#you worked very hard to become and you will burn yourself out and/or get hurt and/or resentful if you feel exhausted or used

[13eyond13]

.

#i feel as though I should start a tag like deep thoughts with the bloz or some shit for my new kick of live journaling about my angst #but anyway hot tip for all the people pleasers out there #surround yourself with mostly supportive people who dont take advantage of others unfairly and who are thoughtful about other people #100% of the time it works every time to make your life so much more enjoyable and easier #and it isn't mean to expect at least the bare minimum of social competence and normal behaviour from others before you agree to socialize #and associate with them (which is sort of what i was guilted into believing growing up) #because guess what that's how you avoid harmful creeps! #your feelings and boundaries exist for a reason and it does suck that sometimes people are just really bad at social skills #but it's not your responsibility to be their therapist or the one exception who will be there for them or whatever else either if they're #truly making you feel weird or unsafe #you as a people pleaser are probably HYPER concerned with being pleasant and polite and accommodating and all these other things that #you worked very hard to become and you will burn yourself out and/or get hurt and/or resentful if you feel exhausted or used #or unappreciated for it and half the time you are actually doing it more for yourself than for others anyways #because it makes you feel valued and like a good person #this is also all related to having issues with codependency too btw which i do because my whole family does #def recommend reading up on both things if you relate it will improve your mental health very much #love you wishing you the best things in 2023 we all got this we are going to do great 😘🧡 muah #p

[rowarn]

afab!reader, no prns, praise, edging, wet&messy, könig using ur clit as a fidget toy <3

könig, a trained lethal soldier, who suffers from anxiety. you would never know if you didn't know what you were looking for.

his biggest tell, for you, is the way he fidgets. with you.

you're like his own personal little fidget toy. his hands are always on you, kneading and squeezing your skin. most times you don't mind, you rather like having him touching you — your thighs, your waist, your butt, wherever he can get his hands honestly.

but sometimes...his hands wander. it's mindless, truly.

his eyes fixated on the tv playing some random show he decided he wanted to watch. but you couldn't pay attention, not when one big hand was shoved up your shirt groping your breasts and the other was haphazardly stuffed into your sleep shorts and under your panties.

he's toying with you so mindlessly, callused fingers sliding over your clit that has grown increasingly slippery with how wet you've become. occasionally he dips down to prod at your slick entrance.

his movements have no rhyme or reason. he's not even moving very fast. just sloppy back and forth flicks and occasionally he simply taps his fingers against the little bud that has grown so sensitive from his playing. sometimes, when something interesting happens on tv, he stops completely until the desire the fidget returns to him.

you're sitting with your back against his chest, situated between his spread legs sprawled cozily on the couch. he can't see the heated, dazed look on your face from the come-and-go pleasure he inadvertently gives you. he's edging you without even realizing it, full attention still focused on the damn tv. he isn't even hard.

that thought alone is enough to make you clench around nothing. he's really just playing with you like a little toy and that thought is so hot to you. it makes you cheeks burn in embarrassment as you continue to leak into your panties.

if you listen close you can hear with wet clicking noise that comes with his movements. your eyes roll back in your head as that sound alone has your back arching but you quickly settle yourself down, not wanting to tear his attention from the tv — he so rarely had time to settle down and just enjoy tv, you didn't want to disturb him.

the episode he's watching ends and you cast a hopeful glance up at him but he's waiting for the next episode to start and it makes you whine against your own wishes. but your clit is so hard and twitchy from being edged that it's actually hurting and you're so wet now that your panties are uncomfortably sticky.

it's your whine that gets his attention, pretty blue eyes flicking down to your face where he finally sees the desperate way you're looking at him, teary eyes and swollen lips from biting them to keep quiet. you can see in his eyes when he registers how soaked you've gotten his fingers and he has the audacity to look sheepish.

"ah, my sweet..." he whispers, ears tinged pink, "i-i'm sorry, i did not realize..."

he moves to pull his hand out of your panties and you whine again, grabbing his wrist with both hands to stuff him back down. your nails bite into his skin and he stops trying to pull away, instead pushing his hand back down and it's then that he fully resisters how wet you are.

"don't stop, please...i-i've been so close..." you pitifully beg and he takes pity on you. how precious of you, he thinks.

"i'm sorry, my love," he coos, fingers starting to work once again — properly this time with quick little circles on your clit, "i'll make you cum for being so good for me."

you can't even formulate words, instead nodding and spreading your legs even further apart, your feet on either side of his legs. he hums softly in your ear, chin hooked over your shoulder as he watches his hand move under the fabric of your shorts.

he spreads your sticky folds apart and begins to swirl messily around your clit, occasionally lightly tapping against the bud just to watch the cute way your thighs twitch at the feeling. you reach back and clutch his t-shirt in your fists to ground you. his cock throbs, churning up quickly, at the loud, wet noise of him playing with your cunt.

it doesn't take long at all before your stiffening against him and twitching in his lap as you cum with a cute little gasp of his name. he moans softly in your ear as he feels your clit throb under the pads of his fingers. you let out the loveliest moans that has his cock hardening fully against his thigh.

when you slacken against his body, aftershocks making you twitch periodically as you pant, he's tempted to stop but the fact you had sat there so sweetly and let him practically torture you while he watched his show made him want to make it up to you.

he sees the excitement in your eyes when his fingers dip lower and begin to press into you and he can't believe just how sweet you are. your so sticky and wet with the amount of cum he worked out of you with such ease.

"let me really make it up to you, my little one..."

#könig smut #konig smut #könig x reader #konig x reader #cod smut #cod x reader #könig #konig

[soullessdianthus]

𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐜 | 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞!𝐌𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐎'𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐚

THIS IS RE-POSTED

Author's note: Can be read as a continuation to this, but can be a stand alone. Enjoy. <3

Warnings: biting, smut (aphordisiac, arousal eating?, riding Miguel yeehaw, dubcon)

Word count: 1.6k

━ No? ━ He repeatedly said into the nape of your neck. His lips still nibbling the skin, placing a gentle kiss. One of Miguel’s hands was squeezing your hip, holding you tight against his front, while the other freezed beneath your short’s waistband.

━ Not now. I have to finish cooking dinner. ━ You firmly stated, wanting to regain some autonomy back. 

━ Dinner can wait, querida.

━ No. ━ You repeated and for a second it seemed you won that argument. With slightly narrowed brows you kept stirring in the pot, waiting for Miguel to back off. 

After his hand retraced from the biker shorts you were wearing, he moved higher along your sternum and let out a hum. His murmur vibrated closely to your neck, making it tingle. 

And then, unexpectedly, Miguel squeezed your frame even harder in his grasp, pulling you closer, before he sank his fangs into your neck. The sharp and sudden feeling of piercing through your thin skin made you gasp. 

You dropped the wooden spoon on the counter as the warmth spreaded through your system really fast. What surprised you the most was that the scar he left, didn’t even hurt. At all.

━ Whatthe- Did you just bite me? ━ Miguel instantly took a step back, his hands returning to stick to his sides. Rapidly you touched the bitten skin, checking if there was some blood. You were surprised when there was no red gore over your fingertips.  

He watched your confusion with a wide grin painted over his square face for a moment. Both of you were quick to return to your previous activities as nothing more seemed to happen (for now) - Miguel sat back at the sofa, while you continued cooking. 

A few minutes passed and there was some funny sensation, slowly building up inside of you. You couldn’t define it yet, but you could tell something was wrong. 

It didn’t click with you when you sat across Miguel at the dining table and you rubbed your thighs together constantly. Neither when he held you by your arms to press a tender kiss over your forehead and your chest began to hurt each time he brushed over you. 

He hadn’t brought up the topic of your make out session again, after you scolded him off in the kitchen. O’Hara seemed to act too calm in your opinion, minding his own business. You could tell he tried to be sneaky by peeking at you from time to time, when you puttered around the “house”. You worked hard that evening trying to ignore the funny feeling between your legs. 

And as the hours passed it got only worse. You could feel the enhanced beating of your heart, pumping loudly and fast and the agitated work of the salivary glands. 

By the time you were going to bed that night, your panties were soaked. But before you got time to change them to clean ones, Miguel pulled you into the bedroom you shared, telling it’s past the bedtime. 

He helped you get beneath the bedding, before resting comfortably beside you. His every touch, every nudge over your flesh was a torture - a inflaming, burning sensation spreaded through your body. You almost whined once, but gladly managed to suppress that humiliating sound. 

But when all the lights were turned off and there was nothing but the sound of a peaceful night, the pain your body experienced became unbearable. 

The soaked panties clung tight against your inflamed skin, wetness becoming cold and irritating your pussy even more. 

Every, even the slightest shift of your body enhanced the very primitive need to grind over something, to ease the need between your thighs. For the last time that night you tried to steady yourself, to slow down the breathing and the beating of your heart. Incompetently.

━ Miguel? ━ You asked with a broken voice, almost whining.  But the man slept peacefully, at least it seemed like that. Miguel had enhanced senses, you could swear to God, he heard you clearly. And if not, then he surely could smell you. 

It was all because of him. By that time, you were more than positive that your unbearable arousal was his doing, that he had done something vile to you. 

You threw away the sheet covering you and the brunette, before climbing over his lap. 

━ Miguel, please. ━ You sobbed pathetically, your hips grinding gently against his gray sweatpants just to make the pulsating pain in your crotch go away. The man finally let out a loud groan. 

━ Mierda~ ━ he finally said as you teased him so delightfully. Both of his hands rubbed the exposed skin of your thighs, up and down. Slowly. ━ What are you doing?

━ Please, it just ━ you inhaled sharply, when he started to shift beneath you, bumping into your needy cunt ━ it hurts so much, Miguel.

━ See, how it ache, when you make me wait? Hm? ━ He said visibly satisfied with your discomfort, his brown eyes glued to your whimpering form straddling him. Miguel smirked, exposing his fangs as he dipped one of his hands between your folds. ━ Fuck, you’re soaked. 

He retracted his palm to his mouth and licked off your juices just to have a taste.

━ Sweet, cariño. Your blood does not taste as good as this. Does it hurt? ━ Miguel sounded almost like he felt bad for making you like this. But in reality he didn’t, you knew that perfectly well. 

You nodded quickly to his question, trying to show him how much you wanted the torture to go away. He smirked again and a sharp talon appeared on his pointing finger. He quickly cut your underwear off with the help of it. 

━ Then go on, suit yourself. ━ Miguel could feel your pulsating cunt dripping over his sweats, before you managed to slid them down his toned thighs. Then, he helped you to remove the nightgown you slept in and finally placed his big hands over your hips, guiding you to start. 

He had you exactly where he wanted to - on top of him, naked and needy. Fucking hell, you were desperate by now. 

You stroked his length a few times just to make sure, he’s entirely ready. But to be honest, you didn’t have to do much - he was thinking about it since dinner. Miguel was waiting patiently as he always does. Usually.

You leaned slightly over his broad torso and positioned his cock at your entrance. You bit down on your lower lip, when you slowly sank down. No matter how horny or prepared you were, the stretch was always a bit painful. So you took a minute to relax with him already buried inside of you. 

━ Look at you ━ his fingertips caressed the curves of your hips as you breathed heavily on top of him, your shoulders shaking. ━ So eager. 

The thought of that tickling discomfort going away made you more optimistic and you started to sway your hips. Just the feeling of the fullness inside of you, made your mouth water. 

Miguel squeezed your hips and guided you into the right way to ride him. You slowly began whimpering, when his cock rubbed something inside of your fluttering walls.

Slowly you became a whining mess, chasing after the sweet release. Your pubic mound and his crotch was covered in your sticky, cold arousal, making a mess. 

There was a feeling of disgust within you. A feeling of repulsion towards yourself, because you enjoyed riding him so much. Whatever was in his venom, made you focus on the glorious feeling of him stuffing your cunt and reaching your orgasm. There was no other thought on your mind. 

Miguel kept staring at you, savoring the sight in front of him. Your pretty eyes half-closed, lips plump and mouth slightly opened. You rested your hand over his strong arms as you bounced on his swollen shaft. Your perky breasts moving vividly along within the rhythm.

It wasn’t long enough before he started groaning too. Miguel O’Hara was fucking delighted with his girl. 

━ Yeah, that’s it, good girl ━ O’Hara praised you, licking his own lips, when you clenched around him few times. He could tell you were close. ━ Dios mío~.

By that time you were a moaning mess, only his arms keeping you still in vertical position. Your legs began to feel wobbly, but the divine feeling rutting in your lower abdomen was just too good to abandon.

Soon after, you shortened your breaths and something inside of your belly bursted - warmth spreading up along the spine, blinding you with pleasure, your pussy squeezing Miguel’s shaft mercilessly. 

Brunette digged his fingers into your hips so hard, that it certainly would leave bruises. He tried keeping his cool, resisting the urge to fill you to the brim right then. Miguel watched as the pleasure twisted your face, making your brows bent downwards and a few shameful moans escaped your lips. 

Your spine arched and for a moment you saw stars, but when you began steading after your sweet high, Miguel smoothly and quickly tossed you beneath him on the bed. 

He was already pressing his body on top of yours - legs wide open, resting on both sides of his hips, chest to chest. 

You stared at him with glossy eyes wide open, waiting for an answer. When he noticed how clueless you were, Miguel laughed. 

━ What? Didn’t think we would end now, didn’t you? I haven't finished yet.

Tag list: @kellhems @alicefallsintotherabbithole @bigmood-myman @freader (let me know if anyone wants to be added to the list for Miguel)

#yandere miguel o’hara x reader #yandere miguel o'hara #yandere #miguel o'hara #miguel ohara #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel ohara x reader #spider man 2099 #spider man: across the spider verse #across the spiderverse #reader insert #smut #reposted

[luveline]

𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

Best friends since middle school, you tell Eddie everything, which is why he's so surprised to find out you've been keeping a secret —you’re hearing a voice whenever you're home alone. He’s always had a thing for the fantastical but he can't believe in ghosts, and the longer you insist on it, the more worried he becomes. This would be bad enough if Eddie didn’t have a secret too, and it threatens to change everything between you. [22k] 

fem!reader, best friends to lovers slow-burn, mutual pining, eddie is infatuated with you, idiots in love, paranormal activity/au, heavy hurt/comfort, angst, fluff and affection, wayne is uncle of the year every year, ghost-hunting

cw assumed auditory hallucinations, talk of mental health, surrounding worry and circumstances, mentioned mental illness stigma, recreational drug use mention, prescription drugs, grief

my endless gratitude and thank yous to @h-ness1944 and @mrcylvsu for their sensitivity beta reads and for answering my questions so many moons ago, I'm very, very thankful for all that hard work, and all the time and energy you both spent!

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Eddie's desk fan is on the fritz. It twists back and forth with a weak metallic clicking sound that promises eventual electrocution but for now provides momentary relief. Even the nights have been hell lately. No matter how many windows he and Wayne open, the air at home stays thick with humidity. 

Sweat shines on his brow and collar. He refuses to tie his hair back, and each hour it grows more and more uncomfortable. 

"Are you sure you don't wanna come and lie up here?" he asks, shifting reluctantly to peer over the side of the bed. 

You're laying on the floor of his room, just as sweaty but half as unhappy. You've abandoned a book to your left, having declared the weather too much to concentrate through. 

"Our body heat will mingle." 

"The fan is really helping," he argues lightly. "If you die on my floor Wayne won't ever let it go. Just come up here." 

You mumble something he doesn't hear and pull your shirt from your chest. You attempt to fan yourself with the thin, clinging fabric. It doesn't work, but it does expose the soft hill of your abdomen to his guilty eyes. His mouth dries up. 

"It's getting late," he says. He's not trying to get rid of you, promise, but now he's thinking about your body heat mingling and why it wouldn't be such a bad thing, and he doesn't want to. "I'll drive you home, yeah?" 

"In a minute," you agree, looking as if you have no intention of moving. 

You turn your face to the side, eyes closed, lashes skimming the delicate skin of your under eye. Eddie sits up and rakes his greasy hair away from his face. He'll drop you home, take a cold shower for purely heat related reasons, and hopefully sleep through the night. It's a very unlikely outcome, but a man can dream. 

"Come on. We'll roll the windows down and go really fast." 

"Eddie," you chastise. 

"Moderately fast." 

His sleeveless tank top gets caught as he leans down to try and flick you. Eddie can only ever forgive his fourteen year old self for maiming perfectly good vintage in times like these. A completely unnecessary culling of an entire wardrobe's worth of sleeves, but when the weather gets bad for a few heady weeks every summer, he remembers the reasoning behind it. 

He's stripped of all his clunky jewellery for now, adorned only in the dark ink of his multiplying tattoos. His most recent addition is an artist's rendition of the Eye of Sauron, blinking up at him from beneath his volley of bats. Still sick, he thinks to himself smugly. 

You've pulled yourself into a sitting position with your arms crossed over the bed, your hand stretched out to touch his plaid pyjama bottoms. You're in a nearly matching pair; when Eddie called you to hang out earlier you'd turned him down, citing a reluctance to change. He'd promised to pick you up in his own pyjamas, and you've been lying on his floor since then.

You're the laziest kids this side of the Wabash river, Wayne'd said, looking over your limp bodies with a smile. 

The other side, too, Eddie popped back. Will you put those chicken wings in the oven for us, please?

Eddie's not a monster, the wings were pre-prepared. Any other day he'd correct his uncle, say, hey, we haven't been kids for years, but the heat makes him feel gross and sometimes you just want your dad to make you dinner. (Sometimes Eddie's just lazy, also.)

"Eds?" you murmur. 

He lets his hands fall away from his hair where he'd been scratching mindlessly and turns to you. He's lethargic, feels like he's turning his head through molasses. "What, sweetheart?" 

Years of being friends lends an easy affection. His pet names are purely platonic. Or they used to be. Either way, you aren't perturbed.

"Can I sleep over?" 

He usually says yes to that question immediately. But again, the thought of your sweaty body curled into his with your hands breaching a friendly gap to curl over his waist like they tend to do fills his stomach with dread. 

His little crush is making him a bad friend, he decides. He will always, first and foremost, be your friend. 

"Of course you can." He rubs his mouth. Feigning casualness. "How come?" 

You peel out of your fatigue and get on your knees. The extra height is all you need to finally grab his legs, smiling sheepishly. Eddie won't judge you for almost anything and you know that, so it's gotta be outlandish. 

"I think…" You tap his kneecap. "Okay, laugh at me if you need to, but I'm pretty sure my house is haunted." 

"Like, by a ghost?" 

"What else?" you ask, laughing good-naturedly.

"Why do you think it's haunted, superstar?" 

You drop your face onto his thigh, giving him a disjointed hug. He hugs you back for as long as the heat will allow it, a handful of stolen seconds with his hand over your back.

"I swear, sometimes, I can hear someone talking."

That's… scarier than he imagined. "Shit, I thought you were gonna say a coat fell off the hanger, or the light in your bathroom started flickering again." 

"It has," you admit, your mouth pressed to his thigh. "But it's just the bulb." 

He pushes you off of him, your voice sending vibrations through places he'd prefer it didn't, and you fall back with a half-hearted stab at melodrama. 

"Oof," you say, straight-faced. 

"You really think it's a ghost?" he asks. 

"No. I don't know. I won't believe in ghosts until I see one, and I haven't seen one, but if it were a ghost, this is the type of behaviour I'd expect from it. So I guess I do. Does that make sense?" 

"Sure." He doesn't know. "What does it say?" 

"Here's the bit where you won't believe me." 

You smile at him from your spot on the floor. Your hand curls out, like a tight budded flower coming to bloom. 

"She asks about you," you say quietly. "It's pretty much all she says." 

"Who?" 

"The ghost." 

"She's a she?" 

"Sounds kind of like one." 

"Come sit up here with me." 

Eddie knows his voice has gone hard and weird, but he can't help it. He understands that he doesn't understand anything, that the world is large and works in mysterious ways, but he wouldn't forgive himself if he took this lightly. You sound so convinced — it makes him feel ill. 

Because Eddie doesn't believe in ghosts. 

You climb up onto the bed in front of him and he doesn't take your hand. He should. You won’t meet his eyes, a sign that you're slightly embarrassed. It's not what he meant to do. 

"What does she say?” he probes.

You go teasing and shiny, a glimmer in your eye. "I know you don't believe me, Eddie." 

"Who says I don't believe you? I just need you to explain." 

"She says…" You laugh. "Okay, she says stuff like, 'Eddie is okay?'" 

Eddie stares at you. 

"I was going to tell you–" 

"When?" he demands. 

"I'm telling you right now!" 

"How long have you been hearing voices?" 

You climb up on knees to wrap your arms around his head. "You think I'm delusional," you say, a loving murmur in his ear. 

He grabs your waist. Unsurprisingly, hugging you doesn't make him nearly as electric as he'd worried. It feels the same as it always has, like hugging his best friend. Loving the smell of your hair is new, but everything else stays the same. 

"I don't think you’re delusional, I don't, I just– if I told you the same thing." 

You pull away, and his hand comes to rest atop the curve of your hip. "I'd believe you," you say. 

"I believe that you believe there's someone talking to you about me. Uh… if it is a ghost haunting your house, why's she talking about me?" 

You take his hands off of your waist, squeezing his fingers together in your palms. "Don't know. I tried asking but she never answers, and last night…" 

Eddie stands up.

"Where are you going?" 

"We gotta let Wayne know you're staying and he's about to fall asleep, and I want a cigarette, and you need something to drink." 

"I don't want a beer." 

"No," he says. When he says to drink, he really means something cold to sip on. He's hoping to grab you back from… whatever it is you're going. "Soda, apple juice, drink what you want." 

He fiddles with the drawstrings on his pants, waiting for you to join him at the doorway. You stay sitting on his bed. He doesn't know what your face means. 

"Hey, you still have to tell me about it. I want to know, swear to god. We have all night." He holds out his hand. Wiggles his fingers at you. "I'll let you paint my nails again too, like a real girls night." 

That grabs your attention. You slide off of the bed and take his hand, shrieking as he yanks you ten miles an hour down the skinny hallway and into the living room. Wayne's got the sofa bed out already, his padded roll-up mattress laid out over the springs and a sheet stretched corner to corner. 

"Hey, kids," he says, fluffing one of his pillows. He chucks it at the top of the mattress. "Home time?" 

"Can I stay over, Mr. Munson?" you ask. 

Wayne rolls his eyes. You once spent eight days here with no breaks sometime in the summer of 1987 and he hadn't batted an eye. Eddie made sure it was truly alright with Wayne, of course, and you'd done your share of housework. Point is, both Munson's find  your asking to stay unnecessary. 

"I'll make pancakes in the morning," you add. 

"Oh, in that case." Wayne throws his blanket out over the bed and sits on top of it. "By all means, kid, stay over. Tell your guardian." 

"Can't. In Santa Barbara." 

"Ah, then I have to insist you stay," he says, laying down with a huff. 

Eddie passes him the TV remote. "She's a big girl, Wayne." You're well past the age of parental supervision. 

Wayne answers with a grumbling sound that means, hey, you can keep talking to me but there's no guarantee I'll answer. 

"I won't be annoying, promise," you say. 

Wayne grunts again. 

"That's old man talk for I know you won't," Eddie translates. 

You nod, glad to have permission, and meander into the kitchen. "Can I–" 

"Yes!" Eddie and Wayne call simultaneously. 

Wayne laughs to himself in that pleased gruff way he's good at and tucks his arms behind his head. He's wearing one of Eddie's t-shirts. They've been the same size since Eddie was seventeen, something both Munson's utilise when laundry day is approaching but not quite upon them. 

"Lighter?" 

Wayne scrunches his eyes in displeasure. "By the sink."

"Thanks." For some reason, Eddie doesn't leave. He stays standing by the TV, listening to the voice of a late-night talk show chuckle through a joke about some scandal. 

When Eddie was younger, he'd get into bed beside Wayne and watch TV until his eyes hurt. Too young to have stopped needing comfort and too old to know how to ask for it, he'd drift down the snug hallway into the living room and Wayne would usually be asleep or almost there. Eddie would stand by the TV hesitantly, and if he was sleeping Wayne must've been able to feel it, a new parents instinct or something, because he'd soon wake, and if he wasn't he'd look at Eddie like he'd been waiting for him. Like Eddie was running late. 

His teenage years were almost solely defined by bad dreams and TV with Wayne. On the good nights, Eddie would go back to bed. On the bad nights, heartache would swallow him whole. Well, almost whole. His cheek would rest on Wayne's shoulder as the night went on. Miraculous and ordinary at once. That's the only bit of him that didn't hurt. 

Pain emaciates the good from his memory, but it can't erase the comfort of watching TV with someone who loved him when they didn't have to. 

Wayne pretends to chop Eddie in the stomach. Eddie laughs and dodges out of his path. 

"Gotta be faster than that," Eddie taunts. 

"Don't chain smoke," Wayne says. 

"We won't be up long." Eddie's lying. He can't imagine that either of you will be getting an early night tonight considering the nature of your confession. What he means is, you won't be keeping Wayne up, and Eddie won't smoke more than what's wise. 

Wayne hums. 

You're in the kitchen screwing the lid back on a gallon of apple juice, your cup a quarter filled. You're like that. Won't ever take more than you need.

"One for me?" he asks. 

"I figured now all your taste buds are dead, you wouldn't want any." 

"Ha-ha," he says. The kitchen is unusually clean. "Shit, stop cleaning my house. Good god." 

You pull one of his jackets off of the seat of one of the kitchen table's chairs and shake it out. "So I can sleep here, eat here, but cleaning is where you draw the line. I like it." 

Eddie grabs the lighter from beside the sink in one hand and your wrist in the other, pulling you away from the table before you can start organising their mail and through the back door. 

It's still sticky-hot out and the steps are warm to the touch as the two of you sit down hip to hip. He pulls the stiff pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket and hands them to you. Your hand is already waiting. You peel off the plastic and tap the pack against your chest. You like doing it, arguing that it makes you feel like you're Chelsea Marino in Glory Days, all dark smiles and indulgent self-loathing. 

You open the pack, tug out a lone cigarette, and pass it to him. 

"You're like a pez dispenser," Eddie says, putting the butt of the cigarette between his lips.

"You little freak." 

He laughs and almost drops his cig. Wayne's heavy zippo struggles to light, low on gas. 

"Loser can't even light a cigarette." 

"Who put two dimes in you?" he asks, thrilled by your negging. 

He takes a sharp inhale as the end of the cigarette finally lights, the heat tickling his throat until it burns the way he needs it to. 

"Somebody must've," you say. 

"Reckon we can tip you upside down and get something to eat?" he asks through an exhale of smoke, tapping ash into the small egg cup to his left that's been serving as an ashtray for as long as he's been smoking. It used to be yellow. Every now and again he washes it and sees the old chicken paint underneath. "Too late for cooking." 

"Are you hungry?" you ask genuinely. "I told you we should've had more than just wings."

"It was too hot to eat hot stuff. It's still too hot. Tomorrow, we should go to Bradley's and get stuff for sandwiches." 

Eddie waits for your answer. "I'm sick of PB and J, Eds," or "Yes! And a pitcher for sweet tea, my captain." You don't say anything, your face turned up to the sky and your eyes closed, soaking in the heat. 

He has half a mind to go get a spray bottle and douse you before you collapse. 

"What's going on with you?" he asks. 

"I'm just thinking." 

"Think out loud. Don't be fucking selfish." 

"I'm not sure you wanna hear it." 

He puts his cigarette in the eggcup ashtray half-smoked, ribbons of white curling up into the shimmering summer heat. Any other time he'd lounge back and let the nicotine course through his system, a momentary relief against the winding tightness that comes with being so hot, and so worried about you. 

"If I ask you how you've been feeling lately, could you answer me?" he asks. "Without assuming I don't believe you. Don't get mad, just tell me." 

You drop your shoulder against his. "I feel fine, I think. You know me, I– I worry too much, and work is overwhelming. If you took me to a doctor, he'd probably prescribe me ambien and a week in a dark room, but. I really don't think I'm making this up." 

"I don't think you'd know," he says. Isn't that the deal? If you're having a hallucination of some kind, it would likely sound and feel real enough to trick you in some capacity.

"Trust me," you say. Your hair brushes against the top of his damp arm. He can't smell good, but you don't say a thing about it.

"I do." Eddie turns his head to take another drag. He blows the smoke as far from you as he can manage. "Tell me about last night," he says, eyes on the weather worn plating of the trailer. "What happened?" 

If you're not messing with him, your ghost has been talking to you for a while now. Something happened last night to scare you in a way you hadn't been before.

He fights his rising nausea with a final drag on his cigarette. You stop leaning on him, hands back in your lap as you tell the story. 

"I was listening to the stereo real loud while I did laundry. I don't know if I was trying to, you know, block it out if she started talking, I'm not stupid, I– I know it could be all in my head. I don't think it is, but I'm not stupid. I went down to the basement to swap the load out in the dryer, and while I was down there…" 

You look like you don't know how to explain it. Eddie bites his cheek. 

"She wrote me something," you say finally. "In my notebook, the one you got me for Christmas. She said hello." 

"I could've written it," he says. "I don't remember, maybe I left you a message in it knowing you'd find it." 

"Did you come in and take it off the shelf, too?" you ask gently. "Eddie, I know your handwriting. I'm not making this up."

He sighs, rubs his face with both hands, the smell of smoke and salt ingrained in the lines of his palms. He gives himself a long five seconds scrubbing at his stubbly jaw and wishing it was colder, then he shoots up onto his feet and pulls open the door. 

"Early night," he says decisively. "If you're still sure there's a ghost in the morning, I'll come over. See if she'll talk to me too. How does that sound?" 

You hold your hand out. Eddie takes it, hoisting you up.

"It sounds like you need a better strategy for getting girls to go to bed with you." 

"It's working, isn't it?" 

"Loser." 

— 

You wake up to Eddie tapping your shoulder. 

"Come on, sweetheart," he says quietly, his voice rough as hewn stone. "I made you pancakes." 

It's as if you're submerged at the bottom of a shallow pool. Sound and heat and sunlight reach you, but it's dull. It takes you a second to understand what Eddie's saying, and why his thumb is rubbing into your shoulder. 

"Come on," he says again, "'fore they get cold." 

You blink. Blink blink blink. Your throat hurts and you have a bad taste in your mouth. Your eyes feel like somebody flicked sand at you while you slept, gritty and dry. You kick the thin blanket away from you, a long day of writhing in the heat yesterday having turned you to sludge, your limbs limp and uncooperative. 

Eddie's frowning at you when you look up. 

"Want me to get you a rag?" he asks. 

"No, I'll wash my face." Your words string together like toffee melted between them and hardened again while you weren't looking. "Oh," you murmur, wincing as you set your feet on the ground. "My back really hurts. Did you push me out of bed last night?" 

"You slept like a log. Same position all night." He reaches for you, but his hand wavers. He must change his mind. 

Eddie leaves the door wide open as he leaves. The radio is on, and a song he secretly loves but won't admit to wars with the sound of sizzling oil. If you strain, you can hear him humming. You get closer and dip into the bathroom, the door open so you can listen to Eddie sing the chorus. 

Dance with me, I want to be your partner, can't you see? The music is just starting. 

He doesn't sing well, really. It's a light, high-pitched rendition. He isn't trying. He feels comfortable enough around you to be unapologetically mediocre, and it's somehow sweeter than if he had a voice like Larry Hoppen. 

You wash your face with handfuls of cold water, your lips tasting of salt as it drips down your nose to your neck, rogue rivulets of run-off seeping into your rolled sleeves. 

The heat broke overnight. A light rain patters soundlessly against the windows, and the back door has been propped open in the kitchen to let in the smell of fresh churned earth. Petrichor. 

You pat your tacky face dry. Eddie turns to the sound, and you nod at Wayne's empty seat.

"Where's your uncle?" you ask. 

"He wanted to get epoxy and a fresh roll of duct tape in case we spring another leak. The rain was pretty bad last night, I think he's worried it'll rot the ceiling. I don't know. Don't worry, I made him something first." 

You sit down and let Eddie serve you a stack of pancakes. The ones on the very top are piping hot. You slather them in butter and maple syrup as he sits down next to you, a plate of his own in hand. 

"How's your back?" he asks. He's being too soft with you. 

"I saw a ghost, Eds, I'm not dying." You slice down the pancakes with the side of your fork, attempting to act unbothered. "Worst case scenario, I'm schizophrenic."

Eddie sits down in the chair next to yours. It's a small table but there's ample room. His proximity is a choice. "Worst case scenario, you're being targeted by an evil demon, but schizophrenia could also be really bad," he says. "S'why I'm worried." 

"Eddie." You put down your fork, swallowing a half-chewed mouthful roughly. "Hey. If it's my head, I'll go to the doctor and I'll let them take care of it and everything will be fine." You have no way of knowing if what you're saying is true. Mental illness isn't easy. You're just saying what you think he needs to hear without outright lying. "I'll take the meds and you'll be there for me. But I'm fine. And you're being weird." 

"You're trying to piss me off." 

A little. Pissed is better than anxious. You'd rather give him something to glare at than a reason to twist himself into knots. "You're easily riled," you jest. 

His eyebrows rise. He eats his pancakes and you your own, the wrinkled knees of your pyjamas rubbing against one another as he jigs his leg along to the song on the radio. The rain starts to worsen, fat droplets slapping the screen door like the thwack of a bullet. From your seat, you can see the sky dark with grey clouds, the sun a long forgotten foe. The humidity has been cut in half, which is to say bad but not unbearable. Last night, if you'd been awake to feel it, the rain would've been warm in your palm. Getting up to close the door now, you nudge the ajar screen wide with your foot, letting some of the rain lash your arms and face. 

You sigh at the chilly coldness of each blessed drop. 

"Heatwave from hell is finally over."

"Thank fuck for that. Let's hope it's miserably cold for weeks," Eddie says.

It's mid September —summer has said goodbye with one last fierce kiss. By October, you'll be wrapping yourselves up in throw blankets on the couch on the porch, or hiding inside with Wayne's special pasta (buttered noodles and green pesto for the 'brave') watching slashers on Eddie's blurry TV. The humidity will be nothing but a gross memory. 

You wash your plates and Eddie lets you shower first. You have your own shampoo in the corner, and a rose scented body wash Eddie buys but doesn't use (but it isn't for you, idiot, why would he buy you something so expensive? He got it by mistake). You could draw the cracks in their shower tiles with your eyes closed, and the condensation that clings to the cold water pipe, that's how many times you've been in here. You finish quickly, dry quicker, and pull fresh clothes over your still-clammy skin. 

You tap Eddie in. He's somehow even faster than you were, and you swap places in his room. While he's changing, you dry the bathroom walls with a towel as soon as he's out, knowing the small room has a propensity for dampness. 

"Stop cleaning my fucking house," he says when you traipse back into his room, his head hanging upside down as he towel dries his curls. 

You forgo your usual explanations and tell the truth. "I know you're perfectly capable. I like helping, that's all." 

"I know. Ugh, you suck. Do you have any deodorant?" 

You grin and pull your deodorant out of your bag, a new-ish stick of Teen Spirit. Eddie sees it and sighs, obviously unprepared to smell like Pink Crush for the rest of the day. "I have like, half an inch left of Caribbean Cool. Coconut?" you offer. 

He goes with the coconut scent. The wall of privacy between you has eroded to a scrap of paper after so long living in each other's laps, but you feel guilty for looking at him, the shifting muscle beneath the skin of his arms and chest stealing your focus. If Eddie were to see you without your shirt, you doubt he'd find himself anywhere near as distracted. He'd look if you let him because that's the way he is, unaffected by simple intimacies, but when you tell him to face the door it doesn’t aggrieve him. Most of the time he’s already averted his eyes. 

"Gotta add that to the list of shit we need. Have you seen my shoes?" 

"Your white sneakers are in the hallway. One of your converse is under the bed, but it's hard to say about the other." You swallow a sudden lump. "Are we going shirtless?" 

Eddie does not go shirtless. He pulls a shirt on that thankfully has sleeves, and then a zip up hoodie under his leather jacket. You didn't think to bring a coat yourself due to the extreme baking temperature of the day before. You're lucky you had clean clothes here, considering you hadn't intended to spend the night. Or, not lucky, loved. One of the Munson’s has washed what you’ve left behind.

You have a momentary lapse as Eddie puts his shoes on, trekking into the bathroom to look in the mirror. It's no secret that you aren't pretty. You can make a good effort, and you keep it classy, stay clean, but you aren't pretty, not by your own opinion. 

Eddie knows everything about you (nearly). He knows you don't think much of yourself. And a younger version of him had comforted you as earnestly as an awkward teenage boy could manage, but these days he goes for the root of the problem. He still tells you that you're pretty occasionally, or rather, "Looking good, babe," but not today. 

"Hey." Eddie looks you up and down. "What's wrong?" 

"I look stupid." You glance at your legs. Why does everything look so weird on you?

He hooks his arm through yours and starts to drag you down the hallway to the front door, sideways like two crabs. "No." 

"Yeah, I do, and people are gonna think I do, too." 

"Who cares what other people think?" And there's grown-up Eddie's rhetoric, Who gives a fuck what other people think? 

"Me," you say. 

You understand exactly what it is he's trying to do: free you from the anxiety of overthinking. It doesn't work as often as you wish it would, but he gives it a good go. 

"No, you don't. We don't care what other people think because it doesn't affect us." He doesn't make light, exactly, but his eyes are bright and his smile is sweet as he opens the front door and gestures for you to go down first. Rain and wind are quick to kiss at your naked arms. 

"What if they all think I'm some sort of slob?" 

"Then they'd be wrong. It's okay for people to be wrong about us. That's their problem." More familiar argument. It actually does make you feel better, despite hearing it a hundred times before. "People are wrong all the time." 

Eddie follows you down the first step and turns away to lock the door. 

"Like you and my ghost," you say, trying to steer the conversation from your moment of weakness and into happy territory again. "You don't think she's real." 

"Baby, I'd love it if you proved me wrong with that one." He jogs down the rest of the steps, knowing it’ll give you a conniption, the wet metal a death trap waiting to happen. “Go! Get in the van!”

You scramble across the grass and the curved pathway to the drive where the van is parked and yank open the passenger door with all your strength. The handle is notorious for sticking shut. When nothing happens, Eddie curses up a storm as he clambers into the driver's seat and over the console to force it open, giving it a good old-fashioned kick from the inside. It flies into your waiting hands and you rush up the step into the front of the van away from the rain that’s growing heavier and heavier by the hour. 

“Well, glad I didn’t waste time letting it dry,” Eddie says, wringing his hair out over his lap. It only drips two or three drops, but it’s funny all the same. The top of his head shines like a dark halo. “About the ghost. Do you really believe in them?”

“You asked me last night–”

“I know, but last night you said you wouldn’t believe in one unless you saw it, and then proceeded to talk about it like it was real.”

“I’m agnostic about ghosts.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asks. He sticks the key in the ignition and turns it until the engine groans to life. The van was old when he got it. Now it’s super old. 

“No. What’s agnostic mean?” you ask. 

“We’ll buy a dictionary.”

“I kind of believe in ghosts. I believe in my ghost. If I ever see one, I’ll believe in all the ghosts. Shit, I sound stupid.”

“No, you don’t– you don’t! It’s okay to not know, I wasn’t trying to interrogate you about your personal beliefs.” He is a very responsible driver these days. He keeps his eyes on the road. His hand, however, strays to your arm. “You’re not stupid, superstar.”

“Don’t,” you plead. Superstar is a nickname that stuck despite your vehement disagreement with its origin and further usage. “It makes you sound like an old dad and I’m the son who just got benched at little league. Again.”

You stand as much as your seatbelt will allow and dig out the purse from the butt pocket of your jeans. “I’ll get gas.”

“Way too personal for our relationship.”

Bad, overused joke. 

Eddie doesn’t want you to pay for gas, the same way he doesn’t want you paying for takeout or birthday presents. He hates ‘handouts’ —it took you a while to convince him that gas money isn’t a handout, it’s you trying to keep things fair. You know how it feels to need the money and not want to ask for it, so you put him in a position where he never has to ask. 

Things are easier now. You’re not in high school anymore. Work doesn’t pay as well as you want it to, but it’s enough to get by, especially while you’re living in your childhood home with only partial bills to pay. Eddie isn’t hurting for money either. That’s something to be grateful for. 

Eddie pulls into the gas station. He won’t let you pump while the wind is whipping, but you sprint into the gas station and trawl the fridge for the biggest drinks, sticking two cans of iced tea under your arm. The cold immediately eats into your naked skin. You jog to the counter to pay. 

“Pump two, please,” you say, putting your cans down.

“Twelve dollars.”

You frown. Eddie only put ten dollars on the pump. Well, deducting your two cans of iced tea at 99 cents each, ten dollars and two cents. What an asshole.

You hold out a twenty dollar bill with a smile, and look out the window as you wait for your change. The rain is too heavy to see him, but you imagine Eddie drumming the wheel of the van with both hands. You shiver out a thanks as your change hits your palm, dropping it into your purse with your best receipts. There’s one for bowling (a triple defeat, Eddie a secret master), one for two whole frozen cheesecakes you’d eaten in bed a month ago with double-sized dessert spoons, a couple for Hawk theatre; Back to the Future II, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters II (‘89 was a great year for sequels). All your best memories printed on thermal paper. 

“Holy shit I’m so cold,” you squeak, prying open the door without the aid of Eddie’s kick. 

“You’re soaked, you fool. You want to go home first for a sweater?”

You close the door behind you and drop the iced tea into the console, grimacing at the great clang they make. Your seatbelt snaps into place around your soft middle, and without ceremony you’re back on the road for your original mission. 

“No sweaters, Bradley’s. Stupid to double back.” You look at him from the corner of your eye. “I think we should get frozen pizza and extra toppings to put on them. And fries, obviously, and dessert.” The ghost won’t care. Probably. 

“You forgot the side salad.”

“Forgot,” you say, laughing. “Why yes I did.”

“Dessert,” Eddie says, his turn now to make some decisions. “I want a slurpee real bad right now, so I’m thinking we buy a bag of ice for your food processor and get some syrup.”

“We could go get slurpees,” you say encouragingly. If that’s what he wants, why not?

“We have shit to do,” he says, smiling so much his dimples peek out. “Ghosts to convene with, notebooks to analyse. Feasts to prepare.” He looks deeply speculative. You assume he’s thinking about the maybe-ghost, but he says, “Why are we getting frozen pizza? They have those pre-packaged ones now that are basically fresh.”

“They taste the same.”

“Liar, the bottom of the frozen ones go soggy and the cheese burns on the crust. You know that I’m right, don’t give me dish.”

“Aren’t you always?”

Eddie has a horrible tendency to be right about things. Maybe that's why you hadn't told him about the ghost for so long, because you'd wanted to handle it yourself without his explanatory assurances. You’re the worrier and he’s the one who always sets it straight.

What if I make a fool of myself? you've asked him once.

I’ll make one of myself, too. 

What if they fire me? 

We’ll get you a new job with me cleaning up after idiots.

What if it never goes away?

It will. 

What if body snatchers get us while we’re sleeping?

That one made him smile. The fondest upturn of a pretty mouth, not an expression you often see. Then they get us, he’d said, whispering across the pillows, face only partially visible in the struggling light of the TV. It’ll be awesome. Me and you. No brains, no worries. Just lettuce heads forever. 

You watch him beating along to a song you aren’t privy to against the wheel. He hadn’t seemed to mind the idea of losing his mind with you back then. He doesn’t believe you now, but that’s because he hasn’t heard her voice. The whistling wind warping itself into coherent syllables. Reaching for you, a dark slice of sound. 

Eddie… has… a secret…

You look at your lap, tamping down a shudder at the sensation of ice riding your spine. 

Don’t we all?

—

Eddie feels you’ve been overly relaxed about the situation at hand. He doesn’t want to back you into a box and declare a health crisis, but he’s been thinking up possible illnesses while you weigh the pros and cons of pizza toppings in case he has to take you to see someone. He’s not sure how gas lines work but he’s sure a quick phone call to the Munson landline could clear it up for him. Perhaps the most effective test of all for carbon monoxide poisoning would be to subject himself to the same circumstances. He’ll spend a few days at home with you and see how he feels afterward. If push comes to shove he’ll light a match and see what catches. 

On the inside, Eddie’s panicking about your mental health and, admittedly, the slim reality of a supernatural presence. On the outside, he’s playing along with your unconcerned dinner plans and aimless chatter. If you want to pretend that today is the same as any other day, he's prepared to let you. He won’t do the same, but he won’t discourage you, either. 

You cut through one of the home aisles toward the front of the store with a heavy basket on your elbow, Eddie hot on your heels. He grabs a pocket dictionary from the display to his left and hurries to keep up with you. 

You’re shivering. “I really didn’t think it would rain,” you say. 

Eddie looks past the registers to the glass doors at the front of the store where rain pelts with a force bordering on stormy weather. If it gets much worse than this, he'll insist you both go back to Munson headquarters and hunker up to wait it out. 

“The weather,” Eddie mumbles, unlike himself. “Are we expecting a storm? Maybe we should grab a cart and get some basics. Crate of water.”

“Okay, we can do that. Are you worried?”

“Kind of.”

He meets your eyes. He loves your eyes. He knows you don’t. You're not insecure in a way he feels he can fix —if he can fix any of it. It’s like you dissociate, for lack of a better word, from the things you can’t love. You don’t look in the mirror, won’t let him take photographs of you. You don’t say it. You call yourself stupid, weird, silly. Never ugly. 

But he knows. 

And now this whole ghost business. Eddie needs to think of something he can say to you that will inspire a better level of honesty going forward. 

“How long have you been speaking to the ghost?” he asks. 

You grin at a conveniently abandoned shopping cart at the end of the aisle and slide toward it on squealing shoes. You look around broadly for an owner, and when they don’t appear you place your basket in the stomach of it. The only thing remaining from whoever used it beforehand is a small tray of four cupcakes. 

“Four. One for you, three for me,” you say, ignoring his question with a smug giggle. 

Eddie loves you in a way not many people can love someone else, the kind of love that takes years of patience and acceptance and sweetness to take root, kind of love you only feel after seeing someone at their best, worst, and weirdest — memories come thick and fast whenever he thinks about the sheer years you’ve spent together, seeds of affection long germinated and rearing to grow. You, throwing up behind a Denny’s with sick in your hair, crying so hard you couldn’t catch your breath, and when you could, asking him if he wouldn’t mind buying you a new t-shirt to wear in the car as though you were some dastardly imposition, and not his sick best friend. You, on top of the world, surrounded by people who loved you with a birthday cake in front of you, eyes brighter than the blinking flames of each dripping candle. You, in pyjamas too tight, too loose, old or brand new with your hair up, down, washed, and greasy, your lips chapped, bruised then healed, parted against one of his pillows as you slept, as you yawned, as you laughed, talked. No matter what you’re wearing, saying or doing, you, in his bed, completely at home. 

Eddie has a thousand images of you in his head and they all fight to play again, like a VHS on constant rewind, or a movie with duplicated film, double, triple exposed. Before even an inkling of a crush had ever come around, he loved you. That's why it doesn’t really matter that he can’t kiss you. He can’t imagine loving you more than this. 

Sometimes, sometimes… you put your leg over his and your thigh spreads out across the top of his, and he has to beg himself not to want to touch you. He wonders if you’d mind. Eddie thinks about asking so often it turns into its own fantasy. He knows what cadence his voice would take, the exact grit and warmth, his hand waiting on your knee and aching to inch downward. 

You pull him from his sickly introspection with a poke. Your fingernail dents his shirt precisely atop a small beauty mark. He doesn’t know if you know what you’re doing, if you’ve seen his naked chest enough times to realise that there’s a mole right there an inch shy of his belly button, if you’d ever looked at him in so much detail. 

“Transmission incoming,” you say, your fingers flattening over his abdomen, your palm hovering apart. Like the pole of an opposite magnet, it refuses to connect. “Chirp. Houston, we’ve been attempting to connect with Astronaut Munson. He is unresponsive. Let us know when you make contact again.” You smile at him ruefully. “Damn moon keeps dropping signal.”

“Sorry… Astronaut Munson? Do they call astronauts astronauts? I thought it was commander.”

“I don’t know, Eddie, I haven’t brushed up on NASA related job titles lately.” Your deadpan wanes, replaced with a genuine concern. “Are you okay? You really did get lost.”

“I’m just thinking about, you know– Your ghost,” he lies. The ghost should be his highest concern, and for the most part it is, but he’d let his attention get pulled along by other things.

That’s the thing about love. It feels much more important in the moment than anything else, even when it shouldn’t. 

“You’re super worried about the ghost.”

“It is an uber worrying ghost.”

“‘Cause she talks?” you ask.

“Well, yeah. Most of the time you just get, like, blurs on night vision cameras or the general malignant presence of the thing. Not words.” Not questions concerning your best friend. 

“Casper talks and he’s gorgeous,” you say. “A true sweetheart.”

“Doesn’t Casper have to protect Lucy from his evil ghost uncles?”

“Who the fuck is Lucy?”

“The girl. Lucy and Johnny.”

“Bonnie?”

“Oh. That sounds right. But her name doesn’t matter,” Eddie insists. “My point was that the bad ghosts outweigh the good three to one. That’s more than half, you realise.”

“His name is Casper the Friendly Ghost,” you say, shrugging. Eddie hopes you know where it is in the store you’re going to. He hasn’t looked away from your face for the last twenty minutes.  “It’s in the name.”

“But your ghost isn’t Casper,” Eddie says.

“No. My ghost isn’t Casper, but she hasn’t tried to kill me. She would have written something threatening in my notebook or knocked all the books off of my shelf if she were evil.”

Eddie frowns. You’ve steered him around the store like you’ve never been here before, changing your mind after turns to go down the opposite aisle, murmuring about bottled water. He reaches for your hand on the shopping cart rail and can’t resist squeezing it as he pulls it away. 

“I got it,” he says. 

He swears that your expression flickers. Worry breaking through the closed shutters of your blasé. 

You’re not so chatty as you follow him toward the back of Bradley’s where they keep the big jugs of water. He grabs one, thinks back to the bad weather and grabs another. It’s unlikely that you’ll need them, but Eddie would rather be safe than sorry. “Do you have a lamp?” he asks. “An oil lamp? Or a flashlight?”

“I have a flashlight,” you confirm. “Is it really so bad? Uh, I don’t wanna ask again, but I– maybe I could–” 

Eddie wants to pull your face into his chest. He thinks about it. Would he have hugged you like that a year ago, before the butterflies and the late nights daring to think of the dough of your thighs or the column of your throat when you tip your head back? He might’ve. It would mean something different, but he might’ve. 

He throws an arm around your shoulder and gives you a good shake. “What is wrong with you? If it gets any worse, you’re staying with me. I’m only asking about a flashlight in case we have one of those worst case scenarios and get stuck in your haunted house. I refuse to die like the jocks in a b-rated horror.”

“The jocks or the whore? Isn’t it the girl who sleeps around that gets murdered in the dark?” you ask. 

“Super unfair. I sleep around, do I deserve to die?” he asks, dropping his arm. 

You mime stabbing him in the gut. Everyone's so violent. 

Eddie is amazingly unharmed as he gets you to the register. You try to fight him on who’s paying, but you’re an idiot who insisted on getting gas. It’s the leverage he needs to win. Out of Bradley’s and back into the rain with grocery bags double bagged, you run for the van and thrust the spoils of your shopping trip in the passenger seat footwell. Eddie opens the side door to lug the water jugs inside and you take the cart back to the front of the store against his wishes.

He waits for you to be in arms reach and gets back in the van. You’re soaked to the bone. He’s cold in three layers, so you must be freezing. He shrugs off his sopping wet leather jacket and then the zip hoodie underneath, draping the zip hoodie over your lap and chest and then rushing to put his leather jacket on again.

“Thank you, good sir,” you laugh.

He’s already fiddling with the air conditioning. Heat bursts from the left vent but not the right, leaving you in a cold bubble. “Shit, I’m sorry, the right vent’s still busted. Ol’ Beauville keeps letting us down.”

“Don’t hate on the Beauville!” you scold through chattering teeth. 

“You're dying,” he says. “Hold on, I’m gonna do ninety.”

“Do not speed!” 

You get to the road outside of your place without any hydroplaning. You live on a regular American street in a two-story semi-detached house not too far from Hawkins High school with your guardian, who isn’t home very often. It has three bedrooms, one bathroom, and a lot of white walls. You often lament that the house doesn’t really feel like your own, and punctuate with a giddy laugh he doesn’t understand but adores nonetheless. 

Eddie parks his van on the long gravel driveway as close to the house as he can get it and ushers you inside with your keys. You’re cold enough to listen without complaint. 

He puts the groceries in the kitchen on the countertops and kicks off his shoes, intending on putting them away when he’s sure you aren’t in any danger of hypothermia. He kicks off his shoes by the door, locks it tight, and starts up the carpeted stairs to your room. 

He’s not surprised to find you half-naked, but overfamiliar, affectionate friendship doesn’t necessarily mean you like being seen. He averts his gaze from your naked legs and tries desperately to think about anything but underwear. The more he tries not to think about them, the worse it gets. 

“Hey,” he says, covering his eyes so you know he isn’t perving, “our horror flick just got dirty.”

“Yikes,” you say. “Don’t look.”

“I’m not, I’m not. You could’ve closed the door. You know, spare me a guilty conscience.” Then, because he just can’t help himself, “When did you start wearing fancy panties?”

“Fuck off, Eddie,” you laugh. 

“Do I have to make the switch to tighty whities?”

“Our underwear choices do not concern one another.” You trek toward him. He peeks through two spread fingers and finds you thankfully reclothed in dry sweatpants and a sweater soft with age. “I thought tighty whities hurt your–” You raise your eyebrows. 

He regrets being honest with you when you were teenagers. A little secrecy might help repaint him in your mind as less of a huge loser. You could possibly find him attractive if you weren't privy to the numerous embarrassments that make up his life, he thinks. 

He chokes on his own tongue and dies right there in your bedroom. “Why do you remember shit like that?”

“Same reason you keep a heat pack in your room in case I get all crampy,” you say.

You give him one of your sick smiles —you have to know what you’re doing, you have to— and drape your arms over his shoulders, nearly knocking him down with the sudden addition of your weight. He, stunned, plants a foot behind himself so you don’t both trip and fall on your asses. 

The plane of your back beckons beneath your sweater. What he’d give to slip a hand under the hem to explore the ridge of your shoulder blade with his fingertips. 

A quiet ensues. Your hug turns from a joking attempt to push him around a bit to a real one. He steel-arms your waist, tightening them around you three times in quick succession, nose buried in your hair to steal a deep breath. 

“This where the ghost talks to you?” he asks, looking over your head into the chaos of your room. It’s not dirty, but it isn’t tidy, either. 

You sigh too much like a moan for his sanity and stand up tall, your hands trailing down his chest unthinkingly as you follow his gaze. “Yeah. I don’t know if we’ll hear her over the rain. It has to be really quiet.”

“What are you doing? Experiments?” he asks. He sounds as distracted by it all as he feels. 

“No. Something I noticed, is all.”

“I don’t get why you didn’t tell me the first time it happened,” he confesses, voice dropping to a murmur. 

“Um… remember senior year, you kept missing class because you had all those doctors appointments?” You smile sheepishly. “‘N’ you didn’t tell me about it until after you knew you were okay?”

During his first senior year, Eddie found a small cyst in his arm. Small compared to other cysts, large in his arm. He worried it was malicious, or rather Wayne worried and Eddie didn’t know what he thought about it until after they’d cut it out. It had been a thankfully speedy affair in a doctors office they couldn’t afford. Eddie didn’t tell you about it until he’d been all stitched up and tested — he tried, but then he would imagine the look on your face when he did, and it made him feel like his intestines had learned to jump rope. 

He still remembers when he finally told you, the split second between, “a tumour,” and “but it’s not cancer.” The relief on your face. The shock of upset tears it caused. 

“I guess I was trying to be good to you,” you say, shrugging and starting down the stairs.

Eddie follows. “If something like that happened again to me, god forbid,” —he dips into a melodramatic voice, scared of the sombre mood that’s descended— “I wouldn’t keep it to myself. I’d make it your problem instantly.” 

Every now and then, Wayne will lean over the back of Eddie’s chair at the breakfast table and grab an arm, feeling for a tiny bump that hasn’t come back. You’d done the same in your own way: you wrote ‘check for lesions :D’ on a piece of paper and taped it to his bedroom doorway. It fell off ages ago, but he occasionally gets déjà vu as he leaves the room. And as he walks down the hallway, he’ll roll up his sleeve and check that there's nothing there.

Eddie didn’t tell you senior year. A lingering abandonment issue, maybe, ‘cause Dad didn’t stay when things got hard, who cares? He doesn’t think about that shit anymore. Figures the mark it left was enough. But these days, he’d tell you if he found a lump in his arm, or a ghost in his room. Your scribbled note made sure of that. 

"Are you listening to me?" he asks. 

"You'd make it my problem," you provide. "Tell me something I don't know." 

He grabs you by the shoulders at the bottom of the stairs and blows into your ear. 

With the lights on and the radio at a low volume, the rain outside doesn't seem nearly as imposing. The kitchen is small with a long strip light above that gives the room a near clinical white cast, the countertops shining clean, not a plate in the sink. It's evident how much time you don't spend here. No photos on the fridge, no salt or pepper shakers on the table. Where Eddie and Wayne have their insane mug collection made up of states and hours and way too much money in some cases, you have four black coffee mugs in a tower stack by the seldom used machine. Where they have a corkboard of photographs, Polaroids and printouts from Walmart off of rinky-dink digital cameras, you have one photo on the wall, a professionally done portrait of you from the day you graduated and Eddie, unfortunately, did not. 

Eddie's grad pictures are much less robotic. Too much eyeliner but just enough you, he has his arm thrown over your shoulders in the back of a grungy restaurant, his smile blisteringly bright. He might as well have written 'Thank Fuck' across his forehead. There's another one of him and Hellfire Club at the time, blurry with the flash making him pale as snow. You and Wayne had been trying to make the camera focus, twin scowls on your faces. Eddie's expression was one of pure joy. 

He tried to make up for your shitty grad pics by celebrating your first job with a pack of Polaroids. You'd looked adorably strange in the uniform, so young but so done with his shit, eighteen and exhausted. He keeps one in his room in the bottom of the box with all his rings and chains. If you ever found it, he'd think about drowning himself. 

Your appointment with a ghost waits until after dinner. You pull your frozen pizzas out of their boxes and put them in the oven (you don't preheat, which Eddie thinks is a questionable choice, but he'd help you get away with murder). While they defrost and start to cook, you slice and dice your extra toppings on the wooden chopping board beside the stovetop. He stands there with his hands washed and nothing to do. Just watches you cut up jalapeños for him and thinks about how he's going to take care of you if the ghost doesn't speak up. Does he tell your guardian? You're an adult. All your healthcare would be private and confidential. Could he tell Wayne? Would that be a betrayal? 

"Check the pizzas?" You scrape the seeds out of a jalapeño, eyes pinched in concentration. 

Eddie doesn't know if he can eat. You aren't as out of it as you were at the store, but you aren't fully present. A song you love plays on the radio and it's like you don't hear it. 

He pulls the pizzas from the oven. He makes a smiley face out of pepperoni and jalapeños, earning half as big a smile as he thought he would from you in response. 

Together, you clean the small mess you made. The pizzas brown. When they're done you take them out, cut them up, plate them, and carry them up to your room on a tray with a two litre bottle of sprite and two plastic cups. Eddie changes into a pair of his pyjama pants that you keep at the bottom of your dresser before he sits on your bed, wide-eyed when he sees how many slices you've managed in his absence. 

"Nobody's gonna take it away from you," he teases lightly. 

"Can't be too careful 'round you," you say, dropping a crust onto his plate. It's his favourite part. 

"Thought you wanted fries?" 

"And I thought you wanted a side salad." 

"I wanted snow cone syrup," he says, shrugging. 

He considers offering to go make you some fries anyway, but he takes a big bite of pizza and it tastes so good he forgets about it. Eddie doesn't know nothing about nothing, but if he had a say, he'd make it so that he and you could spend the rest of your lives doing this, meaningless jabbering over greasy food. It's not a good idea —you need vegetables that aren't on pizza, and fresh grains, and who knows what else to stay healthy— but Eddie's never claimed he had them. He wants this. 

He gets it most of the time, but he's selfish. He wants it every night. He loves Wayne but he wants to come home to you, or to have you come home to him, in a space that you decorated, a life that you made. He wants a dog and a pet fish and, in five years or ten or never, a baby if it's what you want too. A front door lined with three pairs of shoes. 

He also wants a limousine that takes him from place to place and a room full of thousand dollar guitars. A man can dream. 

The first port of call for any dream is making sure you're okay. Let the ghostly stakeout begin. 

Sated and sick at once, Eddie puts your empty tray on the dresser and goes to turn on the TV. "She won't talk if the TV's on," you interrupt.

"Ugh. Any chance she likes the stereo?" 

You slouch down where you'd been sitting and shake your head. Your jaw goes soft, eyes softer when you smile. "It's not all bad. She doesn't care how loud you turn a page." 

Eddie can't be with you every second of the day, the same way you can't be with him. There are shifts to take, shifts to cover, dungeons to pilfer and dragons to slay. You have your job, your other friends (none as handsome as he is), your hobbies. How often are you home alone, talking to ghosts? 

He stands by your bookshelf, eyes skipping over the titles in slight disinterest. 

"Hey," he asks, "where's your notebook? I wanna see her handwriting." 

"I left it on the top shelf." 

Eddie stares. There are a few other notebooks and sketchbooks aligned here, but not the one you'd described. 

"You sure?" he asks. 

"I left it right there,” you say with a yawn.

Eddie looks at you from over his shoulder. You’re tired. He figures he can see the notebook later, and offer you some remedial comfort now. Anything to wipe the frown off of your face. 

He grabs a book off of your shelf at random and cracks it open. You love being read to. You'd beg and beg him growing up, and he'd almost always oblige. 

"Can I read aloud, or does she hate that too?" he asks, turning away from your shelf. 

"I've never tried it." 

"I'll do it quietly?" 

"Sure," you say, a tired but pleased smile on your lips. "I've read that one before." 

"Should I get a different one?" 

"No, it's good. It's the one I told you about with the demons who eat stars." 

"The dirty one?" he asks, dropping like a stone near the top of your bed, the blankets under his hip warm from the residual heat of the pizza plates.

"It's not dirty. There's one scene toward the end where they get handsy, no graphic detail."

"And by no graphic detail, you mean…" 

"No graphic detail," you repeat. It's awful how funny you find each other. 

"Not even, like… hand stuff?" 

"Do you want there to be hand stuff?" 

"With the demons?" 

You devolve into giggles, the kind that start slow and thicken into a giddy sort of breathlessness, your head supported by the headboard. Eddie looks up at you in awe.

"I could be into that," Eddie furthers, stretching your laughter as long as it will go. "Are they the kind that look like people but with extra arms or wings or something?" 

"You'd like that, huh? Extra arms?" 

"I wouldn't be opposed to extra arms."

"Gross," you cheer through another wave of laughter. "I don't wanna think about it." 

Eddie looks to the book's first page and tamps down a grimace. You don't wanna think about him in that sort of position. 

Eddie, excluding any extra appendages, thinks of you like that more than he should. Never when you're near, not if he can help it, but at night when the hot shower water beating down against his back can be shaped into the vague sensation of a body behind him, he thinks of your chest. Your hands. Or in the early mornings, when he's writhed into a contortionist’s ball and the streaking sunlight through the curtains is kissing his abdomen, he imagines it's your leg thrown across his hip, with your face turned into his chest. 

Fuck, it kills him, because he knows what the real thing feels like. He's had you clinging to his waist on colder nights, and he's been under your hands. Tipsy, free with your touches, he's felt the breadth of your palms cupping his cheeks. 

You're pretty, you'd told him, as you love to tell him when you've been drinking, but you need a haircut. 

He never would've let you kiss him in that state, but he kids himself into thinking you wanted to. It was only booze doing what booze does. 

"Read to me, serf," you demand. 

Eddie clears his throat. 

"The enemy is close," Eddie reads, "and the lane is overrun. Sympathy for the second kind had felt natural to Mellissa once, but now that she sees the sharp angling of their shoulders in the dawn light, she aches with hatred…"

The novel isn't bad. It isn't Eddie's favourite; the tone falls flat, and the main character's actions aren't fed by any particular emotion. Its first arc is formulaic, and soon the hero's forced to answer the call. You evidently find his rehashing tedious, as your head tips toward his head, and you wriggle your way down to his shoulder amicably. 

"Don't fall asleep," he says. 

"It's your whispering." 

"I don't want to disturb the ghost." 

"Okay." You start to pick at your nails, little scratches against the cuticle. "I won't fall asleep." 

— 

Your snores aren't gentle. You're a human being and Eddie doesn't expect you to breathe like a princess, but the wheeze is concerning. 

He waits for you to settle down, easing your head onto the pillow. Your airway clears, and your snoring quietens to the same ambient level as the rain hitting the window outside. He feels your head for a temperature carefully. Back of his hand, fingers curled in so his ring can't startle you, he tries to gauge if you're running a fever. 

It isn't normal for you to cat nap in the middle of the day, but the sun is occluded by dark clouds and the rain blots out what's left, leaving the bedroom in darkness, and you'd been warm and fed and Eddie had been doing something monotonous. It makes sense that you'd drifted off. Eddie wishes he felt tired too, so he could slide down under the sheets with you and curl a hand around your wrist. 

He lies on his back, arms crossed over his chest, straining his ears for the sound of a voice. 

I swear, sometimes, I can hear someone talking.

You have a vent in your room, and perhaps a couple of late nights after your shifts had you mistaking a groaning foundation or the wind for a whisper. That's a thing, right? People hear something in the wind. Fatigue has your mind playing tricks on you. Eddie should go to the library and see if they have anything to do with sleep deprivation. 

It's no fun listening for ghosts. Eddie's shoulders and upper back begin to feel tense. The feeling travels lower, a snaking ache that wraps around each vertebrae. Even his tailbone hurts. 

He shifts onto his side and stares at your closed eyes. He blows a breath at you to watch your lashes flutter like tufts of grass in the breeze. 

Your breaths are like a metronome. He syncs his to yours for kicks, just listening. When you're both asleep, does your breath sync on its own? How do your bodies react to each other? Eddie has woken up to your arms around him or your body halfway across the bed, leg falling out from under the covers. You're irregular, where he has a tendency to grab at you while he's knocked out. He doesn't wrap his arms around you so much as hold you in his hands. His fingers curl in the hem of your t-shirts or bracelet your bicep. If he falls asleep with an arm above your head, he'll occasionally wake to find his hand at the top of it, your hair mussed. 

He must be stroking it in his sleep. 

Or maybe you're frizzy. 

No shame in frizziness. Eddie's frizzy more often than not. Curly hair is hard to take care of and he has a lot of it. God knows it was worse before he started seeing that hairdresser in the city who makes magic happen with her thinning shears. 

Your lips part. 

Thunder cracks outside. 

Eddie lifts his head to look out of the window in surprise. Summer days have come to pass and sunset comes earlier in the day, fractals of light bouncing between the violent rain. In an hour or two, it will be pitch black outside. 

He should call Wayne and see what's happening. How he is, and if he thinks Eddie should come home and bring you, too. 

Eddie clambers off of the bed, careful not to wake you. He slides across your hardwood floor and takes the empty dinner tray with him down the spongy carpeting of your stairs, back to hardwood in the hallway, and finally onto the freezing cold linoleum of your kitchen. 

He locates the source of chill quickly. The window in front of the sink has unlatched. It's the thing you call him over for most; when you want to hang out you go to Eddie's, when the window won't close Eddie comes here. 

His shirt hikes as he leans against the sink, his abdomen pressed to the cold countertop as he yanks the window and twists the handle the wrong way, goosebumps climbing his arms. It groans in resistance, but Eddie knows from experience that it’ll stay closed for a while. 

He takes the liberty of turning your thermostat up as he waits for Wayne to answer the phone, coiled cord pulled taut.

Wayne isn't too bothered by the weather, "It's not a hurricane. A storm, sure– you'll be fine. But by all means, come home if you're scared."

"I'm not scared, jerk, I'm concerned." 

He winds the cord around his arm, leaning in when Wayne's voice is hard to hear like it'll make a difference. 

"...might go out," Wayne's saying, "call me, or call around Roger's… get back to… warm." 

"Where the fuck are you? I can't hear a thing you're saying." 

"Don't cuss at me. I'm with Roger, that's why I said to call Roger if I don't answer, he has that new pool table…" Anything Wayne says after that is garbled, like he has a hand pressed over his mouth.  

“I thought Roger had a broken leg?” Eddie says. “How’s he getting around?”

“He hops. I left money in the bread bin for you, did you see it?”

“No, I didn’t see it. Wayne, we’ve talked about this before, I’m working. I appreciate it, I do, but I don’t need you giving me money.”

Whatever Wayne says at first gets eaten by static. Eddie doesn’t know if it’s your phone or the Munson’s. He doesn’t need to hear what Wayne’s saying to get the general gist of it. “…water bill..”

This again? Eddie paid the water bill. He thought he’d be allowed to do that, considering he uses the majority of the water, but it’s been a great point of contention between them.

“I’m sorry!” he says. “If I knew it would bother you so bad I wouldn’t have done it. But I don’t want it back, I’m not a kid anymore, half the time you don’t let me pay for groceries–”

“This might shock you, son, but I’ve been paying for you to eat for a decade. I ever complained? No, ‘cause it’s my job, and I don’t want you thinking any…” the words scratch out. Eddie guesses what he’s saying. 

The broken phone is starting to irritate him. 

He holds in his argument. Call it respect, love, whatever you want. “I’m not saying that! Listen,” —Eddie laughs to himself, words wrought with it like bubbles— “you’re senile.”

“You weasel–” The phone gives up. Whooshing air is all Eddie hears. 

"I can't deal with this. I love you, I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" Eddie asks, rubbing the space between his eyebrows. 

"Yeah, love you too, kid. Eddie–" 

He doesn't catch the end of Wayne's sentence. The line goes dead. He pulls the shiny receiver from his ear and frowns at it. 

Wayne was probably just telling Roger and the guys what Eddie was up to. Or what he thinks Eddie's up to, at least. Eddie told him via note that you wanted help rearranging your bedroom furniture. A small lie, but he didn't want to expose you to any outward judgement until he's sure himself what's going on. 

Eddie hangs the phone on the hook. He grabs your plates, throwing the meagre leftovers in the trash and dumping the plates in the sink. He turns on the hot faucet and grabs a sponge and the dish soap and gets to work cleaning. It takes him all of five minutes, and he's oh so smug about being a decent person that he doesn't notice the chill. 

He dries the plates and puts them in the cabinet across the room with his back to the sink. The dishes clatter together loudly, like a gunshot in the silence. He winces internally and tries to be gentler closing the cabinet door.

The hum of the kitchen light catches his attention. He looks up, unsurprised to find a bug crawling inside of the plastic covering that shields the long bulb. A moth, Eddie thinks, it's fuzz silhouetted in shadow. He doesn't really like moths, but he also doesn't wanna watch one die. 

The rain seems worse when he turns off the light. Your kitchen faces out into the backyard, and through the night Eddie can see the house that's behind yours with its porch lights on. It turns the rain to quicksilver, and provides just enough illumination for Eddie to look up at the kitchen light and know what he's doing. 

He drags a chair to the middle of the room and steps onto it. It's disturbingly slippery. Thankfully, Eddie doesn't plan on doing any acrobatics. He reaches up to the warm plastic light covering and feels along for the ridges to pry it off. One ridge clicks off, and another. He leans precariously toward the other side and feels for the third and forth ridge when thunder rumbles outside, and somewhere in the distance lightning flashes. 

Eddie flinches but doesn't fall. "Fuck," he mumbles. Pussy. 

The plastic falls into his hands and Eddie climbs off of the chair as quickly as he can. It's too hot to handle, banging against the kitchen table as he chucks it down. He'd turned off the light thinking the plastic would cool down fast, and he’d been proven very wrong.

"Shit," he mumbles some more. Your neighbour's porch light turns off, leaving him in total darkness. 

Eddie’s hand aches from his mild burn. It's like whenever he has to wash the frying pan at home, he forgets that while cold water might cool the pan itself, the slim piece of metal that connects the dish to the handle stays hot. He's burned himself so many times on that fucker– 

Lightning flashes again. 

There's someone standing in your yard. 

The second he notices the figure, it lunges left.

Eddie stands frozen on the spot, unsure if he should approach the window to get a better look, or if he should move backward and away from the potential harm. 

He takes a step forward. Mind in a numb state of thoughtlessness, he walks to your sink and stands there silently, looking into the grass and trees for any hint of irregular movement. 

Tree branches rail in the wind and rain. Eddie leans further forward. 

A third flash of lighting comes, and it must have struck close by, as the light it gives off is long and bright. He gets a clear look at the yard and the image of his own reflection in the glass. No dark figure in the tall grass toward the fence, no heinous murderer trying the back door. 

It’s dark again. Eddie puts a hand over the racing pulse of his heart. Fuck, he thinks. I’m seeing things. He’s on edge ‘cause of your fucking ghost, and it’s not your fault but he wonders if maybe loving you is making him tired. He regrets it as soon as he thinks it, what does that even mean? He’s loved you for years. It has never felt like a chore. But… tired. He’s tired. Pining for someone you already have, just not in the way that you want, is exhausting. It’s not your fault and it doesn’t change the fact that he’s exhausted. Today has been a long day. 

He scrubs his eyes with his palms until they burn and lifts his head. 

There’s a girl on the other side of the glass. 

Eddie startles, startles again when he realises she’s not on the other side at all, she’s behind him, outfitted in white like an apparition, like an angel. She’s inside the house, ten feet away in the doorway. 

His neck cracks with the force of his turn. 

“Sorry,” you say, taking a step back into the hall. “I thought you heard me.”

“Oh, shit.” 

You’ve turned the light on in the hall. Eddie turns back to the window and sees your reflection again, no angels and no apparitions. You’re just a girl. 

He half turns and gets stuck like that, hand braced against his eyes, torso pitching forward. “Shit,” he mutters. 

“Are you okay?”

Eddie laughs. “You surprised me. I’m fine,” he assures you, though he takes his time standing at full height. How can such a small scare feel like a marathon? “Creep, who fucking does that?”

“You were totally spaced, dude, don’t blame me,” you say, holding your hands up in mock surrender. 

“I do blame you. I hope you feel blamed. Fucking fuck, that got me.”

“I wasn’t being quiet. I yelled. You didn’t hear me?”

He can’t stop the dubiety that warps his face. “No? What’s your definition of yelling? ‘Eddie?’” he imitates you, tossing his own name into the dark kitchen. “Unbelievable.”

“What were you looking at?” you ask, nodding at the window. 

“Lightning.”

“That why you’re in the dark? Or have I interrupted something?”

“‘M moonlighting as a serial killer.” He grins at you. “Got me.”

You lean against the wall next to the light switch and turn it on, exposing the chair shy of his leg and the plastic cover from your light on the table.

“What the–”

“I’m doing a good deed. Or, I was. There was a moth at one point." 

You help Eddie clip the light back into place. He climbs back on the chair and you hug his legs to make sure he doesn’t fall either way, arms encircling his thighs and your face pressed comfortably to his stomach. Your cheek flush with the naked stretch of his stomach, his shirt hiked up as he struggles to finish what he started, he explains the moth, who, for lack of an escape, has probably found a home in your curtains or your coat rack. You laugh at his softness.

Back upstairs, you won’t let him read to you again, and the ghost monitoring continues on. Eventually, you both get bored and turn on the TV. Eddie forgets his fright, you forget your haunted house, and the night ends. You fall asleep against his shoulder, drool leaking from the corner of your mouth. He pushes you gently down into your pillow, and goes to brush his teeth with a snort. 

Eddie wakes in the morning with a crick in his neck. He feels better, having slept. All his monstrous yearning has fizzled out overnight, and he’s glad to find that the damp circle of dribble under your cheek isn’t cute, it’s gross. (Okay, it’s a little cute. He’s only human.) 

The window brags an end to the extreme weather. Rain nor shine reaches through your drapes; the morning looks mundane. He kicks your shin ‘by accident’ and waits for you to rouse, keeping a safe distance. He doesn’t wanna get his morning breath all over you. That would be inhumane. 

“Ouch,” you croak.

“It wasn’t that hard.” His voice is as rough as yours. 

“Not your kick,” you moan. “My throat.”

“You’ve been drooling again.”

You cover your face sluggishly and your pinky must feel the wet spot staining your pillow. 

“It’s embarrassing.” You dig your heels in at the bottom of the bed and pull your head off of the pillow so you can grab it and throw it out of view. Once it’s bashed against your mirror with a concerning glass sound, you pull the blankets over your face and sigh. “I’ll be here forever, if you need me.”

“Could be worse,” he says lightly. “Imagine waking up with a stiffy.”

“Did you–?” you ask, like you’re terrified to know but couldn’t not inquire. 

“No, but I have. You know I have.”

“True. That is… unfortunately awkward.”

“‘Xactly. Don’t feel weird about your spit.”

You don’t feel as bad as you pretend. Sure, it’s embarrassing. So is puking in your lap at the movies, or ripping your pants climbing over the fence into the woods by Forest Hills, or getting fired after two weeks from the Palace Arcade because the manager didn’t like your ‘general demeanour and/or presence’, all of which he’s done and you’ve been a witness to. He thinks you might be impervious to humiliation as long as you’re together. 

Eddie pulls the blankets over his head, pleased that the morning light reaches you even here. You’re curled on your side underneath them, bleary eyes meeting his from across the small stretch of mattress. You hadn’t touched him once while you slept. 

“I don’t remember falling asleep,” you say quietly. 

“We watched Poltergeist. You fell asleep with twenty minutes left.”

“Can you blame me? Snore.”

“You wanted to watch it.”

“It’s the only movie I own that has a ghost.”

You share a silent look. Eddie tries to keep a straight face and ultimately fails, his laugh roaring. You join in, half reluctant and half delirious in your fatigue. Your sleep-swollen eyes close like you can’t keep them open anymore. 

He stays under the sheets stealing looks at you for as long as he can, despite the building, smothering warmth. The day passes with much of the same. 

—

When you first started working at Leaven, Eddie called you a traitor. He said you’d made it impossible for him to show his face in Bradley’s. He’d been joking — the prices at Leaven are ridiculous, and completely out of the average joe’s budget. Bradley’s remains your go to for everything. He’s come around these days — he likes the fancy soups and admits Leaven’s has the best fresh fruit.

Despite the rich old women who frequent and make your workdays… less than ideal, you like working at Leaven. Your days consist almost exclusively of stacking shelves, but occasionally they chuck you on checkout and you get to sit in a padded chair for ten hours. You’re basically living the American dream. 

Working here has introduced a special brand of monotony to your life. It’s very, very quiet, and that’s how you like it. But there’s something to be said for noise, for Eddie and Wayne’s noise specifically. You like going there after work to shock your body back into the real world. Here’s sound. Here’s life. Here’s love. 

You’re scanning a bag of ‘holistic’ lemons when you notice Eddie lingering toward the front of the store a mere twenty feet away. You don’t wave at him, lest your customer think they aren’t the sparkling apple of your eye and report you to the manager, but you nod jerkily, hoping he takes it for ‘I see you’. He smiles and points his thumb toward the store’s cafe.

When your arms are numb from another twenty minutes of scanning and typing in coupon codes for people who don’t need coupons, you shut down your register and lock it all tight. You take your lunch break early, and thankfully there’s nobody in the cafe to yell at you for being unprofessional. 

You waltz over to Eddie sitting at the back next to the huge glass windows and prop your lunch bag against the coke bottle he’s opened. “Hello, handsome,” you say. 

“Hey, beautiful.”

“You want half of a turkey sandwich?”

He beams at you, kicking your chair out so you can sit. “Nooo, I brought you a hot dog.”

“Oh, gross. Give it to me right now.”

You know he made it at home before he’s even pulled the foil wrapped package from his bag. Eddie makes the best hot dogs ever. Fancy brioche buns, caramelised onions and a mixture of sauces on the world's worst meat. They make you queasy and they might be one of your favourite foods. You open it, delighting in its retained heat. 

His wrist is shiny. You put your hotdog down to grab his arm and bring it closer to your face. He’s wearing a simple tennis chain with black gems like a rich girl. “What is this?” you murmur, pleased to see him wearing something nice. 

“You like that? It was thirty four dollars from a magazine.”

 “I love it. What’s the occasion?”

“My mom’s birthday.” He fishes his own hotdog from his bag and slaps it down in front of yours. You take a huge bite, and can’t answer him when he asks, “Is that really weird, buying myself something when it’s a day about her?”

You steal a swig of his coke and wince the entire time. “Sorry.” You cough. “No, that’s not weird, Eddie. Wanting to buy yourself something nice is a good way of dealing with a shitty day. A day that makes you feel shitty,” you amend. 

“Maybe I should’ve got her a big bouquet of flowers or something.”

“You can still get her flowers.”

“Yeah.”

You take another bite of your hot dog and slip away to get a bottle of water from the cafe. You feel like an asshole for not hugging him. When you return Eddie’s already polished off his hot dog, and has moved onto one half of your turkey sandwich. 

“Are you gonna be weird about it if I hug you?” you ask him genuinely. 

“No.” He puts down the sandwich. “I don’t know. Maybe. I want one, though.”

You wipe your hands in a napkin showfully before approaching his chair. You slide a knee next to his thigh and wrap your arms around his head, a hand between his shoulder blades and the other pulling his face to your chest. You have to slouch. It's not entirely comfortable but it doesn't feel awkward, so you take the win. 

"I'm sorry, Eddie," you say quietly. You think about kissing his head. 

"Me too." 

There's a moment in there where you feel a nasty emotion brewing, sadness and much worse. You know that the gutted pain aching through you right now is nothing compared to what Eddie feels. That loss. 

It must feel so, so heavy. 

You pet his neck affectionately. Your nose dips into his hair, the tip touching his scalp. Your hands come up, like trying to hold water as it trickles between your fingers, Eddie's slipping. You grapple to keep him with you. 

"I love you," you say honestly. He's your best friend.

Eddie pats your back. "I love you too, loser." 

"You're my best friend." 

I would fucking think so, he'd say. 

"You're mine," he says. 

You smile and give him a good squeeze. When you pull away he doesn't look as odd as he had, relaxing against the hard-backed wood of the cafe chair as he tucks his hair behind his ear. He holds your gaze without any weight to it. You sit in your own uncomfortable chair and lean forward to compensate for the space between you, like two slanting trees in the wind, parallel but untouching.

"It's a really nice bracelet," you say. 

"She'd like it, I think." 

You don't know anything about Eddie's mom. She isn't someone he's ever been able to talk about with you. You can't remember the photographs you'd seen once upon a time, but you remember having the distinct thought that Eddie looked more like her than his dad or his uncle Wayne. She'd been beautiful, and her life couldn't be more starkly mourned. 

"I'm sure she would. It's pretty." 

His mouth wobbles. You're horrified for a moment, thinking he might burst into tears, but it's laughter he's chasing, and his little giggle is like a beam of sunlight. "Sorry," he says. Laughter doesn't seem like a good enough word to describe the sounds he's making, such understated, small curls of sound. Fleeting, golden. "She would've liked you, too. She would've loved you." 

"That's a good thing?" you check, cautious that he might be on the precipice of a nervous breakdown. 

"Yeah, that's a good thing. Is it ever bad? To be loved?" he asks.

He's teasing, but it feels like he's asking you something else.  

"You could be a stalker, with that logic." 

And there you go, ruining a moment with a shitty joke because you're too much of a coward to ask questions when you don't know the answer. 

Eddie grabs his coke, tipping his head back as he says, "Who says I'm not a stalker already?" 

Funny how the subtext of a conversation can contain magnitudes for one party and not the other. You worry you're in love with your best friend. He sips at coke and threatens perversion. 

"You're definitely a stalker. You couldn't wait a couple hours to see me tonight?" 

"I didn't realise I would be seeing you tonight," Eddie says, lifting his brows. 

"Oh. I asked, didn't I?" 

Eddie shakes his head. "Are you sure? I don't remember you asking, babe, I'm supposed to go play at Gareth's." 

Babe is his funniest pet name, in your opinion. It doesn't suit you, or him, but it feels good anyhow. Like you're a babe, supermodel pretty for TV or magazine spreads, long legs and not a single wrinkle that isn't marring the paper itself. 

"Bummer for me," you say lightly. "What are you doing, Dio tributes again?" 

"Don't say tributes like that, like we're out sacrificing goats in studded jackets." 

"That's a good image." You laugh. "That's funny." 

"I don't know. He wanted to try something he wrote. Invited Jeff and Jamison. Band's back together." 

"I'll get out my t-shirts." 

You have all the corny classics; I'm with the band; I'm with the guitarist; a Corroded Coffin faux tour shirt, different Hawkins locations written in typeset sharpie on the back. When you made it, Eddie had been wearing the t-shirt and the ink leaked through. He had 'Lover's Lake, Nov 18' between his shoulder blades and 'The Hideout, May 22' over his tailbone for a week. By day three the words had become illegible but you'd known them anyway, in the same way you knew the dots between the letters H and I were freckles rather than ink spots. You've always looked at him more than you should. 

"I could cancel." 

You and Eddie experience the natural ups and downs of friendship, or rather the ebb and flow. You know you come back together eventually if you get too far apart, and there hasn't been a time since you met him where you were worried about the permanence of your relationship. You're human, and you get insecure about it anyway, but then he says stuff like that and you're confronted with how close you are. He puts you first. He has other friends, other healthy friendships and a life outside of you, but you still get to be a huge and important part of the majority, and that is more than enough. (It should be more than enough. Some days it is.) 

"Now why would you do a thing like that?" you ask, sarcastic but soft. "You know they sound shit without you." 

"I don't like knowing you're alone." 

"I'm not lonely," you say. Truth or lie. 

"That's not what I said." Eddie's eyes narrow.

"It's stupid to worry about me, I always lock the doors. I lock the windows, even the ones upstairs. I don't think I'm gonna fall victim to a home invasion anytime soon." 

"I don't think many people think they're gonna be in home invasions until their homes actually get invaded. And it's not really what I'm worried about." 

"Do you ever think that we worry too much?" 

"Yes. We worry constantly. It's, like, our parasitic relationship with each other." 

"Like a tapeworm," you agree solemnly. 

"Exactly. I'm your tapeworm. And I'm worried about you."

"Can tapeworms worry?" you ask. 

Eddie kicks you mildly. "I don't know? I don't think tapeworms have a level of consciousness beyond what's needed for them to survive. They probably think about eating and parasitizing and that's it. Don't make me ask, please." 

You take a pull of your drink to prolong the inevitable. "Ask about what?"

"Your ghost." 

"Ah."

Eddie waits. 

You sigh again. "Look, I don't even know if she is a ghost, I probably just imagined it." 

He pulls himself forward and there's the weight you'd be waiting for, sternness marked into his face one feature at a time. "Liar." 

"What?" 

"You're lying. You don't think you imagined it." He looks you up and down. “You think I don't know when you're lying?" 

"I'm not lying," you lie. 

"You are. I know you are," he says, smiling despite the point he's making. "I know what you look like when you do." 

"What do I look like?" 

"I can't tell you, you might change it, and then I won't know when I'm supposed to look out for you 'cause you never tell me anything." 

"I don't want to talk about the ghost." 

"Why not?" 

"Because you don't believe me," you say too loudly. 

Eddie reaches across the table but doesn't touch your hand. He puts his palm down and leans ever forward, says, "Hey, I do." 

"No, you don't, you think there's something happening to me." 

"What would you think, if it were me?" he asks, frustration seeping in. "Try and see it from how I'm seeing it." 

"If it were you'd I'd believe you because you needed me to." 

You cringe at yourself and veer back into your chair, shoving your hands between your thighs and clamping your legs closed. Your fingers turn numb. 

Eddie doesn't look shocked, exactly. Surprised that you're talking to him unkindly, sure, and concerned. 

This whole situation is ill-fated, you know that. What good can come of a ghost? Hooks from the past. "I never should have told you," you say quietly. 

"Did you tell me?" Eddie asks, speaking with an anger that forms each word like a cut, clean and hurting. "You won't tell me anything. You tell me she talks to you, that she asks you about me. But you won't say what she says, exactly, and you have nothing to show for it. Your notebook conveniently disappeared. I can’t hear her."

He thinks you're making it up. 

Fuck. He thinks you're making it up. Eddie thinks you're lying to him, and while it hurts like a sharp kick to the solar plexus, a flooring, winding pain, it's the embarrassment that has tears glowing along your last line. If he really believes you'd make something up like this for attention, what does he think of you? That you're some silly leech clinging to him through bad lies? That you're bored? That this is a game you're playing with him? 

Your heart beats hard enough that you can feel it in your chest. Your hands shake with anger and hurt at once, your leg bouncing under the table in an attempt to keep the rush of it at bay. You look at Eddie with your lips parted, trying to say what you mean and not what you feel. You want to say something scathing, and you don't want to be cruel, and these are two facts existing at the same time. 

Eddie has other ideas. He sees your eyes turn glassy, he must, because his anger drains and he turns sorry and soft. It reminds you of a different moment like a film cell played overtop, of a younger, remorseful him. The expression he makes when he's just popped you in the mouth wrestling, or burned behind your ear with the hair iron. An accident. 

"I'm sorry," he says. Sheepish, gentle, sincere, embarrassed, too many threads of emotion to summarise with one word. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry. Don't cry." 

"Fuck off," you mumble, looking down at your bouncing leg. You push your hand against it, forcing it to lay still. 

"I didn't mean it." 

"Stop, Eddie." 

"I'm just hurt you're not telling me everything and I'm acting like an asshole 'cause I'm a big baby," he says, two shades from frantic. 

A tear rolls down your cheek. You thought for sure you'd escaped them, but it had already welled, and with nowhere to go it races down your cheek. You paw at it and hope he won't see it. 

He does. 

Eddie's chair screeches across the floor as he stands up. You know he'll hug you before he's touched you. Same way you know he's freaking out on the inside, allergic to girl tears.  

His hands take to your shoulders, hesitating there, and one slides behind your neck so his forearm presses against both shoulder blades. His lips ghost warmly over your forehead as he leans in. His other hand meanders, braceleting the top of your arm and running downward before swiftly changing paths to flatten out against the small of your back. 

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, rubbing your back.

His tender hug exacerbates the hurt, like an exsanguination. You cry as quietly as you can manage and Eddie feels it under his hands, the two of you condensed at the back of an empty room. You forget where you are, what you're wearing, what you've been fighting about. What he said. You realise how badly you'd needed him to comfort you lately, and hate yourself for giving in.

He shushes you so quietly you think you might have imagined it. 

Or maybe it was your ghost. 

"I'm sorry," he says, his breath kissing your scalp. "I'm a dick." 

"It's fine," you say. You despise yourself for how weak you sound. 

"It's not fine." 

"I wanted to stay because it's getting worse," you tell him. You don't mean to. 

"Okay. Okay. Then you'll stay. It's no biggie." 

"It's worse," you say, turning your face into his chest. 

You're shaking hard. Eddie can't make it stop no matter how tightly he holds you. 

"I'm sorry," he says again. 

He doesn't have to be. If he was acting out, fine. If he does or doesn't believe you, fine. You don't need him to see ghosts, or apologise that he can't. 

"I just didn't want to do it by myself," you confess, at the very pit of pathetic. You hope he won't hear. Your growing panic about the ghost is a secret you hadn’t meant to tell.

Eddie pulls away. He looks down at you, and if he wanted to he could kiss you, his lips are that close, but he widens the distance. He takes your face into his hands, calluses rough against your tacky cheeks. 

"You think I'm gonna let you? I know I'm fucking it up royally right now, I know I'm an asshole, but I'm not fucking going anywhere, okay? Don't worry. Don't worry about it." He drops his hands to your shoulders. "I'm your parasite, right? Do you know how hard it is to get rid of a parasite? Sometimes they have to pull them out, and they're excruciatingly long, it's a process you don't wanna go through–" 

You laugh wetly. Eddie promptly stops talking about parasites. 

"Forgive me?" he asks. 

You nod on automatic. Of course you do. 

"I swear she's real," you say, rubbing your forehead with the meat of your thumb. You think she’s real, but the truth is that you just don’t know. You amend quickly, "I swear I'm not lying. I am hearing someone… even if she's not real." 

Eddie frowns. "I know. I believe you." 

That's when the real trouble begins.

—

Eddie wants to hold your hand desperately. You're wearing your nicest dress, split hem sewn with infinite care, and your dress shoes with the tiny heels. He doesn't get to see you like this very often, and he wishes it were a better occasion. 

You've had your hair down at the hair stylists in the city, you're wearing concealer. You've done everything you can to look presentable. You look beautiful. He hopes you know that, at least. 

You heave a sigh. You're as anxious as Eddie is to get this over with. 

“You remember Hawk?” he asks you. 

“Jack 'Hawk'?” you ask. 

“Yeah, Hawk.”

“He’d come around for green?” you ask. 

“Yeah, that’s the one. Alright. So, when you were on vacation last summer, Hawk knocked on the door, I answered. I’m straight, right? Haven’t sold anything in years, no plans on selling again. But Jack barrels up the steps and starts going on like I promised him something. I said, dude, I don't deal anymore, and could you possibly shut the fuck up? Wayne’s inside making milkshakes. Blender on, couldn’t hear us but I’m sweating bullets.

“Jack, fucker, starts begging.” Eddie leans into your shoulder, hushed. “He’s saying c’mon Munson, I know you got some, don’t you have a personal stash? I’m desperate.” He picks a piece of hair off of your sleeve. “I didn’t, obviously, and I told him that but he’s not listening to me, he’s getting all wild-eyed and fucking wound like he needs the hard shit. I’m just trying to get rid of him at that point, I don’t know if he was tweaking but he looked like he was going to hit me and I wasn’t interested in fighting.” He laughs, encouraging a smile from you. “Wayne’s inside making milkshakes. Full fat with vanilla extract– I’m not about to take a trip to Hawkins General.”

“What did you do?” you ask. 

“I said to him, even if I did you wouldn’t be getting anything, asshole, and pushed him toward the steps, you know? It felt good, standing up for myself.” 

“And he left?”

“No, he fucking hit me straight in the dick. Can you imagine that? Junk shot on my own front door.”

You gasp with giggly indignation, hanging on his every word now. Eddie knows he’s taken you out of your head, even if it’s temporary.

“He hit you in the dick,” —you whisper ‘dick’ like it’s insidious within these four walls— “‘cause he wanted pot? You should’ve pushed him off of the porch.”

“I would’ve but he fucking winded me.” He starts laughing again, your giggles contagious though you try to smother them with your hand. “It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny at the time.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“He was five foot one. I’ve never felt that humble in my life, I told Wayne I was coming down with something and had the worst afternoon nap ever. Didn’t even get my milkshake.”

“No,” you mumble sympathetically. Your eyes widen. “Eds, I’m sorry, that’s not funny. He assaulted you–”

Eddie waves his hand at you. “He got in a cheap shot. I was fine. I’ll still have kids.”

You snort, “Thanks for the information.”

“I got him back for it, anyway.”

He pretends like that’s the end of that, like the story doesn’t go on and he has nothing to tell you. You wait raptly for him to explain but he gloats, knowing you're hooked. 

You elbow him. 

“What?” he asks. “Oh, you wanna know how I got revenge? You’re evil.”

“Less shame and more story,” you say. 

“Alright. Are you ready? Here’s where it gets complicated.

“I’m at The Hideout listening to that new band that blazed through here a couple of months ago, Board Growth, or something? They’re incredible, the booze is cold, I’m tipsy and Gareth owes me anyway, I’m putting it all on his tab and he, seemingly, isn’t noticing. It’s great. Better if you hadn’t been on vacation again, what the fuck, but it’s good. 

“And there he is. It’s the fucking Hawk. He’s looking down his nose at these young girls smooth-talking them. Or, he’s trying to smooth talk them, but it’s like watching a worm flirt with a praying mantis, okay, we all know who’s gonna lose.” Eddie’s knee rests against yours, your hand is on his thigh, he’s losing the thread of his story fast under the smell of your perfume and hair oil. “I knock back the rest of my drink, slick my hair like I’m James Dean and, in all my drunken intelligence, decide that this is the perfect moment for me to get him back.”

“I wasn’t on vacation.”

“What?”

“I only went once.” You’d gone for two days with some old friends. He remembers now, and rushes to fix the story.

“Why didn’t you come, then?” he asks, flipping the script. “You’re such a flake.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know when this was.”

“Stop bailing on me and ruining my stories,” he says, teasing. 

“Okay, you’re hopped up on liquid courage and about to hit Jack in the dick,” you prompt. 

“Right! I stroll up to Hawk and he’s instantly wriggly like the worm of a guy he is, and I say, hey Hawk, how’s it hanging? 

“Maybe he’s just that stupid or maybe he thinks I’m putting out the olive branch but he actually starts telling me how he’s doing, and I’m looking at these girls as if to say, can you believe this guy? I cut him off, and I’m a loser, I’m not half as cool as I think I am but again I’m slightly incredibly inebriated. I’m making bad decisions.”

“Where’s your cafeteria bravado?” you ask.

“It’s worse than that. Imagine me at my most insufferable. I smile at the girls and I lean into Jack’s space, I’m laughing, I feel bad about what I’m gonna say before I’ve said it but I say it anyways. I lean right into his ear and tell him at full volume how sorry I was to hear about his recent bout of syphilis. I’m just so glad they caught it in time, man,” he says, imitating a past self. 

You open your mouth. “And,’ Eddie says, jumping to finish, “so happy you could keep most of it, buddy.”

“Eddie…”

“I’m a bad person.”

“No,” you mumble, hiding your smile on his shoulder, your forehead a hair’s width from his chin. You’d laugh a storm any other day to make him feel good, whether you think he’s funny or not, but today all you can manage is a hand on his leg. “You’re not a bad person, he deserved it… fucking hit you…”

The story isn’t true. 

He made it up. Right here right now. He just spent five good minutes of your lives spinning an outrageously awful story with poor jokes and one glaring plot hole, for what? 

This is hard. Making you cry, begging you to see what a doctor has to say, playing grown up in a grown ups body. Eddie thought you’d get to be kids forever. He never imagined what would come after school, and then suddenly it is after, and everything’s an ugly boring mess except for you (and Wayne, god bless), and now you’re sick. The waiting room you’re in, the road here, the look on your face when he told you what he wanted from you. It’s all… heartbreakingly monotonous.

One doctor's appointment, he whispered across pillows. Late and neither of you asleep. The sound of cicadas outside and Wayne’s deep snore a room away. 

You nodded and closed your eyes, and you didn’t say another word all night. 

What’s the worth in a made up story? What good will it do? You have to see the doctor eventually. Distraction, Eddie thinks pleadingly. Relief. He just wants to give you as much relief as he can from what’s happening with the only thing he feels he has —his quick mouth. 

He stares at your hand on his thigh. He wills himself to raise his own and put it on top of yours. He channels his thoughts, like this is telekinesis and not his own body, move. Move your hand, he says to himself. 

It's a millimetre out of his pocket when they call your name. 

You shoot up like a stalk and smile at the nurse who's come to collect you. You don't look jittery anymore, but there's a distinct doe in the headlights look about you as Eddie watches you trail down the hallway into the doctor's office. You look back at him three times, and each time is a whip.

As soon as the door closes, he bends forward in his chair and heaves a sickly sigh. His nausea has him coughing into his hand and praying he doesn't throw up here. If they want you to go somewhere today, like a pharmacy for temporary medication, or the emergency room for a CAT scan, he can't be covered in his own vomit. 

A child babbles across the room. Eddie peeks at her through his fingers. She's pale with dark hair, much like Eddie himself, and her mom is the same. The kid's mom doesn't look like Eddie's mom besides that, but seeing her here in a hospital makes it impossible not to think of her. She's been on his mind so much lately. Her birthday is at the end of the month, and it isn't the same —she'd been in hospital for three brutally short days— but you're being here is like peeling the scab off of a wound he thought healed years ago. 

Mom was everything. She was willowy and beautiful and tough as a board. She was smart, she knew everything; how to make microwave pizza taste gourmet, how to make whistles out of blades of grass, how to make a bad day feel brand new. 

He wished he could say that he has her every detail committed. The cruellest, most terrifying thing about the people we love is that they aren't permanent, not their life and not what they leave behind. Over time, his mom has turned from an aching spear of love to a dappling of sunlight through the branches of an old tree — scattered. Beautiful and impossible and a thousand pieces in his memory, slowly fading over time. 

There'll come a day where Eddie can't remember her. He knows that. He knows his frame of reference for who she was will reduce down to her photographs, and the nearly empty bottle of her perfume under his bed. 

Eddie is haunted by her absence everyday. 

There is no corporeal apparition of her at his shoulder, no cool chill running down his spine, but he's haunted all the same. It's why he won't accept your ghost. It's why he can't. He knows what it feels like to have someone with him who isn't really here, and he won't let you suffer through the same thing. He'll protect you from this, from her. 

Even if it means he has to take you to doctors offices an hour out of town. If he has to bargain for it, and make you cry at work, and– and fucking drive this wedge between you, he'll do it. 

He needs you to be okay. 

He can't think about his mom anymore. He loves her, he misses her, but if he thinks about her too much he won't be able to stand up. 

Eddie sits up, takes a lungful of air in, and waits. He senses you as you come back down the hall, grateful for your dry cheeks, and your small, small smile. Tiny but irrefutably there.

He stands up and holds out his hand. You don't take it, but you walk into his side so your hips are pressed together and he falls into step with you. 

"So…" he says. 

"She asked if I was getting enough sleep," you say, "and I told her I was. I explained everything to her like I promised I would, even– even… I told her everything. And um, she seemed very open." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah, she– OK." You frown. 

"Listen, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I know I practically forced you to come, but it's still your life, and you can have privacy from me–" 

"It's not that. I just don't want to cry in here." 

He puts his hand on your shoulder, his arm folded against your shoulder. You don't speak until you're out of the doctor's office and weaving through people as you walk toward the parking lot. 

"She thinks I'm having auditory hallucinations. And that it could be an initial symptom of schizophrenia, or something else. She said it usually starts around my age, and–" 

"Hey, it's okay," he says, though internally he feels as distressed as you're beginning to look, horrified by your crumpling chin and wringing hands. "It's okay. You don't have to say it if it's going to upset you." 

"It might not be anything," you say, shaking your head. "She said the human brain is complicated, and sometimes stuff like this just happens. She wants to, uh," —your voice twists up very high— "see me again after I've had some sleep to see if it's persisting." 

Eddie nods. He's fucking glad that the doctor took you seriously, grateful for her advice and her reluctance to misdiagnose you with something. It's not as though Eddie wants you to be experiencing hallucinations. But he thinks you are, and he needs help looking after you if that’s the case. 

"Did she prescribe anything?" he asks. 

"A week's worth of ambien. She didn't really want to, but I told her about, you know, you coming over to make sure I'm okay, and I know that was because of the gh–" You bite your lip. You're shaking like a leaf. "Well, she thought it was you making sure I'm not an insomniac. Which I'm not." 

"I'm really proud of you," he says quietly. "I know you don't want this to be happening. I get it, I promise. I don't want it either, but this is a good thing." 

He can see you regaining some composure. You smile a little, and you offer him your prescription paper. "You know it only costs seven dollars for seven ambien?" 

"I could get you some for free." 

Your laugh startles him. "No, I don't think so." 

"I'm not offering. Just saying. I know a guy." 

"No, you knew a guy who knows a guy who could get me something ridiculous, like a percocet." 

"I'd never give you anything like that." 

"I know." You come to a halt. The cloudy weather paints you in shadow. "I'm sorry this is happening." 

"You're what?" He doesn't let you answer moving to stand in front of you. "Why would you apologise for this?" 

"Because it's my head," you say stiffly. 

"You didn't want this to happen. And– and it might not be happening at all. You'll try the ambien, and you'll take care of yourself, and we'll go from there. I wasn't trying to scare you… I wish I could brush it off, you know? I wish I could believe that you…" He takes you in. Your skirt and jacket are swaying in the cold wind. You look one sharp shove from falling over. "I get that it isn't like me, to not believe in the fantasy–" 

You save him from his miserable attempt at placating you. 

"I know." 

He licks his lips. 

"I love you," Eddie says as he starts toward the van again. "Let's go fill your prescription, and then I'll get you whatever you want to eat."

"Boys are so weird about I love you," you say, following. The light behind your eyes makes your teasing worth it. "You say it like you chewed on it first. Struggled to get that one out, did you?" 

It's not your best insult. Neither of you are exactly on form. 

"Just so hard to say it to you." 

You take what you perceive to be an insult on the chin. Only Eddie knows there's a sliver of truth in what he's said. 

You generously let him help you into the passenger seat. He's hopeful that your mood's improved until that wretched frown worms its way across your pretty mouth once again. You wait for him to round the hood and start the van before you explain yourself. 

"There's a support group. For anybody who's, um, hearing voices. Schizophrenics, manic depressives…" 

"Is that something you want to go to?" 

"I don't know. Can I be honest with you?" 

"Yeah. Absolutely." 

"I don't know if I believe that it isn't real. I know that's the point. The definition of hallucination is, uh… an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present, and so… it makes sense. My ghost isn't there, even if I think she is, so I must be hallucinating, but Eddie," —you shrink in on yourself— "I have this feeling that won't go away." 

He loves you. You're terrified. 

He's already guessed what you're going to ask for.

"Can we try again? Please? I'll take the meds and I'll go to the support group, but in the meantime, could you please come back and just– just listen. Maybe it takes a while for her to talk to someone else." You scrub your face. "Fuck. I sound fucking crazy." 

Eddie squeezes the wheel. "Don't say that. Don't say it like you've done something wrong. You didn't do anything wrong." 

People say crazy but they mean sick. They ridicule what they can't understand. 

He doesn't understand, but he wants to. He says, "If you want me to, we'll try again. I'll come over." 

You look up from your palms. He notices almost habitually that they're smaller than his. When you were young teenagers there'd been a short period of time where you'd been the taller one, with bigger hands and a bigger smile. Lately, you've seemed small. 

"Really?" you ask hopefully. 

"You came here 'cause I asked you to. It was hard for you." He turns his eyes to the road and turns the key until the Beauville's engine is thrumming with life. "I'd do a lot of shit for you, superstar. Like, anything. If you need me to keep trying then I will. And you'll–" 

"I'll keep trying too," you promise. 

It's all he can ask for. 

— 

The sky is all kinds of grey. It stretches like a sheet from one corner of your eye to the other, darker toward each limit of your vision, a gradual decay into colourlessness toward the very top where the sun fights hardest to burst through an impossible expanse of clouds. They seem thick as marshmallo, but where they begin is hard to decipher. 

Your eyes feel sore. You imagine a hand reaching for you, hitting you, pressing its cold knuckles to each bruised eye socket to calm the raging ache behind them. You hadn't expected to feel this way. It isn't the first time you have, but to feel so intensely unreal while there's someone still with you is new. You lean your weight against the sill and let your arms swing from the open window ledge, knuckles scraping the scratchy brick of the house's exterior walls, instantly chilled by the weather. 

A black band of birds burst across the sky somewhere leftwards. The pitch and tumble with no discernible formation. They're too far to hear. You imagine the flap of wings, their buoyed cawing, screeching to one another as they swim between pylon cables and their brothers spread wings. 

"What kind of birds do you think they are?" Eddie asks. 

You feel his weight settle into the ottoman beside you. You'd dragged it to the window with tired arms. You haven't felt up to anything since you got home, though Eddie's promise should've restored a little hope. He's going to keep trying to meet your ghost. You'll have to hope you don't get worse before that. 

You know, starkly, that you aren't having auditory hallucinations. You know, starkly, that your ghost had written to you in your missing notebook. 

But maybe that's the nature of your hallucination. A night bent over the pocket dictionary had ended as this one begins, with the crushing realisation that you cannot trust what you know. To put it plainly, you're afraid that you're mentally unwell. Terrified of how it’s going to change your life, the people in it.

Eddie's afraid too. 

Your orange bottle of pills glares like a flame to your right where it stands waiting for you on the nightstand. Eddie's made up your bed for the two of you. He could sleep in the guest room, and he never has. 

"I don't know," you say hoarsely. Your voice sounds as you feel, like something has its hooks in you, and it's dragging you down, down… 

"They're too big to be pigeons." 

"They're too dark. They're crows," you guess, tracing an outlier as he skirts the crowd of his family and spirals up into the air. 

Like a party trick, you expect him to disappear, or explode, or rocket up into the cotton clouds and out of view. He slows as he falls, and then he dives back toward the main swarm of birds as they migrate toward the horizon. 

There's a feeling brewing in you that you don't like. 

If you can't trust your own perception. If real isn't real. If you need someone to sit beside you and distinguish real from fake, if… if you're sick. 

If you're sick, what does that mean? 

You search for something in the air to hold onto. 

Eddie hums softly, his hand pushing out into the static as he points toward the glowing clouds. "Sun's going down slow." 

You raise your hand and wrap it around his. It isn't enough. You force your fingers between the gaps of his, just a little longer, thicker, solid, and lock him in. He feels real. That's the key. As far as you know, hallucinations don't carry that far. Bugs crawling over your skin and through the strands of your hair, an itch you can't scratch, a drop of rain from a concrete ceiling, the brain can recreate these things. But the exact width of Eddie's palm or the feeling of his calluses against your loveline, your lifeline, and the heartbeat that bumps against the meat of your thumb when you focus, that's impossible. That's a level of precision the human brain can't find. 

Right? 

Eddie curls his thumb around yours. You can feel his gaze on your cheek like a breath blown between parted lips. You turn toward him, and you catalogue every little mar or mark, every fine hair. His wrinkles, his textured jaw. The strands of a fallen curl come apart near his eye, grown out bangs kissing the highest point of his cheek.

You're panicking. There's a thumping behind your eyes. 

"I don't know if you look right," you say. 

"I look very right. I'm extremely handsome," he says. 

You hold his hand out of the window, worried you'll drop it, and it'll fall. 

If Eddie were at home tucked into his double bed a mile away, she would've talked to you by now. Your breath shortens as the meaning behind that thought solidifies. 

She only comes when you're alone. Why do you think that is? 

She's not real. 

Is that how it works? Can hallucinations, auditory, visual, or otherwise, take place in the company of others? You know next to nothing. Maybe they aren’t so common with loved ones standing guard. 

You push your head out of the window again and look down at the flat, dying grass in the backyard, a yellowing carpet of bluegrass. Bluegrass is prominent because it can grow anywhere, like mould. With all the rain these past few days, the grass should've livened into a plush and solid green, like the lawns in the southern side of Hawkins where the rich people lavish in sprinklers and gardeners alike. It remains rumpled.

Eddie rubs the back of your hand. It's far from the closest you've ever been. There have been nights you spent unawares in his arms, waking with your face tucked into his neck, so embarrassed you couldn't look at him afterward. But it's the most intimate touch you've ever endured. The whorls of his fingerprint embossing itself into your hand, a quarter circle that doesn't cease. Time feels brief and unsteady. 

Eddie must realise you're having a bad moment. He shuffles closer to you, your arms twined, his hair tickling your shoulders. It snaps you back, in a way, with its softness. 

"Let's go to bed," he says when the sky's more charcoal than light. 

You're cold. You follow. You latch your hand in his and he doesn't say a word, closing and locking your window with one hand, pulling the sheets of your bed back deftly for you to climb in. You slide across to the outermost side and he follows, leaning over you to pull the sheets to your chin. 

He stays hovering there. 

He holds very still. 

"Everything's going to be okay," he whispers. 

"What if it isn't?" 

"It will be, you…" he trails off. He keeps your hand in his, but he plants his elbow on the other side of you, like a lover about to share sweet nothings, his face so, so close. "You'll be okay, no matter what happens." 

"I wish she'd told me more," you say. 

"The doctor?" He draws a small, careful line across your cheek with his index finger. "Sweetheart, we'll find out everything there is to find." 

"I want to know how scared I should be. Because this feels like torture." 

"You don't have to be scared." Eddie smiles, and as far as you can tell, though you're having trouble trusting yourself, it's one of his genuine smiles. "Why do you think I'm here, huh? It's not to watch as something bad happens." 

You lift your chin. He's too close to look at both eyes at once: you have to choose, and you can't. Your irises dance back and forth between them, shuddering in indecision. 

"You'll look after me," you say, not a question. 

He turns his hand, stroking down the length of your cheek with the backs of his fingers. They feel much softer than the undersides, the flat of his nails like silk. Your eyes burn as you free your hand from his, hoping he'll be kind with that one, too. 

"I'll look after you." 

You tuck your hands behind the trim of his waist and, knowing you shouldn't, let them feed into his shirt. You draw a shaking line through the downy soft blanketing the small of his back until your finger is skipping up the jutting bumps of his spine. It's like climbing a staircase by touch alone. You wonder if anyone else had ever done this to him, if they ever wanted to, and if he'd let them. 

Eddie releases a breath. Warmth feathers along your skin. 

His hand strokes down to your neck, resting at your collar. Half a second and his petting returns, the side of his thumb brushing your soft jawline tenderly. 

He must feel you swallow. His pupils travel down the whites of his eyes like the steady descent of the setting sun. 

"I can't," he says softly.

Can't what? you want to ask. You don't know if you should. You know the answer, but does he?

"You're not all here," he says, hand paused. He cups your cheek, holds you in place. You hadn't been moving. "But when you are, I could. I could."

"I don't know if I…" you drift off. How can you explain it to him? I don't know if I'll feel better any time soon. 

His eyes move sideways, as if the instruction for your reassurance lay somewhere in the apple of your cheek. 

You don't want him to kiss you if it's a fixative meant to soothe your rampant nerves. You want him to kiss you for a hundred reasons, but that's not one of them. You're not sure he wants to kiss you beyond that. 

He would, you realise. Kiss you, if he thought you wanted it badly enough. That's a lot of power to have over someone, more than you want over him, and you can't ask him to. You look away from his eyes and search upward, trembling hands and the starts of your forearms pressed to his back, hiking his shirt up one inch at a time. 

He sits up agonisingly slowly, in the same way the sky has fallen from light to dusk; inchingly, so as to escape notice, until suddenly you can't feel the emanating heat of his chest against yours anymore, and the only light inside of your room is a yellow band sliced by the ajar door. 

Your hands fall back. One under the sheets, one over. Eddie sits where you lay, his hands at the crook of your elbows. He gives symmetrical, superficial massages to each. 

The life has been sapped from you, as if it were tied to the sun sunk beyond the horizon. A brutal fatigue sets in. 

"You should take your ambien," he murmurs. 

"Okay." 

The eye tattooed on his arm seems to follow you as he reaches for your seven dollar bottle. He twists off the cap and shakes a single pill out for you, and you watch as the lines of his arms start to blur. 

You take your pill, lying firmly in the middle of your pillow, and wonder if now would be an appropriate time to burst into panicked tears.

"I'll look after you," Eddie repeats after a while. Or maybe he doesn't. The weight of the day and the helping kick of your medication pulls you under. He lays down next to you carefully, his hand searching under the covers for yours. 

And there, standing in the corner of the room, is your ghost. Real. Stunningly, terrifyingly real. 

You can’t open your mouth wide enough to warn him.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

end of part one! thank you so much for reading, I really hope that you enjoyed! this was my baby and such a labour of love in April and I’m so happy now to share it :D if you have the time, please consider reblogging, it means so much to me and I’d love to know your thoughts on the story so far <3<3

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson oneshot #eddie munson scenario #eddie munson drabble #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfiction #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things x reader

[yanderemommabean]

Mama I would suplex a boulder for a follow up to the yandere virus post pls pls pls 🥺

You can’t even think. First you’re in the hallways trying to get to your own bed, now you’re being forced into kissing and swapping tongues with two very eager women whose hands are becoming more and more invasive and demanding. Phoebe was more aggressive about how she kissed you. Her tongue lapped and flicked the roof of your mouth and coaxed out near pathetic mewls and whimpers, while Sadie made it her job to steal you away when Phoebe needed to breathe. Sadies kisses were just as eager but not as intense, like she was savoring every bit she could. Both truly intoxicating in their own right. 

You can’t even bring it in yourself to fight. Something about all of this was intoxicating (as well as terrifying. You were sure even if you did fight harder, that shock collar would make this a lot worse. Perhaps it’s best to try and enjoy what you can?) Their touches were demanding, grabbing at you and roughly yanking your shirt off. 

“N-No” you stammer, trying to reach up and cover yourself but Sadie easily pins your wrist back down, shushing you softly as Phoebe begins to feel up your breasts. 

“Shh shh shh. You’re so pretty baby. So needy and desperate. Look how hard your nipples are already! Clearly you need us to help with this. You’re so pent up, kisses is all it took to make you like this” 

Your cheeks burn, your face feels like it was molten hot, and you hated that they were right. You couldn't exactly get off lately with the stress of school and the fact that, you know, they’re your bullies. You gasp wetly as Phoebe takes a nipple into her mouth, sucking and flicking her tongue over your sensitive bud, moaning in satisfaction as you feel your body tense and your hips raise off the bed. 

Sadie just giggles, sliding her hand down into the front of your panties. You were humiliated at how wet you had become, the slick stain on the fabric being all the proof they really needed that you liked this, even if you were fighting it. You can only cry out and gasp into their shared possessive kisses, Sadies fingers rubbing teasing and slow circles on your clit before dipping lower to feel your drenched folds, her middle finger circling your hole as it flutters. Phoebe placed her fingers into your mouth to hush you, her mouth working on your other nipple as she indulged herself in every noise you made for them. It’s a shame you have to be quiet this time, but once they’re able to, you’ll be moaning until your throat is raw. 

Phoebe crawls up to push you back into Sadies lap, grinning like a wicked demon as she looks you up and down. “I know we told Naomi we’d wait but…a little taste won't hurt right? I mean she’s so cute! Desperate and mewling like a little kitten, perhaps that's a better pet name instead?” 

You arch once again as Sadie begins to suckle and bite on your neck, her fingers pressing in faster circles as she teases your dripping pussy. You couldn’t form a singular thought, not even one of protest- as if your body wasn’t betraying you anyway. A choked moan leaves your throat as Phoebe slides down, holding your legs apart. She admired every mark and blemish on your skin, her fingers possessively gripping the flesh as he kissed up and down, from the apex of your hips to your calves, making herself comfy between your thighs as Sadie made sure your arms were held down tightly. “I think regardless she makes such a cute little pet. Look at how she writhes and cries out, she’s so sensitive! Naomi really needs to hurry up, she doesn’t know what she’s missing”. 

You try in vain to slam your legs closed as a last ditch effort to defend yourself, but with how easy they managed to do everything thus far? It was pretty much laughable. Phoebe just toys with your lips, dragging her finger up and down as she watches your hips twitch and your stomach tighten, her mouth watering. “Oh she’s missing such a pretty sight. Y/N’s so wet, I bet she could cum just from her nipples being toyed and played with! Oooh, does our puppy want to test that out? Or do you want something better?” 

You swallow, wincing as Sadie massages your breasts and bites into you again and again like she’s trying to brand you. Not to be a smart ass or anything but the collar more or less does that already. “J-Just, please, I-I” “Aww, don't be scared! You’re doing so well! C’mon” Sadie coaxes, her hands traveling down to also play with your pussy, watching as your hips act on their own to roll up against her hand as Phoebe watches with hunger and amusement. “You’re being so good, Y/N. You can keep being good can’t you? Just let us take care of you, melt all that stress away” 

“P-please!” you cry out, only to feel Phoebe grip your face and steal another kiss, her voice going low as she whispers in your ear “You’re cumming for us, one way or the other. If we have to tie you down with those wands and vibrators and drain you dry, we will. I suggest you behave unless you want to watch me lose my patience”. 

You make a noise of resentment and fear in the back of your throat, knowing that they were more than capable of having you tied down and at their mercy. You wince as both women begin to kiss up and down your body again, biting and marking wherever they wished, making you jerk and hiss when their teeth break the skin. 

Before Phoebe could pull away to threaten to act on that scenario she mentioned, having been impatient for your response, the door is knocked on and Naomi enters, a sultry smile on her face at the sight of you, barely clothed and clearly being enjoyed by the other two. 

“Well…I hope I didn't miss too much,” She says, locking the door and beginning to remove her outfit. She comes to grab your face, stealing a heated kiss that once again takes your breath away, only pulling away when she absolutely had too. Naomi admires you for a moment before giving Phoebe and Sadie a certain look, before saying “Well? What are we waiting for? It’s a three day weekend, so let’s get started” (-Mommabean, I hope you liked it! Sorry if it wasn't super spectacular I got some home stuff bothering me and I had to kinda rush! Still, this was fun!)

#yandere scenarios #yandere imagines #mommabean #yandere lesbians #yandere female #yandere noncon #yandere dubcon #poly yandere #yandere smut #yandere lemons

[wandasaura]

— LITTLE DOVE DYNAMICS

summary — a few bullet points describing the relationship you have with your girlfriends

warnings — alludes to elements of ageplay, very brief mention of smut, literally only a sentence

♥️⊹ ˚ . 18+, men/minors dni ⁺ 𓈒 ꒰💌꒱ ♡ ･ mommy maximoff ✧

ꕤ wanda is definitely the authoritarian within your dynamic. unlike natasha who will let you get away with whatever you want, within reason of course, wanda upholds the expectation that you should act as their good little dove and abide by the rules without her having to remind you.

ꕤ for the most part, you don’t need to be reminded about bedtime or using your inside voice, but on the days that you want to test her patience, she always starts out soft. it’s a gentle reminder at first, rough fingers beneath your chin, tilting your head back until you meet her eye, softly asking you to listen to mommy before she smiles goofily and kisses your waiting lips that have always formed a pout by this point. if she had to ask again, she wasn’t as nice, and for the post part, you never let her get to three. for the most part. there are some days you wake up just wanting to rile her up, get beneath her skin, and giggle with your daddy at her expense. when she got to three on those days, her eyes flashed red and whatever misbehavior you’d been taunting her with, became a second thought as you sniffled at her disappointed face.

ꕤ natasha always thought it was hilarious to see you fall so far so fast, and how you tearfully mumbled out apologies as your mommy rambled about actions and consequences. her amusement had gotten her in trouble with the scary witch more times than she’d like to admit, and while most of wanda’s wrath wasn’t shown to her the way it was to you in this headspace, there were a handful of times when she found herself right alongside you at the kitchen counter, writing lines until her hand felt raw and her eyes burned daggers into wanda’s head when she was sure you weren’t looking.

ꕤ that being said, natasha wasn’t all fun and games either. especially not when you found yourself beneath her in the bedroom, desperate for your release that she had spent hours building up and pulling away. wanda would laugh cynically at your side, squeezing your hand when you would inevitably reach out for her and pout. it was a healthy balance, but at the end of the day, you knew that both of them were a safe space to sink into

ꕤ when wanda’s having a hard day, they usually fall close to her birthday or the death anniversaries of her family members, she’s not herself in the slightest. you can always tell when her grief becomes allconsuming. she’ll pull away from you and natasha, find a reason to stay later at work or lock herself away in a spare bedroom claiming she’s doing mission reports and needs to focus, but you know that she’s crying as quietly as she can, struggling to find a reason to keep going when everything hurts so much. you’re her motivation at that point — when she feels like she just can’t go on in so much pain anymore. she loves you and natasha equally, but she doesn’t want to be the one to traumatize you. natasha’s lost handfuls of people, she understands the way wanda feels, but you’re their innocent little dove, and the thought of hurting you like that… she would never. so eventually she’ll come out to find you, and she’ll braid your hair, and cuddle you close, and forgive the fact that bedtime was an hour ago in favor of finding ice cream buried in the freezer and eating it while she watches your favorite show/movie. you make sure to love on her extra hard, and natasha doesn’t mind the favoritism as she watches you snuggle close to wanda and follow her around like a shadow, not wanting to leave her alone.

ꕤ when natashas having a bad day, usually triggered by a mission that reminded her of the conditions of the red room/her time under cover in ohio, she’s the opposite. she knows what she lives for, and she makes sure to express her gratitude for you and wanda in anyway she can. whether it’s spontaneous hugs and kisses throughout the days, cooking your favorite meal for dinner even if she hates the long and tedious process of making some of wanda’s favorite foods, or preparing a bubble bath for the three of you to sink into at the end of the day complete with candles and bubbles, she’s going the extra mile to make sure you feel loved. she’s painfully aware of how short and unpredictable life is, and she wants to make sure if anything happens to her, neither of you question for a second if you were loved.

ꕤ your favorite days though, are the days when you have them all to yourself. you’ll pile up on the couch and spend the entire day eating absolute junk, cuddling close to them and laughing about old memories and childhood stories, you bake sweet treats and just enjoy each others company. ans at the end of the night, you fall into bed between them with a smile on your face, knowing that just before you can’t keep your eyes open anymore, wanda’s gonna lean in close and kiss your forehead, and natasha’s going to squeeze your waist and whisper, “goodnight, little dove” in your ear

#wanda maximoff #natasha romanoff #wandanat #mommy wanda #daddy natasha #wanda maximoff x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #wandanat x reader #mommy!wanda maximoff x reader #daddy!natasha romanoff x reader #series: little dove

[hey-august]

Word count: Just under 1k Warnings: NSFW, MDNI, buggy x GN!reader, no use of Y/N, mentions of masturbation, sex, and oral.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Buggy who is surprisingly good at drawing.

Buggy who doodles all the time. Ugly little caricatures of people who piss him off. Goofy scribbles of bits that make him laugh. Potential skits. 

Buggy who scrawls on the margins of paper, the corner of napkins, anywhere he can relieve the itch in his hands.

Buggy who designs costumes for his crew. Colored pencils and oil pastels bring the flashy couture to life.

Buggy who carries a small sketchbook in his coat. Deckle edged paper wrapped in leather, perfect for practicing pencil sketches and graphite drawings as he observes the crew.

Buggy who doesn’t share the drawings in his sketchbook, though. Some had to learn the hard way not to look over his shoulder.

Buggy who realizes too late that you are overtaking his personal pages. What started as small forms to study pose and movement grew larger, capturing more of your essence.

Buggy who becomes obsessed with capturing the small details. How your nose crinkles when you laugh. The sneer in your lips when you’re pissed. The way you rake your fingers through your hair when you try to calm yourself.

Buggy who gets curious late one night. Curious and desperate.

Buggy who draws you from memory and fueled by his filthy imagination. The soft sound of pencil scraping along the paper is comforting.

Buggy who fills a page with you in compromising positions. The lewd expressions you might wear. What he thinks you’d look like split on his cock. Or mouth open, begging to have your face fucked. His hands gripping your plush thighs.

Buggy who fucks himself to the hand-drawn porn and cums all over the page.

Buggy who feels guilty and burns the soggy drawings, as best he can. It takes a few frustrating tries and he panics, even though no one is around.

Buggy who tries to ignore those feelings. Trying to draw anything except you. But everything looks like shit now. Proportions are off. He presses too hard when sketching, unable to erase the stark lines. Even his doodles lack life.

Buggy who gives in and scribbles you in the corner of his sketchbook before moving on to something else. And it works. His movements flow better. A weight is lifted off his chest.

Buggy who eventually caves to the nighttime muse once more. Filling another perverted page with the obscene images flooding his mind. This time, he doesn’t ruin the drawings with jizz or fire.

Buggy who revisits that page frequently. Adds to that page. Convinces himself that it’s okay, it’s not hurting anyone. In fact, it helps him by taking away other urges.

Buggy who eventually manages to misplace his sketchbook. He fucking lost it.

Buggy who doesn’t want to bring attention to his lost treasure. If he says it’s missing, some freaks might find it and look through the pages. They’ll realize what a pathetic loser he is.

Buggy who frantically retraces his footsteps, barking orders to keep everyone away from him. 

Buggy who finally finds it in the hallway just outside his room. The book must have fallen out of his pocket and laid mostly out of sight with the brown leather blending into the wooden floor.

Buggy who is relieved. It doesn’t look like the book had been touched or moved. Even the leather string is still wound around the sketchbook tightly.

Buggy who needs to get back to other duties after sloughing them off most of the day. He’s still on edge, reading into everyone’s interactions. No one acts differently, adding to the relief that no one knows about his perversions.

Buggy who doesn’t open the sketchbook until the end of a very long day. Who waits until he’s alone and in his room.

Buggy whose stomach lurches at the note peeking out of one of the pages. A page devoted to your smile. A note with your handwriting. “This is so impressive! I look so happy”

Buggy who slams the sketchbook shut and starts to pace around the room. Fuck. Did you find it first? Did you look through it? Why? What else did you see? What else did you see?

Buggy who freezes at the thought. Who stares at the awful book, as if it would pipe up and tell him in a fluttery voice.

Buggy who grabs the book and roughly throws it into a drawer, ready to lock up his feelings. Ready to deal with his unhealthy actions with more unhealthy actions.

Buggy who tries to go to bed but can’t sleep. He lays in bed surrounded by a carousel of thoughts. Of fear. And anxiety.

Buggy who sends over a hand to retrieve the damn book. He has to know. He’ll die if he doesn’t find out.

Buggy who can feel his hands shake with each heartbeat as he thumbs through the book, looking for more notes.

Buggy who feels both calmed and excited as he finds your commentary on a few more innocuous pages. Praises for his skill and appreciation for scenes he captured.

Buggy who finally flips to the page. That one.

Buggy who’s afraid to read the note you left there. But he does. “Want to collaborate one day?”

Buggy whose stomach and heart are in knots. 

Buggy who keeps reading. “I’d like to see what you look like too.”

Buggy who shows up at your door, panting and red faced. Sketchbook in hand.

Buggy who trails his fingers along your face as he fucks into you, commiting each detail to memory. The shape of your mouth with each moan. Your lust-filled eyes. The little teeth marks left after you bite your lips.

Buggy who can’t help but stare at your sex-tired body. Chest heaving. Glistening.

Buggy who still wants to taste you. To taste himself on you. Who uses his mouth and tongue to memorize more of your body.

Buggy who is surprisingly good at drawing and collaborating.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

A/N: Just want to highlight this line bc I love it "This time, he doesn’t ruin the drawings with jizz or fire."

#buggy smut #buggy x reader #buggy the clown x reader #buggy x you #x reader #buggy op #opla buggy #one piece buggy #buggy the clown #buggy the clown smut #one piece smut #buggy x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader

[anilovie]

Anakin taking care of your sore breasts.

WC: 1.6k

CW: its not rlly smut? Fem reader, mentions of PMSing.

(p.s. I'm slowly working up to posting real smut, im just shy and my speciality is fluff. im getting there.)

“Why’re you so far away?” Anakin propped himself up on his elbow, raising a grumpy brow at the position you had settled down to sleep in. 

You were curled on your side, hands tucked under your cheek, protectively distanced a good 3 feet away from Anakin. Usually you’d be cuddled right up to him, head nestled in the crook of his arm and chest, leg thrown over his waist, half on-top of him. But your boobs were sore – evidence that a certain unpleasant time of the month was approaching – and you didn’t want to cause any pain by pressing against him.

“Sorry,” you murmured sleepily, shifting an inch closer. Anakin’s frown deepened.

“You mad at me or something?” 

“No! Here–” you pushed yourself up, wincing at the ache the shift in gravity caused on your sore breasts, and scooted right up next to him. Still not cuddled quite as close to him as usual, but enough to share body heat. “All better,” you closed your eyes again, smiling slightly.

“You’re acting strange,” he huffed, throwing an arm around you and hauling you over him like usual– only this time, he dragged you all the way up and over so you were fully on top of him, chest pressed against his own.

You winced and pushed your palms against his pecs, taking the pressure off your boobs.

“I’m sore, Ani,” you finally explained, trying to wriggle out of his grasp to lay on your side again.

“Sore?”

“Ya’know…” you avoided his gaze, cheeks going pink. His gaze followed your own, landing on the twin mounds of flesh that threatened to spill out of your little sleep shirt. You’d chosen something soft and airy today, seeing as how every brush against your sensitive nipples caused sharp tingles to shoot through you.

“They hurt?” he questioned curiously, still not allowing you to squirm out of his hold. Suddenly enamored, he lifted his flesh hand to bracket your waist, tracing the curve of your body until his thumb was resting right beneath your aching breast.

“Yes,” you warned, sacrificing a hand to hold his wrist. As if you were strong enough to stop him.

Something clouded over his usually bright eyes, a look you’d become all too familiar with. The pit of your stomach went all warm when his gaze lifted to yours, tiny mischievous smirk twisting his handsome features.

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hurt you,” you didn’t believe a word he said with that look on his face. You already knew what you were in for.

“Ani…” you loosened your grip around his wrist, deciding whatever he wanted to do might actually help. Sometimes massaging the flesh made it feel better. “You can touch, but be gentle.”

“I’ll be so gentle,” he spoke quickly, lifting himself so he was sitting. You were propped up on his lap so nicely, obediently quitting your attempts at escaping. With your now pliant and relaxed body in his hands, he rubbed your sides up and down, gauging each little reaction his touch elicited.

Goosebumps all up and down your arms and legs; Head lolling forward in sleepy appreciation of his strong hands; Nipples poking against your shirt all cute and desperate.

“That must not feel very nice, hm?” he brushed the back of a finger of one of your hard nipples, sending a shock of tingles and sensitivity through you. You winced, attention captivated by his every move.

“T’s not the most comfortable, no,” you agreed quietly, an uncomfortable burning sensation resulting from the rub of your nipples against the fabric of your shirt. No matter that it was your softest one… plus, even the act of sitting up with nothing supporting them made them ache. It was worse this month for some reason, and you yearned for Anakin’s hands to just finally hold them, squeeze them, make it feel better like he always does…

“Want me to take it off?”

His hands were already falling to the hem of your shirt, ready to pull it over your head. You nodded once, lifting your arms so he could free you from the confines of your tank top, shivering at the cool breeze that soothed your hot skin.

“There. That better?” he murmured, though his attention was solely on your chest. He hissed through his teeth. “Looks painful, baby. You’re all swollen.”

“Hm?” you looked down at yourself. Usually you did get a little more swollen around this time, but nothing really noticeable. 

“It’s okay. I’ll make it feel better,” his tone dropped to a whisper, completely entranced by you now. His hands slid back up your body, soft skin dipping beneath his touch. He reached the source of your discomfort and slowed his movements, cupping you gently in his palms, supporting the weight of the swollen flesh.

You sighed, relaxing into his hold. Your hands were tucked between your thighs and his waist, cushioned where your bodies met. He squeezed gently, and your eyes fluttered closed, glad you didn’t have to remind him to be gentle.

“That's good, Ani,” you told him, appreciating the slow movements of his hands massaging you. You didn’t even have it in you to be embarrassed– you knew he was enjoying this as much as you.

“Mhm?” he hummed, voice tantalizingly closer to your skin. You could feel his warm breath ghosting over your flesh, a sudden wave of warmth pooling between your legs. Before you could respond, you felt his tongue– hot and wet– soothe over your sensitive nipple.

Your breath caught, instinctively bringing a hand up to rest in the soft curls at the back of his neck. His eyes flicked up quickly to see your reaction, blindingly blue and shiny, then returned to your chest. 

He licked you again, all slow and soft, letting his tongue trace the underside of your nipple and flicking gently against the hard bud. Enamored by your taste, he traced the puffy skin, delicately spreading his saliva all over your nipple before finally closing his lips around it.

You made a small noise, something between a whimper and a cry. It was sore– too sore and sensitive to be doing this. But the pain somehow felt good when met with the hot cavern of his mouth, tongue wet and soothing as it massaged the bud around slowly. 

You weren’t planning on doing anything else tonight, but you were absolutely soaking in your panties. Anakin was never usually this slow and gentle with you, always just a little too mean and a little too impatient– his sudden devotion to your comfort made you ache between your legs, subtly pressing closer to him to appease it. 

If he noticed he didn’t say anything. It was like he was under a spell, releasing your nipple with a small wet sound that made you squirm with embarrassment. He kissed it again, making you flinch, and then moved to the other side.

“‘Coulda asked me for help sooner ya’know,” he murmured against your skin, lips tickling your other nipple. It was so sensitive, even that had you twitching away, but he held you still in his iron hold. “Didn’t have to suffer all alone like this.”

You technically didn’t ask for his help, you wanted to point out. He came onto you. He just liked making fun of how shy you were, because he’s mean like that. 

Before you could say that, you felt something sharp tug at your nipple. You gasped, eyes welling up with tears– not from pain, but from the sharp tingles it sent down your spine. His teeth nibbled the hard peak of your breast so gently, white teeth sharp and sinking into soft, delicate skin. You moaned quietly, hand tightening at the curls by his neck.

“Careful,” he chuckled, thumb brushing and rolling against the hard peak. “Don’t wanna hurt you.”

That thumb on your nipple did hurt. The rubbing was too much– as if to prove his point, you squirmed harshly in his hold, fighting the cage he had you trapped in, tugging at his wrist.

“Ani–”

“I know, I know. Shhh,” he leaned forward and replaced his thumb with his mouth, and you sighed again. The warmth and wet slide of his tongue and lips felt heavenly, much different than the rough pad of his finger.

Speaking of, he kept you distracted as he gently suckled on one nipple, sliding his metal hand up to the other one and capturing the hard nub between two metal fingers. He squeezed gently, making you jerk back again, whining keenly. 

“Ani.”

“Sorry,” he laughed again, teeth scraping against the nipple he was currently focused on again. His tone was definitely not sorry.

He remedied his actions though, leaving your nipples alone for a moment to grope and squeeze at your breasts lovingly. He liked it better when you were relaxed in his arms, not squirming and whining in pain. So he squeezed and massaged, entranced by the plush flesh spilling through his fingertips– how soft you were, how delicate your skin was, how pretty your nipples were all sore and sensitive and shining with his spit.

“See? Told you I’d make it all better,” he spoke after a while, allowing you to fall forward into his chest after you grew too tired and sleepy to stay upright anymore. You were still incredibly wet between the legs, but your neediness waned as his touch became therapeutic rather than sensual. 

Finally, his hands roamed from your aching breasts to your back, soothing a line up and down your spine as he retrieved your shirt and nudged it back over your head. 

You nuzzled your head into the crook of his neck, melting at the warmth of his skin and the ticklish feeling of his curls against your forehead. “Thanks, Ani. Y’did make it feel better. You always do,” you mumbled, half asleep.

“Gonna let me do that more often, then?” he asked, and you smiled at his hopeful tone.

“Sure.”

“Good,” you could hear his own victorious smile in his answer, the light clicking off soon after. “‘Night, baby.”

#anakin fluff #anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker fic #anakin x reader #anakin x reader fluff #anakin x reader fic #fluffy anakin #anakin x you #anakin smut #anakin skywalker smut #anakin x fem reader #anakin skywalker x reader fluff #anakin skywalker fluff #anakin x reader smut #anakin drabble

[theemporium]

just clicked through your mv33 core and I feel like, since max didn't really have a rebellious teen phase, reader doing funny stuff with him? maybe skinny dipping or shotgunning all the weird stuff one tries as teen

why would you hurt me like this?? i am so soft?? oh my god?? this could be like a whole series🤠anyways thank you for requesting!🫶🏽

.

“This is stupid.” 

“It’s a pivotal part of teenage rebellion!” 

“Which teenager is stupid enough to do this?” 

“I did it when I was a teenager.” 

“I rest my case.”

You shot the boy a look, but he only grinned in response. 

When you were introduced to the world of Formula One, you had a million and one different people telling you what you should think of Max Verstappen. Whether it was journalists or paddock members or fans online, so many people were telling you what he was like. He was a villain, he was a cheat, he was everything bad with the sport. 

But when you met Max Verstappen, none of those words ever came to mind when you thought of him. 

He was blunt and straightforward with the words he spoke. But he was also undeniably caring and thoughtful. He cared deeply for the people close to him. He gave respect to everyone he met, regardless of their opinion on him. He was dedicated and hard-working, and it baffled you that this man was painted as the big, bad guy of Formula One.

The closer you got to the two-time world champion, the more you learned. There would be countless conversations where you would either find yourself on the phone to him or sat across from him on a hotel bed, legs crossed and smiles wide as you talking about anything and everything. 

When Max opened up about his childhood and lifestyle growing up, you don’t think he realised just how heartbreaking it was. He waved it all off, saying that was just how life was if you wanted to be a Formula One driver. But you didn’t buy it.

And you think, deep down, he knew that wasn’t very true either.

You wanted to change that. You wanted to give him back his years of lost childhood and teenage shenanigans, no matter how stupid or small and insignificant it may seem. You wanted to give him those memories, those experiences. And in all honesty, Max didn’t really care about it—but he liked having those experiences with you. 

“This just seems a bit pointless,” Max spoke up once again, his hands resting on his hips as he stared out at the dark water. “What do you gain from this?”

“An adrenaline rush and the thrill of hypothermia’s early stages,” you grinned back at him. “It never gets old, Verstappen. Skinny-dipping is a key experience everyone must partake in before they turn thirty.” 

Max narrowed his eyes at you. “Suddenly everything about you makes sense, Trouble.”

You grinned at the nickname. “Stop stalling, Max.” 

As much as he tried to avoid staring, he couldn’t help himself. His eyes were glued to you as he watched you pull your shirt over your head and dump it onto the sand beside you. Your shorts soon followed, and you were left in nothing but your bikini.

“Enjoying the view, Maxie?” 

His cheeks burned as he snapped his gaze away from you. He looked ahead of him, at the dark water. He could see the waves lapping against the sand, see the tide rise just before your feet before the water was dragged back in. But he couldn’t see the horizon any longer, not in the light of the moon and stars glittering in the sky.

Maybe that was what made it more thrilling. 

“Fine,” Max huffed before he pulled his shirt over his head. “Let’s do this.”

“That’s the spirit, Verstappen!” 

Max wasn’t even sure what he would feel. He almost imagined an epiphany would hit him the second his body was submerged in the ocean water, that the burning desire to make all the memories you spoke about would become stronger. 

Instead, he was just painfully aware that he was naked in the ocean, with his best friend a few feet away, also naked and grinning at him like he meant something.

“Don’t you feel refreshed?” You called out to him, your arms swaying back and forth to stay afloat. 

“I feel like you might have had a more boring childhood than I did if this is what you did for fun,” he retorted, his lips twitching upwards when he heard you laugh. 

“This is only the beginning, Max,” you said to him, almost like your words were a promise. “We are going to give you the crazy teenage life you should have had.”

His smile was more sincere. “I can’t wait for you to show me the world, Trouble.”

.

#max verstappen #formula one #f1 #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x you #max verstappen x y/n #max verstappen fic #max verstappen one shot #formula one x reader #formula one x you #formula one x y/n #formula one fic #formula one one shot #f1 x reader #f1 x you #f1 x y/n #f1 fic #f1 one shot

[wildernessuntothemselves]

Cute? (JJ drabble teaser)

“Honey, I'm home!” Beomgyu bellows as he steps into the house, accompanied by the little dorky giggle he lets out every time he says that. That cute idiot is still very much in the honeymoon phase where he's just happy to be with you. 

You are too, and you answer him with a giggle of your own, letting him know you're in the kitchen. Though your laughter is a little bit devious, and you can't wait to see his reaction when he comes into the room. 

“Whatcha doin–oh.” He stops in his tracks to look at you, decked out in an all pink and white outfit as you lean against the counter. The white ruffled skirt you're wearing barely covers your ass and crotch with thigh highs coming up to the middle of your thighs, cat paws printed on them. Over that you wear a pink tube top that struggles to contain your breasts, the little bell collar you're wearing bringing attention to them whenever you move. 

“What–what's going on?” He gulps, rooted to his spot still but you can already tell that your horny boyfriend pants are starting to get a little tight. “Why are you wearing that?”

“Oh, this little old thing?” You ask, twirling around to give him a nice view of your ass. The skirt you're wearing is so short that when it flies up, he can clearly see you're not wearing any underwear. “I just thought that my pretty boy has been working so hard and deserved a treat. Don't you think so?”

He nods enthusiastically, quickly making his way towards you. Immediately his hands find their way to your breasts and he bends down to kiss you. You let him slip his tongue inside your mouth, meeting it with your own as his fingers knead and rub your tits. 

“My pretty girl. So sexy.” He lets out little groans into your mouth, his hardening cock pressed up between your legs. You already feel yourself getting wet, his fingers flicking your nipples as he grinds against you. “All for me to fuck.” 

Finally, you pull away from him, pushing on his chest to put a distance between you, and answer his confused look. “Not yet, pup, I'm making you some food first. We don't want it to burn now, do we?”

“I don't care.” He growls, hands squeezing your breasts as he attempts to lean down again to kiss you, but you turn your head to the side, and he ends up kissing your neck instead. 

“But I care. I worked so hard on this meal.” You whine, pulling his head back by his hair. “Don't be bad now, Beommie.”

“You're the one being bad, wearing that slutty little outfit on purpose to drive me crazy.” His eager eyes eat you up as he toys with the neckline of your top, subtly trying to pull it down to uncover your breasts but you swat his hands away. 

“You hurt me, baby. I just wanna take care of you.” You pout, and he grabs your hand and puts it on his crotch, making you feel the hard bulge there. “Take care of this.” 

“After dinner.” You roll your eyes, turning around in his hold to check on the food and adding the prepared veggies to the pot. It’s a very simple meal, you just need to mix everything together into a stew. You knew you couldn’t make anything complicated as you’re likely to become very distracted very soon. 

Case in point…

“But I can’t wait that long.” He whines, draping his body over you, his lips planting wet, needy kisses along your shoulder and neck that make you wet somewhere else. “Not with you looking like this.” 

You pretend to let out an exasperated sigh, and press your ass against his crotch, biting back your grin. “Well, I guess if you really can’t wait… you can touch me while I’m preparing the food.” 

“Fucking slut.” He groans, hands moving to your breasts again and kneading them over the thin material of your top, easily finding your nipples and rolling them between his fingers. 

You scoff, trying to hide how affected you are by his touches already. “I’m not the one who can’t control myself when I see my girlfriend dressed in an innocent pink outfit.” 

“This is not fucking innocent. You know exactly what you’re doing to me.” He calls you out, leaning back and pulling up your skirt so he can see your bare ass. 

“Fuck…” He mutters under his breath, cupping your asscheeks and spreading them apart. “Fuck, baby, you’re leaking onto your thighs.” 

“Shut up, Beommie. Don’t be a filthy boy.” You scold, shivering when he drags a finger along your slit, gathering some of your arousal and bringing it to your lips. 

“Open up, baby. Taste yourself.” 

“Beommie–” You pretend to protest but he knows you’re just putting on an act. It’s all part of the little role play scenarios you know he loves so much. And so you let him grab your chin with his other hand, forcing your mouth open so he can shove his wet fingers inside, making you taste yourself. 

“Sweet, isn't it, baby? I could stay with my face buried in your pussy all night long.” He tells you, fucking your mouth his fingers until you’re gagging on them. “Fuck, you’re making my cock ache. You have such a pretty mouth.” 

He pulls his fingers out of your mouth and turns your head back towards him, smearing your own saliva over your cheek as he does so. The kiss is wet and filthy, just how Beomgyu likes it. And just as you get lost in the kiss, his hand leaves your face to slide between your bodies, prodding at your pussy from behind. 

“Beommie!” You whine, throwing your head back on his shoulder. 

“Tsk. Gotta focus on the cooking, baby.” He mocks, pulling your head back down before thrusting his fingers inside you. “We don’t want it to burn now, do we?”

____________________________

You can read the full thing on patreon

#txt smut #dom!idol #dom!beomgyu #sub!reader #fem!reader #not all my fics will only be available on patron #just the extra stuff like this

[hispg]

Between royalty and vows

Pairings: Prince! Leon x Fem! Reader

Summary: A forced marriage, a fate set in stone, nothing could change that.

In the world of royalty, there were no choices, only obligations to fulfill. What you didn't expect was to become engaged to a renowned prince, ready to succeed the lineage.

Until that moment, you still had some hope that everything would work out, maybe it wasn't so bad. But it would be a shame if your future husband had a mistress.

Wouldn't it?

Wc:2.6k

Warnings: slow burn, angst, hurt/ comfort, cheating, arranged marriage, eventual smut, one-sided love, affairs, manipulative behavior from Leon, (I'll put more once things start to progress).

Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

An:I just wanted to tell you to prepare your hearts for the next chapter, because it's going to hurt.😭

Chapter 4: Knowlegde

Two days had passed since Leon had left for this trip. It had also been two days since the castle had been in a state of complete commotion, there wasn't a second when there was silence in the corridors.

That's because preparations for the wedding were in full force. Goods were arriving all the time, decorations were being spread around the castle, all under the queen's supervision.

You had even tried on your wedding dress, which you honestly didn't feel the slightest bit happy about when you looked in the mirror. Not that the dress was ugly, far from it, but the feeling inside your heart about your wedding was something that was too far from happiness.

It was your wedding, but you felt like an intruder.

But today you somehow managed to escape the incessant questions from the queen, or the servants asking:

"Which color is best?"

"Which wine does your highness prefer?"

"Which of these jewels?"

"What kind of flowers?"

These and other endless questions, which frankly you didn't care whether the color of the tablecloths was white or cream, you didn't care much about that part.

Or even whether the flowers in your bouquet should be roses or poppies, either of which would make a beautiful bouquet, so there was no point in getting worked up about it.

It all seemed to be overwhelming you so much, making your head spin in circles every time the subject came up.

Sometimes you felt like running away from all this mess, going back to the comfort of your Palace and pretending that everything that had happened here had just been a bad dream.

But there was no turning back, once you were here, committed, there was no second choice.

Once again you found yourself hiding in one of the corners of the courtyard, a more secluded place where not many people actually came. In fact, the place wasn't as well-kept as the rest of the garden, the vegetation a little overgrown, the trees and bushes untrimmed, even the benches there were full of fallen leaves.

But none of that bothered you, as long as you could get a single second of peace in that place, any space was enough.

You had nothing more than a book in your hands, which you took from the royal library and brought with you for some kind of distraction, which didn't work out very well. Your mind was in a whirl.

At the same time as you were relieved that Leon wasn't around, you couldn't say that you didn't miss him either. As hard as it was to admit.

All you had from him these last few days were two letters, which you didn't bother to read. Maybe you should have, since at least he took the effort to write you something, but you weren't the least bit interested in knowing how things were going for him.

Since, to begin with, you didn't believe at all that he'd gone on business, there was surely another reason behind it.

But it's not as if there was much you could do, just wait and pretend that nothing had happened. After all, isn't that what a good and devoted wife does?

You found yourself at the edge of the water fountain, sitting while your bare hand floated beneath the wet surface. You were just tracing the water, making small movements while thinking about various things. As well as being grateful to be alone there. Your thoughts wandering away, a solemn expression on your face while the sound of birdsong was the only noise there.

As if punished by fate, your peace was interrupted when you heard footsteps, and you mentally prepared yourself for yet another servant calling you in, probably to make yet another boring decision about your marriage.

But to your surprise, no, it wasn't like that at all. You saw the familiar silhouette, the tall, robust man, the gentle brown eyes that you would never mistake.

Duke Redfield, a pleasant presence in the midst of this chaos.

You couldn't hide the small smile that formed at the corners of your lips, your head cocked slightly to one side as you looked at him.

He approached, paying you a courtesy and sitting down nearby, keeping a respectful distance.

"The queen is looking for you." He begins, looking down at your bare hand which was resting under the water of the fountain.

You sigh, locking your gaze with his, "It's more comfortable out here."

Your simple way of saying that you had no plans for whatever the queen's requests were.

Chris nodded, giving you a concerned look. He didn't have to be a genius to know that something was wrong with you.

"It's normal to feel nervous before the big day, it's a major commitment." Chris begins, not looking at you specifically, but at your hand that was in the fountain

Something about seeing your delicate hand without gloves for the first time caught his eye.

You sighed a little, feeling a cool autumn breeze hit you both, your eyes settling on him.

"Maybe that's it… I think it'll pass soon." You answer back. But because you're such a bad liar, he doesn't buy what you say.

He nods, taking something out of his pocket and giving it to you. It was a piece of paper, a letter. It was obvious who it was from.

Leon.

You took the letter without saying a word, just looking at the sophisticated paper in your hands. The impeccable writing that you already knew well. Not that you were in the best mood to read it, but you weren't going to mess it up in front of the Duke.

"The prince asked me to give it to you, he wrote it before he left." Chris said it simply, neither happy nor sad. But at the same time there was something in his voice that conveyed a certain discomfort.

You couldn't tell what. Maybe he knew how bad things were between you and Leon, who knows?

But that didn't matter now, you just opened the letter and started reading. And as much as you hated the situation, you couldn't deny that your heart skipped a beat at every measly word on that piece of paper.

'My dearest beloved' The first words you read, which made you simultaneously giddy and stressed. It wasn't possible for him to be so facetious. Or worse, you fell under his poor spell.

The words expressed in ink and on paper that made you feel tumultuous, confused, feelings that touched you, and that you tried fervently to keep under control.

'I realize that our lives are changing abruptly, but I wanted to ask for your understanding.' You couldn't believe your eyes, asking for understanding at a time like this? You were slowly confirming your hypothesis that he hadn't gone on this trip just for business. Why were you still so foolish to believe him?

'My mother is in charge of the wedding preparations, so I just hope you'll accompany her. I don't want you to be alone.' Once again you put the pieces together, that's why his mother was always after you.

She wouldn't let you walk around the castle alone for a single second, after all, it was Leon who asked for things to be this way.

He wanted to control you even when he was away, wanted to keep you under his watchful eye even while he was away.

Now you understood why his mother had even told you that you needed to do some waltz practice for the wedding. Why would you need to learn something you already do so well?

Or even the fact that she wanted to ask you to help her choose the jewelry she would wear on the day of the event. Shouldn't that be her choice?

It was no wonder the queen sent Leon letters every day, it wasn't just a longing of a mother, it was control over your actions.

You were a lady of royalty, a future queen, you had to behave like one. You knew that perfectly well, and perhaps you wanted to be just a little daring about it.

Looking at Chris next to you, you couldn't let a thought slip your mind, or you could even say that it was an enormous impulse that you possessed.

It was almost time for the instruments for the ceremony to be tested. Just as the renowned musicians were going to be trained so that they wouldn't get the music wrong at the moment of the occasion.

Coincidentally, this was the same time you were going to waltz 'lessons', supposedly so as not to make any mistakes on the perfect day. You were a great princess, obviously. And as an exemplary lady of royalty, you couldn't miss a lesson, you couldn't set such a bad example.

But today, your dance partner would be someone quite different from the usual. The person who was sitting in the purest of silences next to you.

Duke Redfield. Wasn't that a great idea?

You rolled your eyes at the end of the letter, too worn out to bother reading it all at once.

'I hope to return soon, my dearest beloved.' Dearest beloved, you still hated the way he tried to make you believe it was real at some point. And you hated even more that some part of you believed it was real.

With that last part, you put the letter inside the book you were carrying, letting the piece of paper mingle with the others you hadn't read yet.

Not that you were going to read all those letters later, nothing more than a disuse of your time.

You then put your glove back on, giving the Duke a kind smile as you adjusted your clothes. Making sure you looked presentable for a waltz with the Duke.

"I imagine the letter put you in a good mood, princess." Chris broke the silence, looking at you with his gentle brown eyes.

You gave a little smile, fixing the sleeves of your dress as you stood up on your heels, a corner-to-corner smile on your face.

"Certainly in a great mood." You're lying, it wasn't the letter that was putting you in a good mood, it was actually what you were going to do.

As Leon said he couldn't leave you alone, without anyone's company, you couldn't ignore your husband's sweet request. So why not? A waltz with the Duke wouldn't hurt anyone.

He smiled and got up with you, standing in front of you as a melody began to echo through the castle. The perfect moment for you to put what you wanted into practice.

When the wedding choir began to play at full capacity, to the point where all the music could be heard by the two of you outside, you stepped forward and bowed to the Duke.

Taking the opportunity to give the most charming smile you had, a smile capable of bewitching even the toughest of knights.

"May I have the honor of a dance?" You whispered, knowing how bold it was of you to ask.

You were an engaged lady, as well as being from high society. Fiancée to the prince, a close friend of Chris. He had every reason to interpret this as flirting and say no. But something in you told him that he was far from giving you a negative answer.

"As you wish, Your Highness." He returns the bow, moving closer to you.

One of his hands comes up to your waist, the other wrapped around yours, lifting both hands, his and yours, to his shoulder.

Your hand joins his, sharing the warmth of the touch, while your other hand grips your dress, his gallent smile taking your breath away.

You soon began to move your feet to the rhythm of the waltz, and he followed. His eyes never failed to lock onto yours, your smile widening with every step you took in that courtyard.

With every movement, with every twirl through that courtyard, your heart fluttered, you couldn't stop smiling at that moment.

Something about that situation was special, good, pleasurable. A gentle breeze in the midst of the events taking place in that castle. At that moment all you could think about was this waltz, this simple moment.

Chris conducted the dance masterfully, watching as your dress moved along with you, or the tenuous smile you gave him. Your eyes fixed on his as he led you, his hand firmly on your waist, making his presence clear, his touch there.

You carried on, the waltz continued to play as you focused on each other, moving in union in that meaningful dance, where so many unspoken words were being expressed by the looks you two exchanged.

In the middle of the graceful spins, Chris decided to get a bit of attitude and twirled you around in the air, holding you firmly as he did so.

You couldn't help but giggle when he put you down, returning to dance with him around the courtyard.

At that moment Chris could have sworn that there was no smile as captivating as yours, or eyes more passionate than your pair. You were an unlikely partner, but something about you was different.

"That dress looks stunning on you." He breaks the silence as he dances with you, looking at you with that same smile that makes your knees weak.

You nodded, giving him a sweet smile. A smile that was beginning to gain a significant piece of his being.

"Thank you, I'm pleased you like it." You were genuine in what you said, it was really nice to have someone who appreciated things like that. Of course, in a real way.

With nothing but the sound of the music and your heels hitting the floor, Chris continued to take you back and forth, not caring to stop anytime soon.

As soon as he spun you around, you felt eyes on you. You didn't notice much since there were only the two of you in that part of the garden.

But as soon as you looked up at one of the highest windows in the castle, there she was, the queen. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the two of you dancing and giggling quietly in the courtyard, not caring about anything. She didn't look too happy either.

But that's what you wanted, so Leon could know you weren't alone. Wasn't that what he was so worried about? So he didn't have to worry any more.

You just smiled at Chris as if you hadn't seen anything, and he hadn't noticed anyone else watching you either.

When the noise died down, you both stopped, bowing as if you were officially at a ball. You bowed while holding your dress with both hands, giving the most beautiful smile you could give.

And he reciprocated, looking delighted.

"It was a pleasure, Your Highness." Chris says in a soft tone, raising his arm for you to accompany him inside.

"The pleasure is all mine, Duke." You say with a smile, and he quickly corrects you.

"Chris, you can call me that. Forget the formalities, at least while we're alone." You could be crazy, but his tone at the end was almost suggestive.

"Right, Chris." You whisper, and the name slips past your lips in such an alluring way, so right.

He then smiled and began to guide you, while you looked over your shoulder to the window where the queen was standing.

A smile crept across your face as you walked alongside Chris. You wanted her to see.

You wanted it to be as explicit as daylight. After all, giving it back was only fair, right?

What the eyes can't see, the heart can't feel. You'll see how true that phrase is when the consequences of your actions arrive.

Sometimes playing fair is the best way. Even if it means breaking a few rules.

#leon kennedy #leon kennedy x y/n #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x you #leon s kennedy #leon x reader #leon x y/n #leon x you #leon resident evil #leon scott kennedy x reader #re leon #resident evil leon #leon scott kennedy x you #leon s kennedy smut #leon smut #between royalty and vows

[rowarn]

afab!reader, keegan fucking up into you, creampie <3

for the anon who wanted keegan content after PLM 🫡 i didn't forget about u

there was something you absolutely loved about being pressed against keegan. When he was laid back against the bed, you in his lap, his strong arms wrapped around you and pinning your chest against his. 

you were already drooling against his bare shoulder from the way he was slowly rutting his hips up, his feet braced against the bed so he could get the most leverage. his blunt nails bite into your skin but you hardly even notice the burning sensation. 

“fuck,” he finally speaks, that deep, raspy voice sending heat straight to your core, “needed this. needed you all fuckin’ day.”

“kee…” you can’t help but whimper, lashes fluttering when the tip of his cock hits a particularly sensitive spot inside. 

you don’t have the room or movement freedom to look between your bodies to see the mess you’re making all over him but you can feel it. you can feel the slick slide of your thighs against his hips and you can hear the gooey, sticky noises that your pussy makes when he slides inside you. 

your clit rubbed against the firm plane of his stomach every time his hips met your ass. you were jostled, easily rocked to his rhythm and you loved every second of it. 

“so sweet,” he coos, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head, “bein’ so good for me.”

you keen under his praise, heat flushing to your cheeks when you involuntarily clench down around him. you know he feels it too, in the way he grunts and chuckles under his breath.

he adjusts his grip on you and you barely even have time to prepare yourself before he fucks up into you hard. 

you yelp when the tip of his cock knocks against your cervix. it hurts but it’s not anything new – keegan’s got a nice, long cock and you’ve come to enjoy that sweet pang of pain. 

he shushes you softly when you cry out but he doesn’t hold back. the sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room and underneath your cries of pleasure you can hear the wet sound of your cunt swallowing every inch of his cock. 

the sounds he makes are quiet, easily missed under the volume of your own cries but you hear them nonetheless. and they’re lovely. keegan isn’t very vocal so you soak up any little sounds he supplies you. you’ve dreamt of pinning him down and riding him until he has no choice but tho cry out and moan for you. but you know that’s just a pipe dream because keegan is always in charge and has more self control than you think one could ever have. 

it just made the sounds he gave you all the more precious.

another thing about keegan was his unbelievable stamina. even supporting your weight, doing all the work to fuck his pretty cock up into your sweet little cunt, he wasn’t even out of breath. you were a mess – panting, moaning, drooling, and crying from how well he fucked you. every thrust was well-aimed to that gooey little spot deep inside you that only keegan was able to reach. 

pleasure fogged your brain, with your pussy stuffed nice and full, getting fucked just right and your clit grinding against him with every movement, you couldn’t even think properly beyond him. his name fell from your lips like a mantra, music to his ears. 

“g-gonna cum,” you manage to babble out between pleasured huffs. 

“i know,” he grunts, hand cupping the back of your neck in a firm grip, to keep you pinned against him. he loved the feeling of you drooling all over him, fucked nice and dumb all for him. he knew your body like the back of his hand, recognized the sweet breaks in your voice, the tight, wet clutching of your cunt, and the way your pretty body trembled and twitched in his hold. 

“keegan!” you cry, raking your nails down his skin as your feet kick up and slam back down to the bed, the stimulation becoming too much the higher you’re pushed to your orgasm. 

“yeah, baby,” he grunts from effort as he fucks you deeper and harder, working to get you over that edge, “i’m right here, babydoll. go ahead and cum for me, fuck.”

and you do. 

clutching at him and crying out in pure pleasure as you cream a sweet little mess around his cock. he imagines pulling out and seeing your cum covering his cock, imagines making you get on your knees and clean him up as thank you for fucking you so well. the image makes him moan, his own eyes rolling back in his head. his cock twitches and throbs in the heat of your twitching pussy and before you even come down, he’s filling you with his load. 

getting to creampie you is a  nice little reward for working hard all day and coming home to you <3

#keegan p russ smut #keegan smut #keegan p russ x reader #keegan x reader #cod smut #cod x reader

[wonijinjin]

seventeen members with a sick s/o

author’s note: wrote this because everyone seems to catch the flu going around (including myself), hope this gives you all a bit of comfort:)

synopsis: what the title says

word count: 2.2k | genre: fluff, comfort | pairings: seventeen members x gn! reader | warnings: mentions of illness, throwing up, headaches, sneezing, fevers, coughing, fainting, food, a few curse words

cheol and you had been cuddling on the couch when he noticed how warm you were in his hold and how fatigued you looked. “my love is everything alright? you feel too warm.” you didn’t have the energy in you to reply properly so you whined in response, him not needing it after he felt your cheeks. “you are burning up, let’s get you to bed, love.” he said while wrapping you in a blanket and carrying you in a princess hold back to the bedroom.

- overall he would be very attentive when it comes to your wellbeing, quickly noticing how your energy levels have changed (mans has 12 kids, he can detect these things from miles away, parental instincts)

- you are his top priority; he would be running around to get you medication and everything else you need

- bonus points for babying you and sweet talking because he knows how sensitive you get when not feeling good

hannie had always been a light sleeper, so it wasn’t a surprise when he woke up to you coughing during the night. “angel, are you okay?” he would ask, worried if you chocked on your own saliva in your dreams or if you were sick, which was the case sadly. “do you want me to stay up with you till you fall asleep? you can take cough drops in the morning.” he would offer while soothing you, and you would gladly accept.

- he is known to be playful, but he immediately becomes serious if he sees you feeling unwell

- would want to cuddle with you all day, it gives him an excuse to be lazy and rest aswell (which he needs btw, being so handsome is tiring)

- bonus points for singing a sweet melody to help you fall asleep, his giggles are so cute they would cure you in a heartbeat

joshua got a text from you saying that you were sent home because you fainted at work, so he called you in a rush. “darling what happened? did you not take care of yourself? i need to look after you more since you cannot do it yourself.” after you explained the situation to him he would be joking around a bit to lighten the mood if he knew you were alright. “wait for me, i’m on my way home with your favourite tea.” he said before hanging up, your heart warm due to knowing he was on his way.

- he would be sooo gentle, kind of being afraid of disturbing you in any way since he knew how tired you were

- you can expect all the kisses, smooches in the world from him (he says this will cure your illness faster, but in reality he just wants to kiss you continouosly)

- bonus points for getting you a new plushie since he couldn’t leave his baby without an emotional support toy if he needed to run to the store

jun knew you were sick the moment he saw you drinking a warm cup of tea; you weren’t the biggest fan of it, you preferred coffee. “dear what hurts? is it your throat?” he asked immediately, already on his way to the kitchen to make you some ginger shots which are well known to be full of vitamins. you followed him, mumbling about how you felt achy all over to which he kissed you on the forehead. “don’t worry dear, i will take care of you!”

- he is quite calm on the outside but he is freaking out on the inside for sure, being afraid of messing up something and making you feel worse

- he pulls up the chinese remedies he knows and hopes for the best, honestly a bit lost about what to do, thinks your immune system just needs enough time to recover

- bonus points for not being afraid to kiss you because you really crave physical affection and need him to cuddle with you

hoshi didn’t realise you were feeling under the weather until you actually sneezed on him, hard. “oh my god baby tiger are you okay? are you dying???” he would be shouting in a worried tone, making your ear ring so much you had to shush him to be quiet. he goes out to buy you tissues and nasal spray to help with the congestion and on the way back he would buy snacks which you would appreciate a lot.

- very scared tiger, doesn’t know how to help properly other than suggesting taking vitamins

- calls his mom for help on making soup and cooks a delicious nutritious meal for you thanks to her which he will brag about for years saying how well he took care of you

- bonus points for following your orders very well, he does everything you ask him to

wonwoo knew something was up with you when you were more clingy than usual; climbing into his lap and resting your head on his shoulder while he was gaming, heat radiating off of you. “are you tired sweetheart? you feel a bit clammy, are you coming down with something?” he would ask in a deep concerned tone to which you just nodded into his shoulder. “why don’t we get you under those warm sheets while i make you a tea, hm?” he would scoop you up gently, bringing you to the comfort of your bedsheets.

- one of the best caretakers in seventeen, he is not too suffocating but will be by your side in a heartbeat if you need anything

- would not let you do any chores; his top priority would be keeping you in bed to sleep off the virus you managed to catch

- bonus points for reading to you at night when you can’t fall asleep due to the symptoms and keeping you on his chest to calm you down

while being in his studio you decided to take a nap on the couch which was a warning sign to woozi, because you never took naps during the day, only when feeling unwell or upset. when you woke up his face welcomed you. “let me take you home, you are clearly in no condition to nap on a couch.” he would insist, picking you up and motioning you towards the door. “i will take a break aswell, on the way home we will buy you some medicine, okay?” he would assure you that you are in the best hands, letting sleep overtake you in the car.

- he is not the type to be overbearing and extremely worried, although he knows how you tend to overwork yourself, so he will make sure you don’t overdo things, but won’t forbid anything

- however, when you are asleep and he sees you in pain his heart aches so he would be quietly whispering to whoever is up in the clouds to make you feel better soon, because he can’t bare seeing you be so weak and fragile

- bonus points for tucking you in when you fall asleep and frequently checking up on you while he works

minghao found out you are sick through your friend whom he accidentally bumps into on his way home. “y/n you didn’t you tell me you were sick? stay put i will be there in a few minutes.” he would rush to your apartment, a sad smile taking place on his face when he saw you wrapped up in a blanket and surrounded by tissues on the couch. “ahw, you really got that bug, didn’t you? i know just the right ways to fasten your recovery.”

- he is very calm when he handles the situation, quickly assessing the damage done to your immune system and brainstorming ideas to solve it

- his tea-lover self will surely make you some which will taste really bitter as it is probably some chinese remedy, but you will drink it anyway, because he insists

- bonus points for cleaning up your apartment and making you dinner to have something in you while taking your meds

mingyu woke up in the middle of the night to the shuffling of the bedsheets and you telling him you just threw up. “my poor baby. you must feel horrible. let’s get you into a nice bubble bath, yeah? then while you relax a bit i will bring you a few crackers and start making a delicious soup.” he would say while wrapping you into his arms; no matter how late it was he wanted to help.

- he is basically a chef so you would have all the food you crave, or if you don’t have an appetite he would try to get something really light into your system

- he may be more whiny than you since he is very worried, but he will gladly shut up about it and talk to you about random stuff so it takes your mind off of the sickness

- bonus points for cuddling you every minute, the man is so clingy you could not escape his hold even if you wanted to

when you were watching a movie a coughing fit took over you and dk started patting your back without hesitation. “sunshine, are you sick? wait, let me get you a glass of water, okay? stay here, your new nurse and fantastic boyfriend will take care of you!” he went to the kitchen for the drink, returning with a blanket from your bedroom, draping over your half asleep, trembling form.

- this baby would be so worried he would literally start crying if he saw you get worse despite taking care of you, and would think his efforts were not enough (which is of course a lie, he is doing more than expected)

- would cancel all his practices and any meeting he has so he could take care of you, monitoring your temperature and consulting with you doctor via emails

- bonus points for making you laugh even when you feel like absolute shit with his funny and silly faces and bad jokes

when you woke up in the morning seungkwan was already all over you, asking so many questions all at once you hardly understood any of them. “did you take your vitamins last night as i told you? are you feeling better? did you take your temperature yesterday? we should take it now actually.” he would say while getting you breakfast in bed along with the thermometer.

- he would be handling you like a child and would be caring for you like a mother hen, he is just worried about you to be honest

- best at having all the medicine and vitamins you need, not just in literal meaning, but in food too; he would have so many nutritious fruits and bone broth soup for you to eat, he knows it helps restore your energy

- bonus points for letting you do whatever you want after recovering since he feels guilty about you gettng sick (even though he had nothing to do with it)

vernon stepped into the bedroom and was greeted by darkness and your form laying on the bed, curled up, shivering. “you okay there, babe?” he moved closer to you, moving the covers above you, tucking you in nicely. “do you need me to get you some tea?” he asked, brows knitted together. “you know what, i will get you some anyway.” not even waiting for your reply he disappeared into the kitchen.

- kinda malewife material, he cares about you so much and knows how bad being sick can be so he babies you (which is very rare for him to do tbh)

- a silent lover and his actions talk more than he actualy does during the period of your illness, probably does things like asking mingyu to make you some soup (boy cannot cook to save his life)

- bonus points for making you a relaxing playlist while he makes you a warm bath to loosen your muscles and clear your sinuses because he read that steam can help a lot with congestion and overall stiffness

even though he is the youngest in seventeen dino worries about you a lot, and he wants to check up on you every minute while you are unwell. “hi darling, did you take your medicine for the fever? did you sleep well? no? don’t worry i am heading home in a few minutes, my sweetheart needs me.” he would rush home to you if he sensed you missed him and would be taking care of you for weeks if needed, puffing up your pillows and buying you the most expensive tissues so it won’t hurt your nose.

- so soft when he feels needed, he would spoon feed you the porridge he makes and pat your head in bed until you fall asleep

- he just loves babying his lover, since he has received the baby treatment from his hyungs he would be pretty good at knowing ways to make you feel better quickly; like putting a cool cloth on your head

- bonus points for buying you a whole new closet of warmer clothes since he insists you keep warm after you caught a nasty cold in fall, he does not care about the price if it is about his precious baby

#wonijinjin #caratsland #seventeen #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #svt imagines #seventeen fluff #fluff #joshua #svt wonwoo #svt minghao #svt mingyu #svt jeonghan #seventeen dino #seventeen jun #seventeen woozi #seventeen soonyoung #seventeen vernon #svt seungkwan #sick!reader #svt hoshi #svt joshua #svt dk #svt scoups

[m00nlight-ramblings]

Like Real People Do: Chapter 1

You are the new girl at Hawkins High for your junior year. As a stereotypical "goody goody", you've been focused on friends, studies, and getting into college...so when you become friends with Eddie Munson, it completely throws a wrench in your system. But, sometimes, that can be a very, very good thing. (slow burn strangers to friends to lovers)

This is "Like Real People Do: Chapter 1"

Pairings: Eddie x AFAB reader (for continuity sake, you will have a name because I truly hate writing "y/n" it gives me hives, but it won't be prevalent enough to be distracting)

Warnings: swearing. every chapter will have their own warnings - eventually, their will be fluff, angst, smut. THIS ENTIRE SERIES IS 18+ MINORS DNI

Word Count: 2.64k

A/N: My Eddie obsession will never leave me, apparently lol. Some of the plot will be out of order from the show - I'm not quite sure if I want to incorporate the Upside Down stuff just yet. Graphic made by me, I do not give permission for it (or this series) to be shared without my knowledge.

The end-of-summer breeze was light, running through the open window of your car. You had your arm extended out the driver window, lightly tapping the outside of the door as you drove slowly down the road where Hawkins High School was located. The closer you got, the more the butterflies fluttered in your stomach, bouncing off of the walls and causing you to breathe out shaky breaths every 10 seconds (approximately).

Bananarama’s “Venus” was playing through the speaker of the sound system in your car – normally, you’d be singing along, your toes tapping along to the beat. But instead, you felt like you were driving into something awful – a battle, or a funeral, perhaps.

Which, if you think about it, is probably the exact opposite place that you should be listening to Bananarama’s “Venus”.

As you turned the corner, you saw kids from both the high school and close by middle school mingling outside, in the parking lot. It seemed that everyone – except for you – had First Day of School™ smiles plastered on their faces, which only added to your growing pit of nerves. Slowly, you maneuvered into your assigned parking spot – lucky 31 – and parked the car, rolling up the window and turning down the music. You let out a shaky breath and gripped the steering wheel so hard, your knuckles turned white.

“It is your first day of school,” You reminded yourself, trying hard not to look at the people walking around your car abstinent-mindedly, chatting to their friends about what they did over summer vacation. You felt a pang of sadness as you yearned for your best friends back home – this past summer was the first summer in high school you three didn’t work together at the local Dairy Queen, and even though you hated that job, you missed them so much sometimes your heart hurt.

Shaking the sadness out of your quickly, you looked ahead and started again, “It’s your first day of school. It is your first day of school – you are not about to enter a Roman Coliseum to fight a caged tiger.” Accidentally, you made eye contact with a boy walking past the car, who squinted his eyes at you in confusion.

Although you feel like you’re surrounded by caged tigers… You thought, expelling another shaky breath. Were you sure that boy wasn’t a caged tiger? Because he sure was making you feel like it.

“It’s your first day of school,” You whispered again, checking your watch. 10 minutes until you had to meet the principal in their office to get the grand tour and your class schedule. “It’s your first day of school, and you’re going to kick ass. It’s nothing to be scared of.” You watched another person make a face at you while they walked by.

Okay, time to stop talking to yourself in the car.

You grabbed your backpack and opened the door, your knees feeling slightly like Jello. Locking the door behind you, you made your way through the front door of the building. According to the packet that came in the mail a few week’s prior, the principal’s office was almost directly next to the entrance, to the right.

Turning to the right, you saw the front office, with the sign “Hawkins High Front Office” plastered at the top of the doorway.

Okay. That wasn’t so hard.

Progress.

You stepped in, stepping into the small line that had already formed at the receptionist’s desk. Taking in your surroundings, you heard multiple phones ringing, and multiple conversations happening at once.

School wasn’t hard for you – in fact, you actually loved school. Known as a Goody-Goody at your last school, you were interested in homework, and getting good grades. In your junior year and on the fast track to a big university, possibly on the East Coast, you wanted to study psychology to become a therapist.

So, school definitely wasn’t hard for you. What was hard was moving to a new state due to your dad’s new job, and having to start school smack dab in the middle of your high school career. Being 550 miles away from everything you had ever known was tough – doing it at 17-years-old was even worse.

“Miss?” The receptionist said, pulling you back to reality. You snapped your head forward and saw that she was smiling politely, but definitely impatiently. You blushed as you stepped forward, being next in line. “How can I help you?” She asked as you stepped up. She had thick glasses and lipstick had already stained her teeth, even though it was only 7:00 in the morning. She tapped her pencil against the desk as she waited for your response.

“Oh, hi,” You said, subconsciously running your tongue over your teeth, “Um, today is my first day…I transferred in. And I was told to be here now to meet with the principal –”

“Brooke Henway?” The receptionist interrupted. You nodded. Quickly, she waved her hand as if to say come on, “This way. Principal Higgins is in his office and will be waiting for you. Have a great first day.” She knocked on a door marked “Principal Higgins” on a gold plaque, the entire sentence a monotone run-on. Offering a strained smile to you, she scooted back to her desk, shouting, “WHO’S NEXT?!”

You sighed heavily and re-adjusted your backpack, shoving your hands in your jeans pockets. Rocking on your heels, you reminded yourself that no matter how large and scary it felt, this was just a high school, and not a Roman Coliseum.

This was going to be a long year.

Shutting the door to your locker, you felt exhausted. The first day of school wasn’t bad – people here were actually pretty nice, and it seemed like you would be able to keep up in your classes fairly easy. But a first day of school would be tiring anyway…adding on that it was a first day at a new school, and you were downright asleep with your eyes open.

You were just about to make your way to your car – home at last! – when all of the sudden, what sounded like a heard of buffalo made its way down the seemingly empty hallway. You turned to face the noise at the end of the hallway, and a group of rowdy boys turned the corner, laughing and shouting about something that made them so excited, they seemed to be breaking the sound barrier. Something told you hang back a second, so you decided to wait until they passed to head out to the parking lot.

The group consisted of what seemed like various grades – definitely a few freshmen, but some seemed older. A few were wearing shirts that boasted “HELLFIRE CLUB” on them, and they seemed like a rag-tag group. One boy with longer, curly, brown hair and a leather jacket, made eye contact with you while he was smiling at one of the younger looking boys. For a split second, you both maintained eye contact as the group passed by you, and you felt a little jolt in your tummy.

Okay…he’s kinda hot. You thought, a smiling threatening to break through on your lips. Even though he wasn’t technically smiling at you, he seemed nice.

Or, at least funny since he was making the rest of the boys around him howl with laughter.

As soon as they passed, Long Curly Hair Boy shoved his hand in his back pocket, causing whatever was in there to tip out, scattering on the ground. They sounded plastic by the sound of the pink pink! noise they made as they fell on the linoleum, but they group didn’t hear over their conversation. You stepped to them, snatching them in your hand.

Looking down at them, they seemed like dice, except there was way too many sides. Inquisitively, you investigated them, turning them over with your finger. The dice themselves were a cool, swirly black and maroon color, while the numbers on them were a metallic gold.

Suddenly, you remembered these cool, weird dice were not, in fact, yours.

“Hey! Excuse me?” You shouted, jogging to catch up with the group. At first, they didn’t hear you, so you shouted again. “Heyyyyy! Hey!”

Almost as one organism, they all turned at the same time (and weirdly, in the same direction). Long Curly Hair Boy had his arm around two of the younger guys – Smaller Long Curly Hair Boy, and Tall And Lanky Looking Boy – affectionately. You locked eyes again and he widened his smile.

“Yesssss? Can I help you?” He asked in a playful tone. You extended your hand, flattening your palm to show off the dice.

“You dropped these.”

He looked at the dice and one of the boys whistled. Quickly looking back up to you with appreciation, he quickly took the dice and put them in his back pocket, “Geeze, thanks. Can’t believe I would’ve left those. They were custom made…” He looked back at you and tiled his head, “…I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”

You smiled, “Because you haven’t. I’m new…moved here this summer. Today was my first day,” You offered, but then remembered that today was everyone’s first day, “Well I mean, like here. In Hawkins.”

Long Curly Hair Boy chuckled and nodded, “No, I got what you meant. Well, welcome to the exotic and exciting Hawkins, Indiana! I’m Eddie,” He introduced the rest of the gang (Smaller Long Curly Hair Boy was actually named Dustin, and Tall and Lanky Looking Boy was actually named Mike).

“I’m Brooke,” You said after they were done. There was a moment of silence after pleasantries were exchanged and you raised your eyebrows, “Welp…I better get home. Even though it’s only the first day, I have like, 100 pages of reading for English, so…” You jabbed your thumb in the direction of the parking lot, your voice trailing off.

“Right, right. Well, we better go too…” Eddie started, crossing and uncrossing his arms, “Thanks again for saving my butt with my dice back there…and see you around.” He smiled again and the group said their goodbyes, walking away collectively as one organism again. You chuckled watching them leave.

Teenage boys are so fucking weird.

You headed out to the parking lot and got into your car. As you turned the radio up and rolled down your window, you found yourself smiling.

Yeah…maybe the first day wasn’t so bad.

Something about the new girl had thrown Eddie’s head for a minor tailspin.

Sure, he had only talked to her for like, 30 seconds. And sure, it wasn’t flirty by any means. But there was something about her…was it her smile? Or the way her hair was shining in the afternoon sunlight? Or maybe it was, even with such little conversation, Eddie could tell she was really nice – a “kind soul” was what he had heard it described as.

Jesus Christ, he knew this girl for all of two minutes and he was already waxing poetic.

Thankfully, he was able to shake the thoughts of her off as he focused back on the main thing he should be focusing on after the first day of school.

His new Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

Quickly scribbling ideas down, he worked through some new thoughts he had conjured up in third period. Smiling as he did so – he had a feeling Henderson would love the new direction he was taking it – he bobbed his head to the Iron Maiden tape playing in his stereo next to him. Thankful for the new, freshmen recruits he had met earlier in the summer, he hadn’t been so excited for a campaign in a long time – and this Friday, they were going to have their first, official Hellfire meeting of the school year.

“EDDIE,” Wayne screamed over his music, knocking on his door, “PHONE FOR YOU.”

“THANKS.” Eddie replied, not looking up as he shut the music off. He snagged the phone in his room out of its cradle, “Y-ello?”

“So she was really hot, right?” Dustin’s voice rang through the phone and Eddie heard Wayne’s chuckle as he hung up the other phone in the kitchen. Embarrassed, Eddie rolled his eyes, even though Dustin couldn’t see him.

“What?”

“I said, ‘she was really hot, right’?”

“No, Dustin, I heard you, but what the hell are you talking about?”

“The new girl!” Dustin groaned, “The new girl is pretty cute! You know exactly who I’m talking about!”

“Dustin…” Eddie sighed, rubbing his forehead in between his eyebrows, “I don’t even remember her name -”

“Yes, you do.”

Yes, I do.

“Whatever. Point is, who cares?”

“Who cares?! Us…we should care!” Dustin sounded exhausted already, “She’s a new girl – a new, hot, girl – and she was nice to us! On the first day! Do you know what that means?!”

“…no?”

“It means, genius, that we could get our high school credibility up! She doesn’t know that we’re the freaks of the school – yet – and she was nice to us! That combo means that we could have a pretty girl as a friend, thus making us cool!”

“Dustin…” Eddie winced internally at the word “freak”, “I don’t care about my credibility in this dumb town.”

“Well, it’ll make our lives easier! My whole life, I was thrown into lockers because I’m a nerd with new teeth basically every other year…if we have pretty, nice girl as a friend, that could change! We’ll still be nerds -”

“But with a pretty, nice friend?” Eddie finished, basically checking out of the conversation.

“Exactly!” Dustin shouted excited.

“Okay, Henderson, I’m going to hang up the phone now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Ugh, okay fine. But just think about it, okay?!”

“Yeah, sure, bye.” Eddie rushed to hang up the phone, the idea of talking any more about Brooke making him sweat a little bit. He sighed, releasing some of the tension in his shoulders, before he turned his stereo on again.

But even with the pen in his hand, and music playing in his room, Eddie still couldn’t concentrate on his campaign, and tried shake the thought of you. He didn’t need to have a “nice, pretty friend” because he truly didn’t care, but it would be nice to have you as a friend.

Or at least, he thought.

Maybe “this will be my year” would take on a whole new meaning now.

---

A/N: thanks so much for reading, y’all! I have Eddie Munson brainrot right now, so even though I have oneshots AND another multi-chapter fic I’m working on, I guess my brain also decided I needed to write this one too lol. As always, your likes, reblogs, and comments mean the world to me, so they’re greatly appreciated! Let me know what you think!

#eddie munson smut #eddie munson headcanon #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fan fiction #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things

[anantaru]

𝐉𝐄𝐑𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐔 𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐒 𝐎𝐅𝐅

୨୧ jerking them off feat. cyno : kaveh : al-haitham : tighnari x fem! reader

୨୧ WARNINGS: nsfw, handjobs, messy messy

𝐂𝐘𝐍𝐎

cyno slightly lifted his head before his eyes fell low to where you were fondling with his pants, pulling them down.

your fingers danced around his erection, carefully, being aware on how sensitive he could become when you proceeded to take it in your hand, his hips rolling into your fist involuntarily, trembling at your soothing touch.

you flicked your thumb over his slit, still being cautious not to hurt him, the warm precum on your digits making it hard for you to focus on your scheme. Somehow your thoughts drifted into dreaming, wondering how intense it would taste on your tongue, how it‘d melt into your wetness to exhilarate the sensation dwelling inside of you.

you leaned down to press kisses on his jaw, a faint hint of a self satisfied smirk working its way on your lips with it developing into a wry smile, menacing, listening to the small huffs and puffs you managed to coax out of your lover which worked in tune with your strokes.

"fuck, this feels so good." cyno pressed the back of his hand on top of his mouth to muffle his noises, now repeatedly bucking his hips into your slippery hand without managing to hold himself back how he normally intended to do so.

don't get him wrong, he knew he shouldn't be embarrassed whenever he was vocal with his pleasure, yet he couldn't get rid of the natural thoughts in his mind telling him to hide them from you. His body tensed up when you began to circle your wrist, muscles turning stiff as he neared his climax breathlessly.

"faster." he's whining now with his eyes painted glassy, arching his back into you as you obliged, fisting his cock with a combination of gyrating your wrist to motion circling movements on his shaft until he finally released his hot semen on you, making a mess all over your fingers. Cyno gasped upon seeing the filth, embarrassed but flustered regardless, his eyes were closed without wanting to take a peek, yet a small smile still appeared on his lips afterwards.

𝐀𝐋-𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐌

al-haitham tightened the grip on the bedsheets with it looking as if he’d actually tear them apart if he didn’t get a hold of his strength, digging his fingers into the soft silk as you worked wonders on his erected member.

you gave no answer to his tiny pleas he so desperately groaned, building up a steady pressure to a rougher pace of your hand with his climax building in the deep pits of his stomach.

his legs were slightly spread, his mouth hanging open as he let out a combination of a gasp and a moan. Now, his voice was breaking, sounding strangled as he drew it out in a rough sigh. "fuck." al-haitham couldn't think of any other word to describe on what he was feeling right now, letters dying in his throat.

of course, he would never shove down his pride, not for you, not for anyone else, never admitting that he was actually very much struggling right now, grunting a long moan from his throat at a particularly punctuated stroke from you.

you bit your lip back at the sight, refraining from moaning yourself as you fisted his twitching cock frantically, with him now thrusting up whenever you'd hit his tip. The sound and scent of sex filled the room, swear covered skin colliding as his climax build up increasingly fast. It‘s maddening, the way you were applying pressure and rubbing his girth with your skilled hand, cutting his words off.

al-haitham's hips stuttered as you suddenly changed the rhythm, driving him insane, rubbing your thumb over the pulsating vein of his cock with the sudden change making his muscles tense up, strain and burn, unable to relax them anymore as he tossed his head to the side.

"i‘m so close, faster." as much as you wished to tease him a bit further, you weren‘t pulling through with it upon noticing how fast his heart was beating while finally spilling himself on your hand, your fingers coated in the slick essence as you fisted him through his orgasm, watching him delve in his afterglow with the promise to get back at you for this one.

𝐊𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐇

"i want to fuck you already." of course, he threw a somewhat analogical temper tantrum tight noe, kaveh's gaze wandering from his painfully hard cock to your adorable focused expression, with an obvious smirk displayed on your sweet lips. Archons, he so very much wanted to get a taste of you right now. His lips were slightly pursed, in an attempt to keep himself in check, breathing into his stomach.

no longer could he handle the ache in his groin, he was always so sure of himself but you intrigued him, processing every reactions you were making. Smoothly, you moved closer to your boyfriend, your lips merely an inch away from his ear, "you should see yourself right now." breath ghosting over his exposed skin, whispering as you kissed and nibbled on his earlobe, tracing your tongue over his sharp jawline seductively.

the way your pecks and kisses were different from your grip on his shaft, so tender, made it thoroughly difficult for kaveh to keep his moans in check. The contrasting of your slow kisses from your quick hand snd that was fisting him fast without any mercy shown.

"you‘re going to regret thid." he kept repeating the same words in between panting, forgetting everything around him with the air in the room becoming thick, barely breathable. The pre cum of his cock sobbed down your knuckles, the filth connecting you, melting your hand into his shaft as you felt him spasm, chasing his climax.

his toes curled in frantically while his back arched into you, you only needed to give him a couple more controlled but even thrusts before he poured himself on you, his cock twitching and making a mess out of the bedsheets, more so your hand while also running down his balls.

his chest was heaving, with shaky whines falling out of his mouth in a fastened manner, not giving a damn anymore. His cock was still proudly semi erected as he already motioned you to sit on him, his stamina never leaving in the first place.

kaveh told you you‘re going to regret this, didn‘t he?

𝐓𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐈

tighnari was overwhelmed by the sensation that immediately took place, soft and tiny noises of affirmation dancing around you as you began to lazily fondle his member.

for a second, you let go to spit on your palm, your hand returning soon after yet this time wet, rubbing your saliva around the tip before going back to fist him tenderly. The way you always smoothed and caressed his body was beyond his words and it was seldom for him not to have a snarky response prepared. Tighnari‘s head was lovingly resting against your shoulder as you continued to pleasure him.

"i needed this." he admitted to you, "i‘m stressed and tired." butterflies roamed into your stomach at his lovable letters. tighnari could feel the rough and wet strokes on his shaft, more so when you increased the intensity, proceeding to concentrate on your languid touches with your hands settling around his girth so perfectly it made his mouth water, wondering when he'll be able to fuck you.

the slick sound of your palm rutting into him was becoming louder, embarrassingly clearer, the arch of his hips was favorable to your moves, slight pants of approval left him as you began to pick up the tempo on your hand.

tighnari‘s mouth gaped open, yet nothing came out, his voice dying, strangled in his throat as you took the opportunity to kiss him, pushing your tongue into his mouth before circling your wet muscle over his own, his body stuttering in surprise.

"i'm close, you‘re so good to me." he's muttering against your lips, "so close." he pressed his hips up, sweat starting to cover his forehead. Stumbling at his moan, tighnari was somehow flustered that he was this close to cumming, the vein on his shaft hard as it grazed against your palm.

content with his expressions, he began to break into pieces now when he finally approached his climax, the stimulation causing him to cry out your name with him writhing under your touch.

tighnari's breath was hot on your lips, hidden moans and whimpers together with lust covered whines breaking free as hot ripes of cum splattered your hand and his pelvis, overflowing with warmth emanating from it.

tighnari's body was still jolting up, his damp forehead resting on yours as his cock slowly softened in your hand, still sensitive but bearable now, finally your body embracing his own.

do not! share, copy or repost my work. ✎ ©ANANTARU 2022

#genshin impact x reader #genshin impact smut #genshin smut #genshin x reader #cyno x reader #cyno smut #kaveh x reader #kaveh smut #alhaitham x reader #alhaitham smut #tighnari x reader #tighnari smut #genshin x you #genshin impact x you #al haitham x reader #al haitham smut #cyno x you #genshin headcanons #tighnari x you

[the-s1lly-corner]

He accidentally hurts you (Eyeless Jack edition)

I've been meaning to explore something like this and I'm still hungry for angst! Very heavy on my hc of "eyeless jack is cursed and has moments where his monstrous side takes a hold of him especially when it craves flesh",

Basic idea is reader gets hurt, jack smells blood, curse immediately totally takes over, blah blah things happen

More fan fiction-y than my usual short headcannons, but still using the bullet point format since I couldnt commit to the bit

Cw for mild injury, blood, mentions of SH but I wont dwell on it

Not proof read we die like Jack's self esteem

It wasnt too often that the ugliest side of Jack's curse showed itself; at least that's what you thought. You were under the impression that it happened rarely, due to the fact that you only visit Jack when he gives you the go ahead, on nights where he knows it wouldn't be an issue

But tonight, as your anniversary draws near, you decided to drop in unexpected for a night with your boyfriend. It was hard enough getting to his cabin, what with the rain and it being dark..

When you made it to his door, you could hear... noises..

Growls, hisses, howls; all pained. It sounded like there was a fight happening on the other side of the door... the sound of things being thrown and someone's body slamming against the walls made your worry spike

Of course you opened the door, fearing that someone had intruded into your partners cabin.. but when you threw it open, you saw that Jack was alone. Covered in bruises, and his arms bloodied with claw marks and bite wounds; showing off his blackened, inky blood. The man's small body heaved with ragged breaths as his empty sockets locked onto you

You quickly explained yourself after assessing that he was in one of his.. low points..

He wanted you to leave, but the rain had become to pour harsher outside; far too dangerous to walk out alone

And how could you leave him be when he was so obviously wounded? You insisted on patching him up, to which Jack reluctantly agreed to.

So you took him to the bathroom and took out his small first aid kit, and got to work.

Washing the wounds, adding pressure to where he needed it, added bandages. When you were done, you placed a light kiss on his arms

That seemed to soften him up, even through his building bloodlust and hunger

"I'll go get some bedding and we can set camp out in the living room," you said, trying to keep him pacified. He seemed to enjoy the idea..

He was smiling.. that's good, and his breathing seemed to calm down just a touch, though it was still on the.. hissy growly side..

You headed to his room, gathered some of his comforters and pillows, and walked to the living room, then went to his room a second time to grab his radio, knowing it can help keep him calm.

Unfortunately; due to the cabin being run down, one of the wooden floorboards was loose and lightly curled upwards... and, well. You tripped. You managed to save the radio, somehow, but your face slammed down onto the floor

Instant nosebleed

You cursed, and pressed a finger up to your upper lip.. yep, that's blood.. lots of it, the burning in your face intensifying as the pain set in, making your eyes water

Before you even had time to process anything else, a growl caught your attention. Spinning around, still on the floor, you saw Jack. The leaking ink of his eyes doubled in pace and volume; making a mess of his face and shirt as his bared teeth flashed down at you, nose flared and ears peaked at attention. Because of course, how could you forget, the smell of blood is basically a death sentence when Jack's curse is flared.

Your mind raced as you scooted backwards, Jack seemed to be fighting himself; but he lost. Before you could choose between running or bracing, he jumped on you

Bracing it was, then. Your arms shot up in front of you, and you felt white hot pain almost immediately

But just as soon as he jumped on you, you felt him pull himself off. Blood was all over his jaw, and getting spread all over the floor as he began to force himself to spit it out. Growls were replaced by low whines, before he scampered off, leaving you alone

It all happened so fast you were left confused on the floor, holding your arm. It felt worse than it looked; his teeth didnt seem to go that deep, and since he didnt... pull at you with his teeth still in, you were still intact... that was nice, at least..

Your mind went back to racing as you processed what happened.. you needed to get cleaned up before Jack slipped again

And that's exactly what you did; you rushed into the bathroom you were in just earlier, and began the process of cleaning the wound..

After a minute, the door cracked open; Jack peered in, more mellowed out than before but guilt was written all over his face. It was clear he was still struggling with his hunger, and you can tell just by looking that he was debating whether or not to approach you

His face twisted in pain when he, although hard to tell due to his lack of eyes, seemed to glance at the wound

"Its not that bad," you insist, but he shook his head. "You could have died.. I should have dealt with this sooner, you shouldn't have to.." he trailed off, "get hurt," he finished. His ears drooped slightly as he slumped. He pushed the door open, and entered the bathroom

His hands shook slightly as he removed yours from your arm. "Its my fault, I need to fix it.." he mumbled. You didn't push him away, although it may have been a dumb idea to let the starving man eater handle your bloodied arm

Cleaned, applied pressure, bandaged

He stared at the bandages, still holding your arm in his hands

You finally noticed just how cold he was. Jack was always on the cooler side, but at the moment he was freezing, even though he was covered in a layer of sweat

He ran his clawed fingers along where the wound would be, as light as a feather, as not to risk hurting you again

He leaned down, and lightly pressed a kiss to the bandages; just as you done for him

"Im so sorry," he whimpered, leaving another kiss

"You shouldn't have to be put in danger just to try to help me," his eyes welled with inky tears, and he left another kiss

"You shouldn't have to see me like this," his voice creaked out, another kiss

He was about to lay down a fifth kiss, but you stopped him

You reassure him; it wasn't exactly his fault. He didnt ask to be cursed, he didn't mean any of this to happen, he had been roped and manipulated into the situation that made him this way. You reassured him that you'd heal, and you weren't going to think badly of him, how you took the chance for something like this to happen when you first got together. Things like that. Though, this will call for a more in depth discussion about how to prevent this in the future, make a system and means of communication so he can warn you ahead of time during flare ups... but right now, comfort was top priority

It took a minute, but his tears slowed and he got control on his breathing. He whimpered, before peeling himself off of you

He backed off, but you tugged him into your arms

Cue the waterworks, again. You both hugged, not speaking.. just standing there for a few minutes. He rested his head on your chest, and you rested yours in his shoulder. You pulled away, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Do you still want me to stay?", you asked. He looked conflicted. He didnt want to run the risk, but he didnt want to be alone. Besides, the storm was still raging outside

"Why don't you.. stay here tonight, I'll step out.." he said softly as he stepped back. He cut you off before you could respond, "I'll be back soon, I just.. need to get this.." he gestured to himself, "dealt with, I don't feel safe having you around.. its only a matter of time before.. " he trailed off. You nodded, "I understand.. be back in the morning?"

He hesitated, before nodding back, "I'll be back as soon as I can be," he said quietly

You let him make his way to the front door, tugging his hold and mask on

"I love you," you said as you watched him open the door

He paused.

"I love you, too," he said, the cracks returning in his voice, likely choking down his emotions again

"We'll talk.. more about this in the morning," he added, smoother this time

"Alrighty," was all you said

And he left for the night, closing the door behind him

WOOOO

I hope that wasny too bad

This was really just a VERY vague idea I had for a few days that i wanted to write but I'm too lazy to do proof reading and rough drafts <\3 and im not used to writing longer detailed stuff like this, let alone dialogue

I hope it's not too cringe, I feel like the ending it rushed because

Erm

I didnt know how to end it

So

Uj

Yay

Eyeless jack angst

#creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta #creepypasta x reader #creepypasta x you #eyeless jack x you #eyeless jack imagine #eyeless jack x reader #eyeless jack headcanon #eyeless jack #eyeless jack angst #angst