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luveline · 10 months

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𝐢𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

part one | part two | part three | part four

You don’t mean to make an enemy of Eddie Munson — he’s handsome and talented, but he’s the biggest jerk you’ve ever met. Eddie thinks you’re infuriatingly pretty, emphasis on the infuriating. CH4: You work up the guts to call him, Eddie drags you out on a date, and the looming shadow of an unknown photographer follows you around. [14k]

fem!reader, enemies-to-lovers, rival rockstars, mutual pining, kisses! tender neck kisses <3, past miscommunication, angst, hurt-comfort, sexual tension ish, TW mentioned recreational drug use, drinking, smoking, swearing, nudes MDNI

𓆩❤︎𓆪

Dora’s Convenience, Florida, February 1991

The air here smells like sulphur.

After spending the last four and a half days in Canada, Florida is a shock. The air is warm and thick and the smells are less than pretty —hot baked seaweed floats in on the sea, and the groundwater carries a naturally occurring bacteria that prompts a scent that you can't say you care for— but the people are kind.

Perhaps too long alone with only Morgan, Ananya, and your tour manager, Angel, for company has made you biassed, but so far everyone's been incredibly sweet. Hotel attendants, venue staff, a batch of shiny new techies; all smiling, happy, and willing to help. You haven't carried your own bag since the plane touched down.

Florida is hellishly humid. You miss the freezing bite of cold that accompanied you everywhere in Toronto. You long for a gust of wind that has no smell.

"Come on, wonderboy," Morgan says, tapping her uncharacteristic sneaker into your ankle.

You savour the last blessed seconds of the store's open freezer before closing the door with a brokenhearted frown. The effects of the cold and the clean smell dissipate near immediately, leaving you uncomfortable once again. Morgan continues on without waiting for you, a basket heavy in the crook of her arm. She's got enough glass soda bottles for everybody, yet you doubt she's in a sharing mood. You double back to grab one for you and another for Ananya, winding between aisles and wondering how people can eat half of the stuff on display when the weather is this hot. It feels unlivable.

At the front wall behind plexiglass and an unhappy cashier there's a TV playing Madonna, chirpy pop lyrics clearly not working any wonders.

His long hair shifts against his shoulder with the artificial breeze. He looks a little like Eddie, you think unwittingly, pretty in an unexaggerated way, his eyes big but not brown. You nibble on your lip and put the coke bottles down by Morgan's basket.

"You can go wait in the car," Angel says. Morgan's already left, happy for Angel to foot the bill and carry her things.

You shake your head. You don't mind waiting with her and the car is stifling in the heat. Better to linger in the open air.

The TV fades from Madonna to Guns 'N' Roses. You tilt your head to one side wistfully. No offence meant to your not-boyfriend, but half the rockstars on TV look like Eddie. With the picture small and blurry and up as high as it is on the wall mount, they could swap him out for Slash and you'd be none the wiser. Maybe not half the rockstars, actually —bleaching is all the rage right now, a contrast to Eddie's dark head of hair. You wonder if you'd still want Eddie to press you up against bathroom walls if he were blonde.

Probably.

You're thinking of Eddie less than you worried you would. Things are hectic beyond words, and most spare moments are spent showering, eating, or trying to sleep. Sleeping on the bus was difficult at first due to the tight quarters and loud noise, but you're at a point of exhaustion where Morgan's ranting might as well be a lullaby. The rap of Ananya's sticks against the bench in front of her or her compulsive thigh slapping fades away when you've been awake for eighteen hours straight.

You're in good spirits tonight at the promise of a double bed in your own room. A tiny room, you'd been told, but your own. Privacy feels like a myth lately; you're ravenous for some alone time to do whatever you want without judgement.

You're toying with the idea of asking Angel how you could maybe possibly get into contact with Eddie. You honestly don't have a clue in the world where he is, what state or country. He could be in Alaska and you'd be none the wiser. Where Godless follow locations where they know they'll have full venues, like the Midwest, Canada, and smaller shows in the 'worldwide' branch of their tour later in the year, Corroded Coffin are hitting every venue that's open.

You can't deny it any longer. There's no point, and now you're on good terms you see little worth in pretending Corroded Coffin aren't wildly more popular than Godless. You aren't saying better. But beyond subjectivity is the cold hard truth: Eddie's band are charting high.

Godless' new album is doing better than anyone on your team really expected it to, but, while you're unsure of the inner working politics, you know that the sales team were 'positive' rather than ecstatic. You can't fucking imagine how stuffed the vaults are about to become over at Rollerboy. If they skewed themselves in the right light they could be up there with Van Halen in a year or two. Not that they will, who knows? What you understand about the band is limited to the feel of Eddie's hands and Jamison's quiet rejection.

Point is, Corroded Coffin's new album is about to come out, and it's going to do well, and as far as you know their tour is a sell-out dream.

The cashier bags Morgan's overstuffed basket and moves onto your cokes. Your eyes slide to the magazine stand in front of the checkout.

Exclusive Conversation with Rising Stars of Rock: Corroded Coffin.

You grab it up and try to add it to your stuff inconspicuously, which means you couldn't make it more obvious. Angel snorts.

"Can I escape ridicule for one day?" you ask.

"The ridiculous deserve ridicule." Angel eyes the total and cracks open the touring purse. "You don't need a rockstar boyfriend."

"I'm ridiculous?" you ask wryly.

"Yeah, babe. You and the girls," —she hands over a pretty wad of cash with a keep-the-change nod and grabs the brown paper bags— "might not be the next Aerosmith, but that means jack shit. You guys are awesome, not just 'cause you're my responsibility. I've seen it. I've seen you guys. And I know you hate talking about being a girl band, but you are a girl band–"

You groan. Of course you are. Pretending gender doesn't play into it would be silly. But it gives you a migraine whenever you think about it, so you try not to.

"You guys could be as big as The Bangles. Especially if you stopped wasting time on silly boys," she furthers. Ouch.

Angel steps out into the sunshine. You follow, shielding your eyes as you look for the car, a pretty red Mercedes-Benz with all the windows rolled down.

"The Bangles," you repeat, genuinely surprised by her comparison. "The only thing we have in common with them is that we're girls."

"You know what else you could have in common with them? Mansions and early retirement. Hey, Hazy Shade of Winter was actually good. You should try something like that."

"Uh-huh," you say.

"Hey!" Morgan shouts, shoulders out the passenger side window. "Could you guys at least pretend you have somewhere to be? We aren't all social rejects. A sense of urgency, if you will!"

"Walk slower," Angel mutters. "Ooh, I've dropped my contact. You know, the ones I've miraculously started wearing?"

"Oh no," you giggle, kneeling down to feel for it. You must be rather overdramatic about it, incurring Morgan's whining wrath.

You find Angel's very real contact and return to the car. Morgan drones about her throat and how it's reacting to the constantly changing weather, and then swaps tactics when nobody is quite as pitying as she would've liked to complain about Ananya's "antisocial behaviour".

Ananya has taken to listening to her Walkman non-stop while not on stage. Bad for her hearing, good for her mental health, you imagine. It came about after a missing wad of cash and has yet to see an end. You resent and revere Ananya's determination, jealous that she's escaping Morgan's frankly horrendous behaviour, amazed that she has the willpower.

The more you know Morgan, the less you’ve felt you could love her. It might be cruel to recognise that. She demeans your style, pokes fun at your body, and worst of all, she takes the piss out of your constant dedication to the music you make.

Proud isn't the right word when describing the relationship you have with making music. You aren't proud of yourself for anything. You'd pictured a sort of satisfaction in getting to this point, now that you're a real musician in a famous band with sweetheart fans and the occasional acclaim. You should feel proud of yourself, but you don't.

You'd felt relief, and now the agony of clinging to it.

Worse is that this could all be different. If you were prettier, someone Morgan approved of. If you were smarter, and could garner Ananya's interest. Feeling like an outsider in the extreme that you do can't be good for you, but there's no quick fix. The only time it goes away is when you're on stage playing music for a thousand outsiders.

Or when you're with Eddie.

As you stupidly told him.

What good will it do, telling a boy how you feel? When he's off map, surrounded by people who think he's great and women who won't stop telling him so. Maybe boys, too. You can't get a read on him.

Naive as it was to tell him– whatever it was that you told him. I don't feel sick when I'm with you. How romantic. Naive as it was, you don't totally regret it. He'd sought you out at your show to take you to dinner and suddenly he's cutting the sleeves off of your t-shirt in a family owned pizza place and kissing your neck all slow and smooth like it's the only place in the world he wanted to be. His hand at your waist, and the way he stopped when you got quiet. His hug. That might be what you miss most. Boy's got a world-class smile that gives dizzying, sickly kisses but what you want to feel most is the weight of his arms around you. You want him to hold you steady.

People suck. Eddie sucks. He was mean and then he was sweet and now he's just not here.

You want to see him again.

What a sickening revelation. Anxiety pricks your fingers, pins and needles shooting down the lengths of your arms from your skipping heart. You stick your head as far as you dare to out of the window, taking deep breaths to fight the nausea.

If it barks like a dog, and it heels like a dog…

You grip the door.

You miss him, and it's terrifying. He can be cruel. You can be cruel too, but you'd been at his fucking mercy. He'd looked at you and he'd known exactly what to say that was gonna mess you up. He has a talent for it. You hate this, and you know now you won't sleep until you're sure things are okay between you, though there's no reason anything would've changed since the last time you saw him. What kind of pathetic does that make you?

It would be nice to hear his voice. The Eddie who dotes on you. Eddie under all his layers. You don't want him fucked on bad ice again, but the version of him you'd met that night makes you smile as you recall it. Wide eyes, quiet but honest.

I sent you flowers, because… because those girls are mean to you, he'd rambled, slouched on the stairs, slightly too heavy for you to help him up. And I didn't like seeing you fall over. I wanted you to feel better. I don't know anything about girls... Did you like the flowers?

The Mercedes-Benz rolls up beside The Blue Lily Club, its name taken from what it used to be, presently a hotel. It has all the trimmings of a music venue, big windows and wood, but indoors it couldn't be more plush.

Ananya holds a hand out for her room key at the front desk and doesn't speak a word. She's kind enough to smile at the chauffeur who'd helped carry your bags inside.

"It doesn't usually look this nice in here, don't get used to luxury," Angel warns. "They're redecorating."

You trail behind her, dragging your suitcase over hardwood floors. The wheels click click click. "We'll come here again?"

"Next time we're in Clearwater. S'where we stayed last time. You hadn't bumped up yet."

"Was it this hot when you were here?" You rub your hand across a clammy cheek. "It feels like summer."

Angel smiles. "You think it's hot now, try a week here in May. I usually don't remember different tour dates but that was hell on Earth. Air conditioning broke in one of the buses into Jacksonville. Holy shit."

Angel divulges her evening plans for ice cold cocktails in the hotel bar and invites you along. You decline outside of your hotel room, "I'll probably sleep."

She nods. "Nice. Catch up on what you missed."

She gets a couple of steps further down the hall toward her own room when you admit defeat.

"Hey, Angel?" You pull at the neckline of your t-shirt. "You, uh, wouldn't know how I could get somebody's number? Someone from Rollerboy?"

"From Rollerboy, huh?" she asks, knowing exactly who you want to talk to. Fuck the techie who saw you and Eddie leaving, and fuck Morgan for spreading it around.

You push your bottom lip against the edges of your top teeth and drag until the delicate skin there hurts.

"I'll see what I can do," she says.

Twenty minutes later you have a phone number for his hotel and instructions on how to actually get through their privacy wall. You perch on the edge of your white bed and stare at the phone, like wanting to talk to him will make it ring. You reach for it, hesitate, and reach for it again.

You dial the number one rotation at a time and wait for it to pick up.

"Four Seasons Houston, Samantha speaking. How can I help you this afternoon?"

You choke on air. Four Seasons? What kind of money are these losers on?

"Hi, I'm hoping to be put through to one of your guests, an Eddie Munson? Room 146?"

"And is he expecting your call?"

"No, ma'am."

"Who's calling?"

"Y/N." You consider giving your second name. Does Eddie even know your second name? You suppose he could've seen it in one of the magazines, but that's doubtful.

"Hold please."

You think about hanging up, but you've given your name. If Eddie's there and he's willing to talk to you and you hang up, he'll still know it was you calling. Is that worse? The embarrassment of chickening out versus the endless mortifying possibilities of what you might say when he answers, if he answers, oh fuck–

"Transferring now."

You hold your breath.

The phone clicks twice.

"Hi?"

"Hey," you say quickly. You inhale, intending on– on what? Your panic is palpable.

"Hi," he says again, something warm in his voice. "Y/N? My Y/N, or a fan who knows just what to say to get my number?"

You go a bit blind. "Your Y/N."

"Hey. How's Florida?"

You sit back in bed and kick off your shoes. The phone shakes in your hand. This is more nerve-wracking than any conversation you've had beforehand, and it's in the small talk stages. It should be easy, you wanted to talk to him, but this is the first time you've sought him out ever. It shows your hand.

"Hot. Really hot. The receptionist, uh, said it isn't usually like this early in the year. Yeah, it's hot."

"It's not so bad here, considering." He sounds unlike himself. You've heard him flirting, almost torturous, and you've heard him mad. You've heard him drunk, high, offended, salacious, smug, and soft. None of those memories align. "Hey," he says, confusing you even worse, "why're you calling? Is everything okay?"

You hold the phone up in the air and twist to smash your face into the huge hotel pillows. They're gloriously cold and nowhere near enough to cool the open flame that is your flushing face.

"Nothing's wrong, I'm sorry," you say weakly, pulling the receiver back to your ear, head craned awkwardly so you don't smother it. "I was– I was thinking about you," —holy fucking fuck— "uh, 'cause I saw you in Lastick Magazine."

You can still save it.

"Who'd you have to blow for that one?" you ask.

Wrong.

"Loser!" he cheers. Your heart sinks, but he goes on, "You gave me a heart attack, I thought something happened!"

"No, nothing happened," you say. If you were on better footing you'd make a sly joke about big scary Eddie worrying about you.

"Okay, good."

You smile, tugging at the sheer, cornflower blue fabric of your skirt as you think, He sounds happy to hear from me.

"How's Houston?"

"Babe, you wouldn't fucking believe it. They got us posted up in some four star skyscraper. Two mini fridges. Two. It's insanity, I'm basically royalty here."

You look around your small room. "Ah, but do you have a damp splodge on the ceiling shaped like the letter W?" you ask.

"They musta forgot to put it in the welcome basket."

You laugh suddenly, startled at his good humour. It's like it's been hooked out of your chest on fishing wire, an ugly garbling sound that infects him down the line.

"Shit, I think I was starting to forget what you sound like," Eddie says.

You know exactly what he means.

You won't tell him, though. Your heart is racing again as it did in the car; he's being lovely like you're friends, like you're more than that, and you love it but it scares you shitless. Boys do this kind of stuff, right? Say pretty things, kiss you like you're something treasured, and one day they stop answering your calls. Vet you through to their assistant, and piggy bank your affections by acting like you're still something the next time you see them in person.

Eddie kissed the top of your arm the last time you saw him. If he acts like you're just friends when you see him next, you're gonna scalp him. Or self admit.

"I meant to ask you about something before I left," he says, bridging a mildly awkward silence with a dip into flirting bravado, "but you were all over me, you know? Didn't have time to ask."

"Yeah? That's not how I remember it."

"No accounting for stupidity." You can hear his smile. "Can I ask, or are you gonna talk over me again?"

"I should hang up on you."

"After all the trouble you went to to reach me," he sympathises.

"Tell me how the dial tone sounds next time."

"Alright! Jesus, you're pushy. What I wanted to ask is, you're in Oklahoma in a month.”

“Where’s the question?”

“You suck. Fine, I’ll spell it out for you. I’m in Oklahoma next month, and you’ll be there at the same time, and I know some of your shirts still have sleeves which is lame and very 1989 of you. I could maybe take some time out of my busy schedule and help you with it. Consider it my charitable act of the year.”

You want to see him. He can’t know it. You don’t want to play games with him, and you don’t wanna get messed around. He can’t have all the power.

“I don’t know, Munson… I’m pretty busy, ‘n’ I kinda like my sleeves.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep.”

He snorts. “Shit, fine. We’ll leave your sleeves alone. Maybe we could–”

“Are you listening to Loggins and Messina?” you ask suddenly, phone pressed so hard to your ear you know it’ll leave a mark.

“What?” he scoffs. “No, of course not.”

The music gets quieter, but you know what you heard. “You are! That’s Thinking Of You, I’d know it anywhere!”

“So what if I am?”

“You’re such a sweetheart,” you say, not really thinking about how it sounds. “I love that song, it’s so sweet. I thought you were this big scary jerk but it turns out you’re just as soft as the rest of us. Turn it up, I wanna listen.”

Eddie doesn’t argue with you. He turns it up.

“What is that? It’s too clean to be on the radio. Don’t tell me you’re carrying a Loggins and Messina record around with you, please don’t, because I’d really have to tell someone about it.”

“Oh, you would, would you?” he asks.

“I’m gonna drag your reputation through the mud, Munson.”

Your too-big smile slowly fades when he doesn’t joke back. Was that too far? He can’t possibly think that you’re being serious — as if. You don’t have the power, influence, or connections to touch his reputation, let alone drag it. Your lips part as you hesitate to correct yourself, uncurling where you’d been comfortable on the bed.

Eddie finally puts you out of your misery.

“Did you hear that?” he asks.

“No? What was it?”

“That was me crying out in terror. You didn’t hear it?”

“That’s not even funny,” you complain. “I'm not the only one. You realise they’re calling you a womaniser in Lastick, right?” You grab your copy of the magazine from the end of the bed and splay it open, flicking through pages until you find his article. “‘Heartthrob guitarist Eddie Munson is barely entering his mid-20’s, but his masterful fingering has captivated the hearts of young women and pro musicians alike,’” you read, letting the magazine flop back flat.

“Did they really say ‘masterful fingering’?” he asks.

You smile at the sound of his laughter. “You pig. What’s funny about that, Munson?"

“Uh…”

“I’m messing with you. Mastery aside, you’re missing the point. They described you as a heartthrob in the third biggest music magazine in intercontinental America. Like, someone went to college for four years, worked their way up the corporate ladder, blood, sweat and tears included, to call you a heartthrob, and they didn’t lose their job.”

“Right, right. The point is that you think I’m ugly.”

“The point is that I have proof you’re…” You think about the point. You want to ruin his reputation as a heartthrob by telling everyone he listens to romantic soft rock. Because that makes sense.

“You have proof that I’m not just a heartthrob, I’m sensitive.” He sounds so fucking smug. “Making me even more of a heartthrob.”

You frown, taking the article back into your hands. “Oh, right! ‘His masterful fingering has captivated the hearts of young women and pro musicians alike, but is Munson the sweetheart he seems? Insider information hints that this young musician is spending less time making music and more time womanising the elite bachelorettes of Palm Springs.”

You blink. Your reading had become less smug as it went, and by the time you’ve finished you’ve the beginnings of a pit forming in your stomach. His alleged womanising had felt funny a moment ago. Why does it bother you now?

Because you’ve been confronted with the good. His laugh. His love songs. And you’re realising he isn’t as in your reach as you’d thought.

Eddie snorts. There’s a sound like he’s rubbing the receiver against bedsheets, and you wait apprehensively for him to speak.

“Sorry, I was turning the lights off. That’s a bit fucking rich. Who’s their inside source, Pinocchio the real boy? I was in Palm Springs for two days, and you saw me, I was fucked the entire time.” He has no clue how much you’d needed him to say that. “Maybe someone saw us together, you could pass for one of those pretty rich girls easy.” He also doesn’t know how much of an affect his easy compliments have on you, apparently. “I don’t know how someone could look at me and describe my behaviour as womanising. Pathetic, sure.”

There’s a hard edge to his voice. He made you feel better, even if he doesn’t know it. You don’t mind doing the same.

“You were sweet,” you argue mildly. “You were. You asked me how I was, and when you saw I was wearing heels you sat down in the middle of the staircase and made me sit with you.”

“You don’t usually wear heels.”

“Morgan says–” Eddie groans. “What?”

“Morgan says a lot of dumb shit, is what she says,” Eddie grouches. “Forgive me but she’s a fucking loser.”

You feel oddly protective of her for a moment, “She’s the opposite.”

“No, but her attitude ruins everything she has going for her. She’s talented, she’s the next Nicks when she sings that one song, Heartbreak House? She impresses me, but she’s fucking mean, sweetheart. You know she’s mean.”

“I guess,” you mumble, scratching the seam of your pants with your fingernail, not sure why you're defending her. “Aren't we all?”

Another patch of silence.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “Yeah, we can all be pretty mean.”

“That’s the business, right?” you ask, knowing it isn't true.

“I think… we all have a propensity for cruelty when we feel pinned, and that…” He clears his throat. “Trying to make it when the scene is this competitive can feel like a looming hand. Just waiting to pluck you off of your pedestal.”

You laugh weirdly, all strangled breathlessness. “Easy to see who writes the lyrics.”

“Fuck you. You know what I mean.”

You do. Morgan’s probably trying her best, in the same way that you’re doing yours, balancing friendship and music and fame and a high-pressure job with little room for slip-ups. And now Eddie. Maybe Morgan has an Eddie somewhere, some larger than life loverboy with a penchant for sharpness and sweetness simultaneously.

“I want to tell you something,” Eddie says.

“Oh, gross. You can’t just say that, now I’m panicking,” you admit, sitting up in bed, knuckles aching at the tight grip you have on the phone. “It’s something normal, right? Or not normal. Did you get some unfortunately transmitted disease or something?”

“Unfortunately,” he quotes. “That’s funny. Definitely didn’t, the last person I touched was you.” It’s heart-rending, until he adds, “Apart from your fleas, I’m clean. And I’m trying to tell you something slightly serious, so if you could keep any allusions of disease to yourself for a minute, I’d appreciate that.”

“Okay, sure. Tell me something.”

There’s a small sound. Maybe he’s licked his lips, or changed positions. “When I… when we had that fight, in the Prover Theatre. I just want you to know that I regret how I treated you. I wish I could take it back, and… I wish I had the guts to tell you in person, but I don’t. Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s not how I want to be, and I need you to know that you’re right about me, I’m a loser, but I’m the kind of loser who wants to take you out to dinner and knock my soda in my lap or try to kiss you too soon, not the kind of loser who leaves you hanging.” He laughs like you had, like it’s being dragged out of him, and you realise that Eddie Munson is panicking on the other side. “Shit, can I take some of that back? I’m cool, I swear.”

You smile hard, your cheeks aching. “No, you can’t take it back.”

“Fine. I’m a loser.”

“For the record,” you say, “you did kiss me way too soon.”

He laughs roughly, a sound half threat and half promise. “You annoy me so much. When you get to Oklahoma I’m gonna make sure you know it.”

A curl of warmth unfurls deep in your stomach. You have the good sense not to ask what he means by that.

Cowboy Cadaver, Oklahoma, March 1991

Eddie finds that he hates having an almost-girlfriend. In his head, in his chest, you're his girl. He doesn’t know how to explain himself beyond that. It’s this feeling like heat, like light, like the kiss of a sunbeam on a cold day warming his skin. And it’s the blessed breeze in a heatwave, it’s ice on an ache, it’s the feeling of your skin, your pulse under his touch. Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder —it grabs wanting by the neck and squeezes all the air out. If he doesn’t get to see you soon he’s gonna lose it.

He tried explaining it to Wayne down the phone, because he’s being a good nephew now and actually calling, but he couldn’t take himself seriously, all those cheesy metaphors like chewed cud in his mouth waiting to be swallowed and yacked back up. He said, “Does it always feel like this?”

And Wayne sort of laughed, a derisive snort to seal the deal, and said, “Eds, you ain’t the first kid to fall for a girl.”

Which isn’t what he asked, but he reckons Wayne was telling him Yes, it always feels like this. Eddie doesn’t know if he’s ever been in love before. He’d wanted to kiss that guy on the track team junior year so badly it kept him awake at night, and he was sweet on the soft bartender when he bussed at the Hideout to the point where the entire kitchen staff started calling him ‘squirty cream’ on account of how whipped he was, but Eddie can’t ever remember feeling like this.

He blames himself, thinking you were right after all – he did kiss you too soon. And for the wrong reasons. Now he knows what it feels like, knows what sound you make when you like it, how was he ever supposed to move past that? Your arm under his lips, or your hair against his cheek as he tried to hug the bone-deep dread out of your system, a faucet drip drip dripping by your thigh. He can’t remember what you smell like anymore, only that you smelled good, and he gets that this’ll be the nature of whatever relationship you two manage to cradle for a long while; he’d never ask you to follow him, and he thinks you’d rather die than do anything similar.

Still, he’s starting to offer up whatever it is whoever it is that’s looking down on him will take to get a quick hit. Sweetheart for his face in the curve of your neck, five seconds to breathe in the smell of your subtle perfume. It’s extreme, but Eddie’s feeling extreme right now. Every minute that you’re late winds the wanting coil tighter.

He doesn’t have anyone with him to tell him to get real. He pictures it instead, Jamison in the chair opposite, grimacing at the cider sticky table between them and the state of Eddie’s patheticness clearly displayed. Stop bouncing your leg, fuckhead. She said she’d meet you here, didn’t she?

He’s going over what-ifs when you appear. You’re wearing a sweatshirt that says ‘I visited the Great Wall,’ with a helpful picture overtop and jeans without rips. He’d be upset at the lack of skin if he couldn’t see the shapes of your thighs so clearly. He’s a sucker for them.

Better are your hands. No, better is your smile, because he knows you more than he should already and he knows what your smile means. You’re happy to see him, and you don’t want him to know it.

He hasn’t practised this part. Shock horror, he’s been too confident in his head yet again and assumed he’d know what to do when he saw you, but he doesn’t, God, he doesn’t have a clue. Can he kiss you? Hug you? It’s feeling like neither. You slide into the booth chair opposite and your shoe bumps his.

“Hi,” you say.

“Yeah, hi. Holy fuck.”

“What?” you ask, head whipping back to look the way you came.

“No, nothing, I just forgot how pretty you are. It’s kind of shocking up close. You know they called you ‘homespun’ in Lastick?”

“Fucker,” you say, not a hint of malice in it as you deflate in front of him.

“Mm. Nice sweatshirt. How was it? The Great Wall?”

“I don’t know, I got this at Goodwill.” You both pause, a synchronised, silently agreed upon ceasefire to take the other in. You look more than pretty, really, ‘cos he was fucking with you when he said it but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true, it is, you’re lovely when you smile and you’re smiling like he’s just told you he got a lucky scratcher and he’s giving you the winnings. “You look happy,” you say.

“Ditto.”

You grab at the collar of your sweatshirt. “Sorry, this is awkward, I don't know why.”

Eddie’s surprised at your honesty, not because you aren’t an honest person, but maybe because he’s used to skirting around the issue with you. There’s a mutual attitude that anything unsaid is untrue, and lately you’ve both said a ton of stuff you can't take back. He’s sorry, he wants to see you. You feel better when you’re with him. It’s embarrassing considering how little time you’ve spent together, and Eddie wants to change that. Hence dinner here in a blowout with floors that grab at your shoes and cigarette ash caked in the salt and pepper holders. The likelihood of an interruption is small.

“It’s fine,” he says faux confidently, while his heart is thudding against his Adam's apple. “I know how to fix it.”

Eddie reaches down under the table for the rumpled jansport he’d brought with him and pulls out two gifts. They aren’t wrapped, even though that would’ve been more romantic. He hadn’t found the time. He places them in front of you without ceremony, a chocolate rose in plastic wrap and a CD from that Indiana band you like, signed and sealed.

“What…” you mumble, picking up the CD with an adorably awed pout. “How’d you get this?”

“Asked around.” A lot. It was shameful.

Unfortunately for him, there’s a little more awkwardness to cut through, the shame of vulnerability or the realisation that you’re both standing on the precipice of something shiny and new. Suddenly, every word feels important. He has to make it clear that he’s repentant, and desperate, but only for you.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

You immediately nod, two tight dips of your chin as your thumb rubs over the plastic wrap irreverently. Your eyes are slightly widened, your pupils like dimes. “Eddie, I didn’t bring you anything.”

He leans back against the cool leather seat. “You didn’t have to. I’m just happy to see you.”

You stand up, and he thinks Oh thank fuck, you’re sitting on the bench beside him, you’re gonna kiss him saccharine sweet on the cheek like the darling girl that you are. His hand lands unabashedly atop the curve of your hip as you settle down beside him, his heart like the pull cord on a chainsaw that keeps skipping, your impending kiss the roar of the engine as it wakes.

Your hand touches his thigh. You’ve the chocolate rose in hand, a shy smile on your lips.

“Will you share it with me?”

He comes up short. Yeah, a kiss would be nice, but this is good too.

Dramatics aside (dramatics being the kinder word, because Eddie doesn’t feel dramatic at all, and that’s genuinely worse), he’s missed you without metaphor. Something in him relaxes as you unpackage the rose and snap it up. You offer him a carved leaf as you nibble on the stem. The awkwardness begins to fade, at least on his end, though that might be down to his lingering hand behind your back, not touching you but close enough.

“I told everyone I was going window shopping,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand as you meet his eyes.

“They believe you?”

“Nope. They know you’re here.”

“Mine were the same,” Eddie comforts, reaching for the flower of your rose to break it apart. He holds some up to see if you’ll let him feed you. You wrinkle your nose at him and laugh. He laughs back. “Open up.”

“No,” you say, laughing through your nose as he presses a petal to your lip. Your jaw softens as you lean back, and it’s a sight to see, your eyes lit with amusement and your lips pressed tightly closed.

He doesn’t wanna push his luck. He puts the chocolate petal in your hand and leans back to chew through his own, happy to watch you through half-lidded eyes. His squinting makes you squirm, until you figure out his angle and give him a playful glare.

It's swiftly interrupted by a big yawn. “I’m so tired,” you say, rubbing your eye with a sore looking hand.

“Your hands are fucked,” he says. It’s no wonder that you’re tired. You never stop. Even when the guitar pick’s fallen between strings. “That’s a bad one.”

He takes your hand in his to rub his thumb over the pad of your index finger, where the whorl of your fingerprint is cut decisively down the middle and scabbing over. The skin around it is mottled. His thumbnail scratches down the side of your finger gently as he looks it over. There’s nothing he can do to make it better.

“You know they invented picks for a reason,” he says.

Your middle and marriage fingers rest lightly against the meat of his thumb. Your pinky fits in the slight dip of his palm, its tip at the the bisection of hills at the bottom of his palm. Your nails aren’t long, but you’ve painted them an unassuming, translucent blue. He pushes his thumb into your fingers so they curl toward your own palm and slowly, you cover his thumb with yours. It’s a weird angle to hold hands, but he doesn’t mind. Like you can read his thoughts, you turn your hand into his, but then you must change your mind. You pull it out of his hold and face toward the table again, away from him, your forearms pushed together. You lean back with a tired moan. It turns his heart.

“I like shows, but I don’t like touring,” you say. “I think we should get to pick a venue and that’s it, that’s where we play. The fans can come to us.”

“The fans,” Eddie repeats.

He’s not trying to make fun of you. It’s weird to say something like that aloud and know that it’s true. You have fans. You both do. People like your music enough to come and see you play.

And you both like playing music enough to subject yourself to borderline torturous conditions. Packing yourselves up like parcels delivered from one stage to another.

“I bet Madonna loves touring,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“They aren’t making her live in a ten by two box sixteen hours a day,” he says.

“Don’t do math,” you plead, your head dipped back and drifting toward his arm. “I really am tired.”

“You could’ve cancelled. Not that I wanted you to.” He softens his voice, his best approximation of a caring boyfriend, though he’s never been one before.

“I didn’t want to cancel…”

“You need me to take you home?” he asks, concerned as you let your head drop on his shoulder.

“Can I just sit here a while?”

“Sure. Anything. Uh…” He wraps his arm around your shoulder.

Eddie would be content if you fell asleep but you fight your fatigue, and he’s glad for it when you move into easy conversation. This part he can do. Over the phone, he's told you about Wayne and growing up, and about stuff he doesn’t think he’s told anyone before, not secret so much as mundanities that no one ever wanted to listen to. He sticks to mundane things for now. Like the phone calls between you both (new, occasional, but always too long), he talks until he runs out of things to say, and even then he drags it out to a painful threshold.

Somehow, some way, you lay your head on his shoulder and keep it there for a while, and you tell him about your nightmare tour and all the fighting. Morgan’s not speaking to you, Ananya’s not speaking to anyone. She has a pair of headphones that she keeps on morning noon and night, sometimes during soundcheck, where she adamantly refuses to participate.

“Ananya used to be okay,” you say, nearly whispering like you’re worried you’ll get caught telling him secrets. “But she’s just as bad as Morgan now. They’re still fighting about Morgan’s– Okay, don’t tell anybody, but Morgan does a lot of coke–”

“Is that a secret?” Eddie asks.

He’s not being condescending, it’s just that half the people you see on MTV have a bad coke problem and Morgan is often on MTV.

“No, but she stole money out of Ananya’s purse at a party when we were first touring ‘cos she didn’t have a dime to her name, it’s pretty bad. I didn’t tell you on the phone ‘cos I was worried someone was listening to us.”

Eddie blanches. “You think people were listening to us?” He said some brave things to you last time, a cheeky promise wrapped up in platitudes.

“I mean, no? But the secretaries can listen on the line in some places, ‘n’ you were staying in all those skyscrapers. It’s not, like, a thing. Morgan swears she was gonna pay it back. Anya got mad, ‘n’ Morgan implied that any money in Anya’s purse was money she made.”

“I see.”

You lift your head slightly. “Please don’t tell anyone. They’d kill me if they knew I told you.”

He smiles at you reassuringly. “My lips are sealed.” He eyes your pretty mouth, your face as close as it is. “Well, mostly sealed. Ooh, you could buy my silence.”

“How does one go about that?” you ask quietly, knowing exactly how, he’s sure.

Eddie gives you the softest kiss he can manage, hiding his nervousness well. He grabs your upper arm, and grab isn't the right word but it’s the only word that makes any sense given the quickness of his movement; he's leaning in and he needs to be touching you first, steady himself. You smile into his lips.

“That’s not gonna be enough,” he says as you pull away. You startle him by leaning in again quickly, your lips parted a fraction and hot against his as your hand stretches out across his chest.

He’d intended to stay chaste with you. He's trying to rescue the head-first plunge that was his handful of confessions, make your possible relationship one that works, but he can't help himself. He takes it slow, admittedly, but slow kisses become long, and he turns lax at the feeling of your fingertips over his heart.

Eddie pulls away when he can make himself, cupping your face in his hand in an effort to communicate how much he wants to be kissing you still. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Why? Do I taste bad?” you ask. You have a shiny mouth.

“You taste like chocolate. I just figured I should buy you a drink before somebody else does.”

“Eddie,” you say, leaning into his palm ever so slightly, “there's no one else here.”

“Can’t say I blame them. Who names a bar ‘Cowboy Cadaver’?”

Your lashes kiss in the corners as you smile.

“Your band is called Corroded Coffin.”

“And it’s a good name.” He pecks you quickly. “Yes?”

Your answering hum tickles.

“Why do I feel like we aren't supposed to be doing this?” you ask, second hand joining your first on his chest.

“Because we’re meeting in secret?” he suggests, covering your hands with one of his. “Or mild secrecy. We aren't subtle.”

“You're not subtle.”

“No,” he agrees, and forgive him but he’s feeling positively sunny and sounds it.

“This is okay, though? We both want this?” you ask.

“I-” No more running away. No more casual cruelty. “I definitely want this.”

You grin, leaning up in a move that surprises him as your arms wrap around his neck, his hair under your arms. You smile sheepishly before ducking your face under his, the tip of your nose crushed to the soft part beneath his jaw. He has a grin all his own as he grasps your back. Eddie kisses the side of your head, any skin he can reach, three times in quick succession, and feels an acute sense of relief. There’s something final about it like a puzzle piece clicking into place that explains the photograph, or the snap of a finishing line against his stomach. He's suddenly pin-sharp ecstatic, and he shows it with a rough squeeze.

“You smell really nice,” he praises, his nose by your hair.

“That’s pervy, I think.”

“I’m trying to be nice,” he says.

He can hear even to himself how brazen he sounds, that awful flirtation he can't help from enacting with you now he knows you like this. He wants to impress, and he wants to be honest at the same time. He wants to be himself. It’s getting easier.

“Nice isn’t a word I’d associate with you,” you say, but you sit back to meet his eyes and amend, “That’s not true. You can be lovely.”

You give him a look that can only be described as loving. It’s pure affection, and if he weren't sitting he’d have fallen over from how it makes him feel. You lean forward until the top part of your face is on his cheek, your eyelashes twitching like a butterfly’s wing.

“Thank you for the presents. You didn't have to get me anything," you say.

He looks behind your head to the bar around you both. He's been so distracted by your looming presence, your arrival, and now having you in his arms, he hadn't noticed the patrons milling in as happy hour draws nearer. There’s a couple of older men at the bar, and one looks unseeing toward your public display. It makes him uneasy.

“You're welcome," he says. "We have an audience."

You follow his gaze over your shoulder and promptly untuck yourself from his embrace when you see the bar isn't as empty as you'd thought. There’s no time for heartbreak —you weave your fingers with his and hide them between your thighs, a small smile playing on your lips.

Eddie could get used to this.

—

Marriott Dean Music Store, Oklahoma, (still) March 1991

There’s a black and white Gibson Les Paul hanging on the wall. It caught Eddie’s eye as soon as you arrived, and while you have no use for it (and your Fender bass's gonna jinx you if you touch an instrument that isn't her, you just know it), you kinda wanna feel it for yourself.

“See the headstock? The line wrapped around the bottom?” Eddie says under his breath.

There's a storehand standing behind the small counter not too far from your position near the entrance.

You nod carefully. “Yeah?”

“Relacquered. And conveniently not mentioned on the price tag. It might be a new one, sometimes they crack backward from the pressure of the strings.”

You glance between Eddie, his pale face and a new crop of sun-wrought freckles, and the ‘like new’ label on the guitar. An ‘87 standard has no need for lies, it’s not as if the price difference between it and the new ‘91 is overlarge.

“Are you looking for something new?” you ask.

If Eddie functions anything like you do, he’ll have his own hardware but won’t hesitate to borrow from a well-packed bank of state-of-the-art instruments that follows the tour. He might even change instrument mid set. He won't need something new, but need and want are estranged.

“Nah,” he says, nudging you gently away from the guitar display. His hand ghosts your elbow, like he might steer you around. “I have a Rich Warlock, you seen those? I got a new one last year ‘n’ the output level for the bridge pickup is giving me grief, but I’m not an asshole. I could sit down and fix it myself, but…”

You brush aside a beaded curtain and take a short step down into the store, where a wealth of CD’s, cassettes and vinyls are packed in rows on tables. There’s an older man flicking through records, but beside that the room is empty. A big yellow sticker faded from the sun warns of CCTV.

“You’re too busy,” you finish.

“I'm way too busy.”

There's a calmness to being with him here you hadn't expected. It's like lying on the stairs with him all over again, but he's missing that awful far off look to his eyes, he's tip top shape: Eddie Munson is sober. He said it like it's no big deal, and maybe it isn't, but you squeezed his hand anyways because you figure you'd want someone to feel proud of you if you stopped. You don't have a problem, just every dalliance with recreational substances is a chance at something worse. He should feel good about what he's doing.

Especially when you understand the feeling that drives you there in the first place. The insane stress of wanting to prove that you're worth something, and the feeling like lukewarm water dripping down your spine when you're standing in the middle of a room, in the middle of a crowd, and you realise you could disappear and nobody would know until the next show. That confrontation of how small your life has become, through your own mediation and everything else.

You'd give anything to escape that feeling. Some nights, you do.

You told yourself you'd play it cool. What happened between you and Eddie, what's happening, it's muddled. You remember the profound hurt feeling of his final blow, and you hold it up against how you're feeling now as his fingertips coast down your arm, a thoughtless touch as he stands beside you to give his opinions on the box of records in front. He's nice. He's more nice than not. You wanted to squeeze his hand and you had, cool girl facade on the back burner.

Maybe you're the one who was cruel. You think back to how it all went down. The details grow fuzzier in the distance, but you know you hurt him like he hurt you. And unlike him, you can't remember having said sorry.

You turn your head and find his face remarkably close to your own. He doesn't flinch nor move, only smiles at the weight of your gaze and flicks to the next vinyl.

"I'm sorry," you say, awkward but earnest. You don't give yourself the time to chicken out.

You can't stand thinking you might have hurt him now. Even if he hurt you worse. The guilt of hurting anybody at all feels heavy, worse because it's you.

"For what?" he asks.

"For what I said. At the theatre. And for walking away at Monsters of Rock."

"I walked away," he says, confused. "I pretty much ran. Not my finest moment."

"No, at the store."

Recognition crosses his features. He smiles rather weirdly, inclining his head close enough to kiss you.

"You didn't have to listen to me. I respect that. You know that, right? You don't have to listen just 'cos someone has something to say." His brows crease inward. "I hate what I said to you at the theatre. And I felt guilty about it. You make me so mad, and I'm childish and I can't deal with that. But it's not your fault. You don't deserve a lashing every time I have one to give."

Eddie tilts his head to the left. "Sorry," he adds. "Don't try to make me feel better– don't, I can see it on your face. It's not why I said it."

He kisses the corner of your mouth, and then pulls back to see if it's worked. You're smiling. He takes it for a win.

"I'm a big girl," you say after a short second of staring at him, the ridge of his nose and the curls silhouetting his slight hint of cheekbone. "I don't need you to take all of the blame."

"Ah, but I'm selfish. I want it all." He shrugs. "Better luck next time."

"Nerd."

"Loser."

He goes back to the records with a smile. You look at it a little longer, allowed and aggrieved at once. He shouldn't be that pretty.

You watch his hands, hoping he'll give himself away and falter. A gift deserves a gift. CD's aren't cheap. You could buy him a vinyl. He must have a player of some sort, considering his Loggins and Messina habit.

"Think they'll have your new LP?" he asks.

"They'll have yours."

Eddie shakes his head. "I'm not asking about mine."

"They won't have it here, this place is tiny. City stores are the only place I've seen any of our stuff," you say.

"Well, you guys are plastered. I saw the cover on the side of a bus in Pasadena."

You gawp at him. "You did not."

"I did! Think I don't know that ugly font by now? Godless in huge black and white letters. It's a bad name, by the way," he ribs.

"What am I supposed to do about it? I wasn't there when they chose it."

Eddie shrugs, the toned muscle of his arms shifting beneath the fabric of his shirt. It might've been black once upon a time, but the merchandise he sports now is a washed out grey. You put your hand over the curve of his bicep because you want to, and pleasure simmers when he doesn't move away.

"If it were me," he says, in a tone of voice that spells irksome teasing a mile off, "and the name were that bad, I'd go on strike. Refuse to play. That'll make them fix it, while you still have time."

"I'm sure you could get away with that," you say.

"You don't think you would?"

"I'm not really tenured."

"Ah, but who could say no to such a pretty face," he praises, pushing the box of records away from himself. "Shit, guess we better go ask for a test run on that Les Paul. This is all… questionable."

"You're gonna serenade me?" you ask, returning his teasing.

"You're gonna serenade me. I know you know your way around a rhythm guitar. You're holding out on me," he says, knocking your elbows together.

You love this. All these familiar touches. Like a moth to a flame, you follow him back up into the main storefront and sit beside him on top of a crate, cradling the Les Paul like a baby you're terrified of dropping. Even with tour money you couldn't pay for it now. At the end, sure. But you doubt the manager would take an IOU.

"What do I play?" you ask.

"Anything."

"That's not helpful."

"Something fun," he says.

Your fingers slide up the fretboard to an E flat. You bite your lip. "I'm in bass mode." It's automatic. You'd immediately set yourself up for a baseline.

Baseline to riff for rhythm guitar is easy enough. E flat becomes E flat major. G becomes G minor.

"Pentatonics," Eddie whispers when you hesitate.

"You really aren't helpful," you laugh. "This is hard."

"I'm telling people you said that."

You mess around until you have the basis of a simple riff down, hoping you'll impress him. He shouldn't be impressed, you've seen him play things a thousand times more complicated in person, but he beams as you work your way through a verse and then an impromptu chorus.

"Is that fucking Blondie?" he asks.

"No."

"It so is! Hanging On the Telephone, everyone knows that song."

"And everyone knows it's a cover. I'm doing The Nerves version, obviously."

You smile at each other until he cracks. "Obviously," he concedes. "Do the rest."

"Like I'm your dog," you say, a joke that brushes too close to home.

You fumble over the strings, gaze resolute on the body of the guitar rather than his face.

You don't care that he said it —you care that he knows he said it. It doesn't make sense in so little words, but the feeling is contrite. It doesn't allow for sensical explanation.

The humiliation of being seen is worse than a spurned insult thrown haphazard at your feet. His insult isn't as bad as your reaction to it. The fact that he knows it upset you. That's the worst part.

It's embarrassing because he was right. Of course it is. And it doesn't get better, because you're still the same. Still running back after every kick. No matter the leg.

You play him the rest of the song. Or rather, your best approximation. It's incredibly difficult to play by ear and you haven't heard the song in a while. When the guitar sounds more like a transparent translation of the lyrics than the actual meat of the instrumentals you give up, picking at the strings and listening to the individual tuning of each once. Eddie doesn't speak. Each second of his silence grows worse, your throat dry as the Sahara and horrifyingly thick. Why isn't he talking?

His hand covers your shoulder. Fingers in a row across the slight dip of it, thumb rubbing reassuringly into your shoulder blade. "You're so fucking talented," he says quietly, his voice just above your ear. "I hope you know that."

"I got lucky," you say, shaking your head.

"No, you worked hard. There's a difference."

His hand slides over the hill of your upper arm. Eddie gives you a gentle shake. You let your head flop into the crook of his neck. His hair tickles your forehead, but he smells so good you stay longer than you should.

"Play me something," you say, trying to sound less morose than you feel.

Whether he hears your emotion or not, he pats your arm and sits up. You hand over the guitar, and Eddie props the body over his thigh and runs his fingers up the fretboard, feeling the craftsmanship appreciatively despite his earlier disapproval.

"What do you wanna hear?" he asks.

"What do you know?"

"God, I know everything. You should know that."

"Well, you can't play anything too impressive, you'll draw attention."

He nods very seriously at your sarcasm. He's immediately more at home than you'd been with it, and his hands look like they have a mind of their own. He plays a tight riff you recognise from one of their songs that is, to your horror, a warm up. He turns the amp down, and before you know it he's elbow deep in a complication of chords that might genuinely have you sweating if it were you rather than him. He does it like it's nothing. A walk in the park, and one he so clearly takes pleasure in. His eyes light up, the kind of look he's had before when he's made you laugh, or something a little milder than the electricity of his rough stageside kiss.

You're in awe.

He fucks up somewhere and laughs. A sweet giggle.

"S'what I get for trying to show off."

He plucks a string sharply. Hair's falling in his eyes, nearly hiding the sheepish curve of his lips. You see it, and adore it, and don't know what you're supposed to do about that.

"I'll get him to put this away before I break it and we can get something to eat," he says, looking up from the guitar.

"It's weird to be with you. Without anything in the way," you say before you can stop yourself.

You're glad you've said it when he raises his eyebrows. "Super weird. No more excuses. Wanna get freaky in the employee bathroom?" He laughs at his own joke. "It feels right, though," he adds warmly, before sincerity gets too much and he looks away.

He gives the store employee back the Les Paul for its case and swings his backpack over one arm. He holds the other one out, wriggling his fingers so you know it isn't optional. You'd have tried it if he didn't offer.

You hold hands out of the store and onto the street, busy but not crowded, and try to think of what you're supposed to say. You're in the soul of Tulsa, rather than the heart —you and Eddie decided to meet somewhere far enough from the city centre as to miss anyone who'd know who you are (or, more accurately, know who he is). You're not the kind of musicians who get papped often, or ever. Morgan's snow exposé was opportunistic, and Eddie was on the news for his epic destruction of property, but beside that it's purposeful photoshoots or moot. But this, this thing, whatever it is, it isn't for anybody else. You don't want anyone knowing quite yet. If Morgan found out you'd probably chuck up from the anxiety of what she'd do, some 'well-meaning' sabotage. Contrary to what she'd said in the past, how you should pick up the phone if Eddie calls, you know how she functions. Jealousy, or maybe some unjust belief that she deserves every ounce of lust or affection or attention, would absolutely wreck her. She doesn't like you enough to let you have this. You know it.

"Are you okay?" Eddie asks.

The sunlight makes him paler than usual. Pasty skin, dark dark hair, he'd be a vampire if his hand weren't warm in yours. You tighten your grip.

"I think I'm not half as cool as I want to be."

He licks his lips. "You're cool."

You lift your chin to look at the sky, the wind moving over your hair gently. You trust Eddie enough to let him pull you out of harm's way. At least, you think you do.

"I'm worried about people finding out about us."

"Us?" Eddie asks. Horror surges. It's smothered as quickly as it comes by your hand swung in his, and his pleased little smile as he says, "There's an us."

It's useless to pretend otherwise. And if it makes him that happy, you're thrilled. Genuinely.

"Would it be so terrible?" Less sun and more apprehension, Eddie fails at bravado. "If people knew about your smoking hot plaything?"

"You're not my plaything, you're– not my plaything," you stammer.

"Bummer for me. I think I'd be into it."

He guides you around a fire hydrant and across a short gap in the sidewalk. You have no idea where he's leading you. It's sunny enough that you don't complain.

"I don't want people to know about us because– because I barely know about us, and, um– I'm sorry, this is the opposite of attractive."

"How many compliments do you want?" he asks seriously, "'Cause I have a couple locked and loaded."

"Let's go back to when you didn't like me."

"Who cares how attractive you are? Not that you're not. But I don't want you to not tell me things because it's not hot. What kind of relationship would that turn into? Superficial, who wants that?" He stops swinging your hand abruptly, and to your pleasure, his cheeks are pink. "Do you want that?"

"No," you mumble.

"Oh. Good."

"What kind of relationship do you want?" you ask.

"A nice one." He does his fucking ridiculous giggle again and you could kiss him right here in the street. "You're ruining my reputation. I used to be respectable. Now I'm a bigger loser than before, and people are gonna clock on."

"They've clocked on."

"Cruel!" he says, delighted.

"I…" You look anywhere but his face. His hand is so, so heavy. "You really don't care if I'm honest?"

"I want you to be honest. We're not seventeen. I know girls do all the same gross stuff that boys do, babe."

"What do you think I'm about to say?" You laugh.

"Something really disgusting from the way you're freezing up."

The breeze kisses at your cheeks. A stray leaf falls from the tree to your left and twists through the air, dancing in circles until it stops at your feet. You step over it gingerly.

"Eddie, I just want you to know what you're getting into–"

"What am I getting into?"

"I'm not– I'm–" You struggle for words. There's no dictionary for how you feel. There's so much stuff wrong with you and he can't know any of it. You're stupid and lazy and bad at the things you're good at. You're tired, and sick, and you can't seem to get things right. You love sincerely and it's hardly ever enough. "I don't really know why you want this."

He speaks with lips barely parted, mumbling but somehow unafraid. "I don't really know why I wouldn't want this."

Eddie turns the corner and pulls you with him. An empty sidewalk beckons, white and stretching long down the boulevard. He pulls your joined hands up into the air and guides you into a slow twirl.

"I think you're beautiful. You impress me, and you make me wanna write bad songs," he says, rubbing his thumb over your fingers. "What am I saying? I can't write a bad song. It's impossible. Especially if they're about you."

"But I don't get that, we don't get along."

"What do you call this?" he asks.

You come to a stop. There's a coffee shop to your right with huge open windows. Warm yellow light pours out into the slowly darkening sky.

"I do want this," you say, worried you're giving him the wrong idea. He visibly relaxes at your statement, his grip on your hand strengthening once again. "I do," you continue, "whatever this is, I meant what I said, you know. You… make everything quiet for me. And I think you're–" Beautiful, you should say. "You're Lastick's heartthrob, everybody wants you. I like you."

"I'd hope so," he says, pulling you toward him, his second hand vying for yours. He tugs you right up against him, face lit with cocky happiness.

You hold your breath. His lashes are super long at the corners, emphasising the deep dark brown that lines his pupils and the gentler bark that surrounds it. He lays a hand against your cheek, encouraging your head up to his. He isn't soft with you like he'd been at the bar, but he isn't mean. You like how sure he is as he pulls you in, as he presses his lips to yours. Your eyes shutter closed with the pressure.

"I don't care if everybody wants me," he says, and kisses you again, your noses smushed together. "That's not true, anyway," —he laughs quietly into your open mouth, his breath warm as it fans over your lips and tongue— "and if it were," —he kisses you a third time, his head tilted to the side, his lips parted a fraction like he can't wait long enough to line up with you— "it wouldn't change what I want."

You have to take a breather if only to let your brain catch up with what he's saying.

"Okay," you breathe.

He pulls your still joined hands to his heart. "Yeah? I'm not trying to freak you out 'n' go too heavy. I know I'm on thin ice."

"You're not on thin ice."

"I should be."

Maybe. "You're not." You glance down the sidewalk to make sure your public display (you're becoming those people, apparently) isn't in someone's way. Thankfully, there's nobody around. "Sorry. This has been a really nice day, and I'm ruining it."

"Date," he corrects. "It's a date, and it's great, and you haven't ruined a thing. We're gonna get dinner and talk about music and Gareth's disgusting bunk and you can feel however you want to feel, long as it's within arms reach. Yeah?"

"Yeah, okay," you say. You manage a firm nod.

A date. Maybe you're a fool who doesn't deserve him for an almost-boyfriend. If you keep getting in your own way, you'll definitely be one.

"What's for dinner?" you ask.

Eddie smiles.

—

Colo Do Amante Hotel, April 1991

"Do you think you'll ever move away from glam metal?"

Eddie looks up from the notebook in his lap. He licks his lip to give himself more time to answer, searching for the right thing to say to you. The more time you spend together, the more he wants to say the right thing, and the more sure he feels that there isn't a wrong thing.

You are, quite simply, a wonder. A love.

He shouldn't be here. Eddie's playing a show tomorrow night halfway across the country. If even one thing goes wrong with his red-eye, he's fucked. Someone from Rollerboy will murder him, and he'll deserve it. But he's here, because he wanted to see you and miraculously you wanted to see him. A late night phone call from one hotel room to another, his quiet confession.

"I miss you," he'd said.

You'd hesitated for half a second, if that. "Come and see me, then."

So he ditched the bus, got a cab, flew out with his rockstar money and crawled into your bed. You haven't slept together, only laid with one another talking about how much being a musician sucks and how awful you both are for complaining. You'll relax around him now, and he thinks more about seeing you again than he does your muddled past, and he knows that counts for something.

"Do I think I'll move away from glam metal?" he repeats, thoughts not strictly yours.

He's trying to write about how you look now before you move, before he can forget it. Your figure curled up yet limp beside him, your hand on his stomach and your shirt climbing up the hill of your hip, the pudge of your stomach peaking out. You're wearing something much more showy than the last time he saw you, having done press a couple hours before his arrival and with no will to change. Your tights are dark and floral lace, stretched over sweet thighs vaguely hidden by your black skirt. For all the leg on show he can't see a hint of your top half before your neck. You're layered in fabrics. He loves it, you look awesome, and you'd been amazingly flustered when he told you.

Careful not to smudge your glittery make up, he'd tried to kiss you in the lobby. You'd nearly squeaked, grabbing him by the arm to pull him to the elevator bank.

"Can't blame a guy for trying. Have you seen yourself today? Actually? You're fucking killer."

You'd shushed him and clicked the wrong floor button. He pretended not to notice when you corrected yourself.

Most of the makeup is gone now, kissed off and the rest washed away, but your lashes are still lengthened and they look it as you prop yourself up by his hip and ask, "Well?"

"No," he says honestly. There's always room to grow, and music changes with time and with an evolving scene, but Corroded Coffin are famous for how they sound now. "I love how we sound… Do you think you'll ever move into glam metal?"

"Is there any room?"

"No, but when has that ever stopped anyone?"

He folds his pen between the leaves of his notebook and chucks it toward his bag in the corner of your room. You shift yourself, not quite sitting up as you pull off your sheer long sleeve and the regular long sleeve beneath it, exposing your arms and your chest to his view. He hadn't been expecting a tank top beneath.

He whistles. Can't help himself.

You dive to hide your face in the sheets, one arm tucked uncomfortably under your weight and across your chest, the other sliding away from his navel. "Shut up," you murmur.

"Sorry. You're just pretty."

"Didn't say that before I got my tits out, I notice."

He laughs at your grumbling and leans down to talk softly. "Ah, but I did, didn't I? Told you you were 'fucking pretty' but maybe you didn't hear me, you were kissing me so hard–"

You reach blindly for his face and push him away from you, not half as roughly as you could.

He's messing with you. It's his prerogative.

Being your almost boyfriend comes with privileges, like being privy to how you're feeling. Once unbeknownst to Eddie and probably everyone in your life, you're not a very happy person. He could guess why, he's not blind, but thinking it and knowing it are two different ponds. You don't say much about it, embarrassed by or maybe unable to verbalise how you're feeling beyond, "I'm tired of everything today," and, "Sorry, I'm just worried."

About what? he'd asked.

You'd nibbled your lip. Everything. Nothing worth saying out loud.

He'd make jokes anyhow, but he makes more of them when he thinks you're feeling down. Teasing you is a surefire trick to distract you from all the stuff you can't handle.

It's piling on, he knows. Morgan on the news again, shirtless in a public club, your startled face in the background. You'd been poked fun at by TV hosts and journalists alike. Nothing cruel, but making you the butt of a joke nonetheless. Then there was Ananya's continued selective mutism, disagreements over stage blocking, your ever-present employment anxiety, your very first hate letter disguised as a love note, and, to Eddie's surprise, radio silence from your friend Dornie.

He didn't like Dornie to begin with. Now he hates him.

"Don't push me away," he whines.

"Don't make fun of me."

"But you look lovely when you're mad." He grins at you where you're glaring, only your eyes and brows visible in your position. "Exactly like that."

"Lovely," you say. He can hear in your voice how the mock fight you'd started has sputtered out. You sound genuine again, a little raspy with oncoming fatigue.

"You don't like that word?"

You lay flat on your back. Head on the pillows, hands to your collar and fingers picking at one another, you look down at them and away from him and Eddie can't stand losing your attention. He ushers away his notebook on the sheets and climbs toward you on knees. He checks your face as he positions himself between your legs. You smile. He smiles back. He thinks maybe this is what you secretly wanted him to do.

"You like Status Quo?" you ask.

He smiles and lets his weight press down on you, not paying much attention to what goes where, only the feeling of being on top of you, this close, and being allowed. "Yeah?"

"Showaddywaddy?"

"Beg your pardon?" he jokes.

"Let's go for a little walk," you sing under your breath.

"Yeah. I liked that song." He sings, "I wanna tell you, that I love ya." You nod happily.

"Queen?" you ask, quieter still.

"Don't ask stupid questions."

"It's weird that we managed to find each other," you say. "Though everything. You had to like all that music, we had to want this bad, we had to be born at the same time, in the same scenes, and we had to go to the same stupid party."

He hangs his head. "I was in a mood."

"You were. I figured you were an asshole, you know?"

Eddie takes a deep, deep breath. "I remember."

"I was… pathetic," you say softly, letting your hands drop flat to your chest. You change your mind, tuck a curl behind his ear. "I was desperate, your friend Jamison… it doesn't matter. I don't know what I'm trying to say."

"There's a difference between pathetic and lonely. You tried to make friends, and I was being a dick because–" He sucks the inside of his cheek.

"'Cos you tried to talk to me and I made fun of your court case?" you ask, self-deprecating.

"Because you didn't know me."

You poke his cheek gently. "That mattered that much to you?"

"Sweetheart, we met before."

Eddie watches you hear him, and spots the resistance to what he's suggesting. He needles his arms under your waist to feel the breadth of your back in his palms, close enough to kiss you, but wanting to hear what you have to say about it more.

"We did," he says.

"What do you mean?"

"I think about a year before we met at the party, we met at the airport. You weren't in Godless, you weren't even a tech yet, you were on your way to meet the tour in New York. We met, and we talked about music, and I told you to come and meet me if you ever found yourself in the same place."

You'll put me on a list? you'd asked, charmed by his wanting to see you, as impossible as it may have seemed then.

I'll put you on the list.

"When I saw you," he says, eyes on the curve of your bottom lip, "I was hoping you'd come to see me, but you didn't remember me, I could tell straight away, and I– I'd gotten so used to people saying yes to me that I got more pissed than I should've. I feel like a loser, telling you now, but–" But it meant something, meeting you before. It meant something.

"We did meet," you say, voice like a line of spider web weighed down, and abruptly plinking back up. "You gave me a sticker. I dropped it down a storm drain straight off the plane."

He nods encouragingly, "I gave you a Corroded Coffin sticker–"

"With a rose in the background," you interrupt.

"Yeah. You remember? You had those huge can headphones and your guitar was falling apart, and I told you about Sweetheart 'cos she was still pretty impressive at the time. You didn't have time to try her before boarding, so…"

"So you said I could give her a try the next time we saw each other."

Eddie bites his lip. "Yeah."

Your breath is noticeably quickened, your gaze snapping onto his face. Recollection lights your eyes, and then, like he'd so desperately wanted to see months ago when he wandered into you of all people at a sticky, snow-loaded party, you smile at him. Like you missed him. Like you can't believe your luck.

"Well, hey, stranger," you whisper, your thumb rubbing along his bottom lip, fingers tucked neatly behind his ear. "I remember you."

"You took your time," he says.

"You could've said something," you say, chin dipping to your chest. "How did you remember me after that long?"

He's trying not to get broken up with before he's officially your boyfriend; he wants to say, You're hard to forget, but he refrains.

He leans in for a silky, soft kiss. "Immaculate memory," he says in the slice of time your lips aren't touching, a second gap as he turns his head to better kiss your top lip.

"Is there anything you can't do?" you indulge.

"Can't get this one really beautiful thing to let me take her photo," he says.

You giggle and push him away. "'Cos I know what kind of picture you want, Eddie!"

"I already told you that's not true, dirty photos are an epidemic I've yet to feed into." He's a man, not a Saint —he'd fucking love a dirty photo, but he really does just want a Polaroid for his wallet. "How about we both have a Polaroid of each other? So you don't forget me?"

Guilt lines your smile. "I'm sorry," you say, dragging him down for a kiss. "Sorry, sorry. I won't forget you again, Munson…" You rub his cheek with your thumb. "If I let you take a photo, will you forgive me?"

You're already forgiven. "Three photos."

"Deal."

"Should've asked for five."

"You could've asked for the full cartridge and a dirty one and I might've said yes. I can't believe we met before.."

Eddie rests his nose on your cheek, eyes closed, already trying to remember how many photos there are left on his camera. "I don't want a picture of your tits because you feel guilty, babe." He laughs as he talks, then, the joke feels that good to say, "I want one because you have the most amazing, killer, gorgeous pair of–"

You screech to cover his bold compliments and whack his chest playfully. "Get off of me, you freak! Get off, get off, get off."

Eddie flips onto his back, chuckling.

"How would you even know?" you ask, slipping off of the bed with a little thump and down by your suitcase. You chuck your shitty Polaroid Spectra onto the sheets by his arm and rifle around for a foil sealed cartridge. "You've barely seen them."

Like past Eddie, this Eddie still wants to fuck you stupid, but he also really isn't interested in intiating anything before you're ready. He's hoping you'll make the first move, and maybe soon, but watching the tip of your tongue breach your lips as you climb on your knees to fiddle with the Spectra, he's not really thinking about sex.

"I've seen them," he disagrees.

"You have not."

"Have too."

"Have not."

"I'm seeing them right now."

You look down at your chest. The tank top you're wearing isn't especially scandalous, Eddie just loves your shape.

"Okay," you say, shyness creeping into your voice and stature, your shoulders bunching up toward your neck a touch, "if I say something and it's too weird, you can tell me no. Please tell me no."

He shakes his head gently when you don't add anything else. "What?" he asks.

"Do you really want a dirty photo? You could take one. I wouldn't mind," you say.

Your voice drops to a murmur with the last two words. Eddie hikes up on his elbows, smile curling and appling his cheeks. "You don't still feel bad about forgetting lil ole me?"

"Of course I do, but it's not why I'm offering. I really like you, Eddie. I want to do things other couples do."

Earnestness has you sounding your best: your voice has always been one of his very favourite things about you. Your voice, your smile, your passion (maybe that one most of all). When you talk as you are now, without anything in the way, he thinks he might be at his most infatuated.

"I really like you," he says, reaching out to steal your hand from the camera. "What I want most is one with your smile, get me? One I can flash at the boys while I'm away, brag about you."

"I thought we weren't telling anyone," you say gently.

"Not for now. I'll need it eventually, right?"

You beam at him. "Right."

You pick up your camera and aim it at his face. He knows how he must look, his hair frizzy from hours on a small plane, lips sore from kissing you, ridiculously happy. Now you know everything about him he'd been purposefully hiding. All the bad in all of the good, and all the good in all of the bad. He can't wait to tell you the rest.

The flash blinds him for a split second, and your camera chugs as it ejects the photo. You drop it on the sheets and you and Eddie crane your heads together, foreheads kissing while the image appears.

"That's a good one, right?" he asks. Upside down, he's not sure.

"It's really perfect," you say.

Eddie lifts your chin for another silken kiss.

"Listen," he says as he breaks away, his lips tingling, heart in his throat. "Can I be your boyfriend?"

He hadn't meant to ask like that.

You nod slowly, then quickly, trying uselessly to tamp an ecstatic smile as you paw at his arms. Eddie pulls you back up onto the bed and you make camp in his lamp, hands in his hair and lips like an undulating wave against his. He kisses you until he can't think.

—

The photographer standing outside of the Colo De Amante is cold, fingertips frostbitten and nose like ice, but it's worth it for the photo he gets. Eddie Munson peeling out of the hotel in the late night when he's supposed to be in a different state, hair banded out of his face, giving the photographer a great view of his pleased features.

The camera clicks.

𓆩❤︎𓆪

thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed! please reblog if you have the time!! i love them being all loveydovey but im excited for the drama to start again

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson #stranger things fic #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #rockstar!eddie #rockstar!eddie munson #rockstar!eddie munson x reader #rockstar!eddie x reader #eddie munson fic

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nyashykyunnie · 9 months

Note

I saw your jinwoo Drabble about the two heartbeats and I raise you this: cuddling up to jinwoo one night and pressing your ear against his chest, trying to melt into him while listening to his heartbeats. You can’t see it, but his ears and neck are pink, a subtle blush he can’t contain. He’s delighted by your closeness and worried that you’d find his two hearts appalling. But you’re just nuzzling away, your fingers kissing adoration on any bare skin you could find, your lips whispering words of devotion and Jinwoo- every fraction of him: the weak, the strong, and the frightening Other- is suddenly so painfully in love with you.

Sung Jinwoo! Two Hearts x Gn! Reader: Twice To Love You More

a/n: I normally go by "first come, first serve" but I badly need Jinwoo comfort scenes that are in my head so aaaa. yes. ty anonnie for requesting this, my burnt out brain desperately needs this. I just need Jinwoo in general whEezE

TW !!! : Body Horror(?), Multiple Organs

ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕘 𝕁𝕚𝕟𝕨𝕠𝕠˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

﹢　˖ 　✦ ¸ .　﹢　 ° 　¸. ° ˖ ･ ·̩　　｡　☆. 　﹢　˖ 　✦ ¸ .

He was anxious. Really anxious.

Once he felt you snuggle up to him, you hear his two hearts suddenly pound madly.

Jinwoo was so nervous that he could hear it drumming in his ears.

The lump on his throat kept moving. His hand was even stiff as it rested on your shoulder.

He doesn't say anything. Jinwoo doesn't know how to.

But when he saw your face, god your face, that beautiful face of yours...

That face of yours that is so delighted, so satisfied, so at home.

You're not frightened of him, not even the slightest.

It's a little confusing on his part really, after all... A human with two hearts, isn't it quite terrifying?

Jinwoo is considered as a monster with that.

But to you? No. He isn't.

Your Jinwoo is beautiful, even in his imperfections.

Even with the scars, the horrific slashes, those so called "Spoils Of Wars" of his many deaths and injuries.

Jinwoo is Perfect.

Slowly, slowly you can hear his hearts calm down. Creating a symphony that makes you melt.

Who knew that hearing two heartbeats at the same time could be so... Therapeutic?

His two hearts represented who he is as a person: One heart given to him at his birth, the heart that shows he is Sung Jinwoo, the Jinwoo that loves his family, the Jinwoo that is good and human. The other heart, a heart of black, representing his monstrosity, the heart that proves that he is the shadow monarch. The harbinger of destruction, the monarch slayer, the heart that is proof of his divinity.

Yet, in the same time, these hearts belonged to you.

Jinwoo has given up his existence to you. His purpose is to love you.

Two hearts just means there’s more of him for you to love. More of him to dedicate to you.

His strength, his weakness, all of it is for you.

These two hearts beats for you.

All of him, may it be Sung Jinwoo, the Shadow Monarch— He is yours.

All that he is, you adore him.

How did he necome so lucky to have someone as innocent and loving as you?

His hearts churn, stirred at how you just love him despite the fact that he is not totally human anymore

”I love you.” Jinwoo mutters as he rubs his nose on your hair, inhaling your lovely scent.

Those three words may be simple, but those three words held a thousand words. Thousands of words dedicated to you.

The you who loves him no matter who he is, the you he wishes to cherish forevermore.

#sung jinwoo #solo leveling #sung jin woo #solo leveling headcanons #solo leveling x reader #sung jinwoo hcs #sung jinwoo headcanons #sung jinwoo x gn reader #sung jinwoo x reader #doing some fluff before i become unholy again heheh #only i level up #jinwoo

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sheisjoeschateau · 3 months

Text

"Oh, so we DO love Steve... | PART V

⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ SERIES MASTERLIST ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Steve Harrington x Bauman!fem!reader enemies to lovers, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, upside down mayhem, S2-S4, post S4 universe hot-take, end-of-the-world / dystopian setting, ugly fights turned smut (...but with hella plot). 18+

CHAPTER WARNINGS: tw - major character death (?), attempted CPR, screaming, crying, strong language, trauma (so much f*cking trauma), regrets. 18+

***

When Steve watched you tumble off of the wall and down to the ground, he felt his entire world stop spinning.

It was as if he could literally see the surge of electricity that coursed through your veins, grappling onto your body before it repelled you off the fence.

You fell, landing flat on your back, and Steve knew that if you’d had any air left in your lungs that the fall alone had knocked the wind out of you.

And Steve felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him. Crouched at the top, just watching the nightmare unfold in front of his eyes.

“BAUMAN!!!!”

The scream that ripped from Steve’s lungs scared him more than he already was.

Jonathan, Eddie and Dustin all shouted your name in response. They rushed over to your body. Your way-too-still body.

Everyone completely freaked. Steve kept cursing and shouting, knees pressing into the concrete underneath where he was hunched over and gripping the edge. Every inch of him was shaking and ready to pounce off the top of that wall onto the ground. The walkie-talkie was going off still, and that only heightened everyone’s senses that were already in override.

Jonathan knew what Steve was debating, as he got closer to the ledge. “Steve, don’t move —”

“Fuck, FUCK.”

“DO NOT MOVE.”

“BAUMAN — ”

“STAY UP THERE. The box got — fuck, it got switched, fuck!”

Jonathan was frenzied. Sheer panic brought his voice up several octaves, to where he was just shrieking.

Eddie was almost shell-shocked next to Dustin, who was the most frightened that any of the guys had ever seen the kid. He clutched the walkie-talkie as it kept blasting off with Murray’s voice, shaking.

“Jonathan…” Dustin’s voice sounded so small, so terrified. Like he was suddenly six years old again.

Eddie went from reaching for you, to reaching out to Dustin. He was so conflicted, needing to help and not knowing how. The metalhead stuttered unintelligible words of fear.

And up on the ledge still, Steve raked his hands through his hair, throwing his head back to groan more curses to the sky.

This was hell. Absolute hell.

Here he was, stuck at the top, unable to do anything. Steve frivolously paced, tugging at his hair until the scalp burned.

“Group 2 to Group 4, do you copy?”

Steve felt bile rise up in his throat watching Jonathan’s fingers graze your neck, searching for a pulse. When it wasn’t there, he reached for your wrist. No sign of life… Jonathan looked sick. Turning to Eddie, who was staring at him — pale as a ghost — Jonathan’s voice shook.

“Lift her head,” Steve heard Jonathan croak. He was positioning himself over you, straightening you out on your back. He took his hands, pressing them to your chest.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, God no, please no. Steve heard himself saying it in his head, over and over. But when Eddie looked up at him, his eyes heartbroken, Steve realized it wasn’t in his head. Steve was saying it out loud.

“Group 4, this is group 2 – do you copy????”

Jonathan was telling Dustin, in as calm a voice as he could muster, how to help. And Dustin looked up at Steve, whimpering for him. But seeing his older brother-slash-mother-like figure at the top in complete dismay only made him want to cry more. Dustin was scared, he was so scared… Jonathan brought him back to focus.

“Hey, hey," Jonathan spoke to him gently, shakily. "Look at me. Look at me. Help me, alright?”

But Jonathan’s trembling voice was not reassuring at all. Dustin followed his lead, though. He kept his hands cupped underneath your head, your hair pooled around yourself on the ground.

Steve got a grip on himself for all of two seconds. Enough to at least speak to his kid, voice wrecked and his words rushed.

“Dustin, h-hang in there, kid, alright? It's okay. S'okay. Jonathan – y-you know CPR, yeah?”

Jonathan fervently nodded his head, getting to work.

The walkie-talkie was a chaotic clusterfuck of voices, begging for an answer. Murray. Erica. Hopper. Eleven. Lucas.

Eddie lost it, grabbing it from the ground and biting back a scream before he tried to tell them, not knowing how — “C-code red, code red, we — we . . .”

Your eyelids – glued shut – made Steve’s open eyes burn. Your lifeless chest, no sign of air, made the sound of his own breathing sound so loud it was jarring. He couldn’t breathe. He still had fucking oxygen in his lungs, yet he couldn’t breathe.

Steve just kept murmuring your name into his fist. His voice was low and unintelligible, as if he was speaking some twisted prayer out loud while he paced back and forth. He felt acid pricking at his eyes, blurring his vision. Steve swiped at my face, roughly rubbing his palm down his from forehead to chin.

Steve bit at his own cheek, willing the trembling to stop. Stop, damn it. Don’t make this real. It’s not real.

“God damn it,” Jonathan muttered.

“Keep going,” Steve barked down at Wheeler. It was meant to be a command but Steve’s voice was thick with emotion and he hated it. He watched every chest compression and every puff of air exhaled into your mouth and over your lips, wishing to God that it was his own lips crushing against yours. Because if it were him, he would give you no choice. You were stubborn as fuck, and no one needed to be easy on you. That wouldn’t work.

Murray was going berserk on the other side of the walkie, and so was Hopper.

“Where the hell is my niece, what’s going on?!?!”

Eddie was on the verge of a full blown panic attack, trying to get a word out and explain. For the love of God, how could he explain???

Dustin glanced up at Steve, and that was the worst thing he could’ve done. He was crying. Steve’s kid was fucking crying.

Fuck, this was real.

Steve’s body had never violently convulsed with shakes like this his entire life. Not when he first saw the demogorgon. Not when he came face to face with the demodogs. And not even in the Russian torture chamber.

He wanted to sob – but hell no, he couldn’t let himself. Not yet. Not fucking yet.

So Steve bit his cheek until he tasted blood, lips tightly curled over his gritted teeth, frantically pacing with his arms crossed and fingernails digging into his elbows even through his shirt.

When Jonathan sighed, exasperated, Steve was suddenly screaming at Jonathan. He didn’t even register it until it was happening. Wheeler shouted back, a storm of words tearing them both at the seams. Wheeler never overreacted. He never shouted unless it was a joke.

But this wasn’t a joke. It was real.

And the distraught anger that boiled inside of Steve was evident as he shrieked back at Jonathan and Eddie below out of sheer disdain towards them for being down there with you instead of himself. It wasn’t even their fault. It was nobody’s fault, and somehow that made it worse. Because it meant that Steve had no one to blame.

So, he blamed God. A god that he wasn’t sure he even believed in.

Eddie finally flipped his shit, screeching into the walkie-talkie. The trees. The world. “She’s. Not. Breathing!!!!!! The fence turned on too soon!!!!”

“Murray, turn it back now!” Steve cried out.

“Steve’s stuck up top, he needs down here! He’s a lifeguard, Erica, help!” Dustin’s cries were heart wrenching.

Erica came onto the line. “I’m on it, Steve, hang on!”

After another agonizing 15 seconds, Murray said it was clear — his voice cracking.

Eddie flung his bat at the fence. No electricity.

Steve hurled himself down the wall.

Flinging himself to the ground, Steve could feel himself begin to hyperventilate again as he looked over your pale face up close. Your full lips were no longer that tempting shade of rose pink.

They were blue.

So, Steve moved fast – straddling you and thinking back to lifeguard training a few summers ago. One of the few things I’d done right in high school was learning CPR. He locked his knuckles against your chest, starting compressions while ordering Jonathan to keep doing mouth to mouth.

“How long has it been...” Steve’s question sounded like a statement, muttered through his actions.

“Over three minutes,” Eddie spoke, his voice also shaking. Then he mumbled, “...if not longer.”

Steve’s stomach churned. He grit his teeth, jaw clenched, forcing the next round of sobs back down his throat. Your name was choked on his lips, mixed with vulgar curses muttered under his breath. Your lips were still parted from the attempted resuscitation, and your eyelids were beginning to peak open. But your lively irises were trapped behind her hooded eyelids, dead and unmoving, and the thought of not seeing them ever again fucking wrecked Steve.

One, two, three. “C’mon, Bauman.” Four, five, six, breath. “Bauman, c’mon —”

Steve’s arms began to burn as he frivolously tried to pump life back into your slender frame.

God, I hate her, Steve thought. I fucking hate her.

Of course it would be her that this happened to. Of fucking course. Not me. Because that would be too easy. Then she would keep so stupid fucking calm, like she always is in situations that infuriate me. She would keep herself together. Her stubborn attitude would keep her emotions at bay. Because God forbid she be visibly scared. She had to be the goddamn hero. Because she is perfect. Impossibly perfect.

So fucking perfect.

“Bauman, cmon, please,” Steve pleaded.

“YOU GUYS, TALK TO US. WHAT’S HAPPENING?” Robin sounded panicked over the walkie.

Eddie didn’t even know how to answer. He just stared, helplessly.

Steve’s shoulders slumped, and he felt the stupid tears that sloped down his face and onto his trembling lips. He tasted the salt, the bitterness making him want to curl up and die. He'd never felt this sick in my life. He never wanted to feel it again.

But he would feel it ten times worse if this is how it was gonna end.

If Steve was never gonna see another day with the niece of Murray fucking Bauman bothering the ever-living shit out of him, then his world was just going be dull again.

Funny how he once thought that’s how he’d preferred it. The world in which you didn’t exist. Steve had raved to you about it, day after day. About how much better his life would have been in that world if you had simply never come into the picture. How much happier he would be, because you wouldn't have been around to ruin it. You would simply cease to exist, and all would be right in the world.

Now he had spoken it into fucking existence. And if there was ever a regret that Steve Harrington had in his life, it was having ever thought for a second that it was what he actually wanted. He would rather be forced to rewatch all his days as King Steve and watch everything horrible that he did and bitterly regretted now, if it meant avoiding this.

Because now, all he wanted was you.

God, please, let me keep her...

Jonathan stopped giving mouth to mouth, heaving for air. Dustin looked at him in pure horror, and for the first time ever I saw Eddie look more terrified than the kid.

“Jonathan,” Dustin croaked.

“Whoa whoa, w-what —” Eddie stuttered.

“Don’t you dare fucking stop.” Steve screamed.

Steve sounded like a strangled animal, growling at Jonathan — who now just wept and wept, overwhelmed. He tearfully argued back with Steve, voice booming and defeatedly saying something about how it’s not working. Something about it being too late. And Steve wanted to punch him square in the face.

On top of that, the walkie-talkie kept blasting off in Eddie’s hands with everyone’s voices. Mainly Murray, who was demanding information, screaming —

“Someone tell me what’s going on with my niece right now!!!!!!!!”

Eddie stuttered something to Wheeler, moving to take his place. Wheeler obeyed, moving aside.

Steve swapped with Eddie, giving you mouth to mouth while he pumped your chest. Jonathan murmured into the walkie, all stuttered and shaky, something about them trying. Still trying.

And all the while, Steve kept murmuring your name while blowing air into your lungs, and it sounded like a broken prayer on his tongue. Eddie was openly crying at this point, his tears silent but his motions panicked as he continued pumping your chest while Steve willed life back into your airways.

Dustin was whimpering like a child, petrified. Jonathan held him, winded and freaked.

Another minute ticked by, and you still weren't breathing...

Don’t leave me here, Steve begged you in his head.

Lips, air. Breathe, breath, breath.

Don’t fucking leave me here.

Chest compressions. Pump, pump, pump.

I don’t know how to be without you anymore. You ruined that world for me. That world is gone. I don’t want it back, don’t fucking let me go back there.

Steve was ready to throw himself into that electric fence, and escape the world he had created for himself with his own ignorance.

And then he saw your eyes scrunch.

Your face moved.

Steve’s breath hitched as he saw your hand twitch.

“Bauman. . . ”

He barely breathed your last name, almost afraid to say it again. As if that would make you disappear again.

The most guttural cough escaped from your throat, sending you into a choking fit before it began to level out. All the while, Steve watched life color your face again. Your eyes tried to focus, your eyelids still slightly hooded. But your chest rose and fell, air finally filling your lungs.

Steve felt as if someone had revived him. A rush of air escaped his mouth, his shoulders sagging as he let the overwhelming sensation of relief rattle his bones through body-wracking sobs. “Fuck…”

Steve immediately sought your touch, his hands on your face as his fingers grazed your jaw and your neck.

Eddie choked on a sigh of own relief as he distanced himself to let Steve straddle you.

“Don’t…touch the fence,” you murmured, your voice small and strained as you caught your breath.

Fucking hell. Even now, just barely back to life, you're cracking a joke.

Steve laughed hard. So hard, incredulously. Kinda hysterical. He watched tears splash down onto your cheeks, realizing that they were his own. But Steve didn’t give a fuck how pathetic he looked as he crushed his lips against yours and cried while doing it. He was completely on top of you at this point, caging you with his legs and arms. His elbows dug into the earth beneath you both, one hand brushing your hair off your forehead and the other grazing your shoulder. And your collarbone. And the soft divot of your neck. Steve just had to touch you. He had to feel you moving, to assure himself that you were really alive again.

“Y-you,” Steve stuttered. “You were dead. Your heart. Stopped.”

His choked words hung in the air, desperate and broken. Haunted by the memory that had just been his reality not even a minute ago.

Your eyes opened a bit more, softly glazed over and searching his own. Your heart seized, seeing the tearful anguish in Steve’s eyes up above you. You wanted to take it away from him, never wanting to be the source of his sadness.

Your hand slowly reached for his, taking his wrist and pressing his palm to your chest.

“S’okay, Harrington,” you sighed. “S’working now.” Thump, thump, thump.

You watched as Steve clenched his eyes shut, gnawing his lip and whimpering unabashedly at your heartbeat that drummed under his touch.

Fuck’s sake, he thought. Of course she is comforting me. She just died, and yet here she is – comforting me.

God, you were insufferable. Steve fucking hated it. He hated you. He hated you so much.

So fucking much…

Steve buried his face into the crook of your neck, nose pressed to your skin as he wept freely. You held his hand to your chest while his other arm wound up around your head.

“Hate you,” Steve weakly mumbled against your neck. All anguish, no heat. “Fucking hate you.”

You could only sigh, just staying there, letting the soft sounds of your breathing against Steve’s ear ground him again. Whether it was seconds, minutes, or hours that passed, you didn’t know. Didn’t care.

And no one else said anything. The boys fell silent. Completely silent. Watching in disbelief. So much had just happened, revealing so much more at the same time…

The walkie-talkie squawked again. All channels were tapped in. Joyce, your uncle’s crackly voice, and Hopper.

“Someone give me fucking update,” your uncle demanded over the walkie in a wobbly, distressed voice. “Kids, c’mon. What’s happening?” …even Hopper sounded emotional. “Please, please tell us she’s alright,” Joyce’s sweet voice was full of tears.

Eddie jumped at all the voices. He sniffled, remembering he needed to answer. Through his own tears, he told them, “G-group 4, w-we… we got her. Steve’s got her, sh-she’s breathing… She’s alright.”

As Lucas came back through the channel — “Oh thank God” — they could hear Murray in the background sounding like an uncharacteristically relieved mess.

Somehow, Steve pulled himself away from you. He looked down at you, swiping his elbow across his nose hastily. So much snot. Not that you minded, or even noticed. Your eyes were closed again, fluttering exhaustedly.

“Do you wanna,” Steve hiccuped, still stuttering. “Wanna — s-stand up?”

You gave a weak nod and managed to feebly peel your eyelids back open. Steve leaned back on his knees, ready to help you stand.

Jonathan was right behind you, arms slipping underneath your shoulder blades to help lift you off the ground. Steve clasped his hands in yours, pulling you to him after he’d risen to his own feet. You stood too, your footing wobbly and weak. Steve let you lean into him, one arm snaking around your waist and pulling you flush against his chest. His left hand gripped the back of your neck, balancing you. Balancing both of you. He kept murmuring a series of little I got you’s, repeatedly saying it was all okay in a hushed tone only meant for you.

Steve finally glanced up to look at the others.

Dustin was a quiet, relieved mess. He looked shaken to the core, glancing from Babe Bauman in Steve’s arms to Steve himself. He trembled, hugging himself. Eddie quickly moved to comfort him, wrapping a tight arm around him as he bit back his own tears. Steve made a mental note that he would undoubtedly thank him for that later. Jonathan looked at Steve with more empathy than he ever thought him capable of radiating in his direction. The oldest Wheeler looked exhausted yet wired at the same time, and Steve caught the sight of his bottom lip trembling before he looked away.

In spite of the relief, all three of them were asking themselves the same question: how long has something with these two been going on?

Steve suddenly felt seen for all that he was. Fragile, underneath his cocky bravado. He felt like a sham, who only pretended to not be emotionally affected by anything. He felt like deep down, he was still that prick from high school, who didn’t know what he had until it was taken away from him. Only then did he learn, right? Only after he was made to face the hell he had created for himself, was he able to finally see the mistakes that he’d made and wanna make them right. It happened with Nancy. It happened with school. It happened with Max and how he failed her as a brother (or mother, according to the kids). When was he ever gonna learn…

Steve could feel everyone’s eyes on him. Him, and you. He knew that the three guys were watching, and that they’d all seen him fall apart completely. The two of you were definitely found out now — no going back. But Steve didn’t even care. He couldn’t now.

Without any control over himself, Steve shamefully sought comfort and privacy by adjusting himself in your arms. His girl. He buried his face into your shoulder, clinging to you desperately and trembling.

And you melted. Your head was fuzzy and everything hurt, so you couldn’t really focus on much that was happening the way that Steve could. But all that mattered to you right now was him, as he held you like he’d lose you all over again unless he did, his breathy cries rattling his bones. You cradled his head against your shoulder, softly murmuring to him that it’s alright, it’s okay.

Sometimes, Steve would find himself smiling in your embrace, despite the anguish as he couldn’t stop mentally reliving what had just happened. He had to forget it. You were here. You weren’t gone.

He got to keep you.

He’s going to keep you.

Even if it fucking kills him.

***

thank you guys :') I know this chapter stretched out an already stressful situation but it needed to drive the point home: Steve's hatred has transitioned into love.

tag list: @erastourvip @get0ut0fmyr00m @xprloki @eddiemuns0nl0ver @marrowfrog00 @poppet05 @wiltedflowersundertowers @originalthingparadise @pleuviors @pumpkinonice @ihaveproblemsihaveproblems @brinleighsstuff

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington angst #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x you #steve harrington stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #murray bauman #eddie munson #dustin henderson #rockstar eddie munson #enemies to lovers trope

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koisuko · 2 months

Text

Imagine:

A ruthless killer shows mercy. (For my best friend❣️)

Tw: blood, pain, chase, gn reader, use of “you”

Could it get any fucking worse?

This was the 4th time in a row that the entity had chosen you as a victim of the trials. The 4th goddamn time. And for the 4th time, you had shocked yourself in the wires of the generator. A quick jolt shot through the bone of your finger, causing you to flinch and gasp, more in surprise than in pain. You sighed, wiping the sweat from your brow. You weren't a mechanic before all this shit started, yet somehow you knew how to get these things running with little thought or recollection of learning prior. As soon as you knelt down by the still and cold hunk of metal, it was like working on autopilot. Several clicks and huffs before the machine began pumping in succession, whirring to life with one last pull of a lever. The light above ignited, illuminating the once dark and eerie area, signaling one step closer to an escape.

You rose to your feet, dusting the dirt from your ruined jeans. Odd, it was unusually quiet, and the peace was becoming unsettling. It couldn’t have been someone like Ghost Face or Myers, you would have felt the hairs on your neck bristle by this point. Yet if it was someone like the Huntress, you’d hear her hums from miles away. So, why was it so..silent?

You didn’t run, instead creeping with featherlight steps towards the next generator. You could see the top of the light peeking over a wooden wall, but you were too scared to bolt for it. Better to play it safe, incase it really was a stealth killer, and the lack of sleep dulling your ability to sense their eyes on you.

After a few careful steps, you made it to the wall, peeking around to reveal the generator. This was the last one, the last barrier between you, and the gate to freedom. You could practically feel the adrenaline coursing through you at the sight of it. You sighed in relief, taking one step towards it before crying out in pain. Your leg had caught in several strands of bloody barbed wire, your foot sinking and squelching in a bulging red substance. You began to panic, struggling against the hold the barbed wire had on your calf. The more you struggled, the tighter it felt, the sharp tips digging deeper into your skin.

You could hear it now, the loud orchestra of a thundering heartbeat, the sound deafening you from every direction. The only sound breaking through, was the heavy breathing approaching rapidly, and the grinding metallic echo of a massive knife. You winced and wreathed, the wire drawing blood. You watched as it trickled down, joining the bubbling red liquid beneath you.

Run, you screamed into your head. Finally, you managed to free yourself from the coils keeping you in place. Thump, your heart was hammering against your ribcage. Thump, the rhythm matching the stomps of your feet against the dirt, your legs carrying you away from the killer. Thump thump, every time you think you’ve gained distance, he’s quick to close it with each stride. You could see him picking up speed, this chase was nothing to him. You were a goner, with no where to hide and no where to run. And you were right to think so. One second you were running as fast as you could, and the next you were face first in the dirt, your body colliding harshly with the cold ground. You had been too busy looking behind you to notice the trail of torment drawn in your path. You pay the price now, tangled in the stinging barbs of your mistake.

He approached, slowly. You could hear his growls and breaths echoing off the walls of his chamber like head. With each step closer, each inch towards death, your heart deafened you with terror. You had no choice, no way to fight back. So you accepted it, closing your eyes to await the burning sensation of a fatal slash. To your surprise, it never came.

It had become silent once again, even his growls had calmed to an extent. Your eyes fluttered open, being met with his towering figure gazing down on you. He didn’t speak, or make a move, just simply watched. It was unsettling, terrifying even, to see him stand so still. If only you could read minds, was he going to kill you? What did he want? A scream had broken you from your thoughts, sounding from somewhere behind you. On instinct, you craned your neck to look in the direction you heard it, hoping to see a teammate coming to your rescue, only to see nothing in particular. With a heavy huff, you turned back to meet empty space where the executioner once stood. You stared off to where you presumed he had gone, a perplexed look in your eyes at the mercy shown from a killer.

#dead by daylight #dead by deadlight #dbd killer #dbd survivor #dbd #dbd ghostface #dbd x reader #dbd pyramid head #dbd fanfic #dbd fandom #pyramid head #dead by daylight fanfic #dead by daylight x reader #dbd x you #gn reader #dbd pyramid head x reader #pyramid head x reader #pyramid head x you

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thelov3lybookworm · 3 months

Text

Remember me? (Part 16)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

Summary: Under the Mountain, Y/n met the High Lord of the Night Court, Rhysand. She was scared of him, but soon she found out that he wasn't who he pretended to be. Despite her efforts at not falling in love with him, she fails. It's not that bad as he loves her back.

But now he's gone, and she's left alone with nothing.

Except for a very adorable reminder of him.

•○●⛦●○•

Tw: secret pregnancy, none more that I can think of, so let me know if I need to add anything.

A/n: eh. i dont know.

enjoy!

•○🌑○•

Meeting was a fancy word for revel, really.

All the High lords were drinking and laughing among themselves in groups of twos and threes after they had returned a few moments ago.

They had gone off to a small room nearby along with their inner circles and guards to discuss whatever it was that high lords discussed. Eris had not wanted to leave Y/n's side, a muscle feathering in his jaw when he had left without her, his fists clenched.

But he had not left without glaring at every male in the ball room.

Y/n hid her smile behind her glass, taking a small sip of the fruity wine as she thought back to the way everyone had shrunk into themselves at his gaze.

Without even realising, Y/n's eyes began searching for that familiar head of fiery hair, and she found him standing next to the high lord of the summer court, nodding along as he spoke.

But he was already staring straight at her.

The heat from the bodies that pressed up against each other and danced around the floor would never compare to the heat that spread through Y/n when her eyes met his.

She shot back the rest of the wine, only to realise there was nothing left. Sighing, she stared into the depths of her cup, and the last dregs of the wine stared back.

When she lifted her head, Eris was no longer next to Tarquin, who was now smiling at something his cousin said.

Y/n's brow furrowed, and, huffing, she turned to make her way to the refreshments table to get herself more wine. Because, after she found Eris staring at her, she knew she was nowhere near drunk enough to get through another evening of longing glances and tenson filled words.

But she was met with a wall of muscled chest right in front of her face. So close she had to stumble back to take a breath.

"What the hell?"

Eris mouth was a cruel slash of a smirk as he surveyed her, the light from the majestic chandeliers made of faelights and candles reflecting in his eyes.

"What?"

"Why are you here?" Not exactly what Y/n had wanted to say, but she hardly said anything she wanted to these days. So this was not a surprise. It was as if her brain stopped working whenever he was near.

Leaning his shoulder against the wall, he sighed dramatically. Turning his head, he let his gaze sweep the huge chamber, resting for a moment on the orchestra that played a fast paced song. "And here I thought you missed me."

Y/n scowled, though she doubted he could see it. "What are you here for Eris? Is there something you wanted to say? Or are you here just to be dramatic?"

His smirk only widened as he glanced at her, and she huffed. "Do you know how to dance?"

Y/n blinked, deflating a little as she pondered the almost nonchalant question. "Yes." She mumbled quietly, studying his posture, wondering what his intentions were. "I had to learn and become good at it."

He nodded. "I don't."

He seemed to be lost in thought as he said, as if he had not intended for he words to slip but he had spoken them aloud instead of just thinking them.

"You don't?"

Eris glanced at her, shrugging. Y/n's gaze caught on his goblet as he did so, and she wondered if it would be okay to snatch it and down it herself.

"I wanted to learn, but I did not have time to. Will you... teach me?"

Y/n blinked, her neck warming. "Me?"

He nodded matter-of-factly. "You get to dance so you don't get bored, and I learn to dance. It's nothing more than a transaction."

She felt an unexplainable twinge of hurt in her chest at that, and she pushed it aside. Taking a deep breath, she ran her hand along her skirts for the millionth time that evening as she nodded. "Alright."

Eris straightened, his eyes widening just a fraction. There was a glint in his eyes she could not identify, but before she could decipher it, he spoke. "Really?"

Rolling her eyes, she grabbed his goblet. And then, without thinking or considering the fact that it could be a stronger beverage, tossed it back and swallowed.

She regretted it immediately.

Sputtering at the weird taste of the drink that was definitely not the fruity wine she had been drinking, she stared at the goblet in her hand in disgust. "What the hell was that?"

"That was whiskey." Y/n's head snapped up and she narrowed her eyes at him when she found him grinning. "This is why you don't steal someone else's drink."

She scowled, shoving the glass into his chest and turning away, trying to swallow the weird taste. It was no help.

She took a few steps away, wondering why she was getting so pissed over nothing. When she realised she was pushing through the crowd and he wasn't even following her, she turned to glare at him over her shoulder.

That was enough to scare him as he hurried to keep pace with her.

Standing on the edge of the dance floor, Y/n released a breath, trying to let loose the side that had adored dancing.

It had been the only time where she could not worry about being offensive without meaning to, could stop worrying about which court cockroach her father would marry her off to.

The previous song came to an end too soon for Y/n's comfort, and she took a deep breath before turning to look at Eris. He stared back at her. And then, his lips curling at the edges as he offered her his hand. She placed her hand in his, and instantly her heartbeat seemed to calm down.

In the back of her mind, she noted that he had discarded of his goblet somewhere.

He led her onto the dance floor with the grace and efficiency of a dancer who had danced for centuries, totally at odds with his statement of not knowing to dance.

As if feeling her skepticism, he slowed his pace down, glancing at her uncertainly. She narrowed her eyes at him, and his eyes sparkled.

He stopped and turned fully to face her, his brows lifting a little.

"What if you step on my toes?"

He tried to pout. Special emphasis on tried. "I won't."

Y/n sighed, then guided one of his hands to her waist. It tightened instantly.

She glanced at him for a moment, and found a subtle blush on his cheeks, though it could just have been the lightning playing tricks on her.

"So... Now what?"

Eris questioned once the fae around the two of them had begun dancing to the new tune. It also did not go unnoticed by Y/n that they maintained a little distance from Eris and her.

"Now we dance. Just follow me, I guess."

•○🌑○•

She let her body relax as the music picked up again after the applause from the audience died down. She could see the nervousness mixing with something in Eris's eyes.

The music that flowed through the ballroom was a soft but fast paced one. Not as fast as the previous one, but not slow enough to be a couple's waltz. Her heart seemed to be beating in turn with the beats of the song.

She dug her fingers into his shoulder as they made a particularly complicated turn, the fine embroidery on his expensive crimson coloured jacket that clung to his frame crinkling. The jacket was tight and loose in just the right places, putting his body on show for everyone watching. It almost made her want to act on the irrational and unexplainable urge pull their eyeballs out.

And, even though Y/n knew she would never do something like that to anyone, the thought brought her a little satisfaction.

She blinked a couple of times to try and focus again on Eris and his dancing.

Eris picked up fast. He was a good dancer. A little too good, considering he claimed to never have danced before.

Y/n's suspicions only grew with every moment that passed.

He was a little unsure at first, and his nervousness had almost seemed… forced. But she did not pay much attention to that as she focused on guiding him and making sure to stay away from the other couples.

It amazed her how someone like him, someone who was said to be one of the cruellest males in history, had wanted to learn something so elegant as dancing.

It made her wonder, what else had he wanted to do, what else did he have passion for that he as forced to stop in favour of becoming the powerful and cruel male everyone made him out to be.

Made her wonder if he had a different upbringing, would he have turned out different?

Y/n skin seemed to have taken on a perpetual warmth, and her body refused to cool down, especially when Eris slowly seemed to pull her closer, his hand having wrapped tighter around her waist.

She felt a bead of sweat rolling down her spine as they continued twirling around the floor, Eris now having taken over the dancing as he guided her through a series of practiced motions. Y/n realised that he had lied about his knowledge- or lack thereof- in dancing.

It was in no way the season where the weather was hot. But Autumn court people had fire in their veins- at least most of them did- and that, combined with them most of them lusting after a person in the room, made the heat rise.

Eris's hand on her waist also did not help. His proximity, his breath on her face and neck, sometimes even brushing against her exposed shoulders and collarbones when he dropped the two of them a little. His eyes were blazing with something Y/n dared not name.

All of it made her want to scream.

They had been dancing for two songs now, and as the song began to come to its end, the attention of almost everyone turned to Eris and her.

Y/n wondered if he would leave before they could dance to the third song, as three dances in a row was basically a marriage proposal.

A small part of Y/n hoped he would continue dancing with her.

The last few notes of the song lingered in the air, ad loud applause sounded from the audience. Y/n knew without a doubt that everyone present was now watching Eris, curious as to what he would do next.

Y/n was right there with them.

Eris had not looked away for one moment. Not one. And now, as the sounds of the claps from the crowd died down, he continued to stare.

Even when the next song began, he did not remove his hands from her form.

"Eris" Y/n whispered, glancing around. "people are staring."

"I know."

She blinked up at him. "This will be our third dance."

"And?"

"We- we can't dance-"

"Do you want to stop?" He cut in, giving her a pause.

"Three dances in a row is akin to a marriage proposal. You know this Eris."

"And? Do you want me to stop?"

Y/n pondered the question for a moment. And she knew that he could read her answer in her eyes before she even spoke by the satisfied and excited smirk on his face.

"No, I don't want to stop."

•○🌑○•

General Taglist: @bubybubsters @eos-princess @nightless @harrystylesfan2686 @cassie6392

Eris Taglist: @kennedy-brooke @hnyclover @minnieoo @sidrapotter @tele86

Remember me Taglist: @holb32 @awoa1 @cleverzonkwombatsludge @luvmoo @we-were-beautiful @eerievixen @zoe2 @fussel9913 @j-pendragonx @thesnugglingduck @jesssicapaniagua @devilsnightz @esposadomd @littleffawn @mandowhatnow @bubybubsters @eos-princess @nightless @bigcreatorwombatdreamer @princesslolaasworld @asemkta @cat-or-kitten @txzii @bunnyredgirl @theofficialmadman @leeknows-wife @aria-chikage @amygdtjhddzvb @azriels-mate123 @inky-clover @kemillyfreitas @12358 @justdreamstars @cuethedepession @princessvesta @fides25 @nocasdatsgay @acourtofbatboydreams @stained-glass-eyes0708 @glaciuswduo @wallacewillow0773638 @cassie6392 @quackitysdrugdealer @txzii @anuttellaa @coisas-da-dani @hnyclover @sassyslytherinshai @historygeekqueen @why4anne @mybestfriendmademe @going-through-shit @thisblogisaboutabook @thehighlordishere @hells-sluttiest-new-arrival

#eris x reader #eris vanserra x reader #eris vanserra #eris acotar #a court of thorns and roses #acotar fandom #acotar fanfic #acotar fluff #acotar series #acotar writing #a court of mist and fury #mating bond #sarah j maas #acotar headcanon #pro eris vanserra #acotar

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postersofleon · 4 months

Text

after so long: tw/ leon's battle scars. none were self

leon had been... sensitive about his body since the events of raccoon city. but you have seen tiny details of the abuse. his neck had small markings in his skin of bite markings, but you never really mentioned them. you were always looking at his moles or acne scars.

it wasn't good mentioning his bite markings.

he would apologize for ending up like this.

in your heart, you knew he had more than that, especially after his military training and countless missions. so, to not make him think of his scars. you flirted with him. you wanted to see him blush like he used to. you grabbed his pecs and took cute pictures of him.

all in the attempts to not make him feel bad.

even when you two had sex, he wore a shirt.

he was begging to be the former rookie. the former man he once was with you.

that's was until he went to save the president's daughter.

he looked at you with a worried expression, "honey..." you noticed a bit more difference in his skin. more scars were decorating his skin. his arms had slashes. he couldn't hide it anymore. even his cheek had a slash.

"i... know you'll still love me, but," he looked down his feet, "i need your words."

without a second of a doubt, leon took off his shirt. old and new scars and wounds made its a home in his skin. you crossed your legs and took in the body. your hand gently touched his shoulder, he winced weakly, "i got that in raccoon."

"was it the bullet wound?" the man made one. your fingers traced a small circle. gently, your hands touched more of his scars. some pale, others with a dark shade. "leon, baby," You gently cupped his face, you remembered why you were seeing his body. "i still love you." you said. nothing of this will make her unlove him. it's unfortunate that this was the situation.

his scars of battle didn't define your love for him.

leon nodded his head, "i- okay." he needed to accept it. leon looked at you, "thanks." you didn't know how long it will take leon to accept his new body, but you'll support him.

#resident evil #leon kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #re4 leon

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sukunasun · 1 year

Note

Halloween is over but what are your thoughts on ghostface jjk man x chubby reader? 👀

tw dub-con / knifeplay

its more than just being the final girl—watching you behind a cheap mask he's bought. for hours, for days, over the course of long, long, months. hiding in dark corners, and hidden spaces—the things he's planned aren't to be wasted on some brutal, violent death. stabbing and slashing. because as you lay on soft pillows and pressed sheets, curves and folds on display, so oblivious, so unassuming...he's dying to sink more than just a knife into all that flesh.

not to hurt you of course, but what is he to do when he's got killer instinct and your body was made to be held, fondled....claimed. there's only so much a man can resist.

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when geto asks "what are you wearing?" over the phone, his words hold some amusement to them, mocking. almost like he knows you're scared. yet somewhat ...mellow, trusting...and so hot it flays you, a heat traveling low and dipping in your stomach, fear and arousal jumbled up in one, searing in your belly.

your breath hitches at the sound of his muffled laugh crackling through the speaker. you could just indulge yourself in this little game he plays, no harm would ever come to you. this way, you could ignore the insecurities and the nerves. relish in anonymity. and every second you keep him waiting to expose you for the depraved thing that you are, getting wet and drooly over a stranger, a dark, mysterious, and very sexy stranger, you realize how pathetic, how cliched you're being. "i can hear how turned on you are..." he's so right it's embarrassing.

when he's looming above you the next day, there's no time wasted. he angles your toy against a sensitive spot and you feel it nudge and grind deep inside, keeps sliding it up and down your folds, "that's it, feel that? you should see how wet you are," your shaky thighs spread open, pussy sticky and gleaming with cum, so slick, so slippery, every pass of the toy on your slit jolting you closer to release.

"you don't want to kill me..." you say in a daze. turning your head to the side, you moan into the sheets, it's too much, your ghost caller watching you, playing with you, withholding and keeping you from reaching your peak. you know the things he could do...there's no need to see his face or learn his name to realise he's a little bit of a bully like that. teasing you, edging you, that you'd only come by his hand. beautiful gloved hands that are larger than two of yours put together.

"and why is that?" geto coos, wanting to wrap a fist around your exposed neck, untouched and unmarred, just waiting to be marked. you wish to tell him that you'd do anything, pleading for your life, but that coil in your stomach twists, adrenaline egging you on, allowing you to be a little bolder, "you need me...don't you? you need me to be yours," you whimper out the challenge. fingers reaching up to hook in between his mask and face, bringing him closer to you, before you press a kiss to where his mouth would be. feeling only hard plastic and his hot, sighing breaths underneath.

you see his shoulders tense, your toy dropping to the side of the bed, forgotten and whirring. he's left so stunned. and it's this that you earn—his lips barely forming a reply, no sly smirks or subtle jabs to your pride, just the sound of his ragged breaths that fill the room and the slick, measured pumps of his fist over his cock, thumb spreading the fluid that leaks, drools, literally pools over your stomach—"you have no fucking idea..." he groans, his resolve vanishing, his smugness stripped away the more you moan for him, why do you tease him so. these hairline cracks you'd spotted and split right down the middle with merely a gentle touch at where he's the weakest...geto's only so strong, frustrated at his own need for your willingness, your eager soft hands that trail up and down his biceps. who dares to pet a wild animal, reaching out without fear of getting trapped in sharp jaws.

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sukuna's not as weak. he's been on the hunt for years, trying to curb his appetite for murder with whatever nameless faces he deemed uninteresting, had them piled up and ready to be disposed of without so much as another glance. he's bored...terribly so, and starving, salivating, for the perfect kill. only now he thinks otherwise when a newfound purpose reveals itself in the shape of you.

if only you'd been careful, if only you'd been cautious. maybe then, you wouldn't be pinned below the stranger in a mask, the cold edge of his knife perched against the jugular as your jaw starts to bruise from his tight grasp. "im keeping you," he merely states, "you're gonna be mine forever, you hear me?" he start kissing the side of your face, sloppily, messily. you don't see his face but you imagine he'd look like a monster, with sharp teeth and a hundred eyes, maybe four or six hands the way he's gripping and touching you everywhere, trying to get his fill of you. his cock thick and large and splitting you in half, almost as if he had two.

"you don't have to do this," you sob, feeling another orgasm rock through you. you squeeze down on him, your slick coating everywhere. oh you smell like sweat and fear and he doesn't care one bit that tears stream down your face, swollen lips trembling. a face pressed into the pillows that bear a muddled expression.

under the weight of his hulking body from above, you know there's no way of escaping his clutches, your moans turn guttural, "i can't, it's too much..." you whine, hands coming up to push him away, to clutch at his chest behind you, tapping out from the overstimulation. he's rubbing against a spot so sensitive, pounding right into it. you think you'd go crazy, "please...i've been good..." you whine, voice pitching into a drawn-out moan, "been so good for you," pleading and pleading. you don't think it was the best choice of words, but in the haze of pleasure, you could only persuade him with obedience. with submission.

it does nothing to deter him from his ministrations, chuckling at the way your voice breaks, the way you look a mess, coming undone and staining your sheets, the thin line of blood dribbling from your neck. "just one more yeah?" he coos, "i know...i know it feels good, you're starting to fall in love with it aren't you?" he starts going faster, building to his climax, and you gasp in surprise when he shifts his position to collapse onto your back. his arms hugging you around the middle as he continues to jerk his hips erratically.

you don't say anything in return, but you do give in...teeth biting down on your pillow the moment your orgasm hits you, legs shaking and his spurting dick lodged deep inside you.

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gojo's completely obsessed. and you don't notice it at first because his personality covers up most of his hidden intentions, concealing that part of him that's been following your every move, trailing after you and waiting for a moment to strike...he gets personal because satoru's always been like that, needy, clingy, and he knows there's no need for the mask, you'd know it was him, but he likes it that way. relishes the moment you grapple with feeling betrayed by a man you trusted. says it's your fault really for being way too closed-minded. "what was it you said? that i wouldn't be into big girls?" he laughs, sounding crazed, frenzied.

"i thought you knew me better..." he tuts, keeps his hands busy in the meantime by wrapping rope around your wrists, weaving it across your tits, crisscrossing down your stomach, and circling around your thick thighs. his fingers knot and loop the bright red rope with practiced ease, making a pattern across your body with just the right amount of tension, just enough that it wouldn't cut into your skin...but he makes no promises.

stepping back, he tugs at the base of his rig above you, just for precaution, but he knows you'll stay right where you are for however long he wants. no, you're not gonna fall, he knows that's what you're thinking about despite it having to be the last of your priorities.

"look at you..." he marvels at his handiwork. your legs spread for him, feet dangling and having no leverage. with arms tied behind your back, he gets to see how lovely your tits look when spilling from beneath the rope, although...he'd say the best part is seeing his blindfold tied around your mouth as a makeshift gag.

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and choso's just...sweet isn't he..so keen, so restless. he promises he won't hurt you, he just wants a taste, to know what it feels like. and you'd dare him to but he's not made to kill and he knows it. it's why his knife stays loose and forgotten in his hand when he greets the sight of you behind a door left ajar.

the creaking hinge, his heavy boots, and the harsh pull of his breaths are all enough to send goosebumps rising. slow and measured, his feet come to a halt at the foot of your bed. he thinks you did it on purpose. doors and windows left unlocked and your curtains so sheer it's no wonder he's made to be an audience to your little peep shows every night. "you knew i've been watching you..." he whispers, realization hits—and surprisingly, you think you hear the petulance in his voice, like he was pouting. actually pouting.

and you see it first when he takes off the mask. face awestruck from watching you lay back, your eyes meeting his stare from between the swell of your breasts, your tummy, suddenly his face has a lot more life in it, dark circles meeting the reddening edge of his blushing cheek, pale lips wet and drooling, his tongue slipping past, inching closer. "please....please," is such a lovely sound when it slips past them, frenzied and feverish, words he can barely get a hold of before you feel it curling around your bones, wheedling its way into your heart, and squeezing tight. wanting to give in to the man who creeps from afar, who can't stop following and tracing your every move.

your eyes roll back when your folds part under the wet muscle, warm and slick. and it's not a secret by now that you're not as shy as you seem to be. he's mesmerized, transfixed. is this the same woman he's been spying on...always keeping to herself, getting her life together, with prim and proper clothing and a nine-to-five job...now wrapped in nothing but moonlight and presenting yourself to him, legs spreading to reveal the wet that sticks to your folds, hardening nub that twitches at your touch, at the circles and gentle flicks against your clit. your eyes stay fixed on his, wordlessly giving him permission almost as if you've been waiting for him. he wonders if it's just as long as he's been wanting you.

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cod-imagines-fanfiction · 7 months

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Jealous Alejandro kidnaps Valeria's girlfriend part 5 (2k words)

Summary: Alejandro and Valeria face off.

TW: Violence Link to A03 Link to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

“Liar!” Valeria screamed as she lunged at Alejandro with her blade. The hilt shone where the light caught it and Valeria glowed with the silver lustre of the weapon beneath her. In battle, she glistened like an unforgiving, merciless god. She aimed for his neck, she would make him bleed and regret ever looking at her wife in the base way that he regarded her. It never occurred to her that he would ever place his hands on her, and the mere thought sent Valeria into a frenzy. Her wife, defiled by the likes of Alejandro; a man touching her wife, her goddess. The woman who was so beautiful that Valeria could kiss the earth she walked on. It was unthinkable – it was untrue! Y/N would never submit herself to that, she did not have those sorts of feelings. Not only feelings of disloyalty, but feelings towards men. Instinctively, Alejandro reached for his handgun. The two entered a deadly brawl.

They were locked in the dance of death. Their bodies followed the music of violence and brutality; their limbs stretched out and followed the inevitable rhythm of cuts and bruises, of sprained limbs and blood-soaked mouths; of strength and weakness; of the killer and of the killed. The base, animal instinct of murder prevailed over reason and argument. In her heart, Valeria knew that she and Alejandro had never talked properly, and they never would. It was not possible to speak of certain things. The betrayal, the pain; it hung over their struggling bodies, unspoken but felt. It hummed between their yells and grunts; it leapt out every time one looked at the other. Beyond what had happened with Y/N was what happened before. Valeria knew that she had instilled a pain so deep within him that it would never heal, that this pain would be part of him forever. An ugly pain that contorted him from the inside, a pain that Valeria prayed she would never experience. But it was all worth it. Were she given the chance to go back in time, she would do everything exactly like she did; she would pay any price if meant getting to spend her life with Y/N. There was no limit to what Valeria would do. She would break the hearts of everyone that was ever born, she would cut her soul in half -anything for her wife.

“How does it feel, huh?” Alejandro spat out between hurried breaths, matching her attacks with his. “Can you imagine it happening – can you see me doing it?”

“Callate!” Valeria saw her chance and sliced a long gash on his face. With an angry yell, he kicked her and the two fell apart. Valeria crouched with a hand on her abdomen and willed herself not to vomit. What Alejandro spoke of was incomprehensible to her. She could not conjure the image in her mind. It was as hateful as trying to imagine Y/N dying; it was unthinkable and too painful.

“You don’t think your woman could ever love a man?” He held a hand on the bleeding slash on his face, the blood staining his glove. “You really think that, given an alternative, she would stay with you forever?”

Valeria knew that he was only provoking her like he always did. It was one of the things he hated most about him, how he prioritised his amusement over her pain. How he would rile her up just to see her get angry. She hated how stereotypical he made her feel, a caricature of a Latin American woman - always angry, always nagging; feisty! She hated it when he would say how beautiful she looked when angry. Like when someone scares a peacock just to see it spread its beautiful blue and green feathers; a show for the entertainment of others. From the outside, it looked like lover's jest, but she always felt the contempt that lingered beneath his words, the secret enjoyment of her emotional torment. It was his way of dominating her, by controlling her emotions, triggering them for his pleasure. It was something that made her fall hard for Y/N, how, when Valeria showed her frustration, Y/N went above and beyond to soothe her. A shoulder massage, sweet words, sometimes food - she had an array of ways of pleasing Valeria and shooing away the clouds that hovered above her. It was the first time that Valeria felt someone affirm her feelings, and she realised that not all lovers wanted to see her suffer. That there was another life to be had, a soft life. A life where she was not tormented at home, where her spouse didn't make her feel insecure or unwelcome. A life of undeniable, steady love.

She felt the same thing happen now, this dangerous game with her inner fire. His provocation, how he dared her to do something about what he said. The difference was that now, she really did mean to kill him.

“She’s a lesbian, pendejo. It is not possible for her." Valeria looked around the container and felt a hysterical, manic laughter bubble to the surface.

"She's not like you and me. She only swings one way, my way."

Alejandro dropped his hand, the wound still bleeding but he did not bother to soothe it. The blood continued to flow freely, the droplets trailing down his face and threatening to leak onto the floor. There was something in his dark eyes that was at once terribly vulnerable and terribly hard. He tried to hide it, but Valeria had already seen it. "What the fuck did you just say?"

Valeria's face tightened with a terrible grin. "You heard me. You're just like me, Alejandro." She cocked her head to the side. "Exactly like me," she uttered slowly, emphasising every single word, letting them trail off her tongue.

Her words fell and landed with a thunderous blow. They were quiet words with heavy meaning. She felt him glow with shame, which he would express as anger. Men like him always did. Machismo men like Alejandro allowed no room in their lives for something which shamed and frightened them. They did this by not looking at the world too closely, as they did with their reflection in the mirror. They only allowed themselves the quickest of glances before they were in motion again. Their lives were a blur of movement, busy lives that, from the outside, were driven by a purpose bigger than themselves. But really, they busied themselves because they wouldn't allow what they were running from to catch up to them. This threat of shame would haunt them forever. It was not possible to run forever and so there were rare moments where they caught a glimpse of that terrible, nameless thing. Moments at the bar where something frightening glimmered within the eye of another man - was it suspicion, or was it recognition? He would tear his gaze away and look down at his glass, he would reach the bottom. He would forget what happened with each gulp, until the next time.

"You don't hate me because I left you. You hate me because I am what you won't allow yourself to be. Unashamed."

"I don't know what you're talking about." He said with a dangerously low voice, his words sounding like a growl. "You're being crazy like you always were. A crazy, hysterical bitch-"

"You know there's even a word for it these days!" She said with enthusiasm, enjoying how the tables had turned. Enjoying that at long last, they would finally talk. "They call us bise-"

He lunged at her with the ferocity of a cornered animal, his blood-stained hands immediately grasping for her neck. Forcing her silence, forcing her to never speak that word in front of him. It was a silence that Valeria vowed to never hold again. She fended him with her knife, slashing at his wrists. She would buy herself enough time to finally say her peace. To finally get to the bottom of this sick, perverse jealousy that threatened to ruin them both.

"I always saw how you looked at him!" She yelled in between his attacks and her defence. "I saw how you shivered at his touch when you thought no one was looking! I know what is in your heart because it is exactly what is in mine. You hate me because you hate yourself. You think killing me will make that part of you go away, but it never will. I don't care how much you hate yourself, but it is NOT my problem. And it is certainly not my wife's problem!" Her words were drowned by his hands at her throat. Hands that were leaking blood like a river, shaky hands that would make her go quiet if it was the last thing they ever did.

" I am not like you!" He choked out the words. "I am a man."

His grip eased slightly, giving her only enough time to say one thing: "Rudolfo is a man too, but you still love him."

For the first time in her life, she felt that she would really die this time. She had cheated death many times before, but there was no more running from it this time. She would be one more body to the pile that shamed, repressed men created during their lifetime. A pile of murdered ex-lovers lest the world find out they had been loved, and of people who knew the truth and threatened to reveal it. Alejandro, wounded and bleeding out, was content to spend the last scrap of his energy choking her. His heart was beating so fast, he could hardly hear anything above the ringing in his ears. That deafening ringing noise and the feeling of Valeria's body underneath him were the only things he could feel.

And so he didn't hear the sound of creaking metal as the door was opened. He didn't hear someone yell at him to get off her. She was an important informant, after all. This whole mess was so that the Army could finally gain some intel on Hassan and the missiles, and here was the Colonel murdering their best chance at tracking those weapons. But Alejandro heard nothing, not the first pleas and the subsequent commands. He did not hear Rudolfo or Soap yelling. Nor did he hear heavy footsteps approaching and Commander Grave's rifle as it was raised above his head and brought down with more force than was needed. Alejandro's body flayed to the side, yet he held on.

"Damn it, you son of a bitch, I said get off!" Commander Grave's voice thundered within the container as he dragged Alejandro off of Valeria.

Rudolfo was at Alejandro's side at once, already beginning to patch up his wounds. As Valeria was being revived by someone else, Alejandro felt her cold, sardonic gaze on him. He could feel the satisfaction radiating off her, her 'I told you so.' Instinctively, he rejected Rudolfo's first aid. "Quítate," he mumbled and shrugged off any attempts at patching up his slit wrists, or his damaged face. Rudolfo's flinched away from Alejandro and turned to Valeria.

"Valeria Garza, you are now in the custody of the Mexican Army," said Rudolfo as he pulled out a set of handcuffs from his back pocket. "You're going to prison for what you did." He helped her get up and placed the cuffs on her as she gained her footing.

She was expressionless, shaky from her proximity to death. She could only utter one thing. "My wife."

Rudolfo nodded solemnly. "She is in custody waiting for you."

"If she's hurt-"

"She isn't," he said and looked to the side where Alejandro was tending to his own wounds. "I made sure of that." A ghostly smile hovered over her features as Valeria was escorted outside.

Note: I hope you've enjoyed this part! I'm very aware that Valeria and Y/N have spent very little time together in this fic and I promise to bring them together very soon!

pookie bear tag list: @justmare @silas-222 @m0rganit3 @blarba-girl @sleepiemain @caffeineliker @ashy-kit @00ops1e @lesvii @therapyneeds @lez-zuha @starre-eyes @7smexy7diva @hello-kitty-festival @konigmeu @cassiecasluciluce @gay-ass-country-boy @starwars-theclonewhore @bi-witch-bxtch @somnoslvt @ashthepillow @b3ns0ne @idiotwrites @danart501 @deakyspuff @mistresssiri @angethehimbosimp @@sae1kie

#cod mw2 #call of duty #call of duty valeria #cod imagine #valeria garza #cod valeria #valeria garza x reader #valeria x female reader #valeria x reader

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ramhaiba · 6 days

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𝖧𝖺𝗎𝗇𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖵𝗈𝗐𝗌 (𝖸𝖺𝗇𝖽𝖾𝗋𝖾 𝖯𝗋𝗂𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝖬𝖾𝗀𝗎𝗆𝗂 𝗑 𝖱𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋)

ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 ℕ𝕚𝕟𝕖, 𝕄𝕖𝕥𝕒𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕡𝕙𝕠𝕤𝕚𝕤

chapter contains- suggestive content, choking, mention of blood. SERIES TW: Violence, Sexual themes, major character death,tba.. MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

previous chapter

There was something tragically ironic about wearing your murdered friend's cloak while kissing the man who stabbed him through the chest. By the time you decided to pull away, was when you realized how badly stained you were with Yuta's blood, dried red prints covering your hands and the hem of your nightgown. However, Megumi's face and neck were marked in it- due to your blood-stained hands holding his face while...- god you don't even want to think about it.

"Did he give you this," Megumi asked, most likely referring to Yuta as 'he' because Megumi wasn't aware of his name. You found that funny, Yuta who most likely spent countless hours to avenge his lover only to fail by a man who wasn't aware of his existence.

You felt a cold breeze brush against your bare shoulders as Yuta's cloak wrapped around you was torn off. "What are you doing?" you asked. You watched as Megumi ripped a shaggy strip from Yuta's cloak, holding it horizontally in front of your face. "I don't want you to look at him as we walk past. It's not a sight you deserve to witness. " Megumi uttered, carefully covering your eyes with the rag, tying the ends together with a knot at the back of your head.

"How will I find my way back home if I can't see" you remarked. "I know, I'll lead you" Megumi advised, slowly locking his pale hands with yours, fingers interlocking, with a careful tug, he guided you forward.

He walked slowly, not wanting you to trip, but you couldn't help but pause at the damp feeling appearing on your feet, the liquid seeping through your slippers.

'This must be Yuta's blood' was the realization you came to, feeling your heart race, if your eyes weren't covered, you'd probably be facing his corpse, guilt washing over you.

"Don't think about it" Megumi uttered, tugging at your hand, forcing you to pull through your regrets.

Megumi only let you take off the blindfold the second you were in the hallways of the manor, finally indoors in the warmth. The proper lighting coming from the candle lamps hung on the walls gave you a better look at the aftermath, walking towards the mirror hung on the wall, analyze your distraught appearance. You glanced at Megumi through the mirror, noticing a slash on Megumi's side, skin around the wound stained with his dried blood. "You're hurt" you uttered, turning to look at him. "So are you" Megumi responded, clicking his tongue, his finger tilting up your head, wanting a better look at the nick on your neck.

"We can deal with this in the bathroom, we need to clean up anyway" Megumi added.

---

You watched the dried blood stains liquify as you washed them in the sink, diluted blood spilling out of your palms and into the drain. You switched your attention away from the reminder of your sins, looking towards Megumi who had finished cleansing the blood off of his face, focusing his attention on drying the washed skin with a white towel. "Are you done yet, we should get started on disinfecting our cuts" he asked, disposing the rag into a bin. "Yeah- Yeah, let's do that" you responded, quickly shutting off the water.

Megumi walked over, sitting on the sink's counter, thighs spread apart, stripping his ruined white collar shirt off, and throwing it onto the floor as he leaned back. "Be quick" he uttered, as he watched you damp a white rag with alcohol. You leaned over to his abdomen, before lightly grazing his wound with the alcohol-laced cloth. The burning sensation caused Megumi to grip the counter, a quiet groan escaping through his lips. "How does this hurt more than being sliced with a sword" Megumi grunted. "I'm trying to be as gentle as possible" you replied, stepping back, satisfied with your work.

"Switch places with me, I'll do your neck" Megumi advised, wrapping a bandage around his torso and then landing off of the counter. "But it's really not a serve" you argued, interrupted by Megumi picking you up by your waist, resting you easily on the counter. "You should really learn not to argue with me" He mumbled, forcing your head to the side and then tracing his finger on the cut, eyes narrowing. "What are you doing just clean it already" you uttered, turning your head to look at him, only to be instantly shoved back to your original position. Then you felt it, the wet muscle of Megumi's tongue pressed against your cut, licking a straight vertical stripe of your wounded skin, his dark hair tickling your ear.

"M-Megumi, what are you doing" you yelped, placing your hands on his stern chest, pushing him away, face boiling with embarrassment.

Megumi placed your hands on both sides of his face, approaching you once again, his forehead leaning against yours.

"I want to feel it again" he mumbled, his tone soft, hooded eyes admiring your face. "What are you talking about" you responded. "I want to feel what it's was like to kiss you again" he panted, his hands sliding to wrap around your waist.

"Megumi- I- I don't think we should, I'm still trying to process what just happened" You responded. If you're being honest with yourself, you weren't very rational when you kissed Megumi- who thinks rationally when they just witnessed a murder? "Have you forgotten I had just murdered a man for you?" Megumi responded, his tone morphing into something much more harsh, nails slightly digging into your skin. Any argument in your head fails to form, words not daring to slip through your lips as you're filled with an undeniable guilt. Megumi could only smile at your silence, to his eyes, this was your way of claiming defeat.

"That's better" Megumi whispered, leaning his head, soft lips pressing against yours, his hands rubbing your waist. There comes that feeling once again, your heart beginning to race, the burning sensation coming from your cheeks, trying to keep up with his urgent movements. His lips- god- his lips are soft, everything about his physical appearance is undeniable attractive, the back of his hair brushing over your forearms as you wrapped your arms around his neck, his long fingers exploring your skin.

"Open your mouth" he uttered against your lips, his hand crawling down to one of your thighs, lifting it against his waist causing the hem of your nightgown to slide closer to your stomach, revealing more thigh. You gulped, nervous as you hesitantly obeyed his command, his tongue slip through your lips. You could hate Megumi all you want, but kissing him brought your body a new sense of excitement. Maybe it was the feeling of closeness, your arms holding onto his neck, his hands getting familiar with every inch of skin visible to him. You've never seen Megumi so hungry for your affection- it's like he's been starved of this feeling for so long, that now that he has it, he doesn't want to let go. That's why you know you have to be the one to stop it, pulling away from the kiss, your breath panting.

"Megumi, we can't" you voiced, chest heaving, panting for air. "Can't what?" Megumi mumbled, lips kissing down your jawline, dark hair grazing your face.

"We can't be intimate , Megumi. You said it so yourself" you answered, averting your eyes from his, too embarrassed to witness his reaction to your words.

You heard Megumi sigh in annoyance, resting his forehead on the crook of your neck, " I fucking hate abstinence" he mumbled, his breath tickling your skin.

" Maybe it's time I go back to our bedroom chamber, we both need some rest" you advised, once again trying to push him off of you,

His hand griped yours, placing them down on the counter, " Just because we can't have sex, doesn't mean we can't indulge in other practices " Megumi uttered, pulling his face off of your neck to lock eyes with yours.

" Megumi--what are you implying" you stuttered, embarrassment written all over your face. He's silent again. God- you hated his silence, it's his twisted way of telling you 'I think you already know that answer.'

You watched in awe as your fiancé lowered himself down, his head snuck between your thighs as long fingers used to push the hem of your nightgown upwards, revealing your panties. His hands crawling up to hold your waist down as he lays kisses trailing up your inner thigh before his fingers slip under the waistband of your undergarments. Just as he was seconds from pulling them down a voice was heard from behind the door, "Megumi, are you in there? Hurry up, you have that hunting trip today" Mai shouted, banging her fist on the door. Just as you were about to let out a panicked whimper, Megumi's hand shot over your mouth, getting back on his two feet, his eyes narrowed in annoyance, "I'll be out in a moment" he replied, turning his head towards the door.

"Just don't take too long, pretty boy" Mai chuckled then you could hear the relieving sound of her footsteps walking away.

"Why am I-Why am I acting like this? I usually play it safe. I've always played it safe. What are you doing to me, Y/n?" Megumi spoke his thoughts out loud, his hands slowly descending off of your mouth.

"Megumi-" You uttered, unaware how to answer his dilemma. "You can't walk back to your room in a blood-stained nightgown. I'll go to your room and fetch you something decent to wear" Megumi responded, turning his back on you as he covered his bandaged torso with a bathrobe. Megumi opened the door, pausing in his action as his foot did not dare to step through, he shamefully looked over at you, "we can talk more about this tonight in my room" he muttered before leaving.

-----

You don't know what Megumi did with your nightgown or with Yuta's corpse. A guilty part of you is relief that your crimes were covered. You were aimlessly walking through the halls, trying to escape your thoughts by getting more familiar with the manor. However, in an instance, you were pulled to the side, the sudden act causing you to yelp. All fear in your body seemed to disappear as you realized the guilty culprits were just your concerned friends.

"Y/n! Where have you been" Nobara exclaimed, being the guilty culprit of grabbing you. "Just looking around the manor" you answered.

"We saw Megumi was in your room this morning. Do you think he suspects something" Yuuji asked. "He doesn't- he was just there for a favor" you replied, hands fidgeting to your side as you prayed your friends wouldn't notice your suspicion.

"What favor?" Yuuji questioned. "Oh- nothing too important. A boring one, in fact, something you don't want to hear about" You laughed, waving off Yuuji's concerns.

"Alright then.... We noticed you didn't come back to your room last night" Nobara commented, her eyes narrowing. "Y-you did?" you squeaked, suddenly the space between you and your friends felt anxiously smaller, their facial expressions shifting into disappointment.

"We didn't think you had it in you. You actually had that affair!" Yuuji laughed, playfully punching your shoulder, his joyful demeanor causing your anxieties to fade away.

"So where is Okkotsu, does that mean he's on our team now?" Yuuji added, an innocent smile on his face.

"Yuta is- Yuta isn't working at the Zenin manor anymore. Last night wasn't a confession it was a goodbye" you replied, guilt washing over you as you saw your friends physically show their disappointment. "This sucks, I was really starting to like that guy. How come he left?" Nobara sighed, rubbing the back of her neck.

"He has urgent family issues to attend to" you confessed. "C'mon guys don't look so gloomy. We still have each other, right?" Yuuji beamed. "I suppose so, it just would have been really like to have a knight that actually knows how to use a sword," Nobara remarked, batting her eyelashes innocently.

"I know how to use a sword. Satoru Gojo, himself, taught me" Yuuji argued. "Yeah but you were his worse student" Nobara added, sticking out her tongue. "Worse student? Well- I bet you were the worst student in uh- how to be ladylike university" Yuuji replied.

"That's not even a real thing dumbass"

"Oh, you know what I meant!"

---

When night came, so did your anxieties. A part of yourself hoped that Megumi would have just forgotten about the upcoming conversation he wanted to have with you tonight-

Maybe he'll be too tired from his hunting trip to talk!

Maybe he has some letters to write

Maybe-

Maybe you're just a goner. Once the whole manor was quiet, every resident fast asleep, you tip-toed down the hall, walking towards Megumi's room. You hesitated as you came face to face with the door, debating whether you should just go back to sleep or not. However, you knew things would be harder for yourself if you chose to ignore Megumi's demands. Thus, you slowly opened the door, a lingering creaking sound from the door causing you to cringe. You saw Megumi sitting on the edge of his bed, legs far apart, eyes narrowed as he focused on the book.

"Megumi?" you called out, interrupting him from his thoughts. "That took you long enough. I almost thought I had to come into your room and wake you up" Megumi uttered, putting his book on his night table.

"What are you waiting for? Sit down next to me" he voiced.

"Sorry," you muttered, walking towards the bed, trying to sit as far from him as possible. "I guess, we should talk about last night. Right?" you added. Megumi hummed in agreement.

"I took care of the body. Well, Maki did" Megumi informed. You weren't exactly too glad that Maki now knows the horrible truth about Yuta- but you rather have her know than Mai because who knows what Mai would do?

"W-what did she do with it?" you questioned.

"Burial site, next to that Rika girl" Megumi answered. A part of you felt at peace with that answer, knowing Yuta would most likely want that to be his final resting place.

"How did your little friends take the news that their knight friend is dead " Megumi questioned.

"I- I didn't tell them what happened to Yuta" you stuttered, picturing their imaginary disgusted faces if they knew what truly occurred that night.

"I suppose that is for the best. You can't let your friends know you're more like the Zenin family than you thought" Megumi voiced, finger trailing down your jawline, tilting your head up, getting a better look at your worried expression.

"A-are you going to tell them the truth" you questioned. "Do you want me to?" Megumi uttered, pleased as you shook your head, too worried to answer verbally.

"Then I'll do as my wife pleases" Megumi mumbled, voice soft, leaning his face forward, slowly closing the space between you and him, lips almost touching until he suddenly pulled back.

"What's wrong?" you asked, unaware of the change of atmosphere, analyzing Megumi's puzzled expression.

"A question just came to mind. Why were you there that night?" Megumi uttered, eyes narrowing. "What- what do you mean?" you laughed, trying to play dumb.

"For me- he slipped a letter at my door. In a letter, he pretended to be you and asked me to come to the greenhouse. Now. Why were you there?" Megumi voiced, getting up, towering over you, eyes hardening.

"H-he did the same thing with me. He pretended to be you and asked me to meet you there" you answered, his threatening appearance causing you to advert your eyes in fear. Suddenly he's leaning over, holding your jaw to look at his deranged expression, "Were you going to run off with him?" he hushed.

" Megumi-" you

Then you're pushed down, your back pressed against his bed, his hands on either side of your head, "I bet you were the one who slipped me that letter instead of him. It's all because you got cold feet. Am I correct?" Megumi interrupted, his hands finding their place around your neck, slightly squeezing.

"Megumi, you're hurting me" you huffed, trying to pull his grip off of your neck, legs thrashing in panic. "I don't fucking care" he shouted, lifting your head up and then slamming it back down, the movement causing an aching pain at the back of your head and nape.

"You're truly pathetic, you know that right? Expecting me to clean up your messes because you realized that you can't escape your fate- that you can't escape me" he voiced.

"I-I'm sorry- Please just stop" you stuttered, the tightness around your neck becoming unbearable, your sight slowly becoming blurry, the dreadful feeling of being lightheaded approaching.

Megumi hesitantly released his hands from their grip, getting off of you, and raising them to his face as he watched them angrily shake, his face filled with fright. But the second he glanced back at you, you could tell by his eyes that all guilt seemed to morph into unsympathetic coldness.

"I've been too easy on you" he mumbled. "What?" you asked in disbelief, chest still heaving as you desperately try to recover your breath.

"It's been a while since you had a trial correct? Let's change that"

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