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#this happened to me last night and for some reason i just had the most coherent thought of 'crowley invented this" 😭😭
flemingsfreckles · 2 days
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Something New (18+)
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Jessie Fleming x Reader
Synopsis: you and Jessie get teased for your assumed “vanilla” sex life, you decide to take Jessie on a trip to find some new things to try in the bedroom.
Warnings: suggestion to sex, sex toys, visiting adult store, (handcuffs, blindfolds, strap-on, buttplug, vibrators), none of the toys actually being used.
WC: 2.4k
A/N: if yall want a part 2 in which the toys are actually used, I can do that :)
“Oh come on there’s got to be something you want to try that we haven’t?” You pull up the sheet from where it had been kicked off the bed, covering your naked body before laying down next to your equally naked girlfriend.
“I don’t know.” Jessie just remained lying on her back, not making eye contact with you. Her chest was still rising and falling quickly, catching her breath.
“Oh come on, don’t be shy with me, after what we just did there’s no reason to be shy.” You two had just finished what was supposed to be quick morning sex but turned into a competitive match. Giving each other orgasm after orgasm until about 11am when you both finally tapped out.
“Are you asking because of what happened at Sam’s house?” Jessie asks.
The two of you had been at a party the night before at Sam’s with the rest of the team, playing various card and board games which led quickly to playing drinking games that somehow always ended up in discussions of everyone’s sex life.
When you started dating, you and Jessie had agreed to not disclose too much about what you two do behind closed doors to your nosey teammates. It was originally an idea out of shyness on Jessie’s part, you had never minded indulging your teammates in your experience but out of respect for Jessie and your relationship you kept your mouth shut for the most part. You started to like the secrecy of what went on in your beds, no one knew the details, just you and her. So when you were asked the craziest thing you’ve done in bed, you sipped away at your drink instead of answering. Unsatisfied with your choice to not answer, Sam began to accuse you and Jessie of having an incredibly boring and “vanilla” sex life. You tried to defend yourself and Jessie, Jessie being too shy to be any help, the teasing from your teammates had only continued.
“No.” You’re quick to answer, not even really thinking. “Okay maybe, I don’t know, I don’t think our sex is boring though, I love having sex with you. It just made me think and just thought I’d ask if there was anything you wanted to try.”
You truly didn’t find your sex life with Jessie boring at all, she was excellent in bed, able to meet and exceed your needs and the two of you being athletes meant you had the stamina to last as long as you wanted. You collectively owned a strap-on and a vibrator but nothing else. It worked for the two of you, it was great sex. But even great sex sometimes could use something new, something for a little change of pace. You also knew Jessie well enough to know even if there was something she was interested in, she most likely would keep it to herself until you pried it out of her.
“I don’t know.” You can tell she’s withholding information, still too shy to put her ideas into words. But you decide not to push it, it was a little bit of a personal question to throw on her and expect an immediate answer.
“Alright babe, if you come up with anything, you can tell me. Want to get a shower?” She nods, finally making eye contact with you as you both get up from the bed and move to the bathroom. You let the question go unanswered for now, secretly hoping Jessie would come up with something to tell you in the next couple of days.
After a week passes since you had asked Jessie if she wanted to try anything out in bed and not getting any form of a hint or answer, you decide maybe a little field trip would help. Maybe Jessie just didn’t know what she wanted to try, maybe this would give her some suggestions.
“Where are we going?” Jessie asked for the fifth time since you told her to get dressed and ready to leave the house. She claimed she needed to know where you were going so she could dress appropriately.
“I’ve told you, it’s a surprise.” You turn back to look at your girlfriend as you grab your keys.
“You know I hate surprises.” She mumbles as she follows you down the hallway from your apartment out the door. Jessie wasn’t a big fan of surprises, she liked having all the information and surprises made her feel out of control.
“Jessie it’ll be fine, I promise. If you hate it for some reason we can leave. Do you trust me?”
“Yes, I trust you.” She gets into the passenger seat of your car and you start driving. You debated having her close her eyes but it didn’t feel necessary, you weren’t going too far. You drove for another 25 minutes before you pulled into the parking lot of a small shop.
“You brought me to an adult store?!” Her voice is a mix of confusion and also a little bit scared.
“Yes, I did but we don’t have to go in if you don’t want to. I just thought, maybe we could look around?” You don’t want her to feel forced, but you thought this would be a good way to maybe suggest new ideas for the two of you.
“What if someone sees us?” You’re convinced her voice is raised a few octaves.
“Jessie, we’re adults. We’re also publicly dating, people know we have sex.”
“Still.” She was bouncing her leg, head swiveling to look around the car to the empty parking lot, and she was nervously playing with her fingers. You start to think maybe you should’ve asked if she’d want to do this before you made it a surprise. Or maybe just going online shopping would’ve been a better choice for someone like Jessie.
“Babe,” you place a hand on her knee, trying to settle it, “we don’t have to go in. If you don’t want to, we won’t. We also can go in and then immediately leave, whatever you want.”
She doesn’t say much, just looking at the door of the shop. You can tell she’s having an argument within herself on what she wants to do. You let her ponder, she slowly stops fiddling with her fingers, wiping her hands, that were likely sweating slightly on her legs.
“Let’s go in.”
“Are you sure?” Now worried she feels forced by you and like she has to go into the store.
“Yeah.” Before she’s able to get out of the car you grab her hand.
“If you want to leave, just tell me, we’ll go.” She nods and you both get out of the car and walk into the store.
You’d been in a store like this once before, buying a joke gift for a bachelorette party, but never when looking for something you actually wanted. The toys you owned had been purchased online.
You didn’t know where to start so you decided to just take a lap around the whole store, then figuring out where you wanted to look. Jessie followed you around like a lost puppy, her eyes barely leaving the floor, glancing up only to look at you.
You move over to the wall of dildos, you liked the one you had for your strap currently, but a new one wouldn’t hurt. It’s a little overwhelming, every color and size imaginable on the wall, ones that vibrate, ones that spin, ones that have heating elements. That sounded like a fire hazard to you. Your eyes scan over all the options, a few catching your eye, you prefer the fun colors, you look at sizes comparable to the one you already owned. It worked for both of you, no reason to make too much of a change with a new one.
You turn to see Jessie, surprised to see she’s actually looking up at the wall instead of the floor. You watch as her eyes scan, before setting on a blue dildo that looks to be slightly larger than the one you already owned. Her eyes wander away and then come back to the blue one. You give her a second to make a decision or movement to grab the toy, she doesn’t.
“You like that one?” You point at it on the wall. Jessie doesn’t say anything, just turning to look at you and then back to the box and then to the floor.
“Jessie, if you want it we can get it.” You notice the slightest nod of her head, but she doesn’t make a move to grab it. You sigh, letting out a small laugh at your girlfriend’s shy behavior, given she was the opposite in the bedroom once you got her going. You take the box off the wall and throw it into the basket you had picked up.
Jessie walks away and out of the section you were in, not saying anything to you. Now it was you who was the one following her around the store. She moves over to a wall of assorted items. Small vibrators, bottles of lube, gags, paddles, all sorts of things. You watch her carefully as her eyes scan again. This time they don’t stop for too long on anything. You assume nothing has peaked her interest. She takes a few steps around the corner to another wall of items. You grab a bottle of lube off the shelf, identical to the one you already owned, you weren’t running out quite yet but there wasn’t really such a thing as too much lube.
You scan the wall yourself before following Jessie around the corner. You see her hand reach out slightly toward something before she withdraws when she notices you coming around the corner. Her hand drops but she’s still looking at it when you come over. It’s a blindfold and handcuff set.
“Really?” You look at her, shock probably across your face as your hand grabs the box. She nods again, still not using her voice. You throw it in the basket. The thought of your hands restrained to the headboard while Jessie had her way with you, or hers being restrained while you got to tease her had you clenching your thighs together, ready to leave the store and try it out.
You are now just following Jessie around the store, less looking for yourself and just watching her eyes carefully as she has yet to actually say any words about what she wants to you. As you walk by a section of harnesses you see ones with a pocket where you could put a vibrator. You try to think if the one you have at home has a pocket but you can’t remember.
“Babe,” you whisper yell across the store to where Jessie was wandering around. She quickly comes over to you. “Does our harness have this pocket? I can’t remember.”
She nods at you and gives a quiet “Yes.”
“Oh, should we get something for it? We don’t have anything small enough to go in there.” You grab for one of the smaller bullet vibrators and hold it up to Jessie, cocking your head to ask her if she wanted it. She just gives you a nod again.
Jessie returns back to where she was before, you follow her over. She’s looking at another wall of assorted items. Only instead of walking past this one her eyes are glancing and then looking away only to draw back to some boxes. When you realize what she's looking at, your jaw nearly falls open, but not wanting to make her question her interest you keep a straight face.
“That?” You point at the silver butt plug Jessie was looking at.
“Only if you’d want it?” You realize she means she wants to use it on you, if you’d let her. You’d never tried it, but figured no harm in trying things out.
“Sure, I’m open to trying whatever with you.” You grab the box, throwing it into your surprisingly full basket. You hadn’t realized how many things you had picked up on your lap around the store.
You’ve nearly made it through the whole store, taking a last stop to look at some of the lingerie. You flip through the options while Jessie is back to standing behind you as if she was hiding. You find a red lacy matching set and throw it into the basket, you look back to see Jessie’s eyes wide as she sees what you had picked out. You flash her a smirk, knowing she’s picturing you wearing the outfit.
“You all done?” You ask your girlfriend. She gives you a nod and reaches into her pocket grabbing out her wallet and handing you her card.
“I’ll get it.” You wave off her card but she sticks the card into your hand again. You roll your eyes, taking her card and turning to go check out, leaving Jessie wandering behind you, not wanting to interact with the employees.
You check out quickly and look back to get Jessie’s attention as you’re ready to leave. She follows you quickly out the door and rushes to the car. You place the bag in the trunk and get in the drivers seat.
“See I knew there was stuff you wanted to try but were too shy to say it.” You poke at her cheek. “You could’ve told me.” You tease her gently you knew she was shy, she always had been since you met her, she was shy with everyone.
She doesn’t say anything but you notice the blush on her cheeks reddening. You decide to leave her be, not wanting to tease her too much. At least not yet, maybe later in the bedroom.
You throw the car in drive and leave the shop, heading home. When you get home you throw the contents of the bag on the bed. “So where do you want to start?” You ask Jessie turning to see her looking at everything you had bought.
“Handcuffs maybe the new dildo too?” She says with a questioning look, one eyebrow raised at you, no longer shy like she was at the store.
You nod quickly at her.
“Get on the bed.” Her tone is demanding, she reaches to pick up the handcuffs and blindfold as she makes her way to the side of the bed. You lay down and Jessie straddles your waist, her weight holding you to the bed. She drops the handcuffs before grabbing your hands with hers interlocking your fingers and pinning your hands above your head with her strength.
She leans down as if she’s going to kiss you, before moving to the side to place her lips against your ear. “This is going to be fun.”
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forever-rogue · 2 days
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you asked for fallout request, so here i am, eagerly writing this…
i’ve been craving a cooper howard x reader oneshot where him and the reader are navigating through life in their own way. maybe a run in with tricky people?? angst?? fluff??? it’s up to you best friend. THANK YOU!!!
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AN | Alright, let’s goooo. First go around with Cooper and we had to go with some fluff because that is my specialty. I’ve loved Fallout for a long time and I love the show too❤️
Pairing | Cooper Howard (The Ghoul) x fem!reader
Warnings | language; gun violence
Word Count | 3k
Masterlist | Main 
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
You weren't sure if you'd call yourselves friends.
More like…an unwitting duo of sorts. Unwitting on your end more than anything.
You'd promised him that you absolutely didn't need company or anyone to assist you. He'd insisted that the only way he'd let you go on your own was over his dead body. You'd contemplated that idea for a few moments. Given his reputation, you decided not to push him too much.
The realization that he was a stubborn old man who wasn't going to change his mind was the only reason he was still next to you. Begrudgingly, mind you.
“How much further, darlin’?” His deep voice cut through your internal monologue and you shot a glare in his direction, “I'm starting to think you're not the best judge of distance.”
“If you're just going to complain,” you pointed over your shoulder back to the last town you'd passed through, “you're more than welcome to go back and terrorize that town. I told you that I didn't need you to come with me.”
“And why would I listen to you, huh?” He rolled his eyes lightly as you scoffed, “you'd be dead before the sun went down, sweetheart.”
“So what?” You turned on your heel, walking backwards so you could face him, “why do you care?! You don't even like me!”
“Contrary to what you believe, I do have somewhat of a conscience,” his voice was gruff but somewhat soft, “and if I let you go and then heard that you were killed, I'd be a little annoyed.”
“Why?” 
“Because I’ve already saved your life once,” he so sweetly reminded you as you sighed heavily, “and I didn't just save your life so you could go and be killed by someone else.”
“Ain’t that sweet? You’re a modern day prince,” you mocked his twang as his expression refused to shift. It was almost annoying how unfazed he remained the majority of the time, “I had it handled. You happened to come at an inconvenient time.”
“If that's what helps you sleep at night,” he had to fight to hold back a laugh as you turned back around and you marched in front of him, making it a point not to look back at him. He had to be the most infuriating person you'd ever met. He'd had two hundreds years to perfect being annoying and he had done exceedingly well.
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
The two of you had been traveling together for a number of days. You'd managed not to kill each other, luckily, but otherwise things had remained mostly the same. Silence, and if it wasn’t silence, it'd be harsh words and fast quips.
You didn't hate him - not really. You hated the idea that anyone, let alone a man, believed that you needed help. You'd had things handled and would have kept yourself safe. He'd just happened to come fight when you were in the midst of either killing or getting killed. 
He wasn't going to let that go anytime soon. That much you already knew about him.
“It’s cold,” you announced as the two of you made camp for the night. You pulled your jacket tighter around your frame but it was no use, “I’m cold. Can we make a fire?”
“That, princess, is one of the many reasons you need someone out there to keep an eye on you,” if you didn’t know any better, you’d almost have thought that he was being kind - nice. 
“Listen,” you sat down and leaned against one of the trees near the clearing you’d decided to call home for the evening, “I know it’s not exactly safe or the best idea, but I’d rather do that than freeze.”
“It ain’t even that cold,” he mused, stripping off his overcoat and tossing it over to you. You made a sound of surprise, but didn’t hesitate to put it on, “life really was different for you, wasn’t it? I’d say it was almost as easy as those vaulties had it.”
“It wasn’t…” you knew he wasn’t wrong. You’d come from a place of privilege, having been born into a family with wealth, new world wealth anyway, and had it pretty easy for a surface dweller. You’d lived in a large, well stocked and safe home with people around to do your bidding. Those were some of the perks of having a father that was some sort of merchant prince, “it wasn’t like that.”
“Yeah?” he rolled out his bedroll, a bitter laugh escaping him, “sounds like you had nothing to do and everything done for you.”
“I mean…” you trailed off, knowing it was futile to lie to him. He’d known your father after all; Cooper Howard was the one sent to fetch you and return you home once your father had found out you’d run away, “it was…good sometimes. There were a lot of bad times too. But I still know how to do things for myself. I could kill you with my bare hands if I wanted to. I’ve done it before.”
“Huh,” he grabbed a vial and downed it one go, his eyes never leaving your face, “guess that makes you a killer. Just. Like. Me.”
“I did what I had to do,” you swallowed thickly, blinking back tears that threatened to well up. Cooper knew that you had run away, but he didn’t know the full extent of what had happened to cause you to run away, “and we’re here.”
“Tell me what happened,” your eyes snapped to him as you tried to weigh his words in order to see if he was being serious or not. He’d never really taken an interest into your personal life, but you wondered if that was because he genuinely didn’t care or if he’d just created some sort of creed for himself that didn’t allow him to get close to anyone, “what made you run away from your sweet little life, darlin’?”
“Cooper,” you wiped your hands on your thighs and shrugged your shoulders nonchalantly. You’d never really said his name before and that caught him off guard, “does it really matter?”
“It’s still buggin’ you, clearly,” he mirrored your position and crossed his arms over his chest, “and we ain’t got nothing but time.”
You inhaled deeply before slowly exhaling and looking at the sky. You could feel his attention still focused on you, “my father told me that there was a man I was going to marry. I told him no and he told me that I didn’t have a choice. Said man found me shortly before the wedding was supposed to happen and he…he tried to…”
You paused for a moment, wiping away the tears that had unwittingly rolled down your cheeks. Cooper’s gaze had darkened but he was still watching; the expression on his face looked like he was ready to commit murder.
“He didn’t get a chance to do anything,” you said softly, “I killed him before he could. But he managed to get me a little bit when he was trying to fight me off. That’s why I had a black eye and all the bruises.”
“Darlin’-”
“I didn’t hesitate, Coop,” your expression steeled as you looked him in the eyes, “and I won’t hesitate now. A man will never tell me what to do. And I don’t need anyone thinking I need someone to protect me.”
Cooper had been listening with rapt attention, his mind already thinking of the things he could do to your father.  Bringing you back to him definitely wasn’t one of those things. He’d made up his mind about that almost the moment he’d met you. You’d been sporting a black eye and cut lip, dried blood caked on your hands and arms. He was smart enough to put two and two together.
“For what it’s worth,” he looked back at you with the gentlest expression you’d seen on him, “I’m sorry for what you had to go through. Those are not men, those are monsters.”
“And you’re going to bring me right back to him,” it was a question presented as a statement. You weren’t entirely sure what his plan with you was; you’d been scared to ask. But he also wasn’t hadn’t mentioned a word of bringing you back to your father, “aren’t you?”
“I ain’t bringing you back,” he admitted and you couldn’t keep the surprise off your face, “I never was. I’ve been around a long time, little girl. I know what your father is. I figured it was a better option for me to find you than someone else.”
“You’re not?” you hated how small your voice sounded; how you almost sounded scared. In a way you were. Scared of going back to the place that you hated and would surely make sure you suffered, but you were also scared of forging a new path. You didn’t really know where you were going or what you were going to, “really?”
“On one condition,” of course. You waved your hand, motioning for him to go, “you admit that you have no clue where we’re going and we’ve basically been making this hell of a trek for no real reason.”
You tried to look serious for a moment, but you couldn’t help but start to laugh at how well he could already read you. Cooper was so taken aback by the soft, sweet sound that he couldn’t help the smile that tugged up the corners of his mouth. When you managed to catch your breath, you looked at him and cocked your head to the side, “I have no clue where we’re going and we’ve been making this hell of a trek for no real reason.”
“Honesty,” he pulled one of his knees toward his chest and drummed his fingers on it, “it’s refreshing. You’re gonna be alright, kid.”
“There’s a place,” you murmured after a few moments of silence, “that my mom told me about when I was little. She made it sound like this magical place. I guess really, that’s where I want to go.”
“I hate to break it to you,” Cooper said, “but magical places don’t really exist. They never really did.”
“I know,” you admitted softly, “it just seemed like that when I was young. She died a long time ago, but I’d always think about that place, going there someday.  She said it was west - just go west and you’ll know when you’re there.”
“Hmm,” he nodded and paused for a moment before getting up and grabbing some nearby sticks and bringing them to the center of the clearing. He started making a fire before you could even question him, “if it draws anything out, I’m sure we can handle it.”
“Thanks Coop,” you watched him work, an odd feeling settling in the pit of your stomach. Once the fire was going, he settled down near you, “Cooper?”
“Hmm?”
“We are going west, right?” your question caused him to chuckle before he reached into his pocket and pulled something small out that he passed over you. It was a small silver compass worn and weathered just like him.
“I’m sorry to tell you, sweetheart, but we’ve been goin’ east for the last couple of days,” he shrugged as you groaned at yourself. At least you didn’t have anywhere to be at any particular time, “had I know we’ve been searching for a magical place, I could have told you we were going the wrong way.”
“I guess I’m not as handy as I thought,” you grumbled to yourself, clutching the compass tightly in your hand, “you know you don’t have to come, right?”
“I know,” he nodded, “you think anyone could force me to do something against my will, you don’t know me at all, sugar. Now stop your yapping and get some rest. We’ll start heading west at sunrise.”
You paused for a moment, pulling his coat tighter around you, “thanks, Coop.”
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
The next couple of days of trekking passed in relative peace. The two of you were now making your way west for whatever magical place your mom had made you dream of you. You weren’t sure why Cooper was still with you, but you weren’t about to complain. He provided some decent company since you’d had your little heart to heart, but he owed you nothing. You weren’t exactly complaining; he was the closest thing to a friend you’d had in a long time.
But, as things would have it in the wasteland, life threw a wrench in your plans. A wrench in the form of two raiders that definitely weren’t looking to get chummy. 
“Ugh,” you groaned as the two figures approached from a distance. The two of you were outside of a saloon, trying to decide whether to keep pressing on for the evening or staying put and turning in. Cooper followed your line of sight and made a sign of annoyance, “why do I feel like they’re going to make trouble?”
“Well, darlin’, that’s because they’re about to make trouble,” he touched the brim of his hat and pulled it further down. 
“Look who it is,” one of the men sneered at the two of you. He looked about as unfriendly as they came, “the Ghoul of the hour and his little bounty.”
“We heard you were having some trouble delivering her back home,” his partner came up and eyed you without shame. He looked disgusting with greasy hair and rotting teeth, a sinister expression on his face, “so we came to take over.”
“Go fuck yourself,” you spit at him, reaching for the dagger that was at your side. You felt Cooper reach for your hand and gently squeeze it in order to stop you from making any rash moves.
“What this charming sweetheart means is that she is not going back with you,” Cooper smirked at them, “so you can run along now.”
“Fucking Ghoul,” the first man snarled at him, “you couldn’t even do your job. Turn the bitch over and we’ll let you go alive…or whatever the hell you are.”
“You can go back to my father and tell him that he can go fuck himself too,” you hissed, blood boiling with sheer annoyance and anger, “and if you don’t turn around right now-”
“What?” His voice was sticky sweet and filled with vinegar as he smiled at you; both of them had pistols in their hands and that made your stomach churn. They could easily get the jump on you, “you’ll kill me?”
“No,” Cooper pushed you behind him and looked at them with a grin on his face. Of course he’d  be enjoying this, “but I will.”
“Why don’t you just-” but the man couldn’t get another word in as the sound of the gunshot rang through the air, causing you to stumble backwards and cover your ears. A second shot rang out within seconds and you saw the other body fall to the ground. 
It happened so fast that you couldn’t help the shock that ran through your body, causing you to let you let out a loud sob. You’d seen death before, you’d seen things much worse than before but there was something about the moment that was overwhelming. 
Blood spattered the side of the building, causing you to dry heave as you noticed the bits of brain and bone clinging to it. Your ears were still ringing as you tried not to completely lose your grip on reality.
“Hey,” you heard his voice cut through the fog and you felt his hand on your shoulders, helping to keep you steady and upright. You shifted your gaze up and found his eyes concerned, “hey.”
“I-I…” you couldn’t even form a proper sentence as you looked at him, “they…you. You saved me.”
Before he could even respond, you threw your arms around him and held tightly onto him. He was taken aback for a moment before he hugged you back, and you could feel his breath of relief. There was something so good and reassuring about the feel of his arms around you.
“You would have had it handled,” he insisted and you shook your head. 
“No,” you looked at him and to your surprise he gently wiped away your tears, “I couldn’t have. I couldn’t have saved myself this time. Thank you.”
“No need to thank  me, darlin’,” he took your chin in his hand and kept your gaze on his, “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
“I do,” you wrapped your fingers around his wrist and nodded slightly, “I do need you. Don’t go.”
“The only place I’m going is west,” there was that smile again, the one that rarely graced his features. The same one that made your legs feel like jello, “are you comin’?”
“Yes,” you promised, “I’m coming.”
“Well then, we best get goin’ sweetheart,” he glanced over the carnage that he left behind, “before someone else comes to make trouble.”
He checked himself over to make sure he had everything ready to. You missed the feel of his touch almost immediately. 
Once he made sure he had everything, he held his hand out to you.
You took it without hesitation. 
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Foxglove
(Written by me. Originally published by Literary Times Magazine.)
I didn’t mean to summon the ghost.  Okay, I meant to, but I regretted it.
My friend Cyprus knew it was a bad idea from the start.  “You talk this way about every girl for two weeks, then you move on to someone else.  Just put a curtain over the portrait and forget about it.”
“I can’t.  Thinking about her hurts, and just the prospect of not thinking about her hurts more.  I dream about her pretty much every night.”
Cyprus closed his eyes.  His gold-rimmed glasses made him look like he was from another century.
I leaned across the table, making my eyes big.  “You can do it, right?”
“I’ve only recreated the ritual in a classroom setting, and only for animal spirits.”
“You’re a straight-A student.”
“That doesn’t mean I can do it.”
But he could.  
Ever since I moved here, the portrait of the actress had smirked down at me like a vixen.  She’d died young, in the early 1920s – this house is split into condos now, but it used to all be hers.
After my last breakup, I looked up photos of her.  She was most active during the 1910s, when stage actresses had a kind of dreamlike beauty: long tresses of dark hair, and huge, dewy, downturned eyes in the middle of a misty face.
I put the laptop down and went to bed thinking about her.  I dreamed about her pressed against me, warm and alive.  Since then, I couldn’t stop.
Cyprus showed up with a briefcase and his cat.
“Before I start, you should know I’m not doing this for you.”  He put his cat carrier in the center of the room.  He drew the sigils around it in chalk.  He set up the candles.  “I’m doing this because my professor said I could use it as an extra credit assignment.”
“It won’t hurt your cat, right?”
“I would never endanger General Pawshington.”
He had me sit cross-legged on the floor, then drew sigils around me too.  
Then he opened his briefcase and took out a yellowed sheet of paper.  “I can only say the words and perform the gestures,” he said.  “Your yearning has to be strong enough to call her here.  And then if she doesn’t want to stay, she can leave.”
“Got it.”
He started to chant, making swift finger motions, and I snickered.  
He paused.  “You have to think about her, or it won’t work.”
“Sorry.”
This time when he started to chant, I kept my eyes fixed on her portrait.  Even when she began to materialize over the cat carrier – out of the corner of my eye, I could make out the shape of a tiny hurricane, twisting into the shape of a woman.  I felt like if I looked at her, she’d vanish.
I imagined a relationship with a ghost.  A ghost would never change – if they wanted change, they wouldn’t be here.  They usually stayed tethered to one place.  I imagined coming home to her day after day, her tether to the outside world.
“No,” she screamed.  “No!”
I looked over at her.  She was as beautiful as her pictures, her black dress fading into gray mist at the skirt.  But she didn’t look sad or bemused, like she did in her photos.  She looked furious, the whites showing around her pupils, her dainty mouth twisted in rage.
She looked between me and Cyprus.  “Why would you do this?”
“I love you,” I blurted, at the exact same time Cyprus said, “Extra credit.”
She screamed so loud the cat hissed and the windows seemed to shake.
“Um,” I said, looking to Cyprus for guidance.
He didn’t look back.  Just stared up at her with fascination and regret.
She dematerialized, dissipating into mist that seemed to scatter against the ceiling, maybe through it.
“Was that…supposed to happen?” I asked.
“Some ghosts react badly to being summoned.  But if she’s unhappy here, she can return to the afterlife.”
She did not, for whatever reason, return to the afterlife.
It turned out that being haunted was not a fun experience.  I thought if I could just tell her about myself, she’d like me as much as I thought I’d like her, but she wasn’t interested in that.
She slammed doors.  Chilled rooms.  Flung objects.  Sobbed in the night.
“Can you please just talk to me?” I pleaded, after being woken up at 3 AM for the third time that week.  “I’m sorry!  I just wanted to meet you, that’s all!”
You know how when you’re in bed, you sometimes look up at the ceiling fan and picture it falling?  Well, that’s what happened next.  Fortunately, no bones were broken.
Cyprus’s extra credit assignment became his thesis project.  He came back as my neighbor was complaining to me about the new “poltergeist problem,” unaware I was responsible for it.
“And who are you?” the neighbor asked Cyprus.  “An exorcist?”
“Close.  I’m a student from the Providence College of Necromancy.”
“Great.  A student.  They always send kids to solve adult problems these days.”
Inside, Cyprus called, “Foxglove!”  For some reason, I don’t think I ever thought to address the actress by name.  “Foxglove, you have to stop, or they’re going to send an exorcist to get rid of you.”
She materialized out of the air like mist – the first time I’d seen her since we’d initially summoned her.  She really was so beautiful, her dark hair floating around her like a dream.  “It’s not fair,” she said.  “It’s my house.”
“I know,” he said, sadly.  Well, sadly for him.  He had a catlike way of emoting.
“I remember Heaven in flashes.  I don’t think you’re supposed to remember it while you’re on Earth,” she said, sounding frustrated but relieved at having someone to talk to.  “I want to go back so badly, but I don’t want to leave my life again.  All I can do is yearn for what I had before.”
“Maybe you can tell me about your life,” said Cyprus, not disguising the interest in his voice.  “I could write it down, and publish it.  And people could read about you.”
Her eyes looked sad, dewy, and hopeful, like they did in the portrait.  “I’d like that.”
I felt sidelined, like a third wheel.  It bothered me that she forgave his selfishness just because he was open about it – I wanted someone I could love, he wanted an extra credit assignment.
My goal was selfish too, in the context that I’d pulled her away from her life – or afterlife – in the hopes that she’d be a part of mine.  But wanting something to love wasn’t supposed to be selfish.  And if it was, that was supposed to be forgivable, if only because it was so human.
I’d apologized.  He hadn’t.  He was open about his self-interest, his fascination with the predicament he’d created.  But I could tell that if she forgave one of us, it would be him.  If she fell in love with one of us, it would be him.
That night, he stayed over to listen to her talk about her childhood, her poverty, her discovery.  About dancing and singing and playing Lady Macbeth, before performances were immortalized on film, when acting was still ephemeral.  About the day after she did too much laudanum and drifted under the surface of the tub.
She wanted to pull herself back past the surface, but she couldn’t.  She just couldn’t will her limbs to move.  “They say that those who take their own lives can’t get to Heaven,” she mused.  “I did.  But maybe that’s because I really wanted to live.”
Cyprus was listening, his recorder on the table next to him, taking notes.  He was interested in every word, wanting to capture as much as possible.  His intense curiosity, the Victor Frankenstein in him, was what made him a great student.
“I have some more questions I want to ask, about certain aspects of your life,” he said, switching off his recorder.  “Can I come back Thursday night?”
“I’ll be here,” she said.  Her dress had turned from black to white, and the mist she emanated had paled.
I could have tried talking to her.  
Instead, I called my ex, and told her what happened.
“It’s just like with me, James,” she sighed.  “You wanted her till she was a real person.”
It was true.  I’d never met a girl I could love more than an idea.
“It’s lonely for me too,” I said.
“I know.”
“Why do you think it’s so hard to love someone right?”
“Because when you do, it becomes something you want to give to them, not something you want to take.”  She said it like she’d been thinking about it for a long time, waiting for someone to ask.  “I think that’s why we spend most of our lives learning how to do it.”
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Maybe pt. 2
Pairing: Norm MacLean X Female Reader or OC
Former friends to a relationship?
Life is pretty easy in Vault 33 until you're trying to rekindle a former friendship and raiders attack. Now, our main characters are trying to navigate newfound feelings all while undercovering the mysteries of Vault 33. Stay tuned. Follows the main storyline of season 1; some events may be reordered for plot.
Some of the conversation feels a little clunky, but we want these two to make up and move on, right?
Part 1 Here
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Norm hates this feeling. Laying in bed, he can feel his stomach twisted in knots. This gut-wrenching feeling has kept him up most of the night, realizing he’s got to make a decision. As far as he’s deduced from his sleepless night of pondering, he’s got two primary options. 
Option A. He pretends yesterday’s conversation with (Y/N) never happened, and they continue exchanging small talk, pleasantries, and those awkward neighbor half-waves until the end of time. The scaredy cat in him prefers this option. It avoids confrontation and maintains the status quo they’ve held for the last couple of years. It is simple and lacks any unnecessary entanglements. Things just go on according to plan. He’s done it before, it can easily be done again. 
OR he can proceed with Option B to confront (Y/N) about what she said in the cafeteria yesterday. This option has sparked his curious side. Cause that entire interaction was odd, wasn’t it? Norm had so many questions, but are they worth pursuing? Opening that can of worms could lead to more problems, more decisions, and fewer answers. No. He needed to know. Curiosity might just kill the cat, but at least he’d be able to sleep at night. 
(Y/N) worked in one of the maintenance labs as Vault 33’s official Pip-Boy Programmer—one of the perks of doing well on the Vault G.O.A.T exams. Norm was eager, planning to stop by the lab first thing before he headed to his desk. Unless someone had major issues with their Pip-Boy, they’d probably have the lab to themselves that early. Alright, it was decided. He threw off the certified Vault-Tec comforter, climbed out of bed, and headed toward the shower to get ready. 
—--------------------
You were already at your desk, pretending to be occupied, when Norm MacLean appeared in the doorway of the lab, leaning on the doorframe and fiddling with his Pip-Boy. Truth be told, you were half-expecting him, especially after yesterday. But maybe not this soon. You were hoping he’d stew on this decision for at least a day.
“Good Morning, Norm. Pip-Boy on the fritz?” you ask, knowing full well that the reason he was here had nothing to do with his Pip-Boy. Even if his Pip-Boy was malfunctioning, Norm was more than capable of taking care of that repair without your assistance. 
“Yeah, I think I’m having some software issues. Do you think you could do a diagnostic run for me?” 
You smile, “Of course. If you wouldn’t mind taking it off and filling out the repair form, I can start right away.” 
He complies, handing you his Pip-Boy and taking the clipboard with the attached Vault-Tec paperwork. As he starts on the paperwork, he estimates he’s got roughly twenty minutes of fake errand cover to work with. 
You attach the Pip-Boy to the diagnostic cable running from your computer, load up the program, and wait. “It will just be a few minutes to get a full picture of what’s going on,” you reassure him. 
“That’s fine. My supervisor knows I was having a few issues with it this morning,” Norm says, barely looking up from the clipboard. 
The two of you fall into awkward silence, neither wanting to be the first to break it. 
You relent. “Hey, I’m sorry if yesterday made you uncomfortable. I know we haven’t spoken much at all lately, but I heard about what happened from Reg, and I just couldn’t stop myself from coming over. It wasn’t right of me to use your situation as my catharsis, especially since we had that failing out. I should have respected that. We can continue on as we were, friendly neighbors in the same Vault.” The words stuck in your throat on the way out. That’s not what you wanted, but if that’s what Norm came here to say, better get it out of the way sooner. 
Oof, now he felt terrible. Norm should have known you’d apologize for thinking you made him uncomfortable. That’s your nature. You’ve always been empathic to the needs of your friends. He needs to come clean. 
“I never wanted that.” 
I’m sorry. What did he say? He never wanted that. To stop being friends? Your brain was going a mile a minute, swirling with questions, too many to vocalize at once. Thankfully, Norm elaborated before you even tried. 
“I never wanted to stop being friends, but the closer we got to graduation, the more effort you seemed to put into exams and passing, being the best in the class. You had ambitions and goals, and (Y/N) you could achieve them. You didn’t need to be dragged down by the Black Sheep of Vault 33.” He tries not to think about his label, and usually, it doesn’t bother him. But right now,  it weighs on him; it feels laminated across his forehead, defining him. 
“Norman,” you manage to sigh out. “I’ve always admired that about you. That’s what I meant yesterday. I wish I had the confidence to act that way before now; I’m sure I’d be much happier. After my dad passed away, I wasn’t sure how I was going to navigate,” you gesture to the air around you, "everything. I was on my own, and subconsciously, I picked up on the reality that the better I did in that classroom or for the Vault, the more control I thought I could have over my life.” 
She didn’t need to explain. He knew exactly what she meant. It is kind of an unspoken rule of Vault 33. Obviously, those who did well on their exams got matched into the most coveted jobs within the vault, but those placements also impacted other situations. Those higher-achieving students had more say in when and to whom they were married, more access to leadership positions, and the list goes on. 
“I had no idea how my life would go, but at least I knew I wanted a hand on the steering wheel. I mean, I’m not sure if I actually want to be married or if that’s part of the programming to be in a relationship, but whatever happens, I want it to at least feel as though I made the decision." You pause and add, "Seriously, could you imagine if I got stuck having to marry Chad Johnston?” 
Norm snorted. The juxtaposition of his former classmates as a married couple was hilarious. Those two couldn’t be more opposites. “Well, at least he’d have someone to teach him to read,” he managed between laughs. 
This garnered a snicker from you as well. “Haha, you’re hilarious,” you say in the most sarcastic tone you can muster. “So, what do you think? Can we act like adults and finally move on? Or do we double down on whatever self-destructive tendencies we’ve got going on here?” 
“Hmmm, I don’t know about you, but I’m really leaning into that second one.” He pauses and puts his hand to his chin. “On the other hand, it might be nice to have lunch with someone I’m not related to.”
DING. “Vault-Tec Pip-Boy diagnostic program is now complete, no issues were detected.” 
You both smile. “Well, it looks like the software issues seemed to have resolved themselves.” 
“Isn’t technology incredible?” Norm asks as he stands to leave. 
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you know that thing where you're nearly asleep but you scare yourself awake because you think you're falling? what if uh. what if crowley invented that. you know. after the whole. you know?
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I think the hardest thing in writing for me sometimes is the like “show don’t tell/let people communicate through subtext/Normal People don’t just walk around openly explaining their motivations for everything That’s Unnatural” thing because like.. I literally DO walk around openly explaining my motivations for everything, that is how I talk, I am an analytical detail oriented over-communicator who explains everything as thoroughly as possible and and will give a fully detailed 2 minute long answer to something simple like “how are you doing today?” .. like it’s hard to make things sound Natural and Normal when you yourself are inherently unnatural and abnormal in your methods of communication to an extent lol
#''hey. whats up? you look kind of sad.. is something wrong?''   normal answer (apparently how people are supposed to talk): *looks away#remosefully and stares into the distance* ''n-no.. I'm fine. don't worry about it.''   abnormal answer (how I would respond): ''Yeah I#'m mostly fine. I was just thinking about what the future is going to be like 30 years from now and if I'll ever actually accomplish anythin#g that I want to. which makes me feel X way for XYZ reason. you see because I had a dream last night that made me think of *continues to exp#lain my exact emotional state and inner thought process completely matter of factly in exact detail for 5 more minutes*#tfw you would be a badly written character if you existed in a story lol#This is also why I struggle making conflict because most conflicts can be resolved through conversation and I personally love to have long#detailed conversations about everything. Like literally I don't have hardly any conflicts interpersonally because if something happens it's#immediately followed up with like ''hey sorry if my tone of voice sounded a bit pointed or harsh. when you were talking to me I was trying#to balance all the stuff I was taking up the stairs and also my leg hurts so I think all my mental energy was being used there and I just#didn't feel like talking. I should have just said 'wait a minute and we can discuss it inside' instead of trying to end the conversation qui#ckly in a short rude way.' ''oh yeah thats fine. I thought it was something like that. sorry for hounding you about the topic as well. i#havent eaten in a while so I think I'm just a bit prickly at the moment. we should both rest for a while and destress from the store#trip and then talk about it later. maybe after lunch?' 'sure. sounds good.' like LITERALLY. lol#it is so hard for me to write characters who are bad communicators or don't understand their own internal states or arent constantly#analyzing their own actions to understand what they do/don't feel and why and what the cause of it is and etc. etc. etc.#I just naturally want everyone to perfectly undertsand everything and communicate amazingly and have complete self awareness and#logical presence of mind gjhbj.. which like.. of course comes across as unnatyural and also those type of people rarely ever get involved in#conflict and conflict is APPARENTLY what drives stories (even though I don't like most conflicts and just want to resolve them lol) so ...aa#I mean you can get around this to some degree by the fact that (at least in my opinion) no rule for dialogue is 100%. dialogue is good if it#sounds naturally like it comes from the character who said it. It can be meandering and pointless and rambly IF that matches the character.#it can be dry and overly self aware IF your character is that way and it suits them. So like throwing in a few detached scholar types or lik#e '5000 year old cave dwelling hermit' type people is good for me and works BUT the thing is an ENTIRE cast of characters can't be that way.#at some point - even in a setting where everyone is reserved and academic (like a research camp in the wilderness full of scholars and stuff#) still SOMEBODY has to be the one who's conflict prone and doesn't pristinely understand all of their emotions and etc. etc. Because statis#tically that is still literally the majority. Kind of like my tendency to make everyone 100% aromantic and asexul when it's like.. YES.. may#be 2 or 3 or even 4 out of 10 of them could be that way. but like.. an entire group? a diverse group of 10 people from all walks of life and#EVERY single one is like that??? hgjh . you have to add realistic variety#As much as I'm pro 'have more stories where sex or romance are literally NOT involved at all in any capacity since it's already oversaturate#d in media' I'm also dedicated to realism. alas. (at least as realistic as you can get in a fantasy setting lol)
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bukuoshin · 1 year
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Clowns are the purest expression of God's love for humanity and this Earth and its creatures, so jot that down real quick.
#rae rants#for the folks with coulrophobia (insert morshu flipping off image here)#this girl i had a job with in 2019 has it and. shes always been a little weird in a specific way that does not mesh with me--#like ive never been. just incompatible with some1 before; theres no reason why. i just do not like her.#but hating clowns is where i draw the line.#for reference. cuz idt ive brought i up in a while. my grandpa was a shriner (despite me being poor my whole life?)#so we went to the shriner circus a lot when i was a kid. and like. the clowns knew me. i would go up w my lil clown yearbook and theyd go#'oh bukus here. lets sign your little book. i like your dress; wanna hold a baby grizzly bear? lets take you to hold the grizzly bear.'#... they should not have had a grizzly bear or elephants. one year they had a kangaroo boxing and not the next so like.#i can imagine what happened with the kangaroo. why do they teach those things to fight humans then go 'oh no! its fighting humans!'#but. point is. clowns were the only good thing in my life until i was like 9 when we quit going. and then i wasnt happy again until 2013.#... for reference. i am not a christian. and do not believe in a capital G 'God'.#but the fact that i know abt the clown ministries (and that a lot of clowns are like. devout christians) paired w the only person i know#who hates clowns being the single most christian person in my current life (the lances moved; there is no longer a christian cult at the#end of my block) is so strange to me. like. theyre christian. youre christian. they like you (clowns love everyone) shouldnt you like them?#so as a result. my clown propoganda has gotten a christian twist for some reason??? and i said this to jay last night and he said im crazy.
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weldnas · 2 years
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kiwi-bitchez · 2 months
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The Girlfriend Experience
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Eddie Munson x Reader
Summary: Eddie doesn’t think he’s cut out for dating. Self-resigned to a life of one and done hookups, you’re determined to make him see that he has the capacity to be a worthy companion… for when the right girl comes around. Fake Dating AU, classic corny fic for a fav corny troupe, Stranger Things canon divergent ofc, 18+ smut (see warnings below), big dick energy but also slightly emotionally unavailable!Eddie, yada yada yada, you know the drill. 
Content warnings: AFAB reader with she/her pronouns, use of y/n, alcohol, smoking the devil’s lettuce, mention of panty stealing, food consumption, semi-public sex, fingering, PIV, Dom-ish!Eddie, oral (m and f receiving), pierced dick Eddie because I said so!, unprotected PIV sex, hair pulling, mild angst but nothing too angsty just like one heated conversation and Eddie feeling a little worthless but happy ending I promise
Word Count: 20k ahhhhhh!!!
A/N: Thanks to all those who comment and reblog! Your feedback and engagement makes my heart soar and keeps me motivated to write this filth! Sorry for the gargantuan length, in very-me fashion I always ending up writing one behemoth fic every so often rather than just separating it out into chapters. Also, realizing after the fact that I use the brand name ‘Goodwill’ a lot in this fic, which maybe not everyone might know is a thrift store, not sure if that’s just an American thing or not but figured it was worth noting. 
“I guess I’m just not boyfriend material, ya know?” Eddie shrugs.
“Don’t say that, Eds,” your eyebrows pinched together, “different qualities are important to different people. Not everyone is looking to date a Steve, or a Brian, or a whoever. I’m sure someone is out there looking for an Eddie.”
“It’s not that,” he shot a look towards Steve, who, despite your analogy, was unfortunately everyone’s type and the textbook definition of boyfriend material.
“I just don’t think I’d be very good at gooey romance stuff, or even like, passable boyfriend behavior. I mean, look at me, I hardly take care of myself, I’m loud, I have no money, I’m basically every dad’s worst nightmare, do I need to keep going?”
“The nightmare thing can actually be a bonus,” Steve chimes in, “the whole bad boy persona can be a huge draw for most girls.”
“Sure Steve,” Eddie’s voice grows exasperated, “I’m the mysterious bad boy until they realize I’m a huge loser who runs not one but two dungeons and dragons groups. Real fuckin’ attractive I’m sure that is.”
“Shows you’re committed to something…” you trail off when his eyes tell you to stop coming up with a positive spin for every excuse he gives. 
This whole discussion had started because of something that happened at the bar last night. A small group of you decided to meet up for drinks, your usual group of pals. It was a Thursday, so the bar wasn’t too busy. Your friends all squished into a booth in the corner, chatting and catching up over a plate of shared nachos, when Robin started making frantic gesture at you and Steve.
“Please just say what you’re trying to say instead of this elaborate charade,” Steve makes a few mocking hand signals back at her.
“Okay, one at a time, and keep it subtle,” her voice lowered to a whisper, for some reason, “over at the bar, some girl is totally flirting with Eddie.”
You and Steve both turn around. “I said not at the same time!” She whisper yells. 
There was, in fact, a pretty girl with shiny hair and glossy lips doing a half fake laugh and pressing her manicured hand to Eddie’s bicep. You whip back around to find Robin with her mouth hanging open in a “can you believe this is happening” way. 
“Good for him,” Steve swivels back around too, “She’s pretty hot.”
You return to your nachos, pretending there wasn’t a ping of jealousy in you. Eddie was your friend, that had been made abundantly clear.
When Robin introduced you to all her friends from high school, you had easily gotten along with all of them. You especially got along with Eddie. He was funny, authentic, abrasive at times, but a truly good person at his core, creative, protective, you could go on.
After getting to know him a bit, and developing a budding crush, you had made a few passes at him. Nothing too forward, just small compliments here and there, open ended offers to hang out that never lead anywhere.
It’s not like he flat out rejected you, but any feelers you were putting out to see if there was potential there were met with him looking past your flirtatious intent and just being his goofy, friendly self. He treated you exactly the same way he treated everyone else, which was awesome, except for when it wasn’t. 
“Oh no,” Robin’s gaze was not subtly fixed on the unfolding scene at the bar, you and Steve watched her face drastically shift from confused, to a cringe, to an eye roll.
Still half whispering, as if Eddie could even hear your corner of the bar, “He’s totally blowing it. DON’T both turn around at the same time again.” 
“Okay, so,” she starts before either of you can even confirm that you want to know, “she was totally laying it on thick, like you could see it from all the way back here. And he must have said something off putting, cuz all of a sudden she like went cold on him and pranced away. Shhhhh, okay okay, he’s coming back.”
She was acting as if she wasn’t the only one gossiping. You and Steve were innocent bystanders in all this. 
“WHAT was that?” She immediately blurts out when Eddie returns to his seat, fresh drink in hand. 
You and Steve share a side glance to sigh at Robin’s inability to be subtle, god bless her. Eddie shifts around awkwardly and lets out a forced dry laugh, taking a long sip from his drink before facing the wrath of a curious Robin. 
“Oh, that,” he gestures to the bar as if she could be asking about anything else, “some girl. Not sure.”
“Not sure? Eddie she was FLIRTING with you,” Robin all but yelled, causing Steve to scan the bar to see if the girl in question had landed somewhere within earshot. 
“I know that,” he hisses, “She just… wasn’t my type…”
“Okay sure, hot girl in a tube top and no bra isn’t your type, riiiiight,” Steve rolls his eyes.
“It’s just,” Eddie was so over this inquisition, “she asked if I wanted to get coffee.”
You, Steve, and Robin all give him a blank stare, trying to decipher what he could possibly have against getting coffee with a hot girl. 
“That’s like,” he gets defensive, detecting the wall of confusion facing him, “something people do on a date. Coffee is serious, and I’m not a very serious guy.”
“What do you mean ‘coffee is serious,’ coffee is like, as casual as you can possibly be?” Steve’s tone now emulated Robin’s from earlier, half whispering, half yelling, all scolding towards his friend. 
“That’s just not really my speed. Coffee dates and flowers and hand holding and all that,” he was avoiding eye contact with all three of you, “Yeah, she was hot, sure, and maybe if she had been like ‘hey lets go fool around in the bathroom’ then I wouldn’t be here having this lame ass conversation with you three. But I don’t do coffee dates, so I’m not gonna waste her time and pretend like I’m that sort of guy when I’m just not.” 
“Well good on you for not leading her on, cuz I’m sure you could have agreed to the coffee date and still gotten lucky in the bathroom,” Steve mumbles, and you smack the back of his head lightly to scold him. 
“So you only date girls who’ll fuck you in a bar bathroom the first time you meet?” You redirect your now equally scolding energy to Eddie.
“No!” He runs his hands through his hair, “I don’t date. Anyone, really. At all. Ever.”
“Oh,” you think for a minute, realizing in your few years of friendship you never had seen him with anyone, or heard him mention a romantic interest of any sort. 
Leading you to your present conversation, you and Steve continuing to question Eddie on his decision to reject the hot tube-top girl at the bar and why he felt like coffee was such a scary commitment. 
“You guys know me,” he continued to defend his stance, “If I took that girl out for coffee she probably would have picked some fancy hoity toity place and I wouldn’t know what anything on the menu meant, I’d probably spill something or like, get crumbs everywhere, and the bill would be way more than two coffees should be. It would have been a waste of both our time.”
He was staunchly refusing eye contact with the two of you, knowing he’d be met with something along the lines of pity. 
“Fine, we’ll drop the subject,” you shoot a look to Steve, “but I just need to make sure you understand that not every girl likes expensive coffee, or flowers and handholding, or whatever your expectation of girls and dating is. There’s plenty of girls who have similar interests to you, who feel the same way about PDA and mushy romance stuff that you do. You do know that, right?”
“Of course I do, y/n,” you could practically feel his eyes rolling at you, “but girls like that sure as fuck aren’t here in Nowhere, Indiana. Even if she was, I’m sure I’d still find a way to fuck it up given that I’ve had exactly zero serious girlfriends and the closest thing to a date I’ve ever been on is when you me and Steve pooled our ski ball tickets to win that ugly stuffed turtle.”
The memory of what you had all agreed to be the world’s ugliest stuffed animal caused all of you to crack a smile. Steve had silently agreed to change the subject, not wanting to dig Eddie any deeper into his pit of self despair. 
Steve’s mouth was half open, about to suggest that the three of you have a smoke and watch one of the rental movies he brought over, the words just about to escape him when you harshly cut off any chance at ending the pity-party.
“Date me!” You exclaim, without much thought. The shocked look from both boys caused you to rapidly back pedal , “You can date me, as practice!” You said it as if it was the simplest concept in the world. 
When met with gaping mouths and confused stares you continue on, “You and I can be fake boyfriend-girlfriend for like, a month, and I’ll tell you everything you do wrong, and like generic do’s and don’t’s, so that way the next time some hot girl hits on you, you can be all like ‘Coffee isn’t really my thing pretty lady, but I’d be down to get drinks sometime’,” you did a silly impression of Eddie’s voice, and then switched to a high pitched one to impersonate what you assumed the girl at the bar sounded like, “and then she’d be all like, ‘Oh yeah that sounds greaaaaat, getting coffee is just like, a generic catch-all thing that most people say when they want to get to know someone better, but you can buy me a drink’ and then the two of you will ride off into the sunset and it’ll be great.”
Still no reply.
“It won’t be all romantic and gooey, I promise I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. It’d be a way for you to get some honest feedback and catch up with the stuff most people have to learn the hard way.” 
“I suppose you are the most brutally honest person I know,” Eddie doesn’t sound convinced. 
Steve just looked between the two of you with eyebrows raised, not knowing if giving his opinion on the matter would be appreciated or not. “I guess I would’ve appreciated someone telling me that most girls don’t want to be asked out with a pickup line from a John Hughes movie, would have saved me a few dozen rejections.”
“I’m pretty sure Robin did tell you that…”
“I don’t know y/n,” Eddie scratches his head. 
“It’ll be easy. Ask me out.”
“Huh?”
“Ask me out, for practice, ask me out on a date like I’m a pretty girl you met at some metal show or a DnD convention or something like that,” you stand in front of him with your hands out as if to prompt him to say something. 
“Will you go out with me?” He sounds more like he’s asking himself if he even wants to be asking the question.
“No.”
“What the hell!” He throws his hands up.
“I said no because that wasn’t a very good effort. Go out where? To do what? You’re asking me, a pretend stranger, out on a date Eddie, not if I want to go have a smoke with you.”
“Ughhhh,” he spun around and tried to get some sympathy for Steve, who unfortunately was on your side with this one. 
“A compliment or two doesn’t hurt as well,” Steve added, deepening Eddie’s groan. 
“Hey pretty stranger lady,” his voice was laced with sarcasm, but at least it wasn’t disdain, “you seem really…” he hesitated to find his words, “cool? Would you like to come see my band play this weekend at The Hideout? We-“
“No,” you cut him off.
“WHA-“
“Eddie, you can’t ask a girl to watch Corroded Coffin play for your first date with her, that’s like date four or five material, no girl wants to go sit by herself at a bar to watch some guy she just met play an hour of heavy metal. She would have to know you a little bit more for that to feel organic. Pick something more generic, like coffee.”
“I think you seem cool, would you like to get coffee with me?” it all came out as one monotone mumble from him. 
“Sure,” you wait for him to lift his head up to make eye contact with you, “But coffee isn’t really my thing, maybe we can go out for drinks?”
“Oh fuck off,” he flopped back onto the couch next to Steve. 
“See, now we have our first fake date, and then you can ask me to be your fake girlfriend, and then you’ll be so comfortable with emotional vulnerability that you can find a real girlfriend to take on real dates.”
“Yeah, I suppose it could be beneficial,” Eddie was slowly coming around to the idea. He knew that he was oddly charismatic at times, but he was just always too self conscious to follow through with the whole romance thing.
This maybe wasn’t a bad idea, because he knew you weren’t the kind of person who would make fun of his hobbies, or put him down if he slipped up, the sorts of things he was always afraid of girls doing. Sure, he’ll agree to the girlfriend experience. 
After a night of movies and pizza with Steve fake-third-wheeling, you made sure Eddie knew that the fake-date was actually happening, that the two of you would go out for drinks this weekend as your first official practice date. 
After giving it a bit of thought, you realized that you and Eddie had never hung out alone. In your feeble attempts at flirting with him all those months ago you had invited him to have movie nights or grab a bite to eat, but he always showed up with Steve and or Robin in tow.
As the night of the fake-date rolled around, you’d be embarrassed to admit it to him, or Steve, who didn’t care to hide how skeptical he was about this whole idea, that you went through your normal pre-date routine. You took some extra time on your hair and makeup, exfoliated in the shower, chose an outfit you felt confident in, added a few spritz of perfume for good measure too. 
Eddie rolled up in his van, only a few minutes late, but a few minutes was very impressive compared to his typical chronic tardiness. The two of you agreed to just grab some food and drinks at your usual spot, considering you and Steve openly agreed that it would be a good first date spot in theory. 
“Hey,” he reaches across the center console to pop the door open for you, “you look nice.”
It took you a second to register as you settled into the passenger seat, and then whip around with your arm outstretched to give him a high five. He scrunches his face at you.
“High five me Eddie, that was really good! I know you usually open the door for me anyways, but the compliment right away, A+,” you flop your hand down to gently slap his, still gripping the steering wheel. 
“Don’t patronize me, y/n,” deep down he knew you weren’t trying to talk down to him, and deep down he hadn’t even given complimenting you a second thought, he really did think you looked great in your date get-up. 
On the ride over to the bar, the two of you discuss some logistics. Considering all of this is just practice dating, you don’t expect Eddie to pay for you, but you explain that in theory if he had been the one to ask you out then he should be the one to pay for the first date. 
“To me it’s less of a gender thing and more of a who asked out who thing, but I know some people would abide to the stereotypical ‘the man always pays’ standard, which is why you’d just have to be honest on date like two or three about what you enjoy doing and what sorts of things are in your budget. You can still have fun and be thoughtful without spending a lot of money.”
He asked a few questions, like if he should have gotten you flowers for a first date, or what he should do if someone asks to go to a fancy restaurant that he surely couldn’t afford. You tried your best to give solid advice, but always reminded him that every person is different and every relationship is different, so all he can do is be honest. 
You take up a spot at the bar and both order for yourselves, splitting some fries and slipping into some easy conversation. 
“Am I supposed to, like, beat someone up if a guy tries hitting on you in front of me or something like that?” you nearly choke on your drink at his question. 
“Eddie, no,” you answer, also questioning, “why the hell would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “My buddy Jeff was with his girlfriend at this punk show before they were even together, and some guy made a creepy comment to Amanda and Jeff just decked the guy in the face. He say’s that’s what made her want to date him, cuz he defended her honor or whatever.”
“I guess that’s sort of circumstantial, but I prefer my dates to not engage in any sort of violence,” you sip your drink, “even if it’s for my honor. I’d like your face a lot less if you were all bruised up.”
“Well I never said I would get hit,” the two of you were laughing a bit now.
Over a few cocktails you went over some first date etiquette with him. PDA and being touchy, how to follow her lead and gauge if she’s the type who wants everyone at the bar to know you’re together, or keep it strictly platonic to start. How far of a grip on the leg is too far up, that sort of thing.  
“So if she does something like this,” you fake laugh a bit too loud and, lean into his personal space, and then run your hand from his slender down his arm, “that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to fuck you, but it’s pretty close. You’ve at least got a green flag to get a little closer to her, tell her she looks nice, maybe offer to buy her a drink.”
“I know how to tell if someone finds me attractive, y/n, I’m not stupid,” he said casually, “obviously that girl the other night was hitting on me, I’m not blind. I wasn’t going to ask to buy her a drink or try and get lucky in the bathroom because I was out with my friends. I can find a quick fuck in a bar on my own time. I was having fun with you guys, I wasn’t going to abandon all of you to talk to some stranger, even if she was hot.”  
“Oh,” you processed his comment, “Steve would be happy to know he ranks above tube-top girl.”
“Steve would be happy to be above tube-top girl in any context,” he jokes. 
“You really just find random girls in bars to fuck?” You question, not in any sort of judgmental way, just curious. 
“Not specifically, I guess I did make myself sound like some serial bar-bathroom type of guy. I never really had girls interested in me when I was in high school, at least the first four years of it. Then when we started playing regular gigs at The Hideout it was a little easier to find girls who were interested, but it was always that they were more into fucking some guy who could play guitar and was in a band, so it usually just always happened on-site, probably cuz they had an actual boyfriend or husband to go home to. Girls think I’m fun. Which isn’t untrue, I do enjoy a romp in the Hideout bathroom, or the back of my van, or wherever we end up.”
“So that’s what all those blankets are back there for,” you say with a fake scowl, referring to his van set-up. 
“Not exclusively! They make a cozy nest for smoking blunts and listening to tapes too!” 
You return to your drink, trying not to think too hard about the girls that Eddie brings to bar bathrooms or his van or wherever. 
“I just find the energy of those situations very different from like, talking and getting to know someone. Fucking is easy. I’m not interested in ruining that by adding emotions and the looming feeling like sex is contingent on me acting a certain way or checking a certain number of boxes for someone.” 
He shrugged, and you could understand where he was coming from, sometimes a quick fuck or hookup could be cathartic and easy. But it also saddened you to think that Eddie believed he had to get in and out before the person on the other end got the chance to know him. 
Moving away from the subject of his inability to be emotionally vulnerable, the two of you practice some cheesy ‘first date’ questions as you had called them. As your drinks started to settle into your system you were having more fun being silly with him, pretending to be a stranger on a first date. 
“When’s your birthday?” You ask, twirling your drink straw with your finger and making some fake flirty eyes at him to accentuate the facade of asking him a bunch of questions you mostly knew the answers to. 
“August 9th,” he flips his hair over his shoulder, joining in on your fake ostentatious flirting. 
“Oh my gosh, a Leo! This will never work out, cuz I’m an asparagus…”
The two of you nearly fall out of your bar stools laughing, realizing you meant to say Sagittarius. 
“Okay, let’s get you home Asparagus,” he helped you up, having kept his drinking to a minimum so he could drive you home. 
“Wait, wait,” you grabbed his arm as the two of you exited the bar, “can we go back to your trailer?”
He raised an eyebrow at you, “that’s a little presumptuous for a first date missy.”
“No, no, this isn’t girlfriend y/n asking, just regular friend y/n, who thinks it would be a lot of fun to smoke and watch a movie without Steve there spewing all his annoying fun facts, like, we get it, you read the little insert inside the tape while you were bored at work!”
Eddie did agree that the idea of packing a bowl and watching a few movies with you didn’t sound too different from what his plans would have been otherwise, so he agreed, as long as you promised not to give him any dating advice while hanging out as friend y/n and not girlfriend y/n. 
Although you promised to try your best, you immediately started lecturing him on t-shirt borrowing and the potential weight that could hold in a relationship when he offered to give you some more comfy clothes to change into. 
“It’s important to know!” You emerged from the bathroom in one of his oversized shirts and a pair of boxers, “Some girls are very touchy about it. Any shirt you lend her to sleep in, you have to be willing to sacrifice for life.”
“For life?!” Eddie finishes making a bowl of popcorn for the two of you, swallowing his words when he sees you in his clothes, an unidentifiable emotion rising in him at the sight of you so cozy and integrated into his space. 
“Well maybe not life,” you plop down onto the couch, “but do NOT ask for it back. Most girls will give it back once it stops smelling like you.”
“If she gets my shirt, can I have her underwear?” He asked without thinking, the weed he had just smoked with you hitting him a bit too hard in that moment. 
“Oh my god,” you squeal and bury your face into a pillow, “la la la la, pretending like I didn’t hear that!”
“I’m just saying!” He laughs at you, now curled up into a ball, “fair is fair, right?”
“I guess it depends on the girl,” you mumble. 
“So I’m guessing not you, by your reaction.”
“Eddie!” You smack him with a pillow, “I don’t know, no one’s ever asked!”
“If my girlfriend isn’t going to ask before stealing my shirt for an indefinite amount of time, I think that gives me panty privilege.”
“Wow Eddie, if I had known you were such a perv I would’ve reconsidered being your fake girlfriend,” you say sarcastically, with no real judgement behind it. The idea of him wanting to steal your underwear dampens them ever so slightly. 
“Don’t worry babe, I won’t do anything pervy to you unless you ask nicely,” he shoots a wink at you, which you meet with an eye roll and a turn away to hopefully hide the heat rising in your cheeks. 
The two of you carry out your platonic movie night as planned. You suppressed any urge to note on his actions from a romantic lens, and he ignored the itching desire to sling his arm around your shoulder or pull your legs into his lap to get more comfy on the couch. 
“Can I sleep here Eddie,” you ask after movie two, “too sleepy to move.”
“Sure, I can take the couch and you can have my bed. It’s been a minute since I washed the sheets but it shouldn’t be too bad…”
“Nonono,” you mumble, “Your legs will totally hang right off the end of this thing. I’m conked out anyways, I can crash right here I promise.”
“Ignoring that you’re my fake girlfriend, I’m not letting you sleep out here on this lumpy thing. You’re taking the bed, no arguments.”
He helps you up from the couch, letting you keep the blanket that’s wrapped around you, snaking his arm underneath it and pulling you from the couch by your lower back. You were slightly taken aback by his assistance, body still limp from your relaxed state, your torso easily arching into his. Your arms fly up to grab his shoulders, steadying yourself with an awkward giggle. 
“In the real world, a time like this would be good for a first kiss,” you make note of your closeness, the way he swept you up off the couch and held you steadily as you made your way to your feet. 
“I know that, y/n,” his face was closer to yours than it had ever been, making your words hitch in your throat. 
“Well, I’m just saying,” you turn your head to avoid the tension, “I’m sure the way you kiss your bar-hookups isn’t the way most girls who’re looking to date you long term want to be kissed for the first time.”
‘Oh yeah? And how do you presume that goes?” He kept his hand planted on your lower back.
You pretend to act wildly drunk, throwing yourself at him and letting your limbs go a bit heavier than they already were. “Ohmygod guitar man, I’ve had like, six dirty Shirleys, please finger bang me in the bathroom,” you slur your words and let your tongue loll out the side of your mouth as if to lean in for the world’s sloppiest and most uncoordinated kiss.
“First of all,” his voice was very serious, “I don’t hook up with girls who are too inebriated to stand, let’s get that straight. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even have our first fake kiss like this on account of the drinking and smoking, gotta make sure you’re in the right headspace. Secondly,” 
He spins you around and quickly backs you up against the wall that stood a few feet behind the couch. His hand sliding up in between your shoulder blades, blanket now slumped around your waist, his other hand suavely cupping the side of your cheek, His hips angled into yours, pinning you back against the vinyl, almost collapsing back into it. 
He pressed against you, not aggressively, but enough to let you know that if you were to try and squirm away he had the capacity to keep you right where he wanted you. He accomplished this all in one elegant motion, leaving you a bit dazed.
As you started to snap into reality, he moves his hand from your cheek down to grab your chin in between his thumb and the knuckle of his pointer, angling your face directly up at him. 
“If you were some girl in a bar, it would be like this.”
The moment before your brain turned to absolute mush, you silently cringed at the thought of what you must look like, mouth hanging open, eyes glassed over, body instinctively sinking into his touch. Pathetic, you were sure of it. 
Sure, Eddie did think you looked a little helpless, but he also thought you looked perfect. Exactly as he had imagined you to in this situation. Of course he had thought about you before, like that.
Of course he had felt an immediate spark with you when you had first met. But he never flirted back, or lead you on, because as much as he was attracted to you and enjoyed your company, he knew that it wouldn’t work out. He wasn’t relationship material, and you were the picture perfect girlfriend that he didn’t deserve. 
He spoke directly into your parted lips, mouth hovering just far enough away to toe the line of ‘holy shit, is he going to?’ But no, as he made very clear, he wouldn’t kiss you under these conditions. He had made his point, and slowly backed off and let you find your footing. 
As soon as he was sure that you were steady, he backed away and started down the hallway. 
“I might have an extra toothbrush stashed away somewhere, let me look…” he ducked into the bathroom, leaving you stunned in the kitchen, head swimming and your stomach traveled up into your throat. 
He was teasing you, he must be. That was his little way of getting back at you for thinking you could give him dating advice. If he was unsure about his capacity for romance, he was going to make sure you knew he was more than capable in other ways. Understood. 
You shook your head, weeding through your inner monologue of how he could possibly look at you like that and then just walk away. Your shock gave him just long enough for you to to not notice him splashing cold water on his face in the bathroom while he “looked for a toothbrush.” 
The two of you decided to ignore the lingering tension from the events in the kitchen, not a peep of fake-girlfriend talk from you for the rest of the night. He did find you that toothbrush, and the two of you moved through a too-easy domestic routine of getting ready for bed. 
You told him that you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you knew he was cramped on that couch, and that you were fine with sharing a bed. You mumbled something about  getting around to bed sharing etiquette at some point anyways, and sleepily pulled him into being your little spoon. 
Eddie lay there, trying not to twitch or fidget, relaxed as best he could into your cuddled form thinking about how horrible of an idea all of this was. He was convinced all it would take is roughly ten more minutes of you burying your face into his hair and making cute little sleepy noises for him to fall irreversibly in love with you. 
But what was he supposed to do? Move and wake you up? Never. 
You rolled around enough in the night to wake up in a less intimate position than when you had fallen asleep. You knew Eddie was a deep sleeper, and took it upon yourself to creep out of bed and back into your day clothes, make a pot of coffee, and watc a bit of TV before he roused and joined you in the living room. 
“Why didn’t you wake me?” He rubbed the crust from his eyes and was pleasantly surprised to see you had brewed a whole pot of coffee to share. 
“You looked so peaceful and cozy,” he shook his head at you, as if that was no excuse for letting him sleep an extra forty minutes.  
After a slow morning, he agrees to drive you home. 
“So this is the part where I say ‘Eddie, I had such a wonderful time on our date. I’d love to do it again sometime.’ And then you agree and tell me when you’re free. It’s best to be super direct and make plans to get together again soon, cuz then it’s not an awkward who’s-gonna-call-who-first sort of thing.”
“Uh-huh…” he stares at you blankly. 
“But for our sake, let’s just agree that I’m in charge of planning our next date. Okay? I’ll do it from the perspective of what I think most girls would enjoy, so you can steal it for the future. I’ll call you later.” 
You hop out of his van before he can agree, and leave him with a “Thanks for letting me stay over!” As you bound away from his view. 
He squeezed his eyes shut the moment he caught himself checking your ass out as you walked away, and let his head rest down on the steering wheel. He was fucked. How the hell was he supposed to tell you that you needed to stop being his fake girlfriend without disrupting the homeostasis of your friendship?
On one hand he could lie and say he doesn’t want your advice, making you think he didn’t enjoy your company, which was entirely untrue. On the other hand he could tell you the truth, and you would never be friends the same way again. 
He drove home with the music too loud, and patiently awaited your call later that evening to iron out the details of your second fake-date. 
Per your instructions, he let you pick him up this time with the argument that you were the one taking him out this time. He didn’t know what you had planned, but let himself fall to the mercy of whatever you had decided was an exemplary date fore him to ‘steal in the future’. 
You picked up two coffees and rolled up to the trailer park, popping a mix-tape he had made you ages ago. 
“Hey, I thought we said no paying for each other with fake-dating,” he objects to the coffee sat in the passenger cupholder, some abomination of mostly cream and sugar, the way you know he likes it. 
“Yes, that’s true, but you smoked me up the other night, and this coffee was like a dollar fifty, so don’t worry about it,” you give him a look that tells him to drink the damn coffee and not sass back, to which he complies, even though he smokes you up expecting nothing in return about every other weekend. 
The two of you sip away and listen to Eddies ‘must-know-to-be-my-friend’ mixtape and arrive shortly at the strip mall across town. This was a regular weekly stop for both of you, the strip of connected stores containing the Goodwill, a pet store, the pharmacy, and grocery. A pretty mundane collection. 
“Okay, what are we doing at Greg’s?” Eddie gestures to the grocery store, the back of his mind running through the grocery list he’s been making for this week anyways.
“What’s the perfect date?” You ask, and answer for him, “a romantic picnic. But gathering supplies is half the fun. Picnic food supplies at Greg’s, some pills to get fucked up at the pharm, some turtles or something to let loose into the wild from the pet store, and then hats, cups, blanket, etcetera from the Goodwill.”
He turns to you with the most bewildered stare, which sends you into a fit of giggles.
“Okay, I’m joking about the pills and the turtles,” you nudge his arm, “but won’t it be sweet to get together some picnic supplies and then drive out to lookout point? We can still swing by the pet store to check out the ferrets though.”
To Eddie, the idea of a date involved him doing something he didn’t want to do, some awkward small talk, and spending money on shit he truly thought was useless. This didn’t sound half bad. You would “work backwards so the food purchases come last” according  to your reasoning, and he followed you in tow without any arguments into the Goodwill.
“So I’m thinking…” you start to wander into the aisles of used clothes and knick knacks, “maybe a blanket? A basket would be sort of corny, but if we find one for cheap I don’t see why not. Surely two glasses for drinking, and maybe some sun hats?”
Swiveling back around to see a half stunned Eddie, who was still processing how in the hell this was your idea of a romantic date, you grab his hand and pull him to the bric-a-brac section. 
After it got through his thick skull that the same place he had uncomfortably tried on new pants throughout his growth spurt, and picked up his daily-worn leather jacket, had the same potential to provide some silly, cheap, used items to add some flair to this picnic. 
Silly and cheap was right up Eddie’s alley. The two of you picked out mismatched champagne glasses, one with the engraved name of a couple who got married in 1943 and the other a flashy rose color with baby angel carvings dancing around the sides. 
You luckily find an on sale beach blanket, and the two of you pick out some very goofy sun hats. A floppy farmers hat for you, and a bedazzled trucker hat spelling ‘hot mama’ for Eddie.
Through the midst of your giggles and debate on whether you should buy a wooden bench to bring out to your picnic destination, Eddie found himself having a really good time with you. 
As promised, you visited the pet store and checked out the ferrets and fish and geckos. 
“If you could have any pet, what would you want?” You asked him, noses pressed against the chinchilla enclosure. 
“Jaguar,” he said, a little too quickly.
“For real, dummy,” you knock your hip into his.
“I don’t know, we never had enough space or extra money for pets growing up, so maybe someday if I had enough room for it to run around I’d like a dog or something,” he tells. Eyes still transfixed on the chinchilla behind the glass. 
“I can see that,” you imagine Eddie with some mutt from the shelter, wrestling around and giving it lots of scratches behind the ears. 
Skipping the pharmacy, you pop into the grocery store and assemble what may be the world’s most eclectic picnic. 
“That’s the definition of a picnic, I’m pretty sure,” you explain after Eddie insinuated that the gingersnap cookies you grabbed, along with grapes and a block of cheese, wasn’t exactly a meal, “you know, just a smorgasbord of whatever we want!”
Admittedly, Eddie had considered a handful of pretzels and a beer to be dinner on more than one occasion, so he couldn’t argue with you. Quickly catching your drift, the two of you picked out an assortment of snacks and some ingredients for pb&j sandwiches. 
“I thought picnics were supposed to be classy?” Eddie holds up the Wonder bread and bag of potato chips with a look that suggested his question was rhetorical.
Your response was simply to raise the, admittedly cheap, bottle of champagne you grabbed to accompany with your meal, more for the irony of drinking the bubbly liquid out of your new used glasses with your sticky sandwiches than anything else. 
You pack your supplies into a tote bag, not having found a suitable basket at the thrift store, and drive across town to a dirt paved road that leads to a nice lookout point with a view of the lake. 
“Let’s walk down the path a little bit, but not too far,” you grab the blanket and tote bag from your trunk, motioning for Eddie to put on his ‘hot mama’ hat and carry your other auxiliary supplies, “I do not fuck with bugs.”
“I’ll protect you,” Eddie puffs out his chest, making you both giggle.
“From bugs?”
“Yeah, I’ll punch a mosquito right in the face, to defend your honor and all that.”
“I know I told you not to do that, but a mosquito might be the exception to the rule.”
You found a nice little clearing not far from the car, a spot that still had a nice view but was a bit more secluded. Eddie sat pressed right up next to you, making your sandwich ‘to be a proper gentleman’ but simultaneously spilling a glob of jelly onto your leg.
“Shit,” he doesn’t think twice before leaning down and slurping the grape flavored blob off of your bare knee, tongue poking out and licking the spilt jelly from your skin.
“Eddie!” You squirm away, barking out a surprised laugh. 
“What! Your knee is clean, wouldn’t want to waste perfectly good preserves, or a napkin.”
You feel your skin tingle where his lips had touched you, for only a moment, but you still felt it. He was so confident and casual in his movements, not having any hesitation to grab your hand or brush your hair out of your face. It wasn’t under the guise of fake romance, he had always been like that. Not touchy, per se, just sure of himself. You’d never seen Eddie do anything half assed, that’s for certain.
After the conversation you shared the other night, you were unable to stop your mind from wandering to thoughts of what Eddie does with those girls in bars, if he touched him with the same confidence and sureness he put into everything else he did. 
It was wrong to let your mind go to such dirty places about someone you considered a friend, but you couldn’t manage to feel any guilt. He had offered that information freely, so who were you to punish yourself for staring a little longer at his fingers, conjuring up the context in which he’d bury them inside you against some grimy bar bathroom. 
The date was all peanut butter smiles and bubbly laughter that floated up into the trees. Silly, yes, but neither of you could deny there was something sweet, maybe even romantic about it. A cheap meal in the woods shared between two friends in ill-fitting fifty cent hats, but an undeniable touch of romance lingered nonetheless. 
Eddie started to realize that maybe the whole dating thing wasn’t as uptight and scary as he had initially thought. It could be easy and fun, with the right person. And fuck, if he could even imagine doing this with anyone but you. 
Like most things Eddie did, he did not consider any potential consequences before acting. You looked so pretty sitting there in the sunshine, sipping from your cheap ‘Martha & Dave ’43’ glass, a few sandwich crumbs dotting the corner of your mouth.
What else was he supposed to do other than lean over and wipe them away with his thumb, stroking your soft cheek and feel the warmth of your skin beneath his palm. 
“You had some,” he uses his other hand to motion at his own mouth, “and I suppose this is the sort of moment where I’d ask if I can kiss you.” 
You find yourself a bit dumbfounded, his big stupid hand on your cheek and those big stupid puppy dog eyes unrelenting in making everything he says seem so genuine.
“Are you?” You find your voice, only half embarrassed at how shy it comes out.
“Am I what?”
“Are you asking me?”
“Yeah,” his answer comes out in a way that insinuates that he never meant anything other than that, that he was always asking to kiss you, he wasn’t asking in theory, in another universe, in the context of advice. 
“Okay,” you found yourself behaving like Eddie, not really thinking of consequences before your words and actions spoke on behalf of your instincts.
Everything so far had been so easy. Your fake first date at the bar, curling up next to him in a haze, making up stories about what sort of people donated the fake palm tree or the Garfield mug at the Goodwill, imagining Eddie running around a yard with a puppy, lounging in the grass and eating your assorted picnic snacks. It was all effortless.
Suddenly, being kissed by Eddie sucked the ease from your lungs and sent your mind spiraling into a cacophony of bells and whistles and giant swirling red flags. If this is how he kissed you, casually across some half eaten peanut butter sandwiches, you’d spend the rest of your days yearning to know how he kissed someone with true intention. 
Of course, his intentions were all there, but the lingering knowledge that all of this was happening under the umbrella of “you giving him advice” or “helping practice for the next girl” poisoned any true feeling he poured into it. He cupped your cheek, soft, let his lips press into yours delicately for a moment before he felt your breath hitch, opening his mouth just enough to deepen the kiss and capture your lower lip fully. 
He was more careful, gentle, methodic with his movements and so receptive to every little signal your body gave him, it was unlike any first-kiss, heat-of-the-moment-kiss, in-the-throws-of-passion-kiss, any of it. Like hell you’d ever tell him that, inflate that big ego that fuels his snippy comebacks at you, but Jesus, was it remarkable. 
While at war with yourself internally, your heart was on the precipice of exploding in your chest from the way he snaked his hand into your hair and pressed his forehead against yours to catch a breath. You suck in a sharp breath and feel that stupid cocky smirk creep up onto that pretty mouth of his.
“’S that sufficient for a first kiss?”
“Fuck offfff,” you were still a little out of breath, smacking his chest and flopping back down onto the picnic blanket, throwing your arms up and rolling your eyes at him, “if you’re so damn confident, maybe we just should fake break up, cuz you don’t seem like you need my advice.”
“Nooooo,”he slumps down next to you, burrowing his head under your arm so he can pop up right next to your face, “I’m learning a lot, I promise! This date was so fun, and cheap! I would have never thought any of this could be remotely romantic. I’m hopeless, y/n, look at me.”
He wriggles around and gives you a big fake pout, “If left to my own devices I would probably do something horribly embarrassing or off-putting, like…” he digs his head into the crook of your neck and blew a fat, wet raspberry right into your skin, making you yelp and squeal, but his position half on top of you pins you down. 
“See!” He pulls up for air, you were in a fit of screaming giggles, “I’d go right in for a kiss and just,” and he does it again, leaving you gasping for air, trying your best to tickle his ribs to get him off of you, but not minding the close contact by any means. 
“Now I’m not so sure,” he pulls back to give you a minute to catch your breath, “it seems like you enjoyed that, so maybe survey says I should pull that move on the ladies.”
Your airy laughter subsided, but he stays half pinning you down to the blanket and the lumpy grass underneath.
“I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I’m not grateful for your help,” he says earnestly, catching your gaze, “it’s just… this isn’t what I need help with.”
As his statement is processing, you find his lips back on yours, his torso pressed flushed with yours and his wild mane of hair coming down to curtain around your head. He doesn’t take it too far, but kisses you as earnestly as he had before, giving your lip a slight drag with his teeth and running his hand up from your hip up the side of your ribcage, leaving you arching slightly into him by pure instinct.
Before your head got too dizzy again, before you could really throw yourself into it and say fuck it and kiss him back the way you secretly wanted to, he pulled back.
“That.” his voice was even, you hated how needy you felt and how even keeled he could be milliseconds after stealing the air from your lungs, “It’s the rest of it,” he threw his hands up and gestured to all the food and knock knacks around you, “it’s this stuff that you make seem so easy, so forgive me if I lay it on a little thick when we get to the parts I’m actually good at.”
“Just,” you sat up a bit, grounding yourself and formulating a response despite your brain looping the past twenty seconds back infinitely, “don’t do that again.”
“Okay,” he sat back and popped a grape into his mouth, “sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” you knocked his knee with yours, struggling to articulate how you felt without showing too much of your hand, deciding to just be candid, “I just- I liked that a little too much if you know what I mean. And this is strictly business, or education, maybe?”
“You liked it when I pinned you against the wall the other night,” he said matter of factly, “I think you liked that a little too much too, and you still took me on this fake educational business date.”
“Yeah, well, you caught me,” you threw your hands up in defense.
“Which one is it though?” He asks and you don’t quite understand, “are you a sweet kiss on the picnic kind of girl, or an up against the wall kind of girl?”
“That’s none of your business, as far as fake-dating is concerned,” you say a little too quickly, “and no you can’t have my panties.”
You say it with a smirk, but he doesn’t press any further. He turns and does that Eddie-thing he’s so good at, just changing the subject and shifting the vibe completely away from what might have been a stale moment or awkward pause. He starts asking if you like green or purple grapes better, going off about how he used to put them in the freezer as a kid. 
The remainder of your date went without a hitch, of course. You picked away at your picnic until the sun started to set, and once the sky started turning purple you made your way back to the car. The drive home consisted only of easy conversation and no further mention of the kiss, well, kisses that had transpired. He hopped out of the passenger seat with a ‘thank you’ and a ‘see ya later alligator.’ 
A scalding hot shower, a restless night of sleep, and too many cups of herbal tea the next morning did nothing to quell the noise in your head that blasted those moments over and over. You couldn’t stop picking apart whether he had thought about it for even a millisecond, and felt embarrassed that you could think of nothing else. 
It was simply an amplified version of what your whole friendship had been up until this point. You silently admiring him and wishing he would look at you the way you looked at him, and settling for friendship over heartbreak. 
Pushing it aside to the best of your ability allowed you to get through your week, but you had the lingering feeling that the next time you saw him would strike you with warm cheeks and a scrambled mental state.
Guilt had started to seep in at the corners of your mind, but you reminded yourself that you shouldn’t punish yourself for having romantic or sexual thoughts about someone you simply found attractive and compelling, it was your actions that would determine the validity of your guilt. 
“Long time no see, loser,” Robin hollered from the pool table across the bar, where she was likely kicking Steve’s ass. 
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” you shrug off your coat and plop down at their regular booth, knowing her jabs were entirely empty. You notice Eddie’s leather jacket hung up by the wall, and scan the bar to find him ordering a drink. 
There was a silent mutual understanding that you’d keep the fake dating thing to a bare minimum when out with your friends like this. Even though Steve was well aware, and therefore Robin was too, you figured tainting your social time with the performance of romance is the exact reason Eddie turned down the girl at the bar in the first place. 
“For the lady,” Eddie waltzes over and hands you a drink.
“Oh, thanks,” you take it with a confused smile, “you didn’t have to do that.”
“You bought me coffee last weekend,” he sat across the booth from you, “plus I’m trying to get better at buying drinks for pretty girls, right?”
You remind him that he doesn’t have to keep tabs on things like coffee, but you appreciate the gesture regardless. As per the past few times you’d been out with your friends, you expected him to put a pause on the flirting, but it seems to be bubbling over tonight. You weren’t complaining, but admittedly the arm around your shoulder or the noticeable way he checked you out when you got up to refill your drink took you by slight surprise. 
Sneaking in to claim the always occupied dart board for a challenge against Eddie while he uses the restroom, you keep your eyes on the corner of the bar to signal him over once he returns.
“You need a partner?” A man suddenly appears behind you, a little closer than you’d like but the bar was crowded, so you’ll let it slide. 
“Oh, I was just waiting for-“
“Let me fill in until your friend gets here, we can get you warmed up, yeah?” His tone wasn’t too pushy, but you didn’t love the look he gave you when making that comment.
Awkwardly staggering for a second, unsure weather to just agree or tell him to fuck off, “He really should be just a minute-“
“Or maybe less,” Eddie comes up right behind you and pulls you possessively into his side.
Your head whips up to see him with a devilish smile, his hand on your waist and the fire behind his eyes telling his guy to get lost.
“Oh, sorry man,” the guy starts backing away with an apologetic look.
“Yeah, better luck next time, pal,” Eddie snakes around to take the guy’s spot in front of the dart board.
He had his darts in hand and took his stance to start the match, gesturing for you to do the same. 
“What was that,” you ask with a slight joking tone, but seriously curious.
“What?” He doesn’t make eye contact and instead throws the first dart, “I’m not allowed to get fake jealous?”
“You’re allowed to feel any fake emotion you want, I guess,” your tone is somewhere in between a joke and a question. 
“You’d feel fake jealous if I was getting blown in the bathroom by some chick rather than playing darts with you, I bet.”
“Okay,” your tone shifts to defensive, “getting blown is very different than some guy asking to play darts with me.”
“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you,” Eddie turns to face you, having thrown all his darts, “for real.”
A moment lapsed where you didn’t register that your mouth was hanging open in disbelief, the look in your eyes Eddie immediately clocked as lust and bottled up to store away for a later time. 
“I knew the scary dog thing would work,” his ‘i-told-you-so’ tone rubbed you the wrong way, but he wasn’t wrong, “you said girls weren’t into that, but you totally looooove that I defended your honor.”
“Don’t give yourself too much credit, I said girls wouldn’t be into it if you punched him,” you rolled your eyes.
“I don’t know, babe, I think you liked the whole ‘back off of my woman’ act.”
You mumble out a ‘whatever’ and let him have this win, which he was clearly reveling in, trying to focus instead at beating him at darts. 
“Just don’t pull shit like that on a first date, acting too possessive off the bat is a huge red flag for a lot of women.”
“I thought we weren’t doing dating advice tonight?” You don’t even have to look at him to know he’s got that stupid sarcastic smile.
“Yeah I thought so too,” you fail at your attempt to beat him in darts, as well as your attempt to not flirt back with him. 
He insists on collecting all the darts, picking up the ones haphazardly strews across the floor from failed attempts to hit the board. 
“I’m no pro or anything, but I think you’d hit the board a lot more if you fixed your stance.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you flip him the bird and take back your red tipped darts. 
As you steady your arm to aim your first shot he comes up behind you and grabs your hips, causing you to let out an unexpected squeak. He adjusts your stance, not aggressively, but with some force, twisting your hips and using his big combat boot to sweep your foot around so you stood more sideways. 
“You’re standing straight on,” he backs up, allowing you to secretly catch your breath, “and all your shots are veering to the right. If you plant your feet more angled you’ll hit the board.”
You wanted to roll your eyes at him, miss on purpose to show him he’s full of shit. You flippantly toss the dart, not trying particularly hard, and it hits. Not a bulls-eye or anything like that, but a lot closer than your previous attempts had been. 
“Good girl,” he comments, leaning in to breech your personal space just enough to make your blood boil.
You drop the remainder of the darts in your opposite hand onto the floor and whip around to face him, half jokingly smacking him on the shoulder. 
“Oh my god, fuck off!”
You’re met with his trademark shit-eating grin.
Truthfully, Eddie hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off you all night. He’d spent the night after your picnic date with his hand in bis boxers, squeezing his eyes shut and remembering the little gasp you had made when he grabbed your waist, the hum in your throat that bubbled up when he kissed you pinned against the blanket, that night and every night since. 
“Oh, you don’t like that?” that joking tone he uses to cover up what he actually wants to say. 
“Shut up, you know I do,” you didn’t even try to stifle your reaction, knowing it was his intent to get under your skin.
“How would I possibly know that,” he playfully looks up at the ceiling and around the bar, hands clasped behind his back now, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“You better cut that shit out, unless you plan on doing something about it,” you manage the most assertive tone your wobbly insides could muster, a little shocked at yourself for actually saying what you were thinking. 
“I’m not much of a planner,” he gracefully takes a stance next to you and rips all three darts, not great shots, but all hitting the board, “I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy, you know that.”
“Well your pants better make up their mind if you’re playing boyfriend tonight or not,” your insinuation was heavy but you had fumbled your hand, and he had already seen all your cards at this point, so there was no reason to bluff.
“The real question is,” he leans in, his imposing figure crowding your space in a way that made your head spin, “do you want me to play boyfriend? Or do you want me to play guy who fucks your brains out in the bar bathroom?”
Your eyebrows pinched together for a millisecond, and before he could decipher your expression you grabbed his hand and started storming through the crowds hoarded by the bar. Why the hell a seedy downtown bar has a single stall family bathroom with a changing table is beyond you, but you drag him inside and slam the lock down behind you. 
“You’re not allowed to treat me any differently after this,” you start to fall into the sinkhole of oh my god what the hell is about to happen, but are cut off by him pressing you against the closed door the exact way he had handled you against his kitchen wall that night weeks ago. 
“Not unless you want me to,” he doesn’t hesitate to get his mouth on yours, immediately pulling your mind from wondering what the vague sticky substance on the door pressing into your back could be. 
“I mean, you’re not allowed to fuck me and then never talk to me again,” you say in between moving lips and tongues, giving him a moment to bury his face in your neck, "Promise me."
“Oh don’t worry about that,” he pulls back, “we can go get coffee tomorrow and you can give me a full performance review. Promise.”
Your annoyed eye roll quickly turns into them fluttering shut as he licks a stripe up to the junction behind your ear that has you melted into a boneless puddle between his pressing hips and the door. He drags his teeth across your lobe while leaning into you with a black denim clad thigh.
“Why don’t we make a deal,” you let out, voice breathy and unfocused. Before he can even pull back to reply you continue, “if you’re half as good at this as you claim to be, and can make me cum in this dingy bathroom, I’ll let you take me back to your trailer and you can do whatever the fuck you want to me.”
He was leaning in to seal the deal with a kiss before he could even process your request, because yes of course, a million times yes he’s taking this deal. Despite the rouse of you playing bar hookup for the night, and despite the idea of bringing you back to his place and finally doing what he’s wanted since the day he met you absolutely terrifying him, he nods and kisses you. 
It’s electrifying. His confidence only spurs you on to kiss him harder, grip his hair a little tighter, say the things you would only imagine in the deepest parts of your mind. The feeling of his grin against your lower lip and his fingers quickly unbuttoning your jeans fuels your fire. 
“You sure you know what you’re getting into,” he mumbles playfully, pulling you away from the wall with a gasp and leading you over to the tiny built in counter against a mirror by the sink. 
“Well I’m certainly not letting you fuck me against any of these sticky surfaces,” you note as you’re lifted onto the counter covered in mystery substance, “and I think you need to earn it.”
Of course it was no surprise to you that Eddie was good with his fingers. You probably could have told anyone that long before this impromptu bathroom hookup. Egging him on and challenging him in a way you were sure he wasn’t used to was well worth abandoning your assumptions. 
“Oh yeah? I think, if you’re lucky, I’ll earn it more times than you can count before the night’s over,” he positioned himself in between your legs, pressing your torso into the mirror behind you as he leaned in for another heated kiss. 
He pulled your ass to the edge of the counter, and looped his thumbs into the waistband of your unbuttoned pants. You were quick to assume that he’d yank the fabric right off your legs, preparing to lift your ass from the counter to assist.
Eddie paused, pulled back and gave you a look that asked ‘you’re sure about this?’ and when a dreamy smile spread across your cheeks he melted into you with a kiss that turned your stomach inside out and made your pussy flutter.
He snakes a hand from its grip on your torso down into your unbuttoned pants. You arched up into his touch, wanting to urge him to get on with it and get your pants and underwear out of the way, but appreciating how much he seemed to be reveling in feeling you for the first time. 
“So fuckin wet,” he mumbled against your lips, his fingers only feeling up your cunt from outside your underwear. He pressed the fabric into your slick center, following the path up to your clit and then teasingly back down to where your panties were soaked through.
“You weren’t lying when you said you liked this a little too much,” he’s rolling his hips ever so slightly against your spread thigh as he rubs your clothed pussy, his teeth sinking into your lower lip as he moves the material aside and sinks two fingers right into your wet cunt with ease.
You were sure that you’d retrospectively have a million quippy compacks that come to mind, but in this moment it was impossible to come up with words when his fingers were buried inside you, still, just letting you squeeze around them, and his hard cock straining against his jeans nestled against the inside of your thigh.
He slowly drags his finger’s up from your hole to your clit, and you let out a whine of desperation as he fully removes his hand from your damp underwear. 
Before you can manage the breath to tell him to please, for the love of god, get on with it, he brings his fingers up to his lips and gives them a long suck, never breaking eye contact with you. 
“Yeah,” he sighs out and presses his forehead against yours, “I might like that a little too much too.”
Protests and urging words catch in your throat as he yanks down your pants and underwear with one quick pull, not even needing you to lift your ass off the counter more than it already was. He was methodical and moved with intention, folding up your pants neatly and shoving your soaked panties into his back pocket, shooting you a wink. 
“Eddie, please,” your overdue complaints are finally bubbling over. You hardly finish your plea before his face is buried in your neck, and his fingers are sliding right back into your needy hole. 
The top of your head rests against the mirror behind you, exposing your neck and arching your back into his touch. He sucks and nips at the soft skin between your collar bone and ear, all while letting his two middle fingers pump slowly into you.
“Mmmm,” he mumbles into the crook of your jaw, “such a good girl for me, perfect pussy squeezing my fingers so tight, can’t fuckin wait to feel you soak my cock.”
Nearly orgasming at his words alone, your eyes flutter shut and you let out a moan of his name as he lets his thumb drag circles across your clit. “Eddie, please, just like that, I-”
“Oh, suddenly she’s not questioning my abilities?” he says with a biting smirk, “What was that about me not being half as good as I think I am?”
“Fuck,” you want to raise an eyebrow and shoot something back, hold out and make him work for it, but after hardly two minutes of his fingers rolling inside you, hooked up to drag along that perfect fucking spot, you had no choice but to feed his ego and let him win. 
“You wanted to make your little deal,” he pumps a little faster, making your head loll to the side and mouth hang half open, “I’ll sweeten it for you, babe. I say we can get this pretty pussy to come twice all over my fingers before anyone even knocks on this door.”
“Yes,” is all you can squeak out, “yes, please.”
If Eddie was being honest, he was a few half-thrusts into your thigh short of coming in his own pants from how hot you looked. Your eyes glassed over, pretty lips parted and gasping his name, perfect cunt sucking his fingers in. 
The hand not occupied by your gushing cunt slid up to cup the side of your cheek, forcing you to look into his fiery eyes. “Feel’s good?” he questions, knowing the answer and not expecting a verbal response.
He drags the pad of his thumb up to your parted lips, running it along your plush bottom lip and dragging it down a bit, relishing in how under his spell you were. His thumb slips into your mouth and you immediately wrap your lips around it and suck. 
“Good girl,” his thumb on your clit is rubbing more focused circles, “suck on that and keep your voice down, don’t want the whole bar knowing what a good little slut you are for me.”
Jackpot. 
A muffled moan around his thumb and the spasming of your inner walls signaled that you were hitting your peak. He drags the spit slicked digit from your lips and quickly replaces it with his lips and tongue, kissing you with fervor as he feels you ride out your orgasm on his hand. 
“Mmmmmmm” you moan, somewhere between a pleading whine and a sigh of satisfaction into his lips as his fingers don’t let up. 
Under different circumstances you would tell him to slow down, give you a minute to catch your breath. Eddie was stubborn, this you knew, and he had already made it abundantly clear that one orgasm wasn’t going to be enough. 
He pulls back from your lips, loving the sharp intake of breath you swallow as your cheeks continue to flush and eyelids keep fluttering. 
“So fucking good, came all over my fingers,” his gaze locks in on where his hand was buried into your cunt. “Gonna give me one more?”
Of course you would, whether it was up to you or not. He did slow up for a second, just enough for you to regain your grip on reality before he started curling them up again. 
“Eddie,” you whine out, eyes nearly crossed and unable to focus your attention on his face, hands, anything other than his boner poking into your inner thigh, “wanna feel you.”
The hand formerly gripped tight onto the edge of the counter snakes forward and pulls his hip into you, a permanent indentation of his stiff cock molding against your skin. 
“Not yet baby,” he rolls his hips forward, giving you a delicious feel of how it would be if he was inside you, but instead pushing his fingers a touch deeper and then pulling his hips away, “one more and then I’ll take you home. You’re gonna let me ruin that perfect little cunt, right? That was the deal?”
“Yes,” you gasp out, his other hand moving from your hair down to rub fast tight circles on your clit, the other hand still pumping steadily inside you.
“That’s right, I know this pussy is gonna take me so well. You’re already drooling for my cock, so fucking perfect.”
You feel it building up again, that sacred double orgasm that only ever came during your alone time in the shower or when you were so desperate for release that your hand didn’t stop after the first, but never with another person, never like this. 
His smile nearly touched his ears at this point, pulling back to take in all of you as your eyes screwed shut and thighs threatened to break his wrist at how fast they snapped together. 
Hitting you like a punch to the gut, your abdomen tightened and released rapidly, air sucked from your lungs and his hand working you through it between your clenched thighs. 
Yeah, maybe this was a bad idea. 
If you were in a cartoon, stars and chirping birds would be swirling around your head as you slowly came back to reality. He gave you some space, and begrudgingly gave you pack your panties after you hand out your hand and gave him a stern look.
“I’m gonna go tell the others that you aren’t feeling great and I’m taking you home,” he makes sure you’ve pulled your pants back up before unlocking the door, “Take your time, and I’ll meet you at the van, okay? I’ll grab your stuff.”
“Yeah,” you still feel a little flustered, looking back into the mirror and smoothing down your hair, “thanks.”
He shoots you a wink before slipping out, giving you a moment to collect yourself and splash some cold water on your face. Okay, so you’re doing this. 
Any nagging feelings that this might ruin things or that he’s only teasing you because of your arrangement are quickly squished down into a deeper compartment of your brain, overtaken by the post orgasm bliss and wandering thoughts of what might happen next. 
You peek your head out of the bathroom door, and slink your way to the back door without passing your group table or a stray Steve or Robin. The fresh air equalizes your buzzing thoughts, and you spot Eddie, already in the driver’s seat of his van. 
“You good?” He asks as you hop into the passenger seat. You won’t let him have the upper hand, just because he made you come twice in under ten minutes. 
“Yeah,” you gather as much assertion as your voice will project, “You good?”
“F’course,” he starts backing up, you internally roll your eyes at the way his outstretched arm muscles and curved neck make your stomach flutter, “Just wanted to make sure I passed the test.”
You sit in silence, not wanting to give into the cocky game he clearly wants to play, yet know that he’s entirely correct in his assumption that he’s driven you completely crazy. Once he’s on the main stretch of road, finally rolling to a stop at a red light you let your hand migrate across the center console, dancing its way into his lap. 
As you hoped, his cock was still half hard and apparent underneath his jeans. You let your hand draw circles next to it, loving the little twitch you get when you run your nails against his thigh. 
“Easy there, tiger,” he lets out a huffed laugh, with just an edge to his tone that suggested you were getting yourself into something you’d soon regret. 
“C’mon Eds,” you let your head fall on the corner of the headrest, gaze angled over at his tight grip on the steering wheel while your hand dancing around the bulge in his pants, “you’ve been pushing this thing against my thigh for the past twenty minutes, forgive me for wanting a better feel.”
You put on a pretend pouty face and flash him your best puppy dog eyes to ward off any incoming snippy comments from him. He rolls his pretty eyes at you and silently bites the inside of his cheek as you feel up and down his lap, grazing his growing cock with each pass. 
“Forgiven,” through gritted teeth, he squeezes his eyes shut as your fingers circle around his head, now taking visible form beneath his black jeans. He internally reprimands himself for losing focus on the road, and zeroes his concentration on getting back to his trailer as fast as this van can take him. 
You have your fun watching him wiggle in his seat, feeling his thigh muscles clench under your palm every so often. You weren’t full on jerking him off over his pants, but you were certainly relishing in the feeling of his dick getting harder and harder with each occasional pass of your hand.
He parks diagonally across the lawn in front of his trailer, not giving a shit where the van ends up as long as it’s stopped. He wanted to dash around the vehicle and scoop you out of your seat, throw you over his shoulder and take you inside to continue with whatever this evening had in store for you.
The second his hand stalled on the clutch, shifting the van into park and taking a moment to let his mind wander to what would happen once he got you inside, you were already halfway out the van and skipping up the steps to his front door. 
Entering his trailer, you start taking off your coat and shoes, trying to act as normal as possible. Your facade of keeping it cool entirely shatters when he enters behind you, calmly clicking the door shut and patiently waiting for you to finish unlacing your boots.
You remain crouched down, darting your eyes up at him, deciding against being a brat and undoing your laces as slowly as possible to keep him waiting. Any caution you had was long swept away by the wind, and he’d taken control in your little bathroom tryst, so it was your turn to say fuck it and just do what felt right. 
And in this moment, there was only a few quick movements and about six inches of space between you and Eddie’s semi-hard dick. One shoe was only half off, haphazardly kicked behind you as you pivoted onto your knees and had your hands moving eagerly up his tensing thighs.
“Can I?” Your question was half formed and he was already nodding. 
You’d teased him enough on the ride over, you wanted him, now. Pants quickly unbuttoned and blue checkered boxers pushed down to his knees, and you were about to go feral and just go for it when a silver glimmer adorning his thick cock caught your eye.
Your mouth was already half open, but your jaw nearly unhinged and hit the floor when the pierced head of his dick falls out of his boxers and lands at your eye level. 
Unmoving, mouth agape, you look up to make eye contact, ripping your eyes away from the shock of two silver balls on his cockhead. He knew it was nice, he wouldn’t have bedazzled it if it wasn’t, but the look you were giving him sucked all the unwavering confidence from his body for a split second, suddenly feeling weak in the knees at the sight of you slowly sicking your tongue out, not making any contact but waiting. 
He took the base of his dick in his hand and gave it a few precautionary strokes before angling it down and slapping your wet tongue with the tip a few times. 
You were two and a half seconds away from being entirely fucked out. If he pulled away and asked you to crawl on all fours to him, you’d do it without a second thought.
You let him slide his cock gently against your outstretched tongue a few times before coming to your senses and wrapping your lips around him, moving your hand to replace his and move against the length that your mouth couldn’t yet reach. 
All it took was a few steady bobs of your head, hand twisting and eyes still focused upwards on his face, to have him biting his knuckle and looking up at the ceiling to ground himself to try and not bust on the spot. You love this, of course, seeing him visibly spiral paired with the salty taste of precum already leaking from him. 
The hand not jerking him off comes up to the back of his hip, gently pushing against him in tandem with the movements of your head, encouraging him to shallowly thrust into your mouth.
“Jesus fu-“ he grunts out, not wanting to overestimate your encouragement, but unable to keep his hips from rolling forward slightly with the push of your hands and the bob of your lips. 
After an unexpected snap of his hips that sent his cock sliding into the back of your throat, making you gag slightly, a pang of guilt struck through him for pushing too hard. That was, until you let your head pull back a touch to catch your breath, but a long string of spit connected your lips to his cock, and a wild smile broke across your face that nearly sent him to the moon. 
You dove back in and pushed his cock all the way into the back of your throat, going so far that your nose pressed into the patch of dark curls that sat above his perfect dick. Focusing your breathing through your nose, you make a point to constrict your throat a few times until you feel him twitch inside you.
Pulling off with a gasp for air, you notice his eyebrows pinched together and gaze locked on you. 
“I like how these feel,” you comment, letting your pointed tongue dance around the metal balls on his tip.
He shudders and you clench your thighs at the sight of his stomach muscles tensing up when your tongue makes contact with the underside of his head, right where it meets the shaft. 
“If I let you fuck my mouth until you come, are you still going to be able to give it to me in a bit, or are you a one and done kind of guy?” You ask with a playfully teasing tone, but genuinely want to know if you suck him off to completion if the night will be over or not. 
“Fuck,” he spits out, more blood rushing to his cock at the idea of coming down your throat, “I’d fuck you all night if you’d let me babe.”
Half a second doesn’t pass before his cock is back in your mouth, hips shakily moving forward with your movements, gaining confidence as you flicker your eyes up at him through your lashes, the glimmer in them telling him he can take what he wants. 
“Fuckin’ look at you,” he comments to himself, “takin’ it all.” 
“Mhmmm,” you hum around him letting your tongue roll around his tip each time before he pushes his cock back down your throat. 
“You think you can get away with teasing me like that? That shit you pulled in the van back there, you think it’s cute to try and get me all riled up?”
You nod, tongue out and saliva coating your lips and chin. You could tell he was close by the way his words came out staggered, and his hips started snapping towards you in a new tempo, like his body was chasing it. 
Grunts and moans pulled from his chest fill the space mixed with the hums of satisfaction you let out while you take him deeper and faster. Moving in for the kill, you carefully slip your hand up in between his legs, cupping his balls, trying your best not to startle him. 
“Oh fuck,” it was a pitch of his voice you’d never heard before, a new tone especially reserved for the moments before orgasm, “you’re gonna make me fuckin come, y/n, y/n, I’m…”
The feeling of his balls constricting in your hands cues the warm wash of come sputtering down into your throat.
Getting the feeling he’d appreciate a bit of a show, you continue to jerk him off and pull off his cock slightly, letting the tip balance onto the tip of your tongue and the rest of his load spills out into your open mouth, some landing around the corners and onto your lips. 
“Christ, y/n,” his chest is heaving, his eyes finally pulling from you to squeeze shut for a moment. 
Once you’re sure he’s looking at you again you swallow down the salty white substance and lick the excess off your lips. You take his head back into your mouth, sucking just enough to clean off the tip and lap up any stray drops. He’s sensitive, you can tell, so you stop torturing him and place a final kiss right in between the two metal balls. 
You thought of asking him if the piercing hurt, or maybe make a comment about the two matching tattoos on his hipbones, ink of his you’d never seen until now. Before your brain can jump from swallowing his come to making post-nut chit chat, he’s yanking you up off your feet and wrapping you in a searingly passionate kiss. 
In your past experience most guys wanted you to drink some water or brush your teeth after they came in your mouth, at least before kissing you. Not Eddie. The way his tongue immediately slipped into your mouth, you almost believed he was trying to get a taste for himself. 
“C’mon,” he whispers in between slotting his lips with your, “Bedroom. Now.” 
He takes your hips in his hands and spins you around, causing a surprised yelp to bubble up from you, making him chuckle behind you as he walks you down the hall, keeping his hands on your sides. 
You knew where you were going, there were only so many doors in his tiny trailer, and you’d been here plenty of times before, but you liked the feeling of his hands pushing you forward, guiding your movements and steering you down the hallway into his room. 
Before your knees can hit the bed he spins you back around and captures your lips in another heated kiss. His hands trail up your sides, letting his fingertips slide beneath the hem of your shirt and push it upwards until your ribs were exposed. He pulls away from your face, leaving you leaning back into him, not wanting the kiss to end. 
“Up,” he pinches the sides of your shirt in his hands, and signals with his chin that he wants you to lift your arms, which you comply. 
It slides up and off of you, his hands quickly darting back to unclasp your bra, seemingly without even trying. This makes you roll your eyes, but the realization that you’re bare before him eclipses the thought of making a snippy remark about what a man whore he is. 
Flat palms caress your sides and move up to cup your breasts, his tongue pressing into the side of your neck. 
“These too,” his thumbs dip into your pants, managing to wiggle under the waistband of your panties as well. You’re going to do it yourself, but he gently pushes you back onto the bed, letting you flip back into the unmade blankets. 
“I wanna see you,” he pops your pants button and waits for a nod before sliding your pants and underwear down your legs. 
In between the blowjob and now, he’d tucked himself back into his pants, pulling his boxers and jeans back up, still unbuttoned, but covering him back up as his cock returned to a half hard state, unlikely to stay that way for very long considering how things were going. 
The scene of you now sprawled out onto his bed, naked and needy for him, and him standing above you, basically fully clothed, had a flood of lust traveling south between your thighs.
“So fuckin’ gorgeous,” you burned under his intense gaze, raking down your body and soaking in the image of your skin laid out against his flannel plaid sheets. 
He crawls over you, letting his body melt into yours, the center seam of his jeans pressing against your soaking core, just as it had when he had you pressed up against the door of the bar bathroom.
Rocking gently against you, you feel his cock already starting to harden again. His tongue moves against your neck, hands roaming freely against your skin, arching into his touch. 
His breath was heavy against your lips, he was already starting to lose himself, and he knew he wanted to make you come with his tongue at least once before his dick came back out, but it was already pulsing between his legs, growing rock solid with every little whimper that came past your lips. 
Your fingers intertwined themselves into the tresses of his long, messy hair. You use your new grip to pull his face as close into yours as your bodies will allow, smushing his nose up against your cheek and foreheads plastered together. The weight of his body on yours, and the lovely rocking motion of his hips against yours stopped as he pulled away and hooked his arms under your knees. 
He slides off the side of the bed, feet returning to the carpeted ground and yanking your body to the edge of the mattress. You let out an unexpected giggle, body limp like a rag doll, moving wherever he wanted you. 
He leans back over to give you another deep kiss, teeth dragging against your lower lip and tongue sliding gracefully against yours, before he slides his mouth down, stopping to lap up at your nipples for a moment, not letting any part of your skin go untouched as he takes his time moving down to where you want him most. 
Wiggling around on his mattress, your body is begging him to get on with it, but he loves to make you squirm. He takes his time licking up your hip bones, kissing from the innermost part of your thigh all the way down to your knee, and then back up the other side. He even takes a long moment to suck a dark purple bruise into the meat of your thigh, biting down on the flesh and licking over the skin to soothe it, noticing how your back arched a little when he bit down harder. 
“Please Eddie,” your voice is hardly above a whisper, whimpering and whiny.
“All you had to do was ask nicely,” he has that too-cocky tone again, but it’s long forgotten once his tongue is buried in between your thighs, lapping up the excess of wetness already pooled there.
“Ohhh,” you let out a moan, sucking in a sharp breath and allowing your body to relax under his focused touch. 
His hands push up from your ass to the crooks of your knees, moving your legs back to either side of you, strong palms finding their resting place on the backs of your thighs, keeping your legs spread wide open for him while he buries his face deep in your cunt. 
“You-“ the start of a compliment, or maybe a request, escapes your lips but the sudden harsh suck of your clit into his mouth has you speechless and moaning, “Mhmmmmm, uhhhhhhh.”
The sloppy wet sounds of him making out with your pussy are enough to drive you wild, your hands originally balling his sheets in your fists quickly move to the top of his head, resting atop his mop of messy curls. 
“Y’can give it a tug,” the first half of his statement spoken directly into your pussy, “I don’t mind a little pain.” He shoots you a wink and keeps his eyes locked on you as he lets his tongue lap a fat long lick up your slit, and then leaning back down to encourage you to tangle your hands into his hair. 
Coming to either side of his head you grab two points of purchase, locking your fingers in at the roots and feeling him hum into your cunt when you grabbed it a little tighter. 
Your hips start to quiver, so he brings one hand from your thigh up to your lower stomach, pinning you against the bed, and still keeping you spread open with the other. 
Working a steady rhythm against your slick center with his lips and tongue, he can tell he’s found the spot you like most by your open mouth and tight eyebrows.
“Ohmygod,” your chest starts moving with heavy breaths, you can’t bear to keep yourself up any longer and flop back down flat onto the mattress, eyes screwing shut in pleasure. He lets go of his anchor on your tummy and returns his hands to your thighs, allowing your hips to wiggle and wriggle against his face to chase after your own pleasure. 
“Pleasepleaseplease,” one glimpse of his big brown eyes looking up at you and his nose pressing deliciously into the spot above your clit has your head reeling, “please don’t stop, fuck.”
Rather than reply, he just continues to devour you at that steady pace, your thighs almost snapping shut around his head . 
“Uh huh, right there, oh fuck Eddie I’m gonna-“ 
A strangled moan rips from your throat and your back arches off the mattress, his hands quickly come to wrap around your thighs and keep your center held closely against his face. He’s pulling your hips flush with his face, despite your spasming torso and gushing core. 
As your orgasm peaks, your hips angle themselves to push up deeper into his face, and he uses his leverage against the backs of your thighs to lift your ass, the entire lower half of your body now off the mattress and sliding backwards as he keeps his moving tongue glued to your clit. 
He climbs up onto the mattress as you slide back, the grip he had on your legs was sure to leave a sore memory of him unwilling to let your coming pussy away from his face. 
When he finally pulls away, your hand pushing at his forehead to prevent overstimulation, both of you gasping for air, his knees are propped under your thighs, and your hips are propped up right at perfect level with the bulge in his pants. 
“Fuck me,” you say through catching your breath, not as an expletive but rather a demand, “Eddie, I need you to fuck me,” your voice was whiny and desperate. 
“This okay?” he starts pulling his dick from its constraints in his unbuttoned jeans, not even shoving them halfway down his thighs before he had that pretty pierced dip dragging through your open and ready folds. 
“Yes, inside, please,” you were chasing after his length, while he tossed his shirt off. He teasingly ran it up and down your slit before sinking into you, collapsing down to press your lips into a kiss to swallow your moans as he slid the whole thing in slowly, making sure to take his time and fuck you right. 
He grabbed the back of your neck and pressed his forehead to yours, finally sheathed all the way inside you and stilling for a moment to relish in the feeling. Pulling back so he can watch your face as he pumps his first few thrusts, he knows he’s beyond fucked. 
“So fucking good,” you slur out, eyes almost crossing from how deep his cock was hitting your insides.
“Yeah? This pussy’s god damn perfect, fucking made for me,” he articulates each thought with a snap of his hips, “suckin’ me right in.” 
“Wait, can we,” your voice had a little more weight behind it unlike the airy moans he’d grown obsessed with in the past forty minutes.
He pulls back, and rather than finish your thought you slip him out of you and roll over, shuffling up the bed and positioning yourself face down ass up, knees spread and back arched. 
“You think you can handle it?” he asks jokingly, swatting your ass playfully and then landing a second, harder smack on the flesh when he notices you pussy clench around nothing at the sensation of him spanking you. 
“Want you to fuck me hard,” you mumble into his pillow, wiggling your hips a little bit to jiggle the fat of your ass, “I know your cock is gonna feel so fucking good in me this way, wanna feel that fucking piercing back in my throat from the other direction.”
“Jesus Christ, y/n,” he was genuinely a little shocked at your words, slowly learning that your freak side might match his. 
You expected to feel his cock slam into you once his hands came to spread your ass apart, but instead the mattress dipped and he was licking another fat stripe from your clit all the way up past your second hole, running this back a few times until you were moaning into the pillow and thighs were tensed up from the attention he was giving you.
“Sorry babe, just needed another taste,” he pushed the head of his dick into you, and moved the first few inches agonizingly slow into your soaked hole. 
“Eddie please, need it, need you,” he loved that his sheets were balled up in your fists, using the tension of the material to bounce yourself back onto him. You only manage to slide back down about three quarters before he’s tightly gripping your hip and pulling out half way again. 
“Tsk tsk tsk, you need to learn to be patient, pretty girl,” he’d thrust it an inch of so, and then slowly pull back, making you whine and start to feel tears bubble up in the corners of your eyes. 
“Want it so bad,” your cheek laid flat against his pillow, and you could catch a glimpse of him behind you out of the corner of your eye if you craned your neck a bit. You sounded so desperate, but you knew he liked it, liked hearing how badly you craved him. 
He starts moving in and out of you, firm grip on your ass never wavering. Restrained grunts left his mouth as he fucked into you, causing your eyes to practically roll into the back of your head. He leans down to place a soft kiss on your shoulder blade, despite how viciously he's pounding into you. His head cranes down to your shoulder, his hand coming up to brush your hair out of your face. 
As his long fingers move your hair away from your eyes, you push your head back into his hand, not wanting to lose contact. He tentatively runs his hands up into your hair, taking a soft grip on your roots.
“Is this what you want?” he whispers, “you like it rough?”
“Yes,” you manage to squeak out, “fuck, pull my hair, spank me, do whatever the fuck you want to me, please.”
His vision practically goes black with this new unrestricted passion, allowing himself to thrust into you as hard and as deep as his hips would propel him, twisting your hair in his grip and pulling you up from your laid position, quickly letting your hands jump to his headboard to support you as your head was pulled back. 
You tried to bounce back onto his cock, wanting to feel him as deeply and wholly as your bodies would allow, but you could hardly keep up with the pace he had set. 
Your ass bouncing against him and the occasional glance he caught at your fucked out expression spurred him on to fuck you even harder. He had your hair pulled back so tight that your back was pressing flush up with his chest every so often, and he took the opportunity to snake an arm around you and hold your chest up flat, his other hand moving down to rub frantic circles on your clit.
“You’re gonna make me come like this,” you manage to croak out, voice hoarse from the harsh bend in your neck. 
“Nuh uhh, no,” his voice was gruff and commanding, right into your ear and sent a shiver down your spine. 
He pulled out of you fully, and had you flipped around flat on your back again before you could even open your mouth to complain. 
“Need to see that pretty face when you come on my cock,” he lines himself up with you again, pushing into you and making a mental note of how the bulge of his cock looked pressing up from the inner part of your lower stomach. 
And of course, your face screwed up in pleasure, puffy lips and sweaty brow, slack jawed and panting his name would be something Eddie wouldn’t be able to forget even if he tried.
His thumb found its way to your clit to pick up where he had last left you, steadily building to an earth shattering orgasm. Talking you through it, knowing you were close by the vice grip your walls had on his dick, in between grunts he spilled out some “good girl”’s and “right fuckin there, that’s it.” 
When he felt your thighs tense up, and the muscles in your neck strain against the soft skin he’d previously had his lips all over, he knew you were nearing the finish line. 
“So fucking perfect, feel so good wrapped around me,” he managed to sweet talk you without altering the pace of his hips, “That’s it, come on my cock, give it to me.”
With that, your body can’t help but throw itself over the edge of pleasure. A deep grunt rattles in your chest, and you lose all sensation other than the wild pulsing in between your legs. You can’t be bothered to worry about what your face looks like, or if your thighs are squeezing him too hard, you only feel the riptide of an orgasm shattering through you. 
The animalistic noise that Eddie grunts out, his wild gaze locked on your face only makes your body shake with pleasure even harder. He had that instinct that most men lacked, to keep the exact pace and motion when your orgasm hit rather than speed up or slow down, it was a gift, a talent. 
Of course he wasn’t going to change a thing about what he was doing, look at you. You were so fucking perfect, shaking and coming all over him, those sweet noises and the beautiful squelching between your thighs. He’d rather die than change a single thing about this moment. 
He stilled only when you paused to catch your breath, and within seconds was flipped over by the power of your thighs onto his back.
Unexpectedly, you began to ride him, trying to match the pace he had earlier set. The aftershocks of your orgasm still washed through you, but you seized the moment to get him right where you wanted him. This angle was different, deeper and more connected. You roll your hips and bring your hands up to his hair, foreheads pressing together once again. 
“You’re making me feel so fucking good,” you manage to breathe out into his lips, he quickly comes to the realization of what’s happened and shifts the angle of his hips to hit you even deeper. 
“I’d give you everything, if you’d let me,” he doesn’t let a single thought pass in his mind before the words slip out, “always.”
Your lips capture his in a kiss that has far more emotion behind it than two friends play-dating and fucking for fun. His hands come up to grasp your cheeks, your hips continue to roll down into his with purpose. 
“I’m- Where-“ his words are hardly intelligible in between breathless kisses, but you know what he means. 
“Inside, please, need all of you inside me,” you try to keep your voice steady so he hears you loud and clear, wanting to give him the exact attention he had paid to you, “Please Eddie, come inside me.”
His hands travel down and guide your hips to fuck down onto him one, two, three times before he’s groaning in your ear and letting out the prettiest and most vulnerable sounds you’ve ever heard form him. 
The swell of his cock inside you makes you drape your head into his neck, focusing on riding out his orgasm and making sure he was twitching in the aftershocks of his orgasm before you let up. 
When you felt his grip on your hips tighten, signaling that he’d had too much, you sink all the way down one final time and let your body lay limp on his, pulsing cock still filling you up. 
His chest rose and fell harshly with his recovering breaths. You could feel his heartbeat pulsing up through the spot on his neck where your ear laid on his sweaty skin.
Silently awaiting the inevitable tap on the shoulder, the slow pull out and post-sex cleanup process, you try to savor every passing moment. But it doesn’t come. Eddie wraps his arms around your midsection and holds your limp body close to his, letting his cock start to soften inside you. 
You nearly fall asleep like that, all wrapped up in him, until you recognize that you should pee and clean up to avoid a UTI. You slip off of him, and hear a disappointed groan from him. He makes cute grabby hands at you as you cross the room, making you roll your eyes, but something deep inside you flip flops with how sweet he’s being, so caring, so unlike the picture of himself that he had painted for you. 
You give him a wet hand towel to clean up the remnants of your activities, and slip back into bed with him per his insistence. You doze off for a while, until the rising sun peeking through his blinds catches your eye, striking you with the sudden decision to stay and face the music or leave and let it settle. 
You’d already regretted it, but weren’t ready to have the “hey, so I know we had fake boyfriend-girlfriend sex, but I actually really like you so what should we do about that?” conversion with him, so instead you take the cowardly path and tiptoe out of his room in the early morning hours, leaving behind your underwear on his nightside table with a scribbled note saying to call you. Hopefully that was enough of a signal. 
Apparently not,
Days pass, and no call. 
It was all starting to get to your head. While you had gone through the stages of being nervous that you had done something wrong, that he was avoiding you to spare you the rejection, thinking he regretted what had happened and didn’t want to face you, who was so obviously into him it was painful, you’d just now turned a new leaf. Fuck that. If he was too much of a coward to call you, you'd hope he'd at least give you the decency as a friend to tell you the truth, you deserved to be angry, and you deserved a response. 
After stewing in your feelings for longer than felt healthy, you just get in your car and start driving to his trailer. If this all blew up in your face at least you wouldn’t have to keep biting your nails and waiting for the phone to ring. 
Three deep breaths, and a quick moment to gather your thoughts, and suddenly your body acted on instinct, putting the car in park and walking up to pound three concise knocks on his trailer door. 
“Just a second,” he hollered from inside, giving you a few seconds to be stricken with regret for showing up unannounced without a plan on what exactly to say. 
“What do you- oh, y/n,” he was in a pair of plaid pajama pants that hung low on his hips, shirtless and hair still damp from a recent shower, “uh, hey?”
“Oh, hey,” your tone was laced with annoyance, “I left something here last week and I’m here to get it back. If you don’t mind.”
“What- oh,” he’s a second too slow to realize you mean the underwear you had purposefully left behind with that note. The note telling him to call you. Which he never did. 
You were left standing on his porch steps, arms crossed and shooting daggers out of your eyes while he stood there in the doorway, an apparent guilty expression plastered on his face while he rocked back on his heels to buy some time to figure out what to say. 
“You don’t have to invite me inside, if you can just grab them and give them to me, and I’ll be out of your hair,” you say flatly, recognizing if he does as asked then this might be the last time you speak to Eddie Munson. 
“No, no, uh, you should come in,” he steps aside to let you in, “we probably shouldn’t have this conversation on my front steps.”
Avoiding eye contact, feeling an overwhelming mix of anger, confusion, and betrayal, you step inside and don’t make any effort to move into the space. You just stand by the door and give him an expectant look. Either he could go get the underwear, or he could grow a pair and say something to you. 
“I, uh-“ he looked so defeated you started to feel bad for using such a pointed tone, but then you remembered the days and days that passed without hearing from him, “I’m sorry, that I, y’know…”
“Yeah, well I don’t really care if you’re not looking for any post sex recap conversations, because you’re obviously pretty sure of yourself in that department,” the words flew out before your mind could even conjure them up, “but you fucking promised me that you wouldn’t do this, so can I please just have my underwear back and I won’t bother you again.”
He runs a hand through his hair letting out a deep exhale and searching the ceiling for words, “I know, I-“
You cut him off, your thoughts were ripping through you now and you were going to say your piece whether he asked for it or not, “You said you wouldn’t pull this shit with me, but I guess our friendship isn’t substantial enough for you to see me any differently than you do every other girl you throw away after you’ve gotten what you want. You clearly don’t want any more advice and you clearly don’t want to be my friend, so please, just give me my shit so I can go.”
“That’s the fucking thing y/n, of course I don’t want to be your friend,” his gaze still fixed on the ceiling.
At this point you were seconds away from just storming out, letting him keep your underwear as some twisted little trophy for breaking your heart. 
“Yeah, crystal clear Eddie.”
“Being your friend is already hard enough, and I knew this shit was a bad idea, the whole trial-girlfriend thing. But how the fuck was I supposed to say no to that? The girl of my dreams offers to do all this no-strings-attached romantic shit, I’d be the dumbest man alive to turn that down.”
You just give him a blank stare, your scalding anger twisting into a more confused frenzy of bees swarming in the pit of your stomach. Eyebrows pinched together, you just stare at him until he finally makes eye contact with you. 
“And yeah,” he goes on, letting all his words out like a big exhale in the same cadence that you had just hurled all your angry words at his, but his tone was filled with guilt as opposed to rage, “maybe we let it go a little too far, but I would never say no to you, I couldn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t know what the fuck to say to you after, but that’s exactly the reason I’m not good enough for you. The more we kept that fake dating shit up the worse it was gonna get, so I’m sorry, but I can’t keep spending time with you like that, because it’s starting to fucking hurt.”
“Hurt,” you say with a dry laugh, which almost scares him, “YOU’RE hurt? Give me a fucking break Eddie. I know you don’t see me that way. So what, you’re too scared to hurt my feelings? You’re doing a wonderful job, keep it up.”
“What the fuck do you mean, not see you like what?”
“Don’t pretend to be dumb Eddie. When we first met I tried so hard to get your attention, asking you to hang out, and you always blew me off. It’s fine that you don’t want to date me or whatever, but at least just tell me that, don’t fuck me like I’m special or something and then toss me aside. I deserve better than that.”
“Yeah, y/n, you do,” his voice was no longer guilt stricken, and was on the same straightforward plane as your last responses, “you deserve so much fucking better than me, that’s why I could never let anything between us happen. I don’t call girls back. I’m rude. I don’t take care of myself, let alone others. I like to smoke, and drink, and get head from girls in bar bathrooms and never learn their names, and that’s not the kind of person that a girl like you dates. I’m a fun quick fuck. You’re the kind of girl that after three dates he’ll already have a ring picked out. You’re everything, and I’m nothing, so forgive me for sparing you of that.”
Your bones are frozen and the beat of silence gives him the opportunity to spin on his heel and start down the hallway, presumably to get your panties. 
Snapping back into it, you let out a louder than expected, “Hey,” and you start following him, not taking long to catch up to him in his bedroom. 
“You,” you point a finger at him, and start to feel the rage bubble up again, “don’t get to decide that you’re unloveable. And you don’t get to tell me what kind of girl I am. Have you ever considered that maybe the reason you’re so lonely and miserable is because you choose to be? You don’t get to decide what I deserve, I do. And I really fucking like you Eddie, so forgive me for acting like it.” 
You snatch your underwear off his bedside table, and give him a look, not fueled by anger or resentment, but empathy. 
“I’m going to leave. And if you don’t want to see me again, that’s fine, but if you do, you can call me. Goodbye Eddie.”
You feel out of your own body, floating above it all and rewinding the conversation over and over, body on autopilot taking you home while your soul stayed behind and relived his words over and over, unsure if you feel better or worse than when you showed up. 
Days pass by again, and you take his silence as more of a response than anything he had said to you during that conversation. You try not to wallow, but you feel scattered and distraught, at both the prospect of losing Eddie and having to deal with your shared friends, would they allow you to dance around each other, or would they flat out choose him and shut you out? Would group nights out bowling suddenly just turn into the occasional one-on-one coffee with Robin? 
Until suddenly, on a random Tuesday afternoon when you've gotten home from work and are relaxing on the couch in your pajamas, three knocks are at your door.
At this point you figured it was over. He hadn't called and he'd made no effort to continue the dialogue. So a thought of Eddie doesn't even cross your mind in between the couch and opening the door.
And there he is.
In a suit, slightly descheveld in Eddie fashion, and holding a slightly wilting bouquet of flowers. Posture straight and brave face, but expecting your brutal edge upon answering the door nonetheless.
"Hey?" you're somewhat at a loss for words answering.
"Hi," he seems like he's running lines of a play in his mind, "I was hoping we could talk."
You reluctantly let him in, and he hands the flowers to you, as if it was a normal occurrence for him to bring you such a gift.
"First off," he starts, hardly breaching your living room entrance before starting his apology, "I regret the way we last left things, and I'm sorry for leaving you waiting for a response."
He flicks those big brown eyes at you and you can't help but give him the benefit of the doubt, he always was so sincere with his words.
"You're amazing. And although I'll remain adamant that I don't deserve someone like you in my life, I've been thinking a lot about what you said, and I'm sorry that tried to tell you how to feel."
You remain stoic at your seat on the couch, watching him shift his weight and bare his soul to you.
"You're perfect. Nice, funny, sexy, brave, all of it. And if you're willing to give me a chance, I don't know why the fuck you would, but if you are, I want to put aside all my bullshit and try this out, if you'll have me."
He stood there for a moment, letting you take in his request, bouquet in hand and suit adorned.
"And I owe you a few dates, for real."
As hard as you want your exterior to be, a smile cracks through.
"Okay, but know I don't fuck until the third date, at best," you jab, breaking his nervous exterior and visibly relieving the tension from his shoulders.
"I'm somewhat of a refined gentleman myself, so that won't be an issue," he bows and extends a hand to you.
You pull him down by the hand onto the couch with you, wrapping him up in a deep kiss. He was worth it, and you both knew it was worth the shot to try.
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rubysparx · 4 months
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Honestly I don't think I'm qualified to make this post, I just don't know if I can make coherent enough words man. But the thoughts are in there and I will try to articulate them. This is probably going to be mostly images though. anyway yeah KABRU POST.
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A couple nights ago (at approximately 2:30am, lasting a little over half an hour) I had a bit of a moment about Kabru. That, too, was mostly images- most of what you see in this more concise post were presented then as well. I think my main points of the "moment" were about Kabru's trauma + self hatred, his autism and/or general otherness, and also a little labru if you'd like..
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I think something easy to start with is I wanna point out Kabru's constant back and forth and conflicting opinions of demihumans and how, I believe, thats a reflection of how he goes back and forth on what he believes his purpose of living is- and the general worth of his own life. I've said it before and i've just kinda shown it in images; Kabru is "i think im a monster and it disgusts me" where Laios is "I know im a human and it disgusts me" (i could go more into the latter on another post)
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the above are both from the world bible, with the left being from the section on kobolds and the right being from the section on Kuro specifically. Utaya was very near to the desert where most of the kobold population is, this is likely why Kabru is able to speak Kuro's language- he grew up around demihumans. (chapter 48 cover, kobold chapter in the world bible) I won't try to speak for how his mother or the rest of utaya felt about the kobolds but I can say that Kabru was very much othered as a child, as was his mother, purely for the way her son's (kabru) eyes looked.
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I feel like its fair enough to say that both kabru and the kobolds were othered, and possibly for similar reasons (villager's seeing them as nonhuman, as monsters) and the fact that Kabru learned their language probably didn't help his case. I think his perception of kobolds (and all demihumans, subsequently himself, as he probably still views himself as nonhuman or not human enough.. deep down) was damaged by the Utaya incident. at 2:30am when I first started this ramble my main comment was that "had the utaya incident not happened kabru would have little reason to feel ashamed for his connection to monsters. and may have ended up similar to laios in that he couldve had otherkin swag" which is just a sort of silly way of saying Kabru could've learned to love the thought that he is possibly nonhuman or at least not hated himself so much for it.
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in the original ramble I said, and quote, "he has been STALKING laios. laios is his hyperfixation to learn how he can ever be loved. he keeps going back and forth so harshly on wether or not he wants to kill Laios and he clearly sees his survival from utaya not as an unfortunate trauma [*] but as a necessary, deserved fate. a punishment for his mother's witchy sins, and for his sin of being non-human. to atone for it all, to apologize for being alive, he tries to better the lives of all humanity. He was set on his way to dethrone the governor of the island . do you understand? im going insane" *i also said somethings about the way he processes other people's traumas and not his own. He's able to understand and even help some people, but he struggles to process his own issues and see himself as worthy of love and life.
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^some examples of Kabru being understanding of or helping others who have suffered greatly. I think its also worth mentioning that with Rin (called "Lynn" in that translation) he says "I wish there was a way to get her out of this" though he's insisted and pushed for himself to go into a dungeon;
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In chapter 94, Mithrun says "The desire I had left wasn't revenge. All I wanted.. was for it to finish devouring me." and I don't feel like it's a stretch to say Kabru was in a similar situation. Mithrun sought out the demon with no plan on how to kill something like that because deep down he wanted it to end his (Mithrun's) own life, to finish the trauma it caused and kill him. I think Kabru went into the dungeon in part with the hopes that it'd kill him. That the same thing that destroyed Utaya and caused him so much trauma would just.. finish him.
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I just think Kabru is a beautifully complex character, I have a lotta thoughts on him and I don't see nearly as many analysis posts for him than I do Laios (despite labru being such a popular ship)
there is no tldr for this post idk how to summarize it. do what you will with this collection of images. have fun. go crazy
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fun fact the woman in the bottom left corner is his mother, she is labeled here as "witch"
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noxtivagus · 1 year
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i love love ffxiv sm fr (to the edge)
#I ACCIDENTALLY FELL ASLEEP LAST NIGHT 😭 my alarm didn't wake me up sob. gna do a lot today but rn i just.#wna listen to music n think to myself n write for a bit. hdfkalsjdf oh my god the effect to the edge has on me.#it's. genuinely probably. if i had to pick one song. wld be to the edge. hard choice but nothing else would be right.#n well. the fight's more for hmm i guess elidibus fans? apollo likes him more than me bcs i'm uhhhh an unfortunate emet-selch liker#but. that wave. THAT WAVE 🥹 such a simple movement but one that just. revealed the identity of that. yk shade that arrived#the bittersweetness in the whole exchange. n it hurts so much when you think of how. how they all used to be so happy#but now everything they've known is torn apart. for thousands of years.. that loneliness must've broken emet fr#the burden of all those lives lost. being able to see n feel them w his affinity w aether n the underworld#n then. elidibus forgot. n lahabrea's.. twisted beyond himself. tragic isn't it? n emet-selch's the only one that remembers#cries. but w endwalker what they did. i rmb crying so much throughout all that. gave me some closure fr 😭😭#n then when it comes to the musical comp too yk the. oh my god w neath dark waters yk the theme of amaurot n#the ticking.. time. n then the lyrics. i'm. technically catholic christian sob but i'm not religious n i'd consider myself agnostic.#but yk the references w the bible or christian mythology. n then the lyrics in general. 'we only fly when falling far from grace' 🥹🫶🏼#i love all the expacs in ffxiv sm i just have these phases where i'm all over each of them n rn it's shb#all the. expacs r like. arr was the start yk n i went through most of it w school n. it was comfort. esp bcs smth painful irl happened#around then. heavensward was. my fav expac at that time yk? for so many reasons.. alphi aymeric haurchefant n the story n drk n#end of the free trial. stormblood was the start of when we subbed. i cld finally play tgther w apollo. our freedom too in our own way#n then it was such a real story n touched on pain n. yk. rlly was a very compassionate story n i enjoyed thoroughly w my empathetic heart#shb was. my endgame for a while. i mean. we started out 5.3 but was still in the free trial n finally got the game 5.5#we started raiding n that's where most of our growth to who we are now happened. n the story is.. it's so. perfect.#i have a lot of memories in endwalker too but shb as an expansion was where most of my memories w other players n all happened#n. i'll ramble too much oh no but endwalker was. the first i experienced from the start. n the story is so.. oh my god#i have. the highest praise for ffxiv's story. obvs still has some of its faults here n there but the highs are worth indescribably much.#n i really mean each of those words. oh my god ffxiv rlly saved me. but i'll. also ramble more if i entertain that thought n write rn so#yk these. stories n songs n just wtvr. just has sm themes that. oh fuck it idk how to put it into words bcs it just all resonates w me sm#like. to the edge it has such a lovely composition n i love listening to every single part of it. n then the lyrics r so well-made. yk?#n then the story behind it too is.. they just put so much thought into it n w so much love n it's just so meaningful. it means so much to m#it just has. so much. n i find so much comfort in it. hdlkafjsd n then themes.. yk w amaurot for example n to the edge#underwater. angels. wings. remember. time. tomorrow. n then the stuff w morality n. just. sm of that has resonated a lot w me#ever since i was young so yk in finding ffxiv it was like i found smth that finally. finally matched w me n smth that'll continue for long
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indecisivemuch · 1 month
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The Pact
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Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader
Summary: Seeing you yearn for a relationship and dejected over the lack of one, Luke Castellan proposes a dating pact. Little did you know, he was going to do more than just wait until the day the pact could happen (friends-to-lovers, fluff, pining, a lot of longing, lowkey jealous luke).
Note: Sort of inspired by Monica and Chandler's pact thing from Friends.
Word count: 3.4k
You were spending some time alone near the lake, trying to enjoy mid summer sunlight as well as the silence from the lack of campers and couples around. For some strange reason, the number of people dating at least tripled in the last three weeks. If you were honest, the sight of happy couples was starting to irritate you.
Your eyes glided through the lines in the novel you were reading, though you could barely get past a few pages before a degree of bitterness seeped through. You set the book down and sighed. Your head leaned against the tree behind you while shutting your eyes and furrowing your eyebrows. 
Oh, if only someone could love you the same way love was portrayed in books.
Before the scowl could grow permanent on your face, you felt light finger tips setting on the crease between your eyebrows. Instead of getting scared, you remained calm. You knew immediately who it was because there was only one person who would do that. The person sat down next to you and you turned to see them already smiling at you. 
To most, Luke Castellan was just the Hermes cabin counselor and best swordsman. But to you, he was a close friend and confidante. He has made it a habit to press softly against your scrunched eyebrows to prevent you from scowling further. It was somewhat sweet to you.
“What’s got you so bothered?” Luke asked, peering at you while tilting his head in a boyish manner. The look alone somehow made you blush. There was no denying that Luke was cute. You knew at least a handful of people at camp who would agree. It honestly surprised you that he was still single. Though you were somewhat relieved at that. For about a year now, you have had a little crush on the Hermes cabin counselor. It was not hard falling for his kind words and sweet actions.
“This is going to sound so stupid…” You let out a deep sigh.
“Oh, come on, since when have I judged you for being stupid?”
“Oh, so you do admit I’m stupid sometimes?”
“Yes, but is that really a problem, considering I find it endearing?” You hope he did not see the way your face heated up at his words. 
Little did you know, Luke did notice it, just like he has always noticed little details about you. Knowing he was the reason behind your pink-tinted cheeks filled his heart with joy. In fact, throughout the last year, it got to the point where he would grow very bold with his flirty jokes, disguising his feelings in between them. Honestly, he was surprised you had not caught up to the truth yet. 
“Okay, well, so many people have gotten together lately, and it’s got me a little bit annoyed.”
“Why?” Luke questioned.
“Because, I want that experience, you know? The teenage love thing. We already have a strange life, fighting creatures and going on quests that could kill us. I just want to at least experience an aspect of a normal teenage life,” you watched him nod and digest your words. “I didn’t want it, want it. But seeing everybody else experiencing it makes me wonder when it will be my turn, you know?” You sighed before adding, “To make matters worse, it seems like nobody is interested in me that way, so…”
Luke almost let out a chuckle of disbelief at your last remark. Oh, many Demigods found you cute. But if only you knew to look right under your nose. He has always been here. If only you could see him how he wanted you to and give him a chance.
Ever since the day Luke Castellan met you, he became a dreamer. During the night, every dream would be of you, while in the morning, he’d daydream of you until he would see you next. You filled in every thought, walking in his mind like it was your home. But even if it wasn’t your place, he’d still give you the keys without hesitation.
“So…you just want to experience teenage love?”
“Well, that, and ideally, to be loved too. I don’t just want some casual teenage love, but at the same time, I’m tired of waiting around.”
A lightbulb practically lit up inside Luke’s head as an idea popped up. The logical part of his mind was yelling that this was a bad idea, though the more chaotic side was pushing him to just give it a shot. Though, he spent little time contemplating.
“What if we make a pact? By the end of summer - so maybe in about a month - if you haven’t started dating anybody…let’s date each other,” Luke blurted out before his mind could talk him into backing out. It was stupid, and he knew it. But if that was one way to potentially date you, then so be it. 
Luke’s heart squeezed when he saw you completely frozen. He started panicking. Maybe he made it too obvious, and perhaps you didn’t like him in that way and were trying to find a way to back out. 
“I mean—just so the both of us could experience teenage love, you know? I think it will be great. We already get along well. We’re good friends. What could go wrong?” Luke tried in a more casual voice.
A lot could go wrong — you thought. A possible thing that could go wrong is that you would fall harder for Luke, and that feeling would absolutely destroy you when you two break up because he finally becomes genuinely interested in another girl. Or, it has you so hung up that you would confess to him, only for him to say that whatever you two had was just a pact. But Gods, your heart must actually be a fool to whisper to your brain, ‘I mean…at least you would no longer have to imagine how it would feel like to be his.’
“Sure,” you said before you could think twice about it. “Deal,” you grabbed his hand and shook it.
“Deal.”
Now…Luke just needed to do a couple more things in the meantime.
During the first week, you asked Clarisse to set you up with somebody. She introduced you to one of her friends, Dean. However, when you mentioned Dean to Luke, he clicked his tongue before warning you.
“I just think you deserve better, Y/N. I’ve known him for five years and have never seen him bring one person on a date twice. Last week alone, he went on a date with five people.” Since then, you haven’t spoken to Dean again, deciding that you don’t want to try and date a playboy.
Two weeks later, you asked this guy on a date. He came to the picnic you had set up with a bouquet of flowers. However, your smile faltered slightly when you realized they were the type of flowers you disliked. You shook the negative thoughts away. After all, it’s the effort that counts.
Things quickly went downhill as the guy started sneezing…a lot. His eyes were watering, and it seemed like he was borderline getting sick. You noticed him trying to stop sneezing. You could feel the guy trying—you really did. But the last straw broke when he turned away to sneeze mid-sentence but didn’t do it fast enough. 
Three days before the day that marked the day the pact would be able to begin, you attended a party hosted by the Hermes cabin. You were honestly done with trying to find someone to date. Perhaps, this pact thing was not such a bad idea after all, even if Luke might not like you as much as you like him. But at least you knew he would treat you well.
However, your numbers must have turned because somebody had walked up to you and struck up a conversation. With similar humor, your jokes bounced off each other’s, and you almost started crying from laughing at one point.
The sound of your laughter caught the attention of the Hermes cabin counselor. Luke could feel his lips slowly curling up into a smile at the sound of your giggles and laughter. He has always found the sound so endearing.
However, when he turned his gaze over at you, his eyebrows scrunched at the sight of you conversing with another Hermes boy — Oscar, who was also one of his friends. Luke was no longer paying attention to the conversation in his circle right now. His ears were busy trying to make out what that boy was saying to make you laugh like that. However, he almost left his friends when you touched Oscar’s arm while giggling at another one of his jokes.
You always tend to physically react to Luke’s jokes, from small touches while laughing to you playfully slapping his arm at his cheekier jokes. They never fail to make the tip of his ears grow red while his cheeks match the same color. Though Luke swore he had never seen you this way with anybody else. Hence, he was less than enthusiastic at the sight of you doing the same with another guy right now. 
You continued talking to Oscar, but your conversation stopped when somebody bumped into Oscar and spilled their drink onto him. 
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to trip…” the guy who bumped into Oscar apologized.
“Chris, it’s okay, don’t worry about it,” Oscar said, though a sigh quickly followed his words. “I’ll just go and wash the drink off, but I’ll talk to you in a bit, though?” Oscar looked at you. He smiled when you gave him a sweet nod.
“Sorry again, man,” Chris said before watching Oscar exit the cabin. He turned to you now. “So, how are you? Are you enjoying the party?” You answered Chris and started catching up with him. You and Chris met through Luke, though as the years went on you two became friends as well.
With your focus now on Chris, you did not notice the figure of the Hermes cabin counselor zooming past you two and outside, following a certain someone. However, your conversation with Chris didn’t last long because Clarisse swooped in and borrowed you from Chris. 
“So, I saw you talking to Oscar. Give me the details,” she said, dragging you down to sit beside her.
“He’s great! It’s so easy to talk to him and be around him.”
“Easier than with Luke?” you gave her a warning glare. You might have told her about your little crush on Luke, though you confessed that to her out of the belief that nothing would ever happen and that it would pass soon. Fast-forward to a year later, your feelings have not changed. 
“...No, but—”
“I’m telling you, Luke’s the best one for you.”
“He doesn’t like me like that.”
“If he doesn’t like you like that, he would have never made that pact with you." When you didn’t reply to her, Clarisse decided to bring something else up. “Alright, let’s move on and talk about something else then…another candidate. Dean told me you didn’t show up.”
“Show up to what?”
“He wrote you a note asking you to meet him?” the look on your face must have told Clarisse you had no idea what she was talking about. “He wanted to ask you out on a date in person after that talk you two had three weeks ago.”
“Where did he leave the note?”
“Apparently, he was planning to get me to give it to you, but he passed Luke on his way to me, who offered to give it to you.”
“Well, I never got the note. I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. Luke told me he’s quite a player.” Clarisse pondered on the information you just provided her. Dean was in no way a player. She knew he has only been on one date with another person at camp. However, the puzzle pieces quickly clicked for Clarisse and she leaned back with a smirk. 
Before you could question the look on Clarisse's face, Oscar came back to the party. 
“Well, if you don't mind, Oscar is back and I have a good feeling about him. So I'm going to go and talk to him,” you left Clarisse, walking in the direction Oscar did. Meanwhile, Clarisse only silently chuckled. She knew exactly what Luke was up to and it made her shook her head in amusement.
“Hey,” you touched Oscar’s arm, though the cheery grin on your face fell when he slightly flinched and shrugged your hand off. “Uhm, it’s good you got that stain off your shirt,” your eyebrows furrowed when you realized Oscar was not even making eye contact with you.
“So, tell me more about that quest you went on last year?” you asked, hoping to start a conversation again. However, Oscar quickly broke out the truth.
“Listen, you seem very lovely, but I don’t want to put myself in the middle of anything. I don’t want to cause any drama.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not the type of guy to steal girls my friends are talking to or having a thing with,” you scrunch your eyebrow in confusion. Just as you were going to question what Oscar was referring to, his eyes betrayed him and looked at someone. You followed his eyesight only to see Luke already looking at you while glancing between you and Oscar. Though realizing he had been caught, Luke looked away and back to his friends.
That was when everything made sense.
“Uh oh…” Chris’s voice snapped Luke from whatever his friends were saying. He followed his gaze to where Chris was looking, only to see you storming over.
“We need to talk,” Luke tried not to think too much about the way your hand felt on his wrist as you pulled him through the crowd and outside. As always, he blindly followed you to wherever you were taking him. 
You released Luke from your grip and stood with hands on your hips. You took a deep breath. 
“Are you kidding me? Have you been sabotaging me? You told me Dean plays around, but apparently he doesn’t. He also gave you a note to give to me, but you never did it. Then, Oscar, who I was getting along with, came back acting weird, wouldn’t even look me in the eye, and then told me we have a thing going on?”
Oh, Gods, you found out about what he has been doing.
“Listen…” Luke started off while rubbing his neck, though he was unsure what to say next because he was indeed guilty of every accusation you were throwing towards him. But how was he meant to trust fate that you would still be single by the time the pact would be able to come true?
So, he intervened in his own way. That included throwing away Dean’s note, having Chris spill a drink on Oscar to get the boy away from you so Luke could have a talk with him. He might have also suggested your date two weeks ago to get you flowers, despite knowing that the boy was allergic to flowers.
All he wanted to do was to make sure the pact could happen.
“Luke…why? You know I wanted this. I wanted to experience things and date someone.” You weren’t mad, but you were slightly disappointed and confused. You didn’t understand Luke’s intentions behind his actions.
However, Luke misinterpreted the look on your face. He thought you were genuinely upset, and that alone pinched Luke’s heart. He gulped at the idea that he might have disappointed you or made you sad. Screw waiting until the pact happens before confessing. What use would that be when you might somehow start hating him?
“...Maybe I wanted it to be me,” Luke confessed, watching your eyes widen. “You told me you wanted to experience teenage love and feel loved, and you’re tired of waiting until it’s your turn. But I have never told you what I want.” Luke took a step closer to you before starting.
“I want to be the one to take you on dates and give you your favorite flowers every single time. I want to be your personal hype man and be your shoulder to cry on if you ever need one. I want to sit with you by the lake while you read. I also want to read the books you read and those little annotations you make. I want to learn about the things you love and the things you don’t. I want to do things you love. I want to show and tell you just how amazing you are every single day. I want to let the feelings I have right now grow cause I really like the idea of loving you, and I want to get there someday.”
You stood there shell-shocked. This felt almost surreal, like something you read from one of your novels. You have always wished to have someone who practically walked out of a romance novel.
“I want you.”
And here he was, standing in front of you, begging for a chance to be yours.
“And I know you just want teenage love, and I could offer you that. But just know I’m also offering so much more, even if you don’t treat the pact the same way as I do and will only view it as a casual relationship. But I suggested that pact and chased all those guys away because I like you a lot, Y/N. And in hindsight, it was stupid and selfish. But I did it because I felt like it was the only way I could have you.”
“I like you too, Luke,” the words slipped out so easily like they were always meant to be said. “I want you to be my teenage love. I want you too.” You’ve been walking around asking when it would be your turn. If only you had paid attention and looked closer instead, you might have noticed he felt the same way. You wanted everything he has spoken of and be just the same for him — to be there for him and learn to love the things he does.
“And I look forward to every single one of the things you’ve told me, and be the same for you. I really can’t wait for it. However, there is one thing I really want right now,” you said as you walked closer to him, one hand taking his own into yours.
“What?” Luke rasped out, looking so tentatively at you. Gods, whatever wish that spills from your lips this second will have him scour the world for it—whatever guarantees your happiness.
“I want you to kiss me.”
Oh, you could ask him for a thousand kisses, and he would give you a million.
Luke’s cheeks grew rosy at your request. He stepped closer, tucking your hair behind your ear without breaking eye contact. 
“Can I?” He whispered in a honey-like tone, and you knew right then that if he kept talking to you in that voice, you’d do absolutely anything he asked.
“Mhm,” your quiet hum granted Luke permission to his next addiction. Without hesitation, Luke attached your lips together with both hands caressing your face tenderly. In return, you wrapped your arms around his shoulders and pulled you both closer until your bodies were flushed against one another. Slowly but surely, you also tangled your fingers in his curls. Luke almost immediately melted against your touch, sighing in contentment against the kiss.
Luke was convinced this was now his new favorite thing to do. He wondered if you could taste it through the kiss—his feelings and borderline infatuation for you. Either way, he intended on making every kiss like this: wholeheartedly and as if it would be your last. 
Now, if you were to ask Luke Castellan how to get the person of your dreams, here’s what he’d advise you:
Step 1. Be stupid and propose a dating pact (tick).
Step 2. Chase away every other potential candidate (tick).
Step 3. Confess (tick).
Step 4. Fulfill all those promises you have made about loving the person (To be continued...But, he’s intending to do this for as long as you’ll let him).
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grippingbeskar · 1 year
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small favours
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— joel miller x fem!reader
— warnings: explicit content minors dni, smutttt, dirty talk, very minimal plot sorry not sorry, swearing, needles, mention of injuries/cuts
— a/n: happy tlou release week!! this is set in jackson between the first and second game, i wrote the first part before i saw the show but just imagine with me okay. and it’s literally just bc i saw joel in that denim shirt and went yeah… i wanna fuck him in that. lmao. also dedicated to @everybirdfellsilent because we have been waiting for this show for so long and it’s finally here and oaoxosoxosox. wow.
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You hadn’t asked for much.
It was a simple fix, you were sure of it. Yes, you don’t know anything about how to fix hinges, nor do you have any clue about how you broke it in the first place. Either way, it’s just a few screws and a metal piece, so was it really that hard to find five minutes to fix it?
Leading another one of the horses into the stable, you pointedly step over the gate that now lays on the floor, too heavy for you to move it. The horse tramples it, of course, which is why you had asked for someone to come and fix it before the horses were brought back in from patrol. Clearly, no one gave a shit about your question, but you know they’d all be the first to complain if it was their horse that got out through a broken gate.
It was late now, anyways. Too late for you to get anyone out, and even with the safety of Jackson’s walls keeping you blocked off from the outside world, being out at night still freaked you. When you finally got the horse in your hand settled and fed, you promptly sat yourself on the floor of the stable. Without the front gate, it wasn’t safe to leave the horses alone. With your luck, they’d get spooked and run all the way through town, and the last thing you needed was more reason for the people in here to look at you.
It wasn’t that you weren’t liked— you just kept to yourself. This life was hard enough as it is, and you didn’t see the point in making friends when in five years this place would probably be full of strangers. People die every day out here, you knew that too well. You wanted to save yourself the heartache wherever you could.
All that anti social behaviour certainly didn’t win you any favours though— hence the still broken door. You loved it— you were good with horses, having lived in a farm before the outbreak, so you decided to volunteer to help in the stables, but it was hard work sometimes. It kept you busy enough, though, and horses never wanted to make conversation, so… win-win.
There was only one problem with working in here. Truthfully, it wasn’t so much as a problem and more of a chronic condition. At least, that’s the way it felt every time Joel Miller made some kind of appearance. Most people just left the horses tied up out front for you to take care of, but Joel seemed to enjoy the peace the stable provided— that and you never talked much, which seemed to work for him. On the days he’d come back from patrol, the two of you would share a few hushed conversations as you worked and he hid from the rest of Jackson, and then you’d fall into a comfortable silence, sometimes for hours at a time.
Weeks had passed like this, and every single day you got a little bit more interested in who the man really was, other than his clear infatuation with his horse. Right when he came in would be the time you talked the most, after about forty minutes it would get too busy and you’d work until the sun set. But those forty minutes started to stretch a little longer, and he seemed to gain interest in you, too. Maybe you were grasping at straws, but hearing Joel’s low voice rumble a few more words every time he spoke to you was doing wonders for your self esteem, and even you couldn’t deny the way your face warmed when he smiled at you.
“Hey, you still— damn. What happened here?” Joel calls from the gaping hole that is the stable door, and only because it’s his voice calling you do you look up.
“It’s been broken all day. I asked someone to fix it, but…” You shrug, sighing and leaning your head back on the small gate that was the only thing holding the horse behind you from leaping out down the main street. “I guess they had other shit to do. I can’t move it on my own.”
Joel considers you for a second, how your frame is backed against the gate, conveniently placed at the closest point to the open door. Then, he looks back to the door on the ground, and back up to you. He smirks.
“So you were plannin’ on sitting in here all night?” The weight of the day makes your shoulders slump forward, and for the first time you really consider your plan. “You gonna body check a horse when he makes a run for it?”
“Okay, it was a dumb plan. But, it’s that or let them all out and get stuck cleaning up the bar floor or something.” He smiles again, the setting sun behind him washing over his shoulders in a pretty orange colour. A tilt of his head in your direction has you standing up, taking the lead of his horse that he offers to you.
“You take him, I’ll go get my tools. Fix it up before sun down.” Before you can protest or tell him he doesn’t have to, he’s walking off to the right up the hill where his house sits.
You’d always been a bit jealous of the spot his house is. It’s far away enough from everyone that you get some real privacy, but close to the stables if you need a quick exit. He had a porch, too. One you spent a little too much of your time staring at during your work hours, when he spent his off days strumming a guitar right in your line of sight. He was just… peaceful to observe. He brought a calm to you that no one else seemed to be able to do, almost enough that you could forget about the world outside and just exist in that little bubble for a while.
You lead Joel’s horse inside, hearing it trample the door again, and hang up his saddle next to the stable. Joels horse is much like him— quiet unless provoked. You found it out the hard way when you first led it in with a routinely aggressive horse, thinking it’s demeanour would calm him down. The next morning you woke up to two very angry horses and a half bent gate of steel.
“Saved you your favourite spot.” You say to his horse, Old Beardy. You never asked how Joel picked the name, but for some reason it worked so well— at least, he was definitely older than most. “See? He’s right up there.”
The stable at the back was angled just right so that the small window at the height of a horses head pointed directly towards Joel’s porch. Not close enough to see anything other than the outside, but enough that you know it’s there. You don’t come in here often, Joel always taking his own horse in, but when you do you can’t help but notice the instant calming effect it has on Beardy— you might have more in common with this horse than half the people in Jackson.
When you find your way back to the front, Joel’s footsteps are trudging back down the hill. You’ll be fairly useless as anything other than company while he fixes the door, but you can’t seem to stop your heart from racing a million miles a minute as he gets closer and closer. Yes, he makes you forget about everything on the outside, but that’s mainly due to how insane he drives you. All those conversations in the stables and too long looks in town are just all too consuming, and now, when you see him come into sight, you have to put some physical difference between him and you.
“You don’t have to, Joel. Really, I’m sure someone’ll—“
“No, they won’t. Knowin’ the people around here, you’ll be sleepin’ on the floor till next year.” He bends down, and you drop yourself back to the floor and stare in some kind of mesmerised silence as he runs his hands over the broken hinges of the door.
In a few passing thoughts you’d never admit to yourself, you have an obsession with his hands. He was just so…capable. He could do so many things so easily— and some kind of backward wire in your brain fizzled with electricity at the sight of him in his element. He starts fiddling with tools, first starting to remove the broken hinge, muscles flexing as he tears off the old bolts.
“What happened?” He says, the words muffled by the screwdriver in his mouth.
“I have no clue. When I woke up this morning it was blown in. I spent a good hour trying to move it but it’s so—“ With one arm, he pulls it up to stand vertical, a fist wrapping around the edge of the gate. It doesn’t even look like he tried. “—heavy.”
“Come ‘ere and hold it straight.” He says, keeping one arm out in front of him, the other still holding the door up. “I won’t let it fall. Come on.”
“Like this?” You say, staring down at him as you finally reach the door and take a little bit of the weight. He flicks his eyes up, nodding and shifting on his knees to get a better angle on the door.
“Perfect.” He says softly, looking up at you for another split second before clearing his throat and screwing on a new hinge.
“You really didn’t have to do this, but thank-you.” Joel shakes his head, his fingers fiddling with a latch.
“Least I can do. Everyone should be up here helpin’ you anyways.” He stands up, and with only a barrier the width of a gated door, you can feel his body heat keeping you warm when he towers over you. “Keep holding it still.”
“Yeah.” You manage, eyes fluttering closed. “People help, though.”
“Oh, I bet.” He says, sarcasm dripping off his words as he laughs dryly.
“They do! Sometimes… I mean, it’s not their fault. I’m kind of a hermit up here. I don’t really make an effort, so I can’t blame them.” He stops working, his knuckles white over the railing of the gate, and looks to you.
“You’ve trained all these new horses to track better than those guys ever could. They’d die out there without ‘em. Carl doesn’t know his left from right— he got lost eight times last patrol. It’s cause of your horses he got back safe.” Joel’s face is more serious, his eyes sharp but still with a hint of softness that he often looks at you with. “Doesn’t matter if you ain’t makin’ friends. This ain’t middle school, and people should be helpin’ you no matter what. Least of all fixing a door.”
“That’s why I keep you around, Joel.” You smile lightly, his voice getting lower the angrier he gets.
“Good. You tell me next time, and I’ll come round and help. Avoid the whole town all together.” You hum, letting go of the gate as he hauls it up in the air and shuffled backward, setting it against the hinges. “How do you know so much about horses?”
“I lived on a farm, way back when. Besides, they’re easy to navigate once you get to know them.” Joel puts the screwdriver back in his mouth, and you can’t help but stare at him. The small scars on his face, peppered around his cheeks. Some are older, worn and faded, while the one across his nose is new. It’s not even scarred yet, still fresh
“You okay?” He says softly, tilting his head.
“Your face.” His eyebrows furrow, and you shake your head. “Sorry. You… did something happen on patrol? You have a cut—“
“Just a few clickers. Real old, hauled up in a caravan out west. Nothing we couldn’t handle.” The door drops into place, and he swings it out towards him. It sounds less squeaky than it usually did. “Good as new.”
“You should clean it.” You say, worry edging in your voice. “If it was clickers.”
“I’m fine.” He shrugs it off.
“Come on. It’s the least I can do. I have a first aid kit in the back, and then we can call it even.” He relents, locking the door behind him and stepping further into the stables. “Sit. I’ll get the kit.”
“Yes, ma’am.” You can hear a small smirk on his voice, and you roll your eyes, turning around to find the kit. “Why you got a first aid kit in here anyways?”
“You’re using it now, aren’t you?” You turn around, raising your eyebrows. “You’d be surprised how many people come here before going to medical. I started to stock up a little, do what I can. It’s not much, but I can clean it off and do some botched stitches until they see a real doctor.”
“And none of those guys came up to fix the god damn door?” He was getting angry again, and you tried to ignore the shiver that went up your spine when he spoke like that.
He was sitting on a small stool, putting him about waist height. When you stepped closer, shuffling your feet on the floor, he tilted his head up. His open legs invited you closer, nearly drawing you in with a magnetic field he was completely unaware of.
Armed with a cotton ball and disinfectant, your fingers were light enough to breeze along his jaw to hold him in place. He stares up at you, watching your eyes as they flit between the cut on his nose and his wandering gaze. His face is warm when you work up the courage to place your palm on his cheek, thumb gently smoothing over the salt and pepper flecks of his beard. He doesn’t flinch away when you press the cotton ball to his face, swiping across the bridge of his nose.
“Does it hurt?” You whisper, feeling the need to keep your voice low.
“No.” He does the same, the heat of his body making you shuffle slightly closer. His hands are in fists on his knees, like he’s straining to keep himself still. “Told you it was fine.”
“And I told you I wanted to help.” When you’re satisfied with the results, you take a fresh cotton pad and dry it up. “You might need stitches. It’s deep.”
“Go on.” He says, and you lean back, eyes wide.
“You want me to stitch your face together?”
“Good practise, and I trust you.” The simple words have your heart slamming against your rib cage, but instead of showing it you kneel in between his legs and search the contents of the kit for a needle.
“If I mess up your face, you knew what you signed up for.” When you find what you’re looking for, you straighten, Joel’s face is right in front of you. It takes you a second to realise just how close he is, and the position isn’t lost on him either. It’s probably the most emotive you’ve seen him, his jaw going tight from how hard he’s biting down.
“It’s already messed up. You’re fine.” He manages, his voice strained.
“Hold still.” Whispering the words, you lean closer and bring the needle to his skin. His eyes close, and it’s when you press the point into his nose that his hands shoot out in front of him, holding your hips gently.
“Sorry. Shit—“
“It’s fine. Are you okay?” He grunts in a way you think is affirming, so you keep threading the needle. You only need one stitch for a spot this small. “Your face isn’t messed up.”
“Huh?”
“It’s not. Messed up.” You feel his thumbs stroke along the bone of your hip just once before he stills again. You tie off the stitch, and his eyes open. “There. You’re pretty again.”
Your breathing was rapid even though you didn’t have a true reason for it, but neither of you moved. His hands— strong and so fucking capable, holding you still on your knees in front of him. His eyes were pools, inviting you in with a gleam of something shiny, and where you were nearly gasping he was calm and collected. In his element, like he was right where he should be.
The whole stable was a dull orange now, the colours dusting through the strands of Joel’s hair. It’s never really sitting right, wind whipping it out of control on patrol, but you have the urge to run your hands through it anyway. You let yourself explore one small piece of him, like he has to you, and your fingertips run back over the shell of his ear, tangling in his hair. He sucks in a short breath, leaning into the hold of your hand.
“Joel.” You say, voice so soft he would of never heard you if you weren’t so close, but you call for him and he leans closer. Your foreheads nearly touch, and his hands tighten their hold on you.
“Thank you, darlin’.” You sigh deeply, unable to keep yourself upright at the nickname. It rings through you, his accent strong and adding an entire other layer to why he’s so easy to fall into. You don’t even really notice how dark it’s gotten— you usually have sprinted home by now. But Joel’s here, and with him this close, you can’t think of anything else. He leans closer, and your eyes flutter closed.
“Can I kiss you?” He says, the brush of his lips against yours sending a tidal wave of need from your head to your feet.
“Only if you hurry up.” You answer helplessly, voice cracking, and he smiles against you and finally brings his mouth to yours.
It’s anything but calm. That peaceful energy of the stables is completely shattered and sorted into something electrical and sizzling. He yanks you forward, bodies pressing together as you use the leverage of your hand fisted in his hair to kiss him harder and deeper. It doesn’t take long before his tongue is swiping along your bottom lip, seeking permission.
You let him in— you’d let him do whatever he asked for if he kept pouring himself into you like this. He tasted good, which should be impossible but when you’ve been starved of something for this long it doesn’t matter what he does it’s just that he’s giving it to you. He moves his hands to the small of your back, pressing your hips right in the middle of his open legs, his other hand on the back of your head.
You feel him groan when you press together, the sound waking up parts of you that had been dormant for far too long. It was like he had access to each nerve in your body, and every little sound or touch had them blaring red and sparking.
“Fuck, darlin’. Come closer.” He groans into your mouth before kissing you again. You smile for a moment, not entirely sure how you could get any closer, and then it’s wiped off when he hauls you upward, hooking your legs around his waist on the stool. “Yeah. Right here.”
Your arms cling around his neck, his own searching up and down your body. Your shirt rides up with the movements and you moan every time he grazed along your skin. There’s something equally hard and soft about his hands— rough from years of work but soft with the way they hold you up, how they’re careful not to dip too low or high. You arch your back, giving him wordless permission, and he groans into your mouth again.
At some point you have to breath— both of you gasping for air in the quiet of the darkened stables. He brings his hands to your face, holding you against his forehead so he can look into your eyes. He was smiling too— like actually smiling, not that half smirk you’ve seen so often.
“What are we doin’?” He laughs, kissing you again.
“I don’t know, but can we keep going somewhere that doesn’t smell like horse shit?” You whisper and he laughs again. It’s sounds so good— like the sound of the beginning of your favourite song. It makes your heart sing, melting you into the tune. “Please, Joel. I really want…”
“Tell me, baby.” He moves, angles your head with swift moves of his fingers so he can kiss you lower. Under your jaw, and then he drags his mouth down, along your neck, teeth nipping softly… “Fuck knows I wanna hear you say it.”
“You. I really want you.” He hums against your skin, one arm hooking under your ass as he stands easily. You squeal, muffling the sound in the mop of hair on his head. As you walk outside, there’s only a few people still mulling around, and they turn their heads towards you when they hear your soft laughter mixed with Joel’s— two sounds that seem to alarm them more than clickers.
For the first time since you’d been here, you really don’t care if people are looking at you, or what they’re saying. When Joel locks the gate behind you and slides you down his chest to let your feet touch the floor, you are reminded once again of his ability to remove every single thought from your mind except him. Just him, and his hands on your hips, spinning you around and leading you up the hill towards his house. How every so often he’ll bend down, pressing his lips lightly to the back of your neck, and how you can feel his smile on your skin.
He guides you easily, your body on auto pilot to his small gestures, and when you finally rush up the few steps of his porch— one you’ve spent way too much time staring at from afar, you’re both attached to each others face like horny teenagers. He fumbles with the doors lock, jamming keys with aggressive force while his other hand stays soft and sweet on your waist, holding you against him. When the door gives out behind you he never lets you stumble, taking you in his stride with practised precision. You’ve seen the inside of his house, but never the layout, so as he guides you blindly through the hallway, your shut eyes and occupied mouth never see it coming when you fall backwards onto a bed.
“Let me take this off.” He mumbles against your lips, tugging at your shirt and jacket. In a tangle of limbs you both shove at the material, finally hooking it over your head. He presses you flat against the mattress again, hanging over you and running his hands up and down your sides in long, soothing strokes. “God damn gorgeous.”
“Your turn.” The blaze in his eyes dulls slightly at your comment, and he just bends to kiss you again. He links your hands in his own, pulling you away from where they were tugging at his shirt. “Joel.”
“Nothin’ there you wanna see, baby. Just let me look at you.” As sweet as his voice sounds, and as much as you want him to continue, you pull away from his greedy mouth.
“Please take your fucking shirt off.” You say harshly, biting at his bottom lip hard enough for his eyes to open again. He looks over you, taking in the sight of you under him with your arms pinned above your head, back arched towards him. He’s clearly contemplating how difficult it would be to ignore you, smirking a little when he looks up at your hands again.
“Or what? You gonna make me stop?” He kisses under your jaw, his free hand skating along your side, only stopping when his fingers reach the hem of your jeans. When he hears you gasp as his hand disappears under the fabric, he laughs. “Nah, you won’t make me stop. Want it just as bad as I do, don’t you?”
“But I want—“
“Shh, shh. I’ll give you what you want.” His mouth his dizzying— words and movements hot against your skin as his hand bypasses your underwear and drags slow circles against your clit, immediately drawing his name from your lips again. “There you go, darlin’. Feels good?”
“God— yeah, faster. Please.” Your chest was rising and falling so fast, trying to pull the air he was punching out of your lungs with every quick movement of his fingers. He hums at the praise, and you feel him shift above you, sitting up so he could slip one finger inside of you. “Fuck, Joel!”
“I know, baby.” He tilts his head up to kiss you again, tongue matching the fast and unpredictable pace of his hand. You can feel it building— pleasure rippling up your spine and fizzing low in your stomach, and your hands tug under Joel’s unrelenting grip.
He seems to forget he was meant to be holding you, his groans and concentration all focused on the way he was fucking you with his hand, so he lets you go, his hand going to hold your face. It makes you smile under him, but it quickly gets lost when you moan his name again, rolling your hips against him.
Now your hands are free, you have a moment of clarity when your eyes flutter open and see him staring at you; eyes flitting between your face and your chest. You want to have that— to see skin you’ve only thought about in the late hours of the night when you were alone, never admitting it to yourself when you woke the next day. You grab onto the hem of his shirt, ripping the denim up as far as you can, getting your hands on the bare skin of his back.
He doesn’t help you— too obsessed with the way you are writhing and moaning so loud the poeple down the street will know what your doing. Neither of you care about anything else than this, right here, and the fiery hot spark that’s lighting you up inside.
“Shirt, Joel.” You tug at the collar, then card your fingers through his hair and pull. He grumbles something, and then you whimper when his hand leaves you and he sits up on his knees. He was out of breath, towering over you and keeping you caged underneath him as he tore the shirt over his head and threw it behind him. When he leans back down, he doesn’t give you the time to admire him that you’d like, but you take what he gives you. He shoves your own jeans down, shaking them off you in one tug, and your eyes hardly have time to open before you feel the backs of your calves press against the flexing muscles of his bare shoulders.
“Perfect.” He says, speech almost slurred, and the look he gives you reminds you of the one he gave you in the barn. Before you can think enough on it, both of his hands hold your hips down and he gives you one last look before he buried his face in your pussy.
It doesn’t take much to have you screaming his name again, that sweet hot pleasure that was building so quickly comes rushing back with the wet heat of his mouth. He eats you out like he’s fucking hungry for it— pulling borderline shouts from deep in your chest, like something is bashing against your ribcage, only awoken by his complete and utter devotion. His tongue swirls and fingers curl, and you lose sense of direction, clawing at his hair and feeling his groan when you pull him into you.
There’s no where to go, stuck under his weight as he dives into your taste, at his mercy entirely. It was so different to see him undone— a sight you wouldn’t be able to forget next time he came into the stables all soft eyes and short words. No, here he was holding your eye contact, groaning your name as if you were the one doing this to him. He gave you no choice but to hurtle towards the edge of consciousness, knowing you wouldn’t be able to hold out under him much longer.
“Joel. Joel— fuck.” His lips wrap around your clit, sucking gently while his fingers curl inside you in a spot that has you seeing stars. “Oh, god—“
He doesn’t say anything when you cum, just groans into your pussy as he guides you through it. He sets pace and intensity, both of which are hard and almost unbearable, and he only drags himself away when you beg him to. Your legs shake, his hands smoothing over your thighs as his mouth presses wet kisses up your skin, over your stomach and chest, finally reaching your mouth with an overwhelming force.
You hum, tasting the combination of you and him together on his tongue, taking everything he needs to give you. He shuffles up, and you feel his cock pressing hard against your thigh, still straining in his jeans. You let him kiss you lazily, let him explore you this way while your hands busy themselves between your bodies, unzipping his jeans. When your palm brushes over his length still covered by his boxers, he hisses and his eyebrows furrow, like the pleasure is almost painful. You do it again and he shudders, pressing his forehead to yours.
“You’re so soft.” He murmurs past your ear when you slip your hand under the waistband. When your fingers wrap around him, you stay true to his word and stay light with your touch, not wanting him to finish just yet. You want to make it good for him— draw it out. Pay him back for everything he gave to you; not just tonight, but every night. “So fucking soft. Sweet.”
“You like that?” You ask innocently, stroking him again. Your thumb brushes over his tip and he shudders again, nearly shivering. “I can be gentle. Want you inside me, though.”
“Whatever you want. Fuck— anything you want to do to me. Please, baby. Not gonna last long if you keep doing that.” A single please was enough to grant him a thousand wishes, but you’ll settle for giving him just one.
He helps rid himself of the rest of his clothes, no insecurity in sight with the lower half of his body. There was no need to be… he was big. It made sense— he was a big guy, but it wasn’t just that. He was just… perfect.
“Eyes on me.” He says, pulling your gaze away from where your bodies are about to meet. “I want to see your face when I…”
He trails off when his tip lines up with your entrance. You bite your lip in anticipation, feeling the soaked pleasure coating him as he finally slides himself further and further. You both sigh, like a weight is being lifted from both of you. As if this was the way you were both meant to be.
He bottoms out, head buried in the crook of your neck as he chokes out your name. You feel full— the weight and stretch holding you to the bed, your arms strung lazily around his neck. Your fingers wander down his spine, keeping that soft lilt to your touch that he seems to thrive under. For all his hardness and strength, it’s the lightest touches that seem to crumble him the most.
“Fuck, baby. Feel so good around me.” Joel never speaks for the fun of it, but he says these things like he needs to. Strained and focused, like it’s a compulsion to tell you how good it feels. “Needed to fuck you for so long. You gonna let me make you feel good, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Joel. Please, I need— need you to move.” You whine like a spoilt child, and you are now that you’ve had a taste. He laughs once, a breathless sound, and then pulls out nearly all the way, only to slide back in with that same trained pace.
“Good girl.” He groans, and then picks up the pace.
It’s devastating. It’s the only way to describe it. He fucks you hard and slow, slowly etching himself into parts of your being you aren’t entirely sure he didn’t just create himself. Like he’s forged apart of you just for him, something low and hot, and he hits it with every, perfectly timed thrust. The bed rocks under him, but he doesn’t seem to care. Its creaks and groans are drowned out by his words and both of your moans.
You are incoherent— overcome by pleasure that shocks even the nerves in your fingers and toes, but it seems to have the opposite effect on Joel. He doesn’t fucking shut up— and it’s about the hottest thing you’ve ever experienced.
“So fucking tight around me.”
“God, you feel good.”
“You are so beautiful.”
“Gonna fuck you for days.” Is the last one you hear before his groans turn to borderline whimpers, his pace stuttering as you feel the coil in your stomach tighten and snap all at once. “Oh, fuck that’s it. Cum again for me. Jesus Christ—“
“Joel.” You can only whisper now— voice so strained that nothing could come out but his name. Your eyes roll back and you feel him fuck into you one or two more times, and then he pulls out and replaces himself with his hand. You ride out your pleasure on his skilled fingers, another wave of heat numbing you when you feel him spill onto your stomach, your back arching off the bed.
The room is suddenly dead quiet, nothing but panting breaths filling the silent house. He is still hanging over you, you can feel both of his forearms next to your head as he leans down to kiss you again. The warmth of his body is lifted just enough for him to use something soft to clean you off, and then he collapses beside you, tugging you onto his chest.
He runs his hand through your hair, stopping at your jaw to tilt you up. He kisses you again, the lack of oxygen making you giddy and dizzy, and you break the kiss only because your smiling so wide.
“What’s so funny?” He says, trying to be serious, but even in the dark you can see his matching grin.
“Just happy. Can I be happy?” It’s meant to be light hearted, but you feel him stop for a second, and then he tugs you a little closer.
“Yeah. Yeah, you can be.” He tucks you under his chin, sighing deeply as the rest of your body turns into him and tangles itself with him. “I am.”
You open your eyes a final time, seeing the pitch black dark outside. If it was light, you’d be able to see the stable from here, but it’s black out there. Usually it would make you uneasy, but tucked up under Joel’s safe arms, there’s nothing in the world that could make you feel more at peace.
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imaginestuffs · 10 months
Text
"You, Of Course"- Fred Weasley x Reader
word count:10,705
warnings: very slight angst, some fluff, maybe a little ooc Fred.
summary: Fred asks Angelina to the ball, and so you decide to say yes to the one person you know you shouldn't have said yes to.
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(gif not mine!)
You never knew that morning when you woke up that you would be asked to the Yule ball. You had no idea it would be a Ravenclaw to ask you either. Waking up that day you just expected another 24 hours of waiting helplessly to be asked by the one person you so desperately wanted to be asked by. His name was Fred Weasley, and he was one of your best friends, if not your best friend. You had met him and his brother George on the train at the beginning of your first year. Now here you were after having ever-so-clumsily fallen in love with Fred, hoping that maybe he’d fallen in love with you too. Perhaps he’d ask you to be his date to the Yule ball, and things would fall into place just as perfectly as you had imagined time and time again. 
Now back to the Ravenclaw boy, his name was Alexander Gray. He was in the same year as you and just so happened to be a pretentious asshole.
You walked into the Great Hall that morning with no other intention than to eat breakfast and head on to your Herbology lesson. Not having slept well the night before you were not looking forward to the day. Though, you knew that the boys would likely try to keep you for as long as they could without making you too late for class. 
You took your spot next to Fred and sighed heavily while gathering all of the things you needed for your usual breakfast. Fred and George had noticed you sit down and waited for your usual good morning, but it never came. 
“Well, good morning to you too darling. Why so chipper?” Fred questioned teasingly. You turned to look at him and gave your best smile. “You, of course,” you teased back and he grinned broadly. “I thought so, I mean I am your only reason to smile,” he said and you nodded meekly. If only he knew how right he was. He was the reason you smiled so much, if it wasn’t for him you’d probably be the most miserable person ever. He noticed just how feeble you were being and a look of worry replaced his bright grin. 
Before he could speak up, his brother did. “(y/n), are you alright? You don’t seem like your usual self, did something happen?” George asked. You quickly shook your head, “No, no everything is just fine, just didn’t sleep very well last night,” you tried to reassure them. They both looked at you with uncertainty. “Are you sure?” Fred asked and placed a hand on your shoulder. “Of course,” you nodded as firmly as you could with the best smile you could muster. Fred being the reason you didn’t sleep was something you decided to keep to yourself. You could tell that Fred didn’t believe you and neither did George but they left it for the time being. 
You went through breakfast quickly and said your goodbyes. 
“I’ll see you guys later ok, don’t miss me too much,” you smiled before giving George a kiss on the head as per usual, not doing the same with Fred. (you see he had stopped his usual affections a few weeks ago and you just thought he had gotten sick of you so you stopped) Turning to leave you felt someone grab your wrist softly, and you turned back around. “Hey, (y/n), have you got a date to the ball yet?” Fred asked, and your heart skipped a beat. Was this it? Was he finally going to ask you? 
“No, actually I don’t, why?” you asked softly. At that moment your hopes were so high. 
“Just thought I’d ask, and let you know that I’m going with Angelina, so when you get a date maybe we can all go together,” he said and immediately your heart fell. You could feel your smile falter for a few seconds before coming back up. You had to hide your feelings, you felt the need to bury them as far as you could. You took your hand from his grip and nodded your head. “Ok,” you spoke before walking away from the table. 
If you had looked back you would’ve seen the concern and confusion cloud his eyes as you walked away from him.  “What did you do?” George asked as all of your friends watched you walk away. “I’m not sure,” he said with confusion written across his face. “I’ve never seen her walk away like that,” Ginny spoke up. “Should I go after her?” Fred questioned and Hermione stepped in this time. “No, I think we should give her some space, she doesn’t seem like she wants anyone around right now,” 
“Yeah I guess you’re right, we’ll see her in Potions, I’m sure she’ll be ok Freddie,” George spoke to him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. Fred ignored that his brother called him Freddie despite you being the only one to call him that. He just glanced back over his shoulder and you were gone. 
Tears blurred your vision as you tried to quicken your pace. Your heart broke, of course, he would ask Angelina, she was perfect, her skin, her hair, her personality, everything. She was everything that you weren’t and so much more. Well, at least that’s what you thought. 
Despite the state you were in you could feel someone watching you. So immediately you wiped your eyes and looked up from where you were watching your feet. You caught the gaze of Alexander as he watched you walk by with a grin. Before you could get past him he stepped up next to you, “Good morning (y/n), would it be alright if I walked you to class?” he asked.  Nodding you gave him a  wary smile. “Sure,” you said warily and pushed a piece of hair behind your ear. 
“You know, I know the ball is coming up soon, do you have anyone you’re going with?” He asked you. Your heart sunk even lower. “No, I don’t have anyone, no one’s asked me,” you sounded the slightest bit hurt and he could tell but obviously didn’t care. “Well, I wanted to know if you’d like to go with me?” he asked and your eyes widened. “What?” you asked softly as you looked at him. “Would you like to be my date to the Yule ball?” he asked once again. Your eyes fluttered as you looked at him in a fluster. “I um- Yeah, I’ll go with you, Alexander,” you smiled at him and he gently lifted your hand to place a kiss on the back of it just as you stopped next to your class. 
“I hope to see you again soon pretty girl,” he smiled at you before opening the door for you to enter the classroom.  You blushed softly and thanked him before walking to your seat and watching the door close. 
Having a class with Angelina and being her partner after what happened was a bit awkward but you knew you couldn’t let it show. You had always loved her, and she was one of your good friends, but at the moment you just couldn’t bring yourself to smile so genuinely at her. Did you blame her? No, absolutely not. You would’ve said yes too. It didn’t stop your heart from hurting though. 
“Hey, (y/n/n), are you ok?” she asked as you walked out of class that day. Sending her a smile you nodded your head. “Yeah, I’m alright, just a bit tired that’s all,”  you told her the same excuse you had used that morning.  “You sure?” she questioned and placed a hand on your arm to get you to look at her. “I’m sure, I just had a long night. I’ll see you later ok?” you said and gave her arm a squeeze before waving at her as you walked away. 
On the walk to your Potions class, you tried to calm yourself as best you could. You knew you were going to be sitting next to Fred, and so you needed to collect yourself. Taking slow steps in order to drag out your journey, you tried to take deep breaths. Before you could get there you noticed someone fall into step with you. Knowing those shoes anywhere you felt your heart stop for a moment. Of course, he had to find you before class started. 
“Hello love, it’s been a while hasn’t it?” he asked and nudged your shoulder. Trying to get a positive reaction from you. “ Not too long,” you said and kept your eyes straight ahead, not wanting to face Fred right now. “But you missed me right?” he questioned again and you huffed out a laugh. “Sure did,” you said. “I missed you too, you know,” he told you and you couldn’t help but want to roll your eyes. “Did you really?” you asked and took a quick glance at him. “Of course, I did. The fact that you thought I wouldn’t, wounds me (y/n),” he said and placed a hand over his heart in mock offense. 
When you didn’t respond his shoulders fell. “What’s wrong (y/n)? Have I done something?” he stopped you from walking and made you face him. You looked away from him again, “No, you haven’t done anything, Fred,” you told him. “Has someone else done something?” he questioned a little louder this time. “No one has done anything, I’m just tired that’s all ok. Let’s get to class before we get detention please,” you said, and for the second time that day, you walked away from him.  He sighed and watched you get further from him. 
You didn’t want to feel the way you did, but you couldn’t help it. “C’mon Fred, we’ll be late,” you called back to him and heard his steps get closer. You could tell he was upset, “Sorry Freddie just not a very good day,” you said softly before squeezing his arm reassuringly. “S’ok just want to make sure you’re ok, I mean you’re my best friend,” he said and you sighed before nodding your head. “Right, you too Freddie,” you said as you opened the classroom door. He held it for you as you stepped inside and made your way to your shared desk. 
You hardly noticed that George was already there, and almost everyone else was too. Luckily you had gotten there before the bell rang, so no points were taken off. 
The class ended and you sighed heavily lucky enough to have gotten out with no new essays. You walked out of the class flanked by your favorite twins.  “I didn’t fall asleep this time,” George says almost astounded with himself. You chuckled, “I’m proud of you Georgie,” you said and looped your arm through his. You had your next class with him, but Fred’s fortunately for you was Herbology which you had already had that day. 
“We’ll meet you in the Great Hall for lunch Fred, have fun in Herbology,” George spoke to his brother as he reluctantly walked in the opposite direction. Looking back and wondering why you could act so casual and affectionate with his brother but not him. He didn’t know what was happening but he had to figure it out soon or he would go crazy. 
You leaned your head against George’s shoulder as you walked, and he looked down at you. “What happened this morning?” he asked and you sighed. “What did he say?” he asked again. “He told me that he was going to the ball with Angelina and that when I find a date we should all go together,” you let out a breath. He let go of your arm and wrapped his around your shoulders. “I’m sorry (y/n),” He said and tugged you closer to him. You knew that he knew you had feelings for Fred. “I would ask you but I’m going with Alicia…” he trailed off, he really did feel bad. “You don’t have to be sorry, someone’s already asked me. I said I’d go…” you told him and felt your shoulders sag just a bit. His eyes widened as he looked down at you. “Who asked you then?” he questioned in excited curiosity. 
“Alexander Gray,” you answered him softly. He huffed out a laugh, “You have to be joking, you know how he is (y/n). I can’t believe you said yes to him,” he said in disbelief. It was common knowledge that Alexander was quite fond of leading girls on for a few months and then breaking their hearts. You just said yes because he was the first person to ask, and it was only true that you wanted to go to the ball. You wanted that experience, you wanted that experience with Fred, but that wasn’t an option anymore so you set your expectations a little lower. Meaning you said yes to a jerk in the middle of being in a vulnerable state. 
“We all know no one else would ask me George, and I want to go to the ball and not alone. I want someone to dance with, and even just for a while enjoy the night despite it not being with who I wanted,” you told him. It was his turn to sigh. 
“I know for a fact that there are so many people here who would’ve loved to go with you. You just don’t value yourself enough. You’re worth a lot more than you think,” he told you and squeezed you tightly in a side hug. 
“Thanks, Georgie,” you said and leaned into him. 
The class had flown by and soon enough you were seated in the Great Hall for lunch. 
Sitting next to Fred and George as usual, you stayed pretty quiet throughout the meal. You worked on some homework so you wouldn’t have to that night. 
“Well, (y/n) here has got herself a date for the ball haven’t you?” George asked as he looked over at you. Your eyes were wide and you swore you blacked out for a second. Fred looked at you with furrowed brows. “I thought you said you weren’t going with anyone this morning?” he asked. You shook your head lightly. “I-um- yeah actually someone asked me on the way to class this morning,” you replied. “Who was it?” Fred asked, he almost seemed a bit upset. “Um- it was- it was Alexander Gray. He walked me to class and asked me if I’d go with him so I said yes,” you told him and the whole table just stopped to look at you for a second. “This has to be a joke. You said yes, to Alexander Gray. why? Do you hate yourself or something, or are you just an idiot?” Fred questioned incredulously. You looked at him with hurt eyes. 
He knew he had messed up when he saw the look you gave him. You got up from your spot and walked out of the Great Hall, your back turned to him for the third time that day.
“You idiot! What was that all about?” George hit his brother. “I didn’t mean to say that. It just came out,” he said hopelessly.“You complete moron,” Hermione slammed her book shut.  “Did you see how hurt she was?” Ginny asked. “Why would she say yes to him?” Fred asked everyone. “Did it not occur to you that maybe she just wanted someone to go with? I mean after what you said this morning I would say yes to someone who asked me right after as well. She didn’t want us to think that she’d have to go alone, it’s rather obvious,” Hermione stepped in again. “That doesn’t mean she has to say yes to him,” Fred spat out. 
“You are absolutely insufferable,” she said and got up from her spot as well to go after you. Ginny joined her. 
“You know, you should be the one going after her,” George told him and shook his head. “I don’t think she wants me around much today,” Fred said. “You really don’t realize that you’ve hurt her feelings at least twice now?” George spoke up. “What do you mean twice? What did I do in the first place?” Fred questioned in frustration. “I can’t tell you that, but you sure as hell know what you did the second time around,” George said not willing to out your secret. “What do you mean you can’t tell me?” he sounded even more frustrated. “You’ll figure it out eventually,” George said and went back to his food. 
You walked away from him once more, and you never thought he would say something like that to you. He knew you better than anyone else and he had to have known that it was gonna hurt you. You had no clue why he would be this upset about it. Sure Alexander is a crappy person but you never thought he would insult you for it. 
Tears leaked from your eyes as you continued your walk to the black lake. You hadn’t expected anyone to follow you and so you were surprised when Hermione and Ginny showed up beside you. You quickly tried to dry your tears, but it was too late they had already seen them. 
“(y/n), are you ok?” Ginny asked. “Of course, she’s not ok your brother was a complete git,” Hermione spoke up. “No, no he wasn’t. I guess he was right, I am kind of an idiot aren’t I? I mean I said yes to the first boy who asked me because I couldn’t stand the fact that Fred was going with Angelina,” you let the words tumble from your mouth. They both looked at you with sympathy as you sat down in front of the lake. “I mean maybe I do hate myself, I never would have said yes if I didn’t think so lowly of myself that he was all I’d ever be asked by,” you spoke up again as you let your eyes wander to the water. “Don’t say that about yourself, we all know how much you’re worth. So does Fred despite what he said he knows how many people would kill to ask you to the ball,” Ginny said. 
“It sure as hell doesn’t seem like I’m worth that much to him at all. I shouldn’t even care, but I do, I do care so much and it drives me crazy. He drives me crazy, in the best and worst ways and I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s clear he doesn’t want me, so it’s best if I just get over it, and just try not to think of him anymore,” you finished your rant and took a deep breath in and out. “You’ll be ok, you know? He’ll come to his senses and see just what he’s lost. Why don’t we return to the castle and get you cleaned up before afternoon classes?” Hermione said and brushed your hair behind your shoulder. You looked over at her and gave a weak smile. “Ok,” you said and you all three got up to head back to the castle. 
It was almost funny to you that everyone seemed to know about your love for the ginger, everyone except for him. 
The end of the day came quicker than you thought it would and soon enough you were situated by the fire in the common room. Hermione and Ginny were sitting around you and then came the rest of your friends. You noticed Fred coming your way and instantly began to internally panic. Hermione could feel you tense up and placed a comforting hand on your knee. “You’re ok,” she whispered for only you to hear. You slowly nodded your head and let out a sigh. 
“(y/n), can I talk with you?” he asked and you looked at him for a second before feeling Hermione nudge you. “Um, yeah ok,” you said and got up from your spot to follow him to the corner tucked away from everyone else. 
You sat down and so did he. “I’m not good with this kind of thing, but I know for a fact that I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say any of that, I know you’re not an idiot, and I was wrong for what I said to you,” He told you and you wrung your hands. “It’s ok, I mean maybe I am an idiot for saying yes to him… I guess going alone would’ve been better, I just wanted that experience with someone,” you told him truthfully. He looked at you with furrowed brows. “You're not an idiot, I’m sorry I even said that. I just think you deserve better than him. He’s not good enough for you that I know for sure,” he said and reached out to grab your hands in his. “Thanks, Freddie,” you said and tried not to let your eyes tear up again. Knowing he did care made things so much worse. “Of course, it’s the truth. Now, I have one question for you if I may,” he said and you looked at him in confusion. “What is it?” you asked. “Save a dance for me?” he asked and your heart skipped a beat. “Yeah, of course,” you breathed out softly before giving him a weak smile. 
He let go of your hands but before he walked away he looked down at you again. “Is there anything else bothering you love?” he questioned and you looked at him softly before shaking your head. “No, nothing at all Freddie. I am a bit tired though so I think I’ll just head on to bed now,” you said and got up from your spot. “You can tell me anything,” he reminded you as you stepped away from him. “I know. Goodnight Fred,” you told him and gave him a wave before bidding everyone else goodnight. 
He sighed heavily as your footsteps receded up the stairs. Hopeful things would be better the next day, he went to sit with his friends. “Is everything ok?” George asked. “Yeah, I think everything is ok now. I apologized and we talked, I just hope she’s ok, she still seems a bit off. I’m worried,” Fred explained. “She’ll be ok, I mean sometimes you have to figure things out on your own,” Ginny said. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Fred sighed. 
The next week seemed to fly by, and before you knew it it was the day before the ball. You had picked out the perfect dress and you were honestly excited. 
Walking down to breakfast you had an actual smile on your face. You looked happier than you had been in a while. You stepped into the Great Hall and instantly found your friends with an open spot just by Fred and George as usual. Before you could get to your seat someone came up and took it. Your brows furrowed and your lips fell into a thin line, just as you were about to tell this person off you realized who it was. It was Angelina and your heart sank. You walked up to the table and greeted everyone before Hermione moved to give you a spot next to her. You smiled gratefully and took the seat. George smiled over at you sympathetically and you gave a small smile back. 
You could tell he felt bad for you, and it hurt even worse because it seemed that Fred didn’t really care that she took your spot next to him. Though it wasn’t your assigned seat, and it wasn’t specially reserved for you, it was. It was your seat, it was where you always sat every meal of the day. You could see Hermione glaring daggers at Fred, and you placed a hand on her arm to get her to look at you. “It’s ok,” you spoke softly. “No it’s not,” she spoke through gritted teeth. “It has to be,” you said and she sighed. “He’s so oblivious it’s painful,” she told you and you almost chuckled. She looked over at you with an amused smile at the thought of almost making you laugh. 
“So, (y/n), I heard you have a date. If you want we can all go together,” Angelina spoke up and you gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Sure,” you said and nodded your head despite wanting to say no. You wanted to tell her that you wouldn’t like to go together, that you’d rather be stuck with Alexander all by yourself than watch her and Fred be so close all night. Instead, you said “yes”, you said yes just for him, to put a smile on his face. You saw him do just that, he smiled at you and placed his arm around Angelina. 
“I’m gonna go, I actually wanted to get to class a little early today I have to talk to the professor about something,” you spoke and got up to leave. “I’ll see you in class then?” Angelina asked and you nodded. “Yeah, I’ll see you in class,” you said and waved to everyone. “Wait up (y/n), I’ll walk you to class,” George said, and you smiled at him gratefully. “I’d like that, c’mon then Georgie,” You said and motioned for him to join you. 
“George our lesson is in the opposite direction you won’t make it back in time,” Fred looked at him in confusion. “That’s ok,” George shrugged his shoulders and wrapped an arm around you. “Let’s get going then,” you said and began your walk to your herbology class. 
“Do you reckon he fancies her?” Angelina asked and everyone kind of laughed. “No way, we’ve been best friends since first year,” Fred huffed out a laugh. “I don’t know, he seems really sweet on her sometimes,” Angelina tried again. “Does he?” Fred asked. “But I guess that’s because you’ve been friends for so long,” she shrugged and went back to her food. 
Fred’s mind thought back to all the times that you and his brother were together. He was reminded of how affectionate you were with him and he was with you. Maybe he did like you, maybe he’s just been trying to hide it all these years. Then he thought about all the times you and him were like that. Every time you’d play with his hair and loop your arm through his as you walked together. All of the times you’d kiss his head before getting up to go to bed, and when you’d hug him for no other reason than you missed him. 
The times when he would be the one to pull you closer, where he would let you sit between his legs with your back against his chest while you read. He would compare your hands to his because of how small they were against his. The thought of his brother doing anything remotely close to that with you was unnerving. He didn’t like it one bit, was he jealous? No, he couldn’t be, he didn’t like you like that. Or did he?
You sighed heavily and leaned into your friend. “Did she have to sit there? I mean, that’s my spot you know. Everyone knows that’s my spot,” you whined a bit and he chuckled. “She just sat down, we didn’t want to be rude,” George said. You rolled your eyes. “I know, I’m just getting sick of losing things to her. I mean she kind of stole the love of my life, and now she steals my seat next to him,” you threw your hands up in frustration.  He chuckled “It’s only temporary. They’re only together for one night, and then you can have your seat back too,” he said and you sighed again. “You think?” you asked and looked up at him with a slight pout. “Definitely,” he said and squeezed your shoulders. You leaned your head against his shoulder. “You know I love you right?” you asked him. “Of course, I do, who doesn’t love me?” he quipped and you nudged him in the side. “Alright, alright, I love you too,” he said and you smiled up at him and he kissed your forehead. 
Little did you know that Angelina was making her way to the classroom and overheard, and saw you and George. Keep this in mind, Angelina knew you had a date to the ball, but she didn’t know who it was. She, of course, took it that you and George were together or at least liked each other. She smiled to herself and kept on walking, already too excited to prove herself right to Fred. 
George opened the door for you and you walked in but not before giving him a hug. “Bye Georgie see you in Potions,” you said and waved. He was about to let go of the door before he saw Angelina coming his way so being ever the gentleman he held the door for her too. “Thanks, George,” she said and came over to sit next to you.
“Are you excited for the ball tomorrow?” she asked and you just nodded your head. “Yeah actually I am,” you said. “I’m glad we can go together,” she said and you gave her a weak smile. “I am too,” you lied. 
The rest of the class went by smoothly and on to the next you went. Straight to the dungeons for Potions. Getting there you noticed that Fred and George were already there which was a weird sight but they did have a shorter walk than you so you shrugged it off. 
You shot George a smile and went to sit with Fred. “Hello love,” he said and you gave a small smile back. “Hey, Freddie,” you said and got your book out to turn to the correct page. 
“I’d bet you anything that we get an essay today,” Fred said and you chuckled, “We already know you’d win, so there’s no need for a silly bet,” you said. “That’s true, but we can always debate what it’s going to be about,” he said and you rolled your eyes. “Sure,” you agreed. 
Before he could say anything Snape spoke up, and the lesson began. 
Fred of course, did things throughout the class to try and make you laugh, and despite yourself, you did. 
You walked out of class that day with surprisingly no essay and you chuckled. “Well I guess you would’ve lost that bet Fred, there was no essay today,” you shrugged as you continued down the corridors with the brothers. “Something is off about that,” George said and was about to toss an arm around your shoulder, but Fred noticed and did it before he could. George looked at him a little strangely but continued on. 
“Bye Fred, see you after this lesson,” you said and before he walked away he placed a kiss on your head. You looked at him with surprise and tried to suppress the light blush on your cheeks. It was nothing new to you, but he hadn’t done something like that in weeks. 
“You’re blushing,” George teased and you swatted his arm. “I am not!” you tried to deny it. He laughed. “You absolutely are,” he said and just wrapped his arm around your shoulders. 
“Did he seem a bit strange to you?” you asked George as you looked up at him with confusion. “A bit, yeah,” he agreed. “He hasn’t bothered to be that affectionate in weeks. That was weird,” you said as your brows furrowed. “Don’t think on it too much. I know you always overthink,” he said and tapped your head. You sighed and nodded, “I know, I guess I just missed it,” you said. “Well, apparently he did too,” George said. You hoped he was right, you really did but you had your doubts. 
Fred kept thinking back on the way you just seemed to melt into him when his arm was around you. He thought of the blush on your cheeks when he kissed you and couldn’t help but miss that feeling immediately. He didn’t truly understand what was happening but he could tell it was freaking him out. He had never realized just how much he thought about you and the little things that you do, or even the way you make him feel. He all of a sudden couldn’t wait to see you again. 
His lesson seemed to stretch on and on until finally, it came to an end. He quickly gathered his things and practically raced out the door and to the Great Hall.  When he arrived he saw you sitting in the spot next to Hermione again and noticed that once again Angelina had taken up your spot next to him. He sighed but made his way over to the table. 
“Hey Fred, how was herbology?” you asked. He smiled brightly at you, “Take a guess,” he said and you scrunched your nose and tilted your head to the side in thought. “Hmm, I’m gonna guess that it was just as boring as it always is to you,” you said with a smile. He felt his heart melt at your actions. He was so happy to see you acting as your normal self. Little did he know that he was the cause of it. His bringing back that affection you adored so much about him brought back some of your happiness. Despite Angelina being in your seat you just decided to keep George’s words in mind. This was only temporary, a one-night thing. 
“You’re perfectly right love,” he said and you chuckled. “I knew it,” you spoke happily. Before anyone else could say anything Angelina spoke up. 
“Fred, can I talk to you for a minute?” she asked and got up. “Um, yeah sure,” he said and followed her out of the Great Hall. 
They exited through the doors and she pulled him aside. 
“What’s this about?” he asked her. “I have proof,” she spoke confidently. “Proof of what exactly?” he asked her in confusion. “Proof, that George and (y/n) are together,” She stated simply. “What?” he questioned loudly. “Shh, lower your voice,” she said and grabbed his shoulders. “Where did you get that idea?” he asked this time quieter. 
“I saw them on the way to class this morning and they both said I love you. He kissed her forehead and held the door for her. Her smile was as big as I’ve ever seen it, I swear,” she said and Fred’s brows raised. “There’s no way, they would’ve told me,” he said, sounding upset. “Maybe they haven’t told anyone yet,” she shrugged. “But they would’ve told me,” he said. 
He had the thought in the back of his mind that it was all platonic of course, but then again he could be wrong. He felt his heart sink at the thought of you and George together, it didn’t seem right. You were a perfect pair, but not as a couple at least that’s what he thought. You both had dates for the ball but not with each other, maybe it was just because you were hiding it. No, he couldn’t shake the feeling that you and George weren’t right together. You were just friends, I mean you always told them that you loved them and they reciprocated of course. They were always affectionate, although he realized for weeks he hadn’t been as affectionate with you. He had been so busy caught up on pranks and going to the ball with Angelina that he didn’t make as much time for you. He didn’t realize it affected him until he pulled you close and kissed you goodbye. He didn’t realize how much he did miss you, the smell of your hair, and perfume. He missed how you would just lean into him, and fit so perfectly at his side. 
He and Angelina walked back into the Great Hall and noticed that George was behind you with his arms around your shoulders and his chin resting atop your head. Angelina gave him a knowing look before walking back to the table to collect her things and sit with her other friends for a while. 
“So what did you want to show me, Darling?” George asked and you chuckled at the name. “I just wanted to give you the notes that you didn’t take during History of Magic,” you said and he huffed. “Well, that’s boring,” he said and you chuckled again. “But you’ll appreciate it after hearing about the test we have next Friday,” you said and he let out a whine. “A test, really?” he questioned and you smiled. “Yes, George, a test, now copy these down and give them back before Friday please,” you said and handed them to him. He let you go and went to sit back down next to his brother. “Freddie, since you're learning the same thing you should copy those notes too,” you said and he just nodded. 
He just hoped he was reading too much into it. “You ok Freddie?” you asked. “Just fine,” he answered and you looked at him skeptically. “We can talk later if you want to,” you said and tried to give him a reassuring smile. He thought about it for a moment, “Yeah ok,” he said and tried to give his best smile back. 
The day seemed to fly by after that. You just had this worry in the back of your mind. This fear that maybe you had done something wrong, or maybe Angelina had upset him. Overall you just wanted him to be ok, and that’s what you were gonna make sure happened. 
The evening feast had come to an end and so you all headed back to the common room, whether that was to read, hang out, or in your case have a talk with your friend. 
As you made your way through the halls you fell into step with Fred. “May I?” you pointed at his arm. He just looked at you and gave a smile before nodding. You looped your arm through his and leaned against him a bit. “Angelina won’t mind will she?” you asked in honest wondering. “Of course not, she knows how close we are and it’s not like we’re dating,” he told you and you just nodded, “Alright, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t crossing any lines,” you said. “In fact, come here,” he said and pulled you to a halt so he could wrap his arms around you in a hug. You smiled brightly and let out a happy sigh at the feeling of him so close again. You leaned against his chest and held on as tightly as you could.
 “I’ve missed you, Freddie,” you admitted softly. He heard your words and his heart melted. “I’ve missed you too love,” he said and held you tighter. “I’m sorry for being the way I was these past few weeks. I’ve been separate from you and your feelings,” He told you and you looked up at him in surprise. “You don’t have to be sorry, I’ve been in a really bad mood for a while and haven’t been the easiest to be around, so I’m sorry,” you told him and pulled away a bit. 
“I guess we both haven’t been the best friends have we?” he asked and you chuckled softly. “I guess you’re right, now before it gets even colder, let’s go talk in the common room ok?” you asked and he nodded. “C’mon then,” he said and held his arm out to you once again. You took it as you walked through the portrait hole. 
You did as you used to do, and snuck him up to your dormitory. You sat down on your bed and luckily no one else was there. “Alright, now what did you want to talk about?” you asked him as you patted the spot next to you. “It’s about something that Angelina said to me today,” he spoke up and you nodded telling him it was ok to continue. “She told me that you and George were together,” he got out. Your face scrunched into one of utter confusion. “Where in the world did she get that absurd idea?” you questioned in astonishment. 
“She said she saw you and George on the way to class this morning, he kissed your head and you both said I love you. She assumed you were together,” he told you and you scoffed and shook your head. “You don’t honestly believe her do you?” you asked him. 
“I don’t know, you guys can be pretty affectionate sometimes,” he kind of trailed off. “What? I’m affectionate with you too, and I’d say even more so than with George,” you spoke in a huff. He looked at you and tried to hide a grin, “That’s true isn’t it?” he asked and you immediately nodded. “I’ve been asked by both of our mums if we were together, and have had to assure them every time that we were just friends.” You told him with a laugh. “Mum’s asked me as well,” He said and you chuckled. “So, just to clarify, your brother and I are not together,” you told him and he nodded. “Right, good, that eased my conscious,” he said and you smiled. He felt a weight lift off of him and he could breathe again. He had no idea why it weighed on him so harshly, but he knew that you were doing something to him. Something he never noticed before. 
You walked down the stairs with Fred behind you. You tried not to laugh as he nudged you forward. When you got to the bottom step you both split up. You went straight to George and he went to Angelina.   
“I guess you’ll have to break the news to poor George that you aren’t together,” he said and you laughed. “Sure, and you’ll have to break the news to Angelina that she was sorely mistaken,” you joked back. “Together?” he asked and you chuckled but nodded. “Together,” 
He walked up to her and smiled, “You might want to watch this,” he said with a smile and pointed over to where you stood in front of George. 
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Just watch,” he said and they went silent. 
“George, I know this may hurt, but I need to tell you something,” you spoke loud enough for most people to hear. He looked at you with worry in his eyes. “What’s wrong (y/n)?” he asked and stood up. “I hope you know that I love you, I really do,” you said and made tears come to your eyes as your bottom lip wobbled. He reached out to grab your hands and pull you away from everyone. “What’s going on?” he asked and moved a piece of hair from your face. “I’m sorry but we aren’t together, we never have been, and I’m sorry to break it to you this way, but I just needed you to know the truth,” You told him with a shaky sigh. 
He looked at you with utter confusion, “What do you mean (y/n)? I know we’ve never been together, where is any of this coming from?” he asked and shook his head. “I just wanted you to know that I’ll always love you but just as a friend alright?” you asked and took his face in your hands. He held your wrists, “Ok, well I love you too just as a friend,” he said and you quickly pulled him into a hug. He hugged you back just as tightly. “What’s going on?” he whispered. “Angelina thought we were together, so I thought I'd give a bit of a show,” you whispered back and he chuckled. “Of course, you did,” he said and smiled down at you. “So, friends?” you asked. “Friends,” he said and kissed your head just like he had done earlier. 
Angelina looked at Fred with wide eyes, “Are you kidding me?” she asked and Fred let out a laugh. “This is how you tell me I’m wrong?” she questioned in slight annoyance. “We had to tell you somehow,” you walked over to them. “You could have just told me,” she said. “What’s the fun in that?” you asked and she rolled her eyes. “You guys are the worst I swear,” she said and you chuckled. “Right, but you’re still my date though?” he asked her. And your heart hurt a bit. “I am still your date,” she assured him and he smiled. “By the way (y/n), who’s your date if you’re not going with George?” she asked you curiously. You sighed heavily. “Alexander Gray,” you spoke softly but she caught it. Her eyes widened, “What? Why?” she questioned. “He asked me so I said yes,” you told her. ‘You could’ve said no,” she told you. “I know, but I didn’t, and I just have to live with that now,” you said and sighed before walking away. “Is she ok?” Angelina asked Fred. “I think she’s just upset about it,” he told her and said goodbye before following in your footsteps. 
“(y/n), are you ok?” he asked when he reached you. “Yeah, I’m ok, just a bit embarrassed is all,” you said and shrugged. “Don’t be, we’ve all made mistakes before, just maybe none as bad as this,” he joked and you sighed before swatting his arm. ‘Ok, Ok, I’m sorry,” he said, and you ended up chuckling. “I just hope he doesn’t try anything,” you said. “Don’t worry he won’t and if he does I’ll be there ok,” he told you and you smiled at him. “Thanks, Freddie,” you expressed your gratitude for your friend. 
“I think I’m going to head to bed, love you, Fred,” you said and kissed his head as you stood up to leave. “Love you too (y/n),” he replied. You told everyone goodnight and ascended the stairs. 
“So you seem to be on good terms with her again,” George said as he walked over to sit with his brother. “Yeah, everything is good,” he said with a content smile. “You look a little too happy right now. Did something happen?” George questioned him. “She said she loves me,” Fred told his brother. “Doesn’t she always say that?” his brother asked him. “Yeah, but it felt a little different this time,” he said with a smile. George smiled knowingly at his brother. Maybe he was starting to realize just how much you meant to him, and how much he meant to you. 
The next day came quickly and with it came nerves you never thought you’d have. You didn’t ever imagine yourself being nervous about going to a ball with Alexander Gray because you never imagined going to a ball with him.  You saw him and his most recent girl and would cringe. Now you are that most recent girl and still you cringed. 
You had started to get ready with your friends, and things were going ok. That is until you saw Angelina. She looked even more beautiful than she normally did. Her hair was up and her dress fit perfectly. She was a vision. You knew that there was no way that Fred wouldn’t fall for her now if he hadn’t already. You looked at her and sighed before looking at yourself and sighing again. Hermione noticed that and walked over to you. 
“You look beautiful too, did you know that?” she asked and you smiled softly at her. “Thanks, Hermione, you do too,” you said. “Why don’t we finish your makeup and get down there?” she asked and you nodded your head. “Alright, I can do that,” you said and turned back to the mirror. Hermione stayed seated next to you making small talk as you finished the last details of your makeup. 
You got done and turned to look at your friend. “Any fixes?” you asked her and she turned your face to the light. “No, it’s perfect,” she told you and smiled. “I’m ready if you are,” you told her and she smiled. You took one last glance in the mirror and tried to put on the best smile you could muster. 
You walked down the stairs in your beautiful baby blue dress. Closely resembling a ball gown, layers of tulle, and perfectly fitted at the waist. The sleeves hung perfectly off of your shoulders, and your hair lay just right over them. Fred turned to the stairs just as you stepped off the last one. His eyes went wide, and he swore the world stopped spinning. 
The second Fred stopped talking everyone looked at him and followed his stare. 
There you were, to him the most beautiful girl in the castle. It seemed like for a moment they might all say the same. 
You felt everyone’s eyes on you and you looked up. Noticing Fred looking at you like you were the only one in the room felt like a dream, you didn’t expect that, honestly, you didn’t expect anyone to look at you like they were. Angelina spoke first. 
“(y/n), you look beautiful,” she said and walked over to give you a hug. You blushed softly and smiled. “So do you, and you Alicia you look lovely as well,” you said and smiled over at her. 
You walked over to join them all and George quickly wrapped an arm around you and smiled down at you. “Lovely as ever (y/n),” he said and you smiled at him. “Dashing Georgie,” you said and reached up to pinch his cheek teasingly. He swatted your hand away and chuckled. You looked over at Fred and he had a bright smile on his face. “You look beautiful, love,” he said and walked over to you to give you a spin. You chuckled as you twirled around once. Angelina looked at the scene in front of her, and suddenly a knowingness came over her. She could see the look on your faces, you weren’t just friends and you could never be just friends. She knew that now. She smiled at the scene in front of her and let it play out. George smiled too, he knew that if something didn’t happen that night, in due time it would. 
Fred smiled at the blush on your cheeks and couldn’t help but feel his heart skip a beat at the sight of you smiling so fondly back at him. 
“Should we all get going then?” Alicia asked and you finally broke your gaze from his. “Um, yeah of course, Alexander should be waiting for me by now,” you said and your smile faltered a bit at the thought. 
“You’ll be fine, trust me,” Fred spoke to you and gave you a soft nudge forward. You nodded and made your way out of the common room with everyone. 
You stood at the top of the stairs and looked at everyone just waiting to see Alexander waiting for you. But he was nowhere to be seen. Everyone stood there and waited for a while with you but eventually, you just told them to go in and that you would wait for a little while longer. Fred gave you an unsure glance but you just nodded at him telling him that it was ok. He squeezed your hand before he left, and George tossed you an encouraging smile. 
You stood there waiting for you don’t know how long. You had heard the songs change and by the third song, you knew he wasn’t coming. You could feel tears form in your eyes as you sat on the step. Too embarrassed to enter alone, you didn’t even want to know where he may be. He’s probably in there with another girl, or he just decided that he didn’t want to go with you anymore. 
Fred was anxiously waiting to see you walk in but he never did. It had been about 30 minutes and there was no sign of you, it’s like you were just gone. “Is she still not here?” George asked him. “No, she’s not, why is she not here?” he questioned his brother. “I don’t know mate-” Before he could finish Angelina spoke up. “Why don’t you check on her?” she told Fred. Fred looked down at her in uncertainty. “Are you sure?” he asked the girl. “I’m very sure, I think she may need you more than I do right now,” Angelina said and gave him a little shove toward the door. 
“I’ll see you guys later,” he said and made his way out to find you. 
As he exited the Great Hall he noticed Alexander with another girl. As much as he wanted to punch him, he could do that later. He needed to find you and find you fast. 
He came to the stairs expecting to see you but you were gone. You had disappeared from the area and so he ran up the steps in search of you. He didn’t even know when you left, and he was upset that you didn’t come to him. 
“(y/n)!” he called for you but got no answer. He ran down the hallways and up the stairs as fast as he could. He didn’t think you would’ve made it to the common room yet but he again didn’t know when you left. He finally got to the portrait and quickly spoke the password. He immediately stopped inside and heard muffled crying. His heart dropped at the sound knowing that it had to be you. 
He scanned the room and noticed you sitting by the fire with your head in your hands. His heart just kept breaking at the thought of you being hurt. He slowly made his way over to you. 
“(y/n),” he quietly called and your cries suddenly stopped. He noticed you trying to wipe your tears away as best as possible. “Oh, hi Freddie. What are you doing back so early?” you asked as you turned to smile at him. He could feel his chest get tight, seeing the mascara smudged around your eyes he gave you a sad smile before sitting next to you. 
“You never came in,” he said softly and reached over to take your hand in his. 
“Oh, yeah he uh- he didn’t show up, so I just thought it best that I came back,” you told him and he could tell you were trying not to cry again. Your bottom lip was wobbling and your eyes were glassy. “You could’ve come to me,” he said and placed his hand on your cheek. At his touch, your tears finally fell and you let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t want- I didn’t want to ruin your night,” you told him as your voice broke. “Oh, love, you wouldn’t have ruined my night,” He said and proceeded to wipe your tears as best as he could. “I was embarrassed, I didn’t want to humiliate myself so I just left,” you admitted to him and he sighed. “Me and Georgie wouldn’t have let you feel that way for long you know that,” he told you and you sadly nodded. “I know it’s silly to cry over someone like him, I just thought that maybe I’d get to have a nice night with someone,” you spoke softly and looked down at your hands. Tears clung to your lashes and spattered onto your cheeks and hands. 
“I guess I just wanted that experience,” you said quietly. “You can still have it,” he told you and you looked back up at him in confusion. “What do you mean?” you asked him. “Come to the ball with me,” he said and you looked at him in surprise. “I can’t, I’m a mess, and what about Angelina?” you fretted. “You’re beautiful, and Angelina was the one who told me to leave,” he explained to you. The look of surprise never left your face. “Even so, I can’t go back down there Freddie, not like this,” you told him. He got to his feet “Then stay here and dance with me,” he said and offered you his hand. “Are you sure you’d rather stay here with me?” you questioned him. “I’d rather be anywhere with you,” he told you and you blushed before taking his hand. He smiled at you, and helped you carefully off of the floor, making sure not to step on your dress. 
You stood fully and he placed his hands on your waist. You smiled softly up at him and shyly wound your arms around his neck. He smiled down at you and slowly began moving along to a song that only you could hear. “Did you know that I think you’re the most beautiful girl in this castle?” he asked you and you blushed even deeper. You shook your head and chuckled, “That’s not true, did you see Angelina and Alicia tonight, Hermione too? Now they’re beautiful,” you said. “Sure, they’re pretty but you, you’re beautiful,” he told you and lifted his hand to move a strand of hair from your face. 
“You’re just saying that 'cause you’re my best friend,” you tried to shrug it off. “I’m saying that because it’s true,” he affirmed. You shook your head with a shy smile. “Really?” you questioned. “Really,” he told you with a smile. He let you go to take hold of your hand. You let out an airy giggle as he twirled you a few times before pulling you back in. 
“You know, there’s something that just hit me all of a sudden yesterday. I had never realized how much I thought of you, how much I missed you when you weren’t around, and how much I really do love you,” he admitted. You felt your heart stop, and your breath got caught in your throat. “I love you (y/n),” he admitted to you and a feeling of disbelief washed over you. “You love me? You actually love me?” you questioned. He chuckled a bit at your reaction. “I do,” he said. 
“I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember,” you confessed. He smiled broadly at you, “I guess I’m a little late to the party then,” he said and you chuckled. “Just a little, I mean your twin knew before you did,” you teased him and he rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright, no need to rub it in,” he said and you smiled at him. 
You just stopped and looked at him, really looked at him. His freckles and bright brown eyes, the curve of his lips, and the way he looked so lovingly at you. “I think this is the part where we kiss isn’t it?” he asked softly and you smiled even brighter. “I would think so,” you whispered as he got closer to you. 
He stopped for a moment just letting his lips brush yours before fully placing them on yours. You melted at the feeling of his lips pressed against yours, it was even better than you imagined it would be. It wasn’t rushed, it was slow and soft, and it was all the things a first kiss should be. 
He gently pulled away from you and smiled at the contentedness on your face. You looked peaceful, and he felt warm at the fact that he could bring that to you. He swore he had never felt that loved in his entire life. “Do you wanna know something?” you asked with a soft smile. “Of course,” he said and wrapped his arms around your waist. “You make me really happy,” you whispered and he smiled broadly. “I would hope so,” he said and you chuckled. 
He saw your smile falter a bit, “What’s wrong?” he questioned and placed a hand on your cheek. “What about Angelina? I feel so horrible,” you worried yourself. “Hey, hey, you don’t have to worry about that. It’s not like we’re dating you know. It was just a one-night thing, and I think she’d perfectly understand our situation love,” He told you and stroked your cheek gently. “You think so?” you asked and reached up to grasp his wrist. “I know for sure,” he said. 
He got a sudden realization, “wait is that what I did wrong?” he asked and you looked at him in confusion. “What?” you asked. “George said I had hurt your feelings twice, did me asking Angelina hurt your feelings?” he asked with a sly smile. A blush covered your cheeks and you quickly covered your face with your hands. He chuckled, “Aw, love, I’m sorry. If I had realized sooner I would’ve asked you,” he said and gently pried your hands from your face. “Do you forgive me?” he asked and pressed his forehead against yours. “There’s really nothing to forgive, but yes if that makes you feel better,” you smiled shyly at him. “Much better,” he said before leaning forward to kiss you one more time. 
“Ugh, took you long enough,” you heard a voice sound from behind you and you pulled away from him. George, Alicia, and Angelina stood there with knowing smiles. “Took you forever to figure it out didn’t it?” Angelina asked while she and Alicia chuckled. “You didn’t figure it out until a few hours ago Ange,” Alicia said and everyone chuckled. “Took you longer than me,” Fred said as he wrapped his arm around your shoulder. “Ok, when did this become an attack on me?” Angelina asked and you chuckled. “It’s ok Angelina, I’m sorry if I ruined your night,” you said regretfully. “You didn't ruin anything, I’m just glad that you’re ok,” she said and smiled at you, and you smiled back. “I think we’re all going to turn in for the night, goodnight everyone,” Alicia said and gave a smile and a wave before walking up the stairs followed closely by Angelina. You walked over to George and wrapped him in a hug, “Thanks for caring so much Georgie,” you said and he held you tighter. “I’ll always care,” he said and kissed your head before saying goodnight to you and his brother. 
He came up behind you and wrapped his arms around you. “Do we have to say goodnight?” he asked and nuzzled his nose against your neck. His cheek was warm against your bare shoulder and it made you grin, you almost felt dizzy from disbelief that this was actually happening. “We don’t have to, but I’d rather not stay in this dress all night,” you told him and felt him smile against your shoulder. “You can take it off if you want to, do you need any help?” he asked and you chuckled before swatting his arm. “No, I don’t need any help, but a kiss before I go should speed up the process,” you told him and he turned you around to face him. You smiled toothily and it made him grin. “I’ll meet you back here in ten,” he said and leaned down to kiss you again before letting you go. 
You spent the rest of the night with Fred, sharing kisses and laughing. He danced with you and you got dizzy from how much he’d spin you. 
The morning came and you made your way down to the Great Hall with Hermione and Ginny. “I’m so happy for you (y/n), it took him ages but he finally sorted it out,” Hermione said and you chuckled. “You’re practically my sister now,” Ginny said, looping her arm through yours. You smiled down at her and squeezed her arm happily. 
You entered the Great Hall to see your spot open just as it should be, right next to Fred. You all walked over and took your spots. “Good morning everyone,” you smiled happily. 
“Well, good morning to you too darling. Why so chipper?” He asked and turned to you, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “You, of course,” you told him and he smiled even brighter. He wrapped his arm around your shoulder and kissed your head. “I love you (y/n),” he told you and you smiled up at him. “I love you too, Freddie,” 
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shaguro · 4 months
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♡ imagine eren as your boyfriend... ♡
sfw
eren is obsessed with everything about you and he doesn’t hide it, the whole world needs to know how much he loves you. sometimes you may even think he’s being dramatic (to be fair the man is dramatic as fuck) but he’ll assure you everytime that this is truly how he feels and he’ll remind you every chance he gets. "i mean it, baby. don’t know what i’d do without you, you mean everything to me."
to add to that last point, one of his love languages are words of affirmation, both ways! eren is all about praising you; whether it’s about how beautiful you are or how he loves how you love him, it’s gonna happen. he literally never shuts up. “look at you, my pretty baby.” “i love you so much, you know that, right?”
as much as eren acts like he doesn’t care for it to be reciprocated, he does. he needs that validation from you, he always wants to hear how much you love him and what a good boyfriend he is. (just stroking his ego)
the definition of wearing your heart on your sleeve. he's very open about his feelings and he wants you to feel comfortable as well. he doesn't want any secrets between the two of you. he wants to be the only person you confide in.
p o s s e s i v e. i really dont think i need to explain further, y'all know how eren gets.
clingy as fuck. he’s kissing on you and cuddling with you every chance he gets, you can’t escape this man! he’s always got a hand on your titty or coochie, not even in a sexual way. he just “wants to be as close to you as possible.” and if you push him away, he’s taking that shit so personally. "eren, leave me alone." “why’re you acting like that, baby? what i do this time?"
will definitely make you an authorized user on his card so you can get whatever you want, even when he isn’t there ❤️ this man really spoils you, like whatever you want, it's yours and he always pays for your hair and nails, loves sending you styles and designs that he finds on pinterest. (don’t worry he only knows abt the app bc of you)
flirts with you in the corniest way possible, like the worst pickup lines ever. eren is just really playful in general. lots of smacks on the ass and tickle fights with him.
he loves being the little spoon but he’ll never admit it. he just gives you a weird look when you try to squeeze in front of him; like girl if you don’t get behind me. 🙄
loves to argue for no reason and it’s always the pettiest, most trivial shit. you’re convinced he does it because he just wants attention. (he does.)
he loves playing songs for you on his guitar, sometimes he’ll have you sit on his lap while he hums the tune in your ear, the soft melody filling the room.
lovessss late night car rides. both of yall phones on dnd, just enjoying each others company. throw in some food and good music, a lil liquor n weed? a time will be had. (because eren is an eater)
he loves planning dates but he also loves being spontaneous with them. you could be relaxing and you’ll get a text from him like “get ready babe. ima pick you up in an hour.” and you’re like boy what??
nsfw
heated arguments with him always leads into intense, passionate sex. i’m talking yall fucking for hours and hours. (eren definitely does this on purpose, it's like a reward to his weird ass)
loves every position, he's just happy to be there but if he had to choose, it would definitely be backshots. like your ass bouncing off his pelvis, his tattooed hands on your neck, how tight your pussy squeezes him? he can't get enough of the view and how it feels.
eren loves eating pussy but he loves how you tug on his hair and moan his name even more. he gets drunk off your taste and the way he groans into your pussy, you would think you were pleasuring him.
choke him and he’ll definitely nut quick. he can’t help it, there’s something about your hands on his neck that makes him go crazy.
always keeps your nails done because he loves seeing your hands wrapped around his dick. keeps your toes done because he loves having them in his mouth. 🤭
dom but will sub for you if you ask. it may not happen super often because eren likes being in control but could you imagine him whining and writhing under you? it gets to the point that he’ll beg. “pleaseplease let me cum baby, f-fuck. feels so fucking g-good.”
praise kink, he wants to hear all those pretty moans and he wants you to tell him how good it feels, how good he’s making you feel. “uh-uh don’t get shy now, wanna hear you mama.””who got you creaming like this, hmm? tell me.”
he’s really a whiner/moaner but when he’s really worked up, he’s a talker too and it’s always nasty. “taking this dick so well baby, doing so good f’me.” “pussy so fuckin' pretty, so wet for me... hmm, gonna fill you up baby. gonna give you all this nut."
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the hoe house: @rintcrous @honeybleed @90ekz @kaegetsmewetter @loccka6 @zuriayan @bey0nseh @tishlvr @chile-im-embarrassed @charbunxxi @black-yn
join the hoe house here. ♡
@/hoesluvshanti, 2023. do not copy, steal or repost my content without permission.
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awearywritersworld · 5 months
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she mumbled that i was peculiar
sukuna x reader summary: impressively, sukuna is still trying to find ways to deny his feelings for you. nevertheless, he keeps you safe from harm when a late night trip to the store doesn't go as planned. will seeing his violent nature for yourself change the way you feel about him? he seems to think so. w/c: 4.2k (oops) tags/warnings: angst to fluff. attempted kidnapping. canon typical violence. depictions of blood. reader throws up. reader is in shock for a bit. cursing. aged up!yuuji. not canon compliant. fem!reader. no use of y/n. *please mind the warnings for this chapter* a/n: i'm sorry this took so long! im ngl, i struggled quite a bit to write this chapter. i'm still unsure about the pacing, but here it is anyway. thank you for reading and i hope you enjoy! series masterlist // masterlist
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it's not often that you go out for the evening, but tonight is one such occasion. you leave around seven, excited to meet nobara and maki for dinner.
when yuuji falls asleep a few hours later, sukuna doesn't take over right away. he spends a while in his domain, engaging in what some people might call sulking.
before long, however, he begins to feel restless and he tells himself it's because he's grown accustomed to his finite hours of freedom. of course, it has nothing to do with your absence.
so he assumes control of his vessel's body and pulls a short novel from your bookshelf. settling on the couch, his fingertips brush over the cover: the stranger by albert camus
it's the first time he's ever been alone in your apartment, a fact he's well aware of, and his eyes wander to the front door. it'd be all too easy to pull it open, to make his way downstairs and out onto the street.
how long would it last before yuuji regained control? are you nearby? would you get caught up in the havoc he'd doubtlessly wreak?
the thought makes him grimace. returning his focus to the book in his hands, time seems to pass by faster as he makes his way through the pages.
even so, he deems the narrative a bit boring. in his (what's the opposite of humble?) opinion, dead mothers and nagging girlfriends don't make for the most captivating story, so his mind begins to wander once he happens upon the quote:
"so why marry me, then?" she said. i explained to her that it didn't really matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married. besides, she was the one who was doing the asking and all i was saying was yes. then she pointed out that marriage was a serious thing. i said, "no." she stopped talking for a minute and looked at me without saying anything. then she spoke. she just wanted to know if i would have accepted the same proposal from another woman, with whom I was involved in the same way. i said, "sure." then she said she wondered if she loved me, and there was no way i could know about that. after another moment's silence, she mumbled that i was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me but that one day i might disgust her for the same reason.
sukuna thinks about you— the woman who forced her way into his solitude.
although, what if it hadn't been you? what if the brat had been involved with another woman? would he have eventually taken an interest in her too?
are you really that special, or is he just going crazy inside the cage that is itadori yuuji? the latter is much more likely, right?
he supposes he prefers the idea of madness over... feelings for some human.
all of a sudden, your apartment door seems much more inviting. would it be so bad if he were to step through it? what did he really have to lose?
yeah, that's right. he'll get up any second now and act on every horrible impulse he's been repressing. any second now... any second...
he can't quite figure out why he's unable to bring his limbs to move, weighed down by some force that's beyond him.
it's at that moment the door clicks open and for a split second, he thinks it must be his sign to go, but then you come waltzing in.
"'kuna!" you greet in an excited manner, disrupting the peaceful quiet.
kicking off your shoes haphazardly, you make your way over to him and promptly drop yourself into his lap. it elicits a bout of unwelcome clarity for the king of curses.
no, he wouldn't have taken an interest in just anyone, that much becomes obvious. it wasn't through a medium as flawed as chance that he came to... tolerate you. you're much too annoying for that to be the case.
"hello???" you wave your hand in front of his face. "i'm home."
"i can see that."
"welcome home, darling," you say in a deep voice, a poor imitation of him. "i missed you so much— that's what you're supposed to say."
yeah, definitely too annoying.
"but i didn't miss you." one of his hands comes to rest on your thigh, a betrayal of his preceding assertion.
"you're sitting alone reading—" you pause to inspect the book lying open beside him. "existential fiction about a nihilistic frenchman. of course you missed me."
he changes the topic rather swiftly. "you're drunk."
"i'm tipsy, at best." you roll your eyes. "can't i just be happy to see you?"
"you'd be the first."
"i don't mind making history."
you place a kiss on his lips, casual and affectionate in way that makes sukuna's body stiffen, and stand up.
"i need to get ready for bed, then we're gonna watch tv together because i missed you— gosh, see how easy that was?"
you run off to the bathroom and his body doesn't fully relax until he hears the shower turn on.
the thought of missing someone is a strange notion to him, because it implies eagerness and desire. for as long as he cares to remember, those emotions have been reserved for proclivities much more sinister.
so he hadn't missed you. he just would have preferred it if you stayed home. that's all.
when you return to the living room around fifteen minutes later, you're wearing one of yuuji's shirts, and as far as sukuna can tell, very little otherwise.
making yourself comfortable on the floor between his legs, you pass a hair tie behind you. "can you braid my hair?"
he's watched you get ready for bed enough times that he's fairly certain he can manage it. taking the tie from you, he still asks "why can't you do it?"
"because i'm sleepy," you frown, reaching for the tv remote.
gathering your hair in his hands and carefully dividing it into sections, he sighs. "you require so much looking after."
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"you're not going to die if you can't have cookies tonight." sukuna states dryly, glancing at the clock that reads eleven o'clock.
"please don't trivialize my struggle," you begin, pulling on your jacket. "i want miso butter cookies— my grandma's secret recipe."
most of what you need can be found in the kitchen, but a trip to the store is in order for a few final ingredients.
"my mistake," he huffs, rising to his feet. "how insensitive of me."
"oh, it's alright. just don't let it happen again."
"sure. i'll keep that in mind, princess." sliding the apartment door's chain lock off the track, he does little to hide the vexation in his tone.
just as he reaches for the handle, you stop him and wrap a scarf around his neck, forcing a hoodie into his hands. "put this on. you'll be cold."
he looks at you as if you're crazy. "i don't have to worry about things as insignificant as the weather."
"well, put it on anyway," you insist.
he decides that acquiescing will be easier than arguing for the next five minutes and slips the hoodie over head. when you both step out into the chilly air of night, there are still a decent number of people traveling the streets.
stopping at a crosswalk the next block over, you begin to prattle on about what you need to pick up and the different steps in your recipe. naturally, you completely miss it when the pedestrian sign turns green.
"come on," sukuna commands, his hand wrapping around your wrist and tugging you along with him. "i don't have all night."
you scoff. "to be fair, i didn't say you had to come with me."
"yeah well it's late. you shouldn't be out alone." there's a hint of exasperation in his voice, like he truly had no choice in the matter.
despite that, once you reach the other side of the street, his fingers slide down your palm and thread through yours.
you glance over at him and find he's looking off to the side, so you bite your lip to suppress your pleased smile. is he avoiding your gaze intentionally? you decide that bashfulness suits him better than you would have expected.
offering him a light squeeze of the hand, you hope it conveys your appreciation of his small display of affection.
"so, are you going to help me make the cookies?"
his lips press into a thin line. "as thrilling as that seems, i don't particularly have a penchant for baking."
"you think you'd humor me a little! you know, since i'm your only friend and all."
"if anyone else asked me such a ridiculous question, they wouldn't live to see tomorrow." you ponder whether he's joking and quickly decide that he isn't. "this is me humoring you."
"you're so mean to me."
"hardly."
"fine," you pout. "then you can't have any!"
"now, hold on." the threat does make him hesitate. you've come to learn that if there's one thing he loves as much as reading, it's food. "let's not be hasty."
you're approaching the store, the sliding doors just a few strides away.
"it's only fair! besides, you're not going to die if you can't have cookies," you throw his earlier words in his face.
he exhales deeply. "have i ever told you how irritating you are?"
"woah! now you're definitely not getting any, mister!"
"alright, alright," he groans as you step inside. "i'll help you bake your stupid cookies."
"perfect!" you exclaim as if you knew he'd give in eventually (you did). "then you can start by finding the miso paste while i get everything else!"
you scamper off before he can tell you not to order him around like some common servant. he's never even been grocery shopping, how the hell is he supposed to find anything in here?
wandering the aisles, he stews over how domestic this is. for god's sake— the king of curses, shopping for ingredients and making baked goods. what have you reduced him to?
just as he considers giving up, he spots the item he's looking for and grabs it so aggressively that it knocks a few packets of instant miso soup to the floor. wrinkling his nose in distaste for the entire experience, he sets off looking for you, though his efforts are to no avail.
he wonders where the hell you could have gone off to when a flickering light catches his eye, filling him with a strange sort of unease.
it's emanating from a narrow hallway tucked away in the back corner of the store. at the very edge of the hall, a phone with a familiar case is lying on the floor, the screen shattered.
his blood runs cold, a sensation that is fully unknown to him, and the miso paste slips from his fingers. he appears in the hallway the very next second and the sight that greets him ignites a furious hostility in the center of his being— heavy and consuming.
you're struggling against one man as he drags you out of the backdoor and into an alley. another man is holding the door open, urging his partner to hurry up.
the hand over your mouth keeps you from yelling, but you're unsure you would have been able to make a sound regardless.
one second you're cast into darkness, and the next, the light seems blinding. the flashing is unceasing and it makes your head hurt.
two limbs are wrapped around your torso, keeping you firmly in place, and your arms are trapped at your sides. you might be kicking your legs, but they may just be dragging along too. you really can't be sure.
there's a thrum of a heartbeat at your back. it's pace is unforgiving, the intensity mirroring that of your own. you've a vague concern that your heart may very well beat right out of your chest.
then there's an abrupt shift in the air and a sickening crack echoes through out the night. crumpling onto the concrete, you think it must have started raining before you realize that the droplets on your face are warm.
you wipe at your cheek and your fingers stain crimson, the color matching that of an increasingly large puddle seeping across the pavement beside you.
there's a heap lying a few feet away and you recognize that it's wearing clothes. it's a sight you struggle to make sense of.
needing to focus on something else, your eyes find sukuna and the expression he's wearing is fierce and unreserved. "tell me what you wanted with her."
you've never heard him speak in such a way. his tone is low, his cadence nothing short of threatening.
"s-s'kuna?" your own voice sounds foreign to you and it goes unheard by him.
he has your attacker pressed against the brick wall of the alley, both hands wrapped around his throat. he's too livid to realize the pressure on his windpipe is preventing him from answering.
sukuna throws him to the other side of the alleyway out of frustration, the man rolling onto his back and wheezing to appease his lungs.
"tell me!" sukuna commands again, louder this time. less collected.
the man scrambles away from his looming figure. "th-they sent us, told us they needed her for an important matter."
"who?"
"they'll kill me if i tell you—"
sukuna crouches down, laughing dryly. "and what do you suppose i'm going to do?"
his eyes are almost unrecognizable to you. they're frenzied— a few shades deeper than the scarlet you've grown so fond of.
"you'll k-kill me either way, so at least i'll die with honor—"
"tch. useless." sukuna waves his hand, and you can hardly comprehend what happens right in front of you.
neat red lines appear across the man's body, then it ruptures into nothing at all. the only evidence that he was ever there in the first place is his blood.
the stench of which is perhaps the worst part— intense, coppery, and hot. it makes your eyes water, and before you know it, you're hunched over and emptying the contents of your stomach onto the ground.
sukuna is at your side in an instant, pulling your hair away from your face, but while one of your hands is braced against the concrete, the other endeavors to push him away.
his body doesn't budge at the contact, but he takes a step back anyway in an attempt to respect your wishes.
your mind is a mess filled with racing thoughts— what the fuck? this cannot be happening. what the hell even happened in this first place? that man was there and then he wasn't.
inhaling sharply, you wipe at your mouth and shift to pull your knees to your chest.
"what..." you trail off, surveying the unutterable, incomprehensible scene before you. "what did you do?"
he doesn't respond, though his features noticeably soften. somewhere in the back of your mind, you know very well what he did, but you can't help repeating. "what did you do?"
"we need to leave." it's not that sukuna couldn't handle whoever might show up, but seeing as this is your reaction, he has no desire to. "if you let me touch you, i can take us home."
you take a moment to think about it, then nod wordlessly. as soon as his hand falls on your shoulder, you're met with that same sensation you felt the night gojo teleported you and yuuji home after one too many drinks.
though this time, the sick feeling in your stomach isn't caused by liquor. you don't stand up, you don't so much as move a muscle when you feel the surface beneath you shift from concrete to carpet.
sukuna breathes out your name, his uncertainty evidenced by the way he's shoved his hands into his pockets. meeting his eye, you reiterate the same inquiry once more. "what did you do?"
it's almost as if you want him to tell you that he didn't do anything. that the whole experience was some disturbing nightmare.
"those men would have hurt you."
"that doesn't mean they deserved to die." you choke on the final word.
"yes— it does."
with that, silence hangs in the air like a suffocating miasma.
looking to your hands, you're reminded of the blood you've been spattered with. "i need to wash up."
you still don't move from your spot, too fixated on your flesh and the dreadful hue that it's been painted with. sukuna notices now that you're trembling.
he approaches you hesitantly before extending his hand. "let me help you."
you decline his offer, shying away from him. "i think you've done enough already."
god, the look in your eye is utterly despondent. he struggles to swallow the lump that forms in his throat.
his arm falls limply to his side and he looks across the room, your copy of the stranger earning his attention.
he's overcome with chagrin when he realizes that his concern brought about by camus' quote the other night was wholly misguided. he'd been focused on his own feelings, whether they were genuine or simply wrought by his isolation.
how foolish was he to ever question what you truly mean to him? with the anguish that's settled in his chest at the sight of your current state, the fact he ever doubted it makes him feel like a hopeless idiot.
had he any sense at all, the part that resonated with him would have been—
she mumbled that i was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me but that one day i might disgust her for the same reason.
disgust. is that what you're feeling now? he's certain it is.
it was just last week that he relayed the story of his past. you're the only person alive to know the truth of how his wickedness came to be, and you met him with unconditional sympathy and understanding.
you pulled him close and embraced him, but now that you've seen him for what he truly is...? you can barely stand to touch him and it's like a knife to his heart.
you're so fucking warm— like the sun against his skin after weeks of endless rain.
and if you're the sun, surely he is the moon— cold and barren on his own, but brilliant when in the presence of your light.
to be without that? to be without you? it's a prospect too terrible for him to bear. it makes his stomach twist miserably.
you're startled (as is he) when his form falls to the floor, his knees meeting the carpet with a dull thud. he calls out your name again, but this time, his voice cracks as he speaks. "please."
he doesn't have a clue what he's even asking for. a chance to explain? forgiveness? a way to turn back time?
you don't say anything, but you do shift your gaze to him. he knows that he needs to fix this, so he wracks his mind for the right words.
"i didn't enjoy killing those men." he's somewhat surprised to find he's telling the truth.
"you didn't?" your voice is so small and timid that he can hardly decipher your words.
"no. my only concern was to keep you safe— to make sure they never put their hands on you ever again. all i felt was rage and... and... guilt. i should have never left you alone and it's my fault—"
"stop," you interrupt him.
there are tears welling in your eyes, making it difficult for sukuna to breathe. he's positive you're going to tell him that his intentions were of little consequence and that you never want to see him ever again.
instead, you push yourself forward and collapse against his body, your own wracked with violent sobs. the reality of the situation is only just now hitting you. it'd been much easier to focus on what sukuna had done, rather than what almost happened to you.
"i was so scared, 'kuna."
and still, despite the way you're clinging to his shirt and burying your face in chest, he's under the impression that it's him you were afraid of.
"i'm sorry," he tells you earnestly. "i never meant to frighten you."
"n-not of you. those men." you're struggling to speak in between desperate gasps. "why did they do that? what did they want with me?"
"i don't know." though, he is going to find out.
sukuna is not a man well versed in comfort, so he's not entirely sure why he begins rocking you back and forth, but he does it anyway.
when you finally start to breathe a little easier, he mumbles into your hair, "come on. let's get you cleaned up."
he doesn't give you a chance to respond before he scoops you up in his arms and carries you to the bathroom. setting you down on the counter gently, he searches the linen closet for a cloth.
it's quiet, save for your intermittent sniffling, as he runs it under warm water and wrings it out. his free hand moves to rest against the side of your neck and he dabs at the blood on your face, rinsing the washcloth every now and then.
he tries his best not to show it, but sukuna is agonizing over what might be going through your mind.
do you still feel safe with him? have your feelings changed? do you still love him, even when you've been so harshly reminded what he's capable of?
when you speak for the first time your words are hoarse, barely above a whisper. "thank you for saving me, sukuna."
he thinks about telling you not to thank him, not when it shouldn't have happened in the first place. he left your side, an error in judgement he'll never forgive himself for.
he considers your mortality— your weakness— in relation to his feelings for you. he's always seen this exceptionally human quality as despicable.
but now? all it does is terrify him.
"in the past, i was only concerned with my own whims and desires." his hand moves to cradle your face, his thumb running over your cheekbone. "though after tonight... you have to know..."
it's clear that he's struggling. his eyebrows draw together and his mouth twitches as he ponders his next words.
"i care about you, angel." his voice is hushed when he adds, "very much."
your eyes widen briefly and you murmur his name, but your mind is still reeling from the events of the past twenty minutes and you can't think of anything more to say. you're emotionally exhausted in a way you would have never thought possible.
it's plain to him too, so he knows his next question is selfish, but he can't go on without knowing. "does what you saw tonight change things between us?"
the silence preceding your answer seems to stretch on forever.
"i thought it would," you confess eventually. it was as if you'd put up a wall in your mind separating sukuna the king of curses from sukuna the man you spend your evenings with.
and it's difficult to reconcile the fact that the hands you saw used to murder two men are the same hands that are caressing your face so delicately.
at some point, however, you realized that the only time you felt fear tonight was when you were without him. his arrival and ensuing actions inspired shock and apprehension, though in some twisted way, you knew it meant you were safe. "but it doesn't."
the next question tumbles from your lips thoughtlessly. "does that make me a bad person?"
he chuckles and some of the tension in the room dissipates. "i think i'm the last one on earth that can pass moral judgement on you."
he tucks your hair behind your ear and scans your face, relief coursing through his body when he sees you smile. in this moment, there isn't anything else in the world he would have asked for.
"i guess you're right."
and now, the hand over your mouth is your own, an attempt to stifle your tired giggles. the light of the bathroom is warm and steady. sukuna's hands rest atop your hips, his touch firm but comforting. while you can't feel your own heartbeat, you're positive it must be beating in time with his.
when you crawl into bed that night sukuna pulls you close, your back pressed to his bare chest. you're thankful for the softness of his demeanor, because you need it tonight more than ever.
he doesn't recede to his domain until yuuji wakes up the following morning. he's determined to keep an eye on you as you sleep, to watch the slow rise and fall of your chest with newfound gratitude.
he knows he needs to speak with the brat about what happened. someone is after you and while he hates to admit it, he knows he can't ensure your safety alone.
and he will keep you safe, no matter the cost.
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