinks, I take it all back if he's you.
Despite what many of his friends will argue, he is capable of not voicing every thought that comes into his head, if only under extreme circumstances, so he offers the stranger his best grin and says, "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
"You'll need to tell me how that works out, then," the man replies.
"Don't encourage him!" Andrew calls from the other side of their little cluster.
The man- flinches, just a little. Hob probably wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been staring at him, but Hob's universe just gained a new center, so he is and he does.
"Hey," he says, catching the man's eyes, "Don't mind him, he's just boring. You really want to know how it goes, finding someone who isn't my soulmate?"
"I do," the man says, seriously, like he genuinely thinks Hob's quest is worth his full attention. It leaves Hob feeling warm, almost giddy.
"Perfect," Hob says, and then, because he's never known when to quit, "Let me give you my number, so I can update you?"
The man nods, a teasing little smirk appearing on his face, as though he and Hob already know each other perfectly, and this is a shared, ancient joke between the two of them. His fingers brush Hob's as he passes over his phone.
Nothing happens. There's no spark, no splash of color on Hob's skin marking where this stranger's fingers first dragged over his.
They are, definitively, not soulmates.
And Hob knows for certain that he's right.
[Part Two]
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allzelemonz · 2 months
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Settle: Merle Dixon X Male Reader
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Pronouns: he/him, Reader referred to as ‘man’ and ‘boy’ Physical Sex: AMAB Rating: E/Smut, language Warnings: Slurs (homophobic), Merle Dixon is his own warning, mention of Merle’s SS symbol, typical southern prejudice/homophobia, neck kissing, anal fingering, anal sex, cockwarming, hand job, cuddling, top Merle and bottom Reader Summary: After striking out with every woman in camp, Merle turns to you and ignores the gay aspect of sleeping with another man in favor of getting laid. A/N: Imagine my lack of surprise but utter disappointment in finding no male reader shit for Merle. Written out of spite. Enjoy.
After a third pill and a third strikeout, Merle is almost certain he’ll have to handle himself tonight. No woman in the whole damn camp wants any action, even with a touch of good ol’ Southern charm Merle attempted. Not a bite from anyone. So Merle stumbled through the cluster of tents, only half as high as he’d like to be and blue balls stiff between his legs. Just as he’s about to turn a corner towards his tent on the outskirts with his brother’s, he catches a pretty sight.
Not that Merle is gay. Of course not. But the man is asleep with his tent partly unzipped, shirt off and back arched like a damn whore. How could Merle not stare just a little. His eyes trail over your back, bare and just fuzzied by the drugs in his system that he may mistake things enough to ignore the dick between your legs.
So he kicks your foot, waking you up.
Your hand goes to your knife first, then you turn to see it’s not something dead behind you. “What, Merle?”
“Ya a queer?”
You squint at him, off put by the way he says it. “Why’re you asking?”
He shrugs. “Fella can’t be curious.”
“Not with that Nazi symbol on your bike you can’t.” You close your hand around your knife. “Go away.”
Merle chuckles, raising his hand in mock surrender. “Woah, woah, there… I was just askin’.”
You stare at him for a moment. “Fine. Yeah, I like men. I’m a queer. Are we done here?”
Merle bites at the inside of his cheek, trying to come up with the right words. “Ya let me fuck ya?”
“What?” You ask, sitting up to look at him properly.
Merle scoffs. “Ya heard me. Would ya?”
“Why would you-“
“Ladies ‘round here bein’ stingy.” Merle shrugs. “Hole’s a hole.”
“You’re joking.” You say in disbelief.
“Ain’t like I never fucked an ass before. It’s the same shit.”
You shake your head. “No, it’s really not.”
“Aw, come on, I’ll be quick.” Merle attempts a pout. “Ain’t no trouble.”
You sigh, shaking your head because you know it’s a dumb idea somewhere deep down. “Fine.”
Merle grins. “Atta boy.”
“Get on with it then.” You sigh, watching Merle step inside. “Zipper.”
Merle turns and zips the tent closed behind him, fumbling with it for longer than any regular person would. When he turns his hands go straight to his belt.
You watch his fingers move for a second. “You ever fucked another man before.”
Merle snorts. “Course not. I ain’t a queer.”
“It’s a little different, you know.”
“What?” Merle sneers. “I gotta play with yer pecker er somethin’?”
You shake your head. “Not necessarily. But you have to stick your fingers in for a while and stretch things out.”
“Yer just picky.”
“Maybe. Just do it, asshole, or I’m not gonna let you fuck anything.”
Merle pulls his belt free. “Fine. Pants off then, sweetheart.”
You huff, annoyed at Merle already, but it’s been far too long since you’ve had this chance. You pull your pants off, ignoring Merle’s eyes on your legs and turn around to lay on your stomach.
“Alright.” Merle grins, shuffling up behind you and nudging your legs apart. “What am I doin’ here, sweetheart?”
You turn your head back, half wanting to see the sight. “Put your fingers in your mouth.”
“Why?”
“Spit’s the only lube we have.” You mutter. “Just do it.”
Merle glares slightly, but does as he’s told and presses three fingers past his lips. He sucks on them, his other hand already going to your hip. It’s clear he’s never been the type to do this with any of the women he’s been with either. Without prompting, he drops the hand down and traces until he finds your rim.
“Ya ready for Merle’s magic fingers, boy?”
“Shut up.”
Merle chuckles, circling his finger around before slowly pushing inside. “Whew…” Merle exclaims. “Tight little thing, ain’t ya?”
You open your mouth to speak but Merle’s finger drags against your prostate and all you can manage is a groan as you bury your face down into your pillow.
He leans over you, his hand moving up to grip at the bare skin of your chest. “I find somethin’ good?”
You nod, mindlessly pushing back into him. “Fuck, Merle…”
He repeats the drag, his fingers moving quickly to fuck whatever sounds he can get out of you. You don’t expect much more, but he leans down and presses his lips to your neck. He trails sloppy kisses over your skin, his fingers fully thrusting into you at a quick pace.
“You want me?” Merle murmurs next to your ear. “Want Merle to fuck ya better than some fairy ever could, don’t ya?”
“Yeah…” You answer, spreading your legs as much as you can. “Why you’re here, isn’t it?”
Merle grins against your skin. “You just be a good boy. You’re good at that.”
He sits back up, removing his fingers and positioning himself properly behind you. His hands fix on your waist, pulling you back and propping you up on your widespread knees. You feel his tip press against you for just a second before he presses inside. There certainly isn’t enough lubrication or preparation, so the stretch of being entered hurts just enough to make a few whines form in your throat. Merle pushes all the same, stretching you open and filling you up with everything he has.
He groans as he bottoms out, running a hand over your spine. “You feel so damn good, sweetheart.” He squeezes your hip slightly. “Might turn me gay…”
Before you can think much about that, Merle begins to piston his hips at a quick pace. Both of his hands grip tightly at your hips and the force of his thrusts presses you forward into your pillow, only held up at the waist for Merle to fuck into you properly. You let him, relaxing into the hold and letting him use you because the slide of his dick hitting your prostate feels better than anything else. Merle pushes you down to lay flat, leaning over you and rocking into you as his head dips against your shoulder. The sleeping bag below you rubs at your dick with every thrust Merle gives you.
“Knew I liked you.” Merle mutters, half to himself. “Better than any damn woman… shit, sweetheart.”
Merle’s hips stutter and he groans as he releases, burying himself as deep as he can into you. You take heavy breaths as Merle relaxes on top of you, trying to ignore the squirming feeling of not having finished. Then Merle’s hand snakes under you, pumping furiously fast and gripping hard until you mutter his name and your vision blurs for a moment as you spurt cum onto your sleeping bag.
His hand slows to a massaging tempo and you can hear him inhaling strongly. “Ya gotta let me do that again sometime, boy.” He murmurs. “God, yer making me inta a queer.”
“Happy to help.” You mutter, still catching your breath.
Merle chuckles, letting both arms encircle you as he fully lets himself relax on top of you. “So ya liked my dick in ya?”
You bury your head into your pillow, avoiding his annoying question.
Merle chuckles. “Lemme sleep here?”
“Whatever.”
“Can I fuck ya in the mornin’?”
“If you want.”
He grins, settling his lips right next to your ear. “Ya gonna help keep little Merle warm all night too?”
You groan as he pushes against you, his soft dick still filling you and linking the both of you together. “Just sleep, jackass.”
He chuckles again. “Whatever you say, queer.”
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val-cansalute · 2 months
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Summary: If there’s one person in this entire world who could leave your emotions in utter disarray, it’s your roommate, Ellie fucking Williams. On one hand, your wholehearted hatred for her is very much clear cut; she is loud almost every night, leaves clusters of garbage and stacks of plates that should’ve been washed days ago around the apartment, goes out of her way to piss you off because it’s entertaining to watch you scramble for another shitty comeback, and has zero regard for your comfort whatsoever. But on the other hand, when she appears in your doorway, you have to suppress the instinctive upwards tug of your lips, even when she’s teasing, you’re holding back a giggle, the way she looks at you makes your stomach flutter, and there are moments when she almost shows too much regard for your comfort, when you can’t help but acknowledge that she might feel a similar flutter in her stomach that draws her to come to your room to watch you scramble for a comeback. Moments like now, when you’re feeling under the weather, and Ellie is quick to help.
ch. 1 -
She’s at it again; the usual shenanigans, though, this time, your response is a little lacklustre. Maybe, even to the point of concern, so she checks your temperature, to your absolute shock, and loses her shit.
ch. 2 -
This chapter includes smut.
The day that follows, you’ve recovered, much to your dismay, and a wave of confusion overcomes you following a night of unexpected intimacy. Also, you’re out of milk, and a bunch of other shit, so time for a supermarket run with Ellie.
ch. 3 -
This chapter contains smut.
It’s been a week since you and Ellie fucked, and out of all the reactions you could’ve had, you had the worst possible one. It’s been radio silence, complete avoidance, and nothing but horrifying for Ellie. She’s upset, you’re upset, you need to make up.
bonus -
Oh, how the tables have turned.
playlist:
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