#guys I promise this is a canon ending | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

togenabi · 6 months

Text

the promised knight

knight!roronoa zoro x princess!reader

♡— after a lifetime apart, zoro finds his way back to you

word count♡— 8.7k (screams into the void)

genre♡— royalty au, childhood friends to strangers to lovers, slow burn bc a lot of things happen, but there's fluff bc I need there to be

content notes♡— fem!reader wears dresses, mentions of death and grief, very plot heavy, kuina and mihawk are here, canon-typical violence, original side characters, no use of y/n, proofread(ish), inaccurate royalty things, inaccurate chemistry/poisons/acids, yes I got the name florentia from ill be the matriarch

also on♡— ao3

author's note♡— quick explanation!: a regent has no right to the throne, they're just someone stepping in temporarily while the next monarch is absent or unable to execute their powers. happy reading!!

Your happiest years were when everyone was together.

Those were the days you’d sneak out of your lessons to go play in the training grounds. You’d find your best friends arguing about something or other, fighting with wooden swords and chasing each other around.

Kuina and Zoro did their best to include you in whatever game they were playing. You found it all good fun, even if you were mostly being rescued or hidden away somewhere. The proud smiles on their faces when they saved you always made the wait for them worth it.

“Why do I have to play the bad guy?” A young Zoro whines, frowning deeply with shoulders slumped. His wooden sword hangs lazily in his hand, pointed to the ground.

Opposite him, Kuina’s blade was up, stable and correct with proper posture. “Because we agreed I would save the princess today!”

You remember sending Zoro a small smile, trying to reassure him, “You can save me next time, Zoro. I promise.”

Zoro complained, but gave his all acting as a bandit out to rob you. You and Kuina would run into the meadow—hands held in each other’s—squealing and laughing. You’d always end up collapsed together; among the grass and the flowers. They would cheer and scream into the sky, happy that the great knights protected their princess once again.

But that same meadow is now covered with a blanket of melancholy. The colors aren’t as vibrant as they were back then. Flowers no longer bloom like they did. The children’s laughter has been replaced by a deafening silence.

Everything changed when Kuina died.

She was hit by a stray arrow, they said. They called it a tragic accident.

More sadness only seemed to follow after she was gone. Zoro left without a word, abandoning his training, and you along with it. Your mother, Queen Florentia, passed due to an illness a few months after that. In a blink of an eye, you lost everything back then.

The large doors to your chambers slam shut, breaking you from your train of thought. The thud echoes into every corner before fading into noiselessness once more.

A maid rushes in, completely out of breath and practically stumbling towards you. “Your Highness!” She gasps. Waving a hand, you gesture for her to calm down.

“Selma,” You pour her some water in a glass. It’s strange to see your personal maid so distressed. “What did you find?”

Practically inhaling the water, she places a hand over her heart before explaining, “You were right, Your Ladyship. The commander informed me that several knights had poison hidden in their quarters.”

Her eyes trail to the glass she’s holding, then to the pitcher. Selma’s face becomes appalled as it sinks in that you had poured her a drink. You cut her off before she can make a fuss about it.

“Never mind all that.” There are more pressing matters than decorum right now. “What else did Mihawk say? Have the knights been apprehended?”

“No, my Lady.” Selma retrieves a transparent vial from her pocket. “The commander said there's a chance the poisons were planted. Trustworthy men could have been framed… He discourages you from trusting any of them at all.”

The vial is small, barely larger than your thumb. To an untrained eye, it looks like nothing is there. You hold it up to the window, letting the sun’s setting rays shine through the glass.

There it is. A near-invisible, lavender sheen in liquid. The queen regent’s signature poison.

“Damn it all.” You sigh, falling into an armchair.

It’s common knowledge that most of the people are loyal to Queen Regent Cassiopeia. Not to you, the rightful heir to the throne.

Ever since she took the position after your mother’s death, she’s been doing everything in her power to discredit you. Though she's not in the official line of succession, her goal is to become queen by any means necessary.

You’ve only been able to hold on for so long because there are still people loyal to your mother, like Commander Mihawk. However, it will take only one slip up for your standing to collapse. Cassiopeia knows this, and you suspect that she plans to completely ruin you at the upcoming knighting ceremony.

On a paneled wall in your room, encased in an ornate golden frame, hangs a portrait of Queen Florentia. The gold reminds you of the gilded dagger she gave you as a child.

Subconsciously, your hand moves to rest over your pocket; where the dagger is hidden under your skirt. What would your mother have done in this situation?

You scan the painting as if the image would respond. It doesn’t, but your eyes settle on the necklace she’s wearing. It was her most prized possession, and she had promised to give it to you when you were older, but it’s sadly lost to time.

The vial grows heavy in your fist. Your mother would stop at nothing until Cassiopeia is defeated, so that’s what you’ll set out to do.

“Selma, get me some ink and parchment.” You order, feeling more determined. “I have a plan.”

Dracule Mihawk burned the note as soon as he finished reading it. Your idea was brilliant, if only a little complicated to execute.

Cassiopeia will demand you choose a personal knight during the ceremony. Assuming all the knights are loyal to the queen regent, none of them would be a safe choice.

So, you asked Mihawk to hire a skilled fighter to pose as a knight. Someone whose loyalty cannot be bought. Immediately, he knew who to recruit. Though he warned you that you might not find the man… agreeable.

“I don’t care.” You replied stubbornly. “I can’t afford to be picky. Just make sure that he won’t kill me in my sleep.”

Mihawk muses that he might be killed by you in his sleep. Because in a shady, run-down tavern, he sits beside a familiar green-haired swordsman nursing a drink at the bar.

“Fancy seeing you here, commander.” Zoro spits out the title in disgust.

“It seems that some things never change.” Mihawk hums. “You’re still in the same place as you were when we last fought.”

“And your legend ends with you kissing up to that false queen.” Disappointment practically drips from his tone.

“And here you are,” There’s an amused glint in the knight commander’s eye. “...still not able to beat me, Roronoa Zoro.”

Zoro’s jaw clenches in frustration. He breathes out deeply, “What do you want, old man?”

“Join my knights.”

Scoffing, Zoro can’t believe his ears. Is this guy serious? “I’m no knight. Not anymore.”

“Are you sure about that?” Mihawk tests. “The princess needs someone not easily dissuaded.”

At the mention of you, Zoro freezes. He squints at the commander as it dawns on him, “You don’t serve that Cassiopeia bitch.”

“Obviously.”

“But why did you become commander only after Queen Florentia died?” Zoro asks. “Everyone thought you were bought off.”

“That’s besides the point.” Mihawk hisses. “I know you’ve been wanting to make it up to the princess. I’m giving you a chance to do that on a silver platter.”

Zoro stays quiet, eyes watching the alcohol ripple in his glass. He’s not drunk enough for this discussion. And he meant what he said, that he’s not a knight. That dream died with Kuina, and he chose to pursue less honorable ways to become stronger.

It’s funny how Mihawk, who was an outlaw, traded his jacket for a suit of armor. And now, he's trying to act righteous. But some things are just—

“It’s not too late to change things.” Mihawk attempts to persuade him, calmer this time. “Something tells me you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Shaking his head, Zoro can’t believe this man is talking like he knows him. “What do you know about regret?”

When the commander doesn’t respond, Zoro turns to see Mihawk’s face, a grave expression marks his features.

“I know far too much, I’m afraid.”

Zoro studies him for a moment longer, curious as to what he meant—but he doesn’t dare ask. Only an idiot would test Dracule Mihawk.

This master swordsman, whom he’s looked up to for so many years, has changed drastically. Perhaps everyone has. It makes Zoro wonder how much you might’ve changed in the years he’s been gone.

You. He’s—there’s so much he wants to say. So much he wants to ask… but does he have the right to?

Who is he kidding? He doesn’t.

And yet, Zoro can’t help but wonder if he passes on this opportunity and regrets it, would he spend the rest of his life wishing he could make up for it?

After downing his drink, Zoro slams the glass on the bar counter.

“What do I need to do?”

Selma assists you with your hair and makeup on the day of the ceremony. She’s practically buzzing as she flutters around you. It’s nice that she’s still enthusiastic about things like these, even when dangers lurk in the shadows.

“You look stunning, Your Ladyship!” She gushes, adjusting the different layers of your dress so that it falls on you perfectly. “A vision, you are. Just like Queen Florentia.”

“Thank you.” You respond gratefully, despite not feeling as sure and confident as your mother was. Would that change, if you were to become queen?

A knock sounds on your door. Selma rushes to answer it, and lets Mihawk into your chambers. He steps in, but remains by the entryway.

“You look lovely, princess.” The commander bows to you in greeting. “I was instructed to escort you once you’re ready.”

Nodding, you approach him and hold onto his arm. “Let us be on our way.”

Keeping your face carefully neutral, you whisper to Mihawk under your breath, “Will you really not let me know the knight’s name? How am I supposed to know who to appoint?”

“You’ll know.” Mihawk pats your hand reassuringly. “Without a doubt, you’ll know. I just hope you’re not too hard on him.”

You side-eye him. “He’s not a convict or something, is he?”

Mihawk presses his mouth shut. This bastard, is he trying not to laugh? “You might actually prefer a convict over him.”

That pulls a frown out of you that you cannot contain. What on earth is that supposed to mean? Is the man that bad? How are you supposed to mentally prepare with such vague warnings?

All thoughts of the mystery knight fade into the back of your mind, however, when you and Mihawk make your entrance at the throne room.

The extravagant hall is decorated to the nines. Flags of different family crests hang from the ceiling. Flowers bloom at every window sill. You smile at it all, at your people—but it fails to reach your eyes. It’s difficult to truly smile when Cassiopeia stands dangerously close to your mother’s throne.

You curtsy when you reach the steps, one hand still on Mihawk’s arm as the fabric of your skirt dips onto the floor. You hear murmurs of approval from the ministers in the front row, pleased to see the good relationship between the princess and queen regent.

But they don’t see through your gloves, how your grip on your skirt is tense and far too tight. They don’t see how Cassiopeia’s smile is truly a smirk when you lower your head to her.

“Lovely to have you here, darling.” She says, and you fight the urge to laugh. ‘Lovely’ would be if she accepted her place and let go of her greed.

Mihawk guides you to the smaller throne on the left. This has been your seat since you were born. If Cassiopeia had her way, it would be your seat until the end of your days.

She glides to the center of the dais, the train of her excessive dress flows like a river after her. She stands; graceful, powerful and smiling—but she will never be happy until she can sit on the throne and wear your mother’s crown.

Whatever it takes, you will find a way to stop her.

“Welcome to the long-awaited knighting ceremony.” Cassiopeia addresses the audience. “It is an honor to have the kingdom’s finest pledge to serve and protect us.”

The ceremony proceeds to speeches from several dignitaries. Mihawk delivers a short yet intense declamation about the knightage being the greatest honor; and hands the queen regent an elaborate, bejeweled sword.

“These warriors before us today are hereby called forward to receive Knighthood. The kingdom will forever be grateful for your service.” Cassiopeia proclaims.

Attentively observing the knights lined up, you keep an eye out for the one Mihawk recruited for you. One at a time, Cassiopeia announces their name before tapping their shoulders with the ornamental blade.

You grow restless as the line dwindles. Frustrated, you throw questioning looks at the commander’s direction. He skillfully avoids your gaze. The nerve.

When only about five men are left, you begin to study them all and weigh your options. Perhaps you should pick someone with a smaller build, so that you can have a better chance of escaping? You also spotted someone who appeared clumsy. If you were to outsmart him, your odds of surviving weren’t so bleak.

But then—dramatically, as if in slow motion—the great doors to the throne room opened with a loud, booming sound. Everyone turned as light poured into the hall.

A swordsman makes his entrance. His armor is unassuming, but the three blades at his side demand attention. He wears a helmet over his head, but even after so much time, you’d know those eyes anywhere.

Mihawk was right. You would have preferred a convict—or maybe some rogue, or a thief who would rob you blind. You would have preferred anyone over Roronoa Zoro.

You thought you’d never see him again, but he’s here, marching towards the end of the line. You gape at him, feeling too many emotions all at once. Why is he here? Why now?

Mihawk intercepts Cassiopeia before she can question Zoro’s identity. “Forgive me, queen regent. This young man ran late due to an errand I sent him out on.”

How brilliant of him. Cassiopeia hates unexpected interruptions, but would never express her frustrations openly with so many people watching.

It’s amusing to see her grin and bear it. “That’s… quite alright, commander. I’m glad he made it before the end of the ceremony.”

When only Zoro remains to be appointed, you stand and call for the queen regent’s attention.

“Should he accept, this man shall be my personal knight.” You declare as Zoro’s gaze meets yours.

“What of your decision, knight?” Cassiopeia asks. Zoro nods, and the queen regent’s gaze sharpens. She understands that something is amiss, but passes the decorated blade to you without a word.

Back when you were children, you used to dream of this moment together. Kuina and Zoro would kneel before you on the grass beneath a shining sun, pledging their unwavering loyalty as you tap their shoulders with a stick.

You’re no longer children, but as Zoro kneels before you now, you still feel like a child all the same. Your clothes feel too big. The throne room is too vast; the ceiling too high. The sword is too heavy in your hands as you raise it.

“Roronoa Zoro. I hereby dub thee into the honorable order of knights as my chosen protector.” The blade lands on his shoulder—his right first, then the other. You pray to the stars that no one notices your hold quivering.

“Arise, Sir Zoro, and be recognized.”

You’re no longer children, but you’re still here. Playing a different sort of game.

Mihawk, the wise man that he is, makes himself scarce after the ceremony. You’re left to awkwardly journey back to your chambers with Zoro in tow. He doesn’t speak a word the entire time, but you can feel his eyes burning a hole through the back of your head.

Selma is there when you get back, your usual afternoon refreshments prepared. She approaches you, but stops short when she sees Zoro.

“Leave us.” You tell her. She obeys, albeit reluctantly—looking back over her shoulder more than once as she exits.

After the door closes shut, the outside world feels a million miles away; making the air feel tense. You hastily take off your gloves, the fabric suddenly feels constricting against your skin. Every fiber of your being wants to scream at him.

Roronoa Zoro. Your best friend who had left all those years ago. You don’t even know where to start.

Maybe throwing something at him will make you feel better.

You throw one of your gloves. The fabric hits his chest before falling pathetically.

“Seriously?” Zoro frowns at you, unimpressed. You throw the other one. It meets the same fate.

Grumbling under his breath, Zoro takes off his helmet. It vexes you how you subconsciously hold your breath until you see his face.

You huff skeptically, “Why are you here?”

“Mihawk said you needed help.” He answers with a shrug, causing his armor clink.

After a breath, he speaks cautiously, “I didn’t know things had gotten this bad.”

“How could you have known?” You bite back, “You left, Zoro.”

In a sense, you understand why Mihawk chose him. You asked for someone who wouldn’t kill you in your sleep, and Zoro—at least, the one you knew—definitely wouldn’t.

Some (rational) part of your brain is telling you to keep quiet and accept his help. With Cassiopeia planning a mutiny, time is something you don’t have a lot of.

But your heart still feels angry and hurt when you see his—stupidly handsome—face. The years just had to treat him well, didn’t they?

“I’m thankful for your help,” You admit disgruntledly. “But I’m not happy about it.”

Zoro calls your name. It makes your heart ache a bit, but you hold a hand up to silence him.

“Please, just—I need time to process this, Zoro.” Turning away from the knight, your eyes find the window. The sunset paints the meadow in deep oranges and blues. It doesn’t make you feel any better.

“...We’ll talk tomorrow.” You promise, your tiredness evident from your tone.

Zoro lingers, hesitating. But he doesn’t push you. You hear his armor shift as he bows before he leaves.

That night, Zoro stands guard outside your door. It’s good that no one else is around, it allows him to think in peace. About you.

The last time Zoro saw you, you were a small thing, getting dirt on the edge of your skirt. When he saw you today, sullying even the path you walked on felt like a crime.

He knew you would be mad. He had prepared himself to be yelled at. Maybe he thought you would cry. How much you went through didn’t really sink in until he saw how exhausted you were.

All the things he wanted to say, every apology and excuse, fade into nothing. The first thing he wants to tell you is how thankful he is that you’re still alive. It doesn’t matter that you stay mad at him forever, he’ll protect you for just as long.

Footsteps sound through the dim hallway. Zoro rests a hand on his blades, ready to fight back anyone who poses a threat. A knight he’s not acquainted with approaches, his steps staggering just a bit. The man carries a bottle of alcohol.

“Hey! New guy!” The stranger bellows. “This ’ere is a little something we prepared for ya, since yous didn’t eat dinner with us.” Zoro makes a mental note that they’ve been watching him.

“Take it, take it.” The knight tries to shove the bottle into Zoro’s hands. At the last second, Zoro spots a knife the man hides behind his back.

Quick on his feet, Zoro jabs the man’s neck, causing him to stumble. The knight charges at him, but Zoro effortlessly dodges. Grabbing the knight’s shoulder, Zoro slams his head onto the stone wall.

The bottle clatters to the floor as his opponent collapses, looking up at him in fear. Picking up the glass, Zoro sniffs at its contents. It’s laced with some sort of sedative.

Zoro pries the knight’s jaw open before pouring the drugged beverage into his mouth. The amber liquid spills. The man coughs, gurgling and struggling in vain until he slumps onto the ground.

Observing the bottle inquisitively, Zoro shakes his head before dropping it again. What kind of amateurish attempt was this? Is the queen regent testing his skills?

If anything, all this managed to do was—Zoro starts, turning to your door in alarm—…divert his attention.

Not a second later, he kicks down your door. The elaborately carved wood falls from its hinges, dust clouds billow once it crashes on the previously spotless tiles of your room.

You’re fighting off three large strangers clad in black, a dagger in your hand. Zoro tries not to think about how your eyes softened in relief when they landed on him as he cuts down one of the intruders. Maybe you still care for him a little.

“Took you long enough!” Or not.

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” He grunts back, slashing his sword at someone charging towards you. Zoro only realizes the deeper meaning to his words when you make a face.

“Don’t make being late a habit, Zoro!” Stabbing an intruder’s side, you quip at him, “You and your dramatic entrances, I swear.”

Zoro bites back a grin. He missed you more than you’ll ever know.

After taking down one of the intruders, you hide in your wardrobe as Zoro deals with the rest.

It would be smart to lock the door. Barricade it, so that no one can get to you on the off chance Zoro is defeated. But you don’t. You keep the door ajar to watch everything unfold. The way he fights is a captivating sight.

Look at him. Your knight in lackluster armor. Protecting you like how you always talked about as kids. He’s wielding two blades, one for each perpetrator still standing. You blink in surprise when you make out the third, sheathed blade. Kuina’s.

The more you examine him, the more you see how different he seems. He carries himself more confidently, unlike that boy who whined about roles, responsibilities and challenges.

You also see how gruff he’s become. He’s grown stronger, for sure, but you get the sense that he’s closed himself off from the world. Perhaps the years weren’t as kind to him as you'd thought.

The last intruder lets out a pitiful cry as Zoro knocks him unconscious.

“I’ll tie them up and let Mihawk deal with them in the morning.” Zoro says, pausing to breathe for a moment before dragging the men out by their feet.

Emerging from your wardrobe, you become dismayed at the sight of your room in such a state. “Did you really have to kick down the door?” You groan.

Surprisingly, Zoro blanks, appearing sheepish. “...I didn’t know it would break like that. I just—you should get a damn better door.” He mumbles, heaving the doors up and resting them against the wall outside.

When he comes back from restraining the intruders, he stands before you awkwardly—like he doesn’t know what to do when he’s not fighting or cleaning up bodies.

No one says anything. You both just take each other in, not completely recognizing the person that looks back.

You don’t feel so angry at him anymore. When all’s said and done, everyone has different ways of dealing with grief. Your heart only grows conflicted, wishing you had been there for each other instead of being apart. Goodness knows you could have used someone by your side. You’re sure he did as well.

“I—” Zoro falters. “...I’m glad you’re okay.”

‘Okay’ isn’t how you would describe your current state, but you nod anyway.

“You too, Zoro.”

In a secluded alcove in the royal gardens the following afternoon, you invite Mihawk for tea on the pretense of thanking him for your newly sworn knight. The story that spread was that you would have been done for were it not for Zoro. You don’t want to think about how true that might be.

“The queen regent is furious you were able to secure a knight loyal to you.” Mihawk informs you as he helps himself to some pastries. “We should avoid meeting for a while, lest she suspect anything of me.”

“Alright.” You agree. “Selma also informed me that we can gather statements from mistreated staff.” You show Mihawk a list of names. “If enough of them support us, and if we can prove Cassiopeia orchestrated what happened last night… We can take her down.”

“She will be busy attending a gala this evening. I’ll make sure no one is near her office while she’s gone.” Mihawk turns to Zoro, who is standing guard behind you, sending him a fearsome look. “Those men got a tad too close last night—”

“Mihawk.” You warn him to drop it. He doesn’t.

“Ensure that it doesn’t happen again, young man.”

“It won’t.” Zoro replies icily. The commander only huffs in response.

‘It won't happen.’, he said. But trouble finds you when Zoro steps on a tripwire in Cassiopeia's office. Arrows soar, launching from scattered, hidden contraptions. Zoro shoves you into a bookshelf, covering your frame with his.

“So much for her not finding out we were here.” You remark sarcastically, waiting for him to step back.

But then, as they cage your head, Zoro’s arms tense up. His expression contorts in discomfort.

“...Zoro?” Raising your hands, you cradle the sides of his face.

“Damn arrows,” He growls. “I think they’re poisoned.”

“What?!” You gasp, ducking under his arm to check his back. You find a wound where an arrow grazed his skin. “Of course you get injured when you don’t wear your armor.”

“Why don’t you try sneaking around in that thing, then?” Zoro argues, but you’re startled when the wound begins to bleed.

“We need to get you treated.” Panicking, you grab his arm and pull him along. He doesn’t budge. “Zoro, we should go.”

“No.” He refuses, hissing in pain all the while. “That bitch won’t let us find a way in here again. Let’s just be quick.”

“...Fine.” You cave, still worried, hating that he’s right. “At least stay still, search the desk. I’ll handle everything else.”

Zoro relents, opening every drawer and scanning every document in them. You turn your attention to the shelves, trying to find hidden compartments or anything that looks remotely suspicious.

It's not long before a loud crash makes you wince. Zoro found something.

A panel beneath the desk detaches, revealing an ornate box. Studying it, you hum, “It looks like we’ll need a key.” Zoro unsheathes one of his blades, cutting through the lock until it cracks open.

You shake your head. “Or we could do that, sure.”

However, instead of the nefarious plans or blueprints you were hoping for, you find old papers. All of them yellowing with age.

“It’s your handwriting.” Zoro points out, picking up the first document.

“What?” You lean in, reading the file over his shoulder. It’s a letter written to acknowledge a transfer of money. But the amount is astronomical, and you don’t remember signing anything of the sort.

“Look at the date.” Pointing to the corner, it reads more than ten years ago. And then it clicks, “My mother wrote this.”

“There’s more than one.” Zoro sifts through the papers, counting over ten.

“All of them are addressed to… Shimotsuki Koushirou?” He reads the name slowly. You look at each other, confused. Why would Queen Florentia be sending payments to Kuina’s father?

A tall longcase clock chimes to signal the hour. If you clean up now and review the evidence later, you can make it look like you were never here. You instruct Zoro to pack up the box.

“We should head out soon.” You say, moving to pick up the arrows scattered on the floor.

“Be careful.” Zoro reminds you.

“I am.” You show him that you’re holding the arrows by their tail ends. “You can go ahead, if you want. Get that wound treated.”

“Do you really think I would leave you?” You can’t help the incredulous look you send his way.

“...Forget I said anything.”

Back in your chambers, you twirl an arrow you decided to keep as evidence while examining the documents sprawled out on your carpet.

Zoro grabs it from your hand. “I thought I told you to be careful with that.”

You think aloud as he sets the arrow to the side, “I just can’t figure out why my mother gave Koushirou so much money.”

“Maybe she felt bad about the accident.” Your swordsman suggests. “We all did.”

“But why did she have to keep it quiet…” Mumbling in thought, you read the last receipt Queen Florentia signed. It had been penned the week of her death.

The sky grows darker, and it becomes more difficult to see. Zoro strikes a match to light a few candles, bathing the room in a subtle, warm light.

Beneath the dim, flickering flames, the sharp arrow on your tea table glints ominously.

It took you a long while to get over spacing out whenever you saw an arrow. It was one of the things that affected you after Kuina’s passing.

Sometimes, you think of how much better everything would be if she was still here. If it weren’t for that—

…accident?

“Zoro?” Your voice is unsteady, “...What do you remember about Kuina’s death?”

“It was some new guy at the training grounds.” He answers, frowning as he recalls what happened. “He misfired, and his knighthood got revoked after that.”

“But,” Memories come flooding back as you try to piece things together. “If the archers were practicing that day, what was Kuina doing in the grounds?”

“Kuina wasn’t in the grounds.” Zoro corrects you. “She was in that meadow we always went to.”

He points to the view outside, raising a finger to trace the horizon. “The arrow flew through the fence, but it was really dangerous, even—”

Zoro turns back to you with wide eyes. “Even the queen was almost hit! Holy shit, she was there to observe that day.”

You blink at him in disbelief, “My mother was the real target.”

“And she didn’t want the culprit to know she realized, which is why she kept quiet about the money.”

You collapse into a chair as you run your hands over your head. “Did anyone ever check the arrow for poison?”

“No.” Zoro’s face crumples. “She was hit straight in the heart... She wouldn’t have made it even if it wasn’t poisoned.”

“Oh, Kuina…” You choke back a sob, covering your face with both hands. “I’m so sorry it took us this long.”

“Wait.” Zoro calls out your name, taking your hand and kneeling in front of you. The strength of his grip hurts, but you don’t mind it. You need to feel that he’s with you right now; especially when his next question makes your heart fall through the floor.

“How did your mother die?”

“She—she got sick. A lot of our people got sick that year.” You answer shakily, not liking where this is going. “Do you think…”

“Queen Florentia could have been poisoned.” Zoro whispers. “And I bet that fake bitch was responsible for it. For Kuina’s death too.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” You counter, “Cassiopeia deals with poisons, sure, but she wasn’t even in the kingdom yet then.”

“...Someone must have betrayed your mother so Cassiopeia could be queen regent.” He suggests, rubbing circles into your palm. “Because isn’t it convenient, how she was there to bring the people together after Her Majesty died?”

It’s confusing how the world seems to have slowed down, and yet your mind is spinning so quickly, you can’t process anything. You squeeze Zoro’s hand to anchor you, but you shatter all the same.

“I hate everything.” You cry, tears streaming down your face. “I hate how I didn’t know—but we were kids! How were we supposed to know? And, I hate feeling so powerless. What—how, are we going to fix this?”

“We’ll find a way, I promise.” Zoro moves to embrace your form, but you glare at him.

“You. I hate you too.” You push him away weakly, but he doesn’t let you go. “I—I hate that you left, Zoro… You have no idea how lost I was.”

His eyes glisten with tears. “I was lost without you too.”

Zoro feels you melt into his arms. Your strength just vanishes, and you slump forward until your forehead touches his.

“...Don’t leave me then.” You whisper. You beg.

He holds your cheek, wiping your tears with his thumb. “Never.”

The last thing you remember before falling asleep is Zoro pressing the softest kiss to your temple as he tucks you in bed.

Selma barges in the next morning, slamming the (newly repaired) doors open. As you rub the sleep from your eyes, you’re starting to feel sad for the abuse your doors have been going through lately.

“Princess! Your Ladyship! Your Highness—” She stops abruptly, covering her mouth, looking scandalized. What is she so flabbergasted by—

Only then do you see Zoro sleeping on the floor beside you. He’s leaning on the bed, using his forearms as a pillow. One of his hands is intertwined tightly with yours.

“Your Highness!” Selma gasps playfully, gesturing to your mother’s portrait. “Right in front of Her Majesty!”

“Selma,” You sit up, letting go of Zoro’s hand. “Did you have anything important to report?”

“Ah!” She exclaims, face becoming worried once more, “The commander has been imprisoned!”

You curse, shaking Zoro’s shoulder to wake him. “Couldn’t you have told me that first?”

“Forgive me, princess. It’s not everyday I see you holding hands with a man. May I ask who confessed first, Your Highness?”

“Oh my god, Selma.” You groan. “Just go prepare my clothes.”

“Shall I dress you, or will Sir Zoro—”

“Selma!”

If Zoro heard any of Selma’s ramblings, he’s excellent at hiding it. You both get ready in record time. After which, he leads the way to the dungeons; careful to make sure you don’t run into anyone.

“We can sneak him out through that secret passage we used to play in.” You whisper, your knight nods.

“When we get to him, break the lock with your dagger. I’ll stand guard in case someone comes over.”

But someone already beat you to Mihawk’s cell. Zoro pulls you into a shadowed corner to hide.

The queen regent paces in front of the bars, her extravagant dress and cape out of place in this gloomy dungeon.

Mihawk is on the ground, his wrists chained with heavy shackles. Yoru is noticeably missing from his back. Seeing him like this is heartbreaking.

“I should have known you’d help that wench.” Cassiopeia sneers. “You’ll regret not siding with me soon enough, Dracule.”

“Now that you’ve found me out, I can finally ask you to stop calling me that.” Mihawk yawns. “My name always sounded revolting in your voice.” Crazy bastard, will it kill him to try to stay alive?

“But Florentia called you that, didn’t she?”

Zoro squints at how something about Mihawk changes at the mention of your mother. It’s almost imperceptible, but the air shifts dangerously. The queen regent should watch her mouth.

“Her name sounds revolting in your voice too.”

Cassiopeia scoffs. “You’re just like her. Thinking you’re better than everyone else.”

“Aren’t you talking about yourself?” Mihawk leans back, crossing his legs. “That’s not a good habit, Cassie.”

The queen regent kicks the cell. Mihawk doesn't flinch as she snarls, “I’ll deal with the princess and that knight... I’ll make you watch as the light fades from their eyes.” Gathering her skirt, her heels clack loudly as she stomps away.

As soon as she’s out of earshot, you and Zoro run to the commander.

“Mihawk!” You call out as you stab the lock with your dagger. It crumbles to the ground after a few strikes. “What happened? What did she charge you with?”

“Treason, apparently.” He shrugs, the chains holding him rattling together.

Mihawk goes on as you break his shackles, “This kingdom should be grateful we’re trying at all. We could easily leave them to their own devices—” You frown at him.

“...But of course, we won’t do that.”

Sneaking into the library, you regroup with Selma; who passes on vital information.

“The queen regent has the palace on lockdown. Everyone has orders to take you in.” She tells you. “But I’ve rallied the staff. We're going to plead your case to the ministers, Your Highness.”

“Thank you. Do you have my mother's letters?” She nods. “Good. Use them well. I'll make sure your efforts will not go to waste.” You say, giving her hands a firm squeeze.

“Where’s that fake queen now?” Zoro looks eager for a fight.

“One of the butlers said that the queen regent disappears sometimes, and no one knows where she goes.” Selma explains, passing you a note from her source. “There are rumors that she smells like grass when she returns.”

Mihawk lets out a disbelieving laugh, “She must be at the secret garden.”

“The what?” You ask. That sounds exactly like something you would have loved as a child, but why haven’t you heard of it before?

“It’s a place reserved for queens. Only crowned monarchs should be allowed in there, or even know where it is.” He says. “That woman truly doesn’t know her place.”

“Why do you know about it?” Zoro asks.

After a pause, the older swordsman deflects, “I’ve been called a queen once.”

“Mihawk,” You urge him to be serious. “Can you take us there?”

Before he responds, Mihawk looks at you with something you can’t fully discern, as if he’s recalling an old memory.

“Of course. It’s your birthright, after all.”

The entrance to the secret garden is hidden in a passageway beneath the greenhouse. You imagine your mother walking along this path, to a sanctuary she could truly call her own.

But the vision darkens when you think of how Cassiopeia has been using the space all this time. You hope you're still able to recognize traces of your mother when you get there.

An iron gate stands at the end of the path. Vines tangle through the metal spirals and flowers. Mihawk holds a finger to his lips, carefully opening the gates without a sound except for the rustling of leaves. You all crouch behind a large plant that fans out, over your heads.

And then, you see it. You see what your mother left for you.

The centerpiece of the garden is an intricate pedestal, Yoru is propped up against it. On top of it, however, is a glass case displaying your mother’s most treasured golden necklace.

You almost want to run to it, but Zoro grabs your arm, warning you not to take another step. He nods towards where Cassiopeia stands in front of oddly shaped vials and strange devices containing diff chemicals. She douses a sword with an eerie purple liquid as she speaks.

“Three against one... That hardly seems fair.” She kisses her teeth. Looking over her shoulder, she glares. “Why don’t we fight on even ground?”

Out of nowhere, a large cage falls towards the three of you. Mihawk pushes you and Zoro out of the way, but isn’t able to avoid the cage himself.

“And I just escaped. What a shame.” Mihawk fusses, but you can see that he’s relieved you’re alright.

“Maybe you’re meant to be in a cell, Dracule.” Cassiopeia remarks. “I’ll have your kids join you shortly.”

There’s only one of her, this should be easy, right?

She throws a bottle at you. Luckily, you’re able to dodge it. The bottle shatters, its contents spilling over the bystanding greenery. The liquid turns out to be acid, burning through the foliage and leaving a smoky trail.

Well, fuck.

Zoro also seems to realize how serious this fight is. For the first time since you’ve reunited, he unsheathes Kuina’s sword, placing the hilt in his mouth.

You brandish your dagger as you yell, “Really? You bite it? What would Kuina say?” He sends you a look. You try not to laugh.

And in the next second, you charge at Cassiopeia together.

It’s difficult to get close enough to land a hit. The queen regent leads you in a dance of acids and poisons. You dodge one bottle only to be met with the toxic end of her blade. It seems that your mother’s dagger won’t be enough in this fight.

“I didn't get this far to be stopped by the likes of you!” Shrieking, she lunges at you.

“You will never be queen!” You roar back.

Behind her, your eyes spot Yoru leaning on the pedestal. The blade is large and intimidating, and you’re not entirely sure if you can wield it correctly… But you might not have a choice right now.

As you were distracted, Cassiopeia’s sword almost cuts through your side. Panicking, you stumble backwards. Zoro slashes at your enemy’s wrist. Her hold on the poisoned weapon falters. It plummets with a clang.

While she’s occupied with Zoro, you rush towards Yoru. From behind the bars, Mihawk watches, holding his breath as you wrap both hands around Yoru’s hilt—but the damn thing is too heavy.

“Dear princess, you should have learned from your mother!” Cassiopeia smashes a bottle on Zoro’s head. “Stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong!”

The glass explodes into countless glittering shards. A red gas escapes into the air, and your knight inhales far too much of it.

He falls, and for that moment, the entire rest of the world vanishes until all you see is him. Your ears start to ring. His grip loosens on his swords.

No. Please. Not him. Not anyone else. No more.

Mihawk calls your name. You turn to him, on the verge of breaking down. But then, he nods once, slowly. The action reminds you to breathe—filling you with an overwhelming sense of strength. You can do this.

Screaming, you attempt to brandish Yoru again.

You swing the legendary greatsword in a perfect arc. Once it collides with the ground, the air ripples. Power surges through an invisible force headed straight for the queen regent. She tries to run, but the hit lands.

Her eyes don’t stray from yours as she collapses. In her final moments, she falls from grace, howling in agony and rage.

As a last ditch attempt, she throws one last vial of acid at Zoro. You’re about to curse the world all over again as you run to stop it.

Mihawk throws a tiny sword like a dart, miraculously breaking the container before it lands on your knight. Your knees give out, and you pull Zoro into your arms as you gasp for air.

It’s done.

Zoro wakes up to the feeling of you checking his temperature. Your hand is warm against his forehead, making him want to reach up and hold it. He should probably wake up and check on you now.

“Oh.” He hears Mihawk speak, “I didn’t realize your relationship took a certain… turn.”

On second thought, another minute of sleep won’t hurt.

“Not you too, Mihawk.” You groan. “I get enough of that from Selma.”

“Ah, yes. I heard.” The swordsman deadpans, “Hand holding. How scandalous.”

“Alright, if you’re not going to be of any help whatsoever, please just go.”

“If you wanted time alone with him, you could have just said so.”

“Goodbye, Mihawk.”

Zoro hears you escort Mihawk out, and he takes the moment alone to open his eyes. He’s in his quarters, which is a few doors down from yours so that he can easily get to you.

Not that he stays here often, Zoro prefers standing guard outside your chambers. It’s strange how he lasted years without seeing you, because now that you’re back in each other’s lives, he becomes restless whenever you’re not around.

Like right now. What’s taking you so long?

The door opens. Zoro perks up, but deflates when he sees that it’s Selma bringing in a pitcher of water.

“You could’ve at least hidden your disappointment better, Sir Zoro.” She huffs at him, taking full offense. “I’ll go get your princess.”

“Oh!” She yelps excitedly, “My bad, it’s queen anointed now, isn’t it?”

Zoro smiles, his voice raspy with sleep, “That has a nice ring to it.”

“Indeed, it does.” Selma nods, bidding him farewell.

He doesn’t have to wait long to hear your rushing footsteps. The door opens again to reveal you, this time. Your eyes shine in that really pretty way they do when you’re happy. He’s glad that’s among the things that didn’t change.

Zoro opens his arms, inviting you, “Come here.”

Not needing to be told twice, you fall into his arms, burying your face in his chest.

“You’re okay.” You murmur.

“I wasn’t about to miss your coronation, Your Majesty.” Zoro pokes your nose. He did that a lot when you were kids, you forgot how much you liked it.

“Thank you for being okay.” Leaning down, you kiss his cheek softly.

Zoro brushes his fingers through your hair. He holds your face in his hands, tracing your features as if that will help him memorize the happiness he feels in his heart. The sort of happiness he thought was lost to him forever.

“Hey,” Zoro speaks your name with care. “I love you a lot, you know.”

He always envisioned confessing to you in some dramatic, elaborate way that you’d deserve. There could have been a beautiful sunset. He would’ve brought flowers.

But he was wrong. All he needs are the words themselves, and you—smiling the way you’re smiling at him now.

You laugh, “I might love you more, I think.”

Zoro shakes his head, sitting up so that he can bring his face to yours properly. “Doubt it.”

The kiss tastes like magic, like you were always meant to find each other's lips. His heart starts doing something funny, and he has to pull you closer—hold you tighter. You respond eagerly, kissing him back so intoxicatingly that he’ll remember the softness of your lips for as long as he lives.

Later that week, your coronation is a grand and extravagant affair.

When Cassiopeia's misdeeds came to light, the people banded together to celebrate her downfall. Those loyal to her either surrendered or tried to escape. Although none of them were able to get away, since Zoro and Mihawk were ruthless towards those involved in the attempted mutiny.

The crown on your head will take some to get used to. It still feels like you're borrowing something of your mother's; but instead of shying away from it like you had before, you step into it openly. You're ready to become a successor worthy to carry on her legacy of kindness and strength.

Uncharted these waters may be, at least you have Zoro now, who would dive into any perilous sea right after you.

Escaping the celebratory banquet and the revelries, you visit Queen Florentia and Kuina's graves with Zoro. It's only right that you pay respects together.

You leave flowers on your mother's headstone, thanking her for everything she did. You're startled when Zoro takes one of his swords, holding it in front of him as he kneels in front of the previous queen.

“Your Majesty, Queen Florentia,” He speaks, his tone steady and sure. “I, Roronoa Zoro, vow to never leave your daughter’s side. I will protect her until I draw my last breath. I swear to cherish her, and to love her even in my next life.”

What is he doing, making you cry like this? It turns out that emotional boy you knew is still somewhere in there. Your heart feels full, knowing your mother would have appreciated the gesture.

As you're about to move on to Kuina's grave, Zoro motions for you to go ahead without him. You look at him strangely, but do as he says to give him some space.

Mihawk emerges from the treeline when you've gone far enough.

“You look like you’re about to leave without saying goodbye.” Zoro remarks.

“Of course you’d know how that works, hm?” Mihawk challenges, raising a sharp brow. “Try even thinking about leaving and I’ll return to make sure it’s your last thought."

“Didn't you just hear the oath I made to the love of your life?” Zoro turns to Florentia's tombstone again. “Your Majesty, back me up here.”

“She would have approved of you.” Mihawk’s frown is unimpressed, but his gaze is unmistakably caring.

“...Take care of her, Zoro.”

“Of course. I promise.”

As Mihawk walks away, Zoro asks him one last question, “How are your regrets now, old man?”

The former commander’s shoulders shake in a mixture of amusement and relief. “I suspect they'll heal, with time.”

When Zoro catches up to you at Kuina's grave, you're grinning at him. He can picture that same grin on Kuina's face if she were here.

“We were just talking about you.” You jest, “All bad things, too.”

“You had nothing to talk about, then.” Zoro sits on the grass beside you. “I’m perfect for you.”

Appalled, you scoff and turn to Kuina's headstone. “Can you believe this guy?”

That day, you talked for hours, even after the sun had set. And on the trek back to the palace, a soft breeze caressed your skin. It felt like Kuina encouraging you, sending you off onto the next chapter of your lives.

Zoro becomes Captain of the Royal Guard once Mihawk leaves. He's teaching you about weapons and self defense when he picks up your dagger to inspect it, turning it this way and that curiously.

“Is there something wrong with it?” You ask, observing it too.

“This pattern and material.” Zoro says, tracing a certain swirl on the weapon. “I feel like I've seen it before.”

“Ah,” He says in realization, tracing a finger down your neck and making you shiver. “It’s the pattern on your necklace.”

“My mother must have had them made together.” You say, unclasping the chain before handing it to him.

There's a gap in the center of the pendant. Thin and barely noticeable, but it looks like it can be opened by something sharp.

“Do you mind if I,” Zoro gestures at the dagger.

“Just don't break it.” You say. “Treat it like my heart.”

Zoro makes a face that pulls a laugh out of you. “I would never do this to your heart.” Aw. You might have melted a little.

The tip of the blade slots perfectly into the pendant. After twisting it slowly like a key, the metal clicks to reveal: a locket.

Handing it over to you carefully, Zoro lets you open it the rest of the way. Inside, there are images drawn on two panels. You, as a child on one side… and Mihawk on the other. Now you understand why your mother treasured this so much. Tearing up, you sigh.

“You’re not surprised.” Zoro notes.

“...I think a part of me always knew.” You respond. “And, I definitely felt something when I held Yoru. No wonder why.”

Treading carefully, Zoro wraps his arms around your waist as he asks, “You’re not upset that he left?”

“But he didn’t. He’ll always be there for me, and so will you.” You smile up at him. “I’m happy I found my family again.”

Many years ago…

The grass on the meadow bristles gently in the wind. Dusk bathes the land in a dreamy, gold and purple hue.

After a day filled with imaginary adventures, two children wave their dearest friend goodbye. The princess smiles at them fondly before returning to the castle.

Kuina grins, face eager as she points her training sword to the sky. “I’ll be her knight someday. I’ll be commander and everything.”

Zoro jolts, immediately expressing in protest, “No, I’ll be the one to protect her! I’ll be commander!”

“Oh yeah?” The girl’s smile turns knowing. She pokes Zoro’s waist with her sword. “How will you do that? Aren’t you going to marry her?”

Stunned, Zoro can only stare at her in response. A blush creeps up his neck, reddening the tips of his ears. Kuina seizes the opportunity to make a run for it.

“Princess, wait up! Zoro wants to tell you something!”

“Kuina! Get back here!”

read the companion piece / my notes / the timeline of this story (in mihawk's perspective) here : "the taste of ale"

tags: @songsofadelaide-archive @ay0nha @amitydoodlez @sweetexistentialism @murnsondock @starszns @msmisasoup @writingmysanity @hotchocolattee @dimplewonie @hearts4zoro @kenkenmaaa @appalost @commanderfreethatdust @onebatch--twobatch @rebeccawinters @gunslxtz @akakaze @lownna

2K notes · View notes

cherienymphe · 3 months

Text

Escapism

Topper Thornton x Reader

Summary: Your brother always stayed up with you whenever you couldn’t sleep and nothing has changed now that his best friend is the reason for your late nights.

warnings: Dub-Con, stepcest, cheating, toxic relationship, semi-public sex, jealousy, secret relationship, side of Rafe x reader, lots of playing in Rafe's face, kook!reader, non canon ages

➥ banner by @vase-of-lilies | ➥ divider by @firefly-graphics

⭑

You were a shitty girlfriend.

Perhaps, in some ways, you were being too harsh on yourself because it wasn’t like Rafe would ever win boyfriend of the year. The blond came with a plethora of issues that could only be fixed with therapy—something you probably wouldn’t even be able to pay him to do—and he chose to handle every single one with one horrible coping mechanism after the next. When it was all said and done though, you really only had yourself to blame.

It wasn’t like you were a stranger to the man before you started dating him.

You knew Rafe well—you’d grown up with him—so was it really his fault that you chose to ignore every single thing you knew about him in the hopes that he would mature and change? Was it his fault that you forgave him time and time again with the hopes that he could still change? Was he the asshole for being him or were you the asshole for going into this with the expectation he’d be something he wasn’t?

“Come on,” Topper would say to you in the dead of night. “You and I both know what he’s like—what he’s always been like.”

It was usually after he’d listen to you cry over Rafe and whatever girl he’d kissed or whatever awful thing he’d said to you, pupils blown and alcohol on his breath. He’d pull you to sit back, hands rubbing over your arms in an attempt to calm you down. It was always well into the night when you both should’ve been asleep, but per your routine as of late, you’d be waiting up for Rafe to call or text or walk through the door.

Anything to let you know he wasn’t passed out drunk in a ditch somewhere.

“Rafe can take care of himself just fine.”

Or some variation of that would reach your ears, and you’d press your hands to your face in exhaustion. You’d never miss the bitterness—borderline malice—in Topper’s voice as he said something like that. You knew it wasn’t directed at you, but more so your relationship with the other blond as a whole and his frustration with it. Topper never wanted you to date Rafe, and you knew he took no pleasure in watching Rafe prove him right.

Rafe may have been his best friend…

…but you were ten and Topper was twelve when his mother married your father. He’d been protective of you since day one, having been an only child before that, and you knew that he hated having to let you make your own choices and mistakes with the guy you’d both once called a friend. If you and Rafe came out of this relationship intact, you doubted you’d ever call him ‘friend’ again.

He’d hurt you too much for that.

You weren’t a bad girlfriend for thinking such thoughts. Nor were you a bad girlfriend for trying to break up with him on several occasions, something Rafe would always talk you out of with promises of remorse and change. You didn’t even think you were a bad girlfriend for venting about your frustration and hurt to his best friend—your stepbrother.

You were a shitty girlfriend for allowing something to continue that should’ve ended years ago.

Fed up with talking about Rafe and how badly he’d hurt your feelings earlier in the day, Topper had pressed his lips to yours, effectively shutting you up with a kiss. A kiss that you returned, shoulders sagging and a weight lifting off of your chest as his arms circled around your waist. Rafe had called you a nag hours before, subsequently telling you he wouldn’t be staying over before hanging up without another word.

It had hurt you, but you were sure Topper was just relieved to have you all to himself.

Or at the very least, wouldn’t be tempted to fuck you anyway—Rafe under the same roof be damned.

You both were quiet in the dark living room—your parents asleep upstairs—and the longer you kissed him, the more you just wanted to forget about Rafe. The t-shirt you wore was bunching up under the blonde’s hands, and you gasped when his mouth trailed down to your neck. You could feel how much he wanted you, and any other night you would’ve loved to drag this out, but much like Topper…

You just wanted to feel him inside of you.

You never wore any underwear to bed, both for convenience and just because. It was something Topper had come to appreciate, and when you helped him pull his shorts down, cock springing free, you couldn’t slide down the couch fast enough. He hooked one hand under your thigh, helping you and dragging you closer, the other squeezing his cock with long strokes.

He rubbed the tip of himself against you a few times, coating the head in your essence, unsurprised at how wet and ready for him you already were. The feel made you bite the inside of your cheek, lifting your hips in an attempt to get him to sink into you even if just a little. You didn’t miss the soft chuckle that rang through the air.

“I’m sorry,” he huskily told you, pushing into you with one slow thrust. “Is that better?”

You hated his mocking tone, but not as much as you loved the feel of him stretching you out. You clawed at him, pulling him closer, sighing into his mouth when he finally kissed you again. The movements of his hips were slow, too afraid to do too much and make too much noise. The pace was enough to make your head spin and was definitely enough to make you squirm beneath him. When you started lifting your hips to meet him halfway, he groaned into the kiss.

Rafe was the furthest thing from your mind.

Sliding your hands up Topper’s frame, you threaded your fingers through his hair, nails lightly dragging along his scalp. By the way he shuddered against you, you knew that he liked that. Every snap of his hips into yours had you swallowing down every noise that threatened to escape. His cock stroked your walls in a way that made you squeeze your eyes shut.

Shifting, you felt his hand slide down to rest on the inside of your thigh, pushing it and spreading it until your leg hung off of the couch. At that, you did gasp, a choaked sound escaping your lips before you snapped them shut. His free hand was beside your head now, forearm resting on the couch cushion. You both were quiet, but your soft labored breathing could still be heard if you listened hard enough.

When you softly moaned his name, he shushed you.

“I want…” you fought to catch your breath enough to speak. “I want you to come inside of me.”

You felt another shiver travel up his spine, head falling into the crook of your neck at that. You knew he wasn’t close, but you felt like making that known. It wasn’t something you both made a habit of, but you loved the feel of Topper spilling into you, cock twitching as he coated your walls in his release. When you pushed against his hand, he got the hint, and you circled his waist with your legs, ankles hooking at the small of his back.

Topper took his time fucking you.

He often did, feeling no need to rush or no fear that you’d get caught. You didn’t know if he was just that confident in how quickly you could pull yourselves together or that it simply wouldn’t happen. Some part of you wondered if maybe he just didn’t care. You knew that couldn’t be true for several reasons, the most pressing being your boyfriend.

It was funny.

Rafe had probably cheated on you more times than you actually knew of, but the minute some other guy looked at you for even just a second too long, he was gearing up for a fight. You didn’t know if he was performative or just that skilled at compartmentalization, but you hated it. What good did it do for him to act so noble and possessive when way too many people knew how much he’d embarrassed you over the past six months?

You didn’t doubt that he’d try to kill Topper in some coked out rage if he ever knew.

Topper’s hand was cupping your breast under your shirt as he pressed kisses to your neck and jaw. He was whispering in your ear, telling you how good you felt and how wet you were, and how much he wanted to feel you coming around him. He knew what to say to send you over the edge, and at the first sound, he covered your mouth in another kiss to swallow your moans.

You squeezed him tight, walls clenching as he fucked you through your climax, cock plunging into your soaking cunt as he chased his own. His thrusts grew sloppy, and they weren’t as languid, and his blond strands kissed your forehead as they grew messy and awkward with sweat. Your legs had long fallen around him, and you pressed your hand against his lower back.

When he came, he buried his face into where your neck and shoulder met, groaning into the skin. You shuddered at the feel of him spilling into you, still clenching around him as remnants of your orgasm finally started to dissipate. His breathing was heavy against your skin before pulling back just enough to touch his forehead to yours.

You could only hear your efforts to catch your breath.

“I love you. You know that, right?”

You nodded, positive he could feel the action against his forehead. You fingered the top of his shorts, and you bit your lip. You didn’t say it back often—something you still had trouble accepting and admitting—but you told him enough so that he’d never doubt it.

“Can I stay in your room tonight?” you quietly asked him. “Rafe probably won’t come over until after noon…if he comes over, at all.”

You tried not to let your voice shrink at the thought, but Topper caught it anyway. Pulling out of you and sitting up, he grabbed your arm and pulled you with him. Righting himself, he pulled you to your feet, his other hand pushing his hair away from his face.

“You know you never have to ask,” he told you.

His hands were comfortably on your waist as he followed behind you, guiding you upstairs.

“What…? You got a problem or something?”

You knew it was coming when you were the only one who wasn’t laughing, unamused as he recounted his tale of how he’d cornered Pope. You’d never known the other guy to get into any trouble or bother anyone, and while you knew there would never be anything you could do about whatever petty rivalry your brother and your boyfriend and their friends involved themselves in, Pope just seemed like low hanging fruit.

He wasn’t even the type to fight back.

“I just don’t find it funny,” was all you said, squinting under the harsh rays of the sun. “You know Pope’s not even like that. I might’ve laughed if it were JJ or…I don’t know…someone who would actually put up a fight.”

Rafe’s entire demeanor clouded over at that, and you were prepared for whatever was about to come out of his mouth when Topper spoke.

“Rafe,” the other blond warned. “Chill.”

He seemed to anticipate Rafe’s ire just as much as you did, and Rafe paused, glancing at his best friend before huffing. He leaned back in his chair, eyeing you with that cold blue gaze of his. The sun shone off of his dirty blond strands, the tresses curtained along his forehead, and you watched him bring his hand up to rest against his lips before finally settling on a better response than what you both knew you almost got.

“So, what are you trying to say?”

Choosing to end this fight before it even began, you sighed, looking away.

“I’m not saying anything, Rafe. You can do whatever you want,” you murmured. “You always do.”

He heard that loud and clear, and the laugh he let out wasn’t humorous in the slightest. You heard him roughly get up from his seat, chair scraping against the wooden floor. You watched him snatch his glass off the table, mumbling something about needing a refill but not before making a comment to Topper that was solely intended for you.

“Get your sister, Top,” your boyfriend drawled, making you cross your arms over your chest.

You could feel the man in question’s eyes on you, and you avoided his gaze.

“Sometimes I swear you like fighting with him just as much as he does you.”

At that, you scoffed, looking at him in disbelief.

“I didn’t laugh because he beat up Pope Heyward…and that was apparently a problem,” you pointed out to which Topper merely shrugged, unable to disagree. “I apologize for not finding it funny.”

“Babe,” he softly said, reaching out and touching your arm. “He’s a Pogue, and you know how Rafe is.”

His excuse for Rafe’s behavior only made you roll your eyes, and you heard him sigh as you reached for your stuff. He said your name, trying to get you to sit back down, but you were only more determined to leave once you caught sight of Kelce walking up the steps to the restaurant too. Dealing with all three of them at once was enough to give you a coronary.

“Where are you going?”

You didn’t answer Rafe as you passed him on his way back to the table, ignoring Kelce too when he said hey to you. You hated to take it out on him when he didn’t actually do anything this time, but you knew his mindset was just as bad as Rafe’s, and so you figured it was preemptively deserved. You didn’t need to be a genius to know that Rafe was going to talk shit about you the second you were out of sight.

It was one of those days where you really felt emboldened to finally break up with him for good. Rafe hadn’t been good to you nor right for you since the beginning, and you knew that if Topper was a lesser person, he would’ve said ‘I told you so’ a million times by now. You were grateful that he didn’t make you feel worse for being naïve enough to ever believe in Rafe Cameron.

Although, some part of you wondered if having you crawl into his bed night after night was satisfaction enough.

It was hours later when he was softly apologizing for both his and Rafe’s behavior, fingers digging into your waist as you pushed yourself down onto him. Rafe had long fallen asleep, his light snores easing your worry as you’d snuck out of your room. Topper was awake—as you’d hoped—and it was true that you’d only intended to talk. Rafe’s attitude hadn’t been much better when you finally reunited again, something you were sure Topper had overheard.

“You really want to talk about Rafe, right now?” he’d whispered, hand sliding along your thigh.

“Topper,” you’d quietly hissed in warning. “Not…tonight. He’s…”

You didn’t need to finish that sentence, feeling no need to as you gestured towards his door. The blond had fixed you with a look that made your stomach flip, a hint of a smirk dancing along his pink lips as he held your gaze.

“That’s never stopped us before.”

You’d swallowed at that, feeling unsure, but that was a feeling that had never stopped the other man before either. The first time he’d ever kissed you, you’d felt unsure, but Topper hadn’t cared, holding you to him and fingering you on the back deck while his mother threw some grand party downstairs. You still remembered the way you came around his fingers, an admission of insecurities somehow leading to your first ever sexual experience—and with your own stepbrother no less.

“Topper,” you’d quietly warned when he brushed his lips against yours. “Rafe…”

“Do…not…talk about him, right now,” he’d slowly said, fingers grazing along your folds just as slow.

Despite your hand against his shoulder, he’d laid you down, lips finding the skin just under your jaw.

“He’s the last thing I want to talk about, right now.”

…and he’d meant it, curving his fingers into you while pressing open mouthed kisses to your jaw and throat and collarbone. Any protest you had was swallowed down and quickly forgotten at the slick feeling between your legs, Topper’s fingers sinking into your cunt with ease. Your own twisted into the fabric of his shirt, hips lifted towards his hand, fighting to swallow down a whimper each time his thumb circled your clit.

“Fuck,” he’d cursed into your skin. “I love how wet you get for me.”

It wasn’t long after that that he was hurrying to get inside of you, shirts and shorts discarded as he pulled you on top of him. When you sank down onto him, he’d sighed, throwing his head back and lifting his hips. With your hands on his stomach, you’d lifted yourself until the tip of his cock just barely remained inside of you before sliding back down.

You gently bounced on top of him, hyper aware of who was just in the other room. You could tell that Topper wasn’t a huge fan, feeling that you had to pick one between being on top and being gentle, but it couldn’t be both. When his hands slid up your frame, they rested on the sides of your neck before pulling you down. Your eyes fell closed when you kissed him, and you gasped into his mouth when he lifted his hips, driving himself up into you.

You mentally cursed, realizing you’d been tricked.

With his hands quickly sliding down to snake around your waist, Topper wasted no time in lifting his hips to push his cock up into you. The force of his thrusts had you squeezing him in more ways than one, lips parted and eyes tight as he roughly fucked himself up into you. His bed shook under his movements, and you couldn’t stop yourself from whining into his mouth, the sound of him sinking into you reaching your ears.

“Fuck, you’re dripping,” he hummed, one hand coming up to rest on your cheek.

When his bed knocked into the wall, he halted his movements, using the moment to both catch his breath and listen. Your own heart stuttered, digging your nails into his chest because you’d literally told Topper so. Once Rafe was knocked out, it was usually pretty hard to wake him up, but it would be just your luck that this night of all nights he’d be a light sleeper.

You really didn’t want to imagine the chaos if he left your room in search of you only to find his best friend balls deep inside of you.

When no worrying sounds reached your ears, Topper took that as a sign to continue, knees bent as he thrust up into you again. You could tell he was close by the way his cock twitched inside of you, and something nagged in the back of your mind about that. When you attempted to pull yourself off of him, he held you tighter.

“Topper,” you gasped, a warning in your tone. “Don’t-.”

Your words were abruptly swallowed when he rolled you both, pinning you beneath him and jerking his hips into yours. The rough and fast pace had you momentarily forgetting your train of thought, weakly pushing against his stomach. You both knew why you didn’t want him to finish inside of you, but he didn’t seem to care about Rafe possibly sinking into you in the early hours of the morning with his best friend’s cum dried along your folds.

You yelped when you came, a roaring sound in your ears as you felt him do the same, filling you up with a grunt. His hips didn’t stop snapping against yours the entire time, fucking you through it and fucking his cum into you. He had you completely caged beneath him, and all you could do was quietly milk his cock, toes curling as you scratched at his back.

When clarity finally hit, the fog lifting, you roughly pushed him away. You didn’t miss his quiet chuckle, and you didn’t spare him a glance as you reached for your oversized t-shirt—his t-shirt.

“You’re such an asshole,” you mumbled, pulling it over your head and slapping his hand away when he reached down to slide his fingers between your sticky folds.

You didn’t spare Topper another glance before hurrying out of his room.

You kept your eyes on Rafe as he flew down the road, the loud music making his truck almost vibrate. He was ignoring you, preoccupied with his conversation with Kelce who was in the passenger seat. It was funny because the only one with a right to be mad was you, recalling the fight you’d had on the beach not even an hour ago.

“She was all over you, and you just stood there and let it happen,” you’d yelled at him, feeling humiliated for the umpteenth time.

“I barely remember what that girl even looks like,” was his reply, pupils blown. “It was nothing, baby.”

You had slapped his hand away when he reached for you, unmoved by the way his countenance darkened. The sounds of the party just down the beach only served to remind you how you felt when you walked up on him with his hand on some girl’s waist, her lips trailing kisses along his neck. You could tell she was drunk, and instead of pushing her away, Rafe just entertained it.

Your eyes had only met for half a second before you were turning away.

You didn’t even know why he chased you down the beach, and that was what you’d told him.

“You’re not sorry…you don’t feel bad, and you know what? You’ll probably do worse two weeks from now, so why are you even here?”

You’d shrugged at him, certain your confusion was evident on your face.

“Look, it was nothing,” he’d spat at you. “Once again, you’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

That had actually made you laugh, tears kissing your eyes.

“If you caught me cozying up to any guy with half the effort that she was with you…you would lose your shit, and you know it,” you’d sneered, watching his jaw tick. “I would love to see the look on your face if I fucked someone else.”

He’d gotten in your face, his finger almost touching your eye.

“I was barely touching her-.”

“That wasn’t the case three months ago,” you threw in his face. “…and I can only imagine what I don’t know about.”

Rafe’s nostrils had flared, and for a split second, you swore you saw some shame pass through his blue gaze. It was gone just as quickly as it came though, anger replacing it instead.

“You wouldn’t dare, you wouldn’t fucking dare,” he bit out, invading your personal space. “I said I was sorry, and you said you forgave me, so don’t think you can use that as an excuse to go fuck some asshole who clearly doesn’t value his life.”

His words had only made you angrier, and you had to bite your tongue to keep your face even, recalling the feel of Topper’s cock inside of you just thirty minutes before Rafe came to pick you both up. You and your boyfriend had stared each other down for a few moments more before he spoke again.

“I’d love to see you do that,” he finally said, shrugging. “I would love to see you try when you can’t even stick to staying broken up with me.”

His words had the desired effect, and you’d felt your face fall.

“Now, you’re trying to convince me you’d ever have the nerve to cheat on me?” he’d wondered, fingers grazing his own chest. “Don’t make me laugh.”

He’d left you with a scoff, and you hadn’t been able to stop your tears from spilling over. All you’d ever tried to do was routinely look for and believe in the best in Rafe, and you couldn’t believe that he threw that in your face like some insult. Maybe it was an insult though…because how many times were you going to let him show you exactly who he was? How many times were you going to let him play in your face?

The day after you’d confronted him about sleeping with some girl—only privy to the information because of none other than Topper—you’d cried yourself to sleep. It was always little things before that, but that incident was what broke you, allowing Topper to slip into your room and wrap his arms around you. It was reminiscent of a time where he used to sneak into your room almost every night, your parents none the wiser to what went on underneath their roof. You’d been eighteen then, Topper twenty, and you both mutually agreed to putting a stop to it.

However, that night, his mind had clearly gone to the same place yours had.

When he kissed you, you’d pulled him closer, and two years after you ended your forbidden dalliance, you resumed it again. For a few hours, you’d forgotten all about Rafe and what he did and just basked in the feel of Topper pushing his cock into you, embarrassingly turned on because of how much you’d missed him. You hadn’t paid any mind to the countless phone calls and texts that were blowing up your phone, no one else but Rafe and his vain attempts to fix what he did.

The day you forgave him, you knew you were making a huge mistake.

Rafe throwing the grace you’d shown him in your face had you stomping to his truck. You’d ignored the feel of eyes on you, knowing it wasn’t Rafe, opting to slide in the backseat without acknowledging him. Kelce—ever the standup guy—just pretended not to notice the tension between you and his friend as he slid into the passenger seat. The moment Rafe’s truck was on the road—music blaring through the vehicle—you’d grabbed Topper’s hand.

He didn’t protest at all when you dragged it across your thigh, pushing his fingers between your legs.

…and that was how you found yourself watching Rafe, keeping your eyes on him not because you actually wanted to, but because you didn’t need him looking over his shoulder. Even if he did, it was dark, but still, you weren’t exactly emotionless as Topper slid his fingers in and out of you. Your lips were parted, and your chest was heaving, and even though all that could really be heard was whatever rap song Rafe put on, you were still pulling your lip between your teeth.

You reached out to grip the door handle when Topper added another finger, his hand soaked in you, and you reached down to place your own hand on top of his. You spread your legs a little more, and you couldn’t stop yourself from lifting your hips a bit. You were thankful for the music, certain that if the truck were quieter, they’d be able to hear the wet sounds of his fingers pushing between your folds.

He pulled them in and out of you for the duration of the ride, just slowly stroking you and teasing you. Every time you started to tighten around his fingers, he’d stop, just letting them sit there long enough for you to come down from a high that quite never happened. Like clockwork, he’d start moving his fingers again, and he only fully pulled them out of you—underwear snapping back into place—when Rafe pulled into his driveway.

He'd sucked them clean by the time Rafe and Kelce opened their doors, and when your boyfriend saw that neither of you were moving, he paused. You crossed your arms over your chest when he glanced at you, throwing him a frown.

“I need to talk to Y/N for a minute,” Topper told him, and Rafe only scoffed.

“Please do,” he mockingly said, tone full of arrogance as he wrongly assumed what the conversation would be about. “…because I didn’t do shit, and I’m tired of your sister blowing things out of proportion.”

That last part was aimed at you, and you only coolly met your boyfriend’s gaze before he slammed the door shut.

“He’s such an asshole,” you mumbled, staring at his back as he walked away. “I’m breaking up with him. For good this time.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Topper’s tone was dripping with sarcasm, and you rolled your eyes at him.

“Yeah, we both know how much you’ll hate having me all to yourself again.”

The words were barely out of your mouth before you turned towards him, reaching to slip your hand down his pants the moment Rafe was inside of his house. Wrapping your fingers around Topper’s cock, you slowly stroked him, uncaring as to how risky that was. You were just angrier than you ever were at the realization that Rafe didn’t appreciate how gracious you’d been, and how many other girls would’ve dumped him months ago for everything he’d pulled. In fact, you wouldn’t be surprised if Rafe respected you less for it.

That realization didn’t hurt as much as you thought it would…because you’d long stopped respecting him in return.

You moved to settle in Topper’s lap, facing away from him as he lifted his hips enough to only just pull his pants down. One hand was pulling at your panties, yanking them aside just in time for you to sink down onto his cock. You couldn’t stop yourself from moaning as he filled you up, throbbing inside of your heat. It was almost too easy, courtesy of his fingers and how wet he’d made you.

You lifted yourself slightly, moving over him and hanging onto the headrest of the driver’s seat while Topper lifted his hips too. His grunts and labored pants were a little loud, but that was only because you were alone. Rafe nor Kelce was going to hear anything from all the way out here in a closed vehicle. You clung to the seat harder as you thought about Rafe’s haughty tone and that challenging look in his blue eyes, so certain that you’d never do to him what he did to you.

So certain that you’d never have the guts.

Speaking of, it felt like you could feel Topper deep in your stomach as you rode him. His hands were tight on your waist as he bounced you on top of him, cheeks grazing his thighs with every movement. One of those hands slid around you, reaching under your dress and resting on you, fingers rubbing over your cunt.

“You’re doing so good, babe,” he whispered in the otherwise quiet truck. “Just like that.”

You knew that this couldn’t take long—and Topper knew it too—and feeling you come around him always sent him over the edge, so your eyes rolled when he started circling and dragging his fingers across your clit. He lightly pinched it, making you jerk, and the fact that you were fucking him in Rafe’s own backseat had you coming hard.

The broken moans that tumbled out of your mouth should have embarrassed you, but you were too concerned with sliding yourself up and down his cock, squeezing him tight and making him come too. Topper wrapped an arm around your neck, pulling you back against him as you came together. Knowing that you’d stayed out here long enough, he was gently pushing you off of him the second he started to soften.

You could feel him dripping out of you, and you hurried to put your underwear back in place.

“Did you talk some sense into her?” was the first thing Rafe greeted you with the moment you both made it back inside.

You ignored him, hearing the tone of Topper’s voice as he said Rafe’s name. You knew that it would just be another useless talk of him almost begging Rafe to do better. The older blond never listened to his friend though, and you knew it didn’t twist Topper up too much, always happy to make you feel better when your boyfriend fucked up.

He took advantage of it every time.

Like now, for example.

Your hands clung to the railing of the back porch, head bowed as Topper drove into you from behind. Rafe was asleep in his own room—Kelce asleep in a guest room—and you couldn’t help yourself. You needed him again, sneaking into his designated guest room and begging him to fuck you. He was never one to protest, pressing his lips to yours and pulling you against him while murmuring something along the lines of ‘not in here’.

There were too many people in the Cameron household for him to touch you on the same floor as everyone else.

You kept pushing yourself to your tippy toes, thighs squeezing together with every slow stroke of his cock. Rafe’s t-shirt was pushed up your back, and the light slap of skin against skin reached your ears as well as the wet sound every time he slid between your folds. When he leaned over you, chest pressed to your back, one arm curled around your waist.

“You love this,” he murmured, nipping at your ear. “You love fucking me right under his nose…especially when he really pisses you off.”

If you’d tried to deny it, the way you tightened around him would’ve exposed the truth anyway. You did. Rafe underestimated you, and you loved proving him wrong, especially with his best friend of all people. You moaned, pushing back against him at that. Topper only chuckled, twisting a hand at your roots and pushing you back down over the railing again.

After coming around him twice, the insides of your thighs were embarrassingly sticky, and when Topper eventually stilled against you, pumping you full of his cum, that only made your predicament worse. When he pulled out of you, you reached down to wipe away some of the mess, fighting to catch your breath and reminding yourself that you’d have to make a stop to the bathroom before rejoining Rafe.

Topper was silent the entire ride home, and unlike with Rafe, you had no one but yourself to blame in this situation. Whenever you happened to glance over, you’d catch sight of his clenched jaw, cold blue eyes—so much like Rafe’s—focused on the road. His knuckles were white from the strain of his skin pulled taut over them, a death grip on the wheel of his jeep.

You didn’t speak because there wasn’t much you could say.

So fed up with Rafe’s blatant disrespect—and the pitying looks the odd girl threw you at the party as he danced with some stranger—you hadn’t thought of who else you’d be hurting when you grabbed the nearest guy and pressed your lips to his. You were so far gone with the alcohol, and the satisfaction you’d felt only drove you to close your eyes at the feel of his lips moving against yours.

It had also caused you to momentarily forget about your boyfriend, a misstep that was quickly remedied when you found yourself covered in alcohol.

Several of his friends—Kelce included—had been struggling to hold Rafe back as he tried to make his way to you. His angry shouts could be heard over the music, and you suspected that the bloodthirsty glint in his blue eyes was what drove your poor unsuspecting victim to slip away. Watching him get further out of reach only drove Rafe crazy…until his angry gaze landed on you, as if just remembering your presence.

He was screaming at you, calling you every name in the book, and you’d taken a step back as his friends struggled to keep him from getting to you. Only one stood off to the side, and when you remembered Topper’s presence, you hadn’t been able to keep the sheepish look off of your face. Adopting the older brother role, he’d quickly stomped towards you, yanking your arm as he pulled you along and away from your enraged boyfriend.

“I think its time you call it a night,” he’d evenly said.

That was the last thing he’d said to you, holding you as you stumbled to his car.

When his phone rang again, cutting through the silence in the vehicle, he finally answered it.

“Rafe, she’s drunk,” Topper told him the minute he picked it up. “…and you can’t act like you didn’t have this coming a little.”

You shifted in your seat, thinking to yourself that you’d gotten back at Rafe many times over. You didn’t hear what your boyfriend—possibly ex-boyfriend—said on the other line, but it was loud, and you could pick up on his tone. Topper chuckled to himself, and if you hadn’t been looking at his face, you might’ve thought it was genuine. His frustration with both Rafe and you—mostly you at the moment—was all over his face.

“There’s a whole list of shit you’ve done while drunk or high. You can talk to her tomorrow,” he told his best friend, meeting your gaze. “I’m handling it, so if you come over, I’m telling you now I’m not answering the door.”

You looked out the window at that, swallowing at the venom in both his voice and his gaze.

Your parents weren’t home, out of town for the weekend, and you were never more grateful, certain you’d never been this drunk in your life. Topper was still ignoring you as he helped you inside, and when you stumbled away from him, leaning against the table by the entrance, you gave him an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled.

Before you could do it, he was dropping to his knees, angrily taking off your shoes. You flinched at the way he threw them across the room, slowly rising and staring you down. The house was quiet—too quiet for comfort—and you licked your lips.

“Topper-.”

“It’s already bad enough seeing you kiss him and be with him and fuck him,” he spat at you, pointing outside. “Even worse when he treats you like shit, and you just won’t leave.”

You frowned at him, tears kissing your eyes.

“I’m…sorry for just hoping he’ll do better…”

“He won’t!”

Topper’s voice bounced off of the walls, and you shrunk away from him as he got in your face.

“How many times does he have to show you that? Why do you still expect better from him, so much so to the point where you’re kissing random guys, now?” he wondered, rearing back away from you with a frown. “Yeah, you wanted to make Rafe angry, but we both know the truth.”

You looked away, pressing your lips together when Topper stepped closer. You could feel his breath on your cheek as he exhaled through his nose, the atmosphere tense.

“Rafe’s mad because you dared to play his own game,” he slowly whispered. “I love you, and we both know it’s me you’re really with, not him, and I’m fucking pissed.”

You swallowed with one look into his eyes, finally finding the strength to face him, and your heart skipped a beat at what you saw there.

Before you could say another word, his lips were on yours, fingers digging into your arms. The sequence of events happened too fast for your drunk brain to catch up with, only gasping when he reached down to press his hand into the small of your back, yanking you closer. If it wasn’t for him holding you, you would’ve tripped over your own feet as he forced you into the living room.

Topper’s teeth nipped at your throat while he pulled at your dress, something Rafe had bought.

“I fucking hate this dress,” he quietly confessed as if reading your mind.

The sound of tearing fabric reached your ears as he forced you to bend back, his arm around you keeping you from collapsing. He kept you against him as he laid you down on the floor, in a hurry to get you at least half naked. His other hand reached behind his head to yank off his shirt, and you only had the sense to hold onto his arms while he kissed along your chest. When his pants were pushed down just enough, he pushed into you with a grunt.

You scratched at his skin at the rough entry, but it took no time for each thrust to become as smooth as they always were whenever he got his hands on you. One of your hands clawed at the rug, and you moaned—loud—when he gripped the hair at the nape of your neck. You suspected that Top had done a line or two tonight, gasping at his uncharacteristically tight grip.

He was fucking you so good that you almost missed the sound of a vehicle in the yard. When you did, your eyes flew open, and you attempted to look around towards the window. You guys were too close to the couch to see over it, and when you whined, pushing against him, Topper only grabbed your hands and pinned them down beside your head.

“Topper, I think…”

You couldn’t get it out, groaning as he curved his hips against yours.

“Fuck him,” he breathed, pounding into you.

The harsh knocks on the door didn’t faze him, and Topper only let one of your hands go to reach down and reach under your thigh. He rested that leg over his shoulder, pushing it towards you as his nose brushed yours, lips parted as he thrust into you. You were dripping around him, teeth sinking into your lip as Rafe knocked on the door again, trying the locked handle. Somewhere, you could hear your phone vibrating…and then Topper’s after a while.

The man on top of you didn’t care, stretching you out, pushing his cock into your tight hole.

“Break up with him, or don’t,” he whispered to you, pressing a kiss to your lips and then your nose. “…but what you pulled tonight is not happening again.”

You drunkenly nodded at him, mewling as he slowed down his thrusts, the sucking sound of his cock plunging into you reaching your ears. You heard your phone vibrate again.

“You know where to find me when he pisses you off.”

#topper thornton #topper thornton x reader #topper thornton imagine #topper thornton smut #topper thornton fanfiction #obx #outer banks #obx fic #obx imagine #obx fanfiction #outer banks fic #outer banks imagine #outer banks fanfiction #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron

1K notes · View notes

eelnoise · 4 months

Text

nye kisses!

gn!reader ft. luffy, zoro, sanji, usopp, and law!

started as a little drabble for zoro (which i think i may post separately anyway), ended up wanting to do a little head canoning w/ some more guys for some smoochin!

cw: mostly fluff, a teensy bit steamy in w/ law.

Luffy

Has already kissed you 30 times already.

Curls himself around your body and plants messy kisses to your forehead, nose, cheeks, lips - whatever he can get his mouth on.

Actually forgets to kiss you when the clock strikes midnight! He's too entranced in the firework display that Franky put together.

When you gently remind him, he laughs out an apology.

Wraps his arms around you both a time or two before losing his balance - toppling onto the grass and covering your face in as many kisses as you want.

Zoro

Not a man for public displays of affection, Zoro starts the evening with no intention to kiss you in front of the crew.

Though as he watches you throughout the night, he reconsiders.

As the new year ticks over, he surprises you by reaching his hands out to cup your face to pull you into a loving kiss that you return in earnest.

The sole object of his focus, his palms fall from your face to enclose both arms around your middle as yours wrap around his shoulders.

When he releases you from his hold, his face is flushed, but he flashes you a loving grin before taking your hand in his, twisting around to sit on the foremast bench and pulling you into his lap.

He’d already kissed you, right? What's a little more?

Sanji

Sanji tries really, really hard not to kiss you before midnight.

Will rush to refill a drink or a snack when he gets close to breaking.

Actually has enough self-control to keep himself from smothering you in affection, surprising you both.

Is almost too eager to finally kiss you when the countdown to midnight ends, quickly locking his lips to yours with a satisfied hum.

Lets the kiss linger, only breaking it when you gently tap at his chest. Pouts a little about it.

Though a quick promise of more kisses later is enough to cheer him up.

Usopp

Super shy about kissing you in front of the others.

Claims he isn't, but you know him too well.

You hatch a small plan to slip away with him to the stern - far from prying eyes and safe from anyone's teasing. Even if they knew where you'd gone.

Quietly counts down with you, already has his hands entwined with yours.

As the others cheer and ring in the new year with excitement below, he leans in and captures you in a soft, gentle kiss and squeezes your palms to his.

You both giggle as your lips part, and Usopp's smile is so genuine and whole and so full of love for you that you can't help but kiss him again. And again. And again.

Law

Absolutely does not want to kiss you in front of the others.

Hovers at your side regardless, content to just be in your presence amongst the rabble of the festivities.

Fireworks launch high into the air as midnight comes, and with the crew distracted by the lights and fire in the sky, Law takes the opportunity to sneak you both away.

With a quick, hushed whisper of "Room! Shambles!" you're transported to your quarters with the door already locked behind you.

Law kisses you so intensely and so passionately that you feel lightheaded, and in the privacy you've been given he doesn't hesitate to deepen it further.

Tongues entwine, hands roam, and breathless sighs of absolute devotion fill the air between you.

He breaks the intimate embrace for just a moment to wish you a happy New Year before continuing right where he left off, luring you both into the beginnings of a very good night.

#one piece x reader #luffy x reader #zoro x reader #sanji x reader #law x reader #roronoa zoro x reader #trafalgar law x reader #vinsmoke sanji x reader #black leg sanji x reader #monkey d luffy x reader #luffy x you #zoro x you #sanji x you #law x you #one piece headcanons #one piece scenario

2K notes · View notes

taeyongdoyoung · 21 days

Text

summary: your best friend brags complains that he can't get laid due to his huge dick posing a threat to random girls at parties, so you offer to fix his little big problem pairing: soobin x reader genre: smut, best friends to lovers warnings: explicit language, big dick soobin (canon event), size kink, foreplay, eating out, blowjob, hugging, fingering, size training, creampie, consensual intercourse, kissing, aftercare, allusions to death in a sexual context, lowkey possessive soobin at the end author's note: the killa is on my mind 24/7 and im down bad for soobin 25/8 🥵 so i had to get it out of my system somehow 🤷 word count: 2k

“You’re kidding, right?” you ask your best friend when he makes a rather shocking confession as the two of you are sitting in his bedroom after one of your usual anime marathons.

“I wish I was. But I would never lie to you,” Soobin responds truthfully. His big moist eyes look a 100% genuine but it still sounds so...bizarre.

“Let me get this straight…Every time you try to hook up with a girl at one of those parties Yeonjun keep dragging you to, you go to a room, eat them out like the generous, selfless guy you are, and then after you take off your pants, they get scared by your gigantic cock and refuse to have sex, running away in horror?”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to explain for the past 10 minutes, yeah,” Soobin confirms with a very adorable pout on his stupid face.

You shake your head in utter disbelief.

“I’m sorry but this is just ridiculous. Any girl would be happy to hook up with a guy that has a huge dick.”

“Well, I guess not any girl ‘cause this shit has happened three times already and I’m at my limit. Why can’t I just get laid?” Soobin bemoans his tragic destiny.

“No, I don’t get it. The least they could do is give you a quickie or something to return the favour. It’s so rude to just sprint away. I can’t believe your cock is that terrifying.”

“Ugh, please stop saying that. It’s so embarrassing,” Soobin covers his face behind his big hands. Hold on a minute…

“If what you’re saying is true, then I think it’s pretty hot. Those girls are surely missing out.”

“Or maybe they’re just looking after themselves. Like…I’m not mad at them for being spooked out, I just wish I could finally get some, you know?” Soobin sighs.

“Death by dick does seem appealing,” you shrug.

“Y/N!” he exclaims.

“Listen, what if I make you an offer? You prove to me that you weren’t exaggerating about your size and I promise I won’t run away and will take care of your…frustrations.”

“Are you seriously suggesting this?” Soobin freaks out. “This could ruin our friendship.”

“I won’t be weird about it, I swear. What do you say?”

“Fuck it. I’m so horny that this actually sounds like a good idea,” Soobin admits. “Can I eat you out first?”

“Erm, if you insist,” you reply, suddenly feeling nervous.

“I just wanna take care of you, make sure you’re all nice and wet for me,” Soobin explains patiently.

“You really don’t have to,” you reassure him.

“I know but it’d be awkward for me to just whip it out. Please?”

“Oh…okay,” you really can’t imagine saying no when he’s asking you so sweetly. God, what did you get yourself into?

Soobin takes off your leggings and panties in one swift movement and pushes you down gently on the bed so you are in a lying position. He spreads your thighs apart and looks at your pussy, already glistening with wetness caused by the conversation you’ve been having. Soobin smirks but doesn’t say anything about it. You’re grateful for that as he dives in, licking and kissing all over you. Fucking hell, if his tongue is capable of making you feel this way, you are slightly unnerved to find out what his cock can achieve. But unlike those girls at the parties, you are determined to never run away from your best friend.

Soon enough, you reach your high, overwhelmed by Soobin’s insane tongue movements and his big hands gripping your thighs. You need a few moments to gather your thoughts and when you are finally able to speak, those are the first words that leave your mouth:

“I think they fleed because you eat pussy like a starved animal. Seriously, what the hell was that?”

Soobin chuckles nervously and runs his fingers through his black hair, pushing it back and exposing his forehead for a bit.

“Trust me, it’s not that.”

“Prove it,” you challenge him even though you are fairly certain he’s telling the truth. Your best friend has never lied to you, so why start now?

Soobin takes off his pants, his hands are shaking and you immediately feel bad. You put your hand on his in an attempt to calm him down.

“Hey, you don’t have to if you feel uncomfortable.”

“I do want this, but after so many failed attempts, I’m so anxious…”

“I’m not going anywhere, Soobin,” you insist and squeeze his hand reassuringly.

His skin complexion looks slightly less pale and your words seem to give him the confidence he so desperately needs. Moment of truth. Soobin takes off his boxers and…Oh damn, he was not exaggerating. He’s not just big, he’s so huge a part of you wonders how is it humanly possible to carry such a weapon around and maintain the gentle, humble composure with which Soobin carries himself.

“You’re not running yet,” he jokes.

“Soob?”

“Y-yeah?” his voice cracks, he is obviously terrified of what you’re going to say.

“I’m not gonna lie to you, I finally get why these girls ran away.”

“Oh,” he sounds a little dejected, as if already expecting you to go back on your offer.

“But! That’s not gonna stop me. Just tell me what you want first and I’ll try my best to make you happy.”

“Huh?” Soobin is too flustered to process your words.

“My hands, my mouth, or my pussy, what do you want first?”

��You mean…you’re willing to give me all of them?” he blinks in shock.

This poor, precious boy. Did he really face disappointment so many times that he is now looking a gift horse in the mouth with such uncertainty?

“Just pick, Soobie, I promise I’ll give you anything you need.”

“Um…can you suck me off? Please?”

Gosh, he’s so adorable you want to eat him.

You nod a little too enthusiastically and go down on your knees, taking as much of his cock as you can. It’s a tight fit but what you can’t put inside your mouth you make up for by wrapping your hands around him. You suck and lick and touch him, eager to give him as much pleasure as he did you. Your beloved best friend has obviously been frustrated for a while now because it doesn’t take him long to cum inside your mouth. There is so much you can’t manage to swallow it all despite your valiant efforts and you see some of it falling down your cheeks. You wipe it off with a finger, sticking it into your mouth, grinning widely at Soobin.

“Fuck, you’re incredible. What…how…are you okay?”

He presses his big palm against your cheek and it takes a lot of self-control for you to not melt right there and then.

“I’m great. Did…did it feel good for you?” you ask sheepishly.

You’re not particularly confident about your skills but you genuinely did your best for him.

“Are you crazy? It felt insanely good,” Soobin takes your hand, lifting you up and wrapping his arms around you in a hug.

“I’m glad,” you respond, feeling safer and warmer than ever before in your life.

“Do…you still want to…you know?” Soobin asks.

“If you’re asking whether you can put your cock inside my pussy, then yeah, go for it. As long as it’s something you want, of course.”

You keep reminding him to only do things he’s completely okay with, because you would hate to put your best friend in a situation he doesn’t enjoy just because of your greed.

“I want you so bad, you have no idea. But I think I’ll need to stretch you out a bit, yeah?”

“O-okay,” you quickly agree and in no time, Soobin’s long fingers are inside of your pussy, going deeper than your own have ever been and making you feel things you never even dreamed about.

“How does it feel?” Soobin asks in concern.

“Heavenly,” you admit and just as you’re about to reach your second orgasm, Soobin’s fingers leave you.

“N-no, why’d you do that?” you whine frustratedly.

“Wanna feel you come around my cock.”

As it turns out, you'd like this just as much so you quickly forgive him for ruining your orgasm.

“I think I have a condom in my-“ Soobin starts but you cut him off.

“I’m taking a pill. And I believe we’re both clean, so…”

“You gon’ let me fuck you raw?” Soobin inquires, not wanting to make assumptions.

“Yeah, I trust you,” you reply with conviction.

“You’re a dream,” Soobin chuckles and nudges the head of his cock against your moist entrance. You brace yourself for some level of discomfort and are surprised that it doesn’t come right away. Soobin takes his sweet time getting inside you, making sure you’re okay.

“Fuck, Soob, you're so big,” you moan, already feeling overstimulated.

“This is just the tip, baby,” he explains shyly, which makes you lose your mind.

Soobin goes deeper very slowly, making you feel every inch, stretching you out bit by bit.

“How much more?” you ask somewhat impatiently.

“Just a little bit. Can’t help it that your pussy is so tiny,” he teases you.

“Not my fault your dick is so gigantic,” you bite right back.

“I promise, I'll try my best not to split you in half,” Soobin jokes, which does little to ease your worries, but at the same time only makes you wetter.

“Keep talking to me,” you plead for him.

“Does it hurt?” he wants to know, as he keeps entering you further.

“It’s a good kind of hurt,” you explain, wincing slightly.

Once you’ve gotten used to it, you signal to Soobin that he can start moving and he does just that, fucking into you with an impressive speed. You try to meet him halfway, lifting your hips up for him, melting into one.

“You’re taking it so well, my darling best friend,” Soobin praises you relentlessly.

“Anything for you, Soobie,” you cry out in sweet bliss.

“I’m close,” Soobin confesses soon enough.

“Fill me up,” you beg him, almost in a daze, deeply affected by his overpowering presence.

He doesn’t need to be asked twice and spills his seed inside of you. It feels so good that you cum with him, walls clenching around his enormous dick. Soobin leans down to kiss you, further blurring the lines between friendship and…whatever this is.

Then, he takes his cock out and you realize something far more terrifying than his intimidating size - you are falling in love with your best friend.

Soobin quickly brings a towel and a bottle of water, taking care of you like no one else before. You want to cry, touched by his sweetness and falling even further.

“How do you feel?” Soobin brushes a piece of hair behind your ear.

“I feel…like I'm on another planet,” you confess shakily.

Soobin chuckles, visibly relieved to hear that.

“You’re so cute,” he murmurs, enveloping you in a hug. His large frame towers over you and if it was anyone else, you’d probably feel slightly threatened. But this is Soobin, and even though he just fucked your brains out, you feel completely safe and protected. Safe enough to be honest about how you feel.

“I know I promised not to be weird about it but…I don’t think I can go back to being friends.”

Soobin pales for a moment, scared of losing you.

“Why not?” he blinks, barely restraining his tears.

“I wanna belong to you,” you try to ease his worries by openly saying what your heart and soul desire.

“Oh…But baby, you already do,” Soobin suddenly beams with excitement. “And I belong to you, too.”

“I think you killed me a little,” you laugh. “Killed my pussy with your big cock and ruined me for other men.”

Soobin raises an eyebrow.

“Bold of you to assume that I’d let other men near your pussy. You’re all mine now.”

The End

#txt #soobin #txt smut #txt hard thoughts #txt hard hours #size k!nk #soobin x reader #soobin smut #soobin hard thoughts #soobin hard hours #txt imagines #soobin imagines #writing

845 notes · View notes

kneelingshadowsalome · 11 months

Text

Just Friends (König x F!Reader)

How to Escape the Friendzone 2/4 (Word count 5.3 k)

Summary: König is a horny, creepy killing machine obsessed with a shy, kind reader who has a raging knife kink.

Tags/warnings: 🔞 Eventual smut, eventual violence, angst, dark romance, canon divergence. Crack treated seriously. Yandere undertones, implied stalking, panty stealing, major character death, size kink, voyeurism, possessive sex, twisted, fluffy feelings. Loner boy/gentle girl dynamic. Protective!Obsessive!Top!König. Reader works as a cleaner at the base. She is described to have hair and prefers to wear dresses off work. Not safe or sane but mostly consensual.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Massive arms go about her as she's pulled against a lean chest. It's an awkward, tense hug. He smells of open air and coppice, with a whiff of acrid sweat on top as she lays her head somewhere between the bumps of muscle of a warm chest.

Not even the body heat makes him appear more human: his heart is not pounding as fast as she thought it would after making it clear he would score some tonight.

She fears she's dealing with a sociopath. Might even be a psychopath.

"Are you still afraid?"

"I don't know." Her breaths are everything but steady as she inhales the intoxicating scent of a madman.

"Don't be scared. I will only hurt those who wish to hurt you."

His pledge renders her weak; it makes her legs shake. She gets far more than she bargained for when pulling him in to give her a little late-night comfort.

Friends with benefits is a situation bad enough, but this is not okay. The guy's fixation seems boundless, and if she tries to wriggle out of this… relationship and starts seeing someone else, it might end up in König scrubbing the potential future love interest's guts off his shoes.

And something in the idea isn't even wholly appalling.

Good God…

"I don't want you to hurt anyone," she whispers like it isn't his day-to-day job – to hurt and kill people. She is on the verge of collapsing to the floor and stays upright only because he holds her in authoritarian embrace.

"Little angel, it's what I do." He releases her only enough to bow his head and look into her eyes. His stare betrays slight distaste. Those eyes are calm mirrors of how can someone be so naive.

"You come to me if someone is mean to you," he orders in a stern voice that makes her feel faint.

"Alright," she breathes a fluent little lie. He's satisfied with her answer, however, and presses her head back against him with effortless control.

She imagines him knifing someone with a listless stare from sparing a glance her way; she fantasizes him strangling some chauvinistic moron in the darkness after they have been "mean" to her. Quickening breaths betray her sick thoughts to him because he pulls her even closer. She can feel the enormous cock pressing against her body with a promise of violence.

"Angel… I wish you would stop teasing me."

"Yeah?" Her laugh is restrained, and her heart is racing inside her chest – like it's some kind of a good idea to have a heart attack while a murderous psycho turning into a boyfriend is in the same room with her. "Where's the fun in that…?"

"Do you always tease men like this?"

"No," she swallows a mouthful of woodland and musk. "Just you."

"Hm."

"König… Can I see your face?"

The man finally seems to find his reserve again. He detaches from her, and she can hear the audible gulp inside the hood.

"Maybe later."

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other like he usually does when he's a bit nervous. Probably to ease the discomfort from still being forced into those pants with such an astoundingly large, swelling erection, too.

She can't come up with anything that might explain why the man is so uncomfortable with showing his face. From the small glimpse she saw in the showers, everything looked completely normal. There is some other reason why he wants to wear the mask, most likely some mental block, and she would simply have to wait until he's ready and willing to take it off.

"How about a kiss?"

He doesn't shake his head or escape her as she hesitantly steps toward him and raises a hand to the hem of his hood.

"If I just…"

He does nothing as she starts to raise the mask. The look in his eyes is somewhat haunted, though.

She lifts it just enough to reveal a clean-shaven chin and a pair of thin, tightly shut lips. She briefly notices that there's a scar on his jaw before his mouth opens to call her in. They're polar opposites of each other: she feels breathless and limp when their lips meet while he's a statue of rigid power. Even his mouth is tense as she catches his bottom lip between hers and tries to soften that immortal stiffness. Distant notes of hops catch her tongue just before he pulls her back into a crushing hug.

The guy is not the most perfect kisser. He's very avid, though. In fact, his eagerness is what makes it a scary experience, what makes the kiss clumsy. He smashes his lips on hers with force, then opens his mouth so wide she fears he will devour half her face.

The ungloved hands slide down her back and cup her ass. He's gentle, but she still feels like she's levitating, half an inch above the ground from his groping. He moans like they are already having sex, but before she can disconnect herself from the violent kiss, he does it for her.

"I want to fuck you," he pants across her lips, eyes half-lidded and drunk. "Can I fuck you?"

The man has no conception of how to dance these dances. He simply declares his wish to shove his junk inside her and kill those who might do her harm. She feels dizzy in his arms, like dew that will evaporate under too much heat.

"Yeah, yes," she tries to sound sane, although there's nothing sane about this.

So much for being just friends or being nothing at all…

Her heart is beating faster and faster; it wants to rend itself out of her chest. She feels ample sweat between her thighs, then realizes it's only her own wetness that has broken through the cotton of her underwear. The dress is so tight in the middle that she can't simply try and throw it over her head, and the buttons at the front seem to have suddenly become too big to slip through the holes.

He doesn't take any of his clothes off while watching her undress. The instant she opens her whimsical veil of blooms, he moves close and shoves the fabric down her shoulders so that it drops sadly on the floor. Then he flicks a knife out.

Shit… Shit what the fuck–

"No–Don't–!"

The blade is forced with a flat surface under the middle of her bra. He pulls the fabric away, turns the blade - it's a miracle she's not bleeding by the time he cuts through the center front like it's butter. Her breasts fall free, and the destroyed lingerie hangs cheaply on the side before it gets dragged away too. She looks at his work, her exposed tits and the crude, fat knife he swiftly returns to its sheath.

"That was my favorite br–ah…"

The man is terrifying, even when he sinks to his knees. He dives for her breasts, licks the undersides and sucks her nipples like he's famished. Her head rolls back, and she feels fainter still as he gropes her like she's his toy, chews a nipple until she shudders and cries in pain. Then he goes down, down, panting hot breaths on her skin as he goes, the hood grazing and tickling her skin.

His hands shake slightly as he tears down the last piece of covering fabric from between her legs. She can't even step out of the briefs before a blazing tongue is pushed to her clit, all but delicately.

Perhaps he's not a virgin, but he's not a veteran, either – still, it draws a filthy moan out of her.

She has to take support from his head to prevent herself from falling when the tongue simply forces its way between her legs. It curls to meet her folds, slick with her wet. She knows she's practically leaking at this point, and hears how he licks his lips.

"Of course the angel tastes like heaven too," he rasps in her mound, sounding rather… bitter. Almost annoyed.

She thinks it's only the beginning, but he suddenly rises like a Kraken from the sea, like a Godzilla about to destroy an entire city.

"Get on the bed. All fours."

She chokes the whimper that tries to escape her, then turns and crawls onto the bed as if they are running out of time. His urgency is hers now, and she presents herself to him, waiting for the man to thrust in without remorse, but it's his mouth she feels first.

"Uh–Oh my god…"

He licks her with a flat tongue, torturously slow while she's on display. They're long, profound sweeps, as if he wants to sample her rather than give her pleasure. Although he does give her an immense amount of it.

She falls on her elbows, face down on the bed, exposing more of herself to him in the process. Her pussy has been neglected for so long that the feel of his hot tongue on her is absolutely breathtaking, thigh-shaking. She pushes herself back a little, lets him taste his own medicine for once.

And of course it only makes him more unhinged.

"You're wet like a…" he laughs a short, dry laugh straight into her folds, and she finally whimpers at the sound. "You want it so bad?"

"Yes…?"

It's a sad little confession but more than enough for him. He freezes behind her, and something in the way the air shifts tells her he has risen and is now standing high above her as she's in this crudely vulnerable position.

"I've made you wet this whole time?"

She snivels, opens her eyes, closes them…

"Yes," she sobs in the bed, nearly topples, but he grabs her ass and keeps her in place.

"Ach du lieber Himmel…"

She pants and cries in the sheets, but the sobering silence lasts only for so long.

The sound of a belt being opened shoots her skin full of goosebumps. Only a few seconds later, the fat tip of his cock is swept across her folds: it probes for a second, then slides in.

"A-ah–"

"Scheiße… So tight…"

He hisses and goes all the way in – the journey is long and torturous as he stretches her wide. The thickness only grows at the base, his balls are already tight as they arrive to press against her.

And mercy is not at the top of his list as he realizes she has denied her need and therefore, his. He starts to sail inside her, back and forth, in and out, like it's his job, too. It's total torture. She might just pass out before this is over.

"You little tease…" He seizes control of her hips while using her as his own personal fleshlight. The noise of wet, slick fucking is deafening. The pace is upped soon, and he has to use strength to hold her in place while ramming her from standing while she tries to hold on for her dear life and hold onto the sheets.

"Not so fast, König," she whimpers into her pillow, but he won't listen. The pace is frantic, and his thrusts are deep; he fucks her with despair, with anguish-driven, starved thrusts born from greed.

Nothing has ever felt so good, nothing.

"Just friends, eh?"

She has a hard time deciphering whether he is happy or mad. His voice is pitchy, and she knows, she just knows that he sounds equally as unglued on his missions. Perhaps that's why people rarely talk to him.

"Don't–don't be angry…"

"No? Say that you want me," he commands somewhere behind her, desperation coating the air with pungent sweat and musky arousal. "Say it–say it–"

"I want you," she finally cries, and it feels like an absolution. An amnesty. Remission of sin.

There's panting and frantic sound of slaps of flesh against flesh behind her. The air all around is pure electricity. It makes her quiver and throb and squeeze: him, the sheets, anything and everything.

"I will bring you flowers every morning and fuck you every night. Ja?"

His length is the only thing she can focus on; all else dissolves into a hazy mist. The cock glides in her like he's oiling a gun part, and he could ask her to kill someone and she would only say–

"Yes, yes."

He slides in and out with less and less control, moans and grunts with every thrust now. She's already past the point of no return, even though the orgasm keeps hovering right beyond her reach. She only needs a few more minutes. Or maybe just one...

"König… Not...so–fast…"

He answers something in German, an annoyed string of words she has no clue what they mean. He's probably just swearing profoundly.

"Get...what you deserve..."

That's the only thing she can flesh out from the English that follows. He finally finds some mercy with a choked groan and tries to slow down a little. It's even worse when he does that. He pulls almost completely out, then sinks back in, agonizingly lazy, and that does it: the full length of his giant cock slipping inside her without effort makes her walls clench.

"Oh God…" Her back is arching, her toes are curling, a tight cry disappears somewhere in the pillow, and he won't stop with the – "Oh–fuck–!"

"Yeah," he cheers her on as she screams, cries in the sheets while his cock swims in her. His hands dig into her hips, and she barely has brains left to think it might leave bruises. The orgasm comes in waves, shakes, and he won't let go even when she's only a heap of throbbing, soaking flesh and rapture.

And it's not the end; quite the contrary. He continues to fuck her with abandon: balls slap against her with every jab; they must be covered in her juice at this point, making the sound of sloppy thrusts utterly obscene. She's able to stay in a face-down, ass-up position only because he's holding her there for his cock.

The grunts turn into a wide, thick groan as he approaches the edge as well. The pace slows down almost to a halt before he comes.

"Jetzt…kommt–" he groans through gritted teeth, voice all taut while he grinds through his release. It's a multitude of deep, oddly paced thrusts, a sad attempt to get everything he can, and she's still like a wet gulf sucking him in.

The last throes are sluggish, the madness starts to pass, and she feels like every bone has left her body. There is nothing solid left when the man slowly relents and settles somewhere deep inside her. She can hear how he pants with his mouth open, and it sounds painful, wet, almost drooly. Then he swallows with a breathless gulp, slips out, and lets her go.

She immediately falls forward - topples, crashes, crawls on the bed, tries to rearrange what's left.

Just friends...

Yep.

He crashes somewhere beside her, spent and out of breath. The front of his shirt is covered in sweat; the air is filled with the stale scent of musk and saline sweat and pure, mad sex. She can barely catch a glimpse of the slick, glistening length of him. It feels like a miracle that this thing has been inside her. It’s not that it’s monstrously thick: it’s simply long, curving a little to the side, lean and aggressive even when growing soft.

"You play with fire, Engel. Why did you make me wait so long?"

The masked killer beside her is panting but satisfied for now, and turns his head to look at her. She has to muster all her courage to look back.

"I'm…a bit shy."

"You're perfect," he declares while watching her in her sex daze and ruin. So, at least he's not angry. He finally looks… normal, even with that absurd hood still on, with that intoxicated, admiring stare in his eyes. The ice in his blues has turned into melting snow.

"I noticed you the minute I arrived here."

She can't prevent a hand from reaching out at that, from splaying fingers over his chest.

"I noticed you too," she whispers back before moving closer to snuggle him. His heart is finally thumping in his chest, right under her cheek – from the late exercise or their closeness, she can't tell. A heavy arm goes around her, pressing her further into the nook of his armpit.

"You remind me of one of my knives," he says while holding her close.

Oh good God…

"You are a butterfly knife girl."

"Oh?"

"Ja. Small and cute and a lot of fun. And I can't get enough of you."

So much for getting rid of the man after getting some d. God, what was wrong with her? Any other woman would have put up some boundaries, perhaps gotten a restraining order by now.

"Is it… a good knife?" Her voice comes out as an annoying squeal, and he pulls her closer, ever closer.

"I mainly use it for playing."

She wets her lips in an attempt to calm herself, to comfort herself. She’s just another plaything for a murderer whose hunger seems endless, even if he’s more civil now. Still, she fears this man is only after sex and violence. Her little dresses and petite lingerie won't stand a chance against such brutality.

"What knife are you…?"

"Classic Glock field knife. Tall and ugly."

Behind the thin veil of indifference, there's pride. It borders on arrogance. She catches a dash of bitterness, too: field knives don't pair well with butterflies, perhaps.

"König, you're not ugly," she breaks their odd cuddle to look at him. "This sounds like a trustworthy knife to me."

He looks back at her with an even warmer tinge to the glacier of his eyes.

"It is. You cannot hope for a more loyal blade."

Her gaze drops somewhere in the darkness of his shirt. He's pledging himself for the second time to her, and it causes another storm inside her head. There's warmth on her cheeks, too.

"You are cute when you blush," he observes with pleased tranquility.

Perhaps... Perhaps he doesn't want to hurt things he finds cute.

Perhaps he will take care of them, like he takes care of his knives.

It still takes some getting used to that he allows his hood to be lifted just enough to push his tongue inside her mouth or pussy but taking it off to show his face is too much. She is lying there with him in an odd post-coital dream, thoroughly naked while he's still fully dressed. But she doesn't feel cold, not when pressed against his blazing form like this.

"Did you nick my underwear?" She asks out of the blue, and the hand stroking her waist stops in the middle of an idle caress.

"I might have," he admits without a single ounce of remorse in his voice.

"König… That's not cool," she says, knowing he can hear the lack of scolding in her voice.

"You want them back?"

"I… Gosh. Yes, that would be nice."

What a pervert.

"Or... Nevermind. Keep them," she sighs, trying to brush off the fact that the underwear in question wasn't even clean. "Do you steal women's underwear often?"

"No. Just yours."

A laugh meant to convey her shock is far too laced with joy to make it clear that she finds his deeds preposterous. She simply fails at every turn in trying to express that she's a decent woman. He knows it now, probably saw it long ago; that she's the perfect cheval glass to his perversions.

The hand on her hips moves to caress her thigh, and the drowsy stare observes her with growing mischief.

"Ready to go again?"

"Whuh–Again…?"

He takes her hand and moves it right over his cock. It's lean and demanding, and pulses under her palm.

Tall and ugly, she thinks while her walls dare to throb with hunger.

"You make me hard," he says, almost as a whisper, "all the time."

Jesus… There was definitely no rulebook when it came to this guy.

She gets to watch from the bed how he gives her a show as the man finally decides it's time to take his clothes off. The shirt is the first one to go: it flies somewhere on the floor while he holds on to his hood. The sculpted muscle looks even bigger up close, and the plates are covered with thin hair. It runs thicker below the navel, and his thighs are pure power: they surround the sleek length of his cock like trunks of strength when he finally gets himself out of those pants.

The v-shape of his upper body is something she will never get over. Broad shoulders shrink and curve into narrow hips which in turn swell into powerful thighs, and while perhaps this guy wouldn't win the gold medal at a fitness competition – judged by the way he's lean and athletic but not low fat ripped – he certainly is the most beautiful man she has ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on. He's a demigod with his herculean strength, a titan who's too big for the world of mortals. A tormented Samson who will never be tamed with treachery or tricks.

The bed sags as he crawls back to her like the gentlest predator. Her legs open wide to receive him – a classic missionary feels like the most intimate choice after the faceless pounding she received earlier. He gathers her legs as he proceeds: forces them up, up, almost next to her arms until he's hovering over her exposed pussy.

She should've known that some boring missionary wouldn't satisfy this man at all.

Her eyes drop to her legs and what's between them: she's in no position to do much of anything, but as the tip of his cock – smooth, pristine velvet – slides across her wet folds once more, she rather helplessly tries to drive her hips up to meet him.

It's like she's drunk or in a dream. The scene is wild and filthy: she's plump and spread open, ready for the taking, thighs almost in her ears as he draws his hips back and finds her opening.

"Please be gentle," she begs with a whisper. He halts for a while to lock gazes with her rabbit stare.

"You are pretty when you beg, little one. But I would never hurt you."

She swallows, and her lips part – his gaze instantly falls on her mouth, then raises back to her eyes, gentle and painstakingly ardent. He's close, so terribly close – and not just physically. Her thighs quiver with anticipation as the thick velvet slides in.

Holy fuck–

She savors the spread, and he's gentle, like he promised. The groan that erupts from inside the hood above makes her walls ache. He's so merciful this time, and she wishes to lift the black veil that still keeps them apart, to see his face as he takes her, to see that scar on his jaw and how his mouth hangs open with hunger, just like hers…

His cock comes out all wet – she can hear it – before plunging right back in, and it makes her mewl.

"Oh God…" Her eyes shut tight from the sensation of being so filled. She's even more starved than she thought. It's scary, far scarier than the mass murderer above and inside her.

"You like that?"

He's breathing heavy, and she knows he's looking at her, the distorting face of pleasure, the way she's biting her lip. Tears try to force themselves out from the passionate, featherbrained proximity, from being so tightly knitted together, like a bunch of happy, overstimulated nerves.

"Look at me," he orders, and she opens her eyes like they're under his command and not hers.

"You like it like this?"

She nods with tears in her eyes, and he won't stop looking at her like she's his most prized possession.

"Gut. I will make you scream again."

The man's dreamy stare follows every twitch of a lip, every bat of an eyelash. She looks down briefly to escape that love – the sight of the long thickness disappearing in her while she is so crudely open for him makes her feel dizzy, even when she's lying down.

Some pillow princess…

"Sehr schön," he comments while watching her face which must look like that of a dumb, anesthetized doll. His cock has that effect, and now that he's hovering over her, staring into her soul while filling her, it makes everything even more painful because it's sweet. She's under lazy waves, and decent men seem the most boring thing on earth right now.

"You like my knives?"

"Ah–what…?"

"You stared when I played with my knife."

She knows he has caught her staring more than once and bites her lip again not to blurt out how she had stared when he had played with... other things as well.

"Mh, yeah… It was beautiful."

"You're beautiful."

The sudden waves of intimacy leave her fragile and weak. His stare is nothing short of a caress. She is open and helpless for him to pound to his heart's content, but he's gentle, bordering on loving...

"I can teach you how to play with them."

Jesus Christ, this dude is just crazy.

"Uh-huh," she agrees to it with her mouth hanging open from the overload of sensation. The lewd sound of his cum pushing out of her with every thrust is an obscene background music for this – or any – conversation.

"I have a collection."

Why the hell would he be talking about his knife collection in the middle of–

"I own at least fifty knives. I can show you all of them if you come to my room."

His gaze is at least as piercing as his cock, and she realizes how serious this is: knives are his life. He finds them beautiful too, he collects them and cares for them. They're a profession, but they're also the most important thing in his world.

Knives are his essence.

And he had likened her to a butterfly knife...

"S-sure."

The sound from where they are joined rises to a sluggish crescendo: drowsy, filthy claps of flesh on soaked flesh. He makes her sick and well at the same time: he drags her to hell and raises her to heaven. He's the remedy and the curse. He plays with her like he plays with his knives: ravenous, entranced, obsessed.

She tries to concentrate on too many things at once: that intoxicating voice, the memory of him playing with death, the cock plunging inside her over and over again, making warmth pool below. She imagines him killing people with his collection, picking his tool for the day. He's not the only lunatic here because even the very thought makes her tight around him.

"You are close?"

"König… Just–" she whispers on the cusp of a deeper, soul-rending orgasm.

"You like it when I talk about knives?"

She breathes laboriously and tries to hang onto the last bits of her sanity, but he knows her, knows her already. He weighs down on her until her thighs come to rest right next to her breasts. He's plowing her in a crude angle, indecent and deep. It's vulgar, and she loves it; loves the way he stares at her, all helpless under him.

"Please, I'm gonna–"

"I can show you my guns too."

Ohmygod–

"I'm gonn–ah–!"

She shatters, her walls clench; her pussy sucks him like he's hard candy.

“Sieh dir das an… You were made for me.”

"Nh– Please…"

Her head tosses on the pillow as if in a dream. She's fathomless, and going to pass out, the cock inside her makes her eyes roll back in her head until she sees white, the color of saints.

"Shy girl… Beg for it."

The voice that answers his command is not that of a shy girl; it's not hers at all. She hears it from underwater, and her reality consists solely of the man filling her, spreading her, transforming her from an angel into something deliciously wicked.

Please, just–

It's not her voice, and yet it does sound everything like her. It begs, mewls a plea after the other in a string of helpless little whimpers.

Don't stop, please pleaseplease…

"Besser als jedes Messer…" he rasps, more darkly now. "You drive me crazy, Engel."

A chant arises in her head: she has sinned and there's no turning back. He feels far better than any promise of heaven. She could never have guessed that being cast out would feel so good.

His release comes with a tight rip, he goes taut like in that shower, only ten times more desperate. The hiss under the hood turns into a pained, strained roar of a grunt. The first time was foreplay, a quick one: this is true release. She almost hopes she would faint as the whole body of the Austrian titan goes hard as a rock. She couldn't be more spent and used, and still, her pussy answers his godly essence by clenching around him, pulling him in like he's the best man there is.

The man of her dreams, the man from her worst nightmares...

His eyes are liquid, the waterline twitches. She sees behind the walls, a millisecond's worth of fragility before his head drops, and the muscles are released from the violent trance. Broad shoulders cage her in like she's suddenly deep inside a mountain pass. Spent and dead and gone, there's no hurry any longer: he is buried deep inside and throbs whatever leftovers he has to give her.

She's filled to the brim, crushed under his weight, banished: and it's only delicious, the feeling of her body disappearing somewhere in the depths of the bed he has plowed her into. She waits dutifully as the man gathers himself, even gets brave enough to touch him. The masked face is buried somewhere in her neck, and his stomach ripples with a few shivers as her hand runs down his spine.

"I want to do this every day," he declares softly while panting through the thick fabric of his self-made shield. She feels pure horror and thrill in her chest.

To do this every day… She will eventually break, like a toy that has been used too much. She's not made of steel like those butterfly knives used mainly for playing.

"König, this is crazy… We're crazy," she tries to put into words the unholy mess raging inside her. He snorts before releasing her from the absurd position. The weight of him leaves her empty as he pulls out, then drags his way beside her to gather her back into his arms.

"Don't be ashamed, little one," he coos through the mask. "You don't have to pretend with me."

Two rounds of intense sex have liberated him, the manic terror has turned into a strange compassion. The look in his eyes is magnanimous and tender, almost droopy. She feels weightless and timid, an angel once more.

"We belong together, you and I," he states with conviction that sends sweet dread inside her heart. "Don't worry. You will never be lonely again."

Her fate is sealed, and she fears a big, fat knife will cut her heartstrings too if she tries to escape his protection. Her jaw trembles at the prospect of him returning to her every day to fuck her bare after an adrenaline high on the field. She sees a future of tears and sweat and cum, a beast lulled into sleep amidst a withering sea of flowers and torn lace.

She tries to find the right words, hopes he will be swift and merciful in his execution.

König, please…

It's not the hood, it's–

"Everyone fears me," he sighs beside her. "I'm glad you don't."

#könig x reader #könig x female reader #könig x you #könig smut #könig fanfiction #könig #mw2 smut #mw2 fanfic #konig x reader #könig mw2 #call of duty #mw2 #mw2 x reader #yandere könig #könig imagine

3K notes · View notes

luveline · 2 years

Text

𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

summary eddie munson is super weird. he holds your hand too tight, he has a fascination with your neck, and he can’t give a hickey to save his life. good thing you’re super weird, too. [20k]

warnings two losers falling in love!! vampire!eddie munson, ditzy!reader (kind of), fem!reader, smut mdni (p in v, unprotected sex, oral fem receiving, general heavy petting and kissing, praise), fluff, hurt/comfort, angst (eddie struggling with guilt and grief). canon divergent (the events of volume 2 take place but there’s a mostly happy ending i.e. everyone good lives and everyone bad dies) TW eddie doesn't have suicidal thoughts, but he does think about it briefly. not with intent or anything like that though. requested here for my halloween party <3

(㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ)

Eddie Munson never wanted to be a vampire, and he wants that on the record.

It's a ridiculous existence. It's embarrassing. It's nothing like all the movies and books promised him.

He's looking at you, Bram Stoker.

In Eddie's mind, Stoker’s nothing less than a liar and a sycophant.

"Who's dick were you bouncing on, Stoker?" he demands to know, kicking fallen leaf mulch under his feet angrily. "Need'ta fucking impress some vampire lover with your over-exaggerated, over-powered, ridiculous descriptions? Great. Hope it was worth it. Meanwhile I'm here, self-esteem half the size of a grain of rice because I can't scale a building with my bare hands."

Eddie would know. He's tried.

He's not genuinely angry with Bram Stoker, but he'd rather take his frustrations out on a guy who's been dead for a hundred years than take them out on the demobats, because he doesn't want to even think about the demobats. They're all dead too. Not before they'd had (see: devoured) their pound of flesh and changed his life for the worse, though.

He shakes his head to drive out the memory like water in his ears. It's easier to pretend none of that shit in the upside down ever happened. (Impossible to pretend. He begs himself to try anyway.)

He’s pissed because science fiction has promised him a lot of things and reality has delivered on none of them. No super strength, no impermeable skin. He is faster, but that's more a reflexive thing than anything else. And being faster doesn't make running fun. That’s impossible.

Sunlight breaks through the treeline and his skin crawls. Science fiction didn't get that right, either. The sun doesn't hurt. It's just really, really annoying.

He covers his eyes, winces at his itchy hand, pulls his sleeve over his fingers and covers his eyes again. "This blows," he says, and means it.

In Dracula, the sun nulls Dracula’s supernatural abilities. Eddie doesn’t have any abilities worth nulling, unless you count echolocation.

He doesn’t.

He walks another five minutes up the road toward Forest Hills when he realises you're behind him. His senses are enhanced now as a bat’s might be, hearing fine-tuned and dialled up every second of the day — which makes living in a trailer park where everyone thinks he's a murderer an acute misery — but he's as prone to distraction as anyone else. Especially when he gets stuck in a memory.

Eddie throws his gaze over his shoulder and finds you thirty or forty feet away, talking to yourself under your breath. He knows you more for your sounds than your appearance. To be able to put a face to your mindless babbling is a mystery solved. Of course you look like that. A skirt made of soft looking fabric bounces over two cute thighs, a pretty lacy corset type of thing that isn't too tight outfits your top half. You look more like a vampire than he does.

"Hi, Eddie," you call.

His eyes widen, a deer-in-the-headlights kind of surprise. If you notice how he's frozen you don't show it, continuing to push your bike toward him. The tick of the wheels grows louder as you get closer, two hands on the handlebars with wrists draped in bracelets, both silver and fabric.

Besides your jewellery, your arms are bare. You must be freezing.

"Hey," he says.

He doesn't know your name. He doesn't know how you know his, and he’s too awkward to ask.

Your sounds peak as you close the gap. The wet scrape of your dirty black canvas shoes over shining asphalt, the soft puff of your breath, the clinking sounds of whatever trinkets you have in your bag. If he focuses, he can make out the tiniest pinches of fabric. Your short sleeves rubbing against your arms, your bra straps stretching over your shoulders.

Eddie takes a deep breath and tries to diminish his senses.

"Where's your van?" you ask curiously.

"Piece of shit kicked it in the middle of town. Just my luck."

You pause at his side, looking him up and down obviously but without the judgement or irreverent disgust he's come to expect from near about everybody in Hawkins.

"That's not good," you say succinctly.

It's such a genuine response that Eddie can't find it in himself to be sarcastic.

"God awful," he agrees sullenly.

You nod and start to walk again. Eddie falls naturally into step beside you, matching your pace without thinking.

"You should get a bike."

He laughs. Coughs to cover it up. "Yeah?"

"They're way more reliable than a car, and it doesn't hurt the zone."

Eddie squints. "The o-zone?"

"Is there another one?"

You're still so serious that he spares you the ridicule he might dole out to anyone else. If Dustin had said something like that he would've ripped the kid a new one, but you're rather sweet in an odd way. You have a soft manner of talking — each word sounds like you've thought its pronunciation through meticulously beforehand.

He ignores your question and points at your bike, ring catching the sun. "Why aren't you riding it?"

"My chain slipped."

"So much for reliable."

That makes you smile. Eddie feels it like a punch, a flat palm slapped into his chest.

"You can't put the chain on yourself?"

A brisk breeze whips your hair, your earrings. The left kisses your cheek, a silver heart-shaped hoop with pink beads that click together. You lean into it, face tilted to one side as a perplexed smile plays on your sticky lips. "You can do that?"

"Sure, you pull it back around the gear. It's easy." He hesitates for a moment, and then feels guilty about hesitating. "I'll do it for you, if you want."

"The guy in no. 62 has been charging me ten dollars." You don't sound as angry as you should, in Eddie's opinion.

"I'll do it for nothing."

You beam at him. His chest feels like a bruise.

Pretty girls don't like Eddie. Not before Chrissy, not after. He's trying to work out your angle, what it is that you want.

Or maybe you don't know.

As soon as you find out who he is, you'll turn your pretty nose up at him and walk the other way. He shouldn't smile at you, he definitely shouldn't fix your bike.

He can't help it. He's so starved for positive attention that he follows you all the way through the park, westside to east.

He checks the driveway of his own home and smiles mildly when he spots Wayne's new car. It's new in the sense that it's different. It's actually way older than the one he'd had before, the one he'd pawned to pay for Eddie's — well, Eddie's everything. His check-ups, his court dates, his goddamn bail. In the same way that this trailer isn't the trailer, but an older, smaller one as far away from their first as possible.

Kid, if I had the money…

Wayne hadn't needed to finish. If he had the money, they'd leave. Leave Hawkins, leave Indiana. Settle down in some other mediocre Midwestern state with all the same creature comforts and none of the "You were acquitted but literally none of us believe you didn't kill someone," motif.

All they have now is debt, each other, and the Great Munson mug collection.

Eddie keeps his head down as they pass the old trailer. Nobody lives inside now. Only termites.

He can taste blood by the time they reach your home. Far from the metallicity of his human blood, Eddie's blood now harbours a bitter taste. Not quite like coffee but with that same overwhelming earthiness. He pulls his teeth from the bitten flesh of his bottom lip and quickly raises a hand to his teeth, alarmed.

No knife-like points. Normal teeth.

"Are you thirsty?" you ask him.

Eddie flinches and drops his hand. You've parked your bike against the wooden lifts of your porch and are halfway up the steps to your front door, hand clasped loosely on the railing.

His heart fucking pounds.

"I have grape juice?"

"Right," he says hurriedly, "right. Yeah, that would be awesome."

Duh, you meant juice.

You send him another endearing smile and pop up the last of your steps and into the front door. It's not locked. He doesn't follow, thinking you must live with somebody (who's gonna know exactly who he is and tell him to get lost).

He turns his attention to your bike instead. It's easy enough to fix. He rolls the bike so its handlebars are resting against your concrete driveway and covers the top bar of the metal body with his sneaker to stop it from toppling. He rolls up his sleeves and bares his arms, but pulls them back down immediately when he remembers the white-purple whorls of scar tissue lurking underneath.

"Fuck," he mutters. Everything is a reminder, all of the time. He can't escape what happened.

It's everywhere.

He's getting his fingers under the chain when you reappear. You've layered up, bracelets and naked arms hidden by a black hoodie.

The wind blows and your skirt shifts. From his position he can see a ladder hiding in your tights where your inner thighs are pressed together. He whips his gaze up like a high-school perv caught sneaking peeks in the girls locker room and notices the stitching on your chest for the first time.

"You like Dio?" he asks excitedly.

"Who?"

He wilts. "Uh, your hoodie. Dio."

"I got it for three dollars in the bargain bins," you supply helpfully, all pep as you climb down the stairs and offer him a glass cup adorned in dainty enamel flowers. "Is Dio good?"

He waves his hand at the glass apologetically. "Two seconds…" Lifting the chain with the second hand, Eddie tugs and then feeds until the links are lined up with the bumps on the big chainring. The skin on his fingertips get pinched and his eyebrows pull together in pain, but it's a mild irritant at worst and after a moment the chain is back in place.

He pulls his hand away and wipes dark grease down the front of his jacket. "I think I did it."

You're glowing, earrings like a metronome as you ask, "That fast? You're awesome."

He turns the pedal and your back wheel spins in time with his heart. You're awesome. When was the last time somebody who wasn't Wayne said anything like that?

Although Dustin had told him he thought Eddie was a much cooler, more fucked up version of the guy from Van Halen the other day.

You're just saying that 'cos we're both called Eddie, Eddie had said morosely.

Learn to take a compliment, dude.

When they aren't pity compliments, he might.

Eddie lifts your bike back onto the wheels to show you that it's working perfectly. You giggle your evident pleasure. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" you say, super sweet even as grape juice sloshes over the rims of your flowered glasses and drips down your fingers.

"Here, let me," he says, taking the glasses from your purple-stained hands.

You kiss your hands clean which is a thing, a lot to watch. Eddie admits to himself that he thinks you're really pretty, recognises that that is a bad thing to think considering the likely very short life span of your acquaintance. God knows you won't be saying anything as friendly when you find out who he is.

"You're so nice," you say. It feels like you're talking more to yourself than him. "Thank you. It's slipped off three times this month, and ten dollars is ten dollars. Wait, do you want ten dollars?"

"My services were administered charitably.”

Your smile grows. You accept your glass and take a small sip, eyes lit up as Eddie steers your bike one-handed to rest against the porch.

"Do you wanna come inside? I don't have any of the Dio, but I have Blondie."

He holds in a throwaway comment about real rock and roll, astounded that you’d ask him. "Your folks aren't home?"

"I'm twenty-two."

Eddie squints at you. "Seriously?"

"You didn't think so?"

He shrugs. It's not that you don't look twenty two. Or even that you don't act twenty two. But it's been a long time since he met somebody living alone in the park. Forest Hills is where poverty comes to settle.

"A boyfriend?"

"Just me and mister Porterson."

"That your grandpa?"

"That's my pet fish."

He smiles. It's his first real, authentic smile in days. He's genuinely elated by your offer and your attitude, but he doesn't know how to handle it, struck with a sudden nightmare of you, afterward, telling somebody you'd invited him in and he'd tried to hurt you. It isn't fair of him to assume you'd do anything like that. You've been nothing but sweet and sincere this whole time.

Eddie hasn't let his guard down in a long time.

You're giving him this wide-eyed, imploring look that promptly suffocates any fear.

And in a week, when she finds out who you are and feels betrayed, feels tricked? What then, Munson?

"You know what happened?" he asks.

"What happened?"

"Two years ago. Chrissy… Chrissy Cunningham?"

Don't say her fucking name.

Your expression clears as clarity blooms. You take a step. He needs a second to realise you've come forward rather than away, fingers twitching toward his hand.

"I know about it. I'm sorry that happened to you."

He stares.

This is a trick. Two years and he can count the amount of people who believe him on his two hands, and only because they'd all gone through it with him. Sometimes there are outliers, logical people who seem to realise Eddie couldn't have killed all those people, couldn't have been in all those different places without leaving any evidence behind. And sometimes there are people who agree he didn't kill Chrissy, but he's a coward for leaving her to die. (She’d already been dead.)

Eddie doesn't know what he thinks. Wayne sets the record straight every now and then with a clap on the shoulder. You did what every parent wants their kid to do. You lived. I can't ask for more than that.

"You don't believe it?"

"That you hurt her?" You hold his gaze, face practically impassive. "No, I don't believe it."

He pulls in a breath that fills every inch of his chest. "I could learn to like Blondie," he says.

—

You're standing in the driveway of Eddie's trailer with a heavy bag over your shoulder, face to face with a man who kind of looks like him but not really. You assume it's his uncle because who else could he be? If you hadn't seen him here you'd never guess.

"Eddie's mom must've had strong genes," you say. You bring your shoulder up toward your cheek thoughtfully. "He didn't get any of your face. Was she pretty? Eddie's really pretty."

"She was," he says, peering down his nose at you.

"I got sandwiches. Do you want one?"

"What kind?"

"I have ham and cheese, or ham and lettuce and tomato, or I have pumpernickel cookies. Is Eddie a vegetarian?"

"Why?"

"'Cause I only brought one cheese and cucumber, and I have dibs."

He climbs down the last couple of steps and is still taller but definitely less imposing, face covered in scratchy salt and pepper stubble and crows feet deeply embedded into the corners of his eyes. He looks like a man who has been tired for a very long time. You make a mental note to bring him some lavender for his pillow on your next visit.

"You're Eddie's new friend?"

You nod your head briskly. "Yes, sir. I'm Y/N."

He opens his box of camels like a pro, bottom pressed to his chest. He tucks a cigarette between his lips and pulls his lighter out. He doesn't light it.

"It's nice to meet you," he says eventually, voice warming.

You search through the mess of your skirt for the zipper on your bag and peel it open, pulling out your tupperware of cookies and cracking them open to release the fragrant smell of cinnamon and almonds. It's a heady scent, fitting for the holiday season approaching.

You offer Eddie’s uncle a cookie.

"Thought pumpernickel was bread," he says gruffly, taking one.

"It is, but there's this little town in France that makes these every year at Christmas and they call them pumpernickel biscuits," — he takes a bite and winces at the hard snap — "you're s'posed to dip them in hot chocolate."

"You don't say."

You nod happily and he moves aside to let you pass.

"Thanks, kid."

You turn back to him with your fingers curled around the door handle. "Of course! It's really nice to meet you, Mr. Munson, sir."

"Wayne is fine."

You laugh and repeat his name in a similarly rough voice, letting yourself in as Eddie had told you to do. You find him immediately in a man-made corner of the living room, pale and in his pyjamas. The trailer is open planned, a living room they’ve divided by propping a couch against the kitchen counter, a slim hallway leading to a cramped bathroom and the single bedroom. It's exactly like in your home.

You're somewhat surprised to see him in pyjamas. Eddie doesn't wear comfy looking clothes out of the house — you've only ever seen him in jeans and jackets like a real rockstar.

"Are you ready?" you ask.

You've invited him to come and search for bugs with you. Catching any kind of bug, whether beetle or butterfly or spider, is really scary, but you need to be able to catch them to draw them.

You'd expressed this to him over the phone and he'd said, "I can come and help. I have good reflexes."

He rubs his hands over his knees. There's a blanket pooled around his feet, a quilt he must sleep with, and the room is decorated with not a whole lot of stuff but enough to make you take a step back.

"Is this your room?" you ask, enchanted.

"Kind of." He pulls his hair from behind his ear, obscuring a pale cheek. "I don't think I can come with you today, I'm sorry. I meant to call you."

You toy with a dark thigh high sock as you ease out of your shoes, height drastically decreasing. "That's okay, we can stay here. I brought you a sandwich. I brought you two sandwiches," you correct.

He nods. Rather sadly, in your opinion. "Alright. Thanks."

You step over a tented paperback and hand off the cookies before sitting down beside him on the couch he's occupying. It's smaller than the one against the wall and round like a clam, lots of room for your legs to stretch out.

"I feel like a pearl," you say.

You and Eddie have been friends for a little while now. Long enough for you to realise he's either depressed or mentally unwell in some way. You hardly mind keeping him company on his bad days if he needs somebody, so drawing bugs will have to wait.

His hair is limp, not totally greasy but not super clean either. His face looks fresh enough, though the bags under his eyes make you frown.

You pull your purse into your lap, thighs covered by the thin layers of your midi skirt. "I have just the thing for you," you murmur.

"Yeah? Bring me another bracelet?"

You like that he sounds eager. Making his bracelet had been a challenge, lots of knotting and double knotting, three restarts and one small under the breath tantrum. It's not anything special, black and white hearts seven strands wide, but he'd been very appreciative.

"No, but I can make you another one if you want. I mastered the inverse chevron last night."

He hums. You pull a saran wrapped sandwich from the depths of your crowded bag, glad to see it's mostly intact. When you open it up you find that it's the ham and lettuce and tomato one, so you drop it into his lap haphazardly and move onto the next.

"Aha! Here," you pull a cucumber from your sandwich. "For you."

He takes it between two tentative fingers. "Thank you?"

"For your eyes."

"There's cheese on it."

"I'll still work," you assure him.

"M'not putting cheese on my eyes."

You laugh because he probably shouldn't put cheese on his eyes, cucumber adjacent or otherwise. "Okay, don't. I'll make you a hot towel."

He drops his hand on your arm as you go to stand. You like how he touches you, soft but not scared. "You just got here. Stay here." He pats you nicely. "Tell me about work last night."

You settle heavily into the seat beside him, your thigh to his thigh, your hip squished against his hip, doughy flesh separated by nothing more than a strappy tank top and a cotton long-sleeve t-shirt. His heat quickly becomes yours, a sinking transference of warmth.

"Well," you begin, cheek turning into the couch to face him. "It was mostly okay. I dropped another plate, but this time it didn't have a stack of waffles on it."

He smiles ruefully and sinks back as you had. Neither of you eat your sandwiches. "Progress. Taking it out of your pay?"

"Yes, definitely."

"Discrimination."

"That's what I said! I said, Sarah, I was born with butterfingers and you know that."

"She didn't budge?"

"Dishwashing all week next week. Whatever, though, 'cause it's Saturday."

He laughs and shakes his head, his gaze dropping to your neck. He does that sometimes. You can't blame him; you wear a varying assortment of necklaces because you think they're pretty, and you're glad he likes them too.

"See my new one?"

"What?"

"New necklace." You look down at your chest and pull the newest addition from between the cups of your bra. "It's real silver."

"It's nice."

"It's surprisingly heavy. Wanna feel?"

"That's okay," he says, slightly strained.

Right, you think. I'm talking a lot.

You press your lips together in a mild pout and look at him through appreciative eyes. He's a very pretty boy, all soft and pale and sweet dark curls.

"Do you want me to put your hair up?"

His lips part before he talks. "I don't know if you should."

"Sure I should. It's getting in your eyes, right?" You take his hand where it's laid unsuspectingly in his lap and slip the hair tie from around his wrist, his fingertips tickling the inside of your palm. "Sit forward, Eddie."

He takes a deep breath, holds it, and sits up. You twist and then realise you need some more height, pushing a leg under yourself to kneel next to his lap.

You weave our fingers softly into the hair at the front of his face and rake away in lieu of a brush. After it's mostly tamed you pull it all into one hand and wrap the tie at the base of his head. You hum to yourself as you go, pleased when his lovely curls behave.

"Voilà," you announce, moving back on your haunches.

He breathes out. "Thank you."

You reach for a curl you'd missed at the very front and encourage it behind his ear. He has subtle indents in his cheeks today like he's in need of a good meal, and his skin is colder than it should be when you flatten your palm.

"You need something to eat," you fret. Your fingertips stroke under his eye, your thumb his smile lines.

He moves away slowly.

You pull your hand back into your lap. "Maybe we can go out and get something, if you don't like the sandwich?"

"What?" he asks, pale lips taut as he simpers at you. "Are you kidding? This is about to fix everything that's wrong with me."

His enthusiasm emboldens you. "It so will! There's ham and cheese too, if you prefer that one."

"Get it! I'm gonna eat both of them." S

Eddie eats both of his sandwiches and you eat your own, the two of you with your heads dropped back against the couch as you watch TV. There's a guy you've never seen before running around the streets of Chicago city centre looking for people to be in his play. Eddie's seen it before. He repeats dialogue in time with the characters, performing each line. Impressive, what with how tired he looks.

"What did he just say?" you ask, mouth full of cucumber.

"He said he's gonna throw himself off a bridge," Eddie informs. "Poor guy. I know the feeling."

You swallow harshly.

"Seriously?"

Your sad tone surprises him.

"I- No, I'm kidding," he says, scratching the base of his throat, friendship bracelet his only adornment.

His nervous itching makes you even more worried.

"If you did wanna do that, you can talk to me-"

He baulks, tongue poking out past his lips as he licks the corner of his mouth. "Thanks, sweetheart," he says, pet name like a kiss. It sounds silly but it really feels like one, right in the centre of your chest. "But I'm fine. Promise. It was a bad joke."

"Okay," you say, letting your suspicion shine through. You hold his eyes.

You haven't known Eddie long. It feels like you met yesterday, though really it's been two or three weeks. You fit together in a way you hadn't expected and adore more than you can articulate, two funny puzzle pieces.

"Well, I just wanted you to know. I like being your friend, I don't want you to disappear."

He laughs and licks his lips, a rough, chesty sound. "I don't want you to disappear either."

Tires crunch outside, a shushing sound and then the sharp shriek of a jeep being put into park. Eddie perks up considerably, his shoulders straightening.

"Hey, Chief," Wayne calls.

Trailer walls. Basically made of cardboard.

"Hey, Wayne. Where's the kid?"

You can't hear what Wayne says after that, words stolen by the TV.

"Is that Chief Hopper?" you ask, trying to catch a glimpse of him through the mostly shuttered blinds.

"Yeah, he- He's friends with Wayne."

"Why's he wanna know where you are?"

"'Cause I got into so much trouble."

You bite your tongue. His tone is hard, not stern but almost, and you realise you've overstepped as you usually do. You want to apologise but you don't want to pick the wound, eager to gloss over and make him smile again.

"It's pretty cool, isn't it?" you ask him.

"What?"

You spread your legs wider to slide onto your thighs and make him the taller one again, legs bent in a 'W' shape. "Coming back from the dead! First Will Byers, then Hopper."

Something surfaces in his expression. An irony.

"The undead," you croon, aiming for a smile, a laugh.

He cracks. "The undead," he agrees, smiling in bemusement. His eyes are a funny shade of brown.

—

Eddie shoo’s you home early that night but tries to do it kindly. He feigns exhaustion, a facade that's difficult to uphold when his entire body is thrumming with want. If there's one thing Eddie hates about being a vampire (there are literally hundreds of things he hates, but this one's special) it's that he wants to hurt the people he likes a thousand times more than the people he doesn't.

He can't explain it. Your blood is more appealing than any lonesome stranger's. Your pulse is practically music to his ears when you sit beside him. He'd kill himself before he ever hurt you, though. Or that's what he likes to think. Whether he has that amount of control is debatable.

No. He would kill himself before he hurt you, or Wayne, or any of his friends.

Steve can see the way that he's feeling on his face.

Hopper's delivery set to one side, a tall glass with blood congealed in a sticky ring at the bottom, Eddie curls under his huge quilt and tries not to pass out. Blood sate feels the same as a thanksgiving food coma. It's awesome.

He hates how good it feels.

"Stop feeling guilty," Steve says.

"He doesn't look guilty to me," Dustin says beside him, taller than the last time Eddie had seen him but still miles off of Steve's tall stature. He's changed his hat again, this one a garish green. It's not a good look.

"He looks like he's napping," Robin says, delighted.

"Can you guys go home?" Eddie asks.

"Shithead."

"What Steve means to say," Robin corrects, grinning her huge, catching smile, "is that no, we aren't going home. We brought games."

"I don't wanna play games." He does. Eddie needs the distraction, because eventually the blood sate will fade and all that will remain will be self-revulsion and a cruel desire to do something awful.

"I do not care even slightly," Steve says, deadpan, as he sits right there next to Eddie where you'd been sitting before. Steve's nowhere near as soft and he doesn't smell as nice, but Eddie's honestly glad someone is willing to sit next to him at all.

"Ouch, what the fuck?"

Dustin looks up from where he's sat himself on the floor. Robin giggles in her seat on the coffee table.

"Munson, are you fucking shedding? I just got stabbed."

"They don't work like that. They retract."

Eddie feels at his broken gums with his tongue. There's a clean incision where his fangs come out and then snap back inside after a time. They're remarkably thin, fitting in front of his natural incisors neatly.

Steve grumbles, hips lifted and hand searching under his butt for whatever it is that jabbed him. He retrieves exactly what Eddie had been expecting but hadn't had the forethought to prepare a lie about with a shocked gasp.

"Is this an earring? You don't have your ears pierced."

He swallows, knowing it's a very guilty gesture, and meets Steve's eyes straight on.

Funny how Steve's hair speaks as much as his expression, bobbing as he nods his head to emphasise each word, "Munson, do you have a girlfriend?"

Silence.

"...Not really."

"Holy shit," Dustin says, sounding extremely pleased. "No way."

Robin tucks her short hair behind her ears, hands paused in disbelief at her neck. "Actually?"

"I have a friend," Eddie admits.

"Thank god," Steve says, dropping your heart earring onto Eddie's thigh. The silver feels extremely hot over his pyjamas, like it's been held in the centre of a blistering hearth.

"I really thought Steve was gonna have to take one for the team and give you a pity handie," Robin says agreeably, scratchy voice coloured by genuine awe.

Eddie groans, "Harrington, get this shit off of me. You know I can't touch that."

"I forgot," Steve lies. "Can you wait? My hands are busy."

—

He has Steve put your earring between two pieces of kitchen towel and holds onto it. He doesn't see you for a week, and he keeps your damn earring in his pocket that entire time worried it's gonna slip out and brand him at any second.

Finally, you call him. He pretends he wasn't waiting.

"Hello," you say, like you're announcing something.

"Hey. How are you?"

"Eddie, I need your help. Badly."

He flinches up where he'd been leaning casually, hard enough to make Wayne jump. Eddie smiles at him placatingly and mouths a poor sorry, turning away to pretend there's a semblance of privacy to be found in such close quarters.

"Are you okay?"

"I gotta find a rainbow leaf beetle. Do you have a torch?"

"...What?"

"They only come out at night, so I'm gonna go look but I don't have a torch that works."

He relaxes, the lilting cadence of your voice enough to make his whole night. You sound so pretty even through the phone. He suspects you could hold any pitch, deep or high, and you'd still sound nice.

It's all in the way you — he says this with love — perform the words. You speak like each word you're saying has equal importance, and it's calming.

Even when you say stuff that's nonsense to him.

Right now, you don't sound upset or even worried about not having a torch, simply curious to know if he has one. If he focuses hard (and he's been trying not to, as you deserve your privacy) he can hear you all the way across the park, shifting from foot to foot in your bedroom, carpet crushed under your heels.

The action makes him think this might be more urgent to you than you'd first admitted.

"I have a torch." He also has amazing night vision. Like, impeccable. "Can I come help?"

"You want to?"

"I'd love to. Are you going out tonight?" He leans back to glance out the window. "The rain is finally stopping."

"Yeah, tonight! Is that okay for you? We could go tomorrow if you can't."

You're willing to change your plans now that he's asked to go with you. It's a gesture as lovely as you are. Eddie doesn't think you'd ever think it of yourself; your kindness is so intrinsic you don't notice it, like the fine stitching of a leather bound book. Integral and widely unappreciated.

"That's perfect."

Wayne raises an eyebrow when Eddie relays the conversation. "You're going out in the middle of the night with this girl to… look for bugs."

Eddie crosses his arms over his chest. "I swear."

"Be honest with me, kid."

"I am!"

Wayne swirls his coke can around in his hand as he thinks, a reluctance evident in his scowl. Eddie knows he's way too old for a guardian's oversight like this but he lets Wayne have a say because Wayne loves him, and Eddie doesn't ever want to put his old man through the turmoil he went through when he ran away. If that means a curfew in his twenties, Eddie's okay with that.

"If you're going to have sex with this girl, I'd prefer you did it here. You have to treat women with respect."

Eddie shivers, full body. "Wayne," he groans, covering his face. He can feel his cheeks pink under his palms, that's how quickly his embarrassment rises.

"I know you're more responsible these days, and you're a grown up. If you want a girlfriend and you want to do adult things with her-"

"Jesus Christ."

"- then that's alright. You don't have to fool around outside."

He drags his hands down on his face, pained. "It's not like that. You met her, you know she's…"

"Strange?"

"Alternative."

"No, you're alternative. She's cooky."

"Don't," he says. He knows his uncle isn't actually being cruel, so he lets it lie and fights for his own cause. "We aren't messing around. She genuinely wants me to go find these bugs with her. And…" He hates himself. "She has her own place, you know? If we were going to-"

Wayne seems stricken by the same mortified embarrassment as Eddie, raising a calloused hand in surrender. "Spare me."

"Thank you," Eddie says, spinning on his heel to hide in the bathroom for a while. It's only when he's sitting on the closed toilet does he realise Wayne hadn't mentioned his more dangerous ailment. For a time, he'd been a normal (debatable) person having a normal (horrifying) conversation with his dad. Not a vampire. Not somebody who ruins everything he touches.

—

"It's so quiet," you whisper.

For you, Eddie thinks.

You're in the forest surrounding the aptly named Forest Hills trailer park, wielding your borrowed torch carefully into the dark. Eddie's following in your footsteps, trying not to smell everything that's on you today and failing.

You smell like a person as everybody does. Over that is your soap, a faint hint of milk and honey that sticks to your skin even after you've washed it away. Over that is your deodorant, 'unscented', and over that is your perfume, which he likes most. It's a mix of smells, some Eddie doesn't know and some he does. There's lavender, though that might be down to the bunch you'd brought for his uncle wrapped in newspaper, and there's something fruity he can't quite put his finger on, all of it wrapped up in a cloying pairing of vanilla and coconut.

"Eddie?"

"What?"

"Are you okay? You're almost as quiet as the trees."

If only you knew the trees aren't quiet.

"I'm alright," he says quickly, catching up to you where you stand a few feet ahead. "What are we looking for?"

Best change the subject. How to explain he'd been smelling the notes of your perfume?

"They rest on tree trunks. You have to be careful, any sudden sound or light will scare them away. But if you flash the torch on them, they shine like oil stains."

He loves when you talk. "Where'd they come from?"

"Place called Snowdon. They're so rare, they think there's only about a thousand alive there."

"Well, how did they get here?"

You laugh under your breath, so quiet he would've missed it if he wasn't enhanced. "I don't know. How do beetles get to different places?"

"They fly?"

A twig crunches under your shoe.

Eddie tips his head to the side, thinking. "If there's only a thousand, how-" He stops, your circle of torch light growing further and further away. "Are you sure that they live here?"

"No, but if they do we'll be the first to find them."

"So they've never found any out here? In- In the midwest?"

"Not yet. Where'd you go?"

He shakes his head in an affectionate disbelief. "Right behind you."

You search in silence for a while. Eddie wishes he could say he was mad, or even mildly annoyed, wishes he had even the slightest regard for his own time, but really he thinks any time with you is time well spent. Especially if it's helping you do something you want to do. Whether you find your rainbow leaf beetle or not, he feels better knowing he's out here with you to keep you safe and in company.

Conversation is sparing. He doesn't mind. Your footsteps fill the sound and he finds even that stupid detail charming, the crunch, the pick up. His own are silent, a rare advantage to his terrible affliction.

"Any other beetles you want me to keep an eye out for?" he whispers.

"I'm not sure…" You turn to face him, torch pointed at your shoes. Rubber toes touched together, you lean in until you're all he can smell. Perfume. Blood. "If you see any cool spiders, too."

"You have the mason jar?"

"You know I do."

More than you realise, he thinks. The glass clicks in your bag.

There's enough light reflected to see the most minute details of your face. Your nose, the circle of your irises but not their colour. He suspects Eddie from early '86 wouldn't have been able to see hide nor hair, and it wouldn't shock him if you were technically blind right now.

"Thanks for coming out with me. I was gonna ask you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, but I didn't want to come on too strong." He can sense your smile even though he can't see it. It's in the way your breathing deepens. "I know I can be a lot to deal with."

"Who told you that?"

"What?"

Eddie doubles down.. "Who told you that?" he sounds heartbroken.

He kind of is. Yeah, you're weird — Who cares? Who isn't? — but you're not a lot to deal with. He doesn't 'deal' with you.

"Everybody tells me that. All the time."

"Everybody's stupid." To say it so loudly, scathingly, is sweet. It's therapeutic. "They are. This whole town is stupid."

Your fingertips touch his thigh. He's willing you to turn the torch up and see his face, because he has a lot of feelings on display that he isn't brave enough to say out loud.

"You never make me feel stupid," you say softly.

"You're not."

You giggle breathily at his vehemence, fingertips pressing in with a touch more pressure before you pull away and shine the torch deep into the trees.

"This whole town is stupid," you mumble. "But not you."

He thinks of his friends who are definitely stupid, but he loves anyways. He's about to add them to the not-stupid (subjectively) list when he remembers Steve's discovery: your earring burning a hole in his pocket. He'd been carrying it for long enough now to forget all about it.

"Hey, I have something for you."

"You do?"

"Don't get too excited. It's not a gift."

He digs in his pocket for the tissue paper wrapping and hisses in shock as the silver plating of your hoop graces his index finger. You shine the torch at him. His eyes ache like he's been stabbed and he slams them closed, hand pulled to his chest.

How embarrassing.

"Eddie, what happened?" you question loudly.

He winces at the sudden overstimulation. Slowly, he blinks, and finds you staring at him in a worry that softens every feature, even your nose. He doesn't know the logistics.

"It's okay. Stabbed a paper cut on the back. Your earring's in my pocket, the heart?"

"The hoop? I thought I lost it." Your worry turns to confusion and then melds into joy. You step forward and fish in his jacket pocket for your earring.

"Steve found it."

"'The hair'?"

"Yeah, the hair."

You both laugh and yours heightens when you find the earring, pulling it out like a knife to be brandished. "Yes."

"I meant to tell you a dozen times that I had it."

"You're the best."

There's a crunch of wood somewhere to the left like something heavy falling over.

The forest sprawls in every direction and the trees tower, their presence looming as skyscrapers. The wind ruffles the topmost branches and their trunks groan with pressure. It's enough to freak Eddie out super sense or not, feeling suddenly like he couldn't protect you. He could hear the individual droplets of drool dripping from a lynx's bloody maw, and he can sense each twig underfoot before he takes his next step, but none of that is going to keep you safe in the face of real danger.

"Maybe we should head back," he says tentatively.

"Okay. Do you want to come over?"

His breath catches. "You want me to?"

"Yeah, we can watch movies, I have leftover pasta."

That sounds more like what he should've been thinking. "I don't wanna keep you up."

"What kind of pasta?" he asks.

The torch flickers. "With the tiny tomatoes. You'll like it, super creamy."

"How do you know?"

"You like Alfredo," you say astutely, hitting the torch into the palm of your hand. It flashes weakly, the shadow of the trees flickering and so dark they're violet.

"Try tightening the handle."

You turn the barrel of the torch and the light switches off completely. You try to undo what you've done to no success, the sound of plastic rubbing plastic almost as loud as your heartbeat. Your pulse falters and then grows to racing when the light fails to come back on.

"Eddie," you say, sounding unsure. It's a new sound on you. "I don't know where we are. How are we gonna get home?"

Your admission is like a dousing of ice water over his head. "You don't know what direction we came from?"

"No, do you?"

Eddie wouldn't know if he couldn't hear the sound of the electricity pylon buzzing somewhere to the right. But how can he explain that? "Uh, we were turned around."

You creep to his side and grab his arm with both hands. "Are you sure?"

"Hey," he says gently. "Hey, it's okay. I know where we are. We'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" you ask again.

"I'm positive."

You take a deep breath that doesn't erase your shakiness, a failed attempt at self-soothing. "I really don't know where we are."

"You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

"Not really… I don't wanna get lost out here."

"You won't. I know how to get back. C'mon," he prompts, pulling his arm to encourage you forward.

You let go of him and navigate a few steps by yourself. He weaves through the trees, waiting for your heartbeat to slow.

It doesn't. He opens his mouth to reassure you again when you gasp, kicking your foot against a root and tripping. You barely fall, catching yourself on the trunk of a tree, and Eddie remembers himself. You can't see the trees. That's why you're worried. You can't see anything.

Then the smell of blood hits him like a freight train.

—

Your hand stings where you caught yourself, palm scraped down against harsh bark.

"Shit," you mumble.

You're panicking badly, and you're confused as to why Eddie isn't. Not only was it fucking stupid of you to come out here with only one torch, it was stupid of you to assume you'd remember what way was home. It was stupid of you to come here tonight for that stupid beetle, and stupid of you to drag Eddie along. You're an idiot, and now you're bleeding.

Your eyes sting with tears, pain like a popped seal. I'm so stupid.

"Hey," Eddie says, his tone silky soft, "you're okay. Let me help you up."

You hold your hands out.

"Eddie, this is weird." Hopefully he understands that weird means scary.

He takes your hands, fingers closing slowly over your bloody palm. His breath is loud as he pulls you up toward him like he's panicked but his grip stays kind, and you abandon the notion when he rubs over your knuckles with his thumb. "It's alright."

He doesn't sound the same.

"Eddie, we can't see."

"We'll go slowly, okay? I'll put my hand out and we'll walk around anything that gets in the way."

"Yeah," you say hurriedly, heart bump-bump-bumping against your ribcage.

He keeps one hand, the injured one, and starts to drag you slowly through the trees. His grip tightens as you go until it starts to ache, until it feels like it might bruise.

"Ouch, Eds. You're hurting me," you say, going for a lightly teasing tone and missing the mark.

Instantly, he eases off. "Sorry, sweetheart. You hold onto me, alright?"

You do as he'd asked, hand clinging to him as he leads. He doesn't squeeze you again, walking slowly as he'd promised, and the closer you get to the edge of the forest the clearer it becomes. Light pollution from the centre of town leaches through the trees like water trickling from an overflowing basin.

His second hand is in his pocket.

"Here," he says after you've traversed to the very edge of the forest. "There's the park. We're bona fide explorers."

He looks out toward the park and you look at the side of his face. Something isn't right. Something uncanny.

You drop your gaze from his face to your joined hands. They come apart, blood smeared in both your palms like two halves of a dripping heart.

—

There is something weird about Eddie. As a residential freak of Hawkins you think you're an authority in this, and you don't feel guilty for judging him. Your brain can't stop going over your night in the forest. For days you play the scenes back and for days you lose the details. You forget how the wind had tousled his hair, how he'd smelled, what he'd said.

You remember the way he'd squeezed your bloody hand. You remember the way he'd spoken, strained.

Not strained like he didn't want to comfort you, he had, but strained.

Restrained.

You're poking at the shallow cut half-healed now in your palm at work when a dude walks in, very tall, handsome, and gunning straight for you.

You straighten your badge and hide your bracelet heavy wrists behind your back, receding slightly as he approaches. He slows in front of you.

You have a light bulb moment.

"The hair," you say.

He scowls. "He told you that, huh. Typical."

"You're Steve?"

"That's me." Steve crosses his arms across his chest, his back to a booth, your back to the diner bar. "You're Eddie's new friend."

"What counts as new?" A month and a half doesn't feel so new to you.

"Trust me, you're new."

He has the strangest patch covering the outside of his left wrist, the same peculiar scarring that you can see on Eddie's waist when he reaches for a glass out of the kitchen cabinet. You don't ask because you're not a dick no matter how curious you find yourself, but it makes your heart skip. What is that? You'd assumed Eddie's was road rash. Now you're not so sure.

He tucks it under his arm.

You meet his suspicious gaze.

"You want coffee?"

"No."

You kick your foot, shoe sliding over the shiny waxed floor with a squeal. "Is Eddie okay?"

"Did you want to come to a party next Friday?"

"No," you say honestly. "Like a cult?"

"What?"

"Are you initiating me into your cult?"

He finally smiles, eyes creased with amusement. "I'm inviting you to our club."

"Club where you chew on each other?"

You look pointedly at Steve's wrist.

"No. Club where we play board games and drink jiffy pop. Come or don't, doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't matter, why are you asking me?"

It's a strangely intense conversation to have this early in the morning. Patrons chatter about work, coffee gets poured. The diner smells of syrup and sugar and bitter cold-press. You're both in work apparel, both refusing to move back. If this is some kind of shovel talk then that's fine, and if it's a test you're determined to pass, even if Eddie's been super weird lately.

"I'll come if you promise not to eat me," you say.

"It's really not that kind of club."

—

"I had the weirdest visit in the entire world today," you declare, stopping in front of Eddie's porch with a smile.

"Yeah?" he asks without looking up, guitar in his lap and pen scribbling over a lined notebook.

You wait for him to stop before you continue, leaning forward with both arms braced on the porch by his feet. "Steve Harrington came to see me, and he was super mean. You said he was nice."

He frowns at you. "I told you he was a dick."

"You like him when you tell me stories."

"How mean?" Eddie asks, patting the seat beside him.

You climb up onto the porch and plop down onto the couch, worn leather cold with the weather and damp in the seams.

You take a strand of his hair and curl it around your finger. "Not really super mean, but he was, like, acting like I killed a baby."

"He's like that."

You sigh and lean your cheek against the couch cushion, watching Eddie's stubble move as he tamps down a teasing smile. "He invited me to a party next weekr."

"It's not a party- Sweetheart, what are you doing?"

You tickle his cheek with the end of his hair. "Nothing."

"M'gonna sneeze."

You tickle him again, fine dark strands brushing over his pale cheek. He's a very ashen guy, you've found. Likely because he barely goes out in the sun and he doesn't eat enough. You draw circles around the apple of his cheek and grin softly at his growing smile, a sweet, silly thing.

"I'll tickle you back," he warns.

"Promise?"

He steals the curl back and tucks it behind his ear.

"You're not a cannibal, are you?"

Eddie chokes on air. You startle at his coughing and move to pat his back, palm slapping a steady rhythm into his shoulder. When he calms down you run your hand down the length of his arm, long sleeve t-shirt soft beneath your touch. You linger at his wrist and decide to hold it.

He drops his pen and your hand travels until he's caught your thumb. He kneads it in his fingers.

"I'm not a cannibal. Why would you think that?"

"I don't, but you and Steve are in your club, right?"

"Hellfire wasn't like that," he says heatedly.

"No, not- Not that one."

He doesn't say anything.

"You have… He has this scar, on his wrist. Like something bit him, or-" He turns to you and he looks formidable and upset and himself, not mad at you but raw emotion in his expression anyhow. It's gone as quick as it came.

"When all that… stuff happened," he begins quietly, "we got hurt. A couple of us."

You drop your head, ashamed at having pried. "I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me anything else."

"Don't be sorry…" He squeezes your hand and lets it go. "Don't worry about it."

"Okay."

"We usually call ourselves a party, these days. Not a club."

"Do you really play board games and drink jiffy pop?"

"Sometimes we get really crazy and order a pizza. You should come."

You realise as he says it how much his wanting you to go had mattered to you. Eddie's your friend, and you don't think that you're going to stay friends much longer.

"You think your friends will like me?" you ask, voice descending to a new kind of gentle.

He puts down his guitar and his notebook. His full attention is something you've come to really enjoy, not because of the hunger you often see flitting across his face — though that's neat —, but because of the inklings of adoration clinging to his smile when he looks at you. His blinking lashes. He smiles at you and just slows. A usually frenetic boy calmed.

"Maybe not Mike. Mike doesn't like anybody. Except for Will," he muses.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Who do you like?"

"I like all of them." He juts his cheek toward his shoulder, conceding, " I think Dustin's my favourite. He's funny. He's funnier than I am, and he's the smartest kid I've ever met. And he knows it."

Your eyes focus on the pink outline of his upper lip as he speaks. It's a pleasure to be this close, and see him in this kind of crazy detail. When you go home tonight you might try to draw him. You'll probably forget.

It's the kind of smile that deserves to be immortalised.

"I really like your smile," you tell him, hoping it'll last a little longer.

It stretches. The pink outline turns white. "Shut up."

"I do. I've seen a thousand different smiles but I've never met someone who smiles like you do."

"How's that?" he asks, edging toward you, face a mirror in which you can see your own charmed expression.

"Like you," — you shake your head with your lips parted — "know a secret. Something you won't tell anybody."

His smile abruptly ends.

You've nothing if not a talent for saying the wrong thing.

"A good secret," you amend.

He picks up his acoustic and gives it an experimental strum. "Maybe one or two," he agrees.

Relief catches you. You nibble at the inside of your lip and watch his fingers work over the neck of his guitar, tipping your head so you can read the words he's markered over the body.

"This machine slays dragons," you murmur to yourself. "Yeah? How many?"

"Just the one."

"Save any princesses?"

"Not yet." He plucks at the strings, lost in thought, before turning to you with eyebrows raised. "Can you play?"

You exhale out of the corner of your mouth as he pushes the guitar into your lap, an arm coming around your shoulder, the other reaching to guide your curled forefinger to the strings. You turn to face him, watching him talk with a growing fondness.

"It's easy, I swear. We'll do Call Me. Blondie's basic, even a baby could play it."

He realises you aren't listening and raises his gaze, shiny brown irises stuck on your lips. This close, it would be worse if he didn't look at them.

You glance at his, an obvious thing, half a wish. If he only lifted his chin.

Your breath mingles.

"It's easy," he says again, a murmur of his usual volume as his gaze pulls back up to yours. "I'll show you."

You wonder if he can hear your heart pounding; it's deafening. You wait, and you wait, and you turn your eyes back to his guitar and clamp your fingers down against the struts so he can't see them shaking with adrenaline.

—

Eddie sits beside Steve and tries not to admit to himself that Steve Harrington is, horrifyingly, his best friend (along with the rest of the party, obviously). Steve is the closest in age and Eddie can't make excuses (though he tries and tries and tries), Steve understands how much Eddie doesn't ever want to talk about anything that's happened to them, so he talks about literally everything else instead.

"It was the weirdest pawn shop I've ever been in. They had, like, a wall of combi's playing the same video at the same time but all slightly delayed."

Eddie blinks.

Steve turns his head from the TV, having expected a response. "Did you say something?"

"No." Then, because he's not a dick. "Sorry, Harrington. Want me to sit on your other side?"

"What for?" Steve says. Not because he denies how he's hard of hearing, but because he denies having conversations with Eddie.

He does end up moving to Steve's other side with a pathetic excuse. "I can't see the TV."

Steve doesn't say a word until he's sat down again. "Sorry I was mean to your girlfriend."

"Yeah, what was that about?"

"I was cranky because it was early and I don't want her to damage the integrity of the party." He gives equal weight to both reasons.

Eddie snorts at him. "Since when do you care about the integrity of the party?" Steve barely acknowledges that they are a party. He thinks that's a very nerdy way to say friends.

"Since always, dipshit."

"And inviting her to join the party was the solution because…?"

Steve drinks the rest of his coke and pretends to really care about what's on TV. "If," he begins after a minute, refusing to look at Eddie, "something happens with her, and something happens to you, that damages the integrity of the party."

"Steve," Eddie says, jaw dropped down to his chest, "do you have a crush on me?"

"Oh my god," Steve mutters. "Oh my god," he says louder. "I can't stand you."

To prove his point, he gets up from the couch with a wrinkled nose, stops to tap his shoe gently against Max's where she's sitting in the armchair across from the coffee table, and disappears into his kitchen.

Steve Harrington cares about me enough to give Y/N the shovel talk.

He feels kind of great about it.

But he's not sure your the one who needs warning.

That night in the forest, Eddie had almost snapped. There are rules to follow if he wants to keep people safe, self-imposed, Hopper-imposed, and he's broken too many with you already, the most important being no close proximity when he's hungry. Eddie doesn't even realise he is hungry half the time. He'll be standing by you and he'll want to touch you, and suddenly it's like he's three weeks in to the month without sating.

He thinks about kissing you and suddenly he's thinking about biting you, and hurting you, and it's literally tearing him up from the inside out.

How can he want to do that to you?

"You look so depressed and pathetic," Dustin says out of the blue.

Eddie pouts and falls back into the couch, Steve's fancy throw falling onto his shoulder. "I used to like you," he says, taking in Dustin's outfit with a kind of parental approval. He's getting older and it shows, slightly more handsome than he had been — he's kept all his baby weight and it suits him, his full cheeks surrounded by the softest brown curls Eddie has ever seen. The outfit stays immature, a funny t-shirt and ill-fitting pants.

"Sad. You have a sad face," Dustin says.

"Go play with your nerd squad, please."

He doesn't listen, collapsing in Steve's still-warm seat like a cheap tent and crossing longer, thicker arms over his chest. He smiles at Eddie genuinely. "Where's your girlfriend?"

"No."

"Where's Y/N?"

Eddie tips his head so he can see past the coffee table and points to where you're almost hidden, sitting with Robin on the floor by Steve's sideboard. You have a basket of tapes in front of you, the two of you trying to choose what's going in the stereo. Eddie prays for anything but Blondie.

You will most likely choose Blondie.

"What does she like?" Dustin asks curiously.

"Everything, kind of. Why?"

"I wanna know what to say when I talk to her."

Eddie smiles at his friend's face, a soft, surprised thing. "I don't know if she knows anything about the radio but if you're happy about it she'll be happy too. She's a good listener."

Dustin picks at a piece of lint on his t-shirt bearing a white and black print of a dog wearing sunglasses. "So you talk to her?" he asks without looking up.

"I mean, yeah. What else do you do?"

"With a girl that likes you? Huh, let me think." Dustin laughs and ruins his own sarcasm, pointer finger laid against his chin in a show of thoughtfulness.

"It's not like that," Eddie says lightly.

"It could be."

"Could it? I mean… I don't even know if she'll stick around. And I feel bad 'cos I can't be honest with her."

"Why not?"

"Hopper said he would literally put me in the hole if I even thought about it." There's no need to expand. Dustin would know better than anyone what he's talking about.

He cringes at the thought, self hatred a hot poker down his throat. He must've said it to Dustin a hundred times when he finally came around from his coma (that wasn't a coma, but a death, and then a rebirth). I can't believe I put you through that. I can't believe I put you through that. I'm so sorry.

I'm just glad you're alive, Eddie.

And for a while, Eddie hadn't felt the same. The world he'd woken up to was hard. There had been lawyers and grief and guilt and becoming. He doesn't have the words to describe how it feels to become something new, something that needs to hurt people to live, something that will hurt people to live, whether Eddie wants to or not.

The loss of choice is suffocating.

Though moments like this with his friends– they don't make it 'worth it', they're just how it had to happen. There isn't a scenario where Eddie could give up. He can't leave Wayne, and he can't leave Dustin. He can live with the grief of what he is if it means other people don't have to live with grief of what he isn't.

"Eddie, are you okay?"

He's missed something. Dustin isn't the only one looking at him.

He curls a hand around his forearm subconsciously. "I'm fine. I think I'm gonna go to the bathroom, actually. Gotta piss real bad."

"Eddie-"

"I'm fine, Henderson." He puts on a good show, patting Dustin's arm. His heart, usually so slow these days, has enough life in it to ache.

He can't have been in the bathroom for five minutes when somebody knocks on the door aggressively. He's expecting Steve, pissed at his disappearance and likely preparing a speech on attention seeking behaviours and how they're hurting the youth of America, so he opens the door with a tired glare.

He finds you, beaming and pretty, dressed ridiculously nicely for his idiot friends.

"Hi," you say. He can hear something from Blondie's Parallel Lines playing from the living room, familiar because it's your favourite album. "Any room for me?"

Eddie moves back. You close the door behind you. The bathroom becomes a vacuum of your sounds and smells.

"They didn't have any Dio," you say with a smile.

"I honestly wouldn't expect any different."

"You could've brought some tapes, your mix from the van," you suggest. "I love that one."

"Which one?" he asks, and he can't help it, whenever he's with you his voice crops to a dulcet murmur. The urge to speak to you as you speak to him is unconquerable.

"One with the winking smile on the slipcase. I really like it."

"You can have it."

You lean against the sink. "I can?"

"Mm. Whatever you want." Especially when you look like this.

You smile at him, your 'thank you' smile, all sticky fondness and mischievousness. He has no idea what you're thinking.

"'S a small bathroom in a huge house," you marvel. Your voice echoes "Where does he shower?"

"There's an upstairs bathroom."

"Two bathrooms? That's-"

"Audacious?"

"I was gonna say overkill."

Your candidness has him shaking with laughter. He clutches at his sides, arms crossed and leaning forward. You visibly take in his appearance, eyes panning slowly over his clean hair. He'd taken care to look like somebody you might want to look at tonight.

"Why don't you sit down, Eds?" you ask, eyes creased with an unreadable emotion.

Eddie feels blindly for the toilet lid and pushes it down so he can do as you ask, wondering why you're asking.

"You look very handsome today."

He hugs himself. "As opposed to every other day, when I don't?"

You take a step forward, a second, hands playing with the hem of your shirt. Your outfit today is delightfully simple, a pressed black t-shirt long enough to cover the waistband of your pleated skirt. There's an expanse of thigh that makes his heart beat spin out, one longer than the other where your thigh-high is falling down.

He wants to pull it up.

"C'mere," he says.

You take that last step between his shoes and he reaches out, getting his fingertips under the elastic of your sock and tugging it upward over the soft fat of your leg. Your hands come up to his shoulders for balance, and you say, "No, you look handsome every day. Today you look very handsome. I made the distinction."

He covers your thigh with both hands, looking up into your face as you look down. "You look really pretty today," he says boldly, fingers spreading behind your knee.

"Thank you. Do you like my t-shirt?"

It's a screen print of Debbie Harry. Eddie tries not to roll his eyes. "I love it, but your dedication to Blondie is seriously worrying, sweetheart." He gives your leg a short squeeze and pulls the most giggly smile out of you yet.

"Like Madonna."

"No!" he bemoans.

You laugh and grow closer, arms on his shoulder, a hand threaded into his hair. "Cyndi Lauper?" you suggest.

He puts a hand on your waist as you move in for a hug. Your arms wrap around his neck and the tops of his shoulders, cheek crushed to the top of his head.

He'd ask if you were okay if he thought you weren't. You're not upset or seeking comfort. You're affectionate. You've been getting more and more touchy for weeks, as he has. Stolen touches, your almost-kiss on the porch last week.

"No, not Cyndi Lauper," he says, his hand skirting around your back to pull you in properly.

"R.E.M?"

"God, no. Where are you hearing all this junk?"

"The radio."

"Tuned into the wrong station."

You pet the back of his head. "Yeah," you say softly, "I think I was."

The hug is shorter than Eddie wants it to be. You make one of your happy sounds and pull away to get your hands on his face, stroking curls from his cheeks with a protective touch. "Handsome," you say, turning your hand to stroke his cheek with your knuckles. "Pretty. You have really big eyes, Eddie, so brown, and so…" You tilt your head to one side, face inching forward.

He turns his face to suit, to fit, breath held as you close the gap.

"So pretty," you murmur, and kiss him.

His hands are limp and then alive, one clutching your hip, one splaying against your chest. He can hear the thud of your heart clear as day — you're bumping with excitement as you kiss him. It's a delicate, tender thing, the party suddenly far away, the music drowned by the sounds of your breathing. You kiss as you talk, as you move, gentle but with bursts of ardency. Your lips are a blissful heat, the tip of your nose smushing into his as you part your lips over his.

He lifts his chin higher, his neck craned to receive you. He's savouring every movement. Each pause for breath that you take. The feeling of your inhales over his quick-bruising lips.

Your hands play in his hair so sweetly it makes his eyes burn with an embarrassing amount of emotion. He screws them closed and squeezes up your waist, steadying himself as you feel along his bottom lip with the tip of your tongue.

You don't get much further than that, seemingly pleased with your own brazeness or perhaps his touch, eyes glowing with mirth as you pull away.

"Sorry," you breathe, not sorry at all. "You just really looked like someone should be kissing you."

You're flushed. Eddie can practically see the heat emanating off of your cheeks. He can feel it.

He stands up, your pulse a ringing in his ears. The wet valves of your heart opening and closing.

"Eddie?" you ask quietly, lifting your head to meet his eyes as he walks you back into the door.

His gums sting. A click.

It's a compulsion.

His hands curl around your elbows, holding you in place. Your eyes are wide with confusion, your lightly swollen lips parted. He can see the tiniest slip of your pink tongue.

He holds your gaze as he leans in. Your eyelids flutter closed. You wrap your arms around him as he descends, totally trusting.

He's a meaner kiss than you are. He starts slow but swiftly loses a handle on it, kisses short but insistent, hot presses like little crescent moons against your barely open mouth.

His hands move up your arms, a near vice-like grip until he finds your sleeves. His fingers slip underneath, hands hungry for your warmth.

You make the worst sound anyone has ever made as he moves back, like something has been ripped from you. A gutted gasp, near silent.

He placates as he wades back in. Thumbs rubbing your arms, lips mouthing damp kisses down your face. The corner of your pout, the hill of your chin, the skin under your jaw. Your head tips back against the door with an audible thud. You exhale hard.

Eddie can't feel his hands.

Your pulse hammers under his lips. He kisses it once. He can't think. He can't breathe.

"You're always cold," you whisper, your hands drifting lazily under the fabric of his t-shirt. Your fingertips trail up his spine. "But your lips are warm."

He kisses your neck, his lips parting slowly, a hair's width a second as he sucks your skin into his mouth gently. It's barely a kiss. He does it a second time. A third. You start to laugh, a golden sound.

The point of his fangs touch your skin and you stop.

Eddie closes his mouth abruptly. His hand leaps to your neck and he feels your heart skip as he holds you still. "I'm sorry," he says, nose rubbing over the damp spot he's left behind, your teased skin.

Your heart hikes again.

"I'm sorry," he repeats. He pulls away, an agony.

"It's okay," you say. Your breathlessness says otherwise.

Eddie takes as many deep breaths as he can stand, wanting to clear his head and filling it with you instead. Your everything; your smell, your skin. Your limp hands against his back.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asks when he gets a look at you, your unreadable expression. He takes care to keep his head angled down so you can't see the lower half of his face.

"I don't think you could."

You cup his cheek in your hand and he leans into it, his weight against yours.

"I wanted to tell you something," you confess.

"What-" He licks his lips, wincing when his fangs slide into his tongue and scrape grooves across his taste buds. "What was that?"

"I know you…" You pause, fingertips rubbing at his cheek.

Does she know? Eddie thinks, horrified. He hadn't realised how scary waiting could be. A thousand worries condensed into a handful of seconds. Does she know?

How could she not?

You press your palm to his cheek with more insistence. "I don't want you to think you have to hide anything from me. I know you have scars," you say, fingers sliding into the soft baby hair at the back of his neck. "You don't have to cover up. You don't have to cover any of it."

"I won't hurt you," he says, trying to convince himself.

"I know."

You stay a while longer. Eddie's friends pretend that you hadn't been alone in the bathroom for an inordinate amount of time together. You thank them all silently and less so, trying to talk to as many of them as you can.

There's Lucas, who's really, really nice, and his girlfriend Max, who's less so. She gives you an unimpressed look through her thick-lensed glasses, but you compliment her crutches and she comes around.

There's Mike, who actually isn't anywhere as bad as Eddie had described him. He's not frosty or standoffish, he's sweet and he asks questions. There's a girl with him that you don't catch the name of, and a boy on her other side.

There's Dustin, who you adore immediately, Robin, who you adore more, and then there's Steve.

Steve offers you a pretzel like you're more than familiar. He strolls right up to you with a bowl of them in hand and doesn't leave until you've eaten half of them.

There's a couple of people you don't manage to talk to at all, and you feel guilty about it all the way home.

"What if they think I'm rude?" you ask, tired eyes locking onto the stereo system. The time blinks analog in the dark, 12:59AM.

"They don't, don't worry about it. You have lots of time to get to know them, anyway."

You hum and turn to his face, indulgent because you know he can't look back. "You're not too tired to drive, are you?" He's spent. Yesterday had been one of his bad days.

"I'm fine."

"You say that all the time," you observe, dropping your cheek into the passenger seat's headrest.

"I'm fine all the time."

"Liar."

"Nuisance."

You huff a laugh through your nose. The strands of his friendship bracelet, the small beads at the ends, swing like pendulums in the gap between his arm and the steering wheel. You can see the rough skin of a scar creeping out from under his sleeve.

"Mike was really nice," you say.

"He has a bleeding heart."

That feels accurate. "He reminds me of you."

Eddie rolls his eyes. You feel for every detail, the strange tension between you like a gaussian filter over everything. He's gorgeous in a horrific way, heartbreakingly pale, eyes dark as pitch, hands restless. They squeeze alone the wheel, thick fingers curling tight until his knuckles are stark white. Running down the back of his hands are veins like rivers. They're more purple than green.

"Eddie," you say, playful, a tiny bit insecure.

"What?"

"Wanna stay the night?"

His hand moves forward on the wheel like he's revving a motorcycle, the tendon in his wrist rising to the surface. He clenches. "Not sure it's a good idea."

"Just to sleep. It's late."

"I don't know if I can sleep next to you."

You don't wanna say please. You don't want to ask Eddie to do anything he can't or doesn't wanna do.

He pulls up outside of your house with his mind already made up. He gets out of the car and you follow his lead. He locks it, shoves the keys in his pocket as you join him on the path up to your porch.

He's been in here enough times to know what it looks like, but for some reason you find yourself checking his face, worried about what it is he thinks of your things, all your mismatched trinkets, your stained glass lamps, your life as you let yourselves in. He ducks through the beeded curtain into your bedroom wary that they'll get tangled in his hair like they sometimes do.

"Do you wanna call Wayne?" you ask, gesturing to your telephone on the right hand side, nestled between a stack of books and a cup full of coloured pencils.

You pull your knee up to your chest and unlace your shoes one at a time. Eddie punches the number into the phone and holds the receiver to his shoulder to do as you're doing. It takes him less time to pop his sneakers off than for you to get out of yours. He's just taken the phone back into his hand when Wayne picks up.

"Wayne?" he asks softly. "Didn't wake you up, did I?"

You can't hear his response.

"I'm gonna stay with Y/N tonight. Yeah, we had a good time. Yeah…" His eyes drift to you as you peel out of your thigh highs.

"Yeah, I'm still here. What?" He meets your eyes and it feels accidental, because he throws his eyes to your bedsheets and turns his face to the wall. "No," he says firmly.

You scrape together something to wear for bed and some fresh underwear and leave for the bathroom, telling yourself that nothing is gonna happen so don't get your hopes up but not wanting to get caught out if it does. You freshen up, brushing your teeth and washing your face.

You stare at yourself in the mirror and wonder if you should've left your face-powder and your mascara on. Maybe even the skirt. You'd looked nice and pretty for the party. Now you look like yourself, still pretty but without those extra touches. Will he care? Does it matter?

You debate your pyjama pants considerably.

There's a lot happening.

Eddie is… Eddie is something else. He's different, you'd known that for a long time, and his kiss had confirmed it.

He's something out of a science fiction book.

Well, nobody's perfect.

Whatever he is, he'd kissed you. You'd kissed him and he'd responded, he'd come back for more, and now he's sitting in your bed when he could've gone home. You bring your hand to your neck and crane to one side, fingertips poking at your unbroken skin. His hickey's haven't even bruised.

You screw the pants up and drop them into your laundry basket. You take off every piece of jewellery on your person.

"Do you wanna use the bathroom?" you ask from behind the beaded curtain. "I left a new toothbrush for you on the sink."

"Yeah, desperately, I…" He takes you in as you emerge. Fresh-faced, bare-legged. As naked as you've ever been in front of him, physically and otherwise.

Eddie meets you where you're standing. He's ditched his jacket, and for the first time since you met him you can see the full length of his arms.

"You're not wearing your bracelets," he says, looking between your bodies. His hand twitches toward yours.

"You have tattoos," you say.

"They were better, before."

There's a misshapen mess of black splodges near the crook of his elbow broken up by scar tissue. One arm is less scarred than the other, an almost perfect flank of white skin.

"Is that a puppet? He's super spooky."

"Mh-hm."

You bring your hand to his tattoo and feel over the skin. It doesn't feel like it's there. Eddie holds your wrist and the two of you move together, your fingertips stroking up until you're wrapped around his bicep.

Eddie brings his free hand to your collar. His index finger straightens, encouraging your chin up so he can ease forward and kiss you. He's firm, eager, and your lips curl up into a smile underneath it. He turns his head to the right and you fall left, smile worsened when you feel his own start to form.

He nudges your nose. You take it for a telling off and laugh. "Sorry," you apologise, kissing his top lip.

"You're making this difficult," he chides.

Despite any sternness, Eddie loosens his grip on your wrists to slide his fingers between yours, pressing your joined hands to your chest. He leans back down and he's careful, almost methodical in the way he kisses. Chaste pecks, hot and precious as tiny stars.

You reach for his waist.

Eddie kisses you a final time and steps back. "I'll be back," he promises.

You lower your chin, flustered and perplexed by his sudden departure.

Walking around to the right side of the bed, you click on your bedside lamp — a beautiful glass and foiled contraption that throws dainty stripes of stars and hearts over everything close in the dark — before climbing in. You sniff one of your pillows experimentally, trying to remember when you last changed the bed. You decide they're acceptable even if they really smell like your hair oil and flip them around to be safe, plumping them up with your hands.

You've curled up on your side and almost succumb to your fatigue when Eddie returns, bringing with him the smell of spearmint and a fuzzy feeling in your stomach as he shuts off the light and sits on the opposite side of the bed, facing you. The hair around his face is damp with water, baby hair's limp.

"I'm sorry I don't have anything for you to wear, I-" Youre cut off by your own gasp as Eddie kisses you, his hand on your neck, his nose bridge sliding into your own. You hadn't been expecting it, and it's no less dizzying than any other kiss he's given you today.

"It's okay," he murmurs lowly, lips pressed to your lips, "have to wear you, is all."

You huff a laugh into his mouth. "I swear I'm always laughing when I'm with you," you muse as Eddie dedicates himself to your bottom lip. You cup the back of his head. "You're amazing."

Eddie groans and eases back. "I'm not good with words, sweetheart. To tell you how I feel about you."

You push one of your legs toward his knee. "...You can show me."

He shifts in the bed until he can lean over the entirety of your chest, hands cupping your face and lips poised hovering over your own, a millimetre of space between your mouth and his. "Okay," he says quietly.

He dips down. You can feel his bottom lip tremble, and then he's kissing you too hard to feel it anymore. You wrap loose arms around his back.

"Are you sure?" you whisper to him.

He rests his nose against your cheek, eyes closed, drawing the tiniest left to right. "I want you," he reassures.

"And you're okay?"

"Yeah, sweetheart. I'm okay. Do you want to?"

"Yeah. More than anything."

Another loving kiss against your cheek, Eddie moves down, down, down. "Tell me if I do something you don't like," he murmurs, top lip dragging and leaving a line of dampness to the base of your throat.

He adorns the canvas of your neck in half-moon contusions, big hands caressing your shoulders, your chest. You hold your breath as his fingers pass over your nipple, fighting to keep in any embarrassing sounds.

Eddie disagrees with his plan of action. You shiver as he brings his lips to a close and his bottom teeth scrape upward, as he pulls his head up and says, "C'mon, angel, breathe."

He follows his command with a manipulative touch, a circle over your nipple that makes you shudder. He kisses you and it feels like a thank you, pressure, a heat as his palm smooths over the bump of your tummy to your thighs. He squeezes the outside of one and for a while you can kiss him back, and then he pulls your thighs apart and you break away. Eddie follows, kisses you even when your reciprocation is weak.

He pushes your thigh flat to the bed.

You feel the heat of your excitement start to grow. Your stomach aches with the want to be touched.

"You're like a space heater, you're that warm," Eddie says, hand coasting down the inside of your thigh. He squeezes until fat melds under his fingers. "Are you scared?"

His whispering in your ear, his hand as close as it is to where you want it, it winds you up like a coil. You sigh as his thumb strokes the edge of your panties, sound coloured by an awful, devouring desire.

His face presses further into yours in reaction.

His touch is like the tide. He wades in, away. His thumb strokes inward over something soft and then his whole hand moves back to your thigh.

"Teasing," you utter.

"A little… Why, is there something you want me to do?"

His clueless whispering is infuriating and exciting at the same time. Your heart races and you can't discern if it's more lust or love.

"Touch me," you plead, pouting, knowing he's a pushover.

Anticipation stabs like a needle in your tummy as he slides his palm over your cunt completely. He rubs a careful, almost casual rhythm into your panties with the breadth of his fingers, lips kissing a lazy stripe up to your forehead, where he rests his face. You both watch his hand move past the valley of your rising chest.

"M'gonna pull these off, yeah?" He sits up, fingers pushing under the sides. "Lift your- yeah, thank you, sweetheart."

You buzz with his pet names, his soft voice, the feeling of your panties sliding up to your knees and his gentle exhale. You swear you can feel it fan over your slit. "Shit…" he moan, pulling at your spread cunt.

He looks like he's in pain, eyebrows pinched together and murmuring curses as he circles the wetness gathered at your entrance. You turn your head searchingly as he starts to ease his index finger inside your heat, a gentle probing.

One becomes two. He muffles your sighing with firm kisses, amorous praises, "That's it, baby, relax," as he works you open, fingers wet with slickness but not enough. He changes his position, pushing his middle and marriage finger inside and curving as his thumb slides up your slit looking for the bead of your clit.

Slow, slow circles. "There, huh?"

You shiver as he pushes in deeper, fingers as far as they can go. He spreads them wide, drops reassuring kisses all over your face when you keen. It's so new to have him kiss you at all, and to have him touching you — you're melting into nothing right there in his hold.

"I got you. Tell me if it hurts, okay?"

"Want you to- I want you to fuck me," you murmur, arms wrapping around him so you can hide your face in his neck.

"Fuck. Fuck, baby. Gonna fuck you just as soon as I can fit," he murmurs back, sinking three of his thick fingers into your snug cunt. He pulls wetness out with every thrust, a line of slick dribbling down onto the sheets underneath. He wipes it upward and pushes it back inside, his chest heaving. "Y'so tight, gotta take my time. Take our time." He rubs his nose against your head until he can kiss the highest point of your cheek. "Make sure you can take it."

"I can."

It doesn't bear repeating how quietly you're speaking, a mouthing inaudible under the wet, rhythmic thud of Eddie's pinky finger slapping your sticky cunt as he ups the pace of his finger-fucking.

"I don't think so," he coos, pulling his fingers from your cunt and making a show of spreading them wide. Your slick ribbons between them, almost invisible in the dark. "Ruin your sheets before any of that, maybe."

Eddie sits up and gets his hands under your armpits. You laugh as he tugs you up so your shoulders are on top of the pillows, but you don't have time to be confused. He quickly moves to kneel at your feet and pulls your leg over his shoulder, your back lifting unevenly from the sheets.

He starts with a sweet kiss pressed to the skin closest to his mouth, your lower thigh, and then works his way up, open mouthed, barely kisses at all until his hair whispers against your sensitive cunt and he's nipping at the stripe of skin between your thigh and the place where you most want his attention.

"Pretty," he says into your damp skin, lips shining. You reach down to stroke his hair behind his ears, worried he's gonna get it dirty.

He looks at you from between your thighs, his eyes dark in the dim light, their lashes long and soft where the outermost flutter into your skin. He's lovely.

He holds your gaze as he pulls back to your inner thigh. "Pretty everywhere," he says salaciously.

His lips part over your skin and you think he might bite you, a bruising hickey, but he pushes you down flat to the bed by your hips and kisses your clit, a simple kiss. Your fingers weave deeper into his hair. Your fingernails scratch lightly against his scalp, every tiny lick or kiss reflected in the minute tightening of your hands.

He goes slow, mouths down, kisses wetter and wetter as he reaches your entrance. "Poor girl," he murmurs, hands pulled down to further scandalise. He sinks two fingers inside and laughs into your cunt. You squirm.

"What happened? You're dripping on my fingers." Your thighs draw closed around his head as he curls his fingers against a soft spot.

"Eddie, can you-" You swallow. "Please. Please."

He pries your thighs open and rubs them soothingly, lapping at the heat of your cunt in face of your pleading. His tongue appears broad and flat up the centre of you until he's kissing on your clit, fingers pumping in rhythm. Your fingers work into his hair and he groans, the vibration enough to make you whimper under his mouth.

He laps at your clit messily and you tip your head back, breath coming in tight pants. You don't know what you say, only how you say it, desperate "please,"s and keening "Eddie,"s.

His thrusts grow in enthusiasm, fingers rubbing eagerly against something sweet. You pull your legs up and nudge his face to your cunt insistently, thigh shaking as you hold it up. Eddie doesn't need any more encouragement, his pretty pink lips suckling at your clit until you see stars. You make a pained little sound and try to move away from his kissing, startled at the intensity of your high.

Eddie lets your clit pop out of his mouth with a lewd, slick sound, his hands moving under your thighs and pulling you closer. "Good girl," he says, rubbing his wet face against the inside of your thigh. He inhales hard as you are, though he pauses to kiss your kneecap and pat your leg. "Good girl, sweetheart."

"I'm sorry," you say breathlessly, hands pulling his hair from his face. Pleasure rolls through you in hot waves.

"For what?"

"Tugging on your hair," you explain, shoulder pulled up to your cheek.

Eddie kisses your tummy lovingly and climbs on top of you to do the same just under your chin. "It’s okay, sweetheart, I like that shit. That was good, huh?" he asks, lips dropping down to yours all wet and warm.

He's not bragging, he's genuinely asking.

You nod into his kiss, your hands coming up to his sides. You swear your ears perk up as he unzips his jeans and eases them down, a hand disappearing into the mess of fabric. He moans quietly at the first touch.

You move his hair out of the way to watch. Eddie tugs at the length of his cock with a cruel hand, a short dribble of pearly precum sobbing down the tip and under his fingers. He spreads it as it goes, the slickness emphasising the ridges and veins of his cock. You can see it throb, if you look close enough.

He sits back and eases his jeans and boxers down enough to reveal a thatch of curls that brush his hand with every pump downward.

"You okay?" he asks, smirking.

You pull your shirt over your head and your chest warms at his adoring smile. "Will you take off yours?"

He doesn't hesitate like you worried he might. He sheds his t-shirt, pulling the fabric over the back of his head and dumping it off the side of the bed.

You take in his chest and it's abundance of ragged scarring still purpled with newness. He has a tattoo over his heart, a black whorl of legs and eyes. Fine dark hair crawls from the middle of his chest down his navel, joining with the thatch of coiled hair surrounding his aching cock. You shuffle forward and wait with two tentative hands held aloft until he says, "It's okay," before you touch him. You run your hands down the soft slopes of his waist.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore."

"Can I kiss it?"

He snorts. "Prefer you kiss something else."

That really makes you laugh. You dot a kiss against his jaw and can't make yourself stop, dropping them all the way to the skin behind his ear. Your hand creeps lower as you go, held to the curve of his tummy. His skin is hot to touch the lower you go, and his stomach feels solid, a heaviness you know all too well.

"Can I touch you?" you whisper into his ear.

"Please."

You drop your forehead against his chest and he brings his hand up to cup the back of your head. His cock pulses as you wrap your hand around it, skin smooth and slick as you palm slowly up and down. You watch in awe as a bead of precum wells at the tip, Eddie's rough breathing loud overhead.

"Lie down, Y/N," he says, hand moving behind your naked shoulders.

"What way?"

"How do you want it, sweetheart? We'll do it whatever way you want."

You think about it. Whatever way you want. No matter how indulgent, you know he means it.

"Will you spoon me?"

He pushes you gently and follows behind, dragging your body into his front and angling your hips, cock hot and prodding your back. He gets his hand under your knee and pulls it up, splaying your cunt. You jump in surprise as he pushes his cock through your folds, tip rubbing against the still sensitive bead of your clit.

Eddie wraps his arms around you, hugging you from behind. "You wanna put it in for me, baby?"

You reach between your bodies and take his sticky cock into your hand, shifting until the head nudges against your hole. He sinks in inch by inch, arms tightening around your waist and grinding you down onto his cock until you're whimpering.

You grab at his arms with your hands and tether yourself to him as he starts to rock his hips, his thrusting tender and his face turned into your neck.

He presses his hand flat to your abdomen, an anchoring point as he moulds your weepy cunt around his length, each slovenly movement into your heat spreading you that little bit wider.

"Fuck," he says finally, sounding seconds from a black out. "Oh, fuck- You're tight. Gonna fuck you open slow, okay?"

You're pretty sure you'd let him do just about anything. You bring his hand to your mouth and kiss every white knuckle, every freckle you can see on the back, and when he bottoms out your cover your lips with his stolen hand to smother a tearful gasp.

Eddie's thrusts are spearing in their steady rhythm, a dirty slap ringing with every punching thrust forward. You curl in on yourself and hide your mouth in the sheets, wet pants smothered by fabric. Eddie's grip falls to your hip, where he pulls your body back and forces your cunt open even deeper.

His cock pushes into your sweet spot sudden and emphatic. You moan and he stills, rutting into that same space without pulling out until you're babbling his name, body knocked forward with every thrust.

Eddie turns your face toward him as much as he can without hurting your neck, your moans echoing in time with each thrust. "There you go," he says, "wanna hear how good it feels."

If he cares that you can't answer him he doesn't show it, arm coming up under you arm to grasp at your chest, your breaststroke soft and aching under his hand as he squeezes tenderly. His cock kisses at the sweet spot inside you intermittently; you're dizzy with it.

Eddie can't keep quiet either, his moans breathy, his breath hissing between his teeth when you clamp down around him. "Fuck," he begs, dragging his cock out of your heat, "fuck, Y/N."

He says your name like the syllables alone are appraising.

You can tell when it gets too much for him. He slows. His face drops into your shoulder, and he matches his pace to the wet kisses he leaves behind. Your wetness feels stickying, each of his thrusts snug.

His breath hitches, ragged pants accompanying every slow push of his hips. "Where's my girl?" he asks, eyes still closed as his hand abandons where it'd been squeezing the bump of your tummy to search further downward, fingers disappearing into your folds, short curls wet with slick. He can't find any purchase. You roll your hips, chase his touch and the pleasure that comes with it.

He groans into your shoulder. It sounds more pain than pleasure.

"Are you okay?" you ask, trying to turn in his arms. He holds you in place. "Eddie?"

"Yeah, fuck, I'm okay." He grinds up into your cunt. "Fuck, you're perfect."

"Will you kiss me?"

He does. It's nowhere near the bruising press you'd wanted. It's too careful.

"Listen," he murmurs, "I'm gonna get you on your front, okay? Gonna make you feel so good," he promises, waiting for you to nod before he pushes your shoulder away from him and climbs up behind you. You lay flat on your stomach and Eddie settles on your thighs, a heavy weight.

He pushes into your cunt with two fingers first, the new position allowing for a new pleasure. He pumps in and out and swaps his fingers for his cock quickly after, bearing the full weight of his body into your back as sinks to the hilt.

You both moan in time, hands fisted in the sheets.

He kisses your neck, lips parted, and his teeth feel so sharp that your heart sinks as it had in the bathroom.

"Eddie-" you start.

He pulls away, stops every movement.

"Eddie," you say again. What are you supposed to say? You both know what he is.

There's a lull where neither of you knows what to do filled by your too-fast breathing.

"I won't hurt you," he says, hands rubbing up the length of your back and then under. He holds a hand over your heart. He drops his lips to your back. "Do you want me to stop?"

He must feel your pulse calm under his touch, but he still asks again when you don't answer. "Do you want me to stop? It's okay if you do. You're okay, baby, I promise."

You steal a pillow from against the headboard and rise up on elbows. Your admission comes weak but completely honest. "Fuck me, Eddie, please... I want you. I want you-" Your murmuring's interrupted by a sharp breath as Eddie starts to move again, the head of his cock pushing into your cunt, a slick, perfect feeling.

He moans from the back of his throat as his cock pushes into you again and again, hips smacking the dough of your ass as his pace quickens. You hug your pillow tightly, tears popping up in the corners as he ruts deep.

"Being so good for me," he groans, clamped down on your hip with a vice-like grip. "Fuck, you feel so good. Fucking clinging to me every time I pull out, baby, Christ." His blasphemy is punctuated by a thrust that has you sliding up the bed, sheets wrinkling under your arms. You spread your thighs and wetness pools at your clit as his pelvis thrusts into you, driving pleasure so deeply it aches in your hips.

You moan pathetically and reach back to hold his hand, wiggling your fingers. He takes it in one and presses your arm against your lower back with the other, struggling to maintain a steady pace as he gets close to cumming. You're a babbling stream of sounds as he fucks in deep, swollen sweet spot tapped against mercilessly.

He throws himself back on his haunches, cock dragged out of your heat.

You pull your legs out from underneath him and curl onto your side to watch, eyes wide as white spurts of pearlescence jump out of the head of his reddened cock and drip down the bumps of his fingers. He leans back, his stomach and thighs tensed with every pump.

He groans through a smile, moan's coloured by a happy, relieved laughter. "F-uck," he drags, fisting his cock dry.

He meets your eyes as the last of it slides down onto his stomach.

You smile softly. "Fuck," you mumble.

Eddie wipes his hand in his jeans like a fucking hooligan and tucks his cock back into his boxers with a wince, and then he collapses on top of you. He's sort of nice about it, his arm over your shoulder and his face behind your ear.

"Fucking beautiful," he praises, dropping his head back on the bed so you're face to face. "You're so fucking pretty. So perfect." He kisses you. "You're perfect," he repeats, staring intently into your eyes.

You pull a hand from between your legs, smelling of sex. Eddie literally couldn't care less if he tried, and he lets you take his face into your hand without complaint.

He gets his arm under your arm and starts to rub your back. "You want me to take care of you again?" he asks, eyebrows raised gently. "Yeah?"

And you would let him, you would, but you need to see them for yourself.

You touch your index fingertip to his lip.

"Can I see?" you ask.

He loses his boisterous joy, tamps it down. He realises that he can't lie, that he hasn't been lying, and he nods. You tremble as you pull his lip up over his canine tooth, excited and scared.

A sharp, exceptionally white tooth pokes out of Eddie's gums. You're taken aback, though you'd known exactly what you'd find.

A fang.

Blood oozes at the gums.

"You're bleeding," you worry aloud, touching your finger to the dark beading at the base of his tooth.

Eddie's eyes rove over your face thoughtfully. He pulls your hand away from his lip and sets it on his neck instead. "They always do that. The gum heals, breaks when they wanna come out."

"How often do they come out?"

"A lot more since I met you. Whenever my adrenaline spikes, they seem to think it's… feeding time."

That is a dizzying thing to learn.

You're not sure how you feel, but you know one thing: he's Eddie. "It's too bad," you say, forcing a lightness that turns real more easily than you expect. "I really want to kiss you right now."

He strokes your cheek with his thumb. "I really wanna kiss you too. Maybe a small one?"

You find yourself leaning forward, unafraid.

He kisses you once, twice, three times, the two of you holding each other's faces and covered in mess. Slick and sweat and blood. The hearts and stars from your lamp spray over his hip and paint him with pinks, greens, oranges, a rainbow cutting over his trim waist. You rest your hand overtop, feel his keloid scars like hills under your fingers.

"My boyfriend's a vampire," you mutter, bemused at fate.

Eddie blinks at you. "I'm your boyfriend?"

"Yeah, I think so. Don't you?"

Eddie pulls you into his chest and doesn't let you go for a long, long time.

Your first time watching a blood sate is weird.

For one, Chief Hopper is firmly against it. He's got his kid with him, the boy from the party that Mike had been so heavily doting on, and if he didn't you might think he was a pretty scary guy.

"I think this is stupid," the chief says plainly. "I think this is stupid, I think you're stupid," — he points at Eddie where he's sitting sickly in the round couch — "and I think you're plain crazy, kid." He points at you last.

You beam at him. "People have said that about me."

His kid laughs.

"Will," Hopper says tiredly, "go sit in the car."

"Look, Chief, I know I messed up, okay, but she kind of stuck her hand in my mouth and I didn't really have a choice."

Wayne looks at you with new eyes. "You did?"

You nod at him faux-seriously.

"And what gave her the inkling that you might have had something in your mouth worth looking at?" Hopper says, which is hilarious. You laugh behind your hand.

He gives you a disapproving look that you completely ignore. If you'd taken notice of disapproval you would've stopped having this much fun years ago.

"Uh, well, she might have… felt them?" His pitch rises.

Hopper looks like he's about to blow a gasket when Will says, "What was he supposed to do? Never talk to anyone new ever again?"

"He did a lot more than just talk to me," you say. There'd been a fixed bike, phone calls, lots of sandwiches, bug hunts, an entire sketchbook full of drawings.

"I told you to wait in the car," Hopper says.

Will grins and raises his hands in surrender. "Bye," he mouths. You wave.

Hopper waits for the door to close before he continues. "I get it, when you're a teenager you think your hormones are the end of the world-"

"I'm almost twenty three."

Hopper pinches his hand closed. "But you do not understand the danger that you are creating here."

"Like a stake-ing," you whisper, very very quietly. Eddie's the only one who can hear you, and he laughs so hard he snorts.

"I'm glad you find this funny." Hopper's tone could not imply the opposite any more.

He hands Wayne a paper bag that audibly sloshes and stalks out, his anger a palpable cloud of steam rising off of his shoulders. Eddie seizes up beside you at the sound, lips parting as his fangs come through. You don't touch him because you value your blood inside your body, only slide away from him and smile. "You okay, handsome?"

"Kid, maybe the chief is right. We don't know how Eds is gonna act with you here," Wayne says.

You nod respectfully. You like Wayne, and he knows about all of this stuff more than you ever could.

"No," Eddie mumbles, putting his hand out for you across the couch.

You take it without thinking.

Wayne sighs. You can hear him grumbling as he disappears from view into the kitchen and puts a pot on the stove. There's the sound of a bag being punctured with a knife, a wet slosh. Eddie's grip on your hand tightens.

You're still fascinated that he even drinks blood in the first place. That's wickedly sickening. Wicked, because it's cool that he's a vampire, with his impressive hearing, senses and smell. But sickening, because if you had to drink a pint of blood every couple of weeks you'd throw up.

"I read about a new blood-sucker."

Eddie raises his heavy head. "Another bug?"

"No, a finch! A vampire finch. They're really pretty, Teddy. They're small and brown with long beaks and they drink blood because there's barely any water on their island." You give him a loving smile. "They aren't parasites. S'just how they had to change to survive."

He squeezes your hand, this time on purpose.

"Are you gonna come and have it in here, Eddie?" Wayne asks, one last shot at separating the two of you.

"I'm okay," he says loudly. His eyes trace your smile. "Really."

It can't be fun to have two people watch you drink a warm mug of blood, but Eddie finds it funny. He keeps laughing every time he brings the rim of the glass to his mouth.

"I can't do it if you're looking at me," he says.

Wayne rolls his eyes and looks away. You cover your face with both hands and part your fingers to spy on him through the gaps. He makes it look easy, draining the mug basically in one long pull, though his hunger turns violent as the cup empties. He chokes. Blood trickles down from one corner of his mouth.

You automatically want to reach over and wipe it away. Wayne grabs your arm before you can and gives you a fatherly look that says, I wouldn't do that if I were you.

"Shit," Eddie says, slamming his now empty mug down on the coffee table. It makes a grating sound like a ground mortar and pestle. He sits as far back on the couch cushions as he can, nausea clear on his face.

"Deep breath," Wayne says.

"Fuck, Wayne."

"You're aces. Deep breaths."

Your heart hurts watching Eddie like this. He covers his mouth with eyes closed tightly and breathes hard through his nose. Already there's colour coming back into his face, not a lot but anything is an improvement. He'd been practically grey.

When Eddie pulls his hand from his mouth blood has spread over his lips and jaw. Your eyes widen.

"I'll get the shower running," Wayne says, slapping his knees as he stands. He stops before the hallway. "Good job, Eddie."

The boy in question slouches into a ball on the sofa and nods into a cushion. You wait for the sound of Wayne pulling the shower cord that turns on the hot water before you stand up, head tipped to one side.

"You okay, handsome?".

"Tired."

"You want a hug from me?"

"Is anyone else offering?" He opens one eye to peek at you and grins at your distraught expression. "I'm joking, I'm kidding. C'mere, before I start bawling." You sit and then flop onto your side, pulling your legs up next to his. "Such a frowny face." His voice is adorably tired.

"Better than yours. You look like someone from Night of the Living Dead, baby."

Eddie's arm lies limp like a dead fish over your waist. "Lemme nibble on your brains," he says, words thick as dark honey, eyes closed. "Just a snack."

You're waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under your feet. No way your boyfriend, your cries at the end of every movie, brings you flowers because he felt like it, won't step on cracks in the sidewalk boyfriend just skulled a glass of O-negative like it was a milkshake.

You feel guilty as soon as you think about it. He's not confined to all his softest parts and he never will be. He's snarky and angry and loud. He plays guitar like a real rockstar and he doesn't take anyone's shit. He's a survivor. A glass of blood every now and then was never gonna stop him.

You keep wondering if you should let him suck your blood. It could be hot. It could also probably be the worst idea ever, a relationship faux pas up there with proposing after a month or saying I love you on the first date.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks.

You brush the hair out of his eyes with your ring finger. "Embarrassing relationship fumbles."

"Oh yeah? Like letting your girlfriend watch you drink human blood from a mug shaped like Woodstock?"

"Least it wasn't Snoopy."

"God forbid."

"Is it always like this?" You stroke your hand down his face and rub along his jaw with your thumb. "D'you always get sleepy?"

"Yeah." He turns his face so your hand covers his mouth.

You've stopped wearing silver jewellery, your wrists bare besides the endearingly awful friendship bracelet he's constructed for you. Not a friendship bracelet, he'd corrected. You're not kissing other friends, are you? Because that's really gonna put a downer on this whole thing.

You dip your forehead to his chin and the two of you lay there in silence. You can smell blood, a thick, metallic stick permeating every corner of the room. It's especially strong between the both of you.

"Do you wanna bite me right now?" you inquire without opening your eyes.

"Not really. Blood sate kicks in quickly. It's the worst for, like, the first ten seconds after. Now I wanna sleep, but Wayne's gonna make me shower."

"Maybe I can shower with you."

"I'm sure he'd jump for joy if you suggest it."

"Really?"

Eddie kisses your hand. "No," he says with a giddy laugh.

"I'll pretend I'm gonna sit on the toilet. Keep watch."

"How will you stop your hair from getting wet?"

"I'll lean out."

Eddie laughs even more than he had been, peeling laughter that warms you from the inside out as he kisses your hand again. "That'll definitely work."

Wayne clears his throat.

"Shower's hot. I'm going out. For an hour." Eddie perks up. His uncle looks him dead in the eye. "Don't make me regret this."

And while Wayne had been under the impression you and Eddie were gonna have some grown up fun together in the shower, what you really do is an innocent act of affection: you wash Eddie's hair.

"You have to lean your head back," you chide.

"I am."

"More than that."

"There's no room."

You're lucky you both fit. You're freezing standing behind Eddie, the only relief the warm water that trickles down from your hands to your elbows as you draw circles in his scalp, working the shampoo into a fine lather.

"How did you get blood here?" you ask, scratching rusty flakes from the hair behind his ear.

"I don't know. It gets everywhere. Like eyeshadow."

You push your chin over his shoulder. "You wear eyeshadow?"

"For shows."

"Really?"

"Is it hard to believe?"

You encourage his head under the water and rake your hands through his curls, encouraging the soapy water down to the ends with patient hands. "Lip gloss too? Hey, can I do your makeup?"

"Maybe tomorrow," he bargains. While the shower has helped to wake him up, lethargy remains thick and unshakeable as adamant.

You kiss the wet ridge of his shoulder blade, picturing his pretty face decked out in dark liners and sticky balm. "Thank you."

"I haven't worn any in a long time. Haven't played a show in a really long time."

You wring the water out of his hair and search in the steam for his conditioner. It's mostly empty. "You could put on a show for me. I never got to see you play," you say, shaking it really hard. A dollop collects in your hand and you work the dregs through the ends of his long hair.

"You want that?"

"I think you're the best guitar player in the world."

You're not joking. He's the best, and he plays guitar. And he's pretty good, semantics aside. You love sitting out on the porch with him and listening to him play old rock songs off the top of his head. You could watch his hands move over the strings for hours.

"If that's the case, I can definitely put on a show. Make-up, costume, stage dives. The whole nine yards. Anything for my girl."

You roll the ends of his hair between two coated palms and step back. "There. You have to let it soak in for a couple of minutes."

Eddie turns with a grin, angling his chest and hair forward, away from the stream.

"Whatever will we do?"

You wipe an escaped streak of blood off of his bottom lip and smile. "I have no idea."

You kiss. Eddie leans down and you move up, damp noses glancing off of each other. You're used to short kisses, never enough to make his heart race in case it prompts an unnecessary appearance of his fangs, so when Eddie encourages your lips apart to wade in deeper you pull back questioningly.

"Blood sate. I'm 'sated'. They won't come out."

Your jaw drops. "For real?"

He shakes his head with a pleased smile. "For real. Kiss me sick, sweetheart."

You throw your arm around his neck and drag his face to yours, kissing with an ardency that both surprises and amuses him. He laughs into your open mouth until suddenly he's not laughing at all, only breathing, pushing against you with the same urgent force and the same adoring smile.

"Does this mean you can give me a hickey?" you ask enthusiastically. Eddie has yet to give you a proper love bite.

He leans back under the show spray and pulls you in with him, laughing when you dissolve like rice paper in his arms, finally warm. There's never been a sweeter sound.

/\^._.^/\

thank you for reading! | my masterlist | my halloween party

if you enjoyed reading his, please consider reblogging. i promise it makes a huge difference

10K notes · View notes