jadequeen88

[jadequeen88]

𝐒𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭, 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐲

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬 | Perhaps the karma gods of the world were just as perverted as Hawkins’ residential Freak, Eddie Munson, himself, as the perfect opportunity to lay his hands on you arose when you go searching for helpless students to tutor.

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | Swearing, brief mentions of religion, naivety, feelings of embarrassment, perversion, and explicit sexual content: fondling, minimal spanking, mentions of virginity, mentions of female masturbation, male masturbation, tiny praise kink, stuffed animal humping, clit rubbing, handjob, oral (both receiving), corruption kink, cum eating and dubcon (just precautionary).

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞 | I tried to be gross! Sorry it took so long. It's quite hard writing about a plotline that doesn't pertain to Eddie being mad at us for taking his picture and putting it in the yearbook (my series, you should read it). I'm trying to get into the groove of writing, so I apologize in advance if this is literal butt cheeks, I tried. Also, you will be getting an unwarranted history lesson.

𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐬, 𝐃𝐨 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭.

“…Man, I told Jeff that my mom would get pissed off if he left his beer cans in the garage, and he was all like, “Nah, dude, I promise I’ll pick ‘em up,” and he didn’t! Of course, he didn’t…”

In retrospect, tuning out the complaints of Gareth Emerson may not have been the smartest moves, as Corroded Coffin had just lost their only space to freely practice. You know, where they wouldn’t get dirty looks and threats of the police for public disturbance. And surely, as lead guitarist and singer of such an aspiring band, Eddie Munson would have been fully engrossed at the sudden mention of the deterrence into their path to wealth, fame, and glory… right? No. Because this is Eddie Munson we’re talking about here. And behind that domineering rockstar facade of leather jackets, clinking chains, gaudy jewelry, and a tight- tight pair of denim pants, yes, behind those pair of pants was a pulsating cock that was desperate to grow twice its softened size just two minutes and twenty-three seconds before he had to face Mrs. Wither’s biology class, all because Eddie Munson saw you.

Why- why on God’s green Earth would he ever choose to listen to the cracking voice of Gareth Emerson, when you were literally standing right across the hall, not even four yards away? The skirt. The fucking teeny tiny, baby pink, short skirt you decided to wear, the one Eddie was sure that if you bent forward even just a little bit, he would be flashed with the sexy crease of your fat ass cheeks meeting your doughy thighs, and he was desperate to be smothered by it. 

“…So yeah, we can’t practice at my house anymore.” Gareth lamented. That’s when he noticed the oh so obvious, blatantly clear, totally discernable trance of his friend, realizing his entire tangent just deliquesced into thin air with no acknowledgement whatsoever. Gareth slammed his locker shut. “You weren’t even listening to me!”

Eddie’s eyes finally shot away at the bleated tone of Gareth’s rightful attitude. “‘Scuse me? I totally was listening.” He hissed back, evidently not amused with the embarrassing fact that he was caught red-handed. 

“No, you weren’t.” Gareth groused, looking back to follow the ghost trail that once was Eddie’s distracted eye line, which is when he landed on you. “You were just checking out that girl.”

“That girl has a name, y’know?” Eddie retorted.

“That girl isn’t going to help us find a place to practice!” Gareth retaliated. “Stop looking for chicks to score, I’m serious.”

“Hey,” Eddie perked, as he stood straight, countering his friend, “y’know, she’s actually really smart and, like, super fucking funny-”

His friend could only incredulously scoff. “Oh, right, because you’ve totally had a conversation with her.”

“I-I’ve… stood next to her a-and have heard her talk to her friends.” Definitely not the riposte Eddie hoped to shoot out. The stuttering sure as hell didn’t help.

“Oh, so you’re a stalker.” Gareth nonchalantly derided, leaving Eddie to deadpan him. “Look, whatever, man, you can perv on girls all you want, but we have bigger issues at hand, dude. Where the hell are we supposed to practice?” Eddie’s chest ended up being victimized by the harsh poke of Gareth’s stern finger. And if he wasn’t so annoyed with his friend, he would have winced, because that actually kinda hurt a little. But just a little. Eddie’s ego wasn’t about to take a hit today. 

He rolled his eyes with a sigh. “Relax, alright? We’ll work our way around it.”

Truthfully, Eddie had no actual plans of working their way around it, in fact, it was quite a large issue he should have prioritized, but that could wait. Should it? No. But it would. Yes. Surely, staring at you was more of a fun game. He’d done that for the past two years he’d known of you, and he never got tired of it, I mean, how could he? One day—he always chalked up—he would get the balls to actually speak to you. You were always so nice, so sweet, skirting around the halls of Hawkins High that Eddie felt were too unworthy for your leisure, smiling and waving at any and everyone. Last Tuesday, the day you met his perverted eyes—oblivious to his hungry stares—and kindly threw him a beguiling smile as if it wasn’t the most dangerous weapon on Earth, was the day Eddie Munson skipped fourth period and jerked his aching cock in the dingy stall of the boys’ bathroom, before speeding home to fold his pillow in half and slide himself into the makeshift pussy just to fuck it with screwed shut eyes to invision the perfect image of you laying on your back with bouncing tits.

But unfortunately, that was just a dream Eddie Munson would have to deduce himself into every night, because the reality of you ever actually speaking to him was tragically low. Mostly because Eddie was scared he’d stutter and fuck up in front of you. It was embarrassingly shameful when it occurred in the comfort of his own bedroom, as he acted out what he would say to you in the mirror. You literally weren’t even there and he still tripped over his words!

But maybe the karma gods were finally aligning with his life, because he watched you happily place a “Need a Tutor?” sign on the bulletin board of the main hall, with little slips of your phone number ready to tear off and grab for anyone needing some “intimate one-on-one session time.” And, my god, was Eddie Munson anguished for that, so when the pink thumbtack stabbed your preciously designed poster into the cluttered corkboard, and you walked away with a innocent smile that was ready to help anyone in need, Eddie could hear an angel receiving its wings in the distance, as a harp played, and a choir harmonized heavenly, because his mind was stirring with the endless possibilities of raunchy and crude wet dreams. And Eddie was finally receiving a chance to dive into some pussy galore. Gross. 

“Oh, yeah, and how exactly do you plan on doing that? My drum kit can’t fit in your trailer, Grant’s grandma nearly had a heart attack the last time we practiced at his place, and Jeff’s mom still thinks it’s the “devil's music,” so what exactly is your plan here, hotshot?” Gareth scoffed.

“My plan?” Eddie chimed with a menacing smirk. “Oh, well I plan on getting tutored by my future wife.” He slyly leered, as he sauntered his away to your advertisement, Gareth following behind feeling beyond the definitions of vexation. 

“You’re actually insane, y’know that?” Gareth exhaled, as he watched Eddie eagerly tear off a slip and examine it with a prodding tongue through his lips. “This says for anyone needing a tutor in history.” Gareth pointed out. 

Eddie shrugged, as your number slipped into the back pocket of his jeans. “So?”

“You’re not even taking history!” Gareth stressed, as the bell rang to commence class. “What are you gonna do when you show up completely clueless?”

“Dude, she’s looking for idiots to tutor,” Eddie patted him on the shoulder, “she’s expecting cluelessness. And I am the perfect guy. Kay?” He triumphantly smiled. “Stop stressing, go to class. And don’t worry, I’ll send you an invitation to our wedding. Thinkin’ of making it BDSM theme.”

Gareth grimaced. 

Eddie Munson may not have caught onto the obvious insult he just hurled to himself, but that didn’t matter. Not when he had a call to make after school.

-

The ticking minutes of the afternoon couldn’t have passed by any slower, as Eddie managed to work up every excuse in the book to get his uncle, Wayne, to leave early for work: grab some lunch at Benny’s before hand, stop for some coffee at the local cafe, show up an hour early to impress the bosses—though, the bosses didn’t pay Wayne enough for him to feel the need to turn up before his scheduled shift—and soon the minutes turned into hours, and the sun would be setting soon. Eddie could feel you slipping through his grasp, as someone who probably actually needed a tutor was bound to call you before he could- or worse, some sick perv with the same bright idea as him would call you. Though Eddie Munson was adamant on the fact that none of the other guys who creeped on you could take care of you like he could.

Sure, the only experience he ever had was when the older bartender with bouncy hair offered to show the lead singer of Corroded Coffin a “special thank you,” which promptly led him to losing his virginity in the loathsome bathroom of the Hideout, which also led to a frantic eighteen-year-old Eddie anxiously running to the local health clinic for STDs testing when it dawned on him that he just had unprotected sex with a stranger during the dangerous minutes of post-nut clarity. But, Eddie Munson was still a hormonal teenager, and once the negative results cleared him from the nerve-wracking chlamydia or gonorrhea scare, he laid back and relished on the memory of having sex and, well, by the sounds of it—if his memory serves him right—she seemed to enjoy it, too. Granted, Eddie never engaged in any more of her efforts to try again because- well, he was left scarred, but all that is beyond the point. The point is Eddie Munson wanted to be the one to love on you, dote on you, make you feel so fucking good that you were programmatically addicted to him- to his cock. 

Oh, fuck, he’s hard already. 

But finally, as the clock struck six o’clock, his uncle waved him goodbye, and Eddie had ran through the numerous piles of clothes in the trailer—ones he promised to fold—and slammed into the wall phone to begin his endeavors. The crumpled slip of your phone number had been retrieved from his back pocket, and he skimmed the digits, letting his fingers dial as he read each number. It was nowhere near remotely possible, but Eddie Munson had even managed to find your phone number to be so sexy. Mm, so even and divisible. God, he was sick. But nonetheless, the phone rang and rang, and he was muttering the “c’mon, pick up, pick up” mantra to lead him one step closer to you. Communicating through a phone would surely ease his worries about potentially screwing up. He just had to take a deep breath and let the conversation flow itself. But, shit, it was ringing for far too long. You were probably already knees deep into some boring textbook with a helpless classmate, or getting flirted by Nathan Cavanugh, who Eddie once saw check you out; or you were probably cuddling up with Bryce Walters, who would always lean against your locker to sweet talk you during school; or, fuck, you could have already been getting handsy with Harrison Moran, who would always come up and hug you after a footba-

“Hello?” Oh, shit.

“Oh- I mean, uh, hi.” This wasn’t going to work. He was already slipping up. Eddie had never internally cringed so hard, his hand pragmatically slapped his forehead in disbelief, but his mouth just kept moving. “It’s, um, me.” Me?! How the fuck would you know who me is?!

“Oh, my god, hi, Eddie!” You perked with giddiness. What the fuck?

He stammered with confusion, “Wait… how’d you know it was me- like, me, Eddie?” 

“Duh, your voice, silly.” You giggled, as Eddie huffed a breathy chuckle, and leaned against the wall with a curling lip. Maybe this could work. 

“Oh, yeah? You recognize my voice, sweetie?” His lit into a teasing, sultry crisp that had you flustered on the other line. 

“Well, yeah. I mean, you’re always making quite the scene during lunch.” You delicately laughed into the receiver. “I guess it just kinda got stuck in my head, like, you know, when you hear a catchy song?”

Eddie sucked in a breath, as his hand played with the hem of his shirt to tease his sensitive naval with soft touches, and you could thoroughly hear the smirk of his grin oozing through his words. “Oh, really?” He teased rhetorically. “Yeah, no, I understand. I can happily say the same for you, sweetheart. Got such a pretty voice.”

“Oh,” you were clearly rattled, as his compliment hit you, “th-thank you, Eddie. You’re so nice.”

“Aw, well, actually, sweetheart, it’s you who’s so nice. Offering others your help with tutoring, just so sweet, aren’t ya, huh? It’s actually why I’m calling.” He smiled. “You wanna… help me out, princess?”

“Yes, I’d love to!” Your bubbly voice made it certain that you were ready to genuinely help him with his studies, and provide him with the needed lessons. It could almost make Eddie feel guilty. Almost. But his dick was thumping with eagerness, and he was containing all restraints to keep from pressing his bulge against the paneling of the wall to your sickly sweet voice, and thrusting his hips. That would be a new low. Even for him. “I’ve been waiting forever for someone to call, Eds, you don’t even understand. I was beginning to think nobody needed a tutor.” 

“Oh, no, sweet girl, I can assure you I desperately need a helping hand.” He sighed, as the rings on his finger began dancing around the protrusion of his pants, applying just a small amount of pressure. “And I’d fucking love yours.” Your innocent mind absolutely swooned at the opportunity to aid his learning, completely unbeknownst to Eddie’s perverted meaning.

“That’s great, I’d love to help you, Eddie.” You gushed, and Eddie’s teeth had to bite down onto his lip to uphold the self-control of being so desperate he was debating dry humping the wall. “Are you able to come over tonight?

“Oh, yeah, baby, I’ll definitely be coming tonight.” As soon as the call would end, Eddie Munson would drop to his knees and repent all the wrongdoings of his life, if it meant this actually working out for him. It’s doesn’t necessarily fall under the codes of Catholicism to exactly pray in front of the random “Bless this house, O Lord we pray, Make it safe by night and day” calendar with the hopes of finally having sex with his high school crush, but Eddie wasn’t exactly the type to carry around his own crucifix for an impromptu prayer, and he was truly just really fucking horny for you. And he was also smart enough to know his luck. If his life taught him anything, you would actually say that plans came up and you would be too busy to tutor him, and just like that, his opportunity would have disintegrated into dust. Now, while the possibility of that occurring was plausible, it genuinely should not have garnered him the idea to suddenly believe in divine interference and pray to a calendar that he’d get laid, but Eddie Munson did it anyway. Because you had him that fucking forlorn.  

“How does seven-thirty sound? You can come over then, does that work for you?” You were already planning the layout for your study session, when all Eddie could think about was caressing your figure.

“Absolutely.” He affirmed with a tight breath when his teeth bloodied his lip.

“Great, I’ll see you then, Eddie- oh, wait, before you go, do you like cookies? I can make us some as a snack.” God, you really were so fucking sweet.

“Shit,” Eddie mumbled under his breath, “cookies? Yeah, I like cookies, sweetheart. Can’t fucking wait to taste them.”

“Okay, good, I’ll gladly make you some!” You cheered with excitement. “I’ll see you soon!”

Attending high school for six years would surely be more than enough time to, I don’t know, memorize at least one thing about the many lessons Eddie had to endure—science, math, hell, even construction—but nothing cemented into his mind more clearly than the address you’d given him- the address he’d fuck you at… hopefully. God, he could already picture it so vividly. Your pink room of frills and silk. The room where you study. Where you sleep. Where you change. Where you lick your fingers and snake your hand under the lace of your panties to rub your pussy to the thought of being fucked- 

Oh, how the hell was he ever going to survive being in your house?

-

Eddie Munson had stared about the likes of your neighborhood for a good five minutes, finding the audacity to suddenly play undercover detective as a means of “scoping out the scene” to ensure the sanctity of his sexual endeavors. Perhaps the karma gods were desperate to get this twenty-year-old man laid—they had to be tired of the countless prayers for pussy that flooded their heavenly inbox—as Mrs. Winthrop, the forty-something-year-old lady of fancy tracksuits and shiny pearls who loved to patrol the regulations of the HOA, was, fortunately, accompanying her newlywed seventy-something-year-old husband at the City Hall’s Annual Fundraiser Banquet. Had she decided to not meddle into the world of small town aristocrats to weasel her way into her elderly husband’s will, she would have surely caught wind of Eddie Munson’s suspicious activity, and had your house flooded with flashing reds and blues as he sat in the backseat of a police car; hands in cuffs and boner in boxers. 

But Mrs. Winthrop hadn’t been home. And Eddie had deliberated the risk of a possible wandering neighbor catching a glimpse of his dubious acts, and taken it, because in doing so, he was met with the glory of an empty driveway to your home. Where a car—like the silver sedan he learned your mother drove to drop you off to school or the black truck he learned your father drove to pick you up from school—was typically parked had been abandoned to an emptiness, leaving the cemented path to your garage exposed. And peering just a little to the left, he would come face-to-face with the familiar fateful sentiment of that of an empty driveway: an empty curb.

Long gone were the risks of parental interference.

Eddie Munson was fucking you tonight. 

Your doorbell had diffused into quietness. Hidden behind the denim pockets of his jacket, his fists balled tightly, as his mind ran through the notions of how he would manifest this to occur. Worst case scenario, you’d reject his advances… possibly realize his agenda… might call him a freak… definitely a perv… probably slap him in the face, he would deserve it… you could tell the whole school… it would surely spread across town… then the torches and pitchforks would come out- yeah, okay, he should really stop overthinking right about now. But then there were the other thoughts. The thoughts- the debauched thoughts that filled his head of just you and your body completely at his mercy. Best case scenario, you’d fall into his arms… he’d shove his hot tongue down your throat- ooh, better yet, his cock… he’d certainly grope the fattiness of your ass… might tug on your nipples with his teeth… spit on your clit… fuck, then undoubtedly plunge his cock into your cunt until it was drowning in his sticky cum. There was only so much space behind the seam of his zipper before his growing dick would burst through.

The ten seconds of impending footsteps held no merit of preparation for Eddie Munson to secure the steady breath of cool, calm, and collected like he wanted to. He was supposed to up his bravado, put on that bad boy demeanor he knew to flaunt while strutting the streets of Hakwins, Indiana to ensure his character was never physically targeted by the clear disdain the town held for him. And it worked. Never once had it failed to be intimidating. In fact, that very intimidation that was going to be his reliable source of timidly scaring you tino pulling up the soft cotton of your top to flash him the bouncing volume of your boobs for him to pervertedly grab. If it had to get that far. 

But that was all too easy. 

And Eddie Munson hadn’t accounted for the fact that his breath would hitch at mere sight of you beaconing him into your humble home with a peachy “Hi, Eddie” and that sinful skirt that seemed to love your body just as much as he did from the way it clung to your dips and curves. 

“H-Hi, sweetness.” His lips hungry rolled against themselves, as his eyes raked your silhouette upon entering the foyer of your house. “I, uh, I didn’t see anyone in the driveway. C-Can I assume we’re, um, alone?” Eddie shyly smiled.

You were there to kindly answer. “Oh, yeah! My parents drove out of town to attend a familiar friend’s wedding.” See, this is where an attempt at a nice conversation could have occurred, had you not daintily secured your hands together behind your back with pristine posture. With your puffed chest, Eddie’s eyes had absentmindedly diverted to the now pebbling outline of your nipples that seemingly hardened from the draft Eddie had brought in. Heaven truly was a place on Earth- or whatever the hell that Belinda chick sang about. “I hope that’s alright.” You giggled.

“Huh…?”

“I mean, I’m definitely nowhere near as good a cook as my mom, but I made those cookies for you as a treat, and I hope you’ll like them.” You bit your lip. “But, um, if you’re still hungry, we can totally order something for dinner.”

Eddie didn’t know what was louder, the beating in his heart or his cock. Either way, it was blatantly obvious the effect you had on him, and his body was desperately lurching for yours. “Oh, yeah, no, uh, no worries. I-I, um- sorry, I’m just a bit… nervous.” He shied away with a teasing grin.

What more could be expected? Out of the kindness of your heart, your face contorted with concern. “Oh, please don’t be nervous!” You held a soft grip to his bicep, pulling him close. Hook. “I know it can be a little scary being tutored, but I promise you’re totally in control here.” And reel. “We’ll go at your pace. I’m here to help you, remember?” You’d be doting on him the whole night. 

If intimidation wasn’t going to get him to see your pussy tonight, maybe the kicked puppy act will.

A sickening smirk consumed his face, and his hand flew over his heart. “Aren’t you just the sweetest? Got the prettiest heart and face in this town, huh?”

Oh, and how that compliment had you flustering in his grace, looking away with a breaking smile of demure. Being tutored may not have been the most conventional way of getting laid, but the favor was working on his side, and Eddie was loving his ingenious idea of stealing your advertising slip. “I- well, um, thank you, Eddie.” You smiled, attempting to meet his eyes again. “You know, you’re really nice, too. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to Donna.”

“Donna?” That crank with a stick up her ass, who seemingly tried to control every little thing you did? That Donna?!

Now, say all you want about the morality of following around someone you love, but don’t misconstrued things here, Eddie Munson was not a stalker. Nope. Nuh-uh. Sure, he liked to linger around you, who wouldn’t? And, while, yes, oftentimes- no, all the times, you didn’t know of his presence, but still, it wasn’t stalking. He was just learning things about you. Yeah, learning things. Learning the make and model of your parents’ vehicles. Learning your class schedule in hopes of catching glimpses of you in the hallways. Learning about your favorite subjects and what you hated. Learning the acts that guys did that made your face scrunch up with disgust. And yes, learning about Donna fucking McIntyre, who did seem to catch on to his stalking presence- no, linger presence (totally not a stalker).

In the many instances Eddie stood close enough to eavesdrop on your conversations, he’d grown quite a distaste for Donna McIntyre. Actually, it’d do no justice to deduce his hatred as “distaste.” Eddie Munson fucking hated Donna McIntyre. Listening to her speak was like shoving a knife through his eardrum. He’d only endure it if it meant hearing your honey voice and learning more about you. This particular disdain for your close friend hadn’t appeared from thin air, no, Eddie Munson had complete reasons to hate the ginger; Donna McIntyre had sensibility. Where your naivety had you blissfully unaware of Eddie’s hungry stare, Donna McIntyre had caught onto every one of his perversions. Call it bias, he didn’t care, he hated her. In hindsight, your two year friendship with her had truly saved you from some compromising situations in which creepy men bestowed themselves upon you. Donna McIntyre was there to save you. Leave no girl behind. And you loved her for it. 

Eddie Munson, on the other hand, despised her for it.

A daily routine had manifested itself between the two rivals. One where Eddie would lovingly stare at your perched breasts spewing from your low-cut top, only to accidentally make eye contact with Donna during his spare seconds of eyeing you, being met with one of the most—rightfully—disgusted stares from her. He was left scoffing every time she grappled onto your elbow and pulled you away wherever you stepped within his vicinity. 

“Yeah.” You sorely pouted. “See, she’s, like, my best friend ever, but she always says the nastiest things about you.”

“Like what?” He questioned with squinted eyes. 

“Well, I don’t want to say the mean names she calls you, but she always mentions how I need to stay away from you; something about you being bad news.” You huffed. “I mean, literally before you came here, I called her all excited that I was finally tutoring someone tonight, because it looks really good on college applications, you know? But when I told her it was you, she completely lost it, saying you were just taking advantage of me.” Fucking divine interference?!

Eddie Munson had to give it to her. She may have been a pain in the ass, but Donna McIntyre was smart.

“Uh, well, y’know, princess, some people are just downright rude.” He dejectedly suspired. “People have been pickin’ on me since I was a child, y’know? Just because I’m different.” Maybe the bruised kid was taking it a little too far, but a special place in hell was already being dedicated to Eddie Munson, with a fiery plaque being engraved with the devil’s sharp talon, so did he care? No. Not when his sob story had you jumping to console him with a sympathizing hug, one where your tits squished against his chest, and he reveled in the feeling of your poking nipples brushing against his body. 

A more than content hum groaned out of Eddie’s mouth, as he wrapped you close, and inhaled a waft of your perfect smell. “I’m so sorry, Eds.” Your heart of gold oozed out with all sadness for him.

“It’s okay, baby-”

“No, it’s not.” You pulled back to pout at him. “People shouldn’t treat you like that. It’s mean. People shouldn’t be mean to you.” Eddie cooed, copying your protruding lips, and sighed happily at your word of action. “You have me as a friend now! And I promise that I’ll never be mean to you. I just want to be nice to you. All the time, be nice to you.”

There’s no way you couldn’t feel his boner pressing into your tummy. “Aw, precious, I’d really like that. You’ll be nice to me? Do anything for me? Make me feel good?”

The quickness to your fervent nod had a sickening grin formulating on Eddie’s expression. “Yes, of course! Always, that’s what friends do.” You smiled. In a flash, you acted on impulse and pressed your lips to his cheek, where your gloss had marked his skin and burned his body. Witnessing you shyly smile at him afterwards had his eyes nearly rolling to the back of his head. “I just wanna help you out.” You whispered.

“You can definitely help me, princess.” He spoke in hushed tones. “Y’know how you can help me?” His face gravitated to yours, target of interest aiming for your lips.

And you looked at him with those innocent, round eyes. “Tutoring you!” You beamed, like you just answered the million dollar question on a game show- well, not Eddie’s preferred game show.

“Oh,” he cleared his throat with a forced laugh to keep you smiling, “yes, of course, sweetheart, tutoring me. That’s the only reason I came here, anyway.” He internally perished. 

You squealed in excitement, jumping from the giddiness of being helpful. “Yay!” You beamed, forcing Eddie to follow suit, his faux enthusiasm compelling him to swallow thickly in order to constrain the blood back to his brain if he was going to sit through a tutoring lesson before seeing your ass in whatever baby pink thong he pictured you wearing. You laced your hand within his—being his only saving grace for enduring schoolwork after hours—and tugged him into the coziness of your living room. “So, are you taking American History or World History?”

“Uh…” Two years ago, Wayne Munson urged his nephew to exercise his newfound 26th Amendment Right to vote at the ripe age of eighteen for the 1984 Presidential Election. Granted, not so much newfound, given that Eddie was still falling off of monkey bars when protests about the monstrosity of what was going on Vietnam managed to lower the voting age; but nonetheless, Eddie had gotten severely tired of being bombarded by Reagan signs that infested every neighborhood street he drove past, enabling him to proudly wear Hawkins’ very own rendition of the ‘I Voted’ sticker. Though, the excitement was short lived, when the Munsons gruffed in disappointment watching Ronald Reagan win his reelection and haunt their lives for another four years to come. Eddie Munson didn’t know what the hell was going on with the world fifty years ago, but the CBS Morning News was raving about the wave of the conservative movement, talks of Gorbachev meeting Reagan was happening, something called the internet was kinda freaking him out, and Eddie Munson voted, so how’s that for American history for you? 

“American- yeah, yeah, American History.” 

“Perfect!” He followed your movements, and joined you on the couch, textbooks and cookies laid out in uniform perfection against the wood of your coffee table. Just for him. “With Mr. Conklin? Or Mendez?”

“Mendez.” At least, he did when he was still a junior and vandalizing the back desk with engravings of immature pornographic sketches. 

“Oh! Donna’s also in that class.” Eye fucking roll. “She told me about that killer quiz you guys had today. Said something about how none of the questions were on the study guide that Mr. Mendez gave to y’all.”

Eddie drawed out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, yeah.” He lied right through his teeth. “I-It’s why I came to you, sweetheart! I completely flunked that quiz, and- well, then, you- you were just like this angel sent from heaven, offering your help.” He grinned watching you heat up from his heavy stare. “Just meant to be, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Your nerves flustered, as your teeth bit into your lip. “I’m happy to help you, Eds. Anytime you need.” You could feel his breath fanning across your cheeks. “Um, did you, uh, bring your books?” Actually getting a good look at him, Eddie hadn’t brought anything. At all. “Or, um, at least… some notes?”

A whistle of slow realization escaped Eddie’s mouth. “Uh… oh, y’know what happened? See, I was just spiraling from the quiz, a-and then I got so nervous for our tutoring lesson that, y’know, it just completely slipped my mind. I’m sorry, princess.”

“Oh, well, that’s okay.” A sweet reassurance came from your part. “We can just share my book.” You patted the distant space of cushion between you two, one which Eddie gladly took up.

And, my god, was he happy he did, because thighs touching thighs, scents mixing with scents, body pressed against body, and one look down, Eddie was exposed to the glory of low-cut shirts, and your tits presented themselves so beautifully to his eyesight. But a worn textbook weighing the size of a fat dog had slammed into his lap, and suddenly his eyes were tainted by the image of an old, white man who surely didn’t arouse him like the picture of your boobs.

“Great… Thomas Jefferson.” A tight-lipped smile concealed his dismay.

“Uh,” your shy giggle captivated his attention, “no, Eddie, that’s actually James Monroe.”

“Psh.” He puffed his cheeks, nonchalantly waving his hand in the air to brush off his blatant error of mistake. “Right. Totally knew that, sweetheart.”

“It’s okay if you didn’t.” You smiled. “I’m here to help you, remember?” 

“Mhm.” His arm circled around your shoulders, letting your rest back in the comfortable bliss of soft cushions and his presence. He hummed seeing you tuck within yourself, thighs pressing into one another, and he could only imagine what you were trying to relieve. Because Eddie Munson had made you feel things. The sweet tingles you would get when you were alone at night and had all the time to yourself. When you would visualize what it would be like to have a boy like you, enough to want to be your boyfriend, and what you two would get up to. Lacey Fisher, four weeks ago, returned from her weekend birthday trip, and confided in you on how her boyfriend, Henry Aronofsky, took her virginity. She detailed to your curious mind that it had hurt. The initial intrusion, it stung. But then he kept going. And it started to feel good. But what was even better was the closeness. His body on hers. His lips on hers. 

You craved that. And having Eddie’s domineering heat radiate on your skin had your pussy pulsating with a thumping tingle that you didn’t know what to do with. Eddie was cute. Cuter than Nathan Cavanugh, Bryce Walters, or Harrison Moran. Eddie Munson had an edge that made you question why your cotton underwear was becoming uncomfortably wet under his stare. How could Donna McIntyre not like him? He was scarily hot. 

“W-What,” You cleared your throat, “what, um, period are you guys on… in Mr. Mendez’s class?”

Shit. “Uh…”

“It was period four, no?” You opened the textbook on his lap, flipping the silk pages to thumb through the chapters. “Donna had mentioned it, said she wanted me to help her study this weekend.”

Thank god for Donna McIntyre’s big ass mouth. Even if it did shit-talk him. “Yeah, yeah, period four, mhm.”

“Okay, so lucky for you, we will be talking about Thomas Jefferson today.” You chuckled. “Period four spans from 1800 to 1848, which will cover different aspects like the developmental growth of political parties as a result from the expansion of suffrage, and definitive aspects of American culture expounded by the Era of Good Feelings…”

Fuck me.

-

Eddie Munson sat through forty-seven minutes of the Jeffersonian Era, listening of the profoundness of the Revolution of 1800s, and America’s god given right to expansion and the manifest destiny- or whatever bullshit propaganda that damn textbook pounded out to high schoolers just to get to some pussy. But if the United States could gain the delusional superiority complex to conquer and prosper on westward, Eddie Munson could do the same- well, on you. This was just one obstacle. One hurdle. One step closer to obtaining his holy grail of getting his dream girl. Shoving a dozen of the triple chocolate chunk cookies you’d baked him was enough to get him through the painful lecture of the demise of the Federalist Party, though, the events of the Mexican-American War was interesting enough to get him into cheering on Mexican troops over Texan volunteers during the Battle of the Alamo, but enough was enough.

“…With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the U.S was able to gain the southwest territory, which would include New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and California, but Mr. Mendez likes specifics, so also be sure to remember we gained the majority of Arizona and Colorado, which bled into parts of Kansas, Wyoming, and Oklahoma.” You huffed in one breath. “Oh! And recall the Monroe Doctrine! Given that we had now warned European countries of the potential threats that would happen if they continued to colonize the western hemisphere, the American win over Mexico had further cemented the U.S as growing world power, which gets into the promotion of democracy and isolationism, which we can get into next-”

“Okay, sweetheart, stop right there.” Eddie scrunched his eyes in agony, cutting you off from proffering anymore mush that was stirring in his already confused brain. “Sorry, uh- sorry, but, like, can we take a break?” He sighed.

“Oh.” Embarrassment rushed to your cheeks. “I’m so sorry, sometimes I can get too much into things, we can totally take a break or, um, call it a day if you’d like-”

“No, no, no, no.” He adamantly interjected, closing the textbook with crumpled notes of his compulsory—upon your request—chicken scratch handwriting, brandishing it away next to the crumb-filled platter that once was delicious baked goods. “No, baby, trust me, I don’t want the night to end.” He delicately nudged your chin with his finger, a teasing smile to pair. “I just got a little headache, s’all.”

“Well, are you sure you don’t want to leave to get some rest?” Your brows molded with concern. “We can pick this up tomorrow, or whenever you’re free.”

Eddie Munson played into his bluster of confidence, leaning in close to run a rough-tipped finger down the dough of your thigh, letting your skin wake and react to his heated touch. “What if I wanna rest here with you?” He whispered. “Have you take care of me?”

You gulped. “Um, l-like what?” You nervously giggled. “I can, like, make you soup for-for your headache.” 

“Well, I was thinking more like we can lay down.” He pouted to emphasize his pained facade. “Will you take care of me in bed, baby?”

You licked your lips timidly. “Um, I-I don’t really know if that’s, like, a-appropriate for, um, study sessions. Like, I don’t want you to think I brought you here under the guise of doing… stuff.”

“You can say it, princess.” He smiled. “Say it. You didn’t bring me here to have sex.”

Hearing Eddie’s sultry voice whisper the word had sparked up the special tingles nestled between your thighs, and he could see the sensation consuming your being. “Um, y-yeah. I didn’t bring you here to h-have sex.” Heart racing, you could barely gain the courage to force your eyes upon him. “That’s what, um, Harrison thought when I offered to tutor him.”

“Aw, no, I know, pretty girl.” He cooed, as he firm hand squeezed down on your thigh, pressing the hem of your skirt high. Your sunken teeth had become your only extenuative from letting out a squeal from the jolting sensation. “God, those morons are just dicks. Don’t appreciate how good of a tutor you are. How much of a good girl you are. Right, baby? You’re just such a good girl looking to help, huh?”

You nodded to confirm his sentiment. “Yes, Eddie.”

His hand creeped to separate yours, where they stayed tightly clasped within one another, and he rubbed his fingers against the softness of your warm palm, before confining your hand with his. “Why don’t we go to your room to just relax for a bit, sweetheart? You smell so good, bet your room smells just like you. I love it so much.” 

“Uh…”

“It’ll make me feel so much better, princess.” He cajoled. “C’mon, that’s what friends do, right? You said it yourself, sweetheart.” 

“And then we’ll study again?” You eyed him with a twinkle in your eyes. 

“Man, you really like history, huh?” He teased with a chuckle. 

“Of course!” You happily answered, which had him smiling at your enthused face that glowed giddily. “Why wouldn’t I like something I’m good at?” Spoken with all the confidence. 

Eddie softly laughed in admiration. “You’re so cute.” He gave your thigh another tender squeeze. “Why don’t we do this: you make me feel good, like friends do, and I promise to make you feel extra good?” He stuck out a promising pinky, as he watched you consider his all too innocent proposition. “I’ll make you feel so good, precious.” He whispered. 

“Just relaxing? A small break?”

“Mhm.” He smirked. Fairly ambiguous; not necessarily a lie if not clearly verbalized. But just enough to get you alone in your bedroom. Pinky promised. 

Hands held together, you guided Eddie Munson through the halls of your house to reach your beloved bedroom, where secrecy and intimacy laid between the silks and cottons of your sheets. Each step had Eddie’s dick thumping with excitement, just as anticipated as his heartbeat racing out of his chest. You had never had a boy in your room. In fact, this would have to go untold to the authority of your mother and father, too archaic to understand the innocence of it all. Because that’s all it was. Right? Helping a friend in need to aid him to recovery. Headaches can be killer. Mrs. Weber's fourth period chemistry class often had you succumbed with migraines. Science wasn’t like history. As how Eddie Munson wasn’t like Harrison Moran. He wouldn’t do you as the star quarterback tried with you. Because Eddie Munson was different. Nothing like Donna McIntyre tried to get you to believe. He was different. Right?

“We can just relax here for a bit.” You spoke, as you both entered the confines of your room.

The essence of your own personal girlhood defined the sacred space of your room. Where clean, white walls brightened the mood, personal pictures and feminine posters had livened it up. Sweetness had invaded Eddie’s nose, as he was surely met with the arousing smell of your perfume, predicted to the exact notion. Gold jewelry, the one that complemented your skin beautifully, where dainty necklaces would become suffocated in the valley of your tits, where shiny earrings would decorate your earlobes that Eddie wanted to mouth on, had displayed themselves neatly amongst the products of beauty and self care. Pinks and silks, frills and lace, embodying your sweetness to a T. Effeminate in all aspects of nature.

And Eddie Munson was ready to defile everything. 

Unabashedly, Eddie had breached beyond the realms of a visitor’s right, and taken advantage of the whole ‘make yourself at home’ sentiment that you had actually never spoken; nonetheless, he’d marched his way to your comforting bed occupied by a number of stuffed animals that unfairly got the privilege of seeing you in your most intimate times. 

He splayed himself on the expanse of cushions, a groan leaving his mouth as he relished in the feeling of a bed that wasn’t stabbing of springs, starfishing the expanse that left you giggling on the sideline. “What’re you laughin’ at, you little punk?” He perked. 

“Don’t be mean.” You laughed, watching him grab onto one of the many companions that inhabited your bed. 

“Mm, I think I’m deserving of pokin’ a little fun at someone who owns like fifty stuffed animals.” He smirked, as he beckoned you with a curling finger. 

Given his limbs had almost entirely taken up the breadth of your bed, you were left to sit back on your heels, posture pristine as ever, with your hands neatly kept on the safety of your thighs. Such a sight for sore eyes. Brazen without a care, he hungrily eyed you top to bottom. Bitten lips to round boobs to soft waist to expanding hips. Your revealing skirt inching away and away, giving him a sneak peak to his next meal. 

But while his stares lingered on your body, yours had unintentionally followed suit. Laid flat, the apparent bulge beneath worn denim did not hold merit to the art of concealment, and a quiet gasp left your mouth as you scolded yourself for even peering at your newfound friend like that. “N-Not fifty.” You sternly stated with a smile to get your head straight. “Just four.”

“Still a lot.” He said, investigating the furriness of a chubby bumblebee, one where pink and white instead took over the naturally occurring black and yellow.

“Oh.” His comment had suddenly hit you in a way that made you shame with embarrassment. Unbeknownst to him, of course, he was still finding amusement in the flappy wings of the plushy insect. “Um, d-do you think it’s, like, childish? N-Not mature?” You scratched the back of your neck. Perhaps it was the attachment to the juvenile interest—referred to as by Montgomery Davis, a former love interest that didn’t last too long—that prohibited you from finding an adequate boy to be with.

He had chuckled at the fat stinger. There’s no way that could impale someone. But he had heard the apprehension in your voice, peering up from your stuffed animal to see your more than disappointed face. “Oh, no, baby, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” He quickly forwent Bugsbee the Bee to the side, as a calloused hand landed on your knee for reassurance. Sitting up, Eddie Munson overstepped the boundaries of a tutee to whisper his hot breath against your lips. “I fuckin’ love ‘em. So cute, babe. Just like you.”

“Really?” Your dough eyes scanned his face.

“Would I ever lie to you, sweetheart?” He pinched your cheek. “That’s just not what friends do.” He smiled, as he laid back down. “So, is that what you like to do for fun? Get stuffed animals?”

“Um, not necessarily.” You beamed. “I just like having them around, you know? Keep me company for the things I do like to do.”

“Like what, baby?” He squeezed your knee. “Tell me all that you like doing.”

“Well, let's see, oh, uh, I love journaling. Like, writing my feelings down.” He nodded along, prodding as encouragement for further information. “Uh, typically it started out just in the morning, like, when I wake up, I’d write about what I’d like to accomplish for the day. But then, I kinda realized it’d be nice to vent after a long day, so now, I really just do it whenever.” You shrugged. 

Boys didn’t care about this stuff, but Eddie Munson asked questions. “Yeah?" He grinned. “That sounds nice, baby. Feels like some therapy shit I need.” He chuckled. “Does it make you feel good to write about your feelings?”

“Yeah!” You happily answered. “Um, sometimes it's hard to talk about what I’m feeling to my friends. Like, Donna, for example; she’s got her whole life planned out, she’s so smart. If it’s hard for me to understand what I’m feeling, then I know Donna won’t. I’m scared she’ll judge me.”

“Donna’s a bitch.” He gruffed, with a groan of disdain. 

“No, don’t say that, that’s mean.” You chastised him. “She’s my friend, Eddie.”

“Right, right, sorry, baby.” He quickly made up for it. “It’s just hard to get along with her, s’all. But, uh, this journaling… what kinda feelings do you write about? Like, uh, I don’t know, private ones? You can tell me, honey.”

You nervously laughed, squirming in the seated position of being on your calves. “Y-Yeah, like, uh, well sometimes I worry that I won’t ever get, like, a real boyfriend. Like, a serious relationship. Not like whatever gross hookup the boys at our school want. I don’t want that.”

Eddie caressed the skin of your leg. “Totally, babe. Don’t waste your time with the little boys at our school. You need a real man, huh? Someone who’s gonna take care of their pretty girl.” He smirked, as you nodded in agreement.

Your heart lumped out of your chest, as you followed the languid movements of his large hand encapsulating your bent knee. His touch felt fiery against your skin, creating a series of goosebumps in his guided path, like a mark of territory. Your thighs, once again, clenched at his mercy. Seeing the prominent blue veins reveal themselves from under his alabaster skin had you striked with a familiar heated tingle. The tingles you’d have to satiate alone at night. “You think I can find someone like that?” You softly asked with all vulnerability. 

Eddie snaked his hand upward to gently hold one of yours. “Ugh, absolutely, princess, are you crazy? Sexiest and sweetest thing in the world, remember I told you? I meant it, baby. Sometimes you just gotta look right in front of you.” He smugly smiled. Your mouth went dry, as you attempted to ease your flustered smile. “Just like me, I need a princess to take care of.”

“Mhm, you deserve someone nice, Eddie.” 

“But, uh, I also need someone who’s not gonna judge me.” He perfected a pout that had you sympathizing at his feet. “Y’know, like I said before, some people are just so mean, wouldn’t understand me. Would you judge me, princess?”

“Oh, no! Never, Eddie! Solemnly, I understand the feeling, I’d never do that to you.” You preached with such vehemence, it had Eddie’s blood pooling to the length of his dick with a sickening smile eating his face. 

“So, you wouldn’t judge me if I told you what I like to do for fun, baby?” He played with your fingers, an act of innocence that had your heart soaring. 

“Nuh-uh.” You affirmed with a shake of your head. “You can tell me.” You delicately approached. 

“Well, sweetheart, I really really love touching myself.” He whispered, reveling in the sensation of your hand automatically squeezing his in a tightening hold, eyes rounding in surprise. “I do it all the time, sweetheart.”

“Oh.” Flustered beyond recognition, the single word had become the only thing trusted to speak, as his admission had ignited millions of sparkling tingles, letting a gush of wetness uncomfortably soak your precious underwear. 

He sneered with delight in power. “You’re not judgin’ me, are ya, baby?”

“No, no!” You rushed out. “I, uh- it’s totally n-normal… um, doing that. People- everyone does it.”

“Yeah?” He piqued with interest, watching you unfold into his ingenious trap. “You do it, too, princess?”

Your cheeks were invaded by hot blood, tainting your face with humiliation at the thought of giving up such intimate information. But he was your friend. You didn’t want him to feel judged. And lying was awful. Taught by the man, himself, Honest Abe. Great, and now history was being brought up again! It felt as if the devil had blown his burning breath to flame your face with embarrassment, but the devil was enticing, inching you to the darkside, where you’d be gifted with the persuasion of pure hedonism for the rest of your life. Eddie Munson was the devil. Materialized in the most euphoric way possible. 

You were wriggling, letting spiking friction torment your pussy under his glare. He was waiting. “Um, y-yeah, Eddie. I-I do it. Sometimes.”

An airy groan left his mouth, one he didn’t obscure, simply letting it out for you to witness. “Mm, I knew you would. Pretty girls like you love to touch themselves.” Holding his hand seemed to be the only form of comfort to enduring his gross words. You didn’t want to let go. “Love rubbing your pussy, don’t you baby?”

You didn’t like that word. But words deemed filthy by your definition only seemed to burn you coming from the mouth of Eddie Munson, himself. Harrison Moran once said he’d like to see your pussy. It made you scowl in disgust, and kick him out. But Eddie Munson had you enamored. 

“Yeah.” You whispered bluntly, feeling that his trust could leave you to softly speak with no repercussion. 

“Tell me, sweetheart, with your fingers?” He embraced your hand. “You play with your pussy with your fingers, put ‘em inside to fuck yourself?” Before you could reason, your head had taken the liberty to shake itself for you. No. Eddie’s brow lifted in confusion. Not to define you by the shyness of your nature, but you hadn’t necessarily struck the pervert, himself, as a user of sex toys. Well, at least, he hoped not. Something about introducing you to the world of vibrators and dildos made his cock jump with joy. “You don’t finger yourself? 

“Hands are too small.” You meekly answered, so lightly he could barely hear it.

“What do you do then, baby?”

Perhaps the alchemy of wizardry and spell casting from his beloved hobby of Dungeons and Dragons had magically manifested itself into his current reality—at the very least, it felt as though it had—as Eddie Munson’s words had you reeling in a sudden candid behavior too unfamiliar to your prospective nature. Not to say fibbery came as an innate trait for you, in fact, you honored yourself in the frankness of your words. 

But you had never acted on impulsion. 

And it felt as though Eddie’s provocative language had you destined at his mercy, forcing your body to act with no regards. There was no thinking under his gaze. No hesitation. For the briefest second of quickness, your eyes had landed in the ivory plush of an adorably stuffed bunny sat just three inches away from his shoulder, that had answered his ribald question. 

Your cheeks had ablazened when his quick eye followed your glance that lingered in the air. The corner of his lip had disgustingly peaked into a diabolical smirk, as his perverted mind exploded at the revelation. “Aw, sweetheart.” He groaned, a curious hand reaching out for your bunny.

“No, Eddie!” You tried to jeopardize his movements with urgency. “D-Don’t touch it, it’s not-”

“What is it, sweetheart?” He picked up the bunny, despite your protests. Eddie examined the cute stuffy, his perverted reflection shining back at him through the glassy, round eyes that mimicked your humiliated ones. “Shit, princess, you rub your pretty pussy on your bunny, hm? Does humping your stuffed animal feel better than fucking your fingers inside your cunt?”

“Eddie.” You whined with embarrassment, so shamefaced, dropping your head in your hands to conceal your burning expression. 

“It’s okay, darlin’.” He smiled, loving the twisted feeling of having his dick pulsate at your sheepish state. Eddie pried your hands away, revealing your timid face to him. “Remember, baby, I’m not judgin’ you, I just wanna know. Friends, they tell each other everything and help one another out, you gotta tell me, baby.” With a single hand gripping both your wrists tightly, you refused to look him in the eye, fear consuming you at the thought of Eddie Munson finding you gross for your actions. A wave of tears were threatening your eyes, and you hoped peering at the organized clutter of your nightstand would be enough to withstand the mortifying experience of crying after having him learn what you did. 

“You’re gonna make fun of me.” Your trembling lip managed to mutter out. 

“Aw, no, baby, I would never.” He turned your chin to force you to face him. “Honestly, sweetheart, thinkin’ of you doing that is so sexy.” He groaned with a bite to his lip. “God, picturing you humping your little stuffed animal has me feeling a little hot, see.” His hand deserted your face to rake over his pronouncing bulge, that seemed larger than before. “Mm, got me so worked up, baby. This is all your fault.” He moaned, squeezing his cock with a heavy hand.

Your mouth had opened at the sight of him touching himself over his pants. Those funny tingles had bursted between your thighs, and so insecurely, you questioned him. “Really?”

“Ugh, absolutely, babe.” He returned to your bunny, laying back to play with the small arms of your teddy, as his hand remained stationed on his boner, massaging his erection with breathy grunts leaving his mouth. “You’re so fucking beautiful, princess.” While attempting to ease your emotional nerves, Eddie had taken a good look at your bunny, the evidence of your usage being found in the matted fur surrounding the pink nose of your innocent companion. “Shit, did you fuck yourself this morning, baby?”

“That’s why I didn’t want you to touch it!” You dreaded. “I promise I’ll clean it, give it here-”

A loud gasp left your mouth, as Eddie rejected your request, bringing your stuffed bunny nose to nose, inhaling a waft of the lingering scent of your pussy. His eyes closed in ecstasy, moaning loudly as your raw smell invaded his being, rubbing the tent in his pants harshly for any form of relief. “Fuck, baby, you smell so good. I gotta touch myself.” He flung your precious stuffed animal back, in reach for his belt, cursing under his breath as his abrasive movements momentarily caused the leather to tighten when needing to be off. 

“W-What?” Your brows jumped to crease your forehead. 

“I can’t help it, baby, you’ve got me so fucking hard right now.” Eddie tugged opened his belt, rushing to undo the brass button of his pants. “Fuck, you’re not gonna judge me, right? That’s not what friends do. In fact, friends help each other out. Especially when they’re as sexy as you, baby.”

Swollen to a girth of thickness, Eddie’s cock smacked out with eagerness to fuck, and his precum oozed out, as he watched your face morph into surprise at seeing the first cock in your life. His ringed hand wrapped around himself, cursing under his breath as he felt the jolts of pleasure crash over him. “I touch myself like this, baby, fuck.” He squeezed the head of his cock, smearing his precum down to his base. “Do it so much to you, god, fuck me, princess, I think about you all the time. Can’t stop myself from jerking off at the thought of your pretty, little face.” Eddie whined. 

Your lips stayed stationed agape from the divulgence and sight of what was occurring in front of you. You hadn’t even prospered the fact that your body was reacting more candidly than your mind had anticipated, and Eddie nearly blew his load watching your thighs swish against one another to relieve your arousal. “Y-You think about me?” You delicately spoke. 

“Of course, fuck, fucking look at yourself, mm.” He tightened his grip. “Shit, baby, are you feeling horny, too? Is lookin’ at me making you wanna rub that fucking pussy?”

“U-Um, I-I don’t know.” Nervous eyes attempt to look around for anything that wasn’t Eddie Munson masturbating in your bed. “I-I don’t wanna do anything… anything bad. I don’t wanna get in trouble, Eds.”

“No, no, baby, it’s not bad, it’s good- so fucking good.” He sucked in his breath, as his hand picked up the pace. “Fuck, you’ll feel so good, darlin’- let me make you feel good, princess.” Eddie heaved, inching his large hand up your thigh until his fingers brushed your risened skirt. “Don’t tell anyone, and we won’t get in trouble.”

You watched with heavy pants, as Eddie’s strength managed to dig his fingers into the fat of your inner thigh to part them, and reveal those drenched baby pink panties he so perfectly predicted in the filth hive of his mind. “L-Like this- um, Eddie I’ve never done this with someone else, I-I don’t what to do-”

“Shh, shh.” He demanded, saving your breath from a wrecking tirade of being inexperienced. “Just let me touch you like good friends do.” His fingertips skimmed the puddle in your panties, causing an unwarranted squeal to escape your mouth, as you bucked your hips into his touch. “Oh, my-”

“Mm, Eds, you’re making me feel funny!” You attempted to close your legs, but his hand was quick to lightly slap your thigh in refusal. 

“Don’t fucking close your legs, fuck, just let me touch you.” His grip held you exposed to him, and he was aggressive with the way the pad of thumb smushed against your covered clit, forcing you to ball your sheets into your tightening fists. 

A guttural moan was ripped from you, as his thumb worked intricately to circle your clit, letting your hips ride his fingers. “E-Eddie!”

“That’s right, just hump my fucking hand, baby.” He whined, as he continued to jerk his cock, until his hips were following in sync with yours; his pivoting to thrust into his hand, yours grinding in desperate need for release. “Shit, touch me like I’m touching you- fuck, put your hands on me.”

Eddie’s slick hand grappled onto your wrist, pulling your resisting fist from your balled blanket onto his dick, where he maneuvered your fingers to wrap around his girth and mimic the strokes he once gave himself. A surge of wetness gushed at your given ability to elicit a deep groan from Eddie Munson. Seeing him react to your touch as such spurred a wave of confidence to continue your ministration, tightening your grip around his dick and providing him the languid movements that had his heavy sack pulsating with a need to cum. 

But Eddie Munson’s ego was growing expeditiously. 

And he wasn’t about to be putty in your hands- your oh so tiny, soft hands that gripped him like a vice and made him to want to fuck it for an eternity. No. Not when his hand was cupping your hot pussy, fingers becoming moist through your wet underwear, as they dug between your lips to rub that sensitive little clit and had you whimpering at his command. 

“Fuck, stand up, princess.” He shoved your hand off his cock, simultaneously choosing to regrettably tear his away from the warmth of your cunt.

Whining in despair, you stuttered. “W-What? Why?”

“Because,” Eddie positioned himself to the edge of bed, grabbing your hand to guide onto wobbly feets, pins and needles pricking your legs as they woken from their previous position, “I’m gonna put my cock between your pretty, little lips.” 

Manspreading, his thighs parted for your residence, Eddie’s penis burning red with desire, as it hung heavy against his abdomen, each protruding vein slimed with a coat of his precum. His hands rested on your hips, and he smirked as he took in the sight of your body, one he desired so much to just touch and violate for his pleasure. The blatantly obvious was shown in your face; your undivided attention had primarily focused on his dick, and he couldn’t help the chuckle of egotism that erupted from his chest, as he smoothed down the bumps and curves of your body. 

“Aw, you like looking at my cock, princess?” He sneered with a drenching voice of condescendment that had your head snapping with embarrassment.

“I-I’m sorry-”

“No, no, baby, don’t be.” Eddie’s focus began shifting to the hem of your shirt, teasing it up to reveal the soft navel of your belly.  “It’s all yours to look at. Just like your pussy is all mine.” He bit his lip. “Especially when I fuck my cock inside of you, hm, you gonna let me, baby?”

That had your chest heaving with bursts of nerves, both good and bad. To know Eddie wanted that closeness with you was profoundly what had your heart fluttering with the idea of him loving you to a committed relationship. One where he was a boy calling you his girlfriend, and you were a girl calling him your boyfriend. But Lacey Fisher’s words had suddenly begun playing in your head like a record on loop. “It hurt.”

And Eddie Munson’s cock was pulsating at a length in which both of your hands had to wrap around his girth just to mount it. 

“Um, I-I don’t, uh- Eddie I’ve never done that b-before… I want you, like, to be my boyfriend, right? Like, this is what boyfriend-girlfriends do? B-But maybe I should wait- or we should… as boyfriend and girlfriend.”

There was a little hint in your voice. The way you suggested your ending in a lighter octave, fear that Eddie didn’t want to be your boyfriend, that he’d be just like Harrison Moran. But Eddie Munson wasn’t Harrison Moran, and his smile lit up at the timidness of your stature.

His dream girl. 

“I get to be your boyfriend, baby?” He leaned in to press a tender kiss upon your thigh. 

A shy smile corrupted your face, as you nodded to his question. “Mhm! Is it okay if we kiss like boyfriend and girlfriend?”

He chuckled at your cuteness, squeezing the meat of your legs in frustration at the overload he was feeling for you. “Of course, princess, c’mere.” Bending slightly at the waist, Eddie took the liberty of enduring most of the labor of stretching as far as he could until his lips crashed upon yours. Your mouth just as sweet as your being, Eddie moaned at the moisturizing sensation of the vanilla strawberry lip gloss that conjoined you together. His hands were aggressive to suddenly keep your cheeks in place, forbidding you to leave his mouth until he was ready to let go. It’s why you squealed when learning Eddie had no shame being the messy kisser he was; pushing his tongue between your lips, clashing teeth with teeth, consuming your mouth, and plunging an obscene amount of spit to your tongue, as his ravished in exploration. “Mm, fuck, love kissing you.” His delirious voice murmured against your lips. “Remember, honey,” he finished you off with one more peck, “you can’t tell Donna and friends about this. Not about how we got together, okay?” Eddie stroked your face. “They wouldn’t understand, only say mean things about you and me.”

“Okay.” You quietly agreed, wanting to protect your boyfriend from the harsh words Donna would possibly say. How could she pull you away under the guise of protection, when Eddie Munson’s been nothing but sweet to you? What was she seeing that you weren’t? Surely, you always kept your mouth closed, deciding against your sour opinion of Tucker Walsh, who Donna had on-and-off dated for months. 

“Yeah, you’ll be a good girl and won’t tell anyone?” He cooed, stroking your face. 

“Uh-huh.” You gently beamed, seeing his eyes scan your face with proudness. 

“Perfect.” Eddie pecked your nose. “Now, c’mon, sweetie, don’t you wanna show your boyfriend your tits? Always dreamed of seeing ‘em.” Untrustworthy of your awkward movements, you had let Eddie take the reins, simply standing straight to have him, once again, persist the labor of handling you to undress in front of him. His fingers tickled your sides, as they grappled with your shirt to pull it over your head, and spring your tits from the confinements of the tight material. Eddie dramatically sucked in his breath upon sight, mumbling swears because your nipples had hardened from the chill air. “So fucking pretty- fucking beautiful, sweet girl.” He groaned, taking advantage of your topless self, and having a squeeze at your boobs.

“Y-You think I’m beautiful?” You whimpered, loving the beguiling feeling of his callouses scraping your tits, only to pull and pinch at your sensitive nipples. 

“So fucking beautiful.” Eddie was quick to answer, placing a kiss to your belly button, which had butterflies fluttering in your stomach, making you swoon over your kind boyfriend. Boyfriend. “Most gorgeous fucking girl I’ve ever seen. Just wanna be with you so bad- always wanted to be with you, sweetheart.”

“You are with me… now.” You giggled, which had him grinning salaciously. 

“Yeah, I am, huh?” He hand traveled down to your skirt, playing with the soft fabric. “Got the prettiest girl in school at my hands, I’m so fucking lucky.” He teased his way to the hem of your underwear, teetering between gently pulling them down, only to secure them back in place just to have your squirming with want. “I want you to do somethin’ for me, baby, okay? Just wanna see you out of these cute, little panties, but, honey, turn around and do it.”

Ready to please him, you obliged, turning your backside to him, leaving you to look back and watch him sit back to enjoy the incoming show, as his hand wrapped around his cock and, once again, began his slow strokes. “Like this?”

“Mhm.” He breathily sighed. “Just bend over real deep, princess, so I can see up your skirt, and I wanna- fuck, I wanna see you take off your panties just like that, shit.” 

Eddie Munson was a little weird. 

But maybe that’s what makes your boyfriend so interesting. Getting to know him will be fun. But for right now, you’d do as he says. The idea of making him happy made your heart flutter with joy, as a little voice in your head spoke to you that Eddie Munson was there to make you happy, as well. Bending forward, your skirt had completely risen, exposing your ass to him and that darkened spot in your panties waving at him as a tempting testament to how horny he was making you feel. 

“God, what a fucking ass.” Eddie grunted, spurring his hips to fuck up into his hand. “Go ahead and take those panties off, baby, show me what’s waiting for me.”

Grabbing the lace of your underwear, you tugged down the cotton, fighting the bit of resistance from when Eddie’s fingers buried your panties between the lips of your pussy. But they peeled off, showing him strings of sticky wetness that clung to the gusset and glistened your cunt. Eddie had to immediately stop touching himself, almost shooting his cum out from the sight of your puffed pussy lips squished between your thighs. As your panties teased down your legs, pooling at your ankles, you were startled from the abrupt groping from your boyfriend, feeling him grab handfuls of your cheeks that kept you spread wide, as you stood straight. 

“Eddie!” You shrieked into small laughter.

“Oh, my god, you’re gonna fucking kill, baby, fuck, look at you- this ass, look at this fucking wet pussy.” He kneaded the dough of your butt, before placing a stinging spank to watch the fat jiggle from his heavy hand. 

“Ow, Eddie!” 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He was quick to land delicate kisses to the burning area, as the incriminating hand ran over your skin to soothe you. “Just can’t fucking help it.” Securing your hips, Eddie turned you around until your pretty face was smiling down at him, letting his cock twitch with all love and adoration for you. 

“What now?” He loved your curiosity. Getting to corrupt your innocent mind into wanting more, until you were his eager slut, begging to shove his cock into all your holes until you were leaking his cum. 

“Now,” he smiled, reaching behind him to bring forth your plushie bunny, one tainted with your cum and it had his dick jumping for joy, “you’re gonna show me how you fuck your little bunny, baby.” You swallowed thickly at his request, a twinge of embarrassment coursing through you at the request of showing Eddie something so carnal. But he was your boyfriend. And you could find trust in your boyfriend to make you feel good. “But I also need you to work that little mouth around my cock, honey. Can you do that? Suck it for me?”

You feared disappointing him. “I-I don’t know how. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay, I’ll teach you, baby. Just get on your knees for me, yeah?” Last month, Eddie nearly combusted into the crotch area of his jeans watching you suck on a red lollipop during the chaotic minutes of lunch. Safe to say, an entire monologue teasing the meaning behind the potential return of hooded cultists had been ruined in the midst of advertising his upcoming campaign to his eager friends, who embarrassingly had to watch their Dungeon Master choke on his spit, when Eddie found your tongue twirling around the cherry ball of candy, only to suck up the syrupy saliva into you mouth. The head of his cock was no different than that lollipop. You’d do just fine. 

Letting your knees rub against your carpeted floor, your hands find perch onto his denim thighs, and you outlined the length of his cock with eyes, wondering how something of that thickness could fit into your mouth. Eddie parted ways with his pants, shuffling out of the rough material, with a metal chain and leather belt clanking along the way, to ensure enough room to have you get off on your stuffed animal.

“Go ahead, baby, start humping your little stuffie for me.” Eddie had meticulously placed your bunny between your legs, watching you for the moment your pussy came in contact with the nub of its nose. 

Eddie hissed at the affliction of pain from your nails digging into his hairy thighs, as you became too enlivened by the friction of your clit grinding against your little bunny to account for the provocation you were besetting against him. But Eddie Munson loved it. His immoral mind found arousal in watching you abuse his skin from pleasure, compelling his cock to jerk with profound need. 

“Yeah, feel good, princess? Rubbin’ that fucking pussy?” You pathetically nodded, gentle whispers of whimpers leaving your mouth, as you humped your teddy with all conviction. “God, just love usin’ that little bunny as a fuck toy, huh?” He pinched your chin to force your glossy gaze upon him. “Just like I’m gonna use you, right, honey?”

“Mhm, oh my- mm, fuck!” Your tummy clenched, as your hips picked up the momentum to circle the stuffed animal's face, and defile its fur with your wetness.

“Yeah, you’re gonna be my sweet, little bunny?” Eddie’s thumb began pulling at your bottom lip, leaving him cursing as it bounced back to its plumpness. “My sweet, little bunny who’s gonna be my little fuck toy to use whenever?”

“Y-Yes, Eddie… whenever.”

“Fuck, open that pretty fucking mouth for me, and stick out that tongue, baby.” Holding his cock up, Eddie smiled as you obliged so kindly, letting him smack the angry tip of his dick against your tongue, as you finally got a taste of him. 

“This w-will make you feel good, mm?” You pondered through mumbles, as you lost yourself in the sensation of pussy buzzing from the burning friction against your clit. 

“Yes, baby, fuck, just keep your mouth open.” Eddie’s hand fell heavy upon the top of your head, as he beckoned you to take him deeper, letting his cock to become enveloped in the soft warmth of your mouth. It became no question of whether this would feel good for him, the guttural moan that left his mouth upon intrusion had your hips bucking with fervency. 

The viscid coating of his cock with pungent precum made you hum, igniting a series of grunts from your boyfriend, as hissing vibrations exploded in his body. Eddie guided your hands to the base of his cock, encouraging you to massage the leftover that wasn’t occupied by your mouth. “Fuck, yes! Make it messy, baby, just spit all over it!” 

Eddie Munson sat back in rhapsody, losing himself in the delirium of having you choke on his cock, as your spit puddled his length, escaping your lips as you suckled on the frenulum of his head. His hair cascaded down, letting his body become too heavy to support as your mouth was bringing him a gratifying high that he never wanted to come down from. Your humps grappled against thumping his thumping veins, enclosing him into a vice grip that had him moaning at your mercy.

“Mm, sh-shit, princess, your—ugh, aaahh—mouth!” He huffed against his restricting lungs. Eddie’s hips began to mimic your bucking, as you moaned at the fizzing rub of your bunny scratching that greedy itch on your clit, allowing him to shove his cock to the gummy constriction of your throat, forcing you to gag on his invasive cock. Sweet spit raining down to his heavy balls, letting his pelvis of bushy pubes become soak with your secretion. 

You pulled off with a sore throat, thick strings of spit sticking from his cock to your lips, as your watering eyes scarily gleamed up at him. “Ugh! Y-Your too big- I can’t-”

“Yes, you can, fuck, it’s feels so fucking nice when you choke!” He urged your head back down, now blubbering with a need to finish on your tongue. “J-Just keep fucking yourself, shit! Don’t stop until I tell you.”

Your tongue reached to tickle the underside of his dick, memorizing his stern rigids that had your jaw hurting from breaking open. Eddie sat up to spy down your backside, where he virtually lost it at the sight of your ass cheeks recoiling from the lively movements of your hips humping your stuffy. “Ugh, you gonna cum, sweetheart?” He cupped your face, guiding your languid movements up and down his cock, as you went through the endeavor of nodding to his question. “Fucking cum, baby, cum all over your little bunny!” He demanded. 

His heavy hand landed on the back of your head, shoving your face to become suffocated in the unruliness of his pubic hair. Nose inhaling his musk, you sputtered on his cock, gagging at his length prodding at the back of your throat, all to bring Eddie’s long arm down to reach for your ass. A burning sting from a substantial slap had you wailing on his fat cock, “Fucking faster.” He dictated your movements, spurring your hips to drive into the plushy with spanks to your tormented ass. “Cum with me, fuck! M’gonna cum! Cum, baby, cum!”

The bundle of nerves in your pussy began detaching from one another, like a rope inching to snap. Rutting into your stuffed animal, your muffled moans were buzzing his cock, bringing you to the brink of a gushing explosion. Your thrusting became uncoordinated, as your tummy bursted with euphoria, and your release adulterated your white bunny. 

Sobbing on his cock, his stomach muscles tightened into an agonizing cramp, as his balls clenched to pump out his seed, flooding your throat with his hot cum. “Ah! Shit, shit, shit—ugh! Fuck me!” Gagging, your hands repeatedly swatted his thick thighs—decorated with the crescents and blistering scratches of your nails—to release you from potentially vomiting on his dick. 

His hand relinquished his hold, allowing you to come up for air. Gasping, struggling to find a breath of fresh air, as a concocted mixture of spit and cum dribbled out from your mouth, but you had no hesitation licking your lips to consume the strange taste of his release.

“Holy shit, that was incredible!” Eddie dropped back onto your bed, hands gripping his sweaty curls, as he urged his mind to collect the events that just transpired before him. Chest heaving, teeth gritted, skin moist, this- this is what that Belinda chick was singing about! It wasn’t until a warm head landed on his thighs, that his thoughts jumped to prioritize your wellbeing. In retrospect, the notion of his sticky balls pressing into your temple with his flaccid cock resting upon your forehead shouldn’t have been so idyllic to Eddie Munson, but my god, was his heart constricting at your exhausted state—half-lidded eyes begging for rest, plump lips parted for airy breaths, and your manicured fingers delicately tracing against the hairs of his thigh to soothe the injuries you were beginning to feel remorseful for inflicting. 

His hand gently stroking your cheek, garnering your attention, letting you tiredly peer up at his rosy state of pink cheeks and glistening skin. “You okay, princess? Too much? I shouldn’t have gone so rough, I’m sorry, baby. Fuck, just lost myself, you felt so good.” 

“It’s okay.” Your saccharine voice assured him. “You’re my boyfriend, you can do anything to me.”

Eddie Munson lovingly smiled at you, as he caressed your hot face. “As long as you want it. Only. Okay?” You nodded with confirmation, and you gazed up at your boyfriend with endearing eyes that had him bubbling with devotion to you. “Such a good girl, did you cum?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I promised to make you feel extra good, didn’t I, baby?” He smirked. “C’mere.” His strength guided you onto your bed, laying you against your cloud-like pillows, before reaching down to grab a hold of your bunny. Soiled with your cum, Eddie’s menacing grin cracked through his face, as he lightly pressed a finger into the wet fur. Your tummy stirred watching his tongue delve into the drenchness, and humming with delight. “Fuck, your pussy taste so good.” He groaned, discarding your stuffy to climb between your thighs.

Steady on his knees over you, he peeled off his ragged shirt, exposing his ivory skin of sharp bumps and squishy softness, ornamented with scary images of permanent ink your parents would surely scowl at if they ever saw. You beamed at him. “You’re so pretty, Eddie.”

His teeth stabbed into his lips, as he teasingly smiled with giddiness. “Thank you, darling. Never as pretty as you, though.”

While wanting the intimacy, you couldn’t help the surge of anxious nerves that brought an onslaught against you, as Eddie began trying to liven his cock with small strokes while eyeing your glistening pussy. “W-Wait, um…” His brows jumped into his bangs, as he awaited your concerns. “No.” You swallowed thickly. “Eddie, I’m not ready for… that.”

He could be Harrison Moran. He could break up with you. He could scoff at your prudeness. But Eddie Munson was simply a perverted man who devoted his longing into the beautiful girl that graced the halls of Hawkins High. He wasn’t Harrison Moran. And you learned that as Eddie stayed silent, merely leaning down to place an electrifying kiss to your lips, pouring out all his adoration for the girl that captivated his dreams every night for the past two years. 

“I still wanna keep my word, sweetheart.” He murmured into your kiss. “Can I do something else?”

You meekly looked into his darkwood eyes. “Will it hurt?”

“Not at all, princess.” He eased the scrunch of your worriment brows with a peck to your forehead. “I’d never hurt you.” 

With the nod of your head and the words of your mouth, Eddie had your corroboration to do as he please, and his mouth had traveled down the junction of your neck, sucking small love bruises to the column length; to the valley of your breasts, where his lips unclosed your hardened nipples with gentle suckles; and the softness of your bell, decorating your stomach with appreciative kisses that made you feel beautiful to the touch; before his breath became hot over your needy cunt. Sugary kisses of mawkish desire met the plushness of your inner thighs, inching to your swollen pussy lips, irritated and slick from the rawness of rubbing against your bunny. 

His long tongue dragged its way to part your cunt, leaving your breath to hitch at the newfound contact of his wet muscle ravishing you. If this is anything close to what he felt when your mouth was on him, surely you could forgive him for the bruised throat you’d have to aid in the following morning. Eddie became brutally gluttonous at the tangy arousal he slurped from your pulsating hole. So small and unused, he’d have a fucking field day when the moment would come he could drill his cock into you virgin pussy.  

The tip of tongue burned against your abused clit, agonizingly teasing swirls around the nub just to flick it with fervency, and have you crawling away from the unbearable overstimulation. “E-Eddie!” You stumbled for air. Your foot had planted itself against his hot forehead at an brutish attempt to push his determined mouth away, but Eddie Munson triumphed you in the realms of physical strength, and his arm had pried you open, before securing themselves to ground your squirming thighs. 

Latched like a leech, Eddie was becoming feverish from the deliriums of being pussy drunk. Sucking onto your clit, his head shook to abuse you, forcing the muscles in your legs to tighten with trembles. Your scent had engulfed him, as his nose smushed against your clit to snake his tongue into the clenching walls of your velvet pussy. Incoherent words were tumbling into your pussy, entirely unheard from your wrenching moans. 

“So fucking good.” He gargled into your cunt, groaning into your pussy, and making out with your entrance. Heaven was a place on Earth, and it was you. 

“I-I can’t, Eddie! Too much!” Though, your actions had conflicted with your words, hands buried into his hair, shoving his face to be submerged between your thighs, as your hips gyrated against the dimensions of his pretty face. On the precipice of letting go, your back flew off the surface of your bed, shaky legs lovingly crushing his head, with a moan beyond hotter than the numerous porno films of corny lines and exaggerated screams Eddie consumed just to perfect his skills. “I’m c-cumming- aahh!”

Eddie slurped your remaining juices, tonguing your pussy in search for anymore of your delicious cum that he would relish in. Patting your throbbing clit with a cherishing kiss goodbye, Eddie climbed your limp body, with a mouth and chin laminated with your wetness. One he smashed into your mouth with a smearing kiss against your lips, giving you a taste of the tarte sweetness of your pussy. 

“You’re such a good boyfriend.” You breathily giggled against his mouth, leaving him chuckling at your inebriated-like state. “Best one I’ve had.”

“I’m the only one you’ve ever had.” He laughed, as he guided you to rest on the thumping beat of his full heart. 

“So?” You smiled. “Donna’s always complaining about Tucker, and you’re nothing like him. I could never complain about you.” You were making him melt into a puddle of mush, as your words erupted in his tummy. He smiled down, kissing your hairline, before nudging you to grab a hold of your lips to his. “Mm, you smell good.” You hummed with delight.

Eddie guffawed. “Princess, that’s your pussy on my face.” He bumped your scrunching nose with a tender finger. “I probably smell like sex, sweat, and cigarettes, sweetheart.”

“But it’s you. I like you, Eddie.” Your round eyes peered up at him, and he held your contact.

“Yeah?” He whispered. Insecurity was swirling within him. Surely you were just babbling from the orgasm gifted upon you from him. Eddie Munson was Eddie Munson. You were fucking you. His vulgar behavior and profligate mind was undeserving of a girlfriend like-

“I’ve liked you for a while.” You smiled with closed eyes. Relishing. The bombshell of the revelation had his bursting with cinching brows of astonishment. “Remember, two years ago, we had art class together?” Remember? It was the day Eddie Munson first laid his eyes on you, of course, he remembers! Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t s- “I saw you, and you were just so cute doodling in your sketchbook. These scary monsters, and stuff. But they were good. I always wanted to compliment you on it, but I never got the courage. Just stuck to having a crush on you.” You delicately giggled. 

Eddie Munson could have been fucking you for the past two years?!

You were quick to hum into a light slumber. Eddie was stupefied at the actual idiocy he was currently metaphorically forehead-slapping himself for. That was until your sudden jolt had him jumping with concern.

“Oh, my god! Eddie, we completely forgot to go over the promotion of democracy and isolationism coming into the late 1800s!” You heaved.

He cooed. “Oh, sweetheart…”

𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭 | @sierrahhh

[jadequeen88]

Very interested in this!

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[jadequeen88]

Oh god… this line ruined me:

“You could have died here, buried yourself in his arms and made him your tomb. They would find you in the morning; frozen like a sculpture. Left out for all of Hawkins to see, to point and say terrible things. It wouldn’t matter. You would have died happy.”

THIS WAS MORE THAN WORTH THE WAIT! Thank you for blessing us 🙏🏼

Don't Stand So Close To Me — Chapter 14

Eddie x Teacher!Reader

Chapter 14/? 18k. Series Masterlist

✏︎ An invitation to The Hideout answers some long burning questions.

✏︎ Series Summary: Forced to move back home to Hawkins after your fiancé cheats on you, you begin to fall in love again with an audacious 20 year old metalhead, only there’s one problem — he’s still in high school and you’re his English teacher.

While you struggle starting over in a place you never thought you would return, Eddie struggles feeling stuck in a place he can’t manage to leave — until you offer to help him. Of all the lessons learned, the most important are the ones you teach each other.

✏︎ Series CW: forbidden romance, slow burn, true love, smut (18+ mdni), internal conflict, student-teacher relationship, 10 year age gap, mutual pining, sexual tension, emotions, drama, angst, character development, happy ending :)

Chapter CW: kissing, heavy petting, jealousy, protective!eddie, drinking, smoking, fluff

Tuesday, December 10th 1985

Winter crept in like a lamb. It nipped at your ankles when you got out of bed, beckoned you to hibernate in the warm cocoon of soft sheets and heavy blankets. The room was a lightless cave, the sky still as dense as midnight. Feet shuffling blindly at the floor to find your slippers, you clicked on the small lamp atop your nightstand to offer some light to your habitat. 

Standard routine — making shadows on the wall as you brushed your teeth, emerging out the door to the dark hallway, squinting under the harsh light of your kitchen. Two eggs over easy. Two pieces of toast. One phone that hung to the right of your small kitchen table like an omen as you dipped the crust into the yolks. Looming. Waiting. You swallowed a feeling with your next sip of coffee; flutters that danced down your throat and settled in the pit of your stomach. 

By the time you returned to your bedroom, the sky touched your sheer curtains with the palest blue. Your clothing was already laid out neatly on your dresser, poised like soldiers in a row — thick ribbed stockings; plaid wool skirt; stiff white blouse; cream knit sweater. 

As you suited up, stripping yourself of warm pajamas to brace the chill of your formal attire, your eyes drifted to an object on your desk. Powder blue and collecting a fair amount of dust; an IBM Selectric II typewriter. It was more or less a decoration now, pushed against the wall to make room for piles of papers in need of grading. Still, you liked the way it looked; cheery against the drab apartment wall, like something a real writer would have.

It was a trusty old thing, still chugging along despite countless college essays hammered into the grey keys. It had been your only company in the wee hours of many mornings such as this one, only then there had not been sleep to separate you from the night before. Sturdy and dependable, it captured your imagination too, letter by black inked letter. 

Fastening the buttons of your blouse in a methodical rhythm, you could almost trick yourself into believing it was any other morning, except today there was something else you needed to do before you left, and the clock on your nightstand let you know in glowing red that your window to do so was closing.

Cold linoleum creaked under your stocking feet as you padded into the kitchen, stomach twisting into knots as you approached the phone. If you were going to do this, it had to be now. 

Running your finger down the laminated tabs of the well-loved address book on your counter, you flipped to the section labeled “J”. After scanning a dozen hand-written names, you found the one you were looking for. It was a mess of chalky white-out and hasty scribbles. Last name replaced, same with the phone number and address. You weren’t sure why you didn’t just write it all fresh under “P”, perhaps it was something about not wanting to erase the history entirely.

You took a deep breath and snatched the phone off the receiver. Pressing the cold plastic to your ear, you glanced down at the numbers in blue pen and whispered them quietly to yourself as you slowly, hesitantly, clicked them one by one into the cream button pad on the wall. 

You stared across the kitchen in sober contemplation of your life choices as the phone rang. Again. And again. And again, until a familiar, groggy voice answered.

“Hello?” 

“Hey! Janet!” you greeted brightly, sounding far too awake for 7:06 AM. In your nervous haste, you almost forgot to tell her who was calling. 

“Oh… hey there,” came a hesitant voice on the other line, a sharp squeal cut through the static followed by a hush.

“Hey, um, I know it’s like, super early and totally last minute but I wanted to catch you before I left for work. Listen, I’ve had a hell of a week already and I was wondering—and I totally get it if you can’t, but—well I was wondering if you’d be up for going out tonight. Like say around eight-ish?” You bit your lip and grimaced, twisting the gummy cord around your finger. 

The pause was filled with the rattling of tiny fists against plastic. “Oh! Well let’s see,” she said in a voice that was suddenly very awake. “The kids will be asleep by then, or at least they should be,” she chuckled, “and Bob doesn’t go to bed till after eleven anyway, so I’m sure he’ll be fine if I escape for a few hours. I mean I’ll check with him but I really don’t see why not.” 

It was equally as promising as it was a relief; the excitement that crept through her voice. 

“Great! Yeah, I figured you could probably use a night out.”

“Oh gosh, you don’t even know the half of it,” Janet laughed. “So where were you thinking? You wanna just go to Pal-Joeys again?”

Pacing toward the counter, you braced to offer your suggestion. “Actually, I was thinking we could go to The Hideout, I hear there’s a band playing tonight.”

“The Hideout?” she asked through an incredulous smile. 

“I know,” you breathed nervously, “it’s not really our um, regular haunt, but that’s kinda why I want to go, you know? Shake things up a bit. Everything’s just been feeling so… routine lately, you know?”

Janet’s sigh was deep and heavy. “Oh trust me, I know.” A bright coo crackled through the telephone line. 

“Like, I kind of want to just…” you coiled your finger deeper into the phone cord, glancing at the glaring red clock above the stove, “I dunno…pretend to be somebody else for a change.” 

“You know,” she started, a quiet mischief creeping into her voice, “I could really stand to be somebody else for a night too.”

You paused in your pacing as a smile cracked across your face. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Gosh, do you know your birthday was the last time I went out? Seriously! And before that I don’t even remember. Sometimes I look around and it’s like, man I used to be fun. You remember when I was fun, right?”

You chuckled, drifting back to memories of truths and dares, of creeping down her dark basement steps with freshly painted toes. “You still are fun, Janet.”

“Well maybe you can help remind me because sometimes I look in the mirror and I swear I don’t even recognize myself. Really! I swear I see my mother more and more and that’s what’s really terrifying.” 

“You mean you don’t see Bloody Mary anymore?”

Janet’s cackle would have woken the whole house had it not been wide awake and eating Cheerios already. “No that’s just at my parents’ house, remember?”

You snorted, leaning back against the counter. “I think we screamed so loud we woke the neighbors. I swear that bathroom is haunted.”

“That’s what I’ve always said! You feel like you’re being watched, right? My parents still don’t believe me. Oh well, not my problem anymore.”

You laughed, the knot in your belly releasing slightly before you glanced at the clock again, 7:13. “Crap, I’ve gotta get going. So I’ll see you at eight tonight? At The Hideout?”

“Yeah, should be fine. I’ll call you if anything changes. Ah!” she squealed, “I can’t wait.”

“Glad you’re excited,” you chuckled, gripping the smooth plastic. “Ok, see you later.”

“Bye now!”

You hung the phone back on the receiver and stood in the blaring silence of your kitchen, frozen by the impact of your choices. It was real now. In a matter of about thirteen hours you would be getting in your car, driving down a dark road, and parking it at a seedy bar where you would see Eddie for the first time in public. Your feet felt glued to the floor, but as the clock blinked to 7:15, you willed them to move.  

Before taking the dark road that led to a seedy bar, you would first need to get in your car and take another road — to work.

You cursed the cold. Cursed it as you hurried across the parking lot to find your car covered in fractals of frost. Cursed it vehemently as you worked the glass with your feeble plastic scraper, shaving holes just big enough to see out of your dashboard and rear window as the clock on your wrist ticked on minute by precious minute. You cursed it audibly when you turned the key and the engine whirred, and whined, and refused to turn over. It must have heard you, because after the fifth time of stomping on the brake and snapping your wrist forward, the engine roared to life.

You rode in on a wave; a daze like the fog that escaped your lungs in shallow breaths. The sun rose above the frozen farmlands, casting its golden-pink light across the empty fields. Out here the roads stretched on for miles. Flat and straight, with little variance in elevation. There was nowhere to look but straight ahead. No curves to surprise you, just you and the rumble of the salt-dusted road, bumping along in silence as an anxious fog rolled across the landscape of your mind. 

A sea of students swept you through the front doors of Hawkins High and into the bustling office. Amidst the flurry of ringing phones and voices settling into the cadence of their roles, you grabbed your punch card and stamped the date and time in line with the rest. Pushing the metal handle of the heavy glass door, you exited the humming reprieve of the office and into the din of the main hall. Your boots made hollow clicks against the glossy tile, wind at your face as you marched forward, dodging roughhousing students and hall monitors rushing toward them. 

Goodness was a mantle. A strap that dug into your shoulder; heavy with books, and papers, and responsibility. You wedged your thumb beneath it, shrugging it up onto the padded wool collar of your coat as you strode on, vision locked ahead as chaos swirled around you.

Your mug left a ring on the big desk; a remnant from where you’d sloshed it coming down the hall. You’d tried to be careful; slow and deliberate in your pacing when you left the teachers lounge with it, but when a blur of wild curls drew your gaze, your footing faltered. At least you missed your shoes. 

Coat hung on its solitary hook and grade book stationed at the center of the desk, you took your place in front of it. Clutching your clipboard, you glanced across the rows of desks, down at the rows of names, beside the rows of boxes that your green pen would fill with neat little P’s and A’s like it did every day. Bell after bell, swipe after swipe of your eraser at the board, the fresh sticks of chalk dwindled to nubs. Question after question, the patience in your voice grew thin. 

Between the bells at the top of fourth period, you stood poised like a sentinel outside the door to your classroom. Arms folded across your knit sweater, you sighed, shifting your weight back and forth between your tired feet, offering gentle smiles as your students filed through the threshold of the door. You smelled him before you saw him; the waft of leather and cigarettes with notes of shampoo more prominent than usual. 

Against the flow of traffic, Eddie Munson brought his salt-licked combat boots to a halt in front of you. Thumb hooked under the heavy strap of his backpack, he offered you a smile so broad it crinkled the corners of his eyes and made your knees want to give. 

You tightened your arms around your sweater, over the hard plastic of your faculty lanyard, and breathed a shy, girlish greeting. “Hey.” 

“Hey,” he mimicked, shifting his weight with a less than subtle restlessness as his dark eyes drank you in. They darted back and forth between yours, plush lips parted and primed with words. You felt them brimming impatiently behind his eyes, saw them in the pink flash of his tongue as it darted out to wet his lips. 

Out here in the bustling hallway, with eyes that watched and voices that echoed off the polished tile, Eddie edged a bold foot closer, dove in, and ghosted the shell of your ear with his burning question.

“Will I see you tonight?”

The words were a low, hot rumble — rippling from your ear down your spine, pooling deep in your belly. His heat thawed your shoulder as he hovered there, lingering for each aching second it took you to eke out your response. 

“Yeah,” you whispered into his curls.

Pulling back with a blinding grin, he tipped his head and ducked into the door of your classroom.

The slam of a locker made you jump. Arms crossed to shield your pounding heart, you stood there in the middle of it all, swimming in a sea of passing bodies, struggling to keep your head above the waves. It surged with images of a lighted stage, of bottles, and tables, and a dark corner for both of you to hide in. The bell echoed loudly down the hall, shrill enough to wake you from the dream you were surely having. Donning your mask, you took a deep breath and dove in, shutting the door behind you.

______

Eddie swung open the heavy back doors to his van, piercing the darkness with the dull yellow overhead light. Gravel crunched under his boots as he leaned in to grab the first amp from the stack, like a pile of black Christmas presents awaiting unwrapping. The night air bit at his fingers, stars twinkling in the patches where the clouds gave way above the tree line. Tightening his grip around the thick gummy handle, he hoisted it and followed the pale path the moon offered out of the side parking lot toward the patio behind The Hideout.

It wasn’t much; a stout fence in dire need of a paint job that caged in a few meager picnic tables. They still had umbrellas in the middle, wrapped tightly like mummies for the winter. He knew the back door would be open, it always was. Turning the weathered knob with his free hand, he welcomed the heat that wafted toward him. He could almost say he welcomed the piss smell coming from the bathrooms as his heavy boots thumped down the dark linoleum hallway, but that would be a stretch. Accustomed was a better word. Familiar was a better word. 

Stale beer and cigarettes soon drowned it out as he entered the dimly lit bar, stopping to plunk the heavy amp down to his left on the stage, which was little more than a raised platform painted black. The thud drew the attention of the five usual suspects at the bar, and Eddie wondered which one of them was responsible for playing “Free Bird” on the jukebox.

Bill raised his hand, tipping his baseball cap back in a friendly nod as his fingers splayed. “‘Ey, Eddie!”

He returned the gesture of a single raised hand and flashed a smile before turning down the hall again. Eddie took a deep breath at the door to calm his pounding heart before pressing it open. He couldn’t believe he had been crazy enough to suggest something like this. That soon enough, you would be perched atop one of those rickety stools at a tall, sticky table, watching his every move, listening to his every note. The chill of the night air was a welcome thing, sobering and distracting from the heat that was creeping up the collar of his thick, leather coat. As the gravel crunched under his boots again, headlights blinded his vision. 

He could hear the bass pounding from the outside of the small sedan as it rolled up beside his van, followed promptly by another. After a moment of squinting, the headlights shut off with the rumble of the engine, leaving him in the darkness once again. Seatbelts clicked and laughter emerged from the open doors as his friends tumbled out into the parking lot. 

“What the fuck took you guys so long? We left at the same time,” Eddie groused.

Dave lumbered over and sighed, a smirk playing on his broad features in the moonlight. “Jeff had to take a shit and he parked me in.” 

Jeff rolled his eyes, swinging the door shut with a huff as Gareth laughed into the night air. 

Eddie sighed, glancing toward the tall stack of amps and drum heads sitting backlit in the rear of his van. “Ok, well we’ve got like forty minutes to get our shit together so start hauling.” 

Dave groaned, cracking his back with a twist of his hefty torso. “Ugh, can you at least let me hit this doob before you put me to work?”

On any other night, Eddie would have welcomed the suggestion, but his nerves were traveling to his hands now and he itched to move them. “Dude, it takes us like an hour to set up, we don’t have time right now. We can smoke after we get this shit on stage.”

Jeff quirked his brows suspiciously, “Dude, since when do you care that we’re on time for anything?”

“Yeah seriously, we’re late like every week,” Gareth added.

Eddie balked, searching for the answer in the treeline, one that excluded you. “It just—if we’re ever gonna play anywhere else besides here we’re gonna have to start getting our shit together.”

There was a lukewarm pause as the band considered his answer. By the looks on their faces, Eddie wasn’t entirely sure if they bought it, but it was the best he could come up with and the statement was true. Dave broke the silence with an exasperated sigh. “Come on. I’ve been jonesing since we got to Gareth’s. His mom is so anal we can’t even smoke outside.”

“That’s ‘cause you reek when you come back in,” Gareth defended.

“At least I don’t reek of ass like you,” Dave chortled.

Jeff didn’t miss a beat. “That’s debatable.”

Gareth’s cackle wafted into the frigid air as he pointed a pale finger at Dave.

“You wanna find out the hard way?” Dave’s eyes glimmered wildly as he hooked an arm around Gareth’s shoulders, locking him into a power noogie position.

Gravel shuffled under their stumbling feet. “Let go of me you asshole,” Gareth gritted through a strangled laugh. Jeff only egged them on, howling uproariously like he had tickets to the show. 

Eddie dragged his hands down his face with a deep, seething breath as Dave ground his thick knuckles into Gareth’s mop of hair, kicking up rocks and pivoting as Gareth attempted to pry away. This was his circus, his monkeys, and he would have to step up and be the ring leader if they were going to take the stage at all tonight. “CUT IT OUT!” he hollered. 

Dave paused, arm still locked around Gareth’s neck. “Come on, we’re just having a little fun. You remember fun, right?” 

Gareth groaned weakly, looking up at Eddie with pathetic eyes. “Who’s we?” he choked.

Eddie’s expression didn’t budge from its scowl. With a roll of his eyes and a resigned huff, Dave released his arm and Gareth stumbled backward, gasping. “Fine, captain killjoy.”

A heavy plume of fog left his nostrils as Eddie stormed toward the back of his van, weaving his arm through a thick ring of cables to rest on his shoulder before hoisting another amp from the stack. Gravel shuffled behind him as the others followed suit.

You were risking a lot to come here. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint you.

______

The silence gnawed at you, filled you with an itching discomfort as you thumbed your dresser knobs. Staring into your open shirt drawer, you faced off with your biggest decision yet — what to wear tonight.

The chasm of options laid before you in neat, folded rows. An excavation site of cardigans, and turtle necks, and things you hadn’t unearthed in years. You ran your fingers through the layers of folded cotton, peeling them back with deep consideration. 

Nagging thoughts crept in like whispers over the softly ticking clock, pinball plunger pulled and ready to fire. With a determined huff, you stepped back from your dresser and padded down the hallway, out into the living room. 

Your skirt pooled around your stocking feet as you crouched down in front of the long wooden cabinet that housed your records. Fingers dancing over the worn cardboard spines, you flipped them softly forward as you perused one by one, walking steadily until one of them fell open to a scene; a painting of a man hunched over with sticks tied to his back that hung on a wall of peeling paper. You paused, pulling it out to scan the track list. This would do.

Placing the the record softly on the felt pad, you lowered the needle to the ridges, and with the press of a button, a crackle roused the room. 

Hey hey momma said the way you move

Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove

A smile, like a crocus peeking up from the snow, bloomed across your face. You cranked the volume, wrapping yourself in a sound that would carry to your bedroom. 

Your fingers found the tiny metal tab behind your waist, and with a downward tug of the zipper, your wool skirt became a puddle on the floor. Peeling back the layers, your tight sweater joined it in a heap, your thick stockings lay deflated on the pile, the buttons of your stiff blouse worked free until it was a crumpled afterthought. The chill that kissed your skin was a welcome thing. Goosebumps raised like the current flowing through you as your near-naked silhouette danced across the wall to approach the open drawer once more. 

Emboldened with a curious delight, you began to dig. Past the crust of crisp blouses, beneath the squishy mid-layer of cardigans, down into the sub-layer of camisoles and tees, deeper and deeper until finally your fingers made purchase with a soft treasure. 

It fell open as you unearthed it, the solid black gone grey from washing, the white letters and arched angel cracked and faded: Led Zeppelin — United States of America 1977. 

It happened on a Sunday in April, which began as most Sundays did, with you hunched over your powder blue typewriter in a race between the clock and the keys. You had it down to a science. At the speed you were typing, a rough draft could be finished by dinner, and the final could be churned out by cutting into a few hours of your sleep. A worthy sacrifice, as your final grade was on the finish line. This, like countless others, was how you planned to spend your day — until your roommate found you. 

You remembered the way she leaned against the wooden frame of your bunk bed, amused, watching the paper you hammered with black-inked letters grow longer and longer. Finally she spilled it; as of an hour ago, she was down one boyfriend and up one ticket, and now it had your name on it. When she dangled it between you and the tidy rows of text, your hands froze over the keys. 

You eyed the invitation — temptation printed on a neat, orange strip. Free admission, at a price.

The show was sold out. It had been for a long time. 

Your class was at 9:00 AM tomorrow. A late paper took twenty percent off your grade. 

You loved the band dearly, had a bigger crush on Robert Plant than you’d openly admit to anyone. Fights had broken out over tickets nation wide. You had no idea when they would play the states again.

The clock ticked on beside you, the long hand grazed past three. Maybe you could churn out the rest  in the next few hours. Maybe the rough draft would be enough. But the realist in you knew neither would happen if you seized the ticket. Your grade would never recover, your streak of straight As you’d kept since grade school would come to an end. Your GPA would dip for the semester.

On April 17th, 1977, you left your paper sitting unfinished in the typewriter to see Led Zeppelin play Market Square Arena. You didn’t know it then, but it was the last time they ever would.

On April 18th at 9:00 AM, you showed up to class with empty hands and a brand new shirt. 

You had altered your souvenir; taken scissors to the collar so that it draped off your shoulder. Time and your washing machine had made Swiss cheese of the bottom hem, so you cropped it. You admired the handiwork as it draped off you now, the way the black strap of your bra peeked out from the slope of your shoulder like a coy secret. 

Pulling open the lower drawer—opened far less frequently than you would like—your knuckles grazed the bottom of the smooth wood interior as you peeled back the layers of folded denim. A crease of black jumped out from the sea of blue, and you examined it. It had a nice worn-in fade for only having lived in your dresser a few years, a flatteringly high waist, and most importantly, tapered legs that could easily be tucked into the tall, black boots sitting in the back of your closet. Your bare legs welcomed the barrier against the chill, and you caught a glance at your rear as you hiked them snugly upward. They hugged you in all the right places, as the music electrified the air, you transformed.

A vision of you — sprawled across a blanket on the quad with your face in a book. Making shadows on your dorm room wall while transmuting fantasies to black-inked pages. Strolling down a lamp-lit street, face to the stars, fueling your wild imagination. Here, in your reflection, the ghost of you looked back.

You painted her darker than normal, swapping the usual chapstick for a deep, dusty red exhumed from the bottom of your makeup bag. Eyes smoked and cheeks dusted, you drew out the beauty from angles of your face with every stroke.

Coat donned and purse in hand, you paused at the front door, glancing over your shoulder, down the hallway, toward your coffee table piled with papers. There was another ghost of you here — tucked into her slippers and cozy robe with the voices from the television as her only company, flicking her green grading pen down rows of questions. 

On December 10th, 1985, you left the papers sitting on your coffee table to see Corroded Coffin play The Hideout. With a decided twist of the handle, you pushed out into the cold night air. 

Light pooled in sparse puddles as your boots echoed off the rough pavement. Stillness whispered on the wind as crisp remnants of fall scuttled across the asphalt. The apartments behind you were a tapestry of glowing squares, pictures of the rest of Hawkins tucking into their slippers and washing their dishes, grabbing their blankets and turning on their televisions. 

You grabbed your keys and unlocked your car, and when it roared to life with a swift flick of your wrist, a strange exhilaration coursed through you. 

It rose like the moon over the barren fields, thrumming in your chest, spreading to your limbs, alight with something wild and teeming as you drove past rows of lighted windows—vignettes of tired routine—and stopped at the same red sign you did this morning. Your fingers twitched over the turn signal leaver — an impulse to flick up, to turn right, to settle into the familiar rhythm of your muscle memory. This time you pressed down, pressed your foot to the gas, and cranked the wheel left.

Cruising boldly down the straight and narrow road, fields and farmland faded in your rearview mirror and soon there were trees on the horizon; dense and dark. Gripping the wheel as the silhouette closed in, the corners of your mouth drew upward, pulled by a wild, awakened force. Headlights illuminated pale, naked limbs. Eyes beamed back at you from the shadows. You cranked the volume on your stereo, and as you braced for your first bend, something deep within you—dormant and restless—howled.

______

The water was so cold it burned. Eddie cursed the old plumbing, instantly regretting having the decency to wash his hands in the first place. Soap just barely rinsed, he twisted the lime-scaled handles and shut it off. With a trembling hand, he grabbed one of the last paper towels. Gareth’s kick drum echoed down the narrow hallway, thundering just like his chest. He glanced at his watch again. 7:56. 

Eddie took a ragged breath, chucking the crumpled paper at the overflowing trash bin in the corner. It bounced dejectedly off the wall and onto the dirty tile. With a deadpan glare, he left it where it lay. Hands barely dry, he felt for the flask in his pocket. Screwing the tiny cap and flicking it open, he tipped it back. Eddie welcomed the burn. It chased down his throat and settled in his stomach with a warmth that radiated, instantly numbing his nerves.

Meeting his own eyes in the tiny, smudged mirror, he gave himself a final glance over. His curls were holding; fresh and clean from this morning, fluffed by the icy wind in the trips from van to stage. 

Here, in the dingy confines of The Hideout, words like freak and loser lost their stick. Words he could shake like a dog at the door. He’d fashioned them like armor in the daytime; a shield in hallways and in lunch lines. What was stickier were feelings. The feelings that came with chewed pens and answers left blank. The feeling of lectures slipping like a sieve through his brain. The feeling of stares and stifled laughter, of staring numbly at the board, of filling the silence with bullshit instead of an answer. 

Microphone feedback squeaked outside. The dull, heavy walk of a bassline. Laughter. Cymbals. That kick drum again. Eddie took another swig, searing the flutters in his stomach.

He wanted to be good for you. Seen under stage lights instead of fluorescents. 

Good like an answer he knew.

-

You saw the sign first, peeking from behind the trees — simple, effective, and yellowed with time. The Hideout: a hole in the woods. Tucked around the bend you now braced against, it sat like a neon beacon. The chipped, grey exterior faded into the shadows, leaving only the holy glow of Budweiser and Miller Lite signs to guide you to the promised land. 

Pulling into a spot along the narrow parking strip, you faced off with your destination. Looming and real. Frozen as reality stared back at you in the glare of your blinding headlights, you gripped the steering wheel and looked around. There were a few other cars beside you, but none of them Janet’s. Around the left of the building there appeared to be more parking, and the stout silhouette of a two-tone van you did know the owner of. Pinballs hammered in your chest. 

When you arrange a time to meet someone, you are always punctual. Perhaps a life organized by bells on timers trained you to be this way, but the thought of entering alone filled you with dread, and part of you wondered whether you should wait out here for her. Your hands were starting to shake, and not from the cold. 

The list of crazy things you had done in your life was a laughably short one, but this made the top by a long shot. As you turned the radio down and sat in the wake of your rumbling engine, the questions grew louder. Serious questions about where you thought this night would go, about where you wanted it to go and if you would truly go there. 

Suddenly your headlights felt too bright, like a beacon drawing eyes from the woods, or even more terrifying, eyes from the building. You promptly flicked them off and waited, staring dead ahead at the chipped grey siding. It was fine. You were fine. At least you could no longer see your breath. You could hide here as long as you wanted. 

-

“Alright man, it’s doob o’clock,” Dave said with a satisfied stretch as he took in the stage setup.

Eddie ripped another frantically scribbled setlist out of his spiral notebook and shoved it at him. “No it’s eight fifteen and we still need to do soundcheck,” Eddie scathed, glancing at the door. “You can start by plugging your mic in, Jesus Christ.”

Dave huffed annoyedly through his nose, squatting down to find the cord with exaggerated difficulty. “Yes sir,” he mocked. Eddie shot back a testing glare. “Dude, what’s up with you tonight? You’ve been on one since Gareth’s.”

“Yeah, you ok man?” asked Jeff.

The knots tightened in his stomach as the attention of all three of them closed in around him. “Just—let’s just get our shit together…please,” he deflected.

-

Glancing around frantically, you wondered, for the hundredth time, where the hell Janet was. You couldn’t be that surprised that a woman with two small children was late, but your exhaust was making a smokescreen of the parking strip, and you wondered if anyone inside had noticed, if anyone could hear the low rumble of your engine and questioned why this strange woman was idling. With an irritated sigh, you turned the key, leaving you in deafening silence and leeching cold. You could hear your breathing now, your pounding heart, the squeaking of leather as you shifted in your seat. What one of the kids got sick? What if she called after you left? 

What if she isn’t coming?

Eddie’s eyes lingered at the door as he clicked the pedals with his feet, plucking a soft, testing melody into the mic. His watch glared under the stage lights, confidence fleeting with every minute that ticked by. Gareth snapped his foot petal with a deep thud. Dave walked out a bassline before squealing feedback made the whole bar flinch.

The strum of a chord made you jump. Booming and electric, you heard it through the walls. They were starting. They were starting and you weren’t there. Gripping the steering wheel, you tossed your head back in an anguished sigh. You sure as hell weren’t going to stand him up. As you glanced around the parking lot one last desperate time, the bitter conclusion rose like bile — you may have to do this alone. Seatbelt clicking under your gloved thumb, you steeled yourself for the cold, for the eyes of strangers in a strange new place. With a decided pull of the handle, the door opened to the frigid night air, and you emerged from the heat into the unknown. 

You met your reflection in the glass of the entrance as your hand gripped the weathered knob. Pinballs fired off at lightning speed — a jackpot multi-ball bonanza. Checking your hair one last time with eyes locked on your own, you turned the handle with a determined sigh.

A bell dinged above your head, and winter’s chill gusted in on your heels.

The whole room turned at once — at you. You, from the front of the classroom. You, from behind the big desk. You, in the doorway of The Hideout. Across a dark sea of scattered tables, poised on an altar of sound and light, Eddie Munson smiled at you — brighter than all of it. 

The door fell shut behind you. Hot under the gaze of what seemed like the entire bar, it suddenly felt like you were the one on stage. Standing there like a deer in headlights in your long wool coat and clean black boots, you surely must have looked as out of place as you felt. Shoulders rolling back to counter your thrumming nerves, your boots left the rug and found the tacky linoleum as you approached the bar that lined the left wall. 

Eddie busied his shaking hands with tapping another test melody into his mic, pausing when he heard a voice over his right shoulder. 

“Is that…?” Jeff pointed toward the back of your head.

Gareth’s eyes lit up in recognition. Dave peered over with a shit-eating grin. “Did you invite her?” he mouthed.

Eddie’s face betrayed him, burning like it did under the fluorescents. Burning to greet you at the bar, for the liberty to patronize it, to offer you something more than his aching gaze. 

“No,” Eddie lied, “but I may have told her we play here on Tuesdays.” He struck the strings with the weight of his frustration, drowning out any further questions with the opening chords to the first song on the setlist. The others took their cue with chuckles and shaking heads. Heart pounding like the kick drum behind him, Eddie’s fingers found the frets, tugging a muscle memory from deep within as his eyes stayed fixed on you. 

There was an older man in a sweatshirt behind the bar. The owner, you figured, by the way he was standing — arms crossed, stance wide, unafraid to take up space. By the way he was looking at you, like he wondered what would drive a new face to his establishment on a random Tuesday night in December. From the glances the others passed between them, the feeling seemed unanimous. 

“How can I help you?” he half shouted against the chugging chords, leaning against the bar with a curious smile.

You braced with your brightest grin, placing your gloved hands down flat on the waxy bar. “Hi! Yes—um,” you scanned the selection under the neon lights, the liquor bottles of all shapes and sizes reflected in the dirty mirror behind them. The bar back was tightly cluttered with old stickers and hand-written notes taped behind the cash register, with half-empty bottles of bitters and bobble heads nodding to the palpable vibration. Having no interest in standing there awkwardly while he fixed you a cocktail, you selected a bottle of Coors. 

He nodded and ducked to open the steel, magnet-plastered fridge beneath the cash register. 

Your gaze, like a magnet, drew back to the stage. It was all you could do just to watch him — the way his curls fell gently at his cheek, the way they bounced with every strum. There was a tension lingering just under the curve of his lashes. The music was fast and loud, purely instrumental. You recognized nothing about it but the genre. Head dipped in concentration as his left hand tapped a frantic melody into the frets, he raised his eyes bravely to meet yours.

He wasn’t the only man staring. It was hard to ignore; the man in the baseball cap to your right as you stared right through his line of sight. You pinched off your gloves and shoved them in your pockets to occupy your hands.

A bottle cap plinked against the bar top. “Two bucks,” the owner stated, slinging a towel over his shoulder. 

You fished through your purse, feeling those eyes on you as you opened your wallet, as you slid the bills right under his gaze across the waxy counter. You snatched the cold bottle and raised it to your lips. Turning over your shoulder, your eyes clung to Eddie on stage, to his tendons as they flexed to pick a rhythm at the strings. His was gaze a soft and yearning thing, a contrast to the sharp and punchy chords that left his fingers. 

“You know these guys?” the man in the cap asked finally, pointing to the stage. Your eyes shot toward him in surprise, lips still pursed at the bottle. He had that working man sort of look. Average features, subtle crows feet, a whisper of sandy stubble across his strong jaw. His grey-blue eyes were gentle, but brimming with a heated curiosity.

You used the much needed swig to buy yourself a second. Did you? The cold, bready fizz sparkled down your throat. You supposed you didn’t have to specify how you were acquainted. “Yeah,” you answered simply, plugging your mouth with the bottle like a dam.

A bell rattled behind you. Grateful for any disruption, you whipped around quickly to break the connection. Janet lit up as soon as she saw you, a mixture of relief and apology playing out on her face as she strode across the room. Tight blonde curls emerged from her lowering leopard print hood. “Oh my god I’m so sorry,” she lamented, arms opening to embrace you. 

Relief washed through you like a warm buzz. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it!” you said as your nose took a dive in her soft, perfumed curls. 

“Sarah would not stop crying, it took forever for me to finally get her to sleep. I swear babies have a sixth sense, they always know when you have fun plans,” she said through a laugh. Her lashes were long and thick with mascara, eyeshadow a solid sky blue so vibrant that it popped even in the dim neon glow. 

Janet ordered a margarita. There was nothing new to speak of, really, over the electric roar of the band, but you tried to listen. Intently, you tried to listen to the new words her son was saying, to offer some lukewarm update about how work was going, but your eyes had their own agenda.

The rolled cuffs of Eddie’s tight, acid-washed jeans bunched against the pull tabs of his boots as he tapped the rhythm with his heel. There was no jacket for him to strain against, no flannel to constrict him, no sleeves on his T-shirt in December. It was more than you’d seen of him yet. Ink flexed with each generous swell of his bicep, and with every attack, he would flash you his ribs through the hand-hacked holes. 

“Mmm,” Janet mumbled, sipping off the top of the very full, salt-rimmed rocks glass. “Come on, let’s get cozy,” she said with a wink and gestured toward the tables. The air was thick with smoke wafting from the bikers at the bar. Eddie tapped out another lick and peered through a few stray curls as you followed her across the room to a high top, back and center.

You wanted to be closer. Close enough to see the umber of his eyes, the ridges of his knuckles as they plucked the strings. There were a few shorter tables down in front, back about five feet from the stage. But as the beams of light bounced off the glossy wood and over the seats in blinding white, you were grateful for the shadows ten feet would afford you. 

Janet stripped off her coat to reveal a tight black dress with long sleeves and sequined, padded shoulders. It hugged just above the knees of her sheer hose, punctuated with sharp ankle boots. 

“Look at you all dressed up! You look stunning.” You meant it, she really did.

Janet’s smile was a shy deflection, but hiding just beneath it, a glimmer of belief. “Thanks, this thing’s been sitting in my closet for like a year now. Can you believe it? I just felt like, you know, if I’m going out I’m gonna dress up goddamn it,” she laughed, punctuating with a slap against the table. “We coulda gone to Benny’s, I still woulda worn it.”

You laughed, for the first time since you’d talked to her that morning. Unbuttoning your coat, you let it drape over the metal back of the stool behind you. 

“You’re not looking too shabby yourself,” Janet said with a wink before taking a sip.

“Honestly I’ll take any excuse I can get to dress down,” you said with a sheepish huff, propping your elbows on the sticky table before bringing the bottle to your lips. 

A nervous crackle wound its way through Eddie’s stomach at the vision of you. You, perched on a stool in a dive bar. You, in jeans and a t-shirt. You, arching forward just enough to grace him with a sliver of your back. It was real — you, here.  He soured a note, and those words he shook off came creeping back in as he fumbled through the next lick. But you didn’t seem to notice. You propped your cheek against your knuckles and let the warmth of your eyes usher his doubts away. 

When the song came to a ringing conclusion, Janet’s cheer was uninhibited, clapping her hands above her head. It drew eyes from the couple seated at one of the lower tables, from the bikers at the bar, from the band. Your applause was more demure, but you couldn’t mask the brilliance of your smile. 

“Thank you, thank you,” Eddie said into the microphone. “Looks like we really have a crowd tonight. Seven drunks.”

The room erupted with hollers and cheers. 

The bassist muttered something to the other guitarist and the two shared a laugh, casting their eyes towards you. Suddenly your face grew very hot. Of course they recognized you, Jeff was in your second period class. You anticipated this, and yet it was the realness of it all that shook you — the hard stool beneath you, the stares you could feel as your finger idly traced the cold condensation on the glass. Pinballs fired off at rapid speed. You drowned them with a tip of the bottle. 

Eddie shifted, clicking the pedals with his foot. “Ok, so this next one is uh, definitely not an original.” He breathed a laugh into the microphone, glancing up at you — at your shoulders, hunched in shy defense, at your worried brow and downcast gaze. He wished he could reach across the room, lift your chin with his words and draw you from your shell. “Anyway, you’ll uh, probably recognize this one,” he said, to you.

Eddie nodded to the band, counting off silently before they struck a chord together — a low, droning thing, gritty and slow as the bass walked steadily over the foundation. Eddie swayed back and forth, rocking in time with the beat like a march, resting his heavy-lidded gaze on you. Across the divide of scattered seats, you — at the small table, saw him — on the big stage. His nimble fingers struck the chords with an ardent conviction, and the ice in you began to thaw. 

Suddenly the beat changed pace. Gareth smacked his drum sticks together to count off, and the first two chords sparked instant recognition. A smile rose up in you — a wild and thrumming thing, radiant and rising until it cracked through. 

You knew what was coming. Two chords, quiet taps for a count of sixteen, and then those two chords again, like a one-two punch, booming and building with anticipation. Again, and again, as the energy rose in the room. You caught the wicked glint in his eyes as his hands—those hands that fidgeted and fumbled with dog-eared pages and chewed up pens—wielded power. A surge of electricity swirled through your stomach, crackled because you knew what was next. 

Eddie took a deep breath, and opened his mouth. 

Generals gathered in their masses

Colors. Warm and bright, tingling like a shockwave from your chest down to your seat. 

Just like witches at black masses

In your secret daydreams, you often wondered what his voice sounded like in song. 

Evil minds that plot destruction

Tried to guess from his deep hums and brilliant laughter.

Sorcerers of death’s construction

Now, it suspended in the air like a battle cry, reaching out across the chasm of tables and chairs.

In the fields the bodies burning

Surging like a wildfire.

As the war machine keeps turning

Swirling through the darkness like a strange magic.

Death and hatred to mankind

Reaching out like it wanted to touch you. 

Poisoning their brainwashed minds

And so you let it.

Oh lord, yeah!

The music rocked and swelled. Like a balm reverberating through the air, it softened the hunch of your shoulders. Like an antidote, it dissolved the knot in your stomach. Like an arrow, it pierced the shell of you. 

Janet took a generous sip of her margarita and bobbed her head to the rhythm. You caught her gaze from across the table and shared a laugh, a mutual knowing through squinted eyes and shaking heads that this was, in fact, a Tuesday night in December, and the two of you were here.

As the cold drink warmed your limbs, you became acquainted with the hard curve of the stool beneath you, with the of rings left behind on the glossy table, with the crowded ashtray. Acquainted with the smoke that wafted through the air and the darkness that enveloped you like a blanket. The music settled over the room, and as you settled into that heavy buzz, you started to get the feeling you might actually enjoy yourself tonight.

Janet needed no convincing. Her first margarita went down easy, leaving nothing but the ice and her hot pink lipstick on the rim before they finished their fourth song. When she returned from the bar with one in each hand, she placed the extra in front of you. Her treat, convinced they were better than Pal Joey’s, insisting that you try it even with a few sips still lingering in your bottle. 

It surprised you — the balance of lime, and liquor, and something else you couldn’t quite place. It surprised you how it easy it melted the tension in your stomach, how it encouraged you to lean in a little more, to let your shoulders drop.

Eddie noticed it, peeking out from under the coyly dipping collar of your shirt; bare and soft as you leaned against the table — your shoulder. He missed a note. Cursing silently, he glanced down at his fingers and tapped into that deep, subconscious part of his brain again where they knew just where to go. But when he closed his eyes to find it, the image remained painted to his lids — a ripened fruit, tempting but too far to taste. Across it, a stripe of black hazard tape, a trail he itched to follow. 

There was a hunger in you, stirring more with every song, with every decadent flash of his pale ribs. He was good. Stadium good. Those nimble fingers tapped the frets, making them sing in a way that made you wish you were wire and wood, looking at you in a way that made you think he wished the same. He stroked the neck of his instrument with a reverent touch, attacked the strings with a holy power, like a wingless angel with a spotlight halo. You whispered a silent prayer, venerating him from your faraway pew in the only way you could — with your eyes.

The animal stirred in its icy den, roused by the warmth of his voice as it stretched across the bar. It stirred in that place you rarely acknowledged, rarely indulged as you considered what other talents his hands might have. You considered the shades of those sighs and swallows he took before painting the air, considered what they might sound like if he showed you. It settled and throbbed in that low, blooming place, and you smothered the feeling with a cross of your legs.

Busying yourself with what remained of your beer, you shifted your shoulders to face him directly, leaning your free arm against the metal back of the stool with an ease that Eddie considered looked almost as good on you as the shirt did. Your lips lingered on the rim of the bottle before parting with a soft pop. He swallowed.

There was a gap between you; a sea of scattered tables and wide open ears and eyes amongst them. What could he possibly say from his position? From a microphone on stage? A thousand words ached on the tip of his tongue and he swallowed them with a sloppy chug of water as the applause bought him a moment to consider. 

The white lettering across your chest jumped out at him from the shadows like a bright idea. Eddie swiped droplets from his mouth and turned to his bandmates, bringing them into a huddle as the noise drowned out what he was saying. Whatever it was, after some deliberation, they seemed in agreement about it.

You hadn’t seen Janet like this since the summer between your junior and senior year of college. She was always a happy drunk; talkative and bubbly, spilling over with laughter and the sort of wild enthusiasm that a child at a carnival might have.

“I wanna dance,” she said longingly, glancing toward the stage as she slumped in her seat. 

“Maybe we can go to a club next time,” you joked as you downed the remainder of your sweating drink.

The band assumed their positions again. Eddie tapped the pedals with his feet and rolled his shoulders back with a deep, collecting breath. His eyes found yours across the room, brimming with such a longing you wondered anyone else could sense it too. After the longest second, he snapped his head over his shoulder with a steely conviction and nodded off a count before making his attack — the opening riff to Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”. 

Your hands shot to your face.

Suddenly Janet perked up, inspired by the catchy rhythm and her own suggestion. “We should dance! Will you dance with me?”

You balked, shrinking down. “There’s like… six people here! I don’t think it’s really that kind of—”

“Oh come on, please? What’s there to lose, huh?”

Oh, only my last remaining shred of dignity in front of my students. But you couldn’t say that. “Janet,” you hissed. “We are not—I can’t—”

Her three margaritas had a different opinion. They reached across the table and grabbed your hand. “Come on, live a little! That’s what we came here to do, right?” 

You buried your face in your other. The truth was you wanted to. You wanted a closeup of that smart smirk, of the sweat beading down his temple as he strummed the punchy chords he hand-picked just for you. You wanted the fantasy, the memory, the experience. It was convincing — her pouting pink lips and pleading eyes, almost as convincing as the tequila coursing through your veins. The truth was you left your better judgement at home on the coffee table. To her giddy satisfaction, you surrendered. Dragging you from your seat, she led you to the front of the stage.

Eddie’s smile could have blinded you, even through the shy web of your fingers. Cheers erupted from the bar, from the whole band, as Janet shimmied her sequined shoulders to the beat.

Eddie opened his mouth again, this time with an ardor you could feel in your bones.

You need cooling, baby I’m not fooling

He crouched down to level with your eyes. I’m gonna send ya back to schooling

You lowered your hand to mask the girlish grin that cracked across your face.

Way down inside, honey you need it

They were breathtaking up close — his eyes. Sparkling with an energy you’d never seen before. Rich umber alight with something you couldn’t quite place, too mesmerized by the promise his tongue wove through the air.

I’m gonna give you my love

I’m gonna give you my love… oh!

He straightened with a backward toss of his head, and you found the word you were looking for in the droplets that flung from his curls. Power. 

Wanna whole lotta love?

Wanna whole lotta love?

Janet—having an absolute field day over the spectacle—offered you her hand like she wanted to tango. Freeing your face with a brave sigh, you accepted with a slap of your palm in hers. She tugged with a childish delight, and you took your cue — spinning into her waiting arm and shooting back out with a flourish dredged up from some long forgotten place. The room became a blur of sound and light, of cheers from the bar and the stage. You stilled to find your footing, landing on his eyes. 

You’ve been learning, and baby I’ve been yearning

He dipped down again. All them good times baby, baby, I’ve been lear-er-nin’, he punctuated with a shake of his head. He could see the whole vision of you, bright and clear under the stage lights. A wildness lingering just behind your eyes, a fragment unseen until now. It pounded at the cage of your chest, rose up in the shallow breaths you caught before Janet snatched you away again. He swore—silently on a deep inhale—that he would do everything in his power to coax it out of you.

Way, way down inside, oh honey you need it

I’m gonna give you my love

I’m gonna give you my love

You couldn’t remember the last time you really danced. The last time you felt a rhythm with your body and followed its blind inspiration. No rhyme or reason, no plans or choreography. It felt awkward at first, like trying on skin fresh from the wash. Feeling your feet shuffle against the tacky linoleum, finding the rhythm of yourself with a room full of strangers as witness.

Somewhere between the beams of light and the wink of Eddie’s rings beneath them, you found it. Like a memory rising up, sweeping through you like a current. Visions of a stadium, roaring as a lion struts the stage with his golden mane, as he commands a sea of thousands with his voice. There was an animal in you too, wild and careless. 

It grew wilder when the music dropped to nothing but percussion. When the room fell away to nothing but the heat from Eddie’s eyes, sparkling with play. It made your hips want to sway a little more, your legs want to dip a little deeper to match his wildness with your own. Imbued with a sudden, potent energy, he struck his wicked instrument as the rhythm and melody unraveled. 

Janet took it in stride, leading you in a rocking shimmy as you swayed to the change in tempo. Light danced on her sequined shoulders as she tipped her head back in a blissful cackle. You followed her lead, eyes fixed on her with a surging power in the knowing of whose eyes were fixed on you.

The air was a cool kiss against the sliver of skin where your shirt left off, daring you to show a little more. With a twist of your arms toward the spotlights, you blessed him with the dip of your back — the alluring shadow of your spine that trailed into the high waist of your jeans. He panged with the urge to follow it, fell to his knees and wailed through his fingertips.  

You broke from Janet’s pull to face him, eye-to-eye level, watching reverently as the sweat glistened in his clavicles, as his pelvis jutted into his weapon to eke out his solo. Howling for you with each stroke of its neck, each bend in its strings as you matched his rhythm with your hips. A secret world, just you and him, the rest fading out into nothing. He swore, like a spell in each note that he wove through the air, that somehow he would make it last.

From his knees, Eddie grabbed the mic off the stand, and with a wordless nod earned by years of friendship, Jeff took over the melody. To the delight of the crowd, he stripped himself of the weight of his instrument, setting it carefully off to the side. 

You’ve been cooling, baby, I’ve been drooling, he crooned as he crawled forward.

All the good times, baby, I’ve been misusing

You played with him there. With your shoulders, with your eyes locked no more than a foot from his. Desperate to touch him, you worshiped every bead of sweat that fell from his temple, every wet curl that strayed from the nape of his neck and hugged the strong angle of his jaw. What left his lips next dripped with such fervent intention you that you couldn’t keep your hand from your face.

Way, way down inside

I’m gonna give you my love

I’m gonna give you every inch of my love

I’m gonna give you my love

He was pure energy; raw and manic. Free in the way that wild things are. He snatched your breath away, dragged it to his den and had his way with it as he queried the chorus to you. There was wildness all around; in glinting sequins and megawatt smiles. In the flashes of limbs under the lights. In the rhythm you carried with your whole body now, moving in a way that was both so foreign and natural all at once. 

You wondered how it looked from the outside; you and him. From the bar it might have looked like drunk spontaneity. From the stage it might have looked like a stint of support for the arts. You wondered, with a twinge of fear, if the others could feel the longing too or if you had masked it well enough as a performance. 

The music dropped out to make way for the final lyrics.

Way down inside, he belted into the silence, punctuating with a deep inhale. Woman, he shouted, locking eyes with you for a pregnant second as the world came to a halt, you need… he drew a deep breath in the space the two chords allowed him before wailing the final word at the ceiling — loooooooove!

You felt it with every cell of your body in one suspended moment. Felt—for the first time since you could vividly remember—truly and completely alive. With a crash of cymbals and an electric instrumental boom, the rhythm—and the world—reconstituted around you, swirling with a vibrant energy that swept you away.

His dark eyes opened with a wicked glint, and his next breath left his chest as a command. 

Shake for me, girl. I wanna be your backdoor man!

You obeyed with a shimmy of your shoulders and the room went wild. 

______

Janet left you with a tight, perfumed hug. A gentle reassurance that yes, she was fine to drive home. She left you in the vacuum of slamming guitar cases and distant voices as the jukebox picked up where the band left off. Left you to sober up to how idle and awkward you felt sitting at the table you once shared with her, picking at the peeling label on the wet, empty bottle.

When you heard footsteps approaching, a part of you was grateful for the prospect of someone—anyone—to talk to, though it wasn’t who you hoped. Instead, it was the man in the cap from the bar.

“Hey, love the shirt,” he remarked, glance lingering a little too long over the text across your chest.

“Thanks,” you said shyly, gaze drifting back to the bottle.

He stepped closer, setting his can on the table. “I take it you went to that concert?” 

“I did, it was really last minute actually.” You told him the story. You told him with your words and gestures, twisting in the tall stool to face him, but it was Eddie that drew your eyes. Crouched down with one knee bent beneath him and the other straining against denim slits, he collected his pedals into a tiny, vintage suitcase. There were words coming out of your mouth, but faced with the rigid angles of his thighs, you were helpless but to stumble over some of them.

It was then that you noticed he had already been staring, though not at you, at Bill — with a simmer behind his eyes.

“Man, I woulda killed to go to that show. I was working a double when tickets went on sale and a buddy of mine said he was gonna camp overnight for us. Well, he ended up getting into a fight with his girlfriend and flaked out. ‘Course they were sold out and closed by the time I left work.”

You expressed your genuine sympathy.  

“Boy I was pissed at him then, but even more pissed after Bonham died. Like damn, that was my last shot, man!”

“I’m sorry you had to miss it. It was quite the show.” You told him what you could remember. The setlist, the stage, what they wore.

Eddie watched closely, carefully darting between you amidst the gathering of cables and closing of metal latches. He watched your hands come to life like he loved so much, like you always did when you were explaining something with fond enthusiasm. Helplessly, he watched the way Bill leaned closer, the way his hand and forearm made themselves at home on your table. The simmer hissed and bubbled behind his eyes.

“Anyways, it’s good to see such a lovely new face around here. One with great taste, I might add. Made my night.”

The simmer kicked up to a full, licking flame. 

“Oh, well thanks. I don’t get out much,” you said with an awkward chuckle.

Bill stepped closer, as if his next point was something he had to lean in for. “By the way, and I hope this isn’t too forward, but… you’re a great dancer.”

Eddie watched your hand dive behind your neck, your face contort into a feeble smile, your shoulders hunch, your eyes glance down. He could hear the distress in your beautiful laugh and he boiled so hot he could have seared a hole into the back of Bill’s head.

He extended his hand. “I’m Bill, by the way.” 

Eddie wrapped the cable in hasty circles around his forearm. Heat rose behind behind his tight lips and exited in short fumes.

“Hey man, have you seen the drum key anywhere?” Gareth called from behind him.

It barely registered. The world was a fragment now. A red-hot, narrowing tunnel reduced to a singularity — Bill’s hand. 

Bill’s hand; hovering like a salacious invitation, too close to the soft swell of your belly. That open, rugged palm — weathered, experienced, and free. Free to reach into his wallet, to reach across the bar, to hand you a drink, to wander all sorts of places where Eddie could not.

You, ever polite and always accommodating, reached back.

He touched you. 

Eddie’s vision narrowed red. Helplessly, he watched Bill’s fingers snake around the back of your hand and squeeze, linger at your palm as they released. A coil wound through his body. It rose up like bile — up through his spine, into his shoulders that rolled forward and back with a deep, seething breath. Up, up, into that primitive space at the base of his skull where words and civil manners had no place.

“Can I buy you a drink?” 

Eddie dropped the cable. 

The world blurred in the wake of his target and in five swift steps he was at your side. “Hey, Bill. Uh—” his senses ebbed back to him with a curious look from the man he’d shared countless drinks with. A man he would call his friend had he not breeched a sacred distance, a contract he knew nothing of. His vision was clouded, the coil tight and hot. 

“She’s um,” he continued quietly, a murmur he had to lean in for. An urge seized his hand. The urge to claim, to slip across the divot of your back and pull you close where you belonged, to but the noise from the stage and the eyes that followed forced his hand deep into his pocket. He swallowed his frustration, hoping the simmer in his eyes would be enough to convey what he meant. “She’s with me, man.” 

A throb from that low, blooming place, rose up in a full body yes. In the arch of your back, in the dip of your eyes as you caught the desperate heat from his. 

Bill blinked in honest surprise. “Wait, you mean,” he pointed between the two of you, eyes darting back and forth with a confusion that only deepened the insecurity of everyone involved, “you’re—”

“Yes,” Eddie hotly interrupted. The coil in him released slightly, a low rumble replaced by a surge that settled in his cheeks at the trembling, nervous laughter in your voice. 

Flutters roared through you all at once, spinning the room well beyond the scope of the liquor that lingered in your veins, heightening your senses to the warmth radiating from the aching nearness of his body to yours.

“Well, hey man, we were just talking—”

“Yeah—well,” he glanced at you, an apology playing out in the widening of his eyes as the coil cooled to sobering embarrassment. He wished he could bury himself, open a trapdoor and take you with him. A parade of stomping feet and slamming cases trudged on behind him from the stage. He prayed the din was enough to mask the conversation. 

“It’s ok!” you nervously exclaimed to both of them. “Really. Besides, I—I need to sober up anyway before I go home, so… it’s really ok,” you soothed to Eddie specifically. 

Eddie’s pulse thrummed in his hears, his body a livewire of stress and embarrassment. “Ok. Well, I just, um… thought I’d let you know,” he concluded to Bill, desperate to string together some semblance of dignity. He dipped his head toward you until his voice hummed lowly in your hear. “It’ll just be a few more minutes. I gotta get the rest of this shit cleaned up, and then we can, um—” his eyes darted back and forth between yours in wordless exasperation.

“Yeah,” your body whispered, overriding any protest of your noble mind. To what you were agreeing to was unimportant. Whatever he wanted.

Eddie nodded and pivoted toward the stage in a swift exit.

In the wake of his absence was an awkward pause, a space Bill was quick to fill with words. “Well, um, it was nice to meet you,” he said with an awkward dip of his head. 

“Yeah, you as well,” you said, a feeble anchor to the spinning room. Bill’s gaze hesitated with a flash of disappointment before returning to the bar. It was all you could do to just stand there a moment, heart pounding in stunned realization as the space whirled with the clammer of footsteps, the thud of equipment, the clinking of glasses. Suddenly the weight of your aloneness in the middle of it all was crushing. You retreated to the down the short hallway and ducked into the bathroom.

She’s with me.

She’s with me.

She’s with me.

In the muffled quiet of the dimly lit reprieve, the words echoed louder than ever. You were almost afraid to check your reflection, to look yourself in the eyes and face the person who ached to hear them repeated, but you did, and she surprised you. Something about the way your lipstick feathered clean in the center from the kiss of the bottle, the way your mascara settled at your lower lashes in the delicate lines beneath. It was oddly flattering, like the shadow of a good time. 

You liked who you saw, and perhaps that scared you most. 

Jeff’s laughter echoed down the hallway and the pinball trigger snapped again. What the fuck am I doing?

You would ask yourself this question as you pressed the tip of your boot to the dirty toilet handle, as the cold water woke your skin, as it dripped onto the salt-stained tile, as you dropped the soggy remains of the last two paper towels into the overflowing trashcan. 

When the clammer of footsteps and slamming of the back door faded to nothing more than distant murmurs from the bar, you slowly cracked the door and peered into the empty hallway. Your boots clicked tentatively against the tacky linoleum, emerging from the shadows as you drew a steady breath. The stage was dark, the men perched on stools had their backs to you, all roaming eyes cast down over drinks — all except one.

Eddie stood in the middle of it all; hands on hips, damp curls clinging to his neck, chest still heaving from movement and stress. He locked eyes with you, and you could feel relief in his sigh from the apron of the hallway.

Your smile was a shy, timid thing, blooming to a helpless grin as the softness of his features heightened into focus with each progressive step. As the distance between you closed to less than a foot.

“Hey,” he breathed like a soft apology.

“Hey,” you answered, like you always did. A nervous crackle of anticipation wound through your gut.

“I um,” Eddie wrung a hand behind his neck, flashing a dark tuft of hair that made the animal in you stir. “I need to cool down,” he admitted with a raw, candid urgency. He patted his pockets. “I’m gonna step out for a cigarette… if you… wanna…” he nodded toward the back hall. 

Yes. Anything, the animal growled. You simply nodded and went to grab your coat. 

Eddie snatched the heap of leather from the railing by the stage and draped it over his arm. He ushered you forward with a sweep of his palm through the air, catching your eyes with a softness that threatened the strength of your knees. A giggle escaped you — honest, uncontrollable, automatic. Clutching your arm with a coyness that surprised even yourself, you shuffled in front of him, the towering presence of his closeness like a tingle at your back, a safety in the thud of heavy boots behind you. 

The night air was a cold refreshment, a sobering reprieve from the hot, smoke-dense air of The Hideout. Your lungs helped themselves, filling to the brim, releasing just a little of the tension that was mounting before you arrived. It left you in a thick fog, drifting out into the empty patio, catching the glow from the singular bulb posted by the door. Eddie pulled it shut with a soft thud and shrugged on his coat in a rattle of zippers and chains.

Silence. A howl of the wind through naked limbs. A sigh that left both of you at once. 

Eddie dipped his head in subtle reverence as he crossed in front of you, placing his hands on the short, wooden fence to your right. He paused a second, drawing a deep breath before spinning around to face you, hands splayed in an open plead. “I am so fucking sorry.”

Your mouth hung open. “A-about what?”

He ran a hand through his hair with a ragged sigh. “About Bill, about how I acted, a-about…” he swallowed, “what I said…”

An O trembled on your lips but never made it out. “It’s fine, really—”

“It’s…it’s not. It’s just that,” he huffed, “Bill was hitting on you a-and you just looked so uncomfortable and…” it drove him fucking crazy. It lit his blood on fire. It made him want to grab a man who’d bought him countless drinks by the collar and ram him into the wall. 

You stepped closer, close enough to see the whites of his eyes in the darkness, the shadow of his pinching brow. You’d be lying if you said it didn’t stir something in you. Hearing those words. Hearing the ones he said now in profuse apology. “Eddie,” you soothed.

He closed his eyes; a split-second relish of his name on your lips. “It—” he sighed. “It wasn’t cool, to say that…” he shook his head before meeting your eyes in soft earnestness, “in public.”

The breath froze in your lungs. Out here the world fell away to the rustle of trees, to a darkness that cloaked you like a blanket. You were alone. Truly alone. A question tugged at your heart, twinged on the tip of your tongue but felt still too bold to leave it. What would he say, then, in private? 

It played out like a tape behind his eyes — the curl of Bill’s fingers around your hand. It was such a simple gesture, benign outside of context. Yet there was something deeper, something that wound like a serpent through his gut. It struck, and stung, that in one fell swoop, Bill had touched as much of you as he had. That Bill could do as much in public as he could only manage beneath a shadow. 

“Anyway, now that… that’s out of the way,” Eddie shook his head as he fumbled with the zipper of his pocket, curls feathering his delicate cheekbone, gaze cast down in weakly hidden shame. He procured a box of cigarettes, thumb flipping it open with an ease earned by years of habit. Popping one into his mouth, he paused before snapping it shut. “Y-you want one?” he mumbled. It seemed rude not to ask, but the question felt dumber by the second as it hung in the air. You were good. Good like 6 AM coffee, like the early morning sun. Good like the buttons on a crisp, white blouse. Yet here he stood, hand extended, offering what little he could — an experience.

Goodness was a mantle. A weight that kept your shoulders back, your lips pressed tight, your head cast down, your feet in slippers, your curtains drawn. Eddie Munson stood beside you, rugged and regal like a dark knight, arm outstretched in humble offering. With hesitance, you eyed the invitation. 

Out here you could be anything — a vagabond, a runaway, a princess escaped from her castle. A woman who spends Tuesday nights at dive bars and smokes cigarettes with men in leather jackets. Anything you wanted. 

You wanted to taste it. You wanted the flame, and the smoke, and the raw, ragged air that wound through your lungs and left like a beacon that soared toward the sky.

You wanted to be bad for him, and so you accepted.

The cigarette almost dropped from Eddie’s mouth in shock. He fumbled another from the box before tucking it into his back pocket. With a flourish, bending in its presentation as if it were a single rose, he offered it to you. 

Never in a million years could you have imagined it. You, in a position like this. Him, in a position like that. Least of all that it would be so wildly romantic.

You accepted with the tips of your fingers, your index and middle, brushing ridges of his knuckles with feather-light indulgence. They closed around the offering, pausing for an aching second before drawing away with it. 

Eddie closed his eyes, so quickly he could have masked it as a blink, but you caught it. The sigh, the swallow, the batting open with a burning hunger as he relished in the barest fulfillment of what he’d been craving since he saw you this morning — to touch you.

The cold nipped at your knuckles as you took in the foreign sensation between them, admiring it like a sinful adornment under the moonlight.

With a flick of his thumb, the parentheses of his mouth lit up in a warm glow. He took a few quick puffs, smoke billowing from his nose and the corners of his lips before taking a long drag. Satisfaction exited his lungs in a deep sigh, a billow that rose toward the twinkling sky. He turned his attention back to you. “Here,” he offered gently, beckoning you closer with a gentle come hither motion, readying his lighter.

You held your hand out gingerly, willing the trembling of your fingers to cease with little success. 

Eddie closed in, bringing a finger to his lips as a gentle suggestion. “Put it in your mouth,” he said, unable to suppress the boyish grin that surfaced from the words. 

You did as he told you, held it in your smirk, searched for your next instruction in the depth of his eyes but found only delight. Delight in the whole sight of you; the way it dimpled the swell of your lips, in the attention of those dutiful shoulders, like you wanted to be good at misbehaving. Delight in the fact he was teaching you something.

Eddie leaned closer. “Like this,” he instructed softly, framing his own with his long, ruddy digits before taking a quick drag. Obediently, you mirrored him, like a natural smoker would, like they did in the movies and inside the bar. 

The flame ignited between you, flickering in the wild wind. Eddie cupped it with his other hand, forming a shield with the curve of his knuckles — gentle and protective. The fire caught the tip of the slender roll, but his palm was far more captivating. Inches from your face, you could study it closer than ever, plush and glowing — the broad heart line, the soft meat of its heel. 

A deep inhale had smoke ghosting over your tongue. Eddie pulled away to reveal the ember and you took your cue. The drag you took, long and determined, left you coughing. 

Eddie couldn’t suppress his chuckle, couldn’t mask the crinkle of his eyes as you—from behind the big desk and before the big board—were swallowed in a clumsy cloud of smoke.

“Are you laughing at me?” you asked through a giggle of your own.

Like oxygen to a flame, his laughter only brightened.  “I’m sorry, you’re just… so…”

“So…what?” You gave him a look, trying to suck your dignity back through the end of the cigarette. 

A million words ached on the tip of his tongue. The wind ripped across the small, frozen field, shyly disappearing in the treeline. Out here there were no bells, no footsteps, no concrete walls to listen. Eddie watched those fingers of yours pull away from your lips, blow a billow toward the open sky, and one in a million came tumbling out.

“Beautiful.” 

A puff retreated back through your lips, froze in your lungs. The truth hung like smoke in the cold night air, rolled around in your chest, warmed your body from head to toe. Eddie plugged his mouth with another draw to prevent more from slipping out. 

There was space for the truth out here. Space like a vacuum, vast and quiet. A shyly muttered “Thank you,” was all you could manage to fill it with.

Eddie raked his fingers through the damp curls at the nape of his neck, cheeks pinking visibly, even in the dim glow of the single light on the other side of the patio. He leaned against the fence and met your eyes again, nervous breath rolling over his plush lips.

His movement, like a magnet, drew your feet across the pavement. Deeper into the shadows with the gentle pull of his eyes. The tobacco settled in your body with a comfortable heaviness as you drank him in, and you suddenly grasped the appeal.

Out here he seemed even taller, shoulders stacked over slender hips as he leaned into the fence, an ease that washed over him with each generous draw, like the stress was rolling off into the shadows. Out here he took on a different posture, different than the one under fluorescent lights. Different than the one in the small chair next to you, the one with hunched shoulders and downcast eyes.

You tapped the ash of the cigarette off with your finger, like a natural smoker would. He smirked at the gesture, and you caught the twinge of pride in it this time. 

Out here he could be anything. He could be clever and daring; a roguish enchanter. A man who casts spells with his fingers and charms with his words. Anything he wanted.

He wanted to make your eyes light up. 

Eddie took another drag, hollowing his cheeks before sending out smoke in deliberate puffs with his tongue. It left his mouth in rings, hovering in the gap between you before drifting across the patio.

He got what he wanted. A gasp left your lips, eyes twinkling brighter than the stars. “What?! I didn’t know people could actually do that!” You exclaimed, delighted like a child on Christmas.

Eddie blew the rest off to the side and returned a blinding smile. It was more satisfying than the cigarette — the fact that he could do it, make your face light up. The fact that he had the power.

“How do you do that?” you asked, ever inquisitive.

His instructions were simple; take a big drag, hollow your cheeks, make the shape with your mouth, and push the smoke out with your tongue. Simple enough, from the sound of it.

Your first attempt failed, miserably. Uproariously.

“The shape is critical,” he reminded through a chuckle, “it’s gotta be like, a perfect O, not an oval.” His eyes lingered over your lips as you tried his suggestion, struggling to will his mind away from the gutter.

Your smile made it hard to maintain. “Wait—wait, hold on I think I got it.” You tried again with great focus, sending out puffs with your tongue that looked nothing like rings. It was worth it though. Worth making a fool of yourself for the amusement that colored his face, for the bright laughter it earned you. “Ok, fine. Maybe not.”

It looked good on him, just like it did on stage. This knowing that drew his shoulders back, made him lean with a powerful ease. The knowing that he was really good at something, that he could show you.

“It’s a bit advanced,” he said with a wink before taking another deep drag. He puffed a ring and cast it forward with a push of his hand, like a spell through the air. It broke on your nose and you relished in the soft sensation of his life-force ghosting over your face. 

It was all you could do just to look at him — rugged and regal in the way that only he could be. It was dangerous and thrilling; how alone you were right now. His aura pulled you closer, eyes tugging at those burning questions, serious questions at war with your lingering buzz. You broke the silence with the truth; soft and sincere. “You’re insanely talented, I hope you know that.” 

The curve of his lashes dipped shyly with a little puff through his nose. They raised with a sparkle that cut through the darkness. “Thanks, it uh… comes a lot easier to me than chemistry.” He tapped off his ash on the pavement.

You tucked your free hand into your pocket with a bashful shuffle of your feet. “Well, good thing rockstars don’t need to know chemistry then.”

Eddie scoffed and gave his eyes a quick roll, unsuccessful at hiding the brilliance of his smile. Heat crept up his neck, and he soothed it with a wring of his hand.

There was a gap between you; a space you were too scared to breach. The two of you filled it with shy chatter as your cigarettes dwindled to nubs. It was easy, to talk to him. About music, about anything. Easy because you gave each other turns to take it; the space. It almost made it easy to forget who you were to each other before you came out here, who you would go back to being tomorrow.

The cold was wicked and relentless; biting at your knuckles as you tapped the last ash. Even the tobacco’s heavy warmth sinking to your feet couldn’t stave it off. It was a Tuesday night in December, and the wind made sure to remind you. 

Eddie followed your eyes toward the door. “It’s ok,” he reassured. “Nobody comes out here. We’re safe.”

His words sparked a tingle in your chest, a pulse of heat; low and thrumming. Neither could halt the shiver that seized your limbs. 

“You ok?” he asked gently, stepping close enough to almost feel the heat from him.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You blew on your hands, rubbing them together feebly to fight the cold. You were stubborn to surrender, determined not to end your stolen moment by succumbing. 

It was all he could do just to look at you. You, shaking like a leaf in the wind. You, with longing eyes and trembling lips. You, with your soft skin and softer soul. His fingers burned, wrestled with the silence, and the distance, and the howl of the wind through the trees. They warred with the ticking clock, with the chill against his precious moment, with the threat of it winning. Suddenly his fingers—bolder than they’ve ever been in his life—twitched to animation. They toyed with the cold metal zipper at his neck, and in one decided tug, he opened up for you. “Here,” he offered. 

You froze, more than the cold could ever manage, as you eyed the invitation — the warm leather cave, the exposure of his heaving chest. Your lips parted but words would not come. You wanted it — the heat, the tight embrace, to be wrapped in his aura, to feel his laughter with your palms. 

Your noble mind as it cast its disapproval like a shadow toward your heart, but your hands and feet were deaf to it. Boots shuffling boldly against the rough pavement, they filled the gap between his. You accepted with the tips of your fingers, delicate and tentative, like his skin was a hot iron and yours at risk to burn. You watched them disappear into the darkness, felt the soft cotton warmth as it enveloped you. With trembling slowness, you traced the divots of his ribcage, settled into them like grooves, felt him gasp into your palms when the ice that you’d become found the velvet, heated skin under his arms.

“Sorry—”

“Hah—hmm—no-no it’s ok,” he grimaced, pinning your hands beneath his arms to stop your recoil, as if the pain of the freeze hurt less than the pain of its absence. “I—ah—I asked for this.” His chuckle was a warm vibration, a flutter as the cage which housed his heart contracted. 

A shiver racked your body as you thawed. Whether it was nerves, or fear, or the chill that had settled deep in your bones long before you stepped foot outside, you were helpless to control it.

“Come ‘ere,” he breathed with equal care and need.

You submitted, tracing his contours as he pulled you closer — head against his solid shoulder, into the soft pillow of his hair, into the source of his scent: leather and tobacco and the sweet, salty musk of his skin. You closed your eyes and basked in it, nose buried in his curls, drawing in deeply to steady your rattling chest. 

Broad palms splayed across the fabric of your coat, pulling you deep into the comfort of his heat, tracing your waist to settle in a place they burned to be — your lower back. “It’s ok, you’re ok,” he murmured into your hair, bracing you tightly as your whole body shook.

You could have died here, buried yourself in his arms and made him your tomb. They would find you in the morning; frozen like a sculpture. Left out for all of Hawkins to see, to point and say terrible things. It wouldn’t matter. You would have died happy.

His heart was pounding with disbelief. You, here, in his arms. You could feel it through your coat, hammering against your chest, into your palms at his back. Eddie felt your breathing slow, your body soften and relax. He crooked his forearm firmly to your back, to the place where it belonged, fingers curling like a cage around your waist. Out here he could be anything — strong and stable, a haven for your tired bones to rest. Anything, for you.

In the dark leather cave there was a landscape for your hands to study. The satin liner grazed your knuckles as your hands explored the angles of his shoulder blades with tentative slowness — down along the muscles of his back, the dip of his spine, the birdcage of his ribs; expanding and contracting, deep and steady. 

He was real, here, in your arms. Two swelling lungs. One beating heart. Two hands that clutched the wool barrier between you. One solid shield of a chest. One humming column at your cheek. Eddie Munson; wildfire. Close enough to thaw you. Close enough to burn you to the ground.

Your hands settled at the slim taper of his waist. Pliant and yielding under soft cotton, swelling with each ocean breath. His cage around you tightened, and you breathed him in, felt him swallow, felt his hips slot against the groove of yours with sensed belonging.

The animal in you keened with curiosity, emboldened by the dark. Your hands wouldn’t dare beyond the roadblock of his belt, but they would move in slow strokes up and down his back. A gentle comfort, a mask for your indulgence.

A quiet moan rose up in him, one he couldn’t swallow. The best he could do was cloak it in a sigh. It hummed against your ear; your cheek so close to the crook of his neck you could almost taste it. You breathed him in again, lips pressed to his soft curls against tough leather as the smoke, and musk, and crisp night air filled your lungs. 

His hands were less patient; dipping toward the slope of your hips, pawing at thick wool, thumbs drawing aching circles there. It earned an arch from your back, a grasp from your hands at the soft cotton barrier. 

There was an animal in him too, preening at the cant of your hips, at the rub of your neck against his. With a dip of his chin he could sink his teeth in, but his noble mind willed it away, settled for the scent of you instead — soft like powder, warm and inviting. The heels of your palms drifted toward his belly, and the animal threatened to rear below his belt.

“Ah,” it leapt out his throat.

Hands freezing before reaching the healthy swell, you drew back from his shoulder, checking in. Your lids hung with visible weight, pupils blown by more than just the lack of light, dizzy from his touch. He could do that with his hands, he thought; a split-second revel before concern sobered your features.

His disappointment was palpable, like he’d burst some great bubble. “Mm—no, it’s fine, please—” please don’t stop. His arms around you tightened, eyes pleading with words he wasn’t bold enough to utter, even in the darkness.

A shadow of guilt fell across your face. Guilt for your greedy hands, for your lost control, for your bad behavior. It was a pitiful sight; worse than the one he saw yesterday. Worse because it was here. Worse because he was closer than he’d ever been before.

There was a gap between you; space for the cold to seep between your hearts. Space for the fear that he’d broken the spell. That you didn’t see him anymore, but your student instead. 

You thumbed his soft cotton shirt, buried in the shelter of his coat. Eddie Munson — frenetic and compelling. Beautiful in the way that wild things are. Breathing life into your numb hands with each  ragged swell. You studied him closely; his soft cupid’s bow, his pink, plush pout, the angles of his worried jaw, the pining in his eyes.

Want. A wild, elusive thing. A summer wind. An admission at a cost. Want didn’t budge. Want looked you dead in the eyes and tightened its grip.

Eddie knew what he wanted, burning like a question on his tongue. He knew he had to be the one to ask. He was terrified — of the question, of the asking, of the fact that he may never get another chance. Your hands grappled with it, clung like they feared he would vanish. He felt the ache in them, the want, the fear, the frustration. It opened up a narrow passage, and he entered with the boldest thing he had ever done.

He asked you with his forehead first. A gentle nod forward; the softest collision. A tickle of curls. A rock back and forth of his strong, sturdy brow. A smile even you couldn’t hide. Your hands released, settled at the dip of his back in quiet permission.

He asked you with the bridge of his nose. A delicate slope. A tender nuzzle. Rigid bone under soft flesh. Cold, round tip. Roaming the map of yours with heated intention as he swayed like a dance in the moonlight. You closed your eyes, surrendered to the fantasy. Felt the heat of his cheek, the pang of his palm at your back as he pulled you closer.

He asked you with a tilt of his chin, and brought time to a halt.

There was a gap between you. A fractional distance bridged by the ghost of his breath. Within it; every party that you never went to, every basement you were never led away from, every page you never shared, every experience you never had. Goodness was a mantle, heavy from a lifetime on your shoulders. 

What did freedom taste like? The question brushed across your lips like a warm invitation. You were desperate for the answer. Wanted it more than anything, ever, in your whole entire life. Wanted it for you, for only you. For once.

Eddie asked the question. You closed the gap. 

A sigh left both of you at once. One you could taste this time, humming against the plush cradle of his lips. Freedom could have melted you. It threatened the strength of your knees, but his arms were stronger. Locked against each other in the shadows you borrowed, your lips began to explore, to express every secret wish the two of you had dreamt apart. 

Freedom tasted tentative at first. A slow drag of his lips, a languid slip that rippled to the dormant parts of you. Catching like tinder as they grazed over yours, hot with an ache you could taste. It was sinfully exquisite; tasting the curve of his smile, the hyper-real rasp of his stubble as those lips—the ones that shot you smirks from down the hall and spilled over with song—found a rhythm with yours. Broad palms clutched the wool at your waist like you’d slip through a crack if he didn’t hold on.

Freedom was slick. It tasted like cigarettes, like a thousand unsaid words ushered past the border of your mouth. You could taste every one on his tongue, soothed them with the slickness of yours. Every aching word, dripping in each soft caress. Diving like a dance, echoed in the soft, wet smacks when you parted. You devoured them like you were starving. Every sigh, every hum, every color that left his lungs slipped eagerly down your throat. 

The wool at your back was a nuisance. Eddie pawed at it, desperate to feel the shape of you through the fabric, to store it in the vault of his mind, to play with it later in private. He halted his hands at your hips, willed them decent, rationed with the small working part of his brain that your lips would have to be enough. He relished in the way you accepted him. The way you spread for him, parting eagerly for his tongue. The way your lips closed around him, rocking as he prodded like you’d done it before. Like you wanted to elsewhere. 

The spell was broken. The line, miles away. There was a hunger in you, sudden and surprising, roused by the very first taste. Eddie palmed your hips with an urgency that stirred you. Like a bear in the spring, thawed by the heat of his touch, you devoured him. Devoured him with the wholeness of your splayed hands, tracing up his pounding ribs, dragging across the expanse of his broad chest. It heaved under your touch; solid muscle under soft cotton. You devoured his moan; a hot, strangled thing that escaped his plush lips. Like a match to the strip your tongue, you ignited. 

His hands lost their patience. Breaking from your waist, they dove behind your ears to cradle your face. Your face. Your jaw, your delicate cheeks he caressed with the rough pads of his thumbs, as if the swell of them—the rigid bones under soft skin, the absolute realness of you in his arms—could wake him from the dream he was surely having. He was tasting you, tasting the want on your tongue. More satisfying than a four course meal, more satisfying than anything he’d ever tasted in his life. You wanted him. More than that, you savored him; the taste of his hot, eager tongue as it slipped against yours.

Freedom was delicious. Bold and complex, acrid and rich. Full bodied. A smooth, sweet finish. You could have drowned in it. Drowned in the angles of his hands, in his tender strokes, in the sopping heat of his mouth. Drowned in his eager sighs, in his scent. Drowned completely if he hadn’t held your head above the surging waves. 

Eddie was good like a midnight snack. Good like a wide open road. He was good at this. Good at knowing how to ask and answer. Good at at finding the rhythm of you. 

You broke for air, stilling against the bridge of his nose, afraid to look him in the eyes just yet, to break away from the safety his shadow provided. Safe from the world, safe from consequences, safe from the thoughts that battered at the door of your mind. Safety was fragile and fleeting. You knew it, he knew it. Your breath mingled in hot bursts as you steadied your spinning world for a quiet moment together. You felt him smile—heard it—big and bright as it cracked across his face. The air stung your cheeks when he took his hands away. Leaning back against the fence, he tugged you closer, further into the safety of the shadows, enveloping you in the crook of his heat. 

It was good like this — the angles of you and the angles of him, fitting like they always belonged. It felt safe to explore them, to paint his pounding chest, down the soft swell of his belly, stopping at his hips. With a thick bob of his Adam’s apple, he closed the gap again. It was chaste this time, peppering your lips with space to breathe between each kiss. They were slow and savory, steady and sure. They lingered long enough for you to get another taste, to capture that plush Cupid’s bow and let it melt across yours, to flick your tongue over his soft bottom lip and taste him there too. 

You could taste his need when he greeted your tongue with his own. It was safe to show it here. Safe to let the animal inside him bare its teeth. Safe to let the animal in you do the same. It growled when he nipped at you, hooked its claws through his belt loops and tugged. It was a quick, testing thing, and your sound let him know that he passed. He lapped it up hungrily, soothed it before inflicting another.

It ached in a frightening way, in that deep, low place. Throbbed awake with each delicious bite. It scared you how quickly the path was veering south, but the pooling warmth encouraged his travels, let him go wherever he wanted. When his lips strayed far enough to track your jaw, a shrinking voice shrieked danger, but the rest of you simply submitted. 

Claws braced denim and leather, offering yourself with a tip of your head. Reverently, he accepted, setting his pace with a dizzying slowness. He worshiped you with every latch, every press, every lingering smack, darting his tongue out to taste the forbidden angles of your jaw. It was greedy but good. To him, to you. Letting go this much. Letting him go this far. The trail cooled in the night air, and he settled at the precipice of your neck.

His breath alone was enough to melt you; heavy with the weight of his new position. Heavy with desire, with the weight of thousand fantasies he never thought would come to pass. He drank in the cocktail of your scent; concentrated, warm, deliciously real. In the throws of your own heaving chest, sobered just barely by the pregnant pause, you awoke to your position: open, vulnerable, completely at his mercy. 

He tasted your swallow, felt your breath hitch when his warm, wet tongue found your pulse. Lathing there a moment, lingering and slow, he savored you. Savored the ridges of your neck, the way your head lolled to the side, like a feast laid out for him. He stored the image in his mind, packaged it carefully for when he would surely be starving again. His lips soothed where his tongue left off, over and over until your strangled sound stirred a fiending hunger. He bared his teeth, and you shattered. 

Freedom was falling apart in his arms. Crumbling into pieces and letting him grapple you whole. Letting him capture you in his maw and lap up your ruin. Letting him, letting him. His teeth dragged dull and slow, tingling every waking cell, turning you to putty completely. He dragged a moan out of you. A full one, loud and clear. He tucked it away, buried it deep alongside your squirms and your touch. 

The door opened.

Cold air shocked your lungs. Head snapping over your shoulder, you broke his latch and Eddie hissed a curse at the separation. With daggers, you both assessed the intruder. 

The silhouette of his cap gave him away. He might have even kept on walking but the gasps and the shuffling feet made him turn. “Oh shit,” Bill flinched back in surprise. “Sorry man I thought you left.”

Eddie’s arm tightened instinctively, pulling you as close as he wanted to earlier. Reflexively, you pushed away. It was a strange tug of war — his pride and your fear. “Yeah—no we’re still here,” he snapped.

You swallowed your pounding heart, sobering completely under Bill’s gaze. Suddenly your claws retracted, your hands felt wrong where they rested, shame bit at your neck along the cooling trail he left behind. 

Even in the backlit glow of the singular light, you saw it painted clearly on his features — the judgement, the disbelief, the questions rising up but not daring to come out. “Well um, sorry to interrupt. Have a good night,” Bill said with an awkward raise of his hand before making quickly for the parking lot. 

Footsteps faded over gravel and left a silence in their wake, thicker than the stillness from before. 

Eddie breathed a sharp sigh through his nostrils, brows lowered as he seethed toward the parking lot. The cold was setting in again. Your nose, and ears, and fingers stung with it. The rest of you stung worse; chest numbing, caving like a can under the weight of what you’d just done. 

When the flick of distant headlights made you brave enough to face him, frustration painted his features. He pawed at your coat, desperate to salvage what he could of his precious moment. “Anyway, where were we?” he muttered, eyeing your neck with a tilt of his head like he was about to dive in again. 

Your hand at his chest stopped him, and the look in his eyes was wounding. “Eddie,” you warned softly. A slow, heavy sigh left his nose, one you could feel with your palm. “I need to go.”

Crestfallen after a desperate, hesitant second, his arms went slack. Your hand dropped, leaving a fierce chill behind. One more, his lips begged, but struggled to release. Please. 

It hurt, to crumble like this after all you had built. With the roar of Bill’s engine, the fantasy shattered around you. The carriage became a pumpkin, your gown turned into rags. Shrill bells rang out in the distance, coming surely as the sun would rise. Pinballs thundered as that sweet oval face—the one from the back of the room and the chair next to yours—pouted with lips still swollen from where you had broken your contract. 

“I’m sorry,” you mouthed. 

Gathering himself with a deep breath, he straightened to a dignified height, conviction filling the cracks in his composure. “I’m not.” 

It was terrifying — the prospect, the consequences. What it meant for you, for him, for the world you’d have to face tomorrow. 

Most terrifying of all was how good it felt to hear him say.

______

A/N: Thank you all for your patience on this one. It took me nearly all summer to finish but I'm really proud of how it turned out. Please let me know what you think! I've missed hearing from and connecting with all of you. Next one won't take nearly as long, I promise. 💕

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[jadequeen88]

IT’S HEEEERE!!😍😍😍😍😍😍

Don't Stand So Close To Me — Chapter 14

Eddie x Teacher!Reader

Chapter 14/? 18k. Series Masterlist

✏︎ An invitation to The Hideout answers some long burning questions.

✏︎ Series Summary: Forced to move back home to Hawkins after your fiancé cheats on you, you begin to fall in love again with an audacious 20 year old metalhead, only there’s one problem — he’s still in high school and you’re his English teacher.

While you struggle starting over in a place you never thought you would return, Eddie struggles feeling stuck in a place he can’t manage to leave — until you offer to help him. Of all the lessons learned, the most important are the ones you teach each other.

✏︎ Series CW: forbidden romance, slow burn, true love, smut (18+ mdni), internal conflict, student-teacher relationship, 10 year age gap, mutual pining, sexual tension, emotions, drama, angst, character development, happy ending :)

Chapter CW: kissing, heavy petting, jealousy, protective!eddie, drinking, smoking, fluff

Tuesday, December 10th 1985

Winter crept in like a lamb. It nipped at your ankles when you got out of bed, beckoned you to hibernate in the warm cocoon of soft sheets and heavy blankets. The room was a lightless cave, the sky still as dense as midnight. Feet shuffling blindly at the floor to find your slippers, you clicked on the small lamp atop your nightstand to offer some light to your habitat. 

Standard routine — making shadows on the wall as you brushed your teeth, emerging out the door to the dark hallway, squinting under the harsh light of your kitchen. Two eggs over easy. Two pieces of toast. One phone that hung to the right of your small kitchen table like an omen as you dipped the crust into the yolks. Looming. Waiting. You swallowed a feeling with your next sip of coffee; flutters that danced down your throat and settled in the pit of your stomach. 

By the time you returned to your bedroom, the sky touched your sheer curtains with the palest blue. Your clothing was already laid out neatly on your dresser, poised like soldiers in a row — thick ribbed stockings; plaid wool skirt; stiff white blouse; cream knit sweater. 

As you suited up, stripping yourself of warm pajamas to brace the chill of your formal attire, your eyes drifted to an object on your desk. Powder blue and collecting a fair amount of dust; an IBM Selectric II typewriter. It was more or less a decoration now, pushed against the wall to make room for piles of papers in need of grading. Still, you liked the way it looked; cheery against the drab apartment wall, like something a real writer would have.

It was a trusty old thing, still chugging along despite countless college essays hammered into the grey keys. It had been your only company in the wee hours of many mornings such as this one, only then there had not been sleep to separate you from the night before. Sturdy and dependable, it captured your imagination too, letter by black inked letter. 

Fastening the buttons of your blouse in a methodical rhythm, you could almost trick yourself into believing it was any other morning, except today there was something else you needed to do before you left, and the clock on your nightstand let you know in glowing red that your window to do so was closing.

Cold linoleum creaked under your stocking feet as you padded into the kitchen, stomach twisting into knots as you approached the phone. If you were going to do this, it had to be now. 

Running your finger down the laminated tabs of the well-loved address book on your counter, you flipped to the section labeled “J”. After scanning a dozen hand-written names, you found the one you were looking for. It was a mess of chalky white-out and hasty scribbles. Last name replaced, same with the phone number and address. You weren’t sure why you didn’t just write it all fresh under “P”, perhaps it was something about not wanting to erase the history entirely.

You took a deep breath and snatched the phone off the receiver. Pressing the cold plastic to your ear, you glanced down at the numbers in blue pen and whispered them quietly to yourself as you slowly, hesitantly, clicked them one by one into the cream button pad on the wall. 

You stared across the kitchen in sober contemplation of your life choices as the phone rang. Again. And again. And again, until a familiar, groggy voice answered.

“Hello?” 

“Hey! Janet!” you greeted brightly, sounding far too awake for 7:06 AM. In your nervous haste, you almost forgot to tell her who was calling. 

“Oh… hey there,” came a hesitant voice on the other line, a sharp squeal cut through the static followed by a hush.

“Hey, um, I know it’s like, super early and totally last minute but I wanted to catch you before I left for work. Listen, I’ve had a hell of a week already and I was wondering—and I totally get it if you can’t, but—well I was wondering if you’d be up for going out tonight. Like say around eight-ish?” You bit your lip and grimaced, twisting the gummy cord around your finger. 

The pause was filled with the rattling of tiny fists against plastic. “Oh! Well let’s see,” she said in a voice that was suddenly very awake. “The kids will be asleep by then, or at least they should be,” she chuckled, “and Bob doesn’t go to bed till after eleven anyway, so I’m sure he’ll be fine if I escape for a few hours. I mean I’ll check with him but I really don’t see why not.” 

It was equally as promising as it was a relief; the excitement that crept through her voice. 

“Great! Yeah, I figured you could probably use a night out.”

“Oh gosh, you don’t even know the half of it,” Janet laughed. “So where were you thinking? You wanna just go to Pal-Joeys again?”

Pacing toward the counter, you braced to offer your suggestion. “Actually, I was thinking we could go to The Hideout, I hear there’s a band playing tonight.”

“The Hideout?” she asked through an incredulous smile. 

“I know,” you breathed nervously, “it’s not really our um, regular haunt, but that’s kinda why I want to go, you know? Shake things up a bit. Everything’s just been feeling so… routine lately, you know?”

Janet’s sigh was deep and heavy. “Oh trust me, I know.” A bright coo crackled through the telephone line. 

“Like, I kind of want to just…” you coiled your finger deeper into the phone cord, glancing at the glaring red clock above the stove, “I dunno…pretend to be somebody else for a change.” 

“You know,” she started, a quiet mischief creeping into her voice, “I could really stand to be somebody else for a night too.”

You paused in your pacing as a smile cracked across your face. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Gosh, do you know your birthday was the last time I went out? Seriously! And before that I don’t even remember. Sometimes I look around and it’s like, man I used to be fun. You remember when I was fun, right?”

You chuckled, drifting back to memories of truths and dares, of creeping down her dark basement steps with freshly painted toes. “You still are fun, Janet.”

“Well maybe you can help remind me because sometimes I look in the mirror and I swear I don’t even recognize myself. Really! I swear I see my mother more and more and that’s what’s really terrifying.” 

“You mean you don’t see Bloody Mary anymore?”

Janet’s cackle would have woken the whole house had it not been wide awake and eating Cheerios already. “No that’s just at my parents’ house, remember?”

You snorted, leaning back against the counter. “I think we screamed so loud we woke the neighbors. I swear that bathroom is haunted.”

“That’s what I’ve always said! You feel like you’re being watched, right? My parents still don’t believe me. Oh well, not my problem anymore.”

You laughed, the knot in your belly releasing slightly before you glanced at the clock again, 7:13. “Crap, I’ve gotta get going. So I’ll see you at eight tonight? At The Hideout?”

“Yeah, should be fine. I’ll call you if anything changes. Ah!” she squealed, “I can’t wait.”

“Glad you’re excited,” you chuckled, gripping the smooth plastic. “Ok, see you later.”

“Bye now!”

You hung the phone back on the receiver and stood in the blaring silence of your kitchen, frozen by the impact of your choices. It was real now. In a matter of about thirteen hours you would be getting in your car, driving down a dark road, and parking it at a seedy bar where you would see Eddie for the first time in public. Your feet felt glued to the floor, but as the clock blinked to 7:15, you willed them to move.  

Before taking the dark road that led to a seedy bar, you would first need to get in your car and take another road — to work.

You cursed the cold. Cursed it as you hurried across the parking lot to find your car covered in fractals of frost. Cursed it vehemently as you worked the glass with your feeble plastic scraper, shaving holes just big enough to see out of your dashboard and rear window as the clock on your wrist ticked on minute by precious minute. You cursed it audibly when you turned the key and the engine whirred, and whined, and refused to turn over. It must have heard you, because after the fifth time of stomping on the brake and snapping your wrist forward, the engine roared to life.

You rode in on a wave; a daze like the fog that escaped your lungs in shallow breaths. The sun rose above the frozen farmlands, casting its golden-pink light across the empty fields. Out here the roads stretched on for miles. Flat and straight, with little variance in elevation. There was nowhere to look but straight ahead. No curves to surprise you, just you and the rumble of the salt-dusted road, bumping along in silence as an anxious fog rolled across the landscape of your mind. 

A sea of students swept you through the front doors of Hawkins High and into the bustling office. Amidst the flurry of ringing phones and voices settling into the cadence of their roles, you grabbed your punch card and stamped the date and time in line with the rest. Pushing the metal handle of the heavy glass door, you exited the humming reprieve of the office and into the din of the main hall. Your boots made hollow clicks against the glossy tile, wind at your face as you marched forward, dodging roughhousing students and hall monitors rushing toward them. 

Goodness was a mantle. A strap that dug into your shoulder; heavy with books, and papers, and responsibility. You wedged your thumb beneath it, shrugging it up onto the padded wool collar of your coat as you strode on, vision locked ahead as chaos swirled around you.

Your mug left a ring on the big desk; a remnant from where you’d sloshed it coming down the hall. You’d tried to be careful; slow and deliberate in your pacing when you left the teachers lounge with it, but when a blur of wild curls drew your gaze, your footing faltered. At least you missed your shoes. 

Coat hung on its solitary hook and grade book stationed at the center of the desk, you took your place in front of it. Clutching your clipboard, you glanced across the rows of desks, down at the rows of names, beside the rows of boxes that your green pen would fill with neat little P’s and A’s like it did every day. Bell after bell, swipe after swipe of your eraser at the board, the fresh sticks of chalk dwindled to nubs. Question after question, the patience in your voice grew thin. 

Between the bells at the top of fourth period, you stood poised like a sentinel outside the door to your classroom. Arms folded across your knit sweater, you sighed, shifting your weight back and forth between your tired feet, offering gentle smiles as your students filed through the threshold of the door. You smelled him before you saw him; the waft of leather and cigarettes with notes of shampoo more prominent than usual. 

Against the flow of traffic, Eddie Munson brought his salt-licked combat boots to a halt in front of you. Thumb hooked under the heavy strap of his backpack, he offered you a smile so broad it crinkled the corners of his eyes and made your knees want to give. 

You tightened your arms around your sweater, over the hard plastic of your faculty lanyard, and breathed a shy, girlish greeting. “Hey.” 

“Hey,” he mimicked, shifting his weight with a less than subtle restlessness as his dark eyes drank you in. They darted back and forth between yours, plush lips parted and primed with words. You felt them brimming impatiently behind his eyes, saw them in the pink flash of his tongue as it darted out to wet his lips. 

Out here in the bustling hallway, with eyes that watched and voices that echoed off the polished tile, Eddie edged a bold foot closer, dove in, and ghosted the shell of your ear with his burning question.

“Will I see you tonight?”

The words were a low, hot rumble — rippling from your ear down your spine, pooling deep in your belly. His heat thawed your shoulder as he hovered there, lingering for each aching second it took you to eke out your response. 

“Yeah,” you whispered into his curls.

Pulling back with a blinding grin, he tipped his head and ducked into the door of your classroom.

The slam of a locker made you jump. Arms crossed to shield your pounding heart, you stood there in the middle of it all, swimming in a sea of passing bodies, struggling to keep your head above the waves. It surged with images of a lighted stage, of bottles, and tables, and a dark corner for both of you to hide in. The bell echoed loudly down the hall, shrill enough to wake you from the dream you were surely having. Donning your mask, you took a deep breath and dove in, shutting the door behind you.

______

Eddie swung open the heavy back doors to his van, piercing the darkness with the dull yellow overhead light. Gravel crunched under his boots as he leaned in to grab the first amp from the stack, like a pile of black Christmas presents awaiting unwrapping. The night air bit at his fingers, stars twinkling in the patches where the clouds gave way above the tree line. Tightening his grip around the thick gummy handle, he hoisted it and followed the pale path the moon offered out of the side parking lot toward the patio behind The Hideout.

It wasn’t much; a stout fence in dire need of a paint job that caged in a few meager picnic tables. They still had umbrellas in the middle, wrapped tightly like mummies for the winter. He knew the back door would be open, it always was. Turning the weathered knob with his free hand, he welcomed the heat that wafted toward him. He could almost say he welcomed the piss smell coming from the bathrooms as his heavy boots thumped down the dark linoleum hallway, but that would be a stretch. Accustomed was a better word. Familiar was a better word. 

Stale beer and cigarettes soon drowned it out as he entered the dimly lit bar, stopping to plunk the heavy amp down to his left on the stage, which was little more than a raised platform painted black. The thud drew the attention of the five usual suspects at the bar, and Eddie wondered which one of them was responsible for playing “Free Bird” on the jukebox.

Bill raised his hand, tipping his baseball cap back in a friendly nod as his fingers splayed. “‘Ey, Eddie!”

He returned the gesture of a single raised hand and flashed a smile before turning down the hall again. Eddie took a deep breath at the door to calm his pounding heart before pressing it open. He couldn’t believe he had been crazy enough to suggest something like this. That soon enough, you would be perched atop one of those rickety stools at a tall, sticky table, watching his every move, listening to his every note. The chill of the night air was a welcome thing, sobering and distracting from the heat that was creeping up the collar of his thick, leather coat. As the gravel crunched under his boots again, headlights blinded his vision. 

He could hear the bass pounding from the outside of the small sedan as it rolled up beside his van, followed promptly by another. After a moment of squinting, the headlights shut off with the rumble of the engine, leaving him in the darkness once again. Seatbelts clicked and laughter emerged from the open doors as his friends tumbled out into the parking lot. 

“What the fuck took you guys so long? We left at the same time,” Eddie groused.

Dave lumbered over and sighed, a smirk playing on his broad features in the moonlight. “Jeff had to take a shit and he parked me in.” 

Jeff rolled his eyes, swinging the door shut with a huff as Gareth laughed into the night air. 

Eddie sighed, glancing toward the tall stack of amps and drum heads sitting backlit in the rear of his van. “Ok, well we’ve got like forty minutes to get our shit together so start hauling.” 

Dave groaned, cracking his back with a twist of his hefty torso. “Ugh, can you at least let me hit this doob before you put me to work?”

On any other night, Eddie would have welcomed the suggestion, but his nerves were traveling to his hands now and he itched to move them. “Dude, it takes us like an hour to set up, we don’t have time right now. We can smoke after we get this shit on stage.”

Jeff quirked his brows suspiciously, “Dude, since when do you care that we’re on time for anything?”

“Yeah seriously, we’re late like every week,” Gareth added.

Eddie balked, searching for the answer in the treeline, one that excluded you. “It just—if we’re ever gonna play anywhere else besides here we’re gonna have to start getting our shit together.”

There was a lukewarm pause as the band considered his answer. By the looks on their faces, Eddie wasn’t entirely sure if they bought it, but it was the best he could come up with and the statement was true. Dave broke the silence with an exasperated sigh. “Come on. I’ve been jonesing since we got to Gareth’s. His mom is so anal we can’t even smoke outside.”

“That’s ‘cause you reek when you come back in,” Gareth defended.

“At least I don’t reek of ass like you,” Dave chortled.

Jeff didn’t miss a beat. “That’s debatable.”

Gareth’s cackle wafted into the frigid air as he pointed a pale finger at Dave.

“You wanna find out the hard way?” Dave’s eyes glimmered wildly as he hooked an arm around Gareth’s shoulders, locking him into a power noogie position.

Gravel shuffled under their stumbling feet. “Let go of me you asshole,” Gareth gritted through a strangled laugh. Jeff only egged them on, howling uproariously like he had tickets to the show. 

Eddie dragged his hands down his face with a deep, seething breath as Dave ground his thick knuckles into Gareth’s mop of hair, kicking up rocks and pivoting as Gareth attempted to pry away. This was his circus, his monkeys, and he would have to step up and be the ring leader if they were going to take the stage at all tonight. “CUT IT OUT!” he hollered. 

Dave paused, arm still locked around Gareth’s neck. “Come on, we’re just having a little fun. You remember fun, right?” 

Gareth groaned weakly, looking up at Eddie with pathetic eyes. “Who’s we?” he choked.

Eddie’s expression didn’t budge from its scowl. With a roll of his eyes and a resigned huff, Dave released his arm and Gareth stumbled backward, gasping. “Fine, captain killjoy.”

A heavy plume of fog left his nostrils as Eddie stormed toward the back of his van, weaving his arm through a thick ring of cables to rest on his shoulder before hoisting another amp from the stack. Gravel shuffled behind him as the others followed suit.

You were risking a lot to come here. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint you.

______

The silence gnawed at you, filled you with an itching discomfort as you thumbed your dresser knobs. Staring into your open shirt drawer, you faced off with your biggest decision yet — what to wear tonight.

The chasm of options laid before you in neat, folded rows. An excavation site of cardigans, and turtle necks, and things you hadn’t unearthed in years. You ran your fingers through the layers of folded cotton, peeling them back with deep consideration. 

Nagging thoughts crept in like whispers over the softly ticking clock, pinball plunger pulled and ready to fire. With a determined huff, you stepped back from your dresser and padded down the hallway, out into the living room. 

Your skirt pooled around your stocking feet as you crouched down in front of the long wooden cabinet that housed your records. Fingers dancing over the worn cardboard spines, you flipped them softly forward as you perused one by one, walking steadily until one of them fell open to a scene; a painting of a man hunched over with sticks tied to his back that hung on a wall of peeling paper. You paused, pulling it out to scan the track list. This would do.

Placing the the record softly on the felt pad, you lowered the needle to the ridges, and with the press of a button, a crackle roused the room. 

Hey hey momma said the way you move

Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove

A smile, like a crocus peeking up from the snow, bloomed across your face. You cranked the volume, wrapping yourself in a sound that would carry to your bedroom. 

Your fingers found the tiny metal tab behind your waist, and with a downward tug of the zipper, your wool skirt became a puddle on the floor. Peeling back the layers, your tight sweater joined it in a heap, your thick stockings lay deflated on the pile, the buttons of your stiff blouse worked free until it was a crumpled afterthought. The chill that kissed your skin was a welcome thing. Goosebumps raised like the current flowing through you as your near-naked silhouette danced across the wall to approach the open drawer once more. 

Emboldened with a curious delight, you began to dig. Past the crust of crisp blouses, beneath the squishy mid-layer of cardigans, down into the sub-layer of camisoles and tees, deeper and deeper until finally your fingers made purchase with a soft treasure. 

It fell open as you unearthed it, the solid black gone grey from washing, the white letters and arched angel cracked and faded: Led Zeppelin — United States of America 1977. 

It happened on a Sunday in April, which began as most Sundays did, with you hunched over your powder blue typewriter in a race between the clock and the keys. You had it down to a science. At the speed you were typing, a rough draft could be finished by dinner, and the final could be churned out by cutting into a few hours of your sleep. A worthy sacrifice, as your final grade was on the finish line. This, like countless others, was how you planned to spend your day — until your roommate found you. 

You remembered the way she leaned against the wooden frame of your bunk bed, amused, watching the paper you hammered with black-inked letters grow longer and longer. Finally she spilled it; as of an hour ago, she was down one boyfriend and up one ticket, and now it had your name on it. When she dangled it between you and the tidy rows of text, your hands froze over the keys. 

You eyed the invitation — temptation printed on a neat, orange strip. Free admission, at a price.

The show was sold out. It had been for a long time. 

Your class was at 9:00 AM tomorrow. A late paper took twenty percent off your grade. 

You loved the band dearly, had a bigger crush on Robert Plant than you’d openly admit to anyone. Fights had broken out over tickets nation wide. You had no idea when they would play the states again.

The clock ticked on beside you, the long hand grazed past three. Maybe you could churn out the rest  in the next few hours. Maybe the rough draft would be enough. But the realist in you knew neither would happen if you seized the ticket. Your grade would never recover, your streak of straight As you’d kept since grade school would come to an end. Your GPA would dip for the semester.

On April 17th, 1977, you left your paper sitting unfinished in the typewriter to see Led Zeppelin play Market Square Arena. You didn’t know it then, but it was the last time they ever would.

On April 18th at 9:00 AM, you showed up to class with empty hands and a brand new shirt. 

You had altered your souvenir; taken scissors to the collar so that it draped off your shoulder. Time and your washing machine had made Swiss cheese of the bottom hem, so you cropped it. You admired the handiwork as it draped off you now, the way the black strap of your bra peeked out from the slope of your shoulder like a coy secret. 

Pulling open the lower drawer—opened far less frequently than you would like—your knuckles grazed the bottom of the smooth wood interior as you peeled back the layers of folded denim. A crease of black jumped out from the sea of blue, and you examined it. It had a nice worn-in fade for only having lived in your dresser a few years, a flatteringly high waist, and most importantly, tapered legs that could easily be tucked into the tall, black boots sitting in the back of your closet. Your bare legs welcomed the barrier against the chill, and you caught a glance at your rear as you hiked them snugly upward. They hugged you in all the right places, as the music electrified the air, you transformed.

A vision of you — sprawled across a blanket on the quad with your face in a book. Making shadows on your dorm room wall while transmuting fantasies to black-inked pages. Strolling down a lamp-lit street, face to the stars, fueling your wild imagination. Here, in your reflection, the ghost of you looked back.

You painted her darker than normal, swapping the usual chapstick for a deep, dusty red exhumed from the bottom of your makeup bag. Eyes smoked and cheeks dusted, you drew out the beauty from angles of your face with every stroke.

Coat donned and purse in hand, you paused at the front door, glancing over your shoulder, down the hallway, toward your coffee table piled with papers. There was another ghost of you here — tucked into her slippers and cozy robe with the voices from the television as her only company, flicking her green grading pen down rows of questions. 

On December 10th, 1985, you left the papers sitting on your coffee table to see Corroded Coffin play The Hideout. With a decided twist of the handle, you pushed out into the cold night air. 

Light pooled in sparse puddles as your boots echoed off the rough pavement. Stillness whispered on the wind as crisp remnants of fall scuttled across the asphalt. The apartments behind you were a tapestry of glowing squares, pictures of the rest of Hawkins tucking into their slippers and washing their dishes, grabbing their blankets and turning on their televisions. 

You grabbed your keys and unlocked your car, and when it roared to life with a swift flick of your wrist, a strange exhilaration coursed through you. 

It rose like the moon over the barren fields, thrumming in your chest, spreading to your limbs, alight with something wild and teeming as you drove past rows of lighted windows—vignettes of tired routine—and stopped at the same red sign you did this morning. Your fingers twitched over the turn signal leaver — an impulse to flick up, to turn right, to settle into the familiar rhythm of your muscle memory. This time you pressed down, pressed your foot to the gas, and cranked the wheel left.

Cruising boldly down the straight and narrow road, fields and farmland faded in your rearview mirror and soon there were trees on the horizon; dense and dark. Gripping the wheel as the silhouette closed in, the corners of your mouth drew upward, pulled by a wild, awakened force. Headlights illuminated pale, naked limbs. Eyes beamed back at you from the shadows. You cranked the volume on your stereo, and as you braced for your first bend, something deep within you—dormant and restless—howled.

______

The water was so cold it burned. Eddie cursed the old plumbing, instantly regretting having the decency to wash his hands in the first place. Soap just barely rinsed, he twisted the lime-scaled handles and shut it off. With a trembling hand, he grabbed one of the last paper towels. Gareth’s kick drum echoed down the narrow hallway, thundering just like his chest. He glanced at his watch again. 7:56. 

Eddie took a ragged breath, chucking the crumpled paper at the overflowing trash bin in the corner. It bounced dejectedly off the wall and onto the dirty tile. With a deadpan glare, he left it where it lay. Hands barely dry, he felt for the flask in his pocket. Screwing the tiny cap and flicking it open, he tipped it back. Eddie welcomed the burn. It chased down his throat and settled in his stomach with a warmth that radiated, instantly numbing his nerves.

Meeting his own eyes in the tiny, smudged mirror, he gave himself a final glance over. His curls were holding; fresh and clean from this morning, fluffed by the icy wind in the trips from van to stage. 

Here, in the dingy confines of The Hideout, words like freak and loser lost their stick. Words he could shake like a dog at the door. He’d fashioned them like armor in the daytime; a shield in hallways and in lunch lines. What was stickier were feelings. The feelings that came with chewed pens and answers left blank. The feeling of lectures slipping like a sieve through his brain. The feeling of stares and stifled laughter, of staring numbly at the board, of filling the silence with bullshit instead of an answer. 

Microphone feedback squeaked outside. The dull, heavy walk of a bassline. Laughter. Cymbals. That kick drum again. Eddie took another swig, searing the flutters in his stomach.

He wanted to be good for you. Seen under stage lights instead of fluorescents. 

Good like an answer he knew.

-

You saw the sign first, peeking from behind the trees — simple, effective, and yellowed with time. The Hideout: a hole in the woods. Tucked around the bend you now braced against, it sat like a neon beacon. The chipped, grey exterior faded into the shadows, leaving only the holy glow of Budweiser and Miller Lite signs to guide you to the promised land. 

Pulling into a spot along the narrow parking strip, you faced off with your destination. Looming and real. Frozen as reality stared back at you in the glare of your blinding headlights, you gripped the steering wheel and looked around. There were a few other cars beside you, but none of them Janet’s. Around the left of the building there appeared to be more parking, and the stout silhouette of a two-tone van you did know the owner of. Pinballs hammered in your chest. 

When you arrange a time to meet someone, you are always punctual. Perhaps a life organized by bells on timers trained you to be this way, but the thought of entering alone filled you with dread, and part of you wondered whether you should wait out here for her. Your hands were starting to shake, and not from the cold. 

The list of crazy things you had done in your life was a laughably short one, but this made the top by a long shot. As you turned the radio down and sat in the wake of your rumbling engine, the questions grew louder. Serious questions about where you thought this night would go, about where you wanted it to go and if you would truly go there. 

Suddenly your headlights felt too bright, like a beacon drawing eyes from the woods, or even more terrifying, eyes from the building. You promptly flicked them off and waited, staring dead ahead at the chipped grey siding. It was fine. You were fine. At least you could no longer see your breath. You could hide here as long as you wanted. 

-

“Alright man, it’s doob o’clock,” Dave said with a satisfied stretch as he took in the stage setup.

Eddie ripped another frantically scribbled setlist out of his spiral notebook and shoved it at him. “No it’s eight fifteen and we still need to do soundcheck,” Eddie scathed, glancing at the door. “You can start by plugging your mic in, Jesus Christ.”

Dave huffed annoyedly through his nose, squatting down to find the cord with exaggerated difficulty. “Yes sir,” he mocked. Eddie shot back a testing glare. “Dude, what’s up with you tonight? You’ve been on one since Gareth’s.”

“Yeah, you ok man?” asked Jeff.

The knots tightened in his stomach as the attention of all three of them closed in around him. “Just—let’s just get our shit together…please,” he deflected.

-

Glancing around frantically, you wondered, for the hundredth time, where the hell Janet was. You couldn’t be that surprised that a woman with two small children was late, but your exhaust was making a smokescreen of the parking strip, and you wondered if anyone inside had noticed, if anyone could hear the low rumble of your engine and questioned why this strange woman was idling. With an irritated sigh, you turned the key, leaving you in deafening silence and leeching cold. You could hear your breathing now, your pounding heart, the squeaking of leather as you shifted in your seat. What one of the kids got sick? What if she called after you left? 

What if she isn’t coming?

Eddie’s eyes lingered at the door as he clicked the pedals with his feet, plucking a soft, testing melody into the mic. His watch glared under the stage lights, confidence fleeting with every minute that ticked by. Gareth snapped his foot petal with a deep thud. Dave walked out a bassline before squealing feedback made the whole bar flinch.

The strum of a chord made you jump. Booming and electric, you heard it through the walls. They were starting. They were starting and you weren’t there. Gripping the steering wheel, you tossed your head back in an anguished sigh. You sure as hell weren’t going to stand him up. As you glanced around the parking lot one last desperate time, the bitter conclusion rose like bile — you may have to do this alone. Seatbelt clicking under your gloved thumb, you steeled yourself for the cold, for the eyes of strangers in a strange new place. With a decided pull of the handle, the door opened to the frigid night air, and you emerged from the heat into the unknown. 

You met your reflection in the glass of the entrance as your hand gripped the weathered knob. Pinballs fired off at lightning speed — a jackpot multi-ball bonanza. Checking your hair one last time with eyes locked on your own, you turned the handle with a determined sigh.

A bell dinged above your head, and winter’s chill gusted in on your heels.

The whole room turned at once — at you. You, from the front of the classroom. You, from behind the big desk. You, in the doorway of The Hideout. Across a dark sea of scattered tables, poised on an altar of sound and light, Eddie Munson smiled at you — brighter than all of it. 

The door fell shut behind you. Hot under the gaze of what seemed like the entire bar, it suddenly felt like you were the one on stage. Standing there like a deer in headlights in your long wool coat and clean black boots, you surely must have looked as out of place as you felt. Shoulders rolling back to counter your thrumming nerves, your boots left the rug and found the tacky linoleum as you approached the bar that lined the left wall. 

Eddie busied his shaking hands with tapping another test melody into his mic, pausing when he heard a voice over his right shoulder. 

“Is that…?” Jeff pointed toward the back of your head.

Gareth’s eyes lit up in recognition. Dave peered over with a shit-eating grin. “Did you invite her?” he mouthed.

Eddie’s face betrayed him, burning like it did under the fluorescents. Burning to greet you at the bar, for the liberty to patronize it, to offer you something more than his aching gaze. 

“No,” Eddie lied, “but I may have told her we play here on Tuesdays.” He struck the strings with the weight of his frustration, drowning out any further questions with the opening chords to the first song on the setlist. The others took their cue with chuckles and shaking heads. Heart pounding like the kick drum behind him, Eddie’s fingers found the frets, tugging a muscle memory from deep within as his eyes stayed fixed on you. 

There was an older man in a sweatshirt behind the bar. The owner, you figured, by the way he was standing — arms crossed, stance wide, unafraid to take up space. By the way he was looking at you, like he wondered what would drive a new face to his establishment on a random Tuesday night in December. From the glances the others passed between them, the feeling seemed unanimous. 

“How can I help you?” he half shouted against the chugging chords, leaning against the bar with a curious smile.

You braced with your brightest grin, placing your gloved hands down flat on the waxy bar. “Hi! Yes—um,” you scanned the selection under the neon lights, the liquor bottles of all shapes and sizes reflected in the dirty mirror behind them. The bar back was tightly cluttered with old stickers and hand-written notes taped behind the cash register, with half-empty bottles of bitters and bobble heads nodding to the palpable vibration. Having no interest in standing there awkwardly while he fixed you a cocktail, you selected a bottle of Coors. 

He nodded and ducked to open the steel, magnet-plastered fridge beneath the cash register. 

Your gaze, like a magnet, drew back to the stage. It was all you could do just to watch him — the way his curls fell gently at his cheek, the way they bounced with every strum. There was a tension lingering just under the curve of his lashes. The music was fast and loud, purely instrumental. You recognized nothing about it but the genre. Head dipped in concentration as his left hand tapped a frantic melody into the frets, he raised his eyes bravely to meet yours.

He wasn’t the only man staring. It was hard to ignore; the man in the baseball cap to your right as you stared right through his line of sight. You pinched off your gloves and shoved them in your pockets to occupy your hands.

A bottle cap plinked against the bar top. “Two bucks,” the owner stated, slinging a towel over his shoulder. 

You fished through your purse, feeling those eyes on you as you opened your wallet, as you slid the bills right under his gaze across the waxy counter. You snatched the cold bottle and raised it to your lips. Turning over your shoulder, your eyes clung to Eddie on stage, to his tendons as they flexed to pick a rhythm at the strings. His was gaze a soft and yearning thing, a contrast to the sharp and punchy chords that left his fingers. 

“You know these guys?” the man in the cap asked finally, pointing to the stage. Your eyes shot toward him in surprise, lips still pursed at the bottle. He had that working man sort of look. Average features, subtle crows feet, a whisper of sandy stubble across his strong jaw. His grey-blue eyes were gentle, but brimming with a heated curiosity.

You used the much needed swig to buy yourself a second. Did you? The cold, bready fizz sparkled down your throat. You supposed you didn’t have to specify how you were acquainted. “Yeah,” you answered simply, plugging your mouth with the bottle like a dam.

A bell rattled behind you. Grateful for any disruption, you whipped around quickly to break the connection. Janet lit up as soon as she saw you, a mixture of relief and apology playing out on her face as she strode across the room. Tight blonde curls emerged from her lowering leopard print hood. “Oh my god I’m so sorry,” she lamented, arms opening to embrace you. 

Relief washed through you like a warm buzz. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it!” you said as your nose took a dive in her soft, perfumed curls. 

“Sarah would not stop crying, it took forever for me to finally get her to sleep. I swear babies have a sixth sense, they always know when you have fun plans,” she said through a laugh. Her lashes were long and thick with mascara, eyeshadow a solid sky blue so vibrant that it popped even in the dim neon glow. 

Janet ordered a margarita. There was nothing new to speak of, really, over the electric roar of the band, but you tried to listen. Intently, you tried to listen to the new words her son was saying, to offer some lukewarm update about how work was going, but your eyes had their own agenda.

The rolled cuffs of Eddie’s tight, acid-washed jeans bunched against the pull tabs of his boots as he tapped the rhythm with his heel. There was no jacket for him to strain against, no flannel to constrict him, no sleeves on his T-shirt in December. It was more than you’d seen of him yet. Ink flexed with each generous swell of his bicep, and with every attack, he would flash you his ribs through the hand-hacked holes. 

“Mmm,” Janet mumbled, sipping off the top of the very full, salt-rimmed rocks glass. “Come on, let’s get cozy,” she said with a wink and gestured toward the tables. The air was thick with smoke wafting from the bikers at the bar. Eddie tapped out another lick and peered through a few stray curls as you followed her across the room to a high top, back and center.

You wanted to be closer. Close enough to see the umber of his eyes, the ridges of his knuckles as they plucked the strings. There were a few shorter tables down in front, back about five feet from the stage. But as the beams of light bounced off the glossy wood and over the seats in blinding white, you were grateful for the shadows ten feet would afford you. 

Janet stripped off her coat to reveal a tight black dress with long sleeves and sequined, padded shoulders. It hugged just above the knees of her sheer hose, punctuated with sharp ankle boots. 

“Look at you all dressed up! You look stunning.” You meant it, she really did.

Janet’s smile was a shy deflection, but hiding just beneath it, a glimmer of belief. “Thanks, this thing’s been sitting in my closet for like a year now. Can you believe it? I just felt like, you know, if I’m going out I’m gonna dress up goddamn it,” she laughed, punctuating with a slap against the table. “We coulda gone to Benny’s, I still woulda worn it.”

You laughed, for the first time since you’d talked to her that morning. Unbuttoning your coat, you let it drape over the metal back of the stool behind you. 

“You’re not looking too shabby yourself,” Janet said with a wink before taking a sip.

“Honestly I’ll take any excuse I can get to dress down,” you said with a sheepish huff, propping your elbows on the sticky table before bringing the bottle to your lips. 

A nervous crackle wound its way through Eddie’s stomach at the vision of you. You, perched on a stool in a dive bar. You, in jeans and a t-shirt. You, arching forward just enough to grace him with a sliver of your back. It was real — you, here.  He soured a note, and those words he shook off came creeping back in as he fumbled through the next lick. But you didn’t seem to notice. You propped your cheek against your knuckles and let the warmth of your eyes usher his doubts away. 

When the song came to a ringing conclusion, Janet’s cheer was uninhibited, clapping her hands above her head. It drew eyes from the couple seated at one of the lower tables, from the bikers at the bar, from the band. Your applause was more demure, but you couldn’t mask the brilliance of your smile. 

“Thank you, thank you,” Eddie said into the microphone. “Looks like we really have a crowd tonight. Seven drunks.”

The room erupted with hollers and cheers. 

The bassist muttered something to the other guitarist and the two shared a laugh, casting their eyes towards you. Suddenly your face grew very hot. Of course they recognized you, Jeff was in your second period class. You anticipated this, and yet it was the realness of it all that shook you — the hard stool beneath you, the stares you could feel as your finger idly traced the cold condensation on the glass. Pinballs fired off at rapid speed. You drowned them with a tip of the bottle. 

Eddie shifted, clicking the pedals with his foot. “Ok, so this next one is uh, definitely not an original.” He breathed a laugh into the microphone, glancing up at you — at your shoulders, hunched in shy defense, at your worried brow and downcast gaze. He wished he could reach across the room, lift your chin with his words and draw you from your shell. “Anyway, you’ll uh, probably recognize this one,” he said, to you.

Eddie nodded to the band, counting off silently before they struck a chord together — a low, droning thing, gritty and slow as the bass walked steadily over the foundation. Eddie swayed back and forth, rocking in time with the beat like a march, resting his heavy-lidded gaze on you. Across the divide of scattered seats, you — at the small table, saw him — on the big stage. His nimble fingers struck the chords with an ardent conviction, and the ice in you began to thaw. 

Suddenly the beat changed pace. Gareth smacked his drum sticks together to count off, and the first two chords sparked instant recognition. A smile rose up in you — a wild and thrumming thing, radiant and rising until it cracked through. 

You knew what was coming. Two chords, quiet taps for a count of sixteen, and then those two chords again, like a one-two punch, booming and building with anticipation. Again, and again, as the energy rose in the room. You caught the wicked glint in his eyes as his hands—those hands that fidgeted and fumbled with dog-eared pages and chewed up pens—wielded power. A surge of electricity swirled through your stomach, crackled because you knew what was next. 

Eddie took a deep breath, and opened his mouth. 

Generals gathered in their masses

Colors. Warm and bright, tingling like a shockwave from your chest down to your seat. 

Just like witches at black masses

In your secret daydreams, you often wondered what his voice sounded like in song. 

Evil minds that plot destruction

Tried to guess from his deep hums and brilliant laughter.

Sorcerers of death’s construction

Now, it suspended in the air like a battle cry, reaching out across the chasm of tables and chairs.

In the fields the bodies burning

Surging like a wildfire.

As the war machine keeps turning

Swirling through the darkness like a strange magic.

Death and hatred to mankind

Reaching out like it wanted to touch you. 

Poisoning their brainwashed minds

And so you let it.

Oh lord, yeah!

The music rocked and swelled. Like a balm reverberating through the air, it softened the hunch of your shoulders. Like an antidote, it dissolved the knot in your stomach. Like an arrow, it pierced the shell of you. 

Janet took a generous sip of her margarita and bobbed her head to the rhythm. You caught her gaze from across the table and shared a laugh, a mutual knowing through squinted eyes and shaking heads that this was, in fact, a Tuesday night in December, and the two of you were here.

As the cold drink warmed your limbs, you became acquainted with the hard curve of the stool beneath you, with the of rings left behind on the glossy table, with the crowded ashtray. Acquainted with the smoke that wafted through the air and the darkness that enveloped you like a blanket. The music settled over the room, and as you settled into that heavy buzz, you started to get the feeling you might actually enjoy yourself tonight.

Janet needed no convincing. Her first margarita went down easy, leaving nothing but the ice and her hot pink lipstick on the rim before they finished their fourth song. When she returned from the bar with one in each hand, she placed the extra in front of you. Her treat, convinced they were better than Pal Joey’s, insisting that you try it even with a few sips still lingering in your bottle. 

It surprised you — the balance of lime, and liquor, and something else you couldn’t quite place. It surprised you how it easy it melted the tension in your stomach, how it encouraged you to lean in a little more, to let your shoulders drop.

Eddie noticed it, peeking out from under the coyly dipping collar of your shirt; bare and soft as you leaned against the table — your shoulder. He missed a note. Cursing silently, he glanced down at his fingers and tapped into that deep, subconscious part of his brain again where they knew just where to go. But when he closed his eyes to find it, the image remained painted to his lids — a ripened fruit, tempting but too far to taste. Across it, a stripe of black hazard tape, a trail he itched to follow. 

There was a hunger in you, stirring more with every song, with every decadent flash of his pale ribs. He was good. Stadium good. Those nimble fingers tapped the frets, making them sing in a way that made you wish you were wire and wood, looking at you in a way that made you think he wished the same. He stroked the neck of his instrument with a reverent touch, attacked the strings with a holy power, like a wingless angel with a spotlight halo. You whispered a silent prayer, venerating him from your faraway pew in the only way you could — with your eyes.

The animal stirred in its icy den, roused by the warmth of his voice as it stretched across the bar. It stirred in that place you rarely acknowledged, rarely indulged as you considered what other talents his hands might have. You considered the shades of those sighs and swallows he took before painting the air, considered what they might sound like if he showed you. It settled and throbbed in that low, blooming place, and you smothered the feeling with a cross of your legs.

Busying yourself with what remained of your beer, you shifted your shoulders to face him directly, leaning your free arm against the metal back of the stool with an ease that Eddie considered looked almost as good on you as the shirt did. Your lips lingered on the rim of the bottle before parting with a soft pop. He swallowed.

There was a gap between you; a sea of scattered tables and wide open ears and eyes amongst them. What could he possibly say from his position? From a microphone on stage? A thousand words ached on the tip of his tongue and he swallowed them with a sloppy chug of water as the applause bought him a moment to consider. 

The white lettering across your chest jumped out at him from the shadows like a bright idea. Eddie swiped droplets from his mouth and turned to his bandmates, bringing them into a huddle as the noise drowned out what he was saying. Whatever it was, after some deliberation, they seemed in agreement about it.

You hadn’t seen Janet like this since the summer between your junior and senior year of college. She was always a happy drunk; talkative and bubbly, spilling over with laughter and the sort of wild enthusiasm that a child at a carnival might have.

“I wanna dance,” she said longingly, glancing toward the stage as she slumped in her seat. 

“Maybe we can go to a club next time,” you joked as you downed the remainder of your sweating drink.

The band assumed their positions again. Eddie tapped the pedals with his feet and rolled his shoulders back with a deep, collecting breath. His eyes found yours across the room, brimming with such a longing you wondered anyone else could sense it too. After the longest second, he snapped his head over his shoulder with a steely conviction and nodded off a count before making his attack — the opening riff to Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”. 

Your hands shot to your face.

Suddenly Janet perked up, inspired by the catchy rhythm and her own suggestion. “We should dance! Will you dance with me?”

You balked, shrinking down. “There’s like… six people here! I don’t think it’s really that kind of—”

“Oh come on, please? What’s there to lose, huh?”

Oh, only my last remaining shred of dignity in front of my students. But you couldn’t say that. “Janet,” you hissed. “We are not—I can’t—”

Her three margaritas had a different opinion. They reached across the table and grabbed your hand. “Come on, live a little! That’s what we came here to do, right?” 

You buried your face in your other. The truth was you wanted to. You wanted a closeup of that smart smirk, of the sweat beading down his temple as he strummed the punchy chords he hand-picked just for you. You wanted the fantasy, the memory, the experience. It was convincing — her pouting pink lips and pleading eyes, almost as convincing as the tequila coursing through your veins. The truth was you left your better judgement at home on the coffee table. To her giddy satisfaction, you surrendered. Dragging you from your seat, she led you to the front of the stage.

Eddie’s smile could have blinded you, even through the shy web of your fingers. Cheers erupted from the bar, from the whole band, as Janet shimmied her sequined shoulders to the beat.

Eddie opened his mouth again, this time with an ardor you could feel in your bones.

You need cooling, baby I’m not fooling

He crouched down to level with your eyes. I’m gonna send ya back to schooling

You lowered your hand to mask the girlish grin that cracked across your face.

Way down inside, honey you need it

They were breathtaking up close — his eyes. Sparkling with an energy you’d never seen before. Rich umber alight with something you couldn’t quite place, too mesmerized by the promise his tongue wove through the air.

I’m gonna give you my love

I’m gonna give you my love… oh!

He straightened with a backward toss of his head, and you found the word you were looking for in the droplets that flung from his curls. Power. 

Wanna whole lotta love?

Wanna whole lotta love?

Janet—having an absolute field day over the spectacle—offered you her hand like she wanted to tango. Freeing your face with a brave sigh, you accepted with a slap of your palm in hers. She tugged with a childish delight, and you took your cue — spinning into her waiting arm and shooting back out with a flourish dredged up from some long forgotten place. The room became a blur of sound and light, of cheers from the bar and the stage. You stilled to find your footing, landing on his eyes. 

You’ve been learning, and baby I’ve been yearning

He dipped down again. All them good times baby, baby, I’ve been lear-er-nin’, he punctuated with a shake of his head. He could see the whole vision of you, bright and clear under the stage lights. A wildness lingering just behind your eyes, a fragment unseen until now. It pounded at the cage of your chest, rose up in the shallow breaths you caught before Janet snatched you away again. He swore—silently on a deep inhale—that he would do everything in his power to coax it out of you.

Way, way down inside, oh honey you need it

I’m gonna give you my love

I’m gonna give you my love

You couldn’t remember the last time you really danced. The last time you felt a rhythm with your body and followed its blind inspiration. No rhyme or reason, no plans or choreography. It felt awkward at first, like trying on skin fresh from the wash. Feeling your feet shuffle against the tacky linoleum, finding the rhythm of yourself with a room full of strangers as witness.

Somewhere between the beams of light and the wink of Eddie’s rings beneath them, you found it. Like a memory rising up, sweeping through you like a current. Visions of a stadium, roaring as a lion struts the stage with his golden mane, as he commands a sea of thousands with his voice. There was an animal in you too, wild and careless. 

It grew wilder when the music dropped to nothing but percussion. When the room fell away to nothing but the heat from Eddie’s eyes, sparkling with play. It made your hips want to sway a little more, your legs want to dip a little deeper to match his wildness with your own. Imbued with a sudden, potent energy, he struck his wicked instrument as the rhythm and melody unraveled. 

Janet took it in stride, leading you in a rocking shimmy as you swayed to the change in tempo. Light danced on her sequined shoulders as she tipped her head back in a blissful cackle. You followed her lead, eyes fixed on her with a surging power in the knowing of whose eyes were fixed on you.

The air was a cool kiss against the sliver of skin where your shirt left off, daring you to show a little more. With a twist of your arms toward the spotlights, you blessed him with the dip of your back — the alluring shadow of your spine that trailed into the high waist of your jeans. He panged with the urge to follow it, fell to his knees and wailed through his fingertips.  

You broke from Janet’s pull to face him, eye-to-eye level, watching reverently as the sweat glistened in his clavicles, as his pelvis jutted into his weapon to eke out his solo. Howling for you with each stroke of its neck, each bend in its strings as you matched his rhythm with your hips. A secret world, just you and him, the rest fading out into nothing. He swore, like a spell in each note that he wove through the air, that somehow he would make it last.

From his knees, Eddie grabbed the mic off the stand, and with a wordless nod earned by years of friendship, Jeff took over the melody. To the delight of the crowd, he stripped himself of the weight of his instrument, setting it carefully off to the side. 

You’ve been cooling, baby, I’ve been drooling, he crooned as he crawled forward.

All the good times, baby, I’ve been misusing

You played with him there. With your shoulders, with your eyes locked no more than a foot from his. Desperate to touch him, you worshiped every bead of sweat that fell from his temple, every wet curl that strayed from the nape of his neck and hugged the strong angle of his jaw. What left his lips next dripped with such fervent intention you that you couldn’t keep your hand from your face.

Way, way down inside

I’m gonna give you my love

I’m gonna give you every inch of my love

I’m gonna give you my love

He was pure energy; raw and manic. Free in the way that wild things are. He snatched your breath away, dragged it to his den and had his way with it as he queried the chorus to you. There was wildness all around; in glinting sequins and megawatt smiles. In the flashes of limbs under the lights. In the rhythm you carried with your whole body now, moving in a way that was both so foreign and natural all at once. 

You wondered how it looked from the outside; you and him. From the bar it might have looked like drunk spontaneity. From the stage it might have looked like a stint of support for the arts. You wondered, with a twinge of fear, if the others could feel the longing too or if you had masked it well enough as a performance. 

The music dropped out to make way for the final lyrics.

Way down inside, he belted into the silence, punctuating with a deep inhale. Woman, he shouted, locking eyes with you for a pregnant second as the world came to a halt, you need… he drew a deep breath in the space the two chords allowed him before wailing the final word at the ceiling — loooooooove!

You felt it with every cell of your body in one suspended moment. Felt—for the first time since you could vividly remember—truly and completely alive. With a crash of cymbals and an electric instrumental boom, the rhythm—and the world—reconstituted around you, swirling with a vibrant energy that swept you away.

His dark eyes opened with a wicked glint, and his next breath left his chest as a command. 

Shake for me, girl. I wanna be your backdoor man!

You obeyed with a shimmy of your shoulders and the room went wild. 

______

Janet left you with a tight, perfumed hug. A gentle reassurance that yes, she was fine to drive home. She left you in the vacuum of slamming guitar cases and distant voices as the jukebox picked up where the band left off. Left you to sober up to how idle and awkward you felt sitting at the table you once shared with her, picking at the peeling label on the wet, empty bottle.

When you heard footsteps approaching, a part of you was grateful for the prospect of someone—anyone—to talk to, though it wasn’t who you hoped. Instead, it was the man in the cap from the bar.

“Hey, love the shirt,” he remarked, glance lingering a little too long over the text across your chest.

“Thanks,” you said shyly, gaze drifting back to the bottle.

He stepped closer, setting his can on the table. “I take it you went to that concert?” 

“I did, it was really last minute actually.” You told him the story. You told him with your words and gestures, twisting in the tall stool to face him, but it was Eddie that drew your eyes. Crouched down with one knee bent beneath him and the other straining against denim slits, he collected his pedals into a tiny, vintage suitcase. There were words coming out of your mouth, but faced with the rigid angles of his thighs, you were helpless but to stumble over some of them.

It was then that you noticed he had already been staring, though not at you, at Bill — with a simmer behind his eyes.

“Man, I woulda killed to go to that show. I was working a double when tickets went on sale and a buddy of mine said he was gonna camp overnight for us. Well, he ended up getting into a fight with his girlfriend and flaked out. ‘Course they were sold out and closed by the time I left work.”

You expressed your genuine sympathy.  

“Boy I was pissed at him then, but even more pissed after Bonham died. Like damn, that was my last shot, man!”

“I’m sorry you had to miss it. It was quite the show.” You told him what you could remember. The setlist, the stage, what they wore.

Eddie watched closely, carefully darting between you amidst the gathering of cables and closing of metal latches. He watched your hands come to life like he loved so much, like you always did when you were explaining something with fond enthusiasm. Helplessly, he watched the way Bill leaned closer, the way his hand and forearm made themselves at home on your table. The simmer hissed and bubbled behind his eyes.

“Anyways, it’s good to see such a lovely new face around here. One with great taste, I might add. Made my night.”

The simmer kicked up to a full, licking flame. 

“Oh, well thanks. I don’t get out much,” you said with an awkward chuckle.

Bill stepped closer, as if his next point was something he had to lean in for. “By the way, and I hope this isn’t too forward, but… you’re a great dancer.”

Eddie watched your hand dive behind your neck, your face contort into a feeble smile, your shoulders hunch, your eyes glance down. He could hear the distress in your beautiful laugh and he boiled so hot he could have seared a hole into the back of Bill’s head.

He extended his hand. “I’m Bill, by the way.” 

Eddie wrapped the cable in hasty circles around his forearm. Heat rose behind behind his tight lips and exited in short fumes.

“Hey man, have you seen the drum key anywhere?” Gareth called from behind him.

It barely registered. The world was a fragment now. A red-hot, narrowing tunnel reduced to a singularity — Bill’s hand. 

Bill’s hand; hovering like a salacious invitation, too close to the soft swell of your belly. That open, rugged palm — weathered, experienced, and free. Free to reach into his wallet, to reach across the bar, to hand you a drink, to wander all sorts of places where Eddie could not.

You, ever polite and always accommodating, reached back.

He touched you. 

Eddie’s vision narrowed red. Helplessly, he watched Bill’s fingers snake around the back of your hand and squeeze, linger at your palm as they released. A coil wound through his body. It rose up like bile — up through his spine, into his shoulders that rolled forward and back with a deep, seething breath. Up, up, into that primitive space at the base of his skull where words and civil manners had no place.

“Can I buy you a drink?” 

Eddie dropped the cable. 

The world blurred in the wake of his target and in five swift steps he was at your side. “Hey, Bill. Uh—” his senses ebbed back to him with a curious look from the man he’d shared countless drinks with. A man he would call his friend had he not breeched a sacred distance, a contract he knew nothing of. His vision was clouded, the coil tight and hot. 

“She’s um,” he continued quietly, a murmur he had to lean in for. An urge seized his hand. The urge to claim, to slip across the divot of your back and pull you close where you belonged, to but the noise from the stage and the eyes that followed forced his hand deep into his pocket. He swallowed his frustration, hoping the simmer in his eyes would be enough to convey what he meant. “She’s with me, man.” 

A throb from that low, blooming place, rose up in a full body yes. In the arch of your back, in the dip of your eyes as you caught the desperate heat from his. 

Bill blinked in honest surprise. “Wait, you mean,” he pointed between the two of you, eyes darting back and forth with a confusion that only deepened the insecurity of everyone involved, “you’re—”

“Yes,” Eddie hotly interrupted. The coil in him released slightly, a low rumble replaced by a surge that settled in his cheeks at the trembling, nervous laughter in your voice. 

Flutters roared through you all at once, spinning the room well beyond the scope of the liquor that lingered in your veins, heightening your senses to the warmth radiating from the aching nearness of his body to yours.

“Well, hey man, we were just talking—”

“Yeah—well,” he glanced at you, an apology playing out in the widening of his eyes as the coil cooled to sobering embarrassment. He wished he could bury himself, open a trapdoor and take you with him. A parade of stomping feet and slamming cases trudged on behind him from the stage. He prayed the din was enough to mask the conversation. 

“It’s ok!” you nervously exclaimed to both of them. “Really. Besides, I—I need to sober up anyway before I go home, so… it’s really ok,” you soothed to Eddie specifically. 

Eddie’s pulse thrummed in his hears, his body a livewire of stress and embarrassment. “Ok. Well, I just, um… thought I’d let you know,” he concluded to Bill, desperate to string together some semblance of dignity. He dipped his head toward you until his voice hummed lowly in your hear. “It’ll just be a few more minutes. I gotta get the rest of this shit cleaned up, and then we can, um—” his eyes darted back and forth between yours in wordless exasperation.

“Yeah,” your body whispered, overriding any protest of your noble mind. To what you were agreeing to was unimportant. Whatever he wanted.

Eddie nodded and pivoted toward the stage in a swift exit.

In the wake of his absence was an awkward pause, a space Bill was quick to fill with words. “Well, um, it was nice to meet you,” he said with an awkward dip of his head. 

“Yeah, you as well,” you said, a feeble anchor to the spinning room. Bill’s gaze hesitated with a flash of disappointment before returning to the bar. It was all you could do to just stand there a moment, heart pounding in stunned realization as the space whirled with the clammer of footsteps, the thud of equipment, the clinking of glasses. Suddenly the weight of your aloneness in the middle of it all was crushing. You retreated to the down the short hallway and ducked into the bathroom.

She’s with me.

She’s with me.

She’s with me.

In the muffled quiet of the dimly lit reprieve, the words echoed louder than ever. You were almost afraid to check your reflection, to look yourself in the eyes and face the person who ached to hear them repeated, but you did, and she surprised you. Something about the way your lipstick feathered clean in the center from the kiss of the bottle, the way your mascara settled at your lower lashes in the delicate lines beneath. It was oddly flattering, like the shadow of a good time. 

You liked who you saw, and perhaps that scared you most. 

Jeff’s laughter echoed down the hallway and the pinball trigger snapped again. What the fuck am I doing?

You would ask yourself this question as you pressed the tip of your boot to the dirty toilet handle, as the cold water woke your skin, as it dripped onto the salt-stained tile, as you dropped the soggy remains of the last two paper towels into the overflowing trashcan. 

When the clammer of footsteps and slamming of the back door faded to nothing more than distant murmurs from the bar, you slowly cracked the door and peered into the empty hallway. Your boots clicked tentatively against the tacky linoleum, emerging from the shadows as you drew a steady breath. The stage was dark, the men perched on stools had their backs to you, all roaming eyes cast down over drinks — all except one.

Eddie stood in the middle of it all; hands on hips, damp curls clinging to his neck, chest still heaving from movement and stress. He locked eyes with you, and you could feel relief in his sigh from the apron of the hallway.

Your smile was a shy, timid thing, blooming to a helpless grin as the softness of his features heightened into focus with each progressive step. As the distance between you closed to less than a foot.

“Hey,” he breathed like a soft apology.

“Hey,” you answered, like you always did. A nervous crackle of anticipation wound through your gut.

“I um,” Eddie wrung a hand behind his neck, flashing a dark tuft of hair that made the animal in you stir. “I need to cool down,” he admitted with a raw, candid urgency. He patted his pockets. “I’m gonna step out for a cigarette… if you… wanna…” he nodded toward the back hall. 

Yes. Anything, the animal growled. You simply nodded and went to grab your coat. 

Eddie snatched the heap of leather from the railing by the stage and draped it over his arm. He ushered you forward with a sweep of his palm through the air, catching your eyes with a softness that threatened the strength of your knees. A giggle escaped you — honest, uncontrollable, automatic. Clutching your arm with a coyness that surprised even yourself, you shuffled in front of him, the towering presence of his closeness like a tingle at your back, a safety in the thud of heavy boots behind you. 

The night air was a cold refreshment, a sobering reprieve from the hot, smoke-dense air of The Hideout. Your lungs helped themselves, filling to the brim, releasing just a little of the tension that was mounting before you arrived. It left you in a thick fog, drifting out into the empty patio, catching the glow from the singular bulb posted by the door. Eddie pulled it shut with a soft thud and shrugged on his coat in a rattle of zippers and chains.

Silence. A howl of the wind through naked limbs. A sigh that left both of you at once. 

Eddie dipped his head in subtle reverence as he crossed in front of you, placing his hands on the short, wooden fence to your right. He paused a second, drawing a deep breath before spinning around to face you, hands splayed in an open plead. “I am so fucking sorry.”

Your mouth hung open. “A-about what?”

He ran a hand through his hair with a ragged sigh. “About Bill, about how I acted, a-about…” he swallowed, “what I said…”

An O trembled on your lips but never made it out. “It’s fine, really—”

“It’s…it’s not. It’s just that,” he huffed, “Bill was hitting on you a-and you just looked so uncomfortable and…” it drove him fucking crazy. It lit his blood on fire. It made him want to grab a man who’d bought him countless drinks by the collar and ram him into the wall. 

You stepped closer, close enough to see the whites of his eyes in the darkness, the shadow of his pinching brow. You’d be lying if you said it didn’t stir something in you. Hearing those words. Hearing the ones he said now in profuse apology. “Eddie,” you soothed.

He closed his eyes; a split-second relish of his name on your lips. “It—” he sighed. “It wasn’t cool, to say that…” he shook his head before meeting your eyes in soft earnestness, “in public.”

The breath froze in your lungs. Out here the world fell away to the rustle of trees, to a darkness that cloaked you like a blanket. You were alone. Truly alone. A question tugged at your heart, twinged on the tip of your tongue but felt still too bold to leave it. What would he say, then, in private? 

It played out like a tape behind his eyes — the curl of Bill’s fingers around your hand. It was such a simple gesture, benign outside of context. Yet there was something deeper, something that wound like a serpent through his gut. It struck, and stung, that in one fell swoop, Bill had touched as much of you as he had. That Bill could do as much in public as he could only manage beneath a shadow. 

“Anyway, now that… that’s out of the way,” Eddie shook his head as he fumbled with the zipper of his pocket, curls feathering his delicate cheekbone, gaze cast down in weakly hidden shame. He procured a box of cigarettes, thumb flipping it open with an ease earned by years of habit. Popping one into his mouth, he paused before snapping it shut. “Y-you want one?” he mumbled. It seemed rude not to ask, but the question felt dumber by the second as it hung in the air. You were good. Good like 6 AM coffee, like the early morning sun. Good like the buttons on a crisp, white blouse. Yet here he stood, hand extended, offering what little he could — an experience.

Goodness was a mantle. A weight that kept your shoulders back, your lips pressed tight, your head cast down, your feet in slippers, your curtains drawn. Eddie Munson stood beside you, rugged and regal like a dark knight, arm outstretched in humble offering. With hesitance, you eyed the invitation. 

Out here you could be anything — a vagabond, a runaway, a princess escaped from her castle. A woman who spends Tuesday nights at dive bars and smokes cigarettes with men in leather jackets. Anything you wanted. 

You wanted to taste it. You wanted the flame, and the smoke, and the raw, ragged air that wound through your lungs and left like a beacon that soared toward the sky.

You wanted to be bad for him, and so you accepted.

The cigarette almost dropped from Eddie’s mouth in shock. He fumbled another from the box before tucking it into his back pocket. With a flourish, bending in its presentation as if it were a single rose, he offered it to you. 

Never in a million years could you have imagined it. You, in a position like this. Him, in a position like that. Least of all that it would be so wildly romantic.

You accepted with the tips of your fingers, your index and middle, brushing ridges of his knuckles with feather-light indulgence. They closed around the offering, pausing for an aching second before drawing away with it. 

Eddie closed his eyes, so quickly he could have masked it as a blink, but you caught it. The sigh, the swallow, the batting open with a burning hunger as he relished in the barest fulfillment of what he’d been craving since he saw you this morning — to touch you.

The cold nipped at your knuckles as you took in the foreign sensation between them, admiring it like a sinful adornment under the moonlight.

With a flick of his thumb, the parentheses of his mouth lit up in a warm glow. He took a few quick puffs, smoke billowing from his nose and the corners of his lips before taking a long drag. Satisfaction exited his lungs in a deep sigh, a billow that rose toward the twinkling sky. He turned his attention back to you. “Here,” he offered gently, beckoning you closer with a gentle come hither motion, readying his lighter.

You held your hand out gingerly, willing the trembling of your fingers to cease with little success. 

Eddie closed in, bringing a finger to his lips as a gentle suggestion. “Put it in your mouth,” he said, unable to suppress the boyish grin that surfaced from the words. 

You did as he told you, held it in your smirk, searched for your next instruction in the depth of his eyes but found only delight. Delight in the whole sight of you; the way it dimpled the swell of your lips, in the attention of those dutiful shoulders, like you wanted to be good at misbehaving. Delight in the fact he was teaching you something.

Eddie leaned closer. “Like this,” he instructed softly, framing his own with his long, ruddy digits before taking a quick drag. Obediently, you mirrored him, like a natural smoker would, like they did in the movies and inside the bar. 

The flame ignited between you, flickering in the wild wind. Eddie cupped it with his other hand, forming a shield with the curve of his knuckles — gentle and protective. The fire caught the tip of the slender roll, but his palm was far more captivating. Inches from your face, you could study it closer than ever, plush and glowing — the broad heart line, the soft meat of its heel. 

A deep inhale had smoke ghosting over your tongue. Eddie pulled away to reveal the ember and you took your cue. The drag you took, long and determined, left you coughing. 

Eddie couldn’t suppress his chuckle, couldn’t mask the crinkle of his eyes as you—from behind the big desk and before the big board—were swallowed in a clumsy cloud of smoke.

“Are you laughing at me?” you asked through a giggle of your own.

Like oxygen to a flame, his laughter only brightened.  “I’m sorry, you’re just… so…”

“So…what?” You gave him a look, trying to suck your dignity back through the end of the cigarette. 

A million words ached on the tip of his tongue. The wind ripped across the small, frozen field, shyly disappearing in the treeline. Out here there were no bells, no footsteps, no concrete walls to listen. Eddie watched those fingers of yours pull away from your lips, blow a billow toward the open sky, and one in a million came tumbling out.

“Beautiful.” 

A puff retreated back through your lips, froze in your lungs. The truth hung like smoke in the cold night air, rolled around in your chest, warmed your body from head to toe. Eddie plugged his mouth with another draw to prevent more from slipping out. 

There was space for the truth out here. Space like a vacuum, vast and quiet. A shyly muttered “Thank you,” was all you could manage to fill it with.

Eddie raked his fingers through the damp curls at the nape of his neck, cheeks pinking visibly, even in the dim glow of the single light on the other side of the patio. He leaned against the fence and met your eyes again, nervous breath rolling over his plush lips.

His movement, like a magnet, drew your feet across the pavement. Deeper into the shadows with the gentle pull of his eyes. The tobacco settled in your body with a comfortable heaviness as you drank him in, and you suddenly grasped the appeal.

Out here he seemed even taller, shoulders stacked over slender hips as he leaned into the fence, an ease that washed over him with each generous draw, like the stress was rolling off into the shadows. Out here he took on a different posture, different than the one under fluorescent lights. Different than the one in the small chair next to you, the one with hunched shoulders and downcast eyes.

You tapped the ash of the cigarette off with your finger, like a natural smoker would. He smirked at the gesture, and you caught the twinge of pride in it this time. 

Out here he could be anything. He could be clever and daring; a roguish enchanter. A man who casts spells with his fingers and charms with his words. Anything he wanted.

He wanted to make your eyes light up. 

Eddie took another drag, hollowing his cheeks before sending out smoke in deliberate puffs with his tongue. It left his mouth in rings, hovering in the gap between you before drifting across the patio.

He got what he wanted. A gasp left your lips, eyes twinkling brighter than the stars. “What?! I didn’t know people could actually do that!” You exclaimed, delighted like a child on Christmas.

Eddie blew the rest off to the side and returned a blinding smile. It was more satisfying than the cigarette — the fact that he could do it, make your face light up. The fact that he had the power.

“How do you do that?” you asked, ever inquisitive.

His instructions were simple; take a big drag, hollow your cheeks, make the shape with your mouth, and push the smoke out with your tongue. Simple enough, from the sound of it.

Your first attempt failed, miserably. Uproariously.

“The shape is critical,” he reminded through a chuckle, “it’s gotta be like, a perfect O, not an oval.” His eyes lingered over your lips as you tried his suggestion, struggling to will his mind away from the gutter.

Your smile made it hard to maintain. “Wait—wait, hold on I think I got it.” You tried again with great focus, sending out puffs with your tongue that looked nothing like rings. It was worth it though. Worth making a fool of yourself for the amusement that colored his face, for the bright laughter it earned you. “Ok, fine. Maybe not.”

It looked good on him, just like it did on stage. This knowing that drew his shoulders back, made him lean with a powerful ease. The knowing that he was really good at something, that he could show you.

“It’s a bit advanced,” he said with a wink before taking another deep drag. He puffed a ring and cast it forward with a push of his hand, like a spell through the air. It broke on your nose and you relished in the soft sensation of his life-force ghosting over your face. 

It was all you could do just to look at him — rugged and regal in the way that only he could be. It was dangerous and thrilling; how alone you were right now. His aura pulled you closer, eyes tugging at those burning questions, serious questions at war with your lingering buzz. You broke the silence with the truth; soft and sincere. “You’re insanely talented, I hope you know that.” 

The curve of his lashes dipped shyly with a little puff through his nose. They raised with a sparkle that cut through the darkness. “Thanks, it uh… comes a lot easier to me than chemistry.” He tapped off his ash on the pavement.

You tucked your free hand into your pocket with a bashful shuffle of your feet. “Well, good thing rockstars don’t need to know chemistry then.”

Eddie scoffed and gave his eyes a quick roll, unsuccessful at hiding the brilliance of his smile. Heat crept up his neck, and he soothed it with a wring of his hand.

There was a gap between you; a space you were too scared to breach. The two of you filled it with shy chatter as your cigarettes dwindled to nubs. It was easy, to talk to him. About music, about anything. Easy because you gave each other turns to take it; the space. It almost made it easy to forget who you were to each other before you came out here, who you would go back to being tomorrow.

The cold was wicked and relentless; biting at your knuckles as you tapped the last ash. Even the tobacco’s heavy warmth sinking to your feet couldn’t stave it off. It was a Tuesday night in December, and the wind made sure to remind you. 

Eddie followed your eyes toward the door. “It’s ok,” he reassured. “Nobody comes out here. We’re safe.”

His words sparked a tingle in your chest, a pulse of heat; low and thrumming. Neither could halt the shiver that seized your limbs. 

“You ok?” he asked gently, stepping close enough to almost feel the heat from him.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You blew on your hands, rubbing them together feebly to fight the cold. You were stubborn to surrender, determined not to end your stolen moment by succumbing. 

It was all he could do just to look at you. You, shaking like a leaf in the wind. You, with longing eyes and trembling lips. You, with your soft skin and softer soul. His fingers burned, wrestled with the silence, and the distance, and the howl of the wind through the trees. They warred with the ticking clock, with the chill against his precious moment, with the threat of it winning. Suddenly his fingers—bolder than they’ve ever been in his life—twitched to animation. They toyed with the cold metal zipper at his neck, and in one decided tug, he opened up for you. “Here,” he offered. 

You froze, more than the cold could ever manage, as you eyed the invitation — the warm leather cave, the exposure of his heaving chest. Your lips parted but words would not come. You wanted it — the heat, the tight embrace, to be wrapped in his aura, to feel his laughter with your palms. 

Your noble mind as it cast its disapproval like a shadow toward your heart, but your hands and feet were deaf to it. Boots shuffling boldly against the rough pavement, they filled the gap between his. You accepted with the tips of your fingers, delicate and tentative, like his skin was a hot iron and yours at risk to burn. You watched them disappear into the darkness, felt the soft cotton warmth as it enveloped you. With trembling slowness, you traced the divots of his ribcage, settled into them like grooves, felt him gasp into your palms when the ice that you’d become found the velvet, heated skin under his arms.

“Sorry—”

“Hah—hmm—no-no it’s ok,” he grimaced, pinning your hands beneath his arms to stop your recoil, as if the pain of the freeze hurt less than the pain of its absence. “I—ah—I asked for this.” His chuckle was a warm vibration, a flutter as the cage which housed his heart contracted. 

A shiver racked your body as you thawed. Whether it was nerves, or fear, or the chill that had settled deep in your bones long before you stepped foot outside, you were helpless to control it.

“Come ‘ere,” he breathed with equal care and need.

You submitted, tracing his contours as he pulled you closer — head against his solid shoulder, into the soft pillow of his hair, into the source of his scent: leather and tobacco and the sweet, salty musk of his skin. You closed your eyes and basked in it, nose buried in his curls, drawing in deeply to steady your rattling chest. 

Broad palms splayed across the fabric of your coat, pulling you deep into the comfort of his heat, tracing your waist to settle in a place they burned to be — your lower back. “It’s ok, you’re ok,” he murmured into your hair, bracing you tightly as your whole body shook.

You could have died here, buried yourself in his arms and made him your tomb. They would find you in the morning; frozen like a sculpture. Left out for all of Hawkins to see, to point and say terrible things. It wouldn’t matter. You would have died happy.

His heart was pounding with disbelief. You, here, in his arms. You could feel it through your coat, hammering against your chest, into your palms at his back. Eddie felt your breathing slow, your body soften and relax. He crooked his forearm firmly to your back, to the place where it belonged, fingers curling like a cage around your waist. Out here he could be anything — strong and stable, a haven for your tired bones to rest. Anything, for you.

In the dark leather cave there was a landscape for your hands to study. The satin liner grazed your knuckles as your hands explored the angles of his shoulder blades with tentative slowness — down along the muscles of his back, the dip of his spine, the birdcage of his ribs; expanding and contracting, deep and steady. 

He was real, here, in your arms. Two swelling lungs. One beating heart. Two hands that clutched the wool barrier between you. One solid shield of a chest. One humming column at your cheek. Eddie Munson; wildfire. Close enough to thaw you. Close enough to burn you to the ground.

Your hands settled at the slim taper of his waist. Pliant and yielding under soft cotton, swelling with each ocean breath. His cage around you tightened, and you breathed him in, felt him swallow, felt his hips slot against the groove of yours with sensed belonging.

The animal in you keened with curiosity, emboldened by the dark. Your hands wouldn’t dare beyond the roadblock of his belt, but they would move in slow strokes up and down his back. A gentle comfort, a mask for your indulgence.

A quiet moan rose up in him, one he couldn’t swallow. The best he could do was cloak it in a sigh. It hummed against your ear; your cheek so close to the crook of his neck you could almost taste it. You breathed him in again, lips pressed to his soft curls against tough leather as the smoke, and musk, and crisp night air filled your lungs. 

His hands were less patient; dipping toward the slope of your hips, pawing at thick wool, thumbs drawing aching circles there. It earned an arch from your back, a grasp from your hands at the soft cotton barrier. 

There was an animal in him too, preening at the cant of your hips, at the rub of your neck against his. With a dip of his chin he could sink his teeth in, but his noble mind willed it away, settled for the scent of you instead — soft like powder, warm and inviting. The heels of your palms drifted toward his belly, and the animal threatened to rear below his belt.

“Ah,” it leapt out his throat.

Hands freezing before reaching the healthy swell, you drew back from his shoulder, checking in. Your lids hung with visible weight, pupils blown by more than just the lack of light, dizzy from his touch. He could do that with his hands, he thought; a split-second revel before concern sobered your features.

His disappointment was palpable, like he’d burst some great bubble. “Mm—no, it’s fine, please—” please don’t stop. His arms around you tightened, eyes pleading with words he wasn’t bold enough to utter, even in the darkness.

A shadow of guilt fell across your face. Guilt for your greedy hands, for your lost control, for your bad behavior. It was a pitiful sight; worse than the one he saw yesterday. Worse because it was here. Worse because he was closer than he’d ever been before.

There was a gap between you; space for the cold to seep between your hearts. Space for the fear that he’d broken the spell. That you didn’t see him anymore, but your student instead. 

You thumbed his soft cotton shirt, buried in the shelter of his coat. Eddie Munson — frenetic and compelling. Beautiful in the way that wild things are. Breathing life into your numb hands with each  ragged swell. You studied him closely; his soft cupid’s bow, his pink, plush pout, the angles of his worried jaw, the pining in his eyes.

Want. A wild, elusive thing. A summer wind. An admission at a cost. Want didn’t budge. Want looked you dead in the eyes and tightened its grip.

Eddie knew what he wanted, burning like a question on his tongue. He knew he had to be the one to ask. He was terrified — of the question, of the asking, of the fact that he may never get another chance. Your hands grappled with it, clung like they feared he would vanish. He felt the ache in them, the want, the fear, the frustration. It opened up a narrow passage, and he entered with the boldest thing he had ever done.

He asked you with his forehead first. A gentle nod forward; the softest collision. A tickle of curls. A rock back and forth of his strong, sturdy brow. A smile even you couldn’t hide. Your hands released, settled at the dip of his back in quiet permission.

He asked you with the bridge of his nose. A delicate slope. A tender nuzzle. Rigid bone under soft flesh. Cold, round tip. Roaming the map of yours with heated intention as he swayed like a dance in the moonlight. You closed your eyes, surrendered to the fantasy. Felt the heat of his cheek, the pang of his palm at your back as he pulled you closer.

He asked you with a tilt of his chin, and brought time to a halt.

There was a gap between you. A fractional distance bridged by the ghost of his breath. Within it; every party that you never went to, every basement you were never led away from, every page you never shared, every experience you never had. Goodness was a mantle, heavy from a lifetime on your shoulders. 

What did freedom taste like? The question brushed across your lips like a warm invitation. You were desperate for the answer. Wanted it more than anything, ever, in your whole entire life. Wanted it for you, for only you. For once.

Eddie asked the question. You closed the gap. 

A sigh left both of you at once. One you could taste this time, humming against the plush cradle of his lips. Freedom could have melted you. It threatened the strength of your knees, but his arms were stronger. Locked against each other in the shadows you borrowed, your lips began to explore, to express every secret wish the two of you had dreamt apart. 

Freedom tasted tentative at first. A slow drag of his lips, a languid slip that rippled to the dormant parts of you. Catching like tinder as they grazed over yours, hot with an ache you could taste. It was sinfully exquisite; tasting the curve of his smile, the hyper-real rasp of his stubble as those lips—the ones that shot you smirks from down the hall and spilled over with song—found a rhythm with yours. Broad palms clutched the wool at your waist like you’d slip through a crack if he didn’t hold on.

Freedom was slick. It tasted like cigarettes, like a thousand unsaid words ushered past the border of your mouth. You could taste every one on his tongue, soothed them with the slickness of yours. Every aching word, dripping in each soft caress. Diving like a dance, echoed in the soft, wet smacks when you parted. You devoured them like you were starving. Every sigh, every hum, every color that left his lungs slipped eagerly down your throat. 

The wool at your back was a nuisance. Eddie pawed at it, desperate to feel the shape of you through the fabric, to store it in the vault of his mind, to play with it later in private. He halted his hands at your hips, willed them decent, rationed with the small working part of his brain that your lips would have to be enough. He relished in the way you accepted him. The way you spread for him, parting eagerly for his tongue. The way your lips closed around him, rocking as he prodded like you’d done it before. Like you wanted to elsewhere. 

The spell was broken. The line, miles away. There was a hunger in you, sudden and surprising, roused by the very first taste. Eddie palmed your hips with an urgency that stirred you. Like a bear in the spring, thawed by the heat of his touch, you devoured him. Devoured him with the wholeness of your splayed hands, tracing up his pounding ribs, dragging across the expanse of his broad chest. It heaved under your touch; solid muscle under soft cotton. You devoured his moan; a hot, strangled thing that escaped his plush lips. Like a match to the strip your tongue, you ignited. 

His hands lost their patience. Breaking from your waist, they dove behind your ears to cradle your face. Your face. Your jaw, your delicate cheeks he caressed with the rough pads of his thumbs, as if the swell of them—the rigid bones under soft skin, the absolute realness of you in his arms—could wake him from the dream he was surely having. He was tasting you, tasting the want on your tongue. More satisfying than a four course meal, more satisfying than anything he’d ever tasted in his life. You wanted him. More than that, you savored him; the taste of his hot, eager tongue as it slipped against yours.

Freedom was delicious. Bold and complex, acrid and rich. Full bodied. A smooth, sweet finish. You could have drowned in it. Drowned in the angles of his hands, in his tender strokes, in the sopping heat of his mouth. Drowned in his eager sighs, in his scent. Drowned completely if he hadn’t held your head above the surging waves. 

Eddie was good like a midnight snack. Good like a wide open road. He was good at this. Good at knowing how to ask and answer. Good at at finding the rhythm of you. 

You broke for air, stilling against the bridge of his nose, afraid to look him in the eyes just yet, to break away from the safety his shadow provided. Safe from the world, safe from consequences, safe from the thoughts that battered at the door of your mind. Safety was fragile and fleeting. You knew it, he knew it. Your breath mingled in hot bursts as you steadied your spinning world for a quiet moment together. You felt him smile—heard it—big and bright as it cracked across his face. The air stung your cheeks when he took his hands away. Leaning back against the fence, he tugged you closer, further into the safety of the shadows, enveloping you in the crook of his heat. 

It was good like this — the angles of you and the angles of him, fitting like they always belonged. It felt safe to explore them, to paint his pounding chest, down the soft swell of his belly, stopping at his hips. With a thick bob of his Adam’s apple, he closed the gap again. It was chaste this time, peppering your lips with space to breathe between each kiss. They were slow and savory, steady and sure. They lingered long enough for you to get another taste, to capture that plush Cupid’s bow and let it melt across yours, to flick your tongue over his soft bottom lip and taste him there too. 

You could taste his need when he greeted your tongue with his own. It was safe to show it here. Safe to let the animal inside him bare its teeth. Safe to let the animal in you do the same. It growled when he nipped at you, hooked its claws through his belt loops and tugged. It was a quick, testing thing, and your sound let him know that he passed. He lapped it up hungrily, soothed it before inflicting another.

It ached in a frightening way, in that deep, low place. Throbbed awake with each delicious bite. It scared you how quickly the path was veering south, but the pooling warmth encouraged his travels, let him go wherever he wanted. When his lips strayed far enough to track your jaw, a shrinking voice shrieked danger, but the rest of you simply submitted. 

Claws braced denim and leather, offering yourself with a tip of your head. Reverently, he accepted, setting his pace with a dizzying slowness. He worshiped you with every latch, every press, every lingering smack, darting his tongue out to taste the forbidden angles of your jaw. It was greedy but good. To him, to you. Letting go this much. Letting him go this far. The trail cooled in the night air, and he settled at the precipice of your neck.

His breath alone was enough to melt you; heavy with the weight of his new position. Heavy with desire, with the weight of thousand fantasies he never thought would come to pass. He drank in the cocktail of your scent; concentrated, warm, deliciously real. In the throws of your own heaving chest, sobered just barely by the pregnant pause, you awoke to your position: open, vulnerable, completely at his mercy. 

He tasted your swallow, felt your breath hitch when his warm, wet tongue found your pulse. Lathing there a moment, lingering and slow, he savored you. Savored the ridges of your neck, the way your head lolled to the side, like a feast laid out for him. He stored the image in his mind, packaged it carefully for when he would surely be starving again. His lips soothed where his tongue left off, over and over until your strangled sound stirred a fiending hunger. He bared his teeth, and you shattered. 

Freedom was falling apart in his arms. Crumbling into pieces and letting him grapple you whole. Letting him capture you in his maw and lap up your ruin. Letting him, letting him. His teeth dragged dull and slow, tingling every waking cell, turning you to putty completely. He dragged a moan out of you. A full one, loud and clear. He tucked it away, buried it deep alongside your squirms and your touch. 

The door opened.

Cold air shocked your lungs. Head snapping over your shoulder, you broke his latch and Eddie hissed a curse at the separation. With daggers, you both assessed the intruder. 

The silhouette of his cap gave him away. He might have even kept on walking but the gasps and the shuffling feet made him turn. “Oh shit,” Bill flinched back in surprise. “Sorry man I thought you left.”

Eddie’s arm tightened instinctively, pulling you as close as he wanted to earlier. Reflexively, you pushed away. It was a strange tug of war — his pride and your fear. “Yeah—no we’re still here,” he snapped.

You swallowed your pounding heart, sobering completely under Bill’s gaze. Suddenly your claws retracted, your hands felt wrong where they rested, shame bit at your neck along the cooling trail he left behind. 

Even in the backlit glow of the singular light, you saw it painted clearly on his features — the judgement, the disbelief, the questions rising up but not daring to come out. “Well um, sorry to interrupt. Have a good night,” Bill said with an awkward raise of his hand before making quickly for the parking lot. 

Footsteps faded over gravel and left a silence in their wake, thicker than the stillness from before. 

Eddie breathed a sharp sigh through his nostrils, brows lowered as he seethed toward the parking lot. The cold was setting in again. Your nose, and ears, and fingers stung with it. The rest of you stung worse; chest numbing, caving like a can under the weight of what you’d just done. 

When the flick of distant headlights made you brave enough to face him, frustration painted his features. He pawed at your coat, desperate to salvage what he could of his precious moment. “Anyway, where were we?” he muttered, eyeing your neck with a tilt of his head like he was about to dive in again. 

Your hand at his chest stopped him, and the look in his eyes was wounding. “Eddie,” you warned softly. A slow, heavy sigh left his nose, one you could feel with your palm. “I need to go.”

Crestfallen after a desperate, hesitant second, his arms went slack. Your hand dropped, leaving a fierce chill behind. One more, his lips begged, but struggled to release. Please. 

It hurt, to crumble like this after all you had built. With the roar of Bill’s engine, the fantasy shattered around you. The carriage became a pumpkin, your gown turned into rags. Shrill bells rang out in the distance, coming surely as the sun would rise. Pinballs thundered as that sweet oval face—the one from the back of the room and the chair next to yours—pouted with lips still swollen from where you had broken your contract. 

“I’m sorry,” you mouthed. 

Gathering himself with a deep breath, he straightened to a dignified height, conviction filling the cracks in his composure. “I’m not.” 

It was terrifying — the prospect, the consequences. What it meant for you, for him, for the world you’d have to face tomorrow. 

Most terrifying of all was how good it felt to hear him say.

______

A/N: Thank you all for your patience on this one. It took me nearly all summer to finish but I'm really proud of how it turned out. Please let me know what you think! I've missed hearing from and connecting with all of you. Next one won't take nearly as long, I promise. 💕

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[jadequeen88]

PLS WHEN WILL IT BE MEEEE?!?!

𝚖𝚢 𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚌𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚗

pt 2 of do you like the way the water tastes?

eddie x fem!reader

summary: eddie walks you home but doesn’t do what you expect, when you try to confront him it doesn’t go as planned.

Your work shoes were rubbing at your ankles, friction from the water and the inability to never really feel dry after spending the afternoon at the pool, prevalent on your reddening skin. 

  But you could care less. 

  Eddie and you had been walking home in small awkward silence for the last ten minutes. Every once in a while his boot would crack a rock down the sidewalk and you’d kick it back to him, playing again, like children. 

  The silly boy at the pool with you was now being coy, rosy cheeks hiding behind a curtain of curls when your knuckles brushed his while you walked. 

  He clears his throat a few times, maybe the chlorine was making his throat scratchy? Or possibly his bravado fell once the two of you were alone?

  Either way, you focused on the way his fingers went to his mouth to bite the nail in a nervous habit, the click of his tongue ring on the back of his front teeth in another little routine for him. The noise makes your belly burn. so you break the ice.

  You bump into his shoulder, one hand twirling the ends of your hair, the other taking advantage of the heated skim of his skin on yours, “really had me fooled at Benny’s.” 

  he chuckles quickly, exasperating a small snort that he covers with a cough, “ ‘m sorry, probably should have said something better than that— just thought you’d like to ditch work and swim with me— I mean us.” The pretty blush creeps across his cheeks again and you can’t help but grin. 

  “Well,” you joke, stretching an olive branch out to him, “I’m glad your sick little plan worked.” 

  The heat creeps up to his ears and he chances to look down at you. Your smile widens and his gaze has you turning away, suddenly sheepish. 

  His eyes never leave you, but his better judgment stops him from grabbing your hand.  “yeah,” he manages, hot tongue licking his own lips. Daring to stare at the way the sun catches on the slope of your nose and sweat beads on your cupid’s bow, “lucky me.” 

  —

  “No kiss or anything?” Stella squeals through the end of your phone a week later. 

  Eddie had walked you all the way to the door of your apartment building. The small talk was sweet along the way, and you thought when he paused on his way to leave and looked at your lips that he would lean into a kiss. 

  But he never did. And you felt stupid. 

  Surely he’d ask for your number? 

  But he didn’t do that either.

  Instead he leaned into the door frame, ghosted his nose along your chin and whispered into your ear, the same clink of his tongue ring on his teeth, “see you around, sweetheart.” 

  What probably took a matter of 5 seconds lingered on your skin for hours. His smell; all chlorine and cigarettes. The way his cheeks burned in a crimson tinged tan from the sun. 

  It was intoxicating. 

  Addicting. 

  And you were left confused. He had almost kissed you at the pool… so why was he shy when you were alone? And even worse, silent. 

  “Nancy Drew couldn’t crack this case,” you explained to your best friend, “I thought we would… I don’t know.. go out? Maybe sneak a kiss?” 

  You were annoying yourself. Why was this bothering you so bad? It’s not as if you had a ton of boyfriends in your lifetime, but you knew when someone was flirting. 

  And Eddie Munson was laying on the charm, hot and heavy. 

  “Maybe he has a girlfriend?” Stella quipped, “maybe he was just letting you down easy?” 

  Sweet Stella was always so genuine, she'd tell it to you straight but deliver it in sugary goodness. And even though she was sweet the words cut you like a knife. 

  “Fuck, who knows, I gotta go… see you at work?” 

  She says her goodbyes and you slam the receiver down, the ding satisfying to your ears. 

  Was Eddie playing you? Your stomach twists at the thought and you nearly kick yourself for letting him get the best of you. You didn’t even know him enough to be this upset. 

  Pushing him out of your mind the best you could for the rest of the afternoon you wait tables, pocketing next to nothing in tips because you won’t crack a smile. Coffee stains your apron, and ketchup coats the toe of your shoe, the smell making you gag in disgust. 

  Anything and everything that could go wrong at work did. At least to you. Stella and Dawn seemed to be having a great shift but you were brooding in your own head about the audacity Eddie Munson had to not even call, or have the balls to tell you that he wasn’t interested. 

  Being led on was worse than rejection. And this stung horribly, wedging the stinger into your chest further with every huff of annoyance you let out. 

  Stella’s smile cheers you up, her uniform cinching her curves in all the right ways, her pockets nearly bursting with loose change and folded bills in tips.

  “Maybe he’s shy?” She says over a shared cigarette in the back near closing time, her brain had been working overtime trying to make you feel better. 

  Shrugging your shoulders you scoot onto the plastic bucket you’ve used as a chair since starting at Benny’s junior year. “I dunno Stell, I feel like a giant fucking loser.” 

  It was true, you hadn’t heard anything from him since he walked you home. You even made an embarrassing call to Gareth to see if you would bring Eddie up. But he never did. You were annoyed with yourself for giving a shit when clearly he didn’t. 

  “Well how about this,” she says sliding down next to you, “I’ll close up tonight and you go home and rest. No sense in feeling like shit  and being at this dump .” 

  —

  The drive back to your apartment is short, and hot, the air conditioning that hasn’t worked all summer in your car suddenly driving you mad.  The old radio that fuzzed and only came clear in one station decided to quit indefinitely right in the middle of your favorite song. 

  Before the transmission is thrown into park, you’re on the verge of screaming, and when the key sticks in the ignition you slam your hands into the steering wheel. Could this day get any worse? 

  Frustration brews when you finally finagle the key just right so it pops out of the vice and your elbow catches the dash, hard. The last straw. 

Smoldering tears well in your eyes, but you swallow them down. And it’s in that moment that you decide you need answers right the fuck now. 

  —

  Forest Hills Trailer Park was on the outskirts of town, nestled up against a vast, thick tree line. You didn’t know which trailer was his, taking a chance on a tan one that had a van parked out front that looked similar to his. Only to be embarrassed beyond belief when an old lady with missing teeth and tight curlers cursed you out for interrupting Oprah, a slam of her shitty screen door in your face. 

  Stomping down the steps you narrowly avoid a nail on the second step. Causing you to lose your balance and topple over into barely-there grass covered lawn. Face first into the dirt.

  Great. 

  The drag of soil  and the pull of grass snapping from the earth rings into your ears and shoves under your nails as you scrape your hands on the yard of lot 11, pushing yourself up. 

  The first rogue tear slides down your dirty face and you don’t even bother to wipe it away. Simply shifting to sit on your butt while you dust gingerly at the gravel and fresh blood from your knees. 

  You were wrong before: today could get worse. Much worse. Coffee, ketchup, grass and dirt all paint your work uniform. You were a mess. A pissed off, mess. 

  You hear your name in a question. And when you look up there he is. The one you had been searching for. Standing above you with a concerned expression, trying hard to hide a grin. He’s wearing a bandana around his head, the pungent smell of grease and sticky oil wafts to you when the wind picks up and he gets closer, a socket wrench gripped lazily in his hand. 

  The dirt on your cheek and bits of twigs stuck in your hair only add to the messy glamor of how you already looked. But Eddie can’t help but stare, the same heat in his cheeks and swimming in his stomach from the day at the pool when you look up at him, tears ready to fall. 

  “Didn’t know Miss Jeanie had a granddaughter,” he says with a slight tease, “thought she was too damn mean to ever be married.” 

  When the scowl set on your face didn't budge he changed his tone, shifting his weight from laid back and almost cocky with a hip out to standing like he was getting scolded. Both feet locked in place and his head down, shoulders sagged, peeking at you through his bangs, he stammers, “a—are you okay?” 

  A loud sniff leaves your body as you shove yourself up from the ground, not seeing the hand Eddie threw out to help you, “yeah,” you spit, wincing slightly as the bend in your knees stretches open the broken skin, “just peachy, I try to spend my Saturdays falling down the steps of some rickety ass trailer in hopes of avoiding a nail through my foot.” 

  Eddie only stares, mouth set in confusion as he tries to think of a quick reply, something witty, maybe something to make you laugh, but you don’t give him the time. 

  Turning on your heel, you stumble over a rock but catch yourself. Again, not seeing the way Eddie had ran forward with an outstretched hand to help. You’ve never been more mad and embarrassed in your entire life, and all you wanted to do was get the hell out of here. 

  It’s not until you have the door of your car open does Eddie register what he wanted to say, “what are you doing here?”

  It comes out wrong, accusing compared to the way he thought it would fall flirty from his lips. And you’re stunned, the tears falling freely now. 

  “Fuck, I mean— shit—” he stutters through his explanation, tongue tied and twisting in on itself, “n—not like ‘what are you doing here?’ but…” embarrassment works up his neck and hides on the tips of his ears, “I—I meant, Uhh— shit, d’ you need a band aid?” 

  The tears make clean streaks down your face and you wipe at them angrily. “N-o I don’t need a f-frickin’ bandaid, Eddie!” You needed a hot bath, a nap, a fucking cigarette; anything but this frustratingly awkward conversation with you resembling a bum and Eddie looking like a Greek Mechanic God.

  “Well, you’re bleeding,” he emphasizes and points to the bloody scrapes on your knees. 

  You knew they were bleeding, they stung and burned with each step you took, but you weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of helping you out. 

  “I’m f—fine,” you stutter.

  “Shh, c’mon sweet girl,” Eddie says, closing the steps between you both and shutting your car door, his forefinger curled to catch a tear from dripping down your cheek, “lemme clean y’ up and then you can tell me what brought this cute little face down to the slums.” 

  You had come here to give him a piece of your mind, demand to know why he was so hot and cold. Instead you had made a fool out of yourself, and were a blubbering mess. 

  —

  Eddie’s trailer was the one next door to Miss Jeanie’s. Misjudging the yard his van was parked in as hers, you silently kick yourself as you follow him up the three steps leading inside. 

  His trailer is welcoming in a young bachelor type of way. Comforting outdated trinkets, guitar amps and cords strewn across the surfaces— keeping the dust and empty beer cans company.

  “Sorry,” he says, picking up some beer cans and tossing them into the trash, “roommates a slob, have a seat Uhh— wherever,” he says gesturing around with his hands and disappearing down a narrow hallway. 

  You look around and take a seat at the table, “didn’t know you had a roommate,” you call out, looking around the small cluttered living space. Tapes and magazines cover the small table along with a faded green homemade ashtray filled almost to the rim. 

  Eddie comes bounding back down the hallway, carrying a small first aid kit and a washcloth, “I don’t,” he quips, delivering a wink that has your stomach somersaulting. And when he notices the heat rise on your cheeks, he gives you a toothy smile in an attempt to hide his own blush. 

  And it was like no time had passed. Like he hadn’t been avoiding you for a week, but rather that you were still swimming in the cool blue water of the pool, kissed by the warmth of the sun and his arms around you when he pulled you in. 

  His thumbs trace the edges of the kit in a nervous habit, “Alright, let's take a look at those knees,” he looks from you to the kitchen counter, “do you uh.. here—” with a sweep of his arm he shoves the magazines and scattered tapes in a dusty cardboard box and tossed it on the table, “sit up here.” 

  Quirking an eyebrow at him, you give him a puzzled expression, which he answers with a laugh, “Dr. Munson needs to be able to see what he’s doing.” 

  For the first time since arriving in the trailer park, you let out a small smile, “doctor huh?” you question hoisting yourself onto the counter. 

  Eddie works beside you filling a bowl with warm water, “shyeah, I’m the band's primary caregiver,” he explains in a mockery tone, “even gave myself stitches a few years back after hiding from the cops when Jeff’s party got busted.” 

  He extends his pale arm towards you brandishing the silvery crook of a scar on his forearm, “twelve stitches, not the prettiest thing but it did the job.” 

  The air of your giggle was exactly what he was looking for, and his dimples dip into his cheeks with a smirk, hiding behind uncombed curls. 

  Thick fingers open the lid to the kit and he pulls out the old packages of gauze and bandages. Dipping a washcloth into the warm water he whistles a tune you haven’t heard, wringing the cloth out, the water splashes gently into the bowl. 

  He glanced over at your cut knees and winced, “not gonna lie to you, ‘s gonna hurt like hell.” 

  Nodding with a sniffle you quietly say, “I’ve had scraped knees before… doctor.” The grin he tried to hide spreads and tickles the corners of his eyes. 

  “Just want my favorite patient comfortable,” he says leaning into the joke.

  “Favorite or only?”

  His laugh is loud and boisterous, a thousand leagues away from his gentle touch on the delicate raw skin as he presses the cloth carefully around the scrapes and cleans the wound. 

  “Both,” he says, looking up at you through the thick black weeds of his lashes, holding your gaze for a second longer than he should have, pushing the limits. “Ya gonna tell me what you were doin’ playing in the dirt by my trailer or should I guess?”

  “I— I was,” you think quick of a lie, but you almost tremble when his head lowers and his curls tickle the tops of your bare thighs, the feeling sends prickles of goose flesh in its wake. All senses on overload, and you squirm when his warm hand sits atop one of them. 

  “I heard that there was a place to rent here, and well yeah if you must know— I was researching that information for Molly and Gareth.” 

  The sensation is quick lived as he hurriedly empties the bowl and struggles to open the bandaid package, using his teeth instead and spitting the paper to the floor.

  “Really?” He questions, in almost a whisper, after expertly placing the bandaid over the cut. Leaning with palms on either side of you, his stare is playful, “cause Gareth told me they already found a place.” 

  Your blood runs cold and you can smell the brine of sweat on his bandana as he gets closer and boxes you in. Stuttering out a phrase somewhere between, ‘I-was-looking-for-my-other-friend’ and a muttered gasp, he only laughs. 

  The same click from his tongue ring you heard at the pool on the back of his teeth as he clucks his tongue sang in your ears, you’d do whatever you could to hear that again. Shaking his head, he looks at you with the darkest eyes you’ve ever seen, “you sure about that?” 

  Here he was again, laying it on thick and juicy. But two could play this game. 

  “Yeah,” you counter back, leaning forward into him, not giving him the upper hand but wanting to tease him— unable to forget the week of silence. 

  Whispering and curling your lips close to his ear you can hear the way he shudders, “thanks for the bandaids Doctor Munson,” your breath fans on his skin, and you ghost your lips across his cheek, “but, I gotta go.” 

  You didn’t. But the satisfaction of having him close and then you being the one to to push him away was fucking satisfying. 

  Eddie scoffs and pushes off from the counter, crossing his arms across the stained front of his once white shirt, “Two lies from those pretty little lips, sweetheart you’re just asking for trouble.” 

  “I’m not lying,” you say innocently, hopping down from the counter and walking towards the door, bouncing on the balls of your feet. 

  You were. 

  “That's three,” he says, eyes following you like he was lost. The flirty vibe he had been giving was falling away from him. 

  Turning the knob you glance over your shoulder, “looks like I’m out.”  

  In two long legged strides he’s beside you, pulling the door shut with a big hand over your own, his face looks almost flustered like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of you, “Go for a drive with me.” 

  “No,” you sing-song to him looking at your bare wrist as if you were wearing a watch, biting back with a teasing hint of venom of your sour attitude, “it’s late, maybe next week.” 

  He snorts a laugh and the dimples he had tried to hide earlier appear, making you almost melt into the worn linoleum. 

  “Ahh c’mon Pinocchio,” he teases, reaching to your cheek to brush a smear of dirt from it, “maybe a little fresh air will help you remember why you came here in the first place.” 

  “I’ve already ridden in that death trap on wheels, screw boy,” you say pointing a finger into his chest. 

  He crowds you again, licking his lips and biting his tongue ring through his perfect teeth to show you the silver bulb. 

  “Oh baby no, we aren’t driving the van,” his fingers wrap around the hem of your sleeve on your work uniform and he looks down at you with a devilish grin, “we’re taking my bike.” 

tag list: @em-guitar-pick @joejoequinnquinn @raven-rust @hiscrimsonangel @josephquinnsfreckles @strangerfreak @bebe07011 @b-irock @chloe-6123 @whenshelanded @take-everything-you-can @mandyjo8719 @parmawiolets @mommybaby-witch @hellfirefiend @nevermoreraven1 @emmaisgonnacry @secretdryrose @eddiemunson4life420 @littlegingerbat @tlclick73 @definitionwanderlust @yvedesi

[jadequeen88]

Oh my GOD I am obsessed with this🥵🖤

𝚍𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚜?

summary: just a summer day with your best friend, his girlfriend and his best friend.

A/n: I think I’ve written shy and awkward Eddie one other time but I just love him. He’s a little shy in this but the other chapters he’ll be very awkward

Eddie x fem! Reader, best friend! Gareth

18+ fluff, sweet + shy Eddie.

part 1/3

pt. 2: my ties are severed clean

“C’mon princess, the water is that cold.”

“Wanna play mermaids?”

—

The van skid to a stop in the parking lot of Benny’s. Clouds of dust circling in its wake. Loud, mind splitting music blaring from the speakers, turning heads in the diner to glare out the filthy fog stained windows to see who would cause such a ruckus on this beautiful Sunday afternoon in the cozy sleepy town of Hawkins. 

  Your bestfriend since kindergarten, had called you earlier today, begging you to go to the pool with him and a friend.

  “Aren’t we a little old for that?” You protested, balancing the corded phone between your ear and shoulder as you tie the pink apron strings around your waist, “besides Gare, I gotta work today.” 

  Even though his pleads and promises to make it worth your while peaked your interest, you still turned him down. Rent was due in the next week and you were short. 

  So you went to work, waiting tables and slinging pieces of cherry pie to the cheerful families after Sunday service. A smug hint of regret on your customer service smile. 

  It was 91° outside, making the diner feel like a special secret layer of hell that only existed in Hawkins. The itchy starch of your uniform clung to your skin and, sweat pooled down your back and made your hair limp. You took orders while fanning yourself with a menu. 

  Rubbing a sweaty glass of tea on your neck to cool yourself down, you had already replaced your usual bubblegum with ice cubes, melting too quick on your tongue to make it worth it. 

  By 2 o’clock you were tired and uncomfortable from being hot and sweaty. A combination mixed with irritation as one of your regulars yelled at you for forgetting ketchup. And when you slammed down a bottle on his table and cracked a half wit here you are, the bell above the front door dinged to alert you another no tipping customer came in for their dinner. 

  You stretch your lower back with both hands on your hips slightly, you call out behind the faded white swinging doors welcoming whoever to Benny’s and that you’d be right with them. 

  Straightening your hair and grabbing a few menus and napkin rolled silverware, you hear a familiar voice. 

  Not knowing him on a personal level, just from afar. Always with Gareth and the boys, the lead singer of their Hawkins famous band. The long curly haired, mysterious, Eddie Munson stood at the door. 

  He was leaning against the door frame, an unbuttoned flannel flapping gently with the oscillating steel blades of the old fan. The prettiest grin stretching his face into a sweet smile. 

  You didn’t have time to address him before his face turned into a makeshift look of worry. Big doe eyes glistening with eyebrows pulled upward into that mess of curls 

  It’s Gareth, there’s been an accident. 

  Without thinking, you throw the menus down on the nearest shelf and run to tell Benny you have to leave. Grabbing your purse and keys. 

  Gareth was always fucking around, taking his skateboard behind Jeff’s car, lighting fireworks off in the barrels behind the mall— it could be anything. 

  The tears are still fresh in your eyes when the seatbelt clicks into place, followed by a pair of warm hands covering your eyes, the faint familiar smell of camel cigarettes and chips. 

  Eddie speeds off from the parking lot and you gasp and turn around to hear the giggling boyish laugh of none other than Gareth. 

  Sitting smug with a cigarette tucked between his lips, his girlfriend Molly sitting next to him, a small smile on her thin lips. 

  After punching your friend and listening to the two rowdy boys laugh loud at your tears you explain through a pout that you don’t even have a suit. 

  Of course the shared 5 brain cells left between them already had that covered. 

  So here you were, ass pinched in the plastic chairs at the Hawkins Community Pool. The mothers of young children flocked to their reserved seats positioned carefully beside the wooden lifeguard perch. Eager for the brainless attention and smug mustache grin from the mullet wearing asshole that was Billy Hargrove. 

  When arriving to the pool, Eddie and Gareth tore off their shirts and shoes, both wearing cut off jeans into the cool water. Diving into the deep end despite the whistles from the sour faced lifeguards that forbade them from running. 

Heels over head back-flips, cannonballs that sprayed the sidewalk, Olympic style dives from the high dive, throwing kids in the pool who came back for

more—they hadn’t stopped since getting here. Eddie’s soft brown curls hung wet—almost straight down his back and floated in the cool water as he climbed the steps up from the deep end.

  Molly rubs another layer of baby oil on her legs and lets out a big sigh, her tortoise shell sunglasses sitting perched on her button nose. “It was Eddie’s idea, believe it or not.” 

  “What was?” You question, trying to adjust the skimpy borrowed red string bikini around your boobs. 

  “Picking you up,” she answers, a smirk in her lips, “he’s been begging Gareth all summer to give him the okay to ask you out.” 

  Eddie Munson? 

  “Nah uh..” 

  There was no way. 

  “Swear on the Bible, babe,” Molly grins, and she flicks the lighter against her pall mall. 

  “Gareth told me he was dating that girl who works at the Hideout, the one with the big tits?” 

  She rolls her eyes, “Gareth just didn't want his best friend dating his other best friend, he wouldn’t be able to choose sides if you guys broke up.” 

  “I barely even know him,” you say slowly, suddenly feeling a swarm of butterflies tickle your tummy, “he was older than us in school and I wasn’t in Hellfire.” 

  Flashes of your high school years blur before you, when he wasn’t making an ass of himself in the lunch room, Eddie was quiet, small laughs with his friends and completely enamored by D&D. 

  “Well according to Gareth, he’s been wanting your number for years, but was too shy to ask.” 

  You caught his eye a few times since getting to the pool. A shy glance here or there, dark eyes peeking over from the crest of the water to check if you had seen his cool trick from the high dive. 

  Eddie Munson had a crush on you. 

  “Babe!” Gareth calls from the side of the pool, his mop of scraggly curls dripping, “get in the water with us.”

  Molly pushes her sunglasses into her thick blonde hair, “absolutely not, I didn’t come here to play.” you both giggle at him as he pouts and you almost jump out of your skin when Eddie looks directly at you.

  “What about you?” he asks, splashing a handful of water up at you, the droplets hit you like lightning. 

  A small squeal leaves your lips as you wipe the water off your warm tanning skin, “fuck! that’s freezing!” 

  “Oh c’mon princess,” he purred, ignoring Gareth’s eye roll and wiping a hand down his slightly sunburnt face, “the water isn’t that cold.” 

  His smile warms your insides and sends an ache to your core. Lowering your chair you lay flat on your back, tossing a middle finger to the two boys floating in the deep end, a small victorious smile on your lips as the sun shines on your face.

  You didn’t remember ever seeing Eddie with a girlfriend, and from the lies Gareth told you about him being a ladies man, you figured maybe he just didn’t date.

  A shadow is casted against your stomach and face and you peek open one eye to see Eddie standing before you, dripping chlorine water down his tattooed chest. His cutoff black jeans hanging heavy on his hips, the black boxer briefs sitting dangerously low on his hip dips. His large hands thread through his hair wringing out the dark curls onto the concrete.

  Your thighs clench at the sight and your breath hitches in your throat.

  “Don’t make me pick you up and toss you in, sweetheart.” he says all too smooth, shaking his head like a dog. A toothy grin plastered on his ridiculously good looking face. 

  You put a foot onto his wet chest, stopping him in his tracks and wiggling your painted toes against his tattooed skin, “you wouldn’t dare.” 

  And what is meant to stop him only drives his want further. Before you can figure out what is happening, Eddie has you scooped up in his arms and is tickling your sides. 

  “No no no! Eddie, please!” 

  Your kicking and giggling falls on deaf ears as his cold wet skin seeps into your swimsuit, the ends of his hair bead water onto your chest as you cling to his neck. 

  Standing on the edge of the pool, his back facing the water, the browns of his eyes lighten in the sun, and his eyelashes kiss together as he squints. 

  He licks his lips, and you see the flash of what looks like a small metal ball on his tongue, “d’you trust me?” 

  Scrunching your nose you close your eyes and nod, you hear a laugh erupt from his chest as he falls back into the water with you. 

  The water was freezing. And Eddie’s hair covered your face like silky seaweed. Opening your eyes under the water, you see Eddie smiling at you, bubbles encasing him. He grabs your hand and you both break the surface of the water. 

  “Eddie, you jackass!” Molly yells from her chair as Gareth takes comfort in your chair next to hers, “you could have hurt her.” 

  “She’s in good hands,” Eddie yells, his eyes never leaving yours as he treads water in front of you. 

  You blush under his stare, the butterflies taking over and fluttering wildly, you feel like a teenager.

   And you’re almost embarrassed when you blurt out, “wanna play mermaids?” 

  And more surprised when Eddie only laughs and says, “teach me?”

  Your sides hurt from laughing, legs ached from playing like kids with Eddie. Just when you’d think he would want to stop and sit out, he’d come up with another game.  

  Sharks and minnows: he volunteered to be the shark each time just to be able to chase you around the pool. 

You had repeated diving contests off the high dive: where he waited for you in the water raising up his fingers in numbers to every single dive you performed as if he was a judge at an event, his smile wide and cheery. 

  He laughed at the way you asked him to do George Washington style hair dos, but dunked his head into the water to proudly show his new hairstyle, trying not to melt at your little giggle and the feel of your fingers in his hair, pushing his bangs back into submission. 

  When the pool was nearly empty and a sunburnt Molly and Gareth took the van to go get Aloe Vera before Melvald’s closed, Eddie closed you in around the edge of the shallow water during a game of Marco Polo. 

  His voice low and velvety when he answered. Your eyes pinched shut as you reached for him and he closed his fingers between yours. 

  “Got ya,” you whisper, opening your eyes and seeing Eddie staring down into your face. Small freckles dot his nose and upper cheeks from the day in the sun, “you lose.” 

  Eddie’s playfulness is gone, he’s all serious behind the depth of his coal eyes, “you sure about that, babe?” 

  “Is that a thing of yours? Pet names for all the girls?” you tease. 

  His eyes soften and his thumb traces your chin, “and if it was?” 

  The sun is behind his head like a halo, and god he looks like a fallen angel. 

  Your tongue darts out to wet your lower lip, the astringent taste of chlorine bitter on your tongue.  Eddie’s eyes follow, and you see the silver jewelry again in his mouth when he repeats your actions. 

  The thought of that steel ball hugging and sweeping against your lips make you shiver. 

  Before you can answer him, all the lifeguards blow their whistles and announce the pool is closing. 

  But Eddie doesn’t budge and neither do you. His thumb sweeps against your cheek and you buckle under his touch. 

  “Hey assholes!” A loud booming voice full of too much testosterone and choked balls from the worlds tightest swim trunks echoes across the concrete pool, “we’re closed, get the fuck out!” 

  Eddie rolls his eyes up at the mullet wearing douche, and plants his hands on the edge of the pool, jumping out. Water splashes around his feet as he extends a grin and a large hand down to you, “c’mon princess, i’ll walk you home.” 

[jadequeen88]

New/Old Image Of Joseph Quinn dressed as Eddie Munson in a Portrait shared by Tina Rowden

Photo shared via Tina Rowden

[jadequeen88]

This series is gonna kill me. 🥵🥵🥵

Belong to me, II: Flooded

Line cook Joel x waitress reader

Line cook Joel AU masterlist

Summary: Something tells you that Joel wants the same thing.

Warnings:  Smut, age gap (Joel is 40, reader in her late 20s), creampie, breeding kink, size kink, mutual pining, no use of y/n, public fingering, mild angst, discussions about trying to conceive.

Word count: 1.7k Rating: 18+ AO3

The next time you see Joel, it is as if nothing else exists in the world except for him. You watch him frying something as you step into the kitchen after eating the dinner he left for you in the office, feeling your insides flipping and heart racing at the sight of him, the memories of how he touched you flooding your mind while you try to find out how to walk by him without stumbling into the lounge. You take a few careful steps, getting so close to him that you can hear him breathing, and as he turns around to reach for something right when you pass him, your ass brushes against his crotch, making you pause and look back at him, pinned between the counter and his body. 

The way he looks into your eyes makes your muscles go all floppy and useless, and you feel his hand slip onto the underside of your stomach to pull you up into him. He doesn’t move, but his chest rises against your back, his breath is hot on your neck, and an uncontrollable desire to rest your head in his thick chest springs up inside you. 

He lets you, and in the quiet privacy of the kitchen, for no longer than a few moments, you lean onto him as he strokes your tummy with his thumb, and traces his nose up along your cheek. Your breaths synchronize, and you don’t say a word, letting his scent fill your nostrils and your eyes flutter closed. You hear his voice in your ear, low as a whisper, hey little bunny. 

Then you feel him harden against the flesh of your ass, in those tight work pants again, and his nose is on your neck now, his lips following to carefully press a kiss to the nape of your neck, immediately causing a wave of goosebumps to spread across your arms. You’re his now, you belong to him, ever since you took him deep within you and his come spurted into your cervix, painted your insides and dripped out of you. 

You reach your hand up to tangle through his thick, messy curls, and you roll your head onto his shoulder so he can kiss all the way up your neck, holding you tight and pushing his other hand against the cupboard above the countertop. “You miss me?” he murmurs, gravelly and husky and so fucking hot. You nod slowly, mhmmm, and his hand moves down, all the way down to your pants, undoing the button as you arch your back, pushing your ass into him. "I missed you too".

You hold your breath as he slips his hand under your waistband, down into your panties, and he carefully spreads your folds so the pad of his finger can brush against your clit and start slowly rubbing. You whimper, and he gently shushes you, quiet, girl between wet kisses to your skin. He grinds his hard cock into you and you feel his breaths get labored as he rubs tight circles, everything inside you feeling tight and trembling, until you whisper, you’re gonna make me come, and he chuckles, touching you until the last wave of your orgasm passes and he retracts his hand. 

He buttons you up again and releases you from the counter, pulls you close to give you a kiss, and at the sound of your name being called from the other room, he spins you towards the door and lands a firm swat on your ass, making you jump a little as you look back at him and head into the lounge. 

Someone at one of your tables is spending an eternity on their wine selection, so you take the opportunity to glance into the kitchen, where you see Joel talking to your manager. Danny looks like a little kid next to him, and Joel stands with his arms folded, his signature wrinkle marking the area between his brows, and a look of disapproval, maybe even annoyance, on his face. You eavesdrop a little while the couple in front of you whispers among themselves, and hear Danny’s nasal voice yapping away while Joel occasionally interjects with a hum or a grunt. 

You hold your notepad in front of your lips to hide your giggle. He’s so grumpy. He catches your gaze for a second and rolls his eyes, cracks a bit of a smirk when he sees you hiding your reaction to the whole ordeal, and takes a deep breath before he directs his attention back to Danny. 

-

You have a couple days off and figure you might walk around at the mall for a few hours today, have a soft pretzel and contemplate your existence, maybe even look at some baby clothes while you're at it. 

Pretzel in hand, you pad along the storefronts, looking at all the stuff and things, smell some candles and wander around trying the softness of the different couches in a furniture retailer before you find yourself in the baby section of a clothing store, where you immediately spot a little onesie with ears. You’ve always had a soft spot for babies in those brown zip-up onesies that make them look like little bears. They have a soft, fuzzy, pastel blue one here, that you pick up and throw into your shopping basket, along with some new work clothes. 

Standing on the escalator, you look out into the sea of people in the food court and see a very big man, with broad shoulders you would recognize anywhere. Across from him is a girl you recognize from a photo Joel showed you once, of his daughter, with big, beautiful dark curls. You walk around the corner to see his face, and he’s smiling, relaxed, sitting with his arm over the chair next to him and taking a sip of his drink. He looks different somehow. He looks happy. 

He catches your eye and waves, smiling more than you’ve ever seen before, and Sarah looks back at you as you wave at her father, before turning to him, presumably asking who you are. You watch him say something before she turns her head and waves to you as well, flashing a wide smile you can’t help but reciprocate. It’s heartwarming to see him like this - as a father, as just himself.

As you walk away, you think about how lucky Sarah is to have a dad like him, so dedicated and loving and responsible. You’re only halfway out of the food court when you feel someone grabbing your arm, and turn to see Joel. “You wanna walk around with us for a bit?” he asks, “Sarah’s lookin’ for a dress for my brother's wedding and I bet she'd love your input”. You smile, sure, and follow him back to where Sarah is finishing up her fries. 

The two of you stand outside the fitting room and wait as Sarah changes, singing along to the music on the speakers. “Any news?” he asks, a little uncertain and nodding at your stomach. You shrug, a little frown forming on your face as you respond, “It'll take a couple weeks, I’m not too stressed about it”. He stands with his arms folded and looks at you, trying to read your expression. “What did you buy?” he says then, and points at the bag hanging off your forearm. 

“Baby clothes” you say simply, “Or.. It’s just a onesie, one of those with the little ears on it.. Thought it might work as a manifestation tool or something”. He smiles, nodding in agreement and glancing over at Sarah’s changing room before looking down. “So it wasn't just a ploy to get me in the sack?” he asks. You roll your eyes, “Don't flatter yourself”. 

Sarah comes out of the room in a purple dress, takes a look in the mirror, gets a thumbs up from Joel and goes back into the fitting room. You and him look at each other in silence while you wait to see the next one, and you wonder how he’ll act when you’re - hopefully, one day - pregnant with his child. You wonder if he’ll be like this all the time, this tender side of him that he’s only shown once; The time last week, when you brushed up against him on the way out of the kitchen and you had a moment of what you can only describe as viscerally deep intimacy with him. Him holding you, taking care of you, taking you for himself. 

-

You don’t take your break this shift, opting to give Maddy some extra time off when you would usually run out the back door to find Joel and sit with him until you’re forced to go back inside. 

You try to slip past him in the back of the kitchen, but he grabs you and turns you around to look at him, putting his hand on the small of your back and looking down at you. “Why are you avoidin’ me?” he asks quietly, full of concern, and you close your eyes to stop the tears from coming on. “I got my period last night, and..” you say, looking down, feeling a little embarrassed for some reason, “I don’t know, I- I thought it would be easier, you know? To get pregnant”. He runs his hand up and down your back, soothing you. 

“It’s okay,” he coos, “We can try again”, and his use of the word ‘we’ is not lost on you. It feels like.. something. Something you can't quite put your finger on but seems as though it might have been simmering under the surface for a while.

“Really?” you ask, feeling the weight lifted off your shoulders at his suggestion, having prepared yourself to give another speech to try to get him into bed again. “Yeah, let’s.. let’s give it a few shots next month, instead of just one, okay?” he suggests, running his hand under your hair to push it off your shoulders, “If you're comfortable with that”.  You can’t help yourself, and you let your face fall into his chest as you say, “Yeah, of course”. He hugs you close, continuing to rub his palm up and down your spine. 

“There's dinner for you,” he says into your hair, “Make sure you eat”. You nod into his t-shirt, giving no further response. “I’ll come over after work, okay?” he asks then, and runs his hand over your hair before he wraps it around the base of your skull to pull you away from him so he can look at you. You close your eyes when your face is exposed to the air again, and feel his thumbs gently wipe away the tears spilling onto your cheeks.

I have ditched my taglists, due to the majority of tags not working, and have created a notifications blog instead. Follow Angelic Notifs and turn your notifications on if you want my new fics served directly to you!

[jadequeen88]

Dear GOD 🥵🥵🥵

cool about it | eddie munson x reader

summary: there's just something about making eddie's life harder that gets you going. it's just a plus that it gets him going, too. aka you find out that eddie likes getting his hair pulled, and the two of you have sweaty van sex.

warnings: 18+ mdni. unprotected sex, fingering, hair-pulling, choking. semi-public sex. eddie is very subby here and reader is a bit of a bully.

a/n: this is another re-upload from my old blog :) no major edits. i just want him bruh

It had started as harmless name-calling. Freak, loser, virgin. You didn’t stray too far from the usual insults your peers hurled at Eddie Munson. They were common for a reason—he was a freak. A loser. Probably a virgin, too.

You got a reaction out of him initially, which was satisfying. The first time you’d shoved past him in the hall and hissed out of my way, freak under your breath, he’d looked at you like you had six heads. Looked at you with big, wide, googly eyes and bright red cheeks. He’d opened and closed his mouth, looking for words and finding none; you’d just laughed and kept walking. You liked seeing him get flustered, especially because it was uncommon—he was usually the kind of guy to snap back, flip someone the bird, even throw a punch. But with you? Those stupid puppy dog eyes. That stupid blush, and nothing witty out of that stupid mouth of his. 

Eventually, he got used to your incessant name-calling. When his reaction became little more than a glance in your direction, you went back to the drawing board. You needed to do better. To come up with something that would really get under his skin. You wanted to see him squirm again. 

You tripped him in English class when he tried to sneak in after the bell, your sneakered foot strategically popped out from under your desk. Later that week, you spilled your lunch tray on him because you’d seen a (totally real) bug skittering across the tile. And today, when you catch him smoking a cigarette in the courtyard after the final bell had rang, looking worn-out and pensive, you walk up behind him, grab a handful of that too-long hair of his, and yank it hard.

Eddie spins around fast, smoke spilling from his lips like steam from an angry cartoon character. “The fuck is your–” 

He cuts himself off when he realizes it’s you, his eyes going wide. He looks like a deer in headlights. You grin, satisfaction rushing through you like a shot of dopamine as his cheeks turn pink.

“You’re blushing, Munson. Got a crush on me or something?” Your voice is saturated with fake-sympathy. If it’s possible at this point, his cheeks turn even redder.

“No, I-I don’t,” Eddie stammers, taking a pull from his cigarette. His hands are shaking, even though you can tell he’s trying to hide it. 

“I-I-I,” you mock, parroting his stuttering back to him, “Jesus, can you fucking talk?” 

Eddie’s eyes narrow a little, almost like he’s wincing from the impact of your words. He starts shuffling around awkwardly on his feet, and his free hand comes up to grab the hem of his shirt and tug it down. The motion draws your gaze downward, away from his face, and the self-indulgent little smile on your lips dies right then and there. Because Eddie definitely couldn’t pull his shirt down far enough to keep you from seeing that. 

It’s possible that a pair of black jeans would’ve saved him. Maybe then you’d be unable to make out the unmistakable bulge beneath his pants, the denim clearly stiff and tented right over his crotch. No such luck for him today, though, he’d picked light wash.

An incredulous bark of laughter leaves your lips, your jaw hung open at the sight of Eddie’s hard-on. And when you look up at his face again, there it is: that stupid, pitiful expression. The one you’d been trying to wrench out of him for weeks. The wide eyes, the flushed cheeks, the embarrassed little frown that pulls his lips downward. You want to relish in your victory, but as it turns out, your mind is elsewhere. Like, in a nearby storage closet elsewhere. Or an empty classroom. With Eddie. And that bulge beneath his pants. 

You can’t let on, though, can you?

“God, Munson, did that do something for you?” You accuse, looking down again and noticing that he’d dropped his cigarette, the cherry burning out on the concrete. 

Eddie brings a hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “I, um… I really don’t know what you want me to say.”

You fold your arms over your chest, surveying him with narrowed eyes. “You drive to school, right?” 

The sudden change of subject catches him off guard; he hazards a glance at you, suspicious. “Yeah, I do.”

“Cool.” You step forward then, pressing two fingers into Eddie’s chest to give him a weak shove. “Show me your shitty ride.”

The shitty ride in question is a beat-up rust bucket of a van, probably a few hundred miles away from dying out on the interstate. It’s parked in a far-off corner of the lot, and when you see Eddie make for the driver’s side door, you tilt your head at him. 

“We’re not going anywhere,” you tell him, squinting your eyes in the late afternoon sunlight. “Open the back, would you?”

He walks backwards from the front of the van, glancing sideways at you before he does as he’s told. No questions asked. After jangling with the keys and getting the door unlocked, he tugs it open and gestures to the empty, carpeted interior of the van’s trunk. 

“After you.” His voice lilts upward at the end of the sentence, like it’s a question more than a statement. You climb in, tossing your bag into the front seat and looking around at the random shit scattered around the van: tangled cables, a few cassette tapes, a blanket, some crumpled band tees. Eddie scrambles in after you and slams the door shut.

“So, uh,” he starts, taking a seat on the carpet beside you. He leaves a respectable gap between the two of you. So sweet of him. “What did you wanna do?”

“You like getting your hair pulled, Munson?” You say it like it’s not a humiliating question for him, your head tilting as you look him over. To make matters even worse, you reach out and place a hand on his thigh, his body radiating warmth even through a layer of denim. 

He doesn’t look at you, but he certainly does gape at the hand on his leg. The perfectly maintained French manicure. The confident way you splay your fingers out, grab a handful of his thigh, and squeeze. He could bust in his pants right there.

“What are you…talking about?” He asks, and there’s a little shake in his voice that fills you with sweet, euphoric delight. 

“God, you’re clueless,” you say. And though it’s a bold move, you find yourself eager to climb into his lap, thighs spreading right over his crotch, knees bracketing his narrow waist. You can feel him getting hard beneath you, a growing pressure rising up against the heat between your legs. 

“When I pulled your hair earlier,” you start, bringing a hand up to comb your fingers through his frizzy, curled locks, “you got hard. Or was that because of what I said—can you fucking talk?”

In this new position, you’re looking down at Eddie’s widened doe-eyes, his chin tilted upward so he can see you clearly. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he wanted to bolt right this second—shove you off his lap and run. Never see you again. But when you shift your hips down against him, the bulge in his jeans rubs deliciously against your aching cunt, and he gasps. 

You smirk. “Which one is it?” 

“Huh?” Eddie’s dazed, lips parted; there’s not a single thought behind those eyes when he looks at you. 

“Mm, you really are clueless.” You lean down towards him, the tip of your nose brushing against his briefly. “I guess I’ll just have to find out for myself.” 

He still tastes like the cigarette from earlier when you kiss him, your hand tangling further in his mop of hair as your lips move together. You lead the way, because of course you do, and when your tongue encourages his mouth open, Eddie moans low in his throat. The sound of it sends arousal pulsating through you, all of it focused on the space where your hips meet. Where, beneath the pleated fabric of your skirt, you grind your cunt down against Eddie’s hard-on. 

It didn’t occur to you previously that he hadn’t been touching you. Not until his hands grab hold of your hips, the cold metal of his rings stinging against the exposed skin where your shirt had ridden up. He doesn’t grab you quite hard enough, but it’s better than nothing. He has big hands, you realize. 

You rip away from the heated kiss to look down at Eddie, rolling your hips down again. Your panties are soaked through, you’re sure of it, and the rough scratch of his jeans is providing the perfect friction against your needy clit. 

“I don’t know why I’m even doing this,” you admit, tugging on the fistful of Eddie’s hair in your hand. “The town freak—shit, Eddie, your cock feels big, who would’ve thought?”

“Oh my god,” Eddie gasps, tearing up from the sting on his scalp. “I-I don’t think it’s that big, but you can—if you want to—we can…”

“Why the fuck else would I be here?” You snap, but there’s a breathlessness to your words that you hope he doesn’t notice. Because he does feel big, and he’s actually a great kisser, and the way he’s grabbing onto your hips for stability makes you want to undress him and fuck him and ruin him. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Eddie rushes out, “I d-didn’t want to assume.” 

“Just shut up,” you hiss back at him, using your grip on his hair to angle his head so he’s looking at you again, rather than your tits, where they’re bouncing beneath your halter top with every grind of your hips. Eddie nods, his pupils blown out with lust, scanning your face to search for even a fraction of the desire he feels for you. And he finds it when you grind down against him just right, your eyes rolling back briefly at the feeling of your clit catching onto his jeans. 

How is this happening right now? He could’ve sworn you hated his guts, judging by the way you’d been tormenting him for weeks. He’d thrown his Hellfire shirt in the wash three times already, and he still hadn’t gotten the pasta sauce out of it from when you’d spilled your lunch on him, plus he’s got detention next week for the time you’d tripped him when he’d snuck into class late. You’d been calling him names, laughing at him in the halls, anything you could do to express your blatant disdain for him—but here you are, pretty tits squished together in your tank top, grinding in his lap and pulling his hair every time his cock presses perfectly against your cunt. He’d pinch himself to check if he’s dreaming, but his hands are occupied, holding onto your hips while he watches your torso tense again and again. 

He’s just about to offer to take his pants off when you shuffle down his waist to his thighs, balancing over him while you fumble with his belt. The way you’re leaning over shows off your cleavage, and maybe it’s wrong of him, but he can’t help but stare while you pull his jeans and boxers down his legs, your fingers hooked under the fabric. You only move his clothes far enough to free his cock, and he’s expecting you to climb back into his lap and sink down onto him—but instead, you shuffle further away. Further down his legs. And then your tongue is on him.

You lick up his length from base to tip, slowly, like you’re savoring every second of it. Your tongue lingers on the underside of his tip, the skin smooth as silk as you lap at it again and again. Every gasp and twitch of his hips fuels your arousal, and when precum dribbles down from his head, you lick it up and moan almost too indulgently at the flavor of him. 

“Fuuuuck me,” he groans, “oh god, your mouth is–”

“Eddie, shut up,” you mutter, a little less annoyance in your voice than earlier. But he shuts up anyway, leaning back against the side of the van and watching you widen your lips and sink his cock into your mouth. He almost dies right at that moment, staring at your pretty pink lips stretched around his dick, your tits nearly spilling out of your shirt, and your hands curled around the base of his length. You give him a few languid strokes before your mouth replaces your hand; eventually, the tip of your nose brushes the thatch of pubic hair at his base, and he’s in your fucking throat. 

“Shit,” he hisses, not really caring if you hear him, because it’s not like you can tell him to shut up with your mouth occupied as it is. His eyes nearly flutter shut but he wants to see every moment of this, so he forces them back open–forces himself to watch you bob your head up and down, working yourself into a steady rhythm. Your mouth is like heaven around him, saliva leaking all over his cock, making a mess that contributes to the filthy squelches of you taking him to the back of your throat over and over. He isn’t touching you anymore, but that changes when you suddenly gag around him–his hand flies to your hair and grabs and tugs, a string of breathy curses leaving his lips as your throat constricts around his cock. 

“Holy shit,” he says, rocking his hips up involuntarily. You gag again, saliva flooding from your mouth to his cock, even leaking out the corners of your lips. The sight of you like that, eyes watery, cheeks flushed dark, struggling to take him without gagging again… It pushes him to the edge of his orgasm so fast, he can hardly think before he’s yanking on your hair again, pulling you off his dick with a wet pop. 

You look like such a mess. Your makeup’s fucked, mascara starting to run down your cheeks, streaks cutting through your foundation. And that look in your eyes? Pathetic. Eddie’s having a hard time remembering the version of you who’d been humiliating him for weeks. 

“You like getting your hair pulled too?” He asks, giving an experimental tug and watching the way you crane your neck in that same direction. You bring a hand up to wipe at your mouth.

“Eddie,” you say, irritated, “I wasn’t done.” 

“You were gonna make me come too fast,” he explains. “But, uh, I’m okay now.”

You don’t need to be told twice. Eddie hisses when you take him into your mouth again, as deep as you can, and his fist tightens in your hair when you start to bob your head once more. Before he realizes what he’s doing, Eddie’s tugging your hair in perfect sync with the rhythm of your movements: pushing you down onto his cock, then pulling you back up for a moment. He’s back to where he’d been before in minutes, choking on each of his inhales while you let him fall into control of your movements, his punishing grip on your hair providing the perfect sting on your scalp. The perfect bit of pain to contribute to your pleasure. Your cunt throbs for attention. 

“Jesus, that’s–gonna come soon, holy shit,” Eddie rasps, teeth sinking into his lower lip. To help him along, you reach a saliva-drenched hand down to his balls, rolling them in your fingers and moaning around his cock until he’s dissolving into unintelligible pleas and curses. His hips rock forward a few more times before they still and he comes, hard, hot ropes of cum shooting down your throat and painting the inside of your mouth. You swallow every bit you can manage, but there’s still so much, your lips and his cock soaked in cum when you finally pull off him, nearly panting.

Letting him have a moment to catch his breath, you sit back on your heels and reach under your skirt to find the hem of your panties. You take them off in a swift motion, discarding the ruined fabric somewhere to the side—you’d soaked through them and then some, just as you’d expected. And even if Eddie’s out of commission for the next few minutes, you can’t take a moment longer without some kind of pressure on your clit. Spreading your knees apart, you slip your hand between your legs, fingers quickly finding the heat of your cunt. You’re soaked, humming in pleasure as the pads of your fingers slip over your folds, spreading your arousal. 

“Fuck, fuck, that’s so—you’re so hot.” Eddie’s voice sounds wrecked; you look up and find him right where you left him, eyes half-lidded, chest still rising and falling as he catches his breath. What you’re not expecting is for his cock to still be half-hard, angry and red as it is. Almost as if he’d noticed you looking, his dick twitches. 

“Think you can fuck me, Munson?” You ask, voice far more breathy and needy than you’d intended as you toy with your clit beneath your skirt. “You’re a freak, aren’t you? Show me how much of a…” 

You trail off and bite your lip as you sink two of your fingers into your cunt, the stretch just good enough to provide you with some much-needed relief. The slick, wet noises of you fingering yourself make Eddie feel like he’s going insane. He’s already almost fully hard again, his cock throbbing while he watches you from across the van. You start to rock your hips into your own touch, and shit it’s so hot, he might actually be able to go again—no, yeah, he can definitely go again. 

“Come here,” Eddie says, still transfixed by the way you’re fucking your own hand, your eyes fluttering every time the heel of your hand hits your clit and drags. 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you bite back—weakly, to be honest. And you obey anyway, climbing back into his lap the way you’d been before, the lust in your eyes hazy and wild. 

“Sorry,” Eddie responds. He’s not sorry. 

You hover over his cock, hands on his shoulders, fingertips rubbing over the cotton of his tee shirt. “Just let me fuck you.”

“Only if you kiss me,” he says with a lazy grin, one that infuriates you but makes your cunt gush impossibly wetter between your legs. You’re so desperate to feel something inside you again that you just roll your eyes and lean in, bringing your lips to Eddie’s.

You kiss slowly this time, less angrily, and while your tongues rub up against each other, Eddie grabs his cock at the base and rubs the spongy tip through your folds. You can’t kiss him anymore—the whine he draws from you makes him moan from deep in his chest, and he can’t wait a second longer, so he pushes himself into the tight heat of your cunt before using his hands to pull your hips down to his. You sink onto him in one swift motion, the sting of his cock splitting you open somehow painful and euphoric all at once. He’s big, you’d known that, had felt it in your throat just minutes ago, but the feeling of him stretching you in all directions is something else entirely. 

After you’ve adjusted to the sensation of him, you give your hips an experimental roll, inhaling sharply at the way Eddie’s cock drags through you. It’s perfect, like he was made for you, and there’s a knot in your stomach that you need to untie, and the only way you can do it is by riding his cock until you can’t think anymore. You lift your hips and slam them back down, thighs squeezing at his sides, and he’s already a mess beneath you, sweat drenching the tendrils of dark hair around his face and neck, his lips bright red.

“Pull my hair again,” Eddie says. He sounds fucked-out, but when you look at him, there’s something dark and determined in his gaze. 

You nod, riding him faster while you grab onto his hair again, tugging, pulling, using his hair as leverage to help you maintain your balance. He groans out and shuts his eyes. “God, that’s fucking good.”

“Pull my hair,” you hear yourself say. You hadn’t meant to really say it, it was just a thought, but before you can take it back, Eddie’s opening his eyes, grinning at you, and pulling your hair so hard it makes you cry out in a mix of pain and pleasure. 

“Knew you liked it too,” he says, voice breathy but full of self-satisfaction. And that look on his face, all that confidence you’d never seen on him before, it makes the knot in your belly grow even tighter. 

“Can you do something for me?” Eddie pants out, gritting his teeth when your cunt tenses around him.

You peer down your nose at him and slow down the rocking of your hips, murmuring, “What?”

Eddie hesitates for a moment, chews on his lower lip, then reaches for your hand—the one that’s not tangled in his hair.

“Choke me.”

Your surprise must be evident by the look on his face, because he adds quickly, “I’m serious.”

You gape at him for a few long seconds, searching his face for a hint that he might be messing with you. But when you don’t find it, you just laugh—a surprised little huff. 

“Eddie,” you say, moving your hand to wrap it around his throat, your thumb and index fingers pressing into each of his pulse points. “You’re such a fucking pervert.”

But he’s not listening. You’ve started to fuck down onto him again, and his vision has gone a bit spotty, but the rush to his head makes him nearly lose all composure. The sounds coming from his lips are just pathetic, and you’re suddenly so close, quickening the pace of your bounces on his abused cock.

“Use me,” Eddie gasps out, though his voice is a bit strained from the light pressure of your hand against the front of his throat. “Use me to come, use me, use me.”

And you didn’t exactly need any encouragement, but his words get you to speed up a bit more, your hips rocking down against his in a way that gives you the perfect amount of stimulation on your clit. That, plus the prod of his cock so deep in you it’s like he’s in your guts, makes you lose composure pretty quickly—add the fact that you’re choking him and he’s moaning your name with a voice that makes him sound desperate for you, and you’re unraveling quick. Your orgasm crashes into you, and you pull extra hard on Eddie’s hair as you ride out every wave of pleasure. 

As your senses are coming back to you, a white haze still hanging over you in the aftershocks of your climax, you realize that Eddie’s coming, too. His brows are pulled together and his eyes are fluttering, those plump lips of his slick with spit as he grunts out a few curses, his hips snapping up into yours as your cunt milks him dry. 

You move your hand away from his throat, instead placing it on his hip as you both come down from your respective highs. And while you’re running your fingers through his hair, working out the knots, Eddie tilts his head upward to look at you. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he says. 

You shrug. “I know. But I want to, I messed it all up.”

He gulps down a sudden feeling that rises up in his throat, thick and aching. “Okay. Thank you, then.”

You stop working with his hair, finally looking him in the eye. A crooked smile plays at your lips. “Don’t get used to it, Munson.”

[jadequeen88]

OH GOD PLEASE. As a former preacher’s kid I am EATING THIS UP

Fall Into Temptation | 1/3 (Joel Miller x Preacher’s Daughter Reader)

Summary: Of all the women to catch Joel Miller’s attention—it just had to be one of the goddamn preacher’s daughters.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Preacher’s Daughter Female Reader

Warnings/Tags: 18+ Only, Minors DNI. NO DESCRIPTION OF READER despite the nickname Joel gives her, it doesn’t speak to her body type. AGE GAP (reader is late 20’s and Joel is 56, I know, I know but this was self indulgent because my birthday is next month idk just let me have this one) canon language, canon violence, several mentions of religion, terms pastor and preacher are used interchangeably here and there, mentions of the bible and religious symbols (cross), innocent/virgin reader, very brief scene of attempted sexual assault, no explicit smut (yet). Asshole Joel, protective Joel, hints of softish dom Joel?

Word Count: 8.2k

A/N: I teased this forever ago. Originally, it was going to go VERY differently, but I ended up revisiting the drafts I had saved and tweaked them more to my liking. This is a 3 parter, I want to test the waters and see how it goes, it might not be everyone’s cup of tea but I am so happy to be back trying to get into the groove. I might end up making a masterlist for this but again I’m just testing the waters. If y’all could let me know your thoughts, it would be very much appreciated! 🤍

Joel had seen him around the community before. 

He’s an older man in his late sixties or possibly his early seventies with thinning, snow white hair and silver, wire rimmed glasses that always seemed to be perched on the tip of his pointed nose. He was a kind man from what Joel could gather—offering up warm smiles and friendly waves to anyone who happened to cross his path, stopping to greet and say hello to familiar faces. The hem of his starched white shirt is tucked into pressed black slacks and even from he stood across the road near the horse stables, Joel noticed the book clutched in his right hand, old and bound in supple, worn black leather with the words Holy Bible etched into the cover in gold lettering.

Jacob, he thinks his name is. Or was it Josiah?

Something biblical—a name fit for a man who was so fucking clearly devoted to the big man upstairs.

Joel knew his own name was a biblical one, but he was the furthest thing from a man of God. After all that he’d done in the past twenty years, there was only one place he was going and that place wasn’t exactly known for its pearly gates.

Joseph? Was that it?

He couldn’t be certain.

Not that Joel really even cared to know his name.

It’d been a couple months since Joel arrived back in Jackson with Ellie after Salt Lake City and truth of the matter was, he preferred to keep to himself whenever it was possible. Joel had zero interest in getting to know the people of this settlement, not unless he had to for the sake of patrol duties—and that’s only if he hadn’t been able to weasel his way out of getting assigned with a partner who wasn’t Tommy or Maria, the only two people in the whole community Joel could stand being around. Minus his kid of course, but even he and Ellie could really only take each other in small doses lately. Perhaps it was their tense, strained relationship that was to blame for the fact that Joel Miller walked around with a standoffish attitude and a permanent scowl plastered on his face.

Most people were smart enough to scamper off in the other direction when they saw him coming. He was never offended by it. It’s what he wanted.

He wasn’t here to make friends.

The closest thing he had come to a friend outside of his brother’s wife was Esther, the woman Maria and Tommy had tried setting him up with when he first got back to Jackson. He wouldn’t go as far as calling her a friend, either.

More like a good fuck when he couldn’t drown his bitterness with Seth’s barrel aged bourbon and he needed a different kind of distraction.

But there was a reason this particular man piqued his curiosity. Actually, there were three reasons he managed to garner Joel’s attention and all three of them were trailing behind him in an orderly, single file line, each one more fucking gorgeous than the last. He was positive he’d never seen them around before—because how could be possibly forget the faces of the most beautiful women in this town?

They’ve got to be sisters, Joel thought to himself, his hand resting on the neck of the horse that he’d ridden out to patrol that morning, a dark chestnut mare named Willow. Although he was supposed to be walking her inside the stables and back into her stall, he found himself far too distracted. While the three women weren’t identical to one another, the similarity in their traits such as hair color and their skin tone confirmed his suspicions that they were related. They all styled their hair in halo braids and wore slightly different color variations of the same getup—pressed, long sleeved blouses tucked into knee length floral printed skirts and Oxford shoes.

Clutching the brown leather strap of his rifle in his opposite hand, Joel leaned himself against Willow and squinted against the bright afternoon sunlight in an effort to get a better look at them.

The first two were slightly on the older side. If Joel had to take a shot at their age, he would guess the women were in their thirties—a man of fifty six, he still had about two decades on them, easy. Joel let his gaze shift, his dark brown eyes flickering to the third one. His breath hitched in his throat and part of him wondered just how fucking dumb he had to be to be drawn to the youngest one of the three. It couldn’t be fucking possible—you couldn’t be that much older than your late twenties, and even then that was a goddamn stretch.

Joel’s grip on the strap of his rifle tightened.

All three of you were stunners, so why the fuck did it have to be you who had held over his interest?

“Take a picture,” Maria remarked with a tiny laugh. She dismounted her horse and peered at Joel over the black stallion’s back. “It’ll last longer.”

She’d led that morning’s patrol, her first time back on duty since she had given birth to her son in the spring. Joel had returned to Jackson right on time to meet his one month old nephew, Noah.

He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Just tryin’ to figure out what their deal is, that’s all.” He paused, then remarked, “Polygamy a thing around here?”

His comment must have struck a nerve in his dear sister in law—fiercely protective of the people who were under her leadership, Maria hadn’t found the sister wives implication the slightest bit amusing.

“Watch it, Joel,” she admonished, shooting him a warning glare. “He is the town’s pastor and those girls happen to be his daughters. So let’s keep our wise ass cracks to ourselves, shall we?”

His daughters?

He almost couldn’t believe it. Surely the girls must have taken after their mother because they sure as hell didn’t get their good looks from their old man.

“Pastor,” Joel repeated with a small hum. He then remembered her pointing out an old church house back during the winter when she’d given him and Ellie the grand tour of the commune. “He ain’t got a real job like the rest of us?”

Maria rolled her eyes. “His job is a real job, Joel. It might be hard for you to believe, but there are still a lot of people of faith around here,” she explained to him. “He provides them with comfort, hope—”

He snorted sharply through his nose. “Hope?”

“Yes, hope,” she snapped at him.

“Hope for what? That things will go back to fuckin’ normal? The the end of the world is temporary?”

Maria crossed her arms over her chest, jutting her chin. “Some people never lose hope, Joel. There’s a lot of people who need this man and he serves a much bigger purpose than what you’re giving him credit for.”

“And what about the girls? They have it easy too? Do they just stand there lookin’ pretty on Sundays while their old man reads verses out loud from the most useless book known to man?”

“If you must know, they work in the schoolhouse,” she answered, tossing him another glare. “They’re teachers. The oldest one, she teaches Ellie’s class. The middle one, she teaches primary school aged children and the youngest? She takes care of all of our little ones. She prepares our preschool kids for her sister’s class by teaching basic literacy. Shows them how to start reading and writing, things like that. She also helps run the commune’s daycare.”

“At least they have real jobs,” Joel mumbled under his breath.

“What was that?”

He feigned innocence. “Nothin’. Nothin’ at all.”

“That’s exactly what I thought.” Maria pointed her finger at him. “Come on, let’s get these guys back into their stalls. It was a long ride this morning, I’m sure they could use some rest.” Taking her stallion by the reins, she started leading him over toward Logan, one of the stable hands who helped take in the horses coming back from patrol.

Joel took Willow’s reins in his hands—but before he could even think of moving another muscle, he glanced up and saw the preacher leading his three daughters past the stables and right past Joel. His self control faltered. All that he could do was stare at you, his eyes fixed on you so intently that one of your sisters had taken notice. Grinning, she turned back towards you and lifted a hand to her mouth. She used her palm to shield her mouth from Joel’s view as whispered something over her shoulder.

Shit.

He’d been caught caught gawking.

He thought about making a beeline for the stables but it was too late.

Perplexed by whatever it was that your older sister had just said to you, you gave her an odd look, but then followed the subtle nod of her head.

Glimpsing over in his direction, your lips parted in complete surprise and you came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the dirt road when you found your gaze meeting that of the much older, rugged man.

Unsure of what to do, Joel offered you a polite nod of his head. The gesture was innocent enough but it startled you. He could tell by the way you let out a small gasp and turned away from him, your eyes falling to the ground as you scurried to catch up to your father and sisters like a spooked little mouse.

Joel couldn’t help but shake his head and laugh.

“Is the preacher aware that his precious daughters pay frequent visits to The Tipsy Bison at such late and ungodly hours?” Joel quipped. He gestured to a booth nestled over in a corner of the dimly lit bar with a subtle jerk of his chin. “Gotta be the third or fourth time I’ve seen them here in the last couple of weeks.”

Tommy’s eyes followed his brother’s gesture. “Oh man, not again,” he said with an exasperated sigh. He shook his head. “Those girls, they ain’t got any business hangin’ around this place and much less at this fuckin’ hour. But the middle one, she’s a lot of trouble.” He paused, just long enough to nod at one of the three sisters, the one who was wearing her hair loose around her shoulders, twirling a lock of it around her finger as she made flirtatious fuck me eyes at the group of drunk patrolmen sitting a few tables away. “She’s somethin’ of a rebel. Likes to drink a lot, get herself involved with things that she ain’t really supposed to be messin’ with. She’s the one who convinces the other two into sneakin’ out and comin’ to the bar when their old man goes to sleep.”

Joel chuckled in disbelief. “You fuckin’ serious?”

“As a heart attack. And then there’s the older one. I know she likes to drink too, but she’s a lot calmer than the other one. Ain’t gotta worry about her too much, you know?”

“What about the youngest one?” Joel asked in the most nonchalant tone he could possibly muster.

You’re carefully perched on the edge of the booth, your pretty features twisting in disgust with every sip of the rich, amber colored liquid in your glass.

Unable to stomach the burning alcohol, you set it off to the side, abandoning it in favor for a glass of water instead.

“Her?” Tommy grinned, leaning back into his chair as stated, “Oh, she’s just about the sweetest thing you’ll ever see in your whole damn life, big brother. She’s gotta be the kinda girl who all the little birds and woodland critters probably sing to when there ain’t no one around,” he laughed. “She’s good. Too good. It wouldn’t surprise me if the good lord sent her down from heaven himself.”

Joel tossed him a skeptical look across the table.

“She really as innocent as she seems?”

“I don’t think she even knows what it’s like to hold another man’s hand,” his younger brother laughed again and reached for his beer, taking a swig.

Joel hummed softly and lifted his glass of whiskey to his lips. The mere thought of you being so pure, so innocent and untouched—it caused something to stir deep inside of him.

“Any of them taken?” 

Tommy raised his eyebrows. “Joel, don’t tell me—”

“No, I’m not interested,” he rolled his eyes. “Just a curious motherfucker, that’s all.”

He didn’t seem too convinced by Joel’s answer.

“They’re all single from what I know. To be honest, there ain’t a whole lot of men around here their old man would approve of,” he remarked. “He is a nice man and all, but he’s real strict with them. Not like that controllin’ has done him much good, though.” He lowered his voice as a fellow patrolman walked past their table. “The middle one’s fucked her way through this entire town and then back again. She even made a pass at me while Maria was pregnant with Noah, if you can believe it.”

Joel snorted into his drink. Ballsy. “How goddamn drunk was she?”

“Wasted.” Tommy ran a hand through his jet black curls. “Oh and by the way, just in case you haven’t figured it out, this stays between us, Joel.”

He smirked. “Which part?”

“All of it. And take it from me, those girls? It’s best you keep your distance from them,” he warned as he stood up from the table. He picked up the blue denim jacket draped over his chair, shrugging into it. “Don’t go gettin’ any dumbass ideas, alright?”

“Look, if she makes a pass at me, I ain’t gonna say no. Not like I’ve got a pregnant wife at home.”

“Joel, I fuckin’ swear. If you even think about it—”

He held up his hands to stop him. “It was a joke.”

“Right. I’m sure it was.” Tommy snorted. “Listen, I gotta get back home. Don’t wanna leave Maria on her own with the baby for too long.”

“How’s she been holdin’ up?”

“She’s been so tired. Jugglin’ motherhood, runnin’ this place, and bein’ back on patrol duty. I keep on tryin’ to tell her to slow it down, but she just won’t listen to me.” He let out a small sigh. “But anyway. If you’re all good to head out, I can walk you back to your place since it’s on the way to mine?”

Joel looked down at his glass, still half full. “I think I’m gonna hang back for a while longer. I’m on the roster for evenin’ patrol tomorrow, not like I’ve got to be up at the ass crack of dawn.”

“Suit yourself.” Clapping him on the back, Tommy bid him goodnight and started towards the door.

As soon as he was gone, Joel looked over towards your booth. He watched as you whispered into the ear of your eldest sister who nodded her head. You stood up and said something else to her, and then spun around on your heel, long skirt flowing along with the movement. Head down, you hastily made your way across the bar, being careful so as not to bump into anyone along the way.

You were leaving.

Alone.

In the middle of the fucking night?

While drunk morons poured in and out of the bar?

She’ll be just fine, he tried to convince himself.

Joel frowned to himself, gripping his drink tightly as he scanned the room.

Sitting at a nearby table was Kent, some idiot he’d been stuck with a time or two for patrol. He clocks the smirk that crossed the younger man’s face, his eyes following you all the way to the door. Leaning forward over the table, he whispered something to his buddies, his smirk widening. His comrades, all who looked and behaved more like idiot teenagers rather than men, lifted their beers to him, nodding in encouragement. Drunk off his ass, Kent drained the rest of his own beer, slamming the glass bottle down onto the table before stumbling to his feet.

Joel momentarily froze as soon as he had realized what was happening.

Kent was going after you.

Joel’s lips pressed together into a tight, thin line.

Setting his drink down, he stood up from his table and slipped on his jacket before following in suit.

Joel stepped out into the night, looking around.

You were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Kent.

That couldn’t fucking be good.

“Where the fuck are you two?” he muttered under his breath.

That’s when he heard it.

The sound of muffled screaming coming from the side of the building. Joel didn’t hesitate. Following your smothered cries for help, he whipped around into the dimly lit alley nestled between the bar and the commune mess hall. You’re pinned under Kent with your skirt bunched around your waist. One of his hands was covering your mouth while his other hand clawed it’s way up your bare thigh.

“Aw, come on now, sugar,” Kent slurred his words together. “It’d be a fucking shame to let someone as cute as you stay a virgin. Don’t be coy—I know you’re just like your stupid slut of a sister. She has no trouble spreading her fucking legs for me.”

Red.

It was the color that flashed in Joel’s mind. It was all he could see as he went up behind Kent, letting his hands reach for fistfuls of his leather jacket. He lifted him off of you with ease, slamming him hard against the brick wall of the mess hall. Pulling him forward, Joel slammed his body into the wall once more, knocking all the wind out of him.

“Miller, what the fuck are you doing!” Kent gasped out, frantically pawing at the older man’s hands in an effort to break free. “Get the fuck off me!”

“Takin’ advantage of an innocent girl?” Joel hissed at him, tightening his grasp on the collar of Kent’s jacket. “Think that makes you a fuckin’ man?”

Though he was still intoxicated, the sheer terror of being caught Joel Miller’s hands sobered him just enough that he started sputtering an explanation.

“I wasn’t fucking taking advantage of her! Her and her whore sisters were making eyes at me and the guys all fucking night! She fucking wanted it! She asked me for it, couldn’t even wait long enough to get back to my place—”

The lie came straight through his teeth. The same teeth he would be picking up off the ground in the next minute or two.

Joel knew he didn’t need to ask. Still, he turned to you, his rage only intensifying when he took in the sight of you lying there on the ground, the hem of your light blue floral skirt hiked around your waist.

“That true?” He questioned you. “You wanted it?”

You stared at him with wide and fearful eyes.

A single tear slipped down the side of your face.

“Answer me, darlin’ girl. You wanted this?”

“No. I didn’t.” Your voice was small, barely audible.

But he’d heard it loud and clear.

“She’s lying!” Kent tried to tell him. “She’s—”

Joel delivered the first punch, a blow so hard he’d felt the the younger man’s nose crack underneath his curled fist. He struck him again and again, the blows coming in harder and harder, turning Kent’s face into a bloodied pulp.

If Joel didn’t get a grip, he would kill him.

Part of him wanted to fucking kill Kent for putting his hands you—and even more for accusing of you wanting it. Pathetic fucking bastard.

Holding Kent up by the throat with one hand, Joel pulled his switchblade from the back pocket of his jeans with the other. Fingers curled tightly around the hilt, Joel held up the knife into Kent’s view. He had left his eyes black and swollen, but judging by the pitiful little pleas for mercy, it was clear that he could see the sharp blade being held an inch or so away from his face.

“If I ever catch you anywhere near her again, I ain’t gonna be so generous,” Joel growled warningly. “I ain’t gonna let you walk away next time, boy. That understood?”

He nodded. “Un—Understood.”

“Good.” Joel released him, stepping backwards as he fell to the ground. “Get the fuck outta my face.”

Kent managed to get to his feet and staggered off, disappearing from the alley.

Chest heaving, Joel inhaled a deep breath through his nose, then exhaled it through his mouth before turning to you once more.

Petrified, you still hadn’t moved a single muscle.

You looked fucking terrified. Whether it was from Kent’s assault or the way Joel had nearly beat him to death right in front you, it was hard to tell.

Crouching down beside you, Joel clocked the way that you flinched. He proceeded to move slowly as he reached for the hem of your skirt. Delicately, he gripped the soft, flowing fabric and pulled it down into place. Joel then held his hand out to you.

You hesitated for a split second, but then took his hand and allowed him to help you up to your feet.

“You alright, little dove?” The nickname had fallen from his lips before he could even think to stop it.

“I think so,” you replied, nodding your head. You’d started to tremble and even though it had nothing to do with being cold, Joel took notice of it and he shrugged out of his camel colored jacket. He gave it to you, draping it over your shoulders. The scent of him instantly enveloped you—a mouth watering masculine mixture of clean soap, sandalwood, and musk. It was far more intoxicating than the scotch you had tried back inside the bar. He didn’t utter a word to you as he wrapped his jacket around your body, both of his hands pulling gently at the lapels to bring them together in front of your chest. That was when you glanced down and saw he’d injured his hand. You gasped lightly. “Are you alright?”

Maybe it was the adrenaline, but Joel hadn’t even noticed that he’d split his knuckles open. Giving it a light shake, he assured you gruffly, “I’m fine.”

Without thinking it through, you gingerly grabbed Joel’s hand, holding it in both of yours. “It doesn’t look like nothing,” you countered. You inspected it as best as you could in such poor lighting. “You’re bleeding.”

“Trust me, I’ve had a lot worse,��� he deadpanned.

Ignoring his remark, you asked, “Can you move all your fingers for me? Just to make sure that it isn’t broken?”

Joel felt a strange warmth radiate in his chest.

Fucking hell, Tommy had been right about you.

You really were too good.

“Darlin’ I already told you I’m fine—”

“Please?”

That word, and the way you’d said it, sent a shiver up the length of his spinal cord.

Joel started wiggling his fingers in your palms. He winced slightly at the soreness. More than that, he knew his cuts and bruises would be all the fucking proof Tommy and Maria would need to know that he had been the one who rearranged Kent’s face.

“See?” He spoke after a minute as he continued to move his fingers up and down. “It ain’t broken.”

“Let me clean you up,” you offered. Looking up at him, you cradled his hand as if it were a baby bird.

“That really ain’t necessary—”

“You just saved me from—it’s the least I can do for you,” you insisted. Seeing him open his mouth just to protest again, you cut him off. “Please?”

There it was again.

Christ. That word sounded too good coming from those plush, pretty lips of yours.

Joel sighed out in defeat. “Alright,” he relented. “I suppose there ain’t no harm in lettin’ you clean me up a bit, little dove.”

Pleased that he had finally accepted, you carefully let go of his hand and took a step back, beckoning for him to follow you. “Come with me,” you said to him. “I know somewhere private we can go.”

When you came to a stop at the old church house, Joel shook his head and took a step backwards.

Puzzled, your brows knitted together. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

He backed away further. “I ain’t goin’ in there.”

You tossed him an amused glance. “It’s a church.”

“Yeah, I know that. I ain’t exactly a man of God.”

You couldn’t help but giggle. “So? What does that have to do with me taking you inside to clean your hand up for you?”

Shuffling from boot to boot, Joel shrugged. “I just don’t think I belong in there, that’s all.”

“Do you think you’re going to melt if you step foot inside?” You teased him. After a minute, it became apparent that he was being serious about it. Joel’s discomfort about going inside the church was not some joke on his part, it was real. “Don’t be silly. It doesn’t matter that you’re not a man of God. That doesn’t mean that you’re going to explode or burn into a pile of ashes for going inside, you know.”

“After all the terrible shit I’ve done?” He looked up at the building, shaking his head again. “I actually just might burn, little dove.”

You bit back a small smile. You’d already grown to be quite fond of his sweet nickname for you.

“There’s a first aid kit inside I can use to patch you up,” you told him. “It won’t take long, I promise.”

His lower lip rolled in between teeth as he thought it over. “I ain’t too sure about this—”

“It’s only going to take me five minutes to get your hand cleaned up and then you can leave. Okay?”

You were as stubborn as you were sweet. How the fuck was he supposed to say no to you?

Reluctantly, Joel agreed to it. “Okay.” He followed you up the creaking, wooden porch steps towards the double doors. He’d just started to wonder how the two of you were even supposed to get into the building after hours when you leaned down, lifting the mat on the floor to reveal a set of keys. Unable to help himself, he scoffed out, “Serious?”

“Doesn’t everyone keep a key under their mat?”

“Yeah at their fuckin’ house, not their church.”

“Well to be fair, this is kind of like a second home. I spend quite a bit of time here,” you confessed.

Joel raised an eyebrow at you. “So much time that you’ve decided to keep the keys under the mat?”

Sheepishly, you nodded. “Sometimes when I can’t sleep at night, I’ll come here alone and sit with my thoughts for a while.” You shrugged. “Maria let me have the spare set of keys. She knows I come here and so does the rest of the council. I trespass with their full permission,” you kidded with a small grin.

Unlocking one of the two doors, you stepped over the threshold and waited expectantly for Joel. But he stood there, making no move to join you on the other side.

“This place gives me the creeps,” he admitted.

You laughed. “It’s only the outside that’s creepy.”

Grimacing, Joel finally walked inside, his back and shoulders stiff with tension as he stepped into the place of worship.

You closed the door and flipped on the lights, then opened a second set of double doors with another key from the ring.

“Whoa.” He was pleasantly surprised. For as old as this place was, the interior of the church was quite nice. He could tell that it had been well cared for in its lifetime—the former contractor in him had little choice but to appreciate the high ceiling, the large windows, and the satin finish of the white paint on the rustic, wooden panel walls.

There were a total of twelve pews, six on each side of the church. There was an older, antique piano in pristine condition nestled over in one corner of the room and in another, there was a large chalkboard propped up on a wooden easel, biblical verses that had been the focus of the congregation’s previous gathering still scribbled across it in white chalk.

“See?” You nudged his arm with your elbow. “This isn’t so awful, right?”

“I suppose it ain’t all that bad,” he muttered.

Your eyes twinkled with pure amusement, adding, “And you didn’t burn into a pile of ashes.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Joel grumbled out in response. “Can we just get this over with so I can get outta here?”

You tossed him a playful little eye roll then nodded towards the pews. “Go ahead and just have a seat anywhere,” you instructed him. “I’ll be right back.”

You disappeared down a short, dimly lit corridor.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Joel slowly made his way down the aisle holding his injured hand against his chest. It’d started to throb with pain.

There was an altar at the front of the church—if he could even call it an altar.

It was a plain oakwood table with a white fair linen cloth draped over it and nothing else.

Above it, bolted into the wall, was a wooden cross.

He averted his eyes, turning away from it.

Of all the shit to be intimidated by in this world.

A fucking slab of carved wood.

Joel’s attention shifted over to the chalkboard. He squinted at it, silently reading the verse to himself.

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. 1 Corinthians 10:13

“But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it,” You recited the rest of the verse from behind him.

“No offense, but it sounds like nothin’ but a whole lotta gibberish to me,” he remarked to you over his shoulder.

“No offense taken, Joel.”

Whirling around on the heel of his worn boot, Joel blurted, “How did you know my name?”

“You’re Tommy Miller’s brother. Everybody in this town knows your name.” You held up the white tin box in your hands; a big, red cross had been spray painted onto the lid. You sat down in the first pew and patted the seat right beside you. “Come sit.”

He sauntered over and dropped down next to you, watching as you opened up the box and started to dig through its contents. “You know my name,” he stated after a few seconds of silence. “Sure would be nice for me to know yours, darlin’.”

Smiling politely, you told him your name.

Joel repeated it. It rolled almost too sweetly off his tongue.

“That’s real pretty, little dove. Just like you.”

His compliment nearly knocked all of the air out of your lungs, making it difficult to breathe.

Cheeks burning, you murmured a small thank you and plucked a bottle of saline solution from the kit along with a piece of clean cotton. You tried not to think about the way his eyes were fixed intently on you as you unscrewed the cap and poured a bit of the liquid onto the cotton. “It shouldn’t sting,” you reassured him, reaching for Joel’s injured hand. It was rough and calloused, a stark contrast against your own soft and smooth. You set his hand down on your knee, a strange sensation fluttering in the depths of your lower belly when the warmth of his skin seeped right through the fabric of your skirt.

Comfortable silence fell over the both of you like a curtain as you started cleaning the blood off of his knuckles and his long, thick fingers.

“Do you really believe in all this stuff?” Joel spoke, his question echoing off the walls of the church.

You continued dabbing at his cuts, thinking it over in your head for a moment.

“I honestly don’t know,” you admitted.

Your answer took him by complete surprise.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I have always been taught to believe in God, Joel. It’s all that I’ve ever known. I grew up in a religious community,” you explained to him, making sure to keep your eyes focused on his hand. Tossing aside the bloodied wad of cotton, you picked up another piece adding more saline to it. “After the outbreak, things changed, of course. I couldn’t imagine how He could let something like this happen. When we lost our mother to infection about five years ago, I stopped praying. I finally stopped holding onto the ounce of hope I had that He would make the world right again. I refused to believe in God. Sometimes I still do,” you confessed quietly.

“You said you spend a lot of time here. Why come to church if you’re not even sure you believe in any of this shit anymore?”

“I’m always here because part of me thinks there’s a chance for me to believe again. When I told you I come here when I can’t sleep at night, it’s true. It’s my time to be here completely alone, the time that I use to mend my broken relationship with God. Or at least, I’ve been trying to mend it.” Taking a little glass pot of homemade antibiotic ointment one of the women in the town made and traded, you took off the lid and scooped out some of the salve with the tip of your finger. You applied it carefully to his cuts and continued, “But lately, the more that I try to pray and talk to Him, the more foolish I feel. It’s just not working. It hasn’t been working for a long, long time.”

“Then why keep tryin’ if it ain’t workin’ anymore?”

“Because I don’t really have much of a choice.”

“Your old man?” Joel guessed, wincing slightly as you went over a particularly sore spot on his hand, right over the torn up knuckle of his index finger.

“Mhm.” You nodded. “My father never lost faith in Him. He knows how I feel, but he refuses to let me give up on God. He won’t ever let me miss church or go to bed without reciting my nightly prayer. He won’t let me abandon faith. Not until the day he is cold and buried in his grave.”

“So what I’m gettin’ is that he forces you?”

You finished applying the ointment and wiped the remnants lingering on your finger off on your skirt.

“Force is such a harsh word. I wouldn’t say that—”

“He’s forcin’ you,” Joel said, flatly.

“Joel—”

“You can twist it however the hell you want, sweet girl,” he cut you off. “But if you’re tryin’ this fuckin’ hard to make yourself believe in somethin’ just for the sake of appeasin’ your dad because he can’t or won’t accept how you really feel about all this, well I hate to break it to you, but you’re bein’ forced.”

Your eyes widened ever so slightly at his words.

You had never thought about it like that before.

Placing the lid back onto the pot of ointment, you put it back into the first aid kit and then set the tin box down onto the floor. You sat back and clasped your hands together in your lap, not knowing what else to say to him.

He was absolutely right, after all.

Joel’s fingers lightly squeezed your knee. “Hey.”

You brought your gaze over to meet his. “Hm?”

“Can I ask you somethin’ about your dad?”

“What is it?”

Joel chose his words carefully. “Has he ever—he’s never done anythin’ to hurt you, has he?” he asked you. “He ever put his hands on you or anythin’ like that?”

“Never,” you assured him quickly. “He would never lay a single finger on me or my two sisters.”

He gave your knee another squeeze. “Just needed to make sure of it, sweetheart.”

“Look, my father isn’t perfect but he’s a good man who only wants what is best for us. He’s strict and he can be tough, but it’s because he cares. He just doesn’t want us running down the wrong path.”

“The wrong path?”

You shrugged. “Life here in Jackson is decent, but there’s a lot of temptations he doesn’t want any of us falling into. He wants to protect us.”

“By controllin’ you.”

It had been a statement, not a question.

Giving him a wry smile, you assured him, “Joel, it’s really not as bad as you’re making it sound. I could be a whole lot worse off than this, you know.”

There was another short bout of silence.

Joel’s dark eyes fell to your blouse, noticing how a couple of the top buttons had come undone.

He caught the slightest glimpse of the soft curves of your breasts—all it had taken was just a peek at them for his cock to twitch against his zipper.

Don’t you get hard in a fuckin’ church, Miller.

His gaze wandered down a little further and that’s when he caught sight of the cross hanging from a delicate gold chain clasped around your neck.

Joel expected the sight of it to calm the straining in his jeans.

Somehow it made it worse.

“Earlier, when we were standing outside,” you had started to say. “You were nervous to come into the church because of all the terrible shi—things that you’ve done.”

“That’s right.”

You peered at him with curiosity. “So what exactly have you done, Joel?”

Joel leaned back into the pew, shaking his head at you as he finally pulled his hand from your knee.

“You really don’t wanna know, little dove.”

“Why not?”

His answer was honest.

“Don’t want you to be scared of me.”

Angling your body towards him, you placed one of your hands on his thigh. Your fingers burned right through the dark blue denim of his jeans.

Joel’s lips parted slightly, taken aback by the bold move and the sudden shift in your demeanor.

Were you the same girl who’d nearly had a fucking heart attack a couple of weeks ago when Joel had nodded at you back at the stables?

“I’m not scared of you,” you murmured, softly. You gave his leg a squeeze, pulling your plump bottom lip between your teeth. Between that and the wide innocent doe eyes that you were giving him, it was taking every last ounce of strength Joel had inside him to keep a straight face, to pretend you weren’t driving him absolutely wild with desire.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt such an incredible need to have someone.

Want, sure.

He had wanted Tess. He had wanted Esther.

But Joel didn’t want you.

He fucking needed you.

“I’m not scared of you,” you repeated, trailing your hand further up his thigh, setting a fire neither one of you would soon be able to contain.

Joel leaned forward, bringing his face dangerously close towards yours. His warm breath fanned over your lips. It was still laced with bourbon. “You sure about that, darlin’ girl?”

You tried to answer him in the steadiest voice that you could muster, but it was impossible for you to hide the effect this man had on you.

You breathed out a shaky, “I’m sure.”

Lifting his uninjured hand, he reached up to tuck a loose lock of hair that had fallen out of your braids behind your ear. As his hand fell away, the palm of it grazed against the silkiness of your cheek.

Though brief, the contact sent an electric current through each and every last single nerve ending in your entire body.

Exhaling sharply, your eyelids fluttered closed. You nearly whimpered out his name. “Joel?”

“What is it baby? What do you want?”

“I—I want you to kiss me.”

Joel leaned in even closer, stopping only when his mouth was less than an inch away from yours.

You heard him chuckle softly.

“I’d expect better manners from a girl like you,” he tsked lightly, his nose skimming near the corner of your mouth. Closer. “What’s the magic word, little dove?”

“Please.”

“That’s much better.”

Your heart pounded with anticipation.

It was almost too much for you to handle.

Joel closed the remaining gap of space, capturing your lips with his own. He remembered his brother talking about you at the bar—how he had told Joel that you had never even held a man’s hand before.

It occurred to him that he was giving you your first kiss. Him. Joel Miller. The town asshole and a man who was well over twice your own age.

He was the one giving you your very first kiss.

The guilt suddenly started to creep in, sinking into his bones. What the fuck had he been thinking?

And what about you?

Where the fuck had your common sense gone?

Probably ran off together with Joel’s.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured, pulling away slightly in an attempt to stop it from going any further. He tried again, mumbling against your lips, “We gotta stop. This ain’t right—”

You were having none of it.

None.

Clutching fistfuls of Joel’s denim shirt, you swung your leg over his thighs and straddled his lap. Your knees rested on either side of him on the bench.

“Please,” you nearly pleaded. “Just kiss me. I want it—I want this. I promise you that I do.” You placed both of your hands on his broad shoulders, sliding them around him as you slowly sank down further onto his lap. “I want this, Joel.”

Suddenly, he realized that you were asking him for more than just his kiss. Now he knew for sure that all common sense had left that pretty little head of yours.

“Baby, y’need to think real hard about this—”

Desperate, you uttered one final, “Please.”

Joel bit back a groan. How could he deny you?

He couldn’t. Simple as that.

“You sure about this?”

Your fingers toyed with the curls at the nape of his neck. “I’m sure.”

“C’mere then, darlin’ girl.”

Joel cupped the side of your face in his large palm and tilted his head up towards yours. Your mouths fused together and although he tried to be gentle, it was proving to be much too difficult—how could he be gentle when you were practically clinging to him? Holding onto him with fervor as if you’d been holding onto dear fucking life itself?

Temperatures rising, you quickly shrugged out of his jacket, letting it fall to the floor behind you with a soft thud before wrapping your arms around him once again. You melted against him as your mouth molded to his in a perfect fit.

His teeth nipped at your bottom lip, silently asking for permission to explore the cavern even further.

Eagerly, your lips parted, granting him access. His tongue slipped past them, meeting yours in a slow and sensual heated dance.

You breathed him in deeply into your lungs, a little moan vibrating at the back of your throat.

Joel’s hands went to your waist and he yanked the hem of your blouse free from your skirt.

“Can I feel you, baby?” he asked, breathlessly. His mouth abandoned yours and he began to trail hot, open mouthed kisses underneath your jawline.

Dazed, all you could do was nod in reply.

Joel’s hands slipped under your blouse and he slid them up the length of your sides. “Fuck, you gotta be the softest fuckin’ thing,” he cursed against the delicate, tender flesh of your neck. His lips latched onto your pulse point, suckling at the skin there as his fingertips dug into your hips. He needed to feel more, but he forced himself to wait. The last thing he wanted was make a wrong move.

“Joel,” you mewled his name. “Joel, I need…”

You trailed off, moaning when his mouth released your skin with a loud, wet popping noise.

“Tell me, sweet girl. Tell me what you need and I’ll give it to you,” he promised. “Anythin’ you need or want, I’ll give it to you. Just say the fuckin’ word.”

“You, Joel. I need you—”

His hips involuntarily bucked upwards and you let out a startled gasp the moment you felt his bulge, hard as a rock, brush against your clothed cunt.

Tearing away from him, it suddenly hit you. You’re in a church, straddling a much, much older man in a pew—and if that wasn’t sinful enough, the warm and slick arousal pooling between your thighs only proved that you were ready to fall into temptation, give into the lust and give your body to Joel. But it was none of those things that worried you.

It was something else.

You pulled yourself out of his arms and jumped up off his lap, nearly tripping over your own two feet.

“Darlin’ are you—?”

You didn’t even hear the rest of his question.

Knees trembling, you somehow managed to make your way up to the altar. Heart pounding and head spinning, you planted both of your hands firmly on the table and steadied yourself. Part of you hoped that Joel would just get up and leave. But a bigger part of you hoped he wouldn’t.

Joel rose to his feet. “Listen, ain’t nothin’ wrong if you changed your mind, alright?”

“I didn’t,” you choked out. “That’s not it at all.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

Embarrassed, you tried to explain yourself. “I have never done anything like this before. I’m a—”

You couldn’t even bring yourself to say it out loud.

“You’re a what?”

Blazing heat flooded your face. “Joel, please don’t make me say it,” you groaned. “For the sake of my sanity, don’t make me say it.” You heard the sound of his brown leather boots as he walked up behind you, one heavy footstep after the other.

“Turn around.”

Joel’s command was firm but still gentle. 

Swallowing dryly, you obeyed and did as you were told. He stood close and you found yourself at eye level with his chest.

“Look at me.”

You tried, but couldn’t.

“I said, look at me.” Joel gingerly took your chin in between his thumb and index finger. He lifted your face, forcing your gaze to meet his own, timid and submissive meeting bold and dominant in a sweet and tender exchange. “Never known the lovin’ of a man, have you little dove?”

He backed you up against the table, pinning you in between it and himself. Planting both of his hands on either side of you, he caged you in and brought his chest flush against yours, pressing your bodies together.

Close, but somehow not close enough.

Joel lifted his hand to your cheek, cradling it in his palm. His thumb swept your quivering bottom lip.

You reached behind you, clutching at the fair linen as you tried with every fiber of your entire being to remind yourself that you were standing at the altar where your father preached and delivered all of his sermons to the faithful people of Jackson.

The very same altar where your father encouraged you to kneel and pray in effort to mend the broken relationship you had with God.

You couldn’t help but to think if you were to get on your knees tonight, it wouldn’t be for prayer.

“I asked you a question, darlin’.” Joel’s voice broke into your train of thought. “Need you to be a good girl and give me an answer, alright?”

“My father loves me,” you stammered out in reply. “He loves me and my sisters—”

“C’mon, baby.” He chuckled and shook his head at you, lightly pinching your cheek. “That ain’t what I mean and you damn well know it.”

Sighing softly, you finally answered, “No, Joel.”

“No what?”

“No, I’ve never known the loving of a man.”

Joel slipped the tip of his thumb between your lips and leaned into you, his hardness pressing against your upper thigh. Even through all the clothes, you could feel every inch of him. “Do you wanna know how it feels, baby? What it’s like for a man to make you his?”

You nearly moaned around his finger. “Yes.”

“Yes what?” he prompted, pulling his hand away.

“Yes, please.”

“I can show you.” Joel paused. “But not tonight.”

You stared at him in disbelief. Both of you were so clearly riled up and he was going to take a pass? Is that how sex worked?

He almost laughed. “Don’t give me that face.”

“But Joel—”

“I just don’t wanna rush it, not with you,” Joel said in a tone so soft it nearly threw you for a loop. “I’m gonna need you to be real patient for me, just for a while. You think you can do that, little dove? Think you can be patient for me?”

“Of course,” you breathed out.

You would wait an eternity for Joel Miller.

[jadequeen88]

First Date

Eddie Munson x fem!reader

Warnings: NSFW, 18+ ONLY, heavy petting, groping, slight hand job, dry humping

You both try to go slow, it's your first date after all. But it’s not as easy as it sounds when his hands are wandering and your lips are on his neck. Eddie has the top of your dress pulled down (he’d groaned dramatically when he realized you weren’t wearing a bra) and his body leans over yours, your thighs on either side of his hips and your back on the couch.

You knew you weren’t going all the way, but you’d told him he could take his jeans off. It was a selfish ask. It made it so that you could feel him better when you rubbed against him.

You suck lightly on his earlobe and Eddie gasps.

“Oh fuck.”

“Yeah?” you ask breathily, more tease than you would have guessed yourself capable of. He chuckles but it is half pant.

"Yeah."

You kiss his earlobe again, grazing your teeth lightly over the shell.

"I need to fuck you," he mutters, though he pulls back and away from your mouth. Eddie looks down at you with hazy. "But we're not fucking tonight, so I need a second to get my shit together."

While he takes a breath, he sits back on his heels, your legs still around his hips. He rests his hands heavy on your thighs and looks down at you in your amused, debauched state. It's absolutely not helping him calm down. Neither is the fact that he can't stop his hands from sliding up and squeezing over your exposed breasts.

"Fuck," Eddie mutters as he watches the supple flesh give and spill around his large fingers. His audible frustration makes you let out a giggle, and you notice that his cock twitches in his boxers at the sound. The sight has you ready to end this break, so you push him so that he's sitting against the back of the couch, clambering up to straddle him.

"You're hot," you mumble before kissing your way from his jaw to his lips. Your hand slides down his chest to rest on his abdomen. He cants his hips upward and the tip of his clothed cock taps your hand, obviously encouraging you to grasp it through the fabric. So of course you do.

"Shit, no you're hot."

You bite your lip to keep from arguing with him. He's calling you hot and if you're honest with yourself, you've never felt hotter than you do right now with his hands all over you, so you decide to go with it. Eddie hangs his head so he can watch you jerk him slowly through his boxers. It's hot and hard in your palm and you're sure to rub your thumb over the mushroom head, pleased to feel a little bit of sticky precum bleed through the cloth.

This is absolutely not what you'd assumed would happen when you agreed to spontaneously go on this first date earlier today. You'd guessed you would, at best, enjoy some good conversation and company. You hadn't anticipated agreeing to go back to his place after just a few drinks, but holy fuck are you glad that's the direction the night took.

It's not long before Eddie's hand drops over the back of yours, stopping your motion over his member.

"Baby...you're killing me. We might need to stop," he grunts. Contrary to his words, his hand continues to guide yours up and down his cock, making you laugh. Eddie's eyes flash up to yours in amusement.

"What's so funny?" he asks. You shake your head but keep laughing, so Eddie takes the opportunity to push you onto your back again. His hand cups between your legs, fingers pressing over where your clit should be. You lift your hips to seek out more friction, though you know it's a useless pursuit with how snug and thick your stockings are.

"Right there?" Eddie asks, pressing more pointedly. Your roll your hips, impatient.

"Yeah...under layers," you joke. His hand worms into the tight control panel waistband of your stockings so he can play with the top of your panties.

"You know," he says casually, as if his hand isn't between your legs making you melt. "I could go down on you."

You blink up at him.

"Huh?"

"I could go down on you," Eddie repeats, leaning down over you to kiss your neck. "If you want."

When you don't reply, Eddie pulls back to gauge your reaction. It spurs you to speak up.

"Nobody's ever done that before," you say quietly. Eddie continues to swirl his finger over the top of your panties, but the movement is gentle.

"Really?" he asks, voice colored with disbelief. You shrug and try not to show that you're embarrassed by the inexperience you're projecting. Eddie's having none of it. "I'd go down on you, baby."

You surge up then at his words and pull him into another deep kiss. It's all tongue and teeth with your hands in his hair, tugging hard. Eddie's hand pulls out of the waistband of your stockings so he can grip and grab at you wildly in response.

You do it so that it can distract him from the offer he was making. Because there's nothing you wanted more than to let him rip your stockings off your body and put that talented tongue to use at your apex. But you had promised yourself that - even if you were going to hook up pretty intensely - you weren't going to have sex on this first date.

Eddie finally pulls back to let you breathe, which you do with a gasp, and he rests his sweaty forehead to yours.

"Probably better not. If I go down on you...I'm pretty sure we'll end up fucking."

He says it with a smug grin on his face. Pure confidence that makes you laugh and want to contradict him, but you absolutely know the man is correct.

"Yeah, I guess that's right."

Eddie sits back up to give you room to do the same. You both sit facing the long dark television to catch your breath. Out of the corner of your eye you notice Eddie has his hand on his still hard dick, stroking softly. He catches you looking and shoots you a grin.

"Sorry, I'm so fucking tuned on." He's saying sorry but his thighs are manspread performatively and it's very clear he likes you watching him. Just as much as he likes watching your breasts bounce as you laugh and lean forward to kiss the tattoo on his pec. You rest your head against his shoulder so you can watch him touch himself for another few minutes before you sigh.

"I think I have to leave before I end up doing what I really want to do."

Eddie groans and stills his hand, moving it up instead to cradle your jaw, turning you towards him for one more lingering kiss.

"Let me call you a cab," he says against your lips and you nod.

While you run to the bathroom to adjust your dress and make sure it doesn't look like you'd just dry humped Eddie Munson for an hour, the man in question puts his jeans back on. You walk out to find him adjust his still hard cock in the confines of the garment, wincing.

"Alright there, champ?" you ask him with a grin. The cab honks its arrival out front.

"I will be jerking off the minute you leave, just know," he says matter-of-factly as he leads you out the door. "I don't know if girls need to do that, but I'm pretty much gonna die if I can't cum after all that."

He says it good-naturedly and for once in all of your dating life, you don't feel pressured or shamed. Just extremely flattered to have this kind of effect on him.

At the bottom of his front step you turn and place a hand on the side of his neck and pull him down closer to you.

"I don't need to make myself cum. But I'm definitely going to," you whisper into his ear before running off to the cab, sparing him one cheeky look over your shoulder so you can bask in his dumbfounded expression.

~*~

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Hope you enjoyed! Please let me know if you did!

[jadequeen88]

Finally catching up on this 😍🥰 I can’t WAIT to read more today!

Not Wholly Evil |IV| pirate!eddie

a/n so sorry for the long wait. Let this be a celebration of the beginning of summer :) and lets hope for many fics to come (i cant make any promises tho) I hope you enjoy this chapter!!! Please remember to support by reblogging and leaving comments on what you think of the story <3

Series Masterlist

word count: 7.5k

"semi dark fic" - READ the warnings:. (gun/sword)violence. blood. mention of severe wounds. minor character death. allusions to suicide. kidnapping. imprisonment. alcohol. open and deep sea. pirates are pigs: mentions of non-con, but it does not actually occur. malnourishment and weight loss. paranoia. mention of poisoning. abuse. manhandling. lying. religious (Christian) references.

There might be a mention of other ST characters, and for plot sake, everyone is an adult here, just coz I don't want fetus pirates running around, but they are not really relevant to the plot.

Chapter 4: Columba 

A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?" Pointless, really..."Do the stars gaze back?" Now, that's a question. ― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

‘We’re… lost?’ You stared blankly ahead.

‘I’ll admit, lost is a strong word, princess— Misdirected feels more accurate. Sailing off-course.’ 

You stammered for a response to the confession you just heard. ‘How– How could we be off-course?’ The captain’s words had not fully come through to you yet, perhaps by his casual stance and lack of urgency for a solution or panic. He stood there, arms behind his back, studying his map like one of the painting hanging on the Queen’s wall. And yet, according to this man, you were heading into uncharted waters. You have been heading towards them for God knows how long.  

‘It is quite simple. Here–’ he was still analysing the markings on the wall as he spoke, and he must have wanted you to step closer, for he looked at you expectedly. Something around his mouth twitched when he looked your way. The eye contact was piercing both ways with so much said between the two of you, and yet not a single word had been exchanged. With two ringed fingers, he pulled an invisible string that he hoped would have some effect on you. 

It did not. 

All you did was raise a brow in your expectation, ready to see what the captain would do now. Arms crossed, you remained in your place. 

‘Do not make me come over there, princess.’ 

‘Do not make me come over there, Munson.’ The words were bitter but tasted sweet, like honey on your lips. If you had blinked, and as luck would have it, you did not, you would have missed the captain’s reaction; a deep breath in as he hollowed out his cheeks, pushing back any clearer indications of frustrations or signs of weaknesses. The patience ran out of his dark eyes. Then, with a stretch of his neck, he returned to his first problem as if the short interaction between you had never occurred. He sounded entirely unphased as he, despite your distance, went to explain the conundrum. ‘Several days ago, the Hellfire stumbled upon a certain ship,’ he tapped one of his fingers on a small mark south of the map. It then dawned on you that, by surrendering to your stubbornness, he had won the bigger battle. Your curiosity was gaining on you, and from where you stood, you could not put much more meaning to his words, as the islands around it were unfamiliar. He knew this and could tell you were frustrated with yourself, but you were too stubborn to walk up and look at what he was showing you… yet where you stood now was no good either. The captain continued explaining as if you were right by his side, not addressing anything else of the situation. ‘Tonight, we were meant to have only been a week’s travel away from our destination–’ your home. This shocked you, for before, you had no indication of how much longer it would take—a week. What was supposed to have been a week is now an undetermined eternity as the ship sailed on.

The mention of your home hit you at the deepest level, overshadowing any other emotions you felt. Any stubbornness was pushed aside for anger as you crossed the room. 

Nothing was exchanged as you moved past the desk towards the captain. He did not look your way, but the grin on his face was undeniable. You could still feel it when he brought you closer to him with a quick pull, shaking you around practically like a rag-doll. You now stood between him and the map, his shoulder against your back. His breath on your neck. His muscles brushed over you as he moved his arm to point out the locations on the map. The flash of heat coming over you could not have been anything but the anger you felt at yourself for letting this happen.

‘To sum up, we met here, darling,’ he reached to tap the map again at a southern point, bringing himself closer to you with the excuse to reach the chart. His chin practically leaned on your shoulder, and his hot breath became overbearing to all your senses. All you could focus on were the rings that adorned his fingers in front of you—one of the few aspects of him you could always trust to remain constant. You watched him move his hand across. ‘—were meant to arrive here—,’ One straight line towards home with a dark, blotted circle on top of it. It made you wonder how long that ink sat upon the canvas. Had he written it once you came aboard, or had he been planning something much longer? Had your abduction been a plan all along? It was hard to imagine but not impossible. 

‘And now we’re… well, God knows where we are,’ he chuckled with wicked amusement, and you did not see the humour in being lost at sea. You did, however, see the irony of him speaking of God. He, a Satan’s spawn himself. It is ridiculous to think that he had the gumption to speak the Lord’s name so casually, especially with him being who he is. It simply did not sit right with you.

However, none of your concerns seemed to have drawn his attention as Munson went on: ‘I felt something was wrong as we were supposed to have arrived at Escondrijo last night, a rest stop we often sail past,’ he read out the name of this island right at your skin, the S slithering from his tongue onto you in shivers. ‘I thought maybe my calculations were simply off; the wind, after all, had not been the kindest. Of course, it could have been a delay– but alas.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘What we stumbled across was–’ He slammed his fist into the map, making you jump at the extreme action,  ‘Such a useless piece of land no one bothered to give it a name!’ He laughed away his frustrations, which chilled you to the bone. ‘Not even the damned sould that live there.’

Damned. That’s what he was. What all of you were as the ship sailed on.

You tried to take in everything that he had just told you. All the locations he had pointed to. Considering the unknown status of your location, the world must have turned upside down for you to arrive here. The fact the Hellfire had stumbled upon the nameless island must have been dumb chance in itself, and just as quickly as it had made itself shown, it was now becoming nothing more than a memory. 

Still, this island could be anywhere on the map, but it must have been close to the planned destination. The climate would have raised suspicions much earlier if it had been otherwise. And that is precisely what you suggested to the captain, hoping that giving him some kind of positive idea would direct him away from the anger he must be feeling. Not to mention, at this moment, you were both in trouble, in danger, and the only way out of it was to help him… as much as you disliked the idea of doing so. It was the only option. 

‘Yes, exactly. All my calculations had been perfect. That is why this is all so perplexing.’ 

You could name several more reasons why the situation was “perplexing”, including one thing you did not yet understand: 

‘Why did we even leave the harbour? Why not stay and orient yourself?’ There were people there, other sailors; naturally, someone could have helped track the right direction to sail onward to. Someone there might have had more information. Anything. 

And yet, the ship had already set sail into the abyss of the night. You could hear the waves sloshing around you, and when you turned around, the fiery light coming from the island was thinning on the horizon. 

‘You overestimate the usefulness of a drunken man. Or the charitability of a passerby in a midnight alley.’ Munson spoke, ‘Or perhaps, you simply underestimate my willingness to find a solution, for that matter. As if I did not try to ask for help—because, whatever you may think of me, I am not ashamed of seeking out outside recourses—’ There was that clicking sound of his tongue that announced nothing but smugness. Next thing you know, his arms had snaked their way down, wrapped around your middle, trapping your arms within his hold. His lips were at your ear, freezing you like a spell. ‘And here I thought you would know me better by now.’

You wished you did too, but the truth was much more brutal. With every moment you spent in the captain’s presence, he only seemed to be becoming more and more of a mystery to you. None of your million questions regarding the notorious Captain Munson had been answered. 

With a slow intake of breath, you spoke to him as calmly as possible: ‘Get off of me.’ 

‘Mmm,’ he hummed, swaying you back and forth, enhancing the ship's movements, ‘I don’t think I want to, princess.’ In reality, it was a loose grip that held no power, authority, or fear over you. All it did was plague you with his touch, scent, and sound; it was all over. You could feel him everywhere. The heat of his body was radiating onto you, boiling you alive. 

From this position, you could not see his face. Your peripheral vision only gave you a blurry profile of his features without indicating what he was doing. You both stood there for a long moment, looking at the map as if it would reveal some secret message. Something to magically guide you back on the right path. It was quiet around, with nothing else but the waves outside, the fire of the candles in the room flickering, and two pairs of lungs breathing. Two hearts, beating fast. 

His grip loosened, but you did not move. Too scared that any movement would remind him of you. Although, maybe he had not forgotten but simply lost interest, for the captain took a step forward, passing you right by. His eyes were locked in on a spot on the map. 

This silence had given you one thing, and it was the time to think. Maybe not clearly—that was barely ever possible with him around—but long enough to devise a train of thought. With that, one more question struck you. 

 ‘Why tell me all of this?’ Was he confessing this all to you because he was not planning on having you stick around for much longer? Airing out a confession to a soul that he had already sentenced, either way, leaving no trace of his mishappening behind? If that was the case, you had to leave this room quickly. Tell someone about all of this…Because what stopped you from going out there and telling everyone that their captain had failed them? Led them to be stranded at sea. This may be what you need. This may get them on your side. Maybe– 

‘Oh, it is wonderful how your mind works, princess.’ He turned around on his heels, and his hands found your shoulders, dug in like claws, shaking you lightly. Shaking you straight out of your escapist fantasy. ‘Truly, fascinating.’ The two last words burned with a growl. He chuckled a little bit more before redirecting himself towards his desk. The captain did not bother walking around the desk. Instead, he sat down on it and let his legs swing around, knocking several stacks of parchment onto the floor in the process. He did not even look down at the mess he caused. Instead, he slightly bent back to look down. His eyes shot down, an eyebrow was raised, and then he looked back at you. 

‘Nosy, were we, darling?’ There was a metal twinkle that piqued your interest, and you noticed the silver key hanging around his neck. He pulled it off and unlocked the drawer you had been toying with before his arrival. 

Had it surprised you that he pulled out a bottle of rum? 

Slightly. 

But you watched the captain uncork the bottle and take a large sip as he sat on the armrest of his throne. He was sloppy, and the liquid spilt down his chin. He was wiping it off as he extended his other arm towards you, inviting you for a drink. When you did not respond, the captain shrugged, mumbled something about stubbornness, and drank until barely anything was left. He put the bottle on the disorganised desk and roughly wiped his mouth with his sleeve. 

 He let out a satisfied sigh. ‘Mmm. Now, where was I,’ he tapped his fingers on his thigh, trying to remember the last seconds. Once he did so, he laughed.

‘It is so easy to think that one tiny mistake could cause a man’s respect, but these men—together with me, may I add—have been through a lot. We are a family, sweetheart, and family isn’t so easy to get rid of. No matter how hard or often you try.’ His dark eyes pierced through yours. ‘So, I hope you do not set your hopes on a mutiny too high because that just won’t happen. If my men wanted to get rid of me, they would have done so long ago. 

‘I’ve made much bigger mistakes that could have cost me my head, yet…’ he knocked his knuckles on the side of his skull, giving you an almost apologetic expression, indicating that he was still present and accounted for. ‘I’m sure they’re all aware of our little problem by now. Hell, it’s their fault, but I don’t want to vex them with this. They have enough work on their plates.’ 

‘So?’ You did not see the point of this anymore, not believing that he had no one in his crew that could help him right now. That would have been more helpful than you.

‘So,’ he mocked your inquisitive tone. ‘Out of everyone on board, you’re probably the last that needs a good night sleep–or at least can miss one.’ 

You wanted to argue with him, call him a monster for depriving you of simple decency such as a night’s rest, but then it dawned on you that he might have actually been right. While the floor gave you no comfort, you had, in a way, the luxury of sleeping as long as, and whenever, you pleased. Meanwhile, the crew got barely any sleep and then had to work most of the day to keep the ship afloat. That was a rationalisation of yet another lost battle, at least. 

‘Even if I did want to help you,’ you sighed in defeat, ‘how could I?’ You didn’t know how to steer a ship, let alone guide one back onto a correct route in the middle of the deep waters at night. Munson looked at you, still very much amused, and clearly held back his tongue with a comment on your words. Instead, he answered your question genuinely. Possibly doing so for the first time.

‘It is the middle of the night; the sky is clear,’ he spoke as if this all led to the most obvious of conclusions, ‘why not let the stars guide you?’ 

‘What makes you think I know how to?’ Did he think you had any experience in this field? ‘Well, I doubt you keep looking up there just because the stars shine oh-so charmingly.’ 

‘You do not think the night sky to be beautiful?’ You asked curiously. It would explain so much about the captain if he could not appreciate the simple beauty of such things. But, the man threw you in for a loop.

‘I do, but I also know it has many more functions than decor. You must know it too.’

‘I do.’ That was basic enough knowledge that you had picked up on as a young child, but was that it? Just because you were fascinated by the heavens did not mean you had any expert knowledge on the subject. Besides, where would you have even been able to acquire it? ‘And this makes you think I can steer us back on the right path?’

‘Call it intuition.’

‘And on the principles of your intuition,  you dare to put your fate in the hands of a…prisoner?’ You had never heard of such a tale for a captain to let his prisoner take the lead on the ship. Giving him their trust.

‘I think we are past such formalities, are we not?’ Were you? He must have read the doubt on your face, for he took the task of explaining: ‘You are no longer locked away; you have the freedom to go anywhere on this ship. I brought you a delicious meal—which I would still like to have received some gratitude for, but that is beside the point—and now I am asking you for your help. Some would say you are going up the ranks quite swiftly, princess.’

‘Funny, I do not recall you asking for my help at all? Just being locked away in a room for hours and given no choice but to do as you say.’

‘The pirate life!’ Munson spread his arms wide, slipping down into the seat of his thrown. You thought it would be futile to argue with him, seeing what humour he was in. The way he had just devoured the bottle of rum would not be helping your case.

‘Why me then? Why not do it yourself since you seem to know as much as me about the stars?’ You thought it would be easier and faster if he had done the work independently. It would already cost less time not to go through this discussion.

Like a thunderbolt, anger struck his face. ‘Because, I say so,’ he snarled before returning to his previous self, ‘and I thought you might like having something to occupy yourself with. Pushing around crates must become boring after sometime, does it not?’ 

‘How do you–’ He had seen what you had done with the lower deck. But… when would he have had the chance? You could not recall many instances, if any, of the captain coming down to see you after he freed you from your cell.

He pushed himself up from the throne and walked back over to you. Then, he began walking in circles around you, and you tried to keep up with him, but it quickly strained your neck. ‘Yes, I know all about your organizing down there. And about your inquiring nature.’ He nodded over to the desk you had tried to pry open. Something must have given it away. He clicked his tongue.  ‘Remember whose ship you’re on, darling. There is nothing that goes by around here without me knowing about it. If you do something, it’s because I let you do it.’

‘I hardly believe that.’

 ‘Well, believe this then: on any other ship, you could have gotten into a lot of trouble if someone caught you going through another man’s things—’

  ‘Don’t try and tell me all of that is yours. I know you stole it off other ships.’ You rolled your eyes. Munson played a victim, placing a hand over his chest, pausing in front of you with his big eyes, imitating hurt. 

‘Some of it very well may be. This,’ he flicked the collar of the shirt you were wearing, ‘for sure is.’ His fingers grazed at your skin, brushing over your throat hastily. ‘I could have you hung, you know. Or at least take off a few fingers.’

‘I doubt it considering you need me in one piece if you want my father’s money.’ 

‘Did you know there are hundreds of other man out there who’d pay double for a pretty face like yours?’ He waited for a crack to reveal the fear on your face and didn’t say anything until it showed. ‘Not to mention, I would not be risking arrest with them. Luckily, I am a man of my word. So, to your daddy you shall return.’ He reached for your shirt collar again, flattening it out carefully with a smile that could make you forget any of the horrific things he had just spoken of. ‘As I was saying, darling… I have a feeling you’d rather not end up like the other dirty thieves, so be a doll and prove to me that there was a use in letting you out of your cell after all.’ 

There it was. The reason for all of this. This was your punishment. Or some kind of redemption. He caught you going through his belonging, and now you had to pay for it— and pay with performing something you already felt to be impossible. 

 With him standing in front of you, hand still on your shoulder, you looked him directly in the eye. ‘How long do I have?’ 

The captain puckered his lips in thought and looked out the window. ‘As long as you can make use of the stars. Then I would really like to get back on course.’

Until sunrise, however long that could be.  You had a few hours to find your current location and a path back to where you were headed. 

‘What if I can’t do it?’ you pushed the question out of your tightening throat, scared of what the answer might be. 

‘That is no mindset for you, princess.’ He brushed some hair out of your face. ‘You’re too smart for that. Now go on; no need to waste even more time.’ And with that, he set you on your way. Or, more accurately, he let go of you and made his way to the bed on the opposite side of the room. In the meantime, you felt like your feet were nailed to the ground, unsure of what to do next, scared of taking the wrong steps. All you could do was look around as if the answers were hidden in the cabin. It had not even been a minute, and you could feel your heart getting stuck in your throat, panic setting in. To give up had never been a feasible option for you before, and it still pained you to think of doing it, but the words were ready to leave your mouth. You win. Your lips parted, and your vocal cords croaked when you noticed something. 

The letters were partly worn from contact but still reflected in the light. Either way, it wasn’t so much the letters that spoke to you, as you could not clearly read it from a distance, but the symbol above it. A golden star set on top of a leather book spine, winking at you in the fire.

Now with much more confidence, you took the needed strides towards the bookcase. It was pitch black leather, wrapped in a string to keep the delicate pages together. The book was situated on a lower shelf, pressed between other volumes, making it hard to remove. 

‘Need help with that, princess?’ Munson sounded from behind you.

Instead of responding, you pulled at the book again, and this time, it fell out from the shelf with a stir as a pile of books near it moved about. Still giving no reaction to the words spoken, you got up and moved to the desk, unwrapping the tie from around the covers and letting it fall open in front of you. The pages were nearly pristine, the ink dark, as if it had never seen the light of day. This ink depicted excellent illustrations of creatures and men. 

Despite being ignored by you, for once, the captain kept his distance and let you work while you searched for the correct pages. You could tell from notes that this was definitely the book you needed, as it told you everything you had to know, but the writing was small and not always legible. The pages were thin but rough to the touch. The writing was small, fitting as much information as the writer could cram between the covers. Most of it felt familiar, bringing you back to tales you had heard from your father or the governess. But navigating oneself with the stars' help required much knowledge and skill you still needed to possess. 

You tried to focus on it as much as you could, and yet, despite the silence and the space between you, you couldn’t stop glancing his way. The captain lay on the bed, his head toward the door, facing you. Each time your eyes met, you pulled yourself away from it, returning to the words and drawings on the pages, but you could constantly feel his gaze on you. It was unnerving. It was as if he was standing right there in front of you.

‘I promise you, I will be more effective if I do not have to endure your constant breathing down my neck.’ Maybe it was your surprisingly peaceful few hours in solitude on board, the tankard of ale streaming through your blood, or even the overall situation placing the captain in a new light, but you felt bold. ‘So, will you please stop staring.’ You looked up, not even surprised to see him still looking directly at you.

‘What would you rather have me do, darling?’ he asked, almost affectionately… though that could not possibly be what it was.

‘For you to leave, and do not call me darling,’ you dared to express. 

‘You want me to leave my own quarters?’ He raised a brow in humour. 

‘Yes, that is exactly what I want,’ you explained. 

‘Ah, well,’ he threw his hands up, rolling his eyes, ‘if it is exactly what the lady wants, that leaves me with very few options, doesn’t it?’ You watched him walk towards the door, perplexed at the ease with which he moved, …just to swerve around and lean against the door. ‘Oh, no, I suppose it doesn’t.’ He shrugged. 

You did your best not to pay attention to whatever the captain was doing—which, in that instance, seemed to be humming some song. You did not recognise it, nor did you have a need to learn it. Especially since, at this moment, any sound from him boomed in your ears like a canon. 

‘Must you be doing that? I am trying to concentrate for your own ship’s sake, if you do not recall.’ 

‘Apologies.’ He stopped, but the energy transferred into his legs, which shook his whole body with them, only softening the sound slightly, but the creaking of the wooden panels underneath him wasn’t much better. You couldn’t do this any longer. 

The only thing on your mind was frustration as you slammed the book shut, picked it up and walked towards the door. The captain took one smooth step to the side and, when you pulled at the door handle, had expected it to remain in its bolts, but it opened so quickly that your slight pull was enough to throw you sideways. The night darkness welcomed you together with the cold sea air and confusion.

‘How long has this been open?’ You did not want to look at him and did not need to. You could tell what kind of smile he wore and how he must have enjoyed this moment as he answered. 

‘Ever since I came back, princess.’ You could have left any time. You just took a deep breath and counted to three before turning his way and calmly saying something you had thought ever since your eyes fell upon him.

Well, at least better late than never. You stepped out onto the quarter deck without closing the door behind you. A man was half-asleep at the wheel, his entire body leaning on it. Luckily, someone had blocked it, avoiding the ship sailing in circles. 

Besides the sleeping helmsman, no one else seemed to be above deck, most likely in their beds as deep night had arrived. There were no lights besides the fire lit in the captain’s office, so you let the darkness take you as you walked down the stairs…. But midway, as the light from the captain’s cabin remained in the distance, you realised your mistake. 

‘For Heaven’s sake,’ you muttered under your breath and turned back around, climbing the steps, ignoring the burning hatred you felt in your body. Then, with an exaggerated sigh, you trotted your way back in. While your steps felt heavy, protesting your return into the room mentally, it was strange to walk so freely without all the layers your dress consisted of. With only a shirt over your upper body, you could feel each punch of the air on you, but in a strange sense, you welcomed it. 

But stepping back inside, you felt your body heat up again, mainly from embarrassment rather than the soft fire lighting up the cabin. It had not even been a minute, and you were passing the threshold again. You had not expected, nor wanted, to have returned so soon. If luck was ever in your favour, you would never see the interior in your life again, but, unfortunately, there was no escaping from this room for you, as you seemed to be coming back no matter what.

‘Back so soon, princess?’ In the short time of your absence, Munson had returned to the bed and tilted his head at your entrance, grinning, ‘You must have missed me more than I thought.’ 

You scoffed, ‘for your information,’ and grabbed a lantern on a dressing table closest to the door… which was still too many steps inside for your liking, ‘I am simply gathering some light. It is too dark outside, I cannot read what's on the pages.’

‘Ah. Is that all then?’ he asked, returning his head onto his pillow, closing his eyes as if he was ready for sleep, ignoring his clothes and the stoic position in which he lay. But as you moved around the cabin, he had opened one eye to look your way. ‘I’d suggest you take a jacket, princess. It can be quite cold out there.’

‘You could have made a fine gentleman, Munson.’ You held your head high, not looking at him. ‘It is a shame you let yourself deteriorate at sea like your ship.’ 

‘That actually almost hurt me, darling. I’m impressed.’ He chuckled, eyes already closed again. With nothing else to say, you passed the large wardrobe and walked straight out of the room. Once again, you walked down the stairs, celebrated when your feet touched the last step and walked onto the ship's centre. Along with the crashing of the waves, you could hear each of your footsteps. 

Something must have been in your favour, for the sky was without a cloud and in the darkness of the ship, you could see millions of stars twinkling. The moon was still but a sliver. It brought a similar-looking smile to your face. 

You searched for the page you had deemed the most useful beginning and spread the book in your arm. Now, with the book open in your arm, with the flames lighting the pages from above, you gazed up at the stars. After a short moment, this position would not be possible to uphold. The two objects you held were too strong to keep up in the air. Remaining as calm as possible, ultimately pressing the captain out of your mind, you reread the pages. 

To navigate through the stars, one must first find Polaris—the brightest star in the sky, right at the end of the Ursa Minor. The sky was clear, handing you the constellations on an onyx platter. The silver balls of fire were peppered around like crystals, gleaming and shimmering, but without a doubt, there was one that shined just a little bit brighter, calling to you with the direction of True North.

You had heard men talk of these methods at home and aboard the Red Tail, and they had always sounded relatively simple. If anything, you considered their constant complaints simply a part of manhood. Now that you were straining out your neck to look around at all the corners of the galaxy, you still did not think it to be much more complicated and so knew that the captain could not have felt any other way. 

You had figured out his plan to punish you, and now the rationale behind this specific task came to you. It would not have been unexpected if he tasked you with this hassling job simply because he was too much of a sloth to do so himself. There was still a dim light in the office quarters, so you assumed he had not gone to sleep yet… or perhaps fallen asleep with all the candles still flickering. For a moment, your mind wandered to where the candles tipped over, caught some of the wood around, and never stopped burning.

Just for a moment, until your lantern started to feel hot against you as you held it too close. It felt so heavy.  You had to set it on the ground, then sat down beside it with the book in your lap. 

Some time passed, but who knew how long precisely you had been sitting out there. Your knees had started to hurt, as well as your spine, but giving up was not an option. The ship swayed back and forth against the waves, blurring your view, only making things more complicated. The wind kept lashing out, but you persisted, trying to calculate the ship's position, flipping back through the book to the pages on which a map had been etched out. You would do this if it was the last thing you did. 

‘I will be done by sunrise, ’ you shouted as you heard footsteps behind you. The jingle of chains could have only been one person. You wiped some hair away that the wind blew in your face as you felt the captain’s presence behind you—like a deathly spectre hovering over you. ‘I– I promise.’ You said so more to yourself. Because while you had to prove yourself to him to live, you needed to prove to yourself that you could do this. You would persist and manage to find a way back home. 

The captain said nothing; he did not linger around, watching you. The only thing he did, was throw down a large coat onto the ground, which fell onto the floorboards next to you with a thud. You blinked slowly, then turned around to him, but he was already returning to the cabin. 

‘It will all be pointless if you freeze to death.’ And with that, he took his last steps and shut the door behind him. The light in his room immediately blackened, obscured by the stained glass in the small door window. 

You looked down at the jacket. Like all those the captain wore, it was black but heavily layered. Decorated in what seemed like hand-stitched gold but not in any fashionable manner. The stitching was uneven and needed a clear pattern. The sleeves were falling apart but tied together with what once must have been a silver necklace. Several of them, even. You glanced once more in the direction of the captain’s cabin before putting the coat on. It swallowed you up but immediately brought over a sense of comfortable heat over your body. The soft material protected you against the wind. Now not feeling like your bones were becoming icicles, you began to feel some pleasure in the whole thing. As you kept working, you slowly forgot why you sat in the middle of the ship and let yourself be emersed by the stars. Being out there on your own was actually freeing in a strange sense. The darkness locked you out of your extended surroundings, placing you virtually anywhere.

Well, not anywhere. The constellations held the password to where you found yourself, and you would decrypt it anytime now. 

But first, you needed to stretch your legs. The cracking of your joints was enough of a sign that you had sat on that floor long enough. With the lantern in hand, you walked in circles around the ship. The light swung in motion to your steps, in motion to the waves. When you looked out at the sea, you were greeted with two moons. One hung still in the sky while her sister swam in the waters. Mirrored images of each other, smiling and frowning in both directions, but never in reach. Conflicted, perhaps or maybe they simply managed to show you bits of yourself there?

You wanted to say something to them as you stood there, but no words felt right. So, peaceful silence it was. However, the longer you stood there, the more of an effect you thought from the hours you spent on the deck. And there was still so much you had to do. But you could do it. 

Rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, you leaned against the railing, placing the lantern beside you. The yawn pushed passed your lips without a choice but plenty of resistance. If you stayed there, you would probably fall asleep soon, which is ineffective. So, you grabbed the light, and with your free hand deep in your pocket to keep warm, you returned to your star gazing spot. But not one step in your brisk walk back, you halted. A feeling of something cold and hard against your hand occupied your entire mind there and then. When you pulled it out, you were unsure what it was, but the mechanism must have worn out through the years because it fell open in your hand, revealing a rose. Its arrow pointing right at you. 

A compass. 

Your head immediately shot toward the captain’s cabin, but the lights had gone out, and there was nothing more to make out of the darkness. Your eyes shut into narrow slits. He had brought you his own jacket and must have known what was in it. 

The question now was, why? Why did he give it to you? Was he trying to help you by giving you this tool? Did he think you needed help to get anywhere? Well, you certainly did not. Especially when it could be a trap. The device could very well be defective and put you on the wrong trail, and then, if you were to give the captain the wrong directions, you knew he would not waste a second by punishing you. And this time, correctly. 

Still, according to your calculations, North was meant to be behind you, so in that, the compass was correct, but you did not want to risk anything. An instinct told you to throw the thing away, right over the railing into the sea. Let it sink and make the captain watch. Just like you had to watch, your own ship disappear into the waters. It would have been a small taste of revenge, but it was a start. 

The idea faded as soon as you shut the compass. You looked at the engraving on it—a detailed depiction of a bird–which kind, you could not quite tell. Perhaps a hawk… could it be… no, you doubted it was a Redtail. It could not be. The simple idea of that brought chills down your spine. How could Munson possess such an item; engraved with your town’s crest? 

And it was old. As you had noticed, the clip keeping the two halves together was tethering on falling apart from frequent use, and the window of the rose was cracked. The metal of the shell had finger marks faded into it from the usual position it was held in by hands much larger than yours. 

Not wanting to see it again, you pushed the compass deep down the pocket you had found it in. Determined to have the images erased from your mind by the rest of your task and the time pressure put on it, you retrieved your book. 

It was harder done than said.

As you stood there, book and fire in hand, spinning around to position the stars as you pleased, the tiny silver lights blurred in your eyes. But you were so close, you could not stop now, not when you were so close. Ignoring the burn of the compass at your thigh as your mind whirred with solutions. With North decided for, and with the latitude… no longitude— and if the charts were pointed this way— then, God, you could not keep this book up anymore. Your arm screamed from the weight of the pages. 

Back on the ground, you resumed your final observations. Flipping between the map and the charts, exchanging glances with the book and stars. Yes, if that was North, then… then… you checked the map once more, locating your home definitively. 

You did it. You actually did it. It could have been minutes, maybe hours; you could not tell with certainty how much time you had spent on the task, but as you shut the book, so did your body. You fell back onto the deck with a tired smile. It could have been the fatigue, but the stars shone slightly brighter for you, gleaming with pride. 

They also became blurrier. Your eyes turned heavy. But you kept staring up with a smile. At least, you do not remember ever stopping. Even if it is possible you fell asleep at some point, you could not tell at what point exactly. All you knew was that you dreamt. And for once, your mind was free of nightmares. As much as your world was free of them, at least. But it had to be a dream. 

How else would he appear out of the shadows?  Why else did you see him looking down at you; impossible to tell for how long. His features free of anger, mischief or bad intentions, unnatural. He stood there at the balustrade next to the helm. It was impossible to tell how long he had stood there in the dark. 

And his walk. It was utterly silent, free of chains or heavy steps. That could have been only your brain letting you rest. His touch was feather soft as he picked you up in his arms. 

You shouldn’t have stayed out here this long. He sighed in disappointment, but not in you.

You told me to— you mumbled. 

I know. The floor became unstable. You were floating in the air, rising up. Only his hold there to keep you grounded. The one time you should have been stubborn and not listen. Why did you not just go to bed?

I want to go home, Eddie. Why else would you say this if it was not a dream? You could never imagine yourself opening up to him this way. Let him carry you like that. And if you had, it would never feel this good or safe to be held by him. 

I know. He repeated himself. There was a shift. No longer in his arms, you were floating on a cloud, but his voice echoed around you. I’m sorry.

None of this could have been real. These could not be the words of captain Munson. But they still stayed with you as your dreams ventured on into other stories. All just as pleasant, the nightmares of all the nights before merely bad memories, never to be repeated again. 

I did it, you said quickly before he disappeared, to be replaced by your new figment. North East. Go Northeast.

Here is your final reason. The proof you had dreamt it all. A silent moment, full of hesitation. Then, a fluttering touch of lips on your forehead and a hand brushing your cheek gently. If this had been real life, you would have turned away and let yourself burn in anger, but instead, your lips formed into a smile, and for the first time in forever, you felt at peace. 

And just like that, like in any other dream, he was gone while your mind brought you to other fantastical places and told you stories you would not remember. It was a night of wondrous bliss, of rest. Filled with dreams as the stars watched over you. 

Only at daybreak did it all change. When the morning sun glowed golden through the large window. Only at that moment you began thinking that maybe, just maybe, you were wrong. Perhaps not all of it had been a dream, for when you woke up, you were not on the ship's deck nor down in your cell. When you woke up, you did so in a bed.

The captain’s bed, of all places. 

Chapter 5

thank you so much for reading!! if you want more of where this came from, check out my masterlist.

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[jadequeen88]

WHAT A WILD RIDE. I cannot wait for the next chapter!! You’ve outdone yourself with this story!😘😘

eddie x Fem! Reader

honey I’m home masterlist

TW: 18+ hospitals, trauma, crying, etc

A/N: this is a short little chapter. the next one will be longer— thank you for hanging onto this story even though it took me forever to get it started. I have most of the next chapter done so it’ll probably be posted next week.

The blue and red lights are blinking in rapid succession. Painting the curtains in washes of ruby and royal. 

  The sirens should have been loud but Eddie figured it was the blood trickling down his head and into his ear canal that was preventing him from hearing clearly. 

  He fought with the first responders. 

  Fought with the people fussing over him and trying to rush him into an ambulance. 

  He refused to leave you. 

  He didn’t need to be cared for. 

  He didn’t care about anything. 

  Only you.

  Mr. Derry’s loud knock and burst through the door was the exact distraction needed for Eddie to grip the bat in his bloody hand. 

  Rings squeezing tight around blood and the wooden handle, he swung hard. A suddenly athlete in a smokers body. He felt the thuds and friction vibrating in his forearms when the nailed head connected with flesh. But he didn’t stop until there were two crumpled bodies collapsed on the red stained carpet. 

  And when the ambulance crew met him at the door, gurney ready, you were wrapped tight in his arms. A faint pulse echoed like a whisper against your skin. Eddie’s tears streaming down his face and onto yours. 

  His promise pressed delicately to your lips.

—

  “What have we got?” 

  “According to the patient’s friend, she is twenty-one-year, sir! you need to be looked at, and lived by herself for the past few months..” 

  I’m fine! Jesus— get off me and help her! 

  “…call came in at 2208 from a Mr. William Derry— the neighbor— claiming there were screams coming from across the street of his residence on Cherry Lane. Dispatch didn’t think to respond right away due to the many calls Mr. Derry has submitted to the Police Department.”

  “Sir, I am not telling you again, you need to be checked out!” 

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “When nobody showed up, the neighbor went across the street after hearing more screaming. Patient was held up by her throat by the DOA”

  “Bill has him in truck 011, ID found on the body confirmed he was Chad Cunningham.” 

—-

Eddie is standing before you, looking the same has he did the morning g after Halloween. It’s similar but different. There’s more light in the kitchen, and he is rosy cheeked like a cherub, his movements almost floating like angel wings as he moves the carton of orange juice hp to his lips, small glints of a silver nipple ring peaking out from the cutoff shirt he wore. 

  When he speaks, it’s like a harp is playing, all song and beautiful notes, extending and echoing around the room. 

  “So when do I get this trophy sweetheart?” He says with a grin, “thinking of putting on a shelf in my room,” 

  Your laugh feels like butterflies tickling your stomach, “you can’t be serious.” 

  His head dips as he walks towards you, smile displaying the prettiest teeth, “damn straight, want the whole town to know I had the best costume!”

  “Stolen costume,”

  “Pppffft, I just borrowed it.” the wink he delivers is almost sinful, toothachingly sweet enough to give a dentist a cavity, and you melt on the spot. 

— 

“Miss? Can you tell us your name? Can you tell us anything?” 

  Sterile. 

  Chemical.

  You were either in a hospital or a morgue. You didn’t feel any pain so it very likely could be the worst of the two options. Whatever you were laying on was cold. And when you tried to move you found you couldn’t. 

  Is this death?

  Eyelids heavy and unable to cooperate and make the connection with your brain on flicking open so you could see what was happening. 

  The only thing constant was a buzzing in both ears. A tug along your eyelids and rubber glove fingers on your body. But you were trapped in your mind, unable to speak, to scream, to show any physical movements other than the involuntary rise and fall of your chest and your lungs being filled with oxygen, fed through flexible plastic of the oxygen mask placed on your face. 

  Oblivious to your surroundings. 

  “Severe trauma to both eyes, laceration to the back of the head, severe swelling and possible damage to the larynx, Katerina, what did the CT show?” 

  “CT came back clear, X-Ray showed a break to both zygomatic bones, 5th and 6th ribs and a lacerated spleen…”

  “Look at her nails, poor thing fought for her life,” 

  “they both did.” 

  You found the will to whisper what you needed to tell them. Voice hoarse and barely audible, removing the mask they look in horror back at your words, and  immediately the feeling of warm liquid entering your veins and the blur of sleep covers your body. 

—

  He visits you again, this time you know it’s a dream. The pink clouds flow behind his head even though you are standing in the living room. But it’s different, blurred on the edges, hazy sweet and refined. How heaven could be described. 

  “I look good in this don’t even lie,” Eddie says with a spin, the white cotton of your robe resembling a mini skirt on his long legs, “but if you want me to take it off all you have to do is ask, I’m a pleaser, baby.”

  He was every version of himself, handsome, gross and menacing. Sweet and caring, eye twinkling, soft voiced: Eddie. The beer taped to his hand like it was all those months ago when you splashed him awake, threatening to kick him out. 

  Delivering his classic one liners that you now knew helped fuel your love for him. 

  “What? Hair of the dog baby, gotta keep drinking to avoid a hangover.”

  And maybe your love for him was always there. 

  Showing up in the background, fluttering bird wings of your heart before you even noticed. 

  Developing into something sweeter, deeper, so heartbreakingly sick it took a disaster and almost the last pulse in your veins for you to be able to admit it. 

  -

Steve had been pacing the cream colored tiles for over thirty minutes. The squeak of his Nikes against the floor were something Eddie was trying hard to focus on instead of worrying about you in the ICU, but so far it wasn’t working.

  The nasal cannula was annoying, he could breathe fine on his own. The stitches in his eyebrow itched and stung with each weave through his skin, pulled taut around the swelling in his face. 

  The shot the nurses had administered to calm him down after screaming and trying to fight his way to you, was making his mind fuzzy— still, Steve’s pacing kept him company. Step step step squeak, step step step hand in hair, followed by an agitated huffing breath.

  A nurse with a long blond ponytail braided down her back opens the polyester curtain with a drag and slips inside the room. A black rubber and steel stethoscope around her neck, before she could introduce herself Steve exploded with fury. 

  “Tell me what the hell is going on in this poor excuse for a hospital, right now!” Steve’s hair shook from its feathered position when he spoke, his demanding voice booming across the tiles. 

  Without missing a beat and clearly dealing with high strung men before she said almost monotonously, “Sir, you need to calm yourself down, this is a h-”

  But Steve’s fire was only fueled by her dismissive tone, his voice never wavering, “No, I will not calm down! The police were made aware of this situation a year ago and nothing was ever done!” 

  The police officer standing outside guarding entry to the room tipped his head in slow, “Mr. Harrington, we hear your complaints but there isn’t anything we can—”

  “Bullshit!” A tear stain cheeked Robin sobbed, her face red and blotchy from hours of crying and rubbing her freckles clean, “Eddie told you what happened yet he’s still cuffed to a bed like a fucking criminal!”

  She broke down again, clinging to Steve’s side like a wounded child, sobbing into the soft cotton of his crewneck sweater. “This is unethical! Unco—”

  “Alright that’s enough hot shot,” Hopper shouts in finality towards Steve, a wrinkle burrowed deep in his forehead accompanied with graying thick eyebrows set in a devastating frown. 

  “Chief,” Wayne interjects, cap wringing in his calloused, wrinkle bared hands, his voice wobbly but steady, runny nose and wet tears cling to his scruffy beard, “my son was protectin’ that girl, you know Eddie…he’d never hurt someone unless his life or someone he cared about was in danger.” 

  Hopper tore his gaze from the one of the richest in the room to the poorest, hanging his head with sorrow, “ ‘m sorry, Wayne— but until Mr. Derry’s statement comes back and Eddie is cleared… the cuffs stay.” 

  Wayne hung his head low, the few wiry hairs on his balding head stuck in all sorts of directions despite his attempt at raking them into submission. 

  “Jim Hopper you should be ashamed of yourself,” Karen Wheeler spoke up now, head held high, claw clip  teetering with each gesturing movement of her head, “you know good and well this boy couldn’t have done that to her! They loved each other!” 

  Since the pacing of Steve’s feet had stopped Eddie’s heart rattled hard in his chest, he clawed at the heart monitors on his chest, tried to bite the IV’s from his arms, caged like a wild animal he let out a broken cry, “ple— please, she needs me.”

  “Mr. Munson,” the nurse with blonde hair replies sternly, “she is in critical condition, we don’t know if or when she will be able to to recover, she is heavily sedated and needs rest, her only visitors will be family at this time.” 

  “Speaking of,” another nurse chirps, young and fresh gilled, entirely too eager to please her superior, “do you know how to get a hold of her family?”

  He shakes his head slow, causing a pounding headache, “I am her family,” Eddie grunts through clenched teeth, pushing himself up on the bed as far as his cuffs would allow, Steve’s hand on his shoulder. “Look around this room! Ted and Karen Wheeler, Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley, Nancy Byers.. we are all she has,” a single tear falls down his bruised cheek, liquid salt in the cut in his top lip. 

  “Okay sir.. who is responsible for her?” 

  “In regards to what? Financially? You money hungry pricks just don’t let up so you?,” Ted Wheeler finally speaks behind his wife, shock and anger evident on his wrinkled features.

  “Not exactly…”

  “Whatever it is, I will handle it, alright?” Eddie interjects, annoyed with the questions, worried only about you, “I’m responsible for her.”

  “Oh,” the nurse says, perking up slightly, marking a red check mark on her clipboard, smoothing out her uniform, “so you are aware of her condition then.” 

  Light bulbs click for everyone in the room but the curly brown haired metal head. 

  Oh my God

  …Tooty

  Holy shit.

  “That she got the shit kicked out of her by that fucking psycho Chad Cunningham?”

  Eddie.

  Ma’am can we talk privately in the hall? 

  “…obviously I’m aware! I was there when it happened! That dumb fuck already took my statement!” he said gesturing to Deputy Wallace. 

  “No, Mr. Munson..”

  This isn’t the time for this! Wayne tried to warn the nurse, but it fell on deaf, naive ears.

  “…she’s right around twelve weeks pregnant.” 

  A pin dropping could have been heard from a mile away. The oxygen was sucked from the room. Karen’s hand was clapped around her mouth. Nancy and Robin choked back sobs.  

  Everyone was struck with horror, but not Eddie. 

  His mind playing that beautiful night between you like a movie in his head. The way your skin felt, the way his heart ached with fullness at your shared fervor and passion. 

  REWIND

  PLAY

  The curve of your lips on his skin, kissing him sweet and slow, no noise, just the love making swallowing you both whole. 

  REWIND 

  PLAY

  PAUSE 

  Your soft snores as he counted the popcorn marks in the ceiling, his girl. His entire universe. 

  STOP

  EJECT 

  The tears rolled like a ferocious river down his face, carving a path down his cheeks and under his wobbling chin, wetting the hospital gown he was forced into when he got here. 

  You were alone.

  He didn’t know anything about pregnancy besides the woman usually got sick right? Every emotion that most men feel when finding out they were going to be a dad hit him all at once. 

  But not fear. 

  He imagined you with a big swollen belly, feet too pudgy to fit into shoes, he’d rub them with lotion until you could fall asleep. 

  He’d imagined his arms holding you from behind, your baby wrapped in his arms still in your womb. The relief you might feel from the weight being in his hands. 

  You were experiencing this pain all by yourself. 

  He couldn’t fathom how you were feeling. Scared. Hopeless? He had no idea. And the thought of you being alone had him nauseous. 

  Why didn’t you didn’t tell him?  

  Why didn’t anyone tell him? 

  His fury built and shook as his voiced boom with grief as he screamed at Steve, dark eyes blood shot and red rimmed. 

  “How could you,” he broke, struggling through the words, "why would you not tell me?!” The cuffs around his wrist broke skin as he tried to claw his way out of them, trying to reach at Steve’s shirt demanding to be heard. 

  “Ed— fuck man!” Steve started, mouth gaping at Eddie’s arms dripping with blood from his fresh wounds, “we didn’t know!” 

  Robin speaks now, trying to reach for Eddie’s hand to offer him some comfort, “She didn’t tell us, Eddie—Steve is right, she didn’t say a word to any of us about it.” 

  “Fuck!” Eddie screams, slamming his wrists into the bed sides, “I sh—should h-have..,” the end falls silent as his long legs were pulled to his chin and he buried his head into them. 

  In the minutes it had been since he found out, he was already a shitty fucking dad.

  The pain of what happened to you and him not being able to stop it quick enough was killing him, and now, realizing that you were carrying his child and you were all alone? 

  There weren’t words for the gut wrenching feeling ripping through him. Overwhelming dread, chest tight with panic and pain. The nausea overtaking him. The vomit came fast, splashing allover himself and the bed, landing in thick puddles on Steve’s shoes. He cried harder and sobbed uncontrollably. When his stomach was empty he could only dry heave. 

  Wayne moved across the tiled floor in quick steps, careful not to slip in the wayward puke in his path. Sitting down hard and with purpose next to Eddie. This wasn’t his first rodeo of seeing Eddie in this turmoil. But never as a grown man. 

  He tried his hardest to hold back the tears he swore he’d never let fall in front of his boy, but gravity won the fight when Eddie pulled him into a bone crushing hug, his sobs snuffed by the canvas of his work jacket. 

———

It was a full 12 hours before Mr. Derry’s statement was released. Tough old bird, he couldn’t be coerced even with the gentle threat from the Cunningham’s came down hard breathing down his neck. 

  Surely not their son? Their angel?

  But the proof was there. An eye witness statement and a severely beaten woman, the record from years past and the statement from both Steve and Robin on what happened last year at your apartment, stood its ground. 

  Eddie was cleared as a free man, self defense in the eyes of the law. The second his cuffs were off he was throwing his boots onto his gripper socked feet, and untangling himself from wires and needles. 

  Steve and Wayne had both taken off work to help Eddie pick up his medication and make him go home and rest. When he tried to protest, Wayne gave Eddie a look that could pierce steel, the kind of look saying no bullshit, and begrudgingly he followed the men out to Steve’s Mercedes. 

  Nancy and Karen stayed behind at the hospital, filling your room with heavily perfumed flowers. Hushed whispers between the mother and daughter as they prayed and hoped that you would make it out of this horrific nightmare. 

  The doctors would only speak to Eddie. Letting him aware that your condition was improving but they would not be able to lift the sedation just yet. A day passed then another. Eddie slept in the hospital grade recliner in your room each night. Singing you sweet lulls of your favorite song. Promising you the world if you would just open your eyes. 

  He was weak himself. Fighting the urge to break down in front of anyone again with each hour that passed. 

-

4 days led to 5 and the nurses and doctors whispered behind their clipboards. On the 6th day they decided to lift the sedation to see how your body would tolerate pain. 

  Eddie never left. 

  Machines beeped and ticked. Tubes and wires connecting from you drip with fluid and monitoring systems. The white walls and outdated curtains of the hospital shine a yellowed glow into your room, bringing with it a warmth to your cotton thread blanket and warming the skin on your arms. A welcomed feeling compared to the cold needles of the IV poking into your skin delivering flows of medicine and liquids to keep you hydrated and your pain manageable. 

  Foiled balloons printed with get well wishes bounce and sway with the kick on from the vent. 

  One of your hands is unexpectedly warmer than the other. A rough drag across the knobs of your knuckles is a familiar feeling, and you smell him before you even open your eyes to acknowledge that it’s him. 

  The clinging smell of cigarettes on a freshly washed shirt and the spice of deodorant force their way into your nose. It’s a different shampoo than the one you’re used to catching on him. More manly. All sandalwood and musk a hint of citrus. And at first you think he’s someone else… maybe Steve picked up smoking heavily again?

  But when a tuned hum reverberates low against your hand followed by a pair of lips kissing gently around the IV and tape poked and laid against your skin, you know for certain it’s the man you’ve been dreaming about. 

  The one you cried for. 

  The one who visited your sleeping mind and told you everything was going to be okay.

  His name falls from your lips like choked frozen honey, thick in your mouth and on a dry tongue. 

  It was the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. 

  His girl. His whole world. Awake.

[jadequeen88]

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP

master list

Eddie x fem! reader

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS ⚠️

Absolutely no minors, gtfo. Hopefully everyone has read the warning post from earlier this week regarding this chapter. it is extremely dark themed.

Heavy violence

References to past rape/ assault

Blood, gore

Domestic violence

Somnaphilia

Character death etc

A/N: please know your limits. I love you and let’s get into this chapter so we can move on.

The brown popcorn bag spun lazily in the microwave like an oily inflating balloon. The steady hum of the appliance kept you company as the countdown to the sad supper ticked to an end. The cheerful ding springing you from the staring contest you were having with the counter top. 

  The small radio you had purchased was sitting on the counter, the soft belt of Linger by The Cranberries was playing for what seemed like the tenth time today and you couldn’t help but feel the lyrics in your blood. 

  Unaware of anything out of the ordinary. A typical night after working at the bar. Showering and throwing on a pair of pajama shorts, tucked next to the pair of Eddie’s boxer briefs you had found last week. 

  After investigating why the washer banged all to hell when even the smallest of loads were in it, wedged tight under the plastic agitator were his underwear. 

  And you’d be a fool to say you hadn’t broken down and sobbed in the basement on the discovery. 

  You dried them and folded them neatly next to your delicates. The same drawer that held the worn and tarnished pig ring he gave you as a Christmas gift, and the envelope full of cash. 

  The water works started again. 

  Hot tears flooding your eyes, the simple act made you feel like he was home with you. But the nightmare always continued.

  You missed him so much. 

  “But you always really knew

I just want to be with you

  If you were a tiny bit more awake you might have caught that the door to the garage was locked even though you had no memory of locking it yourself. 

  ..And I'm in so deep

You know I'm such a fool for you

You got me wrapped around your finger

  Rustling the steaming bag from the microwave with burnt finger tips, you toss it on the counter hastily. Sucking your fingers into your mouth to dull the stinging redness away.

  Do you have to let it linger?

  And maybe it was then that if you weren’t busy nursing the premature burns, you would have noticed the odd set of keys on the counter next to the mail, pushed to the side by the buttery bag of popcorn. 

  Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?

  Bending at the waist to the lower cabinet you reach around for the smooth plastic of the yellow popcorn bowl. Upon standing you feel dizzy. You hear it before you feel it, the loud thwap of something heavy against the back of your head. The pain is searing and turns your vision to black. You’re passed out before your head even hits the floor. 

  (1987)

  The November air whipped into reddened skin, striking out any heat you had left in the confinements of the peach sweater you borrowed from Nancy on your frozen walk to Forest Hills Trailer Park. 

  It happened again. 

  And this time it wasn’t an accident, no matter how much he begged, no matter how many times he said he was sorry. 

  He hit you with a closed fist. 

  You weren’t flirting with Dustin. He was your friend. Way before Chad had taken any interest in you. Most of your friends were guys, besides El and Max, and even though Nancy Wheeler was older and more popular— you considered her a friend too. 

  When she left for college this past fall, she insisted on making her room more stylish to your liking. And she never once minded the twin beds you both slept in, a night stand between them. 

  But when Mike sat next to you at lunch and was going over notes from Kensington’s class, Chad’s mind twisted it into Mike hitting on you. Which led to Chad hitting on you, but instead of compliments and doting behavior— he drug you out to his car, a bony grip on the back of your neck.

  He screamed at you with every vein protruding from his tan skin. Voice hoarse and throat stretched tight. 

  Apparently you were fucking people behind his back. Even though you were a virgin. The town whore! He had yelled loud for even some of the teachers to hear, all turning a blind eye to the obvious domestic abuse happening on school grounds. 

  Explaining yourself only made it worse. 

  He slapped your face hard when you opened your mouth to interrupt him. And when you stood your ground and raised your chin to him, calm and steadily telling him to go fuck himself, he swung a fist into your eye. 

  And that’s when you left. 

  His apologies trailing behind you and caught in the gut of wind to travel far away from your ears. He wouldn’t follow you, he had appearances at school to keep up. 

  Much easier to tell Aaron and Sean that you got your period and were being crazy then explain why he had left school.

  The gravel crunched beneath your feet, frozen from the last winter storm and holding pockets of ice amongst the rocks. 

  Pale blue and still holding the old television lawn ornament, you sighed audible when Eddie’s van was parked outside of the aluminum sided trailer. 

  You hadn’t seen him since graduation last May. The night Chrissy’s extra curricular activities with Rick finally came out when they were caught fucking in the shower upstairs, at Steve’s house. Both sporting pricked arms with needle marks. 

  A broken hearted Eddie drank all night long and puked into the hot tub.

  Your quickened steps up to the concrete stairs and a shaky broken knock on the screen door have you stepping back waiting for the door to open, awaiting Eddie’s stupid grin waiting on the other side. 

-

  Living with Eddie you had no reason to be afraid. Many nights the front door was left unlocked. And maybe it was out of habit. Maybe you had left it unlatched tonight too. 

  It would explain how he was there now. 

  Hovering over you, his blond hair coined perfectly slicked to the side, slightly feathered back with thick styling gel. A Ralph Lauren polo with the logo on the left chest. His cologne reeked of some designer brand, making your stomach queasy.

  The only difference between those years ago and now was that he had a small dusting of a flesh colored mustache wiggled on his sweaty lip. Same maniacal inky blacks to his blown pupils, laced with the piercing blue. 

  The realization ices your veins and stings your eyes with angry tears. 

  Chad Cunningham was in your home, his body over yours as you're pinned beneath him, the smell of iron invading your nose. Looking around with wild eyes you see the crimson streaks from the linoleum in the kitchen to the carpet where you are laying. Your head thumping with the rhythm of bloody drops against the fibers of the worm carpet.

  “Been a long time hasn’t it, honey bun?” 

  An eternity wouldn’t have been enough. 

  Pressing his body into yours, you can feel the stiffness of his starched shirt as you try to will your arms to fight him away. He chuckles at your feeble attempts to push him off.

  His weight presses deeper into you as he lowers his mouth to your lips, squeezing your face he almost sings,  “Told you I’d see you soon.” 

  His lips are harshly planted into yours, feeling like jagged rocks against your soft waters.

  “Fuck,” he groans, hard against your thigh. “just like I remember. I’ve missed you.” 

  The clink of his belt unthreading from the loops of his khakis finally renders your senses. But you wait with calculated timing. 

  Leaning back, he stares into your face with a quizzical expression burrowed deep on his brow. “What’s the frown for? Don’t you miss me? Aren’t you happy to see me?” 

  Evident that his delusions still ran deep, it’s showtime. You would survive this. One good hit, that's all it would take. 

  Pushing yourself up gently, your head is swimming with nausea and the steady dripping tick of blood down the back of your neck. 

  Placing a shaky hand to his cheek he moves into your hand, the same way Eddie had that night, your stomach somersaults at the memory. 

  When his eyes shut, you turn your fingers into a clawed position, and scrape the flesh from the corner of his eye down to his lip. 

  It happens quickly and with your blurred vision and pounding head it feels like it’s all in slow motion. He wasn’t expecting it. 

  A kick to his ribs hurt your bare feet probably more than it injured him but you needed the extra time to escape into your room. 

  The phone feels cool against your cheek, and weighs heavy on your shoulder when you realize it’s dead. The plan of you running in here, dialing 9-1-1 and holding him off until they came was foiled. 

  “BITCH! You can’t hide from me!” 

  Knowing you only have seconds before he finds you, you 

frantically look around for something to defend yourself with. Searching eyes land on the window. 

  Just need to get out and run to Mr. Griffin’s house. 

  Fingers on the frame you yank upwards, palms digging into the wired screen, pushing it out.

  Throwing your leg out into the darkness of the night, you’re one step closer to being safe. One step closer to ending this night of horrors before it could begin. 

  The noise of splintering wood and the crack of a door being snapped from its hinges join your erratic breath and piercing screams— a monstrous reel of symphonic sound. 

  Chad twists a thick fist into your scalp, freeing the hair from its follicles in a sickening pop as you scratch your nails into the window sill, trying to hold on.

  He’s stronger than you, no different than years before. And when your body crumbles onto the floor with a squelching thud, splinters of lacquered wood and nails that once held the door in place, pierce into your exposed skin. 

  But that is minor league compared to the shattering pain delivered from his fist into your face as he straddles you.

  “Think you can hide away with that freak from me?!” He rocks his closed hand into your other cheek, this time clipping your eye with a gold wedding band.  

  Your cries fall on deaf ears. Tears stinging and trying to drip from your swelling eyelids. 

  “Honey bun,” he purrs into your ear, “don’t tell me you’re that fucking stupid to think I wouldn’t find you.”

  His fingers move to brush your hair from your face, and he holds your head in place when you try to bite at his fingers. 

  His wicked smile could make the devil’s scaly skin crawl. 

  “Such a dumb whore, forgetting I have eyes and ears all over this town.” Placing his grabby fingers on his breasts, he continues, “Aaron and Sean may not be the brightest candles on the cake but they are loyal.” 

  Aaron…Sean. 

  You rack your brain for any recollection of those names.  and it finally clicks. Chad’s friends in high school, following him around like he was the King. A snap of his fingers and they’d move like henchmen. Fighting anyone who got in his way, putting themselves at risk just to say they had a friend from a rich family. 

  The realization swims in your eyes and scares your tears dry. 

  “No.”

  “Pieced it together huh?” Chad laughs wildly. “They work..” he grunts, hips rutting against you, pinching your perked nipples in his tight grasp, his fingernails digging through your shirt around the delicate skin, making you squeal, “..with the freak!” 

  His deranged cackle doubles when you yell out in pain. 

  “Small town bosses don’t lock their offices, and it was too easy for Aaron to find your address, even easier to find out that Eddie had left your ass here, unguarded, alone, waiting for someone to save you, and honey bun here I am!” 

  His sick twisted smile oozes fear further into your gut, brooding and feeding on any small amount of joy you had left. 

  “You need a fucking psychiatrist.”

  “Such harsh words for that sweet mouth, but don’t worry!” he reassures, eyes wide with delight and a psychotic expression on his face as he brings his voice low and secret-like, “I won’t kill you yet, the boys are looking for Munson and when they find him…” he lowers himself to kiss your lips, sliding his tongue against the split flesh. 

  “Fuck!” He bellows, licking his lips savoring your taste on his tongue, “when they find him they’re gonna bring him here, and it’ll be arranged to look like the freak killed you and then himself.. a lover’s quarrel gone bad.” 

  He rubs his face and grunts again at the warbled wails you let out, squeezing your breasts and bucking into your clothed crotch. “Goddamn,” he groans, his eyes rolling into his head at the sound of your cries, getting off on your distorted face, “I just couldn’t help myself, had to come here and do this first. One last goodbye.”

  You’d rather be dead at this point. You wish he’d kill you now and get it over with. But the thought of Eddie seeing your lifeless body haunted you. And you stop crying when his hands close around the hollow of your throat. 

  “Gonna be mine, one last time honeybun?”

  “Fuck you,” you croak beneath his hands on your throat.

  You’re weak and running out of time. Rolling your tongue against your teeth and cheeks, harboring a mixture of saliva and blood you wait until Chad is leaning over you, and when he’s close enough you spit the concoction into his face.

  Chad bellers out, letting go of your throat and standing abruptly to wipe his face. The split second he’s distracted you try to crawl away, but he kicks you down. 

  Delivering several soccer styled strikes into your stomach, his voice spewing insults with every jab of his white Nikes into your body.

  A raging shock of fury paints his face.

  “What did I tell you hmm? If I can’t have you— no one can!” You scream loud when his shoe propels into your crotch, shocking your pelvis with burning heat. 

  All noise is void when he rolls you over and crashes down on your beaten body, clobbering your tear and blood streaked face, blow after blow.  Your eyes are swelling shut and you’re surprised when you see Eddie’s face, before your eyes shut. 

  It feels like home. 

  -1987-

  The warm smile you missed so much was not there to greet you. A cold calloused “what?” finds you instead. 

  “Eddie?” you ask with a scratchy throat, clearing it once, twice, to answer him against the wind. 

  Grumbling and stomping in the trailer is heard. Along with two separate giggles. 

  The door is yanked hard inward revealing a version of Eddie Munson you’d never seen before. His skin was sunken in on his cheeks, dark circles rimmed his eyes. His once soft features were sharp and lackluster, brooding with ashy shadows and skin that looked like it hadn’t seen sunlight in months. 

  He looked gaunt and hallowed out, his ribs poking against the cindery color of his skin. The warm whiskey eyes that once danced when he laughed were now gaping blacked marbled, polar and dull. 

  He speaks but you are too busy holding your breath from the stench of rotting clothes and unwashed bodies. 

  Stumbling over an apology for not hearing him, you are startled when he barks back,  “I said, what the fuck are you doing here, Tooty?” 

  You look to the floor and notice he’s wearing a heavily stained sock with a hole in the toe, the other foot bare, next to a pair of work boots are three pairs of women’s shoes:, heels, keds, and pink reeboks. Your toes wiggle in your worn converse. 

  “I’m.. I uh..” 

  Eddie rolls his eyes, “oh for fucks sake spit it out! You selling raffle tickets or something for school? Pep team need new Pom-poms? Or maybe the chess club is looking for a new board?” 

  Shock stealing your speech you stand on frigid feet digging your fingers into the yarn on the Nancy’s sweater. Tears bite your lashes and fall on cold cheeks. 

  Eddie! Where’s your lighter? A sultry voice coos, padding feet getting closer to the threshold. 

  “Listen kid, I’m fucking busy, I don’t have time to haul you around because twiddle dick and dum forgot you at the gas station again.” 

  He has barely looked at you since you got there. The guy who held more merit to you than your own brother was gone. 

  When you wipe your eyes on the sleeve of your sweater  he lets out an exaggerated groan. 

  He thrusts dirty fingers into his sweatpants pockets. Pulling out a perfectly rolled twenty dollar bill, he flattens it smooth. He smears his finger along the length of the bill, collecting remnants of a fine white powder, which is quickly shoved into his greedy mouth and rubbed on his gums like he’s brushing his teeth. 

  “Here,” he grunts, shoving the drugged money into your pocket, avoiding your eyes at all cost, “now get lost.” 

  The blinds on the door are still swinging as you stand there dumbstruck and watery eyed. Low voices are murmured through the thin walls as a lighter flicks and sizzles.

  Who was that baby? 

  Nobody. 

  And that’s exactly who you were to everyone you knew, nobody. 

  And ironically enough— that’s exactly who you could rely on. 

  One thing was for certain: Eddie Munson was a stranger to you. 

  The tears fell harder on the shameful walk back to Chad. But you weren’t sure if you were crying harder because of the sudden loss you felt from an old friend or because of the pain in your eye.  

-

  Heart hammering in his chest, Eddie jiggles the door handle, it’s locked and he panics and realizes he still has his key. Fumbling with the key ring, Eddie finds the short brass one and unlocks the door. 

  The sight of the mostly empty house is jarring, causing his stomach to drop , a small recliner rests in the living room where his couch once sat. Wine is spilled from the kitchen to the living room, smeared like it was swept poorly with a mop. 

  You never drank wine.

  Maybe you started drinking heavily after he left. He did. It only made sense. 

But a second glance at the claret colored stain embedded into the carpet and his worst fear was realized. 

  Blood.

  The sound of something wet and thwacking settles into his bones and shakes his spine. Someone was hurting you.

  Heavy docs lead him to the corner of the house, your room and his old room. Where his door was intact, yours was shattered. Like Jack Torrance took his ax to it in The Shining. Stepping on cracked wood, Eddie sees the most horrific thing he’s ever been a witness too. 

  And suddenly he’s six years old again, helpless. Watching a woman he loved lose a battle she didn’t even know she was in. But instead of his mother’s lifeless body crumbled by his father’s feet, instead of her dark curly hair matted with pooling blood and a gaping bullet hole— It’s you underneath a guy he doesn’t recognize.

  Your face is battered and covered in blood, the once plush lips he held so warmly between his own were split and slack. Your eyes were swollen, lacking any shine to them they normally held. 

  His eyes connect with yours for a brief second, and when they close he doesn’t know if they will open again. 

  Fury radiates through his entire body, masking the pain of heartache at the sight of you slipping from him. 

  Before he can acknowledge the thought of you being gone, he lunges at the catalog Dad dressed asshole. Knocking him off your body and landing on top of him, colliding into your dresser. The tangle of body parts wrestling for purchase tumble into the hall. Ringed fists land home on every surface of this guy's face, and when he stops to take a breath— he realizes the face he is hitting is Chad Cunningham’s.

  How did he find you? Had he been stalking you both since that day at the grocery store?

  Didn’t matter all that he cared about was throwing this mother fucker the biggest ass kicking of his life, and he wouldn’t stop until either Chad or himself was dead.

  “I’ve waited years for this day,” Chad spit, after getting a punch in when Eddie was in his own head, knocking Eddie’s jaw to bite down on his tongue, filling his mouth with blood immediately. “Trailer trash Munson finally came to play.”

  Taken by surprise, Chad shoves Eddie from him and stands up, looking through the doorway at your limp body. 

  Eddie stands slow, using the bathroom doorknob to help, he reaches for the knife kept in his back pocket. 

  Chad spins to face Eddie, his hair sweaty and face ballooning out from Eddie’s rings. “You should have left my girl alone Munson, would have saved your uncle the heartache.”

  Eddie flicks the blade open on the knife, grip tight around it, he breathes through his nose his throat tight and stretching around his words, his leather jacket creaking when he moves his neck around in a stretch, confident in his delivery, “she’s not yours.” 

  The hysterical laugh that leaves Chad’s lungs could resemble bats screeching in the night, he’d make a great clown in a haunted house. 

  “Dead or alive whether I’m married or not— she’ll always be mine.”

  Like alley cats, they stare each other down, waiting for the opportunity to pounce.

  Chad licks his lips and looks your way again, “listen, I get it, she’s hot. And that tight little pussy..” he licks his lips and grabs himself over his denim jeans, stained with your blood.

  Eddie’s blood is boiling, he’s seconds away from snapping but trying to hold it together long enough to make a perfect attack.

  Chad leans forward, gesturing a mockery secret with his hand held around his mouth, “It’s even better when she’s fighting you,” he inhales deep, like he’s wishing he was in a past memory, “screaming really tightens her right up.”

  Knife out, Eddie charges forward. And is struck dumb when the knife is kicked from his hand. Another kick this time to the chest that he wasn’t expecting sends him stumbling into the living room, air gone from his lungs. Chad follows and swings into his diaphragm making Eddie choke out on nothing, gasping for air. 

  “Oh come on, Munson,” Chad taunted, leaning down to kiss Eddie’s cheek, “Thought you would have some trailer park moves to throw at me.”

  Raising a heavy boot, Eddie stomps on Chad’s toes, and mule kicks his kneecaps. A ringed fist meets his cheek, adding another forming bruise to his winter tan skin. Shoving him backwards into the counter in the kitchen, the cabinet doors bust on the impact. 

  The punches Eddie is landing have his knuckles bloody and swelling but he doesn’t care. Each punch is a testament for the years you held yourself together, acted like nothing bad was going on, when in reality you were experiencing hell on Earth and he never knew. 

  This was his payback. His way of righting a wrong. A wrong that should have never even began.

  He doesn’t know what he was hit with just that he was stumbling backwards again. Temple throbbing and without reaching up he knows he’s bleeding. His back hitting the corner of the fridge he slides down onto the linoleum.

  His head is heavy and his vision blinded with hazy clouds of black and white. He hears Chad but doesn’t see him, just feels his head being slammed in the fridge and a grip in his hair. 

  “Could have saved your uncle funeral costs you stupid bastard… clearly you don’t care about him, or Tooty for that matter, leaving her all alone like that,” Chad sucks through his teeth, splitting blood onto Eddie’s shirt, “thought the raccoons usually stuck together.”

  He chuckles low and slams Eddie’s head one more time with such force it leaves a dent in the fridge. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he says, straightening his shirt, walking towards your room , “my girl is waiting.”

  “Don’t touch her!” Eddie roars, pushing himself up to stand with all his might. Pounding head and nausea thick in his mouth. Raising his head he looks at Chad with blurry sight, trying to see clearly. His voice is low, catching his breath and taking all of his strength to utter out the words. Balancing around the mark of deranged, “I’ll fucking kill you.”  

  Chad swivels on his heels, head cocked at Eddie, he grabs under his chin holding it firmly in place. His breath fanning over Eddie’s cheeks and he smiles maniacally, blood painting his teeth. 

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” A heavy fist to the gut has Eddie doubled over. Gripping the counter with white knuckles and wet blood smeared fingertips. 

  He had failed again. He wasn’t able to stop his own father from killing his mother. And now Chad was on his way to desecrate your lifeless body. He’s a fuck up and a failure. 

  Always. 

  A low guttural choking sound breeches Eddie’s ears. And he turns to see you covered in your own blood, barely standing and wielding a bat with nails protruding from every which way. 

  The nails are claret colored and dripping thick drops onto the carpet, fibers of Chad’s jeans hang in shreds from the sharp edges. A scant look towards Eddie and your eyes swim with relief and mourning. 

  He’s here. Blood is smeared down his lips and his hands look tight and swollen. 

  But he’s alive. And so are you.

  Eddie’s vision is doubled and he blinks rapidly unaware if he is seeing you or not. He swallows hard and almost chokes on tears.

  But that is short lived.

  And it happens fast. 

  The yelling rage from Chad’s lungs over power your screams. His hands are tight around your throat before you can blink, your spine snapping into the nearest wall, feet dangling off the ground. 

  Haziness bleeds into your eyes and your breath is expelled from screaming— now gone when your windpipe is crushing like a pixie stick under Chad’s grip. 

  Desperate to fight back you jam your thumbs into his eyes. Victor Creel style like the Urban Legends passed down that you were told as kids. 

  If you were going to die, at least he would be blind, a forever reminder of this day etched, literally, into his face. 

  You prayed Eddie would know how much you loved him.  

  Should have’s taking over the last puffs of oxygen in your brain, popping like bubbles. 

  Should have told him sooner. 

  Should have said it every day. 

  Should have kissed him more. 

  Should have let him love you. 

  The guilt wraps around your mind as the cold hands of death welcome you. But you’re not afraid. Knowing Chad always kept good on his word, Eddie would join you in the afterlife.

  Hand in hand. 

  Strolling along the pinked cotton candy clouds and the pearly gates. 

  You are his and he is yours. 

  Lovers together finally at last. 

  The last breath on your lips is a silent devotion to him. 

  I love you, Eddie.

-

a/n: my asks are always open ♥️

[jadequeen88]

I’m a shit friend for being so behind on this but OH MY GOD???!!!?!!? MY HEART 😭😭😭 and WHO IS THE BMW GUY?! Brb, off to the next chapter 🏃🏻‍♀️💨

Eddie x Fem! Reader

master list

w/c: 7k

A/N: this chapter is a little bit shorter than the last few but I hope you enjoy it regardless! huge s/o to @blueywrites + @jo-harrington for beta reading and helping me with parts ♥️

tw: 18+ no minors, depression, acts of depression, drinking excessively etc

Granules of brown sugar melt against heaping creamed rolled oats, nestled into the crisp white second hand vitrelle made Corelle brand bowls. The pattern of dainty brown flowers skim around the outer surface, one that Eddie is now rubbing softly with the pad of his thumb. 

He had never noticed them before this very moment. The guitar string callouses skid along the cool surface of the bowl. The familiar feel reminded him of the soft skin on your back as he held you while you slept, strumming along your body to the tired tunes of your breathing.

A song he’d listen to forever if he could. 

Eddie found himself noticing many new things he hadn't noticed before in the early daylight hours of the morning. He didn’t want to stir you, didn’t want to disrupt the beautiful sleepy angel next to him. Wrapping you tighter against him, pressing light kisses to your hairline, he soaked up the warmth of your skin against him. Drinking in your smooth breathing and matching it to his own. 

Fluttering heart beating wildly in his own chest, he can’t believe you are here with him. Last night felt too good to be true. All these months of lonely pining, unsure if you felt the same, only for it to be true that you wanted him as much as he had wanted you.

He was elated, heart overflowing and spewing candy hearts from his eyes and mouth at the weight of your body tucked into him, fitting like a glove against the bend in his arm. 

He was head over heels for you. 

A wave of assurance washed over him when he woke this morning and found you curled in on yourself, the cotton sheets wrapped tight up under your chin, slack lips open and your eyelashes laid sweetly against your cheeks. A breath of relief leaves his muscles— you’re still here. 

The rise and fall of your naked form when he pulled ypu into his side had him breathless upon first opening his eyes this morning. The sunlight basking through peaks in his bedroom curtains and providing enough light for the dust mites to dance their daylight waltz amongst the stuffy air and crowded surfaces in Eddie’s room. 

Cotton sheets dipped into your curves. The smooth skin of your cheek pressed into his own chest. The steady whirring noise of your breathing in and out of your nose with your lips closed delicately.  

Beautiful. Radiant. A thousand other adjectives he could use to describe you but there was only one he wanted to call you: his. 

The toaster erupts with a metallic clunk, bringing him back from his day dreaming and focusing again at the task at hand. 

Grabbing a knife from the silverware drawer, he smears cold butter against the warm toast, the knife scraping gently as the warm crusted pockets flood with butter and sweet grape jelly.

He finds himself daydreaming again. He pictures the corner of your lips coated in jelly, he’d reach forward and brush his finger against it, maybe his lips would kiss the crumbs away. You’d giggle at his stupidity and he’d melt like the butter into this toast at your warm smile. 

You were perfect. Everything he had wanted and more. And years of being friends, then enemies, then roommates and now lovers. He was giddy, stomach filled with snowflake flurries resembling a winter storm. 

He balanced the bowls of oatmeal in large hands, the toast cut in diagonals and stuffed like rabbit ears into the cooked oats. A pep in his step, he practically floated to his room, back to you, snug in his sheets, his pillows. He’s carried by the wings of the butterflies in his stomach. 

A tickle on your cheek has your eyelids fluttering slow, the cool feel of unfamiliar sheets twisted by your chin have you jumping in your skin, but the warm velvet voice in your ear whispering good morning greetings and a peck against your ear tames your heart and softens the goosebumps on your skin. 

The same calloused palms that held you in a protective manner last night now gently stroke the underside of your chin in a lazy pattern. Up the rounds of your cheeks, and circling the plump of your lips. Eddie’s hands are unusually warm against your skin, the heat from the bowls hot on his palms.

The mattress bends beneath his weight as he sits with one leg on the bed and leans on a hip over you. The bourbon colored ends of his curls sweep feather-like against your bare chest, like the white tufty pappus of a dandelion head.

You titter softly when his lips slide down your neck and blow a softened raspberry against your skin. 

“Good morning, baby,” he sighs beneath your ear. The pearls of his teeth graze your neck because he can’t stop smiling. The silk of your hands wrap around his arms, fingers gliding over the carve of his muscles. And your eyes finally flutter open. 

A halo of sunlight breaches his frizzy curls and pull every bit of amber from them, his smile cozy and familiar the warmth seeping through you as his blackened honey eyes drink you in.  

His eyes trail your sleepy features, caressing your skin with each slow drag across your face. Taking in every inch of you he can. 

“Sleep okay?” he purrs gently, planting a rose petal kiss on your lips. 

Last night was perfect, everything you had hoped for and more. 

You didn’t know sex could be so intimate, so passionate.  Feeling how much he cared about you with every kiss, every touch of his molten fingers on your skin. He gave you the love and adoration you had yearned for. And it felt good. 

So, so good. 

Something that delicious should be enjoyed again and again. An indulgence, a finger swiping into the edge of a frosted cake for temptation deemed too strong. But unlike the taste of frosting melting away on your tongue, craving more and wanting another taste, you couldn’t. 

Peering into his eyes, you can see how much he loved you. But the feeling sat sour on your tongue, and burned your belly in a lonely way.

But why? 

You could push through this right?

Didn’t you want this?

Want him?

Heart hammering for Eddie, all green flags and sticky love, kicking feet and giddy heated cheeks, but your brain was screaming another sound, ringing bells of unworthiness loud in your ears. 

You don’t deserve him. 

His love won’t last. 

A quick smile that doesn’t reach your eyes implants on your lips. Insecurity is evident among them when the twinkle of love is replaced by dark brooding agony. And if Eddie sees it he is blinded to it. So wrapped up in bubbly love for you he thought you hung the stars. 

The way his brown eyes are gazing at you hurts your heart. Before hot tears can fall down your cheeks you blink rapidly. Wells of salt stinging in your eyes as you swallow them down. 

Answering his question in a hushed almost whisper, you push yourself up on his mattress, clutching the sheet around your chest, suddenly aware of how naked you are. Bare beneath the sheets a once welcomed coziness now feels like shards of glass embedded into your skin. 

Your knees tuck up beneath your chest, in a small attempt to shield yourself more from the man you wanted to love but couldn’t. 

Eddie is all adoring dimples and pinked cheeks. His voice is laced with flowing sweet words of pleasantries. He places a pillow behind your back, so you can be comfy,. 

The act cracking your heart deeper waiting to be split like the thin shell on a peanut m&m. 

“I didn’t ask, but do you like oatmeal?” 

You’ve never known a single smile burrowing into your soul deeper than his does. But it aches and burns. Nose tingling bringing up another wave of tears, you simply nod, you wipe your eyes hastily with the back of your hand as Eddie turns and grabs the bowls. Oblivious to your turmoil. 

He brings the warm bowl of oatmeal to the bed and places it in your hands. Jelly having slid down the toast and snuggling with the brown sugar and oatmeal. Joining you on the bed Eddie sits beside you, his long legs stretched out in front of him as you sit shoulder to shoulder.   

You don’t deserve him. 

His love won’t last. 

Lead filled arms hold the metal spoon to your lips, a warmth in your mouth that has no taste. For you are not hungry. The beast inside spreading its ferocious wings and sucking any amount of joy from you. 

But he said he loved me. 

He doesn’t. Don’t fool yourself. 

Staring ahead you are trapped in your mind. A hostage to your demons. The sunshine of happiness is replaced with heavy thunderstorm clouds of acidic rain, eating away your insides like maggots on a carcass. 

Eddie is talking between mouthfuls of his breakfast but you don’t hear him. The words unable to make sense against your ears as you stir your spoon around and around the bowl. A hypnotizing motion. 

Unaware of the state you are in, Eddie is floating high on cloud nine. A pinky cheeked cherub shooting arrows of lust below him. He’s giddy and cheerful, a light of beckoning hope next to your brooding steel trapped mind. 

He’s too good for you. 

The voices shout louder in your ears and you fight tears away. 

Just another notch on his belt, silly Tooty. 

Run, before he does. 

“Sweetheart?” your breathing is erratic and complacent. Sweat is trickling down your hairline. Wet beads in the space behind your ears and forming on your upper lip.

Run. 

Choking down the bile of panic cradled in your throat, you croak a smile. “Sorry, what?” 

-

The rest of breakfast is void of noise besides the ominous clinking of spoons against bowls and the gulping slide of oatmeal down Eddie’s throat. Chewing your toast to humor him you still taste nothing, barely registering your teeth are grinding together against themselves until Eddie asks if you’re alright. 

Fine, you lie, easy on your tongue, the forced smile is harder, painful. Settling an unease in your bones that creaks and groans like a worn porch door batting against the frame in a windstorm. 

Pulling hard to untuck the sheet from the one corner of Eddie’s bed that didn’t manage to come undone during the passion of last night, you wrap it around you fully, and scoot down the length of his mattress. The walk of shame gown held tight in your grip. Doubling as a shield of comfort around you, a flannel sheet of armor. 

Not announcing where you are going in fear of breaking, you scamper from the room, quick feet on the carpet and shivering in the cool air on your shoulders. Eddie’s hot desperate eyes burrowing into your back as you lock the bathroom door. 

He’s everywhere in this house, and your mind is suffocating. Lungs punched of any oxygen as you struggle to stand using the knob as a crutch. 

What makes you think you’re deserving of his kindness?

The daunting demonic voice laughs mercilessly in your head, bouncing off the pinked brain matter and echoing lol against the hollow marble of your skull, scribbling along it in permanent marker. 

Unworthy 

Undeserving

Hot tears stream down your cheeks and you shed the cloak of flannel armor, reaching for the silver knob of the shower and turning it to the hottest temperature the small water heater will allow. 

The stream of the scalding water sears your back like steak in a skillet, you welcome the burn with open arms. 

Thinking of Eddie’s doting and how sweet he was to you made your stomach splinter. All he was doing was exactly what you had hoped for, wished for, stayed up long nights aching for. 

But it wasn’t simple. 

You were terrified. Scared shitless of his love for you. But you knew Eddie and you knew he loved big, and cared in ways that most people couldn't fathom. 

Hot water rolls down the front of your shoulders and flows over your softened nipples, mixed with salty tears. 

The tears only stop when there’s a soft knuckled bang on the door. 

His endearing voice is small against the closed door, “hey babe?” 

You don’t answer. Unable to free your mind from the double hell of feeling inadequate and petrifying anxiety of being loved by someone you can’t love back. 

But you do love him. 

You always have in one way or another.. even when you shouldn’t have. You did. 

But the overwhelming feeling of his affection is too much, you don’t know how to feel, or act. Not as if Chad ever made you feel loved. Somehow the feeling of being loved is almost the same crushing feeling of being choked out. 

Because you’re not good enough. 

You don’t deserve him. 

The bathroom door opens and Eddie’s calm voice breaks through the void. Makes its way through the silent sobs that are causing your body to shake violently. 

His shadow is blurred against the shower curtain. Coy hands peel the cream plastic and blue fabric away slightly, opening the threshold to the shower and the steam rolling out, thick in his vision. 

“Tooty?” 

Back to first names. 

Back to the basics. 

Eddie wasn’t an idiot. He knew something was wrong. And he had spent the last ten minutes walking back and forth along the carpet, wracking his brain. Pulling his hair in frustration when tears stung his eyes and collected like puddles in his lashes.  

Trying to figure out the solution to a problem he didn’t have the equation for. 

No one did. 

This was a fight within yourself, solving for x when Eddie barely passed basic algebra. Nobody could fix this.

Broken goods, sold at a discount and marked down. 

Trash. 

When you don’t answer he says your name a smidge louder. Reaching his fingers out to touch your shoulder and almost breaking on the spot when you coil away from him. 

His touch once so protective and undeniably reassuring in your blood now threatens to make you react with bared teeth and steel eyes. 

But you refrain, pushing yourself further away from him. Deeper into your sorrows of a life of despair, a valley of dread. 

Relentless, Eddie won’t give up easy. His voice is meek and breaking with each cold shoulder of avoidance you offer. 

You’re nothing. 

“Baby,” he pleads, a tear running down his cheek, collecting in the column of his throat. “Talk to me.” 

His cheeks return to normal color, his eyes don’t dance with twinkles, the corners of his mouth turn flat. He's beside himself. 

The voices deepens now, roaring loudly like a river. A familiar tone. One that has terrified you for almost a decade, Chad. 

You think someone could love you like me? Better than me? 

Take it, fucking whore. 

Yeah, cry for me. 

“No.” 

Eddie’s brows turn inward. Concern painting his face. “Tooty?” 

Who would want you? 

You’re nothing. 

A hand on your shoulder makes your spine twinge with icy cold resentment causing you to flinch unexpectedly, shivering away from him. A wounded animal, protecting yourself. 

“I said, no!” 

When you turn to face him you are met with wet eyes, and the saddest expression you’d ever had the displeasure of seeing. 

One that would bury itself in your mind and haunt you at night. More horrifying than a scary movie because it was real, right before your eyes. 

Eddie doesn’t give you time to think before he twists his mouth into a question, “what’s going on? What did I do?” 

This is not a conversation you want to have. You can’t. 

Plain and simple. 

“Leave me alone,” you beg, salt in the skinned wound. You turn the water off and shove past him, your warm wet skin sliding against his dry bare chest. 

Unlovable 

Undeserving Tooty. 

The terry fibers of your robe cocoon you in a hug. And you’re reminded of the memories this fabric holds. The first night Eddie had moved in, and him wearing it with pride. 

The night he defended you against the twins, when you were piss drink and he wrapped you up tightly to cover you up. 

He was a good man. 

And you were a bitch. 

An unlovable shrewd, forcing someone to open up and then cutting them off because you couldn’t handle the thought of someone loving you when you couldn’t love yourself. 

You deserved what Chad did to you. 

Eddie is talking a million miles an hour trying to explain himself as you leave him in the bathroom. His throat aches from swallowing back tears and his heart is breaking. 

Turning in a swift jerk of your head you face him when he begs you to look at him. 

“Please, goddamnit please just talk to me. Help me understand what I did wrong!” 

“There’s nothing to understand Eddie! We fucked! So what? No big deal.” It was the biggest lie you’d told yourself. It was a big deal. It meant everything to you, but you couldn’t do this. 

He’s stunned, mouth hung open and his pink bottom lip starts to quiver. The same lips that kissed you so delicately and made you cum so hard it was like the Fourth of July behind your eyelids. 

Not having any of it, his sadness turns to anger on the drop of a dime, his shaky lip flipped to a snarl, “Don’t you dare do this, don’t you dare turn this around as just some one night stand bullshit.” His eyes search your face for any tell on a sick joke. But he knows you better than that.  

He can’t contain the fueling rage inside of him and he almost shouts in your face. “I know what it meant to you!”

“Really?” you voice in a shaky tone, crossing your arms across your chest in a manner that suggests you couldn’t give a single fuck about his feelings, but barely below the surface you were screaming for help. “If you got all the answers then enlighten me.” 

His voice is softer, gentler. He timidly reaches out to hold your clothed shoulders, the tips of his fingertips grip them softly, thumbs rubbing small circles. Hoping his touch could bring you back to him, bring back the angel from his dreams and coax you out from this hellish nightmare he had fallen into. 

 “Don’t act like this baby, please.” 

Your head hangs in defeat and you’re ready to give up. A sigh escapes you and he lifts your chin with a ringed finger. He licks his lips and he says the three words you couldn’t hear. 

The three small words that confirmed the anxiety in your chest and made your heart crumble. And it kills you. 

It kills you to hear the words come from the man you’ve been yearning for.

It kills you to know you won’t ever be able to say them back to him. Even though you’re dying to.

And it kills you to know you don’t deserve to hear those words from him. 

His fingers feel like talons against your shoulders and you're caught in his grasp. A hawk swooping to catch a field mouse. You can practically feel the blood pouring from your skin by his nails through the robe. The sharpness squeezing your lungs and attacking your mind. 

And like a bullet from a gun, you fire back. With hateful words and a dead tone, fire lit behind your pupils and your caged self inside of them begging to be let out. Begging to be let free and loved by Eddie. Slapping his hands away from you, you pull away from him, your back hitting the wall with a thud, the same wall you leaned on last night when he kissed you for the first time. 

The word is final. And so full of venom it feels like poison on your lips. 

“Don’t.” 

Wounded like an animal he defends himself. His slapped hands are red and stinging as he hangs them limply at his side. He shakes his head and his lips glow with how hard he’s pressing them together. 

“Tell me I don’t mean anything to you,” he yells, hurt and unable to contain his building desperate pleas to win you back, “Go ahead! Use your words Tooty. Tell me last night meant nothing to you.”  

He’s a fiend for your poisoned drug and you are his dealer, giving him what he wants, directly to his vein of choice. The veil of hatred falling in your vision and coating your stone still features. A single tear welled into your eyes. Falling the exact time you tell him words you knew weren’t at all true. 

“It meant nothing to me.” 

He chuckles in a hurt tone trying desperately to hide his own tears, a sick smirk of dismay is displayed on his quivering lips. And he’s fighting like hell to stay standing on two feet. 

“So now what? Huh?” His voice breaks and he clears his throat, hands on his hips and looking towards the popcorn ceiling, desperately blinking tears back, and once they’re hiding again he nods his head forward, one last attempt to have you break with him. To admit you were lying to yourself. 

Crossing his arms he’s trying not to shake with fury and grief. Through gritted teeth he misters up enough courage to ask you something he doesn’t wanna hear the answer to.

“Tell me what you want since you’re so big and brave. Don’t be a coward now sweetheart, tell me what you want.” 

You almost vomit on the spot. But choke it down long enough to spill the last lie from your pretty lips.

The nail in the coffin. The big finale. 

“I want… you to leave.” 

—

JANUARY 

It took three hours and all the boys from Corroded Coffin to help Eddie move his things out. He took a few days off from work to get his affairs in order. Filling out the proper paperwork to change his address back to the light blue trailer in Forest Hills for the time being. 

You weren’t home when it happened. He had made sure of it. 

When you closed your eyes at night you could still hear slam of metal connecting to metal when he slammed his van door and the crunch of ice and snow beneath his van tires as he sped away. 

You didn’t cry anymore when Metallica played on the radio. And nobody but you knew that every glass you had owned had been shattered against the front door when you came home to his empty room. 

A reality that had your eyes swollen for days. 

It took you two weeks to see the envelope on the table. A scrawl of shitty handwriting with your name on it. 

Tucked inside the pristine white envelope was more than twenty $100 bills, fresh from the bank. And a small note: 

“If you need more let me know, 

take care of yourself - Eddie 

That night you wept. Clutching onto the handmade shirt Eddie had given you, the night before the concert. The only thing remnant of him living in the house. Not counting the newer jar of pickles in the fridge, like the last— the lid was missing. 

Hot tears slid out of your eyes faster than a tub draining. A call to Robin is broken with blubbering hysterics and honking noises of your nose being blown into a wadded Kleenex, and in ten minutes time—she manages to drop everything to come and look after you. 

Countless hours slip by of her rubbing your back and even crying along with you, she swore Eddie and you were meant to be. Her words were blankets of comfort on you as she tried her best not to bring him up. 

She had promised both Steve and Eddie to not tell you where he was staying, for your own good. 

And like the kind hearted friend she was, Robin stayed for a few days. Taking off work and cooking meals for you even though you refused to eat. 

On the third day of not eating and refusing to leave your bed, she put a call in to Steve. He was hands on his hips disappointed in you. Lecturing you about how your actions hurt people and how you couldn’t be a brat forever. He threatened to dial the Wheeler’s to have Karen step in. 

But you wouldn’t budge. 

When Nancy had shown up on a Wednesday morning, she immediately went to work. Making a schedule for you to follow, and taking absolutely no bullshit when you told her you were a grown woman and could deal with things on your own. 

When she blacked out Eddie’s name from the calendar, silent tears fell down your cheeks. 

Seeing his name brought you both solace and pain. A reminder that you had done this yourself. That he wasn’t coming back. And it was because of you.

You moved with the motions of each day.

Shower 

Brushing your teeth 

Eating breakfast 

Getting ready for work 

Going to work 

Eating lunch 

Working

Driving home 

Eating supper 

Brush teeth 

Bedtime 

You sat in silence when you weren’t at work. Finding little to no enjoyment in anything anymore. Avoiding everyone’s calls. Staring at the 4 walls in your bedroom like a prison cell. Eddie’s stupid jar of pickles tucked snuggly between your crossed legs, your supper for weeks now. 

The only thing on your mind was him. He stuck with you in everything you did. He was everywhere. You even started drinking orange juice from the jug just like he did.

His laugh. The small giggly one he’d had since boyhood and the deep belly laugh he’d generate when you would roll your eyes at him, all of his teeth showing. 

His smile seemed to stretch across the Milky Way. Wide and pearly, ear to ear. His cheeks prickled with deep dimples. Somehow getting cuter with age. 

The darkest eyes full of mischief and wonderment. You could get lost in the Wonka chocolate river pooling in his eyes. Changing with his emotions like a mood ring, they gave him away.  

—

Corroded Coffin hadn’t played a gig since A Merry Corroded Christmas. Hard to play a show when the lead singer couldn’t pull it together during practices or remember to show up to them. 

Steve had stayed up with Eddie the first few nights, talking him off the edge of a violent end he didn’t see a way out of. 

He wouldn’t allow himself to forget that night. The passion was cosmic. And he knew you felt it too. Whether or not you would admit you were lying to yourself didn’t interest him. 

He was used to rejection. 

Used to feeling like he was nothing. 

What was breaking him was the ghost of you in his arms. Your sleeping body haunted his dreams, made the demons escape from hell and flood his vision. 

When he woke and you weren’t there the pain surfaced tenfold. And no amount of whiskey or Rick’s finest trees would fix it. 

The cycle never ending

He cared about you more than he cared about himself. 

The day you asked him to leave was a blur. He woke up at Gareth’s apartment a day later, no recollection of how he had gotten there. 

Your words etched into his skin like a tattoo. 

I want you to leave.

FEBRUARY

Still Loving You by Scorpions is playing on repeat between Nothing Else Matters by Metallica again in the guest house behind the lavish empty pool of Steve Harrington’s new home on Cornwalis St. 

Thirty some odd days had passed and Eddie Munson was nowhere near the man he used to be. 

Where his skin was once smooth shaven was now replaced by a prickly sparse beard. His once sparkling chocolate eyes were now dull and almost ashen. Dark circles rim his eyes from lack of sleep and poor nutrition, a diet of Marlboros, whiskey and pretzels giving him enough energy to work and come back to the same space he had called home for a few months. 

Throwing himself into working long hours at Boom’s he slept very little at night. When he did close his eyes he’d be jarred awake by a nightmare, one he hasn’t had since he was a kid. And he’d lay awake for hours replaying the same day over and over again in his mind. 

Each time ending the same way.

Shreds of notebook papers cluttered the floor, each littered with blue and black ink, all different but entirely the same subject: you.

Poems, songs, haikus and even a poorly written sonnet he had attempted while drunk at 2 AM sitting in a lounge chair he had drug out from the pool shed to sit along the edge of the frozen pool cover. 

His hair hadn’t been brushed in weeks. Leighanne offered to help comb out the tangles and mats but the burden was too much for him to handle. He denied her kindness, brushing it off with mumbled ‘m fine ’s and don’t worry ‘bout me ’s.

But in reality the thought of another woman’s hands in his hair only made the tears fall harder. 

When Eddie first moved in, Steve and Robin were still in the apartment, and Eddie’s things were moved to a storage unit across town. 

When the lease was up at the end of January, Robin moved into Vicky’s apartment over Surfer Boy Pizza and Steve purchased a house, along with an expensive diamond ring he would be anticipating on giving to an eager Leighanne, holding off until her birthday for the right time to pop the question. 

The Harrington/Buckley apartment was then subleased to Eddie. A sublease that didn’t last more than a week before he was booted out by the landlord for destruction of property when he accidentally started a fire in the kitchen. 

He was only trying to replicate your lasagna. 

Steve graciously invited Eddie to move in. and Eddie kept to himself for the most part. And on nights when sad music was blaring from the small guest house, Steve knew better than to ask if his friend wanted to play cards or kick back with a few beers. 

-T-

January came and went and close to the end of February  Josie told you she was cutting everyone’s hours, the salon would no longer be open on the weekends. The envelope Eddie had left for you was thrown into your night stand and you refused to use any of it. 

No one in town was hiring for another hairdresser so you opted to driving fifteen miles out of town to find another job. 

The job you had gotten was bartending at a rundown shithole bar worse than the Hideout. But the tips were good and your boss was sweet. A pot belly old farmer who only played country classics and served warm beer and peanuts, the shells making curved mountains on the filthy splintered wood floor.

It was refreshing to get out of Hawkins, but most importantly, it was the best chance you had at not running into someone who looked like him. 

Your body started to ache at all times, tender in places that never hurt before. Exhaustion thick on your features 

Months had passed and you hadn’t seen your friends. Nancy would call every now and then and check in. Jonathan and her were seeing a couples therapist for intimacy issues. She said Mike was hinting at proposing soon to El. 

Eddie’s shadow lingered on your skin and you swore you could feel his breath in your ear. Whispering how he loved you.

Some days were better than others, but most days you would get so worked up you would vomit from the pain. Betrayal splayed in your guts. Your mind was working against you.

His teary eyes and hurt expression were all you saw when you closed your eyes. And every night you cried yourself to sleep, cocooned into a pile of too many blankets, dreaming that Eddie was holding you tight against his chest, never leaving…never letting you go. 

MARCH

Eddie worked more than twelve hours a day, acting as two full time mechanics with how hard he was throwing himself into projects. Boom, although grateful for Eddie’s help and go-getter attitude, worried about him. Especially when he noticed the other two knot head mechanics he couldn’t afford to fire, helping themselves into his office flipping through personnel files. 

“Sean told me he makes more money than me! I was just checking to see how much more you think he’s worth! 

Aaron chuckled when Boom tossed him out of the office by his collar. 

A secret motive snug on his Copenhagen smile. The Information he was seeking: found and a reward would be granted for his loyalty to a long time friend.

…

“… alright fine, I guess pineapple is pretty good on pizza.”

“Told ya, Harrington, ” licking his lips, Eddie reached into the cardboard box and grabs another slice, the melting cheese stretching for what seemed like miles,  “I know good pizza.” 

Steve rolls his eyes, taking it easy on his friend who finally is looking like his normal self again after two months of becoming almost unrecognizable. 

The sad music didn’t play anymore. And his fingers didn’t bleed from writing songs about you. 

He was accepting what happened. Still sad, a little depressed but moving forward with his life. 

The date was approaching, Steve knew it and so did Eddie, neither wanted to talk about what he was going to do yet but Steve held his tongue for far too long. 

“so.. that Metallica concert is coming up… you still g—”

Before Steve could finish muttering, Eddie was already finishing his sentence, chewing along with his explanation. His fingers twirl the rings on his other hand. A nervous fit settling in his stomach.

“—already sold ‘em. Gonna drop the money I got for them in her mailbox tonight.” 

Steve shifts uncomfortably in his chair, threading fingers through his coiffed hair. “So that’s it huh?” 

“So what’s it?” Eddie questioned, nonchalantly standing suddenly from the table with a scratch of the chair's legs  against the tiled floor. Throwing his paper plate and napkin away, he stops at the trash can. Doubling back he almost cracks under the scrutiny of Steve’s eyes. 

“Steve, she doesn’t wanna be with me, we’ve been over this. I fucked up, came on too strong.” 

“I’m sorry man,” Steve apologizes, a drag of his large hands down his face. “I really thought she felt the same way—,” he huffs out a breath, “fuck, we all did!”

A shake of Eddie’s curls silences Steve’s words, the whirring noise in his ears, “I’m fine man, really. I’m gonna keep doing what we said we would all those years ago.” 

Walking towards the front door and stomping louder than he should have, Eddie thrusts his arms into his leather jacket, the silk inside cozy along his faded cotton shirt. 

His keys are hanging on the little hook by the door, Steve’s decorator thinking of every detail, he lets the brass teeth dig into his palm. 

“Even if she hates me Steve,” one hand on the silver doorknob, rings clicking against it in his tight grip, he turns his head and looks into pitiful moss colored eyes, as he delivers the only truth he’s ever known, “I still love her.”

Slamming home the driver’s door to the van and turning his key into the ignition, Skid Row’s I Remember You plays gently through the speakers. Eddie hums along and pats his thumbs against the steering wheel. 

It was true he was doing better.

His hair was combed through after using copious amounts of the cheapest conditioner Melvald’s had to offer. And he didn’t need the whiskey anymore to make it through the day. 

He yearned to see your face. 

Even if it was a glare his way or a raised eyebrow at something stupid he had to say, he’d do just about anything to see it. 

Would you be smiling? 

Were you happy without him? 

He hoped you were doing well, and maybe would want to be friends again. 

Turning onto Cherry Lane is pure nostalgia. It had only been a few months but everything looked the same. He felt different and maybe expected everything else to change along with him. 

And there it was. Your house. 

The house he had lived in, learned life skills he should have learned years ago, and most importantly shared the deepest love he’d ever felt with someone in his life.  

The windows were dark, except for a small light in the kitchen, a candle he assumed. The smell of vanilla warmed his nose as he thought of the familiar scent you had kept burning.

The driveway held your car and another he didn’t recognize. By first glance he thought maybe it could be Nancy. But she had just brought her old station wagon into Boom’s last week for a tire rotation. 

The license plates on the fancy BMW were not from Hawkins, housing the wrong number for the county on the Indiana plates. 

His ears heated with jealousy. Throat closing tight trying to hide a choked sob. 

How could you have moved on from him so quickly? The thought of you hooking up with someone while he was practically a dead man walking made him weak in the knees.

A punch to the gut. He had never felt so low in all of his life.

He couldn’t help himself when he jumped out of the van. Foregoing slamming the door. Stomping on cold concrete with shaky legs all the way to the front door. He fumed as he blinked back tears. 

He was prepared to make an ass out of himself. He’d announce himself the same way he had when he opened the door the day he has moved in all those months ago. 

A loud boisterous, HONEY, I’M HOME 

With knuckles raised and his heart hammering in his chest like a bee trapped in a tin can, he was ready to knock. 

Ready to see your shocked face with some faceless guy probably with a better job and stupid suits when Eddie’s wild hair and goofy grin was on the other side of the door. 

But he is stopped short when a muffled shrill scream vibrates off the walls and finds his ears.

see you in volume 12

🐑 (sacrificial for readmore)

[jadequeen88]

THE WAY I AM GIGGLING, KICKING MY FEET, AND TWIRLING MY HAIR RN😭😍😭😍

It Gets Worse (Eddie Munson x fem!reader)

Part 2 to Same Old Song and Dance

Summary: As the rhythm of your never ending dance with Eddie speeds up, things change, but is it really for the worse?

Tropes: bully!eddie (kind of), mean!eddie (not rlly tho), enemies to lovers Warnings: 18+, mature language, pet names (princess), oral (male receiving), smut. Authors Notes: thank you to everyone who reblogged/interacted with the first part!! it was the second thing I ever posted on here so it was very cool for me. I hope you like part 2. Part 3 soon! wc: 6.2k

tags: @needylilgal022 @tlclick73

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“It was a poor lapse in judgment. That’s all. If he’s suddenly nicer to me, good. If he stays his same undignified self, fine.” You say, scribbling down the notes you missed. 

You were ‘sick’ yesterday. After what happened with Eddie, you had to be. 

“I think you’re missing one more option there.” Nancy says, eyebrows turned up in concern. 

“I’m not.” You shrug.

“You are.” She persists. 

“Fine, Nance. What am I missing?” You say, putting your pencil down and giving her your full attention.

“He gets worse.” 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Eddie left your house pretty quickly after it all went down. Probably desperate to get home and ‘rub one out’ as he so eloquently put it. 

You were fine after he left, still riding the post orgasm high. 

It was only after you sat down, taking out your school work, that the worksheet from Mrs. Ward's class knocked you back down to earth. 

You let Eddie Munson, the boy who has terrorized you since elementary school, finger you. And the worst part, it was good. Great, even. 

So naturally, you were sick the next day. You enjoyed yourself an Eddie Munson free day from the safety of your bed. 

Around 7 that night, Nancy called you telling you that Eddie was asking where you were at school. And of course, Nancy with her inquisitive— and extremely persuasive mind, got you to spill your guts. She knows all about your ongoing hostility with Eddie, but for some reason, what happened between you two didn’t surprise her in the slightest. 

In exchange for the gory details of your afternoon with Eddie, she agreed to meet you on the bleachers before school started to borrow her notes. 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Eddie sauntered into class as if he wasn’t late. He wasn’t phased as Mrs. Ward scolded him. With a muttered ‘Sorry’, he stepped into the classroom, eyes narrowed on you, with a buzzing excitement coursing through his veins and an extra pep in his step.

You had managed to avoid Eddie the whole day up until now.

His eyes burned into you from the minute he appeared in the doorway. The only thing you could do was sit up straighter and pretend like you couldn’t see him. 

Even as he purposefully passed in front of your desk, knocking his fist on the surface as he rounded to his own seat, you pretended he was nothing but a pesky house fly that just barely got on your nerves with its ceaseless buzzing. 

When a note landed on your desk only minutes after his arrival, you took your time opening it. 

‘Where were you?’ was scribbled out in red ink. It didn’t deserve your response. 

Instead, you gathered your hair in your hands, swirling it around your fingers, tying it into a tight bun at the base of your neck. Pulling out a few pieces of hair to frame your face, careful to make sure no strands were inherently ‘pullable'. 

When Mrs. Ward dedicates the remaining portion of class to working with your partners, you close your eyes inhaling deeply before turning.

“Why were you asking Nancy where I was yesterday? Are you, like, obsessed with me now?” You say, beating Eddie to the chase. His eyes open wide, mouth dropping slightly, as his cheeks tinge pink. 

“No.” He says quietly, eyes dropping to his desk where his notebook lays blank, page ripped in half from the note he threw at you. 

“So what then?” You snap. 

He shrugs.

You weren’t expecting him to give up just like that. You jumped the gun on an unexpecting target. The dance is only fun with two people. 

Silence between you two, you set your worksheet down on his desk, swiveling your body to face him. 

As you cross your legs under his desk, your foot rubs his shin and he doesn’t even make any of his usual stupid comments. He doesn’t even look up. 

So you do it again. And again. You let your foot trail up from his ankle all the way to his calf as you scribble ideas down on your worksheet. 

When you hook your foot around his leg you’re surprised when you feel fingers grip your bare ankle.

“Fucking quit it.” He hisses, lifting your leg higher until your knee hits the bottom of his desk in a thud.

“Eddie. I’m wearing a skirt. Let. Go.” You snap, trying to break his grip. 

“Oh, but I thought you liked attention?” He scoffs, eyes set on you harshly.

“Let. Go.” You repeat, kicking your leg trying to free yourself but his grip only gets stronger. 

“You like attention so much, princess, that your giant ego just assumed I was obsessed with you, huh?” He says, amusement rising in his blazen eyes as he watches the way your brows pinch. 

You kick your leg again and his grip becomes impossibly tight, his fingertips nearly bruising into your skin. 

“You’re hurting me, Eddie.” You hiss, your voice gaining the attention of a few surrounding students. 

His grip loosens immediately, dropping your ankle from his hand, and he makes fast work of kicking his chair back and standing from the desk.

Mrs. Ward yells after him as he leaves the class but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even look back. 

You don’t go after him and he doesn’t return to class either. The bell rings and you pack up your stuff, eyes flickering to the door waiting for him to come back for his notebook. He doesn’t though, so you close the notebook, stacking it on top of your own books before exiting the class.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

You weren’t going to actively seek him out to give him his notebook back. You were just going to hand it to him in passing. The only issue is, you haven’t seen him. 

“Hey. Your name's Gareth, right?” You say, walking up to the boy as he closes his locker.

“Yeah.” He says, smirking as he looks at you.

“Oh, I’m-”

“We know who you are.” Another boy, who you think is named Jeff, says from the other side of Gareth.

“Eddie’s not around. Was pretty pissed off, actually. Something to do with you, I’m assuming?” Gareth says, brows lifting as he awaits your response.

“Why would it be because of me? He’s the one with the problem.” You scoff, furrowing your brows angrily. Gareth's smirk drops immediately, turning timid under your fire. 

“Hey, hey. Sorry. We just hear about you all the time, it’s exhaust—”

“Gareth.” Jeff cuts him off, shooting him a look.

“Dude, c’mon.” Gareth says to Jeff. Jeff shoots him another pointed look before they start silently communicating with each other through looks.

“Where is he?” You huff, getting annoyed. 

“Your guess is as good as ours.” Gareth says with a shrug. 

“Thanks.” You scoff, spinning on your feet, mad at yourself for even bothering to try and find Eddie. 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The notebook’s been taunting you all day, especially now as you sit in your room trying to get your homework done. There it is peeking out from your bag. 

Giving into temptation, you grab the book, taking it to your bed.

Flipping open the first page, it’s just doodles. Flipping another page, more doodles, another page, even more doodles. 

Skipping a few pages you finally find some scribbled messy writing that you can just barely make out. Something about someone named mage? Something about… a dwarf? 

You skip more pages and it’s the same nonsensical writing with something about a sorcerer until it clicks. You find a page titled hellfire and you realize it has to be that nerdy fantasy game he plays with his little friends. 

You quickly get bored. You were hoping for something juicy, something that would provide you with ammunition against him. It’s mostly just a lot of drawings of tits and weird looking demon-y things. 

You slide the notebook under your pillow before going back to your homework. 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

A knock at your window startles you, heart pounding rapidly against your ribs. When you see eyes through the gap in the curtain your heart nearly stops until you recognize them. Then your heart speeds up again.

You go back to reading your book, kicking your legs back and forth behind you.

He knocks again and you wave. He points to the lock and you shrug, going back to your book, trying to hide the smile tugging at your lips. 

A third knock. It’s much more aggressive and shakes the shutters making you jump. If your dad was actually home, that would have woken him but he’s not. It’s just you and you know Eddie knows it too because of the empty driveway.

“Jesus Christ.” You mutter to yourself, pushing off your bed.

You unlock the window and he’s quickly pushing it open.

“Notebook.” He says flatly, holding his hand out. 

“Notebook?” You question innocently. 

“Notebook.” He repeats harshly, making you clench your jaw. Who does he think he is, coming to your house and talking to you like that?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You say, turning around and going back to laying on your stomach with your book. 

“You have my notebook.” He states, still perching outside.

“Why would I have your stupid notebook?” You sneer, rolling your eyes. 

“You have it.” He sighs, pushing the window open as wide as it can go. 

“I don’t even see why you would need it at this hour, I never took you as a studier.” You say indifferently, flipping the page of your book. 

You watch out of your periphery as he crawls through your window seamlessly, landing gently on the carpeted floor. 

“Shoes off.” You say but he ignores you, stepping further into the room. “Eddie, I said shoes off.” You repeat more sternly. He mumbles something that you don’t quite catch before he’s kicking off his shoes.

He moves to the side of the bed, standing with his arms crossed, fingers tapping on his forearm. He exhales through his nose in an almost growl and you happily keep your attention on your book as you get him all worked up. 

“Princess, I know you have it, just hand it over so I can go.” He snarls. 

“No.” You say stubbornly, eyes still glued to the pages of your book. 

You see him turn, head darting around the room before landing on your bag next to your desk. He swiftly moves to the bag, picking it up, and before you have time to protest, he’s dumping the contents on the floor.

“What the fuck did you do that for?” You hiss, throwing your book to the side and jumping up from your bed. 

He uses his foot to push around your bag’s contents before giving up since it’s not there. You lower to your knees, picking up your stuff hastily and putting it back in your bag. 

You can feel Eddie’s eyes on you as you gather your things and you're waiting for a snide remark, you know it’s coming.

“You look pretty on your knees like that, princess.” He says, voice low making your stomach squeeze. 

You look up at him with furrowed brows, and his eyes are set on you, looking down the slope of his nose, watching intently.

“Perv.” You scoff.

“Careful, princess. I wasn’t the one throwing myself at you in class today.” He says, laughing meanly.

“I wasn’t doing that.” You retort, feeling your cheeks burn hot. You focus your attention on fitting some loose pages back in your folder that he scattered everywhere.

“So what were you doing then?” He says amusedly. 

“I wasn’t doing anything.” You shrug your shoulders trying your best to hold onto your attitude. 

“C’mon, princess. Don’t play dumb, I’m not into bimbos.” He scoffs, his familiar teasing tone slowly coming back and you do your best to hide your excitement at the prospect of Eddie rejoining this little thing you two do. 

You pause your actions before flickering your gaze to him, looking up through your eyelashes as you sit a little taller.

“So what are you into then?” You question, your voice barely above a whisper, purposefully breathy. His eyes connect with yours before dropping lower, licking his lips in the process. 

“Pretty girls on their knees for me.” He smirks, his freshly wet lips glistening, looking all too inviting and it almost makes you squirm. 

“I’m only on my knees cause you’re a dick.” You mumble under your breath, zipping up your bag.

“Cause my dick- what, sweetheart?” He laughs. 

“You are a dick.” You say louder, clenching your jaw at his stupid excuse of a joke.

“C’mon, princess. Lighten up.” He says, stepping forward. You lean back, his crotch being way too close to you, but then he drops, crouching to your level, his face only inches from yours. 

You pause, waiting to see what he’s doing, but he just looks at you. His eyes are unmeeting of your own, choosing to flutter over your features before bringing a hand to your face, pushing a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

“Notebook, princess.” He sings softly, reminding you why he’s here. 

“It’s at school.” You lie, raising your brows challengingly. 

“No it’s not.” He says confidently.

“Yes, it is.” You argue, furrowing your brows at him.

“No, it’s not, princess.” He sighs and you feel his breath fan over your lips. It takes everything in you not to look.

“Eddie, how the fuck would you know?” You seethe, getting frustrated. You’re supposed to be leading this game, you’re the one on your knees. 

“Cause I looked in your locker. I know it’s not in there.” He says coolly, unaffected. 

“How- What do you mean, you looked in my locker?” You say bewildered, fists clenching at your side. 

“I know it’s not in there, so it must be somewhere in here.” He says, ignoring your question, gaze moving around your room before settling back on you. He winks before standing, his crotch appearing directly in your face until he spins on his heels walking towards your bookshelf. “Gonna make me tear apart your pretty room looking for it, princess?” He taunts, starting to pull out books from the shelf at random. 

“It’s not there.” You say firmly.

“Well maybe I’ll take a look just to be sure. Especially since we both know that you like to lie.” He says, shifting around trinkets on the top shelf.

“I don’t lie.” You huff but he ignores you, continuing to poke and prod at your things.

“Oh look, princess has a princess.” He teases, lifting up a ceramic ornament your dad gave you for your fifth birthday. 

“If you break that I’ll kick your ass.” You threaten, standing up and moving to his side, watching him with crossed arms.

“Kinky.” He teases, putting the ornament down before opening your jewelry box.

“Your notebook wouldn't even fit in there.” You say, rolling your eyes. Now he’s just touching stuff to piss you off.

“You never know, princess.” He replies, rifling around, tangling your necklaces in the process before you swat his hand away.

He steps back, looking around your room again.

“Eddie, give it a rest.” You say, exhaling all the air from your lungs in a huff. 

“Princess, give me my notebook.” He sings, before bounding to your dresser. His hand hovers over the top drawer and he looks back at you with a smirk.

“Don’t you dare.” You hiss.

“It could be in here?” He says innocently. “Everybody knows that the underwear drawer is the best drawer for hiding stuff.” He says, wiggling his eyebrows at you.

“It’s not in there.” You state.

“So you wouldn’t mind if I took a peek?” He says, fingertips taping on the handle. You purse your lips, he wants to look at your panties so bad, fine. 

“Go right ahead, Eddie. Live up to your perv reputation.” You say, jetting a hip out. He rolls his eyes, before turning, moving on to a different part of your room.

“I wonder what kind of dirty secrets the princess keeps in her bedside table.” Eddie taunts. 

There are no dirty secrets in your bedside table but you’re sure even if he opened that drawer and found nothing he’d still spin it into something.

“Must be a pretty important notebook for you to be doing all this, Eddie.” You say, trying to distract him.

He turns to you, eyes scanning over you, sizing you up. 

“You must like me being in your room princess, you know, considering you could just hand over the notebook.” He retorts, eyebrows raised in challenge. 

“What? Don’t want me reading your precious notebook? That why you need it so bad?” You taunt.

“Princess, if you must know, I need it for something.” He says, lips pulled in a flat line, unbothered.

“Something? That’s not very specific.” You laugh. 

“I didn’t know you were so interested in my life?” He says, perking up.

“I’m not.” You scoff.

“Keep telling yourself that, maybe one day it’ll come true.” He smirks and you want to smack it right off his face.

“Well, you’re the one who was asking about me yesterday.” You spit, words rolling off your tongue.

“You were sick the day before, god forbid I have a heart and a conscience.” He spits back.

The way your own heart speeds up leaves you stumped for words and he picks it up immediately, choosing to double down on you. 

“You weren’t sick though, were you? No. Princess was playing hooky. Who were you trying to avoid, hm?” He says, stepping closer to you.

“No one.” You say quietly, body turning hot under his interrogation.

“That sounds like another lie to me. It’s hypocritical, princess, to make me try and admit something while you can’t tell me one honest thing.” He says, voice all too daunting for your liking.

“I’m not lying.” You whisper.

His demeanor changes, all smirks and taunting eyes gone as he settles into something serious. 

“Did you regret it? Is that it?” He says quietly, voice staying low but he doesn’t step any closer.

“Regret what?” You deflect, buying time for your heart to stop fluttering so hard.

He steps closer.

“Princess, what did I tell you about playing dumb?” You hear his voice vibrate from his chest, words striking something inside of you like a match.

“You said you like pretty girls on their knees better.” You coo, looking at him through your lashes. Keeping eye contact, you sink to your knees in front of him. 

You watch as his eyes widen and it spurs you on. You’re holding the reins now, you’re in control again. Letting your fingertips hook through his belt loops, you pull him forward until he’s right where you want him.

What surprises you is the way he brings his hand to your cheek. It’s soft and almost tender. You could make the mistake of leaning into it, but you don’t. 

“Princess, what do you want from me?” He whispers softly. His round eyes twinkle in your bedroom lights, captivating you entirely.

“I don’t want anything from you.” You purr, fingers still hooked in his belt loops keeping him in place. His hand on your cheek turns into a thumb running soft circles against your skin. 

“Princess.” He sighs, his chest deflating.

“Do you want me to now?” You ask quietly, letting your eyes flicker to his belt line, referring to his words from the last time you tried to get on your knees for him. 

“I didn’t come here for this.” He says, mouth moving in a tight line like he’s fighting some internal battle.

“Yeah, you came here for your notebook.” You state, raising your brows. “But are you gonna let me suck your dick?”

With his jeans tightening by the second his mouth still mulls back and forth, his thumb running soft circles on your cheek. He swallows and you know he’s made up his mind. 

“S’all yours, princess.” He says, punctuating his words with a gentle tap to your cheek.

Unhooking your fingers from his belt loops, you walk them to the buckle, the jangle of metal filling the room as you work at it. He watches you intently, eyes staring heatedly when you finally get it undone.

“You gonna let me touch you?” You say with a teasing lilt, copying the same words he said to you. He catches your tease, lips turning up, smiling at you with amusement. “C’mon, Eddie. Use your words, I know you got ‘em in that idiot mouth of yours.” You add, digging in further with your mockery. 

“You think you're teasing me, but that’s hot, princess. Keep talking.” He says, voice low and taunting as his narrowed eyes flickering over you.

“How many times have you touched yourself thinking about all those pretty noises I made for you, Eddie?” You coo with a breathy sweetness. His smile wavers but the amused sparkle in his darkening eyes remains strong. 

“You don’t want to know, princess.” He replies carefully. 

“I do, Eddie, that’s why I asked.” You let your fingers drag down his clothed thighs, he still hasn’t given you an answer, so you don’t go any further. “It’s barely been two days, how many times could a boy possibly cum?” You ask coyly. 

“Got a high turnover rate, princess. Can pop one boner after another if something really gets me going.” He laughs and you let your lips turn up at his ridiculousness.

“You didn’t answer me, Eddie.” you say, trailing your nails back up the denim on his thighs. He shuts his mouth harshly before opening it again to speak. 

“Anywhere between 2 to 10 times, whatever you think the best answer is, princess. You’re the smart one here.” You laugh and his cheeks tinge pink just enough for you to notice.

“Eddie, I meant my other question. Are you gonna let me touch you?” You say, dipping your head to look at him through your lashes again. His blush deepens as his eyes drink you in, absorbing everything from the way you look at him to the way you speak. 

“Princess, I always want you to touch me.” He whispers, his voice small, yet genuine, and it makes your stomach flutter terribly. 

“Is that so?” You say feigning indifference, fingers ghosting over the button of his jeans. 

“Please.” He says breathily, swallowing thickly as his eyes follow your dainty movements. 

To have him so willing at your fingertips. To have him say please. To have him. It stirs something in you that it’s never done before. None of the teasing, hair pulling, name calling, none of that has made you feel anything but red hot anger. But this… this isn’t anger. You’re still burning, but it’s not anger anymore. 

His fingers smooth your hair, pulling you from your reverie, drawing your attention up to him. His eyes are waiting for you, softer than ever. It makes you want to scream. Makes you want to lash out. Stomp your foot. Throw something.

But you don’t do that. Instead you undo the button to his jeans and lower the zipper. 

“You okay, princess?” Eddie whispers, breaking the silence.

“What?” You snarl, scrunching your face, glaring at him. Overcompensating with an edge. Hiding behind a thin disguise.

“You just went quiet. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” He says calmly despite the reckless edge you just threw at him. His fingers pass over the top of your head gently, smoothing your hair again.

“Eddie, I can make my own decisions, thank you very much.” You scoff. 

“Jesus Christ. I try to be nice and this is what I get?” He huffs but there’s barely any malice behind it, just enough to rile you up. 

“Eddie. You just fucking said I was the smart one here, don’t you think I can make my own decisions?” You retort harshly. 

“I know you can, princess.” He says exasperatedly. “Fuck, I think I liked it better when you were quiet, can we go back to that?” He groans.

“Fuck you.” You spit aggressively, hands starting to tug down his denim. You half expected him to stop you but he doesn’t. Instead, when you get them down his thighs, he helps you, kicking them off to the side. 

Left in his plaid boxers, you hook your fingers around the waist band, and look up to him for permission. With a nod, you pull them down, fabric pooling around his feet.

He bobs against his lower belly before settling in front of you. You try not to react, you can’t give him that. The mean part of you was hoping he’d be small just so you could use it against him, another part of you glows with excitement because he’s not. He’s perfect and you would never tell him that.

You take him in your hand and immediately his breath catches in his throat. Barely moving, a whimper rises in his chest. Oh, this is gonna be fun.

You spit in your hand, bringing it to his length, spreading it all over with both hands, making sure he’s nice and wet. 

“Fuck.” He groans and you can’t help the amused smile that spreads on your lips. 

“Eddie, I’ve barely even started, and look at you.” You tease, his cock jolting in your hands. 

“Keep talking, princess.” He whispers, sounding almost desperate.

“You like when I talk?” You laugh. You start pumping slowly with your one hand, dragging back and forth over his hardness. “You just said you wanted me to be quiet.”

He shakes his head aggressively, eyes shutting.

“Like it when you talk, princess.” He moans.

You sit up straighter on your knees, bringing your mouth to his tip, licking just the head. His eyes shoot open, gaze immediately setting on you.

“You like that, Eddie?” You tease and he nods his head dumbly. “Want me to do it again?” He nods again.

You place a kiss to his tip, pulling back to watch his reaction but he doesn’t have any. In fact, he doesn’t even look like he’s breathing.

“Eddie, you gotta breathe, can’t have you passing out just from getting your dick sucked.” You taunt. His mouth opens, sucking in a breath, his chest rising and falling harshly as he lets it out. “Look at you, such a good listener tonight.” You laugh, his dick kicking up in your hand again. You shake your head in amusement before placing another kiss to his tip.

You pull away entirely, pushing yourself off your knees, moving to your bed. He’s clearly not fit for standing right now. 

When you sit, turning back to Eddie, he’s still standing in the middle of your room, hands brought to his face as he rubs aggressively.

“Eddie.” You call, getting his attention. He spins, pulling his hands away from his face, his bangs sticking up in all different directions. You pat the spot next to you and he’s quick to claim it. 

“That’s better isn’t it?” You say as he lays down, hair spanning over your pillow. 

“Better.” He says, voice cracking. 

You settle between his legs, mouth watering as you take him in your hand again. 

You dribble spit over the tip, letting it fall over the head before gathering it, spreading it with a twist of both hands up and down his cock. 

“Gonna let me use my mouth now, Eddie? Or are you still desperate to hear me talk?” You tease, gaze finding his blown out eyes.

He nods but you tut. 

“Wanna hear you say it, Eddie.” You coo, letting your eyes flicker over him. You stop your hand movements when he takes too long to reply.

“Princess, please put your mouth on my cock. Please.” He says, words practically a whine spilling from his lips. 

You nestle closer to him between his thighs, dipping your face, licking up the underside of his cock before opening your mouth and letting it hit against your tongue.

You watch him carefully, reveling in the way he’s falling apart for you. His chest rises and sinks in steady pants, mouth set agape, as his wide eyes watch your every move.

Closing your lips around him, you let him slide in just enough for you to swirl your tongue around his tip.

“Fuck” He groans. You hum, not missing the way his thighs clench as you do.

His hand finds your head, combing your hair back, resting his palm against the side of your face. Most guys start pushing on the back of your head, but Eddie doesn’t. 

Flattening your tongue, you take him deeper in your mouth, twisting your hands around him and meeting your mouth halfway up his length.

His other hand takes purchase on the mattress, knuckles turning white from how hard he’s gripping the comforter. It’s completely dichotomous to the gentle grip he holds on your face. It’s almost laughable. 

You bring your head up and down before pulling off with a pop, spitting on the tip again, making sure your hands glide slickly along his length. 

“Is that good, Eddie?” You ask before returning your mouth to his cock. Your added spit makes a slick, wet noise as you move your fists up and down on his length.

“Fuck, princess. S’really good.” He gasps breathily, his stomach tensing as your thumb wipes at the precum gathering on his tip.  

You smile before parting your lips, taking him back in your mouth.

You take him further this time, his cock hitting the back of your throat and he whimpers pitifully. You do it again and his fingertips press in the slightest bit harder against your face, still not pushing you, just translating his pleasure through his touch.

You hollow your cheeks, sinking harder and faster, bobbing your head. His fingers weave into your hair gently and it spurs you on. You take him deeper, relaxing your throat, letting him slide right in until your lips meet your fingers at his base.

When you do it again, you push yourself a little too hard, gagging yourself, sputtering as you rise. With a deep, broken moan Eddie’s hips follow your mouth, only settling back to the bed when you pull off of him with a gasp as you catch your breath. 

“Jesus Christ.” He whimpers under his breath.

You feel his cock pulsing in your fist, his hand tugging ever so gently on the roots of your hair and you start to think you might just like this too much. 

You take him in your mouth again, all the way back to your throat, removing your hands entirely until your nose nestles against the wispy hairs above his shaft.

You exploringly let your fingertips tiptoe to his balls, taking them in one hand, massaging them gently.

“F-fuck. Fuck.” Eddie groans, stomach tensing sharply, his thighs squeezing against you. 

You jerk your head on his cock, continuing to massaging his balls using the mess of wetness leaking down his shaft to help guide your skillful movements.

It’s not long before every bob of your head is being chased by the rise of his hips. He’s desperate for release, you both know it.

You flicker your eyes to him and he’s never looked more scattered. Bangs disheveled, cheeks rosy, brows pinched, half lidded eyes all dark and pleading, just for you. You do like it too much, you really, really do.

His gaze meets yours, flickering between you and your mouth.

“Doing so fucking good princess. Don’t stop. Please.” He whines. You hum contentedly, sinking onto him, hands still working his balls as they tense in your grasp. 

His hand in your hair starts to sting as he pulls at it but he still doesn’t push you, he wouldn’t do that unless you told him to, you’re sure of it now.

His moans and whimpers rise, getting higher and longer, composing a symphony just for you. It comes to a crescendo when you take him all the way to his base again. His hips rise from the mattress, cock choking you, and you swallow around him, making him cry out a desperate moan that simmers into a broken whimper.

You know he’s close. 

You hum to yourself, gulping him into your mouth, meeting his quick, uneven thrusts. 

“I’m g-gonna cum.” He says in a strangled moan. His hand in your hair tugs impossibly hard, trying to pull you from him but you don’t let him. He doesn’t make your decisions, you do. He should know better.

You quicken your pace, bobbing your head and working him in your hands. The obscene, slicked noises coming from your movements fill the room, accompanying his moans, and he breaks. 

For a moment, you watch him as he falls apart and it’s beautiful. Eyes rolling closed, face contorted in pleasure. It’s undeniably beautiful. You don’t let yourself drink in his beauty for too long though, that would be like admitting something and you wouldn’t do that so you refocus on the task at hand (and mouth).

Cum spurting to the back of your throat, you take him deeper a final time, swallowing it all down until you can’t. You pull up, feeling some leaking for the corners of your lips but you keep going, working him through his release as his cock throbs against your tongue. 

He cums so hard that he’s babbling different versions of praises intermixed with your name. Your real name. Not princess, and it takes you by surprise. 

“Fucking shit. F-Fuck.” He whimpers, hips sinking back to the mattress, stuttering. You slow your movements before pulling off of him with a satisfying ‘pop’. 

His cock is shiny, the cum that didn’t get swallowed, gathering around his base. You flicker your eyes to him and he’s watching you now with a glazed over stare. Dipping your mouth to him one last time, you lick up the pearly shine and he looks at you like he might explode. 

You pull away with a laugh, wiping your mouth. 

His body deflates, melting into the mattress as he throws his head back against the pillow, eyes squeezing shut.

“Holy shit.” He groans.

You shift in between his thighs, hands disgustingly wet and sticky so you reach up, wiping both of them down the front of his shirt, leaving behind the glistening wet print of 10 fingers on the black fabric. You expect him to say something but his eyes remain closed, breathing still heavy.

With a gap between the two of you, you lay down beside him, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Your eyes move up, taking in the rosiness of his face and the way it spreads down his neck. You even take the time to notice the delicate way his thick lashes lay atop his cheeks.

“You better not fall asleep here.” You sneer, shaking your head, forcing yourself to stop staring before he notices.

“Why not? Daddy’s not home is he?” He says, breathing still heavy.

“Don’t be a dick.” You retort. He pauses, sucking in a deep, steadying breath and letting it out.

“Pretty sure mine just melted off.” You see his smirk on his face, but his eyes remain closed.

“No, it’s still there unfortunately.” You say flatly, eyes flitting to his softening dick.

“Unfortunately?” He laughs.

“Yup.” You reply.

Eddie shifts the slightest bit, hand raising from his side as he blindly feels around the bed. When he touches your hip you try to swat him away but he grabs your hand, forcing his fingers to intertwine with yours.

“Gross, stop trying to hold my hand!” You shriek, holding back your laughter as you try to shake him off.

“Princess, let me hold your fucking hand. You just sucked the soul right out of me, I need this.” He says with a laugh, grasp getting stronger with each shake of your wrist. 

“You're so weird.” You say, hiding your amusement, trying to find any hint of malice to add to your words but it comes out meak.

Eddie lays there for a few minutes, your hand in his. You try to ignore his radiating warmth by thinking about the project you’re supposed to be doing with him but your eyes keep sinking to your hand in his. 

“What time should I pick you up tomorrow?” Eddie says, turning to face you, opening his eyes finally. His question startles you, taking you aback.

“What?” You laugh.

“For school. What time should I pick you up?” He says again, speaking to you like you’re a child.

“You’re not picking me up.” You state. It’s not up for debate.

“You’re not playing hooky tomorrow, and if I pick you up, I can be sure of it.” He says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

“You’re not picking me up.” You state again.

“Fine. I’ll sleep here tonight then tomorrow we can walk to school together.” He replies, tilting his face towards you and lifting his brows.

“You can't sleep here.” You object firmly.

“Princess.” He says warningly.

“Eddie.” You warn back. His eyes stare into you, making your stomach flutter with nerves. 

“I’m going to brush my teeth and wash my hands.” You say abruptly, pulling your hand from his.

“I’ll be here.” He sings teasingly.

“No. You. Won’t.” You reply stubbornly as you haul yourself off the bed and out of the room.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Nancy's words from earlier ring in your head. 

‘He gets worse.’

The game you play is shifting. The dance is speeding up. It makes your heart beat too fast and your stomach flutter dreadfully.

Maybe she was right. 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

[jadequeen88]

The back and forth in this is EVERYTHING

Same Old Song and Dance (Eddie Munson x Reader)

Summary: Eddie’s teased and taunted you for the last decade of your life but you’re not innocent. It’s always been a game, a dance if you will.

Tropes: bully!eddie (kind of), enemies to lovers (kind of). Warnings: 18+! mature language, hair pulling, ‘bullying’, pet names (princess, sweetheart), fingering, smut. Author’s note: There’s definitely a possibility for a part 2, possibly 3, but idk yet, we’ll see. wc: 5.4k

part 2 here

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Eddie yanked a little too hard this time, he knew it as soon as he did it and your hand drew to the back of your neck, cradling it in your hold. He just couldn’t resist. Your hair was pulled back into a ponytail with all those perfectly spun curls and it was hypnotizing, practical calling to him, just asking for him to pull it.

He waited for the back fire, for you to spin in your chair and yell at him but it didn’t come this time. This time you just let your hand rub at your neck before raising your other hand to get the teachers attention.

“Can I go to the bathroom, please?” You ask politely, hand still rubbing over the sore muscle. 

With approval, you scooted back your chair and quietly left the class.

Waiting around the corner of the hall it’s not long before you hear the scuff of running shoes on the linoleum floor. You knew he’d come after you. 

When you watch him pass the corner, heading straight in the hall towards the girls bathroom, you quickly catch up behind him, taking a handful of his hair in your fist and yanking him back.

He falls into you with a pained moan before catching himself, his own hand rubbing at his scalp. 

“What the fuck was that for?” He groans, standing straight, looming over you. 

“Doesn’t feel so good does it?” You scold, trying your best to keep your edge while Eddie stares you down. His lips curl into a smile, eyes lighting up.

“Princess, I’ll let you pull my hair any day. I just wasn’t expecting it is all.” He says, taking a step closer to you. 

You turn on the heels of your feet heading back to the class but a hand around your wrist stops you. 

“Princess, let me talk to you for a minute.” He says, a smile evident in his voice.

“No, I already wasted enough time coming out here.” You huff.

“C’mon, just one minute.” He says, pulling you towards him.

You pause, contemplating your decision and Eddie takes that as a yes before you can say anything. 

Your shoes drag along the floor, trying to slow Eddie down from his fast pace as he pulls you down the hall right into the girls bathroom. 

“What, Eddie?” You spit, finally pulling your wrist free from him after he checks that all the stalls are empty. You cross your arms over your chest so he knows you’re serious. 

“Aw princess, lighten up, would ya?” He says, hand reaching over your shoulder for your ponytail again. You turn your head away to stop him from grabbing it but he steps forward, invading your space, taking a strand of hair in his fingers and twirling it.

“What. Do. You. Want.” You bitterly spit, foot nearly stomping on the floor in the process.

Eddie’s eyes flicker over your face, smirk playing on his lips, clearly enjoying your annoyance. It’s always the same old song and dance with him. He pisses you off, and then revels in your anger. He practically lives for it. 

“Jus’ wanted to apologize.” He says, words sweet coming from his lips… too sweet. You furrow your brows, trying to figure out what he’s playing at.

“Apologize?” You question.

“Yes, ma’am. Pulled too hard this time, didn’t I?” He says softly, eyes flitting to where he twirls your hair before his fingers dance towards the back of your neck, warmth of his palm pressing into the sore muscle.

“Yeah.” You agree, your mouth going dry as your heart rate picks up. 

“I’ll remember for next time, sweetheart. Won’t pull that hard again unless you ask me to.” He says, fingers pressing into your neck in a gentle massage. 

You can’t lie, his touch feels nice on the strained muscle. It’s taking everything in you to not melt into the way his fingers rub over the affected area. 

“Want me to come over later? I can rub your neck just like this, make you feel real good.” He says, voice going low as he spins you to face away from him, both his hands going to your neck. His touch stays gentle, hands rubbing from the base of your neck to your shoulders. 

When you feel him step closer to you, his chest against your back, that's when your personal red flag alarm goes off, sending you in motion.

“Quit it!” You shrill, spinning to look at Eddie.

“What’s wrong? Thought you were enjoying it? You were practically moaning.” He teases smugly. “Oh Eddie. Come over and massage my neck for me. Oh, it feels so good.” He moans, pitching his voice up.

“I’m going back to class.” You say turning and swinging the door open. Eddie pulls the door open above your head, following you out.

“What a coincidence, I am too. Let’s walk together.” Eddie says, trying to grab at your hand but you swat him away, making him laugh.

When you get back to class, your stomach sinks as you notice everyone has changed places, sitting in groups of two, all scribbling away at worksheets.

Mrs. Ward snaps her fingers, motioning for you to take your seat, Eddie still trailing behind you.

“Since you two were off galavanting the school halls, you missed your opportunity to pick your partners for this assignment like everyone else. You’ll be working together.” Mrs. Ward says, dropping two worksheets onto your desk, motioning for you to pass one back to Eddie. 

You stare at the two blank worksheets. Mrs. Ward began the class by talking about a big project that would be replacing the midterm but you didn’t know that you’d be starting it today.

“Oh, princess. I believe one of those is for me.” Eddie sings from behind you. 

You grab your ponytail knowing that’s exactly what he’d go for when you don’t turn around and you meet him there just in time to be able to grab his hand in yours, spinning yourself to look at him.

“My neck is still sore from the last time, can you give it a fucking rest?” You seethe through your teeth, keeping your voice low.

“Princess, if you wanted to hold my hand you could have just asked.” Eddie says, making you look down to where your fingers are wrapped over the back of his hand.

“I don’t want to hold your hand.” You spit harshly, twisting his arm so he nearly falls out of his chair. He lets out a small yelp, twisting to the side before you let go. He looks around the room noticing how the incident has gathered a few looks but he takes it in stride, scooching his chair back into his desk, rolling his shoulder a few times to get the sting out. 

“Jesus Christ, princess. Just hand over the worksheet before you get me all riled up.” Eddie smirks after he rights himself in his chair, rolling the shoulder of the arm you twisted.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“So it looks like I will be coming over later.” Eddie says startlingly as he comes up behind you, speaking far too closely into your ear. 

“Nope. We can go to the library.” You retort, grabbing the books you need for your final period out of your locker. 

“The library? Full of commoners? No way, I say we go back to your place, I can rub your neck for you a little, and you can start to do the project.” He says, fingertips walking over the slope of your neck until you swat him away, once again.

“Pass.”

“Sounds like a sweet deal to me, you should take it.”

“You’re helping with the project. I’m not gonna let you skip out on it.” You spin, shooting Eddie a glare so he knows you’re serious. 

“Oh yeah?” He says, eyebrows raising. You shrug your shoulders, losing your edge as his gaze dwindles into something you're not sure of.

“What are you gonna do? Gonna punish me if I don’t behave.” He says, stepping closer to you, dipping his face to yours.

His body looms over yours, cornering you in your locker. You’re left dumbfounded, not by his words, but by the way he’s looking at you, eyes dark yet inviting, drinking you in entirely. His lips curl into a smile and your eyes unwillingly flicker to them.

“Stop, Eddie.” You push him back by the chest, embarrassment spreading over you because you know he caught your glance at his lips by the way his eyes light up. 

“Fine. Fine. My princess wants to go to the library, we’ll go to the library. I’m just saying, we could get a lot more done if we were all alone.” He says, voice going low and suggestive.

“I’m not yours.” You argue, slamming your locker.

“Of course that’s the part that ticks you off.” Eddie laughs.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Your last class of the day was uneventful but the flickering light in the back of the room left you with a headache and the desire to get home and lay down for the rest of the evening. Fuck the project with Eddie. You have a month to do it anyways you don’t really need to get started yet. 

“Ready to go?” Eddie says as he leans against the locker next to yours.

“No. I’m canceling, sorry.” You say flatly.

“Canceling?” He furrows his brows.

“Yup.” You say, popping the ‘p’.

“Why?” He asks, eyes flickering over you like he’s looking for your reason.

“None of your business.” You retort.

“It is my business.” He quips back. 

“Not really.” You say closing your locker and swinging your bag over your shoulder. You start walking away but just as you predicted, Eddie won’t let it go and he follows you.

“Princess, I agreed we could go to the library, let’s just go.” He says, as he does his best to keep up with you as you swerve your way through the students. 

“Yeah, but not today.” You groan, hands going to push open the door but Eddie beats you to it, pushing it open from over your head.

The bright light beaming from the sun makes you wince, shielding your eyes with your hands. It amplifies the pounding of your head and you pause, waiting for your eyes to adjust but it never comes. 

“What’s wrong?” He asks, stepping in front of you, blocking the sun but it’s totally coincidental, he’s just trying to get in your face again.

“Nothing.” You shrug, pushing past Eddie to walk to the school gates, hands still shielding your eyes from the sun.

“Yeah, something's wrong.” He says, pulling you back by your backpack, moving to stand in front of you again. You lower your hands, the sun not beaming into your eyes as harshly anymore as he stands in front of you. 

“My head hurts, Eddie. I want to go home, can you please just let me go home.” You plead.  

“Let me drive you.” He says without batting an eye. 

“No.” You say stubbornly. 

“You walk right? Just let me drive you. I won’t try anything, I swear.” Eddie says softly.

You pause contemplating your answer and that’s, once again, enough for Eddie to take it as a yes, pulling you by the wrist to the parking lot. 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“My head hurts Eddie, I’m still capable of buckling myself in, thank you very much.” You say, taking the belt from his hands and pressing it into the buckle yourself.

“Just giving you the 5 star treatment, making sure you’ll come back.” He smirks, closing your door for you. He rounds the van, pulling open his own door and hopping in. 

The drive goes by quickly with you giving quiet directions. At every corner, Eddie already has the blinker on before you can even tell him to turn. When you point out your house, he hums like he already knows. 

Before you hop out, the words ‘thank you’ sit on your tongue but they don’t come. You know he would twist it into something else. You give him an inch, he takes a mile. 

“Bye, Eddie.” You say, propping the door open after unbuckling yourself. He doesn’t say anything back.

When you shut the van door, you hear an identical slam from the other side of the vehicle. 

“You can’t come in.” You huff, now knowing taking the ride was just a trick of his.

“Let me walk my girl to her door, yeah?” Eddie says, strolling around the front of the van, stopping at your side. 

You roll your eyes and head to the front door, pulling out your keys. 

As soon as you push the door open, Eddie’s quick to slip in before you can even get a foot in the house.

“Hey!” You protest but it’s too late he’s already toeing his shoes off. “You said you wouldn’t try anything.” You say, words coming out weak and you feel your head pound. 

“I’m not trying anything. Just making sure you’re okay.” Eddie says matter of factly, his hand wrapping around your wrist, tugging you into the house. He pulls at your bag, making it fall from your shoulders and you glare at him, waiting for whatever he’s planning to happen. 

“Eddie, you have to go. My dad will be pissed if he has to park on the street when he gets home.” You say, trying your best to make it convincing.

“Sweetheart, that’s like a 6 car driveway he won’t have to park on the street.” Eddie laughs. “Where do you keep your advil, I’ll get you some.” He says, eyes connecting with yours and they almost look warm. It surprises you. His eyes are typically filled with amusement, taunting you, teasing you. Warmth is new and it makes your belly flutter with nerves. 

“Kitchen.” You say, narrowing your eyes, pushing past whatever you think you see in his. You should know better, he’s probably just working his way up to some big joke. 

He trudges through your house and you have no choice but to follow behind him, he’s not getting free reign of your living space. 

“It’s a nice house, princess. Daddy must work long hours, huh?” Eddie says with a teasing lilt. 

“Just when I thought you were being nice.” You mumble to yourself. He’s not wrong though, your dad does stay late at work most days. 

“This is me being nice, can’t you tell?” Eddie laughs. “Just take a seat, princess. Let me be real nice to you, let me make you feel better.” He says, voice holding the same reoccurring suggestiveness. You grimace as you watch him open cabinets. He grabs a glass as he comes across them and you take a tentative seat at the kitchen bar, watching him as he finally finds the advil.

“If you didn’t say weird stuff like that, I would think you were being nice.” You state flatly. 

“S’only weird if you make it weird.” He retorts, filling the glass with water.

“No. I think it’s objectively weird and sexual. I might have actually thought you were being sweet if you didn’t ruin it by talking.” You say, crossing your arms over your chest. 

“Well it’s a good thing you don’t think that because I’m not sweet.” Eddie laughs, setting down your water in front of you and slamming the bottle of advil a little too hard, making you wince.

“The way you slammed that, I think you're purposefully trying to not be sweet.” You say, tugging on his exposed nerve. He just gave you an edge to grab at and he doesn’t even realize it. 

“I think you don’t know what you're talking about so shut up and take the advil.” He says, sounding annoyed, jaw clenching. You smile, realizing you’re getting to him. After years of him tunneling his way under your skin, this is how you return the favor. This is your golden ticket. 

“My neck still hurts.” You state, seeing if he’ll take the bait.

“So?” He replies bluntly, leaning back against the counter, eyes burning into you as he continues clenching his jaw. Pursing your lips, you switch your tactic seeing as he didn’t take the bait.

Pulling off your sweater, leaving you in your tank top, you sigh dramatically. You can practically feel his eyes exploring your freshly exposed skin and you try to hold back your smile.

“So that was all talk earlier? Should have known.” You say making eye contact with him, his eyes quickly shooting to yours from wherever they were roaming your body. 

“Hm?” He asks, looking mildly confused but trying to hold onto some indifference.

“In the bathroom? When you apologized for pulling my hair too hard and hurting my neck?” You say, eyebrows raised waiting for him to clue in.

He smirks when he realizes what you’re getting at, his bad attitude lost in the wind. 

“You want me to rub your neck for you? That it, sweetheart?” He coos, pushing off the counter and taking a step closer to you.

You don’t reply, you just close your eyes, making a sad attempt at rubbing your own neck. You can’t help the smile that spreads across your lips when you feel his hands take over, pushing your own hands away. 

“Take your advil, princess. I’ll have you feeling better in no time.” He chides. You scoff, because of course he has to add some stupid comment. You take the advil, washing it back with the water, as Eddie’s fingertips press into your tender muscles, thumbs trailing up and down the length of your neck.

“This chair’s uncomfy, Eddie. Can we move to the couch?” You say, spinning on the stool to look at him, fluttering your eyelashes. He looks stunned at first, hands still hovering in the air where they were on your neck. He nods slowly, swallowing thickly. 

You jump off the seat, taking his wrist in your hand, leading him down the hall. 

“How do you want me, Eddie?” You say innocently, standing in front of the couch waiting for instructions. Eddie’s cheeks tinge pink and your excitement increases tenfold.

“M-maybe we can just sit?” He stutters, eyes avoiding yours. You revel in seeing him scattered like this.

“Oh, I thought for sure you’d want me laying down, but we can sit.” You say, taking a seat perching on the edge of the couch. You look up at Eddie through your lashes and he finally gets the hint to take a seat behind you.

His hands slowly take purchase on the back of your neck again, thumbs rubbing small circles on your skin.

“Feels really good, Eddie.” You say breathily, purposefully pitching your voice up.

“Yeah?” He asks, his voice almost shaking. 

The jangle of the chains on his jacket draws your attention as they ring in your ear with each movement, and that’s your next route of attack.

“Your jacket keeps scratching me though.” You huff, exhaling deeply. 

“Oh, sorry. Want me to take it off.” He apologizes, his movements halting. His voice comes out small and genuine, not at all like the boy that's teased and taunted you for the past decade of your life. 

“Yes, please.” You say in a sugary sweet voice. 

He pulls away enough to remove his jacket, and you turn to take it from him, tossing it to the other side of the couch, letting your hand rest on his thigh.

“Can I sit there?” You ask, pointing to the spot between his legs. Eddie swallows harshly and you swear you’ve never seen him so affected by anything you’ve ever done, even when you yell at him and he gets all smirky. 

“S’all yours.” He replies, clearing his throat, evidently trying to collect himself.

With your hand on his thigh, you pull his leg so there’s more of a gap for you to sit in, and you lift your bum enough to scoot over, his knees bracketed your hips now.

“There, that’s better.” You sigh.

Eddie’s hands continue to massage you, fingers working further and further away from your neck, moving down your shoulders as he exploringly lets his fingers slip under the straps of your bra and tank top. You can tell he’s pushing it now, you gave him an inch, he’s taking a mile. He just needed a minute to gather himself.

“You know you could just admit it?” You say, interrupting the silence of the room.

“Admit… what?” He laughs, his words rolling off his tongue in a manner that makes you sound stupid. 

“Instead of pulling my hair, stealing my things, sneaking up on me just to scare me, all that other stuff you do, it would just be so much easier.” You say, not backing down. 

“What would?” He asks again, voice the tiniest bit quieter.

“If you admitted it.” You say flatly.

“I’m.. I’m not following sweetheart.” He laughs again. 

“It’s really quite juvenile, Eddie. All those playground antics, it’s not fooling anyone.” You say, shifting backwards, closer to Eddie to up the ante. 

“I’m not trying to fool anyone, princess.” He says, getting defensive. You have him right where you want him.

“But I think you are, Eddie. I think you’re dying to be sweet to me. You want to so badly, I mean, look at you right now. Letting me sit between your legs so you can massage my neck, driving me home, making sure I’m feeling better.” You taunt.

“I’m not sweet. I told you already, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” He says, fingertips digging harshly into your shoulders. 

“What’s so wrong with being sweet, Eddie? What if I like it? Then what?” You say. His fingertips dig harshly into your skin, making you yelp and he eases instantly, fingers gently passing over the area as if to say sorry.

You think he’s about to pull away. You pushed him too far and his mile’s over, but you’re sorely mistaken. His fingertips leave your skin only to be replaced by scattered kisses on the crescent moon indents he left on your skin. 

“You tell me, sweetheart. You like it when I’m mean to you, don’t you?” He says lowly, breath tickling you as he presses another kiss to your shoulder. 

His hands move to your waist, fingertips grazing you gently like he’s waiting for you to stop him, but when you don’t, they find purchase on your hips, pulling your back, flush to his chest. 

“Don’t think I didn’t see you looking at my lips earlier. So why don’t you admit whatever it is you want to say? Then we can move past this little charade of yours.” 

“Charade of mine?” You laugh, but it comes out broken, distracted by the kisses he continues to lay on your skin. 

“That’s what I said, princess.” Eddie says cooly.

“Eddie, you pulled my hair.” You huff, trying to regain an edge to your words.

“You pulled my hair too, princess.” He says gently, mouth pressing up the side of your neck to your ear. 

“You tease me.” You add.

“And you yell at me.” He retaliates. “Princess, you sat in front of me. You could have sat anywhere in the class, but you picked the seat in front of mine. You like this little game.” He whispers, breath fanning over the shell of your ear giving you shivers down your spine. 

“Eddie.” You whisper back. You meant to add more to your point but every thought is pulled from you as he kisses a spot behind your ear, making a whine pull in your throat. 

“If I told you how much I wanted you, what would you say?” He whispers, pressing a kiss to the same spot, making you hum. 

“I wouldn’t say anything and you’d take that as a yes just like you always do.”

“I’d need a real answer from you princess, wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want, promise. If you told me to stop, I would.” He speaks with a tender and genuine voice, whispering his words into your skin, giving you more shivers up your spine.

“What if I didn't want you to stop?” You whisper, fully absorbed by his presence now. 

“Then I wouldn’t.” He punctuates his words with another kiss to your neck.

“Sounds like you’re sweet on me.” You say, reverting back to your old banter when you find yourself at a loss for words. 

“Kind of does, doesn’t it?” He laughs. 

“Might even like me?” You say, even though you know the answer already. You both know the answer already.

“Better watch yourself, princess.” He teases, not even a hint of malice behind his words. 

You slump into Eddie, your back molding perfect to his chest. His hands glide from your hips over your lower belly, fingertips dancing just above the button of your jeans.

“Do you want me to stop, princess?” He asks, chest vibrating with his words.

You swallow harshly, trying to find your words but you can’t do it, you just shake your head. 

“Gotta use your words, princess. I know you got ‘em in that smart mouth of yours.” He teases.

“Don’t stop, Eddie.” You say so breathily you almost don’t recognize your own voice. 

“Gonna let me touch you?” He says, fingers finding the button of your jeans finally, making your stomach flutter in anticipation. 

“Yeah, touch me.” You parrot back.

He undoes the button in one hand, zipper lowered with the other. He slips his fingers under the waistband of your panties gliding down on your skin until his hand rests over your mound. He places a chaste kiss to the side of your head before dipping his fingers into you, fingertips swirling in your wetness.

“Look at you princess, all hot and wet for me.” He groans. 

“Don’t do that.” You say, feeling embarrassed. He stills his movements, pulling from you slightly.

“Don’t do what?” He asks, voice becoming serious. 

“Don’t make fun of me.” You reply quietly.

“I’m not, princess.” He says sounding hurts. “I think it’s hot. I like how wet you are, wouldn’t make fun of you for it.” He says genuinely but you still feel a flash of embarrassment. 

“Sounds like you are.” You reply quietly. 

“Would you make fun of me for how hard I am right now?” He says, pushing his hips forward enough for you to feel him against your lower back. 

“Maybe.” You tease, smiling to yourself.

“Cruel, cruel girl.” He teases right back making you laugh. “Do you want to stop or keep going?” He offers.

“Keep going.” You say confidently, feeling better knowing you have a similar effect on him. 

His fingers slide between your folds again, fingertips passing over your clit, making your hips jolt as he returns to your wetness, gathering it before moving back to your bundle of nerves. 

With three fingers he begins rubbing slow, pleasure filled, circles against you making you sigh. His movements increase gradually until he has you moaning, hips bucking as you seek out more. 

Just like he can read your mind, he lets his fingers draw down, sinking two of them into you, the palm of his hand pressing onto your clit. 

His fingers stretch you, making you whine in the added friction that you needed. He pushes them in further, deeper than your own fingers can go, and he curves them, reaching a spot you’ve never even grazed before, a spot that has you canting your hips, pushing your back further against his chest as you arch. 

“Right there, princess? Is that the spot?” He coos and you nod your head dumbly, eyes squeezing shut as you let his voice hum in your ears.

“Mhhm, right there Eddie.” You gasp as his fingers wiggle, drawing back and pushing in right against it. 

He continues his daft movements, making you squirm against him until his other hand sprawls against your lower belly, holding you still against him.

“Eddie.” You moan, feeling lost in the pleasure. 

“Yeah, princess? Want me to keep doing that? You gonna cum like this?” He whispers lowly in your ear. His voice gives you butterflies, making your stomach twist and turn fiery hot as it adds to the pool of heat in your core. 

“Ke-keep going. G-gonna cum.” You cry as his palm grinds against your clit with each drag of his fingers against that spongy spot inside you. You grip harshly on his thighs, trying to steady yourself as you feel bubbling heat quickly rising inside of you. 

“Want you to cum for me. Need to see it, princess.” He groans, face pressing into the side of your head, hand pushing against your lower belly, adding to the impossibly tight tension growing there. 

With a final high pitched whine, you melt, all of the tension exploding before evaporating into a wash of pleasure. It’s red hot, yet light as a feather as it comes over you, making you feel like you’re floating and the only thing holding you down is Eddie’s arms wrapped around you.

You feel his breathing against your cheek and the rise and fall of his chest against your back. You hold onto the steadiness of it, matching each breath to your own as you gracefully fall from your high. You whimper, feeling his movements continue against you and he slows before coming to a halt. 

When you catch your breath, you shift against him and he draws his slicked fingers from you, resting his wrist against his thigh, careful not to make any more of a mess of you than he already has.

With a deep exhale, you really let your body relax into Eddie’s. Your tired eyes flutter shut as you turn your head to rest against his chest with a content sigh. 

“That good, sweetheart?” He whispers, and you should have known he’d be back to teasing you. 

“Why do you always have to ruin things by talking?” You huff, eyes still shut, not bothering to move your tired body. 

“Fine, I won’t talk.” He says and you can tell by his voice he’s smirking. It only takes a second before you feel his lips kissing your face, placing chaste kisses wherever he can reach from the way he’s dipping his head to yours.

“See, that’s sweet.” You reply with a teasing lilt, but he stays silent, remaining true to his words of not talking.

You shift in his lap, turning to face him. You try to move to the floor, to sink to your knees between his legs but his hold doesn’t let you.

“You don’t want me to?” You ask quietly. He shrugs, tugging you back to his chest but you resist, keeping your eyes on him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask, clueing in that he’s still not talking. 

He shrugs again.

“Eddie. Speak.” You say harshly and he laughs, breaking his short lived silence. 

“Princess, it’s way too easy getting to you.” He amusedly huffs, shaking his head.

“Do you want me to suck your dick or not?” You ask with a scowl, not appreciating the way he’s purposefully pressing your buttons. 

“I do, but not right now.” He says, a smirk plastered on his face like he’s up to something.

His hand rubs against your back, soothing you in a way that you didn’t know he could.

“Well, what do you want to do right now?” You ask shyly.

“I’m gonna go home.” He says tilting his head to you, still smiling. You frown, narrowing your eyes on him. You didn't expect for him to say that.

“You’re going home?” You ask, never feeling more confused by Eddie in your life. 

“Yup. You know, the place I live?” He says, teasing you now.

“To do what?” You ask, frown etching deeper on your features. 

“Honestly? Probably rub one out while I think about all the pretty noises you just made for me.” He says matter of factly and now you’re really confused.

“Why don’t you want me to suck your dick then?” You say, heat rising to your face as you think about Eddie touching himself to the thought of you. 

“Can't give you everything you want at once, that’s how princesses get spoiled.” He teases with a smirk. “Besides, gotta give you a reason to come back.” He says, inching his face closer to yours, his eyes focusing where his fingers have risen to play with the strap of your tank top. 

“And what if I don’t?” You reply, inching your own face closer to his. 

“You will.” He says confidently. You purse your lips in a smile because you know he’s right. You know you’ll come back to him. You both know it, the same way you both know he’ll come back to you. 

It’s always the same old song and dance with Eddie, and what fun is it to dance by yourself? 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────