#nightskychallenge

[nexusnyx]

moment's silence

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 7 — The night I lost a bet. [“You know what this means, don’t you?”] [6.6k]

— Summary: Joel has no idea why Bill gifts him with the book. Had he rambled about you that much? It seemed impossible—to be fair, but surely there were other things besides your name on his tongue. Besides how much you love your books and care for them. Besides how much he's learned since he met you because of them.

Either way, the book means you lost the bet. Joel cares for very little since Outbreak day, but this—oh, this he took it to heart. You'd lost, and he intended on collecting his prize.

— A/n: Canon-divergence; Reader and Tess met Joel at the same time, and all three became a tight-knit unit. | 🏷️ Tags & warnings⚠️: explicit mature content, minors DNI; age gap, mentions of canon-typical violence, confessions, touch starved, dry humping, oral sex (m receiving), slow & deep sex, but also rough sex?, dirty talk, little spoon Joel.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤmasterlist | read on ao3

All he can think about when he sees the bookshelf is your words, even if they were spoken on a whim years ago.

"There's no fucking way you can find a classic in good conditions anymore—not even Joel 'I can find anything' Miller is immune to decay and years of nature taking over. They're all gone, Joel. I just have to accept it. I bet there's not a single one that hasn't been wrecked by either people's ignorance or fucking mold eating every single page."

He remembered those words as clear as the day's first rays of light.

Not because of them, precisely. Because of what came after. He had blurted, "Bet what?" out of sheer instinct, only for you to reply with:

"Anything."

Maybe you were being metaphorical at the time, but Joel took it seriously. He outreached his hand for you to shake. "I'll take that bet."

If he never found a book, nothing would change.

If he won, on the other hand. Well—there's something Joel's been wanting from you for a long, long time.

That's why when he enters Bill's house for the first time, Joel stops dead in his tracks on the corridor leading to the kitchen.

You'd been to the house before with him and Tess.

Just like him, you had stood outside the whole time while Tess and Frank went about their rambles and deals. You, Joel, and Bill were all cut out from the same cloth—death stares etched onto your faces as if you were marble, grumbled conversation that came up here and there between long sips of wine.

Neither you nor Joel had been inside yet.

It's the third time he visits, first one without you, and he sees it—

Bookshelf.

One of Bill's doors is open on the way to the kitchen revealing what used to be an office but now looks more like a symbiosis of an atelier and library. It's — nice, Joel guesses.

It's not his thing.

Books — those are your thing.

Joel has no idea what connects you to the pages, but he knows it runs deeper than just academic pleasure, or snobbiness (an assumption made by many who met you).

It's as if whatever elements existed within paper, inked with words that strung together beautiful stories — it moved you.

Joel was entranced by the way you were able to quote several passages.

Few things remained that were worthy of admiration, or interest. He easily placed your small and precious book collection high above on his list.

That, and your ability to bring those stories to life somehow.

"Are you a reader?" Bill's voice is expected — Joel heard his steps approaching and stopping behind him when he did.

He scanned all the shelves, so he looks back to answer Bill. "Not really. Tess never mentioned who's the little Librarian between us? Our reader's absent today."

"If my, uh... —

If mine... if they brought strangers into our situation... I wouldn't be happy either."

"Oh. Well. They seem to listen to you as well as mine listens to me."

"I hope she feels better soon." Bill says the words and they sound so real. Spoken freely, not through gritted teeth or accompanied by his usual stiff shoulders.

Joel's hands rested on his hips. "Yeah." He hated this part — with Bill and Frank it was harder to not talk about things. He was pretty sure Bill didn't even like him, just like Joel didn't like him that much, but they saw each other. Understood one another. "Yeah, me too."

"The medicine you gave — it helped." That came out through gritted teeth. Joel held back from smiling at the unspoken admission—you sold me real shit. It's saving my partner. Thanks. "Frank's talking about — lavender. Herb garden and all. God."

Joel snickers and they exchange a look. "Good luck with that."

"I'll definitely need it." Bill's hands pat his sides, and Joel recognizes his motion before bolting out of a conversation. "Feel free to look at them," he waves a hand in direction of the shelf before leaving Joel there alone.

He does look.

One by one, Joel checks the titles because if you were here, that's what you'd do, and "when in doubt, always do what you must".

He hated that your words stuck to his brain so easily.

They were sticky like honey, which also resembled your voice. Or maybe that was only the way he heard it — Joel enjoyed listening to you talk.

"When in doubt, always do what you must" came after he left behind some supplies in order to help during a run, and you'd gotten mad at him for the first time.

It was then that Joel noticed how fucking tough you were.

Complete the mission. Help when you can. Do what you must.

If he was here already, he might as well read all the titles. Who knew how long he'd last? If he'd be here again, or if you would?

When his eyes land on Frankenstein, Joel knows he hit the jackpot.

That's when the memory of your bet sparks behind his eyelids, and he's cursed with the way you smiled that day.

Anything.

There was something Joel wanted, badly.

He cut out his own permission to want anything that strayed from finding Tommy again, getting clues to somehow discover a way to find his brother, get him back, but you planted the seed in his subconscious by simply existing — he was powerless to stop it.

One second, you and Tess walked into his life.

The next, he had on one side a best friend who cursed as much as him and on the other a menace who popped into his subconscious state, giving him dreams for the first time in years.

You two brought back a sense of humanity into his day-to-day life.

In return, Joel tried his best to do good for both of you.

Keep you safe however he could. Slip extra ration cards into your stack so you could more.

Small things like that — things that he later realized were only the seeds for the want that blossomed.

Joel wanted you out of the smuggling business.

He wanted you to be safe.

It was fucking ridiculous.

Your hand never missed the trigger timing — if there was anyone around the neighborhoods he lived more skilled in knives than you, he'd eat his own hand, and you were clever.

Quick, sharp, rational.

Despite all of that, he hated the sight of your back whenever a deal had them going outside.

Every time he saw a pistol or any other weapon in your hands, he wanted to throw it away as hard as he could.

And here he was, facing Frankenstein.

Anything.

Fuck. Joel hated how he hesitated.

If it belonged to anyone else, his hands would've already made the book meet the secret parts of his backpack, but he couldn't do this to contacts so good like Frank and Bill.

He couldn't fuck up this one.

Shit.

(Maybe he did like the two men, after all. Just a little.)

Joel has no idea why Bill gifts him the book.

One minute they're sitting alone drinking scotch while Tess and Frank finish up the trade and the next, they're talking about old hobbies they regretted not paying more attention to. Conversing like two normal people. Like Tess and Frank do, only without all the niceness and excitement.

At one point, Bill asks, "Did you see anything you liked?"

It takes a second for Joel to realize he's talking about the room and the shelf. Joel shakes his head. "Wasn't a big fan of readin'." A lie, he thinks. "Even that's a stretch. I — probably should've done it more now that I think about it."

Bill's answer is a hum. "Yeah. Lots of things I wish I should've done. Properly. Piano's one of them."

Joel eyes the item in the room. He recalls you and Tess talking about how Frank was lucky to know an instrument. "Frank's good at it, though?"

"He was rustier when he arrived, but yeah — he's doing good now."

Joel admires that. Some things are probably talent, he figures. "Practice's everything. 's why I feel bad for people whose thing was, like, artsy. Y'know?" He lists you and Frank as examples. "They ain't got means to do what they really love now."

That's when Bill shares that Frank paints. Piano and drawn, painted art — that was nice. Frank probably missed a lot of things.

If what you said was true and artists withered without their art like some plants did without sun or water, then he must be sad nowadays.

The new information sparks up a memory. The abandoned art supply on Canbose with 5th Street — was it possible there were some there?

Joel kept the doubts to himself so as to not spark any hopes of things he'd fail to deliver, but the real surprise is that he and Bill have their first conversation there.

It's a nice one.

Joel loathes that his brain comes up with the knowing looks both you and Tess would give him and Bill if either of you saw the way the two men can converse so easily once the guns are gone.

Bill's — he's okay.

Rough around the edges, sure, but in polished, sturdy ways.

He's also a little box of Pandora.

The last thing Joel could expect was being called aside by Bill before he leaves with Tess, only to find him hiding behind the door waiting for him with a furtive air in his stance, as if there could be any secrets that they'd keep from theirs.

Bill extends the copy of Frankenstein without meeting Joel's eyes. "Here." He all but shoves it into Joel's hands, and then nods. "It's the one you kept touching."

There's no reason to play bargain or pretend this is a gift he's too humble to accept.

He does as he's told, thanks Bill with a long nod, and walks out.

It does beat at his mind on the walk back to the QZ, though—had he rambled about you that much?

It seemed impossible—to be fair, he always managed to keep the conversation away from himself, but surely there were other things besides your name on his tongue. Besides how much you love your books and care for them. Besides how much he's learned since he met you because of them.

Either way, the book means you lost the bet.

Joel cares for very little since Outbreak day, but this—oh, this he took it to heart. You'd lost, and he intended on collecting his prize.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤTWO DAYS LATER

The smell of your apartment envelops him every time.

Everything's open.

You keep plants hung in several places on your wall, and they're all so tall and green. Big, imponent, and your habit of walking through the place and touching one of them, sometimes going as far as plucking a leaf or petal out of them—the air suddenly turned into myrrh, lavender, eucalyptus.

Joel wished he smelled nothing other than here.

"Heard you were feelin' better," Joel says as soon as he has eyes on you.

There's more color on your cheeks. When you smile, Joel sees it reach your eyes even if it remains small in your lips. "Still feel like shit, though."

Tongue sharp as ever, then.

He chuckles and walks in as you move aside in invitation, gaze checking through the apartment as he takes off his shoes.

Joel always pays attention to everything that surrounds you.

While you ask about the trades you missed, he takes note of the spotless state of everything around him. Stainless windows, shiny floor, a sharp citrus scent lingering even around you.

Stress cleaning — check.

"Did you finish the food I gave ya?"

"Of course," you answer. Joel's happy to hear that — you ate very little on the first day you got sick, and he gave you some of his food to make sure you ate.

The two of you take a sit in the kitchen, and as you talk about work, he analyzes you better.

You had your most comfortable clothes on. They came from a box he found not long ago that was your size exactly; the shirt has wet stains on your chest, and your wet hair tells him you felt good enough today for the first time in a while.

Good enough to gather the patience to wash your hair in the sink.

"Don't mind Inoctus, you know he says that shit about the Fireflies all the time. I ain't gonna argue with him again," Joel waves a hand, and then gets to the part he wanted to talk about. "Never mind him, though — did Tess tell you about what Bill and Frank found for us? What Frank fixed?"

"No, not yet."

Excellent. "We've got some good news. Oh — and before I forget. D'you think that art supply on Canbose still has some supplies left?"

"The one that intersects with the 5th?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know. I don't see why it wouldn't have," you shrug your shoulders. "It's close enough to the QZ for it not be completely raided and I don't see who would prioritize stealing art supplies in the middle of everything." It made sense to Joel, and he felt a rare sense of giddiness tingling. "Why?"

He leans back on the chair. "Frank's a painter."

"No way."

Joel grins — you understood him. "Yes, way."

"Fucking hell. Is there anything he doesn't do?"

He laughs. "I know. I felt the same way."

"He plays the piano, he should be obliged by law to stick to that cool thing."

Joel likes it when you're feeling a little petty — the scrunch on your nose is adorable. He wants to pinch it between his fingers, even if he never did. "Anyway..." He shares the other updates about the trip to their house without you, then talks about the people who contacted him — the ones that gave him any trouble are your expertise, and Joel loves the set on your brows when you're listening.

He has no idea how someone who looks so precious can have such a wicked mind.

"She looks so — I don't know. Not this ingenious. Mean. How the fuck does someone who's always hummin' songs under her breath can intimate grown-ass man?"

"You're the only fucker who thinks she looks like an angel, Joel."

"Nah, we both know that's a lie."

"No, you're just delusional. If anyone thinks she looks angelic you better bet they're comparing her to Lucifer."

Was he? Delusional.

Tess always made him feel like he was faced with a Truth Mirror whenever he opened his big mouth around her.

After a couple of hours, you've already cooked some things — with the little help he could offer — for the both of you, taken notes of the people you need to talk to.

Joel realizes that time passes only when you.

Outside of your presence, it's all a snowball. Stale.

"Ah, shit." You get up in a rush.

"What?"

"Almost lost the time for my pills again," you mutter under your breath.

"You really need a watch." From where he sits at your kitchen table he can see your profile — the roll of your eyes. He huffs in disbelief, ignoring the feeling of his mouth tugging in the corners.

After you take your med, you sit on the couch and find his gaze from across the room. "Clean the table for me?"

Joel never says no to you.

Not for lack of want — fucking god must know how many times he's craved saying it, enunciating each letter with gusto. No.

It never came out.

He cleans the table thinking about how much he's delaying it.

The book's inside his duffel bag that remained next to your door all this time, but it weighs on his back somehow.

He did more than just clean the table as he tried pushing down the little mean jabs his mind took at itself.

You can't force her to stay outta business.

She ain't never listened to a soul in her life—who are you to tell her what to do?

Once every while, you would venture into Joel's personal space and place a finger where his brows pinched together. The first time it happened, the effect had been immediate—Joel was so shocked by the act that his whole face relaxed; not his body, though. His body froze, and he had stood there in a perfect portrayal of a statue.

You do that when he sits on the couch.

Your presence is so damn familiar to him that even lost in his own mind, he finds his way through the maze. He sits by your side, leans back, and drops his head on the couch.

When he feels your finger touching his frown, Joel opens his eyes.

"What's bothering you?" Your finger leaves, and he misses it.

Joel turns his head to the side. "Nothin'." He likes the way the color's back to your cheeks. A week on anti-inflammatory meds made you a little gray, and nothing about you was dull.

"You're a shit liar," you say.

He scoffs. "No, I'm not."

"You really are, though," you argue, fighting a smile. "And just so you know, your accent gets thicker the harder you try."

At that, he frowns. "No, it doesn't—" and fuck, he hears it. How the fuck did you notice that? His frown deepens, and you chuckle at him. "You pay attention to the strangest fuckin' things." It's said in the same gruff way he says most things, but there's enough admiration underneath it that you hear it for what it is.

"And thank god for that — it's what's kept me alive. Us alive," you snort, giving yourself the credit you're due for once.

In the end, he blurts it out. "I found it."

"Found what?" you ask, truly confused at the abrupt change.

"Something you told me I couldn't."

"That's... oddly vague," you reply. "I name a lot of things you can't find. You seem to think you have superpowers."

"No powers. Just talent." He shrugs, and gets up to retrieve the book. "What's the one thing you told me there was 'no fucking way' I could find?"

The second it takes for your brain to connect the dots is the time Joel needs to find the copy in his bag.

Joel sees your eyes dropping to it when he turns around. Widening. Freezing that way. Your lips parting only a couple of inches as your jaw slowly drops.

He sits with more satisfaction on your couch than he's sat anywhere in a long time.

The book falls with a soft thud between your bodies.

All the space he puts between you two is replaced by it —

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

"You know what this means, don't you?" he asks.

When you look up, Joel's caught off guard.

The moisture in your eyes shines under the light coming from your kitchen. Joel's throat becomes restricted by an invisible force, and his eyes sting in response to the sight.

"What the fuck, Joel?" your hands pick up the book with a reverence that makes his skin tingle. "Where... how —" both times you start, then stop. "My god." He just watches. You turn the book around, eyeing every millimeter. "This is real," you mutter. He's aware you're not even talking to him at this point. "Have you—" you look up at him, and he feels special enough, "have you opened it? Are the pages—it's whole?"

The way you breathe out the word.

A reverence. So sacred.

Joel might as well consider the bet paid if he wasn't so far gone on what he wants.

Kind of.

"It's whole," he confirms.

Joel almost opens up his mouth to make a teasing remark. Ask if you'd like to be left alone with it, maybe. Instead, he lets you examine it to your heart's will, which takes a while.

He's always comfortable in the silence with you.

That's when he started realizing the trouble he was in.

When he came over just to sit at the same table as you. Have dinner in silence while you cleaned your guns. Sometimes, he'd imagine a bottle of scotch would make the two of you end up in whispered conversations under the dim, yellowish lights of your place, but it never happened.

Joel's too much of a coward to let his guard down with you.

He wouldn't be able to do what he did with the others — a sweet release in the dark; an impersonal match of bodies, mingled in sweat and joined in more ways than it should seem possible, but never looking each other in the eye.

You looked him straight into his soul when you spoke to him. Every time.

"This means... you won the bet," you say.

Joel blinks out of his thoughts. "Sure does."

"So." You put the book down gently on your lap, then gaze at him, eyes piercing into his. "What d'you want?"

Tough question. Joel felt the tingle that never left his skin covering him from head to toe. His throat constricts around the words — his body starts to heat up. He shakes his head, and is overwhelmed by how the air seems to charge between you both. He licks his lips, and says.

Like a coward, his eyes fall on Frankenstein before he speaks.

"Can't have what I want." The naked truth. What's the point of lying to you, anyway? You're a shit liar. "So I'll ask for a close second," he adds quickly. Something magnetic pulls at him, and he looks up — a mistake. Fucking mistake—you never looked at him this way. Is that red on your cheeks? "I — uh; I want a voucher. A veto power."

You blink, utterly confused. "What?"

"A veto power over you." It's the closest he could think of on his way here. Some kind of power, since Joel has no right to demand anything from you. "On a decision. I—If you said you're comin' on a mission, for example. I could say 'no. Veto.' and that'd be it. No arguments. I want a veto card over you. Just one."

You stare at him for a few seconds, and Joel can almost see the engines in your brain turning.

Joel sometimes feels you're more than just yourself. The eyes on your head see far beyond what's in front of them, and he feels naked quite often when in front of you.

"Just tell me what you want," you say.

Can't have what I want, he told you. He shakes his head. "Doesn't matter."

"How would you know?"

"I just do," he argues.

"Maybe you're wrong."

"I'm not!" The storm swirls and lifts him from the couch. Joel turns his back to you, overcome by the reality of it all. "I know I'm not. There isn't—what I want is impossible. There's no such thing anymore. It ain't like the books, or finding fucking chocolate or—it ain't. I wanted you safe. How fuckin' stupid is that—" he chokes on air, gasping around the words. "There's no safe anymore." Softer, and lower, it comes out again. "There's no safe."

Most of the time, Joel's control is kept on a tight leash. His hands have a vicious grip around it because if he loosens it, it'll run off.

His hands are shaking now. He should turn back to face you, to see if he's just said too much or fucked it up somehow, but—you get up. He hears the squeaking of the couch and your steps approaching.

Then, as slowly as you approached him when you first met, he feels it:

Your hands slide around his middle. Your palms spread across his back and contour his waist, and you're hugging him—you hug him from behind, and Joel's chest expands with the air that your presence brings.

"Joel." You hug tighter. He can feel your upper body pressed against his back, and his hands come up to rest on top of yours, shaking as they are. He wants to speak up, but you beat him to it. "I thought I was going crazy, Joel."

Crazy? He is going crazy. You're wrapped around him and the world is yet to implode; Joel feels a knot in his throat that wasn't there before. "Why?"

It hits him — the answer.

Before you're able to say it hits him in the chest, because your hands grip him by the ribcages but not with force; all your fingers need to do is apply gentle pressure on him and Joel feels that you want him to move, so he lets you.

You spin him inside your hold, and Joel goes willingly.

When he's turned and facing you, the answer is there, all over your face.

Your hands stay on his back, but your eyes are searching on every inch of his face for any sign, for anything to deter you from what you want to do.

Joel sees it. He is delusional.

"I want the impossible too," you say. It comes out in a soft whisper, and Joel mentally curses all the moments of silence between you two where he felt the air as palpable as you inside his arms right now. When you looked at him, almost through him, and he turned a blind eye to it in fear that it was exactly what he wanted and craved for. "Is it — too much?"

He's incapable of answering.

His hands come up to your face, and he fits his palm on the set of your jar, where his thumb can touch your cheeks.

You melt to the touch, eyes closing along the way.

All those times you two shared a laugh and a look, and the silence hung in the air as your eyes were unable to leave each other — this. It could've been this.

"Tell me to stop and I will," is all he can say before he dives.

Joel meets you underwater.

The same way you're drowning in his hands with all of your weight supported on his body, Joel submerges as his mouth meets your kiss.

It's a waiting game — you were waiting for the moment he'd realize, he thinks.

Joel may be out of touch with reality itself, but some things can pierce through different dimensions.

Raw things never fail to elicit the strongest form of feeling and your desire pulls him under—real, demanding.

Although he remembers being a vocal partner in bed, he has no words or taunting remarks for you—he'd rather kiss.

Your mouth parts so eagerly for him that Joel wants to shut up.

He has you shutting up, moaning in his mouth as his tongue slides on yours. His fingers grip tighter on your hair. Your arms cling to him, then both of them let go to wrap around his shoulders instead, and Joel feels the despair as you climb up higher, as you press your body harder against him.

He understands it. Empathizes, even — he's feeling it on him the same way.

Your desperate, wet kisses rekindle connections long lost in his brain.

Joel remembers the desperate and insane horniness of youth when hormones mix with inexperience and everything feels new and like a raw, open nerve.

This tastes like those moments.

It'd been so long since Joel was touched and your hands start a mapping of his body that start to get him drunk.

It hits him that it's you. He's kissing you, and you're kissing back with so much force that he has no air, there's no air in his lungs—

He pulls back, gasping, and feels your nails digging into his scalp. The moan scratches the back of his throat and Joel only notices his eyes are still closed when your forehead touches his and your breath starts mingling with his.

Opening his eyes is a blessing. And a curse, most likely.

Seeing your mouth swollen and puffy makes him greedy.

Then — "Are you stopping?" you ask. Hoarse voice. Breathless. "I didn't tell you to stop," you add, whining.

Joel picks you up in one motion, and the laughter that bubbles out of your chest reminds him that you're light — you're the ghost that pops up in his dreams shining with the pink hue of sundown and you're the hope of his mornings, the scent of coffee and pages and herbs that make him feel like this earth could still have a sense of home even if he denies that fact, gritting his teeth at the fact the world still goes on.

He pins you against the nearest wall. One without a shelf, or furniture.

With you pressed against the wall, he has better support. He can trace your thighs with his palm, can get his hands underneath your cotton shorts, your blouse.

"Are you trying to kill me?" you ask him. Your head hits the wall behind you, and Joel looks up to see you watching him as he maps you. You visibly swallow when your gazes meet, and Joel wants to say so fucking much, but nothing comes out at first.

All he wants is to make the pink on your lips become permanent.

He wants to rip every item of clothing on you with his hands, and wants to —

"Joel," you lean forward, capturing his lips in a kiss and stealing all the images he had of you pinned on your own wooden floor, cheeks pressed against it as he took you from behind.

When your tongue meets his, Joel feels something snapping.

He growls into the kiss, both of his hands groping your asscheeks as he desperately grinds his hips against your body.

This kiss is even better than the first, even if it kills all of his oxygen faster.

Joel never kissed like this. Not this messy, this wet and sloppy mess of need, and dry humping, and swallowing your moans only to have them be echoed back to you when you grind your hips down in the perfect way—

When he pulls back for air this time, Joel grips your head by the hair, making a fistful at your nape.

"This is not just now, is it?" he asks. His own voice sounds like sandpaper and pure lust, and he's not even beginning.

"No, no," you shake your head. "I need you, Joel."

"Fuckin' hell," he has more to say, but now he needs you naked. "'m gonna take off your clothes. Then I'm gonna eat your pussy 'cause I've thought about it too many fuckin' times." Your jaw falls open at him, and Joel smiles despite himself. "Yeah. You gonna let me, baby? Hm?"

Your only answer is to nod desperately, grinding against him as your eyes close.

Joel's in heaven. "Did I win what I want?" he asks.

"What?"

"My veto," he pulls you away from the wall and starts carrying you to your bedroom. "I still want it. Can't have the impossible but I can have a veto."

You laugh as he kicks your door open. "You want a fucking veto? Joel, all you have to do is hold me by the chin and say 'no' or 'yes' and I'd do it. It's that simple. Always have been. " You grab his face between your hands and pierce him with those All Seeing Eyes. "I'll give you your veto, if that's what you want." You kiss his lips, sighing softly. "'m sorry I can't promise you I'll be safe, but I can promise I'll try."

Joel knows he's about to do something that can't be taken back when he lies you down.

He nods just so you know he understood, but the knot's formed again and if he speaks, Joel will cry — the words wouldn't come out anyway, even if he wants to say them.

Joel's unsure if they haven't been burned out of his tongue.

He takes off your clothes one by one. Ironic for someone who wanted them ripped to pieces not a minute ago, but to have you laid in front of him soothes the desperation somehow.

His plans get interrupted, though, because once you're naked and all of his brain is mushed into nothing but skin skin you you touch touch touch, you stop him from kneeling down at the edge of the bed with a touch and one request, "You too?" your gaze is so open and vulnerable that his hands go to his shirt. "No — lemme. Please."

Joel does, and you do the same to him, taking his clothes off one by one.

When you drop to his knees in front of him, Joel is powerless.

He's too stunned to say or do anything but look.

Even his hands that itch to touch only manage to do so when they're flying for some support so his knees don't buckle and he falls — you grab his cock by the base with one hand, look up until his eyes are locked on yours, and then licks a wet stripe from his balls to the tip.

Then you do it again, and again, until Joel's coated in saliva, and you can suck around the tip, swallowing him down in one go.

He grips your hair for life support, cursing under his breath.

Joel's vocal about how much you're fucking killing him.

You go at it slowly, which is even more torture, but he gets it. He remembers you talking about not being with a person for the longest time. How it made no difference for you to have the physical or not because the attraction wasn't there unless there something underneath it — for someone who's out of practice, you must have the knowledge.

Your tongue runs on the sensitive skin between the dick and his balls, your mouth suctions when it's taking him down and when you start bobbing your head, using your hand to cover the parts your mouth can't reach, Joel has to physically pull you back.

"Stop, stop —" his hand on your hair pulls you back, and Joel curses again when you whine at having to let go. "'m gonna fuck you, baby, it's okay, 's okay," he gets you up by the neck, and is kissing you right after.

That's how he falls in bed with you — with his cock leaking pre-cum, his back already coated in sweat and your mouth tasting like him.

Joel eases the fall with his hand, not wanting to crush you with his weight. He wants to eat you out — Joel wants to bury his face in you, but when he makes a move to go down, your legs clamp around his waist and your head starts shaking.

You pull back from his kiss, "No — later, you can do that later, just — please," you guide your hand between your bodies to hold him and guide his cock to your entrance. "Waited too long, Joel."

I need you, Joel.

"Wait, wait — " it'll be over too fast if he sees you all the time. Joel has an idea. "A position that's better for you first. I wanna see you too, but I want you to feel good. Turn around for me."

"You want me on all fours?"

"No," he shakes his head. "Just turn around."

You obey him, and Joel grabs one of your pillows to push under your waist. You rest your cheek on the one under your head, and he positions himself first before crowding your space with his head on the crook of your neck.

He dips his fingers in first, spreading your wetness all over you before lining up.

It's sinful how good the position is.

He fills you up, bottoming all the way out. Joel's thick, but not too long, and he knows this angle is as good for you as it is for him. "Feels good?" he asks in your ear.

Your only response is his name.

"Is that a yes?" he pulls all the way out, and slams it back in, wanting to feel the drag. Wanting to feel your walls clamping around him. How you open up to accommodate all of him. "'Cause you feel like — fuckin' heaven, baby — louder, say it louder —"

"Feels amazing, Joel," you cry.

He knows it does. Joel hasn't felt anything remotely close to pleasure in a long time, so this might be too much, he might be in danger of growing an addiction, but he's past caring.

He drags it out.

Joel wanted to fuck you senseless a while ago, but now all he wants is to stay buried in the tight and warm haven of your cunt until you're both too spent to move a muscle. "'m gonna stay — all fuckin' night — inside you, baby — hm, whaddaya think?"

"Yes, please—"

"God, I love — that's all you can say to me."

"Don't stop," you cry out louder.

"I won't." He couldn't.

He doesn't want to. He doesn't.

Joel thrusts into you slow, measured and deep, until the heat in his groin is climbing like your nails digging at his sides. He loses count of how many times he sucks on your shoulders, how many bite marks you must have on your neck, of how many single-worded compliments he spills in your ears as he fucks the words out of you.

When you beg to cum, Joel flips you over and hoists your leg higher so he can go in deeper, and he fucks you the way you've been begging him to — crying around his fingers for harder, and faster, Joel, please, please, I'm not gonna break —

He gives it to you like both of you have been dying to receive, and when your legs start shaking around him and his name drops from your lips in a scream, Joel pulls out, coating your stomach in the hot strings of his cum.

He doesn't collapse on top of you, which is a miracle.

He does lay strategically next to you in order to avoid his own mess until he's able to feel his legs again.

Your fingers thread his hair during that time.

The spasms of your legs make him smile, and the little hums that leave you without you even realizing make Joel float on his bliss.

When he comes back to himself, he gets up to get a warm towel. He cleans you both, just enough so sleeping is okay. He pulls up the duvet and puts you underneath it before climbing under as well.

When he lays, Joel expects you to turn around;

Instead, you wrap around him in octopus style, and whisper, "Turn around."

He obeys, and is rewarded by you spooning him.

Joel thinks he might be dreaming.

"Are you gonna be here tomorrow?" you ask after a while.

Your bodies are as tangled as they can be. Your hands caress the hairs on his chest and your breath is on his neck, and still, you are stared he'll leave.

"D'you want scrambled eggs or you prefer the toast?" he replies.

There's a kiss on his neck. Another on his shoulder. He grabs one of your hand to pull it to his lips, and kisses it.

"Scrambled."

"'kay. Where d'you keep your sugar? I can never find it."

"I'll show you tomorrow," you kiss his shoulder, and squeeze his body. "Joel?"

"Yeah, baby?"

He can feel your smile because your lips are on his skin. He's gonna use that more, he thinks. "I might wake up rubbing myself all over you," you whisper.

He laughs. "Fine by me."

🏷️ @sakuralikestars — @mostardentily — @thegreat-annamaria — @leiticia — @polyglot-noodle — @casssiopeia — @earthtocharlene — @levylovegood — @lavenderhhze — @gracie7209 — @waywardwolfbonklight — @shadytalething — @sanzusmile —@yesimwriting — @celestialstar111 💖

⚠️ if anyone being tagged would like to not be, just let me know in my inbox (which you can also use to talk to me about all the appeals of Joel Miller with his hair slicked back, you know... or what you thought of this one.. just saying... <3

#usernexusnyx #joel miller fic #joel miller imagine #joel miller one shot #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x you #joel miller drabble #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x y/n #joel miller fluff #joel miller angst #joel miller smut #joel miller tlou #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal imagine #nightskychallenge #joel miller fanfiction

[foreverindreamlandd]

Vecna's Lair

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Plus Size!Reader

WC: 1.6k

Summary: Eddie takes you on a nighttime adventure through the woods to show you his latest discovery. Little does he know that you've been here before, and it left you with less-than stellar memories.

A/n: OOPS guess who can't get this guy out of their head??? This is my first submission for the lovely @nexusnyx 's Night Sky Challenge! Congratulations on one year and 7k Nyx! Can't wait to see how you wow us over the next 365 days with your amazing writing :) I chose the following prompt:

The night your lips touched mine for the first time. ["Wait. Come back here. Do that again.] (I played around with the dialogue portion of the prompt but you'll know it when you see it...hopefully lol)

~~~~~

You were in the woods.

Eddie had called you Friday after school, asking if he could pick you up ASAP.

“Found the SICKEST thing in the woods yesterday! We gotta go check it out!”

Now here you were, flashlight in hand as darkness crept over the wooded area, trying to keep up with your best friend/eternal secret crush as he wove a path through the trees, buzzing with excitement. You tried to keep close as you blindly trudged ahead.  

“I know a DM is never supposed to share their secrets with a party member,” he said, climbing up a large rock. Just as you were about to begin your ascent, his hand reached out to pull you up with him, a small smile on his face. “But I need you to see the inspiration behind what I have planned next because it’s too good not to.”

You snorted, taking his hand and silently praying that you weren’t too heavy for him to lift. A rush of relief ran through you when you made it to the top of the rock without any noticeable struggle from him. “Why didn’t you invite the rest of the club to see it then?”

Eddie scoffed, shaking his head. “No way. I mean, your sorcerer would definitely have this as part of their backstory. Like, obviously we can talk about it more but I have so many plans for this, Y/n. You’re going to flip.” His smile turned sheepish. “Besides, you’re really the only one I want to share this with.”

Butterflies swarmed your stomach, and all you could do in response was scrunch your nose with a smile. His eyebrows wiggled and he led you on, hand still in yours.

It was a normal thing for the two of you to be so affectionate. You knew Eddie loved hugs since he never really received them from his parents. He also seemed to enjoy it when you rested your heads on each other’s shoulders during movie nights, held hands as you walked or while one of you cried when life became too much.

Things came so naturally for you and Eddie, like there was nothing for you to hold back minus the whole being in love with your best friend for years of course that didn’t count because it would ruin everything…

“Tadaaaa!” he exclaimed, letting go of your hand so he could step out ahead of you, arm held out to point his flashlight at his “great find.”

You groaned, and his brows knit together in confusion.

“What?” he asked.

“Skull Rock, Ed?” you crossed your arms, butterflies quickly replaced with dread.

“Okay, I guess that’s what you could call it. I was thinking something more like Vecna’s Lair or Tomb of the Raven Queen-”

“Eddie,” you cut off, looking at him as if waiting for him to quit the joke. When his expression remained confused, your eyes narrowed. “Do you really not know about this place?”

He shook his head, growing more and more visibly disappointed and you sighed, walking over to him.

You pointed your light up at the stone. “This place is Skull Rock. Harrington discovered it a few years back. It’s like, the number one hookup spot in Hawkins.”

Eddie pinched his face in disgust. “What? You mean this awesome landmark created by the dark powers that be is a place for horny teenagers to hang out?”

You shrugged. “Sorry bud.”

This time it was his turn to groan, hand running through his hair.

“I hate high school” he muttered.

Your hand rested on his shoulder in comfort. “Listen, I love the Hellfire Club squad, but I’m pretty sure none of them know about this place. You can still have Vecna’s Lair and they’ll think it’s cool as hell.”

He pouted for only a moment before tilting his head to the side, staring at you inquisitively, filling you with even more dread. His light pointed toward you accusingly and you closed your eyes from its brightness.

“Wait….how do you know about this place?” he asked, taking a few steps back, light now pivoting between you and the rock. “Have you been here before?”

Your face heated as you looked to the ground. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No freaking way!” he laughed out, voice going a bit more high pitched than usual. “With who??”

“Eddie, please..”

“No, no,” he jumped back over to you, hands on your shoulders, waiting until your eyes met his nearly black irises. “We tell each other everything, Y/n. You have to tell me this story.”

You frowned, shaking your head. “I don’t wanna.”

Concern flashed over his face. “How come?” His tone became sharper. “Did something happen to you here?”

You caught a flicker of rage in his eyes and shook your head again. “No, no, it’s not like that. It’s just…ugh.” Running a hand over your face you let out a pained whine. “I went here with Keith last year.”

Gears almost visibly shifted in Eddie’s mind as he tried to think of who you were talking about before they widened. “Wait, the guy from the arcade?”

“And the video store,” you added with a grimace.

Something flashed through Eddie’s features that you couldn’t quite make out. “You, you went here with Keith? To the…the hookup spot?”

“Yes and it was the worst moment of my life.”

“Why? Did he hurt you?” Another switch to anger and one of Eddie’s hands tightened around your shoulder in distress.

“He didn’t hurt me like that. More like wounded my pride.” 

“Y/n, you have to tell me what happened before I lose my mind,” he said, forcing a closed-mouth smile in fake reassurance.

You sighed. “He asked me out for pizza and then invited me here. Next thing I know we’re kissing and then he shortly after took me home. That was it.”

Eddie stared into your eyes, reading through your bullshit like he always did. “There’s more.”

Your eyes burned as you stared down at the ground. “Hesaidiwasabadkisser,” you mumbled incoherently.

“What?”

“He said I was a bad kisser!” Your hands flew up in the air in defeat. “So that’s that, then! The one guy who has ever shown any interest in me says I’m a bad kisser! And now I kind of hate this place because it reminds me of that!”

Eddie stared at you for a few moments, eyes boring into yours as you met his gaze, mouth opening and closing as he thought of what to say.

Then, he laughed.

An eruption of giggles escaped him as he stepped away, walking toward the giant rock and resting a hand on the hard surface, bent down as if his body were about to give out from how aggressive his laughing was.

It was super fucking annoying.

“Okay, cool,” you said, fighting back tears. “Glad you can find this traumatic moment in my life so fucking funny, Ed.”

He turned to you, smile dropping as he saw how visibly upset you were and ran back over. “No, it’s not that, Y/n. I’m not making fun of you at all, I swear!”

“Sure sounds like you are,” you mumbled.

A hand grabbed yours, thumb stroking your skin. 

“I’m laughing because of how much of a fucking idiot this Keith guy is.”

You rolled your eyes. “Alright, I don’t think-”

“No, listen. There is absolutely no way someone as perfect and amazing and gorgeous as you could be a bad kisser.”

“Eddie, please, you don’t have to-”

Suddenly, a flashlight was falling to the ground as his hands cupped your face, and he was pulling your face until it was less than an inch from his.

A sharp intake of breath was all you could muster as your wide eyes stared into his.

“Let me put that ridiculous claim to rest once and for all, okay? And that dumb thing about there only being one person to ever be remotely into you.”

Your hand wrapped around his wrist. “You don’t have to do this to prove a point, Ed.”

He gave you a small, nervous smile, and rubbed his nose against yours and you let out a small gasp. 

“Okay then. What if I just kinda want to kiss you?”

There were both a million and zero thoughts running through your mind, all of them racing toward the same conclusion.

“Only if you want to-”

His lips were on yours instantly. Soft, tentative, tasting slightly of oranges, 

There definitely were no thoughts in your mind as Eddie kissed you. You were completely consumed by him.

He pulled away after a few seconds, eyelids heavy and a dreamy smile on his face, and you imagined you looked about the same.

“Let me guess,” you whispered, “You hated that just as much as I did.”

Eddie only giggled, and you nearly melted at the sound of it. “Wait,” he said, pulling closer. “I need to try at least one more time just to make sure.”

His lips pressed against your smile, which faded away as the intensity of the kiss came full force. You wrapped your arms around his neck for support as you completely lost yourself in Eddie, the two of you finally going down the dark and scary path you had both been too nervous to for years.

Yet here you were, finally, completely on the same page.

And just like that, Skull Rock had become your new favorite place.

~~~~

Thank you for reading! Feedback is always appreciated :)

Main Masterlist

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x plus size!reader #plus size reader #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson fic #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfiction #nyxieparty7k #nightskychallenge

[buckybarnesowl]

You with me?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Sam Wilson  Setting: FATWS AU - Engineer!Bucky and ExArmy!Baker!Sam Words: 5,234 Summary: Bucky is trying to make a difference despite every roadblock his shitty employer throws at him. His only light is seeing his baker crush weekly. Sam has watched his favourite regular customer approach burnout for over a year and just wants to help him find the confidence to finally break free from his awful job and follow his dream. And if Sam is part of that dream, well, that wouldn’t be the worst thing.  Tropes: mutual pining, idiots in love, with a pinch of angst and hurt/comfort, plus a fluffy ending because it’s me Warnings: some allusion to anxiety, burnout, and PTSD, but nothing too heavy or detailed

A/n: I don’t know what this is or where it came from. All I know is that @nexusnyx’s #nightskychallenge inspired me to start writing again for the first time in months. Nyx, you are an incomparable writer who has filled my dash with the most incredible fics during this past year. The detail, depth, and realness you achieves with your characters and AUs is, in my opinion, on another fucking level and we are not worthy. So this one’s for you, BB. 

#nightskychallenge prompts used:

The night I just couldn't take it. ["I usually keep quiet, but... not today."] 

The night when our love shone like the brightest star in the sky. ["Just—just up and kiss me. Oh my god."]

The smell of butter and vanilla and caramelized stone fruit assaulted Bucky’s senses as he opened the door to Wilson’s Just Desserts, otherwise known as his favourite way to end the work week. Mind you, it was Wednesday so grabbing his go-to slice of peach raspberry cobbler mid-week was completely out of character. But fuck it, Bucky’s boss had been riding him so hard he wasn’t sure he’d make it through the remaining few days without it. 

Or without seeing the owner of the late-night dessert shop, Sam Wilson, who Bucky could only describe as… beautiful. But that was another matter entirely, and there was only so much indulgence Bucky would allow himself. So peach raspberry cobbler on a Wednesday it was. 

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. On a Wednesday, no less! Your usual?”

A faint blush surfaced across Bucky’s cheeks at the complement. His heart beat pick up at Sam’s greeting, almost in time to the brassy jazz playing quietly throughout the café. 

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” Bucky replied softly, his stomach joining his heart to form a chorus of giddy attraction.

Gods this man.

He couldn’t keep from staring as Sam pulled the takeout box down from the shelf. Suddenly his lips were moving before his brain could stop them. “Actually, uh, I’ll have it for here.”

Sam’s chestnut eyes blew wide momentarily before softening once more. “Coming in on a Wednesday and eating in? You feelin’ alright, man?” he teased as a spread across his jaw. 

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Bucky muttered, accompanied by a playfully exaggerated eye-roll. “I got some sage advice recently that I should try switching things up once in a while, so…” Bucky trailed off, their last exchange suddenly running through his mind, in which Sam had lectured him on falling victim to monotony and overworking oneself. 

Last Friday, Bucky had showed up to the café even later than his usual leaving-work-late-on-a-Friday routine. He had been so disoriented after having fallen asleep at his desk. But being a creature of habit, his heart feet had made their way to Wilson’s all the same. Sam was just about to lock the door when Bucky had slinked in at 10:58 p.m., shoulders curled in and looking like he was about to collapse. 

“I was referring to taking a vacation, getting away from work, you know, not leaving the office at 10:30p.m. on a Friday? But, I guess baby steps are still steps.” He shot a wink at Bucky as he deftly swapped out the takeout box for a plate before lifting a Pyrex dish out of the display case. “Go sit down, I’ll bring it over to you.”

Bucky gave Sam a grateful nod before finding a worn mid-century wingback next to a window at the back of the café. Tucked in the corner, he could keep an eye on the comings and goings outside the shop. The sidewalk flooded with orange from the street lamp above, setting any passerby ablaze. A young couple holding hands. A scruffy tan dog on a leash being walked by it’s owner. A woman pushing a stroller. All lighting up with an orange glow as they passed in front of Bucky’s view.

Inside, a large potted banana leaf towered next to the chair, offering Bucky some much desired privacy from the few customers chattering quietly. As he removed his coat and put his bag down, he became defenceless against his brain’s new favourite habit of cycling through his workday, then workweek, then work year, which quickly led to spiraling questions about his life choices. On cue, Bucky became acutely aware of the familiar suffocating feeling in his throat. The one when suddenly everything became too bright and too loud and the thought of having to work one more day for his horrible excuse of a boss at a horrible excuse of an engineering firm made his chest tighten and his feel as if they were being cast in concrete. 

He lowered himself slowly into the chair and closed his eyes while he took a few calculated breaths.

Not here, Barnes, not now. Just chill. 

The self-pep talk and breathing routine worked, and oxygen started flowing more easily. A defeated sigh left his lips as he sunk into the high back of the chair, firm but with sides that wrapped around him as if to say, don’t worry, I’ve got you. Feeling like he could breathe again, he actually took in the space he’d been frequenting weekly for the last year and a half. He’d always been too distracted by Sam his thoughts to notice the decor, but now that he was sitting he could fully appreciate all the details of the shop’s interior.

Vaulted ceilings with simple industrial light fixtures, each with a single Edison bulb offering a subdued glow. Plants of varying shades and sizes found homes on any surface available. Colourful paintings of jazz musicians lined the maple wood paneling of the walls. Velvety deep green curtains bunched up on either side of every window, framing the view to the shop-lined street outside. It was busy, eclectic, yet somehow it all synthesized to create a warmth that felt almost homey. It was a stark contrast to Bucky’s nearly barren apartment, and he more than appreciated the change.

Why have I never stayed to eat here before?

He knew the answer, and he vowed to change his habits as of that moment. Or at least try.

Bucky had first come to Wilson’s about six months after Alexander Pierce had headhunted Bucky to join the engineering team at Hydra Solutions Inc. Inspired by a meme he’d seen about deserving a treat, he had waked into the dessert shop and was immediately cheered up by the black man with a megawatt smile and twinkle in his eye. It quickly became Bucky’s light at the end of the workweek tunnel.

Treating himself had never been a priority for Bucky. He had kept a full time job throughout his engineering degree, followed by his masters. He needed to support his sister after their parents both passed away in a car accident. It took him longer than most to get there, but Bucky eventually successfully defended his masters thesis on the first go. Not long after, Pierce had lured Bucky to Hydra with the promise of developing new pipeline technology that could bring clean drinking water to remote Indiginous nations in the states—Bucky had written his thesis on the issue after learning that one in ten Indigenous Americans lacked access to safe tap water or basic sanitation. 

Well, two years into his employment at Hydra and Bucky finally accepted that Pierce’s promises were as hollow as the pipes he spent his work hours developing. It was all bitumen and crude oil pipeline technology that stood to pollute the very communities he was so determined to work with. 

To appease his guilt, Bucky began staying late to work on preliminary plans for different drinking water and sanitation technologies. High level ideas of course, but eventually he hoped they could be worth submitting to some of the higher-ups. Pierce had caught him working late one night and threatened to fire Bucky when he found out he was using company property to work on a “personal project.” Bucky was finally able to convince Pierce to let him continue staying late to pursue his ideas on the condition that he would never submit overtime and would take on extra projects when needed. 

Bucky had felt like he won a small victory and had an extra jump in his step that Friday when he had practically skipped into Wilson’s.

“Who’s this chipper version of my favourite Friday night customer, and what have you done with the real version?” Sam had teased.

Bucky couldn’t stop himself from gushing about his project ideas and the permission he had gotten to continue working on them. It led Bucky to open up about his studies, then his sister and the loss of his parents, which led the two of them to talking well past the shop’s closing time, exchanging stories about their respective backgrounds and struggles. 

That was the night Bucky learned that Sam was a retired special ops veteran, who served three tours overseas before being discharged with PTSD.

“Took a lot of therapy, and convincing from my nosey sister, but I finally followed my dream and this place was born,” Sam had confided.

If Bucky had been on the fence about his crush before, there was no doubt in his mind after that night. 

He was practically floating the entire weekend after that, even allowing himself to indulge in a few daydreams of coming home to a certain baker husband after successfully installing another water and sanitation system. Though the fantasies were short lived. First thing on the Monday after the best weekend he’d had in years, Pierce began piling on extra projects. The new deadlines forcing Bucky to work later and later in order to make time for his “personal” one.

It was gradual at first, but the late hours started to wear on Bucky. He stopped jogging with his best friend Steve on the weekends. He bailed on game nights with his sister. He fell asleep at his desk at least once a week. He even nearly stopped going to Wilson’s. But at this point, the sight of Sam’s glowing smile get a touch brighter every time Bucky walked through the glass paned shop door was the only thing keeping him afloat.

Just as he was about to embark on another thought spiral of doom, the sound of a plate making contact with the small side table next to his chair brought Bucky back to the present.

“You with me, James?”

Bucky’s cheeks still heated at Sam using his real name. It had started the night they swapped their origin stories. Sam had announced he would be calling him James from then on, something about honouring the name his mother gave him. Bucky nearly broke into tears then and there. Sam was the first person to use Bucky’s real name since Winifred Barnes had passed away and it unfurled something in his heart, a simultaneous ache and warmth that he didn’t have the emotional capacity to address. So instead, he would blush and try to calm the fluttering in his stomach every time he heard it.

“Yeah, yeah. Just lost in my head I guess,” he smiled, his eyes flitting bashfully between Sam and the abnormally large portion of cobbler he had just placed next to Bucky.

“Well, if you need help finding your way back, you know where to find me,” Sam offered with a sincere tone before returning back to behind the counter. 

The ache and warmth returned to Bucky’s chest tenfold with Sam’s words. Instinctively, he began drawing the sensation with bite after bite of the cobbler. Only so much indulgence, remember?

Maybe it was the hominess of the café, the instrumental rendition of “The Very Thought of You” playing softly in the background, or the like-grandma-used-to-make quality of the dessert Bucky just devoured, but he found himself drifting into a daze. He leaned back into the chair after finishing the last bite and exhaled long and slow. But this time it wasn’t defeat. For the first time in months, he felt completely and utterly relaxed. He was so high off the silence in his head that he allowed himself to close his eyes and simply be for a minute… or maybe two wouldn’t hurt…

┉✪┉

Sam started the end-of-day process on the till after the last customer settled up and left the shop. Well, the last one aside from his favourite customer—who was still sleeping soundly in Sam’s favourite wingback. 

“What am I going to do with you, James?” he muttered under his breath. Chuckling to himself, as if was a response to his own rhetorical question. It’s not like he could ask the guy out. Sam had made it abundantly clear how he felt about Bucky. If he was interested in dating he would have made a move by now. So Sam settled for fantasizing about his crush in between weekly visits.

Sighing, he continued on with his closing routine. Sure, it was thirty minutes before 11:00 p.m., but another glance at the sleeping beauty in the back of his shop did something to Sam’s chest and he resolved that Bucky needed a friend tonight. He flipped the sign on the door, turned off the main lights, and finished setting things up for the next day.

Twenty minutes later, Sam was turning off the display case lights, the final task of his mental closing checklist. Then he padded his way to the back of the café where Bucky was now snoring softly. 

“James… Jaa-aames.”

Bucky didn’t even stir.

Sam hesitated before placing a hand on his shoulder. “James, it’s time to wake up.”

A sudden intake of breath sent Bucky recoiling away from the touch as his eyes shot open.

“Shit, man, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Way to go, Sammy.

Bucky rubbed both his hands over his face then sighed as he dropped them to his sides before looking up at Sam. “S’all good. I’m really sorry for falling asleep. Shit, are you closed already?!” 

Sam watched as panic flooded Bucky’s ice blue eyes before shooting up and out of the chair. 

“I’m so, so sorry, Sam. I’ve got cash, I can pay cash so you don’t have run the machine and, fuck, I’m so sor—”

The sound of china shattering on the dark mahogany hardwood cut him off.

Sam could only watch as Bucky knocked the side table with the frantic gathering of his belongings. While he couldn’t save the plate in time, registering the transition from panic to horror that spread across Bucky’s face, Sam attempted to save something much more valuable from breaking. 

The rise and fall of Bucky’s chest was coming at a speed far too quick for Sam’s liking. His army background and experience with his own mental health struggles kicked him into gear. This was something he could help with. A firm but assuring presence. Grounding.

 “Hey, it’s just a plate. I’ve got dozens. Let’s take a deep breath, yeah?” he suggested with a steady tone. Then, taking a risk, he guided Bucky’s hand to rest on his own chest. “Just try to match mine. Think you can do that?”

Bucky nodded, gulped hard, then released a shaky breath in time with Sam’s. 

“Good, doing real good, man. Let’s do a few more, ‘kay?”

Bucky nodded and continued on, blinking as glazed eyes stared through Sam.

“I want you to sit back down,” he directed softly as he let go of Bucky’s hand. “I’m just going to go grab something. Keep breathin’ and stay seated until I get back,” Sam commanded, followed by the warmest smile he could muster so Bucky would hopefully understand he wasn’t angry. 

It was unclear if he got it by the pained look on his face, but Bucky obeyed and lowered himself back into the chair. 

Well, shit, that was not how I hoped that would go.

Sam shook his head as he quickly flicked a kettle on before heading into the supply closet to grab a broom and dustpan. Relief flooded his chest when he returned to Bucky still sitting in the chair, albeit looking like a scared puppy. 

“Can I help? Please, I—”

“No way, man,” Sam retorted, voice smooth and warm. “You just sit there and look pretty.” His stomach fluttered at the immediate blush that tinted Bucky’s cheeks. 

Sam made quick work of sweeping up the shards before rushing back behind the counter to discard the broken plate and broom. Then, in one seamless motion, he unscrewed a jar, popped a teabag each into two large mugs with one hand while grabbing the now boiled kettle in the other, before filling the mugs and carrying them back to where Bucky still sat. 

“It’s chamomile mint. Helps with the nerves,” Sam stated matter of factly before moving a mismatched wingback and sitting down to face Bucky. “Take as much time as you need. I closed up early so I’m usually not even done cashing out yet.”

Bucky was rubbing his fingers together, an anxious twitch Sam had noticed over the course of Bucky’s weekly visits to his shop. “Y-you,” he paused to clear his throat before continuing, “I’m sure you’ve got better places to be.”

“Nowhere I’d rather be than right here,” Sam said firmly, though not unkindly.

Bucky scoffed at that.

“What?” Sam prodded.

“Nothin’. Just, I’m not the best company.” Bucky directed the meek words towards his lap. 

“Look, James. I don’t generally share my life’s trials and tribulations with every customer, you feel me? I like you, man.” Sam took a sip of his tea before setting the mug back down. He gave himself a beat to process his surprise at his own admission and simultaneously find the courage to continue. “And I usually keep quiet on these things. Your business is yours. But not today.”

“Sam, I—”

“Let me finish. You’ve been comin’ in here for over a year now, yeah?”

Bucky nodded, his brows furrowed and his head tilted slightly.

“And over that year and change I’ve watched you shuffle in later and later, shoulders bunched up tighter and tighter, and that crinkle you used to get next to your eyes when you smile all but disappear. That company is destroying you, man. They’re using you, turning you into something you’re not. You’re a good person, James. With a good heart. You deserve to work somewhere where your talents are appreciated, where your big ideas and creativity are seen as assets not threats. You hear me?”

Bucky sat still for a minute, clearly processing the unsolicited advice Sam had just dumped on him. 

“I, I don’t know what to say…”

Sam couldn’t get a read on Bucky anymore. His face had gone blank and he just kept staring down at his hands. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes until suddenly, Bucky was on his feet, once again gathering his things. “I’ll pay you for the tea and cobbler next time,” he muttered as turned away from Sam and beelined towards the door. 

“James, wait! I didn’t mean to upset you, I just wan—”

“Well, you did!” Bucky spat back, turning on his heels to face Sam one last time. “I didn’t ask for your help. I didn’t ask for your charity. And I certainly didn’t ask for your pity. You don’t know me. You don’t know the horrible things I’ve done at that company. The communities I’ve helped destroy.”

“James, that wasn’t you. You were just following orders.”

“That’s bullshit! I could have quit! Found another fucking job! But I didn’t.” Bucky’s voice got louder, more heated with every word. “Now that land is permanently damaged because of the pipelines I helped build. So yeah, it was me, Sam. I’m part of that machine.” Bucky sighed, then turned back towards the door. “I… It’s late, I’m going to go. I’ll see you around.”

Sam stood speechless as he watched Bucky walk out, a few Edison bulbs glowing softly while the rest of the café filled with shadows cast by the street lights outside.

┉✪┉

“Let me get this straight. You fell asleep in his shop. Then he helped you through an anxiety attack. Then he confessed that he liked you. And then you threw a temper tantrum and stormed off?”

Bucky winced at the laughter coming through his headphones following his sister’s harsh, but not untrue summary of the night before.

“I don’t think he meant it like that, Bex.”

“Are you kidding me?! That man is crushing on you as much as, if not more than you are on him.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Bucky replied quietly. 

“If I know anything, it’s that, brother. Seriously, trust me on this. When was the last time you went on a date, hmmm?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Oh I think it’s absolutely relevant. You’re so caught up in your self-loathing-pity-party that you can’t see when a man is so obviously into you. He closed his shop early so he could bring you tea and confess his love and concern for you, for fucks sake!”

“He said ‘like’ not ‘love’,” Bucky corrected. 

“Oh, whatever! You know what I mean!.”

Bucky sighed. “So what am I supposed to do then, huh? I bet he doesn’t like me much after how I behaved last night. I’m clearly falling apart. As if he’d say yes if I asked him out now. And what am I supposed to do about Hydra? Just quit? This is all such a fucking mess,” Bucky groaned, rubbing a hand over his forehead to quell the dull ache that had made itself at home since he woke up that morning.

“You really are dense, Buck. Yes, it’s that fucking simple. You waltz into work tomorrow knowing you’re better than those climate-change inducing scumbags, submit your two-weeks notice, then when you’re off, head straight to Wilson’s and ASK. SAM. OUT.”

Lying on his back in bed, Bucky shifted his hand to behind his head and allowed the weight of his sister’s words to sink in. The black screen of his phone was reflecting the nearly full moon shining through his bedroom window and he had to adjust the angle to avoid being blinded.

“What about finding another job, hm? I have bills I need to pay. I have… responsibilities.” Bucky didn’t want to make his sister feel bad about the fact that he also still paid for half of her student residence rent and her phone bill while she finished her degree. 

“Yeah, about that, Buck. I don’t need you to pay for my shit anymore. I mean, it’s been nice, don’t get me wrong. And don’t think I don’t appreciate it—”

“I know you do, Bex. I know.”

“Good. But seriously, I’ve only got one year of school left. I can get student loans for this last one. I’m good, I promise. The only thing I’m not good about is you running yourself into the ground working for some company that is killing your soul all because you don’t believe you deserve to find better. Do something for you, Buck, for once in your life.”

A silent tear streaked down Bucky’s cheek as he exhaled a shaky breath. 

“You’ve really grown up, huh?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you. Thanks for finally noticing,” she huffed.

Bucky chuckled at his sister’s attitude. It was impossible to win an argument against her. 

“Mom and dad would be so proud of you.”

Bucky heard a sniff on the other end.

“I love you. You know that right?”

“Yeah, I know. Love you too, brother. Now go get some fucking sleep. The exhaustion in your voice is making me tired.” 

“Ha-ha. G’night, Bex.”

“Night, Buck.”

Bucky pulled the headphones out of his ears, made sure his alarm was set, then set his phone on his nightstand. Within minutes, he drifted into the most undisturbed sleep he’d had in over a year.

┉✪┉

It was 10:52 p.m. when Bucky finally walked into Wilson’s. Sam had been certain he wouldn’t see Bucky in the café for a while after Wednesday. So when he looked up and saw those piercing blue eyes—with the crinkle at the corners returned in full—well, his heart nearly jumped out of his throat. 

“Hey there. Didn’t expect to see you tonight.”

Bucky looked around the café, making sure no one was waiting to be served. He released a sigh of relief at seeing it empty. 

“Yeah, well, there’s someone I needed to apologize to,” he replied softly, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck.

Sam’s lips spread with his signature warm smile, striking up the familiar song Bucky’s stomach and heart played every time he saw it. 

“Give me a sec, then. I’ll lock up and shut ‘er down. You want anything?”

“Nah, man I’m good. Except, wait, I owe you for—”

“Don’t even think about taking your wallet out. The other night was on me, and that’s that.”

“Jeez, I’m not winning any arguments this week,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing,” Bucky chuckled. 

“That’s what I thought. Now, go sit your ass down and I’ll be there in a sec.”

Bucky followed Sam’s orders again, though not before moving the mismatched wingbacks into the same position as Wednesday. Grinning from ear to ear, he took a seat and waited. Once his closing routine was done, Sam took his seat, returning the smile upon seeing a happy looking Bucky.

“So, what’s this about an apology?” he asked with a teasing look, until he noticed Bucky’s face turn serious.

“Yeah, I… look, let me just say what I need to say. When I’m done, if you don’t like it or want to chew me out or kick me out then I’ll understand. But just… I thought about this all day and I need to get it out or—”

“James, I haven’t had to kick a single customer out of my shop since I opened, and I ain’t about to start now. Take your time, man. I’m not going anywhere.” Sam gave Bucky his most sincere look before leaning back into his chair. He hoped he had conveyed as much relaxation and openness as he could to counter the obvious nervousness vibrating through Bucky.

“Okay, here goes then,” Bucky breathed out, running a hand through his short chestnut waves. His knee bounced and his hands were bunched into fists. “You were right. About everything. And I’m so sorry for yelling at you. You’ve been so fucking nice to me and all you did was share your concern and I blew up at you.”

Bucky took a deep breath before continuing. 

“For the past year and a half I’ve been fooling myself. Justifying my unhappiness in staying at Hydra with a bunch of excuses. Because I needed to take care of my sister. Because I needed to gain some more experience before I moved on. Because they were letting me use their software after hours, so really they were doing me a favour, right? But then my stupid boss starting piling on projects as if I owed him something more than the work I was already doing. And suddenly I was working later and later. I started having trouble sleeping. Getting anxiety attacks. I started bailing on my friends, my sister…..myself. But the one thing that I couldn’t seem to bail on was coming to see you. 

“So following some advice from Bex, I quit my stupid job today and now I’m about to follow the other half of her advice. You and your fucking cobbler has kept me going this past year and half. And I don’t know if it’s what you meant when you said you liked me the other day, but man oh man, do I like you. And if I’ve misread the situation, then I’m sorry, but if I haven’t and you do like me that way, well, then, I’d like to take you out on a proper date if I haven’t royally screwed things up already, and—”

“James. James.” Sam was out of his chair and kneeling between Bucky’s thighs in an instant, uncurling his fists gently. “Just—just shut up and kiss me, oh my god.”

Sam’s fingertips pressed into Bucky’s thighs. Bucky lifted his now uncurled hands to cup either side of Sam’s jawline so that he could pull him closer. Their mouths connected, transforming into a tangle of teeth and tongues and saliva. Bucky tried to savour every second, imprint it into his brain, as he explored the curve of Sam’s lips before reluctantly breaking for air. 

“So does that mean you accept my apology?” Bucky asked breathlessly, pressing his forehead into Sam’s.

“You even gotta ask? Whoooooo, you’re a better kisser than I imagined.”

“Oh, so you fantasized about me, hm?”

“Don’t act like you didn’t.”

“Alright, guilty,” Bucky admitted, pushing his lips into Sam’s once more. This time softer, slower, with purpose. 

When they broke apart a second time, Bucky leaned back slightly, his thumbs caressing the apples of Sam’s cheeks. Sam had turned off all but the front lights in the café, and the now full moon was flooding the space. Sam’s face glowed almost blue as the sheen of his skin glistened in the moonlight. 

“You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” Bucky said, not a hint of doubt or exaggeration in his tone. As if it were a well known fact, common knowledge. 

Sam’s cheek’s were on fire and he ducked his head out of Bucky’s hands at the compliment. 

“Don’t get all bashful on me now,” Bucky whispered, tilting Sam’s chin up with a knuckle.

“Well, you’re the prettiest man I’ve ever seen so I guess we’re well matched then,” he retorted, gazing back into Bucky’s eyes.

“Guess we are.”

With that, Sam pressed a final kiss into Bucky’s lips before lifting himself off the floor. His knees cracked as he got up, reaching a hand to help Bucky out the chair once he was standing.

“How about a drink then? The night’s still young.”

“I thought I was the one asking you out,” Bucky huffed teasingly. 

“You did, and I accepted. Now I’m telling you what I want to do on our first date. I’m a control freak, James, better get used to it.”

“Oh boy, story of my life. You and Becca will get along swimmingly,” Bucky chuckled at the thought of his sister and Sam together as he led him towards the exit. 

He could already picture it. Sunday dinners at their shared apartment, their sisters swapping stories about growing up with the two men. Laughter and music filling a dining room that was already full of signs of a life built together. Too much food on the table, but everyone saved space for one of Sam’s desserts. It was domestic, comforting. It was perfect and Bucky simultaneously couldn’t wait to get there and wanted to slow down time so he could feel every moment. 

“You with me, James?” Sam’s eyes searched Bucky’s face, a furrowed brow that relaxed as soon as Bucky replied.

“Yeah, Sam. Don’t think you’ll ever get rid of me now,” Bucky replied softly, leaving a lingering kiss behind Sam’s ear.

A shaky breath escaped Sam’s mouth, “That’s… that’s all I’ve wanted for a while. C’mon, let’s go celebrate. I know a place not too far from here.”

Sam grabbed Bucky’s hand and their fingers locked, like it was a gesture they had adopted years ago. With a small tug Bucky began to follow him down the sidewalk, returning the directive with a squeeze.

The city was just starting to come alive again, 11:30 p.m. on Friday night. Club goers dressed up, friends screaming in excitement. Neon signs and street lamps and the light from late night eateries all melding together. The full moon added itself to the mix, as if to light their way. Not that they needed it. The two men were already glowing, an inextinguishable light radiating off them as they strolled into the night. 

la fin

┉✪┉

The ongoing lack of access to clean drinking water in Indigneous communities across North America is a serious issue that every citizen should be outraged over. Want to learn about it? Here’s a place to start:

In the US: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/28/indigenous-americans-drinking-water-navajo-nation

In Canada: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/30/canada-first-nations-justin-trudeau-drinking-water

#nightskychallenge #bucky x sam #bucky barnes x sam wilson #fatws #tfatws #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky fic #sam wilson fanfiction #sambucky #mutual pining #idiots in love #bucky angst #bucky fluff

[nexusnyx]

fuel to fire

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 8 —  The night it finally happens. [“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time now.”] [5.8k]

— Joel Miller x f!Reader — Summary: His brain was cursed by words she read not too long ago, even if it felt like a lifetime already. When you come back to him, Joel's hit with the notion—there was no denying what you were. What you meant to him. — A/n: This is a sequel to imagine being loved by me, but it can be read as a stand-alone. I love my old man and I wanted him to have the end of the book. [shrugs] | 🏷️ Tags: pre-established relationship, roadtrip, sexual tension, making out, some horny thoughts (& promises), a more possessive!Joel than I'm used to; Ellie & Reader bond; pre-smut build up.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤmasterlist | part one ←

ㅤㅤㅤdo you want me on your mind ㅤㅤㅤor do you want me to go on ㅤㅤㅤi might be yours as sure as i can say ㅤㅤㅤbe gone be faraway 🎧

Coincidences were not real.

When the third so-called coincidence happens, saving not only Joel's but also Ellie's life as consequence, he knows something bigger than him is happening.

Of course, his ear is ringing when he realizes that, and he's in shock for the countless moment in his life—frozen and unable to stop the panicking heartbeat rising inside his chest because he almost died, again, and Ellie almost died, again, but something intervened and—

it's you.

Joel's chest expands. It grows what feels like two sizes, and he gasps. Out loud.

The two bandits who only just a minute ago tried robbing him and Ellie are dead on the ground, and yet, all Joel sees is you. He wants to scream at the top of his lungs — his whole chest itches with the despair that the sight of you causes, but what wins is the knot in his throat, the sting in his eyes, the undeniable wave crash of relief over the fact that you're here.

Joel dashes.

He runs to you, his own feet moving before his brain is back to functioning.

Hugging is not something he does.

He's cradled you in his arms before, he has slept in your arms and had you sleeping on his chest, all tangled in his limbs, but hugging is like kissing.

It's intimate. Raw. He avoided it for the longest time, much like he ignores the idea of feeling anything or still being alive.

Still — When his arms wrap around you, they do it tightly.

His scream is kept inside, and Joel only breaks in your shore with how much he feels for the fact that you're here, you're here. He crashes against you, hugs on tight, squeezes, inundating you with his smell of blood and sweat and Joel — he's shaking, but beyond caring. You're here.

If you mind the way he throws himself at you, it's only for a second. There's a moment of delay when Joel's trembling is too much for him to have space to realize how rigid you've turned out of nowhere, and then — it's gone.

The incessant and annoying goddamn ringing from the shots is continuous. His ears register your voice nonetheless.

"I expected a lot more screaming, but... this definitely makes up for the sixteen hours drives."

He feels your arms wrapping sort of weirdly around him.

He recalls there's a gun still in your hand, and that's probably why — Joel knows your finger's off the trigger, and he just wished you'd press your hands on him, gun or no gun. Your hands are stronger than they seem and he's missed them.

Knows you're shaking, too, and not because he feels it, but because he knows you hate fire weapons.

His hands hold onto the back of your head, hips, he grips your arms.

So, not a dream. Or a hallucination.

"You're here," he babbles.

"I'm here," you confirm.

Joel buries his nose in your neck, in your hair, smelling you. He can barely soak up your words and his body is in too much shock to feel the hug that's grounding him, but the more he feels you, the more he's okay.

It's only when Joel hears the sound of his name being screamed that everything slots back into place again with a click.

"Joel!"

Ellie.

He whips around, panic rising again over a new reason.

The wild monologues that start whenever she's around danger go at hundreds of miles per hour. The 'is she okay did she get hit is she hurt are you hurt is everything okay' —

"Are you ok?" he echoes, hands still resting on your shoulders.

Ellie's eyes are on you instead of him.

"Who's this?"

Joel turned his right side to Ellie — the habit of keeping his good ear to you seems to be sewn just as tight as ever in him, and he hears your scoff before your words. "This is so fucking insane."

Ellie looks over to Joel. "Yeah, I'm ok. You know her?" she asks again, all in one breath.

He nods. "I do." His hand squeezes on your shoulder, hyper-aware out of nowhere that he isn't alone anymore on this, and they are still alive. Because of you. He turns to you. "I trust her. This is my —" fuck, he always hated this part. "Uh — we lived together."

"Hi." You offer Ellie your name, plain and simple, then turn your head to Joel. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

Ellie's not done with her questions. "If you trust her, why wasn't she with you when you and Tess went to get the battery? Or when you made the deal to take me?"

"Because Tess and I needed her to stay and take care of things 'till we came back," he answers. The implicit 'we never came back' hangs in the air, and Ellie's posture changes.

The only reservations in her shoulders evaporate, and she nods.

That's all she seems to need to accept you — an explanation and the guarantee that you have his trust; Joel's surprised by how fast she is to trust his words. His judge of character, or situations, and not for the first time.

"How did you find us?" Ellie asks, and this time, it's directed at you.

It's Joel who answers, though. "She's one helluva tracker, that's how."

He sees you nodding at Ellie, and wonders if she said something in reply that his ears missed.

Joel's hand touches your face, still in awe. You lean against the touch, but his eyes don't miss it when it happens — the sweep.

"Where's Tess?"

Joel's stomach sinks.

It's been exactly three days since the Hotel incident.

Since Henry and Sam.

Since the taste of mourning, death, tragedy. All of it still lingered in his mouth, clouding his brain, creating tension between him and Ellie. The cycle of life, the fragility of everything and everyone around has made him uncomfortable since the outbreak, and even though all he craved was to offer the girl comfort, Joel was unsure he still knew how to.

Bile still rises high in his throat when you mention her name, and Joel feels for her death.

This time, it's an empathy feel — he feels it for you, and he's surprised when there's a tangible second wave of it; when Joel's eyes find Ellie's, she's looking away from you two.

Grief carries a heavy weight, and it becomes inevitable that it shows in the face.

"Oh," you say.

He doesn't hear it, but he sees your lips forming the word.

Joel hates the world, but he hates how impossible it is that everyone is doomed to living in it. Whether one wants it or not.

Fingers squeeze around his hand, and Joel looks into your eyes waiting for his. "Let's go. You can tell me everything on the way. We're heading to Wyoming, right?"

Ellie's widen at you, and Joel wonders how long it'll take for the hero worship to start.

He had it within two days of meeting you.

"We are," Ellie replies.

"Okay. We should get out of here. Ellie, right?" You let go of Joel to walk in her direction. "You okay, kiddo? Is anything bruised, something we need to look at before we get in the car?"

Ellie's look exchanged with Joel carries an entire conversation, and when she turns back to you, Joel realizes the weight she puts on his words.

"Ah — don't worry about me. I'm kinda — of immune. To the whole thing. It's why the grump over there's risking his neck to take me and everything. So. No need to worry. I'm all good."

You take in her words, look back at Joel in search of confirmation in his features and when you find it, you say it again. "Oh." His approval means things. He realizes that now, right there and then, because of both Ellie and now you.

That's all you need to believe it.

Joel needed a month, denying it to himself over and over until he was blue in the face, Tess was gone, and nothing fucking happened, and all it took was a slight nod from him for you to turn back to her and say,

"Well, immune or not you can still sprain something or get hurt. So — are you hurt? 'Cause we tend to any bruises before we keep going, and we really need to keep going. I'm sure these two idiots weren't alone."

Ellie moves her whole body as if doing a complete scan and nods to you, sharp and more obedient than she usually is with Joel. "I'm okay."

He sees you narrowing your eyes at her. "Ok. I'll believe you know yourself well enough to let us know if you need anything." With a tilt of your neck, you ask. "How old are you?"

"I'm fourteen. How old are you?"

"Oh, way older than fourteen."

"Really?! You look kinda young." Ellie grabs her backpack from the floor and swings it on her back, and you share a look with Joel before answering.

"Ah, I know. Looks can be deceiving, though. I was your age when the outbreak happened," you share.

Ellie gasps. "No way."

"Yes, way." You chuckle. "C'mon, old man. We need to get going. These roads are really dangerous."

It's horrendous how much can happen in such a short span of time.

Joel updates you on everything on the first night you three camp together.

Despite your numerous trips of over ten hours to catch up to them, you're the one behind wheels. It makes it easier to avoid Ellie's first-moment curiosity, to keep up a good path since Joel's eyes can focus on tiny details much better than yours, and you two need to go only a few hours away to know you've built up enough space between anyone who might've seen and wished to follow you guys and the impossibility of being found.

Setting camp mid-woods is easy. The kid — Ellie, fourteen, loud-mouthed, persistent, a volcano waiting to erupt — is good at following instructions, and she's been under Joel's systematic thumb long enough to know a lot without even needing a nudge.

By the time nightfalls arrive, Ellie's eyes are drooping.

You're re-organizing the supplies and only listening to her and Joel's short back-and-forth. It's entertaining, as much as it pokes at your curiosity.

He seems — comfortable.

In his own way.

He answers her, checks up on her, scoffs at her terrible attempts at conversation sometimes.

"Are you gonna finally sleep today?" she asks once her body's tucked inside the sleeping cot.

"She's here," he nudges his chin towards you. "So — yeah."

That means he's been up for some reason. Probably has something to do with the mess you found in their trail. With the tension that's so obvious in the air. That fragile and thin layer of something unsaid — something big and sad that happened and dented the air around them. You'll find out soon enough.

"Good." Ellie gets a little more comfortable inside it. "You're a little annoying without your beauty sleep."

You snort at it — it's too hard not to.

Joel gives you a pointed look, and you still notice the little aura of pride inside Ellie's bag.

It takes an hour before you're finished organizing things to your liking.

The tidying up was a way to placate you. Being in Joel's presence again sent you into disarray, even if you'd been searching for longer than a week already.

When he seems to deem the silence good enough — or maybe it's Ellie's deep quietude and lack of movement — Joel speaks up.

"How long did you drive? And how often?"

You turn to him, securing the trigger on your gun. "Longer than ten hours. A few days."

"The car?"

You roll your eyes. "You really think that gorgeous blue pick-up's the only car Frank's fixed over the past decade?"

Joel only nods. "How bad was it? Our trail?"

At that, you pause. Take a moment to respond, swallowing down the knot of guilt and bitterness you convince yourself is inexistent. "Bad." Just like Joel ignores the idea of feelings and living, you ignore the bile in your throat due to death. Horrors. Things you do or see. "Really bad, Joel."

He sighs and looks down at his lap, slowly. "Fuck," he mutters. "Fucking hell."

"Yeah."

"How worried should I be?"

"Not that worried. Whoever was in charge seems to be gone — the group's a bit of a wreck and whoever sent those few guys to find you will have a lot of other priorities besides a man and a kid they never met, I think."

He takes a while to nod at that, reading between your lines for the first time since the re-encounter.

I took care of it.

No one was coming after him, or the kid. Not now, not ever.

Not as long as you breathed and had a saying in it,

Joel opens his mouth and closes it. He looks away from you to say, "I've been trying my best, but — it's fucking hard."

"Of course it is." And of course this mountain of a man would be blaming himself. "I wouldn't have been able to find you two without it, if I'm being honest, but — there were more people coming after you two than I anticipated. You both and a Sam and Henry?"

Joel's head snaps up, and there it is.

The reason behind that thick and slimy feeling around him and Ellie — the veil of something you were absent to witness but still could smell in the air.

"What happened?" you ask.

Joel looks over at Ellie's sleeping cot, sighing once more. "You wanna know just about them or... can I go from the start?"

"That'd be nice."

"Alright." So he starts from the top. From the day he and Tess left for the batteries and came back with a mission that was supposed to have them only for a few days, but instead, took her away from this Earth and pulled him miles away from the QZ and everything he knew for years.

Joel tells you everything, and while he speaks, all you can think of is how good he looks. How you can breathe now that he's here, and you hold onto that because if you think of the rest, you'll crumble. Like always.

Tess.

No— Joel tells you about their visit to Bill and Frank. You focus on that.

"There was one for me, too," you whisper.

Joel's moved to the same tree you're sitting under, finding comfort by your side. "One what?"

"A letter."

His shoulders stiffen. "Oh. That — makes sense. Frank really liked ya."

"I didn't read yours. Don't worry," you knew him well enough to know he liked his privacy.

Joel snickers. "Nothing in there you wouldn't know. Bill was a grump, they were happy in the end, and he told me I could get anything I wanted from the house to help keep my — mine happy."

"Damn. Being married kinda merges you, huh?"

"What d'you mean?"

"They sound kinda the same. Bill and Frank — or at least, their letters did. Frank told me that amidst all the disarray there's still a chance for luck, I should lean on my gut more 'cause it's always right, and I could get whatever I wanted."

Joel hums. "That's nice."

"Yeah. I, uh—I buried them." You hate how your eyes sting at the memory. You can feel Joel's eyes on you, so you turn to him. "They — from blood to earth. They deserve a full cycle."

The way he stares at you makes you wish you could read minds. Inside, your chest tightens with each detail you take note of him. The cuts and bruises do nothing to deter his beauty away.

Joel has that look of sharp edges and impenetrable walls, but his eyes are his doom — yours can barely look away from them all the time.

They carry everything.

The guilt, the missing, the hopes he wished to bury so many feet under, the uncertainty and fear that no one can escape.

You sit right next to him and listen to all of it, and when he's done, you wished you had the excuse to hug him again.

You wished you felt confident enough in what existed between you two before he left so that you could lean over and kiss him.

Offer him comfort.

All you can offer is, "Thanks." He's told you everything. He's tired. The bags under his eyes are deep. You wished you could run your fingers through his hair until he was fast asleep, like you did a few lucky times. "Get some rest. I'll sleep in the car tomorrow. 'm keeping watch."

Joel's out within two minutes of laying down.

Even though he secured his body on top of his right side, in ten minutes he rotates, turning his body to you.

You keep watch with a smile on your face.

Women are... tricky.

Joel feels a little lost at first, and then it just amplifies.

When he wakes up, he can smell the food you've cooked already. You and Ellie are sitting side by side, talking — he breathes in deep and focuses his ear.

"...remember all that well, but it's not good when you do, too. I remember everything, and what good does it do?" you're saying.

Ellie's eating, slower than most times. "That makes sense. What was your favorite place to eat?"

"KFC. Fuck, I loved those wings so much."

Curiosities about the past she never got to witness. You were a much better source of information than him and he's happy Ellie's asking you. This way, she can get more than a few grumbled answers. He tunes out, and decides he can snooze for a few more minutes.

In the next two days, he's granted by the weirdness of what it's like to be outnumbered:

When you're in the car sleeping, Ellie asks about you.

Her first question, obviously, is: "So — I'm confused. I thought you and Tess were together? But now — I kinda think it's you and her? Oh my god, were you three a thing? Is that something adults do? Is it, like, allowed?"

Joel grips the wheel a little tighter and pushes down the desire to tell her to be quieter, damn it. "She's a light sleeper."

"Gotcha. Keep my voice down." In a lower tone, she repeats herself. "Was she your girlfriend?"

"No." Joel stayed out of the illusion one could have partners in this world.

"So it was you and Tess?"

"Also no."

"Dude, you can't lie on both fronts."

"Why does it matter?" he asks.

Ellie shrugs, shoving her face between both front seats. "It doesn't, not really—"

"Please, sit properly."

"—but like, curiosity might and definitely will kill me if you don't answer," she sits back, at least.

Joel sighs. Looks ahead of the road and remembers the smell of pages mixed with the innate scent of you. "We... were close."

"You and who?"

"First Tess. Didn't really work. But —," Joel points at you. "We did."

Ellie gasps, out loud. Joel has to suppress a stupid grin that wants to come out — he knows she's watching him from the rear mirror.

"You are so grumpy, how the hell did you get with her?"

All he does is shrug his shoulders.

Ellie sits in silence for a few seconds. "Why didn't you kiss her? When you saw her?"

Because I never wanted to do something so badly. I was terrified. I was never terrified before both of you showed me I still have reasons to.

He shrugs his shoulders again, and avoids looking to his side.

The sight of your neck always lured you in — drove him crazy.

Seeing it and missing how it smells is the last thing he needs.

Joel needs focus.

Too bad all he wants is to listen to you read.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ→ㅤㅤ →ㅤㅤ →

His brain was cursed by words she read not too long ago, even if it felt like a lifetime already. When you come back to him, Joel's hit with the notion—there was no denying what you were.

Girlfriend was such a silly word.

It sticks to his head when Ellie uses it, and he has to look away from your knowing eyes for the next two days to come.

Girlfriend is stupid. Neither you nor Tess were ever his girlfriend.

Tess was a partner. She was a friend, she was like family.

You... you were solace. Peace, and light.

There was no denying what you meant to him.

The words you read to him that never left his head are what he last thinks of before he falls asleep.

"Oh, the dead past that survives in me and that has never been anywhere but in me! The flowers from the garden of the little country house that never existed except in me! The pine grove, orchards and vegetable plots of the farm that was only a dream of mine! My imaginary excursions, my outings in a countryside that never existed!"

There are a few days ahead left of driving before you three can say you're close to your destination, and Joel cracks on a cold night.

After Ellie sleeps and you two clean up the weapons you found on the abandoned warehouse, he turns to you.

"Did you bring The Book of Disquiet?"

Your eyes widen at the question, brows going up in surprise.

"You want me to read to you?"

So she brought it. Joel smiles despite himself. "All I've had these past days were horrible puns. I could use a good readin'."

"You laugh at her horrible puns," you argue, and the smile's growing on your face too.

"So do you," he accuses.

"Yeah," you admit. "She might need to work on her delivery still, but some of them are quite good."

The book comes out from the confines of your backpack, and Joel wished he still saw that glint in your eyes when he was close by.

Flames dance in your eyes when he whispered too close to your ear before — that fire; he misses it like a lost limb. It could heat him better than whiskey, and he hasn't seen it since you arrived.

Still — your voice is good enough for him.

Even if Joel sleeps with the ache in chest; the itch to touch, to feel, to possess. He drifts close enough to feel your body heat, and lets the words brought to life by you to lull him into a deep rest.

The Book of Disquiet ends, and you brought no others.

That means listening to more of Ellie's joke book. Telling Joel the short tales you have engraved in your memory. The jokes always come in a good time — you see in Joel a light coming on again when she draws the line for the first pun, and you imagine it must've been a while since he last heard it; Ellie tells only 'the best ones' as she likes to call, and some of them are actually worth it.

Hearing Joel laugh is a gift.

Nothing's ever just good. The cold arrives and with it comes real, pressing worries for your every day trip that go beyond the people and the clickers and, well, staying alive — things like the road, freezing to death, hypothermia.

Despite having all those things running daily marathons in your mind, most of your thoughts are interrupted with musings about is how fine Joel is. How warm he looks.

How warm you know he is.

The memory's not enough. In dreams, you're consumed by them. Joel licks the nape of your neck in your kitchen, presses you against tables, whispers filthy things in the middle of packed corridors; Joel in your dreams is the man you simultaneously wanted to run away from and make a nest of his lap at the same time.

Now, he's... different.

Ellie brings out in him the parts that you never got to meet.

You want to devour them.

Taste them at the tip of your tongue.

Joel's a father. It should be the furthest thing from hot, it should be anything other than attractive, but it is.

His stern looks at Ellie and the twists and turns in the road the lead him to being in charge, bossing the two of you around — every time you see the ghost of a man who once existed, all the instances where you catch a glimpse of Sarah's dad, you want to jump him.

It's ridiculous.

Two days after he asks you to read again, you crack.

It's nighttime and you've stopped at an abandoned barn to camp for the night. Hide from the cold. Rest, eat the canned food you found, rest.

All you can think about is him.

Your brain is a looping of JoelJoelJoelJoel, and even when you try to tear your eyes away, the magnetism of his presence pull them back.

You're trapped, and it takes only a few slips for him to notice.

Wind is howling outside, and Joel thought he'd be out from the ache in his bones.

Instead, he's trapped.

The camping was set up inside yet another barn, and the only light came from the lamp sitting between him and you. Joel shared his thermos bottle of whiskey and coffee with back and forth, focusing on how the temperature rose in his chest.

He is so focused that when he notices, it's too late.

Your eyes.

Burning with enough flames to light a whole coast on fire — your eyes are trapped in his hands, following each inch of their movement as he fiddled with the coin, or moved the bottle from hand to hand.

You used to do that a lot.

It was the first thing he noticed about your attraction — Joel could deny the flirty remarks and the way he was the only fortunate bastard to get a smile out of you all he wanted, he could bitch about how it was far from his fault that he was the only guy decent enough for you to like among his group of friends back then, but the staring—no.

The staring closed the deal for him.

He caught it when he was playing the guitar, back then.

Now, you just seemed lost in a trance, and so, Joel was trapped.

Once again, like fly caught in a web, he was glued to you.

"Thought they'd lost their effect on you." The words drift with the wind, carrying his low voice.

When your eyes snap up, finding his, he knows you understood. There's another glance where you seem to shiver under your coat, and Joel swallows thickly. Memories flood his eyes, nose, tastebud.

'Like — fuck, your fingers feel so good, Joel, fuck!'

'So thick inside me — ohmygod. Please—yeah, around my neck, like that—'

'I can't shut up you know I can't fuckin' shut up, your dick's fuckin' perfect—gimme your fingers, please.'

"Don't think that's possible," you finally answer.

Joel dares to take another look. You're looking at every inch of him apart from his eyes, and it pains him. Before he left, Joel had his body wrapped around you tighter than your coat is right now, and there's distance between you now that he has no clue where it came from.

He nods. "Sure is." Moving them to look at their back and palm, he shrugs. "They're just — hands."

"They're one of my favorite parts about you, and you know that."

The words do something to him. They sink a hook in deep, deep waters. "There's a list?" He asks. His voice comes out all small and surprised.

You chuckle. "I mean..." you trail off, looking to the distance, then inside to where Ellie's asleep. "It's you. 'Course there is."

His brows furrow.

"There it is." Damn it, he thinks. "The permanent scowl."

Joel forces himself to breathe, relax. The ghost of your fingertip pressing on the part between his eyebrows, smoothing out the skin is what gets him to crack. To step out of the trap and into something more familiar.

He misses you, and pretending he can escape the reality that people start to matter whether he wants to or not is not happening, the same way that pretending he stopped feeling things never stood in the way of him going to your door at late hours of the night in search for your body heat and your mouth to kiss — not for distraction, or comfort, or release, but because he could think of nothing else.

Joel liked to touch you because ever since he did it, doing it again popped into his mind as often as the sun rose in the sky.

He gets up from his wobbly, weak chair, and takes a seat on the hard floor, grunting with the effort.

Fuck his age.

He sighs, and decides to just throw it out there.

He looks up until he finds your eyes, no matter if you'll look into his soul or not. "I'm sorry I've been distant. I can't — " no, not can't, "I don't want to even start thinking about what that one over there's doin' to my head," he points with a finger to the inside of the barn, "and when you arrived it just made it all so — fuckin'," he stops again, grunting with his lack of eloquence. "It's all so much bigger, y'know? With you here, I just—I'm never not scared now."

"Even when you're sleeping?"

Joel laughs, humorless. "When I sleep I either dream of Ellie gettin' shot 'cause I missed that day, or you gettin' bit 'cause you tried savin' one of us, so no, baby. Not even when I'm sleepin'."

"Joel."

"C'mere?" he asks. He pats his knees, and when you follow the gesture, Joel's knocked in his chest by the speed with which you get down from your chair and join him on the floor, straddling his lap in a second.

Everything becomes so much warmer.

Joel wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you close. Your heels entangle together on his back, and Joel's never been more comfortable. Your weight brings him that — silence, and warm, liquid peace. He rests his head against your chest, feeling you wrap around him just as tight. Hugging him, rubbing your cheeks on his hair, and his face.

You two must look like a stupid sight — squeezing each other and acting almost like animals marking territory, but the permission for intimacy is too inviting. Too earnest, too needed.

It's only when you two sync up your breathing that you calm down.

Joel pulls back to look at your face, but you've buried your face in his neck.

"Baby," he calls.

"Shhh." You kiss his neck, humming in pure delight. Joel feels nothing other than solace. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time now.”

"Have you?"

"Yeah." Your squeeze around his middle says the words are true. "I—I really missed you."

He's unable to say the exact words, but — "Me too." He feels the tickling of your sharp intake of breath, and Joel plants a kiss on the part that he can reach — your temple, cheeks, the corner of your mouth. "'m sorry this is so dangerous."

"Don't be. I'm happy at least I'm here. 's less dangerous with someone else to help."

Only my heart suffers more. "Guess so." Joel's hand squeezes at your sides. "When we get to Wyoming, we can rest there for a few days before we head back to the QZ."

"I'd like that. I need that," you add with a laugh.

"Yeah." Joel cups your face in his hands, thinking all sorts of unholy things. "We can have some privacy there," his voice drops at the idea of it, and so do your eyes to his lips. Joel smiles.

"Yeah?" Your mind is exactly where his is. Joel feels it in the heat rising in your body. "I really miss that."

He gets close enough so that his face is brushing yours; the tip of his nose bumps on yours, then traces your cheeks. "You do, baby?"

"So much."

God, Joel missed the sound of you begging. The last time he was in a community living with you, he was young and stupid. He hated how young you were, how determined you posed and how slick your looks felt. He hated the way he was definitely not the only man interested.

He recalls all the other people who he let talk to you, and his grip around you tightens. "We haven't been back there in a while." Joel licks your earlobe, warranting a whimper. "I ain't gonna let those idiots hit on you anymore, you realize that, right?"

"Why no?" you taunt.

Joel growls deep in his throat, and grinds his pelvis against yours just for the effect — the gasp, and the air leaving your lungs. "Mine." All his. "That's why."

Instead of answering, you crash your lips against his in a starving way.

Joel barely has time to react, but when he comes to himself, responding is even better.

He kisses you for god knows how long.

Until his lips are red, swollen, spit-slick. Until he can feel the heat radiating from between your thighs, feel the slow and subconscious movement of your hips on his. Until you're whining, biting at his lips, opening up for him so good and pliant that it drives him a bit bad.

He kisses until there's no air in his lungs, and then he gets it all back by breathing on your neck, sucking bruises into it and licking them better.

It's only when all the missing is out of both of your systems that the kisses slow down.

They slow, but never stop. Joel makes out with you to make up for what it must be years without a single kiss.

The more he gets intimate with your sounds and the way you can melt and fit against him, the more Joel understands he's addicted, and now nothing will ever get this away from him.

He'd kill for a single kiss of yours.

A look. A smile.

Joel would kill for you, but more than that, and even more dangerous — it seems he's willing to live, too. For you. No matter the odds, or the ways this could go. He lets you cup his face into your hands, pepper kisses all over it, and whisper how happy you are to be here with him, all while thinking:

i'll live for her. i'll do anything, but most of all, i'll live.

🏷️ @sakuralikestars — @mostardentily — @thegreat-annamaria — @leiticia — @polyglot-noodle — @casssiopeia — @earthtocharlene — @levylovegood — @lavenderhhze — @gracie7209 — @waywardwolfbonklight — @shadytalething — @sanzusmile —@yesimwriting — @celestialstar111 💖

⚠️ if anyone being tagged would like to not be, just let me know in my inbox (which you can also use to talk to me about all the appeals of Joel Miller with his hair slicked back. Just saying hehe.

#usernexusnyx #joel miller fic #joel miller imagine #joel miller x you #joel miller au #joel miller x reader #joel miller one shot #joel miller fanfic #joel miller angst #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller self insert #joel miller smut #joel miller series #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal x reader #nightskychallenge #joel miller scenario

[nexusnyx]

imagine being loved by me

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 6 — The night we said goodbye. [“This is harder than I thought it’d be.”] [2.5k]

— joel miller x f!reader — a/n: this is mostly fluff and angst, hence the lack of warnings. i hope you guys enjoy this even though there's no smut. there are a lot of feelings to make up for that? anyway, i just wanted to imagine being loved by Joel (in the given canon circumstances) and this is what I came up with. enjoy <3

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤmasterlist | part two →

"Eternal tourists of ourselves, there is no landscape but what we are. We possess nothing, for we don't even possess ourselves. We have nothing because we are nothing. What hand will I reach out, and to what universe? The universe isn't mine: it's me," you stop there, uncertain and nervous for more than one reason. "You want me to go on?"

Joel only grunts beneath you, and the palm he has wrapped around your calf starts rubbing there. He's a man of very few words — always has been — but you recognize his cues. Go on, the circles on your skin say. And — "I like it a lot when you read," he speaks, startling you for a second. "'s nice."

Three years since you've been doing this — years, and this is the night Joel chooses to speak his mind.

You grit your teeth and put on a smile, no matter how much it aches to do so. "Look at you, borrowing Pessoa's ability to use words 'n all," you tease.

Joel pinches your inner thigh — a warning.

You take one of your hands out of the book to poke his side — I'm not scared of you. Never was. Never could be.

Even if he's about to break your heart.

You continue reading.

He keeps on drinking it in, and you wonder not for the first time if Joel hears a word that comes out of his mouth or if this is just white noise for him.

I like it a lot when you read.

Inside your chest there's a special place saved only for the things Joel gives you as a gift.

There's no space for material things in the world you live in now. Being a man of very few words, you learned how to read Joel Miller from the moment you met him — a useful skill, one that came in handy over the past few years. People misread him a lot. Mostly because he allowed them to; sometimes because he wanted it that way.

They thought Joel was gruff. Callused.

You knew better.

Joel's body language never lied.

He gifted you things that way — a shrug of his shoulders that hid the fathom of a smile creeping up his face. His furrowed brows pierced together whenever someone spoke in louder tones in your presence. The ghost of his hand hovering over your back in between meetings, or the way he never looked you in the eye before kissing you.

All of them signs. All of them a way for him to communicate.

That was funny. I don't like their tone. I've got your six.

I can't let you see within me.

Joel might as well be an open book.

When Tess introduced the both of you, she said, "Just don't gain expectations. He's like us — lost everything. But he's a decent man, which is more than we can say about half of the people that made it."

A decent man was an understatement.

He was everything and then some in between.

Joel kept it simple when telling you that he and Tess had to leave.

Neither one of them owed you explanations, but they gave you one either way. The three of you ran something together — an illegal, dangerous, and fragile something, but it was yours. Built it from your hands.

They claimed you were the brains.

"You gotta stay," Joel stated. Not a request, and nothing in his eyes that said this is open for conversation. "Marlene gave us very little info. We'll try to make it back as soon as we can."

The implicate we don't know if we'll make it back was there.

You never missed the unspoken words.

"Okay," you agreed, because there was nothing else for you to do.

Tess had left with the kid. She hugged you, giving you the full list of contacts that would be seeing you for things, and said, "Take care of yourself" in the way she always did.

Joel stayed behind to collect what he needed, and because he said a day wouldn't make a difference.

Was it over-confident on your part to allow the fluttering in your chest to take full form after seeing him drop his things on your hardwood floor and ask you to go for a walk? Was it wishful thinking to know he was stealing moments?

The familiar sight of his back gives you comfort as you follow him.

That's the way it's always been — you always knew that one day, you'd see this for the last time.

Maybe it's a small mercy that they're leaving.

It's been years—much longer than you initially thought you'd have, much longer than you prayed for after the first night Joel knocked on your bedroom door seeking the comfort he saw in your eyes you were dying to give him, much longer than you dreamed you would have amidst all the chaos.

He walks through the broken gate and keeps the wire lifted for you to pass.

Those things — the little things no one pays attention to.

"Thanks," you smile at him.

He hums as an answer and keeps walking by your side until you're both on the open field. After checking the area, Joel lays down with a grunt, patting the grass next to him.

That's when you started reading.

He just pulls out the book from his backpack and hands it to you.

Read for me, please.

"From where we left off, or you want me to go back a few?" Sometimes, Joel fell asleep mid-chapter. He liked when you went back a few so he never missed a thing.

He shakes his head. "I was listenin'," he lets you adjust yourself on the tree, and lays with his head on his backpack, pulling your legs over his body. Cradling your calf in his palms. "Go on."

So you do.

The sky is losing its light by the time Joel takes his arm out of his eyes, and puts a hand in front of the pages.

You bookmark it, even if he'll never hear the end of it.

For some reason, you stay quiet with him.

Usually, the silence is filled with you — your ramblings, questions about the world from before, silly musings that he indulges in listening to.

There's something tragic about being alive nowadays.

It's not really living — it's this. Reading between the lines, and claiming your stomach is satisfied because of the crumbs.

Joel's hand caressing your skin was a whole meal.

His eyes on you, above everything else, were like water.

When he speaks, it's gruff. "You gonna take care of yourself while I'm gone, right?"

If one day you held back, today is not it. "I will. Can't undo all your hard work."

He frowns, "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, c'mon, Joel. It's just us. You and I both know I'd never be alive if it weren't for you and Tess."

"Bullshit. You're the—"

"Brains, I know," you interrupt. "But without the brawn, the brains can't make it that far."

He scoffs at that, and you realize your mistake only when the words are out. "Think we both know nature said that ain't the case anymore."

"Stupid nature," you curse without any heat, and it works. Joel's lip twitches, itching for a smile. "All it's good for is being gorgeous."

"Hm. That'd be you."

Well. They aren't the first nice words Joel's ever said to you, but they make up an even bigger space than everything else. The little box in your chest engraved with J.M. is blanketed in those three little words, and judging by the way he ducks his chin and looks down, Joel noticed his slip up a heartbeat too late.

"Are you gonna take care of yourself?" you ask, nudging his side.

Joel sits up before he answers, taking the place next to you. Then, he spreads his legs and pats the ground between them, and you take the invitation.

Sitting with your back to his chest and his arms around you is your favorite place to be, and something clutches at your throat at the realization this might be the last time.

"I always do," he finally answers.

Your throat is tight, so you place both hands over his arms and pull them tighter around you. "Good," your voice drops to a whisper. "Can't let stupid nature have you."

"She gets us all in the end."

"I know that. I meant before your due time," you insist.

Joel's only half-listening. When he starts rubbing his nose on your hair, tracing the outline of your ears, that means his attention is divided. "How d'you know when's one's due time?"

"Hell if I know. But I know it's not now."

"Yes, ma'am," he plants a kiss on your neck, and you forget words for a while.

Joel always knew how to do that.

He kissed you awake, and sometimes, he kissed you to sleep.

It was common for the two of you to just sit and exist in silence. In a world where there wasn't much space for anything — not for words, or feelings, or relationships, or growth — having this was out of the curve. Having comfort.

He never tensed around you.

When it's just the two of you, Joel's body is the most relaxed; whether it's due to your hands squeezing his muscles or the way you run your palms through his skin to bring him back to himself—he's at ease.

Laid back, shoulders slack. He keeps on leaving kisses across your neck and nape, and you keep your eyes closed, enjoying the proximity. Your nails run through his forearms, and eventually, Joel just stops there in the crook of your neck, breathing slowly.

He asks, "D'you mind if I take your bandana? The purple one?"

Your favorite bandana. His 'lucky charm', as he'd called it once. "No, you can have it."

"You ain't gonna miss it?"

I'll miss you, Joel. A piece of cloth makes no difference in my life. "You need the good luck charm more than me."

"Is that so?"

You scoff, "I'm not the one walking head-first into danger." Craning your neck to look at his face, you lean your head on his shoulder. Joel's face is impassive as always, aside from the little pinch between his brows. "It's your good luck charm, isn't it?"

"It is," he replies, faster than you're used to. A smile grows back on your face. "What?"

"Nothing," you shake your head. "Just — didn't think you'd ever say that again."

He shrugs his shoulders. "'s the truth."

"What made it lucky?"

Joel takes a second with that one. His hand around your upper body finds the collar of your shirt, and he plays with it. He's nervous, and you have no idea why. He shrugs as he says, "Dunno."

Bullshit. "Hmm — something tells me you do."

"Yeah?" he's smiling now.

"Yup," you press, popping the 'p'. Joel stops fighting his smile, and you want to kiss him, so you do. Most of the time, you use restraints around him. Now is not the time for restraint. "Tell me," you plea.

He sighs, the smile still on his face. "That first time I was trying to find alternative routes in and out of the QZ, remember?"

"Yeah."

"So — I'd lost my way. Some Clickers found me and I had to run. Lost my shit—dropped some of the stuff in my bag. I only found my way back 'cause two days later I tried the bridge over the place I got lost at initially and — there it was." Joel's fingertips are tracing your collarbones, and you realize now his body around you is the only thing keeping you from a collapse. "I saw that ugly thing from far, far away."

It makes you laugh — of course he's going to play it cool, make it less of what it is.

You get it. If you had to talk about the things that brought you a sense of home, the only thing that came to mind was the smell of Joel's deodorant mixed with the innate smell of him.

You hide your laugh in his chest, and Joel's hands come up to your nape and the back of your head.

The hurt bubbles up with his touch — you want to drown in your own tears, but he's still here and that would be going before your due time.

"Please be safe." It's rare for you to use the space between the lines, but sometimes you have to.

Please be safe because I need you. Because you've grown inside me. Because the smell of you are vines covering every inch of my ribcages, because every time I wake up and you're lying next to me I remember why we're humans, because Fernando Pessoa might have been right that we possess nothing, but what I am is someone who still knows love.

"I will." Joel heard it all. He pulls your head back to look into your eyes and you see it in his — through the guarded walls of his soul, you get a peak at the man who worries. Who always brings you coffee, who never allowed you to go on dangerous runs, who trusts you to keep his radio codes in case his brother calls for him. You're the lighthouse, he once said. Joel's hand keeps making a mess of your hair, and he looks like he wants to say something, but ultimately, he huffs. "This is harder than I thought it'd be."

"Of course it is," you laugh. "I'm the only one that knows how to make a decent cup of coffee. Or at least, one that you like."

That's when he kisses you.

Because it's true. Not the cup of coffee — Tess can do that as well, even if she never does, but the reality that you're the only one that can and wants to.

The only one who's allowed it.

Living in a world that has no space for living is difficult, but Joel manages to fit the whole human experience in the span of a kiss and some touches.

He's kept you safe, and guarded, and gave you blinks and pieces of the man he once was in return for all that you've given him.

He loves quietly, and kisses hard, and protects with every cell in his body — Joel still loves, even if the word's been burned out of his tongue when he held the most precious life known to him in his arms.

He loves, and you feel it, and you'll miss it.

Joel pulls back with a promise in his eyes that he will be back.

If he isn't, you'll be a moving lighthouse. You'll find him.

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[nexusnyx]

who would've thought

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 9 —  The night you make a decision. [“You told me to think about it, and I did."] [1.5k]

SUMMARY: Growing older turned out to be fun. It turned out to be lascivious, and whimsical. All Bucky ever wanted was to find someone as crazy as him, and willing to live life with some good in it. Bucky has fun.

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“It smells good,” you announce.

The words prompt Bucky to inhale deeper than before, only to attest to the words. Inside the pot it looks good—the spices are turning the meat to a colorful red, sparkled in the green of herbs and the thickness of the sauce is as pleasing as the scents he registers. “It does,” he turns around to smile at you and catches your eyes already on him.

You support your head on your hand, elbow sitting on top of the table where your laptop is, filled with work. Every time Bucky catches the intensity in your gaze, his initial reaction is a type of nervous giddiness—he’s reluctant to say the word shy, but Bucky grew up and developed his mind in a time when women had to be brave to be as bold as you are, and the kind of eyes you give him sometimes makes him squirm.

“What?” you ask.

“Stop giving me eyes.”

You laugh at him. The audacity. “I’m only looking at you, Barnes.”

“No, no, you’re not.” He turns his attention back to the pot, feeling the tingle on his back. “See? I can feel it.”

“Feel what?”

He loves hearing your voice through laughter. “Your eyes on me.”

“Good, means your super senses and whatnot are still up to date despite the good old age.” This time he has to laugh with you. Most people in his daily life either have the utmost respect for him or fear Bucky somehow. Since day one all you do is look at him like he’s a guy—not just a guy, or any guy. Your guy, thank whatever god is looking. “Laugh all you want, I’ll look as much as I want.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

He turns for one more look, one that has a conversation of its own.

I like it when you look, my love,

I like looking, my love.

Preparing food turned out to be one of the parts he loved the most about routine. When Bucky started working again, everything felt different. Stranger.

Foreign.

It’s been decades since Bucky felt like a stranger in a strange land, but everything about this world made him feel that way.

All of it except for you.

When he’s cooking, you’re working.

Bucky returns from the Avenger Tower to meet you in your apartment almost every day. Casper, the doorman of your building, now opens the gates when Bucky passes with his bike and nods an “evening, Sargent!” and the words are starting to register as the beginning of what coming home feels like.

‘Evening, Sarge’ marks the start of Bucky cooking while you’re finishing up work, and you two talk about the day apart, sharing everything and updating one another on the lives of people sometimes the other one had never even met.

This evening, he saved on his phone a recipe for pasta Alfredo, and Bucky talked a lot about the trainees of agents as he prepared the sauces from scratch.

Every time he had to say important things nowadays, he felt what his therapist defined as the ‘most common aspects of anxiety’. Recognizing them made things easier not only here in his personal life—work and everything else benefited from understanding all the different layers with which his past and being deleted from existence did to him.

Bucky’s experiencing stomach tightness, the fogginess around the thoughts.

Your touches keep him grounded.

‘Grounding techniques are important, James.’

‘I just don’t see how touching grass makes a difference when I’m malfunctioning—’

‘Don’t call it that, you’re not a machine.’

‘‘Kay, when I’m frozen, and fuckin’ stuck, you’re telling me that doing stuff for my senses’s gonna help somehow?’

‘Try it. Ask for help.’

“I did it.”

“Did what?” you ask him.

Bucky serves both plates and enjoys the view of you bent over the table organizing the cutlery, and pouring wine into both of the glasses.

He needs a second before replying. “You told me to think about it, and I did it.”

There’s no need to further elaborate because there’s a direct link, Bucky discovered, in unfinished conversations between people who live together.

“You did?” you ask.

There are a few moments of silence as you two take the first sips of the wine and appreciate the food he’s cooked.

“I’m not sure if I’m ready,” your voice is only an octave above a whisper. “To listen to it.”

When you told him your job would make you move, Bucky’s mind spiraled into options long before you told him to think about it.

“Scared of what?” he asks.

You shrug. “‘m not sure.” Part of him is sure, but he keeps it to himself. You’re prone to shutting down and not finishing your thoughts if someone interrupts you. “It’s not like—we’re not breaking up. And—whether you decided to stay here in Manhattan or you’re coming to somewhere closer, we’re still us. I’m just—I never had to deal with… this before.”

‘This’ could be the decision to live together or something more—a partner to choose things with, perhaps. Even though you were in your early thirties, Bucky knew he was the first man who managed to properly keep your attention for longer than months, so he nods along, waiting for you to continue.

When he looks up to find your eyes waiting for his, Bucky pauses.

The fork stills, suspended in the path between his half-finished plate and his mouth, and Bucky’s lips part.

The way you look at him. It could tear him apart from limb to limb or sew him back together. It could put all of his dusty particles and glue them into something solid again.

“It was quite easy,” he admits. It had been. As easy as enrolling once was, a decision so simple and so factual. “Deciding to retire.”

This time it’s you who turns into stone.

Bucky’s heart pounds in his chest despite his certainty that his decision was a good thing. While your brain catches up with his words Bucky can feel the prickling in his neck, and your whisper of, “What?” is what pulls the strings on the corner of his lips.

His smile makes you come out of your stupor.

“Retirement. Not working anymore—well, I’d never lie to you and say I’ll never ever work for Fury again. I told him he could call for consults any time he’d like but since all he had to say was ‘sure thing, Barnes, if I need a tip on how to be broody or how to make a Captain America listen to me you’re the first one on my list’ I think those calls will come rarely. If ever.”

The clink of your fork dropping and your chair being pushed back is all the notice he has before Bucky has a lap full of you.

He laughs inside your hold—the hands that always cup his cheeks and thread through his now much shorter hair.

The strands of white in his hair now pull your look away from his eyes sometimes; you loved the white, as much as you loved Bucky’s everything, and that’s why it was so damn easy.

“I’m not sure what to say,” your voice trembles, so Bucky squeezes you.

“Hmm—‘thank god, it’s about damn time’?”

Making you laugh means his day was successful. “Bucky!”

“What? It’s what almost everyone said.”

“Well, I’m not everyone—”

“Clearly,” he makes a point of pushing you closer to his body, and gets some giggles in return.

“and… I—I wasn’t expecting that.” It softens him how you’re melting to the news. “I just…” your eyes pierce through his, diving deep into the blue. “Are you sure about this, James?”

James.

Bucky could say he’s as sure of this as he is of the fact he wants to hear you say his name like that at an altar.

He could say he’s as sure as he is of the fact he loves you and he’s ready to live a life, not just fight for it, but that would make you cry, and truthfully, all Bucky wants is more of your smiles and perhaps you for dessert.

“Never been more sure.”

Growing older turned out to be fun. It turned out to be lascivious, and whimsical. It meant having dinner with the person he loved, sharing good news, and then ending the night by making the neighbors hear how well he eats what is good.

All Bucky ever wanted was to find someone as crazy as him, and willing to live life with some good in it.

He found even better—he found you.

So given the teachings he’s had over the past years, he decides to do something for himself before his time as James Barnes runs out— Bucky has fun.

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[nexusnyx]

No One Like You

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 2 — The night your lips touched mine for the first time. “Wait. Come back here. Do that again." Eddie Munson x Best Friend!Reader; [3.2k]

⚠️ Smut (explicit depictions of sex), drug consumption (weed), mentions of death, depression, nightmares.

SUMMARY: The electricity in the air was not a creation of your desires, it turned out. When Eddie looks at you, there's something there. You might have been absent for a couple of years, but you've known Eddie Munson almost your whole life. He's looking at you the way he looked at Sweetheart when he first laid eyes on it, and being under that gaze is... nothing like you expected. More than anything you could've dreamt.

It rained outside of Eddie’s room—a heavy pouring with only a handful of thunders, but no loud lightning startling to shake the earth and startle the air in electricity. Only the sound of water falling on the soil outside, and the occasional notes as Eddie dribbled his fingers on the cords while you two spoke. Rain had always been your favorite sound, the one that spoke to your soul the most, but now, after not seeing Eddie for two years, you think his voice is on a battle field for that first place.

You’re high on drugs and the smell of him, your heart is louder in your ears than the shower outside right after he speaks and everything falls quiet sometimes, and electricity shooting from the sky is unecessary when you can feel every inch of air that separates the two of you.

It started because the conversation descended down there. To the thing.

“I was a wreck after you left, Y/n.”

It hurt to hear it. You had to, but it hurt.

“I know it wasn’t your fault,” Eddie adds, seeing the look on your face. “We just go where our folks go. What else we can do but follow, right? But—I was. You were the only real friend I’ve ever had.”

Two years apart from him, and now it was back to how it was. “You think I wasn’t a mess, too?” Only Eddie Munson could make you talk this easily. Not keep shit bottled up on the inside. “Eddie, I didn’t make any friends there. Not a single one.” You were happy he had—not so happy about the circumstances, but it thrilled you to know he wasn’t alone all this time because you were. Leaving Hawkins left an Eddie-shaped hole in your chest, and he could see that in your face, too. “And I promise I tried. But everyone fell… short. I kept expecting them to get my jokes, or get what I’m talking about, and I’d get so fucking disappointed when they didn’t. Took me almost a year to realize I was just hopinh somebody would be you and how fucking shitty is that?”

Because you’re you and Eddie is Eddie, he leans in to whisper, “That’s the best fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” like a confession. His smile is deprecative when he adds, “I just deemed nobody would ever be you, never in their fucking wild dreams, and then accepted what came.” He slides his fingers through the cords of the guitar. “Guess that’s why I managed to gather Hellfire. They’re really nice boys,” he adds, softer than ever.

Happy Eddie makes you happy. “I bet they are.”

“You’d eat them alive, though,” he adds like it’s a shame, then opens a blinding smile. “I can’t wait for you to meet them.”

“I’m really happy you found them,” you say, voice only a whisper. Spending these last three days almost glued to Eddie’s side had been good—educative, and worrying, and a roller-coaster of emotions, but good.

Suffocating, too.

You’d forgotten what his eyes do to you.

If before you wanted them on you at all times, now it’s become a problem that could evolve into an addiction.

He verts his eyes to the guitar.

"I'm happier I have you," he chuckles lightly.

The words dance around your head, bringing havoc to every inch inside of you.

Eddie keeps talking through your silence. "I don't know what sort of odd stroke of fate led me to have that luck, and I'm happy for it. But... I missed this. You." He looks up, smiling so softly that it should calm you down, but it only raises your heartbeat. "No one sits with me in silence and watches me practice. I mean—I don't think I can sit in relative quiet with anyone else. I've been waiting for the gong to go off and for me to wake up out of nowhere, but..."

Here we are, it goes unsaid.

"Ever since you told me that you almost..." you're unable to say the word. It'd make it too real, and you're trying to keep your hands off of him—if you admit to yourself you almost lost him, you're never letting him go. "I wait, too," you finish with a whisper. "For you to just—not be here. Out of nowhere."

Eddie takes a good look at you before placing Sweetheart on the floor in front of the bed with care.

You watch him move—watch his fingers reach for the half joint on the ashtray, his lighter inside his front jeans pocket, his waist inching closer to yours until your sides are touching, bodies pressed next to each other.

Your eyes travel up until they find his gaze on you. Breathe, you remind yourself. In and out, shuddering, you manage it. He's never been this close.

There's a palm of air separating your faces.

His body's heat is solid, almost palpable as it touches yours.

A flame appears in your peripheral version, and Eddie lights up the join, inhaling slowly.

If this were two years ago, you two would be laughing and coming up with the craziest topics to make the high even better.

As a clap of thunder crashes outside, you're reminded that it's now.

Eddie's changed.

He passes you the joint after a couple of puffs, but none of you seem able to let go of the silence. It covers you both like a blanket fort hides you in the living room when you're a kid, in plain sight for everyone to see and, yet, somehow still in its own world.

He noticed, you think.

It must've shown in your face the sea of feelings that's been keeping you underwater since arriving at Hawkins.

Wave after wave, Eddie drags you under.

I missed you, and the taste of salt.

Please don't freak out, but, I did some shit. I've got some stuff to tell you, and there's not enough air before you're pulled under.

I almost died. And you embrace the blue surrounding you.

You pass him the joint back, feeling the telltale signs of the flood in you wanting to pour just like the one outside.

If there's one thing you know Eddie hates, it's to see people cry. Averting your gaze to his lap, you look at the hands you wanted to hold for so long, and watch as they come up in your direction.

His left-hand cups your face, and you want to let it all out.

"Hey," he calls your attention. Once your eyes are on his, Eddie looks at you, open and waiting. "Talk to me, sweetie."

It does something to you. The nickname, it pulls at your strings, and it's new and terrifying. "Eddie," you breathe out. "What would I've done?"

His brows furrow in confusion, and you're no longer trapped. You're floating, and if he's this close to you, he won't mind if you reach out to him.

Tentatively, your hand reaches to cover his wrist. You keep his hand there on your cheek, and your eyes close when you ask. "If I'd lost you." I would've gone back to the sea. "I... I wouldn't have it made it, Eds." You're the only one who makes all of this bearable. "I can't think of—"

The words are cut off from you, but not because of another crash of thunder, or the fear in your guts—no.

Your lips are closed shut by another pair of soft, plump lips pressed against yours, and everything else is white noise.

Your whole mind is taken over by the tunneling feeling of Eddie's lips on yours, and there's no air in your lungs or movement in your body.

Whether it takes two seconds or minutes for him to pull back, you're unsure. All you know is that one second his lips are on yours, and the next, you feel the chill air replacing it and that's what pulls you back to the moment.

With open eyes, you see Eddie pulling back slowly, his face an open book that you've read many times by now—fear is written around his wide eyes, that dread that paints his eyebrows whenever Eddie does something wrong and is unaware of what, exactly.

He's pulling his back even further, and that unfreezes your body. "Wait," he can't back away now. After years of only dreams, he can't take this away from you after giving it like that. Your hands are on his t-shirt in a second and you ignore how breathless and shaky you sound at what you say next. "Come back here. Do that again."

Eddie looks at you and the fear leaves.

"You sure?" he asks.

You nod, pulling him by his shirt.

When his body presses on yours again, the need swirling in the air, crashing your mouths together, it could rival the sky's anger when lightning follows thunder.

Your heart starts beating so fast you worry it might try to run away from your body, and the weed only highlights every part that's in contact somewhere.

Eddie's mouth is on you, and it's nothing like you dreamt.

When he pulls back for air, the words spill out of you. "I dreamt about this." It's a confession, and his smile to it is blinding.

Both his hands take a second cupping your face, and you're taken over by the feeling of safety of being held by them. They're big enough to cover a good portion of your face, and you want all of your body to be covered by Eddie.

He laughs, inches apart from you. "I think I'm dreaming," he mutters under his breath.

It's nothing like in your dreams because it's better.

Because in here, when you lean your face in search of his lips again, Eddie grants them to you. There's nothing pulling you two apart, and he doesn't laugh in your face or gives your a sad, pitiful look.

It takes you a few moments to realize it, but Eddie wants you.

The realization pulls a broken moan from your throat, and his response is immediate.

Eddie holds your face tighter, and you nibble on his bottom lip as he pulls back this time. "You're such a good kisser, sweetheart."

Sweetheart.

"Thought only that thing over there got the honor of that nickname," you tease, feeling surprisingly lighthearted under the weight of his eyes. You nudge your chin towards where Sweetheart is by the side of the bed.

Eddie's scoff is only made hotter by the fact that his eyes stay on you. "That thing's got nothing on you," he tells you.

You breathe out, shakily.

One of your hands leaves his clothes and you lift your fingers to his face, the tips stroking around his eyes, his cheeks, running down to his lips.

Eddie kisses them as they pass by, and that creates a hunger you never felt before.

It's similar to the one in your stomach after spending many hours without a single drop of water or any food—it grows in the center of your chest, warm and alive like someone planted a special item there.

When you and Eddie are pulled close again, it's by a newfound gravity.

He kisses you with so much intent that you lose all notion of the room surrounding you.

The sound of the rain hitting the windows and the fog in the room due to the smoke make you whimper when your eyes open, when his lips start kissing on your neck and your core begs you to spread your neck for him.

It's you who lays down on the bed, pulling him on top of you, and Eddie goes willingly.

The kisses are more desperate than the hugs you two gave when first encountering each other.

Running across the parking lot, through the same trailers you knew and some you recognized of two years ago, all you could think about was touching him—no regards for what it would look like for everyone else watching when you jumped on his arms, wrapping your legs around his waist as if you two had been separated for a decade or something more.

Eddie kisses you like he gets it.

He kisses your neck with soft, deliberate kisses, and you notice his hand is shaking when they get underneath your shirt.

You're both shaking.

Eddie pulls back when you grab his hair and call his name, "Eddie," and having those breathtaking eyes set on you as fire blazes behind them—you want to cry. Instead, all that comes out is a watery smile. "I—I really..." I've loved you since I learned what love is. I'm terrified of everything you make me feel half of the time. "I love you a lot. You know that. Right?"

Eddie looks like he's hearing the words for the first time.

He adjusts his body on top of yours, shaking his head to himself as he closes his eyes and his hands stroke your neck and sides.

When he opens his eyes, Eddie crowds your face with his curls. He rests his forearm next to your head on the pillow, and keeps looking at you before he says,

"I knew I was lucky, but... not this much—no." Eddie's dimples pop as his signature happy smile opens up. "I love you too," he adds, smile softening.

That's good, you think.

I can live knowing that. I can swim in it. I can let it take me over like a current because it's where I've always wanted to be.

After that, there aren't many words, but you learn that the body talks in more than one way.

You knew the empty, hot, and messy kind—the body talk where two people use each other until there's nothing left but pleasure and white noise.

This is none of that.

Kisses with Eddie are shared languidly until they're not anymore, but even in their lusty haze, you and Eddie are not seeking the peak of pleasure in one another.

All you want is to taste him, and that's all he wants from you, as well.

When your skin starts burning under his ministrations, Eddie pulls back to ask with a nod if he can remove the clothes creating a barrier between him and your body, and they all fall to the floor, piece by piece.

Yours, his, all of them, until you two are staring at each other with faces painted red and that momentary hesitance—a pause before the major note, before—

lightning.

Eddie's touches on you can be felt all around you.

From the tip of your toes to your neck, your chest; when he reaches between your legs with his hands and starts running the tip of his fingers on your inner thighs, you're whimpering.

"Is this good?" He asks you as his fingers brush over your outer lips, coating themselves in the wetness coming out of your cunt. "Tell me how you like it—tell me how to make you feel good."

"You can definitely keep talking, for one," the joke comes out strained—Eddie's fingers are thick. "Fuck."

Everything he does feels good, but that's not what he wants to hear.

Eddie laughs when you complain, whine, and slap his sides, just writhing your body against his hand, and it feels surreal to laugh in the middle of all of this, but he looks the happiest you've ever seen him.

"Hm? Harder? Or... deeper?"

Not only does he want to hear exactly how you like it, but he delivers it how you ask him to once it's out in the air.

Eddie keeps his kisses coming, and when you find the motor skill to push a hand between your bodies and grab his cock in your palm, both of you groan at the same time.

Time truly means nothing when it comes down to it.

Eddie pushes his fingers in and out of you, swallowing every sound that comes out of your lips while you stroke him until he's leaking at the tip, and it feels like a lifetime.

A lifetime where you learn that you like the taste of his sweat — or at least you do when you're the cause for it — and that Eddie is a whimpering mess in bed, just like you dreamt that one time.

He's strong, too, but when you beg him to get inside of you, Eddie turns his open gaze to you and asks in an almost embarrassed tone, "Can you—you can say no, but—go on top? Please? I—I'm trying really hard not to make this end a lot sooner than we'd both like and if I get lost in the momentum when on top of you, I might not—"

You turn him around with a leg hooked around his waist, and both of you laugh at his look of pure surprise when his back hits the mattress.

"Fuck—you're hotter than Hell, sweetheart," he groans, pulling you in for a kiss.

He gets the condom, but lets you slip on it, and when he lays down again, you're the one who stops to admire it this time.

The messy, wild hair, glued to his forehead and cheeks with sweat, the way he looks flushed and blissed out.

It's a little bit of torture to feel him like this for the first time, but not in a bad way.

More like—your mind running thousands of miles an hour as it tries to wrap its head around the fact that he said he loves you, too, and no, this isn't just a dream or an experience.

It's electrifying when Eddie plants the heels of his feet on the bed and meets your waist with a thrust, then holds your waist with both hands to guide you two into a rhythm.

As a musician, that's something Eddie has.

Rhythm.

Maybe it's one of your heartbeats or one with the rain, or maybe there's a song playing in his head as his hips make sweet movements when meetings yours.

It's bliss, either way.

It's his hands slapping at your thoughts, it's one of them coming to wrap and hold around your neck, it's the way Eddie starts grunting and dropping your name like a plea the closer you two get.

Being with Eddie is not a mindless search for that white noise, but there's something more powerful than just pleasure, you find out that night.

Something about the way he holds you close and looks straight into your eyes as you two cum, because he wants to see and feel you, and that's all you needed, truly.

The rain pours outside, and you sleep to the sound of it, laying in the hold of Eddie's warm, body sedated and marked in purple and red bruises.

The sun will shine tomorrow, and there'll be more love to come.

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[nexusnyx]

It Will Come Back

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 4 — The night I left and came back hours later. “I had to think.” Vamp!Eddie Munson x F!Reader [7k]

⚠️ Mentions of death. SMUT; dark themes and thoughts. | 🏷️ Vamp/Kas!Eddie; unprotected sex, rough-handling, lots of feelings, blood drinking, Dark!Eddie, possessiveness, denial of feelings, angst, emotional sex.

SUMMARY: You thought he was dead for a year. Then, at a bar, there he is. Except, it isn’t him, is it? It looks like him. Physically. But when the eyes settle on you—Eddie’s eyes always carried the warmth of a cup of hot cocoa; the eyes staring at you looked different, and nothing about them rekindled that previous heat. All your feelings were drowned under the need and desire to be seen by them regardless of that.

You thought he was dead for a year. Then, at a bar, there he is. 

Eddie.

Except—it isn’t Eddie, is it? 

It looks like him. Physically. But when the eyes settle on you… Those are not his eyes. You looked into Eddie’s eyes for ten whole years of your whole life—they were the bane of your existence and what you searched for the most after hard days. When your sticks hit the drums and music made life seem worth living for a few minutes, it was his eyes you liked finding amongst the notes. 

You know his eyes. They carried the warmth of a cup of hot cocoa, and the eyes staring at you looked different. More… dangerous.

All your feelings were drowned under the need and desire to be seen by them regardless of that.

I thought he was dead.

He was supposed to be dead. 

You were gonna be sick.

Across the bar, Eddie blinked at you, recognition written all over his features, and you freaked out.

It was fair to say you lost all of the few goddamn marbles you had. For an entire year you carried grief and pain like a necklace, one without a clasp, which choked you while you slept, and yet, you felt naked without it.

(One day, a couple of months ago, you realized a whole day passed by without a single thought of Eddie, and you cried harder than you had when the town split open and Wayne warned you ‘he’s gone; they haven’t found our boy, darlin’; i’m sorry; i thought they’d told you’.)

The realization hit you like a punch to the stomach. Eddie as alive.

Once the initial shock passed, other emotions flooded in waves. Relief. Confusion. Aches, all over your chest, radiating from the center because Eddie is here, and you spent the past year thinking he was gone.

When you take a step towards his direction, though, your world crumbles for the second time that evening.

Eddie takes a step back.

The second you walk forward, he breaks out of his trance too, surprise gives way to fear, and that’s when you notice it—the red. Eddie’s eyes are… red.

You have no time to process the weirdness of it, because the second someone passes your field of vision, Eddie’s frame is gone.

He disappears like smoke in the mist and takes your breath with him.

If you were anything less than sober, and he hadn’t been so different — shorter hair, different rings and clothes, the red fucking eyes — you would assume it was a trick of your mind.

Since there’s no weed or alcohol to blame, you’re left with the certainty:

Eddie’s alive.

He also seems to want nothing to do with you, for some reason.

Saying it hurt as much as the day he disappeared and everyone presumed him dead was equivocal—too much.

It was still a close call.

For a week, all you do is cry.

His absence was only starting to diminish, only started to feel less like a gaping hole in your chest that nothing and no one would ever feel, and now—this.

The only good thing that came out of hell breaking loose in that hole of a city was that without Eddie, nothing kept you there.

Certainly not your family, and the few friends you had understood too well the sentiment of wanting to flee as far as possible, so the encouragement had always been there.

Without Eddie, diligence took over the reins straight out of your blinding grief's hands, and you got into a University on the first try.

Leaving Hawkins was supposed to be a fresh start, but now, all of that ceased to exist.

A single sight of him, alive and breathing, and you were back where you've always been.

In love with the best friend you ever had, pining for a guy who felt too big for this silly little world, and its ridiculous little rules.

Thinking to spare the roommate of your discovery and its aftermath, you roam campus like a ghost, questions about the how and why growing in your mind like a weed, leaving an itch all over your skin like poison ivy.

What's he doing in Notre Dame?

Was he wearing lenses?

It's been almost two years. Does Wayne know? What about the rest of Corroded Coffin?

So many questions, so little time to think about all of them, and yet, so much of your days spent with your mind swimming in circles.

It hurts in ways you forgot it was even possible.

Eddie was such a big part of you.

And now, everything was murky and slippery.

After a week crying, you started to wish you were losing that mind that night.

Telling yourself you hallucinated; it was only a product of your imagination helps to lessen the pain because it erases the idea that you’d been right, and with that gone, all that’s left to do is miss him some more.

That’s fine.

That you’d been doing for a while.

You missed Eddie even when he was there, at times, mostly because his while he was close, it had never been enough.

Loving someone through different parts and moments of your life makes them feel like a limb.

Eddie was always there, even when he wasn’t.

You go through the first part of the semester buried in books, nightmares, and feeble attempts at friendship. People in the University are different from the folks of little small town Hawkins, and as much as it’s a fresh breath, it makes you recoil a bit in your shell to be blasted with so much personality from all the sides.

At least your roommate is nice.

Sympathetic to the times you wake up crying, thank gods. The offer of a hot chocolate after a particular gruesome day — and nightmare — makes the whole experience gain some sunlight, even if it’s just from a tiny corner; a thin string of it.

When you return home for the holidays, you brace yourself for the worst, knowing it wouldn’t be enough.

Hawkins was… okay, now.

Whatever the fuck happened two years ago is gone, but the ghosts in your room are everpresent. 

The first day is thrice harder than you imagined, but you make through with a couple of hours of sleep under your belt.

And then it comes—

the feleing.

All day long, the infurating, freezing, and bone-chilling feeling of being watched.

Observed.

It creeps on you like eyes fixed at the back of your neck.

You spend the whole day tettering the edge of a panic attack, fiddling with the black nail polish on your fingers, or the rips in your jeans.

No amount of encouraging attempts of conversation from your father are fruitous when all your mind wants to do is look back and—who’s there?

The feeling that someone is looking drains your mind, and by dinner time, all you want is to lay down and pass the fuck out. You even toss the idea of getting high, overcome by this fear that you’ll end up even more paranoid, or seeing things.

(Seeing things again. You have to say seeing things again, because that wasn’t real.)

The technique to put yourself to sleep with mindful touches on your arms and face works, and you drif off…

falling…

falling into darknes…

Eddie—

No! Eddie, no! 

He’s too far—you can’t reach him—Eddie’s gonna fall into the cracks—he’s calling for you—

Eddie, please! Please, hold my hand, please—

Then, your name.

“It’s just a dream.” Something shakes the darkness away, and you hear, “Wake up.”

Your body jolts awake, eyes opening wide and your torso flinging upwards. You’re panting, and you feel the wetness on your cheeks before—

“Jesus Christ.”

The relieved sigh is what makes you look to the side, and both your hands cover your mouth to contain the scream that threatens to leave your lips.

Eddie lifts both of his hands in the air, eyes are red as they were that day, and now that he’s closer you can see that even with the same face, the difference resonates even in the air around him.

He is Eddie, but something is inheretly wrong, or changed, and it prickles your eyes with water to note that because all you want to do is let your trembling body crumble until the pieces are all over him.

Both of you stay in silence as you digest the shock, and Eddie remains still for it.

He only lowers his hands when he’s sure you’re not going to scream, but he keeps his mouth shut.

Changed or not, he seems to be aware that if he speaks too soon your brain might melt or something of the sort.

Slowly, your hands lower.

It is him.

You have so many questions.

Despite the infinite-looking number, the one your head picks is, “What are you doing here?”

It’s whispered, shaky. You’re aware that every inch of you is hanging by a thin thread, and by the attentive look, so does he.

The red looks eerie under the moonlight streaming from your large windows.

Eddie frowns after a second, like your question just registered.

Then, he sighs.

His restlessness is gone. It’s almost like someone gave him a calming drought with permanent effect, and all of the bubbling energy that made Eddie’s persona come out like a popcorn fest at times had reached boiling point. Now, all of his wild, powerful and bright energy existed as a mist around him.

Eddie seemed to have aged a lot more the time he was gone than the frame permitted.

“I thought you stopped,” he finally said. His voice was exactly the same—when Eddie spoke calmly, it came out like syrup of buttered honey; most of the time it was loud and shriverly, but when he was high, or sleepy, Eddie sounded different. Sounded like this. Your heart skipped a beat, and he continued after a moment of your stunned silence. “You took three weeks. But you had stopped. I thought you had, at least.”

It takes a moment where you’re too lost in the feeling of him talking, and being here for you to register what he’s implying.

Then it hits you—three straight weeks crying. That’s how long you spent in a hellhole after seeing Eddie at that pub.

“You knew?” you wanted to die. Your eyes started to sting. “You… how d’you know that?”

“I heard it.” Eddie’s eyebrows start creasing, as if he’s in pain. Genuine, physical pain. “I wanted to stay away, but I needed to make sure, so I followed you and overheard you going to bed. I—I should’ve gone. But I stayed every day until I heard you going to sleep without crying.”

The hurmoless laughter comes out before you can stop it. “That’s because the nightmares started instead.”

His frown deepens. “Yeah, I see that now.”

“Eddie,” his name comes out choked. “Am I—I’m—” confused. It hurts. Eddie. “How?”

The look of pain worsens, and Eddie gets up from your bed, taking all his heat with him. “I could tell you, but… I don’t know how that’d help.”

You blink your eyes at him, wide, exasperated. “I’m gonna fucking kill you,” you whisper. “I’ve—I don’t—” fuck! Your body retracts in itself, and you hide your scream and face behind your hands.

“You only stutter when you’re nervous. I’m sorry.”

You take your hands out of your face, pulling your knees up to your chest. “Eddie, I’m gonna scream.”

“You just did.”

“Shut up!” You half-scream. “Eddie, I’m—Please. Please, please, explain to me how I’m not losing my fucking mind, how—how did you—why are you—you—you—”

He sits back down on the bed, and your words die in your lips. Eddie’s hands come up, catch both of yours between them, and he keeps them fit in there. “Breathe,” says Eddie.

C’mon, babe, breathe. Nuh-huh, don’t try to talk, just breathe.

Breathe for me. It’s alright, I’m here.

Ei, ei, ei, it’s alright, it’s okay—tune them out. Breathe. I know they’re fucking idiots, don’t look at them, look at me.

It hits you how this is and isn’t Eddie.

Your breathing is shaky.

“Psst, look at me.” Eddie’s eyes make you feel cold… until his lips split into a smile, and he nods. “Better. Keep breathing.”

I want to cry, you think.

“I’ll wait,” Eddie adds. He always knew that filling the silence was important so you wouldn’t try to. Usually, he did so with rambles.

This works too, apparently.

At the end of your third last breath, Eddie’s hand start to let go of yours, but quickly, you catch them before they go too far.

Eddie looks down just like you, and both of you watch your hands together, the contrast between your skin tones and the size of them. Eddie’s fingers intertwine in yours with measured movements. You wonder how much of his skittishness is gone and replaced by fear of doing something wrong.

“Those aren’t lenses, are they?” you ask. It’s easier looking at your joined hands than his face right now.

“No.” Eddie’s thumb starts moving circles where it is. “Why are you so… calm?”

You scoff. “I am not calm.”

“You look calm.”

“Eddie, I just stuttered for the first time in months not thirty seconds ago,” you laugh, despite everything.

Eddie hums. “Right,” he sighs. “I’m just used to—more screaming? I guess? And weirded out looks.”

The words richocet in your head and then— “So you did stay away in purpose. Who did you go to? Wayne? Who else?” Why not me? Your heart starts beating harder again.

“Wayne first,” Eddie replies. “Then a few friends who helped me that day.”

The mention of The Horrible Day makes you squeeze your hands. “I’m still pissed off at you for dropping by that stupid ring here and then leaving.”

“You’d have gotten involved and I was being chased by more than just the police. I heard you talking about this with Bruna and you were wrong—it wouldn’t have been better. I’m glad I did what I did, ok?”

“You heard me talking with Bruna? On the cemetery? Were you follo—have you been following me?”

“Here and there,” he answers in the same heartbeat. “You look surprised.”

Now he had to be joking. “You didn’t—I thought you—you—I—”

Untangling his hands from yours, Eddie lifts one of them to your hair. “Breathe.” He mimics taking a deep breath and it shows that the effect he’s had on you never left because you mirror him without even wanting to.

His nods give you the same comfort.

“Good,” Eddie’s shoulders visibly relax. “Do you want me to tell you everything that happened that day?” he asks when you’re finishing your last deep breath. “I will.”

There is a lot you want Eddie to tell you, but the start should be the best place.

Not trusting your ability to speak, you nod.

“A lot of it will be hard to believe,” he goes on.

You pierce him with a look. “Your eyes are red, Edward.” If he tries to hold anything back, I might actually kill him. “I’ve known you since I was eleven and I’ve never seen you be this still. You used to cry whenever you heard me crying, and for some reason, I spent more than a year thinking my best friend was dead and he’s been following me around. Knowing that. Knowing how much…” it hurt. You can’t say it. How much it killed me.

“I can’t anymore,” it comes out as a whisper, and you lift your eyes to his again. Eddie’s bottom lip is pouting, brows creased together. “I mean—I can, but it’s almost impossible.”

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t cry,” he tells you. On his face, the saddest smile that’s ever graced Eddie’s face makes your heart halt. “Maybe a single tear, or two, but that’s me having a breakdown.”

I can’t cry.

You close your eyes. “Eddie… from the top. Please.”

“Okay.” Eddie straightens up. “At the last period I told you Chrissy needed drugs, and she set the time with me to fetch them. Right?” You nod. “I lied when I came to your house that night and said she hadn’t shown up. I—I can’t believe I managed to do it; I could never lie to you, but I knew I had to. She went to my trailer. Chrissy. She did die there, and it’s true—I was there.”

You try to brace yourself the moment Eddie says ‘I lied’, but as he rolls the events of that day, you realize with a grudge that Eddie was right:

I would’ve gotten envolved.

(And then probably killed.)

The first place you drive to is the old elementary school playground.

It’s the only place you can feel comfort in accepting the words Eddie’s told you.

You park the car on the curb and when the engines go off, the darkness of the night and the time envelop you in a warm hug.

(Trying to ignore how that warm hug resembles Eddie’s now is impossible.)

You look over to the swings that are the same as the ones in your very first memories with him.

“I died, I think. Something had to happen for this to take place, and I remember being out of it for a while…”

“Would you have died died if they had brought your body back?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Probably—I would’ve bled to death if they passed me over to here. In there, I was under—something. There’s a veil there. Might be ‘cause it’s a realm inside ours—one that’s the habitat for everything that lives differently than us, has different lives and properties.”

“... How different do you feel?”

“Very. Most of it is physical, I thik. I’m still me—at least the way my brain thinks, for the most part, it feels like me. Do I sound like me to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it weird for you? The way I look?”

“... Not in the way you think.”

The second place you drive to is the street behind the Arcade.

The alley where you and Eddie smoked your first joints together seems like the perfect place to accept your doom.

Cathartic—it was the place where you noticed how much you wanted him, after all.

Parked there, you pull up your knees to your chest and bite your lips until you taste metal in your mouth, trying to get through the second part of it all—the one that stings, and burns, and makes you want you did get involved or that just like him, you’d lost the ability to cry somewhere down your road:

“And why—why did they get to know you’re alive?”

“Because I’m not a danger to them.”

“And you are to me?”

“Yes.” Eddie’s face is impassive. “The more time I spend next to you, the more danger I am to you.”

“How? Why?”

“Kas said so.”

Kas. The breath of life in Eddie’s lungs that turned him immortal—the dragon whose fire gave Eddie powers, abilities, darkness. “In what way?”

“God, I’d almost forgotten how fucking stubborn you are—”

“In what way, Ed?”

“In every way,” he answers quickly. “Don’t I feel different to you? Tell me you don’t feel it.”

Your mouth remined shut. The darkness hummed around him, like a blanket. Like animals hum in a forest in the dark, and then stop when danger is around. “I feel it.”

“It’s alive. It’ll follow me wherever I go, sweetheart. I’m Eddie, but I’m also… this.”

This shimmery night-sky veil that emanated behind him, quietly until you silence took over and it could almost be heard.

Maybe he was right.

Part of you hated to admit it, but maybe Eddie was fucking right.

He’d been your closest friends for years.

Corroded Coffin welcomed you as a drummer only because of Eddie, and even if the boys grew to love you over time, you and him had always been two sides of the same coin.

You walked around like you had nothing to lose.

If danger knocked on your door, your problem was the other side of the scale—while Eddie ran away from it, you ran straight in its direction.

He just didn’t want your blood in his hands.

When you see it, you’re already parked outside Riana Street, slamming the car door behind you to go for a walk in the woods.

Eddie promised he’d wait, at least.

“Can I go… will at least wait if I go out for a drive?”

Eddie laughs. He looks perfect like that—almost as if nothing changed. If he laughed with his eyes closed, you’d probably feel nostalgic, like you were watchinga memory. “Sitting behind a wheel at sixteen was your doom.”

“It’s kept me in track so far.”

“You’ll come back?”

“Of course I’ll come back, this is my house.”

“You have until five a.m.”

“What—no longer a fan of half-naked sunbathing behind your trailer?”

“Funny. Very funny. Unfortunately, if I try that now, my insides will slowly turn to ash.”

“... You’re not joking.”

“No, I’m not joking.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because I’ve missed you. I know—I’m sorry, that’s the shittiest thing possible to say, but I did. I missed you a fucking lot, sweets.”

It’s the power of the trees, you think.

Something about their roots, and how you feel stuck to planet Earth even if you’re crumbling to pieces on the inside.

When you walk further enough and replaying the conversation in your mind helps with nothing, you just let it happen—your kneels hit the ground with the weight of your body, and you’re silently crying again.

There aren’t many tears.

Your body’s exhausted from running through this same track again, and the bottom line is simple:

You want him to stay.

You want Eddie.

The quiet sobs are everything your ear registers until it comes—

he’s watching.

The feeling creeps on your nape, raising goosebumps on your skin, and you stop, body going still.

He’s here.

“Eddie?”

The world stands still for the second you wait for an answer.

“These woods aren’t what they used to be, you know?”

Your whole body relaxes at the sound of his voice. Whipping around body around, you see him between a couple of trees.

Hands shoved inside his pockets, face set into pain again.

“You’re crying again,” the words are laced in hurt.

“You told me you’d wait,” you sniffle, rubbing your hands over your wet cheeks.

“Yeah, and I was. I knew you might come here, though, and these woods are dangerous now,” Eddie retorts.

“I had to think.”

“I realized,” Eddie walks closer to you, but stops a few meters away.

“Did you follow me since my house?”

“Yup.”

That means he saw your pathetic trip down memory lane. You scoff to yourself, wanting to bury your body in the ground instead of getting up. “Great.” It should be easier for him to leave now. How pathetic was that? “Don’t worry, it was a one time thing. I won’t be pathetically looking for your ghosts forever.”

“Is that you trying to kick me out of town earlier?”

“No, it’s just me telling you there’s no need to feel guilt.”

“You think I’d feel guilty over leaving you behind when I know it’s for your safety?” Eddie’s tone is so serious that it pulls your gaze to his. He looks determined. Eddie never had this confidence in his eyes before. “I feel like shit, yeah, but not over this. I know it’ll hurt, but at least you’ll be safe.”

“Oh, what a great ending!” It comes out louder than you expected. This is why you needed space. You can feel it bubbling—your own fire. “I’ll be safe. Everything worked out.”

Eddie takes a step back. “You’re mad at me.”

You finally get up from the floor, patting your knees. “No shit, you idiot.” I’m mad. I’m hurt. I’d fight a dragon to keep you, idiot. “You just told me you’re going away. That I’ll never see—” oh, fuck. There goes your heart again. “Do you really think—I can’t—”

Eddie steps closer, and it’s your turn to take a step back.

“No! No!” You’re screaming now. “Do not tell me to keep calm, to breathe, to fucking—no! I won’t!”

“You’re gonna have a panic attack if you don’t—”

“I’m ALREDY in panic! I’m losing you! I’m gonna lose you, Ed! Again. I’m gonna fucking lose you, again. Don’t tell me to calm down!”

Then, his scream hits the break in your panic with only four words:

“I CAN’T KILL YOU!”

Instantly, you freeze. For his turn, Eddie closes the distance between your bodies in hurried steps.

He grabs you by the biceps, holding you tight enough to hurt, but nothing makes you feel more than the intense heat simmering in his eyes.

In a low voice, Eddie shifts your world in its axis again. “It’s not just the danger following me, or the danger of who I am, and what kind of things that being what I am attracts.” His lips are trembling, and you’re hypnotized. Eddie’s never been this close. “It’s me, too.” Does he know he’s this close? “You’re the smart one in this duo, sweetheart. Out of all the people in this fucking world, you’re the one I most wanted to talk about this with. Even in my most cynical and coward days, I kinda believed in magic because of you. Use that head of yours—what’s the call that keeps dragons alive?”

The answer’s at the tip of your tongue, but for a second, all you can do is stare.

Eddie’s eyes are shining. Not in the glowing, literal sense, but in the wide-eyed, sparkling one.

“Treasures,” the word comes out in a breath.

Eddie nods. “I’m not what I used to be,” he whispers. His hands holding you in place are gripping so tight you’ll have bruises tomorrow, and it twists your stomach to think about how much you’d like those marks to be all over your body. “At my core, what I want is more. If I stay near you, I’ll start seeing you as mine. I’ll bring danger to you, and I’ll be one, too, because what belongs to me can be mine in any way.”

I wouldn’t mind, your mind offers.

You’re too frozen to do anything but stare at his lips, so close to your face.

“Do you know what my instinct was telling me to do when you entered these woods?”

Hunt me down. Take me as prey. For some reason, you did. “Yeah,” you breathe out. “I know.”

The answer takes him by surprise.

Eddie blinks a couple of times, inching back his face. “You… what?” Then, you watch as he starts to genuinely look at you. To see past his fears, and observe what’s right in front of him.

If Eddie heard you in the cemetery that night speaking with your sister, he’s heard you saying the words.

You still need to know. To confirm. “Did you heard what I said to Bruna that day?”

Eddie’s wide eyes gain a gaping mouth to match. “Are you…” his frown deepens. “Why aren’t you scared?” he sounds desperate. “Of course I heard you. I heard everything.”

“So you know what I feel. What I always felt.”

Eddie closes his eyes. “Yes. It’s the reason I’d start seeing you as mine,” he opens his eyes, and his head is shaking slowly. “I was too blind and too in denial to ever accept something like that coming from you, but now?” His Adam’s apple bobs. “I’m having trouble letting you go right now. That’s how bad it is. I feel—it’s like a burning in my chest. I can hear the blood pumping in your veins.” You shudder at the words. “I can smell your perfume from fucking miles away. I’m—” Eddie’s hands suddenly let go, his fingers opening and spreading wide. “I should go.”

Not without answering a question to you first. “Was there ever part of you that wished that before this happened?” You take a step closer to him since he stepped back. “That I was yours?”

Eddie’s looking at you with so much concern that you want to comfort him that it’s okay. He ducks his head to the side, looking down at the ground. “I pushed that away. I wasn’t good enough to you back then. Now, I want you to have a life.”

“That’s a load of bullshit.”

“What?!”

“You were always good enough.” More than good, but you would convince him of that later. “And staying away from me in order for me to have a life is even more bullshit. I’ve always been yours, Ed.”

The words do something to him.

Eddie’s face was contorted in pain—eyebrows pinched together, lips frowning, gaze downcast, desperate.

It all washes away, leaving him expresionless for a moment. A blank slate.

“So if that’s your reason to stay away… it’s a terrible one.”

Eddie’s jaw muscles tighten. “You…” he shuts his mouth. Looks away to the woods, then back at you with his eyes looking darker than before. “Stop for a second… please. And think about what you’re asking of me, here. Think—imagine the roles were reserved, and I was asking you to risk my stupid life for you.”

Instead of getting a rise out of you, the words bring a smile to your face.

It’s still Eddie.

“I would wanna hit you in the head hard enough in hopes that you changed your mind, but…” You watch his eyes fixating on your smile. “It’d still be your choice at the end of the day. I’d let you choose, even if it terrified me.”

Eddie nods frantically. “You do. You scare the living shit out of me, sweetheart.” He closes the small distance between you two by cupping your face in his hands and looking at you with all his fear and awe spilling out of his eyes. “You should be running in the opposite direction as far as you could.”

The words come out before you can stop them. “Only if it was for you to chase and catch me.”

His eyes widen, and there’s a growl at the back of his throat. He whispers your name like a warning.

“Ed.” I want this. Stay. Please stay. “I want you close. I’m aware of the dangers. I accept the consequences.” Begging to the dark sky that he’d let you make your decision, you grabbed his face back. “You’re alive. And you’re you. That’s all that matters to me.”

Time slows while Eddie takes in your words, and when he nods slowly, you feel the movement in your hands. It pulls a relieved sigh from you.

Eddie opens his eyes which you hadn’t noticed he closed, and the hands on your face hold tighter.

“Should we go back to your house?” his voice sounds deeper. “If I kiss you here, I won’t stop.”

The offer posed as a fact makes your whole body tremble, and you hear a low rumble coming from him again as he feels it.

Something tells you this is not about Eddie caring whether the first place you two will do this is a nice one or not—something pulls your chests together, harder than gravity.

You let your hands card through his hair and meet at the back, surrounding his neck by your arms, pulling yourself closer to his face.

There’s time for him to back away.

Instead, Eddie give your piercing gaze one last smile before he dives, kissing you harshly, drowning the boat of you in the sound of your heartbeats.

Your mouths move on one another with a familiarity that makes you feel on fire.

It’s worse than that one time during Seven Minutes of Heaven—it’s so much worse than the fateful day you discovered Eddie Munson was the one person to truly make you understand all the books and movies, and that feeling resonating in every cell in your body.

This Eddie knew how to kiss in ways that Eddie probably only dreamed of.

He accepts all of your enthusiasm, your hands moving through his hair in a messy desperation, he takes the weight of your body being thrown against him with grace, opening his mouth for your tongue as he offers you his.

Eddie walks both of you until you’re pressed against the nearest tree and hoists you up by the waist as if you weight nothing—something you know to be a lie. When your legs wrap around his waist, he gives a delighted, happy hum against your lips.

You only pull back for a lung full of air before kissing him again, pouring all the yearning, the pain, the aching desire, the need—all of it goes to your tongue and your fingertips as you intertwine the first on his tongue and the second is ran through every inch of skin it can find.

All you can feel is him, overpowering every sense of yours.

The way he kisses you deeply, with languid and slow strokes of his tongue, it makes your toes curl inside your shoes.

It tightens your legs around him, the heat pooled in the bottom of your stomach spilling out.

Your panties are soaked by the time Eddie pulls back to run his nose along your jaw, stopping only underneath your ears. There, he takes a deep breath, and you whine.

Where did he learn all of this? He’s holding you up with only one hand around your ass, while the other sneaked underneath your shirt long ago in the kiss, and as Eddie presses kisses, humming against your skin, your mind goes to a thousand different places in only one second.

It’s him who pulls you back.

“Stop thinking,” his voice is rough, and you feel more slick between your folds at how hot it sounds.

“You can read my mind now?”

His scoff is followed by his teeth nipping the skin of your cheek. “Never needed powers for that. I know you.”

You nod at his words. “Tell me you’re not gonna leave, Eds,” you hold his face in your hands again.

The hand underneath your shirt stops running through every inch of your skin. “I can’t leave you.”

A quiet, dry sob rips your chest. “You did.”

“I won’t leave you again, baby.” He seals the promise with his lips on yours, one hand squeezing your waist while the other holds you by the neck. “You took me in. I’ll keep crawling back even if you kick me to a curb at some point. Watch from the shadows to make sure you’re okay.”

You shake your head at that. “Want you close.”

“You have me.”

It sounds a lot like your words said minutes ago.

I’ve always been yours.

This time, the kiss feels a surrender from both sides.

Eddie encourages your movements against him, taking it all as his.

It is.

You want him to taste you, have you, catch you in any way possible.

When you grind your hips down and he’s holding you at the perfect height for your waists to be leveled, you feel the hard outline of his cock pushing against the soft fabric of your sweatpants.

Whines become moans, and Eddie sucks all the sounds from your mouth straight into his.

It takes you only two times of him skiving away from your neck to for you to notice—his eyes, red as blood, look as thirsty as someone deprived of water for days.

It crashes on you—the realization: you want him to know how you taste.

“Eddie—”

He’s too busy sucking bruises on your tits to answer you properly. You moan at the way he pulls your hips down against his.

“Ed—can you—will you bite me?”

He freezes, mouth and hands at the same time. “No.”

“What?! Why?”

He levels your face with his. “Do you want me to kill?” He growls. “I can’t control myself to that point—you’re—I have feelings for you, stupid. My whole body is screaming to you that you’re mine, if I put my teeth in your neck I’m gonna do the stupidest shit I’ve ever done and I’ll never be able to live it down. I’ll kill myself if I kill you, you realize that, don’t you? Why would you—”

His rant is cut short.

You’ve bitten your lip and pulled at the skin, hissing when it leaves a spot raw. The blood must be what catches his eye.

You hope this isn’t enough to break his control.

If he loses it and both of you end up dead, that’d be on you.

“Just a taste,” you whisper. It sounds like a question, one that he’s too frozen to answer at first. “I want you to know how I taste.”

Eddie’s eyes blink away from your mouth to meet yours, and the shaky breath he inhales makes you wish you had clearer thoughts.

There’s no time for those.

Eddie puts his mouth on your bottom lip, closing both of his lips around it and sucking.

It feels so good you moan out loud.

So does he.

Eddie sucks on your lip messily, and then pulls back swallowing thickly.

He closes his eyes then, grip around your wais tightening, and you give him a moment to compose himself.

When he opens his eyes again, the new thing pops its head, and it feels like a welcoming party—the darkness around Eddie almost comes to life.

It’s nothing visible, but you feel it anyway.

It seeps out of him, and envelopes the both of you in it, securing your bodies together as he crashes his mouth against yours.

It’s warm inside his hold.

Everything feels permanent.

The touch of his hand against your skin. When he apologizes with a stifled laughter in your neck before he uses both hands to rip a hole in your sweatpants, and your questioning dies in your throat because Eddie pushes your underwear to the side and presses two fingers between your folds, moaning with no shame at the wetness he finds there.

With your underwear to the side, he starts playing your body like he did his guitar.

I was Sweetheart first, anyway.

Eddie’s fingers feel curious—almost innocently seeking. One dips inside of you, and he smiles at the reaction he gets before he starts pumping the finger in and out, applying pressure against your walls as he curves it just right.

One becomes two, then three, and Eddie watches your face all along, letting you take the kisses whenever you please, smiling like a cat who’s got the prize.

Wicked.

Never before has he looked like this—or at least, not that you’ve seen it.

“Want more,” you cry for him.

“Yeah?” he coos. “You look so good,” he adds, awed and smiling with dimples and his wicked glee.

“Please.”

Eddie’s nothing if not a gentleman.

He takes a second to open his pants with only one hand and pull himself out of his boxers, but when his head is at your entrance, he goes in slowly.

So thick. You’re moaning is almost as lewd as the sweat dripping down your back and temples, and you’re doomed when he puts his lips close to your ears to whisper, “Let me in, sweetheart,” as he grinds his hips in slow and deliberate movements.

Eddie doesn’t have to push inside because you open up to him—the words make your cunt pulse, sucking more of him inside until he’s buried to the hilt, and both of you are panting on each other’s mouths.

If you had any reservations about whether Eddie was truthful or not when saying a part of him desired you, it evaporates with the way he fucks you.

Once he’s secured inside, Eddie’s hands go back to your face and neck, and he starts moving his hips to meet yours with his face open and vulnerable—every time he closes his eyes, Eddie seems to force them open again.

Just like you.

“Wanted this for so—oh—for so long, Ed,” you moan between his thrusts.

Eddie whines, hiding his face on the crook of your neck. He pistons his hip harder, making you go louder, and when his mouth meets the skin of your neck, Eddie’s the one moaning. “All mine,” he growls, burying himself in you over and over again.

It feels too much like a dream, but the bruises forming on your body and the scorching heat where your bodies meet is too real for it to be anything else.

“Yours.”

After years in a limbo where all your feelings had to be in the dark, now they’re home.

Eddie starts crying out as he thrusts are met with your hips bucking down, and you two start mumbling too much on each other’s skin.

Maybe Eddie shouldn’t own you. Maybe it’s wrong to pull the skin of your lips once more and offer it to him, and maybe it’s twisted that Eddie accepts it with a cry and a smile, sucking on your lips before shoving his metallic tongue against yours.

Maybe your moans shouldn’t become one as you both approach your peaks, but Eddie is inside you, and you feel full in ways you can’t begin to comprehend or even wants to.

When you cum, it’s because he closes a hand too tightly around your neck as he hits just the right spot, and it pulls the orgasm out of you—you crash like a wave against rocky shores, shaking violently around him, crying out his name.

You feel the heat spilling inside of you that follows.

Eddie buries his face in your neck for it, crying out to god before starting to whisper your name over and over in a prayer.

Maybe you shouldn’t feel complete now that you’re wrapped in the complicated vines of what his life is;

You have no clue what you’ve gotten yourself into, but—

it’s warm. Eddie’s cloak of darkness feels like a protective spell, or maybe it’s a drowning curse—either way, it’s yours, as much as you are his now.

Neither one of you move for minutes.

All you do is touch your lips, and kiss each other softly countless of times.

Everything’s okay now.

📑 I want to finish my challenge before diving into anything else, but Vamp!Eddie just stole my heart, so talk to me if you want more of him in the future!

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[nexusnyx]

Dirty Dancing

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 1 — The night we first met. “Who the hell are you?” Steve Harrington x Biker!Reader; [4.1k]

SUMMARY: When Steve went to the address for investigating purposes, the last thing on his mind was stumbling upon one of the most beautiful sights he's ever seen. It happens, though, and he convinces himself that meeting you was only a thing of the moment, until he encounters you outside the cinema a week later, crying. He does something about it.

No matter how much Steve would like to argue against it, Henderson was often right. Before, he would give an honest attempt—ask a question, maybe, try to come up with some sort of plan, or try to understand better what’s going on. Now? Steve just does what he's asked to if he sees it’s a matter that won’t be dropped otherwise.

The year is '87, Steve works at the new cinema downtown, there are a lot of people moving out and into Hawkins for a town that not too many months ago had an “earthquake” splitting miles of damage everywhere, and after months in relative silence and peace since Eleven killed Henry (this time once and for all), Henderson and the boys said there was a disturbance in the outskirts of town. “Certainly supernatural. I’ve run the dada and overheard Hopper’s talks with Powell. We gotta check it.”

If Henderson said Steve had to go to this place to investigate a clue… well. Steve just obeyed.

He had no expectations but was stacked in preparation. Back-up (Eddie), means of communication (walkie-talkie), a plan (meet said clue), and a name. In case all of that went downhill, there were always baseball bats in his trunk. With experience comes knowledge, and all that.

Then, Steve meets is you, and no amount of preparation and planning covered that.

According to Lucas, Henderson, and Max, their theory is that this disturbance has to be some form of Skinwalker due to the patterns in the open case, and the name is something Steve has no idea what is supposed to be until now, and frankly, is unsure if he wants to.

He stops listening and only focuses again on the part where they start talking about killing it.

Because they’re unsure of whether this walker thing takes a human form or not, they decided to keep an eye for any “suspicious” activity, and, one week after the problem made itself supernaturally evident, Eddie heard from someone in the band about a person named Bird who, according to their sources, had beat up three grown men outside of a club they frequented last Friday in a fight that left everyone with their mouths gaping.

ㅤ

“Sounds like someone who might be walking in the skin of someone else?” asked Eddie to the group.

Dustin nodded along with the vehemence and glint in his eyes of someone who had sniffed something new. “That’s a lot of strength for one person. No one has that type of skill—I mean, some do, but it’s very hard. What are the odds?” He scoffed. “Did your bandmate say anything else? Where we could find them? What’s their name, again?”

“Bird,” said Eddie. “Only thing else Cooper said was that they should visit Bird at the Broken Wings club and give them congrats. They’re there a lot, apparently.”

“Broken Wings club?” asked Lucas. “Is that the new bar that opened on the Highway? The one Hopper always goes to?”

“It is,” said Eleven. “The name is familiar.”

“Well, it sounds like you have some spying to do, Eddie, the Brave.” Dustin clapped his hands together, rubbing them on one another. Steve felt bad for Eddie because he knew that was the look of no backing away from. “You too,” added Dustin, and—oh.

He was looking at Steve.

“Me?”

Dustin rolled his eyes. “Yes, you. Eddie can’t go alone. What if this Bird person is the skinwalker, Steve?” He asked with his ‘I am speaking to a child’ tone.

Steve sighed.

“Condescending tone, dude,” Eddie warned him.

“Sorry! I’m sorry. I’m on edge, and he has to be told everything—”

ㅤ

When Steve parks outside Broken Wings Club, his eyes widen at the amount of cars and movement there is at this new bar.

He whistles under his breath and as he gets out of the passenger seat, Eddie takes a look around him just like Steve. “Yeah,” nods Eddie. “Fuck—I’ve been wanting to come here for so long,” his voice gets excited and squeaky, and he slams the door behind him. In quick skips, he makes his way around the car and then throws the other jacket he carried on his lap the whole ride here in Steve’s face. “Put this one.”

Steve removes the piece from his face to get a better look. “Really?” A leather jacket. “Why do I have to put this on?”

Eddie gives him a blank look, then looks around him again, obliging Steve’s eyes to do the same.

Point made.

It’s a biker’s club.

“I didn’t know we were coming to a—biking gathering,” Steve mumbles under his breath. He shrugs the jacket on top of his shirt and hears Eddie scoffing.

“Right. ‘Cause if you did, then you’d have dressed for the occasion.” It’s obviously meant as a teasing remark, but Steve raises his eyebrows at him.

“You don’t think I can blend here?”

Eddie — the bastard — laughs out loud at him as he makes his way in direction of the entry, slapping Steve’s arm in a playful manner. “Oh, you’re funny, Steve. I like that.”

Part of him wants to take a lot of offense at that, but Steve’s mouth dries up the closer he gets to the entry. The people around all turn to look as they pass, and he feels it—the eyes on him. No one spares Eddie a second glance, but more than once person gives him a side-eye as Steve walks inside.

The bouncer, too.

She checks Eddie’s ID, gives him a paper bracelet and tells him to pass. When it’s Steve’s turn, her smoky black eyes switch between Steve’s driver’s license and his face a couple of times before she says, “Welcome to Broken Wings,” and secures the same grey paper bracelet on his arm.

Part of him wants to go back there and tell her—his ID is fake, you know. He’s only 20, but Steve’s grown past that level of pettiness.

He just keeps the comment to himself.

“Alright—this place’s pretty cool and we can’t just start asking stuff the minute we go in, so we’re gonna have to have a couple of beers and maybe listen to some music before we start mingling,” Eddie says only for his ears.

Steve nods. That was the plan, yes. “You get the first round, I get the second?”

“Sure.”

They stick to the plan.

Eddie tells Steve what he’s heard of this bar and its owner from Cooper, they try to talk in hushed tones about who around them looks good enough to spark a conversation with and, when he finds out that Eddie has no idea how to play pool, Steve laughs in delight, teasing him for a good few minutes.

“Wanna split?” asks Eddie when they finish their second beer. “I’m gonna head to the bathroom.”

“I’m gonna go smoke outside,” says Steve.

“Cool. I’ll order us a couple more beers, see if I talk to anyone, and I’ll meet you there.”

With a nod, they part their ways.

Steve’s trying to be discreet here.

After getting into so much of the supernatural shit against his wheel, the only way for him to get involved and be okay with the fact that the teens are involved without losing his mind is to be prepared. There are less chances of clocks striking, of a need for a grand plan, of things getting out of control that way.

There is a plan.

Steve opens the wood doors leading to the back and appreciates the forest view from the porch. He pulls out a smoke, sees there are a handful of people outside with him in groups, and ahead of them, there’s the structure for a bonfire. He pictures that thing lit late at night with various people surrounding it, smoking in their real leather jackets, with their cool tattoos and intimidating looks, and lights his own cigarette. He walks until he’s standing on one of the corners of the porch, and leans against the wood structure, blowing out smoke quietly.

What a fucking weird town.

“Is that a polo underneath your jacket?”

The question catches him off guard because one, that was definitely directed at him, and two, the voice is  coming straight from behind him where he thought there was only darkness. When Steve whips around, his plan is thrown out of a window.

Blown to pieces.

That’s—fucking hell.

“Hi.” Steve’s mouth is dry. That is… a very attractive person. Very—oh, god, he’s staring. “Uhm. Who are you?”

Those beautiful lips spread in a grin. “Who the hell are you?” It’s asked with a soft smile, and despite the blunt words, there’s no malice in that voice. “Because you’re not a regular. And I’ve never seen you around. I would’ve remembered.”

Steve scratches the back of his neck, and tries to gather himself with a deep breath. “I’m Steve.”

He extends a hand, and there’s a second before you take it.

“Hello, Steve,” you shake his hand, stepping away from the wall and stepping up on the porch too, your eyes going down his body and leaving a trail of heat where they pass. “That’s... definitely a polo.”

Right. Steve looks down at himself and hates to admit that Eddie’s point was a bullseye. Weren’t for his leather jacket, Steve would look very stupid right now. “It is,” he confirms. “I like ‘em,” he shrugs, looking back at you. “Did you ask because you hate polos or was it just the shock, miss…?”

The grin settles in a side-smile, and you pull out a rolled tobacco from behind your ear. “The later.” You light the tobacco up, and Steve waits for it, hoping it’ll come. When you blow out the smoke, you lean on the wood structure as well. “Y/n,” you offer. “People just call me Bird.”

Steve feels like a cartoon getting stuck on the same frame.

Fuck. Fuck, fuckfuck—okay. He takes a drag of his cigarette and tries to calm his quickening heartbeat. He’s got this. “Why?” He asks.

You lift one eyebrow. “Because… it’s my name?”

“Your name is bird?”

“Last name,” you correct, then offer, softer. “Like—Hugh Bird Brown?”

That name rings a bell.

Eddie’s voice a few minutes ago, his finger pointing at the plaque behind the bartender as he goes, “He was one of the people who moved here to help re-construct the town back then, look, his name is—fuck, I can barely read from this distance—uh—Hugh. Hugh B. Brown; Mr. Brown. He came with that new investor who wants to build a mall again, but apparently, they hate each other ‘cause they basically represent polar opposites. I mean—Hugh’s biker’s gang is apparently famous for beating up racists and child molesters—don’t know how true it is, but. Welcome to town, if you ask me!”

“Hugh B. Brown. You’re—” Steve’s eyes focus again on the here, and you’re staring up at him with calculating eyes. Steve looks at you, truly looks this time, and his mouth dries even further. You have a leather vest on top of a white sleeveless top, and it should not be as hot as it is. Fishnet gloves on your hands. Black jeans, combat boots. Yeah… nice look. Very nice.“You’re the owner’s daughter?”

That smile has gotta be a devious weapon. Holy shit. “That’s what the same last name means for us, yeah," you reply with a laugh.

Steve feels his neckline heating at that—you’re teasing him. At first he thinks he minds it very little, but then as takes a drag he remembers why the Bird was so important in the first place and fuck.

What if that smile is a killer smile?

His stomach twists a little.

“Are you liking Hawkins?” asks Steve. Please don’t be a skin walking murderer. Please.

Your upper lip quivers, and you give a weak little groan. “Dunno. It’s small.”

“Smaller than where you lived before?”

“I’ve lived in three different cities these past few years,” very open and honest, he thinks. Is that because you have nothing to hide or because you don’t care about what you say to a human? His heart feels like a rabid animal inside a cage. “They were all bigger than here, but—same old shit, I guess.”

“And what shit is that?”

“Hateful people,” your eyes are right ahead. Steve catches a spot of red between your knuckles underneath your glove, and his mind starts working harder.

It could be her. Could be her father.

“There’s definitely lots of that around.” He's silently praying you're not one of them. Fights happen for many reasons, and maybe you did have a way of beating up three people. He needs to find out.

“Are you from here?” you ask before he can form another thought.

Steve takes another drag, nodding. “Born and raised.” Unfortunately. Stuck, he thinks.

“Oh.” The sound has its own hidden words. It says 'oh, so you were here for all the tragedy' and 'damn, I'm kinda sorry for that', and Steve expects any of the questions that came from new people who arrived at Hawkins and had the opportunity to speak to someone who's from here, but then— “D’you like it?”

“Uhm—” that's... none of the questions he expected. He thinks about it for a moment, and the answer comes to him. “It’s my hometown. I hate it. I love it. I think I’ll never get out of it, even though it’s all I think about sometimes.” He’d miss it. “I’d probably end up missing it if I left.”

About the last part, he's not so sure, but you listen to all of it and then nod.

Something in your eyes says you understand him, and Steve feels terrified for a moment. Not in his instincts, but inside his ribcages. Where his heart is misbehaving. “I feel that, but…” you lean in closer for a second. “There is a lot out there to see, y'know?” With another drag, you're turning around to gaze at the forest. “A whole fucking lot,” you add with a yearning tone.

That forms a question in his head. “Are you part of the biking crew?”

You look up at him, then turn your back so that he’s faced with it—the sewn patch of Broken Wings Crew. When you turn back, Steve is nodding to himself. “Right. He’s your dad, it’d make sense. D’you like it? Being on the road?”

“I fucking love it.” The earnestness makes Steve want to get on a bike and drive away. “The road’s amazing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It reminds me that there’s an almost endless amount of stuff out there. That we’re very tiny, after all.” For someone who looks so intimidating in her cool clothes and black-painted eyes, your voice is soft even when you're offering sad philosophical thoughts.

He laughs at it. “Wow. I’m feeling very humbled. You’d like to meet a friend of mine—he likes talking about our size compared to the ‘general grand aspect of everything’.” Dustin would like to meet her, that's true, for more reasons than one, Steve thinks.

Focus on the mission, Harrington, his voice says.

His words pull laughter out of you, and Steve has trouble focusing on anything other than that. “That sounds a bit too big for me. I’d just end up in an existential crisis and I don’t think I need another one of those.”

“Not a fan of remembering how very tiny you are when compared to the grand aspect of everything?” He teases you.

When did he get it back? His ability to sound aloof and playful with a cigarette in hand when talking to someone he feels is so damn out of his league?

He had thought he lost it.

“Not really,” you smile, and he thinks, yeah, I haven't lost it. Steve knows that smile. “We’re not going anywhere, anyway. Why would I bother dreaming about stars I’m never gonna see, Steve? That’s just depressing.”

“Fair enough.” If you two are flirting, Steve can ask. He's not sure if you're flirting back, but he's definitely been leaning too close and looking a bit too hard for you not to notice he is, and you're letting it happen. He can prod a little. Now or never. “Can I ask you something?”

Through a cloud of smokes, you say. “Sure.”

“I have a friend in Corroded Coffin, and… he says,” he pauses, just for dramatics. Sound cool about this. It’s gonna be fine. “Apparently,” he takes a drag of his cigarette. “A certain ‘Bird’ gave a lesson to some people at a bar this Friday. He was gushing about it, actually. ‘s that you or did the wrong people find your pops?”

This time, your laughter is boisterous, and Steve wonders what did he miss. It's not the usual 'that was funny' laugh—more of a 'this sparks an incredible amount of joy due to something you missed here' kind of laugh.

As expected, you start with, “‘m sorry, ‘m sorry,” you say as you stop laughing and take a deep breath. “I was just—imagining my dad at Dorothy & Toto. Man, that was funny,” you giggle. “Nah. It was me. Only my dad's closest friends call him Bird. Around here, that's me.”

In one movement, you pull up the glove for a second to show your red and bruised knuckles.

Steve swallows around a tight knot. So it was you. “Damn,” he whistles, not bothering to hide his surprise. Supernatural kick-ass or just the most interesting person alive?

He's terrified of prodding any further even though he must and will have to.

“Yeah. My dad’s pissed that I ended up at the police station not even a year after moving, but he heard what happened, so we’re good.”

Steve narrows his eyes at that and, with curiosity traveling through his bone, he leans in. “What did happen?”

You narrow yours back. “I thought your friend at Corroded Coffin had already told you,” you whisper theatrically.

“I mean—he did. But it was just a ‘this happened’ kind of talk. And, no offense at all, but how exactly was it you versus… three?”

Your smile at him this time is a little daunting. Steve feels a shiver starting at his neck. “Steve. My dad’s an ex-military guy who retired and started a motorbike gang. Trust me—I know how to knock out a few assholes who never did more than throw punches every now and then at a bar.”

He lets out a startled laugh. Relief. “You fight?”

“Hmhm.” You lean back against the wood, and Steve feels lighter. Feels like he can ask you a thousand more questions—and he wants to. “Krav maga. Muai thay.”

His eyes widen more. “So… you really did kick their asses, huh?”

“Sure did.” And what a proud smile you have over it.

“Do I have any—” his question is interrupted by a loud:

“There you are, Harrington!”

It’s Eddie. He walks until you two with inquisitive eyes, and Steve feels caught doing something wrong before he remembers that this is the person they came here to find out about, and he was doing something right by talking to you.

He introduces the two of you, ignoring with difficulty the yelling voice in his brain telling Eddie to get lost.

Just another minute with her, he thinks, that's all Steve needs. Just a few more minutes to talk. Instead, not a minute later after Eddie arrives, someone who has the bar uniform calls your name from the inside.

You’re gone before Steve can think of a reason to make you stay, and when Eddie goes, "Dude, why were you flirting in the middle of our recon mission?" with a giggle, Steve wants to say I wasn't!

All that comes out with, "So. That was Bird," and there's that,

Once the information is cleared with the group, they cross out your name from the board of informations, deem the accident as not part of their ‘unofficial investigation’ and go back to what’s important.

Steve, not so much.

See—Steve wants to be paying attention to his surroundings, and he would love to be thinking about plans, or traps, or anything else, really, but his mind is stuck. It’s on a loop, and every time he tries to escape it, he’s back at it: 

You.

For a week, the short encounter and conversation is all he thinks about.

Steve plays the whole thing from start to finish over and over again, wondering and beating himself up over what could’ve gone differently, and all the other things he should’ve.

When Robin and Eddie invite him to go to Broken Wings on Saturday, Steve escapes from them with a feeble excuse of it not being his scene and him not knowing if he’ll enjoy a whole night there, praying they don’t see in his eyes just how much of a coward he truly is.

He runs away from the thought of it—just picturing running into you again sends his heart into a frenzy, so Steve does something he hadn’t in a long time: he walks away.

It lasts until it blows.

You two live in the same town, after all, and it isn’t a metropolis.

Steve runs into you at the carnival, and his whole body responds to seeing you across from him, meters away.

There’s a second where he freezes on the spot—genuinely stops dead on his tracks, but then Eddie and Nancy nudge him along and he keeps walking before you can stop him, too.

He thinks about the red open tank-top you were wearing all night long, and goes home wanting to bite at his fist.

Never before in his life had Steve been entranced by someone he felt shy in their presence, but every time he considered looking for you and putting on his winning smile, all he saw was the YOU RULE | YOU SUCK board behind the scene.

Not because Robin killed his self-confidence or anything like that, but because Steve meant what he said in the car.

Everything felt superficial.

The mere idea of talking to you again when none of that conversation felt useless is kind of... terrifying.

So he leaves it alone.

Three days later after his comical decision of 'leaving the thoughts of Bird alone', Steve's stood up by Robin.

It's a nice night—the sky is clear, leaving room for countless dots of shining light, it's chill, but not cold, and Steve thought he would get to watch a movie with his best friend after so much talking about it.

Instead, Nancy decided it was now the time to gather the courage to ask Robin out for a date, which means that all he gets is a rushed phone call — to their working place's phone, no less, what on Earth does Robin smoke — where Robin tells him, "Please don't be mad at me," then unloads a full afternoon of information on him before ending with, "so now—we're going on a date? I think? I mean, we are. I'm calling to let you know that I can't come. And asking you pretty please do not be mad at me? You're not, right, babe?"

"Go to your date, Robin," Steve chuckles. He sends an apologetic look to Luke who's side-eyeing him to hang up the damn phone. "I'll be fine."

"You're the best bestie, Steve. Love you! Bye!"

Line dead, Steve puts down the phone and takes a look around him.

Is the night over, or should he stay?

Being alone is something he grew up used to, but avoided at all costs—whether it was surrounding himself with just anybody, throwing parties, or throwing himself into things, Steve preferred company to solitude.

Now, he embraces it.

He buys himself a pack of Skittles, walks around the cinema thinking about the irony that he’s now one of those people who have to seek leisure in the place he works, and how much he’s changed since he was in High School.

Steve gets out of the cinema through the back to bum a smoke before he walks… somewhere he isn’t sure yet, but the minute the door starts sliding to close, he hears the sniffle.

Shitshitshitshit—the door closes with a thud, and Steve winces. Too late.

There’s someone crying out here and now they’re stuck together with that knowledge.

Steve lifts his gaze slowly, hoping and praying the person is above lashing out on him for catching them in their alone time, but he stops mid-motion when his eyes catch on who it is.

Once more, stunned in his spot by the sight of you. This time it’s because—tears.

There are tears staining your cheeks, ruining the pretty black make-up you have around your eyes.

Steve suddenly wants to be able to fight feelings.

You two share a look, then your hand lifts to your lips and you take a drag off the cigarette with eyes still on him, and Steve wills his body to stand up straight.

He clears his throat and walks to you, grabbing the smoke out of his back pocket.

Once he’s lit it, Steve extends the packet of Skittles to you. “Asking if you’re okay would be kinda stupid, so. You want one?”

Those gorgeous eyes go from his face to the pack of Skittles, and there’s another sniffle before you nod. “Thanks.” You use your free hand to rub a forearm against both your cheeks, then you turn the paln up so he can drop some candy on your hand. In one motion, you shove all of them inside your mouth, and talk just like that. “Most people would ask.”

“Eh. Most people are kinda stupid,” he learned that the hard way.

It makes you laugh, and Steve holds back his grin. Good. “Can’t argue with that.”

“It’s concerning, isn’t it?” he asks in a theatrical tone. “The level of stupidity we’re working under as a society.”

With another laugh, you do the thing where you narrow your eyes at him while you smoke. Then, you ask, “Why are you always trying to send me into an existential crisis when we talk?”

It’s his turn to laugh. “I’m sorry. Really—my bad. I walk with too many smartasses.” Way too many. At least four or five too many.

“Ah. I have that problem, too. Mine are smartasses and condescending hags, so I think I win.”

“What?” He asks with a confused laugh.

“My dad’s friends. The biker gang. They’re all ‘older and wiser’ and all that shit.”

Steve nods. “Okay, yeah. You win this round.” There’s a moment of silence where you two just smoke, and he feels his heart starting the first steps of its little wild dance. His eyes get caught in the smeared make-up, and Steve feels his wicked side awaken at the sight. “You want us to go throw eggs at their car? Whoever it was that stood you up,” he clarifies. “There’s a convenience store right in this street. We could buy eggs and a six pack. Can’t guarantee it’ll make them less of a dick, but it would probably make you feel better.”

As he offers, your mouth slowly opens and your eyes widen, but with mirth. You laugh happily when he finishes it. “Your solution is to egg people’s cars? That sounds so mature, Steve.”

Just because he knows you’re teasing, Steve shrugs his shoulders. “My smartasses are a bunch of teenagers I somehow ended up friends with. ‘m not above being petty. It works.”

“It sure does. I’d know.”

The next smile is more of a shared connection.

Steve’s heart does the thing where it checks how tightly it’s located inside his chest. It wants to get out every time you smile, but he’s too entranced by your overall presence to care. “We can even throw flour on top of it,” he smirks around the filter. “Makes a goey fucking mess. Horrible to clean.”

Loud laughter comes, and Steve kind of wants to start baking a whole recipe on top of this hypothetical car just to see if he can make you smile a bit longer.

“You’re a child, oh my god.”

“Incorrect. Would a child be able to buy us a six pack? Hm?”

Still giggling, you shake your head at him and turn your body away from his, smoking with your gaze fixed on the wall ahead of you. “Would love to do that, but—wouldn’t work.”

“No?”

“No. I’d have to know where their car is, wouldn’t I?” Your whole face falls again, and Steve wants to know who was it that had the audacity of leaving you waiting. Of making someone as genuine and open as you cry on a Thursday night—he feels jittery with the need to get that look off your face, but then you follow with, “No one stood me up.”

It was barely a whisper.

“I mean—she did stand me up. Just not the way you think, probably.” You turn to him again, smoke covering your face. “I was waitin’ for my mom.”

Inside his mind, the whole picture shifts from white to black in the blink of an eye, and the pain on your face gains new light under the confession. Steve’s breathless, spechless for a moment, most of all because he knows how much this hurts, he knows the taste of the pain created by that specific person in your life, and it doesn’t hurt—it burns.

“I thought it’d be different,” you continue despite his silence. You scoff, turning away from him again. “I genuinely thought it’d be fucking different because—’cause I’m an idiot. I’m—” your voice cracks, and Steve finds his voice again.

“Hey.” He waits for your eyes to be on his so you know where his heart is when he speaks. “I know you’re not an idiot. I’m aware this is the second time we’ve ever spoken, but I’m a hundred per cent confident on that fact. And also, I know she’s the loser in this little situation here. I don’t know your mom, but your mom sounds a bit like mine and if she is, no offense, but your mother’s a dick. And you shouldn’t cry over someone who’s a dick.”

It’s crazy to see the flash of recognition in someone’s eyes.

Steve says ‘your mom sounds a bit like mine’ and it may not be physical or visible, but a wall lifts between you two. He feels it.

“It’s hard,” you say with a sad nod.

Steve takes a drag off his cigarette because right now, the taste in his mouth is worse than nicotine, and just shrugs. “It is. But they’re not worth it.” No one who treats you like shit is. “I mean—it’s why I stopped expecting things from people in the first place. They’re the ones that disappoint us the most.”

“I’d love to do that but I could swear it was impossible.”

“It’s continuous work,” says Steve. I still care sometimes. It hurts like hell, and then I convince myself to let it go. “I heard something from a friend once that kinda changed my whole life, and I cling to that, I guess.”

“What did they say?”

“They said ‘everyone’s living their lives for the first time here, so stop expecting anyone to know for sure what they’re doing at all times’ and… it made me think of stuff.”

Silence covers the air as your eyes unfocus from him, and he imagines the words dancing around your brain the same way it did for him.

Your cigarettes are almost over, and you nod before stubbing yours under your boot. “Smart,” you offer. “Is that you’re so chill about being stood up?”

Steve laughs, albeit awkwardly. “Uh—yes, and no? I was stood up, but also ‘not like that’. Robin didn’t come ‘cause she has a date so here I am.”

This time your face contors in confusion. “Short haired girl? Talks a thousand miles an hour? That Robin?”

“You know her!” he exclaims happily.

“Your girlfriend stood you up ‘cause she has a date?”

“What?! No. Robin’s not my girlfriend,” he frowns.

“No? The one who walks with her arms linked in yours and calls you ‘babe’ is not your girlfriend?” you ask with a knowing smile.

“Nope. We’re just—” he stops, actually taking in your words, then smiles to the side. “Wait. How d’you know what she calls me?”

You look away from him with a roll of your eyes, but Steve’s paying attention to how the top of your cheeks are a little peachy now. “The hair and the loud laughing make you two kinda hard to miss.”

“Oh.” Steve knows that to be true, but his past self is cackling inside of him because he’s been a player, once in his life. He knows how to recognize someone checking to see if who they’re talking to has a partner or not just fine. “Well—that’s just Robin for you. Loud laughs and many words. And also, very much not my girlfriend. On a date, remember? We’re best friends. No girlfriends for Steve,” but one for Robin, he adds mentally with a grin.

You smile back. “Hope her date goes great.”

“Oh, I know it will.” It’s fated. Steve stubs his cigarette too, then gets the tickets out of his other back pocket. “Me, on the other hand, need another person to watch Dirty Dancing with me. You’d happen to know someone who’s around the cinema and wouldn’t mind keeping me company for the next couple of hours?”

Your eyes go to the ticket, and Steve is sure he’s not making up the change in posture. You rub one hand on your bicep, then say, “Dirty Dancing? Really?”

“It’s supposed to be great,” he wiggles the tickets in front of you.

“Would lil’ old me suffice?” you offer slowly, smiling shyly.

Steve widens his smile as a response. “Wanna go to the restroom first? I’ll go buys us a Coke.”

“I’ll get us more Skittles, too,” you add.

“Perfect.”

When he opens he opens the door to let you in and goes to buy the drinks, Steve can’t help but muse and smile at how his evening went from stood on to watching Dirty Dancing with Bird. It’s kind of… perfect

Then you come back from the restroom and joins him at the candy counter, and Steve sees you’ve fixed your make-up. You tease him with an, “If the movie sucks you owe me a couple of hours, Steve,” and he can only laugh as a response. That’s also perfect.

During the first five minutes of the movie, Steve feels the familiar, yet unfamiliar anxiety of being next to someone your body and mind are aware of. He sits next to you, but lets the armrest free so you can use, then starts off by offering you the candy and asking if you’ve heard anything about it.

Talking to you is easy.

Looking away from your lips as he does so, not that much. Paying attention to the words and trying to figure out what’s that smell he gets from your leather jacket are incompatible tasks, so Steve wills his mind to focus on the words. It’s okay that he likes your tasty, flowery scent underneath the smell of smoke.

It’s okay that he keeps stealing glances to the side as the movie progresses, because Steve feels when you do it, as well.

The air is slowly permeated with that tingle under your skin that hums all the time. This is a date. This is a date, it says.

Steve feels how hot his cheek is during the scene where the actors start getting so close they share the same breath, and his lips and mouth dry up. It’s unnerving to sit next to someone whose body heat you can feel, and know it’s only a mirror of what’s happening to you.

He’d forgotten what this feels like.

Scratch that—Steve’s had it similar, but it had never been this… electrifying.

At one point, he leans in to whisper, “Isn’t he too old for her?”

To which you answer with. “I’m… pretty sure he’s supposed to be, like, three years older or something?” you shrug, shoulder inching closer to his.

And that’s where you both stay.

Biceps touching one another, sharing Skittles and talking in hushed whispers when something funny comes up.

Time flies by as it does when things are good, and sooner than he’d like, Steve’s walking you out.

In slow, deliberate steps. Taking his time with each movement, because fuck it, he wants to stay here. Sharing time with you, even if it’ll make the minutes feel like a blink or an exchange of looks feel like minutes.

He relaxes when he sees you gathering their trash, item by item. Smiles.

“Do you like these type of movies or was this your best friend’s idea before she ditched you for that hot date?” you ask him.

Shoving both hands inside his pocket so he doesn’t do something dumb like putting an arm around your shoulder, Steve answers. “Nah. I like them. I’ll deny it if you tell anyone, but—my idea,” he shrugs.

You start walking after him in measured steps. “Secrets go with me to my grave. Don’t worry.”

“Really? You’re a good secret keeper?”

“Excellent.” You’ve been smiling since the middle of the movie, and Steve wonders if your cheeks hurt like his do. “Even when people cross me over—what they’ve told me dies with me.”

“That’s pretty awesome. What if… they weren’t shitty to you, but you just discovered that they’re shitty?” he muses.

You think about it for only a second. The scoff is vicious, “Fuck them, then. Hi, news anchor?” You pretend your free hand is a celphone and bring it to your ear. “Can I expose a bitch?”

Steve bursts out laughing while you make a score with all the trash, and you two keep walking out of the theater. “Fair, fair.” He makes sure he’s walking right by your side. The glances he steals are better now—he catches your eyes on him already most of the time. “I’m a good secret keeper, too. Now, at least. Not so sure about before.”

“Hmm. Were you bad before, Harrington?”

Ignore how hot you feel. No one’s made him blush this easy, but your tone—he forces a laugh. “I was a bit of a douchebag.”

“Outch. Really?”

He smiles at your disbelief. “Really. ‘m happy you sound surprised.”

“Oh, I’m very surprised. You seem like a really nice guy.”

“‘m flattered,” he puts a hand over his heart, then runs it through his hair. “Took a few hits to the head, but. Got there, I think,” he laughs at himself.

“It’s what it seems.” You two step outside the cinema, and Steve watches you stop. “I think no one can be really judged for who they are before they’re eighteen—not seriously. We’re all literally beginning to learn who we are. Feels silly to think someone would figure out how to be decent at every aspect by the time they’re fifteen, right?”

He thinks about it, and—yes. You’re right. “Very right.” He’s nodding along when he sees you pulling out your pack.

“D’you mind?” you ask, to which he shakes his head.

“No, not at all.” He gets his own, loving the opportunity for another couple of minutes. He looks around the parking lot then, in search for what he imagines is your ride. “Where’s the bike?” He asks. “I’m trying to picture what you drive—dunno if I wanna go for red tinted or black. How big it is.” Placing the cigarette between his lips he turns back to you. “You drive a bike, right?”

You blow out the smoke to the side and smiles at him. “Yup.” Then, there’s a shake of your head. “It’s not here, though.”

“You walked?” he frowns.

Another shake. “Dad dropped me off. My younger brother’s borrowed Pegasus to go to a conversation in the middle of fucking nowhere. He’s back only on Sunday.”

Steve tries not to smile too hard at the new information. “What a nice older sister. You let him borrow stuff,” he coos. “Literally every sibling I know lives off of banter and blackmails.”

Good god, Steve fucking adores the way you laugh. “Oh—there’re plenty of that. Trust me. I borrowed my bike because he’s been less of a little shit lately and I was feeling generous. It’s gonna come back to bite him in the ass,” you finish with a devious smile.

Steve pretends to be disappointed, tsk tsk. “Not a single good heart out there anymore.”

“Single child, I assume,” you point at him. He winces, and you laugh again, turning his frown into a smile. “You wouldn’t get it. It’s our love language.”

“Siblings’ love language is i’ll blackmail you at every chance I have?”

“That, and I wouldnt get you a glass of water even if I was literally in the kitchen, but I’ll kill anyone who even looks at you funny.”

“That’s—” he laughs. “Okay. You’re right—I don’t get it. I’ve seen it happen, and it just baffles me.” He takes a drag, then lets his eyes stay on you. “Now—I’m contradicting myself here by offering this ‘cause I just said there are no good hearts out there anymore, but I can’t let you walk or take a bus home, so—can I drive you home?”

Steve watches as you blow the smoke away from his face again, looking at him like you’re reading his mind. “I’d just call my dad,” you say in a soft-spoken tone. “Perks of being the boss is that you get to leave work whenever you want.”

Being coy with you—inneficient, Steve notes. He breathes in through his nose, and tries again. “You could. Lemme rephrase it, though—I’d like to drive you home.” 

He bites on his tongue to not add ‘feel free to say no’. Gentleman words and true to his heart, but Steve doesn’t want you to say no.

Your smile falters, but the happiness only travels north to your look. “I’d like that.”

He hears violins, and his smile is back. “Cool. Good.” His cheeks hurt. “So,” Steve takes a drag so the nicotine will do something at keeping his body at bay. “That scene where he lifts her up. What did you think?”

When you giggle, Steve wants to sigh. His body may be kept behaved, but his heart is its own thing in your presence. “Okay, I know it was cheesy, and I knew we knew it was gonna happen, but…” your shoulders come up as if you’re trying to hide yourself. “It was kind of iconic. Don’t you think?”

Steve has to agree.

He talks about the bits he liked — and he remembers — while you two finish your cigarettes, and you tell him the bits you thought were unnecessary.

It’s been a while since his fun had been ‘discussing entertainment’ and it feels so normal and easy.

Steve loves every second of it.

He guides you to his car when you two are done and the conversation’s shifted between Dirty Dancing to favorite movies of all times, and Steve will have that tingle in his cheek muscles tomorrow because he almost dies laughing at discovering your list of must watch.

“You are so weird!” He teases you, slapping his wheel. “What the hell.”

“They’re fun!” you argue.

“Those are extremely creepy movies, Bird. They are. And I only know that ‘cause I worked at a video store—I have no clue how you can watch that stuff.”

“You’re scared of them, Steve?” you tease back.

“I am!” He admits. “I’m terrified. What the hell goes on inside your mind—holy shit.”

“A lot,” you laugh darkly. “Oh, darling.”

“Okay, that was an evil witch laugh, and should I just leave you here on the road?” He is not turned on by your mean cackle, or the way you said ‘darling’. Steve feels his face betraying his delusional thoughts.

“You’re funny. Let me say this,” you start, then go on a rant about horror pictures and psychological thrillers that… actually give him something to think about.

Double fuck.

Is Steve ever gonna stop wanting to hear the things that come out of your mouth?

He’s led by your directions all the way until your house, and finds out it’s a few blocks away from his. He keeps that information to himself, for now.

When he parks outside, there are no lights on and he feels the sweat clamming his palms. “Well. You’ve given me something to think about,” he tells you. “Something disturbing, but… interesting.” He takes a deep breath, thinking do it, do it, just do it, and, “Thanks for the company, Bird.”

He opens his own door right after that, walks (skips) to the passanger side, and opens your door, feeling the heat crawl all the way up to his ears.

You exit the car with a similar look on your face—eyes blinking in surprise, and swalloing visibly.

Steve thinks to himself: she can fight off three people with those two hands.

He closes the door behind you, and keeps his body in front of yours, blocking your way.

By logic, you could remove him from your path in—Steve can only imagine how many ways. Many. He trembles, and sees your eyes fixed on his neck and ears.

“Do I owe you those two hours?”

His tone is almost private.

You lean your back against his car, and Steve can only exhale. Your eyes finally focus on his. “Nah.” You lick your lips. “Movie was good.”

“Just the movie?” He dares.

Winning smile. Steve wants to smile, too, but fuck, he wants to kiss you a lot more. “Company was quite good, too.”

“Quite good,” he echoes, inching closer. “Damn. I’ve really lost my touch, huh?”

You tilt your head at him, and take a second to reply. “Haven’t taken many people to see sexy movies with hot people dancing in a while?”

Steve shakes his head, laughing. He’s only inches away now, and he stops there. “Nope. Stopped trying after a while.”

“Hmm. Were you trying tonight?”

“Not well enough, apparently.” I’ll try harder next time. Steve’s eyes fall on your lips, and he can see your chest expanding with the breath you take. “Do I get a second chance?”

“Depends,” you answer in the same heartbeat.

“On what?”

“On how you kiss me.”

Steve’s stunned—on how you kiss me.

He’s never been challenged to perform with greatness before, but he takes that as one. He measures every movement. The way his hand goes up to your neck, slowly enveloping it until he has a good grip. He licks his lip at the sight of yours, a move you mimic subconsciously. He’s so close that his eyes close, and when Steve presses his mouth on yours, he feels your hands going around his waist until they’re holding his back and pulling him close.

When your lips move, he thinks—that’s why. No one who kisses like you do would want a second chance unless they could keep it up.

Steve gives as good as he gets, and is rewarded by your nails clawing at his back.

He likes the way you gasp when he swirls his tongue on yours, and it gets even better when he starts guiding the speed of the kiss with his hand on your nape and the other on your face. You like it—enjoy being guided, and pressed firmly against the car.

The little noises you make that Steve keeps guarded under seven keys somewhere in his mind tell him so.

He kisses you until you’ve sucked all the oxygen left in his lungs, then he pulls back to get a look.

Steve sighs when he opens his eyes.

You look better than he imagined.

He swallows thickly, and runs his nose against your cheek. “Okay,” you whisper. “Uhm—second chance. Granted.”

Steve laughs.

He’s gonna take you on the best damn date you’ve ever had. He has no idea how, but he will. Or he’s gonna crash trying.

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[foreverindreamlandd]

My Paladin in Shining Armor

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

WC: 1.1k

Summary: After yet another successful gig for Corroded Coffin, shit goes down with the gross bartender while you're packing up the van.

Note: This is my second submission for @nexusnyx 7k sleepover party! We get some fun protective Eddie and the classic hurt/comfort moment. Only warning is the asshole bartender who tries to start shit but Eddie arrives just in time ;) Also this is unedited sorry not sorry!

The prompt I chose is:

The night we broke a lot of things. ["I don't care about any of that. Are you okay?"]

~~~~~~

“Babe, you were incredible tonight,” Eddie said, tucking his hands into the back pockets of your jeans as he pulled you closer. “I swear, no one on this planet plays keys better than my girl.”

“Eddie,” you whined, giggling as he peppered kisses along your neck. “You’re such a flatterer. Besides, I may be good on keys, but no one shreds on guitar like you.”

He pulled away, beaming with pride. “Together? We’re unstoppable.”

With that, the two of you soaked up the silent moment alone on stage, Eddie leaning in for a deep, passionate kiss.

A year ago, when you first auditioned to join Corroded Coffin, you never would have believed that the band’s handsome, kind, stupidly talented guitar player would ever look twice at you. 

Looking back, it was clear that your brain was actively shutting out the way his eyes lit up when you walked into the makeshift studio in Gareth’s garage. The way he couldn’t stop smiling when he watched you play. The way he always made an excuse to touch you, either tapping your shoulders, or holding your hand to help you into the van, his leg brushing up against yours when you sat on the couch writing new music.

Even though it took you way too long to get your head out of your ass and realize he felt the same way about you, you would have gone through the months of emotional turmoil again and again if it meant sharing this moment with him.

Getting to play music you loved alongside the man you loved was the gift that kept on giving. It was a total and absolute dream. One that you never wanted to wake up from. 

After your regularly scheduled post-show makeout session, you joined the rest of the band in packing up the van. Once it was all set, the other two guys said they were going to hit up the arcade right down the road and left the two of you be. 

Meaning you and Eddie could drive straight to his trailer and spend the rest of the night being your gross, in love selves.

Just as you were about to close the doors to the back of the van, a cool gust of wind sent a shiver down your body, and you stepped inside to dig through the band equipment to find your leather jacket. 

“Hey babe? Have you seen my jacket?” you called out, lifting Eddie’s guitar case.

“Did you leave it inside the venue?” he suggested, stepping inside to help with the search.

You stood straight. “Possibly. I’ll go check.”

He rested a hand on your arm to stop you. “Absolutely not. M’lady shall stay here and I will retrieve her garment!”

You giggled, scrunching your nose before leaning forward for a chaste kiss. “Thank you, love.”

He stepped out of the van, turning to give you an extravagant bow. “Anything for you, m’lady,” he said, then jogged out of site.

You continued rifling through the shit inside the van, just in case it was underneath something and you might have missed it upon your initial search.

“Can I help you, sweetheart?”

You froze. That voice wasn’t Eddie’s. 

“I’m fine,” you said quickly, keeping your eyes on the ground of the vehicle in hopes that it would deter the man outside.

“You sure?” he said, and suddenly you felt a jostle as he stepped inside. You whipped around and came face to face with the gross bartender from the venue. “Happy to help you with anything you need.”

He was close enough now for you to smell the stench of alcohol on his breath and you stepped back. “Really, I’m fine. You can go now.” There was a bite in your tone to hide your fear.

The man scowled. “Gotta say, sweetheart, I really don’t like your tone.” He grabbed your arms and you yelped in pain, pulling back with all the strength you could muster.

Unfortunately, it caused you to trip over the bass drum and you fell backwards, crashing into the band equipment.

“Why so desperate to get away, sweetheart?” the man said, standing over you. “I just want to help-”

You kicked him in the chest with all your might, and the man was thrown backwards out of the band, knocking over more of the gear before falling to the ground.

He groaned in pain, staring at the scrape on his arm before scrambling up to stand. “You little bitch-”

Just as his right foot rested on the floor of the van, you saw a hand on his shoulder before he was whipped around.

Where his cheek was met with Eddie’s fist.

The man was back on the ground, groaning even more.

Eddie grabbed him by the scruff, pulling his head back so that his lips were by the man’s ear.

“If you ever…so much as look at her again, I will shove a drumstick so far up your ass that you won’t be able to walk, and then I’ll run you over with my van. You hear?”

The man yiped in response, and Eddie shoved him forward, causing him to fall back on the ground before getting up and running down the street at full speed.

Eddie paid him no mind, just jumped into the van. His eyes - just moments ago filled with more rage than you thought possible - now filled with concern as his hands ran up your arms to your shoulders, then to your neck, until they gently held either side of your face.

“Are you okay?” he whispered, voice nearly breaking.

Your bottom lip trembled as tears rolled down your face. “I’m okay, but Eddie…” you looked around the van at the equipment. “I think some of our gear is broken. Your guitar...where is your guitar-”

“I don’t care about any of that. Are you okay?” he pleaded, thumbs wiping away the tears.

You started nodding, but the longer his doe eyes stared into yours, the more your resolve crumbled.

A sob escaped you and he immediately wrapped his arms around you.

“It’s okay, baby,” he murmured, running a hand over your hair. “I’m here. You’re okay.” He kissed the crown of your head. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry this happened.”

You shook your head against his chest. “Don’t be sorry. You came just in time. My paladin in shining armor.”

Eddie let out a small chuckle, squeezing you tighter. “I’ll always be here to protect you, m’lady. Even when the fiery gates of Mordor are at our back, I’ll never leave your side.”

“And I’ll never forget my jacket ever again.”

The two of you burst out laughing before becoming mesmerized yet again with another tender kiss.

~~~~~~

Thank you for reading! :)

#eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #stranger things #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #nyxieparty7k #nyx #nightskychallenge

[nexusnyx]

Hearts Are Heavy

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 3 — The night I just couldn’t take it. "I usually keep quiet, but… not today.” TASM!Peter Parker x F!Reader [2.3k]

⚠️ Mentions violence and death, injuries, blood. | 🏷️ Established relationship, hurt/comfort, body worship, fluff.

SUMMARY: It had been a year since Peter returned from the portal with newfound happiness and a lighter step. It's also been a year of him throwing himself into near-death situations every month, and you're growing tired of it. Of seeing him hurt, of worrying if this will be the morning you see him last. Tonight, when he returns dripping red on your carpet, you break.

Blood only came out of fabrics when you washed it with the correct products and under a certain time-period from when the stain was made.

It's not knowledge you'd like to have stored in the front of your brain, but your life was regular in every aspect—except your boyfriend.

When he gets home — at 12:54 am, you note, because you hear the sound of keys jiggling and almost die of a heart attack on the couch and the digital clock sitting beside the TV is the only light in the room at the moment — you do the nightly routine:

hold your heart close; pray to the skies—please, please, be okay.

"Peter?"

"Yeah. It's me."

His voice is small, and that tone has a personal grip on your insides.

Before he can finish crossing the living room, you're already up and walking to the bathroom for the first-aid kit.

Peter waits for you with his hand gripping his ribs, a familiar sight to you by now.

"What happened this time?" You ask, taking the distilled water, gauze, and other utensils out of the kit.

Peter's mask is on the floor, and a thought rushes through your mind: at least he's not dripping blood on your floor. Then, it breaks your heart.

"Why do I feel like Artemis is judging me?" he asks instead of answering.

When you look up at him, Peter's eyes are somewhere over your shoulder, so you follow his gaze only to find your cat, Artemis, lying on top of the clock on your TV stand and staring straight at Peter.

Right through his soul.

You scoff and look back at him. "Wonder why," you let out bitterly. "Take this off."

Peter helps you remove his suit.

The first few times this happened, your fingers trembled all night long, almost getting in the way of you being of any actual help to him. They shook as they cleaned his wounds and your vision watered, too, obliging you to wipe your face multiple times so you could have a better view.

"Artemis isn't the only one mad tonight, is she?" Peter asks in that little voice of his. The one who's trying to be cute when he knows he's in trouble.

Usually, that voice comes whenever he has to ditch a date because of supernatural emergencies or things of the sort. It comes out when he's trying to get away with using his powers in "inconspicuous" manners, as he likes to call it—as if anything about Peter is shy, and quiet.

"Babe," he calls.

You stop cleaning the wound on his ribs to pin him with a look.

"I'm gonna need you to be quiet so I do this without getting so angry I'll open up a hole in you myself," your voice comes out in an angry whisper.

Peter's startled by it. "What? Why?!" He sounds so genuine in his confusion that you want to poke at the open wound where a bullet likely grazed him tonight. "What did I do?"

"Peter." Not now. Let me do this. "I love you with all of me, but please, shush."

That quiets his mouth for the time being.

As you clean him, you think about the agreement you made with yourself when he revealed his life's biggest secret to you:

i'll be by your side. i adore you for you who are, peter. whether that's spider-man, or peter parker. i love you.

The stakes were high, and you signed the dotted line.

Now, two years and a lot of blood spilled later, you wanted to go back in time.

You knew it was possible—all the tales of the other universe Peter visited made the foundation for the very thing you studied, but it wasn't enough.

If you could meet the you of two years ago, you'd slap her across the face as hard as possible and demand her to make one addition to that promise you made him: I'll be by your side, for as long as you'll have me, and as long as you do think of yourself, too.

Peter thought of others first, second, and third.

Then it came him, maybe.

That killed you.

"All done."

Peter looks down at your work, and breathes out a sigh of relief.

"I'm gonna cook you some food. You didn't eat before leaving, did you?" you ask, putting everything away.

Sensing that asking you questions is still not in his field, Peter just shakes his head at your question.

"Ok. Why don't you go shower while I heat up my leftovers?"

"Alright," Peter nods. He gets up from the chair, but stops you from turning around with a hand on your wrist.

Peter has total control over your body.

The hand holding you is gentle, but it keeps you in place.

He slowly lifts the other hand until it cups your jawline, and then slowly, Peter puts his lips on yours for the first time today. It's a chaste, soft kiss, but it threatens to break the damns you've so carefully curated for moments like this.

Even then, you accept it.

It would go against your nature to refuse his touch.

Peter pulls back slowly, and with his face still close to yours, whispers, "Thank you."

You nod, unable to find your voice, and Peter looks like he wants to say more, but thinks better of it.

The thing is—you knew what you were getting yourself into.

When you first stumbled on him running through your University's floor late at night, the spider-suit on with no mask, blood dripping from his temple and sheer determination set in his eyes—you knew that the DNA which made Peter was the rare kind.

Peter did what he did because he cared, first and foremost, but you still feel sick thinking about the results.

The bruises, cuts, holes, the blood—

Not anymore.

You're shaking just the slightest when he sits down on your tiny table, and he eats in silence while you go put his dirty suit in a soaking bowl to get the blood out easier.

All you need is for him to understand.

You'll make him understand.

Shaking off all your worries and insecurities, you tell yourself that you will make Peter Parker listen to you.

No matter how stubborn, how unyielding he is in this or any other Universe—you'd be a damn coward to not try.

Peter finishes eating while you're mindlessly rubbing coconut soap on his suit's bloody stains, and you feel his presence on your back before you hear his steps.

His arms wrap around your waist slowly.

"Can we go to bed?" he kisses your nape.

Your body shudders. Please listen to me, my love. "Yeah." You dry your hands on your pants, and let yourself be guided by Peter to your bedroom.

He's good at doing more than one thing simultaneously, like walking and half-carrying you in his arms until you're both in bed, nestled underneath the blankets.

It's almost 2am, but sleep will evade your mind until the sun rises if you keep your mouth shut, so when you two are laying down comfortably, you turn to the side and look at him.

"Peter."

"Yeah?" he turns on his side, too. Your floor-to-ceiling old window lets in the moonlight in ways that make him look ethereal, even when he has scratches on his cheek.

"I usually keep quiet, but..." it's hurting me. It's physically and mentally killing me, love. You shake your head, "not today."

"Keep quiet about what?" he asks, draping one arm around your body.

"You've been overworking yourself," you tell him.

Peter frowns. "I'm not tired, baby."

"That's not—" you shake your head again, breathing in deeply to keep your calm. "It's not about being tired."

"Y/n," Peter uses your name softly, inching his face closer. "I heal faster. Tomorrow, I'll basically be brand new. It's fi—"

"Don't say it!" It's not fine. Peter's thrown back by you raising your voice, and he must sense the urgency in your tone. "Peter, I wouldn't care if you had the best regenerative superpowers on the whole planet and everything healed as soon as it happened. That's not what this is about. It's about the fact that you're hurting yourself. Every day. Every week. And—" it kills me. You're shaking, despite your best efforts, and fuck. "And I don't think you care."

“I do,” he says, tone pleading.

“Really?” Evidence pointed otherwise.

“Yeah. I do, baby,” he says.

You shake your head. It’s not enough. “See—I don’t think you do. Not enough.” You lift your upper body on your forearm, resting it on Peter’s pillow by his head. With your other hand, you cradle his face. “Peter. I need you to be more careful with yourself,” you whisper, feeling the cracks around the edges. I can’t watch you be hurt like this—all the damn time. “This body here,” your hand cupping his face slides down through his neck, collarbones, until it reaches the middle of his chest and covers his heart. Everything. “It’s important. This body guards your soul, Peter. D’you get that?” Your face and his contain their own gravity when you two are this close, and soon enough, you’re breathing his air, feeling wetness sliding down your cheek. “The city needs you, and I get that. I respect it. I remember you saying this world only has a handful of you supers and helping people would always be a part of you. But I need you too, Peter. I need you more than them, if I’m being honest. And selfish. But I’ll be selfish—I don’t care. I love one of the most selfless people alive right now, and I just need you to take good care of the body that holds this heart here,” you squeeze your hand on top of his chest.

Peter’s quiet sob almost makes you stop talking. But you can’t.

“This heart’s everything to me.”

Even bruised, Peter is fast.

The second your hand covered the area of his heart, his came to rest on top of yours, and that’s the same hand Peter uses to pull you in for a bruising kiss.

He kisses you hot, feverish, and passionate.

Even through tears, your body answers to him quicker than the speed of light.

Kissing while crying is not gracious.

Peter pulls back for air more and his lips don’t stop trembling, even when they keep leaving trails of kisses on your mouth, cheeks, neck.

You have to hold his face with both of your hands to calm him down enough for you to pour the desire attached to every single word you said.

He stills under the kiss, then melts into it.

Even though he has an Illiad of words inside his mind, Peter opens up his lips and licks his way into your mouth, knowing that’s a one-way ticket to very little words when the two of you are laying down in this bed.

You love how he holds you when it’s just the two of you.

Peter’s not scared to puppet you to his will—he knows it drives you insane when he uses his strength on you without fear that he’ll break you; with enough trust that he knows what is too much or not. He pulls you by the waist to be on top of him, and you go willingly, straddling his lap.

With one leg on each side of his waist, Peter lifts you up by the neck to get a better look at you.

“Wait—” he asks, breathless. You wait, making yourself comfortable. Each forearm cages a side of his head, and you love to be this close to him. To smell the soap on his skin, and feel his chest going up and down underneath yours. “I promise I’ll take better care of myself,” Peter waits for your eyes to be on his before saying it.

For a second, you’re stunned.

He actually promised.

Peter never breaks his promise.

A smile blossoms on your face, and Peter smiles as a reflex of it. “You promised,” you whisper, awed.

Peter nods. He brings a hand to your face, fingertips brushing over your features. “Yeah. I get it, now.” He strokes your cheeks, and you have to force your eyes to stay open. “I got so used to the prices of living life like this that I—some of it just lost meaning after a while. But I get it. If it was you being this reckless with yourself—” Peter’s words are cut short, hips lips hanging open wide. He laughs humorlessly. “I’d be livid.”

“It’s hard being mad when all you feel is this—worry that’s too big for you,” you mutter.

Peter swallows visibly. He quits stroking your face and brushing your hair, then cups your face in his hand. “Thank you,” he whispers. “For slapping some sense in my head every now and then.”

The words you said to him when you two first met years ago as assistants at the lab are out of your lips as an instinct, “Lookin’ after you is kinda my job.”

Peter laughs at them, smiling big at the nostalgia attached to them. The echos across your years of relationship—the words were muttered by him behind his mask, too, when you had no idea it was Peter, it was said by him angrily when you two first had a fight.

“I like our job,” he says.

Then, he dives for another kiss.

As long as Peter keeps his promises, things would be fine.

Out of everything and all the infinite possibilities in this world (or others), all you needed was him, anyway.

↳ my inbox 💌 | tip jar ♡ | ✒️ masterlist | 🏷 library ↲

☆ join my writing challenge ☆

#usernexusnyx #nyxieparty7k #nightskychallenge #peter parker #peter parker drabble #peter parker fic #peter parker imagine #peter parker x you #peter parker x reader #tasm fic #tasm peter parker #tasm smut #tasm peter #tasm fanfiction #tasm!spiderman x you #tasm!peter imagine #tasm!peter fanfiction #tasm!peter x oc #tasm!peter fluff #tasm!peter angst #tasm!peter parker #tasm!peter x y/n #andrew!peter fanfiction #andrew!peter x you #andrew!peter smut #andrew!peter fluff #andrew!peter imagine #andrew!peter parker #andrew!peter angst #tasm peter x reader

[nexusnyx]

1 Year Sleepover 🌙

Hello, lovelies, and welcome to my 1 Year Sleepover and 7k Celebration Party!✨

First of all: thank you from the bottom of my heart to every single one of you who's followed me so far. To the ones that comment, talk to me, share, and give me new ideas for stories and more reasons to keep coming, posting & sharing my silly little scenarios: you're my MVPs. I love you. Here's me magically smooching your forehead: *mwah*.

Second: to my adored mutuals, the tag in this post is no pressure, of course! I come here to cordially invite you all thought to my sleepover — welcome to my cabin, make yourself at home, can I get you anything? — and tell you all that we can do together. Also, a big shout out to @buckysbarnes and her immensurable talent for making me my sleepover gif! I love you, Malin.

Last but not least, I just wanna say that this safe space and little corner of the internet has made me happy and smile a lot this past year. I hope you know I mean it :)

Without further ado, let's go ✨

(Everything I post from this sleepover will be tagged: #nyxieparty7k. From posts to one-shots, drabbles, questions asked & answered—everything will have the #nyxieparty7k tag, so if you don't like this kind of thing, feel free to mute it :D)

⋅☾ The Night Sky Challenge ☽⋅

— #nightskychallenge —

I present to you my 1st Writing Challenge!

The theme is inspired by me, clearly :) I'll list below the fortnight challenge I intend to follow for July. The idea is for me to post a scenario, either a short blurb or a longer one-shot with each prompt for two weeks straight (11—25), giving me some time to work on other things if I want to, but I may not be able to do all of them.

If you want to write any of these, I'll be honored to read them on the day of the Challenge. Tag me with #nightskychallenge and I will read and share them. The settings for (almost!) all of them will be my realm: the night. Any characters are welcome, any amount (or lack of; smut writers, gimme your all, too) plot, as well as a range: if you want to write something platonic, friendly, enemies to lovers, just enemies, long lost lovers—everything is on the table.

The prompt is given to you in bold (i.e. The Night I said 'I love you first'), and in brackets, I added a sentence prompt (i.e. ["I can't believe you said it first. Of course you would."] that you may or may not use. It's up to you.

Without further ado, here's The Night Sky Challenge:

The night we first met. ["Who the hell are you?"]

The night your lips touched mine for the first time. ["Wait. Come back here. Do that again.]

The night I just couldn't take it. ["I usually keep quiet, but... not today."]

The night I left and came back hours later. ["I had to think."]

The night I saw everything in your eyes. ["It's like looking in a magic pond... there's so much hidden."]

The night we said goodbye. ["This is harder than I thought it'd be."]

The night I lost a bet. ["You know what this means, don't you?"]

The night it finally happens. ["I've been waiting for this for a long time now."]

The night you make a decision. ["You told me to think about it, and I did."]

The night we broke a lot of things. ["I don't care about any of that. Are you okay?"]

The night we were remembered where everything started. ["I think about it a lot, you know? This, right here. You."]

The night where rain poured, but my thoughts still remained louder. ["C'mere. I know that look on your face."]

The night we shared all the secrets. ["Why are you looking at me like that?"]

The day when our love shone like the brightest star in the sky. ["Just—shut up and kiss me. Oh my god."]

If you participate, I hope you have fun!

⋅☾ Sleepover Fun ☽⋅

As usual, there are also fun games we can play if writing is not what's on your mind. Here are some ideas:

🎵 We can talk song recs, playlist recs, I can give you a song from my playlists put on shuffle, or anything else on your mind.

💌 Ask me for fic recs, recommend me stuff, talk to me or just ask me random things. I love talking to you!

🃏 Games: FMK, Would you rather + Character, cast your mutuals as, this or that.

💭 Tell me a headcanon about a character, and I'll say if I agree or not, maybe add a little something to it ;)

Lovely mutuals no pressure tag:

💗 @mrsmischief209 — @cordiformity — @fandoms-writings — @buckspumpkin — @buckysbarnes — @theokatz — @mysticatto — @foreverindreamlandd — @zellington — @sweetdreamsbuck — @shawnie--jo — @bvckysmoon — @cocoamoonmalfoy — @lex-the-flex — @pellucid-constellations — @cityofstqrs !

(whispers: i adore each and every single one of you all, you super talented and incredible beings. mwah!)

#usernexusnyx #nyxieparty7k #writing challenge #writing prompt #writing scenarios #writing schedule #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #nightskychallenge #joel miller imagine #eddie munson imagine #joel miller fanfiction #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader

[nexusnyx]

#nightskychallenge

oh, i'll also be reading the works of people who did my writing challenge today and tomorrow!

if you posted a work for it but i don't interact with it, you can send it in my inbox. if you wanna join (there's alwyas time) just use the #nightskychallenge tag and i'll find ya.

i'd love to see some stranger things writers joining this one, a lot of the prompts would work well with our favorite boys (and gals!!) so if you wanna join, even if you don't follow me or anything, feel free and welcome 🤍

i have three of the one-shots outlined. hope for some bucky, eddie, and steve in the near future <3

#nightskychallenge #nyx talks #nyxieparty7k #writing challenge #writing prompt #writing schedule #eddie munson imagine #join the challenge eddie and steve writers #pretty please and thank you?

[nexusnyx]

baby, i'm gonna leave you

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 5 — The night I saw everything in your eyes. “It’s like looking in a magic pond… there’s so much hidden.” [8.2k] ⚠️Smut: unprotected sex, choking, body worship, rough-handling; | 🏷️ Angst, slow-burn, denial of feelings; | 📑 This work was commissioned by my darling Malin (@charlie-hunnam) and I hope they enjoy every single word of it.

SUMMARY: His first thought is that he messed up. Bucky messed up badly not only by sleeping with you, but by doing so while knowing how much everything about you got under his skin, fogging every corner of his brain in ways he wasn't used to. So Bucky fucked up. Whatever. It happened. Then, Bucky promised he would not do it again... Except—he does. Bucky does it again, and again, and lying to himself gets harder each time.

Being surrounded by books is the only comfort Bucky has.

Nothing else comes close.

Usually, work is his safe haven. Not everybody can say that. Everything about his books soothes him—the smell of them, their textures, arranging by authors, size, or colors; he has fun with his shelves, keeps his employees in line, and offers little to no sympathy for the University students who always come to him with Pussyboot Cat eyes and some shitty, feeble excuse as to why they need Bucky's help, desperately.

None of that is working today, and it's because of you.

Bucky feels irritable beyond words — an irony of destiny considering how many of them he knows — because, for reasons he's well aware of but refuses to accept or think about it too hard, you're giving him the colder shoulder.

If you don't look at him in the next ten minutes, Bucky might die.

If Steve were here, he’d call Bucky dramatic.

He’s not—that’s what he feels like.

Being in the same vicinity and yet getting no nod of acknowledgement from you was a kind of splint under his nails kind of feeling—something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Kind of ironic, he thought, that he’d be the source of his own pain like that.

Because it was his fault. Undoutedbly.

He’d been the one to fuck up.

Again.

For the sixth time. Counting them was never his intention; there had just been few of them, and each one was more memorable than the other. Not knowing how many times he fucked up would be the fucking miracle—Bucky had the imprint of your mean chuckle tattooed at the nape of his neck, followed by the distinct taste of your tongue against his skin.

Not for the first time, Bucky takes a deep breath and, tiredly, exhales.

“Good gods!” Wanda’s voice is but a whisper, but Bucky’s ears are trained to pick it up among the overlapping conversation going on at the library, the several computer clicks and trays of books moving back and forth. “That’s like, the fifth thousand time I’ve heard you huffing and puffing back there. What is wrong?”

I went and did it again. Bucky’s eyes trail to your table once more, “No need to worry your cute little head over it.”

While he had no clue what would happen after he ignored you like a massive dick for days, Bucky expected that the weak — but plausible — excuse would mend some of the patches.

Nothing.

A dry, curt “hi” when you arrived to grab the necessary books, and then straight to your table.

“Bucky, I can hear you thinking. It’s eerily loud, for some reason, and it’s just the two of us inside our Weird Moon Valley.” Her soft, even voice gets closer, and Bucky looks up to see Wanda sliding with her chair closer.

"You're frowning." Wanda slides a hardcover copy along the counter until it hits his still hands. "Harder than usual, that is. What's up?"

"Nothing."

“Bullshit,” she spits back with a trained customer-smile still on her face. “It started when your girl—”

“She’s not my girl,” he interrupts, as always.

“—when your girl,” Wanda quips back, as always, “arrived, looked at you like you were one of the flies that surrounded her horse’s shit, got her books, then went away. Since then, mysteriously, your face’s been looking like that.” She hums, feigning curiosity. “I wonder if those are connected.”

“Your sarcasm is really over the top, you know?” Bucky considers leaving the reception and going to organize some books, but the idea is dismissed as soon as it comes. “And that description was hurtful. I’m wounded. ‘The flies that surrounded her horse’s shit’ is kinda mean, even for you.”

“My sarcasm is over the top and your attempts to pull this conversation away from the point is as horrible as your inability to play coy.”

“Harsh.”

“Alright, fine,” Wanda’s hands fly up to the sky in surrender. “I yield. Mope. Pout. Sigh. Stare at her longingly—stare at her ‘till you forget how to talk, again. See if I care,” she finishes with a dramatic sharp turn of her body, and Bucky just grabs her by the string of her apron.

He pulls her back a few steps and hits his own head against her back. "Wanda."

"Bucky."

He yields. Of course he does. "She is so mad at me." It's barely a whisper, but he knows she's heard.

He feels her scoff more than hears it. "Astute observation, dude. Do I wanna know why? And weren't you two cool until, like, a week ago? This is starting to get ridiculous."

"We were. Now..." There's a moment of hesitation in which Bucky's face becomes a wince. He wants to hide even further behind Wanda's back. "You know why," he eventually says.

Two weeks prior, Wanda had said: you two float around each other. gravitate, or some weird shit like that. you keep making the same mistakes—you gotta stand on what you two decide, dude. she'll lose her shit eventually if you don't.

A second after he says it—one heartbeat, and she understands.

It makes her turn the same way as she did before, facing him again. “Shut the fuck up,” she mutters when her pin drops on what he meant. “You didn’t.”

“Hey—technically, we did it.”

Wanda’s stare could punch holes through Bucky’s ribs. “If we weren’t at work, your left cheek would be on fire right now.” It’s not often Bucky hears Wanda’s angry tone, but it makes all of his stupidity the more real. “Are you serious?”

Did you really do it? “I… yeah.” 

Did you really go and fuck the girl who’s in love with you, and who you have feelings for, but can’t date, because unlike her you’re a slut — a polyamorous one at that — who’s never been and never wanted to be in a relationship, while she is someone who expects a ring on her finger? The woman who you entangled yourself with despite her telling you she couldn’t ever pursue something with someone like you and yet, and still, you seduced her because you ‘felt something you couldn’t ignore’ with her? 

Bucky heard and saw all those words in Wanda’s fiery eyes, and for a moment, he wanted to take it back.

It came and went in a flash, because the reality still was— “If I tell you how it happened you might not hate me so much?”

“I highly doubt that, James.”

Damn. “Can I tell you?”

Wanda’s nostrils flare as she exhales. “Fine.”

With a lengthy exhale, Bucky retells the rollercoaster of Tony Stark’s engagement party, and watches as Wanda notes—he has a point, after all.

2 DAYS AGO

"She looks so good, Steve," Bucky whined.

He wasn't one for whining, but tonight in particular, he felt stupid.

And she looked good. She walked in — drunken eyes check the glowing numbers on the microwave — 7 minutes ago. Not that he’s counting. Bucky muffles another whine behind his cup.

"God, you're whiny when you're drunk," Steve exhaled the smoke in his lungs and laughed right in Bucky's face. Little shit, Bucky thinks. "She just arrived, Buck. Get your shit together before you make the same mistake again, I swear—"

"I know, I know," Bucky's heard the speech enough times by now. "Don't worry. We're not doing that shit again."

Steve gave him a look. A single look. A “I heard that shit before” look, and “I know exactly how that promise ended, buddy” look.

"We're not," Bucky insisted. They’re not. Not matter if he wanted to. Bucky didn’t—he liked your friendship too much to fuck this up. He took another sip of his beer, then immediately regretted it. Alcohol had memories attached to its taste, had things in it that made his thinking skills fly off the goddamn window. "I need some water,” he decided.

"Fuck water." Steve opened the fridge and grabbed a can of Coke. "Drink this, then we'll go back."

Fuck.

"And don't you dare whine about soda or any of your gym rat shit about calories and training, it's the last thing I wanna hear tonight," Steve looked out of the glass walls that separated the kitchen from the outside, looking for something at the party. Probably his boyfriend, because Steve was now in love, and monogamous. "I'm so fucking anxious. He's gonna fuck this up somehow, I just know it."

"He's not gonna fuck it up."

"He might."

"Tony's not that self-sabotaging, Stevie." Bucky downed half of the can in one go, and then felt that little prickle in his neck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He hated going out. He should've stayed home. He should've stayed with his books, should've kept his mouth shut. Tony barely even likes him (a lie) and he wouldn’t even notice if Bucky wasn’t around (a bigger lie). "He's not gonna screw up the night he's been planning for months."

"What if he does? D'you know how hard it was to make that sculpture? I haven't slept in weeks. Weeks, Buck."

Bucky could tell. 

"Ugh, look away from me," Steve grunted and flipped the rest of champagne down ungraciously.

Now Bucky laughed. "What?"

"Your eyes say I can tell and I hate you for that," Steve answered with a pointed finger at Bucky, who laughed only harder. "Do I look awful? Do I have eyebags?"

"Shit, I forgot how fucking chatty you get when you're anxious." Bucky knew his best friend better than himself sometimes, but it was easy to forget things when habits change, and going out was one Bucky lost about a decade ago. "Steve, hey, c'mere."

It took him a second, but Steve walked until he stood in front of Bucky.

True to his words — or eyes in this case —, Steve looked a little under the weather.

Bucky drank the rest of the Coke, smashed the can with one hand and threw it in the trash. Then, he placed a hand in each of Steve's shoulders, and smiled at him.

"It's all gonna be fine," he started, smiling at him.

Steve took his first deep breath.

"Good," Bucky praised. Some habits, on the other hand, never died. "Your art is beautiful," his smile softened, something only Steve's art could do easily. "Tony's a really lucky guy to have you as a friend. He's gonna be lucky to have Bruce as his best man, because—guess what? Piper's gonna say yes. God knows why—"

"'cause She made her with the biggest rope of patience in the world," Steve offered in a low whisper, and Bucky laughed.

"—sure, buddy, because She made her that way, Piper's gonna say yes. And then they'll be happy together, for many decades, hopefully. They might even have kids."

"Oh god," Steve expression changed drastically. "Their kid is gonna be president."

Bucky hummed. "I—yeah. Probably."

"I don't know if I'm excited or terrified for it."

"A bit of both sounds good." Bucky put his hands down. "You better now?"

Steve exhaled. "Yup. Everything's gonna be fine. They'll be happy together."

"Yup."

Then, Bucky heard a chuckle. A familiar one. The hair at his nape answered before he even heard the voice, raising just at the realization of your presence dawned on him.

"Damn. Am I interrupting something?"

Bucky is fucked.

He should've stayed home, with his goddamn books.

He's not ready for this.

"Hey!" Steve exclaimed happily, as oblivious as Bucky had been of your approaching. "Babe, you came!" Babe. Bucky wanted to puke on Steve and your parade. "And please," he scoffed, walking your way. "You know damn well I don't fall for those pretty blue eyes anymore, no matter how close they are to me."

It was true. Steve was now in a sweet, monogamous relationship. "You lived with these pretty blue eyes,” he started, dated as well, loved, painted them, sculpted them, “so how about no slander towards them, hm?" Bucky joked, turning around to see Steve's gigantic body engulfing yours in a hug.

“Sure thing, Buck,” Steve replied with only a third of his attention.

When you were present, the air in the room differed.

Bucky could hear your whispered conversation if he tried, but he opted out. Instead, he got another soda can from the fridge while you two said your hellos and whatever else you two loved talking about when he wasn't around and waited for it.

It took only a minute, but it came.

Your eyes on him.

Bucky was a coward. He hid behind his can, sipping the liquid as he drank the sight of you as well.

Impeccable.

"Evening," he nodded.

"Hi," you answered.

"How was your trip?" he asked, even though he knew.

You smiled, probably thinking the same thing. "Good. You know that," you shrugged your shoulders, and had Bucky's chest been this tight since he left home? Since you walked in?

Since you smiled, maybe?

"I liked the pictures at the party," he drank another sip, then put the can on the counter. "You and your friend looked nice with those costumes on."

"You said I looked, and I quote, wow, she's nerdy AND she's silly."

"It was a nerdy, silly costume."

Your smile widened. "Please. He's your favorite character and I know it."

"He is," Steve agreed, looking between you and Bucky with amusement. "It did look nice, though."

"Thanks, babe."

"Now—you two behave. I'm going outside to check on Tony. Gotta make sure he's not being, too—you know."

"Himself?" you offered.

"Exactly!" Steve kissed your cheek. "See you outside. Wait—did you come alone or did you come with Yelena?"

"Yelena."

Shit, Bucky thought. "Cool," Steve smiled because he wasn't Bucky, and he wasn't currently one of the people on Yelena's Shit List. "'m gonna look for her."

And with that, he left you two alone.

It’s tense, electric, and Bucky wants to swim in the palpable air.

“How’s your back doing?” he asked.

A week ago, you sent him a picture of your sunburnt back. Your face winced at his question, and then you turned around, taking off your coat and—fuck, fuck him.

Backless dress. It’s fine.

“Damn,” he whistled. Not because he could still see the marks of bikini on your back, but because he remembered what tracing the muscles of your shoulders with his tongue felt like. He cleared his throat as you turned back around. “Not hurting anymore, at least?”

“Nah. Lena’s been helping with that,” you answered.

“The great Lena.”

You scoffed, and walked until you leaned on the counter along with him. “She’s not pissed with you.”

“I highly doubt that.”

You had no arguments for him.

Bucky smiled, and you mirrored him. He missed seeing that in person. “You look nice,” he commented.

It was more than just habit—he liked the outfit on you, and the blush on your cheeks tasted like cherry on the top.

There was the pretty black thing around your eyes, and Bucky wondered if you made it that sharp because it killed him more. Pierced through his soul—your eyes always looked at him with so much swimming under them.

“Thanks,” you said. The drink twirled in your hand. “Is Nat around?”

Outch. Bucky’s smile stiffened. “Nope.”

“It’s just—I still have her jacket. It’s in Lena’s car.” The tapping of your rings against the glass told Bucky your next words were true. “Wasn’t trying to be a dick.”

“Okay.” He believed you. “She went to Moscow to watch one of her first students perform.”

“Oh. That’s really nice.”

“If you don’t care about being in Moscow on late December—sure. Sounds lovely,” Bucky laughed behind his cup.

“Call me crazy but I just feel like someone like Nat is immune to the cold. Does that make sense? I just can’t bring myself to see her bothered about something like minus fifteen degrees.”

“She isn’t. I’ve never seen her bothered by any weather, actually.”

“Stronger and cooler than we’ll ever be,” you muttered, sipping your drink. It sounded like an ironic and fun bite, but Bucky knew the feeling underneath it—the Romanoff effect. 

It’s the thing that stands between you two, after all.

“She’s an alien,” Bucky whispered to you. Your eyes lifted, meeting his. “Or a secret agent.” The ghost of a smile appeared on the left corner of your mouth. “Let’s not dive into all the reasons we can’t be a Romanoff.”

Bucky hated to look at you now and realize what you were holding back.

“I don’t think I’d wanna be one, anyway,” you said eventually.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” The smile might’ve been hidden, but you made no effort to withhold with your look. “She’s not into horses,” you whispered, as if telling a secret, and Bucky walked towards you in instinct. “I can’t live without them. Not even to be an ex-dancer with a top secret job and the prettiest hair.”

“Your hair is pretty,” he retorted, gaining the smile as result.

“Thanks,” you chuckled.

“Plus—I’m sure you could pull off red if you wanted to,” he said, then closed his mouth shut.

It was too easy to get lost in it.

Not even two minutes in your presence and Bucky had walked closer, complimented you twice, and he was about to do it again.

He swallowed around the feeling of your eyes ranking up and down his body.

“I’m gonna go see if Tony’s embarrassed himself again,” ‘cause I’m a coward. From this distance — or lack thereof — Bucky smelled your perfume. “Wanna join me?”

One week without it and he was now drowning in it.

“Sure,” you shrugged. “Let me just get the beer I came for.”

Everything he carried as okay crumbled more and more with your steps, but Bucky embraced it all night long.

Watching you laugh and feeling it like a punch to the stomach because all he could see was you bathed in sunlight, laughing at his morning hair dressed in his shirt? It was fine.

The way you sometimes leaned in closer so your scent was all over his space? Fine, too.

(Lies.)

All night long, he ignored the longing glances.

It was a hard task to fulfil—your eyes and his had magnets after what happened before your trip, and the distance made it that the pull only got stronger.

Through the drinks and overlapping conversations, Bucky tried to focus on what is instead of was.

Instead, he got cornered.

Close to the grill at first, you showed up with your wine glass in hand and pretended to not see him until the last second, then smiled with your wicked ways when he was forced to guide you away from the heat with hands on your elbows.

What he got was your eyes blinking up him, muttering, “‘m sorry. Slipped,” as if Bucky wouldn’t know better.

As if he didn’t see you clear as daylight.

Then, as he wondered why you were playing this game with him again, you did it again when he ran for the kitchen and decided to stay there while Thor made a show of creating spicy cocktails.

You entered the kitchen applauding already, smiling at one of Thor’s nice tricks, and the next thing Bucky knew, he felt your body pressed against his. It was a bit crowded in there. Not enough space for all those grown, broad bodies, but that was no excuse—Bucky had been there for minutes already, but it was on him that you decided to lay rest and watch the show.

“You don’t mind if I sneak in here, do you?”

Bucky minded very much. You knew that. “Not at all.” Maybe this was punishment. A way of you to get back to him, somehow. “He’s got some talent,” he commented, sipping the rest of his drink. “Here, have my spot.”

He left because he knew it was the alcohol.

There was not a mean bone in your body — also a lie — and Bucky recognized the telltale signs of a pissed off you. The lashing out and pettines kind of gave it away.

So he tried to escape.

He managed to stop Tony on the way from one room to another, give him a hug and congratulations, and say he needed to head home.

“Already? Well. I’m not gonna say I’m surprised,” Tony looked happier than Bucky had ever seen. “Rhodey and I have this theory that you might expire if you don’t sniff a book every X amount of hours and your early cue actually puts my guess in advantage, so feel free to skadaddle.” He hugged Bucky again—definitely drunk. “Thanks for coming, Barnes. I don’t say it much, but I’ve grown fond of you.”

It was all in motion.

All Bucky had to do was make it out of that stupid, gigantic mansion and—

“Leaving already?”

Fucking hell.

Bucky turned around to face you, gripping his jacket a little tighter in his hand. He put on a smile. “Yeah. You know me.”

“Sure do,” you chuckled.

“Sorry—I didn’t find you inside to say goodbye.”

The next laugh came accompanied by a roll of eyes. “You really don’t need to lie to me.”

‘You have a tell when you lie. Did you know that? Has anyone ever told you that?’

‘Do I?’

‘You do. It’s adorable.’

“You never told me what my sign is,” Bucky’s smile softened at the memory, but he tensed again when he saw you stepping closer.

“Can’t give that away. That’s important information.” Your step was steady and straight for someone who’s had so much to drink, but then again, your tolerance was kind of high. “Can I ask you for a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Can I get a ride home?”

Are these eyes playing with me or does she really need me? “I thought you came with Yelena.”

You nod, but don’t touch your hair. Maybe you do mean it. “I did. She’s not leaving ‘till the party’s over, though, and I have training tomorrow.”

Plausible. Bucky knew how much you hated to train with little to no hours of sleep. “Yeah. Sure.” What hard could a ride do?

The smile you gave him was so genuine that he almost felt like letting his guard down. “Thanks, Buck.”

“Of course, sweetheart,” he needed to stop being so full of himself. “Let’s go.”

It’s almost unbelievable what a little bit of your charm or smile would do to Bucky.

He got inside that car without a worry in his heart. 

She just needs a ride. Chill, Buck.

The way his guard is disarmed by every single glance of yours out of the window instead of the chatty, witty remarks he expected.

The drive home happened without much conversation. This part you two already knew. 

It’s how you got close, in the first place.

You two existed well in silence. Sharing space was enough—comfortable.

As it was, you picked the music. Bucky asked about your course, which you were ‘okay’ with, as always. You asked about his few students, his phD. Work. 

Small talk.

It lasted all the way until your house.

When Bucky parked and said goodnight, he was examining your eyes in search for the alcohol and that glint he saw a few times during the night. Instead, he found a reflection—there was a search in yours, and his stomach tightened.

All the things we could’ve been…

“I’ll walk you to your doom,” his voice came out as nothing but a whisper. The air felt thicker, somehow.  “C’mon.”

You nodded, and opened your own door before he walked out of his side and reached yours.

The light of your porch lit up after sensing presence, and Bucky was thinking about how to unglue his tongue from the roof os his mouth and whisper something plausible, something, just something when you said it:

“Remember the last time you came here?”

Just like that.

He paused, hesitating his next step. “I mean…”

Yes. His whole body felt in alert, and a part of Bucky felt glad to still face your back because he imagined his face looking very stupid right now.

The last time he’d been here the two of you watched movies. Had dinner. Three bottles of wine, and two shots of a special tequila you had as a gift from your best friend’s trip to Mexico. Then, when you were showing Bucky pictures of you and friends on a trip to the beach, you two had been a little too close.

A little too personal.

That time, there was no alcohol to blame.

No party, no high, nothing.

Just that thickness hanging heavy in the air and the notion that both of your bodies emanted so much heat it was palpable. It felt palpable.

Much like now.

“I never thought I’d have the guts to do what I did.”

Your confession felt like a caress. They broke him out of his stupor. Reaching the door, you turned around, facing Bucky.

He wanted to be a good guy and wanted to abide by what you had asked him of staying away, but it proved difficult when everything pointed towards the fact that you wanted this. He wasn’t crazy. “Why are you telling me this?”

Both your shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know.” You did. Bucky could see your eyes knew what the previous words meant. “‘Cause I’m still a bit tipsy? Or maybe—we just—we danced around it. Since we met. All the flirting and the kissing at Steve’s house parties.” Lower, you whispered. “I felt like a teenager.”

Goosebumps rose at the back of Bucky’s neck, and it felt like a confession of his own.

Despite being well over his thirties, he knew exactly what you meant.

You went on. “It was kinda exhilarating, I’m not gonna lie. I told my best friend about you and I kept thinking to myself ‘I never got this giddy when I was younger, what the hell is wrong with me’. And… I had convinced myself it was unilateral. You know? Just you indulging me in all my want.”

“That’s not true.” He couldn’t help but interrupt.  “You know that’s not true.”

“I do now.”

He fidgeted with his car keys, deliberating if pushing was the right choice or not. “Where are you going with this?” came out after a heartbeat of silence.

“I don’t know. I just—I spent all night today trying to avoid the fact that all I wanted was to drag you back here.” 

All he could do was whisper your name.

You weren’t finished. “And because of what? Because of me? Because I can’t deal with something that I already knew?” 

Bucky barely has time to think of an answer before—

“What if I want it again?”

Just another whisper. It had his feet moving before he could put words in back in his mouth, then out of it. “You know my answer to that.”

The widened eyes surprised him, just as much as his answer apparently surprised you. “Really?”

“Really. But it’s not fair. Because you say this now, but I’m not sure you’ll feel the same tomorrow. You’re tipsy—”

“—you know that’s not true.”

“Still. You drank.”

A single pause from you, but Bucky knew this was a lost battle.

 “Are you trying to find excuses? It’s okay if you don’t want to,” you said.

“I’m not. I’m trying to be rational. I don’t want you hating me tomorrow morning” it was very true. “I like our truce.”

“I do, too. But I also really like the way you’re the only man who’s ever been able to handle me. To do everything I wanted. I also really like the way I barely had to ask for things, and the way you gave them to me when I did. The way you stretched me out, and took no pity, and made me see how far even I can go. How much—”

Some things took a lot of effort, and others took none at all.

Pushing your body against the nearest surface was easy.

Muscle memory, even if he did it only a few times.

More than anything, Bucky liked the way you took work.

More than just with this—meeting you had taken work, getting to know more of you required gaining your trust. Unlike most people, you preferred to keep your life and energy private until someone proved they deserved to know more.

In bed, Bucky liked how none of it was performative.

Maybe he should count himself lucky—you fit him like a puzzle piece, if he was being honest, in ways very few people in his life did.

Steve, Natasha, you.

Winning him over was difficult, too.

All night long, Bucky let it all go.

He knew it was unfair the way he stared at you all along—Bucky saw in your eyes the way you dived in his eyes just like he dived into your body.

When he cupped your cheeks and your nails clinged to the back of his neck, Bucky knew how this would go.

Your kisses tasted like I’m gonna hate you tomorrow, and when you moan in his ear, his name coming out gravely and hoarse, Bucky heard the silent plea underneath. It’s hard not to spill empty words—Bucky bit his tongue so hard, so many times, that he wondered how he never tasted blood.

He preferred your taste, anyway.

It overpowered everything else, as always.

When all the clothes were on the floor and he pinned you against the nearest surface — your counter, just like the last time — Bucky wanted to slap himself instead of your ass.

“Stop starin’ at it.”

He slapped it. “You like it when I stare.”

“I like it better when you use your hands. C’mon, Bucky—”

“Fuckin’ impatient, as always.” He adored it. Your lust and his mixed in the air, clouding his thought. “I’ll give anything you want. You want my hands, baby?”

“Yes, goddamn it—”

“Then kneel for me.”

The sight of you on your knees between his legs would be his undoing for how long? He couldn’t tell, or bring himself to care.  He held onto your hair, gripped your neck thigh just the way you liked it, and let himself feel your lips wrapping around him like velvet; it’s a deja vu, as well as foreboding—Bucky loved to have you on your knees because you loved it, and after he came so hard all his senses mingled into one, it was a pleasure to pick you up and drag you to your room whilst feeling what undoing him did to you.

“Look at this, baby. Look at how fuckin’ wet you are for me—”

“Couldn’t cum the way I wanted to—please Buck, please—”

“Shhh, I’ll do it. ‘m gonna fuck you all night, baby.”

The neighbours must have heard it that day.

It was more than the first time—it was pent up frustration, desire, heartache, longing; Bucky did what he promised, and you gave back just as good as you received.

There was a pause for food and drinks somewhere around five in the morning. Not many words were spoken during that time—the glass windows let in the faint light of the sky changing colors outside, and in your kitchen, Bucky just wrapped you in his arms and fed you the food you cooked for both. The whispered conversation was meaningless, but as warm as your bodies tangled together.

“You think we’ll have many more Stark parties to attend now?”

“Buck—that man will use any excuse to throw a party. Yes. We will.”

“Don’t laugh at me, he’s gonna be married now!”

“Married doesn’t mean dead.”

“Eh. For lots of folks it does.”

“Since when is Tony ‘folk’?”

“...you make a solid point.”

“Always do.”

When the first rays of sunshine came through, Bucky woke you up with his head between your legs.

Your thighs were reason for worship, he always said. And worship he did; Bucky saw the bruises already forming from the previous hours and admired his words with his hands as well as his mouth. He licked his way up, and when you finally squirmed awake, he was already pulling your sleeping shorts down so he could taste you before anything else that day.

The sound of his name on your lips first thing in the morning would follow him for the rest of the day.

It was also the only sound he’d hear for a few days to come.

+++++++ ++++++++

Even Wanda admitted him to be right when he said it wasn't really his fault. At least, not only his.

At least, not only his.

There was a lot involved in this.

Desire alone couldn’t sustain a relationship. He knew that better than anyone. 

His desire for you alone could power a whole city—Bucky looked at you and the entirety of New York could have electricity to run for a fortnight; that’s how he felt.

The thing is—he also felt that way about other people. Few people, but still.

All it took was one Natasha and a few memories of Steve to stain what you two built over a year.

“You two worked better as friends,” Steve offered during brunch at Bucky’s apartment. Steve enjoyed offering his opinions, requested or not, and Bucky appreciated him for it.

“So do we.” The unspoken and yet, we were an item for over a decade hangs in the air. “Wish things were that easy, huh?”

“Nothing’s easy in life.”

Bucky laughed out loud at that. “Well, why don’t you preach.”

Steve smiled back, looking at him that way. “You know it’s true.” He scraped the rest of his food, and handed Bucky his plate. “I mean—take me and Sam, for example.”

“What about you and Sammy?”

“We—ugh, he hates it when you call him that.”

“I’m well aware.”

“You’re a douche,” Steve nudged Bucky with his hip, laughter stifled in respect for his man. “We shouldn’t have worked, right? I mean, we’re pretty similar except for all the ways that we’re not. He couldn’t handle the fact that I had non-monogamous relationships when we met ‘cause he didn’t understand it. Plus, he saw me the way most people do; as this goody-two-shoes that has unbreakable morals—”

“You do, though.”

“—and that’s, like, a republican or something.”

“Disgusting.”

“I know!” Steve sighed loudly, and prompted himself up on the counter. Bucky continued cleaning the dishes and did not think about how you loved doing that as well. “But then, we started getting to know each other better, bit by bit… and it worked out.”

“I’m confused.”

Steve turned to look at him. “Why?”

“Are you trying to say me and her are gonna work our shit our, or that we’re not?”

Steve hummed. “You know—I don’t even know?” He grimaced. “Sorry. I’m tryna say that whatever will be, will be.”

“Motivating.”

“I’m serious! If she wants to come here later tonight to talk, something’s gonna happen and soon you’ll know what.” Steve’s smile changed, and Bucky recognized it as his you smile. “She’s gonna be on her best behaviour.”

“What do you know that I don’t?” Bucky narrowed his eyes.

“Nothing much. Just that she’s been revaluating. She feels bad about ghosting you these days.”

“Really? ‘Cause from the way she ignored me every time she crossed my path I’d have thought she hated the guts outta me.”

“You know that—” Steve got interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing.

As always, Bucky knew who it was just by the sight of his eyes gleaming at the screen. While Bucky finished wiping the counter, Steve talked in his Sam tone about going back home in a few. He threw in a “Sam says hi,” to which Bucky replied with “Hi Sam, please answer my damn email!”; the laughter on the other side of the line could be heard even from a few steps away.

When Steve leaves, Bucky retreats to his safe haven.

His apartment is nothing much—small enough that he can clean on his own, but big enough to fit a study, a nice living room and a kitchen that’s not mingled with everything else. It’s been six years since he moved and only now Bucky realized he truly felt at home here. The staircase on the balcony outside where he sat for a smoke, sometimes with a book in hand or a cup of coffee, it felt like his place.

All of his home had tiny little memories of all the people that made up his heart painting the furniture and the walls.

He goes to his study for his two hours of research, writing and editing on his phD paper, but his mind is stuck elsewhere.

The phone call he got this morning which made him call for Steve keeps coming back, much like the dreams which are nothing but memories; Bucky saw you around campus these days without a word to spare for him, but inside his four walls, everything came back to him.

One single call and everything transformed into a hurricane.

The screen stared back at him, the numbers glaring holes into his skin.

21:32.

He ignored the way his stomach tightened even more.

She’s coming isn’t the thought that makes him anxious. It’s been months since she stepped foot here makes his palms clammy.

What had she said? ‘Right after work’, those were her words.

Bucky rubs both hands over his face, turns off everything in his office and heads for a shower.

Steve was right, he guessed. Whatever will be, will be.

“Hey, Buck.”

“Hey.”

“...Thanks for replying to my text.”

“You don’t gotta thank me.”

“I—yeah, I kinda do.”

“Hmmm. Why?”

“You know why. ‘Cause I need to apologize—fuck, I’m horrible at this.”

“You’re doing better than I did most of my life tryna apologize for stuff.”

“...of course you’d make me laugh.”

“I like your laugh.”

“I’m sorry, Buck.”

“...for what happened? Or…”

“For these days.”

A win. Bucky had counted that as a win. “Okay. Apology accepted.”

“Thanks… Can I come over later tonight?”

That had Bucky pausing. He almost knocked the pan out of the stove, because an apology came a long way, but an invitation, one for his house out of all places, was unexpected. “To my house?” he confirmed.

“Yeah. Right after work—I have a couple of seminars in the afternoon, then I have my client at the gym, can I go there after that?”

“I mean. Sure.”

“...’Sure’? Was that, like, ‘if you want, whatever’, or was that, like ‘’course you can even if I don’t know why the hell you’d want to’?”

It had been his turn to laugh. “The second option.”

“Okay. Then I’ll be there later tonight. Around ten? Ten thirty?”

“I’ll be here. It’s Saturday.”

“‘Kay. Cool. Is it ok if I bring a bottle of wine? Just one! Just—You know I’m nervous. It’s just so I don’t go to my cocoon or whatever.”

“Sweetheart. It’s ok. You can bring whatever you want.”

‘Bring whatever you want’ — why the fuck had he said that?

He’s unsure. He’s anxious, and excited, and his mind stays like this all night long until he hears the buzzing of you outside waiting to be let in.

Whatever will be, will be, Steve had said, but it’s sad when all that someone wants is one outcome.

He opens the door to find you outside in your work-out clothes. “Hey,” Bucky steps to the side to let you in, and watches as you take off your shoes and puts your gym bag on the floor.

“Hey,” your smile is weak, and tentative. “Is it a lot to ask if I can shower before we—sit, and whatever?”

Bucky shakes his head, and tries his hardest to push the images of you inside his bathroom naked out of his mind. “Not at all. You know where everything is,” he also holds back any stupid jokes or flirtatious comments that fall so naturally to the tip of his tongue.

While you shower, Bucky sets the station on the balcony outside. He brings two chairs to face the tiny table, brings the glasses, the pie Steve baked earlier. He sets everything on the table and rolls a purple haze for himself because if there’s one thing he needs right now, is to fucking chill.

That’s how you find him—with the corkscrew to open the wine in hand, and a blunt hanging between his lips.

Bucky mentally curses at the fucking scent you bring from the inside.

Peach. Wild berries.

“Do you take your stuff with you everywhere?” he asks before he can stop himself.

You frown. “What stuff?”

Bucky loves how big your thighs look in those shorts. He looks away to say, “Your creams and lotions and—skincare shit. All that.”

You laugh, sitting in one of the chairs, and you hold the bottle for him to open. “Not everywhere. Just when I go to the gym.”

“Hmmm.”

“Why?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Dunno. You always smell the same.”

“I like the way my stuff smells.”

“I can tell,” he chuckles.

“It was a gift from one of my best friends—you remember Nyx?”

He has to dig in his memory a little bit, but he finds it. “The one you met on your trip?”

You nod. “Yeah. She’s brazilian—their stuff smells amazing.”

“I can tell.”

Three words only, and the air in his small balcony shifts from light to heavy. Sticky. Honey sweet.

Instead of asking why you’re here and rushing it all, he lets you pour the wine into the glasses. He goes for small talk for now. “How’s your week been?”

“Fucking cold. I hate this time of the year,” the way you pout when you’re angry makes him pissed off. Bucky never wanted to do something so stupid and cheesy as kissing someone’s frown away. “The snow melting’s so fucking incovenient.”

“That it is.”

“And your papers? Still ripping your hair out?”

Bucky runs a hand through his hair; “Still have some left,” he takes out the lighter from his pocket and sets the thing between his lips on fire.

As the smoke fills his lungs, Bucky breathes easier. It’s ironic—but then again, so is the fact that your presence both calms and electrifies every inch of him.

“I gotta tell you—I thought you’d be one of those unfortunate suckers who lose all of their glorious hair by the time they’re thirty five—”

“I’m literally thirty nine,” he laughs.

“See!? Exceeding expectations.”

Small talk also exceeds his expectations.

At least, it does with you.

Other people? Bucky would rather not exchange a single word with.

You?

Half a bottle of wine goes in the blink of an eye. Sober him had clammy, sweaty hands, and an agitated leg that bounced up and down like a child who’s high on sugar. Tipsy and high Bucky focus only on the now, on the curve of your nose and how beautiful your hair looks underneath the street lights.

Even you indulge in the transcendental offer that is something to clear the mind, or maybe make it foggy.

Not that he minds sharing—Bucky sips your wine, you take puffs of his blunt, and he appreciates the way your fingers hold it between your lips.

He really likes your lips.

Both of them — the wine and the weed — have their expected outcome; so much that when you drop the bomb he’s been waiting for, Bucky barely feels his heart leaping out of his throat. It’s more of a skip; a small jump, if you will.

It comes after a lull in silence where you two are finishing off the cigarette, and he’s a little lost in the way Alpine curls in his lap when you say, “I think I know why we never worked out. Like… properly.”

Bucky’s fingers still in Alpine’s fur, and the cat nibbles on his hand to get him back at his job of petting. “Do ya?”

“Yeah.” The tilt on your chin tells him it’s true. It’s your little tilt of ‘I’m an expert at this topic’, so he figures this is what you must’ve spent those days doing—ignoring him in favor of thinking meticulously about the two of you, from every angle possible. “I mean; it’s pretty obvious, in the end. At least it must be to everyone else. But I hate it the all the same.”

“It’s not obvious to me.”

“No?”

“No,” he wished it was, many, many times. “Enlighten me.”

With a nod, you lay the words on the table. “I want you all to myself.”

Only six words, and they manage to knots every inch of his insides. He feels them everywhere; inside and out, from the tip of his cold toes to every last strand of hair he still has.

When he answers, it’s only a single breath. Your name, which sounds like a plea.

“I wanted that since I first saw you. It's those eyes—god, I swear to god only the skies above know how much I fucking love your eyes. And the way you look at me, Buck... When you kissed me at that party for the first time, I couldn't stop staring at them, remember? They're beautiful. Looking at them... It’s like looking in a magic pond… there’s so much hidden. All I could think about was: I want him. I want those eyes on me, always. I want him all to myself. But I can’t have that, right?”

“Sweetheart, I’m not pie.” It comes out exasperated, and Bucky hates how tired he feels of it, but he’ll be damned if he loses you like he almost lost Steve once because of that same stupid idea.

“What?”

“I’m not pie, love. Just because you get me, and someone else does too, it doesn’t mean they’re taking a piece outta me that you’ll never get it back. You do have all of me. When I’m with you, it’s all me.” He gestures from his head to his toe. “Right now? All of me. Every inch right here is yours. My mind’s thinking about you. I wanna talk to you. I wanna feel you. Does that make sense?”

It’s funny to think that sometimes, you can see the effect words have.

When he looks at you, Bucky sees the realization dawning bit by bit—the puzzle pieces are almost visible as they fit in your mind.

“You want all of me?”

The question catches him so off guard that it almost hurts.

Had it really been so difficult to see? 

Bucky swallows the knot that your question formed in his throat and nods. “I do.” Always did. “Since I fuckin’ met you—d’you think I do this all the time? This aggravating, stupid—fucking mating dance?” God, how he loves the sound of your laugh. “I hate the excpectations, and the unspoken rules and whatnot; you realize that you made me go to not one, not two, but three events last year? Three. I barely leave my house, sweetheart.”

Gnawing on your bottom lip means you’re nervous, but not about thoughts—about what you want to do next. “I’m a really jealous person,” the whisper says I’m confessing, and I’m sorry about that. “I don’t know how I’m gonna act in the future, Buck.”

“You’re a grown woman, I’m a grown man. We could work it out, couldn’t we?”

“We could. But I…” you trail off, the words lost in the night, and he waits. “I don’t wanna lose you completely.”

“I can assure you that the only way I’ll be completely out of your life is if you actively kick me out. Use the words I don’t want you around anymore or something like that. Otherwise? I’ll just wait. I’ll keep coming back.”

“Bucky,” it comes out breathless, and Bucky wants to throw the table that separates you two out of the balcony and onto the street down below. “These days were miserable.”

When your lip trembles, Bucky thinks fuck it, and gets up. Alpine protests, he apologizes, but without any heat to it.

Kneeling down in front of you, Bucky searches your face for any shadow of doubt. Any lingering trace of pain, or uncertainty, and when he finds none of those, his hands come up to cup your cheeks the way he loves to do.

“I hate when you’re miserable.” Bucky hates how hard it is to hold back, too—the cheesy, honey sweet stuff that comes to his mind whenever you’re around are too much, but the dem is broken now and when you lean on his touch, Bucky knows you’re both doomed. “I want you happy, sweetheart.”

“I’m happy when I’m with you.” Another whisper. Another confession.

He smiles at that, and watches as you smile back. “Let me make you happy, then?”

For both of your lucks, Bucky has enough strength to hold you when you throw your body on him. He’s not a physical person like you — carrying books all the time holds no weight to what you do in the gym — but he has just enough to pick you up and carry you to where you should be.

He has enough in him to worship your body like he dreamt all week, and this time, with no worries about whether you’ll be there in the morning or not.

Bucky drenches you in him—sweat, kisses, sticky bodies clinging together until they’re nothing but one.

He sees the happiness in you, and feels it reflected in him.

He’ll make it last, for as long as you let him. As long as you wish him to.

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[nexusnyx]

The Night Sky challenge for anyone following me who enjoys writing.

I did 2/14 prompts so far, and I’d love to see more people joining. If you like the prompts you can use any of them, just tag #nightskychallenge so I can find it and read later.

#usernexusnyx #writing challenge #writing prompt #writing resources #writing schedule

[nexusnyx]

Just wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten about my submission to the #nightskychallenge and in true Nyx fashion, I am already at 1,600 words and barely 1/3 of the way through so the idea of this being a drabble has gone completely out the window. AND I’m using two prompts, maybe three so fuck it! Can’t wait to post it for you 😘😘😘

1,600 words?!? Shan, you absolute genius!

I can't wait to read your story, darling 😘😘😘

#shan 😘 #nyx mail