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notmyneighbor · 1 month

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Let Me In ~ Doppelgänger Francis Mosses/The Milkman x Female Reader

Chapter 6

Word Count ~ 3.9k

Rating ~ Explicit

CW ~ sexual content

Also available on AO3

taglist @luthien-elvenia-asher @fishfetus @gaudesstuff @nekee-lilac02

Fanart used with permission @kaworinx on Instagram and TikTok

Early morning. Almost time for Francis’ delivery route to begin.

“Good morning.” You look at the doppelgänger. His face is pressed into the living room pillow he’d borrowed from the couch, offering you the solitary one on the bed. A sleepy smile of greeting.

“Good morning, love.” His hand cups your cheek and you trap his fingers, turning your face to kiss the inside of his wrist. “I’m glad you stayed last night.”

“Me too.” Its earlier than you’d normally rise, but you kind of like it. That sense that the rest of the world is slumbering and the two of you have this time reserved just for you.

“Tell me to go get ready. I don’t want to leave this bed.”

“Go get ready. I’ll press your clothes for you while you take a shower. Get coffee going.”

“M’kay.” He sighs, sitting upright. Stretching his arms, his legs hanging over the side of the bed. A dog barks outside and someone hisses for it to be quiet. The replicant freezes, his arms dropping down sharply.

“Francis? What is it?”

“It’s not a dog.” He stands and goes to the window, edging the curtain back. “I don’t recognize them. Not from my squadron.”

“A doppel?”

“Yes.”

You sit up, the languid, cozy feeling evaporating instantly. Bringing you right back to reality. “Does the owner know?”

“No. They’re human.”

“Are they trying to come in?”

“No. But they sense something. That’s why they barked. They’re already halfway down the street. You’re safe.” He lets the curtain drop back into place.

“Didn’t you say no doppels would try to enter the building anymore?”

“Yes.”

You worry your lower lip. “That’s going to look suspicious to the DDD.”

“The DDD.” He says the name of the organization contemptuously. “I wish you’d leave.”

“It’s not just a job. It’s my career. I can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want to help people. I promised I would.”

“You could do something else and still help people,” he mumbles. “Fine. If it’s going to draw more unwanted attention here, I can make certain some doppels do come in when you’re working.”

So much for the relieved idea that you and the residents would finally be safe and secure. “You can do that?”

“Of course.”

“And not let them harm anyone?”

“That is more than I can promise.”

So you’d still be putting the residents at risk. Encouraging it, even. You’d have to make absolutely certain never to let one inside.

“You’d be condemning your own kind. I’d have to call the cleaners if they threatened violence.”

“I’m aware. I have to keep you safe. If that means risking some other doppels, so be it.”

You leave the bed, walking over to the closet. Francis didn’t have many clothes aside from his work attire. He’d had few personal possessions in general from what you’ve seen so far in the apartment. Living so humbly.

The imposter rests a hand on your spine on the way past you to the bathroom, pausing to kiss your cheek. “Are you going to be alright?”

“Yes.” You select a shirt and pair of pants, folding the items still on the hangers over your arm. “I’ll be fine. Go get ready.”

The sound of the shower starting fills the background as you collect the folded ironing board from inside the closet and plug in the iron. You pad barefoot into the kitchen to get the coffee pot on, wearing one of Francis’ undershirts and your panties. You’re a little sore from the previous evening’s events. Internally. The times he had pounded into you deeply. The new bite on your shoulder. The swelling and redness seem to have dissipated. The mirror above the dresser doesn’t reveal anything too drastic looking. The puncture marks are almost invisible.

You’ve got the milkman’s pants ready when he emerges naked from the other room, still slightly damp from the shower. The brazenness still makes you blush. You know what he looks like nude by now, of course, but it feels different when it isn’t during intimacy. You watch the imitator rummaging through the dresser drawers to retrieve underwear and socks and a bow tie, secretly admiring the way his muscles shift in the warm yellow glow of the lamp, the curtains still shielding the window. You can smell the coffee brewing in the other room, easily pervading the entirety of the tiny apartment, and you inhale that enticing aroma deeply.

“So you mentioned earlier you’re in a squadron. Like a military sort?”

“Not precisely as you know it, but I suppose there are a few vague similarities.”

“What rank are you?”

“The equivalent of a lieutenant colonel, if you had to label it.”

You inch the work shirt further over the side of the ironing board to continue the pressing, smoothing out the wrinkles. “Where is the rest of your squadron?”

He shrugs. “Around,” he replies vaguely. You think he knows exactly where they are and he’s not willing to give them up. Still somewhat loyal, in spite of what’s happened between you.

“They don’t wonder where you are? Or vice versa? You don’t have some kind of a leader you have to report to?”

He pauses midway through pulling on a sock. “It doesn’t quite work like that. We are…autonomous, I suppose you would say. Working independently, but striving for the same goal.”

You hand him the shirt and he slides it over his shoulders after finishing with the socks. “So why have ranks at all then, if you’re all equals?”

“Because we’re not. Not everyone can do what I did. It’s still rare. There’s no way to instruct how to do it. It just…happens. Or doesn’t.” He finishes buttoning the front of his shirt. You help him with the cuffs of his sleeves.

“Why did you choose Francis?”

“Opportunity. Nothing more. Sheer random encounter.” You step back as he pulls each pants leg on and stands, zipping and buttoning the fly. The belt is coiled on the dresser beside the black tie. “The best decision of my existence,” he says softly, his forehead bending to touch yours.

You’re so conflicted. He’d killed the man you’d loved. But in some ways was still the man you loved. Only not. An enemy you’re supposed to be guarding against, except he no longer seems to bear any malice towards your kind. Coexisting peacefully. But the cost of that. Oh, the cost.

“I can’t say I’m grateful for what you did. But I am glad it was you, and not someone else.”

His hand cradles your head and he draws you against him. You can smell soap and shampoo. Aftershave. Your arms tighten around him.

“What did happen? During that random encounter?” You ask against his chest.

“Why do you want to know the details? It won’t change anything.”

You draw back to see his face. “Consider it a weakness of humans. There is a car accident on the interstate. The vehicles wrecked, the passengers gravely injured. We slow down or stop to look, even after emergency services have been called, even though there is nothing left to be done. We can’t look away. We have to face it. Confront our fears head on. Grieve our losses. Knowing the truth of what happened is the only way to do that.”

“If I tell you, you’re admitting he’s gone.”

You chew your lower lip, hesitating. “I suppose that would be true.”

“If that happens, you won’t have any reason to be with me anymore.” He strokes a thumb over one cheek. “Is that really what you want?”

“I…no.” Your heart is beating madly in your chest. It would be like losing Francis twice, somehow. You can’t fathom it. “I’m sorry, you’re right. It’s best I don’t know. I won’t mention it again.”

After a time the replicant finishes dressing. The black bow knotted neatly. Belt secured. Wallet tucked into his pocket, followed by his keys. You’ve hastily gotten dressed in yesterday’s clothing. You’ll return home and get properly washed and changed before returning for your shift afterwards.

The imposter pours you both a cup of the freshly brewed coffee. Strong. The way you both like it. A little cream and sugar to kill some of the bitterness stirred in.

You’re standing by the front door now. The doppelgänger holds the milkman’s cap in his hands. He doesn’t like wearing it. You can tell. You pull it from his fingers and set it on his head. Tugging the brim down a little. Smoothing some of his hair back underneath. He really did need a trim soon. You’d never seen it get this long.

“Be safe today,” he says.

“You too.”

“Do you think I could get away with coming over tonight? Is your organization going to stalk me?”

“I’m hoping they’ll calm down after a bit. They are still watching you. Me. Us. So maybe wait a couple of days, make it not so obvious.”

“I don’t think I can manage a couple of days.”

“You’ll still see me in the booth.”

“That’s not the same.”

“I know, Francis. If circumstances were different…I’m trying keep you safe.”

“I know.” He sighs. “Alright. A couple of days, then. Surely the weekend as well?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

He smiles. “Things looking up already. Alright, sweetheart.” He bends to kiss your mouth. “I’ll see you later.”

You exit the apartment and he locks the door. Still no one else stirring in the building yet. He ignores the elevator and begins descending the staircase. You follow him. He’s faster than you, his longer limbs making short work of the steps. Already nearly an entire flight down from you.

He pauses on the landing, looking back at you as you halt, fingers curled over the railing.

“Francis.” You rush down the stairs, throwing yourself at him when you reach the bottom, the momentum pushing him back against the wall. Planting kisses along the freshly shaved cheeks and jaw. “I miss you already.”

“Me too, love.” His arms envelop you and you bury your face against his shirt. Suddenly you find yourself wanting to cling to him desperately. So afraid for him. More than you were even for yourself.

It’s a relief when you see him return safely later that day; it’s all you can do not to open the booth and fling yourself back into his arms. But the camera mounted on the wall over your shoulder is a constant reminder. You’re being watched.

You’re not safe at all.

***

Saturday morning finds you standing in what was once an impressive garden beside your house. Now chock full of wildflowers and overgrown with weeds. Francis’ copy is beside you, kneeling down, his fingers raking the earth, pushing impatiently at the intruding vegetation. “The soil is still good. You could plant here again easily.”

“My grandfather would have been happy to see that. It just got to be too much for him to maintain. He had a hard time finding help for the farm. People lured into moving to the city. Better paying jobs. Fancier homes. A variety of exciting new stores to shop in. My parents both had that itch.”

“You’re somewhere in the middle.” He stands, dusting his hands off.

You nod. “I guess I am. I can appreciate the value of being in the city. The benefits. But I recognize the drawbacks, too. I love being here. It always feels right. I wish I could restore things to the way they were.”

“Maybe you could. Not to the extreme of running a business with employees, but to build it back up, little by little.”

“It would be a full time process.”

“You could do it. We could do it,” he adds softly.

“Is that really what you’d want?”

“I want you,” he says, his hands now seated on your waist, drawing you closer. He kisses you and you sigh contentedly.

“When I’m with you, it’s like the rest of the world goes away. There is no DDD or invasion. It’s just us.”

“It could really be like that.”

“No one ever leaves the DDD voluntarily. And you’d be labeled a deserter, wouldn’t you? We’d be chased. Hunted down. There’s only one punishment for someone who’s a coconspirator.” It didn’t happen often, but occasionally there were stories of humans accepting bribes. Working together with the doppels. It did not end well for the humans making those bargains; did not end well for the invaders, either.

“We’ll keep running so they can’t catch us. To the ends of the earth.” He tugs on your hand and you allow him to, following him. Navigating through the overgrowth, threading through it to find your path. Moving faster and faster, a full jog now. Still anchored to the doppelgänger’s hand.

He halts abruptly and you collide with him. Both breathing heavily. He descends and you tumble down with him. You’re in a patch of wildflowers, their perfumed scent heavy in the air.

You lie together like that with your head pillowed on his chest, one arm tucked around you. “Did you ever have anything like this before? Was there someone else?”

“Never.”

You burrow a little deeper, satisfied with the answer. Would you have been jealous if he’d said yes? Strange to think that way. But yes, you would be, you realize. The concept of sharing, the idea of affection for someone other than yourself bothers you.

“Do you think you could ever find yourself caring for me? Not for the face I wear. What’s behind it, I mean. My true self.” Your head lifts, your eyes searching his features. “I want you to love me as much as you love the man. More than that.”

“You said…you don’t even have words for human emotions. They don’t exist for your kind.”

“They don’t. They didn’t. A change now. Evolution. Something unanticipated. That’s what the ache is, isn’t it? How terrible this feeling is. How wonderful. Paradox.” He pulls your face towards his, kissing you. “I need you, sweetheart. More than you’ll ever know.”

You kiss him back. You can’t speak with words. It’s too overwhelming. Too confusing trying to separate the man and the invader. You’d been telling yourself all along it was your feelings for the former that had driven all your actions. That had been true enough in the beginning. But now. Now there were doubts creeping in. Wondering it wasn’t the other that you had feelings for. Could you really love a monster?

“Need to feel you, love, please.” The sound of his belt being undone. Dark slacks today now that he wasn’t working. Your fingers join him there, finding his cock already hard, leaking in anticipation. So hungry, so fast. Your body responding in kind, drooling for him.

You straddle his hips, the hem of your skirt bunched around your waist. Struggling to hold the crotch of your panties aside, to guide him inside of you. Gasping when you succeed. You lower yourself down onto him. The sun is warm on your back. You lift up slightly and sit back down. Impaling yourself again. Your hips roll back and forth as you lean down to kiss him. Rocking, sliding that prick in and out of your pussy. He slips completely free and you hurriedly snake a hand between your bodies, realigning him. The drag against your clit sending sparks through you. You keep the hand there, touching yourself, touching him. Feeling the heightened friction of the panties digging against your hand, against your lover’s dick. The nails of your other hand raking his chest through his shirt.

You kiss him, tasting the salt of the perspiration that has begun. It’s so hot. Outside. Inside of you. His fingers touch your cheek, seed your hair, hold your mouth against his as his hips lift to meet you. Driving him deeper inside. You look down at the man whose face you’d seen behind glass for all those months. Those dark, tired eyes on yours. Lick his mouth back open, enjoying the mash of the hand still between your bodies, grinding against the bundle of nerve endings. His lips at your jaw and throat and beside your ear. “I love you,” he whispers, and you shatter around him, your walls spasming, your body jerking through release.

It’s easy to say the phrase back to him when you’re in the height of bliss, just three simple little words that escape above his face, panted between noises of pleasure.

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

His hips snap up and you feel the jet of seed inside you. Your forehead drops to his, your arms and legs suddenly shaking. You dismount and drop down beside him, your face burrowing again.

“I meant it,” he says softly. “What I said.”

“I know. So did I.” It’s the truth, you realize. Somehow, the impossible had happened.

You’d fallen in love with a doppelgänger.

***

The weekend flies by.

You are back in the security booth once again the following Monday. Straightening out the desk once more. You really could not understand why your coworkers were so disorganized. You’ve nearly finished the task when you realize through your peripheral vision that someone has entered the apartment building.

Your head lifts to see Izaack Gauss.

Or what looked like him; your instincts kicking in once again. It’s most certainly a doppel.

The face has been perfectly replicated, the second floor resident’s exaggerated features all ones you recognize: the large cleft chin and wide nose, the thick dark eyebrows set above glacier blue eyes, that wide stretch of teeth just a little too large for comfort, becoming almost a rictus grin. One that doesn’t touch the imposter’s eyes.

“Good morning,” he greets you, sliding his ID card and entry request through the stainless steel slot at the bottom of the window.

You look over the identification first. Expiration date checks out, the image and name both correct. Your eyes flick up before you study the other document. On the day’s list. DDD logo present. Occupation of reporter correct. Address verified.

“May I come in? As you can see everything is in order.”

The ID card is still clutched in your hands. You tap it against the desk absently. You know it’s not really him. You just don’t have any evidence to support your suspicion yet.

“Let me just make a quick phone call to your residence.”

You lift the receiver off the hook, dialing the first number.

“I can smell him on you.”

Your hand freezes. “I’m sorry?”

The large nostrils flare and the suited figure inhales deeply. “All over you. Inside of you. He’s been there, hasn’t he? You’ve let him in.” Little burst capillaries spidering across his eyes now. A thin trail of spit glistening on his lower lip. “You could let me inside, too.”

You flip the plastic shielding covering the alarm down and slap the red button, the steel shutters instantly dropping down to cover the glass. Hanging up hurriedly and dialing a new number, the DDD operator answering you in the same calm manor they always adopt, assuring you the cleaners will be on their way shortly.

Time seems to slow to a crawl. You hear the sounds of the disposal team making their way inside. Yelling. Gunfire. Then silence. The alarm stops sounding. The steel shutter retracts. On the other side of the window, you can see a member of the DDD wearing a yellow hazmat suit. “The doppelgänger has been taken care of. You can return to work now.”

You nod, willing your shaking hands to be still.

***

“There was a doppel today.”

The piece of cake you’re chewing tastes like ash. It’s from your favorite bakery, a treat from your replicant beau. Washed down with an ice cold sample of the milk he delivers. You wish you could enjoy it. But your taste buds won’t cooperate. You’re still shaken from what had happened earlier.

“Yes. There were to be several. What’s wrong?”

“He knew about us, Francis.”

He sets his fork down slowly. “Tell me what happened.”

“He looked just like Mr. Gauss. The reporter that lives alone on the second floor. Paperwork checked out. But I could tell something was off right away. And he said he could smell you on me. In me. He knew what we’ve done together.”

You see the copycat milkman’s Adam’s apple move above his shirt collar as he swallows loudly. “And then you called the cleaners?”

“Yes.”

“Did he get a chance to say anything to them?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“And the surveillance cameras?”

“Video feed only, no audio.”

A heavy sigh. “Alright. I’m sorry that happened to you. That was not a member of my squadron, I assure you.”

“You said they wouldn’t come near the building, because of the marks. Other than the ones you sent as decoys to fool the DDD.”

“I didn’t think they would. Honestly, I didn’t. I would never deliberately put you in harm’s way. You know that.” His hand reaches for yours across the tiny kitchen table in the third floor apartment. “Had to just be an anomaly. Had to be,” he repeats, sounding as if he’s trying to reassure himself as well as you.

“What if it’s not?”

He pushes back from the table, kneeling beside you, reaching for one of your hands and pressing his lips to it, holding it against his cheek. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I swear to you. I love you,” he says, and your heart flutters. The palm of his free hand rests somewhere along your ankle. Sliding up, bringing the hem of your skirt with it. He kisses your knee. The top of the joint. The inside. Stands and pulls you with him. Lifting you and sitting you on the counter, your skirt gathered in messy folds around your hips. His fingers dig into the sides of the underwear clinging to them, dragging them roughly down. He’s impatient, possessive. Scared, you think.

“I want to make a baby with you.”

“Francis…” Your sex throbs at the suggestion. Such a dangerous idea.

“I want them to know you’re mine. Fuck the DDD and fuck the other doppels.” His face moves against your throat, one hand on your hip as he thrusts into you, the other braced on the overhead cabinet behind you.

“I am yours.”

He huffs a moan. “You’re so perfect for me.”

You gasp when he reaches deeper inside of you, clutching the back of his shirt collar, your other hand at his waist, knees digging into his hips as he ruts against you. Your fingers travel to his hair, those cocoa locks that are growing curlier the more they lengthen. You have to cut them for him, or send him to a barber, or…

“Say it. Please, please say it. Do you want me to beg? I’ll do it. Please…”

You know what he wants. What he needs to hear. “I love you.” The wood behind you groans with the tension his hand places on it as he fucks you harder, faster. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” uttered each time he’s sheathed inside you.

Touching his cheek now, watching his mouth fall open, the kind of wonder in those dark eyes, as if he’s discovering you all over again for the first time, coming apart, waiting to be rebuilt. You both shatter and then there is silence save for the ticking of the clock mounted on the kitchen wall and the breaths you trade, a warm exchange of air in the scant space that divides you.

#thats not my neighbor #francis mosses #milkman #francis mosses x reader #francis mosses x you #milkman x reader #milkman x you

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evie-sturns · 3 months

Text

𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘥 - 𝘔𝘢𝘵𝘵 𝘚𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘰

summary: when you and matt first started dating, you made a rule, that you two would never go to sleep mad at each other, but tonight a heated argument breaks that rule.

warnings: arguing, angst?, crying, swearing, fluff.

------------------⋆ ★⋆ ★⋆ ★⋆ ★⋆ ★--------------———

me and matt don't fight often, in our 4 months of being together we've only bickered, aside from the odd big argument. we always make up by the end of the day because of our rule. never fall asleep angry with each other.

9:48pm

"matt i promise, i didn't mean to." i sigh, i'm exhausted after our arguing, which has been going on for 45 minutes.

"you didn't mean to search my phone, im sure." he scoffs, grabbing his phone and checking the time.

"i fucking didn't matt, your phone was being spammed every 2 seconds so i picked it up, then you came in, its not my fault it looked different from how it actually was."

i say, my voice raising as i go to walk away, but matt grabs my wrist, yanking me back towards him. "so all the other apps that had been opened weren't you hm?"

he says glaring down at me, matt never loosens his painful grip, i don't think he even realises he's hurting me. his rings leave red marks on my arm.

"im going to sleep matthew." i say, my voice barely audible and wobbling.

matt's grip softens, allowing me to pull away.

i run upstairs, slamming the door to the bedroom behind me as i hold back my tears.

i rarely cry, matt's only seen me cry a handful of times meaning its a shock for him each time i do.

i strip down to just a tank top and panties before crawling into bed, shutting my eyes, hoping to sleep off the built-up frustration inside me.

just as i feel myself drifting to sleep the door swings open, followed by matt's angry stomps. he rips down the covers and plops himself in, before yanking them back up.

after a few minutes i roll over, matts back is facing me. i reach out a hand to grab his, he pushes me off. "dude don't fucking touch me?" matt says, somehow moving further away from me.

that'll do it.

i climb out of bed, grabbing my pillow as i walk over to the small basket in the corner of our room, filled with blankets from our previous movie nights. i pull up a blanket into my arms as tears fill my waterline. matt flicks on the lamp which rests on our bedside table, a warm yellow light fills the room.

"what the fuck are you doing this time." matt says, squinting his eyes.

i erupt into sobs, my face scrunching as tears soak my face. through my blurred vision, i can partially see concern and worry painted across matts face. i have a pillow under my arm, a blanket in my other and im clutching matts pug stuffed animal, which we share now.

i walk out of the bedroom, shutting the door softly behind me before sprinting downstairs, i place my pillow down on the small couch, and lay down, pulling the grey blanket over me and cuddling the pug to my chest, which shortly gets damp from my tears.

11:34pm

i dont know how long ive been asleep, or even where i am, but i'm woken up from matts arms around me, holding me in a bridal position. "matt..?" i say, looking up at him through my swollen eyes.

"i know gorgeous, theres no heating down here its too cold for you sweetheart." matt says, his voice soft and quiet.

my eyebrows furrow, did we even fight? or did i dream it? i look down at my wrist, which is red from where matt grabbed me earlier,

we fought.

matt carries me upstairs, his grip on me is so gentle i cant even comprehend how I'm being held up right now.

he opens our bedroom door with his elbow, the room is pristine, cleaner than I've ever seen it. "why is it so tidy in here.." i squeeze out, my voice raspy. matt clears his throat "oh-.. uh couldn't sleep so i cleaned.."

he pulls back the covers, readjusting the pillow with one hand before laying me down. "do you want me to come in the bed with you or are you happy by yourself.." matt says, his voice timid.

"you can come in.." i say, wide awake now and fully aware of everything thats happened in the past 3 hours.

matt lies down next to me, his body tense.

"im really sorry, i feel so guilty." matt says, tilting his head to look over at me. i nod, "it was my fault too." i say, fidgeting with my nails.

"no its not, i overreacted so much i don't even know what went over me, i regret it so much." matts voice shakes.

"i feel like shit for even touching you." matt says, "and i'm sorry for waking you up but i didnt want to break our rule.."

"huh?" i say, looking over at him, our eyes making eye contact.

"no going to bed angry with eachother.." he says with a small laugh.

i roll over to face him, a wide smile spread across my face. "oh matt.." i say, climbing ontop of him and laying down, burying my face on his shoulder and wrapping my arms around, underneath him.

he hugs me back with a sigh of relief, but somethings different,

"matt! where are your rings?" i say, sitting up on his torso and grabbing his hand.

"i couldn't even look at them without feeling guilty, i know they dug into your arm.."

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i love this i was in such a writey mood

#sturniolo #sturniolo smut #sturniolo triplets #sturniolo x reader #matt sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo x reader #matt sturniolo #chris sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #nick sturniolo #Spotify

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ddejavvu · 2 months

Note

Jake seresin doing that bathroom door thing to a sweet shy reader would be so cute😭😭

that bathroom door thing - i changed it up just a bit for the plot's sake! i hope you still enjoy it <3

Jake's forever grateful that Penny bought the Hard Deck, because it brought about changes that have only ever benefitted him. She's begrudgingly fond of him, so he drinks whenever he wants and pays his tab in grunt muscle when new shipments of booze are delivered and need to be hauled in. He also drives Amelia around to various after school activities, so Penny's rewarded him with his own personal set of keys in case she's waiting for pickup in the bar and can't lock up behind herself.

The bar is cleaner now than it was under previous management, which means more women are willing to set foot inside; something about the earlier gunk and grime drove them away. It's no longer a place for aviators to drink their sorrows away- it's fun, it's full, and it's family, something Jake cherishes more than he'll ever admit.

Those keys feel especially important in his pocket now as he watches you try the handle of the bathroom door, clearly in a rush. Jake's surprised that the bathroom isn't constantly occupied, what with the amount of liquor that gets consumed on a nightly basis, but some people might just be better at regulating themselves than others.

Apparently you're not one of them as you find the door locked, your face contorting into clear displeasure.

You scan the bar for Penny but- Jake realizes with a jolt down his spine, she's not here. She'd stepped out, and he'd been casually monitoring the counter to ensure that no one started touching anything that didn't belong to them.

"Coyote," Jake calls, catching his friend's attention from where he's crouched over the pool table, "Cover for Penny."

Usually the team would be annoyed at being interrupted, but Coyote is just as fond of Penny as Jake is, and he nods once, passing his cue over to Rooster. He takes up a seat opposite Jake, giving the man the chance to stand and make his way over to you.

"Hey there, darlin'," He greets, digging the keys out of his pocket, "You need'a get in there?"

"Uh, yeah, I do," You laugh sheepishly, watching intently as he slides the key into the door, "Oh my god, thank you, I couldn't find the bartender and I thought I was shit outta luck."

"I gotcha, honey," Jake grins, bicep flexing as he pushes open the door for you, "Come get me when you're done so I can lock back up, okay?"

"Alright," You agree, slipping into the bathroom and peeking through the door to call after him, "Thank you again!"

Jake beelines for the bar, reaching around the countertop to grab two bottles of beer. They're stored in an ice bucket, but he prefers them to the tap because they're quicker and easier.

"Hey!" Coyote barks, mad dogging him playfully, "You gonna pay for those, sir?"

"If these help me get that lady's number," Jake rushes back to the tables near the bathroom, sitting at one and setting the other bottle across from him, "I'll give Penny my life savings."

#jake seresin x reader #jake seresin imagine #jake seresin fanfiction #jake seresin x you #jake seresin x y/n #hangman #hangman x reader #hangman x you #hangman x y/n #hangman fanfiction #hangman imagine #jake hangman seresin #jake hangman seresin x reader #jake hangman seresin imagine #jake hangman seresin fanfiction #jake hangman seresin x you #jake hangman seresin x y/n #top gun x reader #top gun maverick x reader

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moonchildstyles · 10 months

Text

rosemary

rosemary part one: harry has a lot of secrets and has perfected the art of being alone. y/n likes to wear bows in her hair and tries harder than anyone harry has ever known.

wordcount: 14.5k+

—————

The sound of the lock clicking in place as Harry twisted the deadbolt on his front door had his shoulders relaxing. The kind of comfort a locked door brought was something he'd never take for granted.

He kicked off his shoes beside the door, the dingy carpet making his beaten Vans look a lot cleaner than they really were. His keys clamoring atop the rickety side table he had set up next to the door had him wincing at the volume. He didn't like loud noises much anyway, but especially not after one of his longer shifts. Harry bypassed the single curtained window in his apartment, leaving the drapes heavily closed despite the morning light crawling over the horizon.

First order of business was changing out of his work uniform. He hated nothing more than relaxing in the same pants he had worked all night in, even if the dress code of the grocery store was on the lax side. He flung the maroon collared shirt into his hamper, followed by the set of stiff, dark pants he wouldn't wear ever in his daily life. He could have melted as soon as he threw on a heather grey t-shirt and tattered sweats.

The second he sunk into his bed, springs creaking under his weight, he felt the knots in his muscles begin to loosen. He'd never worked over nights before at any of his previous jobs, and he hadn't anticipated how hard it would be to adjust to falling asleep when the sun came up and the challenge his body would pose over working when he should be resting. At least, he was home.

His studio apartment wasn't heavily furnished—or even lightly furnished, if he was being honest. This was his seventh home in the last handful of years, and after a while the idea of lugging furniture around and anything other than the essentials made him just as exhausted as the actual process of moving. It was easier to pack up and leave when there wasn't much for him to miss. Instead, he often bought secondhand, or anything cheap whenever he settled in a place that seemed good enough for the time being.

This particular move left him with a plain bed frame, the legs uneven but fixed with the help of a couple of old books. His pillows were thin, matching the frayed sheets he had stretched across his mattress and the threadbare comforter topping the whole thing. Like with most of his past apartments, the carpets held stains from before he moved in, walls yellowed from cigarettes he didn't smoke, and the kitchen appliances worked at their convenience. The only things that were truly his, that he never parted with in any of his moves and made this place less of a crash pad, were the few well-loved books under his bed that weren't being used to prop up the frame, and the small photo of his mother and sister sitting on a shelf he was lucky enough to have found at a garage sale when he moved in.

Despite it all, Harry liked this place.

The town he'd landed in was on the quieter side, too small for much trouble to rise up. He hoped that would make it an easy place to stick around for a while.

His body felt heavy when he forced himself to stand from his bed and pad over to the tiny kitchen tucked in the corner of the space. As exhausted as his body was, his brain was still very much awake and urging him to eat something before he settled any.

His kitchen was made up of limited cabinet space, a trio of stubborn appliances, and a square of loosely-laid tiles marking the confines of the space. The flimsy cabinets were barely hanging onto their hinges, from before even Harry moved in. The shelves were sparsely dotted with canned food and boxed snacks. They were the easiest and cheapest things to grab, even if they weren't necessarily bites that he liked. Plus, they were easy to travel with if he needed to leave in a split.

The stubby refrigerator manning one of the walls held only the bare essentials, leaving the shelves and door more bare than not. The appliance mostly held the frozen meals he was able to get a discount on through his job. The microwave embedded in the wall stunk like burnt hair every time he ran it for longer than ten seconds. The stove was the most reasonable method of heating up food in this apartment, Harry had found, even if only two out of the four burners operated on more than a simmer. He had never used the oven in the three months since he made this his home, despite the fact it had been cleared by his landlord on move in day. The exposed wiring sticking out of the back looked like it would cause a house fire instead of just heating a lasagna.

Harry bypassed it all as he rifled through his near-empty cabinets. To be fair, this wasn't the worst place he'd ever lived, so he'd take it if things were on the rundown side and carried an odd smell if he paid close enough attention. It was a routine the way he pulled out a can from his cupboard, a Spaghettio's label wrapped around the tin, before reaching for the misshapen pot he kept in a lower cabinet. His movements felt robotic as he went along, forming his meal out of habit more than any conscious thought. His brain happily turned onto autopilot as he stirred the runny tomato sauce, noodles floating through, until boiling bubbles broke through the surface.

Taking it off the heat, Harry scooped it into a bowl. This was good enough for him.

With the pot in the sink to be washed and the can in the trash, he moved on tired feet back to his bed. He didn't have a dining table to eat at, and he didn't really care if he was honest. It wasn't as if he was hosting dinner parties or entertaining guests. He was happy enough with nestling into his blankets and eating on his bed.

Tucked underneath his pillow, Harry pulled out a well-worn book. A dog-eared page marked his place in the oil-softened pages. The spine no longer cracked when he folded open the pages, the stiff set in the glue having settled somewhere after his fiftieth read. The bent and frayed cover no longer phased him anymore, nor did the name inscribed in the inside cover that wasn't his. No matter the state, this book followed him through every move, every change, and every sleepless night.

He knew this love story like the back of his hand; the pages one of the only constants in his life of transiency.

Harry wasn't even that much of a reader the first time he had picked up the volume. He had only been looking for something to escape into when he first started going on jobs, the stress and guilt beginning to warp his mind. These pages still hadn't lost their shine in his eyes, this story having been one of the only bright points when he swore he was digging himself to rock bottom.

Absentmindedly spooning bites of his meal into his mouth, Harry slipped into the familiar story. The comfort was almost enough to have him lulled into something safe enough that he could have fallen asleep where he was sitting, memories of every sleepless night when he had turned to this book hitting his system. It was a feat little else had been able to achieve, and Harry was grateful for that. He couldn't keep staying up at all hours now that he had the challenge of flipping his days with this new job.

Sitting on his well-loved bed, a well-loved copy of his favorite book in hand, and something that could pass as breakfast if he squinted hard enough, Harry felt at peace for a moment.

He didn't mind being alone, not when it was like this anyway. He hoped he wouldn't have to move on from this place for a while.

—————

Cardboard scraped against Harry's forearm as he reached into his box, digging through the packages of cookies and crackers that filled this specific shipment. The fluorescent lights above him felt especially fried now that the sun had gone down, washing out his skin and paling the ink of his tattoos.

While the rest of the night crew were paired off and working together to stock the shelves, Harry was commissioned alone. He worked better by himself, he knew that, and it was nice to have his boss know that now too. It only took almost two months into his employment until everyone realized he wasn't the kind of person that enjoyed idle chatter or wanted to get close to any of these people around him. Now, he was able to enjoy his music in peace, the white wire connecting the buds hitting his chest as he moved.

Harry had a system with the way he worked. He wanted to finish as fast as possible, and not waste any more energy than he had to. He tried to organize his boxes as much as he could on the cart before he was stocking each line of product as quickly as he could, extras being cast aside until he could make a trip to the back room. It was all a system, something he planned out without even thinking. If not for the fading ache in his shoulders and knees he would feel at the end of his shift, he wouldn't even really remember his movements.

Given this focus, there wasn't much that could distract Harry as he worked. His goal was to finish as fast as possible and move onto something else to fill his mundane nights, not to linger on the guests of the grocery store or fill the silence with small talk he didn't care about. There was a reason he gravitated towards the operations side of this job and not the customer service aspects.

That's why he didn't give it much of a thought when he saw a pastel streak flash in the corner of his eye. He continued doing his job, organizing his box some, as he filtered through the packages of biscuits and sweet crackers, soft sleeves of cookies, and bags of other products. It wasn't until the pastel streak drew closer did he instinctively glance in its direction.

Her back was to him as she held her gaze upwards. She was scanning the shelves, this woman, complete with an overlarge cream sweater and a peach colored bow in her hair that shone in the light like the velvet fuzz of the color's namesake. One of the grocery store's signature maroon baskets was at her side, the handles tucked in her elbow. There was barely anything in her basket, but that isn't what had Harry's brows knitting in the middle by the time he stitched his attention back on his work.

It was way too late for anyone to be doing any menial shopping in his opinion, especially not a girl who looked as if she might deem throwing flower petals in the face of an attacker to be sufficient self-defense. But, that wasn't his business, he reminded himself. It didn't help soothe the tears in his mental health to imagine the worst possible scenarios starring those around him.

A centering breath was sucked in through his nose as he flicked the switch in his brain that had him thinking only of his body's movements. He curled around himself, stepping out of the way as much as possible so the pastel-peach girl could go about her business and disturb Harry as little as possible. The less approachable he looked, the less he'd be approached.

He didn't know if she wandered that aisle for the next couple of minutes or traced down the shelves on the other side before coming back, but that telltale shift in the air around him told him she was now behind him. The static told him she was right there, at his back.

Harry didn't acknowledge her presence, instead making it clear he was working and didn't want to be disturbed. He hoped she could see the wire of his headphones that much clearer against his dark shirt. He wasn't inviting her presence; if she needed help, Brett and Fawn were just a couple of aisles down and much more friendly.

As with some attempts at camouflage, it didn't work in Harry's favor. Some people didn't always see what was clearly in front of them, he knew that.

A small hand, complete with pearl polished nails and skin smelling of something sweet like honey and the savory bite of herbs, landed on the crook of his elbow. "Excuse me?" her voice leaked through his headphones.

With a tick appearing in his jaw and a pace of breathing he was sure looked just as forced as it was, Harry halted his work with a sleeve of graham crackers in his hand. His features felt stiff when he turned towards this girl.

He spoke as he twisted in his spot with a hand yanking his headphones out of his ears, her touch falling from his arm just as quickly. "What?"

When Harry's gaze brushed over her, cataloguing details to add to the pastel streak he had thought her to be before, the same attention that went into his work was now employed in keeping his features stoic and muscles hard. This woman... was very pretty.

Her cream sweater he had seen from behind was actually a cardigan, buttoned loosely over her torso with a pale peach top underneath. The buttons were pearls, matching the shifting light that characterized the varnish on her nails. Her jeans were high waisted, ripped in places that lead to a pair of pristine white tennis shoes, complete with a set of pink laces threaded over the tongue. The bow held back pieces of hair that would have normally fallen around her face, leaving small strands fluttered as if matching the tendrils of her bow that drifted down her back.

In the time he was trying to figure out who was standing right in front of him, she blinked at his harsh tone, almost recoiling as if she'd been struck. Her hands became a bundle at her middle as he squirmed under his gaze. Harry swallowed harshly.

"Sorry to bother you," she started, recovering some with a short smile on her lips, "I was just wondering... God, this sounds so much more dumb out loud than I thought it would." She cut herself off with a soft laugh, dropping her gaze from his to settle on the cardboard box on his cart. "Do you have any of those white chocolate raspberry cookies that come in the bag in your box? The soft ones?" she tired again, shuffling her toes against the linoleum, "I didn't see any on the shelf, so I was hoping you might have some in one of your boxes. They're my favorite so..."

Harry wanted to be annoyed, he really did. There were hundreds of less offensive situations he'd been in that bothered him more than he knew his mother would be proud of him for, but this just couldn't be added to the list. And that annoyed him. Though, there was something in him that felt a bit contented knowing that there was still a heart buried somewhere inside of him that wouldn't allow him to get upset at someone like her.

"Let me look." His voice was gruff as he brushed a knuckle under his nose.

He knew exactly what she was looking for, the packaging coming to mind. He liked this brand too, though he rarely ever felt as if he could spare the cash to indulge. He'd never tried the raspberry variation, though.

Working stiffly, he rifled through the box until he found the bottom layer of product. A white, rustic looking bag was tucked in a corner. The brand name stylized as if it were embedded on a wooden board was printed on the white bag, with the name of the cookies and the variation underneath.

White chocolate chunks with bites of real raspberry in a soft cookie.

That's the one.

Fishing it out, Harry unceremoniously presented it to her. He made a point to keep his eyes from lingering on her for too long. He needed to keep his clear head.

"This one?"

She lit up in a way Harry couldn't ignore. Her eyes had to have been holding glitter behind her irises the way the color brightened, matching her smile. Creases appeared around the corners of her eyes, soft lips stretched and complemented with laugh lines.

"Yes, yes, those ones!" she chattered off, reaching out to take the bag from him.

Harry shoved the crinkling bag into her grasp, watching as she stumbled back some before placing it in her basket among what he could now see was a bundle of rosemary and a package of noodles. Nonetheless, her smile didn't falter as she turned towards him again.

"Thank you..." she trailed off, her gaze dropping to his chest where a name tag was pinned to the breast, "Harry."

There was a lag in between the second he heard her voice wrap around his name and the beats of Harry's heart resuming at a rapid pace. His throat went dry for a moment, something he couldn't believe was happening to him over something like this. When was the last time someone learned his name just because they wanted to know him?

He swallowed that line of questioning down as soon as it popped up. "Um, yeah," he told her, turning back to his box as soon as he had the words out.

His headphones he had dangling in his grasp were replaced in his ears, his music still playing on, a different song now filtering than the one that had been when he ripped them out. Harry pushed his objective to the forefront of his mind, leaving little space to keep up with the way his stomach tightened hearing this girl's voice saying his name. He didn't want to focus on the fact he could still feel her presence for a moment after he had dismissed her. He wasn't going to let any of this fluster him—or whatever it was that could happen to a person who barely had any feelings left.

Calculating his movements was the only viable distraction until he could feel that static of her presence flitter away. It was only then that he dared to indulge himself in a short glance aimed in her direction. He caught the barest view of her wobbly bow and the edge of her loose cardigan before she disappeared around the corner, leaving him alone once more.

He was going to forget her, Harry decided. Whatever reaction he just had, wasn't going to happen again.

—————

Gazing down at his hands, Harry only saw red. It wasn't his blood that tainted his skin, but there was a pain in his body that made him want to argue that there was no way he wasn't injured. From somewhere far—but not far enough—away, a crashing sound rumbled through the warehouse. He felt his bones vibrate and his head go fuzzy. More blood dripped from his skin.

Another crash sounded, this time much closer to where Harry couldn't move his feet. It was as if he were bolted to the spot. More blood, more scars.

From the corner of his eye, he saw someone. They were walking with a purpose, heavy on their feet.

His hands still shook even when he took his eyes off of the thick crimson dripping from his fingers. The person coming towards him looked familiar. Too familiar.

The second they were close enough, Harry recognized that it was himself. There was a gun in the clone's hand, the barrel pointed right at his head.

Another loud crash.

Harry woke with a start, rocketing up in bed. His breathing was heavy, thick and humid, with his hands shaking where they were clutching the thin bedding askew over his form. There was a sheen of cold sweat covering his body, his hair clinging to the back of his neck.

Looking at his hands, untangling from the bedding, Harry felt his heart rate go down a notch when he no longer saw blood coating the appendages. His vision still blurred at the edges as he came down, his lips mouthing a mantra he wanted so badly to believe:

It's not real, it's just a dream. It's not real, it's just a dream. It's not real, it's just a dream.

He didn't live that life anymore, he reminded himself. That was a part of his past, but it's all over now. Those scars would never reopen and his hands would never be stained that way again. He would make sure of that.

As he talked himself down, the rest of his apartment came back into view. The edges of his vision sharpened, showing him the rest of his full bed, rumpled sheets, and the book he had dropped when he finally managed to fall asleep in the middle of a passage. He busied his hands as fixed his book, righting the bent cover and smoothing back the crease that folded into the page he left on. With that sweat on his bare chest and thin comforter falling to his lap, he realized just how cold his apartment was.

Taking a deep breath, his lungs shuddering as he fought to regulate the pacing he lost in his sleep, he swung his legs over the side of his bed. He worked slowly as he replaced his book back to his rightful slot underneath his bed. Lethargy weighed down his limbs as he searched for his phone somewhere on the floor as he sat with his legs crossed underneath his bottom, the scratch of the carpet dragging across his ankles from where his pants rode up grounding him.

The screen of his phone was far too bright when he powered it up, the time being of no surprise to him even if he was disappointed. He only got a few hours of sleep before that dream woke him up into the real world, plenty of time left before he should begin getting ready to go to work.

This was how it always was for the past handful of years. Harry was lucky to have slept at all really, as some days he wasn't that fortunate, but there was no way he was going to be able to drift off again. But, he'd gotten rather good at finding ways to fill his time.

Standing on wobbly legs, Harry took his time stripping his bed. There was time to get through some laundry, he figured, hauling both his bedding as well as his full hamper to the rickety washer and dryer stationed in the hall closet.

Every movement was a distraction: separating the colors of his clothing, the measuring of the detergent, and the three times he had to set the cycle before the machine finally came to life all did their part to keep him from obsessively staring at his hands as if they would do something bad if he wasn't watching. It was routine the way he didn't allow himself to dwell on the dreams he could no longer forget like he could when they first started sporadically.

Harry felt like a shadow as the hours passed, even after a cold shower shocked his nerves and a bland meal had warmed his stomach. But, at least he was awake.

—————

Watching his hands as he stocked and stocked the shelves in front of him, more and more of himself came back to Harry. This was the perk of the more manual of jobs he had. He could use his body and keep track of every movement he made, every stretch of his muscles coming from his own volition.

It felt like a ritual the way a pastel flash struck the corner of his vision.

It'd been almost a month since the first time he'd seen her, and she made more trips with a basket tucked into the crook of her elbow than he had seen most other patrons. Maybe he only noticed her now that he recognized her and the phantom ache that touched the muscles of his stomach every time he saw her wander close to him. Nonetheless, he saw her more often than not, barely anything in her basket but small items and snacks, never once with a full shopping cart or a list in hand.

In an odd way, he'd almost begun to expect her—look for her. It was a part of his shift to see her drifting through the aisles in something comfortable, a ribbon in her hair, and that ever-present smile on her face. He'd never admit that though, even to himself.

Instead, when he saw her drift into his aisle—the frozen meal section tonight—he kept to himself. Harry didn't even bother to look up at her for more than a glance, even when he paused his music as he listened to her footsteps padding over the floor. Just like she always did since the first night she went out of her way to read his name tag, she offered him a soft smile of recognition as she passed by. Even though Harry hadn't reciprocated a single one.

Just like that, she kept moving, Harry's ear trained to hear her pad off until he couldn't distinguish her footsteps against any of the other noises filtering through the grocery store. He played his music again then, allowing something else to fill his head before she could wiggle her way inside.

Though he would rather not acknowledge it, there was something about the fact that the haunted feeling that had clung to him since his nightmare earlier in the day, finally began to dissolve. That turning in his stomach every time he saw one of the thin scars of his hands turned into the residual flaps of a butterfly's wings, even if he didn't dare give the feeling a name or even think of the cause.

Despite the fact there was something loose in his muscles now as he worked, his head a little bit more clear with that dream tied up in a peachy bow in the back of his mind, Harry was going to ignore it all just as he had every time he saw that girl.

—————

"Thank you, Harry!"

The bow girl's chirping gratitude only had Harry looking at her stiffly with a grumbled Yeah falling from his lips. Just as she had done the last couple of months since she made herself a presence during his shifts, she simply gave him a smile before bouncing away with her basket only containing a carton of banana milk and her favorite cookies. She was no longer perturbed by the standoffish responses he gave her. Harry couldn't decide if he liked that or not.

It was like this at least a couple of times a week. She never did a big shop, only stopping by at later times to pick up individual ingredients for a dinner she had chatted to him about, or little snacks she couldn't seem to go a day without. During at least one of her trips, she found an excuse to talk to Harry; she asked him about his day if she was close enough to feel comfortable starting a question (Harry never gave her a good answer, honestly), she told him about her own day and what she was shopping for if there was anything specific she had in mind. She almost always had a bow pinned to her hair, fluttering behind her and matching whatever soft piece of clothing she had cinched around her form. Harry had even begun fishing out a pack of her favorite cookies from his boxes if he was stocking that aisle, just to make it easy if she came in and asked him for assistance. It made the interactions quicker and less bothersome—at least that's what he told himself.

He knew more about her and her routines than he had any of the hundreds of people he'd met in the last handful of years since he started moving around. Even if that did make him feel a bit guilty knowing that she didn't have a clue about who exactly she was sharing these parts of herself with; she didn't know the mess she was tiptoeing around every time she interacted with him.

Tonight was no different, her leaving a rattling in Harry's bones that he wanted nothing more than to ignore like every other part of his life. If he was superstitious, he would think she could have cast some kind of spell on him with the way she and her little bows lingered in his brain long after she had checked out and gone on her way home.

That rattling followed him as he made his way into the backroom, his empty box needing to be replaced. An exasperated sigh fought to leave his chest when he saw almost half of the overnight team huddled in the area, puttering about as they chattered and pretended to work. He didn't like being roped into their conversations, and that almost always happened when he ran into more than two of them at once.

Harry didn't say a word as he broke down the cardboard box on his cart, pushing it off to the pile of the other flattened boxes before he reached for another. The conversations had quieted some when he walked in, but he could still hear what sounded like Brett and Fawn flirting in the back corner with a cart of refrigerated items that needed to go on the opposite end of the store, and Theo talking to two of the other guys that Harry hadn't bothered to remember the names of.

"Busy night, huh, Harry?" Theo started, dropping whatever topic he had been rambling to his friends about just a moment before.

"Yeah," Harry answered, voice stiff. It wasn't any more busy than any other night as far as he was concerned. Besides, he had other things he needed to worry about than to be making conversation with a coworker he barely knew. There was still a peach colored ribbon tying his stomach in tiny knots that he needed to fix.

Soon enough, a silence fell through the backroom when the others made their way out. Only Harry and Theo were left, Harry doing his part to semi-organize his chosen box before heading out on the floor again.

Maybe it was the rattling in his bones, or the vision of a peach colored bow that he saw every time he blinked, but something in Harry felt a little reckless when he peeked over at Theo focusing on his own box.

"That girl," Harry rumbled, feeling odd in his skin as he spoke, "The one with the bows in her hair... She comes in a lot."

Theo looked taken aback for a moment, his eyes wide with furrowed brows as he looked in Harry's direction. He even glanced over his shoulder as if there were anyone else there for the conversation to be aimed at. Harry had to keep from scoffing, dropping his gaze back to his working hands.

Floundering over his words, Theo tried to catch up once he realized Harry was voluntarily talking. "Um, the—uh—the one with bows in her hair?"

Harry hummed in response. "She's in a couple of times a week."

"Ohhh," Theo sounded, familiarity touching his tone, "You mean (Y/N)?"

Harry swallowed at the sound of her name. He'd never asked for it himself. "If that's her name."

From the corner of his eye, Harry could see Theo nodding his head. "She comes in a lot, yeah. She's not good at keeping a list and always forgets stuff if she tries to do big shops, so she just comes in when she wants something or runs out."

Though he didn't want this information to mean something to him, Harry felt a part of himself slowly being fulfilled the more details he learned. She didn't tell him these kinds of things when she rambled about her dinner choice for the night.

Keeping his gaze tacked to his hands, Harry kept his words measured and calculated. "Oh," he started, "Is she from here?"

"She's lived here forever, yeah. Why?"

A beat passed as Harry opted to ignore the second part of Theo's response. He didn't need to have any details as to why Harry was asking after someone after working together for five months with only a handful of interactions. Even if he did want to share that, Harry didn't have any real answers to that why, anyway.

"Does she... What does she do?" Harry asked, the phrasing of his words feeling awkward falling out of his mouth. He was lucky he was so used to shielding his emotions and staying stoic, otherwise he would have cringed where he stood.

"Like for work?" Theo asked, his eyes warm on Harry's profile.

Lifting his shoulders, Harry only shrugged in response. It was probably a good idea to keep his mouth shut.

"She—uh—she works at the bakery over on Windsor. She and my sister work there together," Theo told him, acting as if Harry was supposed to know what bakery he was talking about and who his sister was. "(Y/N)'s pretty nice, though."

"Right," was all Harry offered by the time he finished organizing his box. He didn't bother to give anything more in response or wait for Theo to elaborate before he was walking out on the floor again. Even when he could feel Theo's eyes stuck to his back.

No doubt would this interaction make its way to the rest of the team before the end of the shift.

It was harmless curiosity, Harry argued. He just had to believe the harmless part.

—————

It's funny the kinds of things that happened in the day that then were transported and highlighted in a dream. Stranger's faces, odd conversations, a passing thought, things that normally wouldn't have been catalogued at all by a waking brain but were held tightly in the middle of sleep.

Despite the fact Harry made it home from work at three in the morning, he still ended up waking in the early morning after a lingering dream. He didn't remember much about the scene the longer he was awake, but he knew there were swaying bows in pretty hair. A soft voice could have been there too, along with a subtle smile, but he couldn't remember. All because he had seen those ribbons and heard that voice the night before.

For a split second, when he was surfacing from sleep, he wanted so badly to just roll over and continue whatever play was running in the back of his mind. But, sleep didn't come easy for him; he'd have to take whatever small amount of hours his body allowed him and be grateful.

That left Harry to lay in his bed and stare at the ceiling above him, peeks of sunshine beginning to filter through the heavy drapes on his single window. He pretended as if he wasn't waiting for flashes of the dream to come back to him, even as he reluctantly found his footing in the real world.

He was off work for the next two days. Forty-eight hours he would have to fill with the kinds of tasks he dreaded almost as much as actually reporting in for a shift.

Grocery shopping was at the top of the to-do list as well as the hated tasks list. He hated going into his work on his day off just so he could shop the canned food aisles and dodge small talk from the dayshift coworkers that pretended as if they had met him more than once during his training shifts. A trip to the library was due as well, his borrowed books packed away under his bed and read from cover to cover in the week since he'd last visited the building. There was also always cleaning and laundry to be done, more things to keep him busy before he would undoubtedly retire to his bed for the rest of the day and read as much as he could to keep his brain from going to mush.

Harry sighed at the day's agenda. This was the life he wanted, though, so he was going to appreciate every day of the boring tasks and the mundane dredge.

By the time he had a load of laundry running in his machine and his hands buried in the sink, doing dishes he put off until his weekend, Harry's mind was already wandering somewhere outside of his apartment.

Theo had been complaining last night towards the end of the shift about how his sister needed him to pick her up from work today. She was opening and had stayed the night at her boyfriend's before, but he wouldn't be able to drop her off and pick her up. That left Theo to take up the job in exchange for gas money and whatever treats his sister could sneak from the bakery. Theo kept droning on about how since it was Sunday, the bakery opened up early, leaving him to have to fight to stay awake after going home so he wouldn't miss picking up his sister.

Throughout all of the petty complaining and meaningless rambling, the only thing that stuck out to Harry was the hours of this bakery being narrowed down. He didn't mean to pay attention, not now after knowing who else worked there, but it was just another one of those things that stuck in his brain like a dreamy detail.

An early opening could mean that his bow girl—(Y/N)—might be there as well.

Harry's hands flexed under the soapy water. It wouldn't be such a bad thing to go to a bakery on a Sunday morning. No one would think anything of it—and neither should he. He liked pastries as much as the next person. Even if trying out one of the town's baked goods wasn't necessarily his goal for the outing didn't mean that it would be a bad idea. He had more self-control than most people—a bit of indulgence wouldn't break him.

Before he could get too far ahead of himself, Harry focused on washing the dishes in the sink. He laid each piece gently out on the tea towel flattened out beside the sink, taking extra care as if his slow pace could prove that he still had all that control he was boasting about. If he was really on the edge of breaking—about to make a bad decision—he wouldn't be so in control, he argued. He even waited for the load of laundry to make that erratic beeping noise that notified him that he could trade into the dryer.

Still clad in only a pair of sweats that acted as his pajamas, Harry lazily reached for his phone before looking at the time. Just before nine a.m. According the Theo, the bakery opened at eight in the morning today, right when he was picking up his sister after her early morning shift. Harry held onto that air of nonchalance as he looked up the open confectionaries around him, finding a link at the top of the page for The Flour Pot.

They were marked as open, hours laid out on the same popup. Only a handful of miles away from the grocery store and on the same block as his library. It wouldn't take him longer than fifteen minutes to get there. He could even stop by the library on his way back or do his grocery shopping.

There, he cemented. That just proved this whole thing wasn't just to see a fluttering bow or hear a soft voice. He had other things he needed to do, and after hearing so much about this bakery, he could try it out while he was in town.

With his laundry rumbling in the dryer and his dishes laid out to dry on the counter, Harry changed out of his sweats and threw on a hoodie to keep him warm against the chill in the morning air. He tucked his library books under his arm and started out the door, locking up behind him just like any other day.

Just as he figured, he was back in town in less than twenty-minutes, the directions on his phone taking him just a few buildings down from the library. With the early hour, he couldn't see the bakery being especially busy, but when he found a parking spot across the street from the building, his hands clenched around the steering wheel.

Through the lit windows, he saw a line inside. Morning sunshine kept the glass especially translucent, even through the decals pasted to the panes boasting the bakery's name and pots of leafy plants to play on the pun of the title. He could spot glimpses of patrons lounging in the few tables provided while others were waiting in line, the queue long enough to have others shuffling aside when the door behind them swung open.

Harry's heartbeat quickened at the sight. He never liked being where so many people were crowded. It was hard to keep track of so many and what they were doing and saying when they were packed in a tight space. He thought—hoped—that with the early time he'd be beating out the crowds.

Taking a deep breath, Harry reminded himself that there was no harm in having more than ten people in one space. This was something he needed to work on anyway—something he was working on. There was no point to becoming so nervous over something like this. The odds of someone recognizing him or something out of his control happening were slim to none.

The whole point in leaving those years ago was to have a normal life. This was part of that.

Before he could dwell on the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, Harry swung open his door. He planted his feet on the solid ground, stuffed his hands in the pocket of his hoodie, and trekked on.

Keeping his eyes on his feet as he walked, Harry didn't look up until the entrance to the bakery was right in front of him. He had his phone gripped in one hand, prepared to pull it out and fiddle with it in an attempt to sate his nerves, while the other reached out for the golden handle embedded in the glass and wood door.

One peek through the crystal had his hand falling from the handle.

Behind the counter was (Y/N).

She had her back to the door, but he knew that bow. She'd worn it before. He knew that silken pearl color, the slightly lopsided loops, the fabric nestled in with the mess of hair on the top of her head. He knew that if she turned around, even spared a glance over her shoulder, what kind of smile would be painted over her features and the soft set of her features that was practically her trademark. He wanted her to turn around just so he could compare that smile to the ghost of the one in his dreams

It's the fluttering in his stomach and the pacing of his heart behind the cage of his ribs that had Harry turning around. He didn't care if anyone saw his reaction, if anyone noted just how weird the whole moment was. He wasn't able to make those extra steps to go inside.

He shouldn't be that happy to see her. That wasn't the kind of reaction someone in control would have. That only showed him the kind of weaknesses the walls around him had, the bits of crumbling stone that he was going to have to solidify before he could boast about all of his self-control.

This was the reason he never allowed himself to grow attached to anyone. The fact that she was the only person in five years to even bother attempting to penetrate those stone walls should have no bearing on how he conducted himself. He knew better than to let her soft smiles and fluttering bows and gentle conversations get to him. He was the one who knew better in this situation; (Y/N) didn't know what kind of person she was offering those niceties to, and it would be wrong of him to accept and even seek them out.

She didn't deserve what could happen if he let this loss of control continue.

Slamming his car door shut behind him with a reverberating rattle of the frame, Harry vowed that whatever had caused that flutter in his stomach and the clench of his heart would stop now. He can't feel that way about anyone or anything. He was taking back control now.

With his hands tight around the steering wheel and the thought of the bakery wiped from his mind, Harry hoped he never dreamt of bows again.

—————

Harry pretended as if he couldn't hear the conversation happening at the end of the aisle from him, a couple loudly wondering where they could find the artisanal bread. He didn't want to help them.

This was why he hated coming in any earlier than the call time for his overnight shifts. Even with the fact he was only covering a couple of extra hours—coming in at six instead of eight—the difference in clientele was too stark for his comfort. It was too early in the night even to justify sticking in his headphones and drowning out the noise of others.

Instead, he hoped that the slight frown on his features and the furrow in his brows would be enough to warn people away from him as he continued his stocking of the soup and other canned goods he was tasked with for the time being. The outfacing shelf gave him the advantage of leaving his back facing most of the customers that walked through, though he made a point to drift away whenever a patron stalked a little too close to his personal space.

Despite it all, a part of Harry was grateful for the distraction of work and the extra people around him. That was why he had been picking up hours here and there throughout the week. Anything to keep his brain busy since he had recoiled from the bakery a week ago.

He'd done a good job in his opinion, of keeping (Y/N) and all of the bows in her hair off of his mind. His resolve was being rebuilt brick by brick, reminders swirling in his brain of why he's never experienced those kinds of butterflies and the anticipation in his heart before. He wasn't the kind of person that needed that kind of feeling—deserved that overflowing of joy in his veins. He kept himself tucked away for a reason, and he needed to remember that.

His shifts no longer held a current of anticipation, waiting to see if this would be the night she would wander on by, sparing him a smile and a breath of her attention. Her place in his brain had been corralled to a back corner that he was adamant on keeping the barriers to steady and clean.

That was why when he saw a pair of white sneakers with pink shoelaces threaded through, he pretended as if his brain didn't go to one person immediately. It could be anyone in the world—should be anyone else. He shouldn't be able to recognize her from such a minute detail, but there was already that beat against the ladder of his ribs that told him everything he needed to know about how poorly he had maintained that corral in the back of his mind.

With a tick in his jaw, Harry reminded himself of his resolve. He kept his focus on his cart, taking more time to dig around while he waited for those shoes to disappear from the corner of his eye.

Of course, he couldn't be so lucky.

"Harry?" that soft voice asked him.

A slow breath was sucked in through his nose as he stood to the full of his height. He turned to find her looking at him with those eyes he could only remember glimpses of from the haze of his dream. Her face was clean from makeup, hair twisted back into a clip as she had forgone a bow for the day. Comfortable clothes adorned her body, slouching and stretching with pastel hues stitched through her top and flowers adorning her leggings. In her hands, nails sparkling with a pearly white polish, she had a solid block of cheese.

Harry didn't bother to offer a response. (Y/N) was used to it by this point, though.

"Do you know if this is any good?" she started, emphasizing the cheese with a flick of her wrist, "I googled a recipe for a grilled cheese today, and it wants this kind of cheese, but... I don't know. I just want to make sure I'll like it before I buy it, and all. Have you tried it before?"

If Harry could draw his eyes away from the dewy planes of her face and the glimmering sheen of her eyes, he might have been able to read the label on the block she had in her hand, but that didn't seem to be an option his body was willing to follow.

He knew he had been following the line of her nose and pillows of her cupid's bow for a beat too long when she tipped her head, a crease appearing in-between her brows. Clearing his throat, he dropped his gaze from her eyes to fall in the neckline of her top. He schooled his features, keeping himself in line as he brushed the tip of his nose with the knuckle of his index finger.

Skimming his gaze over the white cheese in her hand, he shrugged some. "Um, probably," he mumbled, voice a rumble.

That glimmer in her eyes flashed to amusement. "You've probably tried it before?"

Under layers of the stoic front he put up, Harry could feel himself cringe. He knew he wasn't giving her a smart answer, but he didn't anticipate sounding that stupid.

Again, he shrugged. That was as much of an answer as he could formulate at the moment.

That same part of him that cringed at the lame answer he gave her, curled in on itself when he saw for the first time, (Y/N) grow crestfallen. She had always been very stubborn in her sunny disposition, only having been taken aback the first time they had met. Other than that, no matter how much of a downer he acted, there seemed to be a smile on her face she didn't mind offering to him, even if he didn't deserve it.

This time, he watched her brows pinch in the middle, her smile falling some to leave a barely there, lopsided curl that didn't reach her eyes. She dropped her gaze down to the block in her hand. Even her body seemed to shrink under his gaze, drawing her limbs close to her body in a recoil.

"Well, thanks anyway," she got out, the tone the same chirping pitch as usual, but there was no current. Nothing authentic sat beneath.

He watched as she lingered for a moment longer, her eyes attached to the label pasted to the cling wrap fitted around the cheese, before she began to head in the other direction. He'd never seen her so dejected before, even if she was only matching the energy he constantly gave her.

Guilt pooled in his stomach. It wasn't a nice feeling to see a light like her's becoming extinguished, especially from his own hand.

Before she could trail too far away, he peered over her hand and read over the label attached to her cheese. He recognized the French name from when he would help his mother in the kitchen. He knew this as one of the ingredients she would use for her macaroni and cheese; shredded and added to a pot to melt before being added to the spirals of noodles. He remembered how his main job when he was too young to properly help was to stir the cheese sauce, his eyes following the swirls and strings tracing through the cream.

Harry wasn't even aware he was taking a step to follow after her until he felt his toe push against the linoleum. "Actually—um," he started, watching as she turned to face him, features lightening, "That's a good cheese. Melts really nice. It'll probably be good for whatever recipe you found."

Instinctively, he wanted to curl back into his work, give himself a distraction and soothe some of that rattle in his bones. Instead, he forced himself to stay firm in his spot as she made those few short steps back to him.

(He couldn't help but to feel a bit silly, if he was being honest. All of this over a conversation about cheese. It verged into the territory of ridiculous if he wasn't actually experiencing it).

"Really? Thank you!" That genuine contentedness he had missed from her voice before was back, lilting and molding her words. "I read that it was good for melting, I just wasn't sure if I should slice it or shred it. The page didn't really tell me much on that."

Shrugging, Harry pretended to care about the box left on his cart he still needed to sort through and stock. "Shredding is good," he offered, "It melts easier that way, I think."

(He actually knew that, but he didn't really want to get into the story of the time he had tried to make his comfort meal shortly after he was separated from his mom. He had gone about it all wrong, having sliced it without thinking only to have to go through the too-long process of watching it melt in a puddle of milk. He would have attempted it again after that, but money was especially tight right after he left home and the ingredients for a single meal were too expensive. Besides, it would never taste as good as the one his mother made, and he didn't need to break his heart any more with the attempts).

Decidedly, (Y/N) dropped the block in her sparse basket. "I'll try that tonight and I'll let you know," she told him, the stray tangles of her hair swaying as she spoke, "Thank you, Harry."

Harry nodded his head, reaching into the cardboard box piled with different soups. "Yeah."

It was hard to breathe when she heard him say his name with that smile on her face.

But, (Y/N) didn't leave right away. She lingered for a moment, a step between leaving him behind and staying right there with him. He couldn't decide which outcome he was hoping for.

A beat later, she swung back to face him. "Have you ever been by the bakery a few blocks over on Windsor Ave?"

He swallowed. The vision of The Flour Pot immediately came to mind.

"No, I don't think so."

(Y/N) looked at him with a smile with shy edges, rocking on the balls of her feet. "Well, we have these cheesy breakfast soufflés that we only make on Friday mornings, that are really good. I bet you'd really like them if you like cheese and stuff." There was a slight wince and a huff of a laugh falling from her lips as (Y/N) finished.

She must also realize how silly they both sounded, too. Breakfast and cheese, the great unifiers, Harry supposed.

With the faint amusement bubbling in the back off his mind, Harry still felt something in him catch. Her recommendation felt something like an invitation. An invitation to go somewhere she would assumedly be.

Harry checked his expectations as he dropped his gaze to his hands, rolling a can of loaded potato soup so the barcode faced him. "I usually work all night Thursdays, so Friday mornings can be a little hard to make when 'm tired."

That nervous rocking continued even with the bright smile molding (Y/N)'s features. "I work there, so you can let me know when you have time to stop by and I can make sure we have an extra one for you," she told him, hands bundling together at her middle, "Or, just pop by whenever. Everything we have is really good, so."

Around him, Harry could still hear the annoying couple from before complaining about the layout of the grocery store. The overhead lights were mismatched on this section of the store, leaving some amber spots to combat against the stark fluorescents. There was a buzzing to the left where the refrigerators were keeping the cheese section where she had shopped from cool. But all of his attention was placed a few paces before him.

Harry spent years pushing people away. Not once had anyone ever been able to wiggle through even one layer of the protective walls he had around him. He made a point of that; it was the way it was supposed to be for everyone's safety. He didn't invite anyone into his life, and no one invited him into theirs.

Of course the first person to do so would be someone like (Y/N). She would be the one to dare to cross that line, offer a hand out to someone so adamant about not wanting anything of the sort. He knew those butterflies in his stomach were a warning; they were creatures to be heeded, not cradled.

Despite it all, Harry nodded. He looked at her, leaving his idling hands to play around without him. "I'll see what I can do."

It was the smile that bloomed across her lips that had Harry remembering that there were flowers that were meant to unfurl in the night.

"Cool," she said, something giddy replacing that authenticity, "Have a nice night, Harry."

"Have a nice night," he got out before he turned on his heel, pinning his attention straight on the box awaiting him. It was an abrupt ending to the conversation, but he couldn't look at her any longer if he wanted to keep some of his head. She was driving him mad again already.

When Harry looked up, he found her turning the corner of the aisle. Their eyes matched for a moment when she looked back at him too, a ghost of a smile stretching her cheeks before she was gone.

Taking in a deep breath, he centered himself.

Harry can not go to that bakery.

——————

As much as Harry loved his comfort reads, the volumes that became like classics to him, he couldn't read them all the time. Besides, he liked libraries.

While every building was different, the librarians with their own rules and nuances that ran the shelves, the spirit was always the same. Even the smallest of towns he travelled to had their own shelves to peruse. The crackle of the covered spines, some old enough to still be sporting checkout cards in the front cover, with pages loved by others, made him feel less alone. The library in this town was no different.

A quiet librarian manned the front desk or puttered through the shelves, offering Harry a quiet kindness he appreciated more than if she had given attempts to get to know him any more outside of the process of getting his library card. All she wanted to know was what kind of genres he liked so she could recommend books when he came in the more regular he became. He was left to ghost through the shelves, fostering books as he went before returning them home once their time was up. He was able to be comfortable there.

But, this town had to be mocking him at this point.

While he's been making a point to keep his head down and focusing on only himself and definitely not (Y/N), old habits die hard. A hefty portion of his life was spent with his eyes sharpened, taking in every detail and every person and every place around him. Even with years away from the circumstances that had him looking over his shoulder with every step he made, he couldn't shake every habit. But those habits made it way too hard to ignore what was going on just down the street from the library.

The Flour Pot was busy as usual when he stepped out of his car, library books held at his side with his fingers flexing around the plastic covering. A line was trailing out the door with as many people walking out with the brown paper bags or cake boxes as patrons were walking in with hunger in their eyes. Harry could almost hear the bell chiming above the door every time it opened, just like he swore if he listened close enough, he could hear a familiar laugh.

It took effort for him to keep his eyes ahead of himself, fingers tight around his books. He didn't allow himself to linger on the sidewalk or his gaze to stray, heading directly into the library.

Harry could feel his features twisted into frustration even as he stepped in the substantially quieter building. But even with his furrowed brow and the tight line of his mouth, Ms. Klarke didn't bat an eye. She had to be used to it at this point.

A lined smile had her lips stretched, showing off white teeth. "Done with this week's, Mr. Styles?"

He only nodded with a hum as he approached the desk, dropping the trio of volumes on the glossy wood. It was instinct the way he worked, pulling out his green library card.

Ms. Klarke worked with familiarity, scanning the code on his card before clicking through his profile. Her eyes didn't move from the computer screen as she spoke, "We got some new books in yesterday. I saved a few that I thought you'd like in the back."

Perking up at the prospect of the new arrivals, Harry felt his features smoothen out, a light falling into the usual rumble of his voice. "Really?"

She looked at him from the corner of her eye, a short smile tugging at the corner of her lips as she slid his card back. "Mhm. I'll be right back."

Taking his returns with her, she stepped into the backroom positioned just behind the front desk only to come back a moment later with another set of books. The volumes were freshly wrapped in the crinkling plastic, the covers still vibrant underneath without any smudging or scratching marring the art.

"I've heard good things about these," Ms. Klarke said, spreading out the trio on the wood for him to look at. "The descriptions sound like something you would like."

They were romances—the genre he had divulged to Ms. Klarke all that time ago. He recognized the covers and the authors, having read his own reviews and takes on the literature. Bright colors were splashed across, with the hallmarks of the genre coming in depictions of flowers or the minimalistic art that was becoming the norm. A twitch itched the corner of his lips seeing the pages she saved for him to have first.

"Thank you," he told her, looking at her through the lashes as he kept his hands at his sides, "I've seen a lot about these, too."

Ms. Klarke's lined features brightened at his words. "Gonna take them home with you this week?"

"Yes, please," he answered in a rush, "If that's alright."

Her brows pinched in the middle, already grabbing the books to scan them onto his profile for the week. "Of course it's alright. I saved them for you for a reason."

Harry was struck then. He stood, listening to the sounds of her hands clicking the keys on her computer and the beep of the scanner reading the barcodes, his hands shoved deep in his pockets with his fingers clenched in tight curls.

While Ms. Klarke didn't know really anything about him, she still had him in mind when she read these titles and made a point to save them off for him. She only knew him as far as the kind of literature he liked to spend his time with and the kind of care he treated each book with, but she knew him enough to trust him with these new reads.

She knew him enough.

He forgot what it felt like to be known. He missed the feeling of being known. Even if it was his fault that he was pushed into that forgotten corner in the first place. His impact wasn't supposed to be felt, even if he still felt the absence of the familiarity he had in a past life.

Two people now, in this town, had given Harry more than a passing thought.

The feeling was overwhelming.

"Thank you," he repeated when Ms. Klarke passed back his books for the week, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

With his books in hand, he exited out onto the sidewalk. Down the block he could still hear the faint commotion from the bakery, but his stomach didn't sour like it had only ten minutes prior. In that kitschy shop was the one other person who was trying to know him, even when he insisted on being alone.

The thought of walking in didn't sound so bad, even if he still kept on his path to his car.

—————

Harry had a plan.

Days after visiting the library, he had been tucked away in bed reading one of his new books when he couldn't get his mind off of (Y/N). The main female character was a baker with a softened heart, a bubbly demeanor shining through. Given the nature of the book, every peek into her heart was romanticized, especially in the first handful of chapters he was still working through. He couldn't help but to picture (Y/N) the more he read, disregarding whatever physical description the character was given.

She hadn't left his mind since.

Maybe it was the fact there was a scene written where the lead male character visited the pseudo-(Y/N) at the patisserie she worked at, but there was a niggling thought in the back of his mind that it might not be such a bad thing to take up her invitation from the week prior. While he was nothing like male lead—not in demeanor nor backstory—, he couldn't ignore the want he had for a moment like the one inked across the page.

It felt entirely reckless to give into that want, the kind of idea that would come to him after too many hours spent awake and too many romance cliches floating through his thoughts, but he'd done worse. Indulging in the pattering butterflies and bruising beats of his heart would land at the bottom of the list of the most dastardly things he'd ever done.

Besides, if this Sunday morning was anything like the last, it wasn't like there would even be enough time for his defenses to weaken enough for an impact to be made. If anything, he would see her in passing, the flutter of the bow in her hair as she bustled through the shop, and that would be it. Maybe a smile in his direction, but he couldn't imagine any more being spared for him.

He didn't need anything more than that, anyway.

Harry would be careful. Butterflies weren't strong enough to break stone.

—————

His hands were clenched into fists in the pockets of his coat, the sign to The Flour Pot gleaming on the glass window from the corner of his eye. Though he knew well that there were just enough patrons inside to create a hustle within the shop, Harry kept his resolve strong as he stepped over the pavement. He didn't skip sleep for the last handful of hours since his shift ended just to run home without even taking a single step inside.

Slipping inside, Harry forced his gaze to lift from his feet, a deep breath filling his lungs. Those small tables he had spotted from the windows were twisted wrought iron, the backs outlined with intricate shapes of flowers, hummingbirds, and shining suns. Cushions padded the seats of the chairs, a charming combination of mismatched patterns that all seemed to work together to make the space that much cozier. Customers Harry could recognize as some of the people he saw at the grocery store were littered about, though they looked decidedly much cheerier in this environment. Even with the chill in the air, hints of spring lingered within the confines of the shop.

Butter and sugar kissed the air, twining with notes of lingering herbs and spices, different ingredients that made up the confections filling the display case up front. Tiny lights were embedded in the trim, shining right on the flaky crusts of croissants, glimmering glazes on sticky buns, and the golden skin of homemade baguettes. More intricate cakes and laborious treats were held in glass cabinets behind the desk. Warm wood made up the front cash register area, the grains twisting and curving in the way only real wood could. Hanging from the ceiling behind the desk was the menu with every treat laid out and priced, twirling descriptions following just underneath with every add-on available. A note on the bottom recommended talking to the bakers about seasonal specials and their favorite combinations.

Everything looked new but second-hand at the same time. Harry didn't know what to compare the space to other than a home opened up for visitors. The treats in the case were just a bonus of being invited into such a home.

The flapping of the cafe doors leading to the back caught his attention, pulling his gaze from tracing over the space that felt as if it lived within candlelight. (Y/N) emerged from what he assumed to be the kitchen, a pan in hand full of something golden brown and filled with herbs. She dropped that pan onto the back counter before disappearing again, a pearly gold bow pulling her hair back. Her uniform consisted of a long sleeved brown top with The Flour Pot printed in yellow lettering as if the words were dripping in honey. He felt like a moth the way his eyes followed each of her moves, her being the flame he didn't want to lose track of.

That smile he pretended to not care about had her lips stretched with smile lines bracketing the curl. He watched on as she spoke to the dark-haired girl and the shorter boy working behind the counter, nodding her head with the tendrils of her bow going flying before she seemed to count out certain items in the case all before leaving to the back once more. In her hands, another pan reemerged with her.

As his eyes followed her, he was grateful for the first time for the amount of patrons occupying the building. The line in front of him gave him enough time to watch her—to get his fill to quell the battering ram made of butterflies in his stomach. Even if he wanted to keep his eyes to himself, drop them to his feet or find a blank spot to fix his eyes too, he didn't think he had it in himself.

With the line moving, Harry shuffled forward a pair of spots. At that same moment, the cafe doors swung open once more, (Y/N)'s arms empty as her eyes scanned across the guests in her shop. She found Harry in an instant, her eyes brightening and smile blooming. She brought her gloved hand up to wiggle her fingers in a quick wave for only him.

Before he could even lift his hand to wave back, she had sidestepped behind the desk and whispered something to the dark haired woman working the register. A quick conversation played out while Harry watched, (Y/N) whispering while the other woman gave small reactions. The conversation lasted only a couple of beats with the line still waiting before them, (Y/N) disappearing into the back after shooting Harry a look with bright eyes and a wide smile.

In (Y/N)'s wake, the cashier gave Harry her own look. It was something quiet and knowing, a short curl only on the corner of her lips before she slid her gaze back to the patron waiting in front of her.

(Y/N) and her bow didn't return again as the line slowly moved forward. Only the dark haired cashier and a shorter boy were working the counter, working as a team with the boy picking the pastries with gloved hands and the woman taking orders and collecting payments. The line dwindled as they worked, guests leaving with small paper bags and smiles wider than the giant muffins that took over the bottom shelf of the case.

While Harry felt like he could breathe better with every person that exited, it all moved too fast. By the time he reached the counter, Harry's brain was filled with nothing more than a buzz. In all his distractions of watching (Y/N) and being a little too aware of the others around him, not once did he really examine the menu. He didn't have a plan of what he wanted to order, every quick glance at the menu hanging above was more panicked than the last, nothing being absorbed.

The last patron in front of him worked quickly. The chatter of her voice was almost drowned out by the blood rushing through his ears, her order being rattled off in an instant out of practice before she was stepping off to the side to await her own brown bag of treats.

Stepping forward to the counter, Harry couldn't help but feel a little silly. The amount of high stress situations he's been in in his life, the kind that warranted the kind of panic and fight-or-flight reaction he could feel himself building to was more than any person should ever go through. But in all of those moments, he remembered moving through them like an expert, not thinking before doing.

This—ordering from a bakery—was going to be the one thing that broke his brain, it seemed. Figures.

The dark-haired girl behind the counter held that same guest service smile on her face when Harry approached, only the ends curled that much more when she saw it was him. "Good morning! What can I get you today?"

Harry's mouth dropped open, words intending to come out before nothing actually did. He barely recovered in the way he instead said, "Ummm."

From the corner of his eye, the cafe doors to the kitchen swung open. A pan full of stacked baguettes were in (Y/N)'s arms, eyes trained on the pyramid before she chanced a glance up. That same wide grin pulled at her lips the second recognition filled her eyes.

"Hi, Harry!" she chirped out over her shoulder as she deposited the pan onto the back counter, "How are you?"

His dry throat finally began to work again when he swallowed, his nervous hands beginning to pluck at his cuticles in the pocket of his hoodie. "'M good, thank you," he mumbled, "You?"

"I'm doing good, thanks!" She spun on her heel to take over the spot by the register. For a second, he saw the dark-haired girl bump (Y/N)'s hip with her own, before taking over the second station just to the left and tending to the line from there. It was a move that had to have come with a plan. "I wish I knew you were coming in today, I would have made you one of those soufflés I was telling you about."

"Oh, sorry," he told her, shuffling on his feet as the rest of the line behind him meandered around him to the available register.

The tail of hair she had pinned back with her bow bounced as she shook her head. "No worries at all! What did you come in for?"

For the first time since she stepped out, he pulled his eyes from hers to the sign above her head.

Maybe it was the noise around him, the chatter of other guests, the way he was hyperaware of every inch of space around him and how close others were getting to him before hiking left to the other register, or the fact he knew (Y/N) had her eyes on him, but the letters didn't make any sense when he tried to take them in. He knew the words, could associate them with different treats, but there was nothing that connected his thoughts.

Silence fell from his floundering mouth, the kind that felt too loud in a busy place like this.

In a second, (Y/N) sidestepped to the case at her right, her eyes bright and still on Harry as she nudged the sliding door to open for her. "My favorite at the moment are the raspberry and almond scones," she bubbled off, using her gloved hand to grab the pastry from the tray, "I just finished a batch, too. They also come with this lemon cream kind of glaze, if you wanted to try it that way."

Her energy didn't deplete as she spoke, showcasing the scone for him to see. She saved him from the way his throat was beginning to tighten the longer it took for him to come up with an answer.

Chunks of raspberries were visible in the pale base of the scone, sprinkled with almond slivers. It reminded him of the cookies she so favored at his own place of work.

"I'll try that," he told her, the even pacing of his breathing returning, "Thank you."

"Perfect!" she chirped, looking genuinely pleased at his response. Nothing inauthentic touched at her features as she gazed at him. "Do you want the glaze and everything?"

"Um, sure," he said, a nod of his head throwing a curl over his forehead.

He saw as (Y/N)'s gaze tripped upwards, trailing along the length of that stray hair brushing the bridge of his nose. A glittering sparkled in her irises.

The rest of the transaction went quickly, (Y/N) shedding her gloves and taking his cash as she asked about his work. Noncommittal answers were shared from Harry (he barely remembered the shift if he was being honest. His brain had been too fixed on this morning's plan).

"I'll have that ready for you in a second," she told him, toothy smile and all, "You can wait over there in the meantime."

A mumbled, kay... fell from his lips as he exhaled a deep breath. He nodded his head before he followed her direction and stepped off to the side. He half expected her to continue helping the line that had dwindled behind him, instead watching as she stepped off the side with his treats in hand.

Dropping his gaze from her, Harry pulled his hands out of his hoodie to inspect the sore cuticles he could feel beginning to sting with every touch. Spots of blood had spread to the plate of his nails, skin frayed and irritated at all the picking.

Harry expected to hear his name called when his bag was placed on the pick-up counter just as it had been for every other patron, only to have (Y/N) bounce around the entire case when she had finished puttering behind. The tendrils of her bow flowed behind her, skimming the length of her hair before she stopped in front of him.

For someone who didn't like mornings that much, she smiled a lot.

"Here you go," she beamed at him, offering him the small paper bag with the business's logo inked on the front. Beside the picture was his own name written in looping script, a smiling heart printed beside it. "You have to tell me what you think the next time I see you, okay? These really are my favorites, so if you don't like them I don't know if we'll be able to be friends anymore."

A breath of air caught in Harry's throat, his Adam's apple bobbing as he tried to swallow it down. Anymore, she had said.

"Got it," he forced out, taking the bag from her hand with their fingers barely brushing as he slipped his own under the handles, "Thank you, (Y/N)."

At the sound of his voice wrapped around her name, her smile only widened. "Of course. I'll see you around, Harry."

Before he could get too far ahead of himself, the indulgent butterflies in his stomach urging him to linger longer than he knew would be good for him, Harry spun on his heel and moved to the exit. He swore he could feel (Y/N)'s eyes on him up until he disappeared through the doors.

There wasn't a thought in his head other than getting back to the safety of his car as he rushed over the pavement, loose rocks in the old concrete kicking up in his wake. The slam of his car door behind him left the cab going still. The air was silent finally, leaving him sealed away with the ticking of his heart evening out.

Instinctively he locked his doors before reaching for his seatbelt. In that split second he seemed to forget the bag in his hand until he felt the warmth of the pastry in his lap.

He hesitated.

It would probably be best to eat it now while it was still warm, he decided.

In his parked car across from the rush of The Flour Pot, Harry carefully extracted his treat. His fingers brushed a slip of paper clinging to the side of the bag, the end trapped under the cup containing the lemon cream she boasted to him about. Laying the boxed treat on the center console, Harry plucked out the slip of paper.

It was a length of blank receipt paper, only to turn the page around and find that same looping writing that printed his name on the bag.

Come by next Sunday and I'll have a souffle for you :)

(Y/N)'s name was signed at the bottom, another smiling heart drawn beside the final letter. Another invitation.

Harry didn't need to take a bite of the scone to know that it was going to be his favorite too.

—————

Maybe he had been too giddy to see her again after those moments at the bakery, but Harry couldn't help but notice her the second (Y/N) walked through the glass doors.

It was as if he had it all planned the way he had been stationed in the herb and spices section of the store tonight, an aisle that was conveniently situated by the entrance. He had a bundle of basil in his grip when he saw her walk in, a clip dripping with crystal flowers holding her hair back with a The Flour Pot crewneck on. Fatigue coated her movements as she reached for one of the maroon baskets stacked by the door, the handles tucked into her elbow before she started towards whatever aisle she was shooting for.

There was a moment of her slowing on the front mat, eyes scanning through the shelves until she saw him, cart and all, and her expression changed. Her features softened and rounded, creases appearing by her eyes while her lips stretched into a smile. Her lips were soft and chapped, hair a bit messy, and sleeves dulled by a dusting of what had to be flour, but Harry still felt that knot in his stomach he did the first time he saw her all those months ago. Even more so, when his heart got carried away thinking that she may have been looking for him, too.

Harry dropped his gaze when he saw her begin her way over to him. He didn't want to look too eager to speak to her again, especially not when he couldn't even admit to himself that he was looking forward to see her.

"Hi, stranger," she greeted, voice lilting as the toes of her white shoes came into view of his downturned gaze.

Swallowing around his dry throat, he slowed his work and looked up at her again, features schooled into something stoic. "Hi."

Ever-pleasant and unperturbed by his attitude, she only looked to him with raised brows and expectant eyes. "So?"

A pinch drew Harry's brows together as he looked at her. So what?

When the beat of silence lasted too long for her liking, a teasing huff fell from (Y/N)'s lips. "What did you think of the scone?! You promised you'd tell me about it, remember?"

For the first time in a long time, Harry could feel one corner of his lips twitch, the beginning of a titled smile. He thought of the length of receipt paper he still had folded away in his wallet.

"It was really good," he started, shifting his weight on his feet, "The—uh—the lemon cream was really nice. Thank you."

The look on her face at his compliments could rival that of the waning sunshine outside the windows. She was bright and shining, warm like the sunset colored sky.

"I'm so happy you liked it!" she beamed, her shopping put to the back of her mind as she gave every bit of attention to him, "There's this recipe for a lavender version of the scone I've been wanting to try, but every time I tell the other girls they don't look as excited. They said it sounds like I'm trying to make soap."

Harry didn't even realize what he was saying before the words were falling from his lips: "I'd try it."

As much as he wouldn't—couldn't—say it out loud, he's sure he'd try anything she made. He wasn't lying about the raspberry scone.

Something sheepish touched at the corners of her smile as she dipped her gaze down to where he was now fumbling with a shaker of dried oregano on his cart. "Okay," she started, nodding her head, "I'll make some, and next time I see you, you can try them."

His throat bobbed as he swallowed around the dryness coating his tongue. "Thank you."

Under her attention, gaze peering through the fan of her lashes, those butterflies in his stomach and the beating of his heart traveled down to his palms, making them restless and the skin go clammy.

All of this over another invitation.

—————

rosemary represents remembrance; looking back on the past with the future right in front of you

ahhhhh!!! hes finally here!!! im so excited to be sharing this story w you guys and letting you meet one of my kings thats sooooo in my heart!! def a little different of a story for me so I really hope you enjoy it!!!! thank u sm for reading, sorry for any mistakes, and please lmk if you have any ideas or requests or just thoughts about this story !

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firefly-party · 1 month

Text

"You clean up nicely, Stevie"

cw: mentioned blood and gore | mafia/mob AU | steddie pre-murderhusbands relationship big thanks to @dapandapod for beta reading and improving my poor attempt to write sth

Steve Harrington is good at his job. He's quick, he is thorough and most importantly, he doesn't ask questions.

There's nothing that could shock him anymore. He's seen everything.

Steve doesn’t mind severed limbs, gore, blood and body fluids, sometimes creatively mixed in more ways than are pleasant to imagine.

He's used to it, and cleaning it is what earns him a nice living as a crime scene cleaner.

Or just... scene cleaner maybe.

He doesn't work with the police or authorities. No, his specialty lies outside the law, which means he arrives before a mess becomes a nuisance. He cleans until there is not a speck of blood left, until there is nothing to indicate that something happened there. Was there ever a crime committed if there is no crime scene?

The money's amazing by the way. Of course cleaning the remains is a shit job but if you add the hush money on top, well, ain't that a nice bonus.

Again, Steve doesn't ask questions. He doesn't care. It's none of his business.

–

Eddie's shoes are squeaking in the puddle of blood he tried and failed to not step into.

He flips the business card around and squints at the hurried scribble of a phone number that was added right under the name "Stevie".

He trusts Chrissy's background check.

They were in a dire need of a new guy after the previous one decided to catch a bullet with his face after snooping one time too many.

Eddie looks up to the blood stained walls and ceiling and dials the number on the card.

"Hello?"

"Watergate Street 53", is all Eddie replies.

"How many?", Stevie asks.

"Uhm, five?"

"You sure? Might wanna go check again?", Stevie laughs into the phone.

Bitch.

"It's five." Eddie answers, annoyed.

There's a low whistle. "Alright, I'll be there in 20. Payment upfront. 50k."

Then the line goes dead. Eddie rolls his eyes, pockets his phone and looks around for a clean spot to sit while he waits.

–

It's exactly three hours and thirty two minutes later when Stevie empties his water bucket for the last time.

Eddie watches curiously as Stevie takes off the gloves, mask and safety glasses he arrived in. Eddie didn't mean to stick around but he's not trusting this new guy yet (he's also curious, sue him).

His gaze turns into a stare when the other man pulls down the zipper of his squeaky yellow biohazard suit, throwing back the hood and running a clean hand through his sweat soaked hair. He has a strong jaw and long, mole dotted neck that Eddie just wants to taste.

Eyes wide, Eddie’s not able to hold back the sharp intake of breath as he watches in horror the moment Stevie's eyes lock with his and -

Fuck.

Stevie's lips curl into a smirk.

Eddie is so fucked.

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie ficlet #stranger things #inspired by the game “Crime Scene Cleaner” that i saw on twitch yesterday #i got this weird idea and wasn't able to let it go #this is kei's first attempt at writing 🙈 holy shit #it's a one time thing. writing is too stressful for me xD

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twi-liight · 8 months

Note

Sooo. You just posted Petty Jealousy 20 mins ago and I just wanted to say that I loveeee itttt. Can we please have more? Like Astarion and the other companions subtly do somethings to the person they’re jealous of to turn them away from Tav.

Tav’s companions are just sooo cutee when they’re jealous. Wyll and perhaps, Halsin being the only sensible ones.

Thank you!

Red With Envy ❣

The YA love heptagon of the century: Tavrem. ❥ Astarion/Tav, Gale/Tav, Lae'zel/Tav, Companions/Tav. It's Gale/Astarion if you squint. ❥ They/them pronouns for Tav. ❥ Tav is the nickname for the reader/oc insert. Their real name is up to you! ❥ PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Astarion would never beseech himself to touch a member of the working class, but things change. People change. And here he is draping an arm around Gale’s shoulders to boldly declare his presence upon the rickety, wooden table.

“Oh.” Blink blink. Gale gawks with round eyes, then not-so-discreetly glances away from Astarion’s heavy gaze to the only present company at the table: salted bread with thick slices of white cheese, anchovies, and sop for the bread. This sorry excuse of a presentation must be breakfast, which begs the question- Is Gale’s blood so blue that he cannot skip a meal or is he trying to make a favorable impression?

Astarion would much prefer the former. It means he does not need to scrub his hands raw from the filth of peasants after this interaction.

“Uh, good morning, Astarion.”

“Mm?” He flashes his fangs to grin. “A good morning indeed, my friend. How lovely the dawn breaks over the horizon, but with no one to share the scenery with! I pitied you, and out of the kindness of my heart, opted to join you.”

Alright, enough touching. Astarion draws his arm back to poise a curled hand beneath his chin, glancing over Gale’s face in a vain attempt to study him. “Well-combed hair. Your posture,” he raises his hand to gesture at the wizard, “is much cleaner than yesterday. You’re practically glowing with morning dew, and…”

Here, he leans forward, just enough so that his nose lingers on the curve of Gale’s neck, just so his hot breath hits his skin as he murmurs, “You smell like Tav.”

This greedy bastard slept in their tent last night because he caught some sickness from meandering about gaseous spores, and Tav cannot ignore the needy. Would that Gale be some beggar on the road and not an accomplished wizard with a higher emotional maturity than he.

Astarion would be more comforted if he was a one night stand, a quick romp for the leader of their party to take the edge off. But anything beyond that is sabotage for his best-laid plans.

Astarion’s smirk curls as deep, roiling darkness tug at his mind. He leans back slowly, never breaking eye contact. “They let you sleep in their tent. What a darling.” While they slept by the fire, ash and dirt swirling in their hair, Gale was embraced in Tav’s blankets and scarves. The lingering scent of something floral sticks on his skin, and Astarion recognizes it as the oleander Shadowheart presented Tav a fortnight ago.

Gale smells something else: rusty and metallic, like the smell of a storm brewing. Has Astarion’s eyes deepened in color, like wine? His tongue feels heavy in his mouth all of a sudden. “Yes,” he agrees, thinking of Tav for some semblance of comfort. “I was sick, and they offered their tent for the night. More blankets, they said. Easier to be warm in - look, Astarion, do you have a problem with my friendship with Tav?”

The laugh that pushes its way forcibly out of his sneering lips is sharp and mocking. Something burns in his chest, and it feels like seething anger. “My, that’s a strong word. I would say acquaintance is more befitting of your,” Astarion gestures to Gale once more, fighting back a scowl, “station. You’ve known Tav for barely a few months - they’re not quick to brand just anyone as a friend.”

“Is that right?” Gale’s brown eyes spark with challenge. What a doll. Finally got his spine. “I ought to wonder how you befriended them, then. Anyone with half a mind knows your shenanigans are acts of desperation; you want them to like you so you can manipulate them. I know your type, Astarion.”

“And you… You, what, you are not? You’re using Tav just as much as I am, darling. Otherwise, what are you here for? Companionship? Ha!” Astarion does not know why, but his entire being is alight. As if the sun’s rays are scorching him. He can barely contain his temper, barking out between sharp teeth, “Get a grip.”

Gale is hardly fazed. “You’re delusional. Whatever threat you think I present to you?” He lifts his chin, eyes alight with power and rage. “Confront it. Dig your grave. Lie in it. While you’re busy lurking in the shadows, waiting for the opportune moment to dance them around your little games, guess where I will be?”

Silent, seething anger. It burns. Astarion’s eyes are blown wide with rage as he gazes into Gale’s eyes, digging his nails into his palm as his fingers wrap around the hilt of his dagger.

“There to catch them when they realize everything you’ve done is just an act.” Gale leans forward this time, a warning blazing in his brown eyes. “Think whatever you wish of me, Astarion, but never in your life think I would never fight for those I cherish.”

Cherish. Astarion almost sinks his teeth in his throat to shut him up. “Good,” he purrs, fighting every urge not to massacre Gale where he sits with his dingy little breakfast. “I would be sorely disappointed if you succumbed too easily to me.”

This would be so much easier if Astarion didn’t care about losing Gale, either. If he must concede, Astarion can admit to himself and the Devil alone that Gale is beyond useful in battle. Herald of the Weave, Mystra’s little boytoy? He would be endeared to watch Gale’s story end. Whether it be in smithereens or in the bosom of his former goddess, it will be fun to watch.

Something in the back of his mind gnaws at his anxiety that Gale will be the one to turn Tav against him. This pretty little fool never wanted him in the party, wary of him, which is the smart thing to do. Tav was not. Tav was too easy to trust him. To easy to ply around his fingers until he had them even offer up their blood.

He resents Gale for making space in their heart. It could have been his.

“The dawn rises as I do: strong, and watching over two bread boys exchanging heated words like knives.” Lae’zel’s voice, sleek and smooth, startles them. Gale visibly jolts away from his proximity to Astarion’s face, brown eyes widening as Lae’zel approaches the table. She takes one gander at the spread, grabs a fistful of anchovies, and shoves it down her mouth without care.

“You,” Gale stammers. “That was for–”

“Silence. Githyanki must feed well to prepare for the new day. I will not hear your incoherent mumbling, wizard.” Lae’zel at least has the decency to chew with her mouth closed. She gulps the food, grips her fingers around Gale’s mug of watered down wine, and downs it with a tilt of her head.

Astarion pouts. “We were having a moment, dearest Lae’zel. Now, I love to tease Gale as much as you, but it is my turn to press on Gale’s pretty little nerves until he explodes. He does not need to be,” he flares a hand out to Lae’zel, who is still downing the disgusting concoction with impressive concentration, “hounded.”

Gale looks confused. Astarion thinks that is not a state he often experiences. “Thank you?”

And now he’s grateful? Astarion regrets his string of words in the last five seconds. They should go back to fighting.

Lae’zel slams the mug down on the table, perishing the rest of Astarion’s train of thought. She wipes the drink from her lips with her arm, thinks for a second, then nods, resilience plain in her expression. “I must warn you: distractions outside of our goal will be our end. I will not fail to cut either of you down if you produce disappointing results. However.”

There’s a ‘however’? Gale and Astarion exchange a glance, the animosity between them gone, replaced with more confusion. “I think you may be misunderstanding,” Gale begins. “Astarion and I-”

“You two are lovers,” Lae’zel says with the confidence of a thousand burning suns. Astarion has never wished for that to be more true. He wants to be eviscerated where he sits right now because he cannot pick up his jaw from the ground.

Gale looks like he just swallowed a rat. Like he is seconds away from throwing up. He needs a moment, experiencing vicious whiplash from wanting to kill Astarion to now, wanting to kill Lae’zel. “You— huh.”

“I support this companionship,” nods the githyanki sagely.

“You are a bloody fool.”

“No. I am efficient. Two of my enemies have been wiped off the playing field, which means there is less competition.” Hands on her hips, Lae’zel looks at the campgrounds proudly. “Make love to each other loudly.” She jerks her head over her shoulder, a sneer twisting her sharp features as she looks at them. “Try to drown out my name from Tav’s lips tonight, for I will be taking their hand and heart.”

No fucking way. An oversight on his part. How could he have been so blind? Of course Tav is desired, not just by him or Gale, but by everyone else in the damn camp! This is much more troublesome than he realized. Fine, then. He should prioritize the rational thinkers like Wyll, Gale, Shadowheart and– oh, Karlach. Not darling Karlach. She would never turn Tav against him, would he?

Fine. Halsin and Lae’zel can go first.

“Momentary truce?” Gale offers.

“You read my mind, handsome. Lae’zel, darling! Come back over here - we just want to talk.”

❥ Additional links: kofi | ao3

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #astarion x reader #astarion x you #gale x reader #gale x you #lae'zel x reader #lae'zel x you #shadowheart #halsin #wyll #karlach #bg3 x reader #bg3 x you #badlur's gate 3 x reader #baldur's gate 3 x you

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festering-obsession · 11 months

Text

How You Fell Into Their Trap

TW/CW: Self- Destructive Behavior, Hollywood-ized Disorders, Yandere/Dark Behavior, Violence, Dubious Consent, Drugging, Slight Divergence from Source, Canon-Typical Violence

A/N: Pacing could be weird in both stories. In both, the reader is pondering the past before it jumps to the present to help with any confusion before reading!!

Slenderman:

You want to tear your eyes out, pull at your skin, and scream until nothing left can be heard. It would be better than the constant paranoia eating at you. The splitting headaches and the dazed look on your face as you slowly forget what day it is.

No medicine, no drug can even make you lose an ounce of these random episodes. What's worse, it that they seem to drag on longer and occur more. You wipe the bile off the corner of your mouth as you lean next to the wall in front of the toilet.

The doctors even are puzzled. They best the can sum it up to is you’re faking it. Your body is faking it. Then why can't you stop any of it? In fact, you beg your body to stop.

You can't ignore the fact that you were a sickly child. Constantly falling under nearly the same symptoms but after your parents moved, it stopped. Occasional bouts here and there, but maybe the cleaner air farther from the city helped. Your parents agreed that you eventually just grew out of your sickness, hoping to move on and forget.

But you could never forget the same figure that haunted you since a child. The same tall, white figure, faceless, in a suit. He was everywhere. As soon as you looked, he was there for a split second. And you could feel his hostile aura waiting to strike and kill you. Even as an adult, that face haunted you.

You tried to pin point what triggered your episodes. Maybe after you went to the forrest with your friend, maybe a weird bug bit you? Or you contracted an infection somehow? The forest was beautiful. Tall trees, lush grasses, variety of flaura, and the mountains raised in the backdrop. All was suppose to go well, but going there was the worst mistake of your life. The previous delusions you seemed to have increased tenfolds and it seemed you threw you friend in the same fate as you.

The two of you wandered the forest after the wind rushed and seemed to grip the map from his hands. And even better? Not a lick of signal. When night time hit, you entered a real life nightmare. The figure that haunted you as a child came back. And scarier than ever. But this time, he also saw it.

Your friend gripped your hand as the two of you narrowly escaped the almost glitching creature. Appearing behind, then in front, and then in a damn tree. When you lost track of the figure, your friend was also losing track of himself. He heaved as he gripped at his hair before pulling at it. Above your own urge to do the same, you tried to grab his hands and stop him. Your friend looked at you as he began to claw at his eyes.

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME." He roared as blood began to seep down him. "He told me, he told me that if I touch you, my death will be put in his hands." He sobbed out scooting away from you.

"He? Who's he?" You cried out, confused as you saw your friend trying to hurt himself.

"Him. The man. The one in the shadows. He told me that if I even look at you anymore, he'll rip my eyes out himself." He banged his head on the ground, still clawing at his eyes. "But he granted me the mercy to at least do it myself." Your friend reached for a jagged rock and brought it to his face.

Your head was filled with static to the point you passed out, and awake in your living room. You wanted it to be a dream, but it was farther from the truth. Your coworker and close friend, hung himself in the same place you two hiked at two days prior.

It was your fault, and you couldn't bring yourself to let it happen again as you hauled yourself in your apartment. Refusing contact with anyone. You were just meant to be a disease.

The apartment went on fire, and you never felt more estatic. Finally, you would greet death with open arms, and your family wouldn't live with the regret if you took your own life. Shit, maybe they could even sue to gain some money off your death. Maybe you'd actually bring fortune to someone.

You laid pliant on your bed, smoke filtering inside your room as the fire danced and spread around the room. A smile on your face before you felt its presence again.

The tall figure hovering over you this time, but no sickness accompanied with it. Faceless, except spots that were slightly sunken in that could be mistaken for one, put a finger up to his face presumably to its mouth. He then disappeared and you fell into unconsciousness with it as well.

And appeared back in the same fucking forrest. This time, surrounded by three human(ish) men.

A crazed man with goggles and a mask, wielding a bloodied axe. Next to him, was a seemingly timid one, dressed in an orange hoodie and when you tried to focus closer, all that greeted you was red, sullen eyes. A feminine mask graced the other one as he donned an orange bomber jacket.

Your mouth felt dry and when you tried to scream, it came out a pathetic groan for help. They clearly had no interest in doing so, more concerned on talking to one another in poorly hushed voices.

"You handled them too rough! If they get a bruise, he won't like it." One choked out in a worried tone.

"They're not a doll, they're fine. And besides, it's not like he told us to deliver them to him in 5-star hotel. He wanted them to be brought to the forest and we did. I'm sure he wouldn't be fond if we held on them too long, so to the floor they go." The one behind the mask spoke, steady voiced.

And another air of static rose around you, stiffening your surroundings. You fell in and out of consciousness and could barely even tell if time was moving, or not.

The men had left sometime ago, 3 hours or minutes? You didn't know. All you could feel was the mossy earth and crushed leaves beneath your slightly aching body.

Vision blurred as the man in the black and white dotted across behind your eye lids in mind as you slipped unconscious into a fever like dream. But this time, it didn't make you sick. It was replaced by a sense of, longing? What was once your nightmare incarnated, seemed softer (even for lack of facial features).

You felt as if watching yourself in third person, your figure collapsed on the floor of a velvety chapel, a heavy white [dress/tuxedo] weighing you down to the ground as you could hear a low melody playing in the background, a church hymn low in the distance as the pianist follows suit.

Pushing yourself up with your two arms, your mind follows the red path trailing to the center. You hear murmuring in the distance but as you scanned your surroundings, no one was there. Just the tall white figure dressed in the clean tuxedo.

You felt yourself gliding towards him, despite not even getting up on your feet. But when you looked down, you saw the inky black tendrils span out like tiny veins combining to makin thick ropey tentacles. They slowly brought you towards him as your hands slowly held onto the decaying flower bouquet.

You opened your mouth only to find no words were coming out. You gripped at your lips, trying to force something out to protest against whatever this was but the sweet piano was only heard echoing throughout.

Finally, you were brought to the empty pillar, but the entity's limbs never left your body. Instead, it seemed to latch onto your harder, as it expanded over your body. You gazed over the empty chapel, but the long and slender hands of the monster in front of you made you look at him.

Blank, faceless, pale, but you could feel the tension in the air as he stared at you in his own way. His stark white body contrasting deeply with his black tuxedo. You felt tears rush down your face but the monster seemed to enjoy that sight. As your face came close to his, the static in your head grew. The only word you could make out amiss all the noise was mine.

As your lips finally made contact with the blank slate of a man, you woke up in a large bed. As you glanced around, you found dust on the bed, but everything else looking surprisingly in pristine condition.

Just as you were about to scream, a large hand grasped your shoulder. The entity, that monster. But, instead of the normal vomit inducing headache and static you would feel when you confronted him was gone.

Yet, that [dress/tuxedo] from the dream still remained. As you looked down at your outfit in confusion, the monster slipped his hands under your chin to meet his gaze. The static-like voice replaced with a deep soothing, voice finally talked as his other hand made it up your back.

"Now that your officially mine, I can't find myself being able to hold back much longer."

Jeff The Killer:

Jeffery always seemed on the brink of becoming unhinged. Ever since building up to the, incident. His family moved to the neighborhood, normal enough. His parents, his brother, all seemed well. Even at first meetings Jeffery looked sane enough at first glance. Nothing stood about him. Like every other teenage boy. His light brown hair framed his face in the typical unkempt way with his blue eyes shining against his complexion. His clothes were obviously picked out by his mother since he never cared to actually shop for his wardrobe.

He was not your first choice to be friends with. But as your parents grew cozy with his, they near forced you to befriend the quiet boy.

It was awkward. Standing next to him at the bus stop with small talk eventually landed to you two sitting on the bus together. It grew to where he would spare you an earbud to play music on his music player. Then, it turned to you actually seeking him out during class projects, not because you had no one else to, but you began to somewhat enjoy his company.

You began to come to his house, and him to your house without the prompting of your parents. Maybe you were just as strange as him which explained the quicker connection between the two of you. It ranged from drawing, reading horror stories to eachother on the ever growing "internet", running to the near gas station for a snack stop only to get brain freezes from racing eachother who could drink their slushie faster.

His interests slowly grew darker. Darker videos, interests in the occult and local murders and death, and even visiting previous crime scenes. You didn't notice at first, you enjoyed the more taboo subjects, but he seemed to take it on a different level. But like you, he was just a young adult trying to figure out the big world, right...?

As his interests grew more morbid, a group of boys began to pick on him. His brother did what he could do to halt them as you tried to center Jeffery's attention elsewhere, but you knew it was beginning to wear him down.

He fought them. Not only did he fight one by himself, but three. He was scuffed up, but the other boys more so. You felt in a daze. Although it was self defense, he would be put in the blame. He came to your house soon after, but he wasn't in a panic. He was happy. Estatic. You fussed over his bruises and small cuts as you dabbed on first aid supplies. He couldn't stop talking for the death of him. You ignored most of it as he tended to talk lots of nonsense most the time, but a sentence stood out you couldn't ignore.

"I never felt more alive."

He looked at you. His blue eyes shining threw his choppy, layered hair. He gently held your wrist in the middle of applying an antibiotic cream.

"S/o, I want you to know, if anything happens, you're coming with me. I promise that." His once happy persona faded as he stared at you solemnly. You nodded slowly and continued patching him up.

When the police came, his brother Liu took his spot and told them it was him. You've never seen Jeffery so desperate to admit his own crimes but the police left, leaving the younger brother. It changed something in him. He only trusted Liu and you. But with him gone, he was clingy and.. handsy. Always trying to have you physically touching him in some way. Either him pressed up against your side or his hand wrapped around yours. His twisted mind finally grasping the concept of how easily people can be taken from him.

To no one's surprise, he did get in trouble more at school. His parents blaming him for getting into so much trouble in his senior year. To your surprise, not too long after that fight, his parents forced him to go to a party with them as a way to "clean" up their image. Like the loyal friend you were, you went with him.

It all happened too fast. His bullies were back as ready for vengeance all the same as if they didn't cause enough damage. One grabbed at you taunting him, "No big brother now, and no [girlfriend/boyfriend] to help you either!" One cackled as they drew a knife near your throat. He never had lost his composure so fast as he saw you. In his mind, you were his and that disgusting shit touched you.

Pure chaos erupted as two boys dropped dead. Blood on both men. Police were called but none came fast enough. Tears went down your face as you tried to grab one of them to stop but your parents held you back in horror watching them fight. Eventually Jeffery got the advantage and took time to prepare his next move in state of manic happiness. He didn't mind the bleach dripping down his frame. He had murder on his mind.

"Remember my promise. I will come to get you soon!" He looked back at you before he grabbed onto the knife and lodged it into the attackers chest. You felt dizzy with the scene in front of you, finally hearing sirens from the cops.

The final movement from the attacker lifted up a match and sent Jeffery on fucking fire. A blood curling scream from the crowd erupted before you felt sick to your stomach and passed out.

He was sent to the hospital, and as much as you were trying to visit him, only family was allowed. Countless nights you worried over the health of a boy you didn't even want to be friends with in the beginning. Too weak to talk to him one on one. All information you got on his wellbeing was from his parents who were already stressed enough.

When he was finally released from hospital and was being sent home, your parents allowed you to visit him the following morning.

As the sun rose and birds chirped, you sprinted to his house with the latest music DVDs and horror movies that he missed out on. You knocked on the door as you barely contained your glee for seeing him.

The door opened. It was unlocked. And the smell of metal wafted to your nostrils. You peaked your head and opened the already ajar door.

And you screamed as blood was splattered in every corner.

But, that was years ago. No longer the dumb teenager you were, but yet it was still stained on your mind. The countless headliners for the news, the police interviews, the therapy sessions. You moved far away from that neighborhood but no matter where you go, the memories would still follow.

Although a murderer now, still on the loose which scared you to your core, you yearned for the nostalgic Jeffery. The one before the murders.

You placed the book of photos down, gingerly touching the photo where you and Jeffery clicked slushies together. It was over now though, that was the past.

That night as you laid to rest, you felt the cold breeze of the nightly wind under your sheets.

You also felt cold wet drops on your face as a hand slapped against your mouth before you could fully register what was happening.

A manic grin spread from ear to ear, scared red against deathly pale skin. Eyes a dull blue with dark eyebags. The hair was jet black and frayed in a shaggy like mullet.

His other hand held your arms in one grip as he started laughing.

"Oh, s/o, I finally found you." He cried out in-between bursts of laughter.

"But where the fuck were you when I needed you. Where were you when I told you I'd come to get you."

And your heart dropped as you mumbled through his fingers. "Jeffery, is that you...?"

"The one and only and STOP AVOIDING THE QUESTION. WHERE WERE YOU?" He begged out, his happiness dropped. "It was suppose to be just me and you. Just us against the world. I needed you to wait for me. But when I finally got my own footing, you left!"

"I fucking missed you. But now, " He shifted eagerly as he straddled your hips. "I'm myself. This is what I was meant to be, and can you even accept that?"

You look at him in shock, your whole body feels like it was dropped in freezing water. Your heart was in the dilemma of whether it's about to stop or keep beating as wildly as possible.

"I don't expect you to respond now. But you will answer me later, you whore." He leaned down and took his hand off your mouth. "I hate that I still like you even after you abondoned me."

His lips hovered over yours teasingly. "I fucking hate the fact you're still as beautiful as the day you left me. But now, you're staying with me." Despite his taunting demeanor, there is an act of urgency, desperation, in his next moves.

His lips connected to yours within seconds as you tried to squirm away. His hands still holding yours away from pushing him. His hand gripped your cheek as he pushed the back of your head to deepen the kiss.

And then you felt a foreign pill slip into your mouth as Jeff still kept the kiss connected, forcing you to swallow.

"Go to sleep." He breathes out, finally pulling away from your lips. You are hit with an unfamiliar urge to go unconscious. Your limbs feel unbearably heavy as your eyelids begin to close again. The last thing you see before your eyes shut is his insanely stretched out smile and his lovesick eyes glaring at you.

….

[Heyyy I’m alive guys. Work and school kicked my ass but I’m still here.]

#yandere x reader #yandere imagines #yandere x darling #yandere scenarios #yandere monster #monster x reader #monster boyfriend #creepypasta x reader #creepypasta imagines #jeff the killer x reader #slenderman x reader

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fyorina · 20 days

Text

ᡣ𐭩 DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: seven months after his defection, you run into dazai osamu by sheer chance. you know in your heart what you should do—traitors are to be disposed of, regardless of any previous relationship you might've had with them... but can you bring yourself to do what must be done? or will you be more driven by the questions you desperately need answered?

(wordcount: 7.1k; fem!reader, pm!reader, angsty (i promiseeeee i have some happier ones coming up with pm!reader and pmzai), alcoholism, dazai is in a particularly bad mental state)

AUTHOR'S NOTES: this one was suchhhh a doozy. the third installment of my pm!reader & pm!dazai universe, this is why i had to retcon he's my collar because originally pm!reader didn't see him at all during the 4 years but i got the idea for this fic like 2 ?? weeks ago and it was too good to not use - tomorrow i think i'll put up the masterlist for it so you guys can see the chronology and planned installments

Against all odds, you run into Dazai Osamu seven months after his defection.

You should put a bullet in his skull. You watch absently from the mouth of the alley as the ex-Port Mafia executive groans, trying to push himself to his feet only to crash back onto the pavement, blood smeared across his face from a crooked nose and split lip, bile pooled on the ground where he’d landed.

Gross, you think, lip curling up in disgust as his lithe fingers smear through the vomit, blunt nails scraping against the pavement as he attempts to push himself up again but fails. His shoulders are heaving, breath slow and labored as he lets out another wretched sound, crumpling back to the ground.

You click the safety off of your gun, pulling it out of your pocket as you quietly make your way deeper into the alley, over to where he’s still struggling to get off the ground. He doesn’t even acknowledge your presence until he hits the ground hard again after nearly making it to his feet. This time, he falls onto his shoulder and gasps in pain as he rolls onto his back, blinking up blearily through glazed-over eyes that can hardly focus on you or the gun pointed at his head.

You should just get it over with, pull the trigger, and leave the body for cleanup to handle. It’d be a better fate than he deserves, cleaner and quicker than he’d ever give himself, and not even half as painful as it’ll be when the Port Mafia inevitably get their hands back on him.

You’d be sparing him, really; it would be a mercy.

And it’s what is expected of you. Letting a traitor as high profile as Dazai Osamu go free when you have a clear chance to execute him would be more than enough to have you stripped of your rank and thrown into the torture chambers, body dumped in the river when the Port Mafia is done punishing you.

But still, for some reason, your finger hesitates as you move to pull the trigger.

“You…” His voice is so slurred that you can hardly make out coherent words, but you use his words as an excuse to bide even more time, curious to see what he’s going to say. You can smell the whiskey on him from where you’re standing, his skin is paler than it usually is, and you notice, idly, that the bandages on his right eye are gone and you wonder when he chose to shed them. “You’re not real.”

Your eye twitches in irritation.

You pull the trigger.

If he was sober, he would have expected the reaction from you and dodged the bullet, but he’s not sober, so his eyes fly open in shock as the bullet grazes his ear and embeds itself in the pavement next to his head. He doesn’t look any more sobered up by the pain, which you suppose is a testament to how drunk he really is, but he does look significantly more confused.

“You shot me,” he says, pale lips parted as he stares up at you—too pale, you notice absently, brows furrowing a bit as you try to consider what to do.

“Yeah,” you say, voice rough with irritation. “Real enough for you?”

Dazai blinks, you don’t even think your words are registering and you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.

Get it over with, you tell yourself again, this time positioning your gun over his forehead. A clean kill. You won’t move it to the side at the last minute again. You remind yourself that this is what he deserves—he’s a traitor to the Port Mafia, to you. Killing him now would be a mercy compared to what the Port Mafia would do to him, compared to what he’d do to himself.

He stares up at you, brown eyes wide and glassy. He parts his lips to speak but you can’t give yourself the same excuse; you don’t wait for his words this time.

You pull the trigger again.

But Dazai is moving. He rolls over onto his side trying to push himself back to his feet and the bullet lodges right into the ground where his head had once been lying. You stare down at it in disbelief, gun falling to your side as your fingers start to feel a bit numb and clunky, breath catching as you realize what you’d almost just done—what you tried to do.

Dazai makes it to his knees and he tries to reach out for you but you step back out of reach. His brows furrow before he keels over again, dry heaving now—there’s enough bile around him for you to realize he’s probably thrown up everything in his stomach and then some. He leans against the wall, the glassiness of his eyes spilling over his cheeks as he continues to dry heave but your gaze is still trained down on the ground where the bullet is embedded in the ground where his head had just been laying.

You just tried to-

You think you’re the one who feels sick now. The dinner you’d had out with Chuuya and Kouyou rises to the back of your throat as you take another step away from Dazai. Your vision blurs as your gaze turns to him again, but instead of the tattered and vomit-stained clothes he’s wearing now, he’s back in the dark suit you’re accustomed to, crumpled on the ground still, but not because he’s drunk because he’s been wounded on a mission that he took on so you wouldn’t have to.

You just tried to kill Dazai.

Dazai, who’s been your closest friend since the two of you were sixteen and at the center of the most violent conflict to rock Yokohama’s foundations. Entirely inseparable, forever entwined since the moment the two of you met; the type of instant click that most people could only ever dream of experiencing in their lives.

You almost killed Dazai.

Dazai, who promised to put a bullet in Ace’s head if the man ever came near you again after he found out the newly promoted executive had insinuated putting one of his collars on you during a confrontation between the two of you. He knew that even he would face consequences for threatening another executive, that he would face even more if he dared to follow through with his threat, but he didn’t care and he had every intention of following through if it meant keeping you safe.

You would have killed Dazai if not for sheer luck.

Dazai, who used to kiss you with trembling fingers and quivering lips, because for as much as his reputation as the Demon Prodigy had spread throughout the country, he was still just a teenage boy who’d never had his first kiss until the two of you got drunk on champagne after a successful mission when he made the mistake of admitting to you that he’s never kissed anyone before. The two of you’d spent the entire night giggling between chaste kisses, getting through just about two bottles of champagne before you started throwing up.

He held back your hair and laughed at you as you leaned over the toilet, miserable. But he was gentle with you in a way that Dazai Osamu is never gentle with anyone, fingers carding through your hair, rubbing absent circles on your back to soothe you as you choked over sobs and gags.

Then there’s you. You, who not only a moment ago, looked down at him with your lip curling up in disgust, unable to hold your grimace at the way he laid in his own vomit. You lifted the barrel of your gun in his direction not once, but twice, and you pulled the trigger not once, but twice.

When you showed vulnerability to him, he showed you a type of tenderness that everyone thought was long lost to the notorious Demon Prodigy.

When he finally shows vulnerability to you, you only show him cruelty in response.

You try to convince yourself that it’s different, that the circumstances are different now but the words ring hollow in your head, taking no root, because you think the circumstances shouldn't matter. This is Dazai. Dazai. There are no circumstances that justify executing him.

Your head spins and you take another step away, you don’t know where you dropped your gun and you don’t want to know. You don’t want to look at it. You don’t want to touch it. You’ll send someone else after it later. You blink, and for a moment, you can visualize what almost happened: you can see Dazai motionless on the ground, blood pooling around his head and a bullet wound piercing through his forehead. You gag, pressing your hand to your mouth as you force back the bile that nearly comes up.

“Wait,” Dazai garbles out, pushing off the wall toward you but he propels himself right into the ground again, face first, scraping his cheek on the concrete. “Don’t leave again.”

Again? The word nearly pulls you out of your daze, the bitterness that’s poisoned you for seven months returning with a vengeance as your eyes focus on him.

Dazai, who left you without a word or a warning. Not even the slightest goodbye. He abandoned you like you meant nothing to him.

“I need to-” he gags again as he pushes himself to his knees. He tries to reach forward again but his whole body sways, eyes half-rolling back as he tries to steady himself, on the verge of passing out. “I need to tell you this time. I need to-”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, slumping back over onto the ground unconscious—in a puddle of his own blood and vomit, naturally. The logical part of you knows you should just leave him there. You’re already playing with fire by not executing him on the spot, but you also know if you leave him here, it’ll be as good as a death sentence. If he doesn’t die on his own from alcohol poisoning, then he’ll certainly be found by the Port Mafia patrols. You think Dazai is a fool for drinking so much so deep in Port Mafia territory, for not being careful enough to make sure he didn’t wander out in the open.

He should know better.

He does know better.

A part of you wonders if it was intentional, if he thought that he’d stumble into Port Mafia territory and he’d run into someone eager to lay claim to the fame of being Dazai Osamu’s executioner.

If that’s the case, he nearly got his wish—that thought alone almost sends you spiraling over the edge again, having to shove away more nausea. You force all thoughts of the Port Mafia and betrayal to the back of your mind as you fall to your knees next to him, gathering him up into your arms and pushing yourself back to your feet. He curls into you instinctively, even while unconscious, smaller than you remember, smearing blood and bile all over your suit. Your grip on him tightens, a shaky breath escaping your lips when you realize that this is the first time you’ve touched him since the night he left.

You shake your head to clear your mind, desperately trying to focus. You can’t stay out in the open with him for long otherwise you’ll risk someone seeing you with him, and that’ll open a can of worms you’re not prepared to deal with.

You’ll drop him off somewhere safe, and then you’ll get back to base.

That’s all.

That is not all.

The safehouse in Sakae that the two of you would run to whenever you wanted to avoid Mori is just how you left it the last time you spent the night with him there over half a year ago. One of his jackets is still draped over the couch, one of your ties thrown haphazardly on the ground—you remember the night vividly, the way he smiled against your lips as he lead you into the back bedroom, stumbling over each other and fumbling with buttons as you tried to undress the other while walking to the room, high off the success of a mission that everyone had said would fail because the odds were so stacked against the two of you. Even Chuuya had laughed in your face when you said you’d take the mission, but you knew so long as Dazai had your back on it, it would work out in your favor.

He’s woken up several times, you don’t even know what he’s saying in his incoherent babbles. Every time he wakes back up, he’s calling for you, stumbling out of the bed you laid him in after getting him cleaned up and crashing to the ground before he reaches the hall. It’s irritating, you have to go back to help him back into the bed every time and he starts babbling again, passing out before you can figure out what he’s saying. You finally had to move yourself into the back bedroom with him so he didn’t try to get up again.

You don’t know why you’re still here.

You lean your forehead against your hand as you sit on the bed next to where he’s lying, one leg tucked beneath you while the other hangs over the side. You tell yourself it’s because you don’t want him to get up drunk trying to look for you and then crack his head open, but it’s a weak excuse because Dazai Osamu is not your issue anymore. It’s not your job to watch over him when he gets shit-faced drunk, it’s not your job to patch him up when he gets hurt, it’s not your job to look out for him.

He left you, not vice versa, You don’t owe him anything. He lost that privilege when he betrayed you. Fuck the Port Mafia, he betrayed you when he left without a word. You deserved better than that. You deserved a goodbye. You don’t owe him shit. You should leave him here to rot in his own vomit and blood but-

But you won’t.

Your gaze drifts back over to him. He’s still out cold—cleaner now, because it had never just been ‘get him somewhere safe and then go back to the base,’ as soon as you got him into the safehouse you wrangled him into the bathroom to clean him up. He was uncharacteristically pliant as you manhandled him into the shower. You suppose it was because he was unconscious for half of it but even for the moments where he was awake and blearily blinking the water out of his eyes, looking up at you through wet bangs with those stupid big eyes of his, as if he was still unsure if you were actually there.

Instinctively, you reach out to brush the back of your knuckles against his swollen, split lip, wondering if it was just from him being clumsy while drunk or if he’d managed to piss someone off at a bar. Both are equally likely—Dazai is a rather cantankerous drunk when he’s alone and drunk on whiskey, and even after cleaning him up and dousing him in soap to get out the reeking scent of his vomit out from where it’d sunken into his skin, shoving a toothbrush into his mouth to brush his teeth and scrubbing so they don’t rot from the bile, you can still smell the whiskey on his breath.

You wonder how much he drank. His skin is still pale, his breath shuddered, and he’s shivering even though you wrapped him in three thick blankets. Some degree of alcohol poisoning, that’s for sure. You tell yourself that’s why you’re not leaving—you don’t want to leave before you’re sure he’s pulled through the worst of it. You’re not going to admit to yourself that you don’t want to leave because you’re worried it’ll be the last time you see him for real this time.

You hesitate right before your knuckles brush his skin, swallowing thickly before you withdraw your hand back into your lap, eyes sliding shut as you sigh.

What the hell are you doing?

If anyone from the Port Mafia knew what you were doing right now, you’d be hunted down right alongside him, branded as a traitor and sentenced to death. Chuuya would kill you if he knew what you were doing right now—and not because you betrayed the Port Mafia by helping Dazai, instead because you’re a fucking idiot. You’ve done a lot of stupid things in your life, but this might take the cake for the stupidest, sticking your neck out for someone who didn’t even care enough to tell you goodbye.

You rub your forehead, tired. You try to summon the anger you felt when you first found out he betrayed the Port Mafia from Mori and Chuuya—from the hot fury you felt in the direct aftermath, screaming and breaking everything you could get your hands on as you cursed his name and burned everything he left in your apartment to the cold rage you felt when you finally calmed down, bitter and lonely and betrayed by the one person you never thought would betray you—but you can’t. And you think it’s pathetic because what use is all of that anger if you can’t utilize it when the reason for it is lying right before you?

If Chuuya were here right now, he’d drag you out by the hair and leave Dazai to suffer on his own. You left your phone in the kitchen after turning off your location, because he was already buzzing incessantly wondering where you are. You’d told him that you wanted to stop by one of the fishing ports in Kanazawa to check on a small weapons shipment that should’ve arrived earlier in the night before heading back to your shared apartment—you’d moved in with him after Dazai’s betrayal. He made the executive decision himself, not giving you a choice in the matter because he realized that you living on your own in the apartment that Dazai had practically moved into with you was not conducive to you healing from his betrayal.

Plus, you think he was lonely too without Dazai around anymore, but he’d never admit that.

You should’ve been back an hour ago. You’re sure that he’s getting suspicious and it’s only a matter of time before he tries to track you down. You don’t think he knows about this safe house in particular, Dazai had threatened you with piling up mission reports onto you if you told him about this one, but you wouldn’t be surprised if Chuuya learned about it through other means—somehow, he always seems to know everything.

You sigh again, heavier this time as you try to figure out what to do. You know what you should do, but you also know you’re not going to do that. Your gaze drags back over to him and your breath catches when you realize he’s awake again, bleary brown eyes trained on you, brows furrowed.

His lips part to speak again and you tense, waiting for whatever he has to say, unsure if you’ll even understand it.

“You… came with me. You never come with me. Are you… really here?”

Even though his eyes are still glazed over and muddled, his voice is less garbled than it was before. You think that’s a good sign, but even so, you let out an even heavier sigh, this one more irritated, and a bit confused because you don’t even know what that means: you never come with me.

“Yes, Dazai,” you say sharply, but then you let out a puff of air. The same memories that hit you before coming right back to you, remembering all of the nights Dazai would stay up having to take care of you, patient in a way that he never was with anybody. You soften your voice a bit as you say, “Yes. I’m here.”

Dazai looks at you like he doesn’t believe you. He blinks once slowly, then his brows furrow deeper and his lips turn downward.

“You don’t call me Dazai.” He speaks the accusation slowly, as if to make himself sound more coherent, but you can still hear the clear slur in his voice. “You never-”

You turn away because if you don’t, you think you might lose your temper. He’s drunk, you remind yourself, but he’s still ripping open wounds that never properly healed, because how dare he expect you to still call him by his given name after everything. It had taken months for you to get used to calling him Dazai again and-

You feel your chest start to cave in again and your throat spasms. Your eyes flutter shut and god, you want to hate him. You thought you did hate him, you convinced yourself of it in all of the bitter rage and acidic betrayal you’ve felt the past seven months but now that you’re confronted with him again, you know that it was never hate. You could never hate Dazai Osamu. You'd just missed him so terribly that the pain was easy to mistake as hate; love and hate has always been a treacherously thin line, and Dazai more than anyone else wavers on either side of it.

Your heart feels like it’s about to leap from your chest and crawl right back to him, you have to physically place your hand over your chest as if to hold it in place, to make sure the traitorous thing can’t go back to the very man that tore it shreds. You force yourself to breathe, in and out, steady, trying to settle down.

This was a mistake, you realize, this was a mistake.

Just as you’re about to push yourself up, you feel lithe fingers curl around your arm. You freeze, not even daring to glance back at Dazai. You can hear him pushing the covers off of him as he crawls closer to you, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. His movements are unsteady, and you can’t bring yourself to push him off of you when you feel him slump against your back.

His weight is familiar, comforting in a way that it shouldn’t be. If you close your eyes, you can imagine that you’re back at the Port Mafia base seven months ago and Dazai is draping himself across your back, complaining about being overworked by Mori and trying to convince you to take over his paperwork. You’d have to drag him halfway across the base trying to get to your office with his dead weight hanging onto you, you remember all of the wary stares from your subordinates as they try not to let their gaze linger on the two of you but let their curiosity get the best of them regardless.

You hate that you don’t push him off right away, that you’re letting yourself indulge in his touch again. You’ve moved on from this—from him. It’s been seven months. You’re over all of this.

“You… understand, don’t you?”

You barely hear the words muffled against your back, but you do and you can’t help but stiffen at them. He shifts against you, fingers biting into your skin as he pulls himself up a bit more to bury his face in the crook of your neck, arms looped around your waist as he leans all of his weight onto your back. You can feel his breath warm and shuddered against your neck, making your hair stand on end, and his hands are limp in your lap now, fingers brushing against the material of the clean slacks you’d pulled on after getting Dazai showered.

It’s all so familiar that it could make you sick.

“How could I?” you ask bitterly, even though you know you shouldn’t take out your resentment on him while he’s so drunk; he probably won’t remember any of this in the morning anyway. There’s no point, you’ll just be wasting your energy.

His arms tighten around you, breath hitching against your skin. “I had to, Odasaku-”

The noise you let out is such a sharp scoff that you can feel Dazai flinch behind you. You almost shove him off of you but you refrain, taking in a deep breath to calm yourself down. You never really had any feelings about Odasaku—he was always just there, you heard about him from Dazai occasionally and he seemed pleasant enough the few times you encountered him—but after all of this, you can’t help but hold a grudge against him, irrationally blaming him for Dazai leaving you.

“Odasaku wasn’t your only friend,” you say tightly. “You had me. Chuuya. You-”

“It’s not the same,” Dazai protests, clinging to you as if he hadn’t just driven a knife right through your back into your heart.

This time you do shove him off, barely sparing him a glance as he lets out a surprised yelp, sprawling back onto the bed. You push away the mistiness that threatens your eyes, breathing in and out slowly to try to keep yourself calm. It’s not the same, you repeat his words, bitterness poisoning your blood and clouding your head. What the fuck does that even mean? You know logically you should take his words with a grain of salt, that he’s so drunk he probably doesn’t even know what he’s saying, but you just feel so angry that it’s hard for you to keep that in mind.

You hear him scrambling behind you: a thump as he hits the floor hard and then a rush of movement as he pushes himself to his knees. His fingers curl around your ankle before you can get further away and you have a half a mind to kick him off of you and leave.

You don’t.

“Don’t leave,” he pleads. He drags himself to his knees, pulling at your pants and it takes all of your self-control to not look back down at him. “I didn’t-it came out wrong. I didn't mean it like that.”

“How did you mean it then?” you ask him, even though you by all means should not even bother to hear his shitty explanation.

“I just-I didn’t mean it like that.” You’ve never heard Dazai’s voice crack before, but it does now. “Don’t leave. I miss you.”

“You miss me?” you spit out, and you finally turn to look down at him—a mistake, of course, because he’s on his knees in front of you, looking up at you with those stupid, big brown eyes and you almost let your anger fizzle away at the sight of it. He’s drunk, you remind yourself again, but it doesn’t stop you from snapping at him. “You left me, Dazai. You have no right to miss me.”

“But I do.” His fingers fumble for your hand, grabbing one of yours with both of his. “I miss you so much, I think about you all the time.”

His lashes flutter, fingers brushing along your forearm as he presses his lips to your knuckles and then to your pulse point before leaning forward to rest his forehead on your thigh. You can’t even look at him, keeping your eyes trained on the wall, because your lashes feel wet and heavy and you know that you’ll give into him if you look at him now and he doesn’t deserve that.

“I couldn’t go to you before I left,” Dazai whispers and he sounds oddly coherent now even though you know he’s not. “I would’ve asked you to come with me.”

For some reason, that hurts worse than if he’d just admitted he didn’t care enough to say goodbye. Because what does that even mean, I would’ve asked you to come with me, would that have been so bad? He didn’t want you with him? Why wouldn’t he have wanted you with him? If you had left, he would’ve been the first person you ran to, begging him to come with you.

“How terrible that would’ve been,” you say, and you’re proud that your voice remains cold and steady, not betraying the hurt ripping through your chest.

“I wouldn’t have been able to handle it,” he says, voice breaking over a hiccup. “Odasaku had just died and-”

He cuts himself, and you dare to look down at him when you feel him lift his face from your thigh. You regret it immediately. Glassy, glazed-over eyes beg for you to understand, and you scare yourself because you want to understand when he shouldn’t even matter to you anymore. You’ve moved on. You have. It’s been seven months. He left you without a word. So why do you care so much for what he has to say right now?

“You wouldn’t have come with me,” he says, shaking his head. “You would’ve said no. You never would have chosen me over the Mafia.”

Your lips part to deny the allegations, to say that of course, you would have come with him, but the words fizzle out before they even form on your tongue because-

“You can’t even bring yourself to deny it, can you?” Dazai asks, and although he sounds more cogent now, you can’t help but notice that he’s starting to look sick again, the back of his throat making that faint clicking sound it always makes when he’s about to throw up. “You never would have chosen me.”

You would choose Dazai Osamu over a lot of things. You would choose to save his life before yours if put in the position, and you would choose to trust him over anyone else in the whole world. You’d follow him to the depths of hell and deep into the shadows, until your blood is black and corrupted and you’re entirely irredeemable, but you can’t follow him into the light.

You can’t choose him if it means betraying the Port Mafia. With his defection, the two have become mutually exclusive: Dazai or the Port Mafia, there’s no way of having both anymore. The boy you’ve come to love or the only home you’ve ever known. The only family you’ve ever had. A shitty family maybe, but a family nonetheless. If you don’t belong with the Port Mafia, you don’t belong anywhere on this earth, and as someone who’s always had a desperate fear of alienation, the thought makes you sick.

You stare at him, throat tight, and then you say, colder than you intend for it to come across, “... If that’s really why you didn’t say goodbye, then I’m glad you didn’t put me in that position.”

The expression that crosses Dazai’s face is something caught between ruin and shock—and you can’t help but wonder if he held out hope, thinking maybe he was wrong in his assumptions. That there had been a chance that you might’ve chosen him if he’d given you the option. That he’s been living his life in the what-ifs for the past seven months and now that he’s finally gotten the chance to bare his heart to you, you’ve crushed it.

Your chest tightens, your throat spasms and it takes all your self-control to not immediately take back the words, regret flooding you so intensely that it nearly makes you physically stumble. Because it’s true, you never would have picked Dazai over the Mafia, but he didn’t have to know that—especially not now, when he’s drunk and vulnerable in a way that he’s never allowed himself to be before.

You hope, for his sake and your conscience, that he doesn’t remember any of this in the morning.

His lips part to respond again but his hand is flying to his mouth instantly, doubling over, and you’re cursing, reaching for the trash bin you’d brought into the bedroom and falling to your knees next to him, helping him kneel upright and holding the trash bin in front of him as he starts gagging again.

“I would’ve-” He’s still trying to talk through the bouts of nausea, gasping over air, body trembling as he leans into you for balance.

You don’t want to hear what he has to say.

“Dazai-”

“I would’ve chosen you,” he finally forced out, voice breaking over the words and you’re not sure if it’s a sob or another heave that escapes his lips as he continues. “If the positions were reversed, I would’ve chosen you.”

Oh.

The words echo in your head so loudly that it makes you want to cover your ears even though you know it won’t do anything. You want to accuse him of lying, tell him that he’s full of shit and just trying to make you feel guilty, but you don’t think he’s capable of lying right now and you don’t think this is anything Dazai would have ever admitted to you if he was sober. He guards his heart more carefully than anyone you’ve ever met—in the two and a half years you’d known him, he never admitted he cared about you. You knew it just from how he treated you, but you think he might’ve ripped his own tongue out before actually admitting it.

You wrap an arm around him as his whole body shudders through another gag and he tries to push you off—angry, upset, you don’t know what he might be feeling because you’ve never seen him like this before—but your arm only tightens around him and Dazai crumbles.

He heaves again, clutching the small garbage can to his face as he throws up all of the water you’d managed to get in him before he passed out earlier. Tears spill over his cheeks, his face is pale and his lashes are fluttering again, on the verge of passing back out. You swallow thickly as he leans into you, letting him collapse into your chest after he’s finished vomiting.

“Will-” he tries to say, but his voice is slurred and weak. He’s desperately trying to stay conscious, you can tell, but he’s fighting a losing battle. “Will you be here in the morning?”

No.

You don’t want to say it, you think you’ve done enough damage for the night, but there’s no need. As soon as the words leave his mouth, Dazai is slumping over unconscious, head laying limp on your arm, lashes brushing his cheek. You sigh as your grip around him tightens before you adjust him in his arms to carry him back into the bed, laying him comfortably beneath the covers.

You don’t linger for long after that. After another hour or two passes and Dazai doesn’t wake up again, you make your way back into the bedroom, raising your hand to his face to brush away the dark locks in his eyes before cupping his cheek. Even in his sleep, he leans into your touch, and it makes your chest feel so agonizingly tight that you think you might be having a heart attack.

You lean down to press your lips to his forehead, to his nose, and then to his lips, indulging yourself one last time. Your forehead rests against his as you consider your words—there are a million things you’d like to say to him before you leave, but you don’t have nearly enough time to get them all off of your chest.

Instead, you tell him softly, “I hope you don’t remember any of this in the morning.” You don’t move your hand from where it’s caressing his cheek as you stand straight again, thumb drawing absent circles on his skin. Your voice is thick with emotion, eyes welling with tears that don’t spill over. “We’ll meet again one day.”

Dazai wakes up the next morning with a hangover so bad that he thinks he might die.

He sits up in bed and is instantly groaning, hand flying to his forehead as his brain throbs inside of his skull. He needs to figure out where he is—the last thing he remembers is…

The bar?

His eyes slide shut as he tries to think, but it only makes his head hurt more. He flops back onto the bed, arms splayed out. He still feels nauseous, he can feel it rising to his throat and he desperately does not want to throw up again—it’s one thing vomiting when he’s too drunk to remember, it’s an entirely different thing to vomit while he’s sober and conscious.

Dazai thinks he might rather die.

He lets out a heavy sigh as he begs the nausea to go away, breathing in and out deeply. He lifts his hand to brush a lock of hair away from where it’s tickling his ear and-

Ouch.

Dazai’s eyes fly open again, confused now, as he rips his hand away from where he’d touched his ear to stare up at the ceiling. He’s used to waking up with odd injuries after a night of blacking out at whatever bar will still have him, but his ear is a particularly strange place to be wounded, isn’t it?

Driven by curiosity now, he forces himself into a sitting position, and it’s only when he pushes himself out of bed, does he finally start to recognize the room he’s in. His lips part in a distinct mixture of shock and confusion as he looks around the room slowly, making his way over to the mirror.

The safehouse in Sakae?

His chest feels heavier instantly, and a tight feeling rises to his throat as he catches sight of an old jacket of yours draped on the desk chair, the one that had ripped during the last mission you went on together—just the way you left it the last time the two of you were here. A pair of his old dress shoes are lying haphazardly outside the closet door, he’s sure that if he peeks into the closet, all of your suits will be hanging there because you refused to share the closet with him so all of his spares are stuffed in the dresser. Dazai suddenly feels sick again and he doubts it’s from the hangover this time.

How did he get here?

He needs another drink desperately.

But first… Dazai leans over the dresser to look into the mirror—a bit dusty after so many months with no one stopping in—he lifts his hand to brush his hair behind and then-

What?

His jaw drops and his brows furrow, his fingers graze over where the top of his ear used to be, only to find the whole upper quarter of it missing.

What the fuck? He mouths as he stares at the missing cartilage, and then he looks back around the room, and just as his eyes catch a trash bin that should be in the bathroom, his vision blurs, and his head is aching. He’s suddenly stumbling down an alley, he’s lying in a puddle of his own vomit, unable to stand up straight. He can hear someone approaching and he knows he should get up, find some dumpster or crevice to wait out the night until he’s sober enough to get the fuck out of the heart of the Mafia’s territory in Yokohama, but he can hardly move.

He can lift his head from the pavement just enough to-

Just enough to see you.

Dazai can hardly cope with the emotions that rattle his chest. Longing, because he’s missed you so terribly the past seven months. Disbelief, because you shot his fucking ear off. And… and Dazai isn’t quite sure what the other emotions are. They’re heavy and light at the same time, his chest feels bubbly but his ankles feel chained—it’s a weird mixture of hope and dread, he thinks, because the safehouse is eerily quiet, seemingly void of any life other than Dazai himself, but the chance that you might still be here…

“Will you be here in the morning?”

The faint memory of the last words he spoke before he passed out the last time rings through his head, and his feet drag against the ground as he forces himself to move from the bedroom into the main room of the safe house. His fingers hesitate against the wood of the door—scared that he’s going to open it and you won't be there, scared that he’s going to open it and you will be there. He doesn’t remember the things he said to you last night, but he knows that he’d been staring at old pictures the two of you took before he blacked out. He can hardly imagine the things he might’ve said to you when given the chance.

It takes all of his strength and all of his willpower to push open the door.

It takes even more to actually step out of the bedroom.

The safe house is empty.

You’re nowhere to be found.

Dazai’s feet are moving before he’s fully even registered what’s happening.

He makes his way into the kitchen to rummage around for another bottle for him to drown away his sorrows, but he doesn’t pull out the untouched bottle of his favorite whiskey he knows is sitting in the cabinet—he goes straight for the wine fridge. He nearly shatters three bottles of whites before he finally gets his hands on your favorite red, the one you’d asked him to stock up in there for you three days before he left, knowing that the two of you had a mission coming up and you’d be celebrating here, as always. Not knowing that he’d have betrayed you by then.

He struggles to uncork it, the frustration causing his headache to return with a vengeance. It takes an embarrassingly long amount of time for him to finally get the bottle open, but when he does, he brings it to his lips immediately, eyes sliding shut as he downs a few generous gulps.

The taste is familiar. Pleasant. It makes his heart ache with such an intense longing for you that it nearly makes him throw up.

He can almost imagine that he’s tasting it off of your lips instead.

He leans over the counter, elbows digging into the marble as he tries to push away the ugly feelings ripping apart his chest. He can’t. He never can. He hasn’t been able to since the day he left you behind seven months ago. He can only numb it.

With a hand closed around the neck of the bottle, Dazai slides down the cabinet to sit on the ground. His cheeks feel wet, but he doesn’t dare lift his hand to acknowledge the tears sliding down them.

Instead, he lifts the bottle to his lips again and drowns himself in the memories of you for another night.

#dazai x reader #dazai x you #dazai osamu x reader #dazai osamu x you #bsd x reader #bsd x you #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungo stray dogs x you #dazai angst #bsd angst #bungo stray dogs angst

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lennadanvers · 3 months

Text

Three times Simon wanted to hug you (and the one time he did)

This is the part 2. The first part is here <3

Somehow, he felt even worse this time.

And he wasn’t the one who had spent months out in the wild, only for the mission to fail miserably. He was just fine: he had slept, eaten (half his usual portion, but that was just because he had heard you were on your way back) and he didn’t have any recent injuries.

You, on the other hand, looked a second away from breaking down. All colors suited you, but the greyish purple shade of your dark circles had him wanting to apologize (even though he knew he had zero responsibility over them). Your hair looked simply sad, and it only helped accentuate your expression: you looked guilty and scared, and your frown was the one you wore when you had to ask for help (you felt useless, he was sure).

When you stepped down the back of the truck, he realized with horror that you were covered in blood too, not only dirt. And were you limping? Your right ankle had always been a weak point of yours. Ghost took a step forward. The backpack you carried was gigantic, even more for your beaten, exhausted body. It was inches away from falling off your shoulder.

You didn’t look up at him- you didn’t have the courage- and he thought that you looked cold and tiny. As you walked in his direction, his hands itched again. Ghost wondered if you’d feel offended if he grabbed your backpack, take the weight from you, help you carry what he could (after all, the deaths of your teammates were something he couldn’t lift from your shoulders). Just as he decided it wouldn’t be worth taking the risk- he refused to make you feel worse-, you walked past him. Without uttering a word, without as much as blinking in his direction.

That night he couldn’t sleep. The image of you all bummed, dirty and tired haunted him. Laying alone in his way-too-comfortable-bed (it was actually not that comfortable, just way more than he felt he deserved), Ghost wondered if he could have helped. If he had grabbed your bag, tossed it on the floor. If he had hugged you, firmly, softly, hiding you from everything. If he had let you cry (he had never seen you cry, and he didn’t plan to, but what if you could hide your tears, safe in his chest, next to his heart?), if he had shared his body heat to help soften the ache in your bones. If he had reached out, would it have made you feel the tiniest bit better? Would he have been able to offer any semblance of comfort?

He hoped not, because if he had denied you that, he deserved many more sleepless nights.

Next morning, he marched towards the kitchen; fueled by that dark and soft thing that had taken place in his chest. He boiled some water, and over the sound of the kettle, he heard his mother’s voice: A good cup of tea is like a warm hug for the heart.

He knocked on your door. You opened it, looking just as miserable as the previous night, but cleaner. Again, you didn’t look at him in the face. He knew the guilt, the shame, that came with loosing a team member like that. He also knew you had done everything you could to try to save them. Even worse, he knew no one could help you feel better.

Still, he offered you the steaming cup of tea. You grabbed it, hands around your favorite mug like you were stopping yourself from clawing at it. Ghost didn’t say anything, just nodded and turned around. He heard the faint sound of your lock clicking closed, and, even though he was standing alone in the hallway, he didn’t feel as though you had left him outside.

After all, behind the door, you were sipping directly from his boiling heart.

I already have parts 3 and 4 ready, I'll be posting them over the next week. If you liked it, feel free to comment. Also if you have any ideas/thoughts you want to share, asks are open.

#cod #fanfiction #ghost cod #simon ghost riley x reader #simon needs a hug #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley #ao3 #part 2

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abibliophobiaa · 9 months

Text

Chapter Two: Miscommunication

summary: times goes on, and so do you. but what happens when you bump into the one person you thought you would never see again? (6k words)

eddie munson x pregnant!reader || strangers to friends to lovers, unplanned pregnancy, and then they were roommates, forced proximity.

warnings: sickness (r morning sickness); mention of drugs; mention of child abuse.

mini series masterlist

previous chapter || next chapter

——

Life didn’t magically stop merely because Eddie had ended up being completely different than who you thought he was. Still, nothing quite eased the ache of knowing you’d foolishly trusted another person who’d only gone and let you down. And even so, you quarreled daily with the fact Eddie didn’t really owe you or this baby anything. He’d done as you’d asked; he’d provided an outlet that afternoon, had loved you in the dark — for a little while. You often fought the urge to blame yourself for believing the front he’d put on. The whole ‘I don’t do this often.’

Because apparently he had, based on the fact he’d needed you to remind him more than once who you were. It wasn’t like it was often one found a woman dressed in a Princess Buttercup costume, and then proceeded to go back to a hotel with said woman.

You could do this on your own. Had convinced yourself of as much when you’d started looking for places to move. The only thing was…the city proved to be expensive. It had been one thing having joint salaries when you’d lived with Paul to help cover the cost of rent. Now you had another eventual mouth to feed, a baby to clothe in a few months time, and other expenses to think about like diapers and car seats and furniture.

Two weeks after you’d told Eddie about the baby and he’d essentially shot you down, you’d gotten a phone call from Robin Buckley. You had spent years together in acting classes at your college in the city a few years ago. Became fast friends back in the day and still kept up with one another. It just so happened, when you’d caught her up on life, that she had a basement apartment at her friend Steve’s place that he and his wife, Chrissy, rented out to her. Side entrance, privacy, and apparently a pull out couch in the living area that you could crash on until you found an apartment of your own.

You hated the idea of putting her out like that, but she insisted. And soon enough you shared teary goodbyes in Micah’s living room, her arms around your form, as Jeremiah clapped you on the back. They both wished you well and promised to call, and you hopped in the car and watched as the city faded into nothingness behind you.

Cityscapes and towering buildings turned into endless trees and charming Mom and Pop shops. Busy intersections became citizens walking their dogs and running on side streets. It even smelled different, the air cleaner and crisper somehow, not bogged down by car fumes and smoke.

The Harrington home was beautiful. Large, imposing walls. Gorgeous interior filled to the brim with countless photos of Chrissy and Steve throughout the years. Married for the past two of them, and sickly in love judging by the way they answered the door together, Steve’s arm around his wife, with Chrissy bouncing a baby girl with sandy blonde hair on her hip as you’d entered.

The immediate thought of Eddie’s dark hair knocked the wind out of you — the realization your own child might have his hair. Dark ringlets, and chocolate brown eyes. You hated that you even cared. It had been one night, and even if it had changed nearly everything for you, it meant nothing to him. He’d made that part very clear.

That first evening spent in Hawkins was done so around their dinner table. Steve had put together some pasta and meatballs, and you all chatted about your lives. You, and your old job, of which Steve snapped his fingers together immediately and suggested you come work at the high school where they’d needed some help in the library.

Robin seemed so hopeful for you, eyes shining as he told you, “See — it’s all gonna work out, babe. I told you.”

The apartment itself wasn’t large or anything. An open space for the most part, with a connected living room and kitchen. Robin had the closed off bedroom, and there was a makeshift bathroom with a small shower stall inside, and not nearly spacious enough. But it would do for now, and was way more than you could have ever hoped for or expected.

Your first purchases had been some clear tote boxes to keep stored away under your pullout bed. One for your clothes, one for the clothes you thrifted for the baby, and one for the miscellaneous items here and there like toiletries, diapers, your shampoos and conditioners and make up. It wasn’t much, and you’d likely run out of room soon, but it worked for now.

Those first two weeks passed in a blur. As promised, Steve was able to get you in for an interview at the high school library. It paid well enough, came with health insurance, and time off for maternity leave — though you didn’t know how they knew you’d need it, but you’d like to thank them if you ever found out. As you exited, you happened upon Steve and Chrissy’s awaiting stares, her excited giggling bursting to life when you’d said you were hired and would start that following Monday.

Later, as you all shared yet another celebratory dinner — this time for your new job position — and your baby decided it definitely didn’t like meatloaf, you stumbled into Chrissy on your way out of the bathroom, the back of your hand pressed to your mouth. Her eyes were soft as she led you back over to sit on the edge of the shower and fumbled around in her cabinet for something wrapped in a tiny package.

“Apparently ginger helps with the nausea,” she explained as your eyes widened at the wrapped candy settled in your palm. Confusion lined your furrowed brows and she continued, “For the morning sickness.”

“Oh — I-I’m…”

“It’s okay, you know. I kind of figured it out right away. Steve says I have a sense for these things.” She settled down on the toilet beside you, her knee knocking against the outside of your jean-clad thigh. “Is the father not…”

“No.” It came out as a shaky exhale, heart thumping loudly in your ears. “He’s not around, no. It’s just us.”

“Then you’ll stay,” she urged, reaching across your lap to clasp her hand around yours. “For as long as you need, okay?”

Life settled into a new normalcy. You went to work every morning, waved to your new coworkers as you passed, and began learning the names of the dozens of kids that would filter in and out of the library. And during your lunch breaks, you’d often walk around the track with Steve, talking to him about your day, his day, the weather. Trivial things, but it brought you comfort. A sense of familiarity in the unfamiliar you found yourself in.

The holidays, though different this year, were spent with people who wanted the best for you. Chrissy and Steve had been kind enough to buy you a basket of things for the baby, and Robin had as well, trying to lighten the burden however they could.

It was right around that time you’d learned Steve not only had Melody as a daughter, but a gaggle of twenty-something’s that Robin joked he’d been something of a mother hen to. They welcomed you into the fold without question, excited to have a new friend in their close-knit group.

It was also during those initial weeks you’d spent hours talking to Micah and Jere about how you really thought this was the best decision for your life right now. That you needed this change. And they promised to come visit often when you had your own place, especially since Micah insisted she planned on ‘spoiling the hell out of her niece or nephew.’

Soon enough, unfamiliar streets became solidified in your memory. You learned the best coffee shops and the shortest routes to get places you needed to go. You realized the next door neighbor, Tabitha, always walked her dogs at two in the afternoon and waved as she passed every time. That Pete down the street had the freshest veggie garden every spring and summer, and he promised he’d give you his extras when the seasons got warmer. You even enjoyed your coworkers. Appreciated their presence and help as you acquainted yourself with the school setting, and looked out for you like you'd been there for years.

Hawkins became a home. You didn’t know how or when, but it had. And it was then you finally allowed yourself to pause in front of your bathroom mirror one evening. To stop and stare at the reflection there, turning to the side, curiously tracing the space presently unchanged. Tried to imagine your empty arms being full in a few months, tried to imagine their little face. Tiny hands and little toes, the only person who knew what your heart sounded like from the inside.

They’d be yours and they’d be happy, growing up in a place where they’d only know love, and that’s all you ever wanted.

——

As the weeks progressed and 1994 bled into 1995, you progressed. Eyes drifted in supermarkets, trailed over the girl with no husband in tow. A bunch of close-minded town folk. Mother’s seemed to eye you wearily as you walked, children tugged closer to their side. Whispered when your back was turned to friends, asking quietly if you were simply gaining weight only in your middle of if you had some sort of scandalous secret, reaching up to grab canned soup or Robin’s favorite snacks.

It happened to be the only thing you didn’t like about Hawkins. The fact your business quickly became everyone else’s business. It was bad enough that you worked with teenagers these days. Many of whom preferred coming into the library lately to merely talk to someone they saw as closer in age, and therefore their personal information dump. You gave little more than properly timed nods and gentle reassurances, before you wished them on their way back to whatever classes they seemed intent on skipping.

Luckily, as the holidays came and went, you had the fortune of your increasingly close knitted friend group that consisted of Steve, Chrissy, and Robin — as well as the youngest Harrington, Melody.

Melody with her bright laughter and wispy curls, who reminded you constantly of who you were doing this all for. Uprooting your life, making changes, doing what you wanted to for once. That same little presence that had made itself more prominently known those weeks, current jeans swapped for ones you thrifted at the local store that accommodated the small bump that had decided would no longer be confined to your old clothes. That same little presence your thumb brushed over as you stood in the cereal aisle with Robin and held aloft a box, asking if you needed anymore back at the apartment.

“I mean, we already have two boxes, babe,” she said, shrugging, “but if you’re craving it, buy it. I don’t wanna mess with those angry hormones or whatever you got going on right now.”

“I don’t get angry.” The petulant pout on your lips spoke otherwise.

“You cried when I drank the last of the coffee the other morning —”

“That’s different,” you grumbled, tossing the box into the shopping cart. “I think we got everything. Is there anything else that you can th —”

“Robin Buckley in the flesh. Get your ass over here right now, I missed you so fucking much.”

You stiffened on the spot, heart clenching tight within your chest. You couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t utter a word. The voice had come from behind you, but the realization dawned instant. The timbre of it, the inflection of his words, the jovial nature and affection lacing the sentiment toward your friend.

And Robin understood. You watched as clarity drained her features, a sickly pale color overtaking her cheeks. As her mouth dropped open and she glanced over your shoulder to offer him a smile. You’d never told your friends much about the father. Hadn't even so much as uttered his name once since he’d hung up the call. Had only said he’d been someone you knew briefly and never saw again. Someone who’d known about the baby, and yet wanted nothing to do with it, sparing you from further heartbreak in some ways by rejecting you both outright. Now he was here, standing behind you in the cereal aisle in Hawkins, no longer in California.

With the tip of your head, you muttered, “I’m fine. Go say hi.”

Head bowing over the railing of your shopping cart, you listened as Robin and Eddie’s laughter filled the aisle. As he likely picked her up and spun her around, based on the sudden thump of feet you heard a short while after.

“And who is your friend here?” he asked, stepping closer to you. And when you turned, he stiffened, voice a little high and tight as he choked, “Buttercup?”

“It’s me,” you offered weakly, feeling very much like you’d stepped into an episode of The Twilight Zone. “Guess you’re back from California.”

The words came out harsher than you intended. Barbed in a way that felt unfamiliar to you. Especially with Robin standing uncomfortably in the distance, shifting on the balls of her feet, eyes dancing between the two of you like she didn’t know who she should focus her attention on solely.

“And you’re…here. In Hawkins,” he murmured, sounding a little breathless, hand reaching out to touch like he thought you might float away into the wind before his eyes. You didn’t even think he noticed what he was doing, but you stepped back all the same, an arm coming to cross over your chest, head angling away from him. “I, uhm. Sorry, sorry — can we talk?”

Hurt seared anew in your chest, eyes meeting Robin’s briefly. The other woman shrugged, and you faced Eddie once more. “I don’t know what we could possibly —”

“Five minutes,” he offered, biting at his bottom lip. “Just…five minutes.”

“I’ll go up front to check out. Give me the car keys,” Robin said, just as your resolve crumbled a bit and you dipped your head curtly. You did as told and she flashed you a weak smile, pushing the cart along. Her head whirled around. “Don’t forget you have an appointment soon. I’ll come get you if you’re still talking after five minutes.”

“Thanks, Rob. We won’t be long, don't worry.”

You waved, following Eddie out the sliding front doors to the supermarket, stomach lodged high in your throat.

——

Of all the things you imagined he might say if you saw him again, “You know, I really hoped you’d call,” was definitely not one of them. And it was exactly what he’d said as you stepped out into the street, tugging your winter coat tighter to your body to block out the chill in the air.

Hot anger pooled in your veins. Fists balled up at your sides. Those angry hormones Robin spoke of? You felt them building at his statement, forming a cyclone of whirling emotion, anger like acid on your tongue as you snapped back, “Are you kidding me? I did call you, Eddie. I fucking called you to tell you I was pregnant and you hung up on me. I can’t believe you just said that. You know, I already thought you were an asshole, but that took the —”

You’d started walking away from him, wanting to run back inside the store and pretend this whole ordeal had never happened. Five minutes had been a joke, you’d only made it thirty seconds before he’d gone and opened his mouth and infuriated you further than you already had been toward the man.

But then you heard it. The choked whoosh of breath, the wobbly, “What did you just say?”

There was another sharp inhale of breath. Staggered, like he’d suffered through it, his palm coming to rest over his sternum. Fear propelled you toward him, a hand coming to rest over his back as he hunched forward a bit, trying to catch his breath.

“Eddie…what’s happening right now?” Your voice was so quiet you worried he might not have heard you over the harsh gasps he tried to draw into ragged lungs.

Something like a moaned curse ripped from his lips and he dropped down into a crouch, back against a lamppost, seemingly the only thing holding him upright. You got down on your knees in front of him, rubbing along the taut muscles of his shoulders, tensed in his panic.

“Hey…” you whispered, completely confused as to what the hell was going on. And yet, he looked so broken, forehead on his knees, arms around his shins, trying to get a hold of himself. “Deep breaths, okay? Follow me.”

He listened to your words as you coached him through a few deeper breaths. Watched as his shoulders loosened up, as his lungs started to expand further, and the wheezing died down into a quiet whisper. Finally, he looked upward — at you, at your face, and your own breath faltered. Watery, his eyes were watery and you could see the confusion there. The unfathomable and unimaginable hurt.

“Why…why does it seem like this is the first time you’re…hearing this…”

“Because it is, god damn it,” he groaned. “Did you really think — you thought — I wouldn’t have —”

“I don’t really even know you,” you retaliated, following after him as he shot up and began walking the opposite direction of the store you’d come from. “Will you slow down?!”

“Should I be concerned that there’s a woman chasing you across the parking lot, Munson?” Robin barked out a laugh, pushing your shared cart along the parking lot, stopping when she reached where you presently stood, watching Eddie walk back and forth, still trying to gather himself. To you, she whispered, “Is he okay?”

“I’m…I’m not sure,” you said, frowning when he turned back around and brushed the back of his hand along his eyes, then glanced down at your midsection, hidden behind the layers of your now zipped jacket. “Hey, Eddie? I think we need to go somewhere and talk.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, nodding, those curls around his shoulder bobbing with the movement, “yeah, I think we can start there.”

“I have an hour before my doctor’s appointment,” you told him, then glanced at Robin. “If Eddie drives me to the diner, can you drive my car? And I can always walk to my doctor’s office.”

“I’m not making you walk in the cold.” Eddie shook his head. “I’ll — I can drop you off or something.”

Robin took your keys hesitantly, eying you both once more. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Robin asked you quietly. At your nod, she added, “This doesn’t sound like Eddie if he’s who I’m thinking he is. He’s a good guy, babe. Just…maybe hear him out, okay? No angry hormones.”

“No angry hormones,” you promised, and watched as Eddie and Robin loaded up your trunk with the groceries you bought.

Once your friend pulled out of the parking lot, it was time for you to climb into Eddie’s van. He rushed around to open the door for you, and held a hand out as you clambered up on in, heart thudding at the fleeting contact with the man after two months without. Hated that even now you felt that immediate rush, the jolt in your system that you’d felt that night.

He hopped in on the other side and watched your face as you angled your head over your shoulder at the back of the vehicle. Your yet unvoiced immediate thoughts as you took in your surroundings were quieted by his rapidly uttered, “I…can make it safer. For —” He glanced down again, “well, you know.”

Uncomfortable silence settled over the vehicle, the gentle hum of whatever music Eddie had put on immediately lowered when you jolted to life at the first blaring notes that spilled out. Scenery fluttered on by as your forehead pressed against the glass window, fingers curled into a fist on your lap, tension roiling in your form.

The diner appeared out of the corner of your eye, its neon glowing sign declaring they were open twenty four hours catching your eye as you dropped down from the passenger side door and joined Eddie on the sidewalk. He opened the door for you as you both approached and helped pull out a chair, that boyish smile on his face you so vividly remembered playing on his lips as he dropped down across from you and asked the nearest waitress for some water and a set of menus.

“I just want a giant plate of fries,” you groaned, practically tasting them in all their potatoey goodness.

“And a plate of fries for the lady, please!” Eddie called out just before the waitress slipped out of earshot. “I…it’s good to see you. You look great.”

“You too.” Your fingers balled up your straw wrapper, rolled it along the table mindlessly. “So, I guess we should rip the bandaid off and start at the beginning?”

“Beginning is good.”

“About a month after we’d been together I started feeling sick. So naturally I went to the doctor and, well, surprise.” You gestured vaguely to your form. “That’s when I called you. Or I thought I did? But the look on your face back there….Eddie, I’m so sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” He laughed, a dark sounding laugh that made your fingers twitch around your glass, refraining from reaching over to comfort the man. “You tried to tell me. Fuck — I’m going to find out who it was. But you have to know I’d never just…abandon my kid. Please know that. I might be scared as shit, but I wouldn’t abandon them like that. Wouldn’t abandon their mother like that either.”

“So you’re okay with it?” Fear gripped your chest, head lifting to look at him over the top of your glass of water. “Because you’re oddly calm about this at the moment and I just want to remind you this isn’t some kind of thing someone can half commit to. I — we have at least eighteen years ahead of us.”

“I understand that,” he said earnestly, an edge of harshness to his tone. His eyes narrowed a bit. “My dad was a piece of shit. I’m not about to follow in his footsteps.”

“I’m sorry,” you blurted, swallowing thickly, “I didn’t mean to insinuate anything by it. I’m just —”

“You’re a mother, I get it.”

It was the first time someone acknowledged it. The first time maybe you’d even acknowledged it. A mother; you were a mother. Not going to be — a present state.

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“I…I want to be there. In any way that I can. I know you’re doing most of the work right now, but I want you to know I’m here.” He exhaled deeply, hand coming to swipe over his jaw, rubbing gently. “I want to be here. For you,” he glanced down, “and them.”

“Okay. I guess we’re doing this.”

“We’re doing this,” he agreed.

Silence settled over the two of you as a waitress appeared with your drinks and the plate of fries you decided you might as well share with Eddie. You wanted it to be awkward. Wanted it to be stilted, but he was just as charming as the night you’d first met him. Boisterous laughter, jokes that made your sides hurt, wide grins that made something swoop low in your belly.

“How was California?”

“Good — warmer than here at least. We recorded the album and we’re really happy with the result. It’s very true to our roots, which is what we wanted,” he said, tossing another fry into his mouth. “We might do a tour, but we have a year. Which…works out, given our current circumstances. Just how pregnant are you right now anyway?”

“Four months,” you told him, sipping at your water.

“How are you feeling?”

“Uhm, in the beginning I was really sick. But luckily the past couple of weeks have been better,” you explained, offering him a smile when he grimaced. “I have pictures. I’ve kept copies in my bag…it’s silly, I know. Do you want to see them?”

“Can I?” He pressed his fist to his mouth as you slipped your hand into your pocketbook and fished out the small black and white images of varying stages throughout the past couple of months. You laid the first one in front of him, laughing as he squinted to try and figure out what exactly he was looking at. “It looks like a bean.”

“It kind of was. That was the first appointment,” you told him, handing him the most recent one after. “And this is my most recent appointment.”

His fingers glided over the curve of the spine. The shape of the head. Marveled at it with glassy eyes, your fingers curling over the leather of his jacket, right around his wrist to offer him some modicum of comfort. Allowed him to have a moment to let it all sink in. It had to be overwhelming. It had been, and still often was, for you to sit down and really accept that all of this was real.

He’d only had minutes to accept the news that his life as he knew it had changed, you had months.

“We should leave for my appointment soon,” you said, tucking away your napkin on the table.

“Would it be weird if I asked to come?” he asked, sounding so hopeful, younger than you knew him to be.

“It’s not weird. I mean, they’re half you, right?” you told him, watching him sign his signature on the receipt handed over by the waitress in passing before tucking it away. “But, uh, sure. Yeah.”

He lifted the picture of his unborn baby once more, grinned to himself, thumb brushing over the curve of their head. “Thank you.”

——

Father.

Eddie Munson hadn’t really ever had a good example of what that word stood for. For him, ‘father’ was the man who only came around every so often to ask his mother for money when she’d been alive. For drugs, to get himself out of a horrible situation, to try and pay a bill. For Eddie, father was the guy who taught him how to hotwire a car, the man who gave him his first black eye, someone who blamed his son for his every lot in life.

But as he grew, father became morning coffees with Wayne outside as the sun rose high over Hawkins. It meant putting up a Christmas tree around the holidays that looked more like a bush with lights than anything else. It meant learning how to fix cars with his hands, encouraging words to get him through high school, a call late at night when he was out of town working on his dreams of making music.

Right now, father was the word the technician had used when she asked you to confirm who he was to the baby when he sat down in that little office with you. It was the word she used when she asked him to fill out paperwork on his history, the word his soul screamed at him when he finally heard that tiny heartbeat working overtime.

His little ‘Party Favor’ he’d teased as you both walked back out toward the van after scheduling your next ultrasound. Twenty weeks, the big one, they’d told you both.

“Please don’t call our baby a party favor ever again,” you’d grumbled as you hoisted yourself up into the passenger seat, but he knew from the smile tugging at your lips when he settled down on the driver’s side that you hadn’t meant it.

“Where are you staying these days?” he asked, thumb curling around the steering wheel. “So I can drive you home.”

He hadn’t expected you to rattle off Steve’s address, but when you did, his eyes widened and you immediately asked, “Do you know where that is?”

“Kind of,” he said, turning his head to take in your pretty features. While he knew it probably wasn’t the best time to be admiring you as such, you looked so damn breathtaking his stomach twisted with it, “seeing as he’s my best friend.”

“Why am I not surprised? This day just keeps getting weirder.” You laughed, staring out into the streets as a gentle snow began to fall. “I happen to move to your hometown, where I also happen to then move into your best friend’s house.”

“I didn’t know you knew Robin.”

“It’s a small world.”

“And apparently getting smaller,” he said, eyes ahead on the road as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Thank you. For letting me come.”

The answer was silence. You’d curled up against the car door, forehead against the glass, mouth parted gently, lashes flush against the tops of your cheeks. His eyes drifted downward, to where your pocketbook rested next to your hip and your arm curled over your middle. Peaceful, you looked so peaceful — just like that night you’d spent together, where he’d watched as your eyes had started to flutter closed halfway through the movie and he’d held his breath as you rolled over and sought out the heat of his body.

He hadn’t lied. He didn’t have nights like those often. Had never even intended to go to that party that night. He’d only gone because the rest of the guys wanted to get out of the hotel for a bit and ended up rushing to put together a costume with less than a day’s notice. You’d sat at that bar, hunched over and bored and he’d been curious. He just never expected you to turn around, nor had he expected spending hours laughing with you over your drinks, or finding yourselves twisted in bedsheets.

And so much changed in a short four months. A stranger — you were mostly a stranger and now you were having his kid. Today, you’d been an acquaintance? A friend? He wasn’t sure what to think about it all. He still hadn’t fully processed the fact he would be a father in a few months to an innocent human being. Something so impressionable and his to raise.

He supposed that was also a conversation for another day. Something else to ponder after he dropped you off for the night and laid down for bed. Sighing, he shifted the car into park and glanced up at the front porch lamp hanging on the front of Steve Harrington’s doorway. He waved as Chrissy poked her head through the front curtains and noticed your sleeping form in the front seat.

Steve appeared in the doorway next, baby Melody on his hip as Eddie dropped down out of the van and rushed around the vehicle. “Say hi to Uncle Eddie,” Steve called out, holding up the baby’s hand in a little wave.

He waved back at the girl with a beaming gummy smile and tugged the door open, catching your shoulder as you rolled against the seatbelt a bit, eyes jolting open. “Hey, hey. You fell asleep, it’s just me.”

Your eyes searched his face in the night, and his heart lurched at the way they softened in recognition. “I’m sorry. You were talking and that was so rude of me I —”

“All good. I’m glad you got some sleep,” he chuckled, holding out a hand as you dropped down from the front seat and wobbled a bit before steadying yourself. “We’re here.”

The two of you made your way into the household, varying degrees of curious stares gliding over your forms as you stepped through the threshold. The first of which being Chrissy, who seemed unsure whether she wanted to keep her eyes on him or you.

“So you two have met it seems,” Steve said, “guess we don't have to get introductions out of the way.”

“We’ve met,” you muttered quietly, dipping your head as you yawned. A hand splayed over your midsection and Eddie watched the trail of your gaze stop on him. “Thanks for driving me today. I’m really tired and I should probably get to bed early.”

“Uh — y-yeah. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight everyone.” And you were gone, back trailing down the hallway toward the downstairs basement, the door shutting behind you with a resounding click.

There was a beat of silence, then, “Why didn’t you tell me she was living here?”

“What do you mean, you asshole? First time I see you in months and that’s the first thing you say?”

“That’s her.”

“The girl from the party?” Steve asked, mouth agape as Chrissy stepped forward to take the baby from him. She bounced their daughter around the kitchen island, pretending she wasn’t listening with her back to them, but Eddie knew better. Couldn’t fault her for wanting to protect a friend. “That’s the girl you couldn’t shut up about? Buttercup?”

“I need a drink. A strong one,” Eddie rasped, pulling out one of the island barstools. Propped his elbows on the counter and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “First I’m thinking when I see her at the store, ‘wow, maybe I get a second chance at this.’ Has to be, since she ends up here of all places. And then I find out she’s pregnant with my baby and I —”

“You hung up on her,” Chrissy interjected. Steve raised a brow in her direction. “Sorry. I just…you didn’t see her when she came to town.”

“But that’s the thing.” He paused to thank Steve as he dropped a glass in front of him on the table. “I didn’t know. I would have been on a plane if I knew. I hate thinking she’s been alone in all of this. And I know the day she was referring to. We’d had some stupid party after we’d finished the album and played some of the new songs for fun and we had some people over. She talked to someone, but I swear it wasn’t me.”

“We believe you,” Steve promised, settling down beside his friend. A hand curled around Eddie’s forearm and gave a tight squeeze. “How are you feeling?”

He groaned a hoarse cry of ‘fuck’ into his fist, head shaking back and forth. “I’m scared, man. I tried to be brave for her today, but I don’t even know the first thing about kids. In what universe did someone think I’d be fit to be a dad?”

“In all of them, Ed,” Chrissy sighed, coming up to rest a hand on her husband’s shoulder. Steve reached over and slid his palm over her smaller one, oozing that sweet fondness that most people only ever dreamed of. “You’re a good man. Don’t sell yourself short. You have a few months to figure out all the rest.”

“You told her you’re going to be there for her, right? I mean, if that’s what you want?” Steve asked, eyes intently searching his best friend’s face.

“Yeah.” Eddie sighed, taking a large gulp of his drink. “I mean, not much I can do right now, but I’m going to be in whatever way she wants me to be.” His hand swiped down the front of his face.

“I’m going to put her down for bed and head up. Love you two.” Chrissy moved to exit the room, dropping a kiss to the top of Eddie’s head and shoving the back of it teasingly into the kitchen island. Once he’d bursted into a laugh, she bounced the baby higher on her hip and said, “And Eddie. It’s going to be okay. You have all of us too. You’re not alone; neither of you are. Don’t forget that.”

He sure hoped so.

Long after Chrissy had gone up for bed, and Eddie grabbed his jacket from the front coat hanger rack, Steve stopped him in the doorway. Pulled him in for a hug Eddie would normally end up throwing a fist into Steve’s stomach jokingly for. This time he clapped him on the back and let his lungs fully deflate. A sigh he’d been holding onto all afternoon released, the tension in his body along with it.

“To me, it looks like you got a second chance with her. Might look different than you thought it would, but you got a second chance. Whether that’s as co-parents, friends, or more — you still have something,” Steve told him, stepping back to open the door for his friend. “I’d take advantage of that opportunity. Not everyone gets one.”

And damn it, he decided he would.

——

let me know what you think! 💌 see you again next week for chapter three, titled ‘roommates.’ 😉

#lunaloveseddie #Eddie munson x reader #Eddie munson x you #eddie munson x pregnant!reader #eddie munson x f!reader

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