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pinkrelish · 1 year

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𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐲𝐞𝐬" 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐲.

singledad!mechanic!eddie x fem!reader

✶Casual was much harder rule to abide by when Eddie spent more time with you, as facilitated by his daughter. Dialed back was a flirting style you weren't accustomed to, and proved near-impossible to follow when Eddie's lips were pressed to your ear.✶

NSFW — slow burn, fluff, flirting, mutual pining, slight scent kink, allusion to jerking off, reader wears eddie's jacket, drug/alcohol mention/use, depictions of poverty, 18+ overall for eventual smut

chapter: 5/20 [wc: 15.1k]

↳ part 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 10 / 11 / 12

AO3

Chapter 5: You're Gonna Get Me in Trouble

————

The days of the week lost their meaning in the best way. Turning from one to the next like the colors of the leaves. Falling in and out of obscurity. What was a Monday, when Monday felt like Friday? And what was a Friday, when the familiar clicking sound of your bicycle spokes found him on a Saturday?

The days blurred. The edges sharpened. They were long when the sun was short. They were beautiful, and aggressively tender, including the lows, because the lows themselves used to be the highs.

The days swirled into an everlasting seasoned breeze of cherished moments. Too many to fill the memories of those collecting them. Glimpses into a life of pleasantness–of contentedness–if one were to grasp them.

————

Leather. Vanilla cologne. Spicy deodorant and earthy tobacco.

You grabbed the cuffs of your sweater into your fists and worked your arms down the sleeves of Eddie’s jacket before grabbing your bike from the porch, and setting off on your shortcut through the frosty grass.

The farther you journeyed, the more you smelled like him. The more you sounded like him.

In Robin’s driveway, cigarette smoke overwhelmed your nose, but as your skin warmed from exertion, the nuances appeared. The natural musk clinging to the inside lining, and the artificial fragrances on top, now enveloping you. You turned onto the main road leading to the auto shop, and the chains on the sleeve cuff clinked against the broken zipper. Bouncing your tire up onto the sidewalk, the snap tab collar jangled in time with the small rocks you rode over on the way to the front employee door. You dismounted your bike in a fluid motion, and the supple leather made to fit Eddie creaked and groaned as you got out your keys.

The door opposite you in the garage was ajar, meaning he was smoking in the alleyway.

Quietly, you went to the break room, and said your peace. “Boy’s clothes are always better.”

Standing in front of the coat hooks, you slipped your hands into the pockets and pulled out the items for no other reason than to observe them in remembrance, as if you hadn’t inspected them for hours over the weekend. A half-empty pack of Camels crowded with rolling papers. Translucent green BIC lighter. A grocery receipt from two weeks ago with an obscene amount of pasta and marinara listed on it. A peppermint candy wrapper you could now confirm came from the candy dish on your desk intended for customers. And, of course, a tiny blue high heel shoe belonging to a Barbie doll. Because what father wouldn’t have that in their pocket.

Returning the items from whence they came, you fished a strip of paper out of your jeans, and added it to his treasure.

You removed the warmth you’d become accustomed to, and stared at the coat hook. You glanced down the hallway. Listened for Eddie.

Silence pressed in on you.

Intentionally, after spending more time doing this in bed than you cared to admit, you found his scent to be the strongest on the inside of the collar, and brought it to your nose.

Hugging the jacket to your chest, you inhaled deep, and sighed.

Years of the leather being draped around his neck did wonders for your loneliness since moving here. Last night you caved despite the voice in your head telling you it was weird to find comfort in your coworker’s belongings. As you stared into pitch-black attic, laying alone in a borrowed twin size bed with someone else’s parent’s hand-me-down blankets, cold, and without the glow or noise of the city to keep you company, you surrendered, and wrapped yourself in him. It was a split second decision, quickly overwhelmed by a sensation you hadn’t felt in quite some time. And it was an emotion you were more than happy to shove behind the other clutter in your brain, vowing you’d unpack it some other day, totally. Definitely. You’d absolutely process the heady buzz, and delightful sweat breaking out across your skin at the thought of your coworker’s arms giving you this embrace, and being able to press your nose to the crook of his neck to experience his salty taste on your tongue first-hand.

A squeaky truck passed by on the street, breaking you out of your spell.

“Good God, get a hold on yourself,” you begged aloud, and hung up the jacket.

~~~

The coffee machine sputtered liquid energy into the pot, signifying the end of your morning chores. And yet, Eddie had not made his appearance, whether it was wanted or not, depending on if he was hiding around a corner, or doing the thing he did where he stood next to you and looked like he wanted to say something, but never did.

The back door was still ajar. You poked your head out, and he was there, leaning against the wall. The stubby end of his cigarette was pinched between his forefinger and thumb with a trail of smoke coming off of it.

Early sunrays pierced the tree-lined horizon, gilding the silhouette of his nose in brilliant beauty. He heard you step onto the rocks, and rolled his head to the side to watch you stand between him and his car. The sun caught his hair. Glanced off the gentle slope of his cheek. Caused him to squint one of his eyes, and wrench his mouth into a lopsided grimace.

“Good morning,” he was first to say.

“Good morning,” you replied brightly. “You cut your hair.” By the way his face fell, you gathered he assumed no one would notice, but the feathery edge of his bangs curled higher onto his forehead, flaunting the harsher shadows of his confusion. You reassured him, “It looks good.”

He continued to stare at you without an emotion you could decipher.

“Really good?” you added, thinking he was seeking a better compliment.

With a soft smile and averted gaze, he flicked the ash from his cigarette, and admitted, “Sometimes I have problems vocalizing my thoughts before they’re gone, and I forget you can’t hear them if I don’t blurt them out. Luckily, my daughter demonstrated much better manners than I did, and thanked you for her costume, while I–”

“Waved for an obscenely long time, and then made fun of me,” you finished.

On cue, you both made eyes at each other, and looked away.

The sun couldn’t compete with his smile. The birdsong couldn’t compete with your giggle.

“Yeah,” he exhaled in a croaky groan. “I did do that, didn't I?” You shrugged and told him it didn’t bother you. It was just how you teased each other. “Still, thank you for putting in so much effort to make it special for her. She was crazy excited when she saw it. My uncle, too. I–uh, I appreciate you doing that for us more than I let on.”

“I know you do.” While Eddie may not have shared many of the details of his life prior to your arrival in Hawkins, it was evident in his every decision that people were not frequently kind to him, and the simple act of noticing he trimmed his bangs was something he’d think about for days.

“You think my hair looks good?” he asked, circling back to the original topic.

“The bangs, or everything?”

After a beat of consideration, he ventured, “Everything?”

You tilted your head. “Oh, it’s outdated. Messy. Unprofessional and like you just woke up from a 7-year coma. The worst case of bed head I’ve ever seen. More like a bird’s nest after a storm than anything, but yeah, it suits you. Can’t picture you with any other hairstyle, to be honest.” His expression was a mixture of bafflement, yet also flattery. You put emphasis on the latter. “I love it. It’s wild. I think you look good,” followed by, “for a weirdo,” to dodge the implication of calling him attractive.

In the long seconds that ensued, you rocked from foot to foot, waiting for him to say anything. Do anything besides stare at you with a slight smirk. Anything at all to make you feel like your nervous habits weren’t being examined under a microscope.

Cheeks suitably burning from the shyness of saying too much, you tugged your sleeves into your sweaty palms, and pivoted while saying, “Welp, time for me to be anywhere else on Earth but here.”

You swung open the door to the garage and he spoke up.

“You look pretty today.”

Halting your momentum on a dime, you slid your gaze from the floor to him–to his way of pressing his shoulder blades to the brick wall, leaning his full weight into the pose, arms crossed over his chest, cigarette between his lips, eyes set on you with an irresistible amount of tenderness to them.

You said, “Thank you, handsome,” and left the door open behind you.

But before you walked inside, before you blinked away, you watched that tenderness widen to excitement. You saw the soft curve of his mouth stretch to a smile. Heard him expel his breath in a single stunned laugh. And you listened to his voice fade as he turned his face up to the sky, and took the final drag on his cigarette with a smug mumble of, “Knew it.”

————

The next morning you stared at the full coffee pot suspiciously. The countertop was wiped clean and the powder creamer container was replaced, alongside the sugar packets being restocked.

Still wearing your backpack, you slipped off one strap, swung it around to unzip the top, and put away your lunch in the fridge. While bent over, you surveyed the room again, and narrowed your eyes at the shiny glass pot filled with dark brown coffee.

A certain someone was feeling generous today, helping you out with your morning chores, and that certain someone was currently sneaking behind your desk.

Pretending to mull over who could do such a courteous thing for you, you ran your finger over the packets. Neatened the coffee stirrers. Hummed a pleasing tune as you left the room with heavy steps. Stomp, stomp, stomp, all the way to the end of the hallway, meandering just before you would turn to sit at your desk.

“Raaah!” Eddie jumped from behind the wall–hunched over, hands clawed at you, face etched with utter deviousness, grinning broadly to bare his teeth.

You took the coffee stirrer and thwacked him on the forehead before sidestepping to your chair.

His wickedness withered away. “Hey,” he complained, rubbing the sore spot. “How did you–?”

“Your reflection, dork.”

He clicked his tongue and peered down the hall at the full coffee pot and microwave door, both giving away his movements. “Damnit.”

————

Lunches together became the norm.

Even after Carl and Kevin left the room to ruminate over the real clunker of a car that came in yesterday, you and Eddie remained crowded together on one side of the round table, eating.

You swiped the crumbs from your sandwich into your container. “How’s Adrie’s sleep been? I thought the whole ‘regression’ thing was just for babies.”

Eddie spoke with his mouth full of half-chewed spaghetti, gesturing with his fork, “Usually, yeah. It’s more like she has nightmares ‘nd stuff. Scared of the dark. Monsters under the bed. That sorta thing.” He hadn’t even swallowed before dipping his garlic toast in the marinara sauce and taking a bite. “It’s gotten better, though. I think only one nightmare these past two weeks.”

It happened last Wednesday. You remembered. After your boss and the other guys went home, Eddie fell asleep at the table, and you turned off the lights for him, letting him rest after taking his work jacket off the hook and placing it over his shoulders. He always pretends to not be awake when you do that, but you could tell from his breathing when he was awake and when he wasn’t.

“That’s good,” you said. “I had a talk with her on Halloween about how the dark wasn’t so scary; how she was a bat and bats love the dark, and I’m a mouse, we’re nocturnal, nighttime is just like daytime and there’s nothing to be afraid of, yada yada..” You trailed off upon seeing the faint shadow of his dimple flourish. “What?”

“That’s a genius move,” he said, impressed. “You sure you’re not a parent?”

You wanted to continue the conversation, you really did, but..

Sighing, you closed your eyes. “Eddie, you have sauce–just–all over your mouth.”

“–Shit, sorry.” Intent on rushing to the stack of napkins near the sink, he didn’t notice how close you were, and stumbled into your chair when standing up.

He caught himself on you. His hands were heavy on your shoulders as he regained his balance. Landing there on accident, yet it felt on purpose when they remained a moment longer, benefitting from your innate response to clasp your hands over his wrists and ask if he were all right, looking up at him with wide eyes of concern and your cheek pressed to his forearm.

He cursed another apology from above your head, and withdrew his grip–but only after you let go, too.

————

“Oh, Adrie, I found that shoe you were.. looking.. for?”

It was the weekend before Eddie managed to wear his leather jacket. He reached into the pocket after coming inside from smoking on the makeshift porch attached to the front of his uncle’s trailer, and uncurled his fingers.

The blue high heel rolled across his palm along with a folded piece of paper.

Jutting his bottom lip in confusion, he gave his daughter the shoe, and as she galloped to her room to play with her dolls, he opened the note.

sorry i stole your jacket

come to me for a prize when you find this :)

if you find this

So that’s why you gave him that weird expectant look every morning..

————

Facing you on the other side of your desk after a customer left the lobby with their receipt, Eddie held up the note pinched between his index and middle fingers. “What’s my prize?”

Elated, your eyes lit up at the sight, and you motioned for him to give it to you while you held the phone to your ear with your shoulder, and continued your conversation with the auto parts dealer. “So–Yeah, three of those,” you went on, making a note with your pencil on where you left off in the catalog. “Yes, the smaller size, please.” You wrote something on the back of the paper and gave it to him.

Eddie snatched it–darting his eyes over your handwriting–and his excitement melted.

you finally cleaned out your pockets

your prize is a job well done ♡

“That’s not a prize,” he said, face falling into a pouty glare.

Unamused by his inability to keep his mouth shut when you were clearly busy, you turned your hand over as if to ask ‘what did you expect?’ and directed a question at the man over the phone.

Not one to be ignored, Eddie began searching through the candy dish for a treasure to appease his appetite for a reward, and spilled peppermints over the side as he dug to the bottom.

You made a shushing gesture at him, widening your eyes at the crinkling wrappers interrupting you. “You’re out of those? Okay, then, I’ll move on to the door handle replacement. Let me just find the model number,” you spoke evenly into the receiver.

Eddie grunted, not finding what he was looking for.

You snapped your fingers at him, and pressed the phone to your chest to muffle yourself, “Do you not have a job or something?”

He held up a pink Now and Later, and asked in a stage-whisper, “Where’s all the butterscotch candy?”

“Bu–What?” you balked. “You ate them all? Those are for customers, Eddie! Yes, I’m still here,” you rattled off a make and model for the car. Eddie’s eyebrows rose at the quick switch from your speaking voice, to your cloyingly sweet customer service nasally octave, and back down to your annoyed tone at him. “Stop eating candy not meant for you and get back to work. You’re distracting me, you absolute nuisance.”

“Can you buy more butterscotch ones? Those are my favorite.”

“Sure, gramps, I’ll get right on it.”

Undeterred, or perhaps spurred on by earning your attention, he flattened his stomach to the ledge, and leaned over, invading your space to grab a stack of Post-it notes from the far end of your desk. Your Post-It notes. Your Post-It notes in his scuffed up, greasy hands, and his wavy hair sweeping from over his shoulders to block you from reading the lines of numbers and letters you were about to recite.

“What’re you..” You gave up when he grabbed your favorite pen.

You slid the catalog into your lap and turned away from him, facing the wall as you ordered the rest of the parts you needed, ending the call with an unintentional chat about the mild autumn weather–two minutes tops–and spun around to no one. Eddie had gone out to the garage. But not before sticking a note right smack dab in the middle of your desk where you couldn’t ignore it.

BUY MORE BUTTERSCOTCH

-EM

His initials. It was silly, but two months into knowing him, and you’d never heard his last name. It wasn’t said aloud by him, his friends, or the other mechanics. Maybe you’d remember to ask him what it is one day.

————

Eddie had one rule–no reading over his shoulder when he was writing in his black notebook.

“Oh, chill,” you scolded him. “I’m here to microwave my lunch, not read your diary.”

Mr. Moore was out of office and the photocopier was broken, meaning you had to bike to the drug store and use theirs, missing your lunch break. With Eddie being the only mechanic in today, and having no customers, he made himself at home over the hour you were gone to catch up on.. whatever it was he was catching up on.

He slammed the thin red book shut and flipped it over. And when he thought that wasn’t good enough, he smashed the looseleaf papers back into his binder, closed it, and scrambled for his notebook, tearing through it like a wild animal until he found a blank page. Quick–He spun in his chair and laced his fingers in his lap, donning a weak smile. About as composed as a floundering fish.

A pink flush crept up his neck, and his heavy breathing caused his unbuttoned coveralls to open wider over his chest, showing more than a glimpse at his black shirt underneath, stretched taut across his pecs.

His pencil dropped to the floor.

“Uh, hey. Didn’t hear you walk in.”

“Yeah, that much was obvious,” you snorted.

“What took you so long? I thought it’d be, like, 15 minutes tops. You could’ve read the manual and fixed our own copier by now.”

You popped open the lid to your container, and placed it in the microwave. “I’d rather jump off a bridge than sit there and read instructions. Anyway, I took a detour to see an apart–”

“Actually, that’s a good question. Would you jump off a bridge if someone asked, with your policy and all?”

“I’m not dignifying that with a response.” You punched two minutes on the timer. “As I was saying–Do you know that motel that closed down on Cypress? Bobbie told me it was a little mom-and-pop place that struggled to compete with the Motel 6.”

Perplexed as to where this was going, he squinted, and answered with a tepid, “Yeah?”

“Well,” you explained, “apparently someone bought the building and has been renovating them into apartments. I guess it wasn’t in too bad of a shape, with them just knocking down a few walls to make them into two bedrooms, and stuff. Bigger kitchens, whatever.” His features softened. The fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes lessened, and the tenseness in his jaw weakened. “Bobbie met the guy who’s renovating them and, uh, they’re gonna be available sometime at the beginning of next year, and the projected rent isn’t that bad. Really manageable for the both of us. As long as her dad is getting better, we could be moving out soon. It’d be nice to not live in their attic anymore, y’know.” You ended it almost on a lilt, as if it were a question, but maybe you were just goading him into saying what was on his mind, because with the way he was looking at you, you had no idea what had him so captivated.

“I–Yeah, I know the place you’re talking about. It’s just a few minutes from here.” And he added helpfully, “It’d be a shorter commute to work.”

“Yeah!” you exhaled, nodding in agreement. “Shorter commute.”

“Yeah,” he said again, allowing the information to wash over you both in different ways. “Closer to the grocery store, too.”

“Yeah. Yeah, and the laundromat.”

Eddie raised his brows. “Oh, nice. I use that place when our washing machine is broken.”

By some miracle you kept your mouth shut, saving yourselves the trouble of listing more establishments you’d be near when you moved. He must’ve realized the awkwardness as well, because he fidgeted with his fingers sheepishly.

“So, does that mean you’re staying in Hawkins?”

Hearing him take interest in your future kicked up your heart rate. It could be coming from a place of blunt curiosity, or conversational politeness, but like hell if your adrenaline didn’t surge from the unmistakable way he leaned in, hanging onto your every word, as the warm hum of the microwave served as background music to the glimmer of eagerness in his eyes.

Downplaying your excitement, you told him one eensy-weensy tiny caveat about your situation, “I am, but Robin’s moving in with Vickie at some point–don’t know when, but probably by the end of summer when she goes back to Indianapolis.. so.”

“And after that?”

“Dunno. I can float rent and bills by myself for a few months, but I’m not sure after that. Could tag along with them to the city, or stay here and, y’know, keep answering phones and annoying my favorite mechanic like I do now. Maybe even find someone willing to go on another date with me, since my first one was a bust.” He didn’t laugh. “Who knows. Maybe I’ll end up back in New York and audition for Cats.” You threw it out there as an outlandish possibility without serious consideration, and you thought you conveyed that through your jokey tone.

The microwave beeped.

You turned around, missing the way Eddie averted his gaze down and away before speaking.

“Just waiting for the next big thing to catch your eye and sweep you away, huh?”

“Not the first time you said that,” you commented teasingly, thinking you were still playing with each other. You grabbed your steaming rice and stirred it with a fork from the cutlery drawer. “What’s wrong? Afraid of not having a pretty girl sit across from you at lunch every day? Scared some other mechanic’s gonna need a receptionist, and then I’ll be gone? Or are you worried you’ll actually miss me if I leave?”

You giggled at your melodramatic phrasing and waited for him to respond. And when he didn’t, you looked over at him.

His shoulders rose and fell with his steady breaths as he thumbed through his notebook, mouth in a flat line.

Confusion stung embarrassment to your cheeks. Holding the hot tupperware, you asked, “Are we not eating together?”

He opened the binder and shifted closer to the table, scraping the chair legs across the tile, signifying the end of the conversation. Worse, still, he spoke in what would be a casual tone, if it weren’t for his rejective back facing you. “Actually, I’m trying to finish this,” he said, putting his pencil to the page and continuing the sentence where he left off.

“Oh.. Okay.”

You walked out the room and sat at your desk. Alone. Glaring at the stupid grains of rice and moving them around with your stupid fork and slouching over to rest your stupid cheek on your stupid fist.

Were you really less interesting than whatever he was writing in that notebook of his?

“Maybe I will find a bridge to jump off of,” you concluded, deciding you’d clock out on time in order to preserve your dignity. At least Robin would be home, and she would be honored to hang out with you.

————

An apology of sorts waited for you on your desk the next morning.

Three fresh-picked flowers in a chipped vase with a torn square of lined paper beside it.

YOURE RIGHT

I WOULD MISS

EATING WITH YOU

IM SORRY

-EM

The bud vase was from his home, the paper from his spiral bound notebook, and the dew-coated flowers from Hawkin’s soil–the last of their kind before the season put them to sleep.

Eddie wouldn’t be coming in today; he had the day off to take Adrie to the dentist. So, he woke up early to leave this peace offering when he could be sleeping in.

You set your elbows on you desk, and laced your fingers to rest your chin atop them, taking in the finer details of the periwinkle blue asters. After a moment, you traced your knuckle along your grin, and nibbled at the skin.

“So silly.”

————

And the morning after that, Eddie strayed from his bee line for coffee to approach you with a familiar meek posture; head lowered in deference, and a pouty expression of remorse on his lips.

The glass candy dish shined like a chest of golden coins awaiting him.

He folded his forearms on the ledge, and picked one of the butterscotch candies on top, pulling either end of the wrapper to unfurl it until the lustrous surface of the sweet flashed under the lobby’s lights.

You sank into your chair and watched him sweep his gaze across your desk in search of the flowers, and after not seeing them, he popped the candy in his mouth, and mumbled, “Does this mean you forgive me?”

Flitting your focus back and forth between his big eyes, you peered into each one, drawing out the moment by clicking your pen in thought, forcing him to sweat and fiddle with his wrapper in the echoey room. “Hmm..” You crossed your legs and shined your fingernails on your shirt, inspecting them.

His mouth twitched into a slight smile, favoring the side with his dimple.

Tipping his head so he was looking at you from under his lashes, he begged, “Come on, haven’t I groveled enough for you to have lunch with me later?” Bravery swelled his chest, jerked his chin in a smug nod once he had your attention. “Got you flowers and everything.”

You locked eyes with him for one, entire, sweet second, in which he winked at you.

Interestingly enough, you remembered you had paperwork to grab from Mr. Moore’s office, and rushed out sloppy sentences as you went, laying the sarcasm on thick to disguise the hitch in your throat, “Okay, okay, fine. I’ll have lunch with you if it’s that important to your livelihood, since you can’t live without me, or whatever.” You closed the office door behind you.

God, your face had never burned so hot.

~~~

And it was that night, when Eddie was alone with himself, he thought of the morning smiles through the glass window, and the afternoon laughs shared at the lunch table. The way you sat next to him and he moved his feet outward, spreading his legs to occupy as much space as possible. And he thought about how you accommodated him. Nudging his knee at first to test the waters, and when he responded by closing the distance between your shoe and his, you leaned towards him at the height of the story you were telling, and the length of your thigh pressed against him in a satisfying squish. He wasn’t entirely sure it was on purpose, but with the state he was in, it mattered not.

Eddie fluttered his eyes closed from blinking lazily at the shower head, stroking away the fleeting guilt of wondering if he should be testing his boundaries by thinking about you while doing this, even as his lips parted with silence, and his stomach tensed from pleasure.

Even as he held his shaky breath to keep himself mute, and his hand moved with renewed swiftness from his release mixing with his spit, and he watched the mess gather in his palm before washing it down the drain, he convinced himself.

This was so casual.

————

Saturday you went to the grocery store–AKA, hell day in hell land. You only needed a few ingredients, and figured getting out of the house for a while was better than calling Robin and asking her to pick them up for you.

However, life mocked you. After a heart-racing encounter with a truck narrowly missing you on the highway, you slowed to an agonizing stop every few feet from people blockading the aisles, taking their sweet time to decide what type of oil they wanted, when you could’ve snatched the one you needed, and moved on if they–would–just–move–a–freakin’–inch.

Least to say, by the time you made it to the baking aisle, you were mentally over it, and yet..

The cocoa powder was on the top shelf, taunting you by sight, just out of reach.

You huffed.

Rising onto your tiptoes, you employed your entire wingspan into clawing for it–tasting victory with your fingertips–but not enough to grasp the slippery plastic.

And of course no one else on the aisle was taller than you. They were hunched over walking canes, and clutching their layers of cardigans over their chests.

And of course, as you were stepping onto the bottom shelf for leverage, and becoming intimate with the bags of flour you inadvertently shoved your face into, your worst nightmare loomed behind you.

You knew it was Eddie before he spoke. You knew his gait, his smell, the sound of his laugh when he kept it in his chest. You knew his radiating warmth, his soft grunt, the way he took a sharper breath and held it for a beat before releasing it as a teasing remark. You knew the magnitude of his presence even when he was being demure. How respectful he was to invite himself into your personal space without crossing a line, squeezing his firm hand on the meat of your shoulder to let you know he was there, and heeding a modest gap between your bodies as his unbuttoned shirt brushed your sides.

He backed away half a step, and waited until you were turned around in the crowded space of him and the metal shelves to wave the tub above your head. The rings decorating his fingers glinted as he boasted, “Shucks, looks like it’s the last one too.”

You held your palm up and dropped your head to the side. “Are you gonna make me jump for it like Adrie, or are you gonna be a grown up and give it to me?”

“Give it to you? Maybe I need” –He read the label– “Cocoa powder.”

“You so do not.”

“You don’t know that,” he replied, lifting his chin at your bored expression. “If you want it..” He shifted his stance and sank into his hip, curling his bottom lip over his smirk as he peered down at you, prolonging your misery instead of just finishing his sentence. “..You can use the magic words.”

What an infuriating immovable object. Blocking everything in your view that wasn’t his red flannel thrown over a wrinkled white tee, and his rebellious hair eclipsing the fluorescent lights.

Just the worst person to rescue you from your predicament. Standing so close you could scrutinize the permanent five-o-clock shadow on his upper lip, and the wispy curls composing his sideburns.

So annoying how his hair reached the shadow of his clavicle, where a chain link necklace showed beneath his shirt, and the tendons in his neck stretched an alluring contour from the hollow of his throat to the underside of his square jaw.

His shoulders shook with a quelled snicker. “Come on,” he sang with an infuriating timbre, swaying the cocoa above you.

You met his steeped tea eyes, and insisted in a warm honey tone, “Please stop being a dickhead, and thank you for not being an asshole and handing over the cocoa.. Fucker.”

Eddie’s face cracked into the biggest grin. Beside you, a blushing grandmother shot you a scathing glare, and grabbed a bag of sugar from the shelf before tsking and walking off.

Bestowing you the tub in your hand, he wrapped his palm over top of it and didn’t let go as he bent to you. “Hey now,” he said in a lower register, voice cracking on the consonants from the remnants of his laugh, “no bad words in front of my kid. Or the elderly. Show some respect.”

You perked up. All transgressions in regards to baking ingredients were forgotten when you spotted his daughter sitting cross legged inside the shopping cart behind him. “Adrie!” You pushed Eddie out of the way, and wrapped her in a tender, heartwarming hug.

“Miss Mouse!” she cheered in equal enthusiasm, dropping the box of cereal she was reading aloud to lock her arms around your neck.

You giggled at the giddy feeling soaring in your chest, and encouraged her, “Yeah, I’m Miss Mouse.” The clunky braids Eddie put in her hair smashed against your cheek as you held each other tighter.

Taking inventory of the sparse groceries she was amongst, you spotted a pattern. “You like pasta, huh?” It was an easy guess considering there were three bags of noodles with two large jars of sauce standing out from the rice dinners and a few cans of soup. Practically a replica of the receipt you found in his pocket. But she corrected you.

“No. Daddy’s just bad at cooking.”

Your eyes bulged, and you pursed your lips to refrain from bursting out in impolite laughter. Standing up straight, you combed a few stray curls behind her ear, and whispered, “Geez, kids are ruthless.”

Eddie shifted his weight to his other foot, and gestured at the groceries with a pencil before striking out something on the short list he had written one on a pad of paper. “Eh, Wayne’s the chef of the family. She knows what she’s getting when it’s my turn to cook.”

You hummed at the new information, and went to pick your hand basket off the floor when something caught your eye–and it definitely wasn’t the leather loafers on the old man shuffling past you.

Eddie, obviously, wasn’t dressed in coveralls.

His black tennis shoes were nearly identical to the white ones he wore on Halloween, with the floppy tongues out against his light-wash blue jeans. (Very, very nice fitted jeans with holes in the knees, and a rip stretching wider across the curve of his thigh.) Dragging your gaze up, you clocked the interesting belt buckle he wore on your way to admire the soft outline of his stomach pressed against his shirt. He moved his flannel aside to stuff his shopping list in his pocket–struggling due to how tight his pants were–and incidentally showed off a smidgen of skin above the waistband of his plaid boxers.

Just a hint of skin marked with the bottom lines of a larger tattoo and you were salivating–

A loud intercom announcement sang a jingle about tortillas, and you were reminded of where you were, and where Eddie was, a few feet away from you, well aware of the places your gaze stalled before landing on his smirk.

He caught you checking him out.

Raising an eyebrow, he asked, “Find everything you were looking for?”

“I, uh–” you stuttered two words out before your brain threatened you to shut the fuck up. As an alternative, you snapped into finger guns aimed in the opposite direction, and made up an excuse. “I forgot to get.. something.”

“Forgot what?”

You blinked. “Milk.”

“Milk, huh?”

“Yep.. Milk.” Sweating under the heat of his narrowed eyes, you made yourself scarce. “Welp. Hope to never see you outside of work again, because this was we-ird,” you enunciated in lilt as you strutted away. But just as you were about to disappear around the corner, you stopped, and said, “Adrie, however, I’d love to see you any day of the week.”

She turned in the shopping cart and waved. “Bye, Miss Mouse.” Eddie was too busy watching you make a fool of yourself to correct her, letting the nickname stick.

Rounding the end cap display of premature Christmas themed candies and bakeware, you held your gaze steadfast ahead as you passed by someone not-so-inconspicuously trying to blend in with the background, wearing a red managerial vest, and holding a clipboard over their mouth.

Robin lowered the employee break schedule, and whispered rather loudly, “He’s so in love with you.”

You groaned. “Can you not spy on us?”

She sweetened you up, “Seriously, he was totally checking you out when you bent over.”

You turned down an aisle and felt her hot on your heels. Yielding in front of the boxes of chamomile tea, you examined one, and asked with an air of disinterest as if you were inquiring about the weather, “Was he now?”

Screwing her face up, she nodded empathically, “Majorly.”

“Good, because I want to crawl in a hole and die.”

~~~

Six feet under seemed like a better fate than what you were dealt.

Though you gave it your best effort, meandering about until enough time had elapsed that you figured he’d left by now, you made your way to the front of the store, and stopped. Eddie had the end of his cart angled towards the registers. Adrie held a package of cookies out for him to approve of, and in a depressing moment of realization, you watched him revert to the person you met him as.

The playfulness was gone. His face was cast with the exhaustion of being around strangers for too long. His lips were bitten raw. His chest sank with a long exhale, and his stomach caved as he looked at his daughter asking for something the other parents around him could throw in their cart without a second thought, and he had to disappoint her.

He didn’t say ‘no’ exactly, but the nervousness of doing so was there. “They’re not on the list,” he begged her in a defeated whisper to understand and not make a scene. He couldn’t handle a scene.

Not yet five-years-old and she sensed his stress and put them back.

“Hey, cutie.” You didn’t know you spoke until Eddie jerked his head up, and you witnessed the change in his mood wash over him. Turned on a dime. He grinned at you in genuine relief, and in a bout of awkwardness, you smiled at Adrie in particular to imply your initial greeting was for her. Not that he wasn’t cute, too. “Fancy meeting you two here.”

He pushed his cart forward, taking the next spot in line, and peered into your hand basket, assessing the Reese’s Pieces, baking goods, tea, and distinct lack of one item. “Hmm, got lost on your way to the milk, huh? Or did you need someone to reach it for you?” He placed his gallon of milk on the conveyor belt first for emphasis. You rolled your eyes.

The two of you must’ve appeared cozier than you gave off, because the cashier motioned at you–specifically, he pointed from Eddie’s groceries to yours. “You two together?”

Eddie froze. Just a useless doe-eyed deer in headlights. You, on the other hand, swallowed your spit before you choked on it, and realized what he meant.

“No, no, separate,” you answered, taking a plastic divider from him and putting it after Eddie’s bag of red delicious apples and before Robin’s dad’s tea.

You stifled your giggle as your beloved coworker fumbled into action after the exchange dawned on him. Bouncing between bagging his groceries, finding the cereal box for Adrie so she could finish tracing the maze on the back, and wiggling his wallet out of his back pocket. The chain attached to it clinked as he rifled through the papers in the biggest slot. They didn’t fit quite right like proper money would. They didn’t look quite right, either. Printed in muted red, purple, green, and blue like Monopoly money. Big text on the front with a picture of the Liberty Bell. Large numbers in the corner with fine print beside it.

Food stamps.

They were food stamps, and it was the middle of the month, and he didn’t have many left.

He counted two of them out, and hesitated, choosing to add a few dollars to meet the total, and handed them over.

Eddie had no reason to feel embarrassed. This was his life. This was how he fed his daughter. But still, he snuck a glance at you, and you looked away so he didn’t think you were staring, even though you were. You were. Not from a place of judgment, but of natural curiosity. Unfortunately, as you directed your gaze elsewhere, you noticed other people around you weren’t as gracious. Eyeing Eddie with cruelty behind their study of the town freak coming inside their territory and depending on their honest wealth to pay for his food.

He’d only begun to stop chewing on his lips when he left the store. Exiting swiftly to begin the process of calming his anxiety as he loaded his car with groceries, knowing he had meals to eat, even if the price he paid stung his ego.

You went through the motions of bagging your groceries in your backpack, and listened to your gut.

Outside, you unchained your bike and put your bag in the wire basket attached to the handles, squinting in the noonday sun as you walked it to the back of the parking lot where Eddie was placing the plastic bags into the trunk of his car. No one parked on either side of him. Not a notable thing, but with how the store was packed, it stood out.

Eddie heard your wheel spokes click as you neared, and schooled the indications of worse emotions from his face to keep you from prying, but he frowned anyway when you passed him to talk to his daughter instead.

The rear door on the passenger’s side was propped open. You flapped your hand at her to get her attention, and she stretched her arm out as far as her car seat allowed in effort to link your fingers. “See you later, girlie,” you said, squeezing her hand in lieu of a proper hug. “Be good for your dad, alright?”

“I’m always good,” she responded, giving you an assured nod of angelic innocence. Eddie barked a laugh, and closed the trunk.

“You can’t swindle her,” he told Adrie. “She knows all about the fit you threw the other morning when I wouldn’t let you bring your stuffed animals to school.” She cut him a sassy glare at being called out.

“Don’t listen to him,” you consoled her. “You’re perfect.” She beamed at you, and you paralleled her delight as you let go of her to smack Eddie’s hand away from your ribs. “Anyway, I’ve gotta get going. Gotta get this milk in the fridge, y’know.”

You stole a coy look at him reveling in what you hoped wouldn’t become a running joke, and steered your bike away, saying another final goodbye to Adrie.

“Not gonna say goodbye to me?” he asked with an aching amount of pitifulness.

“Ch’yeah.” You swung your leg over the frame, put your feet to the pedals. Ensuring you were a decent distance apart, you called out, “You’re right! I should respect my elders.” You waved and shouted at him pointedly, “Farewell, Eddie!”

He fixed his lazy grin on his daughter, who was laughing like it was the funniest thing she’d ever witnessed, and told her with utmost fondness, “Saw that one coming from a mile away.”

————

Sunday morning, Adrie threw him for a loop.

“I want Miss Mouse to come to my play,” she said, spearing the scrambled eggs on her plate with the tines of her plastic Little Mermaid themed fork. “Can you invite her for me?”

Eddie went rigid. The triangle shaped extras from her pancakes being cut into stars flopped off his fork, paused mid-air on the way to his already stuffed mouth. He chewed slowly. Methodically. Swallowing the syrupy sweetness coating his tongue, biding his time as he hunched deeper over his plate, and stared her down while his uncle took special interest in her request.

Wayne wasn’t able to make it this year, and Adrie was quick to think of a suitable replacement.

With a voice scratchy from cigarettes, he directed his question at his nephew, “Miss Mouse?”

Eddie shut him down with a diplomatic answer without breaking eye contact with his daughter. “Adrie’s nickname for the receptionist at work.”

“Oh! The one who did the costume, and went trick-or-treating with you.”

He sounded much too happy, much too chipper for Eddie’s liking, and when he withdrew his gaze from Adrie to pin it on Wayne, the sharp rush of annoyance at the twinkle in his uncle’s eye manifested in a low, tempered correction for him to drop it. “My coworker from the auto shop, where I’m lucky to have the job that I do.”

Wayne wasn’t having it. He leaned in, and matched his intensity, loading his words with a much deeper meaning than the type of conversation they could have in front of Adrie. He spoke to him man-to-man. “The receptionist who is nice to you and Adrie, and, understandably, is being asked to go to a small event at her school.”

“I know what she’s asking,” Eddie replied from behind his hand. “Stop acting like you don’t.”

“Daddy, please,” Adrie begged, kicking his shin under the table. Eddie inhaled sharply and scooted away.

Wayne looked at him.

Adrie looked at him.

His rules, convictions, and morals of the workplace looked at him, rising as a tense pressure in his chest. Eddie sighed them out.

He was weak.

————

Sunday night, you and Robin were up to your usual bullshit.

Stress baking, and stress baking.

Her house was dimmed to only the small lights above the stove and sink, painting the room in an intimate mood of warmth bouncing off the smoky haze clouding the cramped space from the counter where you transferred a tray of hot cookies to a cooling rack, and she swayed behind you to the sultry Cher record spinning in the distance, seeming far away with her deep vocals melding into loops in your sleepy highs.

“Eddie’s beyond in love with you,” Robin said for the hundredth time, probably.

“He is not,” you argued for the hundredth time, probably. “Can you get me a bag for these?” The double chocolate cookies with Reese’s Pieces on top were ready to be put away to make room for the oatmeal ones.

“I just don’t get why you think he doesn’t like you–Oops.” While reaching for the ziploc bags from the top of the refrigerator, she accidentally knocked down a piece of artwork hanging on the door. She tossed you the box and picked the magnet up, along with the drawing of a mouse, owl, and bat off the floor, and put them back into place. “I mean, the way he looks at you every time you speak..” she trailed off in a wistful, airy breath. “So romantic.”

You answered her dreamy grin with a melancholic shrug of your own. “Yeah, but you don’t see all the other times he looks at me.”

Robin persevered. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.. He’s really–” You struggled for a word, interrupted by the sound of roiling bubbles behind you. “He’s really confusing.”

Exhaling at the ceiling, she asked, “Confusing how? Seems pretty clear to me.”

You groaned. Robin jabbed her elbow into your arm and offered you the bong, and when you showed her your greasy fingers, she turned it around and held it to your lips, lighting it for you until your lungs ached from a full inhale and you gave her a thumbs up to pull the stem.

Different place, same old bullshit. Smoking the last of your combined stash of weed you moved here with while bitching about life. It was hardly the first bowl of the night–or even the third–and the sentences you were trying to string together lulled into the drowsy dregs at the back of your mind.

You dropped your head back and sighed the smoke out. “He gets weird sometimes.”

“He’s always been weird.”

Shaking your head at her, you shifted the tone of the night to a somber one. Serious. Reflective.

Rolling the sugar cookie dough into balls, you recounted Eddie’s most recent rejection. “Last week I was telling him how we were hoping to move out soon, and he was giving off signals and asking questions like it was leading somewhere, but then I ran my stupid mouth, and it’s like he flipped a switch. He just stopped talking to me for the rest of the day.”

She put the bong down on the counter next to the tiny vase holding three flowers, and crossed her arms. “Ran your mouth how?”

You groaned louder into the hot wave of heat fanning your face from opening the oven door. “The dude will seriously flirt with me from clock in to clock out, but I–I dunno. I think I lay it on too thick, and it freaks him out. Like suddenly he realizes I’m serious, and he’s not into it. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened last week, anyway. We were going back and forth listing the pros of me living closer to work, and the cons of you eventually moving in with Vickie, and I kinda made a pass at him..”

“A pass how?”

You drew your brows in, and blinked your droopy eyes in a concentrated effort to recall the conversation. “..To be honest, I can’t remember. It was along the lines of me hinting that I’d want a second date with him. Which I only said because he seemed interested after I told him we were staying in Hawkins, but whatever. Guess I read it wrong.”

Perhaps too astute, your best friend in the entire world navigated your love life with undue keenness in spite of how blitzed you two were, breaking into dumb giggle fits at, quite literally, you dropping a spoon. “How obvious was this hint of yours?”

“Doesn’t matter.” You waved off the notion before you could grow attached to it. “We’re still coworkers, so I need to dial it back, regardless.”

“I think you should dial it up.”

“If I dialed it any more up, I’d get an HR complaint.”

“You don’t have HR,” she reminded you.

Squinting, you paused mixing the chocolate chips into the next batch of cookies. “I think I am HR?”

You handed her the pyrex bowl since it was her turn to roll them into cookies, and as she snacked on the raw dough, you filled the ziploc bag with more treats, stuffing it full.

Cher sang about starting over and finding love again.

The drawing on the fridge was in your periphery, as was the vase. Reminders of how kind, and gentle, and sweet Eddie and his daughter were. You were bound to misread his flirtations, but there was no harm in matching them, right? As long as you didn’t cross any lines, yeah? Just followed his lead and stopped when he made it clear it wasn’t welcomed.

Yeah.

Dialed back. You could do dialed back.

————

This was new.

It was early afternoon when you closed the manila folder of invoices, and directed your attention to Eddie, who, for the first time, imposed himself on your side of the desk.

He acted brave when he was timid. A blatant facade, still hesitant to commit to crossing the threshold past the invisible line where your desk ended and the hallway began. Made himself smaller by leaning on the wall behind you, giving you room to leave if you wanted. Not yet courageous enough to take his hand away from playing with the ends of his hair over his rosy cheeks. “So–um–Adrie’s class is putting together a Thanksgiving play, and she requested your attendance by name,” he finished with an adorable pout of your moniker, “Miss Mouse.”

You sat up straighter with lifted brows.

Thinking he was doing you a favor, he dropped the formalities, and gave you an out–a carefully worded out to avoid any cheeky response about your policy, “It’s gonna be a bunch of rambunctious toddlers singing off key, and not remembering their lines. It’s cool if you don’t want to go, I’ll tell her you were busy or somethin’. She’ll understand.”

You gripped the armrests in a burst of enthusiasm. “What? Of course I wanna go! When is it?”

Eddie was unconvinced. He crossed his arms, and bent at the waist to better assess if you knew what you were getting into. “Uh, Wednesday around lunch time–we can be out and back during our break if we hurry–but I’m serious about the little kids being obnoxious part. You don’t have to go.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” It was a rhetorical question he was going to answer, but you knocked the air from his lungs with one simple sentence. “I want to be there for her.”

Warmth bloomed. Spread throughout his body. The things he suppressed. Taking over all at once.

“You said Wednesday around lunch time?” you clarified. He nodded dumbly, a bit distracted. Your grin grew. “Both Mr. Moore and Carl are taking a half-day to start their Holiday early..” you began, and waited for the realization to cross his features.

“So we could just..”

“Lock up, and..”

“Take the rest of the day off too,” Eddie finished with an undertone of pride. He’d have to work extra hard to complete the cars he was working on before then, but the idea was genius. Playing hooky under his boss’ nose like he was a teenager again.

There was perhaps more he wanted to say, but the phone rang.

You answered and kept the exchange short, using your normal speaking voice. “Robin’s dad is being discharged from the hospital today,” you told him after hanging up. “I’m gonna clock out early to help prepare the house for when he gets here.”

Eddie watched you tidy up your desk in preparation to leave, and figured he should get back to work.

Picking up where he left off, he sank into the passenger’s seat of the Ford Taurus outside, and ran a mental checklist of things he still needed to do. Or he tried, rather. He was mostly sitting there daydreaming about potential scenarios, until he saw you come from the breakroom with your jacket in hand, and left out the front door, waving goodbye as you went.

Two dramatic minutes passed.

The quiet warehouse amplified the aural representation of his loneliness.

Eddie frowned. He wasn’t about to attribute the weather to your proximity, but he was certain the temperature in the garage dropped when you weren’t in the office. Or, maybe, he lost the pretty thing distracting him every few minutes, and he had the time to reflect on how badly he wanted a smoke break in the sun to warm him up.

He went inside to get his jacket from the breakroom, and instead of encountering a pack of Camels in his pocket, he grasped an oddly shaped object, and wrangled it out.

bobbie & i made too many

share with adrie & your uncle!

♡

An array of cookies surprised him. Several flavors, in fact. Some with fun toppings, some plain.

He smiled.

Well. Smiling would be putting it mildly.

Acting on impulse, he (accidentally) crushed the bag to his chest, and made a high-pitched noise of glee in his throat, absolutely smitten. Eddie hadn’t received a sweet gesture like this in years. If ever. Ironically blessed with the allure of being older in high school, he couldn’t distinguish the genuine crushes girls may have had on him from the fake love letters people stuffed in his locker to mess with him. But this? This was sincere. Even if the intention behind the cookies were to pawn them off because you made too many, you still thought of him and Adrie.

Too excited, he opened the bag and went to eat one, but a distinct odor itched his nose–one he was too intimate with to miss.

He held the baggie up and sniffed, then smelled the cookies. Inhaled the acrid scent clinging to the plastic, and nibbled on one of the innocuous looking treats.

He consulted the note again.

share with adrie

You didn’t just give him and his daughter edibles, did you?

————

Wednesday came unannounced. You crossed several days off the calendar in the garage, forgetting to do so with the influx of orders, phone calls, and customers getting in their last minute fixes before the Holiday break. You did what you could. Eddie did what he could. And now, you taped a handwritten sign to the front door and locked it until Monday morning.

Grabbing your backpack, you went to the women’s restroom, and Eddie went to the men’s to change out of your work clothes. After some arguing back and forth through the doors, you made him agree to open them on a countdown, and through your giggles, you shouted, “Three!”

You swung open your door and were instantly disappointed. “Why are you wearing that?”

Eddie made a similar sneer across from you in the hallway, and questioned your sanity, “What in the world are you wearing?”

“It’s adorable, and festive!” You defended yourself by pointing out the scarecrow patch on the chest pocket of your baggy overalls, and how your orange flannel matched the one he was wearing. “Do you not think so, you big gray cloud?”

“Yeah, super cute. You’ll blend right in with the toddlers,” he snarked with much less malice than his words implied, on account of his lopsided grin.

“Big talk coming from the guy dressed like a moody teen.” Sinfully tight black jeans, black boots, black belt sporting a handcuff buckle, black leather jacket, black tee with a graphic of a rattlesnake wrapped around a skull.

It was his first date outfit again. How sweet.

And you didn’t need to be checking out his ass to see the bandana hanging out of his back pocket as he escorted you to his car, but you weren’t complaining about the opportunity. “You should worry about scaring the children with how angry you look.”

He held the employee door open for you, and locked it–then almost tripped on his way to unlock the car door, and hold it open for you too. “Angry?” He glanced from your outfit to his. “Good thing I’m with you, then. We’ll balance each other out, Sunshine.”

“An unlikely pair,” you agreed in good faith. Once he shut your door, and was in the process of walking around to his side, you gawked at the nickname. “Sunshine?”

You snapped your mouth shut as he fell into the driver’s seat, and started the car.

“So,” you drew out to break the silence after he didn’t have the courtesy of turning on the radio to ease the tension of being stuck in a small enclosure together, “red, huh?” The entire interior–every last detail–was custom made in the same bright crimson, from the air vents to the tiniest knobs.

The engine revved with his heavy stamp on the gas. Your stomach flipped. His grin went wicked.

“There weren’t many made in this color,” he said, thrilled to see your fingernails dig into your palms as he peeled out onto the street, and the garage became a miniature in his rearview mirror at a frightening speed, considering you were coming up on an intersection. “I’m lucky I found her used, and she didn’t need much work.”

Petrified as you might be by his reckless driving, you still had it within you to make a sound of disgust. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys that refers to their car as a woman.”

“What?” he scoffed. He relaxed one of his hands on his thigh as he lounged back with his head cocked, brazen with his newfound vanity. An arrogant curve to his lips as he interpreted your lingering gaze on his fingers splayed across his leg as being impressed by him, his car, his attitude. The whole package. “You don’t gender your bike?”

Without giving it much consideration, you supposed, “I think my bike is a he.”

“Ha! You ride a man to work every day,” he mumbled after the abrupt laugh.

His smile vanished.

The fact he didn’t mean to say that out loud became very apparent.

The blood drained from his face as quickly as it returned. Splotches of blushy red worked its way up his throat, turning his ears the same color as his beloved car’s interior. Same shade as the traffic light up ahead. Same bawdy hue typically associated with the lustful act his brain suggested before his mouth caught up.

Eddie sat at attention. Swallowed against his pulse as he stepped on the clutch and downshifted gears. The leather strapped steering wheel creaked under his dual vice grip. His chest deflated with a heavy breath, and blinking rapidly at the road, his pounding heart trembled his voice, “Please forget I said that.”

Curled into a ball facing the window–stomach clenched painfully tight from uncontrollable laughter–you muffled yourself with your flannel’s collar, “Never!”

~~~

The rest of the car ride was boring in comparison to the start, but you made it to Adrie’s preschool with only a few more unintentional eruptions of giggles when you remembered Eddie’s horrified face, while he drove in abject misery.

He parked the car, and got out quickly.

“How precious,” you said. The squat brick building had aged pine needles clinging to its shingled roof, and Thanksgiving themed art hanging in its windows.

Opening the entrance door brought the waft of buttery biscuits and grape jelly. Eddie guided you with purpose through the makeshift cafeteria, made snug with four child-sized picnic tables in the middle, and fingerpainted art adorning the navy blue walls. His keyring dangled from his belt, drumming against his jeans as he pivoted into a hallway illuminated by the overcast day outside. Gentle music came from the empty nursery to the left, and to the right was a heavy wooden door that did little to quiet the ruckus beyond it.

He paused. The rectangle window above the door knob streaked the side of his face with warm light from within, countering the nervous energy in his eyes as he took a long moment to look at you. You waited for him to speak, but he decided against it.

“I’m excited,” you offered, just above a whisper, wanting to say anything to help ease the eerie vagueness in his expression.

A muscle in his cheek twitched like he was going to smile, but it came across rather apprehensive.

He turned the knob. You walked inside first. Both of you stood still.

The room was as inviting as it was overwhelming. Bright, decorated, and packed with people. People who were dressed in business casual, and broken off into pairs of two. People who knelt to speak on level with someone who displayed a combination of their distinct features. People who mingled with other adults after the little ones were ushered to the front of the room by the teachers. People who gushed over a topic with their heads together, beaming at a miniature version of themselves dressed in a costume. People who contributed in a joint effort to create life, and the reason they were here today.

Parents.

They were parents.

This was an event for parents.

This was a play for parents to attend to see their child perform, and partake in themed crafts with the implication of going home afterwards to spend the Holidays together.

Eddie watched you realize this.

An older woman gravitated towards you two.

This was very, intensely, happening right now, and you had to navigate the whiplash to the best of your improv abilities.

“Good to see you,” she greeted Eddie first, and he gave a pleasant reply, but she didn’t hear it. Her attention was on you, eyes magnified by her thick glasses, and smiling wider than before. “You brought someone,” she all but gasped, speaking to him, though she was clasping your hand. “I’m Mrs. Teresa. And you are?”

Eddie had a response prepared.

“I’m Adrie’s friend!” you blurted.

He pressed his mouth shut and gave you a sideways glance.

“And, uh,” you continued to dig your grave, “and I work with Eddie. I met Adrie one day, and we really hit it off, haha. Next thing I know I’m trick-or-treating with her, and uh.. now I’m here!” When her expression of anticipation did not wane, you followed up your ramble with your name, and she nodded appreciatively, patting the back of your hand.

“It’s wonderful to meet you,” she said. “We’re starting soon if you’d like to sit.”

She moved on to a non-platonic couple, and collected their kid to the front where a backdrop of an autumnal forest jostled due to the jittery group of children hiding behind it–most notably, the little girl at the edge who peeped her head out, and jumped up and down.

You both waved at Adrie.

Eddie’s hand landed on your mid-back, and he directed you with an appropriate amount of pressure towards the last row of chairs, choosing two in the middle.

“Smooth,” he commented.

“Shut it.” Sneaking an eyeful of the broad man next to you wearing a blazer under his boiled wool overcoat, you scooted your chair closer to Eddie’s. He must’ve had a similar train of thought, because he did the same to get away from the woman next to him, unwittingly making you two cozier than you were at the movies.

Shoulder to shoulder, he kept his hands in his pockets, and your elbow slotted into the crook his arm created when he slouched towards you.

“Are we not friends?” he asked in reference to your introduction.

You assured him, “The best of reluctant friends.”

The impish smile he shared with you dwindled with each set of hypercritical eyes getting their gawk in before one of the teachers turned off the lights.

The room was overcome with darkness. Blackout curtains suppressed daylight from coming through–for naptime, you assumed–and as children do, they squealed. The teachers soothed them with an amused shush, and turned on two lamps, pointing them like spotlights at the backdrop. Your eyes refused to adjust past the faint outline of your leg pressed flush against Eddie’s, (from hip to calf as a result from seeking support in each other,) but that was beside the point. The show began.

Mrs. Teresa sat off to the side and opened a comically large book. She read the first passage aloud with the pages facing the parents, and out came the kids dressed as pilgrims, brandishing their buckle shoes and hats. In another breath, the ones wearing brown shirts and feathers arrived, and you grimaced at the watered down kid-friendly rewrite of history being acted out, interspersed with songs about sharing.

At least Adrie was dancing around as a carrot with other vegetable-clad children, spelling out what part of the cornucopia they were.

Truly, it could’ve been worse.

But it was during a chorus about friendship sung at the top of their lungs, you unbit your tongue, and leaned into Eddie. “So when are they gonna enslave the Natives and steal their land?”

“Pft!”

Several pairs of shoulders in front of you turned to glare at what they assumed was Eddie snickering at their children’s bad singing before sitting forward, surely perturbed.

He knocked the side of his fist on the top of your thigh, and went to scold you.

But the room was dark.

So dark.

And he misjudged how close you sat.

The cold tip of his nose made contact with the cusp of your cheekbone. His stuttered breath caught your jaw. Your arm slipped further into the curve of his body.

He could’ve realized his mistake. He could’ve stopped there. He could’ve apologized for overstepping the coworker code of conduct. He could’ve reminded himself you’d be gone by the end of the summer. He could’ve dialed it back. He could’ve kept it casual. He could’ve backed off, and dropped the silly reprimand altogether. He could’ve done so many things. But he didn’t. He accepted the risk, and committed to it.

He dipped his head until his plump lips discovered the shell of your ear. Every word vibrated on your skin, rippling goosebumps in the wake of his groaned warning, “You’re gonna get me in trouble.” Trembly, raspy from keeping his voice low. Hardly hitting the hard consonants with his tongue before he was withdrawing.

The humidity from his exhale remained. It cooled on your skin. In the weak lamplight, you shifted your wide eyes to his, and the knowledge of what transpired reflected in his keen gaze gauging the consequences of his actions.

Stuck in a daze of buzzing endorphins, you had no idea how to interpret what the hell just happened.

Careful, he didn’t dare express an emotion that would give his true self away.

Together, you both redirected the focus to his daughter.

It took another few seconds for either of you to discern the back of his hand resting on your thigh. He took it away, and crossed his legs, establishing some much needed space between you.

~~~

The play ended, and the lights were flipped on. Everyone winced. There was an announcement from one of the teachers about a snack and crafts for the parents who were staying; and without an auto shop to attend to, you and Eddie were able to dote over Adrie instead of being forced back into the intimacy of his car.

He stood up and said he’d be right back. Lucky for Adrie, she bolted for you first, and you wasted no time in scooping her up into a crushing hug, grateful for the distraction.

Overflowing with pride, you channel all your love into lauding Adrie in mushy compliments, rubbing your cheek against hers. “Oh my gosh, you did so good! You were the best carrot I’ve ever seen. I’m downright impressed by your performance, remembering all those lines.” Pulling away, you waggled your eyebrows. “You wanna grow up to be an actor? Have people flock to see you on stage?” Her face brightened in renewed excitement.

“On a stage like Da–?”

Eddie intervened out of nowhere, “You two ladies gonna join me?” You startled an imperceivable amount from his sudden appearance–truly, you didn’t even jump–but it was enough to earn his toothy grin. “I reserved two seats at the Queen’s table for the princess and her esteemed guest for the evening.” He bowed with a swept out arm, showing you the way through the sea of adults.

Queen’s table was certainly a way to sell it.

It was a tiny, tiny thing. There were several of them at the back of the room, seating four children at most–or two adults and a four-year-old–and Adrie chose a blue one with a cartoon turkey decoration in the middle.

Half an ass cheek fit in the chair, the tabletop was at your shins, and your knees were tucked to your chest. You met Eddie’s gaze above Adrie’s head, and rubbed her back while he stroked her hair, running his fingers through the tangles.

You assumed, for the most part, he wanted to ignore what happened earlier as if it never happened, and you followed his lead.

Adrie broke you from your musing. There was commotion surrounding the teachers, and she gasped, flapping her hands when she saw what they were carrying.

A palm-sized pumpkin pie was set before her, along with three spoons.

“I made this fresh this morning,” she informed you as if she were running a bakery. And as head baker, she was in charge of portion sizes. She took one spoon and scooped out a modest amount of pumpkin filling, and not a crumb of graham crust more. That one was for Eddie.

For you? She split the rest of the pie, and gave you your half balanced on your spoon, and dug into her half without giving her dad a second glance.

“Hey,” he whined. “Not fair. I’m the one who raised you. Why does she get more?”

Speaking down to him like it was the most obvious thing ever, she rolled her eyes, and said, “Because girls are better, Daddy.”

You didn’t hide your snort.

“Yeah, Eddie.” You taunted him by waving the spoon before sticking the pie chunk in your mouth. “G–irls sh’are better.”

Chewing on his measly portion, he regarded his princess and her esteemed guest with a similar amount of weakness, and the tension at the corners of his eyes softened. He submitted. “Yeah. Girls are better.”

~~~

After the snack was a craft. In this case, hand turkeys. Paper, crayons, markers, and colored pencils were passed out amongst the tables, and a teacher gave instructions to the kiddos.

You grabbed the cartoon turkey decoration in the middle of the table for reference, and began your masterpiece. Adrie kept it classic, tracing her hand. Eddie did.. whatever he was doing, hunched over to hide his paper from you two for the past ten minutes.

“I made a princess turkey,” Adrie announced. Indeed, her turkey was decked out with a flowy dress and pink pointy hennin. In the background was a cobblestone castle.

You showed her your realistic turkey, hoping to impress her, but she pulled a face.

“Ew, he’s ugly.”

Frowning at your drawing, you compared him to the one on the table centerpiece, and felt bad for all the less-than-beautiful turkeys around the world. “That’s just the way he looks..”

Eddie, happy as a clam, slammed his pencil down and flaunted his drawing. “I turned mine into a dragon.”

Converging with Adrie, she whispered in your ear, and as a unit, you judged his hand turkey, weighing the artistic ability versus the outlandish deviation from the original assignment.

After a heated debate, you cleared your throat for his attention.

You both applauded his efforts with a humbling clap.

~~~

It wasn’t long before Adrie grew bored with coloring, and left to play with her friends. They gathered around a chest by the teacher’s desk, and brought out non-Thankgivingsy costumes. She played dress up in a fairy-unicorn combo, and another girl hopped around in a mermaid outfit, complete with a shimmery tail.

Eddie switched seats, flopping into the middle chair with a grunt. He moved Adrie’s drawing aside and set up shop. Made himself right at home. Really just invaded your area like he owned the place.

“Uhh–” You gaped. “Can you kindly remove your knee from my vicinity? You’re blocking both my drawing and the colored pencils.”

He imposed himself more. Nudging his feet wider for the sole reason of bothering you until you were forced to curl in on yourself in an uncomfortable hunch. Actively ignoring your plea by sketching the finishing touches on his dragon.

Resigning your sneer at the back of his head, you agreed, “All right.” If he wanted to play that game, you would too. You snatched the orange pencil you needed for your turkey’s feathers, and shoved the markers to the far side of the table, outside his reach.

Giving him no time to prepare a counterattack, you looped your arm around his leg to his shin, and hugged his thigh to your chest with your flexed bicep, locking his knee in a sleeper hold any wrestler would be proud of, preventing him from getting up.

Yes, things scattered as you did this. Yes, people rubbernecked. No, you didn’t care, and Eddie didn’t, either.

Well, he cared a little, even if the grumpy persona he donned cracked with each failed frown.

His mouth curled into a grin despite his resistance. “I can’t have the red marker?” The syllables were caught amongst his hissy laugh at your ridiculousness–tip of his tongue to his teeth, voice rich with affection, and eyes squinted from pure adoration–a short question articulated through his mirth, with his chest braced against your arm after accepting the position of your entwined bodies, and another beg for you to understand on his lips. “How am I supposed to outline the fire he’s breathing, huh?”

He furrowed his brows to appear angry, but it was futile. His smile was here to stay. And what a treat it was to get lost in the moment.

At any point he could’ve easily broken from your hold. Hell, you hardly had his leg secured in your embrace after he shook his hair out of his face, and your muscles were rendered to warm jelly. But still, he played along.

You hunkered down and returned to your drawing with his jeans rubbing on the underside of your chin. “I once heard of these magic words you could use to get what you want.. if you ask nicely.” He hummed a disgruntled noise to show his displeasure. Poor him, being beaten at this own game, and served with a dose of his own medicine.

Incredulous, he huffed, “Magic words?” But there was something suspicious about his tone..

Something just not quite right, indeed..

Without looking, you snatched his hand seconds before his mischievous fingers wiggled their way to your ribs. You interlaced an assortment of index, middle, and thumbs in a twist of power, and dragged your gaze away from your artwork to mock him. “So predictable, Eddie.”

“Am I?”

An aware glimmer from how unpredictable he was half an hour ago presented itself as a gorgeous flash of slyness across his eyes, crinkling his crow’s feet at the corners–

The metal feet of Eddie’s abandoned chair scraped along the floor.

You disengaged from each other, cheeks burning with fresh shame.

Mrs. Teresa had a yellow paper folder tucked under her arm. This was not favorable for Adrie on account of her sharp heel-turn when she saw her teacher sit at the table with her preschool assessment opened for her dad to pour over.

You couldn’t read anything from your angle, but it appeared to be a collection of Adrie’s assignments and a progress report with many notes written in the margins.

Pushing her glasses up her nose, Mrs. Teresa licked her fingertips, and flipped through the pages, updating him since the last time they did this.

The conversation was about the places Adrie excelled, and where she could improve. In regards to education, she was surpassing where she should be, and she was a quick learner. Kindergarten would be no trouble for her. It was sharing, and social interactions she was struggling with, despite her ability to make friends.

Mrs. Teresa guided Eddie towards a more serious discussion about these concerns by asking him if he told her ‘no’ frequently, and how she reacted when he did. You’d never seen him so nervous. Fidgeting, bouncing, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans. Stuttering through a weak admission that he has trouble disappointing her.

He was uncomfortable, and you did your due diligence to tune them out. But it was no use.

Surveying the room, your mind was consumed by Eddie once more. For a different reason, and inciting a different emotion.

Parents at the other tables whispered observations about his mannerisms into their partner’s ear. About his disheveledness. His weirdness. His clothes. His nonconformity. His last name. The whole package.

He was the father to the sweet little girl they invited to birthday parties, but never stayed after dropping her off with a gift? This was the man who never spoke. Never lingered long enough to put the rumors at rest. Never denied them either, so, logically, the gossip about him must be true.

“As you know, Adrie will throw tantrums from time to time when you drop her off,” Mrs. Teresa eased him into the topic. “When she cries, she asks for you, and it’s difficult to calm her down. This is abnormal for how long she’s been enrolled here. Have you been working on those techniques I taught you to help steer her towards more independence?” Her inquiry was kind, and sympathetic. It was valid, but his first instinct was to defend himself.

“I-I, well.” He took a shaky breath, and leaned towards her with his elbow on his thigh to cup his hand around his mouth, and sliding it to wring the back of his neck. “She’s–It’s just, she’s all I have, a-a-and–”

Mrs. Teresa rubbed his shoulder.

Though you were missing context for what Adrie’s teacher was trying to correct him from doing, you wanted to show your support. Lessen his stress. Afterall, the integrity of dialed back crumbled when his lips grazed your ear, and following his lead culminated in you being invited into his daughter’s world, so what’s the worst that could happen if you took a risk and comforted him? ..Besides discovering if David’s Auto Repair had an HR department.

Eddie’s pitch fluctuated as he bounced his leg harder, “When I’m home, I just want to make her happy–and, she’s, she’s–” You placed your hand on his knee, and stroked your thumb over the skin peeking out from the rips in his jeans. His inhale hitched at the sensation.

Without otherwise addressing what you did, he covered your hand with his own, crooked his cold fingertips into the spaces between yours, and parsed his thoughts. Slowed his mind. Ceased his nervous habit of bouncing his leg. Appreciated the gesture, even as the tacky silver spider ring on his pinky taunted you.

“I’ve been better about telling her ‘no’ lately,” he said more clearly. “The tantrums are happening less, and they don’t last as long when she sees I’m not budging. But the other stuff.. I don’t know.”

“Do you still carry her?” she asked, and he avoided eye contact.

“Yeah.”

“She’s almost five. She’s not a baby anymore, dear. It’s best to wean her now before it becomes a bigger problem.”

“I know.”

Mrs. Teresa gave him a motherly pat on his back, and smiled at you–his coworker–and rearranged Adrie’s folder to the bottom of the stack she had, and moved on to another table.

For a while, Eddie twisted the hair at his nape around his finger. Eyes fixated on the crayon box. You waited for him to come around, and when he did, he smiled and squeezed your hand before sliding his clammy palms to his thigh, allowing you to let go of his knee.

His chest rumbled with a soft laugh. “Sorry, was I shaking the table?”

Yes? No? Maybe? You weren’t paying attention to notice. “Yeah, like an earthquake,” you joked.

“My bad,” he said with not a hint of remorse displayed in his delighted expression.

On cue, serving as the perfect interruption to the prolonged stare you gave each other, another autumnal craft was being distributed amongst the parents remaining, and Adrie set her chin on top of where your and her dad’s shoulders touched.

Mrs. Teresa’s advice regarding his codependency went ignored for another day.

Eddie shut his eyes and pressed his temple to Adrie’s, humming contently to himself, cherishing the affection he ached for.

Adrie, on the other hand, gasped when she spied what was on the table, and rang his ears, “Glitter!”

~~~

Thank God Eddie was a safer driver with Adrie in the car; your stomach couldn’t handle another queasy acceleration through a yellow light while you made a concentrated effort to get flakes of gold glitter out of your eyebrows, having no recollection of how they got there.

In her car seat behind you, Adrie regaled you with the plot points of the latest episode of My Little Pony Tales, chirping away happily about the interpersonal relationships between the cartoon horses until Eddie pulled into the alleyway behind the auto shop, and you turned around to say your goodbyes, thanking her for inviting you.

You opened the car door and heard Eddie do the same. You were about to ask him why he was getting out too, when he went up to the employee door and unlocked it for you.

Right, you left your keys in your backpack.

Rationally you knew he wasn’t a mind reader, but you were still sheepish when getting your bike, wheeling it out to stand across from him in what was a dreadful amount of silence.

“So, uh,” he faltered in the same rush of feelings crashing like a wave over the both of you. “Thank you for coming today. I know Adrie appreciated having you there.” He went shy, scratching the back of his head before putting his hands in his pockets. “Sorry about the mess.”

You shrugged at the mention of glue on your sleeve. “It’s whatever. I’m just glad I got to watch her perform.” Dumbass move, bringing up the play when what happened during it influenced every bit of this awkward interaction. You hurried to move past it, “Plus, the pumpkin pie was nice.” And what happened afterwards when we held hands–twice–was nicer.

Jesus Christ.

Reeling in the desire to bolt, you gambled on one last question before going home to scream into your pillow. “Uhm–Can I ask you something?”

“I guess,” he answered with a wary tone.

“Why do people look at you weird?” You motioned at his clothes. “Besides the obvious.”

The deep creases between his brows from years of scrunching his face in a sour expression became more prominent. “There’s a lot of rumors out there about me.. Some are true, some aren’t.”

“Do you want to tell me which ones are true?”

Inside the car, Adrie swayed in her seat, belting a tune neither of you could hear.

“I will some other time, okay?” He flicked his gaze to you, saw the understated kindness of your soft smile, and diverted his attention to the rock he was grinding under his shoe; bashful despite the burden of his reputation affecting the instant sag in his posture. “I will,” he promised again, giving you a curt nod.

You walked your bike up beside him, and bumped his elbow. “Hey, don’t look so glum,” you insisted. “Whatever it is, I’ll still go with you to parent-teacher conferences as Adrie’s best friend so you don’t look so painfully single.”

You threw your head back in a witchy cackle as you hopped on your bike and rode away.

And it was when you were in the familiar territory of woods flocking either side of the dirt road leading to Robin’s house that you gave into the urge, and released an embarrassed, guttural, annoyed groan of one word, scaring the blackbirds in the nearby trees, “Why?”

Single, single, single. Good God, could you be more obvious?

Dialed back was a lost cause from the start.

“Well, whatever happens, happens, I guess.” And you finished it with, “Idiot.”

————

Eddie had been sitting in his car for all of two seconds when he patted the side of his seat for the back recliner, and cranked it until he was almost laid flat.

Driving his hands from his nape and upward, he gathered his hair between his fingers and covered his face, mashing the curly ends over his eyes screwed shut from red-hot shame.

He inhaled deeply, and reprimanded his dumbassery in the loudest groan. “That was so–incredibly–not casual.”

“What’s the matter, Daddy?” Adrie asked, sounding like a therapist as she pinched her sticky fingers together to shift the gold glitter from one to the other.

Composing himself, he finished dragging his palms down his cheeks, and combed away the strands stuck on his eyelashes. He blinked. “It’s nothing.” Nothing at all. He definitely wasn’t thinking of how fucked he was, believing he could handle today without taking things too far.

But it wasn’t how he almost kissed your cheek that bothered him the most, nor the multiple scenarios he supplied in effort to hold your hand, or touch you in general.

No. It was worse.

Staring unfocused at the ceiling, his lips parted with a realization.

His whisper was for himself, and his heart only. “I didn’t even care that people were staring at me today..” The mercy of your presence brought a line of water to his eyes. Not enough to flow over, but enough for him to notice his loneliness.

“Can you invite Miss Mouse to Thanksgiving?”

“No, she has her own Thanksgiving to attend,” he told her, and held his hand out, making a grabby motion at her. She understood and put her shoe in his palm so he could squeeze her ankle. Any affection. Any at all. Giving or receiving.

Knowing the answer, he asked, “You really like her, huh?”

“She’s my favorite.”

“Yeah, she’s my favorite too,” he said, in whatever capacity she meant, he meant it as well. He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t, but he did.

Massaging his thumb and forefinger into circles on his forehead, he meditated on the right thing to do. Meaning, he thought about the hundreds of reasons he should put an end to this, to discourage Adrie’s relationship with you, and to resist the temptation of forming his own; and instead he latched onto the idea of him not appearing single for a little longer than his logical brain was comfortable with.

Coworker, risk, flighty personality, yada, yada..

He snorted. “Yeah, I should probably stop this.”

Adrie rolled her leg in his grasp to get him to let go. “Can we stop at McDonald’s first?”

“Wha–?” After a moment of confusion, he sighed. “Give me a break, kid.”

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #stranger things #eddie x reader #eddie munson smut #mechanic!eddie #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic #the yes policy

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barefoothighlander · 1 year

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The way you write ghost and like a specific reader is so good it has me going insane, on that I just read the cottage one where Simon admits to himself he loves sweet things and would it be possible to get a baker reader x Simon, with him often comming because he's hooked on their desserts but also how fine they are

something sweet

this is possibly one of my FAV tropes, thank you!!

warnings: fluff, gn pronouns, mutual pining, mentions of food throughout, ooc!ghost, kissing, not proofread

People always assumed Ghost ate purely for nutrients, the majority of the meals he consumed on base or in the field involving all four food groups, centred on protein. The truth was he had to stop himself every day from eating entire sleeves of cookies, his favourite being the bourbon biscuits that his mum used to buy.

He had an insatiable sweet tooth, always having loads of sugar in his tea, sneaking into the mess late at night to steal sweets from the kitchen, if you were to search his pockets you’d find wrappers for candy littered throughout them.

He was less restrained when he came home, often buying some sort of treat to pair with his tea when he’d visit a cafe, he’d gone for a walk that morning and decided to explore a few shops, stumbling across a bakery that he’d never been into.

It wasn’t even a question of should he go in, the scent of baked goods wafting from the open door as he looked through the window, trays lined with pastries and cakes, he was practically salivating at the sight of them.

He felt out of place in the cafe, his eyes falling in various couples having coffee together, a few others set up with their laptops as they picked at their food.

“What can I get for you?”

He didn’t intend for the interaction to be awkward, he’d never stumbled over his own words but the sight of you, hair messy, sleeves rolled up, a mess of flour sprinkled over your apron as your wide eyes and bright smile looked back at him had him frozen.

“You look like a tea guy, earl grey?”

How could you possibly know that? He moves closer to the counter, doing his best to make his stride less intimidating as he approaches you.

“How’d you know?”

“Get a lot of customers, I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing what people like”

Heat flushed his cheeks under his balaclava, his eyes nervously moving from your face to the display beside him.

“What do you recommend”

You follow his line of sight, pursing your lips as you think over the options,

“The muffins are good, chocolatines are a favourite, personally I’m partial to the biscuits”

“Which kind?”

“Bourbons are my favourite, the empires are a close second”

He hums in response, “Those are my favourite”

“You have good taste”

He moves his gaze back to you, “I like to think so”

You huff a small laugh, your fingers tapping against the counter as you lose yourself for a moment in his dark eyes.

“So earl grey and some bourbons”

“Sounds perfect”

You swallow a lump in your throat, biting back a smile as you move to collect his order, you toss a few biscuits into the bag, placing the tea bag in a cup before pouring the hot water on top, capping it and handing the pair to him.

“I threw in a few other things I thought you’d like”

“That’s very kind”

His fingers brush against yours as he takes the items from you, the contact making the hairs on your neck stand up. You drop your gaze nervously, smoothing your hair before turning back to him,

“Have a nice day” You stop your sentence abruptly, your eyes squinting slightly at him,

"Simon"

"Have a nice day Simon"

It was less than 24 hours before he was back, strutting through the front doors, oblivious to the various shared glances between other customers, his sights dead set on you.

"Back so soon?"

"How'd you know?"

"Know what?"

"Those extras you gave me yesterday, that raspberry thing and those little chocolates, how'd you know I'd like them"

"I didn't really, just a guess, they're my favourites"

"You have good taste"

"I'd hope so, I'm the one that makes them"

In a moment of realization, he looks around, there's no one else behind the counter, no noises from the kitchen, it really is just you there.

"You own the shop"

"For two years now"

"That's impressive"

You tilt your head down to hide the flush on your cheeks, smiling, "I have something for you"

"You made me something?"

"Was hoping you'd be back"

It's his turn to hide his face, even behind his mask he's scared you'd see the pink tint to his skin, the way his eyes crinkle at the edges, you push a small tray toward him, a cup of tea paired with an assortment of treats.

"I am supposed to stay in shape"

"C'mon, try them" You nudge the tray a little closer

"Only if you eat them with me"

"Deal"

You turn to grab an extra fork, resting your elbows on the table as you portion off a piece of the small pastry in front of you, careful to create the perfect bite,

"Wait, you need to get some of the jam"

"You're telling me how to eat?"

"It has to be perfect"

You use your fork to push some jam onto his piece, nodding to yourself in satisfaction, he takes a quick glance behind him to see if anyone is watching before lifting his mask just slightly, revealing his lips, your eyes linger on them for a little too long, the soft arch of them, their plush pink tint.

"This is amazing"

His praise breaks your trance, your hand covering your mouth as you smile, hiding the food inside it, "I told you"

"You're right, I'll never doubt you again"

You let out a giggle and this time he can't hide his smile, a small dimple forming beside his lips as they curve, you could watch him smile all day.

"This might be strange but, what are you doing later," You ask with a breath of confidence,

"Working off all this sugar you're feeding me"

"What about you skip the workout and meet me here at seven?"

"I'd like that"

You bite back a smile, "Great"

You pack the remaining treats in a small bag, handing it to him before bidding him goodbye, your senses focused solely on him, completely ignorant of the line of customers forming in front of your eyes.

It's a panicked few hours around the cafe, rushing to fill orders, tidying the kitchen, and attempting to find time to fix yourself up before Simon arrived.

The bell atop the door rang at 6:53, apparently, he was insistent on being early, he calls out for you, your voice echoing from the kitchen as he makes his way behind the counter.

"Hey, you're early"

"You're a mess" His eyes scan over your flour-clad form, your hair a mess as your palms dig into a circle of dough.

"Had to get some orders done before tomorrow, wanna help?"

"Not sure how good I'll be"

"Please, I could use your muscles"

"Alright," He rolls his sleeves up his arm, revealing his tattoo before reaching behind him to grab an apron, securing it around his form. You erupt in a fit of laughter as you turn your gaze to him,

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing just, never pictured you in an apron covered in tulips and daisies"

"You saying it looks bad?"

"No, you look perfect," You say, fighting back your laughter, "Okay, grab a piece and start pushing it with your palms, just like this" You demonstrate the move to him, his curious eyes watching intently as you knead the dough, sprinkling bits of flour on it.

"Got it" He places a circle of dough on the table, dropping some flour onto it before digging his palms in, quickly turning to you with worried eyes as his hand forces a hole in the centre.

"Maybe not so tough, try like this" You position yourself next to him, your sides pressing against each other as you rest your hands atop him, guiding them into the dough, your gentle fingers intertwining with his.

"Got it?"

He shakes his head lightly, "I think you need to show me again"

You laugh lightly, the sound warming his chest as you slowly release your touch, urging him to work, "That's better, I have to make some icing so I'll be over there for a minute"

You move from his side, wiping your hands on your apron before standing in front of the large mixer, he watches as you struggle to lift the large bag of powdered sugar, dropping his task to help you. He lifts the bag with ease, watching as you release a small breath of gratitude,

"Wait not all at... once" Your instructions come too late, he dumps the entire bag into the bowl, a cloud of sugar enveloping the room as you drop your head in laughter.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know"

You raise your hands, palms to the roof as you smile, "It's okay, kinda looks like snow"

"Kind of"

His gaze softens as you close your ears, tilting your neck back and slightly sticking your tongue out, allowing the sugar to settle on the muscle, the sweetness dancing over your tastebuds.

You smile, lifting your head back up and opening your eyes, he's watching you with such adoration in his eyes, his heart swelling out of his chest, he'd never met anyone that maintained such a wonder in themselves, you were so warm, so kind, he'd always been punished for mistakes but the sight of you unknowingly creating a happy memory out of one of his mishaps has his brain rewiring.

He doesn't think, just reaches for you, one hand lifting his mask while the other grabs at your waist, tugging you into him, his lips crash into yours as if his addiction to sweets wasn't enough, you literally tasted like sugar, he couldn't get enough. His free hand moving to cup your jaw, his thumb swiping over the skin as you press yourself into him, your gentle hands settling around his arms as he holds you close.

It's intoxicating, his taste, his scent, tobacco, vanilla, and sugar, you had managed to escape the consequences of a sweet tooth until now, this was a taste you'd never get sick of.

He pulls back with a heavy breath, his chest rising against yours as he rests his forehead against yours, that beautiful smile beaming back at you as your flesh ignites under his touch.

"Kiss me like that again and I'll give you all the baked goods you want"

He lets out a laugh, a genuine laugh, one he hasn't heard in years before pressing his lips to yours again, smiling against your skin as the sugar settles around the two of you, cloaking the room in a soft white dust.

#cod mw x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost cod #simon riley x reader #simon riley #simon ghost riley #ghost x reader #cod mw2 #simon riley fluff #mw2022 #simon riley x you #simon ghost riley x you #simon ghost x reader

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heartfullofleeches · 2 months

Text

It's been a while since we've had Animal Cafe Darling [Human Darling who cares for hybrid yans and other customers at the cafe they work at] and I think they'd pair great with Rowan/Skunk [Stoner Raccoon Yan]. Rowan sits outside the cafe in their van getting high since the managers have warned them time and time again if they burn another hole in the couch cushions they'll be banned and stumbles into the cafe to be spoiled by their favorite person. They prefer the shitty food at the gas station they work at, but anything tastes good so long as it's darling feeding it to them by hand. Darling puts their hands/mouth on anything and it's coming home with Rowan. Straws, candy wrappers, napkins. Darling's neighbors have been getting pretty suspicious of that weirdo in the hoodie lurking around their trash cans at night.

Has probably tried sneaking Darling edibles while they're on the clock in an attempt to get them out the door when they're so high they can barely function

#Cafe tag #yandere oc #yandere imagines #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere headcanons #yandere scenarios #yandere insert #yandere #yandere blurb #yandere hybrid #Rowan my oc

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milunalupin · 2 months

Text

— mint to be

remus lupin x reader ★ 1k words

The little bell above the door jingled as the last customer left the bookstore. Remus let out a deep sigh as he looked around at all the picking up and re-sorting he had to do. He went to reach for one of the mint candies by the register he offered to customers, but his hand stopped and brows furrowed as he noticed a few of the candies were missing their wrappers. He picked the bare candies out and tossed them in the bin under the counter before grabbing a new one and popping it in his mouth while he went to get the book cart.

Remus had started working at the bookstore just over a year ago, Mr. Brown being the only shopkeeper in Hogsmeade kind enough to offer him a job with a livable wage. He had always been an avid reader and lover of all literature so it was a match made in heaven. The bookstore was in a quieter corner of the Hogsmeade, standing right across from the town's magical creature research center and rescue. Nothing exciting happened on this side of the village, until he met you.

"Have you got any plans tonight, Remus?"

"No, why do you ask, Sir?"

"Saw your little bird working today, assumed you'd see her once you were done closing up."

Remus' sweater suddenly felt a little too warm, his fingers reaching up to pull at the neckline, as Mr. Brown smirked at him from across the shop. "N-no sir, I'm not."

"You should think about doing that instead of ogling at her all day, eh?" the shopkeeper shook his head and tutted quietly to himself, waving goodbye for the night, leaving his embarrassed employee alone in the bookstore.

Remus was never the most talkative person in the first place, but the moment you walked into Brown's Bookshop, he had suddenly forgotten every word he'd ever read. You had introduced yourself as Mr. Scamander's new apprentice, babbling on about your love for magical creatures, to which Remus could only smile and nod as he tried not to fall in love with you right then and there. You left the shop that day with a few books on your favorite beasts and an admirer.

Remus wishes he had met you back at Hogwarts, where he might've been lucky enough to be partnered with you in a class, or perhaps he would've been brave enough to invite you to one of the parties his friends always hosted. Now he just watches you through the shops windows like a fucking creep. It's not like he didn't want to talk to you, but how could he? Remus sighed at took one more glance out the window before leaving the shop himself, locking up and heading home with a heavy heart.

You froze as soon as you walked into work this morning, golden wrappers scattered across the floor, your eyes squinting in suspicion. You picked up the wrappers on your way to the backroom where the new Niffler rescue was, shoving them in the pocket of your cardigan.

"Hey little guy." you coed softly, picking up the small fluffy creature, and bringing him to your face. He squirmed in your hands, reaching for the corner of plastic sticking out of your pocket. "Are all these wrappers your doing?"

In a second the Niffler was out of your hands and scurrying out he door. You grabbed your wand as well as a small cage and dashed out the door, eyes scanning the cobblestone streets. "Oh you're going to be in so much trouble!"

You caught a flash of blue fur and ran ahead, apologizing to the Hogsmeade patrons you bumped into on the way. Hurrying into the shop, you failed to notice which fine establishment the little troublemaker had led you into, only realizing as reached the front desk as saw one surprised Remus Lupin.

"Hello there, can I help you with anything?" Rosy cheeks and warm eyes greeted you, his big sweater and fluffy hair making him look exceptionally huggable.

"Remus, hi! Yes, it seems that.." your eyes trailed down from the face you've been not-so-discreetly staring at every time you go to work to the wooden bowl next to the register. It was filled with gold wrapped mints with a 'Please take one!' post it note stuck to the side. You felt hot with embarrassment, making a mental note to not give the Niffler extra treats today. "That little-"

Squeak!

The two of your turned to see the blue devil standing on the book cart with his paws on the side of his head is surprise. You cast 'Accio' on the mini beast and made sure the cage was locked once he was inside.

"So he was the wrapper thief, huh." Remus chuckled, coming around to your side of the counter and bending down to look at the Niffler behind his tiny bars, sticking a finger through the gate to pet the creature.

"I'm so sorry for any disturbances and inconveniences he's caused, I owe you one, Remus." you sent him a tight lipped smile and turned to head back to work to save you from any further embarrassment.

"Actually, you would do me a huge favor favor by coming with me to the Three Broomsticks tonight." he suggested, stuffing his hands in his trouser pockets.

"Really." a surprised laugh left you, your cheeks warming up as he stepped closer to you. "Well, I suppose I could help you out there."

"After I close up I'll come grab you and we'll have a bite and a round of Butterbeers, does that sound alright with you?" his eyebrows went up in question, a shy smile adorning his flushed face.

You agreed and and basically skipped back to work, missing the way Remus fist pumped the air, taking another candy as his reward for finally asking you out.

The niffler tittered in his cage, with you laughing along with him. As you places him back in his enclosure, you could've sworn to Merlin he winked at you.

#marauders era #marauders x reader #marauders #remus lupin #remus lupin x reader #remus x reader

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phoenixinthefiles · 3 months

Text

Wear My Love

Miles 42 x reader 💜...🖤🔗 (my first Miles 42! fic be gentle) @dolligent

There’s a Laffy Taffy wrapper about two feet ahead of you on the library floor, with sticky bits of the candy still in it. You can’t see the riddle but you can see the hearts scattered on the wrapper and the to-and-from tag on the front.

So many teachers handed out Valentine’s candy bags today, it was really sweet. DIdn’t help out the littering problem that so many students seemed to have.

A sneaker came down on the discarded wrapper, a purple and black sneaker.

Miles stood in front of you with a confused look on his face.

“What are you doin?”

Zoning out so I don’t have to confront the reality of you hating my gift.

Obviously you don’t say that.

“What are you doing standing on a candy wrapper instead of picking it up? That's not very eco-conscious.”

He gives you a flat look and you give him one right back until he smacks his lips and bends down to pick the trash up. He flips the wrapper around and smirks before looking back up at you.

“What kind of tea is hard to swallow?”

“I don’t know, what kind?” You ask with an eye roll.

“Reality.” He huffs a small laugh, because of course he doesn’t know how ironic that joke really is.

“That’s funnier than half the jokes you tell me, maybe you should start eating more Laffy Taffys.”

Like the mature 16-year-old he is, he throws the wrapper at you before sitting down.

You roll your eyes and crumble the paper up and stick it in your pocket. Presumably to throw away later but you would most likely forget.

He keeps shifting in his seat and tapping his fingers on the table as you try to continue reading. You already can barely focus on your book not knowing if he’s seen your gift or not, now he’s decided to become a drummer.

“Miles please.”

“Yeah? Oh I’m distracting you, my bad.”

“It’s fine I couldn’t focus anyway.” You said as you turned slightly to slip your book back into your backpack.

“Y’know somebody dropped something into my locker?”

Your hand froze on your zipper, when you twisted to face him again Miles was watching you with his eyebrows raised.

“Really, what was it?”

He gave you a deadpan look and you sighed.

Your eyes widened when He started fiddling with the collar of his shirt before pulling out a silver chain.

You immediately started trying to get a read on him; eyes darting from the necklace to his eyes and back. Surely he likes it if he’s wearing it?

Right?

He doesn’t say anything though and you clear your throat.

“Do you like it? You can be honest, it won't hurt feelings, I just want to know.”

It absolutely would hurt your feelings. More so from the thought that you had overstepped not that he didn’t like it.

Miles reached back and unclasped the dog tags from around his neck. He didn’t look upset, more like he was trying to figure out how to look.

“I like it, I swear.”

Your breath doesn’t come rushing out of you, but the tightening in your chest loosens and you do take a deep breath.

“I like it a lot. How’d you get all the information?’

“I asked your mom.”

It was surprisingly easy to find someone who makes custom dog tags. The hard part was psyching yourself up to ask Ms. Río about her husband’s birthday. It took you 15 tries in front of your mirror to come up with the least insensitive way to phrase your question.

It paid off though. Miles likes it.

10 months ago you would’ve thought he was completely unemotional about it.But over time you learned to read him a little better.

Right now he was fiddling with the dog tags and twisting his lips around.

He was fighting a smile.

He lost the battle against his facial expression and a smile broke out on his face.

You matched it and let out a nervous laugh when he looked at you again.

He huffed a small laugh and you tried to tame the grin that felt like it would split your face.

“Thank you.”

You nodded a bit too quickly and you ignored the ache in your cheeks from smiling so hard and the warmth you started to feel in your face.

“You’re welcome, I'm just glad you liked it.”

He nodded and a little smirk took shape on his lips.

“Yeah I like it a lot. Just don’t know why somebody I’ve been dating for 10 months would slip a gift in my locker instead of just giving it to me.”

Your eyes widened for a split second before you rolled them in an attempt to brush off your embarrassment.

“I was just adding a layer of mystique.”

“Uh huh, or you was just scared.” He said with a shrug.

You scoffed but he was dead on.

“Me? Scared? You must have me confused with somebody else?”

He rolled his eyes and slipped his hand into his jacket pocket.

You watched him pull out a small box and reach it across the table to you.

He rolled his shoulders back and forth as he watched you pick it up.

Seems like you weren’t the only one scared.

“What is it?”

He deadpanned again, “What’s the point of telling you instead of you just opening it?”

You rolled your eyes and refocused on the gift.

Gasping as you opened the lid, you pulled out the locket necklace sitting inside.

You looked up at Miles and smiled.

“It’s so pretty.”

He smiled hesitantly and cleared his throat.

“Open it,” he rasped.

You did and your smile grew wider. Inside the locket was a sketch of you from the day you and Miles went to the arcade. It was the only one in the city with a full set of games that still worked.

“I haven’t drawn in a while y’know so…” He trailed off and rubbed the back of his neck.

You can count on one hand the amount of times you’ve seen or heard him talk about drawing something. You can also name everything he drew. Being able to add yourself to that list feels…amazing.

Trying to calm yourself down and not embarrass yourself by doing something like leaping across the table to hug Miles, you run your hand along the chain of the necklace.

“I don’t know if I look as good as you drew me.”

When you look back up at him he’s staring at you with an expression that’s much too adoring for you to focus on.

“Nah you look better.”

You immediately looked back down at the necklace in your hands and ignored Miles’ snickering.

As you continued to run your fingers along the chain you noticed something and your lips quirk up.

“Did you make the chain yourself?”

He rolled his shoulders again, “It’s that janky?”

You shook your head and tried to match the way his signature smirk.

“Nah, it’s that good.”

He immediately caught on and let out a small laugh.

“I see what you tryna do, but you just not as smooth as me.”

Your eyes roll again but you laugh a little too, “Whatever Miles.”

You stood up and took the few steps to his side of the table and turned your back towards him. He took the que and stood behind you, taking the clasp and leftover chain and securing it.

When he finished, you turned to him smiling.

He smiled back at you and straightened his necklace around his own neck.

Before you could second guess yourself you took a step closer and wrapped your arms around his neck.

“Happy Valentine's Day Miles.”

His arms came up around you and you could feel his chest heave.

“Happy Valentine's Day, mami.”

#miles 42 x reader #prowler miles x reader #miles 42 #atsv x reader #atsv fanfiction #atsv #fromphoetou

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hawnks · 2 months

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My neighbor makes tamales. She brings over a bunch of them all at once. I’ve never had a tamale before (I know, I know), so I look a up a tutorial video. I imagine Sara in her downstairs apartment, soaking corn husks, kneading dough. I’m not much of a cook myself, I can’t offer her anything in return. It doesn’t matter. Every once in a while she stops by with another big bag of them, tells me about their fillings, the day she’s had, how her mothers doing.

She doesn’t know that some days I forget to buy groceries, or forget to eat altogether. She doesn’t know that food has always been a sacred, scary thing to me, that every time I open up one of those husk wrappers, steaming and full, it saves me a little.

The woman running the soap stand at the farmers market doesn’t have any customers, so I ask her a million questions about her process. She tells me she learned the old fashioned way, from the farmer down the road. No one would ever talk to her because she was so mean, except the soap maker. So the farmer taught her everything she knew, how to patch a roof, how to raise a goat, how to make soap and stew and blankets. She rubs lotion into my hands. It smells like lavender and warm earth. Yesterday my knuckles were so dry, they cracked.

In the downpour, three different cars pull over, ask me if I need a ride. I’m just a block away, I’ll be fine, I assure them. They still linger before driving off.

At the bus stop, I talk to a woman who tells me her woes. She’s smiling, but near tears. I pull out the tiny, rose quartz heart that’s in my pocket. I carry things like that with me, nicknacks, stickers. Trinkets I can hand out like trick-or-treat candies. She asks me, inevitably, like they all do, “Why do you have this.”

Because my neighbor makes tamales — but I can’t say that. “Just in case,” I tell her.

#idk. it’s cyclical or something #idk how to explain it #I feel like I receive so much by sheer coincidence. maybe I should be someone else’s serendipitous encounter #squawk tag

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mrs-weasley-reid · 1 year

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Cases and Candies

A/N: This is my first time posting here so bear with me lol

Summary: bau!y/n started a tradition of giving the BAU team candies every time they return home from a case. Only this time, Y/N was on sick leave.

— ★ — ★— ★★★

“Great job, everyone. Have the rest of the week off. You all deserve it.” Hotch announced and walked up the few steps to his office.

The rest of the team was now at their respective desks, working through paperwork to pass their last two hours on the clock.

As soon as Hotch’s office shut, Emily, Spencer, and Derek’s hands flew up in the air, palms facing the ceiling as they waited for a small object to graze on their skin.

JJ entered the room with manila folders clutched to her chest, almost choking with laughter at the sight she walked in on. “I assume none of you are waiting for more paperwork?” She said, earning the three agents’ attention to lift from their desks, realizing the subconscious act they just did.

You started a tradition of giving the BAU team a piece of candy as soon as Hotch closed his door.

It would start with Derek, as your desk was next to him. Then, to Spencer, whose desk was across yours. You would move to Emily, then venture up the small flight of stairs to knock on Hotch’s door and leave a piece of candy on his desk without saying anything. You always gave Rossi’s treat last, at least between the people on the main floor, because you wanted to ensure that he didn’t grab two like he did the third time you offered him a piece. Nonetheless, you would give him his favorite flavor to make up for only giving him one candy. And then, you would skip to Penelope’s bat cave with a customized treat. Ribbons tied at the ends of the candy wrapper. Lastly, you would meet JJ on her way to the bullpen with a strawberry-flavored candy in your hand.

Two doors abruptly opened, and JJ immediately spoke, “Y/N was not with us this week, remember? She’s on sick leave. You two have to calm down.”

Aaron’s face shifted a little but was still stern all the same. On the other hand, Rossi tilted his head to indicate a front that he knew already, failing miserably.

JJ shook her head and went straight to Derek’s desk, dialing your number and setting it on speaker.

The ringing stopped as soon as you picked up the call, “Y/L/N speaking.” Your cough echoed in the bullpen, but you were far too busy fighting for your life to feel embarrassed over your office, hearing you heave for air.

“Hey, Y/N, it’s JJ. Are you busy?” Her voice was soft and gentle, and even if you were busy, you would’ve stopped everything you were doing.

A bright laugh rumbled from your end, “If watching ‘A Bug’s Life’ for the fifteenth time is considered busy, then I guess I am.” Your movements muffled the speaker a little bit but they heard you clear enough.

JJ smiled at that. As the person you mainly confided with, you didn’t hesitate to ask her to bring you the DVD copy of the movie as soon as she offered to visit you before they flew out for the case. “I just wanted to ask if you have any treats for your puppies here. They were all waiting patiently, and I’ll let you know they did a great job at the case.” JJ chuckled, earning multiple eye rolls from Emily and Derek.

“Oh, yeah! I forgot to mention that I left a set of treats in my drawer. One for each.” You emphasized your last words, knowing how greedy your teammates could sometimes get.

It has happened before. There was one time when Spencer argued, backed with statistics, that he did such a great job helping find the unsub that he deserved at least three chewy candies. Not to mention that they all created a formal petition, signed by everyone (even Hotch with a special mention of his Unit Chief position), to give five candies to the agent that finds and arrests the unsub.

There was a wave of cheering in the bullpen.

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about!” Emily approvingly nodded.

Derek snorted, “Thanks, sweet mama.”

Spencer went on with his usual random fact, “Sweets as a reward is actually ill advised because studies show that it leads to obesity.”

“Does that mean I can take your piece?” JJ raised a brow at Spencer.

“I just said it’s ill advised. I didn’t say I don’t want one.” Spencer walked to your desk and ignored Derek’s teasing grin.

Aaron let go of the railing, clearing his throat. “Just bring it to my office.” He said and went back to his office.

Rossi didn’t waste time, walking down with an unusual speed that he doesn’t use even during a case. “I want the grape one!” He announced.

The glass door swung open, revealing Penelope with her bright-colored pen. “Hey! No fair! No one told me the treats are out.” She rushed to the group and playfully shoved Derek out of her way.

You couldn’t help but smile through the phone as you listened to the commotion from the other end of the line. And you promised yourself never to miss a case ever again.

#spencer reid #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #derek morgan #david rossi #jennifer jereau #penelope garcia #criminal minds #fanfic #imagine #ssa aaron hotchner #ssa spencer reid #fem!reader #x reader

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redamancy-writes · 6 months

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The Video Store (The Lost Boys 1987 x GN! Reader)

Word Count- 556 Fandom- The Lost Boys 1987 Pairings- Poly! Lost Boys x GN! Reader Title- The Video Store Warnings: None

“Have a good night!” You waved as the young man out of the store, only to watch as his body language shifted from relaxed and easygoing to rigid and practically trembling in his sneakers.

They were here.

“What’re you doing?” You couldn’t help but call out, a frown on your face as the four sauntered into the video store. The store emptied in seconds, mothers scurrying their children out of the store, practically throwing their tapes back onto the shelves- not even sparing a polite smile your way as they exited.

The boys hadn’t even said anything yet, but their presence alone- bikes parked out front, leather jackets, mischievous grins and playful eyes that just equaled trouble- already scared customers away before they had a chance to speak.

Walking from behind the counter you picked up a few tapes that were dropped on the ground, your frown remaining as you began to rant. “You can’t just do this, guys, you know Max doesn’t want you here and-”

“And what, Dollface?” Paul pouted at you, leaning over the counter as you returned to your post behind it.

“And you scare customers away,” You gave him a pointed look as you pulled the sucker out of Marko’s hand before it fully left the candy bowl.

“Why do you four come by so much anyways, it’s not like you ever rent anything?”

“Oh c’mon, baby, you know what we come here for,” Now it was Paul’s turn to give you a pointed look as he pulled the sucker from your hand, easily removing the wrapper and plopping the blue raspberry lollipop into his mouth.

You couldn’t deny the heat that crawled up the back of your neck as the group hovered around your checkout counter.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” You swallowed, doing your best to fake nonchalance as you glanced past them and out to the boardwalk- checking, searching, verifying? You were alone with them.

“Flustered, baby?” Dwayne murmured, and that’s when you realized how close he was, practically crawling over the left side of the counter, upper body almost fully laying on the countertop.

“I-”

Before you could fully reply, Max’s voice broke the trance you were in.

“And what do you four think you’re doing here? I told you to stay away,” His voice was exasperated but it sounded distant as Dwayne’s lips quirked to reveal a toothy smile.

“One day you’ll understand, one day, Doll,” David spoke, giving you a meaningful look before pressing a kiss to his finger tips, holding them out in your direction before exiting the store, eyes glaring at Max as he passed. “C’mon boys.”

The remaining three seemed hesitant to leave you alone, and at that moment you realized Paul had loosely gripped your hand in his during the encounter.

“See you later, baby,” Dwayne spoke finally after a moment of tension, finally standing upright and beginning to push the remaining two towards the door. His words felt heavier than just an easy goodbye, no no, they were weighted with promises of more and you couldn’t help but grin as your heart fluttered.

“Can’t wait,” You replied, not wanting them to see your flustered state anymore as you turned to check in some videotapes, not seeing the way the group visibly brightened at your response.

Tags: @icefrozendeadlyqueen

#the lost boys 1987 #reader insert #x reader #tlb dwayne #tlb x reader #tlb imagine #the lost boys #slasher imagines #tlb 1987 #slasher x reader #tlb paul #marko tlb #dwayne tlb #tlb david #david tlb #david the lost boys #lost boys #tlb

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1800titz · 11 months

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HI FRIENDS. 18K here!! This time we explore breaks, because sometimes they are necessary! Also, we see Jealousrry, and we see Isla being Isla. Hope you enjoy!! (Feedback always appreciated!) (✿◠‿◠)

PREVIOUS PARTS HERE - WATTPAD ALTERNATIVE HERE

Open houses, to Harry, are a stage, and the gift of his gab leaves him basking in the luster of the spotlight with no stage fright.

First time home buyers, young couples waltzing through hallways with gazes bouncing over walls with demure decorum, families with young kids who run amuck, darting from one end of the house to the other as he guides their parents through empty rooms, his dialogue friendly and bright — he finds comfort in any audience. Divorced milfs whose heels click over tile, mimicking wood varnish, trailing behind as his silver tongue sells, and sells, and sells — some of those really find his dialogue of “sleek, floor to ceiling windows,” and the “flowing floor plan,” and “custom built additions,” charming enough for hungry fingers to creep against biceps by the end of the tour.

Harry, never in his life, has had so many nerves over a tour. Maybe just his very first open house, where he’d taken the reins for the first time alone.

It makes sense, theoretically, that he’d be nervous to become enclosed in a space with Isla Cleery — his masked, blissfully unaware submissive, in a setting where so much was prone to go awry. It makes sense that he’d be nervous to let something slip, that he’d be nervous he’d find himself fucking into her, pressing her face against a full length bathroom mirror mid-tour, like the climax (pun unintended) to a dirty storyline in a professionally produced porno. Young, Hot Slut Isla Cleery Bounces on Raunchy Realtor Cock, or maybe Adorable Brunette Gets Pussy Pounding for a Discount. Something like that. That last one is especially depraved, but — gotta add some form of sordid cliche to create a flashy title. Click bait, if you will.

It makes sense to be nervous when his nerves are all he can think about, sitting behind the wheel of his Range Rover, parked on the curb as he waits for her own vehicle to turn the corner and pull up to the property. It’s all sort of a vicious cycle.

She’d called him two days prior. He’d been laying in bed, in the midst of his Candy Crush bedtime ritual — culling ice tiles and smashing colorful blocks with point-inducing combos of stripes and wrappers. He’d stared at his phone as the LED display sparked alive with a banner over the top of the screen — an incoming call from an unsaved phone number. A pinch had worked between his brows, and he’d tapped over the banner with the pad of his thumb, clearing his throat and pressing the phone to his ear as he answered. A business call was a business call.

“Hello?” his voice was low with incoming sleep, his vocal cords supplying a rasp on account of the silence he’d priorly stalled in.

The pace of the organ behind his rib cage had picked up considerably when Isla Cleery’s soft voice had come in response, her cadence tinny through the speaker, undeniably delectable.

“Hey!” his ears had swallowed her chime, “Harry,” the man had shifted a bit over his linen sheets, “This is Isla Cleery.”

Isla Cleery. Bright, and chipper, and …randomly dialing his number at a strange hour in the night.

“Isla! Hi,” he’d responded, clearing his throat to curtail tacking on a quip of how can I assist you at this ungodly hour?

The uneasy wavelength of her inflection had spurred a crease to work over his brow bone — rushed, and breathy, and almost frantic in its phrasing.

“Hi,” a pause, a half-hearted apology, “Listen, I’m so sorry to be calling you so late but — ah,” a stifled, little sound that had caused his nostrils to flare and had sent an inopportune rush of excitement slithering through to the trench of his tummy and frothing, “So, you sent me this other property, and I wanted to — I wanted to see that one. The one on, Mul-Mulner, was it?”

“Mulnich,” he’d gnawed into his lip, sitting up a smidge, braced on his forearm as his curiosity piqued.

“Yes, the, uh, the Mulnich property. I wanted to see that one. So,” another pause that had his face contorting in bemusement — (was she running on a fucking treadmill?), “Can we set that up?”

The man had pulled the receiver back and toggled his counterpart to leak through the speaker setting, rolling onto his side as he’d swiped through his virtual calendar.

“Sure. Yeah. Let me just check,” Harry had supplied, pausing and pursing his lips as he’d just listened — background noise, like a TV, a rustle, a sigh, a laugh track, an inhale, “Does Wednesday at two work for you?”

“Can’t — can’t. Wednesday, at two. Anything — can you do anything later? In the evening, maybe?”

Harry had paused. He’d paused, and just listened, his ears working on overdrive to attempt to decipher whatever was spurring her strange behavior, the note of apprehension of her cadence, the — was he going insane? — desperation to her dialogue. There’d been nothing but the familiarity of a common laugh track and shuffling. His pupils had perused as he’d ripped his attention off of the odd display and swiped to give her a proper appointment.

“Yeah,” the man responded after a moment of lull, clearing his throat, “I can do …five? If that works for you.”

“Yes! Yeah,” He’d picked up on Isla Cleery doing the same on the other end of the line, her speech giddy and garbled, “Five. Wednesday. Yes. So, I can — I can come?”

His jaw had set at the choice of words — there was just no way, but the frenzy in her inflection so vividly resembled the way she’d begged him back in the White Room, days prior. There was no way, he’d told himself. She didn’t have the gall. She didn’t have the audacity. She was working him into a ludicrous frenzy — or rather, he was working himself into one with the lewd train of thought derailing his composure.

There was no way Isla Cleery was calling him and touching herself.

“To see the property?” the voice on the other end had tacked on, coaxing him from the zoned out thrill of a wild imagination.

“Yeah, yes. Of course,” he’d said.

There was just no fucking way.

More shuffling. A garbled sound. Something that’d incited his teeth to dig into his bottom lip, to sit up as he was met with silence beyond the sounds of a TV.

“Isla?”

More shuffling. There was just—

No. Fucking. Way.

He’d felt his own stomach clenching up then, muscles rippling as blood pumped and the familiarity of deluded arousal, at the prospect, suffusing through his veins like quick-acting alcohol.

“Isla?” Harry had prodded again, louder.

“Yes, sorry, I’m so sorry. God, I just saw the time — I’m sorry, it was so unprofessional of me to call so late. I hope I didn’t—“ his face twisted up at the breathless onslaught of her breakless cadence, like her speech was expelled all in one, rushed breath, “Thank you for taking my call. Wednesday at Five. Have a good night.”

His mouth had parted to inquire, because what the fuck — but from there, a click. The green logo of an active phone call had vanished. She’d hung up, evidently in a rush. Harry had stared up at his ceiling for a solid twenty minutes, ruminating on the odd encounter.

There was, simply, as previously emphasized, no fucking way.

So yeah, now, with his bare fingertips drumming over the leather of his steering wheel, he’s a smidge nervous to see her. His innards are twisting into knots by the time he catches sight of her white Corolla slipping in against the curb behind him. Harry climbs out of the car.

“Hi,” Isla Cleery talks first.

There’s no dainty bell sleeves trapped in car doors today — a pencil skirt hugs her hips, and a long sleeve with a funnel neckline adorns her torso. Harry notes the way she nonchalantly tugs to further lower a sleeve on the arm where he knows the bangle is manacled.

“You’ve renounced …your renouncement of heels,” is the first thing he says. He wants to smack himself square between the brows with the heel of his palm — what an inane start.

“Oh,” Isla shoots a glance to her choice of footwear — smart (Harry thinks, spiffy), dark pumps, “Yeah,” she bends a knee back and lifts an ankle a smidge, “Sort of had to. Felt a little weird wearing a pencil skirt with flats.”

“And,” the young woman casts a small simper his way, “No evil grates, as of yet. Fingers crossed,” she lifts her arm, the left, where the bracelet isn’t, and bares friendly teeth.

Evil grates …what the fuck? Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking, her inner voice coaxes frantically.

Isla is dying inside. For good reason — it makes sense. Being enclosed in a space, casually, with her dominant un-dominant-clad, has this weird butterfly-eruption effect. They bounce against her insides aimlessly, like little crack-infused insects. She’s nervous to let something slip — anything, and it’s too easy considering she’s been cuffed by a bracelet that sort of gives it all away within a split-second flash of gold and secrets.

She’s unsure of what succubus-like tendencies of the day had possessed her to abandon her panties — that had been a dirty, last-minute decision of thrill, and it had seemed filthily exciting and sort of dangerous in the best way. The idea of ambling through a house tour with Harry, and knowing that she was entirely bare beneath her skirt. But now, faced by him, obnoxiously aware of her nude thighs grazing together under the fabric and … only …more debauched nudeness higher, well.

Isla just feels like a pervert.

It bears resemblance to the sensation she had encountered two days prior, once she’d hung up the phone (and the sex-haze had worn off). That was another thing she was nervous about. There’s no way the man had just glossed over the encounter as entirely unsuspicious. It was weird, she was weird for that, Isla thought, she was weird on the phone with a stuttery, breathy inflection that was obnoxious in give-away, and he definitely knew something was off, if not the entire background behind the lust-driven call.

She clears her throat in an attempt to ward off the flurry of nervous apprehension coiling in her stomach (that she’s sure will find its way among her vocal cords), “But. Yeah.”

Harry grins. He’s just so — Isla ogles, kind of dreamily — handsome. And she knows him on an intimate level, (a very intimate level), but these glimpses of his face, in person… she doesn’t get the pleasure of espying those often. His hair, coiled and placed in soft ringlets, his dimples burrowing as teeth showcase and his mouth lights alive with a smile. Last time he’d been clean-shaven and smooth, but today there’s a soft dusting of facial hair over his jaw. She wants to kiss him, she wants to feel it brush against her own face, wants to feel it graze over her inner thighs as he sucks kisses into her skin like affectionate bruises as proof of his presence, and—

“Please,” the man folds his palms together, like a prayer, and pillowy pink curves with his statement, “No …impromptu rope swing climbing—“

Isla’s mouth jolts.

“In heels,” Harry tacks on, raising his eyebrows and gesturing subtly with his palms.

“Ooh,” she rocks forward a bit, a pinch in her own brows, “Can’t make any promises. The rope swing calls.”

“Oh it does?”

“Siren song,” Isla nods.

Harry’s mouth quirks. And then he clears his throat.

“Well. I’m pleased you’re interested in viewing another property with me, but I can’t lie and say I’m not a bit disappointed that Sweeger Avenue didn’t particularly catch your eye. I’ll have to buy it if you don’t,” the curly-headed brunette jests.

“It did!” Isla assuages, motioning with her palm and following as he turns slowly — a gesture that indicates he’d like her to follow in the direction of the house, “It’s a beautiful house, I’m just keeping my options open.”

Harry hums. The young woman’s heels sink softly into the lawn, bright, neatly trimmed tufts crinkling with each step.

“Watch your step, there, darling,” the realtor warns softly as they venture over a pattern of concrete stone that leads up to the porch.

“Oh — thank you.”

She adds, once they’re stood under the awning of the porch, “And, well, you gave such a good tour, I figured another property in my price range was worth a look, right?”

“Right,” he sends a soft grin over his shoulder at her (that shrouds the nerves he feels teeming below the surface), “Sure. Of course.”

Isla watches him unveil a little key from his pocket and stuff it into the notch in the knob, twisting. “I will say,” the man starts, gaze cast to his handiwork, “while this one isn’t as… maybe ritzy as the last — y’know, all the bells and whistles of the reno’s — there’s still a lot of potential with this one. Character.”

The door creaks and clicks on its hinges as it swings open. Isla follows him in, greeted by the sight of what she imagines, once upon a time, had been pasted with warm hues of color and overbearing wallpaper patterns. The entryway, as the first showing had been, is no showstopper with elegant twin staircases. The wood beneath her feet is scuffed, and faint stains litter the walls near the baseboards — but it’s far from time forgotten and termite embraced, as she’d assumed would tail the realtor lingo of potential.

“Three bed, two-and-a-half bath — little more space with 2,052 square feet. Little more out of pocket, too, if you wanted to amp it up to that sort of à la mode Sweeger had,” the realtor’s shoes click over the wood in a sound that just oozes power, power, power, and Isla tails him, vision walloping the walls to curb the hunger that grows within her at something as innocuous as the sound of his dress shoes on wooden floors, “but if not, there’s loads of character to enjoy and build upon.”

The young woman sneaks a glance — they’re no serpentine patched loafers, but they’re smooth and glossy and jet. Simple.

She wonders what pair will greet her on Friday night.

“This one’s a bit newer than the last — but a lot of this stuff is original. Really a step back in time. Very open concept — vaulted floor to ceiling floor plan,” her vision flits over the living area, his velvety cadence like a pre-rehearsed soundtrack to fit a virtual tour posted on the web.

Isla gazes over the expanse of the innards — replicas of the imagery she’d scrolled through online. Only now, the lines are larger, the shapes are prettier, the space is more vibrant. Personal. It’s lived in — furnishings remain of the sellers, but there are no personalized touches of family photos (a key factor, she’d learned, to bolster prospective buyer imaginations, to spur their mental imagery into forming their own space). A half wall breaks a living area off from the entry. Set upon a platform (where tile sweeps from lounge to kitchen; a drab shade of beige others would perhaps not find nearly as endearing as Isla does — it’s a nostalgia thing, she’s sure) — between the wooded entryway that flows into an empty expanse of doors — are armchairs and a sectional in neutral tones. Beyond this, a formal dining area, and on the end is a little kitchen, broken apart from a hallway with another wall.

“We’ve got these sleek lines that come with open space like this,” Harry gestures towards the sculpt of plaster and drywall shaping lips over windows in the lounge, “but we’ve also got little touches, like a time capsule,” he twists, motioning towards the staircase — an interesting piece unforeseen, “like the spiral staircase. White wrought-iron with wood paneling — you’re not gonna find these being built very often, anymore.”

Upon the grin the realtor casts her way, Isla ambles towards it, and she runs her touch over the railing.

“Really pretty. You’re right. I don’t see many of these anymore.”

Her sight is torn between the man — his charismatic demeanor, his good looks — and the space as he continues, lucratively well-versed, “I’m sure you note there’s no overbearing pops of color, or wallpaper that’s wasting away, since I told you it wasn’t all that renovated. Carpet’s been ripped up,” he slides the toe of his shoe over the wooden floorboards, a dark, warm chocolate, and then his hand comes to rap softly over the short wall dividing the kitchen from an expanse of hallway with doors as jade reaffixes onto her, “and the walls were repainted by previous buyers. All original wood and tiling, though.”

As Isla steps onto the platform, she regards chips in laminate. Yes. Original.

“Between you and me,” her head twists — a friendly simper plays over the realtor’s cushiony (intimately familiar) lips, “I think that was a good choice. Versatile. But the rest, like these gorgeous light fixtures — all original,” he nudges towards the dining area behind her, and Isla pivots to face the table, “‘83, I believe.”

A bundle of two lanterns, elongated like cylinders with tapered ends. They hang over the table, a darling focus point.

Isla peers back over just as the man’s tongue peeks out to slick his mouth, “But my favorite’s in the kitchen.”

Eagerly, she makes her way forward, where the kitchen lays, open for her exploration. It’s no showstopper. She gets it now — his sugared warning of original pieces. And it’s not like the kitchen is this heinous sight, but it’s timeworn. An outdated shade of mustard hugs the countertops, and the cabinetry is stale and dinged. Scratches and blemishes stain almost plastic-y looking white. The appliances look to be about forty years old — which adds up, according to the timeline. But there’s an island. It’s beautiful, and broad, and even if Isla has no interest in piling it with culinary disasters, it’s still pleasant ken. She finds that on the opposite side of that wall is a pantry.

“I don’t know what to do with a kitchen like this,” her pink (gloriously fuckable, Harry thinks) mouth jolts as a smile slithers over, “It’s so. Large.”

“You don’t cook?”

Her irises roll up to the ceiling with her soft smile, “I microwave. TV dinners, mostly. I can put frozen waffles in a toaster, too. Maybe scramble an egg, but there’s no guarantee there won’t be shell in the mix.”

It’s sort of funny, Harry thinks — the way polar opposites attract. Like magnets, he supposes. Really, very horribly horny magnets. He can’t remember the last time he had a frozen waffle.

“But I guess I’ll have to learn, with an island like this,” Isla sighs and gestures.

Well, if you’re ever in need of a taste tester… Harry bridles his flirty quip. Instead, he shows her what lies behind the doors of the hallway, the rooms downstairs. A half bath, a bedroom scantily furnished — an office, for her, perhaps.

“You said you were a paralegal last time, right?” he cocks his head back at her over his shoulder as he leads the way, and Isla tries not to feel the warmth the remembrance of the minute detail ignites.

Of course he remembered. It was his job. She bites her tongue to curb the instinctive, “Yes, Sir.”

“I am, yeah.”

“Lot’s of research and a work-from-home, after-hours situation, you said, last time? I think the study on this property will be very suited to your needs.”

A laundry room, the entrance to the garage, a slow amble back towards the staircase. Ah, the staircase. The young woman feels a burnishing blush suffuse over her cheekbones when the male gestures with an open palm — an invitation for her to go on ahead of him. But there’s that little …no panties …thing. Her legs shift. Her skirt brushes against the back of her knees. There’s no probable likelihood of a flash, she’s sure. Still, that ruddiness glows over her skin as she takes the cautious, first step. She feels ludicrously lewd.

“Wouldn’t want you to get your heel caught,” the realtor states, strawberry mouth twitching.

No, that would certainly cause far more than a glimpse of a flash.

“Truly a gentleman,” Isla quips, and by the time she’s wound halfway up, Harry only a couple of steps behind, she tacks on, “God. It really is sort of a scary set of stairs.”

“Climbing a rickety rope swing is scary,” Harry scoffs from behind, his cadence lighthearted.

A hallway with a landing that allows for a gaze upon the first story. A wall of doors. A bathroom with an unsightly, pink tub. A cozy original with old-world-charm, according to the realtor; definitely creative wording, Isla thinks.

“Master bedroom,” the man slips the final door open, and Isla’s irises bounce from window to window — they suffuse the room with what she imagines would be bright, refreshing daylight. Now, it comes in the form of a warm, yellow glow with the time of day.

“Very roomy,” she comments. It is. The square footage of the space, she’s sure, has to be roomier than the master bedroom of the first showing, but perhaps the emphasis on the broadness of the space has to do with the sheer fact that the first showing had been bare, and this room holds furniture — even still, the space is bigger. Despite the queen sized bed, throned by the waxy, wooden headboard, the nightstands that mirror either side of the mattress, and the matching wooden dresser, the space is open.

“S’no reno’d Sweeger Ave,” the realtor supplies, wandering a handful of steps behind her as she makes her way into the room, “But it’s roomy, like you said. Bright. Beautiful windows — lots of light. Can you imagine yourself here?”

It’s a queen sized bed. Isla is not wearing panties, and she’s reminded of this particular fact as she stares at it and imagines Eros bending her over the edge of the mattress. She thinks of Harry’s chest pressing up behind her as his broad, ring-clad digits slide over her waist, settle on her stomach. She thinks of his mouth pasting to the crook of her neck, sponging kisses over the expanse of her skin as his soft breaths caress her nerve endings. She thinks of him walking her forward, his crotch glued to her hips. She thinks of fingers grappling for wrists and a firm grip as he manhandles the joints behind her back with ease. She thinks of him flipping her skirt up and discovering that she’s bare beneath it, thinks of a palm fondling, of croons in her ear on what a filthy, naughty girl she is, of his fingers slipping lower and his teeth grazing over her neck and—

“Great room, innit?”

Her eyes flash to him at a dangerous speed, his words from the prior week hurtling through her mind as he tells her, tone entirely innocuous, “But I think there’s something missing.”

An ottoman, the young woman thinks, her expression kept impressively neutral, all things considered. An ottoman.

“Accent wall there, long curtains with a sheer layering, different furniture set — contemporary, I’d go with, a rug,” the male taps his foot over a stark area of the floorboards, just ahead of the footboard of the bed, “Nice shag rug. Right here.”

Shag rug.

Shag rug — textile characterized by longer, heavier pile, so as to have the appearance of being shaggy. Isla imagines a white rug in tufts, warding her brain from mental images of the man physically shagging her on said rug. Yes. These are all very …compelling suggestions.

“Mhm,” Isla hums curtly.

“And, y’know, all this light lets the room whisper sweet nothings about the beauties of the approaching day, but I think, the view,” he takes slow steps over chocolate wood to tug blinds open, “beckons sleepless nights.”

Sleepless nights — Isla is going to wring her own neck. Despite the arousal that seeps through her at the dirty-fucking-twist of insinuation, she makes her way to his side for a peer. Beyond the horizon of plains and landscaping lies skyscrapers — the city a blip of scenery with the sky as its backdrop.

“Oh.”

“Mm. Really pretty at night, I’d think.”

“It’s a …good thing I have a strong constitution for sleepless nights,” Isla swallows, “I’m sure the view will keep me entertained.”

Harry steals a soft glance, down at her side profile. He’s bridled his flirtish nature, he’s restrained his quips. He’s bent over backwards for sanctity. But—

“If you ever find yourself in need of a midnight conversation partner, you know who to call.”

The young woman peers up at him through her lashes. It’s a blatant implication of her untimely phone call two days prior. He’s teasing. He has to be simply teasing. But the way his mouth twitches, the way his eyes fix on her — there’s something… something beyond innocent jest.

“Offering your services as a nocturnal conversationalist?” she tries to keep the nervous note from her cadence as she takes a step away — he had to be flirting. “I’m a lucky girl.”

“Real estate agent by day, midnight talk-show host by night. I’m a man of many talents,” the curly-headed brunette shrugs, digging ring-adorned fingers halfway into pockets of slacks. A soft smile plays over his soft mouth. It’s all sort of lascivious. Isla wants to clamber back onto a stranger's bed in a master bedroom that doesn’t belong to her, and she wants to ogle his reflection glint at her from the waxy headboard as his hips pump forward. As his cock pummels into her. A warmth pulses between her thighs, beneath her pencil skirt.

The reminder of her arousal, left in a dried stain post her drive home, confronts her as she strips in the confines of her apartment, alone, nearly two hours later.

Harry is not a green-eyed monster.

Which is an irony, because in the realm of indulge, there’s more than a handful of people who would confidently deem him with that pretty title.

Perhaps, better phrasing (that wouldn’t allow for the claim to be twisted by unruly, prior play partners), would be that Harry is not innately a jealous man. He’s a sure man, a man who knows his ambitions and aims — bluntly so. He’s a man that doesn’t like to share during scenes, but he’s upfront and honest about it. There’s no games, no teetering tugs and yanks on strings of emotions. He’s not a man that is known to ooze green at the sight of his partner fraternizing with someone else, and he’s definitely not the type of man to care about those things in any context outside of Indulge.

A person is a person — their own person. That’s not his thing to fuck with. Harry is not a green-eyed monster that bleeds envy with begrudging glances.

The sight of Isla Cleery, though, shrouded by her commonplace lace, leant up against the bar, in the midst of lively chatter with some shirtless dom adorned by an eye-cover with plastic-y tufts of horns — that culls an odd reaction from him. It’s strange — she’s early. He always shows before her to reserve the room of the night, and she arrives and waits in an obedient kneel until he opts to join her. But she’s early — she’s at the bar, and he’s just booked the room (The White Room, tonight). Harry nearly misses the sight of the interaction altogether.

But he doesn’t — she catches his eye, clad in a set of dark, silky underthings and sheer stockings. He watches her toe back against the stem of one of the barstools. She’s got her cherry concoction in hand, a plethora of syrupy fruit upon a bed of ice and artificial sweeteners, and she’s laughing at something her counterpart says. In response, the man’s grin is vibrant over the visible expanse of his lower face. Harry doesn’t know who he is at first. But then he squints, and his vision roves. Faunus. He vaguely knows of the dominant, but the most prominent thought that floats to the forefront of his mind involves the jest Isla had made prior to the drafting of their contract. The one where she’d mentioned the alternation of rocking her shit, and the name Faunus had been introduced in the prospective party.

And it’s not like Harry bleeds jade at the sight, but he kind of does. Because, the thing is, next week is their last scene, contractual obligations concerned — and. Well, it makes him feel ill. The thought of his submissive — of Isla Cleery, slipping to her knees for Faunus as their own contract comes to a close, the thought of Faunus manhandling her in the same way Harry does every Friday night, it all makes his jaw set from across the lounge. Because those are their Fridays. Something stirs in him when Faunus places his hand onto her arm — because, what the fuck?

Slowly but surely, he makes his way over, slipping into the interaction from behind his submissive. He brushes a gloved palm against the small of her back, and upon the touch, Peitho stiffens and twists. And then she relaxes. Smiles all pretty at him, too.

“You’re early,” the hand slides to the vale of her waist and squeezes softly as he presses close and speaks low. It’s obnoxious, Harry’s aware — opting not to initially acknowledge the other member of the conversation, but Faunus watches the two with a silent eye, anyhow, so.

“I was late last week, so. Wanted to be early this time. Didn’t know you were here, Sir,” the submissive supplies, rocking forward onto her toes, and then lets the outside of her arm glue to his torso as he pastes to her side.

Harry hums. And then he casts his gaze onto Faunus as the man speaks. “Eros, right?” the male’s mouth curls softly as he nudges towards Harry.

“In the flesh,” Harry grins politely. Politely. Because he’s polite.

His counterpart, glistening with a sheen of sweat under the purple-ish tinges of the lights, takes a swig from his glass — water, Harry assumes it to be, but you never can really tell in the hue of the lounge, “You’re a little infamous around here.”

Infamous. Sounds about right.

“Am I?”

“Mm. I’ve heard only good things from this one, though,” the horn-masked man gestures with his glass towards Isla. In turn, she shifts a little further against her dominant.

“Yeah?” Harry’s chin dips toward the submissive, then, and he tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “All good things, baby?”

Isla nods and hums, melting with the side of her cheek against his chest.

“But between you and me,” Faunus leans forward a smidge, elbow braced over the marbled bar countertop, “This one’s a bit of a handful.”

Harry grins politely. Yeah, the reminder that this man has manhandled his submissive in the same manner he has makes him go a bit neon green. What the fuck. And Isla — she just squirms against him. Harry’s well aware that the nonchalant small talk of her, with no acknowledgement, like she’s not stood in the midst of the conversation, riles her in a filthy way. And Faunus seems to know this tidbit of information, too — his irises, glinty under the lights overhead, slink from Harry to Isla and back again. It’s a subtle motion, but it shows Harry enough. The dominant’s mouth quirks, gaze subtly steely in the narrow of his lashes.

“Mm. Well, between you and me,” the hand that’d previously settled on her waist slips up to her hair, cards through past the nape of her neck, digits entangling in the roots, “she knows her place with me,” Harry shoots her a look, and tugs firmly by slowly tightening his fist. It’s a subtle motion — but the pinpricks of pain that burst over her scalp, as a result, have her pulse quickening.

And Harry knows. He knows and his lips nearly crook up, but he curbs his smirk. And Faunus can ogle all he wants — but he can’t touch. Can’t draw the same reaction from her. That thought has satisfaction blooming in his chest.

“Don’t you, darling?”

When the young woman returns in concurrence, her inflection is breathy and soft. “Yes, Sir.”

He’s jealous, Isla thinks. She’s not sure why. But he’s jealous, and he tugs on her hair like a showcase of his dominion, like she’s simply a plaything for him and him only to lewdly siphon soft reactions from. It’s so blatant, the way he does it all in front of Faunus. He’s claiming his territory. It’s subtle, it’s obnoxious, it borders on impolite, but it lights a fire within her like no other.

“The White Room,” Harry croons against her ear, low in decibel, “S’open. If you were up to play.” Jade slinks back up to dull blue, to the opposite dominant watching the display — a blank slate of curious interest. His gloved fingers untether gently and he speaks a bit louder, face turned back towards Faunus, “Wouldn’t want to tear you away and impose, though.”

The White Room. With Eros. Yes. Isla wants to go to the White Room with her Eros.

“Oh — no,” Isla assuages quickly, pivoting her head from Faunus to Eros and back, “Great — it’s been great, catching up, with you,” she motions with her palm towards the horn-masked dom.

Faunus pauses, as if musing, and eventually the corners of his mouth curl up softly.

“Likewise,” he tells her, gesturing with his glass, before his vision skids from Isla to Harry and back. His tongue peeks out to glide over his bare lips. Harry doesn’t miss the way his eyes wander roguely over the submissive’s silhouette — a tad flirtily, if he’s not mistaken, before he tacks on what sounds uncomfortably ominous to him. “I’ll see you around, Peitho.”

Harry’s jaw sets and he watches the other man all the way as he ambles off and disappears into the midst of the crowded lounge to mingle. It’s childish, he’s aware, to feel as though his turf is being invaded upon, like a personally deemed sector of a sandbox, and Isla his prized, shiny …bucket …or something (what do children play with in sandboxes? Harry can’t recall, at the moment). And he’s aware that Isla is not his possession, per se, but she sort of is. For the window of six weeks, she is his and his only, and the way he seems to recall it, they’re only on number five. His head snaps to her as the submissive clears her throat. She’s peering up at him, her mouth twitchy in giveaway.

He’s jealous, Isla thinks, and obviously so, the envy in him visible like figurines through the glass of a snowglobe.

“Had a nice time catching up with your friend?” Harry settles on. His inflection is smooth like molasses and low like a foreboding omen — a siren song. Isla contemplates getting him jealous more often.

“Yeah,” the young woman blinks, “Faunus is always great.”

Her lips twitch on the latter, and the word choice is made with such outright and overt intent to goad him — but she’s so harmless about it, too, afterwards nestling against him sweetly post the double entendre. Always great. Always a great fuck. Harry gives into her game shamelessly. He fingers at the strap on her brassiere as his mouth quirks wryly.

“This is a pretty little piece. Wear it for Faunus?”

“No,” Isla’s cadence doesn’t offer nearly as much resolve, and she jolts minutely as he lets it snap back into place. “Wore it for you.”

“For me?” the dominant raises his eyebrows, playing coy, and smooths the pad of his finger over an embellishment of lace over the edge of a cup as he tacks on, a little derisively, “How sweet.”

Then, Eros juts with his chin towards her unfinished rocks glass of sugar and syrup and fruit with the barest bones of their original nutrients, “Are you gonna throw that up if I play rough tonight?”

The brazen insinuation causes Isla to swallow, her chest growing a little tighter and the valley between her thighs growing a little warmer.

“Wouldn’t be a pretty sight. S’the White Room, after all,” his irises glimmer mischievously.

“No,” Isla protests, her gaze jumping from the glass to the shiny latex disguising his stupid, perfect face. A beat. The sound of the glass grazing over the wood coaxes his eyes to her hand as she slides it away. Yes.

“No, no. Feel free to finish it. I’ll wait.”

Despite this, her eyes jump between the half-empty glass and his face. His lack of tout — the empty, unspoken allurement of possibility — only lure her further. Take your time, I’ll patiently wait to do cruel and unusual things to you (that would’ve probably been deemed beyond illegal in the middle ages). It’s — yes. That is, no. No. Isla does not want to wait, her imagination running rampantly on the prospects of a mean Eros spurred by a jealous streak suddenly prevalent.

That she’s wrenched from him.

“No, I’m good,” Isla tells him, her cherries discarded.

Harry blinks at her, and then responds, his mouth curling softly, “Really, love. S’no rush. Got all night to,” her fingers jump to her palm, as he stretches it and settles it against the countertop, pleather-coated digits splaying, “play.”

Play. Her interest itches horribly to know what his agenda for the night entails.

“No — no, I’m good. I’m good,” the submissive clears her throat, sliding the cup away just a smidge more with the flex of her fingers. Harry’s mouth quirks.

“You’re awfully eager.”

Good. He’s pleased to coax the reaction — he’s pleased that Faunus, evidently, doesn’t even have the ability to harvest her attention in the same manner. Good, good, good.

“Well. White Room’s waiting for you, then. I’ll meet you in there,” Harry blinks at her, and then his eyes flash to his fingers as those come out to smooth over the bangle manacling her wrist, “Lemme just tie up some loose ends.”

Isla looks at him then, for a second, speaking volumes through her expression despite the majority of it being clandestine by swirls of dark fabric. Loose ends. He can tell she’s bemused that he doesn’t personally walk her, hand-in-hand.

“Okay,” the young woman settles on.

“Okay?”

“Okay, …Sir.”

He watches her walk off down a secluded hallway at the edge of the lounge, and then he blows out a breath and turns to the mocktail bartender on shift. Bliss — pretty corset, pretty, bedazzled mask, and a pretty mean dominatrix on the weekends when she’s not tending to the bar, he’s heard.

“S’cuse me, could you just—“ he gestures with the glass once the bartender’s in earshot, and she lifts her face from the sink at his cadence, “switch this off her tab onto mine.”

He doesn’t have to specify — he knows Bliss well enough. They’ll engage in the occasional small talk. Mundane shit, usually; the weather, the housing market, reputable toy artisans. Or, they had. These days he spends much of his Indulge time playing rather than strung up at the bar. Anyways, it’s the least he could do for Peitho, considering… well. The agenda for the night. The least. His mouth nearly crooks at the thought.

“Oh, it’s not on her tab, babes. Guy that was with her already tabbed it out.”

Oh — Oh. Okay. O-kay. His head swivels back to the throng of Indulge, where Faunus has vanished into the midst of the mingling masses. So now Faunus was buying her mocktails. Sick.

“How …nice,” Harry turns back, a tick in his jaw.

By the time the door clicks open from behind her, Isla’s knees are already shifting into their welcomed ache. It’s all sort of a routine she’s become beyond well accustomed to. The young woman listens to his dress shoes pad over the floor, and then she feels his hand brush through her hair from the back.

“Come sit.”

He says it in a way that doesn’t imply that he’s presently vexed — it’s easygoing enough, but his tone nearly carries the impending weight of the incoming scene. The submissive feels his palm withdraw, and then watches the backs of his dress shoes move, for a moment, as he winds past her towards the chair. And then she clambers up and follows. The mischievous jest Isla had basked in, priorly, starts its usual gear-shift into apprehension. Because being in a room, alone, with Eros, post whatever brazenly mouthy infringements Isla has managed, doesn’t leave her with …nearly as much pluck. Though, unfortunately for Eros and his ego, (or perhaps fortunately — she’s convinced he quite enjoys manually taming her into submission far more than he lets on), she’s still far from that state of mindless subservience he always manages to draw her into by the end of a session. The dominant sinks into the cushion and blows out a breath as if to discard the heft of a long workday, and his thighs splay a smidge as his eyes convey, expectantly through the slit of his mask, that he’d like her to sit. Isla slips into his lap, against the sturdy muscle of one of his parted thighs, and his leg shifts beneath her as his arm winds around her waist to cradle her close.

“I didn’t fuck you last week, and you’re already looking elsewhere, darling?” are the first words out of his mouth.

The statement is said as a jest — but it’s only half of that. His strawberry mouth is twitchy, and the pads of his digits are gentle on her thigh, and his tone is calm, and friendly, and traitorously sweet.

But Isla knows better.

Her mother had always said, behind every joke there’s some truth, sort of like a more wholesome version of drunk words are sober thoughts — far more kid friendly, but. The young woman couldn’t relate more to the wise piece of advice than she was, now, in this moment. Because her Eros is green, and obviously so. It radiates from his pores, the envy, no doubt a response to seeing Faunus’s palm pasted to her arm (she’s sure her innocuous, little comment played some part, as well), and the tidbits of his vulnerability make something oddly twist in her. Something like — feelings, beyond the playroom. It pleases her, in a red-flag-on-her-part sort of way, knowing that he cares. But more than that, the sentiment leaves her brimming with arousal. A jealous man was never a kind man, and a mean Eros, tucked away with her in a reserved playroom at Indulge, always left her simmering in welcomed anticipation.

“Of course not,” she assuages, tracing the folds of fabric in his collar and fixing them up with a smoothing touch, her pupils fixed to her fingers as she tacks on, “I’d never look elsewhere when I’m contractually obligated to uphold monogamy.”

It’s a tease that’s blatantly meant to rile him — the corners of her mouth buckle like an afterthought, and beneath her touch, the dominant’s chest heaves with a sigh.

“Contractual obligation. S’that all my time is to you, then?”

His tone is lighthearted, but the words have that undercurrent of brooding, like her words have wounded him, and Isla thumbs over a button and pops it through a loop — just for a bit of skin.

“All my cock is to you?” the man shifts below her, his tone still playful, “A contractual obligation?”

“No,” she protests, her fingers twitchy before his chin dips to ogle her handiwork, and a palm clasps over her wrist to bring the fingertips to his mouth and nip.

“Hm?” he prods, teeth grazing over skin playfully, “Gonna go back to alternating having your shit rocked when my time is up?”

Okay. Little less playful. His cadence is still light and good-natured but. Oddly heavy question. That little, unspoken slice of reality peeks through the facade of joking, traces streaking like dawn through cracks of blinds, if only for a moment.

Isla swallows. Her pupils paste to his cushiony mouth, to the tips of her digits pressed lightly between his teeth. She settles for something safe, her breath held in her chest. Actually, maybe a little unsafe, given the trajectory of his emotions.

“If you want me to, Sir.”

Placate, placate, placate. The words are all that any dominant could want — submission in its ultimation. Whatever he wants of her. Despite this, the statement has something like …disappointment twisting in his chest. He doesn’t want that. He wants to elongate their contract, he wants to keep railing Isla over, and over, and over, he wants to spend the rest of timeless time with her as his in the realm of Indulge, and only his. And he doesn’t want it to be up to him. Tell me no, Harry wants to say. Tell me you want me and only me. Show me you care, the way I do.

Instead, his mouth purses.

If there’s any inkling of protest to her words, the dominant doesn’t showcase it. She’s curious to hear his response, but he doesn’t give one. Instead, he intertwines their fingers and shoots her a glance. The topic of conversation pivots.

“Were you a good girl for me this week, sweetheart?”

Oh, goodness gracious. She’d nearly forgotten all about Monday night’s debacle, so honed and amused by the envy the dominant was radiating. The mischievous streak in her really starts to fade, then.

Was she a good girl for him this week? Vague recollections of a very satisfying vibrator pressed between clammy thighs in messy sheets at late hours flit through her mind.

And her Eros on the other end of the line.

There’s a sudden heaviness to her tongue. It’d be easy to fib and pretend she hadn’t slipped up with hungry fingers between hungrily splayed thighs, just as he’d requested — commanded — her not to do. It’s not like he’d know.

Was she a good girl for him? No. Isla certainly wasn’t.

She admits, after a moment of deliberative lull, “No, Sir.”

Sir, she’s tacked on, politely — without coaxing, Harry notes. It’s the first thing he notes, in fact, besides her candid confession of misconduct. After that, it’s the way her body language has morphed from joking to tensed, to the way her fingers rub together in her lap, to the way her chest rolls lightly with her slow, bated breaths.

“No?” he prods softly, pondering on her admission, “You weren’t a good girl?”

Behind his ribcage, his heart kicks it up a notch from priorly peaceful equilibrium into a wild, racketing hammer. Because if she tells him what he thinks she’s going to tell him, if she confirms his suspicions and proves that he hadn’t spent Monday night driving himself mad, with hands raking restively through his tendrils in lieu of getting a good night’s rest post her late night call, then—

“I …touched myself, Sir.”

And there it is.

Isla bites into her cheek when faced with his hum of acknowledgement — of course the sound is coated with condescension, as if he’d expected her to fail.

“And you came, I assume?” jade glimmers between lengthy lashes and shadows of an unnecessary disguise as he tacks on, “I mean, I’d hope disappointing me was worth it, at least.”

It — what? Isla toes at the back of her opposite ankle, a crease working between her eyebrows.

“I didn’t — I don’t know,” she blows out a breath, “how to answer this question.”

“You don’t know if you came?” his own eyebrows rise in teasing, inflection jestingly incredulous. It’s a good sign, for now, the young woman thinks. She’d expected green to turn steely, but he seems keen on poking at her — which she’ll take rather than to be confronted by his demeanor of disdain.

“No— I,” she sighs, craning her neck back and crossing her arms as the dominant’s pillowy mouth twitches, “I did,” upon the glint of warning to his expression, even mostly bridled by rubber, the submissive curbs the exasperation that’s leaked into her tone, backtracking softly, “I mean, I don’t — I wasn’t trying to disappoint you.”

“Mm.”

“And — well, anyways. I think you should be the opposite of disappointed, considering I came clean,” the twist she takes on the circumstances, to Harry, are a little appalling.

He just sort of hums, entertained, and states, “S’that where the bar is, now?” and upon her vexed look, commences a slow clap, “Applause for the bare minimum.”

“Amnesty,” she cocks her head, sitting up a bit, unperturbed by his derisive sarcasm, “is a thing, by the way, if you weren’t aware.”

At that, he literally feels the dimples poke into place beside the curl of his smile. “You’re quite funny.”

“I know,” Isla tells him after a moment, her shoulders sagging as she tips her chin to her hands and picks at her nails, her voice low, “I’m hilarious.”

Harry brushes a pleather-clad palm over her thigh before he bats at her hands. He clears his throat. “How many times?”

Her face tips up, like she’s confused by the question, and the man clarifies, “How many times did you touch yourself?”

Rather than persisting with the jittery habit of nail picking, she mollifies by tracing down his chest, over his dress shirt, sort of hoping to smooth out the incoming tension of the scene in the same way her touch smooths the fabric, “Just once.”

“Tell me,” she watches his tongue peek over before his swipes over his lips, and her vision only flits away for a mere moment when she feels his colossal palm squeezing at her hip, “how you did it.”

She blinks up at him, like the request baffles her.

“S’not that difficult of a task. Well,” Harry pauses, and his eyes roll to the side with the patronizing dig, “The first one wasn’t either, but.”

“I—“ the young woman’s jaw sets as she lifts her chin at the jab and she declares with resolve (plucky, Harry thinks, considering the circumstances), “with my vibrator.”

Vibrator. Interesting. He hadn’t heard it on the other end of the phone — sneaky girl. The chatter from the television, obnoxiously loud, floats to the forefront of his mind, then.

“Okay,” he nudges with his chin, “Getting somewhere…”

“Third setting,” Isla states, deadpan in decibel, “and I came.”

And then his palm locks, softly, over the back of her neck, and he physically guides her to lean forward against him. The dominant’s strawberry lips brush over Isla’s ear as he speaks, low and tantalizing, and then that same mouth pastes to an expanse of skin just below.

“Details, little miss. And less attitude. Paint me a picture.”

Oh — her pulse stutters.

“Were you,” his mouth alternates between questioning and pressing open-mouthed kisses that incite chills to bloom over her flesh, “watching something? Thinking of something? Hm?”

The young woman’s unsure of the cause behind the sudden, sensual twist in their discussion, but she tries to bare her neck a bit, quite literally the furthest from complaining.

“I — the TV was on. But I was thinking about you,” she admits, and the dominant slides the opposite hand around the curvature of her hip, fondling over the side of her thigh.

“What about?”

“Your—“ the man’s mouth curls up lewdly against her skin in response to the stutter he coaxes as his hand ventures to her backside, squeezing — the way her throat bobs with a swallow, “your hands, touching me. Your mouth — on my, on my—“

“Your…?” Harry wheedles tauntingly, his hand tracing its way back onto her front and teasing at the hem of her underwear.

Isla’s confession comes breathy, and her legs splay apart a smidge when he dips his forefinger past the barrier just a tad, brushing over the smooth, sensitive crease between her pelvis and her thigh, “My pussy.”

“Mm. S’that all?”

“No,” her lashes flutter behind the lace, “I thought about — about your cock. Thought about you fucking my mouth, and,” her speech dies off as his fingers wriggle further beneath her panties and brush against her clit.

“And?”

“and I thought about you,” Isla swallows, screwing her eyes shut, “…holding my nose, as you did it. So I couldn’t breathe.”

The pads of his fingers stutter in their caress. Shit. His nostrils flare at the filthy admission, and the way desire teems through his veins and arousal coils through his tummy at the thought is pure, hedonistic darkness. When Harry asks her, “What else?” his voice is considerably huskier against the crook of her neck.

“I thought about you slapping me — my face,” her chest rolls as his fingers dip and gather sopping slick — she knows she’s ludicrously wet, reliving the fantasies that’d become tucked away in the dells of her mind, in combination with his soft touch, will sort of do that. It all has her feeling as if a fucking furnace glows angrily between her thighs. “I thought about—“ her jaw sets as she tips her head back, and he nips at her earlobe, “you spanking me for touching myself. How sore I would be over the next few days, having to sit at work.”

“Spanking you with what?” Harry’s cadence comes muffled and heady against her skin.

“Just — just your hand,” Isla’s heart races in her chest as he draws circles, like it beats in laps that trace the track of the motion.

The dominant presses open-mouthed kisses to her skin, crooning, “Just my hand? Y’dont think you deserve the paddle or the strap for disobeying me?”

Isla doesn’t think much of anything when his tongue pokes out and glides over straining muscle.

“Whatever,” she swallows, his fingers fisting desperately at the sturdy muscle of his thigh, “Whatever you want, Sir.”

“S’not whatever I want, though,” he hums, “It’s about what you deserve. So what,” his fingers press a little harder, his cadence grows a little hungrier, “do you think you deserve?”

“I — I deserve whatever you decide I deserve, Sir.”

“Mm. Well. I think,” Isla gasps and jolts, her breath morphing into a soft whimper when he pinches her clit between his digits, “You don’t deserve to entertain any of those little fantasies. Not after you couldn’t follow one simple rule.”

She sags as his fingers withdraw and the elastic snaps back into place.

“Don’t deserve to have your mouth fucked,” Harry sighs, shaking his head as if disappointed by the statement, himself (good, he’d be missing out, Isla thinks petulantly), “Don’t deserve to have my hands, or my mouth. I suppose spanking wouldn’t even serve as a punishment for you, would it?”

“Because,” he motions with a hand, “we’ve done loads of that, and you’re still what, darling?”

Isla gnaws on her bottom lip, chin tilted to her hands.

“I’m talking to you,” she’s caught off guard and has to bridle a gasp when he grips onto her jaw with a gloved palm and roughly guides her face in the direction of his own. The sudden emergence of his stern streak leaves her doused in want, “You’re still what?”

It’s appalling, honestly, the way a mercurial flip of a switch in his character could affect her so deeply, but there’s nothing Isla finds more arousing than when her Eros gets like …this.

“…Disobedient,” Isla tells him softly, after a moment, not entirely sure of the answer he’s looking for.

“A disobedient, little whore—“

Isla swallows dryly, his words — his irritated tone, sinking straight to her core.

“—that just doesn’t seem to learn.”

“I’m sorry,” the submissive starts after a moment, but her cautious apology is hindered by his scoff, a shake of his head that leaves light bouncing off the glossy hood, a sound of sardonic amusement. Her pupils, through the lace, bound to meet his narrowed gaze.

“No, you’re not.”

Isla swallows. He’s right. She’s not exactly this virtuous angel who’s lurched into a pit of misdeed because of a careless accident. And she’s not exactly regretful of it, either.

The way the dominant squeezes over her hip then, the fondle of his hand gentle in contrast to the foreboding words he tacks on — the way his irises sweep over her like he’s nonchalantly deliberating her fate, has an eager thrill of the looming danger wracking down the knobs of her spine. “But you will be.”

Loads of people are adrenaline junkies — the bungee jumpers, the skydivers, the bull riders, the mountain bikers, the people who like to watch scary movies in theaters with 3D glasses, melted back against their seats as the volume of the music dims and a pregnant pause of impending doom stalls. The ones who stand in lines, veins teeming with anticipation as they edge closer and closer, zig-zagging through dividers in slow, stalling steps, all to become seated in a rollercoaster with a 90 degree drop. That excitement on the drop billows through their arteries like a chaser. It’s all sort of the same thing. Isla just has …unorthodox penchants. Methods. She happens to enjoy having the shit beat out of her, maybe, or being terrorized by something rooted in fear. Because when you mix adrenaline and sex, it’s just. Unfathomable. Truly a top-tier recommendation, if Isla were ever coaxed to recommend it. But it’s all the same thing. All a similar outcome.

Isla’s absolutely aching for that enslaving rush, and then Eros nearly gives her whiplash as he just …looks at her and says, “Maybe we shouldn’t play at all tonight.”

She can’t manage to muzzle the bloom of bemused disappointment that seeps into her tone, “I — what?”

“I mean,” Harry retracts his palm, and Isla’s suddenly left oddly cold, perched on his lap as his arms cross laxly over his chest, “you’re a disobedient, little whore. We’re on the same page about that, aren’t we, pet? Doesn’t matter if I punish you for it. And you certainly don’t deserve to be rewarded. Could just call it a night, hang out in the lounge—” his eyes convey volumes as he peers at her through lashes with insinuation, “Could mingle a bit. Sit around with your great, little friend.”

Faunus. Back to Faunus.

“I—“ Harry watches her pillowy mouth part, and settle into a line as words fail her, and then part again, “Please.”

“Please?” his eyebrows jolt, mouth pursing as a huff of wry amusement is expelled from his nostrils, and he’s about to say more, but then she interjects—

“Please, Sir. Please, I need—“

“Shut—“ Isla freezes when his hand comes back to her face, this time with the pads of his digits squeezing into her cheeks harshly, “—the fuck up.” And all Isla can really manage, from there, is a wordless mouthing against his digit, like a fish out of water. Harry watches her lips move a bit over a silent please, sort of amused by the persistive spectacle (but he definitely doesn’t let it show).

“Stand up,” he tells her, after a moment, unlatching his grip and shifting his thigh beneath her, “Stand up, and strip.”

As the young woman stands, he nudges himself off the armchair as well, making a beeline straight for the wall of toys, but not before aiming his forefinger her way and adding, (a bit cheekily, if Isla’s not mistaken, though that note is drowned out by the sternness that brims his tone), “Leave the stockings on.”

The pads of her thumbs hesitate, just past the hem of her left, sheer stocking. Slowly, she straightens back out and fixes the digits into her bra straps, shimmying those off of her shoulders first, then winding her arms behind her back to unsnap the hooks with a deft enough motion (her hands are sort of trembling). Her fingertips dip into her underwear — soaked, of course, post the ministrations of the man who mills about the room all the while, gleaning objects. Isla watches him gather and deliver the objects to the mattress before going back for more — almost like an animal stockpiling in preparation for a lengthy winter. She works the pair of underwear down her thighs, stepping out of them, and throwing them alongside her brassiere on the armchair.

The young woman feels, for the first time in a long time, a bit awkward, just standing on the linoleum, bare of all but her stockings, as she waits for further instruction from a dominant who doesn’t look as if he cares to bask in her nudity for even a split second. Because Harry always has this way of making her feel worshiped — even when he feigns that his attention is entirely torn away. Because in those split seconds where his pupils train back onto her, that facade breaks, and she sees the hunger seeping through. Her pulse stays impressively even when she watches him set a long, metallic spreader bar with cuffs — like shackles — onto the comforter beside a large wand. Finally, the rubber-hooded male shoots her a blank gaze — it lasts, as expected, a minute timespan before he fixes his attention back onto the objects. He doesn’t look even a smidge interested in her denuded state — it’s an offhand glance to make a point.

“Are you just going to stand there all night?”

“If you’d like me to, Sir,” Isla tells him — he couldn’t possibly get upset at an open offer of subservience (despite the underlying aim of innocuously-feigned backchat), and that fact seems to register with him.

Harry gives her a good look then, one considerably longer than the previous had been, one where she can practically witness the gears turning behind his skull. The submissive supposes she’s gotten what she’d wanted, after all. Then, his mouth twitches like he’s actively attempting to bridle it from morphing to a grimace.

“Come here,” the dominant instructs eventually, tone firm.

Shrouding her timidness, Isla follows his directions and makes her way to the bed until she’s stood in front of him with her chin held high. The way his hand gently grasps her wrist then, as the opposite digs into a pocket of his slacks, has her heart fluttering. His face is downcast to the bracelet as the pin-like key winds, until there’s a click and it isn’t — instead it fixes onto her own. The dominant leans in, his voice soft.

“On the bed. All fours.”

Isla turns just as he pockets the bangle, and crawls onto the mattress, just as instructed. She feels chilly metal graze against her calves, a brush of smooth leather.

“Spread,” Harry demands, and starts fastening one of the plush, padded cuffs to her ankle once she’s knee’d her thighs apart. Then, the following joint. “Put your arms back, through here,” he pats at the empty space between her (involuntarily) splayed limbs.

So Isla does that, too, rocking forward onto her shoulders and pressing her cheek against the sheets, her face cast at the wall where the door stands as her fingers twitch. He fastens cuffs onto those, too, and by the time all’s done and well, Isla’s absolutely immobile. Testingly, she tries to wrench her wrist back, the attempt subtle. She can’t move. At all. And behind her, the dominant’s pillowy mouth crooks at the sight. Apprehension rises in her, like a flood of water surging through a cylindrical building, swelling in the space between a spiral staircase that clings to the curved walls.

The beginnings of that beautiful adrenaline.

“Anything uncomfortable?”

“No, Sir,” Isla tells him.

“I mean — you’re going to be plenty uncomfortable,” she rocks back a tad as the dominant smooths his hand down the back of her thigh, “but I’d prefer you didn’t end up with a cramp, or a weird soreness because your neck’s in a funny position.”

The touch withdraws. Isla swallows.

“No. Everything’s good.”

She jolts when her ears pick up on a sound that destroys the lull — like tape, bondage tape, she’s sure, and the dominant sounds as if he has a piece between his teeth when he responds, “Wonderful.”

Then comes the sounds of tape tearing. Her muscles tense as she feels something press against her thigh, against her core, and then his hand starts to wind what she knows is the tape around her flesh. A click. The wand comes alive, rumbling. Isla can’t begin to stifle her soft hum.

“Good spot?” the dominant prods, out of sight.

The young woman fixes her gaze onto the bland wall through shapes and swirls of lace, her lashes fluttering, “Mm — yeah. Really good spot.”

“O-kay.”

And then after that — a stalling silence. Nothing reverberates over the walls, nothing falls on eardrums besides her soft breaths and the fixed buzz of the wand, pressed between her clammy thighs. Pleasure builds within her like water surging behind a dam, just sort of steadily rising until the structure starts to show signs of wear, rifts in its integrity. Then — well, then, there’s imminent destruction.

The mattress creaks. He’s shifted.

“Sir?” Isla prods, her voice small.

“No talking,” the dominant tells her after a moment, his cadence steely, “Don’t wanna hear you.”

Her bottom lip becomes siphoned past her teeth. That’s — fuck. Okay. She regulates her breathing, and stares at the wall as the toy continues rumbling against her. He hadn’t exactly, explicitly mentioned that she was to hold off her climax, so. All sort of fair game, Isla thinks. Despite this, she does try to moderate the pace in the surge of bliss — maybe it could be, like, a trickle instead of a swelling flood, if she really focuses—

Another click. The buzzing increases in intensity. Her digits flex and clench, and her wrists shift in their respective cuffs. Still, she stays very quiet. That is, until the familiar, foreboding wave of pleasure tides, frothing at her tummy and sinking. Isla tenses in the restraints, and holds off pleading until she absolutely has to. It’s sort of a gray area, because she’s definitely not supposed to wait until that happens, but apparently she’s also not supposed to talk, so.

“Sir! Can I cum? Please, please, can I—“

“Cum,” he tells her simply, not even batting an eye at her improper wording — may, he’s told her so many times, may I?

Isla does, and it’s extraordinary. His dialogue nearly misses the mark entirely before the wave crashes, the countdown spent to milliseconds. Her toes curl, and her eyes screw shut, and her thighs tense, and her wrists tug reflexively, pinioned, as she groans and attempts to coil up. The dominant doesn’t make any moves that propose the idea of him touching her or using her for his own pleasure, in any manner, nor does he make an effort to remove the vibrator or her restraints. It buzzes at her core, even as the tide of pleasure ebbs. It ebbs, and all she’s left with is the hammering of her heart, and the toy still rumbling at her core. The young woman feels her pulse racketing in her eardrums. Isla shifts in her cuffs a smidge — as much as she can — though, there’s not much leeway for that.

“Thank you, Sir,” she tells him, after a moment, her tongue swiping out after, over her strawberry mouth. She supposes she’s supposed to thank him, right? Isla’s still unsure of what exactly is going on. He’s going to overstimulate her — that much she’s discerned. It’s not rocket science. Spreader bar plus vibrator plus bondage tape? That shit was crystal clear from a mile away. She figures the dominant is aiming to venture to three, …maybe four. Maybe until she’s crying. Who knows.

The dominant doesn’t respond. She hears him exhale, though. The bed creaks again.

The thing with toying at senses with overstimulation was that the first bit …wasn’t all that rough. The first bit feels good — even on the advance towards the second crest, past that incipient budding of discomfort post an orgasm, the pleasure builds up pretty well. In fact, it sort of feeds off that discomfort. For Isla, at least. Because once you get past that first hurtle of too much, too much, that smidge of aching becomes a mere shadow in the cliff of rapture that blooms from stone — growing, growing, growing.

Until, eventually, it gives.

“Oh, oh, please, can I— Sir—“

“Cum.”

She expands and shrivels all in one, everywhere and nowhere with a surfeit of dopamine spurting through her nervous system. The fire kindles. Ah. The beginning stages of displeasure-pleasure. She’s felt it before, a plethora. That kind where her nerve endings settle into a dull, numbing ache. Involuntarily, her limbs jerk in the restraints, tugging to get away. Her jaw clenches.

The thing with toying at senses with overstimulation was that the first bit wasn’t all that rough, but the bit after starts to suck. All good things must come to an end, and all that, but—

Despite that, the unwavering pleasure builds. It builds because of the stimulation, first and foremost, but then it builds because he hasn’t touched her, because he’s just sat back ogling, because she knows she’s dripping down the toy and that the bulbous head glints with her arousal. It builds because it’s a punishment, because Eros doesn’t want to hear her, because she’s disappointed him, and now she’s meant to appease him by enduring suffering. It builds because she wants nothing more than to endure suffering to please him—

“Sir!” Isla wriggles in the restraints, helplessly, the mantra of please-please-please morphed to nothing but a slurred string of words.

“Cum.”

The submissive nearly rolls and topples to her side under the earth-shattering abuse of the third — frankly, the only reason she doesn’t sink into a ridiculous sort of spreader-bar-mangled fetal position, is because Harry touches her, for the first time, steadying her with a firm palm against her bare hip. The pleasure with the third is much shorter-lived than the wide windows of the first two. It wanes nearly instantaneously, shrinking back as fiery ache overtakes it in the race. Isla grits her teeth, writhing forlornly as pain settles, coating her and seeping to interweave through the marrow of her bones. Three, maybe four, she tells herself, a mellow appeasement for inner peace — though, her brain has slowly begun its melt into a commonplace mush. Telling anyone anything, or even processing thoughts besides the signals fired off by her nervous system, is beyond strenuous. She doesn’t notice a sheen of tears has glazed over until she blinks and what’s normally sharp, clear lines of fabric turns to blurs. Despite the (reasonable, Isla believes) assessment of the dominant’s agenda (Isla’s fixated upon to ground herself amidst the curdling fear that tails the unknown, in all circumstances), she can’t help but start to plead, a bit, all things considered.

“Sir, please, please, please—“

“Cum,” the man tells her, from behind, offhand and simple, probably admiring his gloves, or something. The statement comes as if he’s nothing but a robot programmed to grant her permission, and that word is the only term coded into his feasible vocabulary.

If Isla had it in her to balk, she certainly would. She doesn’t. Partly because she doesn’t have it in her, and mostly because the tingling pain from the toy has her expression helplessly forming into a frown, almost as if on its own accord. The submissive just pouts, her bottom lip quivering in forlorn appall. Because Sir doesn’t care if she’s begging, because he doesn’t care that she’s already had three, because the realization dawns on her, then, that that would’ve been four, and he still hadn’t made any inclination to cease the torture.

“No — no, Sir,” Isla starts, her waterline welling with tears behind her disguise — it’s wet, and irritates her skin horribly.

The bed creaks. Behind her, the man tuts. And then the toy becomes toggled to a higher setting, buzzing incessantly against her clit with an intensity that wrenches a sharp keen from her.

“What did I tell you? I don’t want to hear you. Not unless you’re asking permission, or you’re safing. One or the other. Nothing in between. Disobedient, little whores don’t deserve to beg.”

It’s — he’s. Pitifully, Isla sobs against the comforter.

Five. Harry’s on the track to wrench five from her — which, all things considered, is a reasonable goal to shoot for, he thinks. He knows she certainly has four in her to give, because she’s already given him four, weeks ago, in the Dungeon. And if she can’t make it to five within a reasonable time frame, he’ll cut it short post her enduring the aftershocks of the fourth for a bit. He settles back onto his arm, braced against the mattress as he splays behind her, at the foot of the bed, cheek pasted to his gloved palm as he drinks in the sight of her cunt leaking helplessly over the head of the wand. Great view. One for the books.

Despite all of this, the sobs wracking her body have him sitting up a smidge to peer around at her face, which. Not much to decipher past swollen-post-teething lips and trembling flesh, without a good view of her eyes, but. The goal is definitely not to make her safe — that last bit was just sort of open encouragement. Like, an, always feel free sort of thing. They’re only on three. He frowns.

“Hey. Baby,” Harry sits up to lean beside her, closer to her face, where she expels helpless sobs from a quivering, slobbery mouth.

The thing with Isla crying was that it was cool. Deemed cool by both parties — sought after, in fact. But checking in, Harry thinks, is also (even more) cool, especially when she’s crying in a manner that implies that she’s slipping, and that it’s all teeming into the territory of too much, despite the fact that it can sort of break apart the characters they play up in a scene. Because roles are easy to slip back into, but reforming a bond of security post the unnecessary trauma of a boundary being unintentionally crossed is, frankly, much more difficult to casually slip back into. Safety is cool. Big thumbs up.

This stuff is so much easier with eyes, Harry thinks — they speak volumes. They get blown like nightfall, crossing and shading past the lines of pupils and seeping into colors of irises, they become shifty and evident in apprehension, they kind of give it all away. He flips the toy off, but it stays nestled to her core, and he strokes hair off the band of lace shrouding her from him.

“Sweetheart, are you alright?” a crease works between his brows as he rakes his digits through Isla’s hair from her sweaty hairline. Because you sound like I’m murdering you, goes unsaid.

The thing is, he knows Isla’s limits, basically. General ballpark, that is. Really knowing and understanding takes months, and months — maybe years of experimentation. But even then, there’s those scenes where you have to check in and break character, and that’s okay. He just hadn’t prepared that it’d be after three.

Isla sniffles beneath his touch.

“Do you want to stop, darling? Red?” he smooths the pads of his digits over her cheek. And beneath his palm, weakly, the submissive shakes her head, an indication that, no, she doesn’t want to do that.

The muscles in her neck strain with a swallow as Harry tucks loose fragments of hair away, his chin dipped to observe her response, and then the young woman tells him, softly, “No. Please.”

“We don’t have to keep doing this, pet,” Harry promises, his cadence taking on a note that’s the most gentle it's been since she’d been sat over his lap, “I can take these off, and we can keep playing, but we don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to.”

Isla sighs softly. The pain had begun intermingling with pleasure just before he’d shut the toy off, tinges of bliss blooming post abuse on her physical senses — that’s not why she was crying. Really, there’s a plethora of reasons, some not entirely decipherable. Partly because of the intensity, partly because of the adrenaline and their subsequent endorphins, and partly because she was definitely fucking slipping. She could feel it loom over her when her mind got all mushy, when it all became slower, and more difficult, like trudging through a swamp of molasses. When her tongue got heavier and her body felt fuzzier.

“Wanna make you happy,” Isla tells him. Her eyes are screwed shut behind the lace, mostly to hinder the onslaught of tears, so she can't see him, but she does hear him sigh.

“You do make me happy. Always make me happy. Always happy I get to play with you. Silly.”

Her mouth twitches, then, and curls up a bit. She huffs through her nostrils. Harry cocks his head, smoothing a thumb down the bare fragment of her face on one cheek.

“You make me happy, too,” Isla confesses, her voice small.

Harry tries to keep his mouth from curving into a sad sort of smile in return. Instead, he slips his thumb up to brush over the bottom-most hem of her mask.

“Let me get you out of these,” he only pivots his head towards the bar before she’s humming, evidently dissatisfied by the proposal.

“No,” Isla whines, “Don’t wanna stop playing.”

“We’re not going to stop playing,” the dominant curbs the instinctive eye roll that nearly overtakes the jade, “Just a little break. Don’t you want some water? Doesn’t water sound so good?”

He smirks when she gnaws on her bottom lip and gives him a slow, little nod against the sheets. The man smooths his hand, fondly, down the side of her neck, kneeing around her to slip his fingers to the tape. He unravels that, first, trying to keep the process short, like a bandaid, and he sets the toy down beside her on the bed. Next to go are the cuffs.

“Just a little break,” he promises, “Gonna get some water,” he unbuckles the first cuff — her left wrist, “stretch a bit,” the second — her right, “stretch your neck. Can’t imagine it’s not cramping a bit,” Isla rolls her wrists, her arms still splayed beneath her in the space between the bed and her arched back — the third to go is her left ankle, “and we’ll get you back to shambles in no time,” the last, her right ankle, and he smacks her backside lightly, because it’s there and it’d be a cardinal sin to miss the opportunity, honestly. “How’s that sound?”

The dominant strokes a palm softly up her calf after he sets the spreader bar aside. Isla stretches back against him, like a little cat. Yes. All of these things sound great.

“Stretch out a bit. I’m gonna grab some,” Isla picks up on him saying, before his touch retracts and she hears his shoes clicking over the tile.

Isla shuffles her arms forward, lifting up a bit only to flop back down and morph into Child’s Pose. Sort of. As best as she can. The water machine grinds in the background. By the time Harry has made his way back to the foot of the bed, Isla’s rolled onto her side. He gestures out with the plastic, little cup, and Isla flips onto her back and sits up to grasp it between her palms. They’ve ceased their shaking, for now. Harry takes a seat beside her, his legs kicked out ahead as opposed to her coiled hover, calves pressed against the bed. Her Eros has all the answers, Isla thinks. Her throat bobs frantically as she chugs, and in her peripherals she watches him take a slow sip. Once she’s reached the bottom, her hands flop against her sweaty lap, the empty cup wrapped by her right hand.

She turns her face to him, a little smile over her mouth. The dominant peers at her, lips wrapped over the rim of his respective cup through the unzipped mouth slit, and he lifts a hand to swipe a stray rivulet of water from the corner of her mouth with a thumb. Her tongue swipes out as his touch retracts, almost as if to chase the pad of his digit. The man makes a soft sound of amusement over the lip of the cup. Slowly, Isla cranes her neck back, and then forward, and then side to side, and Harry takes another sip.

“You take care of me so well,” Isla admits, planting her forehead against his arm. She’s jostled then, and nearly complains, but then she realizes that he’s only done it to grant her a space to nestle, a nook for her so he can hold her. She still feels a little …warm and fuzzy, but her head has cleared considerably since he’d unshackled her. Isla scoots in, and the dominant winds his arm around her shoulders, squeezing softly.

“You always know what I need, even when I don’t.”

“S’because I’ve got you figured out,” Harry nudges in her direction with his beverage, three thirds of the way down. His hand, cradling the cup, lays laxly against his thigh, then.

“Do you?” Isla’s gaze narrows behind the mask as a little grin plays over her mouth. She lifts her chin up to display it. And she’s so close, he could kiss her.

The male’s tongue peeks out to glide over his pillowy mouth. Isla Cleery. Cherries, and Hydrangeas, and pencil skirts and strange tendencies to do dangerous things on a whim.

No. He absolutely does not.

“Basically. You’re an easy read, love.”

Her pupils rove over the rubber hood. Over his eyes, glinting through the shadows cast by parted zippers, slipping to the muted berry of his mouth. She’s never yearned, so badly, to surpass a personal limit and kiss someone she was …just playing with. Desperately. She tears her gaze away.

“Can we keep playing?” the young woman inquires, instead.

The dominant rolls his eyes, a soft smile cresting his cushiony mouth, “Do you want to keep playing?”

“Yes. Sir. Please. Right where we left off.”

“Right where we left off?” his eyebrows raise a smidge, “Are you sure? We can move on to phase two.”

“Phase two?”

“Well. Since phase one was punishment for your little slip up earlier in the week,” Isla’s gaze skids away sheepishly, “figure s’only fair phase two is penance for that little comment you made out in the lounge.”

The young woman’s gaze snaps back to the dominant, and she wracks her brain for a dull moment where her mind sort of lags, the edges still a little fuzzy. And then it dawns on her. Fuck. Right. There was that.

“Okay,” Isla tells him, after a moment — not a deliberative one, per se. Just. Mental preparation. “That sounds good.”

“That sounds good?” Harry’s hand slinks out to stroke over her bare thigh, and then his gaze skims to his thumb as he strokes it over the hem of her stocking, “You’re sure?”

“Yes, Sir,” Isla tells him, sitting up a bit with her rejuvenated courage, “and I want to start where we left off.”

Harry hums, pausing his thumb over her stocking. He digs it under, just a bit, tugs up, and lets it snap back into place. And then he pats her thigh, takes her cup from her, and tells her, “Alright. Back into position then. M’gonna refill these so we have them ready, for later.”

As the dominant stands to refill their respective beverages of sustenance, Isla scoots back on the mattress, flips, and clambers into position, already prepped with her arms stuck flat out in the space between her parted calves by the time he returns and sets the cups onto the, (oddly domestic and ludicrously practical), nightstand, beside the bed. She hears him blow out a breath, and the bed shifts as he knees his way onto it from behind.

“All good to keep going?” Harry prods, the thin pole of the spreader bar grasped in one hand, “Promise?”

“I promise,” the young woman returns, half-nodding and half kind of just taking the opportunity to snuggle her face into the comforter. The area soused by her tears is a little further to the right, now, and despite the fact that her mask is still wet, the blanket beneath her face, now, is dry, so it all feels like a spruced up, fresh start.

He slots the cuffs back on, one by one, working backwards from the order in which they’d been discarded minutes prior. And when she’s all splayed and riveted for him, a particular sort of sensitivity settles in her as the wand, still slick from her, presses to her cunt as he sets all the props back into place for the scene (pun intended). It’s not necessarily that grating numbness she’d become accustomed to, or a cloying past aftershocks. Just the sensation of knowing, physically, that she’s already given three. A tremble nearly slinks down the knobs of her spine at the thought. The tape unsticks from the roll as the dominant works it back over her thigh.

Isla blinks, her lashes brushing over the innermost of the lace, squeezed to her face in its tightening against the sheets. She chimes, for good measure, “And. I’m all good. You don’t have to …be nice.”

His handiwork pauses. And his cadence, rasped like sandpaper, slow like seeping molasses, sweet like syrup, nearly causes her to drown in it all. He sounds …hungry, for the first time in the night since they’d explored her fantasies in the verdant armchair, when he tells her, “I don’t intend to be.”

That’s — shit. Okay. Then, Eros smooths his palm down the back of her thigh and ponders, aloud, “Can you give me five, d’you think?”

Five. That’s a …milestone.

Isla blinks. Warmth coils in her at the suggestion, instantly, hunger unsatiated as if she hadn’t just endured the three course meal of three orgasms, back to back. Her throat feels dry, like her mouth’s been stuffed by cotton.

“I can — I can try,” she swallows, “Sir.”

“There’s a good girl,” the man hums, pleased by her answer, and he sits back a bit, rewarding her with a loud smack that siphons a gasp and a jerk in the restraints from her. A ruddy splotch teems over the surface of her skin — tinges shaped by his open palm. He gives her another, just over where the first had landed, and Isla releases a girlish grunt in response, rocking forward. A third, then, and with the opposite hand, he toggles the toy on. Harry watches every muscle in her body tense, at that.

The newfound pleasure, post the break, feels almost as if spawning from square one. Not entirely — there’s still that nagging reminder deep within her nervous system that she’s already spent so much for him (recovering from three takes, maybe, just a little longer than a span of minutes). But rather than numbing tingles enmeshed with knife-like, slicing pain, pleasure blooms quickly, radiating from between her thighs and coaxing the pit of her tummy to coil with something familiar and warm. And rather than sitting back like an audience member to enjoy the show, this time, the dominant seems interested in taking part — an active part, in fact. He smooths his palms over the globes of her ass, and every blow, falling in increments (when she seems to least expect it), sends jarring shocks through her nervous system that throw her entire comprehension of sensation for a loop. It doesn’t hurt — not at all, really. Instead, each hit enmeshes with the overpowering bliss from the rumbling against her core, and the only tinges of pain come from the eventual soreness that blooms. But it makes her wetter, hotter, more sensitive, and, eventually—

“Sir!” Isla’s eyes squeeze shut as the beginnings of the flame lick at her, “Can I—“

And then one of his palms squeezes into one of her hips and the opposite smacks her again — and, fuck. Isla can’t bridle her strangled sound when he tells her, “Cum.” The wave washes over her like water crashing over jagged rock.

The discomfort that flourishes as the weak bout of ecstasy recedes is not …horrific, per se, but it certainly reminds her that this isn’t her first, and, just as it’d been strung up prior to the break, her body becomes launched into a frenzied state of escape. Five. Why did she agree to try for five? Isla whimpers, her thighs trembling in desperation. And, as if to allay her worries (or perhaps to spur them further), Harry just delivers another strike. And then again, and again, and again, and again.

“Sir,” the submissive whines, a plea (for more? for less?), tears gathering over her waterline like rain in a gutter.

“Say it with me now, go on, darling, I will not,” the volume of his cadence climbs up the stairwell as he smacks her and digs the pads of pleather-clad digits into her skin. Her brows pinch when his mean affections don’t abate, when she aches everywhere to please him, and she sobs.

“I will— will not,” Isla hiccups, sniffles, sobs, pleads for more of his aggressive attention. More, more, more, please.

“Cum without permission,” Eros waits for her to parrot the dialogue before he toggles the setting on the vibrator pressed within her to a higher setting and her sentence cuts off into a high, loud moan. Perhaps of pleasure, perhaps of pain, and probably a solid concoction of both.

He talks over her nonetheless, “I will not cum without permission,” he says it until she’s up to par and mimics, in unison, “I will not cum without permission.”

“What—“ Isla keens as the dominant smacks her again, and her arms strain in the restraints, shackled to the slim pole between her ankles, “—will you not do?”

“I will not cum without permission!” the young woman responds, her cadence breaking into a sob as the toy buzzes incessantly, nuzzled to her overstimulated clit.

“You will not,” Eros agrees and assures her, tone unwavering despite her sobs, “and I will make sure you remember this lesson very, very well.”

By the time she really starts approaching the fifth crest, Harry’s faltered on the follow through of the blows, just sort of admiring the marks, in lieu, like a rabid animal. He’s nearly foaming at the mouth. The dominant traces the pad of his forefinger over a curve, entranced, and nearly misses her shrill plea entirely.

“I’m—“

“Cum,” he demands, pupils roving over her hips, over her sticky thighs, between her legs where she clenches emptily, helplessly, drinking in her cry like an audible variation of nectar.

The burst of pleasure is as short-lived as Isla can imagine, like the most anti-climatic climax of all time. It tears through her, severing her seams, and dwindles almost immediately for a dull ache to settle in its place. Except, this one isn't dull at all. It’s sharp, and it sends her nerve endings into pure angst. She freezes up, her muscles quivering, tensed like the string of a bow just waiting to snap, and she can’t even make out discernable request for him to turn the wand off. All that slips from her is a string of incoherent, muffled sounds, and then the rumbling ceases. Isla pants, her heartbeat so frantic she can feel it in the tip of her tongue. It pulses through her neck, through her appendages, tingling in their cuffs. It slinks through her stomach, through her fingers, it rattles her ribcage as the organ pumps rapidly.

She doesn’t realize the cuffs are gone until she feels herself being manhandled, onto her side, and then onto her back. The dominant slips off the bed, standing at the foot, and wraps his arms around the backs of her thighs as he yanks her toward him. And Isla just splays like a ragdoll. She watches him watch her, her legs flopping and her soles planting against the mattress, knees bent. The submissive tells him, then, cadence soft and dry as if she hasn’t drunk in days, “Please.”

Her chest rises and falls, almost in tune with the slow clink of his belt buckle as he opens it, nimbly, with one gloved palm as the opposite strokes over her knee. His eyes glint like green embers — hungry with want like fire kindling in a forest. Contained in a campfire, for now, just yearning to swallow the branches and brush in flame. Her own pupils shift to his belt buckle. He draws the belt out.

“Please.”

Finally, some give in his otherwise hardened features — his mouth quirks as he tips his chin towards his trousers, utilizing both hands to pop the button and tug down the zipper.

“Please? What, you wanna bounce on my cock, a bit? Gave you five orgasms, and you’re still desperate for it, like a slut.”

Her inhale is tremble-y as she watches him cull a condom, tucked away in its wrapper — red, this time, unlike his usual. His mouth purses as he flips it, rotating between his fingertips.

“Funny,” Harry shoots a glance her way, “This one’s cherry.”

Want a taste, she nearly expects him to jest, memorable remnants of their first one-on-one scene floating to the forefront of her mind. He doesn’t. He goes quiet, and looks awfully concentrated. Isla exhales at the sight of him untucking his cock from its confines, at the view of him tearing the wrapper open with his teeth, and the image of him rolling the condom down his shaft. He takes his hands away, and his cock bobs. The young woman’s chest rolls as he lines himself up with her core, and she jerks when he swipes the head from where she gushes and leaks to where she’s swollen and sensitive. Jade flickers up to face her.

“Gonna be a good girl and follow the rules from now on?” he croons, his voice a bit strained given that he’s been aching for fuck her for the entirety of the session.

The submissive nods, weakly. More than anything, it’s a mindless jerk of her chin. She tenses when he nudges into her. And the stretch is — it’s euphoric. She feels like pure euphoria to him, her spongy walls squeezing over his tip as if they’re two puzzle pieces destined to slot together. A perfect fit. A tight one. His teeth clench, and he hisses and he slides further, unable to curb his groan halfway to the hilt.

“Fuck.”

Isla spasms over him, over the perfect drag, over the perfect stretch. He buries in, sheathing his cock in its entirety until she hugs every last inch, and his fingers fondle over her thigh as he lifts her legs to plant her calves against his shoulders.

“Please,” Isla says again, her hips shifting like she’s eager for him to move.

His mouth twitches. He huffs, reining the instinct to hammer into her as his stomach swirls with want and his mind swims with defiling filth. “Look at you. Desperate to cum. Desperate for attention — for anyone’s attention,” he tacks on pointedly, a dig made as her little rendezvous back at the bar, and Isla’s irises nearly roll back into her head as he withdraws, just a smidge, and pumps forward harshly. Harry grunts. “Just a desperate, little thing. Aren’t you?”

All Isla can manage, as his hips work into a steady pace, is a wordless part of her lips.

“Answer me,” the dominant demands, tone hard.

“No,” the submissive manages out, eventually, and his hips stutter. She whines, bracing her calves against his shoulders to grind wantonly. Case and point.

A wryly amused crease works over his brow bone, behind latex, and his pace becomes stifled to nothing, “No?”

Isla whines, frantically, rolling her hips and squeezing over his length, until he scoffs, throws her legs off of him unceremoniously, and leans down in the newfound space to press her cheeks between his digits harshly.

“No? What the fuck are you doing right now? Grinding on me, like a desperate whore.”

Her breaths are shallow, and she expels, again, a denial. His takes his hand away, just a smidge, and then pats, once, over the fleshy part of her cheek with his open palm splaying — it’s borderline harsh enough to be considered a slap. Isla groans, and the dominant feels the aftermath manifest as a frantic spasm over his cock.

“No?” he repeats, voice low and soft.

“No,” Isla tells him, for the third time. So, he lifts his hand back and does it again, this time a little firmer. Her hips cant as she muzzles a soft sound with her lips, glued together.

“Don’t want anyone’s attention,” the young woman tells him from below, then, her inflection borderline frenzied, “just want yours.”

Slowly, the plush strawberry of his mouth quirks and curls up. His ego swells, and the man pulls his hips back, just a smidge, and pummels forward — a reward, for her, and she’s aware. “S’that right?”

“Yes, Sir,” Isla cranes her neck back against the comforter when he pushes off of her, picks her legs back up, and melts back into a sure, satisfying tempo, his hips pumping relentlessly. It’s the best. He’s the best.

The dominant takes her ankles in one palm — how the fuck does he do that, Isla thinks, his hand is so large, and strong, and—

“Fuck, baby, f’you could just see the way we fit together — s’like a fucking match made in heaven,” he throws his head back with a groan post taking in the view of her cunt swallowing him up, coated in cherry-flavored, red latex. His shoulders roll as a shudder wracks down the knobs of his spine, and he separates her ankles off with his hands, setting them into a spread, against the bed, gently. He pushes her knees back until the front of her thighs nearly brush over the sheets, and braces himself with his palms on either side of her head as he works into a hammer.

“He fuck you like—“ Harry grunts as his hips swivel, and Isla watches, entranced, the plush of his lips part on shallow breaths, his grin wicked and twitchy in response to her little sounds, “this? Give you what you want? What you need?”

She doesn’t have to inquire to know that he’s talking about Faunus — still on about Faunus.

“No,” Isla tells him, soft and breathy, And he rewards her, again, by pumping forward, harder, faster, deeper, and groaning, soft huffs suffusing his speech.

“No? Doesn’t stretch this snug little cunt out the way you need? Who does?”

“You — just you,” she keens as the entire mattress rocks beneath her.

“Just me?” his tongue sticks to the tips of his front teeth as he pummels forward and punches a little gasp out of her, “Who does this sweet, little cunt belong to?”

“You — Sir!”

“That’s right. S’my cunt. Mine to fuck, mine to tease, mine to kiss,” his gaze flickers down between them, where they connect, and the sight alone nearly has his balls draining. His hand ventures, and fingertips rub over the bundle of nerve endings in a way that has her tensing and crying out.

“My clit. Isn’t it?” He switches to a thumb, swiping over it, and his jaw falls open as he watches her pulse over his shaft while her head thrashes above, her teeth clenched and grinding in a pained frenzy. She’s quite pretty, overstimulated, too.

“And that means,” the left corner of his mouth buckles up, his speech glazed with condescension, “I can do whatever I want to it, right?”

As soon as his touch abates, Isla can no longer restrain herself. She digs the pads of her fingers onto his placket, into the empty spaces between the buttons of his shirt and the slits where they’re looped, clenching a fist as she raises herself and tugs him down. And before the dominant has the opportunity to scold her for treating his dress shirt with such an unshackled lack of care, she meshes their mouths together. Harry’s arms nearly buckle.

It’s filthy — but not at first. At first, he doesn’t return it, appalled by the gesture. Because it’s a limit, according to her, it’s her limit, because it’s too personal, and she’s just broken it herself. Because she just couldn’t hold back anymore, and in the fervor with which she kisses him, that shit is pretty evident. But then, he does return it. His lips move, and he moans against her strawberry mouth, and then her lips part, and from there it’s just …lewd. They’re sort of in the middle of active intercourse, Isla thinks, so a kiss shouldn’t make her feel so dirty — but it does. It’s not a dainty first kiss of first loves and soft touches and curious experimentation. It’s thrilling, and dirty, and his tongue slips into her mouth after she brushes her own against his bottom lip, and one of her hands tangles into his dress shirt while the opposite presses against his shoulder as if aiming to work out a fucking knot with the pressure. She whimpers against him, wetly, and in turn he groans and nips at her bottom lip with his teeth, his cock pulsing inside of her. And then it’s all teeth, and tongues, and want, want, want, as his hips hammer against her. It’s wanton moans, and whimpers, and rugged groans. It’s everything she’s been yearning for, and more.

“Open your mouth, open your mouth,” Harry urges, pulling off a bit and slinking a hand over her cheek, “Tongue out.”

She complies, and then a rivulet of spit dribbles from his mouth against her twitching tongue, and that’s just—

“Fuck,” Harry groans, his hips rolling against her, “You’re fucking filthy. Swallow it.”

So she does, her throat bobs below his palm, which slinks to cradle over her windpipe — not squeezing, just …there. She moans, soft and melty and desperate as his hips roll into her. And then Harry exhales, takes his hand off of her throat, and plants his palms on either side of her head to raise himself, hovering over her. He sighs like the experience is too pornographic to even comment upon. It sort of is.

“Dirty fucking girl,” the dominant settles on, eventually. And then he plows her like fucking farmland.

Her palms roam, frantically, over the fabric covering his back, the craving to leave marks of her own with short nails swelling through her mind, as he pumps forward, until it’s the only thought fathomable. It’s that — and the sick urge to spit into his own strawberry mouth, to have him leant back against the sheets, bare beneath her as she works and bounces over his cock.

Christ.

She’s warm, and wet, and heaven, and Harry imagines that his own personal Nirvana, then, would involve nothing but her cunt squeezing over his cock for the rest of eternity, her skin sticky with sweat beneath him, and her muscles quivering as he imbibes and basks. She is, in the moment, everything he wants and everything he’s ever wanted. Everything he ever will want, maybe. Because sex with Isla was — well. It was something else. Something rapturous, something sick and twisted, something he imagines he could never grow tired of. Ever.

His muscles do, though. Eventually. He feels the ache start in his hamstrings, in his shoulders, in his neck from its crane to gaze down upon her, because he just can’t tear his irises away — it’d be a cardinal sin to miss the view of a lifetime, afterall, Harry thinks. And along with the ache of his muscles comes the familiar chip in his resolve — cracks surfacing as he begins to become rended apart. He feels that in his stomach, first and foremost, in the trench of his tummy as his muscles tense — then, on the underside of his balls, a pleasured warmth that radiates as he pulses, and finally it seeps through his shaft. She squeezes over him, like she knows, and he almost loses it, then and there. He drives into her frantically, groaning animalistically as his body chases release almost on its own accord.

“Shit — always milk my cock so good, baby. Gonna— FUCK—“

Isla moans, soft beneath him, when she feels the warmth of his release, confined by the stupid cherry-flavored condom. When she feels his cock pulsing in her, when she feels his tempo slow, when he gives her a few last, weak strokes. When his head dips and he blows out a long breath, grunting as he pulls back and slips out, when she feels nothing but emptiness.

“Sir,” she starts, soft, soft, soft, and the rough exterior, the paramountcy-hungered, hard shell of his demeanor splinters and falls apart.

“So sweet for me,” Harry says, voice coated in candy, tucking strands back from her sweaty hairline, “Aren’t you? Always so eager to be good for me.”

Isla whimpers. Harry coos, shushing her with soft croons for a moment, until he pulls back and starts untucking himself from the condom and clearing up a bit.

“Always make me happy, always such a good girl. Take everything I give you and more, so well,” the man tells her, his pupils bouncing from his cock to her face as he cautiously rolls the condom off, “Hold on just a minute, baby, and we’ll have a cuddle, alright?”

He stows the condom away in its wrapper after he’s tucked himself away, and he contemplates making the short walk to the trashcan by the electric water thing against the wall. Ultimately, the dominant decides against it when she whines, needy for him and in need. Instead, he sets it off to the side, on the nightstand, as he turns back to her, lips twitching up into a little grin.

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” he starts, kneeing his way back onto the bed to sit beside her and hover, his hand stroking over her cheek, the side of her head, over her ear, down the side of her neck, “Gave me five today. Made me so proud.”

Isla just nods against his gloved palm, her sigh dreamy. Did she? Five, really? What an exciting and, frankly, impressive number. It’s all sort of a bliss of euphoria. She feels it, the headspace, the kind where she’s buzzing and floaty and her mind drifts and bobs about the walls aimlessly. The kind where all she can fathom is that she wants to be close to him. And it really hits her when Eros coaxes, “Can you sit up for me, pet?”

Absolutely not.

She shakes her head at him, wordlessly, and his mouth quirks with an endeared scoff, and the young woman nearly whines until he slips onto his side beside her to cradle her close. For a minute, he just lays near her, his chest to her side as he pets and caresses over her waist, and eventually he rolls to his own back and beckons, “Come here, baby,” holding her close as she shifts her head onto the space just over his butterfly.

Harry stares at the ceiling. All is well.

All is well, and it happens nearly out of the blue, brought about from a murky horizon, unforeseen. Because in their nights together, Isla cries — she always cries, and sometimes, when Harry cradles her close, he coddles her out of soft sobs that wrack her body post an intense scene. But those are traces. Remnants. They’re aftermath. The unanticipated is a fresh wave.

And Isla feels it coming on. She feels it settling in her chest, first, bursts and blooms of sadness, like the kind where you feel nostalgic, missing something. Then, her eyes. They already feel puffy and swollen, but they start to burn in the back. Her throat feels tight. And that sadness creeps deeper and settles.

Because she sort of feels she’s living through the nostalgia, then and there, in the moment. Like she’ll never relive it again.

Isla lays her head over his heartbeat and starts to cry.

TDIAG MASTERLIST HERE

#dom harry styles #harry styles smut #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles wattpad #harry styles writing #harry styles dirty fanfiction #harry styles x oc #dom!harry #dom!harry x sub!reader #tdiag

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gainingfiction · 2 years

Text

Lifetime Supply: Chapter 1

That’s right: gainerstories and I are back at it again with another big, fat collaboration. Hope you enjoy!

Summary: Ryan, a svelte computer science major, thinks he’s hit the jackpot when he wins a lifetime supply of snacks. Turns out there’s no such thing as a free lunch... or free snacks, for that matter.

“You’re not gonna eat all those, are you?”

“I will unless you plan on helping,” Ryan said. He turned to face his roommate, who was still sweaty from his trip to the gym. Ahmed just shook his head and stepped into the bathroom. When Ryan heard the shower running, he unfolded the letter at the top of the box.

We take our commitments to customers seriously. So when we promise you a “lifetime supply”, we really mean it. How much we send will depend on your feedback, and our customer service team is happy to listen. Adesco is passionate about….

Ryan smirked and put the letter aside. They must have spent a lot on marketing. When he entered the stupid competition advertised on the inside of a candy wrapper, he hadn’t expected anything to come of it. So when he won a lifetime supply of the company’s snack foods he was more than a little surprised. He was even more surprised when he returned home two weeks after the win to find a large cardboard box on his doorstep.

Inside were products he knew (chocolate bars, pretzels, popular snack cookies) but also products he had never bought before, like mini donuts and snack cakes with fruit fillings. With a shrug, he opened one of the lemon cakes and took a bite. Pleased with the result, he grabbed another pack and put his feet up on the coffee table.

Ryan opened his laptop. He mostly did freelance jobs, which he preferred to a more traditional set-up. He decided to work on a few projects he had been meaning to finish up. By the end of the afternoon, he realized that his stomach was hurting. Looking around, he saw that the couch was strewn with wrappers. Once he had gotten into a groove, he just kept eating snacks out of the box without even thinking. Realizing the mess he had made, he gathered up the wrappers and tried to toss them in the trash before Ahmed could see.

Except his roommate was already waiting in the kitchen as Ryan approached garbage with handfuls of plastic. “Wow, you weren’t kidding about eating all those,” Ahmed said, arching an eyebrow. “I was just about to head to the library. I have a bunch of school stuff due way too soon.”

Ryan saw Ahmed off, and then thought about what to do with himself. He had been wondering that a lot since his ex, Jason, had broken things off a few weeks earlier. Jason hated being at home, and so the two were always out getting coffee, jogging, or shopping downtown. Before they had met in college, Ryan had felt at ease doing nothing, but that was a side of himself he had pushed aside for a couple of years now. Since Jason fled to Europe with his “yoga buddy”, Ryan had a lot more downtime on his hands.

Where in the past he might have gone for a jog, Ryan decided to say “fuck it” and fire up some porn. Since he had the place to himself, he decided to really go for it, stripping off his clothes in the middle of the living room. After finishing, Ryan cleaned himself up, realizing he had room for another snack cake. Sighing contentedly, he opened up a fresh box.

Two weeks later, when Ryan returned from a cafe where he had been working, he was surprised to see another large cardboard box sitting in front of his house. He brought it inside and placed it on the floor of his bedroom. He was still only about halfway through the last box, and he already felt like he was snacking more than he should have been. He usually couldn’t afford to have so much food just lying around.

Ryan took out a pair of scissors and opened the new box. Amid new and familiar snack packages, he removed another letter. This one was a survey, listing products and asking him to rank them based on his preference. There were other questions about his usual snack choices, flavours he liked most, and his satisfaction with the quantity and variety in the boxes. At the bottom, there was a phone number with a note: If you have any questions, please contact your Adesco customer service representative, Luke!

Sighing, Ryan decided to crack open a bag of pretzels. Who knew that winning a contest could be so much work?

#weight gain #male weight gain #gay #weight gain story #wg story #realistic gain #gaining fiction #belly #bhm #lifetime supply

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youvebeenlivingfictional · 11 months

Note

Long-time reader, first-time asker. Huge fan of your writing!

If you're still taking requests for the comfort prompts, can I request #18 for Borracho? I love the thought of reader having a terrible string of days at work (maybe they work together and aren't quite yet together) and Borracho (of course) notices and slips her favorite candy bar/treat into her jacket pocket to cheer her up?

Aw, thanks nonnie! Sure thing :D

Warnings: Light angst, tired reader, ends in fluff

It has been a shitty, shitty week.

Your car broke down on Monday. On Tuesday, your date with the guy you were seeing, Ben (his friends often called him Borracho) had been cut short when he'd gotten called into work. On Wednesday, you found out that the repair costs for your car were going to be outrageously high. On Thursday, work had been absolutely slammed—but you'd had a brief bright spot when you managed to see Borracho for dinner between shifts.

Your Friday has, so far, been less than stellar.

You have to take public transportation to work, and to your chagrin, it's insanely delayed. When you finally reach the store that you manage, it's absolutely slammed with customers—and they just keep coming. You can't take your break when you'd like to, and when you finally make it to the break room, you're so exhausted and frustrated that you're on the verge of tears.

You glance at your phone's battery, huffing in annoyance when you find it nearing 5%. You walk over to your jacket, and begin to go through your pockets, looking for your wireless charger. You go still when you feel the wrapper of something crinkle beneath your fingers. You frown, drawing whatever it is out. You're perplexed still as you find yourself looking at your favorite candy bar. What the heck? You don't remember buying this. You spot a little arrow drawn on the corner of the wrapper, and turn it over. Your confusion melts to a watery smile as you eye a hastily scrawled, slightly-smudged message:

Take a deep breath. You got this. -B

You draw in a deep breath, then push it out after a few seconds. You grab your phone charger and plug your phone in, settling down. You open the candy bar, eyes sliding shut and groaning softly as it practically melts in your mouth. You sigh softly, feeling your tension dropping away just a bit more. You open your phone, swiping to Borracho's contact and opening it. Your finger hovers over the text field before you raise it to tap on the call button.

You raise the phone to your ear, listening to the brrrrrrrrrrr of the phone ringing. Frankly, you don't expect him to answer, but you'll be just as happy to leave a voicemail—

"Magalon."

You perk up at the sound of his voice, gruff as it is.

"Hey," You greet, looking down at the candy bar. "Is this a bad time?"

"Ah—No! No."

You can hear the creak of his chair, and the scratch of his pen on the other end of the line before you hear it drop.

"You okay?" He presses. You can't help but smile.

"Better now," You admit, "Since I found the little treat you left for me."

"Oh, yeah?" He chuckles. "Good."

"When did you even put this in my pocket?"

"Grabbed it when I was getting cigarettes last night, put it in your pocket while you were texting."

"You sneaky little so-and-so. This is how you're putting your skills to use?"

"What else am I supposed to do with 'em?"

"Don't let your boss hear your say that."

"Don't worry about that."

You smile, biting your lip.

"Can I see you tonight?" You hedge.

"Course you can. If your car's ready, we can go pick it up."

"You don't have to do that with me."

"I don't mind. Besides, I can check what they did, make sure they're not padding your bill."

Your smile widens as you shift the candy bar in your hand.

"I'd really appreciate that," You agree.

"I'll come pick you up. Your shift's up at six, right?"

"Mhm."

"Alright, I'll wait outside."

"Thanks, Ben."

"You don't have to thank me."

"Yeah, I do, I—" You stop yourself, feeling your emotions swelling again. "I appreciate it."

"...I know," He murmurs. You close your eyes, pulling another deep breath in.

"I'll see you tonight."

"Yeah, you will. Try to take the rest of your shift easy, baby."

Baby. It's a first from him, and it makes you flustered and warm.

"Don't work yourself too hard either," You urge.

"I won't."

"Okay. Bye."

"Bye."

You draw the phone away from your phone, eyeing the contact again. Baby. That felt nice. Sounded good, too, especially coming from him. You raise your candy bar, taking another bite as you hit the edit button on his contact information. You consider for a moment before you tap on his name, edit it, then hit save.

Ben💖

#Benny Borracho Magalon x Reader #Benny Borracho Magalon x You #Benny Borracho Magalon/Reader #Benny Borracho Magalon/You #Benny Borracho Magalon fic #Benny Borracho Magalon imagine #asks #replies #anon #requests #prompts #comfort prompts

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melonba11s · 1 year

Text

Playing along (Strade/Fem MC fic)

A sort of revamp of an old drabble, now a proper longform fic! I hope you all enjoy it!

I have a bit of an epilogue planned that I hope I can type up soon!

Contains: Strade, Ren, Female MC, Canon Typical Violence.

One more person in front of him. He watched as they dumped a pile of random items onto the counter.

"Hi! How are you?!" that voice, picked up by several pitches, ringing with syrupy sweetness. Eyes bright with near manic alertness, smile stretched as far as it could be. All the motions were completely unnatural, all of them working on the man she was helping.

Her energy bounced off the walls as she made small talk, letting out a little laugh at the man's lame joke. She was deftly quick with her job. Items scanned in successive order, fingers tapping the screen with barely a glance, piled into a bag and given along with the receipt.

"there you go! You have a good day now!" she waves him off then turns, aiming that beam of bright sunny smiles at him. Then the recognition flashes in her eyes.

"Oh, Hey Strade!" Shoulders relax, she hunches over to lean against the counter, eyes meeting his. So easily she stripped off her lies the moment he appeared.

"Hey, buddy! Working hard as usual?" he liked her. This side of her at least. The one that didn't feel the need to wrap herself in a sweet candy wrapper.

"oh you know it." she rolled her eyes, a gesture she'd never make with another customer. She carefully gathers his items into a neat row, taking her time. There was no rushing to get him in and out, she wanted to extend the time they had together as much as she could.

It had been several weeks before he first stopped in for a simple jug of milk, it was a bit of a ways away from his neighborhood but he had been out anyway. And just as she did with all the other customers she had blasted him nearly off his feet with her cheeriness. Something about it made him want to peel her open, expose her core, so he returned. He made small talk, got her to open up.

Watching that simpering and ass kissing attitude morph into the person she really was. And realizing something else. The way her eyes truly lit up when she saw him, how if she noticed him before he came to check out how her eyes would follow him, the way her cheeks would glow if he complimented her. He could tell easily when someone was smitten.

So he played into it. He asked her about her hobbies, her friends, her family. He asked her about her job.

“This store’s in kind of a dangerous area, I hope your camera system is good!” he had once said, slapping the cover of a nearby newspaper, who’s headline mentioned a violent crime in the area. Her expression furrowed slightly.

“Uh, listen. You know those signs we have? “Smile, you’re on camera!”?... They’re just there for show. We actually don’t have a security system. Company says we aren’t high priority enough for one.” She shrugged sadly. She didn’t notice the glint in Strades eyes at what luck he had. No cameras, no evidence.

"oh, you know what? I better get a lottery ticket." Strade said, bringing himself back to the present. He leaned across the counter to hand her the cash.

"Make sure it's a winning ticket." he said with a wink. A joke she no doubt heard hundreds of times, one that made her smile flicker for just a moment when someone else told the same joke.

She laughed though, he could get away with it.

"So Buddy, any big plans for your weekend?" he asked, watching her make her way to the lottery terminal.

"Uh, not really. I actually have the weekend off for the first time in ages... I may just spend it resting."

An opportunity. Blood in the water. Strade raised an eyebrow, his fingers curling on the counter. She was planning for a weekend watching those romance movies she had admitted she had an addiction to, dreaming of a man to come by and sweep her off her feet. Perhaps it would happen in a more literal sense…

"you know what? I got a lot of free time too." he mused, as she handed him his lottery ticket.

"So. Saturday night, let's go out and have a drink then?" he watched in delight as her eyes went wide with shock, her entire face turning bright red.

"w-wha???... drinks with... you?" she stammered, frozen stiff.

"Well of course, on me... go ahead and write your number on this ticket here... Then maybe we'll both be lucky" he slid the ticket towards her, smiling. If she had not been so innocent, unaware of the world, she would have ran the moment he bared his teeth.

Instead, with a shaking hand, she got out a pen and hastily scribbled her number down.

"D-drinks... yeah I'd... like that... I'll see you Saturday." she was curling a finger in her hair now, looking away in a shy manner but with a goofy smile on her face.

The trap was set, the bait planted. Strade let out a chuckle, pocketing the little piece of paper.

"I look forward to really getting to know you." he waved, heading out the door. As he got into his car, he settled his hands on the wheel, taking in a deep breath.

He didn’t usually play such a long game like this, spending time with a target before he finally brought them down. He was too impatient for that, he could usually pick out someone at the bar and get them into his car with close to no hassle.

When he first met her he hadn’t even considered her as an option. But seeing her little crush on him had piqued his interest. Then he had learned that her family lived hours away. Learned about the lack of security cameras on the premise.

Learned about how lonely she was, how on a day when she had been down, how she had admitted that she didn’t really feel like anyone would ever be interested in her. Not like that.

She had quickly apologized and asked him to forget she said anything afterwards, stating “oh no, I’m on the clock I can’t be venting like this to a customer!”.

He hadn’t forgotten though, he had tucked that bit of info away with the rest of things he knew about her.

He just needed to wait a little longer… He was really interested in how different the reactions would be from her if he tore off those rose colored glasses at the very last second. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he got an idea. It almost took too long to pull into his house.

“Ren.” He said, handing the fox the bar of chocolate he got him. Ren was curled up on the couch, attention held by the TV. One of his cartoons.

“Yeah, Strade?” Ren’s ears were flattened, probably expecting to be dragged into the basement. He knew a bit about Strades current target, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Strade to grow impatient and need to take out some of his urges on Ren.

Not tonight though. He simply leaned over the couch, squinting.

“Do you know any good romance movies?” he kept his tone light, simple. Ren’s expression morphed into confusion, then thinking. Then he nodded, a million questions on the tip of his tongue.

“Good.” Strade clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Need to do some er… Research.” He turned to go grab himself a beer from the kitchen.

“... Is this for the girl you met? The one you want too… you know. Bring over?” Strade gave a grunt in response, jerking his head in a nod.

“... You’re trying to impress her aren’t you? Woo her? Why? You could just grab her and drag her like the others.”

He really could. It would be so easy too. Ren was right.

“Not this time, Fuchs.” he said with a sigh, pushing that idea out of his mind. “I want to try something different. Play along with her little fantasies, see what happens when I tear the mask off at the last moment.”

Ren made a small “mmm” noise, going back to his show. It was shaping up to be an interesting Thursday night. He should probably text her in a few hours, and let her know where they should meet. Two days until Saturday. He could make himself wait that much longer.

~~~~

Strade waited patiently at his favorite bar, The Braying Mule. It was his usual hunting grounds, the staff never paid any attention, they never even ID’d for alcohol. No way for anyone to accidentally remember someone's name or face based on a little photo. The only camera they had faced the lone register, not any of the tables or door. It was such a perfect place.

“H-Hi Strade.” Her voice was a small squeak from behind. Strade turned around to face her. He had only ever seen her at work, so he half expected to see her still in uniform, hair up, looking tired.

He was pleasantly surprised. Plain light wash jeans, a cream colored sweatshirt, hair down. A casual look, but nice enough for a first date. He didn’t miss how low cut her sweatshirt was, and raked his eyes over her form for a moment, before looking back at her face. She was very red in the face, and looked ready to break into a sweat.

“Come on, sit down! Don’t be so nervous!” he let out a laugh, before remembering a move from one of those movies. He sat up, a bit too quickly to be natural, and pulled the chair out harshly. It made a grating sound against the floor that made him wince.

As clumsy as his gesture was though, it got the reaction he wanted. Her eyes were practically sparkling as she took a seat, staring at him.

He ordered a round of drinks, making sure to ask her what she liked. Vodka Soda, with a cherry added. Painfully sweet, easy drinking. He had his usual beer.

He followed his perfectly crafted script as the night wore on, leaning in to listen to her, brushing a hand across hers, tilting his head. She wasn’t used to this, she must have been being truthful when she said she couldn’t imagine someone wanting to date her.

“Listen, uh…” she finally said, her cheeks a little flushed. She had only had a few drinks, so she couldn’t be that drunk. Just a little buzzed.

“I… I don’t want you to think I’m… that sorta woman. Loose, but…” her eyes flickered away. “Could I… come home with you?” The moment the words left her mouth she was hiding her face in her hands. How cute. He wouldn’t even have to tempt her to come home with him. Just a bit longer now.

“You know… I think I’d really like that.” he reached out, placing a hand on top of hers. “Wait near the door, I’m gonna go pay, alright?”

The excitement in the air from him was tangible, he was surprised the cashier didn’t explode from how volatile it was. As he rejoined her, she was bold enough to take his hand in hers. Strade did his best to keep his smile relaxed, eyes half lidded, as much as he wanted to tug her along, scare her, force her into the car.

“Aah.” Shit. His car. The lack of handles on the inside. Not usually an issue. Until now. He needed to think of something…

“Is something wrong?” she asked, looking at him with mild concern.

“Well… My car, see, I got it second hand if I’m honest. The previous guy who had it had the inside door handles on the passenger side removed.” He braced himself for the shock on her face, for her to pull away. It never came. Instead, she laughed.

“What a weirdo!! Why would he do that?” She trusted him so much. She was so naive. Strade laughed too, for an entirely different reason.

“I have no idea, if he was a criminal he made a mistake selling it. Think of how much evidence he’d given away.” Strade rolled his eyes, opening the passenger side door for her.

“It’s a really nice car too, what did you say you do for a living?” Strade closed the door on her, and walked over to the driver's side before answering.

“Aah, I actually make content. On the internet. Mostly for other people who are into tools, knives and all the interesting things you can do with them.”

“Oh, so you build things?” He wondered how she came to that conclusion.

“Eeh, More of, I test their limits in extreme situations.” He pressed on the gas, thinking of a bullshit example. “Like if an advertised waterproof drill can still work after being frozen in a block of ice.”

“You’ll have to show me it sometime! That sounds like it’s fun.” Strade glanced at her, coming to a slow easy stop at a traffic light.

“Maybe you could star in one of my videos sometime, I bet you’d like being in on the fun~” He gave her a cheeky grin, watching her blush yet again. She was so easy.

The conversation during the ride home was easily kept up, Strade didn’t need to think up any more lies or half truths to tell. She was getting more quiet the closer they got to his place, nervously fiddling with the hem of her sweater as they pulled into the driveway.

Just a bit longer, play along a bit longer. He grabbed her by the arm, pulling her over the stick shift and into his lap. A move that went a lot smoother in that one movie, he had forgotten its name. She gave a small “eep!” as she banged her knee against the cup holder, looking absolutely shocked as she was suddenly face to face with him.

“What, never been in a guy's lap before?” he asked, teasingly. She shook her head very quickly.

“N-No I… There’s a lot of stuff I’ve never done, I-” he let her continue to stutter, raising a hand to her face. He remembered holding Ren down under him to practice for this, though he didn’t really care if he was that good.

He pulled her closer in, watching her close her eyes as their lips met. He supposed he should close his eyes too, but he wanted to keep an eye on her. Tugging on her lower lip, resting his hands on her hips, giving them a light squeeze.

“...I’ve never even kissed a guy before…” she admitted after pulling herself away. Her cheeks were more pink now, eyes half lidded as she looked at him, her arms around his neck.

“Oh?” Strade pulled her in until she was fully straddling him. “So you’ve never been in a guys house? Do you even know what will happen when we get inside?” he teased, breathing hot air across her ear.

“Yes! We uh…we…” she was teetering off again. Quiet little thing, he’d prefer it if she were less shy, more loud. There would be time for that later.

“Don’t worry… I’ll guide you through it all.” he comforted her, before swinging his car door open. “Now let's be quiet, alright? Can’t wake any neighbors.” he held a finger up to his mouth, winking with a mischievous smile on his face.

The click of the house door behind him sealed her fate, it set something at ease within him. He had her, there was no way out for her now. He pinned her to the wall in the hallway, working a hand up her shirt fervently as he nibbled on her lips again. Ren had told him not to use his teeth, but he really couldn’t help it. She just seemed like she’d taste so sweet.

She was moaning anyways, so that must mean he was doing it right. He couldn’t remember the last time he had had someone over for sex, just sex. She wasn’t very active though, letting him continue to maul her and not doing much more than clinging to him and letting him strip her down. Shirt first, then her jeans. He snapped the elastic of her underwear playfully, drawing out a “yip” from her.

He had to admit, this one sided wrestling did do something for him. He was already hard in his pants, though maybe that was because of the knowledge that soon he’d have what he wanted… He just needed to find the right moment to strike.

She was in his bed now, completely naked, and clearly fighting not to hide her form from him. His gaze raked down her lustfully, from her breasts down to her soft stomach, to her thighs. So many places to mark her, and make her his.

First he needed to undress though. He pulled his button up off with haste, and then his socks. There really was no sexy way to take those off, and he really didn’t care. He smiled at her, his grin beginning to take on a more predatory look in the dim lighting.

Her eyes were trained on him, she was waiting with bated breath. He pulled his pants down slowly-

“Eep!” she let out a squeak like a mouse as his erection sprang free, and she hid her face in her hands. He paused, his grin flickering in confusion.

“No! No, I'm sorry! I’ve just… never.. Seen a penis before.” she was stammering quickly. “Oh my god, I sound so stupid, I’m sorry.”

Strade really couldn’t help it, he tilted his head back and let out a full laugh, deep from within his chest.

“You really are such a cute thing.” He grinned, climbing into bed with her. She seemed small underneath him, curled up in herself. He was being a bit impatient, grabbing her knees to spread her open.

She wasn’t stopping him though, and she was glistening with her own fluids. He wondered how long she’d been wet for him. He rubbed his cock against her folds, letting out a groan, listening to her breath hitch as the head of his cock rubbed against her clit.

Even if he let himself, he felt like he wouldn’t have been able to shove it all in at once. Damn, she was so tight. His smile flickered and he groaned as he pushed himself inside, pausing every few moments to adjust.

It was almost painfully tight… He looked up into her face, and almost laughed again. Eyes closed, face screwed up, she was clearly in a bit of pain, fighting down little whimpers. Yep, a definite virgin. He didn’t think of himself as having a kink for virgins, but there was something nice knowing he was her first experience… and would be her only experience.

“Relax.” He instructed, lowering himself so that they were chest to chest. Her skin felt great against his. She nodded, keeping one eye closed as she looked at him.

“I-It’s just… really big.” she managed to gasp out, wrapping her arms around his neck. Strade arched an eyebrow, letting out a small chuckle.

“Aaww, you big flatterer.” She was relaxing though, allowing him to move. Strade nuzzled his face into her neck, inhaling deeply. She smelt good, a mix of sweat, sticky sweetness from her drinks, and something floral, he couldn’t quite put his finger on. A perfume or something, he figured. He ran his tongue along her neck, groaning as he thrusted in and out of her.

She was giggling now, though letting out small gasps and moans.

“Your scruffy cheek... It tickles.” she whispered, hooking her chin over his shoulder.

“Is that all you feel?” he asked, trying not to sound exasperated. She shook her head.

“N-No… It feels good. Please keep going.” she added on that last part, a subtle beg. He wanted her to beg more.

He lifted himself off her, setting himself up for a better angle before continuing his thrusts. She was unfolding for him, a dusting of pink on her cheeks as she stared up at him with lust and admiration. She really liked him so much. She was such a sweet little idiot.

No matter how romantic he attempted to make it though, it didn’t stop this from being his favorite kind of fun. Messy. They were sweaty, pubic hair sticky with eachothers fluids, how she licked her lips to try and catch the drool that was finding its way out.

She was moaning his name in earnest now, shaking her hips to match his movements.

“Strade… I-I’m so close… Please don’t stop.” Strade flashed her a grin through his haze. He had no intention of stopping. He wouldn’t stop for a long time. The perfect time to strike suddenly hit him and he readied himself.

The way her hips stuttered, her moans rising, voice warbling. Her fingers digging into his shoulders, he felt her nails draw blood. Now.

He moved with frightening quickness, wrapping a hand around her neck. Confusion, hearing that last gasp of air leave her lips as he tightened his hold. First begging, mouthing, asking him what he’s doing without a voice.

His hips snapped into her as she began to writhe and struggle against him. There it was. He grinned down at her as her eyes widened in fear, as she began to panic. No Oxygen.

Her hands left his shoulders to scramble at his wrist, trying to pull him off. She was tightening around him, no longer relaxed. That didn’t matter to him anymore though, he was so close.

He groaned as she kicked out, trying to fight back, her walls were flexing, her back arching.

“Oh wow, are you cumming you naughty little thing?” he asked, watching her face turn redder by the second. Tears were trickling down her face now, her grip on his wrist was getting weaker.

It was enough to push him over the edge, he gripped her hip with his spare hand, hard enough that he was definitely leaving bruises. Emptying himself inside her, he tilted his head back, sighing in bliss as he felt her go limp under him.

He spent a few more seconds like that, basking in the afterglow before letting go of her neck.

“Still Alive, Schatzi?” he asked, slapping her cheek before feeling for a pulse. Fast, but still there. She was just out, exactly what he wanted. He pulled himself out slowly, looking around for his boxers.

“Ren!” he shouted, after finding them and pulling them on. The shorter man appeared in the doorway almost instantly. Had he been listening in on them? Strade supposed that would be very classic for him.

“Do me a favor buddy.” He wiped his forehead, he was a bit out of breath. “Help me drag this fine guest down to the basement, alright?” Ren’s gaze traveled to the collapsed woman on the bed.

“Yeah, sure… Uhm… When she’s down there. Could I-?” Ren cut himself off, but his question was there. Strade hummed a bit, tapping his chin as if he were deep in thought.

“Yeah, sure, you can take her for a spin too.” he smiled, grabbing her by the legs as Ren pushed his hands under her arms.

“She was so tense before, but I got her all nice and relaxed now!” he said with a wink, watching Ren roll his eyes as they began moving her to what would eventually be her final resting place.

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