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kneelingshadowsalome · 1 year ago

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🤠🫶:

I am CACKLING like a cartoon villain oh my GOD you are a genius!!! Of course the toxic king breaks his back of COURSE he does the fucking idiot (affectionate), so there's fuck-all he can do with reader's big announcement that this was all worth it and he can totally get some...yknow, in a couple months. AHHHHH. And she just wanted to give him something to look forward to, motivation for the physical therapy <33 (she boops his nose while he lays there wishing for death and cowering from her, of course she does, omg. i love them your honor!!)

and maybe she gets more confident now that he can't fucking move 💀💀 (lmao, oh god. König if you weren't such a menace this would have been easier for her a lot earlier and nobody would be in this situation) and maybe this leads to way more sensual touching from her on her own initiative; she's curious, after all, and she does like him a lot and she's just trying to help him get better, you know? and König eats that shit up, starts telling her all about these itches and sore muscles he can't reach, could she be a dear (trying to act like he's not literally begging for her touch) and then he basically blacks out the first time her hands linger and drift, but probably better that than the things he was going to say to her. So König wants to die, this is too much, he's done, he's a goner each time she visits him. and damn her, she's a devoted little thing, never misses visiting hours. Always so sweet and caring towards him and it's the perfect image of a faithful, doting housewife without the wife or the house or the sex part of it lmao. And of course he can’t move when all this is happening!!! so basically just more torture and his mind just kind of breaks into little tiny pieces held together by demented lovesick lust-filled fantasies. he says some absolutely filthy things (makes the cunt licking look family friendly in comparison), he can't control it really anymore, and poor reader is shocked/horrified and blushing furiously, but thinks it's the medications and the pain and whatnot, tries to be understanding, only chides him once she gets her shock under control (and he's actually stone cold sober the entire fucking time lmao, but he ain't telling her that, she'd run if she knew).

AND THEN MAYBE~~ (dun dun dun) one day reader is FINALLY reaching under the stupid hospital bed blanket - he can feel her soft little fingertips and carefully manicured nails travel down his abs, trace the V of his hips (my man is going to black out again, good lord) and she's looking at him with big round eyes and she's nervous she's going to do it wrong and he won't like it (as if), and it's taking FOREVER for her to get her hand between his legs bc sweet little thing just wants to do it right, and he's out of his mind, half-crying, whisper-begging at this point (it's probably not even English, not German either, just mindless pleas). Her hand FINALLY wraps around his length and he's lucky he doesn't cum right then and there; she's blushing so violently at taking a man in her hands for the first time and she's seeking HIS approval with those pretty doe eyes as she bites her lip. So of course that's when there's a knock at the door (the universe hates him, he's going to scream, whoever this is is lucky he can't move and they might die anyway from the blast radius of sheer rage) and a doctor comes in for daily rounds. Reader barely has time to yank her hand back before doc sticks his head through the privacy curtains and yep our man's heart might actually just stop, he is just going to keel over right then and there.

so not even a handjob for our poor king <3 if he doesn’t die (lol) he transfers to in-home care IMMEDIATELY and finally gets reader to himself in a more private setting where he can lock the fucking door. this is the part where I look away lmao, I'd leave him blue-balled & suffering forever ...am i a mean person?? also RIP to that doctor. this verse is so hilarious & wonderful and i love it, feels like a tug of war between tropes and genres if that makes sense which results in your delightful genius works, thank you thank you <333

This is so beautiful. I am puddle & I can't thank you enough for collaborating & I LOVE YOU Howdy anon 💋 and um, I think I got a little too excited about their first time lol oops (I can't leave him blue-balled forever! Poor man would die of heart failure 🥺)

(Tamara and Demon (1864), Mihály von Zichy)

Word count: 3.7 k

CW: 18+ NSFW. Corruption kink goes brrrr. Masturbating, dirty talking, obsessive/yandere König. Awkward handjob. First time/virgin!reader. Kinda sweet and fluffy 🩷 Also coersion/mildly dubious consent, tread carefully!

A/N: You can find the story of König x virgin!reader and their relationship so far by following the tag (könig x virgin reader)

Oh she visits him alright!

She’s much braver now that König is bedridden and can’t move. They actually spend more time together after the weightlifting accident. The intense stares haven’t gone anywhere, he's actually gotten worse in that department, but otherwise, König is behaving quite nicely.

He seems to like it when she reads to him next to his bed, which is immensely cute in her opinion. Armed with a new book in the crook of her arm, she’s on her way to visit him again for another session.

She's already accustomed to simply floating in after giving his door a light rap. She's also gotten used to the sight of guns and knives and the smell of army storage, even the manly, pungent stench of sweat that lingers on top of it.

But it’s not the potpourri of masculine military scents that stop her at the door and nearly make her drop her book.

The King himself is lying naked on the bed – well, naked except for the bag of a mask he seems to hold on to like it’s his soul. This time, she doesn’t even see it: her eyes fly straight to the towering erection he’s stroking, urgently with one hand while the other cups a pair of shaved, pale balls.

"König…?"

The man who calls himself King curses – in German or in English, she can’t tell. The sight of him there, caught red-handed on touching himself, only makes her feel sorry for him. König has nowhere to run and hide, nothing to cover himself with, he's not supposed to even move yet. And he is not the one who should be embarrassed, after all, she's the one who barged in on his privacy.

Although… König doesn't look embarrassed.

He only looks drunk and sweaty and in need.

She thinks about turning back and leaving him with hurried excuses because what the hell is she supposed to do…? Read him a book? He is still gripping his cock like it’s a sword or something, breathing like he just ran a marathon.

And speaking of swords, that weapon is far too big for her... Hell, she doesn’t know much about swords but she would deem that sword far too big for any woman.

If she were clever, she would run away from that stare and that huge, monstrous cock. But she’s not that clever, that much is clear because everyone she’s told she’s dating König have warned her about him. Every cell in her body is warning her of danger, but she keeps running back to him, over and over again…

Well, at least he can’t move, she thinks, takes a hesitant step, and places the book down on a table. Just when she’s about to whisper some calming, soothing words to this beast, the beast speaks.

"Take your clothes off," comes a husky command from the bed, and she freezes with her fingertips still on the cover of her cute little book about German fairytales (she knows König likes his fairytales bloody).

Normally, she would make a scene out of such audacity. She might even storm out of the room and vow to never speak to him again for daring to talk to her like that.

But…

He looks so desperate. König looks like a giant bound for torture on that bed. And he's not the only one who has been tormented these past few weeks… The incident at the hospital has plagued her dreams every night as she has tucked herself in with the memories of König's… sword.

Perhaps it would help with his pain if she offers him relief in his time of need. No harm can come from that, surely. She doesn't know how exactly taking her clothes off will help, but if that is his wish, then it’s the least she can do.

To her and his surprise, her hands drift to the hem of the top she’s wearing. She’s feeling rather wild – something about seeing König completely naked yet unable to move is making her act like this. Like she's the brave one. Like she’s in control now.

Dedicated to her task, she pulls the shirt over her head.

Nothing moves on that bed for a good long while. As far as she can tell, König might've stopped breathing. But by the time she takes her bra off, there’s a swallow under that hood. Then the hand slowly starts to stroke again, the moist, slick sounds continue as her breasts fall free from their confinement.

She’s breathing heavily too, and the man on the bed is stiff as a stone: every single muscle in his body is pulled taut as he stares at her breasts like they’re the Revelation of John. Then those blue eyes lift to her face just before another command is issued.

"Take off the rest."

"The–the rest…?"

"I just want to watch you."

His voice is hoarse and croaky, and she feels even more sorry for him – König must be in so much pain and she just keeps on teasing him. She started this, so perhaps it’s better just to see it through.

What’s crazy though is that he actually moans when she gets out of her pants, socks, and finally, her underwear. The slick sounds of fapping increase, and he’s moaning.

She hasn’t even touched him yet… She’s just standing there before him completely naked, heat pooling low in her belly as König continues to work himself with what looks like both pleasure and pain.

"Komm… Come here," he orders next, out of breath but surprisingly politely, and she has no other option than to approach his bed. She sits down as chastely as possible, then almost jumps back up when a steel-hard thigh brushes against hers.

"Touch it. Ja?"

Her eyes grow as wide as they can go as she takes in the cock she has touched once before, briefly and under a hospital sheet. Now it’s right there, foreign and demanding.

Better just to see it through, her mind tweets as her hand reaches out through what feels like water. Like before, there's a sharp intake of air under the hood as she takes him in her hand. It’s even hotter than she remembered, and gives a tight pull the instant her fingers wrap around it.

"Like this…?"

"Just like that…"

Her meek little mouse peeps and multiple bats of eyelashes are like drug to him, it seems. The man is as tight as a bowstring when she starts to move her hand up and down, mimicking the motions she just saw him do. They're not as fast as his, and her grip must be way gentler, but she seems to do surprisingly well for an inexperienced virgin. The poor man looks like he’s about to faint on that bed.

What she doesn’t expect, however, is König to touch her.

A large, warm palm sweeps across her ribs and lands on her breast, softly, as if he's concerned that he might scare her off. She's the one who's stopped breathing now… And then he rubs her, squeezes her. Gently… Reverently.

"You're soft," comes a strained sigh from the bed as she tries to keep her own grip both tight and gentle. She’s starting to get so wet she fears she will stain his sheets. Bewildered, she tries to change her position, but the palm cupping her breast seems to have bound her to the bed too. Nothing moves, except her hand and his as they explore each other. A giant and an angel...

Something hot and wet meets her hand as she strokes him – is he cumming already…? But it can't be, she has heard there’s supposed to be quite a bit of it when a man cums, and there’s only a few ample drops of clear liquid oozing out of the slit on his tip.

"Can't wait for the day I get to make you scream," he rasps, and her heart is hammering in her chest as more cum-like liquid streams from the slit of his cock, adding to the lewd, moist sounds of the handjob she’s giving him.

König doesn’t know she has never even kissed a guy…

"We'll… we'll get there," she tries to soothe him, thanking her lucky stars this man can't move.

"I want to fuck you," he continues, sounding more and more desperate. "Good and hard… until you cry under me. Want to see if you can take it all in."

"König…"

"It’s a long cock, ja? I can make you squirt."

"König, I'm still a virgin… You can't–"

"Nh–Sorry… sorry."

His head falls back on the pillow, his muscles relax just for the tiniest moment. But if she thought he would finally leave her to it, she was wrong. The hand of a giant killer drops between her legs next.

She’s sitting on the bed like she would sit on a side saddle, with one leg slightly bent, giving the horniest man on earth good enough access to the heat between her legs. She doesn’t stop him – she doesn’t even want to – as broad fingertips meet her pubic hair and slip between her already slick folds.

"...Was? Pretty angel is all wet," he comments on her state of mess. Approvingly: like all his fears have suddenly disappeared.

She has to fight the urge to roll her head back and moan as those agile fingers start to give her full, generous strokes. She almost messes up her rhythm while stroking his cock, which seems to have gotten even harder.

His fingers delve into her with more courage, they tease her tight, tender nub with excited circles. She tries not to jolt and shiver as he makes her even more slick, tries to ignore how her nipples grow hard from that burning stare alone.

"Such a pretty girl… and so wet. You sure you don't want it?"

She thinks about it – how it would feel if he somehow was able to take her on that bed. If he pushed that cock inside her and if it would hurt or make her moan even more. Even the thought of trying to fit that inside her makes her thighs feel like pudding.

"I don’t know… You're still recovering."

"Heh… That's not a problem. You can be on top. I'll help," he offers as if it’s a gentlemanly thing to do, to help her bounce on that huge cock.

"I–I'd rather do it the classic way."

"I'll show you classic when I get better," he promises with unconcealed greed. "I'll show you all the other ways too. We’ll do it any way you like."

She tries hard not to whimper when hearing his promise. She tries her best to pleasure the biggest cock she’s ever seen. It’s ridiculous that it’s the only cock she’s ever seen... What sort of a cruel joke was it from the universe to choose this king-sized Austrian to be her first man?

She wonders how König would react if she told him he’s too big for her.

Would he try to change her mind? Would he have a meltdown?

Would he cry…?

She doubts if this man ever cries. The last time a brutal soldier like him shed tears was probably when he was a kid. But he did look like he was about to cry that one time when she booped his nose...

And despite being a cold-blooded soldier and somewhat awkward at times, König has always been so, so delicate with her. He's tender even now, touching her with the gentlest avarice there is. But that searing stare wants to possess her, devour her, and it makes her bite her lip nearly to the point of drawing blood.

"Sit on my face?" he offers next, this time sounding so desperate it's almost pathetic.

Sit on his face…

What would he even do? Lick her? Try to push his tongue inside her while finishing himself?

The thought alone makes her mess up her rhythm again and causes her pussy to pulse more wetness on his fingers. She secretly hopes he would slip at least one of those fingers inside.

"Let me see your cunt," he begs. God – this giant mercenary is begging to see her poor, aching pussy. "Just… let me at least taste you–"

She can’t even reply before the hand between her legs gives a sudden twitch and stops those delicious rubs. Actually, his whole body is going rigid.

"König…? Am I hurting you?"

"I'm–gonna cum…"

Oh god.

Oh god ohgod-

She's not sure what gives her more of a fright: the sound that leaves her soldier boyfriend as he cums, or the bright, hot flash of liquid that shoots from the cock in her hand.

He groans like it’s torture. Long and hard, so loud that she’s sure other people can hear it in the neighboring rooms, perhaps even further than that. There’s one, two, three spurts of thick, hot liquid, after that, she loses count because it spills to coat his stomach, it runs down her hand, and she’s pumping him in a frenzy while he just keeps on moaning.

"Slow, slow down–" he tries to groan in the middle of his climax and she obeys immediately, reveling in how his cock still throbs in her hand when she finally stops moving altogether. More cum gushes out with every strong pulse, even if the eruptions are less violent. Ropes of it already cover his abs, it coats her hand with thick film – it's far more than she would ever have expected, and a shiver goes through her as she imagines what it must feel like to take all of that semen inside her…

"Ah… Das war wirklich…" König sighs dreamily while she must be looking like a startled deer.

Yes, that was really something… She doesn’t know what to do with his cock, or her hand, or the mess that coats half his body.

Luckily, he instructs her to take his old shirt from the floor and clean herself with it. She cleans him with it too, dabs the black t-shirt over his muscled stomach, even tries to swipe his crotch with it as gently as she can.

König looks happier by the minute, looks at her like she’s an angel or something, and when she fully commits herself to getting him cleaned up, he gets another erection. She’s quite horrified – how is this even possible…? She thought men would need at least hours to get it back up again.

"Come on top," he offers, sounding all but seductive with that commanding tone.

She swallows, thinking if König wants to be a "gentleman" and finish her too. With his tongue... or something else.

"Just for a hug? We don't have to put it in."

She seems to be under some spell tonight, because she simply drops the poor, cum-stained shirt back on the floor and crawls to the bed and on top of him.

König is hot and lean as she presses herself against him, her thighs now straddling the intimidating thing between his legs. Her head falls right beside his mask-covered face, and the smell of guns and fuel and sweat is prominent there, as is his natural odor, the woodland musk she has grown so fond of.

"There we go," his arms go around her waist, pressing her tighter against him. There’s no escape now, she thinks, but like always with König, she eventually softens and relaxes, molds against him… Accepts her fate.

"You did well, Meine Liebe," he even caresses her head as she slowly melts into his hold. "I’m sorry if I frightened you. Will you forgive me?"

"Um, of course."

"A gentleman should always apologize if he has upset his lady. Do you agree?"

"Uh… Yes."

"I promise to be a good man. The best man you could ever hope for."

She bites her lip as König continues to caress her. She’s far from upset, but she doesn’t want to tell him that and excite him too much. Otherwise he might end up hurting himself. He hugs her tight, and seems to have calmed down more than ever.

Is this what an orgasm does to a man...? The change is drastic, and her lover feels warm, and tender, and inviting. He even whispers more promises on her skin. They're nonsensical but gentle, König is probably trying to be romantic, but she can feel how his breaths grow heavier as time goes on. After all, they're both naked, pressed tightly together, closer than ever before, and he's having an erection again...

She tries not to shiver at the things he tells her. The husky promises of love and protection: "You are mine now, ja? Don’t be afraid. I would never hurt you. I will always keep you safe." And then, "You’re still wet, mein Mädchen… How about we practice just a little bit? We'll do it slow. Ja? I will make you moan…"

He coos those things in her ear while holding her in place for his cock. She starts to move on her own accord; it’s like her hips have their own will. Soon, her entrance meets the tip of him, still hot and bulged, and she starts to grind against it with barely restrained greed. She is wet – wetter than ever.

König curses multiple times under his breath, and she feels so, so filthy for loving how unhinged he is, how unhinged she is – spread wide on top of him like that, trying to get off of the faintest touch of his cock. She’s so soaked that the hot tip of him glides across her folds with no effort at all.

She feels like she’s doing something forbidden, taking her pleasure from him like that, but König doesn’t seem to know what the word filthy even means. He keeps praising her, guiding her, helping her, telling her how good she feels, that she’s doing so, so well.

Soon, he’s asking to put it in – just the tip.

She tries her best not to sound too needy as she breathes a soft, mousy "Yes."

"How does that feel?"

He’s panting, few inches of thick cock inside her, and she thinks, did she just lose her virginity? Is this it? Why isn’t it hurting?

“You like that, hmm?”

He feels so, so good, pressing her against him, spreading her legs with his own, trying to feed more of that marvelous thickness inside. It doesn’t hurt, at least not yet. It makes her dizzy to even think what she must be looking like, with her legs spread and a huge cock partly inside her.

She should say something… What was it that he asked? Oh yes, if she likes it. She more than just likes it, and tries to push herself down to get more of him in. König reacts immediately with a ton of praise leveled at her in the softest possible way.

“That's it, that's it, pretty girl, take it in…”

Him cheering her on like that only makes her decide that it’s time to let go and let go for good. But she can’t get him in by herself, not while he’s holding her a prisoner like this.

"More… König, please," she hears herself whimper.

God, is this all it took...? Him holding her close and letting her find the joys of sex herself? Apparently so, because he sounds goddamn smug when he turns his head to rasp more needy, throaty things in her ear.

"Ah… Knew you'd beg for it… "

His voice makes her inner walls clamp down on him, and that’s when it hurts, but only slightly. She wants him so much that it’s painful. And König… God, he keeps on showering her with praises and promises.

"I'll show you how good it can be… That's it, let me hear you. It's a good cock, ja? Good cock for a pretty girl…"

It’s not even fully in before he starts the thrusts. That’s when she knows she has lost her virginity. She’s being plunged. Not taken… Just… loved, thoroughly and deeply.

When she moans, finally sounds as filthy as can be, he tells her how tight she is. How good she feels. He says he’s going to cum again soon. But not before her…

He doesn’t need to instruct her to rub her clit on his pelvis in rhythm with the thrusts. She is smart enough to do that by herself. And the thoughts of This is it, I’m not a virgin anymore have turned into Is it possible to cum on your first time…?

Everything’s perfect, all things considered. But there’s something missing.

"König," she swallows arduously. "I’ve never been kissed... Would you– Could you…?"

He stops moving, releases his hold a little. A strong heart is hammering inside his chest, she can feel it against her own fluttering heartbeat.

Is it stupid of her to ask…? Will he only laugh at her for being so sentimental?

Apparently no, because it’s the warmest possible command that surrounds her this time.

"Lift the mask, angel."

By the time their lips meet, both hesitant and needy, he's fully inside her and holding her like a mountain. She feels like she's in a fairytale now: the only thing that moves is his mouth, and hers. Theirs is a slow, hungry rhythm.

Her first kiss is not only awkwardly romantic and sweet, it’s sinfully good.

The kiss also does things she did not expect. Her pussy goes tight around him, so tight that a whimper or two escape her nose, and König only purrs – she feels like the softest little creature in the embrace of a lean jaguar.

And she thinks…

Why on earth didn't they do this months ago?

#answered #yandere könig #könig smut #könig x virgin reader

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bubbles-for-all-of-us · 1 year ago

Text

I put a spell on you

request: I’m here to feed your Xaden delusions, but lead singer/guitarist Xaden performing at some underground club, and they’re covering “You put a spell on me” (the Austin Giorgio version), and he locked eyes with you and is singing to you and only you during that moment

a/n: I honestly will be sending this person to jail time because this behavior is unacceptable. Enjoy... I guess...*shakes head*

warnings: want to take a lucky guess? Sexual themes. I don't write smut on demand but look what you did... Rap it before you tap it kids. Kind of modern day plot line.... eh...

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You were touching up your make-up in a tiny back room. Black silk dress on. High heels. Dark red lip. The hair all curly and loose. The rest of your band was an hour late, so you had to spend most of the night singing up on the stage to music playing from your phone. Were you pissed that this happened on a Friday, the day the pay was always the best? Yes. But you also did not control the weather, and a snowstorm is a snowstorm. "They want you back in five", a voice calls from behind your door. "Coming", you shouted back, double-checking your appearance and grabbing your water bottle.

You were in the middle of a third song when your eyes landed on a guy. And dear Lord, not just any guy. You had covered up the quiver in your voice, but your eyes stayed glued to him. The slightly unbuttoned shirt, the rolled-up sleeves, and the tattoos running all across his arms. If you weren't standing up, you would be clenching your thighs together right about now. You tried to pull your gaze off him, but no matter what, your eyes returned to him every time. His piercing gaze on you.

You were taking a tiny water break when you heard someone tapping the side of the stage you were standing on. Your head whipped to the side. A gasp escaped your lips. The same guy was standing there, a guitar in his hands. "Xaden", he called out, getting up on the stage. "Y/N", you frowned slightly. The drunken man had a big love for coming up on stage to bark into the microphone, hence why no one besides the bad was allowed up there. "I also play, just at a different bar. I play the guitar and sing," he was talking, but you just stood there dumb-struck. The guy... Xaden was also bloody tall, his muscly flame towering over you. "If you don't want...", he started. "No, I mean yes, I mean no", you muttered, making him chuckle slightly. "I need someone to play with; the phone shit is killing me tonight", you shook your head, trying to get your composure back.

"You did well, though. Your voice is very pretty", Xaden said casually as he plugged in his guitar. "Well, we'll see if you live up to the expectations", you muttered back. A smile painted Xaden's lips. He played a couple of chords, turning to you so you would be able to tell him if the tone was comfortable for your voice. You played with that for a couple of minutes before you gave him a thumbs-up. But when you turned back towards the crowd, a realization hit you: you didn't ask Xaden what exactly you were going to sing. You turned your back to him right as the first notes of the song echoed. This motherfucker...

"You put a spell on me", his velvety voice fills your ears, "I'm losing my mind". His eyes were all over you as he sang. Your grip on the microphone tightened as you watched him. "You better stop these things; it's a matter of time". But two can play this game. You threw your head back, letting your hair fall back from your shoulders, exposing the glistening skin of your bare skin, as you let your body sway with the sound of Xaden's guitar. "Before I hunt you down", he continues, "Grab your chin and kiss your lips", his tone seems huskier, and as you pull your gaze back to him, you find his stare still glued to you. Pupils big. "You bring me back; I lay you down and grab your hips". A smirk plays on your lips as you join him on the next line, "And we lose all control", you've never thought your voice would mix with a stranger so well. It's almost hypnotic. So fucking sultry. Xaden's voice hitches slightly, and you yank the control away from him. "And before you know", you point your finger straight at him as you continue, "I've put a spell on you", your hips dip slightly as you let your body get swallowed by the music, "Now you are mine". You've never been more thankful for the bright light that shined right at you as you let your silky voice take over the room. "I've got a hold on you, at least for the night". Your hands move up and down the microphone stand, and you can swear Xaden lets out a light growl. "You know I can't help myself when you ask tenderly". You turn your attention back to him. The grip the guy has on his guitar is close to a breaking point. You can't help wondering if you were to pick up the guitar would yoy find him... but you don't let the thought linger, allowing yourself a moment to bite your lips before you sing the next cues directly, looking at the guy set not more than a meter away from you. "If I'd dimmed the light as your hand brushes me and the floor swallowed my clothes", you said, brushing your hand over the silk fabric, lifting it just a bit to reveal more of your thigh, "And my silhouette puts on a show because I put a spell on you", you muse. Xaden beats you to the next line, "I'm losing my mind; you better stop these games; it's a matter of time". And in the way he sings these lines, you start to feel as if they are more of a promise after all.

It almost feels like a fever dream for the rest of the song. You let the music fully take over as you two shared the stage. The moment the last chords ring, you can't help but let out a shaky breath. The crowd erupts in cheers, and you smile back, bowing slightly. From the corner of your eye, you see Xaden doing the same. You don't turn to him as you move to get off the stage. Your heels click against the floor as you briskly walk toward the back of the bar. And you know. Call it an instinct. He's following you.

You barely make it down the corner when you find two hands on opposite sides of you, caging your body, your face against the wall. But you can't help the giggle that escapes you as you feel him pressing against you, the suspicion you had mid-performance very obviously pressing right against you. "Desperate much?", you purr, turning your head back towards him, your shoulder blades flexing, making the man behind you growl, "You and the little show you put on". You manage to turn around to face him. You two are inches away from each other. "You picked the song, sweetheart", your fingers move to play with the button of his shirt, brushing against his chest.

"I don't lose control", Xaden growls, making you giggle slightly, "I think you're about to". His palm quickly reaches to hold onto your face as he tilts your head up so your eyes are back on him, "These red fucking lips and the words that are leaving them." You bit the corner of your lip, letting your fingers brush down his chest until you're met with his belt, and you do one thing any respectable girl would do: you pull him closer.

You've never been one for careless hookups. You left that to your band. You were a hopeless romantic at heart all along, but this man, with his dark eyes, looked down at you. He's making you question things about yourself. And question them hard. "You're playing a game, sweetheart", Xaden leaned closer, and the warmth of his breath tickled your cheek. "Am I? I didn't notice", you said, holding onto this rush of confidence.

Xaden lets out a breathy chuckle as his hands fall to grab onto your hips before you feel him slowly bunching up the fabric of your dress upwards. Some sense of rationality comes flooding into your brain. What if someone walked by? But Xaden quickly wraps his hand around your throat once again, yanking your attention back to him. "If I touched you now, would you be wet?", a gasp escapes your lips at the bluntness of his words. Yet you are painfully aware of the answer.

"Look yourself", your voice is barely a whisper. Xaden's lips curve upward. "You're giving me your consent to touch you, baby?", he leans in once again. You tilt your head up in hopes of finally meeting his lips, but the grip he has on you stops you. "I asked you a question", he growls. You nod your head eagerly, but Xaden shakes his head, "Words. I need words". Fuck, this guy is trying to be a gentleman in a moment like this where he more than has you under his control.

"Yes, please", you whimper at the feeling of Xaden's fingers brushing against your inner thigh. "Please, what?", he hums, his lips finally brushing against your shoulder. "Please, touch me", a shiver runs down your body as Xaden bites the strap of your dress, dragging it off your shoulder. He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't have to. His fingers brush over your belly tenderly, his hand fully beneath your dress now. They dip to your hip; he's no doubt searching for the fabric of your underwear, but you know all he would be met with is bare skin.

As if reading your mind, Xaden lets out yet another growl, "Don't tell me that you have no underwear on". His head falls on your shoulders as if he's taking a moment to compose himself, but two can play this game. You reach for the hand that is resting on your bare skin before guiding it between your thighs, muttering a quick "Upsie." And that is the final undoing that man in front of you needed.

Xaden's lips finally crash into yours. Hungry and desperate. You try to meet him halfway, but the dominance is all his as he explores your mouth. You can't help but let out a moan as his fingers started to lazily rub circles over your clit. "You've been dripping all night long like this?", he rasped out, pulling away ever so slightly. "Only when you came to join me", you gasped, feeling one of his fingers slip within your heat like it was nothing. Your back arches against the wall, your hips grinding to meet his touch. "You fucking, minx", Xaden says, losing another shaky breath, "Where's your room?". Your brain is hazy from him, but you manage to point your finger to the door at the very end of the hallway. Xaden wastes no time as he picks you up. You whimper at the loss of his touch but don't protest much, knowing that you wouldn't be able to explore each other in the middle of a hallway anyway.

Xaden kicks the door shut behind him as he enters the small room. The table meets his frustration first as his hand cleans the vanity off, sending bottles and brushes tumbling down. "Hey", you yelp, looking down at the mess, but all that fades away the moment Xaden's lips are on your chest. Nipping at your skin, no doubt leaving bruises for you to look at tomorrow. Your hands reach for his messy, dark curls as you tug gently, pressing his face further into your skin. He doesn't ask for permission the second time around. He just yanks at the delicate straps, making the fabric slide off your chest.

"No fucking bra too", he hisses, his fingers reaching to twirl your hard nipples between his fingers, sending heat pooling into your core, "You're the devil itself". The noise that escapes your lips as he wraps his mouth over your breast, squeezing the flesh, is far from holy. "Fuck, Xaden", you breathe, arching even more into his chest. "So responsive, I like it", he chuckles against your skin, making you huff, "Fuck you, asshole". He lets himself fully laugh this time as he wraps his hand over your neck once more, "You will, sweetheart; you sure as hell will".

And there's something so primal in his voice. Heat rushes all over your body. You spread your legs even more for him without him having to ask; your body is shamefully desperate. Xaden lets his hands move all over your body. Exploring every curve. Every dip. Sending shivers down your spine. Your lips are back on his, and god, you could spend a lifetime kissing this man. You pull at this shirt, breaking a couple of buttons in the process. That's enough for him to get the message, and his shirt is soon thrown somewhere on the floor.

"Condom?", Xaden asks, fumbling with his belt. You shake your head. "Birth control", you muse. "I'm clean", you add quickly. Xaden growls once more. "How do you expect me not to bust?", he asks, eyes locked on you as he strokes himself through his boxers a couple of times. "It seems like your problem", you breathe, quickly licking your lips as he steps back closer to you.

You let your hand brush over his toned muscles this time; you brush his hands away from his body, and they find shelter on your thighs almost immediately. You reach for the waistband of his underwear but stop yourself. Suddenly wanting to have his permission. Your eyes dart up, only to be met with a nod. That's all it takes for you to yank the material off, and all the holy hell, you could tell that he was above average from the boner that's been rubbing against you all this time, but this long and hard length with pre-cum glistening at the very tip.

"You have something to say?", Xaden teases, biting at your shoulder once more. While you gape at him like a fish out of the water. "I... that... ah...", your muttering is cut off by Xaden, who brushes his fingers over your clit, circling it a couple of times before he dips a finger inside you, moving it at a painfully slow speed. "I heard that before", he mumbles against your lips, "It will fit too, don't you worry", he dips yet another finger into your vagina, and you can feel your arousal dripping onto the table beneath you as that same funny feeling curls up at the pit of your stomach.

You reach for his length, stroking it a couple of times. Xaden pulls his fingers out of yours, moving that hand to join yours. Your juices are now coating his dick, and you can't help but whimper at the sight of it. Xaden rubs his tip at your entrance a couple of times. Both of your eyes are now locked on the way both of your bodies are desperate for a release. "Go gently with me; you're bigger than I've ever had", you can't help but let the sudden wave of worry wash over you. Xaden's eyes dart up to yours, his hand moving to rub your thigh. "I'll look after you", he mutters as he slowly slides between your walls. You both share a breathless cry. Curses fill the space. You know that he's not in all the way, and the burn is like nothing you've felt before, but so is the pleasure that makes your toes curl.

Xaden withdraws almost all the way before moving back into your slick pussy, this time way deeper and way quicker. You let out a cry, your hands darting to grab onto his forearms. "Too much", you whimpered, "It's too much", but Xaden only bucks his hips forward, fingers reaching between the two of you so he could rub your clit in lazy circles. "You will take it", he says. Your eyes fall to the back of your head as he bottoms out with another thrust, growling into your ear. You shakily wrap your legs around his torso, bringing him even closer to you.

Your eyes mist for a second, and you feel Xaden leaving kisses all over your face before his head dips, and his mouth is once again wrapped around your nipple as he twirls it between his lips. "Fuck, please", you cry out right as Xaden picks up his speed, his hips moving in a harsh rhythm over and over. Hitting parts of your body that have never been touched before. Another cry slips past your lips, and your nails dig into his back. "You're so fucking pretty", Xaden murmurs, "So fucking tight".

Another moan escapes you, but this time Xaden is right there to swallow your cries with a kiss. A desperate. Messy one. The room is filled with your wetness. Whimper's bounced off the walls; never had you before been so thankful for the loud music coming from the bar. Drowning out your shared groans. Your tits are bouncing from the fair share of speed Xaden is thrusting into you. You feel on fire. All you can think of is him. "Come on, cry out my name for me, baby", he says, his hands moving to hold onto your hips so he could angle his movements even more. "Xaden", you muse, feeling the tingling sensation rippling through you. "Louder", he growls, his hand coming to choke you once more. You fluster your eyes, meeting his gaze. "Harder, Xaden,", you moan at the top of your lungs. Xaden's nostrils flare, and his hand slides to rub your clit once more, way harder now, as his movement picks up. His eyes grow dark as he growls. You hold onto him as your body nearly slides off the rocking table. "I'm going", you cry out, your head falling back. "Come, baby, take what's yours", he grunts, hitting the golden spot deep within you. Sending you into pleasure like no other, as you both fall over the edge at the same time. You feel him jerking a couple of times, and his cum spurting deep within you. Coating your walls. Sending you into yet another blissful blindness as you clench around him. Xaden's breathing is labored as he once again rests against your shoulder. Your hands lazily move up and down his back, drawing circles as you too try to make your heartbeat less frantic.

"That was...", he mutters, pulling up. You chuckle slightly, "Out of this world", you finish his sentence right before his lips are back on yours. It's a lot slower. Less needy. More sensual. You whimper slightly as you feel Xaden's length twitch one more time, still deep inside you. "Is it bad that I don't want to pull out?", Xaden asks, pushing a strand of your hair away from your face. But he does. Slowly. So slowly that you can't help but cry at the sensation. The loss of him is way too evident. Making you feel so empty. He curses at the sight of his cum slowly dripping out of you, coating your tights and the table. He reached for his shirt, crumpled on the floor before he carefully wiped away the mess you two made. You bite your lip as you watch him. So careful. So gentle.

"Your lipstick is smudged", he states, pulling his underwear back on while you're still there, all sprawled out for him. High on whatever the fuck had just happened. "I wonder why", you mutter, trying to pull yourself off the table only to be met with wobbly legs that betray you the moment your heels hit the floor. But Xaden is there in a heartbeat. His arm wrapped around your waist as he steadies you. The asshole has the nerve to laugh at your disheveled state, and you hit his chest.

"You're okay?", he asks regardless. "Soar, and my brain lost concentration with the internet, I think", you muttered, making the male chuckle once more. He carefully pulled the straps of your dress back over your shoulders, hiding some of the red skin on your chest that was already bruising. "Good thing that I'm driving you back home then", he mutters, kissing the side of your head softly before pushing a finger under your chin and bringing your face up so he could kiss your lips a couple of times. You let out a surprised yelp as Xaden dips, lifting you off the floor and into his arms. Hands resting on your bum as you wrap your arms and legs around him, "Come on, baby, the night is still young".

#xaden riorson #xaden riorson x reader #xaden riorson x you #xaden riorson imagine #xaden riorson smut #haden fourt wing imagine #xaden fourth wing x reader #fourth wing x reader #fourth wing imagine #iron flame x reader

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gracemain919 · 3 months ago

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The Priest (oc) and “Mother” (oc): short story:

(The Fungus Universe)

Tw: Yandere, Polyamory, sex in bed.

(two people x you(fem))

Let Me Serve You

It’s really comfortable. A soft and warm bed with a welcomed addition of cool air conditioning making you just want to snuggle closer to your blanket. So smooth and delicate as you traced your fingers over the fabric that covered your chest.

You would move, probably wrap yourself up in the corner of the bed if it weren't for the two bodies on your sides. On your left, you had a very snuggly woman who rested her face in the crook of your neck(as if she wasn't taller than you), and on your right, you had an older man who rested his arm below you joining the both of you together. A perfect combination, a way for the both of them to share you equally without causing any problems, and very comfortable.

It was a nice rest but the idea of having to be sent off to another Leader really annoyed you. In the morning you would probably have to be with another one… you weren't thrilled about that in the least. Time just went by so fast, you barely did the things you wanted to do. Maybe you could do at last one more thing before you had to leave…

“Pss,” you whispered slowly nudging Henry’s torso with your elbow. “Wake up…”

“Hmm?”. He didn't even open his eyes but his curiosity was loud and clear. Not like he had a choice other than being curious.

“I’m about to leave,” you muttered trying your best to not disturb Rose’s sleep, “I thought I could do one last thing before I left”.

“Like what?” he asked slowly opening one of his eyes. “It’s too late for our usual activities…”. A smirk clearly showed on his face overriding his past statements.

“I-” You felt your throat get dry as the words slipped your vocabulary. You felt ashamed as if you were taking advantage of them just by thinking of such things. These people they… They had jobs and lives, yet the fungus made them throw everything away. Of course, you never wanted to be there in the first place but now were you really so innocent-?

A yawn could be heard beside you as Rose squeezed your shoulder. “Oh come on dear, our lord obviously wants one more bite before leaving,” she commented ruining your train of thought. Yeah, she definitely stole the words right from your mouth.

“Is that right dear?” she asked looking towards you with such loving eyes that could make your heart melt. Warm hands rubbed soothing circles into your shoulder as you were slowly lifted to a sitting position by the firm arm underneath you.

Why were they always so compliant? Almost all of them were in some form compliant. You just wished one of them would just go up to your face and remind you that you aren't all that. Living in such conditions will fuck up your brain for sure.

“Right?”. You slowly looked back at them as Henry repeated Rose’s question. They both were waiting for you… they both wanted you. Fine, you could face reality another day.

You nodded and just like magic Rose pulled you closer to her with a smile. “Oh I've been waiting all week dear,” she groaned, “waiting for you to relieve the ache in my body”. You felt her rub her hips against yours in pure need that you didn't even know that she had. Gosh, why were you blushing? “Why do you make us wait for so long?”

You really didn't know why. You just wanted to hold on to whatever dignity you had before this whole site went to shit. But you were only human to such pleas and begs. Along with their glare as Henry focused more on letting Rose do the talking as he waited patiently seemingly less eager than her, but his grip on your back said otherwise.

The woman’s hold on your side loosened as her hands started to work on your shirt while the other tugged at your pants. Laying limp like a doll waiting to be played with wasn't great. Maybe you should help them out?

With a shaky hand, you tried to touch or at least pull one of Rose’s garments but she quickly grabbed your hand holding it in a firm grip that could resemble a loving gesture. A very tight and firm gesture as she shook her head. “I can do it myself,” she said her smile never wavering.

Ok, geez. Your fault for trying to not be useless in bed.

It didn't take long for you to be left bare, along with the other two. Rose had left your side to discard her clothes walking to the mirror so she could see herself, she traced along her body trying to show you her every nook and cranny while Henry didn't care for putting on a show. In the few minutes he took, the other took double. She didn't have lingerie, but the way her body looked you sure as heck would think her bra and panties were in some form luxurious. She showed off her chest and torso making the bra seem like a wrapper hiding away candy. God, you weren't surprised Henry would marry her…

The bed creaked as they both joined you once more, and before you knew it you were pulled to be on the older man’s chest. He was sat up straight, forcing you to also be in the same position which was comfortable only thanks to the sheer strength he had to keep you upright without breaking a sweat.

He was warm very warm, his breaths were the quick and his grip was tight. No matter how casual he may try and act, sometimes you think he is just as desperate as Rose. Especially with his arousal evident, tracing over your stomach, as he pressed you close to him; sort of a hug.

Soon you felt the weight of the bed shift behind you and soon a pair of hands held your torso. Rose occupied the space between your neck while the hand she held on your torso dipped between your legs. Her hands were cold, really cold but the temperature soon dialed down as she flicked between your nub as if she knew your body in and out.

It was a bit humiliating being caged by two souls and being fingered by one of them. Especially since the both of them were so quiet, the only thing that could resemble noise in that room could be the sound of Rose’s ministrations with your privates. Not to mention the low moans your traitorous mouth kept releasing with you each soft and gentle rub.

Henry had long ago discarded his hands from the equation letting Rose bind you both together by her own body pressing against yours only leaving a small air pocket for her hand motions. “Is this pleasing you?” she asked between kisses on your neck. If it weren't for your wet cunt or flushed face you would have believed her question as factual. Rose was an uncertain woman sometimes.

“Aw. She is more than pleased. Right?” Henry cooed more like a parent questioning a child. His hands found themselves on your idle hips but you barely registered such touch as Rose kept ‘entertaining’ you. Only till he maneuvered your leg around his thighs did you realize what he was planning.

Opening your eyes you were quickly shushed as the other woman held most of your weight lifting you a bit, with the help of Henry.

“Uh, you know that you don't need to move me like a ragdoll? I can do it on my own-”

“Come on dear. What person would let their lord move an inch? Just enjoy it. Close your eyes… just relax” he whispered before slowly pushing into you. You did feel a bit of a brute entering but after being toyed with for a while you were prepared enough to take it. Take the nice full feeling as you closed your eyes letting your back rest against Rose as she cooed about how good you were being.

As you grew accustomed to his size he started pushing in a bit deeper before starting a nice slow rhythm that made your already warm insides hotter. God, it felt nice… and maybe he agreed too as his grip on your hips tightened. His once calm eyes turned a bit too wide for your comfort. His relaxed smile started to break as he pulled you closer forcing Rose to follow his movements quickly. Still caged but now more huddled than ever, he nibbled at your neck whispering sweet nothings into your ear. Sweet nothings that would literally disgust him if you ever repeated them to him in the morning.

“Please, my lord… let me please you. Fuck. I just went to serve you…” he practically pleaded.

Maybe you were taking advantage of them, but was that really so bad when they were so eager?

#yandere oc #yandere #yandere story #oc #yandere x darling #yandere x reader #yandere x y/n #yandere x you #ocs #yandere character #yandere post #yandere obsession #yandere male #yandere female #yandere smut #yandere poly #yandere priest

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anxi-aashi · 9 months ago

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ok i dont have the energy to put this into a fic rn but i CANT stop thinking about college au! childe almost walking in on you while you're getting yourself off.

like he'd still knock of course, but it would scare the absolute shit out of you. instead of hanging out with your roommates that he's friends with (who are most certainly NOT gathered in your room) he'd be all "hey pookie can i come bother you I'm bored," while you're fully sat on a dildo.

and bc you wouldnt want to seem suspicious, you'd say sure, just a sec! and immediately run to throw the sopping wet toy into your bathroom sink before letting him in.

and he's just too observant for his own good. "hey you ok? you seem out of breath" yeah because you were.... working out! "really? you're not sweating though?" CHILDE DROP IT OMFG but he wouldn't. he just asks so many goddamn questions and you honestly can't tell if he's just fuckign with you or if he's just genuinely concerned for you. what were you doing? pilates? so thats why you're walking a bit weird? how tf were you not sweating after pilates? oh you just started? well sorry to interrupt!

yeah.... you're sorry too -_-

but hes here now so you offer to watch a movie and hang out, nevermind the cum threatening to run down your leg. "sure! you pick smth out and ill go to the bathroom real quick!" he says and curse your post-orgasm clouded mind for not being quick enough to warn him bc now he's standing in front of you, dildo in his hand, looking at you knowingly.

youre mortified obviously. the two of you are cordial but not THAT close and god you can almost picture the slick and cum that's smearing all over his hand now. why is he holding it for fucks sake???

childe wouldnt be merciful either -- this is a fucking gold mine for him. "well, i guess this is a workout" and you would like the earth to swallow you up so that you don't have to look at him with that shit-eating grin that's creeping up his face.

hed switch the dildo to his other hand and start opening and closing his fingers together, making webs of cum string in between. "you said you just started?" no, you'd have to refute, that part was a lie.

"and you were getting off with this?" and now WHAT was that supposed to mean bc there was truly nothing wrong with the dildo size!!! it was perfectly fine, it did its job. sure it could be a tad bit longer, but you had bills to pay. he lets it go (with a judgemental eyebrow raise), but when he opens his mouth again to ask "what were you doing?" you almost wish he had kept making fun of your tiny ass toy. "were you using your hands or the suction cup?"

god he'd have a dangerous look on his face by now, lidded eyes looking at you like you were gonna be his next meal; pitching his voice just a tad bit lower just to see you squirm.

"you don't have to answer, but i would really, really like to know." aaaaaand there it goes. there's goes the last bit of your sanity bc huhh?? huuuuhh??? dear lord i would fully melt into a puddle we love a man that can make consent sexy.

fuck it, right? yeah, you were using the suction cup. "yeah? you like riding dick?" SHFBAN;DNSJF;F GODDDD

"you got any other toys?" yes sirrr yes I do, got a vibrator right over there in the nightstand. and duh now he's gotta follow up with "ever use both?"

which you have. who hasn't? but you usually only use it for quickies, you say. don't want it to be over too fast, ya know?

but then. thennnnnn he'd hit you with this: "you still horny?"

lorddddd you have NO idea, but you don't say that lest it get to his head (but lets be honest, he knows what he's doing; he knows how desperate he's making you). so he walks up to you, finally, and hands you your dildo, all sticky and starting to dry by now.

"well don't stop on my account."

and he plops down on your bed, manspreading just the tiiiiiniest bit to where you can see the tent in his pants.

which is how you find yourself back in your desk chair, thighs burning from fucking yourself on a dildo you now know is much smaller than whatever childe is packing while he just watches, palming his cock over his pants.

anyways gonna go work on my wips now lolololololololoolo

#snail.writes #snai.rambles #childe x reader #childe #tartaglia x reader #tartaglia #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact #childe smut #tartaglia smut #genshin impact smut

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powderblueblood · 10 months ago

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HELLFIRE & ICE — eddie munson x f!oc as enemies to star-crossed lovers

CHAPTER NINE — EDDIE the OBVIOUS and the LADY SPHINX

PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT

summary: a tense dinner at rick lipton's place reveals some part of al munson's reason for returning to hawkins. your saturday morning detention is tense, and you and eddie both get more than you bargained for when you crash hellfire club to profile them for the school newspaper. content warnings: MINORS DNI AS ALWAYS warnings for smut, cunnilingus, dick-fondling, p in v, reference to drug usage, slight perv!eddie, silly teenagers having silly teenage fights that actually aren't so silly (kinda antagonistic ronance version!), reference to childhood physical abuse, al munson jumpscare, lacy's dad jumpscare, both lacy's real first name and surname is used in this chapter. no description of body type. just descriptions of a good time eye emoji eye emoji word count: 16.4k

Dear Lord,

Grant me the serenity to accept the shit I cannot change, the courage to change the shit I can, and the wisdom to seize a damn fine opportunity when I see one.

Amen.

When Al Munson cooks a spaghetti dinner, you know he means business.

Once a line cook with aspirations higher than diner fumes, always a line cook with aspirations higher than diner fumes.

He learned to cook on the grill, but perfected it in the joint. During one of his stints, a homecoming tour of the state of Kentucky, he fell in with this web of wiseguys who made him stagiaire in their makeshift kitchen, slicing ghostly slivers of garlic with a razorblade.

Al’s insisted on the method ever since. Even now, hunkered over in Rick Lipton’s kitchen, preparing a meal for which Eddie’s already lost his appetite.

Eddie had already given up on the whole there are a bunch of knives right there suggestion, knowing his father loves few things like he loves performing his whole Kiss the Cook bit. He plays it to the hilt, an exercise in tart, rich, floral smarm that beats out the complex flavoring of his tomato gravy by a country fucking mile. Down to that bullshit Serenity Prayer.

“Courage to change the shit you can? Man, you can barely change your underwear!” Rick heartily chuckles, heaping pasta onto his plate. The way the noodles slide against each other, thick and glistening like worms full of nefarious promise, makes Eddie want to ralph.

He hadn’t had much of an appetite for anything since he’d visited the nurse’s office.

He felt weird. Strung out. Guilty. And angry. Guilty like, what got into me, why’d I do that and angry like, why’d I leave you just standing there like that, and why’d you let me.

“C’mon, kid, you look famished,” Al pulls that anger-inducing Cheshire Cat face, placing a solely ornamental leaf of basil on top of the dish Rick passes. This fucking asshole. These fucking assholes. In cahoots together. “Wayne’s Hungry Man dinners ain’t hittin’ the way they used to, huh?”

Al’s smile doesn’t slice through the tension of the room nearly as clean as he wants it to. Eddie feels Wayne stiffen at his right elbow, sees Rick divert his eyes from across the table.

“Well, Dad,” Eddie says, forcibly stabbing and winding his fork through the spaghetti, “You know what coulda solved that?”

“What’s that, huh?”

“You staying out of lockup for longer than the duration of an MC5 song.”

Al doesn’t falter. Eddie bets he could open-palm slap him and that shiteater of a grin wouldn’t slide from his face.

“I’m here now, ain’t I?” his father clicks his tongue, digging right into his own dish, “You really gotta learn to live in the moment, kid.”

Eddie’s spaghetti-filled mouth starts to form around the indignant words, I’m not a kid! but Al beats him to the punch. Quite literally.

“Though, judgin’ by those scuffs on your knuckles, looks like you did somethin’ without thinkin’ it the whole way through first. Huh?” Al slurps his pasta noisily, and Eddie feels Wayne tense even more, if that’s possible. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

The sense memory of silver flashes colliding with Billy Hargrove’s face in the parking lot, the sense memory of you and your vicelike grip trying to pull him off before he killed him. The sense memory of bile blowing through his veins, stumbling upon those lowlifes talk to you like that. Rage blackout. Yadda yadda.

According to rumor, Hargrove was lucky that Eddie didn’t cave his entire cheek in. He still couldn’t totally see out of his right eye, the swelling was that gathered and insistent.

Eddie lets the question droop in the air, before eventually mumbling, “S’nothing. Just– shit at school.”

Wayne had been the first one to ask him, obviously, catching sight of his bandaged hand when he came upon Eddie staring a hole into–you guessed it–yet another Murder, She Wrote rerun, following your encounter on the examination table.

Eddie had given it the brush off so Wayne had given it the brush off. He was no stranger to his nephew bearing busted knuckles, even if it did make the old man’s blood chill every time he saw it. Those interactions always reeked of you poor kid, like Eddie was the perpetual victim. Got under Eddie’s skin a little.

But Al asks him like he knows something. And Rick won’t look at Eddie.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with your lovely new neighbor, would it?” Other shoe, meet short, hard drop.

Eddie’s grip tightens around his fork, and in the back of his mind, he summons the spirit of the sharpest tongue he knows.

“Who?” He’s this close to prank calling people using his Lacy impression, that’s how good it’s gotten.

Al cradles his cheek against his palm. His eyes, the eyes that might as well have been scooped out and shoved into Eddie’s skull, they’re such iris perfect replicas, search his son for cracks in his composure. Al stabs, stabs, stabs aimlessly into his dinner.

“You’re a lot of things, Eddie Munson,” he says, “but you ain’t dumb.”

“Truly do not know what you’re yakkin’ about. Can I eat?”

“Come on, Eddie boy! You out there getting into scuffles over that little gold-plated piece’ah something?”

“Can I eat?”

“A little forbidden flame, maybe, two’ah you?”

“Can I eat?”

“Can’t say I blame ya. If I were… twenty years younger.... Or maybe she likes ‘em a little more mature. Think I got a shot?” Al’s teeth are starting to grit, spittle starting to fly. Frenzied in the way he’s trying to eek a reaction out of his kid. “Huh? Eddie?”

Al’s lecherous suggestion of you toed the line of too much for the Munson men, it seems. Eddie and Wayne’s voices overlap.

“Maybe we leave that girl out of this, Al–” “–can I eat, or what?”

SLAM! Al’s fist comes into direct contact with the hardwood of Rick’s dining room table, plates and cutlery and glasses clattering nervously. Rick jumps a little, groaning under his breath. Wayne drags a hand over his eyes.

“You can answer the goddamn question! Shit!”

Eddie, for his part, should probably feel a little scared, his dad raring up on him like that. Instead, he just lets his wound-up fork sag in a pile of spaghetti and leans back in his seat. The thing with Al Munson is this– his bark has always been way bigger than his bite. Especially when he’s as coked up as he is right now.

Ever since he’d roared into Rick’s driveway in that eyesore of a muscle car (alright, it was a little cool– but in, like, a lame Dukes of Hazzard kinda way), Al had been operating in sharp angles and backed-up nostrils.

Shit, Eddie would be shocked if there wasn’t residue on that razor blade he used to slice the garlic. That stupid, reckless, peacocking-as-a-father motherfucker.

He folds his arms, waiting for Al’s tone to pitch on down, for the tremor in his hand to act up, for him to say–

“Sorry. Sorry,” pressed through a line of grit teeth, “I just… Hmm.” It’s like Al is actively trying to plaster the mask of his charming grin back on his face but it keeps slipping out of his fingers. “She’s a real dime. Smart as hell too, huh? Shame about–”

“Al, what’re you gettin’ at with all this?” Wayne asks, and thank god he does. Eddie doesn’t know how much more dancing around the subject he can take, but he won’t be the one to bend first. “What did you bring us up here for? And don’t–” the eldest of all Munson holds a hand up, “--say you just wanted to get together. I don’t buy it. Eddie sure doesn’t buy it. And if Lipton here buys it, he’s a fool.”

Al shrinks, a snot-nosed kid under the magnifying glass his big brother holds to him. “Wayne–”

“You bring us up here to make us part of that goddamn stupid high school feud with that girl’s father? You really spin out that far?”

It’s not often that Wayne speaks up, but when he does, boy. Can that man dress a situation down.

Al falters. Wayne has that ability to knock him out at the knees, and Eddie makes a mental note to ask him how he does that.

“Listen. Alright. It’s not– alright,” Al clenches his hands in fists, a flex in and a flex out. A gesture Eddie notices, because he does it too. As if he’s trying to grasp the last threads of trust from them. “With that girl’s old man permanently benched so to speak, there’s an opportunity for another batter to step up. Okay? Jail sentences get doled out like Halloween candy–who knows that better than me, right?--but life goes on. There is… an opportunity here. Work still needs to get done. Work that I could’ve– that I can do.”

Eddie knows that his dad doesn’t realize he’s saying a lot of nothing, because Al’s always saying a lot of nothing. Vague promises with no real end to them. What catches him this time around is the glint in his eye, hidden behind the drug-induced one, and the glint of a gaudy ring on his finger. A green gem stamped in the middle, like a cat’s harvested eyeball. Huh.

“... let me make good on this, boys. For once. Let me take care of y’all.” Al huffs a faux-humble breath, glancing toward Rick for some kind of illustrative reassurance. “Y’know, seeing how it screwed up that little girl, seeing her big, upstanding daddy go to jail and all, I really–,” a swallow, for dramatic measure. Gunning for Best Actor here. “--felt it. Made me think, Eddie, of all the times when you were just a squirt… Made me wanna do right by you, is all.”

“How much of that doin’ right have you got up your nose, Dad?” Eddie sneers, putting two and two together. Of course this is what he’s back for; not to sell, couldn’t possibly be that simple in the convoluted world of Al Munson, but to supply. To get a suit fitted, pretend to be the big man. “Try before you buy isn’t exactly the most cost-effective policy.”

“Jesus, why, why have you got to make this so hard on me, kid?” Al is just about wringing his hands right now, scaling the apex of his desperation. “You have an in! You have the in!”

The in, of course, being Eddie’s connection to you, and by proxy, your dad. Al’s like a bloodhound that way, sniffing out the few good things that Eddie has going for him from miles off and tearing them right from his hands and acting like he’s doing Eddie a favor by making him his man on the inside.

“This whole town could be ours if you would just–”

That does it. Eddie leaps from the table, chair clattering to Rick’s warped wooden floor.

“I don’t want this whole town, are you fucking crazy?!” he yells, spittle flying, “And–and I certainly don’t want it if it’s anything to do with you!”

What the hell would make Al think that Eddie would hitch his wagon (which, granted, ain’t in too great a shape–he’s barely passing any classes, thanks to a pickup in business he guesses he can thank his dad for) to the living sunk cost fallacy that his father is? What the hell does Al Munson want with that kind of fantasy, one where he’s king bastard of the Hawkins cockwalk when he can’t even stick within county limits for more than a couple of weeks?

Well, Eddie actually has a pretty good idea, one that occurs to him like a lightning strike as Al struggles to keep his temper level. Let Eddie look like the tantrum-throwing brat.

Yeah. Exactly.

He’d wind Eddie into whatever scheme he was cooking up and ditch it, half-baked, leaving Eddie in a kitchen with all the smoke alarms going off. Elbow deep in an unsalvageable mess, because Al could never follow through on anything.

He’d have Eddie exploit your relationship for a couple of instances of, “That’s my boy.” Because Al still thought that trick worked; making him believe he’s loved, valuable, wringing every last drop of loyalty out of him because a boy needs his father… and a father needs his boy, y’know!

Fuck that.

“We should split.” It’s Wayne who says it, batting away the apologetic glance both the Munson men get from Rick– like he’s Al’s keeper or something, managing his moods. Like he isn’t raking in a cash cow from Al’s great Ray Doevski replacement theory.

“No, c’mon–” Al half-heartedly protests, like he could still save the evening but can’t really be bothered.

Wayne follows Eddie’s furious stalk out the door, tearing a cigarette from a soft pack as he hauls into the passenger side of the van.

Eddie, a tightening ball of rage, whacks the steering wheel with one good thump. He’d been stupid enough to entertain Al these past couple of days– out of confusion more than anything else. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were.

“The in,” Eddie mockingly mumbles as the van roars to life and he peels out against scattering gravel.

Wayne has his cigarette pinched between his thumb and index and lets that settle for a beat or two.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Fists flexing around the wheel, Eddie knows very well he’s been caught red-handed. There’s no way Wayne had gone this long without suspecting anything, even after he’d specifically warned him. More of a suggestion, actually; Wayne knows that Eddie will do whatever he wants, regardless.

Unfortunately, he’s like his father that way.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Eddie says, a shoulder shrug, a mirthless lilt in his tone. “She…”

Again, Wayne stays silent. Waiting for Eddie to tell on himself, like he always does.

“She doesn’t deserve to be in the middle of this,” Eddie arrives at, voice a little choked. “Whatever Dad’s planning on doing–”

“Neither do you,” Wayne reminds him. This is where Wayne and his stoicism pulls Eddie up short. Neither do you, and the only way you avoid the blowback is if you two avoid each other. But at that same time, Wayne always knows where Eddie’s heart is at. Knows that his heart is too big not to follow.

Even if Wayne hasn’t seen you two together, laughing ‘til you’re stupid like the kids that you are, can’t he see…

“Why can’t this be easy?” Eddie asks, his voice small. Echoes of a littler him, one that Wayne would pick up in the truck after school. Head hanging, backpack trailing, kicking pebbles and cursing the world.

Instead, through a sage swirl of smoke, Wayne’s hard stare seems to peel back some. He’s always known where Eddie’s heart is at. Eddie’s starting to think he wishes he knew less.

—

Jesus Christ, are you ever sick of learning your lesson. Of reflecting on what you’ve done.

It’s exhausting, and more to the point, pointless, and even more than that, boring.

Truth is, you’re beginning to second-guess your adoration of brilliant thinkers. Those motherfuckers knew too much, and in the past week, you’ve found yourself yearning for the days where you got by on knowing nothing but the good stuff! The juicy gossip, where the best parties were at, what lipstick could not stand up to what nail polish! When intellectualism was a bedtime story you’d read to yourself under the fucking covers and you didn’t have to decode the labyrinth of your own stupid feelings!

Sure, you felt like a husk most of the time, but you’d take that over this graceless stumbling shit!

You should be allowed to smash the windows out of Billy Hargrove’s car and no one should be able to say boo about it! God!

Instead, however, you’ve been caught up in an as-yet-unprecedented display of seething and sulking. People are still whispering about you, natch, glancing at your belly like you would’ve if that heinous spawnous prank was played on anyone else. At the very least, they still have the good sense to flinch when you match their stare.

Billy Hargrove’s two week suspension means you don’t have to worry about seeing his ugly face, but it also comes with the two week guarantee of not seeing Eddie.

And the probable delay of your Hellfire article. Which is paramount. Obviously.

Speaking of Eddie, there’s too much speaking of Eddie to do.

You keep replaying the sneak attack from Al Munson in your head, him sliding his aviators down his nose to get a look at you.

“What are you doing here?”

“Payin’ my respects. Your father, shit. Shame what happened to him. He was– well. I was gonna say he was a ‘good man’, but that sounds kinda funny, don’t it?”

It wasn’t about Eddie, except it was about Eddie, because every stupid thing is about Eddie.

Especially the fact that you’re sitting in your college-going beau’s chariot, about to slink into Saturday detention. If it weren’t for him…

“Lacy?” a voice calls from the driver’s seat. “You alright?”

You snap to, rearranging your face into something definitive and sharp and pleasing to the eye. Because you’re fine! You’d said as much when he snuck you into the basement of his parent’s house–why wasn’t he back in school yet–and said as much when he squirmed against you, asking you if you were okay in that weighted way that really meant can I put it in yet.

You’d gotten on all fours because it allowed you to roll your eyes when he was all, oh, woah! sliding it in from the back.

You’d reached around and teased your clit to attempt a climax. Trying to imitate that clumsy rhythm from the nurse’s office. It didn’t quite stick–paled in comparison, like a Simon and Garfunkel tribute act made up of people that didn’t secretly want to fuck each other.

And then he gave you a ride this morning. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to bore yourself out of misbehavior– but you’d told him that you had newspaper business to attend to.

“I’m fine,” you brightly declare for the fourth and final time, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. It was a weird gesture, but the shine had buffed off. He’s cute and all, but you two had gone to see Paris, Texas at the Hawk and he didn’t get it.

He didn’t get how much you clowned on him for not getting it afterwards either. You hadn’t been able to get it out of your head, the way he shrugged away from you at the diner as you ribbed him for his plodding misunderstanding of Harry Dean Stanton.

Coldly, you thought of the trade-off that you and Eddie had agreed on. Repo Man for Paris, Texas once it came out. You had to pretend you liked Repo Man a lot less than you actually did to swing that one, because Eddie wasn’t keen to lock in to some movie about a dude crying in the desert or whatever unless you angled in the fact that you owe me for making me sit through all that machismo.

“You love machismo. You wanted to nail that sweaty little punker, I saw you squeezin’ your knees together.”

“For Emilio Estevez? Please. I had my eye on the old guy. ‘Ordinary fuckin’ people, I hate ‘em’--that kind of shit really does it for me, Munson, you know that.”

“That why you’ve been entertaining the pleasure of my company for so long?”

“Down, dog.”

Anyway. Fuck.

“Listen, Lacy, I gotta tell you s–”

“Can’t right now! I’m already late and Fred is gonna have my head,” you chime, all saccharine, climbing out of the car. “Call me!” You pray that he doesn’t.

Slam. What an extraordinary waste of time.

As instructed, you make your way to the gym, which you think is a little weird. Detention usually denotes writing pointless, go-nowhere laments on how sorry you are for being such a bad kid, right? Think on your sins, yadda yadda yadda.

Typically enough, no one’s here on time. Everyone’s late. You’re perched on the bleachers like an asshole, sitting alone like an asshole. That’s the goddamn ticket, isn’t it? You’re alone in all of this. You always have been.

Like, for example. The Al Munson walk-on role into the surrealist tragi-comedy that is your fucking life. You can’t tell that to anybody. Not Eddie, naturally, not your mom, not Nancy because then you’d have to explain the continued and complicated Eddie of it all, not Ronnie because just because. And the ickiness of it hangs off your every move, and you can’t shake it, and no one can share it.

You’re beginning to wonder if that’s true of all the parts of you. The ickiness. It’s all a little heavy, isn’t it?

As if on cue, hearing ickiness called by name on the wind, Mr Kaminsky pushes open the gym’s double doors.

“Oh, what the fuck.”

“Had to see it for myself.” Your loathed History teacher says, full of glee.

“Sir, if this is some kind of elaborate courting ritual, I have to say, you’re not my type.”

“Careful up there, Doevski. There’s more detentions where this came from.”

“Freak accident. I can’t be caged.”

“Well, let me enjoy the exception to the rule!” Kaminsky claps, and you jerk at the echo.

You sigh so hard you almost unlatch something. “What elaborate torture have you got planned for me today? Want me to run laps or something? Because these shoes aren’t built for that.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Lacy,” the teacher digs, “We’re still waiting on your comrades.”

“I’m late, I’m late, I know I’m late!” a familiar voice comes skidding right up behind Kaminsky, baseball hat askew, mud stains on the knees of her overalls. “Some goddamn lunatic tried to run me and my bike off the road–”

“Ronnie?”

“Hey, Lacy!” she calls brightly and breathlessly, slamming herself down on the bleachers beside you.

“Ron, what’re you–”

An unmistakable heel-click rounds its way into the gym, and in walks Nancy Wheeler with her face all pinched like a porcelain doll. She receives your big ol’ center-piece-missing jigsaw puzzle of a look with a knowingly arched eyebrow.

“You’re late, Wheeler,” Kaminsky tries, but Nancy’s already consulting her wristwatch.

“Detention starts at nine sharp, right?” she says, impenetrable as always. “It’s 8:58.”

“Then can I have my admission of lateness struck from the record, actually?” Ronnie asks and Kaminsky shoots her a withering one, consulting his clipboard.

“Alright, we got one more. Give it the goddamn two minutes, but then I’m bumping her to suspension. You wanna count it, Wheeler?” he scoffs. Wow, so he’s like a round the clock douchebag. To everybody.

At what you only can assume is 8:59, the mismatched gangle of Robin Buckley comes slinking over the waxed floor, looking half-awake and pissed off–more pissed off, you might argue, now that she registers her company. She perches on the furthest end of the bleachers, pointedly away from the loose gaggle of you, Ronnie and Nancy.

You shoot Ronnie a look like, what’s the sitch there? Thought you two were getting all bosomy.

Ronnie just shrugs.

“Alright!” Kaminsky claps the clipboard again, “So, this is a fun group. Bunch of smart girls who got caught doing idiot stuff. We’re gonna make you pay for that today. Sound good?”

The whole bad bunch of you just stare at him, slit-eyed.

Your collective punishment, as it turns out, comes in the form of scraping old, disgusting, errant gum and other mystery sticky bullshit from the bottom of the bleachers.

“Stupid is as stupid does,” Kaminsky sagely says, handing you each a tiny chisel from the art room, “And I understand that some of you are violent offenders,” that’s a pointed look at you and Ronnie, by the way, “but please. Don’t use this opportunity to take another girl’s eye out. Your community college acceptance is riding on it.”

Motherfucker. Everyone knows Ronnie Ecker is in the running for valedictorian.

He leaves the four of you to your own devices, promising to check up on you all in a solid forty-five.

“How many times you think he can beat off in forty-five minutes?” Ronnie immediately asks as the teacher disappears through the door.

“Depends. Is he doing it in the shameful privacy of his three-door rust bucket or the clandestine confines of the AV room?” you question.

Nancy makes a gagging sound but adds, “And is he using his imagination or Ms Kelley’s yearbook picture?”

Nasty Wheeler! That girl has truly endeared herself to you.

Robin, however, doesn’t weigh in at all. She just sort of glares and angles herself onto the nearest bleacher rung to start scraping the age-old mastication from the wood. Tension in the air.

“Buckley’s got the right idea,” you say, twirling the chisel in your fingers, “Sooner we get started, sooner we get the grossness over with…”

Ronnie sticks close by you, which is nice. You always like having her in proximity. Nancy, who’s nothing but work ethic in everything she does, starts furiously working on a corner a little ways away from you both– and Robin.

It doesn’t take long, maybe fifteen minutes of silent, resigned scraping, for you to get bored. And disgusted.

“At what point do we get to do the whole prison thing of what are you in for?” you say, sitting up and letting the blood rush back to your head.

“Well, yours goes without saying,” Ronnie chuckles, “going all batter on Hargrove’s car like that. Did you actually bust a window?”

“Just swung it around,” you say, driving your heel into the bench, “I may have inherited the felony misdemeanor gene, but I didn’t inherit getting caught. What about you?”

Ronnie flicks another gum wad off with her chisel, “Actually, you might wanna ask Wheeler about that.”

Your brow furrows. “Nance?” your voice rings down to the lower rungs, “Ronnie here says you were implicated in her detention-getting.”

“Yeah, um. Well, I heard about everything when you went–”

“--totally awesome psycho–”

“--in the parking lot and… I just. I wanted to clean up all that shit. From your locker. And then Nicole came by, smacking her stupid gum, and it kind of got ugly.”

Nicole. The irony of it, Nicole, gnashing out shittalk about you and Eddie in order to impress whatever unfortunate member of the wrestling squad she’d dug her press-ons into this week. Nicole, who’d already invaded Eddie’s territory, much to her apparent shame.

What a majorette of a bitch.

You would’ve given anything to be ringside for this, her versus Nancy.

“You toed up to Nicole Summers?” a little pause, your voice goes smaller, “For me?”

Nancy sits up, her perm clouding around her. She points her chisel Ecker-ward.

“Ronnie was the one who smacked all her books out of her hand.”

Ronnie pffts. “Like she hasn’t done that to me a million times. Eye for an eye.”

“Nicole wouldn’t even go near her on account of that one time she bit that one kid for catcalling her.”

“Oh, stop,” Ronnie’s gathering a blush, batting her hand all coquettish.

“Wait, that was real?” you say, eyes darting between them, “I thought that was just some freak rumor we came up with.”

Rabid Ecker was one of the less clever nicknames your group of crown ghouls had come up with, so it obviously didn’t stick too long.

“We?” Nancy scoffs, not mean.

“The royal ‘we’,” Robin Buckley drawls from her prostrate position on the bleachers. That sounds mean, the bite in her voice.

Your hackles can’t help but rise at that cold snap in her tone. Does she have a fucking problem, or something?

“And why are you here, Robin?” you call, hands knitting in your lap.

“I was with these bozos,” she says, a note-faithful mockery of your pointed voice, “For some godforsaken reason… and now I really wish I wasn’t.”

“Why’s that?” you press.

Nancy’s whole upper half tenses. “Robin–”

Robin’s chisel clatters on the bench, a toss made out of frustration. She looks to the three of you with pursed lips before letting loose.

“Steve found out,” Robin says, “About the pregnancy test thing. In like, the worst way he could possibly find out, which is so goddamn unfair, unfair in the first place because of Nancy not telling him–like, I get it, your choice or whatever but you guys have been together for, like, a really significant period of time and you know how he feels about you–”

You and Ronnie can’t even get a breath in before Nancy rises from her seat, fingernails digging into tiny little fists at her side. She’s all spit and fury, she’s on Robin.

“Oh yeah, the worst way he could find out, Robin, the worst way which is that you blabbed to him!” Nancy yells, ricocheting around the gym, “‘Oh, I couldn’t help it, he asked me what was wrong and it all just came out–’ Give me a break! I mean, are you really that co-dependent that no one can tell you anything in confidence without you running to tell Steve?”

Robin’s face seizes in a snarl. “Are you really that stupid that you forgot to use protection with your long term boyfriend?”

“What is your problem?” Nancy’s voice whistles through her teeth, sheer exasperation, “How is this any of your business?”

“Should we stop this?” Ronnie whispers, with no intention of moving.

You shake your head in tiny, tiny increments, gossip monger past getting the best of you. “I kinda wanna see where this goes.”

“He is my friend, Nancy! And you broke his heart, dumping him right after– after–!”

Both your and Ronnie’s mouths drop into an ‘o’. You’re kind of disappointed–a big Wheeler-Harrington bust up and you weren’t first on the call list?!

“Jesus, Robin!” Nancy spits, perm flying, stomping towards Robin, “Get a personality! Sublimating yourself onto Steve Harrington isn’t doing you any favors!”

“Why, Nancy? I thought you loved him.” What confusing wording.

“I–”

Okay, these two girls are walking right into shit you can’t take back territory. You and Ronnie rush the bleachers, breaking the negative space between them both.

“Ladies! Break it up!”

“You heard Kaminsky! We’re all holding chisels, this could get ugly fast!”

You look to Nancy and her eyes are glistening. Reddening with the heat of anger and frustration. Robin’s jaw has hardened into a tough clinch, arms bound around her chest. Ronnie, she just lingers awkwardly, not quite knowing where to look. Your hand goes out to Nancy’s elbow, and she jerks away from you at first.

“Let’s go. Come on.”

“We’re supposed to be chiseling,” Nancy seethes. Your eyes roll, no patience for this go-nowhere brat routine, and you lead her to the other end of the bleachers anyway. Saying something like, we’ll take one end, Ronnie and Robin take the other, we’ll get this shit cleared in no time.

Nancy starts working furiously, but that’s kind of not what you had in mind here.

“You broke up with Steve?” you ask, point blank. Like she’d ask you.

She keeps chiseling for a few heavy, angry seconds. “I wasn’t gonna tell him, you know. I wasn’t gonna tell him, and we were gonna be fine. He could have lived without knowing. And then–fucking Buckley– and he had all these questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like why didn’t I tell him. And why was I so put out by the idea. Like, why didn’t I want to have his hypothetical baby at age seventeen… stupid shit like that.”

“He’s sensitive.”

“He’s a moron.”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” as if you didn’t have irrefutable proof in her favor. But that was the old Steve Harrington, wasn’t it? He’s meant to be some soft-hearted do-gooder dream boy now, right?

“No, Lacy, he’s a moron,” Nancy hisses, spit flying again; you’ve never seen her like this. Blue eyes bold and frightening with conviction. “Why should I have to tell Steve about something like that if it’s just a big nothing? If I was never even actually pregnant or whatever? Why can’t I just have that to forget about myself? Why do I owe him part of every single goddamn decision I make about my life?”

This is a bigger conversation, isn’t it? What you’d once regarded as poor Nancy and her perfect boyfriend, boo-fucking-hoo is now poor Nancy and her perfect boyfriend, stifled by his redemption.

“At least if he was still an asshole, I wouldn’t feel bad about breaking up with him. After all this.”

“Now it’s just like you’ve kicked a puppy.”

“Exactly.”

“What total bullshit.”

Nancy shoots the tiniest smile up at you, a stiff little nod bobbing her neck forward.

There’s a long beat as your focus reframes around Nancy. All the two of you wanted were lives of your own. Existences not indebted to anybody, good or bad. Shit.

“I’m the sublimator, by the way. I know that,” Nancy whispers, great big eyeballs glittering at you, “It’s easy to… fold into someone like Steve when, y’know… you’re not exactly likeable on your own. I just. I wanted to hurt her. She doesn’t deserve it. But I wanted to.”

Her chisel gestures towards Robin, working alongside Ronnie in relative silence that Ronnie awkwardly tries to puncture.

You understand that. Wanting to hurt people after you feel like they’ve breached your trust. Even accidentally. And doing it. And the ugliness of the shame after, you’re familiar with that too.

You reach forward and brush a little lint off her collar. “Thanks for getting in trouble for me, by the way. With that stupid prank and everything.”

“What are you talking about?” she scoffs softly, “You covered for me. And you didn’t have to.”

“Hey,” you hold out your pinkie finger. It’s the least you can do. “Promise is a promise, right?”

—

The members of Hellfire Club gather in an awkward row, standing under the odd, warm glow of the drama room lights like a police lineup of suspects least likely to score a date to homecoming. Sorry, Ronnie.

“What do you think,” you say, swiveling your focus to Jonathan, who’s standing there twice as awkwardly with his camera slung around his neck, “Should we take ‘em outside, make ‘em do Abbey Road?”

In the middle of it all sits the man who can’t help but be of the hour, what with the throne and the glowering and the gravitational pull. Eddie, slumped into that wild set piece left over from god knows what drama club production of, like, Henry VI or Pirates of Penzance or whatever, is so beyond unhappy with what’s unfolding in front of him.

Good.

Ronnie clearly hadn’t even fluffed him into the idea. Which she offered to do, when you’d hitched a ride home on the back of her bike after the tension of Saturday detention dissipated. You’d firmly nixed the idea, the sneak attack being the whole point of this thing.

You’d also learned that a two week suspension was no way no how going to keep Eddie from sneaking in and running this Hellfire session, which meant your article wouldn’t be delayed after all.

So, nah. Good ol’ Ronnie, she just let you stalk in there with your notebook and your pen and your glasses and your Pentax-wielding Jonathan Byers, ready to entirely fuck up Eddie’s day, which gave him no opportunity to protest or call for embargo. Because if he did, it’d raise eyebrows of suspicion and everyone would be like, I thought you two were weird trailer park friends? Is something going on? Something emotionally incoherent and ambiguously erotic? Should we tell everyone? Should we call the Mayor?

“Capital idea,” Eddie says, not exactly to you, but to those in general attendance like he’s playing to the cheap seats, “Maybe I can mow them down in my van and save them from this torture.”

Your smile tightens and Eddie matches your expression, both your mouths straining against your skulls. Wisecracks will not save him. He should know that by now.

“Let’s get a couple of the maestro while I excavate the disciples’ brains,” come the instructions and a swift pat to Jonathan’s shoulder. He flashes you a bewildered kind of look.

“Wh– how do you… want him?”

Incredible phrasing. You glance at Eddie, but not really at him–not enough that he can register and sucker your gaze in. Bathed under the dramatic glow like he was born to sprawl all cock-kneed on a throne like that.

“Exsanguinated and hung on a meat hook, preferably,” you say to Jonathan, “But, I trust you. Do whatever.”

As you gather the rest of the Hellfire denizens at the end of the table to interview them talking head style, Jonathan Byers slinks towards Eddie.

Eddie shifts uncomfortably, less equipped to keep up that fuck you stormcloud persona when he’s at the other end of a focusing lens. Plus, Byers always kind of gave him the creeps. Not to be a dick, but. Here we are.

Byers, to Eddie’s complete and utter horror, clears his throat and attempts to scrounge up some semblance of conversation. But, of course, it’s Jonathan Byers so it’s not fucking small talk. Any other day of the week, Eddie could get behind the notion of eschewing such how about this weather we’ve been having type social norms but Byers decides to jump in with–

“So you guys are…” he trails, leading the witness. Snap goes his little aperture. That’s unfair. Means he caught Eddie’s immediate facial reaction which, hands up, he has never been good at hiding.

“Neighbors,” Eddie supplies in a rush, twisting on his throne again. “She can… hear me yelling about DnD from my trailer. S’why she’s here. To shut me up, I guess.”

Byers adjusts his stance, capturing Eddie from a lower angle– a little more badass looking, he hopes. Frame the fucking curls, for god’s sake.

“Gotcha journalism,” Byers quips. Byers quips.

Eddie’s mouth relaxes and he huffs out a little, “Exactly.”

Byers shifts yet again, clearly covering all wondrous angles with his dinky little thirty-five millimetre whatever the fuck.

It’s not that this whole sneak attack article for the Streak thing is getting under Eddie’s skin– Eddie didn’t even have a chance to acknowledge it getting under his skin. You just breezed in here and started sticking bamboo spikes under his fingernails, like the little warmongtrix you are.

And now you’re sitting at the end of the game table, ruby red end of your fountain pen pointing at Gareth, noting down everything he says without even the slightest hint of condescension. These dorks are looking at you in awe and fear, save for Ronnie who just looks smug, and you’re listening to them. Really listening to them. Your face fixed with that hard little glare that tells him you’re recording the minutiae of their answers.

Eddie digs the pad of his thumb into his lip. Why would you want to do this? Why aren’t you avoiding him at all human cost? What is your angle here?

“She’s cool, y’know.” Click, goes Byer’s camera again. “Lacy.”

Eddie’s voice comes out distant, his focus tugging away from you super, super slowly.

“I heard you blew it with her.”

Byers, caught off guard, lowers his lens. “She told you about that?”

Eddie shrugs, like it’s nothing. It’d be easier to pretend like the idea of you and Byers hanging out was nothing if Byers and Eddie weren’t both classified outsiders.

“Well, uh,” Byers fiddles with something on his camera, shrugging in turn, “It was weird, talking to Lacy back then. You know. She was kind of–”

“She’s different now.” Eddie answers too fast, springing to a defense that didn’t call for him. He sits up a little bit straighter, spine iron-rodding, and tries to recover. “I mean. She’s retired the whole icy Swatch rat bit. She’s not, like– pretending to be something.”

Jonathan gets this look on his face. One last click of the camera.

“I wouldn’t know. I blew it, remember?” But you didn’t, man.

Little does he know.

“Are we done?” Eddie says, launching himself from his chair and slapping palms on the table. His DM screen shakes. Byers steps back with a flared little danger zone! look tossed your way. “We’ve already lost–”

“--fifteen minutes of glorious game time?” you drawl, crossing a final ‘t’ in your notes. “Of course. My apologies. Tight schedule?”

Your eyebrow arches as you flash your eyes up at him. His jaw flares. You– you’re good. You’re vicious and you’re good.

“Theee tightest,” Eddie grits through the falsest of grins and jerks his head, waves flying and the rest of his little Hellfire sheepies following in motion to take their seats.

Ronnie takes her time, mumbling under her breath, “You sure this is a good idea?”

And she was right, with what she’d said before. You are using this as an excuse to get in his face–bolstered only by the fact that he had now gotten in your pants, and you weren’t letting him slink off that easy. Especially with the workplace cameo appearance from Al Munson that you had just been forced to live through.

You’d been looking over your shoulder ever since, expecting to see him leering at you over those sickening aviator sunglasses.

“Oh, I’m positive,” you assure her, turning to Jonathan. “I need, like, one or two shots of them playing then you can take off.”

“Waiwaiwaiwaiwaiwaiwait,” Eddie interrupts, an arm raising over his head to signal halt, “Okay, so first, you storm the castle with your little camera boy without my approval, now you think you’re going to stay for the game?” His ire is genuine. “It’s Hellfire Club, Lacy. Members only. We don’t need bleacher bunnies.”

“Oh, come on, Munson!” you lilt, situating yourself on an abandoned desk, away from the game table. “The people want to know how the Satanic sausage is made.”

“The people being?”

“Your critics and fans. What is this all for, if not to piss off Hawkins’ Presbyterian and garner a whole new legion of Hellfire acolytes, huh?”

“We don’t need any help from the press on that front.”

“Really?” You drag out your single-word answer, using the seconds to count the minimal amount of players in the room. Not even Ronnie could boast 100% attendance, with her marching band obligations clashing with Hellfire sessions. Eddie glares at you. Yeah, yeah.

“A–actually, Eddie… I think it’d be… pretty cool,” Gareth says, waver slowly fading out of his voice. “I mean, if we’re in the school paper, my Mom’ll be less suspicious that we’re like–”

“--doing k-bombs in the drama room…” you mutter, loud enough that only Jonathan can hear.

“--and stuff.”

Eddie exhales so hard his nostrils flare, his shoulders tense, he’s about to shit.

“And who else would like to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Gareth the Treacherous here?” he snarls, looking pointedly around the table, “Jeff? Dougie? Cyrus? Ecker?”

The dorks erupt in yapping agreement, totally swinging for Gareth’s angle.

“Shut up!” Eddie barks, throwing himself back onto his throne. Ringed fingers pinch the bridge of his nose. “Fine. But this, in the business, is what they call a mutiny. Don’t come cryin’ to me when you’re all gettin’ swirlies with half of the Weekly Streak stuffed in your goddamn mouths.”

That’s creative. He really could have had a fruitful career as a bully if he wasn’t so gooey in the middle.

“Munson, I promise you can ride circles around me on a motorbike on live TV if this all goes to shit.”

You make a fluttering hand motion that reads proceed, which he, naturally, hates. He stares at you, like white light white heat searing through stares at you. And then his eyes shut. He takes a deep breath.

What follows is… exactly what you should have expected, actually.

Eddie Munson transports the present-and-correct party of adventurers back into the eye of their campaign. Their mission? Infiltrate a cult of royal knights that have been bewitched by a high priest who is forcing them to sacrifice the kingdom’s innocents in order to fuel his dastardly arcane magic. The plot is… involved. You’d done a light touch of research on how exactly the dragons and the dungeons all worked, so to speak, but it didn’t really seep into the membrane. It’s something you could only really engage with if you saw it in action– you’d have to rely on Eddie and company to fill in the blanks that the extensive lore left. Like, how exactly did these mythical dice come into play? How does a character sheet set you up for success, or failure? What the fuck is a skill check and why does it read so complicated?

And fill in they… kind of did.

Aside from the technical aspects, you find yourself suckered into the story. Quite literally, gripping your seat as Ronnie’s character–a highly capable bard, from what you understand–attempts to escape the hateful royal sect and find her way back to her party. They’d taken her hostage, and she’s managed to escape her chains but they’re ruthless, on her like dogs. Eddie illustrates every sweaty, panicky movement as they close in on her, and your fine, painted fingernails are dug into every word.

Eddie weaves these stories like gossamer– both in the sense of delicate intricacy and destructive nature of that big red monster thing from Looney Tunes. Each plot twist is created to elicit a sense of true foreboding, embellishing how effective his storytelling is. It forces each and every person at the table to face fear head on, dig deep and use what they were given in order to prevail, even if they’re shaking in their boots while doing it– shit, this is good, you should be writing this down.

Blindly, you sketch the word gossamer into your journal, not tearing your eyes away from the table. You barely notice the flash going off to your immediate right– Jonathan Byers’ lens pointed right at you.

“Uh–” you start, Jonathan reaching to grab his jacket from behind you as the game goes on.

“I’m headin’ out– gotta pick Will up from…” he trails off, but you fill in the blank. Nancy had mentioned that Mike was hosting his friends for a DnD session tonight too, and the party naturally included the most junior Byers. You nod, checking the time– Jesus, where had the last three hours gone?

“Tell Nancy I said hey, if you see her,” you say, “and thank you.”

Jonathan shrinks into himself, bashful. “Don’t worry about it.” A beat. “I still want that Echo & the Bunnymen, though.”

Your face peels into a grin that says don’t worry, I”m good for it! and you wave him off. The Hellfire party don’t even notice his leaving, except for Eddie who, being judge, jury and executioner, notices everything.

“...and on that sweltering note, germies and Eckermen, we must bid each other good eventide. Until next time.”

An operatic groan of disapproval goes up from the players, and you realize this must be a regular thing. Eddie always leaving them wanting more. Tease.

“I know, I know, if you had it your way, you’d be locked in here, pissing in buckets and the show would go on all night,” Eddie jeers, rising from his seat to start collecting his stuff, “but I wouldn’t inflict that on the janitorial staff. ‘kay? Scat. Outta my sight.”

With great indignation that swiftly turns into backslaps of appreciation, the Hellfire Club moves out of the drama room one by one. You stay put, and Eddie avoids your eyes completely.

Folding shit back into that madly overstuffed DM folder, he throws a strained-casual, “Need a ride?” to Ronnie, the last straggler.

She shakes her head, smile barely contained. “Uh-uh! Two wheeled my way here and I’ll two wheel my way back– you, uh, have fun though.”

“Bye, Ronnie,” you call after her, voice properly piercing through the air for the first time in hours. Eddie reacts like he’d completely forgotten you were there. Which, impossible. It’s also impossible for him to keep up the whole punk-ass overlord act when it’s just the two of you. As it is now.

Alone, together. Again.

There’s a charge between you, as if that even needs pointing out. Like the electric fences surrounding McCorkle’s farm.

You and the wagonful of your one-time buddies, Carol and Tommy and Tina et al, used to drive out there more than a little under the influence. Your favorite trespassing activity was reaching out for the electric fence, hooking your fingers around it to feel the darting shock permeating your skin.

“What the fuck are you doing? Can’t that, like, fry your brain?” Carol’d ask you, slugging back the last of her beer as Tommy and Steve Harrington attempted to tip a cow in the background somewhere.

“Try it, Care,” you’d giggled, half drunk and half coursing with adrenaline, half alive and half dead, “It feels weird. It feels good!”

You’d woken up the next morning in your plush bedroom in Loch Nora, two little blisters on your fingers, smarting from all that pleasure seeking. Did you regret it? Or did it just make you want to do it again?

Eddie still doesn’t look at you as he speaks from the opposite end of the table.

“Get everything you need?”

“No,” you answer, short. “Missing my key interview.”

Now he looks. Now he has the nerve to. And irises lock on irises, Eddie frozen in place. He knows he’s not getting out of this.

What’s more, you don’t think he really wants to.

“Pretty controversial subject matter,” he says, tone a whole shade softer than the commanding voice of God he’d used through the duration of the session. A little higher. Nervous. “What with the panic, and all.”

“Me and controversy are bedfellows,” your shoulder darts up, “I’m the big spoon.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” you nod; your tone is as marble-solid as ever, eyes trained and undarting, “Like when I implied the Tigers were straddling a generation-defining line of bold faced failure. I got in a lot of trouble for that.”

The corners of Eddie’s mouth twitch a little. “Define ‘a lot of trouble’ by your standards.”

“They made me print a retraction!” You’re genuinely incensed by the memory, hitching forward in your seat, “I mean, how insane? ‘Bad for school spirit,’ they said. Like I’m some kind of pep exorcist.”

Eddie tongue folds in between his teeth and he turns his head a split second too late. You can see him biting back a snicker, or something, and point to Lacy and yadda yadda yadda—but you smile, and the tension feels like it’s waning. Thank god, because it is suffocating you. You take your in and up you get, moving to the seat closest to his right-hand side.

“Can we get started?” The fountain pen is uncapped, the notebook cracked, your legs crossing. Eddie sinks back into the throne, his face warming up under the yellow stage lights.

“Okay. Hit me with your best shot.” Fire away.

You’re quick with it. “Why this?”

“Really? That’s your first question?” Eddie looks bemused.

“It’s the least rudimentary of all the Ws,” you explain nice and plainly, plucking up fingers to illustrate your points, “People know who you are–against their will, mostly. People can glean what the game is–or will, once I put a fine point on the… everything that just happened there. What people don’t get is why. Why indulge yourself in this?”

His fingers knit together in his lap, nearly shy.

“Because it’s fun.”

“Nope, too vague.”

“Vague?”

You physically knock the notion with a waving hand, leaning closer over the table, errant miniatures and spare pencils still scattered there.

“Basketball is fun. Chess club is fun. Throwing rocks into a rusted can of SpaghettiOs is fun if you can make a case for it. Too vague. Didn’t come here for the everyman answer.”

“What did you come here for?” That’s loaded. The way he’s daring himself to look at you is loaded. How soft his voice turns is loaded.

“The Munson answer.” It hangs in the air like someone dropped off the gallows. “Dig for me.”

A long, metastasizing beat. Resistance is futile, as it is and ever will be with you. Eddie hitches his arms across his chest, hiding a smile in the heel of his palm. Flattery works with him. Even if you'd never call this flattery.

“Escape,” he eventually tells you.

“Go on,” you press.

“There is this… insatiability when it comes to fantasy. To stories like this, the kind with big, thriving worldscapes. Reading ‘em, even writing ‘em– it’s good, but it isn’t enough sometimes. Sometimes you want to wrap yourself up in the reality of elsewhere. Travel to a world where things are different.”

“But not idyllic.”

Eddie’s eyebrows pull together.

“No. If these campaigns were just… the bad guys are defeated by a mighty sword that you and you alone always happen to have on you, that’s not a campaign. That’s a circle jerk.”

“The idea is to be challenged. To fight for something.”

“Right. To adventure. Beat the odds.”

“And you can’t do that alone.”

“Well, you can. I think that’s called, like, writing a book.”

“Ohh-kay, Eddie…”

“No, no, no, I mean,” Eddie shakes his head, planting his elbows on the table top, “Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the thrill of the unknown? Of not knowing what the other characters are gonna do, or what sick twist the dastardly, brilliant DM is gonna pull out next?”

He’s on one now, so you don’t stop him. Eddie’s eye takes on that mercurial shine, the same one he had while he was cruise directing the campaign. You wonder when he got like this—got bit by the God complex bug. Here, he could dare people to defy him when he’d been the defiant one his whole life.

You think about a littler him, yearning for escape.

“It also doesn’t work if everyone wants to be a hero. Too many heroes spoil the stew, okay, so you need to find other, y’know, likeminded weirdos who fall into different alignments. Those alignments only work when they’re played off other characters. Your merry band of outlaws or pirates or underdogs or whoever. You work together, or you betray each other, or you come back together because of some mighty sworn oath and you see your mission through. It’s not about winning or losing, y’know? Whatever happens out there,” he gestures to beyond the barricade of the drama room doors, “doesn’t matter. Whether life’s beating the shit out of them or not, my little acolytes, as you call ‘em, sit at this table and they’re part of something bigger. Something thrilling. Magical. Alchemic. They’re part of–”

“--a team.” You think about a littler him, yearning for people to escape with.

Eddie flaps his ever-animated hands. “Not my phrasing. But.”

“That thread runs through it all,” you say, drawing a line down the center of your notes with the inactive end of your pen, “Teamwork. Belonging. Victory– an escape from the mundane to victory, especially when you can’t find it elsewhere.”

Eddie’s chin rests on the back of his hand as he squints at you. “Sounding a little sportsmanlike there, Lacy.”

“And?”

“Thought you weren’t pulling for the everyman answer.”

“A hook’s a hook’s a hook,” you quirk your eyebrows, “–and, when you put it that way—”

“When you put it that way.”

“—what really makes you any different from, say, the Tigers?”

“Besides the cult of personality surrounding all jocks–”

“As if you don’t court your own little cult of personality—“

“—we actually win our campaigns.”

You start to retort, then stop. Letting that sink in.

“Oh. Oh, that’s good,” you say, sketching it down.

“I foresee letters to the editor in your future,” Eddie says, and he’s smug about it. Anything to aggregate the status quo, no matter what the blowback might be.

No one in their right mind here behaves like him. He just… does whatever he wants.

You find yourself wanting to touch the fence.

And maybe it’s that you stare at him a beat or so too long, but Eddie shifts his gaze down to the wood grain, flexing his hand. Scabs still marring his knuckles and all.

“It wasn’t broken or anything, then?” you ask, gesturing to his hand.

Eddie looks back up with a drag. You can feel what’s coming.

“Oh no, it was shattered,” he tells you, eyes-wide earnest and lying through his teeth, “My bones just heal super fast. My mom, she ate a shit ton of canned spinach when I was in ute.”

“Right, the calcium—”

“Nah. Rare botulism side effect,” he shrugs like, whaddaya gonna do!

Dumbass.

“Rare Botulism Side Effect is a good album title.”

“I’ll tell the guys.”

Silence falls again, and if you reach around, there’s something close to normalcy in there. Among the spikes and confusion.

“Um,” Eddie’s face contorts into a tiny cringe, “I found out what the… what the prank was, by the way. I obviously wasn’t here to witness the whole masterpiece theater of it all but– but Ronnie told me.”

A tight and ugly feeling constricts your chest. You look away, nodding through a grimace. You’d opened your locker with the practiced caution of someone diffusing a bomb since that whole incident, which sucks as someone who derives real joy from slamming metal doors.

“Pretty creative bit, huh?” is all you offer.

“Almost too creative for Hargrove,” Eddie counters, uprighting a fallen miniature with one finger.

“Are you trying to say I was being hysteric, jumping on his car?” It sounds like you’re offended, but.

“No,” Eddie meets you right where you’re at with this sparkle framing his stare, “I’m saying it was probably a collaborative effort. You could go seek even more batshit revenge, if you wanted to.”

“And would you be there to stop me before I cut Carol Perkins’ breaks?”

You can see Eddie biting his tongue between his teeth oh-so-lightly… Saliva catching in the low light. It’s warm in here. Stuffy.

“Prob–”

“I miss you.”

You cut him off in such a harsh, unforgiving way that Eddie feels his words rammed back down his throat. He blinks a couple of times, tempted to shake his head to make sure he heard you right. But there you are, your sight line running clean through him. You couldn’t be talking to anybody else.

“You do?” His voice is so small that his lips barely move. His lips, teased by his tongue, wetting them.

“Don’t act brand new. Everything’s harder without you. You have to know that.”

He gets snagged on the angles in your voice. By without you, he can only imagine you mean since he started giving you the cold shoulder and you started hitching rides in that college dork’s Ford Cortina. And by everything, he can only imagine…

“Lace…”

This is hard. This is horrible. This is uncomfortable and risky and as exposed as you have ever been, but it’s necessary.

“I can’t stand the tension of not being around you,” you say, breath feeling harsher as it speeds past your molars, “And I can’t stand the tension when I’m with you either, with you and wanting to–... so what do I do, Eddie?”

You focus on him, adjusting as if you were looking through the viewfinder of Jonathan’s Pentax. Eddie’s face, bewildered and angelic, with his parted mouth and his honorific glow of the stage lights haloing the frizz in his hair. He looks like something you want to commit to memory, as if to say see?! How could you deny this?

You rise from your seat, ever the investigator, and bear over him with hands on the table. Cards on the table, too. A genuine question smarts in your mouth, too sour candy you have to spit out.

“What do I do, Eddie?”

Eddie inhales with a sharp touch as you stand up, inspecting, demanding. He goes to tell you I don’t know… in the meekest of tones but the arch in your eyebrows says don’t you goddamn dare. You terrify him, and you make him dig.

“Forget it. Forget about all of it,” he breathes, almost tasting your perfume, “We can reset. Blank slate. Pretend like we don’t know each other. Pretend like none of this ever happened. It’d be better. Safer. Easy. Right? We could totally do that. We’ve fooled everybody so far. Even ourselves, into thinking this was… we could...”

“Fuck you,” you say in a soft rush.

Eddie only realizes that you’re both smiling when you kiss him. It’s clumsy at first, teeth knocking and everything, your hands winding around his collar and your frigid fingertips finding his neck. The shock of your skin on his, the matchstick crack of your mouth on his propels Eddie onto his motherfucking feet. He leans over you, knocking you into the table as your tongue works its way deep into his mouth.

You give him an, “Mm,” and if feels like an ascent to heaven.

Sparkles in the static makes the stuffiness evaporate, makes the room come alive. Your legs part to invite him closer to you, your hands faster and more insistent than his are. You pull at the hem of his Hellfire shirt and yank your head back, a string of saliva married between your mouths.

Fingers are more bold than they were in the nurse’s office, weaving the leather out of Eddie’s belt buckle. A deep ridge etches between Eddie’s eyebrows and his hands are propped in a mid-air surrender. Your eyes, your everything fucking eyes, are weighted with want. And challenge. Because you always do have to get one up on him.

“Reset this.” You tug at his zipper. “Tell me to stop.”

“Lacy…” Eddie whispers, watching you pull at the waistband of his boxers with his mouth agape. He’d dreamt about this. Thought about this. His cock about jumps into your hand like you’re Snow White and it’s a goddamned hummingbird. Pen marks on your fingers. “Jesus, y–...”

Eddie’s arms angle up behind his head, like a strung-up marionette, fabric of his shirt ghosting against his nipples in the stretch. This only makes him angle his hips further into you, eyelids flickering and his blood breaking the speed limit on its descent. Fuck, and then you fucking touch him– fingertips along the length of him, featherlight and goading.

Eddie’s groan is broken, half-caught in his nose. You’re looking at him like he’s a bad puppy, like you’re teaching him a lesson in scolding masking adoration. You’re beautiful and he wants to tell you so, but it all comes out in a whimper. Your hand closes around his cock, thumb brushing rii-iii-iight along the ridge of his head.

“Tell me to stop,” you echo yourself, and you’re fascinated that it comes out sounding like you know what you’re doing. You don’t. You’ve never been thrust into a net of feeling like this, never had anyone look at you the way Eddie is now– like he’d throw himself on a bed of open flames for you, so long as you kept touching him. It’s drunkard-making. It’s a full headrush. The gradual glisten of his reddening head looks delicious to you.

“Tell me to s–”

Grip tightens around him and Eddie moans from right in his sternum, his arms dropping to cradle around your head. He can’t believe he’s doing this, he can’t believe he’s fucking doing this but–

“Stop,” he gasps, fingers winding in your hair. His entire spinal cord is begging him to buck into your hand, your mouth, your anything, but he steels himself. “Stopstopstop, Lacy. Fuck– fuck.”

Your eyes widen, cheek in his palm. “Really?” Said in the most painful, the most misread did I do something? lilted tone. Your hand doesn’t exactly go slack right away.

“Yeah. Yes,” Eddie murmurs, eyes screwing closed and opening again, the most manual effort ever put behind a blink. “I c–I didn’t do this right, the first time. This is stupid. This is so stupid.”

And so your hands go, and you feel the anchor of your heart slowly dropping… But Eddie drops his face right down to yours.

“You deserve… so much more than giving me a handy on school property,” he tells you, and feels almost coherent about it. “Hot as it is. Right out of my… nastiest dreams as it is.”

Oh. Oh. The corners of your mouth pick up as Eddie presses his forehead to yours, just about evening out his breathing.

“Had a premonition about this, didja?” The pressure of his face on yours, his breath on yours, his skin on yours. It’s nice.

“Came to me in a vision,” he grins, crooked. Slides his thumbs along your cheeks and kisses you, slowly and noisily. “I’m a prognosticator.” Tongue half in, half out your mouth. Your heartbeat sinks between your legs. In a good way. “Been known to prognosticate.”

“Five dollar vocab word,” you mumble into his mouth, can’t help but push your body against him like a cat begging for attention. Eddie’s lips latch to the space right below your ear, a place where his mouth makes you feel like cymbals are clashing in your stomach.

“Come home with me,” he says, the note of pleading in his voice making your legs go numb. His nose and his lips dragging against the side of your neck, begging you to focus on the details and not the bigger picture. “Please.” A swallow. A beat. A ragged whisper. “... I missed you. Too. Y’know?”

“I do…” you sigh into his curls, readjusting his boxers, “actually need a ride… so.”

—

The van ride back to Forest Hills is tight with a tension that makes you both laugh, your mouth still buzzing from the kiss Eddie’d laid on you right before he’d helped you into the passenger seat. Even after he’d insisted you not touch him from the drama room to the parking lot, insisted because, “This thing,” he’d gestured to his crotch, his hard-on painfully zipped into submission, “this thing is gonna get me hauled over by the cops!”

“Don’t laugh!” you scold, mouth straining around the gleaming smile you’re suppressing, body all giddy. Voice ringing clear and high even over the cranked radio. Sabbath, naturally, Vol. 4. Wheels of Confusion sounds like treacle to you, mixed in with his laugh.

“I’m no-oo-oht!” Eddie says, syllables punctuated with chuckles, “I just– I am expressly escorting you back to my place! To, like, have sex with me!” His hands beat against the wheel, teeth sunk into that pretty bottom lip, giddy-upping so hard he actually does swerve the van a little.

“Woah!” you yelp, “Eddie, the road! You should’ve let me drive, you’re feral!”

Eddie moon eyes at you, reaching over to pinch your chin. “Lace, please don’t get all sore about this, but I will never trust you behind the wheel of this van. She’s a delicate piece of machinery and you would drive her like it’s the demolition derby.”

Narrowed eyes and all, you kind of have to concede. You’ve never been the best behind the wheel, a road rageaholic, and if you were to add feeling as frisky as you do now on top of that sundae… you press Eddie’s DM binder into your lap a little harder. Down, girl. He doesn’t help, thumb stroking your chin and everything.

“This is suh-rreal.”

“Stop zooming out so hard or I’m not gonna have sex with you!” You’re kidding. You’re so completely kidding. If he doesn’t touch you someplace lower than your neck soon, you’re going to disintegrate.

But Eddie pauses. “Like, you don’t. Have to.” Panicky, freezy. Hastily pulling on his good guy hat. “You don’t– by the way. It’s whatever you want. Call timeout at any time. I know I’ve been kinda–”

“Eddie.”

“...you still want to though, right?”

The giggling dies down as you edge closer and closer to your respective trailers, darkness washed over them like a swathe of dark blue paint. The lights in both trailers are out. Nobody home. Wayne, something about the weekend, something about overtime. Your mom… who knew. She’d been moving around in shadows more so than usual lately.

Everything out there is dimmed, except you two. Eddie doesn’t waste a second once the motor shuts off and the radio is silenced; he slams the driver door shut but the teensiest knot of hesitation tightens in your stomach before he reaches the passenger door.

And then he reaches the passenger door, gathering you out of it and pushing you up against the side of the van. Snapping you out of it instantaneously using the bare force of his mouth against yours.

“Eddie…” mumbled, your lips barely unstuck.

“Sorry. Shit, sorry. I just really like kissing you.”

Something pops in your chest; he’s… Jesus, he’s so sweet. Coal-eyed and excitable and lovely, kissing you with nothing left to spare.

“Hey. Redirect,” you shiver, his fingertips pressing into your waist. “Come to my place.”

Eddie casts a wide glance back toward your double-wide. The forbidden castle. “Your… y–are you sure?”

“Sure that my bedsheets are cleaner than yours, yes.”

He murmurs, “Bedsheets,” with a darkened gaze and a grunt. Bedsheets. You wanted him in your bedsheets. “Get your key. Get your key. Get your key before me and my dick have a shared brain hemorrhage.”

That new lock doesn’t stick at all, thank god.

Eddie, ordinarily, would nosily register all of his surroundings– he had an extremely barebones idea of your place, cast mostly in darkness like this, from that first night he’d driven you back from the fallout at Harrington’s. But he’s too busy nosily exploring your throat with his tongue, recording and archiving every breathy sound you make as you tug him toward your bedroom.

Cardboard boxes still trip you up a couple times. Did you ever unpack, or what?

You break from his heady kiss, vision doubling, taking in a lungful of air as you push Eddie through the door. Spine flattens against it as it shuts, the noise drawing a little bit of sobriety into the room. You reach to hit the floor lamp on and your bedroom is illuminated in a soft, orange glow, a scarf thrown over the bulb to diffuse light. A half-effort to make you forget where you were sometimes. It works; the edges of everything softens, which is such a contrast to the definitive presence that he is.

Eddie’s chest is heaving. He attempts to get his bearings but he can barely get his eyes off of you, squirming ever-so-slightly, ever-so-sexily against the door. Like you’d captured him.

Lips swollen, watching you watch him from the door, he turns a little shy and turns to look at the ephemera around him instead.

He’s standing in your bedroom.

You’re far more cluttered than he expected you to be.

He expected pressed sheets and a pristine dressing table, like a prison cell designed by a set dresser from Dynasty.

Well, that’s wrong, actually. He expected that of the Lacy people thought you were.

On the walls are a couple of tear-outs from the Rolling Stones he’d helped you liberate from your porch in Loch Nora, a mission you’d bought him breakfast for but didn’t have to. But mostly, every surface in the room is covered in piles. Piles of books, records, tapes, pens, jewelry, nail polish. And the clothes. They hung from everywhere, bursting out of your tiny closet space like bodies trying to escape.

It’s confused in here; feels like someone who has unearthed parts of herself that she hasn’t been able to organize yet. Eddie wants to comb through it like a collector at a rarities market, he thinks, running a finger along the spine of a porcelain cat that sits on your dresser.

“Place is filthy, cheerleader.”

“You’d know about mess, freak.”

The only really neat, clear space is, fortunate for tonight’s entertainment purposes, the bed.

As he’s sliding his jacket (jackets, plural) off, Eddie’s eye travels to the window.

“Did you fix your blinds?” he asks, pivoting back and forth on his heel.

“My blinds?” you parrot. The blinds that had been broken when you moved in. The ones that sure were shuttered now. You’d made a point to fix them with whatever was left out of your first paycheck from the Bookstore. “How’d you know about my blinds?”

He could’ve lied, if he caught himself quicker. If he didn’t straighten up his back like someone had snapped him to attention. “Uuh.”

It dawns on you like a flashlight in the eyeballs. “Were you… watching me, Munson?”

Not spying, mind. Not peeping. Watching. Eddie sinks down to sit on the edge of your bed, because whether or not he’s ever going to get to be here again kind of hangs in the balance right now.

“That. Dep…ends. What do you,” Please don’t kick him out. Please don’t kick him out. Look at the line of your fucking body as you round on him, staring him down like you want him for dinner. Christ, he hopes you want him for dinner.

Eddie swallows roughly, tone bumpy, face a dime store Halloween mask of nonchalance. Paper thin. “What do you think about that?”

Fact is, he’d subsisted on a couple of very guilty glimpses of you. Catching sight of the lines of your bare back and taught shoulders would keep him in jerk-off material for a week, just thinking about kneading out your knots and undoing your bra clasp with his teeth.

Eddie felt positively Victorian about it. Maybe you’d flash an ankle at him next and he’d be institutionalized for hysterics.

You look at him with the same pinpoint as you did earlier. Like you’re studying him. And then you edge closer, closer, nudging his knees apart. Echoes of the nurse’s office.

But this isn’t the goddamn nurse’s office. You’re not straining to adapt to the element of surprise. You know that the breath Eddie takes, shuddering and wondrous as you tilt his chin up to look at you, is a sound you want on repeat for as long as you can bear to hear sounds.

“They’ve blinded men for that, y’know? Before.”

Eddie can’t answer. Just let out a huh! as your fingers trace his jaw, thumb brushes his lip. His hands squeeze the curve of your ass, fingers beg into your thighs as he watches you, dumbstruck. His tongue unconsciously presses to the tip of your thumb and he hears your breath hitch.

A sustained shock travels up your neck.

“I mean, was it worth it?”

“Was it w… Lacy.” Eddie’s hands have breached the hem of your skirt and with a groan, his face burrows into the silken fabric of your shirt, like he’s trying to nudge it off with his nose or his mouth. Fingers are working mindlessly to loosen some article of clothing from your body and it makes you feel buzzy and trancelike. “Don’t ask stupid questions. I might have fuckin’ carpal tunnel because of you.”

Jesus. He makes you feel so…

Desired. Needed. You’ve never felt that way before, and you don’t quite know how to navigate it. So your buttons start coming undone with the work of one hand, the other shoving Eddie by the shoulder to lean back on your bed.

Eddie, here, among all your things. Disparate in your shabby little dollhouse, looking at you like you just swallowed the sun.

Your shirt comes off, and Eddie, in a game of match point, tugs his off too. Pause comes over the both of you. You’d seen him shirtless before; shower-bare in his trailer when the first security breach happened, a crack in the containment whatever you were pretending your relationship to each other was–affable enemies, irritated acquaintances. He’d looked at you like an animal cornered, tendons tense under his tattooed skin and you’d wanted to drag a finger or two down the center of his chest.

You didn’t, though. You’d sniped, asked where the cigarettes were.

This is all one big case of making up for lost time.

You’ve been looking at him so long, bra strap slipping off your shoulder, that Eddie leans forward. As if to come get you.

Remember me? I’m real. You can touch me. Touch me, please.

His warm arms pull you to him, pull you onto the bed, pull you against his lips. It’s gentler there; not as furtive. It says, hi, I’m here. Your arms, tugging him closer as he eases you beneath him say, good, I’ve been waiting. Eddie brushes his nose against yours, you laid down with your hair fanned out on the plush comforter.

Both your pulses must have stuttered at the same time.

His smile is serene but you can feel his forearms trembling. “I feel like I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

“Don’t,” you tell him, very quietly while his hand nervously tries to find the zipper on your skirt, “I just got you back.”

Your hips lift to help him and you’re wiggling the thing off and you’re wiggling your tights off and he’s thrashing his jeans off only to land back between your parted legs with bouncing recoil from the mattress. Laughter biting in one another’s mouths. The nerves are teeming off him in waves and it makes you want to kiss him all over.

The feeling housed in your body is different; not jittery, but struck somehow. This doesn’t feel like the way it usually feels, the way it does when you disappear into spare rooms at parties or the shadow of Skull Rock or hitch your leg up against the center console of someone’s shitty car. It doesn’t feel rote, like you’re doing it to stack up experience points– that is a Dungeons and Dragons term you found particularly interesting. How many bad tongue kisses had you accepted just to feel like you’re progressing, instead of waiting for someone who wants to taste you like Eddie does?

Your bodies caged together, you feel the eager, hard, tragically clothed line of him rub against your center. Eddie manages to free your bra clasp on the first try, which you almost goadingly applaud him for–but he cuts you short with a bewitched stare, his lovely, hot mouth laving over your nipple as he slips the fabric away. It tears the first real moan from you, your back arching into his kneading fingers as his tongue curves over your tightening bud.

Eddie can’t believe what he’s hearing. He can barely see straight, but he’s trying to commit every second of this to a glorious Technicolor memory, sound and image capturing working overtime. The sound that comes from your beautiful, balmy mouth sounds fresh out the packet–like you’d never made it for anyone before. The look of suppressed surprise on your face confirms as much and Eddie feels like he might explode.

He, too, has no idea what he’s doing but he can’t help his hips from jerking into you as he plays on. Playing with your nipples, remembering that making them glisten with his spit will make you whimper, and so will kissing the center of your sternum. He’s watching wide-eyed and fascinated as your brow furrows and your legs tighten around him. He’s a wonderful student, when he wants to be.

Eddie is throbbing, and there’s too much cotton and lace between you.

There’s also this other thing, and it comes out of him like word upchuck as you try to tease his boxers down around his hips using only your feet.

“I oughta tell you,” Eddie whispers, voice all raspy, all boyish with his hair tickling your collarbone, “I’m, uh. I’m not good at this.”

“At what?” He’s got one hand roaming over your chest, the other making indents in the meat of your thigh. It feels like he’s holding your breath right in his hands.

A new shade of pink rises high in Eddie’s already straining cheeks. He really doesn’t want to have to use his words to spell it out. “Thiii-iiss.”

Oh. A rivulet of cold realization runs through you. Nicole. Cass. Girls daring themselves to get near to him. Experience points. The great freak experiment project.

“This isn’t that.” Your hands hold his chin, perhaps a little roughly, to make sure he’s listening. And Eddie is, breath baited. You press your forehead to his like he pressed his forehead to yours. “It’s not.”

He’s really about to ask you, what is it, then? but that feels like something you can work out later. Eddie lets you tug at his lips and you let him tug at your panties, arching up so you can wiggle them down your legs. His eyes cast to the downy hair at your mound, and it’d usually occur to you to apologize for your unshaven legs, as if it mattered.

But the way he regards you doesn’t call for that; it calls for you to open up for him. Spread.

A rough pad of a finger runs along your slit, feeling the generous drip that’s gathered, and Eddie moans as your breath hitches into an animalistic, “hahh!”-- he’s edging down your body to bury his face there. He wants to feel you, smell you, taste you. You tense at the sudden contact of his palms pressing your thighs open, his nose against your clit and he feels it. A jolt of worry passes through him. Did you not want that? “Sorry–”

“Don’t– no, Eddie, don’t stop,” you strain, laugh a little, “You just… surprised me. Keep– keep surprising me. Please.”

Shockwaves break through you as he gingerly offers his tongue. And more, and more, until he’s lapping at you with a vigor and no real direction. You dig against him, made speechless by the building ache in your core.

In your fantasies, you hadn’t anticipated him being so giving–so eager to please and explore. Like all things, this moment projected itself in your head with the hard edges of some imagined cockiness, Eddie telling you to spread your legs and you, nymphlike and fluid and still somehow holding all the indiscriminate ‘power’, doing so.

But this? This is soft and messy and spitty and real. Eddie is drooling and babbling into your pussy with the uncalculated effect of someone who has improvised his whole life and it’s tearing you at the seams. A satisfying little rip, every keen movement he makes.

You know when you’re close to climax, that familiar feeling of your cunt suckling at nothing, but it doesn’t feel as jagged as the first time he brought you there. Urgently, you tug at his hair, claw at his shoulders, begging for his attention.

“Eddie,” you gasp and his hands flex around your thighs at the sound of his name in your mouth. It’s yours, he wants to tell you, rutting heedlessly into the mattress from his position between your legs, keep it! Please! “Eddie, Eddie– come here, come to me.”

Your velveteen voice summons him, his face glistening from the exploration of you. Embarrassment threatens to ping at you, but it flames into want, seeing how wet and obscene he looks. That’s all from you?

Eddie does as he’s told, heart pounding– and the sensation of fabric dragging against the raw tip of his cock nearly makes him pass out.

“Fuck! Fuck, you–” he stammers as your hand pulls his heavy length free, balls tightening under your firm touch, “N-not fuck you, obvi-ously, but–hunh–okay, kinda fuck you…”

Eddie’s lips fold against yours as he attempts, with shuddering arms, to brace himself over you. He whines at your dexterity, swiping his head against your entrance. The wetness from him, the wetness from you– the sheer impact of sensation slices clean through him. It’s not a tactic, you’re not teasing; you’re angling to get him inside you. You need to get him inside you, your entire body is begging for it.

“Baby, please, please, I’m not gonna last–”

“Who said you had to?” you ask, voice a drop of dark syrup. Just for him. “Who said you had to?”

The earnestness in your eyes gives Eddie pause– for all of a pulsating second.

“I want you… inside. Don’t you want to feel me?” you ask with real conviction, thumb swiping over his moistened head in a way that makes his vision go galactic.

Eddie yanks your hand away, kissing roughly it, nailing it beside your head as he tries to ease into you.

“Want? It’s all I want–fuck, it’s all I fucking think about, Lacy–huhh–”

His first attempt results in a gasp of pain– the sting, the stretch, it’s a little much a little fast. The sharpness has you wincing and has Eddie searching your face with an arrested kind of guilt.

“Y–shit, baby, are you–”

“I’m okay,” you recover, hand steadying on his flushed cheek. “Just–slower. Ease it in. You’re– you’re pretty remarkable, Eddie.”

“Remarkable?” he mumbles against your cheek, focused and slowly lining his head against your entrance. “Really?”

“Prodigiou—ss, uhh–fuck!” Whispered swears come streaming from you as he sinks right into the velvety constraints of your cunt.

Your eyes roll right back, mouth tipping open and the grip of you arresting around him makes him cry out into your chest.

Eddie’s cock is long and heavy and thick, constricted to the point where you can nearly feel every ridge of him. It hurts, the stretch of him aches, but it’s delicious–pinned and sweetly painful.

“Prodigious–is a five dollar–fuckin’--vocab word–” he strains, lifting his hips ever so slightly– you’re clutched onto him so tight that you move with him. Eddie open-mouth groans against your neck. “Lacy, Jesus, you’re so tight–you feel so good–how the fuck do you feel so good? Who invented you?!”

There’s a tinge of a giggle in your moaning, which doesn’t let up. Eddie’s voice rings out like a church bell, making one slow stroke inside you, then another. Then another, then another, picking up speed, groans chorusing into the hollow of your neck around the lewd sound of his flesh slapping against yours. The sound alone brings you close to cumming. “Oh, pleasepleaseplease, fuck, Lace, I’m g– fuck, I’m–”

The way Eddie’s hands are carving permanent marks into your hips, the way his movements are halting, you get the idea that… “You holding out on me?” you ask him, short of breath around your panting but demanding still, “Don’t you dare–don’t you dare.”

“Lacy, uhh– please, ’mgonnafucking–”

“Cum for me? Are you?”

Your fingers tug at his curls so you can look at him as his face tenses. Eddie’s hair is flattened across his head, face glimmering with exertion. You drag your lips against his forehead, the salty flavor of sweat breaking across your tastebuds.

“For you, for you, shit, only for you–only for you, only fucking ever–fuck–”

His dark eyes have been blown out since he pulled you to the mattress, eyelids flickering over his irises as he pistons into you with speed that hurts but you love it.

You barely hear yourself beginning a prayer of dirty little succors, but there it is, easing him through his orgasm as he shudders a load between your legs. “You feel like nothing on this fucking earth, you know that, you’re so good for me...” The tension breaks with one final rasping cry, his expression dissolving into a softness as he exhales a lungful, neck stretching to lean into your touch.

A couple of half-cracked dry sobs escape him.

Looking up at you, cradled against your shoulder, Eddie’s cursing himself for every second he’s wasted not doing this with you.

And you, looking down, are stroking his damp curls from his forehead and cursing yourself. You’re going to burn the world down for this boy.

“Lacy. You–”

And then, y’know, the fucking front door of the trailer clicks.

Little too much deja vu for your liking these days!

Immediately, you seize upwards, jolting a confused Eddie with you– which breaks your heart, in a way, seeing him darty-eyed and shocked out of his bliss so fast.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.” These are not like your prior ‘fucks’, he can register through the haze of his post-nut state. These are bad fucks. So he responds in turn, “Fuck?”

“My mom!” You hiss, naked and scrambling. Panic crests on you like a wave, a wave that should have been an orgasm mind fucking you, and your fingernails tear at the comforter beneath you.

“Under, under, gogogo!”

Because if there’s one thing your mother, in all her former-center-of-attention glory, loves to do? It’s enter a room uninvited.

Case in fucking point–

“Lacy?” A perfunctory knuckle rap from the other side of the door, just as you manage to hide Eddie by shoving him behind you and tenting the comforter around you both. You’re praying to anything with a little more gusto than God that it works. And then, enter your mother and her cloud of Shalimar.

Soon as she opens the door, you can tell something is terribly off.

She’s smiling, face as serene as the Virgin Mary. Usually she’s got a sharpened dagger of a glare, just for you. Two of you haven’t been spending much quality time lately, see.

“Lacy! What–” your mom’s brow knits, but it’s a look of amusement. Which freaks you out. She’s looking at your just-fucked-by-Eddie-Munson hair, isn’t she? The mascara that’s surely streaking down your face? Does she know? Can she sense he’s in this very room? “--what are you doing?”

“Napping. Crying. What does it look like?” you snap, hiking the comforter up a little further and begging that she doesn’t notice Eddie’s incriminating clothes strewn across the floor.

Eddie, for his part, is not breathing. He’s crouched behind your bare ass, a position he’s in no rush to get out of, arms caged around your thighs like a petrified child. This is almost funny–or would be, if he wasn’t scared shitless of everything your mom would definitely do to him if she discovered him buck ass naked in your bed.

Dreamily, Eddie reminds himself that he’s buck ass naked, in your bed. He smiles into one of your cheeks and considers how biteable it is.

“Well. Wrap it up,” your mom says, tone still light, and you twinge at the irony. At least you’re on the pill. “I have a surprise.”

Slam. Door shuts. Your lamp wobbles with the force of it and Eddie emerges from behind you, like a freshly-fucked groundhog.

“She sounds happy,” he mumbles, arms sliding up around your waist.

You want to kiss the mirth out his mouth but you have to shove him back behind you first– cue your mom, doubling back through the door. Jesus!

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” you say, shortly and breathily because Eddie nips at your fucking ass cheek back there. “Just–you sound happy, mom!”

She shakes her head at you, a smile curving her tulip colored lips, like a mom from a detergent commercial. Y’know, were it not for the whole Italian widow getup she’s alway sporting.

“Get on with it already.”

You count to a full five before you even let out a breath, snapping your attention back to reality and the fact that Eddie Munson is very naked in your very bed.

“You gotta get out of here,” you tell him, and you want to kill yourself about it.

The both of you balance on your knees. Eddie tugs you into him with shining, begging eyes. Standing almost at full attention again, already.

“Jesus, that thing’s impressive.”

Eddie’s fingers wind around the hair at the nape of your neck. Despite the brief jolt of fear from your little interruption just now, he’s all romance–totally suckered, rose-colored glasses, the whole bit. Thoughts not exactly creating a straight line just yet, but he doesn’t care. He’s had his hands all over you for the better part of an evening now, and he doesn’t want to let up just yet. It might kill him. It might kill him.

There’s no unringing this bell between the two of you, and he knows that.

And you knew it first, because you know everything first.

“You sure?” he hums into your sweet lips, “You absolutely positive? Because I could be real, real quiet…”

Eddie’s also thrilled by the fact that he seems to know instinctively what to do to turn you on.

“What if I don’t want you to be real, real quiet?”

You kiss him back, sighing and sliding a single finger down the length of his cock.

“Lace…” he whimpers to you, his commandant fantasy of being dominant in the bedroom officially, officially escorted out back and shot. He wants to please you too badly. Be the jester in your court that makes you cackle and makes you cum.

“Lacy!” a shrill yell comes from the hall. Your eyes snap open, Eddie’s dancing with amusement and yours heaving with alarm.

“Fuck, okay, go! Window!”

Another scramble, you tossing jeans and socks and the rest of Eddie’s uniform at him while you clean yourself off, try to pull a robe around yourself. A stray thought occurs to you as you watch him trip over himself, ripping the hole in his jeans a little further–you hate what he wears, but you love it on him. And off him. And…

You yank up those blinds and unlatch the window with a faint smile. Nothing about you two makes any conceivable sense–

Eddie starts out the window, shirt barely pulled down his torso and his shoes in his hands, then turns to hook you to him by the elbow. Smiling with the full blush of his mouth, he kisses you. Firm and knowing and whole.

–except that. That makes sense.

The pad of his finger clears a lock of rumpled hair from your forehead.

“To be continued?” Eddie searches your face, with those crazy dark brimming universes of eyes.

Your heart is leaping in your ribcage. You nod sharply, gleaming back at him.

“I’m comin’ back for you, Lacy Doevksi,” he tells you with all the brazen confidence he can muster. “And I am gonna go down on you until I drown. On pain of death, I swear it.”

“Go!” you command, and regret it as soon as he drops out of your bedroom window. Eddie starts a cant toward his trailer across the way.

“Faster!” you hiss, just as an excuse to watch him.

He pivots mid-jog, hair swinging wildly, his hand grabbing at his crotch.

“You try runnin’ with a hard on! Witch!”

It’s far, far, far too quiet once he’s escaped through the front door of his trailer.

It's not fair, you think. You should be basking in some kind of afterglow, sharing a stupid cliché cigarette, you feel like you should be... celebrating this.

You shouldn't have to keep running away from each other.

The warmth the two of you had created, through mere physical friction or just how much you… you like each other, rapidly dissipated into a chill as you advance through your bedroom door, to deal with the other thing.

Surprise, you thought, What kind of goddamn surprise could mother o'mine have for me? Did she boost a bank? Did she win the Indiana Sweepstakes? I don’t want to know about any g–

“Lorelei.”

The universe has a way of shoving you back in place when you get ahead of yourself.

You don’t just stop in your tracks, you’re repelled a half-step backwards. The centrifugal force urging you away, telling you there’s an immediate threat in the heart of your home.

No one uses that name anymore. Not even him. Not since you were fourteen.

“Daddy.”

Your father sits at the shabby dinette that you and your mother don’t even share meals at, sits there in the suit he was sentenced in. A rich navy pinstripe, chosen because gray would have been too flashy and black would admit defeat. “Of course!” your mother had said, marveling at his ingenuity. But the pantomime of his defense was wearing real thin on you; whispering at school had started growing louder and louder and you were finding more and more chips in the porcelain of your father’s worldly facade.

“Why not compromise. Wear charcoal,” you’d said, leaning against the kitchen counter in Loch Nora, drinking orange juice from your parents’ wedding crystal as the movers taped up your boxes, “You can plead guilty and still look smug about it.”

Your father had smacked the flute from your hand and it shattered in forty thousand pieces on the ground. You didn’t move, didn’t breathe, because you knew if you did, you’d be next.

Navy it was. And navy it is. He sits at that dinette like he’s expecting white jacket service. You swear even more gray has started glimmering through his hair. Flashy.

“Should I ask how you’re here?” you say, stiff and scared. Your mother, standing at your father’s shoulder, tuts and sighs. Can’t you just enjoy this? she silently bemoans.

“Good behavior,” Ray smiles, “Can’t say the same for you. Can I, Lorelei?”

“Principal Higgins called,” your mom chimes in, “Or rather, that odious little secretary called. You think you could get a Saturday detention and they just wouldn’t tell us?”

“That’s why he’s here?” You laugh a little, inwardly. “With all due respect, Daddy, that’s a terrible reason to break out of prison.”

To your surprise, your father chuckles too. Makes your blood run cold, obviously.

“Y’know, I really didn’t anticipate this for my homecoming, I gotta tell you,” he says, shifting in his seat and plucking a cigarillo from his jacket pocket. “I mean, honestly. I thought, a nice bottle of Beaujolais–”

“We’re fresh out,” you gesture to your cringing mother.

“--a dinner at, Christ, Enzo’s, since that’s where our budget is at now,” his lighter flicks and ignites the end, “But no. I have to sit here and cross-examine my daughter about… fraternizing with the lowest of criminal elements.”

The lack of self awareness here is off the fucking charts. It makes your blood pressure spike.

“Take a seat, Lacy,” your father so gallantly gestures to the vinyl backed kitchen chair in front of him, “and tell me all about Eddie Munson.”

Chair drags aggressively against the linoleum. You sit, and swear that the next time you’re caught off guard by anyone’s father, it’d better be God himself.

This bit is getting old.

author's notes: so i'm not fucking around when i say i need to hear everyone's thoughts on what just happened immediately. i really do think that happenings-wise, this was my favourite chapter to write thus far. felt cathartic, from the al munson to the hellfire article of it all. anyway. onto the good stuff - like i feel like everyone who reads this series will have clocked this but of course i lifted the garlic slicing right out of goodfellas. i just think it's a perfect al munson attribute to have - al munson kicking out the jams instead of picking up his kid i know that's right - our dukes of hazzard ref is a tribute to my own personal al munson fancast - not that paris, texas but this paris, texas. (and you know when lacy eventually gets eddie to watch it he CRIES. they both cry) - i should probably put the repo man trailer in here as well - speaking of another fancast! the manager of forest hills trailer park is, of course, to me, in my heart, carl rodd. - the best song off of abbey road by the beatles, fight with the wall - SHOULD WE CALL THE MAYOR - lacy promising eddie that he can ride circles around her on a motor bike is a reference to hunter s thompson being ambushed on canadian television by one of the hells angels he wrote about in his book. dude rolls onto set on his hog. it's crazy. - eddie is kinda gossamer coded - cow tipping? at mccorkle's? anybody? our love is god - god wheels of confusion is kinda horny sounding huh i think that this might be the shortest references recap so far in the series?? one of them anyway. probably because i wrote 4k words of FILTH. anyway, thank you all so much for continuing to read this fucking thing. we're almost at the end of this part of the story which is wild to me. now let me get on your ass and remind you that REBLOGGING FICS IS ESSENTIAL TO YOUR FIC WRITERS HEALTH. SO ARE COMMENTS AND SO ARE ASKS so send those pls :) love you hellcats. be well, cats

#published by powder #hellfire & ice #in progress #e. munson by powder #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x f!reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x oc #stranger things fic #eddie munson fic

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naruto-imagines-and-headcanons · 1 year ago

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Naruto Love Languages (Konoha 12 + Sand Siblings)

Naruto Uzumaki - Words of Affirmation

This man is your #1 fan. Everything you do he is behind you cheering and hollering the whole way. It doesn't matter if it's something stupid like trying to do a bottle flip, Naruto is gonna hype you up. He just adores you so much and wants you to know that! He wants you to know that he believes in you fully. When he isn't being a hype man, Naruto is just genuinely complimenting you and showing his appreciation for all you do. Nothing you do will go unnoticed, you WILL feel this man's love

Sasuke Uchiha - Gift Giving

Sasuke is, uh... kinda rough when it comes to romance. He's gone through some shit and even after all these years doesn't quite know how to deal with it. He isn't good at words, is wary on physical contact, and isn't around often. But the one thing he succeeds in is giving you gifts. Everytime he leaves to go who knows where, he will always return with an incredibly thoughtful gift. Sasuke doesn't just grab whatever he see, he knows what you like and what you appreciate. Every gift he gives you has meaning and fits you perfectly

Sakura Haruno - Acts of Service

Sakura is a girl who heavily desires to be loved. Ever since she was a child she was a hopeless romantic, so when she finally got together with you she fell head over heels. She's quite open with her feelings for you both physically and vocally, but her favorite way to show she cares is by helping you around the house. She'll cook for you, help clean up, give you massages, and of course heal your wounds. As long as you are dating her you will never see another Medical-nin. Every injury you get will be treated by her with full seriousness (even if it's just a paper cut)

Sai - Gift Giving

You though SASUKE was bad with feelings? Dear lord you gotta have a lot of patience with Sai. Unlike Sasuke though, Sai tries his hardest, even if it's a bit rough. He tries to say nice things and touch you, but it's still incredibly foreign to him (not to mention he can get a bit brutally honest about some things). The only thing Sai is confident in is his gift giving skills. He loves to draw art for you, pretty much everything he sees inspires more art to give you. It's gotten to the point that you have a whole room filled with them (Sai keeps telling you it's okay to get rid of some, but you refuse! They are so pretty!). On special occassions, Sai loves to bring his drawings for you to life, enjoying the look of amazement on your face

Ino Yamanaka - Gift Giving

This girl is gonna treat you RIGHT, believe that! She's is incredibly open with her feelings, especially when it comes to flowers. You will be getting flowers for every occassion, sometimes just randomly. She'll buy you other gifts like jewelry and clothes and books, but her real love language is flowers. Her bouquets aren't just randomly put together either, Ino carefully hand picks each one and take in mind the meaning of each one. The longer you date you will soon learn the different meanings, which makes her so proud. Although she doesn't really expect anything back every time, make sure to get her a lil something for special occassions, she'll appreciate it~

Shikamaru Nara - Quality Time

We know Shikamaru is a lazy bitch, but that's what we love about him! He may seem distant and seemingly uncaring, but if you look closely you can clearly see how he shows affection. Sure he may not wash you with praises or get you expensive things, but he stays by your side. Always. Somehow he always is in the same room as you, even if you are doing two different things. You're always together in some sort. He'll definitely deny it, but you notice he doesn't leave still. It's kind of like a cat, ya know? Shikamaru gets especially clingy when you're in bed together. This man doesn't get up for hours, and you aren't getting up either. You will lay and sleep with him for 3 more hours, no discussion

Choji Akimichi - Acts of Service

Just... just so sweet. My boy is such a sweetie oh my god. Choji is quite nervous in your relationship, both due to low self-esteem and just anxiety in general. Just you surprising him with a hug is enough to fluster him for a solid minute. Since more direct ways get him anxious, Choji prefers to do things for you, and his favorite thing is to cook for you. This man can COOK like no one's business! You guys will go out to eat on the weekends (there is nothing like fresh barbecue), but through the week he is in the kitchen cooking your favorite meals full of love. Seeing your giant smile and hearing your satisifed eating makes his heart soar. Also, you are one of the only people who he'll always share his snacks with, no hesitation (the other is Shikamaru, obviously)

Kiba Inuzuka - Physical Touch

Kiba is a toucher, hands down. He LOVES to just touch you all over. He is always in contact with you no matter what, appropriate or otherwise. Hands on your waist, head on your shoulder, fingers in your hair, sometimes he will just randomly pick you up to get a reaction out of you. Let's be real, Kiba's a dog through and through, and dogs adore attention. Whenever he wants your attention or love, Kiba will poke you and bug you until you give in and cuddle with him. Spooning is his absolute favorite position. Give this man his head pats and belly rubs god dammit, and don't forget Akamaru!. Oh and uh, warning, this man is also perverted. Quite perverted. Your cuddle sessions will devolve into him dry humping you 50% of the time. You gonna get manhandled and groped quite a bit (every touch full of love <3)

Hinata Hyuga - Words of Affirmation

You thought Choji was shy? You haven't seen nothing yet. Hinata was already a sweating mess when you were just friends, the moment you asked her out she literally fainted and collapsed on the floor. Thankfully she is better now (and didn't get brain damage), but it's still nerve-wracking to be in a relationship with you. You're just so... perfect. And Hinata wants you to know that. Throughout the day she is normally very sweet and appreciative, but whenever you are on dates or cuddling in private, she lets all her feelings out. She shares her admiration for you, her appreciation for you, and just how happy she is to have you in her life. It always makes you cry, which makes Hinata feel bad, but you always assure her they are happy tears

Shino Aburame - Acts of Service

Shino is a man of little words, and you knew that going into a relationship, so you have no issues with that! It makes the times he does speak up mean even more. Since he's inexperienced with relationships and romantic gestures, Shino's main way to show he cares is by protecting you and keeping you safe. He always is ready to defend you in public, and whenever you go somewhere alone he gives you one of his bugs so he can know you're safe. Anyone who even tries to harass or injure you is getting shot down immedietely. Losing you or you getting hurt is one of his biggest fears, and he'll never let that happen. You'll never feel unsafe when Shino is around

Rock Lee - All of Them

You can call this a cop out, but let's be real, Lee is the embodiment of EVERY love language. He never stops gushing to you about your beauty and skills, and screams how much he loves you from the rooftops. Anything you ask him to do will be done in record time perfectly. He loves to give you extravagent gifts for your anniversaries and random occasions. Spending time with you is his favorite thing in the world, especially when you train together. And physical touch? He is always happy to hug and kiss you all over. Lee is just full of love for you!! He knows he can be a bit overwhelming at times and will calm down if you tell him. He just is so grateful to have you in his life, and wants you to know that every day for the rest of your life

Neji Hyuga - Words of Affirmation

It may come as a shock to most due to his sharp tongue, but the way Neji shows his love is by words. To most he is aggressive and stand-offish, and ocassionally is to you too. It's just how he is unfortunately. But unlike with others, he is noticabely incredibly soft with you and is much more open. Neji isn't afraid to compliment how you look or give praise when you succeed at something. Even when he gets annoyed he doesn't raise his voice or throw insults at you, he stays respectful. The fact that he calls everyone an idiot except you says a whoooole lot about how he feels about you. Wear that honor with pride

Tenten - Quality Time

Tenten is pretty easy going and prefers a partner who is the same. Of course some spice and excitement is greatly welcomed, but at the end of the day she just wants to sit back and relax with her partner. So spending time together means a lot to her. She loves going on dates where you guys try something new (just no long hikes, please) but if needed will default to the local weapon museum. By the way, everytime one of you has to go on a mission, Tenten will act cool but will secretly pout the whole time until you meet up again

Gaara - Physical Touch

As he's grown, Gaara has turned into a real sweetheart. With you he is incredibly gentle and cares for you deeply. You are his treasure, you deserve the world. He still is dealing with social anxiety, and can be a bit awkward sometimes. But Gaara is always comfortable touching and holding you. His touches are gentle and kind, and sensual when he wants. He likes to give gentle kisses all over you throughout the day, and whenever he leaves for work he gives you a loving kiss before he leaves. Gaara also really values cuddling together. This man is touch starved like no one else, everytime you hold eachother he feels like a part of him is healing. Please reciprocate, he deserves it

Temari - Words of Affirmation

Temari is fiery as hell, and you knew that the moment you met. And her words are just as sharp! She isn't afraid to tell off people who annoy you guys (especially when you are on dates, they are DEAD). With you she is still mildly aggressive and intense, but in a more lighthearted way. She just gets so worried about you, she can't help herself from scolding you for being an idiot. Every word she says (positive or negative) comes from the heart. When you manage to not be a fool Temari is vocalising her approval and pride. Oh, and she has a habit of openly bragging about how amazing you are to your peers (much to your embarrassment)

Kankuro - Quality Time

This man is a teeeeeease (in a good way or bad way, your decision). He is constantly joking and making fun of you, reveling in your cute annoyance. He even likes to annoy you physically like blowing on your neck or pinching your butt. Kankuro is quite playful pretty much 95% of the time, but the other 5% he's actually quite sweet. Spending time with you is his favorite thing in the world! Yeah it's fun messing with you, but he likes to just have genuine connections and going on more mature dates. His favorite thing is dancing surprisingly, and he honestly is quite good. Holding you close and swaying makes him content ... Until he sneaks in one of his puppets halfway through, scaring the shit out of you in the process (he slept on the couch but it was worth it)

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Konoha 12 + Sand Siblings | Shinobi & Founders | Akatsuki

#Naruto #naruto headcanons #naruto imagines #naruto x reader #Naruto Uzumaki #Sasuke Uchiha #Sakura Haruno #Ino Yamanaka #Shikamaru Nara #Choji Akimichi #Hinata Hyuga #Kiba Inuzuka #Shino Aburame #Rock Lee #Neji Hyuga #Tenten #Gaara #Temari #Kankuro

817 notes · View notes

akystaracer22 · 9 months ago

Text

Here in the Garden, Let’s Play a Game

Synopsis: A nightmare about paradise, and an attempt to create something new, even the coldest hearts can warm with a careful touch.

Notes

Can you tell I like Adam’s character?

TW: Mild Mind Control, Thought Suppression, and Altered Thoughts in the flashback scene, descriptions of panic attacks, vomit, mild descriptions of gore, unreliable narrator.

As for the latter half: This is what Lucifer meant in Distrust Fall when he said he thought he knew where to start.

Hurt/Comfort

Word count: 3304

Fic under cut!

Adam blinked and pulled his hand away from where it rested against the hide of a boar, where the fuck was he?

Last thing he remembered he was exhausted after another shitty fucking day in hell and went back to his room to sleep, and suddenly he’s in some sort of glade.

Huffing, he gently patted the boar’s side and nudged it up, “C’mon, up you get, I gotta figure this shit out.”

The boar acquiesced easily, trotting away into the foliage as Adam took a look around the scenery to try and figure out where he was.

Long lush green grass that flowed in the breeze in such a way it looked pristine, long natural flower beds carving up the glade in perfect patterns. The trees were a mix of evergreens and impossibilities. Trees he’d never seen together before all coexisting in magnificent harmony.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think he was…

Adam face blanched at the sudden wind that hit his body, his bare body.

Where were his clothes?

“No no no nononono!” Adam gasped and glanced around in a panic; he wasn’t wearing anything. That wasn’t good- shit he needed his clothes!

He flared his wings out to try and use them to give himself some coverage only to be painfully aware of another fact when nothing happened.

He couldn’t feel them.

He couldn’t feel his wings.

Adam twisted around and stared at his bare back in terror, he was missing his wings, wings he’d had for millennia at that point, wings he’d kept even as he plummeted to hell, ruined as they were they were still his they couldn’t just be gone-!

A loud whimper slipped off his tongue before he could bite it back. He cursed, hating the show of weakness only marginally less than he hated being so exposed.

Adam moved forward on unsteady legs, nearly tripping from the sudden lack of weight on his back from his wings. Already he hated the place, it’s perfection reminded him too closely to the garden, just as much as his exposure and lack of wing’s and-

Chink

Adam’s blood turned to ice in his veins at the sound. Glancing down at his right wrist, he found the source.

A small, innocuous golden cuff attached to a similarly gold chain, glowing softly from where it laid against his skin. The chain lead upwards, disappearing into nothingness.

The first man’s breathing quickened as he stumbled forward, instinctively trying to run in the opposite direction of the chain. Shit he was right why the fuck did he have to be right?!

He was in Eden; he was in fucking Eden.

“Adam!”

The first man turned around swiftly at the sound of his wife’s voice, smiling brightly as the angel he was reporting to took their leave, “Eve! My dear you look beautiful as always.”

His wife stopped in front of him, and Adam’s brow twitched, she looked…

Free.

Troubled. Her eyebrows were pressed together, and her shoulders were tense. Her hair looked unusually messy, and her eyes kept darting around as if looking for something.

She doesn’t want Them to see this.

“My dearest, what troubles you?” Adam reached out a hand to her before pulling back abruptly as he noticed something else, Her eyes had darkened to a deep, almost black red. Her chain connecting her to the Lord was absent, “Beloved, where is your shackle?”

“Adam we need to talk,” Is all Eve said instead, moving forward to grab him by the arm and drag him into the foliage surrounding the clearing.

“My dear we must inform our Creator immediately,” Gods first human exclaimed, his chest growing tight the longer he was aware of his partner’s bare wrist, “We are never to be without the shackles that keep us safe this is-”

“Just! Listen to me first,” Eve’s tone shifted abruptly silencing Adam, “I- I know how this looks but I need you to trust me for a second, please.”

“Of course, I trust you dear, but-”

Adam didn’t get to finish as Eve caught his mouth with her own. Kissing him deeply much to the man’s surprise. He didn’t have time to react when something passed between Eve’s mouth and his own and he instinctively swallowed whatever it was.

He heard the shackle shatter a second before his mind caught up to it, sending him reeling at the slew of information that struck him all at once.

Memories that he was forced to forget surged into his awareness-

- A passionate kiss with Lilith under the sun-

- A shared meal with an angel- with Lucifer-

- Him, screaming in agony as God cleaved open his chest and reached inside of him-

-A failed attempt to flee while he was still recovering, still reeling from the betrayal and terror as burning bright magic lashed out and dragged him back-

Adam stumbled back away from his second wife – his second wife how in Eden did he ever forget about Lilith – as the reality of the situation finally caught up to him.

They needed to hide. Now.

“Shit I need to get the fucking apple!” Adam yelled, breaking into a sprint even as he stumbled and had to catch himself on the trees as he ran. Animals didn’t even startle as he ran past because fear was an emotion you weren’t supposed to feel, not in Eden.

How the ever-loving fuck Adam was even able to process this was beyond him, but he wasn’t about to try his luck. All it would take is one moment of Gods attention and he’d be unmade and-

Adam bit the inside of his cheek to nip that train of thought in the bud. He wasn’t going to unpack that right now.

He needed to get to the damn tree.

The first man stumbled into a large clearing, immediately hating the exposure before catching golden leaves in the near distance, turning his head he was greeted with his salvation.

A tree with apples pure and divine. It’s trunk a darker colour than normal and it’s leaves a mix of brilliant gold and blinding white.

Adam raced across the clearing; all sense of caution thrown to the wind because he needed to get to those apples-!

A heavy weight slammed into him, knocking him to the ground before something pierced his leg.

Adam cried out in pain before he could stop himself, craning his neck to try and get a look at his assailant only to go wide eyed at the angel pinning him down.

Or, more precisely, the exorcist. Lute.

She was giving him the same hard glare she only really used for sinners or for Vaggie, the one that screamed hatred with every fibre of her being. The thing in his leg was her spear.

“I don’t know how you scum managed to sneak into the garden,” She snapped at him, vitriol poisoning her tongue, “But you’re not getting to that tree.”

“Shit- Lute it’s me!” Adam yelled, trying not to move his injured leg around the spear even as crimson blood – why the fuck was it crimson?! – soaked the ground, “It’s me Adam!”

Lute studied him and for a moment seemed to hesitate, sparking a glimmer of hope in Adam before it was snuffed out with her scowl returning, “No. You’re not. But you need to be fixed.”

Her halo glowed for a gut-wrenching second, before light seemed to travel down the divine chain towards the shackle.

“No nonono shit stop fuck!” Adam shrieked, abandoning sense and uncaring at how his flesh and muscle tore as he tried to shove Lute off, her spear mutilating his leg further, “Lute don’t let Him fucking do this please!”

The light got closer and still Lute did nothing, Adam could only watch the light seep into the cuff and see it glow lightly before-

Adam screamed as he jerked awake, immediately feeling something in his stomach shift and bile surge up his throat.

He stumbled until he hit a door and threw it open, whatever was in his stomach coming back up as he vomited over the railing of his balcony.

He could feel a weight on his back, and he almost cried as he realised it was his wings, instinctively curling them around himself as he sat there against the rails. He shuddered for a moment, shivering despite the heat.

His leg ached despite the fact that it was a nightmare.

It was a nightmare.

Fuck he thought he was about to-

A hiccupping sob slipped out of him, followed by another as he fell apart.

He thought he was going to die in the worst way imaginable. Worse than when the maid stabbed him, or when he fell or even when he died all those millennia ago he thought he was going to be erased.

Shit he thought he was going to be erased and one of his girls was going to watch it happen.

He would rather fall a thousand times over or be stabbed by a thousand angelic weapons then be erased again.

The fallen angel kept sobbing for a few more seconds before forcing his emotions back down again, he wasn’t about to be caught weak like that. Not here. Once before at the fucking graveyard was enough. He was Adam he was gods first man he was- he was the fucking Adam! He needed to get his fucking shit together because someone noticed. Before someone thought to look deeper and see how much of a rotten shit show he was inside.

He didn’t need anyone to see him this pathetic. Not again, not after last time.

“Adam?”

The first man’s eyes widened, and his head snapped over to the balcony next to his. Shit!

“Luci-fer ah hah why the fuck are you awake?!” Adam scrambled to his feet, wings flaring out to balance him even as he gripped the rail.

The king of hell was wearing what was probably casual wear for him, just a dress shirt, his usual pants and shoes combo, and a vest. His brow was furrowed as he took in Adams sorry state.

“I was working on something- are you okay?” Lucifer spread his wings, crossing the gap between their balconies with an ease that made Adam jealous. Lucifer had fallen just like he did and yet he was the one who still kept his wings, who didn’t have to deal with dead weight and could still fucking fly.

It wasn’t fucking fair.

“Go fuck yourself Lucifer, I’m not in the damn mood,” Adam muttered, stalking back inside and going to shut the door on the devil.

“No, no you’re not running from this not after-”

“After fucking nothing,” The first man growled, turning back to scowl at the king of hell who’d put a foot in the doorway to keep Adam from closing it.

“Adam,” Lucifer sounded tired, which pissed Adam off even more, “I’m not letting this one go. Not after what I just saw. You’re talking about this.”

“I’m sorry, why the fuck do you even care?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, why the fuck do you even care?” Adam snarled, mantling his wings on instinct, “First you fucking clean my wings for me, you keep on watching my back for some fucking reason. Then, you go out of your way to catch me when I fall, why? What the fuck is your angle here why the fuck do you care?”

“Can’t I care?”

“You didn’t care in Eden when you abandoned me,” Adam snapped before freezing.

“Oh,” Lucifer blinked a few times before folding his wings and making them disappear, “So that’s it, isn’t it. You had a nightmare about Eden.”

“Why the fuck would I have a nightmare about paradise?” Adam sneered past the twisting feeling in his gut, “Eden was perfect, the only thing I’d have a nightmare about would be the desolate land I was kicked out into.”

“Except Eden wasn’t perfect,” Lucifer pressed, eyes narrowing at the bluff, “It sure didn’t seem perfect when He-”

“Don’t!”

“…”

They both stood there, the silence staining the air with Adams stupid, foolish, weakness.

“Come on get dressed, we’re going out,” Lucifer huffed, his wings returning to block the balcony like that was an actual escape route.

… shit he was planning on doing that.

“Fine, piece of shit good for nothing-!” Adam grumbled as he threw open the closet and grabbed his shirt, throwing off his night garb with his mind only quietly screaming at him to put something on because he wasn’t wearing anything. It shouldn’t matter anyway; Lucifer had already seen him plenty of times in the past naked.

Still, he couldn’t have gotten his pants on fast enough.

He shrugged on his coat and put on his shoes before Lucifer abruptly grabbed him and dragged him close.

Before Adam even had a chance to curse at him or break out of the grip a shower of bright gold sparks crackled through the air and a warm wind hit his face. He jerked, stumbling out of the kings hold and striking out with a wing even though he knew Lucifer would dodge.

“Would you not?!”

“Sorry! Sorry,” Lucifer grinned, clearly anything but sorry, “But it was the quickest way to get here!”

“And where exactly is here? Because this just seems like a whole lot of nothing.”

Nothing but rock stretched out in all directions, they looked to be at the bottom of a cliff and if Adam looked up… was that the hotel?

“Are we seriously in the fucking nowhere around the hotel?!”

“Here me out first!” Lucifer spread his wings instinctively, “Just- I have a pitch for you!”

“Get on with it,” Adam bit out, he highly doubted anything Lucifer could say right now would even be remotely-

“A garden.”

The first mans thoughts cut off, before his brain kicked back in and he just stared at lucifer, “…what?”

“A garden,” Lucifer smiled widely, showing teeth without a threat, “You can use this space to grow a garden.”

“Why the fuck would I grow a garden.”

“You loved it in Eden didn’t you?” Lucifer’s smile shrunk a little into something pitying, It made Adam’s gut churn, “I remember how you used to spend hours talking about just caring for the garden. You were chattering on about concepts your mind couldn’t even comprehend yet as you tended the garden.”

“The soil is inhospitable, nothing will grow.”

“They said that about the land outside of Eden as well, and yet look what you managed.”

“You can’t seriously expect me to have the amount of time required to even begin managing the soil let alone the plant life.”

“I’m sure Charlie can be convinced to give you all the time you need in the day!”

“I can’t get down here.”

Lucifer rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers at the nearest cliff face, leaving Adam to watch as a set of stairs manifested, coiling through the rock and leading up towards the back of the hotel where his girls were laid to rest.

“I’m not exactly in shape asshole.”

“Well, you’ll be getting in shape as you work on this so that shouldn’t be an issue soon.”

“I-”

“You know you can just say you don’t want to do it right?” Lucifer shut the first man up easily with a look, “This isn’t a mandatory thing, you can just say no and go on your merry way.”

Adam knew that. He didn’t owe Lucifer shit and he didn’t have to do this. He could just walk; the stairs were literally right there now. He could just leave.

His feet stayed rooted to the ground where he stood.

“Well?”

Fuck.

“Just give me a fucking hoe already,” Adam sighed, holding out his hand and glaring at Lucifer.

The devil in question looked absolutely delighted, grinning widely and summoning-

“The tool, don’t give me a fucking mirror. You’re not funny.”

“Sorry! Sorry, I couldn’t resist the joke,” In a flash the small handheld mirror was replaced with a steel hoe the first man hefted in both hands. He tested its weight before nodding, it’d do.

“I need grass, pomegranate, apricot, strawberry, pear, some flowers- preferably the kinds that won’t fuck up the dirt any more than it already is. And fuck it- you can throw in some hell species as well let’s see how those fuckers play ball. I’ll need a broad fork to start breaking up the soil too.”

Adam had no fucking idea how he was going to make sure the seeds got enough sunlight to grow but fuck he didn’t have many other hobbies aside from trying it.

He stabbed the hoe into the ground and grabbed the broad fork from the air as it formed, mapping out in his mind what land he’s going to have to prep now and where he can just leave it to later. Maybe he can use the shade of some of the outcroppings to his advantage and Lucifer could create water sources, maybe even an underground river to connect them so there is some proper hydration without risk of contamination…

“You know, those seeds are going to take a long time normally to grow,” Adam looked at the other fallen angel as he talked, “Not to mention how long fixing the land will take, you could be doing this for decades.”

“Are you trying to discourage me from this after I just decided to do it?”

“Not at all! I just… have a suggestion.”

“Go on.”

“I can play with the time down here, make the land grow faster and nurture itself quicker. You won’t age unnaturally despite being dead and return to dust of course!” Luci laughed nervously, “But I’ve worked with the spell for long enough so I’m sure it’s safe.”

“… How sure.”

“I’ve tested it with myself.”

“Luci what the fuck.”

“We both know you would refuse immediately If I didn’t do it,” Luci laughed, crouching down, and placing a hand against the barren earth, “You’d rather die than have anything hurt your plants.”

“They’re living creations in their own right,” Adam snorted, “I’m just keeping them safe.”

“And yet at the end of the day you still eat them same as animals.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t eat anything that also wouldn’t eat me at the end of the day.”

“Pigs.”

“They’ve killed and eaten almost five hundred humans in the past two hundred years.”

“Chicken.”

“Have you met them?”

“Plants?”

“They devour any form of meat buried in the soil near them. Look it up, people have buried pieces of meat near plants needing protein and they devour them.”

“Oh, what the fuck.”

“I used to do it too back on earth, buried any meaty remains in the earth to help foster life once I figured that out.”

“Okay!” Luci’s hands glowed brightly, forcing his own magic into the ground in what Adam could only guess was his attempt at changing the topic.

Adam couldn’t see the change as much as he could feel it. The earth under his feet shifting ever so slightly in accommodation to the fallen angels magic.

Lucifer stood up as the glow faded away, dusting himself off, “Well, as fun as this talk was, I’m headed back up to the hotel. Char Char’s gonna be awake soon and I’m hungry.”

The first man snorted at his old friends bluntness, waving the angel of the morning star off as he disappeared into a shower of magic.

Adam turned back towards the barren wasteland, shaking out his wings and stabbing the broad fork into the ground. If he was going to make the best fucking garden hell had ever seen, he had a lot of work ahead of him.

Notes at the end:

In Eden, the only thing adorning both Adam and Eve was these little golden chains that God used to keep them from acting up like Lilith did, when Eve was created the chains appeared on both of their wrists. When Eve bit the apple, it broke her chains. Then, Eve sought out Adam and got him to eat the fruit and well you know the rest. God doesn’t pay attention to Eve because she was made from Adam so she should be perfectly subservient to Adam’s whims (misogyny amirite?) and thus Eve could sneak away and bite the apple.

Saw this from another fic but Adam was awake when the rib was torn from him because I live for that. The cuff stops him from remembering it.

The chains essentially prohibit the bad thoughts™ so as to keep Adam and Eve from straying like Lilith did. Basically, God is actively prohibiting them from having any true free will.

Lucifer explicitly told Eve to get the apple to Adam because he was mildly crushed by the thought of his old friend having gotten his will stripped from him because Lilith didn’t want to be with him anymore. He’s also hurt by the fact that God felt it fit to strip Adam of any notion of friendship, breaking the bond Lucifer so carefully forged with the first man. Lucifer despises that his friend went from treating him like an equal to treating him like Lucifer was leagues more superior to Adam. All that progress reset without any hope of repairing it.

Adams treatment of Lilith and later Eve was a learned behaviour, mainly because he was just following God’s direction.

The chains aren’t the only symbol of Gods control, Adam and Eve’s eye colours were changed from Brown and Mahogony to Gold, and they glowed softly with divine light.

It also caused the two of them to act more like angels than, well, themselves. This is something Adam grew back into the more time he spent in heaven, gaining the habits of the angels he spent more time around than other winners. It’s something that if he was made aware of, he’d despise.

God I love calling the cuff a shackle, because Adam knows the word and what it means but he can’t comprehend the implications because God won’t let him.

Adam had a lot of propaganda given to him when he reached heaven, mostly that Lucifer tricked Eve maliciously to get at Adam and that Adam was in the wrong for trusting his wife for even a second and all that lovely stuff.

Adams exorcist attire and casual gear all has armour that protected his chest, because he is conscious of the fact that he is missing a rib.

In which author uses way too many hyphens for it to be healthy.

Also, you know how mental health was in the past? Yeah? Good because Adam sure fucking knows :)

Toxic masculinity sure is a bitch isn’t it Adam?

Adam’s an unreliable narrator in the second half.

I’ve done so much gardening research for this holy shit.

My problem is that I can’t write dumb characters without giving them some niche that they’re a genius in. For Adam it’s gardening and animal handling. This guy kept up to date throughout the years no matter what. It’s his guilty pleasure. He even was the man behind many parks and gardens in heaven.

I’m losing the try to get Adam to keep holding his grudge against Lucifer for a little while longer battle.

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