Ficcery galore

He’s been standing in the beauty aisle for a while, eyes locked on a display of scrunchies. Every so often he’ll pick one up and give it a feel, rub the material between his fingers or twist it around to see how the sparkles catch the light. Then he puts it back. Repeats the action with a different one. Over and over.

It’s clearly an important decision. Joyce figures he’s got himself a girlfriend. She hopes so. 

She’s proud of him, in a way, for how much he’s grown. How much he’s changed. How he apologised and made things right. The way he jumped headfirst into danger to protect everyone. 

Good for him, she thinks, he deserves some happiness.

***

Joyce watches Billy from the corner of her eye. Doesn’t want to spook him. 

She doesn’t think he’s there to cause trouble but, even with the biggest benefit of the doubt, he is acting strangely.

He’s done a circuit of the shop at least five times now, doubling back on himself every so often to stand in front of the little shelf of Valentine’s Day cards. He does the same thing each time he gets there, Joyce notes, watching as he reaches out towards the cards and then pulls his arm back immediately as if he’s been burnt, running a hand through his hair or jamming it into his pocket before doing yet another lap of the store.

She’d never taken him for the nervous type. 

This one must be special.

About The Gentle Wolf

Omega Aodhan Donne has buried his past, his life revolves around his chocolaterie, Little Star, a place where he creates sweet and happy memories. Demisexual, and used to being shoved in the friends category by the time he falls for someone, he throws all his energy into creating romantic moments for others in his store, neglecting his needs. His highlight for two years has been the man who visits his shop every Tuesday. Beta Thomas Wilson is an historian who believes the past should be unearthed, working as the curator at Western Australia’s only shifter museum, educating children and adults about shifter history. Quiet and hard-working, he allows himself to visit Aodhan at Little Star once a week, as a treat. When Aodhan decides he wants to get know Thomas better, he offers him a window into a complicated history that influenced the lives of shifters in the whole of Australia, and faces the possibility of Thomas learning too much about his dark past. After deciding to take it slow, their unconventional relationship becomes a whirlwind, sweeping them up together and blowing open the doors hiding their painful pasts. They couldn’t face their truths alone, but if they’re willing to face them together, Aodhan and Thomas may get the love they’ve always yearned for.

OUT NOW AT AMAZON // KOBO // NOOK // APPLE

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The Gentle Wolf by Pia Foxhall (Perth Shifters #2) - Can be read as standalone! - Each book in the series focuses on different characters Queer (gay/demisexual ace spectrum character) m/m contemporary paranormal romance Set in Western Australia 99,800 words // 252 pages Cover by TiferetDesign Character art by Em Subscribe to the Foxhall Newsletter!

Curious about the world? 

An informal introduction to Aodhan and Thomas (with excerpt)

Five random things about Aodhan and Thomas

Blackwood (Perth Shifters #1)

Back in the day, before fan fiction was mainstream and even encouraged by creators… This was your “please don’t sue me, I’m poor and just here for a good time” plea.

I have zero problem with fanart/fic so long as the creators aren’t making money off of it. It is someone else’s intellectual property and people who create fan related works need to respect that (and a solid 98% of them do.)

The remaining 2% are either easily swayed by being gently prompted to not cash in on someone else’s IP. Or they DGAF… and they are the ones who will eventually land themselves in hot water. Either way: this isn’t much of an excuse to persecute your entire fanbase.

But Anne Rice went off the deep end with this stuff by actively attacking people who were expressing their love for her work and were not profiteering from it.

The Vampire Chronicles was a dangerous fandom to be in back in the day. Most of the works I read/saw were hidden away in the dark recesses of the internet and covered by disclaimers (a lot of them reading like thoroughly researched legal documents.)

And woe betide anyone who was into shipping anyone with ANYONE in that fandom. You were most at risk, it seemed, if your vision of the characters deviated from the creators ‘original intentions.’ (Hypocritical of a woman who made most of her living writing erotica.)

Imagine getting sued over a headcanon…

I think Supernatural (and Misha Collins specifically) was when that wall between fandom and creators started to break down. It’s a relatively new thing.

I remember going to a Merlin panel down in London and a girl sitting next to me asked the cast about slash and I thought she was going to get kicked out!

I was one of the ones who got a love letter from Anne Rice’s lawyers. Bear in mind that up until that point her publisher had encouraged fanfic and worked with the archive keeper (one of my roommates at the time) to drum up publicity for upcoming books and so on.

I could tell such tales of how much Anne screwed over her fans back then. The tl;dr version is that she and her peeps would use fan projects as free market research and then bring in the lawyers once it was felt Anne could make money off of it herself. (Talismanic Tours being one of the most offensive examples of this.)

But where fanfic is concerned not only did we get nastygrams but one of my friends had Anne’s lawyer trying to fuck up her own privately owned business which had NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING ANNE RELATED. Said friend was a small business owner with health issues who wasn’t exactly rolling in money, so guess how well that went?

On top of that when yours truly tried to speak out about it I discovered that someone in Anne’s camp had been cyber stalking me to the point where they took all the tiny crumbs of personal information I had posted over the course of five years or so and used it to doxx me (before that was even a term and in early enough days of the WWW that this wasn’t an easy task) and post VERY personal information about me on the main fandom message board of the time. Luckily for me the mod was my friend and she took that down post haste, but it was still oodles of fun feeling that violated and why to this day I am very strict about keeping my fandom and personal lives separate online.

Hence why those of us in the fandom at the time who still gave enough of a shit to want to keep writing fic DID keep writing fic, but shoved it so far underground and slapped it with so many disclaimers they could’ve outweighed the word count of War & Peace. It wasn’t just for the purpose of protecting fic but for trying to protect our personal lives as well.

My favourite bit I read from one included the idea that you weren’t allowed to have any explicit content, of which anything queer, no matter how tame, was included, to “preserve that innocence even Imperial crew members must be imagined to have”.

Yeah. The same Imperial crew members who helped build the Death Star to commit planetary genocide.

(It’s one reason Sinjir Velus, while I still have some issues with him, feels like such a delicious ‘f*** you’.)

Later on, they were apparently persuaded to ‘allow’ fans to write slash, provided in ‘remained within the nebulous bounds of good taste’.

OK, my position on fan-fic is pretty clear. I think it’s immoral, I _know_ it’s illegal, and it makes me want to barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters.

As if this weren’t already a strong statement coming from a woman who seems to be oddly invested in writing sexy assault scenes (not that there’s anything wrong with subversive female fantasies, but I’M JUST SAYING), Gabaldon continued in the same vein, comparing fanfic to home invasion and adultery (as well as other bizarre and unsavory things in her responses to the comments on the now-deleted post). When “fandom” rose from the depths of Livejournal to challenge her, she became even more offensive and belligerent, and other popular writers (such as George RR Martin, who was ironcially part of the Livejournal fandom culture himself) came to her defense. This “debate” led to a number of think pieces in mainstream media about how entitled and ungrateful fans were destroying traditional publishing, not to mention high-profile male creators publicly complaining about cosplay, teenage girls attending comic conventions, and other visible manifestations of fandom.

What has changed since then is that the young people (primarily women) whose work was nurtured in fandom communities have become professionals, and they’re transforming the entertainment industry from the inside. Fanfic writers are now publishing original novels and editing their own literary magazines for genre fiction. Fan artists are now working for Marvel and DC and putting out original graphic novels with major presses. Video game fans work as programmers and localizers, and cosplay enthusiasts have become character and set designers.

whispered passwords to locked forums passed through private messages, praying the person you were inviting wasn’t just looking to out you and get you kicked from the main fandom areas.

Remember when literary agents would message fanfic writers and tell them they would NEVER represent anyone who had ever in their entire lives written even a single fanfic, and that the only shot anyone had at ever being published was to delete their fanfic and never write any again?  And then if you dared talk about this, you’d be told a confusing jumble of “that’s absolutely true, nobody wants to represent someone who doesn’t follow the rules” and “you’ll never be published anyway, why give up your hobby for an impossible pipedream?”

Remember when all fanfiction was considered plagiarism in academic circles and students could face disciplinary actions for writing it even though it had nothing whatsoever to do with their classes?

Remember that scare when fanfiction was on the verge of being declared criminal in the US, as part of some draconian anti-net-neutrality legislation (there have now been so many I’ve forgotten which one), and everyone was frantically backing up their favorites lest sites go dark?

I’m still sad that DW didn’t take over for LJ fandom space. It was a much better system than tumblr tbh.

Ah, memories.

And as far as i know, there’s STILL a list of authors listed on ff.n whose stories yooure not allowed to write about. At one stage, agreeing to the terms and conditions on that site included ticking a box swearing that you weren’t writing in any of those authors fandoms.

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celebrities to publicly state their preferences/level of comfort regarding fans creating intimate works of fiction/art featuring their likenesses

7K Follower Appreciation

Thank you all so much for following and helping find fics. You guys are the BEST!!!! 💜  A huge shoutout to my squad (x) (x) and everyone that has been generous enough to send donations. I appreciate it so much!!! 

Reblog or like this post until October 11, 2020 for a chance to win!

Getting mail out has been a little frustrating lately so sadly this is a US only giveaway and the prizes are just VERY small care packages. It does include some teen wolf pins and postcard size art so come and play if you want more sterek merchandise! 

Rules and boring (but necessary) info

Reblog/Like until OCTOBER 11th

You can enter twice.  Likes and reblogs count equally.

Sorry, I am only shipping within the US

You must be following me.

Winners will be chosen by a random selection generator.

Winners will be notified via DM. And will have 2 days to claim their gift.

No giveaway blogs allowed!

As per Tumblr’s giveaway policies I must state that Tumblr is in no way affiliated with this giveaway and you must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent’s permission to enter.

I will select THREE winners on October 11th. Thank you all and good luck!  

since y'all liked my Billy painting, here’s my take on King Steve from a few days ago

It’s like… okay, let’s say there’s a dog park. The dog park is sprawling and super popular among owners of all dog breeds and sizes. There are separate spaces for terriers and large dogs with signs posted so you know what types of dogs are allowed where. All of the sudden, some small dog owners, the ones with teacup poodles and yorkies or whatnot, decide that the pit bulls all the way on the other side of the park are a PROBLEM because pits are dangerous. Doesn’t matter if they only play in the one area that is specifically designated for them, and there are warning signs indicating their presence. They’re a breed that shouldn’t exist because what if a child tried to pet one? 

Think of the children! 

No matter that children aren’t allowed in the pitbull section; they might break in unaccompanied by an adult to pet some pitbulls. All pitbull owners are dangerous, irresponsible assholes who want nothing more than to train their pits to eat small dogs and attack kids. In fact, if you have ever owned a pit, not only are you a bad person, you are a literal murderer who trains your dog to attack children on sight. 

Think of the children!

The anti-pitbull crowd is persistent, and pits are not very popular in general, and a lot of people don’t like them, so the dog park decides to ban pitbulls. But the purge also sweeps away German Shepherds (a popular but potentially dangerous breed also known as explicit slash) and Boxers and other large dogs. Maybe some of these dogs were dogs the anti-pitbull crowd even liked, but hey, all is done in the name of safety, right? Because:

Think of the children!

It’s not that you can’t find pitbulls in the dog park anymore. They’re still there, except now they aren’t tagged and easily identified as pitbulls and aren’t confined to one area. They’re much easier to stumble across by accident. But hey, maybe 1 or 2 of them will be reported and kicked out for a spell until the owner sneaks them in again. It’s not like anyone is really checking every single dog at the door for pit ancestry. It’s too unwieldy; there are millions of dogs and not enough staff to do so, and they can’t quite agree on what a pitbull is anyway.

Anyways, a few of the dog owners think this is bullshit. Maybe some own pits but mostly they own like Golden Retrievers and Black Labs (that are technically still allowed in the park, for now, but hey, you never know what will happen). They decide they’re going to build their own dog park where all dogs are welcome as long as they stay in their designated sections. It’s a small operation at first, but it’s free and staffed with enthusiastic volunteers, and as more dogs are booted out of the first dog park, some entire segments of dog owners (including many that don’t own pits) gravitate to the new dog park. It’s friendlier there. They accept everyone, and won’t randomly kick out the odd bulldog for looking pit-like. All their friends are starting to go to the new dog park. 

New dog park grows, gains a lot of traction over the old dog park, and becomes the place to be.

Only now, the anti-pitbull crowd is also there. They use it frequently and like its amenities, but there’s only one problem. They allow pitbulls here. Nevermind that they’re tagged and in their designated area. What if a child tried to pet one?

Think of the children!

So they start reporting pitbulls. The pitbulls are a danger to society; they should be taken out back and shot. Why TF would anyone allow pitbulls into their dog parks??? The staff looks at them, shrugs, and points out their policy, which has been there since the beginning, which is the reason for their popularity and what everyone agreed to when they entered the dog park, that says All Dogs Allowed. 

‘But that’s not right,’ the anti-pitbull crowd screeches. 

Think of the children!

Other dog owners point out that old dog park still exists; they don’t have to frequent this one.

‘But this dog park is more popular! More people will play and interact with my dog here!’ they say, stomping their feet. ‘You should accommodate me and my preferences.’

‘No.’

They throw themselves to the floor, thrashing their arms about, in full tantrum mode. ‘Then I rather this dog park not exist. It is a danger to children everywhere!.’

Think of the children!

Think of the Goddamn children!

Gorgeous Beach Boys! ❤️

subway au!harringrove

“You two make a cute couple.” 

Steve nearly misses the comment, his airpods just loud enough to drown out most sound on the subway. But the girl smiling at him had said it with deliberate volume, over the roar of the car. 

He blinks up at her from his copy of IT, tugging a pod out before he looks rude. 

“Sorry?” He asks, confused momentarily until the weight on his shoulder jostles just so. A turn in the track. 

The head on his shoulder had been a surprise at first, but Steve’s steadily forgotten it for almost ten minutes now. It’s not like his neighbor is a stranger.

They’ve been riding the same stops for months now. It’d been a nice surprise when Steve started riding the subway to class when his car bit the dirt. He’d expected to spend the ride with his eyes on the ground. 

But then he’d seen the most beautiful man step onto the train beside him and he’d been unable to ignore him. The height, broad shoulders and curly blond hair. Fit in every sense of the word. His silent subway crush is always dressed casual for class, but never goes the same way Steve does on campus. Steve thinks he might be an engineer, spotting an electronic engineering textbook on more than one occasion. Back and forth they’d gone, for months, clearly taking classes the same time of day. Day after day. Steve just never got up the courage to do anything about it. 

The logical thing would be to ask his name. But he only knows him as the ‘hot subway guy’. 

Robin ridicules him constantly.

“You two.” The girl motions to his sleeping companion with the phone in her hand, then her eyes are back on Steve. “You’re sweet together.”

“Uh.” Steve wants to say they’re not together, which would make sense because they’re not. But because of the way the sleeping man on his shoulder makes him feel needed, weighed down by a simple touch, he doesn’t say anything. He laughs, soft, and feels his face heat at the cheeks. “Thanks.” 

Hi anon!

A bit of a disclaimer first (or an educational crash course), asexuality is a huge spectrum, and doesn’t ever mean the absence of sexual feelings or libido, though some asexual people don’t really feel either. Anyone who has an erogenous zone can still feel aroused through stimulation of that erogenous zone.

Asexuality just means ‘the absence of sexual attraction’ which is not the same thing as never feeling sexual ‘feelings’ (like say, arousal, or finding a kink hot). Some aces describe themselves as sex positive (me!) and some describe themselves as sex averse or sex negative. I’m gray-asexual, which means like, a very limited amount of times I have felt sexual attraction, however, I have never based a single one of my relationships (sexual or otherwise) on the need to have sex, because I do not find it to be something I want or need on a regular basis, and I’ve never wanted my relationships to be predicated on that as a requirement.

Every ace is different, and there’s lots of different terms within asexuality and lots of different ways of trying to explain where you really fit on that spectrum. But the asexual and aromantic spectrums are as diverse as the sexual and romantic spectrums, so I’m definitely not speaking on behalf of everyone here, just myself. Not ‘asexuals.’ Not even ‘gray-asexuals.’

*

Okay! So. (Jump down to my tl;dr if you want to skip the essay, lmao).

Firstly, I do write my sex scenes with a view to hopefully arousing most of my readers (unless they’re meant to feel awkward or traumatising or w/e). That’s the point! I’ve used fanfiction as masturbatory material myself, and honestly I think it’s fucking awesome when people use my stuff for that too. That’s a big deal. As far as I’m concerned, orgasms are great, and I’m not against those lol.

However, there’s a few things going on re: not really engaging in arousal when writing. If I’m writing a scene where a character feels dizzy, I don’t want to feel dizzy to pull that off. If I’m writing a scene where a character is drowning, I don’t want to be drowning in that moment to pull it off. I don’t want to be writing about a character laughing hysterically, and laughing hysterically so that I can no longer type properly in the moment. If I’m writing a scene where a character is aroused, I don’t want to be aroused to pull it off. It’s distracting. I want to be focused on the quality of the writing, and the components of the scene that I believe will make it arousing, but also complex and interesting.

As I said in my last post, sometimes I will reread and find that scene arousing myself! But I don’t want to be in that ‘zone’ while I’m writing. That’s a personal choice. It weirds me out that other people will want to feel ‘aroused’ while writing scenes of arousal, but they’re not seeking out every other physical stimulus while they’re writing that. Like, on the other hand, if that’s how they enjoy writing, that’s awesome. It sounds like they’re definitely enjoying the process, anyway, lol. 

One of the reasons I think my sex scenes work for the people who enjoy them is that I don’t actually write sex scenes where the arousal is based on sexual attraction. You will notice that almost none of my characters look at another character and generally feel like boning, lmao.

Sexual arousal is layered through emotion, touching, physical stimulus, engagement, kink, dialogue, and very rarely ‘I looked at someone’s body and suddenly I thought sex was a great idea.’ If I do use it, it’s rare, and never to keep the scene going. Because of this, my erotica scenes are more accessible to people who don’t experience sexual attraction, and don’t find scenes like ‘I saw his abs and needed to touch them and got hard’ believable (I used to think stuff like this was a myth, frankly, and realising that no, this...is a thing that happens for some people, was like...very odd to me). My stuff doesn’t work for all allosexual people or all asexual people, but it pulls in a pretty good mix of folks. :D

I can’t read and enjoy any romance or erotica books that predicate their sex scenes purely on sexual attraction. To me it’s so insubstantial, because it’s not something I relate to. So I wrote sex scenes that I enjoyed, but never with a view to feeling aroused while writing them. I also think the tumblr memes like ‘you can spot an author’s kinks by their sex scenes’ is also bullshit. I write quite a few kinks I’ve a) never experienced and b) never been interested in experiencing. They suit the characters, and that’s all that matters to me. :D

I suppose it’s like... idk. This is a hard one to explain and also it’s not just something some asexual folk feel strongly about? I know erotica writers who feel like it’s unprofessional to be distracted by their own arousal while writing sex scenes. It’s partly that - I’m not interested in writing things that I find arousing I’m interested in writing a good sex scene. If I can do both, great, but I don’t want to be distracted by the first so that I don’t execute the latter.

I can’t tell you how many erotica scenes I’ve read that have suddenly a million spelling and grammar errors and you can literally tell the writer got so absorbed (read: turned on) by what they were writing, that their writing got sloppy. Obviously that doesn’t happen re: every writer that writes this way, but I can spot it from a mile off. They privileged their own physiological reaction over the quality of the story.

In fanfiction, that doesn’t matter, you can 100% do that. But idk I’ve written like 170+ sex scenes and the actual craft of a well-done sex scene is just...really important to me these days.

Michael Stipes (REM) or Bono (U2) said to Thom Yorke (Radiohead) in 2001 (or around there) that crying during performing was generally unprofessional and a selfish act. Because if you’re so focused on your emotional reaction, you can’t deliver a good creative work; you’re basically engaging in self-wank that you might as well not share with others.

I don’t agree with this always. In fact in certain circumstances I don’t agree with it at all. But sometimes I really do. Think of it this way: Sometimes a singer getting choked up during a song makes it way more powerful. But if that singer starts crying so hard they can’t continue, or you can no longer make out the lyrics or the music, or you can’t access or feel the strong emotion the singer is feeling because they can’t convey it properly; they fucked up. That’s a professional error. They probably need a hug and some therapy and to figure out how to emote their songs in ways that are like ‘gently choked up while still singing mostly in pitch and making others get choked up with them’ lol.

I have written scenes that have made me cry while I’ve been writing them. But it doesn’t mean they’re good. It means I have to be ultra careful when I edit them, to make sure that is conveyed to others. Just because I felt it doesn’t mean I wrote it. But I’ve also written scenes that have made people cry that didn’t make me cry, but I knew it was a fucking powerful scene as I wrote it. Likewise, if I’m feeling aroused during a scene that I’m writing, it’s a huge red flag that I’ll need to go through that with a fine toothed comb to make sure whatever is in there that I felt, is also communicating to others. I can’t just assume that because my body reacted, the writing is good. That’s...never a thing.

If that was true, then the days I hate my writing would mean that the writing I produce on that day is bad. That’s very rarely true as well. Often it’s really good writing!

normalize fans being reminded that boundaries between fandom and creators exist for a reason.

normalize fans recognizing their own creative potential without seeking canon validation

normalize the idea that fandom is a hobby, not an identity to threaten and fight and harass people over

normalize a healthy understanding of the boundaries between fiction and reality

“I dare you to hold hands with Steve Harrington for the next two hours,” Cody Summers, quarterback by day, douchebag by night, yells just as Steve is about to enter the kitchen. He turns on reflex when he hears his name, to what looks like an entire room of Hawkins High’s most popular members of the current senior class staring back at him. Staring at Billy Hargrove, who looks flushed with alcohol and his typical brand of ‘ready to have an aggressively good time’. His dark blue shirt is unbuttoned so far, you can probably see his navel if you look down.

Steve shouldn’t have come. Nowadays he’s only barely high enough on the social totem pole to not get thrown out of parties, courtesy of the two joints he brought to share. Most people here he can have smalltalk with, but getting drunk and high on his own without a real group of friends anymore just. Isn’t fun.  Before the meaning of the dare properly registers, Cody smugly adds “Oh, are you too chicken shit to pull it off?” and suddenly Billy jumps up from his place in the loose circle of people on the floor.  “Hell no! As if I’d lose a dare because of Harrington,” he spits back as he zeroes in on Steve, still frozen in the kitchen entrance. 

don’t apologize for requesting stuff! I love getting these.

Also it’s big projecting time

-

“You wanna go out tonight?” Billy was hopping as he tugged on his jeans.

“Can’t tonight. Goin’ out with some of the guys from the shop.” Steve bit his bottom lip.

Billy had started working at the autoshop down by Family Video, the owner had taken him under his wing, and Steve was glad Billy had made some friends, had some positive men in his life.

And he was excited that Billy had made friends in this town when Billy announced he was going out with them after their Friday closing shift.

But then he kept going out with them, and started hanging out with them more than Steve.

“Have fun.” Billy swooped down, kissing Steve on the forehead before booking it out of their little apartment.

Steve huffed, slumping back onto the bed.

He kinda felt like he could cry.

He and Billy hadn’t gone out together in weeks.

Billy was barely home for dinner these days.

It made Steve feel like when he was in high school, with parents that were never around and friends that didn’t give two shits about him.

He called out of work, couldn’t really bear to be seen or interacted with today.

He stayed in bed all day, counting down the hours until Billy’s shift was over.

He watched the clock, the blanket pulled up so just his eyes were peering out.

He watched as the clock kept ticking, as an hour passed since Billy’s shift had ended.

And then two hours.

And then three.

Steve did start crying at the four hour mark.

It was getting late, and Billy still wasn’t home.

Steve got out of bed for the first time today, locking the bedroom door.

Billy can sleep on the fucking couch for all he cares.

He had move past sad now, had sped right into seething.

He slammed himself back into bed.

He sat there, arms crossed, pouting at the locked door.

He put everything into his relationship with Billy. Everything.

He barely had any friends, spending all of his time with his boyfriend who fucking ignored him.

But no, he can’t be mad at Billy for making new friends. It’s not his fault Steve has no fucking social skills, no fucking friends his own age.

But even the kids had been pulling away.

Dustin hadn’t radioed him for a ride or to hang out in like, a week.

And he was right back sad.

but then keys were scraping in the lock of the front door.

Billy’s boots were heavy in the entry hall.

Steve could hear him stumbling around, and dove back under the covers, peeking out from underneath them.

The handle jiggled. Steve’s breath caught.

Billy knocked on the door.

“Hey, Stevie,” His voice was deep and raspy, just a little slurred. “The door’s locked.”

“That’s because I locked it.” Steve popped out from under the covers to talk back, scooting back under them afterwards.

“Um, why?”

“Because I don’t wanna see you.”

He could feel Billy sigh through the door.

“Baby, can we not do this tonight?”

“We’re not doing this tonight. We’re gonna do it in the morning. After a nice sleep apart.” Billy sighed again.

“Fine. Goodnight, I guess.”

Steve felt a little vindictive at the sound of Billy walking away, the sound of the couch groaning under his weight.

And then he just felt like shit again.

He sat on the bed, chewing at one of his cuticles.

He should go talk to Billy.

But Billy was drunk, and talking to Billy while drunk is talking talking to the world’s horniest brick wall.

He slumped back onto the bed.

He missed Billy, missed him so fucking bad it hurt.

There was a soft rap on the door.

Steve glanced at the clock, Billy had been home for an hour and a half.

“Sugar, I don’t like it when you’re mad at me.” Billy sounded miserable.

Steve huffed, getting up slowly.

He unlocked the door, retreating back to bed.

Billy opened it slowly, found Steve sitting nestled in their bed, his eyes big and bright.

“Talk to me, Goose.” He perched on the end of the bed.

Steve wasn’t looking him in the eye. Bad sign. Fucking bad sign.

“It’s stupid.” Worse sign. Even worse sign.

“Baby, it’s not stupid if it’s makin’ you feel bad.” Billy had chucked about two gallons of water before this talk, trying to sober himself up for this.

“It is stupid.” Billy reached for his hand, and Steve pulled his out of the way. Oh God. Oh God. Code red.

“It’s not. Please tell me what’s on your mind. Please, Pretty Boy.”

“Do you still love me?”

Sirens were fucking blaring in Billy’s head.

This was fucking bad.

“Of course I still love you. What’s this about?” Steve shrugged, still looking at the duvet covering his lap.

“I just feel like you’ve been ignoring me.” Billy took a deep breath.

“Can you tell me why you’ve been feeling like that?” Steve huffed, one of his eyebrows twitching up.

“Because we haven’t been on a date, or, or eaten dinner together, or, or had sex in like, a fucking month, and it makes me feel like shit, Billy, because I’m happy that you have friends, and people that take care of you, but I-I” Steve’s lip was trembling, tears pricking at his eyes. “Nobody cares about me anymore and, I don’t think they ever did, and I’m unlovable-” he was openly crying, letting everything flood out.

Billy was panicking.

He tugged Steve’s shoulders, pulling him into a tight hug.

“You are not unlovable. You are so loved. I absolutely love you. I’m sorry I’ve made you feel forgotten. I’m gonna work on it, okay? I’ll be home for dinner, and we’ll go out again, okay? I promise.”

Steve was heaving in his arms, wailing into Billy’s chest.

“Nobody cares.”

“So many people care. So many.”

“The kids don’t need me for rides anymore, and you have other people in your life, and my parents were right.”

That was the final straw.

Billy took Steve’s face in both his hands, making him look up at him.

“Your parents were not right, about anything. Not a damn thing.” Steve was still crying, Billy kissed his teary cheeks. “You are just made of love, Sweet Thing. You’re loved by so many. And the kids are just growin’ up. Going through that phase where they’re too cool for their parents.”

Steve gave a watery little smile. Progress.

“I’m sorry I made you feel bad.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“But it is. I mean, I love spending time with you. And I should’ve been more available to you.”

“But I can’t fault you for making friends. It’s not my fault I have none.”

“You’ve got Robin. I’m sure she’d be down for a night of wine on the couch.” Steve huffed a laugh. “But I’ll stop going out with them.”

“No, I don’t want that. I just, we need to find a balance. Like, have a set date night that we can’t miss. Or, or, something. You have friends and I want you to keep having friends. Just maybe, we gotta make time for each other.” Billy nodded seriously.

“You feelin’ any better?” Steve nodded, gave Billy a tiny smile. “Good. Can we go to bed now? Talk some more in the morning?”

“Yeah. And you can sleep in here. I’m sorry I locked you out.”

“I’m just glad you let me in.” Billy rolled over Steve, making him laugh as he put all of his weight on Steve.

He scoot up behind him, pulling Steve close to him.

“Wait, is that-”

“Sorry. I’m still kinda drunk, and apparently working shit out like grown ups makes me horny.”