#behemoth x reader

[notes-of-the-behemoth]

In the role of a parent

(I think I outlined the psychological problems of the characters themselves more, but so be it)

Master:

• He needs help

He has no idea how to raise a child.

• clumsy and awkward with a child, but it's a matter of time

• really loves her child and his love may sometimes be too much. It belongs to the type of parents who can love their child "to death" (it seems to me that because of his closeness, the master cannot openly show affection, as a result of which it all falls out on the child, which leads to its redundancy, excessive guardianship and care)

• there are also many sweet moments. For example, he can start coming up with cute stories so that the child falls asleep faster.

• spoils the child too much. But it's justified!... In his opinion. How can he refuse him if he asks... Besides, he is so charming ...

• it is difficult to cope with a child in adolescence. Considering that the master is overly attached to his child, it is a little frightening for him to have a child's desire for freedom. However, it is also passing.

• he is in a difficult position when it comes to everyday life

Marghorita :

• For her, this is probably a desirable child. So, too, in a sense, to take too much care of the child, but definitely less than the master.

• despite the previous paragraph, she is sometimes strict with the child. She wants to give her child the best upbringing, so she sometimes shows restraint and perhaps even rigidity.

• tries to instill in the child a love of literature and it is not easy for literature but for good literature. She understands that books have a lot of influence on the child's worldview, so she monitors what her child reads.

• in adolescence, she tends to become more of a friend to a child than a mother. And because of this, problems may arise.

• One of her favorite activities with her child is watching movies. Or rather, the time after the film when she can share her impressions of the film, express her opinion about the plot and characters and hear the opinion of her child as well. She listens attentively and respects the child's opinion. However, sometimes it can turn into a rather heated discussion.

Woland:

• not too strict, not overprotective, the golden mean

However, sometimes it can be frightening even for your child. And Woland is trying to get rid of it.

• one of the reasons why a child will be afraid of Woland is that he always knows when a child is lying or hiding something from him.(However, in some cases Woland prefers to pretend that he does not know about the misconduct) Therefore, we can say that the child will be partially deprived of his personal life.

• The character is tolerant of the child's hobbies. It is rare to hear prohibitions from him regarding a child's hobby, only if it is harmful to the child or society.

• his offspring has an excellent upbringing. Perhaps we can say conservative. Voland's child has many positive qualities. For example: creativity, self-control and calmness

• However, the flip side of the coin is that the child is quite closed in the manifestation of emotions.

Koroviev:

• severe clinical case

• you can hardly wait for real emotions from Koroviev and this greatly affects the personality of the child.

• there is a high probability that the child will be a copy of a man.

• also, for a child, Koroviev is more a friend than a parent. However, for a man, his child will be an excellent companion for practical jokes. The perfect duo.

• However, despite the fact that Koroviev wears the "mask" of a buffoon, his real essence sometimes speaks in him. And it is these moments that become important for his offspring, they largely shape the child's personality.

• despite all of the above, the man is quite savvy in everyday terms. That is, he can easily lull the child to sleep or help him do his homework.

Koroviev is very attentive to his child, despite his external carelessness, he is sensitive to the external manifestations of the offspring's emotions. To some extent, a man is gentle and affectionate with a child.

• he is also very tolerant of the child's hobbies. However, there is a high probability that he will send the child to a music school. Perhaps his child will play the piano, he would like to play a duet with his child (I have an assumption that Koroviev can play the violin)

Behemoth:

• unexpectedly, but one of the best parents

• conservative upbringing.

• since he has a so-called "sixth sense" (It's easier to call it intuition), he is also acutely aware of changes in the child's mood. He is also shrewd in terms of the child's misdeeds

• one of the few disadvantages of a Behemoth as a parent is his pickiness and criticality, it puts pressure on the child.

• prefers that his child be engaged in everyday life. Of course, he is not against the child's hobby, but I do not prefer that the child help with housework.

• despite his strictness, he sees the child primarily as a child, does not dump responsibilities on him.

• Clear separation of roles. Like, "dad is dad, friends are friends," That is, the relationship between a child and a Hippo does not turn into a friendly one.

• despite the previous paragraph, he sees in the child an excellent companion for practical jokes.

Azazello:

• Oh, just as unexpected, but one of the best parents

• definitely gets softer when it comes to his offspring, but tries not to spoil him.

• he would probably prefer that his child practice some kind of martial arts, and it does not depend on the sex of the child.

• despite the fact that Azazello tries not to spoil the child too much, he can overwhelm him with gifts. He just can't do anything about it...

• short-tempered and stubborn, which also causes conflicts with the child. Especially if the child has inherited his character

• it is also likely to be overprotective at times. But he does not seek to control the child too much.

• his child will DEFINITELY not become a household invalid. He'll take better care of it than anyone else. In this regard, it can be said that at times he is quite strict with the child.

Wow, it was quite difficult but interesting. This paper presents a subjective opinion, it may be inaccurate or incorrect. In any case, I have a couple more ideas for similar works. Orders are open.

[finniestoncrane]

Virginal vault dweller reader you say?? I'd eat that up (and so would Cooper, heh) but seriously I would read the hell out of that if you're up for it <3

Different Up Here

Cooper Howard x Fem!Reader, word count: 6.3k anon thank you lmao i had already started drafting this, so vault dweller reader isn't quite a virgin but they are definitely inexperienced and have never known pleasure like the kind that cooper can offer 🤎 request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi • masterlist minors DNI!! 🔞 cw: power imbalance, dubious consent because once you've said yes to cooper you can't change your mind, overstimulation, crying, oral sex, fingering, instructional, full penetration babiessss i realised i never tag that shit but yeah it's in here lmao, cumming inside, no protection, sweet coop afterwards but only briefly

If anyone else had asked you in that moment how you were, you couldn't have answered accurately without any hint of sarcasm and irritation. You were being worn down, like buildings by the sands of the desert. Each little molecule of your optimism being torn away from you, painful like plucking a hair. But when Cooper asked you, you tried your best to push down your knee jerk response.

"Let's see, shall we? Since leaving the vault a month ago, bravely in search of resources and supplies for my friends, I have killed, maimed, and eaten things I hope to never think of again. I'm in a constant cycle of very, very stressed and then very, very bored where there is no happy medium between fearing for my life and wishing for death. And oh, by the way, I'm sweating buckets the whole time because it's deathly fucking warm. Thank you for asking, Cooper!"

Instead, you shrugged and offered him at least a partial truth.

"It sounds silly... but I'm kind of bored."

A dry chuckle passed over Cooper's lips.

"Heh, that's a new one for out here."

Sensing an opportunity to at least get some conversation out of him, you sat up on the rusty bed frame, your body sinking into the almost entirely flattened mattress as you crossed your legs and did your best to get Cooper to talk more than a sentence at a time.

"Really? I would have thought you'd be bored a lot, especially when there's no raiders, or mirelurks, or scavengers, or feral ghouls, or super mutants, or roving gangs of-"

"See, this is why I'm never bored. Always somethin' or someone to be killin'."

"But what about like... now? When there's nothing else to do. There's no magazines, no books, no TV."

You watched as Cooper turned from you with a slight smile. You knew the one, the familiar grin that meant you'd divulged some information about your life in the vaults, something he always found so amusing. It was your naivety, your optimism. He was endlessly fascinated by it, as though listening to you talk about it reminded him of something he had before.

That fascinated you. It made you want to stay around him, the way he listened silently as you talked about the old films that were on the holotapes, the food that was still fresh and available, the music you could hear whenever you wanted to, not reliant on some two-bit radio host. He paid attention to you. And any time his deep, brown eyes focused on your lips it made your heart flutter in an admittedly unexpected manner.

Remembering that feeling, you tried again, hoping that your next approach might be something that interested him a little more than just conversation.

"You know how we used to pass time in the vaults?"

Over the sound of the evening breezes that whipped up the sand you could still hear Cooper sigh before he spoke.

"Now if you tell me that you wanna go out there again tonight to find an old blast radius board... well I am just going to have to shoot you."

You laughed at what you hoped was a joke and waved him off, despite the fact that he was still turned away from you, unable to see your gesture as he tried ignoring you in what you assumed was the hope that you might shut up and leave him alone.

"No, no no no no no. Just..."

The lump in your throat felt like it was about to choke you, so you swallowed the clump of nerves quietly, your voice trembling as you finished your sentence.

"... fooling around... y'know?"

Cooper turned to face you. You had piqued his interest, and you couldn't help but show the giddy glee on your face, the smallest smile crossing your lips as your eyes widened. But his words wiped away all hope that you had garnered in that short span of time.

"Oh... oh darlin'."

He laughed a little, each little sound of the short, sharp giggle like a slap to the face.

"I don't think you're ready for that at all."

You raised an eyebrow, defiant, irritated, and keen to know how he thought he had you pegged so quickly. You'd never talked about anything like that with him before. Was he assuming that you were a virgin based on how you behaved around him alone? Maybe he figured that the lack of flirting on your part was down to a complete lack of experience, when in reality, it was because every flirtatious quip he threw your way made you so nervous and flustered you felt like you might throw up.

"How come I'm not ready? I mean, I've... I've done stuff... I've done it!"

"The fat you're not saying it how it is makes me think that you are absolut-"

"I've had sex, Cooper. I've fucked before. I've been fucked."

Blinking off the irritation at being interrupted by you, Cooper pushed up the brim of his hat and stared directly at you, as though he was examining your, to see if you would stand up for yourself any further.

"By who? One of your little buddies underground? Fucking like little bunnies? I don't think that qualifies you, sweetheart."

"Why? Sex is sex..."

You said it with such confidence. As if you really knew. As if you hadn't spent your teenage years practising on your hand, holding a pillow close, lining up for that one girl in the vault who would sell practice kisses for extra bubble-gum. You'd had sex before, of course. You weren't a liar. Just because you'd only ever done it once didn't render it nonfactual. Just because it had only lasted for all of four minutes. Just because you weren't sure you even orgasmed, and your friend had told you that you'd know if you'd orgasmed. Just because it was all over so quickly, and he'd run off before anyone could catch you both, avoiding you at every opportunity after that.

"... Isn't it?"

"Oh no it ain't. Besides, like I keep telling you, it's different up here. Everything's different up here. And that includes fuckin'."

The way he said the word, consonants enunciated with such grit and vigour, filled your stomach with knots that began to tighten as you considered in what way things were so different.

"What exactly do you mean by that?"

Cooper sighed, exasperated, resigning himself to the fact that you were going to keep talking to him regardless of his short replies and attempts to end the conversation.

"You are a dog with a bone, huh? Ain't gonna let it go."

His yellowed teeth were exposed as his lips pulled back in a baring, mischievous smile. Those knots doubled, the ends being pulled by tension in your nervous system as Cooper's smirk put you into a dazed stupor.

"No, sir."

"Now, I don't remember signing on to be your personal tutor in all things apocalypse. Do I really need to show you how everything works up here?"

As your cheeks began to blush, you nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes, sir."

You were hopeful for just a bit of a distraction. Something to help take the stress away. To relieve the tension that had been building up between you and Cooper as of late. You'd been studying him, watching the way he looked at you, fascinated by your perceived, and frankly obvious, innocence. The way his fingers moved, contributing to the skilful way he handled his gun and his ropes. The confidence, the charisma, the charms.

You wanted him, but you weren't quite sure how to broach the situation without it seeming desperate. But you were past that now. You were desperate For anything, just something. Something to cure the monotony of walking and hiding and fighting and surviving. You didn't want to just survive. You wanted to at least find a semblance of fun and pleasure in this nightmare you had found yourself in. And in the vaults, when board games and books and debates got boring, there was always fucking. That was what you desired most right now. The fact that Cooper happened to be the closest target for your desires was just a sweet miracle, or a cruel tease depending on how willing he was.

And luckily, he seemed agreeable.

"Well then, how about you come over here and let ol' Coop show you a little thing or two about how dirty you can really get up here in the mean, dusty Wasteland, hm?"

Your excitement was palpable, even though you were trying to keep your composure. There was no escaping the echo of the giddy squeal you let out as you jumped up from the bed and made your way over to Cooper. He waited in the far corner of the room, setting himself down on an old armchair as you stepped towards him, slapping his thighs as an indication of where he wanted you. And you did as you were told, following his instructions, knowing they hadn't led you astray so far in your time together.

It felt awkward at first, being so close to him. You shifted your weight nervously, trying to get comfortable while making sure Cooper was still at ease, which of course, he was. He always was. Nothing stirred him, he was forever at peace. Competent in any situation. Quick to adapt. And as you fidgeted and fussed, you felt his strong hands pushing you forward on his lap, until your chests were practically pressed together, his hands skirting over your lower back as he held you still. In command. In control. The sudden sensation of his hands on your body made your breath hitch, a soft, surprised squeal on the inhale that had Cooper raising his brow at you.

"Now... you agree that you asked for this, alright? Because I am not going to put my effort into entertaining your little whims if you're gonna get fussy and decide it's too much for you. I did warn you."

"Yes, you did, and I really don't think you needed to. I doubt there's too much different about it, and I've picked up what I needed to know pretty quickly from your other lessons, haven't I?"

Your retaliation to his insistence that you needed him to teach you everything, and that some things just might prove themselves a little too hard even for your levels of enthusiasm, had irritated him when he'd first met you. But now your optimism and sheer refusal to believe anything was too much for you were a source of entertainment for him. A challenge.

"That's fine then, darlin'. But I'll remember that."

His eyes bore into your soul, keeping your focus on him as he dared you to look away. They sparkled as he ran his tongue over his lips, the pretence of preparing for his next words covering the obvious flirtation in the way he dragged the flat muscle along his chapped skin.

"So, gimme a benchmark here, lil lady. How much foreplay was involved in your previous encounters? I'd hate to leave you high and dry."

"Foreplay...? What... uh, what is that?"

Cooper sighed, rolling his eyes before closing his eyelids over gently.

"Well, it's something like this."

He pushed a loose strand of hair back behind your ear, rough fingers following the curve and grazing over your neck as he let them drift down the front of your chest, tickling the exposed skin as far as your jumpsuit would allow before he took a hold of the zip at the front. A quick flit of his eyes up to you seemed to ask for permission, and your small, almost imperceptible nod, told him to keep going.

Slowly, painfully so, he pulled the zip down, watching as the centre of your torso was slowly revealed to him. Smooth skin, in comparison to his anyway, clear of any unnatural blemishes or war wounds. One calloused digit followed down your sternum to your stomach and back up, hooking under the left side of the fabric and pulling it over, then the other, exposing the top half of your body to him.

Cooper traced his fingertips over the top of your breasts, watching as your chest moved in and out, slowly, but exaggeratedly. The knots in your stomach felt like they might burst with the tension as his sharp, ragged nails crossed over your hardening nipples, a gentle tingle coursing through your veins.

"Well?"

"No... n-nothing like that... just grabbing..."

"Oh yeah? You like that? How about this?"

He closed two fingers around your nipple, one hand still on your back to keep you balanced as your body reacted to his touch. Between the two digits, you felt your nipples heating up, the slight, burning pain from the way he squeezed them sending a signal down your spine that seemed to affect every part of you. Tighter, tighter, and then as your eyes closed a little more, eyelids pressed tight, he would ease up to offer some relief.

"You like that? Like it rough?"

"I think... I think I like both."

"So, something like this?"

He teased your nipples once more, pressing harder with his fingertips, pulling them out and jiggling your breasts as he tugged at them, this lewder act interspersed with a gentle caress as he held your breast against the palm of his hand, carefully cupping it as he flicked his thumb over the sensitive and completely erect nipple.

You bit your lip, trying to keep quiet, Coop's hand moved swiftly from your body to your cheeks, popping the lip back out as he pressed his thumb and forefinger into your face. Understanding the message, and seemingly showing this in your wide-eyed gaze, he let his rough, leathery hand make its way back down to your breast, cupping it once more as he spoke.

"Different, see? Pleasure is hard to come by out here. You gotta do it right when you've got the chance."

Cooper leaned into your neck, whispering the words low and slowly, his dry, chapped lips skimming over your skin as he continued.

"I bet down there they didn't know the first thing about real pleasure. Takes time, something like that. You gotta learn the body, gotta make it feel good."

His teeth grazed over your shoulder and back up along your neck before he pulled back, watching your eyes refocus from the haze of arousal.

"Did they make you feel good?"

"No."

You were confident in that statement. It hadn't felt good. It felt rushed. Clumsy. Shameful. And as you pondered it, your mouth remained open in a slight pout which trembled as Cooper asked his next question.

"And what about your pretty lips... did they kiss them?"

"A little..."

Cooper leaned in, his rough lips pressing onto yours with firm contact, his tongue staying in place as though he imagined that might be a bit too much for you right now. But that same level of restraint didn't keep him from letting his teeth catch onto your bottom lip, pulling it out, only letting go when you winced in surprise as the suddenness of the action.

"Didn't bite them either. Of course not, what am I thinking? That would be a little too adventurous for your kind."

His face took on a darker tone as he smiled knowingly towards you.

“And what about these pretty lips?”

Before you could piece together the question, his hand was diving into your jumpsuit, pushing down the front and past the waist, stroking against the front of your underwear which, by now, was soaking wet with your arousal.

“They touch these lips, huh?”

You gasped as he pushed your underwear to the side, stroking his fingers along your slick, plump pussy lips, withdrawing them soon after to taste you on his tongue, the way you had watched him taste the blood of enemies, the blood of victims.

“Stand up, darlin’… Why don’t you take that suit off, hm? Get yourself comfy.”

As you raised yourself up from his hips, your legs wobbled under you, not quite steady enough to support you so soon after being reduced to jelly by Cooper’s touch, his caramelised words that filled your ears, the sharp twang of his accent, the delicate cadence, the power rumbling underneath like an almost silent bassline.

“Do it slowly though.”

Cooper watched carefully as you stood nervously before him, shuffling out of your suit, stripping for him, your hips moving from side to side slow and steady, unintentionally sultry in the way you moved. Without taking his eyes from you he reached for his canteen, taking a long sip from it as you let your suit fall down over your legs, stepping out of it and pushing it to the side with your feet.

“That’s it, darlin’. Can’t do this half-hearted. I need to have access to all of you there. Now come sit back down.”

You held your arms in front of you, feeling far too exposed for the shelter you’d found for the evening. No windows, no locks on the doors. But it was difficult to focus on that worry for too long as you watched Cooper’s tongue flit back out over his lips, clear strands of drool sparkling in the light as he took you in, hungrily, dreamily.

“Turn around though. You face that way.”

The metal buttons on the front of his duster coat were cold against the skin of your back, but you leaned into them anyway. Cooper’s hand curved around your neck and up under your chin, holding your face forward.

“You keep an eye out, holler if you see anything coming. I’ll do everything else.”

A faint clicking sound, the safety on his gun being flicked to off, before those same fingers draped over your mound and down on to your lips, spreading them apart, the cool air of the decrepit room cooling the heat of your hot, aching cunt. With two fingers holding your lips apart, he let the middle digit tap against your clit, each tiny sensation turning your blood cold before heating it exponentially, a cold sweat beginning to form on your brow as you felt a tingle in your abdomen.

The finger that tapped the sensitive bud began stroking it from side to side, laying flat against it length wise as Cooper strummed your body, still holding your chin in his hands, smiling to himself every time your back arched away from him in intense pleasure. Every nerve-ending was at his mercy. He was right, it was different up here. But you wondered how much of that was the Wasteland and it’s effect on sexuality and pleasure, and how much of it was just him. Cooper Howard, Wasteland bounty hunter, a past life he refused to talk about, the most charismatic monster you had ever met. His fingers, daintily crossing over your clit, as you felt his breath, silent except for an occasional hum of satisfaction in the form of a long moan. Maybe it was just Cooper who was different.

It was hard to focus on this new line of though as his hard fingertips clamped down on your clit, pinching it as he rolled it between his fingers. Even harder when he let his hand drop from your neck and instead began teasing at your nipples once more. Soft, cruel flicks over the hardened bumps, his fingers at work on your body, his lips kissing at the back of your neck. Moans growing louder, more frequent, as he let himself enjoy the act of making you squirm. You could tell he was having fun, as you rolled your hips back a little, feeling the thick bulge of his stiffening cock against your rear. You wondered how it might feel, how it might look, and what he could do differently with it.

“Cooper… Coop… I think I’m going to cum…”

His movements quickened, cock twitching against your body as he pinched tighter and pressed his fingers harder against your cunt.

“Don’t you dare, little lady.”

“Ok I’ll… I’ll try but… you have to… stop… please stop… Coop…”

He ignored your please, the whining, desperate begging as you tried to stop your body from the natural, encouraged reaction.

“Have some self-control, sweetheart.”

“Cooper, I really can’t… please… please stop touching me…”

“I absolutely will not.”

Your fingers dug into his thighs, but you noticed that you refused to move away from him. You wanted to do as he asked, wanted to hold yourself back from the brink of orgasm to prolong his touch, but you couldn’t risk him actually stopping, fearing that your body might crumble if his fingers left your quivering, pathetic body for only a second.

Each stroke against your increasingly wet and sensitive pussy had you trembling and shaking, and Cooper had to remove his hand from your breast to keep you steady, placing it under your chin and holding you steady by the neck.

“I am warning you, missy.”

“Cooper… I can’t stop…”

You shuddered and whined as your body gave in to the temptation, feeling a rush of heat and relief as you came on his lap, your arousal coating his pants, adding to the collection of stains and wear on them. But he didn’t stop then.

“No wait… seriously, Cooper… I can’t… I can’t take much more, honestly…”

“Listen, I told you. I said you better not cum. I wasn’t done with you yet.”

Your eyes began to sting with tears of exasperation as your body kept on pushing to its limits, conjuring up another wave of climax, tormenting you with never-ending bouts of arousal that kept you rutting against him, despite how painful it was to keep writhing into his body. You could feel your stomach knotting again, not much time between each orgasm to relax, and you dug your hands into his thighs, pushing your body up off of him as you tensed completely.

“Ok, this time, you do it on my command. You do it when I say you can, alright?”

“Cooper…”

“Don’t give me that pleading shit, you asked me to show you how things are done. Well this is how Cooper fuckin’ Howard does things. So are you ready? You gonna come for me?”

“C-coop… I’ll… I’ll try…”

“Good girl, now you keep that mouth making those whines and moans. I don’t need you to call out my name or anything, I know I’m all you’re thinking about.”

The praise, the self-confidence, the way his fingers seemed to be pulling your orgasm out, motioning for it to come closer to him.

“Come on, darlin’, come on…”

Your vision blurred as the climax came over you, body rolling and convulsing as you came once more at Cooper’s insistence, your cheeks stained with tears, salted water rolling through the layers of grime and clearing paths to your chin.

As you settled back down onto his lap with a shudder, you felt Cooper’s fingers stroking through your hair. He was surprisingly gentle, oddly calm, but you supposed that you deserved his kindness as you had done as he had asked, making up for your previous indiscretion. He was almost cooing, shushing you as you found your breath, establishing your sense of self once more after the overstimulating orgasm that shook your core.

“You seen enough of the big bad world for one day then?”

You probably had, but you still found yourself shaking your head, ignoring the way your body reacted with a violent twitch at the notion of Cooper’s hands delivering intense pleasure.

“A glutton for punishment, hm? Or just keen to learn?”

As you pondered your answer, Cooper seemed to have come to the conclusion for you, as he tapped your hips and began to shift underneath you.

“Alright then, get onto your knees.”

Positioning yourself at his feet, you couldn’t help but look up at him, catching his eyes as he looked down at you with that unique brand of disdain and intrigue he had somehow mastered. You knew what was coming, what was about to happen, and your mouth began watering at the thought. What he might taste like. What he might look like.

You didn’t have to imagine for long though, as you could see his fingers working the belt of his pants, loosening it, unzipping his fly, and gripping his semi-erect cock at the base as he took it out, brandishing it. He kept close attention on your own eyes, a soft sigh of relief imperceptibly escaping his chest as he noticed your pupils widen, your mouth opening in preparation for him.

It was exactly as you had expected. The texture of the shaft was similar to that of his cheeks and his forearms, a similar colouring, though darker at the base and on the shaft which was tinted red. Thick, purple tinged veins covered it, winding around the length, cutting across the ridges of the scars.

“You can come closer, darlin’. I don’t know what they told you about mutations and radiation effects down there in your little utopia, but I can assure you… it doesn’t bite.”

The fear was palpable, clearly, but it was nothing to do with Cooper’s body and everything to do with your lack of experience, which, despite you arguing otherwise, was becoming plainly obvious even to you. You had only ever touched a cock with your hands outside of being quickly fucked. Several times you’d been cajoled into quickly stroking an erection under the blankets before your partner ran off to the bathroom, clean and tidy, flushing away the sins. And you were very well aware that there was always the option to suck on one, but it had never presented itself. It had never seemed that appealing to you. Until you were faced with Cooper’s.

He hadn’t even asked you to do either yet, but you found yourself curious, salivating over the thought of him, mind racing as you imagined how he might feel against your tongue.

“Can I taste it… you?”

Cooper smiled warmly, one of the few times you had seen him look at you with genuine pride.

“Now that is using your initiative. Of course you can.”

You kept your hands to yourself as you leaned in towards his body, content to let Cooper wield his length at you, his hand firm around the base as you inched closer, tongue pressed out over your lips. A strand of drool collected and spilled forward, hitting the floor in a soft patter just before the tip of your tongue came into contact with the tip of his cock.

A lot of the movements were instinctual, following your desires more than what you thought might be protocol as you dragged your tongue up the shaft and swirled over the blushing head of his cock. It tasted bitter, but in a pleasant way.  Savoury, not sweet. Salted, a tang that stayed there for a few seconds after your tongue had moved on to another spot. A flavour you found yourself craving now.

Cooper gripped tighter and pushed forward, taking you by surprise as he slid himself into your mouth, his free hand moving to the back of your head, fingers curling into your hair. As the taste of him hit the back of your tongue, cock almost touching your throat, you coughed and spluttered a little.

“Fuck me, darlin’… do you need me to show you how to do this too?”

He looked down at you, filled with pity as he saw your face. Red cheeks, puffed out, lips stretched over the girth of his cock, tears welling up in your eyes as you struggled to breathe.

“Breath through your nose… breathe in…”

You followed his instructions, instantly calmed when you found your lungs filling with air once more. Almost immediately back to enjoying yourself, the feeling of Cooper inside of you, the control he had as he held your head against him.

“Now… you don’t want to choke too much, so keep your tongue flat… yeah, just like that…”

It was so much easier like that, and you could feel your cheeks getting warmer and redder as you realised that not only had you embarrassed yourself with your spluttering and lack of knowledge, but that Cooper had clearly done this a lot.

“And your teeth… well, usually they’ll tell you to keep ‘em outta the way, but you know me… gotta be different…”

Taking the hint, you let your jaw close slightly, the pain of the stretch lessened, your teeth scraping along the top of his shaft as your tongue worked the underneath, sucking and rolling as much as you could while keeping it flat.

He didn’t say much else, and you couldn’t tell if he was particularly enjoying himself. It worried you, the fact that he had specific preferences, the way it was so clear how much more experienced he was than you. How many others had there been? And were they all better than you? As your mind wandered to your anxieties, you completely missed the fact that you had begun to drool all over yourself until Cooper relaxed his grip on your head and wiped at your chin with his thumb. Catching your eyes and sensing some of your worries, he was surprisingly quick to soothe you.

“You can swallow or spit or let it all spill out, I don’t mind makin’ a mess darlin’. But whatever you’re doing, you keep that up.”

You were so pathetically grateful for the encouragement, for the tiniest semblance of praise, that you felt yourself moaning involuntarily. The soothing motion of sucking on his cock, the taste of something new, the comforting knowledge that he was happy with your efforts. You could feel your clit throbbing, aroused by Cooper’s satisfaction, how pleased he was with the way you worked him over.

Which is why it surprised you so much when he pulled his cock from your mouth, your lips slipping off of it with a disgustingly lewd popping sound, drool spilling onto your chin in long strands which stretched from your lips to his cock and tore apart as he distanced himself from you.

And again, that sympathetic gaze, the way he could tell what you were thinking before you even said it.

“Oh, don’t you look at me with those big, sad eyes. You got nothin’ to worry about, sweetheart. That was good, ‘specially for a first try…”

He winked to you as he spoke, causing your heart to skip enough beats that you thought you might die there and then.

“… It’s just that I’m all slicked up and ready to go now… so you wanna bend over for me? Or do you wanna come sit on my lap?”

“Uh… lap, please… I was kinda bent over for the last… first time.”

“Well, you come and take a seat then, darlin’, let ol’ Coop show you something new.”

You nervously settled your entirely nude body back down onto his thighs. Cooper’s hands were gentle against your shoulders as he pulled you backwards with him, leaning at a slight angle in the chair, his cock rigid and firm as it sat against your waiting cunt, coated in your drool which almost seemed to shimmer with the dancing light of the fire.

Then, so carefully, so gently, far more than you’d ever seen him be before, Cooper took hold of his cock at the base and slid it inside of you, one hand on your stomach as he braced you, keeping your body steady as he inserted himself further and further between your clenching walls.

“Bigger than before?”

You nodded, biting your lip as you felt the distinct stretch, his rough, textured cock forcing its way inside your cunt, pressed up to the hilt, testing your limits.

“Better?”

“Mhm…”

“Speak up, darlin’.”

With your voice strained and breathy, you managed to form some words.

“Yes… it’s better.”

“That’s it, good girl. Now, I’m gonna buck my hips, ok? You just try and keep your balance.”

Below you, Cooper shifted a little, his hips rolling backwards, inches of his cock escaping your tight, aching cunt, before he rolled them forwards and upwards, back into you. A slow, steady pace that he focused on keeping until you felt warmer, more relaxed.

“You got this, it’s like riding a horse.”

“I’ve never… hm… ridden a horse…”

Cooper chuckled, a low and rasping sound that sent shivers over your skin and seemed close enough to you that it was coming from inside of your body.

“Never ridden a ghoul before either, but you’re handling it alright for a first timer.”

You were coping ok, you had to admit, but you could feel your stomach muscles tensing, the knots back in full force as they tensed and tightened, loosened and frayed with each pump of his cock within you.

“Ah… Cooper…”

“Too much, darlin’? Does it hurt?”

There was a sense of genuine care in his tone, as though he had taken it upon himself to show you that yes, things were different up there in the Wasteland, but that didn’t always mean they were worse. Some things were good, if not a little bit difficult to take at first.

“A little…”

Cooper tilted your chin up, forcing your head to lean back completely against his shoulder. In a delicate move, one far more romantic than you imagined from him, he ran his thumb over your lips, angling his neck to look at them, his own mouth open ever so slightly, a monotonous panting as he kept his hips moving, increasing the speed and the force at which he entered you.

His eyes flicked up suddenly, looking into yours, catching your gaze and holding unblinking eye contact as he spoke.

“I know… I know… Just a little longer, though…”

He closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling of his cock pushing against your body, enveloped in your hot, wet, velvety interior.

“I know it hurts… but I ain’t stopping, so don’t even ask… here…”

You watched as he brought a finger to your lips, offering it up to you.

“…you bite down on that if it gets too much, ok… but don’t hold back on those sweet sounds… I wanna hear you scream.”

With that vaguely threatening remark, he thrust up into you, banging against your body, spurring on your orgasm but unleashing a dull ache that spread through every sensitive part of you.

“Won’t… be long… keep it together… good girl…  good girl…”

It felt good, the pain, the sting, the ache, the shivers. The fact that he was using you, finding pleasure in you. All of it culminating in Cooper’s nearing orgasm which you could sense was closing in on him. His movements were becoming more frantic, sloppier, and he was mouthing all manner of sweet nothings as he let his façade slip away.

And those soft mumbles opened up into a wide roar as he clung to your body, the hand on your neck cutting off the air to your lungs only briefly, one hand on your lap pressing sharp indents into your skin as he forced himself into you. The last few moments of his fevered thrusting, fucking you wildly, drool pooling in the corner of his mouth as he rutted into you in a dazed stupor before his body gave in. His cock throbbed, each pulse sending another rope of cum against your insides, filling you with his seed as he shuddered finally, slinking backwards into the chair and taking in a deep breath as you removed yourself from him.

You’d only managed to take a few steps forward before Cooper addressed you, opening his eyes to watch you standing there awkwardly, his cum dripping down your thighs, a warmth that quickly turned cool in the air of the room.

“Did I say you could get up?”

Panic settled in your chest, aware that you had waited until you felt his muscles relax, his body retreating from you, before you slid off his cock, expecting him to push you away anyway, like your first time. You assumed he was finished, and you weren’t sure you were ready for the idea that he might not be done with you.

“Are we… oh, Cooper, I really can’t take anymore.”

Even as you stood, you could feel your legs shaking, weakened by the intense orgasms, the way they tightened against his every movement.

“That’s different up here too then, I suppose.”

Cooper stood up from the chair, pacing towards you with a purposeful stride as he pushed his cock back into his pants, zipping them up as he reached you. You inhaled sharply as he placed his hand at the back of your head, those knots in your stomach beginning to form again, worried that a further, albeit pleasurable punishment was on the cards. But you were surprised as he slid his free hand around your back, tugging at your waist as he pulled you in close to him. A quick smile before his lips were on yours, the brim of his hat pushed upwards as he leaned into the kiss. Warm, gentle, the kind of kiss you’d seen in movies. Practised and confident, meaningful, sincere.

When he pulled back, your body following him a little before you settled back onto your feet, he smiled warmly.

“Sweet with the sour, darlin’. You gotta keep ‘em wanting more.”

“M-more?”

More as in now? Or more as in the idea that Cooper had enjoyed himself and would be willing to offer that kind of pleasure to you again. And he answered with a wink.

“Definitely. There’s a still a lot you’ve got to learn.”

[nomazee]

enough to make me cry

blade is your only roommate, your only friend, and your only way home from this terrible party you found yourself in.

blade x gn reader — 3.3k — college & roommates au!, very americanized college experiences, frat parties, mentions of drinking & vomiting, could be read as platonic but there are definitely romantic undertones, feelings of inadequacy/being out of place, hurt/comfort, social anxiety, blade is probably ooc i'm gonna be so honest, mild kafka & reader friendship, erggg im probably missing something

notes: no i have to be so honest blade is probably completely out of character i have not played a single side quest with him in it but i just think he has reluctant roommate-to-best friend potential and i wanted to pour that into a fic,,, this is mostly unintelligible but i did proofread! love you all

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A warm hand rests on your shoulder, and the first thing that you think is Blade’s hands are supposed to be cold.

It’s really pathetic. You’re somewhere in a stupid frat house, the thrumming of music around you. There’s the flashing colors and sounds of Mario Kart on the TV, the smell of puke (probably yours) and corona lite, and a hand on your shoulders that you’ve discerned is not your roommate, Blade’s. 

Looking to the side, you follow the hand (painted, manicured nails, definitely still not Blade’s), and it leads up to an arm up to a shoulder up to a face, and—oh. 

“You’re—” you pause, getting your words in order before you puke them up, “you’re Blade’s pretty lady friend?” It’s supposed to come out as a statement, but leans more to a question. She looks down, a bit of a teasing grin on her face, but her eyes are a little soft so you trust her. 

“Is that what he calls me?” she jokes.

“No, I’m— I came up with that.” If you had any dignity left in you, you’d be embarrassed to admit that to her. Unfortunately, you’re pretty sure that Kafka (the pretty lady friend in question) just held your hair back and wiped your face as you puked into a frat-house toilet, flushing your dignity away with your dinner. Your eyes burn with tears and mortification, and you pray that only Kafka saw your embarrassing mishaps.

“I called him to pick you up,” she tells you, already looking away from you and scanning the room as if looking for something, or someone. “I would take you home myself, but I’ve got some things to take care of. And I’m assuming you didn't bring your keys with you?” 

A quick pat-down of your pockets confirms that, yes, you somehow managed to leave your keys at home, the one personal necessity that you were supposed to bring besides your phone. Which, thankfully, you do at least have.

“Umm, the…” you mutter, tongue tangling uselessly as you try to find a way out of here without facing the impending doom of Blade’s aggravated scolding and his I told you so’s. 

A week ago, you went to him with an invite to this frat party and begged him to come with you, saying something like You don’t go out much, this is your chance! He’d adamantly refused, calling it a bad idea and rolling his eyes whenever you brought it up. But you were stubborn, and you wanted to have a fun college experience, so you forced him to drive you to the party with the promise of paying for his next gas payment and getting your own ride back home at the end of the night. 

“I can go,” you finally tell Kafka, mind stringing along memories and thoughts and alarm bells of get your ass home before you have to sit in an awful car ride with Blade, “It’s, like, a fifteen minute walk, don’t call him.” 

“It’s a little too late for that, kid,” Kafka drawls, amusement in her words. She’s smiling down at you, and you’re reminded of how small you feel. “He’s already on the way.” 

“No!” you protest, a little too loudly, but not loud enough to be heard over the thumping of music and bodies and voices. “It’s— Kafka, please, just tell him to turn around, I really don’t want him to deal with me today.” 

If you knew her even less, you’d misinterpret the twitch in her expression as concern—but you’re not too dumb, so you read it as amusement. “Trust me, he’s not going to have a problem with that. You’ll be fine.” 

Whatever that means. Kafka’s too cryptic for your liking, but you won’t complain. She wiped up your vomit from the dirty bathroom tiles and stayed with you to make sure you didn't get trampled, and she didn't complain about any of that. In a week, when you have enough strength to face her again, you’ll treat her to a good, expensive, flaky pastry. She seems like the kind of person who would love those. 

Her phone buzzes with a text notification, and she clicks her tongue, standing up and pulling you with her. Her hand is still warm, seeping through the sleeve of your shirt as she takes you by the forearm, gentle but guiding. Your stomach churns at the thought of seeing Blade, the thought of him seeing you like this. Freshly-puked-out with a nasty stomachache all because of a party that he told you not to go to. 

You hold back your protests as Kafka leads you through the still-crowded frat house. What time is it? Has nobody gotten bored yet, seriously? At least you didn't kill the mood by running to the bathroom and weeping into the toilet. It seems like nobody noticed, except for Kafka, and you don’t know if that should make you feel comforted or just more upset. 

The cool air of the night hits you as you step through the front door, eyes tracking your feet as you walk down the concrete steps. You see the silhouette of Blade’s ugly blue car in your peripheral vision, but you don’t want to look up in fear of seeing the disappointment on his face so soon. He’s going to rip you a new one, and then call you a slob and kick you out of the apartment and say I can’t have a party fiend living with me even though this was your first party ever, honest. 

You barely register that you’ve reached the passenger side of Blade’s car, only coming back to awareness when Kafka opens the door for you and starts nudging you into the seat. A really pathetic part of you wants to grab onto her arm and cry hard enough that she just relents and lets you walk home, but you’re already half into the passenger seat, looking everywhere but Blade. 

“Take care of them, won’t you, Bladie?” Kafka commands lightly, her hand leaving your arm as you get situated and buckled up in the car. Blade lets out a little huff in response and your stomach sinks. He’s already annoyed. 

The car ride to your apartment is only five minutes at this time of night. You just have to survive five minutes in silence and pray that he doesn’t tear into you and scold you like a disappointed parent. A glance at the clock on the car’s console confirms that it’s half past midnight. What the fuck. What were you even doing at the party for that long, besides vomiting and crying? 

The car rumbles, exhaust sputtering a little bit as Blade pulls out from the side of the street and drives slowly, carefully, as if not to rattle you, and you really just want him to speed up and throttle the car around so you feel more guilty about waking him up in the middle of the night to come pick you up. Blade goes to bed at eleven, the latest. You can’t imagine why Kafka thought it would be a good idea to call him, of all people, but then you remember that you kind of don’t have any other friends on campus. Your chest tightens at the thought. 

Blade makes some kind of sniffling noise, his way of trying to initiate some kind of conversation. There’s not even any music playing, because he always drives in dead silence because he’s abnormal, and on any other day you’d tease him about it like you always do. You see him turn his head to you in the corner of your eye, but you refuse to acknowledge him. You wish he’d just start scolding you, yelling at you or something. 

Tears prickle behind your eyes, painfully so, but your hands tighten around each other in your lap as you will yourself to not cry like a baby in front of your roommate. He lets out another sigh, but it doesn’t sound angry, just tired, and somehow that makes you feel worse. 

“What were you guys even drinking?” is his question of voice, and it’s the one question you didn't want him to ask, and you can’t help it when the tears spill over and you bring your hand up to wipe them away frantically, hiccuping a little bit as your gut churns. 

“What—” Blade stutters, and he never stutters, and you see him whip his head around to look at you, crying into your hands over a simple question, and you just want to leave the car and walk home like you told Kafka you would do. He pulls over to the side of some residential street. There’s a dog barking in a yard and wind chimes clinking together, and you think of your handmade bottle cap wind chime hung in the balcony of yours and Blade’s apartment, and it just makes you cry more. 

The car comes to a full stop. Blade puts it in park and turns completely to you. You spare a quick glance at him through the gaps between your fingers, and there’s something like worry on his face, which you’ve never seen before. His face is pinched, lips parted as if wanting to say something, but he can’t. He’s waiting for you. 

“I didn't drink anything, Blade,” you sob, feeling miserable at the state of yourself, at how you went to a frat party with nobody you knew and just walked around like a lost child, too scared to drink or talk to anyone, too anxious to say a word. “Not even a shot, or a sip, nothing from the fridge. It was so stupid, you were right, okay? It was a stupid idea, and I shouldn’t have gone.” Your breath catches in your throat, and the car is dead quiet as Blade lets your words sink in. 

You try not to make so much noise when you cry, but you’re sniveling and wiping your face and wishing that he would just stop looking at you like that. You can still see the ruby-red of his eyes even when you can’t bear to look up at him, and it makes you so viscerally upset. 

Blade is beautiful, really, and it makes you so upset that he looks better than you right now despite him being dragged right out of bed by Kafka’s phone call with a request to pick you up just minutes ago. You, who spent hours selecting an outfit, just to feel inadequate and wholly ugly the minute you walked through the door. It felt like you were back in middle school, spending hours with your parents picking out an outfit to a school dance, looking through ties and pants and shoes, just to show up and feel both overdressed and underdressed, feel like a fool, feel like you just can’t look the way everyone else does. Like something is always a little wrong. 

“Kafka said that you got sick. You didn't drink anything? You’re sure?” 

“No,”  you confirm pitifully, wanting him to just drop the topic and drive the rest of the way home and never talk about this again. “I was just anxious, and I puked like an idiot. Kafka helped me, she was the only one that I knew at the party. I don’t know. I don’t remember anymore. I was just anxious.” 

He says your name, not unkindly, but with a prying tone that just makes a fresh wave of tears stream down your face in rivulets. “Why would you go if you didn't know anyone?” 

“I don't know!” you shout, heated with embarrassment. You’re acting like a child, throwing a tantrum and crying and shouting in Blade’s car. The seatbelt is too tight on you. You fiddle with it, pulling it from the juncture of your neck and shoulder and loosening it, scratching your bitten nails against the scratchy cloth and looking out of the car window so that you can avoid Blade’s awful, terrible, intrusive gaze. 

“I just wanted to be normal, or something. I don’t know anybody from any of my classes. I don’t talk to anyone from my major. And then I got the invite for the party somehow and I just thought it would be fun. I don’t know, Blade, I know I should’ve listened to you, I’m sorry.” 

“Stop,” he says firmly, fully turned to you now, as if he wants you to look back at him, to listen to whatever he’s going to say, and that’s the one thing you don’t want to do. You hate that he’s being kind. You wish he’d be sarcastic and mean and cruel, bite into you and feed off your self-pity. But he’s being nice, nice in the same way that he’s nice when he buys the right brand of milk for you (because the others make you sick, and the taste is different), or when he drives you places in his car when it’s raining so that you don’t have to take the buses everywhere, or when he comes home with your ridiculous coffee order that costs a hellacious amount of money with all of your substitutions and additions and flavorings. 

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he says resolutely, leaving no room for argument, “Just— I didn't know you were feeling like that. I would’ve gone with you if you told me you needed someone. I assumed you were going with a friend.” 

You don’t respond with I don’t have any friends, because you’re pretty sure that’s clear enough by now, and you don’t want to confirm what’s already been confirmed a million times over just from the way you act. The way you cling to yours and Blade’s apartment, the way you never spend a second longer than you need to in any of your classes, the way that sometimes, when Blade goes out for class or work, you sit on the couch in silence with your laptop out, doing your work for the week and checking the clock and taking naps so that you don’t have to feel so alone for so long. 

“You didn't want to go,” you say instead, “I wasn’t going to make you just because I’m— I don’t know.” 

“I would’ve gone for you,” he tells you, really tells you, with a force in his words, like he wants to drive the point into you with a stake, driven right through your heart. “I would do a lot of things if you asked. You just need to ask.” 

You don’t— you really don’t want to think about what that means. What he means. You rip your eyes away from the car window and turn to face him. He’s not too close. You almost wish he could be closer, but you would suffocate under the pressure in your stomach and behind your eyes. 

He shouldn’t say things like that, things like You just need to ask, because you’d ask for a lot if given the chance. You’d ask for him to come to parties with you, stay by your side, let you put a hand on his shoulder and guide him around another disgusting frat house as if you know what you’re doing. You’d ask him to sleep in the same bed as you some nights, just a foot away from each other, backs turned to each other but still close enough that you can feel the unnatural coldness that radiates off of Blade. 

You’d ask him to introduce you to Kafka and that other girl they hang out with, to say something stupid and funny like This is my abhorrent roommate, be nice to them, and that way you’d have more contacts in your phone that aren't just Blade and your parents and two old high school friends who you haven’t spoken to in a year. You’d ask him to be a lot more than just a plus-one to a party full of people you’ve never met. 

“I just want to go home,” you breathe out, a guilty confession burning your gums and leaving a sour taste in your mouth. “I’m sorry.” 

“Stop saying sorry,” he asserts for the second time tonight, making your lungs squeeze as you puff out a tired exhale. Blade turns back in his seat, taking the car out of park and heading back onto the road—driving slowly, yet again, avoiding cracks and potholes in the road. “You need to eat something. You’ll wake up with a hellish headache if you go to bed dehydrated.” 

“I don’t think that’s true.” 

“I said it, so it’s true,” he says petulantly, turning the car down into a road that’s definitely not in the direction of your apartment building. To your hidden delight, the glowing sign of a twenty-four-seven ice cream store comes into view, and you sit up just a little bit. Blade slows the car as he turns into the drive-thru, glancing at you with an eyebrow half-raised. 

“What do you want? I’ll order for you.” 

“I don’t have my wallet,” you admit, just a little bit embarrassed. “I didn't even bring my keys with me. Do you think they take Apple Pay?” 

A breathy laugh escapes him, and you catch sight of a dimple pressed into his cheek, and you want to press your thumb into it and look at his smile, just for a little longer. “Don’t be dumb. I’m paying,” he tells you, the same way he has every time he pays for your cafe drink, or when he comes home from work with your favorite, and says You’re broke enough without having to pay for these drinks, don’t pay me back in that snippy way he shows his care. 

You ask for a medium vanilla milkshake, with sprinkles, and he gets you a large instead, which you’re more than grateful for. He refuses to let you look at the receipt for the total cost, and hands you the milkshake with a comical severity that you often see in him. The sweet drink washes away any bitter taste left in your mouth, and you feel a little better, a little nicer in your haphazard party outfit and under Blade’s fleeting gaze. 

A deep sigh escapes you, one of relief, when the car finally parks at your apartment building. Blade puts a cold hand between your shoulder blades, unobtrusive and leading, and it’s a comforting contrast from the heat lingering on your skin from the party and the closed car. It feels right, more in-place than Kafka’s warm hands were when she wiped your face and kept you steady, though she was just as gentle. 

Blade all but tosses you onto the couch, claiming that it’s much too late for a shower and he’d rather not deal with you collapsing from exhaustion in the tub. You relent easily, the exhaustion of the night hitting you and soaking into your limbs. 

“I’ll let you sleep on the couch,” he says, and it’s a good and kind thing, because he knows that sometimes you hate your bedroom because it’s just too empty, and the constant sound filtering into the living room puts you at ease. He never lets you sleep on the couch, because it’s bad for your back, and he jokes about you developing adult onset scoliosis with the awful way you sleep. Letting you do it, just this once, is another one of his small mercies. 

The TV is on, humming at a low volume, and your legs are thrown across Blade’s lap. You’re shocked that he’s willing to fall asleep with you like this, but he’s kind, sarcastic and biting but kind all the same, as much as he loathes to admit it. It’s not too lonely, you decide, hearing the bottle cap wind chimes on your balcony clink together in dissonant harmonies. 

(There’s a missing text from a new contact on your phone when you wake up, coming from pretty lady friend, extending an invite to brunch in two days, and you kick your legs on the couch in giddy excitement, thinking about how you’ll rope Blade into coming with you, too.)

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taglist: @tragedy-of-commons

(pssst!!! send me a msg or fill out the form in my navi to be added to the taglist!!!)

[garagesesh]

thunder // anakin skywalker

★ pairing(s): anakin skywalker x (f!)reader ★ summary: you and anakin had a falling out and now you’re forced to reconcile after a mission gone wrong. ★ warning(s): sexual content! graphic descriptions of wounds! blood! enemies to lovers? ★ a/n: enjoy :) this shit long af sorry lmfao title is from thunder by miss lana

␛ to masterlist

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

When you received the encrypted message this morning by Master Mace Windu, you were confused. Sent in the middle of the night with barely any explanation given other than a time and place to meet. It wasn’t unlike Mace to send abrupt messages at all times of the night, but it was strange to have no details given whatsoever.

You struggled with the message all day, going over and over in your mind what was going on, what could happen. You weren’t exactly the most obedient Jedi in the Order and there was recently an incident on Lothal where you had taken some of your men to quietly gather some intel of the Separatists who held Capital city.

Except it didn’t exactly happen quietly and a full blown incursion had broke out. General Kenobi and his fleet had to step in and evacuate you and your men.

While forever grateful for Obi-Wan saving your skin, you were forever guilty of your incompetence.

“There’s been an emergency.” Was the first thing that slipped out of Mace Windu’s mouth the moment you crossed the threshold into the meeting room.

“What emergency?” Silently relieved that this was not what you believed it to be.

“Master Kenobi has already been debriefed and will arrive later to discuss intimate details of the plan with you.”

“How secret of a mission is this that it’s just me and Obi-Wan? No reinforcements?”

“It’s not just you, Master. We’re waiting on one other.”

“Who?”

It was at that moment the doors slid open revealing Anakin, the third member of the small secret trio of the mission. His blood boiled, his jaw clenched, and his stomach churned at the sight of you standing at the other side of the room, avoiding his gaze.

Why? Why were you here? A million reasons as to why ran through his head and none of them sounded good.

“General Skywalker.” You smiled, trying to ignore the way Anakin’s hands curled into fists. Now you knew why you weren’t privy to who exactly was on the mission.

See, you and Anakin didn’t exactly get along. Once, years ago, but now it wasn’t possible for him at least, to be around you.

“What is she doing here?” Anakin’s voice dripped with annoyance.

Your heart panged at the slight but you swallowed it away instead, smiling at him. “Charming as always, Skywalker.”

“She, General Skywalker,” Windu snapped, pointing to you at the opposite end of the room. “Is a member of the Jedi Order and you are in no position to question on why a fellow Jedi is at any meeting. Do you understand?”

“But-“ Anakin started but was quickly shut down.

“Do you understand, Anakin?” Windu’s tone didn’t allow Anakin to choose no.

“Yes, Master Windu.” He grumbled.

“Good.” He pushed the green button on the dashboard, illuminating the room with the soft blue glow, map of Ajan Kloss. “We have reports of a disturbance in the force on the outer rim moon of Ajan Kloss.”

Windu motioned toward the small blue moon. “We have reason to believe that the Separatists are scouting the moon for a new base to begin expanding their efforts further out in the Outer rim.”

“So what is the plan?” You asked.

“Find the disturbance and hopefully stop the expansion.”

“Simple enough.” You nodded.

The door slid open once more, this time Obi-Wan quietly entered. Chin in his hand, circling the table evaluating every inch of the map.

“Master Kenobi.” You called out to him, smiling.

“General.” He nodded. “I’m happy to see you could help. Anakin and I both appreciate your help and expertise on this matter. Don’t we?”

Anakin grumbled, but nodded anyway.

“Thank you, Master.” You smiled at the older man before you. “I’m happy to help.”

“Good.” He returned your smile and looked over to Anakin a moment, placing a hand on his former Padawan’s shoulder before turning back to you. “We’re both happy to have it.”

Anakin huffed his obvious displeasure, loud enough for you to hear it. He was not happy about the situation and no doubt felt blindsided by Obi-Wan’s lack of keeping him in the know of what was going on. You didn’t care, he was any other Jedi on a mission to you and you weren’t going to let his bad attitude and anticipated harsh comments let you from successfully fulfilling your duties and Obi-Wan seemed to thankfully on the same page.

“I trust you three will do this properly.” Windu’s piercing gaze bore into you.

“Yes, Master.”

“Good, you two may go.”

Anakin followed you out, sighing heavily as the door slid closed.

You swallowed heavily, the pressure of his gaze into the back of your head made you face him. “I don’t want to do this either, Anakin.”

“Good. Glad you agree.” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t screw this one up like you did on Lothal.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Yeah, sure.” Anakin moved closer, his real hand wrapping around your upper arm. His lips brushed against the top of your ear, “Don’t get in my way.”

Anakin pulled back completely, letting you go and beginning down the hall away from you. “See you tomorrow, Y/n.”

Dawn was breaking when you arrived at the docking bay. Anakin was perched on a supply box, laughing at something one of his men had said.

There was a time you would be there with them, making him laugh. You swallowed hard.

“Where’s Obi-Wan?” Bag slung over your shoulder, you approached the men and Anakin.

Rolling his eyes, he jumped off the box. His demeanor completely changed back into seriousness and annoyance at your presence.

“Why?” Anakin hummed as he crossed his arms across his chest.

“Because I have to report to him, Anakin.” You matched his bite.

“He’s on the cruiser.”

You nodded, pushing past him purposely bumping your shoulder hard into his own. Hoping that maybe your bag even hit him as well as you entered in the small jumper ship. Putting your things into a locker before jumping into the cockpit and starting the pre flight procedures.

“I’m flying.” Anakin’s voice entered the cockpit. Of course. Jackass.

“Fine.” You released the pilots controls, not wanting a fight so early in the morning. Instead, you commed to Obi-Wan letting him know of your departure and soon arrival.

You two avoided each other on the cruiser during the standard weeks journey. Waltzing your ways down abandoned corridors and choosing odd meal times.

All of your efforts proved to be in vain when Obi-Wan let you know that Anakin and you were to go solo into the jungle in hopes to use Obi-Wan and his men as a distraction.

“We should head south. Towards the river, there should be small villages along there.” Anakin pointed at the map.

“That’s almost a four day hike,” Sighing as you disagreed with him. “And completely off track.”

“The Separatists will be in those villages, Y/n.” He shook his head, “And whatever Sith scum is on this rock will be there too.”

It began to not rain, pour. Your hair was completely drenched and so was Anakin’s. Thunder rolled in and the fog began to settle.

“If we follow my plan, we won’t end up dead like the men on Lothal.”

That was it.

You had enough of Anakin Skywalker. “Shut up!”

You pushed him to the ground, jumping on top of him and straddling his body.

“What is your problem!?” He choked out. Quickly flipping you over into the dirt, the wind knocked out of your lungs with a huff.

“Get off me!” You wanted to spit in his face. You began to claw at his face, but he quickly grabbed your wrists and grounded them in the mud.

Thunder clapped above. You pounded at his chest, “Get off me!”

Another boom from the sky had him off you. “We need to make shelter!”

You reached for the map in your belt. Feeling for the tech, you found none but scraps. The map was completely destroyed. You reached for the com, it was of the same fate. There was no hope of trying to salvage the tech in your hand.

“You fucked us over!” Anakin shouted over the thunder and rain.

“Shut up!”

“You’re the one who got us in this situation. If only you hadn’t blown up at me, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

“I’m the one who got us here?” You scoffed. “Need I remind you that this was your idea?”

“My idea?” He pointed a finger at his face as his eyes narrowed at you. “You suggested that we divert completely!”

“And you suggested that we go this route! Plus-“

“Doesn’t make it my idea!”

“You didn’t let me finish!”

“And I won’t!”

“I have never met someone so infuriating, so narcissistic, and so downright arrogant as you in my entire life!”

“I’m infuriating?” He snapped back with venom. “Have you ever met yourself?”

“You’re so-“ You stopped short.

“So what?” It was only then that you realized that the chipped deep blue armor that wrapped around his shoulders were mere inches from your chin. His chest was mere centimeters away from your own and that he towered over you as his deep blue eyes glowered.

“Just forget it.” You sighed, stepping back, trying to escape his

“No, go on, I’d love to hear it.”

“No, Anakin.”

“I don’t even know how I used to put up with you!”

The brush moved above you. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

The dark ripple of the force electrified your nerves once more. “There, did you feel it?”

“Stop it, nothing’s there. Let’s keep going.”

“Anakin,” His name stopped him dead in his tracks, you hadn’t used it in years. “There’s something following us. I can feel it.”

“It’s just the storm.”

“Anakin.” You looked at him with eyes wide.

“Hello, Jedi.” Ventress hissed from above. Her lightsabers hissed as the sith ignited the two as she towered over you.

“I’m so glad you could make it.” Her lips twisted into a sadistic grin that made you twinge.

Anakin ignited his blue to your green.

Ventress cackled, raising her double lights over her head to make a slash at the both of you as she dropped to the jungle floor. A master in her own right with dueling two at the same time.

Anakin lunged forward first, his blue clashing with red. Purple illuminating their faces, you saw this as your chance to enter the fray. Your green went for her side, trying for a swipe at her rib cage. Ventress easily blocked your move.

You and Anakin fought hard as you slowly made progress pushing her farther and farther into the jungle floor. At one point, the green blade of your saber made contact with her leg and Anakin’s sliced up her arm.

You were making good progress and might even capture the with.

That’s until you came upon the ravine.

Ventress’s leg came up, her foot square in the chest of Anakin’s plate of armor and pushed hard.

Anakin fell.

He tumbled over the top of the ravine and into the pit of darkness, his frame shadowed by the rain and fog that enveloped the depth below.

“Anakin!” Your lungs screamed for air, your grip slipped, allowing for Ventress to slice open your shoulder, searing your robes and the skin underneath. You fell to your knees, completely at the mercy of the Sith.

“Oops?” Ventress laughed. “Looks like Skywalker won’t be making it home.”

Your head hung in defeat. Wet hair falling in a curtain around you, shielding your shame. You failed. You failed yourself. You failed Anakin. The only thing that awaited you was death that came in the form of her twin blades crossed over at your neck.

But the blow never came. The hum of her lightsabers ceased and the only thing left was the rain, thunder, and your heavy breaths. Then you descended into the pit, screaming in agony as debris fell onto your wound.

The ravine was just as clear as it was from above. Holding onto the seared wound in your shoulder, your search became frantic noticing the stream was shades of blood. “Anakin!”

His body was unnaturally situated in the shallow water. His eyes were closed as you knelt in front of him.

“Anakin.” You whispered above his unmoving form.

“Anakin! Please!” He was alive you could feel that but his life force was fading. You scanned his body, looking for the wounds that ran the river red. Then you saw his leg.

His leg was mangled, bloody, and almost snapped in half.

It made you nauseous to look at it, but you needed to stop the bleeding or he would die. There was no way this would heal properly without medical attention and weeks worth of time in a bacta tank.

Your frantic hands shed your belt, practically tearing the dark outer robes off your top, leaving only the thin tank top underneath left. The blue fabric of his pants were slick with his blood, dyeing the blue, black. With every second passed, the more his blood poured from his leg.

You couldn’t wrap the wound successfully without straightening it out. The thought of maneuvering the bone back into a straight position was gross and something you had never done before, but you had to get him out of this ravine and get help immediately and with the com broken it wasn’t likely to be found anytime soon.

His unnaturally bent leg made unpleasant noises as you slowly moved it back into a e position, thanking the force he was unconscious to feel the pain. You felt bad for the pain he would feel when he would wake up, if he woke up.

But you couldn’t think like that, no, you would stop the bleeding, find help, and he would be fine. Everything would be fine. You two would go back to Coruscant and the endless fighting would resume.

You traveled for hours with him on your back. Taking only a few moments to eat from a bush or drink from a stream. You tried your best to find the way you had once come. But it was proving difficult with the cloud cover and the haze of pain from your shoulder.

It was nightfall when you found a waterfall with a pool of water. Just behind the curtain of water was a large enough cave that would easily fit the two of you and then some.

You laid Anakin to rest on the floor. Immediately going for water to wash your hands and then his wound. It took hours to delicately clean the break and skin, you didn’t realize you had fallen asleep until you saw the light streaming through the water.

On the first day, Anakin hadn’t awaken. He laid silently on the cave rock floor. You hadn’t left his side, only once every few odd hours to get more water to clean his wound.

You were reluctant to leave him but you need to find food and find something better to bind his leg and maybe find a way to get to Obi-Wan.

On the second day you made a make shift bed for him to lay on made out of palm ferns that you tied on your back for an easier climb.

On the third day, you meditated. Hoping that you could reach out and contact Obi-Wan through the force, but you weren’t lucky enough to have a bond with him.

On the fourth day, a cold front came in. It wasn’t anything like the chills on Coruscant but it was a significant drop in the average temperature for Ajan Kloss.

On the fifth day he woke up.

“Y/n?” You thought that the hallucinations from lack of sleep, food, and proper hydration began when you heard his voice for the first time. But the voice persisted, calling your name again.

“Don’t move.”

“What happened?”

“Ventress.”

“Have you heard from Obi-Wan?”

“Would we still be in this cave if I had?”

“No.”

“Stop moving.”

“Stop telling me what to do.”

“Your leg almost snapped in half.”

“I know. I can feel it.” Anakin winced. “How long have I been out?”

“Five days.”

“How long do you think-?”

“I don’t know.” You unwound the scrap of red fabric that came from his robes. He tried sitting up again but groaned in pain when you poured water from a flagon you had made out of some hollow shell you had found at the edge of the river and onto the wound.

“Kriff!” He jerked his leg which only caused him more pain. “Fuck.”

“Sit still.” You wanted to slap his stupid face. “If you would just stay put, I could finish this faster and then you wouldn’t be in so much pain.”

“And you haven’t gone out and tried to find help?”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I guess I should’ve let you die then!”

“No.” He looked down at your hands, watching as you worked on wrapping his leg with the freshly washed makeshift linens. “I’m sorry for what I said before Ventress.”

“It’s okay.” You brushed it off. It hurt but you weren’t going to stew over it. Silence fell over you again.

“We used to be inseparable.” Anakin uttered one evening when the rain came down. His back was currently propped up against the cave wall, watching you as you cut into some fruit you had found earlier that day. Your hair was drenched, and beads of water rolled down your neck and bare shoulders. Your skin glistened under the shimmer of the waterfall.

“A long time ago.” You huffed. It was annoying to hear him try to bring up the past between you.

“It was only four years ago.”

“Yeah, a long time ago.” You didn’t really want to have this conversation with him.

“We stopped talking.” Yeah no shit.

Sighing heavily, you put down the small shard of stone. You couldn’t quite understand why he was suddenly bringing this up right now. After all, it was he who stopped talking to you, leaving you to wonder for months what you had done wrong. It left questions burning at the tip of your tongue every time you were in close proximity of each other.

“Why?” Why? The gaul of Anakin finally got to you.

But after everything that had happened in the last week, it was as good as time as any to ask the question that had been itching at the back of your mind for. “Was what happened on Corellia that bad?”

“What?”

“Corellia. Plo and Obi-Wan took us to Corellia to help locals from the Pykes. We had tried to help annex them from the spice lords. We got split up and you and I were sent alone and then we had um-“

“Yeah, I remember Corellia.” He stopped you before you could finish the sentence, knowing full well what you were about to say.

“After that,” You continued. “You stopped talking to me. You started to act different around me, like you do now…I just didn’t understand. I still don’t understand.”

Anakin was silent for a long time. His head turned and he watched as the waterfall gushed down. “I remember when we were barely seventeen and you had training with Plo every morning from sunrise until noon but this time he was called away for an emergency on…I think it was Kijimi?”

“Where are you going with this, Anakin?”

“Let me finish.”

“I-“

“Just listen.”

“Fine.”

“Obi-Wan offered to train you himself when Plo was gone. He trained you hard for two weeks and I watched all of it. I sat behind the Uneti tree and watched you guys fight. It was like a sort of dance. I had never seen him and you flow so easy before. It was mesmerizing.”

“Okay? I don’t understand the point of this whole story?”

“Can you just be quiet? I’m trying to explain myself in the best way I can and you’re being rude.”

“That’s thick.”

“Whatever. Look, I just got nervous around you.”

“Nervous? Anakin, I thought we were closer than ever after Corellia and your explanation is that you became nervous?” Your eyebrow arched. Stars, he was dumber than you remember.

“You know what? Forget it.”

“No. I’m sorry, finish.”

He sat there in silence for a moment as he eyed you out of the corner of his eye, watching as you moved to sit next to him; propping your back against the wall, mirroring his position. Clearing his throat, his eyes fell to his hands, “I-I wasn’t freaked out. I was jealous and standing there only days after Corellia watching you two train in such fluidity I realized right then and there.“

The silence was loud as he looked back down at you. His eyes searched yours with a look you hadn’t seen since you were seventeen.

No. He couldn’t. This couldn’t be the reason to why your friendship had fallen apart.

The silence settled again in the cave as you watched him. “Anakin…”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Pity me.” He swallowed “You rejected me.”

“I didn’t reject you.” You weren’t even awake when you had left him laying in bed alone. You had thought it was for the best. You didn’t want Plo or especially Obi-Wan finding the two of you wrapped up in the sheets together. “I didn’t think it wise to stay and you took me leaving as rejection. You were the one who ignored me for months! You are not the victim here, Anakin!”

He fell silent, looking out at the undulating gushing water. It was moments before you spoke again.

“I liked you too. Once.”

“I know.” He smirked. “You were obvious.”

“I know.”

“It was endearing.”

“I didn’t quite grasp the concept of no attachments at ten.”

“I still don’t.”

You shrugged and stared at the raging waterfall, unwilling to meet his gaze.

“Do you…” Anakin’s voice trailed off, lingering in the air, allowing for the pounding water to take over the conversation until he was brave enough to finish it.

“Do I what?”

“Do you hate me?”

“No! Oh my stars, no.”

“So you still like me?”

“No.” You were telling the truth, you missed him sure, but it wasn’t love anymore. “I do not.”

“But you did once.”

“I was ten.”

“Ten, twenty, a hundred. Love just doesn’t die.”

“Wow, you’re a real poet Skywalker. A shame your flowery words of endearment will never be heard upon the ears of lovers.”

“Look, you are smart, funny, strong, and you paid attention to me. I just had misplaced my admiration into childish fantasies that had led me astray until I had found balance again.” He sighed. “And I don’t hate you. You hate me though.”

“I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you.” That was all it took for Anakin to finally kiss you. Press his own to yours, in a fervor that was everything and nothing you had to said to each other.

His lips were warm.

Chapped.

“Anakin-“ You moaned into his mouth. It was electric, like the wire from all those years ago was plugged back into its socket.

He hummed into your mouth, his fingers were still entangled in your hair. Grasping at the base of your skull, pulling at the tendrils. Your lips moved in perfect sync as he began pulling you towards him, trying to position you on his lap.

“Your leg.”

“I don’t feel it.”

“Anakin.” You bit your lip. It wasn’t right. “We can’t.”

“I might die.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“I might never see the light ever again. Might never feel the warmth of another person ever again.”

He pulled you to him again, kissing you with all of the pent up anger, guilt, and want the past four years had built.

His warm hand slipped under your shirt, fingertips caressing the slick, sweaty skin that was a sea of goosebumps from the contact. Skating up your rib cage to find your breast.

Moaning into his mouth, you forgot what it was like to be touch, no caressed by him. It felt so wrong but that’s what must’ve been so good about it.

You retracted from him, pulling your shirt off completely. Baring yourself to him. His lips found your nipple, sucking lightly at the sensitive tip, your head rolled back in pleasure.

You could feel him at you clothed core, your hips rocking against his hard cock.

“Fuck.” His breath was hot against your skin but never relented. “If you keep doing that I’ll cum.”

“Then fuck me.”

His tip was swollen and leaking with pre-cum when you helped him with his pants. You wanted to take him in your mouth but wanted him inside you more.

“Fuck.” He moaned deeply as you sank your wet cunt onto his pulsating erection. You couldn’t help but moan out in pleasure yourself as you felt him bottom out in you.

With careful undulating rolls you moved on top of him.

It was by no means romantic, this clash between you. Needy and primal, it was a release of everything. Every quick slash of the tongue. Every glance and every subliminal touch.

“I know about you and Obi-Wan.” Anakin’s fingers entwined within your hair, tenderly caressing your scalp as he braided small sections with your head laid on his bare chest.

There was no reason to deny what he said. You hummed against his skin.

“Do you love him?” He continued to play with your hair as he quietly whispered. There was no malice, no jealously, no discontent behind his question.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The next few days continued as they had prior to what happened between you and Anakin. There had been no mentions of you having sex and none of Obi-Wan.

Anakin’s leg wasn’t getting better but it wasn’t getting worse. Which you took as a good sign.

“I’m going to get more food.” You were running out of the little supply you had previously gotten and he needed as much energy and nutrients as possible.

“Okay.”

“Please don’t do anything stupid.”

“Would never dream of it.”

You looked back once more before descending the rock and into the jungle floor. Purple fruit hung from low bushes that proved edible and somewhat sweet. Which was good enough for your empty stomachs.

You plucked a few into your makeshift satchel you had created from scraps of Anakin’s robes. It wouldn’t be enough if you were expecting to be here longer, so you moved deeper into the jungle. Hoping to find a piece of meat of any kind at this point.

You felt it first. A movement in the overgrown brush. Then you saw it.

A figure, no, it was definitely a man moved through the jungle alone. Whacking his way through the brush with looked like a vibroblade, as he tried to navigate the tricky, uneven floor.

“Obi-Wan?” Maybe you were tired, hungry, and downright delirious at this moment but for a fleeting second, the auburn hair was one thing it was the white and tan armor that was unmistakable.

“Obi-Wan!” The fruit dropped from your hands and squashed into the mud below, but you didn’t care. Obi-Wan had stopped his pursuit through the flora and spun around.

“Y/n?” His eyes widened and he dropped the vibroblade to the muddied ground. You sprinted towards the Jedi Master and practically jumped on him, wrapping your arms around his body. The warmth he radiated was comforting and familiar. He was sweaty and smelled a bit but you were sure you were ten times worse.

Obi-Wan’s mouth found yours as he brought your body closer to his in desperation and happiness.

He pulled back from your body but his arms were still wrapped around you. His cerulean eyes searched your face and his hand came to caress your dirty, sweaty cheek. He wasn’t sure you were really real.

“Yes, it’s really me.” You half laughed, half sobbed.

“You’re hurt.” His fingertips gingerly graced the surface of your wrapped shoulder. You had forgotten about your wound.

“I forgot.” You laughed through the tears, looking down at the disgusting unkept wrappings.

“You forgot?” He laughed, shaking his head. “I guess you’re okay then?”

“I’ll live.” You smiled, kissing him once more.

“Where’s Anakin?”

You hesitated, worried at how he would react to the news of Anakin almost dying and his leg needing extensive medical attention.

“Anakin is injured.” His eyebrow raised at the news. “Badly.”

“What happened?”

“Ventress.”

“Where is he?”

“A few clicks from here.” You began moving back towards the waterfall. “I can’t move him. Not by myself. He needs medical attention now or he’ll lose the leg.”

“I’ll com Cody.” Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed as he calmly talked to the Commander, detailing the extent of Anakin’s injuries and of yours.

You led him to the cave, detailing the events of Ventress and everything in between. “I cleaned the wound twice a day. I ran out of cloth so I washed and reused what I had, but it was running water. The bleeding has stopped and has begun to scab over but his leg is damaged badly, Obi-Wan. It’ll be weeks in a bacta tank before he can walk properly again.”

Stepping into the cave with Obi-Wan, Anakin was just as you had left him but now he was smirking at the sight of you two.

“Took you long enough.”

You were evacuated from Ajan Kloss.

The team was a sight for sore eyes. Anakin was brought to the medbay immediately, induced into sleep he floated around the bacta tank with his mangled leg suspended.

With relief, you found your quarters after a quick check up, proper meal, and a long shower.

Wrapped up in a blanket, you were sitting in the window ledge. Watching the stars go by, waiting for the jump to hyper speed.

Reflecting on the past few weeks had brought peace. Happy with the loose ends now tied.

When Obi-Wan entered through the door with two cups of steaming tea, the uneasiness of guilt and embarrassment found you. He was so good to you, giving you the world and happiness. He didn’t have to know what happened.

“Hi.” You smiled.

“Hello.” Obi-Wan reciprocated, handing you the mug. “Are you alright?”

You hummed. “You?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Yes, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Thank you for saving me.” You leaned your head on his shoulder, your eyes threatening to close from the lack of sleep catching up to you. You felt safe here next to Obi-Wan and for a moment you thought about what Anakin said, pondering for a moment before letting your body fully sink down. “Again.”

“Of course.” He kissed the top of your head, then leaning his cheek on your hair. Letting the quiet envelope the two lovers.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

␛ to masterlist | want more anakin? check out this!

[catsoupki]

box me up until i spill | bkg x reader blurb

“what are you doing?” bakugou mumbles

“nothing, will you just go back to sleep?” you don’t look at him when you speak, but instead you focus all of your attention onto your current task

“well i can’t when you’re just making random metal clashing noises next to me, just get back onto the bed and leave it for later when we wake up again, it’s not that fucking urgent”

you take a deep breath, but with the way you roughly slam the spoons into the box that houses the forks, it sends a grimace onto his face. in turn, he rolls over from facing you and now the wall

“if you did this when i asked you to yesterday maybe i wouldn’t have to do it right now but you didn’t, so just wait two more god damn minutes and then you can sleep again okay?”

he sighs, and for a moment you think that he’ll keep his mouth shut and keep quiet for once, suddenly the utensils you’re organising feel cold and biting against your skin, they feel like they’re drooping and melting into putty right in between your grasp, and you can’t catch it

“can you just give it a rest?” he goes from facing the wall to sitting up, the curtains flutter slightly in the wind and it tussles his hair in a way that makes you want to cry

“no i can’t fucking do that! i’ve laid out my life right in front of you and i’ve given you myself yet it’s still not enough! you’re a hero who doesn’t get to sleep at night fine i get it! but i’m not any less important so don’t you ever go around and speak to me like that ever again! you promised me all those eight years ago in that basketball court the day we graduated, and you remember what i said yeah? if you did i’d fucking leave!”

all the work you’ve been doing the past ten minutes is rinsed down the drain, useless and helpless to end, the flailing of your arms has caused the box that stored all the metal utensils to fall onto the floor. chopsticks, spoons, forks and knives poke at the hardwood floor and at the edges of furniture, it doesn’t chip the wall, it chips your heart instead.

you’re tired, and even when you’re not dressed for the outside, in mere pyjama pants and a random shirt that you go to sleep in, you walk towards the door and leave the mess behind you

[yeyinde]

NEON MEDUSA | cyberpunk au

Captain John Price x Reader

"Make the smart choice, love." He doesn't give you anything else. The line goes dead with a click. Silence. Unbearable. Stifling. It permeates the air around you, buzzing like static. A disturbance in the airwaves. A rustle in the stagnant life you've been sloughing through for the last three years. A moment later, your phone chimes. A map appears. Some remote bar on the outskirts of the city—the only place Makarov's influence doesn't reach.  Make the smart choice. It's your freedom or your head.

》 WARNINGS: THIS SERIES WILL BE 18+ | no smut; allusions to political corruption, moral ambiguity; standard Cyberpunk rules apply; body modification; technological supremacy; the existential crisis of questioning your humanity

》 WC: 11,1k

》 NOTES: Remember when I said I probably wasn't going to do a chaptered fic? Yeah, me too

SERIES MASTERLIST | NEXT

PART I | STATIC IN THE AIRWAVES

He sits in the crowded bar with nothing to keep him company but a half-empty glass of scotch and a burning cigar. 

He alternates between the two. A swallow of his drink. A sip of water. A drag of his cigar. 

(Routine. Always in threes. Always with that same pinched look on his face, partially hidden in the shadows, concealed beneath a beanie, and shaded in smoke.)

The ochre tip flares to life when he draws it close to his lips, taking a harsh drag of nicotine. The flash of light, brief and evanescent, illuminates his face in short bursts of orange in a room bathed in indigo save for the stage, where his gaze stays, fixed, almost unwaveringly, on the dancers as they display the greatest feat of technological advancement to date: nanobots. 

Their chromatic skin shifts into various hues to accommodate each request made by the patrons, their bodies morphing into something new with each token taken from the hungry-eyed viewers. 

Despite the keenness in his sharp eyes, he makes no purchases of his own—seemingly content to just watch the hedonistic spectacle unfolding before him.

It is not uncommon for people to come here and just observe, happy enough to watch whatever the rest of the people—voyeurs—order, but there's something about him that stands out. 

(Or maybe it's just you. 

He piques your interest in a way most people just don't. Not here. Not in the gold-dusted cesspool of opulent depravity.)

And there isn't anything noteworthy about him. Nothing that stands out against everyone else. 

He was easily swallowed by the curated tenebrous that leaked into the tight space of the auditorium—an artificial sense of seclusion and privacy in shades of shadowed indigo that means little when you can see everything from your perch in the observation deck. He isn't flashy in any sense—his broad shoulders are covered in a raw topaz corduroy jacket with tuffs of seashell white plumage around the collar and button lines, and he wears a simple pair of black trousers, and leather boots. A charcoal beanie sits low on his brow. 

He's big. Bigger than most of the men in the room—both in width and height. He'd tower over them, and his broad shoulders and thick bulk would swallow them whole. 

Your vantage point—a hidden nook in the upper deck known only as the observatory: a domed room completely opaque from the outside looking in with high, arching golden bars dividing each rectangular window making it look a little too much like a cage for you to ever find comfort behind its glass walls—gives you the perfect view of everything in the club. The circular, egg-shaped room with its glass floors and walls has an interface built in to spy on the patrons below. 

It's a place where you spend most of your nights when you weren't wandering the alcoves in the underbelly in search of trinkets to sell, or money to make to somehow chip away at the insurmountable debt you owe the owner of the club for saving you, a price you'll never begin to pay back at your current rate.

You come here to watch the spectacle at one of the most exclusive clubs in the city. 

(And—

Take notes.)

The bar is a hidden gem of the red light district, a place only known by reputation and hushed whispers in the derelict underground. 

On its surface, it looks like any other staple of depravity that the sprawling steel metropolis tries to pretend doesn't exist when foreign diplomats venture close to the technological epicentre of human advancement. Another grim, ramshackle bar in a desolate sea of many. Dingy wax paper covers the floor-to-ceiling windows, giving the passersby a tantalising view of a dancing silhouette beckoning them forward with mechanical fingers, and a bright red grin. 

It's only when they try to enter the establishment does the stark differences between every other brothel masquerading as a bar come to light. 

A bouncer stands in the enclosed foyer covered in piss-stained cardboard, and a cracked comm with loose wires sparking on the wall. It reeks of stale cigarettes and mildew. For added effect, the shadow of a bug skitters into the fist-shaped hole in the wall. 

"Password?" He barks, his hand curling, pointedly, over the handle of his gyrojet. A threat. 

It deters most people simply wandering by in search of sin. 

Except for the ones with an invitation. The password. That prized piece of information gets them access to a club funded by the Inner Circle. 

Most of the clubs in this district are known for their loose morals and shady rules, but none are as infamous as the White Horse, who dabbles in more than just pleasures of the flesh. A place where shady deals are conducted in secrecy in the opulent booths overlooking the stage. Where the madams, and misters overseeing the dancers turn a blind eye to illegal requests that are made. 

A den of sin and filth wrapped in decadence. A place where anything goes so long as you have the money, the power, the status. Where nothing is barred, and the beds on the upper level are never empty. 

More money passes through here on a bad day than those living in squalor near the district will ever see in their extended lifespans. 

Men spend impetuosity to drag the dancers away, the nanos shifting into something new, something garish, to their deviant delights. 

And men like him are a dime a dozen. You can find one anywhere in the red light district, sipping on alcohol, and feasting on the libertine victuals offered for the taking. Nothing about him is particularly noteworthy. Another concealed face in the louche mouth of debauchery. 

And yet—

He stands out. 

The only vice he partakes in is a cigar and drink. He doesn't let his eyes linger on the soft curves of the dancers, or the bared flesh they offer up. He watches with a detached, almost clinical disinterest.

Maybe, then, it isn't so much of what he is, but rather what he isn't. 

There is a wryness to him, a soft derision in his steel gaze that seems out of place in a seedy bar filled to the brim with licentiousness. Most men come to quench their lustful appetite on the display of grandeur in front of them, making demands with a press of their finger to shape the dancers in front of them to whatever matches their hunger. 

None of them has ever looked so disgusted. 

He tries to hide it, face folding into something passive, nonchalant, when he thinks people are staring, or when the barkeep makes his way over to pour him another shot, but it breaks sometimes. Beneath the rim of his odd bucket hat, startling blue eyes morph into contempt at the men around him. Even with the rim pulled down low over his brow, covering the colombina mask concealing the upper portion of his face, you catch the anger frothing in cerulean. 

It's an odd look considering where he is, and the prestige, the importance (both financial and influential) that he must carry just to be let inside, and yet—

Scorn. Derision. Disgust. 

None of it is directed at the dancers gyrating on the flashing stage, putting on a grand performance of a technological prowess yet to be made available to the general public. Their willingness to contort their artificial bodies into various forms—men, women, genderless beings, animalistic features, elongated limbs, and a whole host of pabulum effigies—just for the paying patrons' lustful amusement incites none of the blunt disdain he directs at the men and women around him. 

It's not the performers, then, but the audience.

Some come here with their status placed upon their head like a crown, chin refusing to dip down an inch lest the artificial diadem slip from their clinging fingers. They wear their aristocracy like a perfume, letting it permeate in the air surrounding them for all to inhale, to notice. They like to pretend they aren't enticed by the display available to them and are often mockingly cruel to the dancers, and the workers catering to their paying whims. It's a game to them. Coming here is a sport. A fulfilment of a quota. 

An invitation alone is worth more than the going price of most cities, and the opportunity to maybe rub elbows with the financier of the establishment is enough to make greed spin in their eyes. 

As cruel as they are to the staff, and as much as they like to lift their noses high in contempt, it's a farce. They're posturing. 

The intrigue in their green eyes doesn't mask their peacocking. 

His, you find, is genuine. 

But why?

It's there that he makes his fatal mistake. 

A man, a regular from Verdansk, grabs a passing dancer a little too hard, jostling their shoulder until metal grinds together in a piercing whine that goes wholly ignored in the pulsing bass, and jeers from the crowd. 

He pulls them down, a lustrous smirk creeping across his face, and whispers something in their ear before jerking his chin toward the upper deck where the rooms are. 

The exchange, his rough treatment of them, goes largely unnoticed—or rather, ignored—by the crowd. It's hardly a spectacle—not worthy of their attention like the display on the stage. 

But he catches it. 

Amongst the vile sycophants and their greedy stares, he stands out in stark contrast when his eyes narrow in anger, knuckles whitening around the glass. 

You've only heard of his type in passing. The kind that thinks they're sticking up for something greater than themselves. 

A hero. A martyr. A saviour. 

Muted whispers in shadows. Promises they'll never be able to keep burrowed into filament; sweet words laced with that detestable thing that rots your insides, and leaves you sick with apathy when it extinguishes. Jaded and wrong and—

His type poisons you with hope, and leaves it to crumble in the hollowed amphitheatre of your aching, mutilated chest when they realise it's futile and do the one thing they're best at: running. 

For the greater good, of course. 

The battered remains of love in shambles mean little to them when they place the world on their shoulders to absolve themselves of their sins. The weight of it crushes pity and sorrow and contrition and failure into a ground powder that they can sneeze away with—

I had no choice. 

Heroes, you find, are usually just a pantomime of their internal ugliness. They lash out at what they name injustice but sometimes slip up and use their given name when calling everything wrong with the world, with them, into question. 

It's a good thing that they usually avoid places like this. 

One where the people who fight for good, for humanity—the ones who wave and blink and grin on the holographic advertisements on each major street corner, or wander around with their translucent skin and faux smiles as they shell out promises (and products) of a better tomorrow—let their faces twist in horrific depravity under the strobe lights and cover of darkness. Politicians. People in power. 

It's enough to snuff out any sense of optimism. 

This is a place where hope comes to die with a single press of a greasy finger against a holographic screen. 

A man like him has no reason to tuck himself into the corner, eyes misting over in anger and contemptuous spite at the patrons who feed the rapid descent of mortality. 

The sight of him gnarls a sense of unease in your chest. A burgeoning bloom of that poisonous seed they warned you to stay away from. The one that strikes like a cobra and burns like a molten rock against your skin. That leaves you a raw, gaping wound festering in the cesspool they make sanguine promises to pull you out of. 

They never do. 

They make grand claims about being given a prophecy of martyrdom, and how they must devote themselves, wholly, to a cause that never comes to fruition like it does in the aeons-old fairytale of a bygone era when romance meant something. 

Your fingers curl over the golden bars of the gilded cage you've been left in, and you wonder through the raw ache in your chest as it splits open, another wound among many, who he's trying to save here. 

Then, grimly, you wonder how long it'll take for him to give up like the rest. 

Intrigue gnaws at you until the needling pinch of curiosity becomes too much to bear. 

(Curiosity, and something you'd rather not think about—)

It's easy to slip away from your perch unnoticed. No one bothers with you much outside of bringing you to sporadic liaisons with the man who acts as a silent owner of the bar—among many, many other things—and you use that sense of anonymity to wander down to the ground floor, and toward the man sitting in the corner. 

The difference between them and him is made more apparent when you move closer. 

A cybernetic thumb and forefinger knead the skin over the bridge of his nose, eyes pinched shut in a passage of pain that flickers over his face. With him too preoccupied with his headache, he doesn't notice you sidle up, and you take the opportunity to study him with an eager gaze. 

He's handsome. 

Muted neon blue cuts through the skin of his cheeks, running over his cheekbones, and dipping down toward the corner of his mouth. A flash of metal on his temple peaks beneath the rim of his beanie, catching in the shadowed glow of the pink and purple strobe lights flashing through the dim room. The circular curve and the soft metallic give the impression of the beginnings of a cranial implant. One that costs a hefty price to upkeep, but gives the wearer unlimited access to information fed directly to their non-dominant eye. 

It's something only issued to the military. To the police force. 

But the shape of it is archaic, old. Something of a crest—a familial design unique to the big families, to the clubs, that run the city, or parts of it. Gangsters. Mercenaries. Merchants. Scholars. Politicians. 

Nepotism, undoubtedly, shaped the enhancement, but the design is foreign to you. You think of the common ones—the local police force and security, Shadow Company; the innovative engineers of the Inner Circle; the Shepherd family and their long, and bloody, history of politicians, leaders—but none fit the intricate weavings snaking down his temple. 

Another peculiarity to add to the growing list. 

The limited light in the darkened auditorium colour him a chiaroscuro of light of blue and grainy black, and the way he keeps his palm positioned over his face as he rubs the tension from his brow leaves the rest of his face hidden from your prying gaze. A shame, you think, and make the mistake of moving closer. 

Beneath a metal knuckle, his eye cracks open. 

"I'm not interested."

The timbre of his voice is rough—a masculine rasp that's abrasive, and thick with something heavy in the back of his throat. It makes you shiver. You blame it on the noviceness of your incipient intrigue. 

"Oh?" You mock, and offer back a shrug you hope is more blasè than perturbed. "That's kinda surprising in a place like this." 

"I'm not here for that—" his words cut off with a sharp huff, voice tapering off as he digs his thumb into the divot between his brow until the skin is indented from the metal.

The way he says the word is full of an exhaustive sort of contempt: the kind that says he's tired. Of this, of the anger coursing through his veins. 

A hero on the verge of cracking apart at the seams.. 

(It didn't take him long.)

He's a picture of bone-weariness when he bows his head over the table, elbows knocking against the surface with a harsh thud that makes you wince. He doesn't seem to notice it—or maybe he's so far gone, that anything that isn't bitter disappointment or the white-hot sting of rejection feels almost good to him. A break in the routine. A physical hurt in place of the emotional turmoil saviours like him must face. 

If, of course, he even is one. 

You question your original assessment of him when his wrist bends, and his long, thick fingers wrap around the rim of the glass. 

A hero. Maybe you were wrong. 

He looks like the same tired men who spend their waking hours working a job they hate, one that grinds against their skin until a hole forms and the wound begins to rot. Miserable. They reek of bitterness and discontentment. And when they're not being burnt out against the heel of a profession that doesn't even know they exist, much less care about the droop in their shoulders, the callouses, the ennui and megrim towards life, they combat the existential despair by saturating their organs in liquid formaldehyde to stop the slow, methodical rot of that pesky little thing called hope. Happiness. 

You wonder if he came here for something different to numb the self-inflicted loneliness, or if all that anger he directs at the men is just a reflection of his desires that disgust him so much. 

It's the crushing sense of disappointment that maybe you were wrong and, worse yet, maybe he was right. 

(In this life, there are only idiotic hopefuls and those smart enough to know better.) 

Still. 

Still. 

He's different in a way you're not used to. A man with rough edges and sour words; blunt and bludgeoning. 

Interesting. 

You wonder what makes him tick. What ugliness he's hiding, and what secrets he's running from. 

His neck is thick, muscles tensing when he tosses his head back, and swallows down the last of his drink. 

(You wonder what it would feel like to sink your teeth into his jugular—)

"I don't need another drink, either," he says, voice thick from the burn of alcohol, and little more than a growl. 

You offer another shrug—one that he doesn't see when he bows his head again, palms scoring down his face. 

"Again," you murmur, a fleeting tease. "Still not offering."

His thumb presses into his temple, index finger sliding over his forehead until it rests in his webspace. He inhales deeply in palpable exasperation, broad chest expanding and pulling the charcoal shirt taut across his shoulders. 

"Then what the hell—" 

His lids crack open, eyes sliding to the side as he stares at you, properly, for the first time since you wandered over. 

The surprise in his gaze as he takes you in makes your heart jump, slamming harshly against its bone prison. His eyes—a deep, almost unending blue—are pretty. Piercing. 

He swallows again, hand pulling away from his brow slowly—dazed, almost, as if he'd been expecting one of the dancers on stage instead of—

Well. You. 

Human. Wholly. 

It usually catches people off-guard to see someone so bare, so void of any visible enhancements or upgrades. 

On the surface, anyway. The debt you wracked up from the man says something must have been done. That one day, you'll dig too deep into your tissue and find wires and cylindrical tubes instead of veins. A circuit board instead of a heart. An artificial stem instead of a brain. 

More android than human. 

Your teeth sink into the soft flesh around the corner of your mouth, and you brace yourself for it—for the—

"I didn't realise I talkin' to a bloody bot."

It doesn't prickle against your skin—one that bleeds red, and bruises in flaxen when you dig your fingers in hard enough. It doesn't. 

"I'm not." 

He blinks at you once, mystified, but then something in his gaze sharpens. A keen awareness, a spatial depth, that seems out of place on a mere man. You think of the holographic images of grizzly bears mid-hunt, stalking their prey through the thick furze, and then of the curiosity that dips from beady, ink-black eyes when they find something that disturbs their territory. An unknown thing—neither predator nor prey. 

He turns in the seat, shifting until his body is facing you. His elbow rests on the table, hand dropping down again to hold onto the rim of his glass. The other drops to the back headrest of the seat. 

He doesn't move over or offer you a spot to sit. A pointed gesture, you're sure. A sign of your disturbance. An unwelcome visitor. 

You ignore it in favour of drinking in the display of his body, loose and lax in the seat with his knees spread, and the toes of his boots akimbo. His muscles flex under the tight, grey shirt, moving with each shuffle of his hips to get comfortable. 

He's bigger than you thought. Threateningly so. 

"That right?" He says the words slowly, and draws them out in that coarse voice of his. 

His index finger taps a strange rhythm on the rim of the glass as he considers the weight of what you divulged, and your eyes are quickly drawn to his human hand—thick, scarred fingers; knuckles scabbed and cracked—and to his nails. They're short, and jagged. Grizzled. They're dirty, too. A fine line of dirt sits under the gnawed hyponychium, bitten down to the plate. 

"Fancy that—a purist."

His words make you snort, and you tear your gaze away from his filthy nails—dirty hands—and shake your head in refusal. Dismay. Exasperation. Some amalgamation of them all. 

He isn't the first to assume that of you, and you know he won't be the last. 

Your physical appearance is startling to some who quickly think you're an android with your untainted skin, void of any visible enhancements like the ones cutting through his cheeks, etched into his temple, his chin. The entirety of his left hand. 

Some consider the relationship between humans and technology to be almost symbiotic. After all, artificial intelligence, modern human evolution, and cybernetics wouldn't exist without the fundamental human imagination, nor their human hands to construct life into these grand things. 

It usually falls into two categories—technological subservience: those who believe AI, androids, robots, cyborgs, and nanobots were created by humans and therefore, belonged to humans; and technological coexistence: the merger between us and them until the lines blur, and it becomes one and the same. 

(Or, more extreme: technological dominance—zealots who believe that god exists in the mainframe of AI, and worship them like deities.)

On the opposite scale lies the purists. Those who believe that the relationship is not symbiotic, but parasitic. A curse. 

"Hardly—" The defensiveness in your tone makes you wince, and you soften the edge of your words when his forehead creases, adding: "It's all internal." 

"Internal, huh," his eyes dip, rolling down the length of your body as if confirming your claims. The weight of his gaze makes your skin burn, blistering under the intensity of his bold stare. "That's unusual, ain't it?" 

"Not where I'm from."

"And where is that, hmm?" 

The way his voice tapers off into a growl makes you shiver. Feverish. 

Dangerous. This man is dangerous. 

"I—" You swallow down the thick pool of anxiety that swells in the back of your throat. You're not afraid of him, but there's this overwhelming sense of intimidation that bleeds from the furrow of his brow, the unrelenting stare he fixes on you—almost as if you're being interrogated. Unease makes your stomach churn. 

Maybe this was a mistake—

His eyebrows lift in a silent display of impatience. 

It's not something you speak about openly—or at all, really—but the words brim on your tongue, as if pulled there by the magnetic draw of the man sitting in front of you, fingers tapping against the rim of the empty glass while the other reaches over his chest, torso twisting as he blindly pats around for the cigar burning away in the ashtray. 

"I don't know," you murmur, letting the words puncture your chest when they slip past the seam of your lips. "Don't remember much of it." 

He considers your words with a slight tilt of his head. Thick, metallic fingers draw the burning cigar to his full mouth, partially hidden behind the wry curls around his lips and chin. He settles in his seat again, eyes lidded, heavy. 

"That so?" 

The end burns orange when he draws in a mouthful of tobacco-saturated smoke, eyes creasing slightly as the endorphins bloom under the deluge of nicotine coursing through him. 

The sight of him, thick thighs spread over the polymer seat of the booth, elbow resting on the table with his wrist bent, fingers still on the rim of the glass, cigar in his other hand, makes something warm fill your chest. 

Trepidation, you hope. 

You offer a shaky shrug in response, and nothing more. 

He hums. "Unusual, innit? Not rememberin'." 

The entire history of your life is a black hole until three years ago when you woke up in a luxury hospital room with an unplayable debt on your head and a body that has never really felt like your own. 

(A man, maker, who called himself your saviour, and ensured you'd never really be free.)

You echo the words he said to you all those years ago when you asked who you were, where you came from, and why you didn't know—

"It must not be worth knowing."

It's a murmured echo not meant to be taken seriously. There's no deeper meaning behind the regurgitated words that ring out in your head; a quick response to those questions that rear late at night when you can't sleep, and your mind wants to torture you further. 

It doesn't matter. 

And really, it doesn't. You can't remember it, and in the three years you've been living, reacclimating to the idea of recall and recollection, no one has ever tried to find you. 

There's no memo being sent out to the great beyond with your name or face attached to it. No one but him has claimed to know you. To care. 

Whatever happened in that life is gone. Empty. A black void of nothing, not even embers or a crackling voice. It's a hole where your sense of belonging goes to rot. 

It does not matter. Not anymore. 

But the way he flinches at your words—a barely concealed jerk of his limbs, half-aborted when he realises he's doing it—makes you think, for the first time in three years, that it might. 

It's swallowed down by a flash of teeth peaking through his amber beard. A rictus grin greets your words. 

"That so?" 

All you can do is nod. 

"Doesn't help convince me you ain't a bot." 

"I'm not." 

His brow ticks up. "Do bots know their bots? Androids can be made to think, created with sentience, but they aren't. It's only when they hurt, do they realise—they were never human at all."

Your chest tightens. He didn't just strike a nerve, he bludgeoned into it. 

"I am," you argue, but the words are less sure, firm, than you want them to be. They tumble out, shaky and filled with the fears that have been twisting inside your head since you blinked into existence, and read accounts of androids doing the same. "I bleed. I hurt. I feel. I think. I—"

He bites on the end of his cigar before drawing both hands up in front of him, palms open and facing you. 

"Easy, there." He mutters, voice low and muffed around the stem of the cigar, and—

Soothing. 

"I'm only teasin' you. If you say you're human, you're human. That's all that matters, mm?"

You shudder. "I am, I—"

"What's your name?" 

You echo the name given to you when you woke up in a daze and were told to meet the man who saved your life. The one he greeted you with when he welcomed you into his luxury office of cut mahogany and reinforced carbon. 

When it slips out, the pinch between his brow deepens. 

"That's your name? Or is that just what they call you?"

"It's—" you flounder for a moment. "It's my name."

"You don't sound too sure."

"Can I be sure of anything?" You volley back, venom leaking into the words. 

"You haven't gone lookin'?"

"For what?" 

Where would you even start?

"You know…" he begins, shifting in his seat once more. There is a tension in his brow. An even curl to his lips, teeth still bared. "I try to find people like you. Bring them home. To justice—or whatever that might be. A lot of 'em claim to not remember, to not know what they did, or why they ran. You tellin' me somethin' similar, love?"

"I'm not missing." 

His eyes are filmed with a facsimile of something placid. Even. But there is a current beneath the surface. A raging torrent of unsettled water churning up the seabed. It'll drag you to the bottom, and press you flat against the rocks as it roars above you. 

You might be able to crack your eyes open under the swell, fingers digging into the murky sediment below your supine body, and vaguely make out of the rippling surface. A taunting mirage just within reach but the tumultuous waves would crush your fingers for even trying to grasp for it. 

You shiver. 

"You sure about that, love?" 

Love. Love. The words stick against some part of your head, clinging to the fibrils and ringing across gyri until every synapse rattles with the heavy tenor splitting you apart. 

"—Do you know me?"

The look surfaces. 

"No." You seldom feel hopeful that anyone does anymore. Maybe on a distant planet, in a distant city, someone is still looking for you. "But I am lookin' for someone." 

"Looking—" your brow furrows together as you eye him warily. Concern etches into your chest. Knotting tight like a spooled ball. "Looking for who?"

He shrugs. 

He shifts in his seat, brings his hand away from the glass, reaches into the sherpa-covered folds of his jacket, and pulls out a small device. He proffers it to you, the design is reminiscent of a netphone, but—

Out of date. 

You stifle a grin as you take it from him, but it's barely hidden, and he huffs when he catches sight of it. A soft chuff of mirth spilling from between full lips. 

"Watch it," he mutters. 

Your eyes run along the length of the thin phone—dark chrome, chipped in some places along the sleek, curved edges, but the screen is intact—and you marvel at the oddity presented to you. It's not like the netphones made by Four Horseman Corp., but the design is almost a replica. 

The man reaches up, and presses his cybernetic finger against a small, concave placeholder near what must be the mouth of the device, and the screen flickers to life. 

A man stares back at you. His hair is blond with the sides shaved, and the top long. Handsome, you think, with his full lips, and long nose. The light dusting of his beard around his cheeks and moustache—just as blond as his hair. He looks like the models that pose on the holographic glass of the boutiques downtown. 

"Who is he?" 

"Alex Keller. He's been missing for six days."

Six days. 

Something ugly rots inside of you. 

"And you think he's been here?" 

"Last place he was."

"Couldn't be," you murmur, shaking your head. "I'm here almost every night, and I've never seen him before."

"Might not 'ave noticed him, bein' so distracted 'an all."

"Distracted?"

Your lift your chin, confusion etched into your furrowing brow. 

When he catches your eye, he jerks his head toward the stage. "You work here, don't you?"

"Work—"

It never really occurred to you that he'd think you were a dancer. A working bot. An android. Pleasure Androids—a disgusting attempt at cheekiness from the makers; the slogan on the advertisement makes pledges and promises about the state of the art pleasure-bots designed to suit your needs, upgraded now with nanobots that change their shape, their anatomy, in the blink of an eye. 

You exhale through your nose. It isn't the first time you've been mistaken as such, and maybe if you were, the debt would have some small indent in it by now, but—

"No, I'm not allowed." You murmur, shrugging. "I know the owner so I just come here sometimes to hang out. People watch." A wry smile twists at the corner of your lips. "You see all manner of things in a place like this. Kinda entertaining if it wasn't so—"

Disgusting. 

"You know the owner?"

His words are careful. Concise. 

"Do you?"

He shouldn't. He is many things, but stupid isn't one of them. 

The man says nothing, and gives away little more than a slight incline of his shoulders. Neither agreement nor refusal. His prevarication worries you. 

"Hey, who did you say you were again?"

He brings the cigar to his lips, eyes never wavering from yours, and draws in a mouthful of chemical fumes. It was that intense stare that drew you to him, but now that the weight of it is on you, you find yourself feeling like little more than a bug under a microscope. 

His chest rumbles when he shifts, twin funnels of smoke flaring from his nostrils. It disperses into wisps, and quickly scatters when it meets the fur lining his jacket.

"I didn't," he mumbles, voice pinched in a low, airy growl tinged with smoke. More evocation. 

"Well," you add, brows notching up in a pointed gesture for him to continue. 

He doesn't, opting instead to bring the cigar back to his mouth. Ashes drop, landing in his umber beard. 

He's messing with you. Drawing your discomfort out. 

"Who are you?" 

The demand comes out less forcefully than you intended, words trembling with your surmounting unease. 

It would be all too in character for him to send someone to spy on you, to catch you unawares, and to feed the hungry with his secrets. 

"Doesn't matter." 

Your glare does little to away him. "I'm leaving—"

"I'm just lookin' for my friend."

"Like I said, he couldn't be here. I've been here every night this month. I would have seen him." Seeing the gnarled expression that slips over his brow, a broken anger tinged with equal parts frustration and, most breakingly of all, desperation, you add, if only to soften the blow: "I can ask around, maybe. See if the workers know anything." 

"I've been," he rasps, words still bleeding with his frustration. "They don't know anything." 

You huff, shaking your head. "Asking those kinda questions here is what makes people go missing in the first place. Is that what your friend did? Come poking around and—"

Balming one wound just to prick at it later. Your words, the bitter sting, get you a flash of teeth, bared canines in sharp indignation. 

The man leans forward, eyes pelagic and fixed, unflinching, on you. It makes you squirm. Heat blooms under your cheeks. The rush of it makes you dizzy.

"And what makes you special, then?" 

You shrug, and hope the tremble in your limbs goes unnoticed. "I get a free pass." 

"Why?" 

"It helps to know people."

"Like the owner."

"Yes," you murmur, voice laced with your hesitation. "Like him." 

"Him, hmm?" His eyes narrow. "And his name wouldn't happen to be Vladimir Makarov, would it?" 

"How—?" Then, hastily, you add: "No. The tech mogul? No. Why—why would—"

"Save it." He reaches into his breast pocket and draws out a sleek, black card. Cupping it in the palm of his hand, fingers curled over the edge, thumb braced against the side, he tilts the screen. Immediately, the black filmed surface under his thumb shivers, flickering into a shape. A logo. 

The emblem makes your eyes widen. "Military police?" 

He hums. When his thumb pulls away from the surface, it changes back to a blank, black rectangle. Void of any meaning. Any substance. 

Your breath quickens when he slides it back into his pocket. 

"Why are you—"

"Makarov's been naughty, hasn't he? The future Zakhaev promised is a bright one, isn't it? Better eyesight. Better sense of smell. New, indestructible limbs—" He rolls the knuckles of his cybernetic hand at you, appendages moving instantly. "Stop ageing. Stop getting sick. Everything that could kill us is no longer an issue, hmm? For a price, of course." 

"Nothing in life is free—" the words are ripped from Imran's advertisement ages ago. Nothing in life is free, but sometimes a better tomorrow is worth the price of today. 

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Just get a loan through the Four Horseman, hmm? Pay them back a paltry sum every month. Worry about the payment later—upgrade yourself now." 

The new slogan. You try not to shiver under his abrasive, scorching stare. 

"But," he continues, shrugging. "When you can't pay, is he the one who sends his henchmen after them? The ultranationalists. The ones that take back his tech through force and sell the parts on the black market. And—" his eyes harden. "The cycle repeats. People die, debts go unpaid, and yet—mysteriously enough, he grows richer. Now, why is that, mm? How can that be possible?"

"Makarov isn't connected to the Ultranationalists. He's—"

"A businessman? A pseudo-politician? A philanthropist just tryin' to make the world a better place, hmm?" He leans forward, eyes cutting into jagged ashlar. "Then why is the Horseman funding them?"

"He isn't. It must be some kind of mistake—"

"You say that like you know him. Know him personally." 

"I don't—"

"Don't lie to me, love. Won't do you any good." He leans back, hand falling to the side of his glass. He taps out a strange rhythm with his index finger—the old tune of some forgotten song. Tap, tap, tap-tap, tap. "I heard about you."

His words are a strangled pressure around your throat. Heard about you. Impossible. No one has. No one ever does. You're as invisible as Makarov wants, followed around by his henchmen at a sizable distance. They never bother interacting with you. Never speak unless they have to. 

You're a flea hiding in the soft coat of a millionaire. Unneeded. Unwanted. A burden. 

Your circle mostly consists of people who frequent the underground. The black market where you can find almost anything for a price—even the age-old books about fairytales and fantastical adventures. Information, too, if you know what you ask for. 

Your face has never shown up on a missing person bulletin. No one has ever asked about you. 

(No one cares, no one knows—

—six days. 

Three years. 

It doesn't matter—)

In your crushing silence, the man's eyes narrow. There is no flash of victory in his gaze, but you scent the arousal of a predator stalking its weakened prey nevertheless. 

"Heard 'bout your debt, too—" he tuts, a rasping coo that sounds how you imagine the bristled tongue of a big cat would feel shredding your skin. "He's the one who saved you, ain't he?"

It becomes too much. The pressure bubbles over. 

All your meagre years of existence have taught you to quell the surge of fight or flight, to push it down and stand firm, stoic, amid the array of nefarious people who happened to cross your lonely path in the catacombs where they barter over lives, and makes deals with the devil for any number of precious commodities—even people. A person with a debt, you found, is worth significantly less than someone without. A truism you've heard hissed into your ears when you turned their offer of freedom down. 

Handing the leash from one hand to another is hardly autonomous. 

You know from these experiences that any sense of weakness or fear is blood in the water. A struggling fish on the verge of being eaten by the predators lured in by its futile struggle to stay alive. 

In its effort to survive, it inadvertently signs its death warrant. 

If you don't look like you belong, then you don't. A simple fact you've picked up from years of weaving in and out of Makarov's towering shadow. 

It's easy to forge some sense of delusive confidence in the face of those people, the ones who clutch at your arms hard enough to leave an ache in your bones, but something about his composure, his gall, to approach you like this makes that carefully constructed mask crumble into broken pieces at your trembling feet. 

His eyes, you think. They're not the flat, empty gaze of a predator sparking to life when a piece of meat is dangled in front of it, but something deadlier. 

The assured placidity of a man who can play the long game; a hunter who is used to stalking his prey over long distances. 

The look in his eyes says he can wait this out for as long as it takes. 

Fight or flight. You've crushed the concept down to basal parts: a silly whim that will just get you killed. Fight and you'll be forced to contend with people who've been doing this a lot longer than you have. Flee and you'll never be allowed back inside. 

You've never had any choice but to ride the high of adrenaline and paranoia out until they got bored with your vacant stoicism. 

(Or—when in doubt—use your trump card of touch me again and do you have any idea what Makarov will do to you?)

Somehow, you know neither option will work on him.

And it itches under your skin. Hackles raising. Heart pulsing. Blood rushing with the heady cocktail of adrenaline. 

You turn, ready to flee, but his hand lashes out through the shadows, catching your forearm in a tight grip. 

"Look, love," he murmurs, words low, guttural, like he's speaking to a cornered animal. "This is bigger than you. Than me. Do you want that debt gone? To be free of 'im? Well, here's your chance."

A test. The information he knows is too much for any regular officer—even a military one.

"Makarov isn't like that."

There's a flash of something—disappointment, maybe; disgust—but it's gone in an instant. Hidden behind layers and layers of distance. 

"Maybe not. But several of his companies showed up on someone's ledger. We know this person wasn't a partner in the Horseman. He wasn't one of the four. But he was collecting money from Makarov."

"It's probably through his charity fund." 

"Don't you wanna know why your saviour is funnelling money to corrupt officials? Or why do people who can't pay for upgrades end up dead on the street? Stripped down like a piece of meat and sold for profit. Doesn't any of this concern you?"

"Makarov would never do that—he'd never stain his public image."

"He isn't the man you think he is. None of them are."

"Maybe you're not the man I thought you were. Maybe coming over here was a mistake." 

An impasse. Uncrossable. 

He's a rat, you think. A plant from Makarov to test your resolve. Your will. 

The glare on your face hardens. Yuri must have told him your type. Must have let it slip the kind of man that seems to catch your interest. Broad shoulders, thick thighs. A tapered waist. Gruff, chiselled men with dirty hands, stained from hard work. Honest, good men. 

Men who belong in fairy tales. Blacksmiths and forgers. Miners. Ironworkers. The kind who wants nothing in life but simplicity, a warm bed, and a hearty meal. Ones who stand up to injustices but would never, ever call themselves a hero. 

A rough gentlemen that wouldn't even consider themselves as such. 

Stupid. How stupid. 

He was always too good to be true. You should have known better. 

When the silence stretches on, pulled taut like a rubber band, he huffs. Shattering the icy tension with another roll of his massive shoulder. 

"Here," he reaches into the folds of his jacket once more, and retrieves a new card. A chip. "If you ever change your mind, gimme a call."

Makarov is a smart man. 

"I won't." 

But he's raised you to be smarter. 

Makarov is many things—a money-hungry monster included—but above all of that, he's a businessman with a reputation. 

He's only one-fourth of a massive tech conglomerate that puts public relations and corporate profits over everything else—even personal gain. None of the heads makes any decisions without express permission from everyone who eats at the table. Doing otherwise would get you killed. 

Have you ever heard the story of a hydra? That's what we are. Four horsemen. The heads might change but there will always be four. 

To do something like this would put him at direct odds of everything the Horsemen, the Inner Circle, set forth to do. Risking it all to sell his own repossessed parts at a lower profit margin on the black market is absurd. Crazy. 

He'll make more money on the interest each debt accumulates than he would having it paid off in full, or even wiped. It's an unspoken underline all the Horsemen profit from. Their own personal gain. 

You can't see him losing that over a meagre payout in the black market. 

And as a regular peruser of the market, you would have noticed him, or someone in his circle, down there. 

(You know everyone down there.)

It's impossible. 

And yet—

The run-in with the man rattles you still. 

You're quick to deduce that he isn't a plant by Makarov. He'd never let one of his talk about him like that or accuse him of the kind of things that would bring the Horsemen together in a way that could only end with Makarov on trial. 

It being Makarov is a gamble he'd never take. 

But him not being on Makarov's payroll is equally risky. It's not exactly a secret that the Inner Circle runs around with shady groups—Ultranationalists., and Konni rogues being some of them—but nothing has ever been confirmed, and the Ultranationalists have never been loyal to anyone except their agenda. 

People who tend to ask questions about the Horsemen are either added to the payroll or, if that doesn't work, silenced. 

Military. They don't usually get involved in corporate affairs. 

But you suppose a missing friend is enough to spur anyone on. 

You should forget him. Should push him from your mind, and pretend he was just a figment of your imagination. Something that crawled from the foetid cesspit where hope rots, and stood in front of you offering sanctuary with hands that leaked pestilence down on the grungy floor of the club that bred and reared depravity. 

What he was offering couldn't exist in the same space as that place. 

But he knew you. Knew about your debt. The one thing you wanted more than anything else offered up in a chrome-plated palm. And—despite everything you've tried to erase it—the only group who'd have the ability to do so approaches you. 

It's odd. This whole situation seems strange. 

Offering up information on Makarov to the military in exchange for freedom. You know it isn't him. It can't be. The risks outweigh any potential money Makarov would make doing this. His life for a paltry sum when a single person's debt on their upgrades singlehandedly paid for several of his his penthouses in Al Mazrah. 

Seems too good to be true, and you were taught to be wary of the hand that feeds you.

Logically, you know you should toss the chip away, and never deal with this again. Or, better yet, to hand it over to Makarov to deal with and bargain for a chunk to come from your debt. 

If you were selfish, you would. 

No. 

If you weren't selfish, you would. But you are, so you don't. You don't because he didn't promise a chunk, he promised all. All of it. Gone. Erased. Voided. The balance on your head would be zero. Nothing. You'd be free of Makarov—a man who saved you only to imprison you in a gilded cage. 

A man who is more enigma than you could ever begin to unravel. 

Why he keeps you around on a short leash, content to let you weave in and out of his many assets as you please, only having to meet with him every few months in what feels like glorified check-ins to confirm you're still desperately seeking a way to sever the ties that are reinforced with steel. 

The man is strange, but Makarov and his murky intentions for you are even more so. 

It makes those needling questions rear again. Ones that can't help but wonder if Makarov keeps you around because you happen to be his greatest achievement: manufactured sentience. 

After all, even the most sentient androids in the world know, fundamentally, that they are not humans. There is a categorical difference, and the idea of false humanity was deemed too cruel to bestow upon someone—android, cyborg, or otherwise—and so, telling you outright that your insides are an immaculately designed machine is not only illegal, but it's also the one thing he'll do anything to avoid—

"—a PR nightmare," he spits, words soaked in the same venom that leaks from his narrowed glare. You watch the implosion from your perch near the floor-to-ceiling window in his penthouse, eyes gazing impassively out at the technicolour city sprawling below. His voice carries through the room. "A fucking—"

Disaster. 

In a stroke of unfortunate luck, someone in the local police department made a report on a man left for dead in the gritty downtown streets of the city—affectionately named Killhouse—after being stripped of all his implants with near-surgical precision. 

No one ever reports on these specific cases because of how often they happen, and where. It's no secret the police keep a wide distance around the area that moonlights as a broken redlight district and the entrance to the black market. It's almost wholly under the thumb of the constantly warring Vanguards—the Hellhounds and the Tyrants are almost always in some type of civil dispute—and a very not-so-secret secret is that they pay the police to turn the other way. 

This, then, is quite a deviation in how things are normally done. 

His debt to Four Horseman Corp is made known to the world—an insurmountable number that never seems to decrease due to the exorbitant interest piled high. 

It brings about uncomfortable questions, and the greedy outlets sink their claws into the morsel offered like starving rats scavenging for scraps. They plaster it everywhere until a discussion starts. 

Why is interest so high? 

The discourse surrounding the oligarchy on technology is not a new one by any means, but for the first time in a very long time, it doesn't feel like it's going to get swept away anytime soon. The launch of their new nanotechnology is halted until it dies down. Until the media circus has quieted enough not to let sales of a new product tank.

PR nightmare, indeed. 

The timing is suspicious, but the cop who made the report is new enough that it doesn't raise too many eyebrows. Human error. A simple mistake.

You think back to the man, fingers idly running over the groove of the chip you told yourself you'd toss out nine times already, and wonder if it's connected. 

Makarov's call wasn't too impromptu considering he regularly likes to check in, but he sent Anatoly instead of Yuri and something about the brutal man leering at you sets your teeth on edge. 

His usual meetings mainly just consist of him lauding your neverending debt over your head, and reminding you he doesn't accept dirty money. And, of course, to gather names. 

Your appearances at the White Horse are less about contemplating the depravity of the upper echelon, and assembling a list of men and women who visit, and what they purchase. 

Makarov's greatest achievement—and his biggest spy. 

"You hear anything?" 

In the darkened glass, his reflection lifts his head from where it was bowed over a netpad, angry eyes skimming through the abundance of articles, and fixes themselves on you. Narrowing. 

"Hear what?"

"What else?" He huffs. Wrong answer. "Anything about this when you were at the club."

You haven't been back since that night, offering excuses to your watchman, and glorified chauffeur as to why you couldn't go. 

"No," you say and hate the way your mind immediately flashes back to that man. "Nothing really." 

He stands up from his chair—throne, really—and lays his palms flat on the surface of his chrome-plated desk. It sparks to life under his fingertips, LED lights flaring through the wires embedded into the grain. A holographic menu in net blue pops up in front of him. 

The glass inverts the image, but you could make out the familiar cage anywhere. 

"You left your post for a while. Borodin said you slipped away from him." 

It's not outright accusatory yet, but you catch the paper-thin wisps of suspicion in his tone all the same. 

It doesn't surprise you when he follows it up with, "so, where'd you go?"

"I saw someone," you shrug. "Wanted to get a better look."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know." It's not a lie. Not the whole truth, either, and you think he senses that. 

"It wouldn't happen to be a police officer, would it? This stupid shit—," he lifts his hand, sweeping it across the articles drifting by in the side of the screen before laying it over his brow. "—could end me. And the timing, too."

Words bubble in your throat. You don't know what compels you to speak them aloud—maybe the needle of humour weaving through the conflicting tangle of everything gnarling inside of your chest—but they tumble from your lips without any regard to who, exactly, you're speaking to. 

"Maybe once you're gone, I won't have to worry about my debt anymore."

The hand rubbing his forehead stills. 

You tense, teeth sinking into your tongue until you taste blood. Stupid. 

"Is that what you think, kitten?" Slowly, he lifts his head, hand sliding down until it covers his jaw. His eyes are burning. "You don't owe a debt to me—you owe a debt to the Inner Circle. Not the Horsemen, not Zakhaev. But to us."

You turn from the window with a sharp jerk, eyes widening. Despair sinks its claws into your jugular. 

"You're an asset. An investment. The technology used to save your life is unprecedented. Do you think we'll just let you go? Do you know how long it'll take to pay your debt off, kitten? Five hundred and thirty-six years—and you're barely paying off the interest as it is." 

Makarov often has his lackeys do the intimation for him—Anatoly in particular—while he hides behind the mask of a charismatic innovator just looking to improve the world. It's rare he ever raises his voice, or his hand.

This, the picture of anger perched behind his chrome throne, is the closest to something true to his real self than you'd ever seen before. Anger. Bitterness. Contempt.

He moves slowly around the desk, and you feel every second of it like a blunt stab to your chest. Trepidation, fear. 

You've become so complacent with what Makarov pretends to be that you forget who he really was.

When he finally reaches you, the storm cloud in his gaze clears into something like sadistic victory. Vindication. 

He leans down, his chin brushing over your cheek. 

"You better hope nothing happens to me. I'm the only reason you're not being made to work for us as well. You like your freedom, yes? Then I suggest you pray I stay alive, kitten." 

You stare at the image on the screen, and try not to let yourself weep at the sight of it so bluntly looming before you. 

A debt owed to the Inner Circle. 

A contact promising payment in addition to employment to them. The handler of the current account is Vladimir Makarov. 

Maybe it's naïvety, ignorance, but you've always assumed the loan was only to Makarov. He was the first person you saw when you woke up—the first real one, anyway—and something about him seemed almost too big for the small room you were housed in. Too surreal. Everything felt new and strange and familiar and old and comforting and—

And then he said: 

You know how this works, don't you? 

You didn't. Or maybe, once upon a time, you did, but everything inside of your head was scraped clean with a scaple until the walls were barren and empty. Void of any substance.

Who you were was a black hole. A vaccum. 

Makarov was the one who filled the vacant space with purpose. With meaning. 

And you hated him for it. 

Made to pretend to be whatever he decided fit his needs; a puppet for his amusement. 

He owned you. 

Made you whole again. 

In that, you just assumed that he was the one who footed the exorbitant bill to resuscitate you from whatever hell you clawed out of, narrowly avoiding the gnashing maw of death. It made sense. 

And in many ways, you just assumed that he would die. 

A corrupt CEO. They're rampant here. Heads roll all the time, and you were content with waiting it out until someone put the barrel of a gun to his forehead and told him his tyranny was up. Freedom drenched in the blood of your financier. 

Fitting, isn't it?

You were pulled from the blood-soaked cobblestone, and given a second breath of life by his hands. 

Born in blood. 

(Born in blood. Died in blood. Born in blood. Freed.)

You slip the chip into your phone, breath held in your throat as the calling card loads. 

It's archaic. No one uses these chips anymore except old people, and the government. Untraceable. It's good for a single contact number only. The sight of it makes you huff—a shaky bloom of mirth in your chest. 

It feels out of place. You trample it down, hiding it behind a mask of indifference, nonchalance. The same veneer Makarov glues to his own. 

(Something you'd rather not think about.)

The screen idles for a moment. No answer. A sham call. A fakeout. A—

He doesn't appear on the screen. It's blank. In the black surface, your sallow face stares back. Traitor. 

"I was wonderin' when you'd call."

"You expected me to?" 

"If you were smart, you would have."

"If I was actually smart, I wouldn't be calling you at all." 

"Mm, I'm glad you did," he murmurs, voice tinny and thin through the speaker. "A debt that big won't just go away…"

It stings. You swallow it down. "Yeah. Guess you got that right." 

"What's wrong?" 

"Aw, do you care? That's sweet." 

"I've been called many things, love. Sweet ain't one of them." He shifts. You hear the clink of his metal fingers tapping over the ancient phone in his hand. A surly old man with an old chip. You stifle a laugh. It's ridiculous. You're ridiculous. This whole thing is—

"—Important that we find the link between the missing parts and Makarov. It might lead us to Alex, and—"

"Huh?" You blink. "I never said I'd—"

"Go see what you can dig up for me. I need something—a paper trail. I can't get into the black market, but you can."

"How do you know what?" 

"Know a bit about you, love."

"How?" 

"You ain't the only one with friends in high places." Another shift. The grind of metal against metal. "Now, are you in? Or are you gonna try and pay this debt off on your own, hmm? How long will that take you? Few hundred years?"

"Makarov will kill me if I do this—"

"And how many people will be killed if you don't?"

You don't answer. Can't. That responsibility shouldn't be on your head. 

He sighs. A rough huff of static through the line.

"If you want that debt gone, meet me at the location m'gonna send you. You called for a reason. Makarov can't touch you if you owe him nothing. Their ship is sinkin', love. You gonna go down with them? Be a prisoner your whole life? Or are you gonna be smart an' abandon ship while you still have the chance, because once I leave that place, m'not gonna answer again. You'll be on your own."

"I'll think about it."

"Make the smart choice, love."

He doesn't give you anything else. The line goes dead with a click. Silence. Unbearable. Stifling. It permeates in the air around you, buzzing like static. A disturbance in the airwaves. A rustle in the stagnant life you've been sloughing through for the last three years. 

A moment later, your phone chimes. A map appears. Some remote bar on the outskirts of the city—the only place Makarov's influence doesn't reach. 

Make the smart choice. It's your freedom or your head. 

[winterstellars]

sins of the son | aemond targaryen

15,179w | aemond x fem!reader (can also be read as nameless oc) | 12.7.22 | part 2 here

Aemond does not know how long she has been in King’s Landing. She could have been living in the capitol for years without him knowing. One day she practically does not exist, and the next, she does. Almost as if she has materialized out of nothingness.

He notices her at prayers first. She sits next to one of his mother’s ladies-in-waiting. While the other girl sits with closed eyes and a bowed head, her eyes are wide open. She stares at the candles that surround the altar, so still that he swears she could be made of marble until her eyelids waver just slightly. He has not prayed since the Gods rejected his pleas for them to restore his eye, so he watches her. Out of boredom. Out of intrigue. They seem to be the only ones present in the sept; everyone else is wrapped up in the Gods. When she catches him staring, she stares right back.

Aegon knows nothing about her—his attentions lie elsewhere, they have never taken an interest in the same woman—but Helaena does.

“Her family sent her here to be legitimized,” she tells him. “She helps me with the babies. Jaehaera loves her.”

He fills in the pieces that his sister is too sweet to say: that a highborn parent with a guilty conscience likely sent her to the capitol to be kept out of sight. It would explain her lack of standing, her relegation to the ends of lines and edges of gatherings. Common, but not really. Noble, but not quite.

When the ladies of the court convene in the gardens for an embroidery session, he catches a glimpse of her. He does not mean to linger, having intended to go down to the rocky shore at the foot of the Red Keep where Vhagar often rests, but he studies her from a distance. The flowers and greenery bob in the wind, obscuring her profile. He can just make out a fern taking shape on her fabric.

Her hand jolts and his heart squeezes in his chest. It feels as though his spying is the cause, even if it is only a needle prick. She brings her finger to her mouth and sucks the blood away. He has to force himself to continue walking.

Flying tends to clear his head. Today is an exception. As Vhagar swoops above King’s Landing, he finds himself thinking about his blood. He has tasted it many times during sparring accidents. He remembers the warmth of it when his nephew slashed his eye out. There was so much of it that it ran down his face and gathered on his lips. He wonders what her blood would taste like. If it would be different from his.

It is evening, weeks later, when they cross paths in one of the lower corridors in the Red Keep. She stands aside for him but does not hide her face as others do. He knows he ought to keep walking. This. . . curiosity is not wise. He stops anyway. One conversation will not harm him.

“My lady.”

“Prince Aemond.” She holds a small bunch of flowers, little pink blooms with petals that seem to open in perfect geometric patterns.

“A gift from a suitor?” He gestures to the little bouquet.

“Oh, yes. I’m positively besieged by them.”

A grin plays at the corners of her mouth. People do not speak to him this way. Servants try to address him in as few words as possible and his family has their set habits: his mother’s clipped sentences that seem to end just short of what she wants to say, Helaena and her little riddles, his grandfather and his careful candor. Wry humor is not their way, and he can remember all too well the years when he functioned as the target of his brother’s and nephews’ jokes. Criston Cole may be a decent sparring partner in the training yard, but he is not much for sparring with words.

“What is it that the Gods advise?” He may not be as religious as his mother, but he has always had a gift for memorizing bits of text. “Let no maiden be tempted by wanton attentions, lest her thoughts become sinful and her flesh tainted.”

“Well, who am I to argue with the Gods? Consider me warned.” She offers a brief, practiced curtsy. “Good evening to you, my prince.”

She has not taken two steps when he calls after her. “I will escort you.”

“That is kind of you, but there is no need.” She points to a door at the end of the hallway, presumably her chambers. “Though I hear the city is lawless, I truly doubt I will be attacked between here and there.”

“As you wish.” He turns as she does, though he pauses and looks over his shoulder until she reaches her destination.

Disappointment settles in his stomach, which he immediately reprimands himself for. At most, he could have insisted on accompanying her and bought himself a few extra moments in her presence. Enough to ask about the flowers or her embroidery. It is trivial, he tells himself. Naturalized though she may be, she is a bastard girl and he is a prince and a dragonrider. The more she sees of him, the sooner he will frighten her away.

When he is trying to fall asleep, he sees her eyes piercing into him from across the sept. His entire body crawls at the sensation of it. She is undoing him, opening him, turning him inside out. He sleeps without dreams and wakes up wanting more.

read the rest on AO3

[t-lostinworlds]

here's the summary btw:

They say opposites attract. You and Bucky were so alike—He was called The Winter Soldier and you were called Frost, for fucks sake—that it's probably the reason why you hated each other. Or was it the denying of powerful feelings in fear of getting hurt? You know, like how the cliché goes. Because you know what they also say: There's a fine line between love and hate.

not the best summary but eh. it's 5 am my brain is fried. i know 28k & oneshot in the same sentence is crazy but it's normal for me so ksksksks it does read better as a one-shot bc i wrote is as one so the flow and transition with scenes is like a oneshot (it's hard to explain but anyway) i also haven't reread the whole thing yet so maybe there's a middle point i can cut it. tho i don't think there's a cliffhanger good enough (well there is but you're going to end up with a 20k first part and an 8k second part so it doesn't make sense) and also, if i do divide it into two. posting will prolly be one week later. but i mean, who knows what the universe will decide.

[death-to-posers]

As promised, here’s that list of people I will/won’t write for, and also my boundaries etc.

Will do:

Smut✅

Angst✅

Fluff✅

Some averagely kinky stuff✅

x reader fics✅

platonic ships & fics✅

sodomy✅

Queer fics (f character x f reader, m character x m reader etc, I will write for non binary readers too. Please specify the gender you want the reader to be when you request or I will default to non binary)✅

Won’t do:

R*pe/Non con❌

Adult x minor ❌ (no weird pedo shit)

Anything that glorifies or sexualises severe domestic abuse❌

Pregnancy fics (I can’t I’m sorry.)❌

Shit kinks💀 (come on now..)❌

Vomit kinks (why.)❌

Foot fetish related stuff❌

Incest❌

furry/zoophile shit❌

vore❌

eating disorder/self harm stuff (I know a lot of people originally used this as a coping mechanism but it eventually evolved into the romanticism of anorexia and self harm and I do not stand for that.)❌

Might do, depends on the request:

Ships between two real people (unless they’re an actual couple I will probably be against this)

People/bands I will write for:

AC/DC (all members)

Alestorm (all members)

Abbath (all members)

Alice In Chains (all members)

Abbath Doom Occulta

Bathory (all members)

Behemoth (all members)

Billy Idol

Björk

Black Sabbath (all members)

Bon Jovi (all members)

Burzum (all members but it’s just Varg so this goes without saying)

Cannibal Corpse (all members)

Carpathian Forest (all members)

Courtney Love

Celtic Frost (all members)

Darkthrone (all members)

Disturbed (all members)

The Doors (all members)

Dream Theater (all members)

Evanescence (all members)

Foo Fighters (all members)

Ghost/Ghost B.C. (all members)

Gloryhammer (all members)

God Seed (all members)

Gojira (all members)

Gorgoroth (all members)

Green Day (all members)

Hanoi Rocks (all members)

Helloween (all members)

Hole (all members)

Immortal (all members)

Iron Maiden (all members)

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts (all members)

Joost Klein

Judas Priest (all members)

King Ov Hell

KoRn (all members except David Silveria)

Lamb Of God (all members)

Lana Del Rey

Limp Bizkit (all members)

Marilyn Manson/Marilyn Manson & The Spooky Kids (all members)

Mayhem (all members)

Megadeth (all members)

Metallica (all members)

Misfits (all members)

Morbid (all members)

Motörhead (all members)

Murderdolls (all members)

My Chemical Romance (all members except Bob)

Necrobutcher

Nickelback (all members)

Nirvana (all members)

Old Funeral (all members)

Ov Hell (all members)

Ozzy Osbourne

Pantera (all members)

Powerwolf (all members)

Pearl Jam (all members)

Queen (all members)

Rammstein (all members)

Rob Zombie

Repugnant (specifically Mary Goore)

Ronnie James Dio

Rotting Christ (all members)

Sabaton (all members)

Serj Tankian

Sirenia (all members)

Slaughter To Prevail (all members)

Slayer (all members)

System Of A Down (all members)

Type O Negative (all members)

Twisted Sister (all members)

Tool (all members)

Varg Vikernes

If there are any members I’ve excluded it is most likely because I fucking hate them. If you submit a request for someone and I refuse to do it then it’s either because: it makes me uncomfortable to write for said person especially if it’s smut, I don’t know enough about them to write a fic or I hate them. It’ll probably be one of those three reasons so please understand and respect that. If there’s someone/a band not on this list or the “won’t do” list, it doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t do them. I might have simply forgotten to add them so please ask.

I will also write for certain non-musicians such as historical figures and/or fictional characters. Give me a shout in requests and I may or may not be willing to write for them. As an example, I will write for Manfred and Lothar von Richthofen. Not musicians but I adore them.

People/bands I will NOT write for:

Any kpop bands.

Any actors/actresses

Deftones (there’s no negotiation. I will not write for Deftones. End of discussion.)

Blink-182 (same as Deftones)

Falling In Reverse (Same reason as Deftones)

Yungblud (come on now. Be serious. Be so for real.)

Panic! At The Disco (fuck no.)

The Beatles (no.)

Mötley Crüe (no❤️)

Tokio Hotel (nothing against them but no thanks)

One Direction (come on.)

C*rey Taylor/most of Slipknot. (I will write for Joey and Jay though, my pookies)

Mindless Self Indulgence (foul ass band I despise all of the members)

And when I said I won’t write a romantic fic between two real people I meant it. Platonic is more than okay, we love some platonic bandmate fluff but beyond that is a fat no unless they’re actually married/dating. So it goes without saying that I will NOT write Davisdurst, don’t even start. Do not.

- 𐕣𝕶𝖆𝖘𝖘𝖎𐕣

[angelwings-crossbowstrings]

Chapter 10 of Blood Ties may prove to be the longest chapter yet. Not even 1/4 of the way in and already at 1500+ words.

Maybe I should chop it in half?

[fourthwifematerial]

starting my outline at the eleventh hour, cramming as many prompts as i’m organically able to give to this one shot😭😭

i have maybe eight days worth of kinktober prompts for my first piece. nervous, but keeping the faith. i’m excited🫧🫧🐗

[frostkingsimp]

Random Frost King Headcanons

Art is by MarshallTrap on DeviantArt

What I’ve always thought about having really niche f/o’s is that there is little to no fanfiction on them. Now, that is where I’m writing career begins as I am forced to make my own.

Frost king is no exception as, frustratingly enough, a lot of people don’t even make it to the Snow World levels, let alone even the desert ones. ;,( so Frost King doesn’t even have a chance to be recognized to potential simps (I had no other way to word that sentence, apologies.)

Anyway…enough of my rambling.

If you’re one of the very few people who have read Frost King’s Knight on Wattpad, I headcanon that Frost King’s actual first name is Julian. I think I may have been inspired by an inactive cc ask blog…? I don’t recall the name of the tumblr but it is long dead. But, I liked it as Julian just feels like a wintery name.

Another thing that was inspired by another cc tumblr post was by @/monodes. It was basically their version of Blue Knight’s backstory, and I just really liked the way he was portrayed in it. I am a supporter of dumb and naïve Frost King since, I’ll admit, his voice and mannerisms in-game just scream that.

Again, this might not be new to you if you have read Frost King’s Knight, I headcanon he purrs. Okay, yeah, this one’s more on the self-indulgent side but this guy is DEFINITELY not human.

Speaking of him not being human, I think his skin is a little leathery. Inspired by the image above.

Also on this image, he’s giant. Like maybe this image is a little inaccurate to what I’m thinking, since maybe he nears seven feet?

I also like to think his eyes glow when he’s mad or using his powers.

Along with many others, I don’t entirely think he kidnapped the princess with intentions of marrying or courting her, more of just because the Evil Wizard kept the princesses with the other big bads. But, I do think he had a reverse-stockholm syndrome effect. As a single king with with a captured princess I think he figured it’d only be appropriate to act as her husband or something.

Moving onto reader-insert ones…

Talking post-game…Frost King’s got a skewed version of love and relationships. While I don’t fully believe he would be entirely physically abusive, I do think he believes women are inferior. So, he will often not allow you to do medial tasks on your own. Need to get out of bed? Call in a small team of iceskimos to help you get dressed and make your bed. Need a glass of water? Don’t you dare get up, either he’ll do it or his Iceskimos will. But, it has its ups and downs. He might not let you leave the Ice Castle without telling him where exactly you’re going or why. Even if you do (on the rare chance without his supervision) he’ll probably send one of his knights to spy on you.

He’s a boundary-pusher. Not to the extreme, but rather in his own odd ways. I’d like to think he’s a rare species. He’s humanoid, talks like a human, mostly acts like one, but one of his odd features is the way he expresses affection. If you tell him to stop, I’m sure he would. But, he’ll often pick you up casually. He might do this to sit you down somewhere or is too excited to wait for you to follow him. If you freak out from this, I bet he’d look so confused just because he’s so much taller than you and is like “???? Isn’t it easier if I carry you????”

I like to think he really enjoys just sleeping next to you. I also believe his body is naturally cold so your body heat fascinates him. However, I do think he’d get bothering by the heat by the middle of the night so you’ll fall asleep in his arms and by the morning he’s all the way on the other side, facing away from you. Don’t worry, he’s not mad, just hot.

He probably would have a few trusted Iceskimos to tend to you. Like I said before, there’s a team dedicated to getting you ready, preparing your meals, etc…

I think that’s all for now! Let me know if you want to see any more of this typa thing. This was a lotta fun for me to write so feedback is appriciated ! :,)

(Also if you guys happen upon any Frost King fanart I would love to see it. Or, if you drew it yourself, even better. Love u all)🩵

[a-bio-hero-writer]

Do you have any cute headcanons for Stormer or Bulk with an s/o that loves to spoil them (with gifts and/or affection)? Gender is up to you <3

Aweee, gonna do Bulk if thats okay as there’s already a seperate ask for the same headcanons for Stormer :))

He's a picky guy

But at the same time if one knows him good enough, it becomes quite simple

He shouldn't be bought any data-tablets or encyclopaedias

He's a well-educated guy, he keeps his shelves nicely packed with all kinds of data-holders

However, the exception would be if the s/o specialised in some sort of writing - in that case he wants to be the first one receive a copy

“What do you mean you gave the first copy to someone else!”

“Bulk, those are fairy tales from my homeland.”

“I’m supposed to be the first one to read your stuff.”

“I’m literally extending it so that there’s more serious stuff too, just for you.”

“Oh okay… love you.”

He likes to be gifted things that come often in handy

Sticky notes, notepads, perhaps even utility belts as they can get worn out quite quickly, considering his work in the field

He would die if he ever saw that s/o made grenades for him, so it would be advisable to avoid the combat aspect

He enjoys being welcomed with a home-made meal, however prefers to cooperate in the cooking part

That's one of those times when the small, yet perfect dose of domesticity happens - he doesn't really like missing it out

S/o should probably refrain from buying him his own eau de toilette cologne, unless after experiencing a slight disagreement - he will be baffled at the audacity and would find it hard to hold in a laugh

If one wants to really, REALLY spoil him, it would be a sweet escape for short vacation to a resort, far away from Makuhero City

Sandy beaches, sweet drinks, you name it

As for affection, he would be the type to love lazy mornings

Laying in bed, talking about nothing important, maybe even cuddling

“You better not break up with me for as long as I’m alive.”

“That’s a given, but what made you think about that?”

“You made my standards too high.”

“Good, it was my plan from the moment when I saw you on that mission with your team to keep you for myself.”

“Mmm, your highness, you know that I shall do whatever you wish for.”

“Splendid, it’s your turn to water the garden either way.”

“That ain’t no horrendous task”

“I know that Behemoth dearest. Now get up, I have to make us some breakfast.”

“Five more minutes of cuddles first.”

“Dunkan.”

Snores

[saintlevrant]

So... how y'all feel about Prince!Lev??

(p.s. look over the fact that I spelled sense wrong in the tags.)

[ghostedbunnie]

nightmare in the daylight

knight!ghost x fem!reader

based on my prompt that you can find here.

warnings: non-con/dub-con, size kink, spanking, oral (f.receiving), fingering (f.receiving), thigh riding, biting, creampie, breeding kink

a/n: i feel so rusty so please be gentle i rewrote this way too many times, it was a lot longer and had more plot but i might just end up writing pt.2 if there is interest, I added a tag list for those who wanted to see this! 🫶

Ghost hadn't anticipated encountering a robbery on the forest trail while en route to collect his king's future wife. It was unexpected but not unwelcome; he was yearning for a skirmish, for blood and broken bones. The recent tranquility had left him restless. These bandits wouldn't pose much of a challenge, but they would at least satisfy his craving.

The skies began to pour as soon as he dismounted from his horse, startling the highwaymen. They were engaged in a one-sided fight with a few knights who had undoubtedly been sent to protect the carriage on its way to his kingdom. Before any of them could react to his arrival, heads started rolling. Chaos erupted once more, with screams of terror cutting through the forest and startling the remaining fauna.

After the final enemy fell to a sword through his abdomen, Ghost approached the carriage with slow, deliberate steps. As he opened the door, he was taken by surprise as a curtain was thrown into his face and a shard of glass was aimed for his neck by a scrawny, wild-looking maid. Despite your trembling, there was a fierce determination in your eyes, a vow that you would not give up without a struggle. Beneath his face plate, the corner of his mouth curled up, and with a wry snort, he deflected the shard from your bleeding hand. Seizing you by the back of your neck like a feisty kitten showing its claws, he pulled you out of the carriage and dropped you onto the chilly, muddy ground. As he turned back to the carriage to retrieve the princess, he realized she was no warrior; she had fainted at the sight of his imposing figure silhouetted against the moonlight.

As he carries your mistress to his horse, you launch at his back, kicking and screaming, trying to make him let her go. He unceremoniously deposits her on the horse like a sack of potatoes. Finally, he turns back to catch your hands, which have been beating at his back, with one of his much bigger hands. Your eyes go wide with terror as the reality of your position with this beast sinks in. He can't help but relish in the look of you now, wet hair sticking to your face, wild eyes, and scratches on your cheek from the broken glass. You look like a tasty meal for his beastly appetite and he's been starving for far too long. You are unaware of it but attracting his attention will be the worst mistake of your life. As he draws you closer with your bound wrists, he whispers into your ear so that you can hear him over the pouring rain, “Yer brave but stupid, girl.” After that, he hits the back of your neck and everything goes black.

The next thing you know, you are standing in front of the king who explains the entire situation. However, somehow that doesn't help the sinking feeling in your stomach, especially when the king mentions a reward for the behemoth of a man towering over you. He is still covered in blood, and daylight doesn't make him any less terrifying. He stalks around like a nightmare in black leathers that hug his form tight and emphasize his width. As if sensing your thoughts, he takes a step closer, taking up more of your space, and before you can move away, you catch the last words uttered by the king: “You brought me, my bride, Ghost, it's only fair you get a reward. Take your pick - anything you wish for will be yours.”

A weighty, gloved paw settles on the nape of your neck, causing you to startle. "I'll take 'er." Your mistress immediately starts to protest but despite her objections, the king simply nods and smiles, disregarding you entirely. You have no option but to allow the beast, that he called Ghost, to guide you away with a firm hand on your nape.

After navigating through several twists and turns, you find yourself in an unremarkable room. It contains only the absolute necessities—a bed and very little else. The one thing that draws your attention in the room is the sizeable tub that is still emitting steam, indicating it was just filled a few minutes ago.

Silently, Ghost pushes you towards the tub, and you promptly begin to retreat away from it. You refuse to bathe in his presence. Even though you are just a servant, you are still a virtuous lady.

“Either you go voluntarily or I'll throw you in kickin' and screamin'.” He growls and then says, "I'll relish it either way." You can sense the predatory undertone in his voice. You're fighting a losing battle, as going willingly gives him complete control, yet resisting might provoke an even more... primal response.

You break free from his hold, realizing that he let you go willingly. 

"Can you... turn around?" he scoffs, moving to a chair that creaks under his weight. Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he gestures for you to proceed. Though you want to scream or lash out, you hold back, sensing that he's waiting for you to lose control. Instead, you turn around and slowly peel off your muddied and torn dress. As you reach the chemise underneath, you sneak a peek and notice he has removed his helmet and face plate, revealing short dirty blond hair, black coal marks around his eyes, and prominent scars cutting through his lips and brow. Despite his broken nose, he remains strangely alluring, which frightens you. Hastily, you turn back, slide the chemise down, and attempt to hide under the steaming water.

"Good girl," he growls, satisfied with your obedience. Just as the relief that maybe this is all he wanted starts to sink into your bones, it's replaced with dread when you notice he starts shedding his clothes too. He loosens up his dark, blood-stained leathers with ease and deftness you wouldn't expect from a man his size.

"What are you doing?" Panic is evident in your question, but it doesn't seem to bother him at all.

"Can't bathe with my clothes on," he answers matter-of-factly. Once again, a wave of indignation courses through you, but it's quickly overshadowed by a pang of heat that forces you to rub your thighs together underwater. Your eyes can't help but stay glued to him, just as he did to you when you were taking your dress off. He is now down to his breeches, and when he pulls them down his thick thighs, you audibly gasp when you notice he is not wearing anything underneath. This earns you an amused chuckle, especially when he catches you looking again through your fingers.

Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him, but before your thoughts can drift to what lies between his powerful thighs, he steps into the tub with you. Water spills over the edges, though he doesn't seem to mind. He pulls you close, turning you so your back presses against him, your body nestled between his legs, leaning on his firm chest. The light tickle of his hair brushes against your skin, and his strong arm rests across your stomach, fingers splayed making you feel even smaller. The contact makes you squirm, but as you try to pull away, you only stir the hardening length behind you, making you flush with heat.

“Relax,” he grunts into your ear, more command than a suggestion.

“How can I possibly –ah.” Your reply gets cut off by a moan as his other hand falls from the edge of the tub and wanders between your legs. Your attempts at closing your legs seem futile even with one hand he is strong enough to force his way in and drag his fingers through your folds nearing the opening. Your spine arches instinctively and he answers with a nip to your neck and jaw, while forcing a finger up to the first knuckle in. 

“Gotta loosen you up a bit, pet.” You have no choice but to surrender to his touch as he sinks his finger in and curls it, drawing a moan out of you before you clap a hand over your mouth to keep the sounds in. But all that decorum is forgotten when he adds a second one and scissors them before slowly prodding you with the third making you see stars. The tension building in your body suddenly snaps, sending you reeling, legs going numb and your fingers digging into his arm still wrapped around your stomach. 

With your mind hazy from your first-ever orgasm, you don't even register that he pulls you out of the bath, drying you, and carrying you to the bed in the center of the spacious room. Your body already half asleep.

His gravelly voice pulls you out of your post-orgasmic haze. “Naive, little thing.” Suddenly he is trailing hungry, open-mouthed, and nippy kisses down the length of your body. Marking your neck and collarbones with angry red marks, biting down harder than necessary on the underside of your breast leaving behind imprints of his teeth, and making you hiss when the pain mixes with the pleasure, he licks a trail down your stomach and in a moment of clear-headedness you try to fist his hair and tug him up and away from your center but his hair is cut too short for any leverage. When you lock eyes with him, between your legs forcing them open with hunger and lust written all over his face you try to get away just for him to deliver a loud smack to your outer thigh before dragging you closer and licking a stripe through your folds with a loud guttural groan that you feel more than you hear it.

His thumb circles your clit while he alternates kissing, sucking, and fucking you with his tongue. When your squirming in an attempt to get away turns into grinding your hips against his face, his other hand rests on your stomach adding slight pressure and making you cry out which only spurs him on. The sounds that reverberated through his chest were nothing short of animalistic and when your second orgasm shot through your core, you fell limp against the sheets with a moan that would make you blush if at least half of your brain was still functioning properly. A new wave of panic sets in when you realize that he isn't stopping. On the contrary, he probes you with his fingers in addition to his tongue. You can feel the coil in your lower belly tightening again, heating up with his ministrations.

You plead with him, saying you can't take anymore just for him to disregard it with a growl, “You've got plenty more in ya.” 

You've lost count of how many times you came when he manhandled you around onto your hands and knees propping your hips up with a pillow. You turn to look at him with heavy-lidded eyes and your breath catches in your throat at the sight of him standing behind you with his massive hand tugging at his thick, angry-looking, and leaking cock with his eyes glued to your core, still pulsing and wet from all your previous orgasms. Without warning he grabs your hips, aligns the blunt head of his cock with your entrance, and pushes in. Your fingers dig into the sheets from the sheer stretch as you mewl and whimper when he drags himself all the way to slam back in. Everything is too much and not enough at the same time, with every thrust his fingers dig into your hips and you are sure there will be fingerprints left with how hard he is gripping you and the idea makes you wetter. Prompted by the delicious drag of his cock your walls keep tightening around him, as he pushes you closer and closer to your release. One of his muscular arms circles your waist, his chest flush to your back, as his other arm comes to rest next to your head with one of his legs still firmly planted on the floor and the other resting next to you on the bed for better purchase. This new angle combined with the gravelly grunts so close to your ear become your undoing and you hurtle full-force into another mind-numbing orgasm with Ghost following close behind.

“Come f'r me, pet.” Again, not a suggestion but a command and who are you to refuse him? So you do as he says, pussy fluttering from the aftershocks as he fucks you through it, thumb circling your clit before he fills you up, not allowing you to move an inch, keeping your hips propped up and when he pulls out which drags another set of whimpers from you he meticulously pushes his spend back with thick, calloused fingers. “Gotta make sure it takes.” 

If your consciousness weren't slipping away, you'd likely be alarmed, but instead, your eyes begin to close again, and this time, sleep claims you.

You wake to a heavy weight pressing down on your back, and it takes a moment for your mind to catch up with the events of yesterday. When it does, your entire body flushes and you attempt to move out of bed, only to find it futile. You're pinned beneath strong arms marked with scars—some from arrows, large and small, and others older, circular, and still appearing raw.

Your thoughts are abruptly interrupted as a thick, muscular thigh presses deeper between your legs, forcing them apart. Without much thought, you begin to grind against it, a primal urge stirring within you. Despite the lingering soreness from yesterday, a fresh wave of need starts to build, and any trace of resistance fades in the face of overwhelming pleasure. It feels shameful, but you can't stop the tentative movements, slowly finding a rhythm—until the sudden flex of his thigh makes you gasp, your eyes rolling back.

“So needy,” he growls close to your ear but there's no trace of anger in his voice, if anything he sounds pleased. “Come on, ride it harder.” He punctuates the sentence with yet another flex of his thigh and a nip to your neck, making you shudder but follow through with his command. As you grind back against his thigh you take a note of his cock stirring, resting heavy and hard between your bare ass. You push against it absentmindedly and find yourself pinned under him, your legs still held apart with his thigh that's now embarrassingly slick with your arousal. The visual of it makes you turn your head away, eyes closed and whimpering. Ghost doesn't like that. His massive paw of a hand grabs at your cheeks, your lips puckering involuntarily while he grunts at you to keep those eyes open for him. As he licks into your mouth, it suddenly dawns on you—this is your first kiss. You had already let this beast inside you before even sharing a kiss, and everything felt so out of order, that it made you want to scream and cry. Instead, you settle on throwing your hands around him and clawing at his back as he aligns himself with your needy, sore pussy and thrusts to the hilt without so much as a warning.

Even after yesterday, the burn of the stretch to accommodate his length makes fresh tears spring up into your eyes and roll down the apples of your cheeks. You swear you see his scarred lips twitch up into a savage smile at the sight of them before he licks them clean off your cheeks with a satisfied groan. In retaliation you dig your nails deeper into his sturdy back, hoping to break the skin and leave a mark that only ends up urging him to fuck you harder, faster. The sounds reverberating in the room drive you crazy; over them, you don't even notice a soft knock at the door but whoever it was scurries away registering the sound of the moans he wrings out of you with one particularly hard thrust that pushes so deep you swear you can feel him in your throat. Effortlessly he manhandles your legs on his shoulders to hit a different angle. As you struggle with the overwhelming feeling of fullness he leaves a deceptively soft kiss on your ankle before he folds you in half again and wrestles another mind-shattering orgasm out of you and succumbing to one himself, painting your insides with his spent. Pulling out, he doesn't bother moving, he simply rests his head on your chest between your breasts, squeezing the air out of your lungs with the sheer size of him. “Rest now, pet. Plenty of time for more o' that later.”

At that moment, you know there is no turning back; you've been taken, branded from the inside out. You wonder if this is truly so horrible, perhaps this nightmare of a man will drive away all the other nightmares plaguing your mind.

Or perhaps he is even more dreadful than your imagination could have ever conjured.

taglist: @a66-1 , @ghostlythots , @rttxcmt , @september-22-1998 , @fluffysmiko , @gyusbrownie , @bumblebeesfromvenus , @magicalforestcat , @nommingonfood , @tami-doodles , @fateisnotafactor , @m-a-l-a-c-z-a-r-n-a , @nicolebarnes , @msdevil333 , @lilpothoscuttings , @tealeaftallulah , @not-reptilian , @moonfloweronmars , @aliceinwonderland-5678 , @marshmelloe , @i-love-you-just-the-same, @lazyperfectioniste , @tragedyinwaves , @thisisforthebest97 , @talkingcorn , @hxnneydew , @resplendantrosewood , @telvannitea , @the-casual-act , @hello-lemons, @kiwicopia , @just-a-sewer-goblin

[kiwi-bitchez]

The Girlfriend Experience

Eddie Munson x Reader

Summary: Eddie doesn’t think he’s cut out for dating. Self-resigned to a life of one and done hookups, you’re determined to make him see that he has the capacity to be a worthy companion… for when the right girl comes around. Fake Dating AU, classic corny fic for a fav corny troupe, Stranger Things canon divergent ofc, 18+ smut (see warnings below), big dick energy but also slightly emotionally unavailable!Eddie, yada yada yada, you know the drill. 

Content warnings: AFAB reader with she/her pronouns, use of y/n, alcohol, smoking the devil’s lettuce, mention of panty stealing, food consumption, semi-public sex, fingering, PIV, Dom-ish!Eddie, oral (m and f receiving), pierced dick Eddie because I said so!, unprotected PIV sex, hair pulling, mild angst but nothing too angsty just like one heated conversation and Eddie feeling a little worthless but happy ending I promise

Word Count: 20k ahhhhhh!!!

A/N: Thanks to all those who comment and reblog! Your feedback and engagement makes my heart soar and keeps me motivated to write this filth! Sorry for the gargantuan length, in very-me fashion I always ending up writing one behemoth fic every so often rather than just separating it out into chapters. Also, realizing after the fact that I use the brand name ‘Goodwill’ a lot in this fic, which maybe not everyone might know is a thrift store, not sure if that’s just an American thing or not but figured it was worth noting. 

“I guess I’m just not boyfriend material, ya know?” Eddie shrugs.

“Don’t say that, Eds,” your eyebrows pinched together, “different qualities are important to different people. Not everyone is looking to date a Steve, or a Brian, or a whoever. I’m sure someone is out there looking for an Eddie.”

“It’s not that,” he shot a look towards Steve, who, despite your analogy, was unfortunately everyone’s type and the textbook definition of boyfriend material.

“I just don’t think I’d be very good at gooey romance stuff, or even like, passable boyfriend behavior. I mean, look at me, I hardly take care of myself, I’m loud, I have no money, I’m basically every dad’s worst nightmare, do I need to keep going?”

“The nightmare thing can actually be a bonus,” Steve chimes in, “the whole bad boy persona can be a huge draw for most girls.”

“Sure Steve,” Eddie’s voice grows exasperated, “I’m the mysterious bad boy until they realize I’m a huge loser who runs not one but two dungeons and dragons groups. Real fuckin’ attractive I’m sure that is.”

“Shows you’re committed to something…” you trail off when his eyes tell you to stop coming up with a positive spin for every excuse he gives. 

This whole discussion had started because of something that happened at the bar last night. A small group of you decided to meet up for drinks, your usual group of pals. It was a Thursday, so the bar wasn’t too busy. Your friends all squished into a booth in the corner, chatting and catching up over a plate of shared nachos, when Robin started making frantic gesture at you and Steve.

“Please just say what you’re trying to say instead of this elaborate charade,” Steve makes a few mocking hand signals back at her.

“Okay, one at a time, and keep it subtle,” her voice lowered to a whisper, for some reason, “over at the bar, some girl is totally flirting with Eddie.”

You and Steve both turn around. “I said not at the same time!” She whisper yells. 

There was, in fact, a pretty girl with shiny hair and glossy lips doing a half fake laugh and pressing her manicured hand to Eddie’s bicep. You whip back around to find Robin with her mouth hanging open in a “can you believe this is happening” way. 

“Good for him,” Steve swivels back around too, “She’s pretty hot.”

You return to your nachos, pretending there wasn’t a ping of jealousy in you. Eddie was your friend, that had been made abundantly clear.

When Robin introduced you to all her friends from high school, you had easily gotten along with all of them. You especially got along with Eddie. He was funny, authentic, abrasive at times, but a truly good person at his core, creative, protective, you could go on.

After getting to know him a bit, and developing a budding crush, you had made a few passes at him. Nothing too forward, just small compliments here and there, open ended offers to hang out that never lead anywhere.

It’s not like he flat out rejected you, but any feelers you were putting out to see if there was potential there were met with him looking past your flirtatious intent and just being his goofy, friendly self. He treated you exactly the same way he treated everyone else, which was awesome, except for when it wasn’t. 

“Oh no,” Robin’s gaze was not subtly fixed on the unfolding scene at the bar, you and Steve watched her face drastically shift from confused, to a cringe, to an eye roll.

Still half whispering, as if Eddie could even hear your corner of the bar, “He’s totally blowing it. DON’T both turn around at the same time again.” 

“Okay, so,” she starts before either of you can even confirm that you want to know, “she was totally laying it on thick, like you could see it from all the way back here. And he must have said something off putting, cuz all of a sudden she like went cold on him and pranced away. Shhhhh, okay okay, he’s coming back.”

She was acting as if she wasn’t the only one gossiping. You and Steve were innocent bystanders in all this. 

“WHAT was that?” She immediately blurts out when Eddie returns to his seat, fresh drink in hand. 

You and Steve share a side glance to sigh at Robin’s inability to be subtle, god bless her. Eddie shifts around awkwardly and lets out a forced dry laugh, taking a long sip from his drink before facing the wrath of a curious Robin. 

“Oh, that,” he gestures to the bar as if she could be asking about anything else, “some girl. Not sure.”

“Not sure? Eddie she was FLIRTING with you,” Robin all but yelled, causing Steve to scan the bar to see if the girl in question had landed somewhere within earshot. 

“I know that,” he hisses, “She just… wasn’t my type…”

“Okay sure, hot girl in a tube top and no bra isn’t your type, riiiiight,” Steve rolls his eyes.

“It’s just,” Eddie was so over this inquisition, “she asked if I wanted to get coffee.”

You, Steve, and Robin all give him a blank stare, trying to decipher what he could possibly have against getting coffee with a hot girl. 

“That’s like,” he gets defensive, detecting the wall of confusion facing him, “something people do on a date. Coffee is serious, and I’m not a very serious guy.”

“What do you mean ‘coffee is serious,’ coffee is like, as casual as you can possibly be?” Steve’s tone now emulated Robin’s from earlier, half whispering, half yelling, all scolding towards his friend. 

“That’s just not really my speed. Coffee dates and flowers and hand holding and all that,” he was avoiding eye contact with all three of you, “Yeah, she was hot, sure, and maybe if she had been like ‘hey lets go fool around in the bathroom’ then I wouldn’t be here having this lame ass conversation with you three. But I don’t do coffee dates, so I’m not gonna waste her time and pretend like I’m that sort of guy when I’m just not.” 

“Well good on you for not leading her on, cuz I’m sure you could have agreed to the coffee date and still gotten lucky in the bathroom,” Steve mumbles, and you smack the back of his head lightly to scold him. 

“So you only date girls who’ll fuck you in a bar bathroom the first time you meet?” You redirect your now equally scolding energy to Eddie.

“No!” He runs his hands through his hair, “I don’t date. Anyone, really. At all. Ever.”

“Oh,” you think for a minute, realizing in your few years of friendship you never had seen him with anyone, or heard him mention a romantic interest of any sort. 

Leading you to your present conversation, you and Steve continuing to question Eddie on his decision to reject the hot tube-top girl at the bar and why he felt like coffee was such a scary commitment. 

“You guys know me,” he continued to defend his stance, “If I took that girl out for coffee she probably would have picked some fancy hoity toity place and I wouldn’t know what anything on the menu meant, I’d probably spill something or like, get crumbs everywhere, and the bill would be way more than two coffees should be. It would have been a waste of both our time.”

He was staunchly refusing eye contact with the two of you, knowing he’d be met with something along the lines of pity. 

“Fine, we’ll drop the subject,” you shoot a look to Steve, “but I just need to make sure you understand that not every girl likes expensive coffee, or flowers and handholding, or whatever your expectation of girls and dating is. There’s plenty of girls who have similar interests to you, who feel the same way about PDA and mushy romance stuff that you do. You do know that, right?”

“Of course I do, y/n,” you could practically feel his eyes rolling at you, “but girls like that sure as fuck aren’t here in Nowhere, Indiana. Even if she was, I’m sure I’d still find a way to fuck it up given that I’ve had exactly zero serious girlfriends and the closest thing to a date I’ve ever been on is when you me and Steve pooled our ski ball tickets to win that ugly stuffed turtle.”

The memory of what you had all agreed to be the world’s ugliest stuffed animal caused all of you to crack a smile. Steve had silently agreed to change the subject, not wanting to dig Eddie any deeper into his pit of self despair. 

Steve’s mouth was half open, about to suggest that the three of you have a smoke and watch one of the rental movies he brought over, the words just about to escape him when you harshly cut off any chance at ending the pity-party.

“Date me!” You exclaim, without much thought. The shocked look from both boys caused you to rapidly back pedal , “You can date me, as practice!” You said it as if it was the simplest concept in the world. 

When met with gaping mouths and confused stares you continue on, “You and I can be fake boyfriend-girlfriend for like, a month, and I’ll tell you everything you do wrong, and like generic do’s and don’t’s, so that way the next time some hot girl hits on you, you can be all like ‘Coffee isn’t really my thing pretty lady, but I’d be down to get drinks sometime’,” you did a silly impression of Eddie’s voice, and then switched to a high pitched one to impersonate what you assumed the girl at the bar sounded like, “and then she’d be all like, ‘Oh yeah that sounds greaaaaat, getting coffee is just like, a generic catch-all thing that most people say when they want to get to know someone better, but you can buy me a drink’ and then the two of you will ride off into the sunset and it’ll be great.”

Still no reply.

“It won’t be all romantic and gooey, I promise I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. It’d be a way for you to get some honest feedback and catch up with the stuff most people have to learn the hard way.” 

“I suppose you are the most brutally honest person I know,” Eddie doesn’t sound convinced. 

Steve just looked between the two of you with eyebrows raised, not knowing if giving his opinion on the matter would be appreciated or not. “I guess I would’ve appreciated someone telling me that most girls don’t want to be asked out with a pickup line from a John Hughes movie, would have saved me a few dozen rejections.”

“I’m pretty sure Robin did tell you that…”

“I don’t know y/n,” Eddie scratches his head. 

“It’ll be easy. Ask me out.”

“Huh?”

“Ask me out, for practice, ask me out on a date like I’m a pretty girl you met at some metal show or a DnD convention or something like that,” you stand in front of him with your hands out as if to prompt him to say something. 

“Will you go out with me?” He sounds more like he’s asking himself if he even wants to be asking the question.

“No.”

“What the hell!” He throws his hands up.

“I said no because that wasn’t a very good effort. Go out where? To do what? You’re asking me, a pretend stranger, out on a date Eddie, not if I want to go have a smoke with you.”

“Ughhhh,” he spun around and tried to get some sympathy for Steve, who unfortunately was on your side with this one. 

“A compliment or two doesn’t hurt as well,” Steve added, deepening Eddie’s groan. 

“Hey pretty stranger lady,” his voice was laced with sarcasm, but at least it wasn’t disdain, “you seem really…” he hesitated to find his words, “cool? Would you like to come see my band play this weekend at The Hideout? We-“

“No,” you cut him off.

“WHA-“

“Eddie, you can’t ask a girl to watch Corroded Coffin play for your first date with her, that’s like date four or five material, no girl wants to go sit by herself at a bar to watch some guy she just met play an hour of heavy metal. She would have to know you a little bit more for that to feel organic. Pick something more generic, like coffee.”

“I think you seem cool, would you like to get coffee with me?” it all came out as one monotone mumble from him. 

“Sure,” you wait for him to lift his head up to make eye contact with you, “But coffee isn’t really my thing, maybe we can go out for drinks?”

“Oh fuck off,” he flopped back onto the couch next to Steve. 

“See, now we have our first fake date, and then you can ask me to be your fake girlfriend, and then you’ll be so comfortable with emotional vulnerability that you can find a real girlfriend to take on real dates.”

“Yeah, I suppose it could be beneficial,” Eddie was slowly coming around to the idea. He knew that he was oddly charismatic at times, but he was just always too self conscious to follow through with the whole romance thing.

This maybe wasn’t a bad idea, because he knew you weren’t the kind of person who would make fun of his hobbies, or put him down if he slipped up, the sorts of things he was always afraid of girls doing. Sure, he’ll agree to the girlfriend experience. 

After a night of movies and pizza with Steve fake-third-wheeling, you made sure Eddie knew that the fake-date was actually happening, that the two of you would go out for drinks this weekend as your first official practice date. 

After giving it a bit of thought, you realized that you and Eddie had never hung out alone. In your feeble attempts at flirting with him all those months ago you had invited him to have movie nights or grab a bite to eat, but he always showed up with Steve and or Robin in tow.

As the night of the fake-date rolled around, you’d be embarrassed to admit it to him, or Steve, who didn’t care to hide how skeptical he was about this whole idea, that you went through your normal pre-date routine. You took some extra time on your hair and makeup, exfoliated in the shower, chose an outfit you felt confident in, added a few spritz of perfume for good measure too. 

Eddie rolled up in his van, only a few minutes late, but a few minutes was very impressive compared to his typical chronic tardiness. The two of you agreed to just grab some food and drinks at your usual spot, considering you and Steve openly agreed that it would be a good first date spot in theory. 

“Hey,” he reaches across the center console to pop the door open for you, “you look nice.”

It took you a second to register as you settled into the passenger seat, and then whip around with your arm outstretched to give him a high five. He scrunches his face at you.

“High five me Eddie, that was really good! I know you usually open the door for me anyways, but the compliment right away, A+,” you flop your hand down to gently slap his, still gripping the steering wheel. 

“Don’t patronize me, y/n,” deep down he knew you weren’t trying to talk down to him, and deep down he hadn’t even given complimenting you a second thought, he really did think you looked great in your date get-up. 

On the ride over to the bar, the two of you discuss some logistics. Considering all of this is just practice dating, you don’t expect Eddie to pay for you, but you explain that in theory if he had been the one to ask you out then he should be the one to pay for the first date. 

“To me it’s less of a gender thing and more of a who asked out who thing, but I know some people would abide to the stereotypical ‘the man always pays’ standard, which is why you’d just have to be honest on date like two or three about what you enjoy doing and what sorts of things are in your budget. You can still have fun and be thoughtful without spending a lot of money.”

He asked a few questions, like if he should have gotten you flowers for a first date, or what he should do if someone asks to go to a fancy restaurant that he surely couldn’t afford. You tried your best to give solid advice, but always reminded him that every person is different and every relationship is different, so all he can do is be honest. 

You take up a spot at the bar and both order for yourselves, splitting some fries and slipping into some easy conversation. 

“Am I supposed to, like, beat someone up if a guy tries hitting on you in front of me or something like that?” you nearly choke on your drink at his question. 

“Eddie, no,” you answer, also questioning, “why the hell would you ask me that?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “My buddy Jeff was with his girlfriend at this punk show before they were even together, and some guy made a creepy comment to Amanda and Jeff just decked the guy in the face. He say’s that’s what made her want to date him, cuz he defended her honor or whatever.”

“I guess that’s sort of circumstantial, but I prefer my dates to not engage in any sort of violence,” you sip your drink, “even if it’s for my honor. I’d like your face a lot less if you were all bruised up.”

“Well I never said I would get hit,” the two of you were laughing a bit now.

Over a few cocktails you went over some first date etiquette with him. PDA and being touchy, how to follow her lead and gauge if she’s the type who wants everyone at the bar to know you’re together, or keep it strictly platonic to start. How far of a grip on the leg is too far up, that sort of thing.  

“So if she does something like this,” you fake laugh a bit too loud and, lean into his personal space, and then run your hand from his slender down his arm, “that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to fuck you, but it’s pretty close. You’ve at least got a green flag to get a little closer to her, tell her she looks nice, maybe offer to buy her a drink.”

“I know how to tell if someone finds me attractive, y/n, I’m not stupid,” he said casually, “obviously that girl the other night was hitting on me, I’m not blind. I wasn’t going to ask to buy her a drink or try and get lucky in the bathroom because I was out with my friends. I can find a quick fuck in a bar on my own time. I was having fun with you guys, I wasn’t going to abandon all of you to talk to some stranger, even if she was hot.”  

“Oh,” you processed his comment, “Steve would be happy to know he ranks above tube-top girl.”

“Steve would be happy to be above tube-top girl in any context,” he jokes. 

“You really just find random girls in bars to fuck?” You question, not in any sort of judgmental way, just curious. 

“Not specifically, I guess I did make myself sound like some serial bar-bathroom type of guy. I never really had girls interested in me when I was in high school, at least the first four years of it. Then when we started playing regular gigs at The Hideout it was a little easier to find girls who were interested, but it was always that they were more into fucking some guy who could play guitar and was in a band, so it usually just always happened on-site, probably cuz they had an actual boyfriend or husband to go home to. Girls think I’m fun. Which isn’t untrue, I do enjoy a romp in the Hideout bathroom, or the back of my van, or wherever we end up.”

“So that’s what all those blankets are back there for,” you say with a fake scowl, referring to his van set-up. 

“Not exclusively! They make a cozy nest for smoking blunts and listening to tapes too!” 

You return to your drink, trying not to think too hard about the girls that Eddie brings to bar bathrooms or his van or wherever. 

“I just find the energy of those situations very different from like, talking and getting to know someone. Fucking is easy. I’m not interested in ruining that by adding emotions and the looming feeling like sex is contingent on me acting a certain way or checking a certain number of boxes for someone.” 

He shrugged, and you could understand where he was coming from, sometimes a quick fuck or hookup could be cathartic and easy. But it also saddened you to think that Eddie believed he had to get in and out before the person on the other end got the chance to know him. 

Moving away from the subject of his inability to be emotionally vulnerable, the two of you practice some cheesy ‘first date’ questions as you had called them. As your drinks started to settle into your system you were having more fun being silly with him, pretending to be a stranger on a first date. 

“When’s your birthday?” You ask, twirling your drink straw with your finger and making some fake flirty eyes at him to accentuate the facade of asking him a bunch of questions you mostly knew the answers to. 

“August 9th,” he flips his hair over his shoulder, joining in on your fake ostentatious flirting. 

“Oh my gosh, a Leo! This will never work out, cuz I’m an asparagus…”

The two of you nearly fall out of your bar stools laughing, realizing you meant to say Sagittarius. 

“Okay, let’s get you home Asparagus,” he helped you up, having kept his drinking to a minimum so he could drive you home. 

“Wait, wait,” you grabbed his arm as the two of you exited the bar, “can we go back to your trailer?”

He raised an eyebrow at you, “that’s a little presumptuous for a first date missy.”

“No, no, this isn’t girlfriend y/n asking, just regular friend y/n, who thinks it would be a lot of fun to smoke and watch a movie without Steve there spewing all his annoying fun facts, like, we get it, you read the little insert inside the tape while you were bored at work!”

Eddie did agree that the idea of packing a bowl and watching a few movies with you didn’t sound too different from what his plans would have been otherwise, so he agreed, as long as you promised not to give him any dating advice while hanging out as friend y/n and not girlfriend y/n. 

Although you promised to try your best, you immediately started lecturing him on t-shirt borrowing and the potential weight that could hold in a relationship when he offered to give you some more comfy clothes to change into. 

“It’s important to know!” You emerged from the bathroom in one of his oversized shirts and a pair of boxers, “Some girls are very touchy about it. Any shirt you lend her to sleep in, you have to be willing to sacrifice for life.”

“For life?!” Eddie finishes making a bowl of popcorn for the two of you, swallowing his words when he sees you in his clothes, an unidentifiable emotion rising in him at the sight of you so cozy and integrated into his space. 

“Well maybe not life,” you plop down onto the couch, “but do NOT ask for it back. Most girls will give it back once it stops smelling like you.”

“If she gets my shirt, can I have her underwear?” He asked without thinking, the weed he had just smoked with you hitting him a bit too hard in that moment. 

“Oh my god,” you squeal and bury your face into a pillow, “la la la la, pretending like I didn’t hear that!”

“I’m just saying!” He laughs at you, now curled up into a ball, “fair is fair, right?”

“I guess it depends on the girl,” you mumble. 

“So I’m guessing not you, by your reaction.”

“Eddie!” You smack him with a pillow, “I don’t know, no one’s ever asked!”

“If my girlfriend isn’t going to ask before stealing my shirt for an indefinite amount of time, I think that gives me panty privilege.”

“Wow Eddie, if I had known you were such a perv I would’ve reconsidered being your fake girlfriend,” you say sarcastically, with no real judgement behind it. The idea of him wanting to steal your underwear dampens them ever so slightly. 

“Don’t worry babe, I won’t do anything pervy to you unless you ask nicely,” he shoots a wink at you, which you meet with an eye roll and a turn away to hopefully hide the heat rising in your cheeks. 

The two of you carry out your platonic movie night as planned. You suppressed any urge to note on his actions from a romantic lens, and he ignored the itching desire to sling his arm around your shoulder or pull your legs into his lap to get more comfy on the couch. 

“Can I sleep here Eddie,” you ask after movie two, “too sleepy to move.”

“Sure, I can take the couch and you can have my bed. It’s been a minute since I washed the sheets but it shouldn’t be too bad…”

“Nonono,” you mumble, “Your legs will totally hang right off the end of this thing. I’m conked out anyways, I can crash right here I promise.”

“Ignoring that you’re my fake girlfriend, I’m not letting you sleep out here on this lumpy thing. You’re taking the bed, no arguments.”

He helps you up from the couch, letting you keep the blanket that’s wrapped around you, snaking his arm underneath it and pulling you from the couch by your lower back. You were slightly taken aback by his assistance, body still limp from your relaxed state, your torso easily arching into his. Your arms fly up to grab his shoulders, steadying yourself with an awkward giggle. 

“In the real world, a time like this would be good for a first kiss,” you make note of your closeness, the way he swept you up off the couch and held you steadily as you made your way to your feet. 

“I know that, y/n,” his face was closer to yours than it had ever been, making your words hitch in your throat. 

“Well, I’m just saying,” you turn your head to avoid the tension, “I’m sure the way you kiss your bar-hookups isn’t the way most girls who’re looking to date you long term want to be kissed for the first time.”

‘Oh yeah? And how do you presume that goes?” He kept his hand planted on your lower back.

You pretend to act wildly drunk, throwing yourself at him and letting your limbs go a bit heavier than they already were. “Ohmygod guitar man, I’ve had like, six dirty Shirleys, please finger bang me in the bathroom,” you slur your words and let your tongue loll out the side of your mouth as if to lean in for the world’s sloppiest and most uncoordinated kiss.

“First of all,” his voice was very serious, “I don’t hook up with girls who are too inebriated to stand, let’s get that straight. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even have our first fake kiss like this on account of the drinking and smoking, gotta make sure you’re in the right headspace. Secondly,” 

He spins you around and quickly backs you up against the wall that stood a few feet behind the couch. His hand sliding up in between your shoulder blades, blanket now slumped around your waist, his other hand suavely cupping the side of your cheek, His hips angled into yours, pinning you back against the vinyl, almost collapsing back into it. 

He pressed against you, not aggressively, but enough to let you know that if you were to try and squirm away he had the capacity to keep you right where he wanted you. He accomplished this all in one elegant motion, leaving you a bit dazed.

As you started to snap into reality, he moves his hand from your cheek down to grab your chin in between his thumb and the knuckle of his pointer, angling your face directly up at him. 

“If you were some girl in a bar, it would be like this.”

The moment before your brain turned to absolute mush, you silently cringed at the thought of what you must look like, mouth hanging open, eyes glassed over, body instinctively sinking into his touch. Pathetic, you were sure of it. 

Sure, Eddie did think you looked a little helpless, but he also thought you looked perfect. Exactly as he had imagined you to in this situation. Of course he had thought about you before, like that.

Of course he had felt an immediate spark with you when you had first met. But he never flirted back, or lead you on, because as much as he was attracted to you and enjoyed your company, he knew that it wouldn’t work out. He wasn’t relationship material, and you were the picture perfect girlfriend that he didn’t deserve. 

He spoke directly into your parted lips, mouth hovering just far enough away to toe the line of ‘holy shit, is he going to?’ But no, as he made very clear, he wouldn’t kiss you under these conditions. He had made his point, and slowly backed off and let you find your footing. 

As soon as he was sure that you were steady, he backed away and started down the hallway. 

“I might have an extra toothbrush stashed away somewhere, let me look…” he ducked into the bathroom, leaving you stunned in the kitchen, head swimming and your stomach traveled up into your throat. 

He was teasing you, he must be. That was his little way of getting back at you for thinking you could give him dating advice. If he was unsure about his capacity for romance, he was going to make sure you knew he was more than capable in other ways. Understood. 

You shook your head, weeding through your inner monologue of how he could possibly look at you like that and then just walk away. Your shock gave him just long enough for you to to not notice him splashing cold water on his face in the bathroom while he “looked for a toothbrush.” 

The two of you decided to ignore the lingering tension from the events in the kitchen, not a peep of fake-girlfriend talk from you for the rest of the night. He did find you that toothbrush, and the two of you moved through a too-easy domestic routine of getting ready for bed. 

You told him that you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you knew he was cramped on that couch, and that you were fine with sharing a bed. You mumbled something about  getting around to bed sharing etiquette at some point anyways, and sleepily pulled him into being your little spoon. 

Eddie lay there, trying not to twitch or fidget, relaxed as best he could into your cuddled form thinking about how horrible of an idea all of this was. He was convinced all it would take is roughly ten more minutes of you burying your face into his hair and making cute little sleepy noises for him to fall irreversibly in love with you. 

But what was he supposed to do? Move and wake you up? Never. 

You rolled around enough in the night to wake up in a less intimate position than when you had fallen asleep. You knew Eddie was a deep sleeper, and took it upon yourself to creep out of bed and back into your day clothes, make a pot of coffee, and watc a bit of TV before he roused and joined you in the living room. 

“Why didn’t you wake me?” He rubbed the crust from his eyes and was pleasantly surprised to see you had brewed a whole pot of coffee to share. 

“You looked so peaceful and cozy,” he shook his head at you, as if that was no excuse for letting him sleep an extra forty minutes.  

After a slow morning, he agrees to drive you home. 

“So this is the part where I say ‘Eddie, I had such a wonderful time on our date. I’d love to do it again sometime.’ And then you agree and tell me when you’re free. It’s best to be super direct and make plans to get together again soon, cuz then it’s not an awkward who’s-gonna-call-who-first sort of thing.”

“Uh-huh…” he stares at you blankly. 

“But for our sake, let’s just agree that I’m in charge of planning our next date. Okay? I’ll do it from the perspective of what I think most girls would enjoy, so you can steal it for the future. I’ll call you later.” 

You hop out of his van before he can agree, and leave him with a “Thanks for letting me stay over!” As you bound away from his view. 

He squeezed his eyes shut the moment he caught himself checking your ass out as you walked away, and let his head rest down on the steering wheel. He was fucked. How the hell was he supposed to tell you that you needed to stop being his fake girlfriend without disrupting the homeostasis of your friendship?

On one hand he could lie and say he doesn’t want your advice, making you think he didn’t enjoy your company, which was entirely untrue. On the other hand he could tell you the truth, and you would never be friends the same way again. 

He drove home with the music too loud, and patiently awaited your call later that evening to iron out the details of your second fake-date. 

Per your instructions, he let you pick him up this time with the argument that you were the one taking him out this time. He didn’t know what you had planned, but let himself fall to the mercy of whatever you had decided was an exemplary date fore him to ‘steal in the future’. 

You picked up two coffees and rolled up to the trailer park, popping a mix-tape he had made you ages ago. 

“Hey, I thought we said no paying for each other with fake-dating,” he objects to the coffee sat in the passenger cupholder, some abomination of mostly cream and sugar, the way you know he likes it. 

“Yes, that’s true, but you smoked me up the other night, and this coffee was like a dollar fifty, so don’t worry about it,” you give him a look that tells him to drink the damn coffee and not sass back, to which he complies, even though he smokes you up expecting nothing in return about every other weekend. 

The two of you sip away and listen to Eddies ‘must-know-to-be-my-friend’ mixtape and arrive shortly at the strip mall across town. This was a regular weekly stop for both of you, the strip of connected stores containing the Goodwill, a pet store, the pharmacy, and grocery. A pretty mundane collection. 

“Okay, what are we doing at Greg’s?” Eddie gestures to the grocery store, the back of his mind running through the grocery list he’s been making for this week anyways.

“What’s the perfect date?” You ask, and answer for him, “a romantic picnic. But gathering supplies is half the fun. Picnic food supplies at Greg’s, some pills to get fucked up at the pharm, some turtles or something to let loose into the wild from the pet store, and then hats, cups, blanket, etcetera from the Goodwill.”

He turns to you with the most bewildered stare, which sends you into a fit of giggles.

“Okay, I’m joking about the pills and the turtles,” you nudge his arm, “but won’t it be sweet to get together some picnic supplies and then drive out to lookout point? We can still swing by the pet store to check out the ferrets though.”

To Eddie, the idea of a date involved him doing something he didn’t want to do, some awkward small talk, and spending money on shit he truly thought was useless. This didn’t sound half bad. You would “work backwards so the food purchases come last” according  to your reasoning, and he followed you in tow without any arguments into the Goodwill.

“So I’m thinking…” you start to wander into the aisles of used clothes and knick knacks, “maybe a blanket? A basket would be sort of corny, but if we find one for cheap I don’t see why not. Surely two glasses for drinking, and maybe some sun hats?”

Swiveling back around to see a half stunned Eddie, who was still processing how in the hell this was your idea of a romantic date, you grab his hand and pull him to the bric-a-brac section. 

After it got through his thick skull that the same place he had uncomfortably tried on new pants throughout his growth spurt, and picked up his daily-worn leather jacket, had the same potential to provide some silly, cheap, used items to add some flair to this picnic. 

Silly and cheap was right up Eddie’s alley. The two of you picked out mismatched champagne glasses, one with the engraved name of a couple who got married in 1943 and the other a flashy rose color with baby angel carvings dancing around the sides. 

You luckily find an on sale beach blanket, and the two of you pick out some very goofy sun hats. A floppy farmers hat for you, and a bedazzled trucker hat spelling ‘hot mama’ for Eddie.

Through the midst of your giggles and debate on whether you should buy a wooden bench to bring out to your picnic destination, Eddie found himself having a really good time with you. 

As promised, you visited the pet store and checked out the ferrets and fish and geckos. 

“If you could have any pet, what would you want?” You asked him, noses pressed against the chinchilla enclosure. 

“Jaguar,” he said, a little too quickly.

“For real, dummy,” you knock your hip into his.

“I don’t know, we never had enough space or extra money for pets growing up, so maybe someday if I had enough room for it to run around I’d like a dog or something,” he tells. Eyes still transfixed on the chinchilla behind the glass. 

“I can see that,” you imagine Eddie with some mutt from the shelter, wrestling around and giving it lots of scratches behind the ears. 

Skipping the pharmacy, you pop into the grocery store and assemble what may be the world’s most eclectic picnic. 

“That’s the definition of a picnic, I’m pretty sure,” you explain after Eddie insinuated that the gingersnap cookies you grabbed, along with grapes and a block of cheese, wasn’t exactly a meal, “you know, just a smorgasbord of whatever we want!”

Admittedly, Eddie had considered a handful of pretzels and a beer to be dinner on more than one occasion, so he couldn’t argue with you. Quickly catching your drift, the two of you picked out an assortment of snacks and some ingredients for pb&j sandwiches. 

“I thought picnics were supposed to be classy?” Eddie holds up the Wonder bread and bag of potato chips with a look that suggested his question was rhetorical.

Your response was simply to raise the, admittedly cheap, bottle of champagne you grabbed to accompany with your meal, more for the irony of drinking the bubbly liquid out of your new used glasses with your sticky sandwiches than anything else. 

You pack your supplies into a tote bag, not having found a suitable basket at the thrift store, and drive across town to a dirt paved road that leads to a nice lookout point with a view of the lake. 

“Let’s walk down the path a little bit, but not too far,” you grab the blanket and tote bag from your trunk, motioning for Eddie to put on his ‘hot mama’ hat and carry your other auxiliary supplies, “I do not fuck with bugs.”

“I’ll protect you,” Eddie puffs out his chest, making you both giggle.

“From bugs?”

“Yeah, I’ll punch a mosquito right in the face, to defend your honor and all that.”

“I know I told you not to do that, but a mosquito might be the exception to the rule.”

You found a nice little clearing not far from the car, a spot that still had a nice view but was a bit more secluded. Eddie sat pressed right up next to you, making your sandwich ‘to be a proper gentleman’ but simultaneously spilling a glob of jelly onto your leg.

“Shit,” he doesn’t think twice before leaning down and slurping the grape flavored blob off of your bare knee, tongue poking out and licking the spilt jelly from your skin.

“Eddie!” You squirm away, barking out a surprised laugh. 

“What! Your knee is clean, wouldn’t want to waste perfectly good preserves, or a napkin.”

You feel your skin tingle where his lips had touched you, for only a moment, but you still felt it. He was so confident and casual in his movements, not having any hesitation to grab your hand or brush your hair out of your face. It wasn’t under the guise of fake romance, he had always been like that. Not touchy, per se, just sure of himself. You’d never seen Eddie do anything half assed, that’s for certain.

After the conversation you shared the other night, you were unable to stop your mind from wandering to thoughts of what Eddie does with those girls in bars, if he touched him with the same confidence and sureness he put into everything else he did. 

It was wrong to let your mind go to such dirty places about someone you considered a friend, but you couldn’t manage to feel any guilt. He had offered that information freely, so who were you to punish yourself for staring a little longer at his fingers, conjuring up the context in which he’d bury them inside you against some grimy bar bathroom. 

The date was all peanut butter smiles and bubbly laughter that floated up into the trees. Silly, yes, but neither of you could deny there was something sweet, maybe even romantic about it. A cheap meal in the woods shared between two friends in ill-fitting fifty cent hats, but an undeniable touch of romance lingered nonetheless. 

Eddie started to realize that maybe the whole dating thing wasn’t as uptight and scary as he had initially thought. It could be easy and fun, with the right person. And fuck, if he could even imagine doing this with anyone but you. 

Like most things Eddie did, he did not consider any potential consequences before acting. You looked so pretty sitting there in the sunshine, sipping from your cheap ‘Martha & Dave ’43’ glass, a few sandwich crumbs dotting the corner of your mouth.

What else was he supposed to do other than lean over and wipe them away with his thumb, stroking your soft cheek and feel the warmth of your skin beneath his palm. 

“You had some,” he uses his other hand to motion at his own mouth, “and I suppose this is the sort of moment where I’d ask if I can kiss you.” 

You find yourself a bit dumbfounded, his big stupid hand on your cheek and those big stupid puppy dog eyes unrelenting in making everything he says seem so genuine.

“Are you?” You find your voice, only half embarrassed at how shy it comes out.

“Am I what?”

“Are you asking me?”

“Yeah,” his answer comes out in a way that insinuates that he never meant anything other than that, that he was always asking to kiss you, he wasn’t asking in theory, in another universe, in the context of advice. 

“Okay,” you found yourself behaving like Eddie, not really thinking of consequences before your words and actions spoke on behalf of your instincts.

Everything so far had been so easy. Your fake first date at the bar, curling up next to him in a haze, making up stories about what sort of people donated the fake palm tree or the Garfield mug at the Goodwill, imagining Eddie running around a yard with a puppy, lounging in the grass and eating your assorted picnic snacks. It was all effortless.

Suddenly, being kissed by Eddie sucked the ease from your lungs and sent your mind spiraling into a cacophony of bells and whistles and giant swirling red flags. If this is how he kissed you, casually across some half eaten peanut butter sandwiches, you’d spend the rest of your days yearning to know how he kissed someone with true intention. 

Of course, his intentions were all there, but the lingering knowledge that all of this was happening under the umbrella of “you giving him advice” or “helping practice for the next girl” poisoned any true feeling he poured into it. He cupped your cheek, soft, let his lips press into yours delicately for a moment before he felt your breath hitch, opening his mouth just enough to deepen the kiss and capture your lower lip fully. 

He was more careful, gentle, methodic with his movements and so receptive to every little signal your body gave him, it was unlike any first-kiss, heat-of-the-moment-kiss, in-the-throws-of-passion-kiss, any of it. Like hell you’d ever tell him that, inflate that big ego that fuels his snippy comebacks at you, but Jesus, was it remarkable. 

While at war with yourself internally, your heart was on the precipice of exploding in your chest from the way he snaked his hand into your hair and pressed his forehead against yours to catch a breath. You suck in a sharp breath and feel that stupid cocky smirk creep up onto that pretty mouth of his.

“’S that sufficient for a first kiss?”

“Fuck offfff,” you were still a little out of breath, smacking his chest and flopping back down onto the picnic blanket, throwing your arms up and rolling your eyes at him, “if you’re so damn confident, maybe we just should fake break up, cuz you don’t seem like you need my advice.”

“Nooooo,”he slumps down next to you, burrowing his head under your arm so he can pop up right next to your face, “I’m learning a lot, I promise! This date was so fun, and cheap! I would have never thought any of this could be remotely romantic. I’m hopeless, y/n, look at me.”

He wriggles around and gives you a big fake pout, “If left to my own devices I would probably do something horribly embarrassing or off-putting, like…” he digs his head into the crook of your neck and blew a fat, wet raspberry right into your skin, making you yelp and squeal, but his position half on top of you pins you down. 

“See!” He pulls up for air, you were in a fit of screaming giggles, “I’d go right in for a kiss and just,” and he does it again, leaving you gasping for air, trying your best to tickle his ribs to get him off of you, but not minding the close contact by any means. 

“Now I’m not so sure,” he pulls back to give you a minute to catch your breath, “it seems like you enjoyed that, so maybe survey says I should pull that move on the ladies.”

Your airy laughter subsided, but he stays half pinning you down to the blanket and the lumpy grass underneath.

“I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I’m not grateful for your help,” he says earnestly, catching your gaze, “it’s just… this isn’t what I need help with.”

As his statement is processing, you find his lips back on yours, his torso pressed flushed with yours and his wild mane of hair coming down to curtain around your head. He doesn’t take it too far, but kisses you as earnestly as he had before, giving your lip a slight drag with his teeth and running his hand up from your hip up the side of your ribcage, leaving you arching slightly into him by pure instinct.

Before your head got too dizzy again, before you could really throw yourself into it and say fuck it and kiss him back the way you secretly wanted to, he pulled back.

“That.” his voice was even, you hated how needy you felt and how even keeled he could be milliseconds after stealing the air from your lungs, “It’s the rest of it,” he threw his hands up and gestured to all the food and knock knacks around you, “it’s this stuff that you make seem so easy, so forgive me if I lay it on a little thick when we get to the parts I’m actually good at.”

“Just,” you sat up a bit, grounding yourself and formulating a response despite your brain looping the past twenty seconds back infinitely, “don’t do that again.”

“Okay,” he sat back and popped a grape into his mouth, “sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” you knocked his knee with yours, struggling to articulate how you felt without showing too much of your hand, deciding to just be candid, “I just- I liked that a little too much if you know what I mean. And this is strictly business, or education, maybe?”

“You liked it when I pinned you against the wall the other night,” he said matter of factly, “I think you liked that a little too much too, and you still took me on this fake educational business date.”

“Yeah, well, you caught me,” you threw your hands up in defense.

“Which one is it though?” He asks and you don’t quite understand, “are you a sweet kiss on the picnic kind of girl, or an up against the wall kind of girl?”

“That’s none of your business, as far as fake-dating is concerned,” you say a little too quickly, “and no you can’t have my panties.”

You say it with a smirk, but he doesn’t press any further. He turns and does that Eddie-thing he’s so good at, just changing the subject and shifting the vibe completely away from what might have been a stale moment or awkward pause. He starts asking if you like green or purple grapes better, going off about how he used to put them in the freezer as a kid. 

The remainder of your date went without a hitch, of course. You picked away at your picnic until the sun started to set, and once the sky started turning purple you made your way back to the car. The drive home consisted only of easy conversation and no further mention of the kiss, well, kisses that had transpired. He hopped out of the passenger seat with a ‘thank you’ and a ‘see ya later alligator.’ 

A scalding hot shower, a restless night of sleep, and too many cups of herbal tea the next morning did nothing to quell the noise in your head that blasted those moments over and over. You couldn’t stop picking apart whether he had thought about it for even a millisecond, and felt embarrassed that you could think of nothing else. 

It was simply an amplified version of what your whole friendship had been up until this point. You silently admiring him and wishing he would look at you the way you looked at him, and settling for friendship over heartbreak. 

Pushing it aside to the best of your ability allowed you to get through your week, but you had the lingering feeling that the next time you saw him would strike you with warm cheeks and a scrambled mental state.

Guilt had started to seep in at the corners of your mind, but you reminded yourself that you shouldn’t punish yourself for having romantic or sexual thoughts about someone you simply found attractive and compelling, it was your actions that would determine the validity of your guilt. 

“Long time no see, loser,” Robin hollered from the pool table across the bar, where she was likely kicking Steve’s ass. 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” you shrug off your coat and plop down at their regular booth, knowing her jabs were entirely empty. You notice Eddie’s leather jacket hung up by the wall, and scan the bar to find him ordering a drink. 

There was a silent mutual understanding that you’d keep the fake dating thing to a bare minimum when out with your friends like this. Even though Steve was well aware, and therefore Robin was too, you figured tainting your social time with the performance of romance is the exact reason Eddie turned down the girl at the bar in the first place. 

“For the lady,” Eddie waltzes over and hands you a drink.

“Oh, thanks,” you take it with a confused smile, “you didn’t have to do that.”

“You bought me coffee last weekend,” he sat across the booth from you, “plus I’m trying to get better at buying drinks for pretty girls, right?”

You remind him that he doesn’t have to keep tabs on things like coffee, but you appreciate the gesture regardless. As per the past few times you’d been out with your friends, you expected him to put a pause on the flirting, but it seems to be bubbling over tonight. You weren’t complaining, but admittedly the arm around your shoulder or the noticeable way he checked you out when you got up to refill your drink took you by slight surprise. 

Sneaking in to claim the always occupied dart board for a challenge against Eddie while he uses the restroom, you keep your eyes on the corner of the bar to signal him over once he returns.

“You need a partner?” A man suddenly appears behind you, a little closer than you’d like but the bar was crowded, so you’ll let it slide. 

“Oh, I was just waiting for-“

“Let me fill in until your friend gets here, we can get you warmed up, yeah?” His tone wasn’t too pushy, but you didn’t love the look he gave you when making that comment.

Awkwardly staggering for a second, unsure weather to just agree or tell him to fuck off, “He really should be just a minute-“

“Or maybe less,” Eddie comes up right behind you and pulls you possessively into his side.

Your head whips up to see him with a devilish smile, his hand on your waist and the fire behind his eyes telling his guy to get lost.

“Oh, sorry man,” the guy starts backing away with an apologetic look.

“Yeah, better luck next time, pal,” Eddie snakes around to take the guy’s spot in front of the dart board.

He had his darts in hand and took his stance to start the match, gesturing for you to do the same. 

“What was that,” you ask with a slight joking tone, but seriously curious.

“What?” He doesn’t make eye contact and instead throws the first dart, “I’m not allowed to get fake jealous?”

“You’re allowed to feel any fake emotion you want, I guess,” your tone is somewhere in between a joke and a question. 

“You’d feel fake jealous if I was getting blown in the bathroom by some chick rather than playing darts with you, I bet.”

“Okay,” your tone shifts to defensive, “getting blown is very different than some guy asking to play darts with me.”

“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you,” Eddie turns to face you, having thrown all his darts, “for real.”

A moment lapsed where you didn’t register that your mouth was hanging open in disbelief, the look in your eyes Eddie immediately clocked as lust and bottled up to store away for a later time. 

“I knew the scary dog thing would work,” his ‘i-told-you-so’ tone rubbed you the wrong way, but he wasn’t wrong, “you said girls weren’t into that, but you totally looooove that I defended your honor.”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit, I said girls wouldn’t be into it if you punched him,” you rolled your eyes.

“I don’t know, babe, I think you liked the whole ‘back off of my woman’ act.”

You mumble out a ‘whatever’ and let him have this win, which he was clearly reveling in, trying to focus instead at beating him at darts. 

“Just don’t pull shit like that on a first date, acting too possessive off the bat is a huge red flag for a lot of women.”

“I thought we weren’t doing dating advice tonight?” You don’t even have to look at him to know he’s got that stupid sarcastic smile.

“Yeah I thought so too,” you fail at your attempt to beat him in darts, as well as your attempt to not flirt back with him. 

He insists on collecting all the darts, picking up the ones haphazardly strews across the floor from failed attempts to hit the board. 

“I’m no pro or anything, but I think you’d hit the board a lot more if you fixed your stance.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you flip him the bird and take back your red tipped darts. 

As you steady your arm to aim your first shot he comes up behind you and grabs your hips, causing you to let out an unexpected squeak. He adjusts your stance, not aggressively, but with some force, twisting your hips and using his big combat boot to sweep your foot around so you stood more sideways. 

“You’re standing straight on,” he backs up, allowing you to secretly catch your breath, “and all your shots are veering to the right. If you plant your feet more angled you’ll hit the board.”

You wanted to roll your eyes at him, miss on purpose to show him he’s full of shit. You flippantly toss the dart, not trying particularly hard, and it hits. Not a bulls-eye or anything like that, but a lot closer than your previous attempts had been. 

“Good girl,” he comments, leaning in to breech your personal space just enough to make your blood boil.

You drop the remainder of the darts in your opposite hand onto the floor and whip around to face him, half jokingly smacking him on the shoulder. 

“Oh my god, fuck off!”

You’re met with his trademark shit-eating grin.

Truthfully, Eddie hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off you all night. He’d spent the night after your picnic date with his hand in bis boxers, squeezing his eyes shut and remembering the little gasp you had made when he grabbed your waist, the hum in your throat that bubbled up when he kissed you pinned against the blanket, that night and every night since. 

“Oh, you don’t like that?” that joking tone he uses to cover up what he actually wants to say. 

“Shut up, you know I do,” you didn’t even try to stifle your reaction, knowing it was his intent to get under your skin.

“How would I possibly know that,” he playfully looks up at the ceiling and around the bar, hands clasped behind his back now, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“You better cut that shit out, unless you plan on doing something about it,” you manage the most assertive tone your wobbly insides could muster, a little shocked at yourself for actually saying what you were thinking. 

“I’m not much of a planner,” he gracefully takes a stance next to you and rips all three darts, not great shots, but all hitting the board, “I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy, you know that.”

“Well your pants better make up their mind if you’re playing boyfriend tonight or not,” your insinuation was heavy but you had fumbled your hand, and he had already seen all your cards at this point, so there was no reason to bluff.

“The real question is,” he leans in, his imposing figure crowding your space in a way that made your head spin, “do you want me to play boyfriend? Or do you want me to play guy who fucks your brains out in the bar bathroom?”

Your eyebrows pinched together for a millisecond, and before he could decipher your expression you grabbed his hand and started storming through the crowds hoarded by the bar. Why the hell a seedy downtown bar has a single stall family bathroom with a changing table is beyond you, but you drag him inside and slam the lock down behind you. 

“You’re not allowed to treat me any differently after this,” you start to fall into the sinkhole of oh my god what the hell is about to happen, but are cut off by him pressing you against the closed door the exact way he had handled you against his kitchen wall that night weeks ago. 

“Not unless you want me to,” he doesn’t hesitate to get his mouth on yours, immediately pulling your mind from wondering what the vague sticky substance on the door pressing into your back could be. 

“I mean, you’re not allowed to fuck me and then never talk to me again,” you say in between moving lips and tongues, giving him a moment to bury his face in your neck, "Promise me."

“Oh don’t worry about that,” he pulls back, “we can go get coffee tomorrow and you can give me a full performance review. Promise.”

Your annoyed eye roll quickly turns into them fluttering shut as he licks a stripe up to the junction behind your ear that has you melted into a boneless puddle between his pressing hips and the door. He drags his teeth across your lobe while leaning into you with a black denim clad thigh.

“Why don’t we make a deal,” you let out, voice breathy and unfocused. Before he can even pull back to reply you continue, “if you’re half as good at this as you claim to be, and can make me cum in this dingy bathroom, I’ll let you take me back to your trailer and you can do whatever the fuck you want to me.”

He was leaning in to seal the deal with a kiss before he could even process your request, because yes of course, a million times yes he’s taking this deal. Despite the rouse of you playing bar hookup for the night, and despite the idea of bringing you back to his place and finally doing what he’s wanted since the day he met you absolutely terrifying him, he nods and kisses you. 

It’s electrifying. His confidence only spurs you on to kiss him harder, grip his hair a little tighter, say the things you would only imagine in the deepest parts of your mind. The feeling of his grin against your lower lip and his fingers quickly unbuttoning your jeans fuels your fire. 

“You sure you know what you’re getting into,” he mumbles playfully, pulling you away from the wall with a gasp and leading you over to the tiny built in counter against a mirror by the sink. 

“Well I’m certainly not letting you fuck me against any of these sticky surfaces,” you note as you’re lifted onto the counter covered in mystery substance, “and I think you need to earn it.”

Of course it was no surprise to you that Eddie was good with his fingers. You probably could have told anyone that long before this impromptu bathroom hookup. Egging him on and challenging him in a way you were sure he wasn’t used to was well worth abandoning your assumptions. 

“Oh yeah? I think, if you’re lucky, I’ll earn it more times than you can count before the night’s over,” he positioned himself in between your legs, pressing your torso into the mirror behind you as he leaned in for another heated kiss. 

He pulled your ass to the edge of the counter, and looped his thumbs into the waistband of your unbuttoned pants. You were quick to assume that he’d yank the fabric right off your legs, preparing to lift your ass from the counter to assist.

Eddie paused, pulled back and gave you a look that asked ‘you’re sure about this?’ and when a dreamy smile spread across your cheeks he melted into you with a kiss that turned your stomach inside out and made your pussy flutter.

He snakes a hand from its grip on your torso down into your unbuttoned pants. You arched up into his touch, wanting to urge him to get on with it and get your pants and underwear out of the way, but appreciating how much he seemed to be reveling in feeling you for the first time. 

“So fuckin wet,” he mumbled against your lips, his fingers only feeling up your cunt from outside your underwear. He pressed the fabric into your slick center, following the path up to your clit and then teasingly back down to where your panties were soaked through.

“You weren’t lying when you said you liked this a little too much,” he’s rolling his hips ever so slightly against your spread thigh as he rubs your clothed pussy, his teeth sinking into your lower lip as he moves the material aside and sinks two fingers right into your wet cunt with ease.

You were sure that you’d retrospectively have a million quippy compacks that come to mind, but in this moment it was impossible to come up with words when his fingers were buried inside you, still, just letting you squeeze around them, and his hard cock straining against his jeans nestled against the inside of your thigh.

He slowly drags his finger’s up from your hole to your clit, and you let out a whine of desperation as he fully removes his hand from your damp underwear. 

Before you can manage the breath to tell him to please, for the love of god, get on with it, he brings his fingers up to his lips and gives them a long suck, never breaking eye contact with you. 

“Yeah,” he sighs out and presses his forehead against yours, “I might like that a little too much too.”

Protests and urging words catch in your throat as he yanks down your pants and underwear with one quick pull, not even needing you to lift your ass off the counter more than it already was. He was methodical and moved with intention, folding up your pants neatly and shoving your soaked panties into his back pocket, shooting you a wink. 

“Eddie, please,” your overdue complaints are finally bubbling over. You hardly finish your plea before his face is buried in your neck, and his fingers are sliding right back into your needy hole. 

The top of your head rests against the mirror behind you, exposing your neck and arching your back into his touch. He sucks and nips at the soft skin between your collar bone and ear, all while letting his two middle fingers pump slowly into you.

“Mmmm,” he mumbles into the crook of your jaw, “such a good girl for me, perfect pussy squeezing my fingers so tight, can’t fuckin wait to feel you soak my cock.”

Nearly orgasming at his words alone, your eyes flutter shut and you let out a moan of his name as he lets his thumb drag circles across your clit. “Eddie, please, just like that, I-”

“Oh, suddenly she’s not questioning my abilities?” he says with a biting smirk, “What was that about me not being half as good as I think I am?”

“Fuck,” you want to raise an eyebrow and shoot something back, hold out and make him work for it, but after hardly two minutes of his fingers rolling inside you, hooked up to drag along that perfect fucking spot, you had no choice but to feed his ego and let him win. 

“You wanted to make your little deal,” he pumps a little faster, making your head loll to the side and mouth hang half open, “I’ll sweeten it for you, babe. I say we can get this pretty pussy to come twice all over my fingers before anyone even knocks on this door.”

“Yes,” is all you can squeak out, “yes, please.”

If Eddie was being honest, he was a few half-thrusts into your thigh short of coming in his own pants from how hot you looked. Your eyes glassed over, pretty lips parted and gasping his name, perfect cunt sucking his fingers in. 

The hand not occupied by your gushing cunt slid up to cup the side of your cheek, forcing you to look into his fiery eyes. “Feel’s good?” he questions, knowing the answer and not expecting a verbal response.

He drags the pad of his thumb up to your parted lips, running it along your plush bottom lip and dragging it down a bit, relishing in how under his spell you were. His thumb slips into your mouth and you immediately wrap your lips around it and suck. 

“Good girl,” his thumb on your clit is rubbing more focused circles, “suck on that and keep your voice down, don’t want the whole bar knowing what a good little slut you are for me.”

Jackpot. 

A muffled moan around his thumb and the spasming of your inner walls signaled that you were hitting your peak. He drags the spit slicked digit from your lips and quickly replaces it with his lips and tongue, kissing you with fervor as he feels you ride out your orgasm on his hand. 

“Mmmmmmm” you moan, somewhere between a pleading whine and a sigh of satisfaction into his lips as his fingers don’t let up. 

Under different circumstances you would tell him to slow down, give you a minute to catch your breath. Eddie was stubborn, this you knew, and he had already made it abundantly clear that one orgasm wasn’t going to be enough. 

He pulls back from your lips, loving the sharp intake of breath you swallow as your cheeks continue to flush and eyelids keep fluttering. 

“So fucking good, came all over my fingers,” his gaze locks in on where his hand was buried into your cunt. “Gonna give me one more?”

Of course you would, whether it was up to you or not. He did slow up for a second, just enough for you to regain your grip on reality before he started curling them up again. 

“Eddie,” you whine out, eyes nearly crossed and unable to focus your attention on his face, hands, anything other than his boner poking into your inner thigh, “wanna feel you.”

The hand formerly gripped tight onto the edge of the counter snakes forward and pulls his hip into you, a permanent indentation of his stiff cock molding against your skin. 

“Not yet baby,” he rolls his hips forward, giving you a delicious feel of how it would be if he was inside you, but instead pushing his fingers a touch deeper and then pulling his hips away, “one more and then I’ll take you home. You’re gonna let me ruin that perfect little cunt, right? That was the deal?”

“Yes,” you gasp out, his other hand moving from your hair down to rub fast tight circles on your clit, the other hand still pumping steadily inside you.

“That’s right, I know this pussy is gonna take me so well. You’re already drooling for my cock, so fucking perfect.”

You feel it building up again, that sacred double orgasm that only ever came during your alone time in the shower or when you were so desperate for release that your hand didn’t stop after the first, but never with another person, never like this. 

His smile nearly touched his ears at this point, pulling back to take in all of you as your eyes screwed shut and thighs threatened to break his wrist at how fast they snapped together. 

Hitting you like a punch to the gut, your abdomen tightened and released rapidly, air sucked from your lungs and his hand working you through it between your clenched thighs. 

Yeah, maybe this was a bad idea. 

If you were in a cartoon, stars and chirping birds would be swirling around your head as you slowly came back to reality. He gave you some space, and begrudgingly gave you pack your panties after you hand out your hand and gave him a stern look.

“I’m gonna go tell the others that you aren’t feeling great and I’m taking you home,” he makes sure you’ve pulled your pants back up before unlocking the door, “Take your time, and I’ll meet you at the van, okay? I’ll grab your stuff.”

“Yeah,” you still feel a little flustered, looking back into the mirror and smoothing down your hair, “thanks.”

He shoots you a wink before slipping out, giving you a moment to collect yourself and splash some cold water on your face. Okay, so you’re doing this. 

Any nagging feelings that this might ruin things or that he’s only teasing you because of your arrangement are quickly squished down into a deeper compartment of your brain, overtaken by the post orgasm bliss and wandering thoughts of what might happen next. 

You peek your head out of the bathroom door, and slink your way to the back door without passing your group table or a stray Steve or Robin. The fresh air equalizes your buzzing thoughts, and you spot Eddie, already in the driver’s seat of his van. 

“You good?” He asks as you hop into the passenger seat. You won’t let him have the upper hand, just because he made you come twice in under ten minutes. 

“Yeah,” you gather as much assertion as your voice will project, “You good?”

“F’course,” he starts backing up, you internally roll your eyes at the way his outstretched arm muscles and curved neck make your stomach flutter, “Just wanted to make sure I passed the test.”

You sit in silence, not wanting to give into the cocky game he clearly wants to play, yet know that he’s entirely correct in his assumption that he’s driven you completely crazy. Once he’s on the main stretch of road, finally rolling to a stop at a red light you let your hand migrate across the center console, dancing its way into his lap. 

As you hoped, his cock was still half hard and apparent underneath his jeans. You let your hand draw circles next to it, loving the little twitch you get when you run your nails against his thigh. 

“Easy there, tiger,” he lets out a huffed laugh, with just an edge to his tone that suggested you were getting yourself into something you’d soon regret. 

“C’mon Eds,” you let your head fall on the corner of the headrest, gaze angled over at his tight grip on the steering wheel while your hand dancing around the bulge in his pants, “you’ve been pushing this thing against my thigh for the past twenty minutes, forgive me for wanting a better feel.”

You put on a pretend pouty face and flash him your best puppy dog eyes to ward off any incoming snippy comments from him. He rolls his pretty eyes at you and silently bites the inside of his cheek as you feel up and down his lap, grazing his growing cock with each pass. 

“Forgiven,” through gritted teeth, he squeezes his eyes shut as your fingers circle around his head, now taking visible form beneath his black jeans. He internally reprimands himself for losing focus on the road, and zeroes his concentration on getting back to his trailer as fast as this van can take him. 

You have your fun watching him wiggle in his seat, feeling his thigh muscles clench under your palm every so often. You weren’t full on jerking him off over his pants, but you were certainly relishing in the feeling of his dick getting harder and harder with each occasional pass of your hand.

He parks diagonally across the lawn in front of his trailer, not giving a shit where the van ends up as long as it’s stopped. He wanted to dash around the vehicle and scoop you out of your seat, throw you over his shoulder and take you inside to continue with whatever this evening had in store for you.

The second his hand stalled on the clutch, shifting the van into park and taking a moment to let his mind wander to what would happen once he got you inside, you were already halfway out the van and skipping up the steps to his front door. 

Entering his trailer, you start taking off your coat and shoes, trying to act as normal as possible. Your facade of keeping it cool entirely shatters when he enters behind you, calmly clicking the door shut and patiently waiting for you to finish unlacing your boots.

You remain crouched down, darting your eyes up at him, deciding against being a brat and undoing your laces as slowly as possible to keep him waiting. Any caution you had was long swept away by the wind, and he’d taken control in your little bathroom tryst, so it was your turn to say fuck it and just do what felt right. 

And in this moment, there was only a few quick movements and about six inches of space between you and Eddie’s semi-hard dick. One shoe was only half off, haphazardly kicked behind you as you pivoted onto your knees and had your hands moving eagerly up his tensing thighs.

“Can I?” Your question was half formed and he was already nodding. 

You’d teased him enough on the ride over, you wanted him, now. Pants quickly unbuttoned and blue checkered boxers pushed down to his knees, and you were about to go feral and just go for it when a silver glimmer adorning his thick cock caught your eye.

Your mouth was already half open, but your jaw nearly unhinged and hit the floor when the pierced head of his dick falls out of his boxers and lands at your eye level. 

Unmoving, mouth agape, you look up to make eye contact, ripping your eyes away from the shock of two silver balls on his cockhead. He knew it was nice, he wouldn’t have bedazzled it if it wasn’t, but the look you were giving him sucked all the unwavering confidence from his body for a split second, suddenly feeling weak in the knees at the sight of you slowly sicking your tongue out, not making any contact but waiting. 

He took the base of his dick in his hand and gave it a few precautionary strokes before angling it down and slapping your wet tongue with the tip a few times. 

You were two and a half seconds away from being entirely fucked out. If he pulled away and asked you to crawl on all fours to him, you’d do it without a second thought.

You let him slide his cock gently against your outstretched tongue a few times before coming to your senses and wrapping your lips around him, moving your hand to replace his and move against the length that your mouth couldn’t yet reach. 

All it took was a few steady bobs of your head, hand twisting and eyes still focused upwards on his face, to have him biting his knuckle and looking up at the ceiling to ground himself to try and not bust on the spot. You love this, of course, seeing him visibly spiral paired with the salty taste of precum already leaking from him. 

The hand not jerking him off comes up to the back of his hip, gently pushing against him in tandem with the movements of your head, encouraging him to shallowly thrust into your mouth.

“Jesus fu-“ he grunts out, not wanting to overestimate your encouragement, but unable to keep his hips from rolling forward slightly with the push of your hands and the bob of your lips. 

After an unexpected snap of his hips that sent his cock sliding into the back of your throat, making you gag slightly, a pang of guilt struck through him for pushing too hard. That was, until you let your head pull back a touch to catch your breath, but a long string of spit connected your lips to his cock, and a wild smile broke across your face that nearly sent him to the moon. 

You dove back in and pushed his cock all the way into the back of your throat, going so far that your nose pressed into the patch of dark curls that sat above his perfect dick. Focusing your breathing through your nose, you make a point to constrict your throat a few times until you feel him twitch inside you.

Pulling off with a gasp for air, you notice his eyebrows pinched together and gaze locked on you. 

“I like how these feel,” you comment, letting your pointed tongue dance around the metal balls on his tip.

He shudders and you clench your thighs at the sight of his stomach muscles tensing up when your tongue makes contact with the underside of his head, right where it meets the shaft. 

“If I let you fuck my mouth until you come, are you still going to be able to give it to me in a bit, or are you a one and done kind of guy?” You ask with a playfully teasing tone, but genuinely want to know if you suck him off to completion if the night will be over or not. 

“Fuck,” he spits out, more blood rushing to his cock at the idea of coming down your throat, “I’d fuck you all night if you’d let me babe.”

Half a second doesn’t pass before his cock is back in your mouth, hips shakily moving forward with your movements, gaining confidence as you flicker your eyes up at him through your lashes, the glimmer in them telling him he can take what he wants. 

“Fuckin’ look at you,” he comments to himself, “takin’ it all.” 

“Mhmmm,” you hum around him letting your tongue roll around his tip each time before he pushes his cock back down your throat. 

“You think you can get away with teasing me like that? That shit you pulled in the van back there, you think it’s cute to try and get me all riled up?”

You nod, tongue out and saliva coating your lips and chin. You could tell he was close by the way his words came out staggered, and his hips started snapping towards you in a new tempo, like his body was chasing it. 

Grunts and moans pulled from his chest fill the space mixed with the hums of satisfaction you let out while you take him deeper and faster. Moving in for the kill, you carefully slip your hand up in between his legs, cupping his balls, trying your best not to startle him. 

“Oh fuck,” it was a pitch of his voice you’d never heard before, a new tone especially reserved for the moments before orgasm, “you’re gonna make me fuckin come, y/n, y/n, I’m…”

The feeling of his balls constricting in your hands cues the warm wash of come sputtering down into your throat.

Getting the feeling he’d appreciate a bit of a show, you continue to jerk him off and pull off his cock slightly, letting the tip balance onto the tip of your tongue and the rest of his load spills out into your open mouth, some landing around the corners and onto your lips. 

“Christ, y/n,” his chest is heaving, his eyes finally pulling from you to squeeze shut for a moment. 

Once you’re sure he’s looking at you again you swallow down the salty white substance and lick the excess off your lips. You take his head back into your mouth, sucking just enough to clean off the tip and lap up any stray drops. He’s sensitive, you can tell, so you stop torturing him and place a final kiss right in between the two metal balls. 

You thought of asking him if the piercing hurt, or maybe make a comment about the two matching tattoos on his hipbones, ink of his you’d never seen until now. Before your brain can jump from swallowing his come to making post-nut chit chat, he’s yanking you up off your feet and wrapping you in a searingly passionate kiss. 

In your past experience most guys wanted you to drink some water or brush your teeth after they came in your mouth, at least before kissing you. Not Eddie. The way his tongue immediately slipped into your mouth, you almost believed he was trying to get a taste for himself. 

“C’mon,” he whispers in between slotting his lips with your, “Bedroom. Now.” 

He takes your hips in his hands and spins you around, causing a surprised yelp to bubble up from you, making him chuckle behind you as he walks you down the hall, keeping his hands on your sides. 

You knew where you were going, there were only so many doors in his tiny trailer, and you’d been here plenty of times before, but you liked the feeling of his hands pushing you forward, guiding your movements and steering you down the hallway into his room. 

Before your knees can hit the bed he spins you back around and captures your lips in another heated kiss. His hands trail up your sides, letting his fingertips slide beneath the hem of your shirt and push it upwards until your ribs were exposed. He pulls away from your face, leaving you leaning back into him, not wanting the kiss to end. 

“Up,” he pinches the sides of your shirt in his hands, and signals with his chin that he wants you to lift your arms, which you comply. 

It slides up and off of you, his hands quickly darting back to unclasp your bra, seemingly without even trying. This makes you roll your eyes, but the realization that you’re bare before him eclipses the thought of making a snippy remark about what a man whore he is. 

Flat palms caress your sides and move up to cup your breasts, his tongue pressing into the side of your neck. 

“These too,” his thumbs dip into your pants, managing to wiggle under the waistband of your panties as well. You’re going to do it yourself, but he gently pushes you back onto the bed, letting you flip back into the unmade blankets. 

“I wanna see you,” he pops your pants button and waits for a nod before sliding your pants and underwear down your legs. 

In between the blowjob and now, he’d tucked himself back into his pants, pulling his boxers and jeans back up, still unbuttoned, but covering him back up as his cock returned to a half hard state, unlikely to stay that way for very long considering how things were going. 

The scene of you now sprawled out onto his bed, naked and needy for him, and him standing above you, basically fully clothed, had a flood of lust traveling south between your thighs.

“So fuckin’ gorgeous,” you burned under his intense gaze, raking down your body and soaking in the image of your skin laid out against his flannel plaid sheets. 

He crawls over you, letting his body melt into yours, the center seam of his jeans pressing against your soaking core, just as it had when he had you pressed up against the door of the bar bathroom.

Rocking gently against you, you feel his cock already starting to harden again. His tongue moves against your neck, hands roaming freely against your skin, arching into his touch. 

His breath was heavy against your lips, he was already starting to lose himself, and he knew he wanted to make you come with his tongue at least once before his dick came back out, but it was already pulsing between his legs, growing rock solid with every little whimper that came past your lips. 

Your fingers intertwined themselves into the tresses of his long, messy hair. You use your new grip to pull his face as close into yours as your bodies will allow, smushing his nose up against your cheek and foreheads plastered together. The weight of his body on yours, and the lovely rocking motion of his hips against yours stopped as he pulled away and hooked his arms under your knees. 

He slides off the side of the bed, feet returning to the carpeted ground and yanking your body to the edge of the mattress. You let out an unexpected giggle, body limp like a rag doll, moving wherever he wanted you. 

He leans back over to give you another deep kiss, teeth dragging against your lower lip and tongue sliding gracefully against yours, before he slides his mouth down, stopping to lap up at your nipples for a moment, not letting any part of your skin go untouched as he takes his time moving down to where you want him most. 

Wiggling around on his mattress, your body is begging him to get on with it, but he loves to make you squirm. He takes his time licking up your hip bones, kissing from the innermost part of your thigh all the way down to your knee, and then back up the other side. He even takes a long moment to suck a dark purple bruise into the meat of your thigh, biting down on the flesh and licking over the skin to soothe it, noticing how your back arched a little when he bit down harder. 

“Please Eddie,” your voice is hardly above a whisper, whimpering and whiny.

“All you had to do was ask nicely,” he has that too-cocky tone again, but it’s long forgotten once his tongue is buried in between your thighs, lapping up the excess of wetness already pooled there.

“Ohhh,” you let out a moan, sucking in a sharp breath and allowing your body to relax under his focused touch. 

His hands push up from your ass to the crooks of your knees, moving your legs back to either side of you, strong palms finding their resting place on the backs of your thighs, keeping your legs spread wide open for him while he buries his face deep in your cunt. 

“You-“ the start of a compliment, or maybe a request, escapes your lips but the sudden harsh suck of your clit into his mouth has you speechless and moaning, “Mhmmmmm, uhhhhhhh.”

The sloppy wet sounds of him making out with your pussy are enough to drive you wild, your hands originally balling his sheets in your fists quickly move to the top of his head, resting atop his mop of messy curls. 

“Y’can give it a tug,” the first half of his statement spoken directly into your pussy, “I don’t mind a little pain.” He shoots you a wink and keeps his eyes locked on you as he lets his tongue lap a fat long lick up your slit, and then leaning back down to encourage you to tangle your hands into his hair. 

Coming to either side of his head you grab two points of purchase, locking your fingers in at the roots and feeling him hum into your cunt when you grabbed it a little tighter. 

Your hips start to quiver, so he brings one hand from your thigh up to your lower stomach, pinning you against the bed, and still keeping you spread open with the other. 

Working a steady rhythm against your slick center with his lips and tongue, he can tell he’s found the spot you like most by your open mouth and tight eyebrows.

“Ohmygod,” your chest starts moving with heavy breaths, you can’t bear to keep yourself up any longer and flop back down flat onto the mattress, eyes screwing shut in pleasure. He lets go of his anchor on your tummy and returns his hands to your thighs, allowing your hips to wiggle and wriggle against his face to chase after your own pleasure. 

“Pleasepleaseplease,” one glimpse of his big brown eyes looking up at you and his nose pressing deliciously into the spot above your clit has your head reeling, “please don’t stop, fuck.”

Rather than reply, he just continues to devour you at that steady pace, your thighs almost snapping shut around his head . 

“Uh huh, right there, oh fuck Eddie I’m gonna-“ 

A strangled moan rips from your throat and your back arches off the mattress, his hands quickly come to wrap around your thighs and keep your center held closely against his face. He’s pulling your hips flush with his face, despite your spasming torso and gushing core. 

As your orgasm peaks, your hips angle themselves to push up deeper into his face, and he uses his leverage against the backs of your thighs to lift your ass, the entire lower half of your body now off the mattress and sliding backwards as he keeps his moving tongue glued to your clit. 

He climbs up onto the mattress as you slide back, the grip he had on your legs was sure to leave a sore memory of him unwilling to let your coming pussy away from his face. 

When he finally pulls away, your hand pushing at his forehead to prevent overstimulation, both of you gasping for air, his knees are propped under your thighs, and your hips are propped up right at perfect level with the bulge in his pants. 

“Fuck me,” you say through catching your breath, not as an expletive but rather a demand, “Eddie, I need you to fuck me,” your voice was whiny and desperate. 

“This okay?” he starts pulling his dick from its constraints in his unbuttoned jeans, not even shoving them halfway down his thighs before he had that pretty pierced dip dragging through your open and ready folds. 

“Yes, inside, please,” you were chasing after his length, while he tossed his shirt off. He teasingly ran it up and down your slit before sinking into you, collapsing down to press your lips into a kiss to swallow your moans as he slid the whole thing in slowly, making sure to take his time and fuck you right. 

He grabbed the back of your neck and pressed his forehead to yours, finally sheathed all the way inside you and stilling for a moment to relish in the feeling. Pulling back so he can watch your face as he pumps his first few thrusts, he knows he’s beyond fucked. 

“So fucking good,” you slur out, eyes almost crossing from how deep his cock was hitting your insides.

“Yeah? This pussy’s god damn perfect, fucking made for me,” he articulates each thought with a snap of his hips, “suckin’ me right in.” 

“Wait, can we,” your voice had a little more weight behind it unlike the airy moans he’d grown obsessed with in the past forty minutes.

He pulls back, and rather than finish your thought you slip him out of you and roll over, shuffling up the bed and positioning yourself face down ass up, knees spread and back arched. 

“You think you can handle it?” he asks jokingly, swatting your ass playfully and then landing a second, harder smack on the flesh when he notices you pussy clench around nothing at the sensation of him spanking you. 

“Want you to fuck me hard,” you mumble into his pillow, wiggling your hips a little bit to jiggle the fat of your ass, “I know your cock is gonna feel so fucking good in me this way, wanna feel that fucking piercing back in my throat from the other direction.”

“Jesus Christ, y/n,” he was genuinely a little shocked at your words, slowly learning that your freak side might match his. 

You expected to feel his cock slam into you once his hands came to spread your ass apart, but instead the mattress dipped and he was licking another fat stripe from your clit all the way up past your second hole, running this back a few times until you were moaning into the pillow and thighs were tensed up from the attention he was giving you.

“Sorry babe, just needed another taste,” he pushed the head of his dick into you, and moved the first few inches agonizingly slow into your soaked hole. 

“Eddie please, need it, need you,” he loved that his sheets were balled up in your fists, using the tension of the material to bounce yourself back onto him. You only manage to slide back down about three quarters before he’s tightly gripping your hip and pulling out half way again. 

“Tsk tsk tsk, you need to learn to be patient, pretty girl,” he’d thrust it an inch of so, and then slowly pull back, making you whine and start to feel tears bubble up in the corners of your eyes. 

“Want it so bad,” your cheek laid flat against his pillow, and you could catch a glimpse of him behind you out of the corner of your eye if you craned your neck a bit. You sounded so desperate, but you knew he liked it, liked hearing how badly you craved him. 

He starts moving in and out of you, firm grip on your ass never wavering. Restrained grunts left his mouth as he fucked into you, causing your eyes to practically roll into the back of your head. He leans down to place a soft kiss on your shoulder blade, despite how viciously he's pounding into you. His head cranes down to your shoulder, his hand coming up to brush your hair out of your face. 

As his long fingers move your hair away from your eyes, you push your head back into his hand, not wanting to lose contact. He tentatively runs his hands up into your hair, taking a soft grip on your roots.

“Is this what you want?” he whispers, “you like it rough?”

“Yes,” you manage to squeak out, “fuck, pull my hair, spank me, do whatever the fuck you want to me, please.”

His vision practically goes black with this new unrestricted passion, allowing himself to thrust into you as hard and as deep as his hips would propel him, twisting your hair in his grip and pulling you up from your laid position, quickly letting your hands jump to his headboard to support you as your head was pulled back. 

You tried to bounce back onto his cock, wanting to feel him as deeply and wholly as your bodies would allow, but you could hardly keep up with the pace he had set. 

Your ass bouncing against him and the occasional glance he caught at your fucked out expression spurred him on to fuck you even harder. He had your hair pulled back so tight that your back was pressing flush up with his chest every so often, and he took the opportunity to snake an arm around you and hold your chest up flat, his other hand moving down to rub frantic circles on your clit.

“You’re gonna make me come like this,” you manage to croak out, voice hoarse from the harsh bend in your neck. 

“Nuh uhh, no,” his voice was gruff and commanding, right into your ear and sent a shiver down your spine. 

He pulled out of you fully, and had you flipped around flat on your back again before you could even open your mouth to complain. 

“Need to see that pretty face when you come on my cock,” he lines himself up with you again, pushing into you and making a mental note of how the bulge of his cock looked pressing up from the inner part of your lower stomach. 

And of course, your face screwed up in pleasure, puffy lips and sweaty brow, slack jawed and panting his name would be something Eddie wouldn’t be able to forget even if he tried.

His thumb found its way to your clit to pick up where he had last left you, steadily building to an earth shattering orgasm. Talking you through it, knowing you were close by the vice grip your walls had on his dick, in between grunts he spilled out some “good girl”’s and “right fuckin there, that’s it.” 

When he felt your thighs tense up, and the muscles in your neck strain against the soft skin he’d previously had his lips all over, he knew you were nearing the finish line. 

“So fucking perfect, feel so good wrapped around me,” he managed to sweet talk you without altering the pace of his hips, “That’s it, come on my cock, give it to me.”

With that, your body can’t help but throw itself over the edge of pleasure. A deep grunt rattles in your chest, and you lose all sensation other than the wild pulsing in between your legs. You can’t be bothered to worry about what your face looks like, or if your thighs are squeezing him too hard, you only feel the riptide of an orgasm shattering through you. 

The animalistic noise that Eddie grunts out, his wild gaze locked on your face only makes your body shake with pleasure even harder. He had that instinct that most men lacked, to keep the exact pace and motion when your orgasm hit rather than speed up or slow down, it was a gift, a talent. 

Of course he wasn’t going to change a thing about what he was doing, look at you. You were so fucking perfect, shaking and coming all over him, those sweet noises and the beautiful squelching between your thighs. He’d rather die than change a single thing about this moment. 

He stilled only when you paused to catch your breath, and within seconds was flipped over by the power of your thighs onto his back.

Unexpectedly, you began to ride him, trying to match the pace he had earlier set. The aftershocks of your orgasm still washed through you, but you seized the moment to get him right where you wanted him. This angle was different, deeper and more connected. You roll your hips and bring your hands up to his hair, foreheads pressing together once again. 

“You’re making me feel so fucking good,” you manage to breathe out into his lips, he quickly comes to the realization of what’s happened and shifts the angle of his hips to hit you even deeper. 

“I’d give you everything, if you’d let me,” he doesn’t let a single thought pass in his mind before the words slip out, “always.”

Your lips capture his in a kiss that has far more emotion behind it than two friends play-dating and fucking for fun. His hands come up to grasp your cheeks, your hips continue to roll down into his with purpose. 

“I’m- Where-“ his words are hardly intelligible in between breathless kisses, but you know what he means. 

“Inside, please, need all of you inside me,” you try to keep your voice steady so he hears you loud and clear, wanting to give him the exact attention he had paid to you, “Please Eddie, come inside me.”

His hands travel down and guide your hips to fuck down onto him one, two, three times before he’s groaning in your ear and letting out the prettiest and most vulnerable sounds you’ve ever heard form him. 

The swell of his cock inside you makes you drape your head into his neck, focusing on riding out his orgasm and making sure he was twitching in the aftershocks of his orgasm before you let up. 

When you felt his grip on your hips tighten, signaling that he’d had too much, you sink all the way down one final time and let your body lay limp on his, pulsing cock still filling you up. 

His chest rose and fell harshly with his recovering breaths. You could feel his heartbeat pulsing up through the spot on his neck where your ear laid on his sweaty skin.

Silently awaiting the inevitable tap on the shoulder, the slow pull out and post-sex cleanup process, you try to savor every passing moment. But it doesn’t come. Eddie wraps his arms around your midsection and holds your limp body close to his, letting his cock start to soften inside you. 

You nearly fall asleep like that, all wrapped up in him, until you recognize that you should pee and clean up to avoid a UTI. You slip off of him, and hear a disappointed groan from him. He makes cute grabby hands at you as you cross the room, making you roll your eyes, but something deep inside you flip flops with how sweet he’s being, so caring, so unlike the picture of himself that he had painted for you. 

You give him a wet hand towel to clean up the remnants of your activities, and slip back into bed with him per his insistence. You doze off for a while, until the rising sun peeking through his blinds catches your eye, striking you with the sudden decision to stay and face the music or leave and let it settle. 

You’d already regretted it, but weren’t ready to have the “hey, so I know we had fake boyfriend-girlfriend sex, but I actually really like you so what should we do about that?” conversion with him, so instead you take the cowardly path and tiptoe out of his room in the early morning hours, leaving behind your underwear on his nightside table with a scribbled note saying to call you. Hopefully that was enough of a signal. 

Apparently not,

Days pass, and no call. 

It was all starting to get to your head. While you had gone through the stages of being nervous that you had done something wrong, that he was avoiding you to spare you the rejection, thinking he regretted what had happened and didn’t want to face you, who was so obviously into him it was painful, you’d just now turned a new leaf. Fuck that. If he was too much of a coward to call you, you'd hope he'd at least give you the decency as a friend to tell you the truth, you deserved to be angry, and you deserved a response. 

After stewing in your feelings for longer than felt healthy, you just get in your car and start driving to his trailer. If this all blew up in your face at least you wouldn’t have to keep biting your nails and waiting for the phone to ring. 

Three deep breaths, and a quick moment to gather your thoughts, and suddenly your body acted on instinct, putting the car in park and walking up to pound three concise knocks on his trailer door. 

“Just a second,” he hollered from inside, giving you a few seconds to be stricken with regret for showing up unannounced without a plan on what exactly to say. 

“What do you- oh, y/n,” he was in a pair of plaid pajama pants that hung low on his hips, shirtless and hair still damp from a recent shower, “uh, hey?”

“Oh, hey,” your tone was laced with annoyance, “I left something here last week and I’m here to get it back. If you don’t mind.”

“What- oh,” he’s a second too slow to realize you mean the underwear you had purposefully left behind with that note. The note telling him to call you. Which he never did. 

You were left standing on his porch steps, arms crossed and shooting daggers out of your eyes while he stood there in the doorway, an apparent guilty expression plastered on his face while he rocked back on his heels to buy some time to figure out what to say. 

“You don’t have to invite me inside, if you can just grab them and give them to me, and I’ll be out of your hair,” you say flatly, recognizing if he does as asked then this might be the last time you speak to Eddie Munson. 

“No, no, uh, you should come in,” he steps aside to let you in, “we probably shouldn’t have this conversation on my front steps.”

Avoiding eye contact, feeling an overwhelming mix of anger, confusion, and betrayal, you step inside and don’t make any effort to move into the space. You just stand by the door and give him an expectant look. Either he could go get the underwear, or he could grow a pair and say something to you. 

“I, uh-“ he looked so defeated you started to feel bad for using such a pointed tone, but then you remembered the days and days that passed without hearing from him, “I’m sorry, that I, y’know…”

“Yeah, well I don’t really care if you’re not looking for any post sex recap conversations, because you’re obviously pretty sure of yourself in that department,” the words flew out before your mind could even conjure them up, “but you fucking promised me that you wouldn’t do this, so can I please just have my underwear back and I won’t bother you again.”

He runs a hand through his hair letting out a deep exhale and searching the ceiling for words, “I know, I-“

You cut him off, your thoughts were ripping through you now and you were going to say your piece whether he asked for it or not, “You said you wouldn’t pull this shit with me, but I guess our friendship isn’t substantial enough for you to see me any differently than you do every other girl you throw away after you’ve gotten what you want. You clearly don’t want any more advice and you clearly don’t want to be my friend, so please, just give me my shit so I can go.”

“That’s the fucking thing y/n, of course I don’t want to be your friend,” his gaze still fixed on the ceiling.

At this point you were seconds away from just storming out, letting him keep your underwear as some twisted little trophy for breaking your heart. 

“Yeah, crystal clear Eddie.”

“Being your friend is already hard enough, and I knew this shit was a bad idea, the whole trial-girlfriend thing. But how the fuck was I supposed to say no to that? The girl of my dreams offers to do all this no-strings-attached romantic shit, I’d be the dumbest man alive to turn that down.”

You just give him a blank stare, your scalding anger twisting into a more confused frenzy of bees swarming in the pit of your stomach. Eyebrows pinched together, you just stare at him until he finally makes eye contact with you. 

“And yeah,” he goes on, letting all his words out like a big exhale in the same cadence that you had just hurled all your angry words at his, but his tone was filled with guilt as opposed to rage, “maybe we let it go a little too far, but I would never say no to you, I couldn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t know what the fuck to say to you after, but that’s exactly the reason I’m not good enough for you. The more we kept that fake dating shit up the worse it was gonna get, so I’m sorry, but I can’t keep spending time with you like that, because it’s starting to fucking hurt.”

“Hurt,” you say with a dry laugh, which almost scares him, “YOU’RE hurt? Give me a fucking break Eddie. I know you don’t see me that way. So what, you’re too scared to hurt my feelings? You’re doing a wonderful job, keep it up.”

“What the fuck do you mean, not see you like what?”

“Don’t pretend to be dumb Eddie. When we first met I tried so hard to get your attention, asking you to hang out, and you always blew me off. It’s fine that you don’t want to date me or whatever, but at least just tell me that, don’t fuck me like I’m special or something and then toss me aside. I deserve better than that.”

“Yeah, y/n, you do,” his voice was no longer guilt stricken, and was on the same straightforward plane as your last responses, “you deserve so much fucking better than me, that’s why I could never let anything between us happen. I don’t call girls back. I’m rude. I don’t take care of myself, let alone others. I like to smoke, and drink, and get head from girls in bar bathrooms and never learn their names, and that’s not the kind of person that a girl like you dates. I’m a fun quick fuck. You’re the kind of girl that after three dates he’ll already have a ring picked out. You’re everything, and I’m nothing, so forgive me for sparing you of that.”

Your bones are frozen and the beat of silence gives him the opportunity to spin on his heel and start down the hallway, presumably to get your panties. 

Snapping back into it, you let out a louder than expected, “Hey,” and you start following him, not taking long to catch up to him in his bedroom. 

“You,” you point a finger at him, and start to feel the rage bubble up again, “don’t get to decide that you’re unloveable. And you don’t get to tell me what kind of girl I am. Have you ever considered that maybe the reason you’re so lonely and miserable is because you choose to be? You don’t get to decide what I deserve, I do. And I really fucking like you Eddie, so forgive me for acting like it.” 

You snatch your underwear off his bedside table, and give him a look, not fueled by anger or resentment, but empathy. 

“I’m going to leave. And if you don’t want to see me again, that’s fine, but if you do, you can call me. Goodbye Eddie.”

You feel out of your own body, floating above it all and rewinding the conversation over and over, body on autopilot taking you home while your soul stayed behind and relived his words over and over, unsure if you feel better or worse than when you showed up. 

Days pass by again, and you take his silence as more of a response than anything he had said to you during that conversation. You try not to wallow, but you feel scattered and distraught, at both the prospect of losing Eddie and having to deal with your shared friends, would they allow you to dance around each other, or would they flat out choose him and shut you out? Would group nights out bowling suddenly just turn into the occasional one-on-one coffee with Robin? 

Until suddenly, on a random Tuesday afternoon when you've gotten home from work and are relaxing on the couch in your pajamas, three knocks are at your door.

At this point you figured it was over. He hadn't called and he'd made no effort to continue the dialogue. So a thought of Eddie doesn't even cross your mind in between the couch and opening the door.

And there he is.

In a suit, slightly descheveld in Eddie fashion, and holding a slightly wilting bouquet of flowers. Posture straight and brave face, but expecting your brutal edge upon answering the door nonetheless.

"Hey?" you're somewhat at a loss for words answering.

"Hi," he seems like he's running lines of a play in his mind, "I was hoping we could talk."

You reluctantly let him in, and he hands the flowers to you, as if it was a normal occurrence for him to bring you such a gift.

"First off," he starts, hardly breaching your living room entrance before starting his apology, "I regret the way we last left things, and I'm sorry for leaving you waiting for a response."

He flicks those big brown eyes at you and you can't help but give him the benefit of the doubt, he always was so sincere with his words.

"You're amazing. And although I'll remain adamant that I don't deserve someone like you in my life, I've been thinking a lot about what you said, and I'm sorry that tried to tell you how to feel."

You remain stoic at your seat on the couch, watching him shift his weight and bare his soul to you.

"You're perfect. Nice, funny, sexy, brave, all of it. And if you're willing to give me a chance, I don't know why the fuck you would, but if you are, I want to put aside all my bullshit and try this out, if you'll have me."

He stood there for a moment, letting you take in his request, bouquet in hand and suit adorned.

"And I owe you a few dates, for real."

As hard as you want your exterior to be, a smile cracks through.

"Okay, but know I don't fuck until the third date, at best," you jab, breaking his nervous exterior and visibly relieving the tension from his shoulders.

"I'm somewhat of a refined gentleman myself, so that won't be an issue," he bows and extends a hand to you.

You pull him down by the hand onto the couch with you, wrapping him up in a deep kiss. He was worth it, and you both knew it was worth the shot to try.