#era; dance the night away

[bbybluluv]

cr. njmsjmdct2 on twt

[daily-twice-content]

20180723 MBC Show! Music Core Ulsan Summer Festival recording

© Brighter Than White | Do not edit.

[godofstory]

Jenny of oldstones (by florence + the machine) is about Remus Lupin.

[doesntseeyourbeauty]

rewatched my videos from the lover set at my eras tour show (in honor of her anniversary) and nothing makes me smile more than hearing past me scream so loudly when taylor popped out for miss americana and during the bridge of cruel summer

[themidnightcrimson]

nosferatu ࿏ wm

summary: in which you are much too trusting of a creature who wants more than a dance with you.

words: 6.0k

warnings: blood, supernatural, horror, gore, dubcon/noncon, top!wanda, fem!reader, biting, oral, breastplay, bondage, victorian era

this is a dark!fic for 18+ only. minors dni. read with discretion.

Your corset was so tight around your waist that you could not breathe. It was a sickening shade of pink that was supposed to portray girlish innocence about you. It was made specifically to match the color that imbues your cheeks, though now it was more of a sharp crimson red.

“I cannot believe your impudence,” your mother breathily spoke in a vexed air as she stiffly ripped the white gloves from her hands. “Your audacity.”

Rolling your eyes, you threw your head back against the wall of the compartment, feeling the familiar but nauseating shake of the carriage, the click-clack of the horse’s hooves going as fast as your heartbeat. Biting your lip to ward off any retaliating remarks towards your mother, you reached behind your waist and fiddled for the bow of your corset, snapping the ribbon undone and inhaling the first large breath of fresh air since the night began.

“At this rate, you’ll never be wed,” your mother continued to grumble as she neatly folded her gloves in her lap and looked out the window of the compartment door, the tree-lined field flickering past her eyes as the carriage moved on down the sandy country road. “I wouldn’t know what gentleman in all of England would wed such a usurping, galling, exasperating little—”

“Please, Mother, I haven’t had my vocabulary lesson yet this week,” you sarcastically battled as you ripped the matching pink ribbon out of your hair, letting your long waves flow down your shoulders. Your mother especially hated when you wore your hair freely down like that, citing that it reminded her of the harlots of Dorset Street.

You had to admit that your behavior was not the most ladylike this evening, but that was your entire mission. Your mother had been trying to marry you off to every man that comes across your path since you were of age. What she didn’t know (or rather was entirely aware of but simply unable to comprehend or acknowledge it under both societal implications and her own personal dogmas) was that you actually preferred the company of women.

It was just another fancy political ball she’d dragged you to. As always, she put you in clothes you didn’t want to wear, made you speak to people you didn’t want to speak to, and expected you to take it all with sugar and a big smile.

“Is this how you behave at those other parties you attend? Those invalids might be able to handle your inexcusable behavior, but I certainly won’t.”

It wasn’t that you didn’t like parties at all. You actually very much enjoyed going to the parties you liked to go to with people you actually liked to be around. Could these parties become a little unsavory if warranted? Yes, they could. But you yourself never participated in those things. You just thought the people there were nicer and didn’t have giant sticks shoved up their bums. Plus, the food was always better.

“Well, I hate to burst your bubble, young lady, but there will be no more attending these parties of yours.”

“Mother!” you exclaimed, looking at her with eyes of disbelief. “I am a grown woman. I will go wherever I please!”

“Not with what’s been happening,” she argued, glancing at the folded newspaper sitting on the cushion beside her that she had picked up on the way to the ball. The Old Post. The front of it read Vampyres in the Village.

“You can’t be serious,” you grumbled, turning away from her with a pout. “You really believe in that stuff?”

“It’s devil-work, dear,” she said in a quieter, more serious tone. She stared at you for a moment from across the compartment before slowly leaning forward. “I’m not saying this to try and… control you. I’m saying this to you because… because you are my daughter, and I want to keep you safe.”

You could tell she was biting back vomit at saying kind words to you. “And things have been… happening in the city. Horrible things. And it seems to be happening only to people like you. Pretty, single, young girls. But most importantly, naïve girls.”

You rolled your eyes and turned further away from her. “You say my head is full of air, but I’m not the one who believes in fairytales here.”

“Miss Margaret’s daughter is still missing.”

Miss Margaret was a close friend of your mother’s, which you found surprising because Miss Margaret was one of the kindest women you’d ever met. Her daughter was your age, maybe a year or two older. She hadn’t been seen for two months now since she attended one of the parties you liked to go to in the city.

“She probably ran off with a boy,” you argued even though you knew that was not her daughter’s character.

Your mother didn’t even bother to argue that because you already knew. She only shook her head and turned back to the window, taking a deep sigh. “I’m only trying to keep you safe. It’s one thing to have an unwed daughter, but it’s entirely another thing to have one that’s dead.”

“I’m sure that’s what you’d prefer.”

You shouldn’t have said that, and you didn’t even need to look in your mother’s general direction to feel the look of shocked hurt on her face.

Maybe if your mother hadn’t fought tooth and nail to keep a noose around your neck your whole life, you might have listened. You might have heeded her advice.

Things might not have ended up the way they did.

If only.

࿏

You knew exactly how to scale your own house by now. Granted, you had to be barefoot while you did it.

Clutching your shoes in one hand, you teetered on the edge of the windowsill of your room, carefully stepping down on the ledge of the roof. From there, you could set your foot on the top sill of another window, and then catch the vine-wrapped lattice going up the side of your parent’s estate, and it was a breeze from there on. You always enjoyed this feeling. The chilly autumn night air breezing between your legs as you wore a more casual dress that did not require a skeleton of its own. The wind fluttering through your loose locks of hair. The light of the full moon above you guiding your way down. Feeling agile and smart, free and unfiltered. Sometimes, your favorite part of these nights was just the sneaking out.

You always enjoyed the feeling of the dewy grass on the bottom of your feet when you finally hopped down to the ground. You’d jog like this, barefoot and wild like some kind of heathen, all the way down your country driveway to the main road where your friends had a carriage waiting for you.

When you said these parties could be a little unsavory, you meant it. While you mostly stuck with your friends and did not participate in these acts, all around you people were doing all kinds of unknown drugs, being lude with each other, engaging in certain dares or pranks. Sometimes there was a theme to all this, and tonight happened to be a masquerade, except instead of socialites and rich people, it was the ones of society who yearned a more stained quality of life.

This party was especially sex-driven, you realized with an air of shock as you walked in behind your group of friends. They were handing out masks at the front, and beyond that, you could see people basically eating each other at every sitting area in the large auditorium. Someone was throwing this at a large estate where everything around you seemed to be made of gold.

See, there were a select few rich people that participated in and most importantly, funded and housed these parties. There was a group of people, higher on the social ladder, who liked to throw these unsavory parties sometimes in their own homes. You could tell that this party was definitely one of them. They always seemed to get much more extreme when one of these people hosted it in their own home. The odd thing about it was that no one really knew who they were other than that they were seemingly nocturnal and rather pale, possibly as a consequence. Nightcrawlers, they sometimes called them. They always infested the local bars in the later hours of the evenings.

“My Lord,” your friend whispered under her breath as she eyed the couples (sometimes multiple couples all in one cluster) all around. “I think I’ve seen three bare buttocks already.”

Uneasiness settled into your stomach. While you normally enjoyed these parties, you usually tried to stay away from the ones that appeared to have a more carnal purpose, mostly because you did not want to have to fight off random men under the impression that you wanted to be a part of it. To your surprise, though, you actually saw a few women together, and a few men together also.

A mask was flung in your direction, and you took it. It was black and gold with a sharp nose, covering the top half of your face and leaving your mouth exposed. Trying to clear your vision as you stared out of the eye holes, you followed your group of friends into the party. It became denser the further they led you into it, and soon you could feel bodies touching yours.

“Wait!” you called when your mask slipped and covered your eyes, blinding you in the thickly packed room. You stumbled over someone’s foot as you tried to adjust your mask, and by the time you finally corrected it over your eyes, you could not locate your friends. Starting to panic as you were packed in a sea of people, feeling eyes behind odd foreign masks staring you down, you looked around for your friends, frantically calling their names.

You were turning in circles, growing dizzier and fainter by the second. This was a horrible idea. You should have listened to your instinct and turned around as soon as you walked in and saw what was going on at the party. Even now, in the crowd of people dancing to the oddly calm music that did not match the strong energy of the dancers, you could hear faint moans and the vague smell of sex drifting in the air.

You were about to melt to the floor and curl yourself into a sobbing ball when suddenly you felt a purposeful hand press into the small of your back. Gasping, you turned sharply, ready to slap the man who dared think he had a right to touch you, when you were faced with something unexpected.

The only thing you saw that was expected was pants—a men’s dark red velvet suit, decorated with lacy white wristcuffs and a rather poofy white chestpiece beautifully ruffled. But instead of seeing broad shoulders, you saw softer ones, and a curve at the chest and hips. This person wasn’t as tall as you expected, though they were several inches taller than you. Instead of a cropped cut, or perhaps a shaggier cut with handsome curls around the ears, this person had long, silky, wavy red hair that went down to their chest, flowing like a beautiful lake of deep rust.

A pitch-black mask covered the top half of their face, but instead of whiskers, or a beard, there was smooth, pale skin and delicately soft pink lips. The jaw there was strong, but there was a feminine curve to it.

A woman. This was a woman who was now curling your hand around the small of your waist, somehow enveloping it completely around you, pulling you against her and taking your hand in her other hand.

Gasping, you stumbled as she strongly started pulling you into a gentle dance through the crowd that seemed to make way for her.

You struggled to see her face, as the mask covered the top half. Those deep pink lips curled into a cupid’s smirk that brought some sort of chill up your spine. Even in this crowded room, with all the unpleasant noises and smells, your entire focus was on this woman pulling you to her breast and holding you with an iron strength that shocked you.

Though her mask, like the others, had carved holes for eyes, the lighting cast a shadow over the material that kept her eyes from view, and it was rather dim in the room anyway.

You opened your mouth to speak but failed to find words as the redheaded woman in a man’s suit spun you in a circle, and as she did, the source of light from a chandelier above finally glared through the holes of the mask, and you jolted in shock when you saw a flash of red eyes behind the mask.

Instinctively, you tried to pull away, but her arm would not budge. Had you ever known a man to be this strong, let alone a woman?

“Who are you?” you asked, but it came out in a tiny, hoarse whisper that surely only you could hear. Somehow, she heard it.

“Your dream woman,” she smoothly husked with an impish smirk, and you saw another flicker of red in the eyes of the mask as she spun you again before it went dark again.

Sewing your eyebrows together, you stumbled to keep up as she spun you. “Why won’t you let me go?”

“Because it’s so much more fun when I don’t,” she said with a small chuckle. You noticed that her hand holding yours was ice cold. “Besides, you looked a little lost back there.”

“I was perfectly fine,” you argued, finding it incredibly rude that this woman would not let you go, though being so close to her was making your spine tingle with something that bordered attraction and the urge to run for your life.

“You were far from fine, though you sure look fine,” she said, and you noticed how nice her voice was, such a pleasant cadence, like honey to your ears. Suddenly her arm around your waist disappeared, and she was spinning you around. Losing your balance, you let out a gasp, feeling yourself about to fall until she spun you back into her, wrapping her arms around you and leaning you backwards in her strong hold.

She grinned down at you, and you almost didn’t notice.

“What—” you said, startled. Her teeth, ivory white, were sharp. Like, as sharp as your father’s hunting knives. Glistening even in the dim light. Some unsatisfactory stain of red between them that made your stomach uneasy. It was strange, to see such a pleasant pair of lips stretched around teeth that looked so deadly.

“You’re beautiful,” the woman whispered, her eyes lowering down your neck and to your chest left exposed by your dress. You’d picked this dress because your mother hated how particularly revealing it was.

You saw the flash of scarlet irises again through her mask. They seemed to glow as she drank you in with her eyes.

“You can’t even see my face,” you whispered with a tone of playfulness at the fact that the woman was obviously staring at your chest with a look of hunger that you could see even through her mask.

Glancing back up to your face, she smiled handsomely and reached towards your face. Your instinct was to push her hand away, berate her for daring to take off your mask without asking, but for some reason your body did not budge. You involuntarily let her remove your mask, her eyes drinking you in.

“I didn’t have to take it off to know that you are the most beautiful woman in the room,” she flirted shamelessly, her hand on your back gripping you. She was still holding you in a leaning position.

Deciding to have fun with this odd woman, you smirked and said, “Your turn. Remove yours so that I may see who is holding me so.”

The woman hesitated but smiled again, reaching up and slowly removing her mask.

She was beautiful—like the kind of beautiful you had never seen before. An alien, strange beautiful that did not feel real. Something churned in your gut, some kind of knowing, a fear, but it was muffled. Her red eyes, her sharp smile, it was suffocating down the instinct in you that was telling you to get away from her as fast as possible.

She cocked her head, her eyes never leaving yours. “Come with me,” she spoke, and it sounded like many voices at once. Her grip on you was hard now, and if she hadn’t been compelling you with her magic, you would have seen the bloodlusting look on her face.

You didn’t remember leaving the party. You also suddenly couldn’t even remember arriving at the party. All you knew was that suddenly you could hear the click-clack of hooves against cobblestone and the cold night air blowing through your hair, and something else in your hair, too.

You sharply turned your head to see the same redheaded woman walking next to you, her hand in your hair, stroking it softly, playing with the strands between her long-nailed fingers.

“Where are we?” you questioned, slowing your walk and looking all around you. You did not recognize this street at all.

“We’re on a walk, my love,” the woman cooed, cradling her arm around you and pulling you into her. “You were becoming faint at the party.”

Your head felt fuzzy. Muddled. Like you needed to remember something that you just couldn’t remember, but you knew you desperately needed to.

“I’m… I’m confused…” you cried, clutching your hands to your face. You wanted to ask her where she was taking you, what she was going to do to you, why her teeth were so sharp and her eyes so red, but something was stopping the words from coming out of your mouth and even stopping these anxious feelings from being realized by you. There was a false blanket of calmness over you that was not coming from within you. It was suffocating you.

“Do calm down, beautiful girl,” she said in a velvet tone in your ear, suddenly very close to you. The moonlight rained down over you as she pressed her lips to your ear in a soft kiss. Something hard grazed the skin there, but it wasn’t enough for you to really notice.

The street was nearly empty. There were a few shops that were all closed down at this time of night. As you passed one that had a string of garlic hanging down over the door, which a lot of shops had now with all the rumors flying around, you felt the redhead stiffen beside you. When you were far enough away, she let out a breath as if she had been holding it.

Stupified, you hadn’t noticed this.

You also didn’t notice the way she walked faster, goading you forward with a hand at your back, as you passed by a church with a large cross on its steeple. The church also had garlic over the door, and had even built a fence of sharp whittled stakes all around the front. This city was so paranoid.

“Where are we going?” you question, noticing finally that the more garlic-protected doors you passed, the more the false sense of security lifted from you. Unbeknownst to you, the protections were interfering with the woman’s magic on you. “Where are you taking me?!”

“Be quiet!” she hissed at you suddenly, her red eyes fiery in the dark night. She looked monstrous now, albeit beautiful, and you finally realized the fear inside you.

“Get away!” you yelled, slapping her hand away from your waist and stepping away from her. “I don’t want to go anywhere with you!” You glanced around to see if anyone was around, but there was no one.

“Don’t yell!” the woman said louder this time, and her teeth started to look even sharper than before.

Finally, with all the garlic and crosses and stakes preventing her from being able to stop you from thinking your own thoughts, you could hear the instinct, loud and clear within you, telling you to run from this woman, this witch, this monster, this…

Vampire.

You ran as fast as you could on the uneven cobblestone. You were a very agile girl, thanks to so many times sneaking out of the window and running away. You always impressed people with how fast you could run, and you knew you could definitely outrun a woman in a stiff suit.

Until she appeared right in front of you with lightning speed. You didn’t even have time to be shocked. Her hand passed over your eyes, and you were asleep, falling limply into her arms like dead prey.

The last thing you thought of was if your mother had noticed you were gone yet or not.

࿏

You could tell it was dark before you even opened your eyes. When you did manage to finally flutter your eyes open, the first thing you saw was candlelight. A dark room with red carpet and black walls. Candles, everywhere. Some semblance of a bed that you lay on, naked. Something wooden in front of the bed on the floor which you realize to your sleepy horror is a coffin. And worst of all, to your upmost terror, standing to the side of the bed you lay on staring at you with a vile look of hunger, the redheaded woman.

She was holding a glass in her hand that held what appeared to be red wine, but it was way too dark. As the last memories flood back into your mind as she takes a slow, sickly sip, you realize that it is not wine in her glass.

“I know you’ll be much sweeter than this,” she thickly says after swallowing, lowering the glass and grinning at you with reddened teeth. “I could smell your blood as soon as you walked in.”

You attempt to sit up but there was an invisible force keeping you pressed flat on the bed. “Please let me go,” you whisper, your eyes welling with tears. You can’t exactly feel the fear inside you, not with whatever magic this vampire was putting inside you, but your body felt it and informed you of it in the form of hot tears rolling down your cheeks in an emotionless cry.

She laughed and started towards the bed, the movement causing you to jump. She set the glass down on the table beside the bed, eyes flickering at you as she slowly leaned over you, the weight of her hand on your pillow tipping your head closer to her. She was so close now. Deep scarlet eyes, pointed teeth, locks of her rust hair grazing your bare chest and tickling your nipples which you realized now were erected. Her breath smelled of iron, of old iron that had been sitting out in the rain. It smelled of flesh and of blood casting over your face for how close she was to you.

“Don’t be so frightened,” the vampire cooed, reaching her hand under you. You gasped at her cool touch, her oddly delicate and soft hand which glided across your back which arched for its way, coming to the other side of your waist and holding it gently so that her arm was completely curled under you. She had you trapped now, hovering over you, holding you. There was a crazed look in her eye now as her skin touched yours, as she smelled your scent and felt your warm flesh in her hand and listened to your heart beating so fervently, so frightened.

“You will enjoy this, love,” she continued, her nails digging slightly into your side as she lowered herself down further on the bed. She parted your legs with her knee, and it made you gasp in shock as she slid her other knee between them also, forcing your legs to spread. You felt the cool air of exposure in your middle, feeling now the strings of wet between your folds. She could smell it, you knew, by the way her nostrils flared and her beautiful lips twisted into a knowing smirk. This woman was an animal, a beast with senses that far outpowered yours. She could smell and hear and feel and see everything, down to the hairs on your arms that stood on their ends.

Were you enjoying it already? Why was your skin basically vibrating as she laid herself over you? Why were you slick as if you were with a lover? Why was your back and hips arching towards her hungrily as if you were the one thirsting for her and not the other way around?

Was she persuading you? You had heard of these vampyres being skilled in the art of witchery, particularly in the use of persuasion. It was heard of vampyres luring their victims to them willingly, as if the humans were offering themselves to them. Was that how she got you outside of the party in the first place?

You could feel the radiation of her powers vibrating through you, her red eyes seeming to glow in the dark room. “Oh, darling,” she whispered, bringing her hand up to your face and caressing your cheek. Your cheek was burning hot against her cold hand, which only invigorated her more.

“Your body is so warm against mine…” she murmured, her eyes trailing down your body to your bare chest. Lowering herself, she moved her head towards your neck area.

“No!” you instantly screamed, jerking your body against her as her face disappeared below your face. She dug her nails hard into your side, causing you to squeak, and then her mouth was on your neck. “Please! Stop! Don’t!”

You writhed and shrieked until you realized that you felt no intrusion of teeth into your veins but rather just a forceful yet gentle kiss of heavenly lips on your neck. The vampire’s breathing was heavy and thick, blowing hard against your skin as her entire body went rigid over yours like a predator. Her hips were the only thing that trembled, pressing hard between your legs.

“Fuck,” you heard the vampire curse into your neck as she pressed more kisses, letting her body push harder into yours. She was salivating, leaving your neck slick as she pressed more and more flurrying kisses against your soft skin. “So soft and warm,” she murmured, rubbing her entire face into the expanse of your neck, digging the bridge of her nose into your collarbone.

You were shocked when a gentle moan left your lips. She was kissing and rubbing her face all over your clavicles and chest, rolling her hips into you with a steady rhythm. You were starting to feel dizzy with warmth and lust that throbbed sinfully through you as this monster had her way with you.

She lowered further and finally was met with the pillowy hills of your breasts. She nuzzled herself right into them, leaving open-mouthed kisses on your flesh there that was so tender it gave way to the slightest of her touch. It felt like she was vibrating against you now, breathy and rigid and drunk. Her tongue slipped out of her mouth and lapped over the peak of your nipple, earning a loud gasp from you. Her eyes flickered open, alert at the sound, and looked deviously at you as she started to lap at your tit, the points of her fangs sticking through her lip like a kitten.

Sewing your eyebrows together, you squirmed under her, unsure of what, if anything, was going through your head. There were your thoughts, and the thoughts she wanted you to think, and thoughts your body was sending up your spine to your brain, mostly sinful and desirous.

Chuckling throatily against your nipple, the vampire grinned, which caused her fangs to scrape your skin.

“Ow!” you exclaimed at the tiny but strong sting you felt. It only felt like a papercut until the woman’s pupils went large, and she sunk her fangs into the soft flesh of your tit. You gasped in shock at first, watching the readhead’s long fangs sink into your breast, blood immediately streaming out of where she bit.

The scream that left your mouth was loud and burned your throat. The vampire grunted and groaned as she tasted your blood, her hips fully grinding into you now, her body melting on top of yours as she moaned huskily into your wound that she drank from.

You were at a loss for words as you thrashed against her strength and clawed at the pillows and blankets around you. The worst part was that, as much as it hurt and as much as you feared for your life, your middle was throbbing and more slick than ever as she ground herself into you, turned on from the mere taste of your blood.

Finally, the woman retracted, gasping open-mouthed, her lips and mouth smeared with the bright red of your blood. Her pupils were blown, red barely visible, your blood dripping from her fangs. She breathed heavily against you as your blood streamed down your breast, trailing to your stomach.

“The sweetest I’ve ever tasted,” she breathed almost inaudibly. She looked completely different now, like drinking from you had changed her features in some fundamental way that you couldn’t describe. She looked more beautiful than ever, and whether it was her persuasion or the sinner that had been hiding somewhere deep inside you, it made you even more slick to see this woman so beside herself, hovering over you, her mouth and chin covered and dripping with your blood, declaring you to be the best.

Seeming to still be gasping for breath, the vampire lowered herself more down the bed until her shoulders were what kept your legs spread open.

“My heavens,” she breathed as she inhaled the scent of your arousal, her eyes focused between your legs. “You sick little thing.”

Shame blushed across your face, but it was replaced with the blush of pleasure when the woman put her mouth over your clit. Her hands curled around your hips, holding them with iron strength as she devoured you. Your cum mixed with your own blood over the vampire’s mouth as she lapped at your soaked folds, somehow masterfully avoiding nicking you with the blades in her mouth. Her tongue plunged inside you, supernaturally long as it curled to reach your pleasure spot deep inside.

You were the one absolutely beside yourself now, grabbing at the sheets, at her soft red hair, arching your back off the bed and pushing your hips into her face. Any thoughts of life or death, the risk of it, being a prey trapped with its predator, your blood leaving your system through the deep bite on your breast, were all gone. All you knew now was this beautiful woman’s tongue deep inside you and the bridge of her nose digging against your clit.

A burst of pleasure exploded inside you, and you found yourself screaming out, blinded, only urged on with a more vigorous effort from the vampire’s tongue. Her nails had dug so hard into your hips that there were ten bleeding marks in the shape of fingernails on your skin, unbeknownst to the vampire who was joyously overwhelmed with the taste and smell of your blood and juices in her mouth.

Finally, when you had relaxed, she pulled away, looking up at you from between your legs. The blood on her face was still there but had been wiped away in most spots, turned pink by the mixing of your wetness which glistened over the bridge of her nose and down her chin. Her long tongue came out from her mouth to lick at her lips, her throat clenching as she swallowed.

You had never felt such physical bliss in your life. Your entire body throbbed and ached wonderfully, churned with the duality of it being so sexy and so morbid at the same time.

In fact, you’d nearly completely forgotten about the morbidity of it all until the vampire, eyes crazed even more, gazed down at your fleshy thighs. Her lips twitched in a smirk before she dove down and bit right into the inside of your thigh.

Reacting with a shriek and kicking your legs, you could feel her bite this time was much more painful and aggressive. She was not just biting you, she was sucking your blood.

“Stop!” you exclaimed, trying to kick at the vampire that seemed to be made of steel. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

She did stop. She pulled away sharply, face bloodier than ever, and lunged upwards. In a flash faster than you could realize, she grabbed your jaw and snapped your head to the side, digging her face down into the crook of your neck and sinking her teeth into your throat. The weight and strength of her body naturally held you down against the bed as she devoured you now in a more real way. You could feel your blood draining from your veins, leaving them cold. You could feel your head get lighter and lighter, your arms and legs feeling more and more numb until finally you went limp in her arms like a lamb. Vision blurring, you were moments away from death when finally the monster pulled herself away from you with a heavy sigh.

The redheaded woman had to stand up out of the bed to restrain herself. Your blood streaked darkly down her chin, staining the white lace of her chestpiece which she clawed at to give her throat room to breathe. You were a pathetic thing now, covered in your own blood at your breast and thighs, laying limply on the bed, eyes rolling as you tried to jolt yourself awake.

“My dear, I believe I’ve found heaven in you,” she whispered, recovering herself as she approached you again. You were half-conscious as she easily picked you up in her arms, holding you bridal style. Your head and arm hung down limply, the both of you blood-streaked and throbbing with different sorts of feelings that were somehow mutual. She carried you to the end of the bed where, at the floor, was the wooden coffin with the lid open. Gently, she laid you down into the soft red velvet of the wooden coffin.

She was about to stand up before you weakly grabbed at her collar. She paused, something glistening in her eyes as she stared down at you with a sewed brow.

“I don’t want to die,” you coarsely whispered. Most people wouldn’t have been able to hear you but, either because of the kind of monster she was or because your blood was running through her body, she understood exactly what you said.

“Don’t worry, my lamb,” she said with a crimson grin. “I wouldn’t let a treat like you go to waste. I’m going to keep you, pet. You’ll sustain me for as long as your body can take it. For now, you must sleep and rest, for my satisfaction is brief, and my thirst comes in quite short intervals.” She paused and stood up, letting your hand fall away from her collar. “Sleep well, little lamb.”

She closed the lid on your bleeding body, leaving you locked in the dark coffin.

[agaypanic]

His Good Girl (Carlisle Cullen X Vampire!Wife!Reader Smut)

Kinktober Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Request Something! | AO3

Kinktober Day 3: Praise Kink

Summary: For your one hundredth wedding anniversary, Carlisle takes you to a cabin in the mountains away from your children and the prying eyes of Forks citizens. The days are beautiful, but the nights are far more pleasurable.

A/N: ignore that im posting day 3 on the 23rd…. Im so behind omfg ANYWAYS i know vampires technically cant get hard or probably cum or wtv bc they don’t have bloodflow but this is a kinktober fic so idgaf. i know a thousand years is in twilight soundtrack, but i like the song and think it fits so pretend it/christina perri exists in this universe. Tbh this feels more like a real fic than a kinktober fic (not saying kinktober fics aren’t real fics. I just feel like kinktober stuff really focuses on the sex/kink and i feel like this is more of a fluff that ends in smut)

C/W: oral (fem!receiving), fingering, unprotected p in v sex (they're vampires so they cant get pregnant or diseases but wrap it before you tap it), praise kink, body worship, rough sex

***

“Carlisle, dear, I can pack my own suitcase.” But you did nothing to stop him from meticulously folding your clothes and putting them in your bag. Instead, you sat on the edge of the bed and watched him work. 

Your husband looked up, a smile appearing on his lips. “And yet, you sit and watch me pack it for you.”

“What can I say?” You said with a shrug. “I like watching your skilled hands be put to work.”

“Oh really?” Carlisle seemed to suddenly forget the task he was previously so focused on. He walked over to you, letting the cold hands you loved so much cup your face gently. “Just wait for this weekend. Then you’ll really see how skillful they are.”

You giggle, pulling at his waist and leaning up to kiss him. “I can’t wait.”

It wasn’t long before you were finished loading up the car and ready to leave. Carlisle had to practically drag you away when your goodbyes with the kids went on a little too long. But you couldn’t help it. Not only did you love your children dearly, but you needed to give them all (mainly Emmett and Edward) to behave while you and Carlisle were gone. Although they were tremendously older than their young adult bodies, they sometimes acted just as recklessly as teenagers. 

The drive to the cabin was long and peaceful. Carlisle let you handle the music, and although he kept his eyes on the road, he smiled at the sight of you passionately singing along with every song out of the corner of his eyes. 

You arrived in the afternoon, and your husband insisted on carrying your bags inside for you, allowing you to wander around the cabin you came to for special occasions. It followed a less modern aesthetic, mainly because getting a good internet connection so far from civilization was a little difficult. It reminded you of when you were first married to Carlisle.

“Why don’t you pick out a record?” Carlisle said from the bedroom, raising his voice a little so you could hear him down the hall, despite your enhanced hearing. 

You walked over to the small shelf that was filled to the brim with different genres and eras of music. You opted for something more modern, so you pulled out a Christina Perri vinyl and put it on the player.

The first track was one that you knew all too well, and it seemed Carlisle remembered it just as well when it hit his ears. Deciding that unpacking could wait, he left the bedroom and approached you. When he got close enough to grab you, he started leading you in a slow dance around the living room. And when Christina sang about loving someone for a thousand years, Carlisle kissed you deeply before making a comment about how he couldn’t wait for the thousand-year mark.

***

When your anniversary came the next day, you and Carlisle didn’t do much. Besides being slightly more affectionate than usual and exchanging presents, it seemed like a normal day for you two. But you cherished it like any other day you spent with your husband. 

The only time Carlisle strayed from you today was to go outside and hunt for dinner. He came back in record time with two wine glasses filled with red liquid and a few smudges around his mouth that he let you kiss off. Ushering you to the couch in front of the lit fireplace, he handed you a glass and used his now free hand to hold you close to him.

“To you, my dear.” Carlisle toasted, holding his glass up to you.

“And to you, darling.” You added, clinking his cup with your own. “To a hundred years.”

“And a hundred more.”

Hours had passed without you knowing. You were too wrapped up in Carlisle’s presence, the way he stroked your arm while he listened to you talk about whatever came to your mind. 

Eventually, your glasses were empty, and Carlisle set them on the small table in front of you before cuddling you again. You leaned into his touch, breathing his scent in. “I love your hands.” You muttered against his neck. The hands in question were either holding yours or gently massaging you.

“Oh, yeah?” He smiled, and you nodded. “You wanna see what else they can do?”

It felt like a switch had flipped, and suddenly, you were straddling your husband and kissing him like you’d been starved for a hundred years. He kissed back with the same sentiment, hands roaming and groping your body.

Carlisle broke away the slightest bit to speak. “As much as I’d love to take you right here, why don’t we move to the bedroom?” Without waiting for a response, he stood up, carrying you down the hall like it was nothing. You clung to him, kissing and lightly nipping at his neck.

When he reached the bedroom, Carlisle softly set you on the bed and started kissing you again. He towered over you, caging you in with his limbs.

But kissing, although very enjoyable, wasn’t enough for him. His hands started to roam again, and he began to play with the hem of your shirt. “May I?” He asked against your lips, and you nodded furiously. Carlisle peeled the shirt off of your body, and your bra was off soon after.

Without warning, he broke away from you. You were about to protest when his mouth latched onto your nipple, flicking it with his tongue. You moaned at the sensation, running a hand through his once pristine hair. He made sure to give the same treatment to the other.

“So beautiful.” He muttered, squeezing your tits with his hands and running his cold thumbs over your now stiff nipples. You mewled and arched your back. God, the things this man did to you. “So perfect.”

“Carlisle.” You whined. You couldn’t take anymore waiting, you needed him now. In desperation, you started moving your hips to try and rut against his thigh. He allowed it, giving attention to your breasts a little while longer while you used him to ease your need. But his thigh wasn’t enough. “Carlisle, come on.”

He looked up at you with a caring but mischievous look. “What’s the magic word?”

“Carlisle!”

“Nope.” The man smirked, slowly trailing kisses down your stomach and stopping at the waistband of your pants. “Come on, dear. Where are your manners?”

“Please!” You cried out.

Carlisle swiftly started to unbutton your pants, tugging them down your legs. “There’s my good girl.” The little nickname just made you even wetter. Carlisle took off your panties, leaving you entirely bare for him. He stared down at you, taking in the image. He sighed, seemingly lost in thought. “You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”

Ready to ravage you, Carlisle started to crawl on the bed towards you. But before he could get to the place he wanted most, you put your foot on his chest to stop him. A hand shot up to caress your ankle, and Carlisle started to worry that he was moving too fast for you without realizing it.

“Maybe you should take your clothes off too?” You suggested, giggling at his sigh of relief. Carlisle dropped your foot and stood up again, stripping in front of you. He did so as fast as possible without using superspeed, knowing you were desperate for him but would still enjoy the show.

“Better?”

“Better.”

You sat up, his stiff cock now at your eyeline. You reached out, wanting to grasp it, suck it, whatever he would let you do.

But Carlisle grabbed your wrist. “Now, what do you think you’re doing?” He asked, tone light enough to indicate that he wasn’t upset or serious.

“I want you to enjoy yourself.” You answer with a shrug. “It’s your anniversary too, you know.”

“You want me to enjoy myself?” He asked, gently pushing you until you were lying on your back. You nodded. “Then be a good girl and spread your legs.”

A tingle went down your spine at the command, and you immediately did as told. Carlisle grasped your ankles to keep your legs separated. He stared at your pussy, mouth watering at the thought of tasting you. He inched closer to you, hands running up your legs.

He didn’t waste another second. Carlisle pushed at your thighs to bring them to your chest and dove into your pussy, licking a broad strip through your slit before latching onto your clit. He groaned at the taste of you, sending chilling vibrations through your body. One of his hands splayed out at the back of your knees to keep your legs up, and he used his now free hand to prod at your entrance.

“You’re so wet, honey.” He cooed as he slipped a finger in, soon adding another. Carlisle began fucking you slowly, hooking his fingers on your g-spot and flicking at your clit with his tongue.

“More.” You moaned, squeezing his fingers. “Want your cock, Carlisle.”

Your husband tsked, taking his mouth off of you but continuing his ministrations. “Not til you come on my fingers, Y/n. You know the rules. I don’t want to hurt you.”

You whined, wanting nothing more than to be stretched and filled to the brim by your husband’s cock. But it warmed your cold heart that he was still cautious with you. 

“Then make me come.” You begged.

Carlisle took it as a personal challenge to make you finish as quickly as possible. He usually liked to take his time with you, but you were desperate. So Carlisle quickened his pace, added a third finger, flicked and sucked at your clit, and soon enough you were falling apart. You stiffened and let out a choked moan as Carlisle helped you ride out your high.

While catching your breath, Carlisle withdrew his fingers from you and cleaned your juices off with his tongue. The sound that came from him was almost animalistic. He looked at you as if you were his prey. “You’re so delicious.” He said, licking the remnants of your cum off of his hand. The way he was looking down on you made you even wetter.

Usually, Carlisle liked to start nice and slow, giving you time to adjust to his size before he began ramming into you. But tonight, he couldn’t control himself. He grabbed himself, swiping the tip of his penis through your slick folds to collect more of your juices before prodding your entrance and bottoming out in one swift motion. 

Then he started fucking you.

You were beyond grateful that you were staying in a cabin in the middle of the mountains because if someone were around, they would’ve thought you were being murdered. The headboard banged against the wall with the force Carlisle was using to fuck you. He held onto the backs of your knees, keeping your legs pinned to your chest and giving you shocks of pleasure with every hard thrust.

It was all too much, but in the best way. Carlisle fucking you roughly at an angle that you knew would make it difficult to walk for a while, despite you usually being able to recover from rough sex quickly. With the way Carlisle was acting right now, his panting and almost growling sounds, and his nails digging into your skin, you knew he wouldn’t be satisfied after one round.

“So good.” Carlisle groaned, leaning down to kiss at your neck. You pulled at Carlisle’s hair to try and ground yourself, but you were too far gone with the overwhelming pleasure. “Are you gonna come?”

“Uh-huh.” It came out as a high-pitched squeal, and Carlisle smiled.

“You can do it, honey.” While speaking, he snaked a hand down to rub at your clit, pace as rough and furious as his thrusts. “Want you to come. Be a good girl for me; go ahead.” 

It was like Carlisle had some kind of control over your body. As soon as the words left his mouth, you found your release. It was one of the most intense orgasms you had ever had. You were a bit surprised that you didn’t accidentally pull out Carlisle’s hair from how hard you were gripping the strands.

Carlisle continued fucking you at his rough pace, making you shake and cry out in pleasure. He didn’t stop, seemingly very focused on now reaching his own peak. The way your cunt gripped his cock certainly helped, and not long after you, he was shooting ropes of cum inside you, keeping up his thrusts to fuck it into you.

When he came down from his high, his movements slowed to a stop. He delicately moved your legs off your chest to lay on the bed, massaging any possible sore spots he may have given you.

“Was I too rough?” He asked, seemingly in a clearer headspace now.

You shook your head, reaching up to caress his face. “I liked it.” Carlisle sighed in relief, leaning down to kiss you. “Maybe we can do it again? Like, now?”

He laughed at your eagerness. “How about in five minutes?” He wrapped you up in his arms before flipping you over so you were lying on his chest. His cock was still hard inside you, filling you nicely. “I want to lay with my wife for a while.”

“I won’t argue with that.” You said, snuggling into Carlisle’s bare chest. “Happy anniversary, Carlisle.”

“Happy anniversary, Y/n.”

***

Twilight Taglist: @wedfan2 @natashamaximoff-69 @pink-hufflepuff

[seoltzuki]

Eusexua

sana x fem reader

smut

Sana wants you as much as you want her. Maybe even more.

eusexua: "a state where you meet somebody that you really like, and you just kiss all night, and you kiss for all hours. You lose time."

a/n: fka twigs I love you. also I’m in my sana era can you tell?

Do you feel alone? You’re not alone.

The beat is familiar, as is the glow of the neon lights casting shadows across the crowded club. You’ve been here before—same time, same place, just like every other weekend. And like always, Sana is here, too.

You spot her instantly, just like you always do. She’s dancing, her body moving fluidly with the rhythm, completely at ease, as if the music was made for her. But tonight feels different—there’s something in the air between you, something more intense.

Sana’s eyes catch yours across the floor, and there’s no mistaking it this time. She’s been waiting for you too. She weaves her way through the crowd, her gaze never leaving yours.

“You’re always here,” she says when she’s close enough, her voice smooth, teasing. “Same time, same place. Waiting for me?”

Her body presses lightly against yours, her lips curving into a smile that sends a shiver down your spine. Her fingers trail along your arm, familiar but always electrifying.

“You like this game we play, don’t you?” she whispers, her breath hot against your skin, her lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Pretending we’re just dancing…”

There’s a heat between you now, built up from weeks of stolen glances. Her fingers tighten on your waist as her body molds against yours.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says softly, her tone shifting from playful to serious. Her eyes flicker with something deeper, something that’s been simmering just beneath the surface. “All those nights, watching you, wanting you...”

Her hands slide up your sides, possessive, pulling you closer until there’s no space left between you. Her lips hover over your neck, teasing but not quite touching.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” she continues, a whine dying at the back of her throat. “I think about you all the time. Even when we’re not here, even when I’m not supposed to.”

You swallow hard, the intensity of her words hitting you like a wave. She knows that you’ve always wanted her too. It was always her.

Always Sana.

She pulls you into a kiss, slow at first, testing, but then harder, more urgent, like she’s finally giving in to the weeks of pent-up desire. Her hands slide to your face, holding you close, like she’s afraid you’ll disappear.

“I’m done waiting,” she says against your lips. “I want you.”

She grabs your hand, her fingers threading through yours with a firm grip. She doesn’t say a word—just smiles, tugs you toward the door, and you follow. It’s always like this with her. She leads, you follow. It's inevitable.

She glances back at you, her eyes glimmering under the streetlights, her lips still curved in that knowing smile. Her hair swings with every step, catching the light as it moves. Her cheeks are flushed from the heat of the club, from the way she kissed you like she’d been waiting weeks to do it.

Her hips sway deliberately as she walks, each step drawing your eyes. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and it’s driving you crazy.

“Still with me, beautiful?” she teases, her voice light but with an edge that sends a spark straight through you. She looks over her shoulder, her eyes flicking to yours, daring you to look away. You don’t.

You can’t.

Her laughter floats in the air between you as she leads you down the street, her pace slow, giving you time to catch up to her. She stops suddenly, spinning to face you beneath the glow of a streetlight. It makes her look almost ethereal.

“Come here,” she whispers. She pulls you into her, her body pressing close, her hand sliding up your arm to your neck, pulling you down to her level.

You barely have time to breathe before her lips are on yours again. This kiss is quick, but it’s enough to take your breath away. She pulls back just a bit, enough to see the dazed look in your eyes.

“I like seeing you like this,” she murmurs, her breath brushing your lips. “Completely undone.”

She giggles, the sound light and carefree, the complete opposite of the heat in her gaze. She gives you a final tug, pulling you even closer, her lips brushing your jaw.

“Don’t worry,” she breathes, “I’m not done with you yet.”

The walk to Sana’s place fades into a blur. You barely register the city around you—the lights, the people, the sounds. It’s all background noise to the feeling of her hand pulling you along.

By the time you reach her apartment, your breath is uneven. Sana steps inside, letting the door click shut behind her. She doesn’t say anything at first, just stands there, leaning against the door, eyes locked on you.

The way the city lights filter through the window makes the room flicker with shadows, like the club lights have followed you here, but now everything is quieter, more carnal.

Sana stays leaning against the door, her eyes never leaving yours as she smirks. “You’re so pretty,” she says, the words almost taunting. “Standing there like that… it’s almost too much.”

She doesn’t move at first, just lets her gaze travel over you, her lower lip stuck between her teeth. Then, slowly, she pushes off the door and steps toward you, her eyes dark.

When she’s close enough, her fingers graze your cheek, barely touching, but enough to make your skin burn. “I can’t decide if I want to kiss you,” she murmurs. A lick of lips. “or just take a bite.”

Your breath catches, the weight of her words lingering as Sana’s fingers slip from your cheek to your wrist, guiding you with an effortless pull. She doesn’t rush, just looks back at you with that same teasing smile, her eyes darker now, her pace slow as she leads you down the hallway.

She brings you into her bedroom, the soft glow of the city filtering through the windows. She stops by the bed, turning to face you, her breath is already uneven.

“Undress,” she says, ever so gently, her gaze roaming your body like she’s already imagining what’s underneath.

You take your time, peeling off each layer, knowing her eyes are on you. The moment your shirt comes off, you hear it—a soft hitch in her breath. Her eyes flicker, darkening with something more primal. She bites her lip, trying to play it cool, but it’s clear she’s affected.

As your pants hit the floor, her chest rises and falls more quickly. “God,” she mutters, voice husky, her eyes tracing the lines of your body. “You’re—” She swallows, momentarily speechless. “You’re so perfect.”

You hold her gaze as you finish undressing, fully aware of how intently she’s watching, the way her breath keeps catching. It sends a rush through you, knowing the effect you have on her.

Her hand trembles slightly as she reaches for the hem of her own shirt. She pulls it off, tossing it aside, but she’s slower this time—deliberate, like she wants you to see every inch of her. Her breath hitches again as she unbuttons her pants, and you can see how much it’s costing her to keep steady.

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” she whispers, stepping out of the last of her clothes, her eyes never leaving yours. “I can’t… I can’t believe how badly I want you.”

Finally, she steps forward, her fingers grazing your skin, her breath warm and shaky. “Come here,” she murmurs, her voice softer now, laced with hunger. “I need to feel you.”

Sana closes the distance between you in a heartbeat, her breath shaky as her lips crash into yours. The kiss is deep, almost desperate, her hands sliding up your arms before finding your waist, pulling you closer like she can’t get enough. Her body presses against yours, warm and electric.

She pulls back for a moment, her breath heavy against your lips. “I’ve wanted this all night,” she murmurs. Her fingers trace the curve of your hip before gently guiding you toward the bed.

She steps back just enough to let you sit down, your knees brushing the edge of the mattress. Her eyes are locked on yours, the room around you fading away, leaving only the two of you in the dim glow. You sit at the edge of the bed, heart pounding in your chest, as she stands in front of you, looking so pretty and out of breath already.

She lowers herself slowly, her knees pressing into the floor between your legs, her hands gliding up your thighs. “You’re killing me, you know that?” she whispers, her lips curving into a playful smile before she leans in, kissing you again, this time slower, savoring the taste of you.

Sana pulls back slightly, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she locks onto your gaze. She bites her lip, leaning in until her nose brushes against yours, her breath warm and inviting.

“Use your hands,” she whispers, letting the words linger between you. “Show me what you want. Enjoy me.”

She leans back slightly, a teasing smirk playing on her lips. “Or should I do what I want?” she adds, squeezing your thighs firmly, her fingers pressing in just enough to elicit a whimper from you.

You’re over it—the teasing, the lingering touches that never go far enough. With a sharp breath, your hand moves swiftly, fingers slipping into her hair and giving it a firm tug.

Sana’s moan is immediate, loud and shameless, filling the space between you. Her head tilts back under your grip, exposing the vulnerable curve of her throat as her cheeks flush deep pink. She blinks, eyes fluttering open with a dazed look, her lips parted and breath shaky.

“You like that?” she giggles breathlessly, not missing the way you whined at her reaction.

“Enough,” you huff, tightening your grip. “Just take what you want.”

Sana’s eyes widen at your words, the intensity of your command pulling her out of her playful teasing. She breathes in deeply, her chest rising and falling as she swallows hard. Then her lips curve into a grin, her hands gripping your thighs more firmly as she presses closer, finally giving in.

Her tongue just grazes your folds, and you’re already falling apart. Your core muscles give out as you collapse onto her soft sheets.

Sana releases a high-pitched whine as she watches you unravel from just her touch. Her hands glide up to squeeze your breasts before trailing back down, slipping under your thighs. Her nails dig into your skin as she pulls your legs over her shoulders.

She’s gentle with her tongue, delicately exploring every inch of your sex. She briefly dips into your hole before wrapping her tongue around your clit, suckling softly.

She’s riled you up so much, it’s almost impossible to not already reach your peak. Her moans and soft cries with every stroke of her tongue against your core aren’t making it any easier either. You can’t even tell if it’s from your taste, your sounds, or—

“God, you’re so hot,” she whimpers, catching her breath. “Fuck.” Without missing a beat, she leans in for a swift lick. “You taste so good.”

Or both.

With your last ounce of strength, you sit up and grasp her curls, your body folding and hovering over her. She groans, devouring you hungrily. Everything feels more intense now; her fingers dig into your skin, and her lips move with fervor. The sounds—gosh, the sounds… She’s slurping and grunting against you and it’s filthy. Completely lost in pleasure, you start to grind against her face, and a deep moan escapes her.

“That’s what I want! Yes! Use me, baby,” she cries out, her voice breaking with desperation.

You obey, releasing yourself all over her. Her tongue plunges in, and her nose lightly brushes against your clit. It feels so blissful that you know you’re gonna fall apart.

A harsh suck and your toes curl. Sana presses deeper into you, her moans urging you to ride out your high.

You gasp, trying to push her head away, but she doesn’t let up, her fingers digging in so hard into your skin that you can’t distance yourself.

"Sana!"

Your head falls back, and you notice the room is no longer dark. An orange glow fills the space as the sun rises, and you realize how much time has slipped away. And oh, fuck—fuck, fuck, fuck!

"Sana! Again, I’m gonna-"

eusexua: "a state where you meet somebody that you really like, and you just kiss all night, and you kiss for all hours. You lose time."

[urhoneycombwitch]

I know what they call you.

Eddie Munson x shy!Reader You’re a little lost in your head. Eddie wants to find you.

foreword: The healing properties of good head <333 Anyways I labeled this R “shy” but she’s more… introverted? Reserved? this one goes out to the weird and off-putting girlies who have a lot to say but are kinda quiet instead. Timeline may be a bit wibbly but designed it to be early 4th-season era, with R (early 20s) having played an undetermined part in the various Upside Down battles from seasons previous. Loosely based on this anon every1 say thank you anon!

cw: alcohol/weed used as a social crutch, R is hassled by a guy at a party (but her boys back her up), brief vomit mention, implied bad home life for R, light SH by way of tight grip, PTSD, R has breasts+V, praise kink, oral (R receiving), one (1) spank, multiple orgasms (R), soft dom!eddie, overstim, coming in pants (E)

wc: 11k

___

It’s spring break, 1986, and you’re cursing the name of your so-called “best friend” Robin Buckley.

You didn’t even want to go to this stupid kegger in the first place, arguing with her the whole ride over from Steve’s backseat.

“Don’t you think it’s totally lame that you’re basically being chaperoned by two gap-year losers?” you’d said, leaning forward to rest your elbows on the console, seatbelt pulling taut across your Rolling Stones tee. “You’re a big girl, Robin, you don’t need Steve and me to babysit you anymore.”

Robin began protesting but Steve interrupted, tapping at your forearms without looking away from the road- “Sit back, wouldja, that’s not safe. And for the record, it’d only be lame if we were, like, thirty and still going to high school kickbacks. Gap-year drinking parties are a rite of passage.”

You’d sat back against your seat with a huff, arms crossed, unconvinced until Robin turned those big pleading eyes your way over the back of her seat. “You wanna talk about lame? Lame is me getting anywhere within a 60-foot radius of Vickie. I am totally hopeless around that absolute beauty.”

She’d twisted in her seat and reached for your hand, and you gave it to her grudgingly (the two of you ignoring another of Steve’s gripe about vehicular safety) as she said, “You’re like, the best wingwoman I’ve ever met. Please come to the party and help me avoid the natural disaster that is me running my mouth.”

Robin wasn’t just being generous- you were a killer third wheel. Especially when alcohol was involved: the walls that you naturally upheld around your introverted demeanor by day turned liquid as whiskey by night, often scoring you major cool points with your friends for things you barely remembered doing the day after. 

So you’d relented, and in turn resolved to get as drunk as possible as quickly as possible (in the name of Robin’s aid, of course), but turns out your best friend didn’t even need your help in the first place; within 5 minutes of setting foot in the crammed house party Robin won a spot right next to Vickie on the living room couch, starry-eyed gaze saved only for the redhead that bore no room for your intervention.

Three shots ago, the situation would have struck you as funny, but it’s been a lonely time (what with Steve abandoning you, too, in favor of chatting up some college blonde); drifting from packed room to packed room, sneakers sticking to the floorboards, winding through throngs of sweaty dancing students just to keep on top of your alcohol consumption.

Kind of like hunting in the wild, you muse, leaned against a wall with red solo cup in hand. Flirt with Amy Thacker and her low-cut blouse to access the watering hole (Mystery Punch, green both in color and flavor); let Lenny Baker put his paws on your waist to gain entry to the standing liquor cabinet. The stuff of nature docs.

If this dimly-lit Hawkins party is the savanna, then you are the antelope- grazing on snacks, never staying in one spot for too long, minding your own business and staying way the hell away from the lion’s den (the group of jocks in Hawkins Tigers polos).

Unfortunately, you push off the wall in search of a refill at the same time Lenny Baker decides to sidle up to you, nearly knocking the cup from your grasp when he bends his thick head to shout in your ear above the music. 

“Great party, right?” His arms are crossed above his tank of a chest, blocking you from a smooth exit via the kitchen archway.

“If you’re into drunk teens, I guess,” you say back, pointedly, licking a stripe up your wrist from where the punch had sloshed onto your bare arm. 

When you look back up Lenny’s still standing there, watching you with a hungry edge that’s starting to make your well-honed antelope-sense tingle. As you not-so-subtly cast your glance around for Steve, Lenny leans in again, close enough to give you a sour whiff of his breath. “I’m legal, if that’s what’s got your panties in a twist. And what’s wrong with having some fun?”

“I’m not into having fun with douchebags who ‘roid away their remaining brain cells to bully my friends,” you retort, flatly. You doubt this guy knows you’re connected to the Hellfire group (de facto sitter, second only to Steve), but the insult seems to land anyways. 

Lenny scoffs, going for a low blow to offset the sting of his bruised ego- “If you’re trying to play the part of slut, you were doing a way better job earlier.”

What the meathead hasn’t picked up on yet is your absolute lack of care about him- or anyone else at this stupid fucking party, for that matter. Besides Robin and Steve, obviously, but they’re equally indisposed at the moment. You’re feeling bold enough that you could play dirty: throw the dregs of your drink in his face, make a real scene- but the shots from earlier are hitting you sideways and you’re not entirely confident in your ability to multitask. 

So instead, with a wink, you tell him, “At least this slut knows when to quit,” and turn on your heel, abandoning the kitchen escape route for a closer door that leads to the back porch.

You suck in lungfuls of cool night air, trying to clear the fuzz of booze from your vision. When you don’t hear any angry footsteps following in your wake, you sink against the wooden bannister and tip back the last of your drink in one swallow. Maybe Steve doubled back to the car…?

With your empty cup left neatly on the railing, you set off down the couple of steps that separate you from the grass, except the toe of your shoe catches on a hidden groove in the wood, and nothing is within reach to grab onto as you trip and begin to fall.

The stumble should have ended with you facedown in the dirt, but something- someone- solid breaks your downward path, catching the upper half of your body in a sturdy hold even as your legs twist around themselves.

“Whoa, whoa, hey, I gotcha. You okay?”

The voice is instantly familiar, one that you’ve heard ringing out from underneath the drama room door on countless occasions as you’ve waited on your various child wards to wrap up their D&D sessions.

Eddie Munson is holding you in his leather-clad arms, larger than life with that big cloud of hair and doe-eyed gaze matching yours. He helps you stand, properly, dropping his hands once you’re stabilized and taking the warmth of his palms with him. 

“You okay?” he asks again, tilting his head, looking at you with fresh concern from under that mop of bangs. “Looks like you had a lot to drink.”

“Thanks, Dad,” you drawl, bravado flooding back in. “Am I really gonna get a fucking lecture on drinking from my local drug dealer?”

Instead of rising to the bait or bristling at your tone, Eddie grins- delighted, wolfish- before letting out a low whistle. “Who coulda guessed: resident Shy Girl has a mouth on her.”

You twist said mouth into your own smile, one that you hope is coy and charming and not dorkily lopsided (because you stopped being able to feel your face after that last drink), and coo, “You thinkin’ about my mouth, Munson?”

He laughs- a full, vibrant sound that lights up the night. There’s a flutter in your ribcage, knocking up a frenzy at the noise, like it wants to get out and at him, but you tamp it down and play it cool.

“You’ve only seen me in the cold, unforgiving light of day,” you continue, as Eddie rifles through his pockets, surfacing with a pack of cigs, eye contact yet to be broken. “My nighttime alter ego is a real riot, all liquored up.”

“Well, I happen to think you’re a riot in the sober light of day, too.” Eddie shrugs a shoulder as he flips the lid of the cigarette box.

You’re unsure if he’s messing with you- he’s gotta be, right? The only meaningful interaction you two have had in the past handful of years has been through the courtesy of the children in your respective care- a few surface-level conversations during carpool pickup, some flirting on his end that you’ve always been too skittish to return. 

Well, until now, you guess. Maybe this is a good thing, him seeing you like this- it’ll either scare him away, or you’ll finally make good on the quiet crush you’ve been harboring.

You’re about to speak again when the porch door opens with a bang; you and Eddie swivel at the same time to see Lenny clomping noisily towards the steps, voice booming out over the thrum of bass back inside- “This freak bothering you?”

You look between the metalhead and the jock, eyes wide and mocking as you call back, “No, but you’re starting to!”

“Jesus, talk about poking the bear,” you hear Eddie mutter behind you, but your focus is taken up by the fact that Lenny is tromping down the steps and reaching out to grab your upper arm, his cold and clammy palm taking up a sizeable amount of space.

You can feel that rage, simmering and easily accessed, start to crawl over your skin. You stand your ground in the face of someone much larger than you, sneakers planted firmly, chin tilted in defiance- I’ve killed monsters in alternate dimensions, asswipe. You might’ve scared me back in high school but now I dare you to fuck with me. 

Before Eddie can jump to your defense, you’re already going in for the bite, voice dripping with derisiveness. “So glad your right hand found its way off your dick for a change, Len. How about you do me one better and take it far, far away from here?”

Lenny’s face is almost purple with anger as his grip tightens, and you feel Eddie moving in at your back- to do what exactly, hard to say, ‘cuz Lenny’s got about 60 pounds on the lanky DM- but just as fast as the tension has ramped up, it gets diffused with the arrival of one Steve Harrington from around the corner of the house.

He cuts a smooth path through the grass to your other side, Robin’s sweater slung over one arm, twirling his car keys in neat loops around his finger, boasting a casual demeanor that doesn’t match up with the steely look he’s giving Lenny. “You heard the girl, Baker. Time to am-scray.”

Whether it’s the rumors of Steve’s nail bat or the manic look in your eyes or the fact that he’s outnumbered, Lenny’s got plenty of reason now to drop your arm. 

Which he does, spitting one last “bitch” at you before hulking off into the night.

The anger in you recedes like a wave. You breathe out a dry laugh, then turn back to the boys, clasping your hands over your heart with faux-dopeyness. “My heroes. How will I ever repay you?”

“Shutting up, for a change, would be a great start,” Steve grouses over the sound of Eddie’s cackles.

“Holy shit. Can’t believe your girl’s feistiness almost landed me in the hospital.” Eddie shakes his head, plucking a cigarette out and sticking it between his plush lips.

“She’s not my girl,” Steve says, even as you wind your arms around his chest from behind, tucking your chin over his shoulder. “She is, unfortunately, my problem.”

“I love when you two talk about me like I’m not here.” You simper at Eddie from your draped position.

He’s watching you with a fondness that feels overly familiar, through the haze of smoke streaming from his nostrils as you pat the chest beneath your hands- “Don’t worry about ol’ Stevie boy. He’s turned into quite the good guard dog after the whole Russian mall takeover last year.”

“Aaaaand that’s enough talking from you,” Steve says firmly, twisting out of your arms and putting his own around your waist. “Say goodbye to your new buddy, we’ve got a Robin to collect.”

As Steve steers you towards the direction of his car you wave at Eddie, a motion that he returns, his rings glinting in the porch light.

“Christ, you really are somethin’ else with some drinks in you,'' Steve fusses, helping you into the backseat, hand shooting up to block the door frame before your head can collide with the metal. “Did you seriously have to bring up the Russians?”

“He probably thought it was a joke, Steve,” you say, exasperated and fighting the twisted middle seatbelt with uncoordinated hands. “You know… those things that you tell people when you wanna get in their pants?”

The crack was aimed at Steve’s recent string of strike-outs in the dating department, but he throws it back at you. “You’re trying to get in Eddie Munson’s pants?”

“No,” you sputter, indignant and feeling suddenly too hot. 

Steve knocks your still-struggling hands from the belt, clicking you in himself, before pointing an accusatory finger in your face. “Stay here while I get Robin, and no throwing up in the Beemer.”

He shuts the door, Robin’s sweatshirt hanging from one shoulder while he stalks back into the house. 

You let your head fall back against the seat and close your eyes, bright cherry embers of cigarettes between lush-lipped curves dancing behind the dark of your lids. 

___

You manage to avoid throwing up in the BMW, saving the worst of it for the downstairs toilet of the Harrington house after Steve drags you and Robin indoors. Once your body is purged of the spirits, you collapse into your usual side of the guest bed, sweaty and exhausted, murmuring an apology to Robin who squeaks at the rocking movement of the mattress. In a few minutes, you’re lulled to sleep by the gentle snores of your best friend.

The morning sun is a very rude awakening, Robin apparently having forgotten to close the blinds before leaving with Steve for their shifts at Family Video. There’s a full glass of water on the bedside table and a few loose Tylenol tablets, the word “DRINK” sprawled on a sticky note in Steve’s handwriting.

You wince, down the meds along with half the water, and start the search for your sneakers.

When you’d signed up to protect a bunch of teens at the end of the world awhile back, it had seemed like a one-time gig. But now, here you were a few years later, loading yourself into your curb-parked junker to willingly cart around the same kids.

While wearing yesterday’s clothes. Even with the sprays of cologne that you’d stolen from Steve’s dresser, you’re pretty sure you’ll be fooling no one.

Evidenced by your first stop in east Hawkins for Dustin Henderson, who clambers into the front seat with a scathing appraisal. “Rough night?”

“You could say that,” you reply, shifting the gear to drive and grimacing at the subsequent squeal of metal that pierces into your left temple. “Learn from my mistakes as a washed-up twenty-something and cool it on the teen drinking, all right?”

“Washed up though you may be,” Dustin intones sagely, digging through his backpack and producing two brown-paper bundles, “you are now one Claudia Henderson Breakfast Sandwich Deluxe richer.”

You take the proffered sandwich gratefully, steering with one hand to peel back the oil-stained paper from the still-warm bread. “God. Is your mom looking to adopt?”

“She’s kind of got the perfect child already, but I’ll keep my ear to the ground for ya,” Dustin says around a mouthful of cheese and egg.

The solid breakfast helps your stomach ease back into a place of normality, but with your next stop adding two more kids to the mix, the rowdy bickering that follows puts that Tylenol to work.

“You’re an idiot,” Max is saying to Lucas over the sound of his indignation in the back seat. “You seriously think Indiana Jones would win against Supergirl? She can shapeshift, and she has heat vision.”

“All I’m saying is, it’s really hard to see a whip coming.” Lucas is stretching the limits of his seatbelt in his earnestness to get his girlfriend on his side.

It doesn’t work- Max rolls her eyes and taps at your shoulder. “Help me out here. His logic is totally shit, right?”

Making a turn onto the main road, you nod your assent without looking back. “I think you should listen to your very smart girlfriend, Lucas.”

Max makes a triumphant “hah”, and Dustin adds fuel to the argument’s fire when he drags in some other comic book character that you’ve never heard of. 

You hazard a glance in your rear-view mirror at Max, who’s too busy dishing out an enthusiastic rebuttal to notice. Her auburn braids swing with the movement of the car, and you wonder if they were done by her mother before work or if Max had to rely on her own hair expertise again. 

You’ve got a real soft spot for Max, always have. While you both have plenty of cause to bond over shitty home lives, it’s also Max’s brash and defiant attitude that drew you to her. She’s got the bravery you can only hope for, something that you are sure to tell her frequently, even though the compliment is hard for her to take.

You score a parking spot that’s right in front of the arcade, calling after the kids already scrambling out of your car that you want to leave at noon, sharp. They all give some form of distracted acknowledgement before disappearing into the building, so you figure the earliest you'll be getting out of here is noon-thirty. 

Not like you have much to do today, anyways, besides bother Steve and Robin at work- since the arcade is conveniently located right next to Family Video, it’s a perfect excuse to wait out the kids’ spring break activities in the company of your nearest and dearest.

You’re cutting a swift track up the sidewalk when you nearly collide with Eddie Munson, for the second time in less than 24 hours.

“Hey!” He beams at you, a wide, easy thing that fits on his face so well, like it was made to be there, boyish dimples digging in. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah,” you agree, trying to smile back but probably landing somewhere in the grimace region as memories of last night float to the forefront of your mind. Small talk. You can do it. Say something. “Um. Were you getting a movie?”

“Nah.” Eddie shakes his head, hooks a thumb at the Family Video doors behind himself. “Keith’s one of my regulars. That guy might actually smoke more weed than me.”

You hum mildly to show you’re still paying attention but really you’re looking at Eddie’s hair, dark curls that shift with each of his movements. His hair isn’t black, like you’ve been led to believe this whole time- with the morning light shining through, highlighting the halo frizz around the edges, it’s actually a deep, chocolatey brown.

Similar to his eyes. Which are trained on you. Because you haven’t talked in a weird amount of time and are now just openly ogling his hair. 

Before you can open your mouth to apologize Eddie asks, “You wanna smoke?”

You nod, perhaps a tad too enthusiastically, and then stretch on your tiptoes to peer around Eddie’s frame at the Family Video sign. “Yeah, but we gotta be fast unless you want the Wonder Twins joining us.”

His grin slips into a smirk, and he winks before taking your hand in his. “A quickie, then.”

That fluttering thing in your ribs is back. The metal of Eddie’s rings are cool against your palm as he leads you around the side of the building, dropping your hand once you both are leaned up against the red brick.

Trying not to outright stare again, you watch from the fringes of your vision as Eddie lights up and breathes a cloud of smoke into the air. His nails are painted black- they weren’t last night. An image of him- hunched over a kitchen table, tongue sticking out of those pillowy lips in concentration, a nail polish brush held in his long fingers- flits across your mind.

Eddie holds the cigarette out, filter-side towards you, and you shake your head lightly. “No thanks. I don’t actually smoke, I just wanted to talk to you.”

Eddie glows. Before he gets the wrong idea you start explaining, arms crossing tight over your chest in unconscious defense- “I wanted to talk about last night. And say I’m sorry. I’m not usually so…”

“Badass? Charming? Hot?” Eddie fills in when you trail off, taking in another deep drag of smoke. 

Christ. You feel heat rushing from head to toe as you ward off his flattery, nails nipping into your upper arms. “I was gonna say… talkative? I guess? I’m normally not one to pick fights, but Lenny was being a dick and I don’t like the way he treats the kids, or you, for that matter, and I was drunk and mouthy but that’s not an excuse to drag you into it and I’m sorry-”

“Hey, hey.” Eddie’s tone is soothing, low, cutting smoothly into your feverish confession. He reaches out and strokes the back of his knuckle across your hand, tiny half-moons from your nails leaving their impression as you soften your grasp on yourself.

He doesn’t seem to mind that you can’t look anywhere but at your sneakers planted in the gravel as he says, “You have nothing to apologize for, sweetheart. I’m a big boy, I can handle myself when it comes to dickwads like Lenny Baker. And I would say that rescuing fair maidens is part of my job description, but…”

Eddie stubs the half-smoked cigarette out against the brick, flicks it to the ground, and waits until you look up at him again before saying “You don’t seem like you’re in need of any saving.”

That flutter, again, as you hold his eye contact for as long as you can stand it. 

The corner of his mouth quirks up. “There she is.”

Mortified, you resist the urge to scream into your hands as you push off from the brick, instead squeezing them into fists at your sides. “Oh-kay. Well. I better head inside or Robin will send out the search party for me.”

Eddie lets you walk past him, but just before you turn the corner he says, “I’m across from the Mayfields in Forest Hills if you ever want some company. Or some good weed.”

Footfalls from his thick-heeled boots recede into the distance, and you take a minute to calm your breathing before pushing your way through the doors of Family Video.

Steve’s stocking a shelf of New Releases at the front of the store, vest-clad torso faced away as the bell above the door signals your entrance. On autopilot he monologues, “Welcome to Family Video, let us know how we can be of service.”

“Aw, I miss the days when you were forced to say Ahoy, mateys!” You tease, Steve turning to give you an irritated frown as you prop your hip against the register counter.

Robin clacks away on the computer, hitting the Enter key a little harder than necessary as she says, “You’re about one mall fire and a bajillion NDA’s too late to ever hear that shit again.”

Keith must be lurking around in the back office, ‘cuz the three of you only refer to last year’s cataclysmic series of events as a “mall fire” when you’re talking in code. 

Or if you’re trying to be funny. But based on the dark circles under Robin’s eyes and the harried way Steve’s shoving a hand through his hair as he drifts towards the counter, you surmise that the three of you are very much on the same page this morning with regards to humor and hijinks.

“I didn’t know it was possible to be this hungover,” Robin groans, sinking her hand into a torn-open Skittles bag and popping a handful into her mouth. “Sugar is supposed to help, right?”

You snort, fiddling with a stack of paper brochures as Steve leans against the counter. 

“Had any more run-ins with the town riffraff?” He asks, feigning casual, honey-colored eyes roaming around the shop.

“I’m visiting you, aren’t I?” You shoot back, unreasonably defensive. 

“Another point for the pretty lady, and Harrington strikes a zero,” Robin totals in her best sports broadcasting voice. “What the hell are you talking about, Steve?”

“Drinky McGee over here was spilling her guts last night to none other than Edward Munson,” Steve replies, looking satisfied when Robin’s eyes bug dramatically.

“Eddie?” Robin hops off the stool, sliding her hands from the other side of the counter to stop your own from ripping the brochures to shreds. “And what, pray tell, were you spilling about with Eddie Muson?”

“Nothing.” You pull your hands from Robin’s, rolling your eyes as if the stakes are low, when in fact the stakes are as tall as the Empire State Building. You can practically hear the wind whistling from this height. “I wasn’t… we barely talked. He was backing me up when some jock started messing with me. That’s all.”

Robin whirls on Steve with animosity- “You left her alone long enough for some meathead to get involved? Jesus, Steve, the hell is wrong with you?”

“Like you shacking up with Vickie after two Tears for Fears tracks is any more responsible!” Steve snaps.

Having spent enough time with both your friends to know their propensity towards petty arguments, you slap a hand against the counter to derail. “Hey! Both of you knock it off. It’s fine, I’m fine, we survived yet another night out on the town unscathed. Let’s just… drop it.”

Steve looks properly chastised, but Robin gets a glint in her eye that confirms she’s not thrown off the scent so easily. 

“You know what they call him, right?” she asks you, lowering her raspy voice even further.

“Eddie The Freak Munson,” Steve supplies, but shrinks noticeably when Robin gives him a withering look. “...not that, then?”

“Of course you, Steve The Hair Harrington, would only know him by that name.” Robin shakes her head, disapproving, before turning back to you with a wicked grin. “Word on the street holds Eddie The Munch Munson in very high regard.”

Steve scoffs at this, but you blink, uncomprehending.  “Munch, like… he eats a lot of food?”

You feel very suddenly and violently ganged up on when Steve and Robin give you mirrored quizzical looks.

“No, babe,” Robin says, slowly. “Munch as in he eats pussy.”

“Jesus christ.” Heat courses through you as you scan the empty store, even as Steve chuckles and says, “You really are a prude.”

A skittle sails airborne into the side of his temple and he flinches, Robin coming to your aid. “That’s no way to talk to a lady, Steven.”

“I’m so not a prude.” You’re quick to jump to your own defense. “I just… didn’t know what that meant.”

You’d had a boyfriend for 6 months your sophomore year of high school, Ben- nice enough guy, but you’d mostly dated as an excuse to get all your firsts out of the way. Some laid-back hookups have occurred since then- it’s not like you’ve been chaste all these years, for fuck’s sake.

But you certainly wouldn’t give any of those boys a prize-winning nickname for their ability to eat you out. 

“It’s all baseless gossip, right?” Steve grabs a nearby wheeled cart and pushes it to the New Releases, resuming his shelf stocking. “I mean, what the hell else are small-townies good for other than trading lies like baseball cards.”

“I dunno,” Robin says, thoughtfully, sucking at her front teeth. “If the token lesbian is hearing about it, then he’s gotta be some sort of sex god.”

Steve’s making a snarky comeback, but you can’t hear him over the whistling in your ears.

You stare blankly out at the parking lot, one hand absently crunching at a brochure, trying really hard to think of anything but those plush lips and all the places you want them. 

____

Ever since the events of last year ripped a hole in your found family’s world, you make it a weekly habit to visit Max.

You’re always armed with some excuse- made too much pasta, please take it off my hands and put this tupperware in your fridge; I was on my way to the thrift store and thought I’d stop by, wanna come with and help me pick out some new jeans?- so that it’s harder for Max to deny your company. Slowly, over the last handful of months, by way of secondhand book offerings and slices of leftover pizza, Max has let her guard down enough to let you in. 

Even on days like today, when her demeanor suggests active disdain (calling you “mom” with a caustic bite when you ask after her last meal, rolling her eyes when she finds you doing the leftover sink dishes), you don’t take it personal. Her coldness towards little acts of kindness is due to the shitty way other people have failed her. And plus, you’ve put in enough effort to be able to see the warm side of Max Mayfield.

Like now, for instance- she’s giving you a bone-crushing hug on your way out, freshly-braided hair pressed tight to your sternum as you hug her back and sway in the doorway. The hug is quick and fierce, over in seconds as she slips back into practiced indifference

“Stay out of trouble this week and I’ll buy you a pony,” you joke as she pulls away, and the smile that she cracks makes it all worth it. 

“Make it a racehorse and you’ve got yourself a deal,” she says, giving you a small wave before closing her front door.

You walk down the dirt path to your parked car, keys in hand. Tonight’s schedule is that of a responsible, sensible young adult- the classified ads on your desk at home need trawling through, and a laundry pile the size of Hoosier Hill waits expectantly on your floor.

But there’s this crawling under your skin, a feeling that tends to flare up every so often, a craving for some sort of release gnawing at the edges. Usually the cure is sad music and masturbation, or some of Steve’s parents’ wine and a cheesy romcom. 

Or weed. That tends to work, too.

You’re shoving your keys into the pocket of your denim jacket and walking across the way to Eddie’s trailer before you lose your nerve, scuffing your sneakers against his porch while you knock.

He looks surprised to see you, dark brows raised, leaning into the palm he’s got on the doorframe- “Oh shit. Hi.”

“Hi,” you reply, tracking one foot up the back of your calf, feeling timid under his gaze. “Do you… can I buy some weed?”

When he nods, you duck under his arm and drop to one knee on the carpeted floor to untie your laces.

“Shit, sweetheart, don’t go to all that trouble.” He lets the door close, enveloping you both in the moody lighting of his trailer. There’s a radio playing the local rock station dimly from one of the bedrooms, and as you toe off your shoes you notice a gleaming black guitar leaned upright against the couch.

“Do you play?” You drift over on sock feet to gently brush across the strings, a faint and discordant noise rising and fading underneath your fingertips.

“Yeah.” Eddie’s voice comes from just over your shoulder as he watches your gentle fingers on his prized possession. “I’m in a band, actually. You should come see us play sometime.”

“That’s cool,” you say earnestly. “I remember when you got in trouble for that talent show performance- your band was totally swindled out of first place, if you ask me.”

When he doesn’t respond right away, you hazard a look at him over your shoulder and find him staring at you again, something you’re still not used to, giggling out a little “What?” as his eyes stay on your face.

“You’re pretty, that’s all.” The Dio logo on the front of his tee ripples when he shrugs a shoulder. As if he knew it would embarrass you, he leaves no room for your disagreement, turning away into the kitchen, stretching tall for the metal lunchbox on the top of his fridge.

His shirt lifts with the stretch, a flash of stomach lined with a trail of dark hair that makes you swallow back the gathering saliva in your mouth. 

“So, weed,” he’s saying as he pops the lid on the box, shaking out a small bag of fuzzy-looking green clumps. “I can set you up with a couple of days’ worth, if you want.”

“That sounds good,” you reply, mustering courage to drift to Eddie’s side, pretending to assess the baggie he’s holding, committing to memory the way his long fingers deftly pluck apart bud from stem. “That way I can come back and buy more.”

His fingers pause, halfway to the metal grinder nestled in the lunchbox as he says, “You know, you don’t need to use weed as an excuse to come see me. I think we’ve already established I like lookin’ at ya, so you’d be doing me a favor if you came by more. Just to hang out.”

This offer sits between you as he grinds the weed down, then tips a stripe of it neatly across some rolling paper. His dexterous fingers pinch and tuck until a joint takes shape, a small strip of the paper poking out.

He holds it to your lips, brown eyes shimmering with warmth as he waits. 

A Stevie Nicks song starts up on the radio, muffled by the trailer walls but crooning through all the same. This close to Eddie for the first time, you can smell him- balmy and spicy, like bergamot and Irish Spring. 

You lean into the joint, licking across the paper in one unbroken motion. Your tongue catches on Eddie’s thumb when you pull away, and there’s a salt-warm taste that settles in your mouth.

“Good girl,” he says, in that low-toned voice, and you have to fight to keep your thighs from pressing together in your jeans.

“Wanna smoke here?” Eddie smooths the spit-damp end of the joint down, giving the end a twist. “Good way to test out the merchandise. First one’s free.”

You shake your head as he extends the joint- “I’m definitely paying you, Eddie. And no, I can’t smoke here.” With you being the unspoken addition to that sentence. 

“Aw, shucks, sweetheart,” he drawls, devilish grin creeping back in, “You don’t trust me?”

“It’s not you I don’t trust,” you admit, before you can stop yourself.

His brows shoot up again, then waggle, obscenely. “Afraid I’m gonna be too tempting to resist once you’re in the clutches of the Green Dragon?”

Something like that, you think, wryly, but that fluttering is back and you really want to shut it up, so against your sensible, better judgment, you take the joint from Eddie’s hand.

“Got a light?”

You haven’t smoked in over a month, and with your tolerance so low two hits is all it takes to get you sprawled out on the living room floor, arms akimbo like you’re making a carpet snow angel.

Eddie’s a bit more restless in his high, plucking melodious and listless tunes from the couch with his guitar, one foot propped on the coffee table near your head.

Feeling loose-limbed and confident, you stare unabashed up at Eddie. He’d put his hair into a low bun, earlier, and there are a few dark tendrils swinging free around his neck with the rocking movements of his body to the music. 

He hits a snag, string buzzing out a dissonant noise. “Can’t focus with you lookin’ at me.”

“Sorry,” you murmur, except you’re not at all. “Now you know how I feel all the time.”

He sticks his tongue out at you, your girlish tittering in answer; you pat the carpet beside your hip. “Come lay with me.”

His body responds easily to your request; Eddie props the guitar back up against the couch and stretches out next to you with a sigh, a wave of that smokey sweet smell coming with him.

Under your weed-filtered view, the popcorn ceiling above you is moving, whorling and undulating in the muted light. You’re feeling gutsy and sure of yourself as you ask aloud, “Do you really think I’m pretty?”

Your head turns so you can meet Eddie’s eyes, which are dancing across your face- cheek to lips to nose back up to eyes- and he doesn’t make a joke, this time, his words coming with weighty seriousness.

“Yeah, I do. I think you’re beautiful. Always have.”

“Always?” Your echo is a soft and seeking thing.

“Yeah, always,” he confirms, simply, as if it’s a fact of life. “Woulda made a move sooner, but you always seemed so…”

“Unapproachable? Aloof? Bitchy?” You fill the gap in his speech with adjectives that have been used to characterize you in the past- usually by boys in the heat of an argument over inconsequential things that have been lost to time, only the labels sticking around. 

Eddie gives you a reproachful look. “No. I was gonna say, you seemed like you were always in your own world.”

This throws you for a loop. Neck on a swivel, you look back up at the ceiling as Eddie continues.

“I wanted to get to know you more, but I’ll be the first to admit I was intimidated by you. I mean, you’re way out of my league-” Eddie ignores the sardonic snort you give to this- “-and I just assumed asking you out would've ended with an epic crash and burn.”

The ceiling stops swaying, and you swivel back to hold Eddie’s eyes again, the weed making honesty easy. “I always kinda thought you were beautiful, too.”

Awash with the bravery that only comes from being in an altered state, you keep the momentum that’s aided by Eddie’s soft smile and push up on your elbows. 

“I know what they call you.”

Eddie blinks up at you, then slowly, slowly, pushes himself up onto his elbows too. “Yeah?”

It’s a taunt, a dare, an I bet you won’t.

Shows how much he knows. When you’re drunk or stoned, he’d be hard pressed to find a bet you can’t win.

You say it, unwavering. “Eddie The Munch Munson.”

His lips fall open, leaning in towards you as if drawn by a magnet, and you think he’s gonna kiss you until he falls back against the carpet, scrubbing his hands down his face. “Shit. Fuck. We can’t do this.”

“Why not?” You’re a little taken aback, ‘cuz while it’s not an outright rejection, Eddie’s upping the drama, hands pressed into the sockets of his eyes, groaning as he tips into your side.

With his forehead pressed into the curve of your shoulder, he says softly, “I think we’re both a little too stoned to be thinking clearly. And I really, really want you to think clearly when it comes to this.”

“Comes to what?” You’re egging him on now, trailing your fingers up his bicep, coy and angelic. 

He rolls away from you, making a pained noise with his face smushed into the carpet before pushing himself off the ground. “You know what, princess. New topic, for the love of god. You hungry?”

You are, actually, and when he extends his hand to help you up, you take it.

Eddie whips up a box of mac and cheese while you sit on a counter nearby, conversation engaging and fluid as he cooks.

Between interjections of ‘scuse me, angel, gotta get into this cabinet and can you take over stirring for a sec? you answer all his questions. You tell him your favorite bands, the states you’d visited on a road trip when you were six, even giving him the whole “my mom’s a nice enough person but we don’t get along” spiel that you don’t usually get to until a third date.

If that’s even what this is. He’s scooping steaming noodles into two bowls, passing you one, leaning up against the counter closest to the one you’re sat on. Your knee rubs against his ribcage as you eat.

In between chews, he lets you ask about himself- his favorite bands, the states he’s never been but wants to travel to someday, the highlights of his golden years with his mom that he misses every day.

There’s a quiet lull, after your bowls are scraped clean and set aside. He helps you off the counter and tells you to pick out a movie; you load The Black Cauldron into the VCR and settle into the couch cushion.

Eddie puts an arm around you, lets you play with his hands for the bulk of the film, running your nails methodically across his palms. 

By the last act of the movie, you can feel your high beginning to fade, taking your courage with it; when the credits roll, you’re ready to call it quits and sleep off the hangover in your own bed.

“You sure you’re okay to drive?” Eddie asks, following after you as you tug your sneakers back on in the hall.

“Yeah, Eddie, I’ll be good. Thanks for the weed,” you say, pulling your jacket tight around your frame. “And for the- for everything.”

The smile appears again; the one that cuts deep dimples into his cheeks as he watches you step onto his porch.

When he says your name, you turn, keys in hand- “Yeah?”

Leaning into the doorframe like he had earlier, he cants his head, streetlight a warm glow across his cheeks. “You wanna know where I got my nickname, you come back in a few days. Sleep on it tonight.” And then he closes the door.

___

So, technically, he told you to come back in a few days, and showing up less than 24 hours later has to hint at being some sort of desperate. 

Which, fuck it, you kinda are, at this point. Frankly it’s a miracle you’ve lasted this long what with the whole being plagued with visions of Eddie Munson’s hands and lips and hair and that stupid fucking nickname every waking and dreaming hour you’ve spent apart. 

While you can appreciate the honorable nature of Eddie asking you to make a clear-headed decision, you’re wishing for a hundred things to take the edge off as you change out of the PJ’s you’ve been moping in all day.

Black tights stretch over your calves as you think of the whiskey you mom keeps hidden in the downstairs cabinet; denim miniskirt smoothed over your hips as you long for a deep hit of weed; hands shakily plucking your black tanktop into place as the urge to be anything but sober gets swallowed down. 

You make the ten minute drive to Forest Hills in silence (relative to the weird engine noises your hunk of metal car decides to make), wracking your brain for silver-tongued excuses but instead drawing blank after blank.

By the time you’re rolling to a stop in front of Eddie’s trailer, you still have no idea what you’re gonna say to him- only that something needs to be said. Max is at the Sinclair’s for the night, one less person to worry about witnessing you slamming your car door shut and walking right up to Eddie on his front steps.

He’s wearing a pair of overalls, grease-stained, shirtless underneath- the tail end of a larger ink piece peeking out against his ribs. There’s a lone bike tire on the ground, held steady by the spokes his boot rests on as he wrenches the middle hub, biceps rippling and flexing with each movement. 

Certainly a sight that would have stopped you in your tracks, on any other day. But you’re determined to have it out with the returning wingbeat behind your navel, planting your Converse in the gravel just before the first step that Eddie’s sat on.

He doesn’t seem surprised to see you this time, instead giving you a lazy smile on a half-tilt, wiping the tire oil from his hands onto the front of his overalls.

“What brings a fair maiden such as yourself to this ugly neck of the woods?” Eddie leans the tire up against the steps and rises to greet you.

You’re gonna lose what little nerve you have left if he touches you so you act quick, speaking as you cross your arms- “I need to tell you a few things.”

That stops him up short, just a few feet away as he inclines his head, hair loose around his bare shoulders. “I’m nothin’ but ears.”

A wet, rattling breath catches in your chest. You give a cursory scan around to confirm that the rest of the trailer park citizens are indoors, soft lights from rows of windows luminous against the darkening twilight sky.

“I have a… a thing,” you start, unsure of where to begin, really wishing you’d come up with a polished script on the ride over instead of being forced to flounder through for the right dialogue. “It started last year. With the mall fire?” 

When Eddie nods his understanding, you continue, in short starts and bursts, like you’re fighting with the words before they come out.

“Something… happened. To Robin, and Steve, and to- to me. It was really bad, for awhile, and then it got better, but I’m still…” your hands squeeze tight into the flesh of your upper arms, nails stinging. “I’m fucked up from it. And the only way I can talk about it is if I’m fucked up, too. S’why I can only hold a conversation when I’m drunk or flirt while I’m high, like there’s this bad thing inside of me that I can’t look at when I’m sober-”

There’s a frantic edge that’s slipped in to your voice and Eddie steps towards you, as if to soothe, but you’re not ready to give in yet so you take a step back, choking out the last few words- “I just- I wish I could tell you everything, but I can’t, not yet, and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

From somewhere in the forest behind, a bright chorus of crickets swells as you fix your focus on the ground, as Eddie’s boots crunch forward on the gravel, toe-to-toe with your sneakers.

He moves carefully, as if worried that you’ll spook- lightly brushing his fingers across yours, drawing your awareness to the fact that your nails are dangerously close to drawing blood, a sigh as you release.

“Thank you for telling me.” Unlike your own voice, his is low and sure as his thumbs brush against the red half-moons in your arms. “You’re really brave, you know that?”

He doesn’t leave room for you to dispute this, instead tracing the underside of your jaw with his knuckle, forcing you to hold his gaze, those deep brown eyes soft with empathy as he says, “I don’t have any expectations of you, ‘kay? I’ll be all ears when you need me to be, but you don’t have to spill all your secrets every time you come around. You wanna just watch shitty cartoons and keep my couch warm, that’s fine by me. Nothin’ else needs to happen.”

And it’s his acknowledgement of your admission, his softhearted way of letting you know that nothing needs to happen, that makes you brave.

Brave enough to tilt your chin into the lift of his finger as you say, “I didn’t just come here to apologize.”

You watch his Adam’s apple bob against the taut vein in his neck as he swallows, hard. 

“Yeah?”

When you nod, Eddie blows out a breath and turns on his heel, motioning you to follow him up the stairs. 

Your eagerness is obvious as you scramble up the steps after him, heart starting to thrum in tandem with the flutters as he shuts his front door behind the both of you.

“Take your shoes off,” is all he says, in a low, strained voice, before turning into the kitchen.

Obedient, you drop to one knee and jerk apart your sneaker laces with trembling hands. 

Now on nyloned feet, you step onto the linoleum tile of Eddie’s kitchen. He’s faced away from you at the sink, taut lines of his shoulders rising and falling as he washes his hands.

“You’re sober?” He asks, still at the sink, drying his hands on a patterned teatowel. 

When you realize he can’t see your nod, you speak- “Yes. Yeah. As a judge.”

A soft exhale through his nose, amused, as he finally turns to face you. Eddie’s eyes do that hypnotizing dance- skipping from your chin to your eyes to your lips back up again- and you let him, feeling exposed to the point of nakedness with the intensity of his focus.

“I want to hear you say it.”

The sentence winds through the air, joins the wings in your stomach, sits low in your belly as you shift your weight from side to side, a gentle rock to ease your flayed-alive nerves. 

You say it. “I want your mouth.”

Eddie takes a step closer, nearly toe-to-toe with you again. Over the familiar layer of bergamot and fresh hand soap he smells like the outdoors, and faintly of mechanic oil, hearty and wild.

“Where?” It’s a single word, but with so much weight- suggestive, a taunt, an offer.

You breathe him in, eyes fluttering closed, ‘cuz brave as you’ve been it’s still hard to say some things while looking at him. “Want your mouth… on me.”

He crowds into your space, one hand gliding smoothly to set against your waist, the other fitted against your neck, tapping a thumb to your lips.

You part them, passive and wanting, but he doesn’t press his finger to the pad of your tongue like you’d hoped. Instead, he lets his thumb stroke to the corner of your mouth to make room for his own. 

“Where?” he asks again, this time into your mouth. You can feel the tip of his nose graze yours, pinpricks of his hair tickling your cheeks. 

“Please,” is all you manage this time, awash with heat when you feel his smile form. 

“S’okay, sweetheart. I’ll work you up to it.” It’s a touch condescending, skirting that fine line between tease and mean, the same tone of voice that has your thighs pressing together.

And then, he gives you what you asked for. His plush lips- the ones that you’ve been fantasizing about for what feels like eons- are pressing against yours.

It’s a kiss that starts chaste, tender, but soon devolves into a heady, fevered thing when you push your tongue past the seam of his lips. He melts into you, using the hand he has on your face to keep you steady as he sucks your bottom lip into his mouth, grazing his teeth into the plush of it before going back to twining his tongue with yours. 

There’s an audible wet click as he pulls away, both of your chests heaving in the quiet that follows; Eddie rests his forehead against yours briefly to catch his breath, and then he’s tugging you down the hall and into his room.

It’s pleasantly messy and lived-in, posters and photographs taking up most of the walls, guitar cables snaking and criss-crossing atop his dresser. You take a seat on the bed, hands tightening into the flannel duvet while Eddie begins to undo the buttons of his overall straps.

Wholly fascinated, you watch as he pushes the thick material from his body and kicks it to the side, leaving him in just his guitar pick necklace and a simple pair of black boxers. Now on full display, you drink in the sight of the most skin you’ve ever seen of his- tattoos at his chest and arms dark against the rest of him, pale and gleaming softly in the yellow light of the bedside lamp. 

You’re trying to figure out if the larger piece on his ribs is a dragon or some other mythological creature when he moves in to sit next to you, his kisses erasing all thoughts.

Eddie’s making these throaty little noises as you kiss; his hands track lines from your hips to your sides to your shoulders, your chest unconsciously pressing into his touch. 

When his thumb catches on the outline of your beaded nipple through your shirt, he hisses lightly, drawing back to look at you again- “Is this okay?”

You nod, but he doesn’t seem satisfied with that, tsking as he swipes with his thumb again, watching closely as you react silently to the touch.

“Hard to tell when you’re enjoying yourself if you’re quiet as a churchmouse,” Eddie says, in a tone that’s reminiscent of training a pet. “You gonna let me hear you?”

Your teeth catch on your lower lip as he thumbs across your nipple again, shockwaves coursing into goosebumps as you choke out, “I’m not s-so good at that. Not without- fuck- weed..”

Eddie huffs a laugh, a little derisive but you figure he’s probably got the right, seeing as how you’re this worked up and he’s barely touched you.

“You’re plenty good at this sober, sweetheart. Want me to prove it?”

His hand falls from your breast, extricates one of yours from the covers, and slides it up the meat of his thigh- then to the front of his boxers.

The first noise you make for him is a small gasp, one that matches his own as you cup your palm over the thick jut of his hard cock.

“Told you,” he says, sounding strung-out, his hand still closed around your wrist, “You’re doin’ just fine at working me up.”

You wrap your fingers around the bulge as best you can with the fabric of his boxers separating skin from skin, gaining confidence to explore as his grip on your wrist loosens. The black ink at his ribs expands and shrinks with the bellows of his breath, jolting and stuttering with each stroke of your hand.

Just as he’s drawing in a breath to speak, tightening his hold around your wrist in warning, you still your movements. Delicately, slowly, you slide out of his grasp and take his wrist in your hand, placing his palm on your own thigh.

The whole “reciprocating pleasure with sound” is still a hard one to give in to; maybe you can compensate for your hesitancy by showing instead of telling. You guide his hand up, into your skirt, parting your thighs until his fingers find the wetness soaking through both your panties and tights. 

“Fucking… jesus.” Eddie moves with the fluid surety that you lack, middle finger running up the seam of your clothed pussy, your hips jerking reflexively when he catches against your clit. “This all for me, princess?”

In answer, you lean to bury your face into the crook of Eddie’s neck. He lets you, taking the opportunity to hook your leg over his thigh, spreading you out as much as your fitted denim skirt will allow.

You pant into the column of his throat as he strokes you through the light layers, the fabrics grinding friction into your clit caught under his fingertip. He rests his chin on the crown of your head, cooing praises that have your stomach muscles tensing.

“That’s it, good girl, such a good girl for me.”

Your clit is throbbing now as he rubs you in small, quick circles, and you’re so close to falling over the edge that you have to pull his hand away.

Eddie picks up on your unspoken plea; he tugs the skirt down your hips then tosses it blindly over his shoulder, reaching for the edge of your tights. He slips them down your thighs, your calves, peeling them off you with reverence. When all that’s left is your best pair of satin panties, he maneuvers you up against the headboard and stretches himself flat on his stomach, nose pressing into your core.

That heat has come back, flashing through you with a vengeance as Eddie mouths at your pussy through the satin, sloppily but with purpose enough to have your cunt clenching around nothing.

You stay up on your elbows, watching that mane of dark hair bracketed by your thighs, but when Eddie pulls your underwear down and off your ankle your weight falls back against the mattress.

The flat of his tongue licks a wide stripe from your weeping hole up to spread the wetness around your clit. When he sucks the bundle of nerves into his mouth, your head presses back into the covers, hands grappling above you for something to anchor your grasp.

When Eddie flicks the point of his tongue against that bright spot of nerves your hands find a pillow to grip, and when he moans into your pussy the vibrations have you instinctively pulling the pillow against your face, teeth biting into the fluff, masking the whine that would have been loud in the otherwise quiet room.

You think you might be able to get away with this setup (what with Eddie seemingly focused on making you explode into a million little pieces) but there’s a sharp smack before the outer skin of your thigh is burning, white-hot from the kiss of his rings.

Eddie’s mouth leaves you only for the time it takes for him to rip the pillow from your grasp and scold, “Uh uh, none of that, c’mon,” and then he’s back at your clit, suckling with renewed vengeance.

There are little stars bursting at the edges of your vision, your hands shooting down to grip at Eddie’s hair when he pistons the point of his tongue against you again. Your hips are subtly bucking into his mouth, shaking thighs involuntarily closing around his ears. Normally you’d be concerned about Eddie’s air intake but going off the moans he’s burying in your pussy, you’d hazard a guess that he’s really into it.

As if in confirmation, he pulls off your clit with a wet pop, laving his tongue up the junction where thigh meets pelvis, voice sounding wrecked- “Doin’ so good, sweetheart. Fuck, you got me so hard. Gonna blow a load in my boxers like a teenager, y’taste so good. Gonna let me hear you? Hm? Wanna hear you.”

You’re dizzy with want as you prop yourself on your elbows again, mouth falling open as Eddie sinks two of his fingers up to the ringed knuckle inside your velvet walls.

His other hand comes to rest on the soft curve of your stomach, pinning you in place, before he looks up at you, black pupils nearly eclipsing the chocolate brown. 

“What do you want?” he asks again, patiently, as if he doesn’t have two fingers nestled inside your cunt.

Your efforts to grind into him are stopped with his firm hold on your middle, and he tuts at you again- but instead of a reprimand, he seems to soften a bit.

“C’mon, angel,” Eddie says, with such tenderness that makes tears prick at the corner of your eyes. He presses his lips to the inside of your thigh before encouraging, “Lemme hear you say it, and I’ll make it so good for you. Promise.”

“Want you to make me come. Please.” Your voice is unsteady, but it’s audible enough.

Eddie rewards you by sinking his fingers further, to the hilt, heel of his palm catching against your clit. When you let out a warbling moan, he nods- “That’s it,”- before setting a steady rhythm for fucking his fingers up into you. 

“Fuck, Eddie- fu-uck…” you’re trying, really trying to stay in the moment and not get caught up in the noises you’re making- for him. 

When Eddie reattaches his mouth to your throbbing clit and angles his fingers to hit into that soft, spongy spot with each thrust, you feel waves of pleasure start to wash through you. There’s just time for a choked “Shit, Eddie, you’re gonna make me cum,” before you’re spasming around his fingers.

Somehow, you manage to stay on your elbows, bracing your body through the convulsive shocks, white-hot stars joining the wingbeat rhythm as Eddie takes you apart with his mouth and fingers.

He moans, long and low, fucking you through it and then some- your orgasm has been completely wrung out when you push at his forehead, whimpering at the overstimulation. 

“No, baby, one more, please. Gimme one more,” Eddie lifts his head to plead with you, sweaty bangs glued to his forehead- and then he’s back between your legs.

It’s this moment that makes you retrospective. Sex with boys, in the past, has always been a quick means to an end: a few minutes of foreplay, tamping down your own pleasure for the sake of blowing off some steam. 

But now, pleasure was being given to you in spades by Eddie Munson, and you wanted to give it back to him.

You come on his tongue and fingers, again, stomach tightening beneath his warm palm, and this time you really loose the sounds caught in your chest: a strangled mix of your bliss-soaked whines with his name, Eddie Eddie Eddie. 

You feel the bed frame jolt below you both as Eddie’s hips thrust into the mattress in a frenzied tempo.

“Fuck me.” He pulls away, finally, panting into the side of your knee. He rests his head against your leg, lips tinged pink and shining wet, gazing at you with lust-blown eyes. “You are so fucking hot. Holy shit.”

Bashful as your peak wears off, you pull him forward so you don’t have to look at him when you whisper, “Yeah?”

“Yeah, princess,” he says, slumping against your chest and into your arms. “That’s going straight to my long-term spank bank. Number one. For sure.”

You slap playfully at his shoulder, and he rises on his elbows to kiss you- once on the lips, twice on the cheek- warm palms on the outside of your shoulders. 

“Are you… d’you need any help?” you ask, reaching to tuck his hair behind his ears, feeling the crush of insecurity leech in. “I dunno if you even- I mean, did you…”

From all the physical activity, your breasts are half-spilled out of your bra, and Eddie bends to kiss at the tops of them, affectionately, shaking his head as he goes. “There is no world in which I would’ve lasted, just now. Very noble of you to assume, though.”

He grins at your giggle, then says- “I dunno about you, but I need some new underwear. Wanna borrow a pair of my boxers? Bet you’d look cute.”

________

Later, when you’re both cleaned up, dressed, and full from a pizza delivery, Eddie invites you outside for a smoke.

You sit with him on the porch couch, legs slung over his, a big flannel blanket shared over both your laps while he smokes with the hand that isn’t on your thigh. 

There’s a crunching of wheels on gravel, and Max Mayfield’s bike lamp cuts through the dark.

“Hey, Heavy Metal,” she calls out, undoing her bike helmet and leaning her bike into its kickstand. “Are you done fixing up Lucas’s tires or do I have to keep hauling my ass all the way across town to see him?”

“I’ll have it done tomorrow, Red,” Eddie calls back, giving her a salute.

Halfway to her door, she remarks, “You two are gross, by the way,” 

You cross your arms in the sweatshirt Eddie loaned you, slipping into irksome older sister mode easily. “So how’d it go with your boyfriend, tonight, Maxine?”

She flips you both off, but you catch the smile on her face before the front door bangs shut behind her.

Eddie chuckles, smoothing his palm up your thigh, then takes another drag. “You gotta come night smoke with me more often, angel. The streetlights suit you.”

“Gonna get me hooked on nicotine, too?” Your sock foot pokes him in the ribs and he tuts, snapping it up in his free hand and digging his thumb into the arch of your sole.

“Fuck no, your teeth are too pretty to ruin. Want you to come keep me company while I destroy my lungs.”

Another cloud of smoke lifts dreamily around Eddie’s face. His thumb is working wonders on the tense muscle of your foot as you tip your head to rest on the back of the couch. With the nearby streetlamp, his profile is cast in a warm glow; you do a dance of your own, eyes taking in the strong slope of his nose, tracking down to his lips, back up to the wild curls at his temple.

Eddie feels you staring, turns to fix you with a quit it look that you can’t help but laugh at- “What, so you’re the only one who’s allowed to stare?”

“That’s right,” he confirms, leaning forward to set his cig in an ashtray, bullying his way into your space, rings cold under your chin when he tilts your face towards his- “Gotta pay the piper for that obvious violation, sweetheart. Sorry. I don’t make the rules.”

This time, when the flutter within you kicks up, you have a place for it to go- melting softly into Eddie’s lips. 

___________________

I wrote the last third of this while blasted please don’t judge too harshly lmao.

for more shy!Reader content: masterlist

[kiss-me-muchoo]

𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬, 𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐳𝐞 || 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠!𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐒𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

part one: stop, you’re losing me || part two: in the trees, in the breeze (here)

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲_ your memory kept haunting Coriolanus Snow, so he found the way to end his exile. It’s a new era, but the same old feelings between Coriolanus and you keep causing scandals. Although, you are not ready to let go the pain he caused to you.

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬_ Capitol ballerina!reader, angst, drama, violence and death lol, jealousy, unhinged Coriolanus, sex mentions, reader still has health problems, etc. 13k words fic IM SORRY

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞_ hear this along Can’t catch me now, I’m not an OR fan but I love that song from her. I mean, who didn’t? And thank you for the wait and loveeeee. PLEASE TELL ME OF ANY ERRORS BC I CAN’T BE ALMOST ACCUSED OF BEING TRANSPHOBIC PLEASEEEE

♪ ♫ awful Coriolanus Snow playlist ✰ Index (+ fics here)

_____________________________________________

Red, blue, red, red, yellow, green, green, pink.

Every color is correctly marked. A nurse smiles with some papers on her hand before she dissapears.

You can get dressed again. The color test was done, your vision was okay.

Purple and green bruises are scattered across your skin. Some appeared on your inner thighs. Two on your knees and one on the ribs from the day you collapsed after the post-Hunger Games celebration. You sigh covering your skin with a long floral dress. The reflection of yourself on the mirror salutes you with a tired, broken and sad face. It makes you force a smile, pretending more people were watching you. The room in empty though.

“Everything is fine. Your body is responding well to the shots.” A doctor asks as soon as he walks in into the room.

“The only thing that worries me is your mental health. Have you been stressed or has anything happened to you that could be considered a traumatic experience?”

The pointe shoes soaked in blood. The unstoppable bleeding on your feet. The late nights with panic attacks and over thinking. That young blonde man and the songbird together. The night on dressing room, how your hand burned after slapping the man so hard. The shock of all the events surrounding your life two weeks ago. How you lost control, your head spinning, blurred vision, heart pounding, numb arms and how you felt the oxygen was leaving. All the things you did for someone who never deserved you, making you shatter, fainting as soon as you finished dancing.

“Miss y/l/n… Are you okay?” The distant voice of the doctor breaks your bubble. You shake your head in disguise before turning away from the mirror, facing him and smiling politely.

“Yes, I’m fine. I was very stressed, yeah. Working with the production of the Hunger Games. My artistic performances, last days at the Academy. It was a lot…” the doctor sighs, annotating something. He then handed you the paper.

“I’m giving you some treatment for that. And please, you have to be careful and calm. Only that way the medicine will help everything to work here” he points his head. You nod, accepting the paper.

After that, you leave the private hospital. Trevor is there, your chauffeur and friend. He smiles, opening the door for you.

“Thank you, Trevor” he starts the car soon after.

“Is everything okay?” You nod, looking at the bright day at the Capitol.

“I just need to relax and eat well.” Trevor had trimmed his hair. It made him look younger, making you smile at the memory of him saying his wife was his hairstylist.

“Good. Oh, I received a call from your mother. This woman…uh, Dr. Volumnia Gaul? She wants to see you at the Univeristy today” you frown to look at him confused.

“Oh? So… Can we go now?” He nods, turning left to start the route. Meanwhile, you wonder what could she want. You made your part, the games had a higher amount of viewers compared to last year. You engaged with the production and the celebration was at full capacity. Your little accident even made it more attractive to the media. Appearing on the papers and magazines across Panem.

And after everything, you still wanted to keep dancing. Or else range would consume you.

…

It’s the first time you step inside the Capitol’s University. It’s very similar to the Academy, but the floor tiles are green and white. There’s a lot of white, cream, golden and black decorating the halls and long stairs.

Since it’s summer, most of the building was empty. Only some of the staff, and very few people who seemed like students. You see they dress very elegant. Some women wore hats with feathers or flowers. The men wore classy suits and you genuinely thought you would fit in.

You couldn’t wait to have some sense of normality as a Univeristy student along Clemensia and Lysistrata. Your only close friends left. Well, also Festus and Sejanus. At the time, you didn’t event know your dear friend was dead.

What seems like the private office of Gaul has a red door. Inside, she had a laboratory, smaller but weirder than the one you had seen before. Full of dissected creatures, tanks and crystal containers with unknown chemicals.

Some steps further and you see her desk, where she is collecting some folders and putting them away in some shelves.

“Glad to see you breathing, miss y/l/n…” somehow you found the humor to smile coldly.

“As you can see.” You reply standing perfectly correct.

“By this point you should know what happened to Mr. Snow” goosebumps make you shake your shoulders slightly, you nod again.

“He was exiled. Twenty years. He lied to me and did not said a thing about cheating on the games”

“Indeed. However this morning, I just discovered he bribed a woman to be sent to District 12.” You bite your tongue to hide your fury. A hot feeling invade your chest in rage. But you just breathe, failing to not show discontent.

“That’s not any of my business anymore.” Even Gaul seems taken aback. However, she doesn’t say anything, she just keeps pulling away the pile of folders.

“Well, since it seems you both parted ways… I must share that I’m deleting any record or data related to the 10th Hunger Games. Too many things happened before, during and after the games. Things that would compromise the reputation of the whole organization. Including me, the Academy, the mentors, you and Mr. Snow” honestly, you don’t know what to say. You just frown slightly, demonstrating how confused you were. But you also understood with half of the context. The death of Arachne, Coriolanus and his odd ways to make his songbird oustand, the rebel attack, Lucy Gray Baird winning from cheat. And the things you didnt know like Sejanus entering the arena.

However, you stick to your parent’s advice. You have to think about you and anyone else.

“I understand. But I did my part. I completed my task so I hope this decision doesn’t jeopardize my grant” she smiles. Dr. Gaul secretly believed that you and Coriolanus Snow could rule Panem together. In a sick and evil way, so she really hoped her dark intentions would work.

“Of course not. We had a deal. The views went up this year. You brought a new vision for the promotion that I’ll hardly let go.” The ambition started tickling you. Making you roll your tongue inside your closed mouth, at the verge of opening it and talking.

“Good.”

“In fact, you would be a nice option to become head of the promotion and relations team.” From the last games, you realized the director only gave instructions but he rarely did the dirty job. You liked having some power over the games. And now, a childish and unjustified resentment towards District 12 made you smile as Gaul offered you a new job.

“Is it a possible option to be working in behalf of my mother’s institution?”

“You’re very smart, y/n y/l/n. You are going further than Mr. Snow” your smile only grows, knowing you are nit being correct. You are letting the rage and resentment to guide you. You will make your last name shine brighter than your parents did. Just to rub it in the face of certain blonde who was now exiled. Probably savoring the country life of District 12.

“I just want to make my family’s name bigger than it already is” the woman giggles, taking out a red envelope and handing it you.

“I assume you’ll pursue the arts as you’re speciality. But if you want to get involved with the production, marketing and relations. You are taking politics and some lessons with me” when you look down at the envelope, the golden logo of the university is greeting you. It’s the admission letter.

“I expect to see you here by the end of the summer” you nod, thanking her.

And as you walk outside where Trevor is waiting for you, you have a cocky smile. Feelings like things could go better. You don’t even remember the doctor’s appointment you were in before coming to see Gaul.

…

Your soft hands gently brush against his forehead. Coriolanus had chills, he hadn’t had fever since he was 15 years old. But your hands are so soft even when they feel cold as ice. He just knows he’s in his bed. In his rottening penthouse. He can see a slightly blurred image of you, wearing a green dress, your hair in a braid, a golden necklace, dark purple lips. He can’t hear your words, but you are talking to him, spreading some cream across his chest, immediately he felt the mint soothing his cough and pain. He must’ve said something funny, because he can now see clearly your face, gorgeous as always. And he can clearly hear you laughing.

Coriolanus wakes up smiling. And he realised he was dreaming.

He was in a small and creaky lower bunk bed. Sejanus sleeping in the upper bunk. The sun hasn’t come up. And he’s a peacekeeper in District 12.

It’s been weeks since he left the Capitol. And since day one, you seem to be haunting him.

Current dreams of you, swearing to be hearing your voice. It makes him want to call you every single day. But he doesn’t. He was able to forget about you when he was in the peacekeeper training and duties. When he was with Lucy Gray any trace of you was gone. But as soon as he had a moment alone, he would remember everyhting about you.

He missed you. Painfully a lot.

Every Friday, he had been sending the letters. He hoped your mother would hand them to you. But Coriolanus knew you too well to know you likely would not be reading them. Nonetheless, he was letting himself to write the most vulnerable pieces of him, putting his heart on each word and phrase. Hoping that by the time his exile was over, you would have forgiven him.

When the sun came up, he was up along the rest of the boys. Sejanus gives him a friendly smile and they’re out exercising and doing jobs all day long. During his break, he’s able to seat in an old bench, with a beautiful view of an open green field.

That’s when he dreams of seeing you there, dancing or simply standing there with a sundress. Like the ones you used to wear on summer when he visited the house your parents had in District 4. He dreams so hard that he swears seeing the skirt of your dress swaying through the trees. And that’s when he knows he’s so fucked up.

But that’s long forgotten after the break is over. And by the night, he’s on the biggest bar of the town. He sees Lucy Gray singing something new. He honestly never understood the meaning behind her songs, but he was enchanted by her do what she loved.

After her live presentation, a big projector was introduced. They started playing the weather with Lucky Flickerman. Which made Coriolanus miss the Capitol so bad.

“They’re probably waiting for some women. That’s why the always start that thing” Lucy Gray said, appearing by his side and pointing at the projector. He smiled at her.

“To see women?” She nodded, grabbing a glass of cold water.

“You know how are men around here” with no tv around, no ostentatious lifestyles, men could get excited with little makeup and satin gowns. Coriolanus was disgusted by many mannerism of the 12. He had heard and seen many disapproving behaviors. But he was happy to be able to find some peace along the songbird.

“Yes, I know. What’s that thing by the way?” When Coriolanus turned around to see the old projector, he almost choked after seeing the big logo appearing.

It was the summer fundraising charity of your mother. Another luxurious gala to help the constructions of the Capitol after war. However, that wasnt the most impressive part for Coriolanus. Seconds after the recovered from seeing something directly related to his past, you appeared in the projector, entering the stage and getting in pose to start a performance.

Lucy Gray Baird was in shock. So if she was surprised, the men all around the bar where cheering and whistling.

There you were, with curled wet hair, metallic bronze makeup, wine lips, golden bracelets on your arms. But it was the attire. A two piece set that let your legs and stomach show off. With bare feet, and two elegant knives, one in each hand. Your cocky smile was back. And it was ruining Coriolanus Snow.

He literally jumped from his seat, leaving Lucy Gray to cross the river of men and properly see you.

She knew you had broken up with him. And that relieved the songbird, as she felt like she could let her feelings for Coriolanus flow freely. But seeing the boy literally hipnotized as soon he saw you, it made her feel uneasy. Deeply she knew that Coriolanus wasn’t over you. And no matter what, you were a sensible subject for him. That not even herself could ever test.

But he kept going. Each step meant hearing them say how good you looked, the places where they’d put their hands on your body. It boiled his blood.

But finally, the dance killed him. Because maybe for the capitol you were still elegant and classy. Their eyes would publicly appreciate your art, and privately let their mind wander with your half naked body. But for people from the 12. It was like throwing a piece of meat to lions in starvation.

With your hips swaying tentatively, pointed feet and letting everyone know how flexible you were. That sassy look on your face that Coriolanus was feeling too personal. It was like you were saying “look what you lost”.

He was used to see you in pastel tutus, hair in a bun. Not this goddess ritual dance type of thing. The music was very different, something very uncommon in Panem. He really wants to punch every man in the room. He sees how most of the women in the bar see your graceful image with disgust. And Coriolanus couldn’t blame them. But it made him remember that he had lost the right to call you his. And that intrusive thought made him automatically think he wanted to go back home so badly.

Your sensual and meticulous steps keep going, the knives making him remember the folk tales of women dancing with sharp objects to show fertility, honor of their kingdom and to seal a man’s faith. Every minute more desperate for Snow, who’s over the edge of hearing men say plenty of things about you. But soon, the music stops with you arched, pointed feet, your curls kissing the stage, the knives perfectly pointing like a clock.

Coriolanus doesnt miss your evil smile. He can sense you are changing. And he remember all the pain he caused you, making him sigh in resignation. His desire of going back for you only growing.

“I’m sorry I left like that” he explains to Lucy Gray. She notices how quick he drank his beer. She was a woman after all, she knew the effect a fine female could have on men. Especially on the man who was their lover. The one that probably hurt her and left her, ending their history in bad terms.

“It’s okay. I told you she was very pretty before” Coriolanus learns that Lucy Gray was not being sarcastic that day at the zoo.

…

It had come to the point where he couldn’t run away from his thoughts. Coriolanus was borderline obsessed with your memory. He constantly wondered how you were doing. He had to ask Tigris every time they talked to see learn anything about you.

For the first time, since he left the Capitol, Tigris shares that she had talked to you.

Coriolanus was surprised to hear that the reason you gave about the breakup was only because he cheated with Lucy Gray.

You didn’t said a word about him the lies, the last argument you two had. You only say that his songbird was special. And that you stopped to be what he needed.

Which was heavily mistaken. Some days before he accepted that you were the only thing he needed to keep going. He imagines a fake scenario where you came to the 12 with him. You find a humble home where you wait till his training is over. The lake where he spent hours with Lucy Gray and The Covey could’ve been hours with you. Talking about anything and everything. He would’ve come straight home to you when the training was over. Make love to you, promise to fight for a higher position, possibly as a commander one day and marrying you. And soon the years would’ve passed, his exile would be over and you would go back to the Capitol with him. Maybe some children along.

But that would never happen. And his delusion was starting to make him find a way to go back where he belonged.

He questioned if his urges where for power, or to get back with the woman he loved.

Whatever the reason was, a lot of people would pay the price. First were the daughter of the mayor and her partner, then the man who had the decency to hide the gun he used to kill those two. Who also happened to be his alleged best friend.

His hands trembling as he pressed to record Sejanus. But he knew there were high possibilities of being heard. And that way, he would go back. He would find you and slowly start again.

The death of Sejanus would haunt him for a long time. He knew he was a close friend of yours, which made him get chills, uneasy to decide what could be your reaction to the news. Either way, it was done. The heavens had to have heard him. He was offered to serve in District 2, gain some money and he could easily take the train to see you if anything.

But Lucy Gray had other plans. And Coriolanus wasnt even sure of what he was doing. Probably in his rambling and panic after everything he went through as a peacekeeper, one side of him wanted to run away and never see back again. To forget about his decisions as a mentor, to forget about his decisions as a peacekeeper and to forget about you. That way he would never have to face all the pain he caused you.

After some hours of walking, Coriolanus should have seen the signs.

“Everyone in the Covey are really good dancers. But I don’t think it’s my thing. I just have my voice…” Lucy Gray said, holding her bag tightly. Coriolanus only smiled, remembering how bad the songbird was when he tried to teach her how to waltz.

“Is it like… exclusive in the Capitol?”

“I think so. Today there’s only one institution, the mother of…” he goes quiet, realizing what he was about to say.

“…y/n?” She asked, almost nervous about mentioning your name. But in reality, she wasnt. After Coriolanus nodded, they just kept walking in silence.

“Her mother founded it?”

“It was her grandmother actually. Mine knew her, and they were kind of friends” he said smiling, trying to look away from Lucy Gray so he couldn’t see him smiling.

Once you leaned Coriolanus was financially struggling some years ago, you ended up visiting him for the first time. That day you learned Grandma’am was friend of your family before your mother was born. And that only made her appreciate you faster. Which made Coriolanus happy. Finally seeing her grandmother to let go the days of the war and any crazy ideas that stayed on her mind. All thanks to you.

“Grandma’am even started planting pink roses for her.” It slipped out automatically, he couldn’t control it.

“She’s like ink…” Coriolanus missed the point. But after some minutes of silence, he understood what Lucy Gray said. Which resulted true. Metaphorically, you were the brightest tint he’d ever seen. He let that ink fall and splash everywhere, leaving stains on him that probably would never leave.

And finally, Lucy Gray Baird fell to her end in the shallow woods. Hunted like a prey. By a broken man who decided to stop being good. Who was losing his mind for the pieces of a woman he let go so easily.

That changes like the destination of Coriolanus.

He’s going back to the Capitol. With tiny sparks of hope. But firmly believing that everyhting was meant to happen like that so he could go back to you.

However, as he came closer, Coriolanus realized he was lost. He had no idea what would await for him. And what version of you would greet him.

…

There isn’t an exact period over the Capitol that can’t be considered as autumn. The summer was practically over, and winter was already happening. Coriolanus had to wait longer than expected to get into University. In the meantime, he accepted the money from the Plinth family. He decided to get ahead of time. He used the last hot days to get Tigris and Grandma’am back to the penthouse. He bought the whole building and in two weeks the whole place was renewed. There was only one thing he couldn’t get rid of. The living room and entrance olive paint you brought. He painted the halls, dining room, studio and kitchen in a dark blue paint. But he wasnt able to get rid of the memories he made with you. His old self was long gone. But he had his supcisions that the version he was for you would never change.

However, he decided to stay afar from the public eye for that month after returning from exile.

Tigris said she hadn’t seen you. But that was okay. He would soon enter to University. He was going to see you there.

Eventually the day came. He gets rid off Casca Highbottom and then he walks towards the big and imposing University of the Capitol. He had a driver now, but he thought it wouldn’t be bad to use the mornings to walk.

In his first hours inside, he has private lessons with Dr. Gaul. Already mentoring him to be a game maker. She kind of suspects he was involved with the sudden death of Highbottom. But for some reason, Gaul has a lot of hopes in him, so she would easily act blind to keep her plans to keep going.

After that, Coriolanus starts looking out for you. He crosses the big seminar rooms and other halls. Until he is able to locate the arts building. It’s smaller but probably the most interesting. With a beautiful barroque facade. As soon as he enters, he sees a group of girls holding large canvas with beautiful paintings on them. Then, some steps later he spots two guys trying to carry a sculpture. Coriolanus believes that kind of modern art was the future of the Capitol. He had to admit the arts building was fully alive, he even forgot he was still at the university.

Coming down from some stairs, he sees two girls. A red haired and a tanned with black leotards and floral skirts are giggling. They seems like dancers, he doesnt think twice. He’s already approaching the girls.

“Excuse me, ladies. Do you know by any chance where I can find y/n y/l/n?” The girls look cheekily at each other, before smiling at him. Which makes Coriolanus wonder what type of rumours had been flowing around about you and him. Since mostly everyone knew the last Snow heir was dating the daughter of the kings of Panem´s television industry.

“She’s rehearsing a class for new students. It’s on the second floor, you’ll hear the music…” he thanks the tanned girl before going upstairs.

She wasn’t lying. He started hearing the classical piano music. He can hear some distant and low cheering. The whole floor is full of dancers. It’s a long hall, to the right, a big studio, with a classical mural, chandeliers and the most giant mirror he’d ever seen.

The people outside the studio see him with curiosity. But he only has eyes for the ballerina dancing all across the studio.

There you are, with a coral tutu, baby pink leotard and thighs. Your pointe shoes seem new. Your cheeks look so pink and your smile is there.

He has to understand that you have become popular enough to have your own fans. Some rumors said that your mother was offering master classes at the University. And he couldn’t help but think how much your family’s name have growth since he left.

He lost count of many turns you did, but you finish cleanly, offering a beautiful view of your tutu wadding. He can’t stop smiling.

People start a round of applauses. He debates whether to get closer or not. He doesnt have any speech prepared. He doesn’t know what to say to you.

“Coriolanus?” When he turns around, he sees Clemensia Dovecote there. Her old study buddy looked older, but not in a bad way. He saw the scales on her skin. But he didnt had to ask, he knew it was because of the rainbow snakes. It just seemed weird to see her short sleeves but turtleneck, rather than her trying to cover all of her face.

“Clemensia” he greets her. Clemmie was probably your female best friend. It wasnt a surprise that suddenly the woman seemed to dislike him.

“Since when you returned?” He looks back at you again. As the music keeps playing, he just smiles. He know the way things would now work. With no how are you questions or anything like the past.

“Some weeks ago.” Clemensia looks like she’s analyzing every movement and word of him.

“Why are you here?” Her hostile tone only makes Coriolanus to act more relaxed than he already is.

“I made the promise to come back for y/n…” the woman stares at him, probably taken aback.

“She doesn’t need this, Coriolanus. She can’t have this” Clemensia had visited you at the hospital. She learned most of his lies towards you. She knew you didn’t deserved to fall again. And especially not because of him.

“I know, Clemmie. I won’t be a burden for her” the music stops, and Coriolanus decides that it’s not time to talk to you yet. So he smiles once again to Clemensia.

“I hope so. Because you already failed her once…” his smile drops. Clemensia dissapears to get inside the studio. Coriolanus stares at you one last time, before he silently walks out.

…

Before you can reach your glass of posca, a porcelain plate with your food slides on the way. A soft piece pile of fried little steaks, with melted cheese and a golden sauce of mushrooms dripping. Your stomach churns and it makes Clemensia laugh.

She had a salmon fine cut with caviar and other exotic stuff. It was a beautiful afternoon to have dinner at one of the most elegant restaurants of the Capitol Downtown.

“Bless your food.”

“Bless your food” you reply back to her.

“So, How it went the rehearsal?” You roll your eyes giggling.

“It was great, until the girls taking the masterclass appeared to see me” your father was right. After working in the production of the 10th Hunger Games, many doors opened for you. Splendid career opportunities here and there. Only that you didn’t enjoy a lot of attention.

“Are they still at the Academy” you nod.

“Rich girls who can make their parents pay the classes of course” Clemensia smiles, drinking a little bit before getting back to eat.

“Coriolanus was looking for you…” you literally stopped eating. You almost drop your fork, but you decided to hold it firmly.

“What?”

“Apparently he’s back.” She reveals. Making you close your eyes in panic.

“How? He was exiled” you say whispering. Clemmie shrugs.

“Gaul. He’s her pupil star. And with Dean Highbottom dead now…” it must’ve been great for Coriolanus to learn the man was gone. Always putting him in the lowest, it was a mark for change.

“Doesn’t matter, I won’t let this get into my way” she smiles.

“What about what your father said?” During a late lunch, you had been talking with your parents, revealing that you broke up with Coriolanus because he cheated. Your mother was shocked, but soon she joined your father to give a twisted advice. He asked if you still loved him. You answered you weren’t sure.

Then I suggest you to proceed to ignore him. Soon you’ll learn his intentions if he ever comes back. Play with him a little. Show him that nobody will laugh in the face of family like ours. Let your hands get dirty, but never show this insecurity you’re talking about.

From that day, you still wake up every morning without knowing how you actually feel about Coriolanus Snow. You know you can’t just simply forget about all the things you did with him. But you firmly pretended that he was in the past.

“I still don’t know how I feel about him.”

“Are you still in contact with his family?” You remember Tigris and Grandma’am.

“Not as much as I used to”

“Mhm. Did they ever learned what happened?” You sigh.

“Just that he opted to choose the songbird before me. And I know Tigris has her own opinion. I just never gave her the opportunity to share it.”

“With him back… probably you’ll find out sooner than later” Clemensia admits, leaving you thinking for the rest of the dinner.

Turns out that you are not ready to find out yet.

…

The first time you see him, it’s at the gardens of the University. You had lunch and wanted to have a brief walk. Through a maze of flowers and plants, you spot him on a bench. He’s very concentrated reading a book. Your eyes widen, seeing how much different he looked. The posture, the clothes, the hair, the cold look.

Something notoriously changed. And you have your suspicions. It wasn’t a coincidence that Sejanus was gone, and Lucy Gray Baird had dissapeared.

You mourned the death of Sejanus one week. You send your condolences to his parents at the funeral. And that night you can’t help but cry on your pillow. Wondering why had life slowly turned dark. In a matter of months you had experienced things you never thought you would. You lost people, you had your first heart broken. You had lost the will to do much things. But, you had to keep going. And you felt guilty, because you thought you had no right to feel like your life was hard, just for being Capitol. The districts struggled more. However, it’s not on your power to mend their lives. Just as it’s not their case to judge your life.

And now, seeing Coriolanus so firm, so calm, it makes you doubt. Sensing that there must’ve been something off about him. Something bad, like all the things he did and hid from you.

You pretend you’re looking for some papers in your bag when you walk past him. He doesn’t see you though, and you thank it.

A couple of days later, you hear for the first time the rumours about him courting Livia Cardew. It makes you feel depressed. You cry out of anger as soon as you get home.

And to your dismay, the first thing you see after turning into a room for the politics class, it’s them. Coriolanus Snow is talking to Livia just beside the door.

That’s the first time you two look at each other again. He sees the anger, discontent and so much resentment. You see the questioning, curiosity and admiration in his eyes.

Nothing else is said because you break the gazes, you walk inside the room with your head high, and your presence is so evident that even Livia has to look at you. Taking too much time to see your beautiful heels.

A week later, you are having a good time with your friends. Festus and Lysistrata are there with you and Clemensia. You are talking all about the upcoming winter gala held at the biggest auditorium in the Capitol. Everyone is excited because it’s the great opportunity to make contacts and eat the most delicious food.

“Is your mother inviting Coriolanus?” Lysistrata asks with curiosity. You roll your eyes at the subject.

“I hope not. I haven’t even spoken with him ever since he came back” everyone knew you had broke up with him. But only Clemensia knew the details.

“Well, apparently he is courting Livia now” Festus mocks, making everyone laugh. Not that any of you had something personal against Livia. But she wasn’t the most brilliant star at the Academy. Now not certainly at University.

“Why Livia?” Clemmie asks laughing.

“Perhaps it’s becase how naïve she is”

“Or because of her father’s inheritance” you add.

“I don’t think so. He’s now the heir of the Plinth fortune” Festus remarks with dessaproval, which makes you feel angered.

“He’s dancing on Sejanus’ grave” your words create some minutes of silence for your late friend. Even when Festus and Lysistrata had made fun of him for being District and the ways of his parents to go up, at the end, they were friends. And now his absence had created a void.

“Ambitious and annoying. Just like his father…” Lysistrata comments sipping on her glass of water.

“How unfortunate. If he had stayed with you, we wouldn’t be talking bad things about him behind his back” you sigh at Clemensia’s words.

“Speaking of the king…” when you look past Lysistrata seated on her chair, you spot Coriolanus. He was wearing a dark grey suit, he looked so fine you had to admit. But soon you look away, the sudden memories of your last days with him haunt you.

After spotting his old friends and ex lover in a table at the cafeteria, he start walking towards there. Trying to make his first moves to go back to normality.

“Yeah. He would’ve been seated beside me right now. But he consciously choose the songbird before me. At least he’s refining himself a little bit with Livia” your friends turn to look at you in shock after the revelation, Clemmie only rises her brows as she sips her water silently, hiding her smile. By the time Coriolanus arrives the table, you’re gone and he curses himself for not walking faster. Festus and Lysistrata are shocked, making him furrow his brows in confusion.

“Did I missed something?” He asks.

“You had an affair with your tribute?” Lysistrata asks back in disgust. Coriolanus sees Clemensia giggling in silence with her head down. Probably enjoying his embarrassment.

His silence meets the requirement for an answer. One that they take as yes.

“And now y/n knows about you and Livia” Coriolanus frowns ever deeper after looking at Clemensia.

“There’s no Livia and I” He responds firmly. Even disgusted to her his name along the least smart girl of his finances class.

“Oh but everyone believes so. That you’re courting her…” he rolls his eyes, annoyed.

“I’m just talking to her because we’re partners for some stupid research paper” the silent sipping on their drinks at the same time is ridiculous to Coriolanus. He just stares at them annoyed.

“Do me a favor and leave her alone, Coriolanus. You were gone to go to your nobody girl from 12, but I stayed and saw her struggling in that hospital bed” Clemensia speaks confidently. Making the blonde to feel threatened.

So he realises that maybe you could have feelings for him still. And that this rumors could have weight on you. He curses himself. Even without realizing, he’s still hurting you.

“I won’t lose the girl twice, Clemmie. Have a good day” he says with a fake smile before leaving the table in shock.

He had to quicken the pace of his proximity with you. He had to make you see he never stopped caring for you.

…

There’s a shattering mess of broken glasses. You quickly move away from the crime scene, looking for your pills, immediately swallowing two.

Your mother’s assistant opens the door, asking for you with concern.

“Is everything okay, miss y/n?” You turn to look a the woman.

“I accidentally threw the jar. Sorry…” Millie is in her mid thirties. She was your mother’s confidant, and slowly yours too. She sees the news paper in the floor, half of it drenched from the broken jar that had water. She can see the title, The Snow heir tights the knot with the Cardew family?

“I’ll call the maids. Don’t worry” she says looking back at you.

“Thanks Millie.” She smiles, closing the door behind.

You breathe loudly, sighing in stress. Of course you had purposely thrown the water jar because of the news paper. A portrait picture of Livia is placed perfectly aligned with one of Coriolanus. Between some paragraph there’s your name too. But you don’t dare to see why.

You may pretend to be okay to the public eye, but you’re still drowning in the same feelings you got after Coriolanus Snow revealed his lies to you.

It’s almost like if he was still mocking you. Showing everyone how easy he had played with you. And how easy he got rid of you.

Someone had to pay. No, not someone, he. He, himself, Coriolanus Snow had to fail. Only that way you would feel slightly better. Only that way your tears would stop being for him.

The first chance you had, you would take it.

…

While you loved pursuing a dancing career along the production stuff. You still had some duties regarding politics and economy. Which is why you ended up at the submissions office so early in the morning. To send a petition.

You end up at at a messy office. A man is there, moving folders and other type of papers. There’s three baskets that can clearly be read as; approved, denied, pending.

However, you quickly look away to smile at the man who’s sitting behind the chair.

“Good morning.” Your smile is contagious to everyone. The man replies with a warm greeting.

“Good morning, miss y//l/n. How can I help you?”

“I was wondering if you could hand me a petition form to send” he nods, standing up, leaving the mess of papers behind.

“I can, just let me go and print the form. It won’t take too long…” you smile again, letting him go outside the office.

As you wait, you start seeing the racks of boxes and more boxes filled with yellow and lined papers.

Your curiosity grows, making you look at the baskets on the desk.

You see at first glance some graduation petitions, letters, etc. You are still curious to see why some papers where pending. So you look at the door one last time before diving into the papers. You don’t know the first students mentioned. Until you see the third yellow folder, where you can see a white strip with black letter saying Coriolanus Snow.

You open the folder, seeing what it was all about. A petition to start a political campaign at the age of 19. You frowned. He was good at writing. Even with letters he had some charm. But you know he never beated you to be precise and delicate. You always heard Grandma’am saying he would one day be president. But you never seriously discussed it with him. Now you know it was real. And you can’t help but feel an enormous amount of remorse.

He doesn’t deserve it. He had lost everything once, but the way he was earning everything was through breaking you, and probably others you’ll never knew about. Even when it would make Tigris and Grandma’am happy, you slip the folder into the basket of denied. You don’t feel nothing as you do it.

In fact, you offer the sweet man a smile when he comes back with the form for you. You thank him and then walk out.

…

Coriolanus swears he didn’t intend to bump into your father at the bank. Your father was a frivolous man, but since he knew him, he greeted Coriolanus with respect.

The blonde was taken aback when he invited him to have dinner at your house. And he couldn’t say no.

Your house is the same. At least from the outside, because inside, there’s more color. Coriolanus sees your mother. And she offers him a smile before he leans to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Coriolanus, look at you. You look very handsome!” His cheeks warm, as your father giggles, handing his coat to a maid.

“I ran into him at the bank. Where’s y/n, dear?” Your mother laughs, rolling her eyes.

“That girl. I haven’t seen her out of her room since midday” the sudden sound of your heels gets noticed.

“I’m here” you say, coming down the stairs, putting some earrings on. Coriolanus notices the grey dress and black heels along the red tights. A diadem on your head and a bright smile that soon dissapears as you spot him in your house.

“Look who I found earlier” you sigh, standing straight.

“I see…” Your parents can see the way you correct your posture, showing how uncomfortable you are.

“We’re having dinner…” you ignore Coriolanus and his deep gaze on you.

“I can’t stay for dinner. I have rehearsals and I promised Clemmie to go to her birthday dinner party” they exchange looks. And Coriolanus is at the verge of smiling at the way you are making up an excuse to leave. Running away from him.

“Are you meeting with Jan before?” Coriolanus head almost pops to look at your father. And you don’t know if you should smile. Jan was your dance partner, he would dance with you at the gala. He was older, very handsome. And you wished he wasn’t off limits from you. Because you easily could admit your attraction towards him.

“Can you at least stay for some drinks?” You shrug at your mother, accepting your purse from a maid. You ignore Coriolanus and his way of looking at you, almost petrified.

His head was spinning, he needed to know who the hell was Jan.

“Unless you want me to do horrible at the Winter Gala, no. I cannot stay, mother” she sighs, tilting her head towards your father. He understands, your father was the one who convinced you to ignore Coriolanus and play with him.

“Well, that’s fine. Just be polite and say goodbye to Coriolanus.” You nod, watching them leave inside the long corridor to enter the dinning table.

You remain quiet, looking down at your purse to avoid his eyes.

“You look lovely” he says, breaking the ice.

“Thank you.”

It’s the first time you two talk since months ago.

“I heard you want to start your political campaign” you opt to pretend you are okay and you can face him with confidence.

“I did. But the idiots of the council rejected my essay. Guess it’ll give me more time to focus on university.” You nod, grabbing a pair of gloves from inside the purse. You want to smile so badly. He would never know you were the reason of his failed first steps in the politic of Panem.

“Anyways… How you’ve been?”

“I’m fine, Coriolanus.” the way you sound tired. Like tired of him makes him uncomfortable. But he tries to keep his best smile too.

“Who is Jan?” He asks almost too seriously. You smile politely at him

“No one of your business, Snow” you calling him by his last name takes him very aback.

“You know, I just hoped that… you know. Maybe we could start off again… like friends of course” you giggle, lowering your head. He frowns confused.

“Miss y/n, Trevor is waiting in the car for you” the butler say appearing from the side door, you thank him and he leaves again.

“I don’t think there’s a way to start again. You already failed me once, Coriolanus.” You admit, putting on the gloves with a bittersweet smile on your face. You turn to pat his cheek, and he swears he’s about to melt. He lounged for your touch since the moment he left you at the hospital. He closes his eyes, hoping to slow down time and felt your cold touch.

But you move away your hand. He opens his eyes and sees you putting the last pair of the gloves on. You walk towards the door.

“You know where the dinning table room is.” And with that, you are gone.

…

Your father gave him the green light to court you again. Coriolanus had to swear that he would never cause you any type of pain, or else, your father would destroy his career before it officially started.

That was more than enough for him. Since that day, slowly, he had been greeting you almost every day, at Univeristy and when you ecountered him and Tigris in a furniture store. You personally invited her to the Winter gala, and Tigris agreed to not share the news about the invitation. But to the young Snow woman, it was a surprise that your father had already invited Coriolanus to the gala.

Soon the day came. As usual the gala opened with the performance of an specific play, than everyone celebrated in the hall with fine dining, and everyone gossiped as auctions happened. It had been a couple of weeks, very busy ones. Probably it was even more important than the arts gala on March. But for this special occasion you had rehearsed a lot to be an elegant black swan.

You smile at your own reflection at the mirror, the black tutu was gorgeous. The crown you had to use was very intriguing. And the black makeup made you feel very confident.

“I came as soon as I could” Clemensia suddenly opens the door of your dressing room. She looks agitated, but she looked amazing on a beige dress and her hair in half ponytail.

“You look very pretty” she thanks you.

“But look at you. You are going to be amazing.” She sits and both start gossiping.

“Your father invited Coriolanus.” It makes you roll your eyes tired. But you are having a heartache.

“I’m… not sure if I don’t feel anything about him” Clemmie leaves her glass of champagne.

“The newspaper rumour affected you. Right?” Slowly, you nod. Too embarrassed to look at her in the eye. But Coriolanus had been really good. He smiled at you at any chance he could. Some days he would join you and your friends and he was fun, you had to bite your tongue to avoid giggling. And Clemensia had seen it too.

“I can’t blame you. I was there since the beginning…” your friend had seen the courting, the first awkward hand holding, how you two formed a strong connection. And Coriolanus left you at the hospital.

“You two had a beautiful bond. And he broke it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t miss him” Clemmie goes to hug you.

“Pa’ said to keep playing with him, to ignore him. But I’m tired, I just want to heal” she nods, letting you hide your face on her shoulder.

“You want my advice?” You nod.

“Do not force anything. Be polite to him, but avoid giving him any chance yet. As you heal, you’ll find the answer; if you should let him have another chance or not”

A man knocks. When Clemensia opens the door, he receives a bouquet of white roses.

You could recognize those roses anywhere. You get closer, taking the attached note.

Grandma’am and Tigris didn’t know what flowers to cut.

Good luck.

You try to hide your smile. But it’s impossible.

…

The whole place is full. Coriolanus takes a seat with Tigris besides.

“I talked with her yesterday. She said she was very nervous about this one” Tigris says. Coriolanus knows she’s talking about you.

“She’s always perfect, she shouldn’t feel nervous.” His mind was only thinking about Jan. He did his research. And learned he was a former dancer of your mother’s institution. It made him mad.

“Have you thought about inviting her to have dinner?” Coriolanus shakes his head.

“Not yet, I haven’t talked enough to her”

“Well, hurry up. Grandma’am wanted to see you married by the age of 20” she says laughing. But it doesn’t make Coriolanus smile.

“Oh look, it’s starting” Tigris squealed with excitement. The curtains lifted and the show started.

For the first twenty minutes, he’s so bored. Nothing exciting happens. He thinks the white swan is boring. And for the first time, he meets Jan. It makes him feel jealous.

It only worsened when you appeared on stage. Your black attire makes him go mad. He had never seen you in anything like that. He gets very invested in your scenes. He feels the emotion you are trying to project. Sassy, cheeky and attractive. You succeed to him.

Unfortunely, Jan had to appear too. And Coriolanus has to sigh, dealing with the scene of the man holding you to make you gracefully spin. The music doesn’t help, it holds the sense of you and Jan dancing together. Coriolanus knows dancing has a lot to do with acting. But he doesn’t enjoy the looks of lust and desire between you and your partner. The worst part? He had to seat and watch it for at least fifteen minutes.

His head malfunctions. But he already is telling Tigris he needs to the restroom.

It’s a lie. He goes to the dressing rooms. And his luck was so big that he found the one with the name of Jan. He slowly made his way inside. The place was so old that he didn’t need to check for security or anything, but he wanted to make sure nobody would see him in real time.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted to accomplish, but surely he wanted to get rid of the man who apparently had your attention now. Your mother had said you and Jan worked very well. And now, with him seeing the performance, he was more than sure he couldn’t let it move forward.

His hand went to his pocket, and his eyes widened. He felt the little glass tubes of narcotics. The same he used to kill Casca Highbottom.

He thought about it just for a little. Was it worth it? Getting rid of a man just to have easier access to you.

Maybe.

Then he questioned how bad he wanted you back. Coriolanus had missed you since day one. He knew he would never love anyone else. He knew no one would treat him as you once did.

So he poured the liquid from one of the tubes inside the water flask resting on the vanity. And before leaving, Coriolanus slipped two more tubes inside the bag that contained Jan’s clothes.

“You took very long at the restroom” Tigris tells her cousin when he came back.

“There was a long line”

…

This time, is different. You smile and you can hear the big round of applauses as you make reverence to go off from stage. You were the last one and the curtains came down finally.

Once you are free, you have all the time in the world to breathe. Other dancers and production staff members congratulate you. But it’s Coriolanus Snow the one who makes you frown confused. He was backstage, looking at you with a soft smile. His classic black suit makes you go back and remember about the Reaping ceremony. How happy that day initiated, and how bad it turned out.

“Coriolanus.” You greet him, he can see a tiny smile on your face.

“You were amazing. As usual, of course”

“Thank you. And for the flowers, they were gorgeous. As usual, of course” he’s so surprised that you were talking to him with some humor sense. Both of you laugh and it feels… warm, and natural.

“It’s nothing. But.. perhaps we could just sit together at dinner?” Your cheeks warmth. You think about your confusing feelings, what your father and Clemensia respectively said. Sitting with him once wouldn’t be the end of the world.

“Yeah, we could.” He smiles, and even when his hair changed, his deeper voice. For some seconds you can see the boy you once loved.

And he almost feels like he was seventeen again. Watching you dance backstage, ready to greet you with a kiss. He sees the girl who helped him so much. And he just know all the horrible things he’d done were worth it.

“I-…” but his words stay lingering in the air. Both of you hear a female scream. Coriolanus and you exchange looks before starting to walk where the sound was heard. In the corridor of the dressing rooms you see a woman lingering to an open door. Immediately you recognize it’s Jan’s room. You quickly make it there, through the pain of your caged foot inside the pointe shoe. Coriolanus goes behind you, already sensing the scene inside.

He hears you gasp in shock, covering your mouth and tears forming on your eyes.

You are in shock, you sob, unable to blink.

Jan is on the floor, pale and blood on his mouth. He’s dead.

And as much as the scene shocks you, you are trained to entertain the Capitol, so you turn to them random woman.

“Go and find Millie. Tell her about this and do keep your mouth shut. Nobody can know beside my parents. Understood?” You indicate the woman with a broken voice. She nods in horror dissapearing through the corridor. When she leaves you can finally cry.

When you don’t know what else to do, you are holding onto Coriolanus Snow. You find comfort on his chest. And he immediately holds you back.

As much as you hate to admit it, you feel you are home in his arms.

With one hand, he closes the door of the dressing room and returns to completely be there to hug you. He smiles, knowing he’s already slowly winning.

Because when your parents find out what happened, they make you put a cute black and green velvet gown with crystals. They make you pretend nothing happened and you sit with Coriolanus and Tigris. Ignoring the upcoming rumors, and certainly not respecting the sudden death of Jan.

…

Two days later, Coriolanus finds you seating on a bench. You are eating a sandwich, looking lost. He takes a seat beside you.

“I’m sorry about Jan. It happened so suddenly” he doesn’t feel sorry. Opposite of what he felt about Sejanus and Lucy Gray. However, he firmly believes it was the only way.

“He was a wonderful man. A devoted dancer, with principales. He had a wife in District 3.” Coriolanus coughs. He wasn’t expecting that. That little detail wasn’t on his research. Something twisted inside him, but he still didn’t regret or felt sorry.

“He didn’t seem the type to use narcotics…he must’ve been very stressed out” you add. Oblivious that you are talking with Jan’s murderer.

“Are you sure you are okay?” You roll your eyes sighing.

“No. I’m not okay, Coriolanus. Not since that cursed Reaping ceremony day”

“I’m just trying to be here for you” he admits, and it’s your breaking point.

“WHY DO YOU CARE NOW? YOU FAILED ME WHEN I MOST NEEDED YOU!” He looks around to see if anyone was around. But the place is empty.

“I know I committed many errors but-“

“BUT NOTHING, CORIOLANUS.” You spit out with such anger, that makes him frown.

“You violated the trust, loyalty, respect and love we had for each other. You dissapear after making me have a damn breakdown. Only to go after that girl. And now you appear trying to mend things?” You won’t tell him about his denied petition and what you did. You just want to share all you couldn’t before at his face.

“Do you know how many doctor appointments I’ve had since you left?” He looks down.

“Twelve. And I have to swallow four different pills every day. Only to stay sane. And who’s fault it is? The hunger games, the galas, dancing, Lucy Gray Baird. But specially, you” when he looks up at you again, you are crying.

“If you really want to be here for me, you need to stay away and leave me alone.” You finall state, looking at his blue eyes one last time, before standing from the bench and walking away.

That wasn’t your day. Neither the following ones. Your pointe shoes died and your size was out of stock. The food took such a long time. Your parents left to have an audience in District 1 and your evening was to listen to music and cry.

But certainly what broke you once again was a phone call.

“Hello?” You answer.

“Y/n?”

“Tigris?” You ask. Her voice sounding worried.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Is everything okay? You sound alarmed, dear” you are able to hear her sighing.

“It’s Grandma’am. She’s sick. Coriolanus is busy at the Univeristy and the doctor I requested hasn’t appeared” your heart beats faster.

“She has a strong fever and it’s been like that for hours.” She adds, finally sounding more worried.

“Tigris, calm down. I’ll call my cousin, he’s one of the most prepared doctors around. I’m going there with you in the meantime” you reassure her, already taking off your nightgown and taking out a dress and coat from your closet.

“Thank you, y/n. I truly appreciate this, thank you.” You hang up after saying everything was going to be okay.

…

You see how changed is the penthouse. Fully renovated, with bright lights that contrasted the dark blue wallpapers. But you find interesting how the olive paint you brought is still there. And your portrait from the day of your eighteen birthday is still with the family pictures.

You wait outside the room of the elder woman, as your cousin is checking Grandma’am. You have to hold the urge from biting your nails. A maid offers you posca, but you can’t think about drinking at the time.

The front doors opens and seconds later, Coriolanus is there. He seems surprised to see you there. Since the day of your argument, he hadn’t see you. He tried calling you but your butler said you were out for the weekend to your grandparents house.

“Y/n?” He asks, dropping his coat on a chair.

“Tigris called me. She wanted a doctor for your grandmother” he worried a bit.

“Is she not feeling better. When I left she seemed better…” he says hurrying to go to her room, but you stop him, grabbing by his forearm.

“Don’t. My cousin is already there with her. I’m waiting for the results” Coriolanus only stares at you. He wants to smile. You came only to help his family once again.

“You look very lovely” you smirk, looking at his window with your arms crossed.

“Really? Your grandmother is sick and you are here saying how lovely I look today?” He smiles.

“You told me to wait. What else can I do?”

“How cynical of you” you respond coldly. After all you told him, he was acting like it never happened.

The door of the room opened and Tigris came out with your cousin.

He revealed Grandma’am was having a little difficulties in her lungs, which made her prone to catch a flu. He gave her some strong medicines and promised it would be fine with some days of resting.

After some minutes, you are also ready to leave.

You say good night to the Snow cousins and leave.

“Y/n. Wait…” Tigris comes out. Stopping you some feet away of the now working elevator.

“I-… Thank you.” She slowly says hugging you.

“It’s nothing, Tigris. I told Coriolanus once I would always help the people I love” Tigris suddenly feels so sad to hear you say that. She really hoped you and her little cousin had a different ending.

“He still loves you so much.” You fight harder against the tears when she says that.

“I know. And I still love him too. But… he never apologized. And I’m not ready to let go my resentment towards him.” You admit looking away.

“Although things did’t work out for you and Coriolanus, I really appreciate and care for you, y/n” se almost whispers in your ear. And your eyes water.

“I feel the same, Tigris. I really do” you reply slowly, controlling your voice to not sound cracked.

“I’ll come back in some days” she nods.

She lets you go and you finally head out. Not noticing that Coriolanus heard everything.

He never apologized.

That night, you are reading on the living room when your butler walks in.

“Coriolanus Snow is asking for you in the telephone” you thank him, walking bare feet towards the kitchen telephone.

“Yes, Mr. Snow?” You ask.

“I just wanted to thank you for coming today. You didn’t have to and yet you appeared here” you sigh.

“Whatever that happened between us has nothing to do with my relationship with Tigris and your mother” now he sighs, from his office, in complete darkness.

“About that y/n…” your hands go numb, and panic floods you.

“You don’t know how much I’m-“

“I know.” You interrupt him, cracked voice and you hang up.

“Sorry” he says through the dead line.

That night, you read his letters. The ones he sent when he was a peacekeeper at the 12. Where he seemed to have projected his more vulnerable and emotional side of his heart. Maybe he had been drunk, maybe Lucy Gray wrote them for him. You’d never know, and you preferred to ignore the idea of him actually feeling sorry.

…

A week later you’re applauding for Grandma’am as she sings for you. You smile, changing her pillow case and complementing how much of a sweet voice she had.

It’s getting late, and you must return to your house.

After wishing Grandma’am sweet dreams, you carefully close her door and you walk with the old pillow case away.

“Are you staying for dinner?” Tigris asks with a sweet smile, taking the pillow case from you. Coriolanus is seated, drinking something as he carefully looks at you. You ignore him.

“I must decline, dear. I have to go back and pack some things” she frowns, stopping to put some plates on the dinning table.

“Pack?”

“Yes. I think I’ll spend the holidays at District 1. My mother is opening a new studio and she’s going to need help. And well, if everything goes right, I might even stay there” Tigris almost drops the pillow case. And Coriolanus almost chokes on his drink.

“What? Why?. What about university? The galas? Your production job for the hunger games” you shrug with an honest smile.

“Lately the Capitol life has... it has been a burden. I want to live a peaceful life. I want to heal” Tigris sends daggers with her eyes to Coriolanus. He coughs, uncomfortable.

“CORIOLANUS!” Grandma’am calls the man, you only sigh. And slowly, he stands up to to the woman. He hears you keep talking with Tigris. And he wants to do something to stop you from leaving. Now he can give you the life he couldn’t before.

“Is everything alright, Grandma’am?” The elder woman looks at him from her bed.

“Are you really letting that young woman to walk away again?” Coriolanus frowns.

“What?”

“You’ve heard me.” Even in her sick days, she was firm.

“She doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore” Grandma’am shrugs.

“I don’t think so. Her eyes shine sadly at every mention of you. She was part of the family after all.” Coriolanus remains quiet. But he admits to himself that’s what he missed the most.

“I think she always waited for an apology. One that never came.” His heart pounds very fast. He tried, and you hung up.

“What do you suggest me to do?” Grandma’am smiles, coughing tiredly.

“You run to wherever she goes and beg on your knees. One time you show her vulnerability and you’ll never do it again. We, women, only want real love, stupid love. You show her that stupid love once and you can silently do it for the rest of your again”

“You already won the money and respect. You’re just missing out the girl” Coriolanus sweats, but when he turns to look at her grandmother again, she nods, reassuring him.

“Go. Get her back, Coriolanus” without saying anything back, he leaves.

When he enters the dinning room, he only sees two plates of food. He looks at Tigris confused.

“Where’s y/n?” She shrugs, taking a seat.

“She just left.”

Coriolanus runs. He actually runs out of his penthouse and when the elevator starts taking to much time, he decided to choose the stairs as his getaway. He feels sweaty and agitated, but as he goes down, he can’t help but feel slightly happy, the adrenaline of making it on time make him hurry.

“Y/N!” He yells your name once he makes it to the lobby, where he can see you turning back to see him.

You are waiting for Trevor when he appears running towards you.

And before you can even blink or breathe, he gets on his knees.

“Coriolanus Snow. What are you doing?” You ask confused and blushed.

“I’m sorry.” He says.

“I’m sorry about all the stupid things I did. I’m sorry about letting you down. I’m sorry for ruining our relationship. For letting you in that hospital bed and return to do everyhting but apologize to you” you look at him perplexed, not believing his words.

“I can’t lose you again. Because I know you’re the last and only person I’ll love. I won’t trust anyone else. And nobody would have ever looked down at me like you did when I had nothing” you sigh, feeling the tears coming again. You know he’s not lying. You knew him so well that you sense it.

“If you let me. To give me another chance, I’ll do things right. I will never fail you again in life. You’ll be the only person I’ll cherish and show love.” He offers you his hand, and he looks very suppliant.

You blink quickly to soothe the tears. And you know he doesnt deserve you. But aren’t the best person, so maybe you two were actually meant to be together.and that’s the only viable reason to why you want to let your heart freely beat for him again.

“Please don’t go, y/n” he whispers, waiting for your answer. You sigh, slowly and shaking, but you end up taking his hand.

“You’ll better be the most perfect lover of the history of Panem, then” he wraps your fingers together, and stands up.

“I promise, I swear” he knows the memory of Lucy Gray would always follow him. As well of all the deaths he had caused. But nothing compared to the joy of him kissing you again.

Your lips welcome him in the most sweet way. And he finds himself smiling through the kiss, gently holding you closer to him.

It’s in the start of the Road of Hope in the Capitol where Coriolanus Snow had his fully owned penthouse. Where he had nothing, and now had won everything.

…

Time flies, things had changed, probably for the better. You made Coriolanus keep fighting for a good and healthy relationship. Slowly, he made you completely fall in love again. And although there was certain spark missing, you knew it would never come back. However, you had also accepted that both of you had grown up.

The late talks were mature now. Talking about the future of Panem, planning dinners together. The kisses were more passionate, unlike the softness that was all over your early relationship. The sex was harder rather than slow and sweet like the beginning. Coriolanus would like to leave many hickeys scattered across your body, make a wet mess of saliva and fluids. He loved feelings your almond nails leave gentle scratches across his pale back.

But certainly, the biggest change was the way you two were handling a life together.

After turning twenty, you got married. Soon Coriolanus bought the house he always wished to give you. The one with black and white tiles floor, beige walls and big stairs.

By the first week in, he had done many refurbishments and he had fucked you in every room, every corner and every surface of the house.

Till the day you turned twenty-two. By that time, you had almost ditched your dancing career. Sometimes you still had some chances to perform on galas. But Coriolanus convinced you to focus on public services and the production of the hunger games. Dr. Gaul had officially retired, and it was going to be the first year of Coriolanus as a game maker. Things had really changed.

But everything seemed fine.

“Dear, Are you ready?” You turn to look at your husband, who waits on the frame of the door.

“Just one moment” you run to slip into your silver heels before grabbing your purse.

Trevor kept his job as your chauffeur and Millie was now your private secretary. Sometimes you hated how formal your life had become. Especially now that Coriolanus had some plans in mind.

As soon as you arrive to the fancy patio from a million-dollar man house, many women eye you and Coriolanus.

“Remind me what are we doing here?” You ask him. He holds your hand tightly, smiling at many of the invited people.

“I’m assuming the role of game maker. You are giving a speech about the improvements for the 14th Hunger Games, my dear” you nod, clutching onto his cold hand harder. Both of you were kind of the sensation around the Capitol. You know how they whisper about your dress and your husband’s physic.

“You’re going to be fine. You always choose the right words. And your voice can charm anyone here” he whispers on your ear, pressing a soft kiss on your temple.

“Thank goddess I’ve been studying the constitution. Or else these men would bury me” Coriolanus laughs. Soon you enter the actual event. With long white tables, candles and everyone dressed either on red or black.

“Men around here don’t know how smart my wife is” he says shrugging, remembering how many honors you received from university. Some of the wives ask you to join them. You wave hello to them before leaning to your man.

“Do not make me jealous or leave me alone during the speech.” You firmly say to him.

“Of course not, my love”

“Love you.” And with one last kiss, you walk away.

For the rest of the night. You feel uneasy. Because you succeeded with the speech. But once you read the part from Coriolanus, you are at the verge of babbling.

He shared some of his initial proposals for the games. Like lowering the age of the tributes, increasing the obstacles in the arena, using more mutts, allowing weapons, and making the interviews with Lucky Flickerman longer.

It had been a long time since you think about the games so much. But that guilt you felt after seeing Coriolanus as mentor, never left. And after that dinner, everyone claps for your husband and you, after being considered as the couple of the next generation for Panem.

In the privacy of your new home, you constantly zone out to think about it. You can’t ask Coriolanus to stop the games, but he could make some changes.

You knock swiftly on his door.

“Come in.” You walk in and he drops the papers he was signing to smile at the sight of you.

“Hello, you.” he says cheekily.

“Hello, you’.” You reply. He indicates you to seat on his lap and you do so. His arms lock around you, hands resting on your back.

“Are you coming to bed anytime soon?” You ask.

“I just need to sign some things, darling” he watches you frown, and he won’t say you look older, because you don’t. But you certainly look wiser, mature and more like a woman rather than a girl.

“I’ve been thinking about the games” He’s all ears now. He knows you had some specific opinions. You had said in your first interview how brutal the games were.

“What about them?”

“I would never ask you to stop the games. But…” you stop, suddenly feeling a little nervous.

“But what, my dear?”

“Don’t you think those tributes are humans? Yes, the Districts deserve to be reminded of the consequences of their acts. But most of the tributes are kids. Who don’t even understand everything that conveys a war.” Coriolanus sighs, trying to choose the correct words to answer you.

“What are you suggesting?” He tries to sound calm, but the mere subject makes him a little irritated.

“I don’t know… Maybe giving them more opportunities?” He giggles, caressing the skin on your hips.

“Giving them opportunities means going soft on them. And going soft on them could trigger a new rebellion” this time you sigh, trying to persuade him by brushing his hair, softly grasping his chin.

“Not like that, Coryo. I mean… raising the majority age of the tributes. Giving them at least the chance to train. To eat a proper meal on the last night. To show who they are one last time before they’re sent to die” Coriolanus would always believe that you’re only one weakness was your humanity. How you always turned to see down on others, feeling guilty from being born with all the commodities.

So, he tries to ignore it. He tries to see your suggestions as a way to punish the tributes harder. Give them everything to then killing them.

So, he smiles, urging you to kiss him. You reply immediately, holding him closer to feel the heated proximity.

“I could arrange some changes. Would that make you feel better?” You nod on his lips, smiling.

“Now let me finish this before meeting you in bed. And I expect you have this thing off before I get there” he says grabbing your nightgown. You laugh with a potent blush, gently pushing him away.

“Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not being silly. In two days, we start the tour, we will be very tired to make love daily as we do now” you roll your eyes, almost running away ad your husband laughs, making fun of your embarrassment.

“This is madness. I’m going to bed” you say getting out of his office.

“Don’t forget about what I said!” He yells, making you smile in love as you leave upstairs, wishing good night to the maids and butler. For the record, you do not forget about your husband’s petition.

…

The best part of the house is the rooftop in your opinion. A terrace with cristal walls and ceilings that had a gorgeous view of the Capitol. A view that included some monuments and the snowy mountains surrounding the city.

You had a little bar there, an eccentric dining table and some couches with colorful cushions.

Grandma’am made you take some of his roses so you could start your own garden. That brought tears to your eyes. But now, it was only you and Tigris there.

You asked the chef to make some vegetables and creams as your sister-in-law arrived for dinner. Coriolanus and you were set to leave the next morning for his political campaign tour.

“Have you packed everything?” Tigris asks.

“Yes. I wish I could take Trevor with me. But only Millie will be able to come” you say smiling. Tigris notices how you constantly look at the door, hoping to see Coriolanus entering.

“Have you told him?” You shake your head at the woman.

“Not yet. Probably by the time we arrive District 4. We have good memories from there” Tigris smiles. She was really excited when you got back together with Coriolanus. She even made your wedding dress. And now she was so proud of the career you two were making.

“Sorry for the delay. I was arguing with some incompetent who cancelled the delivery of our new chandeliers” Tigris rolls her eyes as your husband cheekily smiles.

“Dinner isn’t ready yet, anyways” you say patting his back as he takes a seat beside you.

“You shouldn’t be stressing over the tour. Your dear wife must’ve prepared the most wonderful speeches for you to say” Coriolanus smiles, turning to give you a peck on the nose, making you laugh.

“It’s not that, Tigris. It’s the time that’s freaking me out. I don’t want to be gone for almost two months.” You sigh, trying to keep everything together. You just pray that the tour goes smoothly.

“Each district will host you with all commodities” it’s a lie. Coriolanus isn’t ready to go to District 12 again. Where his father died, where he committed the worst decisions of his early life. He knows those days will be a little sour. But he’s willing to play pretend very well for you.

“It’s going to be fine. Pardon me, dear” Coriolanus says after seeing your face of over thinking. His wife is so smart that she’s probably wondering the same as him. And that’s the least he needs of.

You take his hand, before hearing the food has arrived. The air changes, the dinner flows happily as you talk and gossip with Tigris and your husband. It’s a great dinner actually.

Maybe he broke your heart when you were teenagers. But you delayed his political campaign for four years. Maybe he had looked too much at Lucy Gray Baird, but at the end it would only be you.

You could’ve done better to get rid of that guilt for participating in the hunger games, but you just realize that maybe you didn’t because you are not a good person either.

Even so, every morning, you wake up in his arms as he fulfilled his promise of never failing you again.

You just hope that the tour, the upcoming games and everything else doesn’t get into your way. Nothing can be a recoil. Not when Coriolanus Snow’s first child rests peacefully in your womb.

The future was uncertain. But your past and present along him always seemed like… a hatred road.

_____________________________________________

fyi, in my head, if reader hadn’t delayed Coriolanus political emergence, the second rebellion would’ve started earlier and probably it wouldn’t have been successful. (Basically it would’ve been like a second time “dark days” situation and then back to reconstruction again)

Taglist: @dear-bunnyboo @daydreamerprocrastinator @lecrercsgirlshhs @athanasia-day @devils-blackrose @reader-bookling123 @cookielovesbook-akie @justacaliforniandreamer @m1ndbrand @blairfox04 @darktrashsoulbear @fartybobabutt @diannana @iwantosleep @sarysuniverse @unclecrunkle @f1-futurewag-16-3-4-63 @didneyworld13 @imguce @angelscrime @impeterporker @lem122 @cryaka @ietss @michelleisheres-blog @capsiclesworldsblog @circe143

[raven-cincaide]

Corn Maze Child 

Summary: You run away from home and hide in the corn maze field, hoping against all hope and praying to all that would listen that you won’t be found. Your prayer is answered by the most peculiar pair possible. Or when you get ‘adopted’ by Sukuna. 

Pairing (non-romantic!) child-reader x father-figure Sukuna during Heiain era.  Sweetober prompt 6: Corn Maze   WC: 1.6 K Warnings: Cursing, hint at human consumption/cannibalism (it’s Sukuna and Uraume talk), unhappy home life and child running away from home (kind of child kidnapping if you squint?) 

They say curses are the root of all evil. 

Born out of regret, fear, shame, and misery directly contribute to the end of a human's life. Death, capish, and no light at the end of the black tunnel situation. But you, even at your tender age of 6, knew there were things worse than monsters under the bed and round blobs of semi-invisible spirits that lingered on your village-mothers doorstep. 

It was humans. 

“Y/N!!” screamed an unfamiliar voice, echoed by another, a third and a fourth, and many more than you could count. They all sounded from different directions. Sometimes, they screamed one after the other, but as night drew nearer, their screams became overlapping screeches. The disturbing echo of your name that their screams produced danced along the dark field, followed the long cornrows and reached your tiny ears like a desperate plea—another cry familiar to you. For a second, you considered stepping out of your hiding place. But then you heard your mother's desperate cry and instantly shrugged back. A shudder passed through your tiny frozen body, and you huddled closer in on yourself. A scream sounded closer, and you covered further among the towering corn stalks.

 The faint barking of dogs in the distance made your eyes tear up. 

You knew they would first search along the cornfield rows, near the parts pointing towards your house. That’s where your parents would normally find you whenever you ran away. They’d most likely find the bag of toys you stuffed there, maybe even the clothes you left behind from your last run-away attempt. The food you stole and stashed and the few precious teddies you wanted with you on your ‘trip away.’ 

You prayed they’d find the stuff you had hidden and assumed you were stolen.

You prayed to anyone who’d listen that they’d abandon their search so that you could, finally, succeed in running away.  

You had failed every time you tried. So, this time, you set off in a completely different direction. You left early in the morning, just after breakfast, and ran toward the middle of the field for as long as your little legs could carry you. Some time then, when the heat became unbearable, and you could no longer hear any sounds from the farm, you started running left- or was it right? You couldn’t remember anymore. You just knew you strayed away from the path a long, long time ago, and around dinner time, you found a spot where the corn was particularly clustered and hid there. Knees pressed to your chest, back against a cluster of corn, your teddy in one hand and your backpack in another. You had eaten the toast and drank half of the water your mother gave you before sending you off to play outside. 

You were tired, hungry, and cold, but you were terrified that if you breathed the wrong way, someone would notice the corn shifting against the wind and find you. You had to be patient, you had to be brave, you had to– 

“ Uraume, you said this was the shortcut.” A rough male voice displeased and unfamiliar, echoed through the darkness, close enough to overshadow the screams for your name. The voice sent shivers up and down your spine, the same type of shivers you felt whenever one of the spirits in the village-nanny’s home got close to you. When they’d look at you with hollow eyes, seemingly perplexed as to why you were alone, crying in the corner of the room.

The voice made your stomach twist. You felt pins and needles in your hands and feet, and the second your feeling became unbearable, you moved into a run. 

“What the fuck?!” the same male voice, with a hint of surprise in it, cursed at you as you ran straight into the owner's leg and clung to it. Your tiny hands gripped the white kimono, clutching the soft material with all your might. 

You didn’t let go even as your leg tried to shake you off. 

“ I believe this is a human child” " a female voice spoke behind you, and you peeked up from the leg you clung to, your eyes coming face to face with the white-haired woman with a bright red streak through it. The woman’s eyes ran you up and down, from the strands of your messy hair down to the tips of your dirty ties and back up. “It seems food comes running straight to you, Sukuna-sama.” 

You heard something like a chuckle, but you couldn’t be entirely sure of that as the following words sounded menacing and angry: “ Isolent, worthless brat.”

You felt something grab the back of your neck, something sharp and piercing before it yanked you up, so you came face to face with... Two faces? Several sets of eyes, dark markings all over his face. Which stretched further under the white kimono he was wearing. It confused you slightly; the design looked like something your mother would wear, but the creature in front of you was anything but motherly. Its lips pulled up in a sneer of disgust. A disgust that seemed to grow for every second when he held you up by the tips of his fingers. 

Even with the unmistakable look of disgust, you thought he looked almost friendly. 

“Well?” The man, Sukuna, growled, and the woman stepped closer. You could see her out of the corner of your eyes as she studied you, as though you were a piece of meat or another object for her to inspect. She looked at you like your mother looked at wool in the store, examining every inch of fabric- her gaze running up from the tip of your messy hair down to your tippy toes, lingering on every tiny scar, scratch and dirt speck on you. You blinked at her in confusion and raised your hand in a small wave. 

She didn’t wave back. Rude. 

“ Not much meat on this one,” the woman stated, and you felt your body beginning to sway as if the fingers holding you were about to toss you back into the cornfield you had run out from, “Although it’s young and pitiful, it has potential value.”  

“Raising cattle is not in my interest, Uraume.” Sukuna was about to toss you back into the cornfield when Uraume spoke up again. 

“No, but with the government sticking their fingers in fertility and the number of children-” Uraume cut herself off. 

Sukuna followed her trail of thought-” A cute enough brat around can attract concubines and cattle?” 

“-Creating a never-ending supply of both!” 

You saw them grin at each other, laughing menacingly, and you realised you missed something important. Not that much- if any- of the words they uttered made sense to your child's brain. Still, the way they both suddenly looked at you up and down again made you shudder. You didn’t know what would happen, so all you could do was look between the ground you were hovering above and the cornfield you were sure you would be tossed back into. 

“Oj, what’s your name?” Sukuna asked, raising you a little closer to his face. He studied you, studied your expression; instead of a sneer, there was a frown now as if he expected you to scream or throw a temper tantrum.  

You blinked back at him calmly; “Y/N?” sounded more like a question than an answer. His red eyes narrowed at you as if waiting for you to add something to your answer. 

You didn’t. 

He sighed and tossed you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. You let out a low whine, your hungry stomach hurting from the rough contact with his shoulder. But as you heard the echo of your name carry across the cornfield, you quickly ducked your head, growing silent. The two curses heard it, too, and noticed how you turned down in a tense ball on Sukuna’s shoulders. “Well, brat, if you want to get out of here, you better know the way to the demon shrine.” 

Your head raised, you frowned a little, then pointed in the direction the two had come from. “Mamma always says it’s on the other end of the forest. Over the spring, turn left, and then you’d see I?” 

You felt a pat on your back, a touch that confused you, but you didn’t say anything- you couldn’t. Not when Sukuna called out Uraume’s god-awful navigation skills, and Uraume said it was still a shortcut. No, you stayed silent on Sukuna’s shoulder. The last thing you wanted him to know was that you weren’t sure whether you were supposed to go left or right in the spring... Or were you supposed to cross it, maybe?

You’re sure you’ll figure it out by the time you three got there… maybe… 

Author note: A little sweet piece... I wanted to write a post-credit scene (kinda like many years later) but then hesitated. Would you even want to read that?

Taglist: @ambiguouslady42 @vividraft (If I've missed someone, please let me know!)

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[explosionshark]

Part of why it's so frustrating to me that we didn't have the opportunity to spend more time during Vi's pit fighter era and Caitlyn's dictator phase is bc like. Well, I mean those are both hugely significant and interesting ways for them to cope that are deeply reflective of the fundamental differences in their characters

Vi, an undercity kid that spent most of her formative years imprisoned, seeks out pain and oblivion. She finds herself lost and abandoned and immediately reaches for what she's most familiar with - violence. The self harming nature of her fighting career is obvious but I think the other stuff we see in the montage deserved more time too. She drinks to an unhealthy excess, blacking out, getting into more violent altercations. We don't see her seeking out any form of intimacy or connection with people - there are no depicted one night stands or groupies. Instead we see her hallucinating Caitlyn and reacting violently when a guy tries dancing with her.

Whether it's an intrinsic part of her or a trait that was cultivated through trauma, we know that Vi doesn't have many close relationships, but she loves the people near to her fiercely. It's kind of heartbreaking and so fucking interesting that when she's apart from Caitlyn she doesn't try to fill the void with other people. She just misses her.

Vi reacts to being left behind by isolating herself further. She reacts to being hurt by piling more hurt onto herself, channeling her pain into aggression, and when she's not fighting she's trying to numb herself with alcohol. It's a brutal montage and I really wish we'd been able to dive in more to Vi's self destructive tendencies.

Caitlyn meanwhile also reaches for the familiar but in a totally different way. We see her indulging her privilege in a very particular way. Unlike Vi, instead of fully isolating or burying her pain, we see her hold her grief tight in both hands and use it as fuel. She channels her pain into obsessively hunting down Jinx and suppressing Zaun through her increasingly militarized policing campaign. She becomes a workaholic who can't ever stop focusing on her agenda, even as the doubts she has continue to increase. She's stone cold sober in every scene and the combat practice she undertakes at Ambessa's side is controlled, goal-oriented and the complete opposite of Vi's reckless prize fighting.

Instead of solitude, we see her take up with a subordinate that she doesn't have a strong emotional attachment to and take comfort in sex within a dynamic where she perceives she has total control. Maddie doesn't mean enough to Caitlyn to meaningfully challenge her, which we see as Caitlyn ignores her advice and pulls away from her in bed. Hooking up with someone under her is a move that it's hard to imagine the idealistic s1 version of Caitlyn ever approving of and that's why it's so interesting to me. I think it highlights how much of s1 Caitlyn's morality is related to her resisting the ability to abuse her privilege as a favored daughter of Piltover. In s2, she forgoes her earlier attempts for egalitarian reform and justice in favor of indulging more wantonly with her baser impulses for control and power and immediate satisfaction. It suggests this beautiful death by a thousand cuts of her moral center as she loosens her grip on her noble ideals and gives in to this rash impulse, and that pragmatic cruelty, and this selfish want until she's in so deep she's become the sort of brutal oppressive force she had once tried to tear down.

The difference between them in this part of the show is so striking and it's a shame to me that we never get to really see them confront these versions of each other.

[bbybluluv]

cr. njmsjmdct2 on twt

[daily-twice-content]

20180818 TWICELAND ZONE 2 : Fantasy Park @ BangKok

© 0423Chaeyoung| Editing is allowed but NOT for commercial use.

[amuromi]

★ ₊ ⊹ ⋆˙ ┈ 𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 X ᶠ!ᴿᴱᴬᴰᴱᴿ

✦ ⋆˙ 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 ┈ 9.9k

✦ ⋆˙ 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒 ┈ NSFW! heian era!au, concubine!reader, true form!Sukuna, unprotected sex, established relationship (married), canon typical violence, era typical misogyny/gender roles, unhealthy obsession, mentions of death, mentions of cannibalism and blood, (Sukuna is a lunatic), Sukuna is referred to exclusively as “Lord Sukuna”

✦ ⋆˙ 𝐀!𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 ┈ I got a bit carried away with this one. My love of psychological horror was clawing to be free but I think I kept it pretty contained…

✦ ⋆˙ 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐈

✮ 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 & 𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓!! ✮

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 ✦ ⋆˙ engawa ┈ a hallway-like path surrounding the house ⋆ shoji ┈ a sliding door/divider ⋆ koto ┈ a Japanese zither/stringed instrument

The winter storm has leached everything into bleak shades of black and white, like ink on parchment. The trees are thick black strokes against the deep gray clouds, dusted with a thick layer of snow as flurries fall like stars through the courtyard. In the moonlight each snowflake shines like pearls, soft and lustrous as they dance on the wind. From the edge of the engawa it almost looks like staring into the great gaping mouth of a beast that’s swallowed the world, spears of ice hanging like jagged teeth from the edge of the roof, the wind shuddering through the estate in howling gusts. The cold night is scented with dreams of spring, sweet smelling coal burning in braziers, wafting gray wisps of floral-scented smoke into the wind. 

It’s quiet aside from the sharp whistling of the wind and the hissing of snow melting over hot coals, then, somewhere within the estate, a bell tolls for the Hour of the Rooster. Nightfall, despite the veil of darkness already laid out by the storm clouds. Suddenly there’s the sound of footsteps soft as summer rain, pattering through the estate and the shoji begin to blossom with the warmth of firelight as candles are lit throughout the sprawling house. More snow gathers in soft sheets over the courtyard before there’s a gentle knock to announce a soft-footed servant coming to renew the braziers and light the lanterns. The scent of lavender is renewed as the coals are sifted and replaced and the engawa is streaked with blushing shades of gold as the pink-tinged paper lanterns are lit in turn. 

Of all the rooms in the vast estate, yours is the most adorned. Which is to say, it looks as though your room is used for more than sleeping. There’s a modest desk with inks and paper, a small table for combs and perfumes, and a trunk for miscellaneous things beside the chest of drawers filled with kimono. When she’s lit the last lantern, you ask the girl to send for your personal maid. A dowry servant, though not originally one of yours. Life in this estate is fleeting in that way. 

An unbalanced teacup had been the undoing of the girl your father sent to accompany you in your marriage. Stained silk and scalded skin, later soaked with splatters of blood. But the tatami were changed and the kimono and girl were replaced. Your new maid is a bit older–a few years your senior–originally belonging to a woman that came before you. Certainly not First Mistress because she would loathe to see you even look upon anything of hers. No, she served a less honored concubine that wasn’t worthy of the title “wife,” even if it’s a hollow honor in itself. Still, your maid had belonged to the unknown mistress before she perished. It all happened before you were brought to the estate, but the haggard weight of the loss still sits heavy on her shoulders. Her face always looks like a crumpled piece of paper that someone tried to smooth flat, creased with hidden worries. She arrives quickly, kneeling to await her orders. 

“I’m happy,” you tell her. “A new Mistress is joining the family tonight, isn’t that right? Happy news.” The maid hums something to the tune of affirmation, long since grown used to your unflinchingly jovial disposition. She once asked if you wear a smiling mask throughout the day and take it off once you sleep. It’s a silly question, of course, but you like to imagine that you smile even in your sleep. There is nothing to be sad about. Living a life such as this is no different than a deer grazing in a meadow. There is nothing beyond the grass. Nothing farther than the horizon or higher than the tallest tree. What is there to be sad about when the world has been folded into something small enough to hold in your hands, a piece of origami meant to be appreciated and not pondered. There’s happiness in the simplicity that this life provides, though you seem to be the only one to realize it. 

The other two Mistresses of the house say that you should be locked up in a rice chest and left out to die. That it’s cruel to let you live in such a state of delusion. How little they know, yet it’s still too much. At times, it seems that they are far deeper in their minds than you’ve ever been. Caught up in worries and tribulations that haven’t plagued you in a long time, since you let go of your humanity. What use is pretending to be human when you’re treated like a pet. Treasured and pampered but still inferior to the master of the house. Because your husband has no true use for human brides. In keeping the three of you, he has honored each of your families with the knowledge that their blood has produced something too intriguing to kill off just yet. Perhaps if he desires an offspring to assume his legacy he’ll have a true use for one of you. 

Other brides have been offered and had their families culled like squashing bugs. It made you feel some air of superiority, knowing that you were chosen from a dozen women to be honored as a new wife to the King of Curses. It only took a few months for you to realize your place in all this and the last thread of your humanity snapped like a frayed koto string. Thinking of yourself as a person is useless when the person that holds your life within his hands sees you as no more than a doll to be toyed with as he sees fit. 

“I’m happy.” You always mean it when you say it. Happiness is all you have left when faced with the truth of how finite your existence is. There is no world beyond the walls of this estate. No people beyond its residence and staff. No purpose outside of serving your husband with unwavering loyalty. In that regard you are the most precious of his wives. The others, their devotion wavers. You’ve seen it in the way they still hesitate to follow simple instructions, still tremble and shrink in Lord Sukuna’s presence even as you bloom like a flower in the light of the sun. He is your sun. There is no life without him. Which is why you are happy to simply exist in this small world that he’s made for you. 

His power has greatly uncomplicated your existence, turned it to something purposeful, something that will end when you’re no longer of use. And Lord Sukuna will always tell you when you serve no further purpose to him. How many underlings has he executed because they were no longer of use? You imagine they must’ve felt great pride in the moments before their demise at the hands of their King. Pride in knowing that they did what they were made to do. As a child you had scoffed at the idea that your only purpose was to be wed and serve your husband as a proper wife should, but that was when the husband of your future was set to be someone unremarkable. Lord Sukuna is greater than any man that’s ever lived. Perhaps even ascended beyond the concept of a man to become the strongest sorcerer to ever live. As the daughter of a highly regarded family known for birthing remarkable sorcerers, you take pride in your small but purposeful place in all this. The culling of clans, the clashing of factions trying to unseat your husband. History will remember you because you will play your part until the very end. An end you’ll greet with a smile if it should come by your husband’s hand. 

“Will the Fourth Mistress be here soon?” A new deer to join the herd, a new flower planted in the garden. 

“By the Hour of the Bird, the last message said.” Your maid agrees. Soon, a new Mistress will be here. It’s been so long since another woman has joined hands with Lord Sukuna. The last being yourself nearly two years ago. First Mistress had been collected three years ago, and Second Mistress came along only a short few months behind her. Lord Sukuna had waited half a year after that to marry a third wife, and you must’ve served him well because there’s been no need for another until now. It makes you wonder if death is close at hand. A raven had come earlier in the day, before the snow began to fall, announcing that Lord Sukuna would be returning from his excursion by nightfall. Perhaps he wanted to arrive home in time to greet his new bride. 

Fourth Mistress. Unlucky number Four, terrible number Four. Blowing into her marriage with a snow storm. It’s all terribly inauspicious, but Lord Sukuna has reason for everything he does. Nothing is without purpose. Even death has cause when dealt by his hand. Even if it comes tonight you will go towards it fully satisfied. The snowfall looks beautiful, and the cold isn’t so terrible with the legion of braziers burning around you and the thick furs draped over your shoulders. It’s a wonderful night to die if it should come to that. 

“Shall we go welcome her?” 

“First Mistress insisted that you need not be present for Fourth Mistress’ arrival, your highness.” First Mistress, Jurina, whose hatred towards you cannot be quelled by any manner of platitudes. 

When you first arrived, you’re sure it was mere jealousy that compelled her to act out against you. A multitude of wives is not uncommon among high ranking men, but rarely is it expected that they should all live together. Most wives are left in their parents’ homes to be visited whenever their husband deems it fit. To walk the hall of your home and come across the woman your husband sees when he is not with you must be jarring to the first woman he married. Jurina seemed adamant about dispelling you from the family upon your first arrival. Now, her animosity isn’t borne of jealousy, but discomfort. 

Your happiness makes her nervous. She’s said it herself. Snapping and raging at you for your unflinching smile even as she and Second Mistress have slowly begun to lose themselves in the monotony of this life. Sitting and waiting, then serving when Lord Sukuna comes home. To them, your complacency, your happiness, is something eerie and othered. Akin to the curses your families seek to eradicate. Unnatural. Inhuman. Though it hardly matters what they think of you. They are not your reason for being, and Lord Sukuna seems to find your smile charming. 

Despite the chill, you find yourself reaching for a fan. A gift from Uraume. They’re strangely doting towards you in a way that they aren’t to Lord Sukuna’s other wives, bringing you gifts when they accompany Lord Sukuna on long trips away from the estate. A set of calligraphy brushes, a jade bracelet, a new kimono. You’ve amassed quite a collection of possessions by Uraume’s spoiling, though the fans are your favorite. All made a beautifully lacquered wood, some painted with gilded designs, the folded paper painted by the hands of careful artists. Crashing waves and blossoming trees decorate each of your fans and you take great pride in keeping them all in pristine condition because you’d hate to perform a dance with a damaged fan. 

Of all of the things filling your room, your koto is the most precious. It had belonged to your mother and she offered it with teary eyes as your wedding gift, absolutely bereft that she had to marry her daughter off to a monster to appease the head of your father’s clan. But such was your purpose in being born into a highly acclaimed sorcerer clan. Take your blood and lend your body to another clan so that you might make more powerful jujutsu users. Your father had complained of the waste in sending you off to quell the King of Curses, insisting that sending you to Lord Sukuna would be a waste of a bride. Curses have no use for brides nor, truly, does their King. Still, Lord Sukuna keeps all of you alive and well in his home. To what end? It’s hardly your concern. 

“Bring my koto,” you hum. “I want to dance.” 

The maid goes about carrying the large stringed instrument to the edge of the room where the opened shoji separates the warmth of your room from the chill of the engawa. It is a happy coincidence that your maid had been taught to play the koto some years ago when she was still an eligible maiden. But her father grew ill and when he passed her mother sent her off to find work to support herself because she couldn’t afford a dowry to marry her off properly. So she sits and serves, waiting for you to name your song of choice with her fingers poised over the strings. The song you choose is one of comfort, the first your mother ever taught you when you were learning to dance and play. There’s a practiced grace to your movements, smooth as a flowing river as you dance with your fan. The song is short but it is always your favorite to perform. 

A rare beauty in the north, she’s the finest woman on earth. A glance from her, the city falls. A second glance leaves the nation in ruins. There exists no city or nation that has been more cherished than a beauty like this.

Flecks of snow melt against the bare nape of your neck, so cold it feels like burning, but you want to keep dancing. The weather has no bearing on your mood. Rain or shine you are happy to sing and dance, amusing yourself as you wait to be of use to your lord husband. Perhaps he has already returned home along with his new bride but without the order to accompany him you will stay in your room, performing to your heart’s content. Your maid begins to pluck out the notes of your next song request, fingers stuttering over the strings as if she’s forgotten how to play the melody. That’s alright, you will dance even without proper music, swinging your fan with practiced poise as your voice contests with the howling of the storm. It’s a song of longing and melancholy. Fitting for a woman separated from her husband. 

Are you going away? Leaving me alone? How could I live if you’ve gone away? Are you going away? Leaving me alone? I want to keep you unhappy with me. I fear you may never return. Sadly, I will let you go–

“Stop whining, I’m here.” A voice interrupts your singing, a smooth timbre that rumbles like a roll of thunder. So please, come back soon after you leave. In a heartbeat you’re on the floor, kneeling before your husband. Lord Sukuna is soiled from his travels. Kimono stained and torn, the scent of blood lingering heavily around him, along with the buzzing aura of excess cursed energy leaking into the cold air around him. 

“Welcome home, Lord Sukuna.” He purrs at how you prostrate yourself at his feet, always so satisfied with your absolute submission. He once told you your lack of fear was something intriguing, your unwavering adoration far more interesting than submission borne of fear. It’s something he’s found in so few of his followers and you imagine it’s why he shows such preference for Uraume’s company. Of all of your husband’s subordinates, they are by far the most devout. Perhaps even more than you because they know what Lord Sukuna is trying to achieve with all the calamity he causes. Your lord husband has never made you privy to that knowledge, and as a good wife you remember it is not your place to ask. If you are meant to know something, he’ll tell you. 

“Get out.” His voice is thick with something akin to revulsion, though you don’t bother to raise your head. Lord Sukuna hasn’t spoken to you so gruffly since you first proved your devotion to him. Behind you there’s the sound of frantic movements as your maid assumedly makes herself scarce in the presence of her master. When she’s gone Lord Sukuna gives you permission to lift your head. In the low light, you can hardly see his face. It’s hard to tell Lord Sukuna’s mood even in bright lighting. He hardly changes from his stoic expression unless there’s blood being spilled, then a smile–more like a deranged baring of his fanged teeth–finds its way onto his face. 

“Come bathe with me.” He doesn’t wait for you to react, already halfway down the engawa by the time you gather yourself enough to stand. Lord Sukuna traverses the estate with practiced ease, as if this was his childhood home and not all place of residence usurped from some affluent family. Though the perks of Lord Sukuna’s minions commandeering such a luxurious home for their leader and his family are the accommodations afforded to only the highest nobility. Because only families with more money than time to spend it can afford to build their home large enough to encompass a hot spring along with all the other necessary land. The air is humid around the bathhouse, curtained with steam as clouds of warm air seep out of the secluded space. 

Lord Sukuna stands expectantly at the edge of the rocks surrounding the steaming pool, waiting for you to fulfill your wifely duties. With great haste you begin to undress him. His kimono is ruined beyond repair, delicate white silk tattered and stained with browning patches of blood. Still, you take great care in folding each article as it’s removed from his body. There’s no added layers despite the inclement weather, no added underclothes beneath the outer layer of clothing. Your hands reach skin sooner than you expected, flinching away from the warmth of his muscles as if his skin were an open flame. Despite your status as his wife and your consequently intimate knowledge of his body, you still err on the side of caution when it comes to touching Lord Sukuna. He had only asked you to undress him, not to run your fingers over the corded muscles of his arms. Luckily, your husband seems unconcerned with the wayward touch. Instead of snapping at you he rolls his shoulders as if the layers of clothes had been restricting his movements. In all likelihood, they probably have. 

Lord Sukuna is something that is no longer human. A higher being ascended beyond the physicality of a normal man, as if his body could no longer handle the brunt of his power and needed to evolve to fit the newly emerging shape of his soul. Once, before you first laid eyes upon him, Lord Sukuna had the appearance of a mere man. An unremarkable face and body. But now he has become something beyond the shape of a human. “A two faced demon with four arms,” as the members of your clan had called him when talks of appeasing the great King of Curses began whispering through the halls of your maiden home. Of course his rumored differences held no bearing on whether or not the clan would be willing to sacrifice a bride to satisfy the Disgraced One. His four eyes and black markings make no difference to your devotion. He is still the husband you’ve dedicated your life to. 

Tentatively, you try to strike up a conversation as Lord Sukuna settles himself in the warm pool. “Has Fourth Mistress arrived yet?” 

“Yes, she arrived before I did. I expected you to be with the others, fawning over her. Why weren’t you?” His tone is calculated as if he is trying to decide if there is cause for punishment. Your next words are chosen carefully. 

“First Mistress did not think–it was requested that I not attend to Fourth Mistress’ arrival.” 

“Are you not my wife?” Lord Sukuna asks, annoyance thick in his tone. Of course you are. In this life you are nothing if not his wife. “I expect that you’ll act your part. The lady of the house is meant to greet guests upon their arrival. I don’t care what Jurina says. You’re of noble birth. You know the rules on how to conduct yourself. Act like it.” 

“Forgive me for speaking out of turn, my lord, but I am not the lady of the house. That is First Mistress Jurina’s title.” To go against your husband’s word is wrong, reason enough for him to lash out at you, but it is the truth that Jurina is always reminding you of. She is First Mistress, the matron of the estate. It is you that is a lowly concubine in comparison to her status as a legal wife. Lord Sukuna bristles at your insolence and you duck your head to receive your reproach. He’s a short distance away, submerged to his waist in the warm water, but Lord Sukuna can move like a striking snake. It would only take half a beat of your heart for him to reach you and tear it from your chest if he so desires it. 

Tonight’s admonishment is far less violent. Coming in the form of a disparaging growl before he snaps at you to undress. You do so with the same care that you disrobed your husband. As his wife, you are an extension of him, and you dare not mistreat his items in his presence. Once your clothes are folded you approach Lord Sukuna with hesitant steps. You’ve discovered that drowning and burning are the worst means of death and the boiling water of the hot spring is a combination of both. Still, if tonight will be wasted on death, at least it will come in Lord Sukuna’s arms. He reaches to help you into the water, drawing you close while his second pair of arms stay splayed on the rocks behind him. He moves you as he pleases like a doll being perched on a shelf, positioning you to straddle his thigh. 

“Look at me, woman.” His tone doesn’t sound angry, but that has never been a successful way to guess at Lord Sukuna’s intentions. He can execute someone with a smile. You hope he’ll offer you that same cruel grin when he pushes hot beneath the bubbling water. 

“I do not care what order I married any of you in. It should be clear by now that you are the woman of this house. First or third, it doesn’t matter. Jurina’s words hold no weight over you. Do I make myself clear?” There’s a franticness to the way you nod your head, chirping out a pinched “yes, Lord Sukuna!” as he holds your chin to keep your eyes on his. 

“You’re the only wife that matters to me, stupid woman. The rest,” he scoffs, “I wouldn’t spit down their throats even if their lungs were on fire. Even the new one. Jurina is nothing and no one. I will kill her right now if it will please you.” 

And that had been the original crux of Jurina’s jealousy. The priority with which Lord Sukuna always seemed to treat you. There were always rumors about the estate that you are the favored wife, the one that truly matters, but it is hard to believe rumors when Lord Sukuna hardly does anything to validate them. Though his constant quelling of his temper in your presence should be evidence enough. It’s a rare thing for your husband to lash out at you, but you always assumed it was simply because you were careful with your actions. Never giving him any reason to turn his ire against you. It’s plain to see now that the reason for your persisted well treatment is simple. You are his favorite wife. 

Possessive as he is, Lord Sukuna has favorites in everything. Cursed weapons that he favors over all others, and servants that he calls on more often than the rest. To know you hold weight among his most precious possessions is dizzying. Of course, to Lord Sukuna, a favorite thing is a useful thing. It’s easy to imagine that you’re the most useful of his four wives. Neither of your seniors have remarkable cursed techniques despite hailing from quite notable families in the hierarchy of the jujutsu world. And any technique they do possess is woefully untrained as is expected of women in the world of sorcery. Women of jujutsu-laden clans are meant to be vessels from which the next generation of male sorcerers are born, not taught to be sorcerers in their own right. 

It was only by a terrible coincidence that you were able to train your own technique. A jealous cousin and a well. A harsh push to your back after she whispered about how she should be the one to marry first despite her inferior talents as a homemaker. She got her wish, the husband she so covetously desired. Last you heard she’d been returned to your family’s estate after being set aside for a more fitting woman. 

When she pushed you, falling felt like flying and dying felt like burning as your lungs filled with water. In the end you’d spent nearly a week at the bottom of that seldom used well, floundering for your life as your cursed technique kept you in a constant loop of dying and reviving, bursting back to life stronger than when you died. Chrysalis is what your family had taken to calling your ability when you were finally fished out with a bucket of water. Death was something impermanent to you, though the manner of which you passed holds bearing on how long you’ll be stuck in your “cocooned” state. You imagine being killed by means of jujutsu would kill you properly, forever, but no one has been bold enough to try. Certainly not now that you are a treasured wife of the King of Curses. Though you’re sure Lord Sukuna will kill you eventually, when your purpose has been served. For now, it seems your purpose is to provide him with the comforts a wife can offer her husband. 

“Kiss me.” He commands, hand on your jaw already pulling you towards him. There’s never been anything delicate about Lord Sukuna as far as you could tell. He’s always had an air of harshness to him, something wild and untamed that bleeds into his every movement. You’ve decided it must be because he lives the same as you, unimpeded by the world around him. The King of Curses bows to nothing and no one, so why should he govern himself by the laws and morals of humanity. Kindness, restraint, it doesn’t seem to exist to your lord husband. The same way fear no longer exists to you. So when Lord Sukuna’s hand–large enough to hold your head in his palm–pulls you towards his fanged mouth, you feel nothing but unadulterated lust. It’s unbecoming of a woman to find herself so lost in her bodily whims but you’re no longer just a woman. You’re Lord Sukuna’s woman, and within the walls of his home, shame no longer exists. You melt against him as his sharp teeth find the softness of your lips. Blood spills between your open mouths, dripping down your bodies before dripping into the water with a soft tinge of pink. 

“Sweet,” he hums. 

It’s no secret that Lord Sukuna is prone to fits of bloodlust so blinding he’ll tear his teeth into anything soft he can find, no matter the origin of the flesh. Animal or human it’s all the same when he’s tearing his claws through a warm body. He’s mentioned sampling your body once. How he’s thought about tearing off bits and pieces of you to taste. Of course, he told you that he would only maim you in such a way as punishment for misbehavior–it hardly matters when death would only find you mended and made anew–though it hasn’t stopped him from sinking his teeth into you when he’s wrapped up in another kind of lust.

Usually imperceptible if you aren’t looking for it, the only sign of Lord Sukuna’s arousal stands proudly between your legs, so large they breach the surface of the water as he holds you steady in his lap. His upper arms are still splayed out on the stone behind him as he reclines as if he is seated on a throne. He’s shown you what a throne fit for the King of Curses would look like, but only once. In his domain. An infinite wasteland bathed in blood with a single shrine standing at its heart. A corrupted chinjusha of flesh and bone. All gaping maws and cracked skulls. A shrine dedicated to the only higher power Lord Sukuna will ever respect; himself. The strange mouth splitting a seam between his muscles always reminds you of his Malevolent Shrine, of the four grotesque mouths that stand where the four doors of a shrine would be. Its tongue is strangely textured, like that of a cat’s as it lolls out of his stomach to lap at your skin. Sometimes you find yourself wondering if Lord Sukuna has control over the appendage or if it acts of its own volition each time the grainy feeling drags over your body, but it isn’t your place to ask. Who has control or not, it doesn’t matter. Lord Sukuna is your husband and you relish even the smallest touch whether it’s intentional or not. 

“Are you going to please your husband?” He asks. The answer is always simple. Yes. It is your sole purpose now that he’s taken you as his wife and torn your world into the smallest pieces until only this single scrap remains. It’s becoming so precious no matter how small and defaced it becomes. Sometimes you wonder what would happen if you stepped out of line. Tried to leave the estate, tried to defy Lord Sukuna. In truth, you’ll never know. Your husband is your world and your world is your husband. Of course you will do everything within your power to please him. He seems satisfied with just the look in your eyes as you stare up at him, waiting for his next command. If it would please him you’d slash yourself open, spill your innards into his lap and watch him feast on your flesh. His true wish is far more gentle, something a more humble husband would ask of his bride. 

“Touch me.” His clawed hand is already guiding yours to his stiffness, wrapping your fingers over the length of him. It’s so strange that curses can bleed, but Lord Sukuna isn’t exactly a curse nor is he a human. He’s something more but his heart beats just the same. You feel it in your palm as his cock twitches in your grip, thick veins thrumming under his skin. Perhaps it’s the water or more likely it’s something innate to your husband because he always feels hot to the touch, his skin is nearly scalding as you wrap your hands around his twin cocks, fingers spread too wide to touch around his girth. Lord Sukuna looks pleased as he leans back, eyes watching you as if to catch a flaw in your presentation. A rogue frown or unintended scowl that would prove your supposed dedication false. 

Even after so long he’s waiting for you to break, to truly realize what you’re doing and be disgusted enough to shrink away. The only thing you feel at this moment is heady arousal. It pools like molten lava deep in your stomach, seeping between your legs and into the water. There’s been no permission given so you remain still, but your hips ache to shift against the strength of Lord Sukuna’s chiseled thigh, to relieve a bit of the tension his lingering gaze has caused. But his hand hasn’t strayed from your hip, in fact his grip has tightened with each stroke of your hands. There’s a stinging bite as his claws dig through your skin, burying deep enough to draw blood despite the composure still set in stone on his face. He is still a man in some regard. Still a husband enjoying the touch of his wife. The thought blooms sweetly in your chest, lifting a soft smile to your lips. Lord Sukuna notices in an instant, four eyes still trained on your face. He snatches your chin up, straining your neck with how quickly he guides your eyes towards his. 

“What are you smiling about, brat?” Another attempt to catch you in a lie, to find some falsehood in your contentment. Even your lord husband finds himself questioning if your happiness is true. You thumb over the head of one of his cocks, bringing the taste to your lips. And because he is watching you so intensely you make a coquettish show of dragging your tongue over the pad of your finger, gasping when Lord Sukuna’s fingers bury deeper into your delicate skin. There will be cuts and bruises when he’s done with you. There always are. Then your maid–or, on some occasions, Uraume–will come to tend to your body marked by your husband’s touch. You like the way your body burns when he’s through with you, memories of his touch simmering in your mind. He scoffs when you wrap your lips around your thumb. With a cruel smile he hooks his own thumb into your mouth, talon scraping against your tongue as he pulls your jaw until your mouth is as wide as you can bear with only the slightest twinge of pain. 

Drool pools in your mouth, dripping out of the corners as they sting with the strain of Lord Sukuna’s strength. He sneers, looking pleased with the mess you’re making as he leans down to lick it up before spitting it back into your open mouth. You nearly choke and rush to swallow with a rattling cough. It tastes like blood, likely your own though you wonder if your husband sank his teeth into something before coming to you. The blood on his clothes looked dry, though you can never be certain with Lord Sukuna. You banish the thought, thrilled with the way he no longer seems to be dividing his focus. 

Before he had looked uninterested, as if his mind was elsewhere even as he looked at you servicing him so happily. Now he’s leaned in close enough for you to see his eyelashes, a rare treat with his immense stature. He’s nearly all you can see, all you can feel and you revel in it as your world shrinks to this tiny pinprick. There’s nothing outside this bathhouse. Only the infinite nothingness that surrounds a domain. The world could come apart outside these four walls and you wouldn’t care as long as Lord Sukuna keeps you in his arms. As if he knows your thoughts, the very deepest desires of your heart, Lord Sukuna drags you up his leg by the hand still embedded in the fat of your hips and the feeling sings through your body as your clit catches against the firmness of his thigh. Your hands tighten around his cocks still pulsing in your hands, though his only reaction is the slightest twitch of his lip. 

“Am I doing a good job, Lord Sukuna?” You ask around his thumb, truly desperate for approval. If you were any more pitiful he might’ve pet your hair like a loyal hound. Instead he laughs, something short and sardonic as his teeth nip at your cheek. Warmth blooms then drips down the curve of your face and you know he’s broken skin once more. 

“Enough with the stupid questions. If you want my praise you know how to earn it. Show me how badly you want it and I might reward your efforts.” You slip from his lap, mourning the loss of his leg pressing between yours as you kneel in the water. It’s up to your neck as your knees meet the bottom of the pool, steam billowing like a veil in front of your eyes as you center yourself at the apex of Lord Sukuna’s thighs. He’s spread out above you like a proud effigy, a statue meant to be worshiped. You feel a transcendent kind of devotion kneeling at the feet of your lord husband. The taste of him lands heavy on your tongue as your lips tease at the head of his dick, swallowing him in slow increments. Despite the harsh preparation of your mouth, you still wish to savor every moment spent servicing your husband. 

His face is clouded in shadows again as he leans back, head tilted towards the ceiling. The lanterns flicker playful shadows across his body, highlighting and shrouding pieces of him as you bow to take him into your mouth in earnest. Your jaw still aches from the way he nearly unhinged it, but it works in your favor as your lips wrap around his length. 

There’s nothing dignified about the way you’re swallowing his dick, little focus being allotted to your own comfort as you take him as deeply as his size will allow. His body is strange, of course, but it’s all you’ve ever known of a man. Aside from Lord Sukuna you’ve never seen any man bared beyond his chest, although you know innately that humans aren’t meant to have the endowments he does. His second cock presses against your cheek, dribbling over your skin as you hollow your cheeks until Lord Sukuna’s thighs twitch. Muscles seizing tighter as the head of his cock meets the tightness of your throat. Breathing is far from your mind, a need secondary to pleasing your husband. It’s a messy endeavor and you loathe to think of how terrible you must look. It’s always been a point of pride to preen yourself to perfection because husbands like their women to look beautiful when they arrive home, or at least Lord Sukuna seems to prefer it. Though he never seems bothered by what is surely a horrid display as split slicks down your chin and tears dot along your lash line as you gag around his dick. 

Lord Sukuna flicks your forehead after a while, likely drawing another scratch between your brows. It’s a fraction of his power. It’s likely he could take your head apart as easily as squashing a peach under his heel yet he hardly puts effort behind the reproach. Only enough to draw your attention as he drags you, coughing and drooling, off of his cock. They’re both gathered into one fist so he can drag the taste of his leaking precum over your parted lips. 

“You know better.” Lord Sukuna does not take things in half measures. His intentions are clear. If you’re going to pleasure him, do it right and do it well. Your jaw pops open again, wide enough to take his twin cocks into your mouth. He stretched and strained your mouth but there’s only so much that can be done with the sheer size of him. And while he does well to shield his thoughts at the best of times, you imagine he must be gleaning a fair bit of pleasure from your messy sucking as his hand remains in your hair. His claws scratch against your scalp, gentle enough to keep your skin intact as he keeps your mouth wrapped around him. A burning type of exertion settles painfully in your jaw but you’ll endure. Lord Sukuna never likes to keep you like this for long. With both of his weeping cocks tangled between your lips you can hardly take more than the head of each. In the end, his preference will always be the wet heat brewing between your legs. Another bout of pain sings through your scalp as Lord Sukuna pulls your mouth away from him, leaving threads of spit dripping between your bodies. His thumb brushes over your bottom lip, pressing against the grooves where his teeth bit into your skin until they begin to bleed anew.

He manipulates your body as if you’re merely a puppet dancing on strings. A flex of his arm and you’re lifting off your knees, hips stretched wide to accommodate the width of his body between them. His spit-laden cocks are pressed between your bodies, grinding into the soft expanse of your stomach as he pulls your bleeding mouth to his. He suckles at your torn skin, humming at the taste of your blood seeping onto his tongue. His hands find your hips, pressing into the marks he’s already left there as he hikes you higher against his body. The tongue lolling out of his stomach finds its way between your thighs, lapping at the mess that’s left after the water washed away the first wave of your arousal. It’s nearly too much with how textured the wide appendage is but you welcome any type of relief you can find as Lord Sukuna pulls your head to the side quick enough to send a stinging twinge up the column of your neck. The pain is only intensified as he noses against the soft curve where your neck meets your shoulder, as if he’s looking for something. 

His tongue sweeps over your skin before his fanged teeth make a home in it. There’s a rippling groan that thunders in his chest as a true taste of your blood spills into his mouth. Before long, your head is spinning from blood loss. Lord Sukuna must feel the change in your pulse as it turns slippery, harder to catch beneath your skin. He pulls away with a satisfied groan as his hands press your hips deeper into the expanse of his lower tongue. 

“Enjoying yourself, brat?” Lord Sukuna sneers, and because you have no sense of shame you find yourself nodding earnestly. He’s hardly touched you and what touches he’s shared have been steeped in equal parts pain and pleasure, yet you’ve enjoyed it all the same. It’s awkward and teasing because there’s no tact to the way his lower tongue moves between your legs. It’s like striking a flint without starting a fire, dull sparks of teasing pleasure that leave you wanting more. You’d rather have his face between your legs and a more dexterous tongue teasing you to the edge, but it would be presumptuous to make any kind of demands of your husband especially when he’s a man like Lord Sukuna. 

In most regards, your pleasure is incidental. Secondary to his own. So when his teeth snap over his claws, biting the sharp points into flattened nubs, you feel your excitement growing. He’s learned from experience that his rough treatment of your body should not extend to certain places. After only a few times he pressed his clawed fingers inside you, Lord Sukuna learned that it would better serve him if his nails were dulled before he went poking them inside you. And they’ll be grown back to full length by night’s end. He can manipulate the shape of his body as easily as fire melting snow. His hand smooths over the side of your body, sliding against your ribs and hips as he makes his way between your legs. His fingers plunge inside with little warning, forcing you open with a swiftness you could almost call desperation. If something so undignified could ever be said about the King of Curses. 

Lord Sukuna is a behemoth, dwarfing you in every regard, and his hands are no different. His fingers reach deep inside you, stroking over the place that has your back bowing as he makes space for himself inside you. He hums at how easily you take his fingers, sounding somewhere between amused and approving. It flutters through your chest and settles atop the arousal already building inside you. 

“Give your body to me, woman. Open yourself to your king.” You try to say something as he slips another finger inside you but it comes out as little more than a breathy whine. This is already too much and yet it can’t compare to how full you’ll feel when he gets his cocks inside you. His fingers are a luxury offered in preparation for his true reward and you take it happily. He smirks at the way your thighs strain as you try to grind against his touch. The heel of his hand is pressed tight against your clit and you buck your hips against the feeling. Lord Sukuna’s skin is thick, nothing like the softness of your own and it feels just the right amount of rough against your clit. One of Lord Sukuna’s hands finds your hair again, yanking hard until you’re looking up at him with tears shimmering in your vision. 

“There’s my spoiled brat. This is how you act. This is how the wife of a king is meant to be. Take what you want, woman, take everything I give you.” A dark laugh booms through the room as you whine and paw at Lord Sukuna’s chest. He adds another to the litany of scratches decorating your skin as his teeth nip at your neck, distracting you from the sting of another finger finding its way inside you. 

“You were made for this,” he reminds you. “Made to be mine. My bride. You can take it.” He sounds almost patronizing, voice softening to a teasing lilt as his thumb presses against your clit. Like with everything, Lord Sukuna is harsh, forcing you to the edge quicker than expected. Each curl of his fingers yanks at the string tightening inside you, pulling you closer and closer to the edge as he moves his hands with inhuman speed inside you. Everything is hard and fast and your thighs start to tremble in his hold, body shivering as Lord Sukuna all but wrings the orgasm out of your body. You clench hard around his fingers, pussy dripping down your thighs as you try to steady yourself with your hands on Lord Sukuna’s shoulders. He allows it, revels in it as he pulls you into another bloody kiss. But even as you tremble in his arms, Lord Sukuna doesn’t stop. His thumb is still circling your twitching bud even as you try to whine out a plea for mercy. It only brings a fanged smile to his lips. 

“Take it,” he grunts, “I know you can.” It really feels like you can’t. The tension brought on by your orgasm hasn’t dispersed and you feel like a knot being pulled ever tighter, back curling until your face is buried against his chest. He smells like the bath. Like sweet oils and wildflowers as your nose is buried against his scalding skin. With your forehead pressed against his chest your eyes have nowhere to look but down. Down at the way his cocks are straining to be touched, flushed and leaking just out of reach. You look up to distract yourself with the black markings etched into Lord Sukuna’s chest. Your kisses are sloppy, wet and open-mouthed as your tongue peeks out to trace the shape of each tattoo. It’s not until your teeth begin to nip at his chest that Lord Sukuna scruffs you once more. 

“Trying to leave a mark on me, brat?” As if you could. Your teeth are likely no different than trying to pierce his skin with a blade of grass. “What a greedy little bride I have. So eager to defer to another wife’s authority when you’re this possessive of your husband. Isn’t that right, woman?” You try to shake your head. Of course, you aren’t possessive of him, you know your place. You are the Third Mistress. Perhaps you are his favorite but there is a hierarchy that must be upheld in the household. To so brazenly try to claim full authority over your lord husband would be lunacy. There is no higher authority than the King of Curses himself. You’re simply a pebble lingering in the shadow of the highest mountain. 

“Yes you are,” he grins. You whine as he pulls his hand from between your legs. “Look at the mess you’ve made trying to mark me up like a bitch in heat.” There’s no sense of embarrassment welling at his degrading words. What sense is there in hiding how well your husband pleasures you? And Lord Sukuna seems proud as his tongue licks up the mess you’ve made on his hand before pressing a kiss to your parted lips. You taste yourself on his tongue. Your blood and your pleasure. 

“You’re going to take me so well, aren’t you?” It’s hardly a question. Simply an ordered phrased as if you could deny yourself the feeling of being split open on Lord Sukuna’s cocks. He starts with one, always. Dragging the leaking head through the mess he’s made of your cunt, tapping against your clit until he finally presses inside. His body is a marvel and you’re blessed to be so acquainted with it as the length not pressing inside you grinds against your clit as he makes you take him as deep as your body will allow. Lord Sukuna has been known to be rash and unpredictable, a being of pure chaos when the mood strikes him, but when he’s with you like this everything he does is deliberate. 

He’s rough but not destructively so. Yes, you’re bleeding as he bounces you in his lap, drawing a litany of breathless sounds from your lips, but he’s always intentional when drawing blood. You’ve been trained well in these years of marriage to take him. To weather any storm Lord Sukuna throws at you. His hands are bruising on your hips as he drags you up and down his length, hands that could shatter your bones with the slightest bit of effort and yet he only uses enough strength to hold you close. You’re not deluded enough to think that Lord Sukuna loves you, certainly not in the way a lover should, but he cares enough to treat you with a level of gentility. 

“Thank you,” you babble it like a prayer, over and over. Worshiping at your husband’s altar for even the briefest thought given to your safety, your pleasure. It can never be said that Lord Sukuna is a neglecting lover, at least not with you. He’s everywhere all at once. Hands on your hips and at your breasts, pinching at the aching peaks of your nipples. His face is buried against your throat, teeth surely raising welts as his tongue laps at the taste of blood and sweat dampening your skin. You cling to him in turn, nails digging into the thick muscles of his arms with no hope of ever drawing blood. Still, he grunts out a laugh as you drag your dull nails across his skin, leaving nothing but the whisper of claw marks behind. An arm slips out from under your grasp, unbalancing you, but Lord Sukuna is quick to steady your boneless body as he reaches between you to take hold of his second cock. It’s thick and straining, leaking against your skin as he presses it in beside the first. The stretch is harsh, a stinging pinch between your legs soothed only in part by his thumb drawing shapes against your clit. He hushes you when your whining gets too loud, hands clamping tight to your hips to keep you from squirming away from taking all of him.

“Be a good wife and accept your reward.” Lord Sukuna hisses as he presses deep inside you. The weight of him settles like molten heat inside you, his hand pressing over the shape of himself through your stomach. “Hush, you can take it.” He hisses, biting at your cheek as tears well in your eyes once more. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s a strange feeling to be so full all at once. 

“My pretty wife.” He’s only this sweet when he has you close to breaking, teetering on the edge of insanity from the way he’s taking his pleasure from your body. “Look at me, woman. Keep your eyes on your king.” It’s hard to look anywhere else. He isn’t sweating, this is hardly more than a leisurely stroll for him, but the humidity has left his skin beaded with moisture. It makes him shimmer in the torchlight like the divine being that he is, wasting his time on a creature as lowly as you. It’s your blessing that he’s so enraptured with you at the moment. Your eyes slip shut, tears streaming down your cheeks as every corner of your body feels lit aflame, the heat only made worse as Lord Sukuna’s hand finds your jaw. 

“I said, eyes. On. Me.” He growls. With a bit of resistance, your eyes flutter open, white light swimming at the edge of your vision as Lord Sukuna drags you to the precipice of insanity. He’s close. Far less careful and coherent as he drags you up and down his lengths with startling strength. He’s pressing against every sweet spot inside you, igniting a thousand flames at once that threaten to swallow you whole. There’s a pitchy mantra of “wait, wait, wait” playing on your tongue but it only seems to further entice your husband. 

“You gonna sing for me, woman? Go on, let me hear something pretty when you come for your king.” He’s taunting you, laughing at how shrill your voice sounds. It nearly does sound like you’re singing as you wail his name, back bowing as he rips another orgasm from your spent body. It’s as quick as a lightning strike and nearly as blinding, eyes clouding white for a moment as you fight to keep your eyelids from fluttering. From taking your eyes off Lord Sukuna for even a moment. You feel yourself clawing at him, clinging and grasping to keep yourself grounded as pleasure shatters through your body. Vaguely you can hear Lord Sukuna laughing, something tinged dark with amusement as he works you through your orgasm. He has no patience to wait for you to regain your breath, to see the light of coherence return to your eyes. Instead, his hands grip tighter to your waist, nails biting into your skin as he works you faster over his cocks. His voice dips low, a rasping gravel as he grunts, squeezing every bit of his own pleasure from your body. It’s barely a change, just the slightest shift, but you’ve done this so many times that you can almost sense when he gets close. 

Lord Sukuna gathers your loosening muscles back into some semblance of an embrace, holding you tight to his chest as he pushes your hips low enough for your bodies to meet in earnest. The feeling is a wet slide of skin against skin, the mess of your joined pleasure slicking up your bodies. It nearly feels like choking as he holds you still, the shape of him pressing every so slightly against the softness of your stomach. He’s more gentle now, but only by a hair’s breadth, as he thumbs over the shape of his body making a home for itself inside yours. There’s always a hint of softness at the edges of moments like this. A bit of the darkness bleeds from Lord Sukuna’s eyes as he guides your hips to grind against him, thumbing where he sees himself beneath your skin. Lord Sukuna has always been smart, his intelligence far exceeding that of your woefully undereducated mind. 

There’s never been a time where you were certain of his thoughts, but in moments like these you think there’s a hint of curiosity sparkling in his eyes. Something desirous of the unknown and intangible. He moves in shallow thrusts, thumb dancing lazily over your puffy clit for only a moment more before he’s spilling inside you with a satisfied groan. But, still, he keeps you there. As if forcing your body to take to everything he’s given you. If it were up to you, your womb would quicken to give him a child; proof of your devotion. But even the fantasy sounds impossible. Lord Sukuna has shed his humanity and with it, you assume, his ability to continue his legacy by way of heirs. Though he hardly needs them. 

Lord Sukuna is a shining beacon of the height of jujutsu, proof of what greatness can be achieved when you’re willing to go beyond the standards set out by society. He’s immortal, indomitable. Children would only be another jewel in his crown, more pawns to serve his greater will. And it’s unlikely such children of greatness will ever come to pass. In all your years of marriage, there’s never been a single moment where you thought for even a moment that Lord Sukuna’s seed took. And it likely never will. It’s wasted as he lifts you off of his softening length, everything he gave you dripping out into the spring water. The light flickers and for a moment it almost looks like there’s a spark of disappointment in his eye, then the torches shift again and the shadows are gone.

“You did well, woman.” He hums, running his hands over the length of your body. The heat of his palms and the babbling water works to soothe the aches and pains of being so thoroughly used by your behemoth of a husband. “Who do you love, wife?” He asks after the breath finally returns to your lungs. Of course it’s him. There is no one else. No man could compare, like a pebble being compared to a shining jewel. 

“Good girl.” He says when you’ve finished your babbling. Like a true king, Lord Sukuna loves to hear his own praises and you’re more than happy to sing them. Sometimes it’s startling how perfectly the two of you exist together. He’s the sun and you’re a flower turning your face to gaze upon him always. Which of his other wives could ever share in a fraction of your devotion? No one will ever love Lord Sukuna as you do, save for maybe Uraume. Perhaps they don’t love him, but there is a fine line between love and admiration. The loyal servant comes bustling into the bathhouse after Lord Sukuna has had his fill of soft caresses and breathless praises. 

The fact that both of you are bare makes no difference to Uraume. They lift you from Lord Sukuna’s arms with startling strength, hands frigid against your skin as they guide you to sit and go about drying your body and combing your hair. It’s always strange to be tended to by someone other than your personal maid, more so when it’s by the hands of Lord Sukuna’s most trusted servant, but it seems Uraume sees you as an extension of Lord Sukuna as much as you do. They dry and dress you, sending you back to your room so that they may speak privately with your husband. Some time later when the bells of the estate are tolling for the Hour of the Dog, the strumming of your koto is interrupted further by screaming. Something bloodcurdling terrified as it rings through the house, echoing into the snow speckled night. Vaguely you think of how the screaming sounds like First Mistress Jurina. 

[ashlynnfall]

ekko looks for powder in the color blue. the sky, the water, hair, and eyes. blue blooms in the flowers near his tree and weaves through the streets of zaun, leaving trails for him to follow, leading him to something that no longer exists.

ekko looks for powder in light. it emanates from fire and spreads throughout zaun in the night. it's in the fixtures that decorate the streets, and it cascades down onto ekko's hideout, illuminating the mural that commemorates what has been lost. light reminds him of her. her bright smile and her blinding beauty. it revives the past they shared before tragedy struck, of that unforgettable night where they danced under the stars, of that kiss on the ledge...it's an everlasting reminder of his deepest affection.

ekko looks for powder in the gadgets he possesses. he searches for traces of her in the trinkets he collects, tinkering away to create new ones. inventions are where he looks the hardest, reminding himself of the days they spent working on innovative projects together. he thinks of her genius, her drive, and her madness in the craft. the memories bring a comforting smile to his face, which is a rare sight these days.

ekko looks for powder in time, lamenting how much they used to have together. there's a cruel irony in "the boy who shattered time" nickname. he was unable to spend the time he wanted with her, he couldn't shatter time enough to fit his needs. he enjoyed what they spent together, but it was too little. he could rewind time over and over and over again, but he still wouldn't get enough of her. his love for powder is timeless.

ekko looks for powder in his title: the boy savior. yet another cruel irony. he saved the entire world, ensuring the survival of many. in fact, he's spent his whole life saving people. he's always sacrificing his own needs for others as he leads a life of unbridled altruism. in a way, he's making up for being unable to save powder from jinx and silco. the boy savior, capable of rescuing anyone and everyone, except for the love of his life.

ekko looks for powder in the new era of zaun. sevika leading in the council, children running in the streets in glee rather than fear, the people breathing fresh air-it was everything they ever dreamed of. if only she was around to see it. ekko searches for the murals dedicated to her, seeks out the remnants of her hideout, scouts for anyone with leftover stories of her to tell. he observes the elated spirits of the city and bears the pain deep within his smile, reminding him of what could have been.

ekko looks for powder physically. it's not enough to just remember her. he needs to hug her, hold her close, and never let her go. he needs to hear her voice again, to invent with her again, to dance with her again, he just needs her to be here again. powder's absence is impossible to ignore, and ekko's tired of acknowledging it. he wants to be selfishly in love with her, but he can't. the world needed a savior, ekko answered the call.

ekko never stops looking for powder. she's in his head, in his heart, in his memories, in his home-no place is without her image. in his mind, powder's words echo promises of the past, not knowing that they'd be broken in the future. he searches for her in the people of zaun, hoping for the day when someone's face matches the one he craves to see so desperately. his search is endless, hopelessly devoted to a ghost of his past.

ekko finds powder in the hand that extends to him from a large white blimp. blue and pink nails decorate the pale skin covering it, confirming who stands before him. he looks at her bright smile, her pink eyes, the blue hair that grew back to the tops of her shoulders, the beautiful face he yearns to get lost in. he takes her in, processing everything he can see, praying that this isn't some horrible dream or hallucination.

ekko finds powder in the hug that they share, the hands that he holds, and in the lips that kiss him. ekko finds powder in the promises of adventure, in the conversations about their post-war lives, and in the apologies for everything. ekko finds powder.

powder and ekko find each other in love, in the reunion with their surviving friends and family, in the celebrations of a new zaun. they find each other on the dance floor once again, but this time, in the right universe. they bask in each other's arms, refusing to ever let go.

ekko finally finds powder, promising to never lose her again.

a/n: hi! i wanted to give ekko the ending he deserves because he's my fav character and deserves the whole world. timebomb as a couple mean so much to me, so i wanted to write a little story about their reunion after the finale of season 2. i need them together!! i also just adore ekko and powder, and that scene of them dancing in the alt universe was insanely well done. i hope you enjoyed my work, and thank you for reading! any tips of improving my writing or general thoughts on the fic would be greatly appreciated. thank you for your time <3

[dreamsteddie]

The Other Bank

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This is a repost of something I worked on earlier in the year. It's one of my favorite concepts but it didn't get much traction so I thought I'd give her one more try!

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There is something so beautiful and melancholy about the idea of failed rockstar Eddie who was on the verge of being a major hit but ended up giving up his dreams because he didn't like who he was turning into.

Eddie who leaves Hawkins behind as quickly as he can and dedicates his entire life, every waking moment, to building up his music career. He sleeps on couches for years, staying with whoever will take him in for a night or two in exchange for a bump of coke or joint from the remains of his sizeable Reefer Kick stash. He carries everything he owns in the back of his trunk. Amp, wires, guitars, clothes, etc and basically converts it into a portable practice studio.

He plays every gig he can get his hands on. Playing as a last-minute substitute guitar or base for any band that calls, playing for pop bands and punk bands alike until he convinces enough people to join up with him and start a new metal band.

With the band comes more stability, for a while. They share a cramped two-bedroom among the five of them. Writing and jamming every day, going home to smoke up and decompress.

Just over four years after Eddie lands in the city, they play their first real show. A show at a respectable, if small, bar venue with people in the audience there to see them. People sing their songs and dance to their music. It's not sold out, not even close really, but it's the start of something big, they can all feel it. That night they go out to the club around the block with a couple of people who came to the show and party harder than Eddie ever has before. He wakes up with that distinctly fuzzy feeling the next morning that tells him he dipped into the harder drugs the night before, something he hasn't done since he learned his dad passed three years ago.

It scares him. He can't remember anything past walking into the club last night. He doesn't remember anything he did or said and desperately hopes he didn't do anything weird with a fan, but he brushes it off. Tells himself it was a one-time thing, a celebration of their success. They deserved to let loose, right?

Except it wasn't a one-time thing. In fact, it turns into an almost every night kind of thing, and as their fan base grows what feels like overnight, the parties grow in intensity with them. They play their hearts out on stage, eventually selling out all of the smaller local venues and moving on to the larger, more serious ones. The occasional disagreement over music between the band members turns into larger, more personal arguments. Eventually, they reach Fleetwood Mac Rumors Era levels of drama. Everyone is sleeping around, the drugs are out of control, and they can't hardly stand to be in the same room together anymore, only pulling it together enough to go on stage at the end of the day.

Eddie lives that handful of years in a daze. It can mostly be attributed to the copious amounts of alcohol he's turned to to cope with the stress, but he uses his fair share of snow to keep himself in the creative spirit too. It feels inevitable when he reaches a kind of low he doesn't know if he can come back from.

Eddie wasn't a saint, but he has always sworn off meth. It was the thing that killed his mom. He remembers the way she'd wasted away, the days when she seemed crazed, and how sorry she was to him when she stabilized. The regret in her eyes when she looked at him. But when he's asked if he wants a needle all he can think about is the prospect of spending the rest of his life stuck with this band full of people he can't stand and people who can't stand him if the record deal they've been negotiating goes through, and it feels like it will.

Thinks of what all his hard work will mean if it doesn't.

He says yes.

Wakes up the next day starfished in the alley of an apartment he doesn't recognize staring up at the little sliver of blue sky he can see between the fire escapes and weeps. He's become exactly the kind of person he never wanted to be, some asshole almost rich guy laying in a damp alleyway all alone with no real friends.

Eddie lies there for an hour just thinking. Trying to remember when the last time he called Wayne was. Thinking of all the girls he slept with when he probably shouldn't have, when they were both too fucked up to make the right choice. Thinks of his mom and dad.

Tries to remember the last time he made the world a better place to live in instead of contributing to the filth.

He gets up and leaves. Leaves it all behind. Gets in a taxi to take him to where his van is parked by the venue from last night. Frantically takes everything out of the back and leaves it on the street. The only things that remain are the few keepsakes he brought with him to the city and his acoustic, the one his mom left him and Wayne helped him paint. The amps, his sweetheart, and the performance wear all get dumped on the side of the road and then he's jumping into the front seat.

Hours of driving leads him back home to Hawkins Indiana, the one place he promised never to return. Hawkins has seen a boom in the last few years, it seems. More shops, a bigger main street. He even spots a proper cafe. It all feels less haunted than he remembers. More people, fewer familiar faces. The trailer park, though, looks almost the same as it did the day he left, right down to the sight of his uncle lounging on the porch, waiting patiently for whatever comes next the way he always has.

Wayne doesn't ask any questions, not right away. He just scoops his nephew up in his arms and holds him in the cool morning air. He always knew his nephew better than anyone else, never needed words to know when he needed his uncle to help hold up the weight of the world.

And that's how Eddie finds his way back home. It takes a while for him to feel well enough to face the world again. A mixture of detoxing and coming to terms with the feeling of starting back at the beginning, like the last six years of his life didn't even happen leaves him licking his wounds in his partially empty childhood bed. It looks the same way it did when he walked out the front door.

When he does come back to the world, he starts small. Stepping out on the porch to share a cup of coffee with his uncle feels like one of the hardest things he's ever done. Maybe the most important.

He's proven right when he steps out to find he's not the only guest his uncle is entertaining this morning. Another resident of the park has already claimed the second chair as his own.

Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington who never made it out of Hawkins but also never regretted it. Who's made a small, happy life for himself here in the trailer park after his parents kicked him out for good when he turned 20. Who works part-time under the table at Miller's Mechanic and collects disability checks for the lost leg and minor brain damage he got from a car accident at 21. Steve Harrington who keeps his uncle company and makes sure he has everything he needs, taking care of the other residents in the park to the best of his ability doing easy car maintenance, babysitting, or just offering company to the more lonely residents.

Steve is so different from the guy Eddie vaguely knew in high school that he might as well be a stranger. They all sit and talk together for the entire morning, laughing and sharing stories. Steve never asks about where he's been or why he's back and Eddie wishes he could tell Steve how much he appreciates it.

Before Steve heads back he asks if Eddie would like to come over after he gets back from his shift. Asks if he wants to drink a beer and watch a movie. Eddie is quick, maybe too quick judging by the sympathetic look Steve sends his way, to turn down the beer and scoop up the movie invitation like the precious thing it is. There's something about Steve that soothes his soul. An easy connection between them that Eddie hopes they both feel.

Steve kisses him that night, slow and easy like they've been doing it their whole lives. Like they didn't basically meet for the first time this morning. Like Eddie hasn't been in denial about his sexuality for his entire life. Eddie cries at the warmth it fills him with. Steve just cradles him by the cheeks and lets him. That night Eddie doesn't go back to Wayne's. He lets Steve drag him to bed and hold him close. Lets him tangle their legs together and breathe warm air into the crown of his head until morning.

Steve shows Eddie how to live a life without big dreams, a life without ambition but full of love and comfort. A life without plans but with the knowledge that every day, someone who loves you will kiss you when you wake up and hold you through the night.