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eddiemunsonsmum · 11 months

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Confidential | Eddie Munson x OC

Eddie Munson x Female OC | E.M x Karmen Jones

Summary: A casual conversation leads to Steve accidentally dropping a bomb on Eddie and Karmen's relationship. A secret is revealed that makes Karmen question everything Eddie has ever told her. But... Maybe Eddie has a good reason for keeping this secret.

This fic is part of the She Feels Like Home series but can be read as a standalone. If you want to read in order, it sits between Anticipation and Evie :)

Tags: Angst with a Happy ending, fluff, new friendship, Healing, Fighting, Relationship Issues, Secrets, Deceit, Pregnancy, Money troubles.

Trigger Warnings: (past) Self-Harm, Suicide attempt, Medication talk, Mental Health Issues, Depression, Anxiety, Paranoia, PTSD, DV (domestic violence)

Words: 12.5k

A/N: This is a long one but I think it's worth the read. An important story for them. If you feel so inclided, perhaps read Asst. Steve for a little extra backstory before starting this one. But it's not necessary. (it's been a while since I read it myself so sorry in advance for any contradictions) I hope you guys like it. Please let me know if you do/what you liked! I'll love you forever. 🥰

Karmen stared at the words on the page in front of her with bleary eyes. The letters were fuzzy under her tired gaze. The same paragraph seemed to jump from place to place, making her read it over again for the 5th time. Her chin cradled in her palm, elbow digging into the hardwood of her desk as she tried to make sense of it. Tried to care about the contents of the contract. Resisting the urge to flip to the last page and sign it without reading through carefully.

The ball of her foot pressed repeatedly against the ugly carpet as she jiggled her leg. Her shoes kicked off somewhere under the desk the second she sat down. Swollen feet refusing to take the restriction any longer than they had to.

It had been a long few months since she’d had the ability to concentrate like she used to. Her mind was hazy. Preoccupied with questions and anxieties about the future. Her thoughts were easily distracted by the past… and the scratch of the pen from her office mate.

Her eyes flicked to the man across from her. His ball-point pen moving fast against a spreadsheet. His head swiveled between the paper under one hand and the calculator under the other. The loud tapping of its buttons echoing around the small room and making her eye twitch with each jolting press.

It had only been a few months since she’d met him for the first time. The paid intern that John had promised her all those years ago. The assistant that she was supposed to train to do her job as well as she could.

She had first laid eyes on him in one of the most tumultuous moments of her life. Sitting at her desk with her head in her hands.

He seemed fresh faced and ready to learn which was a welcome change from others she had worked with in the past.

She had grown fond of him since they’d met. He was an anomaly of a man that flip-flopped between happy and excitable to serious and slightly haunted behind the eyes in a way she didn’t understand until recently. He had a sort of Kindergarten teacher aesthetic that made her feel safe in his presence and he had been nothing but friendly and respectful, even in the face of some of her worst days.

They had known each other for a few weeks before the reason for his familiarity became apparent to her. Somehow the stars had not aligned for them until that point and the connection they shared had gone unnoticed until a casual conversation had revealed why they should have known each other much earlier.

Her assistant, Steve. Reformed High School bully and former rich kid. The man that dressed like he was trying to be professional for a room full of 5 year olds.

The gentleman that had the energy of a golden retriever that had been left behind too many times to trust people unconditionally anymore.

He had saved the love of her life.

He was the reason that she still had Eddie. The one that had kept him alive by the skin of his teeth. His calloused hands literally held her love together as he dragged him to the hospital from the site of the car accident that they had both been in.

She had seen him roaming the halls many times while visiting Eddie in the hospital. Passed him one too many times in the cafeteria. Stood with him in the elevator once or twice. At first he had been wearing a hospital gown himself. Limping and nursing bruises that were similar to Eddie’s.

But eventually he had graduated to being a visitor like her.

As it turned out, he had scars that were a little too familiar for comfort as well. But they had been hidden under bandages and then his clothes all the times she’d seen him at the hospital.

She hadn’t actually seen them until he had literally shown her after Eddie had come up in conversation.

Once he was wearing his own clothes again she’d seen him moving in and out of a room down the hall from Ed’s. Sometimes he was carrying food or books and other times he had grocery store flowers that had made her wonder about the person he was visiting.

Now of course, she knew that he had been spending his time with Max. Visiting her every day since his previous employer had fired him for running out on his shift and he had nothing better to do than spend his days at the hospital.

She’d learnt since then that he would visit Eddie too. The fact that they had not run into each other seemed like some kind of strange divine intervention. Although by the time Steve had ceased being a patient, Karmen was only available to visit for an hour at lunch and after work. She supposed there were roughly 7 other visiting hours for him to venture down the hall and into Eddie��s room. What were the odds that they would end up there at the same time with all those hours in a day?

It didn’t matter. They had met in the end and eventually something unmistakable was said that had made it suddenly so obvious to them that they had been talking about the same Eddie for quite some time.

Secrets were accidentally revealed on both sides. The interaction had left Karmen with more questions than ever about what had actually happened in March. While Steve was left reeling over the fact that Eddie had been hiding a lot more from their group of friends than he could have ever anticipated.

Not that he really intended to hide Karmen, per say. He talked about his girlfriend often and when Steve really thought back on it, Eddie had been referring to her as ‘Kam’. The kids liked to joke that she wasn’t real because they’d never met her and Steve was ashamed to say he hadn’t been sure if she was either. After it was brought up that she had stayed with him during his ordeal and Eddie swore up and down that he hadn’t told her anything.

How could anyone that didn’t know the full circumstances, stand by Eddie after everything that went down? Steve had figured he would have too many questions. After All he did have too many questions back in 83 when Nancy started acting strange after Will and Barb disappeared. He had forcefully inserted himself into the situation and the whole trajectory of his life and his understanding of the entire universe had changed in just one night.

It hadn’t taken long after they had discovered that they were talking about the same Eddie for the man to decide to gather their group together as back up while he explained the whole story to Karmen and his Uncle Wayne.

Steve assumed Karmen must have had a lot more questions for Eddie than the ones she had asked him. Maybe he even had a hand in it. Accidentally contradicting something Eddie had told her and poking holes in his web of Government sanctioned lies.

The kids had apparently met Karmen by that time and Dustin seemed more than comfortable diving into the story and answering their questions. The same way he had been when he was telling Eddie about it in Reefer Rick’s boat shed. Steve supposed the kid had been itching to tell someone for years and finally getting to talk about it was some kind of relief for the certified busybody.

But after they had all left to let their new brothers (and sister) in arms, to process the story, there had been some discussion as to why it was necessary for all of them to be present. When Eddie and Dustin were basically the only ones talking the entire time and it was apparent from the get go that there was no persuading Eddie to not tell the story. They were confused as to why he didn’t just do it privately.

Dustin had immediately jumped in and started making excuses. Giving reasons that ranged from ‘maybe he just needed the moral support’ to ‘well it was a pretty crazy story, the more people telling it the easier it is to believe!’.

Steve had realized after the first excuse that like him, Dustin knew the real reason and he seemed to be the only one.

Steve’s boss John had at some point early on in his employment, let slip that Karmen was going to be late because her boyfriend was in the hospital.

He hadn’t pried for information from John. But perhaps he should have instead of doing what he actually did. Because when Karmen showed up for work later it was obvious that things were serious and he wasn’t able to keep himself from making a comment about ‘hoping everything was alright.’

He hadn’t really expected her to say anything. They didn’t know each other that well and it wasn’t his business. But she had shocked both him and herself by bursting into tears.

She’d gone on a tangent about how she had been doing everything she could for weeks now to keep her partner happy and help him heal from the accident he’d had earlier in the year. But she was realizing at that moment that it wasn’t enough and she was scared it was never going to be enough after everything that had happened.

She had finally started to feel safe leaving him alone and on only the second night out of hundreds spent together, he had tried to kill himself.

After she calmed down she apologized for trauma dumping and admitted that she didn’t know if Eddie had actually tried to kill himself or if it was just a bad habit that had gone too far.

That was the excuse…

Regardless, he had been getting worse lately and she was already worried about him before that happened. He was seeing and talking to people that weren’t there. He was incredibly sick and needed to spend some time with professionals, away from her coddling.

She had worked from home for a bit after Eddie returned from the hospital. Until he was doing well enough on his new medications for her to go back to work properly.

She refused to let him stay in her house alone until he’d mostly stopped showing signs of his depression. Before that she made him stay with a sleeping Uncle Wayne during the day unless he could prove to her that he had friends to hang out with.

She hadn’t even considered the fact that Tuesdays and Thursdays, Steve’s days off, were always the easiest for Eddie to find someone to chill with.

So yes. As the original gang had driven away from the trailer that night after a long day of nodding along to Eddie’s story and Nancy had asked very frankly why they all had to be there…. Steve already knew the answer.

Because they wouldn’t believe him alone.

He’d kept it to himself. Figuring that if Eddie wanted to bring up his own business with the group, he could. But it wasn’t his story to tell. If Dustin Henderson could manage to defend Eddie’s honor while still keeping his secret, then it was more than clear it wasn’t Steve’s place to spill it.

In the present, Karmen watched the man across from her stare blankly at his work for an extended period of time. The calculator clicking that had been driving her up the wall had stopped at some point and she held back a smirk as she wondered what he was thinking so deeply about.

He did that sometimes. She’d noticed it pretty early on but never brought it up because she recognized the behavior.

Eddie did it too.

Just… Pausing in whatever they were doing to think hard. Their eyes going dark and brows furrowed. Before without warning, they snapped out of it and went about their day seemingly without realizing they had even stopped.

She understood now why that was. She couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps she did it too and didn’t even realize.

The irony.

Yeah. It had been a weird few months. She had just started to come to terms fully with everything that had happened to Eddie when she was suddenly bombarded with the fact that almost none of it was true.

The real story was… Unbelievable to say the least. Life changing and utterly terrifying in every way, to say more.

Again she worked to progress the new information. Starting to wrap her head around alternate dimensions, evil monsters, government experiments and girls with superpowers. Only to realize once she had begun to let that knowledge sit as her knew normal, that perhaps it wasn’t the strange situation she was caught up in that was making her feel nauseous on the daily.

She was pregnant.

More than three months pregnant, to be a little more exact.

Now she was trying to navigate something else. Something that she had always desperately wanted but now she was finally getting to experience it properly, it was under the new light that the world was not safe and Hawkins at the very least could be destroyed at any moment.

They had all assured her repeatedly that Vecna was gone and nothing would ever come of the entire ordeal again. But she wasn’t sure. How was she supposed to believe them when she was just finding out about it all for the first time months after it happened? The way she saw it, for all they knew Vecna was back and plotting and it wasn’t until some teen turned up dead and mangled that they would realize it was happening again.

That’s what happened the last time right? How Eddie had ended up involved.

Karmen pushed away from her desk suddenly. She needed to get out of this room for a bit before she spiraled and the bad thoughts suffocated her and her baby.

She felt like she understood fully at this point how Eddie had become so mentally unwell. A part of her was scared she was heading down the same path. Pregnancy hormones making her feel all of her emotions, good and bad in a way she never had before. So smothering and strong that when she was sad, she felt her heart was about to rip out of her chest. When she was happy, her heart ached so good, felt so full that she worried it would burst and when she was angry… Well, a small, irrational part of her worried she could kill someone by accident.

So she needed to leave the room. She wasn’t angry with Steve at all, let alone for doing his job. But if she had to listen to the little tappy tap of the keys for another second she thought she might act unprofessionally and the calculator would end up in the parking lot.

Turns out during pregnancy was not an ideal time for her to start sharing an office for the first time in her life.

She picked up her empty coffee cup as she tried to slip her shoes back on without bending down. Ultimately giving up as she twisted herself, her pregnant belly knocking over her pen holder and making her throw her head back in frustration as the pens scattered across her desk and the sound of scraping plastic filled the room. She closed her eyes, taking a calming breath to stop the flow of tears that came a little too easily to her these days. The small inconvenience set her on edge in a way it never would pre-pregnancy.

“Oopsies.” Said the kind man across from her. As if he was talking to a small child. An exclamation that usually would have rubbed her the wrong way, somehow calming the rage that swirled just under the surface of her skin when accompanied by the gesture of him jumping to his feet to help her. He leaned across the desk, picking up the pens he could reach and straightening the holder she had knocked over with a smile on his face as she looked down at him with an exasperated frown.

It was hard to be annoyed by someone that was so damn cheerful all the time. Even if the way he eyed her swollen belly inexplicably made her heart speed up and her throat dry.

“Steve.” She said with all the kindness she could muster. “You really don’t have to do that.”

“Oh, it’s no problem.” The man replied, slipping back to his side of the desk and sitting back down. One large hand came up to his face to readjust the clear rimmed glasses he wore. “My job’s to make your life easier right?” He asked with a chuckle as Karmen raised a brow at the statement.

“I guess that’s what it boils down to.” She laughed softly as he gave her a smile before returning to his work. The tapping of his fingers on the calculator, somehow less annoying now that she had smiled for the first time today.

“You want a coffee?” She asked as she made her way to the door barefoot. The seams of her stockings catching on the carpet and making her hesitate to touch the doorknob, knowing she was probably statically charged.

“No thanks.” Steve answered, looking up again and staring for a moment as if he wanted to say something but deciding against it.

He watched as her hand reached the doorknob and she yanked it back quickly as the unmistakable tick of someone being shocked by static electricity sounded around the room. Karmen muttered under her breath before trying again and finally managing to leave the room without incident.

Steve had been going to offer to make her coffee for her. But the irritation on her face was easy to see for someone that had spent a lot of time with her in the last few months. He could make out the lines in her forehead and the way her jaw was set tight without having to ask if she was struggling.

He’d decided against offering his service, instead letting her make her excuse to leave the office for a bit and potentially catch a break from concentrating. He doubted she even really wanted the coffee.

He was surprised she was still working at this point. She was well into her second trimester and it was pretty clear she wasn’t enjoying it as much as Eddie was. She had apparently skipped out on most of the unlucky experiences in the first trimester like severe morning sickness and food aversions. She’d felt a little yucky a few times but chalked it up to everything else going on before she realized the real reason.

But now that she was getting further along it seemed as though she was going to get the shitty end of the stick with every other mid to late term pregnancy symptom hitting her at once.

Steve continued to work silently as Karmen took her unscheduled break. Not saying a damn word about how long it should take to make a coffee when she ambled back in fifteen minutes later.

He was getting pretty good at his job. Didn’t need much instruction anymore and apart from actually speaking to clients, he could handle nearly all aspects competently.

He was going to start shadowing Karmen in all the client related things in the next few weeks and the plan was to hand off at least a quarter of the accounts for him to take care of directly. That way when Karmen left for her maternity leave, John wouldn’t suddenly be saddled with a full client load as well as his other work.

Steve was able to do simple calculations for them. But they had another accountant on the books for all the important parts that you needed a degree for, when Karmen needed time off. They both knew that John didn’t like paying the asshole almost double what he paid Karmen but he had repeatedly told her to take all the time she could. He wouldn’t have missed those first few weeks of bonding time with Jack for the world.

Steve only worked three days a week at that moment. But when Karmen left he was going on full time for the duration of her leave. He was pretty confident in his ability to do at least most of the job and everyone he worked with was really nice and always super happy to assist his learning. He’d never felt dumb in this office the way he did at his other jobs.

Which was ironic really. Because this was definitely the most complicated and professional job he’d ever held.

He watched as Kam slumped back down into her chair with an almost empty coffee cup. The single leg on the only office chair creaking under her added weight and making her scoff. She hadn’t gotten that big. It was just a shitty old chair.

“Hey.” Steve called, grabbing her attention before she started working. “When do you start your leave again?” He asked casually, making a mental note of the current date. Even if he was confident in his ability to do the job, he was nervous about being alone for the first few days until he really got the hang of it. So he wanted to make sure he had learnt everything he could from her before she left.

“Well, I would have liked to just not come back after the New Year break but I don’t think I’m going to have a choice.” Karmen answered, a little bit of bitterness in her tone that was almost overshadowed by her light-heartedness.

“Why’s that?” Steve asked, confused. He was pretty sure she was due in early February. “I thought you were allowed to go a month early.” He added, counting the months on his fingers.

Karmen smiled as he tapped each of his finger tips one by one.

He was a cutie.

Not in a ‘she thought he was attractive and could date him’ kind of way. More of a ‘younger brother that tries his best and makes you laugh a lot’ type of way.

He was a good friend to her and more importantly, to Eddie.

“Well, I can go a month early.”She explained with a shrug, straightening up the pens Steve had replaced earlier before she left the room. “But I mean, I’m going to be off for 18 weeks and…” She paused. “It’s supposed to be completely unpaid leave. John’s giving me a small amount each week out of the goodness of his heart and it also probably has a little to do with not wanting me to starve or start staking out his house at dinner time.” She chuckled. “But, I can't really afford to take 18 weeks off , even if I’m getting paid a little bit. I need this wage… I’ve already taken so much time with Eddie’s recovery and that whole…” She paused again, rolling her hand at the wrist. “Thing.” She settled on. Not really feeling like reliving the whole ‘monsters exist’ discussion.

“Yeah… I get that.” Steve replied with a shrug. Frowning at nothing in particular as he thought on what she had said.

“Don’t sound like you do…” Karmen replied, her eyes narrowed in a playful way.

Former rich kid. Still lived with his parents even if his allowance had been cut off. She doubted he truly understood what it was like to worry about paying for the roof over your head. Let alone the roof over 3 heads. One of them very tiny, new to the world and completely dependant.

“No, I… I understand, like in theory.” Steve laughed, his eyes refocusing on her when she spoke. “It’s just…” He paused again, shaking his head, it really wasn’t his place to ask but he was curious as hell. “What about the Hush-Money?” He wondered aloud, shrugging to make it seem as nonchalant as he could.

He’d kind of assumed they would be using it to buy baby stuff but Karmen was telling him a couple of days before that she was stressed about affording it all. It made him wonder what they had done with it or planned to do in the future.

He’d wanted to ask during that conversation but didn’t have the balls.

Karmen’s face contorted at the question and made him realize in a moment that he would later lay awake and think about for years to come, his mistake.

He should have listened to his gut. He backtracked as quickly as he could. The last thing he needed was for his boss to think he was judging her about her financial choices.

“I mean! If you guys are saving it or have already spent it or whatever… Like it’s not my place to ask questions like that.” He stammered. Unable to stop himself from diving into trying to explain his prying. “I was just thinking like, surely it’s enough for you to rest for a bit.” He chuckled uneasily as the woman across from him furrowed her brows. “But again, it’s not my place!” He said quickly, picking up his pen and trying his hardest to seem interested in the spreadsheet he’d abandoned so he would stop fucking talking. “I shouldn’t have asked, sorry.” He added, desperate to try and make it right and wishing he could shut up.

The silence in the room was absolutely deafening. He tried to fill it with a silent scream that was only inside his head.

“What Hush-Money?” Karmen asked softly, her tone calm like the ocean before a storm.

Steve felt his blood run cold at the question. His eyes wide as he studied the paper under his gaze before slowly lifting his head to look at his co-worker. Her face was stoic. Her head tilted in question as she waited patiently for him to answer her.

“The um…” He began to answer, his voice giving out. His throat was suddenly incredibly dry. He stopped to swallow. “The Hush-Money from the Government…” He continued as she blinked at him and waited for more. “You know for… The whole…” He paused again, rolling his hand at the wrist as she had done earlier. “Thing.”

Karmen’s narrowed eyes bored into his soul. Her expression unreadable as she studied him thoroughly. Steve thought she might be trying to figure out if he was pulling her leg.

Hadn’t Eddie mentioned it? He’d brought it up with Steve and their other friends quietly after he’d been released from the hospital. Wanting to know if they’d received similar sums and what they’d told their families about it.

Had they told their families? If they did, did the government know? Were they allowed to keep the money?

They had all received something from the government at one time or another. But none of them had received an amount quite as large as what Eddie was given.

They supposed that was to be expected though. With the whole ‘being forced to momentarily take the heat for a murder he didn’t commit that was actually due to their government experiments’ thing. Not to mention the fact that the entire town has been gunning for his demise and if Steve was honest, hadn’t really stopped even after Eddie was proved innocent.

He deserved to take the money and start fresh somewhere else. He had been surprised when he didn’t.

Eddie was also the first of the teens to actually receive his money quickly after his incident. Due to the fact that he was already a legal adult when his dalliance with the Upside Down began.

Unless, like Will, El and Jonathan, their parents were involved and could be in charge of it for them; none of them had been allowed to actually have access to their money until they turned eighteen.

Robin and Nancy had only just become entitled to theirs before the debacle back in March. Luckily around the same time they had both started working new jobs. So having some pocket money wasn’t suspicious to their parents.

Steve obviously hadn’t mentioned it to his parents and his story was similar. He turned eighteen and graduated around the same time. His Father forced him into a job at Scoops Ahoy when he didn’t get into College. So being able to buy his own food and gas was not suspicious to them he guessed.

Although he had been keeping his money safe in savings. Spending the income from his job on necessities and thinking about maybe moving out now that Robin had graduated and could work full time, they could look for a place together.

But Eddie…

It occurred to Steve as he met Karmen’s icy stare that the other man had not brought up the money again after his initial questions. He had kind of just assumed when Eddie never left town that he was using it to help Wayne out. Maybe dipping into it to buy weed every now and then.

But that was before Steve had even realized that Eddie had a girlfriend. Let alone the fact that he basically lived with her already at that point and she didn’t know about the Upside Down.

He hadn’t really thought about the money again with the new context he had for Eddie’s life until Karmen announced her pregnancy. Then he had just assumed that naturally, she knew and would be using it to buy the things they needed for the baby as well as taking some much needed time off after bub was born.

But he was realizing now, under her questioning gaze, that he had assumed wrong.

He had fucked up and Good Lord he hoped it didn’t cost him his job… or his friendship with Eddie.

He’d actually become quite fond of the metalhead since their ordeal.

“Right.” Karmen said calmly, finally looking away and picking at her long nails as she thought. “That.” She added after a second of contemplation. Whether to feign knowledge she didn’t have to make herself and Eddie look better or to avoid referring to the money as it was some kind of sore spot between them, Steve wasn’t sure.

There was a silence in the room that Steve felt he could cut with a knife. Regret seeped deep into his bones as he tried to force himself to look away from his friend. But his eyes wouldn’t listen and his tender heart was so desperate to try and make things better. His mouth moving faster than his brain as he asked:

“Did he not tel-“

“Nope.” Karmen answered abruptly, cutting him off and making him snap his mouth shut. “Not a word.” She said in a tone he couldn’t distinguish.

Hurt, frustration, indifference… He wasn’t sure.

“Oh.” He breathed, unable to force himself to say anything else even as she pushed herself away from her desk again.

“Excuse me.” She said flatly, slipping her shoes on without incident this time and snatching her handbag and keys from the empty chair beside her that Eddie sometimes occupied.

Steve watched her go. His face hot and his heart racing as he saw her from the window, get into her car turn out of the gate in the direction of her house.

Oh shit…

Eddie’s slippery hands grappled with the volume knob on his radio. The wet rubber gloves he wore making it slide against his fingers as he struggled to turn the music down and he sat still to listen.

The phone was ringing.

He pushed himself away from the bathroom sink he had been scrubbing and rushed towards the landline in the living room. He grumbled to himself when it stopped ringing on his way down the hall. The message Karmen left for callers on her answering machine concluded as he entered the room, ripping off a glove and dumping it on the coffee table as he tried to catch the caller as they were leaving a message.

But the person on the other end hung up right after the beep, not realizing Eddie was currently lifting the phone to his face.

He sighed to himself. Placing the phone back down and waiting a minute or so to see if they would call back right away and when they didn’t he foolishly walked away. Replacing the glove and returning to his task. He was again on the other side of the house, when the shrill sound of the receiver rang out.

He knew he wouldn’t make it. Not bothering to rush this time but instead taking off his gloves for a second time and walking causally back to the living room. The beep of the answering machine sounding right as he entered the room. So he stood with his hands on his hips, waiting to see if they would leave a message and rolling his eyes when they didn’t.

“Telemarketer.” He mumbled under his breath.

Anyone that actually wanted to talk to him or was calling about something important, left a message to let them know with a number to call back if they didn’t already have it.

While he did enjoy fucking with telemarkerts sometimes, he wasn’t in the mood right now. It had taken him hours to work up the energy to clean the bathroom and he wanted to go back to it before his brain told him it was okay to quit half-way through.

He returned to the sink for the second time. Turning up the volume on his radio and pretending stubbornly that he could not hear it when the phone began to ring for the third time.

It wasn’t until the fourth call a couple of minutes later that the thought crossed his mind that something might be wrong. Even if it was a telemarketer, 4 calls in 10 minutes was a lot of traffic for their telephone.

He took a moment to appreciate that his meds were working as he realized that a few weeks prior he would not have been able to walk away. Danger and bad things would have been his first thoughts when he missed a call.

He resigned himself now to figuring this out. Suddenly it was more interesting than the bathroom could ever be. He turned off the radio. Dumping his gloves in the bottom of the shower with the vague internal promise that he would eventually return and clean it later... If he ever finished the sink.

It was as he was exiting the room that the landline began to ring for the fifth time in a row. Eddie’s heart speeding up as he broke into a jog up the hall.

He would definitely make it this time, thank God. He was starting to feel that familiar niggling in his tummy that told him something was awry.

But the ringing stopped just as quickly as it had begun and he had barely made it to the end of the hallway.

“God dammit!” He exclaimed as he realized he had somehow missed it again despite being closer than ever. Rounding the corner he stopped in surprise as he laid eyes on Karmen, holding the receiver to her ear. Her eyes cold as she fixed him with a look he’d never seen on her before and she spoke into the phone.

“Stop calling Steve.”

Karmen couldn’t help but wonder if the drive home was the longest she’d ever experienced or if it just felt that way in the moment.

Despite how little she remembered now from the week that Eddie was missing, she very vividly remembered the drive to the trailer park on that Saturday morning in late March. After seeing on the news that a Hawkin’s High student had been murdered, alongside a quick video of Wayne’s trailer, cordoned off with police tape..

It was a memory that played over and over again in her dreams. The sickness in her stomach as John’s silver Ford caught every single red light across town. The electric feeling of wanting to crawl out of her own skin had her tearing at her seatbelt, unable to breath and when she did, it came out in unintelligible cries due to the belief that she was being driven to visit her boyfriend’s murder site.

The realty of the situation was somehow worse.

It wasn’t Eddie that had died. But supposedly, Eddie, that had caused someone else to die.

She hadn’t believed it. Not for a second. Eddie wasn’t someone that could be so purposefully deceitful as to hide that dark part of himself so well. He wasn’t a malicious person, even though the shitty hand he had been dealt in life would lead most others down that path.

At least, that was what she had believed wholeheartedly until roughly 10 minutes earlier. When the revelation that her love, the one she had been doting on for months now, had received a hefty sum from the government for his silence and even after deciding to break that silence, he hadn’t mentioned it to her.

Keeping it to himself while she missed work and paid for his food and gas. He hadn’t brought it up when she’d been panicking about how far her savings has dwindled with all her time off.

Time off because of him.

He didn’t have anything to say when she had opened up to him about being scared they weren’t going to be able to afford a baby and all the expensive things that come hand in hand with a little bundle of joy.

Karmen hadn’t been quite this mad in a very long time. The slimy feeling of mistrust curling up in her throat and wrapping around her neck in a way that was suffocating.

Memories of finding out that passed partners had cheated on her flashed before her eyes as she swore out loud at what felt like the 50th red light.

Eddie hadn’t cheated… That she was aware of. But then again she had taken him at face value on that as well. Believed his story about the Queen of Hawkins High wanting to buy drugs from him without asking too many questions.

If Steve was right about the Hush-Money and Eddie had kept it from her, who knew what other kind of nefarious secrets he could be keeping to himself.

She finally pulled up in her driveway next to the beat up old van that she’d paid to service after her and Wayne collected it from where Eddie had ‘hidden’ it on the night he went missing. He’d thought he left it out of the way enough but obviously someone had recognized it in the hunt for him because the windscreen was shattered and there were nasty words spray painted all over the sides and back window.

She’d had it fixed before Eddie saw it. Wayne had offered to cover half the cost but she knew he couldn’t afford it at that moment and she had chosen to do it so she refused. When Wayne had accidentally let it slip that she had done that, Eddie had been so apologetic. He had offered to pay her back but he couldn’t afford it either and again she had chosen to do it for him.

At least she had thought he couldn’t afford it. Figured that if she didn’t do it then he would probably barely scrape together enough cash to get the windscreen replaced and then be forced to drive around town with all the vandalism calling attention to who he was.

She didn’t want that for him.

It had been a gift of sorts. One of necessity rather than blatant generosity. Regardless she didn’t rationally expect him to ever pay her back for it and she wasn’t about to bring it up. But that didn’t stop her blood boiling when she laid eyes on the patches of paint that were ever so slightly a different hue. Didn’t stop her wanting to slam her car door as hard as she could at the thought of all the money she forked out for him when he was apparently sitting pretty on more money than she’d ever had or could hope to have in her life while paying for them both to live with savings she’d been accumulating for years before she even met him.

She didn’t slam her door. Instead, holding up the handle to lessen the sound of the door click as she closed it quietly. The broken trust she held tight in her chest had her resorting to her old ways. Sneaking into her own home as quietly as she could on the off chance it would expose the truth to her.

She heard the phone ringing as she headed towards the house. Grumbling to herself as she realized Eddie would probably answer it and therefore not only see her coming home but be occupied when she finally came face to face with him and wanted to ask her questions.

But to her surprise the answering machine picked up as she reached the door and the phone on the other line clicked off as soon as the beep sounded.

Weird.

She thought to herself as she unlocked the door as quietly as she was able. Weird that they didn’t leave a message. Weird that Eddie hadn’t run for it, thinking it was her.

What the hell is he doing?

She asked herself as she pushed open the door.

She didn’t know what she had expected to see when she walked inside. Perhaps Eddie in swim trunks atop a diving board, ready to jump headfirst into a large pile of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck.

Maybe she half expected him to be rolling around on the floor in a pile of hundred dollar bills. High out of his mind on whatever expensive drug that kind of money could buy.

But instead he was nowhere in sight and the somber sound of blues hit her ears, coming from somewhere at the other end of the house.

She stood in the doorway for a moment. Frowning at nothing before kicking off her shoes and gently pulling the door closed behind her.

Suddenly the drive home didn’t feel long enough. She’d had all that time to think and instead of working out a way to play this, she’d lamented the past and made up new things to be mad about.

Now here she was, tiptoeing around the hardwood to stop it from creaking as she tried to decide how to go about it. Her stockings catching on the uneven wood as she thought on whether or not to do what she kind of wanted to deep down and shout his name so he came running with large eyes and pale face or to go to him and greet him gently. Pull him into an embrace and whisper in his ear that he’d better start talking.

Quickly.

Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t afforded the time to decide before the decision was made for her. The damn landline ringing out and scaring the crap out of her. She jumped in place looking over at it with dark eyes as if it would stop under her glare alone.

It didn’t and she realized as she unconsciously walked towards it that the radio had stopped as well. Eddie‘s heavy footsteps heading towards her from down the hall as she sped up and snatched the receiver before he could enter the room.

If one of them was going to be occupied it was going to be her.

She pressed it to her ear without speaking. Her partner’s exclamation making her look towards the hall. She locked eyes with him as he rounded the corner. A frantic voice suddenly in her ear.

“Eddie!” Steve shouted through the receiver. “Thank God you finally answered!” He laughed out, the relief in his tone palpable.

Silence and then:

“Stop calling Steve.”

Eddie watched as the phone call he had been trying to catch was unceremoniously ended. The handset slammed back down onto the cradle in a way that seemed perhaps a tad aggressive.

“Hey…” He greeted her, surprised to see her there. His eyes slid slowly away from her as she straightened herself. Settling on the clock on the wall beside them that told him it was only 2pm. She wasn’t supposed to finish work for another couple of hours and he knew that with how hungry she’d been lately, she had absolutely already eaten lunch at 12 on the dot. “What are you doing here?” He asked with a shrug. The wrong thing to say, he realized as her eyes narrowed at him.

“What am I doing here?” She repeated. “In my own house? Where I live?” She asked, making him recoil slightly at the hostility in her tone. “Sorry, should I have warned you I was coming home?” She continued, tilting her head.

“Uh…” Eddie hesitated, unsure how to respond. “N-no…” He stammered, shaking his head at the same time she nodded at the correct response. “I mean… I just meant… Like, it’s not…” He gestured vaguely at the clock. Suddenly unable to find his words under her unwavering stare.

“I decided to clock out early.” She explained, intentionally vague. She crossed her arms and looked him up and down. He was wearing his favorite black jeans, ripped at the knees and an old hellfire tee that was just plain white with rolled sleeves instead of the raglan style 3/4s.

There was a bleach stain starting to form on the hem of it and his face was dewy with sweat, cheeks rosy.

He had been cleaning. She realized, guilt punching at her chest as she regretted the way she’d just accosted him. Trust issues from the past having her half expecting him to be mid make-out with some random girl he’d met at the mall or a bar. As if Eddie ever went anywhere alone these days other than the drug store. More specifically, as if he ever went anywhere without her.

“Okay.” Eddie replied softly, twirling one of his rings around his finger with his other hand as he waited for her to say something else. To figure out if he’d done something wrong or if she was just in a bad mood because this pregnancy was kicking her ass.

Karmen sighed aloud as she watched him fiddle with his ring. The sweet man she loved and trusted because he was wonderful and kind, showing himself without him even trying or knowing that he was supposed to be trying.

He was a good person at heart and all accusations she had wanted to make the second she laid eyes on him... All the questions swirling in her mind as to why he would ever hide something like this from her seemed so silly as she studied the way he shuffled on his feet. Waiting for more information.

Karmen moved from her place in the living room, if only to tear her eyes away from him and give him a second to recover his words.

He would need them.

She headed for the kitchen. Pouring herself a glass of water and walking around to sit on one of the bar stools there as she sipped at it. Waiting for him to come closer. Ask a question. Go back to cleaning. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from him but she would know if he didn’t do it.

Eddie moved closer like a hunter afraid he was going to spook a deer. Taking his time to cross the room and slowly pulling out the stool next to hers to sit on. Not game enough to actually speak unless she blew up at him again. He wanted to know what Steve had called for but he could tell she wasn’t in the mood to answer that question right now.

He didn’t have to speak, as it happened. She turned to him, swiveling herself in her seat so she was facing him. The clink of her glass settling on the counter caught his attention as she placed her hands in her lap and fixed him with a serious expression.

“I have something to ask you.” She said calmly. Eddie’s interest piqued as he matched her and swiveled in his own chair to face her properly. “You only have one chance to answer me honestly, Eddie.” She said, voice thick with emotion. “I will find out if you don’t. So take it, okay?”

“Uh, okay.” He answered quickly, his voice cracking. He felt his gut twist at the implication. He frowned at her with worried eyes for a long second before he nodded profusely when she didn’t speak again, his hands coming out with the intent of holding hers but he changed his mind at the last second. Instead placing them on her knees as he ducked his head to look deeply into her eyes with his own fearful orbs. Encouraging her to continue with a raise of his brows.

It had been about 1.5 seconds since he’d verbally answered her but it felt like eternity as he watched and waited. He had no idea what she was going to ask. The irrational part of his brain screaming that it might be something obscure and he might not know the answer or couldn’t remember. That he could accidentally lie. Then she would find out eventually and leave him because he was an idiot with a bad memory that didn’t understand the important question.

“Were you given money by the government in exchange for your silence on the whole… Upside Down thing?” She asked carefully. Making sure to word it in a way that left no room for misinterpretation. It was a simple, yes or no question and she asked it slowly, enunciating her words to eliminate nearly all possibility for him to misunderstand.

Eddie’s eyes widened as she spoke. The look on his face was honestly enough of an answer for her. Everything in her shouting that he had to leave. That he had done the one thing she told him she would never tolerate. Her mind was screaming:

Lies, deceit, broken trust.

It was done.

Over.

After everything they’d been through.

Eddie’s blood ran cold. His clammy hands recoiling from her body as if she’s burned him. He held them in his own lap. Wringing them together as he opened his mouth to speak but no words came out.

Okay, so he did know the answer to that particular question.

His blood was rushing in his ears and his vision was a little fuzzy. The anger and betrayal in her eyes still visible through his blurred vision as he finally managed to force a sound from deep in his throat.

“Yes.” He answered honestly. Barely a word, more of a squeak. He opened his mouth again to explain but she was already moving. Slipping off the stool and trying to walk passed him.

Eddie tried so desperately to explain. Rambling quickly about secrets, NDAs and not being sure how or when to tell her because he had plans.

His hurried mumbling made little sense to anyone but himself and was being ignored as Karmen tried to leave but suddenly she stopped and couldn’t move any further. A good thing for Eddie as he continued to talk even though his mind was cloudy, he couldn’t hear himself properly and his vision was swimming so hard with panic that he wasn’t even really sure if he was standing or sitting or walking with her. Just that she was in front of him right now and that meant he could keep trying to explain himself because he had fucked up and she was going to leave him.

She was standing in place and now she was yelling at him. Words that he couldn't hear over the sound of his heartbeat in his ears and his own voice babbling. He was talking over her shouting.

His words were back, they were loud and none of them were making sense.

“Let me go!” Karmen suddenly screamed with all her might, both of her palms shoving him hard in the chest and snapping him out of his trance-like state. Making him realize to his horror that the reason she hadn’t walked away was because he had been holding her there by her shoulders.

He pulled his hands away immediately. Unsure when or how that had happened. The last thing he remembered about his body was that he was sitting on the stool with his hands in his lap. Now they were standing a few steps away from the kitchen. Karmen was breathing hard, hands wrapped protectively across her belly as she glared up at him with an unreadable expression.

Hate?

He wondered, taking a few steps back from her and choking on a sob as he saw it for what it really was.

Fear…

She was scared of him.

“Fuck…” He breathed brokenly. Looking at her from head to toe and swallowing thickly as she seemed to loosen up at his distance. “I… I’m sorry.” He stuttered. “I- shit… I’m so sorry.” He whispered hurriedly. Holding his hands up in surrender as he took another step back from her. “I-I didn’t…” He stuttered. “I don’t…” He tried again, his mouth snapping shut as realization washed over him.

This was done.

He’d finally fucked it up bad enough.

“I-I, think I need some space right now.” Karmen said softly. Eddie not missing the way she stammered on the first word. His heart clenched, knowing from experience that even if he hadn’t physically hurt her, he had brought back the times that someone else did.

“I’m so sorry.” Eddie repeated. Knowing it was fruitless. “I-I just w-wanted to explain.” He murmured, shaking his head as he tore his gaze away from her. “I didn’t think you were going to listen, I…” He paused, frowning at his own feet. “I don’t know what happened. Did I… Did I hurt you?” He ground out, screwing his eyes shut as he waited for the response. Not sure he would be able to ever look her in the eyes again if he did.

“No.” Karmen answered honestly, her voice hoarse from the scream she had let forth. He hadn’t hurt her. Barely restrained her. She could have easily pulled herself from his grip. But the way he had leapt up from the seat and barreled after her had been all too familiar. She had braced herself for his hands to fall onto more than her shoulders and he was raving like an absolute madman. Clearly not hearing or seeing her when she asked for him to let her go. Her fight or flight had been activated and today it seemed she had no regard for her own safety because the response was fight. “Just scared me.” She admitted, sliding her tongue around her mouth as she tried to get rid of the dryness.

She eyed the water she had put down on the counter. Taking a step towards it and feeling guilty as Eddie practically flew out of her way. Giving her a bubble of personal space that was large enough to house a cow.

She picked up the cup, draining the contents and putting it back down before turning to face him again. One hand came to her face to wipe at her lips with the back of it while the other absently caressed her swollen stomach.

Eddie’s eyes were drawn to the gesture. Finally giving out to the burning as tears welled in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks.

“Did… Did I hurt… her?” He asked, broken and full of pain.

“No.” Karmen answered again simply. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes at Eddie’s insistence that the baby was a girl despite having no evidence to back up the claim. “You didn’t hurt either of us.” She reiterated, as he slumped against the back of the couch. Face in his hands.

She hated that she wanted to comfort him. That every instinct inside of her was telling her to cross the room and hold this man while he processed the mildly terrible thing he’d done.

But the small squeak of an answer to her question was still in the back of her mind. The confirmation that Steve was right and Eddie had been hiding something huge from her for a long time now. She would have understood if he was going to keep the entire situation a secret that he took to his grave. But he had finally caved and told her what happened. Gotten everyone involved in it and sat them down for an entire damn day to explain the intricacies of other dimensions and monsters.

He’d already broken his promise to the government and the only reasons she could think of for him not telling her about the money were that either he was worried that they would find out he broke his end of the deal and take it away anyway or he was simply never going to tell her because he just didn’t want to. The money was his. Not hers and not theirs. She wasn’t entitled to any of it and she knew that rationally. It wasn’t about the money. It was about the fact that he kept it from her and let her stress about the financial side of their future while he hoarded gold like a greedy little Leprechaun. If he really cared for her, shouldn’t he want to ease her burden in the same way she always strived to do for him? It made her wonder if maybe he didn’t care for her in the way she thought or that he might not be planning his future with her in it. Which, when she was growing his child inside her body, was a terrifying thought.

“What were you trying to explain?” She asked as calmly as she could manage, taking pity on him and crossing her arms over her chest. She watched as he pulled his hands away from his face. Putting them back momentarily to scrub away his tears before he looked over at her with heartbroken eyes.

“A-about t-the money.” He stammered. Shoulders shaking as his breath hitched a few times on a large inhaled sniff. “Why I d-didn’t tell you yet.” He elaborated. Rubbing at his cheek irately as he tried to stop the tears from replacing themselves.

“Why?” She asked simply. Watching as he tried to answer, his lip trembling.

She loved him so much. Didn’t want to leave him. Didn’t want to end it and raise a baby alone. In a broken family like Eddie had always feared for his future children.

But she’d been here before and it had ended in a restraining order and changed locks.

It was strange to her now, to think that those months after her last breakup had been some of the most trying of her life... Before she met Eddie and he decided to one up her ex by dying. Not really, but she believed he had. Then he murdered someone… But also, not really. Then he went missing. Came back and ‘died’ again in Dustin’s arms. Then miraculously, he was alive once more. A medical marvel. He should have died, all the doctors told him and damned if he didn’t try. Having a psychotic breakdown and unceremoniously trying to off himself after he was mostly healed up.

She had stuck by him through all of it.

Now… This.

She had lived what felt like a lifetime with Eddie. She barely remembered what she had been mad at her ex about at this point until it was brought to the forefront of her mind in several different trauma responses brought on by Eddie’s crappy actions.

The lying. The holding her in place.

He had fucked up hard and he had one chance to give her a damn good reason for his behaviour before she did to him what she had done to Alec. Called a friend to come and watch over her while she packed his essentials and chucked him out on his ass.

“I um… I wanted to tell you right away after you learnt… Everything.” He began to explain, voice wavering in pitch and tone. “But um…” He took a deep breath. His leg jigging against the floor nervously as he hugged his body and looked away from her. “I… I kind of already…” He trailed off, sighing aloud and resting his head in his hands once more.

“You spent it?” Karmen asked in disbelief. Her mouth falling open in shock as Eddie uncovered his face and refused to look at her. “On what?!” She exclaimed, unable to help it. There wasn’t a single thing she could imagine that he could have possibly bought with a large sum of money without her knowing about it or at least having an inkling.

“Not all of it!” Eddie clarified quickly. “Just… Just like a little bit. Not much compared to you know… The full amount.” He explained crossing his arms over his chest once more and staring at the floor.

“What did you buy?” Karmen asked, still shocked by the fact that he not only had this money but had been spending it behind her back. He wasn’t giving her very good reasons.

“I-I… I can’t…” He began, shaking his head and making anger spike in Karmen’s chest. There was no way right now that he was actually trying to tell her that he couldn’t explain. No Goddamn way he was pulling that card in this very dire situation.

“Edward.” Karmen said, voice a growl. This got his attention and he finally looked up at her at the use of his full name. “What. Did. You. Buy?” She asked slowly. Pausing between words for emphasis as she watched the color drain from his face and he seemed to realize this was do or die.

His one chance.

He stared at her in silence for a long second. An internal battle going on inside his head that she could practically see happening behind his eyes until suddenly he blinked and pushed himself away from the couch.

“Hang on.” He said quietly, making her balk as he walked passed her and began to head down the hall. She took a step after him and he stopped, pointing at her as he spoke. “Stay there.” He instructed as she stopped walking and glared at him indignantly. But she did as she was asked, staying in place as he disappeared around the corner and she heard him rummaging in the hall closet. The clatter of items and the swoosh of clothing giving her a visual of him pulling things out of there half-hazardly and dropping them at his feet.

He reappeared after a minute or so. Both hands clasped around something she couldn’t make out. She pushed herself away from the counter she had leant on in his absence. Arms crossed over her chest as she waited with an unimpressed look.

He stopped about 3 feet in front of her. Looking between her and his hands a couple of times and shifting awkwardly as he tried to figure out how he was going to do this.

Karmen shook her head at him, exasperated with the fact that he wouldn’t just show her what he had.

“I-it was meant to be a surprise.” He muttered. Looking into her eyes and catching her off guard as he suddenly fell to his knees. Her hands shooting out to catch him before she realized he had done it purposefully.

He hadn't fallen to his knees.

He’d bent down on one knee.

His hands were stretched out in front of him. The item he had been hiding revealed as a small box covered in red velvet.

A ring box.

He fumbled with it, pulling it open with his free hand before dropping it to his side. The most beautiful diamond ring Karmen had ever laid eyes on was perched neatly inside. Held out to her as Eddie looked at her with the most anxious expression she had ever seen on his face.

“Eddie…” She gasped, her hand on her chest as she stared at the sparkly gem in complete shock.

Even if she’d had months of driving to get home to him and plan out how this conversation would go… This was a turn of events she didn’t see coming and would have never factored in.

“I-I… I bought this when we went to Indy a few months ago…” He began to explain. Voice trembling. “I um… I actually had one that wasn’t as nice on lay-away in one of the shops there.” He croaked. “I p-picked it when Joey and I went the l-last time he was in town… I-I was going to p-pick it up when I went to see Ozzy because it was already p-paid off… Almost… Um…” He paused for a second, tears in his eyes. “That… Didn’t happen obviously… But I guess it kind of worked out b-because I wanted to get you this one in the first place. But there was no way I could afford it. I'd be selling drugs and working as a barback for the rest of my life to pay it off…” He chuckled nervously. “But um… Then they gave me the money and I couldn’t tell you. So, when we went to Indy and we split up for that half an hour after lunch I sprinted to the store and took the old one off lay-away and b-bought this one.” He shrugged, swallowing thickly and taking another deep breath before he continued.

Karmen’s hand was still on her heart. Her other arm outstretched in the same position it had been when she thought he was falling. She hadn’t moved an inch. Shocked into silence and staying in place as she listened intently to his story.

“Anyway the uh…” He paused, thinking. “The plan was to tell you I’d gotten lucky and won a scratcher or something. But that was before I realized I couldn’t keep living the lie…” He admitted. “So I told you… Almost everything.” He laughed uneasily. “But then I realized I couldn’t tell you about the money yet because I… I had better plans than… this.” He said pointedly, gesturing vaguing between them with his free hand. “I didn’t want you to see money missing and think I was hiding something… Ironically. I, also really didn’t want you to see how much I spent because I know you don’t think you’re worth it but I think you are.” He said, his voice breaking. “I was going to show you after. Move some stuff around and buy some baby stuff so you didn’t see the total for the ring.” He sniffed. “I-I never intended to lie to you or keep it from you I promise Kam… From the bottom of my h-heart. I just wanted you to be surprised.” He implored, watching through his blurry eyes as her own teary eyes spilled over and she finally moved. Wiping at them with the hand that had been on her chest.

“I know it’s not perfect… F-far from it. It’s not like… Glamorous and I’m not wearing a suit and you’re not wearing a pretty dress and there’s no romantic music and your Mum’s not here…” He trailed off, stopping himself short from listing all of his failures. “But um…” He took a deep breath, looking into her eyes and forcing himself to smile.

“Will…”

“Stop.” Karmen whispered, inhaling a hitched gasp. Her eyes trailed down to the ring in Eddie’s hand.

She had envisioned this moment a thousand times throughout her life. All different settings, places, decorations, loved ones. Different words were uttered every time and her reaction varied from excited screams to the stock standard, hands over the mouth, nodding in silence.

But only once had she imagined it in a way where the man on one knee had a face. Where he was a specific person that she could envision herself actually saying yes to.

Eddie was the person. His brown eyes were the ones she envisioned looking into before whispering her answer and being whisked off her feet by his rambunctious hug.

The person was right. But the setting was so wrong.

None of the things Eddie mentioned mattered to her in a proposal. But the moment she had imagined in her mind was special and untainted by arguments about money. Free of past trauma and bitter feelings for one another. It was a special moment that they could look back on without being reminded of the fight that led up to it.

That forced it to happen…

Eddie faltered at her word, the hand holding the ring drooping a little before he shot it back out to stabilize her. It was her turn to drop to her knees in front of him.

“Don’t ask me yet.” She said quickly, her hands coming to his face as she shuffled closer and Eddie pulled the ring back towards his chest. Her hands were warm on his already hot face. His heart in his throat at the rejection. “I’m not saying no!” She reassured him hastily. Feeling his wet cheeks move under her hands as he frowned at her in confusion. “Just… Don’t ask me yet.” She repeated. “Because if you ask me, I’m going to say yes and I want to remember that moment for the rest of my life.” She explained, her thumbs caressing his cheeks as she spoke. “I don’t want to have to remember the misunderstanding and the fight and the fact that you really only asked because I forced you to show your hand, not because you wanted to.”

“I do want to.” Eddie interjected quickly. Looking down at the shiny accessory in his palm and then back at her as she smiled through her tears.

“I know and I want you to.” Karmen murmured, leaning closer and pressing her lips against his gently. He closed his eyes, relishing in the feel of her. “But not like this.” She said as she pulled away.

“This was the only way to surprise you.” Eddie explained meekly. Seeming like he understood what she was saying.

That he didn’t want to do it this way either. He wanted her to have the kind of moment she’d always dreamed of.

But when he had realized that he couldn't keep it from her any longer or she would leave and then the secret would be moot anyway… She was right. Although he wanted to ask her and he meant it. He really didn’t have a choice today and he had taken a second in the hallway to mourn the plans he had already had in motion.

They were coming up fast. He had already postponed them twice without her even knowing they existed.

His original plan was to take her away to Indy for the weekend and fork out for a resort stay when he went to go and see Ozzy and Metallica in April. It was right around the time of their first anniversary. He knew she’d love to relax at the spa and he was going to ask John to go with him to the concert so she didn't have to. Partly because he liked metal too and they were finally starting to actually make good friends. But mostly because when they were alone he would fill the other man in and get his help for the rest of the weekend. Having him lead Karmen astray the next day with some impromptu plan to do something ‘fancy’ that she knew Eddie would hate so it wouldn’t be suspicious when he bowed out under the guise of checking out the local record stores. It would also hopefully leave her in nice clothes and with her hair and make up done and if it didn’t.. Well, John was probably okay with being mean about it as long as she would find out eventually he wasn’t just being a dick for no reason.

He would then bring her back to the resort restaurant by the afternoon where Eddie would be waiting in a suit, in a nicely decorated room full of her family and closest friends.

But then he had almost been eaten alive and missed his concert. Karmen had managed to get some of the money back for the accommodation when she explained the situation after the fact and he was grateful she hadn’t batted an eye when they mentioned the restaurant being booked too.

Eddie had forgotten about his plans for a little while after that. Too injured, sick and sad to be thinking too hard about his future besides trying to decide if he even wanted to live it…

But he had decided earlier in the year when he had started to feel himself again that it was time to set something up before she realized what a horrible mistake she’d made by staying with him.

So he’d suggested the trip to Indy to put his plans in motion by purchasing the ring. But then it wasn’t long after that she found out she was pregnant and he didn’t want her to think he was just asking because she was having a baby and it was ‘the right thing to do’. But also, the fact that she had been excited and not walked out or started talking about abortion but instead baby names and how to set up their nursery in their house… It had made him feel like he could wait a little longer. Like she wasn’t about to change her mind and leave him because he took too long planning the perfect proposal.

So he’d pushed it off again. Finally settling on a date not too far from this very moment and getting to work making it as magicall for her as he could. She was giving him a gift he could never hope to thank her enough for. She deserved a big shiny ring and to feel like the most special girl in the world.

“I don’t need to be surprised Baby.” Karmen whispered in response. “I don’t care if it’s tomorrow and we’re wearing the same dirty clothes and standing in the same spot. I don’t need some big, elaborate proposal with the suit, the pretty dress, the decorations and our parents. I just… I need some distance between that argument and what’s supposed to be one of the most memorable moments of our lives… I want distance between thinking you were lying to me and I was going to have to end this and you asking me to spend the rest of my life with you.” She explained as delicately as she could.

Eddie nodded in understanding. She wasn’t saying no. Just… later. Which worked out for him to be honest. She might not need any of that stuff but she was absolutely going to get it in a week or so.

If… If she still wanted it by then…

“But… You want t-to… Right?” Eddie asked, his voice small. “Like… When I a-ask.” He muttered, The vulnerability in his eyes was enough to make her tears start anew.

Of course she did.

Karmen nodded profusely at the question. Leaning in to kiss him again. It was taking every ounce of her self-control to stop herself from jumping up and down and answering…

“Yes.” She whispered.

Read the rest of the series here :)

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Tag List: @ghosttownwherenoonegoes @3ddi3-daydreamer @micheledawn1975 @munson-blurbs @wheels-of-despair @browneyes528 @stevemunsons

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mercurymusing · 2 years

Text

Moon poem:

Text below cut:

At five A.M. I saw the Moon

netted in the power lines

shining full and bright over the fence, under the plum boughs

just the other side of the car

and yet

distantly

serene

And I wondered

Having known us all since our infancies

since Our infancy

With all the myriad relationships

with every creature with eyes to watch the sky

or blood to feel the tides

Does She have a preference?

Does She miss the worship?

The shadowed bacchanalia,

the myths and legends,

gods and goddesses,

rabbits and romances and

sacrifice

Or does She take Her slow pleasure in intimacies?

The poet's softest sonnets,

the student's weary toast,

the night worker's steady company,

the refugee's huddled gratitude for Her light

or for the obscuring grace of Her subtler phase

They say Chicxulub threw ejecta so far

that there are dinosaurs among the stars

Does She still hold them softly?

Cradle them to Her face?

Those long lost souls, that She watched from birth

from species' birth

to death

to extinction

gleaming in their mortal eyes?

They, at least, never left-

never tracked boots and rovers,

never stabbed slow-bleached wire-waved flags,

six brief liaisons,

and five decades of longing

Was that brief Earthly touch

a reminder of something older?

They say

they say many things

they say once long ago,

a coconut palm grew from the head of an eel

that the Earth was alone,

a wrathful virgin fed a spy to his own hounds

that in its molten youth,

a haughty coward jumped second into the fire

a wanderer came out of the black,

and drank her archer's elixir

and they met in cataclysmic passion

Does She remember spinning Herself back together

from a disc of mantle debris?

How quaint those latter day calamities

At five thirty-two

at seventy-two miles an hour

sketching thoughts into a voice note

I caught Her winking through the pines

keeping pace beyond the ridge

watching

listening

yet again

to some poor lunatic

awash in Her light

At six-oh-one

I passed a man asleep on a bench

all that he had stacked high in his cart

and as the corner of a high-rise eclipsed Her face

I knew that Her warm golden glow guarded him still

At six-oh-seven I left the sky behind

filled with gulls shrieking their laroid liturgies

to worship a triple-screened goddess

in a carpet walled shrine

trading mystery for spreadsheets

(and my daily bread)

Tonight She rises again

at eight-oh-six P.M.

I'll be waiting

#poetry #mercury musing #moon poem #at five am I saw the moon #and then spent the next 7 hours driving and beating my head against vba

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forasecondtherewedwon · 4 years

Photo

Unhallowed Arts

Threesome: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones x Brad Davis Rating: E Word Count: 11,077

This is a submission for Thotumn, organized by @spideysmjs!!! Today’s prompt: Threesome (but this fic also includes previous prompts: Semi-Public, Face-Sitting, and “Don’t Be Gentle”).

Summary: “What’s the compromise between abruptly shutting this down (her sex drive weeps) and getting in bed with a guy who will make the experience too emotionally intense?

'Have you ever had a threesome?’ Michelle blurts.

'…What? No.’

‘Neither have I. But I’ve been, um, wanting to try it.’

Have you? she demands of herself, wiping a damp palm on her jeans.

‘You, me, and someone else?’ Brad’s eyebrows are very high on his forehead. ‘That’s a lot of bodies, uh, coming together.’”

Brad Davis has a Mary Shelley mug. He used to drink from it—coffee he brought to work in a thermos from home, which smelled so delicious that Michelle would go out of her way to inhale it over his shoulder, pretending to let him show her something on his monitor—until the mug cracked and he switched to using it to house typical office junk. She asked him about the mug exactly once, fearing it was bait to intrigue a certain kind of person, to make him seem like a certain kind of person himself. But he surprised her. Turns out he’s not a douche (or at least not a douche who lures women in with female authors of historical significance), just a genuine Shelley fan.

He’s not many things Michelle initially assumed him to be, striking them off a mental list over the months they’ve worked together: not a guy who takes the last free seat at the table during a team meeting, not a guy who checks out his own reflection on his black phone screen, not a guy who wears sturdy hiking boots for show. When they troop out to conduct surveys on behalf of the conservation initiative they work for, Brad scrambles up the side of eroding banks and squelches into marshland until water soaks his socks and surface residue clings to his leg hair.

Brad’s not pushy, though she’s well aware that he’s been watching her as long as she’s been watching him.

Early on into them working together, she fell into his arms. Literally fell. The team encouraged Michelle to wait for the second truck, the one bringing the ladder, but she got stubborn and climbed the tree to check the bat box the old-fashioned way. Unfortunately, some of the branches were dead and hollow inside, but Brad caught her when she dropped eight feet. And then flirted with her before she could catch her breath. She had some less friendly words for him in return. The first time he surprised her was when he immediately respected her clear boundaries and backed off. They’ve learned to work easily with each other and drink together in the same booth when people from the initiative hit the bar—on evenings they don’t smell too much like they spent the day in Mother Nature’s armpit. They’re friendly, could almost be friends, except that she’s incredibly conscious of his persistent attraction to her, even if he doesn’t do anything about it because he’s not a douche. It’s a knowledge Michelle simply lives with.

But there have been an awful lot of evenings lately of smelling like whatever swamp she waded into during the day, of either going straight home to shower the stench away (thank fuck for rent with utilities included), or hunching over her laptop as she tries to get a grant application finished before a midnight submission deadline. Nobody she works with is holding their breath for the day the government decides it should just give them the money to protect local habitats without making them prove themselves over and over and compete against other worthy environmental projects for the funds. So, Michelle works, and she wades, and she loses many of the evenings she could be out getting laid.

On a regular they-better-pay-us-for-the-overtime evening and not a marshy/swampy/boggy one, she’s comfortably stretched out in a booth with Brad across the table. Two of their colleagues were here a minute ago, but they got up to… go to the bathroom? Grab another round? That’s a little hazy, but Michelle can feel something becoming clearer to her. Observing her own hand as she twirls the base of her latest empty across the tabletop, she asks a question.

“You like Mary Shelley, right?”

Brad, glassy-eyed but still trying to look professional with the way he has his hands folded on the surface in front of him, smiles at her. She can feel it.

“Yes. Her creativity was astounding. If I were in the running for the Miss Universe pageant—”

Michelle jerks her chin back and looks up to make a face at him.

“—and they asked me what historical figure I would most like to have dinner with, I would say Mary Shelley. Hands down.”

“Cool story, bro. Hey, Brad?”

“Mhmm.”

She can tell by his drifting gaze and expression of introspection that he’s planning out his pageant answers.

“Do you still want to sleep with me?”

That focuses his attention. He laughs uncomfortably.

“Why… why would you think that?”

“Oh, so, what’s your limit?” Michelle presses, slightly snide with the alcohol in her bloodstream. “You’re not interested in going past holding hands? Making out for no more than five minutes? Because you obviously want something,” she rambles on. “You look at me, I know you do.”

“This isn’t just an idle question, is it?” Brad asks.

He leans forward to look at her as carefully as his tipsiness will allow. As if he already knows the answer. Their thought patterns are very similar, she’s found. It’s why they’re effective at work and why it’s possible to fall into a discussion on books during their overlapping lunch hours. She likes him—not a lot, but enough to have started this conversation. She stares back at him.

“I wouldn’t say no to it,” he offers quietly, though the bar is crowded tonight and Michelle doubts their words are traveling beyond the booth.

Now, Brad’s looking at her in a way that makes her realize, all this time, he’s barely been looking at her. With the permission to think of her in this way, there’s a clear desire there, a gaze that slips again and again to her mouth. Huh. Ok. Maybe she didn’t completely think this whim through before sharing it with him. She can’t fuck that Brad. She’s been imagining the drinking companion, the nice forearms he reveals when he literally rolls up his sleeves in the field, the man who will always be a little on her nerves for flirting with her as he cradled her against him. Someone whose world she could casually rock with the assurance that they both have enough self-confidence to carry on afterwards without getting clingy or feeling disposed of.

What’s the compromise between abruptly shutting this down (her sex drive weeps) and getting in bed with a guy who will make the experience too emotionally intense?

“Have you ever had a threesome?” Michelle blurts.

“…What? No.”

“Neither have I. But I’ve been, um, wanting to try it.”

Have you? she demands of herself, wiping a damp palm on her jeans.

“You, me, and someone else?” Brad’s eyebrows are very high on his forehead. “That’s a lot of bodies, uh, coming together.”

“Come on, Brad—”

“‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’” he guesses.

“I was going to say, I thought you loved Frankenstein.”

She rounds her impulsive invitation off with a smile.

—

Michelle doesn’t volunteer to select the third person. When she considers which of her friends and acquaintances she’d be comfortable having sex with, well, there’s Brad. That already hasn’t gone the way she predicted. Everyone else she’s close to either feels like family, is in a monogamous relationship, or just isn’t attractive to her in that way. She consoles herself over putting the choice of their third into Brad’s hands with the thought that he seems like he’d be the most suspect person in a friend group (yes, they get along, but there’s something sleazy about the way he tries too hard), so whoever he asks can only be more tolerable than him.

“So, a buddy of mine said he’d be into it,” Brad says as she’s passing his desk one day. Michelle stops dead and he swivels in his chair, drumming his fingers on the armrest.

“You’re talking about…”

“Yeah.” He darts a look around, then hits her with a conspiratorial smile.

“Oh. Ok. Good. Turtles,” she says more loudly to cover for them. Her gaze darts to the nearest desk, but Jocelyn’s wearing headphones and bobbing her head as she populates a spreadsheet. Reassured, Michelle takes a step towards Brad and lowers her voice again. “What’s his name? How do you know him?”

“His name’s Peter. We play soccer together.”

“How the hell do you have time to participate in organized sports?”

“That’s what I do while you’re working your way through the New York Times Best Seller list,” Brad jokes.

“Fair. But who is this guy?”

“You want his résumé?”

“No, I want to know he’s not going to give me an STI or try anything freaky.”

“Freaky,” he echoes. “As opposed to threesomes, which are an incredibly common thing to do with your boyfriend.”

“Or your friend from work,” Michelle retorts, to keep things very clear. Brad appears fleetingly wounded. Too bad. He can say no any time, but it’s obvious that he’d rather see her naked in a threesome than the alternative. Which is never.

“Yeah, of course. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about Peter. He’s responsible, he’s single, he was raised by his aunt and they’re still really close. She comes to all our games.” He lets out a derisive sort of laugh and Michelle narrows her eyes at him.

“That’s sweet.”

“I guess,” he concedes.

“Why’s he single?” she asks, rapid-fire.

“I don’t know, because he wants to be?”

“‘Wants to be’ like he’s emotionally stable and waiting for the right person to come along or ‘wants to be’ like he’s a flake with commitment issues?”

Brad gives her a look like she’s overthinking this; it betrays an utter lack of comprehension of a woman’s perspective on relationships. The validity of her questions goes over his head.

“Why does it matter if he has commitment issues?”

“Relax,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m not trying to date him, it just says something about his personality. I don’t want to do this with somebody selfish, because if he’s selfish in other areas, he’s probably selfish in bed.”

“He’s a good passer,” Brad says. “On the field. He always ends the season with more assists than goals.”

“That’s… not a totally useless testimonial.”

“I appreciate your approval.”

Michelle would laugh if his tone weren’t a little too earnest. The way he really wants to impress her can be grating. Well, he’ll soon have his chance to impress her in a situation where she actually wants to be impressed.

“Get back to work, slacker,” she tells him, returning to her own desk.

Fifteen minutes later, Brad texts her with three different dates to choose from. Michelle pulls up her calendar, colour-coded with deadlines and days she’ll be working out in the woods. Taking late nights and the need for long showers into account, she picks a date, then leaves her thumb hovering over ‘Send’. She puts her phone down.

This is where she could still back out. Brad’s mentioned it to his friend, but she’s under no obligation to either of them. Would it be awkward to change her mind and see Brad at work every day? Yes, though she could always say she just wasn’t that serious about it to begin with. Which she wasn’t! For someone who’s soothed by referring to her colour-coded calendar and progressing through life with each forward step carefully considered, tossing out a suggestion to have a threesome was rash.

Michelle eyes her phone.

On the other hand, Brad likes her too much to be a dick post-ménage à trois, which, as far as she can see, is sort of an ideal trait in a threesome companion. If she were going to do this. She wheels her chair back and cranes to peer across the room at him. Focused on his screen, he brushes his black hair out of his face with a quick swipe of his hand. Damn, he is nice-looking. The kind of guy Michelle would definitely approach at a bar for a one-night stand if he flashed a smile her way. If picturing him naked intrigues her, then the idea of lying down between him and another muscled body (Brad said soccer, so she’s assuming this friend has an athletic build) while the three of them wind over and under each other like a braid definitely ticks a big ‘YES’ box in her brain. Her hand shoots out for her phone. She hits ‘Send’.

Three bodies which will, in Brad’s words, be coming together. Maybe not what Mary Shelley had in mind, but anticipating this threesome does more for Michelle’s libido than an electrified jigsaw of corpses ever could.

—

It’s a different bar, and she’s in different clothes, but otherwise, it’s not a totally foreign way for Michelle and Brad to spend their Friday evening. Provided he shows up. She darted home after work and a loaded glance at Brad, showered, and starred deep into her neglected makeup bag like it was some sort of prophetic tool. Michelle, it said to her, you don’t want lipstick smeared all over your face and eyeshadow fallout stinging your eyes. Leave it at mascara and a whole whack of waterproof eyeliner. She obeyed these wise words with trembling hands, nearly prodding herself in the eye with her mascara wand because, even with a doable task to concentrate on, she was nervous.

She adjusts her short, black skirt, rocking side-to-side on the stool. For a regular date, it’s the kind of item she would borrow from a friend, but it struck Michelle as incredibly gross to wear a friend’s skirt to a threesome and then return it to them afterwards, so she bought this one online. During work hours. Feeling incredibly furtive, though everybody dabbles in online shopping during lulls in their workload. The skirt was never a normal purchase; she knew it was going to end up right here, right now, between her ass and a barstool. She gulps the end of her whiskey and goes back to cradling the beer that’s been her emotional support as she waits for the guys.

Arriving ten minutes early has felt like an age—time stretching wretchedly like those clocks in ‘The Scream’—but she finally hears a familiar voice calling her name. Flipping her hair out of the neck of her leather jacket and grabbing her support system, Michelle turns to spot Brad’s face. He smiles and waves, stepping through the crowd that’s building steadily as the after-work drinkers are exchanged for the cutting-loose-for-the-weekend drinkers. When she slips down from the stool, her skirt rides up, and the man who is usually just a co-worker allows himself to notice. His gaze on her bare legs feels good.

“Sorry we’re late,” he says, though they both know she’s early. But Michelle will take this pleasantry over an implication that she’s overeager.

Since they were at work together only a few hours ago, she skips small talk.

“Where’s your…” Friend, she’s going to say. She doesn’t need to.

Brad—tidy in a partially unbuttoned blue shirt—angles himself towards her side, making room for the woman taking the barstool she vacated, and Michelle sees a man approaching with the two of them as his clear destination. Her first sense of him is filtered through Brad. Once, through Brad’s description, twice, through Brad’s cologne. It may be coming off her friend’s skin, but the scent clings to Peter in her brain. What she’s smelling is the woods, only more expensive somehow, like a perfume company bottled the idea of glamping. Doesn’t matter that the scent doesn’t suit him at all. He walks with his head up, eyes openly excited, and it makes her think of a schoolkid progressing through a museum’s dinosaur exhibit. All he’s missing is a backpack with straps for him to clutch. Letting her gaze skim down from his face, Michelle actually can’t picture him trying to haul on a backpack; his shoulders look broad and strong, even under the incongruous red hoodie he’s wearing.

“Oh,” he says when he sees her standing next to Brad. Under any other circumstances, she’d be taken aback by his eyes scanning the full length of her body, but she’s going to fuck this stranger tonight and when he looks back up to her face, he’s grinning. “Hey.”

“Hi,” she replies, more guarded, less forward, until Brad suggests trying to find someplace to sit and Michelle’s able to check Peter out from behind as he leads them away from the bar. Nice butt.

They snag a coveted corner spot as a small group in business attire is leaving it, settling with Brad between them. Peter makes himself useful by dashing back to the bar and returning with the fingers of one hand twined between the necks of a trio of beers and the fingers of the other slightly dipping into the liquid in a pair of tumblers.

“I didn’t know what you’d like beyond what you’re already drinking,” he says, jerking his chin towards the beer Michelle finished while he was gone.

“That’s fine,” she assures him. “I don’t want to be too… I want to be aware of…”

God, trying to discuss the imminent threesome directly is making her flustered. She has a swig from the new bottle he placed in front of her. Peter leans across Brad and offers his to clink with. Where Brad’s face is aggressively handsome in the heavy line of his eyebrows and the sharp perfection of his teeth, up close, Peter’s is cute and unintimidating.

“Here’s to being a consenting participant tonight and remembering it tomorrow,” he says.

Unintimidating, but not uncompelling, especially when he tilts his head back to drink and she can watch the line of his jaw.

Michelle blushes, but knocks her bottle against his.

Two rounds deeper for them and one for her, the heat of the bar and the alcohol in her system are getting to her. She winds her way back from the washroom and shrugs out of her jacket before sitting down. Peter manages to get the end of his sentence out, but Brad doesn’t even try to respond as he takes in the low sides of her silky top. Michelle slides closer to him than she was sitting before and puts a hand on his knee as he finally turns his head and stutters out a reply to Peter. Peter looks past him and catches her eye. Her heart’s springing up and down in her chest because she realized, staring at her reflection as she washed her hands, that, if they’re going to do this, somebody’s gotta make a move. Peter, sleeves shoved up, is staring back at her like he’s been thinking the same thing. His hand smooths over Brad’s thigh.

Under the table, Brad keeps his legs still, his feet flat on the ground. His comfort in his own skin is something Michelle’s always respected. He even succeeds in raising his glass steadily to his lips and taking another drink while Peter runs his hand higher. With a little throat-clearing, Brad parts his thighs further. She doesn’t mean to be, but Michelle’s waiting for Peter to go first. They were talking about something innocuous when he said just enough to imply that he’s never been in a threesome either. Regardless, there’s a confidence in the way he touches Brad. She trails her fingers up Brad’s thigh and Peter locks eyes with her as their gazes cross watching their friend swallow.

Suddenly, the man between them is a little less present, even with the sharp breath he takes at the moment Peter tucks his hand against his crotch. Michelle rests her hand over his. She feels his skin, lets her fingers slip through his, as Brad gasps and swells beneath Peter’s palm; she can tell—they have to change the curve of their grip to accommodate the erection. Brad’s arm curls around her waist and presses her into his side as her and Peter’s hands move together, stroking through Brad’s pants, rubbing him. He glances at her, heat in his eyes, but she’s looking at Peter again by the time she leans in and kisses Brad’s throat. She draws it out into a lick at the slack way Peter’s mouth is hanging open. Hopefully, the fall of her hair is blocking the necking from the view of other patrons, but that hope is tough to keep in mind when Peter’s tongue appears to wet his lower lip. Like she’s kissing him.

There’s a squeeze between Michelle’s thighs that has her gripping Peter’s hand more firmly, urging him to jerk Brad off faster. She glances towards Peter’s lap and he lifts his hoodie with his free hand to expose the bulge in the front of his jeans. The scent of her perfume rises as sweat trickles between her breasts. They knead Brad rapidly until he chokes out a plea for them to stop, begging to take this someplace private. She grabs her jacket in one hand and links the fingers of her other through Brad’s. Tugging him to the exit, she trusts Peter to bring up the rear.

—

Making out in the back of a rideshare is bad behaviour, so Michelle takes the passenger’s seat when the car pulls up. Because she is feeling the need to go back a step from risky under-the-table handjobs and just kiss someone. And that someone is not the friend she arranged this with. She glances at the sidemirror as they’re passing under a streetlight and Peter’s staring at her. He winks. Slowly, like she’s just looking idly around as they drive, she turns to glance into the backseat. Brad has his arm stretched out along the top the seats and his fingers have dipped into the neck of Peter’s hoodie. Michelle’s pulse accelerates just imagining the warmth of that throat. Scrambling for her phone, she sends Brad a text.

Put your fingers in his mouth.

She faces forward again for about a block, prolonging her outward nonchalance even as she hears a vibration, followed by Brad’s soft snort of acknowledgement as he reads her text. She glances around the edge of her seat and sees him act. His hand comes out of the sweatshirt to take Peter by the chin and turn his face towards him. Briefly, he inclines his head towards his friend, speaking too quietly for her to distinguish the words, but Michelle guesses it’s something about her watching because Peter’s gaze jumps to her as he opens his mouth and accepts two of Brad’s fingers. She can see him sucking as Brad withdraws, cheeks flushed. He looks to her—for approval, she thinks, until he holds his wet fingers up and curls them in the air in a highly suggestive motion. Oh shit. Michelle feels herself pressing down on the floor of the car like she’s in the driver’s seat with the accelerator under her foot.

They’re going to her place where: she’s on home turf, she knows it’s clean, she can go right to sleep after kicking them out. Also, the one luxury of her second-story apartment is the king-size bed her friends seriously, outrageously got on ladders to help her push through the sliding door of her balcony because that was easier than carrying it up the narrow staircase. Tonight, she plans to get some good use out of all those acres of mattress.

As with the hijinks in the car, she knows both men are watching her as she lets them into the building and then through her front door.

“Kitchen,” Michelle says, with a loose wave of her hand. “Living room, bathroom. And the bedroom’s at the end of the hall.”

Brad excuses himself to empty his bladder and/or psych himself up in the mirror above the bathroom sink and she’s wondering how to entertain his friend during these uncertain moments of transition when Peter basically lunges forward and kisses her. She moans into his mouth because it’s sudden but it’s good. His hands go right to her ass and her arms wrap around the back of his neck, holding him against her. With her heels, she has a handful of inches on him, but that doesn’t appear to make him pouty or daunted. It’s less than a minute, probably fewer than thirty seconds (understanding the flow of time is temporarily lost on Michelle), but they separate panting.

“You can tell Brad to stick his fingers in my mouth all you want,” Peter murmurs, still staring at her lips, “but I’ve got something I wanna to stick places too.”

“Understood.” She nudges her thigh into his groin.

“So, you guys aren’t waiting for me, huh?” Brad asks with a tight smile as he walks out of the bathroom to see Peter’s hands on her ass and her pressing back against him.

This is kind of the idea, all three of them experimenting with each other, but she can tell he’s annoyed that anything went on while he was out of the room. That he’s possibly jealous. Though it doesn’t feel right to move away from Peter, Michelle knows how to rectify this. She strides to Brad and puts her hands lightly on his chest before kissing him, more coyly than Peter kissed her. She lets Brad come down to her as he hunts out what he wants from the kiss. This feels nice too, though it has more of the familiarity of kissing a friend—even though they haven’t touched in this way before—than the bubbling lust that went with kissing Peter. As she continues, tracing her fingers to the center of his chest to stroke his skin and begin undoing his buttons, Peter comes up behind her and helps her out of her jacket. She hears her keys jingle in the pocket and tap against her phone. When his hands sneak through the sides of her shirt to run across the underside of her breasts, Michelle pushes Brad back, back, back, and the three of them stagger to her bedroom.

She and Brad make out in the dark for a while, and without light, the kissing get rougher, their breathing ragged. Once she has all the buttons of Brad’s shirt undone, she reaches back for Peter and he grips her hand tightly as he grinds his erection against her ass. They’re pressing snugly into her front and back when she thinks of things like being able to locate condoms and ogle muscles—both activities require some light. Michelle squeezes out from between them and turns her bedside lamp on, angling the shade so the light stays low. Turning to check on them, she sees one man standing there with his shirt open and dishevelled and the other rigid in the front of his jeans. Brad’s hard too—she felt it when she stood against him, but his erection’s not visible from where she’s standing now. It’s odd, seeing the space between their bodies and knowing she was just in it. But with Peter rubbing Brad’s dick at the bar and Brad clearly turned on by having Peter suck his fingers on the way here, they’ve been messing around too. Why should they pause to get her back in the middle? Stubborn and curious, Michelle crosses her arms where she stands and gives them an expectant look.

Peter reacts first; he grabs the back of Brad’s neck and stretches up to kiss him. The instant their mouths meet, Michelle understands the three of them have a problem. Trading off sexual favours, these guys are ok, but being on two sides of the same kiss makes them competitive. Fucking weekend athletes. Countering the dominant neck-grab, Brad bats Peter’s arm away and takes his face in his hands. It’s not sweet, it’s controlling. Peter’s next move is yanking Brad’s body against his by crumpling the open front of his shirt in his fists. Oops, well, alright, Michelle decides. Maybe it’s better to put herself back in the equation.

Because she has no intention of babying Brad through this experience, when she slips between them, she puts her back to him. Picturing his disappointed face, she raises her arms.

“Take her shirt off,” Peter interprets, tearing his hoodie over his head in a flurry that peels the t-shirt beneath halfway up his torso.

It’s evident in his method that Brad isn’t interested in being told what to do with her. He makes sure to drag his hands over her as he takes his time. Maybe he’s being a dick about it—that’s what the narrowing of Peter’s eyes tells her as he stares at Brad around Michelle’s head—but she’s enjoying this. There’s something about having spent so much time with Brad and those hands that has her pressing back against his erection. She’s witnessed him performing countless practical tasks, like driving the stakes for ‘Trail Closed’ signs deep into semi-frozen ground with a sledgehammer to protect new plant growth in the spring, knotting a rope leash around the waist of one of their colleagues as overkill when they wade into a pond to collect a sample, or just his impressive typing speed. (Not as many words per minute as she logs, but still.) He’s only quick when he pushes the material above her breasts and shifts his hands down quickly to cover, then massage them. She can almost hear him internally screaming at Peter that he beat him to this, only she doesn’t care. He’s tugging her nipples now and she shuts her eyes with a sigh.

“You like that?” he asks into her ear, which is when Peter loses patience for this display and removes her shirt the rest of the way himself.

Michelle retaliates by dropping her arms and edging his shirt up his stomach while Brad continues to caress her chest, now also kissing her shoulder. Though Peter lets her remove his t-shirt herself, she can add a willingness to get naked quick to the few things she knows about him; he seems like he’d be just as happy to whip all his clothes off at once as go through the foreplay of undressing each other. She remembers what he said to her in the kitchen. He has his own aspirations for tonight and the grin he gives her when she gets his t-shirt off makes her wonder what he wants and how soon she’ll be giving it to him. Michelle can’t feel any part of her resisting. It’s… surprisingly freeing.

Brad shuffles behind her, slipping out of his shirt, and her heart leaps as his chest presses to her back, skin to skin. Peter makes a grab for her crotch, but she lifts her eyebrows wryly and spins to face Brad instead.

“This fucking skirt,” she hears Peter mumble behind her as he slides his hands up her thighs to play with the hem.

It’s not exactly a sexual fantasy she’s fulfilling when she digs her fingers into Brad’s hair and combs it back, but it’s definitely a fantasy. He just has great hair. Sometimes, when she’s bored in a meeting, she’ll look over at him and feel this compulsion to run her fingers through it. She discovers that the strands feel soft and wonderful, so there’s one dream realized.

As she’s moving the palm of her hand down to cup his cheek, she shifts her head to the side, catching Brad’s eye and nodding back towards Peter.

“Kiss him nicely,” Michelle instructs.

Brad’s dark eyes bore into hers for a moment, then he breaks the stare and looks to Peter.

“Let’s go, Parker.”

Satisfied, she gets out of the way, circling behind Peter. While he’s partly distracted by the kiss (tamer than last time, by the looks of it), she rests her hands on his waist. Then, Michelle thinks, Screw it, and feels him up all over his chest, shoulders, and stomach, before wending her way down to his hips. His jeans are probably really putting pressure on his erection right now. She’ll help. After flicking the button open, she means to move away, but… plans change. She’s barely dipping the tips of her fingers below the waist of his jeans when Peter pulls away from Brad’s insistent mouth to mutter, “Well, that’s not fair.”

Instead of continuing, Michelle delights in retreating. Peter’s protesting noise is absorbed by his friend’s lips and she pats his ass before going to tease Brad. First, she guides the hand Peter has on Brad’s shoulder up into his hair so he can share her joy at how touchable it is. Then, she grazes her palms down his back. His friend’s body is dense with muscles, like somebody who goes to the gym a lot, where Brad’s is lean. Their work is a decent split between time indoors and outside, fairly physical, so she knows he has strong legs, good lungs, all the endurance he needs for the days they have to park far from a trailhead or navigate gullies. She forgot to ask what position they each play on their soccer team, but she’ll be concerned with another type of position for the foreseeable future.

To keep things even, Michelle unbuttons Brad’s pants. He makes a needful sound and goes momentarily loose between her body and Peter’s. This is not the reaction she expected from a man so socially comfortable, who apparently maintains a far better work/life balance (and, presumably, a steadier sex life) than she has lately. These noises, which continue as she works his zipper down against the push of his erection, expose him. He makes himself vulnerable. Something zinging through Michelle’s body compels her to take advantage.

She and Peter propel Brad’s co-operative body towards the bed. The guys land with a thump and continue kissing; Peter’s fingers form a gun as he angles Brad’s jaw, driving his tongue into his friend’s mouth. Michelle stares at them, breathing hard for having done nothing. Not breaking the kiss, Brad raises a hand to reach for her, but she’s quicker than that, dropping to her knees. She and the band of his underwear get along immediately—it’s easy to uncover his dick and the elastic cradles him instead of trying to snap back into place against his abdomen. Though the access with his pants still on isn’t amazing, she kisses his stomach, then the head of his cock. Up above, Brad moans.

With a smirk, Michelle repositions a little on her knees and grasps her friend’s thighs. He’s whimpering. He’s full-on whimpering. She leans in and licks slowly up his length. Her heels are already starting to bother her, so she reaches back and tugs them off one at a time. The next thing she means to do is gather her hair out of the way as she shallowly sucks Brad’s erection and strands swing forward, trying to tangle in his open zipper and stick to the saliva she’s coating him in, but Peter’s hand is there first. Still making out with Brad (she can hear it if she can’t see it), he encircles her hair in his grip and rests his fist lightly on her shoulder. Dammit. She’s a soft touch for his soft touch, closing her eyes to the sensation of his knuckles brushing her skin. This stranger is ruining the nice underwear she put on tonight.

“Please, Michelle, please,” Brad breaks free of Peter’s mouth to say.

He reaches out to hold her ribs, cup her breasts, but while he and his friend might share the field on Saturdays or whenever, they don’t seem to be on the same team tonight.

“Nope,” Peter informs him. “I get her next.”

“None of that possessive shit,” she warns.

“Can I please have you next?”

“You must be a real pain for your friends,” Michelle guesses sarcastically, letting him guide her over to his lap instead of Brad’s. (Who’s probably looking sour. She doesn’t know. Her eyes are glued to Peter’s.)

“No pain, I promise. I’ll be gentle.”

She rolls her eyes and settles in, straddling him.

“Oh my—” There is no ‘god’ because he kisses her before she can finish.

That’s his second annoying offense in seconds and she’s going to let him know. Really, she is. But he’s reminding her that he never let go of her hair by lifting it and slipping his hand against the nape of her neck to caress her skin. Michelle angles her hips and grinds up and down the swell in his jeans. Peter doesn’t mess around stroking her legs and hips, he just darts both hands beneath her skirt and traces the edges of her underwear where they curve around her thighs and narrow between them. She can feel him draw the fabric aside and gasps into his mouth, anticipating his fingers, when Brad tips the both of them over.

It’s disorienting, but they twist onto their sides and her friend scoots close behind her, so she decides she doesn’t mind.

“You’re not getting out of this,” Peter speaks quietly against her mouth when she thinks he’s about to kiss her again.

Michelle finds herself smiling, almost laughing, as he flips her skirt up and elects to take her underwear off. There’s only so much he can do like this, so she takes over, kicking them to the floor. That’s annoying offense number three; those underwear are sexy and she thought she’d be showing them off some before they hit the hardwood. Weirdly, Peter’s disregard only makes her smile broaden.

“Like I was trying,” she quips.

“Are we bantering,” Brad checks, “or are we fucking?”

“Dude, I am so sorry for the people you sleep with. Banter is an important part of the process,” Peter instructs.

“Fuck you, Parker.”

“And when you do, I guess I can’t expect any banter. I’ll adjust my expectations.”

“I’ll adjust your nose with my fist,” Brad responds in a playful tone. Michelle isn’t completely sold and she wavers, sandwiched between the two of them.

“Cool,” she says, “but actually, I am here to get laid.”

Two sets of male hands collide where her thighs are pressed together. She takes a deep breath at their enthusiasm, unable to tell whose fingers are skating along the skin just above her pubic hair and whose are subtly attempting to wedge between her legs.

“After you,” Brad says smoothly.

“Thanks, man.”

Her friend’s hands retreat a short distance and Peter insinuates one of his thighs between hers to create some space.

“This ok?” he checks, sweet face even sweeter horizontal.

“Be my guest,” Michelle says, copying Brad’s formality and reaching up and back to squeeze his shoulder so he realizes. She gets a kiss on her neck in response.

Peter’s fingers run slickly through her arousal. It’s a methodical mapping, feeling as though it’s meant to arouse her rather than him, but their eyes meet and he’s wearing an expression like he’s the one being fondled, though his erection cleaves to his abdomen, twitching under his clothes as he fingers her.

“You’re teasing me,” she points out, pulse jumping at her inner thigh.

“Am I not supposed to?”

Michelle tries to rock harder against the pass of his fingers and he moves them away with a grin and a chiding, “Ah!”

“Just give her what she wants,” is Brad’s disgruntled input.

She turns to watch as he sits up and undresses from the waist down. He gives her a smile like they’re on the same side, demonstrated by him advocating for her pleasure—something Michelle’s quite comfortable doing on her own. And yet, alright, her friend’s heart is in the right place, and it is difficult to monitor and decipher the fluctuating moods and responses of two other people, and his directive is obeyed. Peter’s fingers return and push through the wetness he helped generate, touching her entrance and gliding inside her, one finger, then two. Michelle groans deep in her throat because finally.

Brad lies down at her back again and, with Peter working her up, she fumbles behind her and grabs her friend’s ass to encourage him closer. She can feel him hard and hot against her, partly touching her rumpled skirt, partly her skin. He rubs against her and reaches an arm around, greedily squeezing her hip, then sweeping down to feel for her clit.

She’s sweating between their bodies, breathing hard and shuddering involuntarily when Brad gets his fingers positioned to trap her clit and begin gradually cracking her mind like peanut brittle. Where he’s painstaking, Peter’s exultant. He increases the pace of his fingers until they’re shuttling in and out of her. Michelle grips Brad’s wrist with one hand, Peter’s neck with the other, then switches, then moves both hands, grappling for some constancy that the part of her brain currently squashed beneath her need for satisfaction knows she’s not gonna get. Her hips are writhing in their hands as a clear goal fights its way through the fog of lust: unzip Peter’s jeans. It’s tricky, with the over- and underpass of arms, but she does it and he thanks her with a sloppy kiss that only seems to land on her mouth by miracle.

“Close,” she gasps.

Behind her, Brad groans and nips at the base of her neck, making her shake. He’s humping her quickly, pushing with his hips as he pulls back with his fingers on her clit. Good thing Peter hooks his fingers firmly inside her so he doesn’t get jostled off this ride. Good thing too that his curling motion strikes her so, so right. Michelle cries out and comes, his fingers still pumping ruthlessly inside her, Brad pinching her clit, and then coming himself; she feels the jet spurt up her back, probably some on her skirt too.

Which is why she did not borrow clothes for this threesome.

Peter’s expression is impish as he tries to keep coaxing her through the pleasure, but she pushes at his chest and he finally takes his hand away.

“Oh my god,” Michelle sighs, flopping back and half onto Brad.

“Go team,” her friend pants from beneath her.

“Yeah. You guys have some kinda cheer you do at your games?”

“Sometimes we bump chests,” Peter offers, hands suddenly on her boobs.

She twists, trying to see Brad’s face without lifting up. Her temple makes contact with his chin.

“Does your friend have an off switch?”

“If he did, I’d skip that and just pull the plug,” Brad says. He wraps an arm around her and she wiggles until he relaxes the hold, forcing him to make it less territorial.

“Aww,” Peter says, managing to cup her breasts in a perfunctory way, like he’s pushing them up to prevent under-boob sweat while she cools off post-orgasm, “you guys are bantering. I knew you could do it. Also,” he adds, “I don’t know if anyone happens to be keeping track, but I’m the only one who hasn’t gotten off.”

“That sucks, man.”

With effort, Michelle sits up and glares at Brad’s unconcerned face.

“Don’t be a dick,” she says.

“Yeah, Brad,” Peter joins in.

Shaking her head, she puts her back to her friend and checks Peter’s face for her go-ahead. He nods in rapid approval, so she grips the waist of his open jeans and pulls down while he lifts his ass from her bed. Fuck, the three of them never even got under the sheet. Then again, it’s easier to be mobile above it. Plus, it’s an extra layer between her expensive mattress and the fluid drying on her spine.

Because Peter doesn’t seem like the kinda guy who cares to be undressed layer by layer, Michelle doesn’t striptease herself with taking off his clothes slowly. At some point, he kicked his shoes away, meaning it’s straightforward to yank the boxers and jeans down his legs. Her intention is to remove them completely. He doesn’t seem to have a hell of a lot of regard for her intentions.

“That’s far enough, I swear,” he says, when she has his jeans around his shins. “I’m good. Nike time. Just do it.”

“Just do what exactly?” Michelle asks indulgently. She rests a hand on his naked thigh and tries not to stare openly at his dick, red as a slap.

“Anything. Whatever you want. Brad says you’re multitalented.”

Brad rolls over lazily to glare at Peter.

“What the hell, Parker? Don’t make it sound like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I talk about Michelle like that!”

“I get it,” she says, cutting him off. Please shut up, Peter, she thinks. “You talk to him about work. You appreciate me as a co-worker.”

“That’s definitely why I’ve heard so much about you,” Peter agrees provokingly. “Because he appreciates you as a co-worker.”

“You know what?” Brad bites out.

“What?”

Michelle rolls her eyes and opts to terminate this snippy little back and forth by grasping Peter’s cock and bending over to wrap her lips around the head. That shuts both of them up. Thank god, some fucking peace.

He emits a deep groan of approval and weaves his fingers into her hair, slightly bucking his hips. As she sinks to take him deeper, she hears another groan—hoarse with an entirely different emotion—coming from Brad. She doesn’t stop. If he has something to say, he can damn well use his words. Michelle clutches the inside of Peter’s muscular thigh and sucks as she starts to withdraw only to plunge him farther into her mouth. Peter’s hand finds hers and tangles their fingers together next to his hip, catching some of the sheet in his grip too. The gesture dizzies her heart.

While he’s seeing god, Brad’s apparently seeing red, because he taps, then tugs, at her shoulder, until she pulls off of Peter and shoots her friend an impatient look.

“What?”

“I’ll do that,” he says, nodding towards Peter’s straining, saliva-slicked erection.

“Somebody better fucking do it,” Peter says in the tragic tone of an established sufferer. They ignore him for the moment.

“You want to?” Michelle asks skeptically.

When Brad averts his eyes from hers, she realizes that, no, he doesn’t want to, he just doesn’t enjoy watching her blow Peter. She wavers, wondering if she should cancel tonight halfway through. Maybe that would be sacrificing what she wants for the self-esteem of these two men, but they’re just so goddamn annoying. They’re supposed to be friends and they’re acting like rivals. Michelle doesn’t owe loyalty to either of them, she’s nobody’s girlfriend, and yet she’s getting the feeling that she needs to pick a side. Even a novice like her can tell this isn’t the way a threesome’s meant to go. If they were worse at this, she might be able to walk away.

Abruptly, Brad kisses her, then nudges her gently aside as he drops to his elbows to pick up where she left off. Peter draws a fraying breath. Well, either these two aren’t combative enough to present her with an ultimatum, or they just want to get laid as badly as she does. If Brad bites Peter or some shit though, she’s throwing them both out and leaving the necessary medical care in their hands. Michelle will not be responsible for these men and their egos.

Peter tweaks her fingers, their hands still clasped. She leans in close to observe his heavy breathing and the way his hair’s sticking to his sweaty forehead.

“I still want you,” he whispers. The words are like static shock, like a finger tracing unexpectedly down her neck. “And you better be quick because I think Brad thinks he’ll get extra points for speed.”

He gasps, eyes rolling back, and Michelle instinctively cups his neck, running the pad of her thumb along his throat. She doesn’t glance over at Brad; hearing the frantic wet noises paints a sufficiently informative picture.

“You think you can concentrate while he’s doing that?”

“Totally.” Immediately, a desperate, guttural croak leaves Peter’s lips.

“You sure?”

“No, but I still want to put my tongue inside you and that should count for—uhhh!—something.”

“Such as?” she asks with a wry smile, straightening her legs out so she can remove her unspeakably defiled skirt.

“Hell if I know, my concentration was pretty shitty to begin with.”

“Center yourself,” Michelle says in the calm, instructive tone of a yoga tutorial as she levers herself over his chest and rests her ass lightly on the hard planes of his pecs.

“Brad,” Peter begs, “cut me some slack for one fucking minute, dude.”

“One minute, huh?” she teases.

“Are you doubting me?”

“Peter Parker, I don’t even know you.”

But, somehow, she’s beaming down at him as her hair falls around her shoulders. For an instant, he looks completely focused on her and not the sound of Brad switching from giving him head to pumping him in a fist (his version of slack-cutting, evidently). Peter eyes her from her face down to where her legs are spread above his body. Then back to her face.

“I’d like for you to.”

Her teasing expression softens. She parts her lips to respond and he wrenches her forward, onto a mouth that opens at once. He licks up into her, then keep his tongue tensed and prods her clit back and forth. Michelle curls into herself, thighs suddenly snug against the sides of his head, fingers locked in his hair.

This is, perhaps, the single event within the larger experience that sells her on threesomes. Peter’s mouth feels incredible on its own (like he’s fusing the peanut brittle shards of her mind back together again and going too far, melting them into goo), but the intermittent moaning that leaves it due to Brad’s contribution down below means Michelle’s riding something that licks, sucks, and vibrates. She’s a mess. Tilted forward, she’s nearly crying out to plant her hands on the bed and just grind across Peter’s tongue, but the hand not hold hers has her hip in a formidable hold and she can’t reach far enough to be comfortable. Each time she thinks to force her eyes open and check his face to make sure he’s enjoying this as much as she is (and still breathing), Peter’s eyelids are flickering as he absorbs the combined pleasure of taking from Brad and giving to Michelle. She’s shaking and trying not to get too rough with him, smoothing a hand over the hair she’s been practically pulling out at the roots. Peter counters with a quick smack to her ass before seizing her hip again. Fine, she won’t be nice.

Michelle shifts and rolls her clit against the tip of his nose. It positions her entrance above his wide-open mouth and he slides his tongue thickly back inside her. The sound of him tongue-fucking her is graphic. He loses his rhythm and gets even more aggressive with his mouth—she figures he’s close to release. Peter groans and arches his neck and chin up when he finishes, so she lifts swiftly away, hating to do it, aching and slippery.

She throws herself off of him, collapsing back onto her elbows with her thighs quivering. Dazedly, she observes Brad hurrying from the room with his lips clamped together (not a swallower then—the things she’s learning about her friend tonight). Peter’s lying there, spent. With her emotions high, their tableau causes her to despair. It’s over. It’s all over. One of them’s too wiped to carry on, the other’s just finished giving oral and won’t want to return just to bring her to orgasm. Michelle lets her head hang back and swipes two fingers over her clit, catching it and adding pressure on the upstroke.

Peter rolls over like he’s risen from the dead.

“You don’t—” she begins, but then he’s there, between her quaking knees, suctioning his mouth to her and using his tongue to fiddle around with her clit. His arms are limp and heavy as they hold her thighs down and open. Any energy he has is converted into strokes and twirls, from there into her overwhelmed sobs. Brad walks back in to Michelle yelling, “Peter, fuck!” as she climaxes with her head thrown back and his pressed insistently into her groin by her stiff hand. When Brad comes to sit on the bed, Peter’s leg kicks out and catches him right in the stomach. The kick drives him off the mattress and onto the floor with a thud.

Michelle scrambles away from Peter, to the edge of the bed, as Brad stands and starts putting his clothes on, his back to her.

“Are you going?”

She sees Brad’s shoulders rise and fall as he sighs, but he doesn’t answer her. Once he’s dressed from the waist down, he lifts his shirt from the floor with a swish and slips his arms in as he walks back out of the room. Uh oh. Michelle glances to Peter who appears maddeningly unsurprised. She yanks at the bedsheet until he moves off of it, but touches her wrist as she wraps it hastily around herself to chase after their friend.

“I’m sorry if I wrecked this for you,” he says.

“No.” She shakes her head. “He wanted tonight to be something it was never going to be and I thought, when he invited you, that he could handle it, but… I gotta go talk to him.”

“I think I’m already lucky he didn’t jump up and break my nose, so I better stay here.”

“Alright.”

Michelle almost stumbles trying to keep the end of the sheet off the floor, but she gets to Brad while he’s still buttoning his shirt, patting his pockets to check for wallet, phone, keys, maybe the little Swiss Army knife he carries because it always comes in handy eventually.

“Brad,” she says, cautious in cotton and bare feet.

He cuts a look at her with his dark eyes.

“Better not,” he suggests.

“You’re really leaving?”

“Do you need me to stay?”

She hesitates, leaning away from him slightly at the question.

“Well, it was supposed to be—”

“No,” he interrupts. “Do you need me to stay?”

His eyebrow twitches with everything he’s suppressing: hurt, hope, jealousy. Brad’s smart, he knows the answer, but he still ventures forward with grave determination, the way he’d lead a group of their colleagues down a forest deer path that may or may not be crossed with poison ivy. But Michelle is not something for him to sweep clear and overcome.

“We can only be friends, Brad,” she tells him, straight and honest. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy doing this with you…”

He grins ironically, giving her a glimpse of his bright, perfect teeth.

“Please. You two were shutting me out before Parker booted me in the stomach.”

She doesn’t really have a defense for that. They might have touched Brad, grabbed him, licked and kissed him, but none of that compared to how she felt whenever Peter took her hand. She’s actually a little scared to walk back into her bedroom and face that.

“He didn’t mean to,” Michelle asserts awkwardly. Brad lifts his eyebrows. “Probably,” she qualifies. He nods tiredly.

“If he tells you I was a dick to him after our next game…”

“What makes you think I’ll still be in contact with him then?” Brad gives her a look and she frowns, chastened. “I’ll believe him,” she says instead, “and I won’t blame you.”

“This sucks,” he admits, smiling tightly at the floor.

“Can I get you a glass of water for the road? Transit fare?”

“I’d actually rather get out of here and begin the process of trying to forget what Peter’s dick looks like close up as soon as possible.”

She says nothing to champion the dick in question. That would be cruel.

“This was… something I hope we can laugh about someday,” Brad says, and quickly kisses her cheek.

“I’ll—” they say together.

“—text you tomorrow.”

“—see you on Monday,” Michelle says. “Oh. Uh…”

“Space,” he says, understanding.

“Probably good for right now.”

“Yeah.”

When he leaves, she locks the door and bangs her forehead against it. Fuck. She’s going to have to get a new job, isn’t she? Walking in to spot his heartbroken face every day is more than she wants to deal with. Their initiative has a bigger office downtown, not the outpost-like space they work out of. She can apply there. Probably should’ve ages ago, when she started outgrowing the place she’s at. She’ll miss traipsing around outside the city, having to check her legs for ticks, her hair for spiders, and her arms for dead-branch-inflicted scratches deep enough to require infection-preventative measures, but she can buy some fucking plants. Start a garden in her windowsill. Hike on the weekends. Regain some of that thankless grant application time by devoting it to projects more clout will actually allow her to push forward. Be the chooser instead of the beggar.

Michelle laughs at herself, faintly tipsy and two orgasms deep, standing alone in her entryway in a poor man’s frat party toga.

She gets herself the glass of water she offered Brad. She pees with her goddamn adult white sheet scrunched up in her lap like a bride’s dress on her wedding day. She strides back to the bedroom and drops the sheet at the door.

“Hello,” Peter says, perking up.

“Hello yourself.” The man is stark naked and unashamed. “You’ve been, what, chilling?”

“I also eavesdropped.”

“You’re a loser.”

“I’m the loser you haven’t kicked out of your apartment,” he points out. His gaze slips naturally to her chest as she climbs onto the bed on her knees and takes a seat beside his prone body.

“Why is that?”

She asks rhetorically, but Peter either doesn’t pick up on that or ignores it. She kinda likes that about him. Where Brad tries so hard with her, Peter leaves her room to try a little too.

“You like me.”

“Unfortunately, that is possible.”

“Unfortunately? Give me back those orgasms I gave you then,” he demands.

“Orgasm,” Michelle corrects, emphasizing the singular. “The first one was assisted. You can’t take full credit.”

“Bullshit.”

She shakes her head but Peter grabs the back of her knee, pulling her forward, stretching her out, until she’s on her back, laughing, and he’s hovering over her, inches from a kiss that she really, really wants to receive. Strange.

“Is not,” she tells him flatly.

“Then I’m earning that plural.”

“Oh yeah?”

Instead of kissing her or lowering himself down onto her or otherwise touching her in any way at all, Peter leaves. Michelle sits up and looks after him, baffled.

“Where are your washcloths?” he shouts from the bathroom 30 seconds later. A laugh bursts out of her.

“Tall cabinet next to the shower!”

She listens to him running water in the sink. Laughs again when he returns at a run.

“Flip over!” Peter says wildly.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Come on, while it’s still hot. It’ll feel nicer.”

Michelle rolls her eyes and maneuvers onto her stomach. He washes her back with the warm cloth. He washes her back. She folds her arms under her head and pillows her cheek on them, candidly observing him. In a practical sense, Peter’s wiping away what Brad left behind, and buying himself time to get hard again, she’s certain. But it doesn’t all feel like practicality. Not when every pass of the cloth is so careful, or when Peter makes another sprinted trip to the bathroom to heat it up for her, or when he’s lying down alongside her by the end, beginning to lightly kiss her clean skin.

“I don’t understand you,” she hears herself confess.

“I’m an enigma,” he agrees. Michelle snorts.

“I do like you though.”

“Called it.”

He chucks the damp, cooling washcloth over the side of her bed and she glares at him.

“This room has wood floors. Which I pay for. As a feature of this apartment.”

“It’s not on the floor, it’s on my jeans.”

“So, it’s soaking into your jeans right now? That’s convenient for you.”

“Is it?” Peter asks vaguely. His hand is rubbing back and forth very low on her back.

“I’m assuming you’re not planning to get back into wet jeans tonight and make your way home.”

“I would if you asked me to,” he swears, giving her puppy-dog eyes.

“Are you forcing me to say this out loud?”

A winning smile. She sighs in exasperation and turns onto her side, propping her head up with her hand.

“Peter, would you like to stay over?”

“Do you want that?”

“You’re a pain,” she says for the second time. Peter continues smiling, waiting. Michelle takes a deep breath and keeps her eyes on his, not letting her gaze drift around the apartment that is nice but lonely, tranquil but lifeless. It has life with this surprising person in it. “I want that.”

He shuffles close to her with a grin.

“I want that,” he says, brushing his lips across hers.

“Mmm,” Michelle agrees. Her eyelids fall. She parts her lips for his tongue. His hand fits into the curve of her waist and slips over to touch her back. His thickening erection nudges her mons, then her abdomen as he swells against her. Her moan skips and drags and Peter clutches at her more purposefully, tipping her onto her back.

“Condom,” she remembers, and points him to the box tucked out of sight. Discrete for the fact that she bought it for use in a threesome with a work friend and a total stranger.

Peter holds up her copy of Frankenstein, resting beneath the box.

“You a fan?” he asks, returning it to its place and tearing open the wrapper on the condom.

“I’ve read it twice, but I think I prefer Dracula.”

“Aw, I’m a wolfman guy,” Peter offers. He puts the condom on like it’s a sock or a baseball cap; there’s definite familiarity there. And Michelle doesn’t care. “Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster are creepy, sure, but the wolfman is two different people: the regular guy and then this creature in the shadows during the full moon. I don’t know, I think there’s something really cool about that. You ever watch the old Lon Chaney movies?”

Ok, she more than likes him. She likes him quite a lot. Smiling, Michelle shakes her head.

“Well,” he says, but he stops talking then. There’s a depth to the look in his eyes as he gazes at her. She lets him in and stands as horizontal witness to his existence in blinks and breaths and the pound of his heart she can almost feel from here.

“Why don’t you get the light?”

Click.

In the dark, it’s less of a performance, not that Peter doesn’t clearly intend to perform. Michelle’s eyes rest without the light and she breathes deeply as Peter comes over her and kisses her neck. Her eyes are still adjusting while he takes a meandering route down her chest, pressing his mouth harder against her breasts. He licks across her nipple; she scratches her nails up the back of his neck and into his hair. When she lets out the smallest huffing sound of enjoyment, he cups his hand between her thighs, skates a finger along her entrance. As if she wouldn’t be wet. As if the foreplay didn’t start the minute he walked back in with that warm cloth and draped it across her back.

“Any specific requests?” he asks, lifting his head from her chest. She can see his face now. Enough light gets in around the edges of her blinds. She runs her fingers through his loosely curling hair, then arches her body up against his.

“Don’t be gentle.”

Michelle feels the eager tremor of his hand against her inner thigh as he lines himself up and eases inside her. His breathing catches. She tilts her hips and raises her knees from the bed, urging him in, farther, all the way. Peter withdraws and she’s assuming he’ll build up to what she asked for, but he slams back in. Though she clenches her teeth around the sensation of him filling her so hard and so well, a whine escapes.

“You’ve been waiting for this,” she acknowledges, accuses, admires.

He pauses, hands planted to either side of her on the bed.

“Like I said, I’ve heard a lot about you. I’ve been waiting for this since I convinced Brad to tell me your name.”

She wants to think and hide and hold him close, but she can reflect later. He seems to agree. Peter’s thrusts are rough and rhythmic. Pounding into her like a machine one minute, he’ll be playfully grabbing her wrists and licking her neck the next. When she tightens her legs around him, he lets her change their positions, only to haul her beneath him again—on her stomach this time—as he rocks in and out and wedges his hand under her to rub her clit. They chase each other across her mattress and Michelle comes clawing at her pillow, invigorated by the certainty that this is the best time she’s ever had in bed. Peter bites her earlobe as he snatches one of her scrabbling hands and spills into the condom.

He doesn’t help her remake her bed with clean sheets because he claims to be “bad at it.” She’s debating the potential truth of that when he returns with a bowl of popcorn after leaving her alone to do it herself, joins in, and somehow puts a lavender pillowcase on inside out. Michelle sets it right with a laugh and they get back in bed together, popcorn and her laptop playing Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man between them.

She slips away to shower after Peter falls asleep with his head on her lap. When she gets back, she quietly removes the bowl and the laptop. The bed’s a king—she’s used to her space and she doesn’t need to sleep close to him—but Michelle squirms into the warmth his body radiates. He stirs enough to breathe in the scent of her hair, kiss her forehead, and thrust his hand into hers. Confused by the gesture, she frowns at his face, with its softly closed eyes.

“By the way,” Peter mumbles, shaking her hand, “nice to meet you.”

Michelle smiles and pats his arm as he drops it over her, instinctively pulling her close.

#my writing #thotumn #peter parker is a thot #spideychelle #spideychelle fanfiction #peter parker #peter x mj #peter x michelle #peter parker x michelle jones #michelle jones #brad davis #been sitting with this done for almost a month lol

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joonsdiary · 4 years

Text

the proposal

↳ part one of the: (not) the love of my life series

pairing. ceo!seokjin x hotelier!reader (female) genre. arranged marriage au // humour with a dash of fluff and sprinkle of angst (mayhaps future smut?) word count. 4,8k summary. after losing ownership of your hotel to the satan-spawned ceo-to-be, kim seokjin, you are forced by the powers that be (your parents) into marrying him. you agree under the assurance that you won’t be out of job, but with the title of manager instead of owner. as it turns out, he has other plans and approaches you with a proposal that’s hard to refuse.

note. a cliché, overused trope? check. a series with (maybe) no plot and is just about jin as a billionaire ceo? check. this was initially supposed to be a sequel, but i couldn’t follow it up with the same ambience and mood, so i decided to leave the drabble [as a standalone] and write a spin-off instead. this has been in my drafts for the longest time, so i’m excited to share to you a series that literally nobody asked for.

warning-but-not-really. not all corporate ceos are as chilled out as jin will be portrayed here. may give you high expectations of literally some of the worst people on this planet lmao also purely self-indulgent! read at your own risk tbh

the proposal | the first date | the ceo’s keeper | the engagement

The premise was simple.

Get married so you can keep running your hotel business or refuse and lose everything to the man your parents have personally hand-picked to become the owner.

Scratch that.

The man your parents sold your hotel to, thus making him the newly appointed owner.

Choosing the latter and having your freedom would mean giving up your hard-earned company to the lousy billionaire’s first-born son, who happened to own half the hotels in metropolitan Seoul.

The Kims.

Notorious for their enormous amount of wealth, their class, and having three strapping young men for sons who knew nothing else, but privilege handed to them in a silver platter.

Despite growing up in a well-off family, you’ve always taught yourself that independence and hard work was the key to success. You distanced yourself as much as you could from your parents’ money, stuck it out for four years in college, and graduated with a degree. Running the hotel full time while attempting to finish your master’s in business administration part-time had been the theme for the past year. Until your parents dropped the bomb on you.

Words like, do you really think you had full ownership of that run-down hotel of yours and we had to sell, or we’ll go under had been thrown around. As if keeping the secret of having a huge amount of debt would make you feel better about seeing your hotel assimilated into Kim Hotels. Not only would you lose ownership, but you knew that you were bound to get fired, if not demoted. It usually came with the change of proprietor.

Conveniently enough, the Kims had other plans. Their current CEO, Seokjin’s father, agreed to let you keep working as the hotel manager instead of the owner, which is honestly miles better to you than being jobless. But it came with a hefty price: you were to marry their oldest son, Kim Seokjin. They drove a hard bargain, and you found yourself agreeing. You loved the hotel more than anything you’ve ever owned; having to pour your heart and soul into making it worth being proud of. And you were. That’s why hearing your parents say that it was in debt felt gut wrenching.

Initially, you tried to get a hold of him, hoping you could convince him to re-think the situation. You thought perhaps the media had been wrong about him, and all the talks of him being a calculating corporate shark was a lie. Maybe he would let you work as the manager without having to marry him. But the COO of Kim Hotels refused to meet with you, despite hearing from your parents that he’d been “more than willing” to be married to you.

You scoffed at their baseless statement. Seokjin had a reputation for taking women to bed one night before leaving them to dust by the next morning. As if selling his soul to the devil in order to be worth billions of dollars wasn’t enough; of course, he was sleeping around as well. You weren’t one to judge anybody’s lifestyle choices, but you were sure that someone in that calibre wouldn’t agree to be wed to a person they hardly knew just because. There was something in your gut that told you there was more to the agreement than a simple arranged marriage.

Or maybe the feeling in your gut was due to the bad pasta you had.

“Good evening, Ms. Hwang.”

You’re greeted by Mr. Park, the doorman as soon as you enter the lobby, cradling a piping hot tea you hoped would alleviate the stomach cramps you were having. His smile gave away his old age, wrinkles dotting the corner of his eyes and the lines in his cheeks. You returned the gesture.

“How was your dinner?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” you laughed softly, shrugging away your coat without spilling your drink. “I’m never eating out ever again. Please tell me Yoongi is in.”

He nodded, gesturing to the entrance not too far from the lobby. You bid him good night and head to the restaurant in the hotel, which was sparse with customers. Friday nights were usually teeming with life and excitement, but unfortunately business had been relatively slow all week. The worry pooled deep in your stomach – as if you needed any more ratification that your hotel needed to be bought, or you’ll close down.

“Yoongi! I need your cure-all soup,” you called out as soon as you sat on the barstool, propping your tote on the table. Jungkook waved at you from the far end of the bar, concocting a drink for the eager gentleman waiting in front of him. Yoongi popped his head out from the kitchen’s double doors to scowl at you but was met with your beaming smile.

He returned several minutes later with your request and you quietly thank him.

“Bad date?” he asked, wiping his palms over his well-worn apron. Jungkook had inched closer by this time, mindlessly wiping the area beside you.

You nodded. “And terrible food. I should’ve just asked him to take me here to Grigio instead.”

Yoongi raised his brows, but a grin was threatening to burst from his lips. “Why didn’t you?”

“He insisted on going to that posh new restaurant that just opened last week. Said it took months to book and he couldn’t just cancel on a whim,” you rolled your eyes, carefully blowing cold air into your steaming soup.

“This is why I told you to stop looking around,” Yoongi leaned into the counter, studying your expression.

“It’s cuffing season,” you joked. “Blame social norms for my behaviour.”

He gave you an impassive stare, before sighing. “You’re literally cuffed already.” He said, followed by a quiet, “I still can’t believe you’re getting married soon.”

You waved your right hand nonchalantly before lifting the spoon to your lips. You moaned as soon as the flavour filled your senses.

“Did you know you’re the best chef ever?”

“It’s just chicken noodle soup,” he said drily.

“Exactly! The simplest meal yet you manage to bring out so many spices at once.” He rolled his eyes at your attempt to boost his ego. Either way it was true; for you, nothing beat Yoongi’s cooking, no matter how simple he thought the meal was.

You forgo the tea and asked Jungkook for a bottle of white wine. “Nothing fancy — Les Capriades is fine. I heard they came in last month, and I have yet to try them.”

He nodded at your instructions before disappearing off to the back to find your drink.

“Stop avoiding the topic, Y/N,” Yoongi rested his chin in the palm of his hand.

“I’m not avoiding anything,” you stated confidently, yet you couldn’t meet his gaze. “The devil incarnate himself refuses to see me. I guess I’ll have to meet him at the altar.”

“Three weeks from now,” Yoongi said, almost exasperated.

“Until then, I’ll enjoy my freedom.”

“What freedom?” Yoongi scoffed, rounding the table to slide into the seat next to you. Jungkook returned with your promised bottle and your eyes beamed with excitement before quietly thanking him. “You didn’t even date around before any of this marriage circus happened.”

You agreed with the “circus” part and ignored the indirect jab. Besides not having a say in any of the planning for your wedding, your supposed fiancé refused to introduce himself when you tried to reach out multiple times.

Okay, perhaps it wasn’t multiple times. You called his office when your parents broke the news to you a week ago, but his assistant said he was busy with a meeting and that you should call back. You didn’t, and that was the end of it. You’ve been putting off trying again, but it’s been a week and he hasn’t contacted you back either.

Maybe it was mutual disdain; if one of you was testing the other to break, you didn’t want the first to be you. It already felt undignified to be marrying someone for the sake of keeping a semblance of ownership to your hotel, so you weren’t about to grovel and demand to be spoken to when it seemed like he wasn’t willing to spare you a second of his time.

Yoongi chatted for a bit before he had to go back to work, so you were left to pull out your laptop from your tote. For the next few hours you immersed yourself into finances, staring at the excel spreadsheet displayed on the screen far longer than was medically allowed. Surely, you’ll go blind before you see your hotel overcome the negative deficit you were in.

“See you tomorrow, Ms. Hwang,” Jungkook thrummed his fingers on the table as he passed by. You looked up in time to see him mime something unintelligible. Your brows raised in confusion.

“Your glasses,” he laughed quietly, fingers hovering close to your cheek. You mumbled a quiet oh, before pushing the rim higher until it settled snugly against your nose bridge.

“Thanks.” You sighed, tipping your head to one side. After feeling the satisfying pop! you turned back to Jungkook with a grin. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You slumped back to your work as soon as Jungkook was out of sight. Glancing at the clock on the corner of your laptop, it blinked 00:37, which automatically caused you to yawn. Yoongi should be out soon, so you willed yourself to stand up and prop the close sign by the entrance.

From where you stood, you could see the lobby clearly, as well as the spinning doors of the hotel entrance. A few patrons trickled in, no doubt coming in from their busy day, and filed sluggishly to the elevators where it would take them up their floors.

That was the most fulfilling part of being a hotelier to you. The satisfaction of giving people a comfortable stay, whether they were mere tourists or locals wanting a getaway from their normal life. It certainly isn’t as posh and sleek as the Kim Hotel with their towering glass buildings and boring black, white, and grey colour palettes. But what you had was something you were proud to consider your home, with the vibrant earth tones of the walls and furniture, as well as the rich velvet tapestry draped along the ornate windows. High ceiling chandeliers peppered the lobby, casting an ambience of warmth and security without lacking luxury.

“‘Night, Y/N.” Yoongi clasped your shoulder, startling you out of your mini daydream. “Stop using my restaurant as your office, will you?”

You mustered a small grin. “Bye, Yoongles. Drive safe.”

Yoongi turned to you as his face contorted violently. “I hate that nickname.”

“Love you too!” You called out as he exited through the revolving door before placing your hand down with a sigh. Back to work. You were about to turn and go back to your forgotten laptop when the door welcomed in another guest.

With bated breath you watched the man stalk towards you, eyeing you dangerously as if you were his prey. His midnight black suit made him look slim but highlighted his broad shoulders all the same. You were arrested at the spot, unable to look away and felt as if you’ve been robbed of oxygen. The more he stepped closer, the more unclear your thoughts became.

It’s not as if you hadn’t seen the man. He often appeared on several business magazines — gossip tabloids more so. Yet there was something different about seeing him in person, in front of you, in your hotel.

No. His hotel.

“Ms. Hwang. I was hoping to find you here.”

You blinked up at him, not trusting your voice to form words under such immense pressure. His usually slicked back ebony hair is more mussed; a day’s worth of stress was evident in his restless feature.

When you didn’t reply, he took it upon himself to study you from head to toe, and your body went rigid. Your long, honey-coloured hair had been tied up in a lazy bun and glasses framed your face. You didn’t bother changing out of your mini black dress from your date earlier, whose thin straps clung onto your shoulders for dear life.

You squirmed uncomfortably, finding a small ounce of strength to wrap your hands protectively around yourself. “What are you doing here, Mr. Kim?”

“Please,” he rolled his eyes, supple lips bending upwards for a grin. “Call me Seokjin. Mr. Kim is my father.”

And with that, he welcomed himself in the threshold of your restaurant.

Technically, it’s his restaurant now, too.

You let your anger simmer for a bit before turning to follow him.

“You didn’t answer my question,” you declared. It was hard to keep your annoyance down when he had showed up unannounced after ignoring your existence for a whole week.

He slid next to the seat you had claimed yours, and you almost tripped in your heels as you followed, immediately snapping your laptop shut. There was no new information he could have garnered from looking at the finances of the hotel, as he’s probably aware of them. But the thought of him snooping around made you feel queasy.

“I wanted to see what had my father so enamoured that he’d actually buy this…” he trailed off, waving his hand dismissively, “…hotel?”

You hated the underlying judgement in his tone of voice. You had also heard rumours that he’s unabashedly forward and hard to deal with, on top of all the other rumours that plagued him. So far, all the boxes in the checklist were proving to be true.

“It’s quaint. Not at all what I expected.” His gaze studied you momentarily, and you can tell he wanted to say more but he smartly held himself back. Good. You don’t know what you would do if he strung one criticism after another.

“Well, you’ve seen it. You can kindly screw off now.”

Seokjin seemed taken aback for a second, but his surprise didn’t linger. He leaned back on the stool and swiveled forward before pointing at the shelves lined with alcohol.

“I’ll have a whiskey, neat.”

In an attempt to ignore his ridiculous demand, you powered up your laptop once more. No way in hell would you let him step all over you, not even when he owned the hotel where you now stood. “You have very capable legs and arms. I’m sure you can whip one up yourself.”

Was this man joking? Granted, you know your way behind the bar since you had the privilege to work as a bartender for a few years during your college tenure. But that doesn’t mean he’s welcomed here to treat you as if you were a subservient of his. Which, semantics aside, you were, though that’s beside the point. But if he made an effort to come down here and order you around like a scullery maid in an attempt to intimidate you or put you in your place, then he was barking up the wrong tree.

“I was told you have terrific hospitality. I guess they were mistaken.”

Not for the likes of you, I don’t. You rolled your eyes, not bothering with an actual reply.

Seokjin maneuvered off his suit jacket and unbuttoned his cufflinks before he rolled his sleeves up meticulously. He then rounded the bar and began grabbing materials with familiarity, not stopping to ask where anything was located. You watched in awe from the corner of your eyes, attempting to be discreet.

“Want one?” he gave you a slanted gaze.

You wrinkled your nose in disagreement and raised your wine glass.

“A refill, then?”

Pressing your lips firmly together, you gave him a defiant headshake.

The mild shock of seeing him traipsing behind the bar had rendered you absolutely mute. The fact that he knew where everything was piqued your interest. Was it an outcome of years of experience as a habitual drinker? Or did he often just randomly raid bars, hence his extensive knowledge of their layout? You didn’t want to know, but at the same time you did.

It took him a while to find a coaster before settling back to the spot beside you. Typing away at your laptop, you refused to give him even an ounce of attention despite his attention solely being yours. The silence that ensued was more uncomfortable than anything you’ve experienced.

Suddenly, you were all too aware of your crooked posture and your body snapped, straightening your shoulders rigidly. It felt stupid, but necessary for the sake of your sanity to keep your façade. Although it crumbled ever so slightly when Seokjin laughed beside you.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel tense,” his voice was languid and inviting.

You steeled yourself, refusing to be lulled into a trance by his intoxicating presence. “What did you really come here for, Kim Seokjin?”

“She speaks!” he exclaimed, clearly amused. You turned to give him an impassive stare. “Do I need a reason to visit my fiancée?”

His statement caught you by surprise, your poor heart bearing the brunt of suddenly having to pump more oxygen than usual. It brought warmth to your cheeks and you allowed yourself to fall into the fantasy of marrying the most eligible bachelor in all of Seoul. The fantasy, however, was short-lived as his wink broke the spell you were under.

“Don’t worry, this will be strictly business,” his back straightened up on cue. You tried and subsequently failed not to watch the way his deft fingers moved to loosen up his necktie. He then slightly deflated with a sigh, before grabbing his drink and taking a sip.

For courage, perhaps? It brought a small amount of accomplishment to know that you might have The Kim Seokjin nervous before you.

“It’s about the wedding, which you know is coming up soon.”

This was it. The topic you’ve been narrowly avoiding for the past week suddenly poured on you all at once like a bucket of ice-cold water. It wasn’t the most refreshing way of waking you up to reality, but it got the job done.

“I hope you aren’t getting cold feet now, Kim,” he grins at your attempt at humour.

“I apologize for not getting back to you sooner, by the way. My secretary said you tried to get a hold of me.” You remembered the woman’s monotone voice on the other end of the phone call. Part of the reason why you were reluctant to call back was due to nervousness from hearing her apathetic voice.

You shrugged in response, finding him less of an asshole than you had previously. Was your expectation of decency so low that you found anything remotely human he did to be an act of chivalry on his part?

Yes. Yes, it was.

“I tried calling because I wanted to know if I would be able to talk you out of this deal.”

Seokjin was visibly surprised by your candor.

“Oh yeah, and how would that have played out?”

You shifted uncomfortably in your seat. Surely, it was too late to take anything back, so you tossed all caution out of the window. He might as well hear your piece.

“The ceremony preferably cancelled. The Hwang Hotel back to its rightful owner, as if the whole thing hadn’t occurred in the first place.”

Seokjin regarded you with amusement in his eyes. The warm lights of the Grigio soften his rugged features, making it seem like he was glowing. You came to understand how he had the whole country enamoured by him. He was distressingly handsome.

You gagged at where your thoughts ended up and leaned back a little, terrified of feeling too intimate with the man who had claimed your hard-earned success for himself. The hotel means more to you in ways you know Seokjin will never be able to relate. A man who, with a little twirl of his fingers, would be making more money than you could ever hope to imagine. They say no hard work goes unpaid, but for him it was probably akin to: No hard work, but I get paid either way. How comfortable must it be to sit atop that domineering tower of his, overlooking the city he practically owns?

“And what do I get out of that possible scenario?” he began after a brief pause.

You refused to wilt under his imposing gaze. With a confident voice, you said, “The satisfaction of doing a noble deed.”

He barked out a laugh, tilting his head back in obvious enjoyment. You didn’t share the sentiment as you sighed before removing your prescription glasses. Perhaps hoping for the impossible was futile, after all.

“Look, I don’t care about this little passion project of yours,” Seokjin waved his hands around condescendingly, and you felt a familiar pang of anger surging from your chest. “And you’re lucky my father swooped in to purchase this hotel before you went bankrupt.”

“Thank you for the constant reminder,” you deadpanned, but he ignored you and continued. The gall of the man to show up and ridicule you made you irate. I take that back, he’s still an asshole in every aspect imaginable.

“To be frank, I think we’re both in a pinch here. You want your hotel back, and I’m willing to grant you that tiny little wish.”

You perked up; interest piqued. But you felt an ultimatum coming, so you squashed all hope arising from his statement. There was always a catch.

“My parents have been grooming me to become CEO ever since I learned how to walk. For me, acquiring the position is a no-brainer.”

“But?” you offered, and his grin widened.

“But lately my father refuses to hand me the reins. He’s been wanting to retire, but every year he keeps sticking it out. Then I unceremoniously learned my engagement with you. All of a sudden, his mood shifted, and his plans for retirement began piling up.”

Your brows creased in confusion, unable to see how you fit into all of this.

“My reputation precedes me, so I’m sure you’re aware of what I’m insinuating here.”

Something clicks in your mind, and you willed yourself to hold back a scoff.

“Enlighten me, Kim,” you propped your chin against your palm. If you were going to agree to this, you might as well have a little fun for yourself.

“My parents aren’t amused by my…” Seokjin trailed off.

“Decision to debauch half the women’s population of Seoul?” you offered, unable to hold yourself back. You grinned triumphantly; he had set himself up for that moral beating.

“I was going to say my inability to settle down, but sure, we’ll go with that,” Seokjin was unfazed, much to your disappointment. “He hadn’t explicitly said it but seeing the way everything is being handled so quickly, I can tell it’s what he wants. For me to get married; then maybe he’ll consider giving me the position.”

“And you didn’t oppose?” you asked incredulously. It seemed at the moment you were the one who is prepped to lose the most. What if it wasn’t you who the Kims chose for their son? Were you supposed to just accept defeat and give up your hotel?

“Oh, trust me, I vehemently opposed,” you nodded at his statement. At least you agreed on something. That was a start. “But that’s partly the reason why I’m here.”

“What more can we possibly do? We’re basically left with no option,” you grumbled, turning back to your laptop. For you, there was no way around this. Both your families have decided for you, so you have to either fall in line or risk losing your business.

“What if I tell you we can go back to our normal lives a few months from now? We won’t be married to each other. You’ll have your hotel back, and I’ll still be the CEO.”

You inadvertently leaned towards him, eager to know where the conversation was going.

“We just have to convince my parents and yours, as well as the board of directors of Kim Hotels and the public alike how we’re hopelessly in love with each other.”

Your mouth formed into a visible scowl, forehead creasing in confusion. You searched for hints of frivolity, waiting for him to say just kidding! at any moment. But his stoic face told you that he was being serious.

“And we’re doing this because…?” your patience had worn thin, expression marred by weariness and fatigue. You had a lot to get back to; you didn’t have time for silly games.

“It will make the divorce more believable.”

You paused, the gears in your brain turning. The agreement your parents told you about hadn’t involved a divorce; so, you were curious as to where Seokjin was going with his idea.

He was offering you an out; a way to get out of his family’s mess unscathed. You’ll have your only prized possession, and he can go back to sleeping with as many people as he wanted while retaining his coveted position. The proposition was too good to be true.

“What’s the catch?” your lips pursed, and you found yourself considering his ludicrous proposal.

“No catch,” he holds his two hands up in surrender, the corner of his mouth forming a smirk. You eyed him with suspicion.

“Just that you give effort into this whole thing. Make my father and the board believe enough to think I’ve ‘cleaned up my act’,” he paused to roll his eyes, “so that they’ll hand me the position without question. I promise you full ownership of the Hwang Hotel, without debt, as soon as we separate.”

While your parents’ original plan had been to marry you off entirely (which you did not want at all) Seokjin was sensible enough to figure out that you had no desires of tying the knot to someone you barely knew. He probably shared the sentiment, hence his proposal.

“This doesn’t make sense though,” you said pointedly. “Wouldn’t they find out about your motives when we divorce? And our parents technically arranged this, so they’ll be mad — I’m sure yours will be more than mine.”

You’re all in for finding a loophole in this whole arrangement, but you’re not sure you’ll agree if it will give you more problems in the long run.

He shrugged, unconcerned. “They can question it all they want. But like I said, if we make it believable enough, we can always reason that we ‘fell out of love’.”

In an attempt to alleviate a developing headache, your hands slowly massaged your temples. The information was a lot to hand, but no matter how many scenarios you played in your head, they all seemed to have the finale you wanted. Regardless of what happened within the upcoming months, you were going to get your hotel back.

“If you’re really that worried, let’s just say I cheated,” Seokjin’s words snapped you out of your muddled thoughts.

Your eyebrows creased in confusion. “Wouldn’t that be worse for you?”

“The public already thinks I’m a man-whore,” he said wryly. “The board is not going to kick me out of office for something tedious like a divorce once I’m CEO. And I’m sure I can reason it out with my parents when the time comes.”

You laced your fingers together, hoping to wring the concerns away. There was no use in overthinking the situation; it certainly beats staying miserably married to someone you barely know.

You let out a shaky breath, before mustering the confidence to say, “Fine.”

“Great, I knew you’d be reasonable.” He flicked his wrist to look at his watch, gaze composed despite the tiredness in his eyes. “I’ll have my secretary e-mail you a written agreement.”

“Great,” you mimicked his deadpan tone. Gone was the casual Seokjin who paced around behind the bar with much familiarity. This was the COO of Kim Hotels Seokjin; precise and straight to the point.

Better get used to that.

“Thanks for the drink, future wife,” he slid off the barstool with poise, the distance between you and him closing ever so slightly. He smelled like pine and cedar, with a hint of citrus; it was enough for you to suddenly sober up, unaware you were inebriated, to begin with.

“No need. You forced your way in, anyway.” You said dismissively, pretending to switch tabs on your screen. Where was that random website you were looking at earlier?

With a quiet laugh, he turned to leave. You listened to his rhythmic steps and perked up when he paused.

“See you tomorrow, fiancée,” he said without turning.

“Tomorrow?” you tried not to give away the surprise in your voice.

“We have to start going on dates to convince them that we’re serious about this, right? Pick you up at eight, sharp.”

With a wave of his right hand, he stalked off towards the exit, leaving you alone in the restaurant.

Suddenly, the premise didn’t appear so simple. You reached for your glass of wine and finished the rest of your courage drink in one gulp.

NEXT ;

thanks for reading! feedback is always appreciated ;u;

#seokjin fic #seokjin scenarios #jin scenarios #bts scenarios #ceo!seokjin #seokjin fanfic #seokjin x reader #jin fic #bts fanfic #seokjin fluff #seokjin angst #seokjin smut #bts smut #seokjin #yoongi scenarios #yoongi fic #writing

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prolestari · 6 years

Text

My next contribution to Zelthur weekend is the following oneshot! This also takes place in the modern AU, which has taken over my life. Just so you know, in my AU (which I will start publishing after Divine Gambit is over) Arthur is a firefighter, Zeldris is a tax attorney, and Gelda is a marketing consultant (don’t ask me what that is, no one knows, and neither do Zeldris or Arthur).

This oneshot is also NSFW so please enjoy responsibly. Thanks for reading! I’ll have some art up later! :)

Arthur tapped his foot impatiently as the elevator rose through Zeldris’ office building. Inside was a woman who kept glancing over her shoulder at him, and he chuckled to himself. He was still wearing the uniform pants and t-shirt with his ladder and engine number printed on the back. Girls always loved the uniform.

He winked at her when she got off at her floor, making her blush, and he shook his head when the door closed. Finally he reached the tenth floor and he stepped into the lobby of the law firm Zeldris had been working at for nearly a year.

Arthur had only been there a couple of times, but he remembered to take a right and weaved his way through the semi-private cubicles, looking for Zeldris. He frowned, trying to figure out where his would be, when someone called over, “Are you lost?”

He turned and smiled at a young man in a suit, leaning around the side of his own cubicle with raised eyebrows. “Sorry, yeah,” he said sheepishly. “Is Zeldris somewhere around here? I’m a friend and I brought his dinner.”

The guy nodded and tilted his head. “File room C. He should still be there.”

Arthur gave a thanks and headed down the hallway. Sure enough, he found Zeldris sitting behind a long desk, frowning over a file. “There you are!” he cried, laughing as Zeldris jumped a mile and kicking the door shut.

“You scared the hell out of me,” he laughed, rubbing his hands on his face. “What are you doing here?”

“Gelda asked me to get you something on my way home. She said you probably hadn’t eaten. She’s right, isn’t she? You look like shit.”

“Yeah.” Zeldris stretched a bit before standing, walking around the desk with a smile.

Arthur met him halfway, wrapping the arm not carrying the bag of food around his waist. “Door’s locked,” he said. “Any windows or cameras?”

“No,” whispered Zeldris, his arms going around his neck.

“Good.”

Their mouths met, hot but sweet, and Arthur kissed him slowly as Zeldris tugged on the end fringes of his hair. Then he pulled away with a final nip on his lower lip. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” Zeldris moved some files to make room on the desk as Arthur dragged another chair over, then started unpacking the bag. “How was your day?” he asked.

Arthur started to pull out the Chinese containers and lay them on the desk. “Busy. Car accident. But fine.” He handed Zeldris a box of noodles and chopsticks with a critical eye. “What time did you start today?”

“Seven,” he answered around a mouthful, looking sheepish when Arthur frowned. “I know, I know, but my part in this case will be over in a week when it finally gets to trial. If it does well this is going to look really, really good for me.”

“Yeah I know.” Arthur grinned and took up his own container. “We will go out for drinks and celebrate.”

Zeldris moaned and nodded his agreement, shoving food into his mouth so quickly Arthur wondered if he had eaten today at all. They were silent for a couple of minutes as they ate, until Zeldris said, “Thanks for this. You must be tired from your shift.”

“It’s not a problem.” His eyes trailed across the paperwork in stacks on the desk. “How long do you think you’ll be?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer.

Shrugging, Zeldris sighed, “Every time I think that I’m almost done they want another copy of something, another reference, another look at some interview.”

“I’m surprised you’re not reciting this stuff in your sleep,” Arthur joked.

As if on cue, the phone on the desk rang, and Zeldris slid his chair over to pick it up. “Yes? ...I did pick that up… Sure let me look.”

Arthur watched him as he talked on the phone, opening a file and leafing through before reading its contents to whoever was on the other end. He grinned to himself as he ate some rice, admiring the confident way Zeldris answered his colleague and the surety in how he handled the files. He was dressed in a suit, navy blue with a crisp white shirt, tailored nicely to his broad shoulders and lean, muscular frame. His dark maroon tie was loosened just enough for Zeldris to have undone the top button, and just that tiny bit of dishevelment with the rest of his look so slick and professional made his imagination start turning. He and Gelda had agreed long ago that their boyfriend looked the hottest in a nice suit.

Zeldris caught him looking and gave him a curious glance. In response Arthur licked his lips, laughing quietly as Zeldris rolled his eyes. He went back to his food as Zeldris went back to his conversation, which finally ended a few minutes later.

“Sorry about that,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “One day these phone calls will stop and I can actually get my real work done.”

“Did you eat enough?” Arthur asked.

Zeldris nodded, seemingly content for the moment, and Arthur moved. Before Zeldris could protest he straddled his lap, sitting on his strong thighs and draping his arms over his shoulders. “Very good,” Arthur murmured, then dipped his face in to kiss his neck.

“What are you doing?” laughed Zeldris nervously.

Arthur licked the skin just under his jawline. “You look stressed. You haven’t eaten. You’re tired. You need a break.” His mouth moved to his earlobe and gave it a quick tug between his teeth. “Plus you look really hot in that suit.”

Zeldris chuckled again, but pushed gently on Arthur’s hips. “Don’t start something you can’t finish, and you can’t finish here.”

“Oh I bet I could finish you here,” grinned Arthur, reaching in between them to press his palm over Zeldris’ crotch.

But Zeldris just yelped and grabbed his arm. “Don’t,” he laughed. “Someone could walk in.”

“Scared someone will find out about your boyfriend?” Arthur taunted in his ear.

“It’s not that, it’s any personal stuff in the office. The partners are really strict with that.” Arthur murmured his assent, but continued kissing along his neck, one hand moving to slide into his hair. He was pleased to hear Zeldris’ voice getting tighter and breathier as he worked his lips and tongue along the sensitive skin. “They don’t care who I am fucking as long as I fuck them at home. That’s a direct quote.”

Arthur was sucking on the side of his neck, and let go to smooth his tongue over the little dark mark. “Glad I’m the one fucking you.”

“This weekend I’ll be home, and then--”

He was cut off by the phone ringing. They looked at one another for a moment before both burst into a nervous laugh. Zeldris reached around Arthur and picked up the receiver, bringing it to his ear. “Yes? Yeah.”

His other hand rested on Arthur’s thigh. Arthur sat back a bit, not understanding the difference between an abatement and an investment, but amused at the look of concentration on Zeldris’ face. He picked up his hand and pulled it up to his mouth, giving him a soft bite on the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb.

Zeldris jerked his hand away, reaching around to give Arthur’s rear a swat. He kept talking, however, not giving any indication there was someone in his lap; Arthur smiled wide, licking his lips, and leaned forward.

“Keep talking,” he whispered in his ear, letting his breath feather over the shell. He smirked when Zeldris’ words hesitated for a split second, and then Arthur began kissing him languidly, rolling his tongue along his ear and trailing wet kisses down his neck. He rocked his hips experimentally, pleased to feel a few sparks jump to life inside of him, and reached down to rub his fingers between Zeldris’ legs.

“The, ah, COMPANY--” here Zeldris reached down to grip Arthur’s wrist, “--did not produce invoices for that month.” He glared at Arthur, who gave a sweet smile. “No, no, it’s in the notes of the spreadsheet.”

Zeldris gave him a warning look as he listened. Arthur remained perfectly still, except for his fingers, which moved to stroke the outline of his body through his pants. The hand around his wrist tightened, and Arthur tilted forward, nipping gently on his neck.

“Okay good. Yeah that sounds like it will work. Thanks.” Zeldris nearly dropped the phone as he banged it back down into the cradle and pulled away from Arthur’s mouth. “Are you kidding me?” he laughed, leaning back a bit to look into Arthur’s eyes.

“No way.” He smoothed his fingers up and down the slight bulge in Zeldris’ pants, smirking when he felt a tell-tale twitch. “I’m not leaving until I get dessert.”

Laughing, Zeldris shook his head. “I have to get back to work,” he scolded, trying to sound serious, but as Arthur felt his grip on his wrist loosen, he knew the protest was weak at best.

Arthur tilted up a bit to look down at him, licking his lips as he pulled loose Zeldris’ belt. The smile on Zeldris’ face melted away, replaced with a look of guarded anticipation; his throat bobbed as he swallowed visibly when the pants were opened and the zipper slowly pulled down.

“You’re going to get me fired,” Zeldris whispered, but again his voice betrayed him as Arthur moved his hand inside his pants.

Instead of answering, Arthur leaned down and kissed him, his tongue hungry as he stroked Zeldris’ own, his free hand curling through the back of his hair and pulling sharply on the black locks. He could nearly taste the excitement, his own heart pumping a little faster as Zeldris nipped at his lips. Their mouths slanted again, and as their kiss deepened all Arthur could think about was how good he looked in the suit, how strong his body was underneath, and how hot he sounded so serious on the phone.

He pulled away and looked down into dark green eyes now filled with lust. Silently he slipped to the floor to kneel, yanking the trousers completely open and peeling the fabric down so Zeldris’ cock was now exposed. Arthur watched for a moment as it tilted, growing harder, then he grasped it with his hand, smoothing up and down the hot velvet as he glanced upwards.

Zeldris was watching, his hands gripping the arms of the office chair, and as Arthur began to stroke him faster his lips parted with a heavy pant. He pumped him firmly, their eyes staying connected, the room silent except for the sound of skin sliding on skin, which made the moment all the more intense. Finally Zeldris’ eyes flickered upwards, towards the door, and his neck bloomed into a flush. “Arthur, I don’t know if--”

His newest objection stuttered off into a choked moan as Arthur wrapped his lips around him. He was mouthing the head, the kiss messy and wet as his tongue darted out to rub a spot just under the fold of skin at the top. Zeldris lifted his hips slightly in reflex, so Arthur tilted his head to suck on that spot, pulling the skin between his lips and lavishing plenty of pressure with his attentions.

“Shit. Shit.” Zeldris was gasping, his hips now rocking slightly. He pushed his hips forward, his cock slipping along Arthur’s mouth; Arthur simply chuckled, opening wide for Zeldris to press against the heat of his mouth, but keeping still so he could not get the pressure he was sure he was craving. He wanted to make this part last just a bit longer before sucking on him. He wanted Zeldris drained when he was finished.

“Arthur,” he panted, his brows pulled down with his frustration. Arthur grabbed his organ by the root and held him steady, and then began to swallow him, their eyes still connected. He watched as Zeldris mouthed another curse, visibly shuddering when his cock met the back of his throat. Arthur held him there for a few seconds, swallowing around him, then slowly pulled back as he took a deep inhale of breath.

He repeated the action, sucking him in slowly, again, and again, and again, until Zeldris was trembling all over. He had sunk down a bit more in the chair, his head rolling back a bit and his eyes fluttering shut every time Arthur’s mouth covered him completely. Arthur reached into his trousers and cupped the flesh inside, weighing the sac in the palm of his hand and gently massaging him as he held him in his mouth.

Suddenly the phone rang, and Zeldris jumped a mile. “Shit, shit,” he muttered again, and Arthur pulled back a bit to laugh, making him groan with the vibrations in his throat. “Please, just give me--” Zeldris fumbled with the phone, sucking in a breath to compose himself before answering, “Yes? Hello?”

Zeldris was visibly sweating as he listened to the other end, so Arthur started to move. He rocked his head up and down, letting the thick cock slide in and out of his wet mouth. The head pressed on the back of his throat every time, and Arthur moaned a little, the excitement of taking him so deeply while under his desk making his own body tighten as well. He applied pressure to the sac in his hand just as he would have wanted it, feeling satisfaction when Zeldris’ voice on the phone faltered.

As he pulled back to catch a breath, rolling his tongue around the head, he felt Zeldris’ hand grip his hair. Arthur moaned softly, lapping at the underside of the head, and heard him say, “Yeah, yeah I’ll… I’ll hold.” There was a dull thud on the table, then both of Zeldris’ hands were in his hair, pulling and tugging in a way that had sent sparks of pleasure down Arthur’s spine. “Please, please Arthur,” Zeldris begged. “Please I don’t--”

Arthur pulled away, hearing Zeldris groan behind clenched teeth. But his hand started stroking him again, hard, long strokes that went from root to tip, his thumb rubbing right in the spot that he knew would have him seeing stars. As his hand worked, Arthur pushed his thighs open a bit, and leaned in to begin pressing his tongue along the base and darting out to push against his flesh. He started working him with a wet precision, mouthing one of his balls and then the other, not stopping the furious pace of his fist.

There was another thud and then Zeldris said breathlessly, “Yeah, yeah I’m here.” The strain in his voice was obvious, so Arthur moved his mouth back to his cock. It was salty and rich and so hot he thought he might be enjoying this more than Zeldris. He closed his eyes and focused on getting the suction just right, wanting to get him off with something to remember.

“What do I think? Uh…” Arthur worked faster, his hand jerking the base as his mouth slid up and down the shaft, sucking him with a wet noise that was erotic and had his own cock pounding. “I think--” His voice went up a pitch as Arthur sucked on the head, so Zeldris cleared his throat. “I think if Mr. Galen want to pursue that he’s--ah--he’s going to lose the ca-aaase.”

Then Zeldris grabbed Arthur by the back of the head, thrusting hard into his mouth once, twice, three times; finally he started to orgasm, his seed shooting into Arthur’s mouth in thick spurts that he eagerly swallowed, mouthing hotly along his length.

“That sounds… that sounds much better.” Zeldris sighed into the phone. “Yeah, I’m fine I… I just need some coffee I think. Okay I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

Arthur heard the click of the phone being replaced, followed by a low groan. His lips were gently moving up and down the softening cock, and when he looked up he saw Zeldris sitting back in his chair, his arm covering his eyes as he breathed deeply.

He let his sex fall from his mouth, and when Zeldris peeked down, Arthur licked his lips. “Arthur,” he sighed. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Kiss me instead,” he replied, standing up and leaning back on the desk.

Zeldris grinned and slid forward, his hands sliding up Arthur’s thighs. He reached for the button on the front of his pants but Arthur shied away. “Nope, no time.”

“I have--” Zeldris checked his watch, “--six minutes. Don’t doubt me.”

Arthur laughed. He bent down and kissed him, but when Zeldris eagerly pressed back he pulled away. “Nah. I got what I wanted.”

“Oh really? And what are you gonna do with this?” Zeldris teased, his brows sliding up as he nodded to the very prominent erection under Arthur’s pants.

“Mmmmm… I think I’ll go home and fuck Gelda. Have her ride me right in the middle of the bed.” Zeldris whimpered and pressed his forehead on Arthur’s thigh. “I’ll describe to her how you tasted, she’ll like that.”

Zeldris gave a groan of protest, but Arthur simply pressed him back and planted another kiss on his lips. “Don’t work to hard,” he whispered.

He headed to the door before glancing back at Zeldris. “Don’t forget to put that away,” he nodded with a grin, and Zeldris tossed a chopstick at him as Arthur slipped out the door, laughing.

#nnt #nanatsu no taizai #zeldris #arthur #zelthurweekendnsfw #zelthur #fan fiction #modern au #happy birthday arthur

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hummingbird-and-the-bear · 4 years

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We'd been working together again for around 3 weeks and it was around day two that I realised wearing underwear was a waste of time. We worked well together, you being the front man doing the sales talk, and me happy to be in the background, on your lap mostly, doing the paperwork. We started early to get work done before play and you were always there before me in the morning to greet me with fresh coffee.

"Morning baby", I said, plonking myself across your lap and cupping your face for a kiss. Our hands are everywhere as always, we have this magnetic attraction to each others skin and smells that keeps us addicted. I rub my thigh into your crotch as you unbutton my blouse, cupping each breast for a kiss, your tongue running firmly over each nipple and sucking gently as I shudder in delight.

"Morning girls" you growl, showing restraint as you button them up again. Your left hand travels under my skirt for your morning check.

"Mmmmm, wet already?", you murmur as your finger runs lightly over my lips, swirling once inside before you bring your index to your lips to taste me.

"Always", I grin as I remove myself and walk to my desk across from you. My nipples are hard as rocks and so sensitive that I partially regret not wearing a bra as the sensation of them rubbing against my blouse is quite intense.

We settle into our morning routine, you make sure the teams are on site, sorting any issues and making appointments for new jobs, while I get started on finalising yesterdays quotes. Is barely 10am andI'm quite lost in my spreadsheets when I hear your command.

"Hands".

Wordlessly I walk around to your desk, removing my blouse and discarding it on the floor, and lean forward, placing each palm on the marks at the front edge. You unzip my skirt and slide it down my legs and I am left naked except for my heels. I part my long legs slightly, presenting myself. You slide a drape of loop carpet between my front and the desk and I smile at your thoughtfulness to protect my upper thighs from the bruising they had when you pounded me against the desk edge last week. I hear you rummaging in your drawer and shiver as I feel the cool drip of lubricant being squeezed onto my arse. I shiver slightly, knowing what is next, and then moan deeply as I feel the firm glass plug pushing against my hole. It doesn't take much for it to ease past the outer muscle and sink into place as I sigh contentedly. You give it a slow twist and then run your hand down my arse cheek towards my cunt. I expect to feel a finger or tongue against my entrance, instead I feel something foreign being slipped easily into my wet pussy. I clench my pussy around it trying to figure out what is pressed against my walls filling me. You walk around the desk, standing naked before me, your beautiful cock inches for my mouth but not looking at me, and I'm confused as you're busy playing with something on your phone. As the object inside me buzzes to life, you place your phone down looking smug and I realise you are operating the vibe on an app.

"Oh bubba" I manage to mumble happily as your cock enters my warm mouth, my tongue running over your length and sucking you deep. My hips are bucking to the vibrating pattern you have selected...it's teasing a steady beat against my gspot, my arse and mouth are full and I'm moaning around your cock as you start fucking my mouth. The vibe starts increasing its tempo and so do you, holding the back of my head as you force into my throat, I'm swallowing around you and sucking hard as you withdraw in a steady rhythm. My mouth is a slurping mess as your hips buck harder and its not long before you're holding my head pressed against you as you moan my name and your sweet cum explodes into my mouth. You slide out as I gasp for air, panting to catch my breath. I see you're still hard as you walk around behind me and I hear the clank of your belt buckle as you pick it up from the floor. The vibe is pulsing hard but I can't get the relief I need to make me cum, as it edges me to the brink and backs off and I'm moaning in frustration. I let go of the desk with my right hand and reach for my clit to get relief.

"Hands baby", you scold and smack my cunt making me yelp. You pull my elbows back behind me, looping your belt around them so you can raise me slightly from the desk and use it to keep me arched back in position and my hands immobilised. Your fingers find my clit, pinching and rubbing as I moan and beg to cum. You know I need to feel you in me. In one movement the vibe is pulled out and you enter me hard, pulling the belt towards you as you start fucking my needy hole. Every time you ram in to the hilt, the plug in my arse is pushed forward making it feel like both holes are being fucked. My breasts are swinging freely, my nipples grazing harshly against the piece of carpet sending me wild and I realise that its purpose was twofold. The multiple stimulation across my body and your hunger for me is relentless and my moans are increasing as the electricity builds. "Cum for me baby" you say and with those words the rush of bliss explodes as I scream out, my body shuddering, my cunt gushing over you as you continue fucking me through my orgasm and you start to cum also, flooding my insides as you moan my name. Holding yourself tight against me, you release the belt to reach forward and squeeze my breasts in each hand, massaging firmly, as my body still tremors under you. Slowly you withdraw and kneel behind me, lapping at my pussy lips, cleaning my juices, soothing me with your tongue, and chuckling as you set off new tremors through my sensitive lips. You gently undo the belt and lift me back off the desk and onto your lap, cradling me against your chest, holding me tight. My breathing finally calms and you sit me up. You pass your belt behind my neck, threading the buckle at my throat loosely and letting the length fall between my breasts, the end tip of the belt brushing my pussy lips.

"Rest bubba, you're exhausted". You carry me to your couch and lay me down. Your hand slides over my arse and you slowly twist the plug to ensure it's secure. "That can stay there for later". You cover me with a blanket and my heavy eyes close, drifting off in bliss with the smell of your leather belt and its presence around my neck bringing peace to my mind.

I awaken to the sound of you talking on the phone.

**********

You hear me stirring and swivel your chair around, smiling at the sight of me sitting naked with your belt. You beckon me over with a finger while you continue you conversation. With a smile I crawl across the floor and under your desk, positioning myself between your legs, already so hungry to have your cock in my mouth again.

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tdactyl · 8 years

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She Spills, You Score

Kara is kinda stressed and just wanted froyo. Lena is gay and flustered by Kara and just wants to help and maybe her number. Lots of gay feelings.

You dropped your frozen yogurt on the sidewalk and you’re crying and i’m the only one around to witness this um do you want me to buy you another one au