#'it was an air traffic control thing'

[salvadorbonaparte]

Airline now told me I'm not getting compensated for the missed flight and 13 hour overnight layover because it was "outside of the airline's control". Well that's convenient for them, right. Means that they only need to compensate people whenever the airline is like "today I'm not in the mood to be punctual".

[mortysmith]

doubt ill ever finish this, but ghost and mosca yayyy

[mikumutual]

99 luftballons is some shit that would happen to walter white

[fingertipsmp3]

This place I applied for a job at keeps emailing me (automatic emails not a real human being) asking why I haven’t done the tests they asked me to do and I don’t know how to explain to them it’s because their tests feel like psychological warfare

[ingoodtastedenver]

What a View! FlyteCo Tower Tours

If you’ve lived in Colorado for a long time, and Denver, specifically, you know that our airport used to be in the heart of the city, off of Quebec and I-70. One remnant of the previous land’s life as an airport is the old control tower. It’s a great landmark that can be seen from far and wide. Thanks to FlyteCo Tower, people can now take in the view that only the air traffic controllers of yore…

[landofgay]

scrolling thru hshop and this lineup of games together is making me laugh my ass off

who is this man why does he have to run

[staryseult]

the joy of discovering a band you've never heard before, listening to their whole discography, and loving it

[vivwritescrappythings]

roadburn

simon “ghost” riley x gn!reader

@cielosafeplace wrote an idea on here about what Simon would do if you crashed on his motorcycle and that was enough to get me out of my writing slump. Truly doing the lord’s work.

cw: motorcycle accident, blood, mild gore, protective Simon, POV switch, gn! reader, no use of y/n, not very good.

word count: 1.8k

masterlist

—

Everything was ringing.

You didn’t really understand what was going on—one moment you were riding behind Simon on his motorcycle, and now you were sitting up on the traffic median. It was blurry around you, movement and cars and people looking like blocks of color in an abstract painting.

The breeze tousled your hair, crisp and clean in your nose. Your hair? You didn’t remember taking off your helmet. Shaking fingers made their way up to your head, passing through where the helmet would be to simply comb through hair. You pulled your fingers away, the swimming image of your hand in front of you showing the tips of your gloved fingers shining crimson. You didn’t quite notice that your gloves were shredded to bits, part of your palms visible and raw beneath.

It was enough to send a shock through you, your breath coming out so harshly that you actually let out a sound. It was swallowed by the rest of the noise going on around you, shouting and honking and cars driving by. The commotion surrounding you was far too loud, the quality of it like you were swimming underwater.

You stood on shaky legs, grabbing onto a street sign to pull yourself to standing as you fought vertigo. Everything was moving so slowly. You felt like you had to get to your feet, get off the traffic median.

Your vision was clearing. You could see a few people running around and chattering, their frantic gestures seeming all too slow to make sense. Your helmet was in the road, the buckle flapping open from where you must have ripped it off, there was a flat spot from where your head dragged across the rough pavement.

Simon’s motorcycle was on the curb, on its side and banged up in a few areas—he’d be cross to have to fix it.

Simon.

Where was he?

It wasn’t like Simon to not be glued to your side. Sometimes you joked that he was more guard dog than boyfriend, snarling and snapping his jaws at anyone that got too close for comfort. The fact that he wasn’t next to you right now made your blood run cold.

You rubbed your eyes on the back of your hand, blinking.

You heard him before you saw him. You’d never heard Simon scream like that, your name—your real name, not calling you “pet” like he normally did—ringing through the air like a thunderclap.

—

He couldn’t believe it. That fucking sod ran a red light, completely blew through it, and hit the bike hard enough to make him lose control.

He heard you scream, the sound of it muffled by the helmet covering your head. Simon’s heart was in his throat, hardly recognizing the pain as the bike dragged him across the road, his thigh trapped beneath the vehicle as his pants got shredded down to the skin. His jacket was destroyed, the leather hot where it scraped across the asphalt.

The driver was getting out of his truck, shouting his useless apologies as other good samaritans stopped to see what was going on.

It didn’t matter, none of it mattered as Simon shoved his bike off his leg like it was a toy and heard it crumple as he stood. The blood soaking into his pants was nothing—child’s play compared to the torture he’d experienced at work. Getting hung on a meat hook really makes any other form of pain look like a paper cut.

It was like he had tunnel vision, the panic of not being able to immediately spot you making him think the worst. You were a little thing compared to him, far too fragile for his comfort.

The people who had gotten out of their cars surrounded him in a swarm of too-loud voices and concerned gazes, trying to get him to sit down and wait for the ambulance. The driver got in his face, apologizing and claiming he didn’t see the two of you on the motorcycle. If Simon wasn’t busy worrying about you, he probably would’ve battered the idiot on the spot.

He simply brushed him aside, shouting your name in a bid of desperation. Despite all the near-death situations he’d lived through, the terror he felt at the pit of his stomach was more intense than anything he had ever experienced before.

The image of your mangled body on the asphalt filled his mind, imagination running wild. What if you’d been run over? Broke your damn neck?

His world was already falling apart as he took a few staggering steps.

Then he spotted you, all the way on the median and clutching a sign as you leaned against the metal pole. Your helmet was sitting on the ground nearby, cracked and part of the shell entirely scraped off. You must have taken it off in your shock.

Blood was running down your face, matting in your hair and following the contours of your features. Simon was running before he could think, mowing down any person that stupidly stood between the two of you. There was a sting of pain shooting up his leg with each step, but he hardly noticed.

You looked so dazed, your normally sharp gaze floating as you heard him shout your name. Fear and relief surged through Simon at once—you were bleeding, but you were standing and around and undeniably alive.

He wasn’t thinking enough to remember to be careful about crossing the last open lane of traffic, almost getting plowed through by a truck. A shout was barked at the driver as a big hand smacked the hood, Simon continuing his beeline to you. It was instinct at this point, like blinders had been fitted over his eyes to only see you.

His helmet skittered across the road where he threw it off, needing to see your face without the tint of the visor. Everything got exponentially louder without his helmet.

The tension was clear in your stance, shock making your spine ramrod straight and your hands clench at your sides. He approached carefully, tilting his head a little so he was closer to your height and his gloved hands outstretched. The spark of recognition in your gaze comforted him further, starting to placate the gnawing anxiety in his stomach.

Neither of you said anything as Simon gathered you up in his arms and held you close to his chest, a big hand cupping the back of your head. Your hands twisted in his shirt beneath the jacket, pulling him toward you as a shudder ran through you. He pressed his nose to the crown of your head and inhaled deeply.

He could care less about the chaos going on behind him, the sirens of an ambulance in the distance as insignificant to him as chirping birds.

Fingertips gently pressed into the side of your jaw, tilting your head up to look at him. The blood was smeared across part of your face, but it looked like the bleeding was starting to slow. Your eyes were wide and a touch vacant as you looked up at him.

“You with me, pet?” Simon asked, his head crowding in close to yours as he tried to block out the rest of the world. He held his breath while waiting for your answer.

You nodded—albeit shakily as you looked him over. “Si, your leg.” Your voice was soft and wavering as you spoke. He watched your brows furrow with concern, lips parting.

“S’okay, don’t worry about me,” he said immediately, nudging your chin to look back up at his face. He didn’t even bother to look down at his leg. It didn’t hurt, the adrenaline fueling him enough to not feel it quite yet.

His thumbs smoothed over your face, his careful gaze focusing on the cut hidden in your hair as he took every detail of you in. Your jeans were ripped along your knees and up your thigh, your shirt a bit askew, your gloves torn. You had some road burn, some scrapes, hit your head pretty damn good, but you were standing and talking to him.

He could cry. Simon choked as he pulled you back into his chest, not wanting you to see how wet his dark eyes became. Fuck. There was a moment there that he thought he’d gotten you killed. The best thing in his sorry excuse for a life, dead in the road because he couldn’t protect you.

But you were here, you were in his arms and you were breathing. The panic receded, he took deep breaths as he looked up at the gloomy sky to try and get his head back on his shoulders.

The siren of the ambulance made his splitting headache worse, police cars following and the lights flashing in his eyes. It was only when they were parked near his destroyed motorcycle that he moved, keeping you clutched in the cage of his arms as he limped back across the street toward them.

The driver that hit you had the audacity to approach again, citing apologies and claims that he didn’t even see the motorcycle. Simon shoved him away, snarling like an animal. “Get the fuck away from us,” he hissed, voice low. “Got half the mind to kill you where you stand.”

You grabbed Simon’s wrist, grip soft. “Stop, Si,” you murmured, dragging him with you to the ambulance. There were already some people talking to the police that showed up, telling them what happened.

Simon made them tend to you first, worried you were concussed or had internal injuries. He fussed over you, staying close to you as the EMT shined a flashlight in your eyes and asked you soft-spoken questions. Price was already on his way to come grab the two of you, the fossil of a flip phone in his pocket still working unlike your smashed device.

He didn’t even know that there was a part of the meat of his calf that got burned and torn up from the bike landing on top of him until one of the medics started to force him onto a stretcher. He’d need stitches, something he could do himself if the ridiculous EMTs weren’t trying to corral him like a wild horse.

He would’ve fought it if you didn’t make him lay down, only soothed by the fact that Price showed up. You weren’t injured badly, thankfully, just some roadburn and a cut on your head that bled worse than it needed to.

Simon finally relaxed onto the stretcher after you kissed his scarred cheek, promising him that you were okay and you’d see him at the hospital. The adrenaline rushed out of him as soon as he was loaded up into the back, his dark eyes fluttering shut as he let out a soft groan.

He couldn’t believe he’d have to rebuild that fucking bike now.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How plausible sentence generators are changing the bullshit wars

This Friday (September 8) at 10hPT/17hUK, I'm livestreaming "How To Dismantle the Internet" with Intelligence Squared.

On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

In my latest Locus Magazine column, "Plausible Sentence Generators," I describe how I unwittingly came to use – and even be impressed by – an AI chatbot – and what this means for a specialized, highly salient form of writing, namely, "bullshit":

https://locusmag.com/2023/09/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-plausible-sentence-generators/

Here's what happened: I got stranded at JFK due to heavy weather and an air-traffic control tower fire that locked down every westbound flight on the east coast. The American Airlines agent told me to try going standby the next morning, and advised that if I booked a hotel and saved my taxi receipts, I would get reimbursed when I got home to LA.

But when I got home, the airline's reps told me they would absolutely not reimburse me, that this was their policy, and they didn't care that their representative had promised they'd make me whole. This was so frustrating that I decided to take the airline to small claims court: I'm no lawyer, but I know that a contract takes place when an offer is made and accepted, and so I had a contract, and AA was violating it, and stiffing me for over $400.

The problem was that I didn't know anything about filing a small claim. I've been ripped off by lots of large American businesses, but none had pissed me off enough to sue – until American broke its contract with me.

So I googled it. I found a website that gave step-by-step instructions, starting with sending a "final demand" letter to the airline's business office. They offered to help me write the letter, and so I clicked and I typed and I wrote a pretty stern legal letter.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I have worked for a campaigning law-firm for over 20 years, and I've spent the same amount of time writing about the sins of the rich and powerful. I've seen a lot of threats, both those received by our clients and sent to me.

I've been threatened by everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Ralph Lauren to the Sacklers. I've been threatened by lawyers representing the billionaire who owned NSOG roup, the notoroious cyber arms-dealer. I even got a series of vicious, baseless threats from lawyers representing LAX's private terminal.

So I know a thing or two about writing a legal threat! I gave it a good effort and then submitted the form, and got a message asking me to wait for a minute or two. A couple minutes later, the form returned a new version of my letter, expanded and augmented. Now, my letter was a little scary – but this version was bowel-looseningly terrifying.

I had unwittingly used a chatbot. The website had fed my letter to a Large Language Model, likely ChatGPT, with a prompt like, "Make this into an aggressive, bullying legal threat." The chatbot obliged.

I don't think much of LLMs. After you get past the initial party trick of getting something like, "instructions for removing a grilled-cheese sandwich from a VCR in the style of the King James Bible," the novelty wears thin:

https://www.emergentmind.com/posts/write-a-biblical-verse-in-the-style-of-the-king-james

Yes, science fiction magazines are inundated with LLM-written short stories, but the problem there isn't merely the overwhelming quantity of machine-generated stories – it's also that they suck. They're bad stories:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159286436/ai-chatbot-chatgpt-magazine-clarkesworld-artificial-intelligence

LLMs generate naturalistic prose. This is an impressive technical feat, and the details are genuinely fascinating. This series by Ben Levinstein is a must-read peek under the hood:

https://benlevinstein.substack.com/p/how-to-think-about-large-language

But "naturalistic prose" isn't necessarily good prose. A lot of naturalistic language is awful. In particular, legal documents are fucking terrible. Lawyers affect a stilted, stylized language that is both officious and obfuscated.

The LLM I accidentally used to rewrite my legal threat transmuted my own prose into something that reads like it was written by a $600/hour paralegal working for a $1500/hour partner at a white-show law-firm. As such, it sends a signal: "The person who commissioned this letter is so angry at you that they are willing to spend $600 to get you to cough up the $400 you owe them. Moreover, they are so well-resourced that they can afford to pursue this claim beyond any rational economic basis."

Let's be clear here: these kinds of lawyer letters aren't good writing; they're a highly specific form of bad writing. The point of this letter isn't to parse the text, it's to send a signal. If the letter was well-written, it wouldn't send the right signal. For the letter to work, it has to read like it was written by someone whose prose-sense was irreparably damaged by a legal education.

Here's the thing: the fact that an LLM can manufacture this once-expensive signal for free means that the signal's meaning will shortly change, forever. Once companies realize that this kind of letter can be generated on demand, it will cease to mean, "You are dealing with a furious, vindictive rich person." It will come to mean, "You are dealing with someone who knows how to type 'generate legal threat' into a search box."

Legal threat letters are in a class of language formally called "bullshit":

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122946/on-bullshit

LLMs may not be good at generating science fiction short stories, but they're excellent at generating bullshit. For example, a university prof friend of mine admits that they and all their colleagues are now writing grad student recommendation letters by feeding a few bullet points to an LLM, which inflates them with bullshit, adding puffery to swell those bullet points into lengthy paragraphs.

Naturally, the next stage is that profs on the receiving end of these recommendation letters will ask another LLM to summarize them by reducing them to a few bullet points. This is next-level bullshit: a few easily-grasped points are turned into a florid sheet of nonsense, which is then reconverted into a few bullet-points again, though these may only be tangentially related to the original.

What comes next? The reference letter becomes a useless signal. It goes from being a thing that a prof has to really believe in you to produce, whose mere existence is thus significant, to a thing that can be produced with the click of a button, and then it signifies nothing.

We've been through this before. It used to be that sending a letter to your legislative representative meant a lot. Then, automated internet forms produced by activists like me made it far easier to send those letters and lawmakers stopped taking them so seriously. So we created automatic dialers to let you phone your lawmakers, this being another once-powerful signal. Lowering the cost of making the phone call inevitably made the phone call mean less.

Today, we are in a war over signals. The actors and writers who've trudged through the heat-dome up and down the sidewalks in front of the studios in my neighborhood are sending a very powerful signal. The fact that they're fighting to prevent their industry from being enshittified by plausible sentence generators that can produce bullshit on demand makes their fight especially important.

Chatbots are the nuclear weapons of the bullshit wars. Want to generate 2,000 words of nonsense about "the first time I ate an egg," to run overtop of an omelet recipe you're hoping to make the number one Google result? ChatGPT has you covered. Want to generate fake complaints or fake positive reviews? The Stochastic Parrot will produce 'em all day long.

As I wrote for Locus: "None of this prose is good, none of it is really socially useful, but there’s demand for it. Ironically, the more bullshit there is, the more bullshit filters there are, and this requires still more bullshit to overcome it."

Meanwhile, AA still hasn't answered my letter, and to be honest, I'm so sick of bullshit I can't be bothered to sue them anymore. I suppose that's what they were counting on.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/07/govern-yourself-accordingly/#robolawyers

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[seiwas]

₊˚⊹｡ make this drive last ‘til the end of this song | fushiguro megumi

wc: 1.2k

summary: you wish this traffic jam would last a bit longer. 

contains: f!reader in mind, college!megumi, pre-relationship stuff! mostly centered around having a crush!, yuuji and nobara are here!

a/n: i think megumi loves to listen to music!! stargazing by the neighbourhood reminds me of him, and the song that inspired this is pretty by col3trane & mahalia! (reminds me so much of him too)!! may or not be inspired by very personal feelings/thoughts!!; for mi luv @soumies

part: 1 | 2 | 3 series m.list: by your passenger seat

It’s always just you and Megumi on the drive back home. 

For the last stretch of it, at least.

You like to think you’re friends, being in the same friend circle for the good part of the year. And if there’s anything you’ve learned from your crazy group of four, it’s that Megumi always ends up being the designated driver for everything—road trips, lunch breaks, late night food runs, and parties. Especially parties. 

Someone has to stay sober when Yuuji’s always too eager to drink anything that’s handed to him. 

You also live nearest to Megumi (coincidentally), just a few streets down from the building that houses his unit. This means you’re always picked up first and dropped off last, consequently making his passenger seat yours (indefinitely). 

The seat is practically adjusted to you by now, backrest pulled back a bit and the seat itself brought forward slightly. Because you get cold easily, the air vents on your side are always pushed up, allowing only a small slip of air to flow through. 

You notice that it never changes—all these adjustments, so it’s either people don’t mind or maybe no one else has been sitting there after all. 

(You don’t know how to feel when a part of you, maybe just a teensy, tiny bit, hopes it’s the latter). 

As tough as it is to get through the impossibly high and extremely fortified walls one (1) Fushiguro Megumi has set around himself, you think you’ve found your way in, slipping yourself into the space between his passenger door and sitting right beside him on the extremely well-kept leather of his carseat. 

(He’s particular when it comes to cleaning). 

It was awkward at first. Of course, it was. When two introverts are alone in a car for a 30-minute drive back from a college party, they aren’t bound to become immediate best friends. But you try to talk a little, ask a harmless question or two, comment on the music he plays—the safe things to say.

And you get closer that way. 

Megumi doesn’t clear his throat anymore when it gets too quiet, already used to the comfortable silence between you. You give each other small updates on what you both did earlier that day, and what you plan to do the next, for the weekend, and the following week, even. And you try hard not to think about it too much, but when he throws a little laugh your way when you talk about the haircut you did yourself in seventh grade, you think you feel an extra thump against your ribcage. 

Another thing you learn is that Megumi loves music; there’s always some obscure, low-beat song that he’s tapping to when you get in. You discover more of his taste through the playlists he plays, and you like it—

(—maybe him a little bit more than the music, though). 

.

The traffic is unmoving today, endless red dots flashing along every lane for the past 40-minutes you’ve been on this road—there’s a steady patter of rain on the windshield, wipers automatically going back and forth as he gives you full control of the music. 

You’d just dropped off Yuuji when you took a detour to avoid some flooded area, and now you’re stuck in a terrible traffic jam this late at night, with cars barely moving inch-by-inch a few minutes at a time. Megumi doesn’t give any indication that he’s bothered except for the slight sigh he makes when he leans back on his seat after pulling up the handbrake.

And you think, with your music playing over the comfortable silence you’ve built, being in his passenger seat one too many times—this feels nice. 

Any other day and you’d hate traffic as much as the next person, but not right now. 

There’s movement far ahead and Megumi prepares to shift gears, accelerating the car only to stop again after a few minutes of getting far. You look over to find him tapping on the steering wheel, one hand on his thigh, relaxed as red glows on his face from the stoplight. 

You feel calm, content even, if you’re really thinking. Now you know why some people have a thing for night drives in the rain. 

Megumi’s eyelashes are long, pretty, stretching on for miles—and you wonder if this drive with him can extend to the length of them, if you can stay in this traffic jam a little longer just to be in this moment with him. 

“Sorry, are you cold?” Megumi asks, interrupting your stare.

He probably thinks that’s the reason you’re staring, if his fingers hovering over the aircondition controls says anything. Heat rises to your cheeks. 

You shake your head, “No, it’s okay. Just spaced out, sorry.” 

“I have a sweater at the back, if you need.” he motions, arm already out reaching for it. 

It’s summer right now, that’s why you insisted on keeping the AC on full blast; you don’t want him to suffer from the heat just because you’re cold. So you’re a bit curious, because really, Megumi has no reason to keep a sweater in his car for this weather, heck, he didn’t even wear one to the party tonight.

You don’t want to assume anything but—

“Brought it for when you get cold,” 

He says it plainly, so casually as if he doesn’t know that it echoes in the pitter-patter of your heartbeat. If you’re being completely rational, it probably doesn’t mean anything, but he hands you the gray sweater over the console so simply as if to say: of course, this is for you, who else would I bring it for? 

As if you shouldn’t even wonder anymore. 

The gesture endears you so much you can’t help but take it. 

“Thanks,” you smile sheepishly, and he nods, the corners of his lips curling slightly as he looks back to the road. 

You unbuckle your seatbelt to put the sweater on, and think, this is a very bad idea because all you smell now is his detergent, that fresh, clean scent that he walks around with condensed into oversized cotton—oversized cotton that is now engulfing you completely. 

You sigh, buckling your seatbelt again as the car moves forward. 

The traffic is clearing up now, Megumi making fewer stops as he drives along the main road. You give it maybe 8? 7? minutes until you arrive home. You’re proud of yourself tonight, flutter-feelings aside, because you think you picked the perfect music for the drive. 

Megumi can never hide his distate for anything—songs included; when he doesn’t like something, he squints his right eye just a little bit, an involuntary reaction you think. You’ve caught it a few times before (usually when it’s Yuuji’s music playing), but his face has been relaxed this entire night, fingers tapping to whatever tune you put on. 

When you arrive in front of your apartment building, your playlist shuffles to your favorite song. Megumi knows because you never shut up about it, asking for it to be played every single time on the drive back home. And when he turns to you, you look almost sad, fixing your things as you prepare to get off. There’s that cute, small pout that he notices you always try to hide when you want to say something but don’t. 

So as you’re about to unbuckle your seatbelt, Megumi shifts the gear to drive and says—

“Maybe after this song.”

comments, tags, and reblogs are greatly appreciated ♡

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

BORIS JOHNSON RESIGNS AS MP. Thoughts? The people howl for a new update to the Big Dog the Clown saga.

Yes this was not on my personal bingo card; my most recent Big Dog event was that a friend of mine works for air traffic control and recently had to delay BoJo's holiday flight by four hours, and on being told that this particular plane had to be prioritised for a runway slot because it contained an Important Clown promptly pushed it to the bottom of the priority list. Lol. And then all this! What larks.

Okay not a lot of detail yet still but LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT THE EVENTS OF 9TH JUNE, 2023 and you know what? It's been a while. Let's do it properly.

7.15am

Another day dawns in the reign of evil Grand Vizier-turned-PM Rishi Sunak. He's a very boring flavour of evil, tbh. Say what you will about Johnson, but at least there was spectacle and showmanship to his clownshow. Something for the children to boo and hiss. An animate ham in a villain's wig, something to really enjoy as you sit back, relax, and savour a tall, cool glass of schadenfreude.

By contrast Rishi just gets sycophants - who are no less ridiculous, but far more grey and boring - who pretend he's a tech bro because "he understands AI" and they think that will make him a visionary and a man of the future and maybe some sort of Elon Musk figure, because that's obviously a smashing template to be copied in a leader of a country.

This briefing was presumably drafted using ChatGPT.

Anyway, this is what we thought the day would be: another dreary overcast washout, livened up by Downing Street's latest attempt at making Sunak seem like a good idea to stave off the hulking spectre of Labour's inevitable GE win next year. How trite. How tedious. How mediocre.

What a shame it would be if... something were to liven it up.

8.39 am

Fun fact!

When a PM's term ends, as their last act in office, they get to present an Honours List. This means they write a list of all the people they reckon have been Jolly Good Sorts who have done Good Clowning and Supported The Community, and nominate those people for honours. Honours here can be anything from an MBE/OBE etc, to a Damehood/Knighthood, all the way up to entering the Peerage i.e. becoming a Lord. Traditionally, people have been fairly reasonable with these lists. Apart from anything else, the outgoing PM can only write the list - the new Prime Minister has to sign off on it, and it's usually the case, of course, that PMs are deposed by the opposition party.

Why am I mentioning this? Well: Boris, you see, has now presented his list to Sunak to validate. You may be unsurprised to learn that it contains quite a lot of clowns.

Another fun fact!

If a sitting MP is given a Peerage, they cannot continue to be an MP. MPs are elected. Lords are not. So an MP offered a lordship right now would have to stand down if they accepted, triggering a by-election in their seat that... well. That anyone could win, couldn't they? Ordinarily. Except Labour's shadow is growing, isn't it? I don't suppose Sunak would be all that happy about losing, for example, any Tory MPs nominated for a peerage right now.

What fun facts.

At 8.39am, Politics UK reveals an as-yet-unverified report that Nadine Dorries and Alok Sharma have been removed from Boris Johnson's honours list, and will go back to vetting.

(They also reveal that Big Dog's dad has been removed from the list, because nominating your dad for a Peerage is "inappropriate". Sorry, Bigger Dog. Apparently even corrupt ghoul Rishi Sunak has a limit to what open corruption he will allow, which is news to us all, most of all Rishi.)

10.41am

Nadine Dorries decides she will play to her strengths, and appear on TV to do some Public Speaking, which always goes well for her of course.

Nothing, let's remember, has been confirmed yet at all. But she's here to put people's minds at ease! No power-hungry status-chasing pink maniac, she! She is very clear in her aims.

“The last thing I would want to do would be to cause a by-election in my constituency.”

Quite right, Nadine. That would be disastrous.

11.20am

Oh, it’s Tory think tank NRG’s conference in Doncaster today.  Gideon George Osborne, pig-stupid former Grand Vizier and idiot fail-heir to David "pig-fucker" Cameron, gives a speech.  Let's see some quotes!

On the Tories’ choices of chancellors since he personally fell on his sword over Brexit left the role:

“You can see when the partnership doesn’t work. The government's paralysed and the politics is terrible.”

Fair, but also you are a government, George.

On Tories who attack the civil service:

“We’re in charge of our country’s destiny. We should stop blaming others if we don’t get things right." 

... right. But you just... Uh.

On Tory culture warriors:

“It’s really important that the Conservative Party is excited about the country we aspire to lead… and doesn’t get in to ‘we’re against all these groups of people’. We’re the inclusive people.”

Well, points for clearing that absurdly low bar, I guess. Christ, I cannot BELIEVE Suella Braverman is making George fucking Osborne look good-by-comparison.

1pm

Ooh. Nadine's attempts to put minds at ease have inexplicably not worked, can't think why not. She's such a reassuring and charismatic speaker normally.

But the rumour is now FLYING about that Nadine has indeed been dropped from the honours list, and specifically because Sunak wants to avoid a by-election that will lose him more seats at a time when he is desperate for even a mat on the floor as long as it's blue.

Sorry, Nads. Still; this morning you were very clear that the constituency comes first, so I suppose that's okay. The priority now is that she MUST stay in position, so the Tories can keep their numbers steady. It is VITAL she remains an MP. Let's remember her exact words!

“The last thing I would want to do would be to cause a by-election in my constituency.”

3.45pm

Nadine Dorries tweets her resignation.

The last thing she does as an MP is indeed to cause a by-election in her constituency.

3.50pm

Except this is Nadine Dorries we're talking about. She's found some flashy balls to juggle, look, and a boy to pour custard down her trousers.

Not five minutes after dropping the bombshell, she deletes the last tweet announcing her resignation, and tweets a new one.

The new tweet says, “it is now time for another to take the reins” as the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire.

The original tweet said, “it is now time for someone younger to take the reins.”

*

On Talk TV, Dorries says that "something significant did happen to change my mind", but doesn’t elaborate.

3.56pm

The whispers are whispering. The rumours are rumouring. The knives are sharpening.

Nadine's now-former seat is Mid-Bedfordshire, and has been Tory since 1929; a safe seat, which certainly explains how Nadine fucking Dorries managed to hold it for as long as she did.

An MP on the right of the Tory party says that if the Tories lose the Mid Bedfordshire by-election, it’ll open questions about Rishi Sunak's leadership CLOWNFALL 3: REVENGE OF BIG DOG LET'S GOOOOOO

3.57pm

Nadine Dorries is removed from the WhatsApp group.

I would love to know who leaked that image. I really should not have that image. Ah well. Now you do too.

4.12pm

Good tweet alert!

5.08pm

Phew! What a day. Let's see how Rishi's getting on.

He approves the rest of BoJo's honours list. Shall we take a look at our newly-honoured citizens? Shall we see what familiar names crop up?

Honours for staff at centre of Partygate Jack Doyle, Rosie Bate-Williams and Shelly Williams-Walker (and a lot of other terrible and disgraced people who were loyal to Johnson, and some of Carrie Antoinette’s friends).

Damehoods for Andrea Jenkyns and Priti Patel.

Knighthoods for Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conor Burns, and Michael Fabricant.

An OBE for Kelly Jo Dodge, Parliamentary hairdresser.

Also honours for Ben Houchen, currently at the heart of a media storm about dodgy property deals.  His huge regeneration project in Teesside is subject to a government investigation regarding the governance, finance and value for money.

*

(Interesting point – Tory MPs Allister Jack and Nigel Adams were offered peerages, but decided to wait, since accepting now would trigger by-elections.

Why were they offered at all, do you think?)

*

So … this means Michael Fabricant is now Sir Michael Fabricant.  Like, actually.  Genuinely.

Nice one, Rishi. Thank goodness you understand AIs.

5.44pm

The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar - journalist who brought down Big Dog one Partygate reveal at a time - tweets her guide to he honours list:

Martin Reynolds, former PPS, invited 200 officials to drinks in Downing St garden.  He told officials to "bring your own booze", later adding: "We seem to have got away with it".

Shelley Williams-Walker, getting a Damehood, was No 10 head of opps & now runs his office.  At No 10 party the night before Prince Philip's funeral she was dubbed "DJ SWW" for her banger playlist.

Jack Doyle & Rosie Bate-Williams, who get OBEs, were press spox who repeatedly denied the parties happened

Dan Rosenfield, who gets a peerage, quit in mass exodus of senior No 10 staff as anger over Partygate grew.  Former chief of staff faced reports he was among senior Downing Street officials who attended a Christmas quiz when restrictions were in place.

Shaun Bailey, who ran unsuccessfully for London mayor, gets a peerage, and Ben Mallett, a close friend of Carrie Antoinette's who ran Zac Goldsmith’s disastrous mayoral campaign, gets an OBE. Both are in this picture of a lockdown-flouting party at CCHQ:

What a sea of punchable faces.

7.58pm

But we've been so focused on Nadine! She's fucked up her juggling, look, but she's sliding around on the rollerskates, ever so distracting. But here's the thing, Tumblrs, here's the thing:

Among all of this, what's the Chief Clown doing?

The Privilege Committee reveals in their draft report that Boris Johnson misled Parliament, and recommends a sanction of more than 10 days.

Does that sound too little? Are you wishing it were smething more meaningful? Let me help put it in context.

This sanction would be enough to trigger a by-election in Johnson’s seat.

8.02pm

Boris Johnson

QUITS

as an MP

The committee said Johson had “impugned the integrity” of the House of Commons. Fascinating! I didn't know its honour had ever been pugned.

He accuses the inquiry of trying to “drive me out”!!!!

"It is very sad to be leaving parliament - at least for now - but above all I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias".

Worth noting that the committee has a Conservative majority, mind. But you mustn't let things like facts get in the way of your feelings, BlowJo. You never have as a politician. Nor as a journalist, come to that.

(Also SIDE NOTE – “at least for now”??  What are you planning, Big Dog??  I suppose Nadine is leaving an empty seat...)

8.41pm

Christopher Hope of the Daily Telegraph reports he’s heard rumours of a THIRD Tory MP potentially resigning – and another Johnson loyalist at that. Lol. Trololol. Lmao, even. Perhaps rofl.

11.43pm

And finally, the day is wrapped up with the Guardian revealing their front cover for the following day:

Big Dog is OUT, hot trans bloke is IN.

Not a bad finish.

[bigfan-fanfic]

Bats in the Web (Spider-Man!Batdad x Batfam)

What if batfam meets a version of Batdad who is Spider-Man in his universe??

"We can't interfere!" Bruce growls. "I know you want to help, but after the last world we jumped into, we can't take chances."

Dick sighs. The last world they went into, they nearly ruined everything because Gotham had no Batman yet.

But luckily, something descends upon the mugging in progress.

But it isn't Batman.

A strange silver cable zips into view and slams into the assailant's back, spreading in a strange geometric pattern. He stumbles forward at the force of the blow, before the cable springs taut, and the mugger is flung into the air.

Someone lithe and graceful sails through the air, trailing more silver cables and quickly wraps the stranger up in them, robotic arms emerging from their back to assist - almost like a four-armed... spider.

The mugger dangles upside down from a traffic light, completely mummified in silver, and the figure, in a black bodysuit with light-catching silver filaments in a web pattern shining along the whole thing, and what appears to be a yellow hood and short jacket, crouches atop it.

"You get home safe, you hear?" they call. "We'll just be... hangin' around."

The would-be victim grins up at them. "Thanks, Spidey!"

But the Bats are looking shocked.

Because that was clearly your voice, only slightly altered by a voice changer - the voice you use when you broadcast to negotiate with people while they're on patrol.

Before they can speak, though, you've flung yourself through the air, opening your arms to reveal the gliding wings attached from your sides to the arms of your jacket so you can sail through the air.

"Pops is... Spider-Man?" Dick yelps.

From what they can surmise, in this universe, Bruce still lost his parents at a young age, but he didn't develop the desire to become Batman.

Instead, while on a field trip, you were exposed to some kind of radioactive spider, and Bruce did what he could to keep your secret and develop his technological aptitude to help you.

It was Alfred's death that convinced you to become a hero - his last words to you being that with great power came great responsibility.

You and Bruce are still very young in this world, barely old enough to have adopted a young Dick Grayson. It's probable that Damian won't be born, and Tim won't be adopted by you.

You're so much more cheerful than Batman - Gotham's Spider-Man quips, sometimes with dark humor, and inspires her citizens to fight back against the oppressive darkness of their city with good humor and clever tactics.

The Bats make their way to Wayne Manor, only to find the harsh brickwork and traditional architecture has made way for modern-quality of life improvements, fiber optic light fixtures, glass bay windows, and high tech at every turn. It barely resembles their Wayne Manor.

In fact, the caverns beneath the estate aren't even utilized, with there instead being a high-tech laboratory on the grounds with a launchpad to fling you over the bay and into the city.

It's a shock to see them - Bruce Wayne, his body in shape but much softer: he obviously works out hard but he's clearly not a fighter. His movements are relaxed, even sluggish compared to the constant vigilance of the Bat. And he wears an unfamiliar expression on his face - a genuine lazy grin.

Meanwhile there's this world's you - lithe and strong, battle-worn and with the at-rest tension of a vigilante.

Alt-Bruce and you have an easy banter, a love very much like two young people - you're only a little older than Dick, after all, which he finds weird - especially when he and Tim babysit his younger version.

Jason is utterly touched when Alt-Bruce asks about all the kids, so he can make sure to adopt them - he wouldn't want them going homeless in this world. All Jason knows is that young Jason Todd in this world might just be saved from years of trauma.

You're still the strategist, but Bruce is your mission control and the gear/science guy - he helps with upgrades and is the one to suggest a way to get the Bats back to their world.

But you'll need their help.

You fly through the city that night accompanied by five gliding shadows. Shadows that brutally subdue the henchmen of Black Mask as you soar above their heads, connecting some power towers with a filament web, forming a major circuit Alt-Bruce can use to power a tachyonic collider, which should launch them back into their world.

They return to their world, but Jason pulls Bruce aside.

"B... you owe him."

"Owe him what? Who, Jaybird?"

Jason sighs. "Pops. You owe him a chance to see that smile. On you."

Bruce looks at him. "You think my face can still do that?"

"Hey, I was surprised that you were actually funny! But... yeah, I do."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe you're right..."

[firewasabeast]

can you do a fic based on the idea that athena and tommy will team up to fly the plane to safety? idk if it doesn't really happen in the show, I'd love a fic version!

disclaimer: I know nothing about planes, nor do I pretend to. we're all just going to smile and nod as we read through this, just like we do when we watch 911. the idea for this fic comes from @mannafromtevan's theory, which is incredible and I hope is true! Also, while looking for the link to this theory, I saw where @bibuckkinard already wrote a fic based on this theory as well. I haven't read it yet, but everything they write is incredible and will definitely be better than this. Anyway, enjoy!

A small aircraft hit the plane. Co-pilot was ejected. The pilot enabled autopilot, but she's unconscious. There's no one to fly the plane!

That was the call that Athena had with air traffic control just after the incident. It had sent more than half of LA's emergency personnel to the nearest airport, the 217 taking lead on the operation.

Everyone was hovered around, listening as Tommy spoke to Athena and tried to get as much information as he could in what little amount of time they had.

“And you said a window was blown out?” Tommy asked.

“Yes. A window and then some.”

“Wide enough for a person to fit through?”

“The co-pilot did.”

Tommy was quiet for a moment. Long enough for Athena to come back over the radio. “Tommy? Are you still there?”

“I'm here, Athena. I'm thinking. Just hang on a sec.”

“Oh, sure,” she answered, the sarcasm in her tone was clear. “I've got nowhere else to be.”

Jameson, a pilot who'd been working with Tommy for nearly five years now, stared at him. He knew that face. “You have an idea.” It wasn't a question.

“Yeah, I do.”

“How stupid is it?”

“It has potential.”

“To work?”

Tommy shook his head. “To be the dumbest thing I've ever done.”

*****

“You cannot be serious right now!” Buck exclaimed as Tommy strapped on his gear. The rest of the crew was working on the helicopter behind him, getting it ready to go as quickly as possible. Hen, Chim, and Eddie were there too, standing back while Tommy and Buck spoke.

“It's the best plan we're gonna get. It's the only plan we're gonna get.”

“It's not even a plan! It's a death sentence.”

“Not if I succeed it's not.”

“Tommy-”

“We've done crazier things, Evan. Like flying through a hurricane.”

“Intermittent showers,” Buck corrected. “And I'd say repelling from a helicopter and into a torn apart jet to try and land the thing when half the controls aren't working is a little crazier than flying through bad weather!”

Tommy placed his hands on Buck's shoulders. “Breathe, Evan. The rescue mission was fully approved by all proper authorities.”

“You sure you didn't fake mouth static your way into approval?”

Tommy gave him a look. “There might've been a few omissions. I cannot confirm or deny that though.”

“Tommy.”

“Hey, what's our motto?” he said, looking past Buck and pointing to the rest of the 118.

“Who cares?!” They chanted.

“Me!” Buck exclaimed. “I care!” He followed behind Tommy as he headed for the chopper. “Tommy, please don't-”

Tommy turned on his heels, nearly running straight into Buck as he did so. “Evan,” he started, his voice calm and assured, “If you knew how to fly, you'd already be up there.”

“But-”

“Am I wrong?”

Buck pursed his lips, eying Tommy closely before replying. “No.”

“I've gotta go. I will do my best to make it back to you, Evan. I promise that.”

That was it for Buck. He didn't care who was around. He tugged Tommy by his gear, and pulled him in for a kiss. “Be safe.”

Tommy nodded, giving Buck's hand a squeeze before running to the helicopter. Buck took a deep breath, holding back his tears as he watched them take off.

*****

It took time, and a lot of precision, for Tommy to finally reach the opening of the plane. There were a few close calls along the way, but once Athena had ahold of his legs, he allowed himself to relax a little.

“Good to see you, Athena,” Tommy said with a smile once he had successfully made it inside the plane.

“I'm not sure if good is the correct word to be using right now,” Athena replied. “But I am glad you're here.”

“Happy to be here.” Tommy disconnected himself from all the wiring he was attached to, guiding it back out of the hole so the helicopter could return to base.

Athena moved some debris out of the way, making room for Tommy to sit in pilot's seat. There were lights flashing everywhere, some repetitive beeping from alarms, not to mention the giant hole that was allowing wind to whip through the cockpit.

“What do you think?” Athena asked as he pressed some buttons, his face scrunched up tight.

He flipped a switch on one of the control panels, which caused the entire thing to fall off the dash.

“Well, that's not helpful,” he said, tossing it aside. “So, got any plans this weekend?”

She glared over at him. “Wasn't really thinking that far ahead.”

“I was thinking about taking Evan for a helicopter tour around the city... May be in bad taste now though.”

Athena sat beside him, a light sheen of sweat across her forehead. “Tommy, give it to me straight here. How screwed are we?”

He shrugged, keeping his focus on the controls that were still connected to the plane. “You believe in God?”

“I do.”

“Mind praying for us both then?”

“That bad?”

Before Tommy could respond, his captain's voice was coming over the radio in his helmet. “Give me a rundown, Kinard. What's going on?”

Athena listened as Tommy went through a (very long) list of everything wrong with the plane. He went over controls that were damaged, and the very few that weren't. She heard something about autopilot still working well, and something else about a manual landing, but most of it made no sense to her.

“I'm gonna need you to repeat all of that,” Athena said once he was finished, “but in a way I'll actually understand.”

He glanced over at her briefly, the plane jumping with sudden turbulence. Athena grabbed onto the the broken panel in front of her and Tommy focused his eyes back on the controls. “We're running low on fuel. We're gonna have to try to land after the next turn, and we'll end up dropping pretty fast. Basically, I can land us manually, but I can't promise the breaks will work.”

“That seems like a pretty important part of landing,” she deadpanned.

“I'd definitely say it's a favorite of mine.”

Athena took a deep breath before asking her next question. “And if the breaks don't work? What happens then?”

“There's a very high chance this thing will blow up if we can't stop by the end of the runway.”

“Oh dear God.”

“There is good news though.”

“Hm.” She eyed him skeptically. “What's that?”

“We won't feel a thing.”

“Oh, well, that's a relief. Don't know what I was ever worried about in the first place,” she replied sarcastically. “How much time do we have before you land her?”

“About ten minutes. Intercom system is out, right?”

“Yes.”

“Can you go make sure everyone has their seatbelts fastened?”

Athena headed back to the passengers. Tommy took the moment alone to breathe deeply and steal himself for whatever was about to happen. Part of being a pilot required confidence and, even if he didn't have much of it at the moment, he knew how to play the part.

Fake it til you make it.

He'd done that a lot over the years. It worked in a professional sense, not so much in a personal one.

A couple minutes later, Athena returned. “All buckled in,” she informed him as she went to sit in the co-pilot's seat again.

“It's actually probably better if you sit in the jump seat behind me,” Tommy said.

“Why? So when we explode my arm doesn't knock you upside the head for getting me killed? Nah, I'm good here.”

Tommy smirked. Even after working with Athena on and off for over twenty years, he'd never spent much time with her. The few dinners he and Evan had with her and Bobby didn't give them much time to banter back and forth. He'd have to make sure and change that once they were on solid ground. “Suit yourself.”

“Can I borrow your helmet for a second?” she asked.

“Sure.” He handed it over and she put it on, clearing her throat.

“Can I speak to Hen Wilson from the 118, please?” she asked over the radio.

A few seconds later, Hen was on the line. “I'm here, Athena. You're on an open channel.”

“Hen, Bobby isn't at the airport, is he?”

“No. He's on his way, but he hasn't made it yet. You want me to put him on with you?”

“No, no!” Athena answered quickly. “No. What I need to say, I can say to you.”

Tommy focused on keeping the plane steady while Athena spoke. It felt wrong to listen in to something as personal as a possible goodbye.

He took the time to think about Evan. The short but wonderful time he'd had with him over the past few months. They'd been the best of his life.

He briefly wondered if he should tell Evan that before he attempted to land, but he decided against it. Evan wouldn't need those thoughts running through his head for the rest of his life if they didn't make it out of this.

“Hey,” Athena's voice brought him out of his thoughts. She nudged his shoulder with the helmet. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

Tommy paused before taking the helmet back. “Go for Kinard.”

“Kinard, this is Buckley of the 118.” Tommy smiled at the sound of Evan's voice, even though he could hear it breaking ever so slightly.

“I hear you, Buckley.”

“I just, um, I wanted you to, um. Tommy.” He cleared his throat. “You've got this, okay? We're all down here waiting. N- Not a single doubt.”

“Good to know. No doubts up here either.”

He ignored the raised eyebrow look from Athena.

“Good. Um, Tommy?”

“Yeah, Evan?”

“I love you.” The words escaped him quickly, but with a confidence that wasn't there before.

Tommy smiled, his heart fluttering. He didn't realize he hadn't spoken until Evan's voice came over the radio again.

“T- Tommy?”

Tommy shook his head, blinking to rid himself of the tears in his eyes. “Chschschsch,” he said, bringing back his renowned fake mouth static, thank you very much. Athena stared over at him in confusion. “Sorry, Buckley, you're cutting out on me. You'll have to repeat that last sentence when I'm on the ground, okay?”

“Yeah,” Evan answered, and Tommy was sure there was a faint smile in his voice. “Yeah, o- okay.”

*****

About a minute later, Tommy was in position and ready to land. He got in contact with everyone on the ground, letting them know where and when he'd be landing. They were all getting into position near the runway, ready to help no matter the outcome.

“You ready?” Tommy asked as Athena tightened her seatbelt.

“Let's land this bastard.”

“Coming in for a landing.”

The closer they got to the ground, the shakier things got. Tommy held tightly onto the controls, trying to ignore the burning in his eyes from all the wind coming in through the hole.

They dropped rapidly, just as he expected they would. Athena kept quiet, and Tommy wondered if she was praying.

A part of him hoped she was.

As the runway got closer and closer into view, Tommy could feel every muscle in his body tightening. “Brace yourself,” he said a few seconds before they hit the ground with a thud.

Screams could be heard coming from the passengers, many of them crying or calling out to whatever god they believed in.

“We're going too fast.” Athena watched as they flew past all the emergency vehicles waiting for them.

“We're okay,” Tommy replied. Fake it til you make it.

They started to slow down, but the end of the runway was drawing near and it was becoming clear they would not be able to stop in time.

“Tommy.”

“We're okay,” he repeated, although it sounded more like a demand.

Athena could see the details of the signs at the end of the runway. “Tommy!”

Suddenly, Tommy turned the plane to loop around to the next runway. As he did, the wing hit a sign that flung backwards, eliciting more yells from the passengers.

The plan, or lack thereof, seemed to work. The plane slowed until it came to a stop.

They were alive.

They were actually alive.

Before he even had time to let it fully sink in, Athena was next to him, wrapping him in an unexpected, but very needed, hug.

“You might be clinically insane,” she said, both of them laughing from all the adrenaline coursing through their bodies. “But I'm so damn glad you are.”

“Why don't we get everyone off this plane?” he asked. “Then go see our guys.”

“I like the sound of that.”

*****

Athena and Tommy made sure they were the last ones off the plane. Athena spotted Bobby first. He had apparently arrived just before the landing and saw the whole thing. Tommy watched them reunite as his eyes darted around looking for his own person.

“It's been decided that I have the coolest, most badass boyfriend in the entire world,” a voice said from behind him.

Tommy whipped around to Evan standing there, arms already open wide, a bright smile on his face. Tommy practically fell into him. They held onto one another so tight that Tommy could have sworn they were melding into one.

“I was so worried,” Buck breathed out, his face pressed into Tommy's neck.

“I thought you had no doubts?” Tommy's voice was muffled against Buck's turnouts. He made no effort to move.

“Like you believed that for a second.”

After holding onto each other a little longer, Tommy pulled back just enough to look Buck in the eyes. “If I remember correctly, you were in the middle of telling me something when my radio started to go out,” he said with a smirk on his face.

Buck brought his hands to Tommy's face, his thumbs stroking Tommy's cheeks. “I love you, Tommy,” he said, and that confidence was back in his voice. “I really, really love you.”

“I love you too, Evan.” He pulled Buck in for a kiss, deep and passionate and filled with all the love they'd been keeping to themselves for the last few months.

The sound of a throat clearing had them, reluctantly, separating from one another. Bobby and Athena were walking up behind them, smiles on both of their faces.

“Athena!” Buck exclaimed, immediately going to her for a hug. “Are you okay?”

“All good,” she answered, “thanks to your man.”

“Thank you, Tommy,” Bobby said, bypassing a handshake and going in for a hug. “You saved a lot of lives tonight.”

He took a deep breath. “All part of the job, right?”

“I think you went far above and beyond the job tonight,” Bobby replied. "Probably have another medal in your future."

Buck's proudly returned to Tommy's side, their arms wrapping around each other's waist.

“You've got a good one here, Buck,” Athena said, patting Tommy on the shoulder. “You should keep him.”

Buck smiled, leaning in for another kiss. “That's the plan.”

[rip-quizilla]

You Could Kill Me (and You Should)

Pairing: Vampire!Eddie Munson X Slayer!Reader

Word Count: 16k

Tags: SMUT🔥🔥🔥, dubious consent, memory alteration, reader's pronouns aren't specified, reader has a vagina, oral sex, p in v sex, blood drinking, blood kink, unprotected sex, squirting, dom/sub undertones, vampire sex, references to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (but you don't have to be familiar to understand this story)

A/N: please read the tags! This work contains depictions of blood and VERY adult content. Minors, do not interact!

Bat divider made by @saradika ❤️

Hunting on game nights was never ideal. 

There were too many people around… the double-edged sword of vampire hunting. The great throngs of people made it easy for a poor soul to get lost in the fray, so it brought the baddies out into the open. On the flip side of that coin, what made an ideal hunting ground for vamps created a field of landmines for a Slayer. Throngs of people meant infinite chances to get caught in the open with a wooden stake in your hand, and that brought too many questions. 

Still, you could deal with humans; you had been your whole life. Hawkins, Indiana was just like any other town- people would believe what they wanted to believe, and you knew exactly how to spin a story into something they’d find acceptable. 

However, if you got caught out in the moonlight with the specific vamp you were hunting, you knew you’d attract the wrong kind of attention. You wanted to fly under the radar here; it was the only way you’d be able to live here long enough to stave off the influx of demons that liked to slip in time to time from the Upside Down- the hell that waited on the other side of this reality. Not every town was as connected to it as Hawkins was, but then again, not every town sat on top of a Hellmouth. 

A sound from behind you perked up the hairs at the back of your neck. You turned, making sure the brick wall of Hawkins High protected your back as you surveyed the empty courtyard before you. Everyone within a mile radius who still had a beating heart was in the gym, cheering on the Hawkins Tigers in hopes that the subpar basketball team might actually take home a win tonight. 

Well… everyone except for you, whose heart was beating alarmingly fast for someone who had slain so many bloodsuckers that you’d lost count. Why were you this nervous? Aw, who were you kidding, you knew why.

You weren’t hunting just any vampire this time. You were hunting Eddie Munson. 

You steadied your turncoat heart with a slow, deep breath. “Stop kidding around, Munson,” you said, keeping your voice low and eerily calm. “You know why I’m out here and I know you’ll only hurt me if you have to, so let’s just cut the formalities and have a little chat.”

A rumbling chuckle sounded from above, and when your eyes flicked up to the sky they were met with the sight of the most elusive and cunning vamp you’d ever had the displeasure of hunting. 

Eddie Munson. Or, as he was known amongst the town’s community of bloodsuckers, Kas the Bloody Handed. 

“Little chat, huh?” Eddie’s smiling voice echoed from where he sat on the edge of the rooftop above you. “Put away the stake and we’ll talk, Slayer.”

You kept your eyes on him, narrowing your gaze but complying nonetheless. You pocketed the stake, shifting your brown leather jacket to the side and sliding the wooden spike into your waistband. 

Were you dealing with any other vamp, you would have laughed in their face at the demand that you disarm yourself when vampires had nearly every advantage against you. You had Slayer strength, sure- but that was it. These demons had speed, strength, teeth, claws- the fact that sunlight would incinerate them was really their only weakness besides their need for blood. 

Correction- sunlight should incinerate them. Sunlight didn’t affect Eddie Munson. That wasn’t the only thing that didn’t seem to affect him- bloodlust was apparently not an issue either, seeing how he was a student. At a high school. A building just teaming with sweaty, hormonal teens who were just itching to do something stupid- one would assume that a vampire in a place like that would be draining cheerleaders left and right, but not Eddie. In fact, you’d been watching him for months now since you moved to Hawkins, and you’d never even seen him hurt a fly. Hell, you’d seen kids try and beat him up and yet he hadn’t so much as made a fist since the first time you laid eyes on him. 

That was why you’d sought him out tonight- this vampire wasn’t killing people, and it was making you suspicious. 

Once your weapon had been safely tucked away, Eddie hopped down from his insane height at the top of the school building and landed swiftly and quietly on his feet in front of you. He smiled at you lazily, his eyes twinkling with the curiosity and glee that came with sharing a secret.

“Excuse my forwardness, but I’ve gotta know-” Eddie began, hands in his pockets as he slowly sauntered toward you. “-how long did I have you going before you figured me out?” 

You pushed off the wall, casually placing your hands behind your back as you matched his stride in the opposite direction. You were circling each other, two predators locked in a deadly dance. 

“You’re a pretty good actor, Munson.” you replied, voice lighter than air but balanced out by the unwavering rock-solid gaze that remained locked on him. “I might not have figured it out at all if your friend at the hospital hadn’t spilled the beans.”

That got his attention. “Annie ratted me out?” His eyebrows were practically synonymous with his hairline. “Impossible.”

You shrugged. “Apparently HIPAA laws don’t apply to secret bloodbag dealers and their demon customers. In her defense, she was pretty tight-lipped until I had convinced her I wasn’t trying to kill you.”

That stopped Eddie in his tracks. He peered at you through his curtain of moonlit curls, his gaze suspicious and unsure. “You’re not?” 

You stood squarely before him at ease. “Nope.” you replied brightly. “And I don’t think you’re trying to kill anyone either… are you, Kas?”

His suspicion gave way to a blinding smile. “Well someone’s been doing their research!” You blinked and he was inches away, his enhanced speed catching you off guard; you instinctively took a step back before instantly regretting it. Eddie caught your momentary lapse in stature and his grin crept upwards in one corner. “Tell you what, killer, how ‘bout we put a pin in all your fun little Kas facts and cut to the chase, hm?” 

In a flash his hand held your chin firmly. Your grip flew to the back of your waistband, fingertips already caressing the smooth wood of your stake. You mirrored each other, the two of you standing in a twin stance with one foot placed in front of the other a shoulder’s width apart, his hand at your jaw and yours ready to stake the bastard at the first sign of a threat. 

“You’re here to protect people,” Eddie continued, “and I don’t plan on hurting anyone. We can coexist here, it isn’t that complicated.”

“I’m here to slay vampires.” You corrected, but Eddie only grinned and shook his head. 

“See, that’s not true- you would have killed me already.” He leaned in, a smug smile only taking up more space on his countenance. “Ain’t that right, Slayer?”

You’d expected that the decision to let Eddie live would come back to bite you in the ass, but surprisingly enough, nothing changed. 

You went to school. You hunted. You did normal teenager things. Not once did you witness Eddie Munson do a single thing out of the ordinary. 

Well…out of his ordinary. For a bloodsucking demon hiding among human teenagers, he liked attention far more than you’d expected. The more you thought about it, however, the more you saw his reputation for being the town freak as a genius cover. He was hiding in plain sight; any weird behavior would simply be written off as a cry for attention from Hawkins’ resident eccentric. If he wanted to, Eddie could be getting away with a lot more than stolen blood bags. 

So why wasn’t he?

You wanted answers, and surprisingly enough you had a feeling that it wouldn’t take too much for him to give them to you. You just needed to find a private place to ask him. Word travels like wildfire after a drought in Hawkins, and even if Eddie didn’t mind the attention, you on the other hand did. You couldn’t afford for people to start associating you with him, so you’d passed Eddie a note at lunch to meet you out in the woods at the old picnic table.

“Did you know I used to do drug deals in this exact place?” 

His voice sounded wistful as his body weight caused the weakened wooden bench to creak when he sat down with you later that afternoon. “Those were the days, man.”

You snorted. “You mean the days when you were human? Or are you a bloodsucker and a pill pusher? That’s an intersectionality I can’t say I’ve encountered before-”

“Back when I was human, smartass.” He cut you off, rolling his eyes. “Now, why did Hawkins’ shiny new vampire slayer invite me to meet in the middle of the woods? All alone?” he pretended to think it over for a second, feigning epiphany when his eyes widened and his brows shot up his forehead. His voice quivered, apparently auditioning to play the role of the victim in a slasher film. “Are you g-g-gonna k-k-kill me?” He braced his hands against the edge of the picnic table, scrambling to the ground as he amped up the drama while you watched, forcing a smile at bay. 

“P-p-please, don’t s-s-slay me, almighty S-Slayer!”

You snorted, shaking your head, unable to completely stop the ghost of a grin from sliding across your lips. “Having fun?” you snarked.

It took only a millisecond- in a blur of supernatural vampire speed, he was back up on his feet and sitting on the surface of the table. “Lots!” His smile was overwhelming- it was easygoing, unguarded, and above all things it was so human. It was disconcerting.

“The reason I asked you out here,” you said, getting down to business. “Is because I have some questions for you.”

The vampire’s eyes narrowed, that smile staying firmly planted on his lips. “I’m sure you do.”

“How can you be out in the sunlight without bursting into flames?” Every vampire you’d ever encountered would be reduced to ashes if they dared to step out the door in broad daylight, yet here was Eddie Munson- 100% bloodsucker, 100% sitting on a picnic bench and soaking up the rays that filtered in through the cover of tree branches. 

“I know a witch.” Eddie replied, eyes following you as you paced around the picnic table. “She did a spell. Next question?”

You raised an eyebrow, “Who’s the witch?”

“Not telling.” 

“I figured.” you lamented. “Do the blood bags satisfy you as much as fresh blood?” 

Eddie was quiet for a moment, then replied with a curt “They’re enough.”

“Enough to stave off the urge to- I don’t know- murder?”

His head whipped sharply in your direction, expression souring. “Have you seen me kill anyone? In all the time you’ve been here, have you ever seen me so much as harm someone?”

You paused. “No.”

Jutting out his chin triumphantly, he straightened his posture a bit. “Then stick to relevant questions, alright killer?”

You narrowed your eyes on him. “Your bloodlust isn’t relevant?”

He scoffed, tightening his grip on the edge of the tabletop he still sat on, and you could have sworn you heard the wood creaking beneath his white knuckles. “You may not be from Hawkins, but with that self-righteous, bigoted attitude you could’ve fooled me.” His head was hanging down, Eddie’s dark eyes trained on his Reebocks which dangled from where he sat.

When he looked up at you through his long, chestnut curls, the gaze he gave you was so disappointed, so intense, that you actually felt a pang of guilt even though you hadn’t done anything wrong. You’d accused a vampire of having bloodlust. What was there to feel guilty for?

“You’re a vampire, Munson. A demon.” you stated, matter of factly. “You need blood to survive, and you’re a killer by nature-”

“You’ve done more killing in this town than I have,” he laughed humorlessly, his voice tinged with exasperation. “-and I’ve lived here my entire life!” Eddie hopped off the tabletop, shaking his head. “I thought you wanted to have an actual conversation with me, but if you’re here to point out splinters and ignore the stakes, then I’m gone. Go interrogate some other vampire.” 

You stood your ground, watching Eddie walk back towards Hawkins High as you felt that guilt crawl into your chest and start to burrow there. 

You found it ironic that the Hideout was known for both being the bar in town that never carded, and being the bar that vampires frequented the most. It resulted in a clientele that was either immortal or too young to be there. 

Your presence in town had slowed down vampire activity quite a bit, but apparently that hadn’t been enough of a deterrent to rid the dive bar of their undead customers for the night. After a few years of slaying, you’d learned how to distinguish between prey and predator- there weren’t too many people in the bar since it was a Tuesday night, but that only made it easier to single them out. 

You knew what to look for: eyes that swept the room to sort out the hierarchy of those present. Skin that lacked the plumpness and healthy complexion that came with blood running freely through the veins beneath. Behaviors that reflected an intention to single out the weak and alone before isolating them, going in for the kill. 

Unfortunately, they weren’t who you were here for. Tonight, your attendance wasn’t attributed to any run-of-the-mill vampires. 

Funny enough, you were here to see the band. 

You sipped on your glass of cranberry juice, watching warily as tonight’s headliner situated themselves on the small almost-stage in the corner of the tiny bar. Long dark curls shadowed eyes that followed you with equal wariness, unsure of why you were here but intrigued nonetheless. 

Sitting stationary at the bar with your glass sweating in your hand, you took in the spectacle before you- four boys who looked fairly human, setting the crowd ablaze with songs about nonconformity, rebellion, and hellish imagery. Funnily enough, humans and vampires alike were all watching them, heads bobbing to the thrum of the baseline, all of them united in their quest to distract themselves from life- or afterlife- for the night.

You’d always loved how music did that- it brought together folks of all shapes and sizes, political ideals, religions, backgrounds… and it gave them something to agree on. Music made people feel something. Whether you were alive or undead didn’t seem to matter; people loved to feel things.

To your chagrin, you found yourself tapping out the melodies along with the crowd, bouncing your knee in time with Eddie’s band’s music. They were- surprisingly- not bad. The place was small enough that even though you were seated at the bar, you were able to get a good look at each of the band members over the course of their set. You recognized some of them from school- Grant was a nice guy, you had some classes with him. Gareth was… shy? Standoffish? Either way, he kept to himself and away from everyone who wasn’t Eddie- typical behavior for a vampire. Now, seeing the pallor of his skin compared to the lively flush of his bandmates, you were all but sure he was a vampire; one of Eddie’s underlings, no doubt.

You’d figured out as much information about Eddie Munson’s standing in Hawkins’ vampire community as you thought you’d be likely to get, being a vampire slayer in a town fraught with vampires. He was the first to become a vampire the Hawkins way, and that afforded him a certain level of respect among vampires here. Other than that, you were flying blind. 

Vampires existed in many forms across the world- name a continent, and you could rattle off some fun facts about that region’s particular breed of bloodsucker. Some born, some made, some immortal, some not- and they all had their own particular set of characteristics that set them apart and made slaying even more complicated. Eddie Munson had been the first of a new breed of vampire, and that’s why your watcher had sent you here; not only to slay, but to collect data. 

The audience’s applause for Corroded Coffin’s final song faded into a dull chatter and the clinking of bar glasses, and your attention snagged on Eddie as you watched him amble off the stage in your direction. The other band members stayed where they were, shifting around as they began packing up their instruments. Gareth’s eyes stayed on Eddie, narrowing when they crossed over his shoulder and landed on you.

“Didn’t take you for a metal fan, Slayer.” Eddie murmured just loud enough for you to hear him over the din of noisy patrons. 

You shrugged, sipping from your glass. “I listen to a little bit of everything. You guys aren’t bad.” Eddie hopped up onto the stool beside you, nodding to the bartender in a silent exchange. A half second later, Eddie had a freshly opened can of PBR sweating in his hand. 

“Thanks.” He was eyeing you warily, sipping slowly from his can. “So what are you doing here?”

He didn’t bullshit around when there was an elephant in the room… you guessed you appreciated that. “I wanted to see you in your element.”

He snorted into his silver can. “In my element, huh? Wouldn’t that be -I don’t know- catching me in the act of ripping someone’s throat out? Draining the blood from a litter of kittens or something?”

A pang of guilt threatened to nudge its way through to your eyes, but you didn’t let it get that far. “No,” You replied, “you said it yourself, I’ve never actually seen you hurt anyone. Or even try, actually.”

His gaze was measured, eyeing you up and down as if scanning you for some indication that you were planning on staking him right here and now. You waited for him to speak but surprisingly he didn’t, so you continued.

“I’d like to propose a truce.” 

Eddie smirked slightly, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards enough to call into action the dimple hidden in his cheek. “Didn’t know we were fighting, I sure as hell haven’t been getting in your way, have I?”

You sighed, rolling your eyes. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? Is that what you’re getting at? You want an apology?” As Eddie’s smirk grew wider, your mouth moved in the opposite direction, lips forming a hard, tense line as you glared at the smug bloodsucking bastard before you. 

“I’m a Slayer. I’ve traveled all over the world with the sole purpose of killing vampires just like you-”

“There are no vampires like me, sweetheart.”

You snorted. “Yeah yeah, you’re so unique, we’re all aware.” You downed the last swig of your drink. “Can I finish now?”

He nodded, that grin still growing along his lips. 

“Every vampire I’ve ever met has wanted to kill people. Forgive me for having my defenses up when I came across one that didn’t.” Eddie’s eyes softened, as did the corners of his mouth. His smug grin now seemed a little more understanding, and maybe a little sympathetic. That last bit made you bristle.

“I’m not saying this for your sympathy, I just want you to know where I was coming from when I made assumptions about your…”

“I believe the term you used was ‘bloodlust’?” Eddie supplied, his tone accusatory but not altogether unfriendly. 

You sighed heavily. “I made assumptions. I’m sorry about that.” 

Eddie tilted his head to the side, digesting your apology. Finally, “Buy a round for me and my band and I’ll forgive you.” 

The stipulations of your truce were laid out the next day at lunch. You were able to convince Eddie to leave his cronies’ lunch table in the cafeteria in favor of a more private place to discuss your terms- the picnic table out in the woods. 

As per your side of the deal, Eddie would provide you a list of names of vampires that he knew followed the same lifestyle as him- purchase blood from his supplier at the hospital, go about their normal lives, and never harm a living soul. You would refrain from hunting any of them.

Eddie’s side of the deal: he promised not to interfere with the slaying of any vampires in town who didn’t subscribe to his way of life; in other words, if they tried to hurt a human or drink from any living animals in town, they were fair game for slaying. In addition, Eddie would provide you any information you needed about Hawkins Vampires, and you would relay that data to the Watchers’ Council for them to enter into their database. 

Unsurprisingly, Gareth Emerson’s name was at the top of Eddie’s list of vampires under his protection. When you saw it, you chuckled.

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Surprised?” 

“Not in the slightest.” you laughed. “The guy clings to your side like a guard dog and barely talks to anyone else. And he always looks like he’s on the verge of ripping someone’s throat out.”

Eddie couldn’t help but laugh along with you. “Well, in my defense, he was like that back in his human days too, I didn’t do that to him.” 

You peered over the list at the leather-clad vamp as he lit a cigarette. “But you did do the ‘vamparism’ thing to him?”

“Trust me, it wasn’t a premeditated decision.” Eddie may have sounded aloof, but you could tell that the words were strained. “I had only been…turned…for a couple of weeks at that point. I thought I could handle more human interaction than I really could.”

Your eyebrows jumped a fraction of an inch, but you tried to appear unphased. You hadn’t known too many vampires who could bite a human and manage to stop themselves before killing their victims at that phase of their afterlife. A vampire’s thirst could be nearly impossible to resist for the first few years after their transition, never mind the first matter of days. The fact that Eddie was able to bite Gareth without killing him was… impressive, to say the least. 

Regardless of how impressive it was, however, Eddie’s facial expression spoke volumes to you about how unimpressed he was by his choices at this particular moment in his history. You decided to air on the side of casual empathy. “Could have been a lot worse.” you said, voice soft but matter of fact. “Plus he has you to protect him.”

Eddie looked at you, eyes guarded and yet bursting at the seams with unshed secrets. You could tell there was so much more he wanted to say, but he settled for a simple, solid “Yeah.”

You didn’t pry. If you needed to know more, you’d find it out in due time, but for now you would settle for ‘yeah’. 

The two of you fell into a strange dynamic as your truce was put into effect. For one thing, he made an effort to seek you out in the hallways more; it was troubling, to say the least. You didn’t want people in this town paying attention to you. If they started taking notice of your unusual habits- never getting involved at school, lurking in graveyards and dive bars late into the night, keeping to yourself instead of falling into a friend group like normal teenagers were supposed to- they might start keeping a closer eye on you. A closer eye on you meant a closer eye on the vampires in this town, and the Watcher’s Council would have your head if you became the proverbial Pandora to open the vampire box in Hawkins.

The point was, Eddie was an attention magnet, and his incessant need to interact with you in front of an audience made it difficult to fly under the radar in a town where gossip traveled faster than the average speed limit.

“Slayer!”

His calling you that in the middle of the hallway just after the final bell didn’t help things in the slightest. He was half-jogging through the throng of teens, dodging and weaving between bodies as he made his way to where you stood at your locker with wide eyes trained on the most obnoxious vampire you’d ever had the pleasure of knowing.

“Can you not call me that in the middle of a crowded hallway?” you hissed at him once he’d reached your side. In reality, you knew the chances were slim that anyone within earshot knew what a Slayer was, but you weren’t about to test that theory. 

“Sorry, killer.” Eddie quipped, shit-eating grin loud and proud on his beaming face. “Just wanted to catch you before you left without me.” 

You quirked an eyebrow. “Without you? What, are we carpooling now?”

“Yeah, unless you want to get drenched in the tempest going on out there, sweetheart.” 

Your mouth was open, poised to argue before Eddie wordlessly scooped up your backpack with effortless strength, shouldered it, and began marching down the crowded hallway. He didn’t even wait for you to close your locker, so you had to make quick work of grabbing your books and locking it shut before bumbling after him.

“Excuse me,” you huffed, power walking in an effort to keep up with his quick pace. “Is there something about me that screams ‘I need to carpool with Eddie Munson’? Because if there is, I will happily correct the issue.”

Eddie hop-skipped through the front doors of the school, threw a chuckling look over his shoulder at you, then took off running through the pouring rain in a straight shot to where his van was parked. 

You had no choice but to run in the same direction; he had your backpack. 

In a mad dash through the sky’s heavy onslaught, you shielded your head best you could until you made it to Eddie’s passenger door. The rolling percussion of raindrops on pavement was cut starkly short at the shut of your door, and you breathed a sigh of relief before swinging your head around to look at Eddie Smug-Faced Munson, scowling for all you were worth. 

“There are quite a few ways I can answer your question, Slayer, all of which could get me staked…” He twisted slightly to toss your backpack into the backseat, where it landed on a discarded t-shirt and a mess of paper and spiraled wire that must have been a notebook at some point. When Eddie turned back to you, your faces were mere inches from each other, both of you trusting the center console with your weight. Eddie’s movements stilled, his eyes flitting ever so quickly down at your barely-parted lips. 

You were close enough to hear his soft intake of breath. “Could be worth it, though.” 

Your cheeks heated, and you briefly wondered if vampires felt the stolen blood in their cold bodies rush to places in times of tension. Breaking eye contact, you crossed your arms over your chest, brushing your biceps and shoulders with your hands in an effort to warm your rain-drenched skin.

 “Just drive, Munson. I have a stake in my pocket with your name on it if you try anything.” 

Eddie shook his head, smirking widely. “And here I thought you were just happy to see me.” Shifting the car into drive, he expertly navigated his way out of the parking lot and onto the main road that would take you to the small apartment you currently lived in, courtesy of the Watchers’ Council. 

“You’re hunting tonight, right?” Eddie’s voice cut through the rain-spattered silence in the van, jerking your attention from the hypnotic sight of his struggling windshield wipers. 

“Yes?” Unintentionally, the answer sounded like a question.

“Take me with you.”

You snorted. “You, a vampire, want to go vampire hunting?” 

Eddie shrugged, keeping his umber eyes on the glassy road ahead. “Now that I know there won’t be any innocents on your hit list- yeah, sounds fun.”

You arched an eyebrow. “If I end up staking anyone tonight, you won’t stop me?” 

“Good vampire, remember?” he reminded you, placing a hand over his heart before flashing you a reassuring grin. “If somebody’s out there hurting people, I want them off the streets as much as you do.” 

And that was how you wound up with an undead hunting partner for your nightly patrol of Hawkins for malicious undead. 

Despite being the unlikely duo that you two were, you actually looked like a pair of vampire slayers on a usual patrol- the two of you both wearing combat boots and leather jackets to match. The only tell that this wasn’t your normal routine was the stark silence occupying the space between you. You ended up being the one to finally break it after the first few minutes of patrolling as the two of you strolled through the Hawkins’ cemetery.

“So if we run into some unsavory vampires tonight… how are you gonna kill them?”

“What do you mean, ‘how’?”

“I’m not letting you use my stakes.”

Eddie angled his head toward you, a grin dancing on his lips. “Aw, scared I’ll stake myself on accident, sweetheart?”

“Oh I would consider that a happy accident.” you matched his grin in stride, teasing the tip of your tongue through your teeth. 

“Aw, don’t say that! You know you’d miss me, baby.”

Baby?

You sped up your pace a fraction- just enough for him to leave your periphery. “I am not your baby.” You tried to laugh through your response, but it got caught in your throat, tangling with the words and straining them in a way that sounded less lighthearted than you’d intended.

“Well look at that, I found something that makes you nervous.” You could practically feel his smugness from your two steps ahead. 

“Nothing makes me nervous.”

“I do.” 

You scoffed, speeding up your pace. “You do not-”

In half a second he was in front of you, vampiric speed landing him directly in your way, forcing you to stop short. He was eyeing you down, arms crossed and lids squinted in concentration. “Why’s your heart rate getting faster, then?”

You huffed a breath into the cold air, sending wisps of heat to curl and dissipate as they hit Eddie’s solid form. “Annoyance. Rage. Could be a number of things along those lines.” You sidestepped him, marching forward purposefully. Eddie followed suit beside you.

“Along those lines, you say.” He mused. “Y’know, those lines in particular can get pretty blurry.”

Eddie paused, waiting for you to take the bait. He waited a long time before giving up on that, because under no circumstances did you plan on doing so. 

“The lines,” he continued, “between rage and other feelings of… equal passion.” 

“You saying you want me to more passionately say you annoy me, Munson?” You quipped, refusing to meet his eyes that were practically begging you to look his way. “I will, don’t tempt me.”

“I’m quite sure you’ll find I can be very good at tempting you, baby.”

You huffed, chin whipping to the side to give him a full view of your serious face. “Stop calling me baby.” You regretted looking his way immediately, because those dark eyes were staring you down with an intensity that caused the air to leave your lungs and your voice to falter.

“Yeah… y’know-” Eddie’s grin was shining in full force now, watching you like you were a puzzle he’d just made a breakthrough in solving. “I don’t think I’m going to do that. This is the first time I’ve seen you flustered.”

“Shut. Up.” You muttered, eyes focused on a newer-looking grave about ten feet from the two of you. 

“Hm, sounds like something a flustered person would say-”

“Eddie,” you hissed, already reaching for the stake in your back pocket. “Shut. Up.” 

It took him a second, but he followed your gaze and saw what had you shifting gears- the low, wet sound of something sucking, accompanied by the pat pat of excess blood as it dripped to the cold earth. Slightly obscured by the headstone you’d spotted, a vampire had found some unsuspecting soul to snack on. 

You held your wooden stake aloft, ready to strike. “Ready to watch the master at work?” you whispered under your breath.

Eddie matched your volume, whispering back an encouraging “Hell yeah, go get ‘em, baby.”

You rolled your eyes and sighed, carefully advancing “Just shut up and watch my back, Munson.”

“Oh I will gladly do that.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I’m adorable.”

You arrived home around dawn, just as the sun had begun to peek over the horizon and paint the morning in blushing shades of pinks and purples. Your apartment was a little efficiency located above a pawn shop downtown. The entrance was behind the building, which meant that there weren’t any snooping neighbors to watch you entering your home in the wee hours of the night. In a town like Hawkins, this kind of privacy was a valuable commodity.

Eddie had insisted on walking you home since it was so late- or early- which tickled you to no end since he’d just watched you take down a vampire pretty much single-handedly. He climbed the squeaking fire escape two steps behind you, stopping at the final landing as you began to unlock your door. 

“You can go now.” You told him curtly. 

“You’re not going to invite me in?” You almost laughed; he actually sounded hurt. He was a good actor.

“You act like I haven’t studied vampires every day since I became the Slayer.” You placed your hands on your hips, “As If I’m about to give you an all-access pass to my apartment.”

Eddie laughed, his chuckle a dark and musical thing. “Baby, if I was going to kill you, don’t you think I would have tried already?” His hand was resting on your doorway, blocking the light from the time-yellowed lamp that lit the left side of your doorway and caging you in with his shadow.  

“For all I know, this is you trying.” You stood your ground, arms crossed solidly across your chest, refusing to cower even though he was looking at you like he wanted to wrap his teeth around you.

He leaned forward ever so slightly, eyes heavy and hungry. “Do you think that’s what I’m trying to do?” His gaze flicked to your closed door and back to you in half a second. “You think if you walk through that door and invite me inside, I’m going to try to kill you?”

You studied him for a moment. “No.” You hadn’t meant for the word to come out in a whisper, but that’s what happened anyway.

Eddie’s gaze remained unmoved. “So you’ll invite me in?”

“No.”

A chuckle escaped through the crooked smile that invaded his lips. “So fucking stubborn. You know I can smell you, right?”

You raised an eyebrow, confused. Smell what? Did you work up a sweat fighting that vampire? There’s no way you smelled that bad-

“I can smell you, baby.” His lips were moving against your ear, brushing the little silver rings that decorated your cartilage. “You’re right, you shouldn’t let me inside. But I can smell how curious you are about what might happen if you do.”

You were suddenly very aware of how wet you were- you felt a rush of heat as a fresh wave of slick rushed through you, undoubtedly moistening your panties. He could smell that? You were frozen, at a loss for words that could adequately respond to his insinuation.

Before you could react, Eddie’s hand was on your face, gripping your jaw just tight enough to slightly purse your lips. You felt the cold bite of his silver rings on your skin, sending goosebumps trickling down your spine. He looked you in the eyes, his gaze growing deeper and darker, and you began to relax into his grip as you realized that he truly did not intend to hurt you. 

“You should invite me in.”

His eyes were so beautiful… how had you never noticed them before? They practically glowed… no, they actually glowed. They were like a neon fucking sign, bright and crimson and shining such a beautiful rose-hued glow that they looked more like rubies than irises.

Your lips moved to echo him. “I should invite you in.” Of course you should. He wasn’t going to hurt you- with every second you spent with his skin on yours and his eyes boring into your own, you became even more sure of that. He just wanted to make you feel good- so, so good…

“And are you going to?” Eddie’s voice was so beautiful- how had you never realized how gorgeous his voice was?

“Yes.”

“Good. That’s a good Slayer, unlock the door, baby.”

And you did. It was the easiest decision you’d ever made. You stepped inside, immediately shedding your coat and hanging it on the coat rack by the door. “Come inside, Eddie,” You smiled at him, letting down your defenses. You were so tired of putting them up around him. “It’s cold out there.”

He matched your smile, looking at you like you’d hung the moon. “Well aren’t you just the sweetest thing.” He crossed the threshold easily, following your lead and shrugging off his leather jacket and hanging it beside your own. He glanced around the little apartment, an appraising look in his gaze. It was just one room, a small studio with a modest kitchen and living space. Your modest bed frame sat nestled in the corner beneath a skylight, along with a small armchair and a closet with the few belongings you’d taken with you to Hawkins. 

“Bed looks cozy.” Eddie mused. 

“It is.” 

He nodded towards it. “Go sit on the edge.”

And of course you did. You sat up straight, keeping your eyes on him and waiting for that beautiful voice to say something else. You so wanted him to keep talking; each word was like a warm shower after hours in the cold, relaxing you into a happy little puddle. Eddie watched as you perched yourself on the edge of the bed, slowly stalking across the room until your knees were almost touching his. 

He stared at you, his gorgeous dark eyes glowing deep red. “Open your legs.” You did. Without breaking eye contact, Eddie commanded you again. “Tell me how wet you are for me.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but he raised a hand gesturing stop. “I’m sorry baby, I misspoke.” Placing both hands on either side of your hips, Eddie leaned forward until he was close enough for you to feel his cold breath on your face. “Stick your hand down your panties and feel how wet you are for me. Then tell me out loud.”

You nodded, happy to comply. Your hands were cold, but you didn’t care. You eagerly snaked your hand under the waistband of your pants, shivering as your icy fingers traced a line down your pelvis until they reached the heat beneath your panties. The moment they dipped over the hood of your clit, you were mildly surprised at just how soaked you were.

“Talk to me, baby,” Eddie’s voice washed over you, and you felt a fresh gush of heat pulse through your core. 

“I’m soaked, Eddie.” It was the truth; you couldn’t imagine lying to him when he was so curious. Besides, you wanted him to know that he was reducing you to a deluge in his honor.

Slowly, Eddie sunk down to his knees on your floor. His head was level with your open knees, hands dragging down the skin of your outer thighs as he inhaled the air between your legs.

“Take your fingers out of your pussy, I want to taste them.”

You did as he asked, wide eyes rapt with attention as you watched him grab your wrist and shove your drenched fingers in his waiting mouth. His tongue made you want to melt; it lapped along the skin of your fingers and savored the tart, heady flavor of you. You whined when his lips popped off your hand, but eagerly changed your attitude when his fingers began tracing your waistband.

“Tell me you want me to taste that pretty pussy baby, I can smell how bad you want me already, you smell so fucking good.” 

You did. You wanted him to taste your pussy very badly… you wanted it more than you could remember ever wanting anything before now. “I want you, Eddie.” you panted. “I want you to taste me, I’m so wet for you.”

Eddie’s eyes shone up at you, like light through a glass of dark red wine. “I know, baby, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll have my tongue on you again in a second.” He slid his hands into your pockets, gently yanking on the material and jolting your hips forward. “Take these off for me.”

Your hands flew to the button of your pants, making quick work of them as well as your panties while Eddie helped you remove your shirt. You wanted to bare yourself to him completely, let him devour you whole, even. When you looked into those beautiful eyes, letting him have you just made sense.

You now sat completely naked at the edge of your bed, Eddie kneeling before you taking in the sight and smell of you. His gaze was hungry, his hands tracing possessive lines into your outer thighs. “You’re going to lie back for me,” he said, voice low and commanding, “and I’m going to taste this pussy that’s been leaking for me since I first called you baby in the graveyard.” Your eyes were wide, desperate- stuck on his like a moth to a flame. He pressed his hands to your knees, opening you up as wide as you could go, and you felt his breath on your wet lips.

“Go ahead, Slayer.”

You laid back, staring up at the morning’s gradient of cerulean and lavender through your skylight as your heart began to race from the anticipation. When Eddie’s tongue licked a broad, wet stripe from your entrance to your clit, a reedy, wanting moan pulled from your chest, singing into the stillness of your apartment. 

“That’s it, give me every noise you have, baby. I’ll know if you’re holding any back, and believe me when I say I’ll make you moan one way or another.”

And make you moan he did. Eddie’s tongue was masterful in its movements, licking and flicking in the perfect places as you listened to the symphony of noises that were coming from between your thighs. Between the sound of his wet tongue squelching in the juices that you eagerly supplied and the humming little moans that Eddie made as he feasted on all you had to give him, it was all you could do not to start sobbing from how badly you wanted to cum for him. You knew he’d get you there, but let’s be honest- you were not a patient person. 

“More, Eddie- hngh- please, I need… aah!” Your pleas were cut short as you felt a sharp suck at your swollen clit. You moaned, high and pathetic under the careful ministrations of Eddie Munson. His two middle fingers plunged into you, not bothering to give you time to adjust because he knew you were already wet enough to take him. His fingers curled slightly, sharply jerking his hand up and in, over and over in a way that filled you like a water balloon. You were whining, loudly arching your back into your bed as you squeezed your eyes shut, sensing your climax was fast approaching-

“No,” Eddie lunged forward, his right hand never ceasing its assault as his left grabbed you by the neck, wrenching you forward into a crunch position. “Look me in the eyes while you cum, don’t you fucking close those fucking eyes, baby.”

Your mouth hung open, eyebrows drawn together desperate and needy as you felt yourself getting impossibly wet and impossibly tight. His hand kept going, ruthlessly pounding into you as you screamed his name. Curses tumbled from his lips as he watched you soak his hand, and all the while his other hand stayed curled possessively around your neck. Wetness sprayed from you, and his eyes were downright feral as you squirted all over his face. You watched his smile grow, stretching across his face in triumph and baring his fangs in all their unholy glory before turning his head to the side and opening even wider.

Then he sunk his teeth into your femoral artery, and sucked. 

You moaned- loudly- and then you woke up. 

Being a vampire slayer who’s had a sex dream about a vampire was pretty embarrassing. 

Being a vampire slayer who’s had a sex dream about Eddie Munson was… inconvenient.

When you’d first woken up from… the dream… you’d spent your first waking moments frantically trying to figure out how much- if any- of it had even happened. Had Eddie even walked you to your door, or had you parted ways at the cemetery? Had he actually called you baby? Did he admit he could smell how much it affected you when he’d called you that? Most importantly, had you actually invited him into your apartment? 

It took a few minutes, but eventually you sorted out reality from whatever your traitorous brain had concocted. You and Eddie had hunted last night. He did indeed call you baby at one point and teased you about how defensive you got about it. You’d slayed a vampire while Eddie assessed the victim, and afterward the two of you had taken her to Annie at the hospital and updated her on the situation. With Hawkins’ vampire population growing by the day, this wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with a newborn; she knew what to do. 

After that, you’d gone your separate ways. As far as you knew, Eddie still didn’t know where you lived- though, you knew if he wanted to find out then it wouldn’t be difficult for him to follow you home undetected. The good news was that he still hadn’t been invited into your home, so you were probably safe as long as you were inside your apartment. Of course, the rules for Hawkins Vamps were still mostly unknown to you, so there was a possibility that he might be immune to the invitations-only rule that bound most types of vampires- but you weren’t about to take him home and test that theory.

Then there was the compulsion- the ability to control the minds of humans and turn them into subservient prey at the mercy of their vampiric predator. You had heard of some vampires having this ability, but had never actually come across it in your time as the Slayer. You hoped that this dream had just been the product of loneliness and sexual frustration taking over a sleep-deprived mind, but how could you be sure? Maybe everything in your dream had actually happened, and Eddie had simply compelled you to think it was all a dream. Maybe he had some sort of psychic powers specific to Hawkins Vampires, and he had planted the dream in your brain just to fuck with you. 

You didn’t know what was real. On top of that, Eddie kept trying to get your attention at school the next day and it was getting more and more difficult to ignore him without being obvious about it. You successfully avoided him for the duration of the school day, but he finally caught up to you as you were walking home. Driving his van at a steady crawl, he rolled down his window next to where you walked on the grassy shoulder. 

“You wanna tell me why you’ve been avoiding me all day?”

You sighed, too chicken to meet his eyes. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

“Yes you have.” 

You sped up your pace, which was stupid because Eddie was literally driving a motor vehicle. 

“No, I haven’t.”

You were still refusing to look at him, but you could hear the eye roll in his sigh. “Quit being difficult, Slayer,” he said, still keeping equal speed with your barely increased pace. “Get in the van.”

“No.” 

“Uugghhh.” Eddie groaned. “Please? I don’t know what I did wrong but I’ll make it up to you.”

You shook your head but still faced forward as you trudged along on the side of the road. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” You didn’t think he had, anyway. “I’m just… I’m in a weird funk today, don’t read too much into it.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Okay, then get in the van.”

You felt your cheeks heat at the thought of being so close to him… just the idea was enough to get you wet. You felt the familiar gush of arousal as you walked even faster. “No.”

An echo from last night’s dream reverberated in your skull. So fucking stubborn. You know I can smell you, right?

You picked up your pace. 

Eddie sighed, jerking the gear shift into park. In a moment, he was inches in front of you, his hand planted firmly on your shoulder. 

“Stop,” he said, his tone much more all-business than before. You did what he said, begrudgingly, but you were glad you didn’t feel any real need to be obedient. No compulsion, then… you thought, at least not right now. 

You slowly looked up at him, hoping he couldn’t smell the effect that his sudden touch had on you. “Eddie, it’s fine. Seriously.” you tried to smile at him reassuringly, but you could feel on your face that it came out looking more like a cringe. 

Eddie was silent, looking you over with an unreadable expression. Finally, he spoke, “Please get in the van. I’ll take you out for food, whatever you want, my treat. If you aren’t going to tell me what I did to make you so mad at me, at least let me make it up to you somehow.” 

You thought it over for a moment, eventually conceding and nodding your head. Eddie exhaled a sigh of relief before turning on his heel to open the door for you. When you were both seated in the car, Eddie looked over to you cautiously, questioningly.

“Milkshakes?”

You nodded, eyes still facing forward. “Milkshakes.”

Benny’s had everything. 

They had the best burgers in town. They had the best fries, the best chicken fried steak, the best pancakes in the morning. But the milkshakes? They were the best you’d ever had- which was saying something, since you’d lived in twelve different small towns just like this one since your Slayer powers awakened four years ago.

You sipped your vanilla milkshake through a red-striped straw and let the sweet, dependable flavor ground you. It was like releasing a breath you’d been holding since you’d woken up that morning. Eddie’s powers of observation didn’t need to be above average for him to notice the relief washing over you.

He sipped his chocolate shake, raising an eyebrow as your shoulders relaxed into your first suck of the straw. “You don’t have to talk about it, sweetheart,” he murmured against the plastic held between his lips, “but if there’s something on your mind, you can talk to me.”

Yeah, but you are the thing on my mind, you thought, and therein lies the problem.

“I appreciate the concern, Munson, but I’m fine.” You shrugged. “Like I said, it’s just a weird funk. Normal. It happens.” 

Eddie didn’t seem convinced, sipping from his straw as he studied you intently- it was making you uncomfortable. 

“Stop staring at me.”

“Stop lying and saying you’re fine, I can tell something’s up.” Eddie reached up with one hand and tapped on one of his dormant fangs with a fingernail. “Vampire senses, remember?”

Your heart rate picked up at the thought of what his vampire senses might be sensing, and you could instantly tell that Eddie had heard it from the subtle tick of his eyebrow. 

“Speaking of vampire senses,” you started, eagerly trying to turn the conversation away from your current state, “I have some questions about your, um… powers. Specifically, about Hawkins vamps in general.”

Eddie seemed surprised by the new line of questioning, but nodded cooperatively. Leaning back in his squeaky booth seat, he let go of his glass to stick his hands nonchalantly in his pockets. “What do you want to know, Slayer? I’m an open book.”

Pulling your legs up to rest on the seat of the booth, you made yourself comfortable, leaning against your backpack that sat between you and the wall. “Are you able to enter someone else’s place of residence without an invitation?”

“Yes.” 

Your eyebrows jumped. “Really?”

Eddie was already nodding. “I already knew my fair share of vampire lore before my stint in the Upside Down… I tested the more popular vampire theories pretty quick after I figured out what I was.” 

You smiled, your curiosity eclipsing the nagging worry in your chest regarding his answer to your first question. “Which theories?”

Eddie chuckled at himself, making a show of counting them out on his fingers. “Well, the first was running really fast- really, really fast, I mean you’ve seen me-” Your scoff and eye roll earned you a cheeky wink from the vampire. “-tested out how good my hunting skills were in the forest by hunting down some squirrels, and let me tell you, super speed and super hearing can only get you so far, because those motherfuckers are always on alert. Learned how quiet I can be now, which is weird because staying still and silent has never been my strong suit.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.” you snorted. “And you told me the sunlight thing doesn’t bother you because of your witch friend- what was her name, again?”

“Nice try, but I’m still not telling you.”

You smiled, throwing your hands up in mock surrender. “Worth a shot, I’ll find out eventually anyway.” Taking a sip of your milkshake, you kept your voice even as you asked your next question, which was arguably the most important to you at the moment. “So, uh, are there any other powers that you’ve noticed? Powers that don’t fit into the ‘popular vampire theories’ umbrella?”

He raised an eyebrow, “Such as?”

Ugh. “Well,” you began, focusing on a spot on the table where the vinyl coating had begun to peel off and using your fingernail to help it along. “In some regions, there are vampires who can read minds or compel humans to do whatever they say. Some can even bite humans without turning them.”

“Damn,” Eddie whistled, “lucky bastards.”

“So you’re saying you can’t do those things?” you prompted, to which Eddie shook his head and sighed. 

“Nope. First and last time I bit someone, I turned my best friend into a monster. Didn’t feel like testing that theory anymore after that. Can’t read or control minds either, but honestly I’m fine with that. That kind of power doesn’t tend to end well for people.”

You nodded, sipping the final bit of milkshake down. “Wise words.” 

Eddie did the same, fishing out his wallet and slapping a ten dollar bill on the table before standing. “They’re the words of someone who’s flown close enough to the sun to know himself pretty well by now.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded towards the door. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” you stood and followed him, catching the door as he opened it for you. “Thanks for the milkshake.”

“Don’t worry about it, consider it an apology.”

“I told you, you didn’t do anything! I’m just in a funk-” but if Eddie could hear you, he didn’t show it as he jumped into his van and closed the door. 

The drive to your apartment wasn’t long, only about five minutes. Approaching your front door with Eddie in tow gave you the strangest sense of deja vu even though the only time this had happened before was in your dream. You stood with him in the doorway, the warm light of your single-bulb lamp casting harsh shadows across his face as he watched you with eyes tinged with something imperceptible. 

“Gonna invite me in?” Eddie asked, his voice husky and eerily quiet in the cold air. 

You smirked, feeling slightly apprehensive knowing that he didn’t need an invitation, but was asking for one anyway. “Why, you trying to snoop through my things, Munson?” 

Eddie snorted, “We both know that I could if I wanted to, sweetheart, and I wouldn’t need your permission.” He shrugged, leaning a shoulder against the chipping paint on your doorframe. “I’m just trying to be a gentleman.”

“Since when has that been your priority?” you bit back, but there was no venom in it. You were already jiggling your key into the brass lock and turning the knob. You weren’t sure why Eddie wanted to come in, but he was right- if he had malicious intent, he could barge into your home whether you wanted it or not. You made a mental note to request some demon-repellent poultices from a witch friend of yours to remedy that…

The door creaked open, and you tried to shake off that wild feeling of deja vu that kept washing over you with every similarity to your dream that kept occurring. Eddie’s boots thumped against the floorboards, heavy souls claiming the aging wood with every step they took. He surveyed your apartment, assessing what he saw with nods of his head and crossing of arms. 

“Well I can tell you don’t plan on staying long.” he mused.

You raised an eyebrow, closing the door and locking it behind you. “What makes you say that?”

“The walls are empty. Nothing in here looks like you picked it out. I didn’t know better, I’d think I was in a hotel room. ”

You raised your eyebrows, nodding. “Perceptive. You’re not wrong, you know. I don’t usually stay in one place very long.”

“What’s the longest your wardens have let you stay in one place?” Eddie had hopped up on your tiny kitchen counter, his arms straining against the fabric of his leather jacket as he braced his hands on the ledge. You hoped he hadn’t noticed the way your eyes lingered on the way your dim lighting glinted off his bicep. 

“Watchers. Not wardens.” you corrected, shedding your own leather and dropping the coffee-colored jacket over the edge of your bed. “And it’s never been more than a year. If you want to get technical, I think I was in Las Vegas for around 11 months.”

He quirked a curious smile. “Vegas, huh? Lot of vampires there?”

You shrugged. “Tons of tourists to munch on and nothing but nightlife. Believe me when I say that city is run by vampires.” 

Eddie chuckled, “Guess that makes sense.” He looked down, as if he were debating whether or not to say whatever he was thinking at the moment. Then- “Any idea if… well, have they told you if you’ll be here long?”

You smiled; it was a small, tentative thing, but you allowed it to grace your lips. “I’ll probably just stay until the council is happy with the knowledge I’ve accumulated about Hawkins vamps. Once they feel I’m needed more elsewhere, I’ll be packed up and moved within days.” You averted your eyes from his, suddenly finding it difficult to voice the reality that any day, you might have to leave Hawkins. Leave the friendship you’d started to get the slightest bit attached to. 

You heard Eddie scoff- it wasn’t bitter or laced with venom, but it was hollow. An empty, breathy laugh that didn’t do much to cover the vulnerability he had shown by simply bringing up the subject of how long you’d be staying. “Well, you know what they say- hate to see you go, love to watch you leave.” 

It was an attempt at glossing over the mournful mood that’d begun lingering in the air. You looked up at him, brows pulling together in a hopeful, sweeping arch. “You really hate to see me go?”

The smile he’d plastered on was devious and smart-mouthed, but it softened at your question. “Yeah…” he said, his voice lower and rounded as he stroked his fingers along his jawline. “...I think I hate it.” His head stayed down while his slitted eyes looked up at you beneath bushy brown brows. “I was just getting you to like me.”

Now it was your turn to scoff. “Who said I liked you?”

“Your heart rate.”

Well, if it wasn’t true before, it was now. You felt all the blood in your body suddenly rushing through your veins with purpose. The room was feeling surprisingly hot, and you absently pondered whether you had left the heater on when you had left that morning. 

Your voice matched his quiet timbre, “And what’s my heart rate saying?”

He slowly stepped down from his perch on the countertop, stalking toward you with care, as if he were approaching a wild animal. 

Ironic.

“Well,” he started, “something in your brain obviously must have told your heart that you might have to run soon, because your blood’s been racing since I walked through that door.” He took a step closer, and now all you had to do was look up and your faces would be parallel, his eyes boring into yours. “Your body still knows I’m a predator, that’s good.” 

He was right. Your blood was racing under his gaze, and he could undoubtedly feel the heat that was radiating off of you- but that didn’t mean you were ready to openly let that show. “What about you? Big and scary ‘Kas the Bloody Handed’?” you asked. “How does your body react around a vampire slayer?”

Now you looked up. He was glaring down at you, pensive and predatory as a cheshire grin slowly crept across his features. “That depends on how much blood I’ve got in me, sweetheart.” You were leaning against the edge of your tiny excuse for a kitchen island, but now that his hands were planted on both sides of your torso and braced along the tiled edge of the countertop, you felt caged in with nowhere to go and nothing to look at except his eyes as they glowered down at you. “If it’s been a while since I've fed… well, to be honest I get a little hungry.”

Breathe.

“And if you’ve had your fill?”

He chuckled. “Oh, baby, if a vampire ever tells you they’ve had their fill, they’re lying. There is always room for more.” You felt a chill, and the blood in your veins was screaming at you now to grab a fucking stake!! However, you couldn’t seem to tear yourself from this conversation. The way he made you feel- hot, ironically enough- was gluing you to the spot. 

“But if I’ve got some blood in my system,” he continued, “I have to confess, Slayer, just seeing the way you look at me is enough to make all of that blood rush to all sorts of places.”

You were both silent, but the air was pregnant with the question he knew you wanted to ask. A few short breaths were all it took to make you give in. “And… how do I look at you?”

His thumbs ventured to brush over your hips through the material of your jeans, and you jumped at how much the contact affected you. You took in a sharp breath in surprise, and the strained sigh that rumbled through his chest in response nearly made you shudder. 

“Like… a fox that knows it’s being hunted. Wants to be hunted…knows it could outsmart the hunter, but wants the chance to run simply for the thrill of it.”

Fucking. Breathe.

“Is this your way of saying you’re hunting me?” Your voice was barely above a whisper, like the tension between the two of you was so fragile that it could be shattered if you spoke loud enough.

Eddie’s lips were inches from yours, and you could feel his cold breath on your cheeks. “This is my way of saying that I don’t need to.” He nodded sharply in your direction, “Fox.” He squeezed your hips, tugging you gently closer to him, “Trap.”

You squirmed under his gaze but refused to look away from his smoldering eyes. “Bold of you to assume I’m the fox in that scenario.”

“Yeah, yeah…” his husky whisper rasped into your ear when the soft brush of his fingers along your hips became a firm grasp as he effortlessly lifted you up to sit on the counter behind you. He did it so swiftly, so easily… it wasn’t hard to forget about his vampire strength when he barely showed it. He gazed into your wide eyes with a grin that was playful but hungry. “Big bad Slayer is a hunter, not hunted. We’re all aware, sweetheart.” 

His hands splayed atop your thighs, and you couldn’t remember a time before now that you had felt anything as acutely- or with as much anticipation- as you were feeling every inch of him touching you right now. Your inner calves touching the outer sides of his thighs. The knobby contact of his hip bones where they wedged between your knees. The way his fingertips pressed into the meat of your thighs ever so slightly, like he feared how hard he could squeeze before he hurt you. 

You watched his hands, breathless as you studied the light that glinted off his silver rings. There were splotches of faded black shining on a few of his fingernails. It wasn’t nail polish; you’d seen how he colored on his nails with black Sharpie when he got bored in class. Those black nails shone reddish-purple when the light hit them just so, and you shivered as they traveled further up your thighs until he reached the part of your hips that had the most flesh for him to squeeze. A low growl danced in his throat when he heard the noise that escaped you at the sensation his hands were supplying.

He squeezed tighter, tentatively testing how much of his strength you could handle. Luckily for him, slayers are not delicate creatures. 

Wordlessly, you lifted your hands to his shoulders, letting your fingers twist into his dark curls. They were beautifully brown, frozen in the perfect shade of chocolate until the end of time. Your nails gently met his scalp, raking through the roots until both of your hands were nested deep in his hair. 

You made two fists and pulled. 

It wasn’t a sharp tug, wasn’t meant to yank him away from you; it was a slow pull, meant to tease and tell him that you weren’t afraid of a little pain, given or received. He was testing the waters, and you were giving him the all-clear. 

His eyes screwed shut when you pulled his hair, and it wasn’t from any sort of pain but simply from the fact that you were doing it in the first place. Eddie took a deep, shuddering breath as he opened his eyes once again to glare up at you with enough impassioned heat to give his bloodless body a temperature. He clenched his jaw until it ticked, then mumbled “alrighty then” so quickly and quietly that you didn’t even know if you were meant to hear it.

And then he was slamming you against the wall. 

Your thighs straddled his waist, ass seated in Eddie’s stone-strong hands as you felt your back hit the drywall. His eyes were pitch black, hungry for so many things but settling for your lips as he captured them in his own. You kissed him back fervently, desperate now that you knew his touch and the sensations that came with it. 

“God you smell so fucking good,” Eddie growled, pressing into you at the waist and pinning you to the wall where he held you tightly. His lips were insatiable, kissing you like your lips were dipped in sugar and he was a starving man. He panted against your mouth, breathless. “Always smell so fucking good… might be obsessed, I want…want…”

“Want what, Eddie?” you panted with him, eyes fluttering open, wanting to see the way he looked at you when he said things like I might be obsessed as he kissed you… who wouldn’t want to see that? You weren’t disappointed with the sight.

Framed by the backlit baby hairs that formed an evening halo around his head, you might have thought at first glance that Eddie looked angelic. Oh, how wrong that would be. His eyes held far too much gluttony for that.

He leaned in to scent the crook of your neck, causing you to shiver as the tip of his nose traced the base of your skull before whispering into your ear-

“Want to taste you- in every way-” You shivered. “-I want to feel you on my tongue, running down my throat, soaking my hands, falling apart…” Eddie’s lips traveled down your neck, mouthing over the veins that pumped your life force at top speed under sweet, pliant skin. “I want to break you just to know what you look like broken by me.” 

The two of you were waltzing on the line of your collective self-control, and you knew all it took would be one little bite- one tiny prick of his fangs- and his venom would pour into your bloodstream. Then it would be goodbye, humanity.

Mustering up the slightest amount of dignity (with surprising difficulty), you took one hand out of his hair and braced it on his shoulder while the other stayed fisted in his curls. With a sharp tug, you used your Slayer strength to remind him he was evenly matched here, yanking him from your neck and bringing his bloodlust-glazed eyes parallel to yours. 

“Fucking try it then.” you hissed, “See if you can break me.”

Eddie’s familiar roguish grin triumphantly returned then, and you barely registered his nasal scoff and a rush of wind before you were suddenly being flung onto your bed across the apartment. Eddie climbed on top of you, caging you in with solid arms and a scarlet guitar pick that dangled from his neck to dance on the skin of your collarbone. 

He stared down at you expectantly, all-business. “Take your shirt off.”

“You take yours off.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Are you really in a position to be giving the orders, Slayer?”

In a split second, you grabbed his wrists and hooked a leg over his hip, rolling over in the blink of an eye. Now, you were seated firmly on his hips, back arched to splay over his torso and pin his wrists to the mattress. Eddie’s eyes widened, caught off guard by the sudden display of strength and dexterity that he had apparently forgotten you had. 

You grinned, cocky. “I am now.” 

Eddie glared, thrusting upward in hopes that he might throw you off balance, but to no avail. Rotating his hands in your grip, Eddie dexterously took hold of your wrists and gently pressed his nails into your skin. You winced; his nails were sharper than you’d thought they would be. Almost like…

Claws. Eddie’s nails had grown into catlike points, and now they were applying a little too much pressure. Any more than this and he would surely draw-

“-Blood.” 

You whispered to yourself as you watched the bright bead pooling where Eddie’s thumb had pressed hard enough to puncture skin. Before you had time to react, Eddie was pulling your bleeding wrist to his face, inspecting his handiwork up close. He caught a whiff of your scent, inhaling deeply before exhaling so heavily that it rumbled low in his chest. Bringing your wrist to hover above his mouth, you felt your survival instincts kicking in as Eddie’s grip on your arm tightened, squeezing more of your blood to pool into the drop that now hung precariously from the cut in your skin. 

Eddie’s finger on the top of your wrist raised, then firmly tapped down hard enough to shake the drop free and send it falling into his waiting mouth below. 

You watched, transfixed as Eddie moaned at the taste of you on his tongue. He licked his lips, spreading your blood across them and letting your essence settle into the cracks in his skin. You wondered how long his lips would taste like you after tonight. Would it only take moments for the flavor of you to leave his skin? Or would he still taste you in the morning?

Eddie’s eyes rolled back in his head, his composure slipping under the influence of your blood in his mouth. He pulled your wrist to his mouth and licked greedily at the tiny puncture wound, gently sucking but still staying careful enough to keep his fangs far away from the opening. You were trusting him to be responsible here, as stupid as that was, but so far he seemed to be completely aware of where the line was, and he was careful not to cross it. Test it, maybe… but he wouldn’t cross it. At least you were hoping he wouldn’t.

His gaze settled on yours, and you found yourself at a loss for words. He smiled proudly, slowly sitting up until his face was even with yours. You’d long since let go of your grip on his other hand, and now that your bones were suddenly jelly, it was easy for Eddie to lift both hands to your neck and slot both of them so that his thumbs and pointers rested on either side of your ears. He pulled your lips to his, kissing you passionately and sharing the taste of your own blood from where it still lingered in his mouth. 

“Tastes like fuckin’ honey.” He murmured against your lips, tongue snaking out to lick into you, and you couldn’t tell if he was referring to the taste of your lips or the taste of your blood. You recognized it in his kiss- the metallic flavor rolling over your taste buds and awakening something primal in you. Your hips bucked into his, and you felt the solid length that ached for you through his jeans.

Eddie chuckled darkly, rolling his hips into yours in response. “Careful, baby.” You felt his lips lowering, placing gentle wet kisses along your throat. Your heart raced to a bounding pulse as it dawned on you that were he to bite you here, he could kill you quite quickly. “Mmmmmm,” you shivered as his voice reverberated through your neck. “I can feel your blood rushing faster. That just for me?” 

You forced yourself to breathe as you confirmed his suspicions with a small nod. Eddie sighed, hot breath pluming from his nostrils and across your skin. “Just for me… all for me…” His tongue emerged once again and licked a fat, wet stripe along the center of your neck, and you couldn’t stop the desperate moan he pulled from you at the sensation. His hand slid down for his thumb to make slippery caresses over the trail of spit he’d left behind. 

“I’ve never tasted blood this good, sweetheart. It’s… I don’t know how to describe it, it’s like the way you smell, but better.” His thumb pressed ever so gently into your throat, and you felt the tip of his sharpened nail rake a promise against your skin. Eddie kept it there, pausing for a moment, and you realized with a pang of emotion that he was trying to stop himself from asking for more. 

You allowed the slightest bit of tenderness to break through to your exterior, smiling gently at him as you leaned into his touch. “It’s okay,” you whispered, “I can trust you not to take too much, right?” 

The lights were dim, but you could see enough of Eddie’s face to make out the glowing smile your trust had elicited. His hands curved gently along the back of your neck, cradling the base of your skull as he pulled your forehead to rest against his own. “You’re incredible, you know that?”

So much warmth flooded your chest at Eddie’s praise that it almost scared you. You knew this wasn’t compulsion- you felt complete control of your body and mind, and felt aware of your ability to tell him no. In fact, you knew in your heart that if you told him that you wanted to stop everything now, he would obey without a second thought, bid you goodnight, and walk right out that door. 

But you definitely did not want that to happen.

That much was made clear by the pornographic moan that tumbled from your lips as Eddie’s claw drew a single, shallow gash down the center of your neck. His hand slotted under your jaw, applying enough pressure to hold off the blood flow above your neck for the fewest of seconds. Blood pooled in the cut, and Eddie admired his handiwork with hungry fascination. 

“Gorgeous…” he muttered, leaning closer. Your heart was racing, undoubtedly causing the blood to rush even faster to your neck, and when you heard Eddie fucking inhale the scent of your blood like it was a perfectly aged Bordeaux? It started beating out a marathon. 

The moment your scent hit his nostrils, you shivered as a guttural, primal rumbling rolled from Eddie’s chest. The growl grew into a moaning sigh as you felt his warmed wet lips envelop the base of the cut on your neck, and lick into the life that pooled there. 

He sucked, pulling more into his mouth and you whimpered slightly from the sensation. As if to comfort you, his hands slid a little further down so that they cupped the vertebrae at the back of your neck, and it was strange how you could almost feel his touch getting warmer the more blood he took from you. He pulled your neck closer, hungry for all you had to give him.

For a moment you started to worry, fearing that you may have overestimated Eddie’s control over his bloodlust, but your worries were put to rest when he detached himself from his latch and licked up the minimal mess that he had made. 

“Let’s get this off of you, Slayer.” 

Eddie’s hands snuck underneath the hem of your shirt, causing you to shiver at the sensation of cold fingers on heated flesh. Before long, You were both stripped down to nothing and panting with need, a tangle of hands and lips and pulses as you melted into each other in the moonlight. He pushed you gently onto your back, climbing over you slowly and with purpose. You felt the hard length of his naked cock bounce against your thigh as he did, and the anticipation you began to feel between your legs was hot and wet, dripping from your lips as if it were salivating for him. You bucked up involuntarily, eliciting an amused chuckle from the vampire on top of you. 

“Easy, baby,” Eddie cooed, “starting to think you only invited me in for one thing.”

“Oh blow it out your ass.” you rolled your eyes at him, “Don’t pretend you weren’t hoping for that one thing exactly.” 

Eddie smiled, a twinkle in his eye launching your heartbeat into overdrive as he planted a quick peck to the cut on your neck and began to lower himself further south. “I may have had a hunch, yeah.” You watched with rapt attention as his face drew closer and closer to where you wanted him most, the echo of your dream still potent in your memory. What similar talents might the Eddie from your imagination have shared with the Eddie that currently studied your glistening pussy as if it were a delicacy to devour?

In your heart of hearts, you knew that every move you’d made tonight since Eddie walked through that door was absolutely insane. Masochistic, even. But your own idiocy was no match for the ecstasy that hit you when Eddie’s dextrous tongue dove into your folds, twisting and lapping up the essence that he craved in ways that sent waves of pleasure coursing through your arching form. 

You moaned, writhing under his touch as his tongue glided over the dripping lips of your core, savoring the flavors of your arousal and the way they paired with the taste of your blood that still lingered in his senses. 

“Taste so fucking good, sweetheart, goddamn.” Eddie’s voice was muffled, wet and hot in the way he spoke it into you and moved his lips along your pussy to speak the words. The sensation coupled with the commentary all but broke you, and you mewled a bewildered thank you as he continued his ministrations. 

A sharp sting jolted you, ripping your eyelids open- you didn’t even remember closing your eyes- and it took a second to realize that Eddie had used his sharpened nails to create another gash at your inner thigh. It stung, but only slightly, so you assumed the cut must not be too deep. 

“Sorry, sweetheart, did that hurt?” Eddie’s voice was soft and sympathetic as his fingers toyed with the small wound, gently pinching and pressing to undoubtedly coax more blood for him to enjoy. 

“Little bit,” you whispered, and the voice that came out of your mouth was so high-pitched and airy that you hardly recognized it. “-but it’s not bad. It’s not too deep, right?”

“Nah, barely even a scratch.” Eddie assured you. “Besides, I’ll close it in a second anyway.” 

Your head popped off the pillow. “You can do that?”

“Check your neck, sweetheart.” 

You brought a hand to the place where Eddie’s cut had been, but were amazed to find that the cut was completely gone. You felt nothing but smooth, unscathed skin in its wake. Bemused, you checked the cut at your wrist and found it had healed as well.

 “How did you do that?”

Eddie shrugged, the pads of his fingers beginning to draw idle shapes over your clit, mixing your blood with the wetness of your cunt. “Apparently, all I have to do is lick a scratch and it heals itself within minutes.” You jolted when you felt his lips close around your clit and suck, whining at the suction as he drew the mixture of your flavors into his mouth and hummed in satisfaction. 

“Now if you don’t mind,” he murmured, “I was in the middle of something down here.”

You barely had time to nod before he was diving back between your legs, lapping up your essence with an urgency that lay somewhere between passionate purpose and reckless abandon. He alternated, going back and forth between the bloodied gash on your thigh and the shimmering lips of your dripping cunt. 

“Oh my god,” you whimpered, arching into the mattress as he moaned into you at the intensity of your taste. “More, please… I need… inside-” 

In a blur of movement, Eddie’s face was level with yours, and you were staring directly into his lust-blown eyes as his cock nudged its head between your folds. Eddie shuddered at the feeling, closing his eyes as ecstasy overtook him and he slowly sheathed himself completely into you. 

“Hoooooly shit, sweetheart-” Eddie gritted out through clenched teeth. His arm reached behind your shoulders, pulling you flush against him and bringing his mouth to hover mere inches from your ear. “Fucking made for me, so fucking tight.”

When Eddie began to move, your hips bucked to meet him instinctively. In your current position, Eddie had you caged in and wrapped in his arms, held in place as he thrusted into you and grunted sweet, filthy nothings into your ear.

“Feel so good squeezing my cock, baby.”

“Wrap your legs around me, don’t let me leave.”

“God, you smell so fucking good, can still taste you on my lips.”

“Such a good little vampire slayer. Take it all, sweet thing.”

You were getting closer with every word; each whispered praise in your ear made you tighten more and more, but you weren’t quite there yet. As if he could read your mind, Eddie’s hand snaked down between your naked bodies until his middle finger came to rest on your throbbing clit. Careful to keep his claws from scratching the sensitive area, the soft pad of his finger slipped small circles over the wanting bud. 

You mewled, eyes rolling back at the combined sensations. The stimulation was overtaking every sense, numbing you to everything but the climb of your orgasm that awaited you on the other side of the peak you were climbing. 

“You know what’s crazy, Slayer?” 

Eddie’s voice was husky in your ear, and you’d barely registered what he’d said before he continued. 

“I didn’t even need the power to control your mind. Didn’t need to make you want me like this, you did that all yourself.”

You struggled to comprehend what he was getting at, but a particularly forceful thrust caused a sharp moan to leap from your lips. Eddie laughed, and it was somehow both musical and malicious all at once.

“Dreams are funny things… I showed up just to see what would happen, thinking ‘hey, there’s no way in hell she’d have me, right? But maybe in my dreams’...” Eddie chuckled ruefully, shifting slightly to angle his cock further into you and moaning at the way you gripped him tighter when your leg was tilted just so. 

Your eyebrows knit together, confused. What did he mean he showed up? As in, showed up in your dream? Your mind was reeling, spinning in the midst of the jumbled logic of his words and the mounting pleasure his cock was driving into you.

“But it wasn’t even in my dreams that you wanted me, it was yours… in your dream you gave in to me so easily, practically begged me to tell you what to do…”

What? What was he… was Eddie saying what you thought he was saying? You squirmed, trying to lift him so you could look him in the eyes, but he held you in place- immobile and at his mercy. Your eyes widened as you stared up at the skylight in your ceiling. The moon was full tonight, and it stared down at you unwaveringly as Eddie continued to thrust into you and hit that spongy spot within your cunt over and over and over.

“The compulsion was a great touch, I hadn’t even thought of that until your delicious little brain took a turn for the kinky.” You could hear the smile on his panted words. “One dream told me all I needed to know… you wanted me just as bad, Slayer. Wanted- needed- permission to just let go and admit you wanted the bloodsucker’s cock, didn’t you?”

“Y-you….ah! Oh, fuck!” 

You tried to respond, tried to tell him you needed a second to process what he was telling you, but before you could get more than a word out his finger began to work your clit at a pace so rapid, only a demon like him was capable. If you didn’t know better, you would think he’d pulled out a vibrator. That was how fast he was able to rip your orgasm from its precipice and make you spasm out of control around his cock.

“Shit!” You clenched at the sinful sound of Eddie’s voice in your ear as he unraveled inside of you. “Holy- I’m cumming, baby, fuck-” He continued to thrust into you as he rode out his orgasm, murmuring into your neck, “...mine. Fucking mine…”

Your eyes stared unblinking at the moon as you clenched around Eddie’s throbbing dick, mind beginning to flood with post-sex clarity as soon as your orgasm began to calm. Your chest felt like it was clawing at your heart, trying desperately to rip out the offending organ for overtaking the control that your brain was supposed to have had this entire time. Your instincts had tried- god, they’d fucking tried- to tell you not to trust the demon inside you, and yet here you were. Pinned to your own bed with his seed dripping from the most intimate parts of you, and you’d fucking invited him in. 

How much of your attraction to him had been you, and how much had been him? You’d asked him so many questions this very night about his powers, what he was capable of- and he’d glossed over a very important piece of information by omitting the fact that he could make appearances in your fucking dreams. 

Before you could even voice even one of the questions that swirled around in your head, Eddie’s eyes were hovering over yours, the moonlight dancing in a ghostly halo along his silhouette. 

“Listen to me, Slayer.”

His eyes were pitch black, and you found yourself missing the brilliant ruby red they’d shone in your dream. Maybe that’s all tonight was? Just a horrible dream, and the one person you’d considered a friend in this godforsaken town was still someone you could trust. 

“I’m going to get you cleaned up, you’re going to get under these covers, and then you’re going to go to sleep.” You heard him take a breath; felt his shaking exhale on your face. “When you wake up in the morning, you’ll forget everything that happened since I walked through that door.”

You blinked, listening intently. Obediently.

“I walked you home, said goodnight at the door, and left. Then you went inside, locked your door, and went to bed. Repeat it back to me.”

“You walked me home, said goodnight at the door, and left.” Your lips moved seamlessly of their own accord, parroting his own story back to him as you stared into those bottomless black eyes. “Then I went inside, locked the door, and went to bed.”

Eddie stared at you a moment, and there was something in his eyes that you couldn’t quite read. It suddenly dawned on you that his eyes weren’t normally black or red. They were brown. You missed how pretty those brown eyes were. They were sweet; honest. Trustworthy eyes.

Finally moving after a few seconds of watching you intently, searching your face for something he evidently couldn’t find, he leaned forward and tenderly kissed your forehead.

“Good.” he whispered, low and tired. “That’s good, sweetheart.”

The night played out exactly as Eddie said it would. He cleaned you up, taking the time to make sure he’d kissed every nick he’d made in your skin until there wasn’t a wound in sight. He watched silently as you cleaned your face, donned a soft shirt so large it reached mid-thigh, and slid under your covers. Eddie kissed you softly before wordlessly locking your doorknob from the inside and exited your apartment. You heard him double check the lock and leave once he was satisfied with your safety. 

Then you fell asleep.

Eddie had only dreamwalked a few times before he’d realized that his newfound vampirism gave him the power to manipulate the dreams that he’d recently gained the ability to stumble into.

It had started when he’d heard Wayne sleeping restlessly in the living room of their trailer, tossing and turning on the couch with his forehead pinched with worry. Eddie had wanted so badly to ease his pain, and before he knew it he was watching his uncle’s nightmare playing out around him like he’d stepped onto the set of a film. He’d seen his own gravestone, seen Wayne tearing at the dirt until his fingers bled, and wanted nothing more than to alleviate his uncle’s pain- that yearning on his part had evidently been enough to cause the scene to shift in his favor. The grave had sunken into the ground, the sky changed from stormy gray to sunny blue, and the bed of dirt had become a gingham blanket, upon which sat a significantly happier Wayne and a sticky-fingered Eddie at age four holding a PB&J that was oozing out the sides.

It was at this moment that Eddie had started thinking that maybe these powers he’d gained might not be all bad.

He hadn’t realized he had the ability to manipulate memories until the first time Gareth had lost control and killed that girl from U.S. History.

She’d asked Gareth to meet her behind the bleachers after school, and Eddie had told him not to go, told him not to risk it, but Gareth was so fucking stubborn. The girl was cute, and the idiot had thought he could handle it. By the time Eddie had realized Gareth had ignored his warnings, it was too late.

Eddie had been so close to cleaning everything up seamlessly, and then some cheerleader had to go and stumble upon Gareth, Eddie, and the bloodless corpse of that poor girl. Eddie’s instincts had taken over, and before he knew it he’d grabbed the cheerleader by the shoulders and used every ounce of willpower he could muster to convince her that she hadn’t seen them at all, and in fact what she had actually seen was U.S. History girl walking into the woods behind the school. 

It had been a desperate, kneejerk reaction, and Eddie had had next to no confidence it would work, but the next day he’d been amazed to hear that exact story being repeated through the rumor mill word for word. It gave Eddie and Gareth the cover they’d needed to take the girl’s body to the Upside Down and hide it where no one would think to look. 

His abilities were handy tricks to have, sure… but it scared him. Eddie didn’t like that every new power he discovered within himself gave him a new way to get away with something awful. Eddie didn’t trust himself enough for that knowledge to sit well with him. 

Now, he sat in the cafeteria at his usual table with Gareth, eyes sweeping the room for your face. He hadn’t seen you in the halls yet today, and even though he had every reason to be confident that you wouldn’t remember last night, he’d never tried to erase memories from a Slayer before. Maybe you had some sort of mental defenses against him? Maybe you were already waiting at his trailer, stake in hand? The unknown of it all was stressing Eddie out. 

That’s what he was feeling- stress. Not guilt. Eddie had hardened his undead heart enough that he didn’t feel guilty for things like this anymore. If he had been completely honest about his powers at Benny’s, there’s no way you would have trusted him after that. After being an active player in your wet dream without your consent?  He didn't know many people who wouldn’t hate his guts after that- hell, he hated his own guts after that. He was a horny creep who’d violated you in more ways than one, and there was no way anyone could forgive him for that. Why should you?

He could have been honest about his memory manipulating abilities, but the idea of giving that secret away had simply scared him too much. It was easier to keep that in his back pocket, and wasn’t that what you always had against him, after all? A wooden stake, always ready and waiting as a last resort. A failsafe. 

No. Eddie didn’t feel guilty. For the sake of his own self-preservation, he couldn’t. 

As if on cue, Eddie perked up when he saw you enter the cafeteria. Act casual, he reminded himself. He couldn’t act like anything was out of the ordinary, but at the same time he needed to be sure you remembered nothing. Then he could move on, not feel as… stressed. 

He watched you discreetly, looking up from his crumpled bag of pretzels every twenty seconds or so to check if you were looking at him. You sat at your normal table on the opposite side of the room, pulling a sandwich from your bag and quietly began to eat your lunch. You didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned with where Eddie was, much less whether or not he was looking at you. 

Suddenly, as if you could feel his gaze on you, your eyes flicked up and locked with his. For a split second, Eddie’s confidence in his powers faltered- maybe his powers were useless against you; maybe you remembered last night in all its shameful glory. The jig is up, he thought, I’m caught. Let justice be served.

But all you did was smile at him and give a little wave before turning back to your sandwich. 

Eddie felt a nudge at his elbow from Gareth. “You good, man?” the floppy haired boy glanced in your direction, raising an eyebrow in question. 

You didn’t remember. Eddie should be relieved… he’d successfully befriended, seduced, and fooled The Slayer. This was a good thing. 

“Yeah,” he huffed, reassuring Gareth with a curt nod. “I’m good.”

Good. Such a relative term. So many definitions for the word good, and yet not a single one would make ‘I’m good’ anything but a lie when it came from Eddie’s mouth. 

He ran his tongue over one of his sharpened canines, pressing it into the tip hard enough to break skin. The taste of your blood that still lingered in his veins flooded his mouth for a split second before the puncture healed itself, and he closed his eyes to savor you for a moment. 

No; Eddie Munson wasn’t good. He hadn’t been good for a very long time. 

Taglist (just some people I think will be interested, as well as those who I've spoken to about this story during the MONTHS it took to finally finish): @the-unforgivenn, @vintagehellfire, @munson-blurbs, @littlesubbyflower, @msgexymunson, @hellfire--cult, @word-wytch, @carolmunson, @bettyfrommars

[macfrog]

mile high sex on fire chapter three

we're going overseas baby! (this is gonna be a three-parter cause i hyperfixated and couldn't stop myself so BUCKLE UP) author's note: i absolutely do NOT condone the use of private jets. they are GROSS and terrible for the environment and just fucking fly commerical ok? but in this ceo!joel ficland, private jets are fuelled by delusion and emit only clean, pure oxygen. thank you for reading. now, with that in mind, please enjoy reader being railed in a plane cabin. i love u all to paris n back 🤍🥐

pairing: ceo!joel x fem!reader

summary: you accompany joel on a work trip to paris, to eat good food, drink expensive wine, and…get to know each other a little better

warnings: 18+ (minors dni!!!) environmental crime, plane sex, fingering, handjob, unprotected piv sex, daddy kink, joel being a fucking exhibitionist menace, creampie, more gf representation, showering together, softdom!joel, sugardaddy!joel, heavy on the flirting, age gap (reader is late 20s, joel late 40s), cursing, very ridiculous spending on very ridiculous things, workplace relationship and therefore odd power dynamic yadda yadda yadda

word count: 6.3k

series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist

Joel’s fingers squeeze your hips, his pace quickens even more. “Louder.” “They’re gonna – ah – they’re gonna hear.” “Who?” Joel asks. He knows damn well who. You’re only separated by a thin paneled wall. You’d be fucking surprised if the flight attendants haven’t been hearing you for the last twenty minutes. “Baby,” Joel’s voice coos as he bends forward, sweaty chest flat against your back. His lips line with your ear, his breath hot on your skin. “They get paid not to hear.”

You’ve never been on a work trip with Joel. Usually, he likes to take them alone. Martha told you once about a time a couple years before you started when Joel took an intern to a conference in Canada, and the kid spent the entire first night in the hotel bar, missed the conference the next day, and only just made the flight home, scruff of his neck between Joel’s knuckles.

He racked up a bill of nearly a thousand dollars just on liqueur and finger food. Joel had sworn he’d never take anybody anywhere with him again.

But there’s this client over in Europe he’s due to meet – an annual thing where they sit on the terrace of some luxurious hotel, drink expensive wine that tastes like piss, according to Joel, and have a cock-off over their money and status.

Sounds like fun, right?

You’ve a pretty good idea why he asked you. And he made a pretty convincing pitch: he’d promised you a relaxing weekend. You didn’t have to sit in on any meetings, he’d let you amble around the city by day, take you for a fancy dinner or two at night. All expenses paid. You barely had to lift a finger.

As per the deal, Martha organized the travel documents. Printed them, collated them, handed them to you in a neat little folder with a paperclip on top and a Post-It note with Have fun! written in red ink. You’d slipped it into your bag and followed Joel to his car, nodding to Rand as you ducked under the starlit ceiling.

Joel’s left hand sits around your thigh – because where else would it be? – his right clutching his phone, thumb scrolling as he absentmindedly reads some document. You’re watching the city soar by from behind tinted glass. Before long, it’s the dark green of trees flickering by, and then, canvased by the clear blue sky, an air traffic control tower in the distance.

The Rolls saunters past the main entrance to the airport. You watch it roll by, leaning forward in your seat.

“Wait, what…?”

“What, baby?” Joel asks, looking up from his phone.

You usually knew every fine detail of the plan by heart. It was your job to. But with Martha being in charge of arranging your flight, you’d missed one crucial speck of information this time. And that is –

You’re travelling by private fucking jet.

The car drives across smooth tarmac toward a pointed white plane, bold against the brilliant blue sky behind it. There are four people standing at the bottom of the steps leading into it; what you assume are the two pilots, and two smartly dressed flight attendants.

“How did I never know you had a…?”

Joel smirks. “Never showed you it. C’mon.”

He gets out, strolls around to your door and opens it for you. You’re still gawking at the jet.

“Jeez…” you whisper, hopping out of the car.

“What is it?” he says through a chuckle, leading you across the tarmac.

“I feel so…Everyone looks so…I’m in my fucking sweatpants, Joel.”

He looks at you under low brows, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. Like he doesn’t want to hear one more word of it. He holds an arm out; his pinkie bumps into your tummy.

“I think you look beautiful, darlin’.”

It might’ve stopped you in your tracks. Might’ve crumbled the entire airport to dust. Might’ve made the sun drop out of the sky. You’re not sure. You wouldn’t notice if you dropped dead right now.

His words, his soft voice when he says them, send a pang of white noise through your ears, echoing around and bouncing off the walls of your head.

You swallow. Digest what he just said. And do your best to forget all about it.

Joel takes your hand and leads you to the plane steps, helping you up. He follows at your heels. “Thanks, Jerry, Lisa,” he says. You give both pilots a nervous smile as you pass.

The airconditioned cabin chills your arms when you reach the top, twisting around to look back to Joel.

“Go on.” Joel nods, palm ushering you inside.

You step forward and turn right, standing in the doorway to a pristine, white-walled, wooden interior cabin, leather seats dotted against the walls, dark brown glassy tables between them, soft gray carpet at your feet, vacuum cleaner lines still visible. There’s a long plush couch on the left wall, today’s newspaper on the side table next to it.

You feel Joel’s body shell around yours, his chin dips against your ear.

“Like it?”

“Not really. Feelin’ pretty guilty about all the air pollution.”

“How many trees you want me to plant to make up for it?”

You tut. “What are you doin’ in business? You’re so funny.”

You wander off without looking back, heading for one of the window seats.

“Uh,” Joel clears his throat, “there’s a separate cabin up back, too, if you want it.”

“Separate cabin?”

He nods. “’s got a bed. It’s cozy.”

A bed. Of course this asshole has a fucking bed in his private jet.

The pilots file in behind him, dipping into the cockpit. The flight attendants follow, and begin preparing for takeoff. Joel strolls over to the seat opposite yours, giving your legs a nudge under the varnished table when he sits down.

You both click your seatbelts into place, relax, and look out the window as the jet rolls by the airport, heading for the runway. The engine fires up properly, a deep hum you feel rattling up your spine, and then you’re pulled forward, body pushing heavily into the soft leather of your seat.

The plane races down the runway, the grass and trees blurring into a mix of dark and light green, before you’re lifting off the tarmac and into the air, your tummy flipping a little from excitement and maybe some nerves, and…Joel’s gaze on you.

When your eyes meet his, he scans down. Your little black t-shirt, skin tight. The way your breasts rise and fall with your breathing. Down to the waist of your sweatpants, then further down your legs. You know exactly what’s going through his mind.

And, honestly…being on a private jet on your way to a free weekend in Paris, accompanied by the best sex you’ve ever had…? Goes against a couple of your core beliefs about the world, but you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t on your mind, too.

The flight attendants let you guys know you can unbuckle your belts now, and, like a hive mind, you both unclip them and stand.

“Was gonna go check out that, uh–”

“I’ll show you to it,” Joel cuts in, taking your bag and leading you down the aircraft. He dips his head as he walks, the cabin too small for him to stand straight. You follow like a fucking dog, trying to hide the spring in your step.

Through a door concealed to look like part of the wall is a small room with a double bed, soft white sheets untouched. There’s a little TV on the wall opposite, a small table with another comfy chair by one of the windows, and a rail for hanging up clothes. The shades over the windows are pulled almost all the way down, sunlight splintering through and lining the soft carpet.

Joel wasn’t wrong. It is cozy.

He sets your bag down on the floor and closes the door behind you. You notice he locks it.

The corners of your lips tug, your eyebrows raise. “Might be classier than my bedroom.”

He scoffs, and you turn, falling back onto the bed and kicking your shoes off.

“Alright,” you announce, flat-out on the sheets, “I’m gonna get some shut-eye.”

Joel looks surprised. Almost – offended. “Sh…You’re gonna sleep?”

“’s why you got a bed, ain’t it?”

He narrows his eyes, runs his tongue along the bottom of his teeth. Steps forward. Sticks a knee between yours. “Not exactly.”

You smile up at him. He’s pulling the jacket from his shoulders, plain white tee underneath. He looks so fucking good. The man always looks so fucking good. He tosses the jacket to the floor and bends down over you. Hands pressing deep into the bed either side of your head, torso hovering over yours. Hips just too far away for you to lift yours up to meet them.

You take hold of his wrists. “Then…show me what it’s for.”

Joel looks from your lips to your chest, then back up to your eyes, grinning like a devil. He lifts one hand and his fingers come down to play with the drawstring of your sweatpants, tugging painfully slow on them. You want to whine, but that’d be letting him win too easily.

He loosens the waist and his fingers find the hem of your tee tucked beneath.

“You gonna show me those pretty tits, baby?”

You nod, biting your lip as he peels your top from your body, your back arching, arms splaying out on the bed. Joel uncovers your chest and slips the top over your head, discarding it to the side and leaning back to take the view in.

You didn’t wear a bra today. Wanted to travel in as much comfort as possible.

One of your wiser choices.

“Fuck, darlin’…” he breathes, eyes set on your perky tits, your round, hardened nipples. His reaction sends a fleet of electricity down to your core.

“C’mere,” you whisper, taking his shirt in your fists and dragging him down against your naked torso. And then his hips are there, right against yours, and you grind up into him, feeling his bulging crotch between your legs.

Your fingers dance along the hem of his shirt and he lifts off of you, letting you tug it over his head before his chest is pressed back against yours. You part your lips and he fills your mouth with his tongue, hands in your hair, body grinding against your own. He’s pushing you further up the mattress until you’re both in the center, disturbing the sheets and shifting the cushions decorating the bed.

Joel’s hand trails down your naked stomach and under your pants, cutting past the lace of your underwear to cup your mound, middle finger daring ever lower. You moan and drag your hips forward to edge his fingers further, until they’re dipping between your folds and your body’s rolling with pleasure.

“Yeah,” Joel murmurs, “that’s it, huh? That’s what you want?”

“Uhuh,” you nod, bottom lip between your teeth, eyelashes batting in a plea for him to keep going. Keep fucking going.

His mouth dips between your jaw and your shoulder, teeth picking up your hot skin to suck a bruise while two fingers push inside of you, lifting your back from the mattress and into Joel’s rock-solid body. Some noise escapes his lips, something caught between a laugh and a groan.

“So tight, baby,” he murmurs, drawing a smile across your face.

And then your hands are messing around at his waistband, fingers fumbling with the button. Wanting him in your hands as much as he has you around his own. Needing to feel what you’re doing to him, since he’s well aware of what he’s done to you.

Joel’s hand slips gently out from under your pants and his weight lifts off of you. In the slivers of light streaming through the cabin windows, his silhouette steps back off the bed and shoves the denim down his thighs. His jeans hit the floor and as quick as he left you, he’s back pressing into you again, hard outline of his length nudging against the top of your thigh.

You slip a hand under the elastic of his underwear and take hold of his cock, while he picks up where he left off between your legs. Your lips connect, breathing laughs and pants and desperate moans into each other, hands working to push each other closer and closer…

Joel’s fingers pump in and out, curling just enough to hit your G-spot every time. His thumb’s bumping at your clit, pushing waves of pleasure with each circle. He adds a third finger when you start to gasp, the movement of your fist around his shaft becoming messy and staggered. You’re trying to focus on him, trying to get him there as fast as he’s getting you, but he’s so fucking good at it, and you’re starting to fade out of the cabin.

Your eyes roll shut; head falls back against the bed. You’re still trying to fucking jack him off, as if he’d even let himself cum in your hands before he’s been inside you. But you’re desperately trying not to give him the satisfaction of having you unfold on his hand less than ten minutes into this. Desperately trying not to give in to him and his stupid private jet.

“It’s okay, baby,” Joel whispers in your ear, pressing a delicate kiss to your hair, “you can cum. Do it for me.”

“F-uck you,” you whisper, and you cave.

Let’s put it down to the air pressure when you’re this high up. In fact, let’s just say: you’re on a plane, and you’ve never had anything remotely close to sex on a plane before, and that’s why, when your orgasm bursts through, you cum harder than you think you’ve ever done before. It’s because of how fucking insane this is.

Let’s just say.

You come to with your face buried in the crook of Joel’s neck. His chest is vibrating, Adam’s apple bobbing. You pull back and notice the dimples in his swollen cheeks, the crow’s feet by his eyes, and then…the wide smile spread across his lips.

“That feel good, darlin’?” he asks through a laugh.

You curse at him again, eyes screwing shut. His hand’s still between your legs, slowly moving in and out, lulling you through the tail end of your orgasm. Your hands have deserted their original job; they’re clutching Joel’s shoulders. You don’t even remember grabbing onto him.

“Got somethin’ that’ll make you feel even better,” he breathes, and before you’re fully awake, his hands are on your hips, flipping you over. He drags your pants down your legs, discarding them to the floor beside his.

You sigh when he pulls your ass up into the air, resting your ear on your folded arms. Accepting defeat, or maybe just…letting him do what he does best.

Joel slips your panties to the side and runs his cock up and down your dripping cunt. You flinch, still sensitive, and feel him slow down.

“Gonna make you feel real good, alright?”

“Mhm,” you reply, eyes closing again as he lines up.

It sounds like a bit of a dumb thing to say. Joel makes you feel good every time his hands are on you, without question. Even that first night, in that dive bar, before he’d ever really done anything. His hands sent electricity through your body that you failed all weekend to rid yourself of. But you hear what he’s really saying.

You haven’t had each other yet without someone on the other side of the wall, waiting for one of you. It’s always been a rush, always been about that race to the finish line just to satisfy your needs, and then return to Earth as soon as you’re done.

There’s no need to rush to that finish line this time around. Nobody’s waiting. Joel can do whatever he wants, can fuck you however he likes, and have you under his hand for as long as he wants. As long as you both last.

The bed makes sense now, doesn’t it?

He pushes inside you, thick, hard, full. You gasp, face burying into the comforter, legs spreading to accommodate his size. Your fingers grasp onto the sheets, nails digging into the soft fabric as he fills you up, pulls halfway out, and rocks back in.

“Fuck, Joel,” you cry, and his hips slam into yours.

“Huh?” he asks.

“Daddy,” you correct yourself, still gasping.

“Better.”

Joel pounds into you, strong grip on your waist, pulling you up and down his cock at a punishing pace. His grunts match your whines. Your hand stretches out to grab something – anything – to hold onto, to steady yourself as your body begins to collapse.

“Daddy,” you mewl again, muffled by the cotton of the sheets, like it’s the only word coming to mind. “So – fuckin’ – good.”

“Louder, baby,” he replies, groaning when you tighten around him.

You whimper. “F-fuck, daddy.”

Joel’s fingers squeeze your hips, his pace quickens even more. “Louder.”

“They’re gonna – ah – they’re gonna hear.”

“Who?” Joel asks.

He knows damn well who. You’re only separated by a thin paneled wall. You’d be fucking surprised if the flight attendants haven’t been hearing you for the last twenty minutes.

“Baby,” Joel’s voice coos as he bends forward, sweaty chest flat against your back. His lips line with your ear, his breath hot on your skin. “They get paid not to hear.”

His hips crack into yours again once, and then halt. You cry out, the sudden feeling of him in his entirety, filling you up, pushing right up against your cervix, too much to bear. Too much to be muffled by the mattress beneath you.

“Let – them,” Joel’s hips drag back, slow, leaving you empty, “hear – you.”

He thrusts forward again, painfully, and you moan. Loud. “Ah, daddy,” you cry out again, and you swear Joel’s chest rumbles behind you with a laugh.

“That’s it, good girl. Tell ‘em how good it feels.”

You feel your mind start to slip, the cabin going with it. Your eyes roll closed, your mouth falls open. The only sound escaping your lips a whine, over and over, shaped just like the word daddy, daddy, daddy.

Joel’s forehead rests on the crown of yours, his voice a soft hum at the nape of your neck.

“See? Sound way too pretty to keep quiet, darlin’.”

He’s panting, words spilling out of his mouth between gasps and grunts. Hips are snapping at a grueling pace. You reach for his wrists again, planted in the bed either side of your head, and squeeze as if it might relieve the building tension in the pit of your stomach.

But he’s going so fast, so hard, fucking you dumb. And you can feel him start to falter, when your walls hold him snug, tightening around him as you reach your high.

He cums when you do. You feel him empty inside you as you hurtle through your own orgasm, rippling bliss all around your body. You both cry out, filling the tiny room with groans of pleasure and release together.

Your hips give, fall flat to the mattress, Joel still inside, slowly rocking back and forth, pushing his cum deeper and deeper inside you.

His elbows sink into the bed at your shoulders, caging you under his body as the remnants of your highs wash away. He’s running soft, wet kisses from your neck down the top of your spine. When your body stills, the pulsing of your cunt a mere flutter, he slips out from between your legs and pushes up off of your body.

Joel collapses alongside you atop the tangle of sheets and pillows, skin sticking, bodies thrumming with energy. You roll over to lie next to him. Chests rising and falling in unison, fingers intertwining at your sides. You’re staring at the ceiling, head tilting to rest on Joel’s shoulder, and he places a soft kiss to your hair.

You glance up to look into his brown eyes, lit by the thin rays of bursting sunlight seeping through the windows. The way the light moves across him as the plane turns, brilliant rays sweeping over the horizon and reflecting every angle of his face.

When he notices you, he dips his chin, and you prop yourself up, pressing your lips to his. Joel holds your jaw softly, thumb grazing over your cheekbone. His other hand scoops around your back, holding your body close to his.

“Sleepy,” you mutter, and he nods.

“Get some rest,” he tells you, but you’re already laying your head down on his chest.

Your heavy eyes blink the jet out of view; Joel’s hand stroking your hair sends you off to sleep.

----------

You wake under the white sheets, still wrapped up in Joel’s arms, to the sound of voices on the TV. Some comedy movie. Sounds like Adam Sandler. Joel mutes it when he notices you stirring.

“Afternoon,” he mutters, voice husky.

“Hi,” you reply softly, and his hand runs through your hair. “How long was I out?”

“Only a little while. They’re probably getting ready for lunch. You want me to head out first?”

You nod, suddenly feeling ashamed…and hungry. “Yeah. ‘n can you…make sure they don’t ask?”

“They ain’t gonna ask,” he groans, laughing as you roll off his body and let him up.

You watch as he dresses himself, toned arms pulling his tee over broad shoulders; tan legs slipping back into neat jeans. He slings his jacket over his arm and bends back down over you to let you kiss him again – slow, deep. Something of a thanks, a you’re welcome, maybe. A marker, anyway. A prelude to this weekend.

And then he slips out front. You lock the door behind him and start collecting your clothes, hopping around the cabin as you pull them on.

Before you leave, you grab a hoodie from your bag, feeling a little more exposed than you did when you first boarded. You toss it over your shoulders and open the door.

“Couple more hours,” Joel tells you as you sit opposite him, propping your ankles on his lap. His hands run over your socks, brows furrowing when he notices the pattern. “Bart Simpson?”

“Comfiest socks I own. Good plane socks.”

“Alright.”

“Go on. Make fun of ‘em.”

“I didn’t say anything. You want somethin’ to eat?”

You smirk. “Sure.”

He pours you a glass of water from the metal jug on the table between you both, and one of the attendants appears as if by magic on your right.

“Got you gluten free stuff,” Joel says as you gulp at the ice water.

You almost choke. “Seriously?”

His face twists, confused. Mirroring your astonishment. “Yeah. You think I’d let you starve?”

You almost laugh before you hear it, and realize how sweet it is. You didn’t even know Joel noticed this stuff. Didn’t think it’d be on his radar.

“Thank you,” you whisper, lifting your glass to mask the blush burning across your cheeks.

Joel nods once. Then turns to the attendant and asks for a burger, side of fries, side of onion rings. “We got sweet potato fries, Len?” he asks.

“Think so,” Len replies. “Want them instead? Or both?”

Joel thinks it over for probably two seconds, before he shrugs and says, “Both. Thanks, man.”

Len turns to you, but you’re still staring at Joel. “Unbelievable,” you mutter.

Joel holds his hands out. “I’m hungry.”

You give Len a smile. “What’s…What can I have?”

“We got gluten free flour, bread, pasta, uh…garlic bread for sides, too. And a couple desserts.”

“What the f…?” You stare at Joel. “You didn’t have to–”

“Just order, baby,” Joel says, palm facing you, stopping you from going on.

“I’ll, uh…You do fried chicken?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll have fried chicken, side of fries, and coleslaw, if you have it, please.”

Len nods curtly and heads back up front, leaving you and Joel on your own again. You finish your thought.

“What the fuck?”

He’s chuckling. “What?”

“You…This is…Nothing, you just…you blow my mind, every time.”

Joel shrugs, grinning. “Blow your back out, ‘n all.”

“Alright.” You snatch your ankles from his grasp – Bart’s toothy smirk slipping from between Joel’s fingers – and sit up straight, looking out of the window to the dazzling sky; bright blue on top and fluffy white clouds beneath.

Your food arrives shortly after and the pair of you eat in comfortable silence. Joel checks through his emails, you sit back in your seat with your headphones in. It’s nice, not having a phone to answer or Joel’s schedule to fix. Nicer, still, having him feet away from you, giving you all the attention you could possibly want at the drop of a hat.

You land in Paris at 10PM local time. Straight off the plane and into another sleek, black car, driven by a gray-haired, sharp-suited man named Denis whose hand Joel shakes before climbing in beside you. He slides into the leather seat and you fall against one another, your head on his shoulder. Partition wound up, though neither of you feel much like doing anything that’d require privacy. Your eyes are tired, heavy, you smell like eight hours’ worth of plane, and you’re basically salivating at the thought of collapsing into a huge, soft, clean bed.

Which is exactly what the pair of you do when you reach the hotel. You’re in some extravagant suite picked by Joel; you manage two glances around the dark place before he’s leading you by hand off to the bedroom, cases still parked at the front door.

And before you know it, you’re sinking into the plush sheets of a king-size bed, limbs entangled with Joel’s, city lights twinkling through the window into your sleep-glazed eyes as you drift off.

----------

Day breaks across Paris around seven in the morning. You wake with the blue glow of the sky, dusty pink on the horizon bleeding upward as the sun rises higher. When your eyes open and adjust to the light, you glance over Joel’s still sleeping body and notice the view behind him, split in half by the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower.

The curtains are still pulled back – neither of you noticed nor had the energy to shut them when you arrived. You’re both still in your clothes from yesterday, too. Joel managed to kick off his shoes, and you remember him pulling yours off before he fell into the bed next to you. You didn’t even sleep under the bedsheets.

You push yourself up off the bed, stretching your back and glancing around. This room is fucking nuts. Gold accented – gold handles, gold light switches, gold frames. Pretentious modern art decorating each wall, an upholstered headboard that almost touches the ceiling in front of you. Marble-topped nightstands with spotless silver lamps, glinting in the light.

You roll off of the bed, Bart Simpson socks landing on soft carpet, though his face has been awkwardly twisted around your ankle in your sleep. You shuffle off to a door on the left, leading down a small hallway – past some fancy ornate vase – to the living room: a wide, open space with the same floor-to-ceiling windows as the bedroom, looking out to the same view.

Two velvet couches sit opposite one another, a white marble coffee table sat between. Behind them, a dining table with eight chairs. Gleaming varnished wood. And then, through a couple more doors, a kitchenette with modern white cabinets, a coffee machine, a microwave.

Fucking. Nuts.

You hear Joel stirring in the bedroom and wander back through, dazed with sleep and amazement at this place. He’s rubbing his eyes when you walk in and spring down on top of him on the bed.

“Mornin’,” he grumbles, voice thick and husky. His hands fall onto your thighs, sat either side of his waist, and his eyes flutter open. “You’re energetic.”

“Have you fucking seen this place?”

“I have. Stay here every year.”

You press further into him, feeling a swell in his jeans and doing your best to ignore it.

“Can we go explore?”

“Outside?”

You nod eagerly, despite the way his face screws up.

“Baby,” he sighs, “I’m still in my damn jeans.”

“So, go shower. Get dressed.”

He’s not done protesting. “We travelled for, like, nine hours straight yesterday.”

“’n now we’re here and we ain’t here long, so let’s go do something. C’mon.”

You lace your fingers through Joel’s and pull him up toward you, sitting in his lap on the bed. He buries his face in your chest, mumbling something incoherent into the cotton of your shirt.

You giggle. “Huh? Can’t hear you.”

Joel pulls back with a sigh and rolls his eyes dramatically. “Alright,” he says, “go get ready.”

You leap off of him with a quiet squeal of glee.

As you pace around the suite, dragging your case into the bedroom, fishing some clean clothes and your toothbrush out, practically skipping into the marble-tiled shower room, Joel lays back in bed watching your every move. Smiling, eyebrows lifting with encouragement anytime you look over to him. Head resting back in the crook of his arm, sleepy eyes taking in all of your excitement.

You’re rinsing shampoo out of your hair when he slides into the shower behind you, a quick kiss to your shoulder.

“No sex,” you tell him with a pointed finger, squeezing the lemon scented gel into the palm of your hand.

“No, ma’am,” he says with a smirk, dipping his head to let you lather up the suds in his salt and pepper hair. “So, where we goin’?”

You shrug. “Wherever. Lots to do in Paris.”

“Wanna get you somethin’ nice,” he says, eyes screwed shut as he runs his head under the flow of water, “a thanks for comin’ with me.”

“I think maybe the private jet, the hotel room, plus the free trip in itself is thanks enough, Joel.”

But Joel disagrees. Heartily, apparently.

He takes your hand and helps you out of the car on a tree-lined street, tall cream buildings on either side. It looks like a movie set. You’re following Joel’s lead, spending more time craning your neck to look up at the huge, ornate windows guarded by black balconettes while he guides you across cobblestone toward the smoothly paved sidewalk.

You’re not even paying attention to where he’s taking you until you’re stood in the middle of a glistening store, plush rug under your feet, lavish chairs in the center of the room, a rainbow of fashion surrounding you.

“What…? No, Joel.”

“Hm?” he asks, eyes scanning the room. He takes a step, and you tug on his arm.

“I can’t fucking afford Gucci,” you whisper, pulling his body back against yours.

He hands you a bemused smile, eyebrows low, corners of his lips pulled. “All expenses paid, baby.”

Your arm falls limp and he drags you through the store, past mannequins in patterned gowns and silk shirts, past shelves of obnoxiously huge purses and accessories gleaming in the spotlights from above.

Your fingers stay locked around Joel’s hand, your head swiveling so much you worry it might fall off, looking from the vibrant floral wallpaper down to the spotless tiled floor, glancing politely at attendants and then dipping your head and wandering by them behind Joel.

“See anything?” he asks, turning to you at the opposite end of the store.

It’s ridiculous. This entire trip…is ridiculous, and you’ve only been here twelve hours. Following around at Joel’s heels like a puppy, watching as he clicks his fingers – no, before he even gets the chance to click his fingers – and everything and anything either of you could dream up just…happens. Right in front of you.

He won’t let up. You know him. If you tried to pull him back outside onto the street, he’d buy you something for the hell of it.

You know him. So, you decide to use that to your advantage.

“Gucci…I dunno…” you muse, squinting at him.

“Not your thing?” he asks, and he seems curious, but – you know him. You know that behind that polite mask is a smirk thick enough to make your knees wobble. He knows what you’re doing. “Where to, angel?”

You lead him out of the store. Feel his shadow behind you, watching as you thank the doorman and take a left around the corner, passing under the shade of the gently rustling trees. Arm in arm, you arrive before a huge archway, pristine windows surrounding the door to…

“Dolce & Gabbana…” Joel looks up at the stone writing atop the arch. “Alright. Classy girl.”

You giggle, pulling him past the wrought-iron fence and inside.

It’s sleeker, moodier. Less in your face. Suits you a bit better, though you can’t quite swallow back the guilt that sticks in your throat as you saunter around, Joel right behind you. It catches you when an assistant touches your arm, snapping you out of your daze, and asks if you need anything.

“No, thank you,” you reply, mirroring her smile. “Thank you.”

She nods and floats off.

Joel’s frame shells around yours, dipping his jaw to lean against your shoulder. “What about that one?” His eyes flit up to a mannequin just past a lit table of purses.

“The black one?”

“Mhm.”

“You like that?”

He repeats, a little more exaggerated: “Mhm.”

You shrug. “I do look good in black.”

“Look better in nothin’.” Joel steps forward and takes the tag between two delicate fingers, deliberately hiding it from you. He turns back, lifts his eyebrows in question. “Buy you it if you promise to wear it tonight.”

You smile. This man knows how to barter. And you take no convincing at all.

“Alright,” you accept, “deal.”

----------

Three hours later, you’re strolling down another cobbled street with an ice cream in your hand. And not much else, by the way. Joel’s taken all the shopping bags back to the hotel. He slapped your hand away when you tried to lift one of them from his clutches.

The wind sifts gently through your hair, cooling your face and neck, toying with the hem of the oversized shirt you’re wearing. It flutters the French flags overhead, red, white and blue blowing in the breeze. Cars roll by, engines humming as they weave in and out between one another, horns calling out in the distance.

Joel hadn’t let you come up to the counter to pay with him, had insisted you stay right where you were standing, and when he finished up and laced his fingers through yours, it was like a surge of energy had shot through him.

He led you out of the store and into another, and another, and another…until his hands were wrapped around, what, six bags? All carrying different components of your outfit for tonight.

And then he’d noticed the time – unlocked his phone with a curse under his breath, and kissed your temple. Midday. He was meeting Jean-Marc in an hour.

“You wanna come back with me? Chill at the hotel?” he’d asked, dialing his chauffeur’s number.

“I’m good,” you said, smiling sweetly as he squeezed your shoulder. Then, he pulled his wallet from his back pocket and handed you his card.

“’case you see anything else you want.”

“Joel,” you protested, but he’d shut you up by clicking his teeth and walking off, leaving you to follow after him, shamelessly beaming.

He’d apologized another three times before Denis had pulled up, then once more as he loaded the trunk with your bags.

“See you later. Enjoy your meeting,” you teased, laughing at the way his face twisted into a grimace as the car rolled off.

It’d been a pretty nice afternoon. You’d dipped into a couple more stores – though, without Joel to impress, the low-cut dresses and short miniskirts were somewhat less exciting.

That is, until you passed by a lingerie store. You stood outside for a second, peering by your reflection in the window to study what lay behind. Suddenly lace and satin – and the idea of Joel seeing you in them – seemed a lot more enticing.

You’d pieced together an entire getup: bra, panties, garter belt, even a pair of stockings, and a silk robe to go over the top. You handed over Joel’s card, ignoring the way your cheeks began to heat and focusing instead on how smug you felt, and skipped out of the store, bag in hand.

You’d called Denis five minutes ago to ask for a ride back to the hotel. He called you Madame, he said Nonono every time you apologized for bothering him again, and he promised he’d be there in less than ten minutes.

You pace back and forth along the curb, waiting for the shiny black Maybach to pull up. You’ve checked your phone, like, five times already, kinda hoping there’ll be a text from Joel. You swing the bag between your fingers.

A door swings open behind you, giggles filter out into the street, and you turn to see a couple bounding out of a jewelers, hand in hand. She flicks her left wrist up, tilts it in the sun. It’s hard to ignore the light bouncing off of her ring finger. You feel nauseous at the sight.

Suddenly the Parisian street dissolves, and what sweeps over in replacement is a long, empty lawn, maple trees swaying menacingly in the distance. There’s a blur of bright blue sky, sunrays bursting across your vision. Your hand comes up to shield your eyes, and there he is. There he was.

He was on the grass. You told him to stand up; his suit trousers would be stained green. He did it anyway. Trembling hands, expectant stare. You stuttered and stammered your way through a sentence fueled by shock and horror and…resentment.

And then you did it anyway, too.

The crackle of tires coming to a stop on the road in front drags your fraught gaze from the couple, now strutting off down the avenue. You reach for the door handle, but Denis is already out of the car and leaning down, hand on your back as you duck into the backseat.

----------

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[dixons-sunshine]

Accidents Happen | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Summary: It wasn’t supposed to happen. Daryl was only picking you up from work. He didn’t want the night to end with the both of you in the hospital with no clue if you’d be okay.

Genre: Hurt/comfort.

Era: Pre Apocalypse.

Part of the Shopping Spree, Hangout Dreams AU.

Warnings: Blood, injuries, allusions to drunk driving, car accident.

Word count: 2.4k.

A/N: A few facts surrounding the rescue is probably not accurate. I didn’t have any internet while writing this so I winged it. Just a quick warning before you read! There are more than likely inaccuracies in this!

“Hey, Dar,” you greeted your husband with a smile, hopping into the old truck Daryl had taken to work for the day. You settled back into the worn leather, letting out a big sigh of relief. You were relieved that the day was over. Being at work at past seven pm should be illegal, you thought to yourself.

Daryl gave you a small smile. “Hey, Peach.” He started up the truck once he saw you were settled and pulled out of the parking lot. “Long day, huh?”

“God, you don’t even know the half of it,” you groaned. It had indeed been a long day; from parent-teacher conferences to meetings you couldn’t care less about, on top of having to break up multiple fights throughout the day, it was safe to say that you were exhausted.

Daryl chuckled and absentmindedly started chewing on his thumbnail as he pulled onto the back road that would make for a faster route back to your apartment than braving the traffic on the highway. “‘Least s’Friday. Two days’a freedom, huh?”

You scoffed and shook your head. “Nope. I need to work on some stupid report. All the teachers have to. We need to have it done by Monday.” You sighed and reached for your husband’s hand and interlaced you fingers through his, something you subconsciously did whenever you noticed him chewing on his thumbnail.

Daryl rubbed his thumb over your knuckles affectionately. “Ya’ll be alright. I don’ have anythin’ planned for the weekend anyways so I’mma be at yer beck and call. Anythin’ ya need, okay?”

You smiled at him. However, before you could say anything, the flashing of another car’s lights caught your attention. The car was in the wrong lane; it was beelining straight for Daryl’s truck. “Shit! Daryl, look out!”

Your words barely registered in the air before Daryl was gripping the steering wheel, trying to swerve out of the maniac’s way. However, by doing so, Daryl lost control of the vehicle, and the car swerved away from the road and into the treeline.

The last thing that you remember was an immense feeling of dread. And then...

It all went black.

Daryl gasped as he regained consciousness. His mind was hazy. His head was pounding. His body was aching, and he very quickly became extremely aware of the fact that he was pinned beneath a piece of debris. What had happened? Why the hell wasn’t he at home? Why was he still in his truck? Why was he pinned beneath his truck’s dashboard?

However, as his mind started to catch up with him, he became acutely aware of what had happened. Another car had been driving on the wrong side of the road, forcing him to have to swerve his truck. The same truck Merle had given to him years ago. The same truck he had used to pick you up from work.

Daryl’s eyes widened and he quickly looked over to his right, praying for the first time in his life. However, he had no idea if his prayers were answered when he saw the state you, the love of his life, were in. You were unconscious, with blood noticably gushing in rivers from your head.

“Shit, Y/N!” Daryl called to you hoarsely, a sharp pain shooting through his upper body when he tried to turn and reach you. He probably had a broken rib. A bruised one, if he was that lucky. “Y/N, oh my god. Darlin’? Peach, please wake up,” he called desperately. He tried his hardest to get to you, but with his body being pinned beneath the dashboard, his attempts were proven to be futile.

To say Daryl was terrified would be an understatement. Other than the pain shooting from his ribcage when he tried to move and the incessant pounding in his head, he was relatively fine. You, on the other hand, looked terrible. He didn’t know what to make of the fact that he couldn’t seem to wake you. His mind was wandering to places he didn’t like. He wouldn’t let his mind accept that you were dead. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t survive if you passed away. The mere thought of having to bury you sent his mind into a spiral, and he started hyperventilating. “Oh god, Peach, please talk to me. Please!”

“Sir, please calm down. Everything is going to be alright.”

The sound of someone’s voice had Daryl snapping his head back to look to his left. His cerulean eyes locked with what appeared to be a police officer, two firemen standing next to him. As Daryl’s mind started to process this new bit of information, he realized that a bunch of police vehicles and an ambulance surrounded the area, as well as a few news reporters. Fucking vultures, Daryl thought about the reporters as his eyes flickered back to the police officer. However, in his place, he found two paramedics, carrying a stretcher. Daryl had barely even realized that the dashboard had been lifted from him. However, before the paramedics could lift him onto the stretcher, Daryl was resisting.

“Nah, get her first,” Daryl basically pleaded with the men in front of him. “Get her first. Please. Take care’a her first.”

“Sir, please remain calm. Just focus on your breathing, okay?”

“Get her first!” Daryl exclaimed as he felt his breathing become more erratic. He was pushing the hands of the men off of him. “God, please. Don’ let her die. Please.”

One of the paramedics signalled something over his shoulder, and soon, the door to your side was being pried open and two other paramedics were tending to you and lifting you out of the car and onto a separate stretcher. Daryl let out a sigh of relief. Good. You were being taken care of. He could relax somewhat. However, his relief was short-lived when the paramedics started moving at a more frantic pace, his worry reappeared.

“What? What’s wrong?!” Daryl exclaimed in a panicked tone. Please don’t let her die, Daryl silently begged to whatever higher power was willing to listen to him.

“Sir, please remain calm. We’ll do everything in our power to ensure your wife’s well-being,” one of the paramedics reassured him. He then beckoned the other paramedic closer and together, began to lift Daryl onto his own stretcher.

Daryl didn’t fight back this time. There was no use to do so. You weren’t in the car anymore. You were being wheeled away to the ambulance. His only option at that moment in time was to co-operate. You’d want him to. He knew that.

As he was wheeled into the ambulance—thankfully the same one that you were in—he turned his head to look at you. The sight that beheld him made him want to burst into tears, but he didn’t. He needed to be strong and hope that your stubbornness prevailed in the face of death, that you’d flip death the bird and live to see another few decades.

You had to be fine. You just had to.

“M’not sure. I think it was a blue car? Was definitely a blueish-black car. One’a the headlights had this weird ass green colourin’ to it and the hood had its paint scraped off. Was white underneath, I think. M’sorry. S’all I remember.”

“It’s okay. Every bit of information helps. We’ll try our best to track the perpetrator down,” a police officer—Deputy Henderson or Hallmark or something—told Daryl, sending him his version of a reassuring smile.

To be quite honest, Daryl could hardly believe that he had retained even that slightest bit of information on the asshole that had caused the car wreck. Everything had happened so fast. Everything had gone to hell in a mere second.

Daryl nodded at the officer and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “S’it alright if I go now?”

The deputy nodded in understanding. “We’ll be sure to keep you updated. Go be with your wife.”

With that, Daryl turned around and walked back towards room 207—the room where you were laying unconscious. As Daryl slowly lowered himself into the chair next to your bed, an action he had done since late the previous evening, ever mindful of his bruised ribs—one lucky thing that had come from the accident, a mere bruised rib—and leaned forward to gingerly take your hand in his, and that was the position he stayed in for nearly two hours. According to the doctors, you would be alright. You suffered from a broken leg, a really horrible concussion, multiple bruises and two deep cuts that needed stitches, but you were otherwise okay.

Daryl didn’t believe in miracles, but in that moment, there was no other word that could describe it. You had looked terrible when the paramedics had rolled you into the ambulance, and Daryl had been convinced that the injuries you had sustained would be far more lethal. It was truly a miracle that you had gotten of relatively okay. However, Daryl still got off better than you, and he felt terrible about that. He would much rather have been suffering in that bed in your place than have to witness you he hurt ever again.

“If you think any harder, you’ll burn a hole right through your head.”

Daryl’s head snapped up at the sound of your voice. A wave of relief crashed over him, and had it not been for the state you were in, he would have crushed you to him in a hug. However, he settled on tightening his grip on your hand, his cerulean blue eyes staring deeply into your own. “Yer awake,” he whispered, almost disbelievingly.

You nodded and sent him a small smile, albeit a little strained due to the pain that shot through your body when you tried to move. The drugs pumping through your system helped numb most of the pain, but not all of it, however. “I’m awake,” you confirmed, lacing your fingers through his, just like you had done the night before. However, once your eyes focused more, you could see the very prominent bruising on his face and around his eye, making you gasp. “Oh my god, Daryl... What happened?”

Daryl sighed and looked down at the bed, intentionally shielding his injury from you as to not make you worry more. “Car accident,” he began to explain in a quiet tone of voice. “Some asshole was drivin’ in the wrong lane. I had to swerve and then lost control’a the truck. We crashed into a tree.”

You frowned and looked at Daryl in concern. “Are you okay? That bruise—”

Daryl involuntarily let out a small chuckle at your concern. Leave it to you to worry more about other people than yourself, even when you were supposed to worry about yourself. Some things never change. “Yeah, m’fine, Princess. I promise.” Daryl stopped for a moment, swallowing at the lump that formed in his throat, before continuing. “M’so goddamn sorry, Sweetheart. I didn’t mean to cause all’a this.” He gestured to your battered and bruised body for added emphasis. “I was an idiot. I should’a jus’ drove into the other lane. I shouldn’t’a swerved into the fuckin’ treeline. M’so sorry. I—”

“Stop apologizing,” you cut him off with a stern yet gentle voice. “It’s not your fault, you hear me?” Daryl went to protest, but you continued before he could. “It is not your fault. You were placed in an impossible situation and you didn’t have time to think of a plan. You had to act fast, and you did. Imagine if you hadn’t swerved and we collided with that car. We would’ve been worse off. Sure, I’m a little broken and bruised in some places, but I’m fine. I’m alive. There’s absolutely nothing to feel guilty over. You understand?”

Daryl understood. He just didn’t really believe it. However, he wasn’t about to start an argument with you when you were in such a fragile condition. Besides, deep down, Daryl could admit that there was some truth to your words. But he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself until that asshole that caused this was caught for his crimes.

Daryl brought your hand up to his mouth, pressing a soft, tender kiss to your knuckles. “Okay,” he finally conceded. “M’jus’ real glad yer alive. When I woke up in the truck and saw ya passed out and ya wouldn’t wake up... I thought I had lost ya.” Unwillingly, a few tears fell from your husband’s eyes. He didn’t even notice.

Your heart ached for Daryl. Had the roles been reversed, and he was the one laying in that bed, you’d probably have reacted the same way. You gently rubbed your thumb over his knuckles, silently willing the man to look at you. “I’m here. It’s gonna take a whole lot more than that to take me away from you, I promise.” When Daryl didn’t respond, you took it upon yourself to attempt to lighten up the air. You could tell your husband needed a distraction. “You think they’ll give me an extension on that report? I’m not gonna have it done by Monday.”

By some stroke of luck, that had managed to get a small smile from Daryl. He shook his head and looked at you affectionately. “If they don’t give ya that extension, m’personally gonna shoot each and every one’a ‘em.”

You chuckled and sent him a small smile. “I love you so much, you know that?”

Daryl’s smile turned more genuine at your words. “I love ya more, Sunshine.” Before you could respond with your typical “impossible” or “I love you the most”, Daryl’s phone rang. It was the deputy from earlier. Frowning, he answered the phone. “Hello?”

You couldn’t hear what the other person was saying, but if Daryl’s suddenly relieved facial expression was anything to go off of, it was good news. The conversation was short and to the point, and when the call ended, you spoke up. “Who was that?”

“Was the deputy,” Daryl explained, a small smile on his face. “They got the son of a bitch.”

You smiled at him and beckoned him over for a hug. Daryl complied and very gently, almost as if you’d break under any sort of pressure, hugged you. Sure, the two of you would have to go and identify the man they had captured’s car, but there was no doubt in Daryl’s mind that the man responsible would soon be behind bars. For once, the legal system hadn’t failed him. You’d get the justice you deserve.

And for the first time since everything had gone down, Daryl was at peace.