#like what am i supposed to do chase you down afterwards

[somecunttookmyurl]

for reasons unknown to mankind the SumUp online store editor does not allow you to set shipping rates by weight which has resulted in "irrationally high postage cost to cover a heavy parcel that i will then almost immediately have to refund like half of"

flawless system honestly. you give me £25 to ship a necklace, i immediately give £15 of it back. 10/10 no notes

[penny00dreadful]

Before He Cheats

AO3

“Munson Home for the Recently Deceased, you stab ‘em we slab ‘em. How may I direct your call?”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds before a light chuckle crackled through the speaker.

“Is that really how you answer the phone?”

Eddie smiled to himself. “Got you to laugh didn’t it?”

“Suppose.”

“Plus, no one calls the landline anymore unless they’re trying to sell something. You trying to sell me something?”

“No. No, I uh… I’m looking for an Eddie Munson?”

“Only an Eddie Munson? Only one? What a terrible fate. Well you’re in luck, my good sir. This is he. What can I do you for?”

The voice on the end of the line gave a light laugh once again but went silent almost immediately after. 

Eddie stared at the wall in his apartment, waiting for something to happen. In the quiet he could hear the guy letting out little nervous breaths before one big inhale.

“I um. I’m sorry to have to tell you like this, I’d prefer to do it face to face but I don’t know where you live and you probably wouldn’t even want me at your house afterwards and I did find you on social media but it’s not something I wanted to do in DM’s, you deserve better than that-”

“Okay, hold on, slow down.” Eddie tried to ignore the panic starting to kick around in his heart. “Is someone dead? Is someone injured?”

“No! No, Jesus, I’m sorry. I told Robin that I’d be terrible at this but I couldn’t just let it go on without saying anything-”

“You haven’t really said anything. You’re just rambling.”

“Right. Sorry. Again, blame Robin. I’m around her too much. But… okay. Do you know Rick Lipton?”

Eddie felt the panic leave him, replaced only by irritation as he sighed through his nose. “What did he do now?”

“He… um. I’m sorry to ask this but are you his partner? Like, romantic partner?”

Eddie scowled. “And if I am?”

There was movement against the line, almost as if the other guy was nodding. 

“Shit.” He muttered before picking back up in volume again. “Listen, I didn’t know. He told me he was single and I only found out because Robin lives in the same building as you and she saw him with you and asked the neighbours and they said you’d been a thing for like two years and you have to believe me if I’d known I wouldn’t have touched him, I don’t fuck around with cheaters-”

“How long?”

Eddie had expected to feel betrayal or sadness, devastation or heartbreak and they were there. 

They were just lost under a tidal wave of anger and indignation. He was even surprised at himself that he didn’t feel more caught off guard. 

Rick had never cheated before (that Eddie was aware of) but he had always had a wandering eye and a few off-colour jokes about 'going to find someone more his speed’. 

They’d never really felt all that funny.

Maybe it was because their relationship had felt dead for the last few months. 

They barely talked, they just existed around each other. The sex had all but dried up as well and whenever they did have it, it was completely impersonal. Get in, get out, move back to separate parts of the apartment if either of them even bothered to stay over. 

More often than not one of them would make a quick exit back to their home.

Eddie had been thinking a breakup was on the horizon for a while. 

But that was no excuse to cheat. 

At least have the fucking decency to end the relationship first before going out and chasing tail. 

“Um, like four or five weeks." The guy on the phone muttered, clearly ashamed. "I’m so sorry Eddie, I swear to god if I knew I would never… I have- I have proof if you need it.”

“If it’s a sex tape I don’t think I want to see it.” Eddie was trying really hard to maintain his calm and not snap through the phone. 

If what the guy was saying was true, then he was an innocent party in this.

Didn’t make it hurt any fucking less though.

Didn’t make him any less pissed.

“If- no it’s not a sex tape.” The voice sounded scandalised. “Fucking hell, do people actually do that?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause, as though the guy was waiting for Eddie to continue but Eddie just let it hang in the air. He wasn’t ashamed. 

But he was definitely going to have to purge those files now.

“Okay well… It's just a photo. I posted it to my insta a week ago but he was really weird about it being up, which in hindsight makes a lot of sense, so I took it down.” He said, quiet and sad. “I can send it to you if you want.”

Eddie pursed his lips. 

“Please hold.”

He unceremoniously dropped the phone with a clatter, leaving it dangling from the cord, bouncing against the wall and probably blowing the guy’s ear out. 

Maybe in the morning Eddie would feel a little bad about that, but for now it just felt very satisfying. 

He rifled around in his bedsheets for his phone before making his way back to the landline. 

“Still there?”

“Yes. Ow, by the way.”

Eddie just shrugged, well aware the guy couldn’t see him but whatever. He wasn’t in the mood. 

“Send it on.”

Only a moment later his phone pinged with a notification and Eddie opened the photo.

Well. 

Shit. 

There was Rick, in amongst a crowd at some nightclub, plastered to the side of some pretty boy who looked like he had a regular workout routine. 

Ugh.

Eddie couldn’t handle gym bunnies, the amount they could bench or whatever was all they ever talked about. But this must be the guy on the other end of the phone. 

@King.Steve.Of.House.Hair

Rick had King Steve’s earlobe in between his teeth and from the angle of the selfie Eddie could see his hands were wandering.

It looked like some kind of Halloween night, if the teeny tiny little sailor outfit was anything to go by.

God damn.

But even so, Eddie still wanted to be sure that what he was seeing was… well. What he was seeing. 

“Steve, is it?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry, I didn’t realise I hadn’t given you my name yet.” Steve let out a nervous laugh, like he was expecting Eddie to jump through the phone and strangle him.

Eddie was fit to strangle someone but Steve wasn’t in his crosshairs.

“Don’t worry about it. Tell me, what does Rick have tattooed on his ass?”

“Uh…” Steve paused. “He doesn’t have a tattoo on his ass? Not that I’ve seen anyway. But I can tell you he does have his taint pierced. For some fucking reason.”

Eddie gave a quiet laugh at that, despite the monumentally fucked up situation and the final cracking piece of his heart breaking away. Rick had that piercing by the time Eddie had met him. He insisted he’d gotten it because it was sexy. Eddie was pretty sure he’d just lost a bet.

Eddie was no stranger to intimate piercings himself. He had his frenum done a while back. 

That one he’d definitely done because it felt sexy.

He looked back down at his phone, idly flipping through Steve’s profile and all of his other photos. 

He probably shouldn’t be thinking about how hot Steve was, how it was juxtaposed with a soft cuteness that almost felt like it didn’t belong to someone with such broad shoulders and defined arms. 

He hated himself for thinking about Steve’s attractiveness. 

It felt wrong.

Even though he was pretty much single now.

Even if Rick didn’t know it yet. 

But fuck him. 

He’d find out.

One way or the other.

And Eddie was nothing if not a drama queen.

But he wouldn’t do anything tonight.

No tonight he would just… hurt.

And smoke.

A lot.

“Eddie?” Steve’s voice came through to him. “You okay?”

Eddie swallowed, finding it a little more difficult than he expected it to be and realised he’d just been staring down at his phone in silence. 

The screen had gone black.

“Yeah.” He answered, his voice thick. “I’m fine.”

Steve hummed. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Eddie laughed. It was wet and sniffly and vulnerable and horrible. “What are you gonna do from over the phone far away… wherever you are?”

“I dunno. I could just… talk to you I guess? Help you plot Rick's murder?”

Eddie laughed again, a little brighter this time. "Yeah, that could be good. But if I'm plotting murder I want to be a little more comfortable." He unlocked his phone and hit the follow button on Steve’s account. “This conversation requires lounging, not standing by the landline.”

“Oh-”

“How do you feel about a video call?”

A notification popped up on his phone, letting him know Steve had followed him back.

“A video call is fine.”

“Great.” Eddie paused. He wasn’t even sure how to end this call with the guy his boyfriend of two years had been cheating on him with and who he’d just asked if he wanted to video call so Eddie could smoke his feelings away. 

He just didn’t want to feel alone right now. 

He could have called Chrissy or one of the boys to come hang out with him but that would require explaining everything over again and he really didn’t want to do that right now. 

Before he could think much more on it Eddie said a quick “Okay bye,” and hung up.

Steve knew the story and Steve had been wronged too and maybe they could just be mad and sad together. 

He unlocked his phone again as he walked back into his bedroom and hit the video call button, not even bothering to turn his light on, leaving himself and his room shrouded in darkness. He propped his phone up on his desk, angled towards the window where he sat on the sil and started to roll, using the streetlights streaming in the window to see.

Steve picked up only a moment later and Eddie got his first good look at the guy live in action and not through a photo online.

He was sitting at what looked like a kitchen table fully lit by the overhead lights, a pair of wire framed glasses perched on his nose and his hair messy and dishevelled, like he’d been stressfully running his hands through it, which he probably had been. 

Eddie didn’t know how stressed he would be if he had to make a call to someone to tell them their long term partner had been cheating.

He was leaning forward, elbows on the table in a cosy yellow sweater with a slight worry between his eyebrows. 

He looked so soft. 

Nothing at all like the nautical sea queen look he’d been giving in those photos. He looked comfortable and gentle and a little worried.

“Eddie?”

“Mm-hm?” He hummed, bringing the joint to his mouth and lighting it up before pushing open the window a little more and exhaling out into the dark rainfall outside.

“You okay?”

He shrugged. “I will be.”

“I’m not asking about whether you will be, I‘m asking about now.”

Eddie looked over and watched Steve as Steve watched him through the screen.

“Alright, then no. I’m not okay.” He took another drag. “I’m fucking pissed. I’m sad, I’m upset, I’m hurt, I’m angry, I’m disappointed and I don’t know if all of that is directed more at him for doing this to me or me for not expecting it.”

“How were you supposed to expect it?” Steve shook his head in disbelief. “No one should have to expect to be cheated on.”

“Dunno.” Eddie shrugged, looking back out the window. “Relationship was dying anyway.”

“Okay, and? That doesn’t make cheating okay.”

“Suppose not.”

“I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. For my part in it.”

Eddie glanced back over, taking in the downward tilt of Steve’s mouth and his big sad eyes.

“S’not your fault. You were wronged too.”

“I guess, but…” Steve bit his lip and looked up from the screen, casting his eyes around his kitchen like something was going to pop out and answer whatever question was running through his head. 

Eddie waited. The guy had been very gracious so far and he seemed to genuinely feel bad for all the mess he’d been wrapped up in. 

“I…” Steve continued. “I know how this thing usually goes. You find out you’ve been cheated on and you still love your partner so you tend to focus all your anger towards the person they cheated with rather than the person who actually wronged you.” He looked down, fiddling with some kind of flash card on the table in front of him.

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.” Eddie stubbed his joint out, happy enough with his current buzz. He was sufficiently mellowed, he hadn’t cried yet though that would probably come once he was in bed, but his anger had simmered down to a level where he didn’t feel like putting his fist through a wall but still angry enough to plot.

“I am, I guess.”

Eddie nodded. “This happened to you before?” 

That was probably rude. His filter malfunctioned at the best of times but when he smoked it was all but gone.

“Yeah.” Steve stared down at the cards in his hands. “My mom had to put up with my dad’s infidelity a lot. And my ex-girlfriend cheated on me a while back.” Steve paused before taking a deep breath. “Rick was actually my first attempt to get back into the dating world so…”

“So we can both be sad and angry together.”

“Yeah.” Steve smiled and Eddie stood up, plucking his phone from his desk and settling it on his bedside table, switching his lamp on and throwing himself face down on his bed, probably barely visible to Steve.

“We can be sad and angry together.”

Eddie glanced up. Now that he was closer to his phone, he could better see exactly what Steve was fiddling with, he could read some of the text on the card.

“Stevie.” Eddie sat up, moving closer to the phone and unable to stop the smirk running over his face. Steve’s eyes snapped up towards him. “Did you write out flash cards for when you called me?”

Steve’s eyes widened before he unceremoniously swept all the cards off the table in front of him, his cheeks turning a terrific shade of red and he leaned his face on his hand, trying to act as nonchalant as possible. 

“No.”

It was adorable. Incredibly dorky and adorable.

Eddie laughed, full on braying belly laughs, collapsing backwards onto his bed. When he peeked back up to look at his phone through his giggles, Steve’s face was somehow even redder. 

“Oh my god.” Eddie breathed. “That’s darling.”

“Shut up.”

“No, no. It’s really very sweet.”

“Ugh. Whatever.” Steve rolled his eyes but was still smiling, still had a blush lighting up his cheeks.

Eddie settled himself back against his headboard. “Actually, listen, let me ask you something.”

“Okay?”

“Does Rick know? Does he know that you know? Or that you told me?”

“No.” Steve answered, finally relaxing his fake nonchalance into real relaxation, folding his hands on the table and propping his chin up on them. “I figured if anyone had the right to rip his balls off it would be you.”

Eddie nodded. 

That he could understand. 

“I get that, but there’ll be no ball ripping from where I stand. No, I want to hit him where it hurts.”

“Woulda hurt me plenty.”

“Oh, I’m sure. But the only thing Rick loves more than his own balls is his car.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, he’s like, obsessed with that thing. It’s weird. It’s not even that nice of a car.”

“I’d love to say he has bad taste but considering he picked the both of us, I’m pretty sure his tastes are actually immaculate.”

“Just his decisions are bad.”

“Exactly.”

“Well.” Steve sighed. “I’d love to help any way I can. I hate that I was involved in this, in what he did to you.”

“To us, Stevie. To us.”

“Right, so what’s the plan then?”

“When are you due to see him next?”

Eddie pulled his van into the parking lot of the bar. It was halfway across town and a place that he never frequented if he could help it. Rick liked it though, always had. Eddie just liked other places around town more.

But it could be cute, he supposed. A small little country and sports type place that had a rainbow flag behind the bar and a small number of regulars who, according to Steve, wouldn’t do anything unless you got between them and their drink. 

He knew that Steve was inside with Rick, playing up the flirty angle and acting tipsier than he actually was to put him at ease.

Steve had mentioned one of his signature moves involved pool, bending over the table and wiggling a little bit to keep the attention on him. Pulling out a little pout whenever he missed a shot or asking for help to line up his cue.

Eddie would be more upset by the fact that he was missing the sight of it if he didn't know he'd have the opportunity to see it himself at some point in the future.

They had talked for so long that first night, long enough that the sun was starting to come up by the time they'd both dragged themselves away from their phones to sleep.

They’d talked about their families, their friends, what they were doing in life right now as opposed to what they had hoped they would be doing when they were teenagers. They talked about their school selves and their dating lives and as the conversation wore on Eddie found himself thinking again and again about how long it had been since it had felt so easy to talk to someone like that.

It had been a very long time since Rick had put any effort into getting to know him as he grew through their two years together, like he expected Eddie to stay the same person as he was at the start of the relationship.

After that first night where they’d figured out their master plan, he and Steve had just… kept talking. Throughout the rest of the week up until tonight, they were in almost constant contact, only really taking a break to sleep and work.

Eddie felt connected to Steve and in some roundabout way he was thankful to Rick for bringing him into his life.

He’d even met Robin in passing one day, living two floors below him, holding the door open for him as he tried to wrestle with grocery bags. 

She was so weird. He kind of loved her the second she opened her mouth. Honest, but with the sharpest tongue he’d ever met on a person. 

She had knocked on his apartment door later that evening to tell him Steve was calling over to visit and asking if he wanted to come around to meet him. 

Steve had apparently delegated the asking to her because he was too nervous to do it himself.

Again, adorable.

Steve was somehow even sweeter and even saltier in person than he was over the phone and Eddie tried hard, he tried really hard not to look too much or let his fucking horomones run away with him but Jesus. H. Christ it was difficult. 

The sweetness of his soft sweaters and polos, his gentle smiles and understanding words matched with his salty mean girl attitude that would slip out every so often and the bitchiest of eye rolls that made Eddie’s heart jump.

Eddie was also trying to feel bad about what was happening but honestly, he was losing reasons to care that much.

He hadn’t texted or called Rick once in the last week and Rick himself had never reached out which all at once made Eddie realise he was the primary communicator in the relationship and it hadn’t been reciprocated in a long, long time. 

Adding onto that was the knowledge that Rick was still fucking cheating on him and was in regular contact with Steve left Eddie only half heartedly feeling bad.

He and Steve would go over the screenshots of the conversation together every night and every night Eddie found it harder and harder to hang up the phone.

He was pretty sure Steve was feeling the same way. 

They kept just catching each other staring. Or smiling or, pulling back from touching too much and he was almost sure that as soon as Rick was out of the picture for the both of them, something was going to blossom.

Even now, with Steve inside, flirting up a storm with Eddie’s ex-boyfriend who didn’t know he was an ex yet, they would be ending the night together. 

Robin was waiting back at her apartment with an alibi ready if Eddie needed it though he suspected he wouldn’t.

Neither he nor Rick had a great track record with the police and it would be more trouble than it was worth to get them involved.

Speaking of, Eddie spotted Rick’s car, some souped up four wheel drive monstrosity of small dick syndrome sitting in the shadows and away from the cameras of the bar where Steve had convinced him to park with a suggestion of something happening in those shadows later on. 

He hopped out of his van and threw open the back doors, grabbing his bag of goodies before sidling around Rick’s car to wait.

When the chords of some Shania Twain number started to leak through the walls, the signal he’d been waiting for, the sound loud enough to drown out what Eddie would be doing, he dropped his bag to the floor.

Curling his keys into his fingers and with almost a skip in his step Eddie began to carve a stripe through the immaculate and expensive paint work. Working his way around to the drivers side, he lifted the key up before bringing it back down.

With a little bit of sickening glee, he hacked the word CHEATER into the side of the car, the side that would be immediately visible from the bar door and the side Rick would have to see every time he wanted to get in and get out of the driver's seat.

At least until he paid a bomb to get it fixed.

Eddie had connections in this town. Working as a mechanic here for years would do wonderful things to extend this pain. 

Rick knew fuck all about cars. 

Tucking his keys back into his pocket, he sidled back around to his duffel bag, unzipping it and pulling out his Stanley blade.

Unsheathing it, he gripped it tight in his hand and punched it down into the nearest tyre, listening with satisfaction as the thing slowly deflated before moving onto the other three.

A second Shania song had started up. 

He could hear Steve crooning out from inside, getting louder and Eddie knew he was running out of time. 

He pulled Steve’s baseball bat from the duffle and gave it a little twirl, the same one he’d seen Steve do when he’d first handed it off and he had tried so hard not to be attracted to it. 

He’d failed miserably. 

Maybe Eddie could deal with a gym bunny if that gym bunny was Steve.

With an almighty swing, he brought the bat down, shattering one of the headlights with an almighty crash that wasn’t quite drowned out by the karaoke inside.

Rearing back Eddie swung again, smashing the other headlight and while the music didn’t cut off, he could clearly hear Steve inside calling out for Rick to “Wait!”

Okay, only a few seconds left.

Pulling the bat back and letting the anger and betrayal and indignation flow through him, he brought the bat down hard into the windshield where it embedded itself, the spider cracks of the tempered glass making the thing practically opaque.

The bat was fucking stuck.

Eddie knew that if he was able to pull hard enough he would be able to release the whole windshield from the car but he didn’t even have the strength in him to budge the bat.

“What the fuck?!”

Eddie slowly released his hands from the bat and turned, looking at Rick standing in the doorway of the bar, his mouth hanging wide open in shock, unable to believe what he was seeing. Steve was standing just behind him, with one hand over Rick’s chest.

To anyone else it would look like a comforting gesture, maybe. A show of support. 

But Eddie could tell the hand was there to hold Rick back if he decided to lunge. 

Both Steve and Rick dragged their gaze over the flat tyres, the word carved into the side, the bat stuck in the windshield.

“Hey sweetheart.” Eddie called across the distance, feeling comfortable enough to turn his back to pick up his bag, trusting Steve to at least shout if Rick was about to tackle him.

“Eddie,” Rick breathed, still open-mouthed somehow. “What in the god damned hell has gotten into you?!”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” He slung the bag over his shoulder and held his hand out.

Steve patted Rick twice on the chest and stepped out from behind him. 

Rick watched him walk away looking even more bewildered than before.

With one hand Steve took Eddie’s and with the other he grabbed the bat, wiggling it a few times before pulling it free. 

They broke apart as they reached Eddie’s van, Steve climbing into the passenger seat and Eddie throwing his bag in the back before starting up the van from his position in the driver's seat.

He leaned over Steve to shout out of the window, “Have a nice life, asshole!”

As the van tore out of the lot, Steve stretched both hands out of the window, two middle fingers extended until Rick, still frozen on the spot, was out of sight.

When he pulled himself back inside, Eddie saw him glance his way, a huge grin on his face.

Eddie had a smile to match, whooping into the night as they sped down the road.

AO3

@geekymagicalpotato

Big thanks as always to @hbyrde36 for her magnificent beta work and to the STWG for their motivation.

[ofstoriesandstardust]

From the October prompts:

“⁹⁾ the taste of honey from someone else’s lips” with Boone!

october prompts! (which i am absolutely still accepting)

listen... i wrote this while on the bus listening to too sweet by hozier and sort of, momentarily, became unhinged.

wc: 473

The afternoon Oklahoma sun beams down on you as you wrinkle your nose, licking your lips. You make a noise in the back of your throat as you turn your head, Boone laughing at you as you do. You offer the flavored honey stick out to your boyfriend, something he gladly takes as he sucks on his own. 

“Every time, I think I’m gonna like those and I never do.” 

Boone grins at you, all teeth, as he finishes his. “Yeah but it always works out for me in the end.” 

You snort, glancing behind you to see where Dani has disappeared to as you and Boone sit outside of a local ice cream place down the street from the farmer’s market you’d been helping Cathy at. “Yeah, cause you always end up with mine.”

Boone takes a beat too long to respond and you look back to him. He swallows, something shifting in his face. “Something like that.” He rasps. 

You tilt your head, curious. “Yeah?” 

He flushes, red creeping up past the bandana on his neck. “If I tell ya, ya can’t make fun.” 

“I wouldn’t.” 

He grins sheepishly, leaning on the table like he’s about to tell you the most confidential secret he’s ever kept. “I like it cause your lips always taste like honey afterwards. Real sweet.” 

It’s your turn to flush as your brain turns to putty, little to do with the heat. “What?”

He leans back, arm resting on the empty chair next to him. “‘S why I keep convincing you to try them.” 

It takes everything in you not to jump your boyfriend right there, having enough wherewithal to remember you’re in a very public space. 

So you do what any sane person would do. 

Drag Boone back to the truck, pushing him up against the back of it, as you tug on his shirt to pull him down to meet you. He obliges eagerly, hands cupping your face.

You hum, pulling away as he breathes rather heavily for only having kissed for such a short time. 

“You’re right, you do taste like honey.” You comment. “So sweet, just like you Booney. Tastes so much better coming off your lips.”

He groans, hands falling to grip your waist. “Can’t do that to me, honey, not while we’re in public like this.” 

You sigh, knowing he’s right. Dani was supposed to be back any minute with your ice cream and you’d really rather not face Kate’s wrath if she finds out you and Boone disappeared, just to make out against the back of Tyler’s truck no less. 

You press another short kiss to Boone’s lips, leaving him chasing you. “Something for you to think about until later.” You tease, squeezing his hip as you turn. 

He groans again, head thumping against the window. 

“You’re killing me sweets!” 

[blueteller]

Hi, dear person! Do you happen to know around how old Bud was when he used the cup or if he was already mercenary king? I feel like he probably became that afterwards but cannot remember if it was mentioned for the life of me or even what did bro have that he was dying TT

Sorry for bothering you with this but idk who'd be able to answer. The fandom wiki didn't mention it.

Hello, dear person!

I honestly did not recall whether Bud ever used the jar himself or not at first. So I searched for any mention of it. Here's what I found:

‘Based on the history left with my family, the jar has been used three times until now.’

-TCF Part 1 Chapter 347

And:

‘Is it fine to just bring that jar out? Isn’t it an ancient artifact?’ ‘Yes.’ The Mercenary King then continued in a serious tone. ‘You just need to return it within three days.’ […] ‘…Does that mean Eruhaben-nim can’t break it when he uses it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why?’ Bud Illis had looked down. ‘The curse of the wind blades around Wind Island will chase after the person who took the artifact and destroyed it.’ One of the gatekeepers in the Mercenary King’s household had tried to steal the ancient artifact and run. However, that gatekeeper was killed like the other corpses of Wind Island three days later. Even the gatekeeper’s family members were all killed except one person to continue the line. They were killed even though they were not at Wind Island. The wind was said to have chased after them no matter where they were. As for the ancient artifact, it was swept up by a whirlwind and returned to its proper spot. ‘Nobody dared to desire that ancient artifact after that. Many gatekeepers never even went into the temple because they were afraid of the curse.’ They were worried that they might get greedy and try to run with the ancient artifact. They were also worried that they would use it to heal someone and the jar would reach its limit. Many different fears prevented the gatekeepers from taking it. ‘But you were a gatekeeper who went in and used it?’ ‘You’re right. I am a bit brave. Thanks to that, I was able to determine the approximate number of remaining times it could be used, as well as its limits. What do you think? Friend, don’t you think you’re going to lose this drinking bet?’

-TCF Part 1 Chapter 349

Bud Illis said that the jar had been used three times, according to his family's history. Which means there were two before himself, with additional one who tried to steal the jar. Making Eruhaben the fourth and last person to use it.

Bud's age isn't specified, but since Adin's men found out a rumor about an aritfact that could "give a person a new life", I assume it was old news; there is quite big distance between the two continents and international information flow is slow, even taking Arm into account. And the jar was supposed to be a secret, so. So the events when Bud used it took place probably quite some time before canon timeline.

Bud is a regular human, he can't be REALLY old like Beast People or Elves or Dragons; his age is never specified, but the fact that he's never described as very young or very old makes me believe he's somewhere in his 30's. Personally, my headcanon is that Bud found Glenn Poeff injured when they were both young (I imagine them as teenagers, maybe around 14-18, it would fit with the timeline of when the Eastern Assassin Households fell) and used the jar to save his life. It's exactly the sort of thing Bud would do, "being a bit brave" and all, and it would make sense how the rumor would start. It would also explain the bond between the two and the sort of dynamic they have, with Glenn not being surprised when Bud acted reckless. It would fit well with how TCF friendships work in general.

I couldn't find any more information about Bud and the jar in the novel, but I might have missed something. Remember, most of that are my personal speculations. In any case, I hope it can be useful :)

[magalidragon]

🏒 the deal 🎶 | “Sometimes people sneak up on you and suddenly you don't know how you ever lived without them.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY @youwerenevermine! 🥳🥰😘🤗🎂🎈🎊🎁 Okay fine whatever so I am a few hours your time early, but I was so excited to share and honestly, the world is going to end soon and I wanted to get ahead of the game. I went back and forth over what to do for you and couldn’t decide so went with this. The original hockey boyfriend Mr. Garrett Graham and sassy Hannah Wells! It is Jonerys meets THE DEAL! I hope you like it! So grateful to this fandom for introducing me to you! Love you bby! 😘

There was a very strong possibility Jon Snow had made a terrible mistake making this deal with Daenerys Targaryen. He figured it was easy enough; she was a smarty pants and could help him get his grade up in what was supposed to be an "easy A" philosophy class and keep him from getting benched. In doing so, he'd pretend to date her and the guy she had a crush on-- fucking Robb, his own damn cousin-- would see her as a bit more than weird silver-haired purple-eyed Dany and want to ask her out. Since Robb wanted anything he couldn't have-- particularly if Jon had it first.

Now he was watching Robb openly flirt with her and was squeezing his beer bottle so hard he figured he'd be benched not for his shitty philosophy grade but for having to get stitches in his stick hand. It was supposed to be an easy quid-pro-quo. A deal. Started off more annoying than anything else-- Dany could not have cared one single snowflake that he was Queen Alysanne University's star left winger and frequently let him know it. He honestly appreciated it, even if he had to really wear her down, chasing her all over Winterfell to get her to concede.

That had honestly been fun. Then there were their random long conversations after studying. Topics ranged from the best pizza toppings-- pepperoni and more pepperoni for him, while she saw nothing wrong with pineapple on her pizza-- to the best Marvel movie-- he didn't mind that movie about 'The Eternals' while she thought it sucked and liked 'Ant Man' more, all the way over to which House of Commons member should win the two highly competitive ridings near Winterfell or who really won the War of Five Kings?

He also had admitted to her some things he'd never shared with anyone. That he might be the aloof "Ice Man" of QAU hockey who could get any girl he wanted, he actually played that image outside of his truly private life. In reality he just couldn't think of girls, he was too busy trying to do his best to keep his grades up to get a very difficult degree in metallurgy and cultural anthropology while also making sure he didn't lose his rookie contract with the Winterfell Wolves professional hockey team.

Just like he knew all she wanted was to get the bonus money from the School of Drama and Music's winter showcase to help with her mother's medical bills, back in Pentos. That her dream was to sing on stage at the King's Landing Opera House.

All of that swam in his head, those conversations and late nights, sitting out in the quad on a blanket while she quizzed him on long dead Maesters, or that time she'd come to one of his games and he'd scored a hat trick, so she ahd to come to every singel one afterward.

He had done his job; he talked her up to Robb. He lingered in the living room of his and Robb's shared house when they would talk, just in case there needed to be extra prodding. Now they were on a bloody, fucking date.

"Jon, buddy, let go of the beer. The beer didn't do anything to you. Come on man, there you go." His friend and other roommate, Satin, carefully pried his fingers off the glass neck, moving the bottle to the oak bartop. "Alright, so when are you going to tell her?"

"Huh?" He was now glaring at the back of Robb's stupid auburn head, wondering if he could cut off those fucking curls while he was sleeping and blame their fourth roommate Theon. "Tell her what?"

"That you're in love with her, you dipshit."

Thank the gods he wasn't holding the beer bottle because he'd have definitely dropped it. He also was glad he didn't have any beer in his mouth, because that would have been sputtered everywhere as he gaped at Satin, who was now studying his fingernails nonchalantly. "Wha...what...I'm not....she's a friend! She wasn't just a friend, she was...Dany.

Dany, whose first words to him were: "I'm sorry do I know you?"

Dany, who always tied her long silver braids up on her head in a knot using pencils. Who hummed random song llyrics and chords and scribbled them on ltitle pieces of paper. Who had a voice that sounded like fucking angels from teh rafters. Who snorted and cackled when she laughed. Who called him "Wolf Man" instead of "Ice Man" because he had a wolf back home and one tattooed on his arm.

Dany....Dany who always smelled like lemons and lavender and who...

He blinked. It was like seeing everything under a different filter. Brighter. Across the bar, he watched Dany laugh at something Robb said, but it didn’t meet her eyes. She was playing with the silver guitar pick she used, something he had learned was a nervous habit. Her eyes— vibrant, happy lavender— did not fully meet his, but he knew she had glanced his way.

Gods. Was he in love with her? Was that what this feeling was? He couldn’t love her. He had to focus on hockey and studying and…it was just easier to keep that other side of him out there. If Jon Snow actually found a girl…a music major who didn’t know a deke from a slapshot and thought there were quarters not periods…he’d never hear the end of it.

He didn’t care. He didn’t want her with Robb. “And why is that?” Satin asked.

Fuck he said that out loud? “Because she’s mine,” he snapped. He paused. “No she is her own person of course I don’t own her obviously but…” He drained the beer bottle. This was one thing Robb was not going to steal from him. He stomped over to their table and didn’t even wait for his cousin to say anything before he glanced at Dany. “Get your coat, we still have to finish that Agatha show.”

She cocked her head up, confused. “Jon what…”

“Come on.”

“Jon,” Robb began, but he didn’t even have time to finish. Jon grabbed Dany’s hand, tugging her away and towards the back corridor. “What the seven hells Jon!”

If she wanted to fight him, she could. He’d let her anyway. Dany did not pull very hard and protested over Robb’s loud complaining. “Jon seriously what the fuck are you doing?!” She pushed at his chest when he tugged them into the stairwell that led up to the bar manager office, the dim lighting throwing her face in relief. She was fuming. She was a dragon, he expected it. “What was that!?”

“I want to see something.” He didn’t wait for a response. He had to do this. So he crashed his mouth down over hers.

The shock had her gasping, lips parting under his. Soft, plump, perfect lips, and he pressed gently, his hands dropping to her small waist to hold her upright against the wall. She had her hand on his shoulder and for a second he didn’t think she was going to kiss back and made to pull away, apology at the ready, knowing he had fucked this up completely.

Until her hands dove into his hair and she opened her mouth wider, moaning and pulling him to her. He groaned, desperate now, a man who had his first taste of water after wandering a desert, and cupped her jaw, angling her head so he could rise over her, sliding his tongue along hers. Gods. She tasted like strawberries. How!? One of life’s mysteries, he supposed.

The need for air separated them, their breathing ragged and foreheads touching, noses brushing. Her gaze lifted, meeting his. “I take it you don’t think I should see Robb?”

He shook his head, whispering, “Come home with me. I’ll make you a deal.”

“And what’s that?”

He kissed her again, nipping her bottom lip. Her breasts were pressed to his chest and his knee had wedged itself between hers. They were about ten seconds away from a public indecency charge. His voice dropped, gravelly. “You come home with me and I’ll make you come within ten minutes. Five, even.”

Her cheeks flushed pink. “And what do you get out of this deal?” she asked.

He pretended to think, before flashing a grin. “The knowledge I made you come. Oh and, our next movie night you don’t wear underwear.”

She smirked now. “I am not one of your puck bunnies.”

“And you know I don’t do puck bunnies.”

After a second, she barely nodded. “Alright. Let’s see what you’ve got Wolf Man.”

“So it’s a deal then Targy?” She hated that nickname. The glare she shot him had him grinning.

She pulled at his hand, towards the back exit. “It’s a deal.”

[summercreolefanfictioner]

the scent wafts in, her name making him beg on his knees BONUS CHAP 1

pairing: dabi / todoroki touya x fem!oc / reader (MODERN AU)

summary: she was on a date, yet another man captivated her heart with his beautiful blue gaze (fem!oc-centric)

(in which Sonohara airs her side of story.)

themes: mentions of cheating, sex, alcohol, cigarettes etc YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

notes: forgive me for errors; I just had to post due to my excitement lol sonohara's pov gives so much insights on how the two of them started and I like romance bcos I am just a girl 💅

------

She didn't know what she did to be stared upon by the most beautiful pair of blue eyes—cold, intense, piercing her like blades halted in time and she was too slow to get away from them. She was sitting alone in the middle of the bar, her boyfriend doing the same shitty lame of an excuse about his stomachache and going to the toilet when she knew he was doing someone out there, probably screwing with a random woman until her senses go wild and hazy and she knows this woman wouldn't be able to walk back to the bar and he'd be feeling refreshed with that smug face like an accomplishment; like another earned medal in his collection of awards.

It was one thing to accuse one's boyfriend of cheating; it was another thing to know it was true.

High school was her supposed spring of bloom, a newfound romance with her boyfriend bore fruit and it had been bliss. Had... had it been for him to change his mind afterwards. It was like the songs. Young love doesn't last forever, everyone's always out to chase the thrill—just like him. They exchanged a lot of promises before, about being each other's "only" and "forever," but he quickly forgot about those the moment they went separate ways during college. They met new people in their perspective universities, and while she still had her heart in his hands, it only took him a while before he started becoming so secretive, so easily annoyed when she voices out her opinions, and so distracted and uninterested when she tells him about her day. She tried confronting him, but he would immediately shot down her accusations, that it was all in her head; that she was making up things to fight about.

She wanted to lie, to stay because he comes around and makes her hope that he had changed and he finally realized she was the one he truly needed. Life was not a story of boy changes himself because of a girl. Life was boy decides to break the girl's heart because he knew he can. This was her painful reality.

"I want to break up with him... He... I saw him cheating on me... many times already."

"What are you talking about? Think about your future for once! He's from a well-off family, and he earns so much as an architect. Be grateful he's still coming back to you. Those women are just flings. Sex and love are two different things!"

Those were the things her mom said, all because she doesn't see anything redeeming about her (not that she cared, honestly; she never had the thought of earning anyone's approval anyway). Realizing this twisted routine became her new normal, she feared breaking up. She feared bringing the topic to light because she got used to him being around despite not caring anymore if he went out on a few dates with someone else while he's at work elsewhere or having sex with a random stranger he met. She lost it in her to care, to savor the true love she wanted.

It wasn't love. The love has already faded. It was just her scared of a life without this normal chaos.

Until this one man with the pair of beautiful blue eyes, unruly dark hair, mysterious boyish charm, and dangerous vibes sat in front of her; on the same seat her boyfriend should've been if he wasn't so busy doing something (rather someone) else. He was quite rugged, punk rock style encasing his charm, and with the heavy scent of whiskey and mint lingering around him. She wanted to squint her nose so bad at the smell, but that would be a bit rude, though. Nonetheless, he was boyishly handsome in her book, an enigma of a man whose features did not coincide with the traditional "handsome Japanese guy."

I bet he looks more handsome with a lighter hair color.

"You don't fit in here," he said coldly, his nonchalant tone evident as how he stared at her like he was staring straight through her soul; like he was judging her entirety with every fiber of his being.

Honestly, she couldn't argue wtih him, especially when it was true. She didn't fit in here; she didn't want to be here in the first place, if not for her boyfriend who insisted she should try going to a bar to celebrate her promotion at work. And much to her surprise, this man in front of her was a lot nicer than he looks—even gave her his leather jacket, making all the burnt scars across his body visible. Some girls around her even gawk at the sight of his perfectly toned muscles because my oh my, he was ripped. RIPPED TO THE CORE. She was sure she had only seen men like these in the movies, but for this man to talk to someone like her, it was like a dream.

This is just a silly crush, okay? No big deal. Stop acting like a schoolgirl.

Afterwards, he told her to come with him and his friends outside where they could watch a romance movie and have a smoke. Well, a weaker part of her wanted to, like she was so willing for this man to just take her somewhere far away from here and never return to her morbid reality; the rational part of her warned her not to be rude, that she still has her date out there. So, she declines, a lump in her chest with the way she lied about her boyfriend's whereabouts. That he was having a stomachache or something. How foolish a girl can be.

"Are you sure you want to go by that answer?"

Of course, she was not. So when he grabbed his keys and held her hand, she already that this guy, whatever his name was, already had her heart in his hands. This was cruel; this was thrilling; this was making her happy and guilty for it. Attraction and temptation were two devils conniving to begin her downfall as she took in the way his warm and rough hand was so gentle as he guided her to his car. Even the stares he gave her when she and Himiko were watching the movie was too much for her heart, scolding herself mentally for not being able to control her emotions. At the same time, she would reason out, It's all his and his beautiful, mysterious eyes' fault that I am this way. He should stop being beautiful, at least.

When he left them to take a hit of his cigarette, they watched the movie quietly. It was a comfortable silence until Himiko affirmed the emotions burning in her.

"You like Dabi," the blonde stated with a sneaky smile, the same Cheshire cat thingy that she quite loathed at the moment.

"Da—who?"

Himiko rolled her eyes. "Dabi! The guy with the dark hair. You like him. You keep on ogling him, Sahara-chan!"

It was out in the open, and all she could do was blush in embarrassment. Well, there's no harm telling about Himiko everything, right? She's never had a friend aside from her older sister, so might as well have someone who'll listen to her pour out her real feelings.

"About earlier, I also like romance, Toga-chan," she started, seeing how Himiko was invested in whatever she wanted to say. "I just think romance does not suit me. I have a crush on..." she momentarily forgot the man's name, "him... but, you see, my boyfriend... even if I don't love him anymore, I don't know how to leave him."

"Shouldn't it be easy, though? You just tell him you're done with him and his bullshit," Himiko argued, shocking her with her vulgar words. "I don't know about the real details, but I heard him and Jin talk earlier and they said that jackass was having sex with one of the cocktail servers."

Right. Of course, he would. He had always done that before; have sex with someone while on a date with her.

"I am scared of the future. I am scared of the next step. He had been a constant even if I don't want him around. My life has stability as long as he is around."

Because once I break off things, my mom would never hear the end of it. People will talk. His parents will beg me to take him back no matter what. My father will do nothing about it like he always does. And that guy... he would take control of things to make himself look good. He does that everytime. I never win. I will always be in the wrong, after all.

"But... don't you want to be happy?" Himiko suggested. "I bet Dabi will make you happy."

"Huh?"

And before they could talk about it more, the guys have returned inside the car, and they all proceeded to watch the movie again. The more she watched the movie, the more she could relate to both the female characters. The feeling of wanting freedom was so liberating, and the feeling of wanting to be right was not in her favor. She sighed, and when she accidentally looked at the rear mirror, the man was staring at her.

She quickly looked away. Why is he staring? Has he been watching me?

And when he insisted to drive her home, she knew she had to mention that damn guy forcibly even though he was already out of the picture. She just had to, because this was all wrong. She should be catching feelings once she's single, and yet she still has no idea when that will happen. But nonetheless, being alone with this man who calls himself Dabi was so, so, so, soooo wrong. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG!

They had an argument at first, with him suddenly pulling her out of his car and sneering at her as he trapped her against a nearby wall. She was supposed to be scared, to be frightened at the proximity of him leaning close to her ear as the smell of cigarettes kept suffocating her. But she held herself, maintained her composure, and did not cry or blush.

"I can walk from here. Thank you again, Dabi-kun. Please send my regards to Twice-san and Toga-chan."

But "Dabi" did not let her go, still drove her home and even walked her to her door. That guy has never done that to her, but this man did. It was new. It was a fresh breath of air. It was a miracle to know yhat there were still men like him out there. And as she went inside, she held his jacket close to her body, imagining herself being trapped against that wall. She should've returned the jacket and go back to her sad reality without this Dabi or whoever he said he was (because she couldn't believe he was born with a name that means cremation.) But no; she wanted a piece of her own delusion.

She will take a dip, hoping she won't get burned later on.

next chapter

masterlist

[rita-repulsa-ke]

rain check

More Agatha/Rio content, kissing, a discussion of sex. Features my ongoing headcanon that Agatha has violent commitment-phobia and also speaks incredibly anachronistically for whatever time period this is supposed to be in. Something about witches and time, one imagines.

Agatha walked into their shared room at a crummy country inn to find Rio sprawled on the bed, absently spinning her knife. She looked up when she saw Agatha, watched her as she moved around the room, finally said, “Ags.”

“Hmm?” Agatha, who had been sorting any number of vials out of her bag, asked, with a glance at her lover.

“Read my mind.”

Agatha pursed her lips, sauntered over to clamber on the bed, straddling Rio without making contact. She lowered her head until her hair brushed the other woman’s cheeks, then screwed up her face and pretended to concentrate, both of them aware she couldn’t actually touch Rio’s thoughts. She hmmed to herself, shifted her weight to one elbow, toyed with the top button of Rio’s shirt. “You’re thinking you want me to kiss you very slowly and sweetly, and cuddle you while I undress you, take my time holding you, before I—“

Rio’s hand locked tight around her wrist. “Yes. Do that.”

Agatha burst into delighted, obnoxious laughter as she tumbled off, sprawling next to Rio. “I am so good at that!” she said. “Got you going, huh?”

Rio drew in a breath so deep it stirred the air in distant countries, then scrambled atop her lover, tapping her cheek with her knife. “We could do it my way.”

Rio’s way was forceful, rough, demanding, take or be taken, much more to Agatha’s taste except she really preferred to be in control and that was one of the few battles she’d never successfully won. Also, once Rio really got going, she often didn’t stop until Agatha was worn to the bone and had to turn to magic to satisfy her.

Though that was hardly a bad thing.

“Neither,” Agatha said, looking up at Rio, preening her hair in a way she knew the other woman liked. “Sorry, babycakes, rain check? I want to perform a waning moon ritual and this is my last day for it.”

Rio made a low, predatory growl that would have sent sensible people fleeing. It only made Agatha laugh and tug her down to kiss her, an unhurried working, the transmutation of gentle pressure into the feeling of being adored, protected, cared for.

“Liar,” Rio said when she pulled away and Agatha laughed, kissed the tip of her nose.

“Come along and help me, and afterwards, I promise we will go to bed and make the kind of love they write sagas about.”

Rio blinked, then burst into shrill, seemingly unwarranted laughter. By this point, Agatha was used to it, only sighed and petted her until suddenly Rio’s lips were on hers, kissing her like an invasion, her tongue inside Agatha before the other woman even realized her defenses had been breached. She fought back, of course, but she was glad that she couldn’t make sound, because she suspected she would have been making very stupid ones.

When Rio pulled back, leaving her mouth red and bruised, she chased after, aching for more. The other woman rolled off her, came to her feet, then glanced over as Agatha flopped back with a groan. “Change your mind?”

“Nooooo,” Agatha snarled, forcing herself to sitting. “But good effort.”

Rio’s laughter came out in little bursts, like she were expelling something from her body. “I could convince you,” she said between giggles.

Agatha, about to voice a challenge, looked up and met her lover’s eyes, found herself caught by what she saw in them, power and hunger and the potential for an evening spent experiencing any number of little deaths. She pressed her teeth into her lower lip, imagined them as Rio’s teeth—

“How important is this ritual, Ags?” Rio purred, flicking her knife back and forth like a cat flicking its tail prior to pouncing.

“No no no, we are doing this, I am not waiting another cycle,” Agatha said, scrambling out of bed before Rio leapt, knowing that if they made contact again, she was doomed. “Come on, it will only take a few hours. We don’t even have to make it back here, what’s more witchy than being naked in the woods?”

“You complain about the bugs and rocks and sticks—“

Agatha held up a hand to forestall this litany, once Rio started making lists, sometimes she forgot to stop. “I promise I will not complain even if a spider is crawling up my ass. Scout’s honor.”

Rio burst into snorting laughter, but reached out to take Agatha’s hand. “What kind of ritual is it, anyway?”

*****

When they crawled back into the room at pre-dawn hours, caked in guts, even Rio hollow-eyed with exhaustion, Agath stumbled into the bed, and collapsed face-first, too tired to even wash off the remains of that which she’d called up and then had to hastily put down.

A heavy weight crawled onto her back and Rio nuzzled at the back of her neck. “The kind of love they write sagas about,” she murmured.

“You have got to be kidding,” Agatha said. “I’m disgusting, you’re disgusting and I’m not sure I can roll over.” Even speaking felt exhausting.

“You didn’t tell me we were summoning a manticore, Ags.”

“Chimera. It was a chimera.”

Rio shrugged, disinterested.

“I needed a fresh chimera liver. Easiest way is to get it from a fresh chimera.”

“Out of curiosity, what would you have done if I weren’t there?”

“I had things under control,” She ignored the way that made Rio shriek with laughter. “You being there was helpful, though. So thank you.”

“I have a suggestion for thanking me.”

“It’s not happening. I can barely move and I’m too tired to even do the magic thing. I’d lose control and no one wants that, not again.”

Rio lay there for a minute, so long that Agatha started to drift to sleep, when there was a flare of pain along the back of her neck, the sudden heat of her own blood on her skin. She made a mumbled exclamation of surprise and then Rio’s tongue pressed into the wound, dragged along it, lapping up her blood in a way that was—

If the exhaustion had been a little less bone-deep, she might have at least managed to make the kind of love that someone would have written amateur poetry about. But as it was, all she managed was a rumble of intermixed protest and desire.

Rio’s attentions closed the wound she had created and the other woman slowly toppled off her. “Enough for now. When we wake up, though…”

“Yeah, yeah. Baths, then the other thing.”

“Other thing first.”

“Ew. No. The guts don’t do it for me. Wait, they don’t do it for you, right? Please tell me you’re not into that.”

“Night, Agatha.”

“Ugh. I’m dating a freak.”

There was a long beat of silence where they both realized what she’d just said. Agatha began to fake-snore, too loudly, as she felt Rio worm toward her, against her.

“Dating,” the other woman hissed in her ear. “Daaaating.” The giggles were back, interjected between breaths. Fingers tugged at her hair, her clothes, excited, slightly too frantic. Agatha continued to valiantly fake sleep, desperate to avoid having any sort of conversation on this subject. Rio’s tongue licked over her cheek once and then she subsided, giggling to herself, still glued to Agatha’s side.

“Sleep well, love,” Rio said and pretended not to notice the way that made Agatha’s fake snoring stutter for a moment, which was almost kind for her.

Agatha managed the energy to slide a grime-encrusted arm around the other woman and felt something in her chest ease as she sank into true sleep, dreaming pleasant, erotic dreams of Death.

If you enjoyed this, consider reading scars or for something angstier, the present

[grey-gazania-fic]

In Dreams

Fingon visits Maedhros before the Third Kinslaying. Is he a dream, or is he a ghost? Rated T.

Maedhros lay on his side beneath his woolen blanket in the tent he shared with Maglor, unable to sleep. Thoughts of what he and his brothers planned to do were chasing themselves in circles throughout his head.

He had always known that it would come to this. He had tried – how he had tried – to keep the Oath at bay, leaving Elwing and her people untouched for twenty-six years. But no power on this earth could force the Oath to sleep forever, and all too soon, the fear had returned to gnaw at him – fear of the Everlasting Darkness; fear of failing his father; fear that Celegorm, Caranthir, and Curufin’s deaths would remain in vain.

So they had gathered, Maedhros and his remaining brothers, and sent Elwing messages that she had not heeded. They all agreed that there was nothing else to be done. If Elwing would not surrender the Silmaril, then they would have to take it by force. She had no right to it, none at all, and yet she was hoarding it greedily as though she had some valid claim.

As for waiting for Eärendil to return from sea – well, that was out of the question. He was no more likely to agree to return the jewel than Elwing was, and all his presence would do would bolster the Havens’ defenses. If they were going to attack, they would attack now, while the city was vulnerable. Any intelligent commander would do the same.

Eyes closed, he waited in vain for sleep to come, but it would not. Restlessly, he made to roll onto his other side -- and then shot upright when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Maglor, what–” he began to say. But it wasn’t Maglor. Maglor lay asleep on the other side of the tent. And, sitting between him and his brother, was someone Maedhros hadn’t seen outside of dreams since the Nírnaeth Arnoediad.

“Findekáno,” he breathed, and then closed his eyes. Clearly he was dreaming again, dreaming of his lover, his beloved, whom he had lost long ago in a battle of his own devising. At least this dream seemed to be one of the kinder ones; Fingon looked as he’d been in life, hale and whole, not burned by flame or broken beneath Gothmog’s axe the way he so often appeared in Maedhros’ dreams. And his hand on Maedhros’ shoulder was warm and solid.

“Findekáno,” he said again, and gazed into his beloved’s face.

“Russandol,” Fingon said, meeting Maedhros’ eyes. “Russandol, don’t do this. Let the Oath go. Leave Elwing’s people in peace.”

Maedhros looked away, suddenly angry. What did this dream-Fingon know of the Oath? What did he know of the way it tormented Maedhros and his brothers? Let it go? They could no more do that than they could fly.

“You know nothing,” he said, roughly pushing Fingon’s hand away. “You’re just a dream. You’re just my own doubts given shape, nothing more.”

Fingon’s eyes, which Maedhros knew to be blue, looked nearly black in the darkness of the tent. “Am I a dream?” he asked. “Or am I a warning? You cannot go back from what you’re about to do. And you will regret it. Even if you succeed, even if you reclaim your father’s Silmaril, you’ll regret what you did, just as you regretted what you did in Doriath.”

“Is that supposed to stop me?” Maedhros asked. “I regret everything. I regret my entire life. But I’m still bound by the Oath. If you really were Findekáno, you would know that.”

Fingon laughed – a dark, bitter laugh that sent a chill down Maedhros’ spine – and said, “If you really were the Russandol I loved, you would never attack innocent people. You did it once in Valinor, and I joined you, and afterwards, when I brought you back from Thangorodrim, you swore to me that you would not make that mistake again. But here you are, preparing to do it not a second time, but a third time. I expected better of you.”

“What do you know about it?” Maedhros demanded, anger bubbling in the pit of his stomach. “You’re just a dream.”

At that, Fingon reached out and pinched Maedhros’ arm, hard, leaving behind a burst of pain and a reddened mark. “Will you insist on deceiving yourself?” he asked. “I’m not a dream, Russandol. I’m a drop of mercy that I’m no longer certain you deserve. I’m your last chance to change course. Your last chance to do the right thing.”

“ I have no choice ,” Maedhros said, wielding the words like a blade. “There is no right or wrong here. There is only Elwing’s refusal and what I must do about it.”

“So you will attack a poorly armed settlement of those who fled your swords in Doriath. But Elwing isn’t alone. What if Balar comes to her aid? Will you fight Gil-galad? Will you kill my child?”

Maedhros looked away, unable to meet Fingon’s steady gaze. He wanted to say no, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to his beloved, especially not now that he was dead.

“I would endeavor not to,” he said quietly.

A hand shot out and grabbed him by the chin, fingers closing in an iron grip as Fingon forced Maedhros to look at him. He had changed; his skull was now cloven, and blood dripped down his face, landing hot and wet against Maedhros’ bare skin.

“Liar,” Fingon said. “You’ve fallen far, Maedhros Fëanorion. I see nothing of the man I loved left in you. Perhaps you deserve the Everlasting Darkness.”

Maedhros wrenched himself free of Fingon’s grip, sickened by the apparition in front of him. “Leave me be,” he demanded. “Torment someone else.”

Across the tent, Maglor stirred in his bedroll and mumbled, “Who are you talking to, Nelyo?”

“No one,” Maedhros said. “Go back to sleep, Maglor.”

Fingon had vanished. But a dark smear of his blood remained on Maedhros’ skin, which chilled Maedhros to the very bone.

[bingbongdapig]

I have a lot of thoughts

None of my thoughts are organized and I am not educated about the Percy Jackson universe. With that in mind, here is what I was thinking while reading chapters 1-9.

Percy Jackson

How on earth is Percy so "okay whatever" about everything? When he said he was built different I didn't think he was built DIFFERENT. Like, he just found out his best friend is a goat, his dad is a god, he watched his mum die and then he killed a Minotaur. And what was his reaction? "Okay." SHOULDN'T YOU BE EXPRESSING MORE EMOTION. Bro didn't even shed a TEAR when his mum evaporated in front of his eyes. And after he stabbed Mrs Dodds/Fury he DIDN'T TELL ANYONE???? LITERALLY WHY YOU NEED TO GET HELP PERCY*. "Half-bloods process the world differently." You don't have to say that twice.

*Oh my bad, I reread a couple chapters and just realized that Percy has hallucinations; he thought he hallucinated Mrs Dodds' existence entirely because nobody remembered her afterward and he didn't tell anyone because he didn't want to sound insane.

Edit: He was crying I didn’t read it clearly enough. My sincerest apologies.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

This doesn't really matter but I'm mad at myself for watching the television adaption of Percy Jackson before reading the books because I cannot imagine the characters with their canon appearances. On the cover, Percy has dark hair (which is canon) and I genuinely thought I purchased the wrong book. I looked up fanart of Annabeth and I thought I was going crazy because none of the art looked like Leah Sava Jeffries.

I'm disappointed that I don't get to read the scene from the show when Percy gets shoved into a lake by Annabeth. Instead, he just gets pushed in by some bitch from Ares' cabin. How sad.

Annabeth Chase

Annabeth is my new hero because HOLY SHIT she is the definition of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss (or whatever people say these days). When Annabeth and Percy officially meet for the first time he thinks she would be all "wow you killed a minotaur you're awesome" but instead she informs Percy that he drools when he sleeps. I would bow down to this girl any day and if you don't agree you deserve to be vaporized by a Minotaur and dragged through the River Styx.

Blue Food

What is the point of detailing that Percy's mum makes an effort to consume blue foods? I suppose it adds some depth to Sally Jackson's character and her relationship with Gabe but it seems weird to me. Perhaps it will be significant in future books?

Well, at least I now know that the bag of blue stuff Sally gave to Percy in the tv show was NOT blue crystal meth from Breaking Bad. It was candy or something (I'm still unsure).

Gabe Ugliano

I don't think this mf understands how lucky he is. The fact that Sally even glanced in his general direction will remain a mystery to me. WHY is she with him? She can do 10 times better, but now she won't have the chance (of course she will but I'm not meant to know that).

Nancy Bobofit

How can someone be called "Bobofit" and not be bullied? Seriously the bitches in my school would be calling her "Bobofat" in 2 seconds.

To End

Percy Jackson is cool.

Here's a meme.

[wardenred]

Angstober 1: Honorbound

Well, I've had my short break—let's start catching up on another month-long journey! I may or may not use the Angstober prompt to explore this new-ish plot bunny in multiple directions. We shall see.

Coming back home from the rain, I expect a tranquil evening with my nieces: dinner by the crackling fire, an hour or two playing chess with Alita afterward while Norra entertains us with run-on commentary on whatever book has captured her attention last. Instead, I am greeted by half of the manor’s stuff huddled in the entrance hall, pale-faced and wide-eyed.

The sight transports me right back to the big fire from a decade ago. Yet this time, no flames dance on the walls. Nobody’s dying.

Gods, I hope nobody is dying.

“What happened?” I ask, tugging off my gloves. Hopefully, whatever the problem is, magic can solve it. My skills are undeniably rusty, but stress has always been my best motivator. Especially if it affects the people under my care.

The servants look helplessly at me, at each other, at the floor that, now that I think of it, has been polished a little too well. I never thought it should be a necessity to see my reflection in the parquetry.

Finally, the butler steps forward. “My lord, there’s— Um, that is— Well—” I will my eyebrows to stay down. Khosh has always been the most eloquent person in this house. My father used to despise him for it. “You have a—a visitor.”

“In the library,” one of the maids blurts, and immediately covers her mouth with both hands.

I want to frown, to tell them they’re all acting ridiculous, to demand explanations. That’s what my father would do.

I am not my father.

I shrug off my wet cloak and hand it to Khosh when I pass him. “I shall see to it.” Whatever it is.

My footsteps echo on the slippery floor, and I grimace when I realize I’m trudging dirt over the impeccable surface. Outside, the rain intensifies, pounding against the windows like it wants to break in. Thunder rumbles in the distance. The last hour of sunlight we were supposed to get is clearly lost to the storm.

This is turning into a scene from one of those novels Norra especially loves to mock. The ones about destitute young ladies finding shelter in crumbling manors and experiencing the promptly falling in love with the cursed lord who harbors too many dark secrets.

But this is my manor. I am not cursed, nothing here is crumbling, and I certainly have no dark secrets that might threaten me.

Or so I believe, until I swing open the doors of the library and a man with the warmest brown eyes rises from my chair by the fireplace.

I stop in my tracks. My heart follows suit before it bursts into a frenzied gallop. I fear that he can hear it, that throbbing, painful beat in my ribcage.

For a long moment, we stare at each other. He’s smiling; I should, too, but the best I can hope for is keeping half my astonishment off my face. He shouldn’t be here. There is no logical reason for his presence. No ruler comes chasing the recluse that got away, not after ten long years. Moreover, in his own words, he never held that much regard for me.

A crack of lightning cuts open the gloomy sky outside. They say the sky's electricity has the power to reanimate the dead. Something about it certainly jolts my mind back into action.

“Your Majesty.” My back protests against the courtly bow—likely out of sheer spite. It’s been months since my injuries last bothered me, even in rainy weather. “I must confess the shock of your presence is nothing short of staggering.”

“It surprises me you’re surprised.” He takes a step closer. “You haven’t been responding to my letters. I had to come.”

The statement makes no sense. No matter my personal feelings, I always respond to any correspondence received from the capital and crown. I’m bitter, not suicidal.

“I’m afraid I genuinely don’t know what letters you speak of, Your Majesty.”

I search his face for signs of mistrust or anger, but he merely nods, pursing his lips tight. I notice that his golden hair is damp; he must have been caught in the rain, too. This should put us on equal footing, but I only grow more conscious of all the water dripping down from my soaked clothes.

“You haven’t received them, then. Things are worse than I thought.” The King’s eyes light up again. “Oh, well. We’ve always been good at tackling impossible challenges together, haven’t we, Rythan?” The distance between us shrinks when he takes another step; I fight the urge to flinch back. “I hope there are no pressing matters in your province, for I expect you to accompany me back to the court. We can take your girls with us if you wish, provided you’ve been passing your talents onto them.”

His order—for that’s what it is, regardless of his amiable tone—sinks in slowly. I want to refuse, of course. His very presence steers up the kind of emotions I viscerally detest. This province here needs me more than he ever did. His court is a vicious viper nest I should never like to set foot in again.

But he’s not just a shard of my past; he’s my king, and I am a lord of his kingdom, honorbound to serve in whatever capacity he determines.

I can’t fully swallow my pride, though. I’m entirely too out of practice.

“Of course, Your Majesty. I hope you’re going to give me a little more information than that, though.”

His smile is brighter than the next lightning flash. “Most certainly. Come. Let’s sit.” He gestures toward the fireplace, as if he were the master of this place and I a mere guest; the worst thing is, in so many ways that’s precisely the truth. “And stop acting like you’ve forgotten my given name.”

As if I could ever.

[m3rricat]

You Do Not Have To Be Good - Ch. 8

Story summary: Four months after the defeat of the Netherbrain, Astarion finds himself stuck in the mire of his past and all the anger and despair that comes with it. While wrestling with her traveling-companion-turned-lover’s misery, Cat makes an impulsive decision that sets off their first falling-out. This post-game short story is told alongside the full in-game story of the evolving relationship between Cat (the not-a-bard) and Astarion (needs no introduction) which varies from canon. Told from both POVs.

Chapter Masterlist

Chapter 8: Cat plays Astarion a song; then, a rat chase in the sewers.

Pairing: Astarion x female Tav

Chapter Content Warnings: violence against a teenager

Word Count: 4098

Read on AO3

A/N: Soooo definitely the silliest most self-indulgent chapter, but I think it's cute! Reminder that this is not canon compliant for purposes of fun.

__

The problem with volunteering one’s services to freeloaders is that the work was never, ever done.

They had murdered their way across these cursed lands. Had murdered all the cutthroats at Moonrise, then had gone on to murder Ketheric and afterwards, murdered him again as a gods-damned avatar of Myrkul. But when they had emerged from the caverns of viscera coated in viscera, they had been greeted by a somewhat sheepish Halsin and a crowd of refugees on top of the ruined tower.

Oh there had plenty of cheering, tearful thanks, all that. But, despite the fact they had dislodged what was supposed to be the final anchor of Shar’s curse, the land still very much appeared… cursed. And that is precisely what was happening, according to Halsin. The curse would begin to dissipate now. Slowly. How slowly? Oh, he did not know. These things were not common occurrences, after all. Might take a week. Might take a decade. And then he was looking at them sheepishly again, and opening his mouth, and—

“I’ll do it.”

Astarion turns abruptly at his lover’s hoarse croak.

To his left, Cat slumps where she stands. She looks magnificent, in a gore-smeared, death-warmed-over sort of way. And she is glaring at Halsin. Everyone shuts up for a moment, as if they can’t quite believe what they just heard.

“Cat, you—you don’t have to do this alone. To clear out the curse will take a concerted effort,” Halsin sputters at last.

“An effort I can do myself. I want to get this over with and get some gods-damned sleep. Now all of you—go on. Get.”

Cat has her arms akimbo as she shoos the crowd off the top of the tower. Astarion wonders at the fact that no one is putting up much protest—but that is her power. Persuasive even when she’s channeling someone’s ornery grandmother telling small children to get the hells out of her kitchen.

Her eye catches his as she drives away the rabble, and he is hit by the sudden strong feeling that she doesn’t mean for him to join them. So he stays conspicuously by her side until the last of them shuffle off down the stairs.

“Darling, are you quite alright?”

“Of course not,” she says tiredly, without turning. “But this needs to get done.”

“Hardly by you. You don’t owe anyone anything else by this point—”

She turns to him. “I’m not doing it for them,” she says quietly. Then she immediately returns to business. “Now—I just need you to sit… ah, here,” she says briskly, lightly guiding him by his elbow and escorting him over to what looks like the remains of an inner wall of the tower, short enough to sit on. Astarion sits as directed, feeling rather bemused.

“Dearest, are you going to explain a bit? What role am I playing here?”

Cat sets down her violin case and goes about marking a large magic circle on the pale flagstones with the soot from a half-burned piece of wood as she talks, punctuating it here and there with powdered silver from her satchel. “I’m going to purify the remaining magic by creating a…siphon, more or less. Something like this—loose magic that just needs to be purified, that’s something I can do pretty easily on a large scale. I just need enough positive emotion.” She talks briskly, straightening up from her last demarcation as she finishes. She drops the wood and goes to fetch her violin. As she takes it out, she turns back to Astarion. “I don’t need you to do anything. I just… need to be able to feel you nearby.” She drops his gaze almost like she’s embarrassed.

Astarion smiles inquiringly. “You need an audience?”

“Um. No. I need you for… the positive emotion I mentioned.” He still looks slightly confused. She sighs. “You’ll help me concentrate the emotion because… because you’re my inspiration for this piece,” she says quickly, stumbling over her words. Oh yes, her face is indeed turning red under the dried spatters of various filth. But Astarion can’t talk, because he’s feeling his face heat up slightly too. Which is no small feat to do to a vampire.

All the quips that spring to Astarion’s mind die on his lips. He honestly doesn’t know what to say. For someone as jaded and pessimistic as him, the incredibly romantic idea of being Cat’s muse makes him feel funny inside. In the end he just sits up straighter. Tries to smile in what he hopes is an encouraging way.

Cat flashes him a slightly queasy smile before bringing the violin to her chin. She takes a second to tune but is ready almost immediately. She closes her eyes, bow poised above the strings, and it feels as if the murky world around them is holding its breath.

Astarion is waiting for Cat to play to hear music, but a sound starts even before she strikes a note. So quiet at first he thinks he’s imagining it, but it’s there, seeming to come from everywhere. Soft, sweet, and eerie, a sound almost like an orchestral section of strings growing gradually louder. A faint silvery glow begins to emanate from the circle. Astarion is staring at Cat, knowing she’s doing it but no idea how, when she herself begins to play. Wistful and dreamlike. That’s how she starts, wending her way through with a sound as clear as crystal.

Yes, Astarion isn’t wrong—he can hear sounds reminiscent of various instruments—slightly alien, but familiar enough. It is the Weave around them responding, harmonizing. Transforming. Around the circle, the haze of magical energy is changing. Coming into the circle, into where Cat plays, it is concentrated shadow. But coming out—it’s clear. Light.

But those observations are barely registering in Astarion’s mind because he can’t tear his eyes or ears away from Cat, half-obscured in shadow. This music—he can’t pin it down. It’s more sparse than a typical orchestral piece, but no less powerful. She flits from major to minor harmonies, from firm statements to questing, desperate runs. The orchestral Weave comes and then it goes for a long stretch where it’s just Cat playing with her heart bared in a desperate, aching tone. He feels the scraping of her bow vibrate in his chest.

He can also feel her through the massive amount of magic energy she is filtering. He’s felt her through the tadpole and through her blood—the former a sharp, painful jolt; the latter, all-consuming intoxication. This sensation of her feels like her feather-light touches when she studies him tenderly. He lets his other senses release, lets himself get lost in it. His breath hitches as he falls farther into the vortex of sound. He can feel her playing as if he is in her. In her mind. The unconscious impulses in her brain driving such complicated action are overwhelming to him. But that’s just in the background of her brain. At the foreground—she is pushing her limits, pouring everything into phrasing both delicate and brutal, wrenching out every ounce of emotion to keep the magic flowing.

Astarion can feel her searching for him through the spell in which they are both enmeshed: she as the performer, he as the inspiration she feeds from. He might have cringed from her calling for him, from how she so unabashedly sees him as someone worthy of anything at all. But instead he finds himself reaching back without a thought, with his honest feelings of awe and affection.

And Cat leans on his mind. She is exhausted. She’s been playing nearly twenty minutes now, and she’s running on fumes, but she is exhilarated—like a hound that’s caught the scent trail, almost ferocious in her elation. She’s… having fun. Happy.

The Weave comes in full-force for the climactic end. Cat’s playing is frantic, then vicious, then playful. Dancing with the Weave’s own notes, fully entwined. And then it all comes crashing to the finish.

The sudden silence is almost deafening. Astarion peers toward Cat. She was in a haze of darkness in the circle, but it’s quickly dissipating. There are still shadows wafting around after the spell is finished, but it seems as if it pulled the proverbial drain plug, and the cloying dark is now fading fast all around them, even out toward the horizon.

Cat stands, looking off into the distance, panting like she’s just run ten miles. She’s trembling. Her hands slung down by her sides can barely hold onto her violin and bow—

Astarion strides over to her. He gently pries the instruments from her fingers, he knows she wants them safe—and immediately after he puts them to the side he is reaching for her, pulling her to him fiercely. Cat melts in his arms, burying her face under his chin.

“For me?” Astarion chokes out. Cat just nods furiously into the crook of his neck, her shivering arms clinging to him.

They stand like that until, finally, Cat raises her head. Takes a shaky breath. “I had…some of the pieces, for a long time. But, it wasn’t until we met that I could put it all together.”

He smiles. Feels the flush coming on again. “I’m speechless. Honestly. Normally it’s trite poems one has dedicated to them. Not some monumental orchestral piece.”

“Well, it’s not done yet, though.”

“Oh?”

“It needs three movements,” Cat says. A grin tugs at her mouth as she looks up at him. “So, I’m not quite done with you—“she stops abruptly as something catches her eye over his shoulder. A slow smile spreads across her face. “Astarion, turn around. Look—”

He does so carefully, keeping Cat in his arms.

It’s peeking over the scarred landscape. Over the remaining wisps of darkness.

“Cat—” he breathes.

“I told you, I didn’t do this for them,” she says, barely above a whisper.

The sun looks pale, almost weak—but it’s there. For the first time in weeks it greets him. It still exists. And he can still bathe in its light.

Astarion’s arms are wrapped around Cat, holding her to his chest as they watch it slowly rise. As they stand pressed together, his eyes are eventually drawn to the crown of her head. He spent so long obsessing over her thoughts, her intentions. Trying to puzzle out what went on inside that skull of hers. But she just keeps showing him—he matters to her.

His eyes move back to the sun growing stronger. “We would have been out of this in a few days, you know.”

Cat grips his hand at her waist. “But I wanted—I don’t want you to miss a day. Even with this new information about that ritual… nothing is promised. I could give you the sun back today. So I wanted to.”

Something lodges in his throat and he wraps her tighter, kissing the crown of this head that thinks of him. “Thank you,” he breathes into her ear. He doesn’t dare try to say more.

They stand like that, watching the sun’s ascent for a long time. But Astarion can eventually feel Cat start to flag. She’s reached the far, far outer bounds of her strength, and she needs to sleep. Badly.

After she stumbles at the top of the tower stairs, Astarion decides to sweep her up and carry her. For the sake of efficiency, of course. The surprise elicits an indignant squawk from her, which is hilarious, and then she clings anxiously around his neck, which is adorable. She rolls her eyes when he informs her of this.

He tries to keep away from the crowds as he carries her down this tower and up the other where the lavish bedrooms are. For the most part he succeeds, because most people have spilled outdoors to bask in the newfound sun. But there are still some—Harpers and refugees—who see them, who try to say something awed or inquiring, but Astarion sweeps by them without a word.

They arrive at Ketheric’s room, mercifully deserted. Astarion helps Cat strip out of her armor, then brings her the washbowl which is still partially full. Asks her if she minds that Ketheric’s face-gunk might be in it. In response she submerges her own crusty face and rubs it, immediately turning the water gray. To show dominance, she says, when she surfaces. He snorts a laugh.

He strips out of his own half-obliterated armor. Cat lays on the bed over the top blanket, her eyes already closed. Astarion goes to sit next to her. She cracks an eye open.

“Go enjoy it,” she mutters.

“I will, all in good time,” he says, smiling. “I need to make sure my charge is in good order before I abandon her.”

“Well. There is one thing.”

“Yes, darling?”

She inches toward him, and he automatically leans closer. Her face is serious. “Astarion, promise me, if anyone else comes looking for our help…”

He tries to keep from rolling his eyes. “Yes?”

“… toss them from the battlements.”

She’s utterly deadpan. And in the sigh of affection that escapes him, he comes the closest he’s ever been to saying those three words with genuine, terrible feeling.

And he might have, if he didn’t then kiss her so suddenly and fierce that she moans into it from somewhere deep inside. He tears himself away, panting, staring down at her looking so exhausted and flushed and gorgeous.

“Go on,” she murmurs, smiling languidly at his quietly desperate expression. “I’m not going anywhere. Told you, I’m not done with you yet.”

~

Of course, Natale had taken to the sewers like a particularly large rat. The man had no idea he was being directly hunted, and he certainly had no way of knowing that these tunnels were a home away from home for the predator after him, after so many many years creeping around its miles of twists and turns. Astarion would feed on his prey in his own proverbial living room.

One might think the stink of refuse would cover up the blood scent, but it only highlights it for Astarion’s one-track nose. The sweet smell stands out all the stronger against the reeking backdrop.

As he makes his way through the tunnels, Astarion notices the trail is doubling back over the direction Natale had fled above ground, leading him back down toward the harbor. It makes some kind of sense. Whether he intended to from the outset of his flight or not, Natale would no doubt try to meet back up with his crew eventually. He had no way to know that his lover was likely being currently subjected to a mutiny by her men.  

Astarion creeps slowly on all fours high along the damp wall of the of a passage as the blood scent gets stronger and stronger. It is almost pitch-black down this way, save for the occasional dim light from a grate far above. He sucks in the putrid air, flaring his nostrils. Natale must be close. Astarion strains to hear any faint shuffle, see any small movement below that might give away his location.

And in the next moment, Astarion hears the whistle and feels the throwing knife pierce his arm with a soft shunk.

He hisses, scrabbling along the wall, cradling his upper arm and looking around wildly. There, around down the passage across from him and around the corner where it turns, the briefest suggestion of something ducking out of sight. Astarion tears the knife out, jumps down, and sprints at his full blinding speed, dagger in hand.

He is utterly bewildered. How would Natale even know to look up for anyone pursuing him? Hells—why would he even stop to attack, unless he knew someone was after him?

In the space of a couple breaths, Astarion reaches the corner where he saw movement, but it is empty and completely still. Astarion starts to dash forward again, counting on his speed to ruin Natale’s plans.

But several yards down the sloping tunnel, and the scent is gone.

Astarion meanders around the spot where the scent stops. Stalks forward several yards more, trying to catch it again. But he can’t find a trace of it. He vaguely remembers this place—here there is no side path for a good long while, no alternate route his bounty could have taken. Maybe Natale had found some way to mask the smell; there was no where else he could have gone.

Astarion can feel frustration gripping him, his anger spiking. But he forces himself to still. To breathe slowly in the way that still calmed him despite the fact he had no need of it. He tries to think methodically through the facts before him.

Another night Astarion might have felt a bit of excitement at the prospect of a challenge. Used it as an opportunity to stretch his hunting abilities to their limits. But his mind is so utterly scattered tonight, so torn between hate and want and grief. All he wants right now is his fangs in this criminal. Wants the warm, sating blood.

Astarion muses on whether Natale might have deployed something like Misty Step, or teleportation. But he doubts it. Natale was not known for any magical prowess, and he had been running flat-out ever since he left that bar. So fresh out of prison, he would have little resources.

That’s when Astarion realizes—yes, he does know this place. But he had forgotten one thing, something that had been bothering him slightly about its appearance. He turns around, walks back toward the corner where he had seen the flash of movement. There. Wooden planks, oddly new and free of slime for being all the way down here.

He lifts them, and the rusted trap door from his memories reveals itself. Natale’s blood is smeared conspicuously on the ring that lifts it.

Astarion pauses. He had gone down below this door only once, with that sweet man, trying to get him out safe—he shakes his head violently. No. All he needs to remember is that it is a veritable warren down there, tunnels older than memory, for what purpose he could not guess. And they are low, narrow, and twisting. A fine place for an ambush, where Astarion’s strength and speed would mean little.

He allows himself a grim smile. Natale may be mad, but in this moment at least he has been clever, with a plan A and B.

The man could be sitting right down there with a wooden stake just for Astarion, if he had somehow gotten wind of who exactly was after him. That is what bothers Astarion the most—there is no way Natale should know, and Astarion hasn’t the faintest idea of how he might have figured it out. Given the risk, it would probably be smarter for Astarion to call it off tonight and try to catch Natale unawares some other time. He has his scent, after all.

But the blood calls. His hunger groans in him. And on the morrow, in the daylight, chances were another hunter not averse to the sun would snatch this temptingly large bounty. It was only a matter of time until Natale got drunk and stupid again.

Part of his mind sends an unconscious apology to Cat as he eases the door up, silent on conspicuously greased hinges. The darkness inside is so complete it looks solid. Just like that last time. Astarion slips in. Tries once more not to let the memories catch on him as he goes.

Natale is most certainly down here. The earthen passage concentrates the scent beautifully. Astarion crouches, forced to by the low ceiling. He wills his focus into his hearing, his sight which is dimmed despite his darkvision.

Every moment he feels like he should be on top of Natale, the scent of his blood is so strong. But there is no sound, no movement. Soon Astarion reaches an awkward intersection, where several paths converge coming from all angles. Natale’s scent radiates from more than one direction, disorienting his nose.

Astarion suddenly stiffens as a strong wave of his prey's blood-scent crashes over him from behind. He feels the graze of the stake on his spine as he lurches forward, spinning back around with his dagger flashing out and his fangs bared.

Natale bites back a yell as the dagger catches his outstretched hand, sending the crudely-sharpened bit of wooden plank flying to the ground of the tunnel. An unassuming middle-aged man, as the description said. Pale skin, straggly brown hair, neither tall nor short, big nor small. Astarion might have said the most notable thing about him was the astonishing amount of dried blood on his tunic, but that isn’t it. It is his eyes—dead dark things that reflected no light. The man makes no cringe of frustration or fear. His face is blank. It gives Astarion pause, just enough to let Natale bolt away.

Astarion doesn’t even have it in him shout something mocking as he gives chase. It is over. There is no way Natale could hope to survive. He must be running only on instinct.

That is what Astarion’s mind ruminates on as he winds through the tunnels just out of reach of the man, until Natale makes an abrupt right, and there is suddenly so much light—

It isn’t so much light, really, but the dim flicker of the smoky torch in the half-collapsed chamber might as well have been the sun itself compared to the tunnels. For a moment Astarion can’t see, can only hear the steady drip-drip-drip of water into a pool, smell the abrupt green scent of moss. And—

“S—sir!” comes the voice full of tears.

Astarion’s sight rushes back, and there is Lem, bound and beaten, propped up against one of the large stones that had scattered from the ruined ancient wall of this small but lofty chamber.

“You shouldn’t let your little maggot go poking around such dangerous places, vamp,” says Natale in a voice so calm it's foreboding. He saunters over to Lem as he casually draws a rusted knife from the rope he is using as a belt. “Not nearly so clever as he thinks, this little maggot. Word got back to me quickly he had been asking all sorts of questions, last few days. And then I see him flitting around tonight, flaunting gold he has no business having.”

Lem just sags where he sits, sobbing quietly. And that’s when Astarion sees his bound hands. His bloody, ruined fingers—

“I will say, he sang sweetly for me once I freed him of a couple fingernails he don’t need. Told me all about his dear undead sir.”

Astarion feels anger prickle through him. His eyes snap back to Natale, who is now bent over Lem, peering at him, then glancing at Astarion. Face still completely blank.

“Almost had you, I did, back there. Sloppy, sloppy. Would have thought more of a great hero such as yourself.”

Astarion suddenly wonders—why has he stopped to gape like this? This man is nattering on in front of him, right there, good as dead. He finds himself lunging—

“Ah, ah—” Natale says, an edge finally in his voice as he plunges his knife to poke at Lem’s belly. The boy shrieks. Astarion freezes despite himself.

A lazy smile stretches across Natale’s face as he watches Astarion. “So, that’s how it is,” he mutters. And stabs the blade into Lem’s gut.

Lem howls, and Natale bolts through the gap of the ruined wall. Astarion reaches for him, moves toward the movement on instinct. But he stops dead in the next moment. Looks at Lem below him slowly but surely bleeding out. Looks up again where every fiber of his body is telling him to give chase—to kill the man that mocked him, to get the gold for his head, to drink the sweet blood he has been smelling all night to fill his bottomless hunger—

Lem whimpers. Astarion’s gaze snaps back down to the boy. A bit of trash that blew into his life that he was happy to use when he needed, who he could leave here and forget about completely. That the world had already forgotten long ago. So why should he lift a finger for someone who was nothing?

Astarion’s instinct lurches between one and the other, tearing him apart, until he finally makes his decision.

A/N: The violin piece I had in mind for this chapter is the first movement of Sibelius' concerto.

This is Astarion's last hurrah as a POV! He is both a pain in the ass and a blast to write (very appropriately)

For scheduling going forward--I'm planning on doing a double release this weekend with the in-game story wrapping up in ch. 9 on Saturday and the post-game short story in ch. 10 on Sunday!

[dreamchaserguild]

Lucid Dreaming Journal and Trying to Understand Dream Characters

(I'd suggest reading Tasha's backstory before reading this.)

Ghost: I had another lucid dream. It went on for a little bit, and I'm not sure at what point I actually became lucid. We were on vacation and there was some type of laser tag game going on. It was a big event. Then I found a way to hack the game like it was a video game and went back in time to see what would happen. I went back a day and realized I messed up and caused reality to become glitchy.

I didn't know how to fix reality and planned on going back in time again, hoping that continuing would fix things somehow. My little brother tried to convince me that it was dangerous, but I knew reality was already breaking and I would rather do something than nothing. Another dream character tried to convince me not to, but then I held up my hand is proof of the glitch. Not only did it have the normal different looks associated with dreams, but the ring finger actually splintered off like a tree into several smaller fingers.

The dream character acted worried about me changing the past, but I finally said it wouldn't matter because she wasn't real anyway. I tried to apologize afterwards, but then her demeanor changed. She became more... manic? The things she was saying didn't make sense or seem consistent with her previous character.

Then she just turned into this blue human-sized stuffed rabbit, and when I was confused, told me that she was like my "ugly bunny friend."

I asked if she was referring to Almond, and she seemed to confirm it.

Just so we're clear, Almond isn't ugly at all. She's sweet and adorable. But also... nobody is supposed to know about Almond. After getting bad reactions to revealing Soph to people IRL, we only talk about the other system members online.

Having anybody reference Almond as friend of mine, even in a dream, is so bizarre and even a little scary. This is not information that I felt a dream character should have access to.

I tried to question her further about how long she had known this was a dream, because I am deeply interested in how dream characters work, but she ran or hopped out the door. As I tried to chase her down, she turned on me and said that I needed to forget.

I forced myself awake after that, right through one false awakening which I quickly realized wasn't real. It was a struggle to finally get my eyes open in the real world.

Now, one theory is that if dream characters have consistent self-awareness, this could be a function of dream characters: Keeping the dreamer in an illusion every night, and erasing their memories when the dreamers figure it out. But... we also read about a dream character acting like this, saying they needed to erase somebody's memories, on the Lucid Dreaming subreddit which very well could have influenced this dream character's behavior.

Tasha, for her part, didn't feel like she had a consistent sense of self through multiple dreams. Her first and only dream had been the one I awakened her from, and she couldn't give me much further insight about dream characters or how they function. I think they may operate on a very basic AI that has to improvise responses. It's easy when we behave in accordance to the script, but they breakdown when we challenge them.

[Tasha: I think I knew from the beginning of my birth dream that we were in a dream, but I don't know why I had to act out a role. I just did it. I would say that I did it because I was "supposed to" but even that is more of a reason than I had. I didn't need a reason. I just did. Like a river doesn't need to know the reason it flows. It just does.]

Tasha also knew details about our system in the dream once I confronted her with the fact that I knew we were in a dream, but she doesn't seem to have had that knowledge before I revealed I was lucid.

Mind-reading by dream characters appears to be on an as-needed basis. That's why they don't usually know that you're lucid until you reveal it to them.

There appears to be some sort of powerful dissociative barriers at play here, but I can't parse their extent.

This is also the third time I remember that a dream character has Morphed when confronted.

Once was with Tasha transforming from a weird 60s TV mom into a young adult.

The second time, Soph was in line at a Subway or McDonald's, and heard a bag pop beside her. She asked the dream character there why she had popped the bag, and the dream character tried to give some weak explanation. Then Soph said, "no, I meant the meta reason," letting the dream character know that Soph was lucid. The dream character morphed into some type of horrifying wraith, grabbed Soph, and carried her off into some isolated room, locking the door behind.

Soph had this paranoia that after what happened with Tasha, the evil dream wraith might find a way to wake up in the body while she was locked in this room. In hindsight, that fear made no sense because Soph was still conscious. Still, we've learned that even while lucid, dreams can make you believe some irrational things. In order to quickly wake up, Soph shoved her arm into a ceiling fan.

That didn't even wake her up immediately, and even though she says it didn't hurt like a normal injury would have, it was incredibly unpleasant for her, giving her a sort of emotional pain.

Tasha, the SubWraith and Blue Bunny (I might as well start naming them) all transformed when confronted. And I've heard stories of similar things happening with other lucid dreamers. Only the latter two became aggressive.

Why does this happen though?

What does it mean?

Tasha is currently the most useful asset in understanding this, but she doesn't have an answer for why she transformed when I confronted her. It wasn't an intentional choice.

One idea is that mentioning that you're lucid might trigger some sort of unconscious reboot. The dream character needs a more advanced AI to deal with this knowledge, and thus gains deeper access to your memories to build that on. But this reboot makes them less stable and more unpredictable. Tasha does seem to have gained more self-awareness as her birth dream (I guess that's what we're calling it now) went on.

At present, I don't believe there's any sort of conspiracy by fully sapient people in your head to keep you from acting out a script while you sleep. I don't believe dream characters possess that level of intelligence.

But the fact that I can't know for certain the extent of their intelligence and sapience gnaws at me. And I like our system relatively small, so I'm not willing to experiment by trying to repeat the method I used to bring Tasha into the real world just to find the answers to these lingering questions.

[ladala99]

Pokemon Scarlet - Days 19-38

(This contains blatant details of the end of the game)

Day 19

Pearl appeared in my dream again last night. No Yellow - she said Yellow was busy. I’m not going to transcribe today because honestly, the whole conversation confused me and I don’t want to think about it more than I have to.

Gist of it is - she was surprised about what my Pokemon had to say, that the people and Pokémon in my world were real but clones or something, and that Mint seemed to be connected to Blaziken. Because apparently, Blaziken hadn’t actually been connecting with the newer arrivals like me like that.

And then she tried to speak with Blaziken and it didn’t work but Pearl’s Darkrai (??? How does she have that?) found a memory of Ruby and Blaziken arguing about Blaziken going somewhere and risking something and overall I’m just completely and utterly confused.

Oh, and the fact that I got a Charmander, which isn’t in Paldea’s Pokedex, came up at some point. Pearl found that very interesting.

And that’s that. What am I being dragged into?

———

I decided to still take a break day today and explored the outer island ring around the lake more thoroughly. I found a couple of stakes there and another of those glowing lids. This one only had one chain connected to it - I bet those stakes I’ve been pulling out have something to do with those chains.

The other day, I learned about the four treasures that brought ruin to the ancient kingdom. They were Pokemon, and they were subsequently sealed away. I’d bet that’s exactly what those stakes and lids are. I’ve found two - there are two more out there somewhere. I’ll have to search for those.

I’m a little nervous to unleash them, but I feel somehow like I’m supposed to. Like they’ll help solve at least one of the various mysteries I’ve gotten caught up in.

I also climbed around a lot and realized that I got to the top of the Great Crater. Whoops. I’m not allowed there! I went back down the way I’d come. I feel like I’d have more to answer to going in there than unleashing the ruinous Pokemon. Which is probably a silly idea but you know, no one told me not to pull out mysterious stakes in the ground.

Day 20-21 Whoops, forgot to write again!

Yesterday, I took on the Ice-type Gym. The Gym Test involved sliding down a slick snowy slope slaloming slipperily. The actual task was easier than writing that alliteration. And the Gym fight was trivial as well, given my levels and the fact that I have three solid team members that are particularly good against Ice-types.

Afterwards, the Art teacher showed up and reminded me to take classes. I checked the school and there were no additional classes to take. So I don’t know what his deal was.

I did notice Nemona’s absence. No rematch this time, I suppose.

Today I set out to fight the Fairy-type Team Star Base. This leader was a bit of a spoiled rich kid, and I found some interesting things out.

I’d heard before from a random trainer that there had recently been a full staff turnover for unknown reasons. I’d also found a book that had the names of past students, but many of the pages had been ripped out.

Turns out that when Team Star chased off the original bullies, all the bullies stopped going to school. In embarrassment, the teachers mass-resigned or something, including the old Director. That old Director still tutors the Fairy-type Team Star leader.

Also, rather than punishing Team Star, one person took the fall, and their “punishment” was studying abroad. Not much of a punishment, but it was supposed to be a learning experience. Was that person the big boss? Cassiopeia? Both?

Cassiopeia again referred to Team Star like they were part of it. They always act really sad when I defeat a leader. Just overall strange.

Day 22-23 And another day skipped. Whoops! I guess less and less is new as I go along, anyway.

Since yesterday I just did some exploring, particularly around the area with the Fairy Team Star base. I also poked around some other areas looking for more lids and stakes, and while I found a couple of stakes, I did not find any additional lids.

Today was a much busier day. I started the day by heading to the Electric Gym’s town. It’s a neat place, with skyscrapers galore and big advertisements. I headed into the Gym and Nemona was there. She challenged me to a battle, which while I was still way above her team’s levels, she was way above the Gym’s levels, so she put up marginally more of a fight.

The Gym Test was pretty fun. The Gym Leader, Iona, is a streamer, and I got to be the special guest on her stream. My task was to find Director Clavell in various scenes, as well as to defeat some trainers that my Garchomp barely had to look at for the battle to be over. Iona herself also fell once the test was over.

Afterwards, I met yet another member of the Elite Four, a small child. She must be a prodigy for sure to be in the Elite Four at her age!

The rest of my classes opened up as well, so I took those and the final exams. The History teacher finally told me what she was being so mysterious about: the ruinous Pokemon are in the region, behind the lids. Which I assumed. She wants me to unleash them, and she gave me the locations of all the lids. That part was helpful. She offered little assistance in finding the stakes, though, and when I checked the two lids I hadn’t already found, neither was close to opening.

As for the other teachers, the Language teacher gave me a Meowth from a different region, and I got a couple of actual tasks from a couple of the other teachers: the Biology teacher wants me to complete the Pokedex now, and the Home Ec teacher wants me to find Sweet Herba Mystica.

The Art teacher decided to keep teaching despite his family wanting him to take over the clan, and the Math teacher opened up about how she’s sad she’s no longer a Gym Leader, but being a teacher is more fulfilling.

After all that, I went to explore some more!

Just three badges left, all the final tasks of each path. If I have the opportunity tomorrow, the Fire-type Team Star base will be first.

Day 24-38

Ah, after a rapid-fire week, I stopped writing. I have some I wrote around that time, so I’ll leave it, but after day 24, the timeline gets iffy.

On day 24, I headed to the final Team Star base. Really not much to say about what I had to do to take it down - it was the same as always, and incredibly easy with how high-level my Pokemon were. She was the hot-headed all-arounder for the team.

What was more exciting was what happened afterwards. Cassiopeia, unsurprisingly, admitted to being the big boss. They told me to meet them after dark in the schoolyard.

Clyde, who admitted to being the Director (which I knew but let him have his moment), challenged me at the school’s gates. He claimed that he was Cassiopeia, but once I defeated him, he admitted he only said that to protect me, as he intended to fight Cassiopeia himself if it turned out I couldn’t defeat him.

So to the school courtyard we went, and it turned out that Cassiopeia was Penny all along! I didn’t mention Penny in my notes previous as far as the Operation Starfall thing went, since she really didn’t seem all that relevant. She just gave me my reward afterwards and maybe was embarrassed by Koraidon. But yeah, she was the big boss, and had a team of Eeveelutions that wasn’t that difficult to beat.

But that wasn’t the end of things. Clavell said that Team Star was cleared of guilt and wouldn’t be expelled, and he in fact liked their way of training and wanted to make those bases official training centers. Team Star wasn’t disbanded after all, and the other leaders who had come to say something heartfelt to Penny, got to resume their positions. Really, it was a good thing Clavell was there with me, since he actually had the power to make things right. If it were just me, Team Star would be gone and that would be that.

Day 25 or 26, I joined Arven for the final Titan in that rocky area right next to the school. It went down trivially and we got the final Herba Mythica, which I don’t remember the flavor (Salty?), but it make Koraidon gain the ability to go really fast. After the rest gradually increased Koraidon’s ability to maneuver, I was kind of expecting free-flight, but maybe it did correspond to the flavor of the Herba Mythica it ate rather than the number of Herba Mythica it had eaten.

But regardless of its effect on Koraidon, it had the desired effect on Arven’s Mabosstiff - it was completely cured! I. . . didn’t really believe it at first, but Arven had faith, which I saw in a bit. Professor Sada called and finally spoke to Arven, her son, and asked him to get into the lab in the lighthouse where Arven and I first met. Arven wasn’t too pleased with her suddenly asking something of him when she’d given him the cold shoulder for too long, but we went over and got that book anyway.

Arven told me about his rocky relationship with his mom as we entered the lab. She never left Area Zero, leaving him alone with Mabosstiff and Koraidon. She didn’t even seem to care about him, and he had a lot of resentment about that. But she contacted me again once we got the book and asked that I gather a skilled team and take it to the center of Area Zero. Arven and Penny were great candidates, and Nemona as well, but Arven and I both knew Nemona wasn’t going to come along until I defeated the Elite Four and achieved Champion Rank.

So Day 27, Wednesday, I finished the final Gym in Artazon. The Gym Leader was an artist whom I had seen as a guest in one of the Art lessons. He used Grass-types, and as an early-area Gym Leader, was no match for me. The Gym Test was fun - going around the city and finding 10 Sunflora to follow me around and reach a certain area. I had a blast with an army of Sunflora following me everywhere I went!

The Gym defeated, the Elite Four opened up for me. Unlike the Gyms, the Elite Four was open whenever anyone reached 8 badges, so I headed over there the next day: Day 28. I had to take a test to get in, asking me to remember things such as my starter and what the toughest Gym I fought was and who was the leader (it was Medali with Larry as the leader). I passed first try, and Rika said that I was the first to do so since Nemona. Honestly, Nemona and I have a lot in common, I believe. I can’t recall the exact details of the Elite Four, other than being surprised to see Larry there, since the rest were only Elite Four members. It wasn’t too easy of a challenge, but it wasn’t very difficult, either. Larry really was the most difficult hurdle in my entire journey. I even beat Geeta with ease and achieved Champion Rank.

Nemona wanted to battle afterwards, as a full-on battle in the middle of the school city. I accepted, we fought, and I won. She was so battle-obsessed she wanted to fight again right away, but that didn’t happen. We had something important to do after all.

Day 28. Area Zero. Nemona and I met up with Penny and Arven at the entrance, but the only way in was for us all to ride Koraidon into the crater. We were lucky to get in there unscathed, but Koraidon went into its ball and would not go out once we had landed. We were on our own.

That place is freaky. It’s bright as day despite the fog covering the sky, and strong Pokemon are roaming everywhere. Penny, Arven, Nemona and I talked a lot about ourselves as we went deeper. Our task was to go to each way station and deactivate the lock that it connected to in the deepest part. There were journals in each station, cataloguing research, and each station Professor Sada congratulated us for getting down that far.

We also saw, on the way, a couple of very strange Pokemon - first a Jigglypuff with a tail coming from its head, called Scream Tail, and then another Donphan-like Great Tusk, which Arven and I had fought as a Titan.

At the final way station, it was clear something horrible had happened. Crystals were growing everywhere, glass was broken, and after disengaging the lock, Professor Sada seemed to be. . . bugging? I wondered at that point if Professor Sada’s messages weren’t prerecorded, and if she, in fact, hadn’t been sent to the past or something. But as we got to the deepest part, we saw the truth.

Another Koraidon was down there - something Professor Sada had mentioned. This one was mean and territorial - it was what had scared my Koraidon so badly. It entered the lab, though, while a bunch of those strange Pokemon came out. We all fought some, and the others held them off so that I could enter the lab after the second Koraidon.

I was ready to fight it, but as I got there, Professor Sada. . . verbally exited Sleep Mode and returned Koraidon to a MASTER BALL. She admitted that she wasn’t the real Professor Sada - the real one had died protecting my Koraidon from the second one. She was an AI built to look and act like Professor Sada, she knew exactly what the Professor’s will was, but she was powered by the energy in Area Zero and couldn’t leave it. That was why she was never there for Arven. Also the fact that she wasn’t the real Professor Sada.

The real Professor Sada had created a time machine to the distant past. If someone were to go through, it’d be one-way, but pokeballs could go through and catch Pokemon on the other side and return just fine. The time machine was automatically doing so continuously, sending out all sorts of ancient Pokemon. The AI professor wanted it shut down, because while she had thus far been successful in keeping the ancient Pokemon in Area Zero, if they ever got out they’d wreak havoc on the ecosystem. She said the real professor wouldn’t care, but she believed it was best for everyone if it got shut down and she couldn’t do it herself.

In order to shut it down, I needed to place the Scarlet book on a pedestal. Upon doing so, the AI professor would be taken over by the time machine’s defense mechanism and would fight me with Pokemon from the distant past. I agreed to help.

Sure enough, that was exactly what happened. She used ones I had seen before, including the Jigglypuff from earlier, as well as the Misdreavus (Flutter Mane) and Amoongus (Brute Bonnet) who had come out of the lab. She also had an absolutely adorable Volcarona (Slither Wing), a Magneton (Sandy Shocks), and a Mega-Salamence-like one (Roaring Moon)! They went down one by one, though they did put up a bit of a fight.

And yet that wasn’t the end of it. Even the AI professor was shocked when there was a second phase and they were taken over once again, this time shutting down every Pokeball not registered to Professor Sada. Penny, Arven, and Nemona came in, but they could do nothing. It looked like it was the end as she sent out the mean Koraidon. . .

. . .but then I realized that my Koraidon was actually not registered to me. It had been registered to the professor all along. I sent it out and it entered battle form, defending me from the other one. Despite all hope seeming lost, it won, taking the other Koraidon down and deactivating the time machine once again.

The AI professor realized during this fight that as long as she was around, the time machine would keep reactivating. She made the decision to go through to the other side, entering the past, though I’m not sure the conditions would have been right for her to remain on back then. The was probably the plan, though. Before she left, however, she explained the situation to Arven, apologizing to him, and saying that his mother loved him very much. I wasn’t even directly involved in this and I felt vicariously devastated for him. I can’t imagine what he went through, hearing that, and seeing the AI professor go through the portal.

The world was saved, but man, it wasn’t easy. We four left for the school, tired, but trying to keep our spirits up. Or at least Nemona and Penny were trying to keep our spirits up. Arven was having a hard time after all that.

Day 29, we were called to the Director’s office. He thanked us for saving the world and said that made up for us disobeying school rules by going to Area Zero. We were heroes. And now we could do whatever we wanted.

And that’s where I am right now. It’s been a few days but WOW. I’ve been looking for those Ruinous stakes but that’s been the most exciting thing.

Geeta did tell me to go fight the Gym Leaders again and there’d be some tournament in the school once I’ve done so. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.

I haven’t heard from Pearl again or anything, either. I. . . I don’t know what to expect there. I don’t know whether I’ll continue to log my journey here or not.

[aloudplace]

Chapter 15 temperature

The rest of the morning passed in a languid haze.

Loklan rose while Eiara was napping and made them breakfast, returning with the tray so they could eat together in bed.

Afterward, he drew the covers back to examine her body, lingering over the marks he'd left. He'd bitten her half a dozen times, though he didn't remember them all. Her thighs were bruised where his thrusts had driven her against the table, too. And though the flesh was only red, she claimed her bottom ached as well.

"What about inside?" he asked, still touching the marks on her thighs. "Do you hurt there, too?"

She nodded. "In a good way, though."

Loklan had very mixed feelings about how roughly he'd used her. "You told me to stop."

"Did I?" She was kissing his chest, licking the Zenopelti scales on the outer edge of his collarbone. "I don't remember."

"You begged me, Eiara."

"Hmmm. I just remember coming and coming til I thought I would die. And the sounds you made." She shivered a little. "I was afraid you would eat me."

He fingered his teeth marks on her shoulder. "I very nearly did, it seems."

Eiara's mouth trailed up his throat to his jaw. "I like it when you bite me."

Loklan felt a low rush of arousal despite himself. "You get tighter when I do. It makes me crazy."

"Me too," she murmured. "And when you ride me so hard like that, and growl in my ear."

He chuckled. "And here I thought I'd taken advantage of you."

"Next time," she whispered, "when you tie me..."

"Yes?"

Her teeth grazed his chin. "I want to fight you."

That surprised him. "Oh?"

"Mm-hm. I might say no, and try to run. Is that okay?"

Loklan thought about how she'd struggled earlier. Her pleas and the way she'd writhed. How good it had felt to hold her down and take her like that.

And then he thought about chasing her down, tying her forcefully. Knowing the whole time that she wanted it.

Taking her while she was helpless, immobilized.

"Goddess," he groaned. "You'll drive me mad, Eiara."

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes. By the Goddess, yes."

She made a happy sound and snuggled closer. "Did you know you get harder when I say 'I love you'?"

He stilled. "I...yes. I did know that."

"And you twitch inside me."

He closed his eyes and made himself breathe evenly. "I suppose I do."

She touched his half-hard sex very lightly, fingertips trailing his length.

"Is it normal to be like this?" she asked quietly. "I can hardly think of anything else but having you inside me."

"No," he rasped. "I mean, it's... unusual."

"Is it bad, do you think?"

Loklan pulled back to look into her face, but her eyes were downcast, looking at his body, or perhaps avoiding his gaze. Maybe both.

"Why would it be bad?"

She shrugged. "I never seem to be satisfied. Almost as soon as we've finished, I'm thinking about the next time." She did meet his gaze then, and her eyes were luminous, a little self-deprecating. "I might be obsessed."

Loklan grinned. "That is...incredibly flattering."

She slapped his chest. "I'm serious."

"So am I."

Her lips quirked unwillingly.

"It's also mutual," he added, with a little spurt of unwanted vulnerability.

"Yeah?"

"Mm. The Zenopelti call it 'libin-firim.'"

"What's that?"

"Translates roughly to 'lust fever' or 'affection sickness.'"

He did not tell her that it was also their word for love.

He'd read about the Zenopelti after discovering his heritage. In secret, of course.

There were few books on Zenopelti culture in his father's libraries, but he'd found one that spoke with some detail about their traditions.

The Zenopelti considered love a weakness and frowned upon personal attachments, especially romantic ones. Lust, however, was perfectly acceptable in reptilian culture.

Hence their only word for love was also their word for the intense sexual fever that sometimes resulted from genuinely romantic couplings.

"Lust fever, huh?" Eiara touched his cock again, fingers circling the head in a feathery caress. "That seems pretty accurate."

Her mouth drifted across his chest and found his left nipple. Loklan jerked in surprise, thoughts scattering.

"Ooh, sensitive," she murmured, coming back for more.

"Eiara—" he groaned. Goddess, she was nibbling now, pulling the little protrusion with her teeth. How the hell could that feel so damned good?

"Eiara, stop."

"Why?"

"Because—" he broke off when she started stroking him again.

"Oh, that made you get hard fast," she murmured darkly.

"You're bruised," he groaned, holding her wrist to stop her hand. She switched to her other hand and started sucking his nipple again.

"You little fiend," he rasped. "I want you to rest at least a few hours before I take you again."

"I did rest."

"Not enough. I was rough with you. You’re bruised all over."

That gave her pause. "Loklan, I can heal myself right now if that's what you want."

Why had that not occurred to him? "Yes. Dammit. Please do so."

The blankets were still folded back, so he had a clear view when she touched the bruises on her upper thighs. Golden light chased the angry marks away.

"Better?" she turned her face up to him.

"What about the bite marks?"

"I want to keep those. You made me heal them last time."

Bloody hell.

"Did you heal yourself inside?" he managed to ask, fighting a surge of raw lust.

She nodded. "Though I rather enjoy feeling bruised from your cock."

"I do not mean to be that rough with you again today," Loklan growled.

She pouted a little. "You liked hearing me say that, though. Your cock twitched."

"I like a lot of things." He sucked in a breath when her fingertip tickled the little opening at the end of his sex. "That doesn't mean I'm going to do them all to you every day."

"I guess you haven't realized how big your cock is," she replied, amused.

"I—I beg your pardon?"

"You bruise me every time, Loklan. Even when you're gentle. Why do you think it's so easy to make me come? You practically split me open."

He pulled back sharply. "Are you telling me I hurt you every time we make love?"

She grinned. "Only in the best possible way."

Digesting that—with decidedly mixed feelings—Loklan frowned down at her.

"Why does that upset you?" she asked. "You hurt me on purpose half the time."

"Hurting you on purpose to increase your pleasure is very different from hurting you unintentionally and not even being aware that I'm doing it," he grated.

She smiled. "I like all the ways you hurt me."

"Did I hurt you this morning?" he demanded, "The first time, in bed?" They'd never done it that gently before.

Eiara nodded. "Just a little."

"How?"

"I told you, Loklan, you're big. I'm small. You stretched me. And you hit my cervix at the end when you were coming. You always do."

"It's because I didn't prepare you," he grumbled. "We hardly ever engage in foreplay. You wouldn't feel stretched if I did it properly."

She took hold of his face. "You idiot man, listen to me. I like it. I like feeling so full of you that I'm afraid I'm going to split. I like that you take me without warning or foreplay. I like that you hurt me when you're lost in your pleasure. In fact, I love it." She kissed him once, with tongue and teeth, and then pulled back to say, "I want you to do it right now."

Mollified and aroused, Loklan rolled her over and kneed her thighs apart. She opened and he wasted no time thrusting himself inside.

Her sharp, gasping moan was like music.

"Are you stretched?" he growled.

Her eyes were closed, mouth open. "Yes..."

Slowly, he began to thrust. "There's a bottle of oil on the nightstand," he said softly. He'd brought it from the kitchen with their breakfast.

Her eyes fluttered open. "Oil?"

"Mm-hm. For item number three."

Her eyes widened. "Now?"

Slowly, he shook his head. "When I have you tied, I think."

He thrust deep until the head of his cock kissed her cervix. She gasped and her eyes rolled back just a little.

"I'm going to use you quite thoroughly," he explained. "My cock in every orifice."

She shuddered and tightened, rolling her hips into his thrusts. "Yes..."

He brought one of her legs up over his shoulder and started moving faster. "I made you come eight times today, counting this morning in bed. Or was it nine?"

"Don't know," she breathed.

"Last time, did you come at the very end, when I did?"

Eyes closed, she nodded.

"Nine then."

"T-ten," she whimpered, lifting her hips and clutching his waist.

"Mmm, that's so sweet." Loklan pumped through the spasms, watching her face go slack with pleasure.

When she softened into the afterglow, Loklan pulled out, cock standing up rigid and glossy as he sat back on his heels.

He waited for her eyes to open. When she looked up, he lifted one hand and drew his sorcery, conjuring the bundle of rope he'd found in the storage room while she slept.

Eiara's breath caught, eyes widening.

"Now," he growled, "would be a good time to start running."

.

[baekhvuns]

Tottenham calm the fuck down challenge! Arsenal and Man City... I'm convinced you cursed them 😭 they've been doing well for a long time. You don't want me to be happy! 💔I can't even watch any matches noooooo. I saw some clips from PSG and Bayern, Bayern is really that bitch!

Oh absolutely, people can hold back racist remarks as long as the player is doing well. Like what German, Arsenal and even Real fans did to Özil... nasty

Liverpool, really? I don't actually know many Liverpool fans especially in London. 🧐 I quite like Liverpool but wouldn't say I'm a big fan. Man Utd I agree, they're big, but most people still support at least one London-based club, like my friend who is a big United fan, but also started supporting Arsenal once he moved to London. ❤ Actually, this is the new Madrid coach <3 and I'm his assistant

What was going through my head the first time I met Hwa... first of all "keep the eye contact" second of all "I hope my hand isn't too sweaty" third of all "what a beautiful man" ksjsbsnsjshahsjsjs. But how did this person survive??? A few people I know saw him there too...

Even though I hate SM and a lot of their recent music and decisions, Hybe is so evil for trying to monopolise shit, first Vlive, now this?! I really hope to catch a sight of Kai, maybe Baek or Shinee 😭 we'll see how it goes.

Heechul had a bingo card and made sure not to miss anyone, he pissed everyone on every political spectrum, kinda a talent ngl

I didn't get that close to Tamino and had to leave immediately afterwards, but my friend saw him in an art gallery and took photos ❤ Seonghwa cover Tamino challenge, come on Maddox introduce him 🤲🏻 also he's coming to Canada, sadly no Vancouver :(

Yes the choice of songs for Rihanna's performance was really good, I command her for doing it while pregnant, though I think I expected something else. I saw a tweet that said "ASAP Rocky's wife Rihanna did so well during Super Bowl" HUH?! I didn't even know much about him until he collabed with Lana(?) don't say shit like that. Rihanna live was fine, but I think my expectations were higher, she's pretty charismatic, but idk something felt a bit off??? The tickets were really expensive and the concert didn't leave me 100% satisfied, but I like her music, she's a hit maker so I think it makes up to it

Once in a while people start questioning some fans and their minions come to their defence. Ofc some accusations are baseless, and I'm not gonna call everyone a stalker, but obsessed weirdo? Yeah ksjsjsjsjsahjaja. Aaaaanf I need to say this: fuck Berlin! They got Hwa at the pop up store, chased Jongho and camped outside their hotel. Also my "friend" saw them in Berlin twice and 4 times in total and I'm not having it. 🤡 I ignored all their messages lol (not just because they saw Atz, I'm just sick of them in general)

And why am I seeing videos from the same people over and over again, sigh. Whenever I see some of their watermarks I 🔫🔫🔫 those crazy Korean stans especially

Bestie last night I ate so much kimbap, tteokbokki and dumplings I almost exploded and watched YOU until 6am. 💀 then I had to leave before 11am. Buuuut I took photos with Hwa in the Valenteez booth! (We looked cute ngl)

I'm sorry, mushroom head Hwa is really a challenge for me, he's lucky I love him enough, but 🙃 Yeosang's hair though 💞💞💞

Girlie is truly fearless

Bodyguard and bodyguard at the club celebrating over 4 thousands notes

Koreans love their endo... I- anyway let him eat his noodles!!! So fucking cute stop AND FOR WHAT 😳

And rip to marsverse, I'm so sad, I didn't care for Vlive, but Universe come back! I read Hwa's farewell messages, he's so dramatic and lovely 😭💞 what are we gonna do without it :((((

Pauseeeee what JP comeback lmao what did I miss, anyways fencing? And when I tell you I did a little bit of fencing as a child... I'm not ready for fencer Hwa. Real and then he says this and we're supposed to be normal??? - DV 💖

hello!!!

Tottenham calm the fuck down challenge! Arsenal and Man City... I'm convinced you cursed them 😭 they've been doing well for a long time. You don't want me to be happy! 💔I can't even watch any matches noooooo. I saw some clips from PSG and Bayern, Bayern is really that bitch! /// Oh absolutely, people can hold back racist remarks as long as the player is doing well. Like what German, Arsenal and even Real fans did to Özil... nasty

london is what ☺️☺️☺️ what? i didn’t hear it! COME ON DID U REALLY THINK ARSENAL WOULD WIN THE PL?? WHENS THE LAST TIME THEY WON 🤨 2003/2004! PEP CAME THROUGHHH tho im upset at him bc he keeps benching alvaraz THE wc winner and refuses to get him on, maybe that’ll be the downfall🔫 LMFAOOO COME ON ARSENAL PLAYED SHIT AND U KNOW IT TOO,, no bc psg’s tactics are so shit 😭😭 bayern really came through even without lewandowski </3 yEAAAH not the media making a huge deal about eating hamburgers psg “ultra”fans jumping a bayern fan 😭😭 NOOOO THAT ÖZIL THING THAT, TO THIS DAY, UPSETS ME SO MUCH, WHAT A PLAYER!! THE WAY HE GETTING DISRESPECTED 🔫🔫 bro CARRIED ronaldo

speaking of spurs, kane is on bayern’s list for transfers, so at least he’ll retire with SOME trophies 😭😭

Liverpool, really? I don't actually know many Liverpool fans especially in London. 🧐 I quite like Liverpool but wouldn't say I'm a big fan. Man Utd I agree, they're big, but most people still support at least one London-based club, like my friend who is a big United fan, but also started supporting Arsenal once he moved to London. ❤ Actually, this is the new Madrid coach <3 and I'm his assistant

NOO BC THERE ARE SO MANY 🔫🔫 a lot my family over there are their “secret” fans + some aston villa ones, def arsenal too but they know they can’t win 😭😭 liverpool fell off,, van dijk salah fabinho carry it,, nunez is….I THINK U ALREADY KNOW DBDB i used to be very big man utd fan esp during ronaldo era but then man cITYYYY LMFAOOO 😭😭😭 if he’s the new rm coach, u best believe im his no7 🔫

What was going through my head the first time I met Hwa... first of all "keep the eye contact" second of all "I hope my hand isn't too sweaty" third of all "what a beautiful man" ksjsbsnsjshahsjsjs. But how did this person survive??? A few people I know saw him there too...

NOOO BC THE HAND SWEATY ONE ID BE TERRIFIED TO SHAKE HANDS, this video is the closest we can get to pretending he’s a ambassador for a brand and is meeting w the celebs back stage 🫡 that fan is stronger than the navy, id be passing out,, speaking of fans…

Even though I hate SM and a lot of their recent music and decisions, Hybe is so evil for trying to monopolise shit, first Vlive, now this?! I really hope to catch a sight of Kai, maybe Baek or Shinee 😭 we'll see how it goes. /// Heechul had a bingo card and made sure not to miss anyone, he pissed everyone on every political spectrum, kinda a talent ngl

omg aren’t they trying to merge bbl and weverse now apparently??? 😭😭😭 THIS IS ABSOLUTE BS 😭😭 i feel like it’s going to influence sm’s music but maybe give them all more promos,,, chris lee keeps digging his fucking grave even more it’s ridiculous,,, kai my lord and saviour pls save sm,,, not aespa mocking him too,, his downfall began when he posted about lookas wAIT do u realize this happened all after that picture 😭😭

😭😭😭

yeaah heechul 📉📉📉 LMFAOOO UR RIGHT A TALENT not him saying trained were told to speak about him when they debut 😭😭

I didn't get that close to Tamino and had to leave immediately afterwards, but my friend saw him in an art gallery and took photos ❤ Seonghwa cover Tamino challenge, come on Maddox introduce him 🤲🏻 also he's coming to Canada, sadly no Vancouver :(

AWWWW,, i keep watching his interviews and he’s so soft spoken, so intellectual! and finding him at an art gallery??? man written by a women actually <3 SEONGHWA X TAMINO WHEN WHYS HE GOING TO THAT RACIST TOWN 😭😭😭😭😭😭 FUCK OFF WHO WHEN GOES THERE FOR CONCERTS WHAT THE HELL 😭😭😭🔫

Yes the choice of songs for Rihanna's performance was really good, I command her for doing it while pregnant, though I think I expected something else. I saw a tweet that said "ASAP Rocky's wife Rihanna did so well during Super Bowl" HUH?! I didn't even know much about him until he collabed with Lana(?) don't say shit like that. Rihanna live was fine, but I think my expectations were higher, she's pretty charismatic, but idk something felt a bit off??? The tickets were really expensive and the concert didn't leave me 100% satisfied, but I like her music, she's a hit maker so I think it makes up to it

i really wish she performed pon de replay too wouldve been the cherry on top, but diamonds ending was 🤌🏻🤌🏻 with the flashlights and everything! FBSKDJ NO BC ASAPS ACTUALLY REALLY COOL not more than miss riri, praise the lord by him is actually fire <3 he’s rihanna’s husband not the other way around 🫡,,, huhhhhhh ive seen a few of her concert videos i think she has more fun to the music and doesn’t tend to follow the dance fbfbjc wait are her tickets beyonce expensive??? 😭😭😭😭 i got NO CHANCE TO SEE HER NOW COMEON 😭😭😭 SHE NEEDS TO GET PREGNANT WITH AN ALBUM

Once in a while people start questioning some fans and their minions come to their defence. Ofc some accusations are baseless, and I'm not gonna call everyone a stalker, but obsessed weirdo? Yeah ksjsjsjsjsahjaja. Aaaaanf I need to say this: fuck Berlin! They got Hwa at the pop up store, chased Jongho and camped outside their hotel. Also my "friend" saw them in Berlin twice and 4 times in total and I'm not having it. 🤡 I ignored all their messages lol (not just because they saw Atz, I'm just sick of them in general)

no yeah the way everyone kept coming to the defence and the fansite kind of emotionally manipulated their way around was talent <3 and jongho got CHASED 😭😭😭 4 TIMES??? oh anon u already know they saw them ‘accidentally’ KDBWKDBSKCKCK SICK OF THEM JFBSNDBDKC ✨BLOCKÉ ✨

And why am I seeing videos from the same people over and over again, sigh. Whenever I see some of their watermarks I 🔫🔫🔫 those crazy Korean stans especially

Bestie last night I ate so much kimbap, tteokbokki and dumplings I almost exploded and watched YOU until 6am. 💀 then I had to leave before 11am. Buuuut I took photos with Hwa in the Valenteez booth! (We looked cute ngl)

HOW WERE THEYYYYYY!!!!! omg did eat the tteokbokki with the soju combo, did it have spice bc why does some korean food not have it 😭😭😭 OH U WATCHED YOU?? the new season? is it any good? heard it got a little dumb 😭😭 AAAAA DID U GUYS GET THE PC’S AND ALL??? hope u have lots of fun!! be safe during the clubing 🔫

I'm sorry, mushroom head Hwa is really a challenge for me, he's lucky I love him enough, but 🙃 Yeosang's hair though 💞💞💞 /// Girlie is truly fearless /// Bodyguard and bodyguard at the club celebrating over 4 thousands notes

LMFAOOO HEY 😭😭😭 ITS CUTE 😭😭

omg yeosang is becoming so fine with that long hair and the glasses pairing 🤌🏻🤌🏻 it is very vampire core

SHE REALLY IS FEARLESS THE WAY I GASPED WHEN I READ WHAT SHE SAID JCBSMDHDKC she a mbappe fan it seems i can change u yunjin look me in the eye, speaking of mbappe he just,, wouldn’t hurt to be a lil nice

PLS FBWMDJWK STOP IT THE BLACK HAIRED TRIGGERS SOMETHING TO ME 😭😭😭 ESP WITH THIS

Koreans love their endo... I- anyway let him eat his noodles!!! So fucking cute stop AND FOR WHAT 😳 /// And rip to marsverse, I'm so sad, I didn't care for Vlive, but Universe come back! I read Hwa's farewell messages, he's so dramatic and lovely 😭💞 what are we gonna do without it :((((

WHATS UP WITH THEM AND ENDOSCOPIES 😭😭😭😭 universe going down, then possibly mf going bbl, bbl and weverse trying to merge,,, we’re never getting SHIT 😭😭 atp they’re going to the youtube community section atp 😭😭

Pauseeeee what JP comeback lmao what did I miss, anyways fencing? And when I tell you I did a little bit of fencing as a child... I'm not ready for fencer Hwa. Real and then he says this and we're supposed to be normal??? - DV 💖

TUMBLR ERASED THIS PART

EGWKGFE ANON U DID FENCING??????? 1. UR RICH, 2. HOW MANY SPORTS DID U PLAY ATP I LEARN NEW THINGS ABT U DAILY😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 WHAT HAVE U NOT PLAYED,, no bc hwa in that blond and all black, giving very rich kid at those rich private academies core

IM SCREAMING DHGFLHQDGF

nowww..

???????? ITS ACTUALLY HAPPENING??/ AYOO?

[serasvictoria]

Title: Pretty Persuasion

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Female Reader

Summary: You are the proud owner of Hawkins Records and have been for some years now, but dwindling sales mean that you might be forced to close the store that you love so much. Help comes in the form of Eddie Munson, former friend and frontman of a very successful band, but since the two of you hadn't parted in the best way 12 years ago there is no telling what will happen when you reunite again.

Word Count: 19.398

Content warning: 18+ mdni. Porn with lots of feelings. I am not joking, there are a lot of feels in this. Two idiots in love. Swearing. Oral (m and f receiving). Unprotected sex (p in v). Alcohol use, but nothing outrageous. Short haired Eddie (hey, if the guys from Metallica got a haircut in the 90s, Eddie can get one too). Please let me know if I missed something!

Notes: This story takes place in 1996 and Eddie and Reader are both 30 years old. Reader character graduated in 1984, the year that Eddie was supposed to have graduated as well, and left Hawkins shortly afterwards.

I made a playlist for this that I played whilst writing and it can be found right here for people that are interested. It's mainly alternative music from the 90s from bands that I love.

Beta read by the lovely Pearl. Any remaining mistakes are all mine.

Tagging @adrille88 @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie @quantumlocked310 @kaybee87 @istorkyou

“Hawkins Records, how can I help you?”

Eddie bit his bottom lip. This was crazy. This was probably the craziest idea that he ever had in his entire life.

“Hello?” He swallowed and before he could answer, the feminine voice on the other end started talking again. “Chase, is that you again? I can hear you breathing down the phone, you fucking perv. I swear to god if you call again I will fucking end you. We’re talking about me taking a pair of garden scissors to your house and cutting off your balls.”

“Wow,” Eddie said with a laugh. “Jesus. Harsh.”

“Oh.“ The surprise in her tone is clearly audible, even in just that one word. “I’m sorry, but we’ve been having some issues.”

“I can tell.” He laughed again and ran his hand through his hair nervously. “Look, I’ll make it quick, because I don’t want that guy to miss out on your furious, and might I add, sexy voice…”

“Fuck you,” the voice on the other end countered with a chuckle of her own. “But what can I do for you then? Want me to hold a copy of the Alice in Chains Unplugged CD for you?”

“Nah, thanks, I already have one,” he replied.

“Lucky you.” Eddie decided not to mention that he was given a copy by Jerry Cantrell himself. He didn’t like to brag. “So? What do you need?”

“Well, it’s not about what I need, but about what you need.” He could hear her groan on the other end so he kept talking before she gave him a lashing with her tongue (which he wouldn’t have minded much to be honest and he hadn’t even seen the girl). “I heard that the store isn’t doing too great…”

“Yeah.” Her voice sounded decidedly smaller then, with a lot less confidence and bravado as before. “We got til the end of the year,” she sighed. “Unless I win the fucking lottery or something.”

“Guess this is your lucky day then, because I can make all your troubles go away,” he snapped his fingers next to the mouthpiece. “Just like that.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I want to make you an offer you can’t refuse...”

That was two weeks ago.

And now Eddie Munson was on his way to Hawkins Records.

Eddie Fucking Munson. Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson as almost everyone at school used to call him. Eddie, the singer and lead guitarist of Corroded Coffin, the band that you’d seen play many a time at The Hideout before they’d made it big.

It was insane that you could even say that you once knew the frontman of a band that played at sold out venues all over the world. It had taken them years to get there, but they had made it.

While you had been away at college, Gareth, their drummer, graduated and shortly thereafter all four of them had left Hawkins to record a demo in Indianapolis.

Their self-titled demo was available in the store, still did reasonably well actually, and it got reprinted almost every single year. The first pressings were worth quite a bit of money and you actually had two of them upstairs, something that you had been saving for a “rainy day”. You had been slowly trying to get yourself used to the fact that that day might come a lot sooner than you thought, but then Eddie had called to make his offer, to buy the store and thus taking care of all your financial difficulties.

If he had been serious about it at all that was.

Because there was every chance that he might change his mind when he found out that you were the current owner. There was a history between the two of you that you’d rather not think of, but for all you knew, Eddie could turn on his heel and walk straight out again as soon as he saw your face.

The bell above the door rings and you instantly call out, “He’s not here yet.”

It didn't take a genius to figure out who had come round to check if Eddie had arrived. Again. It was only the ninth time that he had come round since the store had opened almost four hours ago.

Hurried footsteps approached the counter and when he reached it, his fingers started drumming on the old wood nervously. “He said that he’d be here over an hour ago,” Dustin says as he keeps his eyes firmly pointed at the door.

“Maybe he’s stuck in traffic somewhere,” you reply as you turn the page of the current edition of Rolling Stone magazine, something that you were barely reading at all. It had Jenny McCarthy on the cover with a hotdog that she was spraying loads of mustard on in a suggestive manner. “Or you know, it could all be some elaborate joke.”

“He’d never do that.” Dustin looks slightly shocked that you even suggested that at all. His curly hair, which was usually hidden underneath a cap, was slicked back. There was so much wet-look gel in it that it shone like crazy. “Eddie loves this place.”

“I know,” you reply with an annoyed tone in your voice. Looking back down at the page, the words ‘An artist wears his work in place of wounds’ in a Patti Smith article caught your attention. “I used to come here with him, you know.”

Whenever Eddie had money to spare, he’d be in here and looking for new releases. When he was listening to something that he liked, which was often, he’d pull the worn headphones off his head and shove them in your face, while excitedly telling you, “You’ve got to hear this.”

You had been with him when he bought Judas Priests’ Defenders of the Faith for example, which had been proclaimed as the best thing ever by Eddie at the time. The then owner, Rob, had later gifted a poster with the cover art on it to Eddie which he had stuck to his bedroom wall that same afternoon. You also distinctly remembered Eddie making fun of your, sometimes poor, taste in music, like when you had bought R.E.M.’s Murmur, a band that you still loved and whose second album you were playing right now.

Every good memory of your teenage years was tied up to this store.

And to Eddie Munson.

“It’s why you took over, right?”

“What?” Your mouth falls open, completely in shock over his question. “I didn’t buy this store because of Eddie! W-why would I- fuck. That would be so incredibly stupid!” Dustin raises an eyebrow, obviously not believing you. “I didn’t! I love this place and I didn’t want to see it turned into another run of the mill store. And look where that got me.”

“It’s okay,” Dustin replies as his fingernail picks at a loose piece of veneer on the old counter. “Eddie will save the day.”

“Yeah right. I still say that all this is some elaborate pr-“

Before you can finish your sentence, the door suddenly swings open, making the bell ring again. You didn’t look up from your magazine this time either, especially not when you heard that voice.

“Jesus. This place hasn’t changed a bit.”

You gave yourself a quick once over and deemed yourself passable enough. Since you had been half convinced that Eddie was never going to show, you hadn't even attempted to dress up. It was hot as fuck too, the height of summer, and the old AC barely offered enough in terms of cooling the place down, so you had opted for a pair of jean shorts and a black tank top with the name of the record store printed on it.

At least the clothes were clean. Thank god for that.

Despite not wanting to, fearful of a look of disappointment on his face when he saw that you were now working here, you did eventually look in his direction. It was all too easy to picture that same boy that you had hung out with daily all those years ago. The youthful exuberance didn't appear to have left him at all, but he wasn't the same guy that you had once known.

His hair was a lot shorter for starters.

Back then, he had vowed never to cut it, even though he had had a buzzcut in middle school. The long hair was part of his persona, an extension of it if you will, and he had made jokes about how all his strength was in his hair, very much like Samson. It was cut short now, but still long enough to show off his curls, with one curled over his forehead in what was either a deliberate or accidental move.

His clothing hadn’t changed much. His outfit was still predominantly black, with jeans that were so tight that it looked like they had been spray painted on. His shirt, with a faded Metallica print, was sleeveless and showed off all the new tattoos that he had gotten over the years. You briefly wondered whether there was a piece of his skin that hadn’t been inked yet.

Different, but still the same.

“You’re late!” Dustin calls out.

“Traffic was a bitch,” Eddie replies with a chuckle. “Is that you, Henderson?”

"Who else?" Dustin approaches him and is immediately swept up in a big hug. Dustin had told you that he and Eddie had kept in touch before. From the moment that he had found out that both of you knew Eddie, he hadn't shut up about him. In fact, Dustin had been the one that had told Eddie that the store hadn't been doing well. "Hey, man."

"Hey." They release each other and Eddie pats Dustin's back one more time for good measure. "Haven't seen you in a while, big man." It had looked like Eddie had wanted to say more, but you could see his nose crinkle in disgust even from this distance. "The fuck. R.E.M.? I fucking hate those guys."

You scoff loudly from behind the counter and that was when he finally noticed you. "Fuck you, Munson. Pretty Persuasion is the best song ever."

"Is not, loser," he counters like he used to do more than ten years ago as well. "Jesus,” he grins. “Talk about a blast from the past."

"Something like that," you mumble as you finally close your magazine and move it to the side.

You could hear Michael Stipe singing ‘He’s got a pretty persuasion’ through the speakers. It felt very appropriate to you.

Despite Eddie always being very vocal in his dislike of everything R.E.M., you did wonder if he even heard the lyrics and whether he finally realized that whenever you heard that song, you always thought of him. Sadly, he showed no sign of awareness as his eyes swept over the place that he used to know like the back of his hand and your shoulders immediately slumped in defeat.

Too good to be true, eh? Just like old times, you thought to yourself and tried to settle into an air of indifference, the only line of defense that you had left.

Eddie started walking around the store like he used to do back then as well, with Dustin hot on his heels instead of you on this particular occasion. He kept looking up at the walls and the various release posters that you had plastered all over it.

Some of which were old, like the one for Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation which hung next to one for Rage Against The Machine’s Evil Empire which had been up there for about three months now.

You saw Eddie reach out and touch the Kurt Cobain poster, in a sign of respect. Some local kids had turned into some kind of shrine after Kurt had died two years ago, scribbling messages on it about how much he had meant to them. You didn’t have it in you to take it down.

Eddie and Dustin were talking in hushed tones, laughing occasionally, as they slowly made their way to the counter. Seeing Eddie up close for the first time in ages was making you nervous already.

Stop it, you think to yourself. You're being ridiculous. It's just Eddie. No big deal. Maybe he forgot all about what happened and then you can get on with your life.

"Didn't know you worked here," Eddie said when he was a couple of feet away from you.

"I own the place.” You almost sound too casual, which was a miracle seeing how you were a total mess on the inside.

"Really? Since when?"

"Since Rob died, so that's… what?” You start counting on your fingers quickly. “Eight years ago now?"

It was shortly after you graduated from college and you were still in that “What next?” stage of your life. You had merely been visiting Hawkins at the time, on a social call to visit some relatives, when you found out that Rob had died. Buying the record store had been a rather impulsive decision that you had never regretted, not until quite recently anyway.

"So you're the girl that I talked to on the phone?" He was standing on the other side of the counter now, his hands placed flat on the wooden surface, his rings immediately catching your eye. You nod in reply to his question. "You could have told me that that was you."

"Didn't think about it," you reply. You look at Dustin over Eddie's shoulder first, a big grin spread all over his face for some reason, before looking Eddie in the eye. "Why? Are you disappointed?"

"Fuck, did I say that?" He flashes you a wide grin, his dimples appearing like sunshine that was peeking through the clouds. "I know how much you love this place."

"Yeah. It seemed like the right thing to do, you know?” You thought that you were still pulling off this whole casual indifferent act, but from the way that Dustin was looking at you, who was trying very hard not to burst out laughing, you figured that you probably looked like a damn lunatic. “And I inherited some money when my grandmother died so I had the funds to do it."

“I’m sorry about that.” Eddie’s eyes soften considerably and he reaches out to give your hand a comforting squeeze.

“Don’t be. It happened a long time ago.” When you pull your hand away a bit too quickly, Eddie frowns briefly, unsure why you don’t seem to want him to touch you. Your hands are clammy and shaking so you hide them underneath the counter instead, out of his reach. “So. Here you are.”

“Here I am,” he grins, having recovered from your rejection. “And you’re in trouble. Never thought I’d be bailing you out.”

“It was usually the other way around,” you laugh.

Whenever Eddie was in trouble, and he got into trouble a lot (Hopper practically had Eddie’s number on speed dial), you’d usually provide him with an alibi, swearing up and down that you’d been with him all night and that he had never left your sight.

“So it’s high time that I repay the favor.”

“Guess so.” You look away from him, his stare too intense. “You’ll have to tell me how this is going to work though, I’m a bit fuzzy on the details.”

“Sure.” He pushes himself away from the counter, somehow sensing that you didn’t know how to act around him. “Glad that it’s you by the way.”

“Me?” It was true that you had always loved this place, it was the closest thing to a second home that you knew, but actually going as far as buying it in an effort to save it? It had been a hasty purchase driven entirely by love. You hadn't even given yourself time to think about it. It hadn't been until you were actually standing in the store all those years ago, as the owner this time, that you had taken the time to think about what the hell you had done. "I can't help but think that I shouldn't have, you know?"

"Don't say that. This old place is kinda instrumental in getting us back together now, right?" A shiver runs down your spine when Eddie says that and you know that he didn't mean it like that, but you can't stop your mind from wandering in that particular direction. "Besides, I'm here now, ain't I? Your savior."

"Fuck, Eddie," you laughed. "Still with the theatrics."

"Some things never change, babe."

"I guess not."

After a short amount of time spent catching up, you closed the store early and went out for lunch with Eddie and Dustin at a local diner. Everyone stared at Eddie from the moment that he walked in.

Several of the older patrons still looked at him like he was a devil worshiper whereas some of the people that had attended high school with him had looks on their faces that hinted at jealousy and something else, too. Belinda, a former cheerleader, even came up to him with one of the biggest plastic smiles that she could produce and told him how glad she was to see him.

As soon as she left, after realizing that Eddie wasn’t going to give her any attention, the three of you sniggered and talked about how Belinda had never even looked twice at Eddie when he was still in school.

Now that he had made it big, Eddie was suddenly a lot more interesting.

“Fuck, that was so weird,” he says when you head back to the store. It was just the two of you now, because Dustin had already made plans with Suzie. “I think that she was putting the moves on me, too.”

“You think?” You nudge his side with your fist. “She looked ready to drop down to her knees and suck you off in front of everyone.”

“Ew.” Eddie shoves your shoulder and you laugh in reply. “I don’t even want to think- that’s fucking gross, man.”

“Doesn’t that kind of thing happen to you all the time?”

“Sometimes,” he says with a shrug. “But that doesn’t mean that I’ve gotten used to it.”

“Starfuckers,” you counter as you hold open the door that leads to your apartment above the store. “All looking to become the next Mrs Munson.”

Eddie chuckles at that and you want to laugh along with him, but you could feel a sense of dread begin to form in the pit of your stomach.

You didn’t know why you thought this, but maybe he turned down Belinda Foster, former head cheerleader and current very unhappy housewife, because he had a girl waiting for him back home. It was a very distinct possibility at least.

“I wouldn’t have made fucking Belinda my wife even if I had stayed here,” he sneers when you reached the top of the stairs. “She’s the one that gave me that damn 'Freak' nickname.”

“No way,” you reply and you watch Eddie nod to confirm it. “She started that shit?”

“She did! She was a massive bitch.” Eddie tried to open the door at the top of the steps, but it wouldn’t budge. “Locked.”

“Oh shit. Wait.”

You took the remaining steps until you were standing next to him. The hallway was narrow and you were suddenly very much aware of how close Eddie was. You could feel his body heat radiating off of him as you fiddled with the lock.

“There,” you say and when you looked back up at him, you were looking straight into his warm brown eyes. “Open.”

“Hmm?” Eddie didn’t appear to have heard you, his eyes were on your lips the entire time. “What?”

“Open,” you cleared your throat and pushed the door open suddenly. “The door. It’s open.”

“Oh," he shook his head then, the spell broken. "Okay.”

With a gesture from your arm, very much copying the same kind of gestures he'd make all the time at girls back in high school, Eddie stepped into your place. You leaned against the cool wall for a moment to gather yourself before you followed him inside.

You had already been nervous, but your nerve levels had reached epic proportions now that Eddie was standing in your shitty living room with the old carpet flooring and looking at what was on your walls and what was on the shelves.

He had come to a standstill in front of a collection of picture frames and eventually plucked one from the shelf and held it up to you. “What the hell happened to these kids, huh?”

You didn’t have to look at it more closely to know exactly which picture it was.

Eddie was smiling in it, his signature grin on his lips, and you were sticking your tongue out at whoever had been taking the picture. The two of you must have been around sixteen. Both dressed entirely in black, you wearing a Joy Division shirt and him in an Iron Maiden shirt.

You were at some gig, you couldn’t remember who had been playing anymore, but you did remember how Eddie had wrapped his arms around you that night, his chin resting on your shoulder, to sing along with some cover that the band had played.

“God only knows,” you counter. “Bet they never saw any of this coming.”

That was only half true. Back then, Eddie had the same aspirations that he had since made a reality, to make it big with the band. Your dreams were a little bit more basic, but Eddie was involved in every single one of them.

God, you were such a sap.

“Cute.” Eddie had a different picture in his hand now and since you couldn’t see which one it was, you decided to join him. When you were close enough, he held it up for you to see. “I took this one, right?”

It was an old Polaroid. It was taken during another one of Hawkins’ hot summers. You were wearing a crop top and laying in the grass, a pair of Eddie’s sunglasses obscuring your eyes, your cheeks flushed from the heat with a big smile on your face.

It was probably one of the few pictures where you had a genuine smile, teeth on display and all, which was all down to the guy on the other end of the camera.

“Yeah,” you reach out to take it from him and smile at the memories that come flooding back in. “You gave it to me.”

“You haven’t changed a bit.”

The look in his eyes is softer than you expected it to be and there was something unreadable in there, too. You fumbled with the picture frame and would have dropped it if it hadn’t been for Eddie.

His large hands enclose yours and help you hold the frame more steadily. He opens his mouth, about to speak, when you suddenly tear your hands from his grip and put the frame back down where it belonged.

“Thanks,” you mumble quickly. “Butterfingers.”

You backed away from him slowly, saying something about needing to find the papers of the store. Eddie watches you open a drawer and pull out a couple of folders that were filled with paperwork before taking it to the dining table, which looked more like a dumping ground for various things, and going through them. You’re hunched over the table, every muscle in your body pulled taut as a bowstring from the nerves.

You never used to be this nervous around him, but then again, things had changed. It hadn’t exactly ended well, something that he still regrets and he hopes that he’ll be able to explain it at one point during his stay.

"Who's Chase by the way?"

Eddie had been curious about the guy ever since he had first spoken to you on the phone. He doesn’t miss how your shoulders stiffen at the mere mention of the name and how you release the breath that you’d been holding moments later.

"My ex husband," you reply in a deadpan voice.

"You were married?!”

"As I seem to recall, you’d gotten married, too. My marriage didn't get a mention in the gossip rags though.” It had been fairly big news at the time. Metal guitarist marries a squeaky clean actress. That wasn’t the actual headline of course, just what it had turned into in your head. They had been a very unlikely couple after all. “Mine lasted longer as well."

"Fuck you.” He laughs at his own stupidity. “It was a mistake, alright? I barely knew her. Hope that you knew your guy though."

You look over your shoulder at him. "You know him, too."

"The name doesn't ring a bell."

"Chase Wright?” you ask, but Eddie’s expression doesn’t change. “He was a center on the basketball team?"

"What?” He definitely recognizes the name now. “You married that douche?!"

"Eh," you shrug. "He was cute."

"You hated his guts," he counters with a sneer, still remembering how Chase used to treat others in school.

"People are allowed to change their minds, Eddie." You can’t keep the anger out of your voice, but the anger is mainly aimed at yourself, not at him. “People change.”

"Okay, fair enough." He held his hands up, signaling defeat. "I take it that he's not around anymore."

"Nope. Kicked him out when I caught him fucking a girl that used to work here.” You slam one folder down on the table to get some of the anger out of your system. “In our bed."

"Ouch."

"Ah well. He can go fuck himself,” you say dismissively. You didn’t want to waste any more time thinking about Chase. “Good riddance.”

“You never needed a guy anyway.”

“Huh?” You frown when Eddie says that and while you’re fairly certain that he meant it as a compliment, you’re still left confused by the remark. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You were always pretty independent and took shit from no one.” Eddie looks and sounds impressed as he recalls the person that you once used to be. Keywords being 'used to be'. “You were cool.”

“Things were different back then,” you say as you move onto the next folder with papers. “I wouldn’t exactly call myself cool now.”

“I would,” Eddie laughs.

“Shut up.” You laugh along with him and shake your head. “You’re way cooler. You made it, dude. Living the dream and all that bullshit.”

“Not entirely,” he says under his breath as his eyes scan the pictures again, especially the one of you sprawled out on the lawn of his uncle’s old trailer. “Got obligations now. Records to sell, gigs to play… it’s not all fun and games.”

“Yeah well, at least you don’t have to keep this place afloat.”

“I will if you find those papers.”

“Touché.”

“Why’d you really buy this place?” Eddie sees you freeze and can hear the piece of paper that you’re holding shake in your hand. “It couldn't have been doing much better before you took over.”

“Not really,” you say quietly. “I just couldn’t-” He hears you make a little triumphant noise then and sees you reach for the next piece of paper and hold it up. “Found it.”

It takes you a few seconds before you’re standing next to him again, handing him the deed that you’d just found. “This is what you need, right?”

Eddie looks at it and then back up at you again. Whatever you had been about to tell him, it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t going to get the answers that he sought right now.

“Yeah,” he eventually replies. “This is what I need.”

Maybe later.

Eddie called the guy that handled finances for him (he actually had a guy for that) and set things in motion on his end.

It should take a couple of days, but at the end of it Eddie would be the new owner of Hawkins Records and the future of the store would be secure.

Crazy when you thought about it.

It hadn’t been talked about in so many words yet, but you assumed that he would be fine with you staying on to run things and that you’d report to him every once in a while? You had no idea what Eddie wanted, but you knew for certain that he wouldn’t stay and run the store himself.

You celebrated your future joint venture with pizza, cheap beer and music. Owning a record store meant that you had plenty of albums to choose from and you swore that Eddie was like a kid in a candy store. You were more than okay with him picking the music and he had dug several gems out of your collection already.

While Motörhead’s Iron Fist is on the record player, an album that Eddie played so much that he ended up ruining the record when he was a teenager, talk turns to his love life when Sex & Outrage plays.

It was a song about groupies, which is something that Eddie thankfully does not discuss. You didn’t want to know how many girls came up to their tour bus in the hopes of getting lucky with one of the band members and you weren’t going to ask him about it either.

“You have no idea,” he says while you grab two new bottles of beer from the fridge. “It’s insane. I could barely get anyone to look twice at me in high school and now I can’t go anywhere without having girls write their phone numbers on whatever they can find and slipping them to me.” He takes a bottle of beer from your hand and pops the cap with his lighter. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” you say with a shrug. He trades his opened bottle for your closed one. “Must be tough, huh? All those models that want to fuck you all the time?”

“For the record, there’s only been one model and she was fucking exhausting.”

“I bet.” When he takes a sip from his beer, you see his nose crinkle, something that you mistake for disgust. “Sorry that it’s not the more expensive stuff, but we don’t really get imports here.”

“Honey, I like Miller. I’m not exactly a fan of that overpriced crap anyway.”

“Huh.” You took a swig of your own bottle and sat down on the lazy chair next to the couch that Eddie was sitting on. “So you’d rather spend your money on keeping a failing record store in business than treating yourself to the finer things in life?”

You reach forward to grab a packet of cigarettes and a lighter off the coffee table so you didn’t see how Eddie’s eyes focused on the collar of your tank top. You had not realized that you had flashed him a more than generous amount of cleavage.

“Like coke and hookers?”

“Call girls,” you correct him right before you lit your cigarette. “Hookers sounds too cheap.”

“And I don’t do cheap?”

“Seeing how you made it enough to buy your way out of Hawkins, why would you?” If you'd been in the same position, you'd be living it up, you knew that much at least.

“I’m still the same guy that I was back then.”

“Only with more money this time round." Corroded Coffin had come back from a very successful world tour only two months ago and there was plenty of talk of them working on a new album so it's not like they were doing badly. "And drowning in pussy, too, I reckon.”

“Pfffff. You keep bringing that up." He put his hands on the back of his head, leaned back and looked at you with raised eyebrows, like he was taking a bit too much satisfaction out of the fact that you seemed to be very much preoccupied with the state of his sex life. "Are you jealous?”

“Jealous of anyone that gets laid regularly," you elaborate. "Not like there are a lot of options round here for an alternative chick that runs a record store.”

The only guy in town who would have potentially been up for a hookup had been Steve Harrington, but a former cheerleader had managed to change Steve's womanizing ways. There was even talk of him buying her a ring to make it official, but who knew if that was actually true.

“There’s someone for everyone," Eddie declares and you're somewhat surprised that he even buys into that shit.

“I got burned one too many times," you counter. "I ain’t looking anymore.”

There’s a silence between you two after that statement. It came out sounding too harsh, too bitter, your words a little bit too scathing.

It was a barefaced lie, too, and you knew it, but the only guy that you ever truly wanted wasn’t exactly available to you. It didn’t matter that he was here right now, because he’d only leave eventually.

They all did.

“We made out once,” Eddie says quietly as he looks at you from the corner of his eye. “Long time ago.”

“Jesus!” you exclaim. “I can’t believe that you remember that.” Pretending that you barely remembered was the best course of action here. You weren’t going to admit to the fact that you still thought about that night regularly and how you regretted that everything had eventually slipped away from you. “I was high as a fucking kite.”

“And drunk.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you were taking advantage of me?”

“You think I needed to?" Seeing how the two of you went way back, it wasn't that hard for Eddie to see straight through your lies. "Fuck, you were throwing yourself at me before you’d even drank one beer.”

“I was not,” you say indignantly. “Besides, I seem to recall that you kept trying to look down my shirt that evening.”

“Was not!“

“You’re such a bad liar, Munson. Always have been.” You lean forward and try to kick his shin, but he pulls away just in time. “My tits were the first thing that you went for when we started making out.”

“Can you blame me?” He gestures at your rack. “Your tits were fucking amazing.”

“Still are,” you say under your breath, thinking that he hadn’t heard you and completely missing how his eyes drift down as soon as you had said it. “You were groping them as if you had no idea what to do with them.”

“Yeah, well, it was my first time feeling someone up, alright?" He flexes his fingers then, as if he was trying to remember exactly how they felt in his hands and you're briefly mesmerized by the seemingly simple gesture. "And I’d been obsessed with your rack for ages.”

“Really?”

“Fuck yeah, couldn’t get them out of my head.”

That one hookup had never really gone anywhere, though.

You had been teenagers, horny teenagers.

There had been tension between you for ages, that’s what you had thought anyway, and Eddie had been ogling you so blatantly that night, too. His eyes were drifting down whenever he thought that you hadn’t been looking and shooting up to your face whenever he thought that you noticed.

In the end, you had made the first move after a couple of beers and one shared joint. The kiss had been impulsive and while it had taken Eddie’s brain a couple of seconds to catch up to what was happening, he had matched your fervor when he kissed you back and pulled you into his lap.

It was just one night of kissing, groping and grinding on each other. A few hours full of breathless giggles, foreheads pressed together, shared breaths, you gasping into his mouth when he pulled you harder against him, his pupils dilated so far that you could barely see the brown of his irises anymore.

How it hadn’t ended with you in his bed was anybody’s guess, but it hadn’t. You vaguely remember the promises of wanting to do it right, wining and dining you properly, instead of fucking you in the back of his van.

Sadly, it had never gotten the chance to evolve into something more.

When the two of you had seen each other again on Monday, it was like nothing had happened at all.

Eddie had blushed furiously at first, but he had recollected himself fairly quickly, slammed his hand in between your shoulder blades and asked you if you had finished your homework, something that he had never taken much interest in before.

“You acted like it had never happened.”

“I was nervous, alright?” he admits. “I spent most of that Sunday jerking off whilst thinking of you on top of me so I kinda freaked out when I saw you again.”

“I tried to kiss you again the next weekend and you turned your head away.”

It was something that you had never forgotten. Despite the fact that he had acted off with you all week, you had still tried to repeat it the following weekend.

Eddie had not let you however. He turned his head away when you leaned in, your lips connecting with his cheek instead, and then he had excused himself.

It was the lowest that you had ever felt in your entire life. After sitting in stunned silence for a short while, you had headed back home and cried yourself to sleep that same night, because you’d been crushing on Eddie hard for ages and then he just… rejected you.

The Saturday night before you had been soaring high above the clouds and the Saturday night after, you crash landed back to Earth.

“I’m sorry, alright, I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.”

“I’ll say! We barely talked for the rest of the year!” you exclaim, still hurting over something that had happened a lifetime ago. “And then I graduated, went to college and we never spoke again. By the time I came back, you were long gone.”

“And I still regret that every single fucking day!”

That little outburst silences you for a bit. You got the sense that Eddie was as bothered by his own conduct as much as you had been back then. The way that he had responded to it, something that you had perceived as embarrassment that he had even let it happen at all, had ended a friendship of several years after all.

“Dude, why didn’t you ever just tell me?”

This entire conversation was draining you. When he had called you out of the blue two weeks ago to make his offer, you had wondered what he would do when he would find out that you were the one that ran the store now. You had never once counted on the fact that the two of you would have this long overdue conversation.

Part of you hoped that he had forgotten about it entirely, but it appeared to weigh as heavy on his mind as it did on yours.

“Instead you just tried to carry on as usual at first while I had to overhear stories of you hooking up with drunk chicks that came to watch you guys play at The Hideout. I fucking hated you by the end of the school year.”

Things had been tense between you after he had rejected you. Eddie had made an attempt to remain friends by pretending that he hadn’t utterly humiliated you, completely ignoring the fact that he might have needed to apologize. All the while you kept withdrawing from him.

Offers to come hang out or whatever else Eddie thought up were all met with excuses from your end, even using the famous “I need to wash my hair that night” line.

Eventually, he got the picture and left you alone completely.

“I know,” he sighs.

“You broke my heart, Eddie.”

“I know.”

“Is that all you’re gonna say?” You groan loudly and wipe a hand down your face in frustration. “Fuck, you never should have brought that night up to begin with. Would have been better if it had just remained in the past where it belongs.”

Getting up from the couch, you walked over to the small kitchen area and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the counter. You opened it and took a drink straight from the bottle, not bothering to put it in a glass. The liquid burned as it went down your throat, momentarily taking your mind off things.

“That was my first kiss, you know.” You couldn’t resist, even if the hurt was clearly audible in your voice, you still wanted him to be aware of what he had done to you. “And you basically fucking ruined it.”

“I never meant to-“

“Well, you did. I felt like shit, Eddie. You were my best friend and then I lost you because of something stupid like that.” You took another gulp from the bottle, one so large that you gasped for breath afterwards. “I think that you should leave. Go ask Dustin if you can crash in his spare bedroom or something and then we can forget that this ever happened.”

“You want me to leave?”

“Yes! Just go back to whatever fucking mansion you live in right now. Sell your records, fuck your groupies… whatever.”

“You really think the worst of me, don’t you?”

“At least you got out of this shithole of a town,” you bit back. “I’m stuck here with all the fucking memories.”

“What memories?” His voice sounded a lot closer now and when you turned your head, you noticed that he was standing a few feet away from you. He closed the distance and leaned against the counter next to you. “Hey. What memories?” he repeated again.

“This place,” you said as you gestured around you, but really meaning the store down below. “And this dumb fucking town with its dumb fucking people that I can’t shake no matter where the hell I go. I got into Columbia for god’s sake! And look at me now! Running a record store in a town that I hate.”

“So it’s nothing but bad memories then?”

“No,” you replied quietly. “Not all bad.”

“So which ones are the good ones?” He slid in a little closer until his arm made contact with yours. “Wanna tell me?”

“No.”

Because he knew. The bastard fucking knew. He knew that all the good memories involved him. He just wanted to hear you say it out loud for once, for you to stop chickening out for once in your life and to tell him how you really felt.

"Why not?"

"Because."

Too embarrassing to admit to for starters, because how are you even supposed to voice something that you've only ever said in your head? Where would you even start?

"That's not an answer."

"It's all you're getting." You try to move away from him, the need to put distance between the two of you was overwhelming because you couldn't trust yourself around him. "It's late."

"Is it? It’s not even eleven yet." He called you out on your bullshit immediately. His fingers wrap around your wrist and he pulls you back against him. "What are you so scared of, huh?"

"Eddie."

"Come on, just answer the question."

"Don't make me," you say softly. He turned you around until your ass was pressed up against the kitchen drawers. Then he placed his hands on either side of you on the counter, effectively caging you in. His big brown eyes were practically burning a hole through you. "Please don’t make me answer.”

“I’m just curious, is all.”

“Why?”

“Come on.” His smile is warm and inviting, the same one that you remembered, and it was starting to sway you. “We’re old friends, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. I guess,” you shrug halfheartedly.

“You think that I’ll make fun of you or something?”

“I wish you would.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because maybe then I could forget you,” you blurt out. He looks at you curiously, head tilted to the side as he takes you in. His expressive eyes, which usually gave you so much, are unreadable now. Or maybe you just ignored everything that was swirling around in there, still convinced that nothing would come out of this. “If I ever packed up and left, it would be like closing the door completely. And I don’t want to. I can’t.”

“So it’s my fault that you never left?”

“Yes. Because despite everything, I kept hoping that you’d come back one day and seriously, why would you? Everybody hated you.” Almost everyone in town thought that he was some cult leader when all that the Hellfire Club did was offer a safe space for all the rejects. That combined with the fact that Eddie was always so unapologetically himself was a recipe for disaster in a town like Hawkins. “Why would you want to come back to a town that treated you like shit most of the time?”

“Honey, if I had known that you were here, I would have.”

“You mean it?” He nodded in reply. “Don’t lie to me, Eddie.” It sounded too hard to believe, like something made up just because he wanted to get laid, because that was where this was going, wasn’t it? You could feel the electricity crackle in the air between you from the moment that he set foot inside your apartment. “You really mean it?”

“Yes,” he replies and he looked honest enough, his big brown eyes seemed to hold nothing but the truth in them. He still couldn’t lie for shit. Not to you. “I never stopped carrying a torch for you. Kept hoping that you’d come to a gig one night so we could catch up, pick up where we left off, but you never did.”

“I was scared.” Your voice breaks at the last word and you can feel tears begin to well up in your eyes. “I couldn’t-“

“Shhh,” he put his index finger on your lips to silence you. “You’re here now.”

“That’s ‘cause I live here,” you chuckle weakly. “Can’t leave.”

“Lucky me.”

Eddie’s lips ensured that you wouldn’t be able to reply this time. The kiss was desperate and hungry. Your teeth clashed as you came together, but neither of you cared about the clumsiness of it.

This was something that both of you had been looking to repeat for many years now.

Twelve years to be precise.

And while both of you had matured during the years that you had been apart, you were also still very much the same in a way, as if you’d merely been playing at being grownups for all this time. As if time had somehow stopped ever since you parted, only to start again now that you were together again.

“Eddie,” you moan against his lips when he pushes you up against the counter so hard that he was in danger of hurting you. You'd definitely have some bruises to show for this in the morning, as proof that it really happened. “Is this- are we really doing this?”

“I’ve been thinking of nothing else for years, baby.” His hands cup your face desperately, tilting it further back so he can run his teeth down the column of your throat. As soon as they make contact with your skin, you start to make noises as if you are in heat. “Jesus. Keep doing that.”

“I will if you will,” you breathe back.

“Deal.”

His hands grab your waist and he lifts you up onto the counter. You instantly wrap your thighs around his hips and Eddie starts rutting into you a split second later. Every time his pelvis connects with yours, you could feel him growing harder. Whenever his cock presses into the apex of your thighs, you mewl and your eyes practically roll back into your skull every single time.

“Fuck, Eddie,” you dig your nails in his shoulderblades, no doubt leaving little crescent shaped imprints in his skin. “Want you so bad.” His hands slid under the hemline of your tank top, grabbing two handfuls of your tits within seconds. “I need you.”

“I know, sweetheart.” He pulls on the fabric that was covering your torso, almost tearing it in his eagerness to get it off. “Fuck, baby,” he growls when he got an eyeful of your chest. “You were right. They’re still fucking amazing.”

“You heard me?!”

“What do you think?” He buries his face between them and looks up at you. “Most perfect tits I’ve ever seen.” His tongue slides along the scalloped edge of the lace cups. “And you’re not bad either.”

“Shut up,” you lightly smack the back of his head. “You can always leave if you want to.”

“Are you kidding?” Eddie pulls the cups of your bra down, finally uncovering your tits. “I’ve been dreaming about this for years. I’m not gonna leave now.”

He finally stops talking, finally, and puts his mouth to good use. His lips latch on to one of your nipples and you throw your head back so far that the back of your head slams into the cabinets above the counter.

You swear loudly and Eddie pauses for a second, to look up at you and see if you were alright.

“Fine!” you all but shout. “I’m okay. Keep going.”

“Yes, ma’am. Whatever you want.”

Eddie dives straight back in, lavishing your tits in so much attention that you start grinding your hips against his, practically begging for sweet release.

“Goddammit,” he husks against the shell of your ear after his tongue had licked a stripe all the way up to your neck. “Your tits are perfect, sweetheart. Can’t get enough of ‘em.“

“Oh yeah?“

“Yeah.” He moves down again, licking at the pebbled skin around your painfully hard nub. “I want to paint them with my cum.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“Not yet, baby.”

Eddie pulls you against him, off the counter. As soon as your feet touch the ground, you kick your flip flops off and he turns you around so he can press his pelvis against the curve of your ass. You press back when you feel his bulge grinding into you.

“Don’t want to come too fast,” he whispers in your ear as his hands start undoing your jeans. “Want to take my time.” He yanks your jean shorts and underwear down roughly, pulls them over your feet and discards them next to him. “But you’ll get my cum eventually, don’t worry about that.”

“I wasn’t. Not worried at all-!” The last word turns into a high pitched yelp when his hand connects with your bare ass. “Jesus, Eddie.”

“Fuckin’ love it when you say my name like that, sweetheart.” He slides his hand between your legs and hums appreciatively when he finds out how wet you are. “You’re so wet.”

“Used to get like that all the time around you,” you admit, moaning loudly when his fingers brush against your clit. “You were a fucking idiot for never noticing it before. Was always worried you’d smell me or somethin’.”

“That bad?”

“Couldn’t go near you without soaking through my panties.” Eddie groans straight into your ear and it sends a flood of warmth straight down to your core. “All the fucking time, Eddie. I had it bad. Real bad.”

“Fuck, I-“ His fingers freeze suddenly and you whine while bucking your hips against his hand in an effort to get him to move again. “I wanna make it up to you.”

“H-How?”

“You’ll see.” He takes a step back and leans against the drawers next to you, leaning back far enough so he can see your face. “Think that you’ll like it.”

You watch him, wide eyed, as he lowers himself and sits on the floor, his back resting against the cabinets behind him. He grins widely, as was usual for him, takes your hand and pulls you to the side. You step over his legs until you’re standing astride him and he looks up at you, his grin bordering on feral now that your pussy is at eye level.

“This how you want me?” You run your hands through his short hair lovingly and he leans into your touch for a moment.

“This is exactly how I want you.” His eyes never once left your cunt and he blows hot air on it, the fucking tease, just to see you squirm. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

His hands grab the back of your thighs, right underneath your ass, and bring you in closer. He presses his lips to your mound, lingering there as he looks up at you. You nod once, giving him permission, not sure if he was even asking for it but giving it all the same.

Eddie hooks your right leg over his shoulder and spreads you open even further. You just know that your foot is going to hurt from the way that it’s wedged between the wooden doors and Eddie’s back, but you could care less.

You had been waiting for this moment for so long that you could deal with some slight discomfort afterwards.

When his tongue finally makes contact with your clit, you swear that you just died and went to heaven. The contact is minimal, a light swirl with the tip of his tongue, but it’s enough to make you shudder and make your lungs constrict.

You moan his name when his tongue dips in deeper, sliding between your folds, pressing against your entrance and it’s enough to make you squeeze your eyes shut so hard that you're seeing stars.

“Stay with me,” he breathes against your sopping folds, the warm air tickling you and making your hips jerk. “Stay with me, princess.”

“Feels so good, Eddie,” you choke out. “I’m not going to last.”

“You’ll have to,” he whispers against you, “Because I’m not gonna stop.”

His tongue works against you like he’s a virtuoso, as if he’d been practicing for this single moment his entire life, hitting you in all the right places with every swipe of his tongue. He played the guitar with the same dexterity, knowing full well that he was good with the instrument, one of the best in fact, and he plays you with the same level of confidence.

A pathetic whine bursts from your lips as he subjects you to this sweet torture, as if you were simply another one of his guitars, adding you to his already extensive repertoire.

You press your hands against the laminate counter hard, your torso bending forward and resting on your forearms, head hanging down as Eddie pulls the most inhuman sounds from your lungs.

The smug bastard smiles against you, enjoying seeing and feeling you come undone by his tongue alone, and then he moans, actually fucking moans, when he pushes his tongue as deep into your pussy as it could go.

It proves to be too much for you. Your entire body tensed up, all your muscles pulled taut, your mouth hanging open in a silent scream as your climax crests and peaks. It’s so intense it almost tears a hole right through you.

Only Eddie doesn’t stop.

Still caught in the aftershocks of your orgasm, breathing so hard that it feels like your lungs are on fire, your hips buck when you feel something probing your entrance.

You sob loudly, tears already pricking your eyes, as Eddie slides two digits into you - slowly, slowly - until they can go no further. He pulls them out completely and then slips them back in.

“P-please,” you cry out. “I c-can’t take any more.”

“You say that,” his voice sounds leisurely and relaxed, his breathing warm on your overworked cunt. “But your body keeps pulling me back in.” You groan in discomfort, but your body betrays you, your hips twitching and moving back and forth in time with his motions. “See? You want more.”

“Eddie-“

“You can do this,” his free hand connects your ass roughly and he laughs when you let out a loud yelp. “One more time. Indulge me.”

“Oh god.” Your voice wavers when he curls his fingers inside you, hitting your sweet spot and making a sudden jolt course through your body. “I really ca-“ Your voice goes up in pitch when his tongue touches your clit again. “D-don’t… s-st-stop…”

Those two words are enough to make him speed up. His fingers thrust up into you harder and faster and his lips practically attach themselves to your clit, sucking on the bundle of nerves and flicking at it with his tongue.

Your second climax is a scorcher and you come whilst screaming his name. Your body convulses, wanting to fold in on itself, and you claw at whatever you can simply to keep yourself standing upright when you feel your knee buckle underneath you.

Eddie unhooks your right leg from his shoulder and you can feel the muscles in it scream from soreness. You can feel a trickle of fluid flow down your thigh as his hands settle on your hips and he pulls you down onto his lap.

Wrapping your arms around his neck, you lean into his chest and Eddie’s hands rub up and down your back gently as you come down from your high.

“You okay?” he finally asks when your breathing has normalized. He listens to you take in a shaky breath before you even say anything and he worries that he may have pushed you too far. “Talk to me.”

“It’s so unfair,” you mumble into his chest.

“Unfair?” Surprise is clearly audible in his voice, but you’re unwilling to move from your very comfortable current position. “What’s unfair?”

“I’m practically naked and you’re still fully dressed.” It makes him burst into laughter and even when he stops, his belly still shakes when he tries to contain himself. “Not funny,” you pout, even though you’re amused yourself.

Sitting back on his thighs, you pull on the collar of his shirt. Eddie hooks a finger underneath the strap of your bra, the only item of clothing that you’re still wearing even if it’s all askew, pulls it back until it snaps against your skin.

“You’re still wearing this.”

“Oh yeah, ‘cause it covers up so much.” You roll your eyes, reach around the back to unhook your bra and take it off. “Doesn’t change anything about the fact that you’re not naked.”

“Hmm.” He leans forward a little, his lips ghosting over yours as he grabs the hemline of his shirt, pulls it over his head and tosses it as far as he can. “This better?”

“A little,” you pout, trying to sound disappointed, but who could ever be disappointed when looking at Eddie’s inked chest? It was an amazing sight after all. “You got a lot more since I last saw you.”

“I was eighteen when you last saw me.” Your finger traces the demon head on his chest that you recognize, which has faded a bit over time. “Remember that one?”

“I was with you when you got it, so yeah, I do.” You bring both hands up to his chest, tracing all the new designs that he’s gotten since then, more intricate and colorful. “Do you even have any skin left for more?”

“Well, I have a couple of places…” He trails off, his cheeks coloring and a hand rubbing the back of his neck. “But the most important one is still empty.”

“Oh?” Your eyes go over the parts of his skin that you can see, but there’s barely any space left. “Where?”

Eddie takes your right hand, brings it up to his chest and places it right over where his heart is. “Right there.”

You move your hand away and sure enough, there’s an empty spot that you missed. It’s just about big enough for a name.

“That’s an important one indeed,” you muse as your fingers move back and forth over it. “Any thoughts on what you want there?”

The question was rhetoric, because it was painstakingly obvious what he had reserved that empty spot for.

“A name,” he replies. “Don’t act like you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t want to assume,” you grin. “You never know.”

Even though he had been married and had probably been with loads of women, it was still empty. So maybe that meant-

You shook your head. No way. There’s just no way.

“What’s up?” His voice is so low that it makes you shiver involuntarily.

He obviously wants to know what you’re thinking, but this is something that you can’t voice out loud, not yet, so you need to find a way to distract him somehow.

The easiest way to do that was to…

“Fuck,” Eddie groans when you grind your hips against his. You do it slowly, getting the maximum amount of friction out of it, and your breathing hitches when you angle your hips just right. “Distracting me?”

He knows what you’re doing, of course he does, but the way that he’s smiling tells you that he doesn’t mind.

“Wanna suck your dick, Ed,” you tell him. “Need to wrap my lips around it.” He swears under his breath and you look at him through your lashes, biting your bottom lip teasingly. “You gonna let me? You gonna put it in my mouth and fuck my face?”

“Jesus Christ,” he hisses. “You can't just- fuck. Can’t believe you just fucking said that.”

“Eddie,” you moan, really going in for the kill now. “I want to take all of it. Every. Inch.” You enunciate the last words clearly, emphasizing every syllable, your smile growing when you see his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “I want you to make me choke on it. You wanna see the tears stream down my face, don't you? From barely being able to fit all of you into my mouth?”

He grabs the back of your neck, pulls you close and slams his lips down on yours. He kisses you so hard that you forget to breathe and when he pulls away, he’s breathing just as hard as you are.

“When did you get so fucking filthy?”

“You don’t know half of it,” you wink. “What about it then? You want to see me on my knees with your cock in my mouth?”

Twisting your head to the side, you can feel his lips brush against the shell of your ear as he says, “You’re such a dirty little slut.”

His words send a fresh flood of warmth down to your cunt and all that you can reply is, “Uh-huh.”

“On your knees.”

You don’t need to be told twice. You’re off his lap in a flash and on your knees, ready and waiting for him. Eddie gets to his feet and his hands settle on his belt, but you brush them away quickly.

“Allow me.”

There was an overwhelming need to work fast, to unbuckle his belt quickly, yank his trousers down to his knees and stick his cock in your mouth, but it was way more fun to tease him.

Just a little.

Taking his shoes off is what you start with. You quite possibly draw it out a little bit too much, grasping the metal slider of the zippers, pulling them down tooth by tooth, holding onto his black boots as he steps out of them and then putting them side by side next to you.

Starting at his ankles, your hands skim up his jeans slowly, on the outside of his legs until you reach the top. You could have repeated that a couple of times, but decided not to.

That was more down to your own impatience rather than the temptation of pushing the boundaries, because there was nothing but amusement in Eddie’s eyes over your ability to even drag it out this long.

You undo his belt, taking care not to make your fingers brush over his crotch, where he was quite obviously straining away against the fabric in a way that was already making your mouth water. You were so ridiculously careful when you opened his zip too, fingers barely touching, your hands shaking like you were unwrapping the best present that anyone had ever given you.

Which is what he kinda was in a way.

His hand touches the top of your head, so tender that it makes you want to fucking cry, like you’re that same dumb teenager again that just wanted him to notice you and wanted him to pick you so desperately that you were blind to the fact that you’d had him all along.

You can’t even look up, too afraid to see the look in his eyes right now, so you grab at the fabric just above his knees and drag it down his legs. And you can’t even look at his boxer briefs, only catching a flash of the black item of clothing from the corner of your eye, but not focusing on it.

Not yet.

There ought to be something that you should be saying, but your tongue feels thick and your mouth dry as you keep pulling his jeans down, exposing his legs inch by inch until you pull it down his feet and leave it lying there.

When you finally hazard a glance up, Eddie’s expression is gentle, whatever bravado he always put on display was sorely lacking now. His eyes are unbearably soft instead, simply looking at the girl that he once knew, sitting on her knees in front of him and who seemed morbidly afraid to make a move.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “It’s just me.”

As if he had to remind you of that.

But it was also exactly what you needed to hear right now and you lean forward, pressing your lips on his thigh softly, lingering there for a moment, before your hands move up to pull his boxers down.

When his cock finally pops free, proudly standing at attention, hard as a fucking rock, you almost gasp. Almost. You manage to restrain yourself, but he can see it written all over your face. The surprise and yes, the hunger, is all there in your pupils and in the little smile that materializes on your lips.

“Holy shit, Ed,” you whisper, impressed. “I’m definitely going to choke on that.”

“I’m counting on it,” he moans when you wrap your fingers around the base. You move your hand up once, just to feel the velvety shaft against your palm. “You just gonna keep looking at it?”

“Maybe,” you counter with a grin. You lick a stripe up his cock and he hisses through his teeth the second that your tongue makes contact with him. “Will that do?” Eddie raises his eyebrows as he looks down at you, head tilted to the side as if to say ‘are you serious?’ without saying anything at all. You try not to laugh and ask, “No?”

There’s a bead of precum glistening on the tip and you squeeze the base as you lean in closer. Your tongue darts out from between your lips to lick it away. The amount of contact he got out of this was minimal, so his hips press forward, chasing your mouth as you pull back.

“So impatient,” you chide. “That’s your problem. No self control.”

“You started drooling the second you pulled my pants down,” he answers. Unsurprisingly, he has called you out on your bullshit yet again. “Don’t deny it.”

“I’m not,” you reply as your fist gives a lazy stroke upwards. “Pretty damn hard not to considering what you’ve got packed away in your pants.”

With your hand still on his shaft, you keep moving it up and down slowly while also angling his cock out of the way. Eddie notices and was getting ready to ask what you were doing, his mouth already open, when you suddenly move in closer to take one of his balls in your mouth instead.

A low guttural moan bursts from his lips as your tongue moves in circles around the sac and your hand tugs on his cock at the same speed. When he swears under his breath, you start humming contentedly and he reaches down to grasp the back of your head, his fingers spread out, his thumb rubbing circles right behind your ear.

You move on to his other testicle, wanting to give the same amount of attention to both. His digits keep flexing, his fingernails scratching your scalp lightly, a gentle reminder that he could shove you down onto his length whenever he pleases and was merely holding himself back. You pull your head away slowly, tugging gently on his sac with your lips until you release him suddenly.

“Fuck,” he husks out, his voice low and hoarse. “That was insane.”

“You liked that, baby?”

“Thought it was obvious.” He runs a hand through his short hair. The errant curly lock of hair gets brushed back but it pops straight back out again a split second later.

“It was,” you grin. “But I still want to hear you say it.”

“Yes.” His voice is too level, too composed, so you lick up the line between his balls just to feel his cock twitch in your grip and he chokes out the next words. “Ye-yes, I did.”

“Good.”

Your eyes focus on his cock again, especially on the ruddy head this time. You lick your lips and you can’t stop yourself from smiling this time when Eddie whines above you. Your lips make contact with the tip so softly that he barely must have felt it at all, so you do it again, making sure that he feels your kiss this time.

“Still okay?” Your eyes are impossibly wide as you look up at him and Eddie’s pupils are so large that there’s barely any brown of his irises left. “Hm?”

“Great,” he chokes out and his voice goes up in pitch when you kiss his dick again, just below the tip. “Keep doing that.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

How long you even manage to keep this up, you don’t know, but you don’t think that there’s a part of Eddie’s cock that you neglected. You’ve kissed your way up and down his shaft at least twice, sometimes using your tongue as well, and since Eddie never once asks or begs you to take him into your mouth already, you don’t.

It ends up being a natural transition.

You let your tongue circle his tip and Eddie can’t help himself as his hips press forward so you suck it into your mouth, just a couple of inches, nothing more before releasing him with a wet pop.

Eddie laughs breathlessly and swears under his breath. You can see that the fingers of one of his hands have curled around the counter. He’s gripping it so hard that his knuckles have turned white.

“Poor boy,” you say to get his attention, your voice dripping with mock sympathy. “Want me to put you out of your misery?”

Despite swearing once or twice throughout his ‘ordeal’, Eddie had been unusually silent. He blinks, focuses on you, and you can see his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallows. “Please,” is all that he manages to reply.

You manage to flash him one wicked grin before licking your palm and wrapping your fingers around his shaft once more. Then, without warning, you take him into your mouth and start sucking eagerly.

That seems to make Eddie’s tongue work again.

“Oh fuck,” he groans. “Fuck. Your fucking mouth. Jesus.” His vocabulary is limited and you can’t help but smile around him. “Don’t-don’t you fucking laugh at me.”

If your mouth hadn’t been full, you would have given him a smart ass reply, and the thought to do just that crosses your mind, but you ultimately decide against it. You had tortured the poor guy enough as it was, drawing it out any longer might unleash the beast.

A tempting thought indeed, but maybe later. Tomorrow morning perhaps?

Retaliation soon follows however. Eddie pushes his hips forward, forcing his length further into your mouth, and when he hits the back of your throat, you gag around him.

“Yeah, fuck yeah.” He sounds so desperate that you can feel a fresh flood of warmth pulsing from your cunt. “You promised, sweetheart,” he grunts out. “You fucking promised.”

And he was right. You did.

You explicitly told him that you wanted to choke on his dick, that you wanted him to make you cry and that he could fuck your face.

So far, you hadn’t exactly held up to your side of the bargain. But you would. You fucking would. You’d do anything for the guy and what was a little bit of momentary discomfort if it got him off? He could use you as a sex toy for all you cared, you would be anything that he needed.

When you released him, he let out a long groan of disappointment, convinced that you were teasing yet again and just when he thought that you were done doing that, too. It disappears just as quickly when he sees you spread your thighs a little bit wider, hands settled on your knees, in an attempt to get a bit more comfortable.

“You’re right,” you purr at him. “I did promise.”

Eddie swears that he must have ascended to a higher plain when you open your mouth and stick out your tongue, presenting yourself to him, waiting for him.

He’s seen it before of course, similar poses from faceless girls who’d come to him after gigs, crooning in his ear about how amazing he was. Their hands everywhere on the way back to the tour bus, hotel, alleyway, wherever, but they’d all end up on their knees, whining shit about how badly they wanted him and his cum.

It all hits a little bit different when it’s a girl that he’s wanted ever since he hit puberty. The girl that he watched get more beautiful with every passing day until he finally realized that, fuck, he was in love with you, making his peace with how it could never possibly be reciprocated, ignoring all the times that you’d bat your lashes at him, because no way, there was just no fucking way.

No. Never.

And then fucking panicking when it finally happened like a goddamn loser.

Thank fuck for this day.

“You’re serious?” He almost chokes on the words and it definitely doesn’t help when you nod, batting your lashes and looking at him as if he’s the only guy on the planet. “Fuck, sweetheart.”

It barely registers with him that his hand reaches down on instinct, knowing what to do now that his brain is close to short circuiting, moving on autopilot, settling on the back of your head. You whine the second that his fingers make contact, actually fucking whine, and he’s not sure if he can handle this for much longer.

“Keep sitting there, okay.” Despite the fact that you’d already made it clear that you would do just that, he still feels the need to tell you. “Tap my leg if it gets uncomfortable.” One of your hands releases your knee and grips his calf. “Good girl.”

He taps the tip of his cock against your tongue one, two, three times, before he slides inside. It’s purely exploratory at first, just to check if you’d stay in your position, to see if you won’t pull away at the first sign of discomfort when he hits the back of your throat.

Your eyes well up when he keeps his cock there, pressed as deeply inside that warm, wet cavern of your mouth as was possible for a few seconds and when he finally pulls out, you gasp.

“Good girl,” he repeats. “Good fucking girl.” He doesn’t give you much time to recover before he pushes back in. “Relax for me.”

Breathing in deeply through your nose, you relax your throat and he drives himself in deeper than before. When you blink, you can feel the tears start to leak out and slide down your cheeks.

Just as you promised.

“Fuck.” All his feelings of attempting to take it slow for your sake are replaced by this deep animalistic need to climax. He grabs your face, fingers digging into the flesh of your cheeks as he starts fucking your face in earnest. “Fuck. S-sorry, but- Fuck.”

The sounds that you make, your moans coming out all garbled from having your mouth full, only spur him on. Saliva pools in your mouth, covering his shaft and easing his passage. Every time that he thrusts in, it drips out of the corners of your mouth. Drool soaks your chin, running down the column of your throat which is currently being used for all it’s worth.

You feel his cock jump suddenly and then the first spurt of cum hits the back of your tongue. You swallow it all down obediently, his little words of praise mixed in with his moans working for you in ways that you never thought possible.

There’s almost a sense of disappointment when his hands release you and your mouth feels incredibly empty when he pulls his softening cock out. You rub your jaw, feeling as if you might have dislocated it just to fit all of him inside.

“I think that you sucked my soul out through my dick,” he pants as he sinks down onto the floor. “Shit.”

“My-“ You start talking, but your voice has been reduced to nothing more than a hoarse squeak. The second you hear it, you laugh breathlessly. “My throat is sore.”

“You don’t say,” Eddie replies and then you both laugh. You’re not able to keep it up for long, your throat still sore as it was, and he leans forward to put his finger on your lips. “Wait.”

Pushing his legs under himself, still wobbly, he turns to the counter and grabs the almost entirely forgotten bottle of whisky and hands it to you. You take a sip, coughing when you swallow, but feeling it soothes you a little as well.

“Better?” You nod and hand the bottle back to him. He takes a swig from it as well and sloshes the remaining liquid from side to side. There isn't a lot left so he holds up the bottle and asks, “Finish it with me?”

“Sure.” You settle down on the floor next to him, the vinyl underneath you a little stickier on your bare skin than you would like it to be. You nudge your shoulder into his and say, “You just asked me that because you can’t get up, huh?”

“Shut up.” He pushes back with a laugh. “Maybe if you didn’t give such killer head-“

“You wanted me to do worse?” You take the bottle from his hands and take another swig. “Because, you know, I could try to do badly next time and give you the sloppiest blowjob ever.”

“You’ll fucking kill me if you do that again.” Eddie puts his arm around you and pulls you closer against him. When you start to laugh, he says, “I mean it.”

“Oh, come on. No other girl has given you a good blowjob before?” You hazard a glance in his direction, but his gaze is so intense that you look away after a few seconds. “I don’t believe that for one second.”

“Maybe it’s more down to the girl doing it,” he shrugs. “Yeah. That’s probably it.”

“Big softie,” you reply with a chuckle. “Mister Big Rockstar has a heart after all.”

“Haven’t had possession of it for years,” he counters. “You stole it from me when I was a teenager after all.”

The giggle that escapes your lips makes you clamp a hand over your mouth. It was a full-on teenager with a crush type of laugh, giggling unnecessarily loud over something that the object of her affections had just said and it embarrassed the ever loving crap out of you.

You clear your throat, which is feeling a lot better now, and when you look at him, Eddie’s lips are pressed into a thin line as he tries to not burst out laughing over having elicited such a response from you.

“You want it back?” You sound a little bit angrier than you had intended and that does make him snort. “Fuck’s sake,” you huff without any real conviction. “Why can’t I ever be normal around you?”

“Because I like you this way,” he counters with a chuckle. Eddie turns his head, kisses your temple and then whispers in your ear, “And keep it. It’s always been yours anyway.”

“Lord,” you groan. “That’s so- fuck.”

You want to say that it’s awful or sentimental, cliché even, but you can’t help the way that your heart soars upon hearing his words. It literally feels like your heart has exited your body and is flying up over your head in little circles.

Your stomach is suddenly filled with millions of tiny little butterflies and they’re doing loop-the-loops inside you, running amok through your insides and threatening to burst out like less scary versions of alien chestbursters.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Eddie says with that infuriating grin. “I’m supposed to play it cool, right? Take it slow for a while first before ultimately dragging you on stage during a show and declaring my undying love for you as I reveal to a stunned crowd that you inspired dozens of songs?”

“No,” you snort. “That kind of shit is not for me.” But he would know that, hence why he even said it in the first place. “I don’t want grand, sweeping gestures. I just want you.”

“You’re such a sap.”

“Just like you apparently.” You squeal when he pinches your side. “Hey. Stop that.”

“Nope,” he replies as he does it again. “I’m never gonna stop doing that.”

“Guess I just have to-“ You pull away and lean forward, scrambling away from him on your hands and knees. Eddie manages to give you one well aimed smack on your ass before you get to your feet. “Not nice,” you say to him as you rub a hand over where he hit you, on the apple of your ass cheek.

“Thought you liked me that way.” Eddie leans his head back against the cabinet, his eyes sweeping over the naked expanse of your body first. He catches the tilt of your head, your eyes questioning. “What’s up?”

“…Did I?” Your sentence is half formed, the rest of it in your mind ever since a particular something had been said earlier, and his confused look makes you realize that you hadn’t exactly been clear. “I mean, did I inspire some songs?”

“Now that would be telling,” is his ambiguous answer.

“You’re a damn tease,” you tell him. “Anyway, I’m going to bed. You joining me?”

“I might,” he counters infuriatingly.

“Suit yourself.” You sway your hips exaggeratedly as you walk away and call over your shoulder at him, “You decide what you want to do, sleep on the cold floor alone or fall asleep while holding my warm body.”

When you reach the bedroom, you sit down on the edge of the bed, thighs open and pointed at the door and counting on your fingers. You manage to count to eight when Eddie finally appears. He stands in the doorway for a moment, leaning against the frame and taking you in.

His tongue moistens his lips and then he steps forward to take his place next to you in the bed. Your eyes fall on his half hard cock and you catch his smirk right before he starts kissing your neck.

There’s something on your mind that you need to address first however.

"Hey, can I ask you something first?" Eddie pulls back, your change in tone catching him off guard. "D-don't worry. Nothing bad or anything. I was just wondering."

"Think I know," he replies with a sigh. "You want to know why I never let it go any further back in high school."

"Yeah," you reply. "I never got it and you never talked to me about it either. I always thought that it was…” It was remarkable how all your teenage insecurities from back then just came flooding back and you can’t even look at him when you finish your sentence, “Thought that you didn't like me as much as I hoped… or that I wasn’t good enough… for you."

"Ah, Jesus." You feel his hand on your cheek, his fingers brushing up and down, but he doesn’t make you look at him. "No, that wasn't it at all."

"Then what?” You really wanted to know, you deserved to know. “I spent years agonizing over this."

"You probably don't even remember," he starts to say as he reaches out to take your hand in his and lace his fingers through yours. "We got the grades for some test back that week and I’d failed, as usual, and you had aced it. I already knew that I wasn't going to graduate that year and I figured that I'd only hold you back."

"That's bullshit and you know it."

"That's how I felt though. You had this big dream of going to Columbia and I had nothing since I knew that I’d be stuck in Hawkins for another year,” he sighs, sounding a little embarrassed. “I was worried that you wouldn't go and yeah, it was really fucking stupid of me, but I did it for you."

"You shouldn't have decided that all on your own.” If only he had talked to you about it, things could have at least ended amicably, not with your heart shattered to pieces all over the floor. “God, you're such a jackass."

“I know. I realize that now. That’s why I was so glad that you were here, that I found you again.” He squeezes your hand and brings it up to his lips, kissing the back of it and letting his lips linger there as he continues. “It felt like I got a chance for a do-over, like I was getting a second chance to make things right.”

“I thought that you’d only be disappointed, that you’d just walk out on me again.” A very small part of you still thought that all of this was some elaborate joke. Even if you knew that Eddie would never do that, it was a hard feeling to shake. “I kinda… can’t stop myself from thinking that, even now,” you admit with a shuddering breath.

“I’d never do that,” he gives you a quick kiss. “Never,” he repeats while staring deep into your eyes, so you can see how honest he’s being. “You honestly have no idea how much that dumb decision weighed on me over the years, how much I regretted letting the girl that I loved more than anything slip through my fingers.”

You pull your hand away from him suddenly and for a second there he thinks that that’s it, you’ll never forgive him for what he did to you. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why was he even that big of an asshole? How could he ever have treated you like that? He was such a fucking-

His train of thought stops completely when you straddle his thighs from out of nowhere and you tap his forearms, mouthing the word “up” at him.

Eddie doesn’t even question it, lifts his arms instantly and lets you maneuver them the way you wanted, palms held up to you and you press your much smaller palms against his, lace your fingers through his and squeeze.

“There,” you say with some finality in your voice. “Can’t slip away if I do this, huh?”

The smile that you flash at him almost makes him choke and well up with tears, but then the look in your eyes makes him want to laugh until he cries because he can see what you want to say written all over your face.

Mister Big Rockstar. Such a fucking pussy. Practically in tears because we’re holding hands.

But that’s only half of it.

Throughout his time in Hawkins, you’d always been there in some way, ever since you were little kids. One day, you’d simply sat down next to him and gave him half of your strawberry jelly sandwich when his parents had failed to give him lunch that morning (which they usually did).

That was how the friendship had started.

After his mother died and his dad went to jail, his uncle Wayne had taken him in and the two of you became a very permanent fixture in Eddie’s life. Until he had fucked it all up, which he had all done for you as he had kept telling himself.

Still tore his heart in two every time that he saw you in the hallways at school after you had shut him out completely. It constantly made him want to run after you and drag you into an empty classroom, so he could explain why he had done what he did, but if he told you that there was always a chance that things could get worse.

Not like now, when you’re both older and wiser, and there’s no chance of either one of you running off. You could talk about it now, as adults, or some version of it at least, because Eddie still doesn’t feel very ‘adult’ if he’s totally honest.

The unshed tears are for the connection that he had with you for years, one that he threw away thinking that it would be better, but he got you back now. He’s right here, in your house, your bedroom, and yes, he loves you, always has.

You kiss the corners of his eyes and murmur, “What are you thinking about?” against his skin. “Talk to me.”

“Nothing,” he says too quickly and the way that you’re looking at him tells him that you don’t believe him at all. “Okay,” he chuckles instead. “You. I was thinking about you.”

“I’m right here,” you answer with a smile. “So you don’t have to think about me. Not when I’m right in front of you.” You release his hands and loop your arms around his neck. One of your hands moves to the back of his head, your fingers playing with his short hair, pulling on the curls. “I miss the hair.”

“Oh yeah?” You nod. “I could grow it long again. For you.”

“That’ll take ages.” You grab a handful of his locks and yank his head back. “Besides, it’s long enough to pull.”

“Little minx.”

“It was too tempting, I couldn’t help it.” His hands circle around your waist and his impossibly big brown eyes glaze over again. “Stop doing that. Just tell me what’s on your mind.”

“You. It’s always been you.” His honesty is making your cheeks burn. That was always the thing about Eddie, he could be brutally honest at times and he wasn’t trying to hide anything from you now. “I’m making you uncomfortable, ain’t I?”

“No, not really.” You press your cheek against his shoulder to avoid his intense gaze. “Just can’t deal with you looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

Pulling away, you sat up straight and looked into those impossibly deep brown pools that were his eyes again. “Like that.” You knew that it didn’t explain anything, but you would damn well try. “Like I’m… I don’t know… special.” When the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile, you covered it with your hand. “I know that it sounds stupid,” you laugh. “I can’t come up with the words to explain it.”

“You are special,” he mumbled against your hand. When you looked at him quizzically, despite having heard him perfectly, he repeated himself. “You’re very special.”

“Sap,” you giggled. “You’re pretty special yourself. You’re everything.”

It was a spur of the moment confession and not something that meant much of anything, but it still meant the world to Eddie. He kissed your palm and you let it drop away from his mouth, fully expecting him to lick it next.

That hadn’t been on his mind at all.

For most of his life he had been told that he would amount to nothing, just like his dad, and he had proven every naysayer wrong since then. Even when he was getting ready to skip out of town with his friends, with nothing but a crazy dream and some cash that they had saved up, there were still people that tried to talk him out of it.

The only one that believed in him was his uncle. And he was sure that you would have believed in him, too, would have told him to go and to never look back if you had still been around.

So you telling him that he was ‘everything’ had unexpectedly hit a soft spot.

Pressing forward, he kisses you then, hard. As if to somehow confirm that you’re really here, that this is really happening, that you’re not some kind of mirage that his mind had conjured up.

“Calm down.” You place your hand on his chest and gently push him back to put some space in between you two. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’d better not,” he replies. He runs a hand from your shoulder blade down to your ass and he squeezes the pliant flesh hard enough to leave a mark. “Feel that?”

“What kinda question is that?” you laugh. “Yeah, I felt that. Wanna do it again?” He repeats it, squeezing harder this time and digging his short fingernails into your skin until you let out a soft moan. “I swear to god, if you skip town tomorrow morning, I will never fucking forgive you.”

“If I’m leaving, I’m taking you with me.” You stare at him as if he just lied to you, as if this is just sex to him and he just told him what you want to hear. “I’m fucking serious, babe. I need you with me.”

He was offering you a ticket out, which was all that you ever wanted, but now that you have it, you don’t know what to say.

So you kiss him instead.

The kiss turns fiery, into a battle between lips with tongue and teeth thrown in, and you’re left gasping into his mouth as his teeth gently close around your bottom lip and pull. Eddie gasps himself when you reach down to wrap your fingers around his now fully erect cock.

“Need to fuck you,” he pants against your cheek. “Please let me fuck you.”

“Lay down,” you answer. “Scoot back on the bed and lay down for me.”

When you pull away, you do it with reluctance. It would have been far easier to simply sink down on him before, but you want him in a different way.

“Good boy,” you say when he does as he’s told, laying in the middle of your bed with his head pressed back against the pillows. You can tell that he likes being called a good boy so you store that away for later usage.

Moving up the bed, you straddle his waist and you press down against his stomach, making sure that he’s able to feel exactly how wet you still are. Reaching a hand back, you grasp his hardened shaft and give him a few tugs until Eddie bites his bottom lip.

“I’m gonna ride you,” you tell him as you move back a little, your wet cunt hovering over him. “That okay?”

“Y-yeah,” he hiccups. “I want you to.”

“Such a good boy.” You can see him shiver and it makes you snicker. “Don’t worry. Good boys get what they deserve.”

You position his cock in front of your entrance and sink down on him. Just a little at first. You pause when his tip has slid in and you moan exaggeratedly. You take some more, moving down until he’s about halfway in and when you look at Eddie, his expression has a slightly pained quality to it.

“You’re so big, Ed,” you keen out as you wink at him. He slaps your ass and the noise of the impact reverberates through the room.

“Brat.” His hands grab your hips and he pulls you down onto him a little bit more. “Stop teasing.”

“But it’s such fun. Don’t you like it? Not even a little bit?” Before he can say that he does or doesn’t, you shift your weight and his cock slips fully inside you. The two of you moaned in unison. “Fuck.”

For a short while, you don’t move, simply marinating in him, adjusting to his size and how full he made you feel. His fingernails had broken through your skin from how tightly he was gripping you, but you barely even noticed. Not when Eddie was underneath you, his eyes half-lidded and looking up at you with such a lustful gaze that it should have killed you on the spot.

“I’m gonna move now,” you mewl as you rock your hips back and forth experimentally. “Holy shit, Eddie.”

“Good?” You bite your lower lip and rotate your hips as your eyelids flutter shut. “Fuck, you look so good like that.”

“N-not so bad yourself,” you manage to reply with your eyes still closed, the image of him burned into your irises. You happen to angle your clit just right against the trail of hair that ran down from his belly button and gasped out, “My god.”

“Just me,” Eddie chuckled smugly. “But thanks anyway.”

“Bet you get that a lot, huh?” Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to think of now, Eddie with other girls, all of whom probably worshiped him. You open your eyes and lean down over him, your face inches away. “But you should probably be worshiping me instead.”

The boldness of your words almost makes you laugh, but the way that his hands gripped you tighter, stopping you from moving against him altogether, the little moan that escaped his plush lips and the way that his pupils seemed to grow even larger for a millisecond there…

“Oh god.” You couldn’t help the wicked tone that seeped into your voice as you talked. “Are you into that?”

“Y-yes.” His reply is bordering on bashful. “Want you to use me.”

“I will,” you say as you sit upright once more. “I damn well will.”

If that was what he wanted, who were you to deny him this?

Lifting yourself up, you groan as he slides out and before his cock can slip out entirely, you slam your hips back down. His hands shift to your ass, pushing you up when you move, but apart from that Eddie doesn’t offer much assistance.

This is all you.

“This what you want, pretty boy?” you ask while you play with your tits. He didn’t even have to answer your question, because it was written all over his face. “Me using you just to get off?”

“Fuck yeah, sweetheart,” he manages to answer. “That’s why I’m here-“ His sentence is cut off with a harsh gasp when you slam your hips down on his particularly hard, temporarily making him forget to draw another breath when the walls of your cunt grip him particularly hard. “Oh god yeah. Fuck. I’m here… j-just for you.”

“Good.” You place your hands on his stomach, pressing down on his sweat slicked skin. The same glistening sheen stuck to your skin as well, partly from the stifling heat outside that got in through the open windows but mostly from how hard you were exerting yourself. “Such a-fuck!”

Both of you swore loudly as you found an angle that was particularly good for both of you. You worked hard to find it again, angling your hips and grinding down so hard that it should have been intolerable, but your legs quivered every time that you got it just right. 

The muscles in your thighs and abdomen flex as you keep up your rough pace, riding him roughly, and chasing the friction that would make your toes curl which was steadily building in your gut. Eddie keeps balancing you with his hands on your ass, rocking you a bit more forcefully.

Your right hand shifts and slides up, to the empty spot, right over his heart. You can’t stop yourself from digging your nails into his pectoral muscle and you feel it jump under your palm. You drag your nails over it, creating red marks, to give him something to fill up the space for a short while.

You want to leave your mark. Desperately.

If Eddie notices what you’re doing, he doesn’t say anything. All he does is lay underneath you, his hands tight on your ass, gripping so hard that the imprint of his hands were going to be on your flesh for days afterwards. Several stray strands of hair stuck to his wet forehead and you swore that you could see beads of sweat slide into his hairline every time that you moved. His blown out pupils are on your face at all times, as if he doesn’t want to miss a thing at all.

You wink at him and he chuckles. “You’re crazy.”

“No doubt about it,” you groan. “Oh fuck, Eddie, you’re in so deep.” You gyrate your hips against his once before leaning back, your hands planted on his thighs and moving your hips up and down. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. You feel so fucking good.”

Your jaw goes slack when Eddie pushes his hips up, pressing himself even deeper inside than before, practically impaling you. Your head falls back, your eyes on the ceiling, and you jump slightly when you feel his thumb pressing against your clit.

His eyes are on the point where your bodies meet, where your cunt is dripping with your slick so much that he can feel it oozing down and coat his balls. The sound of skin slapping against skin, the sickening squelch every time that your pussy slams down on his cock, is like music to his ears.

The change in pitch of your voice, turning your desperate mewls into words that got strung together and mashed into one long continuous string of “ohfuckyessoclose” until it was reduced to nothing but “pleasepleaseplease” over and over again.

The words get more strangled the harder he rubs against the swollen bundle of nerves, your walls bearing down and constricting him, until one loud cry bursts from your lungs, his name, and the coil in your belly finally snaps.

Your orgasm washes over you with all the force of a tidal wave and your arms almost buckle behind you when it hits, but you just about manage to keep yourself upright. Eddie’s hands grip your hips tightly, taking over and fucking you through your blinding climax, chasing his own release as he rams himself up into you.

“Where?” His voice manages to pierce through the deafening rush of blood in your ears. “Where do you-“

“Inside,” you choke out. He doesn’t have to finish his sentence for you to know what he’s asking. “Come in-inside m-me.”

The words are barely out of your mouth when you feel his cock twitch, pumping wave after wave of cum inside you. He wouldn’t even have been able to pull out if you had told him to.

Eddie manages a few more tiny thrusts up into you until he’s completely spent. The tension in his muscles eases and his hands move to your lower back in an attempt to pull you forward.

You collapse on top of him a bit harder than you intended, a small “oomph” pulled from his lungs which made you snort out a laugh. He wraps his arms around you, holding you close and you briefly feel his lips connect with the top of your head.

You settle against him, your ear pressed to his chest, and you listen to his racing heartbeat, listening as it calms down and turns into a steady drum inside his ribcage. You can feel your eyes begin to close, seconds away from nodding off, when his hand clutches yours. Your fingers lace together, like they had done many times that night, and you hoped they would do many more times after tonight.

“I meant it, you know,” Eddie says softly, not sure if you’re already asleep or not since you hadn’t moved at all.

“Hm?”

“Everything that I said tonight.” Your mind floods with all kinds of words, there had been a lot of talking in between other things after all. “Every single word.”

“That’s nice,” you murmur, not really in the mood for talking as you drift off to sleep. You’d be kicking yourself for that dumb reply in the morning.

“I love you.” His lips touch the top of your head and they stay there. “Always have.”

“Mm,” you can’t stop yourself from yawning. “I love you too, Eddie.”

“Get some sleep,” he chuckles. “I wore you out.”

You’re too far gone to come up with a smartass reply and barely manage to mumble a “goodnight” to him before you finally doze off.

You didn’t sleep long. Your body had grown an inbuilt clock, ensuring that you woke up at around the same time every day, all because of the store.

Didn’t matter that it was Sunday today, you woke up early regardless.

Despite knowing full well what happened the night before, you’re still kind of surprised to find Eddie next to you when you wake. It takes some time for the realization to set in that it’s still ridiculously early, especially for him. Eddie had never been a morning person and you sincerely doubted that that had changed in your years apart.

When he stirs next to you, which was possibly because he could somehow sense that you were awake, you press your lips against his collarbone. His eyes slowly open, his vision momentarily bleary, and he needs to blink a few times to uncloud his eyesight and focus on you.

“Morning,” he croaks before yawning. “Fuck, it’s too early.”

“For you maybe,” you murmur while leaving a trail of kisses from his shoulder up to his neck. “You can go back to sleep.”

“When you’re kissing me like that?” He still sounds groggy, voice low as he rubs the palm of his hand over his closed eye. “Fat chance.”

“I’m not doing anything,” you grin. When you nip at his jaw, he lazily swats a hand against your arm. “Whaaaat?”

“Tease.” Tilting his head down, your lips finally meet, morning breath be damned. “Morning.”

“Morning, handsome.” His lips freeze and you can actually hear his breathing stall as well so you push yourself up and hover over him. “Did that just elicit a response?” you tease, poking a finger in his side. “Handsome.”

“I-I-“ His cheeks flush pink and a gleeful giggle erupts from your mouth. “I just like it, okay?”

“Aw,” you coo. “Don’t be embarrassed. I think that it’s cute.” Eddie covers his face with his hands and if anything, it just made him look even more adorable. “Alright, alright, I won’t make fun of you.” He spreads his fingers so he can fix one eye on you and then you throw in a quick, “For now.”

He rolls over on his stomach very dramatically with an unnecessarily loud groan and you’re torn between teasing him some more and throwing yourself on top of him.

You do neither, opting instead for getting out of bed completely. You’re only just grabbing a pair of panties out of one of the drawers next to the bed when you hear the bed creak.

“Come back to bed,” Eddie says behind you.

You’re ready to deny his request and you probably could have done it if you hadn’t turned around to face him. The sight of Eddie Munson, butt naked, would be a view that you knew that you would never tire of.

And you already knew that you would be unable to deny him anything.

Without arguing, you joined him again, dropping the underwear on the floor where it would lay completely forgotten for the next few hours.

“No witty replies or smart comebacks?” Eddie asks while you snuggle into his side. “Nothing?” You write the letters ‘N’ and ‘O’ on his stomach and remain silent. “I’ll just enjoy the silence then.”

The silence is pleasant, not uncomfortable like it can be sometimes, instead you lay there and listen to his heartbeat and his steady breathing. He draws patterns into your skin, wherever he can reach, swirls and waves and something that you think are supposed to be leaves and flowers, like he’s painting on you with an invisible brush.

“How quickly can you pack?” His voice is the first thing that cuts through the silence, just as he’s in the process of drawing star after star onto your skin. “Just the essentials so you’ll be good for a couple days.”

“Pack? Pack what?”

“You know, clothes, toothbrush, that kind of thing.”

“I can’t just leave,” you reply as you tilt your head up to look at him. “What about the store?” Even when you had been running nothing but losses for a while now, your first thoughts were of nothing but the store.

“We can get someone to open it up while you’re away?” he offers, his brow furrowed in confusion. “You know that you won’t be able to open the store every morning when you’re living with me, right?”

A half remembered comment from last night pops into your head suddenly, of Eddie saying that you would be coming with him if he left.

“You were serious?” you blurt out suddenly.

“Was I-“ When he shifts underneath you, you move back and sit up. Eddie does the same. “You thought I wasn’t serious?” He actually looks a bit hurt and that in turn makes your heart ache, too. “I’m not the kind of guy that says stuff like that just so I can get laid. You know me.”

“I do, I do.” You start backtracking immediately, not even sure what you want to say when you open your mouth. “It’s just that I’ve been disappointed before, so I don’t know, it sounded too fanciful,” you say apologetically.

“I would never, ever, play with your feelings like that.” He sounds so sincere that you immediately take his word for it. “That Eddie is long gone. I’m so fucking serious right now.”

You avert your eyes, ashamed, feeling awfully foolish right now. You feel his fingers on your jaw and your eyelids flutter shut when he rubs circles against your cheek with his thumb.

“I want you,” he repeats. “You think that I can go back after I got a taste of you? No fucking way. You’re coming home with me and you’re staying right there while I spoil the shit out of you. Fuck, I might even buy a ring to make it official the second I- we get back.”

“Eddie.” You gasp out his name, his sudden declaration enough to make your heart skip several beats. “That sounds good to me, but maybe not make promises that you can’t keep?”

“You doubt me?” He moves so that he’s sitting on his knees on the bed, arms gestured out to you dramatically. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was stark naked, you might even call the pose somewhat chivalrous, but it just looks a bit silly right now. “You doubt the devotion of Eddie the Bard?”

“Oh god!” You smack a hand against his chest and laugh loudly. “You’re such a dork.”

“Milady, I am deadly serious.” And he looked it, too. “Honest.” He reverts back to his normal self, grabbing your hands and holding them to his chest, his expression all serious. “You’re mine. I’ve known that since I was thirteen and covered in acne. I was a pussy about it before, but I’ve grown up since.”

“Barely,” you giggle. He tilts his head to the side and tries to give you his best disappointed look. “I couldn’t resist. Sorry, not sorry.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and continues, “As I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted me…” He presses your joined hands to your sternum and says, “Mine.” Then moves them to his chest. “Yours.”

He has the audacity to look slightly uncertain then, as if the prospect might somehow offend you, as if he was offering you something that could potentially be unwelcome and make you throw it back in his face.

“You know,” he mumbled before looking away. “If you want to, that is.”

As if you would say no.

“I want,” you reply softly, so softly that it’s barely a whisper, that he might not have heard at all, so you say it again. “I want.” And he definitely heard you that time. “Of course I do.”

His face lights back up immediately, as if millions of fireworks just went up into the sky, and he looks like he’s seconds away from screaming “REALLY?” and jumping up and down on your bed, but instead he surges forward and kisses you so hard that the two of you fall back on the mattress.

It feels like he kisses you for ages and your bodies start to move together languidly, with him growing hard against you. When he pulls away to draw in a deep breath, he gives you a dopey smile and your eyes are inexplicably drawn to that single curly lock of hair that’s draped over his forehead.

“Is that deliberate?” you ask as you flick at it with your fingers. “Do you pull that out every single day until it looks just right?”

“That’s what you want to talk about now?!”

“It’s been driving me insane since yesterday!” Eddie starts to laugh and you can feel your cheeks begin to heat up. “I’m sorry alright!”

“I’m not telling,” he chuckles. “So you’ll just have to deal with not knowing.” He sways his head from side to side and your eyes keep following the bouncing curl around as he does it. “Look at me.” You tear your eyes away from his hair with some reluctance and stare into his eyes which are as brown and warm as a mug of hot chocolate. “Mine?”

“What do you-“

“Mine?” He repeats himself a bit more sternly this time.

“Yours,” you answer. “I-I’ve always b-been yours.” You can feel your heart skipping a beat from his scrutinizing gaze. “Y-you said that I’ve had your heart for a long time, but the same thing goes for you.” You reach for one of his hands and place it over your heart like he had done yesterday. “It’s always been yours.”

Eddie looks at you as if you had just told him all the secrets of the universe, something a lot more important than a simple confession of love at least, but then his gaze turns hot and you close your eyes a split second before your lips meet again.

This time you could practically taste it, the promises, the devotion, the love. It was in every single movement of his lips against yours. You were an idiot for doubting his intentions for even one single second. How could you ever doubt him? You blame it on last night’s alcohol. It must have briefly clouded your judgment, muddying your mind and dragging up all your teenage uncertainties.

Those thoughts fade with every kiss. The way that Eddie kisses you makes it easy to forget all about your worries and doubts, tears it all down to its bare bones until it’s nothing but a boy and girl who have been denying themselves this for way too long.

There was no rush this morning, you could take it as slow as you wanted, and Eddie seems to want that as well, his movements slow as molasses in January.

His lips move away from yours, kissing and nipping down your jaw, moving against the shell of your ear where he softly murmurs, “That curl… I pull that one out on purpose every single day.”

“I knew it!”