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shibaraki · 1 year

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THE ARSONIST’S LULLABY ┊ TODOROKI TOUYA

synopsis: the theory is everyone has a metaphorical part of themselves frozen in childhood. a symbolic, younger version of the self that can still be saved.

dabi comes home with what seems to be a sleeping four year old in his arms and the look of a man who has just seen a ghost.

tags: GN reader, reader is a civilian, sorta established relationship (dabi is paranoid and allergic to labels), accidental child acquisition, angst and fluff, pre LOV (like right before), alludes to past canon child abuse, dissociation, family feels (dabi shithead big brother tendencies)

wc: 8K

“What the fuck—”

“Don’t,” Dabi hushed you frantically, far more frayed than you’ve ever seen him. Affronted, you open the door wider all the same, allowing him inside.

He’s careful with his movements as he kicks off his boots and ducks into the living room. The lump bundled in his jacket does not stir. Dabi lowers to a crouch and settles a young child on the sofa cushions. You note the deliberate care in which he slides his arms out from beneath the boy's body.

The coat lapels have slipped to reveal a child that can surely be no older than four years old. Waxen skin, full cheeks and a wind bitten nose. Most notable is the red hair, thick and fanning across the decorative pillow in undefined waves.

You feel inclined to tiptoe as you approach. Navigating the short space cautiously, knowing where to set your feet; avoiding the creaky floorboards you’ve long since memorised. Dabi lets out a shuddering breath and slumps back against the coffee table. Not once does he look at you even as you enter his vision.

Knelt at Dabi’s side, you evaluate the things laid out before you. The air remains tepid. There are no remnants of smoke clinging to his clothes. Your gaze sweeps over his body. He isn’t running hot, and the sutures aren’t weeping. Not a blood stain nor a burn mark to be seen. He is simply frozen, staring down at the boy.

The child, too, is unscathed. Under a thin T-shirt his small chest rises and falls. He wears an expression that can only be described as tranquil. Part of this disturbs you, and tempts you to poke the kid, if only to make sure he isn’t a doll.

You brush your knuckles along his jaw. The kid runs cold but he’s warmer than expected after being rushed through the late evening streets without sleeves. No shoes on his feet either. Odd, considering his socks are clean.

There are a million questions clamouring in your head that you lose the opportunity to ask—that all lead to a single, heartbreaking answer—because the little boy stirs at your touch. His eyelids scrunch together as if to protest his own consciousness, then gradually open, irises as blue as early spring periwinkles peeking through slits.

Nausea grips you. A dark amalgamation of anger, anxiety, confusion and jealousy knotted itself deep in your gut. Those eyes—eyes just like Dabi’s, staring back at you, head tilting with a blank expression.

You take far too long to notice that he’s stopped breathing. Stuck in place, likely frightened to be somewhere unfamiliar, crowded by people he does not know. “Hi there sweetheart,” you say, willing yourself to smile reassuringly. “I know this must be scary for you but I promise you’re safe. We won’t hurt you”.

At that the little boy puffs up. “I’m not scared!”

Dabi scoffs. He hasn’t looked in the boy's direction since he woke up. You nudge his side, brow furrowed in disapproval. “Good. 'Cause you've got nothing to be scared of,” you tell him, glare softening as it slides back to the couch. “Do you think you could tell us your name?”

The silence is oppressive. You’re stared at as if you were a battle to be conquered. You sigh, “Alright. You don’t need to tell me. Stranger danger, right?”

Oddly enough, the boy doesn’t appear disturbed about his surroundings at all. You’d prepared yourself for tears, or some wailing. Instead he casually pushed himself upright into a sitting position and stretched his short arms high over his head, as if waking from a routine nap.

You draw air through your teeth, gasping as his shirt lifts with the stretch and reveals his belly. Dabi’s jaw winds at the sight. The air around you expands, thick with ephemeral warmth. He’s considerate to keep it there, boiling violently under his skin. His reaction nags at your conscience, and you want to grab him when he stands to walk away, but you’ve no choice but to prioritise the situation in front of you.

There are burns around the child’s midsection. Mottled pink and swollen. He rejects your touch as you reach out to examine him further. “You’re hurt, kiddo. We can help. Let me—”

“No!” he yells. You startle at the genuine heartbreak in his voice. He scrambles down and shoves past you. Rabbit footed, he sprints to the bathroom and slams the door. You strain to listen, relieved that he does not turn the lock, and debate going after him. Something about that childlike anger is deeply familiar.

Ice crawls through your chest; it’s a dread that lingers in your periphery yet evades perception the longer you try to put a finger on it. You throw another glance down the hallway as you stride toward the genkan. “Dabi,” you call firmly. His hands, bloodied with the runoff dirt and ash, continue scrubbing at the sole of his boot in an almost mechanical fashion. “Touya,” you try again, quieter, exercising caution when wielding that name. And his movement stutters. “You can’t just—go! Not now. He’s badly burned. Where did you even find him?”

You’re patient as he exhales a harsh breath. He seems to grapple with his thoughts, a distant look in his eyes. Seeing him so unsettled is scaring you. “Does it really matter? He’ll probably be gone soon,” he mutters. A wave of defensiveness on behalf of the poor child bubbles to the surface. But before you can argue, he is tugging his cleaned boots on with sudden force.

Dabi stomps to settle the heel and pulls open your front door. It rattles on the hinges. A cold evening breeze billows into the apartment and bites at your bare arms. “I’ll be back later. Just pretend he’s not here,” he grunts. “He won’t notice the difference”.

“Wait, baby—!”

And he’s gone again.

You smother the frustrated yell that follows into your hands. There’s a faint sense of abandonment on the fringes, creeping in and forming a lump in your throat. Dabi always had to run first. You rub at your eyes until the sting disappears and exhale until all the air in your lungs is gone, taking with it your frustrations.

Somehow the hallway stretches that much longer. This time you press weight onto the old floorboards and hear them creak, making your presence known as you approach. There’s no noise behind the bathroom door. Your fingers curl around the handle but a gut feeling begs that you pause.

The soft knock of your knuckles to the frame echoes through the apartment. “It’s me,” you say. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, little guy. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t in pain…”

Your ears prick at the quiet movement inside the bathroom. The latch clicks as the handle turns and you move away as much as the narrow space can afford, the front of your sweater bunched up in your fist; it mirrors the child’s own stance, shifting in place gripping his shirt.

Now under the cheap flickering light you notice an uneven patch of white in his hair. There is something uncomfortably broken about him that you can’t place. A dissonance between his outline and the world, as though he were a pencil drawing in a watercolour canvas.

“M’not little,” he insists with a stomp, looking like he might cry. “Stop talkin’ to me like I’m a baby”.

“Alright. You’re not a baby, you’re a big kid,” you settle on your knees in front of him, lowering your voice in a way a child might consider more ‘grown up’, “But I still have to make sure you don’t need a doctor. So is it okay if I ask about the marks on your tummy?”

This time his reaction is far more subdued. Exhausted from his earlier anger, maybe. Or resigned to the fact that you will not let the injuries go. He jerked his shoulders and crossed both arms, staring down at his feet.

“Has someone been hurting you—did they do that to you?”

The kid huffs, indignant. “No,” he mumbles with a pout. Your eyes follow his fingers where they begin to anxiously clench and unclench. “My quirk…”

The admission is clearly difficult for him, like he has to force the words out of his mouth. You unfold your legs from beneath you and dip to try to meet his eyes, “Your quirk hurts you?”

“Not all the time!” there’s that flash of emotion again, racketing through him like thunder. If he were a kitten you think all the hair on his body would be on end. “If—if I train more I bet it wouldn’t,” he sniffs. “But father told me I can’t do that anymore”.

“Oh,” you’re taken aback at the mention of another father figure. You feel a growing dislike for the unknown man. “Well that’s kinda silly. How will you ever learn to use it safely if you don’t practice?”

Finally, the boy’s glassy eyes snap up and meet your own. He’s practically glowing; awestruck, as though you’d turned his entire worldview on its head with just a few words. “Right, right?” he begins to bounce on the balls of his feet. “I’m gonna be the bestest, strongest hero. Better than All Might!”

Your thoughts stall, reaction delayed. Only Dabi would bring home a kid who loves heroes—that is if they’re related at all. You find it hard to believe. Those eyes do not lie.

“That right?” you let yourself be influenced by his enthusiasm and mirror his grin. Whatever Dabi did or did not omit it’s not the kids fault. “Well, I’ll be cheering you on from the sidelines. How about that?”

“Yeah! You’ll see!” your heart clenches at the sight of his little leg stomping excitedly as he rubs at his eyes. A hiccup wracks his body. Telegraphing your movements you rest a hand at his back, rubbing back and forth to calm him. Such an extreme response to such a simple praise.

After some gentle cajoling you manage to get him to sit on a stool in the kitchen with some apple juice that you miraculously had in the fridge. Your eyes linger on the glass in his hands as you apply the medicated cream to his stomach, barely big enough to hold it.

You exhale, fingers pausing by his waist. The sight is hard to swallow. The tissue is smooth to touch and irregularly shaped, as though the scar had outgrew the initial wound. Even as you reached the inflamed sections he hadn’t so much as flinched. Again you're reminded of Dabi, his impassive expression perched on the edge of your bathtub, skin swelling around his sutures, a merry scarlet waterfall weeping from the exposed wounds.

“Where did that man go?” he asks, pulling you from your reverie.

“Ah, he needed to go get something,” the lie is unconvincing even to your own ears. Discomfited, you clear your throat and add, “You can call him Dabi when he’s back”.

You search for his discarded shirt while he tests the name with his own voice. Small mouth shaped around the syllables, da-bi, and spitting it out quick again, dabi. “That’s right. Dabi. You like his name?” the kid staunchly shakes his head, hair falling over his eyes. He pushes it back with both of his hands.

“S’dumb,” he says. The bluntness makes you laugh.

“I bet your name is cooler, right?” that catches his attention. He nods once with a firm hum. “You wanna tell me it now?”

Your efforts seemed to fall flat. The child would not tell you his name; during the numerous attempts in the hours that followed, you got the sense that he couldn’t tell you. And he would get this odd look about him, as if it was you asking that was confusing to him. As if you should already know.

Far more concerning to you is that he never asks to go home. Not once does he mention his mother or father of his own volition. After countless questions you can discern that his knowledge is strangely limited. He seems frozen in time, with no real memory of how Dabi found him.

The hours pass uninterrupted when your curiosity veers away from his circumstances and closer to him. To things he loves, and the like. You carry him on your hip, surprisingly light, and settle him back on the couch as he rambled about Caped Kid and Supertoon and the old All Might animated shorts that you forgot even existed. He kicks his feet along the cushions excitedly when you find some pirated clips online for him to watch.

By the time Dabi comes home the kid has fallen asleep, right back where he first left him. Your arms cross over your chest, the earlier anger rising once more, but something about his expression wills you to temper it.

Dabi is wet through. Soaked to the bone, clothes hanging on his frame. Black streaks are running down his cheeks, and despite your disappointment you hastily tug your sleeve over your hand as you start forward, bringing it up to dab away the dye before it seeps into his sutures.

It’s a relief that he doesn’t flinch away. Not even as his gaze drifts to the TV, which has automatically started up another All Might clip. No vitriol comes. A warm, savoury smell fills your senses and you notice that he’s carrying a plastic bag.

“Brought food,” he rasps. You look back up and meet his eyes, unnerved at how far away he sounds.

“Thank you,” you murmur. Casting a final glance to the young boy on your couch—laying suspiciously still—you wrap fingers around Dabi’s cold wrist and coax him into the kitchen. He sets the food on the counter and in letting go the plastic handle is left upright, misshapen from the responsive heat of his quirk.

He inhales, readying himself to speak, but you gently interrupt, “I think you should shower first. Change into something comfortable. I’ll… I’ll serve the food”.

Dabi sighs but slinks away to the bathroom at your suggestion. You watch him bristle and glare halfheartedly at the head peeking up from behind the couch cushions and the boy shrinks back. Not a moment later the door slams and he flinches, chubby fingers clutching tight to the upholstery.

“Is Dabi mad?” the small voice asks. Sullen in a way that draws you closer to comfort him. Your hand comes to rest on the crown of his head, petting him now that he’ll let you.

“No, no,” you demurred. “Well. Maybe he is, but he’s just having a lot of uh, big feelings”.

“Big feelings,” the boy nods. Then he peers up at you searchingly, “…Is he melting?”

Having expected him to ask literally anything but that, you give a soft laugh. “Dabi isn’t melting. It’s the colour in his hair. He painted it and if it gets wet it washes out, like you saw”.

“Oh”.

The kid is calmer now, no longer ready to bury himself between the cushions. “He brought food back. Smells like curry,” you tell him. “Want some?”

Returning to the kitchen after an enthusiastic ‘yes’—pushed out between a big yawn—you unwrap the takeout boxes and begin to portion them. Dabi finished his shower, dressed in the loose fitted sweatpants and t-shirt you kept for the nights he felt comfortable enough to stay, and accepted the plate you put in his hands.

Together, you eat around the kotatsu in relative silence filled only by the limited ramblings of the child Dabi brought home. He’s the type to express things with his entire body, the type that cannot sit still, and you find yourself shooting Dabi the odd furtive glance, worried he might snap, almost daring him to try.

But Dabi does not snap. He doesn’t look at either of you. You note the tension in his shoulders, winding tighter with every mention of the word ‘hero’, and how his fist clenches and uncurls, knuckles white where the blood recedes. He keeps his head down, forearm curled protectively around the food on his plate as he eats, and doesn’t say a word.

You’ve never met anyone else who can so readily act as though they’re unfeeling. The embodiment of feigned indifference. Dabi was so confident in his detachment, with the scathing comments, comfort in violence and purposefully unapproachable demeanour, but you knew what lie underneath; you can tell when it’s an act and when it’s real, and right now he’s never been more transparent.

The boy starts to droop into his food some time during the next Caped Kid episode. Your hand shoots out to cup his chin when his head wobbles on his shoulders, close to using the rice as a pillow. “He’s all tuckered out again,” you comment aloud, licking your thumb to wipe at the sauce around his mouth. “Can you take the—?”

Dabi is already standing, stacking the plates atop one another without so much as trying to be quiet. You roll your eyes to the ceiling, seeking strength, and tuck the little boy to your front, hoisting him back up into the couch. He stirs and blinks around the room as though seeing for the first time.

“It’s alright. Go back to sleep,” you whisper. He yawns, jaw stretching around such a tiny squeak that you can’t help but to kiss his hair.

Dabi is standing at the sink, back turned to the dirty dishes and leant against the counter. Your eyes meet, but you pointedly look away and say nothing as you step forward to gather the empty takeout boxes and throw them out.

He speaks, if only to fill the silence, “I shouldn’t have walked out”.

It’s the closest to an apology you’ll probably ever get. “Y’think?” you hesitated for a long minute, speaking only as you sensed his presence at your back. “Actually, what the fuck were you thinking?”

Really, your relationship with Dabi has always been chimerical in nature. Some strange patchwork attempt at being human. You fucked, kissed one another at the door, shared parts of your lives that you wished you never had. Labels only drove him away, like identifying the thing you’d woven together would bring it to actuality, make it corporeal, ridding you of plausible deniability.

It was never a question why he brought the kid here. This is where you play house, after all. Dabi’s shoebox apartment was empty, simply a place to go when he wasn’t out doing who knows what, like a waiting room. A space between spaces. Yours was far more appropriate for a child, and you’d thought that maybe—he chose to trust you enough, to finally ask for help, rather than doing it out of convenience.

Heat soaks through your shirt as his mottled, slender hand settles on your waist. You turn on your heel to face him directly, resolve weakening at the careful squeeze of his fingers. You sigh, palms brushing featherlight up the uneven flesh along his forearms and follow as he retreated backward to lower onto the nearby breakfast stool.

“I was hit with a quirk on my way back”.

“What?” your inner conflict falters. Concern superseding your anger you cup his jaw to tip his head back and side to side to get a good look at him. “When? Are you hurt?”

Dabi snorts, relaxed by your gentle countenance and fretting. “Not now. Earlier. Some middle schooler without a handle on her quirk yet. Quit fussin’, I’m fine,” he continues and shakes free of your hands, so you settle them on his shoulders. He walks his fingers behind your knees, cupping the back of your thighs, uncharacteristically restless.

“It’s where the…“ his jaw clenched and he pressed his forehead hard to your stomach, burrowing into the fabric. Anticipation grips your lungs when he doesn’t immediately explain.

“Talk to me,” you run your fingers through his hair and they come away stained black. “How did—what does the quirk do?”

“Fuck, I hardly had time to ask about specifics. The stupid kid knocked into me and suddenly I had my arms full,” Dabi’s snarling dwindles. He licks his lips, hesitant, and casts his eyes to the narrow space between your bodies. Quieter this time, “It’s where he came from”.

You register his words. The realisation slides through you with sharp clarity. It swells in you, all encompassing and painful, like love and heartbreak at the same time. “He’s not yours, is he?” you say, reminiscent of a whisper. “He’s you”.

“My inner child. Some pseudo bullshit like that,” Dabi supplies, as though the distinction was important. He looks up, the column of his throat pressed to your sternum, and your chest loosens a little, some of the fear ebbing. “Did you seriously think I knocked someone up?”

“Plausibly, what else was I supposed to think?”

“Not that,” he scoffs. “Either way, I don’t know how long we’re stuck with him”.

“Don’t talk about him like he’s a burden,” you frowned. Dabi’s eyes squint, and he makes a low, dubious noise. “Why didn’t you tell me straight away?”

“Didn’t want you to know,” he shrugs. It shouldn’t sting the way it does. This is hardly the first time Dabi kept something from you. “Thought I could make the kid keep his mouth shut about my family”.

Inwardly you think he needn’t worry about that. They were as secretive and stubborn as each other, in that respect. Hell, it took Dabi three years to give up his name and that was only because he’d been delirious at the time.

“But you left anyway”.

“He woke up,” Dabi says, like that was enough explanation. You give a commiserate nod, cradling his rough jaw, because maybe it is. “Needed to blow off some steam. Figured I might look for the twerp that caused all this but she’d probably run if she saw me again”.

“Don’t tell me you scared the poor girl shitless?”

“Alright. I won’t tell you,” he snorted, biting at the heel of your hand when you mutter his name disapprovingly.

“So we just wait for him to go?” you brush the remaining skin between his eye and his cheek with your thumb, following the curve of his sutures. “Maybe it is psychological then. Make your inner child happy and the quirk might cancel out sooner”.

There’s something dark in Dabi’s expression when his mouth pulls wide into a smarmy grin, eyes burning as his fingers dig into your thighs. “Looking to rehabilitate me, sweetheart?”

You soon put that to rest, guiding him into a kiss. His grip falls slack, and then returns, more needy than dangerous. Dabi’s lips pressed back, insisted, softer than you thought possible. “Course not,” you murmur, admiring the resentful flush on his face as you draw back. “Maybe I like you as you are. Just a little”.

“Bad taste,” he breathes. His nose scrunches the way it always does when he’s feeling too much, and you kiss that too. You recognise Dabi’s flaws for what they are, and you’ve given yourself to him knowingly. Even so, in the confines of your mind, you do wish he might’ve had the chance to be something better.

This inner child incident could be a small step. You don’t expect his perspective on society will change; he could learn compassion and forgive himself for whatever led him here. But what exactly is an inner child?

The theory goes that everyone has a metaphorical part of themselves frozen in childhood. A symbolic, younger version of the self that can be talked to, supported, and guided—that can still be saved.

Dabi informs you with great reluctance that this little Touya was probably closer to five years old, and stuck in the time right after his first brother was born. You never knew he had siblings.

“Did something significant happen around that time?” you worry at your bottom lip, glancing out toward the living room, shrouded in darkness now that the TV has switched to standby. “Do you remember what you wanted most, from before?”

You hear your name. You’re startled by the intensity in Dabi’s stare, unyielding and sharp. A primitive part of you wants to shrink back from it. “Don’t push it,” he says.

It was on the tip of your tongue to remark something equally catty. Instead you swallow. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” you muttered. Through trial and error you’ve already memorised the ley lines that make up Dabi’s boundaries and know well enough that prying too far into his past, or encroaching on his future plans, is a hard no-no.

“We’re going to need a cover story for him if he’s here longer than a day,” you continue, a smile creeping in alongside your teasing inflection. “Guess you’re a dad—”

“Not a chance in hell,” Dabi grimaces, skin taut around his scars. “If it comes to it, say he’s my nephew”.

“You’re no fun,” you concede. “Fine. Uncle Dabi”.

The discussion leads nowhere in the end. Dabi is unwilling to delve any further into his childhood and you know a losing battle when you see one. You turn your attention to the sleeping arrangements, and decide that it would be best to roll out your spare futons in the living room, just in case something happens.

And Dabi, despite his objections, despite puttering around with pillows under each arm and cursing under his breath, throws them down and sprawls out across the blankets. You feel his stare as you move Touya—as you’ve taken to calling him in your head—from his resting place to the space between your bodies.

Touya isn’t yet the light sleeper you know Dabi to be. His eyes shift behind closed lids and his lips curl in momentary discomfort but he doesn’t wake. “Does he have to sleep there?” Dabi all but sneers when Touya curls into your warm chest, much the way he would like to.

“Aw. Don’t be jealous,” you pillow Touya’s head on your shoulder and reach across to take Dabi’s hand, entwining your fingers through stubborn means. “He’s just a baby”.

A fresh wave of heat ripples around your hands and Dabi’s grip is solid, as though you’ve been soldered together. “He’s not a baby. He’s already five,” he mutters with a faraway look in his eyes, indifferent to the callousness in his words.

Your palms kiss and you aim for a lighthearted tone, “Stop being a dick. You’ll have me to yourself again soon enough”.

Dabi grunts and some of the tension is relieved from the atmosphere, his face thrown into stark relief by the sliver of moonlight flooding through your curtains. Not for the first time, you wonder if he feels the after aches of childhood—if the hollow inside him felt that much deeper now that Touya was out here, safe in your arms—and suddenly holding his hand is not enough.

You entangle your legs and distract yourself with the feel of his boney ankle. Some things are better left unknown, you reason. A mantra that encompasses your relationship. Better not pick and prod. You’ve done quite enough of it already, more than you’re entitled to. Sometimes you worry that one day you’ll unravel the wrong thread and he’ll never stop bleeding.

Touya clutches tighter to your shirt. Kicks a tiny foot against your pelvis in protest of the movement, surprisingly hard. Dabi snickers at your restrained groan. “Guess you’ve always been a restless sleeper”.

“That's what you get for giving him my spot,” Dabi says, the beginnings of a smile in his voice. “Was worse when I was a kid”.

“Clearly. A fly could sneeze and wake you up,” you remove the heel from your stomach and let it tangle with the blankets. Touya suddenly flips onto his back, arm cast out toward Dabi, not far from smacking him in the face. “Atleast he feels safe, I suppose”.

The night settles, your apartment alongside it. Walls quietly groan as the wind picks up a fraction. “We should take him somewhere tomorrow,” you think aloud, staring at the hairline fracture in the ceiling. “The arcade, maybe?”

“Now why the fuck would we do that?” Dabi’s voice is lower, muffled, and a quick sidelong glance confirms that his mouth is half squashed into the pillow, fatigue starting to weigh on him. “Don’t even have clothes for him”.

“Kano-san might let us borrow some,” you offer tiredly. Though your neighbour's four children were all over five years old you had no doubt she kept hand-me-downs. “It’s not fair to just keep him holed up til he disappears”.

“I refuse…” Dabi mumbled. You snort, resting your chin on Touya’s crown, swaddled by warmth. Shadows creep in and blur the edges of your vision. You’re gently coaxed into sleep, final thoughts being the hope that Dabi would still be there tomorrow.

What you receive is far more. Where soft moonlight once drifted in through the cracks, harsh sun is striking through the dim room, right against your closed eyes. You flinch away from it, turning into your pillow. Half-awake, you aren’t quite in and not quite outside yourself, but you are conscious enough to hear Dabi laugh at your displeasure.

The weight in your arms is gone. Pawing at the yawning emptiness, you abruptly sit up and whip your eyes around the room. They land on Dabi, who is laid on his back and surrendering to his current predicament. He pointedly avoids acknowledging it.

Time stretches thinly as you take in the scene. At some point in the night, Touya had made his way over to Dabi and laid himself on top of him. Chubby cheek squished to Dabi’s sternum, lashes fluttering as he dreams. Fleeting, you consider that he may be trying to crawl right back into him.

“G’morning,” you sigh, blood rushing to your limbs as you contort and stretch. Unable to resist, you shuffle across the futon and press yourself to Dabi’s side, nuzzling into his shoulder. You tilt your head up to find Dabi looking down at you. “Kiss?”

“Your breath stinks,” but he kisses you anyway. His own is hardly better. You nip at his lip, licking over the faint sting and drawing back before he can reciprocate.

“Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah,” his hands gesture toward the lump on his chest, “until this shit happened”.

“Now he’s taken my spot”. You could point out that Dabi had every opportunity to move the boy through the night, or however long he’d been there, but didn't. “Though it makes sense he’d want to be near you”.

“He doesn’t want anything. He’s not real,” Dabi drawls. He’s betrayed by the arm that supports Touya from beneath as he sits up exceedingly slowly, the other holding the back of his head. Dabi pivots the small figure into his lap, acting like a cradle.

Limbs akimbo, Touya lies on his back, mouth open and ribs expanding with each breath. His clothes are askew. Shirt ridden up his round belly, loose pants bunched up at the knees. To your relief the burn marks look no worse than the day before.

“Even though his body isn’t suited to his quirk, he still…” your voice is but a murmur as you sit up to trace a fingertip over the swell of his pink cheek. “He’s a very brave little boy”

Dabi held the toddler delicately in his arms, a fraction away from his body, and paled whenever he stirred a little. You see how his pupils soften, tension seeping from his shoulders bit by bit. “Or maybe he’s just stupid," he rasps.

“Well, many heroes are both of those things,” you offer, mouth curling as you hold Dabi’s half lidded gaze. His mouth presses thin so as not to give you the satisfaction of making him smile. When your attention returns to Touya an unfamiliar quietude comes over you.

“Last night,” Dabi starts. “I left because I thought it would be harder”.

You pause, peering up from the little boy curled in his lap. “To what?”

“Not to hurt the kid,” he says, quietly. “Or you”.

Then Touya sputters a first, clean breath, breaking into a drawn out sob that drags you from processing what that could mean. Dabi grows tense and your hand flutters across Touya, rubbing over his chest as you coo and hush. The louder he cries the stronger the tremor in Dabi’s hand becomes.

“There there, little guy. We’re right here,” you slip an arm around Dabi’s back, and suddenly your murmurings begin to soothe Touya’s distress. Red rimmed eyes squint up at you. “Did you have a nightmare, buddy?”

“Heroes—” Touya eventually hiccups and jolts. Frustrated he hits himself, face twisted in devastating anger. “Heroes don’t—have nightmares!”

You move to still his fists but Dabi beats you to it, fingers circling a pair of wrists and holding them firmly. “They will if I have anything to say about it,” he says.

“Really, Dabi,” you admonish, pursing your lips at him. He wrinkles his nose and sticks his tongue out in response. Muffled giggling fills the room and you realise it’s coming from the bundle in his lap.

Dabi looks as if he’s been struck. A finger pokes at the skin above his puckered cheek. “Dabi made an ugly face,” Touya grins.

“Oh yeah?” Dabi growls and leans forward, spine bending uncomfortably just to get into the boy’s personal space. “Well I’ve got bad news for you, kid”.

Whatever the desired effect, Touya’s chime-like laughter only doubles, and while watching their interaction you feel warmth ignite behind your breastbone.

Not long after, you return from Kano-san’s upstairs apartment with a cotton sweater, discoloured patches sewn onto the elbows, and a pair of pants. They’re size five yet too big for Touya, so you roll them to the ankle. “How’s that?” you ask, getting to your feet. “It’s not itchy on your burns, is it?”

Touya wriggles. You’ve come to learn that he really can’t sit still, especially when you’re fussing. “No,” he says, flapping the sleeves that fall over his hands, silently asking that you roll those up too. “Where are we going? I want to train!”

“No training inside. You’re going to set off my fire alarm,” you reply, absentminded as your fingers gently fold back the shirtsleeves to his wrist. “And we’re going to try the arcades first. You can beat Dabi at all the games”.

“Yeah!”

“Fat chance,” Dabi calls from the bathroom. Light footsteps echo through the hallway and his voice grows louder. “We’re not going anywhere near Musutafu,” he adds, shucking on his dried black coat over a plain t-shirt and jeans that may as well have been painted on his legs. He pulls something out from his pocket and throws it, “Put that on him to be safe”.

You catch the lump one handed, bringing it down to inspect it. A beanie hat. “Is that really necessary?” you murmur, releasing your grasp when Touya decides he wants the hat for himself and stretches it haphazardly over his head.

Dabi rounds the couch and hooks his chin over your shoulder, watching the kid struggle. “Can’t have him being recognised…” he says, the corner of his mouth twitching at a thought that suddenly crosses his mind. “Or maybe we should. Hey, kid,” Touya’s head whirls around the room in search of Dabi, vision blocked by the beanie. He pushes it up above his eyebrows, periwinkle eyes peeking beneath.

“Wanna go to my old house and scare someone?”

Touya’s lips thin and his nose crinkles, managing to look down at Dabi despite being so much shorter. “Heroes aren’t ‘posed to scare people,” he argued.

“Whatever. This guy isn’t good,” Dabi huffs, wincing at the click in his knees as he crouches in front of the boy to fix the hat seam, and Touya positively preens under Dabi’s direct attention. “This guy hurts people. Hurts his family. Probably deserves it, right?”

You watch in disbelief as Touya hums and begins to consider it. “Okay that’s enough,” you circle and coax them toward the genkan. “We aren’t scaring anyone. We are going to the arcade and we’re not going to cause trouble. Yes?”

Dabi and Touya share a long, knowing look. You can’t say you’re unhappy that they’re connecting—they’re unbearably cute when standing side by side, dithering as you slip on your shoes. “Yes?” you repeat yourself with more emphasis.

They nod in tandem.

“Good. Now who is holding my hand?”

Daylight feeds in through the sparse grey clouds, upper wind guiding them east where they darken, likely raining over another part of the city. The pavements are wet, rainwater fed into the uprooted cracks. A couple smile at you as they pass. It is rare for anyone to glance your way when Dabi’s at your side. He knows the image he projects and he likes it that way. But today, with Touya in the middle holding one of each hand, you paint a far lovelier picture.

You think you must look like a family on the outside. It’s nothing you ever imagined for yourself. Especially not with Dabi, who was seemingly hell bent on getting himself arrested, or killed, in his spare time—not that you knew the finer details, but you weren’t dense.

“I can feel your street cred depleting,” you quietly tease as you stop at a pedestrian crossing, bridging the gap while Touya is preoccupied with counting down until the red man turns green. “Uncle Dabi”.

Dabi’s upper lip curls and he lurches half a step, as if to attack you, and you pull away laughing.

Your neighbourhood doesn’t see much in the way of funding, or heroes, and that truth is reflected in the surroundings. Buildings half constructed, shutters down, people lingering on the streets. Touya presses a hairsbreadth closer to Dabi, sensing how eyes turn to him, and you catch the way Dabi squeezes his small hand in response.

“Scared?”

Touya straightens, “No!”

Dabi snorts, “Thought not”.

The arcade isn’t far. Well beyond its years, an old musk clings to the carpets despite the open windows. Light bulbs flicker here and there. You can taste electricity buzzing in the air. The machines are outdated, but they work. High pitched, quick paced music paces from all directions. If you had to, you'd describe it as the embodiment of sensory overload.

As luck would have it Touya recognises most of the games, having been released around his time. He steps on your shoes to watch raptly while you try to win him a prize on the claw machines, and he kneels at your feet to steal any ticket away before you can grab them.

He frees himself of your grip the moment he spots Crimson Fighter. You sidle up beside Dabi as if to shield from it all. His knuckles brush the back of your hand and you smile to yourself. So starved for affection yet so intensely humiliated by it—that and the fact that he cannot seem to let Touya out of his sight, only a few feet away.

You loosely entwine your fingers and he relaxes. “Not gonna play another round with him?”

“Why don’t you?”

In that instant you hear the repeated call of your name. Touya bounces from left to right, waving you over. “Look at me! Come watch!” he beams. “Look at me, I can win!”

Dabi’s fingers flex, tighten, digging crescent moons into your knuckles. You shoot him a worried glance but the light in his eyes has dimmed once again, and you tug him over towards Touya like a kite on a string, keeping him tethered until he returns from whatever memory he’s lost in.

“I’m looking, I'm looking,” you titter, standing behind him and tilting to watch the screen. Dabi’s presence lingers. Your heart pangs when Touya stands on the tips of his toes to reach the controls. He picks the Endeavor avatar and the game opens up onto a floating platform, All Might standing at the other end.

“Fight!” Touya whispers in sync with the narrator, mashing all the buttons without direction or strategy. He clicks and clicks and clicks until Endeavor’s quirk bar is maxed out and he releases; pixelated flames burst across the screen, doing significant damage to All Might but not enough—and too much to himself. The Endeavor avatar drops to his knees, overcome by dehydration and exhaustion, defeated by his own flame.

Apparently brought back to the present, Dabi laughs.

“No…” Touya’s eyes grow round in disbelief and then harden. He kicks the machine with as much force as he can muster. Before he can do it again you’ve wrapped an arm under his armpits and herded him outside. “Let go!”

“Absolutely not,” you grasp his elbows and settle on your haunches. Touya turns his head away from you in dramatic fashion. “That isn’t okay. These games belong to someone else. They’re not yours to damage”.

“Shouldn’t’a picked Endeavor,” Dabi remarks.

Your neck aches as it snaps up to glare at him. “Not helping,” you hiss through gritted teeth. He puts his hands up in a show of surrender and you inhale until your lungs feel tight. Exhale.

Touya has fallen suspiciously quiet, chin tucked to his chest, and thankfully nobody inside noticed his brief outburst. “Hey,” gently, you run your palms along his shoulders. “Talk to me, kiddo. I promise you’re not in big trouble”.

Your ears pick up fragmented parts of his mumbling, “Lost… M’weak… Endeavor… stronger… not ‘posed to lose”. Something about his reaction is both fragile and momentous, and with Dabi nearby your instincts are telling you to tread carefully.

“Hey, listen to me. I don’t know much but I do know you’re not weak,” you begin to smooth down his sweater, and fiddle with the seam of his beanie while you talk—fretting, admittedly, and determined to wipe the heartbreak off his face. “You’re the strongest little dude I know”.

Touya sniffs, unconvinced. He waddles further into your embrace and you take it as a win “Gotta be stronger than All Might”.

“One day you could be,” you reason, gathering him against your front and hoisting him up as his legs wrap around your waist. A firm body stands behind you. Dabi is closer than anticipated and you falter, meeting his half lidded eyes. Reality stomps over the little charade you’ve created—recalling that the boy in your arms, so desperate to reach the pinnacle of heroics, will one day be Dabi, the self proclaimed villain.

“Y’know, even All Might didn’t become the number one hero until he was twenty,” you tuck a wayward curl back into Touya’s beanie and use your sleeve to wipe his damp cheeks. “He had to learn to control his quirk and get through hero school, just like you will. It takes time”.

“R—really…?” you’d be remiss not to notice the hope in his voice as he fists at his sweater, stretching the fabric further. “But I need to be strong now,” he insists thickly, a fresh round of tears at his waterline.

Dabi steps closer as more people pass by, nudging you into a dead end alley. There’s heat emanating from his skin, making ripples in the air. You hold his gaze with purpose, turning until Touya is once again enveloped by your bodies, and the boy instinctively reaches for his adult counterpart.

“You are strong,” you tell him, pressing a kiss to Touya’s temple. “Wanna know what Dabi and I were talking about while you were sleeping this morning?”

Touya’s mouth quivers, sneaking a furtive glance. He nods. You narrow your eyes at Dabi, try to tell him that this could be it, and he relents, accepting the weight as it is passed to him.

Touya settles in his arms. “We…” Dabi’s jaw ticks. There’s a depression in his cheek where the inner flesh is held between teeth. “We said that you’re brave”.

You circle your arms around his middle, around Touya, and rest your cheek on his shoulder. Touya blinks in awe. “Brave?”

“Brave for trying so hard to reach your goal,” Dabi continues. The harsh edge to his voice has puttered out into melancholy. “Even when it hurts. Especially then”.

“I am?”

“You are,” you murmur, cradling the back of Touya’s head. There’s an odd sheen to his skin. Translucent, almost. Your heart jolts. The quirk was wearing off. Conflicting emotions swell in your chest, leaving you torn. “That takes courage. I heard heroes have that in spades”.

Eyes bright and wide, undoubtedly that of a child, Touya looks at Dabi, and Dabi looks back. “You’d be one of the good ones, kid,” he rasps. It comes like pulling teeth but he means it, and Touya must know—the quirk must hear the sincerity, because the little boy beams and the air tastes sharp. He lights up, eyes first, like dusk catching on stained glass windows, robin egg blue overcast with shades of pink, heat suffusing through his bones until—

Your fingers enclose around the limp fabric of Touya’s beanie. Dabi shudders an exhale. The patched sweater falls limp over his crossed arms.

“That… worked?”

Dabi’s mouth opens and closes, lips shaping around words he doesn’t know how to say. You cannot read his expression at all. You yourself can hardly register Touya’s absence, left like a bruise that you just know is going to start aching the second the adrenaline wears off.

“I guess it did,” he finally agrees, quietly. Not quite whispered, but his voice carried no strength. Through the discomfit cuts an abrupt, shrill beep. Dabi swallows, and after pulling out his phone his expression sours.

“Who is it?”

“An associate,” he says, hands an unsteady counterpoint to the surety in his voice. Another blatant cover that you know better than to peel back. “…He wants me to meet his new colleagues. He thinks I’ll work well with them”.

“Do you need to go now, or…?” your skin prickles with unease, leaning into him as close and psychics would allow, not wanting to part with him.

“Think you’ll miss him?” Dabi asks instead, bordering on hesitation. Your head tilts at the sudden change in topic. His gaze dips low to avoid yours. You rest your hand over his chest. His heart beats against your palm, hard and steady. You wonder what, if anything, Touya’s time here might’ve changed.

“I don’t have to,” you tell him, choosing your words carefully. “He’s right in here”.

Dabi hums in that way he often does when he thinks you’re being ridiculous. Your thumb moves back and forth, shifting the fabric of his shirt. “…He deserved better,” you say, heedless of the cold determination setting into Dabi’s bones. And later, despite being the truth, you would come to regret voicing it.

He looks back at the message on his phone, typing out a reply with his screen tilted away from prying eyes. “You’re right,” he mutters.

“He did”.

#bnha x reader #mha x reader #dabi x reader #todoroki touya x reader

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running-with-kn1ves · 13 days

Note

Could you do Orc Tribal Leader X Reader on your wedding night?

A/N: I SWEAR I'm literally just writing the same stuff over again b/c I had a story just like this, but you know what I never get tired of it because its like a top fantasy bro. Hope this one was better than that version at least

Content warnings: Forced Marriage, kidnapping, attempted escapes, nonconsensual touching, infantilization of reader

Synopsis: Your village, destroyed and burned. Your life picks up somewhere you would never have imagined. Maybe, death is a better option than being an orc’s spouse.

Word Count: Approx. 2600

The autumn solstice was a bountiful, beholden time of year. From the greeneries of cabbage and the fowls hatched in summer now fully grown, there was much to be harvested and ripened for the taking. Your town was boisterous, full of life with a variety of competitors and businesses attempting to lurch at any tourist’s or local’s wallet to get them to buy countless crops, meat, and woven goods.

Your tiny tea shop, suffering from last July’s drought, was finally starting to perk up with re-growth. Black tea, jasmine, bergamot, even hybrid blends like crushed raspberry and chamomile-- you could assemble enough to raise prices, label the small reaping as an imported foreign good luck charm that when drunken, blessed women with marriage prospects and men with wealth.

That was, before however, you became bound and gagged to a chair, pleasantries being exchanged around you in a language harsh in your ears. The fires... You remember them well, the putrid stench of charred meat from the butcher next door, his body even more ablaze. Your jade boxes of fine silk bags meant for holding gifts of tea, becoming laden with ash and dust. Every scrap of money you saved up under the floorboards disappearing into floating particles and melted coins.

“Brutes,” Your uncle called them, “deranged beasts with only two things in mind: bloodlust and greed.”

Orcs were not well-received in a conservative, fearful town of humans. Even the elves, seen as symbols of beauty in mortal standards, were causes of paranoia and irritation whenever they made their rounds nearby.

It was no wonder that the lines of tusked, olive-fleshed creatures in animal skin were spotted, the guards of your small city went on a rampage. Bows and arrows were no match for iron bones and teeth of steel.

You, were no match for anything wider than a tree trunk. So when fire caught to your village, your home now rampaged for its finest ‘offerings’ to the orcs, you were left to be eaten by the licking flames. And yet, was it a blessing or a curse that one of the warriors decided to haul you on his back, doting on how “nicely you’ll do” as a wedding gift. You didn’t realize that the gift was to be part of the ceremony yourself.

With smoke in your lungs and your eyes blurred by dirt and ash, you watched the ceiling cave in on your tiny tea-filled shack, bright orange and red dancing from behind the window panes as you drifted away.

Daraktan is spoken all around you, harshly and with flicking tongues. You can hear snippets of English, wondering what’s going on behind the black veil covering your head. You don’t dare remove it, recalling what the orc woman, supposedly your now husband’s ‘mother’ telling you in your native tongue.

“Touch this, and you will surely die. My alfhild will remove it, when it is time.”

And so, you wait. Digging your fingernails into your palms, crying quietly in heavy furs and leather, the occasional hand coming to pull your shaky one to their mouths, kissing the tip of your index finger.

“Aka’magosh..” They mumble to you, seemingly more at the body to your right.

The calloused hand of someone much larger than you, whom you have assumed is your husband from his constant appearance nearby, occasionally comes to grace your back, to rest a hand on the top of your head, to smoothen your veil or the soft fur shawl on your legs.

His hearty laugh hurts your ears, the jingles of the metal jewelry he adorns constantly making noise as he shifts.

“Please..” You whisper, praying, to whoever may be listening. Why you? Why, out of all the fair, eligible humans of your town, were you picked out from the rubble to be “saved”? To be married to a faceless orcish man, who would surely break you in half before morning?

The bitter cold of coming winter brushes against your legs. You can feel that you’re not inside wooden walls, and yet unnatural lighting seems to shine through your veil at times.

“Omulork, I think I will take my… wedding gift, to be with in solitude.”

Loud, deep laughs fill the room, the guttural voices of female orcs being swallowed up by uncountable numbers of warriors surrounding you. Your body shivered as a gust of wind blew in, the autumn breeze barely being kept at bay from where you sat.

“Enjoy the festivities, shedzvagas!”

His unique husk leaves everyone in the room to cheer in their orcish language, tough and painful pats coming to your back, the festive shakes to your shoulder nearly making you topple.

That same heated, abrasive hand comes to grab your roped wrists, lurching you firmly, yet gently from your place on the ground. Panic started to fill your stomach as it rose to your chest, the warm aura of an orc next to you radiating to heat you from the chilly weather outside.

Now. It was now or never. You didn’t want to think anymore what he would do to you when you were alone, when you had no one to cry to for help.

Your feet moved before the thought finished crossing your mind. Your hands shook as you stumbled in a sprint forward. You passed thick bodies as you ran blindly, making it a mere five steps before a pair of meaty hands grabbed you by the hips.

“A feisty one, Gar’mak!” The sounds of the orc woman who forced you into your wedding attire spoke up, a drunken laugh leaving her plump lips. “Alfhild, better not leave it out of your sight.”

You hated how clear the English they used was to your ears, how human they all sounded, how when they spoke in your native tongue-- it was meant for your ears. She wanted you to know, to let the fear soak into your chattering teeth.

The orc keeping you captive merely laughed, tossing your weightless body to his shoulder just like he had done when pulling you from the cobble of what was left of your tea shop.

You screamed, biting down on what you could reach from under your veil. But the salty, thick flesh from beneath you was aloof, offering no reaction as a double pat was brought to your buttocks.

“Now now, Djenifor, don’t fuss.” Gar’mak mused, each step he took forward making your body thump against his. He held a tight grip on you, not caring for the scratches you layered his back with. “I won’t try to hurt you… I will keep you safe, try my best to keep your fragile body in one piece.”

The coldening night air was a drastic change to the room of heavy body heat and weighty movement where the wedding ritual and festivities were held. Now, it was quiet. You could hear the loud chattering begin to drift, songs and chants rising again as they once had when you were unceremoniously married to your new ‘husband.’

Gar’mak patted your butt again, moving down to rub at the back of your thigh with a gentle, firm rhythm. He seemed to hum to himself, satisfied with the nights events. Scored himself a spouse and the treasured belongings of a human town.

He must be pretty proud of himself, you seethed.

The tears were beginning to sting the corners of your eyes, frantically scratching at the orcs back when you felt the warmth of an enclosed area meet your skin.

“No, no--” You began to kick, trying to shove off the arm holding you steady on the orcs’ shoulder.

“Settle down now--” Gar’mak ordered softly, putting you down on the fuzzy ground. You managed to hit his face, the hard scrape of tusks scratching your hand as a firm nose nearly cracked your knuckles.

The orc went silent. Quiet in rage, he rips your veil away with a grip hard enough to tear hair out if he so desired.

Your eyes take a moment to adjust to the dimly lit tent, lanterns glowing at the corners as the mass of a creature leers over you. You forgot just how… big, orcs were. From afar they looked small, bigger than a human, but no threat due to distance. But now… he was above you, twice your height, twice your size, twice if not thrice everything. His palm the size of your skull, his eyes gleaming and looking over your body, weak with exhaustion and fright.

Small, intentional scars were placed under his auburn eyes, some kind of tribe symbol you were sure. Thick eyebrows furrowed at the way tears decorated your cheeks, the exhales from his flat nose blowing hot breath on your chest.

“Please, I, I can’t, I don’t belong--” You fumble over yourself, trying to slide back on the floor of soft wolf and caribou furs.

“Shh, shh now,” The orc puts a hand to your ankle, an action that jerks you to a stop. “I won’t hurt you, lebam…”

You sincerely doubt that, but the sentiment sounds genuine from his broken, baritone voice.

“What’s your name?” He asks, pulling slowly with immeasurable strength at your leg. You slide towards him with little strain, even with your muscles going rigid for you to stand your place, your fingernails digging into the ground beneath you.

You shake out your name, reluctant to give it.

“Ah. What a human name; a scared wee human, aren’t you?”

You don’t dare to respond, waiting for the sound of your snapping ankle.

“They call me Gar’mak, though that may be too difficult for simple human brains. Mak is fine, little Djenifor…”

You don’t want to call him anything, to refer to him at all-- yet, he looks keen to hear you say it. There’s an expectation in his eyes, a flick of his giant tongue against his lips.

“Mak..” You mumble, trying not to gag.

“Yes…” The orc’s hand frees your leg, caressing up to your cheek as he wipes away a forgotten wet stream of tears.

“Please, just let me go--” You beg under your breath, scared of the way he seems to be eyeing your knees, your frail neck, your round ears.

“You know that’s not going to happen,” He doesn’t seem angry at you for asking, just… Sorry. “We are bound forever now; even the gods couldn’t tear us apart. Wherever you go, I will find you. Whenever I leave, you will feel me gone. By sunrise tomorrow your scars will be given, and you will become one of us.”

The panic begins to settle once again in your stomach. Maybe, tonight, yes-- tonight, if you could escape. You could-- just maybe you could find a way, past their all-seeing eyes, their all-hearing ears, escape to the mountains they took to get you here.

“But can’t you change it back?” Your voice cracks, expression twisting into an ugly cry as you feel thick fingers dig into your hair. “Just, we can go back-- just let me be…”

You sob for what feels like too long, hours maybe, Gar’mak’s eyes never leaving you as he pulls you to his thigh. He brings a cotton blanket to your legs as he shushes you, the tenderness of his eyes a foreign sight compared to the façade he forced you to endure during the night's festivities.

When your cries had turned to miserable, quiet sniffles, a muscled knuckle finds its way under your chin. He turns your head to look at him, eyes red and droopy as you try to think of any method of escape.

“You’ll learn to like it here, human.” Gar’mak thinks for a moment, caressing your leg with a single finger.

“We are far more civilized than your kind-- far more… Fair. You’ll be treated well. The spouses of warriors do not go unfed, unbathed. Unloved, most of all. You will be cherished; I will cherish you, as long as you let me.”

The orc grips your jaw in his hand, firm enough to where his fingers made dimples in your cheeks, but softly to where you felt like a mouse in someone’s closing palm. A kiss was planted to your temple, your body pushed deep against your husband’s as he holds you close enough to suffocate. You wait for him to choke life from you, and yet it never comes. He is harsh with his touches, but not harsh enough to hurt.

“Please, let's finish tonight how it was meant to go, hm? Let me hold you…” He murmurs, all soft and lamblike into your ear. It sends shivers down to your soles, hot breath layering your neck as he looks at your lips with such intensity.

You fear saying no, but the word rises up to your throat.

It doesn’t make it out in time. Lips engulf yours, the stiff coldness of bone-colored tusks brushing against your face as Gar’mak holds you tight. Just one kiss is enough to make his demeanor act up.

Your unassuming, comfort-driven spot on his lap is altered swiftly. You find yourself straddling the orcs’ waist, a hand pressed against the back of your head as your tied hands remain useless against his chest.

You don’t know whether to speak, to scream, to bite at his lips-- but you remain flexile, afraid of the rough hand holding your skull so tenderly, the other gripping your thigh to wrap around his flank. You’re like a resistant doll, licked lips becoming tender as the orc pushes against you with such tenacity.

You see his eyes open, staring into your wide, unblinking ones. They seem to communicate more than just lust-- its desire, desire for your reciprocation.

Gar’mak waits… he kisses you, eyes narrowed on standby for your submission. They’re hazy and make you wonder if this is enough to make him release his brutish side, the part that showed no mercy for your neighbors or your home. What would happen, if you broke away or dared to claw at him?

That thought doesn’t stay for long, not when the tough hand on the back of your head moves to your neck, squeezing just enough to bruise.

You wince, lips pursing in reaction just in time for his next tongued assault.

That slight opening of your mouth, the press of your lips against his, is all he needed. You find yourself twisted beneath his body as you’re brought to lay on the furry floor, the orc lying above you.

“That’s right, I’ll be soft Djenifor… just do as I command, keep smelling so sweetly for me.”

Scars litter his shoulders and collarbone, metal necklaces and piercings dangling on his olive-green, lightly haired chest as you fear how much it would take for him to crush you.

He’s so quiet, letting go of your mouth as the orc’s curled tongue licks a slow, wet stripe down your jaw. His hands grab your thighs to wrap your legs around him, intent on keeping you steady and so close you practically breathe the same air.

Before he leans to kiss you feverishly again, the orc brushes your cheek with his knuckles, petting down the amalgamated fabrics you wear to commemorate your wedding.

“You’re so lucky I found you first, that I had saved you from that rubble without layering an extra scratch; my brethren would not be so kind.”

He kisses your cheek, a soft, hungry grin playing on his plumped and tusked lips. “So stay pliant like this for me, wee human, and you won’t feel any pain.”

You lay rigidly, squeezing your eyes shut as a tender, all-consuming kiss eats you up, preparing you for the night’s affairs.

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violentdelightsandviolentends · 4 months

Text

Cherry Blossom. aka - Cherry, Part Four.

a night of conversations, kisses and long awaited confessions.

pairing - bestfriend!steve harrington x female reader

warnings - cursing, kissing (but no real smut).

word count - 2.6k

authors note - the babies are back!! no smut in this one - it was getting too long. but don’t you worry… there’s gonna be so much smut in part five !! sorry for the cliffhanger. love u <3

as always, reblogs, comments and feedback (even anonymous feedback!) are immensely appreciated!! your reblogs are the only way to circulate my fics, which keeps me going <3

series masterlist. main masterlist. inbox.

The smoke from the bonfire is stinging your eyes, ash sticking to the strands of your hair. Orange embers burn rapidly, dry wood being occasionally thrown on top by drunk boys with red cups in their hands.

The music is way too loud for a forest party, but no one seems to care. Someone’s haphazardly strung lights between the trees, creating a surprisingly cosy ambience. The atmosphere is alive, charged with the electricity of being out later than curfew.

“M’lady!”

You laugh, accepting the drink from Eddie’s outstretched hand.

“Thank you, kind sir,” you say as you curtsy sarcastically, making both of you laugh harder. “Hey, you didn’t bump into Steve on your way over here, did you? I haven’t seen him for like an hour.”

The curly haired boy kicks the toe of your sneaker with his.

“Saw him with that Clara girl, talking by the lake.”

You take a steadying breath, pretending it doesn’t bother you in the slightest.

“You should go and check if he needs rescuing,” Eddie jokes. “God knows she can talk for hours without coming up for air.”

You smile at him, pulling at one of his curls.

“Good idea. Just in case.”

“Just in case,” he winks, pushing you in the right direction.

You saunter down towards the water, spotting your best friend instantly. He’s stood with his arms across his chest, weight on one hip as he tries to listen to whatever Clara has to say. The minute he sees you, his posture is straightening, lips quirking up at the corners.

Clara turns around to see what Steve is looking at, her face falling when she recognises you.

“Hi. I don’t mean to interrupt! Just wanted to check if you needed another drink, Stevie.”

The boy grins, beckoning you closer with a nod of his head. When you’re near enough, he leans down and presses a sweet kiss to your lips, all affectionate and tender.

Oh.

You don’t do that.

The two of you have kept your romance completely behind closed doors, up until now. It hasn’t got a name, never mind a label, and you don’t need people asking questions when you don’t even know the answers yourself.

You could blame it on the alcohol, but you know Steve’s on his first drink. With your head spinning, you look up at him as if he is the sun and all things warm. He looks down at you the exact same way.

“I’m gonna go see where my friends are,” Clara says a little too loudly, strutting away with as much confidence as she can muster.

You have a sudden feeling that you’re the villain in her story, but you’re not entirely sure why.

“How many drinks have you had?” Steve asks as he pulls a strand of hair away from your face.

“This is my second. I was nursing my first one, Eddie says.”

The boy laughs, and you grab onto his bicep for support. The sound of it is enough to buckle your knees.

“This is my first. It’s not doing much for me.”

“You want something different? I’m sure Robin has that beer you like in her bag.”

“Nah, I’m okay. Don’t think I’m gonna drink any more tonight.”

Steve slips his hands into the back pockets of your jeans, pulling you in closer and keeping them there.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay,” you whisper.

“Okay,” he whispers back.

And then he kisses you. Again. It’s slow and careful and so romantic that you think you might start crying about it.

“What time is it?” he asks when he pulls away as if nothing happened.

“Eleven thirty.”

“You wanna stay a bit longer?”

“Not if you don’t.”

Steve presses his lips to your forehead, hands cradling your cheeks.

“I kinda wanna go home.”

You smile at him, all soft and sweet.

“Then let’s go home. I’m getting a little cold, anyway. And I didn’t bring a jacket.”

“Will you ever learn?” he laughs, slinging an arm around your shoulders.

“If it means I have to stop wearing your jackets that I know you bring to parties just for me? No, I won’t.”

You weren’t supposed to say that out loud, but the way Steve chuckles soothes the sting of the accidental wound.

“Let’s go home, Cherry Baby.”

Home. The assumption that the two of you will always be returning to the same place makes your heart so full, you wonder how it doesn’t spill over.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

“You good?”

“Feet hurt.”

This happens every single time the two of you go to a party, so you feel as if you’re reliving a memory.

“Hop on.”

“Steve-”

“Cherry. Come on. We’ll get home quicker this way.”

You can’t argue with that. Steve crouches as you jump onto his back, his hands wrapping around your thighs to keep you steady. You wrap your arms around his neck from behind, resting your head on top of his.

“Comfy back there?”

You hum, the noise of agreement enough for Steve to start walking.

The two of you chat each others ears off on the way home, talking about nothing and everything. You laugh so hard at something he says that you end up with a mouthful of his hair, which he in turn finds hilarious.

“Have you thought any more about what I said the other day?”

“You say a lot of things, Steven.”

He chuckles, shaking his head and giving your thighs a squeeze.

“About college.”

You go quiet for a moment, and Steve wonders if he’s chosen the wrong time to have this conversation.

“I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s talk about it later, okay? When I’m not constantly worried I’m gonna accidentally trip and kill you.”

You nod, and he feels it. You know it needs to be a discussion sometime soon, but perhaps having it when you’re being carried down the street on your best friends back isn’t all that practical.

“Love you,” you mumble into the crook of Steve’s neck.

He shudders a little at your lips on his skin, leaning his head sideways to rest against yours.

“Love you, Cherry Pie. More than anything.”

You let Steve piggyback you all the way to his front door. Neither of you say anything else. Neither of you feel the need to.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

Steve bumps his hip into yours as you both brush your teeth, laughing at your shocked reflection in the mirror.

“Are you okay?” you ask as you place your toothbrush back in its holder, right next to his.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“You sure?”

You hop up on the bathroom counter, sitting up so you’re eye to eye with the boy in front of you. He takes a step forward, standing between your legs as he splays his cold hands over your thighs.

“Why’d you ask?”

You trace over his fingers where they rest on your skin, quiet for a moment.

“You seemed pretty eager to go home tonight. It’s unlike you. You love a party. Leaving at eleven thirty is like… unheard of, for King Steve.”

“King Steve would rather be at home with you than at a party with all those people.”

“Really?”

“Really. Clara was going on about something or other, the music was too loud, and I could feel the chill coming in. It hit me, all of a sudden, that I’d rather be in bed. Or, anywhere else, as long as I was with you.”

You lean forward to rest your head against his chest, sighing when he starts playing with your hair gently.

“You’re a softie,” you mumble into his shirt. “And a mind reader.”

“It’s my one talent,” he chuckles. “I wish reading your mind was a college major. I’d be the best in the world.”

You shake your head, laughing like you can’t help it.

“If I don’t move soon, I’m gonna fall asleep on this bathroom counter.”

“Want me to carry you?”

“Contrary to popular belief,” you tease as you hop down, “my legs actually do work.”

Steve gasps, all theatrical and exaggerated, which only makes you laugh harder.

“Come on, sleepy girl. Let’s go to bed.”

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

“We’re not talking about stuff.”

You whisper it into the darkness, the trees rustling outside Steve’s window serving as the only sound you can hear.

“Hmm?”

Your legs are tangled with his, tired head resting on the boys shoulder as your sides are pressed together. You’re both lying on your backs, staring at the ceiling.

“We keep saying we’ll talk about stuff, but we haven’t been. It’s not like us.”

“You mean, like, feelings?”

“Yeah.”

All that can be heard now is two sets of heaving lungs. Steve’s hand finds yours under the duvet, fingers intertwining.

“Is there something specific that’s bothering you?”

“Not bothering me as such. I just… I think the more we don’t talk, the more complicated things become.”

There’s silence for a moment, before Steve speaks.

“I’m scared, Cherry.”

The tone of his voice is paper thin and vulnerable, and you will yourself not to cry about it.

“Of what, Stevie?”

You squeeze his hand, tucking yourself further into his side until there isn’t an inch of space between you.

“Of… everything changing. You’re my best friend in the entire world, and I know that what we’ve been doing isn’t typical… best friend stuff. I just…” he takes a deep breath, exhaling carefully. “I worry that something will happen and we’ll break up, and I’ll lose you forever.”

His voice cracks on the last word, fear seeping through his pores. Yet, he continues.

“I’d die without you, Cherry. I really would. I don’t know what it’s like to live in a world where we’re not… us.”

You turn onto your side to face him in the dark, reaching up to cradle his cheek softly. You rest your forehead against his temple, pressing a kiss into his skin.

“I’m scared too. I have been ever since that first night in my room. Not because I don’t trust you, or because I don’t feel that way about you… but because I don’t want to lose you either. More than anything, I don’t want to lose you.”

“Why didn’t we talk about this sooner?” he laughs, throat thick with emotion.

“Because we’re us. And whether we talk or don’t talk, we know we’ll figure it out. We always know we’ll be okay.”

“I love you,” he whispers into the dark. “More than all the stars in the sky.”

“I love you,” you whisper back. “More than all the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.”

You press another kiss into his temple, letting your lips linger on his soft skin. He smells so familiar, so warm, so yours… you can’t help but inhale, chuckling when he shudders.

You continue to leave kisses across his jaw, over his ear, down his neck. He tilts his head to give you better access, groaning when you nip at his throat with your teeth, licking over the scrape to soothe him.

Steve pulls you in as if you weigh nothing, moving you so you’re lying on top of him. You sit up, straddling his lap, as he does the same so you’re chest to chest. Running his hands under your shirt and over the bare skin of your back, he rests his forehead against yours.

“You look so pretty like this,” he hums against your lips. “Prettiest girl in the world.”

“You wanna talk about pretty?” you tease, running your fingers through his hair. “My pretty, pretty boy.”

Steve’s hips buck up into yours, making you giggle.

“Oh, you like that? You like it when I call you pretty? Or do you just like it when I call you mine?”

His hips buck again as his cheeks flush pink.

“I am yours,” he murmurs. “Always have been.”

You thought you had the upper hand for a minute, but now you just want to cry. You’re overwhelmed by the way you feel about the boy underneath you, unsure of how to process it without bursting into tears.

“All mine,” you whisper, tracing the features of his face with your fingertip.

Steve takes a deep breath, watching your eyes as they look over him again and again, taking him in as if it’s the first time. He decides it’s now or never.

“Cherry?”

“Stevie?”

Your voices are low and careful, irregardless of the fact that you’re alone in the house.

“I’m in love with you.”

Your heart stops, and so does the world outside. Everything pauses, the two of you suspended in this moment in time.

Steve takes another breath, exhaling it carefully before meeting your eyes and continuing.

“You don’t have to say it back. Now, or ever. I just - I needed you to know.”

You blink back tears as you watch his face, biting your lip to stop them from falling.

“Steve-”

“Hey, I told you. You don’t have to say anything, babe. I know-”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Just-”

You surge forward and kiss him with all the affection you can muster, trying to express your feelings. You grip his hair, plastering your bodies together where you sit in his lap still. He wraps his arms around you, pulling you in as close as he can.

“If you let me talk,” you say when you pull away, all breathless, “you’d hear that I have something I’d like to say.”

Steve smiles, humming in acknowledgment and encouraging you to keep going.

“I’m in love with you, too.”

The boy looks shocked to hear it, as if it’s news to him.

“What’s that face for?” you laugh.

“I just… I didn’t expect you to say it back.”

“Steve,” you chuckle, looking at him sternly. When you realise he’s being serious, you double down. “I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember. When we were kids, and someone would say the word ‘husband’, I always pictured you. I was so convinced it was always going to end up being you and I.”

“Why… why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“Why didn’t you?”

He laughs, and the sound makes you feel as if you’re on cloud nine. You can feel his heartbeat where his chest is pressed to yours, frantic like he’s just ran a marathon.

“Fuck, I love you.”

He leans up to kiss you, all saccharine and honey sweet.

“Say it again,” you whisper against his lips.

“I’m in love with you, Cherry.”

“Say it again.”

“I, Steve Harrington, declare that I am completely, utterly, ridiculously in love with this girl right here. I always have been. I always will be.”

You can’t help but throw your head back with laughter.

“And I love you. So much.”

The words you’ve always said mean so much more now. It’s a welcome change, one you never thought you’d see happen.

“Hey Steve?”

“Hmm?”

You lean in, nosing at his jaw as you murmur into his ear.

“Want you. So bad.”

“Fuck, honey,” he groans, all low and rough.

“Please. Want it to be you.”

Looking up at you with big eyes, he searches your face for any kind of hesitation.

“Are you sure?”

Smoothing his hair away from his face, you trace your thumb over his bottom lip.

“I’ve never been so sure of anything.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he grins. “I’m about to rock your world, Cherry Blossom.”

@psychicnerdcat @allcheesemelts @valerievortex @swiftsgirlfriend @steviespookie @betweenstarsandsatellites @mrsjoequinn @internallysalad @saucypeanuttt @empathyroad @niceskyler @spookysins @theoraekenslover @7minutes-tomidnight @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @clairesjointshurt @livsters @diffrent-spokes @regular-joe-shmoe @ihatepeanutss @ladyburberry @thenonweeknd @abarelyexistentbeing @jennaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa @slut4gaga @hopelessromanticwriter @mgchaser @wintrsoldrluvr

#steve harrington fic #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader smut #steve harrington x reader fluff #steve harrington x bestfriend!reader #bestfriend!steve harrington #bestfriend!steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x bestfriend reader #stranger things x reader #stranger things smut #stranger things fluff

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beansprean · 2 months

Text

Familiar interviews continue...

My Familiar’s Ghost part 82

Masterpost Masterpost 2

See the latest pages on Patreon!

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1. Upholstered chair on a mottled brown background. Sitting on it is a tall thin white man with short blond hair and a goatee, wearing a light blue leopard print suit over a white vee neck with white heeled boots and a chunky pinkie ring. He is lounging confidently, legs crossed, one hand poised up in the air as he says smugly, 'I graduated top of my class at New York Familiar College.'

2a. Reverse shot, waist up of Nandor and Guillermo sitting on the couch opposite. Nandor brightens and replies, 'Really? That is very impressive...' Guillermo glares at the applicant suspiciously, arms crossed and finger tapping rapidly. 2b. Reverse shot of the man on the chair as a stream of water sprays in from offscreen and hits him in the cheek. It burns and steams where it hits his skin and the man shrieks, rocking back and pulling his legs up from the floor in shock. His disguise immediately poofs away to reveal none other than... Simon The Devious! 2c. Reverse shot, full body, of Nandor sitting at one end of the couch, clipboard in his lap, as Simon rushes past and out the door, hissing and smoking. Guillermo has leapt up from his seat and is posed with feet shoulder width apart, holding a spray bottle in both hands like a pistol and pointing it at Simon's retreating back. He shouts after him, 'Get out of here, Simon! You're not welcome!' Nandor shrinks back against the couch to stay out of the line of fire.

3. Back on the chair, now featuring Sean, who is hoisting himself out of it by the armrests with a confused expression. He mutters, 'I was just, uh... lookin' for the bathroom...'

4. Reverse shot waist up of Nandor and Guillermo on the couch. Guillermo is slumped in fatigue, eyes closed, briefly removing his glasses as he groans, 'You live next door, Sean...' Nandor cups his hand around his mouth and turns toward the hall, calling out, 'Laszlo! Come collect your friend, please!'

5. Close up of Guillermo's clipboard, which has a few handwritten pages clamped onto it. The top page is divided in half by a line of ink, the left side labeled 'Applicant' and the right side labeled 'Recommended by'. Every line has been crossed out in red ink. The list of prospective familiars includes: Clara Tran, John Merkt (recommended by Nancy the Relentless), Farrah Baker, Sarah Colleton-Hampstead (recommended by Pamela), Kayvan Novak (recommended by Nancy the Relentless), Sky Velasquez, Marshall Vu (recommended by Elvis), Devon Simmons II (recommended by ???) scribbled out more than the others, Katie Blum (recommended by Greg Blum), and Muhammad S- before the panel cuts off. From offscreen, Nandor calls out, 'Thank you for your time; we will be in touch. Please do not get eaten on the way out. Next!'

6. Back to the chair, this time with Sam the cat sitting in it and letting out a polite mew. From off screen, Guillermo says, 'Well, that's disappointing to hear, Sam.'

7. Reverse shot, full body of Nandor and Guillermo on the couch as Sam walks toward the door, tail held high. Nandor is slumped toward the center of the couch, head propped up on his hand and clipboard abandoned at his side. Guillermo, clipboard in hand, waves after Sam with an awkward smile and says, 'Good luck at your new position! And let us know if anything changes?' Sam meows in reply. /End ID

#wwdits #my familiars ghost #vampire guillermo #nandermo #mlm #guillermo de la cruz #nandor the relentless #sean rinaldi #simon the devious #sam the familiar #what we do in the shadows #what we do in the shadows fx #my art #fanart #fan comic #image described

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lavendermin · 2 months

Note

Kindergarten teacher reader attempt at sending nudes but it's not fully nudes but gradually ykwim??? At first it was just a shy tease....like showing cleavage or collar (and jing yuan is seated, almost busted even) and then gradually increasing to hips until she showed him her in lingerie AND THEN FULL BLOWN TITS and jing yuan is losing his mind, he can't stop thinking about it that he burned breakfast, even almost recklessly driving to the kindergarten parking (yanqing is praying for their lives)

Also if you don't mind I can be 🦭 anon thee

🦭 anon your brain is massive massive. Dining finely on this concept like it’s a tender steak with a fine wine. Mwah mwah

Jing Yuan would almost find it rather endearing and coquette of you to send such modest (in his humble opinion) temptress pics. The modest cleavage shot to get his heart racing after a board meeting. Cute and stunning and makes his day (and his heart flutter).

cw | mentions of nudity, suggestive

You’re almost setting up a false sense of security that you wouldn’t send him risqué pics. Because why would such a sweet teacher do that? (Honestly the idea itself turns him on a bit) And it’s not like you would ever do that during working hours (yours) but weekends are a nice little treat when you’re a little hot and bothered and feeling somewhat bold. That little bit of liquid courage has you bite the bullet and send that cute pic of you in your little black dress at a bar with friends with a low sweetheart neckline.

Needless to say even that makes Jing Yuan almost burn dinner he’s cooking. (Poor Yanqing has to be like baba the food is making a cloud of smoke.) Unexpected, is what he would label it. But not unwelcome. He’s more in awe that you would send these. Perhaps a bit of corruption on his part? Who can say.

He’s at a bar after work with some colleagues when you first send that pic with a lingerie set and your arm modestly holding up your tits where the lace would leave too much to the prying eyes. His neck feels hot and he quickly has to lock his phone and excuse himself from the table. Fu Xuan only quirks a brow, unimpressed and perhaps a little annoyed at his antics. She’s well aware her boss and long time acquaintance is a fool in love right now. As long as it doesn’t create a PR nightmare she’ll turn a blind eye. That old man needs spice in his dry life.

Jing Yuan locks the bathroom door, letting out a pained sigh at the uncomfortable heat coursing through his body. But he’s nothing if not a man with a man’s brain, so he foolishly opens his texts again to get another look at the picture.

11:34PM [Yanqing’s Hot Teacher] sent an attachment.

11:35PM [Yanqing’s Hot Teacher] maybe you’d like it

11:43PM [Jing Yuan] I’d consider myself a fool if I didn’t appreciate all that you wear.

11:49PM [Yanqing’s Hot Teacher] sent an attachment.

11:49PM [Yanqing’s Hot Teacher] And what about what I don’t wear?

And oh. Oh. That’s a picture of your bare tits. Jing Yuan is lucky he’s still in the bathroom when you send that because his slacks are uncomfortably tight right now. You’re going to take years off his life at this point because he’s stuck at this company outing instead of being able to call a cab to your place right now.

Have mercy on this poor old man’s heart, will you?

#nsf mii #jing yuan x reader #mii writes #ask stuff 💌#🦭 anon #cw suggestive #cw nudity mention #I would love to rile up that old man #the whole time you’re a nervous wreck as you send them #but give that old man something to work with #YOURE HIS HOTTIE!!!#GO GET SOME!!!

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chenfleur · 2 years

Text

open the gates, let me in

summary. jeno always seems willing to do anything for you, and it takes a lot of inner nagging for him to finally realize why.

pairing. jeno x y/n ft donghyuck, jaemin genre. fluff, college au, best friends to lovers disclaimers. swearing, denial resonates so deeply with me its humiliating word count. 4.0k released. 02.05.23

masterlist

For what feels like the nth time this hour, a certain honey-skinned boy shamelessly rolls his eyes at one of his best friends. That title, however, is in serious danger of being revoked if he has to spend one more agonizing second in this store.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't ditch your ass right now," Donghyuck jeers. His habit of poking his cheek with his tongue shines through as impatience radiates off of his body.

Jeno ignores his complaining, eyes diligently scanning the rows of colourful fragrance bottles.

He's quite overwhelmed. The labels, brands, scents, and undertones—they all mean nothing to him. The only thing he's somewhat familiar with is the brand of the cologne he takes a liking to, but the strong woods and smokes of the men's cologne selection is a distinct opposite of what he’s looking for.

It leaves him to stand cluelessly among the shelves of white flowers and citruses and berries, trying to pick out the combination he thinks you'd like the most.

"Where would you even go? I drove," Jeno deadpans.

He gently picks up a translucent, pale red bottle. Blood orange and peony.

Popping off the cap, he spritzes a tiny bit on his inner wrist and brings it up close to his nose. The scent is like a punch in the face, leaving him reclining back with a furrowed brow.

Too strong.

"We're going to be late to Jaemin's if you don't hurry the fuck up," Donghyuck says, burning holes through Jeno's skull before letting out a deep sigh.

"Can you just pick one so we can go? We look like fucking idiots here."

Jeno only hums, cracking a small smile.

He couldn't chide him for being wrong—the two of them look very out of place. Their sharp silver jewelry, inked skin, and dazed boyish smiles contrast against the dainty bottles standing atop the soft pink shelves of the women's fragrance section like black on white.

"Firstly," Jeno begins, voice riddled with amusement. "You don't give a fuck about punctuality-"

"Oh look at you, going off with your big words."

Jeno spins around. "Hyuck, you're drinking a matcha frappucino while looking like that."

He points at the green drink the boy was sipping on, the extra whipped cream he asked for contradicting his hard exterior.

Donghyuck scoffs. "Sorry I don't like to drink death in a cup," he drawls, sarcasm dripping off his tongue.

He breaks his glare on the black-haired boy as he sees two girls standing a distance away, his face doing a 180 as he notices them not-so-discreetly staring.

Smirking, Donghyuck confidently throws them a wink. He watches with pride as flattered giggles spill from their lips, before turning back to Jeno, who had picked up another bottle.

"Why are you even doing this?" Donghyuck asks out of genuine curiosity, though it's hidden underneath the guise of annoyance.

"Y/N asked me to."

Here’s some money. Get me something you think I'd like, yeah? you had said. Or something that you'd like. I'll still wear it, I don't care. I trust your judgment.

Donghyuck snorts. "I'm convinced you'd do anything for Y/N," he mutters.

It's an offhand comment, yet it makes the black-haired boy put his tongue between his teeth as a weird, sprawling feeling erupts in his chest.

The thought of why he seemed willing to do anything for you had never occurred to him. Not because the thought had never shown up to the gates of his consciousness—Jeno was uncomfortably familiar with the strange feeling in his stomach when you were around—but because he never let it in.

He doesn't dare to let it in, even going as far as telling it to leave and never return each time it knocks—because if he did, he would spend hours in this perfume section, legs going numb from standing as it invaded and overtook his brain, preventing him from getting anything done.

His eyes land on one last bottle. It's a clear one, with a clean, minimalistic label.

Lazy Sunday Morning. Maison Margiela.

Jeno repeats the action he's done with multiple bottles by now; spritzing the fragrance onto a new, untouched area of his inner arm and bringing it up to smell.

It's soft, it's floral, it's feminine. It infiltrates his senses in the way fresh, cotton bed sheets would. The soft sun after the rain.

It's how you look when he comes over to your apartment unannounced on a random weekend morning: wearing an oversized white shirt and a pair of high-waisted sports shorts.

It's the strawberry lip gloss that always stains your lips. It's your Hello Kitty pillowcase that you wash way more often than Jeno washes his, for which you constantly nag him for being unhygienic.

It's your flushed, red face at parties, your preference for tea over coffee—your smaller, softer hand grabbing his calloused one when he gets nervous.

Jeno thinks it's you, and he hopes you think it's you too.

He slowly turns around to Donghyuck, who's fidgeting with the tattered sleeve of his leather jacket.

"Smell this," he prompts, snapping the brown-haired boy out of his daze.

Donghyuck tugs at Jeno's arm, bringing it up to his face and taking a quick whiff before letting it fall. "Smells nice. I'm sure Y/N will like it. Now let's go," he presses, already taking off towards the exit.

Jeno only shakes his head, gaze falling on the bottle he held in his ring-clad fingers. He thinks it would look nice on your vanity, next to all your other bottles of products.

He doesn't know what they do, but they make you, you.

Donghyuck, whose brown strands are now dyed a refreshing purple, throws his head back howling with laughter as he sees you and Jeno approach the food court table.

He receives several displeased stares from nearby people, but he doesn't seem to care in the slightest, only being able to focus on what Jeno is wearing.

"Oh my fucking god, Jeno," he wails incoherently, pointing at his friend's pants while clutching his stomach. "What- what are those?"

Your choice to wear a pair of light-washed, ripped skinny jeans to come to the mall turned out to be a massive mistake. You're bitter towards the person who first said "beauty is pain" because of how miserably right they are; whose idea was it to make girls' pants so uncomfortable?

The walk across the parking lot to the entrance was enough for your legs to start screaming for relief, resulting in you pleading with Jeno to switch with you.

Jeno drops down into the empty seat next to Jaemin, letting out a deep sigh. He rubs at his temples as Donghyuck's high-pitched, maniacal laughter erratically rings throughout the air.

This is exactly why he was adamant about declining your request; Lee Donghyuck is an entity of pure evil, and Jeno felt the humiliation creeping up on him from behind like a tiger ready to pounce.

But as he always seems to do, he relented.

Now, his sweatpants sit comfortably on your hips, bunching up at your ankles while he wears your jeans, the pant ends stopping halfway up his calves.

"She was chafing," he mutters, referring to you.

Donghyuck laughs loudly and unapologetically, reaching down to poke at Jeno's bare knee through the large rips of the jeans. His actions result in him getting a hard slap on the arm, eliciting a pained "ow!" from him.

You give Jeno a sweet smile, slipping him another whispered apology before feeling a gentle tug at your wrist.

Renjun begins to drag you away from the table, mumbling something along the lines of "new premium watercolour set" and "20% off". Jumping up from his seat, Donghyuck follows suit with a devilish smile etched on his face, immediately asking the shorter boy to buy him a vinyl he had his eye on from earlier.

Jaemin watches as the three of you fade into the crowd of customers, leaving only him and Jeno at the table. As soon as you disappear from his sight, he whips around with anticipation. "So?"

A shaky blink. "So..?"

"So? Have you thought about what I said?"

Jeno doesn't respond as he stills, his lips pursed carefully.

Of course he had thought about what Jaemin said.

He tried his goddamn hardest not to, just like he has with every other possible reasoning behind his feelings that wandered into scary, uncharted territory—but how could he not? It wasn't something that he could just forget, like remembering to wash his socks or buying milk.

A week ago, Na Jaemin had brought upon him a revelation that was far too casually dropped at one of the group's regular get-togethers. It was like a silent bomb, and it had been doing no less than eating at him alive.

He wants to deny it so badly. In fact, that's exactly what he's been doing—denying its possibility of being true, denying its existence at all.

If it was going to slip through the cracks of the iron gates, Jeno was going to make sure it felt as unwelcome as possible.

And that's exactly what he does.

"I have," he begins meekly.

Upon hearing these words, Jaemin's lips stretch into a wide smile. "And?"

"...and I don't think you're right."

The lights in the younger's eyes flicker out just as quickly as they turned on. He doesn't even bother to hide his disappointment, giving his best friend a deadpan stare. "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

He was expecting this reaction from Jaemin, but he couldn't let it get to him. Not when he couldn't let the narrative Jaemin was pressing so adamantly a week ago be true.

A loud sigh rips through the air. "Jeno, why are you so in denial?"

"I'm not in denial. It's not true."

Jaemin leans forward, looking into his best friend's eyes. He could tell there was a deep, buried sense of longing behind those dark irises.

"Lee Jeno," he begins slowly.

"I have known you nearly my entire life. I have been by your side since we were puny, disgusting first graders, and I have never seen you be so caring towards someone."

Jaemin has always doted on you.

He reminds you of a worrying mother; a fairy who is always there to remind you to dress warmly and take your vitamins. When you had a fever, Jeno had knocked on the door of your apartment only to be let in by Jaemin, who had been in your kitchen making his mother's soup recipe for you.

Donghyuck is the playful, sarcastic brother you never had.

He's the one who always encourages you to down another shot, to get you to do crazy things like jumping off the roof into a pool. But he's warm when he needs to be; Jeno had walked in one night through the door of his and Donghyuck's shared apartment to find you dumping your emotions onto the honey-skinned boy's shirt as he whispered words of consolation.

Renjun indulges your passionate side.

You share so much in common with him and you value his opinion like a sacred script. He's your 3AM therapist for your woes, he's your debate opponent for any topic—he's the one who encouraged you to chase after your dreams when you had trouble deciding on whether to choose what your parents wanted for you, or what you wanted for yourself.

Jeno thinks he's just Lee Jeno to you.

The captain of the basketball team you met back in junior year of high school, who’s an architecture major at the same university you go to. Your best friend, but only if you thought so.

When it's about the others, Jeno seems to see everything—how they care for you, in what ways they’re integrated into your life—he doesn’t seem to notice how much he cares for you.

He doesn't think about how sometimes, he miraculously finds himself entering your apartment at the crack of dawn to remind you to bring an assignment that's due that day. And when you knock your hand against his, silenting asking for him to hold it, he’ll reluctantly put his cold, mysterious image aside to gently slip his hand into yours.

There was one time when you asked to go stargazing in the dead of the night. Despite the subzero weather outside, not an ounce of regret coursed through his body when he agreed to go with you.

He couldn’t feel his fingers when he was out there, but it didn’t feel like it mattered when he saw you pointing at constellations with a smile of pure euphoria painted on your features.

He doesn’t notice how you notice that he cares.

The way your eyes lit up when he quietly entered your room with medicine and a hot water bottle went unseen by him. You never told him that Renjun was only half of the reason why you chose to pursue art, and that seeing him choose architecture over the path his own parents wanted for him pushed you over the edge.

He seems to remember you curled up to Donghyuck's side, but not how as soon as you saw him walk through the doorway, you gently peeled yourself up from the couch, out of Donghyuck's hold to throw yourself onto him, because you had come to their apartment looking for him. For his hold, for his comfort.

No, he doesn't notice these things because he's selectively blind when it comes to the possibility of there ever being a 'you and him', and it drives Jaemin nuts.

Jaemin laughs, dumbfounded.

"For fucks sake, Jeno," he exclaims, dragging his hands down his face. "You're literally wearing women's jeans right now."

He removes his hands from his face, staring deeply into his best friend's eyes in a last-ditch effort to get through to the stubborn boy.

"You're in love with her."

"I'm sorry."

At this point, you’ve lost track of how many times those two words had left Jeno's lips.

The party downstairs blares in the background, though it’s muffled by the closed door. Jeno’s murmured apologies are the only sounds that fill the air, other than the squelches of water as you squeezed your shirt in the sink.

You turn your head around to look at him, a soft smile tugging at your lips. He’s sitting on the edge of the acrylic bathtub, sliding his rings up and down his fingers with a distant look on his face.

"Stop apologizing. It's okay."

Despite graduating two years ago, Johnny Suh still parties like it’s his full-time job, and being in his second-floor bathroom makes the room feel like it’s a physical manifestation of his spirit.

There’s two lights above the bathroom mirror, though one of them had blown its fuse. It casts a dim, aquamarine light that reaches every corner of the small room, highlighting the slightly frayed shower curtains and dark crevices of the floor tiles. There’s a few shaving products and the remains of a half-smoked blunt strewn across the surface of the otherwise clean countertop.

The reason why you and Jeno are in the bathroom instead of downstairs isn’t one the boy’s proud of.

You didn’t run into Jeno until around halfway through the night. They say you haven’t had the real college experience if you haven’t gone to a Johnny Suh party, and the flocks of people that covered every part of the estate prove how much people value getting their tuition’s worth.

A light sheen of sweat is apparent on your forehead as you try your best to weave your way through the masses. You don’t even know where you’re going, and you could feel it growing stuffier as more people spilled into the halls.

It’s only until you suddenly feel a piercing cold sensation on your chest do you see something other than drunk college students pressed together.

You come face-to-face with Lee Jeno, who’s staring at you with big, round eyes and lips parted in sheer horror.

You glance down at your own body. The center of your chest is several shades darker, a large wet splotch prominently standing out against the beige fabric of your long-sleeved top.

Your eyes dart between your top and Jeno’s red solo cup that had several droplets of liquid dribbling down its side. Realizing what just happened, you can’t help but laugh.

“Why hello to you too, mister,” you say between giggles.

Jeno’s face is flushing redder by the second, and there’s a big bump on his head from the imaginary hammer that struck him for being so stupid.

A few seconds go by of just him staring at you before stutters spill from his lips.

“I- Oh my- oh my god,” he breathes out. “Oh my fucking god, Y/N, I’m so sorry-”

“It’s okay. I needed an excuse to get away from all the noise anyways,” you cut him off, reaching for his free hand.

“Come with me to the bathroom?”

The words flow out of your mouth like a smooth, running stream; casual, and far more relaxed than the jittery feeling in Jeno's stomach. He doesn’t resist in the slightest, the feeling of your touch sending a surge of electricity up his arm.

Finally looking up from the metal around his fingers, Jeno’s breath hitches.

His eyes trail down your figure with innocent intention. The thin straps of your ivory, silk camisole delicately sit on your collarbone, your black miniskirt hugging your waist.

He doesn’t realize he’s even staring, not when he’s mesmerized by the slope of your nose, or the outline of your cupid’s bow.

There’s something that the aquamarine glow is doing to you that makes his jaw go slack.

Usually, he’d be alert, keeping his thoughts in check—but the slight intoxication seeped through him, and he can feel himself growing careless.

Jeno's hand twitches. You're within arm's reach, he could reach for your waist and pull you right into him—but he doesn't, because that would ruin the scene.

This scene of you standing in front of the sink, twisting your shirt in your hands with a small crease in your brow. It's so domestic, so perfect—he can't help but wonder what it'd be like to see you like this every day—

—and then, he hears it.

There it is, the violent banging on the gates. It echoes through the halls from outside, persistent and maybe just a bit desperate. Or, was it actually his heart thumping against his chest?

Open up! it yelled. You would do anything for her. You're in love with her, idiot!

Had it been his heart all along?

"There we go," you give your top one final twist, grinning with satisfaction as the water drips down clear.

You turn the sink off and unravel the top from its scrunched-up form, flapping it a few times to prevent creases.

"That should do it. Okay, let's go back downstairs. Hyuck bet ten dollars I couldn't beat him in beer pong and I'm going to make him eat his wor-"

Your rambling is cut off as soon as you turn toward the boy on the edge of the tub. He's staring at you with misty eyes, and you can't stop yourself from taking a step closer.

"Jeno?" you call, leaning down to meet him at eye level.

Eyes twinkling with mirth, you lower yourself into a crouching position, and your hand finds its place on his knee. You let your fingers drum on the fabric of his black jeans, musing your wonder.

"You're drunk, aren't you? How much have you had to drink?"

The action is mindless, and Jeno knows it. The two of you often shared small, habitual touches—but this time, it's wholly different.

"I'm- I'm not drunk," he croaks out.

A light-hearted snicker. "Sure you aren't."

"I'm not."

"Then why is your face so red?"

"I'm just... thinking about something."'

An amused chuckle leaves your mouth before you muse your wonders, "You're drunk, Jen. But, would you care to share?"

Jeno feels himself unclicking the locks. "Okay," he huffs out nervously.

The iron gates swing slightly ajar.

"I'm thinking about how I would do anything for you."

A pause goes by. The sound of the music downstairs seems to have gotten even louder, to the point where Jeno can't hear his own breathing. He wonders if he's even still breathing as his gaze rests on you intensely, waiting for your reaction.

When your fingers stop drumming against his knee, Jeno's world stops.

"O-oh."

Your expression is indecipherable as his words sink in, eyes growing rounder and your lips part.

Your eyes dart around Jeno's face to see if you can locate a trace of playfulness, a hint that he wasn't thinking straight—and while his flushed, rosy cheeks are a telltale that he's a little intoxicated, his eyes are heavy with sincerity.

He's being serious, and it brings you to a loss for words.

"A-and? What did you conclude?" you manage to stutter out, peering up at him.

This is exactly what he was afraid of. Afraid of your disappointed expression, your lips ready to utter the inevitable words he wished he'd never have to hear.

He's not even sure what those words exactly are, because Lee Jeno feels like a fucking mess right now, but he'll know in a few seconds after you say them—

"I... I don't really know why..."

A lightbulb clicks in your head. You seem to realize Jeno's implications before he even does himself.

"Jeno?" you prompt, voice feather-soft.

The boy's eyes are screwed shut by now, unable to look you in the eyes. He's trying to lock the gates closed again, as they were for so long.

"Hmm?" he weakly hums.

"I love you."

Jeno's attempts are futile. The thought is victorious.

It pushes past his regret-driven efforts. It floods his head akin to a raging tsunami.

It's so loud. The music in the background is so loud.

You are so loud. Your eyes, your grip on his knee, your words—

—they're so loud.

She just said she loves me.

"I've loved you for so long. Do you love me too?" you whisper, hand subconsciously reaching for his.

It shocks Jeno how his voice doesn't fail him. "You love me?"

"I do."

"M-more than a friend?"

"Much more. I love you like I'll never have you, even if I always find myself in your arms," you say, letting out a dry chuckle as a small smile graces your face.

"Do you love me too?" you repeat.

The gates snap off their hinges from the sheer force, and the thought chants a victory song—

You're in love with her!

Jeno blinks.

I'm in love with her.

Jeno never seemed to mind, when it came to you. He never seemed to mind wearing your light blue skinny jeans for you, and he never seemed to mind looking out of place with his grungy demeanor inside of a delicate perfume section either. He never seemed to mind waking up at an ungodly hour for you, and he never seemed to mind holding you when the world was against you.

And as you look at him, your face glimmering underneath the dim, bathroom light—it clicks.

Jeno suddenly realizes why he'd be willing to do anything for you. He'd be willing to get you the moon and the stars if you asked, because he loves you.

And, because you deserve it. It's the least he could do for you for loving him.

Reaching out a wavering hand, Jeno gently pulls you up from your crouching position so the both of you could stand. Your gaze never leaves him, your previous question still hanging in the air.

The boy rests his hand delicately on your jaw. His eyes glaze over your face, taking in your beautiful features before landing on your lips with a shaky exhale.

"Do you love me too?" you ask for a third time, your irises shining with hope.

"Fuck," he breathes out. "I- I do. I love you, so much."

You don't even get the chance to beam at his confession before he closes the distance between the two of you, his soft lips against yours.

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word-wytch · 1 year

Text

Don't Stand So Close To Me — Chapter 14

Eddie x Teacher!Reader

Chapter 14/? 18k. Series Masterlist

✏︎ An invitation to The Hideout answers some long burning questions.

✏︎ Series Summary: Forced to move back home to Hawkins after your fiancé cheats on you, you begin to fall in love again with an audacious 20 year old metalhead, only there’s one problem — he’s still in high school and you’re his English teacher.

While you struggle starting over in a place you never thought you would return, Eddie struggles feeling stuck in a place he can’t manage to leave — until you offer to help him. Of all the lessons learned, the most important are the ones you teach each other.

✏︎ Series CW: forbidden romance, slow burn, true love, smut (18+ mdni), internal conflict, student-teacher relationship, 10 year age gap, mutual pining, sexual tension, emotions, drama, angst, character development, happy ending :)

Chapter CW: kissing, heavy petting, jealousy, protective!eddie, drinking, smoking, fluff

Tuesday, December 10th 1985

Winter crept in like a lamb. It nipped at your ankles when you got out of bed, beckoned you to hibernate in the warm cocoon of soft sheets and heavy blankets. The room was a lightless cave, the sky still as dense as midnight. Feet shuffling blindly at the floor to find your slippers, you clicked on the small lamp atop your nightstand to offer some light to your habitat.

Standard routine — making shadows on the wall as you brushed your teeth, emerging out the door to the dark hallway, squinting under the harsh light of your kitchen. Two eggs over easy. Two pieces of toast. One phone that hung to the right of your small kitchen table like an omen as you dipped the crust into the yolks. Looming. Waiting. You swallowed a feeling with your next sip of coffee; flutters that danced down your throat and settled in the pit of your stomach.

By the time you returned to your bedroom, the sky touched your sheer curtains with the palest blue. Your clothing was already laid out neatly on your dresser, poised like soldiers in a row — thick ribbed stockings; plaid wool skirt; stiff white blouse; cream knit sweater.

As you suited up, stripping yourself of warm pajamas to brace the chill of your formal attire, your eyes drifted to an object on your desk. Powder blue and collecting a fair amount of dust; an IBM Selectric II typewriter. It was more or less a decoration now, pushed against the wall to make room for piles of papers in need of grading. Still, you liked the way it looked; cheery against the drab apartment wall, like something a real writer would have.

It was a trusty old thing, still chugging along despite countless college essays hammered into the grey keys. It had been your only company in the wee hours of many mornings such as this one, only then there had not been sleep to separate you from the night before. Sturdy and dependable, it captured your imagination too, letter by black inked letter.

Fastening the buttons of your blouse in a methodical rhythm, you could almost trick yourself into believing it was any other morning, except today there was something else you needed to do before you left, and the clock on your nightstand let you know in glowing red that your window to do so was closing.

Cold linoleum creaked under your stocking feet as you padded into the kitchen, stomach twisting into knots as you approached the phone. If you were going to do this, it had to be now.

Running your finger down the laminated tabs of the well-loved address book on your counter, you flipped to the section labeled “J”. After scanning a dozen hand-written names, you found the one you were looking for. It was a mess of chalky white-out and hasty scribbles. Last name replaced, same with the phone number and address. You weren’t sure why you didn’t just write it all fresh under “P”, perhaps it was something about not wanting to erase the history entirely.

You took a deep breath and snatched the phone off the receiver. Pressing the cold plastic to your ear, you glanced down at the numbers in blue pen and whispered them quietly to yourself as you slowly, hesitantly, clicked them one by one into the cream button pad on the wall.

You stared across the kitchen in sober contemplation of your life choices as the phone rang. Again. And again. And again, until a familiar, groggy voice answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey! Janet!” you greeted brightly, sounding far too awake for 7:06 AM. In your nervous haste, you almost forgot to tell her who was calling.

“Oh… hey there,” came a hesitant voice on the other line, a sharp squeal cut through the static followed by a hush.

“Hey, um, I know it’s like, super early and totally last minute but I wanted to catch you before I left for work. Listen, I’ve had a hell of a week already and I was wondering—and I totally get it if you can’t, but—well I was wondering if you’d be up for going out tonight. Like say around eight-ish?” You bit your lip and grimaced, twisting the gummy cord around your finger.

The pause was filled with the rattling of tiny fists against plastic. “Oh! Well let’s see,” she said in a voice that was suddenly very awake. “The kids will be asleep by then, or at least they should be,” she chuckled, “and Bob doesn’t go to bed till after eleven anyway, so I’m sure he’ll be fine if I escape for a few hours. I mean I’ll check with him but I really don’t see why not.”

It was equally as promising as it was a relief; the excitement that crept through her voice.

“Great! Yeah, I figured you could probably use a night out.”

“Oh gosh, you don’t even know the half of it,” Janet laughed. “So where were you thinking? You wanna just go to Pal-Joeys again?”

Pacing toward the counter, you braced to offer your suggestion. “Actually, I was thinking we could go to The Hideout, I hear there’s a band playing tonight.”

“The Hideout?” she asked through an incredulous smile.

“I know,” you breathed nervously, “it’s not really our um, regular haunt, but that’s kinda why I want to go, you know? Shake things up a bit. Everything’s just been feeling so… routine lately, you know?”

Janet’s sigh was deep and heavy. “Oh trust me, I know.” A bright coo crackled through the telephone line.

“Like, I kind of want to just…” you coiled your finger deeper into the phone cord, glancing at the glaring red clock above the stove, “I dunno…pretend to be somebody else for a change.”

“You know,” she started, a quiet mischief creeping into her voice, “I could really stand to be somebody else for a night too.”

You paused in your pacing as a smile cracked across your face. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Gosh, do you know your birthday was the last time I went out? Seriously! And before that I don’t even remember. Sometimes I look around and it’s like, man I used to be fun. You remember when I was fun, right?”

You chuckled, drifting back to memories of truths and dares, of creeping down her dark basement steps with freshly painted toes. “You still are fun, Janet.”

“Well maybe you can help remind me because sometimes I look in the mirror and I swear I don’t even recognize myself. Really! I swear I see my mother more and more and that’s what’s really terrifying.”

“You mean you don’t see Bloody Mary anymore?”

Janet’s cackle would have woken the whole house had it not been wide awake and eating Cheerios already. “No that’s just at my parents’ house, remember?”

You snorted, leaning back against the counter. “I think we screamed so loud we woke the neighbors. I swear that bathroom is haunted.”

“That’s what I’ve always said! You feel like you’re being watched, right? My parents still don’t believe me. Oh well, not my problem anymore.”

You laughed, the knot in your belly releasing slightly before you glanced at the clock again, 7:13. “Crap, I’ve gotta get going. So I’ll see you at eight tonight? At The Hideout?”

“Yeah, should be fine. I’ll call you if anything changes. Ah!” she squealed, “I can’t wait.”

“Glad you’re excited,” you chuckled, gripping the smooth plastic. “Ok, see you later.”

“Bye now!”

You hung the phone back on the receiver and stood in the blaring silence of your kitchen, frozen by the impact of your choices. It was real now. In a matter of about thirteen hours you would be getting in your car, driving down a dark road, and parking it at a seedy bar where you would see Eddie for the first time in public. Your feet felt glued to the floor, but as the clock blinked to 7:15, you willed them to move.

Before taking the dark road that led to a seedy bar, you would first need to get in your car and take another road — to work.

You cursed the cold. Cursed it as you hurried across the parking lot to find your car covered in fractals of frost. Cursed it vehemently as you worked the glass with your feeble plastic scraper, shaving holes just big enough to see out of your dashboard and rear window as the clock on your wrist ticked on minute by precious minute. You cursed it audibly when you turned the key and the engine whirred, and whined, and refused to turn over. It must have heard you, because after the fifth time of stomping on the brake and snapping your wrist forward, the engine roared to life.

You rode in on a wave; a daze like the fog that escaped your lungs in shallow breaths. The sun rose above the frozen farmlands, casting its golden-pink light across the empty fields. Out here the roads stretched on for miles. Flat and straight, with little variance in elevation. There was nowhere to look but straight ahead. No curves to surprise you, just you and the rumble of the salt-dusted road, bumping along in silence as an anxious fog rolled across the landscape of your mind.

A sea of students swept you through the front doors of Hawkins High and into the bustling office. Amidst the flurry of ringing phones and voices settling into the cadence of their roles, you grabbed your punch card and stamped the date and time in line with the rest. Pushing the metal handle of the heavy glass door, you exited the humming reprieve of the office and into the din of the main hall. Your boots made hollow clicks against the glossy tile, wind at your face as you marched forward, dodging roughhousing students and hall monitors rushing toward them.

Goodness was a mantle. A strap that dug into your shoulder; heavy with books, and papers, and responsibility. You wedged your thumb beneath it, shrugging it up onto the padded wool collar of your coat as you strode on, vision locked ahead as chaos swirled around you.

Your mug left a ring on the big desk; a remnant from where you’d sloshed it coming down the hall. You’d tried to be careful; slow and deliberate in your pacing when you left the teachers lounge with it, but when a blur of wild curls drew your gaze, your footing faltered. At least you missed your shoes.

Coat hung on its solitary hook and grade book stationed at the center of the desk, you took your place in front of it. Clutching your clipboard, you glanced across the rows of desks, down at the rows of names, beside the rows of boxes that your green pen would fill with neat little P’s and A’s like it did every day. Bell after bell, swipe after swipe of your eraser at the board, the fresh sticks of chalk dwindled to nubs. Question after question, the patience in your voice grew thin.

Between the bells at the top of fourth period, you stood poised like a sentinel outside the door to your classroom. Arms folded across your knit sweater, you sighed, shifting your weight back and forth between your tired feet, offering gentle smiles as your students filed through the threshold of the door. You smelled him before you saw him; the waft of leather and cigarettes with notes of shampoo more prominent than usual.

Against the flow of traffic, Eddie Munson brought his salt-licked combat boots to a halt in front of you. Thumb hooked under the heavy strap of his backpack, he offered you a smile so broad it crinkled the corners of his eyes and made your knees want to give.

You tightened your arms around your sweater, over the hard plastic of your faculty lanyard, and breathed a shy, girlish greeting. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he mimicked, shifting his weight with a less than subtle restlessness as his dark eyes drank you in. They darted back and forth between yours, plush lips parted and primed with words. You felt them brimming impatiently behind his eyes, saw them in the pink flash of his tongue as it darted out to wet his lips.

Out here in the bustling hallway, with eyes that watched and voices that echoed off the polished tile, Eddie edged a bold foot closer, dove in, and ghosted the shell of your ear with his burning question.

“Will I see you tonight?”

The words were a low, hot rumble — rippling from your ear down your spine, pooling deep in your belly. His heat thawed your shoulder as he hovered there, lingering for each aching second it took you to eke out your response.

“Yeah,” you whispered into his curls.

Pulling back with a blinding grin, he tipped his head and ducked into the door of your classroom.

The slam of a locker made you jump. Arms crossed to shield your pounding heart, you stood there in the middle of it all, swimming in a sea of passing bodies, struggling to keep your head above the waves. It surged with images of a lighted stage, of bottles, and tables, and a dark corner for both of you to hide in. The bell echoed loudly down the hall, shrill enough to wake you from the dream you were surely having. Donning your mask, you took a deep breath and dove in, shutting the door behind you.

______

Eddie swung open the heavy back doors to his van, piercing the darkness with the dull yellow overhead light. Gravel crunched under his boots as he leaned in to grab the first amp from the stack, like a pile of black Christmas presents awaiting unwrapping. The night air bit at his fingers, stars twinkling in the patches where the clouds gave way above the tree line. Tightening his grip around the thick gummy handle, he hoisted it and followed the pale path the moon offered out of the side parking lot toward the patio behind The Hideout.

It wasn’t much; a stout fence in dire need of a paint job that caged in a few meager picnic tables. They still had umbrellas in the middle, wrapped tightly like mummies for the winter. He knew the back door would be open, it always was. Turning the weathered knob with his free hand, he welcomed the heat that wafted toward him. He could almost say he welcomed the piss smell coming from the bathrooms as his heavy boots thumped down the dark linoleum hallway, but that would be a stretch. Accustomed was a better word. Familiar was a better word.

Stale beer and cigarettes soon drowned it out as he entered the dimly lit bar, stopping to plunk the heavy amp down to his left on the stage, which was little more than a raised platform painted black. The thud drew the attention of the five usual suspects at the bar, and Eddie wondered which one of them was responsible for playing “Free Bird” on the jukebox.

Bill raised his hand, tipping his baseball cap back in a friendly nod as his fingers splayed. “‘Ey, Eddie!”

He returned the gesture of a single raised hand and flashed a smile before turning down the hall again. Eddie took a deep breath at the door to calm his pounding heart before pressing it open. He couldn’t believe he had been crazy enough to suggest something like this. That soon enough, you would be perched atop one of those rickety stools at a tall, sticky table, watching his every move, listening to his every note. The chill of the night air was a welcome thing, sobering and distracting from the heat that was creeping up the collar of his thick, leather coat. As the gravel crunched under his boots again, headlights blinded his vision.

He could hear the bass pounding from the outside of the small sedan as it rolled up beside his van, followed promptly by another. After a moment of squinting, the headlights shut off with the rumble of the engine, leaving him in the darkness once again. Seatbelts clicked and laughter emerged from the open doors as his friends tumbled out into the parking lot.

“What the fuck took you guys so long? We left at the same time,” Eddie groused.

Dave lumbered over and sighed, a smirk playing on his broad features in the moonlight. “Jeff had to take a shit and he parked me in.”

Jeff rolled his eyes, swinging the door shut with a huff as Gareth laughed into the night air.

Eddie sighed, glancing toward the tall stack of amps and drum heads sitting backlit in the rear of his van. “Ok, well we’ve got like forty minutes to get our shit together so start hauling.”

Dave groaned, cracking his back with a twist of his hefty torso. “Ugh, can you at least let me hit this doob before you put me to work?”

On any other night, Eddie would have welcomed the suggestion, but his nerves were traveling to his hands now and he itched to move them. “Dude, it takes us like an hour to set up, we don’t have time right now. We can smoke after we get this shit on stage.”

Jeff quirked his brows suspiciously, “Dude, since when do you care that we’re on time for anything?”

“Yeah seriously, we’re late like every week,” Gareth added.

Eddie balked, searching for the answer in the treeline, one that excluded you. “It just—if we’re ever gonna play anywhere else besides here we’re gonna have to start getting our shit together.”

There was a lukewarm pause as the band considered his answer. By the looks on their faces, Eddie wasn’t entirely sure if they bought it, but it was the best he could come up with and the statement was true. Dave broke the silence with an exasperated sigh. “Come on. I’ve been jonesing since we got to Gareth’s. His mom is so anal we can’t even smoke outside.”

“That’s ‘cause you reek when you come back in,” Gareth defended.

“At least I don’t reek of ass like you,” Dave chortled.

Jeff didn’t miss a beat. “That’s debatable.”

Gareth’s cackle wafted into the frigid air as he pointed a pale finger at Dave.

“You wanna find out the hard way?” Dave’s eyes glimmered wildly as he hooked an arm around Gareth’s shoulders, locking him into a power noogie position.

Gravel shuffled under their stumbling feet. “Let go of me you asshole,” Gareth gritted through a strangled laugh. Jeff only egged them on, howling uproariously like he had tickets to the show.

Eddie dragged his hands down his face with a deep, seething breath as Dave ground his thick knuckles into Gareth’s mop of hair, kicking up rocks and pivoting as Gareth attempted to pry away. This was his circus, his monkeys, and he would have to step up and be the ring leader if they were going to take the stage at all tonight. “CUT IT OUT!” he hollered.

Dave paused, arm still locked around Gareth’s neck. “Come on, we’re just having a little fun. You remember fun, right?”

Gareth groaned weakly, looking up at Eddie with pathetic eyes. “Who’s we?” he choked.

Eddie’s expression didn’t budge from its scowl. With a roll of his eyes and a resigned huff, Dave released his arm and Gareth stumbled backward, gasping. “Fine, captain killjoy.”

A heavy plume of fog left his nostrils as Eddie stormed toward the back of his van, weaving his arm through a thick ring of cables to rest on his shoulder before hoisting another amp from the stack. Gravel shuffled behind him as the others followed suit.

You were risking a lot to come here. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint you.

______

The silence gnawed at you, filled you with an itching discomfort as you thumbed your dresser knobs. Staring into your open shirt drawer, you faced off with your biggest decision yet — what to wear tonight.

The chasm of options laid before you in neat, folded rows. An excavation site of cardigans, and turtle necks, and things you hadn’t unearthed in years. You ran your fingers through the layers of folded cotton, peeling them back with deep consideration.

Nagging thoughts crept in like whispers over the softly ticking clock, pinball plunger pulled and ready to fire. With a determined huff, you stepped back from your dresser and padded down the hallway, out into the living room.

Your skirt pooled around your stocking feet as you crouched down in front of the long wooden cabinet that housed your records. Fingers dancing over the worn cardboard spines, you flipped them softly forward as you perused one by one, walking steadily until one of them fell open to a scene; a painting of a man hunched over with sticks tied to his back that hung on a wall of peeling paper. You paused, pulling it out to scan the track list. This would do.

Placing the the record softly on the felt pad, you lowered the needle to the ridges, and with the press of a button, a crackle roused the room.

Hey hey momma said the way you move

Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove

A smile, like a crocus peeking up from the snow, bloomed across your face. You cranked the volume, wrapping yourself in a sound that would carry to your bedroom.

Your fingers found the tiny metal tab behind your waist, and with a downward tug of the zipper, your wool skirt became a puddle on the floor. Peeling back the layers, your tight sweater joined it in a heap, your thick stockings lay deflated on the pile, the buttons of your stiff blouse worked free until it was a crumpled afterthought. The chill that kissed your skin was a welcome thing. Goosebumps raised like the current flowing through you as your near-naked silhouette danced across the wall to approach the open drawer once more.

Emboldened with a curious delight, you began to dig. Past the crust of crisp blouses, beneath the squishy mid-layer of cardigans, down into the sub-layer of camisoles and tees, deeper and deeper until finally your fingers made purchase with a soft treasure.

It fell open as you unearthed it, the solid black gone grey from washing, the white letters and arched angel cracked and faded: Led Zeppelin — United States of America 1977.

It happened on a Sunday in April, which began as most Sundays did, with you hunched over your powder blue typewriter in a race between the clock and the keys. You had it down to a science. At the speed you were typing, a rough draft could be finished by dinner, and the final could be churned out by cutting into a few hours of your sleep. A worthy sacrifice, as your final grade was on the finish line. This, like countless others, was how you planned to spend your day — until your roommate found you.

You remembered the way she leaned against the wooden frame of your bunk bed, amused, watching the paper you hammered with black-inked letters grow longer and longer. Finally she spilled it; as of an hour ago, she was down one boyfriend and up one ticket, and now it had your name on it. When she dangled it between you and the tidy rows of text, your hands froze over the keys.

You eyed the invitation — temptation printed on a neat, orange strip. Free admission, at a price.

The show was sold out. It had been for a long time.

Your class was at 9:00 AM tomorrow. A late paper took twenty percent off your grade.

You loved the band dearly, had a bigger crush on Robert Plant than you’d openly admit to anyone. Fights had broken out over tickets nation wide. You had no idea when they would play the states again.

The clock ticked on beside you, the long hand grazed past three. Maybe you could churn out the rest in the next few hours. Maybe the rough draft would be enough. But the realist in you knew neither would happen if you seized the ticket. Your grade would never recover, your streak of straight As you’d kept since grade school would come to an end. Your GPA would dip for the semester.

On April 17th, 1977, you left your paper sitting unfinished in the typewriter to see Led Zeppelin play Market Square Arena. You didn’t know it then, but it was the last time they ever would.

On April 18th at 9:00 AM, you showed up to class with empty hands and a brand new shirt.

You had altered your souvenir; taken scissors to the collar so that it draped off your shoulder. Time and your washing machine had made Swiss cheese of the bottom hem, so you cropped it. You admired the handiwork as it draped off you now, the way the black strap of your bra peeked out from the slope of your shoulder like a coy secret.

Pulling open the lower drawer—opened far less frequently than you would like—your knuckles grazed the bottom of the smooth wood interior as you peeled back the layers of folded denim. A crease of black jumped out from the sea of blue, and you examined it. It had a nice worn-in fade for only having lived in your dresser a few years, a flatteringly high waist, and most importantly, tapered legs that could easily be tucked into the tall, black boots sitting in the back of your closet. Your bare legs welcomed the barrier against the chill, and you caught a glance at your rear as you hiked them snugly upward. They hugged you in all the right places, as the music electrified the air, you transformed.

A vision of you — sprawled across a blanket on the quad with your face in a book. Making shadows on your dorm room wall while transmuting fantasies to black-inked pages. Strolling down a lamp-lit street, face to the stars, fueling your wild imagination. Here, in your reflection, the ghost of you looked back.

You painted her darker than normal, swapping the usual chapstick for a deep, dusty red exhumed from the bottom of your makeup bag. Eyes smoked and cheeks dusted, you drew out the beauty from angles of your face with every stroke.

Coat donned and purse in hand, you paused at the front door, glancing over your shoulder, down the hallway, toward your coffee table piled with papers. There was another ghost of you here — tucked into her slippers and cozy robe with the voices from the television as her only company, flicking her green grading pen down rows of questions.

On December 10th, 1985, you left the papers sitting on your coffee table to see Corroded Coffin play The Hideout. With a decided twist of the handle, you pushed out into the cold night air.

Light pooled in sparse puddles as your boots echoed off the rough pavement. Stillness whispered on the wind as crisp remnants of fall scuttled across the asphalt. The apartments behind you were a tapestry of glowing squares, pictures of the rest of Hawkins tucking into their slippers and washing their dishes, grabbing their blankets and turning on their televisions.

You grabbed your keys and unlocked your car, and when it roared to life with a swift flick of your wrist, a strange exhilaration coursed through you.

It rose like the moon over the barren fields, thrumming in your chest, spreading to your limbs, alight with something wild and teeming as you drove past rows of lighted windows—vignettes of tired routine—and stopped at the same red sign you did this morning. Your fingers twitched over the turn signal leaver — an impulse to flick up, to turn right, to settle into the familiar rhythm of your muscle memory. This time you pressed down, pressed your foot to the gas, and cranked the wheel left.

Cruising boldly down the straight and narrow road, fields and farmland faded in your rearview mirror and soon there were trees on the horizon; dense and dark. Gripping the wheel as the silhouette closed in, the corners of your mouth drew upward, pulled by a wild, awakened force. Headlights illuminated pale, naked limbs. Eyes beamed back at you from the shadows. You cranked the volume on your stereo, and as you braced for your first bend, something deep within you—dormant and restless—howled.

______

The water was so cold it burned. Eddie cursed the old plumbing, instantly regretting having the decency to wash his hands in the first place. Soap just barely rinsed, he twisted the lime-scaled handles and shut it off. With a trembling hand, he grabbed one of the last paper towels. Gareth’s kick drum echoed down the narrow hallway, thundering just like his chest. He glanced at his watch again. 7:56.

Eddie took a ragged breath, chucking the crumpled paper at the overflowing trash bin in the corner. It bounced dejectedly off the wall and onto the dirty tile. With a deadpan glare, he left it where it lay. Hands barely dry, he felt for the flask in his pocket. Screwing the tiny cap and flicking it open, he tipped it back. Eddie welcomed the burn. It chased down his throat and settled in his stomach with a warmth that radiated, instantly numbing his nerves.

Meeting his own eyes in the tiny, smudged mirror, he gave himself a final glance over. His curls were holding; fresh and clean from this morning, fluffed by the icy wind in the trips from van to stage.

Here, in the dingy confines of The Hideout, words like freak and loser lost their stick. Words he could shake like a dog at the door. He’d fashioned them like armor in the daytime; a shield in hallways and in lunch lines. What was stickier were feelings. The feelings that came with chewed pens and answers left blank. The feeling of lectures slipping like a sieve through his brain. The feeling of stares and stifled laughter, of staring numbly at the board, of filling the silence with bullshit instead of an answer.

Microphone feedback squeaked outside. The dull, heavy walk of a bassline. Laughter. Cymbals. That kick drum again. Eddie took another swig, searing the flutters in his stomach.

He wanted to be good for you. Seen under stage lights instead of fluorescents.

Good like an answer he knew.

You saw the sign first, peeking from behind the trees — simple, effective, and yellowed with time. The Hideout: a hole in the woods. Tucked around the bend you now braced against, it sat like a neon beacon. The chipped, grey exterior faded into the shadows, leaving only the holy glow of Budweiser and Miller Lite signs to guide you to the promised land.

Pulling into a spot along the narrow parking strip, you faced off with your destination. Looming and real. Frozen as reality stared back at you in the glare of your blinding headlights, you gripped the steering wheel and looked around. There were a few other cars beside you, but none of them Janet’s. Around the left of the building there appeared to be more parking, and the stout silhouette of a two-tone van you did know the owner of. Pinballs hammered in your chest.

When you arrange a time to meet someone, you are always punctual. Perhaps a life organized by bells on timers trained you to be this way, but the thought of entering alone filled you with dread, and part of you wondered whether you should wait out here for her. Your hands were starting to shake, and not from the cold.

The list of crazy things you had done in your life was a laughably short one, but this made the top by a long shot. As you turned the radio down and sat in the wake of your rumbling engine, the questions grew louder. Serious questions about where you thought this night would go, about where you wanted it to go and if you would truly go there.

Suddenly your headlights felt too bright, like a beacon drawing eyes from the woods, or even more terrifying, eyes from the building. You promptly flicked them off and waited, staring dead ahead at the chipped grey siding. It was fine. You were fine. At least you could no longer see your breath. You could hide here as long as you wanted.

“Alright man, it’s doob o’clock,” Dave said with a satisfied stretch as he took in the stage setup.

Eddie ripped another frantically scribbled setlist out of his spiral notebook and shoved it at him. “No it’s eight fifteen and we still need to do soundcheck,” Eddie scathed, glancing at the door. “You can start by plugging your mic in, Jesus Christ.”

Dave huffed annoyedly through his nose, squatting down to find the cord with exaggerated difficulty. “Yes sir,” he mocked. Eddie shot back a testing glare. “Dude, what’s up with you tonight? You’ve been on one since Gareth’s.”

“Yeah, you ok man?” asked Jeff.

The knots tightened in his stomach as the attention of all three of them closed in around him. “Just—let’s just get our shit together…please,�� he deflected.

Glancing around frantically, you wondered, for the hundredth time, where the hell Janet was. You couldn’t be that surprised that a woman with two small children was late, but your exhaust was making a smokescreen of the parking strip, and you wondered if anyone inside had noticed, if anyone could hear the low rumble of your engine and questioned why this strange woman was idling. With an irritated sigh, you turned the key, leaving you in deafening silence and leeching cold. You could hear your breathing now, your pounding heart, the squeaking of leather as you shifted in your seat. What one of the kids got sick? What if she called after you left?

What if she isn’t coming?

Eddie’s eyes lingered at the door as he clicked the pedals with his feet, plucking a soft, testing melody into the mic. His watch glared under the stage lights, confidence fleeting with every minute that ticked by. Gareth snapped his foot petal with a deep thud. Dave walked out a bassline before squealing feedback made the whole bar flinch.

The strum of a chord made you jump. Booming and electric, you heard it through the walls. They were starting. They were starting and you weren’t there. Gripping the steering wheel, you tossed your head back in an anguished sigh. You sure as hell weren’t going to stand him up. As you glanced around the parking lot one last desperate time, the bitter conclusion rose like bile — you may have to do this alone. Seatbelt clicking under your gloved thumb, you steeled yourself for the cold, for the eyes of strangers in a strange new place. With a decided pull of the handle, the door opened to the frigid night air, and you emerged from the heat into the unknown.

You met your reflection in the glass of the entrance as your hand gripped the weathered knob. Pinballs fired off at lightning speed — a jackpot multi-ball bonanza. Checking your hair one last time with eyes locked on your own, you turned the handle with a determined sigh.

A bell dinged above your head, and winter’s chill gusted in on your heels.

The whole room turned at once — at you. You, from the front of the classroom. You, from behind the big desk. You, in the doorway of The Hideout. Across a dark sea of scattered tables, poised on an altar of sound and light, Eddie Munson smiled at you — brighter than all of it.

The door fell shut behind you. Hot under the gaze of what seemed like the entire bar, it suddenly felt like you were the one on stage. Standing there like a deer in headlights in your long wool coat and clean black boots, you surely must have looked as out of place as you felt. Shoulders rolling back to counter your thrumming nerves, your boots left the rug and found the tacky linoleum as you approached the bar that lined the left wall.

Eddie busied his shaking hands with tapping another test melody into his mic, pausing when he heard a voice over his right shoulder.

“Is that…?” Jeff pointed toward the back of your head.

Gareth’s eyes lit up in recognition. Dave peered over with a shit-eating grin. “Did you invite her?” he mouthed.

Eddie’s face betrayed him, burning like it did under the fluorescents. Burning to greet you at the bar, for the liberty to patronize it, to offer you something more than his aching gaze.

“No,” Eddie lied, “but I may have told her we play here on Tuesdays.” He struck the strings with the weight of his frustration, drowning out any further questions with the opening chords to the first song on the setlist. The others took their cue with chuckles and shaking heads. Heart pounding like the kick drum behind him, Eddie’s fingers found the frets, tugging a muscle memory from deep within as his eyes stayed fixed on you.

There was an older man in a sweatshirt behind the bar. The owner, you figured, by the way he was standing — arms crossed, stance wide, unafraid to take up space. By the way he was looking at you, like he wondered what would drive a new face to his establishment on a random Tuesday night in December. From the glances the others passed between them, the feeling seemed unanimous.

“How can I help you?” he half shouted against the chugging chords, leaning against the bar with a curious smile.

You braced with your brightest grin, placing your gloved hands down flat on the waxy bar. “Hi! Yes—um,” you scanned the selection under the neon lights, the liquor bottles of all shapes and sizes reflected in the dirty mirror behind them. The bar back was tightly cluttered with old stickers and hand-written notes taped behind the cash register, with half-empty bottles of bitters and bobble heads nodding to the palpable vibration. Having no interest in standing there awkwardly while he fixed you a cocktail, you selected a bottle of Coors.

He nodded and ducked to open the steel, magnet-plastered fridge beneath the cash register.

Your gaze, like a magnet, drew back to the stage. It was all you could do just to watch him — the way his curls fell gently at his cheek, the way they bounced with every strum. There was a tension lingering just under the curve of his lashes. The music was fast and loud, purely instrumental. You recognized nothing about it but the genre. Head dipped in concentration as his left hand tapped a frantic melody into the frets, he raised his eyes bravely to meet yours.

He wasn’t the only man staring. It was hard to ignore; the man in the baseball cap to your right as you stared right through his line of sight. You pinched off your gloves and shoved them in your pockets to occupy your hands.

A bottle cap plinked against the bar top. “Two bucks,” the owner stated, slinging a towel over his shoulder.

You fished through your purse, feeling those eyes on you as you opened your wallet, as you slid the bills right under his gaze across the waxy counter. You snatched the cold bottle and raised it to your lips. Turning over your shoulder, your eyes clung to Eddie on stage, to his tendons as they flexed to pick a rhythm at the strings. His was gaze a soft and yearning thing, a contrast to the sharp and punchy chords that left his fingers.

“You know these guys?” the man in the cap asked finally, pointing to the stage. Your eyes shot toward him in surprise, lips still pursed at the bottle. He had that working man sort of look. Average features, subtle crows feet, a whisper of sandy stubble across his strong jaw. His grey-blue eyes were gentle, but brimming with a heated curiosity.

You used the much needed swig to buy yourself a second. Did you? The cold, bready fizz sparkled down your throat. You supposed you didn’t have to specify how you were acquainted. “Yeah,” you answered simply, plugging your mouth with the bottle like a dam.

A bell rattled behind you. Grateful for any disruption, you whipped around quickly to break the connection. Janet lit up as soon as she saw you, a mixture of relief and apology playing out on her face as she strode across the room. Tight blonde curls emerged from her lowering leopard print hood. “Oh my god I’m so sorry,” she lamented, arms opening to embrace you.

Relief washed through you like a warm buzz. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it!” you said as your nose took a dive in her soft, perfumed curls.

“Sarah would not stop crying, it took forever for me to finally get her to sleep. I swear babies have a sixth sense, they always know when you have fun plans,” she said through a laugh. Her lashes were long and thick with mascara, eyeshadow a solid sky blue so vibrant that it popped even in the dim neon glow.

Janet ordered a margarita. There was nothing new to speak of, really, over the electric roar of the band, but you tried to listen. Intently, you tried to listen to the new words her son was saying, to offer some lukewarm update about how work was going, but your eyes had their own agenda.

The rolled cuffs of Eddie’s tight, acid-washed jeans bunched against the pull tabs of his boots as he tapped the rhythm with his heel. There was no jacket for him to strain against, no flannel to constrict him, no sleeves on his T-shirt in December. It was more than you’d seen of him yet. Ink flexed with each generous swell of his bicep, and with every attack, he would flash you his ribs through the hand-hacked holes.

“Mmm,” Janet mumbled, sipping off the top of the very full, salt-rimmed rocks glass. “Come on, let’s get cozy,” she said with a wink and gestured toward the tables. The air was thick with smoke wafting from the bikers at the bar. Eddie tapped out another lick and peered through a few stray curls as you followed her across the room to a high top, back and center.

You wanted to be closer. Close enough to see the umber of his eyes, the ridges of his knuckles as they plucked the strings. There were a few shorter tables down in front, back about five feet from the stage. But as the beams of light bounced off the glossy wood and over the seats in blinding white, you were grateful for the shadows ten feet would afford you.

Janet stripped off her coat to reveal a tight black dress with long sleeves and sequined, padded shoulders. It hugged just above the knees of her sheer hose, punctuated with sharp ankle boots.

“Look at you all dressed up! You look stunning.” You meant it, she really did.

Janet’s smile was a shy deflection, but hiding just beneath it, a glimmer of belief. “Thanks, this thing’s been sitting in my closet for like a year now. Can you believe it? I just felt like, you know, if I’m going out I’m gonna dress up goddamn it,” she laughed, punctuating with a slap against the table. “We coulda gone to Benny’s, I still woulda worn it.”

You laughed, for the first time since you’d talked to her that morning. Unbuttoning your coat, you let it drape over the metal back of the stool behind you.

“You’re not looking too shabby yourself,” Janet said with a wink before taking a sip.

“Honestly I’ll take any excuse I can get to dress down,” you said with a sheepish huff, propping your elbows on the sticky table before bringing the bottle to your lips.

A nervous crackle wound its way through Eddie’s stomach at the vision of you. You, perched on a stool in a dive bar. You, in jeans and a t-shirt. You, arching forward just enough to grace him with a sliver of your back. It was real — you, here. He soured a note, and those words he shook off came creeping back in as he fumbled through the next lick. But you didn’t seem to notice. You propped your cheek against your knuckles and let the warmth of your eyes usher his doubts away.

When the song came to a ringing conclusion, Janet’s cheer was uninhibited, clapping her hands above her head. It drew eyes from the couple seated at one of the lower tables, from the bikers at the bar, from the band. Your applause was more demure, but you couldn’t mask the brilliance of your smile.

“Thank you, thank you,” Eddie said into the microphone. “Looks like we really have a crowd tonight. Seven drunks.”

The room erupted with hollers and cheers.

The bassist muttered something to the other guitarist and the two shared a laugh, casting their eyes towards you. Suddenly your face grew very hot. Of course they recognized you, Jeff was in your second period class. You anticipated this, and yet it was the realness of it all that shook you — the hard stool beneath you, the stares you could feel as your finger idly traced the cold condensation on the glass. Pinballs fired off at rapid speed. You drowned them with a tip of the bottle.

Eddie shifted, clicking the pedals with his foot. “Ok, so this next one is uh, definitely not an original.” He breathed a laugh into the microphone, glancing up at you — at your shoulders, hunched in shy defense, at your worried brow and downcast gaze. He wished he could reach across the room, lift your chin with his words and draw you from your shell. “Anyway, you’ll uh, probably recognize this one,” he said, to you.

Eddie nodded to the band, counting off silently before they struck a chord together — a low, droning thing, gritty and slow as the bass walked steadily over the foundation. Eddie swayed back and forth, rocking in time with the beat like a march, resting his heavy-lidded gaze on you. Across the divide of scattered seats, you — at the small table, saw him — on the big stage. His nimble fingers struck the chords with an ardent conviction, and the ice in you began to thaw.

Suddenly the beat changed pace. Gareth smacked his drum sticks together to count off, and the first two chords sparked instant recognition. A smile rose up in you — a wild and thrumming thing, radiant and rising until it cracked through.

You knew what was coming. Two chords, quiet taps for a count of sixteen, and then those two chords again, like a one-two punch, booming and building with anticipation. Again, and again, as the energy rose in the room. You caught the wicked glint in his eyes as his hands—those hands that fidgeted and fumbled with dog-eared pages and chewed up pens—wielded power. A surge of electricity swirled through your stomach, crackled because you knew what was next.

Eddie took a deep breath, and opened his mouth.

Generals gathered in their masses

Colors. Warm and bright, tingling like a shockwave from your chest down to your seat.

Just like witches at black masses

In your secret daydreams, you often wondered what his voice sounded like in song.

Evil minds that plot destruction

Tried to guess from his deep hums and brilliant laughter.

Sorcerers of death’s construction

Now, it suspended in the air like a battle cry, reaching out across the chasm of tables and chairs.

In the fields the bodies burning

Surging like a wildfire.

As the war machine keeps turning

Swirling through the darkness like a strange magic.

Death and hatred to mankind

Reaching out like it wanted to touch you.

Poisoning their brainwashed minds

And so you let it.

Oh lord, yeah!

The music rocked and swelled. Like a balm reverberating through the air, it softened the hunch of your shoulders. Like an antidote, it dissolved the knot in your stomach. Like an arrow, it pierced the shell of you.

Janet took a generous sip of her margarita and bobbed her head to the rhythm. You caught her gaze from across the table and shared a laugh, a mutual knowing through squinted eyes and shaking heads that this was, in fact, a Tuesday night in December, and the two of you were here.

As the cold drink warmed your limbs, you became acquainted with the hard curve of the stool beneath you, with the of rings left behind on the glossy table, with the crowded ashtray. Acquainted with the smoke that wafted through the air and the darkness that enveloped you like a blanket. The music settled over the room, and as you settled into that heavy buzz, you started to get the feeling you might actually enjoy yourself tonight.

Janet needed no convincing. Her first margarita went down easy, leaving nothing but the ice and her hot pink lipstick on the rim before they finished their fourth song. When she returned from the bar with one in each hand, she placed the extra in front of you. Her treat, convinced they were better than Pal Joey’s, insisting that you try it even with a few sips still lingering in your bottle.

It surprised you — the balance of lime, and liquor, and something else you couldn’t quite place. It surprised you how it easy it melted the tension in your stomach, how it encouraged you to lean in a little more, to let your shoulders drop.

Eddie noticed it, peeking out from under the coyly dipping collar of your shirt; bare and soft as you leaned against the table — your shoulder. He missed a note. Cursing silently, he glanced down at his fingers and tapped into that deep, subconscious part of his brain again where they knew just where to go. But when he closed his eyes to find it, the image remained painted to his lids — a ripened fruit, tempting but too far to taste. Across it, a stripe of black hazard tape, a trail he itched to follow.

There was a hunger in you, stirring more with every song, with every decadent flash of his pale ribs. He was good. Stadium good. Those nimble fingers tapped the frets, making them sing in a way that made you wish you were wire and wood, looking at you in a way that made you think he wished the same. He stroked the neck of his instrument with a reverent touch, attacked the strings with a holy power, like a wingless angel with a spotlight halo. You whispered a silent prayer, venerating him from your faraway pew in the only way you could — with your eyes.

The animal stirred in its icy den, roused by the warmth of his voice as it stretched across the bar. It stirred in that place you rarely acknowledged, rarely indulged as you considered what other talents his hands might have. You considered the shades of those sighs and swallows he took before painting the air, considered what they might sound like if he showed you. It settled and throbbed in that low, blooming place, and you smothered the feeling with a cross of your legs.

Busying yourself with what remained of your beer, you shifted your shoulders to face him directly, leaning your free arm against the metal back of the stool with an ease that Eddie considered looked almost as good on you as the shirt did. Your lips lingered on the rim of the bottle before parting with a soft pop. He swallowed.

There was a gap between you; a sea of scattered tables and wide open ears and eyes amongst them. What could he possibly say from his position? From a microphone on stage? A thousand words ached on the tip of his tongue and he swallowed them with a sloppy chug of water as the applause bought him a moment to consider.

The white lettering across your chest jumped out at him from the shadows like a bright idea. Eddie swiped droplets from his mouth and turned to his bandmates, bringing them into a huddle as the noise drowned out what he was saying. Whatever it was, after some deliberation, they seemed in agreement about it.

You hadn’t seen Janet like this since the summer between your junior and senior year of college. She was always a happy drunk; talkative and bubbly, spilling over with laughter and the sort of wild enthusiasm that a child at a carnival might have.

“I wanna dance,” she said longingly, glancing toward the stage as she slumped in her seat.

“Maybe we can go to a club next time,” you joked as you downed the remainder of your sweating drink.

The band assumed their positions again. Eddie tapped the pedals with his feet and rolled his shoulders back with a deep, collecting breath. His eyes found yours across the room, brimming with such a longing you wondered anyone else could sense it too. After the longest second, he snapped his head over his shoulder with a steely conviction and nodded off a count before making his attack — the opening riff to Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”.

Your hands shot to your face.

Suddenly Janet perked up, inspired by the catchy rhythm and her own suggestion. “We should dance! Will you dance with me?”

You balked, shrinking down. “There’s like… six people here! I don’t think it’s really that kind of—”

“Oh come on, please? What’s there to lose, huh?”

Oh, only my last remaining shred of dignity in front of my students. But you couldn’t say that. “Janet,” you hissed. “We are not—I can’t—”

Her three margaritas had a different opinion. They reached across the table and grabbed your hand. “Come on, live a little! That’s what we came here to do, right?”

You buried your face in your other. The truth was you wanted to. You wanted a closeup of that smart smirk, of the sweat beading down his temple as he strummed the punchy chords he hand-picked just for you. You wanted the fantasy, the memory, the experience. It was convincing — her pouting pink lips and pleading eyes, almost as convincing as the tequila coursing through your veins. The truth was you left your better judgement at home on the coffee table. To her giddy satisfaction, you surrendered. Dragging you from your seat, she led you to the front of the stage.

Eddie’s smile could have blinded you, even through the shy web of your fingers. Cheers erupted from the bar, from the whole band, as Janet shimmied her sequined shoulders to the beat.

Eddie opened his mouth again, this time with an ardor you could feel in your bones.

You need cooling, baby I’m not fooling

He crouched down to level with your eyes. I’m gonna send ya back to schooling

You lowered your hand to mask the girlish grin that cracked across your face.

Way down inside, honey you need it

They were breathtaking up close — his eyes. Sparkling with an energy you’d never seen before. Rich umber alight with something you couldn’t quite place, too mesmerized by the promise his tongue wove through the air.

I’m gonna give you my love

I’m gonna give you my love… oh!

He straightened with a backward toss of his head, and you found the word you were looking for in the droplets that flung from his curls. Power.

Wanna whole lotta love?

Janet—having an absolute field day over the spectacle—offered you her hand like she wanted to tango. Freeing your face with a brave sigh, you accepted with a slap of your palm in hers. She tugged with a childish delight, and you took your cue — spinning into her waiting arm and shooting back out with a flourish dredged up from some long forgotten place. The room became a blur of sound and light, of cheers from the bar and the stage. You stilled to find your footing, landing on his eyes.

You’ve been learning, and baby I’ve been yearning

He dipped down again. All them good times baby, baby, I’ve been lear-er-nin’, he punctuated with a shake of his head. He could see the whole vision of you, bright and clear under the stage lights. A wildness lingering just behind your eyes, a fragment unseen until now. It pounded at the cage of your chest, rose up in the shallow breaths you caught before Janet snatched you away again. He swore—silently on a deep inhale—that he would do everything in his power to coax it out of you.

Way, way down inside, oh honey you need it

I’m gonna give you my love

You couldn’t remember the last time you really danced. The last time you felt a rhythm with your body and followed its blind inspiration. No rhyme or reason, no plans or choreography. It felt awkward at first, like trying on skin fresh from the wash. Feeling your feet shuffle against the tacky linoleum, finding the rhythm of yourself with a room full of strangers as witness.

Somewhere between the beams of light and the wink of Eddie’s rings beneath them, you found it. Like a memory rising up, sweeping through you like a current. Visions of a stadium, roaring as a lion struts the stage with his golden mane, as he commands a sea of thousands with his voice. There was an animal in you too, wild and careless.

It grew wilder when the music dropped to nothing but percussion. When the room fell away to nothing but the heat from Eddie’s eyes, sparkling with play. It made your hips want to sway a little more, your legs want to dip a little deeper to match his wildness with your own. Imbued with a sudden, potent energy, he struck his wicked instrument as the rhythm and melody unraveled.

Janet took it in stride, leading you in a rocking shimmy as you swayed to the change in tempo. Light danced on her sequined shoulders as she tipped her head back in a blissful cackle. You followed her lead, eyes fixed on her with a surging power in the knowing of whose eyes were fixed on you.

The air was a cool kiss against the sliver of skin where your shirt left off, daring you to show a little more. With a twist of your arms toward the spotlights, you blessed him with the dip of your back — the alluring shadow of your spine that trailed into the high waist of your jeans. He panged with the urge to follow it, fell to his knees and wailed through his fingertips.

You broke from Janet’s pull to face him, eye-to-eye level, watching reverently as the sweat glistened in his clavicles, as his pelvis jutted into his weapon to eke out his solo. Howling for you with each stroke of its neck, each bend in its strings as you matched his rhythm with your hips. A secret world, just you and him, the rest fading out into nothing. He swore, like a spell in each note that he wove through the air, that somehow he would make it last.

From his knees, Eddie grabbed the mic off the stand, and with a wordless nod earned by years of friendship, Jeff took over the melody. To the delight of the crowd, he stripped himself of the weight of his instrument, setting it carefully off to the side.

You’ve been cooling, baby, I’ve been drooling, he crooned as he crawled forward.

All the good times, baby, I’ve been misusing

You played with him there. With your shoulders, with your eyes locked no more than a foot from his. Desperate to touch him, you worshiped every bead of sweat that fell from his temple, every wet curl that strayed from the nape of his neck and hugged the strong angle of his jaw. What left his lips next dripped with such fervent intention you that you couldn’t keep your hand from your face.

Way, way down inside

I’m gonna give you my love

I’m gonna give you every inch of my love

I’m gonna give you my love

He was pure energy; raw and manic. Free in the way that wild things are. He snatched your breath away, dragged it to his den and had his way with it as he queried the chorus to you. There was wildness all around; in glinting sequins and megawatt smiles. In the flashes of limbs under the lights. In the rhythm you carried with your whole body now, moving in a way that was both so foreign and natural all at once.

You wondered how it looked from the outside; you and him. From the bar it might have looked like drunk spontaneity. From the stage it might have looked like a stint of support for the arts. You wondered, with a twinge of fear, if the others could feel the longing too or if you had masked it well enough as a performance.

The music dropped out to make way for the final lyrics.

Way down inside, he belted into the silence, punctuating with a deep inhale. Woman, he shouted, locking eyes with you for a pregnant second as the world came to a halt, you need… he drew a deep breath in the space the two chords allowed him before wailing the final word at the ceiling — loooooooove!

You felt it with every cell of your body in one suspended moment. Felt—for the first time since you could vividly remember—truly and completely alive. With a crash of cymbals and an electric instrumental boom, the rhythm—and the world—reconstituted around you, swirling with a vibrant energy that swept you away.

His dark eyes opened with a wicked glint, and his next breath left his chest as a command.

Shake for me, girl. I wanna be your backdoor man!

You obeyed with a shimmy of your shoulders and the room went wild.

______

Janet left you with a tight, perfumed hug. A gentle reassurance that yes, she was fine to drive home. She left you in the vacuum of slamming guitar cases and distant voices as the jukebox picked up where the band left off. Left you to sober up to how idle and awkward you felt sitting at the table you once shared with her, picking at the peeling label on the wet, empty bottle.

When you heard footsteps approaching, a part of you was grateful for the prospect of someone—anyone—to talk to, though it wasn’t who you hoped. Instead, it was the man in the cap from the bar.

“Hey, love the shirt,” he remarked, glance lingering a little too long over the text across your chest.

“Thanks,” you said shyly, gaze drifting back to the bottle.

He stepped closer, setting his can on the table. “I take it you went to that concert?”

“I did, it was really last minute actually.” You told him the story. You told him with your words and gestures, twisting in the tall stool to face him, but it was Eddie that drew your eyes. Crouched down with one knee bent beneath him and the other straining against denim slits, he collected his pedals into a tiny, vintage suitcase. There were words coming out of your mouth, but faced with the rigid angles of his thighs, you were helpless but to stumble over some of them.

It was then that you noticed he had already been staring, though not at you, at Bill — with a simmer behind his eyes.

“Man, I woulda killed to go to that show. I was working a double when tickets went on sale and a buddy of mine said he was gonna camp overnight for us. Well, he ended up getting into a fight with his girlfriend and flaked out. ‘Course they were sold out and closed by the time I left work.”

You expressed your genuine sympathy.

“Boy I was pissed at him then, but even more pissed after Bonham died. Like damn, that was my last shot, man!”

“I’m sorry you had to miss it. It was quite the show.” You told him what you could remember. The setlist, the stage, what they wore.

Eddie watched closely, carefully darting between you amidst the gathering of cables and closing of metal latches. He watched your hands come to life like he loved so much, like you always did when you were explaining something with fond enthusiasm. Helplessly, he watched the way Bill leaned closer, the way his hand and forearm made themselves at home on your table. The simmer hissed and bubbled behind his eyes.

“Anyways, it’s good to see such a lovely new face around here. One with great taste, I might add. Made my night.”

The simmer kicked up to a full, licking flame.

“Oh, well thanks. I don’t get out much,” you said with an awkward chuckle.

Bill stepped closer, as if his next point was something he had to lean in for. “By the way, and I hope this isn’t too forward, but… you’re a great dancer.”

Eddie watched your hand dive behind your neck, your face contort into a feeble smile, your shoulders hunch, your eyes glance down. He could hear the distress in your beautiful laugh and he boiled so hot he could have seared a hole into the back of Bill’s head.

He extended his hand. “I’m Bill, by the way.”

Eddie wrapped the cable in hasty circles around his forearm. Heat rose behind behind his tight lips and exited in short fumes.

“Hey man, have you seen the drum key anywhere?” Gareth called from behind him.

It barely registered. The world was a fragment now. A red-hot, narrowing tunnel reduced to a singularity — Bill’s hand.

Bill’s hand; hovering like a salacious invitation, too close to the soft swell of your belly. That open, rugged palm — weathered, experienced, and free. Free to reach into his wallet, to reach across the bar, to hand you a drink, to wander all sorts of places where Eddie could not.

You, ever polite and always accommodating, reached back.

He touched you.

Eddie’s vision narrowed red. Helplessly, he watched Bill’s fingers snake around the back of your hand and squeeze, linger at your palm as they released. A coil wound through his body. It rose up like bile — up through his spine, into his shoulders that rolled forward and back with a deep, seething breath. Up, up, into that primitive space at the base of his skull where words and civil manners had no place.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Eddie dropped the cable.

The world blurred in the wake of his target and in five swift steps he was at your side. “Hey, Bill. Uh—” his senses ebbed back to him with a curious look from the man he’d shared countless drinks with. A man he would call his friend had he not breeched a sacred distance, a contract he knew nothing of. His vision was clouded, the coil tight and hot.

“She’s um,” he continued quietly, a murmur he had to lean in for. An urge seized his hand. The urge to claim, to slip across the divot of your back and pull you close where you belonged, to but the noise from the stage and the eyes that followed forced his hand deep into his pocket. He swallowed his frustration, hoping the simmer in his eyes would be enough to convey what he meant. “She’s with me, man.”

A throb from that low, blooming place, rose up in a full body yes. In the arch of your back, in the dip of your eyes as you caught the desperate heat from his.

Bill blinked in honest surprise. “Wait, you mean,” he pointed between the two of you, eyes darting back and forth with a confusion that only deepened the insecurity of everyone involved, “you’re—”

“Yes,” Eddie hotly interrupted. The coil in him released slightly, a low rumble replaced by a surge that settled in his cheeks at the trembling, nervous laughter in your voice.

Flutters roared through you all at once, spinning the room well beyond the scope of the liquor that lingered in your veins, heightening your senses to the warmth radiating from the aching nearness of his body to yours.

“Well, hey man, we were just talking—”

“Yeah—well,” he glanced at you, an apology playing out in the widening of his eyes as the coil cooled to sobering embarrassment. He wished he could bury himself, open a trapdoor and take you with him. A parade of stomping feet and slamming cases trudged on behind him from the stage. He prayed the din was enough to mask the conversation.

“It’s ok!” you nervously exclaimed to both of them. “Really. Besides, I—I need to sober up anyway before I go home, so… it’s really ok,” you soothed to Eddie specifically.

Eddie’s pulse thrummed in his hears, his body a livewire of stress and embarrassment. “Ok. Well, I just, um… thought I’d let you know,” he concluded to Bill, desperate to string together some semblance of dignity. He dipped his head toward you until his voice hummed lowly in your hear. “It’ll just be a few more minutes. I gotta get the rest of this shit cleaned up, and then we can, um—” his eyes darted back and forth between yours in wordless exasperation.

“Yeah,” your body whispered, overriding any protest of your noble mind. To what you were agreeing to was unimportant. Whatever he wanted.

Eddie nodded and pivoted toward the stage in a swift exit.

In the wake of his absence was an awkward pause, a space Bill was quick to fill with words. “Well, um, it was nice to meet you,” he said with an awkward dip of his head.

“Yeah, you as well,” you said, a feeble anchor to the spinning room. Bill’s gaze hesitated with a flash of disappointment before returning to the bar. It was all you could do to just stand there a moment, heart pounding in stunned realization as the space whirled with the clammer of footsteps, the thud of equipment, the clinking of glasses. Suddenly the weight of your aloneness in the middle of it all was crushing. You retreated to the down the short hallway and ducked into the bathroom.

She’s with me.

In the muffled quiet of the dimly lit reprieve, the words echoed louder than ever. You were almost afraid to check your reflection, to look yourself in the eyes and face the person who ached to hear them repeated, but you did, and she surprised you. Something about the way your lipstick feathered clean in the center from the kiss of the bottle, the way your mascara settled at your lower lashes in the delicate lines beneath. It was oddly flattering, like the shadow of a good time.

You liked who you saw, and perhaps that scared you most.

Jeff’s laughter echoed down the hallway and the pinball trigger snapped again. What the fuck am I doing?

You would ask yourself this question as you pressed the tip of your boot to the dirty toilet handle, as the cold water woke your skin, as it dripped onto the salt-stained tile, as you dropped the soggy remains of the last two paper towels into the overflowing trashcan.

When the clammer of footsteps and slamming of the back door faded to nothing more than distant murmurs from the bar, you slowly cracked the door and peered into the empty hallway. Your boots clicked tentatively against the tacky linoleum, emerging from the shadows as you drew a steady breath. The stage was dark, the men perched on stools had their backs to you, all roaming eyes cast down over drinks — all except one.

Eddie stood in the middle of it all; hands on hips, damp curls clinging to his neck, chest still heaving from movement and stress. He locked eyes with you, and you could feel relief in his sigh from the apron of the hallway.

Your smile was a shy, timid thing, blooming to a helpless grin as the softness of his features heightened into focus with each progressive step. As the distance between you closed to less than a foot.

“Hey,” he breathed like a soft apology.

“Hey,” you answered, like you always did. A nervous crackle of anticipation wound through your gut.

“I um,” Eddie wrung a hand behind his neck, flashing a dark tuft of hair that made the animal in you stir. “I need to cool down,” he admitted with a raw, candid urgency. He patted his pockets. “I’m gonna step out for a cigarette… if you… wanna…” he nodded toward the back hall.

Yes. Anything, the animal growled. You simply nodded and went to grab your coat.

Eddie snatched the heap of leather from the railing by the stage and draped it over his arm. He ushered you forward with a sweep of his palm through the air, catching your eyes with a softness that threatened the strength of your knees. A giggle escaped you — honest, uncontrollable, automatic. Clutching your arm with a coyness that surprised even yourself, you shuffled in front of him, the towering presence of his closeness like a tingle at your back, a safety in the thud of heavy boots behind you.

The night air was a cold refreshment, a sobering reprieve from the hot, smoke-dense air of The Hideout. Your lungs helped themselves, filling to the brim, releasing just a little of the tension that was mounting before you arrived. It left you in a thick fog, drifting out into the empty patio, catching the glow from the singular bulb posted by the door. Eddie pulled it shut with a soft thud and shrugged on his coat in a rattle of zippers and chains.

Silence. A howl of the wind through naked limbs. A sigh that left both of you at once.

Eddie dipped his head in subtle reverence as he crossed in front of you, placing his hands on the short, wooden fence to your right. He paused a second, drawing a deep breath before spinning around to face you, hands splayed in an open plead. “I am so fucking sorry.”

Your mouth hung open. “A-about what?”

He ran a hand through his hair with a ragged sigh. “About Bill, about how I acted, a-about…” he swallowed, “what I said…”

An O trembled on your lips but never made it out. “It’s fine, really—”

“It’s…it’s not. It’s just that,” he huffed, “Bill was hitting on you a-and you just looked so uncomfortable and…” it drove him fucking crazy. It lit his blood on fire. It made him want to grab a man who’d bought him countless drinks by the collar and ram him into the wall.

You stepped closer, close enough to see the whites of his eyes in the darkness, the shadow of his pinching brow. You’d be lying if you said it didn’t stir something in you. Hearing those words. Hearing the ones he said now in profuse apology. “Eddie,” you soothed.

He closed his eyes; a split-second relish of his name on your lips. “It—” he sighed. “It wasn’t cool, to say that…” he shook his head before meeting your eyes in soft earnestness, “in public.”

The breath froze in your lungs. Out here the world fell away to the rustle of trees, to a darkness that cloaked you like a blanket. You were alone. Truly alone. A question tugged at your heart, twinged on the tip of your tongue but felt still too bold to leave it. What would he say, then, in private?

It played out like a tape behind his eyes — the curl of Bill’s fingers around your hand. It was such a simple gesture, benign outside of context. Yet there was something deeper, something that wound like a serpent through his gut. It struck, and stung, that in one fell swoop, Bill had touched as much of you as he had. That Bill could do as much in public as he could only manage beneath a shadow.

“Anyway, now that… that’s out of the way,” Eddie shook his head as he fumbled with the zipper of his pocket, curls feathering his delicate cheekbone, gaze cast down in weakly hidden shame. He procured a box of cigarettes, thumb flipping it open with an ease earned by years of habit. Popping one into his mouth, he paused before snapping it shut. “Y-you want one?” he mumbled. It seemed rude not to ask, but the question felt dumber by the second as it hung in the air. You were good. Good like 6 AM coffee, like the early morning sun. Good like the buttons on a crisp, white blouse. Yet here he stood, hand extended, offering what little he could — an experience.

Goodness was a mantle. A weight that kept your shoulders back, your lips pressed tight, your head cast down, your feet in slippers, your curtains drawn. Eddie Munson stood beside you, rugged and regal like a dark knight, arm outstretched in humble offering. With hesitance, you eyed the invitation.

Out here you could be anything — a vagabond, a runaway, a princess escaped from her castle. A woman who spends Tuesday nights at dive bars and smokes cigarettes with men in leather jackets. Anything you wanted.

You wanted to taste it. You wanted the flame, and the smoke, and the raw, ragged air that wound through your lungs and left like a beacon that soared toward the sky.

You wanted to be bad for him, and so you accepted.

The cigarette almost dropped from Eddie’s mouth in shock. He fumbled another from the box before tucking it into his back pocket. With a flourish, bending in its presentation as if it were a single rose, he offered it to you.

Never in a million years could you have imagined it. You, in a position like this. Him, in a position like that. Least of all that it would be so wildly romantic.

You accepted with the tips of your fingers, your index and middle, brushing ridges of his knuckles with feather-light indulgence. They closed around the offering, pausing for an aching second before drawing away with it.

Eddie closed his eyes, so quickly he could have masked it as a blink, but you caught it. The sigh, the swallow, the batting open with a burning hunger as he relished in the barest fulfillment of what he’d been craving since he saw you this morning — to touch you.

The cold nipped at your knuckles as you took in the foreign sensation between them, admiring it like a sinful adornment under the moonlight.

With a flick of his thumb, the parentheses of his mouth lit up in a warm glow. He took a few quick puffs, smoke billowing from his nose and the corners of his lips before taking a long drag. Satisfaction exited his lungs in a deep sigh, a billow that rose toward the twinkling sky. He turned his attention back to you. “Here,” he offered gently, beckoning you closer with a gentle come hither motion, readying his lighter.

You held your hand out gingerly, willing the trembling of your fingers to cease with little success.

Eddie closed in, bringing a finger to his lips as a gentle suggestion. “Put it in your mouth,” he said, unable to suppress the boyish grin that surfaced from the words.

You did as he told you, held it in your smirk, searched for your next instruction in the depth of his eyes but found only delight. Delight in the whole sight of you; the way it dimpled the swell of your lips, in the attention of those dutiful shoulders, like you wanted to be good at misbehaving. Delight in the fact he was teaching you something.

Eddie leaned closer. “Like this,” he instructed softly, framing his own with his long, ruddy digits before taking a quick drag. Obediently, you mirrored him, like a natural smoker would, like they did in the movies and inside the bar.

The flame ignited between you, flickering in the wild wind. Eddie cupped it with his other hand, forming a shield with the curve of his knuckles — gentle and protective. The fire caught the tip of the slender roll, but his palm was far more captivating. Inches from your face, you could study it closer than ever, plush and glowing — the broad heart line, the soft meat of its heel.

A deep inhale had smoke ghosting over your tongue. Eddie pulled away to reveal the ember and you took your cue. The drag you took, long and determined, left you coughing.

Eddie couldn’t suppress his chuckle, couldn’t mask the crinkle of his eyes as you—from behind the big desk and before the big board—were swallowed in a clumsy cloud of smoke.

“Are you laughing at me?” you asked through a giggle of your own.

Like oxygen to a flame, his laughter only brightened. “I’m sorry, you’re just… so…”

“So…what?” You gave him a look, trying to suck your dignity back through the end of the cigarette.

A million words ached on the tip of his tongue. The wind ripped across the small, frozen field, shyly disappearing in the treeline. Out here there were no bells, no footsteps, no concrete walls to listen. Eddie watched those fingers of yours pull away from your lips, blow a billow toward the open sky, and one in a million came tumbling out.

“Beautiful.”

A puff retreated back through your lips, froze in your lungs. The truth hung like smoke in the cold night air, rolled around in your chest, warmed your body from head to toe. Eddie plugged his mouth with another draw to prevent more from slipping out.

There was space for the truth out here. Space like a vacuum, vast and quiet. A shyly muttered “Thank you,” was all you could manage to fill it with.

Eddie raked his fingers through the damp curls at the nape of his neck, cheeks pinking visibly, even in the dim glow of the single light on the other side of the patio. He leaned against the fence and met your eyes again, nervous breath rolling over his plush lips.

His movement, like a magnet, drew your feet across the pavement. Deeper into the shadows with the gentle pull of his eyes. The tobacco settled in your body with a comfortable heaviness as you drank him in, and you suddenly grasped the appeal.

Out here he seemed even taller, shoulders stacked over slender hips as he leaned into the fence, an ease that washed over him with each generous draw, like the stress was rolling off into the shadows. Out here he took on a different posture, different than the one under fluorescent lights. Different than the one in the small chair next to you, the one with hunched shoulders and downcast eyes.

You tapped the ash of the cigarette off with your finger, like a natural smoker would. He smirked at the gesture, and you caught the twinge of pride in it this time.

Out here he could be anything. He could be clever and daring; a roguish enchanter. A man who casts spells with his fingers and charms with his words. Anything he wanted.

He wanted to make your eyes light up.

Eddie took another drag, hollowing his cheeks before sending out smoke in deliberate puffs with his tongue. It left his mouth in rings, hovering in the gap between you before drifting across the patio.

He got what he wanted. A gasp left your lips, eyes twinkling brighter than the stars. “What?! I didn’t know people could actually do that!” You exclaimed, delighted like a child on Christmas.

Eddie blew the rest off to the side and returned a blinding smile. It was more satisfying than the cigarette — the fact that he could do it, make your face light up. The fact that he had the power.

“How do you do that?” you asked, ever inquisitive.

His instructions were simple; take a big drag, hollow your cheeks, make the shape with your mouth, and push the smoke out with your tongue. Simple enough, from the sound of it.

Your first attempt failed, miserably. Uproariously.

“The shape is critical,” he reminded through a chuckle, “it’s gotta be like, a perfect O, not an oval.” His eyes lingered over your lips as you tried his suggestion, struggling to will his mind away from the gutter.

Your smile made it hard to maintain. “Wait—wait, hold on I think I got it.” You tried again with great focus, sending out puffs with your tongue that looked nothing like rings. It was worth it though. Worth making a fool of yourself for the amusement that colored his face, for the bright laughter it earned you. “Ok, fine. Maybe not.”

It looked good on him, just like it did on stage. This knowing that drew his shoulders back, made him lean with a powerful ease. The knowing that he was really good at something, that he could show you.

“It’s a bit advanced,” he said with a wink before taking another deep drag. He puffed a ring and cast it forward with a push of his hand, like a spell through the air. It broke on your nose and you relished in the soft sensation of his life-force ghosting over your face.

It was all you could do just to look at him — rugged and regal in the way that only he could be. It was dangerous and thrilling; how alone you were right now. His aura pulled you closer, eyes tugging at those burning questions, serious questions at war with your lingering buzz. You broke the silence with the truth; soft and sincere. “You’re insanely talented, I hope you know that.”

The curve of his lashes dipped shyly with a little puff through his nose. They raised with a sparkle that cut through the darkness. “Thanks, it uh… comes a lot easier to me than chemistry.” He tapped off his ash on the pavement.

You tucked your free hand into your pocket with a bashful shuffle of your feet. “Well, good thing rockstars don’t need to know chemistry then.”

Eddie scoffed and gave his eyes a quick roll, unsuccessful at hiding the brilliance of his smile. Heat crept up his neck, and he soothed it with a wring of his hand.

There was a gap between you; a space you were too scared to breach. The two of you filled it with shy chatter as your cigarettes dwindled to nubs. It was easy, to talk to him. About music, about anything. Easy because you gave each other turns to take it; the space. It almost made it easy to forget who you were to each other before you came out here, who you would go back to being tomorrow.

The cold was wicked and relentless; biting at your knuckles as you tapped the last ash. Even the tobacco’s heavy warmth sinking to your feet couldn’t stave it off. It was a Tuesday night in December, and the wind made sure to remind you.

Eddie followed your eyes toward the door. “It’s ok,” he reassured. “Nobody comes out here. We’re safe.”

His words sparked a tingle in your chest, a pulse of heat; low and thrumming. Neither could halt the shiver that seized your limbs.

“You ok?” he asked gently, stepping close enough to almost feel the heat from him.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You blew on your hands, rubbing them together feebly to fight the cold. You were stubborn to surrender, determined not to end your stolen moment by succumbing.

It was all he could do just to look at you. You, shaking like a leaf in the wind. You, with longing eyes and trembling lips. You, with your soft skin and softer soul. His fingers burned, wrestled with the silence, and the distance, and the howl of the wind through the trees. They warred with the ticking clock, with the chill against his precious moment, with the threat of it winning. Suddenly his fingers—bolder than they’ve ever been in his life—twitched to animation. They toyed with the cold metal zipper at his neck, and in one decided tug, he opened up for you. “Here,” he offered.

You froze, more than the cold could ever manage, as you eyed the invitation — the warm leather cave, the exposure of his heaving chest. Your lips parted but words would not come. You wanted it — the heat, the tight embrace, to be wrapped in his aura, to feel his laughter with your palms.

Your noble mind as it cast its disapproval like a shadow toward your heart, but your hands and feet were deaf to it. Boots shuffling boldly against the rough pavement, they filled the gap between his. You accepted with the tips of your fingers, delicate and tentative, like his skin was a hot iron and yours at risk to burn. You watched them disappear into the darkness, felt the soft cotton warmth as it enveloped you. With trembling slowness, you traced the divots of his ribcage, settled into them like grooves, felt him gasp into your palms when the ice that you’d become found the velvet, heated skin under his arms.

“Sorry—”

“Hah—hmm—no-no it’s ok,” he grimaced, pinning your hands beneath his arms to stop your recoil, as if the pain of the freeze hurt less than the pain of its absence. “I—ah—I asked for this.” His chuckle was a warm vibration, a flutter as the cage which housed his heart contracted.

A shiver racked your body as you thawed. Whether it was nerves, or fear, or the chill that had settled deep in your bones long before you stepped foot outside, you were helpless to control it.

“Come ‘ere,” he breathed with equal care and need.

You submitted, tracing his contours as he pulled you closer — head against his solid shoulder, into the soft pillow of his hair, into the source of his scent: leather and tobacco and the sweet, salty musk of his skin. You closed your eyes and basked in it, nose buried in his curls, drawing in deeply to steady your rattling chest.

Broad palms splayed across the fabric of your coat, pulling you deep into the comfort of his heat, tracing your waist to settle in a place they burned to be — your lower back. “It’s ok, you’re ok,” he murmured into your hair, bracing you tightly as your whole body shook.

You could have died here, buried yourself in his arms and made him your tomb. They would find you in the morning; frozen like a sculpture. Left out for all of Hawkins to see, to point and say terrible things. It wouldn’t matter. You would have died happy.

His heart was pounding with disbelief. You, here, in his arms. You could feel it through your coat, hammering against your chest, into your palms at his back. Eddie felt your breathing slow, your body soften and relax. He crooked his forearm firmly to your back, to the place where it belonged, fingers curling like a cage around your waist. Out here he could be anything — strong and stable, a haven for your tired bones to rest. Anything, for you.

In the dark leather cave there was a landscape for your hands to study. The satin liner grazed your knuckles as your hands explored the angles of his shoulder blades with tentative slowness — down along the muscles of his back, the dip of his spine, the birdcage of his ribs; expanding and contracting, deep and steady.

He was real, here, in your arms. Two swelling lungs. One beating heart. Two hands that clutched the wool barrier between you. One solid shield of a chest. One humming column at your cheek. Eddie Munson; wildfire. Close enough to thaw you. Close enough to burn you to the ground.

Your hands settled at the slim taper of his waist. Pliant and yielding under soft cotton, swelling with each ocean breath. His cage around you tightened, and you breathed him in, felt him swallow, felt his hips slot against the groove of yours with sensed belonging.

The animal in you keened with curiosity, emboldened by the dark. Your hands wouldn’t dare beyond the roadblock of his belt, but they would move in slow strokes up and down his back. A gentle comfort, a mask for your indulgence.

A quiet moan rose up in him, one he couldn’t swallow. The best he could do was cloak it in a sigh. It hummed against your ear; your cheek so close to the crook of his neck you could almost taste it. You breathed him in again, lips pressed to his soft curls against tough leather as the smoke, and musk, and crisp night air filled your lungs.

His hands were less patient; dipping toward the slope of your hips, pawing at thick wool, thumbs drawing aching circles there. It earned an arch from your back, a grasp from your hands at the soft cotton barrier.

There was an animal in him too, preening at the cant of your hips, at the rub of your neck against his. With a dip of his chin he could sink his teeth in, but his noble mind willed it away, settled for the scent of you instead — soft like powder, warm and inviting. The heels of your palms drifted toward his belly, and the animal threatened to rear below his belt.

“Ah,” it leapt out his throat.

Hands freezing before reaching the healthy swell, you drew back from his shoulder, checking in. Your lids hung with visible weight, pupils blown by more than just the lack of light, dizzy from his touch. He could do that with his hands, he thought; a split-second revel before concern sobered your features.

His disappointment was palpable, like he’d burst some great bubble. “Mm—no, it’s fine, please—” please don’t stop. His arms around you tightened, eyes pleading with words he wasn’t bold enough to utter, even in the darkness.

A shadow of guilt fell across your face. Guilt for your greedy hands, for your lost control, for your bad behavior. It was a pitiful sight; worse than the one he saw yesterday. Worse because it was here. Worse because he was closer than he’d ever been before.

There was a gap between you; space for the cold to seep between your hearts. Space for the fear that he’d broken the spell. That you didn’t see him anymore, but your student instead.

You thumbed his soft cotton shirt, buried in the shelter of his coat. Eddie Munson — frenetic and compelling. Beautiful in the way that wild things are. Breathing life into your numb hands with each ragged swell. You studied him closely; his soft cupid’s bow, his pink, plush pout, the angles of his worried jaw, the pining in his eyes.

Want. A wild, elusive thing. A summer wind. An admission at a cost. Want didn’t budge. Want looked you dead in the eyes and tightened its grip.

Eddie knew what he wanted, burning like a question on his tongue. He knew he had to be the one to ask. He was terrified — of the question, of the asking, of the fact that he may never get another chance. Your hands grappled with it, clung like they feared he would vanish. He felt the ache in them, the want, the fear, the frustration. It opened up a narrow passage, and he entered with the boldest thing he had ever done.

He asked you with his forehead first. A gentle nod forward; the softest collision. A tickle of curls. A rock back and forth of his strong, sturdy brow. A smile even you couldn’t hide. Your hands released, settled at the dip of his back in quiet permission.

He asked you with the bridge of his nose. A delicate slope. A tender nuzzle. Rigid bone under soft flesh. Cold, round tip. Roaming the map of yours with heated intention as he swayed like a dance in the moonlight. You closed your eyes, surrendered to the fantasy. Felt the heat of his cheek, the pang of his palm at your back as he pulled you closer.

He asked you with a tilt of his chin, and brought time to a halt.

There was a gap between you. A fractional distance bridged by the ghost of his breath. Within it; every party that you never went to, every basement you were never led away from, every page you never shared, every experience you never had. Goodness was a mantle, heavy from a lifetime on your shoulders.

What did freedom taste like? The question brushed across your lips like a warm invitation. You were desperate for the answer. Wanted it more than anything, ever, in your whole entire life. Wanted it for you, for only you. For once.

Eddie asked the question. You closed the gap.

A sigh left both of you at once. One you could taste this time, humming against the plush cradle of his lips. Freedom could have melted you. It threatened the strength of your knees, but his arms were stronger. Locked against each other in the shadows you borrowed, your lips began to explore, to express every secret wish the two of you had dreamt apart.

Freedom tasted tentative at first. A slow drag of his lips, a languid slip that rippled to the dormant parts of you. Catching like tinder as they grazed over yours, hot with an ache you could taste. It was sinfully exquisite; tasting the curve of his smile, the hyper-real rasp of his stubble as those lips—the ones that shot you smirks from down the hall and spilled over with song—found a rhythm with yours. Broad palms clutched the wool at your waist like you’d slip through a crack if he didn’t hold on.

Freedom was slick. It tasted like cigarettes, like a thousand unsaid words ushered past the border of your mouth. You could taste every one on his tongue, soothed them with the slickness of yours. Every aching word, dripping in each soft caress. Diving like a dance, echoed in the soft, wet smacks when you parted. You devoured them like you were starving. Every sigh, every hum, every color that left his lungs slipped eagerly down your throat.

The wool at your back was a nuisance. Eddie pawed at it, desperate to feel the shape of you through the fabric, to store it in the vault of his mind, to play with it later in private. He halted his hands at your hips, willed them decent, rationed with the small working part of his brain that your lips would have to be enough. He relished in the way you accepted him. The way you spread for him, parting eagerly for his tongue. The way your lips closed around him, rocking as he prodded like you’d done it before. Like you wanted to elsewhere.

The spell was broken. The line, miles away. There was a hunger in you, sudden and surprising, roused by the very first taste. Eddie palmed your hips with an urgency that stirred you. Like a bear in the spring, thawed by the heat of his touch, you devoured him. Devoured him with the wholeness of your splayed hands, tracing up his pounding ribs, dragging across the expanse of his broad chest. It heaved under your touch; solid muscle under soft cotton. You devoured his moan; a hot, strangled thing that escaped his plush lips. Like a match to the strip your tongue, you ignited.

His hands lost their patience. Breaking from your waist, they dove behind your ears to cradle your face. Your face. Your jaw, your delicate cheeks he caressed with the rough pads of his thumbs, as if the swell of them—the rigid bones under soft skin, the absolute realness of you in his arms—could wake him from the dream he was surely having. He was tasting you, tasting the want on your tongue. More satisfying than a four course meal, more satisfying than anything he’d ever tasted in his life. You wanted him. More than that, you savored him; the taste of his hot, eager tongue as it slipped against yours.

Freedom was delicious. Bold and complex, acrid and rich. Full bodied. A smooth, sweet finish. You could have drowned in it. Drowned in the angles of his hands, in his tender strokes, in the sopping heat of his mouth. Drowned in his eager sighs, in his scent. Drowned completely if he hadn’t held your head above the surging waves.

Eddie was good like a midnight snack. Good like a wide open road. He was good at this. Good at knowing how to ask and answer. Good at at finding the rhythm of you.

You broke for air, stilling against the bridge of his nose, afraid to look him in the eyes just yet, to break away from the safety his shadow provided. Safe from the world, safe from consequences, safe from the thoughts that battered at the door of your mind. Safety was fragile and fleeting. You knew it, he knew it. Your breath mingled in hot bursts as you steadied your spinning world for a quiet moment together. You felt him smile—heard it—big and bright as it cracked across his face. The air stung your cheeks when he took his hands away. Leaning back against the fence, he tugged you closer, further into the safety of the shadows, enveloping you in the crook of his heat.

It was good like this — the angles of you and the angles of him, fitting like they always belonged. It felt safe to explore them, to paint his pounding chest, down the soft swell of his belly, stopping at his hips. With a thick bob of his Adam’s apple, he closed the gap again. It was chaste this time, peppering your lips with space to breathe between each kiss. They were slow and savory, steady and sure. They lingered long enough for you to get another taste, to capture that plush Cupid’s bow and let it melt across yours, to flick your tongue over his soft bottom lip and taste him there too.

You could taste his need when he greeted your tongue with his own. It was safe to show it here. Safe to let the animal inside him bare its teeth. Safe to let the animal in you do the same. It growled when he nipped at you, hooked its claws through his belt loops and tugged. It was a quick, testing thing, and your sound let him know that he passed. He lapped it up hungrily, soothed it before inflicting another.

It ached in a frightening way, in that deep, low place. Throbbed awake with each delicious bite. It scared you how quickly the path was veering south, but the pooling warmth encouraged his travels, let him go wherever he wanted. When his lips strayed far enough to track your jaw, a shrinking voice shrieked danger, but the rest of you simply submitted.

Claws braced denim and leather, offering yourself with a tip of your head. Reverently, he accepted, setting his pace with a dizzying slowness. He worshiped you with every latch, every press, every lingering smack, darting his tongue out to taste the forbidden angles of your jaw. It was greedy but good. To him, to you. Letting go this much. Letting him go this far. The trail cooled in the night air, and he settled at the precipice of your neck.

His breath alone was enough to melt you; heavy with the weight of his new position. Heavy with desire, with the weight of thousand fantasies he never thought would come to pass. He drank in the cocktail of your scent; concentrated, warm, deliciously real. In the throws of your own heaving chest, sobered just barely by the pregnant pause, you awoke to your position: open, vulnerable, completely at his mercy.

He tasted your swallow, felt your breath hitch when his warm, wet tongue found your pulse. Lathing there a moment, lingering and slow, he savored you. Savored the ridges of your neck, the way your head lolled to the side, like a feast laid out for him. He stored the image in his mind, packaged it carefully for when he would surely be starving again. His lips soothed where his tongue left off, over and over until your strangled sound stirred a fiending hunger. He bared his teeth, and you shattered.

Freedom was falling apart in his arms. Crumbling into pieces and letting him grapple you whole. Letting him capture you in his maw and lap up your ruin. Letting him, letting him. His teeth dragged dull and slow, tingling every waking cell, turning you to putty completely. He dragged a moan out of you. A full one, loud and clear. He tucked it away, buried it deep alongside your squirms and your touch.

The door opened.

Cold air shocked your lungs. Head snapping over your shoulder, you broke his latch and Eddie hissed a curse at the separation. With daggers, you both assessed the intruder.

The silhouette of his cap gave him away. He might have even kept on walking but the gasps and the shuffling feet made him turn. “Oh shit,” Bill flinched back in surprise. “Sorry man I thought you left.”

Eddie’s arm tightened instinctively, pulling you as close as he wanted to earlier. Reflexively, you pushed away. It was a strange tug of war — his pride and your fear. “Yeah—no we’re still here,” he snapped.

You swallowed your pounding heart, sobering completely under Bill’s gaze. Suddenly your claws retracted, your hands felt wrong where they rested, shame bit at your neck along the cooling trail he left behind.

Even in the backlit glow of the singular light, you saw it painted clearly on his features — the judgement, the disbelief, the questions rising up but not daring to come out. “Well um, sorry to interrupt. Have a good night,” Bill said with an awkward raise of his hand before making quickly for the parking lot.

Footsteps faded over gravel and left a silence in their wake, thicker than the stillness from before.

Eddie breathed a sharp sigh through his nostrils, brows lowered as he seethed toward the parking lot. The cold was setting in again. Your nose, and ears, and fingers stung with it. The rest of you stung worse; chest numbing, caving like a can under the weight of what you’d just done.

When the flick of distant headlights made you brave enough to face him, frustration painted his features. He pawed at your coat, desperate to salvage what he could of his precious moment. “Anyway, where were we?” he muttered, eyeing your neck with a tilt of his head like he was about to dive in again.

Your hand at his chest stopped him, and the look in his eyes was wounding. “Eddie,” you warned softly. A slow, heavy sigh left his nose, one you could feel with your palm. “I need to go.”

Crestfallen after a desperate, hesitant second, his arms went slack. Your hand dropped, leaving a fierce chill behind. One more, his lips begged, but struggled to release. Please.

It hurt, to crumble like this after all you had built. With the roar of Bill’s engine, the fantasy shattered around you. The carriage became a pumpkin, your gown turned into rags. Shrill bells rang out in the distance, coming surely as the sun would rise. Pinballs thundered as that sweet oval face—the one from the back of the room and the chair next to yours—pouted with lips still swollen from where you had broken your contract.

“I’m sorry,” you mouthed.

Gathering himself with a deep breath, he straightened to a dignified height, conviction filling the cracks in his composure. “I’m not.”

It was terrifying — the prospect, the consequences. What it meant for you, for him, for the world you’d have to face tomorrow.

Most terrifying of all was how good it felt to hear him say.

______

A/N: Thank you all for your patience on this one. It took me nearly all summer to finish but I'm really proud of how it turned out. Please let me know what you think! I've missed hearing from and connecting with all of you. Next one won't take nearly as long, I promise. 💕

Taglist: @mermaidsandcats29 @toxicjayhoo @ooo-protean-ooo @jadequeen88 @wroteclassicaly @kissmyacdc @mantorokk-writes @loveshotzz @storiesbyrhi @cursedyuta @trashmouth-richie @carolmunson @keeponquinning @munson-blurbs @blueywrites @alottanothing @bebe07011 @idkidknemore @alizztor @godcreatoreli @ethereal27cereal @munsonsgirl71 @emxxblog @siriusmuggle @sidthedollface2 @big-ope-vibes @dollalicia @lma1986 @catherinnn @eddiemunson4life420 @readsalot73 @barbiedragon @ladylilylost @3rriberri @princess-eddie @nightless @eddieswifu @thew0rldsastage @chaoticgood-munson @hanahkatexo @eddiemunsonsbedroom @beep-beep-sherlock @averagemisfit03 @vintagehellfire @haylaansmi @sllooney @lunaladybug734 @callingmrsbarnes @ajkamins

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MASTERLIST ⎮ AO3 ⎮ KO-FI

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson older reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x teacher!reader #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fluff #don't stand so close to me

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ewanmitchellcrumbs · 1 year

Text

Little Warrior

Pairing: Sigtryggr Ivarsson (The Last Kingdom) x F!Reader Warnings: Canon typical violence and death, kidnapping, slight Stockholm syndrome, attempted sexual assault, sexual tension, coercion, corruption kink, talk of religious beliefs, female masturbation, loss of virginity, smut. Word count: 4.6k

Summary: When Sigtryggr and his men seize Winchester he takes a special interest in one of their captives (I have essentially yeeted Stiorra from the story and adapted the storyline of how her and Sigtryggr become an item to suit my own). Based on this request.

Author's note: No tag list. Please follow @fics-by-ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications. Community labels are for cops.

They come in the night. As Winchester sleeps, the Danes descend upon it.

She is woken by the blood curdling shouts and screams of the townspeople, accompanied by the acrid stench of smoke from nearby burning buildings.

Her heart lurches in her chest, panic causing bile to rise in her throat as she acts purely on instinct, scrambling from her bed and out of the house wearing just her nightdress. The only thought in her mind is that she doesn’t want to die trapped in her home as it’s burned to the ground.

Once she is outside, she watches wide eyed with horror at the destruction around her. Buildings are ablaze, people lay dead and dying upon the ground, the thick coppery scent of blood makes her want to vomit.

It’s only when the coolness of the night air begins to chill her skin that she realises just how perilous her situation is - a thin layer of cotton is all that separates her flesh from the horrors around her. She worries about what these Heathens will do to her if they see her in such a state of undress.

She trembles at the thought, dread gnawing at her insides. It’s too risky to go back inside, her only option is to hide. She takes her chances beneath an overturned farmer’s cart, crawling beneath the gap and cowering, waiting for the chaos around her to die down.

Clutching the cross around her neck, she sends up a silent prayer to God to keep her safe. Her destiny is in his hands now.

The aching in her joints for having been crouched for so long is beginning to become unbearable when the noise eventually quietens. She wonders if the Danes have left, if King Edward will return to rescue Winchester or if they have managed to capture it in his absence. Where are the Wessex guard?

She freezes when she hears the sound of approaching boots upon the ground, her heart hammers wildly against her ribcage when they come to a stop in front of the cart she’s hiding under.

“I can see your feet, Christian”, comes the voice of a man. He speaks softly and quietly, and it sends shivers down her spine.

Too paralyzed by fear to do anything, she remains as she is, her breaths coming quick and shallow, a rapidly dying hope in the back of her mind that he might give up and leave her alone. But there is no such luck.

“You will come out,” he commands, “or I will drag you out, the choice is yours.”

She clamps a hand over her mouth to muffle the frightened whimper that escapes her, attempting to force herself further back against the wooden confines of her misguided hiding place.

A large hand appears beneath the cart, reaching towards her before wrapping itself around her ankle.

She shrieks, thrashing against the hold it has on her as she’s dragged out. She lays wide eyed on the cold earth, her breathing erratic, as she looks with terror upon the Dane that towers above her prone form.

His long brown hair is wild and unkempt, half of it pulled back, and a ragged scar runs the length of the left side of his face. He regards her with mild amusement and she becomes aware again of her state of undress.

The thought that he might rape her sends her senses into overdrive, pure adrenaline driving her decision making. She knows she’s in no position to run, her only other option is to fight him, so as he crouches down towards her, she lunges upwards, slapping and scratching at his face and shoulders.

He is quick to overpower her, pulling her to her feet and twisting her arm behind her back.

“A fearsome little warrior, she is,” he chuckles, keeping her arm taut behind her as he gently urges her forward.

He guides her towards the front steps of the King’s estate, where several people are kneeling before a group of Danes. As they draw closer she recognises a few of them; King Edward’s sons and a few of the Wessex guard.

She is certain she’ll be killed. The man presses on her shoulder, urging her to kneel beside the other captives. She takes up her position, the stone step is hard against her knees, and she is all too aware that she is the least valuable of everyone gathered there.

“Send them to where they keep their dead King,” the man says, looking at Edward’s children and then nodding towards the chapel.

“We need to send a message to Edward,” a dark haired, heavily pregnant woman says, as two of the Danish men pick up the boys and carry them off. “We must force him to yield Winchester to us.”

It makes her shudder to think that this woman will be a mother, when she is capable of such atrocities.

“And what do you propose, Brida?” He responds.

Brida regards her with a look that makes her blood run cold. She has never seen anyone look at her as though she is worth less than nothing, her brown eyes are filled with utter contempt. “Send him her head,” she tells him, “it is more shocking to Christians when you are prepared to kill women and children alike.”

She gasps audibly, stricken by terror at the notion that they intend to behead her, until she feels his hand upon her shoulder.

“You will not touch her,” he says cooly, “slaughter the men, but she stays with me.”

“And what will you do with her?” Brida asks, raising an eyebrow.

“That is for me to decide,” he responds dismissively.

He makes a cut throat gesture at the Danes that flank Brida, then nods towards the kneeling guards, before pulling her back to her feet and directing her inside of the King’s estate.

She winces as she hears the sound of blades making thick, wet impact upon flesh, followed by dying screams of agony. Despite her shock and disgust, she cannot help the twinge of relief that lightens the feeling in her chest that that is not what destiny has in store for her, at least not yet.

The room that he brings her to is what she assumes is a study. It is filled with books, maps and writing materials, the space is occupied by a wooden writing desk, a chair and a settee.

As her eyes travel around the room, taking in her surroundings, she’s startled out of her reverie when her gaze settles back upon him. He is standing so close, silently observing her, his expression unreadable.

Once more she is reminded of how little she is wearing, and now that she is alone with him, fear of what he might do to her returns in earnest.

“S-stay back,” she stammers, backing away, eyes scanning the room for something, anything, that she can use as a weapon.

He smirks, unmoving, as he looks her over from head to toe. “Be calm, little warrior. Do you know who I am?”

Her face contorts in confusion. “No…”

He straightens, tilting his head slightly, clasping his arms behind his back. “I am Sigtryggr Ivarsson. I am a Dane. If I wish to hump a woman I do not need to do so by force.”

She softens slightly, fear does not grip her heart quite so icily as before. His name is meaningless to her, but she is relieved that he means her no harm.

Sigtryggr leans in, his breath tickling the shell of her ear. “But make no mistake, little warrior, I will have you, and you will beg me for it.”

She draws back quickly in disgust - not at his words, but at the reaction they elicit from her. The way warmth pools in her lower belly fills her with immense guilt. This man has invaded her home and killed people she knows, people she loves, she should despise him.

Swallowing thickly, unease prickling at her, she elects to change the subject. “What have you come here for?”

“To take what I am owed,” he says simply.

“And what is it you believe you’re owed?”

“Land. Your people drove me from mine,” he explains, anger lacing his tone, “your boy King will give back what he stole, or I shall keep Winchester and send him the heads of his children.”

She inhales shakily, feeling like she wants to cry. “A-and…how do I factor into all of that?”

He softens, shrugging slightly. “You don’t, but I can’t imagine your King will yield quickly, and it is always nice to have company. You are brave, for a Christian.”

“So I am your prisoner?”

“No, little warrior. You are free to leave any time you’d like, and take your chances with Brida.”

The implication is not lost on her. Her freedom is an illusion when the alternative is death. Sigtryggr is her only guarantee for safety.

“Shall we find something else for you to wear?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.

She looks down at the thin material of her shift, seeing how dirty it is from having been crouched beneath the cart, dragged out and then forced to kneel on the steps of the estate. Her cheeks heat up with embarrassment.

“Yes, please,” she whispers.

He nods. “Wait here.”

Sigtryggr leaves her alone in the study, not bothering to lock the door behind him - a sign of his confidence that he knows she won’t try to escape.

He returns a few moments later with a white cotton shift that is similar to the one she is currently wearing, She assumes it belongs to Ælflæd, something he has found within a bedchamber.

“Where is the rest of it?” She asks.

“What do you mean? It’s the same as what you have on, and it’s clean,” he says simply.

“Yes, but this is meant to go under–” she sighs, “nevermind.”

She takes the shift from him and begins to change, noting the way that he turns from her, keeping his eyes fixed on the shelves of books that line the walls of the room. The small mark of respect makes her smile. She had not anticipated such manners from a Heathen.

He pulls a book from the shelf when she is finished, flipping through its pages. “Can you read?”

She nods and he hands the tome to her.

“Read to me.”

“Can you not read?” She asks with a raise of her eyebrow.

“I can,” he says with a smirk, “but where’s the fun in that?”

She sighs, settling into the chair in front of the writing desk, while Sigtryggr sits upon the settee a few feet away, and she reads to him.

Over the next few weeks their days are spent much like this. She reads aloud to him, though none of the books are particularly interesting, mostly religious texts and historical records of Wessex. She’s not convinced that he pays any particular attention to the words, but he seems to enjoy the sound of her voice.

They find a Hnefatafl board and Sigtryggr teaches her how to play. They while away hours strategising ways to remove each other's pieces from the board. He has a sharp mind, is calmer and more analytical than any other Dane she’s ever met. He bests her with his cunning multiple times, until she finally begins to get the hang of it and he begins to lose to her.

“Another game?” She asks. “How many have I won now?”

He shoots her a sideways glance, a faint smile upon his lips. “I am not keeping count.”

She giggles. She is beating him, but he does not seem to mind.

They sleep upon furs and blankets that Sigtryggr has brought down to the study and fashioned into a makeshift bed. Her stomach flutters at laying in such close proximity to him, but true to his word he never touches her. Shame blooms hotly in her chest as each of the days pass and she finds herself yearning for it.

He brings her food, and the hopelessness of the situation looms over her as with every meager meal the bread tastes more stale.

“Read to me, little warrior,” he requests, reclining on the settee, his forearm slung over his forehead.

She grouses, hunger pangs causing her stomach to rumble painfully. “I cannot concentrate,” she whispers.

“What is the matter?” He asks, sitting up to look at her.

“I am hungry. I’m always hungry.”

He nods, stepping towards her and offering her his share of the bread.

She looks from his outstretched hand to his face uncertainly. “What will you eat?”

“I will manage, and you will read to me,” he tells her, as she takes the offering and he settles back down.

She smiles to herself at the gesture, warmth spreading throughout her. So she eats, and she reads to him.

Sigtryggr disappears each day, leaving her alone in the study. She only leaves to bathe and to relieve herself, but she is perfectly happy to stay put and await his return, especially when she is all too aware of the alternative.

Each day when he returns he brings news of the continuing siege. King Edward and the Wessex guard surround the walls of Winchester, but will not attack as his sons are being kept captive in the chapel. They have yet to yield to Sigtryggr’s demands for land.

She fiddles with the cross around her neck, eyeing the Mjölnir that sits around his carefully. “Can there not be a peaceful resolution?”

"It is more difficult to live peacefully with enemies than to fight them,” he tells her.

“But we live peacefully,” she retorts.

“We are not enemies, little warrior.”

The sentiment makes her heart flutter, though there is the lingering question in the back of her mind; what are we?

He leaves her alone again as usual one morning and she busies herself poring over maps to pass the time.

She turns when she hears footsteps, expecting to see Sigtryggr but instead it is a man she does not recognise. He appears Saxon, so she cannot understand why the Danes have allowed him to move around the estate so freely.

The stench of ale upon him as he draws closer is nauseating. His eyes hold malicious intent as he advances towards her, and her blood runs cold at the sight.

She stands, backing away from him. “Whatever you are planning to do, please reconsider,” she pleads, “Sigtryggr will punish you if anything happens to me.”

“I have allied myself with the Danes,” he slurs, “but at what cost? They treat me like a dog, while Sigtryggr coddles you. Tell me, whore, is your cunt really that good? Perhaps I ought to find out for myself.”

She yelps as he lunges for her, grabbing her and pinning her against the desk. Fury flashes through her as she struggles against him, attempting to free herself from his hold.

“Whatever treatment they give you, you have brought upon yourself, traitor,” she spits.

Her head snaps to the side, a sharp sting spreads across her cheek as he strikes her.

She barely has time to adjust her focus before she feels him forcefully being pulled off of her.

“Eardwulf!” Sigtryggr snarls angrily. “Fucking coward!”

His fist makes impact with Eardwulf’s face knocking him to the ground, before he is dragged away.

She curls up on the furs, shaking as tears stream down her cheeks, waiting for her heart rate to calm. What could have happened to her if Sigtryggr had not returned when he did doesn’t bear thinking about.

She is unsure of how much time has passed when he returns.

“Are you alright?”

She turns towards the sound of his voice, gasping when she sees he’s covered in blood. Rushing towards him, she places her hands upon his face. “You are hurt…”

Softly he grasps her wrists, keeping her hands where they are. “This blood is not mine, and Eardwulf will not hurt you ever again.”

Her lips part in shock at the thought that he has killed for her, saved her life twice now. She studies his face, taking in the stormy blue of his eyes, the fullness of his lips.

She allows her gaze to linger there for just a moment too long, embarrassment making her hot, eager to distract herself. She traces a finger over the scar that runs the length of the left side of his face.

“How did this happen?”

“A man tried to take my eye during battle,” he explains softly, “so I took his life.”

“But you were hurt.”

“Injured, yes. Left with a scar, yes. But very much alive.”

“As am I, thanks to you.”

She drops her hands from his face and he steps away from her, pulling off his blood soaked light armour and clothing.

She feels her throat run dry at the sight of his bare torso, all lean, lithe battle hardened muscle, adorned with scars. She longs to trace her fingers over each of them.

Looking away, she feels ashamed for harbouring such thoughts and desperately tries to ignore the throbbing ache in her core.

As night falls and Sigtryggr lays asleep beside her, the feeling that lingers between her legs has yet to subside. It is maddening, robbing her of rest. Every time she closes her eyes the image of him stood bare chested before her enters her mind.

She has never touched herself before, it is impure to do so, yet she needs relief or she is sure she will go mad.

Sparing a glance in the darkness towards Sigtryggr, she makes sure his eyes are closed before reaching a tentative hand between her legs. She lets out a shaky sigh as her fingers make impact against the sensitive flesh.

She is not quite sure what she is supposed to do, but finds that a combination of rubbing the area and bucking softly against her hand feels most pleasurable, so continues to do that, holding her free hand over her mouth to muffle the sounds she makes.

There is a feeling that builds within her, a zenith that she feels she must press towards, so she continues in earnest, until finally she feels something within her release and her entire body shudders, a soft moan stifled against her lips as white hot pleasure rolls through her body.

Laying there afterwards she does her best to calm her breaths, feeling guilty for having done something so depraved.

She is startled by Sigtryggr’s voice beside her. “If only you’d beg, little warrior, I could do that for you.”

Her breath hitches and she quickly turns away from him. Not knowing what to say, she feigns sleep, clutching her cross and praying silently that he’ll forget.

She is grateful when he speaks of it no further, and life goes back to normal, or at least what normal is for them.

That is until a couple of weeks later when Brida storms her way into the study, clearly having grown impatient with the lack of progress being made.

“It has been more than thirty days since we captured Winchester, and your negotiations with the Saxon King are not working, Sigtryggr,” she glowers at him, “the time for talking is over. We are killing more captives.”

She does not miss the way that Brida’s eyes linger upon her as she says this, a shiver of fear causes her skin to break out into gooseflesh.

“I will choose who we execute, not you,” Sigtryggr tells her.

“You cannot protect this Saxon forever,” Brida retorts.

“Oh, but I can,” he says, placing himself protectively between her and Brida. “She is mine, and I will decide what happens to her.”

Brida scoffs, turning and leaving. Sigtryggr follows, leaving her alone to ponder the fact that he has once more saved her life.

When he comes back several hours later, he looks so tired. The expression he wears is one of defeat and she feels her heart ache for him.

“Read to me,” he says softly, sitting heavily upon the settee.

She regards him quietly, she wants to comfort him. She wants to comfort herself. She has grown weary of denying him.

Before she has time to think about what she’s doing, she crosses the room, and places herself upon his lap, her thighs astride his.

“What are you do–”

His words are cut off as she presses her lips to his eagerly, before pulling away. “I’m begging, Sigtryggr, please. I–”

He surges forward, kissing her again, his mouth possessing hers hungrily as he grasps her hips, lifting her as he stands to deposit her onto the makeshift bed upon the floor, his body caging hers in against the furs.

“I knew you’d give in, little warrior,” he whispers against her neck, kissing his way down her throat to her collarbone.

His fingers toy with the hem of the shift she wears, a silent plea for consent in his eyes as he looks at.

She swallows thickly and nods, nervousness and excitement fluttering ceaselessly in her stomach.

He pulls the garment over her head, throwing it to the side before sitting back on his haunches to admire her.

“Gods…you were worth the wait. So beautiful,” he whispers reverently.

She squirms beneath his gaze, turning her head away at the intimacy of the gesture, feeling shy and uncomfortable.

“Look at me,” he tells her softly. His fingers grasp her jaw, turning her face back to him.

Slowly he undresses, until he is as naked as she is. She feels the familiar ache between her thighs as she drinks in the sight of him, chiseled and battle hardened.

“Now we are equal,” he reassures her.

He reaches for the cross around her neck, toying with it between his fingers, before giving a quick, hard tug, causing the cord to give way. “What we are about to do is no business of your nailed god,” he tells her, tossing it to one side.

He kisses her once more, slower this time, their mouths saving the feel of the other’s against it. Trailing featherlight kisses down her body until he reaches her breasts, he wraps his lips around one of their hardened peaks, sucking gently.

The sensation causes her to moan, a pleasurable sensation shooting through her body, pooling into wet warmth between her legs as she arches against him.

Sigtryggr repeats the motion on the opposite breast, before descending further down, leaving wet kisses in his wake.

She freezes up when he grips her thighs, placing them over his shoulders so that his face is level with her most intimate of parts.

“What…what are you doing?” She asks anxiously.

“I’m going to taste you,” he says matter of factly, making pointed eye contact.

“You cannot do that,” she protests weakly, “it is an unclean thing to do.”

He grins at her, shaking his head slightly. “Christian,” the word leaves his mouth as a half hearted insult, before he presses forward.

The first swipe of his tongue against her folds causes her to gasp, her hands burying themselves in his hair as he uses his grip on her thighs to pull her closer, his tongue moving against her firmer, deeper, faster.

A groan of satisfaction rumbles in his throat, the vibrations causing her insides to clench as she bucks against his face, chasing the edge of oblivion that his tongue is pressing her towards.

He sucks at her pearl, before laving his tongue over it and she cries out as she spasms against his mouth, ecstasy numbing all of her senses as he continues to lap at her.

Once she relaxes, he pulls away, sitting back between her legs, his chin slick with her juices. His fist runs over the length of his cock as he takes in her blissful state and her eyes widen as she sees the size of him.

He is thick, long and slightly curved. She has never looked upon anyone’s manhood before and she trembles as she wonders how it will possibly fit inside of her.

Sensing her trepidation, Sigtryggr caresses her cheek with his palm. “Relax, little warrior, I have prepared you well.”

He presses the head of himself against her entrance and she braces herself, but then he stops. Her eyes flit to his questioningly.

“Beg for it,” he whispers.

She whines, wanting to hide her face in furs that they lay upon.

“Beg,” he says again, more insistently.

“Please,” he pushes forward, aided by her arousal and release, “please,” he pushes forward again, more of her swallowing him up, accompanied by the sensation of stretching and the slightest of stings, “please,” he pushes forward once more, finally sheathed fully inside of her.

She realises as he settles on top of her, giving her a moment to get used to the feeling of him, that this was merely a means to distract her so that she wouldn’t focus on the possibility of it hurting and grow tense. She smiles, stroking the wild tresses of his dark hair. Always so cunning.

He withdraws his hips slowly, before carefully pushing forward again. He repeats the motion several times, watching her face carefully.

As her breathing quickens, her brow relaxing as her jaw begins to slacken, he increases his pace, hips snapping against hers faster and faster, their kisses frenzied as they pant into each other’s mouths.

She feels him throb inside of her, the sensation pushes her back towards the precipice she’d fallen over earlier, but before she reaches it he is pulling out, spilling pearlescent ropes of spend across her belly.

He wipes her clean with a blanket, discarding it before laying down beside her and pulling her into his arms. A satisfied ache settles within her, she feels she could fall asleep like this, but his voice lulls her back to full consciousness.

“I have released the King’s sons back to him,” he tells her quietly.

“What will happen now?”

“He is sending a warrior named Uhtred into Winchester to negotiate terms, if I accept those terms then my men and I will move on.”

Her heart sinks. She cannot bear the thought of him leaving, not now she knows what it’s like to be in his arms. “Oh,” is all she is able to muster, pressing tighter to him.

They fall into a quiet doze, until he gently squeezes her shoulder. “I must go and speak with Uhtred.”

She watches sadly, quietly, as he dresses. He leans down to kiss her before he leaves and she pushes her lips eagerly to his. If he is to abandon her then she will cling to every last moment until he does.

When Sigtryggr returns later, she is dressed in her shift again, though her cross remains discarded. She is seated by the window, staring listlessly out of it.

He carries a bundle of clothing in his arms and she looks at him curiously.

“To keep you warm,” he explains, deepening her confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“I have discussed terms with Uhtred and we have reached an agreement. I will leave Winchester, on the condition that you accompany me…not as my prisoner, but as my woman.”

She grins, running into his arms and wrapping her arms around his neck.

As they ride away from Winchester, side by side on horseback, she does not feel as though she is leaving her life behind. On the contrary, it has just begun.

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whatsnewalycat · 2 years

Text

Secret Admirer

Javier Peña x f!Reader - Explicit (18+ only)

Summary: It's Valentine's Day. Which means it's time to take a chance on your workplace crush, Agent Javier Peña.

Word Count: 3.7k+

Warnings: Season 1 (ish), US Embassy, yearning, secret admirer, confrontation, drinking and smoking (real brief), smut, protected PIV sex, dash of angst and fluff

A/N: Yeeehaw, this was written for a valentines day exchange SOOOO Happy Valentine's Day to @typingcorgi 💌 This one is for you, I hope you like it!!!

The papers cradled in your arm dig into the sticky crease of your elbow. Your fingertips part the thick stack of faxes and run along the crisp edge of an envelope hidden inside. A bass drum starts thudding in your chest and heat creeps up your neck.

One last peek over your shoulder at the empty, sterile mailroom gives you permission to do it. You slip the red envelope out from its hiding place and shove it into the cubby labeled JAVIER PEÑA.

The shuffle of approaching footsteps sends your heart into an outright sprint.

You scurry over to the fax machine and pinch the paperclip from the first fax, then slide the papers into the tray. As you punch the outgoing fax number into the machine, the footfalls grow closer, and soon start thudding against the shiny white linoleum of the mailroom.

The low rumble of conversation between two men grows more distinct. You recognize their voices, but keep your eyes glued to the papers being sucked through the gears of the fax machine.

“We’re gonna get a bottle of wine, candlelit dinner, put on some Marvin Gaye to set the mood,” Steve Murphy says, “Should probably get some flowers for her or somethin’, huh?”

Javier Peña hums in response.

They make their way over to the mailboxes. You stand there and try to blend into your surroundings as you wait for a fax receipt. The sound of them sorting the contents of their mail makes your stomach churn.

“What’s that?” Steve asks as they start to walk away.

“Let’s see,” Javier murmurs, then his footsteps come to a halt as he opens the envelope and he hums with curiosity.

Steve stops, too, then chuckles, “Is that a fucking valentine?”

“Looks like it,” Javier mumbles, then directs his voice at you and says your name.

You stop breathing and clench your eyes shut, then open them and turn around, trying your best to keep your face neutral, “What?”

He holds up the unsealed red envelope and its folded up white contents between two fingers, “Did you see who left this?”

You meet his dark brown eyes for a few devastating moments before dropping your gaze to the stack of faxes in your white-knuckle grip. All the moisture from your mouth evaporates. You clear your throat and shake your head, “No, sorry. I just got here.”

“A secret admirer?” Murphy’s lips curl into an amused grin and he raises an eyebrow at Javier.

You take another quick glance at the duo and realize Javier is narrowing his eyes at you, jaw working back and forth in subtle movements. Your skin burns and twists under his examination.

He breaks his laser focus and looks to Steve with a shrug, “Guess so.”

The fax machine roars to life behind you and starts printing. You spin on your heel towards the noise, and the men start off the way they came. Your hands are shaking when you go to grab the confirmation.

—

The clack clack clack of your typewriter ricochets through the empty halls of the United States Embassy. Although you can’t see it from your desk, you know the sun outside is sinking below the horizon and giving way to the inky black of nighttime.

Without Ambassador Noonan there to pull you into meetings for transcription, or assign you urgent outgoing faxes, or ask you to run any other number of errands she deems important, you’re able to perform the more “menial” of your clerical work. You sift through the stacks of papers at the corner of your desk, each one containing hurried handwriting scrawled by Noonan or one of her many Agents, trying to decipher their contents and transfer them into a more legible print.

Footsteps sound from down the hall, but you’re too busy squinting at a puzzling clusterfuck of scribbles to pay it any mind. It’s not until your desk creaks under the weight of Javier leaning back against it that you notice he’s there.

With a jump, you clutch your blouse over your pounding heart and gasp, “Jesus fu—Hi, Agent Peña.”

He comes to rest just inches away from your chair, arms crossed over his chest as he frowns down at you. Dangling between two of his knuckles is the red envelope you left in his mailbox earlier. Adrenaline pumps thick and hot through your veins.

Your hands feel numb as you meet his gaze and manage to ask, “Can I help you with something?”

His jaw cocks to the side and he raises an eyebrow at you, then tosses the red envelope onto your desk, “What’s this?”

“I—I—” you shake your head and widen your eyes, glancing between him and the letter.

“Don’t play dumb,” he interjects.

You swallow hard and hold your eyes steady on his as they bore into you. It’s a standoff. You don’t even dare to breathe. The silence is deafening.

Javier breaks it as he clears his throat and picks the creamy white paper up off your desk, then unfolds it. Your stomach drops to the floor.

He reads it aloud in a gravelly purr:

“Oh, how I long to devour you. To unhinge my jaw And swallow you whole. Do you feel it too? Do you ache with hunger when I’m near? When I meet your starving eyes, I know.”

Your eyes stay trained on his as he peers over the paper at you like he expects you to say something. But you don’t. Your skin buzzes electric when he rolls his tongue against his pouty lips, along the edge of his dark mustache, then drags his gaze down the length of you.

Javier sets the paper back onto your desk, taking a look around before he leans in and murmurs, “I do. I know.”

Then he digs into the pocket of his tan suit pocket and takes out a folded slip of paper. He pulls it away just as you go to reach for it. When your fingers curl back and you blink up at him in question, he searches your face, “This stays between us, ok?”

“Of course,” you nod.

His throat rumbles, eyes flick down to your lips for a moment, then he extends the paper to you again. This time when you go to take it, he lets it slide out from between his fingers into yours.

“Come by when you’re done here,” he says, more of a demand than a request.

“I will,” you try to suppress the grin stretching across your lips.

Javier taps two fingers against your desk, then pushes off it and saunters back down the hallway, giving you a quick backwards glance before turning the corner.

You look around to make sure no one is watching, then unfold the note, revealing an address written in his angular, messy script. Below this, it reads:

Starved.

—

Your knuckles rap two quick knocks against the door before Javier swings it open. His darkened gaze slides down your body like molasses as he steps back and lets you enter the apartment. The scent of his cologne wafts into your nose as you pass him. It’s light and crisp, clean smelling, contrasting his whiskey breath.

You slide out of your heels and set your purse onto the ground, then study the dwelling with curiosity, dropping down two steps into the living room on your way to a leather couch. The walls are painted a cream color, pastel green and pink spliced here and there. It doesn’t seem to represent Javier at all. You figure the apartment was furnished by the Embassy, like yours. Cigarette smoke hangs in the air like a dense fog. It’s tediously quiet.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asks, striding over to a stand-alone dry bar, which hosts a variety of amber colored liquors.

“Sure,” you answer as you sit down on the couch, smoothing out the black dress you changed into before walking over here.

Javier doesn’t ask what you want to drink. He just pours two glasses of whiskey and hands one to you while he lowers himself onto the other end of the loveseat.

Which, it’s a loveseat, so he’s still intimidatingly close.

“Thanks,” you mumble, then swallow a mouthful of the alcohol, wincing at the burn as it travels down your throat.

It’s not until now you realize you’ve never been alone with him. You’ve only experienced his intensity from afar. The way his eyes linger on you, seeming to study you when he thinks you won’t notice.

But you’ve noticed.

And you like it.

You’ve been careful to only leave hints of your wanting. Flicking your gaze to his when you feel it on your skin. Holding it there until your heart starts pounding and one of you looks away. Letting your body brush against him in passing. No words spoken, only heated eye contact and near-touching. Following an acute awareness of the way you’re drawn to him, how fervently your blood courses through your veins when he’s near, how his presence seems to tug at the edges of you.

“Did you write that yourself?” he inquires now. You take another sip and look up at him, meeting his eyes.

It’s unbearable. Yet, you don’t want it to stop. Like magnets are buried beneath your skin and his, opposite poles, aching to meet in equilibrium.

“I did,” you admit quietly, then tilt your head at him with curiosity, “Did you like it?”

He hums and nods, glancing down at your mouth, “I’ve been watching you. I see the way you look at me.”

“I know,” you respond in a whisper. The confession sends your heart racing… but you feel emboldened. You tip the glass to your lips and let the remaining whiskey slide down your throat, then lean forward to set the empty cup on his coffee table and scoot closer to him as you settle back into the couch.

Javier sits up to place his drink on the table, and when he returns, he’s only inches away. He brings his breath to your ear and murmurs, “You like it, don’t you? The attention?”

“Yes,” you answer. His hand rests on your knee, a branding iron that heats your core and steals the air from your lungs.

“Teasing me with those short skirts,” he travels up your thigh, letting his rough palm drag along your skin. The touch sends a shock wave of pleasure across your body.

You whimper and your eyes flutter shut.

His voice lowers to a rasp, “Staring at me with those fuck-me-eyes. You think I wouldn’t know it was you?”

He stops at the crease of your thigh and grips the tender flesh, pulling a wanton moan from your throat as your head falls back against the couch.

“Look at me,” he demands, so your eyes blink open and you meet his heated, meticulous gaze, “Do you want this?”

“I want this,” you nod, bringing a hand to his cheek, working your thumb against the grain of his stubble. He studies your face, dropping his eyes to your mouth, kneading your thigh, drawing closer.

You succumb to his beckoning lips, capturing them in a kiss. Fire sparks in your chest and spreads through your veins like wildfire, spreading to him as your tongues meet, rolling soft and wet, whiskey harsh on your shared breath.

Then he’s on you all at once.

Pushing your back flush to the couch cushions, rocking his hand against the seam of your panties, sliding the thin straps of your dress off your shoulders, liquefying your insides into molten need. He rids you of the red lace thong, tossing it on the floor while your trembling fingers unfasten the buttons of his shirt. You splay your fingers across his chest and slip the shirt off his shoulders. It joins your abandoned lingerie, followed by your dress, then his pants.

Javier pauses to study your naked body, lust-blown eyes trailing along every inch of your exposed skin, hands dragging up your legs. You examine him, too. His smooth, bronzed skin. His broad shoulders. His lean frame. His swollen, needy cock.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” you breathe, reaching out to him, rolling your hips against nothing, aching with lust.

Your compliment pulls a rumble from his throat, then he returns to your body, to your lips. His warmth sends shockwaves down your spine. You arch your back into the sensation, drinking up every ounce of heat your thirsty skin can lap up.

When he touches the slick pool between the legs, spreading your arousal up and down your slit, you both moan into the other’s mouth, and he pants, “So fucking wet.”

You slide your hands around his shoulders, whimpering, nodding, reveling in the exquisite heat stoked at your center, urging him to continue with a breathy moan, “Don’t stop—fuck, that’s so good—”

He groans and captures your lips in his, kissing you hard, messy, working you faster, and the flames licking your insides continue to grow hotter, breaking you out into a sweat, making you gasp and moan against his mouth, eyes fluttering shut and it’s just this aching, heated bliss building at the base of your spine, and your pleas for him not to stop, and his skin on yours, his mouth planting wet kisses down your jaw, your neck, his moans of secondhand pleasure vibrating down your middle, fueling this brilliant concentrated ball of fire burning a hole inside you until you reach the edge of something and push past it.

Ecstasy washes over your body and steals the air from your lungs. You release a shattered breath and start to free fall, but his touch doesn’t relent, and your body shakes with pleasure that’s too intense to bear, legs clamping shut around his arm as you start to whimper at the stimulation.

Javier pulls back when your legs go jelly, his chest heaving, eyes wild and black and glued to yours. His pink tongue rolls against his lips, then they pout out into an O when he drags his fingers through your release. Your hips jerk at the jolt of his touch, heavy eyelids fluttering as you moan, and he smirks, “Wanna move this to the bedroom?”

You bite down on the pillowy flesh of your bottom lip as your gaze drops to his engorged length, and you manage to respond, “Uh-huh.”

He stands and starts towards his bedroom. You follow him on wobbly legs, head swimming, ears buzzing.

Just like the common areas of his apartment, his room is decorated tastefully and obviously courtesy of the Embassy. It’s surprisingly neat, though, the dark walnut chest of drawers cleared of clutter and personal effects, hardwood floor unencumbered by piles of dirty laundry, dark walnut four-post bed dressed with white linens. Based on the constant state of disarray his desk is in, you expected it to be messier, and wonder if he cleaned up for you.

Javier strides over to a side table and pulls a condom out of its drawer. While he wraps himself up, you settle at the edge of his bed, legs dangling off the side as your eyes trail down his shoulders, his arms, the defined muscles of his back, swallowing hard when he turns to face you.

He takes the two short steps to settle his hips between your knees and hums, bringing a hand to your chin, tilting your head up towards him as he presses his forehead to yours and purrs, “Is this what you wanted, sweetheart? Hmm? For me to fuck you?”

“Yes,” you whisper, linking your hands at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer, feeling his breath puff hot against your mouth, grip on your chin tightening.

His lips find yours and he kisses you slowly, deliberately, with a tender sort of reverence that tightens around your skin and makes you whimper. The noise spurs something inside him. He cups your cheeks and picks up speed, climbing onto the bed, pushing you onto your back.

It completely consumes you, the way his mouth works against yours, the way you writhe against each other, touch roaming, both of you tugging and rubbing and digging your fingers in and moaning at the fire blazing between your sweaty bodies.

When the head of his cock nudges against your entrance, you wrap your legs around his back and arch against him, panting, “Fuck yes, give it to me.”

He stares down at you, holding your gaze as he plunges forward, working you open, and both your faces contort with pleasure.

“Fuuuck,” he groans as he starts to rut into you at a steady pace. Every single nerve ending he rubs against buzzes with ecstasy.

Your fingers tangle in his hair and you pull him closer, pressing your lips to his, immersing yourself in a series of messy, frantic kisses, swallowing each other's moans, working your bodies in tandem to fuel the hungry flames. You start to roll your hips against his thrusts, each one accumulating hot and gooey and tingling, tugging at the edges of you as you whimper, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—”

“That’s it, baby,” Javier pants, his voice jumping in time with his hips as he drives into you, “So fucking good—feel so fucking good—”

He kisses you then, and his eager lips, his soft tongue, the scent of whiskey on his breath, the burn of his mustache scratching your skin, the blissful ache of him stretching you again and again, it fully engulfs your body, like you’re melting together, the heat between you too great, the fire too intense to remain whole because this glowing molten core is growing wider and hotter with each moan, each touch, each thrust, and you beg Javier not to stop, fuck, don’t fucking stop, and he steals the words from your mouth with his own, fucking you hard and fast just like you knew he would, pushing you closer and closer to bliss, and then you reach it.

For one second, you’re suspended right at the edge, mind blank, body humming. Then it hits you, and it hits you fucking hard, euphoria breaking you into pieces and tearing a sob from your throat. Javier’s hips stutter as your muscles tense and your pussy convulses around him. He gasps against your mouth, then shudders as he finds his release. Both of your bodies slow their pace, cooling to a crawl, then a stop.

The sound of your labored breaths fills the bedroom, heaving chests working against each other as sanity starts to return and your bodies struggle to recover. He rolls off of you and stretches out across his bed, inhaling deep and wide, exhaling a content hum.

Then, without a word, he gets up and leaves the room.

Your guts twist into a knot. It should give you whiplash, how fast you go from total satisfaction to nervous wreck.

Since moving to Colombia for this job, sex has been a rare occurrence for you. And by that, you mean… it doesn’t happen. Even before the move, a series of long-term relationships have been your only claim to sexual experience. So this situation is uncharted territory.

But you’re pretty sure this is your cue to get the fuck out.

While staring at the ceiling, you kick yourself for giving him the note, for putting yourself in this position. Shame simmers hot under your skin when you try to imagine what it’ll be like the next time you see Javier at work. When you’ll both know what happened here tonight, but pretend it was nothing.

Why do you have to feel this burning desire for someone like him? For someone so intimidating and closed off? And, more perplexing still, does he feel it for you?

Your chest and throat tighten when it dawns on you that he probably doesn’t feel the same as you. Maybe he saw an opportunity to get laid and took it. Maybe… it was nothing to him.

You sit up and scoot to the edge of the bed, peering out the bedroom door a moment before hopping down and padding across the hardwood floor into the living room.

He’s doing something in the kitchen, so you fold your arms in front of your body and make your way over to the couch, snatching your clothes off the ground before you sit and start to get dressed.

As you pull your dress down over your head, he returns to the living room. He’s wearing jeans now, but remains shirtless, and a lit cigarette dangles from his lips.

You glance up at him and mutter, “Sorry, I can get out of your hair. Thank you for, um… indulging me.”

He plops down next to you and crushes the burning ember of his cigarette into a glass ashtray on the coffee table, then leans back and extends his arm along the couch behind you, frowning, “You’re leaving?”

“I—I guess, right?” you turn and search his face, meeting his eyes that are all puppy dog soft. They tug at your heartstrings, but you continue to stammer onward, “That’s—I don’t know, that’s what I’m supposed to do, right?”

“If that’s what you want,” he shrugs, dropping his gaze to your lips.

While you stare at him and try to understand what the fuck that means, he leans close, brushing his hand against your cheek, “Or, you could stay… we can ‘indulge’ ourselves again.”

“Is that what you want?” you ask in an attempt to parse out his intentions.

“Is that what you want?” he counters in a low voice, furrowing his brow.

You bite down on your bottom lip and nod, then blink and shrug, “I mean, if that’s what you—”

His lips cut you off before you can embarrass yourself more.

—

You woke up with the sun. Javier was still holding you close, his shallow, dream-drenched breath spreading across the nape of your neck in soft puffs. You wriggled out of bed and collected your things, then walked the city block to your apartment and got ready for work.

The day passes by like any other, with the exception of your strained muscles making every movement more difficult. You don’t cross paths with Javier, but when you return to your desk after lunch, there’s a red envelope sticking out of your typewriter.

You take a cursory glance around, then pluck it out and open it. A smile spreads across your face when you read the note inside.

Roses are red Violets are blue Come over tonight I want to see you XO, Your Secret Admirer

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