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mellowsaturns · 2 years ago

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THIS WAS SO AMAZINGGGGGGG LITERALLLY FOAMING AT THE MOUTH

Bathe in Bliss | August Walker

Pairing: August Walker x afab!reader

Summary: You find yourself linked to August Walker against your will. Desperate to relieve yourself of him, you decide to confront him, and discover just how much of the dangerous man you can really take.

Warnings: MDNI. Some plot. Mentions of death/murder. Stalking. Foul Language. Alcohol. Dom!August, Sub!Reader. Fingering. Oral (f receiving). Slapping. Pet names. Unprotected p in v. Cream pie. Overstimulation. Dacryphilia. Lowkey somnophilia. August isn't very nice lmao.

Word Count: 2.7k

a/n: idk if i love this or hate this, but i wrote it, so here it is lmao. this could very well have additional parts, but i shall see the response to it before making that decision!

You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was how it all began.

You had seen him. Seen him put a bullet through some man’s head in an alleyway on your way home from work, paralyzed in fear when his dark eyes caught you witness the act. Even in the low, flickering lights, you could still make out enough of his features to pose a threat to his anonymity, and the last thing August Walker needed was some reckless girl blowing his cover.

He wasn’t sure how he let you weasel your way into your agreement. Perhaps it was the way your tear filled doe eyes pleaded up at him when he had you pressed up against the alley wall by the throat, or the way your chin quivered as you tried to fight the tears that streamed down your face. Or maybe it was the sweetness of your voice, begging him to spare you.

And if there was one thing August loved, it was hearing someone beg.

He was not above killing civilians when it was necessary, and he did everything in his power to convince himself it was, but you were relentless. Hands clawing at his chest, muffled sobs echoing down the alley, and the repeated prayer of please, please I'll do anything, I won't tell a soul singing from your lips.

He must have gone absolutely insane to have let you go. Of course, not without interrogating you for your name, where you lived, where you worked, and any other information he deemed pertinent to making sure he could find you if needed, promising he would be keeping and eye on you, watching you until he was certain you made no attempts to go to the police.

And watch you he did.

The first time you spotted him was two days after the incident. You were clocking out of your morning shift, only to gasp, startled when you saw him across the street. Standing. Staring. Warning. He wore the same black suit and long coat he had been in the night you witnessed him. Only now, in the daylight, you could really make out his features. Hard and pointed, chiseled jaw sat clenched, and brows that appeared permanently furrowed above frightening eyes. You had taken a deep breath before clutching onto your bag, knuckles going white, and turning towards the direction of your apartment. You would be fine, you told yourself. As long as he kept his distance. It was a big city, and he was bound to get bored of you once he realized you posed no threat. The last thing you wanted was to get involved with whatever he was apart of.

Days turned into weeks. You found yourself shocked at how use to his presence you got. Close enough to be your shadow but too far to touch. Always just checking in, reminding you that he could squander your livelihood whenever he pleased. There was an odd safety that came with it, knowing that if he had his eyes on you, there was no way anything could threaten you. Except the cold blooded killer himself, but something told you he was the least of your worries.

Weeks turned into a full blown month, and after a particularly stressful day at work, you did not find yourself basking in the comfort of your apartment until after eleven o'clock.

You wasted little time kicking off your shoes and stripping down, replacing your uniform for a pair of gray sweatpants and your trusty tattered navy blue t-shirt. A shower would have to wait for the morning; your body ached, and you could not muster the courage to go through the routine now. You absentmindedly made your way to the kitchen, popping open a bottle of red wine and giving yourself a healthy pour. Sipping at the glass, you move to shut your blinds that over look the dark city street below, and are left gasping in fear when you see the familiar outline of your shadow man on the opposite side walk.

"Fuck!" you cursed, clutching at your chest with your free hand, heart racing. You're grateful to not have spilled the red liquid all over your carpet. You are not sure what compelled you to be so reckless - perhaps the throbbing headache and short fuse after already dealing with an abundance of imbeciles for the day - but you put the glass down on the window ledge, unhatched the lock, and swung the window up with a force that suggested your irritation.

With palms leaned against the windowsill, you shouted.

"Hey!" The edge of your voice caught his attention as it echoed down the street. He noted the scowl across your face, biting back his own amusement. "If you're just going to stand there and fucking stare at me, you may as well come inside." You were unable to see his features clearly, but you guessed the way his expression shifted indicated shock followed by contemplation. He licked his lips, gazing over to either side of the street, before you crossed in stride. You slammed the window shut, the blinds followed. Not even a moment later, a buzz rang through your apartment, and panic flooded your stomach.

Why the fuck would you do that?

You contemplated your decision making skills for a moment. Clearly, the days work had gotten too far under your skin, because this degree of recklessness was far beyond you.

The buzzer rang again, and you jumped, startled. There was no going back now.

When you reached your door, you pressed the button that unlocked the common entrance. You heard the door open, then close, followed by the echoing sounds of heavy footsteps. Before he had the chance to knock, you swung the front door open, facing your stalker with a grimace.

The air is silent for long while. Only an exchange of silent loathing. You study him. This is the first time since that night that he was this close, sapphire eyes boring into you with an intensity that suggested he could snap any moment. You knew nothing about this man, but clearly, he knew plenty about you.

Not caring to give him the satisfaction of your apprehension, you turned on your heels, strolling back towards your kitchen and allowing him to let himself in.

"Wine?" you called to him. No response. You scoffed, pouring a glass anyway before meandering back into the living area. He's already hung his jacket on your coatrack, the sleeves of his charcoal button-up pushed up to his elbows, revealing his toned forearms. You only allow yourself to stare for a moment before your eyes are back on him, extending the glass. "Yeah, I didn't take you for the wine type, but it's all I've got. Take it or leave it."

You could swear you saw the corner of his lips twitch, as if he was amused by your sudden feistiness. Without complaint, he took the glass, and you nodded, satisfied, retrieving your own off of the window ledge before plopping down on the couch, exhausted.

He is like a shadow. Dense. Unmoving. Watching you. Save for the few sips of wine he takes. You sunk back against the cushions, using your thumb and middle finger to rub at your temples.

"So what are you, like mafia or something?" you questioned. That gets a reaction out of him, a stifled chuckle.

"Why do I get the feeling you're way too smart to be asking such a stupid, reckless question like that?" he quipped. You snapped your head over, somewhat shocked to hear him actually speak. It was the first time you heard his voice since that night, no longer laced with fury, but monotone, deep, sultry even.

You sneered out a fake laugh, chugging back a few more sips of your wine before facing him fully, sitting criss cross on the couch. "If you think I'm so smart, then you should know by now that I have no intention of calling the police or getting involved with whatever you are apart of." You repeated the words you had told yourself time and time again to comfort yourself for being such a coward. Any smart person would have called, but you didn't. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was as gut feeling that deep down you knew a man like this wouldn't kill someone unless they really deserved it.

He pursed his lips at this, taking a few more steps towards the edge of the couch. He set the wine glass down on the coffee table next to yours before folding his arms across his broad chest. His biceps became suffocated by the fabric, and you could not stop that buzz of wine that forced your eyes to linger.

"I know," he deadpanned. This made you even more irritated.

You threw your hands up in annoyance. "Then why are you still fucking following me?!"

Looking back, you really don't know how it happened.

Don't know how you made it to your feet, marching over to challenge him. Don't know how you accused him of being an absolute psychopath, the man you had literally watched kill someone, who was certainly capable of doing it again. Don't know what compelled you to raise a hand at him, about to slap him straight across his stupidly handsome face only for him to catch your wrist and yank you against his chest. Don't know how you allowed his hands to caress over the curve of your waist, gripping onto your ass and forcing his lips against yours. Don't know how you let yourself be washed over by him, ending up with your legs around his hips and your arms around his neck as he carried you to your bedroom.

The truth was, August had an obsession with your little game. And he would not stop until he took what he wanted.

The memory of it is seared into your brain.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

"Please," you had begged him. It took him mere moments to reduce you down to your panties, he still fully clothed as he sheathed his body between your thighs. He was littering kisses against your hip bones, both sides of your neck and tops of your breasts already growing generous welts. August was no gentle lover. He slapped your clothed pussy, making you whimper and buck your hips forward.

"Don't be impatient," he had growled, the deep resonance of his voice sending shock waves to your core.

The first orgasm he pulled out of you was with his mouth and fingers. His lips permanently attached to your clit, suckling relentlessly while his middle and ringer finger curl inside your cunt, brushing the skilled strokes against your spongey walls that clench around him. You don't think you've came so hard in your entire life, your entire body arching off the mattress, his free hand forcing you back down as he works you through your release.

The second orgasm, you're on your hand and knees. Ass pressed into the air by the will of his domineering hands on your hips. Your cheek is flushed into the pillow, jaw slack and eyes screwed shut as he ruts into you. He is naked now, Herculean body nearly demolishing your frame. You are mumbling inaudible phrases, but August is able to pick up on a few fucks, oh my god's, and thank you's. He is grinning devilishly, pleased by your pliancy. His cock is splitting you open at an alarming rate, and you're afraid you wont be able to hold yourself up much longer as your thighs rattle. You see stars when he reaches an arm around you, fingers toying with your taut clit as he pounds into you from behind at a punishing pace. Your walls clench around him, milking his cock into you, and he has to bite his lip to avoid cumming then and there.

"That's it, little slut. Cum. Cum all over my cock."

You think you may pass out at the third.

He's got you on your back, pinning your wrists above your head, both of your legs over his shoulders and pushed back against your chest by the weight of him. If you weren't so blissed out, you would have been shocked that your body could contort in such a way. He is grinding up into you, relishing in the way your cunt flutters around him. Swollen, battered, and gushing.

"N-no more," he hears you whimper, a meek excuse of a voice. "Can't...c-can't anymore." There is an edge of pleading to your voice, and when he lifts his head from the confines of your neck, he notices that way your tears stain your cheeks.

"Yes, you fucking can," he demands, and you moan helplessly as he picks up his already unforgiving pace. Your bed shakes, headboard slamming into the wall. Each thrust, his pelvis smacks into your skin, the tuft of hair above his cock tickling your clit. You sob out a loud cry when you feel the coil growing in your belly again. Everything is numb, everything is sensitive. Too sensitive. And when you reach your third climax, your body is not your own. Convulsing under the weight of him, you scream his name, tears staining your pillow the same way your slick coats his cock. He doesn't let up, not until he reaches his own peak, watching his abdomen contract as he plows into you. His breath is heavy, staccato grunts coming from his lips until he pushes the tip of him all the way to your cervix with a roaring groan, spilling into you. Coating your walls with his warm seed.

You're practically vibrating beneath him, and he takes a mental picture of the brain dead look on your face. Swollen lips, wet cheeks, and dazed eyes. You don't stop shaking even after he pulls out of you, squealing when you feel his fingers at your core. They're gathering his spend that seeps out of you, shoving it back inside of you with the most obscene of sounds.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

You're not sure how long you sleep for. In fact, when your eyes initially flutter open, you assume it was all a dream. As if the throbbing of your skin and ache between your legs is not enough of a tell, you rouse when you feel the rough callous of hands at your backside. Your head lulls back to meet with firm flesh, and you moan softly, half awake, half living in your sleepy stupor filled with dreams of what occurred the night before.

They were not just dreams, however, confirmed when you feel the poke of something at your lower lips. Then, you feel it. The familiar stretch that had overtaken you just hours ago. You gasp awake, hands grasping at the sheets, back instinctually arching towards the intruder.

August has his hand at the base of his cock, sliding it inside of you again. And when he is nestled between your folds, his hand comes around to take you by the throat, applying pressure to your carotid, hazing over your vision. You can feel and hear his hot breath against your neck. He doesn't move, just stills inside of you, moaning softly at the way your cunt envelops him. You shiver and feel him smirk against your ear.

"Just couldn't wait until morning to have you again," he grumbles.

He rolls his hips, slowly at first, and you wince. The few hours of rest you had not enough to heal the ache in your cunt, demolished by his will.

"August," you whine sleepily. You think back to when he offered you his name, just before his lips had taunted you. Thinking how boyish it was in comparison to the beast of a man. But he shushes you, keeping his pace a steady thrum of long, tantalizing strokes.

"Hush now, baby," he coos, rather belittling. He could care less how spent you were. He flexes his hand against your neck, earning another pathetic whimper. "I'm going to take what I want again, and I don't want to hear another complaint." And with that, he's picking up the pace of his hips, coming into you from another angle that has you reeling.

You think, then, that being followed is the least of your problems with August Walker.

#august walker rec #fic rec

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traffic-light-eyes · 1 year ago

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Hi I need help finding a fic pls

It's ninjago movie, but they if someone thinks something about the other it gets written on the other's body. Lloyd grew up having cruel stuff written on him, so when he saw jay getting bullied and having ugly(?) written on him cause his freckles, he started thinking up good things about him. PLEASE I need to read this again

#ninjago #queue #lloyd garmadon #august's opinion #jay walker #ninjago lloyd #jay ninjago #ninjago jay #lloyd ninjago #lloyd montgomery garmadon #ninjago fic #fic rec

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alidravana · 7 months ago

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rules: pick a song for each letter of your url and tag that many people (if you can)

Thanks for the tag @nightshadehasblorbos! Had a lot of trouble with that V...

All that She Wants by Ace of Base Looping by Charlotte Cardin I Just Wanna Shine by Fitz and the Tantrums Dear August by PJ Harding & Noah Cyrus Red Wine Supernova by Chappell Roan Always on Time by Ja Rule Vossi Bop by Stormzy As Long as You Love Me by the Backstreet Boys Now That We're Alone by The People's Thieves Automatic Sun by the Warning

Tagging @alilypea, @quality-on-a-patch-of-awesome, @detective-giggles, @dwisp, @localwormgod, @tokillamockingbird427 and anyone else who would like to play!

#ask game #music game #I also highly rec any of these songs #Dear August has gidchell vibes #Now That We're Alone is totally a Logan Walker song

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martha-oi · 2 years ago

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•°Multicharacter°•

°• @sillyrabbit81 •°

The Fallen Wolves Brotherood (all the boys😩♥️)

Prying (Captain Syverson - August Walker)

°• @littlefreya •°

The Reunion (Captain Syverson - Walter Marshall)

Dangerous games (August Walker - Walter Marshall)

Cowboys from hell (Mike - Syverson - Walter- Geralt - August - Clark)

°• @angryschnauzer •°

The director (August- Henry - Geralt- Walter - Syverson)

Beast and the Beauty (Captain Syverson - Humphrey)

The poker game (Humphrey - Captain Syverson - August Walker - Walter Marshall)

°• @wolvesandhoundshowltogether •°

The Grizzly and the leopard (August Walker - Captain Syverson and...)

°• @feralrunaway •°

The predictament (Mike - Walter Marshall - Captain Syverson)

°• @raccoon-eyed-rebel •°

Don't knock it till you try it (Walter Marshall - Syverson)

°• @wolvesandhoundshowltogether •°

Ramble on (Walter Marshall - Geralt Of Rivia - Captain Syverson - August Walker)

Birthday girl, Detective Soldier and Spy (Walter Marshall - Captain Syverson - August Walker)

#henry cavill characters #captain syverson #walter marshall #august walker #geralt of rivia #sherlock holmes #fic rec

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captainsy-cookiemonster · 1 month ago

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I still remember reading this in the car on our way home from vacation 😂 still one of my favourites ❤️

Destroyer of Angels

Summary: Deciding it’s time to father an heir, the cruel Duke, August Walker, kidnaps a young maiden and forces her into marriage.

Pairing: AU August Walker x OFC

Word count: 4.6K

Warnings: Explicit graphic smut, dark themes and sensitive content. I think like this is dubious consent but I will tag it as non-con to be safe, kidnapping, arranged/forced marriage, obsession, possessive behavior, degradation, oral (female receiving), loss of virginity, primal play, breeding, depiction of blood, bodily fluids and mentions of slaughter. Please read with caution.

A/N: Following the anon request for period piece with arranged marriage to August, this happened!!! if you’re not into dark things, please don’t read it, I don’t want to trigger anyone. Many thanks to my beta @agniavateira and to @wolvesandhoundshowltogether and @wondersofdreaming for emotional support. Amazing cover-art by @raspberrydreamclouds

If you enjoyed, please give feedback and reblog =).

Title: Destroyer of Angels

Keep reading

#dark!August Walker #dark fic #fic rec

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traffic-light-eyes · 2 years ago

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Born to be a 21st century ninja

Haven't even finished reading chapter 34, but my pain for Jay is immense. He's so sad, and he really thinks the ninja will leave him. oml

I'm more than halfway done with it!! 34/52

Edit: @weekend-whip

#ninjago #queue #jay ninjago #jay walker #jay gordon walker #jay gordon #ninjago jay #fic rec #august's opinion

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holylulusworld · 2 years ago

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Menace vs Maniac

Summary: You end up in their clutches.

Pairing: August Walker x fem!Reader x Lloyd Hansen

Warnings: kidnapped reader, interrogation, threats, restraints, pussy slapping, use of sex swing, degrading, dumbification, dubcon/consensual non-consent, drug use/sex pollen kind of drug, pillow princess reader (she just takes it, okay), butt plugs, use of sex toys, threesome, oral sex (male rec), anal sex, vaginal sex, both have big dicks, n/c role play, Sir/daddy kink, implied oral (fem rec), implied facial. 18+ only

A/N: My boyfriend left me unattended yesterday so I turned this random thought into this...🤣🤣🤣

A/N2: I imagined they used this swing.

Please head the warnings for this story before you proceed!

Fuck, this is bad. You knew it was a bad idea to do Ethan Hunt a favor. Helping him, or even being in the same room as him is a death sentence.

If only you stayed out of his mission. If only you didn’t deliver the flash drive he needed so badly to him.

That’s how you ended up in a basement, face down in a sex swing hammock. Your ankles and wrists are secured by the cuffs that are attached to the swing. And we don’t want to about the vibrating butt plug in your ass.

“Uh-uh, that’s a sigh for sore eyes,” one of your captors whistles. He circles you like prey while you helplessly wiggle in the sex swing hammock. Or at least you try to do so. “My partner told me that you are uncooperative. Not even the drugs helped. Let me see if I can make you sing.”

He grips your chin to force you to look at him. Fuck, you know that guy. He’s a mercenary the agency hired once in a while. What was his name?

“Bite me,” you spit in his face. “Get off me, Hansen.”

“Aw, sweet, sweet cupcake. You remember my name.” You snarl when he presses a sloppy kiss on your mouth. “I bet you will sing it when I’m done with you.”

“In your dreams.”

“Babycakes, you shouldn’t poke the bear. I can be nice,” he kisses you again, tongue poking inside your mouth. You fight the cuffs, but it’s no use. There is no breaking out of this swing. “If you are nice, I’ll prepare you for what’s to come. If not, my unfriendly friend will break you.”

“Get. Off. Me. You fucking creep,” you bite his lip when he tries to kiss you again. “I’ll bite you if you try to do this again.”

“Still uncooperative,” the other man in the room asks. He walks toward you and Hansen, just staring down at your naked form. “Let me break her. I know how to handle a brat.”

You glare at the other man. That face. You saw it before on footage. He’s a wanted man. Dangerous and deadly. “Name’s August Walker,” he smirks darkly. “You will remember it after I broke you down to nothing.”

“Let’s begin then,” Hansen snickers at your pained expression. “Just to be sure. Will you be a good girl and tell us where the flash drive is? Say yes, and all of this is over. You will wake in your apartment, and this never happened.”

“Remain silent, and I’ll make you scream,” August lifts one brow. He waits for your answer and crosses his arms over his wide chest. “I’ll give you ten seconds.”

“Fuck you,” you growl at both men. “Do you think I’m scared? I got cut, shot, and punched before. Nothing you can do to me hasn’t already been done to me.”

“She’s so naïve, isn’t she?” Lloyd dips his head to glance at your trembling lips. “Sweet cupcake, I won’t shoot or cut you. We found a better way to make you sing…”

“I’ll give you ten minutes,” this time August grabs your face with his large hand. “Think about it, sugar. I can be nice too. If not, the first thing I’ll ruin is your cunt…”

“Is it bad that I want her to remain stubborn?” Lloyd smirks darkly. “I want to break her with my dick. I know she will be a perfect little cock slut for me.”

“I’ll have her first, Hansen,” August dips his head to glare at Lloyd. “We agreed on working together. This doesn’t mean you have your go first. I want to have every hole before you have it.”

“We can use her at the same time. That’s what that swing is good for, and she’s got three holes for us to use.”

“I want her mouth first. She will suck my dick, and then, I’ll interrogate her some more. If she refuses to answer, I’ll fuck her cunt raw.”

“Calm the fuck down, Walker. The drugs I gave her will heighten her senses and increase her libido. She will beg us to fuck her because it will hurt like hell not to get fucked.”

“She will give us all the answers we need while taking dick,” August snickers at your predicament. “I can hardly wait.”

His cock is about to burst his pants open, but he needs to pretend he cares about the mission when all he can think about is your tight little pussy wrapped around his monster cock.

“That she will, my mustache-loving friend,” Lloyd claps his hands. “Time’s up, I guess. She’s ready for harvest.”

“Remember, I’ll fuck her holes first…”

“You can choose one hole you can fuck first; I’ll take one of the others,” Lloyd gets a knife out and points it at August. “She has three. Choose wisely.”

“We will see…”

“What will it be, sweet cheeks,” Lloyd cups your face with both hands, holding it while August walks behind you. You struggle to keep a straight face. It makes you nervous that you can’t see the other man. “I want answers, and I want them now.”

“Get fucked.”

Lloyd smirks at your reply. He’s glad that you didn’t give them answers. But you will, eventually. If not, he will find a way to kill time while his team tries to hunt Ethan down. “Did ya hear that, my friend? She wants a good time.”

“Hmm…,” August stares at your spread legs. He crouches down to inspect your leaking pussy. “You didn’t lie. She’s leaking for my dick. I bet I can shove my cock so deep inside of her she’ll feel me in her belly. What a waste of cunt, always hidden underneath her little skirts. I think we should keep her like this, kept for pleasure.”

“Our pleasure,” Lloyd singsongs. He’s excited to finally get his hands on you. “Now, baby cakes. How do you want it? Will you be a good girl and open this mouth for my dick and suck it. Or do I need to get rid of your teeth? I’d hate to hurt you, sweetness.”

“If you try to—” you cry out at the sudden pain shooting from your cunt through your whole body. “What the fuck?”

“I forgot to tell you that August loves to slap pussy,” Lloyd grins darkly. “I ask you again. Will you be a good girl and suck my dick?”

You blink at Lloyd. There is no way out, and your body feels like it’s on fire. Whatever was in the syringe Lloyd rammed into your neck a few hours ago, is taking a toll on your body and mind.

“Answer him,” August slaps your pussy again. Your body jolts, but to your shame, you whimper at the simplest touch. “She’s a dumb little slut, isn’t she? All our captured little bird can do is drool and moan.”

Lloyd grins proudly. “Now, sweet cheeks. Open up. Be good for me,” he purrs when you open your mouth to let him shove two fingers inside. He moves them back and forth, humming as you stare up at him with glassy eyes. “She’s there, my friend. Let’s test the drug. I bet she will cum only from sucking my dick.”

“I will fuck her cunt first. You can wait until I’m inside of her. I want to hear her cry because I split her open,” August slaps his hand between your legs again. He toys with your thrumming clit, pinching it roughly. “Yeah, that’s a bitch in heat, ready to get ruined.”

“A whore for us to use. I consider keeping her.” It’s like you’re not even there in the room. They talk about you like you’re only a piece of meat they can use. And they will. “Open up for Daddy.”

You stare at Lloyd as he hastily unbuckles his belt. He unzips his pants and pushes them past his hips. His cock springs free, making you whimper at the monster he’s hiding in his pants.

“Stop! I told you I want her to scream when I shove my cock inside her cunt or up her ass,” August slaps your ass. “Isn’t that right? You want me to fuck this cunt.”

“I-“ you are unsure how to answer. Escape is not an option, and you can’t give them the information they want. All you can do is let them have their way with your body, and hope someone will come to your aid.

“Just shove it inside, man. I’m ready to cum all over her face just by looking at her in that hammock. Fuck, I want to shove it down her throat.”

Lloyd slaps his cock against your cheek. He smears precum all over your lips as you try to ignore that you can hear August’s pants hit the floor. You hear the rest of his clothing drop to the ground and hold your breath.

“You better relax this pussy, or it will hurt like hell,” August laughs. “As if I would care. I’ll ruin this snatch.”

“Walker, fuck her or not. If not, I’ll use her mouth!” Lloyd is slowly losing his patience. He pushes his cockhead past your lips, grunting as you lick over the tip. “Good girl. Keep going.”

“Hell, she will look so good with my cock inside of her little hole,” August slaps your pussy again. He laughs and snickers as you try to wiggle away. “Stop it.” He warns, and you stop moving. You feel the wide head slide through your slicked folds. It’s unfair that your body is betraying you. “Good little slut.” He nudes at your entrance, groaning as your hole strains against the thick cock head.

“Nggh…” you choke out. He’s too thick, and you’re not sure you can take August. Not that he would care. He grips your asscheeks, spreading them wider to watch his cock disappear inside of you. “No…”

“Oh, yes. Just relax, sweetness,” August presses further into you. He moves the tip back and forth, back and forth to ease you open. “Fuck. That’s a good cunt.”

You moan loudly around the tip of Lloyd’s cock. Your walls fight August’s intrusion, but his size is something you never felt before. “Fuck her already.”

“Shut up!” August barks at Lloyd. “Let me enjoy this pussy. You annoying fucker!”

August moves his hands to your thighs, fingertips digging into your flesh as he pushes further in.

“You gotta do it with one thrust, dude. Don’t leave her hanging.” Lloyd chuckles at his awful wordplay. “Did you get that one? Hanging!”

“Fuck off!” August’s grip on your flesh becomes bruising. You can feel his cock pulsate inside you. At least the part he already shoved inside. “You gotta take it all now.”

He snaps his hips into your ass, causing you to cry out in pleasured pain. You whine and whimper as your pussy clenches tightly around his too-thick shaft. You don’t know if he’ll be able to even move. “Lemme see…”

Lloyd slips the tip out of your mouth to walk toward August. He cocks his head and watches his partner slide in and out of you. “Sheesh, she’s stuffed like…I don’t know. What if you get stuck inside her snatch?”

“I’ll happily die inside this cunt, Hansen. Now fuck off! I don’t need a creep to watch me fuck my g—this cunt,” August snarls at Lloyd. “Baby cheeks, I hope you are ready for the ride of your life.”

You’re not. Not at all. But what can you do? Your body is screaming for release and there is a huge cock inside of your pussy. All you can do is play pillow princess and take what August is about to give you.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Damn right. This cunt is going to get well-fucked. I’ll make your life so much easier. Let me just fuck every thought out of your brain. All you need to do is take cock and leak slick for me.”

You nod eagerly.

“Would you look at this good little slut?” Lloyd mocks you. He glances at your stuffed pussy one last time before he walks back toward your head. “Fuck her.”

“Please fuck me,” you cry. “I need you to fuck it out of me. Please. It hurts so badly. I don’t know what he gave me.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be well-fucked in no time.” You hold your breath when he slowly slides halfway out of your cunt again. “Now…let’s go for a ride.”

Your mouth falls open as he rams back inside. August doesn’t play around. He finds a steady rhythm within a few seconds. He alternately grinds into you and pushes you toward Lloyd with powerful thrusts.

“Fuck her mouth now!”

“Shut up,” Lloyd grips your face with both hands. “Open up, princess. I want you to be a good girl, relax your jaw and just let me fuck this mouth.”

He slowly moves his cock past your lips, smirking as you obediently take him down your throat. Lloyd doesn’t stop until the tip hits the back of your throat. You choke a little but try to relax your throat to not anger him.

“That’s it,” Lloyd purrs as you press your tongue against the pulsating vein on the underside of his cock. “Just let me have this pretty mouth.”

He holds your face in his hands and starts moving his hips. It feels like heaven and hell at the same time. You are restrained and at their mercy. But their cocks. Fuck their cocks inside your body feel so good.

“Yeah, she’s a good whore,” August speeds up. He hammers into your cunt, ignoring you groan and wheeze. It’s hard to breathe with Lloyd sliding in and out of your throat. Tears spill from your eyes and split runs out of your mouth.

It feels like August wants to taunt you. His cock hits the right spot with almost deadly accuracy. There is no way in hell he can know your body so well, but he does. With every snap of his hips, you feel the knot in your belly tighten, and you fear you’ll come around him in no time.

“She’s close. You better cum down her throat before she screams my name. I want to hear it.”

“Shut the…” Lloyd rocks his hips faster. Your mouth feels warm and like velvet around his twitching length, but it’s not enough. Not yet. He wants more of you. If he comes now, it will be over too soon. “No, I won’t. I’ll have her ass when you are done with her cunt.”

Your eyes widen, but you don’t get time to protest. Lloyd slips out of your mouth the moment August pushes you violently over the edge. To your shame, you cry out his name, and praise his cock like the cock-drunk slut he turned you into.

“Fuck, that’s…yes!” August slaps your ass with both hands. He shouts your name and spurts hotly into your abused cunt. “Your turn, Hansen. I’ll have her mouth to keep me warm. When you are done with her ass, I’ll have a turn too…”

Your eyes flutter shut. It’s too much. You can’t fight them so you, willingly open your mouth when August pinches your cheek. “You already learned, huh?”

“Daddy is going to lube your ass,” Lloyd moves his hand over your ass, pinching your cheeks, making you groan. “Shh…be thankful I opened you up with the plugs over the last days. If not, you’d be too tight to take me.”

Lloyd slowly rolls your clit between his fingers. “You will love my cock up your ass, cupcake.”

You bite your tongue to keep the moans from spilling from your lips. “Just put it up her ass.”

“Shut up,” Lloyd snaps at August. “It’s my turn to fill her holes. I’ll make it even better for her than you ever could.”

August rolls his eyes as his partner in crime moves toward the bag he brought with him this morning. He unzips it, humming happily as he gets lube, and a vibrating dildo out of the bag.

“Cupcake, you will love it.” You keep yourself from rolling your eyes. August is watching you like a hawk and the last thing you need is that he finds out that you try to buy your time. “Let’s see.”

He unclasps the bottle of lube and adds a good amount to the dildo. Lloyd pushes the tip of the dildo inside of your cunt, slowly moving the sex toy in and out of your slicked cunt. You moan and whimper as he switches the device on.

“OH fuck!” you exclaim as he shoves the dildo completely inside of you. “Shit…oh…yes…oh fuck…”

“Not yet, baby cakes,” Lloyd adds a huge amount of lube on your ass and his fingers. “I’ll enjoy having your ass.” You feel his finger prob at your tightest hole. Your teeth shatter and you stiffen feeling his index finger slide past your ring of muscles. “Yes, she’s a natural, August.”

“I know,” August moves his right hand to your throat, holding it in a light grip. “You want to suck dick, don’t you?”

“Yes,” you husk lowly. If you can distract them long enough to forget about the flash drive, Ethan gets the chance to find you. “Please fuck my mouth, Sir.”

The next thing you know is that Lloyd is rubbing the head of his cock up and down the crack of your ass while fingering your tight hole. He hums and curses as he’s eager to get his dick inside. “Cupcake, you gotta be a big girl and take this beast up your ass now.”

You open your mouth wide for August, ignoring Lloyd slipping his finger out of your ass. There is nothing you can do about the cocky bastard behind you. But if you are good for August, he might let you out of the hammock. He seems to be the more calculated and less crazy guy.

“Fuck her ass already,” August presses his cock between your lips, moaning as you slide your tongue over the tip. “Good girl. Now open wide for me.”

Lloyd ignores what’s happening with your mouth. You choke on August’s cock as Lloyd enters you. He slowly pumps his cock in and out of your asshole.

“Fuck, she’s so pretty filled with cock,” August groans. His eyes are glued to your mouth stuffed with his cock. Your jaw will hurt like hell, and you feel your throat become raw with every deep stroke of August’s cock, but you will endure every second to get back at them.

Lloyd starts to fuck you harder and faster. He’s close, you know it when he starts to lose control. He’s humping you like there is no tomorrow. Fucking your poor hole with vigor.

You’re floating. All you can do is give in to their desires and let your body take over. Your walls tighten around the dildo torturing your pussy. It seers your nerves, and reignite the fire August started.

Fuck, you fall over the edge the moment Lloyd curses loudly. “Oh—fuck…this hole is good.”

Shame washes over you when another load of cum fills another of your holes. Lloyd comes fast up your ass.

“Shit, did she cum again?” August thrusts a little harder watching Lloyd slip the dildo out of your cunt.

“I’ll keep that whore. No discussion…”

August ignores Lloyd, or the fact that you choke on his monster cock. He slides even deeper down your throat, and smirk as you struggle to breathe right.

“Let me fuck this throat. We can talk about keeping her later…”

The door opens again. For what feels like the fiftieth time today. This time it’s Lloyd who wants to get his pound of your flesh.

It’s three days later, and you barely had the time to have a break. Both men took turns. Over, and over again.

They didn’t ask you about the flash drive. Not a single time. Too busy getting their cocks inside of your ruined holes.

“Where to put it now?” Lloyd circles you like prey.

At least they had the decency to bring you into a different room with a bed, and not fuck you in the swing all the time.

“I’m so tired, Daddy,” you barely lift your head. “Just choose a hole. Please not my mouth. My jaw still hurts.”

“Aw, my poor cupcake is sore,” he grins maliciously. “You know, I will be nice and help you relax before I fuck your cunt again. Lie on your back and let me eat this pussy. You were such a good girl for us.”

“What are you doing?” August grunts as he watches Lloyd roll you onto your back to crawl between your legs. “Oh, you hungry? She tastes good, but I’m afraid I drank all of her nectar.”

“You did?” Lloyd looks down at you with angry eyes. “Cupcake, did he eat your cunt?”

“Yes, Daddy.” You bite your index finger. “But my cunt is still hungry for your mouth. Do you want to have a taste?”

“Damnit, she’s a vixen,” Lloyd curses. He spread your legs roughly and settles between your thighs. “Now, be good and I’ll eat this pussy until you scream my name…”

“What will we do with her?” August huffs. “She was a good lay, and we had fun. But, we can’t let her go now, can we? This roleplay shit you suggested went a little too far.”

“She will never know we used the video to extort her stepfather,” Lloyd shrugs. “I wanna keep her. Cupcake is the first one not using her safe word.”

“Lloyd, no! We can’t keep her!”

“What? She’s into kinky shit. Let’s keep her. Y/N will be such a good girl for us. And her daddy will never know all of it was fake,” Lloyd grins. “She told me that her stepfather is the worst.”

August rolls his eyes. “We can’t take her with us. Lloyd we talked about this more than once. Our job is not relationship friendly.”

“What if…we keep her as a sweet sex slave? She’d love it. Y/N is a kinky slut,” Lloyd rubs his hands over his thighs. “She’ll make a sweet wife for us, August. Can we not keep her?”

“Who’s a slut,” you enter the room and immediately jump at August. “Do you want to chain me up this time, Augie?” you whine. “Please, I will tell you everything about the flash drive this time. Promised.”

“Sweetness, it’s time for you to go home,” August tries to ease you into letting you down. “We had fun, but the roleplay is over.”

“But—” you pucker your lips. “I want to stay with you and daddy. Please, Sir. I’ll do anything. I won’t take up much space. I only need a little space between you and Lloyd. Can you not take me with you?”

“Cupcake,” Lloyd purrs. “Of course, you can come with us.”

“Who’s this?” Ethan glances at the footage of August Walker, Lloyd Hansen, and you. “A new player?”

“We don’t know yet,” Benji glances at the footage again. “So far, all I can tell you is that the girl is not one of our agents nor with the CIA.”

“I need you to find out everything about her. Maybe she’s the key to their downfall…”

“AW, this is a cool place!” you look around the secret hideout August and Lloyd brought you to. “Is this your home?”

August rolls his shoulders. “One of many. Don’t get too comfortable. We are still on the run.”

“Sir, do you want to play?” you coquettishly ask. “I can be a foreign agent, and you need to interrogate me. Or I try to seduce you but you are more into spanking my ass and pussy.”

“Babycakes is in one of her moods,” Lloyd smirks. He cups his crotch, ready for another round with his little plaything. “August, what do you say?”

“I say,” August roughly cups your cheek. He strokes his thumb over your lower lip, humming as you look up at him with glassy eyes. “Down on your knees. And you won’t get up before your face is covered in our cum…”

Tags in reblog.

#Menace vs Maniac #august walker #lloyd hansen #august walker x reader #lloyd hansen x reader #smut #tw: consensual non-consent #august walker x you #lloyd hansen smut #august walker smut #non-con roleplay

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ellethespaceunicorn-masterlist · 1 year ago

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🌸Elle the Space Unicorn's Masterlist🌸

Reader inserts will have no descriptors, OFCs will be black and plus-sized(unless otherwise stated). I love being able to give girls/femmes who look like me the chance to romance some of their faves.

🌸Bless my muse...🌸

I love to write fanfiction. Right now, my main muse is Henry Cavill. But I also like some Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan characters (see actor masterlists to know who I will write for - send prompts or requests to @ellethespaceunicorn HERE).

Masterlist is under the Cut... ...now sorted by actor!!

Sweet Treats Event 2024 Masterlist

Henry Cavill Masterlist

Chris Evans Masterlist

Sebastian Stan Masterlist

An Angel Without Wings - Explicit - Frank Castle x Unnamed!Black!OFC - When she needs him to take control, he’s there for her.

Let me know if you wanna be added and for what plz, so far only these categories 😁 Let me know if you ever want to be removed!

General Fanfiction (Everything)

Henry Character Fanfiction

Chris Character Fanfiction

August Walker

Bright Like The Moon

Love, Napoleon!

Daddy Knows Best

Don't Take My Sunshine Away

The Howling in Claw Creek Forest

~Please DON'T ask me to tag you in a series that you've never 'liked' or 'reblogged'. It's just kind of rude. Also, don't ask for an ETA on the next chapter.~

*Blog Header, Cover Art for fics, Masterlist Header/MDNI 18+ Banner, Support/Reblog banner and Masterlist Dividers made by me in Canva*

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curiositydooropened · 1 year ago

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Wildfire • Spark

After a less-than-ideal first week in training with your new partner on the sparring mats and in the swimming pool, it's time to flex your skills on the Scorch course. When Eddie discovers terrifying evidence to the face you saw in the swimming pool, you learn a bit more about what it means to be Flayed. Harrington learns some truths about the day Vickie died.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader

Chapter Wordcount: 9,765

Warnings: enemies/rivals to lovers, second chance romance, slooooowburn, unrequited love, so much pining, blood, gore, character death, best friend!disabled!Eddie Munson, character injuries, trauma, PTSD, hallucinations, drowning, concussion, hurt/comfort, fire

Fic Masterlist • Navigation • Masterlist

Chapter One: Ember • Chapter Three: Ignite

---

NOW

August 1988

Indiana thunderstorms came in soft and slow, the call of wind and blooming, teal clouds. They wet tarmac and corn fields first. A cascade of large drops that melted against windshields and abandoned shopping carts. Then came the downpour, hail and rain that ricocheted off tin roofs, just beyond the safety of underpasses and covered porches.

Before the world opened up, you delighted in them. You and Vickie, in matching raincoats, would run into the street and spin and spin until the world wet fuzzy and your teeth chattered. You’d laugh and dive into puddles, soaking your canvas shoes and the socks underneath. You’d sing and play until dad warned you about lightning strikes and called you inside. You’d shriek in delight under the warmth of your covers while electricity buzzed the power out.

And after, you peered beyond the safety of double paned glass and watched, watched for red lightning, for ash, for tell-tale signs that you weren’t right-side up. Your breath fogged the glass in front of you, arms crossed over your chest. The massive cloud, in its slow approach, shadowed the far end of the asphalt, faded yellow parking spots shining wet.

“Hey,” a voice startled your focus, and you turned to see Eddie, brows furrowed, leaning against the left side of his walker. “I need to show you something.”

Something urgent in his tone, laced with concern, almost had you forgetting the storm outside, but a voice on the wind called your name and you turned your attention back out the window one last time, watching the cloud loom in teals and greys. A large flash lit up the sky, sheet lightning, blinding white. You startled.

Eddie led you down darkened halls, everyone busying themselves in separate dorms or a rec room somewhere, out and away from the storm outside. He didn’t try to make small talk, or manage any of his signature quips. His silence only perpetuated the static you felt on the back of your neck, the breath that chilled you to your core.

“In here,” he gestured to a doorway marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, and you reached for the handle to push it open. You glanced around the empty hallway, checking for some sort of surveillance, before following him into a room lit only by a single television, it buzzed with that same static.

“What’s going on?” You asked, pulling up the rolling seat Eddie gestured to before he popped a tape into a deck.

“Wheeler copied this for me, and erased the original. So if we get caught, we’ve officially tampered with government property.” As if that was an explanation.

“We?” You tried to get comfortable in the chair, suddenly feeling eyes on you from all angles.

Eddie reached forward and hit play, and the sound of the tape winding preceded the screen going black. Then, slowly, banks of lights were being turned on, and you recognized the pool, however many stories below you now. Harrington took several strides before dumping his rucksack poolside. Then, he busied himself around the room, checking levels and cleaning where he could.

“Eddie,” you swallowed. “What is this?”

Eddie responded by hitting fast-forward, and you watched as Harrington stripped from his day clothes and jumped into the pool. He did a few laps, quite a few, before squeezing the chlorine water from his hair and got dressed again. Eddie hit the button once more, and Harrington waited around for quite a while before the doors swung open again, and you arrived. Eddie hit play.

The video was silent, but you’d seen it all play out, you’d been there. You watched Harrington drop the brick. You watched yourself strip to your underwear.

“We can fast-forward,” you instructed, clearing your throat as you tried not to dwell on the pudge around your middle, the unflattering angle of the security footage.

Eddie did as instructed, and you watched yourself go through your trials, Harrington spurring you on. Until Harrington jumped back in, and you knew what you were looking for.

“There, stop.”

Eddie paused. The freeze frame was blurred with static, the edges of the camera blurred with mist and condensation. The ripple of water took up the lower half of the frame. Your head was barely above water, mouth agape to take one final gulp. And there was no one on the tiles.

“Watch,” Eddie muttered, playing frame-by-frame. His fingertip stretched to the screen, pointing for you to keep your eyes on the steel double doors. And you watched, in horror, as they swung open. Exactly as you remembered.

Only, no one entered. No one walked to the edge of the pool to smile down at you. No one was watching. It was all in your head.

“So what? A draft?” You prayed.

“That far underground?” Eddie hit play, and you watched the door swing on its hinges for only a moment. Then, your limp body was being hauled upright, a dark bead in the water must have been the blood from your head (the dull ache hadn’t quite disappeared). Harrington lifted you onto the tile and leapt up after you.

Your best friend paused the video and turned to face you, half of his face glowing blue in the light, features gaunt, terrified. “Have you heard his voice?”

You knew who he meant.

“Have you heard the chime of a clock? Have you been seeing things other than Vickie? Hearing things?” He was frantic now, hands tangled in curls, good knee bouncing.

You clutched his thigh to stop the movement. “Ed, stop. He’s dead. Eleven killed him. He’s not coming back.”

“We don’t know that,” he shook his head.

“We do,” you nodded, though you weren’t sure which of you needed to hear it more. “We know that he’s gone, and I’m not hearing voices. I’m not hearing chimes. It’s just her, and it’s just PTSD or whatever bullshit Linda’s telling me, okay?”

“Then what’s with the door?” He gestured back to the screen.

You didn’t know, and you didn’t love the pit growing in your stomach, that lingering feeling of being watched. You tried to push it out, force it down, but couldn’t manage to answer Eddie more than a shrug. “Wheeler’s not going to tell Hopper, right?”

“Nah,” Eddie scrubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “I sold him pot last week. He owed me.”

You snorted.

The tape was ejected, static buzzed on the television once more, the screen illuminated in blues and grey. “I’ll keep ahold of this until we show Steve.”

Your stomach sunk further. You swallowed. “What?”

Your name left his lips in a scold you haven’t heard since you were in high school. “You have to tell Steve. He’s your partner, and if this shit is the asshole we hope it isn’t, we’re all in danger. He deserves to know.”

You avoided his gaze, running a tired hand down your face.

“If you don’t tell him, I will.”

—

The heat was oppressive, humidity that stuck your clothes to your skin and wet the hair at your temples. The plastic mask surrounding your nose and mouth was fogged, and you peeled the suction from your skin, letting it dangle around your throat to rub sweat from your eyes. You winced at the burn and peered ahead at the giant concrete structure before you, bathed in the neon orange rays of the setting sun.

The Scorch practice building wasn’t much more than concrete and rebar, four levels high with no roof. There were no glass in the windows, just holes shaped into the four sides with views of stairwells and open rooms. It was about as dark and desolate as any structure in the Ether, and just as imposing.

“20:04,” Harrington spoke beside you, voice muffled by the mask around his face, sweat sticking his hair likewise to his tanned skin. He was looking at the watch around his wrist, and you did the same to yours, clarifying his time as second hand ticked. “Twenty minute run.”

You nodded and placed the mask back over your features, the elastic too tight around your skull. You adjusted your fuel pack next, a thirty pound tank that slipped against your tank top at the slick of your back. You tightened the shoulder straps and buckled the strap at your chest, constricting your bosom even tighter.

You and Harrington pulled the hoses from their holsters simultaneously and stepped forward into the abandoned building, and it was like stepping back into that world.

The structure had been manufactured for these purposes, faux vines made of rubber tubing stretched across the surfaces, outward and upward, curling like they would in the Ether. You weren’t to step on them, weren’t to let them know of your presence as you made your way through the building looking for bigger things, darker worries, greater enemies. Trainers would rearrange it after each run, a new horror around new corners.

You had every iteration memorized. Muscle memory kicked in the moment your heavy boot went over the threshold. Finger on the trigger, the sound of your breath in your mask, you curved to the North, around the first corner into a room staged as the kitchen. They like it cold.

No lights, only an island covered in the charred remains of fruit and tin cans, vines melted to fixtures that had been stolen from once-happy homes. From the corner of your eye, Harrington side-stepped to round the refrigerator, but you knew it’d be too obvious.

“Clear.” He instructed, two fingers saluting to proceed into the formal dining space.

You shook your head and flicked open a blackened corner cabinet. You managed to dodge an egg as it rolled from its perch and onto the countertop. There, you hit the trigger. A surge of energy burst down the length of your arm, bright orange and white hot, like Vickie’s hair and autumn nights and agony, screams and cries of agony and the shatter of your heart and -

“Good job,” Harrington affirmed as he passed you, something unforgiving in his tone, something trepidatious.

You swallowed back the fear crawling up your esophagus and followed.

Harrington discovered a nest in the dining room, two dogs watching television, and another egg sack at the top of the stairs to the next floor. You hadn’t pulled your trigger again, letting him get the kill as you followed on, clearing bedrooms and hallways up to floor three, your heart pounding against the mask, sweat blurring your vision.

A demogorgon waited, split through the walls of an upper floor bedroom, made of vinyl and something else toxic, and Harrington laid into it, spreading fire across the ceilings and concrete bookshelves, and the fire licked at your cheeks and forehead too hot, too close, too much.

“Harrington!” You roared over the sound of his machine buzzing, flame thrown from his grasp.

He took his hand off the trigger and looked back at you with furrowed brows, sweat striping the dirt across his features.

You shook your head and gestured to the fresh char marks, the fizzle of embers against the stone. “It needs to be more contained. You spread it that much in the Ether, the whole structure’s coming down on you.”

“I’m trying to be thorough,” he argued, rubbing at his own stinging eyes.

You continued to shake your head. “Thorough doesn’t always mean safe. You wait for it to jump out of the wall, then you scorch it.”

“If it gets down here, it has a higher chance of killing me,” he propped his hand on his hip.

You rolled the side of your tank top up to expose a long, spindly scar on your hip bone that you knew continued down your thigh. “Get clawed or get killed. Keep it contained.”

The words echoed around your own skull, a buzz like nicotine or caffeine, something sharp and spiky that hadn’t left the jitter in your hand since you first pulled the trigger, since you stepped foot in here. Those muscle memories, all those hours training fellow toy soldiers, fuel strapped to their backs, the sickly sweet stench of lighter fluid, the only thing you’d ever felt you were meant to do.

You left Harrington fogging up his mask, back to the wall, feet avoiding the vines on the ground like they were second nature, like you’d always known where they were because you put them there. You turned into a bathroom, pulled open the cabinet under the sink. “Clear,” you shouted before scurrying into the final room.

A demodog decoy stood on the bed, flower-shaped head bared, legs squat. A hatchet was stuck through his middle. Your finger tugged the trigger, second-nature, the surge of energy a warm, familiar buzz against your forearm, the breath on your tongue metallic. You’d been born for this. Keep it contained.

“The rest of this floor is clear,” Harrington’s gruff tone filled your space again, a jostle of your pack indicating he was too close. If you were fire, Harrington was water, a quench of cold rigidity that doused that which ought to have been fanned within you, that need to burn.

You followed him for the final climb, these walls cast in pinks and reds and oranges, the twilit sky looming beyond. A breeze trickled in, cooling the sweat that lined your décolletage. You licked salt from your upper lip, burned remnants of paper and cloth crunched beneath your feet.

The hall split in two, doorways littering either side, tattered vines, sun-stained pale grey, bathed in red, trailed up the walls, flapping in the breeze.

“South,” you called out, and Harrington nodded, turning right when you turned left. Your packs knocked against one another.

Room one was clear. Room two was clear. You heard Harrington call similarly from the hall, and the sound of fire scorching something he had found in his third room. You edged your way around the corner and into the final open space. There, you found five mannequins.

Stood in perfect formation was a family, two parents and three children. The paleness of their skin had all been blackened around the edges. Some limbs were missing: the smallest one teetering on one leg, the mother missing an arm. Faces were in various stages of melt, dark grimaces on misshapen heads. One of the children remained eerily in tact. Her eyes glowed blue, hair a shock of red, smile twisted in delight, the strap of her blue tank top slipped down a melted shoulder.

“What the fuck is this?” Harrington’s voice was unmuffled, and when he stepped into your periphery, you saw he’d pulled his mask down to hang loosely around his neck.

You swallowed and held your weapon at your side. The red haired girl stared back at you, unblinking. “They’re flayed.”

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” He scoffed, adjusting his pack, bumping you with his elbow.

You shook your head. You’d been the one to set it up, Vickie’s suggestion, pulling mannequins from the old mall site. Trainees needed to practice. They didn’t know what they’d be up against, or who. You swallowed. “Put your mask back on.”

“What? No. We aren’t burning them.”

“We can’t risk contamination.” You thought of the video tape, of the face above the water, of that gnawing on your skull where you impacted the tiles.

“Contamination? They’re mannequins. Have you lost your mind?”

Maybe you had. You licked your lips, tried to ignore the shadow looming just beyond the figures, just beyond the girl with the red hair and the smiling face, just beyond the memories of Vickie’s screams, the taste of ash, the smell of flesh. “If you can’t do it in here, how can I trust you to do it out there?”

“Eddie survived,” Harrington argued, and suddenly the buzz in your skull silenced, a splash of ice cold water to your bones. You were drowning in it, the disdain that dripped from his tongue.

You turned to face him, pulled your own mask from your face. “You know he’s an exception. We don’t know how he got out.”

“But he did,” Harrington’s jaw was clenched stone-tight, he wasn’t looking at you. “He survived. He was flayed, and we got him out.” Everything that wasn’t said was caught in between words, context oozing with mistrust, with the truth he believed about you, about Her.

“Well, she couldn’t have been saved,” you spat, that vine crawling itself up and out of your chest, like fire and agony and screams. “By the time I found her, she had a hole in her chest the size of my arm. There was black shit spilling out of her mouth. She was -” You couldn’t breathe, eyes blurred with sweat and red hot sunlight, the heat was suffocating, the smell of smoke and ash.

You squeezed your eyes shut, tried to will away the images of her begging for help, pleading for you to end it, telling you they knew, they saw, telling you it was time because if you didn’t kill her, they’d know where to find you, all of you. She was a spy.

When you opened your eyes again, Harrington looked pale, nostrils flared, stone faced, but processing the horrors you let slip. You felt a modicum of triumph at knowing he’d experienced even a sliver of it, a piece of it broken from you and transferred as a weight to his shoulders now too. Consider it a bonding experience.

You glanced down at the ticking hands of the watch on your wrist and said, “20:25. Twenty-one minutes. Mission failed.” Before you shouldered away from him and back down the stairs, ignoring the lingering itch over your right shoulder, that presence that reared its head all the times you wanted to be left alone.

—

The halls were eerily silent on Scorch days, when the majority of the team had been sent from the building in twos to repel through gates and torch the boundaries of another dimension. You weren’t used to the silence, having spent nearly two years on those vehicles, adrenaline pumping and back aching from the weight of your pack. The past four months had been spent outside the War Room, pacing, waiting for an inch of hope, an eavesdropped morsel of what was going on down there.

Today was no different, nursing stale coffee from a styrofoam cup, watching blips on a fuzzy radar screen from behind several panes of glass. At one point, you’d made eye contact with Hopper, frown creased between his brows and beneath his mustache, and he shooed you away with his hand.

You’d memorized the names on the call sheet, muttering silent prayers that they’d all make it back safe, unscathed, untethered. Harrington’s words echoed in your mind, louder and louder as the day progressed and your legs grew weary of propping you against concrete walls and linoleum floors. His insinuation that Vickie could have been saved hung heavy on your shoulders like the straps of a fuel pack.

Eddie sat with large headphones over his ears, scribbling things onto notebook paper, wrapping his eraser against the page in a way that made you wonder if he was listening to radio frequencies or heavy metal music. You knew it calmed him, knew it brought him back from Vecna’s grasp.

You tried not to think of the song that left your chapped lips, the rough scratch of your vocal chords against the ash and ruin as you tried to bring Vickie back to you, back to the light.

You rubbed at tired eyes and pulled yourself off the wall and continued to pace. You thought of Harrington again, of the look on his face when you’d shared your truth about Vickie, of the obstinance you received when teaching him how to properly scorch, of the sass he spewed ad nauseam. You rolled your eyes and glared back through the glass at the balding patch on the back of Hopper’s head.

The scuffle of feet startled you from your thoughts, and you spilled cold coffee down your forearm. You looked up from the splash on the floor to two gangly teens who rounded the corner with hushed whispers and hands in the pockets of their tactical pants. They seemed twice as scared of you as you were of them.

The Wheeler kid’s eyes went wide like saucers when he recognized you, and the tips of his nose and cheeks flushed a deep red. Remembering the tape he procured for Eddie, you fumbled to speak and ended up sandwiching your tongue sharply between your molars.

“Hi,” Will Byers attempted to diffuse the tension with the quirk of his smile, and you swallowed back the saliva flooding your mouth.

“Hi,” you managed to wince through the pain and toss your scrunched styrofoam into a nearby trash can, wiping your forearm on your pant leg.

“Any news?” Wheeler managed, scratching at the back of his neck. The boys approached the glass and peered in.

“No. Your siblings out there?” You asked, as if you didn’t already know, as if Nancy and Jonathan hadn’t replaced you and Vickie as Scorch team leaders, as if you hadn’t watched Nancy zip her tac vest and tie her laces.

“Yeah.” Joyce turned from her spot and caught her son’s face outside the glass. Her weary smile showed so imminent danger, and she flexed her fingers in a wave.

Will waved back, relief relaxing broad shoulders. “No news is good news.” Then, he turned to you. “So, how are you? How’s training with Steve?”

You swallowed and glanced back at Wheeler. Suddenly, the bean pole found something on the floor very interesting. You sighed and lied through your teeth. You’d done it with Linda, why not the Byers kid too? “Yeah, great. Harrington’s a really hard worker. He’s a good asset for our team.”

“Jesus, you guys script that?” Wheeler snorted. Will elbowed him in the ribs.

“We talked to Steve earlier today,” Will explained. “He had similar nice things to say about you. Seems like a good match.”

You nodded, the words that once would have flipped your stomach now souring the taste in your mouth. Or maybe that was the blood pooling from your tongue.

“We better get back to El,” Wheeler bounced on the balls of his feet, elbowing Byers back. He offered you a bored nod and started back down the hallway.

Will pushed off from the window with another understanding smile. He’d nearly followed his friend around the corner before you heard the squeak of his sneakers as he paused and turned around. “Hey, I’m really sorry, by the way. About Vickie.”

Your stomach lurched, the flash of fire and screams echoed in your mind’s eye.

“I’m here if you ever you know, need to talk to someone.”

Eddie survived. Eddie survived and so did Will. Will Byers, Zombie Boy, the original spy, the reason for all of this. You swallowed back the bile surfacing and tried to will your eyes to focus on the features of his face, but your mind was reeling with information. You just nodded and somehow managed to croak out a thank you.

“See you around,” Will waved and stepped slowly away.

—

Harrington was a wall of meat, the slap of skin to skin, gulps and gasped breaths, heaving chest, sweat trickling down the column of his neck, sticking wild hair to the sides of his face. His jaw was tight, brown eyes black as he watched you down the scar-split bridge of his nose. His fists were clenched, the muscles of his forearms and biceps glistening under the fluorescents.

You huffed, grit your teeth, and swung on him again. You felt the whoosh of air brush your knuckles as he, once again, dodged your throw. You squared your shoulders, pivoted on your back leg, watched for weakness.

You found it in an open-mouthed exhale, a moment of respite on his end, a wheeze through salvia-slick lips, and you swung on him again, your knuckles cracking against his collar bone.

He cursed, backed off, rolled his shoulders, massaging the bruising bone.

“Ouch, that had to hurt!” Eddie cheered you on from the sidelines, balanced on a stool just off to the right of the sparring mat.

Harrington didn’t appreciate the commentary. He made that explicitly clear with a side-eye to the audience for every quip.

You waited for him to square up again, bouncing on the balls of his feet, fists ready. You swung and he dodged, catching you on the backside with a jab to your kidneys. You stumbled, but otherwise felt no pain. You huffed in frustration.

“Steve, you’re pulling your punches.” Jonathan spoke freely from his spot beside Eddie. He sported a bright red burn mark on his left temple, but otherwise managed to return from the Scorch unscathed.

Harrington’s fists dropped to his side, and he fully turned his attention to the crowd. “Will you two get out of here?”

You took the pause in momentum to get a drink, quenching your dry throat with a spray of water. You swished it, lukewarm, against your molars before swallowing.

“He’s right. You’re taking it too easy on her.” You flipped Eddie the bird, and he grinned back at you, dimple exposed, hair shaggy in front of mischievous eyes.

“Believe me, I’m not,” Harrington argued, cracking his knuckles beneath un-torn athletic tape.

“You are, though,” you piped up from your spot, readjusting the torn edges of your own tape. The adhesive had all but slipped from sweat-slick wrists, and had more than cracked from your knuckles on your right side.

“What?” He snapped, unimpressed, hands to his hips like a mom at a kid’s dance recital.

You shrugged, let your water bottle slip from your hand back to the ground. “I barely felt that last one.”

“Yeah! A love tap,” Eddie argued for you. “She’s been hit harder than that in the bedroom.”

“Okay,” you cut him off, feeling the buzz of embarrassment tickle at your chest. You pointed at the grinning idiot on his stool. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Strategizing to win this war?”

Eddie made a face of mock confusion, though it wasn’t convincing past the grin of delight that he’d gotten under your skin. “No… no, that doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Come on, man,” Byers snorted, patting Eddie’s shoulder as he stood from his own stool. “Let’s leave these two alone. Maybe he has stage fright.”

“Oh fuck off,” Harrington scoffed, earning bright grins from both of the chuckleheads.

Byers helped Eddie from his seat and muttered something under his breath. You couldn’t quite hear it from your distance, but you caught something about owing Nancy money.

Eddie caught your eye from over his shoulder, expression suddenly changed to something much more serious. He eyed you and then Harrington, an unspoken question that had your stomach lurch.

You shook your head and warned him with your eyes. Now wasn’t the place nor the time to tell your new partner about the encounter you’d had in the pool. In fact, you hadn’t seen anything else all week, too preoccupied with intense training hours. You and Harrington had an unspoken truce. Nothing was said. Punches were made, laps were swam, decoys were set ablaze, and not a word had been shared between you.

Eddie gave you one more warning glance before settling his shoulders and pasting his smile back onto squirrely features. “Well, I’d ask you not to kill each other, but I don’t think Harrington has the balls.”

Harrington rolled his eyes at the quip, and you waved Eddie off, waiting until he and Jonathan had made significant distance before turning your focus back to your partner. You found yourself glancing over their shoulders at the large steel door, half-expecting it to burst open.

“What was that about?” He broke the truce.

“Nothing,” you responded, tight-lipped, peeling the adhesive from your skin for one more adjustment.

“Whatever,” your partner sighed. “We done for tonight?”

You glanced up at the big clock on the far wall. You’d been at it for just under an hour, the time slipping quickly away. You rolled your shoulders, the joints in your spine cracking. “Fine. Same time tomorrow?” You tugged on the athletic tape instead to unravel it, a bit at the back ripped some hair from your forearm.

“No.”

You sighed. “Why not?”

“I have psych tomorrow with Robin.” Harrington’s voice was quiet, measured, as he removed the wrap from his own wrists.

“Oh,” you swallowed, hoping that was the end of it.

“You did good today,” a compliment that should have you preening, instead felt ice cold.

You rolled your head back to quell the chill that settled there. “Byers is right, you’re pulling your punches.”

“I know, I’ll work on it.”

A douse of cold. You blinked back at him, but he refused to make eye contact. He just grabbed his water bottle and walked off the mat.

—

A charcoal sky flashed crimson. Something called in echo, a signal for others of its kind, a signal to the hive. Your throat itched, nostrils burned, eyes stung, ears rang. Your palms, slick with sweat, gripped a railing to pull you upward, knees weak. You weren’t prepared, couldn’t catch your bearings. You didn’t recognize anything, endless trees and vines. You couldn’t make out any landmarks, couldn’t find yourself, couldn’t find anyone.

Then you heard a voice, felt it really, booming, deep, yet familiar. It chilled you, quelled your thirst. His voice, Steve’s voice. You turned to find him stumbling out of the woods toward you, legs weak beneath him. You caught him, clutched the lapels of his vest, screamed his name.

“Help me,” he whispered. “He’s got me. You have to help me.”

You scrambled frantically, called over your busted walkie to receive no response.

Steve sputtered. Black ichor fell from pink lips, tipped down his chin and stained the front of his shirt.

You screamed.

His lips curled upward then, teeth blackened, and he reached for you, hand too large to be his own.

You pulled the trigger.

—

The load was too large, drum banging against the walls of your spin cycle as your clothes rinsed of ash and grime and blood. You’d woken from your nightmare with a nosebleed, something you’d grown accustomed to in the past few months. You’d shed your sheets, your pillow case, knowing you wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep.

The detergent smelled stale, but the water seemed hot enough to rid your clothes of their stains, and the loud beat of metal was enough to silence the dull thud in your skull. Your eyes blurred on the steady shake of washing machine, and your throat was dry from the screams you’d undoubtedly released in your sleep.

It wasn’t the first night terror, and you knew it wouldn’t be the last, all of them flavored with the same dystopian horror that tainted your waking life. Sometimes Vickie would be herself, you forced to live out the worst moments of your life again and again and again night after night. Sometimes, Vickie would be replaced with your mom, your dad, Robin, Eddie. Harrington made his first cameo the night Hopper announced you’d be partners.

Sleepless nights were spent up in bed, reading a single page of a book dozens of times, only managing to focus on a sentence or two. You’d take yourself to the track and run into your legs jiggled. You’d tiptoe to the common area and fix yourself a bowl of cereal, Vickie’s favorite, and sob over the first bite. Once, it’d been bad enough that you’d crawled into Eddie’s bed with him. He smelled of old cigarettes and something spicy, but it was the only night you’d managed to fall asleep, knowing he’d be alive when you woke back up.

The buzz of the machine indicated you could switch, and garment by garment, you shoved your items into the wider drum of a stand-up dryer, one of three in the facility. You separated your sheets into another, ensuring everything would dry before the sun came up, and you slipped your coins into the slots before turning the machines on.

Out of your periphery, the laundry room door opened. A crack at first, just enough for someone to slip in and out, and you backed yourself into the corner, watching and waiting. Maybe you hadn’t woken up, maybe you were still dreaming, maybe this is when you’d see the face smiling back at you.

Only, Harrington entered, grime free, in fact the cleanest you’d seen him maybe ever. His hair was nicely coiffed, an old grey Member’s Only jacket shoved over broad shoulders. “Oh good,” he said, “you’re awake.”

His eyes trailed your body, scrutinizing the tactical pants you’d shoved over the breadth of your hips, the tank top, the sport’s bra holding you together underneath. That crease formed it’s way between his brows again. “You got any other clothes?”

“In the dryer,” you gestured to the steady rhythm of the dryers.

“Okay, that’s fine. Let’s go.” He swung the door open, and you heard the stomp of his feet up the tiny staircase.

You blinked, slow in processing from your lack of sleep, but followed him to the doorway instead. “What part of ‘my clothes are in the dryer’ do you not understand? What’s going on?”

He turned back to you, hands on his hips, and rolled his eyes. “You’re the only one I know who does their laundry in the middle of the night. If anyone steals them, there’s a hundred percent chance of finding them and shaking them down for you belongings. Now, come on.” He gestured like a pestilent child taking their mother down the toy aisle.

You cursed, debated whether this was worth an all-out brawl, and decided to follow him, closing the door behind you.

He didn’t let you catch up, remaining a handful of steps ahead until he was leading you up, across a darkened gym floor, and out a large steel door.

The night air coated your skin in gooseflesh. A single flood lamp illuminated the tops of a dozen or so cars in the parking lot, abandoned and unused, aluminum rusting under an ever-present cloud, sun set hours ago. The air smelled somewhat less foul, the sulphur and decay cast away on a cool breeze that brushed between your legs and pebbled your skin. You were unable to hold back a shiver.

Harrington crossed the lot to a little maroon BMW, waving you over with an impatience only he could exude. “Hurry up, we’re on a time crunch.”

You scurried after him, boots crunching on gravel, and waited for him to reach over to unlock your door before you opened it and settled in. “What is going on?” You asked through grit teeth, slamming the door.

The car smelled of him, that cologne you once found intoxicating, and when the engine turned over, the speakers blared Queen’s greatest hits, and you were thrown back against plush seats as he took off, peeling out of the little parking lot and out and away from the facility. You glanced at the compound out the back window, the looming concrete structure you called home fading into the horizon.

“Where are you taking me? Will you slow down?” You buckled your seatbelt and gripped the door handle while he shifted gears, racing along curves in backroads he’d memorized years ago.

If he could hear you over the speakers, he acted like he couldn’t, fingers wrapping to Roger Taylor’s beat.

You had half a mind to shut the music off, to pull the emergency brake, to get him to answer you. But something in you felt more settled here than you had been for months, the warmth from the heater fanning your chest, comfortable seats, Freddie’s dulcet tones bringing you back to reality, shielding you from any more horrors.

—

Roadie’s Roadhouse stunk of spilled beer and fried food, the sweet tang of barbecue that lured you further in and grumbled at a hungry stomach. You followed Harrington’s broad shoulders to two empty seats at the bar, behind which a rotund woman in a jean vest offered a gap-tooth smile.

You glanced sideways at a group of pool players, balls clacking against one another atop patchy green. Steer horns coated one wall, the wall beside it collaged in autographed photos of celebrities. A blues guitarist sat lonely upon the world’s tiniest stage, picking out a wholesome tune.

Harrington cracked a wry smile, holding two fingers to the woman who was already removing the caps off two beer bottles with her bare hands.

With the chill of wind at the back of your neck from the open door behind you, a few stragglers entered whooping and hollering, slapping hands in greeting with the men playing pool.

“You lovebirds lookin’ to eat tonight? Kitchen closes in twenty.” The woman whistled, leaning too far into Harrington’s personal bubble. He didn’t seem to mind. Your body wracked with another shudder of disgust.

“Two briskets please.” He offered a smile, sticky sweet glazed.

“All the fixin’s?”

He nodded.

“Comin’ right up, sweetheart.”

You waited for her to head to the kitchen. “Harrington,” his name fell from your lips drowning in disdain. “What the fuck are we doing here?”

He sighed and brought the amber bottle to his lips. You watched his Adam’s apple bob as he drank, wiping foam from the corners of his lips when he’d finished. He glanced at you sideways, shrugged his shoulders, and set the glass back on the bar top. “It was Robin’s idea.”

Another gust of cold air blanketed your shoulders, and you spun in a panic. Bikers exited with raucous laughter. Your heart thundered in your chest, your skull. You weren’t ready to face her, to see the hatred in her blue eyes. Had she brought you out here for payback? Far away from the compound where no one could hear your screams?

“Hop said he wants us closer than the Sinclairs,” Harrington took another swig, eyes rolling into the back of his head. “So Robin suggested I buy you real food and ‘get to know you’.” He put the last phrase in air quotes, head tipping back with another drink.

You took a few steadying breaths to soak in what he was telling you, glanced around the room again for any sign of Robin, any sign of Vickie, any sign that you were still dreaming. “You already know me,” you scoffed, bringing your own beer to your lips. It was cheap ass beer, more water than anything else, but it satisfied that unease in your stomach, gave your hands something to do as you ran your thumbnail over the ridged bumps of the glass at its base.

“Do I?” His voice was almost imperceptible against the glass, but it struck its intended target.

And maybe he was right. You considered through the fizz of alcohol. The woman you were now was certainly different from the girl he’d once held in his arms, scarred over and changed forever. One soft and cocksure, thirsty for adventure, you were now hardened, eroded by the elements, carved into the stone hearted being that sat beside him.

You chugged the rest of your drink, holding back a burp with the back of your hand as the fizz bubbled up, and you slid the bottle back to the lip of the counter. “What do you want to know?” You breathed.

Harrington eyed you for a moment, and you waited under his scrutiny, staring at your own reflection in the stained mirror behind shelves of liquor bottles.

You were nothing like the girl he’d met. Your jaw was sharper, shoulders broader, biceps sculpted and scarred. Your eyes were cold, lifeless, with permanent bags beneath them, grey etched through your hair at the temples. You were tired, ridden hard and left out to dry.

“Do you remember Dina Lampenelli’s eleventh birthday?”

Your brain rocketed back in time, doing hurdles over mental math to try to remember one date so many years ago. Dina had been a schoolmate of yours, K through 12, a rich-y with serious self-esteem issues. You’d responded to her bullying with a few bloody noses back in the day, a fist to her precious nostrils for being a homophobic bitch. You were the reason her mommy and daddy shelled out so much for a nose job.

“At the skating rink?”

You tried to will any memory to surface. The amount of hours spent at that skating rink, eyes glazed under the disco lights, speeding around and around and around, kissing boys in glow-in-the-dark corners. You swallowed, shook your head.

“Of course you don’t,” Harrington scoffed, turning his body toward you. “You shoved me over a banister, knocked me on my face. Had to get six stitches.” You glanced to see him jut his chin upward, a thin scar pock-marked the perfect flesh there, where jaw bone met his thumb. “Should’ve known you’d be my living fucking nightmare.”

You couldn’t hold back the laugh that spilled out, or the ignition of sparks throughout your body as you watched the corners of his mouth upturn. “Always in my way, Harrington,” you tutted, leaning against the bar while he coughed his smile away behind a large hand.

You swallowed back your own, chewed on the inside of your lip and tried to stir up memories you’d had, breezing past late nights and whispered secrets under heavy quilts and heavier intoxication. You bit back another smile, and asked, “Do you remember Samantha Hardy’s sweet sixteen?”

Harrington’s eyes narrowed in thought, mouth hung agape.

“You hooked up with that girl,” you snapped your fingers. “Was her name Lita?”

“Letty Beaumont?”

“That’s the one!” You nodded. You could still see the curve of the girl’s ass cheeks in the wide palms of his hands, the connection of their mouths silhouetted in moonlight.

“We didn’t hook up,” he shook his head, a strand of hair falling into his eyes. “Some psycho tried to run us over with their car.”

Again, you couldn’t help the aching grin that spread across your face with your nod, and you hid another wry laugh from behind your hand. “That was me.”

“What?” He didn’t look impressed, brow furrowed, mouth hung open like you’d told him you were guilty of feeding his pet hamster to your pet snake.

You shrugged. “You guys were making out on the hood of my car, and I had a curfew.”

The bartender came back, uncapped two more bottles and slid them your direction.

You both thanked her, and you took another long swig, all bubbles first, and then ice cold beer. The taste quenched the tingle in your fingers, the tremor of your hands with nerves at what this was, what this could be.

A prolonged silence lingered between you, almost long enough to have you panicking, that your confession would be held against you, that a he’d want to get up and leave, that you’d started another brawl, here in the roadhouse. But instead, he turned back to the bar, arm bumping yours, and asked, “How’d you get that scar on your thigh?”

You shifted your legs on your barstool and glanced over at him. He was staring straight ahead, peeling the label from his bottle with absent fingers.

“Demodog in the back room at Melvald’s. Had to lure it out before I scorched the room down on top of me.”

He didn’t respond, just offered a curt nod, an unspoken tit-for-tat. He asks, you answer. Your turn.

“Have you been to your house? On the other side?” You’d often wondered if you were alone in that, you and Vickie splitting from the party at too early a stage, stumbling into her backyard to see how it had changed, to see how the vines had devoured it.

Harrington’s jaw turned to stone at that, eyes glazed with memory. He blinked back to reality, took a long swig, cleared his throat. “Once, with Nancy. Barbara Holland was dead in my pool.”

You cursed into your bottle, forgot the details that had drawn them all in.

“Do you like brisket?” He asked, gesturing at the woman coming at you with two heaping plastic baskets lined with newspaper.

—

Stomachs full of brisket and beer, you stumbled past the buzzing neon of Roadie’s and onto the graveled pavement toward Harrington’s car. You waited in the cold breeze, hugging your arms to your front while he leaned over to unlock the door for you, and you hauled yourself in to the promise of heat.

Contrary to earlier’s drive, he’d reached to turn the volume down before thrusting a hand to your headrest to watch over his arm as he reversed from his parking space, slow and steady. You watched burgundy lights bounce off his jaw, the planes of his cheekbones. He caught you watching, that permanent crease in his forehead, and when he pushed the car back into first, he didn’t race himself back to the compound. He took his time.

You’d compared war stories over sticky sweet barbecue, scar for scar. You’d bonded over the smell of lighter fluid and the acrid tang of demo-bat blood, and you’d cheersed to fallen comrades. It all felt sardonic, engorging yourselves on good times, guitar music in the background, when those you’d loved most were all gone now, burned up and tangled in vines that never went away.

You’d noticed the dance, too, the unspoken truce, a tiptoe around questions neither of you wanted to touch, feelings you didn’t want hurt or muddled, questions you were terrified for the answer too. But somehow, darkness imposing on the countryside around you, Ether looming in your near future, you felt a little braver.

“Harrington,” his name caught on your vocal chords, coated in something, ash.

He hummed, and you found your eyes lulling to the sound, a warmth blanketing your chest and arms, and you remembered why you were in this mess in the first place.

“You ever have nightmares?”

He snorted at that, an unfriendly sound, lips curled into a grimace. “You ever have good dreams?”

“Not since,” you admitted. Not since the city split open and the sky rained ash, not since you starting training, not since you murdered your best friend. You squeezed your eyes shut, swallowed the bile that crawled its way up.

“We have our first trial on Monday.” Harrington said after a long silence, his knuckles still wrapping a rhythm against the steering wheel, volume too low under the rumble of his engine, tires to gravel.

The trial was your first exam, a monitored test of your teamwork. You were to go through the abandoned streets of Hawkins, Right-side Up, and prove you could work together, could communicate, could be seamless. You hummed in agreement, having no confidence in your abilities as a team.

“I have to ask you something.”

That plunge of cold water, the sting in your lungs, the wash, the crack of skull against tiles.

“Did you see any signs before that day? Nightmares, nosebleeds, hallucinations?” His tone remained so calm, so light, and you fought back the panic that tightened in your chest, restricting your air flow. He meant Vickie, he meant were there warning signs in Vickie, but you couldn’t help but equate them to yourself.

You clawed at the collar of your tank top and leaned forward to turn down the heater, shaking your head, staring straight ahead at the blurring road, the silhouette of trees looming on either side. “No, not at all. If I had known, do you really think I would have let her go down there?” You hated the way your voice wavered, hated the feel of eyes over your shoulder.

“Well then how did it happen?” Again, his tone remained calm, measured. “If it didn’t happen before you left the compound, when did it happen?” He wasn’t watching you, his own eyes on the road, hands wringing the steering wheel, 2 and 10.

You swallowed, tried to stay present, tried to match your energy to his. “I lost her.” A crack. You cleared your throat, forced it back before the spillway opened.

“What?” A little louder, a little less steady.

“That day, we were sent on a mission near Roane County, farm country. She said she was going to scorch the barn while I did the house, easy procedure. When I cleared the house, I checked the barn and she wasn’t there.”

You could still see the roof ablaze, desaturated, sepia-toned scarlet that licked and fanned at your skin. You swore you saw her, a shock of orange through the treeline. You followed. You tripped on a root, pack heavy you fell face-first into the dirt. You scraped your knee, the meat of your palms, the soft skin where cheek met jaw.

“Why did you split up?”

You shrugged, seatbelt suddenly too tight against your chest, air too muggy, suffocating. “We always did. We were team leaders. We got cocky.” The same answers you’d given Owens, Hopper, filing your official report.

“Why didn’t you call for help?”

“I found her quicker than I thought. She’d gone back to her old house, the one on the county line. I saw her pack outside the garage.” You bit back the rest, pressed at the blur in your eyes with the palms of your hands. Keep it contained.

“You should have called for help. You shouldn’t have split up. I don’t understand how you could have lost her? You lost her?” Harrington’s voice sped up, became as frantic as you felt. “How do you lose someone you’re supposed to be accountable for?”

You grit your teeth. He asked as if you hadn’t been asking yourself the same questions for four months, as if you’d ever make those mistakes again. Minutes ago, he seemed so understanding, so accepting of the truths and overlaps of both of your existences, and now he’d exiled you again.

You clung to the seatbelt and rested your head on the headrest, and didn’t say another word. You waited for the push of his foot to the gas pedal, for the sanctuary of solitude.

—

“You’re such an asshole,” Eddie scoffed from his chair beside you, shuffling his deck of cards for the twentieth time. “I can’t believe you made me your accomplice.”

You let your feet dangle from your perch on a tabletop and shrugged. “Hopper told me to wait here. You’re just keeping me safe until Harrington finds me.”

Eddie tutted, shaking shaggy hair and pulling an M&M from your outstretched palm. “Speaking of keeping you safe,” he glanced around the now-empty War Room. All higher officers had left for their dinners, leaving you two alone. “Have you told him yet?”

“How can I tell him if it takes him,” you glanced at your watch, “four hours to do anything?”

You’d been hiding in the War Room almost as long, having managed to bum a ride back to the compound mid-trial. Harrington didn’t understand how it was easy for you to lose your last partner, so you figured you’d give him a taste of his own medicine. Hopper was more than agreeable when you’d shown back up on your own.

Eddie smacked your thigh with the back of his hand, placing the cards facedown on the table. “I’m serious. Have you seen anything new? Heard anything?”

You sighed, shook your head, “No, I really don’t think it’s anything to be worried about. It was just a draft, a couple of nightmares, it’s fine.”

He tilted his head to catch your gaze. “What kind of nightmares? Like the one you had? Have you told Linda?”

You shooed him away with a hand, picked a brown M&M out of the bunch. “Yes, I’ve told Linda. It’s normal. PTSD. Remember? I assume you’ve been having them too.”

“Not as frequently.” He argued.

You shot him a look.

His shoulders relaxed, and he nodded. “Okay, okay. But you promised me.”

You shifted in your seat, pouring the rest of the candy coated chocolate into his hand. You wiped the melted colors off on a pant leg. “I know. I’ll tell him. I will.”

The walkie talkie startled you both, the sharp sound of a signal far too close, and the echoed sounds of Dustin Henderson’s frantic calls from somewhere down the hallway. “Eddie, do you copy? Eddie, is she there with you? Incoming. I repeat, INCOMING.”

You jolted upright to see Harrington approach, Henderson hot on his heels. Eddie rolled himself a few feet away, shielded behind a pane of glass.

Harrington looked like he’d seen better days. He was positively drenched in sweat, a soft v painting the front of his t-shirt in dark greys. His hair stuck up at odd angles, in desperate need of a cut and a wash. Grime streaked from his sideburns down his throat. Harrington rubbed at bloodshot eyes, and you noticed a tear in each of his knuckles.

“Oh, there you are.” You bit back the smile to match, sickly sweet, ignoring the sink of guilt that made its home in the pit of your stomach.

“Is everything a fucking joke to you?”

You swallowed back the panic, flames licking at your chest and throat and cheeks.

“Hey, man, this was Hopper’s idea.” Eddie defended from his hiding spot.

“You can fuck off, Munson. I’ve been calling you for hours.” Harrington pointed a finger the other boy’s direction.

You glanced at the phone on the table from where you sat and placed the handset back on its receiver.

That must have been the last straw. Harrington let out a strangled huff before storming past Henderson, nearly knocking the boy over, and taking off down the hall.

Eddie whistled, and you flashed an apologetic half-smile Henderson’s direction before taking off after your new partner. You called out after him once, twice, three times. He didn’t stop, just kept going until he had shoved his way through the double doors at the end of the hall.

You followed, a burst of humid air hitting you in the face. It was charged, static, the roll of an incoming storm. You could just make out the teal grey of the cloud overhead, just beyond the tree line.

“Today was bullshit.” He was seething, chest moving up and down with rapid breaths, hands placed on his hips like he was ready to give you a proper talking-to. “You have no idea what I went through.”

You clenched your jaw, crossed your arms over your chest. “I don’t understand how you could lose someone you’re supposed to be accountable for.” You hoped the words had hurt him as much as they’d cut you, rolling over and over in your head for the past day.

Harrington stared you down, jaw clenched, eyes a little glassy, dark. He was inches from you, you could smell the salty sweat, it mixed with the brine in the air, that ozone layer that had your skin crawling.

Half-hearted applause startled your stand-off, and you were ripped from Harrington’s glare by the voice of your superior. Hopper rounded the corner, pulling a cigarette from the chest pocket of his shirt and placing it beneath that mustache. “Congratulations, you two. You’ve survived trial number one. Hope you learned a thing or two about communication.”

He pulled a lighter from his pants pocket, and you watched the end burn hot orange. He took a drag and blew a billowed cloud skyward, to mix with the impending storm. “Everything good here?”

“Yes, sir,” you flashed a smile fake enough to have the older man snort. Harrington didn’t respond.

“Good. I’ll see you two tomorrow.” And with another cloud of smoke, a pat to Harrington’s dejected shoulder, Hopper was strolling inside, whistling a merry tune.

You both waited until you could no longer hear the squeak of rubber against linoleum, until it seemed like you were finally both alone, and you opened your mouth to snap something, but Harrington beat you to the punch, his voice calm, soft, measured.

“I promised her I’d keep you safe.”

He wasn’t looking at you. His bloodied hand was itching at the bridge of his nose, covering half his face, and you weren’t honestly positive you’d even heard what he said.

You leaned forward to catch his eye, instinctively reaching to tug his wrist away. “What?”

“Vickie,” he said. You watched the bob of his Adam’s apple. “The morning she died, she made me promise I’d keep you safe.” His eyes remained avoidant, finding interest in the blood on his knuckles, the touch of your hand to his forearm.

“What? When? Why?” You were frantic, gripping his arm harder to get him to look at you, to tell you everything, pleading. Had she known? Had she know this would happen? Why him? Why then?

He shrugged, eyes finally finding yours, warm honeyed light in the dark, a gasp of fresh air. He shook his head. “I don’t know. We were gearing up, and she pulled me aside.”

“Why -” You swallowed, tried to push back the image of her pleading, asking you to scorch her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He huffed a breath then, head shaking, hair falling into his eyes.

“What?” You grounded your heels deeper into the gravel. “You don’t think I deserved to know that about my best friend?”

“You shut us out, remember?”

A deluge. With his words, a crack of lightning and the downpour started, big, fat, wet drops, illuminated in a stark flash of white. You jumped, suddenly crowded by Harrington’s frame as he hunched over you, doing his job, protecting you from the torrent of rain. You gripped his shirt out of instinct, pulling him into a safe hiding space just beyond the double doors.

Another crack shuddered through the both of you, the low roll of thunder to follow, the rat-tat-tat of hail against concrete, against parked cars, against the asphalt.

You tried to steady your breath, tried to see beyond the lightning that had stained your vision, all whites and blues. You could almost hear your name on the wind, could almost see that familiar face just beyond the glass, in the tree line, beckoning. The hand at your side, white-knuckled, rested in the heavy grasp of your partner, bloody knuckles intertwined with your own, thumb tracing calming circles to your wrist as you both stood and watched the storm.

---

[A/N - Ooooh boy, this chapter was soooo good for me. I learned so many juicy little secrets as I wrote, and I love uncovering this story so so much. Thanks for reading, and as always, come bug me about it PLEASE! xo]

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#stranger things #steve harrington #steve harrington fic #stranger things fic #eddie munson #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington angst #steve harrington enemies to lovers #steve harrington slowburn #angst fic #whump fic

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