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a11eya · 5 months ago

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TITLE: do you still think about me?

PAIRING: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

SUMMARY: Okay, so you had the biggest, most embarrassing crush on Bakugou when you were both in high school. He was kind of your first love, if you believe in those kinds of things. But you got over it. It's fine.

You see Bakugou sometimes at hangouts, at get-togethers. He's in your orbit, or you're in his, because of your mutual friends. You're all adults now, so it's fine. It's a little weird, but fine.

You're supposed to be on vacation, at a place that's hours away from Musutafu. You're not sure what you've done to deserve it, but Bakugou's here too. And instead of both of you pretending the other doesn't exist, as usual, he's talking to you. He's everywhere. It's fine.

(It's not fine.)

TAGS: pro hero Bakugou Katsuki, aged-up characters, friends to lovers, soft Bakugou Katsuki, fluff, mutual pining, smut, oral sex, vaginal fingering, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, reader with afab body parts, reader with hair that can be pushed away from face when damp

STATUS: Completed; 3 of 3

NAVIGATION: Series Masterlist

NOTE: Minors, DNI! This chapter contains smut.

“Watch it,” Bakugou snaps.

His hand shoots out to grab your upper arm as you stumble over a hidden tree root, too engrossed in the pictures you’re taking with your phone to notice what’s underfoot.

“Pay attention,” he growls as he steadies you. His hand is warm where it’s wrapped around you.

Heart thumping in your chest, you slip your phone into your pocket, feeling duly admonished.

“Sorry,” you say, looking up at him. “And thank you. Your reflexes are amazing.”

Bakugou scowls at you. “Be more careful or I’m taking you back down.”

“You and what army?” You stick your tongue out at him.

Some expression you can’t quite read flickers across his face, and he narrows his eyes at you.

Your momentary courage deserts you. You squeak and pull yourself free from his grasp, making your way hurriedly up the marked path while trying to balance caution and speed so you don’t trip and fall on your face.

Behind you, you hear a sharp bark of laughter. You can’t help but look back.

Bakugou’s gaze immediately catches yours. There are traces of laughter still in his face—in his eyes, on his lips.

It’s not the first time you’ve heard him laugh, of course. Kaminari’s hilarious, and when he, Kirishima, and Hanta get going at parties, everyone’s laughing. (Even if Bakugou sometimes laughs at them more than with them.) And that’s not even taking into account how much of a menace Bakugou is when Todoroki’s around to tease.

But it’s the first time you’ve made him laugh. You want to keep making him laugh, you realize. You really like him, and it’s such a problem. All that time spent trying to keep your distance, get over him? Undone within a few days.

As Bakugou’s long strides quickly eat up the distance between you, you try to compose yourself, hoping none of your thoughts are visible in your expression. It’s fine.

He puts a hand on your back, nudging you forward.

“C’mon,” he tells you. “If you wanna make it back in time for dinner, save the pictures and the attitude for the top.”

Much of the trail takes you through a forest filled with cedar and birch trees with a steady incline upwards. Wooden stairs and handholds appear a couple times, as this hiking trail is well-traveled. You pass some people in pairs or families on your way up, but not often.

When you hike—and yes, you usually do take a friend or two, Bakugou—you prefer not to talk much. A lot of the time it’s because your lungs can’t multitask; the physical exertion of breathing is more than enough. But it’s also because you hate to cut through the sound of nature with your voice. You love the birdsong, the wind rustling the trees, the faint hum of insects.

Bakugou is quiet too, for the most part. When he does speak, his voice is low, quiet, with check-ins and directives.

“You out of water? Here.” You find out he has water, a first aid kit, snacks, and who knows what else in the backpack he’s brought along.

“Gimme your hands. Rocks’re slippery here.” He’s all easy strength, a warm grip. Your hands in his.

“Let’s stop here for a minute.” He’s not tired at all, but you are as things get steeper, and you don’t even need to say anything for him to pause for a break.

Bakugou’s a good hiking partner. He’s better than Rie, who refuses to do anything with an incline and complains the whole way anyway, or Hanta, who chats your ear off the entire time and outpaces you with his long legs and hero stamina.

Maybe when the two of you get back to Musutafu, Bakugou’d be willing to go on another hike with you. A friendly hike. You’ve never done anything one-on-one with him before this weekend, and since you’re slowly coming to accept that maybe you’ll have feelings for him forever, it’ll be fine.

You reach the peak around noon.

“Bakugou,” you say, staring out into the distance. You glance away briefly to put your hand on his forearm, shaking it slightly in excitement.

Bakugou huffs, stepping closer to you.

“Look,” you tell him, and his eyes meet yours. You know it’s because of a few clumsy moments you had getting up here that he’s keeping within arms length of you at all times, but—he’s so close. And he acts like he has no idea what he looks like, sunlight limning his blond hair and turning his eyes clear crimson.

You look away, back out. You don’t want to make things weird when—when you’re friends, now, right? The time you’ve spent together this weekend, just the two of you… you’ve got to be friends at this point.

You push your thoughts aside and try to recenter yourself, focus on what’s in front of you.

Trees grow everywhere you look in deep shades of green and umber. The nearby lake shimmers, placid. In the distance are mountains, making their mark against the horizon.

“It’s so beautiful out here,” you say. You turn your head to look at Bakugou again, smiling, only to find that he’s still looking at you. Your hand’s still on his arm.

A little flustered, you let go of him. In a voice softer than you intend, you tell him, “I’m having a great time. Thanks for coming with me.”

He looks at you for a long moment.

“Good,” he says.

Soaking in the open-air bath does wonders for your body.

It’s a little too early for muscle aches and soreness, but you can already feel how fatigued certain parts of your body are—your feet, your calves. The hot water is like a balm as you submerge yourself to your chin.

The public onsen is nice, but crowded. You visited yesterday, after the morning market, and enjoyed it. But it’s a different experience, here in your room’s private outdoor bath. It’s like you’re the only one in the whole world. You needed this time and space to yourself after returning from the hike with Bakugou. When you’re with him, it feels like all your senses are dialed to 110% and the only thing you can think of is him. In the hours since the hike, you took a nap and then checked in with your friends.

Sero finally got back to you late last night, letting you know that he’d met Rie halfway and traveled back with her to Musutafu. Rie messaged you a picture she’d taken of herself, looking haggard and depleted, with her client barely visible in the background looking stunningly gorgeous. Rie’s always been super talented at turning people into works of art.

They both asked how you’re doing. In your group chat with them, you sent along pictures of the gifts you’d gotten them and the photos you took on your hike. The views you captured look unreal, like CGI, they’re so pretty.

You even got Bakugou to take a few pictures—a couple of you, with a big grin, throwing up a peace sign, and even a selfie of the both of you. He’s not smiling, exactly, in it, but his neutral expression is handsome anyway. You weren’t sure he wanted it, but you sent the picture to him, just in case.

You did make the mistake of sending one of your solo pictures in your group chat with Rie and Sero because Rie immediately sent you several follow-up direct messages while Sero just sent a thumbs up.

Rie: Who took this????

Rie: Who were you with??

If you told the truth, you’d never hear the end of it. Instead of replying to her, guiltily, you left her messages unopened, to deal with later.

You drift, eyes closed. The daytime sounds of birds and cicadas have been replaced by the chirping of crickets as the sun sets, casting a dreamy orange glow over everything.

You’ve nearly dozed off when the sound of knocks on your door has you stirring.

Briefly, you entertain the urge to ignore it. It’s probably someone who’s got the wrong room, as you aren’t expecting anyone. You do plan on ordering the in-room dining menu but haven’t gotten around to requesting it yet.

But the knocks come again, and then your phone pings.

Sighing, you stand, water sloshing and streaming off your body. You grab a towel and briskly rub yourself down so you aren’t dripping water everywhere, and then you shrug on the onsen-provided robe.

As you pad over to the front door, you grab your phone and glance at the screen.

The message preview says—

Bakugou: You in your room?

Blinking, you jerk your head up to stare at the door. It’s quiet now.

Hurrying over, you open it. No one’s there.

You stick your head out and look both ways. To your left, you see Bakugou’s retreating back.

“Bakugou,” you call. “Come back!”

He stops, turns. His eyes land on you, and he scowls.

You resist the urge to jerk back. What’s his deal? You were in the bath; you answered the door as fast as you could.

You make a face at him.

With long strides, Bakugou’s back at your door. He steps close, almost crowding you.

“Get back in there, you aren’t even dressed,” he says. His eyes drop down to your shoulder, then quickly dart back to your face.

Your robe had loosened, one side sliding down your shoulder a little when you’d leaned out to look for him. You feel your face begin to warm as suddenly, you’re hyper aware you’re not wearing anything under this robe and he’s just a step or two away.

You fix your robe.

“There isn’t even anyone around,” you say, stubborn, just to get your mind off of the path it’s taking. He’s clearly freshly showered, hair damp, and you’re reminded of your first night here in the bamboo garden, him, under the moonlight.

Stop.

As if to prove you wrong, you begin to hear the faintest sound of voices echoing from down the hall. Bakugou looks at you as if to say I told you so.

You step back. “Come in.”

Closing the door behind him, you cross your arms over your chest, trying not to feel self-conscious.

“What brought you over here, anyway?” you ask.

“Was gonna ask if you wanna eat with me for dinner,” Bakugou says. He avoids looking at you, glances around your room, and you’re glad that you’re generally a pretty tidy person. Glad that he’s not looking at you, but also a little disappointed, though you know it’s dumb. He’s not interested.

“I’d love to, but I feel like a limp noodle,” you say. “I doubt I’ll make it to the restaurant. And I might fall asleep over dinner. I was gonna order their in-room dining menu instead.”

You’re telling the truth. You feel like you’ve spent your time well on this vacation, but you’re tired.

But you don’t want to say no; you don’t want to turn him away. You’ve already spent so much time with him, but it’s like you can’t get enough.

“Do you wanna join me?” you ask.

Bakugou puts his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. But let’s eat in my room.”

You furrow your brows. “Why? We’re already here in mine.”

He shrugs a shoulder. “Go get dressed.”

You stare at him, bewildered. What logical explanation could there be for him to want to dine in his room instead? Maybe his room’s nicer than yours? But he’s never struck you as the kind of guy to care about stuff like that. Maybe he forgot something in there? But that’s silly, he presumably just came from there. The in-room dining menu costs the same across the rooms, so it can’t be that…

Pausing, you narrow your eyes at him. “Wait. Is it because you want to charge the meal to your room?”

His silence is telling. He looks at you, unwavering, as if maintaining eye contact will make you back down. But you’re unintimidated.

“I know your tricks now, Bakugou,” you tell him, smug. “You can’t fool me. We’re eating here, and I’m paying for it as thanks for the hike today. Go sit on the couch, feel free to turn on the TV. I’ll be right back.”

You turn before he can say anything, grabbing some clothes from the dresser and walking into the bathroom to change. Faintly, you hear the sound of the TV being turned on.

Your small victory has you re-energized. You change, buoyed with it. You do wonder about this newly discovered quirk of Bakugou’s—paying for things unnecessarily. You do recall he’s never been stingy, covering rounds of drinks at get-togethers, spotting your mutual friends’ meals on birthdays.

It doesn’t come across as—I have more money than you do, so I’m flaunting it, even though you’re aware that he does make more than most of your friend group because of his higher hero ranking and the fact he owns his own agency. It feels more so like his way of showing his friends he cares; it’s warming that it’s something he’s trying to do with you.

It’s juvenile, this need to be reassured, but you wish you could ask him if he thinks of you as a friend.

When you leave the bathroom, you find Bakugou sitting on the couch, flipping through the provided menu. He looks up as you approach and sit a cushion away from him.

“You like fruit?” Bakugou asks.

“…Yes?” you say, blinking. “That’s so random.”

He tilts his head toward the other end of the couch where the gifts you’d bought at the market sit. Sero’s bag of fruits is open, peeking through.

“Oh! Those are for Hanta. You know he likes citrus fruit, right? You got him those oranges a couple weeks back.”

Bakugou raises a brow. “He tell you about that?”

“Yeah! He was talking about them non-stop for a couple days. Couldn’t get him to shut up. It was really sweet of you—I think those oranges are his favorite variety.”

Bakugou’s expression is hard to make out, but you think maybe he’s pleased. He’s a really great friend, you think.

“Let’s order,” he says.

You order to your heart’s content, feeling justified since you’d only eaten an onigiri and some snacks Bakugou’s brought for lunch, at the peak. While you wait, a hero special on All Might begins playing on the TV, and the both of you are unable to resist being drawn into it. He was the hero of your childhoods, after all, the biggest star.

“What’s he like, anyway?” you ask Bakugou. When he looks at you askew, you make a face at him.

“I only ever saw him at events or peripherally, teaching the hero course,” you say defensively. “You probably don’t remember, but I was in the management course.”

“I remember,” he says. You resist the urge to grimace. You wish he didn’t; you’ve been getting along so well that you lulled yourself into forgetting about your cringy past.

“...He’s annoying,” Bakugou says after a moment, interlocking his fingers and staring down at them. “Old man doesn’t know when to quit. Still at that damn school.”

“Still teaching?” you ask. “That’s nice.”

“Should retire,” Bakugou mutters. “He’s done enough.”

“He’s done more than enough, I think,” you say. “But you heroes always give so much of yourselves, going where you’re needed. It’s one of the best things about you.”

Bakugou looks up at you, tilts his head.

After a moment, you realize.

“About you, as in heroes in general!” you say hastily. You’re a liar. You were thinking about him, not All Might, not all heroes.

A couple knocks at the door save you, and when you move to get up, Bakugou motions for you to stay.

“I’ll get it,” he says. You sit there, beating yourself up over your slip-up, as Bakugou speaks to the people at the door. You greet them when they come in, watching out of the way as they quickly set the table and arrange the dishes you’d ordered.

You hardly notice as they leave as quickly as they came, so dazzled by the food on display.

Bakugou touches your back, and you startle. You look at him.

“Come sit,” he tells you.

“Okay,” you say.

The food is delicious, but the company’s even better.

You find yourself talking about all kinds of things with him.

“Do you go hiking often?” you ask. “You looked pretty comfortable out there.”

“I like outdoorsy shit,” Bakugou says. “Hiking’s fine. I like mountain climbing best.”

“Mountain climbing?” You tilt your head. “That’s pretty intense. It suits you! I have a friend who’s into bouldering and is trying to get me into it. I feel like that might be more my speed.”

“You scared of heights?”

“I’m scared of falling!” You laugh. “But with your quirk, I guess you don’t have that worry.”

“If you want to try bouldering, tell me,” he says. He brings his cup of tea to his lips, takes a sip.

You blink at him. “Do you know how?”

“Started with it a couple years back and moved on to climbing. Being outside’s better,” Bakugou says.

“Okay! I’ll take you up on it,” you say, trying to hide the little thrill that runs through you at the thought that he wants to spend time with you, even when the both of you return home.

You reach for the teapot to refill his cup, and your hand brushes against his, resting on the table. He doesn’t pull away. His eyes lift to meet yours, deep carmine in the low light.

Before you know it, it’s true night. It’s not so late according to the time, but it feels like it is because the both of you were up early and had a physically taxing day.

Mid-sentence, you cover your mouth as you yawn, little pinpricks of tears springing to your eyes.

“Sorry,” you say, just as you catch Bakugou hiding a reciprocal yawn. It’s cute. You don’t think he’d appreciate you saying so, so you hide your smile.

“You wanna sleep here?” you ask. “I’m sleeping in the bed nearest the windows. The one next to the wall was Rie’s, but they changed the sheets and everything yesterday. It hasn’t been touched since.”

Bakugou looks at you for a moment. “You good with that?”

“If you are,” you tell him. “And if you’re okay with using the complimentary toothbrush they give out.”

He snorts. “Thanks.”

Getting ready for bed at the same time as him feeds into thoughts you refuse to acknowledge. He tells you to get ready first as he takes care of cleaning up the food and dishes to be taken away by the staff. You try to help, but he gives you this stubborn look you’re too tired to fight. You thank him instead and retreat into the bathroom.

It’s only when you’re both in bed, the lights out, that those thoughts return, make themselves manifest.

The awkwardness you used to feel around him, the self-consciousness about your history, the pressure to keep him at a distance—it’s all faded so much into the background. Instead, your body hums with nerves, with a different kind of awareness.

He looked at you a lot, today. Whenever you looked at him, he was already looking back. He made himself known with little touches here and there: on your back, your arms, your hands. You thought you’d imagined it yesterday, this morning, but—no.

You’ve had partners before, both short and long term. That dance in the beginning, that will we, won’t we—you think you’re not imagining it here, with him.

“Goodnight Bakugou,” you say quietly, in case he’s already asleep. You don’t trust yourself to look at him to check. Seeing him across sheets, soft and undone… you don’t trust yourself to look at him and keep these bubbling feelings inside.

“Night,” Bakugou says.

When you wake, the sun isn’t even up.

The room is dark, though it’s in hazy shadows that speak of a coming dawn.

Blinking sleep away, you rub at your face and turn onto your side to reach for your phone.

You freeze mid-motion.

You’d forgotten Bakugou, sleeping in the other bed, still deep asleep. His face is restful, uncreased by a frown, though you can’t make out much more in the gloom.

You look at him for a long moment.

Quietly, you grab your phone off the bedside table and get out of bed, heading into the bathroom. You wash your face and brush your teeth before undressing and donning an onsen robe. You pad over to the sliding glass door leading out to the deck and open-air bath and step out.

A simple shower sits in the corner of the deck, intended for rinsing off before bathing. You stand under the spray, scrubbing yourself down.

You want to use the open-air bath one more time before checking out. You want some time to yourself before you have to face the morning. Soaking in the steamy water, watching the sunrise—it’ll be a nice ending to this vacation.

Suitably clean, you slip out of the robe, hanging it on a hook on the wall, before sliding into the bath.

It’s so hot it makes you hiss as you sink down, the steam visibly wafting in the air. The seats within the bath are at a perfect height for you to sit sideways in one of the corners, arms folded across the ledge. You rest your head on them.

The sky’s begun to change to a blue, with pink and orange streaking the horizon. You stare out into the distance, blinking slowly.

You don’t regret spending so much time with Bakugou this weekend. You had a lot of fun, and when the alternative would’ve been a rather lonely couple of days, you’re grateful. You’re happy that you’ve grown closer, when it seemed an impossibility a couple days ago.

Knowing him as you do now—you like him so much. You like what you’ve learned about him, up close.

You feel guilty keeping your feelings from him; you want to tell him, but you’re not sure. You're teetering on the edge—are you reading too deeply into his words, his actions? Does he return your feelings? Or is his interest fleeting, just because of circumstance, likely to fade once you leave this ryokan behind? You don’t know.

The sound of the sliding door opening jostles you from your thoughts.

You turn just your head, keeping your front pressed against the side of the bath.

Bakugou stands there, looking rumpled but forcibly alert. Like a tiger, just woken up from sleep, not sure what’d woken it up. Little water marks stain the front of his shirt, and the edges of his hair are damp, as if he’d washed his face.

You stifle the urge to smile.

“Good morning,” you say softly.

He grunts out what could be a greeting back.

“Did I wake you up?” you ask. “I’m sorry if I did.”

“Y’didn’t,” he says. “I usually get up early.”

Bakugou looks out over the pond, out at the trees on the far side, before looking at you.

“S’early for a bath,” he says.

“Wanted to use it one last time while watching the sun rise.” You push your hair away from your face, where it’d begun to cling because of the steam. His gaze tracks your movement, the sluicing of water down your forearm. The bare line of your back.

His eyes snap back up to yours, but it’s too late. You caught it.

You watch him for a long moment. Take a deep breath.

“Wanna join me?”

He studies you. The longer the silence stretches, the more your nerves fray.

You swallow, open your mouth to take it back. Maybe you’d imagined the look in his eyes.

“You sure?” he asks. His voice is raspy with the remnants of sleep, deep with something else. His words are heavy with things unspoken, and you shiver despite the warmth of the water.

“Yeah,” you say.

He turns to the shower you’d just used, and you look away as he grips the back of his shirt, pulls it over his head, revealing a tantalizing expanse of skin. The broad breadth of his shoulders, the hard lines of muscle leading to his waist. Old scars, telling of the fights he’s survived, the fights he’s won.

You whip your head forward, looking away, feeling impossibly warmer than you already are in this bath, steam rising around you.

There’s the sound of clothes hitting the deck and the water turning on.

You keep your eyes on the horizon, the peek of the sun over that line, even as you hear the shower shut off and his footsteps approach, even as the water level rises as he climbs in.

Heart thumping fast against your chest, body tense with anticipation, it takes all your will not to startle when his hand touches your bare back. You shift to face him, and he’s close, so close. Like yesterday, and the day before, but today maybe he’s finally within your reach.

“This what you wanted?” His hand slides down your skin, and you can’t help but lean into his touch. You reach a hand up to his face.

He stops you, grip encircling your wrist—a familiar motion.

“Y’gotta say it,” Bakugou tells you. His eyes are molten red with the sunrise, heated. Your breath catches.

“Yes, yes, wanted this,” you say, trying to move closer, and he huffs out a laugh, the glimmer of a satisfied smile on his lips.

You look up at him, soft, putty in his hands. He’s so handsome like this.

Unable to resist, you lean up to kiss his cheek.

He turns his head as you retreat and kisses you.

Your eyes flutter shut as your head tilts to press against his lips better. He’s warm. You only realize he’s let go of your wrist because your hands come up to brace against his chest, unfettered. His hand on your back grips your waist, and his free hand comes to rest on the other side. They’re searing against your skin.

When he touches his tongue against your lips, a request, you open up for him, a door thrown all the way open. He kisses you deep, plundering, tongue sliding against yours slowly, sensually. The sound your mouths make when you part for air is filthy.

You want to be closer, ever closer. When your chest touches his, nipples hard against his skin, he makes a rough noise against you that has you humming in pleasure.

Fuck it, you think, and you shift so that you’re straddling his lap. You wrap your arms around his neck, skin to skin now.

He’s half hard from just a few kisses, pressed against your lower belly. There’s an answering pulse in your sex that has you arching against him, craving friction. His hands slide to your ass, fingers dimpling into your skin, pulling you to him.

His mouth travels down your neck, biting gently here and there, sucking. His hand cups up to cup your chest, thumbs across your nipple. You gasp.

He kisses you again, drinking you in like he can’t get enough. You’re dizzy with want.

When you pull back for air, he’s breathing hard, and so are you. His eyes are hazy with arousal. You feel like you’ve been taken apart.

“We movin’ too fast?” he asks.

You blink at him, mind fuzzy, slow to process. “Hm?”

Bakugou lifts a hand, cups the nape of your neck. His thumb glides against your skin, distracting. All you want is for him to keep kissing you.

“Said we needa slow down.”

“No,” you say immediately, and he snorts, lips curving.

He disentangles himself from you, and the sudden space between you leaves you feeling bereft, adrift.

He stands, completely unselfconscious despite his nudity and visible arousal, and steps out of the water. You watch as he walks over to where you’ve hung your robe and returns to the edge of the bath. He holds the robe open.

“Let’s go inside,” he says. “You've been in there too long.”

Leaving the bath feels a little like Bakugou’s broken a spell that’d fallen over the two of you. You’re not sure what’s going to happen next, and it makes you a little anxious.

But he’s right. You’ve been in here too long, and you’re a little lightheaded from the heat.

With a quiet thanks, you step into the robe, the cloth immediately clinging to your damp skin. As you tie it closed, he rubs his lower half down with his discarded shirt and picks up the pants he wore to sleep, puts them on. Then he opens the sliding door, nudges you inside. He heads to the kitchen area.

You stand there for a second, unsure of what to do with yourself. You wish you knew what he’s thinking.

“Hey, c’mere. Drink this.” Bakugou returns with a water bottle in his hand. He gives it to you, then corrals you towards one of the beds. “Sit down, you’re swaying like you’re a damn penguin.”

This startles a laugh out of you, and you shake your head, twisting the water bottle open and taking a drink. Bakugou sits next to you, close, legs pressing against each other. He’s still shirtless, a couple drops of water still dripping down his torso here and there.

You like him so much. You inhale.

“I’ve liked you since we were teenagers, though I don’t think you noticed,” you say, avoiding his eyes. Your heart is racing. “I don’t think we’re moving too fast if you don’t.”

Bakugou snorts. “I noticed.”

You turn your head sharply to stare at him for a moment. He gives you one of his mean little grins that has you feeling warm, self-conscious, because it makes him so boyishly handsome.

Groaning, you cover your face with your hands. “Can you just… find someone with a memory quirk and erase all your memories of me back then? Thanks. It was a super embarrassing time of my life.”

Bakugou takes your wrists in his hands, pushing them down so he can see you unhindered. He leans forward and kisses the side of your head, your ear.

“You saying it was embarrassing, liking me?” he rumbles against you. You shiver.

“The way I went about liking you was,” you mutter. He snickers, and you shove him.

After a halting moment, you ask, “Umm… So I thought you barely knew I existed, before this weekend. What…?”

You’re not sure how to finish your sentence. And you hate yourself a little for bringing this up, for potentially killing the mood. But you have to know if this is just a casual thing or—or something else. You don’t know what you’ll do with the answer, but. You want to know.

He looks at you for a long moment, considering.

“Only thing I cared about while I was at UA was being the best,” he says, at last. “After the war—I knew I needed to be stronger, to be strong enough. So much shit needed to change. Didn’t have much use for dating.”

“Right,” you say quietly. The years after the war were hard for Japan. So many systems were dismantled and built anew. Some older heroes lost their faith in what they did; the younger ones struggled with the trauma of what they’d lived through. Everyone, hero or not, had to rebuild their lives.

You understand. And Bakugou’s always been so driven and focused with anything he puts his mind to. He’s been instrumental in shaping what this new generation of heroes looks like.

Bakugou reaches over, puts a hand on your thigh. Even over the cloth of the robe, his warmth reaches your skin. He doesn’t do anything more, just rests it there. Distracting. Sending goosebumps across your body.

“You were always around, these past couple of years. Hangin’ around Soy Sauce Face and his girl. But you were always fucking running away. What the hell was up with that?”

Bakugou scowls at you, squeezing your leg a little, and your mind scatters. It takes a moment to gather yourself and process what he’s asked. When you do, you frown.

“What do you mean, I was always running away?”

“You tell me,” Bakugou growls.

When you continue to look mystified, Bakugou’s scowl deepens.

“Whenever I tried to talk to you, you’d scurry away, like a little mouse,” he says. “Didn’t even get to say shit before you’d be gone, hiding behind Tape Head or his girl.”

As he talks, puzzle pieces begin to fit together in your head.

When you’d see him at get-togethers, you’d always worried about how you’d come across to him—that he’d be able to tell your crush on him had endured, that it’d become more. So maybe you overcompensated a little. You tried to play it cool, super disinterested in prolonged engagement, and when you could… maybe you did avoid him a little.

You didn’t realize he’d notice, let alone be bothered by it.

“Oh,” is all you can manage.

He narrows his eyes at you. “S’only here that I’ve been able to really talk to you. No Soy Sauce Face. No Soy Sauce girlfriend.”

“Sorry,” you tell him, meek. “I… I’m gonna die, this is so embarrassing.”

You look up at the ceiling to avoid looking at him. “I was trying to keep my distance because this dumb crush on you never went away. And you were obviously not interested, so I wanted to be respectful. Sorry I made things weird instead.”

Realization hits you, and you turn your head to him. “Wait, so—you are… interested…?”

Bakugou rolls his eyes. “You think I was going to all these dumb hangouts this past year just because I wanted to be there?”

Oh. Oh.

You’re not sure what he sees in your face, but he barks out a laugh. He reaches over and takes your face in his hand, squeezes so that your lips and cheeks puff out.

“For someone so smart, you can be a dumbass, huh,” he says, and his tone is so warm that you don’t even mind.

You wriggle out of his grip. He lets you, watching you. Your hand drops to your robe’s tie. You undo it. It loosens on your frame.

You take one of his hands and slip it under the robe, sliding his hand across your skin. The motion bares you to his eyes as the robe falls open.

“Not moving too fast,” you tell him, and his gaze is so heated, you feel like you’re burning up.

Bakugou leans forward and kisses you hard. You open up for him immediately, letting his tongue dart in and tangle with yours. Your arms come up to wrap around his neck as you press closer. He shifts so that his body covers yours, and he slowly tilts you back so that you’re lying across the bed.

You love the feeling of his weight on you. You arch up to put pressure against his cock, steadily hardening, and he grunts against your mouth, grinding down onto you in an instinctive motion.

When you part for breath, he mouths at your neck, biting gently. You squirm, can only clutch at his back.

“Bakugou,” you say, and his name’s half air.

“S’Katsuki,” he tells you as his lips travel down your body. He takes your nipple in his mouth and sucks. His hand comes up to tease the other one, squeezing, groping your chest. Your legs tighten around his waist, grinding against his bare abdomen, seeking friction to soothe the heat in your sex.

Bakugou pins you, stopping any motion. He lifts himself up a little, and you whine.

His gaze drops to your lips, kiss-swollen. His eyes warm, go half-lidded. “Y’hear me? Say it.”

“Hmm?” You’re so far gone, turned on out of your mind. You just want him inside of you.

You try to press against him, but he pins you with hands on your hips.

“It’s Katsuki to you,” he says, and you shiver. You put your hands on either side of his face.

“Katsuki, please,” you say, and you only get a glimpse of his curved lips before they’re on yours again, swallowing you up.

He gets you fully out of the robe, tosses it aside somewhere. When you wordlessly push at his pants, he takes those off too.

Skin to skin friction has the both of you so worked up. He’s so hard against you. You want to touch him, so you do, hand wrapping around him and stroking the silky skin.

He groans, and you’re on fire.

But Bakugou grips your wrist, stops your caress. He repositions your arms so that your hands are up by your head.

“You keep them there,” he tells you as he moves down your body, and before you can ask why, his fingers are grazing over your clit, thumbing at it.

You arch, gasping, and he teases his fingers over your slit, feels how wet you are. He massages slow circles into your clit, and you’re clenching inside, wanting.

“Please,” you say, throwing an arm over your face, overwhelmed. Bakugou huffs a laugh against your abdomen, pressing a kiss there. He pushes a finger inside you, stretching you. He’s gentle, going slow and paying close attention to your reactions to see if anything hurts.

But he’s going too slow—it’s not enough.

“More,” you tell him. “It’s okay, more.”

So he adds another finger, and your pussy flutters around him as he begins to loosen you up, pumping them in and out, curling them when they’re inside you. You’re so slick that your sex makes a filthy wet sound as he plays with you.

“Fuck,” you say, mind splitting apart. You kiss him, messy, and he just feels so good. It’s such a pleasurable stretch when he adds a third finger.

When he takes all of his fingers out, your body chases him, arching. You’re so close.

“Katsuki,” you begin, just as he puts his mouth on your clit and sucks.

Your entire body shudders, and he licks up and down your slit, tongue dipping inside you. Your hips begin to undulate as you begin to peak, your hands gripping the sheets on either side of you.

You come as his tongue flicks at your clit, gasping your pleasure.

He wraps a big hand around your waist as you ride it out, mouthing at your inner thighs.

You’re breathing hard, little shivers going through you in tiny aftershocks. Bakugou comes back up the bed, wrapping his arms around you. You immediately turn your head for a kiss, tasting yourself on him.

His cock’s still so hard, pressed against your leg, your ass. You’re not done yet. You want to make him feel good.

You reach down and take him in hand. It’s so big with how turned on he is, just from giving you pleasure, and it twitches in your grasp. His hips jerk, searching for relief.

“Want you inside,” you tell him, and his eyes are searing.

You shift so that you’re on top of him, pussy pressed against the line of his dick. He’s throbbing against you, and it’s a little mean, but you grind your hips down on him, moving so that he slides up and down your slit. The tip of his cock slips over your entrance over and over again, pushing in a little but not quite.

Bakugou grips your waist with two hands to halt you. You bite your lip to hide a smile.

“Brat,” he growls, dangerous.

In answer, you take him in your hand and position the tip of his dick right at your entrance and slowly sink down.

His eyes drop to watch his cock enter you, inch by inch, and his grip on you is nearly bruising, fingers indenting your skin. You’re still sensitive, clenching around him, but you’re taking him so easy because you’re still wet from your orgasm.

“Fuck, you’re so good,” Bakugou says, and he says it so low, guttural, that you tighten around him. The look on his face is working you up; it’s an intoxicating expression of desire.

You begin moving, lifting up and down on his cock. His eyes are cloudy with want as he watches you on top of him, you with your tits bouncing. He reaches up to cup your breast. Leaning forward, you kiss him, and his answer is hungry as your pace quickens. You pant into his mouth.

But you think maybe you’re not going fast enough for him. He’s careful with you, but looking down at him, you can tell he’s holding back.

So you stop, lift up off of him, let him slip out of you.

“Whatever you want,” you tell him, and his next movements are so fast.

Bakugou lifts you up off of him and presses you back into the bed. He takes your legs, spreads them so they’re straddling his hips, and he’s back inside of you with a hard thrust. Gripping your waist, he chases his pleasure, slamming his cock in you over and over again.

The sudden intense friction against your walls has you climbing that peak again, and you clutch at his back. As if sensing it, he slips a hand down between the two of you to massage circles into your clit. He catches your moan in his mouth.

“Katsuki,” you say, just as you begin convulsing around him, feverish, nails digging into his skin.

“Fuck, you’re so—” he growls as you continue to tense up around him, fluttering, and then he’s following you over. You can feel his warmth as he comes in you, his big body coming to rest against yours. He kisses the side of your head, your forehead, your mouth. You smile against him.

Sleep comes for the both of you, for a while. You’re not sure if it’s been minutes or hours when you come to, but when you do, soft morning light floods the room.

You jolt up in a panic. Looking around, you search for your phone. You move to get out of bed when you don’t immediately find it.

“Where the hell’re you going,” Bakugou grumbles. He throws an arm over your waist and mouths at your hip.

“We gotta get packing, Katsuki,” you say, trying to wiggle out of his grasp. “Or at least I do! I’m checking out this morning.”

“Stay another day,” he says, voice a little growly and his eyes closed, and you stop. “I know you’ve got a shit ton of leave saved up.”

“And how would you know that?” you ask. You put your hand on his head, thread it through his blond hair.

“Tape Head said you haven’t taken off in forever,” he says.

Bakugou opens his eyes, looks up at you. He presses a kiss against your skin. Bites you gently.

“Stay with me,” he tells you.

And what else can you say but yes?

Final Notes: And we're done! Thank you all of you for following this little labor of love to its conclusion. 💖 Bakugou's birthday fic's finally completed, over a month after the fact.

A couple things! Some of you caught on to the fact that Bakugou being at this onsen ryokan at the same time as reader was a little fishy—you were so right. Sero, Kirishima, and Kaminari gifted Bakugou the reservation for his birthday, knowing that you would be there with Rie, knowing Bakugou's been interested in you for a while now. (Bakugou knew something was up immediately after he saw you at the ryokan.) Rie having to leave was purely coincidental, but it turned out to be a happy coincidence!

(I love you guys; the comments you left last chapter and the conversation you guys were having with each other made me laugh.)

The location for the hike is based off Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, specifically the Mount Amagi hikes, with a lot of creative liberty taken.

I think the only Japanese used here was a mention of onigiri, which are rice balls with a seaweed wrapping with various fillings inside.

Once again, thank you for reading! All your likes, reblogs, comments—I appreciate them so much. Hugs and kisses, and until next time! ✨💞

Tag List: @blairbellerose @yeehawgiddyup13 @reads-stuff-quietly @surprisemodafakas @scarlett-witchh @queenpiranhadon @sleepyyhabii @j-pendragonx @bakunianadecorazon @dreamingoftomorrow @nonamebbsblog @gina239 @seabass17 @dynakats @I-bozo-I @humblechumbble @universal-s1ut @sweetblueworm @kukikoooo @liluvtojineteyam @nemisimp @bkgnotsuma @poemzcheng @farrowroyale @simp-plague @dreamingoftomorrow @mystic60 @k0z3me @buzzyandbadatmath @anicaaa67 @icedemon1314 @lovra974 @andyetshewrote @frostbez @mo0nforme @mrsjna @pinkpurpledreams

#last chapter!!!#once again happy belated birthday bakugooouuu 💖#bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #bakugou katsuki x you #bakugo katsuki x you #bakugou x reader #bakugou x you #bakugo x reader #bakugo x you #bnha x reader #bnha #fic: dystam?#jess scribbles #also i tried to include everyone who requested to be on the tag list!! not sure if it even works tho...#cw: sex

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moonpascal · 3 months ago

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IN THE SHADOW OF MEMORY

CHAPTER ONE series masterlist

SUMMARY II WC: 3k

When a careless spell erases her memories of Theo, he’s left grappling with the pain of being forgotten. As she returns to seeing him as just another Slytherin, Theo must navigate a world where the love they shared no longer exists—at least, not in her mind. But Theo refuses to give up. He’ll do whatever it takes to remind her of the connection they once had.

WARNINGS: angst, fighting, not 100% canon compliant

DEDICATION

thank you so much to @amiableness for helping me with chapter! i don’t know what i would do without you and giving me motivation to write this! i love you! 🤎

thank you to @mischievousmoony for helping my brain block i was having and helping me with ideas, you’re amazing and i love you! 🫶🏼

"Is the coast clear?" you whisper to Theo, your heart pounding in your chest. Sneaking into the Room of Requirement had always been nerve-wracking, but with the additional new rules Umbridge had enforced and the rising threat of Voldemort, it felt more dangerous than ever. Even more so because Theo was betraying his own house and friends to be here.

Theo takes another quick glance down the corridor, then nods. He reaches for your hand, his fingers lacing with yours as he pulls you out from your hiding spot.

You both move swiftly and silently toward the wall where the entrance to the Room of Requirement appears. You glance behind you, double-checking to make sure no one is following, before Theo tugs you inside.

Inside, the room is already alive with the sound of practicing defense spells. You and Theo head to the corner that has unofficially become your spot. Some of the others still cast wary glances at Theo, unsure if they can trust a Slytherin among them. Only the Golden Trio seems comfortable with his presence.

As you settle in, the adrenaline from sneaking around begins to subside, but your worry for Theo doesn’t. You can’t help but think about the risks he's taking—defying his father's beliefs, lying to his friends, putting himself in danger—all because he believes in making a change. You know how much he cares for them, and it breaks your heart that he's forced to choose between them and doing what’s right.

You shift closer to Theo, your hand resting lightly on his knee, a silent attempt to anchor him. He’s still tense, his eyes sweeping the room as if on constant alert. Instead of reaching for the textbook like usual, he closes it and sets it aside, surprising you.

“I think we both know enough for now,” he murmurs, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “Let’s practice today instead.”

You know the purpose of these meetings is to practice spells, but the thought of doing so in front of your peers makes your stomach twist with anxiety. The fear of messing up or accidentally hurting someone lingers in your mind, making the idea of participating overwhelming.

Theo, ever attuned to your emotions, senses your hesitation. He gently pulls you closer, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and rubbing your arm in a soothing gesture. “We’ll start simple,” he whispers reassuringly, his lips brushing against the side of your head in a tender kiss. “Just a quick Expelliarmus. You’ve got this.”

His warmth and steady presence begin to melt away your nerves, making the idea of practicing a little less daunting. With Theo by your side, you feel like you can handle whatever comes next.

Reluctantly, you pull away from his embrace, already missing the warmth. Moments like these—where you could be close to him without worrying about prying eyes—were rare. Even in the hallways, you could barely walk side by side without Umbridge or Filch barking at you to separate.

You stand, shrugging off your robe to give yourself more freedom of movement, and follow Theo to an open space.

“Alright, you know the movement, and you’ve seen it done. You’ve got this, amore,” Theo encourages, his words ringing with confidence.

Your muscles tense. If you mess up, the spell could do more than just disarm him; it could knock him out. But when Theo flashes that smile—the one that always makes your heart skip—you find yourself believing you can do it.

You take your stance, feeling the weight of the moment as Theo prepares himself, raising his wand as if ready to duel. With a deep breath, you steady yourself and shout, “Expelliarmus!” The spell shoots out from your wand, hitting its mark perfectly. Theo’s wand flies across the room, landing with a clatter as relief floods through you.

Theo’s grin widens as he claps and cheers, “I knew you could do it, tesoro!”

You watch him jog to retrieve his wand, a warmth spreading through your chest. How did you get so lucky to have him? He’s your anchor, the reason you keep pushing forward. He makes you want to be better, to reach higher.

When Theo returns, he places his hands on either side of your face, his eyes shining with pride. “See? You were amazing. Nothing to worry about,” he murmurs, his voice low and reassuring. He leans in, and you meet him halfway, your lips brushing softly against his.

The kiss is slow and tender, each movement gentle as if savoring the moment. You taste the faint remnants of cigarettes and the sweetness of his breakfast. It’s a kiss that speaks of quiet reassurance, of the bond you share, strong and unwavering.

But then you remember where you are, in front of everyone. You pull back, your lips lingering just a moment longer before you peck his lips one last time, a small smile playing on your face.

“I love you, Theo,” you whisper, your foreheads touching, the world around you fading away as you both savor the closeness of the moment.

But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.

As you and Theo are lost in your own world, Harry is practicing a spell, the weight of the war and the responsibility of training others pressing heavily on him. The stress shows in his furrowed brow as he skims through spells in his textbook, landing on Obliviate, the charm to erase specific memories. Whatever memories Harry wants to erase is up for debate, but he doesn’t fully grasp the complexity of the spell.

With only a quick glance at the incantation, he swishes and flicks his wand, but nothing happens. Frustration builds as he tries again, more forcefully, but to no avail. Sweat slicks his palm, and with a sharp, aggressive flick, his wand slips from his grip.

Sparks fly out, ricocheting off the floor and walls. Harry tries to shout a warning, but it’s too late. The spell rebounds, hitting the back of your head and sending you flying into Theo.

Theo barely reacts in time, catching you as you collapse into his chest, limp and unresponsive. His arms instinctively wrap around you as he kneels, lowering you gently to the floor.

You look as if you’re merely asleep, but your breaths come slow and shallow. Panic seizes Theo as he brushes your hair out of your face, his voice trembling.

“Amore, come on, wake up. It’s okay, you’re okay,” he whispers, his mind racing for what to do.

A crowd of students gathers around you both, their whispers only fueling Theo’s panic. He snaps, his voice a sharp contrast to the desperation in his heart. “Who did this?!” he demands, his eyes wild as they scan the frightened faces.

“It was me, I’m sorry, I—” Harry begins, but Theo is on him in an instant, grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him close, his rage palpable.

“You’re dead, Potter!” Theo snarls, his grip tightening.

Fred and George are quick to intervene, pulling Theo off Harry, while Ron helps steady his shaken friend. “Let’s calm down, yeah?” Fred says, trying to reason with Theo. “We need to get her to Madam Pomfrey. She’ll be okay.”

“She better be,” Theo threatens, his voice low and dangerous. He shrugs off the twins and returns to your side, his heart hammering in his chest as he watches your shallow breaths. When someone offers to help, he waves them off, scooping you up in his arms and pushing past everyone, his focus solely on getting you to safety.

Adrenaline courses through him, fueling his every step as he rushes through the empty corridors—thank Merlin—for six floors until he finally bursts into the hospital wing.

He wastes no time, laying you gently on one of the beds. Madam Pomfrey turns to scold him, but the words die in her throat when she sees your unconscious form.

“What happened?” she asks, her tone sharp with concern.

“She was fine one second, then something hit her head, and she just… collapsed,” Theo says, trying to keep his explanation as vague as possible to avoid suspicion.

“It’s okay, Theodore,” Madam Pomfrey reassures him, her voice softening. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious. Let me examine her. Just breathe, grab a chair, alright?”

Theo nods, though he can hardly think straight. He watches anxiously as Madam Pomfrey performs a series of diagnostic spells, her brow furrowing as each result comes back normal.

“I’m not finding anything out of the ordinary, Nott,” she finally says, puzzled. “She seems perfectly fine, just asleep.”

But Theo isn’t looking at her. He’s holding your hand, his thumb gently stroking your skin as he wills you to wake up.

“We’ll wait until she comes around, okay? I’ll let you stay with her overnight to keep an eye on things,” Madam Pomfrey says, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder before drawing a partition around your bed to give you both some privacy.

As soon as she’s gone, Theo chokes back a sob, his worst fears clawing at him. He knows something is wrong—no one just falls unconscious like that from a spell. He pulls the thin blanket up to cover you and leans down to press a soft kiss against your temple.

“I love you too, amore. You’re gonna be okay, alright?” he whispers, his voice cracking as he desperately hopes for a response, his heart aching in the silence.

———

Theo stirred awake as he felt a sudden movement beneath him. His eyes opened groggily, his head lifting from where it had been resting on your stomach, his arm still wrapped around your waist. The scratchy hospital wing blanket was a far cry from the soft one you were used to, but Theo had barely noticed, too consumed by worry to care about his own discomfort.

As you rubbed your eyes harshly, Theo blinked a few times to clear the sleep from his own, running a hand through his tousled hair. He sat up straighter, trying to shake off the remnants of sleep, when he heard your voice—sharp, confused.

“Nott? What are you doing here? And why am I in the hospital wing?”

Theo’s heart dropped. The way you said his name—Nott, not Theo, not love—sent a chill through him. He tensed, trying to keep his voice steady. “Tesoro, you were hit in the head, remember?” He reached out for your hand, desperate to offer some comfort, but you jerked it away before he could touch you.

“This isn’t funny, Nott! What prank are you and your friends pulling now?” Your glare was like a knife to his chest, cutting deep. Theo’s mind raced, trying to process what was happening. This wasn’t right—this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to stay calm even as panic clawed at him. The way you looked at him, the suspicion and anger in your eyes, made everything clear that something was terribly wrong.

“Please, just listen to me—” he started, but the words felt hollow. His worst fears were playing out right in front of him, and he didn’t know how to make it stop.

Theo jumped to his feet and rushed toward Madam Pomfrey, who was just arriving at the entrance to the hospital wing.

“She’s awake, but she’s acting like she doesn’t know me—please, you have to help,” Theo pleaded, his voice cracking with desperation. He wasn’t one to beg, not unless it was to you, but now the words spilled out uncontrollably, fear gripping his heart.

Madam Pomfrey nodded, quickly following him back to your bedside. You were sitting up, fiddling with your hands, a deep scowl etched on your face. Theo’s stomach churned at the sight—he knew that scowl too well, but it had been a long time since it had been directed at him.

“Good morning, dear! How are you feeling?” Madam Pomfrey asked, her voice warm and calm as she began to check your vitals.

You shrugged, casting a wary glance at Theo, who hovered behind the nurse, his heart pounding in his chest. “I feel okay, just confused about how I ended up here.”

“Alright, I’m going to ask you a series of questions, and I want you to answer them to the best of your ability, alright?”

You nodded, and Madam Pomfrey proceeded with the standard questions—what year it was, who the Minister of Magic was, what you did yesterday. You answered each one correctly, with ease, but Theo’s dread only deepened with every word. Everything you said lined up, except for one glaring omission—there was no mention of him. Not in any of it.

Madam Pomfrey paused, her gaze flicking to Theo before she asked the question that made his blood run cold. “Do you know him?” she asked, pointing to Theo.

You rolled your eyes and huffed, your irritation clear. “Yeah, he’s Theodore Nott, Slytherin. Which I’m still confused about—why is he here?”

Theo felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. The way you looked at him, the casual indifference in your voice, transported him back to a time before everything had changed—before you had opened your heart to him. It was as if the last year and a half had been erased, and the weight of that realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He sucked in a deep breath, trying to keep it together, but the familiar coldness in your eyes made it nearly impossible to breathe.

Theo felt his world collapse around him. He couldn’t stay in that room, couldn’t bear to see you look at him like he was a stranger. As Madam Pomfrey explained to you that you’d been hit in the head and Theo had brought you in, he bolted from the hospital wing, stumbling into the hallway. He leaned against a cold stone column, clutching his chest as panic set in. His heart raced uncontrollably, his breaths shallow and ragged. It was another panic attack, but this time, you weren’t there to help him through it. You didn’t even remember him. All those memories—the ones he cherished most—were gone. And it was all because of Potter.

His vision tunneled, everything blurring except for one thought: Harry had done this. He was the reason Theo’s entire world had been ripped away. And Harry was going to pay.

Theo knew exactly where to find him. He’d memorized Harry’s schedule down to the minute, having spent so much time with you before breakfast as you walked with Hermione and Harry. If he timed it right, he’d catch Harry just before he entered the Great Hall.

As Theo rounded the corner, he spotted the trio ahead. They noticed him too, and he saw the tension rise in their shoulders. But Theo was too far gone to care about what they thought. All he saw was Harry—the cause of all this pain.

Without hesitation, Theo marched straight up to them. His usual calm, calculated demeanor was gone, replaced by a storm of raw, unfiltered anger. He shoved Harry hard, sending him stumbling back, barely managing to stay on his feet.

“Nott, let’s talk about this,” Harry started, his voice laced with caution.

“What was the spell, Potter?” Theo demanded, his voice rough with barely contained fury.

“It was an accident!” Harry insisted, his eyes wide with desperation. “It was Obliviate. I swear, I didn’t mean to hit her!”

Theo’s hand shot out, grabbing Harry by his robe, pulling him close enough to feel the heat of his breath. A twisted smile played on Theo’s lips as he tightened his grip. “Oh, but I’m going to mean to hit you.”

He drew back his fist, ready to make Harry pay for everything he’d taken from him. But just as he was about to strike, your voice cut through the chaos, stopping him cold.

“Nott, what the hell are you doing?!” you yelled, rushing toward them, your eyes flashing with anger.

Harry immediately tried to shield you from the truth. “Trouble, it’s fine, really—”

“No, it’s not fine!” you interrupted, glaring at Theo as you pushed him away from Harry. “I’m sick of Slytherins picking on you-us for no reason!”

Theo felt his heart shatter as he watched you fix Harry’s robe, your attention entirely on his supposed enemy. You had no idea what Harry had done, what he had stolen from both of you.

When you finally turned back to Theo, the disgust in your eyes was a knife to his heart. “You’re pathetic, Nott, and you’ll never change,” you spat, the venom in your words leaving him reeling.

The surrounding students watched in stunned silence, the full weight of what had just happened sinking in. They now understood why Theo had been so close to breaking Harry’s face.

As you turned your back on him and walked away with your friends, Theo stood there, frozen. The disappointment in your eyes, the harshness of your words—it was too much. He felt like he might collapse under the weight of it all. But instead, he just stood there, watching you disappear into the Great Hall, his world crumbling around him.

Your words echoed in his mind, each one cutting deeper than the last. His fists clenched at his sides, nails biting into his palms as he fought to keep from breaking apart. He wanted to scream, to lash out, but all he could do was stand there, helpless and shattered.

The hallway, once filled with tension, was now eerily silent, the students having scattered. Theo was left alone in the aftermath, cold and hollow, the life drained out of him in those few, terrible moments. You had been his anchor, his reason to believe in something beyond the darkness that had always surrounded him. And now you were gone, ripped away by a single, careless spell.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, but when he finally moved, it was like a switch had flipped inside him. He couldn’t let this be the end. He couldn’t lose you. There had to be a way to fix this, to bring you back to him. And if he had to tear the world apart to do it, he would.

first divider @saradika-graphics

#theodore nott x reader #theo nott x reader #theodore nott #theo nott #theodore nott fanfic #theo nott fanfic #slytherin boys #theodore nott series #theo nott series #theodore nott x y/n #theodore nott x you #theo nott x you #theo nott x y/n #moons writing ☾

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andvys · 3 months ago

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Dancing with our hands tied | S.H.

Chapter twenty four ⭐︎ I once believed love would be black and white, but it’s golden

Warnings: confrontations, angst, mentions of loss and death, confrontations, lots and lots of fluff, allusions to smut

Pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Summary: You introduce Steve to your family... and step out of hiding.

Word count: 10.6k

Author’s note: @hellfire--cult thank you for helping me proofread and writing this chapter bby<3 can you believe we’re almost done with this story?

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Sun kisses your skin with its warmth, the smell of fresh flowers and wet grass lingers all around you, the leaves that are slowly changing color are still dripping with water from the light rain that greeted you this morning. Your hand is safely embraced by your boyfriend, who is rubbing soothing circles on your skin, squeezing you and holding you close as he stares at the names engraved into the stone, where the bodies of your parents lie six feet under, the only remains left of them buried underneath the ground. The only things evident of their existence are all the pictures ever taken of them.

He can feel your sadness as you stare at the names of your parents, he can feel your grief, even after all these years, you still feel it just as deeply as you did back then.

But Steve doesn’t know that you no longer feel alone, that his presence comforts you in ways nothing else ever could. You squeeze his hand and lean your head on his shoulder.

You wish he could’ve gotten to know them differently, your father would’ve loved him, your mother would’ve adored him. Steve would’ve been a part of your family.

But this is the only way.

You spent the morning in your bed, going through old pictures, ones he hasn’t seen yet, you shared sacred memories with him, introduced him to your favorite pictures of your family, he watched and listened with a smile on his face, a longing look in his eyes, wishing that he could’ve had a good relationship with his own parents too, wishing that he could’ve met yours.

So when you offered to introduce him to them, even if only like this, he immediately said yes. He stopped by the store and got flowers to put on your parents' grave, the flowers that were your mom’s favorites.

You whispered softly when you arrived, ‘hi mom, hey dad’, you touched the stone and looked down with tears in your eyes, Steve’s heart broke at that moment. But then you stepped back and took his hand again, and for the first time, you introduced him as your boyfriend, though you both wished it was under different circumstances, wishing he could shake your dad’s hand instead, that he could hand those flowers to your mom, that he could talk to them, that he could promise them that he will take good care of you, just like he would like to promise it to your best friend.

There are fresh flowers on his grave too, ones that can’t be older than a day or two. He knows they are from you, blue tulips.

He never asked himself that question before but now he wonders how much time you spend at the cemetery. How many lonely days have led you here, to your best friend, to your parents. The thought only breaks his heart even more.

A sigh falls from your lips and he turns away from the flowers and looks at you. You are staring at Max’s letter that fused into the grass, the ink nearly washed away from all the rain that followed since that day.

“Come on,” you whisper, no longer wanting to be here, standing before the grave of your best friend who should’ve been anywhere but here, every time you’re here, your heart breaks all over again. You tug at your boyfriend’s hand and start to pull him away, eying his burgundy car already but Steve stops you, with a squeeze of his hand and a kind smile on his beautiful face.

“Wait, give me a moment will you?” He asks softly, fishing out his car keys from his pocket, he hands them to you and takes a step closer, pressing his lips to your temple, “I’ll be right there, darling.”

Despite the curiosity and the confusion building up in you, you close your hand around his keys and nod, looking into his soft hazel eyes, you match the look on his face, smiling at your boyfriend, you let go of his hand and grab his shoulder instead, rising up on your tippy toes, you kiss his lips before you step away and give him the privacy he asked for.

Steve watches you walk away, a fond smile still resting on his features, you are wearing his jacket, pulling it tighter around you when the wind kisses your skin. His heart skips a beat when you pull the collars around your neck tighter as well. It will smell like you and he can’t wait to breathe in your scent once he wears it himself again.

When you get into the passenger seat of his car, Steve turns around again, facing the grave he hasn’t seen since the day he drove Max here.

A sudden nervousness rushes through him and settles in the pit of his stomach, a tension he hasn’t felt in a while surrounding him now, the kind he only ever felt when he was around Billy. He never liked him and Billy certainly never liked him either.

The cold breeze blows through his hair, messing it up just the slightest bit. Steve clears his throat and looks around, restraining himself from crossing his arms.

It’s almost as though he is here.

The awkward tension hangs heavy in the air, he can feel it but he needs to do this, he has to.

“Hey man,” Steve breaks the silence, feeling a little ridiculous, standing here before Billy’s grave, greeting him like he was a friend. “I know I’m probably the last person you wanna… uh… hear or see?” He mumbles, scratching the back of his neck as he stares at his name.

“But I just… I know what you mean to her, I know what she meant to you… and fuck… I hurt her… many times, so many that I’d deserve to get beaten to death by you. But I promise to make up for all of that. I will protect her… for me and for you. I promise. I’m pretty sure that if I’d ever hurt her again, Eddie would honor you, Hargrove, and just kill me.” Steve chuckles, knowing how fucked he would’ve been had Billy known everything. “But I promise, I will never hurt her again. I love her, I love her so much, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for that girl, Billy. It took me a while to open my eyes and put away my pride but I see her now, she has my heart.” He speaks with a softness in his voice.

The wind blows again, a little softer this time but the leaves fall from the trees and onto his gravestone. The silence that follows reminds him of how ghostly the place is, how full yet empty it is, how lifeless yet… not. But everyone in here is gone, including your best friend.

Steve looks down at his hands, he might never understand the bond you two shared, but he knows one thing for sure, he kept you safe, when he was here and when he was not.

“Thank you,” Steve whispers, feeling sad over a man he could never stand but one that means something special to you, “for protecting her all along, in life and in death.”

And then, Steve takes one last look at Billy’s name, at the grave you visit so often, “I got her now,” he promises before he steps away and leaves.

You don’t question him when he gets into the driver's seat of his car, you don’t give any more curious, questioning looks, you simply smile and take his hand when he reaches for yours, a habit you had quickly gotten used to and very comfortable with.

It’s only been a few days since you had started dating officially, it feels much longer than that… with good reason.

You haven’t seen any of your friends since ‘the party’ at Eddie’s place, you only talked to Eddie on the phone and told him about what happened, and Robin… she only called Steve one more time before she gave him the space he asked for.

You wanted alone time with each other, you wanted to exist with only one another. You barely left the house for three days and most of that time it was spent in your bed. You went out to get food and didn’t hide when you held each other’s hands or kissed in the parking lot of the diner, not caring that your friends who are still clueless about your relationship could see, and while you are both excited for the big reveal, you can’t help but love this little secret between you, the secret that you now live out openly, the bubble you have both created, the one that is about to burst.

When Steve parks his car in Eddie’s driveway, you feel the calmness in you slowly transforming into dread and anxiety, knowing that you will have to face a person, a girl you considered a close friend you now see as someone unpleasant, especially after all the treatment you received from her in the past few weeks, the words she spewed at you, the words you never revealed to Steve.

It was hurtful and offending but still, you couldn’t repeat the things she said to you, not to him. She is still his best friend, still the person who wanted to protect him from pain and heartbreak and you have no intention to break them apart but you can’t digest the words she hit you with, they were distasteful and rude and the disgust in her eyes cut you deep.

“Hey,” your boyfriend whispers, pulling you out of your thoughts with his gentle voice. He brings your hand up towards his face and kisses your knuckles, looking at you with a reassuring smile on his face, “it’s gonna be okay.”

You look into his hazel eyes and you can’t help but wonder what he would think, how he would react if you told him about the things she said to you, how he would react once she tells him what happened between you and her – you know she will, you know that despite her fear of losing him, she will tell him everything.

“Yeah,” you smile weakly.

You can tell that he is anxious too, with the way he runs his fingers through his hair and sighs, holds your hand tightly and looks at Eddie’s house with a hint of fear in his eyes.

Eddie and Steve haven’t been on the best terms either, you know why, that’s why you aren’t angry at Robin for wanting to protect her best friend, you are angry at her for the way she judged you, for the way she approached this whole situation. You saw the guilt and the regret in her eyes when she realized how wrong she was about you but it did nothing to mend the anger and the hurt in you.

Steve’s comforting hand is on the small of your back when you make your way up Eddie’s porch, you can’t even ring the bell or knock before the front door opens suddenly and your best friend’s eyes meet yours. You feel Steve tensing up beside you when he looks between you both and then down at your joined hands. A look of relief, a look of happiness for you crosses his face and then, he steps out and grabs your hand, pulling you away from Steve and into his embrace, he hugs you tightly, tighter than he ever hugged and held you before, not only because he is happy for you but also because he missed you.

A smile tugs at your lips, warmth blooming in your chest at the love you feel for him. You lift your arms up and hug him back.

“Hi Eds,” you whisper.

“Hey stranger,” he whispers and squeezes your arms, “I missed you.”

Steve looks between you both with softness in his eyes and a warm smile on his lips. Though the tension in him is still strong and the one in Eddie too, Steve can see it when he pulls away from you and takes a long look at him. He can see the guilt in his eyes, the awkwardness and the missing coldness that he looked at him with for the past months.

“Steve,” Eddie mumbles, nodding at him.

“Hey man,” Steve greets him with a hint of a smile.

Both are tense, both are awkward.

You clear your throat and step back, reaching for your boyfriend’s hand again who takes it happily, giving it a tight squeeze.

“Right uh,” Eddie mumbles and scratches the back of his neck, stepping back into his house and inviting you both in. “Robin is in the living room, we can uh… talk, no one’s here, Wayne went out with Susan, Max went with them.”

Steve nods at his words, he breaks eye contact with him and looks back at you. He doesn’t know a single thing about what happened between you and his best friend, he doesn’t know what words were thrown around, what had been said, how bad it actually got. He knew it was bad, he knew it from the moment he saw the hurt look in your eyes, the disappointment towards his best friend, towards someone you thought was your friend too. You were angry, you were hurt and still, you protected her from his anger by not telling him but he needs to know now.

“I’m gonna talk to Eddie for a second, I’ll be right there,” you tell him, growing nervous as each second passes.

He nods, “alright, I’ll go talk to Robin.”

You don’t want them to fight, you don’t want him to stand between you both but you can’t stop anything now.

He gives you a smile, one that says ‘everything will be okay, no matter what happens, we’ll be okay’. He lets go of your hand and cups the side of your face, he leans down and presses a soft kiss to your lips before he steps away from you and Eddie, leaving you both in the hallway while he makes his way into the living room, where his best friend is already waiting, sitting on the couch with shaky hands and a bouncing knee, staring at the ground with nothing but anxiety and fear written all over her face. The paleness in her cheeks matched the one from the night in the upside down, when she thought that he would die of rabies.

It hurts him to see her like this and he can’t help but want to pull her into his arms. With a sigh, he speaks her name.

Robin’s head snaps up at the sound of his voice, she freezes, staring at him like she’s seen a ghost. She doesn’t stand up, doesn’t make her way over to him, she just sits there, quietly and unmoving, like a kid caught doing something their parents have warned them not to.

“Hey,” Steve mumbles softly, slowly walking towards her, wanting to go in for a hug but she stops him, holding her hand up, motioning for him not to come closer as her eyes well up with tears already.

This time it’s he who freezes, furrowing his brows at her.

“Do you know what happened?” She rushes out, her voice even shakier than her hands.

He runs his hand through his hair, sighing as he shakes his head.

“No, I don’t, I don’t know what happened, Robin. I don’t know what you said to her, she didn’t want to tell me.”

Robin sighs loudly, she shuts her eyes and leans forward, burying her face in her hands as she mumbles, “t-that makes it all worse.” She tugs at her hair and sniffles, the guilt consuming her now because even after she threw all these hurtful, disgusting words at you, you still decided to protect her from her best friend’s rage, from losing him.

How could she misjudge you so poorly?

How could she say all these things to you?

She nearly ruined that one thing that he wanted so badly, she nearly took it all away from him.

She feels the couch dipping lower, she smells his cologne and his hairspray as he sits down next to her. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t demand answers but he waits, he waits for her to speak up about what happened.

She takes a deep breath and pulls back, looking around herself but not at him, she can’t look into his eyes, she can’t bear to stand the disgust in them once she tells him everything.

Her heart is already pounding in her chest and her palms grow sweaty, she wipes them against her jeans and takes another few deep breaths, trying to calm herself down, trying to get rid of that gnawing feeling in her chest but there is no stopping it, no escaping, she knows how this will end.

“What I told you about her…” She begins, still refusing to look at him, “wasn’t true… That she had no feelings for you, that she… that you were just a hookup to her… that wasn’t true, you were never just that, I was wrong about it, about her.”

“Yeah, Robin.” Steve sighs, “you were wrong about her.”

She closes her eyes again, scrunching them shut as though she is in pain.

“I’ll understand if you will hate me after this, I deserve it.”

Steve shakes his head, “Robin–”

“No! No, you don’t even– fuck… I said some hideous things to her, Steve, and I thought badly of her, really badly.”

She opens her eyes, though she lowers her head again when she hears your footsteps, when she feels your eyes on her. She feels shame rising in her, growing bigger and bigger until it’s nothing but that inside of her.

From the corner of her eye, she sees you taking a seat beside Steve, he sees his hand settling on your thigh, reaching for your hand, naturally, openly. She knows what this means, she knows what you are to one another now, and it only makes the feelings in her worse because she was the one who nearly made it all impossible.

If you were still the girl that she first met when she attacked you with vile words, you and Steve wouldn’t be here now, not like this. You’d both be broken, unaware of each other’s feelings and all because of her mistake.

The urge to put all the cards on the table prompts her to spill it all out, with no hesitation, with no stopping, she spills out every word she had said to you, confesses the ugly truth to her best friend, to the one she always just wanted to protect.

Tears escape her eyes the moment she finally takes a look at him, he is angry, he is angry at her, for what she said to you, for how she hurt you. Robin had never seen him this way before, seething, furious and red in his face from the burning emotions in him.

This is the first time that Steve feels anger towards his best friend.

And as he looks at her, at the girl who knew about how he feels for you, how dear you are to him, he is in sheer disbelief, unable to understand how she could throw such comments at you, make disgusting remarks about something she never judged him for, how far was she from insulting you further?

He gets up from the couch, turning his whole body towards her, he points an angry finger at her, “you knew what she means to me! Yet you decided that breaking her apart was still the best idea!? Even if you wanted to protect my honor!? I would have understood what you did if we were in fact in an official relationship at that time, but we weren’t Robin! We were oblivious to each other’s feelings! If she did hurt me in any way, it was unintentional! But you… you judged her without knowing anything, you judged her feelings and her, you hurt her! Did you think that it would make me feel better? Do you think that hurting her would fix my pain? What the fuck, Robin?” He throws his hands up, still staring in disbelief and confusion, unable to understand how she, Robin, could do something like this.

And now, she won’t even look at him as tears spill down her cheeks.

“Steve,” you whisper softly, reaching for his hand and pulling him back.

Steve knows what you are trying to do, that you are still trying to stop him from losing a friend.

He opens his mouth to speak, though your best friend cuts him off. Eddie clears his throat and breathes in shakily, he sits down besides Robin and takes a nervous look at Steve.

“I’m not innocent in all of this either,” he admits, “it’s not just her you should be mad at. She came to me to talk about you both, about your feelings,” he mumbles, pulling his gaze away from Steve and directing it at you instead.

You raise your brows at him and cock your head to the side. You knew something happened, even before the argument with Robin, you knew they talked, you knew there was something.

“She wanted to know what you felt for him and I lied, I told her there was nothing.You asked me to keep it all a secret so I did, you didn’t want to lose him and I thought I was doing the right thing by not telling her the truth. You always thought that Steve would break things off if he found out about your feelings so… I didn’t want to give you away, if I knew about his feelings, I wouldn’t have lied but she told me the same thing I told her so…” He shrugs, not hiding the truth from either of you.

Steve rubs his temples, feeling a migraine coming in as he looks between yours and his best friend, the anger continuing to build up in him.

But you, you can’t be mad at Eddie for wanting to protect you, not a single emotion of anger rushes through you.

“Is that why you were such an asshole to me this whole time?” Steve asks, staring at him intensely. “The moment you found out about us, you treated me like I was air.”

“Can you blame me?” Eddie scoffs, “or did you forget about how you reacted when I thought you were a couple? And besides, with your reputation? I knew what she went through, Steve. I knew how deep her feelings were for you… was it bad to be cautious around you? And it’s not like I–” he pauses, glancing at Robin who only sighs at him when she meets his eyes.

“It’s not like he cussed you into oblivion… He was… still civil with you. Because unlike me towards Blondie,” she mumbles quietly, looking at you for a brief second, “Eddie gave you the benefit of the doubt.”

Eddie shakes his head, “I did swear on my mom’s grave and Hargrove’s I would punch your dick if you hurt her. Was gonna make sure that dream of yours of having six kids didn’t come true. And I still stand by this if you do hurt her in the future.”

You look down at your hands, shaking your head as a small smile appears on your face.

Steve scoffs and rolls his eyes, runs his fingers through his hair again as he takes a look around him, at Eddie and at you before he glances at her, Robin who is still hiding her face from him and from you, not shaking anymore now that the truth it all out, but her shoulders are slumped and relaxed now, there is no fear anymore, just sadness.

He is still angry.

He is still disappointed.

For a moment, it’s quiet, no words are said, no looks are shared, not until Eddie is the one to break the silence again when he stands up and steps towards Steve.

“I’m sorry for the way I treated you, man. I like you, I really do, you have been a good friend to me after all the shit went down and I shouldn’t have been that way towards you but, I love her, Steve. She is my best friend, I just wanted to protect her,” Eddie says, looking down, “I know I could’ve done that without being a dick though… So, I’m sorry, I really am.”

Steve’s brows pull together, another sigh falls from his lips. He understands it, he really does and he is glad that you have a best friend who loves you so dearly, who is loyal to you and defends you even if you don’t ask for it.

“It’s okay, Eddie, I understand it. And I accept your apology.”

Eddie presses his lips together, he nods, flashing you a quick smile before he looks back at the brunette.

“So… we’re cool?”

“Yeah, we’re cool,” Steve mumbles, still having to force a smile. “And I promise, I won’t ever hurt her again.”

Eddie’s face grows serious again, he squints his eyes and leans closer.

“Yeah, you better don’t, Harrington.”

You look between them both, a smile appearing on your face when they shake hands and Eddie smiles at him. You still sense the tension, you can see it written all over your boyfriend’s face, he needs a moment to digest all of this, you can see it in his eyes, especially when they lock on Robin’s figure.

The shuffling from your right pulls your attention on both men away, you glance at the girl, who gets up from the couch, wiping her tears before she looks around you all, unable to face you still.

“I’m sorry for what I did… It was never my intention to hurt any of you, b-but I did… and I’m really fucking sorry,” she says, sadly. “I’m gonna go now.”

You straighten your back as you watch her, watch how she is ready to walk out of here without asking for forgiveness, ready to leave without friends. Your eyes follow her, just as Steve’s and Eddie’s do too.

You push yourself up from the couch, not wanting her to leave like this.

But Steve, he steps away from Eddie and makes his way over to Robin before she can even come close to stepping out into the hallway, he steps in front of her, blocking her way. With a sigh, he wraps his arms around her and hugs her tightly, not allowing her to walk away from you all.

He might be angry, he might be hurt but she still means the world to him and even after everything, he knows her intentions were good, she wanted to protect him just like Eddie wanted to protect you.

“Thank you for loving me, Birdie.”

A sob falls from Robin’s lips, though it comes out muffled as she hides her face in his chest, “Shut up… I don’t… I don’t love you… ew.” She lies, which only makes him tighten his hold on her.

“Keep telling yourself that, Buckley.”

Her sniffles are loud, her knuckles turn white from how tightly she holds onto him. You can practically feel her regret and her fear. She thought she lost him and she was ready to let go if that’s what he’d asked of her.

But you would never be able to live with yourself if he lost her, and all because of you.

You decide to give them a moment, you glance at Eddie and nod your head towards the direction of his kitchen. He gives you a nod and starts making his way out of the living room, with one last glance at the two best friends, you follow him.

But a gentle hand stops you from leaving and you halt in your tracks when you look down to find Robin clutching your hand tightly, pulling you back. You furrow your brows and raise your head to look at her apologetic face, the tears still wet on her cheeks, her eyes puffy and filled with sadness. She pushes away from Steve and takes a step forward.

“Can we talk?” She asks and begs with her eyes, “please…”

Steve looks between you both, giving you an encouraging nod when you look into his eyes.

You breathe in deeply and nod slowly, “okay…”

Eddie looks between you both from the doorway, now gesturing to Steve to follow him so you two can talk because he can see that Robin wants to be alone with you. Steve pats Robin’s back and gives your temple a soft kiss before he leaves, though hesitating when he sees how uncomfortable you both still look.

“C’mon,” Eddie murmurs to him.

“Yeah…” Steve sighs.

The tension returns once you and Robin are left alone in the room. She wipes her tears before she looks into your eyes again, her cheeks are red, whether from all the tears she shed or the fear in her, you don’t know.

You wait patiently, not pushing her to talk, you wait until she is ready.

She starts with your name, speaking softly, “I’m so sorry… I-I was so horrible to you… and you never deserved it. It was never my intention to hurt you. If I would’ve known about your feelings, I would have never done this, I would have never said such… ugly things,” she says, scrunching her face up as she thinks back to the day. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, I haven’t– I haven’t treated you kindly… Maybe if I would’ve paid more attention to you–”

“You didn’t have to,” you shrug, cutting her off, “Steve comes first to you, Robin, I understand that.”

She nods her head but the guilt in her eyes remains.

“Yeah… I just… I would do anything to keep Dingus safe, I didn’t want to see him hurt anymore, not because of others.” She sighs and looks down, finally letting go of your hand. “But I could’ve approached it all differently, I-I never meant those things I said to you, I never meant to judge… I was angry– and that doesn’t excuse shit but… I’m just… I’m sorry.”

You nod, though the hurt is still deep.

Whether she meant it or not, she cut you deeply in that moment.

“I would’ve done the same for Eddie, but I can’t say that I wouldn’t have looked at the other person. I wouldn’t have stepped on someone else’s feelings… not without knowing them.”

She looks back up at you, the fear still evident in your features, it almost makes you, yourself feel guilty when you speak your next words.

“... I don’t forgive you, Robin.”

Her shoulders slump, her blue eyes widen and well up with fresh tears, the hurt and the shock are written all over her face. She opens her mouth to speak but no words come out. She looks like she is ready to beg as her big eyes stare into yours.

“But we can start over.”

She blinks a few times, staring at you like she is frozen in place and then, relief washes over her features and she lets out a deep sigh.

“Really?” She asks as her eyes soften.

“Yeah, really,” you whisper and give her a soft smile. “You hurt me but I really like you and I don’t want to lose another friend.”

Her next move is sudden and you nearly lose your balance when she throws her arms around you and hugs you tightly, pulling you into her embrace as she begins to whisper apologies into your ear followed by promises to never hurt you again.

You wrap your arms around her too and hug her back just as tightly.

“Thank you,” she whispers, squeezing your arms.

Only now as you stand here in the middle of your best friend’s living room, in her embrace, do you realize just how much you missed her friendship, her kind presence in your life, how much you despised her cold shoulder because you just missed her, how much it hurt to receive that treatment from her.

“Vickie got mad at me because of the way I treated you and now she is not talking to me… I guess I deserve that.”

A frown makes its way on your face, you pull back from the hug, feeling a little surprised to hear that the redhead came to your defense. You get along with Vickie but you aren’t exactly close.

You place your hand on her shoulder and look into her guilty eyes, “she didn’t break up with you though, did she?”

She shakes her head quickly, eyes widening at your question.

“Then it’s gonna be okay, we’re okay,” you point between you and her, “you and her will be too. Besides, that girl is like… head over heels gone for you. It’s written all over her face, she can’t even look away from you.”

A blush creeps up to her cheeks, her lips twitch and curl into a smile as her blue eyes light up, she looks down and breathes in shakily, staying quiet for a moment before curiosity takes over her features and she raises her head again.

“Like you couldn’t look away from Steve all these years?”

Now it’s your turn to blush and hide your face from her.

“Yeah…”

“I wish I knew…” Robin whispers, in guilt and in regret. When she found out about your feelings, she was taken back to all the times Steve had hurt you with harsh words, the pained look in your eyes, the wetness in them and the hurt in your expression suddenly made sense. If he were anyone else, you wouldn’t have been touched in the slightest but it was him, Steve, the guy you had fallen in love with long before she even befriended him. The guy who disliked you to the point of throwing vile words at you, even after you risked your life and jumped into unknown waters just to save his life. The guy you watched fall for his ex-girlfriend again, the same girl that hurt him and broke his heart, the same one that broke his heart for a second time.

Only when it was too late, when the damage was down, did she realize just how much you loved him. She was so blind to the way you looked at him because she was so focused on protecting him, if she had looked closer, just for a single second, none of this would have happened.

“It’s okay, Robin. We can move past this now.”

She nods with a small smile, a sad one.

“He really hurt you didn’t he?” Robin mumbles, now knowing how much you suffered, all these years, all because of your feelings for someone who didn’t reciprocate them until now.

It doesn’t matter anymore, the past has slipped away.

“He made up for it.”

“Yeah,” she breathes, and looks into the hallway, you both can hear their voices coming from the kitchen, the sound of a beer bottle opening. A smile appears on her face and she looks back at you, “did you watch him run around in his stupidly short gym shorts during PE?”

A snort escapes you and you slap her shoulder, rolling your eyes when your cheeks heat up at her question.

You did. And you enjoyed every second of it.

“Stop.”

A giggle falls from her lips and she pinches your side, “you so did!”

You push her hand away with a laugh and take a step back, starting to make your way out of the living room with her hot on your heels, her teasing voice following you into the kitchen where Steve and Eddie sit around the table, with drinks in their hands and looks of surprises when you and Robin walk in giggling.

Steve’s shoulders slump in relief when he sees your frowns replaced with smiles, the relaxed look he missed on your face back again, the heaviness gone in his best friend’s eyes.

Eddie gets up with a smile and walks towards his fridge to get two more beers out for you and Robin.

Steve pulls back the chair beside him, beckoning you over to him with a gentle smile. You get comfortable next to your boyfriend and lean your head on his shoulder, smiling at the kiss he greets you with.

Robin takes the seat beside Eddie, nodding at him with a smile, letting him wrap his arm around her shoulder.

Everything is okay again.

Steve and Eddie can talk to each other again, with no tension, no awkwardness. They can joke around and laugh with one another again.

And you can open up more about your feelings for Steve to Robin, about the ones she never knew of until a few days ago.

You even show her pictures of your parents, the ones that are always tucked into the little pocket in your burgundy wallet.

Yeah, it’s all okay again. It for sure isn’t perfect, not yet but it will be.

A warm, adoring smile rests on his happy features, his hazel eyes are glowing with love, hands itching to touch your exposed skin that is kissed by the golden sun rays shining into your room. Steve is leaning against the doorframe, fixing the cuffs on his white button down as he admires the way you look in your beautiful black dress.

Your hair falls down your exposed back in waves, glittery hair pins adorning them. The silky material clings to your curves, hugging your body perfectly, like it was made just for you. Your pink heels, the ones you have told him about weeks ago, are high, very high, he will probably have to carry you back into the house because your feet will hurt by the end of the night, but he doesn’t mind, he looks forward to it.

Your perfume lingers in your room, your skin is glowing from the moisturizer he put on your skin after your shower together. You’re wearing pretty earrings and a bracelet, your ring finger is bare, for now.

Steve slips his hand into his pocket, his heart skips a beat when he touches the cold item that he kept in the drawer of his bedside table for the past few weeks.

With excitement bubbling inside of him, he makes his way over to you, the floorboards creak beneath his feet, the smile never leaving his face. Your eyes meet his through the large mirror you stand in front of, your own lips curl into a smile as well when you look at him, you tuck the lipstick you just used into the little purse you picked out for this outfit and put it down on your table.

“Hi, handsome,” you whisper, going to turn around to face him and admire him in his getup but he stops you with the touch of his hand on your waist, he keeps you in place.

“Hey my beautiful girl,” he murmurs and leans down to press his lips against your shoulder, kissing you softly. “You look so gorgeous, this dress was made for you, darling.”

You fall back against him, melting into his arms and embracing all the butterflies that go crazy inside of you.

He looks at you like you are the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on, and it makes you weak in the knees.

“Thank you, Stevie.” You whisper and take his hand in yours, bringing it up to your lips, you kiss his knuckles and close your eyes when you lean back into his chest again. He presses his lips back to your shoulder.

“You smell so good,” he murmurs against your skin, “like a goddess.”

A giggle falls from your mouth, your stomach flutters when his hands move up your body, his minty breath ghosting against your skin. The sudden coldness around your neck makes you gasp. Your eyes widen when you open them, the warmth inside of you melting even further, your heart soars in your chest as you stare at the chain around your neck, the little pendant, the dainty, silver star with the glittery crystal in the middle catching your eye just like it did that day you saw it at the jewelry store. Your lips part the longer you stare at it, your eyes softening and shining with adoration.

You went back for this necklace, only a few days after you had first seen it but it was gone. You envied whoever had gotten their hands on it first, you never would've guessed that it was him, he got it, he got it for you, back then.

You bring your hand up, touching the pendant with softness in your eyes and in your touch, emotions crawl up inside your body, pushing at your eyes and turning them glassy, you look at him through the mirror, staring at the smile on his lips, at the love in his eyes.

“You… You bought it?”

He nods sheepishly, whispering a small ‘yes’.

His hands return to your waist when you turn around to face him.

“You mentioned it that one night when we talked on the phone, I got it the next day.” He explains with all the giddiness in him.

You blink.

Feeling stunned by his words and by his actions, you can only stare into your boyfriend’s warm eyes. You remember telling him this before your feelings were known… when that spark of hope was dwindling inside your chest.

“I knew it was this one,” he explains and glances down at the necklace, “well, I had a feeling it was, besides you love stars and shiny things, so I–”

You cup his cheeks and cut him off with your lips, kissing him deeply and softly, with all your love and all your adoration, messing up your freshly applied lipstick in the process but you couldn’t care less at this moment. Your heart is beating strongly, the hotness in your body consuming you fully.

Steve melts into your touch, into your kiss, he slides his hand down to your lower back, touching your exposed back and pulling you tightly against him as he happily reciprocates the kiss, smiling into it, loving every second of it.

“I love you,” you whisper, softly. “I love you so much, Steve Harrington.”

He tilts your chin up with his fingers, pecking your rosy lips once more after he whispers your name, “I love you so much more.”

You still need time to get used to it all, to get used to his I love you’s, to the softness in his eyes. It all still feels so surreal – just like it does to him. Steve feels like he is the luckiest man in the world, in the whole universe.

You pout at him so cutely, it makes him want to drop to his knees before you.

“No, I–”

He cuts you off this time, pressing his lips back to yours and stealing your breath away with a strong kiss, one that makes you moan and squirm in his arms. Heat builds up in you as you grow weaker for your man. You are forced to fight the urge to grab at slicked back hair, mess up this masterpiece he had spent so much time on. You love the look of it, of him in a suit but you can’t wait to rip his clothes off and mess up his hair, later in the night.

“S-Steve,” you whimper when he trails down kisses to your neck, breathing in your sweet perfume.

A lazy smile appears on your lips, “w-we have to…” Another moan escapes you, cutting you off when he kisses that one spot that makes you scrunch your brows together. His strong hands bunch up the material of your dress, he breathes heavily against you, humming in delight as he praises your beauty.

“S-Stevie… we have to… we’re gonna be late,” you whimper and grab at his biceps, not making much effort to push him away though.

His hands roam your body, grabbing at your butt, feeling the hunger in him rising.

“C-Come on, baby.” You whisper as your eyelashes flutter, “w-we can… we can use the backseat of your car later…”

He pulls away with a smirk on his face, squeezing your butt once again, he wiggles his eyebrows at you, “what, in the church parking lot?”

You slap his shoulder playfully and shake your head at him, which prompts him to just pull you tighter against him.

“They’re not even getting married there,” you chuckle.

“No?” He asks as he leans in again, going straight back to your neck, making you hum in delight. He smacks his lips against your skin, repeatedly, not getting enough of you.

“N-No, just at the… Steve…!”

With a chuckle he finally pulls away but not without pecking your lips first, getting all the gloss on his own.

“Okay, okay,” he murmurs as he squeezes your waist, “will you help me put this on?” He reaches for the bow tie on the little table you had kept all your makeup on.

You take it from his hand right away, nodding happily.

He leans down, giving you more access to his neck when you reach your hands behind him to place the tie under the collars of his button down. Your stomach flutters yet again when you breathe in his cologne.

You fix the bow on the front, trying not to smile when you feel him staring at your face. A smile graced his lips.

“Steve…” You whisper, blushing.

“Yes, baby?”

“You’re making me nervous.”

He smirks at your words, adoring the look on your face, “I’m just admiring my gorgeous girl, you truly look like a goddess, especially in this dress.”

“And you look really handsome in your suit and tie, Stevie.” You lean closer to him, pressing your lips to his ear, “really sexy too.”

His smirk widens, his hands dip lower on your body again as your own move down his chest as your hungry eyes meet one another’s and your bodies instinctively move closer and closer.

It’s safe to say that you don’t make it out of your house in time but with good reason and under good disguise — Lego Head picking up Blondie for a wedding? Who thought that it would’ve been a good idea?

When Steve parks his BMW in the parking lot of the beautiful venue that Joyce had picked out, you share a look with each other when your friends catch sight of you both. They’re all standing around Eddie’s car, in their gowns and suits.

You unbuckle your seatbelt and grab the handle of the car door.

“Ready for the show, Lego Head?” You smirk.

A chuckle leaves his lips, he has to fight the urge to kiss you right here and in front of all your friends.

“So ready.”

You wink at him before you turn your back to him, opening the door when he stops you with his hand on your thigh. You look down and then back at him over your shoulder.

“I love you.”

Your eyes soften, you crave his soft lips on your own so badly.

“I love you too, Steve.”

Your heels barely hit the ground before Max and El come rushing over to you, excitedly, gushing over your dress and how pretty you look.

Steve has to bite his tongue at that moment, fighting the urge to agree with them and tell them how gorgeous his girl is.

“Took you long enough!” Dustin says, throwing his hands up.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve murmurs, shrugging as he points at you, “don’t blame me, Blondie didn’t know what shoes to pick.”

Nancy furrows her brows at his words, an amused smile making its way on her face as she eyes the pink heels you have picked out weeks ago, already.

“Hey, don’t blame me, Lego Head. You showed up too late cause you took forever with your hair.”

Eddie and Robin share a look of confusion.

“Funny you show up late together,” Lucas grins, wiggling his brows at the both of you.

Will snickers beside him, shaking his head at his friend.

You stop beside Steve and he nearly gives you away already when he lifts his arm to wrap it around you, stopping midway and playing it off by fixing the sleeves of his jacket but someone had caught him already.

Argyle whistles at you, making Jonathan chuckle, “you look so gorgeous, chica. Save me a dance, will you?”

Steve takes a step closer to you, something that makes both you and Eddie share an amused glance, the metalhead speaking softly to you.

“Save me one too, sweetheart,” he winks at you and then looks at Steve smugly, who only shakes his head at him in response, at his teasing.

Dustin smirks at Eddie and wiggles his brows, leaning in to whisper something in his ear.

Nancy, who is standing next to Will, eyes Steve’s face, watching the way he rolls his eyes at the curly haired teenager as he takes a step closer to you. A small chuckle escapes her mouth, something that makes Will smile to himself.

“I think Blondie and Steve should dance!” El beams at the two of you, loving to use the nickname he gave you. She looks between the two of you with a huge smile on her face.

“Me and Lego Head?” You snort, acting like you aren’t dying for him to lead you to the dance floor and drop this act once and for all.

“Yeah,” Steve snorts, mimicking you. He doesn’t look as serious as you do, he struggles to. “She’s probably gonna step all over my feet.”

Eddie can see the lovesick look in his eyes, the way Steve struggles to hide his smile, the way he has to restrain himself from pulling you into his arms. Oh, he is gone. He can’t understand how he hadn’t seen it before.

“Yeah, I wore them just for you, Stevie.”

Your eyes lock and for a moment, everything around you disappears, it’s just the two of you. Your smiles spread and your eyes shine for one another.

The tension between you a different than ever before.

But it still goes unnoticed by most.

During the ceremony, you sit between your boyfriend and your best friend. You are unaware of Dustin’s and Lucas’s snickers when they keep glancing your way. You hold Steve’s hand, the whole time. A few tears escape your eyes when Hopper speaks his vows, when he openly shows his love to his pretty bride.

And in that moment, Steve holds your hand tighter than before, he plays with your ring finger, thinking about one thing only as he stares at the two people on the altar, exchanging their rings and kissing one another with nothing but love.

A soft smile graces his lips when he looks at you. He can’t wait to be the one putting a ring on your finger. He can’t wait for his future with you.

The evening goes by in a blur, you laugh with your friends, and share drinks, laugh at all the speeches spoken, cry at the ones from Will and Jonathan when they show their appreciation and love for their mom and the man who promised to take care of his family.

You hold Steve’s hand beneath the table, play with his fingers and sneak glances and smiles at him. He whispers sweet nothings into your ear when no one is looking but you both get tired of putting on this show.

A very tipsy Hopper makes his way to your table, he stops behind your and Steve’s chair and greets you two with a big smile before he looks around the round table.

“Are you here to take a few shots with me, Chief?” Eddie grins at him, already holding up the vodka bottle.

Hopper waves at him, “your uncle’s sitting over there, young man.”

Eddie snorts and follows to where the older man is pointing at, his uncle is sitting next to his girlfriend, smiling at her.

“Mr. Munson is preoccupied,” Argyle chuckles and nudges his chin at Wayne who is now pulling Susan on the dance floor.

Hopper nods and looks around the table before he directs his glance at you and Steve, “how come I have seen everyone on the dance floor but the two of you?”

Steve chuckles and shrugs.

“Yeah, Steve, why didn’t you ask her to dance with you yet?” Lucas grins, wiggling his brows to which Max only giggles.

“Yeah, be a gentleman and take the lady for a dance,” Robin smirks at her best friend.

Hopper grabs Steve’s shoulder, pulling him up, “come on, boy.”

You giggle at the older man, staring at the teasing grin on his face as he forces your boyfriend to stand up. Steve straightens his back and looks down at you with a grin, he’s been waiting for this moment, all night, to take your hand and lead you to the dance floor.

Hopper pats him on the back, fixing Steve’s collar as he grins at him, “go on, ask her.”

You and Steve are both very well aware of all the eyes on you, of the teasing glances from the friends who know and the ones who don’t but neither of you care, not anymore.

Steve clears his throat and offers his hand to you, “would you like to dance with me?” He asks softly and looks into your eyes with love.

Your eyes run up and down his body, your lips curling into a happy smile. You place your hand in his, “I would love to.”

You let him pull you up, let him place his hand on your lower back, you let him lead you away from the table your friends sit around and you follow him onto the dance floor.

“Took you long enough, Steve,” you tease him and shoot Hopper a smile as he passes by, making his way back to his now wife.

Steve wraps his arm around your waist, not caring to hide any longer, he pulls you closer against him, he smiles down at you, “mhm, gonna show everyone whose girl you are.” He says rather possessively.

Your stomach flutters with butterflies, your eyes lighten up but your lips curl into a teasing smile, “is that jealousy I hear in your voice, Stevie?”

“What if it is?”

“Then I’ll tell you that there is no reason for you to feel that ever, I’m all yours.”

Steve pulls you into the middle of the dance floor, lifting your hand and twirling you around before he pulls you against his chest, making you giggle.

“That’s right,” Steve murmurs and envelops your body in his, stepping out of hiding, showing everyone that this is more than just a friendly dance, that you and him are more to each other than anyone thinks, that you are his and he is yours, “my girl.”

There beneath the dim string lights, surrounded by a love song neither of you pay attention to, because in this moment, nothing around you exists, nothing but you and him. You look at each other happily, adoringly.

“My boy,” you whisper and take another step closer, pressing your chest to his, gripping his hand tighter, melting into his touch as his palm lies on the small of your back.

His eyes swim with love, lighting up at your words, his heart goes crazy in his chest.

“I’m all yours,” he whispers and leans in closer, blood rushes to his cheeks, his lips curl into a soft smile. Steve nuzzles his nose against yours, coming closer and closer. Every wish of his, every craving from these past few months with you, finally come to life.

Steve can hold you, he can pull you closer, he can gaze at you with starry eyes, he can kiss and love you openly. He can do this now. Pressing his lips to yours, he kisses you deeply, softly, passionately. He cradles your cheeks and shows the world that you belong to each other and his heart screams in joy at that — just like yours does, your heart soars, everything in you screams out of happiness.

Your eyes are closed, your arms now wrapped around his neck as your hand gets lost in his hair, no longer caring about not messing it up. You feel him smiling into the kiss and you can’t help but do the same.

Eddie and Robin watch you both with smiles on their faces, happy for their best friends.

Mike is rambling into Lucas’s ear about how much basketball sucks, that he should drop it and just focus on DnD again. The teenage boy only rolls his eyes in response, turning away from his friend, he opens his mouth to ask Max for a dance when the sight before him makes him freeze. His brown eyes widen and his jaw drops. Feeling as though his eyes betray them, he rubs them. You and Steve are in each other’s arms, swaying to the music with your lips locked.

Lucas leans over his girlfriend, slapping Dustin’s shoulder, “dude… dude!” He says for a second time, loudly enough for everyone at the table to stop their conversations and look at him.

Dustin frowns at him, shrugging, “what—“ He pauses and follows to what Lucas is pointing at, his own eyes widen and he nearly bolts from his chair when he sees the two of you kissing, “what!?” He shrieks, making El cup her hands over her ears.

Dustin stares at you and Steve in disbelief.

“But…” He mumbles and slowly turns to Eddie, pointing between you and him.

Everyone looks at the two of you now, Jonathan’s eyes are wide, just like Argyle’s are, though there’s a hint of something else in his eyes as he tilts his head at the both of you.

A warm smile lingers on Nancy’s face, she knew it already, she knew it this whole time, she saw the way you looked at him, the way he looked at you, the way he never looked at her. She is happy for him, he finally found his person and she is happy for you, that you found someone who will cherish you and give you the love he always wanted to give, the love that you deserve.

El is admiring the two of you, silently.

Max and Will share looks with each other and smile.

“But I thought… What the hell? Are they drunk?” Dustin asks Eddie.

“Nope.”

“Then why are they…?”

Eddie grins at the curly haired boy, slapping his hand on his shoulder, “they’re dating.”

Dustin shakes his head, furrowing his brows, “no she is not, she is dating you.”

Lucas slaps his hand over his head, “you’re a fucking idiot.”

“She is my best friend!” Eddie laughs loudly, “besides, I have a girlfriend, you met her!”

Dustin rubs his head, glaring at Lucas who is now grinning as he watches you two.

“I thought it was a bluff!”

Lucas points at you, “she is literally kissing Steve right now!”

Will clears his throat and leans forward, “yeah, and she’s been kissing Steve for a while now.”

Everyone snaps their heads at Will, everyone except for Max.

Eddie’s brown eyes flicker with confusion, he pulls his brows together and stares down at the boy, “what did you just say?”

“It was around like… before the fourth of july, right?” Will asks, glancing at Max, who nods with a smirk on her face.

“Oh yeah, that sounds about right.”

Robin nods at Eddie, pursing her lips, “fourteen year olds are more perceptive than us, Munson.”

Everyone gapes at them, especially Lucas who squints his eyes at his girlfriend, “you knew this whole time and you didn’t tell me!?” He throws his hands up, “I was the one who wanted them together!” He says dramatically.

Argyle slaps Jonathan’s chest, eyes widening, as he finally remembers, “I told you I saw him grab her ass!”

Jonathan’s frown slips from his face and he straightens his back, “and I told you I saw her kiss him!”

Argyle slumps back in his chair, mumbling quietly, “and that one time they walked out of the bathroom together.”

Nancy, who is stunned at her boyfriend and his best friend's words, turns to face them both, “and you never said anything!?”

Jonathan throws his hands up in surrender, “we were high as a kite! We might’ve been hallucinating for all we knew! I mean they hated each other!”

Will chuckles at his brother, “you didn’t have to be high to catch these two, they always held hands and kissed when they thought no one was watching.”

Mike turns to face his best friend, he hasn’t given any reactions yet, not until now.

“And now you didn’t say anything?”

Will shrugs at him, “didn’t you hear the part when I said ‘they thought no one was watching’? They were clearly keeping it a secret.”

Your giggle tears everyone’s attention away from Will. Steve is now twirling you around as the love song ended and an upbeat song took over. Your smile is wide, just like his. He’s laughing with you, staring at you like you are the only girl in the world. You are clinging to one another, dancing like it’s only you and him in this world, not caring about anyone around you, not minding the prying eyes or the curious looks.

Lucas is grinning, though still confused about how it all went by him, how he never noticed a single thing but he is happy to see you two together.

Eddie and Robin are smiling too, well, everyone is smiling.

“Come on,” Lucas stands up, pushing his chair back and bowing down before his girlfriend as he offers his hand out to her, “let’s dance.”

Max bites back her smile, hiding her blushing cheeks behind her hair, she takes his hand and gets up, smoothing down her gown.

Eddie watches as the teens join you both on the dancefloor and he looks over at Robin, nudging her shoulder, “wanna join them?”

Robin raises her eyebrows at him, glancing over at the four of you, “sure, let’s go,” she shrugs and gets up, passing by Dustin, she ruffles his curls, “come on, Dusty, you’re coming with us.”

When the metalhead comes up beside you, he steals Max away from Lucas, chuckling at the offended look on his face, “sorry, gotta dance with my sis for a while, Sinclair!”

And as everyone joins the dance floor, the girls try to snatch you away for details, while the guys try to ask Steve what the hell happened, you don’t let anybody rip your hands apart.

Long months, nights, days, hours and minutes, hidden in the shadows away from everyone else. Hiding from one another even, not showing your true feelings. You both don’t want to hide any longer. You both want to remain open, and for everyone to see and to know. To talk about. You both want people to envy your love, as well as want it. That’s how strong it is.

Soft whispers of I love you’s are shared, every time your mouth grazes his ear, or he comes closer to press his forehead to yours. It was the perfect night, yet, you weren’t afraid of the end of it. You two will see each other the next day, and the next, and the next… the moment will never be over.

So when the both of you are sitting on your kitchen table, your feet in a bucket full of ice water, both drunk out of your minds but still laughing while eating McDonald’s, and he watches you eat lazily, with adoring eyes and a look of love on his face, he takes your hand and whispers–

“I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”

♡

tagging friends and mutuals

@prettyboyeddiemunson @mysticmunson @moon-flowerrs @corrodedcorpses @taintedcigs @munson-mjstan @munsonlore @joekeerysmoles @maroon-cardigan @sherrylyn0628 @thecreelhouse @agirlwholovesrockstars @ibellcipem

#dwoht -- chapter twenty four #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington drabble #steve harrington smut #stranger things angst

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criibibi · 25 days ago

Text

Synopsis: After losing so much, Spider-woman learns to just keep moving. Only for her to end up somewhere far from home. Her first agenda is figuring out where she is, and how to get back. The only problem is that she ended up somewhere fictional (to her). Playing hero with Batman was not in her bingo cards this year. Hopefully she will be able to make it back home before she catches unwanted attention.

Masterlist: Prev; Next;

Chapter 3 - Weak and Alone

The hairs on your body stood up for a good while before you could relax again. You didn’t know meeting the yellow bat would be this fucking terrifying. Like, c’mon man! You fought many weird, crazy, dangerous, and scary things in your life as a hero, why was coming into contact with one of this world’s heroes that terrifying?

And besides this guy was just- is just a human, not a mutated creature or even an alien, just a regular human like you. But something about him just- put you off.

Crime in the mornings are so rare, how bad was your luck for it to happen when you were there? Wrong place and time, maybe? Or your luck is just shit and that’s that.

You don’t even question how this guy found you-er the robber. Even if he was in the area, Oracle or the other Robin must have been on surveillance duty or something. If you recall only two of Batman’s wards are mostly the “man in the chair” type. Oracle because of what happened to her with the Joker and one of the Robins because he’s one of the smartest ones. Or something like that.

Regardless, you’re okay now. That’s all that matters.

Hands in your pocket you remembered you looted the guy earlier. Taking out some cash you realized this guy had money. He had three-hundred, so why try to rob a convenience store? Well, whatever, not your problem.

You’ve become really good at pushing your problems to the back of your head.

What is now your problem is finding a library. Lifting your mask back on your face you continue to march forward, regardless of direction. Picking a random bar from your snack bag, you begin to eat it under your mask to calm your stomach so you can think.

“Okay, cheap food and non perishables are what I will live off of.” You don’t plan to stay in this wack world for long, so saving money is key. “Next, find layouts, maps, anything to get a semblance of where I am and what I can do. I need information, and lots of it. Third, I need a generator to power my gizmo. Finally, supplies to build a GHM. ‘Go-Home’ machine.”

So far things are looking very bleak but that's okay. No worries. Um, on the bright side, you haven’t glitched at all, so your gizmo watch isn’t totally off the record. As long as it’s still connected and alive, you’re sure Miguel can find your signal.

You did just suddenly disappear during a fight that was basically your mission that Miguel sent you on. That means Miguel already knows of your unfortunate case and should most likely be looking for you, right?

He wouldn’t abandon you, right? He’s the one that recruited you after all! He came to you. He knows of your existence and predicament. You have somewhat of a mentor and student relationship for fucks sake! He wouldn’t leave you stranded in favor of his issues with Miles…right?

You’re not getting forgotten… right?

You matter…right?

No! You can’t think like this! You also can’t put all your spiders in one web. You need more options, alternatives. Whether Miguel is looking for you or not (you choose to believe he is), you need to find a way to either go home or get in touch with him.

You gotta do things your own way.

You’re smart, resourceful, use your brain!

You’re good at improving, inventing, and repairing- a tinker if you will. Taking things apart, fixing what’s broken, or building things. That’s one of your strong suits- it’s time to use that big beautiful brain of yours to find out what’s wrong with this watch.

So in order to do that, you need materials. So how would a broke but smart pretty woman such as yourself find materials that won’t catch the eyes of the batsonas? Simple. One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure.

That’s right baby!

A junkyard.

Now to find a junkyard, you need a map. So to a library you go!

With newfound determination and energy, forgoing any unsavory thoughts and focusing on buildings and landmarks.

Getting pretty far into the city you managed to find a public library and mentally fell to your knees begging to all the gods to not run into any and all of the bat family here.

So you pass through the automatic doors and immediately feel relaxed. Honestly being in this world makes it hard for you to even feel safe when everything and everyone could be a potential danger to you.

Not to mention how quickly and easily some of the criminals can escape. You reeeeeally don’t want to face the villains of this world. You’d rather your own Vulture than their Scarecrow or whatever.

Giving the librarian an award winning (and non suspicious) smile, you made your way over to the row of computers. Sitting further away from the camera, you sit down and stare at the dull desktop.

“Okay, good, I’m here, no bats in sight, now what?” Feeling slightly overwhelmed you took a deep breath and then checked the date and location.

Reading the latest news was beneficial, now you know just who is in Arkham and who’s free at the moment. Thank the gods that the Joker is locked away. You really aren’t ready to face the big bad baddies of this world.

Soaking in as much information as possible, for hours you learned the latest news, Batman sent the some criminals to Arkham, Bruce Wayne hosting a charity event in a couple of months, Dick Grayson is coming to Gotham (why?), Lex Luther’s recent scandal, Superman saves the earth (again), Damian Wayne’s anticipated art museum opening. Wow, nothing interesting.

Nearing four hours just sitting there, you decide to call it quits and pull up maps one last time. Double checking your information you make sure that everything was like you never touched it and thensome.

Waving good-bye to the librarian you headed off to the large junkyard you found. The walk was pleasant and free of crime. Fuck you daylight robber. Though you know it isn’t true, crime happens everywhere and anytime, just some are quieter than others.

Arriving at the junkyard, you realized just how ginormous it is. Walking around you spot an abandoned warehouse, where equipment usually is stored and you jump with glee. Knowing there are no working cameras around here, you rest easy knowing you can just go ham on tinkering to your heart's desire.

Setting your bags down, you look around. There are tools that were left behind and you were ready to kneel and thank the gods. Looking at the equipment and workbench, you’re thoroughly pleased with what you have to work with. Shedding your hoodie, you step outside and into your paradise.

Finding many useful and discarded materials you quickly get to work in picking apart metals and material. Dragging them inside the spacious warehouse you go back and forth picking and dragging materials.

And the day flew by, just like that. It’s already late afternoon and you looked over your work.

You’ve made great progress with gathering materials. Having a mountain inside the warehouse to work with and on the workbench there was already something in the making. You’re building what is essentially a charger and beacon for your web watch.

This will give out a signal for Miguel to latch onto and discover your location. The only issue is if Miguel is looking for you, this will help greatly. The other issue is, you need energy, and lots of it. Sunlight here would suck with how gloomy Gotham can be.

So direct sunlight can’t be its only source.

Regardless you’ll fix and create the panels anyways. For now, since it’s late, you’ll take a break and fix this place up.

Sike, you just make a web hammock on the ceiling and web your bags to the wall next to you. After discovering the owner of the motel tried to get inside your room (that you fucking paid for) while you managed to finally catch some Zzz’s, it was decided to just leave.

Though you still need food and a place to do your necessities. Maybe you just have to suck it up and go through the centers here.

Sighing in the silence, your mind began to spiral.

The warmth and comfort of uncle Ben as he took care of you when you had nightmares, the gentle embrace of aunt May when you had succumbed to fevers, and the loving presence of Peter Parker when you were at the brink of it all.

You miss them, god you fucking miss them! You hadn’t felt those things in years, not after closing yourself from everyone when you lost them. Sure you had the mentor and student relationship with Miguel, but you never let yourself get close.

Not with Miles and the others, because you felt like a protector, a role model, someone who can’t show weakness.

Not with the hundreds of other Peter Parker’s either. Those Peter’s are just as smart, charming, dorky, and special as your Peter Parker. But they aren’t your Peter Parker. And they never will. Your Peter was even more special, more smart, more charming, more dorky, more charismatic, more everything! He was everything! And then… he left.

No, he didn’t leave.

You just couldn’t save him. You must not have been enough for him. You had seen the signs! You could have done something! But you didn’t. You got complacent, cowardly. Afraid to lose what you have.

Uncle Ben’s death taught you to treasure what you have before it’s taken away. Aunt May’s death taught you to keep things as they are, so they don’t break. You vowed to never make those mistakes again.

So when you met Peter Parker, you made sure he knew just how much he meant to you. How special he was, and how important he is to you. You weren’t blind, you noticed the painted smiles he wore at times. How life seemed to be dragging him down. But you were too afraid, too complacent. You didn’t want to tip the scales and possibly break something too fragile. You never pushed, or prodded because you knew if someone did that to you, you’d leave.

But the most important thing was that Peter isn’t you. Peter was strong, faaaar stronger than you, he isn’t glass. He held on for soooo long, and still tried to hide his pain from you. But you knew. You also knew that Peter knew that you knew. You just never pushed.

Peter Parker’s death demonstrated just how powerless you are. How much of a coward and paranoid you became. If you just talked to him, maybe he would still be alive.

With you…

Maybe, you would have accepted his confession once you mustered up the courage to take a leap and accept his feelings for you.

Just maybe.

But, there is no maybe anymore. There will never be Peter Parker and You. Because there hasn’t been another you so far.

And you live with that guilt and hatred towards yourself. But if Peter’s death taught you anything else, it’s to keep moving.

You have to keep going, for Peter’s sake. And for your sanity.

Because the more time you spend in this universe and not in your own, where you can visit Ben, May, and Peter’s graves, you are slipping ever so slightly.

You’re losing your fucking mind.

You just want to go home.

“Nothing Bruce. It’s only been a day but so far nothing.” Catwoman’s sharp voice cut through the silence.

Batman doesn’t reply in acknowledgement but nods and leaves the rooftop, leaving Catwoman peeved.

“I told you I’d keep looking, maybe it was nothing. You’re just too paranoid.” She huffed before going her separate way.

Batman felt his eyebrow twitch. First, this disturbance that apparently leads to nothing (that’s not true, he can feel it.) Then it’s news about a freak who caught two crooks beating a civilian. At first he didn’t pay it any mind until they kept spouting about a person in a suit shooting a sticky substance.

Gordon couldn’t get a sample because of how sticky the substance was and only for it to dissolve thirty minutes later. Jim Gordon also couldn’t add anything to this person’s claim because it was night and dark and he could only see the silhouette of the person.

But then again, that’s just two things that were off. A coincidence sure, but he doesn’t really believe in coincidences. Not in Gotham.

Placing his hand on his earpiece he spoke, “Anything?”

“Nothing to note. Maybe she’s right. What if this shift was just a coincidence?” Oracle replied.

“Not likely,” He heard her huff, and he sighed. “But not impossible either.”

Oracle would take that over a paranoid Batman any day. It’s the closest thing to an agreement then she will ever get. “I’ve been scanning the whole day but so far, nothing. Not even something similar.” She mumbled to herself.

Just as she takes a small break and sips on water, she hears footsteps approaching.

“How can I help you, Duke?”

“Hey, sorry to bother you if you're busy. Looks like you could use a break.” He replied.

“Honestly, yes. With the whole issue near the East End, I need it.” Barbara swirled her chair around to face Duke.

Duke rubbed his neck in apprehension. “Did you-”

“Find anything?” Oracle finishes for him. He nods. “No. Scanned her face and everything but nothing came up. Then I checked beyond, outside of Gotham. Truly nothing. She’s a ghost.”

“Or, maybe a survivor?” Duke proposed.

“Possibly. Many trafficked survivors and escapees have made it to Gotham.” Barbara entertained the idea.

“Do you know where,” after a hesitant pause he let his hand fall to his side, a slight glint in his eyes that went unnoticed. “She is staying?”

“She was staying at a motel near Park Row. She hasn’t returned since.” This was cause for alarm for Duke but he kept it in.

“Where-” He tried.

“Relax Duke. You know most would call this- what’s the word, ah, stalking.” Barbara teased, causing Duke to flush slightly.

“You’re right. I just…” He straightened up before he chuckled at his memory of you. “I never got her name.”

“That’s cause she never threw it. Not even the guy from the store got it.”

“Alright, thanks though.” Duke nodded and headed out.

Barbara bid him well and returned to the screen. Wondering how you, a random civilian, caught Duke’s attention. But then again, after scanning your face on the screen she too couldn’t help but find herself unable to look away.

And yes, you could say that you’re pretty, she can see that, but there is just something about you that makes you different and she can’t figure out why. Just what about you has her curious. But then again you are a civilian and she won’t mix personal interest with work.

Despite parading that Bruce was being paranoid about the disturbance in the air. It was strong enough to send an alert to her, and it could be something dangerous. But it happened so fast that you could blind and you would miss it.

For now, the thought of the pretty civilian will be put on the back burner, but not forgotten. She’ll get to you when she solves this stupid case in front of her. That and the mysterious spider person that three people (not including her dad) apparently saw.

“Coincidence? Probably not.” typing the keyboard she clicks enter and watches the monitor scan Gotham for the same frequency as the disturbance to see if she can put up anything, even a trace.

Nothing.

Clicking enter, she watches the screen again.

Prev; Next;

I realized have like ZERO outline for a fleshed out story sucks balls. Well, let's see where this goes together. I ordered some Signal/Duke comics and I am excited to see them arrive. Anyways, which new bat person do you think you'll meet next? There is only one right answer and it isn't Duke.

You're name isn't Tinker, but it's probably what I'll use as your alias.

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gojoidyll · 2 months ago

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There is No Law that Emperors Must be Fair

Emperor ! Jing Yuan x Princess ! Reader

Chapter 7 | Kisses Erase Pain

Summary | You are set to marry the Emperor, Jing Yuan. In order to break the engagement, you stage an accident and fake having amnesia. But now, your own cruel, cold, and distant fiancé, who seemed to not want anything to do with you, is now acting all lovey dovey!

want to be a part of the taglist? then pls go to taglist ^-^

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Sunday mused to himself as he gently ran his fingers through your hair, then bending down to you, his lips gently brushed against your ear, “it’s time to wake up, dove.”

His soothing voice washed over you, your whole body felt all warm and cozy, it was like being enveloped into a comfortable embrace on a winter morning.

Opening your eyes, you found yourself staring up at what you believed was an angel. And judging by the wings sprouting from his head, you knew you weren’t too far off the mark.

“You’re so beautiful,” you whispered those words as you continued to look up at him. Your confession made him smile at you, his hand still running through your hair.

“Thank you, dove, but don’t you have any questions for me?”

You shook your head, “I know I’m dead… what is there to ask?”

“A second chance, perhaps?”

You froze at that before lifting yourself from his lap and turning to him while sitting on your knees, your eyes a bit hopeful, “like going back in time and starting over?!”

Sunday chuckled to himself for a moment before shaking his head, “I can’t send you back. Time isn’t what I am able to control. However, I am able to erase what all has happened to you. In other words, I can make it to where your death hasn’t even happened.”

You thought over his words for a moment, “so you can’t send me back, but you can erase it? To how far back can you go?”

“As far back as I want,” he said as he lifted his hand to caress your cheek, “I could even erase your very existence.”

He watched your face contort into one of fear being patting your cheek softly before letting his hand fall from your face, “but don’t worry, I would never do that to you.”

You steadied your breathing before asking your next question, “so… since I am seeing you now… does that mean you plan on erasing something?”

“You could say that,” Sunday mused, “I want to erase your death and all the way up to that little amnesia plan of yours.”

“Only that far?!”

He smiled at you, “I am an impatient man, I don’t want to erase too far back and wait to see what unfolds.”

“… Why are you doing this for me?”

“Because I want to see if you can win.”

“Win?”

“The emperor has no laws for himself, no weaknesses. You could change that.”

You could only shrug, “kind of hard to do that when I can’t fool him. Not to mention he has a few favorite maids he likes to entertain.”

Sunday reached for you and patted your head, “but remember dove, it was Blade’s protectiveness that gave you away. Manage to not let Blade or Dan Heng find out about you, then your life would be easier.”

“That reminds me, who was the man who had helped Jing Yuan anyway?”

“That was Moze. An assassin. Be careful around him too. Honestly though, I am surprised he wasn’t your first obstacle…”

You shook your head with a smile before standing up, Sunday joining you, “so I guess this means you will send me back now?”

“Of course,” he said while getting closer to you, his lips gently pressing to your forehead which immediately caused a glowing light to surround you.

“Wait- I never got your name,” you said as you started to disappear.

Sunday merely smiled, “I am sure I am mentioned in a few books here and there, find my name there, and if we meet again, tell me what you think my name is.”

That was the last thing he said, then that warmth was gone, and you found yourself waking up in a cold sweat. Your breathing was hard, erratic. Looking around for a moment, you hastily got out of bed and went to your desk. On it sat a calendar.

“So,” you muttered to yourself, “I really am back to the day I decided to try and get amnesia…, and how did he explain it? He couldn’t control time, so he didn’t send me back. No, instead he said it was more like he was erasing the events that had happened… but what sort of being could possibly do that? No god in any religion I have heard of have ever been able to do that… Maybe I should go to the library today and see if I can figure out anything that way.”

Nodding to yourself, you went to your closet to fish out some decent clothes to wear (a dress that was easy to move around in since you didn’t plan to enact any more plans for the time being). And just as you made it to the door and opened it, you paused.

“Oh… hello, Blade.”

A part of you still couldn’t believe that that mysterious man erased the events that had happened, so there was only one thing to test out that theory. And that was talking to Blade, of course. Ever since you came here Blade has been like your shadow. Not once has he ever spoken to you or tried to speak. And you didn’t bother to talk to him either as a sort of defiance of not talking to anyone. But it was all too clear to you now that even if you don’t talk to anyone, the Emperor wouldn’t care.

Blade looked down at you, his gaze hardening as he glared at you, but he offered no greeting in return.

Well fine, be an ass, you thought begrudgingly as you turned on your heel and headed in the direction of the library. Blade already following you, hot on your heel as a shadow would be.

The library wasn’t hard to find, but it was a pain to get there due to how far it was from your room. But whatever, you were here now.

“Now, if I was a deity that can erase events… what book would I be in?”

You said those words quietly enough so Blade wouldn’t hear. Glancing behind you, you noticed how he stayed near the door, completely uninterested in what you were doing. Perfect.

So, you got to work.

You passed by multiple genres of books but eventually settled on a few pertaining to religion, history, a few fictional since they had titles and descriptions correlating with your situation, and even a few books that described creatures that looked a lot like the man you met.

Rolling a small cart, you brought it over to a couch and plopped down.

“Now, let’s see what I can find!”

Six hours later and you thought you were going to pass away. The fictional books were entertaining and served as good breaks, but they didn’t help you in the slightest of mentioning who could erase events that had happened!

It felt like you were about to rip your hair out! Sighing heavily and closing the current book you had in your lap; you went to get up and return the books all to their rightful place. You originally thought of leaving them out and letting someone else put them back, but you didn’t want a surprise visit from the emperor who would start asking about your sudden interest in historical and religious themes.

Once done putting them back, you settled for grabbing a single book to read. It was a fairy tale where a princess is saved by a prince. Sitting back down on the couch, you lay back and grinned at the title. Despite being a princess… you doubted any prince would dare to come save you.

Though, as soon as you opened the book and started reading once again, your eyes started to grow heavy and before too long, you fell asleep. Your breathing evened out and the book was held tightly against your chest as you curled up on your side. A small smile on your face.

Though, not too long after you fell asleep, the Emperor was walking by the room, “Blade? It’s uncommon to see you guarding the library,” Jing Yuan mused at the guard.

Blade huffed and jutted his head towards the open door, “the princess decided to read today.”

Jing Yuan hummed to the information and walked in, his eyes scanned the room for a moment before landing on your sleeping figure.

“Seems to me like she is sleeping more than she is reading.”

Blade came to stand next to the Emperor, arms crossed over his chest, “she was in here all the day.”

“That so?”

Blade nodded wordlessly as Jing Yuan walked over to your sleeping figure. His body knelt next to you, looking over you, he then noticed the book that was in your arms. Plucking the book from your grasp, he looked over the title.

“Foolish girl,” Jing Yuan mused as noticed how the book entailed a princess being saved by a prince.

“She wouldn’t be foolish if you just treated like an actual fiancé.”

“Its not everyday that I hear you defending my rewards from conquest.”

Blade shrugged, “I am only stating the obvious. Furthermore… I am bored of following her around.”

Jing Yuan let out a laugh as he stood back up, “then introduce her to other things that the castle has to offer. I’m sure even you can handle that task since you are so bored.”

Blade bowed slightly as Jing Yuan decided to take his leave.

“Of course, Emperor.”

And when he was gone, Blade looked back to you, his glare still present on his face.

taglist pt 1

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#hsr #honkai star rail #jing yuan #jing yuan x you #jing yuan x reader #jing yuan x y/n #emperor jing yuan #emperor jing yuan x reader #emperor jing yuan x princess reader #hsr jing yuan #honkai star rail jing yuan

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love-of-the-red-star · 4 days ago

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That time I got reincarnated as an Aeon

(Series)

Chapter eight: In which the Express celebrates the Day of the Dead with you

Dan Heng’s room was nothing short of simple and surprisingly comfortable.

You’ve been digging around the archives again after your short trip to your favorite desert planet, ready to contribute to the logs that made up Dan Heng’s archive.

He’d allowed you to touch the monitors and type in what you wanted, surprising even Himeko as he was usually rather cautious to let other people(usually March, bless her heart) roam around and touch his things unless they only wanted to read up on things.

You thanked him for that, of course. It was rather sweet of him to allow you to do this.

And so you typed away— made little personal notes on what the culture was like, and people that you also knew as yourself and not Delia. While Dan Heng’s records of Sigonia IV already existed, you were compelled to make your own as well, as a thank you to the people that had been so far hospitable to you.

You haven’t seen little Kakavasha in your visit, so you too wondered how he is now. He’s probably an adult— not so little anymore, growing into the familiar visage of “Aventurine” that you knew in your past life, but you hope it’s not the same horribly tortured man you know.

There was still discrimination, even a bit more than a decade since the freedom of this clan— they still warred with the Katicans here and there, but the disputes were more manageable, less genocidal as the Avgin were more protected by humanitarian groups.

But there wasn’t really any real interest for the cultures of people that had been long discriminated even with your intervention, and if no one was going to do the job of helping them at least preserve a certain view of it, you’d do the job yourself.

Sigonia IV would not be the only place that would stay in the archives for the other future Nameless to find, maybe one day you’d ask for Boothill’s planet, because while it no longer existed, you believed it wasn’t fair for it to die along with him.

You’ve made notes of it, here and there from what little you could get from some books that made mention of it and Boothill’s ramblings. While you could always consult Fuli for the rest of the things, it felt disrespectful towards your friend. You may be an Aeon now, but you knew honor— prying without your friend’s permission felt invasive, you weren’t a human anymore, but you know that kind of stunt wouldn’t be something he would appreciate.

Suddenly, you wondered about the planets you’ve accidentally destroyed, about the lives you had taken without meaning to, and the ones you drove mad beyond your control. Your typing still continued, undeterred by your silent grief as information flowed into the data bank without even a slight inaccuracy despite the difference in how you felt.

You should grieve for the ones who were lost, you thought to yourself. Glancing at the date present in your monitor, you found it was the best time too.

The Day of the Dead.

You’re not even sure if people even celebrated that holiday in this world. Maybe Halloween, but you doubt Dia de los Muertos, as the Latinos would call it, or Araw ng mga patay, as the Filipinos would say, is something widely celebrated in an expanded universe such as this.

Maybe you’d find a world that does celebrate it someday, but for now, maybe you’re going to be alone in giving acknowledgment and silent grief to the ones that had been lost.

You weren’t very close to a religion in your previous life as a human, but now that you thought of the holidays that gave people solace and something to celebrate, you began to feel a little strange that there was no god you could pray to as you were now technically one yourself.

Worshippers weren’t so bad now when you think of it as people laying their problems to a willing ear they can’t see or hear to give them the peace of mind they desired.

You finished up the logs, determined to plant the Avgin’s language inside of it next on the next time you’d touch the monitor. But for now, you had a goal in mind.

——————————————

Some researchers knew you as a grieving Aeon, with your cries reaching the far ends of the cosmos for reasons they sometimes don’t understand.

They observed you once again, mindful to keep their distance from hundreds of light years away as the telescope that found your distant visage caught on the fact that you were crying yet again. But this time, you’re quiet. There was no horrible song of lament that fried wires and caused damage, this one was silent, this one was red.

The liquid that flowed from what seemed to be your eyes was crimson, your lips pressed together as your expression looked forlorn. The telescope saw your hands move, then suddenly, nothing.

You did not want it to see you.

——————————

Setting up an altar was relatively easy, decorated with flowers you’d grabbed from a world away in the expanse of a mountain and a lot of candles you’ve carefully lit.

Lives lost in the fight of freedom, and the lives you took without meaning to. There were too many to count, and you doubt Pompom would like to have the train set on fire.

There were no pictures, no relics, there was simply you, the flowers, the altar, the candles.

Welt had passed by your room and seemingly recognized the decor, quietly joining your side as you started to kneel in front of the altar and mumbled something along the lines of a familiar prayer that he vaguely recognized.

Sometimes Welt forgot you were a human in your previous life. You’ve told him before, when you disclosed things about yourself to him and Himeko.

There was no god that you knew to pray to here, and to make it stranger, you were one yourself. Maybe you were trying to emulate it— old habits maybe, old bits and pieces of your human personality, and reliving specific memories. Or maybe you’re just trying to commemorate those you’ve lost in the way you knew a distant life away.

Welt joined you in your prayer. There is no god to direct his thoughts to, but there’s a strange sense of peace there regardless.

Welt stood up after a few moments while you stayed, lingering before eventually leaving the room.

“Why does it smell like candles burning?” March asked as she encountered him in the hallway.

“It’s for a celebration.” He said. “A day to remember and honor the dead.”

She looked a little confused. “Day to honor the dead?”

“Yes, you can join [Name] in their room if you’d like. It’s not a bad thing, although I can understand why you’d be confused— it’s not widely celebrated after all.” Welt smiled as March slowly nodded.

————————

You weren’t in the room for much longer, opting to head to the kitchen so you could make something to eat. You were there for at least two hours, and everyone seemed to leave you alone to your devices as you made some dishes you remembered from a past life.

Some comfort food, and fluffy bread.

You brought it to the dinner table with a smile as Pompom trailed after you to arrange the bowls and plates for everyone.

Once you were done, you made do of calling everyone in to eat. They don’t really ask why there’s a different feast of savory and sweet food on the table that was clearly not Pompom’s cooking.

Welt looked at you in a certain way that you know that he knew things, and you sent him an appreciative nod as you gestured for everyone to sit down and eat.

“These are some.. recipes that I know from my homeworld.” You began. “These typically aren’t stuff you would get when you’re celebrating the holiday in a very traditional way, but sadly my knowledge of cooking is… kinda limited.” You scratched your temple awkwardly.

“You don’t have to apologize for it.” Himeko said. “It’s the intent that counts.” She smiled, then placed some bread on her plate and stew in her bowl.

“You’re right.” You gave her a small smile of your own.

You failed to spot Dan Heng at the corner of your eye, looking at the bowl of stew in contemplation as Welt’s words sprang up memories of old friends lost in a life he didn’t want to remember.

Maybe he’d allow himself to grieve losses just this once, even if that person who’s lost those people in a distant life away wasn’t him anymore. Maybe for those that Blade had taken from him too in this life.

“Are you okay?” March nudged him gently, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” He said, blinking and snapping out of his thoughts before sinking his spoon into the stew.

Dan Heng found comfort in its flavor.

—————————————

March had taken photos of your room with the altar after dinner, plastering it into her wall with the label “Day of the Dead” in earth colored frames that contrasted the aesthetics of her room. She didn’t mind as much, surprising even herself as she was rather picky about her own decorations.

However, this was something that you shared with them, and that mattered to her. She couldn’t remember her past, and so to have a small piece of someone she knew that saved her was a nice feeling because she didn’t really quite know you. She doubt she ever would actually know you in the way the older crew members do, but that’s okay, that meant she could know you through the new memories she’d create.

She thought of you for a moment and what you’d lost, and she also wondered about the past self she can’t remember. Did she have people that she lost too? Were there people that lost her? Were there people that missed her?

She remembered her conversation with you, a strangely solemn topic for a girl so bubbly like her.

“What do you usually do?” She asked, clearly referring to the little holiday.

“People usually prayed, then offered food and flowers to their dead and all that.” You replied. “I thought it’d be a little nice to honor the people lost along the way. It’s a thing in my old world to not forget the dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She found herself saying. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

“You don’t have to worry, it’s not offensive at all.” You smiled and patted the spot next to you. “It’s a pretty big celebration in my world, and in some countries it’d be a lot livelier than this.” You said as she went to sit next to you.

“They’d wear costumes and make up and bring out live music and everything. The food’s a lot better too I think— there’s too many for me to remember, so the ones I made weren’t the traditional ones people ate during that day.” You explained as she listened attentively.

“That’s okay, it was delicious anyways.” She giggled, shifting slightly to adjust herself before settling in comfortably in a few moments of silence.

“Do you…. Miss your old world? Ah— you don’t have to answer that.” March sputtered, realizing her mistake.

“It’s okay. And yeah… maybe just a bit. I’m not sure how to feel about it to be honest.” You said, glancing at the windows of your room.

She couldn’t see what kind of expression you were making, and so she found herself hugging you. There was something inherently sad about you despite your antics, like you’ve lost too many things.

You returned that embrace.

————————-

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX(HERE), Part X……

Interludes: one, two…

Special chapter: link

Yeeeeee hello y’all!!! Pushing this chapter out in celebration of All Souls Day! :DD

I hope all of you are well! Also I’ll be happy to answer any of your questions regarding the series, so drop any thoughts, don’t be shy <333

#aeon reader #honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #reader insert #himeko x reader #welt yang x reader #honkai star rail #aventurine x reader #boothill x reader #March 7th x reader #Dan Heng x reader

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munson-blurbs · 1 year ago

Text

Single Dad!Eddie x Fem!Reader Series

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

Summary: You and Eddie finally get some much-needed alone time, and a confrontation at the Hawkins Preschool talent show tests your commitment to each other.

Warnings: smut (18+ only, minors DNI), protected p in v, fingering, oral (m! receiving), lil bit of edging, broken condom, breeding kink, mentions of Eddie's past, bullying, fighting, Jason Carver's mere existence, mostly fluff and smut before the angst of the next two chapters

WC: 9.2k

Chapter 15/20

Divider credit to @saradika Cutie pie Eddie pic credit to @/sunceddie

You wake up to an alarm set a full hour later than it typically is on a Friday morning, and the extra rest has you walking on air. Or maybe this newfound floatiness comes from knowing Eddie will be arriving soon, the two of you playing hooky from work to spend the day together. Your insides ignite with a rebellious fire, like you’re skipping class to smoke cigarettes underneath the bleachers, rather than taking a paid sick day that you’ve rightfully accrued.

Sunlight streams through the window, just a bit brighter than the usual smears of pink and orange that you normally see when you awaken. And while you still have to drag your yet-to-be-caffeinated body out of bed, the walk to the bathroom seems slightly less daunting.

You can’t let Eddie in fast enough when the intercom buzzes thirty minutes later. You were never naïve to the fact that dating a parent would mean having less privacy; what you didn’t know was how strongly you’d crave him.

Your hands are all over him the moment he steps through the door, simultaneously too much and not enough. Fingers lazily drape across the nape of his neck, and you can feel that his hair is already frizzy from the early April rain. Your breath hitches when you catch a glimpse of the burgeoning outline along the seam of his gray sweatpants.

His lips find yours easily, aiming to meet in the middle, but you press on your toes and bring your core to his. Your pajama top is thin; not sheer, but flimsy enough that he can feel the way you react to the chill of his leather jacket.

“Hello to you, too,” he murmurs with a laugh, muffled by a kiss that catches him off-guard. “I was gonna ask if you wanted to grab breakfast first, but—”

You shake your head, grabbing his wrist and pulling him towards the bedroom. “Sex first, food later.”

“Yes ma’am.” He uses his free hand to apply a quick smack to your ass, mesmerized at the way the supple flesh ripples underneath the flannel pants. Jesus, you’ve got him half-hard and you’re still in your pajamas.

He sits on the side of the bed, and you climb to straddle him, your inner thighs nudging his outer. “Been thinking about you,” you say, tugging his earlobe between your teeth.

Eddie pulls you even closer, one hand snaking up your shirt to cup your breast. He’s still cold from the rain and early morning frost, and his touch has your nipple pebbling. “What about me?”

“Well,” you trill, starting to slowly grind against the tented fabric of his pants. He exhales, a shiver of anticipation coursing through his veins. “I believe I promised my rockstar a reward for his amazing gig.” Your thoughts flit back to the night of Will’s party, when you’d snuck backstage and gotten a glimpse of him, his body pulsating with nerves that had almost immediately quelled at your touch. Another sensation had swept over him then, but that was an entirely different type of flutter.

Eddie nudges his nose against yours, a smile tugging on the corners of his mouth. “Your rockstar?” He adores the phrasing. Yours. Belonging to you. And you belong to him; he won’t ever allow you to forget it. “What kind of reward did my favorite groupie have in mind?”

You slide off of him, giggling at the pout he gives you as your body loses contact with his. “Patience, Rockstar,” you warn him, though it’s difficult to contain yourself when you’re salivating just being eye-level with his erection. Your fingers dig into his waistband, and for the second time today, you’re glad for his choice of clothing. You don’t think you could handle buttons and zippers and belt buckles. Not today.

He hisses when your palm brushes along his hardened length, stiffening even while covered by his boxer briefs. A small wet patch marks his tip, leaking precum, and you press a chaste kiss to it. Almost instantly, you feel the tendrils of his thigh hair against your bare arms as his legs reflexively snap shut like a Venus flytrap catching its prey.

“Too much?” you mumble against his happy trail. While you relish in the thought of overstimulating him, you want to keep him on edge as long as you can.

Eddie shakes his head, curls scratching against his shoulders. “Jus’ wasn’t expecting it. ‘Cause you were using your hands, but then I felt your…never mind, I’m gonna shut up now.” He settles back into the mattress and eagerly awaits your next move.

You don’t make him wait long, lips drawn to his shaft with a magnetic force. You only stop to shimmy his underwear down his legs, tossing them to the corner of the room. His cock is flush against his tummy; you catch yourself staring at the dusting of wispy curls that trail from his upper groin down to his heavy sack.

Your dominant hand wraps around the base while the other leans on his thigh for balance. You lean in and spit, letting your saliva dribble down his length before flattening your tongue to lick up the pearly bead forming at the tip. Eddie’s abdominal muscles contract and his fists clench, never taking his eyes off of the beautiful woman on her knees for him.

He lets out a soft moan as you hollow out your cheeks to take more of him into your mouth. A string of syllables that barely resemble words escapes him. “Mmm, yes, oh, sh–fucking hell–thas’ it…” He twists the bedsheets between his fingers, inhaling sharply as your tongue glides up and down his cock. “S’pretty, fuck, gorgeous girl.” He watches intently, staving off blinks so he doesn’t miss a moment of him disappearing between your lips.

He’d once thought that he could never want more than sloppy post-gig hook-ups in dive bar bathrooms with girls whose names he’d never learned, though he wouldn’t have made an effort to remember them anyway. Girls who had only offered their mouths so they could lay claim to his body; the opportunity to brag that they’d blown Eddie Munson before he got famous.

That was before you, before you’d shown him the intoxicating mixture of longing and belonging, of lust and…

You continue drawing him closer and closer to his orgasm, nose grazing his thatch of pubic hair. His hips buck slightly, but your mouth is so full of him that it threatens to evoke your gag reflex.

“Shit, ‘m sorry,” Eddie blurts out, unfurling a hand from the sheets to cup your cheek. He pulls out, allowing you to take a deep breath.

You shake your head. “I liked it,” you tease with a wicked grin, wasting no time assuming your previous position.

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie throws his head back. “You like gagging on my dick? Fucking hell, babe.”

“Mhm.” The gentle vibration has him twitching, and you know he can’t last much longer. You bring your attention to his tip, sucking and giving soft kitten licks while your hand takes care of the rest of his length. He’s so painfully hard that you wouldn’t be surprised if he stayed that way long after finishing.

“Jus’…just like that. Oh, fuuuuuck,” he groans, silently calling upon every ounce of willpower in his body to keep his pelvis still so he doesn’t disturb the beautiful rhythm you’ve found. “Gonna cum…shit, baby, if you don’t want it in your mouth, you gotta stop now.”

But you do want it in your mouth, so you don’t stop, feeling warm ropes adorning your tongue just seconds later. He’s panting, chest heaving as though he was the one putting in the effort, but he still notices the way you swallow his thick load without missing a beat.

“Did you just…oh, my God. You’re perfect.” He throws his hands up in mock defeat. “I can’t…nothing I do will ever compare to you, I swear.” He motions for you to lay down next to him, and immediately climbs on top of you, the sweat from his chest transferring to your shirt. “Off,” he mumbles, pulling it over your head before you get the chance to do it yourself.

His lips swoop down to your left breast, tongue flickering over the nipple, and his dominant hand travels into your panties and expertly finds your clit. You let out a tiny whimper, barely audible over Eddie’s own grunts, finding pleasure in making you feel good.

“This body,” he mumbles, mouth still attached to your chest, “has me in a goddamn chokehold. It’s all I think about.” That isn’t quite true; he certainly spends plenty of time daydreaming of you, though it isn’t always in such compromising positions. Sometimes, you’re sleeping next to him in bed as he presses gentle kisses to the nape of your neck. Other times, he’ll be cooking dinner and picture you passing him the salt or handing him a serving spoon to dish out whatever noodle-based concoction he’s conjured up. Whatever he’s doing, he imagines you by his side.

“Can you kiss me?” Your request is timid but dripping with need.

Eddie nods, bringing himself to eye level with you and closing the gap between your faces. You taste of minty toothpaste and of him, and he curses himself for diving in headfirst without remembering to kiss you. “M sorry,” he apologizes for the second time that morning, and you forgive him with a soft bite to his lower lip.

Your arms rest on his shoulders and your legs wrap around his calf muscles, desperate to remain as close as possible at all times. No, you can’t stay like this forever, so you’ve got to make it count. “Need you inside me, Eddie.” Your voice nearly cracks, tears pricking at your lash line as the craving for him grows stronger. “Please.”

Eddie musters up a terse laugh. “Sweetheart, I just came, like, five minutes ago. You gotta give me a second to bounce back.” He lowers himself so he can whisper in your ear, “let me take care of you while we wait, hm?”

As soon as you nod, he’s yanking down your pajama pants and panties in one fluid motion. You can’t miss the way his eyes light up once you’re fully on display for him, taking in every centimeter of your body like his existence depends upon it. He starts to shimmy his way down, but your murmured “mm-mm” captures his attention.

“Still want you kissing me,” you say, gazing adoringly into his deep brown eyes. “Maybe you could just use your fingers?”

His instinct is to protest; he’s been desperate to taste you again ever since his tongue last touched the most intimate part of you, but he can’t deny you what you want. He’ll do just about anything to keep a smile on your face.

Without further hesitation, Eddie’s lips are on yours. He braces himself on his elbows as his hands cradle your cheeks. You can feel the heat of his cock, still spent and flaccid, against the top of your thigh. He shifts slightly so he can press one thick finger into your pussy, dragging in and out so deliciously that you barely notice his tongue slipping into your mouth, deepening the kiss as you moan.

“Y’like that?” It’s a gratuitous question; he can feel how much you like it in the way you’re clenching around him. “Gonna make my girl feel s’good.”

“Call me your girl again,” you whine, punctuating the plea with a gentle buck of your hips.

Eddie grins, ducking his head where your neck meets your collarbone and sucking lightly. It takes every ounce of strength he possesses not to mark you. He studies the moisture left behind by his lips and wishes it was the exquisite shades of blue and indigo that form when someone’s been claimed.

He slides a second finger inside you. “My sweet girl,” he coos, just a hint of patronization laced within his deep voice, “you like being mine? Belonging to me?”

Your stomach flips at his words; a gnawing hunger for Eddie Munson. “Love it. I…I love being your girl.” You allow your mind to clear, absorbing his gaze, his touch, his skin. The graceful arch of your back beckons him to move faster, tongue peeking from between his plush lips as he concentrates on your orgasm.

Each stroke within you inches you closer to euphoria. Eddie’s thumb is pressed to your clit, cementing his determination to tip you over the edge. He hits all the right spots, committing them to memory; his own personal pathway to the heavens.

It’s your turn to grab onto the bed sheets like a lifeline as pleasure surges through you. Your lips coat his in a warm layer of “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,” the praise a victory chant to him. He waits until your eyelids flutter back open and your breathing steadies before taking his fingers from your center and into his mouth, licking your release off of his skin like a delicacy.

Your body may be splayed out on the bed, but your mind is adrift; its only focus is the float down from the high Eddie’s brought you to. If it weren’t for the throbbing reminder pressed to your leg, you might float right into the atmosphere.

You summon the willpower to prop yourself up on your elbows, watching intently as he fists himself to temporarily ease the ache.

“Why’re you doing that when ‘m right here?” you mumble, wetting your lower lip with a swipe of your tongue. You can only hope that there’s some semblance of a smile in your intoxicated expression. “Unless you…prefer your hand?”

“Fuck, no,” he grumbles, curls dancing along his shoulder blades as he loosens his grasp to dig through your top drawer. He shoves aside stray prescription bottles and various knickknacks that you’ve been meaning to go through until he finds what he’s been looking for.

He snatches up the teal box and practically tears the cardboard in half trying to open it. The snake of foil packets tumbles out and he scrambles for them, but you’re faster.

Wordlessly, you rip off one packet and carefully tear off the top. Eddie hisses as you roll the condom down his hardened length, more than ready to be inside you.

“Wanna ride you,” you tell him, pressing your palms to his soft pecs. “‘S that okay?”

“Is that—baby, if I ever say no to that offer, there’s something seriously wrong with me,” he laughs, already laying back on the bed. His hair splays across the pillow, brown curls swirling atop the cotton pillowcase like Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Eddie inhales sharply as you sit above him, sheathed cock pressed to your heat in anticipation. He reaches out and grabs your breasts, one in each hand, kneading them in his palms. His thumbs brush over your nipples, gauging your reaction before giving them a small pinch.

Your moan, coupled with the way you grind against him, confirms your satisfaction, but he still asks, “Y’like when I do that?”

You offer him a little smirk, cocking your brow as you cheekily reply, “You tell me.”

He doesn’t have time to respond before you lift yourself and gradually sink down onto him, soaking in every moment of the delectable stretch. Bracing yourself on his chest, you feel him bottom out so he’s filling you entirely.

“Fuck, Sweetheart.” His hands move from your chest to your hips as he helps you adjust to the newfound fullness. “So tight. Feels‘mazing.”

“Just wanna take care of you, Eds. You’re so good to me; I wanna be good to you.” You bounce up and down, moving your hips so no part of your walls remains untouched by him.

He’s mesmerized at the jiggle of your flesh as it connects with his, momentarily rendering him speechless before he regains some composure. “You are. You’re so, so good for me. Can never get enough of my girl.”

You clench around him at the title ‘my girl’, earning you a smack to your ass. The sting makes you whimper, and he swiftly delivers another.

“You’re gonna make me cum too soon,” he huffs, blown-out pupils drifting from your eyes to where your bodies are joined.

You pause your movements to lean down, allowing him impossibly deep within you. “If it’s too much,” you murmur into his ear, hoping your edge-teetering tremble is hidden enough to effectively tease him, “maybe I should just…stop.” You slide your hips forward until only his tip breaches your hole.

Eddie’s jaw drops in complete disbelief. “You…you can’t fuckin’ do that to me.” You expect him to push the rest of his cock inside you and thrust until he’s completely spent, so you’re caught off-guard when he pulls out entirely. “All fours. Now.” He emphasizes his request with another spank, this one harder than the rest.

You oblige, palms pressed into the mattress and toes curled as you await him. He taps his shaft against your bottom once, twice, three times, and then plunges into your warmth.

“Ah—fuck—Eddie!” you cry, feeling the telltale twitch that informs you he’s close. Really fucking close. And then another sensation—a soft pop.

He realizes what it is before you do. “Fuckin’ condom broke!” he grumbles, pulling out again—even more begrudgingly than before—and tossing the split rubber to the floor. He opens a new one and rolls it on with lightning speed, eager to be enveloped in you once again.

“Wish we didn’t have to use those,” you mumble, willing yourself to stay steady despite the push from his pistoning hips. “Be so much easier without them.”

Picturing you taking him raw—you wanting to take him raw—is the last straw. “Yeah? You wanna feel all of me, baby?” he growls, nearly inaudible over the sound of his pelvis colliding with your ass. “Want me blowing my load so fuckin’ deep inside you?”

“Y-Yes,” you stammer, feeling that delicate wave approaching the shoreline, desperate to crest. “That’s exactly what I want, Eddie.”

“Keep saying my name,” he orders, wrapping one arm around you so his middle finger lays on your clit. Every part he touches makes you weaker for him, scavenging for the relief of release.

“Eddie, feels s’good,” you moan, legs threatening to crumple beneath you. “No one makes me feel like this ‘cept you, fuck, Eddie!”

You finish around him, squeezing him until he’s spilling into the condom with a primal groan of your name. He stays draped over you for a beat before flopping back onto the bed.

“You are…” he turns to you and grins as he searches for the right word, “spectacular.” He gingerly removes the barrier from his dick, tying it in a knot and tossing it into the trash can next to your nightstand. “C’mere.”

You lay on his chest, the sweat cooling as it hits your cheek. “Did you work up an appetite?” you tease, kissing just below his tattoo of a demonic head, “I can grab us some cereal, or we might have some frozen Eggos I could throw in the toaster.”

Eddie smiles so wide it threatens to escape the confines of his cheeks. “Sex and breakfast? You spoil me, Sweetheart.”

“Yeah, well; we need energy to power us through round two.” You scoot upwards to nuzzle into the crook of his neck, the salt of his perspiration tangy on your lips. “Give me a few minutes, okay? Do you like syrup on your waffles?”

“And butter?” he asks with a hopeful smile, peering at you through long eyelashes that would have had you darting to Bradley’s Big Buy if you didn’t already have a stick of Land O’ Lakes in the fridge.

You roll your eyes playfully. “Yes, Your Majesty,” you say, giving his bare thigh a small tap. “Would you also care for some freshly-squeezed orange juice? I can have the chef whip some up right away.”

Eddie throws his head back and laughs, slowly pushing himself up so he can help you in the kitchen. It dawns on him that he hasn’t felt this kind of peace after sex before; his mind has always been clouded with fears of getting too attached, of saying the wrong thing, of deluding someone into thinking he’s enough.

“God, I love you.” The words tumble out before he can stop them, and he freezes in place, one leg through his underwear. “Fuck, I mean–”

“It’s okay,” you rush to reassure him, noting the red tinge forming on the tips of his ears. “I’d say that to anyone who offered me breakfast foods, too.” You give him room to accept the out, to brush off his confession as a slip of the tongue. There’s no use in awarding merit to an accidental comment, regardless of what your skipped heartbeat tells you.

He considers it, every synapse and neuron firing at warpspeed. Maybe he could convince himself that it was an accident if it was the first time he’d felt this, the way your sunshine radiates through him and warms him from within. But that was far from the truth.

“No,” he finds himself saying, grasping onto every morsel of confidence he can find, “it’s not because of the food. I love you.”

Your voice catches in your throat. You want to believe that he’s reciprocating your feelings, but something nags at you. “Are you sure it’s not because we just had sex? Because sometimes that—”

“No,” Eddie repeats himself, unfolding the waistband of his boxer briefs and walking to you. “Because it wasn’t about sex when you calmed me down after the parent-teacher conference. It wasn’t about sex when you taught Harris how to read and bowl and be a better person than I’ll ever be. It wasn’t about sex when you cheered me on during our last gig, and it wasn’t about sex when I saw you holding Ettie.” He takes a deep breath and holds your hands as he gazes into your eyes. “And even after having sex, it isn’t about sex. It’s about you being the one for me. I love you, I love you, I love you.” He kisses your forehead, then your cheek, and finally your lips.

“I love you, too, Eddie.”

Just five words, six syllables, and he’s a goner. Seriousness melts into a sappy smile as he cradles your cheeks and presses the tip of his nose to yours. “Holy shit, we’re in love.”

You kiss him, tongue nudging his as your torsos meld together. If your stomach wasn’t gnawing for something to eat, you’d start round two right then and there.

Throwing on just a shirt and panties, you lead him into the kitchen before either of you can crawl back into bed. His hands never leave your body, snaking around your waist as you rifle through the freezer for the familiar yellow box. His head rests on your shoulder as you drop the waffles into the toaster and press the lever down.

“Eds?”

“Yes, my love?” he murmurs, pecking a soft kiss behind your ear. You both could have sworn that there was nothing better than him calling you ‘my girl,’ but you’re unashamed to stand corrected.

“Could you make yourself useful and grab some plates? Maybe get the syrup or butter?” you tease, noting the dramatic pout developing on his face. “What?”

“I’m keepin’ you warm,” he protests, sliding his hands over the cotton fabric of your faded t-shirt and grabbing your breasts. “And you’re not wearing a bra, so I gotta hold ‘em for you.”

He eventually obliges, setting two Chinette plates on the countertop and padding over to the refrigerator. He plucks the condiments from the side door and places them in the center of the table.

“Cups, too,” you remind him with a cheeky grin, pointing to a cabinet to your right. “No drinking out of the carton in my house.”

“Bossy this morning, aren’t we?”

The toaster chimes a charismatic ding! as the waffles jump out of their slots, and you carefully drop both onto one plate. “Here ya go,” you chirp, extending your arm so he can take his breakfast.

“Where’s yours?” His brows pinch together in confusion, a sly smile stretching his lips. “Don’t tell me I didn’t make you work up more of an appetite back there. Shit, shoulda had you ride me longer–”

Your hip collides with his in a purposeful shove. “I’m getting mine ready now. Go sit and eat, you horndog.”

Eddie drops the plate on the counter so quickly that the Eggos nearly fly off, pulling you from behind for a hug that squeezes all the air from your lungs. You squeal as he bites your neck and barks into it, solidifying that he has indeed earned the new nickname you’ve bestowed upon him.

He takes one of his waffles and places it on your empty plate. “We can eat together.”

You grab the orange juice from the fridge, giving the carton a shake before pouring the contents between the two glasses. It’s not until you sit down that you remember: “Oh, shit—utensils.” You start to get back up, but Eddie puts a hand out in a silent bid for you to stay seated, shuffling back to the kitchen. The drawer rattles as he pulls with just a bit too much strength, and he comes back with two knives and a single fork.

“You only got one—” you start, but he shakes his head.

“Don’t need it.” With that, he cuts off a hunk of butter and slathers it on top of his waffle, knife scraping against the little squares. He slathers every square inch in syrup, folds the waffle in half, and takes an exaggeratedly large bite.

“Eddie Munson!” you lightly chastise, still in shock at what you’ve witnessed. “Did you just eat that like a taco?”

“Sí, señorita.”

You shake your head in disbelief. “Oh, my God, I’m in love with a barbarian.” You reach for the bottle of Aunt Jemima and drizzle the sticky-sweetness onto your waffle. “What else is going on with you?” you ask, cutting the food into strips and spearing it with your fork. “Work’s good?”

“Work’s great, actually.” He starts to bring the waffle to his mouth but pauses just before taking a bite. Syrup drops onto the plate with a plop. “I almost forgot to tell you! The regional manager asked me to go to this thrift market in Indianapolis in a few weeks—all on the company’s dime—and try to snag some vintage records.”

“Eds, that’s amazing!” You leap up from your chair and lean in to kiss his syrupy lips.

He licks a smudge of butter from the side of his thumb. “Oh, but that’s not even the best part,” Eddie grins triumphantly. “The market just so happens to fall during spring break, and I was hoping you could join us?” His bare foot nudges yours under the table. “That is, if you think you can survive an entire weekend running after Harris?”

Your jaw drops in mock-offense. “One of us chases after children–plural–every day. Besides,” you add, taking a swig of juice, “Harris isn’t the one I’m worried about.” You gesture at his partially-demolished breakfast. “At least when he eats like this, he has the excuse of being a child.”

His reply is a flick of his left middle finger, his right hand busy jamming the remaining waffle-taco into his mouth. “And yet,” he retorts with his mouth full, “you can’t seem to get enough.”

He’s got you there: all you’ve ever wanted is sitting in front of you now, the corners of his chocolate-brown eyes crinkling as he stands. You allow your eyes to roam his body; not with lust, but adoration. Love.

Your cheek yearns to be pressed to his chest, your hand resting where the soft pudge of his tummy barely rolls over the elastic waistband of his boxer briefs. Your legs crave the connection of intertwining with his. You need his arms, biceps strong from lugging around music equipment and holding his son, wrapped around your torso and keeping you impossibly close. Keeping you safe.

You want to spend hours asking about the stories behind the tattoos that adorn his chest, whether meaningful or the result of sheer boredom. You want to curl up on the sofa and put on a movie, absorbing none of it as you spend the entire duration lost in his lips.

The brush of his thumb against your knuckles stirs you from your roaming thoughts.

“Can I ask you something?”

Eddie sits up a bit straighter, hand never leaving yours. “Shoot.”

“Is it…” you fumble for the right words, “why are you like this now?”

“I’m sorry?” His brows knit together in obvious confusion. “Why am I like…what?”

“This,” you repeat, gesticulating at the man before you, warm and tender and completely unlike the stranger you’d hooked up with nearly eight months ago. “Why is the guy who once kicked me out of his apartment currently having breakfast with me half-naked and inviting me on a trip with his son?” Your tone is inquisitive, curious, and Eddie heaves a silent sigh of relief when he doesn’t detect a hint of judgment.

He doesn’t answer your question outright; instead, he poses his own: “Do you not believe that I love you?” He bites his lower lip, mind churning with the early memories you’d made together, the ones he wishes he could lock away and never remember.

Your heart lurches at your accidental implication. “I do! Shit, Eddie, I know you love me. And I love you, too.” You pause to lift his hand to your mouth, leaving the gentlest of kisses along his fuzzy knuckles. “I guess I just wanna know why you even let yourself love me. Why you didn’t stick to the Cat-and-Mouse. Why…why you chose me.”

He exhales, an incredulous huff of laughter passing through his lips. “You wanna know why I started only having one-night stands? Or why I stopped?”

“Both?” you try.

“So, um,” his eyes look everywhere but at you, “I never really got attention until I moved to Chicago and started playing with that band. All of a sudden, women wanna sleep with me, and I don’t have to, like, beg them.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “But they didn’t really want to fuck Eddie Munson; they just wanted to fuck the lead singer and guitarist of Hard Knox. Didn’t matter if it was me or some other random guy.

“One night, I’m…y’know…with this one girl, and I asked her to say my name.” His cheeks tinge red and he swallows hard. “And she looks at me with these wide eyes, and I realized she didn’t even fucking know it.”

“Did you know hers?” The question comes out before you can stop it, but you already know the answer.

He rubs his eyes with his whole palm. “After that, I realized that the only difference between the Eddie who got laid and the Eddie who didn’t was that no one I slept with really knew me. And if they ever figured out that I’m just this big ol’ nerd who spent high school playing Dungeons & Dragons, they’d…” He flexes his hands to make a poof! motion. “So I decided not to let them get to know me.”

“But then…”

“But then,” he acquiesces, “you show up at the bar, looking like a goddamn dream, and I put up that cocky lead singer persona on instinct. Because that’s the only version of me that women ever wanted to be with.” He sighs. “And then I let my guard down, ask you to spend the night, and I’m thinking, ‘I gotta get her outta here before she sees who I really am. Before she sees that I’m not a rockstar; I’m just a mediocre dad who sells weed to scrape by.’”

You move so quickly that you practically knock over your chair, standing behind him and wrapping your arms around the top of his chest. Your chin rests on his scalp, and he can feel the vibration in your throat as you murmur, “nothing about you is mediocre, Eddie Munson.”

He lays his head on your forearm, kissing it softly before lacing his fingers with yours. “Sometimes, I think I’m just buying time until you get sick of me.”

You shift your position so your lips can brush the side of his neck. “I didn’t fall for the guy on stage that night. I mean, yeah, you looked incredibly hot,” you tease and nip at his collarbone, “but I’m in love with Eddie Munson: the man who gets excited when his son reads a new word, who teases me for liking olives on my pizza, who knows the lyrics to every song ever made–including the ones he claims to hate.”

“Well, Eddie Munson–the real Eddie Munson–is so goddamn lucky to be loved by you.” He turns so he’s facing you, strong hands on your hips as he gazes up with starry eyes.

You cradle his cheeks, stooping down so your noses touch. “You deserve to be loved.”

“Yeah.” The word is more breath than sound. “Yeah, I think I’m finally starting to believe that.”

The remainder of your day is spent having copious amounts of sex; Eddie had insisted on ‘making up for lost time,’ taking breaks only for a quick lunch and a shower.

“Come with me to pick up Harris,” Eddie says as he wraps the bath towel around his waist. Water drips from the ends of his curls down to the dimples on his lower back. “We’re going to Jeff and Viv’s after so he can meet Baby Ettie.”

You raise your eyebrows in amusement, bending over to dry your legs. “I took a sick day today,” you remind him. “I can’t just show up there in your car, like, ‘nothing to see here!’”

“I’ll park far away,” he says with a shrug. “No biggie.” There’s a mischievous glimmer in his eyes. “I mean, I could tell Harris that Ms. Sweetheart was supposed to be with us, but she said no—”

You swat at his chest and he pulls back, feigning pain. “You wouldn’t!”

“Try me.”

That’s how you ended up hunched over in the passenger seat of Eddie’s sedan, hiding from any passersby who could potentially recognize you. It only takes a few minutes before you hear the sound of Harris’s little voice, chewing his dad’s ear off about his day at school.

“...and then me an’ Charlie traded me snacks, an’ no one even sawed us!” He’s cackling like it’s the funniest joke. “He had my pretzels and I had his gummies, and it was so silly!”

“Gummies, huh?” Eddie clicks his tongue, “well, that explains the sugar rush.” Their voices get louder as they approach the car. “By the way, Har Bear, I have a surprise for you.”

As he says it, Harris opens the back door and hops into the car, eyes widening when he sees you sitting up front. “Ms. Sweetheart!” he exclaims, bouncing into his booster seat with pure exhilaration. “What are you doing in Daddy’s car?”

“I figured I could see Baby Ettie with you guys,” you say as nonchalantly as possible, a stark contrast to the little boy practically vibrating from excitement, “if that’s okay with you.”

“Yes, yes, YES!” Harris shouts, his words aimed directly in Eddie’s ear as he tries buckling his son’s seatbelt.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he mutters, wincing as he massages the opening of his ear canal with his forefinger. “Take it down a notch, little man.” He fumbles with the belt until he hears the familiar click. He dons a deep voice to announce, “Keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times,” and Harris draws his limbs inwards with a giggle while Eddie closes his door.

“Daddy? Can we listen to music?”

“Mhm.” Eddie reaches for the radio dial, then stops. “Should we let Ms. Sweetheart choose the tape? Since she’s our special guest?” He shoots you a grin that sends a flip-flopping sensation behind your ribs.

Harris taps his finger to his chin in contemplation. “Hmm…okay! Can she pick Metallica?”

“Not quite sure that’s how it works…” Eddie scrunches up his face and scratches at his jawline.

You turn around to face the boy, whose curly hair is now identically frizzy to his father’s. “Actually, Metallica sounds great to me,” you say, adding a thumbs-up for good measure.

“Metallica it is!” Eddie pops in the cassette, the mechanical wheels whirring for a moment before Fight Fire with Fire blares through the speakers. He rests his palm on the back of your seat as he backs out of the spot, tongue poking from his lips in concentration.

Harris alternates between headbanging to the music and babbling about school throughout the drive to Jeff and Viv’s. His energy seems endless as he hops out of the car and races to their front door.

“Har, remember,” Eddie calls out, “we have to be calm and gentle around the baby. Don’t wanna scare her.”

Harris nods as Jeff opens the door. “Mini Munson!” He gives a tired smile, stifling a yawn. “Ready to meet your new cousin?” He chuckles when Harris jumps up and down and squeals. “I’ll take that as a yes. Go ‘head and sit on the couch, kiddo.”

Harris follows Jeff’s instructions, and you and Eddie trail close behind him. Jess and Robin are also there; the latter woman is currently holding Ettie, lightly rocking the newborn in her arms.

“Do you wanna hold her?” she asks Harris, who looks to you and his dad in a silent plea for permission.

“Up to you, Har,” Eddie says with an encouraging smile. “We’ll help you, if you want.”

Harris nods, shuffling so his back is pressed up against the sofa. He squirms anxiously, kicking his feet as he waits for you and his dad to join him.

Eddie sits on his right side, and you take the empty space to his left. “I’ll help you hold her head,” you promise him. “You can hold your arms out like this,” you demonstrate, resting your forearms on your lap with your palms facing the ceiling, and Harris mimics your actions. “There ya go.”

Robin carefully walks over and places Ettie in Harris’s outstretched arms, ensuring that you’re supporting the baby’s head before she fully lets go. For a few moments, Harris just stares at the little girl, seemingly unsure how to react. Finally, he softly murmurs, “she’s so little!”

“Sure is,” Eddie laughs, poking at one of her tiny toes in amazement. “Would you believe that you were even more little when you were a baby?” His grin deepens when Harris’s jaw drops in disbelief. “It’s true! You were the tiniest little thing I’ve ever seen.” As he says it, a lump forms in his throat, and he swallows it before anyone notices the catch in his voice. You don’t need to hear it, though, and you use your free hand to discreetly rub his back in silent reassurance.

Harris purses his lips as he stares at his new cousin, clearly unaffected by the anecdote. “Does she do any tricks?”

His question has the entire group stifling laughter, and Eddie turns pink with embarrassment as he quickly explains, “she’s not a dog, buddy. And she was only born a few weeks ago, so she pretty much just eats, sleeps, and poops.”

“Ew,” Harris’s nose wrinkles in disgust at the last activity, though you’re willing to bet a large sum of money that he’s made at least one poop-related joke today. “So when can I teach her how to play Legos?”

“Not for a while,” Viv admits with a kind chuckle, “but when she’s ready, I promise that we’ll let her big cousin Harris show her how it’s done.”

Her answer placates him, at least temporarily, and he cautiously brushes his forefinger against Ettie’s scalp, smoothing down her wisps of hair. You take the moment to glance over at Eddie, only to find him looking right at you.

Hi, he mouths, though there’s so much more he wishes to say. When Harris was Ettie’s age, Eddie was exhausted, overwhelmed, constantly on the brink of breaking down. He’d sworn to himself and anyone else who would listen that he’d never go through the newborn stage again, but he’s mesmerized by the sight of you and Harris cuddling a baby. He wants this, he wants this with you, sleepless nights and spit-up stained clothes no longer strong enough deterrents.

Hi, you mouth back, suppressing words that ache to spill from your lips. Your pulse quickens at the way Eddie watches his son, not with scrutiny, but with admiration and awe, as though he can’t believe he’d created such a wonderful little human. Teaching children never translated over to a desire for motherhood, but you can suddenly picture yourself helping Harris hold your baby, a baby that symbolizes the love between you and Eddie.

“They look like a little family.” Robin’s attempted whisper grabs your attention; a brief scan of the room shows that everyone else is looking at her, too. Her cheeks flush a deep red and she mutters, “sorry,” swooping in to scoop Ettie into her arms.

An awkward silence hangs in the air until Jess clears her throat. “How was work today?” she asks you, and though you don’t have an actual answer to the question, you’re grateful for the subject change.

“I took the day off,” you reply nonchalantly. “Wanted to catch up on rest, y’know…” You trail off, hoping your non-answer suffices.

“What about you, Ed?” Jeff tries.

“Oh, uh,” Eddie stammers, nervously running a hand through his hair, “I also took the day off.”

Jeff’s gaze flits between the two of you until he finally manages an elongated, “…cool.”

Luckily, Harris is oblivious to the adults’ conversation. “Uncle Jeff, are you coming to my talent show next week?”

“Talent show?” Jeff glances at Eddie with an amused smirk.

“Uh, yeah, ‘s this parent-kid thing at his school,” Eddie hurriedly explains, trying not to trip over his words. He’s still stuck on what he’s implied by admitting that he’d also called out of work. “I didn’t know how busy you’d be with Ettie—”

Viv smiles. “I think he can sneak out for an hour to see his favorite nephew.”

“Robs and I can help out here if you need,” Jess offers to her sister, “as long as Jeff brings the camcorder so we have video evidence of this performance.”

“Absolutely not.” Eddie shuts the idea down immediately, but his protest is drowned out by the sound of Harris cheering.

“Daddy and I are gonna—”

Eddie claps a ringed hand over his son’s mouth. “It’s a surprise.” He looks at you for a moment, bashfulness infiltrating his expression with a timid smile and downcast eyes, and you realize that the surprise is for you.

Harris wriggles out of Eddie’s grasp with a discontented sigh, sliding off the couch and onto thr floor. “I didn’t tell Ms. Sweetheart,” he protests, and Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose as he gathers any remaining patience.

Ettie puckers up her face and lets out a wail that seems far too big for her teeny body, but it serves as the perfect reason to leave. You hug everyone goodbye and give the cranky baby’s feet a gentle tickle before you head out the door. Harris gallops ahead, giving Eddie the opportunity to guide you with a soft press of his hand to the small of your back. Before he's fully outside, he leans in to Jeff, whispering “I told her,” ending the statement with a grin.

“My man!” Jeff grabs Eddie’s shoulder and gives it a small shake. “Let me know when to buy my tux for the wedding.”

“Jesus, you sound like Harris.”

Spending time at Hawkins Preschool outside of contracted work hours would normally be a scenario straight out of a nightmare. This afternoon; however, you’re here to see the most adorable little boy and his handsome dad perform some sort of mystery talent, which makes it all worthwhile.

The cafeteria has been transformed into an auditorium of sorts, with neat lines of metal folding chairs replacing the long tables that typically fill the space. An area at the front of the room has been sectioned off for the performances, and the entire place is abuzz with excitement about the adorableness that is about to ensue.

You spot Jeff and Wayne sitting in the third row from the back and you give them a little wave, bounding over to take the empty seat to Jeff’s left. The smile on your lips quickly transforms into a frown when you see him shake his head, placing his palm on the chair.

“I’m under strict orders to make sure you sit in the front row,” he says with a knowing smirk. He shoos you away, and you begrudgingly turn from their familiar faces, but not before catching a twinkle in Wayne’s eyes.

Soon after you find a seat close to the makeshift stage, Principal Sinclair steps up to the microphone.

“Welcome, friends and family, to our annual talent show fundraiser!” There’s a polite smattering of applause before she speaks again. “Our students—and their parents—have quite a show for you all. First up is Miss Abigail Carver and her mom, Chrissy, who will be performing a cheer routine!”

You clap as Abby and Chrissy step out, green and yellow pom-poms in hand. Your student recognizes you immediately, running over to give you a quick hug that elicits a resounding aww from the audience members. She rushes back to her spot as she and her mother cheer on the Hawkins Tigers in unison.

Next is another student of yours, Joshua Harrington. His dad hoists a Fisher Price basketball hoop and places it on the ground so the two of them can show off their “slam dunks.”

After a few more students from other classes, it’s finally the moment you’ve been waiting for.

“Please welcome Harris Munson and his dad, Eddie, who will be singing a song!”

No sooner do you call out, “Yay, Harris!” do you hear it:

“Freak.”

It’s low enough that no one else catches it; you probably wouldn’t have, either, if the culprit wasn’t sitting directly behind you. You turn around to see Jason Carver, camcorder by his side, poorly stifling a snicker.

Your hands clench, balled into fists, so tight that you feel your fingernails digging into your palms. It’s too tempting to smash his camera—no, smash his stupid face—but you inhale and then exhale for three seconds apiece. Today is about Harris and Eddie, and no overgrown bully is going to ruin that.

Still, you have to bite back a smile at the thought of Jason sporting a black eye, courtesy of the Freak’s girlfriend herself.

When Harris and Eddie take to the performance space, your anger evaporates and your heart becomes heavy with emotion. Harris is front and center, body slightly turned as he watches his dad get settled on a wooden stool and gives his acoustic guitar a tune. The boy dons a black suit that’s a size too big for him, his hands barely peeking out of the sleeves. He’s got on a tie that has to have been borrowed from an adult; you can’t imagine Eddie or Wayne wearing one, so maybe Jeff loaned it. The best part is the fedora that rests atop his messy mop of curls.

“Hi, Ms. Sweetheart!” he says with a grin so wide it likely hurts his cheeks, letting out a shriek of delight when you wave. “This song is for you!”

Eddie murmurs a soft, “two, three, four,” and strums a melody that immediately has your eyes welling with tears.

“You make me feel so young,” Harris croons, mouth right up to the mic, “you make me feel so spring has sprung!”

To anyone else, it seems like a silly play on the fact that he is, in fact, young. You know it’s so much more.

“And every time I see you grin, I’m such a happy individual!”

He’s singing Frank Sinatra. He’s dressed as Frank Sinatra. And you know it had to be Eddie’s idea, considering Harris’s musical repertoire teeters between Raffi and Metallica.

He skips a few verses, and when he does, Eddie locks eyes with you and offers a tiny close-mouthed smile.

“And even when I’m old and gray I’m gonna feel the way I do today ‘Cause you make me feel so young!”

You choke down the sob that threatens to escape as they circle back to the chorus. The memory of Grandma’s final Thanksgiving, consisting of singing along to Fly Me to the Moon and sharing store-brand Oreos, soars around your mind. The way she had so easily slipped back into her old self, if only for a moment. The way Eddie had held you and kissed your scalp, protecting you from a force no one could see but everyone could feel.

“You make me feel so young You make me feel so young Ooh, you make me feel so young!”

The song ends and you leap to your feet, cheering just as loudly as you did the other night at the Hideout for Corroded Coffin. You swipe at a stray tear and force yourself to look at your boyfriend, so effortlessly beautiful in a black t-shirt and jeans.

Thank you, you mouth.

I love you, comes his silent reply.

You gaze into each other’s eyes for another beat before you feel a thud against your legs. Harris stands right before you, ignoring the way all of the other kids proceeded out the door after their performances.

“Are those happy tears?” he asks, brows furrowing in concern as he notices your stained cheeks. When you nod, still too overcome with emotion to speak aloud, his face splits into a grin. “Good.” His arms wrap around your waist in a hug that nearly has you toppling over, and you rest your hand on his upper back to steady yourself.

“Easy, Har Bear,” Eddie’s voice is strong but tender, and your entire body relaxes in his presence. You want to pull him in by his belt loops and kiss him, running your fingers through his curls until you’re both smiling too hard to continue. If only you weren’t at your place of work, if only all eyes weren’t on you, if only–

“Looks like the Freak’s got a crush.”

A smattering of the audience members laugh at this, no one more so than the instigator himself. You whirl around reflexively, eyes narrowing at the smug blonde man behind you. Eddie takes a small step forward, quietly telling Harris to go back with his friends as he zeroes in on his longtime nemesis.

He’s going to hit him, you realize, noting the subtle clench of his jaw and twitch of his flexing bicep. I have to stop him before he does something he regrets.

Eddie’s hand shoots out, grabbing Jason’s collar and pulling him in with a jolt. There’s a soft gasp from the crowd followed by silence as everyone waits for Eddie’s next move. You can hear the scraping of metal chairs on the ground as Wayne and Jeff scramble to mitigate the situation before it can escalate further.

To your surprise–and relief–Eddie doesn’t throw any punches; instead, he grits his teeth and hisses, low enough so only you and Jason can hear:

“Don’t ever talk about her again.”

He lets go with a small shove, and Jason stumbles back just as Principal Sinclair arrives to break it up. While time came to a screeching halt, the whole interaction spanned fewer than ten seconds.

Wayne and Jeff reach him first, guiding him out of the cafeteria. The older man keeps his eyes on his nephew, but Jeff shoots Jason a steely glare, insinuating that Jason had better heed Eddie’s warning if he wants to live to see his daughter go to kindergarten. You follow behind and attempt to keep your composure.

“I’m so sorry,” Eddie breathes as soon as the four of you are alone. “I shouldn’t have…I just fuckin’ hate that guy.” His eyes dance with anxiety, not sure whether to look at you, his friend, his uncle, or the ground.

You take his hands in yours, imploring him to focus on you as you reach up to brush his curls off of his face. “It’s okay–”

Eddie shakes his head. “I ruined everything. This was supposed to be about Harris, and about making you happy…” He takes a step back, rubbing his eyes with a low, exasperated, “fuck!”

“Baby–”

“I’m gonna get Harris,” Eddie starts to walk away, speaking to himself as though you hadn’t said a word, but he stops in his tracks when Wayne puts his hand on his shoulder.

“Listen to your girl,” he says simply, motioning for Jeff to come fetch Harris with him.

Eddie doesn’t dare protest, trudging back to face you. He’d fucked up royally, and he knew it. What was he thinking, putting his hands on Jason Carver in the middle of a goddamn preschool talent show?

“Eddie,” you take his hand in yours and give it a squeeze, “it’s okay. I’m not mad; I just wish he didn’t get under your skin like that.” You rub your thumb along his forefinger. “He’s not worth it, I promise.”

“I just…” Eddie mumbles, thoughts too scrambled to find the words he needs. He heaves a long sigh. “I shouldn’t have done it here.”

You can’t really argue with that; out of all of the places Eddie could fight Jason, your job wasn’t your favorite option.

“Can I tell you a secret?” You press onto your toes to whisper in his ear. “I almost did the same thing earlier today.”

“Really?”

“Mhm,” you confirm, nudging the toe of your shoe against his scuffed sneaker. “And I have a feeling most people in this town would agree with me.” The notion makes Eddie smile, and you continue. “Let me take you and Ol’ Brown Eyes out for ice cream to celebrate your amazing performance. Please?” You throw a puppy-dog look his way, though he needs little convincing.

Still, a nagging thought tugs at him that he has to resolve before can allow himself to relax. “There might be people there. People we know.” People like Jason Carver and Carol Perkins, he silently adds. “It’s okay if you don’t want to…we can just grab a half-gallon from Bradley’s and bring it home.”

You shake your head, effectively turning down his offer. “I’m taking my boyfriend and his adorable son to Scoops Ahoy, and the three of us are gonna split a fudge sundae,” you say matter-of-factly.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Are you sure you’re okay with people knowing about us? Being branded ‘The Freak’s Girlfriend’? Hearing people gossip about whatever the Hawkins rumor mill has churned out?

The sensation of your lips on his tempers the overworked gear shifts in his brain. When you pull back, you’re smiling at him.

“Positive.”

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#eddie munson #eddie stranger things #eddie x reader #eddie x you #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x f!reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic #fanfic #eddie munson stranger things #stranger things #tui

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genderlessdude92 · 7 months ago

Note

Hi, I really love your work! If your requests are open and if it's allowed, can I request for headcanons of Vox/Val/Alastor/Lucifer with their biological baby w reader?? I'm sorry if this is weird I just die for family dynamics😭😭 like, how would they act, would they be present or neglectful, and that stuff!! Ik it's impossible to have a child in hell but HEY. ITS FICTIONAL. It's really your decision if this is super fluff or super angst, but personally I believe it would be angst because it's hell and they are really famous 😭 THANKU

AUTHOR RESPONSE: First ask but urmmmmmm OFC OFC OFC!!! I’m all in for dis req :3 I feel like i absolutely will eat up Al’s part of this post so stay tuned. Other ones are questionable because idk if it’s OOC or not but…I’m just a girl!! >.< (I’m a genderless dude as you can see from the name ^^) I’m sorry i’m not funny- These might be short btw im rushing a little bit bc i’m trying to start a multi-chapter fix yay awesome but uhhh i’m still having fun with this 💋

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AL, VOX, VAL, & LUCI WITH THEIR BIOLOGICAL CHILD

(and reader that gave birth to em somehow <3)

PAIRINGS: Alastor x Reader, Lucifer x Reader, Vox x Reader, Valentino x Fem!Reader (ALL SEPARATE) SUMMARY: Alastor, Lucifer, Vox, and Valentino are dads now. Aw shucks. (Headcannons) WARNINGS: MINORS DNI. Breeding kink, (obv bc Val is in here), Val mention, reader is female because they literally gave birth to them, mentions of pregnancy, birth, Valentino being a weird fuck, Valentino again, unhealthy duck obsession in Lucifer’s area, Breastfeeding, Cannibalism, physical slaps, everybody being nervous shots but Vox, really rushed, lmk if i missed anything pookie (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)

NOTICE: please don't copy or steal or translate any of my work or you will be haunted in your dreams and i will spawn something unpleasant at your porch the next day. But...thanks for liking my work !! >.< Property of @l4zyb0n35 and @genderlessdude92

Requests are open, support is highly appreciated!

〰ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭ ..。.:*･ﾟ♫₊ ♪ *♬‧₊enjoy!~

. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠

-Alastor is 100% nervous at first since he has to be the dad and his dad wasn’t…the best!! ^^

-But also doesn’t want to back away because, I mean, it’s kinda rude to just walk away from your creation that you INTENDED to make real.

-This gentleman’s baby was not an accident, I assure you.

-Alastor would absolutely dangle the baby off the edge of a balcony just to tease you.

-Also tried to feed the baby devil meat to make it a cannibal.

-Suprisingly worked.

-Um.

-He probably got taught to knit by Rosie so if the baby ever needs clothes he’s on it.

-Cradles the baby during his radio show hours, aw, and if the baby ever cries he immediately cuts to a quick song break.

-If both you and Alastor are like completely booked and can’t take care of the baby, he’s giving it to Rosie.

-Rosie can’t? Charlie.

-Charlie can’t? Cancelling all plans.

-He just cares for his bloodline, yeah?

-If the baby ever needs like a chewy sensory toy, he’s going to try and get one that resembles Lucifer.

-Like and apple or a snake OOO A SNAKE NVM

-Snake is better since it resembles two ppl mwuhehehe

-Alastor would be a great girl dad but in general i think he would be rlly doting to them.

. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠

-Oh, you thought Alastor was nervous?

-Oh, you’re so funny.

-‘Cuz Lucifer is QUAKING once he finds out you’re pregnant.

-and expecting.

-…and that it’s alive and out the womb.

-Basicslly all because he wasn’t really in Charlie’s life that much.

-But you told him that this can be a second chance?

-Which made him cry more than he was before.

-Yikes.

-Feeds the baby the most fine meals to ever exist for a baby to eat, even tried to sneak in some wine in its milk bottle.

-Then earned a slap at the back of his head from yours truly.

-You.

-I see him as a helicopter parent at first, but then is just chill once they grow more older.

-But he’s like, devoting his immortal LIFE to this baby 24/7.

-The nursery is themed ducks.

-Everywhere.

-Sometimes you get dizzy when you walk in.

-He even wanted to name the baby duck.

-You slapped him again, of course.

-This man acts like a 8th grade frat boy whenever you breast feed the baby like he just scoots away gagging.

-Another slap.

IM SORRY-

-One time in bed you guys were like getting freaky or sum and then you but his nip

-“Honey…what was that?”

-“That’s just how it feels, Luci.”

-“…What?-“

-“When i breastfeed B/N.”

-“…Ew.”

-“BITCH I-“

. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠

-Bro is so confident in being a dad.

-The first day after the baby was born he cancelled all his special guests on his show just for the baby to be the only one.

-This man is fucking insane.

-Puts this baby on his. advertisements.

-We’re talking billboards, pop-ups, etc.

-Only lets his supervisor babysit the baby when needed.

-Don’t expect Velvette or Val to even step foot near this baby without Vox in the room.

-It’s like a sibling love-hate relationship :D

-Now i wouldn’t say this baby was on purpose…most likely?

-But honestly, it might happen again because he thinks you’re hot pregnant.

-Who said that what.

-Omg who typed that???

-Fuck this is so short uhhh He like puts on child shows for the baby if they sit in his lap.

-But the baby never ever sleeps in the bed you guys share.

-not in a million years.

-Puts those shirts that look like tuxedos on the baby but they’re just printed on.

-Feeds the baby deer meat.

-Has a deer head mounted above the baby’s crib.

-Takes him deer hunting.

-Vox just needs em to learn early.

. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠. ◠ . ◠ . ◠ . ◠

-Valentino was “so, so careful” when you guys did it.

-and this baby was 100% and accident.

-obviously you guys couldn’t abortion because like some health reason.

-Val cried that night.

-It was kinda funny that he was crying to keeping a baby.

sorry not sorry

-When the baby is born,

-Oh god should i write that

-Uh

-He’s probably recording.

-Not posting just like…saving it.

-Guys, come on, it Valentino, you should’ve seen this coming.

-Deletes it later though fuck that’s hilarious.

-He starts whining and crying when he sees you breastfeeding.

-“Your wasting the milk, mi precioso, are you kidding me?”

-He’s like in the middle of being a good dad and a bad dad.

-Suprised he made it that far on the scale.

-whenever he’s busy, he gives the baby to some random star and tells them to bring them back by like 10:30 or smth.

-with a coffee order. Very iconic.

-Same idea with Vox and liking you pregnant, and tried to get you pregnant again but you ask him why he doesn’t have a condom on if you don’t have your pills.

-He gets frustrated when that happens lol.

-Can’t wake up the baby!

proceeds to wake them up each night

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END NOTES: zomg this was sososo fun to write <3 But it’s so fucking short and i didn’t even realize until i was done. I’m actually so sorry. I still like these headcannons, very humorous, very real, thank you for asking me to make this because this is my first ask i got, i still have exactly 16 more, so ur just a little lucky duck, asker. Support is appreciated! New multi-chapter fix i’m working on might be posted on Friday-Sunday!! Baiiii!!!!

-Lynn

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Masterlist Link

#alastor x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #alastor x wife reader #hazbin lucifer x reader #valentino x reader #vox x reader #hazbin vox x reader #lucifer x reader

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crguang · 1 month ago

Text

wasted with longing, part 4

In the face of such deep hurt, you have no choice but to come to terms with your feelings.

friends with benefits, f!reader, 6k words

A/N: don't really like this chapter cause it feels like a nothingburger but there it is... i swear i didn't mean to end it like that but the next block would have been too long to be in the same chapter so i had to chop it in two, forgive me 😞

also, it’s definitely still the weekend on the west coast so i am not late!!! we’ve officially written like 20k words for this series when it was supposed to be a couple crack fics, what even is going on

part three

Every so often, tremors travel through your legs to reach your twitching fingertips like a hundred tiny earthquakes along your limbs while you sit there, passive and morose. You stare at your open palms and observe the natural disaster occurring beneath your skin. Past the white walls of your apartment, the sun continues its ascent among the clouds but its warmth is fought off by the thick curtains of your living room and the heaviness settling inside of you. The blow of previous revelations has made your organs twice as heavy and has brought an ache to your trembling hands, birthing a sense of lethargy only the lost are familiar with. Not for the first time, you don’t know where you’re heading. For the first time, none of it matters; there is just the weight of your body rooted to the couch and the lines of your palms staring back at you, forming crooked letters that disappear with a blink. Your thoughts are a mess devoid of rationality focused on the sting of betrayal that you can feel at the corner of your eyes. She doesn’t deserve them, your tears. Then again, there is a lot that she didn’t deserve that you still gave willingly: your time, your attention, the flutter deep in your abdomen at the sound of her genuine laughter or the naive hope that you mattered more to her than you believed. Your mind is a whirlwind of possibilities that will never come to be and feed the dejection in your bones until your vision blurs at the edges from tears you refuse to let fall.

You recall the nonchalance with which she addressed her actions, the excuse of destiny as if you were all merely pawns in the hollow of its cold and detached hands. Some things are inevitable and all possibilities are already written. You wondered once what kind of life she must live to be so carefree, you understand now that it stems from a lack of responsibility and a distance between herself and accountability. Her nihilism reduces her to a footnote in a published novel, a droplet in the raging ocean; it takes away enough of her to make her believe that whatever she does is not a choice she fully makes herself. It feels like an excuse to justify not only her existence but everything she undertakes, blaming consequences on fate will always be easier as it relieves her from the pressure of guilt. In a way, it’s not so much carefreeness as passivity. You swallow to soothe the tightness of your throat. Some part of you pities how she lives and you wish you could choke it out with a pillow. Even now, you can’t snuff out feelings that have taken months to develop and solidify within you, and they feel like stones obstructing your blood vessels. It hurts this much because you unknowingly carved a seat for her inside the walls of your heart with her pocket knife, the same one she used to cut you. You can no longer differentiate then and now, whether you started falling for her the last time she left your bed or the first time she kissed you. However, you can’t deny that you’ve got her under your skin and the realization could not have happened at a less opportune moment.

This sucks. You don’t count the minutes you spend staring at your hands like they hold answers to questions you won’t get to ask in the future. At some point you find yourself laying on the couch again, looking ahead while your phone lies on the coffee table, undisturbed for the time being. Hours pass and your eyelids eventually grow heavy, each blink slower to come than the last. Your mind, perhaps to torture you, replays some moments you didn’t remember before this instant; falling asleep as she lights up a cigarette on the balcony outside your bedroom, moonlight stroking her hair and smoke blurring her face; nimble hands undressing you layer by layer with a patience that borders on reverence. The first time you met, your impression of her was that she took care of appearance and found it very important how she presented herself to the world. It was because of her clothes, partly, but mostly the confidence she radiated. She didn’t say too much or too little, and looked at you with a smile you selfishly wished was just for you. Her attention felt like a treasure not many were deserving of and her taste in fashion matched yours, she helped you pick out some clothes then you exchanged phone numbers in front of the store. You went your separate ways after that, but receiving a text from her an hour later turned you into a schoolgirl with a crush.

You thought you were making progress yesterday, that her seeking you out meant something more than a refusal to see a medical professional. The look in her eyes when she stared up at you in the bathroom… you wish you understood it, but something screams that it wouldn’t have changed a thing. You reminisce and ruminate until your eyes close and unconsciousness generously gives you a reprieve from the assault of your mind.

It’s almost 11 in the morning when you wake. Your neck is stiff from the armrest and your legs beg to be stretched after staying bent for hours. You rub the drowsiness out of your eyes with one hand and sit up slowly, brows furrowed and lips in a frown. It takes you a moment to do anything else, your phone buzzes with a notification three times in a row but you only look at your lock screen blankly. You don’t feel like doing anything, and after remembering the events of earlier today, you dread checking up on work. Still, your concern for the colleagues you get along with eventually wins out. You pick up the device and sift through the messages that were left unanswered yesterday, replying to your friends to assure them of your safety. Your thumbs travel across the screen mechanically, like you’re writing a professional email you have no interest in, but you are genuinely relieved to find out that they’re fine. You hesitate over Himeko’s contact name. She surely hasn’t heard of what transpired yesterday unless there was an IPC broadcast about it. You hope she hasn’t. You want the truth to come out of your lips, not some news network. Worry makes you bite the inside of your cheek as you stare at her last text from the evening before. Himeko is one of your best friends, she’s understanding, compassionate and an expert at comforting others. You’re not worried that she’ll put the blame on you, just that your feelings will come to the surface once you start relaying everything that’s happened in detail.

You steel yourself, swallow once, and press the call button under her contact name. You bring your knees to your chest. The line rings a couple of times in your ears before the call connects and Himeko’s joyful voice sounds through the phone.

“Hey.” she greets you with a smile you can hear, “are you okay? You hung up on me yesterday.”

Your suspicions are confirmed, Himeko has no idea what went on the previous night.

“Sorry,” your own voice is strained from sleep and you cringe before clearing your throat. “Something… came up.”

“Is everything alright?”

Your stomach churns uncomfortably. You look at the floor and inhale quietly to calm the unease slithering up your trachea. “There was… an incident at work,” you say hesitantly. “A serious one.”

Himeko picks up on your tone and hers softens with her next question. “Are you alright? What happened?”

The words spill from your mouth all at once and Himeko doesn’t interrupt you as you give her a retelling of what you read in that article this morning, Kafka’s identity as both a Stellaron Hunter and the woman you’ve been “seeing”, how she showed up at your door injured yesterday and the moment you found out the truth just hours earlier. The line is silent save for your sometimes faltering sentences. Your eyes fall shut in the middle of your story and your fingers clench the phone in your hand, the knot in your throat tightening near the end of it. Saying it out loud, you realize how stupid you’ve been even if the clues weren’t obvious; you should’ve been more suspicious of her absences and deflections, shouldn't have been blinded by her attention and the way she made you feel, should’ve… You feel like an idiot in the face of Himeko’s silence. She digests the information you dumped on her before it’s even noon, and after a minute of quiet she finally speaks.

“Where are you now?”

“Uh, home,” you stammer, blindsided by the question. You half-expected her to lose her mind at the situation you find yourself in considering she was the one who tried to discourage you to enter a friends-with-benefits relationship, and now people have died by the hands of the woman you have feelings for. You pointedly omit the romantic feelings part for now.

“You should stay at a friend’s house, to be safe. The Stellaron Hunters are very dangerous and you could easily get wrapped up in their dispute with the law and the IPC. Take precautions and be safe, please.”

“Is that all you have to say…?”

“What do you want me to say, ‘I told you so’? You were manipulated, that’s what Kafka does. She bears all the blame here. And I’m sorry you were caught up in her schemes.”

You pause, staring at the coffee table in front of you. Her reassurances bring you no comfort. Your reply sounds small in your ears, “...A lot of people died.”

“I know…” You can almost picture the soft look in Himeko’s eyes. “But it wasn’t your fault. Whatever they had planned, they planned it long before you were brought into the picture. You couldn’t have stopped anything from happening.”

You nod slowly even though she can’t see you. You do your best to internalize that, but guilt still swirls within you and makes you nauseous. You stand from the couch to make your way to the bedroom, footsteps quiet along the wooden floors. You let the morning light envelop you once you reach the glass doors of your balcony and slide them open so the fresh air can enter your lungs and chase away the unpleasant feeling.

“No wonder you didn’t know anything about her,” Himeko continues, an edge to her voice, “it’s easier to play mind games when you’re kept in the dark. She’s truly despicable.”

You think of what Kafka said this morning about the source of her injury, how she got it looking for you amidst the chaos. You lean on the railing, observe the circulation of cars and pedestrians down below, but say nothing.

“I hope she never contacts you again. Did you block her number? Is it even her real one?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“You should block it anyway.”

She’s right. You put Himeko on speaker and let out a breath as you open your contacts, scrolling through the list and finding Kafka’s contact among it. For a few seconds you feel weak for your hesitation, thumb hovering over the “block caller” button, then you shake your head and press the red letters. You won’t make yourself available for her anymore.

“I did it,” you tell the woman on the other line and redirect your gaze to the buildings on the horizon.

“Good. What are you going to do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Will you… eventually work there again?”

“Ha. Not a chance.”

You don’t know what you’ll do, you haven’t planned this far ahead and were still on the fence about quitting your job before everything went down but there’s no way you’re going back to doing office work after today. In a way, the incident gave you the push you needed to do it. The price to pay for it was far too high.

You talk to Himeko for another half hour before she has to bid you goodbye to take care of the Express. She reminds you to pack a bag and go stay with a trusted friend, and she makes sure to be certain that you’ll take care of yourself before hanging up the phone. She’ll call again when she can, but in the meantime, you’re on your own. You don’t tell her that you don’t think Kafka means to put you in harm’s way and that you don’t feel comfortable leaving your apartment now. Knowing that you could have been one of yesterday’s victims if you had simply gone about your daily routine worsens your anxiety, and even if Kafka’s been inside your apartment countless of times before, you still feel safer within familiar walls.

You spend the day in low spirits, half of it sitting on your balcony with your knees to your chest and the other half laying face down in bed. You tell yourself that your free time will be dedicated to finding out what you want to do with your life. Then another day passes you by and when the third one comes around you still haven’t gotten out of the gray bubble you’ve unconsciously created for yourself. Your thoughts are repetitive and oppressive, so you sleep for hours to escape them. You avoid going out by ordering food or groceries. Your phone is constantly on ‘do not disturb’ because you can’t handle the grating alerts about funerals and financial compensation, you only pick it up to talk to Himeko once a day. She encourages you to see your friends, to not let yourself be swept away by the waves of negative emotions, and you don’t have the heart to tell her that you’re just not in the mood anymore. You make promises you don’t intend to keep in order to alleviate her concern and the guilt nesting in the pit of your stomach grows bigger with each one. You’re not helping yourself, you know, but it feels like all you can do is sit in your feelings as they ripple around you and you stare at the disturbances for hours, crestfallen.

In the evening, you await the takeout you ordered 30 minutes ago. You’re laying on the couch despite the TV not being on and feel drowsiness creeping up on you from doing absolutely nothing all day. Who knew inactivity could be so exhausting… You reach for your phone on the coffee table and tap the screen to see if your driver is nearby. He’s parked in front of your apartment building, so he should reach your door soon. You close the phone and wait some more until you hear firm footsteps on the other side of your door. You only stand up after a couple of minutes have passed to make sure he’s truly gone and won’t see you bringing your food inside. Opening the door reveals an unexpected find; the takeout bag lies next to a rectangular package that wasn’t there in the morning. You pick up the bag but stare at the box with a crease between your brows. Outside of food, you haven’t ordered anything else from the internet. You wonder if it’s a misplaced item and bend down to check the postal information. There’s no return address, but yours and your full name are written black on white. You decide that you must look like a weirdo, inspecting a package in the hallway with takeout in one hand, and you pick up the box before retreating inside.

Putting down the brown bag on the kitchen counter, you think perhaps the package is from a colleague or a friend, maybe even from Himeko since her return address is hard to find. You look for scissors to cut the tape holding the box shut and lift the lid. A pair of black velvet gloves lie on a similarly coloured coat, the inside of which is a dark shade of blue. The material is expensive judging by the gentle sheen on the fabric in the light, and you blink in confusion. It’s beautiful and a piece you would definitely feel compelled to buy if you saw it in a store, which means it must actually be meant for you. You pick up one glove to find that it fits perfectly with the size of your hand. It’s soft to the touch, you bring it to your cheek to feel the material against your skin. You spot a small card sticking out from one of the coat’s front pockets bearing only three words written in curvy letters: ‘Thought of you, K. <3’

The glove falls from your hand like it burns your palm and lands on the floor without a sound. Suddenly, the clothes aren’t a thoughtful gift but a mocking gesture meant to get a rise out of you. You tear the card into pieces. If anything, one could admire her limitless audacity, not you, but someone out there. She’s playing with you, taunting you to see how far she��s allowed to go before you lose your mind completely. That, or she deludes herself into thinking that she can buy your forgiveness with meaningless peace offerings. Either way, her obvious lack of care for your feelings hurts more than it should, and you’re once again reminded of your own weakness. You know that she doesn’t care, there’s no need to twist the knife in your already infected wound. Does she only see you as a toy for her entertainment? Is she incapable of even a bout of empathy or do you simply mean that little to her? The thought rotates in your head endlessly until you put everything back in the box and throw it in the trash.

Two days later, you find another package on your doorstep; two expensive pairs of slacks and three tops that are all exactly your size and your style. The note has only a handwritten K and a slim heart on it. You donate the clothes to a thrift store in the afternoon. It's the first time you’ve left your house since you learned the truth about Kafka’s identity.

Next Thursday, you accept a friend’s invitation to go out for drinks. Kafka’s stunts made you internalize what you've been telling yourself for weeks; you won’t pull the brakes on your life for a broken heart, certainly not for her. Being hung up on somebody who isn’t thinking of you at all is embarrassing enough, to allow her such a place in your mind after what she’s done is just pathetic. Despite your heart still not being it in, you dress up in clothes that always make you feel pretty and let your friends drag you to a bar where they dance for three hours and flirt with strangers for two more. The loud music makes it impossible to hear any words that aren’t shouted or whispered in your ear, its bass reverberates uncomfortably through your chest like a second heart. The night goes by with a drink in your hand that is replaced by another the instant its last drop lands on your tongue. Inebriated and surrounded by sweaty bodies, you forget all about the world beyond the cheers of your friends as you make out with a woman on the dance floor and the flavored liquor on your lips. The events that occurred between midnight and 3 AM are a haze when you wake up before lunchtime the next morning, body halfway off the couch and head throbbing so intensely you think you might pass out before you reach the bathroom for some aspirin.

You stumble into the room, squinted eyes barely seeing two feet in front of you, and fumble with the small plastic bottle of what you believe to be your magic pills. You swallow a couple of them and bend low to take a few sips of water directly from the running faucet. Your skull feels like it’ll split open with any strong enough stimulus. You sink to the cool floor and close your eyes, breathing as steadily as you can through your mouth to relax a little. You think you fall asleep for a while, leaning against the cabinets while the medicine does its job of reducing your headache to a dull pulse. Three firm knocks on your front door wake you up abruptly and you jerk away from the sink in surprise. You wipe the corner of your mouth. Blinking away remnants of drowsiness, you shakily stand on your bare feet and run a hand over your face as you walk to the entrance of your apartment. You hope you don’t look as bad as you feel, but you know that’s likely the case. Still, you adjust your clothes and your hair before opening the front door.

A mailman is waiting for you with a package in hand and thrusts a form in yours after a disingenuous greeting. You sign the paper confirming whatever delivery you just received, a little out of it. He leaves once the small square box is given to you. You walk back inside, turning the package over in your hands before tearing it open. A glittering necklace lies inside, nestled in suede. The gems embedded into it easily catch the light and would make a strong statement resting on any person’s collarbones. You stare at the jewelry, puzzled. Checking the package again reveals no return address, and if your mind was less hazy from this hangover, you would have guessed who the gift was from immediately. Your cell phone pings with a text, bringing you out of your confusion long enough to find it on the floor in front of the couch. You press the message to open the private conversation. The recipient has no caller ID and is texting you like you’re supposed to know who they are. You lay the jewelry box on the coffee table and reply quickly.

“Who the fuck is that…?” You slowly ask no one in particular, brows twisting in a frown.

You type in a text and send it. The reply you receive sobers you up like an ice cold shower. You rub your eyes with one hand and hold your phone a bit farther from your face as if it poses a threat to your safety, disbelieving. The nerve… There’s a familiar flutter in the depths of your belly but the sensation is uncomfortable now, eating at you and forcing you to take a deep breath.

You block the number before another message can pop up. Frustration bubbles up inside your chest, Kafka’s dedication to remaining a part of your life like a coffee stain on a white tablecloth is seriously messing with you. Make amends? She can’t be this dense. The gifts, her promise to send more— is her image of you so shallow that she believes you can be bought with fancy clothes and jewelry? None of these have been thoughtful or paired with a note that contains more than three words. She’s hurt you more than she understands, clearly. Your issues with her behavior are evident, you don’t believe the idea of them not computing in her mind, she’s smarter than that. She’s kept key details of her life from you, lied to you and caused over a dozen scientists to lose their lives for a component that could surely be found elsewhere, not to mention her treatment of you afterwards and her lack of remorse for the emotional damage she’s inflicted on you. Your feelings are more than justified and run deeper than petty grievances. You don’t understand her at all, and at this point, you don’t care to.

An offended scoff escapes your lips and your first reflex is to tell your best friend about the situation, looking to vent your irritation to a person that’ll stand by you no matter what unlike Kafka’s fickle attitude. You video call Himeko’s number and wait until she picks up at the last ring. Her fiery hair is slightly disheveled, held up tightly in a ponytail. She’s not wearing her usual elegant clothing and is instead clad in overalls with a plaid shirt underneath. Motor oil stains her cheek and fingertips as she waves at you through the screen. You think you can see engines and steam behind her, you can definitely hear hissing noises in the background.

“Uh… Are you busy?” You ask, taking in the dark stains on the front of her overalls. “Are you working on the Express?”

Himeko makes a sound of agreement. “Don’t worry, I always have time for you though. How are you?”

“Hangover. What’s wrong with the train?”

“Nothing as of three minutes ago. I just finished fixing some issues but it wasn’t anything too serious. I’m due for a shower. You said you’re hungover? You do kind of look… disheveled.”

“I appreciate the euphemism,” you sit cross legged on the couch. “I woke up not too long ago and immediately popped some over-the-counter medicine.”

“So you went out last night? Or were you drinking alone?”

“I went to a bar with some friends, took your advice and drank until I passed out.”

“That was not my advice.” Himeko’s frown makes you smile. “At least you left your house and returned safely. I told you it’d be good for you not to stay cooped up in here.”

You hum absentmindedly. “I don’t remember most of the night, honestly. I think I made out with someone for like… twenty minutes, four songs. But that’s not why I called— I got something in the mail today.”

Before Himeko can ask what it is, you reach for the jewelry box on the coffee table and hold it up to the camera so the necklace is in full view. You tilt it this way and that, the outside light reflecting prettily on the clear-cut gems. You watch Himeko’s eyebrows raise as she moves from her spot in the engine room, likely headed to her room for that shower she mentioned a few minutes ago.

“Wow, that’s gorgeous. Did you try it on?”

“No.”

“Is that a treat for yourself? You deserve it, you had a really rough week and it’d look good with that fancy low-cut top you have— the silk one?”

Maybe it would, too bad you’ll never wear it.

“I didn’t buy it, I got it as a gift,” you put the necklace down next to you and close the small box, making sure to put an emphasis on the last word.

“Oh? It must have cost a small fortune. From who?”

“Kafka.”

The easygoing smile Himeko wears disappears in an instant. She stops moving somewhere in a hallway, near panoramic windows that show the galaxy beyond them. Tiny creases form along her brows and she stares at you intently, worry and affront clear in her gaze.

“Kafka sent that to you?”

You nod. “She’s been sending me stuff all week, clothes mostly, but this one really took the cake because she texted me from an encrypted number afterwards.”

“Why won’t she leave you alone?” Himeko looks vexed on your behalf and you shrug, relieved that your feelings are validated by her anger. “What did she say? Please, tell me you blocked the number immediately.”

You hesitate a couple of seconds too long, Himeko’s shoulders slump and her lips part to reprimand you but you interrupt her readily, “I blocked her! I swear. She said she wanted to ‘make amends’ and it pissed me off so bad, I blocked her number again. Can you believe her ego? Does she think my world revolves around her, that I’m just waiting for her to make it up to me before I take her back with open arms? We didn’t even have anything. We used each other for sex and despite the semblance of good-natured relationship we had, she still chose to betray me!”

Himeko studies the hurt in your eyes at your outburst and pauses, her gaze flitting across your face for a moment. You exhale, willing yourself to calm down. Your heart rate has picked up a few paces and you despise how easily Kafka gets a rise out of you without even being in the room. The redhead leans on a nearby wall.

“You have every right to be as angry as you feel,” she starts, meeting your eyes with a knowing look in her golden ones, “but… You’re this angry because you have feelings for her, don’t you?”

“W-What?” Your stutter sells you out and Himeko tilts her head in a silent gesture to not lie to her.

“I had my doubts. You talked about her a lot, I don’t even think you noticed. And your word choice just now; ‘betray you’?” You wanted to trust her and hoped she'd let you in, but she manipulated you instead. It’s normal to be hurt, and while I have… opinions about that, you can’t help what you feel.”

You look away from the screen, lowering the camera in resignation. There’s no use in arguing Himeko’s point because you both know the truth already and you’re too out of it to fight the obvious. You don’t say anything so the line is silent for a while, Himeko resumes her walk towards her cabin and gives you a moment to gather your thoughts. You didn’t know you talked about Kafka this often but the information doesn’t surprise you, she made your days exciting and you genuinely liked her for more than sex. You used the latter as an excuse to justify the former countless times. From the beginning, you were attracted to more than her body, and from the beginning, you were more attached to her than she was to you. Even though these are facts that you’re aware of, your throat tightens at the reminder.

“I hate it,” you say quietly after a while, facing Himeko’s figure in the camera.

“I know, sweetheart. Nothing’s easy about what you’re going through right now, but it’s not the end of everything. I’m here to help you through it and you have your friends that are there for you too, just don’t isolate yourself while we figure out a path forward, okay?”

“What if she contacts me again?”

“Then you tell me immediately.”

“What, you’ll come to beat her up?”

Himeko laughs softly. “I don’t resort to violence without at least a conversation first, but….”

Her long pause brings a white toothed smile to your face and Himeko’s eyes crinkle at the corners at the sight.

After assuring you that she’ll text you in the evening, Himeko hangs up the call. You run a hand over your face, chest heavy. You’ll donate the necklace once you feel less like a wet rag that’s been wrung until no moisture is left. Someone will probably be happy to stumble upon a find like this one, and if Kafka’s ill intentioned gesture can bring happiness to one person then perhaps that cancels everything out.

The next afternoon, you find yourself in a clothing store that resembles the one you first met Kafka in months ago, browsing the racks for whatever catches your eye. Shopping for clothes relaxes you; feeling the different fabrics and textures under your fingertips, finding a piece that resonates with you, admiring the craftsmanship and creation process of the items on display are all things that take your mind off the mundanity of your life. You’re not that well-versed in fashion, not really, even if it interests you. You’re approached by one of the store’s consultants and it’s as you politely decline her help that you realize that this is something you could do. You could take classes about a subject that actually matters to you and work in that domain afterwards— maybe you’ll learn how to make your own clothes and sharpen your personal style. The idea makes you smile among elegant blouses. You can deal with your parents’ expectations of you if it means you won’t spend another day in an office researching mechanical components for projects you don’t care about.

You pass by your local thrift store to donate the necklace, but they won’t accept it. The employee’s eyes widens after one look and drags her manager to the front, who in turn adamantly refuses to take such a precious item from you. They wouldn’t know how to price it and its value is a few zeros too many to belong in a thrift store. You leave the place a little dejected, you don’t want to make any money out of it or it’ll feel like Kafka did you a favor in the end. You look at the box in your hands for a minute, then make up your mind. You’ll pawn it and give the money from it to the families who lost their loved ones during the incident last week. It won’t bring them back, it might not alleviate their families’ grief at all, but at least they’ll be set for years in the future and that’s something, right? That’s one thing Kafka would have (indirectly) done to make amends.

You decide to pawn the necklace after doing a bit more research about it to make sure you don’t get ripped off. You put it back in your bag for the time being and make your way back to your home, shopping bags around both of your wrists. By car, it takes less than half an hour to reach your apartment building. You carefully park in the designated spot and struggle to carry all of your bags to the elevator. Maybe splurging on clothes wasn’t the best financial decision when you plan to return to school and are currently unemployed. You repeat the phrase “I deserve it” like a mantra all the way to your floor. Standing in front of your door, you’ve almost completely deluded yourself that you do, indeed, deserve five new pairs of pants, nine pretty tops and two jackets you’ll wear at most three times in the next year. You’re not too sure about the pairs of shoes you bought afterwards…

You free one hand to turn the key into the hole and push the door open. Picking the shopping bags back up, you step into your apartment with a sigh, wondering how you’ll begin to start this new chapter of your life. The door hasn’t fully closed behind you that you freeze where you stand, assaulted by the various colors and fragrances of flowers resting on every surface of your home, some in bouquets twice as big as the other ones and all of them transforming your apartment into a disorganized greenhouse. Your mouth opens, bewildered. You can’t count the different kinds of flowers that are there, you only recognize a handful of them. You’re so shocked by the sight that you don’t notice the figure stepping out of your kitchen until she speaks and a sharp scream of surprise flies from your lips.

“Hey– It’s just me,” Kafka lifts her gloved hands in a gesture she means peaceful.

Stupefied, the bags in your hands fall to the ground with a soft thud. Your heart races widely in your chest and you cover your mouth with a palm, eyes closing with the next shaky exhale that you let out. It takes you a minute to slow the drumming of your heart enough to utter words that aren’t strained.

“How did you get in here?”

“You didn’t change the locks. Seriously, it’s like you wanted me to show up again.” Her joke lands flat and her smile falters an inch at your glare. “Not in the mood for jokes, alright.”

She walks to the couch and picks up an item your eyes previously skimmed over. It’s an intricate hexagonal vase with a soft brown tint, clearly meticulously made. The glass looks very fragile judging by the way she carries it and outstretches her hands towards you, presenting it to you like a gift.

“For the flowers you want to keep,” she says.

You’re going to break it over her head.

#honkai star rail #hsr kafka #kafka x reader #hsr x reader #hsr #kafka x you #hsr x you

156 notes · View notes

nightdivinity · 10 months ago

Text

Drink Responsibly: Chapter 1

ABO!Vampire!Batfam x reader

Minors! Do! Not! Engage! +18 only!

Platonic!Alfred, Bruce x reader, Possessive! Batboys x reader

Warnings: Bad life choices, possessive behavior, a/b/o, they're vampires, loooong age gaps, no proofreading, reverse harem.

Writer's Note: I am so tired. I exist only because of caffeine and spite. So here you go, Chapter 2 is done as well. It will come out Friday hopefully.

Grey eyes stare into yours as you try your hardest to not squirm under the intensity. How did you get to be where you are? You have no clue. Honestly, there shouldn’t have been a callback. You should not have landed this opportunity for the second interview. The initial screening process should have weened you out in the first place.

From what you had gathered from the chatty chauffeur in the town car, (the town car! They knew you had no car to get to Wayne Manor, let alone to your job. Yet they still sent you someone to go pick you up from your ratty apartment.) This was all ordained by someone much higher than Mr. Pennyworth in front of you. The talk with the chauffeur had almost put you at ease until you looked out the window and saw the heavy iron gate open to Wayne Manor’s winding driveway. There’s no doubt in your mind. You shouldn’t be here. In more ways than one.

It made your bandages itch the more you thought about it. You couldn't scratch them like the feral animal you were deep down inside. At least, not when you're being as heavily scrutinized as you are now.

“I’m not sure you know what you’re getting yourself into my dear.”, the butler says.

“I want this job.”

He sighs then and reaches for the cup of tea sitting on the table next to him. When you got to the Manor, Mr. Pennyworth had met you at the front step. He still ushered you through a side entrance and a winding set of narrow hallways until you reached the sitting room you were now in. Not that you were complaining about being treated like a servant when you were trying to like hell to land the job.

If ever there was an excellent place to kill someone, this was it. You find yourself thinking as you look away from him and study the art on the walls. The manor itself was far removed from society and the small windowless study with the ornate crackling fireplace was oppressive as much as it was impressive. No one would ever hear you scream.

“The issue is not a matter of want. The issue is a matter of need.”, he says.

You watch him take a sip as a bead of sweat collects at the back of your neck. It was getting too hot in here, and the bandage around your wrist was itching.

“I need it. No one wants to hire me”, You reply.

You’re not sure what you expect after you say that. Half of you were expecting him to start grilling you like he did during your interview two days ago. That one had taken place in daylight, in an ostentatious conference room at Wayne Enterprise's.

You were still waiting for him to pick you to the bone and say, “Why is that?”. The other half feels like the admittance makes you guilty. Guilty of going out that night. Guilty of getting caught in a crowd surge while blackout drunk. Guilty of the infected thralls that were unleashed by the Scarecrow goons. Guilty of killing the infected that had started ripping you to pieces. Not that you remember any of it, frustratingly enough. No one, not even the news, gave enough information on that night. Why was I there?

“How are you doing dear?” Pennyworth asks.

You blink. No one has asked that yet. Not by anyone that you feel genuinely wants to know the answer.

“Good. Sore, and I believe honesty is the best policy. I can’t dance like I used to.”, you joke.

It falls flat in the cramped space as you give him a tight grin. His grey eyes dart momentarily to the crutch that was resting next to the chair, and to the cast going slightly above your knee.

“Yes, honesty is such an important quality nowadays. Might I say, it is fortunate that you survived.”

“No one else thinks that. I’m just thankful that Duke was there. I was told he was the one that got me to the hospital. Now he’s gone and got me this interview.”

It’s funny. Time from that night seems disjointed. While you were black-out drunk, you do feel as though you were only in the club for five minutes. The attack happened at 12:45 am. You remember waking up in the hospital and finding your chart on your way to the bathroom. It said you were admitted at 2 am. The next time you managed to grab it, it had said 12:59 am. Not to mention your wounds were healing at a faster rate than most Omegas. Something was picking deep inside your skull.

“Luckily this job is not strenuous if you are up to the task.”

You nod at him. You need this.

“Well, there are rather strict rules. Breaking them is a breach of contract that will be handled severely. This isn’t like a regular job out there. Any problems that arise will not result in a simple firing.”, he pauses before continuing, “For example, personal electronic devices are prohibited in the Manor. Your bags will be thoroughly checked by me upon arrival. You will be allowed devices that are monitored by security.”

“I can’t just be cut off from my family”, you protest.

“We don’t want you to. You may make phone calls during your allotted time off. They will happen here, or in Master Bruce’s office with either him or me in the room. Your predecessor was fond of skirting her duties and we have found the need for such restrictions.”

“While excursions are discouraged, they are not prohibited. We will go over those security measures at a later time. You are to be readily available when called upon at any time they require something. While day workers are employed here, at no point are you allowed to interact with them.”

You can’t help the way your brows furrow. This was going to be a long year if you were to take this opportunity. With each rule, you wondered if this was why the position was empty for so long.

“I tend to the bedrooms, and at no point should you enter them unless invited by the occupant. You will be given a room as well, and I would appreciate cleanliness. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all served at the same time, tardiness is prohibited.”

“Will I be helping in the kitchen?”, you ask.

“No. Not unless you want to, if you are going to cook, please notify me accordingly.”

“So, wait. I’m confused. Just what is my job here?”

Alfred sighs and for the first time since you’ve met the prim and proper gentleman, he seems a bit haggard. Which did not make you feel good.

“It gets awful lonely here in the manor. As I’m sure you are aware, Alphas live for a long time. Particularly ones infected such as those in Wayne Manor. Now and then it is refreshing to have something that brings more life into such a place. The children have taken an interest in you, and that is enough for Master Bruce.”

“I’m not a toy.”

“No. You’re fortunately not. What you are being offered is room and board, all you have to do is adhere to the rules. In exchange, you have to be a friend. Surely you know how to do that”?

If he had asked your friend, he’d have been met with a resounding no. After that night you had found yourself crippled in the hospital with no friends to speak of. Your friend had been peeved, rightfully so, that you had just packed their wasted butt into a car with a stranger. You had been miffed because hello?? They weren’t the ones chomped on by a deranged rabid Beta. They had made it home in one piece, even getting past the front door and into their bed. Both of you had been wasted, so why act like it was all your fault? You were getting tired of the world treating you like you were the root cause of life’s issues.

“I won’t be doing any of that”, you ask.

Now he just looked downright uncomfortable. You were almost embarrassed, but the question needed to be asked. Being hired to be a friend to Alphas that were at least a century old likely resulted in you waking up in a bed that’s not yours.

“Only if you consent to it. You won’t be reprimanded for not doing it, or if you do find yourself in that position.”, he clears his throat, “Healthcare and dental is provided. Due to your circumstances as an Omega, blockers will be provided along with your daily vitamins. Your health and safety is paramount to us.”

You had nothing more to say. Silently you sat there, running through any alternative options, and yet you kept hitting a wall. There was no denying it, this was the best option you could be given. All you had to do was smile and nod and make it a year. By then you should be able to get your feet back underneath you and be able to reassess your situation. Who knows? You might just like it.

“I’m going to say, you have a deal”, you smile at him.

“Then please, call me Alfred.”

He gets up then and holds a hand out to you to help you out of your chair. His smile back is warm, creases folding up from his eyes, a drastic change from the cold persona that you had started becoming accustomed to.

“Shall I call for the town car Ms. (L/N)?”

This was the start of a beautiful friendship, you decided. You nod your head as he pulls you up and gives you a brisk but friendly pat on the shoulder.

“Duke, you don’t have to do this”, you protest.

It was the thirteen-hundredth time you’ve said it. When Alfred closed the interview, he had taken the time to walk you to the front door, pointing out so many rooms that it all went over your head. You almost made it to the front. Then Duke saw you and took over from there.

“No, no, and for the last time, stop. I want to do it”, Duke grins up at you.

He was on the floor, taping up the last of your boxes. You hate to admit it, but you’re not sorry in the slightest as he does all the heavy lifting. The best part about it was getting to see all the muscles in his back when he turned around. Yum. Hey, you were a red-blooded Omega. There were just some things you couldn’t fight.

“Be careful not to break that”, you warn.

“Right, because what will the world do without these little tchotchkes?”, Duke laughs.

Somehow, not surprisingly, he dodges the stray crutch that you toss half-heartedly in his direction. At this point, he was used to you trying to weaponize your “mobility aide”.

It all started when he helped you get back to your apartment, in a wheelchair that he bought. Then he abandoned said wheelchair and carried you bridal style up several flights of stairs. Citing that the elevator was too dangerous because it hadn’t been inspected in the past decade. Even ignoring you when you told him that it would be far more likely for both of you to fall to your death in the stairwell. This was all two weeks ago, and he still refuses to use the elevator.

He was on the floor now, humming and throwing your shit in boxes. You weren’t sure how he did it. When you agreed to the move, you had been internally wincing and panicking. Thinking it was just going to be you, hopping pitifully around the room. Probably taking breaks and reminiscing over the stray artifacts of your life. You would’ve needed at least three days max to get packed. Duke cut it down to two hours.

“Sooooooooo”, you draw out, “Tell me about the others.”

“There’s not much to say, not a lot that I can either way. What do you want to know?”

Your eyes narrow as he turns weirdly evasive. He always got a little cagey when you brought up his adoptive family. Never quite answering the question.

“What are they like? Are they nice?”, you ask.

He pauses and stands, turning his back to you so he can put a box on the trolley. We’re going to take the elevator. You thought with a smug sort of glee at the realization. That means you’ll be in your wheelchair. See, you’re slowly reclaiming your independence. Sort of.

“Um. Cass is really nice, but you won’t see her often. Same with Steph. They both kind of do their own thing and no one lives at home besides Alfred, Bruce, and me. Though that might change.”

He pauses again. You stick your tongue out at his back only for him to whirl around to face you. Quickly you snap it back in and try to appear innocent as you stare up. Ew. Popcorn ceiling. You wonder for a second if you could have asbestos in your lungs from that.

“Dick, I mean Grayson, he oversees the training of the Alpha taskforce in Bludhaven. Jason avoids Bruce like the plague while doing the most to get his attention, and I can't really get into what he does for a living. You don't want to know. Tim lives and breathes at Wayne Enterprise’s various global sectors, some of the time, he’s the hardest to track. Damian has been somewhere in Pakistan. Where? I don’t know. I would avoid him and Jason if at all possible. Not that you'll likely see them."

You had to smother your cry of relief. This was going to be a lot easier than you thought. There were only going to be three people that you had to worry about. Maybe you were going to finally complete a New Year’s resolution now that you had time. The world was looking up for you.

“I think that’s it, are you ready?”

His question breaks off your train of thought. You can’t help but groan when he gets near you, arms outstretched, ready for a hug and humiliating you. To make matters worse, he says the worst thing possible.

“Up you go!”, Duke crows.

“No! To the chair! Put me down you overgrown bat!”, you say.

Thankfully he does, gently plopping you down in the cushy seat and stooping to ruffle your hair. You were hissing mad. Not that he cared. Just to goad you further, he reached over to the handles behind your back and rang the obnoxious little bike bell he attached to it.

“Run”, you warn him.

He laughs while sprinting with the dolly all the way to the elevator as you try like hell to mow him down. Both of you completely missed the way his phone kept blowing up with notifications, the small dings being mistaken for a bike bell.

#abo batfam x reader #vamp!batfam #vamp!batfam x reader #batfam x reader #still tagging yandere #yandere batfam x reader #yandere batfam #i've got four essays due by the end of this week #going to my corner to cry now

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carlsangel · 3 months ago

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friendly spirit (g.i.t.w, ch.1)

carl grimes x fem!reader

warning: mentions of death.

masterlist here!

other chapters here!

Carl never lost hope. Even after the prison, terminus and the church. He knew there was something for the group out there. He was probably the most hopeful out of everyone. He always wanted to keep going, he motivated everyone. It’s definitely something he’d gotten from his dad. Alexandria was exactly what he’d hoped for. At least from what he’d heard from Aaron.

Staying in a barn that smelt like horse shit was something he’d unfortunately considered before Aaron had arrived. That morning, seeing Aaron arrive through the barn doors almost made him smile. Between arguing with his dad that Alexandria was a good fit for the group and trying to back Michonne up on the same argument, he didn’t get much sleep. The entire car ride there, Rick had a plan.

He would discuss it with them over and over, going over every possibility. That’s why, when he and the others got out of the vehicles and he saw you, he thought he was imagining it. He saw you, a girl who’d climbed a tree from what it seemed like. Eugene walked past him and when the large black mullet was out of his face, you were gone. Maybe you were apart of Alexandria.

He heard children laughing and people talking. He knew this was the right place. For him, and for Judith. He sort of knew that he was the reason they needed a settlement at all. Maybe the rest of them would’ve given up at this point. Maggie had lost Beth, Sasha lost Tyreese, Daryl lost Merle ages ago…but they still stuck around. He thinks it’s because they had a sliver of hope. Hope because him and Judith are still alive.

Seeing the houses in the community sort of healed parts of his childhood. They weren’t the wealthiest of families, he imagined living in houses as big as Alexandria’s for years. He has memories, almost faded of the three of them driving through the neighborhood where all the wealthy people lived, imagining themselves there in the future. Once Rick retired of course.

It felt somewhat ironic to him, the fact that the only chance they were ever given to live in a nice and luxurious house was when the world was on its last legs. He thought a lot. Maybe too much, even in that moment where Aaron was explaining how one of the houses was better than the other, he thought about you. He wondered if you were just his imagination, or maybe you were a threat. He didn’t want to alarm anyone. But he was curious.

He returned to the conversation to hear something about curb appeal. Aaron was about to leave, he’d motioned for the both of them to check the house out but Carl stayed back. He had to talk to Aaron, to make sure he wasn’t insanely tired and you actually did exist.

“Wait— Aaron. Before you go, I just…I saw something earlier. Well someone. I was just wondering if she was apart of the community.” He explained, He described your attributes, the color of your skin and the length of your hair and what you were wearing. He felt like you were too dirty to live here however. “Oh her? Don’t worry, she just lives in the outskirts of Alexandria.” Aaron replies. Carl’s eyebrows knot together in confusion. “And you didn’t tell us? What if she’s a threat?”

Aaron sort of chuckles and it catches Carl off guard. “We call her the ghost in the woods. We’ve had people to go out and look for her…whenever they spot her she disappears quite quick but…we can’t quite seem to catch her.” He explains. Carl still didn’t understand. “She’s not a threat, I promise. Think of her as uhh… a friendly spirit.”

He thinks about that for a moment, Aaron puts his hand on Carl’s shoulder, giving him a content smile before patting it and turning away. He stewed on the idea of you, he seriously doesn’t understand. Why wouldn’t you want to join Alexandria, and why would you choose to live around it? He wanted to see you again. To meet you. He didn’t believe you were some…fairy tale. He needed to see you.

And he did. Right as Aaron walked away, in the distance he could spot you once again in a tree, just watching him. “Aaron?” He calls out, looking over to him for his attention. Once he gets it, he turns to point you out but you’re not there. Shit, now he looks stupid. “I just want to say thank you.” He says this as a cover up, but it was still mostly the truth. “Of course.” Aaron nods.

He finally tears his eyes away from the tree and catches up with his dad. He knew he had to see you, to meet you. That’d be his mission the next couple of days.

─── ⋆⋅ ꒰ა 𐚁 ໒꒱ ⋅⋆ ───

Meanwhile you’d just descended the tree. You’d walk off your small campsite which was almost never permanent. The woods surrounding Alexandria was large. Perfect for you. You hated being confined to just one area. Especially because you hate to be attached to things.

The first rule to the apocalypse is to not get attached. You found that out the hard way. Many times. Your first home, your dad, your sister. You lost everything. All you had was their belongings. Your sister’s bracelet, your dad’s bag, and his rifle. You were in fact attached to their belongings but you knew if they weren’t in your possession, you were most likely dead.

You never intended on interacting with the people of Alexandria, you just liked the security of being outside the walls. You had precaution without technically having it. If it came down to it, you knew where to go. Not to mention sometimes the civilians would leave food for you. At first it felt dehumanizing, like they were leaving food out on the porch for a fucking raccoon.

But it was fine. You were perfectly fine on your own. Sometimes it got lonely..but you’d just occupy your time listening to music with a walkman your dad gifted you before the start or reading books you found in old cabin remains and such. You’d even watch over Alexandria. Except recently things have been especially frustrating. The rifle’s been getting jammed and the batteries in your walkman have been dying quicker than usual. You’d stop listening until you really needed it. You were yearning for something new. Anything.

But soon, a new and large group would arrive. You’d watch over Alexandria often, you knew almost everyone but not one on one. You liked the reputation you upheld there. It was like knowing everyone without having to really know them. No chance to get attached. You now had a new group of personalities to dissect. At least, all the way from the trees surrounding the walls.

You took note of all of them. More importantly, the one who noticed you first.

Carl.

i hope you liked itttt there’s more coming!

tag list: @zomb-1-egutzz @lunarnightt @ilikestrawberriesandwomen @hiro--aoki @h00d-tr4sh @callsignwidow @lilyglasergrimes @smollbean42905 @deadgirlwalkingx @txrasbae @lalaloopsie12309 @crusadecherryblossom @violetashfall @zombiigrll @amanita-raine

#carl grimes #twd #the walking dead #carl grimes twd #carl grimes fanfiction #carl grimes x reader #carl grimes fluff #carl grimes x fem!reader #carl grimes x y/n #carl grimes the walking dead #the walking dead carl #carl grimes smut #twd carl #twd fanfiction #ghost in the woods

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loveshotzz · 1 year ago

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All I Really Want Is You

older!neighbor!widower! steve x fem!reader chap ten/ten - a slow burn series of blurbs -

Baby, I’m Yours

summary: A sleepless night brings you back to where it all began.

wc: 8k

warnings: 18+ for the softest of smut.

author’s note: I know we still have the epilogue but I can’t believe we’re actually here at the end of their story. Thank you to all of you that spent your summer reading about Steve and his Tough Girl, this has been such a journey for me as a writer with a lot of challenges but I’m so thankful I did it. Truly writing about these two and talking about it with you guys was the highlight of my summer. From the bottom of my heart, thank you 🧡

🌇 <- chapter nine

The Masterlist / The Playlist / The Tune:

Beginning of August

Steve had been gone for a week and a half and it felt more like a lifetime to you, but it wasn’t for the lack of communication. If Steve wasn’t calling you he was texting you, sending you pictures of his lunch no matter how lame you told him it was. By day three you were sending him a picture of your own with a loud sigh and a roll of your eyes. His enthusiastic response of ‘That looks good baby!!’ had made you squirm in your seat with hot cheeks huffing the word “pathetic” to yourself, but that didn’t stop you from doing it again the next day.

It was FaceTime calls of Peach telling Steve to turn the camera around, always too busy looking at you and telling you how pretty you are to notice his was pointed towards a wall. Or the one time it was pointed at Eddie who sat in front of him making a suggestive ‘cumming’ face to tease him, the camera flipped immediately when he heard you giggle. Steve scolded his cackling friend with an ‘honestly, I hate you’ before taking you to another room, apologizing profusely with blush visible on his cheeks.

It was the small bits of time in between text messages and phone calls that made it drag. The quiet evenings without Bandit’s excited bark from the front yard, the low simmer that’s always in your gut from the possibility of running into him any time you come and go, is gone with the man and his dog. It’s just enough time for seeds of doubt to creep in. The newness, the anxiety of it all.

The bright red numbers on the clock above your stove read 2:13am - three days until Steve gets home and tonight you can’t sleep. Quietly thanking whatever gods there are for your day off tomorrow, well - today.

Your apartment smells like Clorox, lavender, and lemon. The wood floors sparkling just like your kitchen countertops. Cleaning everything you could touch has kept you busy, but it doesn’t make you any more tired than when you’d started. Your intrusive thoughts and daydreams are going a mile a minute:you didn’t get your usual good night call from him. The rational side of you knows that one missed phone call doesn’t mean anything, but the irrational side decided you don’t need to rest.

The full trash bag next to your front door taunts you, just like the promise you made Steve about taking it out late at night months ago. The fact that it’s the last thing left to do makes it that much harder to walk away from. Gnawing at the side of your cheek you decide not to, he’s not even home to catch you.

The moon’s blue glow illuminates your path while the skyline of the city sparkles below it. The tall buildings shimmer in a way that takes attention from the stars in the cloudless night sky. You can feel how the humidity hangs less thick in the air the more August rolls in. The thin material of your tank top does nothing against the light breeze that makes the bottom of your sleep shorts tickle the tops of your thighs. There’s a chill that didn’t exist before and it makes goosebumps dot across your skin.

Your slides scrape along the gravel from your refusal to fully pick your feet up, and it fights with the sounds of the late Friday night in the distance. You hum a made up tune as the streetlight buzzes above, lifting the lid you jump when you hear someone clear their throat behind you.

“I thought I told you not to take your trash out in the middle of the night, especially alone, tough girl.” Steve’s voice erupts everything that’s laid dormant inside of you for the past week. Butterflies start to flutter until they’re fighting against your rib cage to get out and your cheeks hurt from how hard you’re smiling before you’ve even turned around.

“Well,” You sigh, dropping your bag in the trash can, “the guy I was supposed to call if I needed anything ditched me for his out of state boyfriend.” Shrugging when you finally let yourself look at him, the view rivals the one that shines bright behind him.

His hair is messy in a way that isn’t purposeful this time, but he looks just as handsome as any other day. The stubble on his jaw is thicker, but not quite like the night he waited at your doorstep, and god, do you want to feel it against your skin. His big arms sit crossed over a broad chest that’s only covered in a gray tank top. The thick patch of hair always half way on display threatens to touch the base of his neck, the bottom of his silver chain disappearing inside of it.

His freckles are darker now, easier to find from all the sun he got while he was gone and you’re jealous of the hands that got to rub sunscreen on them, even if they were his own. The black basketball shorts on his legs stop in the middle of his thighs, it makes you bite at your lip.The greens and golds in his eyes light a match under your skin with the way he stares at you — like he couldn’t possibly look away even if he tried.

“My out of state boyfriend huh?” He grins, tightening his hold on his own bag before his Nike slide covered feet crunch against the gravel towards you. His eyes catch the dainty silver still hanging around your neck, the stone shining in the moonlight, and it makes his heart swell. Tossing his trash in after yours, he meets your gaze down the slope of his nose, arching a brow. “What does that make you then?”

He smells like bergamot and cedar, a lingering hint of the cigar he probably smoked in New York still clinging to his hair. The heat coming off his body makes your fingertips buzz, twitching with the need to reach out and just touch him.

“I dunno, what does that make me, Steve?” It comes out shy, a little above a whisper, a question just for him.

He hums, a low sound that vibrates from deep in his chest while his fingers come up to toy with the stone that dangles just above the dip of your breasts. The tips of them tickling rough against your soft skin.

“What do you want?” His confident demeanor falters when he asks just as quiet, all the miles and days without seeing each other are affecting him too. He doesn’t tell you that’s part of the reason he booked an early flight home on your day off.

“I want you.” You don’t hesitate when you say it, no pauses for even a second to think of what you want to say. Your hand comes up to wrap around his wrist, the muscles under your palm dance from your simple touch. He wonders if you can feel his pulse.

“You already have me.” He almost wants to laugh until he still sees the same shared doubt in your eyes. “Haven’t I made that obvious?”

He tugs at your necklace as a reminder, a smile breaking across your face because of it and all he wants to do is kiss you now. Especially when he drops the stone to grab your hand, and after taking just a few steps, you reach up to touch it again — a silent, constant reminder of his confession as you walk towards the wooden gates.

“Wait, why didn’t you tell me you were coming back early?” You pout a little, looking up at him when he stops you both at your backyard.

“I landed a few hours ago,” He chuckles, his hands finding your hips to pull you to his chest, in love with the way you stand on your tiptoes to wrap your arms around his neck like it’s natural, like it’s second nature to want him close. “I was actually going to surprise you in the morning with breakfast after I picked up Bandit from Nance’s.”

“Oh yeah?” You grin at the thought of Steve showing up at your front door, that messy head of hair shoved into a baseball cap.

He nudges his nose against yours, the spearmint of his toothpaste fanning cool across your cheeks while your fingers curl into the soft hair at the base of his neck. Tilting your chin so your lips just barely touch, you silently beg him to close the gap.

“Yeah,” He breathes, hazel eyes clocking the way your lashes flutter against the top of your cheeks. He almost feels bad for teasing, especially when you give his hair a gentle, coaxing tug. “But someone wanted to risk their lives for the sake of taking out the trash. So, surprise, pretty girl, I’m home.”

His words make your breath catch, and you want to tell him he feels like home more than your real one ever did. Your heart thumps wildly in your chest when his top lip whispers against your still slightly pouted bottom one. You tug at his roots a little harder this time, needier, and you swear a whine tightens at the back of your throat threatening to come out if he doesn’t give you what you want. Please, kiss me.

“Well, good thing you were here to save me.” You giggle against his mouth, and it makes his hands squeeze at your sides a little tighter, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. The tip of your nose pushes against the rough stubble on his cheek, “Besides, I missed you, I wouldn’t have wanted to wait ‘til the morning.”

“God, honey. You have no idea how much I missed you.” His face crumples a little at the thought, almost like he forgot for a second you were right in front of him, but when you somehow pull yourself closer, he doesn’t waste anymore time.

The wood is rough when your back hits the gate at the same time his lips finally crash into yours. A week of longing comes out with a sigh. The metal hinges and lock clank loudly together while he steals the breath from your lungs. He coaxes your mouth open with a swipe from his impatient tongue, groaning when you grant him access. You taste just as sweet as he remembers, and he promises himself he’ll never go a day without it again — not if he can help it.

Your hands get greedy in his hair, bigger handfuls, harsher tugs while your body stays flush against his as he keeps you pinned to the door. It’s all tongue and teeth for a minute, both of you losing yourselves in it for longer than you should. It’s not until a car honks, signaling to any bikers around that it’s popping out of the alley, breaking you two apart.

Chest heaving and lips swollen, all you want is more.

He laughs to himself pressing his forehead against yours with the kind of smile that makes your knees weak. The tip of his nose touches yours; he’s all wild hair and love sick eyes. You don’t want to be without him tonight. Or ever.

“Come sleepover?”

The question comes out before you can stop it, before you can really register what that invitation might mean for both of you. His eyes widen before they search your face for any kind of regret, his tongue wetting his lips when he doesn’t find it. You twist strands of his honey hair between your fingers, nervously waiting for his response.

“We - we don’t have to do anything. I just wanna be with you.” You finally whisper, your nerves getting the best of you. He can’t believe you think he’d actually say no.

“Let me shower and get the airport off of me, and then I’d love nothing more than to spend the rest of the night with you baby.” He steals another kiss from your smiling lips, letting you take another one for yourself, groaning at the nip of your teeth on his bottom lip before he finally lets you go.

Opening the gate for you, he grabs your wrist pulling you back for one more, relishing in the giggle it earns him before he whispers that he’ll be back in fifteen minutes.

It feels like your heart is trying to escape through your chest as you try not to check the time on your phone. Strategically placed candles are the only light in your living room and kitchen, while a dimmed bedside lamp in your room gleams a dark orange with your wax melter. It feels like your apartment is glowing, but it does nothing to relax the nerves that course through your veins as you pace the small space of your room trying to shake them before his inevitable arrival.

Knock, knock, knock

They are quieter than his normal ones, but they make you jump just the same. You shake your hands out, taking a deep breath before you pad barefoot to your front door. You tuck your bottom lip between your teeth to try and contain the smile that always grows the first time you lay your eyes on him and his lopsided grin.

“Hey baby.” He greets you in the kind of voice that makes the dough of your thighs press.

His damp hair is pushed back, from what looks like a few quick hands in the mirror. A simple white shirt replaces the tank top from before, fitting loosely across his shoulders, and a soft looking pair of gray cotton shorts cover the tops of his thighs this time. He’s wearing a tan pair of moccasin slippers on his feet that you’ve never seen, and for some reason his exposed ankles make the heat rise to your cheeks while the fresh scent of his pine body wash threatens to take over your senses.

“Hi handsome.” It’s dripping in sugar the way you say it, sweet off your tongue just for him as you open the door wider.

He thinks your apartment smells like peaches and the ocean when you close it behind him. It smells just like you and he feels surrounded by it, intoxicated with it, the way he always wants to be. You watch him take in your apartment like he missed it too, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth when he notices you just cleaned it. He bites back his remark when his eyes meet yours, he can’t bring himself to say it when you’re staring at him from under your lashes with your back pressed to the door all shy like that.

“Don’t be shy, honey,” he extends a big hand out for you to take with soft eyes, “we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” copying your line from outside, he wiggles his fingers a little with a smile warmer than the glow of the candles that dance shadows across his sharp jaw and cheek bones, “I just wanna lay with you.”

You don’t hesitate to slip your palm into his, your heart racing when you watch his fingers wrap around you with ease. He pulls you into him, colliding in a mix of forest and the beach. He keeps a hold of your hand, cupping your cheek with his other one. The pad of his thumb traces over the heated skin, paying extra attention to the soft bag under your eye. You needed sleep.

“Just me and you, that’s all I want, okay?” He reassures you in a voice lower than a whisper. His heart swells when you nod with big glassy eyes, your hand coming to rest on the top of his so you can lean deeper into his touch.Steve’s hazel eyes look to yours, he tilts his head a little bit closer in a silent ask for permission, you push up on your tiptoes to meet him halfway.

He kisses you differently than how he did in the alley, differently than the Fourth of July and the baseball game. He’s gentle, like he’s taking his time with you because he actually has it now, like he’s sure of it. He doesn’t try to deepen it even when they move together like this is what they were always meant to be doing, not even when your top lip catches a little dirty with his bottom. He wants to remember this moment, commit it to memory so that he never forgets what this feels like with you. He kisses you like this until the need for oxygen becomes too much and your feet start to hurt from standing in place for too long.

“Let’s go lay down.” You whisper between bated breaths that mingle with his, your chests heave as he gives you the kind of toothy grin that makes the butterflies wake up again, nodding with a squeeze of your hand.

The hum of A/C and the sounds of your breathing are the only things that can be heard in the low light of your room. Steve’s body lays pressed on top of yours, making himself comfortable between your legs. His head rests on your sternum with a cheek against the soft curve of your tummy. His big hands hold tight to your sides, caging you in – it feels like he’s everywhere and you wouldn’t have it any other way. The weight of him relaxes you into the feathers of your pillows.

Your fingers keep themselves busy buried deep in the thickness of his hair. Still a little damp at the roots, you massage the part of his scalp you know was resting on the hard cushion of the airplane seat, earning you a deep groan that vibrates between your legs. He feels the way they try to close because of it, the sharp intake of breath that you try to hide.

He’d be lying if he said his own body wasn’t reacting being this close to you, especially when the pads of his thumbs caress under the swell of your breasts and there’s no wire of a bra to be found. His eyes roll back as the blunt ends of your nails start to scratch lightly near the nape of his neck, making his fingers squeeze you at the sensation. His face nuzzles deeper into the softness of your stomach, inhaling. You feel the prickle of his stubble through the thin material of your tank top and it makes you giggle.

Steve doesn’t know how he lasted as long as he did this past week without you.

He pushes the bottom of your tank top up and tries not to stare at the supple skin exposed to him before blowing a raspberry. It earns an even louder giggle, making your legs bend at the knees, trapping him in between your thighs.

“Steve!” You sound annoyed but the smile on your face gives you away when you go to cover your eyes with the back of your hand.

“What baby?” He smirks against your skin and feels the way it makes you squirm with a subtle roll of your hips, he’s not even sure you noticed that you did it.

“No…”Your voice trails off when he pushes your shirt up a little higher, his lips getting bolder, addicted to the way you heat up for him with every soft kiss, “No raspberries.” You finally manage, making him chuckle. But that doesn’t stop him continuing on his path.

“I promise I’ll be nice, m’sorry” He mumbles an apology against your skin, basking in the goosebumps it earns him.

He sits back on his knees, thumbs hooking into the bottom of your tank. His eyes meet yours from underneath his lashes and he wishes he could take a picture of the way you look right now.

“Is this okay?” He asks just to make sure, and the nod of your head with heavy lids is enough for him to press a wet kiss on your sternum before pulling the rest of the offending fabric off, throwing it somewhere on your floor.

Steve forgets how to breathe the moment his eyes land on you, soft curves just begging for his touch. He can’t help himself when he runs his palms up your sides making your nipples pebble when the pads of his thumbs meet the bottom swell of your breasts. You wonder if he can feel the wings under your rib cage.

“God - honey,” Steve’s words get lost on his tongue when you stare up at him with eyes blown out like his, it makes him run a hand down his face like he can’t believe you’re real. “I’m lucky to just be lookin’ at you.”

His praise makes a shy smile push up your cheeks, his own teeth shining in a grin because of it.

“I wanna look at you too.” You whine a little, reaching down between your legs to tug at the cotton of his shirt with a pout.

“Yeah?” Steve asks, bending back down to hover over you. His nose nudges against your cheek before his lips brush yours, smirking when you nod a little desperate against his mouth.

The kiss he gives you lingers, lighting a fire inside of you, the kind that burns at your fingertips, consuming you like it’s wild and it makes you realize it’s never going to be enough. You’re never going to get enough of the man who looks at you like you hung the stars in his sky, like you were the sun that broke through the rain clouds that followed him around.

His fingers curl at the hem of his shirt, and it feels like he’s moving in slow motion when he pulls it over his head, adding it to the already growing pile on the floor. His muscles twitch under your gaze, his own nerves finally catching up to him when he realizes just how long it’s been since he’s been with someone like this. Pink dusts his cheeks but he doesn’t look away, not when he sees the way your eyes glaze over at the sight. The dark thatch of hair in the middle of his chest looks soft to the touch from his late night shower and it makes your fingers twitch to touch him.

The silver of his chain gleams like yours in the moonlight that leaks through your curtains and it makes his skin look like it glows. You give in, running your fingertips through the thick happy trail that’s surrounded by another collection of freckles and moles that you feel the need to kiss and you catch the shudder that runs through him because of it.

“You’re so handsome, Steve.” It comes out a little breathless, and it makes the tips of his ears turn pink.

“Thank you, angel.” He tries to hide his bashfulness in a grin and a hand through his hair, bending back down to press a kiss to your collarbone so you don’t see his smile.

He starts a path up your neck, nipping at sensitive skin along the way to your lips, his own butterflies being spurred on by the whimper it earns him. He hovers over you searching your face for any indication to stop but he’s only met with the kind of look in your eyes that almost has him say it.

‘I love you’.

He tries to show you by slotting his lips against yours in a hot breath, like a key to its lock. The bed dips on either side of your head when he goes from his palms to his forearms, chest to chest he wonders if you can feel his heart beating just for you tonight.

The feeling of his skin against yours makes every inch of you feel like a livewire, both of you moaning into the kiss like you’ve waited too long for this. Tongues collide messily when he rolls his hips with a purpose. The pointed pressure on your bundle of nerves, has you keening into him. Your hands slide up his chest through the patch of hair you’d been dreaming about for months, before wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him even closer. Addicted to the way his hard muscles flex against your soft skin.

Box springs squeak when he lets go of all of his weight, it feels like he’s everywhere and it makes your head spin. Your fingers find their way back into the soft hair at the nape of his neck as you fight for dominance with his lips, trying to convey everything you’re feeling right now because words just won’t work.

Pushing your hips up to meet his in a slow grind, the thin material of his shorts does nothing to hide just how big he really is and it makes everything turn sloppy, teeth scraping together with silk between your fingers tugging at his roots a little mean. He smiles when he pulls away to catch his breath, keeping his forehead pressed to yours. His eyes are as black as the night outside that threatens to give away to the sun in just a few hours, they look at you like he can’t believe you’re real, memorizing every detail of your face like you might disappear if he blinks.

“So pretty.” He murmurs before littering kisses down your body, some sweet and some with a nip of his teeth.

His eyes meet yours in a silent question of ‘is this okay?’, long fingers curling around the elastic band. Tucking your bottom lip between your teeth to hide your shy smile. You nod with a little too much excitement making him smirk before pressing a sweet kiss on the top of your hip, running his nose along the soft your tummy doing it again to the other side.

You hold your breath when he pulls them down your thighs, the tips of his fingers gliding down the sides of your legs as he goes, lips tugging up when you squirm a little because of it. A low groan vibrates from his chest when he realizes you aren’t wearing underwear, glistening with your arousal in the dim light. You’re so wet and all he’s done is kiss you.

“Baby, baby, baby.” He mutters awestruck by the sight.

A little embarrassed at your body’s reaction, his praise makes your legs try to snap shut but he stops you with a gentle hand on the inside of your knee, spreading them again.

“You’re beautiful, please don’t hide from me.” He begs, taking all of you in again. “So, so, so beautiful, honey.”

His fingers wrap around your ankle, pulling your leg up enough for his lips to kiss the soft skin right above the round bone, his nose skims up your calf to press another one, relishing in the giggle he gets as he keeps on his path to what he really wants. You squeal when he nips at the inside of your knee and you can feel his smirk against your goosebumps.

Once his kisses get to your thigh, he settles between your legs with his chest to the mattress. It’s hard to remember your own name when he looks up at you through his lashes like that. He hooks your knee over his broad shoulder, his lips dragging a little dirty across your heated skin. He can taste the watermelon that still lingers from his favorite lotion. You were going to be the death of him.

He meets your eyes when he gets high enough for your thigh and hip to connect. Close enough to smell how sweet you are worked up just for him.

“Can I taste you?” He skims his nose up the plush inside of your thigh when he asks, his eyelids growing heavy just basking in being close to you like this. You could say no, and this would be enough for him but the way you’re already dripping on your sheets makes him insatiable. “You want that?”

You want that?

He watches how your eyes glaze over at his question, the intensity of his gaze makes you want to hide, he was so handsome looking up at you like this. Too bashful to actually say yes, you nod again.

“Can you say it for me?” He squeezes your hip, the pad of his thumb rubbing circles to soothe your nerves like his own weren’t boiling under the surface of his confident demeanor like a volcano ready to explode.

What if he wasn’t good at this anymore?

“Y- yes, I want you to taste me, handsome you can do whatever you want to me.” The breathy giggle that bubbles passed your lips makes him grin lopsided just how you like, a smugness that wasn’t there before smoldering like a fire in his eyes.

“Yeah? Fuck - Honey, I dream about this.” He groans when he pulls himself closer, the tip of his nose running up your slick folds making you shudder, fingers already tangling in your sheets. “You want me to show you how much I missed you?”

He doesn’t tell you that he’s started to always miss you when you aren’t around.

He accepts your nod this time, your teeth threatening to make your bottom lip bleed when he settles your other leg over his shoulder too, nothing holding him back from you anymore. He takes all of you in with a greedy eyes, his pink tongue darling out to lick his lips when he sees just how much you want this too.

Nothing can prepare you for the first swipe of his flattened tongue between your slick folds, the tip of it catching your clit with just enough pressure for the grip on your sheets to tighten. The butterflies in your rib cage feel like they make their escape in the gasp you let out, his low hum of approval making your toes curl when he does it again.

“So fucking sweet baby, god of course you are.”

He doesn’t waste anymore time testing the waters, his self doubt gone with his self control when your hips roll up asking for more. Steve knows now he’ll never say no to you and he’s not shy with the way he buries his face in your pussy. His tongue laps up everything you give him, like he’s hungry with his nose pressed to your bundle of nerves with enough pressure to make your back arch.

“Ohmygod - Steve.” The moan you let out makes his cock twitch, your fingers reaching down to tangle themselves in his hair, shamelessly pulling him closer. You were better than his dreams.

Your thighs snap closed around his ears after he stops the greedy strokes of his tongue in the tightness of your entrance for his lips to wrap your clit. He sucks with the kind of force that makes your eyes hit the back of your head. His eyebrows marry together when he closes his eyes like you’re the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted. One of hands leaves the dough of your thighs for his thick index finger to take his tongue's place, collecting the slick from between your folds before pushing one knuckle in.

It makes you gasp a little breathy as your hips push up for more, and he gives it to you, pushing two more knuckles in and you already feel so full. Your walls constrict, fluttering around his single digit like it’s a stretch and he wonders how you’re going to be able to take him. His own hips rut into the mattress in search of some kind of relief while he sets a steady pace between his mouth and his wrist that has you clenching like you’re about to unravel.

“You close baby? Wanna show me how good it feels?” His question comes out sloppy against your mound, all the color in his eyes is gone meeting yours from between your legs blown wide. When he adds a second finger, it slides in with ease making your eyes hit the back of your head, a low moan bubbling past your lips. Your toes curl with his fingers, jaw going slack with his name in your mouth like a prayer and he’s scared you’re going to make him cum in his pants again.

“Just like that, fuck - right there - Steve, Steve, Steeeeeve!” The fingers that are tangled in his hair tug rough, your thighs clamping down hard around his head while your body tries to squirm away to run from the intensity of it all, the stubble on his jaw rubbing you raw when he moves his head from side to side drinking in everything you give him.

His hand on your hip locks you in place while you come undone on his tongue and he swears you taste just like sugar when he buries his face in deeper till you whine, pushing on his forehead to stop, overstimulation winning. Heat floods your cheeks when you see the shine from your slick covering the bottom of his lopsided grin when he finally looks up at you.

“So pretty like this,” He mumbles, pressing a kiss to the inside of your shaking thigh.

You cover your face with your hands, the intensity of your first orgasm and the intimacy of it all overwhelms you, the tightness in your chest threatens to become unbearable. The three words sitting at the tip of your tongue beg to come out from between your lips.

Not yet.

He trails sticky kisses up your stomach, making sure to pay special attention to the swell of your breasts, pulling them both together in his big hands to give them equal treatment. Shining lips wrap around your sensitive nipples and it's enough for a new wave of arousal to blossom deep inside your belly, a subtle rock of your hips meeting his when he rolls one between his teeth. Insatiable, just like him.

“Steve,” His name comes out around a sigh, your fingers running up his freckled back before tangling themselves in his hair again, addicted to the softness of it.

“Mmm, tell me what you want.” He looks up at you from under thick lashes, lids heavy, and eyes glossy. He’s wrecked.

“You.” The answer is just as simple as it was outside, it's all you’ve ever wanted. You realize that now. The universe bringing you here to this moment with him. This was it.

“Baby,” he looks at you like he means it, like his whole heart is in your hands now and it has been since the day you moved in he just didn’t know it yet, “I’m yours.”

He moves back up your body, leaving wet kisses across sweat slicked skin making sure to suck at the sensitive spot he found just above your collarbone, smiling when you gasp. He’s not expecting to feel your lips against his jaw, bold and sure of themselves by the time they get to the corner of his mouth, dainty fingers pulling his chin down to collect your kiss.

Your lips move like you can finally relax, like you’re home now and he can feel your heartbeat against his chest. This didn’t feel like just sex.

Your hands run down his sides, grinning into his mouth when he chuckles as the tips of your fingers brush against his ribs, you keep that information locked away another time as you hook them in the elastic band of his shorts. His tongue licks a little dirty into your mouth when you start to pull them down his hips, helping you get them to his knees before kicking them off entirely. The length of him feels heavy against your stomach, and it makes you break away from the kiss but his lips stay attached to you.

Your cheek, your jaw, your neck, anywhere he can reach.

The view makes your breath hitch and get stuck in the back of your throat, walls fluttering around nothing when you see just how big he really is. He’s too busy trying to find new places to make you gasp and all you wanna do is look at him.

“Steve” his name comes out around the gasp he was trying so hard to get by sucking a little bruise behind your ear.

He hums against your skin with his eyes closed, drowning in you. Love drunk off of it. The slow sleepiness from the day creeping in as his body molds to the warmth of you.

“I wanna look at you, too.” Your request is quiet against the rough stubble that fades into his neck, and you feel his Adam’s apple bob against your lips.

“Yeah?” His voice is hoarse, nose nudging against your jaw when he brings his gaze back to yours, a smile pulls up the apples of his cheeks, crinkling small lines under his eyes.

“Yeah.” You don’t nod this time.

He holds your eyes in his, needing you to know there’s a double meaning in his words when he brings his palm to your cheek, the pad of his thumb tracing the high bone.

“Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.”

The mattress bounces when Steve flops next to you on his back, the two of you barely fitting on your queen size with his broad shoulders and long legs. He catches the way your eyes grow big when you sit up on your knees and finally get to see all of him. He reaches out for you, sensing your hesitation at his size

“C’mere, baby, we’ll go slow.”

Heat blooms between your legs when you take his hand, your knees finding a home on either side of his hips. He’s thicker than you’d imagined all those nights with your fingers between your thighs. The big vein running up the length of him protrudes like it’s working overtime, while beads of pearly white smear against the rough patch of hair just below his belly button from his light pink tip. Wrapping his hand around the base, he gives himself a pump to relieve some of the ache from seeing you sitting on top of him like this. Soft curves on display in the moonlight, he can’t wait to see them when it breaks daylight.

“Fuck,” He sighs when you settle above him, “you look gorgeous.”

His words make your confidence peak, your hands finding themselves flat against his chest, the blunt ends of your nails drag through the hair there and you spot another cluster of freckles you hadn’t seen before, you wonder if he’ll let you find them all.

“Look who’s talkin’” You tease, making him laugh as you lean up to steal a kiss. The motion has the length of him slide easily between your slick folds, his tip catching your clit before popping out.

“Jesus Christ.” He sighs against your mouth that’s formed in a silent ‘o’, rolling his back up in search for more.

“Steve - you’re so - “ The last of your sentence is stolen by a gasp when you grind down to meet his thrust, the tip of him prodding your entrance before gliding up with just the right amount of pressure to make you both moan.

“I’m so what?” He asks a little smug, arms circling the curve of your waist to pull you closer, dragging you over the length of him again, it makes you shudder in his grasp.

He catches against where you beg for more of him, fluttering around the tip, your walls try to suck him in. A low growl rumbles from his chest when he tries to fit a little more. It’s your hips that roll, and it's just enough for him to push all the way in with a little resistance.

“Goddd,” You whine, feeling the fullest you’ve ever been, your walls stinging, desperately trying to accommodate his size. A low huff exhales through your nose when you sit up straight, letting your nails drag over the beauty marks that litter his stomach before finishing your sentence, “so big.”

“Yeah, but look at you takin’ it.” He groans with pinched brows, eyes transfixed on where he disappears inside of you. Arousal coating the thick thatch of hair that frames him, wetting his lips as he watches the way you grind your clit against it letting him fill you to the hilt. “So good for me baby, so beautiful, - fuck! - so gorgeous.”

His praise has you clenching around him, your mouth falling open when you feel him twitch because of it. His big hands find the tops of your thighs, the pads of his fingers leaving fires in their wake while making their way to your hips. He squeezes softly when he gets there, guiding your lazy thrusts before searching for your hands.

You watch him intertwine your fingers with curious eyes, his gaze transfixed on yours as he holds them at your sides, rolling his hips up to push even deeper.

“Oh god,” He does it again only this time if feels like there’s nowhere else for him to fit and it makes your eyes screw shut, “ohmyfuckinggod - Steeeve!”

“Right there? Yeah? Is that it?” He grunts trying to repeat it and your hands squeeze his in an iron grip. “Come on baby, I need to see you.”

It’s hard to open your eyes, the slow drag of his cock against your slick walls is almost overwhelming. Connected to him in a way that is going to change you forever. The pad of his thumb rubs soft on the top of your hand, bringing you back to him.

“You’re eyes are too pretty to be keepin’ them from me.” He smiles when you finally meet his gaze and it’s enough to punch the air out of your lungs.

“I love you.” The three words slip past your kiss bitten lips before you can even think long enough to stop them and it makes everything come to a standstill.

“What’d you just say?” Steve’s voice is quiet, something unrecognizable in his tone that makes all your nerves come back like they never left.

“I - I -“ the harsh sting of rejection is written all over your face and the feeling of you trying to untangle your hands snaps him back to reality. To you.

“Hey, hey, hey, no honey.” He doesn’t let you go, squeezing till his knuckles turn white “I just wanted to make sure I heard you right, because I’ve been wanting to say that to you since the fourth of July.”

You light up for him in a way he’s never seen before and he thinks this is the most beautiful you’ve ever been.

“Really?” You whisper a little shy, your own smile becoming uncontainable.

He lets your hands go to wrap his arms back around your waist, sitting up as he pulls you with him on his lap. Chest to chest with his back against your headboard, you’re even closer to him like this. The new position has him impossibly deep, the tip of his cock kissing your cervix making you keen pretty.

“Yeah, really.” He sighs, wishing he had gotten to say it first.

One arm keeps you close while the other wraps around your back, the warmth of his palm spreading wide across it. The stray hair that you missed more than you realized falls over his forehead and there’s nothing stopping you from pushing it back. Fingernails dragging through his soft hair, making his eyes close until he feels the slow drag of your hips spurring him on.

He doesn’t hesitate to pick up the pace, especially when your arms wrap around his neck and he feels your hardened nipples against chest. The new angle has his thrusts hitting the spot inside of you no one else has ever been able to find, the one you almost didn’t think existed. The tip of him catches it again and again.

The sound of your slick fills the quiet of your room, growing louder with every roll of your hips that connect with his. The light sheen of sweat that coats both of you has you sliding against his thighs, the cool air from the A/C doing nothing as the two of you get lost like this.

Your second orgasm builds at the same time your body starts to slump against his, your muscles screaming at you for a break.

“Getting close, huh?” He asks, with a forehead pressed to yours, lips teasing but never touching with each thrust.

All you can do is nod, your eyes not daring to leave his again. He wouldn’t let you even if you tried, a hazel forest turned night, you never wanted to leave the depths of them.

“So good for me, let go pretty baby, I got you. Let me do all the work.” He picks up his pace, pushing deeper in with every roll of his hips, feeling the way you squeeze around him while your body starts to shake, the high you’d been chasing threatening to take you.

Holding your gaze, the hand on your back slides up the dip of your spine, curling around the back of your neck. He closes the last bit of space, pulling you to his lips. It’s sloppy and sweet, neither one of you trying to deepen it, just enjoying the way you move together like it was supposed to be like this forever.

“Fuck- I love you so much it scares me.” Steve admits when he pulls away, his confession is the last straw that sends you over the edge. Tears stinging the corners of your eyes when you cum hard around him for the second time.

Your fingers tangle his hair, crashing your lips into his with tear stained cheeks and he can feel everything you put inside of it just for him. It’s enough to finally let himself unravel for the first time in years with a loud moan and his face buried in your neck.

It warms deep in your gut when he spills inside of you, his body trembling with the intensity of it all. Your thighs shake clinging to him, both of you too scared to let go in the irrational fear that you’ll just wake up from a really good dream. You can feel the wetness of his tears against your skin, your nails finding their way to his scalp. He hums against you when you kiss his temple, nuzzling deeper until you feel his lips against the underside of your jaw.

The two of you sit there like this in a mess of tangled limbs. Sweet kisses and even sweeter words all spoken just barely above a whisper until he’s soft enough to slide out on his own. He takes his time cleaning you up after with giant hands that treat you like glass.

It’s like muscle memory the way he pulls you to his chest under the covers, like this isn’t your first sleepover. The tip of his nose runs along the length of yours with shining eyes and an even brighter smile, kissing you softly with another whispered “you’re so beautiful”.

Streams of sunshine break through your blinds when the two of you finally settle in, buried deep in his arms surrounded by the lingering scent of pine and him, the sounds of his even breathing are enough for you to give into your heavy lids.

It’s only when you’re on the verge of dreams you’re sure will be filled with him that you hear it:

“I love you, tough girl.”

🌇 -> epilogue

beta’d by @chechelia & dividers by @chechelia

(thank you for everything cece ♥️ and a special thank you to @superblysubpar for betaing the first half of this series, i love you both dearly. & also @carolmunson for always talking to me about our boys, and helping me make this world a little bigger ♥️ ily)

#my writing #all i really want is you series #steve harrington #steve harrington smut #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington slowburn #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington x reader smut #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harringont series

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andvys · 8 months ago

Text

Dancing with our hands tied | S.H.

Chapter four ⭐︎ Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness

Warnings: angst, mentions of death, mentions of loss, allusions to depression, fear of loss, hurt/comfort. reader calls her sister 'twinkie', mentions of abuse, mentions of sex

Pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Summary: As Steve shows up on your doorsteps with an apology, you let him see more of just the you he already knows

Word count: 7.6k+

Author's note: shoutout to my co-writer (shut up, you wrote the dialogues and ideas with me, don't say anything) @hellfire--cult

Series Masterlist ⭐︎ Previous Chapter ⭐︎ Next Chapter

♡

Breathe in. Breathe out.

His heart was pounding, his body was shaking, his eyes wide, blinking rapidly as he stared at the same exact spot. The dried blood on his hands was starting to make him feel sick. It was Eddie’s blood. He hadn’t cleaned it off yet, he was still in shock, still in pain after what they had all gone through.

Eddie made it, he was going to be okay, his injuries were bad and he was losing blood, a lot of blood, but he would be okay. And yet, Steve had felt anything but it.

He almost lost a friend, he almost lost Max, he almost lost… you.

He was sitting down beside you, though he couldn’t bring himself to look up and face you. You looked so… dead. Your skin lost its color, and the bandage around your head was new, yet there was a blood stain already. The machines were beeping beside you, it was the only sound in the room.

And then the door opened, only then did he lift his head to look up, expecting it to be your parents or maybe your sister but it was only Nancy. A cup of coffee from the machine outside in her hand, a sad look still resting on her features.

“Hey,” she whispered as she walked towards him, handing him the cup, “here, I didn’t know what you liked so I just got you a regular coffee.”

They’d been together for over a year and she couldn’t even remember what he liked. Should he even be surprised? No. A small thing like this still managed to hurt him.

“Thanks, Nance,” he mumbled as he tried to give her a smile. He reached for the cup, ignoring the way it felt when his fingers brushed hers, how his heart had fluttered despite her rejection only a few hours back.

She cleared her throat and looked away, sitting down at the end of the bed, she looked at you.

He took a sip of the hot coffee as he leaned back in the chair, he avoided looking at you still, instead he kept his focus on her, the way he always did. There was disbelief, anger and sadness flashing in her eyes as she stared at you.

“I can’t believe that Jason did that to her,” she whispered, “I knew I saw something in his eyes, I just didn’t think that he was this violent.”

Steve nodded.

He too was still in disbelief.

You survived the night in the upside down, you fought off bats, didn’t even bat an eye when one of them got you good, but Jason, you almost didn’t survive him. And Steve felt so much rage as he sat there and thought of the guy that almost murdered you.

“Yeah, me neither.”

There are monsters in different dimensions, in dark worlds, ones that do not know of a different way of living, they exist to kill because it is in their nature. But sometimes there are worse monsters, ones that hide behind kind eyes, ones that are raised into a world that should be more humane but because of them, it never will be. This world will always be just as dark as all the other ones that exist in secret. Jason was one of the monsters that got to you.

This world is a hell just like the ones he and his friends had been dragged into but there’s still kindness left, peace and order. Though, Steve couldn’t help but wonder what this world would have turned into if Vecna had won.

He would have brought endless war and chaos on this planet and people would have followed, they would have turned against each other so quickly. Everything would have crumbled into pieces.

Shivers ran down his spine as he thought of what could’ve happened had they not stopped him. You were a part of it all, you helped in stopping him, had you not been at the Creel house, things could’ve gone sideways so easily.

“Hey,” Steve whispered, clearing his throat. “Thank you… You know, for jumping into the water and saving my ass back there.”

Nancy furrowed her brows, a soft laugh fell from her lips, she looked away from you and turned to face him, shaking her head a little.

“Everyone did.. And, she did first. She jumped first on the boat and she jumped first into the water, then I followed, then Robin and then Eddie.”

His eyes widened, flashed with confusion as he tilted his head at her.

“Huh? Who jumped first?”

Nancy’s blue eyes were filled with confusion, her bangs fell in front of her eyes as she turned back to you, saying your name.

You were the first to jump.

You were the one to go after him first.

You wanted to save him.

How could he throw such horrible words at you after what you had done for him? After risking your life to save him?

He wouldn’t even be able to begin to describe the guilt that kept him up all night. He wanted nothing more than to drive over to your place and apologize, even if he would have to drop to his knees, he would.

But Max had told him that it was better to wait, to give you the time that you need, so that’s what he did. But he was going crazy, the guilt and the regret were eating at him, making him feel worse and worse with each passing second.

Going to work that day had been torture as well, he was nervous and restless, he kept bouncing his knee and tapping his pen against the unmarked crossword in front of him. His mind was forcing him to think of you, of the look in your eyes, of the tears and the hurt. He felt so awful, he felt like King Steve again and he is someone he despises, just the way he despises himself, right this second.

Robin told him to leave before he could even finish his shift, knowing that all he wanted was to set things straight, to make things right with you.

And here he is now, standing on your porch with a racing heart and sweaty palms.

He doesn’t know how you will react to seeing him here, but knowing you, he is certain that you will slam the door in his face – he’d deserve it.

He rang the doorbell once before, but you didn’t open it. He wonders if you saw his car in your driveway already. He rings it again, hoping for you to open, hoping for you to give him a chance so he can… try, try to make it up to you.

He tugs at his hair, feeling more and more stressed the longer it takes you to open. As he stands there, staring at the wooden door, he realizes that it’s only the second time that he stands here, on your porch, on the doorsteps of a big house, just as big as the one he lives in, if not bigger. The inside of your home is just as much of a mystery to him as you are.

Steve knows nothing about you, absolutely nothing and he still opened his mouth and threw words at you that you didn’t deserve – even when you pushed him, even when you were being mean to him, you had never sunk so low just to hurt him, not once.

After he got all this anger off his chest, you were no longer the girl he saw before, you were someone else, someone vulnerable, someone heartbroken and that hurt even more to think about.

He gets pulled out of his thoughts when you finally open the door. He snaps his head up and his eyes meet yours for the first time that day.

He had seen you in a bad state before, after your fight with Jason Carver, after the surgery that saved your life, you looked bad. Your skin was marked with bruises and scars, you had that traumatized look in your eyes that no one dared to even mention. You barely ate or talked for the first few days, whether it was because of the surgery or the trauma that Carver had left you with, you were in a bad, bad state.

But he had never seen you like this before.

Not even the sadness from last night was this strong as the one in your eyes now. They are glassy, a mix of anger and hurt swirling in them. Your lips are puffy just like your eyes, from all the crying. Your hair is messy, a big hoodie that doesn’t even seem to belong to you hanging loosely on your form.

Another pang of guilt hits him at the sight of you.

You stare at each other for a long moment before you try to slam the door shut again, but he jumps forward, pressing his palm against it, “Blondie, please! I just want to talk!”

He hears your sniffle, like you’re trying not to cry again. You stop pushing against the door but you don’t pull away either, you don’t let him see you.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he hears you say.

“I-I just want to apologize, I was an asshole to you and you didn’t deserve it. I messed up.. fuck..” He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling desperate to fix this between you two, “I’m sorry, I’m really fucking sorry, Blondie.”

“Y-You’re forgiven, now please leave..”

The weakness in your voice makes him feel like the worst person alive, knowing that he is the cause of your suffering, right now.

How did you feel last night?

“No,” he begs, shaking his head as though you could see him, “please just let me in, I-I want to talk to you, I want to fix it, please let me fix it.”

You are silent on the other side of the door, you don’t move, you don’t speak. You hesitate. And it feels like forever that he stands here with a pounding heart, willing you to open the door and let him see you, talk to you.

Without a word, you open the door and you step aside, crossing your arms over your chest.

He swallows the lump in his throat, blinking as he takes in the sight of you, once again.

You stare at him with both impatience and annoyance now, wanting to get this over with quickly, while he wants time – time with you.

He had never felt such desperation before, especially now that he sees you.

“There’s nothing to fix, it’s okay, you told me what you–”

He says your name, and he says it so desperately that it shuts you up.

“I won’t leave until I can properly apologize to you.”

You blink, your upper lip twitches and you take a moment, staring at him for what feels like forever until you nod.

“Fine..”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” you whisper.

He takes a deep breath before he steps inside the house he has never been in before, he closes the door behind him and he can’t help but look around, taking in the sight of the big hallway, the wide stairs are on the right side, pictures hang on the wall all the way up to the second floor, there is one that is slightly bigger than the others, and even from afar, he recognizes you – you are no older than twelve in that picture, you wore a wide smile on your face, pigtails that were tied with pink bows at the end, you were wearing a dress and you looked happy in a way he had never seen before. Your big sister was next to you, holding your hand as your parents stood behind you both, the smiles were genuine, even on their faces.

Only as he stares at the picture, does he realize that he has never actually seen your parents before.

“Are your parents home?” He asks without looking at you, still questioning

You hesitate.

“No… I uh, do you want something to drink?” You ask awkwardly, not knowing what else to say or do.

Steve is too busy staring at the picture, trying to remember your parents, wondering why they didn’t come to visit you at the hospital, only your sister came to see you.

When he looks down at you, away from the picture of the girl that once looked so happy, he now sees a broken one, for the first time, he sees past those glares and cold looks.

He runs his fingers through his hair.

“I-I’m sorry… I’m really sorry about all the awful shit I said to you last night, I was angry a-and I let it out on you and you did not deserve this, you really didn’t deserve any of the words I threw at you.”

You blink, and you press your lips together just like you did before, just like you did last night.

“It’s okay–”

“No, I said things that I had no clue about and I never wanna do that again. I just, I want to understand you.. I want to get to know you because.. fuck, I’m realizing how much I’m hurting you.”

Your eyes soften and you genuinely look surprised at his words, eyeing him as you stay silent.

You don’t blame him, he’s not at fault, not entirely. He knows nothing about you or your life, so how could he know that those words would cause so much damage?

You carry guilt, just like he does.

You both kept throwing knives at each other, hitting one target after the other but you were both blindfolded to the pain you were causing to each other.

You shift, pulling at the sleeves of the sweater you are wearing, you close your eyes for one second, taking a deep breath, before you open them again and look up at Steve.

“What do you want to know?” You ask, surprising him with your words.

He expected you to be more stubborn than this, but you seem willing to let him get to know you, the real you.

“Anything you want to give me really.. so… I just want to stop hurting you without me realizing it… I don’t… I need to stop hurting you, Blondie.”

You look at him, really look at him, and you notice that he looks just as bad as you do. His hair is messy – a very unusual sight for him. He has dark circles under his eyes, like he hasn’t slept all night and his eyes are filled with guilt.

With a sigh, you tilt your head into the direction of the living room, motioning him to follow. You turn on the lamp on the dresser, making the room appear lighter, it’s gloomy outside and the rain has been falling all morning, it only just stopped.

“Sit,” you mumble, pointing to the couch, “wait here.”

He nods at you and sits down, he watches you leave the room again and listens to your footsteps as you make your way upstairs. He looks around, there are fewer pictures around here, though still enough for him to get curious about your parents again. There’s a bouquet of fresh flowers on the small table in front of him – Daisies. A throw blanket lays on the other end of the couch, an open book next to it, were you reading when he got here?

It doesn’t take you long to come back into the room.

Steve’s brows furrow a little when he sees the shoebox in your hand, you place it in front of him and take a deep breath as you look into his eyes, pointing to the box.

“Here’s everything you need to know about me.”

His lips part at your words.

“You can look, I’ll tell you anything you want to know and then we can… move past all of this and go back to the way things were before yesterday.”

He blinks, noticing how your shoulders slumped a little, you don’t want to go back to the way things were, and neither does he. He enjoys the bickering but not when it means that he is hurting you.

You break eye contact, and turn around, “I’m gonna get us something to drink, feel free to look..”

And with that, you leave again and Steve, he stares at the box for a while, feeling like he is about to intrude, despite you telling him to open it, to look inside, he still feels like he is intruding. But his curiosity gets the best of him, he removes the lid carefully and puts it down on the table.

Polaroid Pictures.

So many of them. The box is filled, all the way up to the top with pictures of friends and family. The first one that catches his eye is the one of you and Max. He reaches for it, bringing it closer. You are both smiling into the camera, Max is wearing her red sunglasses and you are wearing your heart shaped ones, an ice cream cone in her hand and a can of diet pepsi in yours – he can’t help but smile as he stares at it, you looked so happy.

The date was written under the picture, with a pink sharpie: May 7th 1985.

He places the picture down, reaching for the next one.

This one doesn’t have you on it, only your sister, with a black cat on her lap – Luna, the cat’s name was Luna, he overheard you talking about her to Max. And your sister, he doesn’t remember her actual name, only the nickname you called her when she came to see you at the hospital; Twinkie. He almost laughed at that, the first time he heard it.

The next one is one of you and your dad at the beach, he recognizes him from the picture in the hallway. Both of you were holding surfboards. Your eyes shone with happiness, a bright grin on your face, your dad’s arm was wrapped around your shoulder. In this picture, you looked even happier than in the one from last year. – This one was taken in the summer of 1981, you were only fourteen.

He flinches a little when you place a soda can in front of him, “here, I found some coke in the fridge, figured you’d prefer that.”

He raises his brows and then looks at the pepsi you’re holding in your hand.

“Oh, thanks,” he mumbles, trying to smile.

You nod at him as you sit down beside him, looking at the picture that he’s holding.

“We spent the summer in California, my parents had a summer house in Monterey.”

“Had?”

You nod.

“Yeah,” you whisper as sadness takes over your features, a sadness he hadn’t seen before. It’s not the kind that he had seen last night. It’s one that reminds him of grief, like the one on Max’s face when she mentions Billy.

Oh no.

“My sister sold it last year, I asked her not to but.. for some reason that house gave her more painful memories than this one,” you say as you gesture to the room you sit in, you lean forward, placing your drink on the table as you reach for a picture in the box, “that was.. that was two weeks before they uh.. got into an accident.”

You hand him a picture but he can’t look at it yet, too busy staring at you and at the way you try to hide the tears in your eyes.

Steve’s heart aches in his chest, the guilt eating at him like never before.

“I-I’m so sorry, Blondie,” he whispers as he slowly looks down at the picture, at your parents who both smiled into the camera. That one was also taken in the summer of 1981.

Steve started to feel a little sick as the seconds went by, at each picture that he looked at.

“Twinkie and I took the flight back with our grandparents, we wanted to spend one more week with them in Indianapolis before going back to Hawkins, we didn’t know that this would be the last time we’d ever see them.”

His heart no longer aches at your words, it breaks for you. He didn’t know this, he never knew anything about you. You lost your parents when you were so young, right before your first year in high school.

Now he understands why you had always looked so.. lost.

Why you had been so rude and unapproachable. You pushed people away while you were grieving, you didn’t want anyone to see.

He doesn’t know what to say, no words will give you the comfort that you still clearly need.

“I-I never knew.”

You chuckle as you look at him, still blinking away those tears, “I didn’t want anyone to know, especially not when it just happened.”

“Why not?”

“I’d forever be the girl that lost her parents, and honestly, I’d rather have the whole school hate me than give me pitiful looks.”

“Of course,” he mumbles, shaking his head at you.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he shrugs, running his fingers through his messy hair after he puts the picture down, “you’re just so… I don’t know, it’s just.. classic you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask, not with anger in your voice but with curiosity.

“Well, you’d rather have the whole world hate you than let them see you vulnerable.”

You shake your head at him and his eyes meet yours as he turns back. There is that look in your eyes, the one that reminds him that he doesn’t know anything about you.

“I let some see.”

Right. Some.

He nods and looks away.

He’s surely not one of those that you let see.

When he reaches for the next picture, he freezes, staring at the two little girls with wide eyes. It’s not hard to figure out who the one next to you is. Strawberry blonde hair, the two front teeth way too big for the small face, she was wearing a cheerleader costume – not knowing that she would’ve become cheer captain years later. Chrissy Cunningham.

The girl next to you was Chrissy, you were hugging each other from the side, giggling.

He looks at you, you were wearing a fairy costume, green and pink colors on the dress, and your smile was big. You looked happy.

He shakes his head a little, not understanding what he sees in front of him.

He had never seen you and Chrissy around each other, not even once. In fact, he rarely ever saw you around anyone for that matter. Sometimes he saw you talking to Jonathan, something that gave him more of a reason to dislike you back then, he’d throw the word ‘freaks’ at the two of you whenever he passed by you. The memories of that fill him with guilt and regret, he always wishes that he could turn back time and change things, change the way he acted.

But he never ever saw you even talking to Chrissy.

He slowly turns to face you, holding up the polaroid, “y-you and Chrissy knew each other?”

You only glance at the picture before you look down, “yeah, we were childhood best friends, we grew apart but… we still kept in touch. She’d stay over sometimes.” you explain, not meeting his eyes.

You lost your parents. You lost a friend.

His words from last night echo in his mind and the guilt crashes over him, harder than before.

No words appear before him, what can he say that will make you feel better in the slightest? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

But the monsters have gotten to her without her knowing about them.

That’s what Max had told him. Now he understands. Even more so, when a different picture catches his eye, one that shocks him even more than the previous one.

Only this time, he doesn’t just freeze, he feels a shiver running down his spine and his chest feels weird, all of a sudden. Because the guy in the picture isn’t someone he ever expected you around with.

He takes it, between his thumb and his forefinger, bringing it closer with a shaky hand. He blinks, like he can’t believe what he is seeing, but it’s real, it’s so very real. No amount of blinking will transform the guy into someone else. It’s unmistakably Billy Hargrove in your collection of polaroids, a collection that reminds you of the people you loved. The box of memories that is frozen in time.

Billy is sitting on the hood of his car, a cigarette held between his fingers as he snickered at the camera. It was taken back in 1984.

You were friends with Billy Hargrove?

He can’t even utter a single word, just reaching for the next picture which is just another one of him.

Billy was lying on the grass, probably in your backyard, his eyes were barely open but he was smiling into the camera, with a thumbs up in the air. It’s clear that he was drunk when you took that picture.

He feels your eyes on him, he notices you shifting on the couch as you lean back, still looking at him. He doesn’t turn to face you, not yet. Too curious to find more pictures of Billy, he doesn’t expect the next ones to be more intimate than the ones before.

He stares at the one of you first, it looks as though you have cried, but you are smiling, and the only thing that covered your body was a blanket, while pushing the camera out of your face.

And for a moment, Steve can’t help but think how beautiful you look in this picture with your hair all messy, your exposed skin looking so soft and glowy beneath dim lights, and a smile so content.

But the picture of Billy makes him frown. He was sitting on your bed, shirtless and with a cigarette between his lips, his eyes were red but he was smiling just like you were.

It’s obvious what happened before these pictures were taken and he can’t shake the weird feeling in his gut, the longer he looks at them.

Were you and Billy dating?

Is that why you have been so miserable since last summer? Because he was just another name on the list of people you have lost?

As though you can read his mind, you lean closer to him, reaching for the first picture you ever took of him, the one where he sits on the hood of his car.

“I ran into Billy at Big Buy’s, well, behind the building. He was smoking a cigarette and he was crying. I hadn’t seen him before, it was the weekend before school started again. I approached him and he obviously tried to scare me off, but… fucker didn’t know who he was talking to,” you chuckle. “He was being rude, like really rude, calling me names and trying to get me to leave, I stepped on his foot and he yelped, literally yelped. I left after that but uh, after that, we just started pestering each other at school and then one day, he showed up here, with a bleeding nose and a busted lip, he didn’t know where else to go.”

Steve watches you, the way your eyes are filled with sadness as you look at the pictures in front of you.

“It took him a while but eventually, he opened up to me, about his dad and everything.”

He knows about Billy’s dad, about the abuse, the emotional and physical abuse. Max told him all about it.

“So uh, then that happened,” you murmur, awkwardly, not meeting his eyes as you point to the pictures of the two of you only covered by the sheets.

“Were you two dating?” He asks, and somehow he feels a knot in his stomach at that question.

You scrunch your face up at his words, almost in a way that makes him laugh. You shake your head at him.

“Fuck no. We weren’t even attracted to each other. I just, at that point we were close and I trusted him so uh.. I just wanted to do it with someone that I felt comfortable with and uh, the beer helped too, I guess,” you say with a small smile on your lips.

Steve turns away from you, biting the insides of his cheeks, the knot slowly undoing itself in his belly.

“We never mentioned it again after this, it wasn’t awkward or anything, we were just.. best friends.”

There is no bitterness in your voice, he notices. You had no feelings for Billy, and that for some reason makes his shoulders relax.

He looks back at you when he feels your eyes on him, your smile has fallen.

“He came to my house… you know.. after he beat you up and he was drugged by Max.”

He raises his eyebrows, pursing his lips.

“What?”

“I told him that it was wrong, what he did, that you did the right thing, that I told him time and time to lay off Max. Damn, I even slapped him across his head when he broke her skateboard.”

His eyes soften, and his lip twitches.

“I-I was doing the right thing?”

“You protected Lucas. When I found out how he was treating him I got so mad at him, we got into a fight and I didn’t talk to him for days. I just hated what he did to him and to Max,” you mumble, breaking eye contact when the look in his eyes gets a little too intense for you. You also didn’t like what Billy did to Steve, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Billy he was.. driven by his father’s words and actions. The abuse turned him into that. He was vulnerable with me, but– the anger was still inside of him… bright red.”

As Steve looks back at the pictures, he realizes that he had never seen Billy like this, happy, smiling. He almost looks like a different person. Regret floods through him, he can’t help but wish that he would’ve gotten to know this side of Billy, the one that you knew, maybe things would’ve gone differently if he did, maybe Max wouldn’t have lost her brother.

“I never saw Hargrove like this.”

“No one did,” you shrug, “only me, sometimes Max. I-I tried to change him and his dumb views but Billy was just.. stubborn and angry.” You shake your head, blinking away the tears that welled up in your eyes, you close them and tilt your head down. “A-And then he pushed me away when he.. when he was possessed.”

Steve notices the way your voice got so much more shaky than before, how you seem to be on the verge of tears.

“Max,” he whispers, now understanding why or who the reason was for your friendship.

“Yeah… Max. We received letters, well, notes from Billy,” you mumble.

He watches how you bring your hand up to your face, wiping away the tears with the sleeves before you reach for something in the box, a folded piece of paper that you hand to him.

“He told me to stay away in mine, all messy, but he said that he didn’t hate me, that he could never..”

Steve doesn’t open the note, your words are enough, he doesn’t want to intrude more than he already did, he understands this enough. Billy pushed you away to keep you safe, and he did it with cruel words to keep you away, because he knew that that would work with you.

Steve is at a loss for words.

“And Max, he called her his sister in hers. She didn’t read the note until a few weeks later though.”

Steve’s eyes widen, and it all clicks in his head.

Why Max had been suffering as much as she did in those months after Billy’s death, why she seemed more depressed than ever when the summer was over.

“Is that why you are so close with her? … For Billy?”

“Yeah,” you whisper, nodding. “She’s like a sister to me, I’d do anything for her.”

And you did. You did and you almost gave your life protecting her.

“And I almost lost her too.”

Just like everyone else you loved and cared about.

Steve’s words did more damage than he thought they did, and they echo in his mind, over and over again.

Don’t you ever ask yourself why you don’t have anyone? Why no one bothers to stick around because I’d be really surprised if someone did.

The nausea that fills him almost overwhelms him, it almost knocks the breath out of him. He swallows harshly, and he starts to put the polaroids back into the box, blinking as he looks at each and every one of them again.

His eyes linger on the one of you smiling, the one from the year before. When you found your happiness again when a new friend had stepped into your life.

Steve couldn’t stand Billy Hargrove, he really couldn’t stand him, but his death was cruel and even he didn’t deserve what happened to him and you didn’t deserve to lose another person you cared about.

You lost. You lost people, you lost family, you lost friends and you lost your spark, your happiness. And now he understands why you are the way that you are. Why you keep pushing everyone away, you’re scared to lose again, scared to get too close to someone only to watch them being taken away from you.

As he stares at your smile, he can’t help but frown at the picture in his hand because he will never get to see this. He will never see you like this with him and in this moment, he can’t help but envy those who will.

“You are right.” His voice sounds small, filled with regret, filled with sadness and hurt.

“Huh?”

“I don’t know what loss is. I– shit. I don’t know if I could have handled it like you did.”

You feel your eyes burning at his words and before you can even try to blink your tears away, one falls from your eye.

Steve’s eyes soften when he hears your sniffle, he watches the tear roll down your cheek. He moves without thinking, raising his hand up to your face, he catches the tear with his thumb.

You freeze and your lips part in surprise, his touch giving you butterflies despite what happened yesterday.

His touch feels so foreign on your skin, yet comforting and warm, like something that you have been craving and longing for since always. You slowly turn to face him and only then, does he realize what he did.

His cheeks flush red and his eyes fill with embarrassment, he clears his throat and pulls his hand away from your face, not knowing that this makes you feel empty again.

“I’m sorry too,” you whisper, apologizing to him, for the first time. “Knowing that they’re alive yet still deciding to leave you behind.. that’s not easy either.”

He appreciates your words and his lip twitches, he shrugs, trying to play it off – The pain he always endured by himself and never voiced out, and he won’t start doing it now. It’s done with.

“I have the kids and Robin.”

“Right,” you whisper as you push yourself up, unable to sit here with him any longer, you reach for the box, ignoring the confused look that he gives you, “they take care of you.”

He noticed the sarcastic tone at that last phrase, but he nodded either way.

“Okay uh, time to go, Lego head. I need a shower.”

This time, he can’t help but smile at the nickname.

“Okay, Blondie.”

You lead him back out into the hallway, avoiding the hazel eyes that fill your heart with nothing but sadness and longing.

You feel your heart pounding, your eyes still burning as you feel yourself nearing the edge of yet another breakdown this day.

“Hey,” Steve whispers, taking a hold of your arm he pulls you back so he can see your face again.

“Yeah?”

Your eyes show him so much and now he can’t help but wonder if these emotions have always been there and he was just too blind to see them or if you only showed them now.

“I’m really sorry about everything,” he whispers.

Your lips twitch, though not into a smile.

“Me too, Steve.”

He keeps holding your arm, ignoring the wish to hold you instead.

“Are we.. good?”

His question makes you laugh and you squint your eyes.

“When have we ever been good?”

He rolls his eyes, though he can’t help but smile. He brings his left hand up, running his fingers through his messy hair.

There is that look in his eyes, the one that shows you that he is thinking about something, deeply.

“Do I still call you Blondie…?” He asks as he realizes that he had always called you by a name that must have taken you back to a time where you had felt the saddest, the loneliest. You were fifteen when you had bleached your hair and tried out new styles, all the time. He never knew that it was something that you needed to do, to distract yourself from the grief. You had no friends, no one to talk to, no one to be with. You only had that – box dye, makeup and new clothes every week.

Oh.

You swallow the lump in your throat, digging your nails into your palm. He knows.

“I would be mad if you didn’t. It’s weird when you say my name, Harrington.”

He chuckles, shaking his head a little.

“Yeah yeah, Blondie, keep acting like you don’t like it.”

You smile, though it doesn’t reach your eyes and he can see it.”

“I guess we’re still Lego head and Blondie then, huh?” He asks, snorting.

“Always.”

He licks his lips, nodding.

“Always,” he chuckles as he lets go of you and walks towards the door, he opens it, but he doesn’t step out, right away. He looks back at you, one more time, “you know, I didn’t mean a single thing that I said to you, last night. And I’ll do anything for you to believe me. B-But, I think that you’re amazing and the people that had the chance to get to know you… the real you were really fucking lucky.”

He leaves you with those words, closes the door and walks away from you.

And you stare at the front door for what feels like forever before you finally break into tears. You were pushing away your pain and your sadness but the fight from last night, his presence and his words have made it all so much worse again.

You bury your face in your hands as you sit down on the stairs, letting tears fall that you haven’t felt in ages but instead of relief, you feel frustration running through you. You didn’t miss this, you didn’t miss this for a single second.

There is a knock on the front door and it fills you with annoyance when you expect it to be Steve again.

Wiping your tears with anger, you rip open the door, expecting to see him again but instead it’s Max on your doorstep. Max and Eddie.

You blink, looking between them, back and forth.

Max’s blue eyes fill with worry as she looks into your glassy eyes.

Eddie smiles at you, despite matching the look in her eyes.

“Hey, you didn’t let me come in yesterday so I assumed that if I brought Red here you would let us in,” he says, still smiling cheekily. “We brought movies and got your favorite snacks,” he points to Max’s backpack.

You don’t know what comes over you, but the kind smile on his face, of the guy that has been trying desperately to be your friend, makes you want to continue crying. You don’t know how, but you keep your tears at bay.

You know that they can see that you were crying, but it brings you comfort to know that neither of them will push you to talk about anything.

“Hey guys,” you try to put on your best smile as you greet them, you step aside without another word.

Eddie’s smile widens, he bumps his shoulder into Max.

“Hey,” she smiles, still eying you worriedly, “are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you nod, placing your hand on her shoulder, “I’m okay.”

She doesn’t look convinced but she doesn’t push you to talk, she doesn’t ask any more questions either. She just walks straight into the living room.

“She feels at home, huh?” Eddie chuckles.

“It’s basically her second home so yeah,” you laugh.

His brown eyes take you in, his lips twitch but his smile doesn’t fall. He looks like he wants to say something but he doesn’t speak up.

You both follow Max into the living room, expecting her to be unpacking the snacks but instead she stands there frozen in place as she stares at the box of polaroids.

Your eyes widen and in panic, you rush over to the coffee table, wanting to close the box.

“S-Shit, I’m sorry–”

“No!” She grabs your hand before you reach for the lid. “I-It’s okay, I’m okay. A-Are you though?” She asks as she looks away from the pictures of Billy.

Eddie looks between you two, furrowing his brows as he takes a step closer. He looks into the box and his eyes widen instantly.

“Holy shit, is that–”

“Eddie don’t,” Max warns him.

You shake your head, “no.. no, it’s okay, Max.”

Eddie doesn’t even look at Max or you, he is staring at the picture of her brother, in shock.

“I-I promise, it’s okay,” you mumble, pinching the bridge of your nose as you feel your heart starting to pound again, “I just.. I need some fresh air, I’ll be right back.”

You leave the room, rushing out of the house. You sit down on the porch steps, taking a deep breath. The earthy smell that lingers after the rain comforts you a little.

You knew you wouldn’t get more than a minute to yourself, because only moments later, the door opens. You know that it’s Eddie, you hear the flick of his lighter, and seconds later, the smell of smoke fills the air, mixing with the smell of the after rain.

You hear his footsteps and then he sits down next to you. Without a word, he offers you the cigarette. You take it, placing it between your lips, you take a drag and blow out the smoke.

Eddie doesn’t talk, he just wants you to know that he is here because he wants to be, he wants to be your friend but you don’t want to lose him too.

“I lost a lot of people I cared about, Eddie.. Every single one of them, my parents, Chrissy, Billy.. I almost lost Max and you too,” You trail off, taking another drag before you hand him back the cigarette. “And I can’t lose any more people, Eds.”

He stares at you with his big sad eyes that you can’t bring yourself to look into for longer than two seconds.

“I feel like I’m fucking cursed or something. Everything that I touch immediately rots. That’s why I just.. I keep pushing you away because I already lost a best friend.. so just please.”

He sees the way you’re blinking, the way your hands are shaking just like your voice is. He knows what you’re asking of him and he only shakes his head in response, moving closer to you as he feels his own eyes burning.

You’re his friend, a friend that he doesn’t want to lose either.

“Nah.. It will take a whole swarm of demobats to rip me away from you. And even then, hey, I will still survive, already did once,” he tries to crack a joke but only makes you tear up even more.

You finally turn to face him, looking into the kind eyes of your friend before your eyes move down to his neck, to the bandaid that covers his scar.

“But–”

“No buts. You are not cursed. You are not responsible for anything that happened to those people. It’s okay to feel sad, it’s okay to hurt, it’s okay to love, Darling. Let yourself do it,” he says, smiling as he throws his cigarette on the pavement before he wraps his arms around you, bringing you closer, “and stop pushing me away, please.”

Your bottom lip trembles and the tears flow like a waterfall, you stop fighting it, you stop fighting him and you let him pull you into his arms, closing your eyes as you lay your head on his chest, letting yourself fall into the hug that you so desperately need.

“Let it out, sweets.”

The soothing tone in his voice makes you cry even harder, your tears seep through his shirt but he doesn’t mind, he rubs your back and holds you. Your heart is crying, your brain is banging, your breaths are cut short thanks to your sobs, but it’s something you needed. And even through all of that, you are feeling so relieved, so light at each sob that rips out of your throat.

And when you feel Max’s hand in yours, her head on your shoulder as Eddie still holds you, you know that everything will be okay, that you will be okay. You might not need anything else for now… these two people right here are making you feel fuller than you ever felt in the past year.

You won’t lose them.

You won’t have to live without them.

They will be more than just a short time.

♡

tagging friends and mutuals:

@prettyboyeddiemunson @taintedcigs @mysticmunson @wroteclassicaly @sherrylyn628 @livosssblog

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington angst #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fluff #stranger things angst

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