#also I spent so long on this that I forget what is canon and what is just my opinion hahaha | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

stevie-petey · 3 months ago

Text

episode one: the hellfire club

Robin waves her hands in the air as if to get Steve’s voice away from her. “Ew! Gross, don’t say boobies–” “Boobies! It’s not a big deal–” You make a face. “It isn’t the most pleasant word.” “Oh, c’mon. You like boobies, Robin likes boobies, and we all know I love your boobies specifically–ow!” You hit the back of Steve’s head with annoyance to get him to stop talking about your boobs. While he winces in pain and rubs his tender head, you turn towards Robin. “What my darling boyfriend is trying to say is that everyone likes boobs, and Vickie definitely likes them too.”

Summary: el writes to you as if youre her husband away at war, you debate the intricate nature of liking boobies with robin and steve, lucas is your beloved while eddie munson is your sworn enemy, steve accidentally exposes your (horribly hidden) daddy issues, dustin is an angsty teen, and jonathan really loves to drop emotional bombshells on you. can you believe this all happens in one day ? lol cheers to senior year !

Rating: general, some swearing

Warnings: swearing, fem!reader, use of y/n, mentions of abuse, allusions to bullying, trauma lol

Words: 13.5k (wrote half of this in one day)

Before you swing in: SHES HERE !!!! SEASON 4 !!! this season terrifies me. i spent so much time outlining and making sure it was perfect. i have some changes i want to do, some ideas, and its scary because we dont have season 5 yet and i hate messing with canon ,,, alas: here she is. my baby. my beloved. quick fun fact: theres a scene in here ive had planned since season 1 so .... enjoy !

–

March 21st, 1986.

Dear Y/N,

Congratulations on New York University! Joyce tells me that it is a very good college, and everyone was extremely happy when Jonathan told us the news. He even had a smile on his face! It has been a very long time since I have seen him smile, especially without that weird smell on him (am I allowed to tell you about the strange plants that Jonathan seems to like now? He says that you cannot find out about it, but friends don’t lie and he is your bestest friend).

I asked Will about it, and he says that Jonathan now smells because he misses you. If you ask me, I think that Jonathan smells because he is scared. We are still waiting for his college letter, afterall. I know you want to go to school with him, but so does Nancy. Is it possible to go to two colleges? Anyways, it must be a lot of pressure, even more with all the waiting we have to do, but Joyce told us that sometimes colleges take a long time to respond.

While I am positive that Jonathan will figure it all out soon, he pretends he does not care. But he is a very bad liar. He was very upset that Nancy could no longer visit us in California. Will was bummed too, but he was more sad that it was not you who was visiting. Joyce says that the Byers boys were born to miss you, and I think she is right.

I also miss you. I am still bummed I never went to school with you. I bet Mike is over the moon to have you with him for high school, Dustin and Lucas also. How is Max? Is she still sad? I know school has been hard for her. I will admit that it is hard for me, too. While I am good at maths, and my grammar is getting better, I am still unsure when to use conjunctions or why Angela does not like me. Will tells me to ignore her, but I want to be her friend. She is nice to everyone else. It confuses me that she is not nice to me.

A lot about California confuses me. The flowers here are different, and sometimes I forget that I cannot go and visit you. I miss the smell of Bookstrordinary (did I spell it right?) and your cookies. Please send more as soon as you can. Will and I are almost dying to taste them again! Mike says he will try to bring some on the plane, but I am scared he will be told no by those scary airplane people.

Speaking of Mike, he is coming to California this week! I am very excited to see him. It has felt like years, I think I am even going crazy. I have planned everything for his week here. Spring break will be extra special! It will be a fun distraction from Angela and school. This week I can pretend to be someone else, someone cool, and Mike will be very impressed. I know you tell me to always be myself, so I hope that I can make you happy by taking your advice on focusing only on the good.

To prove I will focus on the good from here on out, here is a good things list:

Mike is visiting!

Will has almost finished his painting. I am very curious to see what he has made. He is really talented, he shows me the drawings he sends you sometimes.

You got into NYU! Is this the correct way to abbreviate? I am still working on conjunctions, but I think I am supposed to use the first letter of every word in the school’s name to shorten it. At least, that is what Joyce says.

Jonathan’s new best friend, Argyle, will give us free pizza to celebrate Mike’s arrival. It is really good pizza.

Tasting your cookies again. Fingers crossed Mike’s plan succeeds!

I am sure there is more, but I am too excited about this week and my mind is going very fast. I miss you tons, maybe even more than Will and Jonathan do. Please come visit us soon. Like Joyce says, the Byers boys were born to miss you. Although I am not a Byers boy, I am still a part of the Byers family, and I miss you.

Love, El.

P.S., thank you for the grammar books. I will be sure to become the best writer ever in California.

–

Sweet, gentle, El. You can almost hear her voice, reading aloud to you as you used to do when she lived in Hopper’s cabin. She would stumble over the letters, ask you how to sound out particularly difficult words in Spider-Man comics; they helped her learn how to read. Now, almost a year later, she’s writing you letters.

El has grown up so much within such a short few months, although it doesn’t surprise you.

Laughing softly as you reread the final line she’s written, you wipe your eyes and place El’s letter onto your desk. The piece of paper joins the others, nestled gently with a pile of her other letters that are housed on your desk. El sends you a new letter every week, detailing silly stories about Jonathan and Will or concerned ramblings about Angela.

The letters make you miss El terribly. They make you miss everyone terribly.

Next to the letters are drawings from Will. He’s become such an artist during his time in California. He sends you beautiful sketches of landscapes in their neighborhood, doodles from class, and incredibly detailed drawings of you and the party. The drawings are Will’s special way to keep in contact with you, and it’s something you cherish so deeply. However, you didn’t know that he was working on a painting, and you’re curious to see what El is talking about. Eventually he’ll reveal his art to you, he always does.

Skimming a finger over one of the more recent drawings from Will, your hand catches on the walkman that lays next to it. Jonathan’s messy handwriting is scrawled on the mixtape that sits within it.

For bug.

The words, familiar and loved, stare back at you. The mixtape contains songs that Jonathan so carefully chose for you. He spent countless hours selecting songs that he knew you’d love, songs that reminded him of you. It had been his gift for you before he moved away. And now he’s gone, and you miss him so much more than you ever thought you would. More than you ever thought you could miss anyone.

Jonathan never did end up coming to Hawkins for spring break.

“Dusty, what’s going on in there?” The sound of your mother pounding on Dustin’s door breaks you from your thoughts. “You’re gonna be late.”

“Don’t come in, I’m naked!” You hear the boy screech back at her, which you roll your eyes at. Steve will be here to pick you guys up any minute. Dustin knows he should be ready by now, the schedule has never changed.

Throwing on the cardigan Steve got you for Christmas last year, you grab your walkman and storm over to Dustin’s room. At the same time, your mother nearly crashes into you in the hall. Her face is pale, horrified of the idea that she almost saw her son naked, and you pity the woman. Dustin has become relentless lately, even more difficult to deal with.

“Y/N, my dear,” your mother clutches at her chest and fans her face. “Can you please make sure your brother is ready? I think that boy is trying to give me a heart attack.”

You sigh, figuring you would have to do so anyways. “Yeah, sure. Go finish getting ready, I’ll handle him.”

“This is why you’re my favorite daughter!” Your mother kisses your cheek before running off towards the kitchen to make her morning coffee.

Once she’s gone, you immediately start banging on Dustin’s door. He knows you hate being late. Plus, it’s the Friday before spring break. You’re getting antsy waiting for this week to end. “Dustin Henderson, you have three seconds before I kick this door down.”

“Not now, Y/N!” Dustin shouts back, frantic and desperate.

You narrow your eyes. He’s using his suspicious voice, the one he only uses when he’s doing something he absolutely shouldn’t be doing. Glancing down at your watch and noting the early hour, you curse in disbelief. “It’s not even seven yet, what the hell are you up to so early in the morning?”

“Nothing! Just go away, I’ll be out soon–”

“I swear, if you’re trying to sell my limited edition comics again I will hurt you.” You throw your body against the door, causing it to fly open as you stumble inside. Dustin is at his computer and he nearly falls off his chair in his haste to cover the screen from you. He’s remarkably horrible at playing cool. You’re about to tell him this when Suzie’s voice crackles through his radio’s speakers.

“Yikes, Dusty.”

“Suzie?” You walk over to your brother and shove his hands off the computer screen. He falls to the ground with a loud thud, which pleases you. He may be a teenager now, but you’re still stronger than him. At least for now. “Why are you calling her right now–” Your eyes land on the screen and you recognize Hawkins High’s familiar orange and green school colors. “Is this the student gradebook?”

“No!” Dustin exclaims, but Suzie’s small and soft voice responds, “Yes.”

“Oh my God,” you cannot believe he’s making his girlfriend hack into your school’s database. Sure, she’s a genius, but you also know she’s incredibly religious. “Dustin, this is so illegal and goes against, like, all of Suzie’s religious morals–”

“I will repent later.” Suzie interrupts you, and you raise your eyebrows at what she’s just said. Before you can question her, Dustin’s computer refreshes.

He leans forward, eyes scanning to see if they’ve succeeded, and he seems to like what he sees. Suddenly Dustin lets out a sudden whoop and fist bumps the air. “God, I love you Suzie.”

Curious, you lean over and read the screen as well. There, where you know Dustin had a D- in Latin not even a day ago, is now an A. There’s no possible way he was able to raise his grade in under twenty-four hours. He sucks at Latin, he hates it, which means… She did it. Suzie changed his grade. All she had to do was press one single button to save Dustin’s GPA.

You have to admit, it’s impressive. And shamefully genius.

“Hey, Suzie.” You bring the radio to your lips, shoving Dustin away when he tries to take it from you. “Do you think you could change my grade in calculus? Jonathan was the only reason I passed any of my other math classes.”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Suzie’s voice raises a pitch, she doesn’t want to tell you no. She likes you, she really does, but her God figurine stares down at her with a disappointed look in his eyes. She’s sinned for love, but she doesn’t think she could ever do it again.

You’re about to plead with Suzie, tell her NYU really prioritizes their student’s grades, but the sound of a car honking outside catches your attention; it’s Steve. Dustin yanks the radio from your hand and shoos you away. “Go, leave without me.”

“What, why? We always drive together.” You frown, feeling like a little kid when you cross your arms. Dustin smiles apologetically, a smile you’ve become familiar with. Your mood darkens, anger rises to your cheeks. You know exactly why Dustin is now skipping out on you. “Don’t tell me it’s that stupid Eddie Munson–”

“He wants me and Mike to work out some campaign details before lunch today!” Dustin scrambles to mediate. He hates that you don’t like Eddie, and you like everyone. It’s unnerving how much disdain you seem to carry for his friend. “Nance is driving us, but I swear I’ll ride with you and Steve after break!”

You scoff at Dustin, not at all believing his promise to you. Ever since September your brother has been at Eddie Muson’s beck-and-call, who dictates everything Dustin says or does. At first it was innocent enough, choosing to sit with the guy instead of you at lunch. Skipping out on a few weekend plans with you and Steve to campaign with Eddie. You’d been happy for Dustin. He was making new friends, no longer your little shadow; he was his own person with his own priorities and interests now.

But ever since getting into NYU last week, Dustin has been pulling away even more from you. You don’t know why, but he’s become even more obsessed with Eddie and his stupid Hellfire club.

Eddie Munson is the air your brother now breathes, stifling the air Dustin once breathed for you.

And it seems to only be suffocating you, not him.

“Yeah, whatever.” Halfheartedly you ruffle Dustin’s hair, and he leans into the touch. You don’t want him to know his repeated absences are upsetting you. Deep down, you know you’re being irrational. You’re almost eighteen, soon you won’t even be living under the same roof as Dustin. He’s allowed to live his own life. “I guess I’ll see you at the pep rally. Tell Suzie I said bye, please?”

Dustin nods, though you don’t linger in the doorway like you desperately want to. Instead, you shut the door behind you and place a swift kiss to your mother’s cheek as you leave.

Steve’s car is parked in its usual spot at the end of the driveway. The teen’s arm hangs out the window and his face breaks into a smile when he sees you approaching. Steve’s smile is infectious, it’s always charmed you, and it settles the ache in your chest from your brother’s earlier dismissal. Feeling a smile spread across your own face, you run towards Steve and poke your head through the open window.

“Hi,” you breathe out, nose almost bumping against his cheek.

“Hi, angel.” Steve kisses you, solidifying your morning tradition. Neither one of you really remembers who started it, but sometime during the school year you began to slip your head through Steve’s car window so that he could kiss you slow and sweet.

And, as tradition follows, Robin starts boos. “Do you have to do that every morning?”

Steve makes a face at her and she punches his arm. He yelps in pain and you roll your eyes at the two of them before running over to the passenger’s side where Robin sits. Her window is rolled down as well and you duck your head inside. “Aw, Robin. If you wanted a kiss, you could’ve just said so!”

“A kiss–?” Your lips press against Robin’s cheek, smushing against her face while making a dramatic sound. She squeals and pushes you away, wiping her now wet cheek in disgust. “That is not what I wanted.”

You giggle at her and finally get into the car. It’s getting late, you see the assortment of Robin’s limited makeup dumped into her lap haphazardly. She’s been stressing about this morning’s pep rally all week, and clearly she isn’t coping very well. Trying to cheer her up, you flick her shoulder. “I’ll have you know that my cheek kisses are cherished in Hawkins.”

“How many people’s cheeks are you kissing?” Steve turns in his seat to face you, slightly alarmed. Then, noticing that there’s only one Henderson in his car, he frowns. “And where’s little Henderson?”

“Eddie Munson.”

“Woah, wait, you mean Eddie as in where Dustin is, right? Not, like, you’ve been kissing his cheek? I’m right, right? Please tell me I’m right.”

You roll your eyes fondly at Steve while Robin rolls hers in displeasure. “Just drive, Steve.”

–

It becomes pretty apparent five minutes into the car ride that no one seems to be having a good morning. Robin has spent the majority of the drive applying and reapplying her mascara while messing with her hair. She groans every time she looks in the mirror and her eyes lack their usual brilliance.

Meanwhile, Steve has been complaining about yet another fight with his dad. Apparently they argued during breakfast, something that has become a common occurrence in the Harrington household.

“The asshole again reminded me that I’m turning twenty soon. As if I don’t already know that! I mean,” Steve laughs in exasperation. “For weeks now he’s been asking me what my plans are, as if working at Family Video just isn’t good enough for him. As if my dad isn’t the sole reason I had to get a lousy minimum wage job in the first place!”

“Family Video isn’t a lousy job–”

“Yes it is.” Both Steve and Robin say at the same time, which you sigh at. Can’t really argue with that.

“Okay, yeah. It’s pretty lousy.”

Steve rubs his eyes tiredly. “And that isn’t even the worst part. There I was, pouring syrup over my pancakes, trying to enjoy the fact that my parents are actually home for once, when my asshole of a father tells me that if I don’t have a respectable job by the time I’m twenty, he’ll kick me out. I mean, can you believe that?”

You suck in a breath. “Steve…”

Richard Harrington is a cruel, awful man.

While you understand his frustrations towards Steve, it’s completely unreasonable to expect him to get a reputable job in a few short months without any college education. Steve’s right, it had been Richard’s idea to make him work at Scoops Ahoy in the first place. When the mall burned down, he had no other option but to work at Family Video soon after.

“I’m sorry, honey.” You intertwine your fingers through Steve’s hair and rub your thumb up and down the nape of his neck in a soothing manner. Steve allows the touch, but he’s still tense. Guessing that he’s uncomfortable feeling so pitied, you try to make light of the situation with humor. “But hey, who knows? Maybe you can come live with me in New York if he ends up kicking you out.”

Steve risks a look at you, taking his eyes off the road for a few moments, and his eyes shine. He’s ecstatic over what you’ve just said. He looks like a little kid on Christmas Eve. “You really mean that?”

“Well, I mean…” It had mostly been a joke, a throwaway comment to try and get him to smile. But Steve’s body finally relaxes under your touch and you can’t tell him no. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

“You hear that, Robin?” Steve preens, wanting to get her attention. However, when he realizes that she hasn’t been listening to the entire conversation, he makes an offended sound. “Robin, are you listening to me?”

“Uh, yes?” Her eyes meet yours in the mirror, startled that she’s been caught. “You were-uh. Talking to Y/N about your dad. We-we hate him! Yeah, we hate the guy. He really… grinds my gears?”

Steve groans. “We all hate my dad, but that wasn’t what I was talking to you about!”

“Cut me some slack, please. Your relationship with your father is one of labyrinthine complexity–”

You poke your head between the two teens. “Actually, it’s not that complicated.”

Robin covers your mouth with her hand and continues with her rant. “It’s seven in the morning, we have the stupid pep rally, and I woke up looking like a total corpse!”

“I think you look lovely as always, Robin.” You mumble through the girl’s hand, barely coherent.

Steve, however, isn’t as supportive. “You’re worried about a pep rally? You really expect me to believe that?”

“Yeah, so?” Robin removes her hand from your mouth and goes back to doing her makeup. She’s avoiding the conversation now, which only means that Steve is onto something. Why has she been so obsessed about this week’s pep rally? Robin has been in band for years now, she’s done a million pep rallies during her high school career. It can’t be performing that makes her nervous.

Which means it has to be about someone.

Locking eyes with Steve, he seems to be thinking what you are. “I think we all know what this is about, okay? Y/N and I aren’t buying that bullshit.”

“This is about Vickie.” You finish for him, a smirk on your face. For weeks now Vickie has been all Robin has talked about. Her hair, how pretty her smile is, how cute her freckles are. Vickie also happens to be in band with Robin. “C’mon, you can’t tell us we’re wrong.”

“I absolutely can tell you you’re wrong.” Robin denies what you and Steve are implying.

Steve shakes his head. “You know we’re right! And you know what else we think?”

“I really don’t care–”

“Y/N and I think that you gotta stop pretending to be someone else when you’re around her, okay? You just gotta be yourself.”

Robin doesn’t want to hear any of this. At least not from you and Steve. “You guys are biased, you do realize that?”

“What do you mean?” You’re practically laying across Steve’s car console in order to be a part of the conversation. “I think we’re objective people.”

“You’re telling me that all I have to do is be myself and Vickie will want to date me?”

You frown. “Yeah? What’s wrong with that?”

Robin throws her head back. “Because it took Steve months to ask you out. Mind you, this was when you were already in love with the guy! And he knew you were in love with him!”

“Okay, hey–” Steve doesn’t at all like what she’s insinuating. He didn’t necessarily know you were already in love with him, he just… had a small hunch.

“I’m not done,” Robin holds her hand up. “All Steve had to do was man up and admit his feelings for you. He didn’t have to agonize over whether or not it’d blow up in his face. There was no risk, no danger, no world ending consequences. I mean, if you had rejected him then maybe Steve’s ego would’ve been bruised. But if I ask out the wrong girl? Bam! I’m a town pariah.”

“This is true,” you reluctantly agree. While you could never envision a world where you’d ever say no to Steve, you also recognize that the world where you somehow do wouldn’t be the same world as Robin’s. Things are different for her, whether you like it or not. Robin has to live with this knowledge, and her conversation with you about luck and love from last summer echoes in your mind.

Steve places a hand on his chest, betrayed. “Whose side are you on, Y/N?”

“True love’s side.”

Robin snorts and Steve doesn’t bother to hide his smile. He wants to tease you for being a hopeless romantic, but now isn’t the time. Instead, he continues the previous conversation. “True love aside, we can’t ignore that Vickie is definitely not the wrong girl.”

“Oh, she definitely isn’t straight.” You agree.

“We don’t know that!” Robin quickly sprays some breath freshener in her mouth and gags, which you cringe at. Vickie is one lucky girl if Robin ever manages to become her girlfriend.

Steve doesn’t let up, he’s convinced he has it all figured out. “She returned Fast Times paused at fifty-three minutes, five seconds.”

“The bikini scene, mind you.” You butt in, and Steve nods eagerly.

“And you know who pauses Fast Times at fifty-three minutes, five seconds? People who like boobies, Robin!”

Robin waves her hands in the air as if to get Steve’s voice away from her. “Ew! Gross, don’t say boobies–”

“Boobies! It’s not a big deal–”

You make a face. “It isn’t the most pleasant word.”

“Oh, c’mon. You like boobies, Robin likes boobies, and we all know I love your boobies specifically–ow!”

You hit the back of Steve’s head with annoyance to get him to stop talking about your boobs. While he winces in pain and rubs his tender head, you turn towards Robin. “What my darling boyfriend is trying to say is that everyone likes boobs, and Vickie definitely likes them too.”

Robin can’t even look at the two of you, appalled by how many times the word “boobies” has been uttered during the duration of the conversation. You can’t blame her, the word has practically lost all meaning for you as well.

Steve, however, can’t seem to get enough of it. “It’s boobies!” He exclaims again to no one in particular.

You and Robin lock eyes, and then, without saying anything, your hand covers Steve’s mouth while Robin flicks his forehead, effectively putting the boob conversation to an end.

–

The moment Steve’s BMW slows in front of the school, Robin throws the door open and rushes out with a quick “see you later!” to you as she runs to follow after her bandmates. Steve waves weakly as she goes and sighs in disappointment.

“She’s never talking to Vickie, is she?”

“Not a chance,” you sigh as well, watching as Robin’s figure disappears in the crowd of students. Spring break looms over the student body, everyone buzzes with excitement over their week of freedom and tonight’s basketball game. The pep rally in just a few short minutes only adds to the exhilaration. Leaning forward, your lips graze against Steve’s. “Anyways, see you tonight?”

He bridges the gap between your lips, skin meets skin and warmth floods your stomach. “Of course, angel. I love you.”

“I love you, too, honey.” And with one last kiss, you exit Steve’s car and make your way towards the school. As always, Steve waits until you’re safely on the sidewalk before he pulls away and heads towards Family Video. He’s started picking up morning shifts to fill the time he isn’t with you.

On your way inside, you see Ms. Kelly talking to Max near the buses. The conversation is short, doesn’t last much longer than a few seconds, and when Max turns away you notice Ms. Kelly’s patient smile drop. Clearly Max still isn’t being cooperative when it comes to their sessions. She promised you she would start trying, but Max Mayfield has always been stubborn and you’ve always been slightly overbearing.

Not the best combination, honestly.

With a sigh, you make a mental note to ask Max about what the counselor talked to her about later. There’s too much going on this morning to focus on it, and you’re already pushing Max by having her attend the pep rally anyways. Originally she had wanted to skip it and hide in the stairwell, but after begging her about it, Max finally agreed.

The conversation can wait. For now, at least she’ll be next to you in the bleachers alongside the boys to cheer on Lucas.

The thought was enough to brighten your mood a little, but it quickly became a pain in the ass to corral the party into sitting together. It took you almost fifteen minutes to find Mike and Dustin in the mass of students heading into the gym. You’re not necessarily sure how it took so goddamn long given the fact that Mike towers over half of the students anyways. He’s grown freakishly tall since starting freshman year. It unnerves you.

While his towering height annoys you, Mike likes that he can finally, literally, look down on you.

“There you guys are!” You grab the back of Mike’s shirt and he lets out a startled yelp. Dustin stumbles back as well, and an annoyed sophomore glares at the three of you. Ignoring her, you grab your brother’s shirt and start dragging the two boys towards the bleachers. “Thought we agreed on meeting at the water fountain that squirts water in your face?”

“I thought it was the library?” Dustin gives you an odd look. “Wait, is there even a water fountain in the library?”

“You amaze me.” You remark, not even bothering to answer his question. He listens like a bag of rocks. Mike just allows you to pull him, not at all contributing to the conversation.

Max waits for you in the bleachers. She’s saved you seats, something that you feel slight relief over. The simple gesture is small, but it sparks just enough hope within your chest to make you exhale softly. Hope that she’s getting better. Hope that she’s finally trying again.

Thanking Max, you and the others fill the seats as the gym quickly fills with more and more students until it threatens to overflow. The roar of the crowd is nearly deafening. Across from the bleachers resides the marching band. They’re playing the school’s anthem as the cheerleaders start their routine. Chrissy Cunningham leads them, her smile lovely and beautiful, she shines so brightly upon the crowd that you can’t help but fall in love with her.

In the midst of the cheerleaders’ twists and flips, Robin manages to catch your eye from across the room.

You eagerly wave at her and mime playing the trumpet, copying her movements as she actually plays one. Robin laughs, and next to her is a girl with fiery red hair who laughs as well. She’s pretty, you’ve heard countless sonnets about her red hair and dotted freckles. Knowing the girl is Vickie, you point at her as you wink at Robin, who scoffs and goes back to playing the trumpet.

Next to you, you catch the tail end of some bizarre conversation between Mike and Dustin.

“Look, I’m not saying that my girlfriend is better than yours.” Dustin is clarifying, glaring at you when he hears your sarcastic snort. “It’s just that Suzie’s, like, a certified genius.”

Mike crosses his arms, looking towards you as if somehow this is all your fault. “Your brother realizes that El saved the world twice, right?”

“Admittedly that is hard to beat,” you shrug. “That, and she has cool powers.”

Dustin points a finger at the two of you. “And yet Mike still has a C in Spanish while you’re barely passing calculus.”

Mike rolls his eyes and you shrug again. Your brother isn’t necessarily wrong either. El’s saved the world, Suzie has saved his GPA. Both are nearly impossible feats. “Touchy subject, but touché.”

“And what can your boyfriend do, Y/N?” Mike asks, now bringing the attention to your love life.

“He’s good with a bat.”

Both Dustin and Mike groan, but you shush them when the school’s broadcaster announces the Tigers basketball team. Applause breaks out across the bleachers and you notice Max looking around for Lucas. Though she tries to hide it, you can see the interest and excitement in her eyes. She’s happy for him, but it breaks your heart that she feels that she can’t show it.

Jason Carver, captain of the basketball team and former Scoops Ahoy patron before Steve spilled ice cream all over his pants, runs out first. The crowd goes wild, but you don’t start cheering until you see Lucas. He’s smiling wide, proud to be a part of the team. You scream as loud as you can for him, he’s come so far since confessing to you about wanting to join the team earlier this year. As Jason starts his speech, dramatic as he always is, Lucas sees you in the bleachers and waves shyly, a blush creeping across his face. Then, seeing Max next to you, his confidence seems to grow as he waves more enthusiastically at her.

The moment is sweet, it makes you smile.

Except Max doesn’t wave back. She crosses her arms, pretends she hasn’t seen him, and your smile drops alongside Lucas’.

You know they’ve been having some trouble recently. With Max pulling away more and more each day, Lucas struggled to hold onto the fading girl. Despite his pleas and reassurances, Max still seems to be icing him out. According to Dustin, they broke up almost a month ago now.

But they’ve always had a tumultuous relationship, long before nightmares and monsters darkened everything. The news hadn’t worried you at first, you thought it was simply another one of their weekly breakups over something small, innocent. Afterall, they were just kids when they first started dating. Their breakups were always childish, though endearing, and always temporary.

Now, you’re scared that this time it’s permanent.

You’re not sure what that means for Max. She already has so few people left in her life to tether her. Billy died, her mother works two jobs and is never home anymore, El is in California, and you and Lucas are breaking skin trying to claw onto whatever small hold you have left of the girl.

Another loud cheer from the crowd breaks you from your thoughts. Jason must’ve just said something important, something worthy enough of a roaring reaction. He’s always been popular in Hawkins, Steve used to complain about him to you back when he was still on the team. But when Steve graduated and Billy died, Hawkins High had needed a new King to crown.

Jason Carver was more than happy to ascend the throne.

“Chrissy, I love you, babe.” Everyone awes and you see Chrissy blow Jason a kiss. It’s sweet, you suppose. They fit together nicely, head cheerleader with the star of the basketball team, and they seem genuinely happy. Chrissy’s shy and kind demeanor balances Jason’s loud and charismatic boldness. They truly are a good match.

“I think I can speak for all of us when I say it’s been a tough year for Hawkins.” Jason continues his speech, the room is eerily silent as everyone listens with baited breath. “So much loss…” The gym almost exhales simultaneously, remembering all the people who died last summer.

Your own breath exhales, and beside you Max tenses. Billy’s ghost floats through your minds, in through hers and out through yours. Hopper’s own ghost follows after him, only he doesn’t haunt Max the way he haunts you. He lingers over you, his final words to you engraved into your skin.

You’re the best of them.

“And sometimes I wonder, how much loss can one community take?”

Enough to fill a mall of burning bodies, you think bitterly.

Jason paces the gym’s floor now, he almost seems to glow before the crowd. He rambles on about needing something to believe in. That everyone should be doing something to honor all the lives lost in July, that playing basketball can absolve all the despair. As if it can bring them back.

Deep below your ribcage, nestled right underneath your scar and just in front of your stomach, rests a pit of anger that always simmers. You were born with it, it has always followed you. It has grown with you, the anger almost possessed your body when your dad left. Now, hearing Jason recite all the names of the ones who died that Fourth of July, the anger’s low simmer heats into a soft boil.

You try to quell it. Jason means well, he’s only trying to uplift the community in a passionate, albeit uncomfortably pastor-y way. He’s only doing what he knows best; he’s being a leader. In another life, one where Demogorgons never harmed you, you think you would’ve really admired Jason and his resilience.

“Think of Billy,” Your breath stills, yet your hand instinctively finds Max’s. She turns away from you, but the room is spinning and you can’t remember how to inhale. But Jason keeps going. “Think about our heroic police chief, Jim Hopper.”

Next to you, in your haze of grief and panic, you think you can feel Mike and Dustin shift uncomfortably. Grief sinks her claws into the kids, and you want nothing more than to puncture Jason’s lungs with them.

This was supposed to be a pep rally for the Tigers, it was supposed to be joyous, an opportunity to bring Max out of her shell. To distract her from the hell that she calls her life. The entire school knows what happened to Billy, they know that he had a little sister named Max Mayfield.

You hate Jason Carver.

But you’re here for Lucas. Today is about him. He’s finally happy, he’s smiling again. The least you can do is swallow down the anger and grief and hope that you don’t end up choking on them later. That they don’t strangle you in your dreams.

“And now tonight, we’re gonna bring home the championship trophy!” Jason screams into the mic, erupting a volcanic roar from the stadium. People throw paper into the air, whistling and jumping up and down at the prospect of Hawkins High finally winning a championship.

“Tonight?” Dustin’s agonized exclamation causes you to jump. He looks at you, bewildered and panicked. “How is that possible?”

Your heart still hasn’t steadied from the surge of fury Jason evoked. Swallowing once again, you clear your throat and shake your head at your brother. “What, you guys didn’t know about the game tonight?”

“They call it a tournament,” Max explains for you, figuring you need some time to clear your head. You squeeze her hand appreciatively. “You win one game, you go on until there’s only one team left.”

Mike and Dustin exchange frightened looks, and you eye them suspiciously. “Did you guys really not know? I thought Steve explained all of this to you already. Why is it such a big deal, anyways? I mean–wait,” the boys won’t meet your gaze. They avoid facing you, Mike stuffs his hands into his pockets and Dustin pretends to read someone’s poster.

You know the fearful look on their faces. It’s the same look Dustin gave you this morning when he ditched you to ride with Nancy and Mike.

Goddamn Eddie Munson.

“Oh, don’t you guys dare.” They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t fucking dream of missing one of Lucas’ games for a stupid club centered around some guy with enormous ego problems. “I swear to God, if you two skip the game tonight–”

“We won’t! I-I mean… Well. It’s, uh. It’s complicated” Dustin gulps, elbowing his way through the crowd of departing students as the pep rally ends. Mike follows, ready to step in at any moment, while Max slips away before you can stop her. Seeing how contorted your body is from anger, Dustin tries to appease you. “Look, I can’t promise anything, alright? Eddie is… Eddie.”

You’re about to scream some very choice words about that curly haired emo asshole, but Lucas intercepts the group and joins you guys. He looks between you, Mike, and Dustin, sensing some underlying tension. “What about Eddie?”

Mike quickly explains, and the more he talks, the more you want to shove your knives down Eddie’s throat. It’s one night, one goddamn night, and here Mike and Dustin are, almost shitting their pants at the idea of missing one Hellfire meeting to support their friend. While it’s unfortunate that all of this is happening on the same night, and though you recognize how long a campaign can take and how much the game means to the party, for once you can’t bring yourself to understand Dustin’s side.

A championship game versus one single campaign meeting that can easily be done tomorrow instead.

Seems like a pretty easy decision to you.

Lucas doesn’t understand why Mike and Dustin are so conflicted either. “I don’t get the big deal.” You’re all outside now, heading towards the main building for your classes. “Just talk to Eddie. Get him to move Hellfire to another night.”

You nod, agreeing with him, and Dustin rolls his eyes. “‘Just talk to Eddie.’”

“You can’t be serious right now,” your shoulder brushes harshly against the boy’s. You’re barely containing your anger right now. “Why does Eddie have such a strong hold over you guys? Hasn’t he repeated senior year twice now?”

“Why does that matter?” Mike looks at you as if you’re the scum of the earth that he just so happened to step on. “Why can’t Lucas just talk to his coach and get him to move the game?”

Dustin quips that he thinks Mike’s idea is a great one, but you shove between them and throw your hands in the air in annoyance. “You can’t possibly think that’s the same thing, right? A nationally organized game being postponed for a board game.”

Mike and Dustin both gasp at you, acting as if you’ve just threatened to kill a baby bunny in front of them, which only annoys you more. Sure, maybe you’re being a little mean right now, but you’re not appreciating how they’re treating Lucas. He’s never done anything to warrant this blatant disrespect from them. They’re refusing to see his side, too lost in their Eddie induced high.

“DnD isn’t just a board game, Y/N! I’m honestly disappointed that you of all people would even say that. You’ve seen the intricacies of a campaign. You know I’ve spent all month now preparing for the end of Eddie’s campaign!” Dustin waves his hands in front of him, he’s in his own ecstasy of anger and annoyance, something innate in the Henderson bloodline. “A semester of adventuring has led to this moment, and we need Lucas.”

“Yeah, and the Tigers don’t.” Mike looks over at Lucas. “I mean, no offense, but you’ve been on the bench all year–shit!”

You swat the back of Mike’s head, the sound of his yelp satisfying and the sting of the hit soothes you. He looks at you, offended, and you just shake your head at him. “No, that was out of line and you know it.”

“One day I’m gonna be too tall for you to hit me, you know.” Mike scowls at you as he rubs his head.

“And I’ll mourn the day when that happens,” you respond dryly before pointing at Lucas. “Now, apologize to him before I hit you again.”

Lucas lowers your finger and shakes his head. “It’s fine, Y/N. Me being on the bench isn’t the point, anyways.”

“Please, arrive at the point.” Your brother drops his head back and closes his eyes. He’s tired, he regrets even starting this conversation in the first place. The more the four of you talk, the angrier he can feel you become. Mike’s head may now be sore, but Dustin lives with you. If anyone here is in danger of your lecturing, it’s him.

“If I get in good with these guys, I’ll be in the popular crowd, and then you guys will be too.” Lucas explains, looking between Dustin and Mike as he urges them to understand, but they don’t. Mike claims that they don’t want to be popular, something that Lucas doesn’t believe. “What, you wanna be stuck with the nerds and freaks for three more years?”

“We are nerds and freaks!” Dustin exclaims, causing a few students in the hall to look at you guys. You wave at them awkwardly, you’re starting to regret following the boys. This conversation feels personal, like you shouldn’t be intruding. Though you think Lucas has every right to want a good high school experience, you also think Mike and Dustin deserve to have their own experiences as well. If they don’t want to be popular, then that’s their decision just as much as it’s Lucas’ to want to be.

You step between the three boys, finally getting their attention. “Guys, no one here is necessarily right or wrong. Lucas has every right to want to be a part of the basketball crowd, and you two,” you raise your eyebrows at Mike and Dustin, “have every right to want to stick with Eddie’s crowd.”

Dustin sighs, “thanks, Y/N–”

“I’m not finished,” you hold a hand up and shush your brother. “What isn’t right, however, is abandoning one another. You guys are friends, and right now Lucas wants you at his game tonight to support him. Tonight is special, everyone will be there, and I want you guys there as well. I know high school is hard, but it’s even harder when you’re alone.”

“Says the girl who is adored by everyone in this shitty town.” Mike huffs, he can’t believe how hypocritical you’re being. “You’ve never had to deal with what we do. No one has ever laughed at you or tried to make you jump off a cliff just because you’re different.”

You clench your jaw. Dustin looks at you wearily, he doesn’t like what Mike is saying, but he also can’t help but agree with his friend. You haven’t ever been bullied. All your life you’ve blended in, stood out only when you were kind to others, admired for your selflessness, but never enough to be invited to parties or dumped behind a dumpster.

“Mike…” Your brother tries to pull him away from you, but you both stand your ground.

“You’re right, Wheeler. I don’t know what it’s like.” You stare up at the boy, and Mike’s expression softens only slightly. He’s just as stubborn as you are, it’s why the two of you admire the other so much. “But you forget that I’m Jonathan’s best friend. The creep, the loser, the psychopath. Kids may not have ever targeted me, but I’ve seen what they do to the people they hate.”

All the times you had to ice Jonathan’s bruised face. The nights you spent in his room holding him as he cried because Lonnie’s fists and Tommy’s cruel words were too much. The sneers, the stares Jonathan received because he was different. Quiet. Being your best friend hadn’t lessened the blows.

For years you wish you could’ve done more for Jonathan. Now, presented with Lucas’ opportunity to befriend the crowd that once was so cruel to your friend, you refuse to lose it. “That’s why I don’t want Lucas skipping the game tonight.”

It’s silent for a few moments, all three boys don’t know what to say. Taking a deep breath, Lucas stands beside you and breaks the silence. “We came to high school wanting things to be different, right? Now we have that chance. Like Y/N said, if I skip tonight, that’s all out the window. So I’m asking you guys, as a friend, just talk to Eddie. Get him to move Hellfire.”

Lucas pauses, he wets his lips and looks between his friends again. He feels so small, pleading for their attention. “Come to my game. Please.”

The bell rings, ending the conversation, and Lucas spares one last look at Dustin and Mike before mumbling a soft goodbye to you. He leaves you alone with the boys, who in turn mirror conflicted expressions.

“Shit!” Dustin kicks his foot out and looks at you. “This is all your fault, you know that?”

“What is?”

“Me having empathy. I hate this. Why couldn’t you have raised me to be an asshole?”

You snort at Dustin before pulling him into a weak hug. You only have a few more minutes before you need to get to class, you can’t stay very long, but you also don’t want to leave the boys without some semblance of comfort. “You’re too charming to be an asshole. Just… Come to the game, alright? Both of you. I’ll even make brownies if I have to. I just-I’ve missed you guys. This will be good for all of us.”

Mike ducks his head and Dustin sighs once more. Neither want to say anything else, so you reluctantly release your brother and leave them alone to wallow in their self-created misery.

They’ll do the right thing. You’re sure of it.

–

Lunch comes and Alex sits next to you. He started sitting with you at lunch just after winter break, and you’re endlessly grateful for him. You’re no longer alone, and he’s good company. A part of you regrets that it took the two of you three years to grow your friendship outside of Bookstrorindary.

You’ll miss him when you graduate.

Max is with Ms. Kelly today, a change in their usual meeting schedule of Tuesdays and Thursdays, meaning you had been right. She did skip their meeting yesterday and the counselor had to corner her this morning to schedule another one.

“Be honest, how excited are you to move to New York this summer?” Alex asks you, taking a bite out of his carrot stick. You’ve come to learn that he has a weird obsession with the vegetable, always packing at least twelve of them every day.

You pick at your own lunch, a wilted salad and sandwich your mom left for you this morning. “Honestly? It hasn’t really hit me yet. I mean, I only got in last week. I think my mind is still trying to catch up with reality.”

“Oh, c’mon. You can’t tell me you’re not at least a little excited.”

“Okay, okay,” you laugh and nudge the boy. “I’m a little excited. I just.. Haven’t really had time to think too much about it, you know? Between work, my brother, Steve, the kids, and…”

“Jonathan?” Alex finishes for you. He’s the only one who knows about how distant Jonathan has been. You’ve confided in him about how worried you are, about the phone calls while he’s high and the way Jonathan’s voice no longer sounds like his.

You shove your lunch away, no longer hungry. “Yeah.”

“You guys call every Friday, right? Maybe tonight will be different!” Alex tries to cut through the tension that now corrodes your demeanor, which you smile at him gratefully for.

“Yeah, who knows.” A piece of hair falls in your face and you push it behind your ear. Picking up your fork again, you attempt to finish your meal, but a sudden commotion interrupts the low buzz in the lunchroom.

“As long as you’re into band, or science, or parties.” Eddie Munson sneers from the cafeteria table he’s standing on. He looks around the room as if everyone else is beneath him. Not worth his time just because they enjoy different things. Looking at Alex, you both sigh and prepare for whatever Eddie has to say today. His voice grows louder, shouting across the room towards the basketball team’s table. “Or a game where you toss balls into laundry baskets!”

Jason stands up and a few students whoop and cheer. “You want something, freak?”

Eddie sticks to fingers up behind his head as he creates little devil horns, snarling with his tongue out and hissing. Jason grimaces, you do too.

“He’s a little much, isn’t he?” You say to Alex, relieved when Eddie starts to step down from the table.

“He terrifies me.” Alex breathes out, not taking his eyes off Eddie in fear he’ll somehow cast a spell on him.

You laugh at your friend’s unnecessary fear. Eddie is harmless, Hellfire isn’t a demonic cult like some students at Hawkins seem to think. It really is just a club centered around a board game with impressive storytelling and detailed plotlines. From what Dustin has told you, Eddie truly is the best dungeon master in Indiana.

And while you believe him, you can’t wrap your head around why your brother idolizes Eddie so much. The fascination runs deeper than just DnD. Dustin has spent almost every day of his freshman year wrapped around Eddie’s finger. He spends all his time with the teen now, rarely with you, but you’re not bitter. Of course you’re not. Dustin can have his own friends, you know this, but you also feel so… unneeded.

Your little brother doesn’t need you anymore, and it’s a hard pill to swallow.

Truthfully, Alex’s question earlier about moving to New York in the summer sparked more than just your usual anxiety over Jonathan. It also reminded you that in only a few short months you’ll be in an entirely new state, a new city, far away from Dustin.

“Y/N!” Dustin flies into the seat next to you, nearly upending the table itself with how violently he throws himself down.

Alex shrieks and you steady the table before anything can fall. Heart pounding, you clutch at your chest as your nerves settle. “Why must you always be so violent?”

“Because it’s fun,” Dustin responds, not even bothering to acknowledge Alex’s presence. Instead, his eyes are only on you, and there’s a crazed spark in them. He’s breathing heavily, frantic, and you dread where this is going. “Look, I need to ask you a huge favor.”

“Do you realize that this is the first time you’ve sat with me at lunch since the first day?”

He winces. “And I will repent every day for my horrendous sins. I promise, I just–Jesus you’re terrifying when you don’t blink.” Dustin removes his hat to fix his hair, a nervous tick of his. He’s stalling, he should’ve never come here. Gulping, he rips the band aid off. “I need you to sub for Lucas tonight.”

“I’m sorry?” You’re giving him an out, one chance to back down before you strangle him.

Only Dustin tightens the noose even more. “Please, Y/N! Eddie won’t move the campaign. He said something about sheep and-and finding subs because Mike and I are, uh. I guess the future of Hellfire and he needs us and did I mention how important this campaign is? It’s super cool, super gory and totally up your alley and–”

“No.”

“N-no?” Dustin practically deflates in front of you, the light in his eyes dies.

You shove him away from you, you don’t want to look at his pathetic pouting. You’re so unbelievably hurt right now, so fucking infuriated. “You have spent every goddamn waking hour ass kissing Eddie. You haven’t so much as looked at me during lunch this entire year as if I’m a fucking plague. You’ve canceled plans, you’re hardly ever home, and now you expect me to abandon Lucas, someone who has spent time with me this year, someone who has made this entire year less lonely for me. Something, by the way, that you haven’t even noticed, all because you finally need me?”

Dustin’s mouth opens and closes, he doesn’t know what to say, but for once you don’t care. How could he possibly think you’d miss Lucas’ game tonight? You adore the boys, each and every one of them, and now Dustin expects you to just abandon one of them for the others?

“You’re only here because it’s convenient for you.” You hiss, venom pouring from your voice. “For Eddie.”

“Y/N…” Dustin’s voice breaks, he sounds like a little kid again, the baby brother you doted on your entire life. “Please.”

“No!” You scream at him.

The word echoes throughout the cafeteria. A few students turn to you, some curious, some annoyed. Alex draws into himself, wishing he were anywhere but here right now. Dustin’s eyes widen, his skin pales, and you clamp your hand over your mouth, completely and utterly mortified.

You’ve never, ever yelled at Dustin like this before. Not with so much malice, vitriol.

You feel like you’re twelve again, your anger hurting your baby brother.

Red hot with embarrassment and shame, you quickly get up from the table and flee the cafeteria. Dustin calls after you, but you stumble through the hallway towards the nearest bathroom. Tears burn your eyes, guilt wracks your body in painful thuds.

By the time you lock yourself in the bathroom’s stall, your sobs have begun to claw their way out of your throat. Pressing your back against the wall, you sink to the ground and pull your knees into your chest as you finally allow yourself to cry.

Abandonment makes you cruel. Your father taught you that.

–

You don’t see Dustin for the rest of the day. He’s missing Lucas’ game and you’re angry with him for that, but you also feel such an intense guilt over your outburst. You can’t stomach the thought of seeing him.

School ends and Steve drives you to work. The shift will be a short one due to the championship game, and Steve is staying with you so that you can drive to the game together. However, the moment you get into his car, he notices the dried tears on your face and the redness in your eyes and immediately throws his arms around you. In between shaky breaths and cries, you explain what happened to Steve.

He soothes you, tells you that you can always talk to Dustin after tonight’s game. Right now you and your brother need space from one another, and you hate that Steve’s right. You’ll force Dustin into a code blue, you’re long overdue for one, anyways. He’s been acting weird for weeks now. Someone has to give in, you know this, and if it has to be you then you’ll do anything to get your brother back.

For now, Steve holds your hand as he guides you through the crowd of people in the bleachers. They all cheer for Hawkins High, the energy in the gym is electric. Faces are painted, cheerleaders wave their pom-poms, and you’re wearing Steve’s old Tigers jersey. You’re not much for school spirit, but Steve almost crashed the car when he realized you were wearing the jersey, and you know Lucas will appreciate it too.

“Y/N, over here.” Steve’s hand falls onto the small of your back as he gently pushes you towards some open seats he’s found. You lean into his touch and sit beside him. With his body against yours, you try to immerse yourself in the joy from the crowd.

The entire town is here tonight. Everyone is smiling, kids laugh and parents wave posters for their sons. Tonight will be a good night, you’ve decided this to be true.

The national anthem is announced and everyone rises in their seats. When the broadcaster announces that Tammy Thompson will be singing, you and Steve look at each other incredulously. Laughter rises within you and you cackle when Robin finds the two of you in the crowd. There’s no way this won’t end in disaster.

Tammy walks out, wearing a horrendous faux cowboy outfit, and almost immediately sings off-key. You cringe, ears stinging from the attack, and try desperately not to let out any laughter as she continues to butcher the song.

Steve whispers over to Robin, “told you. Muppet.”

“Okay, she does sound like a muppet.” Robin agrees, which only makes it harder to contain your giggles. Tammy is worse than a muppet, she sounds like a goddamn muppet that broke into her dad’s alcohol stash.

“You sound better, angel.” Steve whispers into your ear, breath warm against your skin.

You lean back against him and smile sarcastically. “Anyone can sound better than her.”

Steve chuckles and you can’t help but join him. You know it’s rude, that Tammy is honestly not that bad, though definitely not good enough for Nashville, but you can’t help it. You can’t believe Robin ever had such a huge crush on the girl who now drones the national anthem like a dying parrot.

In between breaths of laughter, you see Lucas looking up at the bleachers. His face is grim, he doesn’t see Mike or Dustin or Max. None of his friends showed up, and you watch him with sympathy. You can’t believe them.

But then Lucas sees you, and he gives you a weak smile. Your attendance isn’t enough, you know it isn’t, but you hold up the poster you made for him and he laughs despite himself.

The game starts, and from the moment the whistle is blown, it’s intense. The Tigers are neck and neck with the Falcons. Steve tries to explain what’s happening throughout the game, but it all goes over your head. The energy in the room is intoxicating, though. You lean forward in your seat, you cheer when everyone else does, boo when you think you should.

“Carver just loves hogging the spotlight, doesn’t he?” Steve says with disdain as he watches Jason side sweep his teammates to score.

You poke his side, you know he’s only saying this because he’s still bitter that Jaosn tried asking you out last summer. “Honey, your jealousy is showing.”

Steve tries to deny this, but then a player gets injured during a foul from Falcon, causing you and Steve to both spew insults at the player. You have no idea what the foul even is, but you’re enjoying the chaos of the game.

In the midst of your uproar, you almost miss Lucas being sent into the game. You slap Steve’s chest repeatedly to get his attention, you almost don’t believe what you’re seeing. “Steve! Is that–”

“Sinclair!” He whoops, but he quickly scrambles to catch you as you nearly throw yourself off the bleachers in your blind excitement cheering. You’re screaming your head off, hardly even registering Steve’s hands on your waist. You’re incoherent and ecstatic, drunk on adrenaline.

Lucas is playing.

The game only gets more brutal from there. The points even out, both teams neck and neck. Anxious, you squeeze Steve’s hand with anticipation. Everything happens so fast, Lucas plays so naturally with the others, as if he was born to be there.

“Go, Tigers!” You jump up and down as Lucas runs after Jason. They’re doing a new play, attempting to score the tie breaker. Jason shoots, the ball hits off the backboard and onto the rim. Your breath catches, there’s only three seconds left on the clock. The ball falls, and there isn’t any time left.

Until Lucas catches the missed shot. He dribbles the ball, you clutch Steve’s hand, neither one of you utters a single word as Lucas makes the final shot. It’s an all or nothing throw, a risk, but he takes it anyways. The ball soars through the air, hits the rim. The buzzer sounds, the game is over, and the ball spins around the rim before finally sinking through the net.

Your chest burns as you violently cheer, Steve flings himself into your arms. You’re both jumping around, screaming together like little kids. “Hey did it!” You scream, and Steve shakes you in his arms with the biggest smile on his face.

“Sinclair did it!”

Down below, Lucas’ face lights up as the crowd goes wild for him. This is the happiest you’ve seen the kid in so long. The entire basketball team swarms Lucas, they lift him into the air and you cheer alongside them.

Steve tells you he’ll go warm the car up and you practically run outside to find Lucas as soon as the game is done. Your body buzzes, you’re still breathless with exhilaration. When you find Lucas, he’s just left the crowd of teenage boys. Wanting to surprise him, you creep up slowly before throwing your arms from behind him. “There’s the star!”

He stumbles from your weight, but he knows it’s you. Laughing, he turns around and you pull him into a bone crushing hug. “You came!”

“Of course I did, you moron!” You giggle, pulling away to straighten his jacket. “I made you a poster and everything.”

Lucas looks down at the poster that hangs by your side. His eyes light up, he remembers seeing it in the stands at the beginning of the game, but he hadn’t been able to read it from so far away. “Can I see it?”

“I’d be offended if you didn’t want to see it.” You unroll the poster and present it with a grand flourish. “Tada!”

Sin to win, Sinclair!

You’re incredibly proud of the wordplay, and Lucas chuckles. It’s good, he has to admit. You’ve left no white space on the poster, littering with small 8’s for his jersey and millions of small stickers and decorations. The poster was made with love, and Lucas knows you spent hours making it.

“I love it, Y/N.” He does. It will hang on his wall as soon as he gets home.

You beam at him. Then, from behind you, you hear your brother’s own cheers as a door opens. Lucas’ smile fades, hurt creeps upon his face. Frowning, you turn and find Dustin and Mike high fiving their Hellfire friends as they all celebrate the end of their campaign. Erica is with them, cheering with everyone else.

“Lucas…” Your breath gives out. He doesn’t deserve this. Tonight was supposed to be his night. You turn to him, wracking your brain to try and figure out what you’re even supposed to say at this moment. Fifty feet away Lucas’ close friends are celebrating a night without him, his sister overjoyed as well. They’ve forgotten about him.

For once, you can’t find the right words to say.

“Thanks for the poster, Y/N.” Lucas doesn’t want your sympathy. He leaves, crestfallen, and you’re left standing alone holding the poster he had been praising seconds ago. The late March air chills your bones.

You’ve never been so disappointed in your brother before.

–

Steve drives you home and you’re silent the entire time.

“Dustin isn’t a bad kid, Y/N. You know that.” Steve tries to reason with you, but what your brother has done tonight leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. “I’m sure by tomorrow he’ll realize he was a jerk and apologize. He always does, he’s just being a stupid teen boy right now.”

You face the window, watching the trees fading into the distance. You know Steve is right, you know that Dustin is still growing up, making mistakes. Hell, no one is perfect at fifteen. When you were his age you were falling in love with your best friend as you hunted monsters together. Neither you or Jonathan or Nancy knew what the hell you guys were doing back then.

But this is different. Dustin has never betrayed his friends like this before. He, out of all of them, should understand the pain of being left behind. He spent half the summer upset that the party ditched him, and now he’s ditching Lucas?

“You know, I used to be a stupid teen boy.” Steve says, trying again to get you to say something. To look at him, at least.

It works, a small smile turns your lips. “I never knew.”

He laughs at the sarcasm in your voice, but he plays along anyways. “Oh, I totally was. I just hid it really well by, you know, making you hate me for a while by being annoying. But hey, look at me now! I’m still annoying, but at least I have it all figured out with you.”

“And what do you have figured out, honey?” You turn your head towards him, watch the street lamps illuminate his face.

Steve smiles. “Us. Our future. Sure, I may not know if I’ll ever get a better job, but I’m sure as shit staying with you, starting a life together so that I can annoy you for all eternity.”

“How romantic,” a giggle falls from your lips. You’ve been with Steve for nearly a year now, but you haven’t really talked about the future yet. At least not so intimately, with so much assurance that in the end it’ll be the two of you. “And where will we live, Romeo?”

“New York, obviously. As soon as you graduate, we’ll find some horrible, run down apartment that’s barely big enough for two people. We’ll move in, but there won’t be any air conditioning so we’ll almost murder each other in the heat. Everyone will hate the place, but we’ll love it.”

As Steve talks, the smile that had once been on your face begins to fade. He rambles on, not noticing the shift. He dreams up the plans, how he’ll stay home while you go to class. How he’ll fix the leaky faucet that will inevitably annoy everyone. Steve envisions himself waiting for you to come home after a long day of classes and falling into his arms.

“Steve–” But he doesn’t hear you. He’s busy explaining how he’ll probably have to sell his car to afford the apartment, but that he doesn’t care, and you feel sick. It’s too much, he’s giving up too much. He’s willing to give up his entire life for you, drop everything and follow you without any questions asked.

It’s what your mother did for your father. They met in college, both attending Purdue. Their relationship had been a whirlwind. Love at first sight, married as soon as they graduated, your father convinced your mom to follow him back to Virginia. To abandon her family and move two states over while pregnant with you. She didn’t know anyone in Virginia, her father moved them to a small town where only his name was known.

The divorce that followed twelve years later ruined your mother’s life. She had been left all alone, no family to support her, no friends, in a state she never grew up in.

And now Steve wants to do the same for you.

Raising your voice slightly, you try to interrupt him again. “Steve!”

“What?” He looks over at you, words finally dying. “Do you want to keep the car?”

“You… you can’t.”

Steve frowns. “I can’t what?”

Your hands shake. Your heart trembles. Your words die in your throat. There’s so much you want to say, you can feel the pit in your stomach build into a fist. You can’t let Steve do this. He doesn’t understand that he deserves more than this. “You-you can’t come to New York.”

Everything stills. You don’t dare to breathe, to disrupt the silence. Your words come out all wrong, you know they do, but they’re out in the open and Steve doesn’t look at you as he pulls into your driveway. Silent, he turns the car’s engine off.

“Y/N…” Steve still can’t look at you. He places his hands on the steering wheel, as if bracing himself for whatever will unfold tonight. He’s scared, he doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong. His mind flashes, and for a brief second he’s back at the Halloween party and you’re Nancy in his passenger seat. “Do you not see a future with me?”

“I do!” You sit up in your seat, reach over to touch Steve’s thigh. You need to feel him, to ground yourself to him. Everything about this feels wrong. As if you’re hanging over the edge of a chasm with a long, long fall. “God, of course I see a future with you, I just-this isn’t what you really want.”

Steve doesn’t want to move to New York, even if he doesn’t realize it now. What he’s really doing is chasing after a dream that isn’t his. The timing of this is off, he fought with his dad this morning about a future he was unsure of. You know Steve, maybe even better than he knows himself; he’s not doing it for your relationship or out of love. Steve only wants to appease his father, fulfill whatever desire he thinks you have. This isn’t what he wants, and he’s worked too hard to build the life he has now, without you, to simply throw it all away.

But he can’t see that right now.

“Of course this is what I want, Y/N! All I want is you.” Steve finally looks at you, but there’s a hardness in his eyes. He’s detaching himself from you, putting his walls up. “You and me, that’s what I want.”

You grab his hand, you try to keep your voice calm. “Steve, I love you so, so much, but I can’t-I can’t let you give everything up for me. Your life is here, in Hawkins. You have a job, you have your friends and-and your family, and it wouldn’t be fair to either one of us if you abandon it for me. You could-you could resent me for it later, you could realize you hate our life and wish you never followed me and–”

“Y/N, what did you think was going to happen when you were applying to all those colleges?” Steve runs a hand through his hair, he thought you were beside him this whole time. He assumed you’d been carving out the same future he had been. But he was wrong. “Did you really think I’d just stay behind and wait for you to come home every break?”

“I…” Shamefully, you hadn't been considering what would happen between you and Steve. In your mind, he was your future, he was in it, but the details were hazy. You weren’t sure how, or why, or when, but you knew that in the end, Steve was the person you’d spend forever with.

Steve takes your hesitancy as his answer. “God, I’m such a fucking idiot.”

“Steve–”

“You were just going to leave me.”

He tears his hand from yours and you blink back tears. You’ve never fought with him before, not like this. “I wasn’t just going to leave you! I just-Steve, please just listen!”

“I am, Y/N!” Steve exclaims, voice reverberating the car. You flinch away, and he immediately lowers his voice, apologetic. He hadn’t meant to scare you, he hadn’t meant to make you cry. Ashamed, Steve turns away from you. “I-I’m sorry.”

He wants to wipe the tears he’s caused, but selfishly he also wants you to hurt like he’s hurting. You don’t see a future with Steve. You were going to leave him just like everyone else does.

Steve should’ve known all of this was too good to be true.

“I love you,” your voice is almost inaudible, the three words barely reach the light before they disappear into the dark night. You’re not sure why you say them, the words had built in your chest, the pressure heavy, and you needed to release them. To remind Steve of your oath to him.

Silence fills the car. Steve doesn’t look at you, his shoulders are drawn together. His jaw clenches and you know he’s trying desperately to bite his tongue, withholding the cruel words that only heartbreak can provoke.

“Honey,” you beg him to say something, anything. “Steve.”

“I think you should go.”

The dismissal punches your throat, knocks the wind out of you. He’s shutting you out, closing himself off from you, and you don’t understand how the two of you got here. “I… Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Steve’s words are cool, composed. Indifferent, almost. He still doesn’t look at you, his eyes remain focused on something in your driveway. “It’s late, you should get some sleep.”

“Okay,” you don’t want to leave, you know it isn’t good to go to bed angry with the one you love. Anger should never simmer, it should never be left unwatched. But Steve is silently asking you to give him space so that he can hurt, and you aren’t selfish enough to deny his request. And yet you’re selfish enough to press your lips to Steve’s cheek, but he doesn’t lean in like how normally does. Instead, he remains stoic, and you swallow down your tears and open the door to leave. “Drive home safe, honey.”

Steve doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he starts the car as soon as the door is closed and drives away. He doesn't look back, he doesn’t wait to see if you’ve made it inside your house safely.

Tears spill down your face as you blindly walk towards your front door. Your argument with Steve replays over and over again in your head. You analyze every second, every word, you try to understand when everything fell apart.

It’s dark in your home, your mother is asleep and Dustin’s door is closed, but right now all you want is your brother. You need to talk to him, cry into his shoulder and smell the shampoo he’s used ever since he was a baby. Your feet carry you to Dustin’s room and you pound on his door, begging him to let you in. You don’t bother masking the tears in your voice, you’re too exhausted to hide them from him. “Dustin, please let me in.”

“Go away!” There’s a thud on the door, he’s thrown something at it to shut you up. He doesn’t want to hear some stupid lecture right now. He knows he was an asshole tonight, he regrets it, but right now all Dustin wants to do is sleep. He’ll deal with you tomorrow.

“Code blue,” you press your forehead against the door, your tears fall to the ground. “C-code blue.” Your voice hiccups, more tears come, minutes pass, and your brother never answers.

For the first time since you were kids, Dustin rejects your request for a code blue.

The phone rings. The sound pierces through your ears, cuts through the headache that is starting to form. It’s Friday night. Jonathan is calling.

Squeezing your eyes shut as you head pounds, you inhale shakily. You have to answer him, otherwise he’ll only call over and over again with concern. You’ve never missed a phone call, not once in the months since Jonathan has moved, but tonight you’re exhausted.

“Can we call tomorrow?” You’re too tired to greet him and voice cracks, revealing far too much already.

“Bug?” Jonathan’s high, he’s always high. And yet even in his cloudy haze of smoke he can hear the anguish in your voice. “Is everythin’ okay?”

His question only makes you cry more. You’ve always tried your best to put up a front for others, to pretend that everything is okay. You’ve never wanted to worry people, you’ve always pushed aside your own hurt for the sake of others. Now, as anger and grief and despair clasp their hands around your throat, you’re terrified you’ll suffocate.

You’ve never been able to lie to Jonathan, and tonight you don’t think you can. “I’ve had… the worst night.” You confess to him, wiping away tears.

You tell him everything, your fight with Dustin, how you think he may resent you leaving for college. You tell Jonathan about Lucas, how you were so disappointed in Dustin and Mike. Choking through tears, you explain to Jonathan your fight with Steve. How your words failed you, how hurt he looked, that you can’t explain to him how he only wants his future to align with yours, but not with your relationship.

Even though you know that Jonathan won’t remember any of this tomorrow, for once you’re grateful that he’s too high to remember anything. It feels good just being able to say it all out loud.

“‘M sorry, bug.” Jonathan mumbles over the phone once you’ve finished explaining everything. He sounds far away, figuratively and literally. You can’t imagine how much his drugged mind retained, but you’re thankful to have gotten it all off your chest anyways.

“It’s fine,” you inhale again, you’ve finally stopped crying, though your chest still hurts and your head still pounds. “Steve and I… We’ll figure it out.”

Jonathan pauses, and for a moment you think he’s fallen asleep, but then his voice floats through the telephone line. “Do you.. Do you ever wonder if we’ve made a mistake?”

He strings his words slowly together, says them one by one with a hesitancy, and you frown. You don’t understand what he’s trying to say. What mistakes could you have made together? “What do you mean, bee?”

“I just… everythin’ is so hard. With Nance. Feel like… like ‘m never enough for her. And you, Steve. ‘S hard between you guys.” Jonathan’s words slur, he’s almost too incoherent to understand, and later you will wish that you hadn’t been able to understand him at all. “But you ‘n me? ‘S easy. Always so easy.”

His words toe the line between you, he can’t mean any of it. You don’t want him to mean any of it, because then the fallout would be too catastrophic to contain.

He’s Jonathan. Your oldest, dearest friend. Your best friend. Years ago, you could’ve been something more, you almost were something more, but the time has passed.

You’re with Steve now, you’re happy and so, so in love with him. Even though everything is tangled between you right now, even though you’re fighting, you know that you and Steve will figure it out. He’s the one. He’s the man you want to marry one day, if he’ll allow you to.

Jonathan is your past, Steve is your future, and right now you’re terrified that soon you’ll lose them both.

“Jonathan,” you finally say, his name now heavy on your tongue. It feels like you’re betraying someone while saying his name, but you need to end this conversation. Before Jonathan says something he’ll regret in the morning. “You love Nancy, I love Steve, and you need to go to sleep.”

“Love you,” Jonathan’s words slur even more, his voice drifting off. “You, always you…”

You slam the phone done, ending the call, as a chill runs down your spine. Silence encases you, the house is still. The strings and threads from years ago constrict around your throat. You choke on the lines Jonathan has crossed tonight, the tightness in your head stabs against your skull.

There is no one to hear you, no one there to hear your final words to your best friend. “Goodbye, Jonathan.”

⌑ series masterlist

⌑ i am no longer doing a taglist, my apologies ! however, please feel free to like, reblog, and comment instead :)

#steve harrington x henderson!reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #stranger things #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things rewrite #slowburn #angst #bdyr #m's writing #SEASON 4 EVERYONE CHEER !!!!#also i dont hate eddie but bug does #lmao

756 notes · View notes

sandwhitches · 4 months ago

Note

hii! can i have a cherry popsicle abt suna confessing to the reader but he’s super nervous?? thanks so much! feel free to request smth from me if you’d like to do a little exchange:)

a/n: u must be a mind reader because i’ve LITERALLY been working on this exact prompt omg!!! it’s longer than a drabble (lowkey really long so i just formatted it like a fic☠️) because i already had most of it written when u requested so enjoy :3!! also u BET im gonna send u a request yay!!!

𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒 (𝐟𝐭. 𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐚 𝐑𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐨)

desc: suna is an idiot and seeks the help of an unlikely (and annoying, in his humble opinion) ally to help him confess to you

content: fem. reader, language, suna’s little sister guest star!!!!! (i love that he canonically has a little sister; she’s like middle school age in this ughhhh suna as a big brother makes me want to combust), suna pining for you like a big stupid idiot

wc: 1.5k

this is a part of my summer writing event!!! please feel free to send some requests my way :3

Suna Rintaro knows two things for certain: firstly, he’s absolutely in love with you, and secondly, he hasn’t a clue what to do about it. It was easier for him to come to terms with the latter, seeing as he’d spent most of his teenage years rolling his eyes at mushy displays of affection and taking the piss out of his friends who seemed to have traded all necessary brain function in exchange for falling in love.

To him, falling in love this early on in life was as worthless and cheap as the chocolate he watched be gifted every Valentines Day; eventually, they’ll eat what they like and throw what they don’t in the trash, he’s seen it done countless times before, and he’d be stupid to let something like that happen to him.

Still, here he is, knee-deep and sinking even deeper as the moments go by, he thinks falling in love might be like being pushed into quicksand. As odd as it is for him to admit it to himself, he doesn’t mind it at all.

There’s a certain giddiness that can’t be awarded any time other than when you talk to him. He spends the rest of the afternoon and evening thinking about your conversations, wondering if he said something wrong, thinking of all the ways he could have prolonged the exchange, and smiling fondly when he remembers he managed to make you laugh three times (a new record for him).

“What’s with that face?” Atsumu had interrupted Suna during one of the breaks at volleyball practice, his idiotic grin on full display in Rintaro’s face. Had he really been smiling just from thinking about you?

Suna had mumbled something that sounded like an awkward mixture of shut up and fuck off, quick to storm away in hopes that Atsumu didn’t catch the violent reddening of his cheeks. This is not good, he thinks, love can’t really be this hard to ignore, can it?

He’s put up a hard battle against this exact scenario, and he’s afraid you might have unknowingly thrown a wrench right into his fine tuned machine of a brain. If this really was a battle, he’s fine raising a white flag in order to get to make you laugh more often, for the slight possibility of getting to know if your lips really feel as soft as they appear, and the hope that one day he might forget all about what it was like not to be entirely in love with you.

This is the nail in the coffin, his final surrender. Being in love really must make people stupid, because he’s nervously tugging his collar as he knocks on his younger sister's door. She chirps a surprised “Come in!” and Rintaro struggles to actually reach for the door, consumed with the reality of the fact that this really is where he’s ended up in his life. Great.

His sister gives him an incredulous look when she realizes it had been him who knocked, eyeing him suspiciously, “What do you want?” She mumbles in confusion, setting her pencil down. Suna parts his lips, mouth running dry, then sighs loudly, shaking his head.

“What is it?” She inquires, sudden agitation laced in her tone. Rintaro looks at the ground, too embarrassed to see the inevitable shift in her expression when he asks, “What’s the right way to ask out a girl?”

A silence follows that isn’t long enough in Suna’s opinion, quickly cut off by a loud bark of laughter, “No way! You’re asking me for advice?”

Here’s another thing Suna Rintaro knew for certain, there’s no word that describes the extent in which his younger sister is the bane of his existence.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Suna mutters self-consciously. This probably was a bad idea in theory, but as much as it pains him to admit it, this is his last resort. He knows next to nothing about how to be normal about talking to you, let alone confess; something is better than nothing in this situation, and he swears to himself that he will make sure he never has to ask his sister for advice like this again.

Love, when it comes to you, has to be a one and done thing. He’s sincerely praying to whoever is watching over him that he never has to feel the terror of confessing to anyone else again. It just has to be you.

That’s why he’s here, standing about as stiff as a marble statue as he pushes a shaky finger to your doorbell, drawing his hand back swiftly as if it burned him. In a spurt of unexplainable confidence, Suna had asked if you wanted to hang out on Saturday, conveniently leaving out the part where he desperately wished for it to be more than just a hang out.

Earlier that morning, he’d been so close to chickening out that his sister, of all people, angrily dragged him to the nearest grocery store with a scowl.

“Don’t get her roses, it’s way too soon for that kind of flower!” She snapped, swatting Suna’s hand away from the bouquet.

“Daisies? Seriously? Are you a serious?”

It would be an utter lie if Suna did not admit that he had no idea what his sister was talking about. If love really is this complex, maybe he’s not the right person for it. Still, he finds himself lingering on the face you make when you laugh, the way you’re the first person that he never got sick of texting into the early hours of the morning, and how you’re the only person that could ever make him reconsider that puppy love and crushes might mean something more than he’d given them credit for.

After all, the way he felt for you is what people call love, isn’t it?

Suna grips the assorted bouquet of colorful flowers that his sister had deemed good enough, listening to the sound of your front door clicking open. He’s doomed, this is a bad idea, and yet it’s the only thing he wants to do.

How’d you get to be so beautiful? Suna wonders that a lot, in fact, it makes him angry that you’d just waltzed into his life like you did. It’s absolutely unfair, he was a dead man before he could even put up a fight. Falling in love with you was unavoidable from the beginning, but he seems to be just okay with that.

“Oh!” Your eyes go wide, nonplussed by the bouquet in his hands, “Flowers for me?” You snicker, your laughter is probably the worst thing that could possibly happen right now, it makes everything ten times harder to do.

“Yeah, um-” Rintaro sputters, nervously darting his eyes around for the answer to your question. He knew the answer. You knew the answer.

Hastily, he holds it out for you to take, which you do without hesitation, “What’s the occasion?”

Suna Rintaro knows two more things for certain: firstly, he’ll die if he doesn’t tell you how he feels, and secondly, you’re smart enough to have already surmised exactly what the occasion is.

Everything his sister told him, advisories of “That’s too creepy!” and “Don’t be so blunt about it!” all fly to the back of his mind in exchange for the only things he can really manage to say.

“Well,” Suna starts, cringing at the way his voice cracks, he knows this is about to be the world’s worst confession.

“I, um, I got these for you because I think you’re really pretty,” you watch in bewilderment as his cheeks gradually saturate into a bright red, “but, that’s not just it!” Suna blurts, “You’re also really smart, and funny, and you’re probably the only person I could sit and talk to for hours without getting annoyed by-” Now, Suna is blatantly breaking the third piece of advice his sister had given him, don’t ramble.

“And, I really look forward to talking to you, even if it’s about boring stuff, I still want to hear you talk all day. Which, saying that out loud is really embarrassing for me, but, not because I’m embarrassed of you, I’m just embarrassed that I’m so-”

“Suna-” you interrupt, the cellophane wrap of the bouquet you held crackles as you lower it to see him better. You watch, partially in amusement, while the boy across from you struggles to comprehend everything he just said.

Suna is done for when it comes to you, this was priorly understood, so why is it so hard to put it into words if it’s all he ever thinks about? “I like you a lot…is that okay?” He finally sighs, pale green eyes flickering up to search for a silent answer in the faltering of your expression.

“That’s okay.” You nod, dumbfounded by the sudden declaration, each word was spoken with more confidence than anything you’ve ever heard him say before.

“Cool.” Suna nods dumbly.

“Cool.”

#suna x reader #suna rintaro x reader #suna rintaro #suna haikyuu #suna rintarou #haikyuu x reader #suna fluff #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu #suna rintaro haikyuu #☀️.summer event 2k24 #🍓.suna

471 notes · View notes

randomshyperson · 1 year ago

Text

Do I Wanna Know - Wanda Maximoff Kinktober #05

Summary: Taking advantage of the fact that the Avengers are going through a divorce, you decide to visit your (not-so-secret) girlfriend in the compound. While they fight, you entertain Wanda and present her with a third option besides staying in the tower or fighting Steve Rogers: to run away with you.

Warnings: (+18), shapeshifting reader, some talking of gender identity, implied gender neutral but use of female pronouns, established and secret (ish) relationship, canon-divergence, bottom!Wanda, making out, unprotected sex, creampie, intimate teasing, praising, general fluff. | Words: 4.131k

This work was turned into a series. Check the masterlist here.

General Masterlist | Kinktober Collection | AO3 | Wattpad

-&-

It got more dangerous every time it happened. But getting caught, and all the consequences that would come with it, were distant ideas, possibilities that didn't cross Wanda's mind, especially when she was at your place.

She didn't think about the team, the country, what anyone else might think and judge about the relationship - if she could call it that - between the two of you.

All Wanda could focus on when she was around you was undeniably you.

It became a secret routine, a hidden part of her life that she looked forward to almost all the time. Between tiring and dangerous missions, a new excitement among the gray corners of the private life of what many would call the most powerful Avenger.

Nobody knew about you, not the way she did anyway. What the others saw was the smuggler with no loyalty - the thief who stole and would steal from anyone in her path, for the best price. And could also take anything she was paid to take. From a diamond necklace to an infinity stone, from the most exclusive party of the world's elite to the secret country in the middle of the African continent.

Sometimes, Wanda would trace Wakanda's scar on your skin while you slept, and wonder if the person you were at that moment was the same person that King T'Challa wanted behind bars for a few pieces of metal.

The moral part didn't bother her much - if she was honest, Wanda understood impressions and what really mattered very well. Coming from a country exploited by the United States, which praised a man in blue who was very reminiscent of the captains who marched to the corners of the world to massacre cities, to one who wore iron armor and produced the same bombs that took the lives not only of her parents, but of the vast majority of the children she grew up with, Wanda understood hypocrisy like no one else. Despite everything that had happened to her, she shared a roof with the man indirectly responsible for her parents' deaths. No one could judge her so easily, but Wanda was sure that if your relationship went public, it would happen in the blink of an eye.

So when she was fleeing, for hours between one mission and another, one meeting and another, she tried to enjoy you as much as possible.

And sometimes, when you were apart for too long, and she worried that she was beginning to forget the features of your face, Wanda could prepare a surprise.

She could lie, taking advantage of her magic or not, to prolong everything from your time together to the sensations you shared in bed. She could haunt you - and you would use that term because, without her around, the feeling of lack was very similar to that of loss. - Wanda would invade your dreams, like a sigh in the night never to leave your mind.

But more often than not, she would simply mark you with hickeys and scratches on everything hidden beneath your uniform, and you might leave a path of purple through the valley of her breasts that would be the only proof of the hours she had spent enjoying your company.

The Avengers were on a thin line now - Accords, fights, and old friends, and neither you nor Wanda knew it, but soon, the world would see you two the same way.

Criminals on the run.

But the future hasn't arrived yet - And Wanda, unbeknownst to you, was locked away in a tower like an ancient princess, and you, against the advice of your own safety, went to visit a damsel who wasn't so much defenseless but would definitely be distress to see you there.

"You can't be here." The warning came against your lips, pressed into hers half a second after your arrival into the room - you could only kiss back, smiling at the tug on your leather jacket that fell to the floor behind your feet.

"I missed you too princess." That's what you said back, your hand wrapped around her waist as your tongue slid into hers.

Wanda sighed, her body yearning for your touch and presence just as much as her heart for the last few weeks without seeing you. Despite pushing you around the room, until you were sitting on the bed, Wanda interrupted the motions, her frown of concern and her out-of-rhythm breathing escaping through her swollen, ajar lips.

"I'm serious." She begins a hand on your shoulder to keep you in place. "They can't see you here-"

"The Avengers aren't home, I was told." You justify quickly, your gaze wandering to look her up and down. Wanda always looked so beautiful, it was almost unfair. "United Nations meeting, everyone's talking about it."

One of your hands plays with the folds of her skirt, pulling it up, but Wanda pushes them away.

"Most of them, yes, but I'm not alone." She murmurs, looking around and undeniably using magic to check the floor. "Vision is keeping me company."

"Which one is Vision anyway?" You retort casually, not caring about the last gesture, moving your hands under her clothes and biting back a smile at the way her thigh muscles quiver with your touch.

Wanda rests her other hand on your shoulder, her gaze serious. "The one with the damn magical stone you once stole from Hydra." She retorts, sighing softly as she feels your fingers playing with the laces of her panties. "Please, detka. Vision... would kill you if he found you here."

You click your tongue. “I could disguise myself…” But Wanda shakes her head.

“The stone can see beyond.” She retorts with a certainty that makes you assume this information came directly from her team's study of the Stone. But instead of answering right away, you pull her by the thighs onto your lap, smiling mischievously at the surprised yelp that you muffle on your lips. Wanda tries to listen to reason, but it's too faint compared to the pounding of her own heart.

"Don't make a sound and he'll never know." You whisper your last request before kissing her intently, your bold hands teasing inside her blouse. It doesn't take long for Wanda to be restless in your lap, panting against your tongue exploring her mouth so hungrily, sweating with the precise stimulation of her nipples as your hands pull down her dark bra. But despite a mind almost completely clouded with arousal, she bites at your lower lip and breaks the kiss.

"I missed you." Wanda likes you to know these things because sometimes, you have less than an hour together and it feels like one of those times. She hasn't seen you for weeks, and God knows when she'll get another chance now that the team seems on the verge of collapse.

You give her a teasing smile, your hands wrapped around her. "You're so sweet, Wanda. My beautiful, darling, princess." Your compliments were accompanied by chaste kisses against her jaw, and it always works to leave her a mess, melting into you and at your beck and call.

In the safety of your embrace, Wanda risked being vulnerable:

"Did you miss me too?"

You're not so good at these things - It comes from your past, so different from her happy childhood although later overshadowed by the height of a civil war as a teenager, but definitely different from growing up in Tony Stark's mansions and summer houses, or surrounded by family lunches like Bruce Banner or Thor. If anything, your childhood was closer to that of a Black Widow, with training and punishments whenever the expectations were not achieved.

Still, Wanda warmed her way into your heart, and you tried to give back as best you could.

"I don't really think about you when I'm away." Her expression drops immediately, but before she can conclude anything, you move one of your hands to grab hers, and bring it back inside your blouse. Your intense gaze is the only thing stopping her from pulling away. And when Wanda can feel a new scar near your abdomen, she swallows dryly. "Or rather, I just have to force myself not to do anymore. What you're feeling happened in Berlin. An MK2 hidden in the belt of an arms dealer who asked me... how much I was enjoying America." You narrate, and Wanda frowns, being able to visualize the memory fresh in your mind. You swallowed and looked down at your lap. "I don't know how much he knew, but he said your name, and I just... flinched. I was blinded by rage and he took advantage of it. So, no, Wanda. I can't afford to let you cross my mind when I'm away, because you become a weakness. And I wasn't trained to have weaknesses."

Despite the way her body warms to the confession, Wanda gives you a playful look.

"Should I apologize, you know, for making a romantic out of the grumpy assassin?" she teases, and you chuckle, spinning her around in a tug to drop her on her back on the bed, you on top.

With your body pressed into hers, one hand on her waist and the other adjusting her hair away from her eyes, you nuzzle your noses together. "Don't ever apologize for making me feel this way." You whisper, and Wanda closes her eyes in anticipation, her cheeks burning. "You have me in a way that no one ever could, Wanda Maximoff."

The next kiss is intense and charged with meaning. It makes Wanda shudder and gasp into your mouth. You smile, secretly proud of the effect you have on her, while your hands move down to pull her thighs up and make her wrap herself around you, ankles locked behind your knees.

The position elicits a deep moan from the girl beneath you, and when you adjust yourself to press your pelvis against her, Wanda chokes in surprise, opening her eyes.

"Is that...?"

Without losing your relaxed posture, you offer her a little smile full of the worst intentions. "I thought I'd play differently today." You reply, grinding gently against her and making Wanda bite her lips. The movement leaves you equally affected, but you let her know: "I can always change back..."

Wanda tightens the grip of her legs around you, shaking her head. Her cheeks turn pink. "N-no! I like... I like you either way." She manages to whisper, and you smile warmly, kissing her softly.

One of your hands comes down to invade her blouse, starting an intense making-out session between you, enough to mess up your hair and the bed sheets and leave you hard against her thigh.

When Wanda stops to breathe again, there's a wet spot on the thigh she's spent the last few minutes grinding against - and you take the opportunity to plant kisses on her collarbone. Your hands go down to unbutton your pants.

Between kisses, you warn her: "I have to be careful... I think it works like a real one. Speaking of biological functions, you know. "

She uses magic to force your pants down to your ankles, aroused enough that the delay was driving her to the brink of insanity. Still, she manages to gasp between kisses: "You think?"

You hum, distracted by the sensation of your cock rubbing against her covered intimacy - body shuddering with arousal. "Y-yes... I've never... used it for sex before... Just for the job, you know? While in disguise."

The information made Wanda need to ignore the liquid arousal and press trembling hands onto your shoulders, gently pushing you away and attracting your attention.

After a sigh, she asked: "Are you comfortable, darling? With this of course... I don't know the exact feel of your powers, but I don't want you to think you need to change a single thing about yourself for me. Who you are is incredible and enough."

You break into a loving sigh and attack her face with kisses that make Wanda giggle shyly. "You're too sweet on me, Maximoff." You tease, and wrap your arms around her on the bed, hugging her tightly. Wanda bites her lips, still well aware of your lust brushing her, but trying to ignore the sensation in case you change your mind. After all, just your presence after so many weeks away was what she really wanted. Sex was just a bonus.

Somehow, she ends up on top again, your foreheads touching.

"It's different because of my powers, everything they do for me, changing my body as needed, you know? But still, I feel that even without these abilities, these details wouldn't make any difference to me." You confess with a sigh, one of your hands stroking behind her back. "Whether my body resembles of a boy or a girl, I say. In my head, I'm always in the middle, or outside of it. I can't explain it very well, and I’m still trying to understand it better but… I know for a certain that I want to make you feel good. In any of the ways I’m able to."

Wanda absorbs your words for a moment, her heart pounding and her chest warm with tenderness. She doesn't know exactly when she fell for you - whether it was from the first second your eyes met, or whether it was over time, between flirtations and arguments, until finally, she had the courage to act on those feelings and was lucky that you held on to them as much as she did.

Instead of answering with words, she kisses your skin. Your cheeks, your jaw, and your lips, while her hands touch wherever they can. It takes you by surprise, the familiar sensation of her magic on your clothes until you're both skin to skin on the mattress. Wanda sighs deeply, still with her eyes closed, as she adjusts herself on your lap, but looks up at you again before shifting to fit into you.

"Are you ready, love?" You whisper against her lips, one hand on her waist, the other lining up at her warm entrance. Wanda welcomes you with breathtaking heat - you slide in easily, yet she gasps until she gets used to the sensation of being filled, her hands firmly on your shoulders. You sigh too, trying not to get lost in the sensation as you ask: "Can I move?"

"Y-yes, please." She practically meows impatiently, her forehead falling against your shoulder as your hips move upwards, gently thrusting inside her. But Wanda clenches inside, hot and eager, and you grunt, trying to hold in your own pleasure. She grinds down against your hips, the sound of her wet arousal echoing between you. Your hands tighten on her hips, and you gradually increase the speed, making Wanda gasp between moans against your ear. "Dorogoy... that feels so good..."

You manage to gasp back, nodding softly in agreement: "You have no idea how amazing you feel, baby... so fucking wonderful... God..." It takes you by surprise, the first reach of your climax. You try to hold back, but Wanda bites your skin hard as she feels the warm shot on her walls, and your grunt turns into a heavy moan as you spill inside her. Wanda wraps her arms around your shoulders, grinding gently as you throb out the last drops, which soon run down her thighs. A moment later, your voice hoarse, you whisper: "I'm sorry, babe. I didn’t... know it would be so hard to hold it..."

She giggles shyly, kissing your skin before looking at you again. A mischievous gaze. "Do you need a break, or perhaps that was the highlight of the night...?" She teases, but you snort in fake indignation, fixing your grip on her waist to flip her onto the bed. The gasp of surprise turns into a muffled whimper as you thrust inside her powerfully, hard again as if you hadn't just come. Her hands move to your waist, and her nails dig into your hips with each thrust.

"You were saying?" You challenge softly, panting against her lips. Wanda chuckles under her breath, one of her legs tucking behind yours, increasing your reach deep inside her. With each thrust in, she shuddered and gasped on the bed, closer and closer to the edge. You lowered yourself completely, pinning her to the mattress and burying yourself inside her as you felt her become impossibly tight. Wanda came in a high-pitched whimper, her nails digging into your lower back just enough to make a mark. You kissed her jaw, rocking gently as she still rode the waves of her own climax.

When you suddenly pulled out, cumming against her soaked and abused pussy, she mewed in protest, her leg trying to pull down and back inside of her. You chuckled hoarsely.

"Baby, I shouldn't have come inside the first time." You whispered, kissing her cheek. "I have to be careful, it's not replication, I transform truly. Let's get you a pill after this, all right? And we'll need some condoms for next-."

"Problems for later." Wanda cuts in good-naturedly, pulling your face back to hers and kissing you intently, effectively silencing any rational thought in your head.

It's honestly the best you've felt in a long time - as it usually is when you're around Wanda Maximoff.

It shouldn't surprise you that much when a few hours of rolling around in bed together, the moment is interrupted by knocks on the door.

Wanda, naked and panting, is sitting on your hips, and you're inside her still, ready to come again when she practically jumps away, and you have to muffle the grumble of frustration against her pillow.

"Y-yeah?" she manages to ask the visitor, sitting on shaky knees on the bed, one hand pulling the covers over her body.

It takes a moment, but the male voice answers: "Sorry to disturb you, Wanda, but I made dinner. Won't you join me?"

She pushes the fingers you threaten to drag between her legs away, a smile playing on her lips.

"I'm not hungry, Vision, thank you."

There's another pause, in which Wanda throws you warning glances to stop trying to touch her before the robot speaks again, more seriously than before.

"Wanda, can we talk? Please."

She frowns, and exchanges a look with you, who sigh, rolling your eyes and looking away, your chest burning with a strange sensation. Using magic to bring one of the robes to her after muttering "One second", Wanda stumbles to the bedroom door, which she leaves with only a small gap to the corridor.

"Vis, it's not a good time-

"She shouldn't be here, Wanda." Vis cuts in, and you tense up on the bed. But he makes no mention of entering the room, and Wanda comes out wrapped in her robe, covering the ajar door with her body as a dry laugh escapes her.

"That's none of your business."

The man shakes his head in disbelief, and his tone of voice, although restrained, can be heard by you inside the room.

"Wanda, please be rational." He insists seriously. "At such a delicate moment for the Avengers, to bring... a criminal into the tower..."

"Vision, go away."

He sighs, hesitantly. "I should report this." He mutters, and although you can't see Wanda's face, you can see the way her shoulders tense and you can imagine the hardness of her expression.

"Do as you wish, but know, I will never speak to you again if anything happens to her."

Vision shakes his head. "And where do you think their choices will lead? If it's not the Avengers, it'll be the police who capture her. Interpol, or whichever organization finds her first. What they're doing, Wanda, has no future and you know it." He says, sighing in disapproval. "Send her away now, or I'll warn the others." Vision announces at last.

"Maybe I'll just go with her." Wanda retorts, but Vision chuckles dryly.

"You have no idea what's happening outside those walls, Wanda." He retorts seriously. "The fine line we're on. Mr. Stark is trying to keep everyone out of danger, and after everything we caused in Lagos, wandering around without signing the Accords is out of the question."

Wanda chokes in surprise. "What... Am I not allowed to leave the tower?"

Vision clears his throat, nodding. "It's for the safety of the civilians." He retorts coldly. "Although I believe your intentions are good now, your record as a Hydra terrorist and recent events are not in your favor. It's best, for everyone, that you stay here until things settle down and all the signatures are counted."

Wanda is speechless at the absurdity, but in the meantime, you're already dressed and she jumps softly when your hand opens the rest of the door. Vision's eyes go wide, but you just give him a forced smile.

"Hey, microwave, long time no see." You greet sarcastically, and the man adjusts himself.

"Unfortunately not long enough." He retorts coldly.

"Jeez, someone's rusty." You grumble, but he looks at you seriously.

"Don't abuse my patience, Miss. You have fifteen minutes to leave this tower, or I'll call National Security with your location."

You rest your arm on Wanda's shoulder, a smile playing on your lips. "Wow, am I that important?"

Vision takes a hard step forward, but Wanda's magic pushes him back with a jolt. You laugh at his indignant expression.

"That's enough, Vision. She's leaving soon, and you're leaving now." Wanda warns, at last, her irises bright red. The synthesizer begrudgingly gives you one last threatening look and leaves the corridor.

You wrap your arms around Wanda again to kiss her hard as you close the door with your foot, but she doesn't match the intensity, and soon, her hands are on your shoulders, gently pushing you away and stopping the kiss.

At your confused expression, she swallows dryly. "You should go." She whispers, fear in her eyes. "I know he meant it. And I don't want to ruin this night with you getting shot by some federal agent."

You hesitate, but end up nodding, kissing her on the cheek before walking away to get your shoes.

But as you put them on, and Wanda hugs her own body, you take a chance:

"You know you don't have to stay here, right?" You begin a little upset. "You could do like that archer guy and ask for a retirement. Or have your friends forgotten that you've already saved the world once and therefore, you don’t owe any of them shit?"

Despite the childish stubbornness in your tone, Wanda smiles sadly before retorting. "I don't think they've forgotten, but things are more complicated than before. And I'm not like Clint Barton, darling." She retorts, swallowing dryly. "I don't have a family to go back to."

You frown, absorbing the words in silence as you finish tying your sneakers. And then, as if it wasn't the sweetest thoughtful thing you've ever said to her, you declare:

"I could be family, Wanda."

She looks away for a moment because she doesn't want to cry in front of you. She has the impression that you won't leave - and she needs you to go so that you can be safe - if you notice the tears.

Sniffling softly, and wiping her face before you notice, Wanda asks. "Do you really mean that?"

You stand up, moving closer to her to hold her cheeks. "Every word." You assure her with a smile. "We could travel the world, and have lunch and dinner in different places every day. We would buy all the most expensive and tacky things just because we can..."

Wanda giggles shyly at the fantasy, allowing herself to believe it for just half a second. She holds your hands cupped around her face afterward and sighs.

"It's a beautiful dream, darling."

You swallow dryly, staring at her. "Just a dream, isn't it?" You sigh sadly, and she nods just as upset.

Her tone is very low, like a secret. "They'll find you eventually. And I... God knows how much my power will grow. I can't trust myself outside of here, without the help of training. Stark's containment plans. And I know it's horrible, but I don't want to hurt anyone. Ever again. And if I went with you, with this life you lead, eventually, I would."

You swallow dry, sighing in understanding. This time, it's you who sniffles.

“I’m always one call away, Wanda Maximoff. Whenever you need me, just pick up the phone.” Wanda feels her chest warm at your words, but all she does is smile tenderly against the kiss you place on her lips.

Unknown to both of you, it won’t take long for her to call. With really unexpected big news.

Two of them precisely.

-&-

This work was turned into a series. Check the masterlist here.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x reader #elizabeth olsen x reader #marvel imagines #kinktober 2023

2K notes · View notes

tallykale · 1 month ago

Text

episode 19

as you can probably tell, i've thought a lot about what post-canon one would look like in my vision... i've said before that i have issues with straightforward fix-its, and i do genuinely love the tragic open-ended conclusion that the series has, but i... am not immune to playing with characters like dolls LOL

here's some writeups about where everyone is at mentally in these pictures. please please please PLEEEASE feel free to ask me more about this cuz i love talking about my beautiful mind palace

charlotte: somehow the most optimistic person in here, mostly out of necessity. when she died, she saw parker leading her out of a cave as her waiting room and was about to take his hand when airy respawned her, so she has a brief moment of bonding with bryce when he talks about the waiting room and seeing stella. with the knowledge that there is potentially a way to get out (bryce and liam being the proof) and the fear of rotting away again she is by far the most actively motivated to help liam figure out the computer. a lot of her days are spent talking to liam over the mic and writing out the code in the dirt so she can try to understand it. she still has to push against her natural misanthropy (and often shouts at liam or bryce for being fucking stupid and useless) but both working on the code and helping amelia give her something concrete to focus on outside herself. she wants to get home so she can make amends with her friends. charlotte is scared of dying! she's really genuinely horribly scared of dying and has awful vivid nightmares about rotting away. she often pushes amelia into talking about her life which causes some tension, but it's because she really hates seeing amelia lose herself like that - a metaphorical rotting away of the self.

subway seat & atom: not on the same level of pure existential depression as the batch 1 contestants, but they both feel the hopeless mood pretty harshly regardless. subway feels very lonely as the only hidden object still 'awake', and likes to carry whippy creamy around rather than just leave him sitting on the ground constantly. tray is too big and unwieldy for him to do that with, but he 'hangs out' with her anyway, talking to her and whippy creamy in the hopes that it'll get them to want to wake up again. atom doesn't talk much, but he still carries his piece of grass. he's definitely the person who's the least affected by the prospect of being stuck on the plane forever, since he… doesn't really perceive existence in the same way as everyone else? he's an atom. but his time in the competition definitely made him view everyone else as friends, and he feels even more powerless than usual in the face of this incomprehensibly difficult problem.

amelia: falls into total hopelessness when bryce rejoins, basically seeing it as the final sign that they're never going home. still calls everyone their competition names (she actually gets into a big fight with bryce about it lol). she gets really clingy and dependent on bryce when he first comes back but it crashes and burns pretty quickly when, during an argument, bryce tells her how much he wishes he could just go back and never have let liam in and forgot about everything… which really sucks for amelia to hear, given that she's part of that everything. after that, with bryce isolating himself, she's kind of reliant on charlotte to keep her going. she blames liam for airy dying and secretly kind of thinks he killed him but just isn't telling them… she also doesn't really believe there's any way of getting out and is just kind of waiting around to die of, like, old age i guess. after how long she's been here, amelia is convinced that she has nothing to even go back to and frequently forgets details about her life. regularly cries and hates being alone. the shift markings on the side of the water tub have changed from being a way to keep track of time and stay sane to a horrible reminder of how long they've been here and how much longer of an eternity they have before them.

bryce: hates himself and liam and airy and the plane and his entire stupid fucking life. bryce is really, really fucking pissed off at liam for losing the notes and letting texty die and every other mistake he's made, and isn't shy about telling him that. as well as being angry, he's also incredibly miserable, because he was finally starting to turn his life around (he quit drinking after the plane) and now it's all for nothing - and even worse, those 7 months he spent getting better were 7 months he did nothing to help the rest of them, especially amelia. he's horribly guilty about that, and that he didn't tell amelia about the fake votes before he was eliminated… but finds it easier to just let liam take the heat for that one at first. after he fights with amelia about it he becomes a bit of a hermit, hanging out by himself next to the plug, and never responds when liam tries to talk. contemplates suicide regularly but pretty much the only option is drowning himself, and the idea of that still scares him more than staying like this forever. would kill for a beer.

liam: tortured by horrible guilt every day over a million different things. these include getting bryce pulled back into this (plus delayed guilt over getting him for real killed), letting texty die and not saying anything about the charger, not telling amelia that everything was fake, knowing that charlotte is going to die if he doesn't get really smart really fast… he's frequently gripped by fits of rage where he almost smashes the computer and has to hobble around outside with the axe for a while to blow off steam. he has really bad nightmares and dissociative episodes, made worse by the isolation and spending hours in a dark cave. liam really wants to fix things with everyone but genuinely has no idea how to start that conversation. he assumes airy killed himself (and views it as an unforgiveably cowardly move) and directs a lot of resentment towards him. he has a lot of things he wants to say, especially to bryce, but the fact that he cant talk to anybody one on one makes things difficult. spends a lot of time just reading through the code, too afraid to actually make any changes in case everyone explodes, but talking it through with charlotte at least makes him feel like he's doing something. more than he would like to admit, liam catches himself staring at the plane as if it's a simulation or a livestream.

#hfjone #charlotte stern #amelia euler #bryce hansen #liam plecak #hfjone subway seat #hfjone atom #feels wrong to tag whippy creamy and tray but theyre there too.. sort of #my art #kind of proud of these i dunnooooooo i had fun playing with a new brush and light and whatnot. Whatever. Go my scarab

223 notes · View notes

pedropascallme · 2 months ago

Text

Here Below

Pairing: Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x f!Reader

Summary: "He wasn’t used to need like this, the type that came with consequences less physical and more emotional."

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI!!!!) canon typical violence and lots of it, threatening language, angst, mentions of cannibalism, age gap obviously (Cooper is canon 200+ years old; reader is written as early 20s), loss of virginity, Coop’s got a thing for corruption, masturbation (m), oral sex (m & f receiving), p in v sex, dom/sub dynamics, biting, dacryphilia, like one (1) spank, so much dirty talk, degradation, praise, brief mention of anal, multiple orgasms what's a refractory period, creampie, phonetic spelling of Cooper's accent because I can, if I missed anything please let me know!!

AN: And here's part two!! Part one here!!

When he was young, Cooper had a mantra; live long, live well, live forever.

The idea of fading into nothing was horrifying enough to keep him up at night even when he wasn’t yet old enough to write his name legibly in crayon. So he became something—made something of himself, and carved out a lasting legacy in his career and in his daughter.

And where was she?

Where did the time go?

There was a cavity in his chest the size of his fist. It hollowed and cracked the longer he lived, and he knew he’d become a shell of the man he once was. Surviving didn’t cut it; the more time he spent in the wastes, the more often he considered fading into what he was so afraid of once upon a time.

But you were warm. Your cheek pressed against Cooper’s chest in a manner that looked uncomfortable; you sagged into him, sliding gently up and down the fabric of his shirt as you took soft breaths in your sleep. He felt it a priority to stay upright, to breathe softly and let his eyes dart ceaselessly around the cavernous building with its too high ceilings and echoey walls. To keep you comfortable. To keep you safe.

To keep you alive.

Because there was life in you, unlike any he’d been able to conjure up for himself. You were so unbelievably fucking willful, so optimistic in the face of end times. And even when you lost that optimism, the fear that you expressed was never selfish.

They had your face. You don’t have a name. I don’t want it to happen to you.

Cooper felt another bit break off from the hole inside his chest as he recalled your tears.

But when he looked at you now, frozen in unconscious bliss, the occasional twitch of your brow as you dreamed, he dared to consider the possibilities.

He wasn’t used to need like this, the type that came with consequences less physical and more emotional.

He wrapped an arm around you, muttering into the darkness about how you’d fall off of him if you kept slipping down the way you were, searching for an excuse for the action he knew was meant to ground himself.

That wasn’t to suggest that your presence offered no biological effects. Daily you found ways to make life more difficult, his pants tighter, and daily he thought about showing you what you did to him—over and over and over again.

He would never get over the image of you, nude from the waist down, choking on the syllables of his name as you made yourself cum. And he never wanted to forget it; you, so pretty and naïve, allowing for such corruption under his watch, glowing under his praise and keening at his demands.

He felt himself throb, the sore tip of his cock leaking enough to create a mark on the fabric of his pants. Despite the depravity of it all, he reckoned his only options were to take care of himself or walk stiff all throughout the next day.

He also knew that it was the depravity that really did it for him.

He took off his gloves; while the leather usually did just fine for him, he craved something more tender, more human. Carefully, with the hand not burdened by the weight of your head on him, he undid his belt, popping the button on his trousers and inching the zipper down. He reached into his boxers, pulling his length free and groaning softly at the relief he felt shoot through him. His cockhead, swollen and red from lack of attention, leaked with his arousal. His skin was hot, radiating lust as he wrapped a fist around himself, trying his best to leave you undisturbed as you stayed snoring softly on his shoulder.

Even in the fading light of the fire, he could see his fist, scarred and barely human, juxtaposed with the still peachy-tan skin of his cock. The irony of the one part he had that still looked the most unchanged being the one that gave him the most grief wasn’t lost on him, but he sighed, ignoring the mental gymnastics he was trying to perform and instead focusing on the squeeze of his hand around his erection.

He let himself fall into fantasy, imagining your hands, uncalloused and smooth, stroking him. He hesitated with each brush over his length, trying to encapsulate your willingness and uncertainty, your eagerness to please and your curiosity of his anatomy fighting with your lack of experience. Cooper mumbled to himself, the pleasure giving him the confidence to be unrestrained even with you pressed to his side, and imagined what he’d say if it were you: “Gentle like’at, sweetheart. Give it a squeeze, don’t forget the tip, there. How ‘bout you take a taste, baby—wrap them pretty lips ‘round my cock and lap up what I give ya. Wanna see ya take it all.”

His head fell back, ashamed but so greatly enjoying the mental image. He thought of you, spread in front of him and bucking your hips, struggling to fit two of your fingers into your cunt, and a gruff moan ripped from his throat as he pictured you in the same position, your fingers replaced with his cock as you begged for more, fighting to take him past the tip.

Your hands. Your lips. Your tongue. Your cunt. He wanted all of you, helpless underneath him as he showed you the ropes, crying out your want and your satisfaction. He wanted to corrupt you, ruin you for anybody else, and then some.

He tightened his grip, slowly stroking from base to tip and manipulating his wrist to bob over the head of his cock, forcing him to arch his back and let out a raspy groan of your name.

His jostling roused you from your sleep, and you sighed, blinking your eyes in the dark at the silhouette of his cock.

He didn’t notice, or if he did, he didn’t care, but your eyes stayed glued to him. The way he released himself to trail fingers up the underside of his cock, dropping lower to cup his balls before taking hold of his length once more to fuck his fist. His moans were choked back, clearly in an effort to keep you undisturbed, but they were beautiful nonetheless as they joined the sound of dry friction of his cock against his palm.

You tilted your head back, still comfortable on his torso, nestled into his stomach. You looked up at his face, his eyes almost closed, mouth open and panting. He looked back at you, and for a split second he looked scared, caught in the act. But when your lips parted, the ghost of a smile on your mouth as you blinked up at him, he slowed his hand, the unease fading.

“Y’want me t’stop, I will, darlin’,” his breathing was labored, his fist sinking down to the base of his cock, “Say th’word.”

“No,” your voice croaked with sleep, but the zeal was still present in your dismissal. “Keep going…show me.”

He sighed, resuming a steady pace. “Voyeuristic li’l thing, huh?”

“You started it.” You squeezed your thighs together, still sticky with the residue of your own self-pleasure session. “Wanna see how you do it.”

Cooper hummed, clenching his cock. “Y’gonna tell me ‘f’I do it wrong, same way I told you?”

“No. I’m gonna watch and learn,” you purred, letting your hand wander over his thigh, “So that I can do it right for you.”

“Christ, girl,” he groaned, hips stuttering into his hand, “Give a man a heart attack.”

“Mhm,” you smiled, skin heating up at the sound of his voice.

“Y’wanna take a turn?” He removed his hand once more, “Be my guest, sweetheart.”

Now your confidence faltered, unsure of where to go from here; did you know enough? Had the few moments you’d spent watching him fist his cock been enough to get it right? And was there even a right way to do it?

But this is what you wanted. Far from what you could’ve imagined in the darkness of your bedroom, this moment now was what you wanted; the whispers and dim light, tile floor sticking to the exposed skin of your back as your shirt rode up, stars fading into daylight in the sky—it didn’t matter that it wasn’t romantic by vault standards.

It was him.

“I—will you tell me how?” You whispered, “The way you did before?”

He chuckled, but it was drenched in lust. “Aw, what’s wrong, darlin’? Think those pretty hands won’be able to hold onto all o’that?” His cock bounced against his stomach, and you whimpered. “I’ll tell ya how I like it, baby, don’ you worry.”

The reassurance he offered, or perhaps more so the way he said it, made you squirm next to him; you rocked your hips against nothing, thighs pressed together tightly and begging the floor for some type of alleviation from the ache.

He watched you move, your futile attempt to get yourself off making his cock stand even more erect. He reached out, guiding one of your legs over his in a weak attempt to help you straddle his thigh. You nuzzled closer against him, bucking your hips and feeling the fabric of your pants bunch up over your legs.

“Now, gimme that hand,” he beckoned, and you lifted your hand to him. He took your wrist in his own hand, squeezing gently to encourage your fingers to relax open, and then licking a thick stripe up your palm. “Put it where’ya want.”

Saturated with his spit, you let your hand fall over his crotch, ghosting over his cock before taking the initiative to grasp onto the length. It was warm, throbbing and soft despite the taut pull of skin. You let out an inquisitive gasp, and Cooper had to dig his nails into the tile of the floor to keep from cumming the moment your hand made contact with him.

“Fuckin’ soft,” he groaned, “Sweet hands, darlin’. C’mon ‘n show me what’cha got.”

You stroked him leisurely, watching your hand run over every inch. You quickly learned to pay attention to the tip, and he bucked his hips into your fist when you moved your wrist over him just so.

“Tha’s’it—fuck me—jus’ like that, good fuckin’ lord,” he couldn’t stop running his mouth, unable to hide the pleasure he was getting out of your movements. “Sweet li’l girl knows her way ‘round a cock.”

You ground your hips into his thigh, not caring that the denim of the pants you wore dug awkwardly into your crotch. Giving him pleasure made you feel powerful, and made you equally as, if not more so, turned on as he was.

“Just doing what you tell me,” you squeezed him at the base of his cock before slowly moving your hand upwards until you got to his cockhead, turning your wrist and then repeating the motion.

“Y’like doin’ what I tell ya t'do, sweetheart?” He let his head drop to his shoulder, eyes shut and mouth open when he felt your thumb brush over his leaking tip.

“Yeah, Coop,” you liked seeing him this way—zero inhibitions and focused on you, trusting you with his body and letting you provide for him, for once. “Love it.”

“Fuck,” he groaned out, his hand coming up to grasp at your face, eyes opening to meet your gaze, “Say it again f’me, baby. Whole thing.”

“I love it, Cooper,” you mewled, leaning into his touch and moving your fist more rapidly over him now. “Love doing what you tell me to do.”

“Damn fuckin’ right, you do,” he growled, knitting his brow in appreciation of your ministrations, “Got you humpin’ me like a fuckin’ whore, one li’l taste of my cock ‘nd you’ll do anythin’ I fuckin’ say.”

“Yeah,” you whined, needy and unfamiliar with the want that you were experiencing. You couldn’t have denied it even if you had wanted to, eagerly grinding against him and letting his words push at your core. “Anything.”

“So work that fuckin’ hand ‘n make me cum, girl,” his jaw was clenched as he barked his words, body clamoring to focus on his immanent high. “Know y’got it in ya, sweetheart, lemme give y’what’cha want.”

“Want—wanna put my mouth on you,” you didn’t know why the thought occurred to you then, thinking back to things the older girls had spoken about doing in hushed voices at the back of classrooms, but you let it slip out into the jumble of moans already falling from your lips. You dug your face into his collar, “Please.”

“Won’t stop ya, sweetheart,” he had to clench his fist to keep himself from spilling into your hand; the image of you begging to blow him could've been enough to do him in completely.

You fell over yourself trying to get onto your hands and knees in front of him. There was a thrill in experiencing something of this nature without being shown how to do it first, and you were eager to please now; to show off for him and have him talk you through every flick of your tongue.

You lowered your face against his cock, feeling how the warmth of his skin seeped into your cheek, the sweet smell of sex flooding your senses. Your fingers traced over him, gentle and patient, as you sized him up and decided where to go from here.

You kitten-licked his cockhead, and he hissed, forcing a hot wisp of breath through his teeth.

“Tha’s it,” he was white-knuckling his thigh, trying to avoid looking directly at you for fear that he would cut the scene short. “Don’ be shy, now.”

You took his rasp in stride, taking the entirety of his tip into your mouth, tongue dancing circles around his length and savoring the bitterness of what leaked from him. He placed a hand on the back of your head, not adding any pressure, simply a gesture of goodwill, and what you could have.

“Mhm,” you moaned, mouth full of him. You reached for his hand and encouraged him to tangle his fingers in your hair. When he tugged at the roots, you whimpered, slipping down his length slowly, trying to hollow your cheeks and let all of him in.

“Fuckin’ desperate, ain’t’cha,” Cooper panted, fingers laced through your hair and moving along with you, “Mouth full’a my cock—y’enjoyin’ yourself, sweetheart? Workin’ at it, li’l slut that y’are?”

You groaned around him, pushing yourself further until you choked, pulling back to splutter as drool pooled over your lower lip and dripped down your chin. He wiped you off, rubbing your spit over his cock and fisting himself as he spoke.

“Y’wanna keep goin’?” He still had one hand in your hair, pulling you back to look at him while he drawled, “Gaggin’ and droolin’ like that, y’still want more?”

“Yes,” you heaved, lungs on fire and throat sore, but still so full of need for him, “Please, let me finish.”

That earned a sharp laugh, “Think ya mean let me finish,” he removed his hand from his cock, wiping the remaining spit on your cheek, slapping at your face softly. “Open wide, sweetheart, lemme fuck that pretty mouth o’yours.”

You did as you were told, breathing through your nose and letting him thrust deep down your throat. Despite it all, he remained gentle—by his standards, at least. Gaze focused on you and any tell-tale sign of discomfort, laser focused on the way tears sprung up on your lash line and how deep he had to go to make them fall over your cheeks; making you gag but not making you suffocate.

You felt like you were on cloud nine; his stare made you feel safe, a watchful gaze over you as you wrapped your lips around his thick shaft and let your tongue roam the veins on the underside of his cock. He was gentle enough, but not overly so—a perfect medium for your first experience of this kind.

“Y’gonna take it, baby?” He huffed, veins on his temples popping beneath scarred skin, “Take it in that hot fuckin’ mouth? Swallow my fuckin’ load, good girl that’cha’re?”

You let out a happy gasp, desperate to taste him, let him coat your throat with everything he had to offer you. You found one of your hands coming to cup his balls, tempted by the downy, pillowy skin and the way they moved in your palms.

When you gave them a squeeze, all bets were off for Cooper.

He held you by the scalp, roaring out his orgasm as he stuttered against your mouth.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he eased you off his cock, watching you lick your lips and gather any of his spend that escaped the confines of your mouth before you swallowed.

It was bitter, and it lingered. You coughed again, making a face.

“Tastes weird,” you complained, wiping the corners of your mouth with your thumb. You stayed between his legs, still happy to play with his softening length and lap up any cum you hadn’t gotten to on time.

“Were y’expectin’ lemonade?” He panted, groaning at the way you licked at his cock. He pulled you up, letting you settle back into the spot you’d been sleeping in earlier by his side. “Reminds me, though,” he shuffled, tucking himself back into his pants and rummaging through a deep pocket for something. “C’mere, darlin’.”

He uncapped a syringe of something, and you shuddered.

“Not until you tell me what that is…”

“RadAway,” he cocked a brow, “My swimmers look jus’ like me, sweetheart. Don’t want ya getting’ sick cause I couldn’t keep it in m’pants.”

You smiled, rolling your eyes in jest and offering him your arm.

“Good girl,” he punctured you with the needle, and you tried not to dwell on the way the penetration paralleled the way he’d pushed into your throat.

“Thank you,” you mumbled, rubbing the spot where the needle had intruded and leaning against him.

“Should be thankin’ you,” he mused, throwing the syringe off into the dark somewhere. “Perfect fuckin’ mouth on you—when y’ain’t complainin’.”

“Just gonna have to fuck it next time I start talking too much,” you nudged him with your shoulder, getting comfortable as you readjusted into your spot.

He grunted in approval, snaking an arm around you.

“It’s my turn to keep watch,” you whispered, eyes droopy as the adrenaline you’d been running on began to crash.

“Go back t’sleep, y’irradiated li’l thing,” he smirked, “Don’t want’cha slowin’ us down tomorrow.”

~~~

You made a game out of avoiding the skeletonized remains of what once was while you walked through the waste. You tried to identify what bone you were looking at, who or what it might’ve belonged to.

The skulls were easy, it was the short bones that made the game difficult for you.

But it made the time pass faster, although you’d realized that over the course of the several weeks you’d been accompanying the Ghoul, time mattered less and less in the grand scheme of things. The sun rose and it set and then it rose again; you had nowhere to be and nothing to anchor you anywhere.

Not nothing, you shook the thought from your mind.

Cooper walked several steps ahead of you. He’d become more and more willing to let you out of his sight on the treks you undertook through the sand, though when the sky went dark, he still maintained vigil over you.

Maybe it was just that he didn’t care, but you liked to think it was a matter of trust and perhaps even confidence in your ability to survive.

He still walked beside you often, especially when you got chatty and he had full vials in his pockets.

That just made you think it was more so a matter of him trusting himself to stand by you.

Admittedly, you’d been quieter in the days since you’d left the abandoned mall. There was less effort put into small talk on both your part and his—and you knew it had mostly to do with your own racing thoughts, but you questioned his reasoning.

You hadn’t been able to bring it up. Any of it—from putting yourself on display to encouraging his own debauchery. You were unsure of whether or not it was even appropriate to talk about now that it was over.

Was it over?

He’d made no effort to mention it, either. Whether that meant he, too, was constantly mulling it over, or if he simply didn’t care, you couldn’t tell. You could never really tell with him. You just knew his gaze lingered more often, and that his hand wandered down the small of your back even when there was nowhere to guide you. It wasn’t unwelcome—not in the slightest; you basked in his attention, even when it meant being on the receiving end of off-color jokes about your survival skills or your time in the vaults. But you wanted him to be the one to acknowledge what had happened, to corner you with the reality and make you confront it head on.

Because if you brought it up, there would be no proof that he cared, too.

Not to mention, you liked seeing him take control in ways that didn’t involve killing anybody.

Cooper could hear you pause occasionally, muted footprints over the sand coming to a halt so that you could analyze another skeleton. He’d noticed your game, thought it was cute, even, that you’d managed to become some kind of expert in desert decay, but he stayed quiet out of the worry that him pointing it out would embarrass you.

That, and every time he spoke to you now, he could only imagine the drag of your hand down his cock, even after several days of trying to will away the mental image.

He swallowed dryly, spitting the sand from his mouth, and the cynicism with it.

Truth be told, he had no regrets; including becoming the face of the corporation that would end life on earth as he knew it; including shilling himself as some kind of glorified party clown; including keeping the hat he still wore after 200 years.

So it wasn’t regret that kept him from opening his mouth now, but a strong sense of trepidation.

He had gotten so used to brothel whores and quick back ally fucks, and he tried to tell himself the worry lied in the notion that he’d gone too far, too fast. You were new to the world in so many ways, new to pleasures of the flesh, and part of him felt as though he had taken something away from you despite the eager consent he’d received. While he certainly enjoyed defiling you, showing you the way around your pleasure and his own—and knew that you enjoyed it, too—he felt, in the back of his mind, that he certainly shouldn’t have liked it as much as he did.

But more than the anxiety that came with corrupting you (which, in actuality, he was more than somewhat proud of) the real dread centered around the power you had over him. That wasn’t new, he recognized; you had, for as long as you’d been with him, been able to get your way. He was a weak-willed old man, he probably knew that more than you did. But in this respect, with your new ability to reject him outright—to tell him what had happened would never happen again—he couldn’t bring himself to give you the opportunity, fearing that if he opened his mouth, you would shut him down.

He’d tasted the forbidden fruit, and to be cast out of Eden would be an experience that he would, in fact, come to regret, despite himself.

Cooper tried to hide the angst he felt at the scenario of his own creation as he walked onwards.

“S’a radius,” he called over his shoulder to you, still stooped on your knees to find the bone’s hidden mysteries. “Human one.”

“Fuck,” you muttered, “Thought I finally found a deathclaw.”

“’Y'won't find a deathclaw, sweetheart,” he chuckled, “It'll find you. 'N them shits don’t die without a hell’f’a fight.” He stopped in his tracks to wait on you, watching as you trudged through the sand.

“The whole point of the game is that I have to figure it out by myself,” you huffed, the attitude in your voice only a half-conscious decision—you were bothered by his seeming lack of awareness around the tension that hung between the two of you, but you were also tired and hot. “Gotta start over now…”

“Could’a told me. Didn’ know there was rules to it,” he smirked, blissfully, or not, unaware that the turmoil in your mind paralleled his own, “Won’t ruin your fun no more, darlin’.”

“It’s fine,” you grumbled, purposefully kicking up dust in your wake. “You probably know more about skeletons than I do.” You conceded, trying to lose your edge and make friends again.

“Nah, don’t sell y’self short, there,” he tilted his head at you, the brim of his hat hiding his eyes momentarily before he poked it up with a gloved hand. “Y’self taught—real life Einstein.”

“Who?”

He cringed. “Not a lotta science classes down in th’vaults, huh?”

“We had science,” you defended your upbringing, not for the first time, and likely not for the last.

“He was a scientist,” Cooper sighed, “Told Roosevelt to build th’bombs. Smart guy.” He looked around aimlessly, “Not a lot o’foresight.”

“The bombs?” You cringed, not enjoying the comparison he’d made between you and someone who might’ve been behind the landscape you looked at now.

“No,” he shook his head, “Earlier’n that.” He fished a vial from his pocket, taking a sip of the contents. “Gotta get ya’a history lesson.”

“I’ll be fine with you teaching me everything,” you scoffed, “Fast learner, remember?” The words jumped off your tongue faster than you could swallow them, and you shifted uncomfortably, waiting for a response.

Cooper just laughed, hoping you couldn’t hear his nerves. “That y’are, sweetheart.”

He started walking again, and you followed suit, kicking yourself for your slip-up and promising yourself that you wouldn’t bring it up again unless he did.

“How do you know so much about bones?” You tried to bring the initial conversation back to its roots.

“Broken a lot of ‘em. Guess I jus’ know a lot about death.”

“But not dying…”

“Never that.” He cracked the knuckles on one of his hands, and you felt curiosity gnawing at you.

“Cooper,” you started, easing into the subject, and giving yourself time to flake out of it, “How old are you?”

“Old enough.” He grunted.

“Old enough…?”

“To be your granddaddy three times over,” he didn’t do the math, just ballparking it.

“Old enough to remember—”

“Yes.” He cut you off, “Not that I like t’dwell on it.”

“Yeah,” you offered a curt nod, immediately regretting trying to bring it up, “Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he breathed, “Jus’ not what I’d call a fun memory.”

“Mm,” you pursed your lips.

There was a straight minute of silence before he filled the gap.

“Had a dog,” he mused, suddenly smiling again.

“Really?” The idea of the man next to you caring for a living creature without getting anything in return made you want to laugh—then again, he was taking care of you, wasn’t he?

And you hadn’t been bait in days.

“Really,” he nodded, “Good dog, sweet thing. He followed me everywhere.”

“Like me?” You laughed.

“No,” he turned to you with a wicked grin, “Dog listened.”

“I could probably shake hands if you asked me to,” you shot back with a smile, and he barked a laugh. “Dogs aren’t allowed in the vaults—no pets. No animals.”

“Damn shame…” His response was flat, like he was trying to ignore your words without sounding rude.

God, he missed that dog.

When the thrill of the conversation wore off, you walked along in silence again. The tension was still present, but there was comfort alongside it. But something nipped at your heels, lingering in the back of your mind.

Cooper cracked the knuckles of his other hand.

“How much longer?” You asked, staring straight ahead.

“What?” He eyed you in his peripheral.

“How much longer will you know about death but not about dying?” You looked at your feet, watching the sand make room for every step beneath you.

He stopped walking, sucking his teeth. “You still worried ‘bout what’cha saw back there?” His voice was empty of any emotion, but his face read as concerned.

“I—not so much the ferals but the, uh…” Out of nowhere, there were tears in your eyes, “Don’t really know what I’d do without you.” It was the closest thing to admitting your reliance on him that you’d uttered in all your time together.

“Sweetheart,” he cupped your elbow in his hand, and the subtle display of affection made the tears roll down your cheeks faster. “Y’ain’t gotta worry ‘bout it.” Whether you recognized it or not, he was swearing his allegiance. “’M in it for the long run—til ya get sick of me.” He smirked, still so uncertain of what to do when you got like this that he ran to humor first, “Specially cause I dunno what you’d do without me, either.”

You laughed through quiet sobs, and when he swept you against his chest into what might’ve been meant as a hug, the tears ceased. You felt his hand on your back, thumb rubbing over your shirt.

“You’d be so bored without me.” You sniffled, trying to match his witticisms.

“Yeah,” he tilted his head down to look at you, “Prob’ly right.” He kept you near him even after you’d stopped crying, enjoying the way you moved against his chest with every shaky breath you took. He fished a vial from his pocket with the hand that wasn’t cradling you, “Told ya, ‘s’long as we got these, we’re fine.” He didn’t know why he was saying ‘we’ as opposed to ‘I,’ a subconscious decision that had him projecting you into every aspect of his life—he wasn’t mad about it. And neither were you.

You dragged your cheek along his chest as you craned your neck to look at the vial.

“Cooper,” you whispered.

“Mhm?”

“That vial’s almost empty.”

“Well,” he huffed, “Was hopin’ y’wouldn’t notice that.”

“Einstein.” You mumbled against him as he popped the vial back into his pocket. “Can we get more?”

“S’where we’re goin’,” he informed you, and you peeled yourself off of him to the reluctance of both of you.

You walked side by side, knocking shoulders in silence.

~~~

“C’mon, few more steps—be a big girl ‘bout it,” you had fallen behind him, dragging your feet and letting your shoulders droop in the heat, and Cooper delighted in your obvious fatigue. “Don’t drop dead on me.”

“Free meal for you,” you tried to scoff but it quickly morphed into a yawn. Your skin was tight with sunburn and you felt exhaustion in the deepest recesses of your bones, but you were still awake enough to match his energy to a degree.

“Wouldn’ eat ya, darlin’,” he smirked, and it wasn’t a lie; he didn’t at all want to eat you, at least not in the manner you had implied. “Too sweet.”

“Yeah, I bet,” you muttered, “probably just taxidermy me, carry me around so you don’t get lonely.”

“Now, that is exactly what I had in mind,” he whistled, “How’d ya know?”

He coughed, stooping over with hands on his knees and blinking rapidly a few times to collect himself.

“Are we close?” You quickly grew tired of teasing him, acutely aware of how the muscles in your thighs tensed with each step, and how quickly he would deteriorate if he stayed without whatever was in those vials any longer.

��Close t’what, sweetheart?” He smiled, still happy to poke fun at you despite your disinterest.

“Wherever—vials…anywhere.” You yawned again.

“How is it’at someone who sleeps so goddamn much can’t stay awake more’an a few hours at a time?” He watched your mouth as you stifled another tired sigh.

“How is it that someone with no nose still manages to be so nosy?” You snapped back, smiling at the way his eyes widened.

“Woo. Down, girl,” he tsked, curling his lip. “I got a place in mind, ‘f’you would just hurry it up.”

You grumbled at him, picking up your pace to meet his stride. The setting sun offered respite to your weary bones, soft breeze pushing against the sweaty skin of your back. The Ghoul whistled, tuneless but beautiful, and with every few steps you let your eyes close for just a second.

You momentarily forgot about how tired you were, pleased to simply be in his presence.

“There ya go,” he pointed a gloved hand towards the horizon, and you followed it to see a building that looked to be more sand than structure.

“There’s stuff in there?”

“Stuff everywhere,” he took on a mocking tone, hearing the dismay in your voice that you’d failed to hide. “Don’t’cha trust me, sweetheart?” He smiled, and your gaze bounced from his lips to his eyes.

“I do,” you admitted aloud for the first time, and you saw a flash of something in his eyes that wasn’t there before, but you continued; “Just seems a little…sad…”

“It ‘n’everything else up here,” he sighed. “C’mon.”

You shuffled along with him, and the building became clearer as you approached.

It wasn’t a house; you could tell that much. There were no visible signs that it had been used as a living space for at least a few decades. Broken glass and lack of amenities aside, you could see rows of shelves and what looked like a counter, and you recognized it as—or what had once been—a pharmacy.

You tripped over the piles of sand that had blown into the entrance, grabbing the outer brick wall to steady yourself. Cooper came up behind you, steady on his feet despite the terrain.

“Ye olde apothecary,” He sniffed, spitting in the sand, “Y’believe me now?” He walked past you, raising his arms as if to expect a welcome from the empty store.

“Never said I didn’t,” you leaned against the empty doorframe as you watched him strut through the aisles. You raised a brow, “Where’s your medicine, Coop?”

He waved you off, shooing you with a hand thrown over his shoulder as he walked towards the counter in the back. He was moving slower, as if to downplay any pain he felt, to rest his surely weary bones. You sighed, following him.

“Stashed some shit in here, few months ago—carryin’ too much,” he jumped over the counter, trying to hide the way he winced when his feet hit the floor.

“How do you know nobody took it while you were gone?” You challenged.

“Ain’t nobody gonna be dumb enough to steal my shit.” He grumbled.

“How would they know it was yours?”

He ignored you as he shucked his duster and ammo belt, tossing them to the ground. He sighed in relief, the extra pounds of fabric and metal no longer a hindrance to him in his weakened state. He began to rummage through moldy cardboard boxes, “It’ll be here. Had to dump it somewhere I knew. Didn’t trust myself t’savor it.”

“Tastes that good, huh?” You smiled, maneuvering yourself over the counter to meet him.

“Y’got no idea, darlin’,” he shook his head, elbow deep in a box. He grunted, yanking at something deep, before hauling out a smaller, metal box from the cardboard. “There y’are.” He kissed the tin, and you rolled your eyes.

You let yourself wander a bit further past him, delving into the boxes that were stacked up where you could reach them.

“Got anything else hidden away in here?” You mused, cringing when your hand made contact with something slimy in one of the boxes. You wiped your palm down your jeans.

“Maybe…” He thought, still fiddling with the tin in his hands, “Guns, ammo somewhere, probably.”

You moved on to another box and found a pistol packaged away in a rag. You swiped it, trying to push it into your belt loops as a makeshift holster.

“Y’ain’t need one.” He knew what you were doing without even looking your way, still wary of letting you carry a weapon after the feral debacle. “Y’get too in your head.”

“You could teach me how to shoot properly.” You turned to him, offering a shy shrug. “Please?”

“Y’really know how’ta make a man swoon, sweetheart.” He had resorted to banging the top of the tin against the table, unable to find the latch to open it. “Christ—c’mere with’ose pretty li’l fingers ‘f’yers.” He held the case out to you.

You shoved the gun into the depths of your back pocket, walking over and taking the tin. You did what you could, fiddling with the rusty lid and praying that whatever liquid was in the vials inside didn’t begin to seep through as a sign of broken glass. You leveraged your nails beneath the rim of the top and used any remaining strength you had left in you to tug hard.

“I almost got it,” you felt pride, happy to be able to provide for him, and you looked up expectantly.

He wasn’t looking back at you.

He was turned away from you slightly, his head up and eyes darting over the front of the store. He stretched one finger out in front as a signal, telling you to pause, but you continued anyway; separating the halves of the tin with a pop that seemed to echo through the derelict building.

When you heard the bang of the front door swinging open behind you, and the crack of glass beneath boots, you shuddered. He brought his finger to his lips, shushing you. You scrambled to grab the vials in the tin, shoving them into your pocket and hoping they wouldn’t break before you could leave.

You shook your head, trying to apologize, trying to ask him to conceal himself, to fight quick and wordlessly, without his usual flair—not like this, not in his worsening condition. But the wick had been lit; the ferocity in his eyes burned bright, and you knew it was only a matter of time until the powder keg exploded.

You remembered, too late, that his belt was across the room, and with it, his gun.

Someone whistled. Someone else laughed. And you felt utterly helpless—a deer in headlights, with no chance of making it to the other side of the road on time.

“Well,” a man’s voice. “Lookit that. Boys, it appears we’ve found the holy grail.”

You turned, slowly. The Ghoul sucked his teeth.

“Nice t’see ya alive, Jed.” Cooper offered a sardonic greeting. You couldn’t see his face, your back now to him, but you knew he was smiling.

“And well!” Jed laughed.

“Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Cooper scoffed.

“Always so hospitable,” Jed shook his head, finding his way around the counter with his backup close behind. “Ain’t ya gonna introduce me to your friend, here?” He came close to you, near enough for you to see the dry skin on the tip of his nose and the frayed, twisted ends of his beard. He knocked the open tin from your hands, and it clattered to the ground. Thank god you’d emptied it.

“She’s gotta voice,” Cooper ticked his jaw, “Why don’t y’ask her yourself? Or has it been that long since you’ve gotten a good look at a woman?”

Jed backed off, focusing on Cooper now, and you closed your eyes as if deep in thought or prayer; there was no back exit, not even a hole worn into the wall that you could climb through. The cronies Jed had with him maintained their gaze on you, and you swallowed.

“What’s that now?” Jed leaned in towards Cooper, who remained amused by the situation despite everything.

“I’m sorry, I—I was just wonderin’ ‘f’you’re still as big a pussy now as y’were when I last saw ya.” Cooper tipped his hat to the younger man.

Jed smiled, laughing along with Cooper, before suddenly going deadpan and punching him in the gut. Cooper doubled over, cursing, and you sucked in a sharp breath upon hearing the commotion.

“Now, look,” Jed straightened, “You’ve upset the lady.”

“She’ll live,” Cooper groaned, and you bit the inside of your cheek.

“You so sure?” Jed countered.

“What is’t ya want, Jed?” Cooper took a long breath, trying to shut down whatever it was that crossed Jed’s mind in that moment, forcing his attention from you. “Or did y’just drop in t’say hi?”

You turned to watch now. Jed’s face went from one of amusement to ire; his mouth dropped with his brow, creasing his face and making him speak with a sneer.

“I want,” he crossed his arms, “to ask you about your trip down to Filly.”

Cooper sighed, and you watched him drop his head as he spoke, hiding his face with his hat. “You wanna ask me ‘bout that brother o’yours.”

“That’s right.” Jed looked red in the face, “I wanna ask you why you think you can play god, Ghoul.” He took his gun from its holster, turning off the safety as he continued his tirade. “I wanna know what the fuck gives you the right to kill any son’bitch that gets between you an’ some caps.” He breathed heavily, mixing his grief with a stronger sense of brutality.

Cooper looked back up, and for a moment he looked almost remorseful—sorry to see a man so torn up about the loss of kin. But the tinge of sympathy didn’t last long.

“He died like a bitch, Jed.” He grinned.

Jed looked ill, like he was unsure of himself, on the verge of tears or vomit. But he pulled the trigger, anyway.

Two shots sounded, and you flinched at each one.

“Well, there—maybe you do have some charm,” Cooper shook his head, still standing, swatting at the holes in his pants where Jed had shot him—once in both legs, “Sure are makin’ me weak in the knees.” You sighed, relieved, but not out of the woods; his tone remained suave, but his voice was cracked at the edges. His jaw was clenched tight, like he was biting back the pain you hoped he couldn’t feel, and you desperately wanted this situation to be put to an end so that you could force the liquid in the vials down his throat yourself.

Jed said nothing, swallowing thickly and turning to his companions. “Don’t kill him—get him tender for me.”

“What about her?” One of the two other men nodded towards you, and you stared back at him.

“Leave her.” The three men turned to Cooper, and you continued your silent surveillance. He looked pale, if that was possible; a greyish tint on what would otherwise be an angry pink.

Jed let out a slow whistle. “I think I found your Achilles heel, friend.” He moved in on you, poking his gun into your back and forcing you to move directly in front of Cooper. His backup approached the Ghoul, and you shuddered in ugly anticipation.

“She’s got nothin’ you want, boy,” the threat came out more pleading than he’d meant, but Cooper stuck to his guns, “Leave her be.”

Jed sneered, and you looked at your feet. “Make sure he can see her while you beat him—‘nd go slow. Wanna make sure we all get a show out of it.”

With his gun still pressed to you, Jed signaled for his friends to take action. You’d never felt more insignificant; in the vaults you had your dreams, in the wastes you had the stars, but now, watching Cooper allow these men to land blow after blow with the intention of maintaining your safety, you felt utterly hopeless.

And though he kept his head up, snarking occasionally when he had enough breath to fuel him, Cooper looked bad; you didn’t think he could bruise, but in the low light of the shop he looked discolored and hurt. You tried to search his face, for a sign or a signal, but he avoided your gaze.

You found yourself wishing you could see another day of empty desert and inherent danger, as long as it was with him—only if it was with Cooper.

Jed moved to push his gun hard against your face, and you wondered if this meant it would be the last time you’d have a pistol aimed at you. You wondered what you could do if you had an opportunity, if you weren’t so defenseless.

The gun.

You felt the cold metal through the thin denim of your jeans, heartrate skyrocketing when you realized the implications of the weight in your pocket.

You’d never shot a gun. Even when he let you carry around that old, beat-up piece, you’d never gotten the opportunity to fire it. But you’d watched Cooper do it hundreds, probably thousands of times.

He flicked the safety, he aimed, he fired.

You could do that. You prayed to anybody that you could do that in this moment, if never hereafter.

With the focus of the hired muscle already on Cooper, you waited for Jed to let his gaze wander; his eyes, emotionless rocks stuck into his skull, leered at you in a manner that made your blood run cold.

But then he turned his head, watching his companions batter the already worse-for-wear Ghoul. You fished the pistol from your pockets, trying to move quickly.

“Think after this we should have ourselves a li’l party, boys. Nice piece of ass like this, shame for it to go to waste before we—”

A shot, loud and tooth-rattling, engulfed you as you pulled the trigger. Jed fell down, dead.

Your hands were shaking. Your entire body was shaking. Your ears were ringing and your head felt cloudy—with fear or rage, you didn’t bother to define it.

“Get out,” you cleared your throat, now pointing the pistol at the two men who loomed over the Ghoul. Despite your trembling, the men seemed uncertain, lost without their leader and unwilling to find out if you were bluffing. “Get out!” You doubled down, encouraging them to lose their nerve. You watched as they backed away, hands raised in surrender, scooting around the counter and quickly running out the door.

You gasped for air, feeling faint and almost buzzed, before shoving the gun onto a shelf and moving to fold yourself over Cooper.

He was lying flat on the floor, a bit dazed, but not bloodied—you shoved aside the curiosity that popped up in your head, begging the question if he even had blood. His hat had been knocked off and now lay several feet from him. He was smirking at you like he had not a care in the world.

“Look at you,” he coughed, ragged and chesty, and you fished a vial from your pocket. “My little killer.”

“Shut up, Cooper,” you bit the cap off the vial you’d grabbed and spit it out to the side, forcing his head up and pouring the contents down his throat. He coughed at first, before giving in to your control and swallowing the chem. He wheezed when you’d poured all the vial’s contents out, grabbing your arm and squeezing gently.

“Jesus Christ,” he shook his head, collecting himself, “You’re a goddamn angel, sweetheart.”

“Oh my god,” you sighed in relief, letting your head rest on the linoleum next to his. You stayed like that, sprawled out with your body pressed to him, watching the life come back to his eyes. You let him adjust in the quiet, waiting for the right time to discuss what you considered the highlight of what you’d just endured.

“Leave her be?” You put on a less than stellar impression of him.

“Didn’want that filth touchin’ ya.” He muttered, stretching and unconcerned.

“You don’t seem to have a problem when it’s your filthy hands.” You pointed out, somehow feeling that now was the most appropriate time to bring up what had happened between you days ago. In light of recent events, you didn’t care anymore if you were the one that brought it up.

“Exactly,” He turned his face to look at you, “My filthy hands.” He rested his palm on your stomach, “Mine.”

You propped yourself up on your elbow and stared, taking him in; his color was back, the proper pink, sun kissed flush you’d come to appreciate, and his eyes were still in their sockets; his voice was less raspy, at least compared to how it had been while he was getting the shit kicked out of him, and he was forming real words.

His stupid, shit-eating grin was once again plastered on his lips.

He was ok. He was still Cooper—beautiful, wild, stupidly stubborn Cooper. And you realized that you were still shaking, pent up adrenaline trying to find its way out of your system, squeezing at your heart and clouding your brain.

So you kissed him. You grabbed him by the face and pulled him up to you, crashing your lips to his in a frenzied, out of body manner that left you both panting. You clawed at the back of his collar, fingers dancing over his shoulders and down his chest, and still you wanted more.

You pulled away to take a breath, and Cooper licked his lips, chest heaving.

“Think you should kill more people.” He smiled, running a hand over his head.

“Only if you don’t face the brink of death in the process,” you smiled back, a healthy whirl running through you.

It was comfortable—you were comfortable; by his side and safe again, itching for his attention and knowing it was you and only you who would get it. This is exactly what you’d always wanted.

It was exactly what you wanted.

“Cooper,” you sat up, placing a hand on his chest and fanning your fingers out to grab loosely at the fabric of his shirt, “Show me more.”

He cocked a brow at you, unsure of what you were asking. “Show y’what?”

“Like how you did when you showed me how to curl my fingers,” you shuffled closer to him, hand trailing further down his stomach, “And when you showed me how to use my mouth—I want more, please, I want…” You whined a little, biting your lip so you wouldn’t lose your nerve, “Fuck me.”

He stared up at you, your hand dangerously close to his fly and your eyes looking as pleading as your voice sounded.

You were so beautiful, so genuine and virtuous. And he was already destined for a hell, if there was one.

He grabbed you by the waist, hauling you over him and kissing you again. Your chest pressed against his, legs moving to straddle him and squeeze his waist as he tugged you impossibly close. His hands drifted over the curve of your ass, squeezing so hard he thought he might tear through the denim of your jeans.

He tried to go slower, savor the taste of your tongue and the feel of your body on his, but he gave up the moment you began to grind your hips on top of him.

“Bloodthirsty thing,” he muttered against your lips, “All wound up, huh, sweetheart? One bullet out the chamber ‘nd you need me to fuck it better?”

You let out a whine, and he dragged his tongue against your throat, licking up your neck until he reached your jaw. It gave you enough time to think about his words.

“Wait—Cooper,” you pushed off of him and held him by the collar.

He removed his hands from you, resting them on the floor on either side of his head. “What’s wrong?” He swallowed, trying to subdue the ache and the nerves that flickered through him, “What’cha thinkin’, sweetheart?”

“Dead body,” you hooked a thumb over your shoulder, pointing at the blood-soaked spot where Jed still lay dead.

“Not doin’ it for ya?” The Ghoul smirked, and you frowned down at him.

“Not exactly how I imagined it.”

“Y’want me to get rid of it?” Cooper lifted his head to sneer at the deceased man on the floor. You nodded. “Then I gotta get up, darlin’,” he bit his tongue, taking on a playful tone.

You sighed, weighing your options, before relenting and easing off of him slowly.

He got up with a groan, tilting his head to crack his neck as he walked. He moved to grab his hat and place it back on his head before making his way over to the corpse on the floor. You tried not to pay too much attention to the way Jed’s body lolled around as if boneless when Cooper lifted him and threw him over his shoulder.

“Coop,” you called after him, waiting for him to turn back to you, “Don’t eat him.”

“Got another item on th’menu I’m more interested in samplin’, sweetheart,” he shook his head, walking out. “Smartass.”

You weren’t sure what to do with yourself when he left, hauling the body off somewhere out in the sand. Should you pose? Strip? Both?

You stood, unzipping your pants and letting them pool around your ankles, kicking them off into the corner with the least blood.

“This your way o’tellin’ me I wasn’t goin’ fast enough?” Cooper spoke, leaning against the counter as his eyes trailed up your naked legs. You hadn’t heard him come back in—maybe that was his goal. “Had t’start without me?”

You smiled impishly, biting your lip and peeling off your shirt, throwing it over into the corner where it joined your pants in a heap.

You stood bare and felt as though you must have looked awkward and uncertain, but Cooper clearly felt otherwise as he hopped over the counter again and took hurried steps over to you. You took a step back for every one he took forward, hands clasped behind your back and a mischievous grin on your lips.

Your back hit a wall, cornered, and Cooper drank you in.

“You try’na tease me, baby?” He stuck his tongue out to wet his lower lip before sucking his teeth, his hand coming up to your chin and beckoning your gaze upward to meet his. “Cause it’s workin’.”

“…You’ve got blood on your shirt.” You purred, pressing a finger into a dark spot on the fabric.

Cooper, rather ceremoniously, took off his hat, holding it to his chest. “It ain’t mine…” He let the hat fall from his hands, and you watched it wobble through the air before landing quietly on the floor. The corner of his mouth twitched upward into a faint smile, “I can…take it off ‘nd prove it to ya.”

You nodded eagerly, putting any remaining shame to bed and embracing the urgency of your desires.

He bit the forefinger of his glove, peeling the leather from his hand before tugging off the opposite glove. His fingers were thick, though boney, and looked calloused; strong from decades of roughing it and pulling triggers. You watched them, entranced, as his hands flew to his collar and began to unbutton his shirt.

“Now don’ get all yucked-out,” Cooper mumbled, shucking the shirt off his arms and letting it drop to the floor, “Ain’t what I used to be under these rags.”

You couldn’t do much but stare. His torso looked like the rest of him; angry red and riddled with crossing scars. He was lean, but there was still muscle pushing against the damaged skin of his chest and arms.

You reached out to touch him, and delighted in the fact that he didn’t flinch now or try to grab your wrist. You dragged your knuckles down his front, back and forth over his skin before reaching back up to let your palm rest on his chest.

“I like you the way you are…” You said it like an oath, a promise to him, echoing the sentiment you’d shared after being confronted by the ferals and meaning it now more than ever.

“Don’t go soft on me, sweetheart,” he feigned distaste, but he couldn’t hide the way his body relaxed into your touch, the warmth of your palm becoming some sort of beacon that coaxed him in.

“Thought you’d like me soft…malleable,” you smiled, “I remember you enjoying being able to, uh—to guide me through the motions.”

Cooper bit his tongue, stifling the rumble that began in his chest before it could make its way past his lips. He wanted to eat you whole; lick your skin down to the bone and savor every part of you, hoping he’d be lucky enough to hear you sing his praises. But even he knew there was a line, and he’d never forgive himself if he fucked this up.

He took your hand from his chest, rubbing your palm with his thumb. He was closer now, looming above you with a predatory glint in his eyes, and you found yourself content to be his prey.

“Wanna do things t’ya, darlin’,” he stopped holding his tongue, “Give y’the whole goddamn experience that you deserve.” His thumb stopped moving, and he squeezed your hand. “Y’still trust me?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, “I trust you.”

“’M gonna go as slow ‘s’ya need me to,” he swallowed, “Gonna make sure y’fuckin’ listen, just like last time—liked taking orders, ain’t that right?” He let go of your hand, reaching up to cup your jaw.

“I like it.” Your eyes fluttered, his fingers dug gently into your skin.

“Atta girl,” his hand trailed down over your collar bone, sweeping his fingers over it once before dropping it further to cup one of your breasts. You shivered, his palm engulfing you so easily, squeezing gently before drawing his hand back to squeeze your nipple between his knuckles.

“Dreamed about these tits,” he mused, watching your back start to arch when he tugged just right. His other hand came up to match the pace of his kneading on your other breast. “So fuckin’ soft,” he bent forward, squeezing your breasts together to smother himself in the cavern between them, licking at your sternum.

He came back up to kiss you, and you craned your neck, desperate to greet him with your mouth using the same urgency you felt bubbling in your abdomen. His tongue pushed through your lips, and you moaned, leaving him the space to pull back and bite at your bottom lip.

“More,” your head tilted back when he returned to your chest, sucking a nipple into his mouth and trapping it with his lips and teeth. His tongue flicked over the pebbled flesh while his hand doted on your other breast, and a flood of arousal dripped between your thighs. “Please, Cooper.”

“I told ya, ‘m takin’ my sweet time,” he spoke into the plush skin of your chest, sucking deep purple marks into you. “Woman like you needs t’be approached with care.” He was smiling, you could feel the curl of his lips against your chest as he continued his teasing ministrations.

“Approach me with care faster,” you whined, thighs beginning to squirm together as the familiar heat began to rise in your stomach.

Cooper released his hold on you, straightening up. One of his hands found purchase on the back of your neck, grabbing at your hair and pulling so that you were forced to look up at him; his other arm circled your waist, pulling you towards him so that you could feel the heat of skin-on-skin.

“You’re fuckin’ greedy,” he growled, taking pleasure in the way your breasts pressed firm against his own body, “Here I thought I was helpin’ get you ready f’me, but I don’t think you care.” He kissed your nose, and you whimpered. “Jus’ don’wanna break ya, s’all.”

“I’d be happy to let you break me.” You were serious; you knew what he was capable of, now and in any event, and you knew there were plenty of things you didn’t know much about—some you didn’t know about at all—but in his hands, you knew you were safe.

Even if it meant being broken. You had no doubt that he’d put you back together.

“Y’don’ know what’cher sayin’…” His hand dropped to squeeze your ass.

“S—aid you’d teach me,” you gasped through your words, blindsided by his touch, “Didn’t you?”

“Sweetheart,” he drawled, stepping back and kneeling in front of you, “I am goin’ to thoroughly enjoy showin’ you the ropes.” His words put the image of you tied up and begging for him in his mind’s eye, but he would save it for another time.

His hands caressed your sides, kneading your hips. He placed kisses down your stomach and the top of your thighs before glancing back up at you.

“Put’cher leg up, baby,” he was on his knees, hand gripping your calf and encouraging you to hook your knee over his shoulder. You did what you were told, your core pulsing when you felt his breath fan your bare cunt. “’Bout time I returned th’favor. Had that sweet li’l mouth on me, wanna taste ya from the source.”

You whined, eyes fixed on him when he brought two fingers to your core and slid them through your folds, collecting the slick that threatened to drench your thighs. He brought his hand up to his mouth, sucking on the digits he’d coated with your wet and humming.

“Like candy, sweetheart,” he placed his hands on your ass, fingers digging into your flesh as he drew you in closer and let his face hover just centimeters from where you both wanted him to be. He inhaled, chasing your scent. “Goddamn precious thing.”

You didn’t have time to come up with a reply, instantly met with the sensation of his tongue lapping between your folds before he had even finished his sentence. He licked straight through your slit, letting his tongue dart over your hole and circling it with care before plunging it into you.

You felt hot, unsure of what to do with your hands as the stimulation sent jolts of pleasure through your body, coupled with the vibrations of Cooper’s groans as he buried his face against you. You grabbed at his free shoulder to steady yourself, fingers straying to cup his face and feel the way he hollowed his cheeks while he fucked his tongue into you, guzzling the slick that drenched your thighs.

“Jesus Christ,” he trailed his lips over your thigh, catching his breath, “Look at what y’did, darlin’—makin’ a fuckin’ mess o’me.” He licked his lips, humming as the tang touched his tongue again.

“Feels so good,” you were slack-jawed, staring down at him with saucer eyes.

“Can you believe there are fellas out there who don’ wanna taste their ladies?” Cooper mused, swiping his fingers through you again before positioning them over your clit and applying just enough pressure so the sensation made you bend at the knees. “Goddamn travesty—think I could stay here forever…” He watched you squirm under his fingers, rolling your hips against his hand.

“I’d—I’d let you,” you managed to moan out, trembling.

“Yeah?” He grinned, “Y’want me fuckin’ you with my tongue all day, sweet thing? Y’wanna drown me with this fuckin’ cunt?”

“Cooper—” You felt dizzy, the haze of lust completely cloaking your mind.

“Could y’handle it, sweetheart? All this mess b’tween your pretty fuckin’ thighs—givin’ it to me like the li’l slut I know y’are? Bet ya’d ask for more. Y’always want more, ain’t that right?”

“Yh—ess,” you whined, breath shallow as you neared your high, letting his words wind up the spring in your core.

He’d never felt more triumphant in his life; for someone who had stared death in the face for decades upon decades, it was only now that he felt prepared for it. Covered in your pleasure and listening to your cries, he knew he could die a happy man—but only if he could see you through to your high.

“I’ll give ya more, darlin’,” he bit into your thigh, and you yelped, head falling back, hips pushing against the fingers he still had on your clit. “Always give ya more.”

You felt his fingers leave you, easing further back and pushing against your entrance. You moaned out a plea, something half-assembled and whiny, to make him hurry up. You bit your lip, gasping, when his two fingers pushed into you: thick and deep and immediately locating the spot he’d shown you all those nights ago.

“Fuck—” You cried out, the pads of his fingers punching up into you deliciously.

“Bigger’an yours, huh?” He laughed, unable to tear his eyes away from the way your cunt swallowed his digits, “Y’feel’at stretch again, sweetheart? Pretty cunt nice ‘n’full o’me?”

“It’s s—it’s so good,” you shook your head, lost in overwhelming pleasure. You started bouncing your hips, riding his hand; the slick sounds and the way he moaned out at the sight only served to spur you on further as you hurtled closer to your orgasm.

“Pretty whore, that’s it. Ride these fuckin’ fingers, girl. Wanna see that pretty face y’make when you cum for me.” He was growling, face twisted into a wolfish sneer as he pushed his fingers deeper into you, watching your face contort as your body made space for his intrusion.

When his lips wrapped around your clit, working in tandem with his fingers, your vision went white. Even with your eyes closed, there was still a trace of light, a halo under your eyelids as your body went slack for him and your thighs trembled through the burn of staying in one position for so long.

“Got a tight fuckin’ cunt—squeezin’ me so nice when you cum, baby.” He licked the juices that leaked over the fingers still buried deep inside you, flicking his tongue over your clit and watching your body jolt at the overstimulation.

“Oh my god,” you leaned against the wall behind you, panting. “Cooper—fuck, too much.” You whimpered, reaching for his wrist and pulling him up to you. He leaned into you, pressing his face into the crook of your neck.

“’M sorry, sweetheart,” his words were muted, spoken into your skin between kisses that were likely to leave marks. “So pretty when y’shake like that.”

“No, it’s—it was the good kind of too much.” You giggled, breathy and coquettish, at the way his lips felt on your neck.

“S’at right?” He groaned into you, and your hands came to rest low on his back, just above his waistband.

“Think you knew that…” You mewled, hands looping around to his front to tug on his belt.

“Well, maybe,” he moved to rest his arm against the wall, caging you next to his forearm, “Certainly think I know one thing.”

“Yeah?” You nearly had the buckle on his belt loosened enough to pull it off of him completely. “What’s that, Coop?”

“Think I know you’re a grabby, impatient li’l thing,” he grabbed you by the elbow, halting your attempt to remove his belt. “Think you were serious ‘bout lettin’ me break you, seein’ how those hands keep wanderin’ without permission.”

“Wanna touch you.” You whined, desperate to see if his threats would become promises.

“Touched me plenty,” he laughed, not caving to your pleas, “Don’t’cha wanna feel me in that pretty cunt?” He cupped your still dripping sex, “I know she does.” He pressed the heel of his palm into your clit. “See how far I can push ya?”

His fingers threatened your entrance again and you swooned, rocking your hips forward. Before you could get any satisfaction from his hand, he brought it back up, fingers beckoning your lips open. You licked at his fingers before resting them on your tongue to suck; he tasted like the ash of gun smoke and the tang of your cum, and you whimpered into him.

You released his fingers from your mouth with a quiet pop, and squeezed his hand, admiring the rough skin and the dark eyes in front of you.

“Get on the counter—‘nd spread those legs.” He pulled you towards him by the hand, easing you forward and encouraging you to make the journey to the counter on your own.

“Don’t wanna fuck me up against the wall?” You purred, more so anxious about how you’d look on your back than disappointed that he didn’t fuck you where you stood.

“We’ll get there.” He drank you in as you walked away, eyes darting over your body, unsure of which part of you he enjoyed looking at most. “Wanna get you comfortable.”

You hopped up on the counter, spreading your legs and chancing a look between your thighs. You were soaked, even beyond how you looked after touching yourself for him; the mixture of the two of you, your cum and his spit, that sat sticky on your thighs and over your folds made you squeeze around nothing, and you dipped a hand down to explore your already wrecked cunt.

“Wanderin’ hands…” The Ghoul remained in the spot you’d left him in, hand on his belt buckle as he eyed you.

“Well…” You smiled sheepishly, keeping your fingers perched delicately over your clit, “Come do something about it.”

His jaw clenched, and as he walked over to you with long strides, he undid his belt, unzipping his fly. He didn’t bother ridding himself of his pants—not only was he in too much of a hurry to care, but part of him felt a buzz at the notion that he’d be able to smell you on the fabric for the next few days to come.

“Y’wanna touch so fuckin’ bad?” He pulled his cock out, and you watched, wide-eyed, as he stroked himself. “Go’head, sweetheart—just like y’did last time.”

In the light of day, without the hindrance of sleep in your eyes, and with more illumination than just the dim assistance of a dying fire, you were able to properly appreciate him; long and thick, his tip angry and purple, marred with veins rather than the scars that littered the rest of him.

“Is it a side effect of radiation or are you just lucky?” You smiled nervously, reaching down to wrap your hand around his cock.

“Stroke my cock, girl, not my ego,” he laughed, his amusement cut short when you swiped your thumb over his tip. “Christ, ‘at’s it.”

“I remember what to do.”

“Not about rememberin’. Slut like you, was probably hardwired into your system. Pretty fuckin’ thing.”

You took more initiative now, caging him between your legs and urging him closer to you; you moved your hand to the topside of his cock, pressing the underside of him to your cunt and bucking your hips slightly against him.

“Fuck me, I ain’t teach ya that,” Cooper looked down, slack-jawed, at the way you moved.

“Hardwired…” You muttered, you yourself entranced by your ministrations.

“She’s gonna look so pretty stuffed full o’me,” he thrust his hips against you, matching your casual pace. “Y’think ya can take it, darlin’? Gonna lemme fill y’up ‘n’then some?”

“Please,” you struggled to hide your excitement, “Show me—break me.”

“Well, shit,” he groaned out, fingers of one hand gripping your thigh while his other hand wrapped around the base of his cock to line himself up with your entrance, “’F’you insist.”

He went slow, teasing you, dragging himself through your folds before finally pushing forward just enough to let the tip of his cock penetrate you.

“H—oh,” you stuttered, feeling a brief squeeze of something in your abdomen.

“Jes—us, fuck. Jus’ relax, sweetheart. Gonna be gentle for ya.” His voice was raw with desire, and gentler than you’d ever heard it. That alone helped you feel more at ease. He worked you open, inching into you until he was fully sheathed. “Look’at’cha, baby, see how that pretty gash drools for me?” He couldn’t even try to hide his pleasure, heavily lidded eyes paired with his incessant narration. “Lord, bury me in this tight fuckin’ cunt.”

You shivered, feet hooking into his back and quietly urging him to do more. You felt your walls clench around him, familiarizing your body with the pleasant new intrusion.

“Gonna move now, sweetheart. Y’alright?”

“Please,” you gasped when he pulled back an inch, “Let me feel it. Wanna feel you ruin me.”

The hand he didn’t have on your thigh moved to wrap loosely around your neck. “Y’got a dirty fuckin’ mouth.” He leaned forward, inadvertently pushing his cock deeper within you and making you moan wantonly into the kiss he offered. “Now you look at me, baby. Keep those eyes on me while I break y’nice.”

He pulled back before plunging into you and setting a fast but compassionate pace. You wiggled free of his grasp on your throat, head falling back in shock and pleasure.

“What’d I fuckin’ say?” He snarled, grabbing you by the nape of your neck and forcing your face up. “You look at me while I’m fuckin’ you—want y’to see who’s makin’ you feel like this.”

Though your eyes rolled back slightly with each press of his hips to yours, you managed to keep your head up with help from the hand he had on the back of your neck.

“Fuck,” you mumbled out a whine when the tip of his cock nudged at your cervix, a pinch of pain that was drowned out by the overwhelming pleasure. You’d never felt fuller, or more complete, than you did in that moment—connected to him on a much more literal level.

You rolled your hips, desperate for more, pleading for everything he had to give you. You tried to match his pace, but your movements were more urgent than his own and you found yourself squirming pitifully on his cock.

“Thought you’d need it gentle,” Cooper growled out, his teeth clenched, “Was gonna be so patient. But y’really are just a needy fuckin’ whore, huh?” He wrapped an arm around your waist, tugging you to him and effectively quieting your movements. “Ain’t’cha? Say it. Tell me what’cha’re, girl.”

“Needy—needy whore.” You let yourself collapse under the pleasure, burying your face into him and letting his skin mute your words.

“That’s right. ‘Nd who’re you needy for?” He goaded you, hips still pistoning forward while you clawed at his back.

“You,” you managed to choke out.

He pulled you back by your hair, and you yelped out a moan as he forced your eyes to meet his. “Say my fuckin’ name. You’re my needy li’l whore, ain’t that right, darlin’? C’mon.”

“Y—es,” you whimpered, grabbing handfuls of him wherever you could reach and pulling him forward to you for a sloppy kiss.

“Don’t be shy now, tell me.”

“I’m yours, Cooper—yours.”

“Shit, there y’go,” he moaned, leaning his head back and granting you access to his neck, where you trailed open mouth kisses.

When he used the arm around your waist as leverage to pull you closer and drag you over his cock, you sucked your lips between your teeth, biting down and trying to let the sounds that traveled from your throat die before they reached your mouth.

“Don’t get shy on me,” he punctuated his words with sharp thrusts of his hips, “Wanna hear y’screamin’.” He tilted you back so you were lying on the counter, wrapping his mouth around the pillowy flesh of your breast, sucking and biting down on you until you caved and let your moans flow freely from between your lips.

“Cooper—fuck,” your voice was strained by satisfaction, “It’s—yeah, taste me while you fuck me.”

“Atta girl,” he groaned, licking over your nipple before biting down on it, “Sound pretty when you’re cryin’ for me like that. Usin’ all your dirty words—what would they think down in that vault o’yours ‘f’they saw ya givin’ it all up to a man like me? Gettin’ split in half by a fuckin’ ghoul ‘nd likin’ it?” He was rambling, getting off on the thought of people seeing a pretty young thing like you, smooth and soft and lively, speared on his cock.

He'd fuck you out in the open next time, if you’d let him.

“Don’t—don’t care—" you were panting, overstimulated and loving it, “Want more.”

“Greedy bitch,” he reached between your bodies and pinched your clit, eliciting a high-pitched mewl from you. “Been nice enough to fuck y’rough like ya needed ‘nd you’re still actin’ desperate. Just gonna have to keep you on my cock like this all the time.”

“Yes!” You moaned, the thought of him keeping you full like this made you more than happy. The excitement in your voice did little to quell his thoughts of keeping you beneath him, hoarding you to himself and stuffing you every free moment.

“Yeah, ‘at’s what’cha need. Dumb fuckin’ hole to use, s’at right? Y’just wanna be a cunt f’me to fill.” He sped up, and in his haste his cock jabbed against your g-spot repeatedly and with no mercy.

Nobody had ever spoken to you like this, held you liked this, or fucked you at all, let alone in a manner so aggressive and hungry for you. You loved it, you lapped up the attention and the degrading praise that he lobbed at you and begged for more.

“Fucking—anything, I’ll do anything for you, Cooper,” you meant it, too, “Use me how you want, whenever you want, I’ll fucking let you—I’ll let you.”

“You be a good girl ‘n’cum for me, I’ll help you make good on that promise.” He drawled, not planning to let up anytime soon but aching for the feel of your cunt squeezing him even deeper. “Soak my fuckin’ cock, I’ll bend y’over til y’forget your own fuckin’ name.”

“O—fuck, please,” you wanted it, craved the feeling of his cock pounding into your already sore center even more as he demonstrated to you all the ways that you could take him. He rolled your clit between his fingers, combining the movement with gentle strokes using the pad of his thumb. “C—ooper,” you hardly managed to breathe his name, the now more than familiar feeling of white-hot arousal coating your veins and clouding your senses.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” he muttered, “Lemme have it—drown me with it.”

This was the closest he’d ever felt to feral, wild and primal and absolutely hungry for the way you convulsed when you came. He pressed harder against your clit, coupling the motion of his fingers with long, deep strokes of his cock.

Your nails dug into the counter under your head as you let go, your chest heaving. Whining, you arched your back, the satisfaction of feeling him so deep in your cunt prolonging the electricity of your high.

“Fuck,” Cooper was rasping, his words catching in his throat and tugged out by the pleasure of feeling you clench around him, your slick dripping over his length. “Goddamn sweet pussy, there’y’go baby—that’s what I wanna see.” He continued to roll his hips against you, enjoying the way you whimpered for him. “Y’gonna let me bend ya over now?” He cooed, pushing hair from your face.

You opened your mouth, breathing heavily, trying to find words to respond.

“Don’t waste your breath, sweetheart—f’you open your mouth again I’ll be tempted to fuck it.” The thought made you moan, any words you’d been able to think up dying before they reached your lips. “You’d fuckin’ like that, though, huh?” When you nodded dreamily, he laughed, and seeing the rise and fall of his chest, and the genuine smile on his cracked lips formed from affection rather than disdain, your fading orgasm was replaced with burning desire to let him give you another.

“Bend—bend me over.” You whispered, voice soft and dry after overworking your lungs.

“Gonna have’ta pull out first.” He cocked a brow, teasing you just for the hell of it. He was obsessed with the image before him, the sweet headstrong vault dweller that he’d managed to get in such an unholy position; corrupting you like this was his new favorite pastime.

“Mm,” you mewled, loosening your legs from around his waist and letting them go slack by his sides. “Fast.”

“So desperate to be stuffed, can’t bear a couple seconds?” He pulled out slowly, and you shivered. The hollow feeling in your lower half made you clench around nothing, and you were eager to have him replace the emptiness.

You shook your head in response to his goading.

“’Nd that’s why you’re a whore.” He spoke with a sense of finality, more than ready to get you beneath him.

Cooper tugged you forward by your hips, easing you off the counter until your feet hit the floor with a dampened thud. You swayed, and his hands moved to your waist to ensure you didn’t collapse into more of a lusted-out heap than you already were. Slowly, he turned you, encouraging you to bend at the hips and let your hands drape over the front of the counter.

“Pretty thing. So fuckin’ nice to look at.” His words were quiet, meant only for the two of you to hear, and even then, it was mostly for his sake; he kept moving, kept speaking, to ensure this was all really happening and that he wouldn’t wake up hungover in a cold sweat, craving his body weight in jet.

“Christ…” He dragged his hands down your sides when you had made yourself comfortable, “So smooth.” He ran one finger down the length of your spine, and a contented sigh that verged on a laugh slipped through your lips. “So damn pretty—God, you’re a fuckin’ prize, sweetheart.”

“Your prize,” you mumbled into your arms where they cushioned your face. “Deserve something pretty.” You didn’t know why you said it. Maybe in your post-orgasmic haze you thought it would make more sense, maybe you would’ve been embarrassed for saying it if you had any sense of shame. All you could really think about in the moment was having him between your thighs again.

But it made sense to Cooper. And all the guilt and impurity he’d dealt with while traveling with you, and before, and all the reasons he felt marked by the devil (or at least some ungodly imp that had it out for him) faded from his mind. Caps be damned, you were the best reward he’d ever gotten, and it didn’t matter if he felt it was undeserved—you thought he’d earned it.

“Think you’re right,” he sighed, gripping his length and lining himself up with you. He took it as an opportunity to admire your form before he ravaged you again: drinking you in, listening to your quiet, urging whines.

He pressed the head of his cock to your entrance, spitting once and letting the strand pool between your ass. He watched with anticipation as it dripped, groaning slightly at the sight of his spit making its way to puddle over his cock where it connected to you.

His eyes darted over to the tight rim of your asshole; the trail of his saliva had left it glassy and he couldn’t help the way his thumb brushed over it.

“What about here, sweetheart?” He pressed leisurely against the puckered hole, “Y’ever think about takin’ it here? Gettin’ fucked where the sun don’ shine?”

“C—ooper,” the pressure was different, but not unwelcome. You’d never considered the possibilities, but now he had you wondering.

“I’m pullin’ yer leg, baby…’nother time.” He huffed a breath, adding it to the list of profane things he wanted to expose you to.

Besides, he was tired of teasing you—teasing himself. He didn’t have the restraint to keep his cock perched at your entrance any longer. He thrust wildly into you, bottoming out immediately and knocking the air from you.

“Shit—Cooper, fuck—” You gasped, arms shooting forward and nails scratching at the countertop. This position allowed him so much more free reign, and you could feel him deep in your stomach. “Oh, my g—yes, yes, yesyesyes!”

“You’re a fuckin’ dream,” Cooper leaned over you, pressing his chest into your back and wrapping a hand around your throat to keep your head still while he growled into your ear. “Fit like a fuckin’ glove. Y’feel that?” He dragged his cock out of you before punching it back in, and you cried out for him. “Made for me, ain’t that right?”

“H—n—yes!” The back of your head settled into the crook of his neck, and you were thrilled to be surrounded by him; his hand on your throat and his body above you, stuffed full of him and dripping down your own thighs—it was perfect. “For you, Cooper.”

“Gonna make sure y’don’t forget it,” he straightened back up, moving his hand to your upper back to pin you down, “Mold this fuckin’ cunt just for me—ruin ya good, nobody else’ll have a fuckin’ chance.”

His hips pressed against your ass, every thrust somehow deeper than the last; you gave up on forming coherent words, mouth agape and producing muddled whines. You felt tears gather in the corners of your eyes and then flow down your cheeks, overwhelmed by the bliss of his cock punching into your most tender spot and unable to keep up with the arousal that coursed through you.

“Don’t even have to see that pretty face to know what’cha look like right now,” Cooper continued his onslaught of affectionate degradation, “Fucked out so good yer cryin’. Stupid, cockdumb li’l thing.” His hand moved up from your back and he laced his fingers through your hair, tugging from the root and pulling you up to him so that your back arched and he could look at you while he spoke. “Pathetic li’l girl.”

You offered a delighted, if not incoherent, reply.

“Just that good, huh? Bet’cha ain’t know it could feel like this.” He licked a stripe up your cheek, following the salty path of your tears.

“’S‘mazing—” You whimpered, eyes rolling back. You pushed yourself back against his thighs, desperate for everything you could get from him. “Cooper—‘s’o g—ood.”

“Fuckin’ look’t you,” Cooper bit down on your neck, running his tongue over the spots his teeth had left dents in, “Work for it, sweetheart.”

With the energy you had left, you rocked back on your feet, leaning against him and pushing your ass into his hips. The noises you let out were pornographic, practically inhuman, and Cooper lapped it up. His free hand fell to your hips, squeezing the skin there before tracing down to your thigh and then up over the curve of your ass. He kneaded the flesh, then let his hand come down in a quick smack before repeating the motion. You let out strangled moans each time, unable to wrap your mind around how he managed to make everything feel so good, so natural.

“Gonna cum f’me?” He used his grasp on your hips and hair to take his control back, dragging you over his cock like a toy and listening to you cry out. “C’mon, girl, wet this cock again.”

“Fuck,” it was the first real word you’d managed to speak in a while, “Ca—an’t…” You had never tried to give yourself multiple orgasms, usually sated and in bed after you’d given yourself one. You were almost certain that you wouldn’t be able to give him what he wanted a third time in a row, despite how badly you wanted it, too.

“Oh, yes y’can, sweetheart,” the hand he’d had on your hip wrapped around your front, fingers immediately dropping to your clit and massaging it in quick, tight circles. “Just gotta make ya.”

Your legs were spasming and your tongue lolled from between your lips; you felt wrecked and used up and it made the fire in your core burn twice as bright.

You screamed his name, cried it out repeatedly while you drenched his cock.

Cooper let go of the grip he had on your scalp, groaning at the feel of you wrapped around him and the sound of his name falling from your lips.

“Good girl—only fuckin’ word y’gotta know.” He moaned, still thrusting into you, though his pace had slowed, and his fingers pressed more gently into your clit as you rode out your high. “Y’gonna let me bust in that pretty mouth again?” He reached forward, two of his fingers hooking the side of your cheek before adjusting to rest on your tongue. You closed your lips around them and sucked. “Wanna swallow what I got for ya?”

You tried to respond, but your words were garbled by his fingers.

“Speak up, girl,” Cooper tsked, letting his hand fall down to your throat and giving it a squeeze.

“Not—not my mouth,” you spluttered, “In my pussy.”

You heard him let out a strangled sound, one he quickly tried to swallow in order to regain composure. He wanted to argue—tell you that you weren’t just a quick fuck he’d toss chems at and forget in an hour, that he’d paint your chest or your ass or your face instead, give you all the glory of the reward without the poisonous aftereffects.

But damn if he didn’t want to see you full of his load, letting him watch while it dripped from your swollen, used-up hole.

“Y’sure, sweetheart?” He pressed, holding back his imminent high for a moment longer to make sure you weren’t just letting your libido speak for you.

“Cooper…” You whined, purposefully squeezing your walls tighter around him, “Fill me up.”

He had to hand it to you: even fucked stupid, you were still stubborn as all hell. And incredibly convincing, at that.

It made him smile into the back of your neck, leaning forward to pin you down again while he sped up the motion of his hips.

“Fuckin’ whore. Y’wanna get filled up so bad?” He caged you between his arms, trapping you between his body and the counter, “Fill y’up every fuckin’ day—keep ya drippin’ for me so I can slide right back in. Fuckin’ cumslut.”

He was getting sloppy; his thrusts were more erratic, and he’d given up completely on keeping a steady pace.

You craned your neck to the side, eyes lidded and dry tears clinging to your lashes, drool pooling at the corner of your mouth. He stared down at you. You looked completely wrecked, and absolutely beautiful, and it was the first time in over two centuries that he felt right.

He kissed your temple.

“Cum in me,” you whispered, “Please, Coop.”

“Cryin’ for me, beggin’ t’be pumped full’a cum by a fuckin’ ghoul,” he was heaving, his words just as needy sounding as they were ragged and controlling. “Y’wan’it? I’ll fuckin’ give it t’ya. Desperate slut—Christ—fuck! There y’go.” His moan of your name was gruff, almost choked as he pumped into you. You felt him pulse, his chest pressing against you as he took labored breaths, still whimpering quiet whispers of your name. You clenched around him, half on purpose and half on reflex, and he groaned behind you.

You stayed like that, together in a heap, barely supported by the counter beneath you. Finally, he moved his head to pepper kisses on your shoulder.

“Gotta get y’up,” he mumbled against you.

“Don’t wanna.” You were perfectly happy to stay where you were, with the cold counter pressed against your cheek and his cock still inside you.

“RadAway.” He said it like a warning.

“I feel fine.”

“Don’t test me, darlin’.”

“Or what?” You goaded, arching your back against him and wiggling your hips.

He cursed under his breath. “You’ll get sick ‘nd whiney ‘n’I’m the one ‘at’s gotta deal with it.” He nipped at your neck, and you giggled.

“Sick, maybe. I don’t whine.” You rolled your eyes.

“Uhuh.” Cooper chuckled, standing properly. He winced when he finally pulled out of you, but the discomfort of having to remove himself was quickly remedied by the way his cum dripped from your cunt and down your thighs. He watched transfixed as the gooey mixture of the two of you slid down your legs. Raising his hand almost subconsciously, he swiped at the liquid as it trickled over your skin and pressed two fingers inside of you.

“Cooper,” it was more a gasp than a coherent call of his name.

“Said I’d keep ya full…” He was muttering, eyes never leaving your swollen cunt as he pushed his spend back into you. You whined, sore but content, when he leaned forward to press kisses into the globe of your ass, biting down with minimal pressure just to savor the bounce of your skin against his teeth.

He managed to tear himself away after a while, leaving you to your own devices momentarily while he tracked down his duster and laid it out on the floor.

“C’mere, sweetheart,” his palms were back on your hips, and he helped you find the energy to stand up straight. He whistled as he guided you to the spot on the floor he’d chosen, hands never leaving you when he got you to curl up on the duster.

“No room for you,” you complained, stretching out an arm to emphasize the uncovered floor next to you.

He smiled down at you, kneeling to rustle through the pockets of the coat under you to find RadAway.

“Y’think I care ‘bout sleepin’ on the ground? Slept underground before, sweetheart. Not one t’bother with comfort.” He kissed your thigh, trying to distract you from the sting of the needle he pressed into you. “Long’s I’m next to you, I’ll be jus’ fine.”

You winced when he delivered the RadAway, but the press of his calloused hand against the spot of the intrusion offered instant relief.

He found his way next to you, lying on the floor and putting out his arm for you. You curled against him, draping a leg over his side and resting your head on his shoulder.

You lay there together, appreciating the company and basking in each other’s quiet affection.

“This’s what it’s s’posed to feel like.” Cooper spoke.

“What?” You’d almost fallen asleep in the tranquility.

“Livin’.” He said simply.

“You’d know better than anybody…” You smiled, “What, a hundred years old? One-fifty?”

He craned his neck to look at you, smirking.

“Two hundred? You’ll stop me if I get it right, right?” You pushed him.

He just grinned, rolling his eyes and lying back down.

“Never told you how bad it was for me before I found you.” You kept talking.

“Now, ‘f’I recall correctly, I found you, sweetheart.”

“Y—shut up,” you laughed, and he laughed with you. “I thought I could be part of something. And then I thought I was dead.” You explained, “Or at least…dying.”

“No. You would’a pulled through.” He wrapped a strand of your hair around his finger, letting it uncurl before repeating the cycle. “Y’always do, Einstein.”

And even after everything, that’s what made you blush—his recognition, his praise of your skills.

“You are part o’somethin’. By the way.” He didn’t elaborate, just wrapped his other arm around you to pull you closer.

“Yeah, well…” You could only imagine what he meant, but no matter what, you had a feeling that he meant it wholeheartedly. “Helps that I’ve got you now.”

“Helps that I got you.” He echoed, barely above a whisper.

You both fell into silence again, his hands still combing through your hair.

“Meant it. ‘Bout how I feel really…alive.” Cooper stopped fiddling and rested his hand on your back. “Never thought I’d…” He had backed himself into a corner, unsure of how to describe his feelings. It had been so long. “I never thought I’d appreciate havin’ someone by my side quite as much as I appreciate you.” He chose his words carefully, not yet willing, or able, to put into words the true depth of his devotion to you.

You smiled; you knew exactly what he meant this time, and it made you feel like crying and kissing him and letting your heart burst through your chest.

Instead, you breathed deep, letting him flood your senses. “I love you, too, Coop.”

He moved to kiss the top of your head, chaste and vulnerable, and you leaned into him further.

“You’re a good person. Yknow that?” His thumb swept over your skin where his palm was resting, “Capable. Smart. Good all ‘round.”

“You think?”

“As good ‘s there are stars in th’sky.”

“Even after I killed a man?” You raised an eyebrow.

“Especially after that.” He nodded in reassurance.

“…What now?”

“Figured we could just lie here a while longer,” Cooper stretched, raising his arms over his head before they settled back around you.

“Yeah,” you let out a small yawn, one of your hands pawing at his chest lazily.

“And after’at…we keep on walkin’.”

“Together?” You asked, your fingers pressing against his skin.

“For’s long as you’ll have me.” He smirked, squeezing your hip.

“Forever, then,” you smiled into him, letting your eyes close. “Forever.”

“Yeah, I think’at sounds good,” he leaned his head against yours, basking in the glow of you. “I like that.”

Maybe you had miscalculated, and certainly you had been wrong about plenty.

But you got to be someone. You got to see stars.

And you got him.

☆Like my work? Buy me a ko-fi :)☆ Tags: @tragicdruid @lokis-right-femur

#cooper howard #cooper howard x reader #cooper howard x you #cooper howard smut #the ghoul #the ghoul x reader #the ghoul x you #ghoul smut #walton goggins #walton goggins x reader #walton goggins x you #walton goggins smut #fallout #fallout prime #fallout show #fallout the ghoul #the ghoul fallout

223 notes · View notes

retroaria · 3 months ago

Text

Domestic Life w/ Osamu Dazai ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊ ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊

• ───────── ·𖥸· ───────── •

summary: life with agency!dazai, days off, date nights, the whole shabang!

warnings: slightly suggestive at some points (not sure if MDNI is necessary but keep it in mind) NOT SAD AND MISERABLE CANON DAZAI!!! Pretend he is happy and joyous for this, why would he want to die when he has you? Not proofread!!

BSD M.LIST | enjoy 🐈 - aria

• ───────── ·𖥸· ───────── •

The days where Dazai can fully devote himself to you are unfortunately far and few. On top of that, he’s a rather forgetful man. He saves all his reports for the last minute, needing to finish them up while everyone else is already gone (or spend just as much time begging Atsushi to do them for him). He makes plans, promises, deals, all of which take up his time aside from the usual agency agenda.

You know that Dazai loves what he does, so you put up with it. At the very least he still comes home almost every night, flops himself down on the bed and wraps his arms tight around you. And he’ll still be there in the morning. flashing you a warm smile as you wake up to see him adjusting the collar of his suit, throwing his jacket over his shoulder before planting a soft kiss to your lips and heading out the door. The purely intimate moments you get to experience together always happen in the dead of night or at the crack of dawn.

Aside from that, as well as all the work related events Dazai brings you to, his days off don’t come often. Whenever the stars align and those days do happen to fall upon you, you know immediately as you wake up in the morning. He’s still wrapped around you, arms and legs, almost in a death grip. He would’ve left for work by now if he had too, not that he hasn’t slept in late before, but his suit is still sprawled on the floor of your room. He hadn’t taken the time to wash it or hang it back up because he wouldn’t be needing it the next day.

• ───────── ·𖥸· ───────── •

These days begin with an absolute power struggle in the bedroom (not the fun kind). This man will not wake up and will not let you out of bed. He will whine and groan and sometimes even shed tears at the fact that you would ever want to leave him when he finally can spend a morning with you. “Dazai we still have stuff to do today, you can just hold me captive.”

“Do you hate me Bella, is that it? Has our love truly dwindled? I finally have the chance to engulf you in my affection and you want no part of it.” He’ll give you a full Shakespearean style monologue about how cruel it is that you would deny his neediness.

“Oh my god Osamu, you are so dramatic”

Eventually you do escape his grasp and leave the bedroom to start the day, to which he must follow suit. These days are spent with Dazai following you around like a lost puppy.

He follows you to the bathroom, you guys get ready together, he sits on the toilet while you shower, talking to you through the curtain about all the recent agency drama, casually mentioning all the times he’s almost died in the last week alone. (He’s also sneaking peaks of you, slyly pulling the curtain back when you won’t notice)

On days where the two of you get to go out you always let him pick your outfit. Dazai’s list of skills typically pertain to crime and manipulation, but style and fashion is somewhere in there too. He’s usually wearing simple jeans and a crew neck, but he wants you to look like a runway model next to him. “Gosh you look beautiful, gonna make me look like the luckiest guy in the world standing next to you!” he gushes in a sing-song tone.

The first order of business is breakfast, a task which Dazai wants desperately to help you with, but always fails miserably. You opt to let him make coffee for you two, which he adorns with an ungodly amount of sugar and creamer. you’ve been drinking Dazais coffee for so long you’ve grown to like it. It’s like a sweet treat with breakfast, nothing you could complain about. If he gets his hands on a frying pan you’re truly doomed, so this is the one thing you let him have. He can handle the toaster too so he’ll make toast for you guys with jam on it that he spreads on in the shape of a heart with a smiley face in the middle “Dona’ look, can you tell what it is?” he says with a smirk of confidence on his face.

“Very sweet Osamu, your hearts are getting better and better” You can’t actually tell what it is but you know he does the same thing every time. You grab the toast from him and plant a kiss on his cheek, it’s like his reward.

One of Dazai’s favorite things in the world is going to the grocery store with you. It’s such a simple task, that always ends up being so much fun. He relishes in the domesticity of it. It feels almost intimate in a way, it’s something you both would have to do if you were apart, but you’re together, so you do it together for the both of you. He loves being reminded that you are a part of his life in every way.

But god is he troublesome

Dazai is the kind of person to stay at the sample stand and talk to the employee for forever. After about 10 minutes he knows their geographical lineage, their favorite flavor of ice cream, their mother’s maiden name, the name of the high school they went to, the name of their first love, but then he gets bored and moves on. Btw he ate the whole tray of samples while he was talking to them, but made sure to swipe one for you before he bounced. “Don’t think I forgot about you darling” he’d wink as he hands you the cup.

Once you guys get everything you need you head back home. Dazai is a gentleman and is obviously carrying all the heavy bags, but not without complaining. “I don’t remember us getting 3 tons of milk”

“I have the milk, that’s the bag with the 10lb rice”

“I don’t remember us getting 3 tons of rice either.”

When the two of you get home he acts like he just got back from a 12 hour shift, like he’s been fighting an enemy organization all the day, like he’s been strategizing with Ranpo for hours, like he just had to get rescued by Chuuya. He helps you put the groceries away and throws himself onto the couch.

Once he notices you’ve start cooking he returns from his corpse like state on the couch and peaks over at you. He likes watching you cook because you look so focused yet so relaxed at the same time (I’m sorry if you don’t like to cook oops) . He likes to try and read your mind whenever he watches you do things.

Eventually he’ll get up and walk over to the record player in your living room. As you’re chopping away you notice the feint sound of a jazzy tune ringing away behind you, before you can turn around to see the source there is a pair of hands on your hips, swaying you from side to side. “Osamu, I have a knife in my hand”

“That’s never stopped me from anything before in my entire life” he hums away, pushing his body up against yours as he lays his head in the crook of your neck. You guys stay like that as you continue to cook, him humming into your shoulder, planting soft kisses as you simply sway to and forth.

“This is really nice, but I’m about to start chopping onions.” You lied, you were already chopping them.

“Augh god, my eyes! Why would you ruin the moment!?”

“I have to make dinner ‘samu!”

After dinner you guys both enter a corpse like state on the couch, snuggled together, either watching a movie or a parallel play type thing, usually both of you reading your respective books. During this time Dazai can be rather clingy, wanting to literally lay on top of you or have you lay on top of him. He also needs to get your opinion on whatever is happening in the movie or this crazy new suicide method he saw in his book (it’s a novelty interest now, how could he want to die when he has you!)

As bed time approaches, Dazai gets into the shower and it’s your turn to sit in the bathroom with him and tell him about all of your own work drama. Unlike Dazai, your peaks behind the curtain aren’t very sly “hey I see you~” he’d say in a teasing tone.

When the two of you finally get into bed, a wave of sadness washes over Dazai. He is unpleasantly reminded that he has to go to work tomorrow. His little life with you would end once morning came and he’d go back to having to use 100% of his brain power to focus on anything but you. He dreaded the thought and all he can do now to eleviate the pain is pull you close beside him. He plants a million kisses on your face before pulling your lips against his into a deeper kiss that usually lasts until both of you are tired and slightly out of breath.

At this point you begin to drift off to sleep in each others arms. You awaken the next morning to Dazai flashing you a warm smile as he adjusts the collar of his suit, throwing his jacket over his shoulder before planting a soft kiss to your lips and heading out the door.

• ───────── ·𖥸· ───────── •

I FINALLY wrote something for my husband Dazai. I hope you guys enjoy and I can’t wait to keep writing I’m having so much fun here!! Stay safe guys and much love 🤍🤍🤍 -aria

• ───────── ·𖥸· ───────── •

394 notes · View notes

ecstasyhighway · 6 months ago

Text

no feelings | toji fushiguro

cw: toji is lowkey an asshole here guys, small amount of texting at the beginning, toji catches reader masturbating, no use of y/n, pet names: good girl , pretty , princess , baby , babygirl. pussy eating, deadbeat asshole!toji (sorry its canon i fear) backshots… pussy and ass slaps, cum eating if you squint, squirting. unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it chat) toji cums in reader, the tiniest amount of overstimulation and edging. hes rough with reader.. reader had like two drinks so shes not drunk but tipsy. if i missed anything lmk.

a/n: so why tf did this take me ten years to write…? anywayss. no but fr i need him guys.. like why is he so bad actually like… ALSO this is inspired by fanart on pinterest!! okay enjoy sillies

also not proofread and lowercase intended

you and your friends had just spent a night out at the bar, you had a couple of drinks and you were feeling very emotional and needy. you're in an uber headed to your flat. the small amount of alcohol in your system is clouding your judgment. you head inside dropping all your shit on the floor before plopping down on the couch. you thought to yourself, you need a good dicking down right now. you and toji have been fucking on the low for a year and a half now and you really like him, terrible idea to like the toji fushiguro, but he treats you so well when he wants to… sending toji a text about how you were feeling was definitely not a good idea. yall were just fuck buddies, strictly no feelings attached, but the more you got to know him the more you started to develop feelings for him. you reach for your phone and send a text to toji.

'i lovre yoh <3'

'wtf? yk I said no feelings. do i need to come over there and fuck some sense into you?'

'noo'

'why are you acting that way? are you drunk?'

'i habd two drinkds im just a little tipsky'

'ok…why'd you send me that stupid braindead text hmm?'

'cus i missd yoouh'

'well then be prepared pretty. imma fuck you til you can't think straight.'

you felt yourself getting wet at the thought of him, you rub your thighs together trying to get some friction. You felt so light headed, just thinking about his body and how good he always fucks you. without thinking your snake your hand into your pants, you begin to rub your clit through your underwear. Needy whimpers leave your mouth as you try to relive the aching feeling in your body. You were so lost in trying to get yourself off you didn't even notice the faint sound of keys jingling, and the door opening.

"what are you doing?" your hear toji's voice echo through your brain and you look up. He looks displeased with you. "y'knew I was coming over right?" you sit up and look at him through your lashes and you nod, feeling embarrassed. "then why are you touching yourself hmm?"

"i jus couldn't wait you were taking too long, i jus' need you so bad" your voice sounds pathetic and he can't help but look at you with fake pity.

"so lemme get this straight, you text me talking about you love me, knowing that'll make me mad.. then you touch yourself knowing I was headed this way which you knew would also piss me off…then you give me some pathetic excuse? oh…" he grabs your face forcing you to look at him "you must want me to break you huh? you want me to fuck you until you can't walk? until you forget your own name? how embarrassing…" he laughs slightly and lets go of your face "get up and go to your room, sit there and wait for me, I'll be there in a minute."

you go to your room and sit there patiently waiting for him to come upstairs. Your heart was beating so fast you could hear it in your ears. It feels like years go by as you wait for toji to come upstairs, you consider going back to the living room and seeing what he was doing but… you know that that'll just make him even more angry.. so you wait, but the feeling in your core is getting harder to ignore. after what seems like hours, finally you hear heavy footsteps from outside your room. The door swings open and he walks up to you, you feel his eyes staring into your soul so you look down, not wanting to look him in his eyes.

he grabs your face making you look at him. "look at me" his voice is harsh and demanding, sending shocks to your core. You look up at him and he smirks, "good girl…" he strokes your cheek with his thumb softly, still looking at you with that sadistic smirk. "please.." you whine trying to get him to stop teasing you. His expression turns cold and he lets go of your face.

"lie down" you listen to him and you sit back on your bed. Toji slowly takes off your leggings. Once he sees the wet spot on your lacy underwear, he rubs your clit through them which causes you to buck your hips at the subtle contact. "you're so wet… all this for me baby?" hes still rubbing small circles on your clit, you whimper and try to grind on his hand to get more friction but he holds your hips in place stopping you from moving. "you're so needy" he laughs before tearing off your panties throwing them over his shoulder. the cold air hits your exposed cunt causing you to try to close your legs but he stops you.

"toji please.." he slaps your pussy and you yelp. He doesn't even give you a warning before begins sucking on your pretty clit "fu-fuck" your hips jerk as he eats you out like he was a starved man. you feel him insert two fingers into you, the mixture of both his fingers and his mouth on your cunt has you seeing stars. The sounds of his slurping and your moans are making you want more, you begin grinding on his face and he groans into your pussy sending vibrations up your spine. His assault on your clit doesn't stop, his fingers pumping in and out of you, hitting your g-spot every time. "mmfh m'gon- please ughfm dont stop m'gonna cum" your voice is loud and breathy, you grind on his face faster feeling your stomach knot up, suddenly you no longer feel him anymore causing you to open your eyes.

"noo..why i was s'close" he doesn't respond to you, he just takes off his pants letting his dick free, pre-cum leaking from the tip. He gives it a couple of strokes before walking up to you and throwing your legs on his shoulders, holding you by your thighs. He rubs his tip against your clit, coating his cock with your slick, he groans as he continues "fuck- you think you can squirt on my dick babygirl?" he doesn't even give you a chance to respond before he slides his dick into your cunt, bottoming out, you mewl at the feeling, clamping down on his cock. He groans above you "you're takin me 's well pretty" he begins thrusting into you, a slow and agonizing pace "fuck toj' faster" he takes a hand and puts it around your throat, squeezing slightly, thumb stroking your bottom lip softly. "y' want me to go faster? nah imma take my time." he continues with his slow strokes, you can feel every inch of him. his tip kissing your cervix with each thrust "look at that baby… hahh fuck- your pussy is so pretty- just swollowing my cock" he reaches down and rubs your puffy clit. its taking everything in him to not just go crazy on you yet, he wants to draw this out as much as he can. "toj' umhpf please-" you're so cock drunk you're just babbling incoherent nonsense. his pace is still slow pulling in and out of you, his balls hitting the plush of your ass softly. your moans are like music to his ears, making his cock even harder. he pulls out and slaps your pussy harshly. tears began to well in your eyes "that hurts" you pout. he leans down to suck on your bottom lip, moving to your neck, leaving dark hickeys on your jawline "awwh does it hurt? thats too bad… stop cryin" he says while wiping the tears from your cheeks.

"turn over." his voice was deep and demanding. you slowly turn and whine when you feel him slap your ass then knead the flesh before landing another harsh slap on your soft skin. "you are being such a good girl baby" he pushes your head into the pillows and spreads your lips while groaning before licking a thick stripe up your slit. "you taste so good princess" he purrs, licking and planting kisses on the sensitive bud. he gives your pussy another slap before getting up and stroking his dick. "mmhf tojii ah stop doin that" he slaps your ass "shut up you're fine" with his cock in hand he slams into you, "ah uhmf toj' so good" he pulls out and slams back in, his pace speeds up with each thrust into your sopping wet cunt. the noises of his balls hitting the plush of your ass, your moans and the sound of your pussy was enough to make him cum right there, but he can hold off just a little longer. he grabs a handful of your hair so he can fuck deeper into you, he finally has a steady pace and rhythm that has you seeing stars and squeezing around him. "ah ah ah ah ah shit keep going" he pulls your hair back, making you arch your back into him. you feel that familiar knot in your stomach "fuh-toji uhmf m'gonna cum" his pace quickens and he lets go of your hair, placing his hand on your lower belly adding pressure "go ahead princess cum on my cock, make a mess on me" you squeeze around him, the pressure he added and his words drove you to your climax, "shi- m'cumming hah" your eyes roll to the back of your skull as you shake from the overstimulation of him still thrusting into you. "you can give me one more right baby?" as he continues to stuff you with his cock he starts rubbing your clit. your brain is hazy and you cant think straight, the only things leaving your mouth is his name and a string of broken moans. "jus one more c'mon cum on my dick again baby" he watches as a ring of your cum covers the base of his dick "m'gon-fuck toj m'cummi-" the clear liquid spurting out of you cuts you off mid sentence, covering his dick in your juices, this is what throws him to the edge. the feeling of you squirting on him, covering both you and himself in your liquids has him losing his rhythm, you notice this and begin fucking yourself into him "wan your cum toji cum in me please" "oka- shit, m'gonna pump you full with my cum- uhmfuck shit" he holds your hips in place while thick ropes of his warm cum paints your walls white, you moan feeling another orgasm build up in your core. you shake from overstimulation, tears staining your cheeks as you let yourself go, you whine and pant, fucking yourself onto his cock to ride out your third orgasm. he pulls out of your warm cunt, watching both his and your cum leak from your hole. he stuffs it back into you, then licks his fingers tasting the salty sweet mixture.

he gets up and puts his clothes back on, leaving your limp, cum filled body on your bed. "alright baby, imma go, you uhh clean yourself up, don't text me with that bs again aigh? oh and i know you're on the pill but still i don't want kids so make sure u ain pregnant, get that mornin after pill if you need too, aigh im out princess" he gives you a final slap on your ass before leaving. you hear him go downstairs, grab his keys to your flat and leave, locking the door behind him. leaving you there full of his cum, tears rolling down your cheeks, body still coming down from the three orgasms you had. you just lie there for a minute, will you send him an i love you text again? maybe… he normally pulls up for a quickie. so for him to fuck you like that… you need it again. you stand up on your sore legs, almost falling over before you head to your bathroom to clean yourself up.

———————————————————————————

yeah chat i might need him asap… hope yall enjoyed fr

#—ecstasyhighway #jjk toji #jjk smut #toji zenin #toji fushiguro #toji smut #toji x reader #jujutsu toji #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen smut

267 notes · View notes

neonovember · 1 year ago

Note

hiiii

could you write carmy x reader where she’s a high school friend and carmy always had a crush on her (but he thought she had a crush on mikey) ???? like maybe richie brings her up, and that she’s still in town and SINGLE and carmy gets red like a tomato and ??? richie makes her visit the beef and candy almost has a heart attack?? idk give me some in love carmen !!

pretty pleaseee and thank u

so I got this request and I immediately thought of swim by chase atlantic, and specifically the line that goes;

“I’ve been drowning for a minute, your body keeps pulling me in”

And holy shit if that isn’t Carmen in his denial-in-love with a long time friend era, I don't know what is. Carmen tries too hard to forget you, but you've marked permanently, you've ruined him for anyone else so can you blame him for waiting for you all this time?

Seriously though this request was so good! I got a bit carried away and turned into a 2 part series that may or may not have drabbles added to the universe…I really hope this isn't just a load of word vomit you don't want to read lmao. I just love their dynamic so much, and also FRIDAY DINNERS AT THE BEEF IS CANON OKAY.

Golden Boy

part one of 2

warnings: miscommunication (i know i'm sorry), friends to lovers, carmen and the reader have horrible communication skills and don't know how to call, angst, anxiety

a/n: part two will be up hopefully tomorrow so look out! it may or may not include a smut scene 😈

p.s, listen to swim whilst reading this you'll thank me later

You sat hunched in the tight enclosure of the classroom desk chairs, the once loud conversations fluttering across the huddled groups of classmates and friends that stood against tables and chairs now coming to a standstill.

The air of anxious trepidation falls across the atmosphere of the damp classroom, the windows that had been opened to let the air in felt thin as you and the rest of the students you had known for half a decade waited for that familiar ring of the bell.

The bell that would solidify your last day in this classroom, in these run down halls, in the school you had first stumbled into anxious and oblivious at thirteen.

Your heart ached at the nostalgia of it, and you can't bear to cast your gaze to your friends who had begun to sniffle, like they were holding back tears, the grandfather clock your geography teacher insisted on keeping ticked on as it always did, and whilst you had spent years burning holes through the glass, willing for it to go faster, your one dying wish is for the seconds to tick by in minutes.

You weren’t ready, it ran straight through you, all this time leading up, from when you had first learnt your desire to pursue architecture till the moment you finished that last sentence on your final exams, you felt you would be filled with joy at the sound of your true departure into adulthood and college.

And yet, you felt like a kid again, learning how to ride a bicycle without the training wheels, trying to reach the fifth monkey bar, falling headfirst into the dirt ground of the field when you had thought you were more flexible then you truly were.

You didn’t want to leave, you didn't want to leave this place, this place of memories and friends and people you knew and loved. And it was as if God was listening, cause the resounding echo of the school bell rang through the halls and it was as if he said ‘fuck you anyway’.

You gather the haphazard books and papers laying across your desk, you had purposefully delayed packing in order to waste as much time in this memory as possible, before adulthood would take it away and make it something of the past. You hear your friends calling your name, and you tell them to go ahead as you make your way to your teachers desk.

“Hey Mr Jefferson” You say to your teacher has begun to bid goodbye to the leaving students

Your teacher looks up at you with a tight smile, sadness washes over the wrinkles and creases of her features, her auburn hair falling in short waves at her shoulder and her olive lipstick wearing down. You have to swallow to stop the tears from dropping. Your Geography teacher, whilst not teaching Art, had been the catapult to realizing your fascination with Architecture and design. She had even helped tell your parents, who had been set on the idea of you going into Law or Medicine or anything other than creative arts.

“You’ll do amazing, I believe it because I see how hard you try. Don’t look back at this place, leave with the door wide open and come back only when you want to design me a house” Your Teacher replies with a grin, and before you can reply shes shuffling through her drawers, before pulling out a sketchbook that has been aged and stained with use over the years.

“What’s this?” You ask, twisting the book in your hand, it was good quality, despite being old, it felt like an heirloom.

“It’s one of my sketchbooks I had during college, maybe some of my late night sketches fuelled by coffee and donuts might inspire you”

“I couldn't possible-”

“Yes you could, hell whatever you create will probably be 10 x greater than whatever is in there” Your teacher cuts you off with a chuckle, and you hug the notebook tight against your chest before hugging her goodbye.

You step into the familiar walls of your high school hallways, crowds of seniors running to find their friends and hug them for possibly the last time, test papers and report cards left trampled on the ground, it's chaos, but you love it and the sight almost pulls tears down your waterline.

You walk towards your locker, before you recognize the familiar wisps of blond curls catch your eyesight. Carmen. You considered him one of your closest friends, bonding together over a love of game** and your equal hatred of your Period 4 Calculus teacher.

Carmen didn't have much when I came to be friends, and after he met you, it didn't really get to him anymore, he had you now, and you were more than enough. Over the years you had gotten close to every part of Carmen's life, Mickey, Richie, Sugar, they were all people you regarded as family.

But there was something unsaid between the both of you, it was like there was something beyond friendship, but the embers had just gathered and had left unignited.

He’s gathering his things from his locker, shoving them into a bag in that messy way he is, and he slams the locker with a jolt.

You're standing stationary in the middle of the hallway, classmates and other seniors running by you in confusion, your friends calling your name annoyed, but it's all muffled, it all doesn't matter because it's Carm and god your heart aches so bad.

You see Carmen and he sees you, stopping a few meters away from you, and a moment of recognition washes over him as he gazes with those cerulean blues. There's grief in the way you look at each other, tears streaming down your cheek as you try to smile at him, realising this might be the last time you see him, forever, off to an Art school in New York, leaving him behind. You feel like your heart is being ripped from your chest and he shakes his head, his eyebrows scrunching up as he steps closer so that he’s only a whisper from you.

He brings his hand up, brushing a strand and tucking in behind your ear, eyes strained as he wipes your tears away painfully. He moves closer, so that his breath is against your neck and whispers

“Thought you told me you'd punch me in the stomach if I cried on the last day” Carmen whispers into your eyes with a grin that breaks through the tears that cause his eyes to swirl in colour's of waves.

His words make you laugh and cry at the same time, and you shake your head as you reach for his arm, and playfully hit your stomach with it. Carmen rests it against your waist, looking up to you in a pained expression, his eyes shift to the notebook grasped tight in your hands

“New sketchbook? That..doesn't look new” Carmen says, turning his head to examine the old book more closely.

“One of Mrs Jefferson’s, her sketches are..their fucking amazing” You sigh, running your hand across the folded spine of the sketch book.

“Thought teachers weren't meant to have favourites” Carmen shoots out, a playful grin on his lips

“Hmm, well they aren't supposed to tell you exactly” You banter with a giggle, you flick through the pages of the book, half drawn sketches in grey lead and ballpoint, Carmen tracing his fingers gently across the ingrained lines and shades.

“God you're something, you know that?” Carmen says, all of a sudden, and when you look up you realise he’s been staring at you the entire time.

“Bear..” You breathe out.

“I don't know how I'm going to-, I, it's all so much” You exhale, waving your arms around this place that has held so many memories, so much of your past kept in the creaks and cracks of plastered walls and lockers

“You're the only person in this goddamn place that's going to make something out of themselves, I bet my entire life on it Bug. You're going to do amazing, in that big city, you’re going to show em’' Carmen replies, grasping you against his touch tight. You look up at him, trying to memorise every dip and curve of his features, the curl of his hair that shone honey in the sun, those eyes that were always searching, and the small cut on his forehead where he fell off his skateboard that one summer evening.

“Don’t say goodbye”

“Okay” Your tongue feels like deadweight in your mouth. what if i never see you again?

“You say goodbye and it's the end. Just..don’t” I can't breathe carmy.

You can’t stop yourself from wrapping your arms around him, pressing your nose into his shirt to smell the scent of patchouli and cigarettes he always carried, you want to tell him to come with you, to pack an overnight bag and run with you forever, but the words don’t taste right when you try to speak and you see yourself letting him go, and turning away with a shaky step.

Turn back Carmen whispers, so softly that only the gods above and the wind around him can hear it

You feel an urge to turn back, it speaks to you from within, and before you can stop yourself, your neck cranes, turning your body to get one last look at your golden boy before time would take him forever.

Time would age him into a memory forever.

Carmen feels this tension leave his shoulders at the same time his heart shatters, you will find each other again, even if it was in another universe, where you're sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, going over groceries together with the afternoon light casting its glow across you. He will find you, he will find you and he won’t let go this time.

“Honestly Ma, it’s fine, I’ll get the movers to come in a little early”. You groan into the phone pressed to your ear, papers and unresolved bills are left scattered across your dining room table and you have this itch that's begun to turn chronic somewhere you can’t reach.

You take a moment to look around your apartment, now barren of furniture, and filled instead with boxes of badly organised stuff you've accumulated over the years. This place, albeit small, had been your home ever since you stepped out of the yellow cabbed taxi on your first day in New York, and whilst it wasn't pretty, you felt a pang of guilt leaving it all behind. These walls had seen you through it all, the late night study cram’s, the breakdowns, the accomplishments, the one night stands. You'd miss her, but maybe you were just a nostalgic person.

You’ve made a life in New York, but you felt misplaced, like pieces of yourselves were scattered across the states. Chicago kept a part of you, and it was only when you had gotten the chance to move back home, did it click. You missed your city. And you had cut your lease and emptied out the last of your savings without a second thought.

Now all that was left was tying up loose ends and making the trip down. It was funny, in a way. You had run to New York to pursue architecture, and it brought you back to the very same place you had left, there was a certain trepidation when you thought of Chicago, it held so much of your past, in its city streets and evergreen trees, and you don’t know if you were quite ready to face those memories again.

It still smelled the same. You itch your nose, sniffling against the blooming scent of cocoa and caramel from the Chicago roads, all this time, and all that you can tell is how it still smelt like maple leaves and chocolate. It was comforting, and it felt like the warm embrace of a childhood friend that had stayed sitting on the corner of your suburban street corner all this time.

“Thank you Mae, really, I got the call last minute in New York to come back here and if it weren't for you, I’d be moving back into my old bedroom at my parents” You reply, gratitude filling every word. It was true, your friend had swooped in the second you called, fixing you up with a lease and an apartment with her realtor links. She came in a clutch, and she had made you promise to never leave her again in exchange.

“Oh shush doll, of course. This is probably payment for all the times I’ve crashed at yours anyway” Mae winks, the bracelets on her wrist clinking against each other. She didn't look like a typical realtor, more like a bohemian solo-traveller with her filly skirts and auburn red hair.

“I’m not going to let a degree transform my entire wardrobe, my clothes are antiques, their heirlooms, they tell a story”

She had told you once, one late night on the rooftop of your New York apartment, sipping cheap wine and passing a blunt between you both. You wish you had known yourself as much as she did then.

She had visited you a couple times in New York, coming up for work and spending the time at yours instead of spending thousands on an Airbnb, but it had been a while since you've seen her, and all of a sudden you remember how much you missed her laugh.

“I’ve got some time to spend before it’s all hand on deck” You reply, placing the last of your boxes onto the empty wooden floor of the living room.

“Oh yeah? Can’t believe you’re gonna design a whole building on Michigan Av’, your a fucking inspiration Bug” Mae sighs in adoration, and you giggle, the feeling of embarrassment filling you at the mention of your reason back home.

You never got used to the praise and adoration you received over the years, despite your many accolades and awards, you still felt like that hopelessly broke architect student giving up lunch to pay rent. You didn’t remember when things started to change. When did things start to change?

“You know, if you’ve got time, you should check out the Farmers Market near River North” Mae replies, whilst flicking through her phone

“The one on Division Street?” You reply, you had a faint memory of the long strip of stalls filled with fresh produce, food and the rest of the little trinkets that were sold since you were born on the pleated table cloth of sheltered booths.

“That’s the one, this guy named Samson? Makes the best fucking bearclaw in the entire United States. Tell him you're a friend of mine and he'll hook you up…you know since you can't afford it” Mae replies playfully, and you roll your eyes with a laugh.

“Yeah yeah, you hook up with him or something?” You poke back, Mae had the tendency to know everyone in Chicago, from the mailman to the old woman you’d see feeding the bids on a park bench.

“Yeah, actually I did. Not like you could relate, how long has it been, hm?” Mae replies, stepping forward to whisper down at your pants.

“I’m so sorry she hasn't been taking care of you. What are you, mummify her?” Mae looks up from her crouched position with a raised eyebrow.

“Ugh, you know I've been too busy to think about that. She’s gonna have to be patient” You reply, you don’t want to think about how long it has actually been, since you've had any type of release. But the tension has begun to weigh on your shoulders as time went on and you fear it might become something you can’t ignore.

You begin to move some boxes into your bedroom, thanks to your planning your large furniture such as your bed and coach, had been moved into the apartment before the rest of the things had got here, so at least you wouldn't be sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Changing into a pair of dark jeans and a short sleeve top, you loop an embroidered handbag onto your shoulder.

“So, you coming?” You call to Mae, who’s begun to fill your fridge with the groceries she's swung by with.

“Sure would Bug, but got a call to come in. I’ll come by again later this evening though?” Mae replies, with a grunt as she lifts the 2 litre bottle of milk onto one of the drive shelves.

“Yes please, I’m dying for a glass of wine”

“And a blunt” Mae replies, snickering at the way you roll your eyes at her.

Mae offers to drop you off, but you wave her off, telling her you wanted to see a little more of your hometown. You needed some fresh air that wasn't the coffee and smoke scent of the New York streets.

The walk to the Farmers market was a short one, but you felt like you were wading through a current. By the way the memories of your past began to resurface as you passed the streets and shops. Every corner holds a part of you, and you have to rush by your old school to stop the pang of pain that surprises you. You weren't an emotional person, but god it was almost as if you were hanging by a thread the second you touched down on Chicago.

What was causing this? You felt like you were holding your breath as you stepped through the fallen autumn leaves marking the sidewalk, the gentle sun on your back, what were you waiting for?

You tear yourself from your thoughts momentarily when you catch the looming buildings that had been built on ions ago, the infrastructure of Chicago still enamoured you, in a way that couldn't be beaten by even New York’s impossible skyscrapers.

There was a charm to it, each of the buildings felt like you were stepping into a different decade, they had been the stepping stones to a lot of the infrastructure and architecture that spread into other cities. You felt like you were at the start of it all every time your eyes trailed across the facade and arcades of the century old stone buildings.

Without realising, you had finally made it to the Farmers Market, the constant stream of people coming in and out with boxes of produce or hauling wooden antiques with very audible grunts. You can’t stop the smile stretching your face as you step through the embroidered banner at the front of the street.

Despite the many different stalls and food around you, you don't feel overstimulated. This was your home, you felt like you belonged, like a name scratched into wet cement, remaining ingrained for years no matter the seasons that came.

You go over the haphazard list of things you wanted to look for in your mind, but you're caught off guard by a stall that seemed to be huddled by patrons. You step towards it, and as people move aside you see the blooming flowers and carefully wrapped banquets in woven wooden baskets to the side of the stall. A short woman with light brown curls is standing at the front, taking down orders with a grin, whilst a rather tall man behind her makes quick work to wrap delicate orders into soft brown parchment paper tied with string.

And all of a sudden the need to buy pink tulips becomes your first priority. The woman at the front looks familiar, but you can't quite put your finger on where you've seen her, but as you walk up to the front her face morphs into familiar as she looks up at you in surprise.

“As I live and breathe” She says your name with a screech and it's her voice that pulls her name to your mouth. Adeline, a close friend from senior year who’d taught you how to crochet and pick a lock.

“Bug? How've you been? What brings you back to town?” Ade replies after telling the man behind her your order without you even saying a thing.

“Tulips, pink ones right?” Ade grins, and you have to let out a chuckle at how you haven't changed even a little.

“Got invited to join in designing a new building on Michigan Avenue, so I'll be back for a while-”

“Michigan Avenue? Holy shit Bug! You’re making moves, knew you always were special” Adeline replies with a gushing smile and you rush to reply with the same adoration

“Are you kidding, look at this line” You motion to the increasing line of people forming at Adeline's stall.

“People love their flowers” Adeline replies with a shrug before you shake your head vehemently

“No, they love your flowers, and for good reason, look at these” You gush, pressing your face into the bundle of tulips that had been handed to you.

“They only look that good because Henry's so good at wrapping them” Adeline replies with a laugh, her eyes flicking to the brown haired man dressed in corduroy behind her. A look passes between them that tells you there was more than love between them.

“Henry huh?” You reply with a grin, and the man is quick to introduce himself, and you don’t ignore the cold press of an encrusted band on his ring finger as he shakes your hand with a soft smile.

And it's as if Adeline reads your mind and she slips her left hand in yours, looking up at you with a teary grin.

“Yes, yes I know, I should've called, and I’m so sorry-”

You press yourself against her, leaning over the stall to wrap your arms around her. You whisper words of congratulation, shutting down any words that hinted at you being mad at her.

It wasn't her fault, it should be you she's mad at, you hadn’t really made that much of an effort to keep in contact with your friends back at home, and the reality of it weighed on you heavy now, you had missed so many milestones of your loved ones, all to chase your own dreams in New York.

You felt like you were constantly playing catch up, and you couldn't lie when a strange feeling crept up at the thought of your friends moving on with life. You were so incredibly happy for Adeline, and you were even more elated when she had told you of the Wedding in April that you had to come to.

But that didn't stop that same strange feeling of being behind everyone else, you had spent so long climbing the ladder to wear what you wear now, relationships and love weren't even a thought, you filled your nights with studying and drawing and the occasional fling, but nothing more. And now doubts had begun to creep in, had you missed out?

Watching everyone around you get married and have kids whilst you were still drawing buildings in that same sketchbook your teacher had given you 8 years ago. You’re not looking as you walk past the many stalls of the Farmers market, and it is your thoughts again that causes you to accidentally stumble into the hard muscle of a man back. You feel yourself falling, before arm's reach out, grabbing you quickly to stop you from ending flat on your face.

You breath out a sigh of relief, shaking a head at your clumsiness

“God, ‘m so sorry, I’ve just been in my head, I wasn’t looking where i was going-”

“Holy fuck” Your quick to spit an apologetic thanks, you haven't even looked up to see who you've dubbed into, and when the sound of surprise meets your ease you look up, only to be remain stone faced with your mouth left open.

“Richie?” You say, the shock of it is still in the air. You hadn't expected to see him in Chicago, or maybe you did and it was sooner than you thought.

“When did you get back? Holy shit, thought we wouldn't see you again” Richie replies with a smile

“Yeah uh, came down for some work for a little while. How, uh How are things” You reply with a squeak, you can’t bear to say what you're thinking and Richie nods, a look of acknowledgement in his face. Mickey’s death had shaken you, it had changed you in its own way, and you still grief him, it still hurts when Richie's face kinda falls and melts at the reminder of his best friend's death.

“After, uh, after Mickey, he had left the restaurant, you know, the Beef?” You nod in agreement, the hazy memory of the sandwich shop on the corner of Chicago's, busiest streets, you stomach rumbles at the thought of one of those sandwiches you'd down in less than a minute during your high school years.

“Yeah well, get this, he left it to Carmen. And honestly, I was hesitant at first, real hesitant, I love him, but god, he's a self centred ass coming in like he knew everything, spewing the bullshit CDC shit he learnt up in the big apple? He changed things, and you know how I feel about change, but he made it better, I can;t lie, and you better not tell him this, but the Beef actually..” Richie’s familiar rambles are muffled to your ears, the only thing you can hear is Carmen.

Everything zones out as you scrunch your eyebrows, wincing almost, at the pain and it shocks you, it shocks you how the very name of him still brings back those memories. You still hurt the same way you did the day you left him.

You must have looked out of it, as Richie shakes your shoulder, anchoring you back to the present, and you have to swallow back the bite of pain that bleeds through your chest.

“Did you hear what I said? The Beef’s holding a little family dinner tomorrow, shutting down the shop early, inviting only friends and family, it’ll be like a little reunion for you! You have to come” Richie replies, and you nod trying to seem present.

Carmen took over the Beef? He was in New York? What?

Your mind is scattered with the uproar of questions you have, the thought of Carmen, the memory of him is like a fresh wound. It un tethered and opens up a thread of thoughts and emotions you had thought you bottled up and threw deep into the ocean.

“You, you still talk to him right? Ya’ll were pretty close growing up, like fucking thieves attached to the hip if i can remember” Richie chuckles, fondly remembering the two of you.

You cough back, smiling up at him as you trying to reply coherently

“Yeah, uh sometimes you know” You lie

No. You haven't spoken to him since you left, and it feels like your tongue falls dead when you try to say his name again. You hadn't called and he hadn't picked up. Carmen told you not to say goodbye, but the truth was it had been the end of you even before you had both realised.

You had spent years pretending like Carmen not calling you, not making an effort to see you after everything didn’t burn, but the reality of it had marked you in a way that felt eternal.

“So you're coming, yeah? You and Carmen can finally catch up” Richie replies with a smile, and look of something passes through his eyes before it leaves, and you have to smile back with a nod, like you and Carmen were still close, like you don't feel that he might turn you away or scream at you the second he saw you, like you weren't both irrevocably in love with each other.

Bear. You missed him, you are shocked by how much you do, you thought bottling up your memories and emotions about him and stuffing them so far back into your mind you forgot would actually change anything. There had always been this lingering thought, at the recesses of your mind, the last thing you imagined before you fell asleep, the feeling that filled you the second you came back to Chicago, it was all Carmen, it was all your golden boy.

And now you would have to see him, in less than a day you would be in the same room as Carmen Berzatto, you don't want to say it, you don't want to speak it into acknowledgement but deep down, you wanted to see him again.

Beyond it all, you both were bonded in friendship, sharing something you didn't even have with Adeline or Mae, and you had felt like a part of yourself was missing each day that went passed without hearing from him. Had he forgotten you? Had it been as hard for him to go on with life? He had been in New York for christ sake, he didn't even think to visit you, that thought alone made you want to run back home and never come out.

You couldn't bare the possibility of exposing yourself to such heartache, to the chance of being rejected by the very person who you forever longed for. You were always searching for him, looking through crowds to see the familiar curl of his brown hair, or the scent he carried, ears always leaning in, trying to see if it would catch his syrupy baritone voice.

The two of you were forever connected, like the roots of trees spanning miles under the Earth. The kind of companionship that transcended time and space, and god did you want to feel the sharp edge of his jaw between your hands.

You couldn't stop it now, Richie had opened something you kept locked and sunk for a reason, and now it felt like you would break if you didn't see Carmen. Even if it would break you, even if it was the one thing in this world that would destroy you,

You had to see your golden boy.

1K notes · View notes