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cxrrodedcoffin · 6 months ago

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✟ 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐃𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫 ✟

Kinktober fic 2: Charlie Mayhew ✟ Blasphemy + Church Sex

𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠!

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: dom!charlie, priest!charlie (duh), aspiring nun!reader, tattooed!reader, religious themes (obvi), catholicism, extremely blasphemous activities, mentions of mental health facilities and sobriety, mild religious trauma mention, baptism, submersion in holy water, semi-public sex, oral sex (fem receiving), penetrative sex, unprotected sex, sex in water + in a church, fem + afab reader, breath play, hickeys, nipple play, cream pie, mentions of scars, use of “father” as an honorific in both a professional context and sexual context.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 3.7k

When you first visited the church to inquire about taking your vows as a nun, you weren’t sure what to expect. It had been so long since the last time you’d set foot in a church, but the moment you crossed that holy threshold a childhood full of memories came rushing back to you.

The church was not a place you ever thought you’d consider your home again once you reached adolescence, but now, after a decade of poor decisions and enough casual sex to put an end to global inceldom if you so wished, you found yourself back in a house of worship for the first time since childhood.

A six month-long stint in an in-patient psychiatric treatment center had been the catalyst, your first extended period of time being both sober and celibate since your teen years forcing you to face some hard truths about the way you’d been living your life.

You decided to see if there was any ounce of the faith you blindly held as a child still left somewhere deep in your subconscious, seeking out the nearest convent you could only a few weeks after your discharge from the facility.

Each step you took down the arched corridor to the church administrator’s office brought back flashes of the past, both bitter and sweet, the kaleidoscope of colors fanning in from the stained glass windows drawing a familiar sense of melancholy you had half-expected to reappear.

One thing you certainly were not expecting out of this visit was to meet one Father Charlie Mayhew. The curve of his jaw was the first thing you caught a glimpse of as he stepped out of the administrator’s office, the striking momentary glimpse of his side profile nearly knocking the wind out of you.

You squeaked out a faint “Sorry!” as you took a step back, your eyes locking with his. His cheeks creased in a charming smile, the black fabric of his clerical shirt pulling taut over his muscular forearm as he held the office door open for you. Your mind finally registered the flash of his white tab collar at his neck, prompting you to straighten up as a sign of respect.

“Thank you, Father-”

“Mayhew.” He finished, giving you a gentle nod as you returned the smile and slipped past him through the door frame. It was a small encounter, mere seconds of interaction, and yet you couldn’t shake the image of his smile from your mind for the rest of the day.

That was six months ago, and in the time since, every interaction you’d had with him had only worsened your attraction to him. He was equal parts charismatic and enigmatic, sharing fascinating details of his hobbies and interests and how they brought him closer to God, yet remaining at an arm’s length, keeping parts of himself closed off from you as well as the rest of the clergy.

Today was the day you were to begin your official commitment to your religious journey, ready to begin the years-long journey to take your vows. There was one final requirement you had to complete, needing to amend the oversight your parents had made in never getting around to having you baptized as a child.

You’d spent the majority of the day working on your studies, doing everything you could to distract yourself from the nerves growing in your tummy over your baptism ceremony. You weren’t nervous about the ceremony itself, it was a private ritual to be held before only God, you, and the priest performing it at an hour late enough that most of the convent would be fast asleep. The only problem was that the priest performing your baptism was none other than the man you’d become desperate for, Father Mayhew.

You had completed your post-dinner stroll around the campus, the sun set well below the horizon as the moon rose high in the sky. It was almost time, and when you returned to your dormitory, you stripped from your robes and hopped into a cold shower the moment the door shut behind you. Cleanliness was next to Godliness afterall, and the heat in your cheeks caused by your wandering mind needed to be quelled before facing the man at the center of your wildest fantasies.

When you had finally calmed yourself to a manageable level you stepped out of the shower, quickly wicking the water droplets off of your skin before pulling the flowy cotton nightgown over your bare body. You didn’t bother with undergarments, knowing they’d be just another layer of soaking wet fabric you’d have to peel from your shivering body in likely less than an hour.

You made your way down the hallway of the dormitory, your simple black ballet flats clicking gently against the sleek tile floor. After what felt like forever, you finally arrived at the connecting door of the chappel, pausing momentarily to gather your nerves one last time. The large wooden door creaked as you slowly pushed it open, moonlight shining through the tall stained glass portraits lining the walls of the hall. The flicker of candlelight pulled your eye to the baptismal font, flames dancing in the reflection of the pool.

Charlie stood tall, his hands folded behind his back as you slowly closed the space between you, stopping when there remained only a foot of space.

“Good evening, Father.” You greeted, barely above a whisper. He returned the greeting and you couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes lingered on your damp hair. You realized it was the first time he’d seen it completely uncovered since that first day you met six months ago, and you had to fight the urge to attempt to cover yourself. You were supposed to be in as natural of a state as possible in order to properly cover yourself in God’s protection, that was why you agreed to a full immersion baptism in the first place. There was no need to hide yourself from him tonight.

“Let’s begin.” He extended his hand to you, giving a reassuring smile as he guided you to the edge of the basin, taking each step into the lukewarm water. When you reached the center of the small pool, you observed the way the water level barely reached his knee but was fully up to your upper thigh, making your height difference glaringly obvious. You shivered, not only from the slight temperature of the holy water around you, but also the intimidation that his stature brought as he looked down at you.

“Cross your arms over your chest, please.” He instructed, taking a step closer to you so his torso was mere millimeters from being flush with yours, his right arm wrapping around your waist to cradle your lower back just above your tailbone.

“I’m going to do a short reading, then guide you to fall back into the water. You’ll only be under for a second, and I’ll pull you back out.” His voice was low, dulcet tones pairing beautifully with the atmosphere the dim lighting of the room created and you felt that familiar sin rising between your thighs, unable to remove your gaze from his immaculately sculpted facial features. You nodded in understanding, holding your arms across your heaving chest, hoping they disguised the evidence of your rapid heart rate and increasingly labored breaths.

“The Lord will cleanse the baptized from their impurities and idols, and give them a new heart and spirit. Through faith in Christ's death, God makes the baptized one with himself. May our sister lead a life worthy of her vocation, and preserve the unity of the Spirit.” He chanted, executing the sign of the cross before his free hand wrapped behind your shoulder to cradle you, exchanging a slight nod before you shut your eyes and allowed your body to fall back, holy water engulfing every inch of you for only a moment.

His strong arms lifted you out back out of the water, helping you find your footing on shaky knees, all the while your eyes remained shut. You hadn’t anticipated how sheer your shroud would become once it had taken on water, the lightweight linen clinging to every curve and contour of your body. Your whole frame shivered, painfully aware of the fact that your nipples were glaringly pert against the soaked fabric.

“You can open your eyes.” His hands remained around your waist, squeezing slightly with the lighthearted words as he waited for your response to finally being cleansed and fully protected.

Charlie couldn’t deny that his natural desires were running rampant at the sight of you, all wet and shivering on trembling legs like a fawn who’d slipped through the ice of a frozen lake, barely making it back to shore. Your nightgown was exceedingly translucent as it clung to your most intimate parts, the dark outline of your tattoos being what shocked him the most despite the allure of your breasts.

He hadn’t anticipated a girl with a face as angelic as yours could possibly be hiding markings such as these beneath the long sleeves he’d only ever seen you in. But then again, he doubted you’d ever anticipate the deep scars that adorned his back either. You weren’t the girl who had chosen to get those tattoos anymore, but he wondered if the girl you were now still had such a strong penchant for pain.

When you finally opened your eyes, ready to face the embarrassment of your exposed chest, you were surprised to find Father Mathew’s gaze not fixated on your breast, but rather your arms. You were so used to your tattoos, they barely even registered in your mind when you saw your reflection in the mirror each morning, so you had completely overlooked the fact that no one in the parish knew about them.

“I-I was a very different person when I got them.” You stumbled over your words, feeling a strong sense of insecurity about the way you’d dishonored your body in the eyes of the church.

“I find them to be an exquisite decoration of the temple that is your body, you know I don’t believe in the enforcement of many of the strict rules of the old church. You don’t have to justify yourself to me.” His right hand left your hip, finding your arm and lifting it to his mouth, plush lips placing firm kisses over the prominent vein at the base of your wrist before making his way further up, following the trail of your tattoos.

You mewled like a frightened kitten, so incredibly touch starved after a year of celibacy that you thought you might cum just from the heat of his mouth against your sensitive skin. As he pushed the sopping wet fabric of the bell sleeve further up your arm, your eyes fluttered shut, knees going weak again. You couldn’t believe he was touching you this way, even just chaste kisses along your limbs forcing the heat in your core to reach a boiling point. You couldn’t do this.

“Father, stop.” You tried to be as stern as possible but it came out as nothing more than a halfhearted sigh of defeat, your eyes pulled into a desperate plead. You wanted more, needed him so deep inside you that he might fill the God-shaped hole in your heart, but you were preparing to take a vow. That was the whole point of this, the very reason you were here with him in the first place.

“Now that you’ve been baptized, you are cleansed of your past sins and will be forgiven for those you commit going forward. We are and always will be sinners.” The look in his eyes was nothing but carnal, all reservations you held melting away with his insight.

“Fuck it.” You replied, a bit of the old you peeking through for a split second. Hearing that filthy word leave your cherubic lips set something off in him, causing him to drop your wrist and use his strong grip to pull you by your waist until you were completely flush with him, his mouth quickly finding yours in a kiss so forceful you wondered if your lip would bruise.

His hands were everywhere, squeezing and groping at your tender flesh through the fabric, almost fighting with the garment as it clung to your skin. You quickly grabbed for the hem still floating against your thighs in the water, peeling it as high up as you could before being forced to break away from him to pull it over your head. The sheer weight of the soaked gown was almost too much for you to lift, your arms shaking as you attempted to move it over your head.

Charlie took the bunched fabric from you, lifting it the rest of the way so you were finally free, completely nude in front of his still fully dressed state. You felt more vulnerable than ever before, so exposed in such a holy place, all the while he still held all of his modesty beneath his sleek black clerical shirt and slacks, barely saturated by the low water level.

“Good lord, you’re straight out of a renaissance painting.” He eyed you up and down, admiring every detail of your trembling body before his eyes settled on your breasts. His mouth began to water, the need to have his mouth on you again overwhelming his every thought. He closed the space between you once more, pushing you until your back hit the side of the pool.

“Up.” He mumbled against your neck, slender fingers gripping into the flesh of your hips as you jumped, his firm hold guiding your ass up onto the ledge, your feet dangling in the water. He pushed your thighs apart and pulled you to the very edge, just teetering on the slick tile. He took a step back, ripping the tab collar from his neck and starting to undo the buttons of his shirt. You instinctively began to close your legs, his eyes boring into you like a beam of sunlight.

“Keep them open.” His tone was more stern, hand reaching out to push your knee to its previous position.

“You hold heaven’s gate between your thighs, angel. Give me a chance to take it all in.” His voice was like smoked honey, smooth and intoxicating simultaneously, his nimble fingers expertly undoing the last of the buttons on his shirt before peeling it off of his toned arms. He made quick work of undoing his slacks, pushing them along with his underwear down his thighs, his hard cock slapping against his lower stomach before bobbing teasingly between his muscular thigh.

You had to fight your jaw from dropping at the sight, his cock just as mesmerizing as the rest of him, all flushed pink and dripping, his shaft taking a slight curve to the right, prominent vein running down the entire length of the left side, and the blushed tip glistening with precum. He nearly laughed at the look on your face, pushing the sound down in his throat to prevent any misinterpretation of his amusement.

He was enamored by you, this anomaly of a woman, equal parts innocent and sinful, all wrapped up in a package he couldn’t resist any longer. He sank to his knees, creating a wave in the water around him as he crawled those last few steps to you, still barely submerged up to his waist.

He placed an open-mouthed kiss to your inner thigh, sucking hungrily on the plush skin in a trail leading straight to your pussy, blushed purple and red bruises blooming in his wake.

When he reached your cunt, he took a deep breath and exhaled a slow stream of air over your labia, observing the way your breath hitched and your stomach muscles tightened, reactive like a born again virgin.

He gave no warning, practically diving into your folds, tongue lapping hungrily at the nectar dripping from your entrance, like Samson drinking from the rock basin after nearly dying of thirst.

His large hands held your thighs apart with a determination you’d never felt, the pads of his manicured fingers digging into your skin hard enough to bruise. Your hands moved to his perfectly quaffed hair, undoing the gelled style with the run of your dainty fingers through it, finding the tresses at the nape of his neck and pushing his face closer still to your cunt.

He was relentless, alternating in broad strokes and pointed flicks against your clit until your thighs shook, teetering dangerously close to both the edge of the pool and your first outsourced orgasm in over a year.

He replaced his right hand with his shoulder against your thigh to keep you spread wide open, his index and middle fingers broaching your entrance only to be quickly wrapped in your tight warmth, your neglected walls clinging to any stimulation they could get. One, two, three curls of his fingers against the velvety soft patch inside of you had you riding his face without inhibition, your cries of pleasure dulled only by your own hand clamped over your open mouth.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had cum that quickly, his actions drawing an unceremoniously fast reaction from you and you almost felt betrayed by your own body, unable to control your own sober actions for the first time in God knows how long.

“Need to feel your perfect cunt around my cock.” He panted through labored breaths as he finally pulled away from your overly sensitive clit, the bottom half of his face glistening just the same as your cunt.

He rose to his feet, taking you by the hips again and helping you back into the water, a chill running up your spine at the change in temperature. Your feet had barely touched the tile at the bottom before he was hauling you to the steps, gently pushing down on your shoulder to sit on the middle step.

“I want to see your angelic face while I ruin you.” He took your ankles in his grip, forcing your legs up to your chest as he knelt on the step below yours, aligning the head of his shaft with your weeping entrance. He brought his right hand up to the side of your face, thumb brushing along your jawline before dipping lower, his fingers wrapping firmly around your throat as he entered you fully with a single thrust. You gasped, the corners of your mouth pulling into a devilish smile at the sudden show of control, reveling in the feeling of his thick cock stretching your tight walls.

The holy water around you splashed with every rock of your connected hips, surrounding the place you were intertwined most intimately. Charlie dipped his head down to your chest, taking advantage of the way your back arched away from the edge of the step to take your pert nipple in his mouth, sucking gently at first until it devolved into hungry grazes of teeth and flicks of his expertly trained tongue. His grip on your throat tightened, his forearm pressing down on your other breast as he braced himself against the tile with his free hand.

You threw your head back, crying out in soft whimpers as he moaned against your breast, the upward angle of his thrusts causing the head of his cock to repeatedly hit the soft, sensitive spot deep inside of you, bringing you hurtling toward another orgasm.

“Come on, angel, show God how good this carnal sin feels.” He pulled away from your nipple just long enough to groan out the most blasphemous sentence you’d ever heard in your life, and you almost screamed from how hard he thrust up into you, swearing he had hit your cervix.

“Please, Father!” You moaned, pawing at his back, feeling the raised skin of his scars against your gentle fingertips. You made a mental note to inquire about them after, too lost in the feeling of him drawing you closer and closer to your orgasm to ask questions in the moment.

He rose back up from your chest, an animalistic open-mouth smirk on his face as he squeezed the sides of your neck tighter still, the lack of blood flow to your brain giving you a high you hadn’t quite experienced before. His eyes burned into yours, locked in a gaze you weren’t sure you’d ever be able to break as he gave a few more brutal thrusts into your aching cunt, finally reaching that euphoria you’d been craving from the moment you met him.

“Oh, God!” You cried out, watching the flicker of satisfaction in his eyes as you clamped down around him, forcing him to slow his pace inside of you. His hips began to falter, your cunt milking him relentlessly until the coil snapped, spilling his warm load deep inside of you. Watching the way the vein in his temple strained as he groaned above you gave you the same sense of satisfaction, knowing you could bring him to such a vulnerable state before the God you both served.

When you’d both caught your breath he pulled out of you, milky white cum swirling into the water. You’d almost feel ashamed if it weren’t for the afterglow you resided in, head still spinning from the deliciously pleasurable acts you’d just participated in.

“I have to drain the pool and refill it for tomorrow’s morning Mass, and you need to be back in your dorm before Mother Superior wakes up.” He stated matter-of-factly as he took your hand and helped you out of the pool, still shivering in the cold night air.

“Can we do this again?” You questioned meekly, apprehension setting in as you felt him pulling away from you.

“I’ll come by the dorms tomorrow during your lunch hour.” He squeezed your hand, giving a final reassuring smile as he handed you your now partially dried gown, nodding toward the door before you exchanged goodnights. You spent the rest of your night laying in your bed, slipping in and out of sleep, too distracted by your anticipation for what was to come to ever slip into a proper slumber.

—

tagging my maywhores <3 (i just came up with that what do we think??): @xxbimbobunnyxx @babygorewhore

please comment or message me if you’d like to be tagged in my charlie mayhew fics going forward!!

#father charlie mayhew #dividers by cxrrodedcoffin #charlie mayhew #grotesquerie #nicholas chavez #nicholas alexander chavez #charlie mayhew smut #father charlie x reader #father charlie smut #father charlie mayhew smut #mine #my writing #my dividers #1k

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danidrabbles · 5 months ago

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Cardinal

Pairing: Logan Howlett ("Worst" Wolverine) x f!reader

Rating: Explicit (for themes and smut).

Word count: 16.6k

Summary: At the edge of the world, someone from another keeps you from stepping off.

Tags/Warnings (Please, read the warnings!!): Post-Deadpool & Wolverine, female reader (female anatomy etc + 2 mentions of hair long enough to fall into your eyes), strangers-to-lovers, depression, suicidal ideations, suicide attempt and mentions thereof, addiction, drinking alcohol, drugs (mentioned not used), panic attacks, sobriety meetings, anxiety, recovery, co-dependency vibes, sprinkles of soulmateism, explicit smut (oral and unprotected PIV), happy ending (yay!!). If I forgot anything, please let me know!

Notes: Deadpool and Wolverine re-triggered my X-Men obsession and what started as a means to write some smut actually became this idea about two broken people who shouldn't even have met in the first place finding each other. There's a lot of me in this story, more than there's ever been I think. I'm sorry for this glimpse into my head, and I'm sorry if this isn't as Reader-insert as it should be, but... I'm not that sorry, you know. Huge thanks to @javier-pena , for not only reading this over and fixing so many embarrassing mistakes, but also for saying she'd read this even if it was 20k words and always believing in my abilities as a writer, even when I sometimes didn't.

If you want to read the smut as a standalone, you can! Just CTRL + F (or search in page) for 'Logan reaches for' and read away.

THE LOOKOUT

With closed eyes, you inhale the cool, December air, before looking down at your feet. Here, at the edge of the lookout, the grass has been trampled. You imagine friends taking bets on who dares get closest to the edge, lovers making memories, families taking pictures. It’s strangely soothing that maybe you’re not the first to stand here to do this.

Far below your feet, the water laps at the rocks. The force of it depends on the weather and tonight it’s violent, with big splashes and crashing sounds. The wind tugs at your coat, pulling you towards the water as if to help you along, making you look up again as you hold your balance. In front of you, the line of the horizon is dark but visible – it would have been impossible to make out if the moon hadn’t been as bright as it is.

It’s like you’re looking at the edge of the world.

During the weeks that fall had made way for winter, you scoped the place out a couple times. The first time you stood at this cliff’s edge, the place it took you to mentally scared you so much that you got back into your car and broke down in tears. The next couple times, things became more and more serious, as your life crumbled around you, and your feelings numbed, and nothing seemed to matter anymore.

Something had crept in while you weren’t looking, settling somewhere behind your eyes and spreading out to make a home behind your ribs, slowly but surely changing you. And once you realized it, it was already too late. It had grown large, became jilted and jealous, like it wanted all of you. It pushed away everyone and everything you held dear, until it was just you and that… something.

Especially during the quiet of the night, the lookout became soothing, a strange sense of familiarity enveloping you each time you were here. It was addictive and pretty soon, it became a daily routine to visit. But lately it’s been losing its shine, your feelings here dulling and darkening too. You’re exhausted, fed up, tired of giving it more of you.

Today you want it to be your last time here.

You’ve had countless hours to contemplate what it would be like, imagined – all but romanticised – how the cold water would paralyse your limbs if the impact wouldn't do the trick. You read somewhere that it’s apparently like falling asleep when the water finally fills your lungs. You’ll be gone, but the thing will be too.

The thought makes your eyes fill with tears, but not from fear. All you feel is relief, like it’s right, how it’s supposed to be. It makes you smile despite everything, and–

“Hey, stop!”

A voice behind you thunders through the silence and makes you shriek into the night, dirt toppling over the edge of the lookout below the shuffle of your foot. A string of curses follows, heavy footfalls behind you indicating that the intruder is approaching you.

“Fuck off!�� you throw over your shoulder, your voice a roar with how it’s amplified by the wind.

After, your throat closes up, fighting the angry tears over the fact that you can’t even fucking kill yourself in peace. Never have you seen anyone here at night, never. What you hate even more is how it breaks your momentum. The haze that was surrounding you is pierced, and your body’s baser instincts kick in. Adrenaline suddenly pumps through your veins, making your legs tremble, your heart hammer, your body scream for you to step back from where you’re standing. Your anger, however, has you nailed to the floor.

You almost miss the much softer, “Hey,” as a man steps into your peripheral vision. You pretend like you don’t hear him, or see him – you simply pretend he isn’t there, focussing on getting back into your previous mindset.

But then he takes his hands out of his pockets.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” you warn, hating how your voice comes out trembling – weak.

“Easy.” He holds his hands up in surrender. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

You stand there together for what feels like hours. You will yourself to not let it affect you, setting your jaw to keep your teeth from clattering on account of the cold, allow the wind to blow your hair into your eyes without brushing it away. Even when it begins to rain, you don’t move, don’t blink even once more than you need to. From the corner of your eye you watch the man shove his hands back in the pockets of the brown leather jacket he’s wearing, and you quietly celebrate that your surroundings are fazing him more than they are you.

“You know–” he begins.

“I’m not really looking for a conversation.”

“Me neither,” he immediately counters, suddenly impatient, “so I’ll get right to it: You planning on jumping? Because if you think the water’s gonna be nice to you, you’ve got that wrong. You’ll end up in there feeling everything, that fall isn’t gonna do shit.”

Having expected a gentle approach, his bluntness and his tone knock the wind out of you. You cock your jaw, the shame creeping up your body the first bit of warmth you’ve felt in a while. Your cold fingers ball to fists as you will yourself not to care. Yes, his words and the way he's shatteríng your expectations with them sting, but you don’t even know this guy–

“And there’s nothing fuckin’ peaceful about it, it’s just panic. Right before you go too far…” He raises a fist and holds it against the center of his chest, “...there’s this burning right here that’s hell.”

“And what makes you such an expert?” you finally spit out.

“Died like that a couple times,” he says without waiting a beat.

The casual statement of something so bizarre beats your resolve before you know it, your head turning in his direction. “‘A couple times’?”

“I, uh…” You watch him hesitate, the moonlight illuminating the tick of his jaw, the bob of his throat as he swallows, the way his chest falls as he sighs, “Let’s just say I can’t die.”

Before you can stop yourself, you snort at that. “That must fucking suck.”

He barks out a laugh, “Got that right.” It startles you when his head suddenly turns to you, when he looks you in the eye for the first time. “But trust me, being down there isn’t much better.”

There’s something in the way he looks at you that makes you waver. You can’t really place it, or decipher why it makes you want to open up to him. Maybe it’s because you’re freezing and it’s your body betraying you, tricking you into moving so you can generate some warmth, moving your lips to keep them from going blue. Or maybe it’s simply because he’s a stranger and it’s so much easier to be honest when there are no consequences.

“Things just feel so…,” you begin, voice shaky. Every possible way to end the sentence crosses your mind, seemingly all wrong, before you settle on what’s closest to how you feel, “endless.”

To your relief, he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t tell you to give it time that it will get better, or any of the other bullshit you’ve heard from all the other people that had been in your life and left a long time ago. You do find something else in the shift in his eyes, something you haven’t encountered before.

Understanding.

It might be worse. If anything, it’s overwhelming, making your eyes dart away from his as you sniff.

The wind still tugs at you, the waves still hit the rocks, but your moment seems to have passed. It’s a sobering conclusion, a twisted version of wrong place, wrong time. Or maybe it was him who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, the outcome is the same.

You take a step back, and another, but it takes considerable effort; you hadn’t taken your numb legs into consideration. You stumble, falling back on the dewy, cold grass, not quick enough to catch yourself on your hands. With a groan, you move to sit upright.

“Shit. Hey, you still with me?” The stranger kneels next to you, fingers lifting your chin to look into your eyes. “Jesus, you’re fucking freezing.”

“No s-sh-hit,” you retort.

He sighs, offering you a hand so he can pull you up. “C’mon, let's get you warmed up.”

– – – – –

Logan.

That’s his name.

It’s how he introduced himself, anyway, after he suggested you follow him. To his credit, he did offer to drive you, but you didn’t want to leave your car in the parking lot of the lookout. Logan waited 15 minutes for you while you put the blowers on the highest, warmest setting and waited for the feeling to return to your limbs. After, his brown truck led the way here – here being some hole in the wall, 24 hour diner. You could have not followed, but the drive was kind of mesmerizing; the night seemed darker than usual, and Logan’s tail lights served as a lighthouse.

Outside, the diner is all Christmas lights and flashing signs, but the interior is like something straight out of Twin Peaks; booths to the left, red barstools to the right, a girl that looks too pretty and too young to be here standing behind the counter. There were two other patrons you spotted along the way as Logan led you to one of the back booths. Once seated, Logan studied the pamphlets–or pretended to, more like, because as soon as the waitress came up he ordered two whiskeys and nothing else.

Between then and now, as you nursed your drink sip by careful sip, you hadn’t learned much more about him other than that he could knock back a glass of whiskey like he got paid to do so. And in truth, you like it this way; preferring silent company, the droning of the machinery behind the counter and the quiet hum of a song on the jukebox next to the entrance. The white noise helps to distract from the white noise in your head. Settling back into the leather cushions of the booth, you let some warmth seep back into your body. Opposite you, Logan does the same.

Some moments after you finish your drink, one of the waitresses walks up to your booth to ask you about a refill, like she’s asked Logan twice now. You’re handing her the glass when Logan says, “She’s had enough.”

Your head whips from her to him. “Excuse me?”

He doesn’t say anything, and from the corner of your eye, you see the girl leave. With your glass. Logan’s is on his lips, his eyes observing you over the rim, looking at you like he– Dammit. You sigh deeply, a sense of anger filling you. You don’t need this, least of all from him. When you stand from the booth, those eyes follow you, making you voice your observations,

“Quit pitying me, Logan.”

“I’m not,” he says before taking another sip. “You still have to drive.”

You quirk an eyebrow at him. “And you don’t?”

Logan shrugs. “It’s different for me.”

Anger is still prevalent in your voice when you ask, “Well, let me guess, it’s another case of ‘I died like that a couple times’?”

He hums.

“And how does that work?”

“Regenerative ability,” he sighs. Another sip before he elaborates, “X-Gene.”

The admission makes you plop back down in your seat. Well, that explains things – he’s a mutant. You’re not familiar with that world, but you know enough to know it meant that. It isn’t like you couldn’t have deduced it before, but truthfully, you kind of thought he was bullshiting you as part of some tactic. Now, his actions and words make more sense: He really knows what it’s like to... That’s why he had that look on his face. Suddenly, you see him in a different light–

“Now who’s pitying who, hmm?” Logan asks, giving you a thin-lipped smile that doesn't reach his eyes as he sets his glass down on the table.

“I’m not, I’m just… processing. So this...” you lift his glass, swirl the contents around, “...doesn’t even affect you?”

“It does. For a few seconds.” He plucks the glass back from your hand, and throws the whiskey back with one gulp. His pupils dilate, pushing the hazel of his irises out until his eyes are almost black for a second, two… before going back to normal. “But if I chugged the bottle, I’d pass out.”

“Well, so would I,” you say with a chuckle. “So maybe we’re not that different after all.”

Just as the corner of his mouth lifts, your smile falls, because… it isn’t true; you’re very different. You’re pretty sure you don’t have what it takes to do what he did tonight. To care enough to do it. To sit with a stranger and hear them bitch and moan about being denied a drink. A feeling creeps up on you, sticky and uncomfortable, like you’ve overstayed your welcome—burdened him.

“I should head home,” you say, standing again.

Lightning fast, Logan’s hand shoots out to close around your wrist. “That really where you’re going?”

“Yes,” you reply. When you pull your hand back, he doesn’t let up. You fish your car key out of your pocket with your free hand, voice tighter when you say, “Let me go.”

“Just promise me something,” he says, eyes as dark as they’d been earlier, yet his drink has gone untouched since. “Don’t go back there again.”

“Not making promises I can’t keep,” you say, giving him a wry smile. “To strangers, but least of all to myself.”

He sighs, and lets you pull yourself from his hold.

THE CRAVING

New Years comes and goes, and you quickly discover that it was foolish superstition to think that it might change how you feel.

You find yourself in some club, a drink in each hand. You hate to admit it, but Logan’s words scared you out of your original idea and the only time you can bear to think of how to move on from it is when alcohol soothes the embarrassing grief of your shattered, macabre fantasy. It’s not a good way to deal with things, but it works.

There’s a part of you that welcomes feeling anything at all, but that… something inside you is busy trying to squash it.

It’s getting somewhere, because you have no idea how much you’ve already had to drink, but you’re buzzing pleasantly. Adding to it, you knock both drinks back, slamming the glasses on the bar before spinning around and facing the crowd of dancing bodies. The music sucks, the dance floor is cramped, you’re tired… The truth is that you’re too old for this, but it’s easy to escape here, surrounded by strangers. You clumsily drag the back of your hand over your wet mouth, push your sweaty hair from your eyes, and join them.

The past couple weeks, you found yourself craving something. Contact. And here is where you can get your fill; a hand on your waist, lips on your ear, the music too loud and yourself too drunk to even comprehend what’s being said, but never more. You want them to get close, but never too close.

After some time – could be an hour, could be 10 minutes – you make your way to the bathroom. It’s quieter here, the dulled thump of the music making the time you spend there feel slow and syrupy.

When you exit the stall, you bump into someone.

It’s a man. The dark hood over his head obscures his eyes, but you can’t help but think he’s looking right at you when a bright, almost unnatural grin appears on his face. It draws you in like a magnet, more so when he says, “Need something to take the edge off?”

Curiously, you watch as he opens his palm, long fingers unfurling slowly until they reveal a small plastic bag in his hand.

“First time’s on the house.”

You have no idea what it is exactly, but your eyes widen. This is new territory for you, and all the possibilities it opens up are suddenly invading your mind. As if on auto-pilot, you reach for the place where you keep your money, the sound of the door opening completely lost on you.

A hand closes around your bicep, pulling you aside with a quick yank of an arm.

“She isn’t interested, pal.”

It’s another man, who effortlessly tucks you half behind him. Before you can protest beyond an indignant huff, there’s a sound, like a sword being unsheathed, and you catch a flash of red, and of knives. Frowning, you try to get a better look, but your view is obscured by the man’s shoulder. The hooded man seems undeterred, regarding the weapons with the same sickening grin, before leaving the bathroom, muttering something that you don’t understand on the way out. The sword sound returns, the man twists around, and–

“Logan?” you slur in disbelief.

Logan doesn’t reply, instead takes hold of your arm again, making you follow him out of the bathroom. There he stops the two of you to murmur something to a woman wearing the same clothes as him, before tugging you along again. You’re stumbling after him on account of his pace and the iron grip he has on you as he leads you to the back door. He pushes it open with enough force to make the hinges creak, a gust of wind blowing in your face. It’s a contrast to go from the crowded, sweaty club to the silent, cold back-alley where tall brick walls and employee cars cage you in. You shake your arm and Logan’s grip loosens – another and he lets you go.

“How did you even find–” You cut yourself off, eyes widening, “Oh, my god, are you following me?”

Logan scoffs, narrowing his eyes. “Oh, please, do you think I have time to follow you around all day?”

“You’re here, aren’t you? You and your fucking…,” you gesture wildly into the air at him, “savior complex.”

“I work here,” he growls. When you give him a look, he adds, “It’s temporary. ‘Sides, me and my savior complex are the reason that creep isn’t selling god knows what to you in that bathroom right now!” His voice is a roar, echoing off the walls around you.

“Maybe I wanted that creep to sell god knows what to me in that bathroom,” you say, doing a poor impression of his voice, before turning and walking away from him.

Logan sighs. “Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving.”

“And then what, huh?”

“I don’t fucking know, Logan,” you say, twisting around to face him again, arms spread out by your side. “Figure out a new way out of this.”

“Yeah? Third time’s the charm?”

“Why do you even care, huh? You don’t even know me,” you say. Almost immediately, you let out a bitter laugh as your own words hit your ears, a sad realization dawning on you. “But I guess that makes two of us.”

It’s not like you expected him to, but he doesn’t answer.

“You know I used to like myself? I used to smile, I used to have friends, I used to be more sober than drunk. But this feeling, it takes… everything.” You raise a fist, hold it to the center of your chest. “It takes everything I love, pushes away everyone I love, including myself. It eats me up, and wants more and more, until I’m something I’m not and until I’m so far away from that version of myself, my old self, that it feels easier to just fucking–” you pause with a wet gasp for air.

“Destroy yourself,” Logan finishes for you.

Your chest heaves, an unshed tear clings to your lash line. “Exactly.”

He takes a step closer to you. “Let me take you home,” he says, voice gentle.

You should hate the implications of that gentleness, but you don’t. In your drunk state of mind, it’s easier to admit it’s nice that someone understands, that someone’s there to stop you from going too far…

Tomorrow, when some of your pragmatism returns, you’ll deny this embarrassing thought ever occurred; if relying on other people worked, it would have worked a long time ago, and you wouldn’t be standing here with him. If you’re lucky, you might even forget this entirely, and wake up with a hangover that you’ll enjoy a little too much because it feels like a punishment–

“What about your job?” you ask with a sniff.

Logan’s palm finds the space between your shoulder blades with a gentle push, the warmth of it seeping in through your clothes, and he leads you to his truck. “They’ll manage without me.”

– – – – –

When you wake, your world is tilted sideways, a blanket is pulled up to your chin and there's a pillow under your head. They’re not your own; the blanket is itchy and the pillow’s too small. When you try to move your legs, they stick uncomfortably to the material below them, and you realize you’re on a leather couch. You squint at the light that comes in from a window across from you–

“Mornin’, sunshine.”

The voice startles you, eyes shifting to focus on the source: A man lying on his front on the floor, chin in his hands as he kicks his feet back and forth in the air.

“Wish I could say it’s a pleasure, but it hasn’t been very pleasurable. You’ve been barfing up the place since the moment you stepped inside. Kept poor Al up all night. Her ears are sensitive,” he adds with a whisper. “But don’t worry, she left about an hour ago.”

“Who are you?” you slur, blinking against the light.

“Logan.” He sighs when you frown. “I know, not how you remember. This is what I look like during the day; blessed with incredible good looks at night and, well,” he gestures at his face that’s covered in scars, "this, during the day. Bit of a reverse Princess Fiona situation–”

“Cut it out, Wade,” comes the sharp protest from next to you. With considerable effort, you turn your head and see the actual Logan, slumped back in a recliner next to the couch, rubbing some sleep out of his eyes while motioning for the other man to go.

“I’ll let you two talk.” Wade winks.

Logan stands when Wade does, walking from your field of view. Your head is scrambling to catch up, trying to piece together what happened last night, but only coming up with bits and pieces.

“How are you feeling?” Logan asks as he makes his way back to you, handing you a glass of water.

You flinch when the front door closes behind Wade with a bang, before taking the glass from Logan and taking a few thankful sips. “Like shit.”

“Yeah,” is all he says as he sits back down.

“What–”

“You fell asleep in the car. Didn’t know where to take you, figured the couch was the safest place.”

“Oh…,” you say, voice small.

You try not to think about being so wasted that you had to be carried out of Logan’s car, or about what Wade said earlier about the things that happened as soon as you stepped inside the apartment. During your silence, Logan’s fingers fiddle with the armrest, before his hand balls into a fist, and it unlocks something in your hazy memory.

“I have the weirdest memory of you having… a sword?”

You watch as Logan’s lips purse in amusement. His tongue rolls around in his mouth, seemingly contemplating something, before saying, “You probably saw these.” He holds up his fist, flexing his forearm before three blades shoot from between his knuckles like claws, accompanied by a shing!

“Jesus fucking Christ,” you startle, spilling some water on your blanket. Your head spins with your hangover and the bizarity of the situation. If it didn’t sound so much like how it did in your memory, you might think you were still drunk.

There’s so many things you want to ask, your intrigue almost winning out over your hangover until the sharp start of a headache gives you pause. Instead, you take another sip of water before rubbing your temple.

“It’s a story for another time,” Logan says, like he can read your mind, and you want to ask him that, too. His claws retreat, the cuts they leave between his knuckles immediately smoothing over until they’re gone. “I gotta go check if I still have a job.”

The words make you feel warm all over, the memory of your back-alley conversation coming back in full force. The thought of the things you admitted to him and that you put him in the position that he had to risk his job for you make you feel even warmer, your gaze no doubt laced with embarrassment and worry when you look at him.

“‘S not your fault,” Logan assures, standing and fishing his car key from the pocket of his jeans. “You don’t have to rush but um, make sure you close the door behind you on the way out. Gets jammed sometimes.”

“Yeah, okay,” you say, watching as he makes his way to the front door.

He takes a final glance at you over his shoulder, then leaves, accompanied by a bang.

THE PUZZLE

It takes you a little over a week to muster up the courage to go back. Admittedly, your courage is aided by another, foreign feeling. You don’t have a name for it yet, or maybe you’re afraid to call it what it is, but somewhere along the week, you became consumed with the thought that feeling like you did wasn’t all there was. That there is something beyond this.

Perhaps foreign wasn’t the right way to describe it, because it is something you’ve felt before – it’s just been long dormant. The last time, it lasted about a month before it all came crashing down, and you swore you wouldn’t fall for it again, but you can’t help it. The feeling’s too sweet, and the idea that there’s still some baser instinct willing you to keep fighting for yourself makes you feel like the sun is shining on you.

So yeah, maybe you’re just having one of your good weeks, where the thing sleeps – quiet while its presence still simmers. But you figured now’s your chance to take advantage of its unguarded moment.

Sneaking into the building is surprisingly easy. It helps that it isn’t anything fancy. You wanted to forego the humiliation of ringing the bell and him not letting you in, but standing in front of the door now, panting after climbing three flights of stairs, you don’t know if this is much better.

Just when you’re about to knock, the door swings open. In the opening, Logan has one arm in his jacket, head twisted to watch the other that’s caught halfway in the sleeve. It takes him almost bumping into you to realize your presence. “Shit, sorry.” He steadies himself with a hand on your arm, the touch leaving you as fast as it appeared.

“Hi,” you breathe, taking a step back to give him a little more space.

He nods in greeting. “Brings you here?”

It takes you a moment, caught off guard by him skipping over pleasantries and cutting right to the chase, despite your best intentions; it’s not that he’s ever been any different in his interactions with you.

“I came by because I, um, owe you an apology, for my behavior at your workplace and for, you know…,” you trail off, gesturing at the door.

“Barfing up the place!” comes a shout from inside the apartment.

Logan’s eyes close with a sigh, before he steps into the hallway with you and closes the door with a bang.

“That,” you finish sheepishly. “I’m really sorry.”

He nods in acknowledgement.

“I also wanted to ask, um, if you want to come with me to get a coffee. To make it up to you.”

Logan just looks at you, the leather of his jacket creaking as he crosses his thick arms in front of his chest. He raises an eyebrow at you expectantly. You hate how he somehow can see right through you, how he makes you elaborate, and honest.

“I want to quit drinking,” you say, fiddling with the sleeve of your coat. “It doesn’t make me better, and when I don’t do it I finally feel a little… normal. Maybe coffee’s technically just as bad, but it’s the only thing that’s currently acting like… like a reverse gateway drink? And I feel like you’re the only person I know that might get that feeling of–”

“I do,” Logan cuts in, voice softer than before – assuring. His arms drop from where they’re crossed and he starts making his way to the stairs. “Let’s go.”

– – – – –

You don’t know this coffee place, and from the way he looks around and shifts around in a chair that might be a bit too small for him, neither does Logan. Main reason you picked it is because the booths remind you a little too much of a bar – and you like the tall windows. The coffee’s pretty decent.

“Did they fire you?” you ask, picking at a loose corner of one of the laminated menus before setting it back in its holder.

“Boss commended me for helping a customer, but not so much for leaving before my shift ended,” Logan replies. “Got off with a warning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Said that already, and I accepted,” he says. When he takes a sip of the coffee, he winces. “No need to worry about it anymore, okay? I would do it again.”

You nod, folding your hands around the warm cup in front of you.

“But, um, Wade hasn’t shut up about… the incident.” There’s a different tone to his voice, like he’s trying to lighten the mood. “His words.”

“You know, I kind of get the feeling that Wade doesn’t shut up about a lot of things.” It comes out a little meaner than you intend, but it makes Logan laugh and finally slump back in his chair a little.

“You’re a quick study.”

Offering him a short smile in return, you continue with the other real reason you came to see him, before you chicken out. “I also stopped by because I wanted to, uh… because I realized I never really… I never… I never thanked you, for um… And–”

With a shake of his head, Logan sits upright. “Y’don’t–”

To your horror, your eyes brim with tears, “Logan, I’m supposed to be dead–”

“So am I,” he counters. He lets the words hang between the two of you for a moment, until you look at him, before he continues, “I’ve been where you are. Past it, even.”

You don’t know what to say to that, if the lump in your throat will even permit you to speak, but it’s impossible to look away from him. Logan’s gaze is piercing, frown ever present, but it’s not from anger. Instead, it’s like he’s searching for something, the right thing, to say. The silence doesn’t bother you; if anything, it makes his words seem more genuine when he does speak,

“I had someone who was annoying enough to not give up on me when I could really use it. If getting a coffee with you that’s, frankly…,” he makes a face as he pauses, “a horrible excuse for a coffee, helps… I can do that. I want to do that.”

The corner of your mouth lifts as you blink away your tears. “Was it Wade?”

Logan lets out a chuckle, and it’s honest – fond. “Yeah.”

“Figured,” you say. “How did you meet him?”

Across from you, Logan stills. You swallow thickly, adjusting yourself in your chair. It’s an innocent question, but maybe it isn’t something he’d like to revisit right now. Logan’s mug squeaks when he grips it tighter, and he looks at you with something like defeat–

It makes you deflate. This must be what you looked like the night you met…

There’s no way to have prepared for what he tells you next: That he came from another timeline about three months ago, that he and Wade saved this one from being destroyed and almost got killed in the process, that he has nothing to go back to after the death of his team, so he stayed here.

There’s hesitation in it, like he isn’t telling you the whole story, though you don’t comment on it. He doesn’t owe you anything and you’re too busy putting all the pieces in the Logan-shaped puzzle in your mind together; his words and actions towards you are starting to make more and more sense.

“It’s a very brave thing the two of you did,” you say when he’s finished.

“Hmm, it was all Wade,” Logan muses. “He did it all for the people he cares about.”

“I’m sure you would have done the same if you were in his place.”

At that, he lets out a dry laugh with absolutely no joy behind it. “Do me a favor, don’t put me on a pedestal.”

You frown, but before you can comment, he stands. A knot forms in your stomach, worried you’ve offended him, but he clears up the uncertainty immediately.

“I gotta go but um, Wade’s friends–,” he stops himself, correcting, “our friends are coming over to watch a movie, next week, 7:30. I have no idea what crap they’re going to be watching but… it’s nice. It’ll be nice to be around good people.” Logan doesn’t wait for your answer, simply takes his wallet from his pocket and leaves enough money to cover the bill.

“Wait, no, I invited you,” you protest. “I should–”

“You can pay next time.”

When you nod, he says his goodbyes with a jerk of his head and makes his way to the door.

– – – – –

You see Logan two more times for coffee that week. He never lets you pay.

THE PANTRY

“–but it’s the best one!” Wade protests, DVD in hand.

“They fly a car into space, Wade,” Laura sighs.

“Launched off a jet,” he corrects. Like it helps.

You cover your mouth with the back of your hand, hiding the smile that appears at everyone’s babbling. Unbeknownst to you, you had found yourself invited to a double feature night, with Wade as the self proclaimed DVDJ. The credits had barely started rolling on A Good Day To Die Hard, or Wade had another DVD at the ready. It was met with the same amount of enthusiasm as when he presented the first.

It hadn’t been easy to make yourself go to this tonight. On your way, you’d thought of turning around at almost every step. Of course, that was all before you knew it would be this fun, and that you’d be relieved you hadn’t canceled last minute. Even meeting everyone hadn’t been as bad as you feared.

There’s Peter, Wade’s friend. Ellie, another one of Wade’s friends. Yukio, Ellie’s girlfriend. Laura, Logan’s daughter. Mary Puppins, Wade’s small, disgusting but adorable dog, who had greeted you with equal amounts saliva and enthusiasm, before falling asleep next to the TV, completely unbothered by the commotion. Unlike Althea, Logan and Wade’s blind roommate, who had taken one listen to the gaggle of voices and left. The elusive Vanessa, Wade’s ex-but-we-might-get-back-together you heard about a couple times, wasn’t there.

Logan had been right, it was nice to be surrounded by good people. Especially good people who were… unconventional. It made joining them less complicated, less performative, and as the evening progressed it made you a participant instead of a silent observer. Wade even called you, “good for the group dynamic,” and it made you beam with pride.

“Don’t they have like, rockets attached to the car?” Ellie questions, to which Yukio’s eyebrows knit together.

“Exactly!” Wade exclaims, mistaking her confusion for enthusiasm. “Citizen Kane wishes.”

There’s more grumbling from everyone when Wade pops the DVD into the player, and he grumbles something back about how Logan would back him up if he wasn’t in the bathroom because he, quote unquote, goes way back with some of these dudes.

You’re pretty sure he’s the only one who knows what he’s even talking about.

An empty bowl of popcorn rests in your lap, and as you put it on the table, you notice how sticky and greasy your fingers and palms are. When the opening credits begin to roll, you get up to wash your hands, assuring Wade he doesn’t need to pause the movie before you go.

The apartment’s small, so it isn’t far to the kitchen, but it’s nice to stretch your legs. You can still hear the sounds from movie night; tell-tale action movie music, comments of disbelief and Wade shutting them down. They’re more faint, though, more so when you turn the tap on and wash your hands.

Right as you’re finished, you hear a dull thud. You turn the water off, head tilted and at attention while you dry your hands. There’s another sound, like a muffled groan. It’s coming from the pantry, you realize, noting that the door is slightly ajar. There’s a shing! sound followed by a distressed grunt, and before you know it you’re walking over, wrapping your fingers around the door to pull it open–

You’re not sure what it was you were expecting, but it wasn’t this. Logan’s sitting on the floor, uncharacteristically small, curled up against one of the walls. His chest is heaving, shoulders all but going up to his ears with how he’s trying to draw in breaths. Next to him, his fist is balled against the hardwood, claws buried in the floor.

Fuck.

Dropping to your knees, you wedge yourself between his. “It’s okay, you’re having a panic attack,” you explain, your hands landing on his shoulders with a light shake. “You need to breathe. I’ll help you, just look at me.”

Logan’s head stays tipped down, a deep, rattling breath sailing from his mouth as he curls further in on himself.

“Hey!” you say sharply, cupping his jaw with two hands and tilting his face up, “Look at me.”

Logan’s eyes are wet when they meet yours, moving frantically as they search your face, tears spilling over when he blinks. Something changes in his gaze, like he finally sees it’s you, and his bottom lip begins to tremble. His hand lifts from where it’s buried in the floor, clutching onto your wrist like a lifeline.

“Breathe,” you instruct, trying not to flinch at the sharp claws in front of you. He doesn’t catch on immediately, so you overdo the purse of your lips when you blow out a breath before exaggerating an inhale through your nose, showing him what to do. It starts off shaky, a fresh set of tears falling from Logan’s eyes as he does as you instruct, but after a couple of times you find a rhythm together. The silver between his knuckles slowly disappears. “There you go, good job. Keep going.”

You sit like that, until the wild shift of his eyes stops, his pulse steadies beneath your fingertips, and eventually his eyes close with a deep exhale. His grip on you loosens and you take it as your cue to let go of him, slumping back against the wall opposite him with a sigh of relief. The both of you catch your breath, sitting together in silence until Logan breaks it.

“Came outta nowhere… suddenly I was back there… letting them down.”

“It caught you off guard, it happens–”

“I let them get killed,” he says, voice raw. “They were like– They were my family, they trusted me to be there for them and I… I was too caught up in my own bullshit. I should have been with them, I should be dead with them.”

Logan’s tears still come, but the words almost sound reverent; as if saying them out loud just to punish himself with his own shortcomings is a balm. He’s talking about his team from there, you realize, and something clicks. All this time, you thought this was about him being unable to die due to his mutation, but it’s more than that. It’s shame, remorse, grief, survivor’s guilt, all wrapped into one.

It’s the final piece of your mind puzzle that makes his picture appear.

“How– How can I ever atone for that?” he asks. “How can I ever–”

“Logan, you can't change your past,” you interrupt carefully. “You made your choices and they made theirs, and you honored them by– by…stepping up to the task, by doing what you did with Wade.”

“What if it wasn’t enough?”

“What if it was?” you counter. Your hand finds his knee with a squeeze, before adding, “You did what they would have done. And now you… you need to allow yourself to honor their memory without feeling like you have to destroy yourself to do it. You deserve that.”

Logan blinks at you, eyes still glossy. He looks devastated yet calmer than before, like the emotion is still there, but displaced. For a good while, you sit with him like that while his sniffles lessen and his breathing returns to normal… until there’s a loud explosion coming from the living room. It’s followed by cheers and hollers, and you’re both suddenly reminded of where you are.

“C’mon,” you say, patting Logan’s knee before using it as leverage to haul yourself up with a groan. You give him room by holding the door open for him. “Better get back before we miss the good stuff.”

Still on the floor, Logan exhales heavily. “Think this was the good stuff.”

– – – – –

Three weeks later, on your way to your third movie night, you catch Wade and Vanessa making out in the building hallway.

It stops you dead in your tracks and makes for an awkward meeting with Wade’s mystery woman, who is beautiful but very direct when she asks you what the fuck you’re staring at. Wade certainly has a type when it comes to the company he keeps… He quickly shushes the situation, introducing the two of you, and it immediately makes Vanessa’s expression twist into recognition.

“Nice to meet you,” she says, followed by an apologetic smile.

You respond in kind.

When Wade tugs at her jacket impatiently, they brush past you and make their way to the exit. “See you around!” she throws over her shoulder.

A grin forms on your lips, realizing what you just witnessed, and you race up the stairs. With Wade gone, you’re not sure if there will be a movie, but at least you have gossip to share with your friends.

THE MEETING

April flies by, rolls into May, and thing’s are… okay.

With some help, you find a therapist. It’s good, she’s good, but it’s difficult to be confronted with things that are painful, week after week, and to keep reminding yourself it’s all part of the process you’re going through.

Last week, after a particularly difficult session, you’d left her office being auto-piloted by dark feelings, like they knew exactly when to strike. You had turned corners and crossed streets, wandering as you stewed on everything you’d discussed – like your mind was playing a constant loop of your most painful moments. It was a small miracle you had heard your phone, and that you had the presence of mind to thumb the green button.

You’d answered without saying a word.

“Got any plans?” Logan had asked on the other side of the line.

“No,” you’d replied, coming back to yourself a little bit at the sound of his voice.

“Al’s making her meatballs – she and Wade can’t agree on if they’re famous or infamous. Thought you might like to come. If it tastes like shit, we’ll order in.”

You’d hummed, managing to ask, “What time?”

It had stayed quiet on the other end, and that’s how you’d known he was onto you, could picture the pinch of his brows, his lips forming a thin line. For the first time, you welcomed it—wanted so badly to reach through the phone, shake his shoulders, ask for his help and accept it, like he had done with you weeks ago.

“Sounds to me like now might be good.”

“Yeah,” you had agreed, the constricting tightness in your chest easing up. “Yeah, I’ll be there soon.” You’d released a shuddering breath, ear still pressed to the phone as you took in your surroundings before you auto-piloted yourself to a different destination.

“Logan?”

“Still here.”

“Thank you for calling.”

“‘course. Get here soon, I’ll stay on the phone.”

The afternoon had ended with Logan and yourself allowing Althea to boss you around in the small apartment’s kitchen, rolling meatballs, sharing stories — Althea’s recollection of something that happened to her in her 20s that involved her stealing a police horse while wearing nothing but a thong, made you cry from laughing.

The meatballs were the best you ever had, though you couldn’t be sure if they actually were, or if it was just the taste of the moment that was better than anything had been that day.

Sometime after dinner, Logan had nudged your shoulder to show you a little plastic chip. He flashed it at you long enough that you could read the words one month, before he pocketed it again. Then he suggested you come with him next week.

“I thought it was bullshit too, but it helps,” he’d explained. “Figured I couldn’t continue to drink whatever that stuff is you call coffee to… avoid my problems.”

You contemplated his suggestion. Things were going well for you in that regard, but your therapist had also recommended you go to one of these things, even if it was just for the community aspect of it. It just made it so… official. Your problems, but most of all, your recovery. You weren’t good at keeping promises to yourself, and this felt like a big commitment. Not to mention the speeches and other people’s problems...

But as Logan told you more about it, the location, how it had been for him, you sensed something else between the lines: He wasn’t just asking for you, he was also asking for himself. Maybe… this was his way of telling you he needed some support.

That’s how you find yourself inside a high school gymnasium a week later. It’s as gloomy as you expected. Slick floors, gray fold-out chairs set in neat rows, buzzing lights in a high ceiling, and a slightly raised podium with a whiteboard that reads a welcome message in capital letters.

Unsure of what to do, you follow Logan as he weaves through the crowd to find a seat. As you do, it strikes you that there’s a pretty even distribution of people, with many genders, ages and lifestyles represented. Eventually you take a seat; not quite in the back, but definitely not in the front.

The whole thing goes by in a blur, but where you expected to be overwhelmed, you feel… connected. Here you are, surrounded by people with different backgrounds, different lives, but all their stories have something you can relate to. Where you thought addiction was the common denominator, it’s actually the desire to turn your lives around that unites you the most.

“Before we end the night I want to circle back to last week, when we spoke about goals, or things we want to work towards,” says the woman leading the meeting – you’re ashamed to admit you already forgot her name. “Does anyone want to share something about that?”

It takes a lot to hide your surprise when Logan raises his hand.

“Logan! Come on up!” She sounds as surprised as you feel, beckoning him to her.

The plastic chair he sits on creaks when he stands and his boots squeak against the shiny floor as he does as she asks. He looks so out of place on a podium; both larger than life behind the lectern and lost to the space of the stage. He clears his throat as he retrieves a paper from his pocket and unfolds it while his eyes scan the room until they land on yours. You give him a little nod of encouragement, and it kicks him into gear.

“Not good at this stuff, so I’m going to keep it brief,” he starts.

It earns him a chuckle or two from the other attendees, and you can tell he doesn’t expect it when he looks up from his paper. Your hands clasp together with nerves as you watch him divide his weight from one leg to another, before focussing his gaze back down.

“My life has changed a lot over the past few months. For the first time in a long time, it’s not all bad. Coming here has been good. I’m starting to feel more like I did before–”

He stops his monotonous droning with a frustrated sigh, stuffing the piece of paper in his pocket and sounding considerably more lively after.

“I have people I care about again, and um, it scares me. ‘Cause I don’t want to let them down, and every day I feel like I will because of all of my… past shit.” He pauses and swallows hard before he continues, “They show me so much kindness and understanding, that… that even though it’s fucking hard, I want to be able to see myself the way they see me. And allow them to care about me without feeling like I… have to earn it all the time, without destroying myself to do it.”

You exhale for what feels like the first time in an eternity.

“So, that’s what I’m currently working on.” Logan sighs. “That’s it. Thank you.”

A small applause follows, and you quickly unclasp your hands to join in.

Your palms hurt after.

– – – – –

“It was really nice, what you said in there,” you say, fingers caressing a little plastic chip of your own that you keep safe in your coat pocket. You haven’t felt proud of yourself in a while, but tonight you do.

The evening is nice, the setting sun bathing the city in hues of orange and pink. Your pace is slow and comfortable, your arm occasionally brushing Logan’s when you make room for all the other pedestrians. You didn’t plan on him walking you home, but he insisted and you enjoy the company – it makes you a little sad when you turn onto your street.

Logan scoffs in reply.

“I’m being serious,” you say, knocking your elbow against his arm on purpose now. “It was nice for people to hear a guy like you say those things. I’m proud of you.”

You swear he blushes. “A guy like me, huh?” he asks, almost amused.

It’s your turn to scoff. “You know what I mean.”

“A mutant?” He looks at you from the corner of his eye.

“No,” you say, because it’s not what you meant, but the hint of seriousness in his voice and the fact he’s not entirely wrong make you track back. “Well, maybe that, too, but I meant someone who looks like you, allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Sets a nice example.”

Logan doesn’t shoot your comments down like you expect. Instead, he seems to consider your words, maybe he even silently accepts the compliment. “Think you have some things to say that could set a nice example, too.”

“Maybe next time.”

During the comfortable silence that follows, you’re reminded of something you’ve been considering for weeks now. You hadn’t paid much attention to it since that night, but as you worked through the feelings that got you to that point, the question kept coming back.

“I’ve been wondering something,” you begin. “The night we met... What were you doing at the lookout?”

Logan glances at you, contemplating the question. “When I had just, um, gotten here, it wasn’t always easy to adjust, you know? So I went to all these places that I knew from back there, to ground myself, to see that things may be different, but that they’re not that different.”

“You went there on your side?”

He hums.

“By yourself?”

He hums again.

“Did you…” You hesitate to finish your sentence, both because you’re not sure if you have any right to ask and because you’ve reached your building. You stop walking, and Logan follows your lead.

“No, no, no, I… I can’t explain it, it’s just one of those places I was always drawn to,” Logan says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans with a shrug. His brows furrow suddenly, his mind seemingly lost in something before his eyes flick back to yours. “Think it took me coming over here to find reason in it.”

It’s a thought that’s equal parts sad and lovely.

The silence that follows hangs between you, thick with something you can’t place, but Logan doesn’t look away from you, eyes scanning your face before they land back on yours. You can’t help thinking that maybe this is how he does it, and the question comes out before you can help it,

“Is mind reading part of the X-Gene thing?”

His eyes widen – amusement or surprise, you can’t say. “It can be.”

“Can you do it?”

“No,” he says. “And it’s for the best, fucking hurts when you can’t control it.” Then the start of a smile begins to form on his lips. “‘sides, I don’t know if I would have a lot of… consideration for people’s boundaries.”

It makes you chuckle. “Right. Not to mention some minds are probably a lot – imagine reading Wade’s mind.”

“Hurts to even imagine,” Logan says, gesturing for you to be quiet as he winces, but a smile breaks through anyway. When your shared laughter dies down, he jerks his chin at the building behind you, “This your place?”

“Wha–?” Going home long forgotten in the moment, you glance over your shoulder. “Oh! Yes.”

“All right,” he nods. “See you next week?”

“Definitely,” you reply.

“Oh,” Logan says right before you turn around. “Bring coffee? You owe me.”

You make a face at him. “You don’t have to– I’ll get you something else, I know you don’t like it.”

“I like it when I drink it with you.”

It’s incredibly hard to hide your grin. “Okay, I’ll bring coffee. See you next week, Logan.”

“See you.”

He lingers, watching you climb the steps, waiting until the door opens after you turn your key in the lock. It’s not until you close the door, when you can only make out his silhouette through the patterned glass window in it, that he walks off.

THE SUMMER

Walking back from a very successful job interview, you find yourself on your way to your friends with a big, plastic bottle of coke under your arm. It’s a warm feeling to know that you’ll soon have a job that suits you and that you have people to celebrate with; you look forward to seeing them and sharing this with them.

You’re invited inside with open arms, tight hugs, exclaimed praise and congratulations, and it makes you giddy, a feeling so foreign that you wish you could bottle it up right this instant. With a grin, you shake the Coca Cola bottle, before twisting the cap off. You let out an excited shout as you watch the foam shoot out from the top, bubbles and dark liquid pulsing down the neck of the bottle as cheers surround you.

It’s not champagne, but Althea grumbles about the soda ruining her floors, Wade gets mismatched glasses from the cupboard, and Logan clinks his glass to yours and tells you he’s proud of you.

It’s way better than champagne.

– – – – –

You’re in serious, desperate need of a new place…

The August heat is relentless, and the entire building’s AC isn’t working. It’s with considerable effort that you manage to make your way to your friends’ place, the promise of a constant, cold stream of wind the only thing that keeps you going. But when the front door opens, it isn’t with the welcoming, cool waft of air you were hoping for. Instead, there’s no temperature change, only Wade in his underwear.

“No.” It’s a little embarrassing how you literally pout, but these are desperate times. “Here, too?”

“If it wasn’t this fucking hot I’d be offended by that greeting.” He sighs. “Come in.”

Slightly defeated, you shuffle past the threshold, while Wade lingers. Mary Puppins trots by, an ice-pack wrapped in a towel secured on her back, and you catch a glimpse of Logan exiting the bedroom. He’s in black shorts and a ribbed, sleeveless shirt, and with a desperate groan, he lets himself fall back into the recliner in the living room.

“Tried everything, there’s no fixing that fucking thing.”

Wade makes a face, “Listen, I know what you’re thinking: Wade’s in his underwear, Logan’s emerging from the bedroom… But we didn’t fuck, it’s not that kind of st–”

“Who are you talking to?” you ask from behind him, glancing over his shoulder into the empty hallway.

“No one–You!” The door closes with a bang.

Confused, you walk further into the apartment. “Well, telling me you didn’t is just going to make me think that you did.” Wade darts past you and takes a seat on the couch, but you hang back and lean against the kitchen table to avoid sitting on leather.

Wade suddenly turns to face you. “Did I ever tell you about our time in The Void?”

“Wade,” Logan warns.

Wade’s eyes are sparkling with mischief and you can’t deny how fun it is to indulge the way he pushes Logan’s buttons. It’s a good distraction from how you’re drenched in sweat. And you’re actually curious.

You play your part, letting out a faux-scandalised gasp. “Did you..?”

“Oh, yeah, baby. Wolverine goes both ways. All the ways, really.” He grins. “We’re so alike.”

“Shut up. Both of you.” Logan groans, lacking any real threat as he adjusts in his seat and wipes some sweat off his brow. “It’s too fucking hot to be annoyed.”

It isn’t lost on you he doesn’t deny a thing.

– – – – –

Apartments look weird with nothing in them.

It’s what crossed your mind after you finished packing up your place three days ago, and it crosses your mind now as you look into the open space of your new one from the doorway. It’s a pleasant, late summer day; perfect weather to move, which was on your schedule for today.

“Incoming!” comes from behind you, followed by quick, heavy steps.

You jump aside as Ellie sails through the door, carefully setting a big box marked “Kitchen” down in its designated area, followed by Logan who is balancing three boxes at once. After a beat, Yukio follows, holding a single table lamp in her hand. It takes some effort not to laugh, not just because of how funny it looks, but also because you relate; after all the exhausting late nights you pulled packing up, that’s also the kind of energy you’re bringing to this.

It’s nice of them to help, and instead of shoving that feeling away in fear, you allow yourself to bask in it. You don’t get long, however, because more help has just arrived.

Wade. With Vanessa. Hands interlocked.

It draws everyone’s eyes to the doorway. Wade looks almost bashful, and it baffles you how someone who can say the most insane things unprompted, all without batting an eye, could blush while holding hands with a girl he likes. To his credit, he shakes it off quickly.

“All right, all right,” he says. “Stop ogling me and my girlfriend and get back to work everyone!”

– – – – –

“So it was like an experiment?” you ask, stirring the pot on your stove before taking a careful bite of food off your wooden spoon.

Tonight’s your first night hosting at your new place – Family Dinner, Wade had dubbed it. With fall setting in, you had an idea of what to make, but it still made you nervous to have everyone in your space. Logan saw right through you, offering to come over early to help you prepare.

Once he had arrived, it hadn’t taken long for him to admit he wasn’t much of a cook, so he mainly chopped vegetables as you chatted; you about your new place, Logan about his new job as a boxing instructor, Laura going off to college. You don’t remember exactly how the subject of his adamantium came up, but he was telling you freely about it.

“They needed someone who could regenerate fast enough to bond with it,” he explains. “I was in a dark place. Figured I didn’t have anything to lose if it didn’t work.”

You nod in understanding. “Do you… remember much about it?” You put your spoon down, then put the lid back on the pan.

Logan’s knife stops hitting the cutting board. “Yeah, I… I remember every second of it.”

You look at him then. His eyes are still cast down at his task. Unsure of what to say, you think about what you’d want to hear, and you find it might be best to say nothing at all. Instead, your hand finds his shoulder. Logan’s head turns to you, and you feel like the look you share is more important than anything you could’ve told him. His hand covers yours with an appreciative squeeze.

“But I’m trying to leave that there so I can focus on remembering what happens to me here.” As soon as he’s said it, his hand quickly slips off yours, adding, in a rush, “Here in this timeline, I mean.”

You smile at him, but a strange feeling settles in the pit of your stomach. “That sounds like a great idea.”

– – – – –

“I need your help with something,” you say, balancing your phone between your ear and your shoulder while you turn a birthday card over in your hand. Deciding you don’t like it, you throw it back on the pile of cards and continue your grocery shopping.

“Just say the word,” comes Logan’s reply from the other end.

“I need you to steal something out of the apartment for me.” There’s a silence, and you purposely let the feeling of trepidation linger.

“Am gonna need you to say a little more than just that.”

You laugh, “Wade’s been talking about getting a little frame for his polaroid. You know, the polaroid that you held on to for him in The Void, after the two of you fu–”

“Yes, I know the one,” he interjects with a huff. He pauses, sighs, then says, “Consider it done.”

THE PARTY

“There you are!” Wade shouts after he opens the door. He pulls you into a hug that you return with a wide smile. Over his shoulder, you see that the apartment’s crowded, bustling with people who are there for his birthday party.

“I got you something,” you say, offering the small package to him after you step inside and hang up your coat.

“Wouldn’t have let you in if you hadn’t,” he admits as he closes the door behind you with a bang. Wade takes the package from your hand, shaking it next to his ear but hearing it make no sound in response. “Is it a cock ring?”

You can’t help but laugh at that. “Unfortunately, they were all sold out.”

“They always are,” he says, making a disappointed face. Bottom lip tucked between your teeth, you watch as he tears at the wrapping paper to reveal his gift. He makes another face when he sees it. “Well, now I feel like an asshole. This is really nice.”

“Logan helped me kidnap it,” you explain, pointing at the picture. “And the little red hearts on the frame, well, they’re your color, but they also reminded me of how much you care about people.”

When he looks at you after, it’s with genuine emotion… but Wade is Wade. “Never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of happy you walked in here barfing up the place.”

A strange mix of embarrassment and gratitude claws its way up your neck. “Thank you.”

“We should take a new one,” he decides suddenly, pointing at the picture. “You both should be in it.” His head turns, watching as Logan approaches the two of you. “But let’s be realistic, his shoulders are so broad he wouldn’t even fit in the frame, much less his bul–”

“Stop talking about my dick, Wade,” Logan snaps.

“I was saying only good things! Jeez, so sensitive…” Wade turns, putting the picture on the kitchen table behind him where it joins all the other gifts.

“Did he like it?” Logan asks, voice low.

“Yeah,” you smile.

“Good,” he replies. “Was a nice idea.”

You eye all the other gifts, some clearer who they are from than others. “What did you get him?”

The corner of Logan’s mouth lifts as he points at a roll of silver duct tape with a small red bow on top, making you fix them both with a confused look.

“It’s an inside joke,” Logan shrugs.

Wade’s eyes sparkle, but in a rare turn of events, he doesn’t elaborate, only adds, “It’s classified. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.”

“And I have top level clearance, lieutenant,” you reply. You exhale through your nose in an amused laugh when Wade makes a surprised face that indicates you’ve gotten the reference. “What, you thought a Tom Cruise impression could save you?”

“No,” he grins, and as if on cue, the doorbell rings, “but that can. Birthday Boy duty calls, but I want it on record that I could do Top Gun, easily, while Tom would never be able to pull off Deadpool.”

– – – – –

The party settles into something comfortable, soft music in the background of lively chatter. Yukio has just finished telling you about a Professor Layton cosplay she’s doing when you excuse yourself, both your glass and your social battery empty enough to look for a momentary out. Finding your way through the crowd, you make it to the kitchen, filling your glass with water and taking a few sips.

While you do, the music suddenly gets louder, taking over for the steady chatter. You turn around, leaning back against the kitchen counter, and watch as Wade drags Vanessa to the middle of the apartment. People make room for them, exchanging looks while Wade wraps his arm around her waist, takes her hand in his and begins dancing with her. With a laugh, she slaps him on the chest, before settling into his embrace anyway. Some follow their lead, but your eyes stay glued to them. Wade spins Vanessa under his arm, the smile on her face bright enough to light up the entire room. In return, he looks at her with so much adoration he’s almost glowing himself. It fills you with warmth to see the both of them so happy.

It hits you how you haven’t thought about this in a while. You’d decided long ago that the future wasn’t something you had to worry about, but suddenly you’ve arrived, like you’re in some alternate reality where your future is now, and that it would be nice to share it with someone. The sting behind your eyes catches you a little off guard; mixed feelings of time that has been taken from you, but also of time you’re getting back with the life you now have.

For a while now, you’ve suspected the thing inside you is gone, that there isn’t much to feed off of anymore. If it is, it would make sense that there’s room for something else.

Wade and Vanessa make it look easy, even though you know it’s been far from easy for them. You suppose that’s what it’s like, especially as you get older. It’s less about big gestures, more about small ones; someone to make you laugh, to spin you under their arm, who knows how to apologize, seeks you out during your quiet moments–

“Do you dance?”

You startle, head turning towards the voice next to you–

“Logan,” you breathe.

It’s like you’re seeing him for the very first time. He’s standing so close, almost touching you but not quite, heat radiating off of him nonetheless. The plaid shirt he’s wearing isn’t even buttoned and still the fabric is pulled taunt over his shoulders and the thick of his biceps. He’s grinning, his nose pulled up in an adorable scrunch, the corner of his eyes crinkling - you never noticed before, but there’s a hint of green between the hazel.

It hits you so suddenly that you have to grab the counter to keep your balance. Everything that’s been happening, that you’ve been feeling, all the times something happened between the two of you that you couldn’t put your finger on… it falls into place with a well-timed, completely unrelated question and a glance at him.

You like him.

All you can do is blink at him, dazed, unable to speak, even more so when he leans in a little closer, mistaking your silence for misunderstanding. “I mean, not that I– You and Wade were doing a bit earlier, it’s a reference to–” Logan straightens suddenly, his expression slipping into concern as he watches you, “Are you okay?”

You feel warm, so aware of all his attention on you that you’re afraid he might be able to see your pulse blink rapidly below the angle of your jaw. “Yeah,” you reply, voice hoarse, looking away from him to blink the leftover wetness from earlier out of your eyes.

Anxiety claws its way into your chest, your mind coming to terms with what it’s puzzled together at such a sickening pace that there’s an immediate knot in your stomach. The party has instantly lost its shine, and you look down at the glass in your hand, gulping down its contents. You need to be alone with your thoughts, you need to think about this before–

“I gotta go,” you say in such a rush that it almost sounds like one word while you set your glass on the kitchen counter.

Logan’s eyes follow you as you push past him, grab your coat and reach for the doorknob. “Wait–”

“Bye, Logan.”

THE TABLE

Once at home, you change into something more comfortable, your mind racing while you peel your party clothes off, toss your bra aside, change into an oversized shirt and plop down on the couch after.

Despite having already established that your mind was occupied with other things for a very long time, it’s laughable in hindsight that you never noticed your feelings before. It’s not like you don’t know what Logan’s like; he’s kind, funny, supportive…

…broad, handsome.

Shit.

Why did you have to come to your senses? Things were better before that moment. Logan’s your friend, whom you met in the most unconventional way possible. It’s ridiculous to want more than what you have when what you have is good. Or to think that he would want more.

But he might.

Because you may have been occupied with depression, anxiety, recovery, and everything in between, but you were there; you remember the time you spent with him, the way he looks at you, drinks the coffee you like, laughs at your jokes, seems to know exactly when to call you, seeks you out in a crowd.

But it would change everyth–

Actually, not a whole lot would change, if you really think about it. You already see him all the time, you’ve seen the very worst of each other, overcome a great deal of hardship together, you make each other better, his friends are your…

friends.

You didn’t say goodbye to Wade.

The thought comes suddenly. It was his birthday party and you didn’t even say goodbye to him before you left. You’re a terrible friend. Dread sinks into your limbs, and you reach for your phone to type out a quick, apologetic message. Just as you hit send, there’s a series of loud knocks on the door, and it makes you freeze up where you’re seated.

“Are you in there?” a muffled voice calls out.

It’s Logan, you realize, and a plethora of fake excuses as to why you left the party early present themselves to your mind as you quickly make your way over to the door.

The first thing you notice when you open it is that he’s dripping wet from the rain, clothes soaked through and his hair flat. There’s a deep furrow in his brow, and it’s different from how he usually looks; he looks actually mad.

“Logan, is everything–” you begin, concerned, but he cuts you off by pushing past you and letting himself inside, boots stomping against the wooden floor.

“Jesus, here you are. Why’d you leave like that, huh? Saying goodbye, your eyes all wet. I went after you and you were fucking gone, it scared the shit out of me. Didn’t see the car at the lookout, but I went to look for you anyway, and you weren’t in the water, thank fuck–”

“Wait, you went–” you pause, the mental image of Logan running out into the rain to the cliffside making your eyes widen. “Did you think..?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, shoulders slumping.

“Shit.” Your heart is racing when you step closer to him. “No, I wasn’t… I don’t want that anymore.”

“Then what the fuck was that all about?”

The desperation and misunderstanding in his eyes is unmistakable, and you hate that you made him feel like that. “I was just… I needed a moment, after seeing Wade and Vanessa like that,” you say, trying to provide yourself with more time to think, unsure if you already want to broach the subject of why you really left.

“You… like Wade?” Logan asks, his frown deepening.

You can’t help the laugh that escapes you at the unexpected question. “No. I mean, I adore Wade, but not like that. He’s with Vanessa.”

The answer does nothing to change his expression. “And you want it to be different?”

His line of questioning confuses you. “I– No. Logan, this isn’t about Wade or Vanessa, but it’s about… what they have. Something that’s real, but imperfect, and that’s what actually makes it perfect, and I just… I was in a really bad place for such a long time, I didn’t give myself time to even think about… I haven’t felt myself wanting for so long,” your gaze flicks up to his. “Seeing them just made me realize there’s so much left that I still want.”

Internally, you curse the way he always makes you say too much, because you can see the understanding wash over his features. His expression softens, the balled fists by his side loosen, and his eyes search you, as if to see if that thing you want is him. There’s no doubt he finds his answer; you’re ever the open book when it comes to him, and your pulse quickens while he silently observes you.

Logan reaches for you so quickly that you can barely prepare for it, a hand on your waist to pull you in, another on your cheek to tip your face up and guide your mouth to his. A shaky breath sails out through your nose when your lips meet, your eyes fluttering shut and your palms sliding up his damp but warm chest to curl in the soaked fabric of his shirt. It’s eager, and the angle is off, but it’s quickly adjusted with a brief parting and a near in-sync tilt of your heads in the other direction.

Logan pulls away, but stays close, and you almost feel his words before hearing them, “Been… thinking about doing that.”

“Really?” you say, breathless and amused. “When did you, um, start wanting to do that?”

“Few weeks ago–Fuck, no, more than that. Almost did, that day after your first meeting, after you told me you were proud of me,” he admits. “But I wanted to give you time, space. Wasn’t sure if you felt–”

“I do. Didn’t realize it before, but I fucking do,” you assure him, another tug on his collar trying to pull him back to you. His admissions, knowing he wants you too, only make you want him more, like you have to make up for all the time you wasted not doing this sooner.

Logan’s hand on your waist holds you off. “I just don’t know how to… how to be this,” he confesses softly.

“That’s okay,” you say, your nose brushing against his. “I don’t either.”

He inches forward like he intends to kiss you again, but seems to reconsider, swallowing hard before saying, “Wouldn’t be the first time we figure it out together, huh?”

The words make you surge forward to close the gap between you, your brows creasing, attempting to convey everything you feel with one press of your lips to his. Logan’s hand slides from your cheek to the back of your head, pulling you to him in a way that seems to mirror your efforts. Something lights up inside you, something you lost long ago, and it makes you bold, opening your mouth under his to get a taste of him.

His grip on you tightens with a groan, spurring him into action and walking you backwards into the dark kitchen, the only illumination the slivers of moonlight that come through the kitchen window. You jolt when the back of your thighs hit the table, before you’re scrambling to get on top of it, two hands at your waist helping to hoist you up. Your thighs widen to make room for Logan’s while you push the green flannel shirt off his shoulders, struggling to peel it off his arms to the point you have to break away with a laugh to really get it right. It lands on the floor with a wet sound, before he reaches for the back of his shirt, curling his fingers around the collar and pulling it over his head.

Logan’s sturdy, warm to the touch and surprisingly pliant when you can’t help but let your fingers flit along the corded muscles and protruding veins while he toes off his shoes. His hand flies to the back of your head to fist the hair at the nape of your neck when your lips explore, find his jaw, and travel down his neck. A soft sound sails from his mouth, a barely audible moan that carries over into something deeper when your lips brush a spot just above his clavicle. Using the grip he has on you, he drags you back up to his mouth, doing some more of his own exploring when his warm tongue strokes against your own.

“You’re so good to me,” he murmurs with a buck of his hips against yours. The thrill of having him pushed up against you, half-hard, warm, full of promise, makes you moan, teeth clacking against his when you do. “Always so fucking good to me.”

It makes you want to protest, from the very moment you met, he’s the one always being that to you, but it dies on your tongue when Logan’s flicks over the tips of his fingers. His impatient hand finds its way between you, disappearing under the waistband of your underwear and stretching the material to make room. His name comes out as a whimper when his spit-slick fingers easily glide through the soft skin between your legs. He curses, another buck of his hips pressing his hand closer against you, and your kiss turns messy and uncoordinated when he dips one finger to touch your clit.

“This okay?” Logan asks when you gasp, drawing languid circles between your legs.

“Yeah, it’s just– Oh, god.” Two thick fingers find your entrance, swirling the wetness there around. “Been a while,” you manage to finish your sentence.

“I’ll make it good for you,” he promises. “You want that?”

All you can do is nod, and Logan presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth before he pulls his hand back. It’s paired with a wet sound that makes your cheeks heat, more so when you watch him get on his knees and yank you to the edge of the table, the quick turn of events and the casual display of his strength making you a little dizzy. Logan’s nose presses into the fabric between your legs with a sharp inhale, before quick, practiced moves work your underwear down your legs. One eager hand places a thigh on his shoulder as another holds you at the bend of your knee. You lie back, arching as you hurriedly pull your t-shirt over your head, leaning up on your elbows just in time to watch him bend down.

The feeling of Logan’s hot breath sailing out over your sensitive skin alone is enough to make you gasp. He drags his lips and nose across your folds, easing you into it as much as his lack of patience will allow before tasting you with a swipe of his tongue. It isn’t tentative or testing, but firm and sure, and clearly for his enjoyment as much as yours when he repeats his action and groans into you. The vibrations of it and the gentle scratch of his facial hair only add to the liquid feeling in the pit of your stomach. Letting go of your knee, he curls a strong arm around your thigh, spreading you open then pulling you flush against him while he sucks your clit into his mouth.

“Oh, that feels really good,” you spur him on, your heel digging in between his shoulder blades. You watch him with hooded eyes, shifting your weight to one elbow so you can cup your breast with a whine.

Logan’s eyes slip shut in focus, working his tongue up and down your clit and making you arch into his mouth. Reaching for you blindly, he slides a hand over yours on your chest, fingers fitting between your own and squeezing while his tongue slides lower to lick over where you’re dripping for him. He lets out an appreciative hum as he repeats the move until your thighs clench and shake around his ears. His tongue dips inside you, curling up against the slick walls of your cunt, and his name tumbles from your mouth, soft, pleading, making his eyes shoot open to meet yours.

The sight of him looking up at you like that from between your thighs, with dark eyes, the tip of his nose glistening with your wetness, will probably haunt you for the rest of your life.

Logan shushes your begging, pulling away and watching as your pussy clenches at the sudden lack of attention. “Let me give you something to come on,” he murmurs, before fitting a finger at your entrance. It meets absolutely no resistance, a second finger sliding inside with just as much ease, and he sets a steady, deep rhythm before his mouth returns to your clit.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck–” Your head rolls back between your shoulder blades, mouth open on a silent gasp, but he draws your attention back to him with a curl of his fingers, finding a spot that makes you go rigid for a second. It all builds so fast, so suddenly. The hand on your chest shakes Logan’s off, finding the crown of his head and sliding your fingers into his hair. He’s too strong to really make purchase, but you try anyway, using your grip to roll your hips against him. The sound of his groans, every flick of his tongue and every squelching, delicious curl of his fingers all send you closer and closer, until his hand presses down on your belly, and…

“Logan,” you manage, voice sharp with a warning that comes too late when he makes you tumble over the edge.

It’s so much after so long, the force of it making you fall back against the table, something between a gasp and a shout tearing from your throat. He holds you tighter, to keep you in place and guide the desperate roll of your hips against his face. Your orgasm quickly slips into something bordering on oversensitivity, and you let out a dry sob that makes you slap a hand over your mouth when Logan’s tongue travels a path from where his stilled fingers disappear inside you, up to your clit. He stays there, gentle, uncharacteristically patient as you slowly come to a twitching halt.

He’s a blur when he comes back into your field of view after standing up, towering over you to watch as you come back down to earth. Becoming sharper with every heavy blink of your eyes, you notice the smile on his face is smug, that the hair surrounding it is a shade darker than the rest. You sigh softly when his fingers slip from you, the feeling of them sliding wetly over your clit making you tremble, but his touch doesn’t leave you completely when he moves to stroke the outside of your thigh.

“How’s that?” Logan dares to ask.

“Hmm, no speaking yet,” you protest.

Reaching for him, you slide both of your arms up over his broad shoulders, wrists crossed in the nape of his neck to pull him in for another kiss. It’s slow, and deep, the taste of yourself shared between the two of you as your tongue slides over his. The table protests with a creak when his hands land beside your head, more when his chest pushes down on yours and you wrap a leg around his waist to get him even closer. The hair scattered across his broad chest teases your nipples and the hard ridge of his cock strains against his jeans and presses up against your slick cunt. It makes your jaw go slack, stoking your desire and making you burn with the need to make him feel as good as he just made you feel.

With a push against his shoulders, you take him along as you sit upright again, accompanied by another creak of the table. Mouth still on his, you slide a hand down to cup him over his jeans, the weight of him against your wide open palm making you pulse. Logan grunts when your hand squeezes, and your mouth slides off his, kissing his jaw, sliding back down his neck. He cups your head, keeping you in place while watching your hand.

“Feels nice,” he husks, voice so deep it makes you want to push him aside and get on your knees for him, but then he asks, “Are you gonna let me fuck you?”

“God, yeah,” you say with a nod, watching as the mark you just sucked into his neck disappears far too soon while you continue rubbing him over the denim. “Want you inside of me.”

“Jesus–Then get it out,” he instructs, guiding your hand to his belt.

If you weren’t so turned on you might wince at how eager you are, at how quickly you tug the buckle open and pull the leather free. Logan groans when it relieves some of the pressure, letting his forehead rest against yours. Together, you watch your hands make quick work of his zipper, your fist closing around his cock while your other hand works his pants down until he can kick it off and under the table.

He fits nicely in your palm, heavy and ready, sticky at the tip. With a purse of your lips, you let your spit trickle down in a straight line, and he hisses when it hits him. Your free hand flattens against his stomach, sliding down along the hard planes of his body and following the vein just below his belly button down, until it meets your other hand that loosely strokes up to the root of his cock. Logan arches into you when you stroke back up with a tighter grip, all but getting on his toes to chase your touch. Using both of your hands to get all of him, you twist your fists in opposite directions once, twice, before circling his tip with one thumb. Your other hand curls around the underside of him, dragging some of your spit down to his balls with the tips of your fingers.

“F–fuck,” Logan stutters when you play with him there, cupping him in your hand as well as you can and squeezing his shaft when it twitches in response. His eyes slip shut as his palms land on the outside of your thighs with a smack, fingertips digging into your soft skin.

It makes you jolt, then grin, giddy from the sharp sting and the power you have over his pleasure. “How’s that?” you echo with a teasing lilt.

He does have the words to answer, albeit a little slurred, “‘S good, sweetheart.”

The nickname tacked on at the end takes root in your chest, blooms bright and makes you ache. You translate your appreciation into tightening your strokes and spreading more of the precome that steadily leaks from his tip around.

“C’mere,” Logan says softly, taking over for you with one hand, giving himself a few strokes before pushing your thighs further apart and shuffling closer to line himself up with you.

You’re so wet that the head of his cock is practically already slipping inside of you, but your hand clasps around his bicep when he really starts to breach you. After giving you a shallow little thrust, his hips draw back, before pushing a little further, gauging your reaction.

“Just like that,” you sigh, watching the careful slide of him in and out of you. “Keep going just like that.”

He gets you opened up like that, giving you a little more with each wind of his hips. Logan’s hand finds the back of your neck, his palm splaying out and keeping you close enough that you’re practically sharing air with each sigh and moan. Eventually, your knees have to draw up to his flanks in order for him to keep going and you wind a leg around his hip to close the final distance with a press of your heel into one of the firm cheeks of his ass. A long breath sails out from between your lips when you pulse around him, slowly adjusting to having all of him filling you up. You can tell he has to put considerable effort into letting you, wood groaning below you when he clutches onto the table.

“Fuck, it’s a lot,” you say, and when he grins against your mouth you can’t help but kiss him again – just a peck. The hand at the back of your neck squeezes in reassurance as he continues to let you lead, and it’s a small gesture, but it makes you feel warm all over. You melt into it his touch, your body relaxing as the pleasure of the stretch of him takes over.

“Can stay like this a little longer if you want,” he says, but the strain in his voice says something different.

“Hmm, no, you can move.” You’ve barely said it, or his hips are drawing back, and it would have made you laugh if it didn’t feel so fucking incredible. He almost slips from you completely, before sliding all the way back inside with a grunt. The table scrapes along the floor, and vaguely you register one of your chairs falling over in the process. When he repeats the action, the furniture squeaks again below you. “Just don’t break my table.”

The sound he makes in response is non-commital, and when he fucks back into you and nudges against something wonderful, you can’t say you disagree. Grabbing hold of his shoulder and using the leg you have wrapped around him, you roll your hips against his, and he begins to meet you halfway until you work up a rhythm together. The table protest further, a shrill sound filling the room after each slap of skin–

With a frustrated groan and accompanied by a startled squeal from yourself, Logan lifts you. The surprised laugh that threatens to bubble up your throat quickly morphs into something heavier that comes out with a rasp when he makes it all look unusually effortless. Attempting to brace yourself, you sling one arm over his shoulders, the other winding around his neck so you can rake your fingers through the hair at the back of his head. It’s a struggle to keep your balance, a helpless heel digging into the back of his thigh to keep yourself upright. Quick to aid, Logan slides an arm under you, fingers splayed across your ass as your knee hangs off the inside of his elbow. He turns a quarter, presses you up against the wall, and doesn’t miss a beat as he continues fucking you.

“Jesus, Logan,” you say, voice almost a growl and barely recognizable as your own.

With your new position, you can see him better, the both of you lit from the side with the window to your left. The moonlight paints him in a tapestry of light and shadows when the wind blows through the tree branches, momentarily amplifying the glint in his eyes and the flex of his chest and arms like a strobe light.

The different angle he finds with his cock is a little too good, the feeling of the thick base of him stretching you open with each thrust making you dazed and talkative, “It’s so deep like this, can–oh, my god–can feel you everywhere.”

Logan curses at your words, squeezing your waist and pushing you harder against the wall. There’s a deep-voiced appreciation of how good you feel in there too that doesn’t quite make it from your ears to your brain because somehow he’s still speeding up. His head ducks down to your chest, mouthing at the soft skin of your breast before closing his lips around a nipple.

You whine, using the grip you have on him to roll your hips against the piston of his while you pant into his crown. Though the sound he makes against you when you do it makes you beam with pride, it’s not something you can keep up for very long, your hold on him slacking after a few thrust until you slip back against the wall.

Logan pulls back when you do, tightening his hold on you while his eyes glide from the bounce of your tits that glisten with his spit to down between your bodies.

“Touch yourself,” he instructs, grunting when you immediately do as he says by bringing a hand down between where you’re joined. Your fingers spread in a V-shape around where he fucks into you, collecting some of your mixed arousal before using it to rub your clit. “That’s it, sweetheart, fuck, make yourself come.”

You nod, rapidly feeling everything zeroing in on the fingers that draw tight circles over your clit and that spot deep inside you that Logan’s finding with every thrust. “Yeah, fuck, I’m–Don’t stop, don’t stop, please–”

He’s coming before you are, tucking his head below your chin to let out a deep, drawn out moan against your neck that ends with his teeth grazing your skin. It’s so much, the pressure of him grinding himself into you with twitching, barely there thrusts, the heat of his release as it fills you where you’re gripping him like a vice, and as your fingers still twirl between your legs you come, and come, and come.

The leg you have wrapped around his hip slips off, but before your toes can even scrape the floor, he catches your thigh, cupping your ass with both hands now to keep you up, and close. With a soft, satisfied sound, you let your forehead fall against Logan’s shoulder, tasting the salt of his sweat with every light press of your lips there.

It takes you a moment to notice your back has come off the wall, that Logan is walking the both of you into your living room and to the couch. He bends his knees, dropping you between your pillows, where you land with as much grace as you can muster considering you feel like you’re made of lead. The soft couch is pleasant against your body, your sore limbs sinking into the cushions.

Logan fits himself between your legs again, widening them around his broad shoulders before his lips find your overstretched thighs, leaving marks and kisses up up up, until his tongue slips back into your pussy. Your back arches off the couch, hands shooting down to fist his hair with a whine while Logan’s hand fists his cock. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you can tell he’s already getting hard again, and his tongue is making something swirl low in your belly that’s making you pant, and...

It’ll be a long night.

THE PEARL

It had taken a lot of convincing and downright groveling, but Wade had allowed you to bring a movie for movie night. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust your taste in movies, his main gripe with your choice was that it wasn’t a Christmas movie – mandatory for December. Wade’s right, but after you explained that it’s the movie you always watch at the end of the year (and after Logan and yourself conceded that yes, his birthday was technically also your anniversary) he’d agreed.

Now that you’re actually watching it, you suspect he’s genuinely invested, because after a handful of comments about The Hulk, he’s been quiet for longer than you’ve ever heard him be quiet.

In the scene on the screen, Mark Ruffalo’s character Dan and Keira Knightley’s character Gretta are taking an evening walk around New York City, dancing, singing and sharing music with each other as they do. Eventually, they stop and sit next to each other on some steps, watching as the city continues to move without them.

“...the most banal scenes are suddenly invested with so much meaning, ya know? All these banalities, they're suddenly turned into these… these beautiful, effervescent pearls,” Dan says, wistfully looking on as New York bustles around him. “I gotta say, as I've gotten older these pearls are just… becoming increasingly more and more rare to me.”

The arm Logan has slung around your shoulder tightens, and the couch creaks softly as you lean further into his side, your cheek squishing against his warm chest.

“More string than pearls?” Gretta inquires with a frown.

“Yeah. You got to travel over a lot more string to get to the pearls.” There’s a pause as he turns to look at her, “This moment is a pearl, Gretta.”

She gives him a hint of a smile. “It sort of is, isn't it?”

“All this has been a pearl,” he admits, sharing a look with her.

A finger curls under your chin, tipping your head up until your eyes meet Logan’s. He gives you the same look you just saw on the screen, his eyes soft as they take you in, the hint of green between the hazel illuminated by the light of the television. A thumb swipes over your bottom lip fondly, before he leans down to kiss you.

It takes a lot of string indeed.

Sometimes even interdimensional string.

– – – – –

(THE END)

If you made it all the way here, thanks for reading. Seriously. Please come say hi and/or share your thoughts via ask/messages/reblogs/whatever you feel comfortable with. I hope to share more writing soon - emphasis on hope, I'm not making promises, just an educated wish.

And lastly, if you're struggling with mental health problems, please don't wait for a handsome stranger to sweep you off your feet. I know from experience that it can be incredibly difficult to reach that hand out, but I also know from experience that things can get better. There are ways to get help and you deserve to get help 🫂

#dani writing #logan howlett x reader #wolverine x reader #logan howlett x you #wolverine x you #james logan howlett x reader #worst wolverine x reader #logan x reader #x men x reader #worst wolverine #wolverine fanfiction #wolverine smut

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alexiroflife · 7 months ago

Text

"trance"

fluff, slight crack, modern!sukuna, whipped & clingy sukuna, itadori family!

ryomen sukuna x reader

Synopsis: sukuna, a man who rarely attempts to keep his thoughts to himself for the sake of others, makes his infatuation with you everyone else's problem when he's high

to sum it up: sukuna's fried, and naturally all he wants is you

WC: 3,258

Warning(s): mentions/use of marijuana, suggestive themes, horny ass sukuna who has no decorum in front of his family

You know Sukuna is no better than any other man who you have caught the attention of in the past. No matter the time of day or the occasion, the salmon-haired man is quick to intrude on your personal space, invading your unsuspecting body with the wander of his large hands over your frame until you find yourself returning to the default state of being at his will.

Sukuna proudly takes ownership of his infatuation with you too. Rather shamelessly, he's got an arm wound over your shoulders and locked around your neck or hands firmly splayed on your waist, bringing yours to his and keeping you there for as long as he deems necessary.

He would never say so out loud, but it is evident by his body language and the way he strays from being more than ten feet away from you that he is attached to you at the hip. Sukuna is an aggressively clingy man, for as long as you belong to him, he is taking advantage of your closeness, of your body, of your time, mind, heart, and soul.

Even so, when Sukuna is in the proper state of mind, he still remains somewhat calm with his actions and how he presses himself to you. He will appear almost angry with affection, but silent save for a few commands to relax your body or to stop stubbornly attempting to push away when you feel crowded, though you never have any luck in that regard anyway. He is more reserved, more contained with his confrontations as though touching you is the easiest, most soothing, and most familiar thing he has ever done. Sukuna has a tendency to skillfully mask his truest emotions with a viel of apathy and air of indifference, despite how his body speaks for the things he fails to verbalize.

And now, of course, while Sukuna is not at all in any realm close to withholding a proper state of mind, or state of sobriety more accurately, his body betrays him tenfold and acts on its own will while his mind is on the backburner, hazily numbing itself with the passionate buzz of the smoke that was dragging from his lips and past his nostrils.

Sukuna often fails to take into account the appropriate time and place to engage in or say certain things, for he feels that if there is something he wants to do or discuss, no company or environment could shift his will to do so. Arrogant with pride, Sukuna operates according to his desires, and all those who know him are quite familiar with his rather inconsiderate antics.

That is why the crimson eyed man is splayed out on his brother's sofa, legs spread dangerously far apart with his arms thrown over the back of the furniture. Blurry lidded eyes stare off in a heavy daze captured solely by you, who are maneuvering about his brother's kitchen alongside Choso, who is helping you locate the baking sheet for the cookies you have been yammering on about baking all day.

You can feel his eyes burning into your skull from a mile away, and you are wildly too accostumed to this routine of his for you to pay the notion any mind. You are far too focused on your own task at hand to meet the fiery, lust consumed gaze that your boyfriend has locked onto you.

His eyes, unfathomably red, trace the outline of your figure slowly as though drinking in the sight of you, savoring it so that he can taste it on his tongue long enough for it to linger until he can get his hands on the true, physical flavor of you.

There's a darkness in the way he checks you out from across the room seated next to Wasuke, who glares angrily ahead of him with a twisted scowl at whatever channel has been randomly flicked to in the stupor of Sukuna's high. It almost feels as though the room is charging with the volcaic tension that Sukuna's body emits from its place in the living room, for his obsession with you manifests into some sort of beast before everyone's eyes when he is under the influence of weed.

And despite being surrounded by family, Sukuna can do nothing but watch you with that hungry glint in those hues of blood red, paying no mind to how easily the room can read him.

Truthfully, Sukuna does not even feel that he should be blamed for the way he is eye fucking you now. You decided upon yourself that it was a good idea to visit the Itadori home with a thick cardigan slipping down the skin of your shoulder to reveal the tank top that hugs your midsection and tits tightly, which you only vurther expose when you decide to strip the outer fabric off with complaints of being warm. Your graceful arms stretch to grab the kitchenware out of Choso's hands to set aside on the counter, your bare neck craning gently with the tilt of your head and a concentrated pinch of your brow as you mix raw ingridients into a bowl with your hands, kneading the thick pasty mixture through your soft fingers. You have to be doing this on purpose, Sukuna decides, for you are far too captivating for him to turn away

Sukuna's lashes flutter with a slow blink and the stroke of his fingers over his mouth and chin. You look practically edible standing there, the overhead light of the kitchen illuminating your frame and epmhasizing your otherwordly, enticing beauty. Of all the many ways he has come to learn he can devour your body, each scenario flitters through his fuzzy brain the longer he stares at you, his pupils expanding with possessive want.

You flicker your eyes upward momentarily when you feel a particular shift in the atmosphere, and when you do, you meet your boyfriend's piercing eyes from afar. Your brows quirk and your lips tug to the side with nervous judgment when you catch that dangerous glimmer that can only mean you will not make it out alive when the two of you end up alone.

With slightly widened eyes, you slowly turn your eyes back to the cookie dough and a curious Choso standing beside you with oil spray for the pan.

"You okay?" the twenty-one year old questions slowly and you shake your head.

"Your uncle looks like he's gonna kill me," you exhale anxiously in response. Choso looks up to find what you are referring to, and his face sours when he catches wind of Sukuna's expression.

"Freak," he mutters under his broth with the clench of his jaw, passing the spray over to you amid his sickened glower.

As if beckoning him subconsciously, the brunette watches in something akin to horror when Sukuna lifts his arms from behind him and pushes himself up gradually to his feet. He appears to move in slow motion, hands tucked into his pockets and eyes still glued permanently to you as he saunters his way into the kitchen with heavy strides.

You keep your gaze down, pretending to be entirely too occupied as the salmon haired man slips into the space directly behind you, the strong scent of weed sinking into his cologne wrapping over you. Sneakily, warm palms snake over your hips. They still there a moment, gripping experimentally before trailing around and over your stomach, opting to cling to you this way as he steps his chest to your back and curves his nose toward you cheek.

He takes in a deep breath, inhaling you graciously as his hands wander over your stomach. You feel the tip of his nose and the whisper of his lips graze your skin as he lenas himself down toward the crook of your jaw and neck. His actions are sluggish, a representation of his current state of mind, and he pulls you into his embrace as though he had been seeking so for years on end.

"Can I help you, Kuna?" you murmur, gripping a ball of dough into your palms and rolling it.

He does not say a word. Only a low grunt escapes his lips and vibrates against you, his eyes falling closed. He seems to crowd into you closer, though you are unsure of how that is possible when he already has you tucked into him so securely.

"Just stand still," his voice rumbles into you, lips pressing to your ear in a soft kiss in between his slow words. "Let me feel on you."

You grunt softly when his lips touch your cheek, veiny hands smoothing over your abdomen in gradual circles, one hand sliding back to sooth down the top of your thigh and back up again. "Sukuna," you hiss as heat pinches your body. "Stop, I'm trying to bake," you lean over to shrug away, but he's following you, chasing your lips to the side and crushing his weight down into you, pecking over your jaw.

"No one told you to stop," he murmurs. "Keep going."

You bite down on your tongue, attempting to hide how flustered you have become by Sukuna's behavior, especially in such an open space. You expect nothing less from him, and neither does his family, but hell, he never knows when to quit and it absolutely kills you.

"Leave her alone," Choso rolls his eyes, shuffling away from Sukuna's bulky figure pushing past him to get to you. "She just said she was doing something."

"Yeah, and get a god damn room!" Grandpa demands bitterling from the couch with the raise of an agitated fist.

"You're scarring your family, Sukuna," you say flatly in between the uproar of hatred toward the salmon haired man, to which he lifts his head from you briefly with a mischievous smirk snaking onto his face.

"They'll live," he grins.

"At this rate, you'll be the very thing to keep that from happening and push me closer to death," Grandpa fumes.

"One could only hope, old man."

"Eat shit."

An amused chuckle rumbles through Sukuna's chest and against your back, practically rattling your ribcage. "Can't you all be nice to each other," you sigh as Sukuna turns his focus back down to you. His arms tighten around you, his caress of your stomach over your tank top ceasing to fasten his arms around your waist and drop his forehead to your shoulder. He sways you slightly back and forth, droopy eyes glazing over at the feel of your plush body against his.

"We can't be nice if we constantly get on each other's nerves, (Y/n)," Choso says tiredly. "Or more specifically, if Sukuna pisses us off."

"But that's damn near every day," you raise your brows with a twitch of an amused smile as you proceed onto rolling the next few balls of cookie dough.

"Exactly."

You shake your head, lifting your arms slightly as Sukuna's burly arms wrap up under yours. "Your family hates you, baby," you comment slyly.

Sukuna clicks his tongue, grumbling as he shifts with you. "I don't give a fuck," he murmurs. "What perfume are you wearing?"

"I'm not wearing any perfurme," you scrunch your brows in confusion at his abrupt shift. "Why?"

"Mm," he hums. "You smell good."

"Okay," you tilt your head away when his lips peck over your neck, his teeth eventually sinking down to nip at you. You flinch. "Get off, weirdo!" a giggle slips into your demand, your face scrunching when a hand comes to cup the side of your face to refrain you from moving away from the invasion of his kisses.

"For fuck's sake," Wasuke hisses under his breath.

"Let's go," Sukuna suddenly mumbles into you.

You turn your head to peek at him over your shoulder quizzically. "What?"

"Let's go, woman," he repeats, speaking directly into your ear. "Want to taste you. Now."

"Woah," your eyes go wide as Sukuna moves to feel you up again, thick fingers brushing the hem of your tanktop and grazing over the sliver of skin beneath. "You can't just say things like that," you scold, eyes darting over the room in panic though your own body is beginning to betray you. "Behave."

"Like hell you actually want me to," you can feel him smirk as the sly words leave his mouth, and you shiver, putting aside the last ball of dough you needed to roll. "Come on, peach," he urges rather gently, tilting his head over your shoulder to find the connection of your gaze with his red eyes. You look back up at him, eyes glassy enough for Sukuna to determine that he is getting to you. "Don't be rude."

"Sukuna, you're distracting me," you groan.

"Relax," he urges, "Enough complaining and relax."

His instructions fall on your ear as though he is attempting to coax you into submission, which he has a keen tendency of doing even when he is fully coherent. "At least have the decency to wait until we go home to act like this."

"I shouldn't have to wait for something I already have."

"Around your family, you should!"

"Quit worrying about them and focus on me."

"You make it impossible not to when you hover me like this."

"Good," he kisses the back of your ear. "Now let's go."

"Later," you smile with the emphasis. "I haven't even washed my hands yet."

Sukuna stretches his arms forward from under you, cupping over your wrists from either side and guiding your hands to the left whre the sink resides as Choso busies himself with tidying up a bit. You watch your boyfriend reach to flip the faucet on, then guide your dough coated hands under the water gingerly.

You inhale sharply, ducking your head to conceal your smile as his thumbs smooth your palms clean with the addition of some soap. You can feel his chest pressing into your shoulderblades and the weighted exhales the spread through his body. His head hovers over your own, eyes turning back to admire you as he mindlessly continues to wash your hands.

"God, is that (Y/n) over there? I hope that idiot isn't clobbering the poor girl," Jin's voice speaks up from behind you all at the front door, which had swung open moments before. You all watch him and Itadori shuffle into the space, the teenager clad in his baseball practice uniform.

"He's washing her hands," Choso deadpans, turning to greet Yuji as he walks into the space. The said boy furrows his brow and looks over at the huddled pair of the two of you.

"Really? Why? That's... oddly nice of him," he tilts his head.

"No the hell it's not," Gramps chimes in from the couch, having tuned into the family conversation with the return of his son and grandson.

Sukuna ignores the comments getting thrown around about him, his mind's only sole focus being you and the way your hands trickle over with water within his own.

"All of you shut up. I'm speeding things up," Sukuna slurs, and all heads turn to him.

"Are you high?" Jin raises an unimpressed brow at his twin.

"Stay out of my business."

The living room and kitchen combined erupt into lively chatter as voices overlap one another and some argument about some sports team ensues after an argument about Sukuna's habits. The cookies long having been tucked into the oven flood the space with an intoxicating scent, and as you move around to make sure the space is tidy when you are done, Sukuna does not let go of you once. He's stuck to you, rolling his hands over your hips and kissing across your shoulder, performing rather uncharacteristically gentle as he handles you as though cherishing you in his senses' heightened yet blurred state.

The red eyed man is especially hot on your tail when you step away to the bathroom. The second you make it into the space to prepare to examine yourself in the mirror, the door is clicking shut behind you and Sukuna is making his way over with a gleam of entranced greed.

You go to press your palm forward to catch his chest before he can completely approach you, but your strength proves inefficient against Sukuna's as he pushes back against your hands, lips curved in a lazy smile.

"You need to calm down," you nod with a nervous smile, squeaking when he flies his hands downward to tightly clasp your waist and pull you into him swiftly. "Seriously! Stop looking at me like that. You're gonna get us in more trouble."

"Be quiet, gorgeous," he purrs when your body collides to his with a thud. He hums, sliding his fingers past your hair to settle on the back of your neck, his thumb clasping over the front in a soft squeezing motion. Your smile dwindles slightly as he drags your head forward, his lips parted with a toothy, satisfied beam as you melt down before him. "Give me a kiss."

"No," you breathe out as though you had been holding in air.

"Why? What's the matter with you, girl?" his sultry voice questions rather teasingly.

"It's never just a kiss with you," you whimper. "And I'm not doing anything at your family's house with all of them standing twenty feet away."

"Didn't I tell you to stop talking about them? Hm?"

You chew down on the inside of your lip, eyes flickering to Sukuna's lips. "You never listen."

"I'm listening," he murmurs, brushing his mouth against yours. "To that little heartbeat of yours racing whenever I touch you."

"Kuna," you whisper, his hand giving your neck another soft squeeze. His heavy stare envelopes you in its fuzziness, his surroundings an air of buzzing nonsense yet you are the clearest thing that appears before him, your scent, your body, your face.

"Kiss me, peach," he orders lowly again and you shiver.

"Just one kiss-"

"Mhm."

Sukuna captures your lips in his before you can even finish your sentence, his aroma wafting into you so intoxicatingly that you believe that you yourself could get high off of your boyfriend's presence.

He melts into you, smoothing his mouth over yours passionately, firmly, softly. You cling to his back, leaning backward as Sukuna pushes further into you, his hand catching the back of your head so you don't lose balance with his weight. He's lethargic and heavy, slow with the prying of your lips apart and the slip of his tongue against yours, with the tilt of your head and the generous exploration of his hands over your frame. You almost do not think he can breathe, that he is fighting off air to keep his lips connected with yours.

You release a soft moan when his sharp teeth sink into your bottom lip to drag it out, eyes peeled open slightly to watch the blissful expression of your face.

"Sukuna," you mutter his name once more, only this time, you are unsure if it is a plea or another warning.

The salmon haired man bends down to tuck an arm under your butt, wandering you over to the bathroom counter and seating you atop the granite.

He cages you beneath him with his hands planted on other side of you. "That's right," he smirks. "Keep saying my name like that"

He presses back into you, and you wonder to yourself as you succomb to his will why anyone in this house allows Sukuna to smoke around you, knowing the recurrent outcome.

#jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk fandom #jjk fanfic #anime #jjk #jjk season 2 #jjk x you #sukuna ryomen #sukuna ryomen x reader #jujutsu kaisen sukuna #sukuna x reader #sukuna smut #sukuna fluff

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cacoetheswriting · 20 days ago

Note

girl you have that really angsty Eddie fic where he gets hooked on things he shouldn't and it ruins his relationship with reader - please please please write some more Eddie angst, BEGGING

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader [modern day au] word count: 5k

summary: a weekend gateway to with your old high school friends? sounds like a dream! only it’s not really as it’s been three years since you last saw them. three years since you left hawkins without so much as a goodbye, and certain people tend to hold grudges.

content warnings: heavily unedited (sorry): angsty angst, mature themes & adult language, mentions & descriptions of underage alcohol consumption / substance abuse, anxiety / panic attacks, emotional hurt / no comfort, unrequited (sorta) love, some mutual pining, love triangle?, eddie is a bit of an asshole, also touches on topics of: divorce, death, grief — pls let me know if i missed any!

Parking your car at the desired destination, you glance out the half-opened window and note how the weather is far from ideal for the planned activities.

It’s cold. Cold enough to make anyone's atoms shiver. Dark grey clouds cover every inch of the sky above, hiding the beautiful autumn sun. The air is brisk. It’s harsh against your skin as you eventually get out of the red Jeep and the unwelcoming breeze that follows makes you wish that you had packed warmer clothes for this weekend.

Jesus, you think, as if this trip wasn’t going to be hard enough.

When your feet hit the gravel below, you exhale, wondering whether it’s too late to change your mind about agreeing to come. Since the weather was seemingly against you, what’s to say the universe wasn’t going to continue ruining this weekend? But before you get a chance to decide what your next move is going to be, the door of the lake house swings open and Nancy runs out, arms spread wide as she squeals with excitement.

“I can’t believe you actually came!”

The hug she gives you is strong, almost full force. It takes you a second to register that one second she was running out of the house, and the next, her arms are wrapped tightly around you as if no time has passed between now and when you last saw her. Therefore, it takes you a second to hug her back, but when you do, a small smile circles your lips. Familiarity. Maybe this trip won’t be so bad after all.

“Of course I came,” you say as she draws back, “You know me, Nance, always down for a good time.”

Nancy laughs. “Oh, I remember.”

Then her smile falters just as fast as it appears and you know exactly which memory crosses her mind because your own thoughts wander back to that moment too, along with the people involved.

“Sorry, my joke was in poor taste. If you can even call that a joke.” You admit with a lighthearted huff.

“No, no.” Nancy shakes her head, but even with the years that have passed since you last saw each other in person, you know the look in her eye is one of concern.

You think to try and ease at least some of her worry since she did go through all the trouble to organise this weekend for your high school group to get together and the last thing you’d want is for her to second-guess ever inviting you.

“I- uh… I actually don’t really drink anymore.”

Her facial expression shifts to one of surprise, though she doesn’t say anything which would demonstrate that. Instead, she smiles again.

“Good for you,” the tone of her voice conveys pride and you’re grateful.

“Thanks, Nance.”

One day you’ll tell her about the road that led you to sobriety, but today’s not that day.

Today is about reintroducing yourself to the friends that have helped you get through four hellish years that were called ‘high school’. The people that were there for you through the good and the ugly; which got real fucking ugly sometimes. The group that most often than not was your literal lifeline.

Nancy, your best friend. Robin, your sidekick. Jonathan, your unlicensed therapist. Steve, your partner in crime. And Eddie…

You haven’t seen any of them since graduation.

Three years of virtually no contact.

Sure, it made you wonder why you were even invited to this weekend getaway in the first place, but Nancy was always like a sister so you knew her motives were definitely not malicious.

“Let me help you with your bags,” the brunette girl offers and before you get a chance to decline, say you’ve got them on your own since you really didn’t bring much with you, she’s at the boot of your car.

While Nancy fills you in on the plans she’s made for everyone, the various activities she’s organised for the days ahead, the two of you gather your belongings before making your way towards the big house.

Apparently everyone is already here.

Nancy, Jonathan, and someone called Argyle (a new addition to the group, undoubtedly a breath of fresh air following your departure), got here last night. Steve, Robin, and Eddie arrived this morning.

“But the boys went to the shop to get all the groceries we need for this weekend, so right now it’s just me and Robin.” Nancy explains, fingers wrapping around the door handle. It’s her way of saying not to be nervous, he wasn’t here right now, and with that your shoulders relax in relief.

The inside of the house is even more impressive than its exterior. High ceilings, all wooden floors, and decor that undoubtedly cost more than anything you own or could actually afford. In the living area, there’s paintings on the walls that depict the home during construction, then in its full glory, as it stands now. Various knick-knacks fill the shelving, and the bookcase at the back of the room is filled top to bottom with stories you’ve never even heard of.

You allow yourself to continue into the kitchen, which looks like a piece out of Architectural Digest. Modern touches to the original design, upgraded appliances that look like they’ve never been used. There’s a large dining table in the back of the space, already set for dinner. The windows behind it offer a perfect view of the lake and as you look at the water; peace. For a split-second, you let yourself really think that coming wasn’t a bad idea after all.

“Jesus, Nance, how the hell did you find this place?” You ask in awe once the girl stands beside you.

“Argyle has this aunt who’s an avid Airbnb user. Honestly, when he first showed me the pictures, I thought he was out of it, like he usually is, but here we are...”

You don’t get to tell her how beautiful you think it is ‘cause there’s a high-pitch screech that startles you, and within seconds, someone’s arms wrap around your frame, swaying you from side to side.

“When Wheeler told me you agreed to come, I swear I thought she was bluffing!”

Robin drops her arms, allowing you to turn in your spot and face her. The grin on her face is wide, complimenting her new haircut, which is about the only thing that’s changed in her physical appearance over the last three years.

She playfully smacks your arm. You do the same to her. It’s reminiscent of a handshake, an acknowledgment that despite the years of only sending and receiving generic birthday texts, you guys were still as close as ever.

“Long time no see, Buckley. Loving the new look.” You point to her long bleached locks.

“Yeah? I was going for that badass lesbian vibe. What Daenerys should’ve been.”

You chuckle. “Well, I’d say mission accomplished.”

“Thanks,” Robin smirks then takes the duffle out of your grasp and turns to Nancy, asking to lead the way to the room that’s been assigned to you.

Up the stairs and down the long hallway, the girls point to the shared bathroom, but Nancy says your room actually has an en-suite. Then she outlines which door leads to whose bedroom — Eddie’s is first up the stairs and you wonder whose choice it was to deliberately keep you two away — before stopping at the last door and pushing it open to reveal your safe space for this weekend.

First thought that crosses your mind is how this one bedroom is bigger than your entire apartment. The bed alone would probably not fit in your current home. Second thought is how you have the same view as in the kitchen, only higher up, and you thank Nancy for assigning you this room for that reason alone.

“It’s no big deal,” she replies with a shrug, “You had the longest trip out here, only fair you get the best room, so you can properly rewind.”

“As the organiser, you should have the nicest room,” you counter, but Nance just waves her hand, dismissing what was going to be an offer to swap.

She proceeds to place the bag she was holding at the foot of the bed.

“Get settled in and we’ll start on food once the guys return.”

“You should have enough time to shower, if you want,” Robin chimes in, also dropping the duffel she carried up for you, “Knowing the four of them, they’re still trying to locate the gluten free sticker on the pasta Nance asked for.”

“Rob,” Nancy snorts.

The blonde shrugs. “You know it’s true! Those idiots can’t fucking read.”

They leave you shortly after, telling you to take your time to clean up and change into something more comfortable.

When the door shuts with a soft thud, you exhale a breath you didn’t even realise you were holding. It’s all okay, it’s all okay, it’s all okay, you repeat to yourself silently, and although you feel a little calmer than when you first arrived, there is still tension in your neck. There’s only one reason for that. One that isn’t here right now, but is bound to arrive at any point in the next hour.

‘arrived safe & sound. still feeling a little nauseous about this whole thing, but I’m taking your advice.. keep positive.’ - The text to your mom sends with a whooshing sound as you throw your phone on the large bed.

You glance around the room again, taking in the decor as a distraction to the anxiety bubbling in your chest. The furnishings are similar to the rest of the house, classy with a modern twist. Peaceful colours that perfectly compliment the wooden fixtures, and the birds chirping melodically outside the open window only add to the serenity. It’s really one of the nicest places you’ve ever stayed in and you take a mental note to send Nancy a bouquet of flowers when you get home, as a thank you.

When you step under the shower, you’re even more grateful.

Back in your own apartment, you’re not guaranteed warm water, having to often make a choice between rinsing off the hectic day or cleaning the dishes so there’s something to eat off. It’s the life you chose, so you really can’t complain, but standing here in silence as the hot droplets wash over your skin, you think maybe you chose wrong. Then you think how fucking selfish that is of you since there’s a clear list of reasons why, aside from the comfort of a scolding shower, the choices you made three years ago where far from good.

Leaving without saying goodbye to everyone, for one. No explanations, no notes.

Only Nancy knew of your plan. After all, she was the one that talked you into leaving.

The final nail in the coffin — so to speak — was her opinion on the literal shitshow that the final months of your high school career had become. And when she sat you down, the afternoon before graduation, she made it clear how she was worried about you and perhaps it was for the best to get away from Hawkins. Leave everything and everyone behind, allowing yourself time to heal and get your head straight.

You had only planned to be gone that one summer. But things never go to plan, especially for you.

Three months turned into four, then six, and before you knew it, a year had passed since your departure. Some of the group had tried to reach out at various points during that time, but you didn’t engage — only replied to Nancy the odd time, and texted Robin the mentioned before birthday wishes.

The one person you really wished checked in on you, was the only person that didn’t. Not like you could blame him. You broke his fucking heart.

It wasn’t entirely a secret that Eddie Munson had a big fat crush on you.

He wouldn’t call it love at first sight, but it was pretty damn close — as you later found out from Robin. Later. Too late. She then went on to say, when the rocker first laid eyes on you, standing at Nancy’s locker and laughing at something she’d said moments prior, Eddie’s heart skipped a beat. Then two. The metalhead thought you were perhaps the most gorgeous girl to ever walk down the halls of Hawkins High, although he never said it out loud.

(Not to you anyway.)

Things changed however, when you started dating Billy Hargrove.

That boy was a bad influence for sure, even more than Eddie’s wild antics, but at that point in your life, you saw the world through rose-coloured glasses and turned a blind eye to Billy’s shitty behaviour.

Your first drink was provided to you by the scruffy blonde.

The first time you blacked out was after his funeral.

Earth shattering, his sudden death. Having lost the first love you’ve ever had, you didn’t know what to do with yourself. You didn’t know how to cope. By the time your senior year came around, and Eddie’s third attempt at graduation, your life only continued to spiral out of control.

Your parents announced their divorce. It was apparently no one’s fault — irreconcilable differences — but their break up meant the house you’d grown up in was being put up for sale and you suddenly had to choose who you wanted to live with.

Being an only child never brought with it any pressures, until now. Your father was moving cross country. Relocating with his job, who no longer needed him at their Indianapolis location, preferred he run the new branch in Las Vegas. Your mother was also venturing outside Hawkins, just not as far. She apparently found this cute place in Fort Wayne and was already in talks with a local school there for a part-time teaching position.

The Wheelers took you in following a conversation between Karen and your mom about how you shouldn’t be finishing your high school education someplace new, so this solved one problem.

But being away from your support system unfortunately made you feel increasingly isolated. Your parents had this “open door” policy that you didn’t realise you needed until it was no longer readily available. Phone calls and texts just weren’t the same.

This time in your life proved how difficult it was to pretend you were genuinely happy.

Eddie was the first to notice the subtle change in your attitude. He’d often ask what was bothering you, but you’d always tell him nothing, so he eventually learned to stop and simply tried to distract you with his usual antics.

You hated him for it. You hated how he just knew how you were feeling. How he could sense those deep and inner thoughts you were trying to hide. And you hated now he would try to make you feel better when all you really wanted was for the sad feelings to swallow you whole.

Without proper supervision, your after school activities also shifted into ones that would fill the emptiness you were constantly feeling. You were always quite outgoing, always the first one to say yes when someone mentioned a party, but the months between December and April unlocked a new version of you. One not many people in your friend group were particularly a fan of, though all too afraid of saying something.

It all came crashing down the night of Chrissy Cunningham’s farewell party. A few days before graduation, she invited the entire senior year to her parents’ lavish home for a get together that her dickhead boyfriend called: Project X 2.0.

You asked Steve to come with you — much to Eddie’s dismay.

In the end, Carver got his wish. The party was indeed memorable for all the wrong reasons and the endless list of mistakes you made that night, in your inebriated state, was precisely why you left Hawkins in a hurry.

Las Vegas turned out to not be so bad.

There were a few bumps in the road upon your first arrival. A few too many drunken nights, drunken fights, and drunken one night stands. But once your dad acknowledged your reckless behaviour was becoming a serious problem, things got a little easier. Therapy helped.

A year and a half later, there was only one thing that made you want to reach for a drink to flush the hard work down the drain: Eddie Munson and how you treated him at that party, what you put him through that night.

In retrospect, you should’ve been the one to reach out to him. At least a call to say I’m sorry for the things I did and said. No time just felt like the right time and then, when Chrissy posted a picture of herself sitting happily in Eddie’s lap, it seemed a little too late.

Did it hurt to see him move on from the crush he had on you? Yes.

Again, you couldn’t blame him for doing so.

“How was your shower?” Nancy asks when you come back downstairs.

She’s sitting on one of the sofas, a cotton blanket covering her legs. Robin is next to her, fingers working the keyboard of her phone, and looks up following Nancy’s question.

“No offence, but you look a lot better than when you first arrived.”

The comment earns Buckley a good nudge to the rib cage by the brunette beside her.

“Ow! Jesus Christ, Nance—”

“We talked about this,” Nancy interrupts, narrowing her eyes at the girl.

“It was a simple observation,” Robin defends, “I’m sure she’s fucking nervous to be here, rightfully so—”

“Robin!”

“It’s okay,” you chime in and the girls simultaneously turn to look at you once again. “Buckley’s right. I am nervous.”

Both their expressions simultaneously turn to one of sympathy. You plaster on the best smile you can muster before making yourself comfortable in an armchair by the open window, feeling their gaze follow your every move. You want to tell them to stop, tell them that the nerves will pass so it’s no big deal, but they’d see right through you. The topic of you, Eddie, and that horrendous high school party will haunt this group like a ghost, lingering in the background even if it’s addressed — which you’re going to have to do very soon. That’s why you came.

“He asks about you all the time,” Nancy says after a long pause, “What’s she doing? Is she working, studying?”

“Is she seeing anyone?” Robin adds.

“Is she happy…”

The ache in your chest increases with every spoken word, fueled by the guilt you carried every single day for the last three years. Somehow knowing now that Eddie asked about you was worse than thinking he’s moved on because, selfishly, if he was happy, then it wasn’t all bad. If he was happy, then the harsh truths you drunkenly sputtered in his direction weren’t a cruel thing to do, they weren’t as vile as you remembered them to be. If he was happy, then what you did after wasn’t a complete betrayal.

“I-I never meant to hurt him,” you finally whisper, forcing down the tears that threaten to break. “I never meant to hurt any of you.”

The girls both offer you a smile.

“We know,” Nancy reassures, “That’s why we thought it’d be a good idea to invite you this weekend. What happened three years ago is so minor in terms of the rest of our lives, it’s time we all move past it.”

Nancy, the peacemaker.

“Plus I’m planning a trip to Vegas for my birthday and I need your help with organising,” Robin chips in, her smile shifting into a grin. “You wouldn’t have answered my call, but now there’s no escape.”

Robin, the girl that can always get you to laugh.

The chuckle that escapes your lips is genuine. For a split second, your nerves are eased and you’re transported back to the basement of your childhood home where the three of you spent hours planning your futures while flicking through trashy magazines in accompaniment to old hits blaring through the docking station your dad’s iPod was connected to.

Back then, turning twenty-one seemed like a distant dream.

So you proceed to reassure the blonde you are going to get her name on the list of some of the best clubs Vegas has and she squeals, jumping up to squeeze you with excitement, and telling you how Vickie, her girlfriend, was going to lose her shit over this, then she disappears into the kitchen, presumably to call Vickie with the news.

“You just made her day,” Nancy says, smiling kindly.

“I’m glad I could do at least that,” you reply, then add, “I’m happy to be here. Thank you for thinking of me, Nance.”

Whatever Nancy is about to say next is interrupted by the sound of tires on gravel. The engine is shut shortly after your head snaps in the direction of the entryway, a large gulp forming in the back of your throat.

The next few minutes pass at an agonisingly slow pace. You think you hear Nancy call out your name, but your focus is on the door alone, waiting for it to open, waiting for him to come inside. You’re anticipating his reaction to seeing you after all this time, wondering if he’d even acknowledge your presence or skip straight to the kitchen with the acquired groceries.

From a recent post on Instagram, you know what he looks like. Really good, if anybody asked. You were careful not to like it despite your finger hovering over the image for a few seconds too long. Then you were careful not to like any other picture as you scrolled through his profile until you reached the very end: a post of the two of you at a Halloween party your junior year, the night you finally talked him into creating an account.

Thanks to the light stalking, you also know him and Chrissy broke up a few weeks ago. He seemingly deleted any trace of the preppy blonde from his profile, she did the same with him, and you couldn’t deny the stinge of satisfaction that cursed through your veins upon that revelation.

When the doorknob rattles, you hop on your feet.

There’s no going back now. You prepared yourself for this moment ever since you accepted Nancy’s invitation. Time to face the music.

Jonathan walks in first. He greets Nancy with a kiss before offloading the twelve-pack of beers onto the floor and turning his attention to you. His smile is big and you’re feeling a little less nervous when he pulls you into a silent hug. When he pulls back, he pats you on the shoulder, then picks up the box he’s after placing on the floor and walks in the direction of the kitchen.

The guy that introduces himself as Argyle is next. Heavy lidded, he’s holding an open bag of Doritos and jokes about how he’d also give you a hug but he doesn’t trust himself with the orange residue on his fingers.

“White t-shirts are the devil, man,” he draws out the last syllable and flops onto the couch next to Nancy, offering her a corn triangle. When she politely declines, he just shrugs and throws it in the air, only to not catch it with his mouth, the piece falling onto the wooden floor.

With your gaze now focused on the chip, a single step away from you, Nancy scolds Argyle to not do that again. In the midst of this small ordeal, you don’t hear your name being said. Only when a white Nike sneaker appears in your field of vision, stepping on the Dorito and smashing it to pieces, you look up at the person addressing you.

Steve’s expression is full of emotion, but he doesn’t move from the spot he’s found himself in. He doesn’t attempt to hug you or reach out for you like the others did, only staring into your eyes as if he was mesmerised by the fact you were actually here.

“Shit– I mean…”

“Yeah…”

That’s all that you can say right now because it’s not yet the time to address what also went down between the two of you at the infamous party. Steve seems to be on the same page as you, opting instead to finally take that step forward and hesitantly wrap his strong arms around your frame.

The hug is awkward at first, but when you nuzzle your head into the crook of his neck as if no time has passed, exhaling softly when your hands make home on his back, the boy relaxes and his grip on you tightens ever so slightly. He whispers, “I missed you, sweetheart.”, into your ear and you instantly return the sentiment because it’s true, you missed him terribly. More than you cared to admit to yourself before this very moment.

For a few seconds, you forget where you are. Inhaling the scent of Steve’s aftershave and revelling in the way his arms perfectly folded around you, making you feel safe. For a few seconds, you feel at peace. For a few simple seconds, you forget about the person you’re still to see. The person that most likely wouldn’t be as open to seeing you again, especially now that you were in Steve’s arms.

The door shuts with a tame bang, a distinctive sound of runners tapping against the wooden floor, Nancy says your name as Robin calls out for Steve, you think you hear Argyle murmuring “Ohhh shit, dude”, then someone clears their throat and you finally open your eyes, which seemingly have closed moments prior.

Your throat dries.

There, leaning against the archway with his hands hidden in the pockets of his dark denim jeans is the boy who was once your friend, if not more.

Unlike Steve, Eddie stares at you with a blank look in his eyes, devoid of any real emotion. The emptiness behind the mahogany sends a shiver down your spine and you’re suddenly hyper aware of the position he has once again found you in.

Freeing yourself from Steve’s grasp, you hold your arms close to your chest for protection. He places a hand on your shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze, before motioning for Argyle to follow him out of the room, where Nancy and the rest of the group just disappeared — leaving you alone with Eddie.

Neither of you says anything for what feels like an eternity.

You’re afraid to blink, just in case he disappears during the brief second your eyes close. Truthfully, he has every right to do so. Rush upstairs and slam his bedroom door shut as you remain right where he left you, forever haunted by the choices you made three years ago.

No, no.

There’s a reason you came and that’s to say you’re sorry.

Before you get a chance to break the silence, Eddie scoffs under his breath, dipping his head while running a hand through his brown locks. His hand remains at the back of his neck when he looks up at you again, a stupid smirk now plastered across his face.

“So, you and Harrington seem close as ever.”

Not the first words you expected to come out of his mouth, but given the situation he’s just encountered, they’re not surprising.

You nervously clear your throat, hugging yourself tighter.

“Uhm… No, we were just—”

“I don’t care,” he interrupts, his words cold yet the tone of his voice deceives him just a little. Also, if he actually didn’t care, then why make a sly comment in the first place?

But you don’t get to point that out, firstly ‘cause you’re still building up the courage to speak, and secondly because he’s quicker to continue with making his opinion known.

“Obviously you’ve always done whatever the fuck you wanted. Whoever you wanted.”

Ouch.

“Eddie, I-I…” you sigh quietly, “We were just hugging. We haven’t seen each other in a while.”

Eddie scoffs. “Cute.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t be condescending.” You shake your head. “I didn’t come here to argue with you.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“‘Cause I missed all of you, plus Nancy invited me and I-I wanted to take this trip to apologise. Explain myself.”

Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Well as far as I’m concerned, you can keep your apology,” he states sternly, standing up straight and taking a step in your direction. “Clearly the rest of them are right back to licking your ass, just like they did in high school. Entertaining your shitty behaviour, but I’m not interested.”

His words hurt. It feels like tiny nails are being hammered into your heart and you’re helpless to stop it.

“I don’t care for you and I don’t want to be around you. Since we’re stuck here, just refrain from jumping on Harrington at every chance you get. It’s fucking desperate behaviour.”

Tears burn down your cheeks slowly. They blur your vision and make you look like a giant fucking fool, even bigger than you already are. Eddie doesn’t owe you anything, you know that. Yet here you stand, silently crying over his animosity.

Nancy's words ring in your ears, “he asks about you, he asks if you’re happy.”. What a load of bullshit. He clearly doesn’t give a shit.

“I’ll make sure to stay out of your way then,” is all you manage to blurt out, wiping the wet droplets with the back of your hand.

Pushing past him, making a point to shove his shoulder with a little force, you hurry upstairs and into the confines of your bedroom. You make sure not to let the door shut with a bang, steering away from the dramatics Eddie undoubtedly wanted to provoke. Yes, he hurt your feelings, but you sure as hell weren’t going to let him ruin this weeknd for you and the rest of your mutual friends.

His reaction didn’t surprise you. In fact, you expected it.

That doesn’t mean it’s any easier to digest.

Taking a few minutes to collect yourself, you check your phone and begin to open unseen notifications from various social media sites in an attempt to think about anything else than Eddie’s words.

“Deseperate fucking behaviour,” he’s said that to you before. The deja-vu hits harder than anticipated, making the nausea you thought you surpassed earlier spring right back up, stronger.

Yup. As you regain control of your breathing, you think for sure that coming here was definitely a mistake.

thank you for reading & please support your writers by reblogging <3

#i have severe imposter syndrome bc i cannot tell if this is really good or really bad #either way i hope you enjoy!#and remember anon: you asked for angst #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson angst #eddie munson oneshot #eddie munson drabble #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #right where you left me.

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wandasaura · 6 months ago

Text

DRESS

summary — when the dress you wear to wanda’s halloween party catches the eye of a few too many people, natasha’s left with no other choice than to punish you

warning(s) — light elements of dom/sub dynamics, nipple torture/stimulation, thigh grinding, clothed sex, tit slapping, dirty talk, begging, pussy slap, orgasm denial, men/minors dni

kinktober

In retrospect, you definitely shouldn’t have worn your tightest, shortest, skimpiest black dress to Wanda’s dinner party when you know she loves to check you out without regard for whose around, but the soft satin had called your name the second your eyes had fallen on it hanging so tantalizingly in your shared closet with Natasha. It had been an impulsive, very expensive purchase for your three year anniversary, and truthfully, it hadn’t seen many nights out since. Probably because Natasha couldn’t keep her hands off of you when it hugged your body just right, and her friends couldn’t keep their eyes off of your chest, especially not when you dressed the swell of your breasts in the finest gold body glitter, your neck decorated with a dainty gold chain that practically begged for attention.

It was her annual halloween dinner party, one filled with festive cocktails made by Agatha, some of them involving rubber spiders that gave you the chills just thinking about, and dry ice flowing out of bowls of questionably green liquor. Wanda threw an amazing party, especially when she had a theme to stick with, but this year, your fourth year going as Natasha’s date, you had more or less signed up to be the main attraction without realizing. Natasha had realized. She’d known what kind of attention you were in for the second you met her at the bottom of the stairs, your hair curled and brushed out over your shoulders, your dark eyeliner sleek and captivating almost as much as your bold red lip, but you had been ignorantly unaware of how when you bent over, your ass hung out of the bottom of your dress, or how your nipples pebbled against the satin material and allowed an easily made visual of your perky breasts for anyone to fantasize. There wasn’t any time for you to change, not that she would ever ask that of you, but as the night drew on longer, her jealousy rivaled the color of the punch; green and passionately dominant.

A soft mewl fell off of your lips as her fingers pinched and prodded at your nipples through the thin material of your dress, her front flush against yours, her hands pinned between your warm bodies that had slipped into your apartment ever so drunkenly. You’d both had your fair share of cocktails, never able to resist Agatha’s creations, they were truly something magical, but as your sobriety diminished, replaced by intoxicated careless energy, the hem of your dress wrinkled higher and higher up your thighs until Wanda had been the one to pull it down, right in sight of Natasha who bristled with anger.

Her delicate black suit was a wrinkled masterpiece beneath your desperate fingers, lapels gripped between your painted black nails as your hips ground down on the slack covered thigh she so meticulously placed between your trembling legs, flush against your core that was covered by only a thin strip of sodden lace. Breathless moans fell into the air as you chased your pleasure, head thrown back against the bedroom door she’d pinned you to impatiently. Your bed lay unmade a few feet away, but Natasha had no interest in laying you down and spreading you out. So much of your body had been seen already, so much teasing had already been done, she’d had enough of it, it was her turn to return the favor.

Her skin was littered with the shade of your lipstick, a collage of your affection and arousal painted across her skin in sloppy kiss marks, her neck bearing the majority of the evidence. A sharp whine shattered your composure when she flexed her thigh just right, angled so perfectly against your core that your clit had been the thing that felt her muscle tense just right. Her fingers worked at your nipples, never slipping beneath the satin material that was slowly falling down your shoulders and revealing more of your breasts that glimmered beneath the eerie moonlight of October.

“Do you know what you do to me?” She growled against the shell of your ear, your sensitive lobe pinched between her teeth as she husked against you possessively. Rarely did you give her a reason to be so possessive, wrapped around her finger near embarrassingly so, yet whenever Wanda was around, somehow it was unavoidable. “Wearing this dress, those heels. God, I wanted to take you over the island so bad. They were all looking at you anyways; at these tits, that ass– I should've given them a show, made it worth all the stares. Should’ve let them hear the way you whine when I play with your pretty nipples, when that desperate cunt gets some attention. Would you like that, baby? Showing them just how much I own this perfect body?” The pinching and twisting had turned to full on groping, her palms creating friction against your pebbled buds as she squeezed your breasts with both hands, uncaring for how cruel her touch was, nor how desperate you were for more.

“Y-Yes!” Your desperate moans and pleading whimpers had only grown louder, reverberating off the walls dressed in pictures of both you and Natasha during various stages of your relationship, driving her own desperation higher, pulling her beneath your alluring hex. “God please, please don’t stop! Nat!” You moaned softly, your eyes pinched shut as you allowed your head to fall forward, uncaring for how your lips marked her suit with dark patches of red, just needing her close as you felt the tension of pleasure building so steadily in your belly it was bound to break soon.

“I won’t baby. Not yet. Not until I’m done with you. Not until I’ve reminded this pretty body of who it belongs to.” There had been no warning for the distance that came between your chests in the seconds that followed her admission of possession, but it made sense when her palm collided with the satin covering your sensitive breasts, the padded slap ringing through the room almost as blindingly as the sensation of pleasurable pain that sparked through your belly. You gasped, your breath catching in your throat as you rocked harder against her thigh, desperate for her to take you to bed, to undress you hungrily and uncover the lingerie that that dug into your hip bones and marked their claim; her claim. You’d bought for her, thought of her when you slipped it on. They were an extension of her ownership and nothing less, and desperately you wanted to feel her beneath it.

“Off. Please. Take my dress off. Touch me. Please.” You begged so sweetly she almost wanted to give in, but she had to punish you, there was a lesson to be learned, and she had you so pliant beneath her hands there was no greater time than now.

“Oh no, baby. You wanted to wear this dress. You let everybody see how good you look in it. I’m gonna make you feel so good, so so good, but we’re not taking it off. It stays on until I’m done.” She husked against the shell of your ear, her teeth tugging at your earlobe as she rocked her thigh against you, adding friction that had stars being painted across your vision. A delicate whimper fell into the air, soft and impatient as you ground down against her, desperate for more, but already so impossibly close. Another slap came to your other breast, the same stinging pleasurable sensation, and that was it. That was what you needed. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that she hadn’t even really touched you at all, that your panties stuck grossly to your folds that were sodden with sticky ropes of tantalizing arousal. She’d pushed you to your end, tightened that blissful coil impossibly so.

“Oh! Oh! I’m cumming! I’m gonna cum! I–” It was gone. Her warmth, her delicious touch on your nipples, her thigh between your leg pressed flush against your core. It was gone, but that coil wasn’t, and desperately your hips moved to an uneven rhythm against the cold air, searching for friction that wasn’t there. “No! No, I– I was so close! Nat, I was so close!” The words fell off of your tongue in pathetic sobs of dismay and defeat, your body threatening to grumble as that addictive sensation ebbed away, leaving only a dull pulsing in your clit and emptiness in your pulsating hole. You could feel the effects of the denial, the disappointment and dissatisfaction, but everything white hot and pleasurable was gone, leaving only the distaste of nothingless left for you to grasp. “Please.” You hated this sensation each time she brought it forward, and she knew that.

“Oh no baby, you don’t get to cum tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But tonight, you’re just going to have to try and ignore how that feels. I bet its so achey, sweet girl. I bet its just dull enough that if you think about something else, you won’t feel it at all, but you’re such a desperate girl, so eager for me, you can’t think about anything else. Can you? Can you think about anything else baby, or is that needy cunt doing all the thinking for you?” As if to accentuate her point, her hand slipped beneath your dress for the first time that night, cupping your cunt, grinding her fingers against your clit, probing at your entrance until you were nearly weeping for her again. It wasn’t gone so easily this time, because when she went to pull away, when you thought you were losing everything for the second time, her palm slapped against your core, the sound wet and harsh against the silence of your bedroom. A weak moan fell off your lips, your hips, with a mind of their own, attempting to grind down on her fingers, addicted to the sharp sparks of pain she caused, but she was gone again, and again you were left with only a beating in your sensitive clit that wouldn’t be taken care of. “Maybe tomorrow.” Is all that she left you with before she disappeared into the closet, the sound of her pants hitting the floor indicative of what she was doing; going to bed. You were needy, and desperate for pleasure, and she was just going to bed.

Not wanting to argue, not wanting to draw this out for longer than necessary, you followed her motions, slipping off the dress, and then the lingerie that you had hoped she’d be the one to take off, and crawling into bed with only the thought of ‘maybe tomorrow’ on your mind.

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #dom!natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff smut #natasha romanoff fic #[ kinktober ] — ⟡#minors dni ৎ୭

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moonstruckme · 8 months ago

Note

Hi gorgeous! I love ur writing!! Here's a lil blurb request for either Sirius or Remus! It's not smut but more like the lead up/conversation beforehand. Like May be a super inexperienced reader and she's nervous af bc she knows he has way more experience than her and she's worried about being good enough for him or worried about disappointing him and he's just so sweet and reassuring and is just happy she trusts him

Thank you for requesting my love!

cw: mature themes (and immature jokes), no smut

Sirius Black x fem!reader ♡ 667 words

“You’re not gonna suck, baby.” Sirius is laughing at you, which isn’t really the response you were hoping for. You’re so embarrassed it’s making your palms sweat.

“Or,” he reconsiders, “you could, of course, but there’s no pressure to.”

You blow out a frustrated breath. “Can you please just take me…” you trail off, realizing you’re about to hand your boyfriend another joke. By the gleam in Sirius’ eyes, he realizes it too. “Can we please not joke around for a minute?”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” He smooths his face into something approaching sobriety. “We can.”

You’re not sure how he can be so much more comfortable than you right now. Sirius is sitting across from you on the bed, criss-cross applesauce in only his boxers. You at least have on pajamas, and yet this conversation is making you feel more naked than he is.

He asks in a gentler tone, “What is it that you’re worried about, sweetheart? We don’t have to do anything before you’re ready.”

“It’s not that I don’t feel ready,” you sigh. “I want to, I just…I want you to like it.”

Sirius barks out a laugh. “Well, I don’t think we’re in any danger there.”

“You know what I mean.” You shrink away from him a bit, drawing into yourself. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t want it to be disappointing.”

“Baby. Hey.” Sirius scoots closer to you. He ducks his head, catching your gaze and holding on tight. “It doesn’t matter how much experience you have. It could never be disappointing.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s you,” he says, emphatic, like it’s obvious. “I always love being with you, it doesn’t matter what we’re doing. And I know sex is going to be the same.” He leans in close like he’s going to tell you a secret. “Sweetheart, you could slap my ass and spit on me and I’d just be thrilled you were there.”

You fight to keep a straight face, furrowing your brows. “So…I shouldn’t do those things?”

“I’m actually not sure.” Sirius sits up, shrugging. “I could be into it, I’ve never tried. Point is, you can do whatever you want.”

“I don’t know what I want,” you tell him, though you are, admittedly, a bit less worried now. “I don’t want to just lie there, I don’t think, but I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.”

“There’s nothing you’re supposed to do, babydoll.” He gives you a little smile and reaches for your hand. When you give it to him, he holds it in his lap, thumbs tracing the lines of your palm soothingly. “It’s okay not to have a plan going into things. That’s how it usually happens, no matter how many times you’ve done it. You just feel it out and go with the flow.”

You chew your lip. Sirius is looking at you so kindly, his expression warm and open and his touch caring as he starts to draw a slow path up the inside of your wrist. You don’t want to keep arguing with him. Maybe that’s why your voice comes out so small.

“But what if I can’t?”

“You can.” There’s no hesitation in Sirius, no uncertainty. “You really don’t need to worry about it. Your body will react if you let it, and whatever happens, I’ll be there to talk you through it, yeah?”

You exhale. “That actually makes me feel a lot better,” you admit.

Sirius smiles. “I’m glad,” he says, lifting your hand to give your finger a teasing nibble. “Hey, we’re not doing this until you decide you feel like it, so don’t stress, okay? I’ll make sure you have a good time when we do.”

Blood rushes to your cheeks. “How’re you gonna do that?”

Your boyfriend’s eyes gleam. “You wanna find out? I can give you a preview, if you like.”

You don’t have to answer before he’s crawling up on top of you, your giggles lost into his mouth.

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vampireids · 5 months ago

Text

perfect stranger

summary: lauren reynolds is dead, emily prentiss along with her, and spencer finds himself alone, struggling and in need of company (smut, angst)

warnings: former emily prentiss/spencer reid, exploration of grief, references to addiction and divorce, spencer acts questionably in this but he's struggling so forgive him, reader has some backstory, reader is referred to with she pronouns and wears makeup and a skirt, reader smokes cigarettes, spencer POV (third person limited). very, very angsty.

word count: 7.8k

a/n: the first half of this is quite spencer/emily centric in its themes, but the second half focusses more on the reader character. reader means everything to me and i am cradling her so gently. posting on mobile so let me know if there are any formatting issues!

Three weeks since Emily Prentiss had died and taken half of Spencer Reid with her.

Three weeks.

Three weeks that tasted of ash and bile, where no matter how brightly the sun shone everything still looked grey, where every smile he passed on the street seemed to be mocking him.

He hadn't had an easy life, not by any standard, but even he had been unaware of just how keenly he could hurt, just how painful and violent breathing could be. It was an agony that seemed to persist beyond any capacity a human being could feasibly endure, a constant bleeding wound in the cavity of his chest.

It hadn't been long before daydreams of oblivion took hold of him. Murmurs of a phone number he couldn't forget as hard as he tried sounded in his mind, growing louder and louder as days went by. If he called it, he could remember peace. More crucially, he could forget everything. A call, a deal, a prick, a push, and every screaming agony in his mind could go away. The sweet, muggy bliss of a syringe of dreamless sleep. It would be so easy.

A disapproving voice in his head that sounded uncannily like Emily pleaded with him to resist the allure. She wouldn't want him to submit to the urge. She'd want him to withstand the pain, to feel the burn of grief boldly and without reprieve, to let time heal him with all the swiftness of a wounded sloth.

But it had been Emily who had loved him enough to keep him grounded and sober. And without her, how could he ever be strong enough to do it? The constant craving for quiet had been drowned out by the sounds of her soft sighs as his body pressed against her, by the consuming sensation of her around him and on top of him and in the beating heart in his chest.

And slowly, an idea formed. He couldn't have Emily anymore. But he could find something close enough. Some approximation to act as a temporary sigil to ward off the ghosts at his door. It had been an old coping mechanism he’d turned to in the early days of his sobriety. Nothing was more deadly to an addict than solitude, so he’d sought out company where he could get it, in faceless women in bar bathrooms and parked cars.

It had worked before, and it could work again.

At the very least, it forced him to shower and put on nice clothes, to brush his teeth and hair and remember the feeling of being alive. With his face clean and his body dressed, he could almost pass for human instead of the walking gaping wound he felt like.

The bar was an old favourite of his. The lights were dim and low, the music soft and unobtrusive. It wasn't any kind of high class establishment, but it didn't need to be for his purpose. With any luck, he wouldn't be here long.

He walked to the bar and ordered a neat whiskey. Drinking in his fragile state was unwise, but he needed to feel the burn of it sliding down his throat to remind him he was still capable of feeling anything but grief. After a bracing sip, he took a seat on a barstool and surveyed the milling revellers. They all seemed carefree and happy in a way he resented, drinking and laughing and dancing with one another, lovesick like he’d once been.

One woman caught his eye on the other end of the bar. She was alone, like him. Nursing whiskey neat like him. Seeming just lonely enough to make his own crushing solitude feel less isolating. She noticed him watching her and smiled, a coy edge to it that made heat start to simmer in the core of him.

She wasn't Emily, but she had a similar fire in her eyes, the same challenge in her smile, a striking beauty to her face that stung as much as it excited.

If he could find her beautiful, then beauty was still attainable to him. Things could still be wonderful in some far off life.

He was so lost in his thoughts he didn't notice she'd stood, approaching him and sitting in the stool beside him.

“Waiting for someone?” she asked softly.

Yes, he thought, I’m waiting for Emily, and I’ll be waiting for as long as I live.

But for tonight, he would temporarily cease his waiting. So he smiled, shook his head, and said. “No. Are you?”

She grinned at him, and the expression was so reminiscent of Emily's sly smiles that it hurt. “I was. But I think I found what I was waiting for.”

The line was so cheesy and silly he couldn't help but huff out a laugh. “And what would that be?”

“Someone pretty. Someone who looks like they might have stories to tell.” She tilted her head. “You know anyone like that?”

“I might,” he shrugged. “I’m Spencer.”

She told him her name and he barely heard it but he knew he wouldn't forget it. He knew he was supposed to say something, so he breathed, “that's a beautiful name. It suits you.”

Her smile was like the sun and he almost believed he could feel warm again. “You're not so bad yourself.”

He’d never grown used to accepting a compliment so he ducked his head to hide his face. She was already talking again, saving him from the awkwardness of knowing how to reply.

“What brought you here tonight?”

The truth wasn't something he was ready to share with a stranger. He approximated it with, “I’m looking to feel a little less alone.”

Her hand on his was soft and warm. “What a coincidence. I’m here for the same thing.”

He couldn't fathom someone like her, so beautiful and confident and with such a warm presence, being lonely. So he raised his eyebrows. “You're really wanting for company?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she laughed. “But yes. I am wanting for company. I just moved here.”

“What made you move here?”

“Nothing special about here. I needed to leave my life behind and threw a dart at a map of the states and moved where it landed. Well, technically it landed on Virginia, but I overruled that. This was close enough.”

Needed to leave her life behind.

She'd said it casually, but it was an interesting thing to note. Like him, she was lost, alone, hiding from something. Seeking comfort in the arms of strangers who wouldn’t stick around to fix her messes. He hummed thoughtfully. “Running from something?”

With a shrug, she murmured, “aren’t we all?”

“Most people,” he conceded.

“You?”

“I don’t like to think I am. But I don’t think I’d be here tonight if I wasn’t.”

She smiled at him slightly. He was only just starting to realise what else about the smile reminded him of Emily - the slight undercurrent of sadness to it. “That’s the nice thing about running.” she said after a pause. “Sometimes you look up and realise your feet took you somewhere good without you even realising it.”

“Are you somewhere good?”

“You’ll have to tell me,” she said softly, and leaned forwards, capturing his mouth in a kiss.

It took a moment for his brain to catch up with his situation before he was kissing her back. She tasted like whiskey, fiery and hot and intoxicating. He reached his palm up to rest it on her cheek and she made a soft noise of encouragement, sliding her tongue into his mouth.

The angle of it was awkward, their bodies angled towards each other and hanging off their barstools, but it didn’t make the kiss any less dizzying. It wasn’t Emily, no way to pretend for even a second it was, the taste of her and the shape of her and the feeling of her were all different. But it didn’t matter. It was company, and she was beautiful, and he knew in his heart Emily would want him to do this. She’d want him to find something that would help ease the pain. She would never want him to be lonely.

She pulled away and he gasped.

“Do you want to get out of here?” she asked breathlessly.

He nodded desperately, wrapping his hand around her wrist. “Yes. Please.”

“My place okay?”

“Yes. That’s perfect. Let’s go.”

She picked up her glass of whiskey and motioned for him to do the same. As soon as he did she wrapped her arm around his and linked them at the elbow, holding her drink aloft. It took a second to realise what she wanted, and when he did, he grinned. It was silly, childish, exactly what he needed. She nodded at him and, arms interlocked, they downed their drinks in unison. The liquor burned his throat like a sip of liquid flame and he struggled to keep his mouth neutral as he swallowed, watching as she wrinkled her nose. He couldn’t help his huffed laugh, giddy with the drink and the company.

She led him out of the bar, weaving them around the huddles of drunks and tables of friends in silence, and pounding guilt nestled behind his chest. Three weeks since the death of his lover, and he’d already found his way into the arms of someone else. What kind of man was he? Was his loyalty so thin?

But she turned towards him, glancing back with a mischief in her eyes that was achingly, throbbingly familiar, and he couldn’t make himself pull away.

He wasn’t a man of God. He didn’t believe Emily was watching down on him, in pain at the thought of him with another woman. She was simply gone. He couldn’t live for a ghost he didn’t believe in.

It was all hollow justification, really, convincing himself it wasn’t wrong to do the thing he already knew he would do. Her pulse under his fingertips was thrumming and alive, the sign of a heart that could pump blood and skin that was flush with warmth, and he needed to feel that. He needed to want something that could want him back.

The air was chilled as they stepped outside into the street and he stumbled into her as she came to a sudden stop. She giggled softly and wrapped her arm around him, steadying him and pulling him softly against her. Her body was a column of heat beside him, every breath she took causing her chest to rise and fall against him. Living, living, so alive, something real, something tangible. He’d known this woman all of 10 minutes and he loved her as much as he hated her for simply being alive.

It wasn’t fair on this poor woman, this beautiful woman, this kind woman to be drawing these constant comparisons. That thought, more than any other, almost gave him pause. He vowed to want her for what she was and not what she wasn’t. She was sweet, beautiful, haunted, said he had pretty eyes and looked like someone with stories. She had soft skin and lovely eyes, a smile that held secrets and promises that he wouldn’t get to know. He could want her for that.

She swung out her arm and a taxi pulled in beside them and they stumbled into the taxi, their bodies never leaving each other until she shuffled across the seat to the other side. Even then, her hand stayed on his arm and he revelled in the touch. She leaned forwards to share her address with the taxi driver and they drove into the night, the flickering street lights casting shadows on her face.

He couldn’t help it, he leaned forwards to kiss her again. Her lips were a temporary oblivion, something consuming to drown out the noise of his grief. A comfort in company, a reminder he wasn’t as alone as he felt. The guilt bubbling in his stomach was dulled by the softness of her lips, the gentle movement of her tongue, the sharp bite of her teeth on his lower lip. So different to Emily. Not different enough.

No.

She was her own person.

He pulled away with a gasp, her chest heaving to match his own.

“You’re good at that,” she mumbled.

He moved his thumb across her cheek. “So are you.”

She smiled and kissed him again, and he let himself sink into it, to feel the heat of another person against him, to let the sensations wash over him and through him and stir those familiar desires beneath his skin.

It was a quick taxi to her apartment and then he staggered onto the sidewalk like a man intoxicated. He was dizzy, though he only had the one drink. On a street he’d never been on before despite his years in the city, the buildings unfamiliar, his companion a stranger, and he felt like someone totally different. Someone else. Someone who could be casual and silly and risky and stupid. Not Spencer Reid. Not the grieving man.

His alienation from himself would be frightening if he had the fortitude to care. Instead, he called it a blessing and let his beautiful stranger pull him up the stairs.

Her apartment was four flights up, and by the time they reached her door, he was breathless. She laughed at the pink on his cheeks and he felt a hum of embarrassment course through him.

“Not laughing at you, baby, I promise,” she murmured as she turned to unlock the door. The term of endearment sent something hot running through his veins and his face only got warmer.

The door was pushed open, and she waited for him to enter before shutting it behind her.

Another moment of guilt and hesitation threatened to break him and he drowned it out by pulling her closer and capturing her mouth in a desperate kiss. She made a soft noise of surprise against him before melting into it, bringing her hand up to rest on his shoulder and pressing herself against him. It was soft and sweet and nothing he needed it to be so he deepened it, pressed her against the wall to gain the leverage to kiss her roughly. She let out another low sound of pleasure and it emboldened him, gave him the courage he needed to guide his hand up her thigh and under her skirt, running his fingertips along her hip.

She threw her head back with a soft “fuck,” letting her head rest against the wall as he moved his hand from resting on her hip to tracing over the line of her underwear and brought it down until it was ghosting along her core.

Her softness, pliability, was intoxicating and so different from what he was used to. Emily gave as good as she got, was bared teeth and strength and only going down with a fight. His beautiful stranger seemed happy to let him control the night, and he was grateful for it in that moment, grateful for the opportunity to have the control in the bedroom he’d lost over his life.

She gripped onto his shoulders hard as he pushed the panties aside and ran his fingers over the exposed flesh, spreading the accumulated arousal and circling over the sensitive nub at her apex.

He attached his lips to her neck, grazing his teeth across her collarbone and drinking in the sounds she made as he slowly inserted one finger, and then a second.

“Baby, god, feels so good,” she mumbled above him and the praise went straight to his cock, the taste of her skin against his tongue and the feeling of her around his fingers creating a dizzying cocktail of arousal in his abdomen. He was making her feel good, he was capable of creating pleasure in another, he could do something right even if his life felt wrong and hollow. He clung to that knowledge as he sucked a mark into her neck and basked in her whines.

Years of magic tricks gave him agile hands, a skill at profiling let him read a woman’s pleasure in her gasps and twitches, and it wasn't long before her moans were heightening in pitch and volume and her nails were pressing into his shoulders desperately. He felt a glow of pride as she came undone around him, moaning his name in shaking cadence. He pulled his fingers from her carefully and felt a bolt of arousal at the sight of her, her skirt rucked up around her waist, her cheeks pink and her eyeliner smudged.

“You have wonderful hands,” she murmured after a few moments of loaded silence.

He laughed roughly. “I’ve been told that before,” he mumbled, and didn't mention the woman who’d told him.

“Let me make you feel good too, baby,” she said, and her widened eyes and desperate tone made it sound very much like a plea.

His head was spinning, body alight with lust, too full of want for the guilt to make a dent, and he nodded. He was sick, sick, sick in the head, his agreement a condemnation of himself, and so he nodded.

“Yes. Yes, okay. Let's go to the bedroom,” he tried to speak through the dizzy desire and warring self-loathing and his voice came out thin.

She frowned, eyes big and concerned and placed her hand on his cheek. “Are you okay, baby? You don't have to do anything you don't want to.”

He shook his head almost violently, causing her hand to drop to his shoulder. He felt its absence like a wound. “No. Please. I want this, I want you.”

She still looked hesitant so he kissed her, feeling the tension leave her body as his tongue explored her mouth. The relief of her wordless acquiescence was physical. He needed this, he needed her, he needed his life to dissolve in a melody of moans until he couldn't remember anything but the present, until everything faded but touch and heat and want.

He couldn't bear the weight of his mind alone. She might be a stranger, but he needed her. And curse Emily's voice in his head chiding him softly both for using this poor woman and for so quickly finding solace in the body of another. He was using her, sure, but she was using him too. It wasn’t like she was in love with him, and he wasn’t in love with her either. It was a one night stand, not marriage. And he and Emily had never labelled their relationship, had never been able to communicate well enough to even discuss exclusivity and all of that aside, she was fucking dead so really she’d left him first and didn’t have the right to be judging him.

He was talking so much to the Emily in his head he was starting to remember that he was still in the window for schizophrenia.

He kissed the woman more desperately, drowning out that thought. She made a keening, broken sound against him, and it temporarily brought him to the present.

He took a hold of her wrist, still resting against his collarbone and stumbled back. “Bedroom, please,” he begged, too far gone to be self-conscious of the pleading tone.

She smiled, her pupils blown wide and her lips darkened from the bruising force of the kiss. “Come on, baby.”

She took a stumbling step towards him and he felt a surge of pride he’d taken her apart so thoroughly. He was still a man, after all, and she was a woman, a stupidly beautiful woman he was undeserving of, and it felt good to know he was bringing her pleasure.

He let himself be led like a lamb by its shepherd to her bedroom. It was clean, minimal, the bedroom of a flight risk who didn’t want anything tying them down. No photographs, no personal effects, nothing in the room that didn’t serve a utility.

The profiler in his brain was switched off by her hands moving to the buttons of his shirt, undoing them with nimble fingers. Once his shirt hung loose, her touch moved to his bare chest, tracing across the planes of his torso. He felt unavoidably self-conscious under her scrutiny, but she looked at him with such a heat in her eyes he couldn’t help but know she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

He still wanted to know what demons had led her to him, to seeking solace in the arms of a man she didn’t know, but he shoved the thought down. She was well within her right to want a one night stand, she didn’t have to be damaged just because he was. And besides, she’d started removing her own shirt, and it was hard to think about anything other than her chest, framed by a delicate black brassiere.

She caught his heated gaze because she laughed softly. “Like what you see, baby?”

He nodded stupidly. “God, so much.”

And then she was kissing him, walking him backwards towards the bed where he was all too happy to go.

His knees hit the back of the bed and he dropped onto it, looking up at her as she undid the button fastening her skirt and let it fall to the floor. Her underwear matched the bra, and she wore them well, the lines and curves of her silhouette enough to intoxicate him. He leaned forwards to kiss her abdomen softly and she gasped. Their positioning, her above him with his head against her stomach, was some strange parody of worship. In a way, she was a god to him. He was giving himself as an offering in futile hope of salvation, devoting himself to a beautiful concept of a woman. She was nothing real and everything wonderful. A perfect stranger.

Her hands wove themselves into his hair and he groaned out his oblation into her skin.

“I need you, baby, please,” she whispered into the still air of the room, and he was her willing servant.

He sat back, and before his hands could reach down to unfasten his pants, she was undoing them for him, her fingers trembling as she fiddled with his button and then his fly.

There was something unsettling about her movements, and he stilled. “You okay?” he murmured.

“Yeah. Yeah, just want you,” she mumbled as he shimmied out of his pants.

There was something she wasn’t telling him, but he didn’t have time to ask before she was dropping to straddle his lap, his cock only separated from her arousal by the flimsy fabric of their undergarments. He might have been a genius, but even he found it hard to think about anything much with a woman in his lap, her hips shifting against his and sending his senses into overdrive.

He begged a silent plea of forgiveness to the Emily in his head. She remained stonily silent. He took it as permission and put his hands around the waist of his perfect stranger, using his leverage to twist them both until she was lying beneath him on the bed.

“You’re beautiful,” he said softly, and the tender words felt like more of a betrayal than the sex.

“So are you,” she whispered, and he kissed her gently. The kiss was short, chaste, before his lips were moving - kissing down her jaw, the column of her throat, her chest, her abdomen, her stomach. She gasped softly as he reached the waistband of her panties, and he lingered there just a moment, looking up at the rapt expression on her face.

He noticed, not for the first time, how very sad she looked behind the desire. Maybe she knew he was thinking about someone else. More likely, she was thinking about someone else. It wasn’t his business. He understood what it was like to need to drown out the ghosts.

It was the echo of that thought that played in his head as he slowly pulled down her panties. Drown the ghost, make her feel good, bask in the warmth of another, remember what it means to live and breathe and feel. Simple instructions, a defined victory condition, something black and white and real. He tossed her underwear aside and looked up at her, propped up on her shoulders to watch as he exposed her.

He must have stayed there a moment too long, because she made a soft, plaintive sound and mumbled, “Baby, please. Don’t tease me.”

“Sorry,” he grinned, not sorry at all if it made her call him baby in that desperate, whining voice, and licked a stripe up her core.

She made a harsh, pleading noise at the contact, and he felt it like lightning under his skin. He pushed away the thoughts of the sounds Emily had once made, and moved to suck gently on her clit, summoning more sweet whines from her lips.

Her hands came down to twist in his hair and he groaned against her. He felt hot, shivery, alternating waves of lust and guilt rocking through him like a boat tossed about through the surf. Something about the sheer wrongness of it was only heightening his desire. His grief was getting tangled in his need and his body was turning all of it into heat and want.

Eventually, she gasped raggedly and used her grip on his hair to pull him off of her, looking down at him with eyes turned the inky black shade of lust. “Need you, now, please, baby,” she groaned, and what man could say no to that?

He nodded, dizzy and hazy, and lifted himself onto his knees. “Condom?” he managed to force out through the white noise of his mind, and she sat up to lean over to her bedside drawer, rifling through a little box to pull out a Trojan.

He pulled off his own underwear hastily as she unwrapped it, and hissed as she leaned forwards to roll it onto him. He hadn’t realised how hard he was until her soft hands were ghosting over him, and the touch felt like little lines of fire over his skin. He groaned thickly and let his head fall back as she stroked him experimentally over the latex.

He didn’t want to wait any longer, couldn’t risk being still when the thoughts of everything he was hiding from could come back. Emily was being quiet in his skull, probably furious at his betrayal, but it was still quiet, no voice in his head but his own. So, he gently pushed her back until she was lying against the pillow, and put his weight on one arm as he guided himself to the centre of her arousal. He teased for a bit, sliding his length along her a few times to hear her breath hitch.

Finally, slowly, he pushed in, his eyelids fluttering as he was constricted by the tightness inside of her. It hadn’t even been that long since he’d had sex, but after years of having it almost daily, his body had grown accustomed to a certain frequency, and the tight heat felt like home.

As soon as he was fully immersed inside her, he let out a ragged, hoarse groan. Her own thin whine was in harmony with his, the musicality of their pleasure intertwining as their bodies did.

His vision blurred as he started to move, the friction sending sparks up through his skin as she gasped his name underneath him.

“Oh, fuck, Emily,” he groaned in return.

He didn’t realise what he’d done until she stilled completely under him.

“Emily?” she said quietly.

It was like a bucket of ice water had been thrown over him, every nerve going dead with the shock.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and it felt so inadequate to the scale of his mistake.

She swallowed under him, her throat bobbing. Something was playing out behind her eyes, something not even years of profiling could clue him into. Eventually, she shook her head, the movement minute.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “I understand. I can be Emily. If that’s what you need, I can be Emily.”

The words broke his heart. Who was this woman? Who had broken her down to the point she was willing to contort herself to be another woman for a man she’d never met?

He shook his head. “No. You’re not Emily. You’re you, and that’s a good thing to be. Don’t- you don’t- I’m an asshole. My head is a mess right now, it’s nothing to do with you. You’re wonderful, you’re beautiful, you’re kind. I want you.

She smiled thinly and brought her hand up to rest against his face. “It’s okay, baby. It’s one night. I’m whoever you want me to be, okay? Whatever you need. Let me take care of you.”

He groaned slightly, a war in his torso as her words cast a sick sort of spell on him. The person he wanted to be fought the battle, screamed at him that she obviously had her own demons, that he’d be taking advantage of what must be a self-esteem issue, to be allowing him - asking him - to pretend she was another woman. “It’s not right,” he mumbled.

“Does that really matter?” she whispered. “No one’s watching. I’m saying it’s okay.”

“Why?” he said desperately. “Why would that be okay?”

“We’re using each other, that’s all this is, right? I don’t know your life or your last name or your job or your friends, you’re whoever I want you to be tonight. I can be whoever you need me to be. It’s only fair.”

Her words made a strange sort of sense, or maybe he was choosing to believe that to stymie the guilt bubbling behind his ribs. He was using her, plain and simple, no matter whose name he was saying. If she didn’t care, why should he?

Because you’re better than that, the Emily in his head murmured disapprovingly. But who was she to talk when she’d left him all alone, when she’d lied to all of them to follow a terrorist without thinking of the wound she’d be leaving behind. So he nodded. “Okay. Okay. Are you… Do you want me to keep going?”

“Yes. Please,” she said, eyes big and pleading, and he gave only another cursory thought to wondering if she was okay before starting to move again. She wasn’t Emily, there wasn’t really a way to pretend that she was, unless he closed her eyes and that seemed too sick even for him. But the feeling of it all was still so achingly familiar - the heat, the tightness, the slick sounds of bodies connecting and the shaking gasps of pleasure.

He couldn’t pretend she was Emily, but he could pretend he loved her and she loved him. And with the way she looked at him, her jaw slack in ecstasy and her pupils blown with lust, it wasn’t hard. She looked beautiful, genuinely divine in the throes of her desire, in that way people only do at their most unrestrained. He leaned forwards and kissed her, drinking in the sounds she made against his lips and revelling in her hand gripping his shoulder like he was a lifeline, the thread connecting her to reality.

“Baby, oh, baby, I’m close, please, just like that, fuck,” the words were mumbled against his lips, garbled among gasps and soft whines, and it took a moment to decipher what she was saying. But once he’d decoded it, he glowed in his pride.

“Come for me whenever you want to, sweetheart,” he groaned, “Let me make you feel good.”

His tone was tender, fragile, delicate, the words of lovers and not strangers, and maybe that was the fantasy he was fulfilling with her. One where he loved freely and received it in return like he never could with Emily and her shroud of secrets. He’d pretended with her, and he was pretending again now, playing the role like he was born for it.

And when, maybe seconds or years later, her noises climbed in pitch and she tightened around him, he pushed her hair out of her face gently and fucked her like he knew her beyond the feeling of her body and the sounds of her bliss.

Her nails dug into him, and she called him, “baby,” again in that sweet, overwhelmed voice, and it was that which pushed him over the edge to his own undoing, his rhythm faltering and stuttering as he twitched inside of her.

This, the release, the moment where the world stopped and all he could feel was beautiful, perfect pleasure, was why he'd gone out tonight. A simulacrum of hydromorphone all released in one, lovely moment. One addiction swapped for another, oblivions traded. Her hand ghosted back over his cheekbone as he slowed and stopped, his head leaning into her palm as he stilled.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he laughed, breathlessly, smoothing out her hair before pulling out of her with a wince.

She sat up and watched as he tied off the condom. “I know, but I want to. I needed this. Let me take that, I’ll bin it in the bathroom.”

He smiled weakly and handed it to her, watching as she walked into the little ensuite next to the room. She shut the door behind her, and he sat awkwardly for a moment, his nakedness suddenly visceral in the solitude of another person’s bedroom. He stood and found his underwear, discarded next to the bed, shimmying into them as he waited for her to be done. He never knew what to do in this part, never knew the etiquette of the afterglow. Eventually, he heard the toilet flushing and the sound of the tap running, and she emerged from the bathroom clad in a short white satin robe, tied loosely at the waist.

“I’m going to have a cigarette,” she said with a little smile. “Care to join me?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” he said, his voice hoarse, and followed her outside to the balcony. It was nice, a wrought iron railing shielding them from falling into the city skyline, two chairs nestled around a small round glass table. On it lay a crystalline ashtray, stained with dead embers, and a small pack of Marlboro Golds.

She sat on the far chair, motioning for him to sit too, and picked up the pack, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it up. She took a long drag and let her head fall back as she exhaled the smoke.

“I know it’s a bad habit,” she said quietly. “But I can’t bring myself to quit.”

He tilted his head as he watched her take another drag. “I used to tell my mother every cigarette she smoked was 6 less minutes she’d get to spend with me.”

“The way I live my life, I’m not expecting that to be an issue,” she shrugged.

“How do you live your life to expect to die young?”

She gestured at him. “Bringing strange men I meet while alone at a bar to my apartment, for one,” she deadpanned, and he couldn’t help his exhale of a laugh.

“Mm, touche, I suppose,” he sighed. “What makes you like it?”

She raised her eyebrows. “The cigarettes or the strange men?”

“Both, I guess.”

“It’s the same reason for both. Makes me feel like I have some control over things. Forces me to… confront my mortality, to get comfortable with the idea of death. It can’t scare me if I’m inviting it.”

He frowned. “You’re suicidal?”

A long pause where she seemed to be thinking, her eyes fixed on the twinkling lights of the city around them. “No. I’m not. But I’ve spent a lot of time living in fear of things that are inevitable, and I’m tired of that.”

He couldn’t help himself from wanting to pry. It was like that, sometimes, in the afterglow of sex. After the intimacy, the bedroom could become a confessional. “What inevitabilities are you scared of?”

She sighed and took another drag of the cigarette. “I married my high school sweetheart a year after we graduated. Our relationship was… fine. Good. He was the only man I’d ever been with, the only one I knew how to be with. Even when I knew he was having an affair, I couldn’t bring myself to let go of him. He was an asshole, sometimes, and a cheat, but sometimes he was so wonderful. He worked and supported us the whole time I was in college, he’d plan these extravagant dates and trips for us, always remembered birthdays and anniversaries. And I’d been with him since I was so young, I didn’t even know who I was if I wasn’t his wife. Even when I knew he didn’t love me anymore and I barely loved him, I stuck around. In the end, he left me. He got the other woman pregnant and owned up to everything I already knew. I didn’t even have the guts to tell him that none of it was news, because I felt so pathetic for tolerating it. That night, I quit my job, threw a dart at a map and moved here. Just like that. I didn’t want to be scared anymore. I wanted to just… live.”

He was quiet for a long time. “I’m sorry,” he said eventually, and it was a pale pleasantry against the scale of her admission.

“It’s okay,” she murmured. “Not like it’s your fault. Just illustrating the point. I knew the relationship was over years before it actually was. But I was so scared of the unknown I refused to admit it. I’m not going to do that anymore.”

“That’s a good philosophy,” he said softly.

She smiled at him, the look stained with melancholy. “Yeah, I like to think so.”

The silence dragged, unobtrusive and comfortable as she ashed her cigarette and lit up a second. “Who’s Emily?” she asked eventually, and he startled.

He watched her hands as she let the cigarette dangle between her fingers. “It’s a long story.”

“I have time,” she pressed. “Story for a story.”

“I have a… stressful job. One where I have to travel a lot. And I had a coworker, Emily. We started sleeping together as a way to let off steam on tough days. I fell in love with her. I think she loved me too. We never said it. She’s a… flight risk, I guess, runs away at the first sign of anything emotionally scary, and any time things between us got too real, she’d freeze me out. I learned to keep my feelings to myself. But I was in love with her. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done to keep her near me.”

“That’s hard,” his perfect stranger murmured. “Where is she now?"

“She’s dead,” he said flatly, as if keeping the emotions from his voice would stop it from hurting him. “She was murdered.”

“Oh,” she said softly. “Fuck, that’s- I’m sorry. That’s horrible.”

He shook his head, the ugly bitterness in his chest building up and spilling from his mouth. “She knew. She knew he was coming after her, she knew what he was capable of, and she never told me. I could have done something, and she took that chance away from me. And I’m so angry at her, but I can’t be angry at her because she’s gone. What use is it being furious with a ghost?”

“It’s normal to have mixed feelings when a loved one dies, baby,” she says softly. “In a way, she left you, even if she didn’t want to. It’s hard. It’s a breakup with no room for self-reflection and no way to change things. The loss of your future and the shadow over the past. There’s a lot of different stuff going on in your head right now. There’s no wrong way to feel about it all.”

He knew that, was intellectually versed on the complications and machinations of grief. He’d seen all kinds of people in the throes of their losses - mothers who’d lost children when their last words had been in anger, husbands whose wives had stormed out and never made it home to talk it out, children who’d snuck out and returned to find their parents dead. He was acquainted with the intricate weaving of love and guilt and grief, had read every study on managing loss, had sat in the room with countless people in the seconds after learning their loved one had been taken from them.

And yet, there still lingered a revolting feeling of wrongness in his grief. For all that he knew the way he was behaving and feeling and coping was normal - all of it, the sex, the cravings, the depression, the bitter, cruel anger - he couldn't help but sink into the belief he was wrong for all of it.

But the look on her face, wide eyed and earnest, her brows slightly furrowed as she watched him intensely, made him believe her. This was a woman acquainted with loss, he could tell. He didn't have to pry to know that. She understood him in a way the journal articles didn't quite seem to.

Maybe, for all his overreliance on academia to navigate the world, he needed people like everyone else did. Emily had taught him that loving was worth the agony of losing.

He was quiet for a while, thinking through her words.

“Why were you willing to pretend to be her?” he asked.

She pursed her lips. “I liked what we were doing. I didn’t want you to stop. And you seemed like you needed it.”

“That's it? I mean, I called you the wrong name, I would assume that would be a dealbreaker for anyone.”

“I'm not under any illusions about what this was. It was a beautiful thing, but nothing to do with who I am or who you are and what we deserve. Just… people fucking for the sake of it, like they’ve done through all of human history. I wanted it to be good for you, just like I could tell you wanted it to be good for me. It makes it feel better if you're both getting what you want. And I've been a lot of people for a lot of people. It doesn't bother me.”

It still didn't seem quite right to him, but he nodded anyway. He just watched her for a moment, watched the movement of her irises as she looked at the shimmering skyline of the city, the careless elegance of her cigarette drags, the way her robe split over where she crossed her legs to reveal the soft skin of her thighs. She seemed solid in a way he deeply envied, a steady contrast to his own flickering identity.

“Thank you,” he said softly before he even thought the words. “Tonight could have been a bad night. But it wasn't. This has been the easiest night since-” he swallowed, stopping the thought there. “I feel… lighter.”

She made a quiet humming noise in response. “I feel the same. You're a nice person to be around, baby.”

He flushed a little at the endearment, a little token of affection she seemed so at ease sharing. She was a forthcoming person, he was noticing - quick to give. Her thoughts, her kindness, her love. It was an interesting counterweight against a scarcity in her home that spoke to solitude and distance. In just the short time he'd known her, she had shown her share of little contradictions. Clearly self-assured, but willing to pretend to be another woman to please a stranger. Clearly loving, but isolated and lonely.

Before he could stop himself, he said, “I'd like to get to know you better.”

The statement was innocent - he truly meant exactly what he said. She was, in many ways, fascinating to him, and solving her was a welcome distraction from trying to solve his own issues. He liked being around her. But her eyes widened and then crinkled sadly.

“I'm not- you're sweet, baby, and you're handsome, too. Your Emily was lucky to have you. But I'm not ready to be anyone's love anytime soon. And I don’t think you're ready for that either.”

He shook his head. “Oh! No, I didn’t mean- no, I'm not ready for anything like that, I'm- I just meant… I don’t have many friends, or at least friends who didn't know her. And you said at the bar you were lonely too, and I just thought- I'd like to be your friend. If that's okay with you.”

She looked at him for a while, as if trying to find a double meaning behind his irises. Then, wonderfully, she nodded, her lips quirking up at the edges. “I'd like that, baby. Let’s be friends.”

He felt a strange sense of gratefulness bubble in his chest. This could be something good, even if it came from something bad. He held out a hand to shake. “Friends.”

She shook it with a little laugh. “Friends.”

Trying his luck, he added, “And if friends involves doing,” he gestured back towards the bedroom, “that, I wouldn't complain.”

She raised her eyebrows and ashed her cigarette. “Give me a second to brush my teeth and we can demo it, try out our new friendship arrangement?”

He nodded quickly. “Yes. Please. In the name of trial and error, I think we should definitely do that.”

She stood and leaned over to kiss him gently on the forehead. “Wait for me in the bedroom, baby. We've got some friendship to do.”

He watched her go inside. her robe swaying softly with her movements. Emily was quiet in his head, but the silence didn't feel reproachful. He allowed the grief to take hold of him for a second.

And then he followed the perfect stranger inside.

#criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid angst #spencer reid smut #emily prentiss/spencer reid #spemily

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ambrosiagoldfish · 1 year ago

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HI! Can I request Vox, husk or anyone else with a s/o who has an addiction problem?

Yes I know my Grammar and punctuation is out of line 🙏🏽

Hazbin Hotel x Addict!Reader

(Vox, Husk, and Angel Dust)

Viewer Discretion is Advised!

Warning: Drug/Alcohol Abuse, Gn!Reader, Reader being defensive, happy-ish endings.

Request Box: Open

Word count: 1170

A/n: Hi! Thank you for the request! This is my first time writing both Vox and Husk so I had to do some research (and by research, I mean reading 2+ hours of how other write them) to get an idea of their main characterization.

I really enjoyed writing this as I personally have my own experiences with addicts and how it’s affected me as a person. So this was also a little bit of a vent post if anything. I also added Angel cause I think it fits the theme but also he’s one of my comfort characters and writing for him made me happy.

Hope you enjoy <3

Proofread like once so sorry for any mistakes!

Vox

He’s used to being friends/knowing addicts. I mean one of his closest allies (And TOTES not previous hook-up buddy) Valentino, is also an addict who also employs many as well. So he’s not a stranger to it.

So mostly he’s indifferent to it, almsot desensitized to it. He doesn’t really see a danger to it, I mean we’re in hell and you can’t exactly OD and die

But of course, death isn’t the only thing that can happen when you're an addict. The breakdown of you as a person often happens, as well as you being reckless with money. And this is where Vox starts to have a problem.

If you’re in a relationship with Vox, then clearly you mean a lot to him, he may not be the most expressive about it but he does. So to see the partner that he has opened up to and grown attached to deteriorate slowly in front of him is something he refuses to accept.

So one day he cancels a meeting with his staff and calls you to his office so you two will be alone. When you get there he gives you a cup of coffee and you catch up a bit. How was your day? Have you ate yet? Those kinds of things.

Until finally he decides to just break open the floodgates with one simple statement.

“Darling… I think you should get clean”

You were caught off guard at first

“It’s fine, What’s the problem? we’re in hell”

He then comes out with his honest opinion

“*Sigh* I know it’s hell and you can’t die… but surely you can see how it would make me a bit… worried for you.”

He paused

“I mean even last week you spent all the allowance I gave you on it and you would have starved if I didn’t buy you food, surely you can see why it’s a fucking problem!”

Eventually after talking and depending on how it goes you either agree to go clean or it ends with an argument and he’ll just try again later.

If you agree, he’ll make sure he’s with you ever step of your sobriety. Considering he’s one of the top rising Overlords and owns VoxTech he’s got money so He’ll higher the best people to help you go clean(Do therapist exist in hell?)

“Thank you dear, you have no idea how much this means to me”

Husk

Similar to Vox in a lot of ways but also really different. He himself is an addict with alcohol so he clearly understands the struggles of it.

He has lots of walls up but for someone who “lost the ability to love” he sure does care a lot for you. I don’t think he would try a get you to go clean, at least not right away (or even at the beginning of the relationship) simply cause he thinks he doesn’t have a right to judge. So in all honesty he might just let you be.

That is until he realizes that you do it to forget things and ignore your problems/past. He knew first hand that drowning your sorrows away with your choice of addictive vice did nothing but harm you.

Then when you two are alone at his bar he’ll talk to you about it in a similar way he did with Angel. Perhaps a bit more softer than he did with Angel but even then “softer” is a bit of an overstatement.

“Look, I know you got a lot of shit that you don’t want to think about… but doing this *sigh* it’s not going to work, at least not in the long term.”

“That’s rich coming from you.”

He laughs. I mean, you were right. He was single handedly the worst person to be judging you. But surely you can understand his point of view, right?

Either way though, he leaves it alone again. Occasionally bringing it up when you’re both alone. He expresses the same sentiment about it each time hoping that eventually, hopefully…you’ll come to see from his perspective.

When you do finally see that he’s worried for you and understand why, you agree to go clean. Which, for once in a long while, made his supposedly cold dead heart melt.

“Glad you finally came to your senses… Seriously, I’m glad…”

Angel

He is THE addict of the show, so obviously he knows what you are going through and THEN some. Now,. Here’s the thing, how he handles it depends HEAVILY on when exactly you got with him/when you started having you addiction problem.

If you started dating him when you already were an addict he most definitely wouldn’t question anything about it. Hell, chances are you both might have taken part in it together. And it’s only when he starts making progress in the hotel (post EP4) is when he starts realizing how bad of an influence you both were on each other.

If you started sometime AFTER you both started dating then this boy would honestly feel terrible about it, ESPECIALLY after EP4 when he actually started being sober more often. He’d feel like he was a bad influence on you and that it was his fault you turned to your addiction.

Either way though, he will eventually realize that he doesn’t want you to be/continue to be on the same path he was. He’d talk to Charlie about arranging you to stay in the hotel, either in your own room or you guys could share one (he would honestly prefer the latter) and then after the preparations are made he would finally ask you too

Angel wasn’t expecting it to be easy, he gets what it’s like to suddenly be asked to go clean. And he knows how addicts act when they don’t get there vices, how he acts. So he mentally prepared himself for the worst first before asking you to come over and talk.

“Uh… Y/n can I talk to you about somethin’?”

You nod your head

“I’ve been thinking and… I think you should crash here at the hotel with me… and’ go clean.”

You only laugh “Angie I’m glad this hotel thing is workin’ for ya but that’s not really my style. No- I mean, I’m fine!”

Angel knows he put you on the spot, so he lightens off a bit but continues pressing on. He explains how he feels and how he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you, to end up where he is. The poor boy starts crying honestly with how much he’s worried. He rarely opens up to people so this was a big step for him.

Seeing how much he cared and worried about you really put into perspective how important this was to him. So you agreed after some thinking.

“*sniff* thank you Baby, I’ll be there with you every step of the way… I love ya’ you know.”

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sgiandubh · 5 months ago

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Anon rebelde.

Menudo giro de guion para las antis, Sam y Cait juntos en un evento para fans donde no están obligados por Starz a participar, ya sabes, ese tipo de eventos con dinero de por medio que sus acérrimas fans siempre han afirmado que Cait no hace porque ella no es de esa clase de engañabobos como es Sam, siempre pensando en como hacer caja a costa de los bolsillos del fandom. Con eso demuestran que ya han pasado página de un fandom tóxico y empeñado en hacerlos parecer menos que compañeros de trabajo para hacer lo que les place, nadie haría ascos a una Venecia carnavalesca, sacándoles de paso ese dedo medio que tan bien saben utilizar y que creo que de aquí en adelante van a usar mucho más.

Dear (returning) Anon Rebelde,

Una vez más, llego muy tarde a responder a tu interesantísimo comentario. Sin embargo, esta vez, me atrevo a decir que lo hice por buenas razones: simplemente, encontré tu comentario provocativamente alentador. Me hizo pensar aún más en el asunto de Venecia, sobre el que ya se han mencionado muchas cosas. Sin embargo, faltaba algo, y ese algo es una perspectiva cultural más amplia. Pero, antes que nada, traduzcamos lo que me enviaste:

'What a plot twist for the antis, Sam and Cait together at a fan event where they are not forced by Starz to participate, you know, those kinds of events involving money her Stans have always claimed Cait doesn't do, because she's not that kind of con artist like Sam, always thinking about how to make money at the expense of the fandom's pockets. With that they show that they have already turned the page on a toxic fandom bent on making them look less than coworkers, and do whatever they like to do. Nobody would turn down a carnivalesque Venice, and they chose this giving the fandom that middle finger they know how to use so well, and that I think they will use a lot more from now on.'

Everything you wrote, dear Anon Rebelde, and then some more. If I weren't one of their favorite targets, I could even feel #sorry for this entire bunch of #silly people, who are now legitimately freaking out in public silence and inbox mischief. All of this just because their basic, binary tropes (S is a cheap scammer, C is an intangible saint) are seemingly being shaken to the core by what yes, is a very interesting and ironic plot twist. Granted, this is still an OL-ish related event, but it is just not your usual sort of event (a con, a panel, a promo-related interview) and it happens just as shooting is now completely over. It will be very difficult for all those people who are probably dumbfounded (and not in a good way) by this, to forget they were barking with great confidence no later than last week, that S and C will NEVER DO ANYTHING ELSE TOGETHER, that SHE WAS WAY OVER OL AND THAT PEASANT, that HE WILL DISAPPEAR INTO ALCOHOLIC OBLIVION AND SHE WILL OH, THE PLACES SHE'LL GO ON HER OWN. It turns out the opposite seems to happen and it goes to show spitting upwards is never a great idea, lest it would land on your own head. Therefore, we are met with a lot of sobriety and zero comments on those Mordorian outlets: when it's inconvenient - minimize, minimize, minimize and hope for better days (hooker, Tracula, Alphabet Fitness Harem, Orange Influencer, Brazilian fan with an agenda, etc).

Granted, this is not 'fair Verona', but literary tropes are very powerful and magic, like that, and it is almost impossible not to think about what happened there, 'when ancient grudge broke to new mutiny' (I hope I remember it correctly, as I write this). In other words, it is impossible not to think about the ballo in maschera at the Capulet's mansion, even if the official theme of the event is (oh, the irony!) Casanova's Venice (half of Mordor has no idea who that fine gentleman was, LOL). It also goes without saying the entire thing will probably look rather like Baz Luhrmann's interpretation...

youtube

... than the very aesthetically pleasing, but totally stiff Zeffirelli version:

youtube

Granted, this is happening in the context of the (nowadays) very touristy Venetian carnival, a horrific hullaballoo few people, snobbery put aside, really and honestly enjoy. But it is exactly the irony of this that seemed perhaps the most important of it all. In a form of poetic justice, the pretext is Carnival, that almost ridiculous, nonsensical, borrowed time of collective foolishness. You'd even be tempted to not think twice, yet there is nothing more dead serious and subversive than Carnival itself, and it has been like this since the Roman Saturnalia feast, when slaves turned into masters and masters into slaves, if only for a crazy day. Its deep meaning is not really about allowing freeform fornication in dark alleys and a brief respite before the long, austere dullness of Lent. Its deep meaning is, perhaps above anything else, about a giant, collective middle finger to what is perceived as oppressive, absurd and coercing authority. Since I suppose those fine minds across the street never read Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World, where everything is explained with luminous clarity, they will have to either believe me or shite over the same inbox you sent your comment to, first thing in the morning. Sometimes, truth seeps through chaos. Sometimes, things are not what they seem to be. Oh, the irony!

I am not even saying SC are aware of the...uhm... metaphorical implications of their choice to attend a rather profitable event. I am pretending to even ignore the fact that at such events, the invited co-presenters or hosts are, more often than not, real life couples, too. All I am saying (since apparently I have to thoroughly, boringly explain absolutely everything I write) is that this tiny coincidental detail gave me pause and a contented chuckle.

And with all this, I still haven't watched that Paley panel. Will do, in reasonable time. Thank you for dropping by, Anon Rebelde - it is always a stimulating pleasure.

#anon #fandom #shitshow #Venetian Reflections 2025

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rowretro · 1 year ago

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꧁ＤＲＵＧＳ＆ＭＯＮＥＹ꧂

✧warnings: Yandere themes, toxic themes, drugs, drug addict reader, abuse

♤synopsis: Nishimura Riki. One of the most well feared mafia sons, is filthy rich, He was never really interested in dating, hating the idea of putting all his trust, love, blood sweat and tears into one person. Then he laid his eyes on you, a broken, barely appreciated, drug addict. (Riki's "I love you 3000" cover was playing in my head non stop while writing this- I need him in my life frfr)

✧♤✧♤✧♤𝕯𝕽𝖀𝕲𝕾 & 𝕸𝕺𝕹𝕰𝖄♤✧♤✧♤✧

Get up, get ready, clean up, go to school, get high and arrive at her apartment late as fuck. That was Y/ns daily routine. She's high 90% of the time, filling the massive hole her parents stabbed in her heart, with weed, Whiskey and pills. She had nothing to lose. Her parents always hated her, the reason never clear. So she moved out at 16, and got her own small apartment, a very decent one. Now she's yet to turn 18 in a few weeks, yet she's making bad decisions back and forth

She had fallen in love many times, but she always ended up getting hurt, or being a burden. So she'd turn to her fellow, Jack Daniels and Marijuana for some company. No one ever visited her... so she was beyond surprised when she heard her doorbell ring. High out of her mind, she answered it, not thinking of the potential dangers that may be lurking behind the door.

"Fuck- you got a first aid kit?" He asked, shutting the door and barricading it. Y/n pouted as she started to think "Clearly you're high. I'll go find it myself." He said, as he walked through the clean, plain hallways. Of course he found a brand new, unused first aid kit, however, what he didn't find was any photos of your family or at least parents. No sign of a boyfriend, or anyone else who might live there.

The strong stench of Cannabis filling his nostrils as he groaned. The male treated his own wounds that were barely painful to him. He walked into the living room only to find the girl lying on the ground, high out of her mind. Y/n had fallen asleep on the cold, marble floor despite being so high and having a fever, but she was used to it and she was too lazy to move.

Riki however, found it cute. He found her cute. God she's too cute, so short, so clueless, and so stupid. He really wanted to know what you were like when you were sober, but when examining all the munchies you had randomly scattered in the kitchen, he realized that may be a challenge. So he decided to stay until you wake up.

Never would he have ever found himself cleaning up a girl's home, picking up a girl's underwear and putting it in the laundry basket, carrying a girl to her bed and tucking her in. But I'll tell you one thing. He fucking loved it. He loves taking care of this girl, he only just practically met her but... he really wants her. He's a mafia he can have whatever the fuck he wants.

That's how Y/n found herself in a massive, luxurious mansion. Guards here and there, all her artwork in a big room with all the art supplies an artist could dream for. A perfect yet psychotic man who seems to be on a murder rampage on the daily. It has been 1 month since the male kidnapped her saying that he's in love with her and will even marry her. However the place was missing something she lived her whole life on...

"I CAN'T FUCKING DO IT FUCK SAKE RIKI! GIVE ME MY WEED FOR FUCKSAKE!" She screamed, crying and kicking her bedsheets, yanking at her hair as she screamed. The male slapped her painfully hard, pulling her to himself "FUCKING PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER Y/N!" he yelled as the girl just cried in his embrace "Y-you don't understand ki... it's hard! it hurts, I need them I really do- I'm fucking weak I can't- sobriety is so fucking overrated! please- im begging you please!" She cried as the male just hugged her closely.

With drawl is extremely hard, and for a teenager to have to go through something like that, without her parents to support her is extremely hard. But someone really loves her, a man who'd kill for her and is even willing to die for her. So she will put through it. Fighting with every last bit of energy she has. Riki would keep an eye on her when she does have alcohol, making sure she stays within a limit. He let her buy a vape, just to help her lay off of the drugs.

He knew that all this was all worth it. because when the struggle is over, Y/n will realize that he truly loves her, and no matter what crazy shit he does, she will always run into his arms, and yearn for his touch. "I love you Ki... I'm glad you kidnapped me you know?... I've never been love like this before..." She admitted, her head pressed against his chest, as her body was shielded by his loving arms.

Y/n melted in his embrace, closing her eyes with a smile when she felt his perfect, plush lips on her forehead. Those lips, the only drug she's addicted to and will never let herself get over. "I love you too my darling..." he said with a smile, cradling her in his arms, his head rested against hers, theirs eyes closed as they sat before the fireplace, comforted by the relaxing sounds of their heartbeats.

✧♤✧♤✧♤𝕯𝕽𝖀𝕲𝕾 & 𝕸𝕺𝕹𝕰𝖄♤✧♤✧♤✧

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thegracefuldeer · 6 months ago

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After watching an analysis video on youtube about the story and themes of Mouthwashing (more so because I can't stop roatating the whole thing around in my mind, what a game), I realized that literally every character had a moment where they faced and admitted their truth, except Jimmy. Probably most obvious is Swansea, who admits in the face of his death that even with the work he put towards his sobriety, the best moments of his life were when he was drunk. But everyone else gets their moment of truth as well, and maybe even more ironic, everyone confides that truth to Jimmy. Curly admits he feels lost, even in his success. Anya tells Jimmy about her pregnancy. After the crash, Daisuke tells Jimmy about feeling unsure about his future, and about his mom being the one to push him to join the crew. And Jimmy just deludes himself further and further the longer everything goes on. He never accepts his moment to tell the truth. Not that it would change or redeem anything he did. But it helps elevate every other character.

#this fucking game. i was absolutely blown away by the story #mouthwashing #mouthwashing spoilers

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cameronspecial · 11 months ago

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A New Kind Of Normal (Part 8)

Pairing: Dad!Rafe Cameron x Reader

Warnings: SMUT

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 3.1K

Summary: With one month of sobriety back under his belt, Rafe feels like his life is finally falling into place.

Masterlist

Rafe’s one-month sobriety is finally coming up and to say that Stella is excited is an understatement. Y/N explained to Stella that Daddy hadn’t shown symptoms of his sickness for a month, much like cancer remission. Stella doesn’t fully understand the milestone her father is about to achieve, but she knows a party for celebration should be held. So she insisted to her mother that they throw a surprise party. Y/N closed down the diner so it could be held there and Stella wanted a superhero party because Rafe is her hero. “Mommy, the banner needs to be higher,” Stella orders, moving her hands up to illustrate her point. Y/N nods and motions to Sarah to do as told. Nobody says anything about the fact that the sign says Happy Birthday on it. Once the little girl gives her approval, John B. comes over to help them tape the string to the wall. Thanks to the party, Stella got the opportunity to meet her aunt’s fiancé and her dad’s friends. Topper finishes placing out the snacks, picking Stella up to get her approval.

“What do you think?” he asks, resting her on his waist. She nods with satisfaction, “Good, Uncle Topper. Can I have a chocolate, please?” She looks around the room to make sure the last part is only heard by her uncle. “Okay, but don’t tell Mommy I gave it to you before you had lunch,” he chuckles, leaning over to grab her one.

Half an hour later, the diner is set up for the surprise superhero party. Rafe texted Y/N that he was five minutes away and everyone went to their hiding spots. Stella and Y/N are hiding at the front of the counter so they are the first people he sees. As soon as the little bell jingles, the lights turn on and everyone pops up from their hiding places, yelling surprise. Rafe steps back a little, tripping on his feet and falling out of the door. “Daddy!” Stella worries, trying to jump over the counter to check on her father but is stopped by her mother. Rafe shoots up from the floor, “I’m okay. I’m okay, little witch.” He rushes to Stella, bringing her over the counter to comfort her. Her tiny cries die down at the feeling of his lips on her temple. He rubs her shoulders, bouncing her a little. The Happy Birthday sign causes him even more confusion. “But it isn’t my birthday?” he whispers to Y/N. She giggles, “She wanted to celebrate your one-month sobriety. Don’t worry, she doesn’t know what it really means. And they didn’t have any superhero signs celebrating sobriety.” Rafe nods in understanding, giving Stella another kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for the party, little witch. I love it. Forever and Always,” he thanks. Stella beans at her father’s words, “Forever and Always.” “Baby, why don’t you tell Daddy why you wanted a superhero-themed party?” Y/N suggests. Stella looks at her dad, “Because you're my hero!” Rafe’s heart absolutely melts.

Rafe does his rounds, greeting everyone at his party. “Your girl is great, Rafe,” Topper comments, patting Rafe on the back. Rafe looks over at Y/N, “Yeah, she really is.” Topper sees the dad’s line of sight and laughs. “I was talking about your daughter. But I see you still have a crush on your baby mama.” “Don’t call her that,” Rafe threatens. His friend’s hands shoot up and he walks back with an apology.

“Daddy, time to play the games!” Stella announces, grabbing his hand. He lets her take him to the poster on the wall. Pin the cape on the superhero. Stella goes first, getting the cape right where it should be with a little guidance from her dad. It is obvious to everyone but the little girl that the adults purposely did bad so she could win. The next party activity is decorating superhero masks, which the adults love. “Wow, Daddy. Your mask is pretty,” Stella awes. Rafe smiles at his little girl, “Thank you. I made it for you.” He helps her put the mask on and she hands him hers to put on. Y/N’s heart pounds at the sight before her, taking a picture of the pair. Rafe spots the piñata and his interest is peaked. Y/N notes his gaze, “We can do the piñata now if you want.” He nods, getting up with Stella in his arms. Of course, she goes first and when she gets pouty about not being able to break it open, Rafe hits it open for her. The candy falls out and she squeals in happiness.

The pizza finally arrives and then the cake is next. Stella thinks that whenever there is a cake at a party, the guest of honour has to blow out candles. So everyone sings Happy Birthday, per Stella’s request, and watches him blow out the candles. Once he gets the candles out, Stella shoves her father’s head into the cake with a laugh. Rafe’s head straightens out and he gives her a fake annoyed look. Her giggles continue so he gives her a kiss on the cheek, getting frosting all over it. He can see Y/N snicker as well and gives her the same treat. She takes it a little less like a champ and gives a small yell, running away from Rafe. He laughs, chasing after her to bother her some more. “It’s just a little frosting, Buttercup. It won’t hurt you,” he teases, finally catching up to her.

Y/N doesn’t like it. The little flutter in her heart as he wraps his hand around her waist and blows raspberries on her neck, frosting going everywhere. “Button, stop it,” she whines, bringing her ear close to her shoulder to stop his attack. He stops at her plea, grabbing a napkin from the counter to wipe the mess he made away. She never ceases to be surprised at how sweet and considerate Rafe can be sometimes. Her lips find his cheeks as a thanks for his help.

——

The party soon comes to an end and everyone helps bring down the decoration. Stella wanted so many decorations that Rafe had to take some stuff in his car and bring it over to Y/N’s house for her. The house is quiet as she opens the front door, holding it open for Rafe. The little gremlin that normally fills these walls with screams is sleeping over at her Aunt Sarah’s house for the night. She had begged to be able to stay the night for the first time, especially since Sarah promised sugar and a spa night with John B. as their servant. “Where can I put this?” he asks, showing her the box of extra cutlery and plates. She points to the counter, “You can just leave everything in the living room. I’ll go through it all tomorrow morning. I’m way too tired to think about it tonight.”

They get all the boxes in the middle of the living room and flop down on the couch together. Y/N reaches into her pocket and pulls something out. “In all of Stella’s excitement this afternoon, I forgot to give this back to you. Kinda ironic that I forgot since it was the whole reason for the party. It’s like going to a birthday party and not celebrating the birthday person,” she explains, handing Rafe the small disc back. He holds his hand out, “Thank you. It’s okay. We all know the party was really for Stella.” “Yeah, that’s true.” Y/N’s fingers ghost his as she places the chip into his hands. Her eyes dart up to see him already staring at her. The moment of silence that passes over them isn’t awkward; instead, they seem to be communicating everything they have been feeling for each other. Rafe takes the shot they are both too scared to take and leans in. His lips find hers. He almost sighs in relief when she starts to kiss him back.

Her leg swings over his hips and she starts kissing down his neck. His head throws back, allowing her more access to his neck. His hands find a way to her waist to encourage her to start grinding on his lap. Her hands find the top button of his shirt, slowly unbuttoning them one at a time. She gets the front of his shirt open and she pulls his shirt off. Her kisses turn into licking a long stripe down to his v-line. She gives a quick kiss just above his pants before breaking away from his skin so she can pull his pants down. With the rest of his clothes off, she gets to work at making him feel good. Her lips start to move down his shaft, using her tongue to circle around his tip as she would soft-serve ice cream. “You are going so good for me, Rafe,” she praises. She reaches between her folds to collect some of her juices to lessen the friction of her hands pumping the rest of his cock. When that isn’t enough, she pulls away, a string of saliva connecting his tip to the bottom of her lip and spits on her hands. “Y/N, faster. Please, good girl, go faster,” Rafe pants, gently pushing her head down his dick. Tears begin to form in her eyes as she chokes on him and his twitching cock tells her he is about to cum.

His fingers lace through her hair, “I’m about to cum.” Right as he says the words, ropes of white shoot out of him and into her mouth. She swallows everything while looking directly into his eyes. He grins at her, grabbing her hips to pull her back up. His back slides down the couch, arching so his body is off but his head is at the edge of the cushion. The position may be uncomfortable, but what he is about to do makes up for it. He brings her over his face and immediately gets to work. His hand flicks her skirt over his head, moving her underwear out of the way as well.

He kisses her clit before he starts sucking the bud. His tongue works in tandem with his lips to cause her head to throw back in pleasure. “Ugh, just like that, Rafe.” She can feel his cocky smirk against her and starts to grip his hair. His mouth moves to her hole, darting his tongue inside of her. The circular motion of his tongue quiets her moans, so he brings his finger up to her clit. This garners a response as she starts to grind against his face. “There you go, Y/N. Tell me what you want. Take what you need,” he mumbles, going back to pleasuring her. Her moans are louder than they were before, “Rafe, I’m going to- to.” She doesn’t get to finish as her orgasm washes over her. They both take a second to catch their breath. She gets off of his face and stands off the couch. Motioning for him to sit down. His eyebrows knit as she heads to her purse to pull her phone out. He quickly understands when the music starts “Sweat” by Zayn starts to play.

Her hips start to move to the music, pulling her shirt off her head to reveal her lacey blue bra underneath. She moves herself back onto his lap and starts grinding. Her hands round her back to unhook her bra. He helps her out of it, kissing the top of her breasts. He wants to suck her nipples, but she removes herself from his hold. She pulls off her skirt, taking her time with her underwear to tease him. She dangles the pair on her fingers waving it in front of his face. Rafe grabs it and throws it across the room in annoyance. She giggles. “Come here,” he growls, pulling her in by the waist. His hands play with her boobs and his mouth works on making a hickey on her neck. She gets to work on making sure he is hard enough to take her. Once she is satisfied, she positions him at her entrance and sinks down. His attention is pulled from what he is doing and he lets out the loudest moan he has ever. He grips her waist helping her up and down on him. Her head throws back, “Harder, Rafe.” He can do nothing but obey, bringing her until his tip is about to slip out and slams her down on him. His hips buck up to meet her movements. She continues to move on him, sometimes stopping at the bottom of his shaft to swirl her hips. He notices her eyes closed like she normally does close to her climax and presses down firmly but softly on her stomach, just below her belly button. This causes her to squeal as her climax comes early and she wants to hide in embarrassment as a waterfall amount of liquid leaves her body. The contraction of her pussy around him sends him over the edge, shooting his seed into her. She gets off of his dick and collapses onto him. Her head buries in his neck. His arms bring her impossibly closer to him and he kisses her forehead.

“You squirted on me,” he is finally able to breathe out after a few seconds. She nods slowly, “I did. I’ve never done that before.” He grins to himself and looks down at his now soft cock, realizing he isn’t wearing a condom. They got so caught up in the moment that they forgot. “Shit, I’m not wearing a condom,” he points out to her. She nuzzles herself into his chest, kissing his collarbone, “It’s okay. We used one last time and look where that got us.”

“Where it got us is with an adorable daughter who we love so much. I’ll Uber the morning after pill tomorrow morning for you.”

She wants to respond, but she falls asleep before she can. He is about to get up off the couch to clean them up, but sleep captures his state as well.

——

Rafe wakes up in the middle of the night to a kink in his neck from falling asleep sitting upright. Y/N is still in his arms, her breath falling steadily. He kisses the hickey he made on her neck and brings one arm around her bum, the other around the shoulder. He rises slowly to make sure she doesn’t fall, heading toward her bedroom. Her head softly hits her pillow with his help. He kisses her forehead and heads to the bathroom. The towel in his hand is slightly damp upon his return to her bedside. He gently opens her legs and wipes away the dried arousal on her thighs. He throws the towel into the hamper, not bothering to put clothes on him because of the summer heat. He pulls the light blanket on top of them and cuddles into her back.

——

Y/N wakes up in Rafe’s arms. She doesn’t remember heading to her bedroom, so he must have brought them here. Her blanket is pulled at the foot of her bed, leaving both of their naked glory available to anyone’s sight. She turns in his arms to find his eyes still closed. She gives a soft smile, leaning up to give him a kiss on the nose. This causes his eyes to flutter open with a massive grin and return the kiss but on the lips. “Last night was spectacular,” he whispers, resting his forehead on hers. She nods, “It was. Just as great as the last time. I can’t believe it took us five years to do that again.”

“Me too. I should’ve gone after you. Actually, I should’ve gotten sober sooner, then we could’ve had those five years together. I could’ve been there for you and Stella.”

“Yeah, but that’s okay. You found your way back to us eventually.”

“I did I want to stay in bed with you all day. Like we should’ve all those years ago.”

“We can, I’ll text your sister to ask her to keep Stella for the day. I’m sure they would both love that idea. They can continue plotting to take over the world.”

Rafe laughs, grabbing his phone and hers. “That sounds amazing. And I’ll Uber the pill for us. Do you think I can get them to bring it to your bedroom? I can’t stand the thought of leaving you for a second.” She chuckles at his words, “That really would be the dream, but I don’t like the thought of a stranger in my house. And I highly doubt you would like the idea of them seeing me naked because I don’t plan to get up either.” “I would not. I guess I’ll get up when the doorbell rings,” he agrees. Y/N shoots forward when she sees Sarah’s text that they are on their way. She is about to get out of her bed to get changed, but the door is thrown open and Y/N screams at the sight of her daughter and hopefully (very distant) future sister-in-law. Rafe leans over to cover them with the blanket while Sarah covers Stella’s eyes.

“Stella, why don’t you show me your room?” Sarah suggests, guiding her niece to the other bedroom. The couple can overhear their daughter’s words, “What were Mommy and Daddy doing naked?” Y/N’s face finds a place in his neck, trying to hide the mortification on her face. “Please tell me that our daughter did not just walk in on us naked after an amazing night of sex,” she begs, looking at her with worried eyes. He shakes his head, “I’m sorry, Buttercup. I can’t.” “God, this is going to be so awkward to explain,” she groans, sitting back on the bed. The doorbell rings and Rafe scrambles out of bed. “Well, Buttercup. I’m sorry to say, but you might have to do that explanation alone. I have some medication to get.” He doesn’t seem to realize he is still naked. “Button, you’re still naked,” she calls out. He is quick to get back into her room to put some clothes on, “Shit, my clothes are in the living room.”

——

After Rafe has to run to get his clothes so his daughter doesn’t see him and an afternoon of trying to explain the adult game Y/N and Rafe were playing, Rafe is finally ready to go back home. Stella is too busy watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch, so it gives her parents a second to talk to themselves. “I was thinking… Maybe we can go on a date?” Y/N asks, bringing her nail up to her mouth so she can bite it. Her eyes are on her hands and he lifts her chin so she can look in her eyes. “I would love that,” he mutters, kissing her lips. They pull apart with a smile. Finally, Stella comes running to say goodbye to her father.

Taglist: @loves0phelia @thelomlisrafecameron @wickedlovely121 @thepatriarchykeychain @drewsmusee @starkowswife @maybankslover @forstarkey @loving-and-dreaming @drewstarkeyswifehoe @kisstaya @magicalyoura @mp-littlebit @loverfu55ii @dark1paradise @sublimepenguinpeach-blog @alyisdead @emeloyy @js-a-writer @kisstaya @optimisticsandwichgladiator @justdamnpeachy

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spicypepperflakesss · 5 months ago

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💚 Post-Route Muriel | My Muriel Masterlist

theme: How To Comfort A Loved One

Muriel x GN!MC | CW: none

It's My Turn!

You had never seen Inanna act out before. But when you forget to do a beloved activity that brings you both together, you find Muriel pushed off to the floor and the defiant wolf in his place in the tiny floor mattress you three share

--------

Last night was the most fun you've ever had.

You and Muriel stumble through the front door of his hut. Your arm is slinged around his neck as he supports your weight with his.

You remember his laughs tickling your neck while you defend your sobriety with words slurring every other word.

Muriel carried on into the house, unconvinced.

"Hm, one thing's for sure," his careful whisper is loud in your ear, "Julian is formidable drinker."

The words summon a wave of nausea. You recall the dare. The excitement when you sat down. The regret when Julian swigged his tenth drink with ease. The relief when that man finally slumped against the table an hour later.

"Ugh." is all you manage to say.

You won. But at what cost?

Muriel shakes his head with a laugh. With his forehead against yours, it feels more like a nuzzle. You lean into his touch. His warmth is a balm to your aching head.

"Here, let's get you to bed soon."

Then, he snaps his thumbs. The fireplace fwooms to life. Its warm glow is kind to your eyes. You can see everything once again. Including the shadow stretching out to your feet. There's a sillhouette of one menacing wolf blocking the front of the fireplace, but you can only see the glow of her golden eyes through her shadow-veiled face.

She lowers her head. Is she.. glaring at you? Though she's shorter than both of you, you get the feeling that her golden eyes are staring you down.

"Whorf."

"Out with friends." Muriel says, "Why?"

Inanna lets out a snort that puffs in her chest. Her gaze moves from Muriel to you. She is unimpressed.

Muriel moves to the bed. He is gentle to lower you to the mattress on the floor. You can't help the sigh of relief at the moment your bum touches the mattress. Its softness invites your bones to relax. And you do. A happy hum falls from your lips as you lie down and sink into it. Finally, you can rest.

"Oh."

The crackling of the fireplace quiets your mind. You hear the chirping of crickets. A hoot of an owl. The hushed conversation between Muriel and Inanna. Your eyes begin to grow heavy as the forest's orchestra lulls you to sleep.

"She must've forgot." Muriel says, his volume lowered just enough that you can barely hear, "I'm sure she didn't mean it."

A whine. And stomp of a paw. Your eyes have fallen shut. Your mind is falling away into the depths of slumber.

"Awwour...."

A silent beat passes.

"Then, tell her in the morning." Muriel says, his tone is kind, "I'm sure she'll tell you why."

------------

My mind stirs to the sound of soft snores and chirping birds.

Where am I? I make a move to toss and turn when the ache in my muscles pinch me awake.

'Ow.'

What the hell? I let out a frustrated sigh.

I just want to go back to sleep. Instead, I force my eyes open to see what the problem is.

The room is dark. The dying embers in the hearth tell me that the flames must have died sometime in the night. I'm on the hard, cold floor.

I deadpan at myself. Well, no wonder why my body is aching.

I move to open my mouth, but a putrid smell attacks my nose. Eugh. I move my hand to smell my breath against it. Meat... Sugar... Alcohol? Had I been drinking?

A furry sillhouette lies on the bed, chest heaving up and down in slow rhythm. It's Inanna. But something is different.

She's sleeping on the side of the bed closest to the floor, which is my side. That's strange. She usually hogs the whole bed by sleeping in the middle.

I peer up to see the rest of the bed behind her sleeping figure.

Everything stops when my eyes catch a glimpse of you. You stir from sleep and turn to face my side of the bed.

Your hair is as disheveled as a rat's nest. Your chest heaves and sinks as you remain in a dreamful sleep.

My heart softens at your adorable face. How cute. You look so calm. So... content. I catch your irises shifting udner your eyelids. And you sigh. I wonder what you're dreaming about?

Then, with eyes still closed, your arm reaches out before you. You hand finds its way to Inanna's fur, and your head follows its lead as your fingers burrow in her fluffiness. Then you bury your head in her fur. You take a deep inhale, and deflate with a contented sigh.

"Muri, Honey." you croak into her fur, "What time is it?"

My mouth twists with a laugh building in my throat, but I bite it back.

Oh well. So much for a blissful morning.

Inanna gets up, without any care that your limpy body plops back into the bed, face first.

An exhale escapes my nose as I smile. You must be so tired after last night.

Inanna inches towards your face and snorts a strong exhale into your face, sending your tiny hairs flying.

"Haawr." She huffs again.

(Wake up time.)

You jolt up. Your bleary eyes adjust to the dark room for a beat. I have to chew my bottom lip as I watch you peer up and look about the room. Its no different than watching a lost scraggly kitten looking for its mother.

"Oh, hi Inanna." You lie back down next to her, "Sorry I thought you were Muriel."

"Hmmff!" Inanna makes a show of turning her back to you.

(Always Muriel!)

I deadpan at her. What does she mean by that?

I lie back down and pretend I'm asleep. There's no way I'm getting caught in that.

But I keep my face hidden away, just enough to watch things unfold.

"Aw, what's wrong, my darling? What's got you in a bad mood today?"

Tiny gusts of wind blows over to my skin as something swishes against the mattress. I smile.

'Darling'. Even if she's mad at you, you always somehow get her tail wagging.

Inanna lets out a yowling yawn. Then snorts again. She lets out a chesty, sniffling exhale. As if she were about to cry.

"Hhmf."

(Nothing. It's not like you forgot anything.)

"Hm? Oh Nana. So upset."

You move in closer, even as she inches away from you, and you catch her in a comforting embrace.

"What's wrong, my baby girl? What's got my baby so upset?"

Her tail wags speed up. Is she... Does she like being called that?

I squeeze further into my hiding spot. I feel like I'm a part of a conversation I shouldn't be hearing. Still...

I clamp my hand over my smile. I'm definitely teasing her about this later.

Inanna lets out another crying snort.

(Always with Muriel!)

She snorts again. Then licks her nose.

(Never my turn.)

I deadpan at her direction. What's that supposed to mean?

Then, I hear you gasp.

"Oh! Nana." you soften at her. You bury yourself deeper into her fur.

"I'm sorry, baby. I forgot your story time."

"Awrf."

(That's right.)

"And your mad at me because I forgot, when I promised you I would, huh."

Inanna sniffles. But her tail wags faster.

(Ywes. You pwomised.)

She lets out a big snort again. Then turns to you, her brows pushed together in her glare at you.

(BUT YOU FORGOT!)

"Harmf."

(Now I'm angy. No talk.)

"Aww I'm so sorry. I actually was going to read to you last night. I was going to wake up after a short nap. But I guess it really got to me. Sorry, Nana."

"Hmff!!"

She inches away again.

"I know, that's my fault."

You both are silent for a moment.

Or so I thought. I crane my neck to catch a glimpse of you, and I see the devious smile growing on your lips as a plan forms in your mind.

"Okay, Nana, how bout this?" you say, "What if you have me the whole day?"

Inanna snorts.

(Not listening.)

"It's my fault for forgetting. So what if I take the day off and we go to the market together?"

Her ear swivels to you, but she remains resolute in "not listening".

"Theeen~" your words take on a sing-sing tone, "We can buy that bear broth crisps that I know you've been keeping your eye on."

Then, her tail starts wagging.

"Aaand, we can go to that doggy day care spa that just opened in the other district--

Her tail limps.

"So that we can go back home and I can give us both a home spa after a round of hunting."

Her tail wags come back with a vengeance, beating again the mattress like a drum. Her body twists into a cresent shape, her head craning so far back that her golden, eager eyes are behold you in excited anticipation.

"We will also be hunting squirels."

Her tail is wagging so fast she's kicking up the floor dust as everytime it beats against the bed.

She snorts.

(And?)

"I'll cook us dinner."

Inanna leans forward with anticipation.

"It'll be roasted rabbit with that sweet potato puree you like."

The two black pools that make up her irises swell and glitter at you with affection. Then, out if nowhere, she stops. Her wagging tail halts mid-air and her breathing freezes.

She's waiting for you. Waiting for one last thing before going in for the final pounce.

I catch you bite your lip. There's a smile trying to break through your expression. As if opening your mouth would release the laugh in your throat and betray the poker face you've maintained thus far.

And it does.

"A-And!!" you clear out the laugh in your throat,

"I'll read you a bedtime story."

"RWAFF RWAFF!"

(YAYYYYY!!)

I smile at the sound. For a moment, you brought out the happy, bright pup that she used to be many years ago.

I had no idea she enjoyed being pampered this much. Maybe I should've been more affectionate with her, too.

You really have a way of bringing out the best in people.

She slams her big fluffy frame against you. No matter how careful she is about it, it send you both tumbling. The laugh you've been stifling breaks through. You're giggling as her big fluffy butt wiggles against you and she covers your face in slobbery kisses.

Sometimes Inanna forgets that she's not a pup anymore. She tries to fit her whole massive frame in your embrace. You wheeze when the full force of her hind legs rests on your ribs. Ouch.

I open my mouth to tell her off, but you return her affections with your arms around her in a tight embrace, inching your body to the side so she doesn't crush you completely. You rub her back affectionately

"I love you, Nana." you mumble into her fur, "I'm really sorry. I never want you to feel neglected."

You pull back to give her a warm smile. But with the previous night of carousing and drinking, it comes off as more tired than you'd like.

Inanna whines and her ears droop at you, sensing this as well.

(I-its okay. I was just kidding)

She regards you with big, sad eyes. A mix of worry and guilt shining in them.

(I don't really need all that. I'm okay if you just want to rest together today. That's all I konda want, y'know?)

You snort, amused at her expressions.

"I know. I'm sorry again, Nana."

You reach out and wrap her in your arms once more.

"We're gonna have the best day today, I promise."

Inanna stiffens. Her golden eyes dart around, a little lost with your response, before the deflated in defeat. That's not what she meant.

My heart breaks for her a little. She forgot that you can't actually hear her.

"Oo, y'know if Muriel's already out, then maybe we can go to my place and freshen up there. And then we can have a nice breakfast before we head to the market, yeah?"

And just like that, her worries melt away and her tail is wagging again. As you lay out your plans, she peers up at you with patient, loving eyes.

I sigh in relief. Looks like the worst part if over.

"Okay, wanna go now? Maybe if we have enough time for today, we can soak in the hot springs--"

The bed shifts. I'm caught off guard when your head juts forward and you catch my eyes open before I get to close them shut.

"M-Muriel?! Have you been there this whole time?"

"...No."

I peek through my closed eyes. And you're in full view of me, staring me down with your hands on your hips.

"Muriel..."

"Mmmff." I turn away from your pointed gaze.

"Not my fault I ended up here." I mumble, "And you guys were arguing so..."

"Well yeah." you say in a softer voice than I did. I almost couldn't make it out if I didn't read your lips, a skill I learned sometime ago because I couldn't hear someone sometimes.

.... Just like what I'm doing now.

A small heat burns my cheeks. Gods, you're so...

If this morning was different--

"And Inanna."

She flinches at her name. Her head droops in apology as she avoids your gaze too.

"Did you... push him out of bed?"

Inanna shakes her head.

You stare her down, unconvinced.

Then she nods. And deflates in further guilt.

You sigh. "Geez guys, what am I going to do with you both?"

Just as Inanna thinks it's all over, you shake your head with a chuckle and beckon her to follow you.

"Alright, come on, Nana. Let's go. We gotta add a new bed to the list too."

"W-What?!"

"Yes." You deadpan at me, "No more having difficulty sleeping or being forced to sleep on the floor, okay?"

"But--"

"Nuh uh. I'm not hearing any of it." You say, "Let's go, Nana. We got a lot to do today!"

And just like that, you're out through the front door, waiting for Nana to finish up before you both leave for the day.

Inanna needs no time to get ready. But I follow her to the front door to send her off.

"Gods..." I sigh. I scratch the back of my head.

"I should really lay her back for everything at this point."

"Whorf." Inanna looks up at me.

(Sorry. For kicking you off.)

"Hm." I chuckle, "Maybe... It wouldn't be so bad to be able to fit all of us into bed."

Inanna continues to stare at me, guilt behind the big, sad golden orbs of hers.

I guess that's not what she meant.

But I have an idea of what she might mean.

I pet her fluffy head without a hint of spite or resentment. After all, it's always more than that. I don't think I want to be mad at her for something like this.

"It's alright, Nana. Really" I say, "You go have fun, okay?"

It is a joy to see her ears perk up and her mouth in an open smile. There's a spark in her eyes that hadn't been there in a long time since I first met her.

I smile back at that warmth.

"Rawrf!"

(Okay!)

And just like that, she's off. Running to your side as you both walk and talk. Your silhouettes grow small with the distance as you both are on your way back to the shop.

----------- check out my other Muriel stuff!:

My Muriel Masterlist

#vesuvia weekly #comfort the li #the arcana #the arcana brainrot #the arcana headcanons #muriel of the kokhuri #the arcana muriel kohkuri #muriel headcanons #muriel kokhuri #the arcana muriel #the arcana oc #muriel x reader #muriel x mc #muriel the hermit #muriel the arcana #muriel x apprentice #pepperflakesss #pepper-writes-muriel

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cacoetheswriting · 7 days ago

Text

dear stranger, | chapter two from right where you left me.

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader (modern day au) word count: 5.2k

content warnings: forced proximity, angsty, suggestive & mature themes, adult language, mentions & descriptions of underage alcohol consumption / substance abuse, recreational drug use, discusses sobriety, emotional hurt / no-comfort, eddie is a bit of an asshole, a little mutual pining, also touches on topics of: divorce, death, grief, self-doubt / insecurities, love triangle?, unrequited love — pls let me know if i missed any!

psa: any images used in chapter headers don’t depict readers physical attributes! these are also vaguely — if at all— described in the story.

Eddie’s first interaction with you, a short conversation outside Benny’s one faithful Thursday evening, only solidified the idea of a potential relationship, but he was a couple of years older and coming from a completely different world to yours. Trailer trash, and whatnot. He simply didn’t think you’d be interested in him like that.

Instead, riddled with self-doubt, Eddie opted to go down the friendship route and being your friend was easy.

Despite not sharing a lot of the same interests, the two of you always managed to find common ground and the conversation flow came naturally.

Eddie, in his fuck-the-patriarchy and everything-that’s-cool way, introduced you to a wide variety of hobbies which, in your world, were considered wildly out of the box: Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer, all sorts of Anime, punk rock and heavy metal music. The list goes on.

Hoping to humanise your lack of interests aside from your social status, you taught the metal-head all things pop culture. Cue marathons of various seasons of different Real Housewives, making him read Twilight and asking him to choose Team Edward or Team Jacob, and judging celebrity red carpet looks.

There also appeared to be a few short things you both agreed on:

The colour blue sucks.

Lord of the Rings franchise is one of the best book to movie adaptations to ever exist.

Pizza is clearly the best food and can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Additionally, a debate arose one night to potentially include point four: Leia is a cute name for a girl. Eddie looked at you with those pretty brown eyes and smiled wide in agreement ‘cause even though you were still just a couple of kids, the potential of a future that saw your friendship blossoming, one way or another, excited him. However, the conversation happened when you were both quite high. Point long forgotten by the time the sun greeted the morning sky.

All in all, Eddie worshipped the ground you walked on. Back then, he would’ve done anything for you, you merely had to ask. The not-so-secret crush blossomed with every interaction and he swore if anyone ever dared to hurt the girl he told himself he couldn’t have, all hell would break loose.

How come, a hellish three years later, he’s the one doing the hurting? The question, of course, is rhetorical. He knows exactly what led to the breakdown of your friendship. That doesn’t mean however, he’s not completely riddled with guilt for how he just reacted to seeing you for the first time since the end of Senior Year.

His focus remains locked on where you’re after disappearing as his hand rubs the part of him you’ve just bumped, and Eddie swears he can still feel your arm against his shoulder. A tingle, an imprint, a ghost. His fingers curl into a fist against the material of his jacket and he eventually drops his head, sigh escaping his lips. Nancy is going to kill him for making you cry.

Upstairs, there’s a knock on your door.

You quickly wipe any last tears that have trickled down your cheeks and call out to whoever is on the other side that it’s open. Robin reveals herself, head tilting to the side as she notices the miserable look on your face.

“Nancy is already crucifying him,” is all she says before wrapping her arms around you, pulling you in for a comforting hug.

“She doesn’t have to do that,” you protest, resting your chin on her shoulder. “He’s got every right to be upset with me.”

“But the thing is, babe, everything we told you is true. Like, he does ask about you constantly, and he didn’t even have an issue with you coming this weekend when Nancy told him you accepted her invite,” she elaborates, pulling back from the embrace and leaning against a set of drawers.

“He’s just acting like a dweeb ‘cause you hugged Harrington first.”

You whine, a little too dramatically, while burying your face in your hands. It oddly feels therapeutic. Robin huffs out a laugh at your reaction, poking your arm to get you to look back at her.

“He’s never going to forgive me, Rob.” You sigh.

“Yes, he will.”

“How can he forgive me when he doesn’t want to listen to my apology? He practically said to pretend he’s not here.”

The blonde rolls her eyes. “Honey, you realise that all you have to do is listen to his stupid-ass request?” She says it as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. “The second you start giving him the cold shoulder, he’s gonna want your attention.”

And Robin was right, of course.

You didn’t notice it at first, fully understanding of Eddie’s request to steer clear from one another, plus dinner prep was a perfect distraction from his lingering presence.

Nancy tasks you with making the potato salad. A simple request and one you are happy to oblige. She positions you at one of the counters, your back to the kitchen island where Eddie is sitting nursing a beer. He’s messing around on Spotify, skipping through songs, and it takes everything you have not to comment about how he should just fucking pick one playlist and let it be.

The one person definitely unbothered by the constant switch in music is Argyle who fell asleep at the table. Body completely relaxed on the chair, head hanging backwards, and light snores escaping his parted lips as Rob tries to balance a stack of Pringles on his forehead.

Jonathan is Nancy’s sous chef, her helping hand, fulfilling every little request she has while preparing the rest of the grand meal. They’re giggling together and you can’t help but smile to yourself, thinking about how lucky they are to have found someone they feel so comfortable around.

Eddie was that someone for you, the thought crosses your mind, sending a twinge signal to your stomach. The twist in your gut is a sort of pain comparable to slicing your hand open, and at that moment your gaze shifts to the knife in your hand, grip tightening. You’re frozen for a minute. Unsure how to continue with the salad when all you can think about is the boy behind you. The boy that wants nothing to do with you.

Yet, unbeknown to you, also the boy who immediately notices the pause in your movements.

Eddie doesn’t act on it though. He thinks about it, only for a second too long because Steve approaches you first, briefly placing a hand on your back to gauge your attention, before leaning against the counter next to where you’re chopping potatoes. You smile at him. Eddie can see that it’s timid, small. Clearly there’s something on your mind and he feels guilty for most likely being the person that’s caused your dampened mood.

“How are you doin’?” Steve asks, crossing his arms across his chest, eyes glued to the side of your face.

“Good.” It’s not entirely true, but you know Eddie, as well as everyone else currently alert in this kitchen, can hear your conversation. “Delaying cutting these onions ‘cause I know they’re gonna make me cry,” you joke.

Steve chuckles. “Well, all you gotta do is ask, sweetheart.” He says before twisting in his spot and reaching for a chopping board. “I happen to be a pro at cutting onions.”

The light laugh that escapes your lips causes Eddie to roll his eyes. Not that you see his reaction though. You also don’t see how his grip tightens on the bottle of beer, or how his jaw clenches when Steve’s arm brushes against yours while you both work on the salad.

But despite the anger — the jealousy — bubbling inside of him, Eddie doesn’t stop listening in on your conversation with Harrington. In fact, he shuffles his chair closer, lowering the volume on the laptop by one. He can’t help himself. He’ll forever be invested in you, even if he says he’s not and that he doesn’t care. It’s all a pathetic lie to cover up the fact that he’s never quite gotten over you.

“So, how’s Vegas treating you? Bet it’s all parties and no responsibilities,” Steve nudges.

“God, I’d be disowned if that were the case,” you reply, chuckling lightly. You don’t tell him you’re sober, it doesn’t feel like the right time. “First year I was there, I worked. My dad scored me a reception job at his firm, so I saved a little cash and moved out on my own, just in time for the following year, when I started my degree.”

Steve hums, impressed. Eddie’s feeling proud, then a little sad because you got into college and he wasn’t there to congratulate you. Seemingly, no one from this group was.

“Gone into teaching, like you wanted?” Steve asks.

“Not entirely,” you pause briefly, “But what’s with the third degree? We’ve got all weekend to catch up.”

Harrington snorts out a laugh. “True,” he agrees with a smile, “I guess, you’re just such a mystery now. The usual social stalking doesn’t work ‘cause you haven’t updated anything in three years, and whenever I tried to call, you didn’t answer.”

You’re not sure what to say since he’s not wrong in his words, so you opt to say nothing at all. Steve seems to understand your reverence, nudging your arm with his own in the form of a silent assertion that he’s really not mad.

Eddie starts to feel guilty for being the one who isolated you from your friends, your support system. Though you never said it, he knows you left because of what happened at Chrissy’s stupid party. Ashamed of your actions and how they affected the group. Actions that were a result of his rash decisions.

“Fucking— Are you seriously going to listen to me spill my feelings for you, then try and jump into bed with fucking Harrington?!” Eddie’s yelling, arms stretched out as if he’s daring you.

The sound of Nancy clearing her throat forces the memory to freeze. Eddie glances up at the petite brunette, whose got one eyebrow arched as if to ask what the fuck he’s doing. He shrugs, taking another swig of his beer, then glances back down at the laptop and continues his not-so-secret eavesdropping.

“Tell me this, though,” Steve prompts, glancing at you, “are you happy?”

You pause your own movements, taking a moment to ponder his pretty loaded question. When you meet his brown eyes, you smile a genuine smile, surprising even yourself as to how easy it is to answer.

“Yes,” you state simply, “I’m happy.”

The screech of a chair being pushed back fills the air, causing both you and Steve to turn around, at the same moment that Eddie walks out of the kitchen. Nancy is quick on his heels, only flashing you an apologetic smile, and the entirety of the last twenty-odd seconds leaves you even more confused.

All throughout dinner, you notice how Eddie is oddly quiet, only chiming in when someone — not you — directly addresses him. No one comments on his unusual behaviour, though Robin shoots you some knowing looks from across the table every couple of seconds.

Then when the group agrees to move outside, while you get comfortable on the patio furniture, Eddie deliberately chooses the chair closest to the steps, as if he’s planning for a quick escape. He lights a cigarette, staring out at the lake, and your entire body is screaming to ask what’s on his mind, but then again, he’s made it quite clear he wants nothing from you.

So you decide to continue pretending his sullen mood isn’t affecting you.

“Merlot or Pinot Grigio?”

“Hmm?”

Steve’s at the door, a bottle of red and white wine in each hand. He lifts them up slightly, repeating the question, then waiting patiently for an answer. Although he doesn’t have to wait long because you quickly shake your head a firm no.

“I uh… I actually don’t drink anymore.”

Eddie’s ears perk up at your answer, though he doesn’t actually look in your direction. Still pretending to focus on the ripples in the dark water ahead.

“Oh.” Steve shifts awkwardly. “Well, now we know why Nancy didn’t offer any with dinner. Assuming she knows?”

“She does.”

“Then I’m sorry for offering.”

“Don’t be,” you say and it’s true.

He goes back inside without another word, leaving you alone with Eddie.

The silence is overwhelming and frankly, a little awkward. It’s odd to be so close to one another, yet feel as though you’re oceans apart. It’s also odd to have revealed this new and intimate detail about yourself, yet since it wasn’t said directly to him, Eddie might as well still not know.

You don’t know how to act, so you take out your phone.

There’s a text from your mom, ‘Really hope you’re having a good time, honey. Send some pictures, if you can.’

‘surviving ;)’, your fingers work across the keyboard, then you go into your album and select a photo of yourself with Robin and Nancy. The only one taken so far. ‘everyone says hi.’

‘Everyone?’

Your eyes flutter to where Eddie is sitting. He’s still looking at the lake.

‘almost everyone…’

As the three dots appear on the screen, your phone dings with the unmistakable sound of an Instagram notification. Your super secret secondary profile makes itself known, and you hold your breath for a split-second. But if Eddie heard it, he doesn’t say anything.

When you open the notification, the corners of your lips twitch upwards.

That, Eddie notices. Well, he noticed the sound too, but he’s not going to pry about your use of social media after pretty much telling you to fuck off earlier. His mind however, is running in circles. The metal-head knows you haven’t posted anything new on Instagram since you left Hawkins, so you must only be using the app for messaging, but who from your old life — that isn’t here this weekend — would be dming you at this hour of the evening? The second you smiled, at whatever the fuck you were after seeing on your phonescreen, well, Eddie wishes he handled your reunion earlier a little better because maybe you’d privy him to that information. He wants, no, needs to know who else you’ve been in contact with.

And he knows exactly who to ask.

A little too lost in your dm’s, you don’t notice Eddie put out the cigarette he’s been smoking and stump back inside. You don’t notice him approach Steve, mumble something in the guy's ear and point to his phone. You don’t notice them glancing at you through the large window, or whisper manically back and forth. You don’t notice Nancy joining in on the conversation, hands on her hips like a disapproving mom.

“She’s not in touch with anyone else,” she says and because she sees Eddie in particular is not buying whatever she’s selling, Nancy adds, “She’s got a second profile.”

Both boys are stunned, albeit only for a minute. Then the back-and-forth begins again. Questions arise. How long has Nancy known? Why doesn’t anyone else know? What’s the handle? Why not just use the old, original profile?

“It’s none of your business,” she tells them in a hushed tone of voice, “If she wanted you to know what is going on in her life, she’d post on the profile she created in high school, okay?”

Steve huffs, wine long forgotten, instead opting for something a little stronger. He pours four glasses of whiskey before motioning for Eddie and Nancy to take one, the last being for Robin who disappeared to talk to her girlfriend again. He takes a sip, liquid burning down his throat.

“I just don’t get the secrecy,” he says with a shrug.

With the glass pressed to her lips, Nancy looks out the window to where you’re sitting. A sigh escapes her lips. There’s a small smile present on your expression, focus remaining on your phone, and Nancy hates herself for being the person that’s ruined that, along with breaking the promise she’s made you about seven months into your time in Vegas.

She wanted to know how you were getting on. Considering by then you told her you weren’t coming back to Hawkins any time soon — one of the only texts you’d sent her since the time you left. The brunette girl wanted to know you were safe, happier. Calls weren’t going to work since you were barely replying to messages, and it’s not like at that point in time you were keen on letting the rest of the group know what you were up to, so your main Instagram account was out of the question.

Nancy suggested a second profile.

Then she promised she wouldn’t tell anyone.

“There’s two things you should know,” she breathes, glancing between Steve and Eddie. “First thing’s first though, you need to fucking forgive her.” Poking Eddie’s chest, her expression is stern. “You’ve forgiven Harrington here, so the least you can do is have a normal conversation with her.”

“Nance—”

“Eddie, I swear to fucking Christ. If you’re actually incapable for swallowing your pride for one fucking second—”

The sound of the sliding door causes her to halt her words and the three of them turn their heads to where you’re now standing, wide-eyed and apologetic because it seems at first glance you are after interrupting a very important conversation.

“Sorry,” you say with a meek smile, “I just came to get a glass of water.”

And you don’t mean to eavesdrop when they start whispering amongst themselves as you fill a glass with ice. In your defence, however, they’ve never been good at keeping their voices quiet, and they’re no better now. You hear your name escape Eddie’s lips, then something about Instagram coming from Steve.

Oh.

Having filled your glass with water, you turn back to look at the three of them.

To your surprise, the metal-head is already looking at you. His expression is hard to read, but regardless, it makes your heart skip a beat. It also makes you think that the only way for him to start trusting you again, he deserves to know what you’ve been up to these last few years — even by means of a now not-so-secret Instagram account.

So you call Steve’s name, not looking away from Eddie at first. When Harrington doesn’t react, in too deep with Nancy, you say it again, louder. He spins on his heel then, at the same time that you shift your attention in his direction.

Sighing softly, you tell him to pull up Instagram and then you dictate the handle and although you’re watching Steve type in every syllable that escapes your lips, from the corner of your eye, you can see Eddie’s fingers also work the screen of his phone.

Proof of both their curiosities dings in your pocket.

You quickly take out your own phone, silently accepting their follow requests while choosing not to comment on the fact that there were two: Eddie’s name gracing your notifications for the first time in three years.

With a quick refresh, there in all its Las Vegas glory, is the last three years of your life.

“I’m sorry,” Nancy says, now standing in front of you, “They’re relentless little fuckers.”

“Hey!” Steve’s offence is melodramatic and Nancy just rolls her eyes at the boy, before linking your arm with hers and leading you back outside. Having one quick glance at your newly found account, Harrington follows quickly behind.

Eddie on the other hand is frozen in place.

He tries to keep a straight face as opens the first image, quickly scanning the caption, before focusing on the picture posted two days ago. Apparently you were in Fort Wayne, visiting your mom. There’s a smile on your face that he hasn’t witnessed since high school and his heart tightens thinking about how he’d do anything to be the reason for your happy expressions again.

Did you stomp all over his heart? Yes. Rationally, Eddie should hate you for that alone, not even mentioning how you flushed years of friendship down the toilet. And for a long, long while, he did. Eventually, the metal-head realised the hate was superficial because he was actually more angry with himself.

“Your behaviour is fucking desperate.”

“Fuck you, Eddie.”

That stupid party, and putting you in the position he did, all while you were clearly too drunk, was a huge mistake on his part. It wasn’t the right place, nor the right time. Eddie just thought you looked so beautiful that night, and the alcohol cruising through his own veins clouded his judgement.

Then you reacted the way you did. When Eddie found you in the downstairs bathroom of Chrissy’s house in the arms of Harrington, well, you both said some equally rude things in the aftermath. They came from a place of anger, but he could never actually hate you.

You left without a word, before Eddie got a chance to apologise for his shitty behaviour at the party. Before he got a chance to tell you that he doesn’t care that you kissed Harrington, or whether you feel the same way he does. All he cares about is being in your life.

Now, your life resides on a profile Eddie didn’t even know about until mere minutes ago.

He’s scrolling, slowly. Taking the time to examine each photo, down to the comments left behind. Each image only adds to the ache in his chest. There’s experiences here he selfishly thinks he should’ve been a part of, as opposed to the people you’ve actually tagged. He’s known you for far longer than this dude Jax, who you seemingly went and got a tattoo with.

What hurts the most though, is seeing the proof of how happy you’ve been the last three years. How happy you’ve been without him in your life.

“So, babe, who the fuck is Jax?” Robin asks with a smirk.

Having been the last person to find out about your secret account, she was sure to take her time to tease you in retaliation. Starting light, with small jabs on the new wellness hobbies you’ve picked up over the years like hiking through the Nevada Trails Park, sunset yoga in the desert, and a new affinity for green smoothies. Then moving quickly to your new choice of friends, not judging them by any means, more expressing curiosity as to why these specific people replaced the group from Hawkins.

“Jax is a friend,” you answer simply.

“Looks awfully cosy for just a friend,” she teases, glancing up at you briefly before twisting the phone in Steve’s direction, to show the picture.

You roll your eyes ‘cause there’s really nothing going on between you and the boy in question, so the teasing you can take. You’re not ashamed.

“He’s great as a gym partner, honestly, he’s great for most boyfriend related activities, but he would, one-hundred per cent, make a terrible actual boyfriend.” You say with a soft laugh, sinking further into the cushioned seat as you further let your guard down.

Steve smirks. Satisfied. Clearly glad there’s nothing between you and Jax, though you don’t comment on his reaction. Instead, your gaze momentarily shifts to Eddie, who still hasn’t said a single word.

The brunette boy is staring at his hands. Fidgeting with the metal rings that coat his fingers. You can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking about, and it takes everything you’ve got not to ask him. Is he proud of the person you’ve become? Or is his continuous resentment spiralling out of control, because maybe he’s wondering why you could change for those strangers, but couldn’t change for him? But that, you couldn’t even answer for yourself.

“So you haven’t been dating anyone?” Robin further probes into your new life.

When you glance back at the blonde, she raises a brow, and you know she’s only asking because she wants the same thing as you: some sort of reaction out of Eddie.

You shake your head. “No.”

But it’s Steve who reacts instead.

“Come on, sweetheart!” His tone is full of disbelief. “You mean to tell us that no one in Vegas tried to sweep you off your feet?”

You let out a soft laugh.

“They sure tried. I’m just not interested,” you answer with a smile, then reach for your glass of water, bringing the brim to your lips.

“Why?” He asks.

“Steve—” Nancy tries to cut in, aware of what you’re going to say next. Aware of the reason why you haven’t dated, and no, unlike everything else that’s happened since you’ve seen this group last, this decision you made not to date wasn’t because of Chrissy’s party.

“I uh…” You clear your throat. “I haven’t dated since Billy.”

The group goes silent. Suddenly it’s all really… awkward.

“Jesus, babe,” Robin exhales dramatically, “That’s like—”

“Forever?” You interject, trying to keep your tone of voice as positive as you can. “I know.”

There’s a beat of silence. No one in the group is really sure what to say next, how to steer the conversation away from this topic.

You glance at Eddie who, for the second time this evening and to your surprise, is already looking at you. Brown eyes full of compassion. They say more than words ever could and you’re suddenly feeling hopeful. Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe you could be friends again. Maybe…

Though there’s still a lot of mending to do before any of that can happen. Starting with:

“Billy dying really fucked me up.”

Acceptance. Admitting your flaws, owning up to your mistakes. Making amends with the people that tried their very best to stand by you in the worst of times, even when you made it damn near impossible to do so.

“I kinda fell off the rails and I uh—“ You swallow your breath, gaze shifting from the brunette boy to the lake behind him. The sight of water soothing to your soul. “Well, I made some mistakes and I’m sorry. To all of you.”

“You don’t have to apologise,” Nancy says quickly and the rest of the group nod along. Aside from Eddie, who is back to fidgeting with his rings.

One by one, everyone eventually says goodnight. Jonathan and Nancy are the first to go, citing an early wake-up excuse and reminding everyone the canoes are rented for eleven in the morning, so breakfast would be at ten. WIth that information in tow, Argyle checks out next. You learn how he hates the open water, so he’s hoping extra sleep will make him less nervous in the morning. Robin gets a call from Vickie. She says she’ll be back shortly but after she disappears, Steve jokes that the next time the blonde will be seen is breakfast. This leaves you with a less than desirable duo.

Steve and Eddie.

Silence stretches for minutes at a time. Out of some sick and twisted principle, you don’t want to be the first to leave because that might get misinterpreted as running away, and this entire weekend is about proving how you’ve changed. Plus you’re not going to give Eddie the satisfaction of seeing you walk away twice in the span of one afternoon.

Luckily, awkwardness never seems to phase Harrington. Not for long, anyway.

He makes small talk, asks further questions about your new life, wonders if you are open to visitors and practically plans a trip out to see you in Vegas: sooner rather than later, as he puts it. He gets you to laugh on a few occasions and the sound comes naturally, no reservations or concerns.

You make note to apologise to him privately for everything you put him through the night of Chrissy’s party, although you already know he’ll tell you it’s no big deal because Steve Harrington has a heart too pure for this world. It makes you momentarily sick that you took advantage of his kindness in a moment of drunken despair.

“Okay kids,” Steve begins and stands, stretching, “If I tuck in for the night, will you kill each other? Or should I stay to play peacekeeper a little bit longer?”

“We’ll be fine,” Eddie answers shortly. The sentence being his first set of words in hours.

You exchange a glance with Harrington, who seems just as surprised as you by the metal-heads response, and offer up a timid smile.

“Goodnight, Steve.” You say kindly.

“Goodnight, sweetheart.” Then he turns to address Eddie, “‘Night, Munson. Don’t be a dickhead.”

Eddie grumbles something under his breath, but you don’t quite make out the specifics. Instead, you watch Steve’s frame disappear into the lake house and once he’s fully out of sight, a sagging feeling settles in the pit of your stomach — what now?

Although, nothing happens. Silence settles around the two of you. Only the sound of the night, the woods, the water graces your ears and, despite the company, it all feels quite peaceful.

Eddie lights a cigarette. Hesitantly, he offers you one, avoiding your gaze as he holds out the box. You politely decline, further wrapping yourself up in your hoodie and sinking into your seat.

After a few more minutes of utter quiet, Eddie exhales, blowing smoke into the midnight air and finally looks up in your direction. You’re aware instantly, that his chocolate-button eyes are latched onto you. The sensation sends a shiver down your spine. Clearing your throat, you tilt your head to meet his wide eyes then, surprising yourself, you offer him a small smile.

The metal-head surprises you too. For not only does he smile back, he says: “I’m sorry.”.

“You don’t—”

But he cuts you off. “I do. About earlier. I was an ass and yeah, I’m sorry.”

All you can do is nod. Not like you don’t believe him, you do. You know Eddie well enough to tell he’s being genuine. Unfortunately, a lot has gone down in the past and three years have passed since. Plus, only a few hours ago, he told you to practically shove your own apologies which can only mean he’s not really interested in having you back in his life. For that, you can’t blame him and as much as you’d want “I’m sorry” to fix things, it’s not that simple — you understand that now better than you did when you first arrived here.

You just need to get through this weekend, you remind yourself and slowly stand up, your own self-deprecating thoughts getting in the way of what you really want to tell him.

Eddie’s eyes remain on you, as if he’s analysing your every move, which, unknown to you, he sort of is. This girl he thought he knew, now a mystery and it’s in part all of his fault. He’s aching inside because everyone else seems to click with you easily, like no time stole memories they’ll never get to experience. Steve cracking intimate jokes mere moments ago causing something vile to bubble inside of the metal-head.

An apology for his earlier comments is a good place to start rebuilding, that’s what Nancy said. He likes to think he listens to advice, even if he doesn’t think it’s good, so he did what his friend told him too and now he wishes he hasn’t. Even more so when you clearly don’t want to hear anything from him.

“I appreciate your apology, but we don’t have to talk about it,” you say matter-of-factly, “We don’t have to talk at all, just like you wanted.”

And Eddie can’t dig himself out of the hole he jumped into.

as always, thank you for reading & please support your writers by reblogging <3

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