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fairyofshampgyu · 3 months

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☆ Not as Tough as You Look !

genre: smut, crack

paring: emo vinyl store worker ! beomgyu x vinyl collector ! reader

Warnings: sub! beomgyu, dom! reader, choking !!!! grinding, riding, creampie, handjob, hair pulling, nipple play, degrading, fucking in a record store but there’s no one there, beomgyu has his nipples pierced and a thigh tattoo hehe and also his eyebrow pierced bc why not he’d look so fine

Word count: 3.7k

With your crippling vinyl collection addiction, you ticked off yet another record store on your list with a sigh, making your way to the next using trusty google maps and a determined gaze.

So far, you hadn’t been able to find your favourite band, Red Jellyfish’s vinyl in any of the stores you’d been in and you’d made it your sole mission to check out every single record store in your city in hopes of finding it to add to your ever growing collection.

It wasn’t the most financially stable hobby, yes, what with some records being so unreasonably pricey these days. And yes, technically you could listen to the albums for free online anytime instead. But that defeated the purpose! They just wouldn’t get the satisfying feeling of owning a shelf of your own physical music and whenever you added more to it. Also, music just sounded so much better spinning around on a record player in your bedroom and adding to the nostalgic ambience and aesthetic. It simply made you content.

Obtaining Red Jellyfish currently, however, was serving as a difficult task. It was always the case with more obscure bands but it just made it more riveting trying to find vinyls for them.

You arrived at the next, walking in and the arrays of endless records welcoming you, the place had a funky 70s vibe to it and was decorated as so with a cool layout. You noticed a listening booth, unusual to have in most record shops nowadays and this one was also unusually large, serving more as a separate small room with a record player and sofas so customers could have a listen. You loved listening booths and this definitely was a very cool record store. You’d be coming in again for sure.

Your thoughts are quickly dissipated, however, at the sight of the very cute worker stood behind the counter. You stop in your tracks and find yourself unable to look away, the purpose of why you actually came in the first place long forgotten.

He was unbelievably attractive with a long, shaggy wolfcut and bangs that half covered his eyes, adorned with an eyebrow piercing that added to his emo-esque look, sporting an oversized band shirt and baggy jeans and he had the most prettily sculpted features ever. The bottom of his soft brown eyes underlined ever so slightly with black eyeliner making his gaze rather intimidating.

“Hey, do you need any help?”

That snaps you back from your reverie and you jolt, unsure how long you were just weirdly observing him.

“Huh? Oh…no. Just looking….” Wow, even his voice was really nice.

He raises his pierced eyebrow at that and a knowing smile breaks onto his face. “Yeah? At what exactly? Vinyls or someone?” He bursts into laughter then and you feel your cheeks heat up, cocky and confident waves radiating off of him. Oh, he knew he was hot.

“W-what? No!” You scoff and clear your throat, embarrassed.

He chuckles still and beams at you, brushing his bangs away from his face with his hands, rings scattered on some of his fingers. God, even his hands were attractive. “Uh huh. But seriously, Would you like any assistance? It is my job after all.”

“Well actually,” You clear your throat and straighten your posture, attempting to play it cool and forget, you were still on a mission, you must not get side tracked by pretty boys. “you wouldn’t happen to have the band Red Jellyfish would you?”

His eyes light up almost immediately, “No way! I love Red Jellyfish. I’ve never come across another fan before! And we certainly do.” He grins and disappears into the back, soon arriving with the vinyl in hand and excitedly handing it to you, “They’re finally coming out with a second album after years. I’m so excited!”

“Same. I didn’t think they’d ever end up making music again after how long their hiatus was.” You enthusiastically agree, happy to find someone who also shared a liking for the band.

“Wouldn’t really take you to listen to emo music to be honest...” The cute emo boy looks you up and down, referring to your not so dark and edgy outfit and he’s grinning again.

“Yeah well, I guess you could say I have a pretty eclectic music taste.” You shrug, rolling your eyes jokingly at him. “Although I'm not really well versed on emo music besides that.”

You notice his big brown eyes beam even more with excitement, beginning to talk animatedly. “You should definitely listen to more. It’s great and it has a lot of range and sub genres and there’s some really good bands and! And-“ He rubs the back of his head sheepishly and stops himself, seemingly embarrassed. “Sorry, you just want to pay for your album and go.” He smiles apologetically at you and presses buttons on the cash register instead to calculate the price for you.

You shake your head and laugh, finding it more so endearing. "No. In fact, you’ve convinced me. I’ll definitely get into it more and listen to some bands. I wouldn’t know where to start though.” You’d let him talk your ear off all day to be honest. He was super cute.

His eyes turn into little crescent moons at that as he smiles broadly and you can’t help swooning internally once again. “Ooh I definitely have to give you some recs and make you a playlist! What’s your number?”

That’s how you find yourself squealing after leaving the store and not only managing to obtain the album you’d been extensively searching for, but also the very, very hot emo boy worker’s number. You’ll be telling your friend Soobin for sure all about it.

The emo boy indeed had a name, you'd discovered after exchanging numbers, Beomgyu, he’d told you. And you hadn’t been able to get the name out of your head ever since.

Him making a playlist for you didn’t really mean anything, he was just giving recommendations and being nice and friendly. But still, you’ll allow yourself to be a bit delusional about it. It was still a cute boy making a playlist for you! Even if it was pretty impersonal.

Later on into the night you receive a text that makes you giddy all over.

Hey, it’s Beomgyu ! We met earlier at the record shop. I made the playlist of emo recs already hehe :) let me know what u think ;)

Along with the text was a Spotify link to the playlist, spending your whole night just listening to it.

As you got to know the genre better. You appreciated it a lot more and found you actually liked a lot of the songs, particularly the more screamo ones. The screaming and whining itched your brain and you were fascinated how much vocal control they had to be able to scream yet sing at the same time. You make a mental note of all your favourites and decide to tell him in person, since it’d give an excuse to see him again.

You walk to the store the next day and you're glad to see him behind the counter and not someone else. “I listened to all the songs. They were really good.”

“Already?” He raises his brow in surprise to see you again, lopsided grin on his face and head tilted.

“Well…yeah?” You scratch your head. You don’t why you feel slightly embarrassed about that.

Beomgyu leans over the counter excitedly, “Which ones did you like?” Suddenly, a vinyl album comes full swinging at Beomgyu and smacks the back of his head hard. You stand, astonished. “Oww! What the fuck?” Beomgyu rubs his poor head in attempt to soothe it and turns around to the suspect.

"You better be working and not talking your ass off, Choi Beomgyu!!" His manger, yeonjun, you observe from his tag comes into view and stands with narrowed eyes at him.

“I’m taking a break!” Beomgyu waves with his hand, trying to shoo him away so he could continue his conversation with you.

“You just started your shift?!!”

“So! 9-5s are hard…” Beomgyu pouts and looks at you as if to back him up.

Yeonjun shakes his head, hand to his nose bridge, "You know I'd fire you right?"

"You wouldn't because you love me. And I’m your best friend." Beomgyu proudly smirks to him.

"Debatable..." Yeonjun sighs defeatedly and walks off to restock a shelf instead, beomgyu completely ignoring him and returning back to the conversation with you.

After that, you become close friends with the boy, frequenting the vinyl shop for records, but mostly an excuse just so you could converse with him. You seem to develop a music recommending relationship, sharing playlists and recommending each other songs and then giving your own opinions and reviews to each other.

To be honest, getting to hangout with beomgyu like that was the highlight of your days and you’d grown to like him a lot. He was fairly easy going and nice to talk to, even if the conversation fell short on your side given you weren’t that socially competent, he always managed to keep it going and you loved hearing his funny ramblings and stories he’d passionately go on about. You found a lot of what he did just so endearing.

He was also a massive flirt. And it seemed you weren’t the only person who noticed just how hot the boy behind the counter was as a lot of the times you were there, girls and boys were batting their eyelashes up at him and coming into the store just to flirt with him too. You didn’t blame them at all. He'd flirt with you from time to time as well but you tried not to dwell too much on it, figuring it was simply just his personality.

Even if you were just probably friends, you were happy to have gained a friendship either way. He brought colour into your usual mundane day to day living and you hadn’t made a new genuine friend in so long, something that was seemingly rarer the more you got into adulthood. And so, you just appreciated the friendship. Even if you had developed the teeniest crush on him. Well, probably more than that.

Soobin had been nagging you for days on end about wanting to see this beomgyu guy for himself you'd talk about and doubting that he was so fine like you say, that you end up giving in and deciding to drag him along to the record store with you as well one day.

Upon seeing you walk in, Beomgyu's eyes light up happily, resembling that of a puppy seeing their owner finally arriving back home and he smiles widely...then he sees the tall guy following in behind you and his demeanour suddenly changes, head tilted and frowning, lips more in a pout.

Once you walk up to the counter with a vinyl Soobin wanted, beomgyu stares coldly and cautiously for a rather strange time at the tall blonde innocently sipping on his boba tea besides you and eventually speaks up. "Is he like, your...boyfriend?"

Soobin splutters and chokes on his drink and both of you wave your hands in a frenzy, "No!"

"Oh!" And he's back to his usual cheery self, smiling contently, a bit unsettling to both you and soobin as you exchange a wary look. "Yeah. It’s good he isn’t…” Beomgyu stares back at soobin with a look of such distaste and disgust.

You leave the store after paying not without trying to reassure a grumbly Soobin who looked like he was about to throw hands any second. “What did he mean it's good he isn't?!” He mocks beomgyu’s voice and scoffs. “I feel offended! Is he saying I’d make a bad boyfriend?! He doesn’t like me? Well I don’t like him. Bitch.”

You sigh, patting your frowning friend on the back, not sure what else to say at the strange interaction.

Finally, the day Red Jellyfish’s new album drops arrives and although it took absolutely everything in you not to listen to it instantly, both you and beomgyu had promised each other you’d listen together in the listening booth after his shift. So the day seems to drag on and on as you anticipate and impatiently waited for the evening when beomgyu would at last finish.

You zoom to the store when it’s finally time, seeing him tidying and closing up. You sit down onto the vintage orange funky sofa in the listening booth as beomgyu placed the album into the record player before taking a seat next to you, both holding in your breath as the first track plays, and then swapping an excited glance with widened eyes to each other as soon as the guitar melody starts playing and the bass also comes in, both remaining silent as you enjoy the song and listen attentively to what was going on. It was already so sick.

Once it ends you both excitedly gush over the new song before the second tracks rolls on. It’s a lot slower and more dreamy and ambient. The guitar distorted and playing a pretty rolling arpeggio and giving off the genre of a more shoegaze piece.

You stare at beomgyu’s concentrated face and he stares back. He really is so gorgeous, the pretty song seemingly reflecting this as you can’t help but admire him. You can’t help it either when your eyes flicker to his seriously pretty rounded lips for a second, wondering what it’d feel like to have them pressed with yours…

It seems it doesn’t go unnoticed by beomgyu either as he shuffles even closer to you, his scent intoxicating you as he grins smugly, looking down at your own lips that has you malfunctioning. He tucks in a strand of your hair behind your ear, still gazing and corners of his mouth pulling up, smiling at you.

There’s this underlying tension and the album you’d been heavily anticipating for months, the last thing on your mind, dissolving into background noise as the only thing you can think of is beomgyu and how close he is to you. It’s hard to hold back anymore.

He inches closer and closer and he kisses you. Finally kisses you, and you melt into the kiss with him, making out fervently.

He pulls you into his lap, gripping your waist and tracing kisses on your neck instead that makes you gasp. “Couldn’t help it anymore…so pretty. Always make my day whenever you walk in.” Beomgyu whispers lowly, brushing his lips lightly against your ear which makes you shiver and the corners of his mouth curl into that stupid grin you’ve seen many times.

But then you decide to roll your hips against his and grind against his cock in his jeans and he falters instantly, mouth parting ‘o’ shaped and he whimpers high pitched, so unlike him. His ears and cheeks flush red and your movements stop. “S-shit sorry. Did I ruin it? That was really weird, fuck. Sorry.” Beomgyu averts your gaze, apologising profusely and embarrassed, bottom lip quivering slightly you notice. His whole demeanour changes. You’ve only ever seen beomgyu embarrassed a short handful of times, usually so sure of himself, but it only makes you go more crazy for him.

“Wanna act all tough but that’s all it takes and it’s all crumbling down, huh?” You grin, finding the boy and the way he’s shying underneath you suddenly so amusing. He still doesn’t make eye contact, cheeks even more impossibly red, “Look at me, baby.” You lift his chin up, seeing the way he reacts to the pet name, his eyes slightly widening.

“No. Don’t want to. Too embarrassed.” Beomgyu pouts cutely, you chuckle and coo at him, stroking his cheek which he leans into. You begin to grind against him again and take the lead in kissing him, his hands shaking and gripping your waist even tighter as he attempts to stifle his whimpers, eyes tightly shut. You kiss and suck down his neck as well, determined to leave hickeys in their wake. You’re surprised by how easily he submits to you. You like it a lot.

You pull the oversized band shirt he wears over his head and unzip his ripped jeans. The sight your met with however making you audibly gasp, his pink nipples prettily pierced through and the top of his plush thigh tattooed in a pattern of a heart and lines branching out like thorns. It makes you even more feral.

Gripping the pretty flesh of his tatted thigh, you begin to jerk off his cock which was flushed and leaking precum anyway as he waited for you to do something. He whines and moans into your ear as you pump your hand up and down on his length, head buried deep in your neck.

You can feel his heavy breaths and the drool on you and his whole body twitches and squirms when you place your free hand on one of his nipples instead, rolling the bud in your fingers and twisting which elicits a strangled moan out of him, clinging to you even tighter when you ruthlessly pump his cock, thumb toying with the slit on the head of dick and also still toying with his now puffy nipples. You can feel the drool dribble down your neck now. And you know he’ll cum any second, added ministrations on his pretty tits not helping him from restraining at all, so sensitive especially ever since he got them pierced.

“F-fuckk..hah..Please. Can I cum?” He removes his head from your neck to look up at you with wet doe eyes. He’s so unexpectedly pliant in your hands, you’d give him anything if he looked up at you like that. And so you do, allowing him to cum, he whines loudly and squirts making a pretty mess, cum coating his tattoo on his thigh.

You’re not anywhere near done with him yet though and you hover over his dick, bringing the head to slide over your entrance and folds a few times before you sink completely down on his wet and sticky cock. Beomgyu throws his head back and groans, biting his lip hard at the feeling of his cock inside your warm pussy and you begin to slowly ride him, sucking in air loudly.

“Mmh fuck pull my hair too. It’s okay I like it rough-ah s-shit. Can take anything you give me” Beomgyu stutters and throws an arm over his head, eyebrows deeply furrowed.

So you tug and pull at the strands of his long hair and tangle and run your hands in his scalp, it makes him moan even louder, looking absolutely in bliss, you could tell just how much he liked his hair being pulled and pull with even more force, his eyes glazing up and mind all mushy and hazy now as you continued to fuck him and tug on his scalp. He looked so slutty and you can’t help telling him.

“Such a slut.” He just whines loudly in response. “You like being called a slut, huh? Wanna be my toy, my pet, my slut?

“Y-yeah-ah so good-holyy s-shit” He just nods vigorously, so dumbed out at this point, jaw hanging dumbly open. “W-wait squeeze my neck please.…”

You didn’t think beomgyu would be such a freak either.

“Are you sure, beomgyu?”

He strenuously nods and begs you. “Yeahh..need it please. I can take anything.” He gently takes your hand on his own and brings it to press down on his neck. He still stares at you with his big round brown eyes. It was honestly a confusing juxtaposition, the way he looked at you innocently whilst asking you to do something so obscene as choking him.

You squeeze his pretty neck either way and watch as he hisses and his face scrunches up gorgeously, veins in his neck popping out and grunting, you fuck him ruthlessly bouncing on his cock and the squelching so loud and clear and evident despite the music still playing on the record player.

You can’t help feeling possessive over him, finally having him beneath you, all yours to use, remembering all the girls that come in everyday to flirt with him and you get to have him all to yourself . Imagine the look on their faces if they could see beomgyu right now, your hands still lightly squeezing his neck and riding him. You kinda wish you could mark him all over.

“H-harder…choke me harder” Beomgyu gulps.

It makes your pace on his cock even faster and so rough and you press down on his neck ever harder. His jaw clenches, neck and face red and eyebrows furrowed. He gasps for air, letting out the prettiest loud and whiny breathy noises.

His breath hitches with every unrelenting bounce on his cock and he struggles to breathe, eyes heavy lidded and so fucked out, a distant look on his face, you press down just a little bit more on his neck and his eyes roll to back of his head, a long strangled high pitched moan coming out of him as he bucks his hips up and convulses, spurting heaps of his cum inside you and it brings you over the edge too. He can’t stop cumming it seems, shaking and endlessly panting and still squirting inside you as you basically milk him. You can see the red imprint of your hand on his pretty neck along with the numerous hickeys you left, it was definitely a sight to see.

It takes a while for beomgyu to recover from his high after how good you fucked him but he eventually speaks up, clinging to you. “Sooo, I got two tickets to see red jellyfish…Would you possibly want to go with me?” He grins and pants, biting his lip, still out of breath and bangs damp from sweat, pierced eyebrow raised and head tilted as he waited your answer.

You chuckle wrapping your arms around him tightly, kissing him again. “I’d love to.”

Please actually reblog !!!!!! and leave comments !!!! guys 😭 if you like the fic. It’s really appreciated and so nice tysm !<3🙏💕🌷🌷! It’s incredibly discouraging and irriating when fics have such little reblogs ☹️. At least send an anon in the inbox if you don’t want to rb, don’t just like. Feedback is always appreciated it make writers want to actually write :)

A/n: this is probably really messy bc I haven’t proof read. Writer’s block is actually so hard 😭😭

#beomgyu smut #txt smut #sub! txt #sub beomgyu #beomgyu x reader

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anyasathenaeum · 1 year

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Ahh! Your asks are open again im so stoked. How about vash and wolfwood getting flowers from the reader? Like she just thought some flowers were nice and gave them to the boys ??

A/N: Awww that's so cute! I love this! Headcanons coming right up for this!

Vash the Stampede

The moment you hand Vash flowers, he's looking at you with wide, sparkling eyes

"Are these for me? Wow! Thank you, (Y/N)! They're beautiful!"

Vash isn't used to being given gifts of any kind, and when he is given gifts, it's usually as recompense for something he's done for somebody and are empty gestures, only given to rid the person giving him the gift of the feeling of being indebted

But something like the flowers you give Vash? They truly make him happy.

You giving Vash flowers is a genuine gift that you give him because you wanted to, not because you felt the need to pay Vash off for something he did

You'd end up catching Vash looking at the flowers with a goofy little smile on his face when he has a moment to himself, carefully and gently touching the petals and looking at each flower individually

He looks absolutely entranced by the beautiful little bouquet, lovingly crafted by your own hands to give to him

You made the bouquet with him in mind, and that thought alone makes Vash positively beam with happiness

The best moment was when you handed Vash a particularly special bouquet, comprised of the most beautiful and delicate red geraniums

Vash's eyes watered at the sight of the flower that his adoptive mother had loved so much, and now you were giving them to him? The man is touched beyond all comprehension.

Seriously, he's like full-on got tears in his eyes and they're a second away from coursing down his cheeks as he steps forward and hugs you tightly, burying his head into the crook of your neck.

"Thank you, (Y/N). You don't know just how much this means to me."

You'll end up finding that particular bouquet later, carefully dried and tucked away safely among Vash's belonging in his napsack and you end up realizing just how much it really meant to him.

Nicholas D. Wolfwood

I feel like Wolfwood would look at you weirdly the first time you extend the flowers to him

"What? Why are you giving me those?"

Wolfwood is definitely confused - why were you holding flowers out to him? Was this your way of asking him to do something for you? Was this your way of asking him for a favour? What was your motive?

When you explain that you had no motive other than you just thought they were beautiful and wanted to give them to him, Wolfwood stares at you like you've grown a second head

Seriously, why would you do something like that? There had to be some secret reason

Wolfwood didn't see the point to you picking and giving him flowers, so he's not somebody who'll accept them right away

But once you stop offering the little bundles of flowers, looking downcast now every time you hold them, he genuinely feels bad for turning them down and regrets how he's reacted to them

So, the next time you're walking by with a bouquet, he'll startle you by coming up behind you suddenly, asking, "Is that for me?"

Now it's your turn to stare at him like he's grown a second head, and you even ask him if he's sick or something, to which he chuckles

He'll take the flowers you're holding and look them over before glancing back at you over the top of his sunglasses, a small smile on his face

"I don't really like flowers, but I like you, sweetheart. And I like the way you look whenever you pick 'em and give 'em to me. So, keep 'em comin', alright?"

Taglist: @ryuukami4, @spacioussoul, @iceoblivious, @yuudofu

#anya's athenaeum #trigun #trigun stampede #trigun stampede x reader #trigun x reader #vash the stampede #vash the stampede x reader #vash x reader #nicholas d wolfwood #wolfwood x reader #wolfwood

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mytheoristavenue · 1 month

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MHA Mezo Shoji x Reader - Make Believe - I

Summary: You ask Shoji to pretend to be your boyfriend for a dinner with your parents.

Warnings: fluff, fake dating trope, long/multi parted, not proofread

Glancing down at your watch, you fidgetted nervously, standing in the hall awkwardly. 'He's usually on his way to lunch by now,' you thought to yourself, scanning the hordes of students for a particular person. Suddenly, your eyes fell on a messy head of silver hair and your interest piqued. Booking it through the crowd, you finally found who you were looking for. "Shoji!" you chirped, stopping so short in front of him that you nearly smashed into him. "I've been looking all over for you!"

"Oh, sorry," he replied nonchalantly, beginning to walk with you to the lunch room. "Didn't mean to be so hard to find."

"It's okay," you reassured him. "I noticed you weren't in class today and I was worried," you admitted, going alongside him with your hands knotted together behind your back.

"Sorry to worry you," he said, finding a table and sitting down. "I was in the support classroom all morning getting my costume redone." He explained, rummaging through his bag. "Did I miss anything important?"

"You missed a pop quiz in Mic's class, but it's super easy. Oh and you missed a lecture on quirk evolution in science but don't worry," you beamed, producing a packet of papers from your own bag. "I took the liberty of taking extra notes on your behalf!"

Shoji took the notes from you, skimming through them. There were multiple pages, all front and back filled with neat color-coded writing, organized with bullet points. "Wow, these are pretty thorough, this isn't your copy is it?"He asked, still rummaging through his bag with an annoyed sigh.

"Nope!" you chirped, pulling out an identical set of papers. "What are you looking for, by the way?"

Shoji glanced up at you before looking back into his bag. "Oh, just my lunch. Must've forgotten it back in my dorm."

"Today's your lucky day then," you giggle, pulling two bentos out of your bag and handing him one. "I made you lunch!"

He hesitantly took it, eyeing you closely. "What's with you today, why're you being so niced to me?"n he asked suspiciously, poping off the top of the box.

You blushed, averting your gaze quickly, trying to think of an excuse. "What, aren't I always nice to you, Shoji?"

"Well, yeah," he admitted. "But it seems like you're sucking up for something." He punctuated his point by digging a pair of chopsticks into the portion of rice you'd made him before popping it in his mouth. "Damn, this is good, actually."

"Shoji! Did you expect it to be bad?" you ask, feigning hurt. "And thinking I'd be nice to you just to get something in return is honestly just mean!"

"Okay, okay, fine, I'm sorry, thank you for the notes and lunch." He finally relented, throwing his hands up in defense. "How can I repay you?"

"Well..." you begin sheepishly. "There is this one thing-"

"Ah-hah!" Shoji laughed, tossing you a side glare as he ate. "I knew you wanted something." He watched as the blood rushed to your cheeks and you tried to back peddle, beginning to ramble. "C'mon, just spit it out already, what do you need?"

"Would you come home with me to have dinner with my parents tonight?' you finally blurted after beating around the bush.

"What, why me?" he asked, bewildered. "I mean we're good friends and all but wouldn't you rather take a closer friend like Tsu or Ochacko?"

"Well...about that...I was hoping you could...pretend to be my boyfriend?" you ask bashfully, wincing in preparation for rejection.

"Are you serious?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I-It's just that, it's my grandmother's birthday and she's sick and we don't think she'll be around much longer. She really wants to see me with someone and I don't want to let her down!" you rambled on, pleading. "Please, Shoji, I promise it's just for the night and I'll do whatever you ask to make it up to you!"

After a moment, he sighed, annoyed. "You already told her you were bringing someone, didn't you?" You nodded, hands clasped together as if praying. "Oh, fine, alright!" he scoffed. "But you owe me."

Gasp, you squeal in delight, throwing your arms around his neck and snuggling into his torso in an awkward but meaningful hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Whatever," he groaned, rolling his eyes, but wrapping you up in his arms all the same. "What time are we leaving?"

"The train leaves at 5:15." you replied as he released you. "So meet me at the station at 5."

"Sounds like a plan."

Part II

#mha #mha x reader #mha reader inserts #mha fanfic #mezo shoji #shoji mezo #shoji x reader #mezo shoji x reader #shoji mezo x reader #shoji x y/n #mezo shoji x y/n #shoji mezo x y/n

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vampiricmycelium · 7 months

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Day #2 of @redscapeweek || Magic Trick || T

Just some cute fluff for the boys.

"Alright, are you paying attention?"

"You have my full attention Scar. Go on."

Scar flashed a bright smile at Mumbo. He had come over to Scarland to see what Scar was up to. These days it was either working on finishing Scarland or he would be over at Decked Out. Today seemed to be different. When Scar saw Mumbo he excited pulled him over to a bench and had him sit down.

Mumbo was not one to deny Scar as long as whatever he was doing wasn't too dangerous. The whole prank war with Doc was not that far in the past. Even though that ended up being pretty fun. Magic tricks felt right up Scar's alley. Surely, this wasn't the first time he had done this. Even so, Mumbo was Scar's captive audience.

Scar placed a block of iron down and then looked at Mumbo. "You see this iron before you? It's completely real. No tricks or anything. Just iron."

"It does just look like iron."

"Now watch carefully."

Scar wiggled his fingers at Mumbo before pulling out a red cloth. He draped it over the block and then rapped on it three times. When he pulled the cloth away, the iron block had transformed. Instead, it was a block of diamond.

"Oh wow! Hold on, did you really transform iron to diamond?" Mumbo got up and examined the block closely. Scar stood to the side, beaming with pride and smugness. Mumbo frowned as he tried to find a way that Scar could have pulled this off. Some kind of redstone contraption? The moment Mumbo pulled out his pickaxe, though, Scar raised his hands.

"Hey! No breaking my streets. You don't want to ruin the illusion of the magic."

"But you did build something-"

Scar pressed a finger against Mumbo's lips to stop him. He pulled back a little, his face turning a light shade of pink.

"What did I just say? Come on Mumbo. Just enjoy it!"

Mumbo nodded and sat back down. He wasn't sure if Scar had anything else he wanted to show him, but he wanted to stick around. Maybe let himself believe in the magic Scar was performing.

He did continue to perform tricks for Mumbo. A couple of card tricks and then pulling gold from behind Mumbo's head. Once he stopped trying to understand how these things were possible, Mumbo found himself excited to see what Scar did next. Perhaps some of that was Scar's own charisma. After all, Scar was something of a con man, constantly looking for a way to pull one over. His performance was enrapturing. Mumbo found himself slightly fawning over his friend.

Scar's next trick involved him turning a wooden stick into a bouquet of flowers, offering them over to Mumbo with a smile and wink. Now his face was a brighter pink, spreading to his ears. Scar chuckled, pleased to have flustered him.

"You know you'd be a great assistant. You're pretty enough for it."

"Would I have to dress up in those ridiculous outfits?"

"Why of course! You have to play the part correctly."

Mumbo was blushing just thinking about it. And thinking about Scar thinking of him in a scantily clad outfit. My, what was his mind doing today?

"I'll have to pass on that."

"What a shame." Scar really did sound like it was a shame, and that almost made Mumbo change his mind. Almost. But he couldn't do it. He'd melt the moment anyone saw him from embarrassment.

"I have one more trick to perform for you. But I'll need you to close your eyes for this one."

"You're not going to blow me up or anything, right?"

"No. You can trust me."

"I don't know about that all the time Scar." He was trustworthy. When he wanted to be. And Mumbo did trust him more than the average Hermit. Whatever he was going to do, it was probably going to be fine. They were in the middle of Scar's base. He wasn't just going to destroy any of his hard work for a prank.

Right?

Mumbo closed his eyes. He waited for Scar to do something or say something. There was nothing for a moment. Then he thought he felt Scar get close to him. He took on of Mumbo's hands and helped him stand up. Then he cleared his throat before pressing something against Mumbo's mouth. Was Scar kissing him? It felt soft against his lips. Kind of earthy in a way. It moved against his mouth, and Mumbo nearly pressed back into it. He heard Scar chuckle again, further away than where he thought he was.

"Expecting something else?"

Mumbo opened his eyes to see a rose in front of his face. His eyes went wider, fighting hard not to blush, but failing.

"Scar!"

Scar was still laughing, looking far too pleased with him. "Well Mumbo that was my final trick. Seems you feel for it." Scar winked. But before Mumbo could say anything, he leaned forward and kissed Mumbo on the cheek. "Enough your flowers. See you later."

Scar left as quickly as he could. Luckily, Mumbo was stunned for long enough for him to make an escape. Mumbo touched his lips, wanting to shout at Scar for what happened.

But he really did wish that Scar had kissed him.

#redscapeweek23 #hermitshipping #redscape #mumscar

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a-writer-on-elm-street · 2 years

Note

Ralph fluff / smut please about him being insecure and you think of him as a hopeless romantic man, which he is, but then you find out that underneath all that poise and grace, there's a need he's eager to fill... 😏

Show Me

Pairing: Ralph x Fem!Reader

Summary: You've always thought of Ralph as a hopeless romantic, and he's worried that's all you'll ever think of him, so he decides to show you that he can be much much more than that...

Warnings: smut, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected sex.

A/N: So I wasn't exactly sure what you wanted and I might be way off the mark here but I hope this is okay! And if it isn't, whoever requested this, please feel free to DM me and I'll be happy to rewrite it. <3

You couldn't quite contain your excitement as you took in the scene in front of you. Rose petals decorated your bed sheets and candles lined your bedroom. You turned around to see Ralph standing at your door, a small smile on his face as he watched you.

"Ralph, did you do this?"

"Yes my love." He grinned, slowly stepping towards you. "Do you like it?"

"I love it!" You beamed, pulling him down to you so you could press your lips against his. "Thank you."

When you parted, you noticed Ralph suddenly looked uneasy as he fidgeted in front of you. "My love, I fear you may only think of me as more of a gentle lover. But you must know that I can be much more exciting than I let on."

"Oh?" You smiled. "Then why don't you show me Ralph?"

"Alright, maybe I will."

He carefully positioned his hands around your waist as he leaned down to you, connecting his lips with yours. You could tell he was nervous but you weren't going to stop him. You wanted to give him a chance to show you he wasn't just the sweet romantic Ralph you thought he was.

You let him guide you toward the bed, his lips only leaving yours when your legs hit the mattress. And you could see the reserve in his eyes as he laid you down, crawling down your body to push your skirt up around your hips.

"Well go on then." You urged, noting his hesitation as he stared down at your bare legs.

He just gave you a quick nod before ducking down to trail kisses from your ankle to the inside of your thigh, each gentle press of his soft lips sending chills up your spine.

You watched him as he dragged his lips all the way up to your clothed cunt, sending a shiver through your body when he gently nipped at the material. He lifted his head up to look at you, asking for permission.

You gave him a small nod and he leaned back to hook his fingers under your underwear, carefully slipping the material down your legs. You shivered when he positioned his head between your thighs, his hot breath fanning over your bare pussy.

HIs hands slipped under your knees so he could spread you open for him and at the first swipe of his tongue, your body jerked in surprise before relaxing into the bed.

"Oh Ralph." You moaned, unable to keep still as he dragged his tongue through your folds.

You were surprised when he reached up to wrap his hands around your thighs, holding you in place as he sucked on your sensitive flesh.

"Oh my god!" You cried out, your hands desperately fisting the sheets as he teased his tongue over your clit. "Oh...Ralph...wow."

He hummed against your flesh before finally dipping his tongue inside you, his hands clamping down on your thighs harder to keep you in place as he ate you out.

After a few more strokes of his tongue, you felt a pressure building in your stomach. You moaned loudly, throwing your head back into the pillows as your eyes squeezed shut.

"Ralph." You panted, reaching down now to grip his hair. "Don't stop...oh god."

He seemed to take that in his stride as he began to thrust his tongue harder inside you, making you writhe beneath him as you chased your orgasm. You cried out when the fire finally exploded in your belly. And you heard Ralph groan against you when you roughly tugged at his hair, your release spilling out of you and coating his mouth.

When he pulled away from you, he lifted his head and quickly wiped his mouth, crawling in over you to press his lips against yours. You could still taste yourself on his lips as he kissed you and you groaned when you felt his clothed cock nudge against your thigh.

You both looked down then at the bulge that had formed in his trousers and you noticed him shudder at the sight.

"Are you going to do something about that?" You asked him.

He just nodded before reaching down to undo his trousers, shoving them down his legs and freeing his swollen cock. You let out an involuntary moan at the sight.

"Are you ready my love?" He asked, an excited grin playing at his lips as he looked down at you.

"Yes." You breathed out, desperate for him to be inside you.

He braced one hand at the side of your head whilst he wrapped his other hand around his cock, guiding himself toward your entrance.

He brought his hand up to cup your cheek as he pushed into you for the first time. You let out a strangled moan at the sensation of him stretching you and all Ralph could do was smile down at you as he gently thrusted inside you.

He was absolutely loving being able to have some control for once. And the way you screwed your eyes shut as he pushed inside you only spurred him on.

"Does this feel good my love?" He grinned, his fingers gently stroking your cheek as he continued his movements inside you.

You nodded, pleasure coursing through you as he fucked you. "It feels amazing."

You tightened your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper inside you and you both moaned at the feeling of his dick rubbing against your walls.

"Feels...so...so good." You whimpered as he continued his movements, leaning down to press a sloppy kiss to your lips. "Harder...please."

Ralph picked up his movements inside you, pushing into you harder now as you both chased your releases.

"I...I love you." Ralph panted, the sound of your skin smacking together filling the room as he pounded into you.

"I love you too." You cried out, reaching up to wrap your hands around his shoulders, holding onto him as the fire that had been building in your belly finally exploded, your release ripping through you.

You came around his cock and he wasn't far behind you as his dick began to twitch inside you before you felt his warm release coating your walls. He collapsed on top of you then as you both laid there trying to catch your breath.

And when he rolled off of you, turning to face you, he couldn't control the wide grin that spread across his features. He was positively glowing after what he'd just experienced and it was safe to say he definitely wanted to do it more.

"That was incredible, (y/n)." He beamed, his eyes alight with excitement as he looked at you, your chest rising and falling as you breathed heavily beside him.

You turned to him, smiling as you traced your fingers over the side of his face. "Yes, it definitely was."

[Main Masterlist] [Ralph Masterlist]

#ralph timewasters #ralph timewasters smut #ralph penbury #ralph x reader #ralph penbury x reader #timewasters #joseph quinn timewasters #timewasters joseph quinn #joseph quinn

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moonchildreads · 1 year

Text

small town

Chapter 16 - Let's Hear It for the Boy

IN THIS CHAPTER: Science fiction double feature, rotten eggs, and Eddie turns 20 [12.2k]

WARNINGS: bullying (mentions of racism and fatphobia), childhood trauma (hair trauma, child neglect, toxic masculinity), one use of a homophobic slur (f-word), mild spoilers for The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Exorcist (specific mentions of the crucifix scene, if you've seen the movie, you know what this is about)

A/N: shout out to my one and only @gutterratt for helping me figure out my way through old horror movies! i'm a wuss so i relied heavily on her opinions to make this work (also read a few entire scripts and scared myself lmao). thank you for being the best teacher i could have asked for. 10 more days until i get to hug the shit out of you <3

masterlist - prev - next | playlist

We always have a real good time And maybe he sings off-key But that's all right by me, yeah

Thursday, May 15th - 1986

On Eddie’s 20th birthday it rained cats and dogs. There was a light shower during the early morning which stopped at around 10 only to come back with a vengeance after lunch, and by the time the school day had ended, the weather was warm and humid with a sky-obscuring fog that made it seem like it was much later than it actually was. Eddie, as he always did when it rained, offered to take Gareth home so he gave his friend his keys and asked him and Dottie to wait in the van while he finished up a private conversation with Mrs. Vaughn, his Drawing teacher. She was quite impressed with how his portfolio was shaping up, and wanted to know more about the subjects he’d chosen to portray in his art. Some talks were meant to be kept behind closed doors.

Gareth left Dottie at her locker where she was fighting to fit Eddie’s birthday present in her backpack without absolutely destroying the muffin she’d baked for him during Home Ec and headed towards the parking lot to wait for his friends in the safety of the van. Dottie had barely managed to zip up her backpack when a pair of pink sneakers came up to where she was kneeling.

“Do you need help?” a warm, melodic voice asked.

Dottie looked up to find Chrissy Cunningham, the current Queen of Hawkins High, smiling at her like they’d known each other for years. She wasn’t wearing her full cheerleading uniform that day; instead she had chosen cuffed jeans and a lovely cream blouse, her strawberry blonde hair cascading down her shoulders. Wow, Dottie thought without an ounce of shame for ogling. She’s gorgeous. Realizing she had been staring up at the kind (almost) stranger, she quickly stood and threw her backpack over her shoulder.

“Oh, no, thank you! I’ve got it,” Dottie said, and Chrissy smiled even wider if it was even possible.

“You’re Dottie Burke, right? We’re in World History together, you sit with Jeff Patton two seats in front of me?”

“Yup, that’s me! And you’re Chrissy Cunningham, you sit with, um, Melissa?”

“Yes, Melissa Levine,” the blonde’s eyes brightened up, pleased that this conversation was going smoothly. “I know you’re best friends with Eddie so could you give this to him for me?”

Chrissy presented a shiny green gift bag to her. It was carefully sealed with a big transparent sticker from the store where it had been purchased from and a huge silvery bow was tied to the handles. Of all the things she had been expecting her to pull out behind her back, a birthday gift for Eddie hadn’t been in her Top 10 List at all.

“Are you sure? He’ll come back in a sec if you want to give it to him yourself, he’s just talking to a teacher.”

“Yeah, I think he already knows what it is,” Chrissy waved her hand like it wasn’t a big deal. “I’d wait for him but my boyfriend is in the car already so…”

“Oh, yeah, totally. I can give this to Ed for you, don’t worry.”

“Thank you, you’re so nice!” she said, beaming at her. “I’m sorry if I’m coming off too strong, Eddie said we’d get along so I thought “well, what am I waiting for”, right?”

“You’re fine, seriously,” Dottie laughed; Chrissy’s bubbly energy was contagious. “He told me we’d get along too. Something about you liking Queen and owning all the records?”

“Yes! Gosh, I love Queen! Do you? We should hang out sometime, we can listen to them together.”

“Absolutely, yes. I’d love that.”

“Okay, cool! I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Yeah, sure! Have fun on your date!”

“How did you know I’m going on a date?” Chrissy said, mild intrigue on her face.

“You just look really pretty and you mentioned your boyfriend so I thought you might be going on a date with him,” Dottie explained like it was the simplest thing in the world. “I like your makeup.”

“Oh,” she said, stopping for a moment.

Chrissy wasn’t a stranger to people telling her she was pretty. She had grown up going to pageants and being paraded as a doll by her mother but the compliments were always the same and regarding things she didn’t care about, like how big her Mom had teased her hair, and how thin she looked like in that formal gown. No one had ever told her something she did for herself, like her daily makeup, was pretty. She gave Dottie a big toothy smile, genuine and warm.

“Thank you! I like your dress!”

“Thanks, it was my Mom’s. It has pockets!” the brunette said, shoving a hand inside the left pocket of her short black jumper dress to demonstrate.

“I love that! Not enough dresses have pockets, it’s a shame.”

They said their goodbyes again and Chrissy disappeared down the hallway, leaving Dottie to consider that maybe she really did need more girl friends. She loved her Hellfire boys, and of course Erica was great, but she had missed the kind of special warmth female friendships gave - the gentle toughness she’d always admired in her Aunts’ actions. Now that she knew what a real friend was supposed to look like thanks to the guys, she realized that whatever she had thought Jeannie was during her life in New York hadn’t exactly been a good example of true friendship. Dottie wondered if, given enough time, Chrissy could become a real friend. She was, after all, good friends with Eddie already and he seemed like a fine judge of character so far.

“You ready to bounce?” Eddie asked, hurrying down the hallway to where she was still standing.

“Yeah! This is for you, by the way,” Dottie said, giving him the gift bag. “It’s from Chrissy.”

“Chris- damnit, I told her not to do it,” he shook his head, a fond smile gracing his face. He accepted the bag and shoved it inside his backpack to protect it from the rain; he had a pretty good idea of what it was but he’d look at it once they were home. “Come on, let’s go.”

He guided Dottie towards the parking lot with a hand on the back of her bag, keeping her close as they ran out into the rain and towards the dry seats of his van. They were almost there when Eddie noticed someone curled into themselves near the furthest column that supported the overhang roof at the entrance, a figure huddled up on the floor wearing what looked like Gareth’s red plaid shirt. He looked at his van and saw instantly that his friend was not sitting inside waiting for them, and the vehicle wasn’t even on. What the fuck, he thought bitterly, taking note that the door on the driver’s side was covered in what looked like a runny viscous liquid. The rain was washing it away, but the white and light brown shells on the floor were enough to confirm his suspicions. Switching gears quickly, he pulled Dottie under his arm and guided her towards Gareth.

“What’s going on?” she asked, looking up at him, arm up trying to keep the rain out of her face.

“Gareth!” he yelled for an answer, and the younger boy lifted his teary head up from his knees. “Jesus Christ.”

“Oh my god, what happened to you?” Dottie exclaimed, rushing to their friend.

“They were waiting for Eddie. Said it was a birthday present,” he sniffed, lifting his arm to wipe his face with his sleeve and putting it down instantly when he saw it was filthy. He smelled like rotten eggs.

“I’m so sorry, man,” Eddie said, crouching next to him.

“Not your fault,” Gareth shrugged. “You always cover for me so… guess it was time I covered you for once.”

“This has happened before?” Dottie asked, and both boys looked at her like it was common sense. “Who- who did this to you? How many times?”

“It isn’t always eggs,” Gareth sniffed again. “One time they threw mud at Donny, called him a pig. Gave Dustin a swirly a couple of times but they don’t touch Mike anymore since they found out Nancy Wheeler is his sister. Andy is the worst, he, um-” he interrupted himself and looked at Eddie.

“Andy Humphrey,” Eddie sighed. “He put a bunch of racist notes in Jeff’s locker for a couple of months last year. We saw him doing it but Higgins didn’t do shit about it. He’s on the basketball team, always wears that stupid hat.”

“Yeah, I know him,” Dottie said. “He’s in my AP Spanish class, he’s barely passing. He cheated on our last pop quiz, he knows I saw because he winked at me like he was trying to get me on his side.”

“Almost everyone on the basketball team sucks,” Gareth said. “I don’t know what Lucas is doing with them.”

“Lucas?”

“Lucas Sinclair. Erica’s brother?” Eddie explained. “He used to play with us before he decided being a freak wasn’t good enough for him.”

“I mean… I don’t blame him. I smell like a sewer,” Gareth grimaced.

“Okay, come on, let’s get you home,” Dottie said, patting his knee to get him to stand up.

“I’ll just walk, I’m gonna get the van dirty.”

“No way, man, not in this thunderstorm. Get in the back,” Eddie instructed.

The three of them headed back to the van, the rain not relenting for a single second. On the bright side, Eddie’s door wasn’t dirty anymore, clean from the constant water streaming upon the metal. On the other hand, Gareth was soaked and shivering by the time he sat himself on a plastic crate at the back of the van, keeping himself away from the blankets and pillows, windows cracked open to let cool air in and rotten egg smell out. They drove to Gareth’s house in silence, only the occasional sniffling coming from the dirty boy wallowing in his own misery could be heard under the vehicle’s rumbling.

When they arrived and pulled up to Gareth’s garage, Eddie wasn’t expecting Dottie to get out too, leaving behind her backpack tucked under the co-pilot seat. He followed the pair to the front door, heard the keys tinkling against each other as his friends walked inside and hurried up to get out of the rain. In the foyer, Dottie peeled off her cardigan and sneakers before directing Gareth to his bathroom.

“Eddie, can you get a chair from the kitchen?” she asked, already pushing Gareth down the hallway.

Eddie complied with her request, bringing one of the aluminum chairs with pleather seats into the Jack and Jill that connected Gareth’s bedroom with his sister’s. Gareth was peeling his dirty sleeveless shirt and sweatshirt off his body, Dottie kneeling near his feet helping him take his rain soaked shoes off.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling softly at Eddie before looking up at Gareth. “You sit.”

“Why can’t I just take a shower?” he complained, but still sat down on the chair.

“Because you’re not only covered in gunk, there’s eggshells in your hair. Let me get them out and we’ll leave you to shower in peace, okay?” she pulled back the bath curtain and got his shampoo and conditioner, coming to stand next to the sink.

The birthday boy watched her work, carefully picking all the shells out of Gareth’s hair and throwing them into the pink waste bin that was hidden next to the toilet. She got rid of the knots in his hair with a glittery blue plastic comb that clearly belonged to Gretchen, wetting it with warm water between each pass. Eddie could feel something bubbling up his chest, but it wasn’t anything like the usual jealousy he swore he had stopped feeling days ago. No, this was something different, much more deep seated, clawing up his throat and threatening to tear his insides apart leaving no prisoners behind. This was something he’d been ignoring for a very long time, from before he even knew a Gareth Coleman or a Dorothy Burke. This padlock had been sealed shut with rust ages ago, the key long forgotten somewhere no one, not even Eddie, would find it anymore.

Dottie poured water on Gareth’s scalp with her hands, making him shiver once and then giggle at himself for his reaction. She worked the shampoo into his curls, pulling his hair once to make him wince when he made a stupid comment that Eddie wasn’t listening. He watched the suds fall into the pure white porcelain of the sink bowl as she washed them away with the utmost patience and care.

“You should be a hairdresser,” Gareth said, eyes closed while he relaxed into her touch.

“I could never. You know that smell when you walk into a salon? I fucking hate it,” she said, snorting at the end.

When was the last time Eddie had gone to a salon for a haircut? Not since living with Wayne, that’s for sure. The last time he’d had a haircut he hadn’t given himself in his own bathroom was back in middle school, when a neighbor buzzed all his hair off during that horrible lice outbreak he’d told Dottie about. He remembered that before he turned 12, before she passed away calmly in her sleep, his Grandma kept his hair rather short, like it had been that summer he’d spent in her care when he was eight. And before that… Eddie didn’t like to remember before that.

Dottie shook the bottle of conditioner until a small blob hit her palm and began weaving her fingers into Gareth’s curls. They were still chatting quietly, their long haired friend hovering in the hallway near the door. Eight years. Eight years since anyone had touched Eddie’s hair, since anyone that wasn’t himself had run a brush through his curls and snapped the damaged ends off with a pair of sharp scissors. He hated getting haircuts from his Grandma - not because she was bad at doing them, but because she always pulled at the knots a little bit too harshly, muttering about how boys with longer hair were unkempt and unruly. And Eddie loved his Grandma so much, and she loved him so much in return, but in those moments there was no denying that she was his father’s mother, and getting haircuts from her only reminded him of Wyatt Munson calling him a faggot because his curls reached the collar of his school shirt before he dropped him off at a cheap salon and returned five hours later, smelling of booze and nicotine and regrets.

Eddie used to feel so guilty whenever he went to the salon. Wyatt would treat him like absolute shit, and then he’d sob quietly in the chair while a middle aged lady told him things like “boys don’t cry” and “it’s just hair, kid, don’t be a brat”, only for Wyatt to return and ask her if she’d turned his little girl into a proper boy. A while back, when Eddie first got his driver’s license, he drove past that salon on his way to Donny’s family restaurant and felt like he’d won the damn lottery when he saw it had been closed for several years. Fuck that place, he’d thought and promptly sped up.

“Hey,” a hand touched his arm, making him jump lightly. “Where’d you go?”

“Sorry,” he said quickly, blinking a few times and focusing on Dottie’s worried face in front of him. “I think I fell asleep for a second.”

“We’re done so… we can go now,” she said, not pushing him for an answer.

She’d seen that face on him before, back when they were arguing about his moldy ceiling, and immediately decided they weren’t going to have this conversation in front of Gareth. The younger boy had a small towel on his head like a nun’s headdress to stop his curls from dripping all over the floor as he gathered his dirty clothes and walked past them towards the laundry room.

“Sorry about all this,” said Gareth, standing under his front door’s frame.

“Wasn’t your fault, man. Sorry you got caught in the crossfire,” Eddie reassured him, waiting for Dottie to finish putting on her sneakers.

“Better me than you.”

“Tell you what, why don’t you pick the movie tomorrow? Anything you want.”

“Anything?” he asked, mischief glinting in his eyes.

“Just… don’t pick anything stupid, okay? The Boogey Man sucked ass.”

“You have no fucking taste,” Gareth complained, rolling his eyes.

“Wait, hold on, are we gonna watch a horror film?” Dottie asked in the direction of the younger boy.

“It’s tradition, we always watch horror movies on our birthdays.”

“Can we not do that this time? You know I hate horror. We can do a thriller, that’s like… horror-adjacent, right?”

“Horror-adjac… Dude,” Gareth turned to Eddie, seeking an ally.

It’s not that Eddie was dying to watch a horror film, he really wasn’t. He was happy to watch whatever most of the time, like when Jeff had insisted on watching Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone for some weird reason and he’d gone along for the ride because, well, any movie was still a movie. Eddie loved stories, the more outlandish the better. He wasn’t about to complain about two hours of mindless entertainment, regardless of the subject of the VHS tape in the player. Caught between his two friends, one who looked at him with exasperation at even suggesting a change of plans and the other one with the cutest goddamned pout and rounded eyes he had ever seen, well, he was only human. If Jesus had stumbled, why wouldn’t he do it too?

“Maybe we can skip the horror this time,” he said.

“Come on, man, don’t let her peer-pressure you!”

“Peer-pressure? God, you’re such a little-”

“Okay, okay, calm down, Jesus,” Eddie lifted his hands, getting between them. “How about this? We do a double feature. You each pick one movie and you can’t complain about what the other one chooses, alright? It’s my birthday, don’t make me uninvite you.”

“But-”

“Take it or leave it, Gareth, it’s my final offer.”

“Fine,” Gareth grumbled.

“Thank you,” Dottie said, still looking apprehensive but not wanting to push the argument further.

This was a tradition she hadn’t been a part of since its inception and she wasn’t going to fight her way in when they were so graciously holding the door open for her. Friends do stuff they don’t enjoy to make other friends happy sometimes, it’s okay. They’d do it for me. I’ll just… suck it up and watch the floor for two hours, she thought as they said their goodbyes and ran under the rain to get to Eddie’s van. He was excitedly going on about the cake Wayne had gotten for him on the way to the trailer, and Dottie couldn’t find it in herself to care about what horrifying movie Gareth was gonna subject her too when Eddie looked so happy to spend his special day with his Uncle and her.

“Wayne, we’re home!” Eddie yelled, trying to put his key in to open his front door.

Dottie was standing very still in front of Eddie, his chest to her back and arms on either side of her while he wrestled with his keys, shielding her from the storm with his body. The copious raindrops falling on them pinged off the leather jacket that was keeping him cozy and dry, soaking his hair that curtained Dottie’s head from above. She was holding both their backpacks against her chest, trying to protect them and their contents from the rain.

“Wayne!” he yelled again, hitting the door twice with his fist.

“Hold on, I’m coming,” the older man replied from the inside, hurrying up to let them in. "Where were you?"

"Got held up at school," said Eddie, guiding Dot in and closing the door quickly behind his back before shedding his wet jacket. "Talked to that teacher I told you about last night. She said I have talent."

"Coulda told you that myself," Wayne smiled at him, pulling his big boy into a hug and patting his back. "Happy birthday, Ed."

"Thanks, Wayne," Eddie melted into his Uncle. They didn't hug often, less so now that he wasn't a little kid anymore, but if you asked him, his Uncle Wayne gave the best hugs in the entire world because whenever he gave you one, he definitely meant it. "Can we have cake now?"

"Get the candles," Wayne jerked his head towards the kitchen where a set of barely used birthday candles were waiting in the bottom drawer ready to grant a new wish.

While Eddie busied himself putting the candles on a small chocolate cake, Dottie cleared the coffee table, setting his gifts on the floor. There were three presents: Chrissy's shiny green bag that had gotten a bit smushed in Eddie's backpack, a thin rectangle in bright blue paper, and a little package smaller than a hand. Wayne added two to the pile wrapped in the same red paper; one looked soft, the other one was a square box. Dottie's funfetti muffin ended up with its own candle next to the cake.

"Light me up, princess," Eddie said, pointing to a BIC lighter that had been abandoned in the coffee table bowl at some point.

"I can't," Dottie admitted, looking embarrassed. "I don't know how to use that kind of lighter, the flick thing scares me."

"The flick thing?"

"You know, the thingy you have to roll with your thumb? That scrapes something inside and sparks up?"

"The sparkwheel?"

"I don't know what it's called!" Eddie held back a grin. "Don't laugh at me, I don't like how close the spark is to the finger. It's a perfectly reasonable fear, I don't want to burn myself!"

"No, yeah, absolutely. You're totally right" he said, fighting a chuckle. God, she's so fucking cute. He reached into a kitchen drawer and retrieved a small matchbox. “Here, use these.”

“The Hideout,” she read aloud on the front of the box. “That’s where you guys play on Tuesdays, right?”

“Yeah, they have a big bowl of these on the bar. I grab a couple every few weeks, haven’t bought real matches in years.”

“Very smart,” she said, lighting the two candles at the same time Wayne found his old camera tucked away in their storage closet.

Eddie knelt in front of the coffee table, closing his eyes with only one wish in mind. Dottie and Wayne sang to him and he smiled, the sudden flash of the camera in his Uncle’s hands painting his eyelids pink for a brief second. His 19th birthday had been tainted with the knowledge that he was going to be held back for the second time in a row. Wayne had taken him to a diner that night; they’d gotten pancakes for dinner and Eddie had cried and apologized for being such a goddamn failure. The eldest Munson had simply let his tears dry before he’d said, very matter-of-factly: I didn’t finish high school, do you think I’m a failure? What’s important is that you keep tryin’ and see things through even if they get hard. Are you a quitter, Ed?

Please, let ‘86 be my year, Eddie thought as hard as he could, sending his prayer to the universe before he opened his eyes and blew both candles out with one single breath. Dottie clapped and hollered, making them laugh. Wayne nudged her side with his elbow, nodding once in his nephew’s direction.

“Come on, you two. Gimme a nice smile,” he lifted the camera again.

Dottie hurried to sit next to Eddie and he didn’t waste a second pulling her to him, cheeks pressed against each other’s. She smiled brightly, the muffin she’d made for him in her hands like a delicate flower, and his arms around her waist, tongue out in a funny face. Wayne committed the memory to film before Dottie lifted herself up onto her knees, making grabby hands at him, Eddie still holding onto her.

“I’ll take one of you two, Mr. Wayne!” she offered.

“How about we take a group picture?” he said, sitting on the couch behind them and turning the camera around.

The two teens huddled up at his feet, his nephew giving him instructions to frame everyone better (“You gotta go higher, Wayne, half your head will be out of the picture!”). After the flash went off, Dottie went to find a knife to cut the cake while Eddie tore into his gifts, starting with Wayne’s packages. He seemed to already know what the soft looking one was, but still ripped the paper with gusto, a childlike glint in his eyes.

Wayne’s gifts had clearly been picked from a thrift shop, but that didn’t damp Eddie’s excitement in the slightest. He thanked his Uncle profusely for his two new shirts and boxy jean shorts for the summer before moving onto the mystery box which turned out to be a thermos flask with a slightly faded Snoopy print.

“No way!” he said, gleefully. “I’ve been trying to get one of these for ages!”

“I know,” Wayne said, proudly. “Heard you yappin’ about it so I asked Loretta to hold one for me if she ever saw them. Said they got a few of them a couple of months ago so I went and snatched one for you.”

“A couple of months ago? Where did you hide it all this time?”

“Under the seat in my truck,” he laughed, and Dottie was reminded once again of how similar the Munson men truly were.

“Gonna start checking down there around Christmas,” Eddie said, narrowing his eyes. He passed the flask to Dottie to examine who traded it for a plate of cake.

“This is really cute, Mr. Wayne. Wish mine was pretty like this one.”

“You got one of these?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah, my Grandpa gave me his old one a few years ago. It looks so ugly, it’s like… plaid? But it keeps water cool in the summer so I can’t really complain. He got it for his fishing trips but he never used it so I got it instead. The perks of being his only grandchild,” she waved her fingers.

“You don’t have cousins?” Wayne asked, digging into his own piece of cake while Eddie picked a new present to open.

“No, both my parents are only children. All my Aunts and Uncles are their friends. I’ve got a big family, but I’m not blood related to any of them.”

“Oh, shit,” Eddie muttered, his attention on the long thin box in his hands.

Chrissy’s gift had turned out to be a red tie. The fabric was soft and silky, slightly shiny, and the tie itself was on the thinner side. There was a simple white card in the bag, it only said “For: Eddie, From: Chrissy” but she’d dotted the I’s with tiny hearts. He caressed the side of the box lightly, staring at it in wonder. He’d never owned a tie, much less one that looked as expensive as this one. When he’d asked Chrissy for advice on what to wear for prom, he’d never imagined she’d take it upon herself to make sure he was presentable. He’d have to figure out a way to make it up to her for her birthday, maybe Dottie would know how to help.

“That’s nice,” Wayne said, craning his neck to see into the box. “That one yours, Dot?”

“No, this one’s Chrissy’s,” she replied.

“Who’s Chrissy?”

“Chrissy Cunningham,” Eddie said, realizing he’d never talked to his Uncle about his most unlikely friend. “We’re in Sociology together.”

Dottie knew he was lying; Eddie only shared Sociology with Jeff but it wasn’t like he could tell Wayne he’d become friends with a cheerleader by selling her weed, could he? She noticed how suspicious his Uncle was by his statement and decided to help him out.

“I’m in World History with her, she’s really kind,” Dottie said, making Eddie look up at her too. “We were talking about Queen when you were with Mrs. Vaughn today, she said she liked my dress.”

“She did?”

“Yeah! She liked the pockets,” she smiled at him. “You gonna wear this for prom?”

“I think that’s why she got it for me,” Eddie chuckled. “I told her we’re all wearing Hellfire colors. Gareth got a red bowtie the other day.”

“I still haven’t found a dress I like or that fits right,” she huffed. “Dad said we’re gonna have to go to Indianapolis, we’ve been to every shop in Hawkins already.”

“A lot of shops closed last year ‘cause of the mall,” Wayne said, clearing up the cake plates. “Never reopened after the fire. Damn shame.”

“Can I open these ones?” Eddie interrupted, excited about the two other presents he had left on the pile.

“Sure!”

“Any special order?”

“No, they’re separate from each other.”

He decided to open the bigger one first, fairly confident about it being a book. He tore the paper to find a hardcover notebook, black with an elastic to keep it closed. It looked fancy, but not particularly special, at least not until he opened it. It was sheet music, 14 five-line staffs on every off-white page, binded and with a pocket on the back. He turned to the first sheet, blank, no lines but with a note written in familiar black ink. For my favorite rockstar, from your darling Dottie. With a little daisy at the end. He stared at it for a minute that never seemed to end and looked up at her, big rounded eyes pushing his eyebrows under his fringe.

“You were talking about wanting to write more songs for Corroded Coffin last week at practice, so I thought you might need a place to keep everything organized,” she explained, voice shy and a little soft.

“Dot, I-”

“Open the other one.”

Wordlessly, he grabbed the small box, instantly recognizing it as a cassette case. He removed the paper, aware that Wayne was watching them from behind the kitchen bar while he brewed some coffee, and turned the transparent case in his hand. 1986 - E&D was written on the front, colorful stickers decorating the plastic. The song list inside only had one entry: Hot Patootie - Meatloaf (RHPS).

“Just one song?” he asked, confused.

“I thought we could fill it up together. See, I wrote 1986 on this one, but we can make a new one for every year we’re friends so when we get old, we can remember what we were doing that year by the songs we chose. Like a musical scrapbook.”

“Fuck, I love you,” Eddie said, launching himself from the floor and tackling her to the carpet, dissolving into giggles as she fought to sit back down.

“Stop- Jesus, Ed- I don’t like tickles, stop!” she pleaded, writhing on the floor like a worm, thankful that she was wearing colorful leggings under her skirt.

“Who doesn’t like tickles?” he lifted himself up onto hands and knees above her, ceasing the attack but still caging her under his body.

“I get nervous if I can’t breathe right,” she explained, hair fanning out like a halo around her head. Eddie felt his knees go weak. “Also, it makes me feel like I’m gonna pee myself and that’s so embarrassing.”

“Okay, gotcha. No tickling,” he pulled them both into a sitting position and smiled, wrapping one arm around her. “Thank you, I love my gifts. And I already know what song I wanna add next to the mixtape.”

“Do tell.”

“Nope,” he shook his head dramatically. “You’ll find out when it’s done.”

“Fine,” she rolled her eyes, turning to where Wayne was watching them, hiding a smile behind his mug.

“Happy birthday, son,” he said, raising his coffee to his mouth, and Eddie thought it might have been the happiest of them all.

After dishes had been washed and the rest of the cake had been put away until a certain birthday boy got the munchies at midnight, Eddie and Dottie decided to sit on the porch just outside his bedroom and leave Wayne to his devices. They lounged side by side on the old ratty couch, him working on his portfolio and her reading Pride and Prejudice out loud in an attempt to get him to finish the last book left in their compulsory reading list before finals week was upon them.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounded families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”

The heavy rain hitting the tin roof provided the perfect ambiance for Eddie’s limbs to start feeling heavy and his hand to begin missing the lines he was trying to stay between while he shaded his latest piece. He closed his sketchbook and slid it through his open window to keep it dry in the safety of his bedroom, quickly returning to the couch to continue hearing the tales of the Bennet sisters. He laid down on the cushions, legs hanging off the armrest and head comfortably pillowed by Dottie's lap.

“Come, Darcy,” said he, “I must have you dance. I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.”

“I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this, it would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is no another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with.”

“I would not be so fastidious as you are,” cried Bingley, “for a kingdom! Upon my honour, I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life as I have this evening; and there are several of them, you see, uncommonly pretty.”

“You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,” said Mr. Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet.

What a lovely voice, Eddie thought about Dottie, closing his eyes and letting his impressive imagination create Austen's lavish world behind his eyelids. It wasn't too high-pitched, nor too low, with the cadence of someone who already knows the story they are reading and is aware of where to pause for dramatic effect. This Bingham fellow seems nice. Is this a love triangle-angle?, he wondered. Dottie's voice turned sweet when reading Jane, demure when reading Charlotte, and bratty when reading Lydia. She would be kind when she read Bingham, disdainful when Caroline and solemn when Darcy. But Eddie's favorite so far was her Lizzie voice, which turned sensible and self-assured, yet playful and naïve. He supposed it was because she used her own voice for her most preferred Bennet sister.

“Pride,” observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, “is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed, that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

“If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy,” cried a young Lucas, who came with his sisters, “I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine every day.”

A page was turned, and Dottie’s hand that had been propped up on her armrest fell onto her lap, where it began playing with Eddie's hair. She had touched it before, albeit briefly, but never had she had the opportunity to absent-mindedly run her fingers through his curls like this. They were so much softer than she had expected. She continued this soothing motion, and Eddie kept his eyes closed, leaving her to wonder if his unusual stillness was due to him falling asleep under her touch. She stopped, not wanting to disturb him when his arm shot up and his hand curled around her wrist.

"Please," he muttered in a broken voice. "Keep going."

Eddie couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten a haircut at a salon, but he also couldn't remember the last time anyone had brushed their fingers through the strands that had grown exponentially since middle school. He couldn't recall anyone helping him wash it, blow drying it for him, pushing it out of his face. And now Dottie was showing him the type of affection and care he'd craved for since before he learned how to tie his own shoes, and the rusty padlock with the missing key was beginning to break with the slightest amount of brute force applied to it.

"Please," Eddie pleaded, and Dottie closed the book, pulling her wrist out of his hand.

"Wait here," she said, moving her thighs so he'd let her get up and promptly disappeared into the trailer.

I've finally done it, he berated himself. I finally scared her off. But she reappeared quickly carrying a cushion and a rounded brush, sitting once again on the ratty couch. She opened her legs and put the cushion on the floor between them, motioning for him to sit down. Eddie complied without questioning it, his shoulders grazing against the colorful nylon leggings that covered her inner thighs while he faced the trailer park currently plunged into darkness by the storm. The first gentle but firm pull of the plastic bristles on his scalp made him shiver. The second one broke the dam.

Dottie brushed his hair in silence, being extra careful when she encountered a knot, undoing it slowly and patiently. Eddie sobbed without fear of judgment, because even though they weren't talking about it, he knew that she understood. How could she not, growing up with a single father who had never once in his life styled long hair before hers began to grow past her shoulders? So she brushed, and he cried, and they let go of yet another invisible weight together. When she put the brush down on the cushions, Eddie expected her to say something to ask him about what was happening. Instead, he felt her fingers running once, twice through the entire length of his hair, parting a small section near the top to his left on the third time. Dottie began braiding the strands into a thin plait, securing it with a small colorful plastic hair tie, the kind Eddie knew she always carried in her bag and had used a couple of times to pull her short curls into low pigtails.

She finished the braid, and moved onto the next one, right below the first one. Dottie wove strand with strand until she had three braids on either side of his head, all thinner than her own pinky. She pulled them back into a ponytail with the rest of his hair and brushed the ends for good measure one more time before dropping her weight on the floor between Eddie and the couch. Her arms curled around his waist, his chest to his back, her hands finding his curled into tight fists on his lap.

“You look like a viking now,” she said, softly.

“Thank you,” he replied, voice frail and small but full of meaning. She leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to the base of his neck, just above his shirt, and he bit back another sob.

“Happy birthday, Ed,” she muttered, lips still pressed to his skin like she wanted to get the words permanently etched into it.

Dottie did not go back to reading out loud and Eddie didn’t fish his sketchbook from his room for the remainder of the evening. They simply sat together on the porch, tangled with one another as usual, and watched the rain fall and heard the thunder rumble until it was time for her to go home. They didn’t say anything about what had happened, but there was no need. Another padlock laid at their feet, and they weren’t afraid of busting them open anymore.

Friday, May 16th - 1986

“Fred? Fred!” Dottie called, pushing the doors to the Hawkins High newspaper room in a hurry. “Fred, are you here?”

“N-no, he’s- he went to see the nurse!” a familiar voice came from under the stairs.

Sitting on the floor and hiding between a few boxes that contained blank bundles of paper, was Nancy Wheeler. Her pretty calf-length pastel rainbow skirt covered her bent legs, concealing her feet from anyone who walked by. She had been crying, brown mascara staining the skin under her eyes but she clearly wasn’t anymore, face dry and eyes only slightly swollen. When she noticed Dottie coming to kneel next to her, she quickly hid the paper she was holding in her cardigan pocket. They didn’t know each other very well yet, were friendly at best, but Dottie knew that Nancy didn’t have many friends in school. She was highly regarded as a good student, on track to being the valedictorian with a bright future ahead but she could be a bit of a loner when she wasn’t being followed around by Fred Benson or another newspaper club member.

Nancy often chose to spend most of her time in the library studying or working on something for The Weekly Streak, building her journalism portfolio to parade around in search of internships when she left Hawkins for college in Boston. Dottie wasn’t one to gossip with anyone that wasn’t named Gareth Coleman, but Fred liked to talk. On one occasion when the junior was assisting Dottie with an urgent task, he’d babbled on and on about Nancy, her late friend Barb, the fact that she’d been considered Hawkins royalty for a period of time while she dated some popular guy who was captain of the swimming team, and how she’d dumped him rather publicly at a Halloween party and gotten together with known weirdo Jonathan Byers. She tried to steer Fred away from the topic at the time, but he was undeterred: it was clear the boy held some sort of candle for the pretty senior, and who was Dottie to tell him to snuff it out? She’d only known them for less than a month. Still, with the knowledge that Nancy was a bit of an outcast after the tragic death of her best friend, and coupled with the fact that she was Mike’s sister, Dottie couldn’t pretend like she hadn’t seen her distress.

“You okay?” she asked, giving her editor-in-chief enough room to answer however she wanted.

“Yeah, it’s… it’s nothing,” Nancy rolled her shiny blue eyes, waving a hand around. “Everything’s fine.”

“I was dropping by to leave these for Fred,” Dottie explained, showing her the stack of papers she was holding. “Is he okay?”

“Yes, he was just complaining about a headache. Nothing serious.”

“Good, okay. I’ll leave this on his station and we can go get a soda. Would that be alright?”

“You want to get a soda with me?” Nancy said, a soft smile gracing her lips.

“Of course! We can share M&Ms if you want too. I’ve known you for a month and all I know about you is that you’re going to Emerson and that Dustin thinks you’re a badass.”

“He called me badass?” she laughed, getting to her feet and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“God, the kid loves you. Mike says he had a crush on you when they were younger.”

“Ugh, he did,” Nancy said, remembering the moment fondly. “Dustin is probably my favorite out of all my brother’s friends.”

“He’s so nice. His Mom did a great job with him.”

“Have you met Claudia? She’s quite the character,” she confided as the two girls climbed up the stairs and headed into the empty hallways side by side.

Nancy was funny. That was something Dottie hadn’t been expecting. She was polite and reserved, yes, but funny in the way people who notice things others don’t are. She carried their conversation well, asked Dottie questions to get to know her better while she answered the ones directed at her with ease. Her favorite color was pink, she liked all her classes except Math, was really excited about the release of Top Gun and was going to go see it with her Mom, Karen. She preferred Sprite to Coca-Cola, and in her opinion, the best M&Ms were the red ones, even though they all tasted the same. They sat on a bench just outside the cafeteria and talked about trivial things until they ran out of topics to explore.

“I wish we would have done this earlier,” Dottie said, popping a green candy into her mouth. “You’re really cool, Nance.”

“Thanks,” she said, chuckling shyly. “I think you might be collecting Wheeler siblings at this point. Should I let my Mom know you’re available to babysit Holly?”

“I actually have a lot of experience with babysitting. Give me until finals are done and if you need me, I’m there.”

“Speaking of babysitting, Mike mentioned you’re tutoring Eddie Munson.”

“I’m not really tutoring him, just… helping him keep his focus. We’re good friends.”

“I know. Mike,” Nancy said, like that explained everything and it actually did. “Actually, he… he mentioned you gave him advice a few times. About his girlfriend?”

“Yeah, I remember. Why are teenage boys so scared of their own feelings?”

“Tell me about it,” she scoffed, but immediately turned shy and rigid. “Could you… would it be okay if I asked you for advice too? It’s just- you are impartial in this situation and I think that’s what I need right now.”

“Sure, how can I help?” Dottie turned to her.

Nancy explained that she’d gotten a letter from her boyfriend, Jonathan. Ex-boyfriend, actually, but neither of them were good at the ex part. They had had a big argument over the phone after Spring break when post California-visit, Mike had accidentally let it slip that Jonathan didn’t want to go to Emerson with Nancy and had chosen community school instead. She hadn’t been upset about him changing his plans, but it definitely had hurt to know he’d been lying to her all this time, telling her he’d applied when he hadn’t, stringing her along for months on end. Dottie listened to Nancy retelling how she’d broken up with him, worried about if there were maybe other things he’d been hiding from her, and how Jonathan hadn’t tried to argue back once. He’d called two weeks later from a payphone outside the pizza parlor his new best friend worked at, high off his mind, crying and begging for her to take him back. Nancy had firmly said no, but that she was willing to talk more when he wasn’t on drugs.

This had happened mid-April, and Jonathan hadn’t called since. Instead, a letter addressed to Nancy had arrived that same Friday - four full pages of him not exactly asking for forgiveness, but explaining his reasoning in regards to his lies. Nancy didn’t share all the details, but the essential part was that as the eldest son of a single parent, he felt a sense of duty towards his siblings and didn’t want to move away so soon after they started high school in a new town where they had virtually to no friends and were getting bullied just for daring to exist. She did mention that his new sister Jane, Mike’s girlfriend, was still dealing with the loss of her adoptive father, so that situation on top of the move wasn’t helping in the slightest.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Nancy said, at the end of her long monologue. “If he’d told me all of this before, I would have understood him. He’s right, they are all having a hard time but did he have to lie about it for an entire year?”

“I think both sides are valid,” Dottie said, offering her the last candy in the package. “He’s not wrong for wanting to help his Mom and his siblings out, but he went about it in a really shitty way and you’re allowed to feel betrayed by it.”

“Am I?”

“Yes! Nancy, he lied to you! It was with the best of intentions, but he still lied. If you feel like that’s a hard limit in your relationship, you should tell him that, and he should respect it. And you. He should always respect you.”

“He does, he’s… I love him.”

“You can love someone and be upset with them at the same time. Just tell him how you feel instead of avoiding each other because you don’t want to get into a fight. Trust your instincts on this one.”

“You’re right. I’m gonna call him this weekend, and if we’re done, we’re done, but at least we handled it like adults.”

“That’s the spirit!” Dottie cheered her on. “Everything will turn out okay, I have faith in you both.”

“Thank you,” Nancy said, smiling. “I really needed the pep talk.”

“Anytime. I gotta run now, but I liked hanging out with you.”

“Me too. It’s been a while since I’ve done the whole… girl talk thing.”

“Can’t imagine Mike being into that, no,” Dottie said, and Nancy laughed. “See you on Monday?”

“Yes. Monday. Good luck with Hellfire!”

“Good luck with Jonathan. Fight for your love, girl!” she declared dramatically while she sped away.

Nancy watched her go with a curious smile on her face. She’d have to keep an eye on Dorothy Burke from now on, but that could wait. It was Friday, Fred might be down for the count, and she had a newspaper edition to perfect before Monday morning.

Dottie had been to Family Video only twice since moving to Hawkins, once with her Dad and once with the boys, both times during a weekend. When Donny pulled into the parking lot that Friday night after Hellfire, she was fully expecting to see the same greasy dude that smelled like Cheetos she’d seen the last two times but saw instead a pretty tall girl that had her eyes glued to a black and white movie playing on the overhead TV. Gareth immediately ran to the horror section in search for the first part of their double feature, and Dottie approached the girl timidly while Donny smoked outside, waiting for Eddie and Jeff to arrive with warm pizza and fresh ice cream.

“Hi, welcome to Family Video, how can I help you?” the taller girl smiled with tired eyes, the kind you only got if you worked retail.

“Hi! I wanted to rent The Rocky Horror Picture Show if you have it?”

“Yeah, of course, follow me,” she said, lifting the counter and guiding her towards the Musicals section. Another boy was restocking shelves labeled as Comedy next to them.

“Hi there,” he said, waving a VHS case in the air.

“Hi,” Dottie said and turned to where the girl was moving movies around, a frown on her face. “Did someone else beat me to it?”

“No, no, I know it’s here… Just can’t figure out where I put it.”

“What are you looking for?” the boy said, coming to stand above the girl, craning his neck to see the stands.

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The cover’s a mouth with red lips.”

“Oh, yeah, I moved it to the Horror section,” he said, brows bunching in the middle.

“Why did you move it? It’s a musical, dingus.”

“How would I know? It says horror in the title!”

“God, you’re hopeless,” the girl shook her head, and Dottie snorted at their antics.

They bickered all the way to the Horror section, Gareth looking up with a confused expression at the scene in front of him. The tall girl moved around him with ease, finding instantly what she was looking for.

“Here you go, sorry about that,” she said, giving the VHS to Dottie.

“You picked a horror movie?” Gareth asked.

“No, it’s a musical.”

“We’re not watching a musical.”

“Why not? It’s really fun, it’s about-”

“Dot, we’re not watching lovey-dovey bullshit on movie night. Come on, pick something else.”

“No!” Dottie put her foot down. “Eddie said we both got one pick and we couldn’t complain about what the other person chose. Jeff hasn’t seen Rocky Horror and I want him to know where Hot Patootie comes from if he’s gonna be singing it for me every week!”

“It’s from a musical? Eddie said it was a Meatloaf song!”

“It is!” the tall girl interrupted with a bright smile. “Meatloaf plays Eddie in it, it’s his only song in the whole movie but it’s a classic.”

“You’ve seen it?” Dottie asked, eyes lighting up at the discovery of a kindred spirit.

“Y-yeah, it’s really good. I love how it constantly breaks the fourth wall, I mean, talking to the audience through a narrator must be one of the most well known resources in theater but it must be so fun to experience in the stage show-”

“Oh my god, yes!” Dottie interrupted her, turning her entire body to face her newest friend. “The stage show is so cool, I saw it twice at, like, the shittiest community theater ever but they killed it every single time. The material is just so good!”

“You saw it live? Where?”

“New York, I used to live there.”

“That’s so cool,” the girl said, her eyes wide.

“Okay, so maybe you two can have your own movie night and watch your girly musical together,” Gareth said, getting back to the topic. “-but we’re not gonna watch that tonight. Birthdays are for horror movies.”

“It says horror in the title, dude,” the other boy said, making Dottie chuckle. Gareth looked at her like she was betraying him.

“Come on, it’s really not bad. You’re gonna like it, I promise. There’s… there’s sex and boobies in it!”

A tense silence spread through Family Video, Dottie painfully aware that she had said something extremely weird in front of people she didn’t know. It was okay that she was using the tantalizing idea of breasts to lure Gareth into saying yes to her movie choice, but she didn’t need to make it so damn obvious she was excited about the prospect of seeing them too. The taller girl was staring at her with a wild blush spreading from her chest up to her ears, but perhaps the other boy’s reactions were much more disconcerting. He lifted his eyebrows in surprise, stared at the back of his friend’s head, and then turned to Dottie with a huge grin on his face.

“If you don’t rent this movie, I will. We’re definitely watching it tonight, right, Rob?” he said, and the girl began giggling, her face in her hands.

“You’re such an idiot, Steve,” she gritted out through her laughter.

“Really, man, you’re a dumbass if you miss some boobs because you don’t wanna watch a musical with friends.”

“You’re gonna like it, G, I swear. It was made for the freaks,” Dottie insisted, sharing a grateful smile with the boy who was now known as Steve.

“Ugh, okay, fine! But if you’re picking a dumb musical, I can pick whatever I want and you can’t say no because you’re scared.”

“Those were the rules, we don’t complain about each other’s picks.”

“Not even if I pick The Exorcist?”

“Well… No, it’s- it’s okay. You can pick whatever you want,” she said, but looked very daunted by the idea.

“You sure?”

“She said yes, man,” Steve said, putting his hands on his hips like a suburban dad. “Are you gonna rent these two or do you want one more? You can rent up to three every time.”

“Two’s okay, thank you, Steve,” Dottie said, grabbing The Exorcist off the shelf and taking both VHS cases to the counter.

The four of them moved to the main area and Steve busied himself checking them out, asking Gareth for his information to enter into the computer. Dottie was distracted while she looked at the small selection of candy they offered, the tall girl following her movement with her eyes. She knew she’d seen her before, probably at school but who was she? She mentioned she lived in New York…

“You’re Dorothy, right?” she said suddenly.

“How did you know?”

“People used to talk about you a lot back in January. Then you kinda dropped off everyone’s radar.”

“Yeah,” she grimaced. “Kinda joined the outcasts so…”

“I’m in band, I get it.”

“What do you play?”

“Trumpet. Been playing for twelve years.”

“Wow, that’s impressive,” Dottie said, thinking that she hadn’t done anything in her life with that kind of consistency. “It’s really nice to meet you, Robin.”

“Wha- oh. Oh! My tag!” Robin laughed at herself, looking down at the pins on her vest. “You know, I heard there’s a place in Indy where they do Rocky Horror showings once a month if you ever want to go. I don’t drive b-but I bet Steve can take us.”

“That sounds great, yeah! Is he cool with, y’know, nudity and stuff?”

“Oh, yeah. Absolutely! He doesn’t mind. He’s cool. Yeah, Steve’s… really cool.”

“Aw, you actually love me,” Steve said, giving away the fact that he’d been eavesdropping, and Robin hit him with a magazine.

“You two are really cute,” Dottie said, smiling at them. “How long have you been together?”

“We’re not-”

“Ew, that’s not-”

“We’re friends,” said Steve.

“Best friends,” added Robin.

“Strictly platonic.”

“With a capital P.”

“Oh. Well, I guess retail bonds you forever,” Dottie laughed, and Steve chuckled.

“You have no idea,” he said, looking over at Robin with a knowing expression.

“Okay, can you stop flirting with King Steve now? You’re grossing me out,” Gareth deadpanned, making Dottie frown.

“I’m not- I’m sorry, I wasn’t-”

“It’s cool. We’re all friends here,” Steve said. “Enjoy your movie night!”

“Thank you, bye! Bye, Robin,” she waved at the girl, who waved back before Dottie grabbed Gareth’s arm and pulled him towards the door. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Ow, you’re hurting me,” Gareth said, when she shoved him outside, Donny holding the door open for them.

“Don’t know what you did, but you probably deserved it,” he said, letting the door close behind them, muffling their voices from inside the store.

Steve and Robin watched them get into Donny’s car and pull out behind a beat up brown Chevy van, both vehicles disappearing down the road together. When the tail lights were no longer able to be seen, they turned to each other with curious expressions.

“Was she-” Robin asked.

“I think she was, yeah.”

“Huh.”

“What did I tell you?” Steve said, going back to where he had been restocking before all the commotion. “Boobies.”

“Stop saying boobies!”

When Dottie asked to sit next to him to watch The Exorcist, Eddie imagined a scenario where she’d be a little bit scared and seek him out for comfort. After all, cuddling on a couch wasn’t something they’d never done before, blurring the line between friendly touches and something more every day that went by. She suggested eating first, putting the movie in later, and no one complained about the request, eager to stuff their faces after a long day of school and extracurriculars on top. Jeff’s basement was a cozy hangout spot with a door that led to a side entrance, perfect for sneaking out for a smoke between his mother’s carefully manicured rose bushes. The tan carpet and wooden walls were welcoming, if not slightly tacky, and the space had been filled in with a big couch and two armchairs, a huge TV where Jeff’s dad liked to watch football, and a great sound system that had probably been top-of-the-line ten years prior. They gotten their fill of cheese and soda, Whitesnake and Black Sabbath playing in the background, and then retreated to their seats for the movie: Eddie, Dottie, and Jeff on the couch, Donny to Jeff’s left as far away from the TV as he could sit, and Gareth on the remaining Lay-Z-Boy to Eddie’s right, bowl of popcorn for himself on his lap.

As soon as the movie started, it was clear Eddie’s expectations had been sorely mistaken. Dottie started stiff as a board between the two boys, slowly sinking into the couch as the minutes ticked, head hidden behind her knees. Jeff had a bit of success in getting her to relax when he attempted to tell her every time it was safe to look up, but after a miscalculation of the length of a scene involving various medical procedures, her eyes never went beyond the coffee table again. Gareth and Donny’s constant commentary helped ease the uncomfortable air in the room, but it was clear to Eddie that Dottie was not enjoying this situation one bit. Forgoing any ideas of romance, he pulled her into his side, letting her bury her head into his shirt as she tried to ignore the sounds coming from the TV while Regan thrashed on a hospital bed calling for her mother.

Donny looked at Eddie pointedly during a quiet moment, but he pretended not to see it, choosing instead to rub big circles on Dottie’s back in an attempt to calm down her heart rate, beating wildly against the side of his chest like it was trying to get out of her body. Progressively through the 122 minutes that the movie lasted, she pressed more and more of herself against Eddie trying to shield herself from the horrors on the screen, and truthfully, if he hadn’t been so distracted trying to comfort her, he would have been terrified too. By the time Regan was gilding down the stairs on all fours, Jeff was covering half his face with a decorative pillow. When she began hurting herself with a crucifix, even Donny who had been somewhat unaffected until that moment let out a perturbed “Jesus Christ”. By the time the actual exorcism had began, Donny looked like he desperately needed a cig, Jeff was threatening to throw up if Regan threw up again, and Dottie was shaking so much that Eddie straight up manhandled her into his lap like a child and covered the ear that wasn’t pressed up against his chest with his own hand. Credits rolled, and Gareth was the only one that moved out of his chair to stretch and turn on the lights, face pallid when he saw the angry faces of his friends.

“Uh…”

“Are you fucking serious, Gareth?” Donny said in disbelief, knees cracking with the sudden movement of standing up after two hours. “That shit was so fucked up!”

“Please don’t fight,” Jeff said tiredly, letting his pillow drop to the floor.

“Oh, I’m fighting,” Donny doubled down. “Look at Dot! You know she hates horror movies and you get this one? Couldn’t you get fucking Gremlins instead?”

“It’s not that scary, it’s so obvious everything’s totally fake! You can see the tube stuck to her head when she throws up!”

“That was so fucking gross,” Jeff added, still looking a little green himself.

“It’s okay-” Dottie began, wiping under her eyes with the sleeve of her red cardigan, but Donny interrupted her again.

“This is what you were giving her shit for in the video store?”

“Okay, shit- I get it. I fucked up,” Gareth lifted his hands. “I honestly didn’t think it was that scary the first time I saw it.”

“Man, you need to see a shrink if that shit didn’t scare you,” Eddie said, no longer all cozied up to Dottie, but still keeping one arm around her for support.

“I’m sorry,” Gareth looked at Dot, who was the most affected out of his friends. “Didn’t mean to make you feel like ass for two hours. I thought we’d have fun with it.”

“You’re mean, and I hate you, but it’s okay,” she said, grumpily pouting but lifting her arms to ask him for a hug which he immediately gave her. “Just don’t do it again. And you have to go with me to the bathroom now because I’m gonna pee myself and I don’t wanna be in there alone.”

“I’ll hold your hand while you pee, you big wuss.”

Gareth and Dottie climbed up the stairs, him cracking the stupidest jokes to get her to relax while Jeff busied himself going to grab the ice cream so everyone could cool down before the second movie. Donny got his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and nodded at Eddie to follow him outside. They pressed their backs to the cold brick, the lights spilling out from the glass panel on the door illuminating their faces with warm yellow tones. They smoked for a few minutes in silence, looking out onto the fenced-in backyard.

“That shit was wild,” Donny said. "Can't believe they made a twelve-year-old pretend to stab her own pussy with a fucking cross."

"You think that actress was really 12?" Eddie mused.

"Well, she looked like it."

"Yeah, but... maybe she was like 16 and just looks really small? Dunno, but that was crazy. Was she really telling that priest to fuck that other priest?"

"Yeah," Donny chuckled, throwing a bit of ash to the ground. "Saw you, by the way."

"Saw me?"

"You two. Dottie sitting on your lap."

"Oh, fuck off," Eddie scoffed.

"I'm not saying anything weird was happening. Just that I saw you."

"She was terrified, man. Never seen her shake like that, and I've seen her scared before," the eldest said, bitterly.

"Yeah?"

"I'm telling you, I could feel her fucking heartbeat and that shit didn’t feel healthy. She's gonna sleep with her lights on for a week."

"Shit. Didn't realize it was that bad or I would have said something. Honestly thought she was playing it up a little bit, getting cozy with you."

"Nah, she's not like that."

"How do you know?" Eddie shrugged, and Donny narrowed his eyes. "What's been going with you two lately? You're like, attached at the hip."

Eddie took his time to answer, letting the smoke in his lungs leave his body slowly, savoring the peace and quiet of the Friday night. Donny had been his first friend in the group, and if anyone deserved honesty after showing him so much loyalty, it was him. Maybe he'd have valuable insight to share with him in return.

"I'm whipped, Don. That's what's going on," Eddie said.

"Tell me something I don't know, dude."

"Is it that obvious?"

"To me, yes. I don't think the others have noticed yet."

"Yeah, well, it's bad. Like really, really bad. Like I'm one more pout away from dropping on one knee and asking her to be the new Mrs. Munson bad."

"Jesus."

"Yup."

"So it's not just a crush? Are you, like, seriously in love with her?"

"I'm gonna go to prom and wear a tie for her. Take a wild fucking guess."

Donny stared at Eddie for a few seconds before smiling and shaking his head. The long haired boy lifted an eyebrow, questioning.

"Why haven't you asked her out yet?"

"I don't deserve her."

"Ed-"

"I just don't want to drag her down, y'know? She has all these plans, she’s gonna go to college, do cool stuff. I want to ask her when I have something real to offer. After graduation, once I get a job."

"Eddie, has it ever occurred to you that she really fucking likes you right now? You know, without all that extra shit?"

"I know she does."

"You do?" Donny looked at him like he'd grown two heads.

"I'm stupid, not blind. Dunno when she started to like me but yeah, I know she does."

"When did you figure it out?"

"We spent Mother's Day together."

"Oh."

"That's when I realized, damn, she must really like me to spend such a big day like this with me. And then her Dad gave me a manly talk so I just kinda put two and two together."

"Does she know you know?"

"I don't know if she even knows herself. She was telling me the other day that it's stupid boys and girls can't be friends without people reading too much into it. Maybe she’s in denial. I was.

“You were?”

“For like two days, yeah,” Eddie admitted.

"I'll ask Gareth about it. I bet he knows."

"You think?"

"They act like siblings all the time, if someone knows, it's him," Donny assured him, putting his cig out against the brick wall. "Hurry up though, she might get tired of waiting."

"Just a couple more weeks. Until I know if I graduate or not. It's the bare fucking minimum but she deserves it."

"Alright. I'm rooting for you, man. Go make me proud."

"Thanks, dude."

They returned to the basement after their smoke break, Donny giving him an encouraging pat on the shoulder when they saw Dottie and Jeff back on the couch, heads together over a big tub of vanilla ice cream. Gareth was sitting on the floor in front of them scooping chocolate into a bowl that already had strawberry and vanilla in it. She was explaining the basics of the movie they were about to watch, warning them that things weren’t what they seemed and that it was about to get weird. Jeff looked terribly excited about the prospect of some lighthearted fun, and whatever talk Gareth and Dottie had had while they were in the bathroom (he’d apologized again while he stood in a corner, back to her and his eyes closed for good measure while she peed) had left him equally curious. The boy heard the words “boobs” and “murder” and decided he was all in for the experience.

Once everyone was back in their seats and had a cold treat in their hands to enjoy during the movie, lights went off and bright red lips filled the screen. Michael Rennie was ill the day the Earth stood still, but he told us… where we stand, Dottie mouthed following the lyrics, spoon resting on her lower lip. It was a complete 180 from the previous feature, her eyes now glued to the moving images, only rousing from her hypnosis to fill her spoon with more ice cream when Jeff prompted her to do so. She encouraged the boys to participate, instructing them to say “Janet” or “Oh, Brad” in a bored tone along with Riff Raff and Magenta during Dammit Janet or teaching them the steps to The Time Warp. Donny and Jeff, ever the performers, immediately jumped to action when Hot Patootie - Bless My Soul began, and Eddie twirled Dottie around proving himself to be quite the capable dancer when he put effort into it. Even Gareth got into the festivities when the pickaxe came out.

“Okay, that was awesome,” Jeff said while the credits were still rolling. “Didn’t know musicals could be, y’know, not Grease.”

“Take that back, Grease is legit,” Donny threatened him with his spoon.

“Less boobs than I was promised but still pretty good,” laughed Gareth, and Dottie chucked a pillow at his head.

“Looks like movie night is a success all thanks to Dot,” Eddie said, grinning at the girl that couldn’t sing for shit, but still knew all the lyrics to every beat of the musical. “Gareth, you’re banned from picking movies for a month.”

“I’ll take it,” he shrugged.

“Are there more musicals like this?” Jeff asked, and Eddie could see Dottie’s eyes glinting in the darkness.

“Well, there’s one about a demon barber…”

Eddie’s 20th birthday had been nothing like he was used to, but as he sat in Jeff’s brown-looking basement, his crush resting her weight against his shoulder as she animatedly explained to their friends the plot of Sweeney Tood: The Demon Barber of Fleet… Street, his spoon full of strawberry ice cream, and a pre-rolled joint in his backpack they were definitely going to sneakily smoke in the back of his van at some point during the night, he felt truly lucky for the first time in years. Everything was going to change for them in a few weeks, but Eddie really hoped that his 21st birthday would be as happy, if not more, as his 20th had been.

taglist (comment below or shoot me a dm if you want to be added!): @munsonology @kurdtbean

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twelvemonkeyswere · 4 months

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my favorite "I'm latina but I'm white af" anecdote was the only time I was in London and I was wearing my backpack and looking at my phone because I was using google maps to get to Baker Street (because of course I was looking for Baker Street). I can't emphasize how much I don't travel, I'm assuming I look like a tourist but, you know. I am.

so I'm near Regent's Park walking down the street and I'm trying to keep a balance between enjoying the sights and being extra fucking sure I'm not missing my turn when a young black man falls in pace with me.

now to me it matters he was black because of the conversation that followed.

he was smartly dressed, as if for work, and had a suitcase with him. he smiled at me apologetically and said, in an accent I recognized but that wasn't from London, "Excuse me, I need to get to [name of name of station or bus stop or somesuch] to get to a job interview, I know it's nearby but I'm not from here, can you tell me where it is?"

and so I realize that he took a look at my white ass and ragged hoodie and thought "I know this type of white girl, I know she's likely from around here and she can help" and so I simultaneously realize he had likely chosen the only person in the whole sidewalk who *couldn't* know, being a foreigner and all.

so I smiled back and said "I'm not from around here either," and as he heard my accent his eyes widened, understanding he had made a mistake. "but I have the map here," I pointed at my phone. "let me find it for you."

I could sense he felt he didn't know if he had been impolite to me but he definitely didn't want to be impolite now that I'm offering to help even with limited knowledge, so he says thank you that would be a great help and we spend a little while figuring out the direction and is the same as mine. so I tell him let's walk together. and he says yes.

and off we go in a rush, making small talk as we go. he's taller than me but he's going at my pace, which made me think a lot of him.

"so where are you from?" he asks, after a beat.

"Costa Rica," I beam.

"oh, wow, that's far away."

"yessss. long way from home. where are *you* from?"

and this very kind young man flushes in shame as he sheepishly admits: "... Birmingham."

poor man suddenly felt like maybe he wasn't from far away enough to merit being lost in London 😂

I say "Oh, that's also far away!"

which prompted him to explain that it was far away enough he never had a reason to come to London so he just never did, and I think he felt a little better after because he told me a bit about the job (I think it had to do with engineering?), and soon we came to the point we had to part ways. he thanked me and left running. I hope he got that job. I had fun in Baker Street, but that guy was one the highlight of my whole trip 😂😂😂

#stories

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omgitssmallboi · 3 months

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Ryoma Hoshi x Popular!Reader

What’s in this goofy lil fic: Friendship fluff, cats, Ryoma being sad, an AU where the killing game never happened(Non-despair AU), non sexual intimacy, hugs. | In this AU, Ryoma went through all the bullshit canon him went through, but after two years of prison, a family bailed him out and took him in. (He’s 16-17 in this)

One day, while walking home from school, you stumbled upon a stray cat meowing for attention. You couldn't help but stop and pet it, instantly feeling a sense of connection with the poor animal. As you scratched its head and ears, you noticed a familiar figure in the distance - the school loner, Ryoma Hoshi. To your surprise, he was cradling a litter of abandoned kittens in his arms, their tiny mews filling the air.

Without a second thought, you approached him and introduced yourself. He looked up at you with his deep, sad eyes and smiled slightly. You noticed how his short stature and mature attitude made him appear even stranger. "I've been taking care of these kitties since they were born," he explained. "Their mother abandoned them, and I couldn't help but feel responsible for them."

You nodded understandingly, feeling a sense of admiration for the loner you'd once ignored. "I found this stray cat outside school like, two weeks ago. And I've been feeding it every day. I guess we both have a thing for cats, huh?" You chuckled softly, trying to break the ice.

Ryoma smiled back, revealing a small amount of joy in his face. "Yeah, I guess so. Well, I should probably get these guys home. They need their bottles and some clean bedding." He stood up, carefully handing the kittens over to you. "Here, you can help me take care of them if you want."

The offer caught you off guard. You hadn't expected him to be so open to the idea, let alone offer to share such a personal responsibility. "Really? I'd love to!" You smiled, feeling a warmth spread through your chest. "My house isn't far from here. We can walk there together."

As you walked side by side, you found yourself struck by how comfortable you felt in his presence. Despite his tough exterior, there was a softness to him that you hadn't noticed before. You talked about your favorite cat videos on YouTube, swapped stories about the funniest things your foster kittens had done, and even shared a few of your deepest fears. The time flew by, and before you knew it, you'd arrived at your house.

Ryoma followed you inside, his eyes widening in awe as he took in the cozy living room with its plush couch and numerous plants. "Wow, this is nice," he commented, glancing over at you. "You've got a really nice place here." You beamed with pride, feeling a sense of warmth wash over you at his approval.

As you made your way upstairs to your bedroom, you noticed that Ryoma was trailing a few steps behind, seemingly hesitant to come any closer. "It's okay," you reassured him with a smile. "I'm sure my parents won't mind if we borrow my room for a little while." Your parents were out of town on business, so you knew you wouldn't have to worry about anyone disturbing you.

Ryoma nodded, still looking a bit unsure of himself. "Well, if you're sure..." he muttered, finally stepping into your room. You closed the door behind him, feeling a flutter in your stomach at the intimacy of the moment. The room was painted a soothing shade of lavender, with posters of cute animals and pop stars covering the walls. A huge, fluffy cat bed sat in the corner, surrounded by a collection of toys and scratching posts.

"This is where I spend most of my time," you explained, walking over to your desk. You pulled out a chair for Ryoma, gesturing for him to sit. "Do you want me to show you where we keep the kittens' stuff?" You asked, already digging through your drawers to find the supplies you had stashed away.

Ryoma nodded, sitting down gingerly on the chair. He glanced around the room, seeming to take in every detail. His eyes lingered on a framed photo of you and your family, and he couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness for him. "Your family seems really nice," he said softly, trying to change the subject.

"They are," you replied, smiling warmly. "They're away on business right now, so we have the house to ourselves." You paused for a moment, realizing that you hadn't given Ryoma a chance to talk about his own life. "So, what about you? Do you live alone?"

Ryoma shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Well, not exactly," he mumbled. "I live with my adoptive dad, his wife, and their kids. It's a bit crowded, but..." He trailed off, clearly not wanting to dwell on the subject. You nodded understandingly, deciding not to push the issue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After gathering up all the supplies you needed, you showed Ryoma where to set up the kittens' temporary home in your room. He was surprisingly gentle with them, carefully placing each one in their little bed and making sure they were comfortable. You couldn't help but smile as you watched him interact with the animals. Instead, you focused on the task at hand, handing him a few bottles of kitten formula and a small bag of dry food. "Here's everything you'll need to take care of them," you explained, showing him where to find the litter box and the kittens' bedding. "I've already prepared some food for them, so all you have to do is warm it up and feed them."

As Ryoma followed your instructions, you watched him intently, noticing the way he interacted with the kittens. He was gentle and patient, just like you remembered him being with your own foster kittens. There was a softness in his eyes that you hadn't seen before, and it made your heart ache for him.

You decided to change the subject, wanting to focus on something more lighthearted. "So, how old are these guys?" you asked, kneeling down to pet one of the kittens. It nuzzled against your hand, purring contently.

Ryoma smiled faintly. "This one is about five weeks old, and the other two are about seven weeks. They're still pretty small, but they're growing fast." He paused, glancing down at the kitten in his arms. "They're probably going to be as big as your cat in no time."

You laughed softly. "Oh, I doubt that. Even when they were a kitten, Aki was a bit on the chunky side." You scratched the kitten behind its ear, making it purr even louder. "So, what are their names?" you asked, curious to know more about them.

Ryoma smiled, the expression softening his features. "This one is Luna," he said, gesturing to the calico kitten in his lap. "She's a bit shy, but she's also very clever. And this one is Artemis," he continued, indicating the black-and-white kitten who was currently investigating the litter box. "She's a bit more outgoing than Luna, but she's just as sweet. And then there's Apollo," he added, picking up the last kitten from the bedding. "He's the youngest of the three, but he's already the biggest. He's quite the little daredevil, always climbing up on things he shouldn't."

You listened intently, feeling a genuine fondness for each of the kittens already. "They all sound wonderful," you said, petting Artemis as she rubbed against your hand. "I'm sure they'll grow up to be beautiful cats." You glanced over at Ryoma, noticing the way he interacted with his pets. There was a certain tenderness in his touch, a look of affection in his eyes that spoke volumes about the bond he shared with them.

"So, what about you?" you asked, deciding to change the subject. "Do you have any favorite activities to do with them?" You wondered if he liked playing games with them or if he preferred cuddling on the couch.

Ryoma looked surprised by the question, but he seemed to consider it for a moment before answering. "Well, I usually just spend time with them," he said quietly. "We don't really have any special games or anything, but I like to watch them play together. Sometimes I'll just sit on the floor and let them climb all over me." He smiled fondly, his expression softening. "They're really good company."

You nodded, understanding what he meant. Pets could be a source of comfort and companionship, especially when life got tough. You remembered how Aki had been there for you when you were feeling down, curling up on your lap or giving you a little headbutt when you needed it most. It was a special bond that only pet owners could truly understand.

"That's nice," you said, trying to sound encouraging. "I'm sure they appreciate the time you spend with them." You glanced around the room, noticing a few toys scattered on the floor near the kittens' bedding. "Do you ever play with them?" you asked, gesturing to the toys.

Ryoma seemed a bit surprised by your question. "Well, I don't know...," he began, hesitating. "I don't want to push them into anything they're not comfortable with. They're still pretty young, after all." He shrugged, looking a bit guilty. "I guess I could try to spend more time playing with them. Maybe they'd like that."

You smiled reassuringly, knowing that Ryoma was just being overly careful. "It's okay," you said gently. "They probably just need a little encouragement. Why don't you try giving them one of those toys and see how they react?" You pointed to a small, soft-looking mouse toy lying on the floor nearby.

Part 2?

#ryoma hoshi #Fluff #x reader

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softsnzstuff · 1 year

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JQ Sick at Christmas

WOW not me being actually like 3 weeks late to posting this. I’m so sorry! Just a soft lil JQ/JCB drabble.

Summary: J/oseph’s been rocking a fever/the flu for the last couple of days - sleeping mostly - but hot chocolate and Christmas movies is something he can’t resist. 🎄

PLEASE DONT REBLOG TO NON-KINK BLOGS

December 20

Jamie takes a sip of his coffee and starts singing along to ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ on the radio as he unpacks the small boxes of ornaments. The 8 foot noble fir has been standing tall but barren in their London apartment for over a week now.

Joe’s been asking to decorate for days, but one of them always had some work commitment or another. Now that it was so close to Christmas, they were both off work and ready to decorate.

Jamie had busted out the ornaments and string lights early that morning while Joe slept in. It wasn’t too unusual for him to relax more on off days but he was usually up by now.

As if on cue, Joe pads down the stairs in some black sweatpants and a Christmas jumper. He smiles when he sees that Jamie has started setting up already.

“Do we finally get to decorate?” He beamed.

“I thought we could.” Jamie smiled back, kissing him on the cheek. “Are you cold?”

It was December in London, but the heat was turned up. Jamie was in pajama pants and a white tee.

“Just thought I’d be festive.” Joe lied, looking at his jumper. He’d been chilly since the night prior and hadn’t been able to quite get warm yet.

Cheerful music rang out as they wrapped the lights around the tree. Once that was out of the way, they started picking ornaments out one by one and adding them to the branches.

Jamie was hanging up one of the new Stranger Things ornaments they got as a gag gift from Maya when he noticed Joseph had stopped and had the heel of his hand pressed to his temple.

“Alright love?”

“Nghh… yeah just a headache.”

“Want some paracetamol?” Jamie suggested.

“Sure.” Joe walked to the kitchen and opened the cupboard to find the bottle he was looking for. He tapped out two pills and swallowed them before rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand.

He tried to sniffle back the tickle that had settled in the back of his sinuses, but it only aggravated it further. Joe cupped a hand over his nose as he snapped at the waist.

“H’iKSHTiew!”

“Bless you!” Jamie called out from the next room.

“… H’aeITSCHew! snfsnff”

“And again!”

Joe popped back into the living room, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his jumper. Jamie hung the ornament he was holding on the tree and pulled Joe into a hug.

“Are you getting sick, darling?” Jamie mumbled into his ear.

Joe pulled back from the hug and tried to give Jamie his most convincing gaze. “I’m fine.”

*****

December 24

“I need you to open your mouth for me, sweetheart.” Jamie purrs softly as he perches on the edge of their King bed.

Joe blindly obliges as his partner slides the cool metal instrument under his tongue. After telling Jamie he was fine when they decorated the tree earlier in the week, he quickly developed a sore throat. The congestion had set in by that evening, and the next morning, he’d woken up with a fever.

The younger man has been in bed for the better part of the last 4 days, either sleeping or watching mindless tv. He feels woozy as Jamie runs a cold hand over his clammy forehead and through his hair, almost like he’s floating. He somehow feels too hot and too cold and his whole body feels like jelly.

A faint beeping snaps him out of his fevered trance, just long enough to see Jamie frown at him.

“38.8°C ((102°F)).” He sighs, “You just stay in bed today and let me know if you need anything, yeah?”

Joe blinks slowly and nods his head slightly, his body disagreeing with the movement. Jamie disappears and he slowly falls into a deep sleep.

***

The thirty three year old keeps himself entertained for a few hours downstairs, reading, cleaning and playing some quiet guitar.

He eats dinner by himself - Joe’s not had an appetite for the last two or three days despite Jamie trying to get him to eat some toast or applesauce.

After dinner he heads upstairs to see if Joe needs anything. The younger man is down for the count, fast asleep with lips slightly parted as congested snores fill the room.

Trying to be quiet, Jamie tidies up a bit, binning the tissues scattered around the floor, taking the empty tea mugs to be washed in the kitchen, and leaving a new ice water on the bedside stand next to the paracetamol and tissues.

He heads back downstairs, wanting to do something Christmassy. It is Christmas Eve after all. He throws on ‘Love, Actually’, a quintessential British classic, and sets a small plate of Christmas cookies on the table next to Joe’s bottles of DayQuil and NyQuil from earlier.

He heats up some homemade hot chocolate on the stove before making himself comfortable on the couch to watch the film.

Ant and Dec pop on the screen to introduce Billy Mack when Jamie hears coughing coming from upstairs.

A few moments later, he sees Joe slowly (and tiredly) making his way down the stairs with a blanket draped over his shoulders. His eyes have a fever glaze to them, complimenting his flushed cheeks.

“What’re you doing out of bed Joseph?” Jamie stands up to pull him into a hug.

“SNF! Wanted to spend time with you on Christmas.” He said innocently.

Jamie melted slightly, easing Joe onto the couch, “Alright love. Can I get you some dinner?”

Jamie knew the attempt was futile. He expected the answer before it came.

Joe leaned back into the couch cushions and rubbed at his nose with a knuckle. “N’dot hu’gry. iiTSCHuhew! H’eKSHTiew!”

“Bless you!”

Joe pouted and groaned slightly.

“What about some hot chocolate? Think you can drink some of that?”

Joe nodded after a minute of contemplation. Jamie pressed the warm mug to his partners hands and sat down next to him, pulling him close.

“Sorry I m’bessed up all of our Christm’bas plans.” Joe murmured apologetically.

Jamie kissed the top of his head.

“You didn’t ruin any plans. The best Christmas is just spending it with you.”

#s/tranger t/hings #j/oseph q/uinn #j/amie c/ampbell b/ower #fevers #sickfic #snzblr #kb writes #christmas snz

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jades-typurriter · 11 months

Text

Summer Costume Pre-Sale

A piece of fanfiction for my wives' novel, Ascension: Tales of Twin Tales. Coyotl, Fox & Violet, and Niamh are on the hunt for Radiant artifacts, and their latest search leads them to the lair of the embodiment of autumn.

This one's really self-indulgent and also takes a LOT of context from the book. It was written as a gift to her, so like, I didn't feel like it needed to "stand on its own" (and still don't), but I wanted to put it up somewhere anyway 'cause I had a lot of fun with it =^w^=

“So this is the place?” Fox asks, looking ahead and bouncing along one pace behind me, her usual spring in her step.

“Indeed,” I reply, stowing the Amazing Mirror beneath my cloak with a wave of my hand. No ordinary map could have led us to this place, a locus of autumnal transition that defies the mundane tracking of mortals.

“This isn’t the kind of place I’d expect to find a Radiant’s holdout…” the vixen muses, bringing a paw to her chin and stopping to look up at the building.

“It may not appear as mystical as some of the ruins we’ve plundered, but I assure you, this is a veritable treasure trove! Within these halls, a nigh-endless labyrinth of knowledge awaits us, full of facsimiles of the raiments of heroes of old. We’re quite fortunate to have found this place so quickly; as the seasons change, so too do these myths fall out of fashion or fade from memory entirely, and the Radiant we’ve been tracking–and his domain–are the embodiment of that transience.”

“He’s trans?”

“He–well, I’ve never met him,” I stammer as Fox snickers, her mischievous grin a familiar (and welcome) sight. “My family, however, visited him hundreds of times over the generations. Yearly, if they could manage it. They kept careful track of the locations his realm has opened to; The map in the manor’s library marked over fourteen hundred previous sites! They never brought me along, since indulging in all the history here was too great a privilege in their eyes, but I’ve imagined it over and over since I was young. And now, studying their notes has brought us straight to the most recent portal into his realm!” I can’t contain my excitement–the thought of finally being allowed to explore this Hall of Fame of the epic heroes of the past has me wagging my tail!!

Finally, we stop walking, looking up at the front of the building housing the entrance.

“This is a Spirit Halloween.”

“Not just ANY Spirit Halloween!” I cry, pivoting on my heel to face the Vixens, swishing my cloak and throwing out an arm for effect. “This place is occupied by THE spirit OF Halloween!! The King of Lanterns! The Harvest Reaper! A master of disguise so great that even his abode is able to exist in the open without drawing attention from those of the Land of Shade! Every so often, amidst the showpieces and recreations, a genuine article finds its way into his collection. It’s how my family acquired a good few of the artifacts under my custodianship, and it’s how today, we may just find a new one to bring home!”

“Wow, Coyo!!” Fox beams at me, clapping at the end of my speech. “This sounds like it’s gonna be INCREDIBLE!! How are we gonna find it? Or get it out once we do?” The glint in her eye grows as fierce as the points of her teeth; I can already see the gears turning in her head, eager to dig her claws into another heist.

“There won’t be any need for thieving today, alas. He’s something of a businessman. Agriculture has been the backbone of many an economy from the dawn of time, and in the last few centuries, the Radiant’s influence has grown even further with the yearly celebrations of the creepiest and most whimsical corners of our culture. Plus, he has a stake in the actual Spirit Halloween chain.”

“I see! It’s weird, y’know? Been a while since we had such an easy one,” she says, lacing her fingers together behind her head. “And with all the hoofin’ it we’ve been doing, it’s just so odd finding an important magic spot in the middle of a city, let alone a Radiant. I guess some of ‘em like Gepette set up shop in Subterfuge, but that’s still pretty out of the way. There were all those heists Cat and I went on right after we ascended, but–” She’s interrupted by a pomf as her darkness-dipped tail thumps her in the back, Violet seemingly having caught onto the impending faux pas before Fox’s brilliant puzzle brain catches up. She glances between her headmate and me, her ears falling a touch, but I shake my head.

“No, no, you’re as observant as ever!” I reassure her, knowing that she–and I–have long since forgiven my mistakes. “Radiant folk tend not to operate so brazenly; were they not under contract, and behind the veil of layers of concealing spells, they would not have faced you anywhere so densely-populated.”

“Oh, but some of us,” lilts a notable exception as she swoops down, “have a much greater flair for the dramatic~.” She touches down to stand at our side, my mentor soon following suit; I hadn’t witnessed Bomba’s dive from atop Niamh’s wings, but the form of her landing is as flawless as ever. “And of course, we all know how little regard for subtlety my old flame has~. It’s a wonder she hasn’t gotten herself found out again, shining as brightly as she does,” she sighs.

“Girls!! Didn’t realize you’d be joining us for this one!” Fox cheers.

“Oh, don’t fret, my little fox. You lovebirds will have your usual space for your latest dungeon date~,” the snake coos, putting a sheen of static on my face and eliciting a giggle from my… my lovebird. “The proprietor is an old friend of mine, and I was hoping to do some catching up. Bomba, for her part, wanted to study all the historic weapons for sale! Even if most of them are just replicas, she’s sure to pick up some new tricks. And hey, our champion may even find herself represented among the disguises~.”

“I am Bomba,” says Bomba, graciously accepting the compliment.

“Shouldn’t we get going?” Violet asks, prodding us onward. “You said this place doesn’t sit still very long.”

“That’s right!” I say, striding forward toward the door. I throw them open, Fox bounding right along with me, Niamh and Bomba trailing behind, and as the storefront’s double doors open, we are greeted with pitch darkness. The only thing visible is a worn, dusty path, illuminated by a low, large moon that shines like a spotlight. It bears the hoofprints of beasts of burden and ruts that seem to have been carved into it by wagon wheels; it’s littered with dried husks, strewn straws of hay, scattered with chaff. This is the metaphorical road to market–the journey made by those who plow the field to ply their crop, and the route by which the Lord of the Harvest takes his due.

Though the light doesn’t extend far ahead of us, I stride bravely forward. Instead of stepping off into the shadowy underbrush at the end of the path, it seems to extend itself, winding further into the gloom as the moon strings us along. Pinpricks of flickering light emerge as we tread the old road. At first, they seem like stars, or fireflies, but as we approach our destination, they resolve themselves into the hungry, steely gazes of predators, lying motionless in wait as they might once have stalked fatted calves–or inattentive farmers–in the hopes of a harvest feast of their own.

The darkness shifts–however, it heralds the emergence of a different beast than the ones whose gazes line the path. Violet now stalks beside me as we continue, and I can see her hackles bristling in anticipation of a confrontation. Niamh, however, slithers forward before the tension in her shadowy form can snap into a pounce, and places a knowing hand on the wolf’s shoulder. She turns her head behind her, four eyes meeting three, and she seems less on edge for the gesture.

“That’s a good girl~,” the serpent encourages.

“Don’t make me maul you before THEY do,” Violet rumbles in response, her tail twitching. She has much better control of hers than I do, I think, smiling to myself. She huddles up her shoulders and furrows her brow, sulking, a different kind of guard up than the one she had had previously.

We don’t walk for much longer before another, massive pair of eyes opens in the darkness before us, a deep red fire burning within them. This is the Radiant we have sought, and when he opens his mouth to speak, it is as though the very gates of Hell have opened, casting flickering, dancing shadows all across the path:

“Do mortals once again seek to meet with the Year’s End himself?” he booms.

“That we do, Keeper of Campfire Tales!” I declare. “We have come in search of a boon amongst your bountiful stockpiles.”

“Have you, now?” he cackles, rattling my screen and standing Violet’s fur on end once again. “You DO realize, little traveler, that I reap more than STORIES from those who stray too far into the dark!”

“We will have what we came for!” I respond, not shying away from the threats of one of Death’s many envoys.

“Then you would do well to remember your manners. It has been a few years since one of you found your way to me; I wonder whether the old traditions of entreating the harvest gods have endured?”

It is as I read; he cannot harm us, his hands tied by ritual as strongly as humanity is tied to the tending of the land. I step forward, squaring my shoulders and puffing out my chest, to utter the phrase that will bind him:

“TRICK OR TREAT!!” Fox shouts, bursting forth from Violet’s protection, fists clenched with excitement and her grin as broad as the moon above. The darkness around us begins to swirl, a raging vortex filled with the cacophony of the Radiant’s laughter, as the fire from his deathly face grows brighter and hotter. Suddenly, as quickly as it had started to roil, the darkness clears entirely, revealing… well, the inside of a store.

We now stand at a checkout counter a mere few feet away from the double doors through which we entered; the space is adorned with a row of stands on either side of us, upon each of which sits a carved pumpkin bearing the visage of all manner of monster, from mundane woodland creature to mythical beast, lit from within by a plain candle. The counter itself is constructed from hay bales, and behind it sits a man in a pumpkin mask–also lit from behind–a flannel shirt, and a beaten-up pair of overalls.

“VERY good, lil’ lady!” He cheers, clapping for Fox, his echoing laughter having faded to hee-ing and haw-ing. “Nice ta see y’all ain’t forgotten your roots! Oh, but where’re MAH manners?” He doffs his mask respectfully, revealing a mirthful skull–also lit from behind, and which I suspect to be only one additional mask of many more. “Ah’m–”

“JACK, darling~!” Niamh squeals excitedly, blowing past me and Fox, arms outstretched.

“Well I’ll be! Jus’ how long’s it been since I seen YOU, missy?”

“Long enough that you’ve forgotten not to keep a lady waiting~. Honestly! All this pomp and circumstance scaring my little ones here, without so much as a hello,” she teased.

“HEE HEE HAW! Ya got me there, but you ain’t introduced your friends–my GUESTS–neither!”

“Well, you already met Violet,” said Fox, whose tail raised and formed a claw in a brusque greeting before lowering again. “And I’m Fox!”

“Coyotl,” I say, bowing slightly. “It is a pleasure.” He’d certainly recognize me if I added my family name, “moving on” doesn’t mean “wanting to have to hear about it”, and it isn’t the part of me that I care to make central, anyway.

“I am Bomba.”

“There! Quite polite, aren’t they, Jack? Now,” she says, waving us away like a starlet seeing off her fans. “Go ahead and let us catch up. I’ll keep this all-powerful Radiant busy while you all rob him for all he’s worth~.”

Bomba is already gone, and Fox grins as she snatches up my claw, weaving us between the stands making up the lantern-lined entryway and in the direction of whatever’s caught her treasure-hunter’s eye. Her enthusiasm is as infectious as ever, and the formality of introductions evaporates as I squeeze her paw in turn and our tails wag in our wake. Speaking of introductions…

“Fox, how on Earth did you know what to say to him? I only pieced that together after poring over the notes that had gone into the creation of my family’s map!”

“Well, while the two of you were talking, I figured it must’ve been some kind of riddle, but uh… Honestly? It was a gut feeling!” She winks at me.

Goddess, I love her.

She continues to lead the way through the winding aisles of the Pumpkin King’s vast market of myths. It has the air of a museum, but instead of being separated into wings, the eras and cultures from which these false artifacts were pulled blend together like the sections of a department store. The walkways are close, cramped, like the spaces between shelves in a library, snaking between racks of displays cramped end to end with faux regalia and mock weapons.

“Oh!! Wait!!” I dig my heels in, bringing me and the Vixens skidding to a halt as we pass an island of Transylvanian pieces. “What what what what!!”

Retracing a few steps and shuffling through one of the racks, I find a morningstar on a coiled, silver chain, with fine leather wrapped around the handle. A flick of my wrist sends its flanged metal head careening down the aisle, flying toward the full length of the chain with a rattle and a SNNK as the links stretch. Another flick pulls it back toward me, and I reach out to catch it around my forearm, whipping around and around until I catch the head in my palm.

“DAMN, COYO!!” Fox cheers, eyes shining. “I see you haven’t gotten rusty with your whips!”

“I suppose even an old Ends by Means remains in one’s muscle memory. Though, I must confess to having practiced with this specific piece before,” I add, scratching the back of my monitor. “My family collected the original some time ago, and it was one of the many I considered bringing with me for our escapades in Aspen Town.

“Goddess, you’ve got to show me around the collection once we can bring our haul back to it,” she marvels, sidling up next to me to get a better look at the fake in my hands. She wraps her tail around my waist, and I can already feel a green glow creeping onto my face. “Care to tell me more about this one?”

Goddess!! I LOVE her!!!

“W-well, this was the signature weapon of a line of monster hunters from eastern Europe! It was handed down from generation to generation in much the same way that my family tended to the artifacts in our care, except that this was several centuries ago, and given both the different culture surrounding magic and the rather dire circumstances, they actually put them to use!!” I place the fake back on the rack; knowing that we already have the real one safe and sound, I know it’s not what we’re here for. “They also collected a throwing axe, a consecrated boomerang, some very fine daggers… we even have the recipe for a special, flammable type of holy water!!”

“These guys sound like the heroes in a horror movie!!”

“Heroes indeed!! One of the better-known ones made his name by delivering dramatic speeches to the monsters he was about to fight. But, alas, we don’t have the time to stand around reciting monologues. We still have an artifact to hunt for!”

“But you could recite one of those monologues?”

“Most, of them.”

“Most~?” She presses further, her smile growing wider.

“All,” I reluctantly concede.

“Hehehee! Coyo, you are just so you~,” she teases, making me blush. “We can keep it moving, but I wanna hear ‘em when we get back to the truck!”

“I-if you wish!!” I stammer, though for my reluctance I cannot hide my antennae perking up with anticipation. She giggles again at the sight. It truly makes me happy that she takes such interest in not just our immediate quest, but in the history woven into all these figures and their belongings…

“Now!” She barks, hurrying down the aisle again. “I wanna see if I can find anything good!” I take off after her, watching as rows upon rows of hanging garments flutter in her wake, hearing the sound of crisp pages rustling as she calls upon the wind to help her skim the inventory fast enough to keep up with her excitement.

Eventually, her gale catches something–a robe whose hood is almost the cartoonish stereotype of a wizard’s hat, long, flowing, and coming to a point at the end. The blue, windsock-like garment piques her interest, and she stops to pull it off the rack, revealing that it is not in fact a robe, but a tunic and slacks embroidered with a motif of a meandering breeze.

“OooooOOOOoooo, now THIS looks like a fun one!” She says, pulling the tunic over her head. She leaves the pants on their hangar; she’s more of a shorts person, and honestly, I’d be surprised if they would go on over her hips either way. Trying not to dwell too much on thoughts of her hips, I watch as she twirls around in the tunic, enjoying the way it swishes as she uses her wind to toy with it. “You got a history lesson on this one for me, Coyo?”

“Hmm…” I ponder, bringing a claw to the bottom edge of my screen, furrowing my antennae. “Unfortunately, I don’t.” I look around the spot where she found it, hoping to glean some context from the related artifacts. “Ah!” I cry, reaching into a rack and pulling out a sword from next to a crimson tabard. “This, I recognize!”

She wonders at the gleaming, pearlescent blade, bouncing up and down on the pads of her paws, looking to me for elucidation. My tail wags as I meet her `ted gaze, and I rush into what I know, as eager to share as she is to hear.

“This is a recreation of a Welsh sword, said to be wielded by the old kings in the legends of the founding of their nation!” I exclaim, holding it dramatically aloft. “According to myth, it was hard enough to cleave stone in twain–so much so that it was left waiting in one for its eventual rightful user to claim it!”

“Wait, I thought Excalibur was a British sword?”

“The British believe everything belongs to them, do they not? They even presume to claim that their name for this blade is the correct one. The only correct one, anyway.”

“Fair enough! It’s never as simple as the stories with Radiants, is it? What’s that about, though?” She asks, ears swishing as she tilts her head, pointing at a pair of dark spectacles affixed to the sword with a plastic tie.

“I… haven’t a clue. Very cool, though.”

“You should try them on!” The vixen suggests, and I do, slipping the earpieces into my screen on either side of my eyes and holding them there. Holding them there is a bit like chewing on the ends, which at least gives me something to fidget with as I begin to squirm under her close inspection.

“Just like I thought,” she beams. “You look like a dork~!” I sputter, my face growing brighter behind the glasses, which do little to obscure my reaction. She reaches up and takes them off my face, standing on her toes to give me a peck on my screen. “You know I like you better when you aren’t hiding behind anything, Coyo~,” she adds, and though I feel exposed, I do not shy away this time as my screen burns.

“Now, you know what DID seem cool…” she says, taking my claw again and leading me toward something she had passed. As she bends over to rummage through the items, I notice Violet’s claw extending across the aisle to browse the opposite rack. “Here we go!” She says, straightening up, holding out a pair of bright red sneakers and a handful of thick, golden bangles.

“That jewelry seems quite heavy,” I observe.

“Not really! I don’t know if it’s ‘cause they’re fakes or if the magical originals were lighter than they looked, but I feel like I could hold a hundred of these!” She lines her arm with the rings to make her point, waving it around just as easily as if it were completely unburdened. “These shoes, though! Just looking at ‘em, I feel like I could run a mile a minute!”

“Coyotl,” Violet mutters, splitting off into Fox’s shadow, having apparently found what she was looking for. “I thought you said this place was stocked with things from ‘the heroes of old’. Why is there an uzi mixed in with all these rocks?” I look up at what she holds in her claws and see what appears to be an average firearm. In her other claw are a rainbow of diamond-cut jewels, each the size of my fist. G-goodness, I think, And she can hold seven of them in just the one hand…

“W-well,” I stammer, looking up at her and trying not to think about how much I have to look up at her, “New legends are made every day! I suppose it’s possible that this is a relic of a more recent escapade. Say, the last 25 years?”

“What, 2005?”

“No, maybe more recently than that. Probably a bit after ‘06.” The wolf hmphs in acknowledgement and, after we return everything to their places (save one of the jewels, which Fox finds to have impressive luster for a replica), walks alongside myself and Fox as we continue.

The glint of a shining, orange-gold blade poking out from among the displays catches my eye, and I stop to examine it more closely. It broadens at the end, almost to a cartoonish extent, and feels warm to the touch; with it is a winged helmet forged from the same metal, a form-fitting undergarment, and what is bluntly a dress. Not a robe, or tunic, or cloak, just a dress. An interesting change of pace! And certainly one to which I am not opposed. I pull the dark, snug piece over my head and wrap the flowing orange fabric around myself, then pose (quite valiantly) with the sword for the Vixens. Fox whistles, and Violet offers a restrained, appreciative clap.

“Me next, me next!!” Fox reaches into the same rack, coming away with a lightly-armored robe with sharp purple pauldrons and boots. There is a flap of fabric and, in a flash, she’s already changed into it, and is working to fit the similarly-pointy headpiece over her big, cute ears; once she has it comfortably on her head, she picks up a steel-blue staff and firmly taps it on the ground, full of playful faux-solemnity.

“You look a proper mage, beloved!”

“I want to try. Let me borrow that.” Violet sinks back into Fox’s shadow and slithers her way up along their body, The fabric of the robe melts into her darkness at the legs, resolidifying into coarse denim, the metal boots reconstituting themselves into the studs that line a handful of belts around her waist. Higher up, the robe becomes a simple shirt with the sleeves torn asunder to make way for the wolf’s powerful arms. The pauldrons form a coat, pinned around her neck beneath a spiked collar, hanging dramatically off her shoulders, emblazoned with an ankh on each cuff.

Her eyes change shape atop her snout, their outlines extending until they’re winged at the edges, a wedjat in the corner of each, and her wild mane teases itself up into several pointy locks. She crosses her arms and puffs out her chest, radiating an aura of self-assuredness rather than her usual imposing air. She looks herself up and down, pauses, and begins rooting around in the display once more. She finds a heavy chain bearing a pyramidal pendant, drapes it over her neck, and reassumes her stance, christening her new look with a nod of approval.

“You look FANTASTIC, Violet!!” I cheer. “Downright formidable! None could stand before you without flinching!” My wives are SO. COOL.

“Heeeheehehe,” Fox giggles, Violet’s maw peeling away so that her snout can poke out. “You’re just a big edgy goth girl, aren’t ya, Vi?”

“Alright, I’m done trying on clothes.” Violet retreats into Fox’s form, unceremoniously dumping her on the floor in her previous magician’s raiments.

“Oof. C’mon, Violet, you looked great in it!!”

“Mm,” she grunts from Fox’s tail, but I see her wagging nonetheless. “Let’s just blow this corn maze sometime before NEXT Halloween.”

And so we continue, doggedly scouring the maze of myths for any originals hidden amongst the forgeries. Of course, we do stop several more times, if not to step into the roles of old legends, then simply to revere them and delve into their histories.

We pass a massive suit of armor clutching a hammer larger than Violet is tall, with the visage of a lion sculpted into its left gauntlet, proudly displayed through the center of its shield. It is flanked on one side by a set of dark robes with a mask crafted from the skull of a barn owl, and on the other by a light leather jacket, complete with a pair of orange-tinted goggles and compartments in the sleeves for the discreet deployment of weapons. I see echoes of Sue and Zee in the likenesses of a child prodigy and her magnum opus, a mechanical centaur known for her extraordinary ability to stand her ground.

We enter a hall dedicated to the preservation of the forms of many great beasts: a hound with a scythe-like growth, said to bring disaster wherever it goes; a russet, shifty creature with a bushy tail and whiskers that evoke the facial hair of iconic feudal thieves and swashbucklers; and a lonely creature that hardens itself through hardship by shielding itself with the bones of its fallen ancestors. A purple-and-gray reptilian creature, known for manipulating whole communities of its own kind with its feminine wiles, reminds us of a certain traveling companion.

We come across somewhat more modern, certainly more formal clothes as well. A bright-red vest with a blue tie, accessorized with a bronze band around the wrist and a blue overcoat, catches our attention, as do a set of lavender-and-white robes that appear to belong to some sort of religious convent. They are adorned with a string of large beads and a magenta sash, and though they fit Fox quite nicely, they are… rather salacious, on Violet’s larger frame. A simple blue three-piece suit, a small gold badge glinting on its lapel, and a maroon-and-black ensemble with layers of frills at the neck, seem to stand in opposition to each other; they seem like they would complement Cat and Liz’s coats, we note, and move on.

Eventually, for all my and Fox’s avidity, we must concede that it would be impossible to assess the full inventory of this place, at least not in one day. We begin to work our way back towards the entrance, where we find Bomba waiting for us, and Niamh and Jack still laughing with each other.

“All shopped out~?” the serpent greets us.

“Indeed,” I reply. “I know we have other places to be, but we need rest. We’ll just have to come back tomorrow and keep searching–and the day after, and the day after, if that’s what it takes!”

“Haw!”

“Ahmmhmmhm~”

“What?”

“Oh, dearie,” Niamh explains, “We’ve already gotten what we’re looking for!”

“What do you mean? Did you find it yourself?”

“Of course not! Jack here went and dug it up for me. The Horn of Plenty will be arriving at Aspen Town in a matter of, oh… five to seven business days, was it?”

“Well, ma’am, that’s the standard ‘round here, but–”

“But you’re willing to rush an order for little ol’ Niamh, isn’t that right~?” Jack chuckles again and ambles off somewhere behind the counter, out of view. “He owed me a favor, you see.”

“How’s it gonna get to Aspen Town?” Fox asks.

“Fox, honey, Spirit Halloween has had online delivery for years, now!”

“Then why the hell did we just spend a WHOLE DAY digging around for it?!”

“You had fun, didn’t you~? I thought you all would enjoy a shopping spree~!”

That reply leaves Violet stunned, her maw hanging agape on the end of Fox’s tail. Fox, for her part, begins to crack up.

“Hehehe… HAAHAHAHA! I MEAN… I did have fun!! Didn’t you, Coyo?”

“I… I most certainly did,” I mumble, shaking from my own shock. Nowhere in the notes did it mention… My thoughts are interrupted by Fox springing up and throwing her arms around my shoulders and planting a kiss on my monitor. “Well, I suppose that even if we could have saved the trip, it was well worth it!”

“It sure was!! Now come on,” Fox says. “You owe me a dramatic reading of some vampire-slayer taunts!” Niamh slithers past us, hollering a toodle-oo over her shoulder at Jack.

“Did any of you want to pick up some candy on our way out of town?” She suggests.

“I am Bomba.”

“I didn’t know you had such a sweet tooth, master!”

“I betcha I can eat more than she can!!”

“It’s cheating if you get me to help.”

“Boooo! C’mon, Vi! We’re supposed to have each others’ backs!!!”

I love my wives.

And thus, we exit. The harvest moon now shines overhead instead of within Jack’s realm, lighting our way back to the truck, promising untold bounties; of magical pieces of history, of adventure, and of course, of candy.

I’m going to out-eat the rest of them combined.

#writeblr #fantasy #trans author #furry fiction #halloween #ascension #honestly theres a ton of references in here and while i COULD probably get a few extra eyes by tagging them all i'd rather not spam the tag #my writing #short story #indie author

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