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pullhisteeth · 9 months

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wise words | eddie munson

summary Eddie f*cked up (royally) and has to work his ass off to get you back. based on a swift song obviously [4k]

contains 18+! fem!reader, a bit of fuckboy!eddie, angst, arguing, grovelling, hurt/comfort, crying, eventual fluff, suggestive themes/allusions to smut, Robin and Steve being disappointed but supportive pseudo-parents

He’s standing on your doorstep.

He’s standing on your doorstep and he’s shaking. Like a fucking leaf.

He looks down at the flowers wrapped in cellophane and thinks, are they good enough?

Am I good enough?

Will anything ever be good enough?

Thick drops of rainwater run down the plastic and coat the pink petals and he resolves that no, they’re not good enough.

He knocked twenty-three seconds ago. He knows this because he’s counting, keeping himself grounded.

Twenty-four Mississippi.

Twenty-five Mississippi.

Twenty-six Miss-

The door swings open quickly, almost impatiently, as though there wasn’t nearly half a minute between the knock and the response.

He looks up and when his eyes meet yours he knows for sure this time that this was a bad idea.

“Are you insane?” you ask him. Concern cuts through the irritation, leaving those creases by your eyebrows he’s so familiar with.

He doesn’t respond, his mind elsewhere. He’s desperately trying to pull it back but it’s running fast, back to yesterday evening.

“Eddie, seriously,” Robin says, impatient, “you have to do something. This is getting ridiculous, and besides, she’s crazy about you, even if you did royally fuck up, and- Hey!”

“What Rob means to say,” Steve interjects, giving her a swift and clean elbow to the ribs, “is that you’ve gotta grovel, man.”

“But it’s been so long,” Eddie whines, running his hands over his face, a pattern he has grown accustomed to over the past few months. A fed-up, miserable routine of lamenting his deepest regrets to his patient but equally-as-fed-up friends over beers on the nights you’re too busy to join them. “I can’t- I don’t know what I’d say.”

“Here,” Robin says, laying her palms flat on the table, fingers splayed. She pushes herself up, weight on her hands, and leans over Eddie. He stares up at her from behind his own fingers and winces quietly. “You love her, right?”

“Yes,” he responds, voice muffled under the heels of his hands.

“And she loves you-”

“Does she?”

“-and we know this because we’re her friends.”

Eddie’s eyes flit to Steve, whose face is drooping with sympathy. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of a Robin Buckley lecture knows the feeling, and he has had his fair share.

“So what you gotta do,” she continues, dipping her head to regain his attention, “is apologise.”

“I tried that-”

“Properly.”

At this he gives in, huffing a sigh and dropping his arms to fold in front of him, quickly enough to catch his head as it drops to the table like an anvil. He hears Robin return to her seat, and then feels gracious fingers on his elbow.

“Eds, man, it’s gonna be fine. You’ve just gotta fight for it.” It’s Steve, being soft as ever, so desperate to see his two friends happy that he’ll relinquish himself to his affectionate side.

“I want to,” he says, voice muffled again by the denim of his jacket sleeves. “But she deserves better than me.”

“Tell her that,” Robin suggests, voice far softer now. “Tell her you miss her, it’s been a long time, and that you were scared.”

She’s clever, Eddie thinks, pulling that gem out from the archives. On a particularly bad night, maybe two months after it had happened, he’d admitted to them the truth at the heart of all of this: he’s a scared boy, one who resolved while young that he would never fall in love, never let the walls down, for fear that he’d have to endure loss any more than was necessary. Your love had driven him mad and fear had driven him away, and now he avoids three diners and nearly all of the gas stations across Hawkins, schedules doctors appointments at the most inconvenient times and definitely never steps foot in the movie theatre downtown.

“She’ll come around,” Robin tells him kindly. When he lifts his head, eyes regretfully filling with that hopeful spark, she says, “She’s mad, don’t get me wrong. But she’ll come around. You just have some work to do.”

“And for what it’s worth,” Steve says in a cadence that worries Eddie enough to make him lift his head back up again, looking at Steve’s stern expression, “she does deserve better than you.”

“Stop, Steve, seriously-”

“She deserves better than you if you can’t find the fucking courage to go get her back.”

Now, standing on your front doorstep, looking at you for the first time in half a year, Eddie knows Steve was right. He doesn’t have the balls to do this; he’s too afraid of rejection, and more specifically rejection from you, and this was a bad idea. You deserve better.

He barely notices when you step one pace to the left, and when you speak your voice sounds like it’s coming from the other side of a thick wall.

“You’re gonna get hypothermia if you stay out there.”

He moves without thinking too hard, because you’re right - it’s cold as fuck out here and he’s grateful for the humming warmth he can feel coming from inside your home.

“Just stay there, I’m gonna get some towels.”

He feels pathetic, standing in your hallway, dripping wet like a fucking dog, gripping so hard onto the flowers that his knuckles are turning white. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, afraid of getting anything in your house wet, but acutely aware of how stupid he must look.

You come back around the corner with two big bath towels in your arms. They’re white and Eddie feels the burning shame of ruining them but says nothing, remaining tight-lipped and letting you clean up the floor. When your fingers curl around his tense ones he stares at you, at the strange, unreadable look on your face, and feels the jolt of a thousand volts carry down his fingers and into his shoulder. Where your fingers made contact you leave a sensation not unlike carpet burn.

“These are pretty,” you tell him, gently pulling the flowers from his grip. The cellophane crinkles and it slowly brings him back to this, to you, and he nearly chokes on air.

He says your name, a pathetic sound followed by even more pathetic noises, and when you smile, tight-lipped just like him and brows turned down, he cracks, voice failing him as he stumbles.

“Get your boots off and meet me in the kitchen,” you say, your face unreadable as ever as you turn on your heels and step back through the open door he knows well.

You leave him bewildered, like a soldier in the wake of a bomb, but he eventually comes to and does as you say. He debates leaving them outside, to cause you the least bother possible, but decides instead to leave them on one of the towels by the door.

His socks are soggy, slipping on the hardwood as he treads softly through your home. The reaction his gut is having to being here is ugly, so he breathes in slowly through his nose and wipes rainwater off his cheek with the back of his hand.

You’ve got your back to him, standing over the sink. At first he thinks you’re sorting the flowers, the way you always do - wrapping off, stalks trimmed, vase filled - but then he sees that, instead, you’re gripping the porcelain. White-knuckled.

For the first time he gets a look at you, or the back of you at least, because he’s pretty sure you haven’t heard him come around the corner. You’re much the same as before, except for the way you’ve cut your hair, and the fact that he remembers you in pretty sundresses and tennis shoes but it’s December, so you’re bundled in a jumper and sweats.

“I, uh-” He stammers, words catching on the edges of his teeth. He says your name again and watches you flinch. “It’s- It’s been so long, I-”

“Yeah,” you breathe, shoulders relaxing and grip loosening. You turn and lean back on the sink with your arms crossed over your chest.

“Just so you know,” he starts, and he can feel it, the fucking sarcastic tone that he can’t seem to shake. It comes out whenever he has to be genuine and it’s like someone else somewhere is pushing his buttons, controlling what comes out of his mouth. “-it’s been the, uh, the longest six months I think... ever.”

You look at him, more than familiar with this tone and this game.

“Yeah,” you say again.

“I don’t really know how to-”

“Eddie,” you bite, words like venom. “Can I ask you a question?”

As he nods his head, a little bemused, you gesture to the kitchen table. He catches on and sits at the chair closest to the door as you mirror him on the chair opposite.

“Why the fuck are you here?”

You rest your crossed arms on the table and lean on them, peering at him.

He breathes in slowly.

“To apologise.”

You scoff and he flinches, recoiling at the sound.

“And how’s this one gonna be different to the other hundred apologies?” You spit the word, as though it bears no meaning. At this point, and when it comes to Eddie, it almost doesn't.

That’s fair, he thinks.

“You are such a fucking jackass, Eddie Munson,” Robin barks, raising her arms in defeat. She’s pacing the aisles of Family Video while he sits on the counter and Steve loiters behind it, sorting tapes. “A jackass, seriously!”

“I get it, Rob, thanks,” he drones.

“No,” she snaps, feet finally finished being aimless and instead marching her over to him. She stands somewhere close to between his knees and if it weren’t Robin and she weren’t about to grill him for all he’s worth, it might be endearing.

She jabs her index finger into his chest, straight to the centre of his sternum.

“You’re a piece of shit. An asshole. A douchebag. And I’m allowed to call you all of these things because it’s me who gets the phone calls at two in the morning when she’s crying over you. Again.”

He drops his gaze, his hair covering her wrist and his face.

“Why’d you do it, dude?” Steve asks from behind him. “Like… I just don’t see the… Goal, or whatever.”

Eddie groans and tips his head back, staring uncomfortably at the ceiling tiles.

He wonders for a brief moment, before answering, why the two of them are still friends with him. Clearly his end goal is being as inaccessible as possible, keeping everyone at such a far distance at all times that he can never feel remorse, or that he’s letting anyone down. But now he’s here, with his friends, and he’s let them down and, worst of all, let you down, too. More than ever.

“I was trying to make it better,” he says, and the jab to the sternum comes harder this time, and is the full brunt of Robin’s fist rather than her finger.

“That is bullshit,” she says.

“I was!” he maintains, exasperated. “I just… I started trying to explain myself and I just couldn’t tell the truth.”

“So instead you told her you never want to see her again?!”

“I-”

“How does that help literally anything?!”

Robin’s right, of course. She’s always right; too smart for her own good, Eddie’s always thought. But he doesn’t have an answer for her.

“She’s better off that way anyway,” he says, sighing.

He blinks at you, studying your stern expression, before answering.

“I wanna be honest with you,” he begins, “like, actually this time. And I know it’s been ages and that I have been…”

“Awful,” you suggest.

“Yeah, awful-”

“An asshole. The worst. Evil. Cruel. Mean.”

“Right,” he says, nodding limply. “Yeah. That.”

You lean back, arms still crossed like armour.

“I want to get this right,” he admits, surprising himself, “and I’m trying to work out how.”

You also seem taken aback by this, brows raising just a bit, your eyes going wide. You don’t say anything, though.

“I want you to know how sorry I am,” he continues. He’s sitting rigid in his seat and can’t find something to occupy his fingers, so he begins twisting a ring around one of them. “But, like, I don’t know how to get that across… The flowers were, uh, step one, and this is step two… I, uh…”

He’s stumbling again, searching for the words in a sea of insecurity and unsteadiness. You wait, sitting still and breathing shallow.

“I think I- I was scared.”

“Of what?” you ask, taking him by surprise. He was expecting a vast silence that he would have to fill with pleas, excuses, sorries and truths. He thought you’d leave him to it and let him down slowly at the end.

“Uh, of you. Of us, I guess.”

“What?”

He leans forward finally, dropping his head into his hands. “I don’t know how to-”

“Try,” you say flatly.

He looks up at you, unsure.

“Try to explain it. You haven’t even tried.”

Deep, heavy breath in.

“Eddie, you can’t, I don’t-”

“Fucking stop it,” he bites, arrowhead words ripping you open.

“I don’t understand,” you try again, voice thick with tears and your throat closing in. In fact, everything is closing in.

He’s leaving.

“Exactly,” he spits, pulling his shirt on. “Just… I’m going.”

“But-”

He’s out of the door, jacket in arm, before you can protest any further. Your mind is racing, spinning out in search of something that you could have done to fix this, or else something you could have done to cause this.

But you’re coming up empty, because you’d spent the day the same as any other day this summer: in your bed, entwined, wayward fingers and lazy kisses. Sweet nothings splashed in whispers across bare skin, and-

Oh, you think. Oh.

“When you said you loved me,” he begins, wincing at his own honesty, “I just… I freaked, it was scary. I… Honestly, the main problem here is that I was fucking scared. I am scared. I don’t know how to… How to love, or whatever… How to do it right and not hurt you, or me, or both of us. I’m useless, it’s why I’ve never bothered before and I knew, even before we started hooking up, that-”

“Hooking up?”

He looks at you, pulling his eyes back from their wandering, to find you bitter and your face contorted in disgust.

“You call that hooking up?”

“I mean- I-”

“If you think we were hooking up, that’s bad enough, Eddie. Hook ups don’t last three months.”

“No,” he sighs. “They don’t. I think I’m… Trying to make myself feel better about it.”

“You don’t deserve that,” you tell him, and though it’s cutting and it should hurt, your voice is so kind so suddenly that he can’t help but lean into it, tugging gently on the hands of care it extends to him. “You left me, after months of stringing me along. I was basically your girlfriend, without the labels or whatever. There isn’t another word for what we were.”

“No,” he agrees, dwelling for a moment too long on those moments of domesticity, the quiet mornings drinking coffee on your front lawn, the afternoons spent hanging the laundry and throwing stray socks at one another. “And that was fucking scary. I was way too scared, when you said you loved me that morning, way too scared to admit what I really, really wanted.”

“Which was?” you ask, arms still firmly crossed.

“Oh, come on,” he scoffs. “You know what I-”

“Say it.”

“You-

“Say it.”

He breathes, defeated, and looks at you dead in the eye.

“I love you,” he tells you. “I loved you then, and I love you now, and I have no idea what to do about it.”

You deflate, your arms going lax, face surprised as though you didn’t expect him to actually do it, to rise to your challenge and be honest. For a flash, he feels smug, but then he remembers-

“I love you,” he repeats - the feeling of the words rolling off his tongue is unbearable, they’re too heavy, they won’t stop falling - “but you deserve better than me.”

You breathe sharply through your nose in frustration.

“Why are you here then?”

“What?”

“If I deserve better than you,” you repeat, finally releasing the tightness of your crossed arms and planting your palms on your knees, “why are you here? To torture me? Not satisfied with the last six fucking months, huh?”

“No, I-”

“Well, Eddie-” You spit his name like it’s gone bad and it twists something inside him. “-I’m fucking fed up of you and your… How mean you are. You’re always so mean to me and I hate that I cried over you for weeks-”

The door swings open and Robin rushes inside, expression tight with fear and worry.

She calls your name in a tone that drips affection as she rounds on you, where you’re standing with your weight on the wall and a hand over your face. By now it’s puffy and uncomfortable, your cheeks raw from wiping them with the sleeve of your sweatshirt.

“What happened?” she asks, holding you like you’re about to break and moving you across your house to the couch. “Did you argue? Or-”

“He left, Robs. Just left.” You sigh and it heaves like you’re sat under a crate of bricks. Robin’s heart aches, nearly cracks in two at the sight of you and the fury she feels for her stupid, good-for-nothing metalhead friend.

“Oh, honey,” she coos, wrapping you up in strong arms. As she rocks you, you cry, and she kisses the crown of your head and tells you, without much belief in it herself, that it’ll be okay.

“Steve’s on his way,” she says after ten or fifteen minutes.

“It’s okay, I’m-”

“We’re gonna stay here,” she says quickly, “just for tonight.”

You look at her, eyes glassy, and as you speak your voice cracks. “I love him, Rob.”

She looks back at you sadly, fingers gripping your hands. “I know.”

You’re on your feet now, pacing back and forth and he’s watching, transfixed, as your shoulders move up and down, powered by rage, understandably.

“-I cried so much because I had spent weeks working up the courage to say that to you, to admit it to you and to myself because you’re so cold, Eddie. You’re so cold and distant and I still managed to fall in love with you.”

It’s at this point that Eddie’s drifting eye, which is following you back and forth, lands on the cluster of picture frames on your windowsill. He recognises most of them - photos of the group of you, up by the lake or in Chicago, some of your family and others at special occasions. But one of them calls to him loud enough to pull his eye from you completely.

It’s a silly frame he found at the thrift store. It’s hand-painted in gaudy colours, brush strokes in swirls and bursts of yellow and purple and green. And behind the glass is a picture Wayne had taken one day when you were at his trailer, watching movies on the couch.

It’s a polaroid, as most of your photos are, bright cracks of colour and light caused by the window right by his head - his head which is looking straight ahead, big wide grin and happy eyes, and you beside him, hands on one of his thighs, pushing yourself up to kiss his cheek.

It’s only when you stop pacing and, more noticeably, stop talking that he realises anything is wrong. His face is wet and there are new drops of water on the table - not the drying rainwater from his hair, but one or two drips from his jaw.

“Are you crying?” you ask, hands on your hips.

“Huh?” He asks, wiping his face with his wrist. “I, uh… Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I just-”

His eyes flicker upwards and past you, to somewhere you follow with your own gaze. It lands on the photo and you start, cheeks flushing warm.

Suddenly, the anger lingering in the room, filling the air and his lungs and almost definitely yours, dissipates. It doesn’t disappear as such - you’re still seething, breathing loudly, but it’s like someone cracked a whip and the dust lifted.

He calls your name and you look at him, wide-eyed.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you earnestly. “I’m really, really sorry.”

You breathe out slowly and he watches your chest deflate as you take a step to sit back down. As you sit he rises, stepping over to you on unsure feet. He’s tentative, waiting - expecting - an adverse reaction.

You watch him as he gets closer and lowers himself to the ground.

“You are not about to-”

“I’m not getting on my knees, if that’s what you’re gonna say,” he says, and his tone is light - too light for his liking, but he catches the twitch in the corner of your mouth and something warm blooms in one of the chambers of his heart.

He squats beside you, resting his weight on one hand on the table. He keeps the other to himself, fingers spread over his bent knee.

“I’m an asshole. In fact, I’ve been all of those things you said, and I don’t think I’ll ever be sorry enough for you. But I… I’ve had all this time, and some… intense conversations with Rob and Steve, and I… I want to try to be sorry enough. Or to just make it up to you, somehow. Because I can’t… It’s too hard, doing all of this without you.”

He knows how this must look, him on the ground, soggy socks and soggier hair, staring at you like a lost puppy. But the way your eyes soften, and the familiar feeling of the brush of your fingertips over the damp skin of his bare wrist, is enough to make him go limp.

“What’d they say?” you ask him, watching your own fingers where they trace aimless strokes.

“Hm?”

“Rob and Steve. What’d they say?”

He laughs lightly, embarrassed.

“Uh, that I’m an asshole. In fact, Rob, she made sure to tell me that multiple times. Basically every time I saw her. And Steve, he… He’s such a good dude, you know? But I… I disappointed them, and myself, and you. I hurt you so bad and I don’t know where to put all this guilt I have.”

Neither of you are looking at one another, but you chuckle, thinking about Robin. Her loyalty makes your head spin. And Steve, with his heart of gold, who held you all those times you cried and fought silently between his anger at Eddie and his love for you.

“I love them,” you whisper, your fingers halting. The pad of your thumb hovers over the protruding joint, stroking it softly until you feel the thrum of his pulse under your own. Your fingers wrap the opposite way, until you’re holding his arm like a bracelet.

You squeeze and he sucks a quick breath in.

“You really hurt me, Eddie,” you tell him, lifting his arm off the table. He wobbles and uses his free hand to steady himself on your chair, the knuckle of his thumb meeting the side of your thigh for just a second. You manoeuvre his hand into your lap, where you lay it flat. You both stare at it and all he can hear is your breathing and the rush of blood past his ears.

“I know I did,” he says. “I can go, if you want.”

You hum and begin tracing the lines on his palm. “It’s gonna take a while,” you say.

“What is?”

“Making it up to me.”

His eyes move without permission to your face, where he finds a barely-there smile and the beginnings of the crows feet by your eyes.

“Forever,” he says, knowing you’re right - it’ll take a long, long time.

“Forever.”

“I must’ve been crazy,” he murmurs, more to himself than to you.

“Hm?”

Your fingers are still now, resting on his, and he finally moves his own. His knees are burning from squatting and the balls of his feet are digging into something sharp under the linoleum, but he’s not thinking too hard about any of it. He takes your hands in his and holds them, backs of your palms to the front of his. He dips his head and kisses your left wrist and then your right, lingering to feel the thump of your heart.

“I am crazy,” he says. “I let you go.”

“You left me,” you correct him. “I never wanted to go.”

He looks up at you and pales when he sees the tears. Your eyes are wet and red round the edges and he thinks to himself that you’ve been doing this, crying over him, for six months. And it’s his fault.

The two of you move quickly and without thought. His knees buckle, giving into the strain he’s been putting on them for so long, and as he hits the floor he tightens his grip on you without meaning to. You’re pulled off your chair with a yelp and a clatter, landing in his lap with your knee dangerously close to his crotch.

Hands paw and wipe tears and you lift your leg to plant it beside him. As you stabilise yourself his arms come around you, too quickly at first; so quick he worries you’ll push him off, tell him to go fuck himself. They’re met by yours, though, coming around his back.

“I’m sorry,” he says into your hair. “I’m so sorry.”

You say nothing, and instead push your face further into his shoulder.

He feels and hears you sniffling, so he pulls you back gently. Some of his hair sticks to your face and you wipe your nose unceremoniously with the back of your hand, scoffing at him when you see he’s smiling at you.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you tell him, looking away.

“Like what?”

“Like… That.”

“I don’t-”

“You have that look,” you say, groaning. And then you reach up to hold his face, and he caves, bowing into you in every way he can. “You’re so fucking pretty and it’s the worst.”

“You’re one to talk,” he tells you, enjoying the way you flush.

“Always the charmer.”

“It’s true,” he says. “Never seen anyone as pretty as you.”

He leans into your palm and twists just so, lips brushing the heel of it in a quick kiss.

“Flattery won’t get you out of this,” you tell him, your smile deceiving you only slightly.

“I know,” he says. “But it might help me.”

You’ve been inching closer to his face, and now you’re all he sees. You’ve taken up his field of vision, your breath brushing past the end of his nose.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks.

“Wow,” you laugh, “Steve taught you how to be a gentleman since I last saw you or somethin’?”

“Stop- You’re ruining this.”

“Sorry,” you say, still laughing. “You were just never the kind to be so… chivalrous.”

“I’m hardly being chivalrous,” he says, matching your smile. “But now you mention it, yeah, actually.”

You lean back only slightly but it’s enough to make him deflate, unhappy at the new distance.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, I mean… I was an asshole, as we’ve established. Needed to learn my manners again.”

“What did he say?”

“Can we please talk about this later? I just wanna-”

“No,” you say, grinning now. “I want to know.”

He groans, the hand he has spread across your back to hold you up tensing.

“I dunno, he just… He really did a number on me, y’know, telling me how I did everythin’ wrong and that I…”

He’s gone coy and you’re relishing in it.

“You what?”

“I… Steve called me a fuckboy.”

You bark out a laugh so loud Eddie flinches, but then he watches as you carry on laughing, nearly bent double, eyes all crinkled just the way he likes, the way he’s missed terribly.

“What’s so funny?!”

“It’s true,” you say. “It’s so true! Robin, Steve, I mean, we love you, obviously, you’re our friend, but like… They did say when you and me started, y’know… That I was in for it, that you’d break my heart, and I told them they were crazy ‘cause it was just sex, right? But then I realised maybe it wasn’t just sex, when you basically started living here, and we were more like… I dunno, like a couple… But they were right!”

He looks at you, aghast.

“They told you all of that?”

“Yeah! I mean, they were right, huh?”

“Yeah, I just… I didn’t know it was that bad, that they’d be able to notice that kinda thing.”

“You know,” you say, fingers tapping patterns up his chest. “Steve told me somethin’ else, a few months back.”

“Oh, god,” he groans, mind reeling through the thousands of things this could be.

“It’s not bad,” you say. “Well, it’s not one of the bad things. There were still bad things.”

“Right.”

“He said… He said he’s known you for, what, like three years now? And in all that time, before you and me met, you’d always have different girls, were known as a bit of a player at school…”

“Christ, okay.”

“But after you left me, Steve said he’d never seen you be so… Alone.”

Eddie looks at you in shock, so frightened by what else Steve may have said, but also by how you’re relaying this to him. Calm, stoic, unfeeling.

“I mean… I haven’t, y’know, slept with anyone else, if that’s what you-”

“I know,” you say. “I just… It makes it feel more real, you know?”

“I know I’m gonna be spending the rest of my life making sure you know I’m sorry,” he says, breathing out through his nose slowly, “but I mean it. I’ll do it. For the rest of my life. There isn’t anyone else. I’ll forego women, relationships, whatever… ‘Cause I won’t have time. Will be too busy makin’ it up to you.”

He noses at your neck, trying with everything he has to hold himself back from kissing you. The air around the two of you feels thick with laboured breaths and unsaid things - so many unsaid things, things he’ll tell you one day and other things he’s sure he’ll hear from you.

“So can I?” he murmurs into the warm skin above your collarbone, lips only a hair from making contact.

He feels your fingers come around the back of his neck, taking root at the nape where his hair starts. They curl around it, tugging him up, and then you do the dance - the one that always happened between the two of you in these moments. You dip in, so close, and back out, ebbing like a riverbank. It drives him crazy and he knows that you know it, so he smiles, and it’s only then that you finally kiss him.

As you move against him, lips and hands and chest and thighs, he lets his eyes close and his tongue move with yours, and thinks that this - kissing you - is much better when he’s being honest.

#eddie munson #eddie munson fluff #eddie stranger things #eddie munson x you #stranger things 4 #stranger things #eddie x reader #stranger things eddie #stranger things fanfic #eddie fic #eddie x fem!reader #eddie #eddie fanfic #stranger things season 4 #st4 #robin buckley #steve harrington

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wilbursoot-updates · 5 months

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the-californicationist · 6 months

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Guile & Guilt (Ch. 05)

MDNI/18+ no exceptions

Link to AO3

THE NEXT MORNING

You were alone. The sun’s thin shafts danced across the empty side of the bed, the sheets crinkled and folded like unfinished origami, bent and twisted by the body you were missing. He was gone. You yawned, stretching, and then you froze in place, suddenly remembering more and more detail from the night before.

Johnny’s touch lingered on your skin like a bruise. You were unmarred, but you could have sworn he had left a tattoo behind with his fingertips so acutely did you feel the memory.

You padded out into the kitchen. It was still closer to dawn than it was to day, but on the counter sat two large coffees; a latte and a chai, for Pidge and for you. There was a note tucked underneath your cup:

Gone for a run. - J.

Chai in hand, you quietly retreated to his room and sat in bed watching the sun wake up. The feel of the smooth sheets on your fingers bring back brief, blurred flashes of Johnny’s affection from the night before, and the guilt hit your stomach like an anvil. You should have stopped him, shouldn’t you? You had plenty of time to. But, said the dark thing inside of you, you didn’t want him to stop, did you?

You wanted him to keep going.

Setting your drink down, you snuggled back into the covers to wallow in your regret. But instead, your body forced you back into the darkness where you and Johnny had been tangled as you slept in that very position. If you shut your eyes, you could almost feel his soft breaths and his hungry jaw as he scented your neck and hair. The heat of his chest radiated through your back, and the prodding…

It was your fingers that dipped into your waistband this time, thinner than his, but warm from the coffee cup, until they found your pink, wet shame. You drew quick circles around your clit, not far from the high you were chasing.

You thought about what would have happened if you hadn’t said his name. Would he have continued? He was caught somewhere between a dream and reality; you were still working on convincing yourself of that.

But, what if he wasn’t?

You moaned softly into the pillow. It smelled of him and you breathed it in. You touched yourself with renewed intensity, your fingers sliding across your slippery skin, sinking into your hole for more of your warm honeyed heat.

Maybe he would have begged you, softly, in that deep voice of his.

Just let me feel it, thief, just for a moment. Just the tip. I’ll pull it right out, lass, I swear it. I just need to feel you.

And all those other saccharine lies that boys like him were good at crafting. But, gods, would you fall for it. You’d nod your head, dumb and cowed, and spread yourself wide for him to find, to fit, to fill. The sound of him wetting his cock in you would have been so loud in his quiet room.

You moaned again, louder this time, unable to hold it back.

“Are you alright, lass?”

Shit!

You pulled yourself together. Two soft knocks on the door and your hand involuntarily jerked back, the snap of the elastic waistband stinging your skin. You fixed yourself and dragged the sheets over you again, panting quietly to hide the deeper gasps trying to crawl out of your lungs.

“Yeah, fine. How was your run?”

Taking the question as an invitation, the door cracked open and his hulking form emerged from behind it. His hair and shirt damp with sweat, smile widening as his eyes wandered across your body in his bed.

“It was good. You ready for your fitting? I’m your ride.”

You ignored that double entendre.

“Sure, just let me get changed,” you smiled, pulling your legs around to stand beside the bed.

“Aye, I’ll shower,” he shut the door behind him.

You let go of a huge sigh of relief and put your head in your hands. If he had walked in…

You shook it off and got changed as quick as you could. You threw your hair into a quick braid and knotted the end with a hair tie. You were still in one of his tee shirts, but you had put some leggings on with a pair of white sneakers. You reminded yourself - over and over and over - that you weren’t there to impress anyone. Especially not Johnny MacTavish.

He was in the kitchen with Hamish and Pidge when you came out, drinking coffee with them over the counter and chatting about their plans. Pidge greeted you, hugging you around the neck,

“Okay, dovie. Remember, I don’t care how the top looks. But, it’s floor length, and it’s glitz and it’s glam and it’s sparkles…”

“I remember! Silver sparkles. Red carpet. Don’t worry, I can handle it,” you tried to sound convincing.

Hamish laughed, trying to make Pidge seem like she was over-reacting, “I’m not worried, lass. I know you’ll pick a brilliant one.”

Pidge cut her eyes at him and said, “I’m not worried . But, she’s like me - we love our comfy clothes. She’s not Cherise who has to be in the latest whatever.”

Hamish pinched Pidge in some unseen place below the kitchen counter and out of your view, teasing her,

“Bet you’d look good in the latest whatever .”

Pidge squealed and smacked him for his insubordination. She turned to you, blushing and trying not to laugh,

“Okay, back here at two, yeah? We’ve got 259 invites to stamp. Fuckin’ postage is gonna break the bank.”

“Back at two. Invites. I am on it. Maid of honor mode is activated, babe. I promise,” you hugged her and turned to Johnny, “Are you ready?”

“For glitz and glam? Always,” his grin was sharp and inviting, as if dress shopping was his one true purpose and pleasure in life, even if it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

The dress shop was close, and you noted that Johnny didn’t try to hold your hand in the car as he had yesterday. You didn’t dwell on it. Okay, maybe you did.

“D’ya sleep alright, thief?” He asked over the radio during a lull where he wasn’t signing shamelessly.

His face didn’t give away much. You couldn’t tell whether he was recalling his lurid affections or just making small talk. You decided not to take the bait,

“Just fine. How about you?”

“Slept hard,” he grinned, searching for a parking spot, “Like a rock, aye?”

When he made his last comment, the obvious innuendo, he looked at you through his sunglasses, staring long enough to watch you flush. You avoided his gaze, looking at anything but him, feeling his eyes roaming over you. Your heart beat in your throat.

Johnny killed the engine and walked around to help you down from the Jeep, giving you his hand to steady you. It was warm and sure, none of his rakish commentary or teasing was left in his touch, just comforting sincerity. It was scary how quick your mind was to trust his earnestness and dismiss his roguishness.

The dress shop door knocked a small bell that tinkled as you walked through, announcing your arrival. No one was at the counter, so you looked around for a moment, waiting for someone to appear.

“Hello?” You called out into the store.

“Aye! Coming!” A tower of white lace ruffled and danced as someone moved behind it. Then, a short red woman emerged from the pile, pink-faced and out of breath,

“Och! Thought I’d drown in there.”

She laughed and you smiled with her, explaining your presence,

“I’m here for - ”

“The Hamilton wedding, aye? I’d recognize this rascal anywhere. You can always tell a MacTavish by the eyes. Bluer than the sky, they are.”

“Mrs. Dulvaney! Gonna make me get all sweet on ye, more than I already do,” Johnny pushed his sunglasses up over his mohawk and bent to kiss the woman on her big cheeks, kissing her hand as if she was Guinevere.

Based on her reaction, that was exactly how she felt. She turned to you,

“Better watch out for this one, lovie. Nothin’ but trouble.”

“Don’t I know it,” you commented wryly, earning a look from Johnny.

The shopkeeper led you past rows of cream and ivory wedding gowns to the bridesmaid section in the back of the store. One of the dressing rooms’ curtains was open, and several gowns were hanging, sparkly and orderly on their rack. The old woman smiled, explaining,

“Bridgette put all of her hens in silver sparkles, right? I pulled a few, but you’re welcome to look around. Don’t fret about the sizes, dearie. We’ll just pin you in.”

Mrs. Dulvaney was gone again, leaving you with Mr. Nothin-But-Trouble. He flipped through the pulled offerings with a discerning eye, looking like he knew exactly what he was doing, giving Michael Kors a run for his money.

You left Johnny behind, wandering through the rows of dresses, pulling one or two more pieces, opting for more conservative necklines.

“No, no, lass,” he furrowed his brow as he inspected your haul, “Sure these are for wee grannies! Shoulder pads, honestly?”

“Okay, fashion police,” you scoffed, “You find a good one, and I promise I’ll try it on.”

“You’re on, thief.”

He dug deep into the stacks, choosing two or three to drape over his thick forearm while you watched, a grin tugging at the corner of your mouth at his serious expression.

Turning at the end of the aisle, he came to a sudden stop.

"Och, sin an tè," he said with a sigh.

It was hanging on a mannequin, but he didn’t care. He looked at the mannequin and then back at your body, sizing you up. Then, he put his hands around the plastic girl’s waist, and eyed you up once more before smirking knowingly and reaching for the zipper..

“Johnny, you can’t have the display,” You chastised him, imagining his hands on your ribs as they had been in the small pool in the mountains, imagining him digging into your clothes as they had last night.

“Says who?” He began to undress her, pulling the shining fabric up over her headless form. Smug and satisfied, he handed you the gown.

It fit all the criteria; glittery and slinky, floor-length with a high neckline. But, there was no back. From neck to hip, you’d be bare.

“Johnny,” you protested, holding it up by the shoulders and letting it cascade heavily to the floor, “This might be…distracting.”

“Aye,” he said, giving no further explanation, his eyes glued to the gown in your hands.

You sighed, but you kept your word. Johnny was sat in a plush chair like a king after much doting and prodding from the shopkeeper. He was facing the fitting room, which was little more than a closet with a curtain. You shimmied into the room and tried on the first dress that Mrs. Dulvaney had suggested.

When you emerged, they were both sitting there, appraising you like judges on a game show, their faces reflecting boredom and disappointment.

“So…” you shrugged, looking at yourself in the mirror. You looked like an Elvis impersonator.

Johnny and Mrs. Dulvaney shook their heads in the mirror.

You retreated and tried on the next one. This version had poofy sleeves.

“Oh!” Mrs. Dulvaney couldn’t contain her amusement as you came out of the dressing room.

Johnny did not endeavor to control his disgusted expression,

“Creepin’ Jesus! You look like if 1982 was a person, lass. Back in the room with you, mhèirleach! Christ Almighty.”

You shucked off the offending gown and went through the stack. You decided to try on Johnny’s choice, just to shut him up.

It fit like a glove. You didn’t really have the body for slinky gowns like this, but it was as if someone had cut it just for you. The glittery overlay gleamed across a sheer slip, the same color as your skin, making it seem as if all you were wearing were the sparkles themselves. The high collar sat proudly at the base of your neck, and when you turned to see your back in the mirror, you were stunned by how you looked. Pretty.

You swallowed your nervousness and heard Johnny protest,

“You stuck in there, lass? C’mon. Can’t be that bad. Nothing’s as bad as the last one.”

He was laughing as you came out of the room, but when he saw you, he stopped. It was as if you were controlling time itself, and he was frozen in it. Johnny rose to his feet as if to greet you, and the shopkeeper’s eyebrows raised, looking at him and you with a coy smile on her face.

When she realized he wasn’t going to say anything, Mrs. Dulvaney commented,

“My word, lovie. Suits you perfectly, it does.”

“Aye…” Johnny agreed, his voice barely a whisper as his eyes swept down your body and back up again, studying every inch.

You smiled, turning in the larger mirror to view the back again,

“Should probably choose one that doesn’t show quite so much skin, perhaps.”

“The front is modest enough, and you could wear your hair down,” the shopkeeper suggested.

Johnny moved toward you as if compelled. He reached over your shoulder for your braid and, ever so gently, pulled your hair tie from it, letting the locks loosen and tumble across your back.

You thought he might step back to get a better view, but he stayed close, right over your shoulder, even going so far as to put a hand on your hip, standing behind you in the mirror, just like two portraits in a frame, his enormous form shielding you from the room. It was just you and him in the mirror, as if you were the only two people in the world.

He stared into your eyes through the looking glass, and you met him there, waiting for his approval. He smiled, a bit shy and out of character,

“Look at you, mo mhèirleach. Stunning.”

You sighed, relieved,

“Well, if it’s not a thousand pounds, I’ll take it.”

Mrs. Dulvaney looked at Johnny before looking back at you,

“Oh, I’m sorry. He already paid for it. I thought… my mistake.”

“Johnny! How much do I owe you?”

He grinned hard enough to make the skin on his nose wrinkle together,

“Don’t listen to her, Mrs. Dulvaney. She likes to carry on sometimes.”

“Hey! I can’t - I don’t want to owe you,” you protested.

“Why?” He spun you around, still holding your hip, “Think I’ll cash it in? Enough of that, thief. You’re starting to sound like my sister.”

“How much did it cost?” You pressed, staring up into those famed blues as bravely as you dared.

His eyes softened, unwilling to war with you,

“You’ve been takin’ care of Pigeon while I’ve been away, and don’t say you haven’t. I know Hamish didn’t fix that leak in the sink. The man’s keen, but he’s no handyman. I dinnae ken just how much you’ve been doing for her until I was here this summer, but I ken it now. So, pull your fangs out of me, thief. Let me pay my own debt, aye?”

Confidently, his hand came up to cradle your cheek, resting against your jaw, smoothing over your skin like wet clay, molding you just so. You leaned into it, forgetting yourself, forgetting the shop, forgetting your promise.

Mrs. Dulvaney reminded you,

“Ahem, shall I get you a wee box?”

“Aye, thank you, love,” Johnny told her, releasing you to get changed. He followed the older woman to the front desk, tactical black in a sea of white lace.

You couldn’t form a coherent thought; it was only Johnny in all of your senses, but you saw your hair tie wrapped around his wrist, and you didn’t have the heart to ask for it back.

He carried the box for you and put it in the boot, securing it under some of his gear.

“Right,” he slammed the back door and leaned over the edge of his huge tire to stare at you, “That’s sorted. Lunch?”

You smiled,

“Alright, as long as we’re back before two.”

He let out an exasperated sigh,

“Don’t worry, lass. I remember the rules.”

You hopped back in the Jeep for a short drive. Winding roads and arching hills followed you just outside of town. He pulled over into what looked like an empty gravel patch and helped you down again.

He didn’t let go of your hand this time. Able to sense your hesitation through the rigidity of your grip, he grinned down at you, squeezing your palm tighter,

“I said I remembered them, not that I agreed. C’mon, this way.”

There was a small dirt path that led into a small clearing, and just through the tree cover you could see the beginnings of an ancient ruin. Broken stone walls and reinforced edges gave way to a sprawling castle.

You gasped,

“What? Where has this been hiding?”

His wide smile couldn’t be contained,

“Land of Kings, lass. Cannae go twenty paces without trippin’ over a wee castle or two. This place does the best kebabs, I swear.”

“Kebabs?” You couldn’t believe what you were seeing.

Off to the side of the ancient ruins, a small food cart sat steaming with its owner, waiting (it seemed) just for you and Johnny to arrive.

Johnny ordered for you,

“Two lamb and two Iron Brus, please.”

While he waited for the food, you explored a bit, marveling at the old walls, the hints at life, the old fireplace that had half of its chimney still standing. You dared to touch the stones, wondering how many hands had touched the same one before you, wondering if lovers had read sonnets to each other under the eaves of the windows, wondering how many families were born and lived and died among the masonry under your fingertips.

After a while, Johnny found you and jerked his head for you to follow him, his hands full with your lunch.

He led you to a short wall and sat against it. You sat with him, the grass and clover soft beneath your legs. The view was spectacular. You could see most of the grounds, but you could also see down into the town itself. You watched everyone bustle and hurry along with their lives, driving little cars, carrying little bags, all oblivious to your stolen hour with a man who knew the rules and sought to break them.

The man passed your food to you and cracked open your soda. You commented on his choices, teasing him,

“Bit presumptuous of you. What if I didn’t like lamb?”

He glared playfully,

“But you do.”

You laughed,

“Okay, you got me. But, how’d you know?”

“They pay me to be observant, lass. And of all the observant bastards, I’m the best at it,” his tone has turned a bit sour, and you wondered why. You pried, gently,

“Do you like it? The…army?” You lacked the vocabulary to have this conversation.

He took pity on you, smiling softly as he unwrapped his kebab,

“Yeah, I’m good at it. Really good.”

“But do you like it?”

Silence, then a cutting laugh,

“Mm, that’s a hard question, thief.”

You felt like you should apologize, like you shouldn’t have pressed into a bruise that you had no business knowing about. He ate his kebab unbothered, though, and you took another chance,

“Why don’t you want me to call you Soap? Isn’t that your army name?”

Army name? You were kicking yourself for not coming up with something cooler like alias or even call sign. What was wrong with you?

You thought he might laugh, that he might tease you for calling it something so lame. But, he didn’t. He stopped eating, taking a moment to look out over the vista, the wind blowing through the ends of his hair. He didn’t look at you at first, but he replied,

“I don’t want you to call me that because… well. We were pinned down outside of a warehouse one night. Low on ammo, fuckin’ air strike got held back, out of options, ye ken? We could either hold tight and pray the fuckers didn’t find us, or we could make our way through the building. My mate had taken a goddamn bullet to the thigh, so I knew he wasnae waitin’. Cleaned out the whole warehouse on my own. Called me Soap. Not a speck of dirt left alive.”

It was your turn to be silent. The grass wasn’t as soft. The wind, once a gentle breeze, now overwhelmed you. There was an aimlessness to the quaint movements of the townsfolk down below you, a desperation.

You reached out your hand and found his. Perhaps he would pull away, shying from the salve of your touch, but he didn’t. He clutched at you, and you kissed the top of his shoulder experimentally, suddenly full of pluck in your imaginary little kingdom,

“Johnny it is, then.”

“Thank you,” he nuzzled the crown of your head and planted a kiss of his own.

The guilt was still there, haunting you in the shadows, but Johnny’s abject disregard for it had made it small and dulled its teeth. Selfishly, you ignored it while you were in this dreamscape, these ruins, where you were hidden.

You finished lunch and made it back to the car, holding hands through the castle walls as you walked, a thousand years too late to be its lord and lady. Johnny asked about your writing and your poems, and you told him the simple version. You sang with him on the drive. You made it back before two, untangled your fingers from his, and walked into… a catastrophe.

“Babes! There you are!” Pidge’s face was streaked with tears, “Roger’s got class tomorrow, so we have to finish these bloody invites quickly. We’ve got to get him back to Peggy’s before dark. Och, Christ, if it wasn’t two hours away!”

“Hey,” you grabbed her gently by the arms and glanced up at Johnny, “It’s gonna be okay, Pidge. We’ll take care of it, Johnny and me.”

You hated to see her so distraught. There were only 259 invitations. How hard could it be?

“What?” She looked stunned, “You will? Babes, there’s…”

“Two… hundred… fifty-nine…” Johnny laughed, supporting your decision to swoop in and help, “We know, Pigeon. Take the lad home. Give Peg my love, will ya?”

Hamish came around the corner with two duffel bags,

“What’s going on, love?”

Pidge fought back tears of relief as she filled him in,

“They’re going to do the invites, Hammie.”

“All of them?”

“All of them!” You laughed, interrupting her, “If you need to go, just go. Are you staying the night?”

“Yeah,” Pidge sighed, releasing all of her balled up stress, “We’re going to get her fitted in her dress, pick out jewelry, that sort of thing. Oh, gods! Why do you always save the day?”

She hugged you so tight around your neck that you lost your breath, but you hugged her back and whispered into her hair,

“Because I love you, Pidge.”

“And you know where to drop them off?”

You nodded,

“Yes, go on! We’re fine. Roger,” you shook the boy’s hand, “Nice to see you!”

Roger smiled and Johnny hugged him and Pidge and swept them out the door. All of the bustle and chaos subsided, turning into quiet silence once again. He turned to you with a strange look on his face,

“What have you done, thief?”

“I think I just said we’d address 259 invitations.”

“Aye,” he pulled his hands down his face and shook his head, “Red or white?”

You furrowed your brow,

“What?”

“Wine, love. ‘Cause fuck doin’ this shite sober.”

SIX HOURS LATER

“249! This calls for a celebration, mhèirleach,” Johnny cried out, reaching for the second half-drunk wine bottle, refilling both of your cups.

You raised your glass and smiled, watching the pink of his cheeks reach his eyes as he laughed with buzzed joy.

“Ten left,” you sighed, glancing at the clock, “and it only took us… six hours?”

“Christ,” he chuckled, “You and your charity.”

“Forgive me,” you begged, joking with him.

“Always,” his answer was a little more serious than teasing. There was a muted darkness to it that leaned towards suggestiveness.

You stamped 250 and 251, both shipping all the way to Dublin, apparently. Carefully spelling the names across the top, you stole stray glances at your partner, watching as he licked and sealed the edges of 252 and 253.

You’d talked about everything under the sun with him while your fingers bled from paper cut after paper cut. You had two bandaids already, and he had fawned over you, making sure they weren’t applied too tight.

You’d found out a lot about Johnny MacTavish. You learned about his friends, and their funny names. Ghost was a huge Manc with a penchant for masked theatrics on the battlefield. Gaz was a snarky daredevil, and Price was their fearless leader. Hearing about Gaz shooting terrorists upside down from a helicopter was the highlight of your night, and you couldn’t wait to meet them all.

You’d heard about his father who lost his life in Bosnia doing almost the same job as Johnny, and about how Pidge had taken it very hard. You’d known a little about him, since it was usually difficult conversations about their mom’s lost battle with cancer that was the pressure point. You’d met Pidge two years after her death, so you knew a lot about what the family had been through. But, it was rare for Pidge to bring up her father, and now you knew why.

Now, it was just Brigette and Johnny, still living together in their childhood home, frozen in time and yet moving at light speed toward their own separate lives.

You picked up the conversation where it had dropped off, stamping his sealed 253,

“So, Pidge doesn’t want you in your uniform at the ceremony?”

He shook his head dismissively,

“No, she’d come un-fuckin’-glued, she would. I’ve got my kilt, so I’ll be fit, don’t you worry your wee head, thief.”

“I bet you make the kilt look damn good,” you smiled, making a loopy letter L on the next envelope.

You missed his reaction, focused on your letters, but he had paused and you looked up to watch him. His eyes were wild and bright, staring right at you, caught mid-lick on 255.

He didn’t say anything, but his tight grin was reward enough.

256, 257, and 258 went by in a quiet blur, and then he held up 259, triumphant.

He licked it and passed it over to you. You stamped it and tossed it in the box.

“Holy shit,” you laughed.

“Aye,” he sighed, getting up and stretching a bit from sitting so long. Your eyes caught the hem of his shirt as it rose above his navel, showing off abs and a dusting of dark fur.

“You heading out tonight?” You asked, having heard buzz after buzz of notifications on his phone all night long. It was only around eight o’clock; plenty of time for a pub run.

His eyes narrowed down at you, mid-yawn,

“No, why would I?”

“Oh,” you shrugged, trying to brush it off as casually as you could, “I just saw Cherise had texted you and -”

“Love,” he waited for you to look up at him, his huge arms bulging as he leaned back against the countertop, staring you down with a white-hot intensity, “If I wanted to be out with Cherise, I’d be out with Cherise.”

He left the counter and walked over to you slowly, sitting in the chair closest to you, pulling both of your bandaged hands into his, staring down into them like he was trying to divine some sort of truth,

“I know Pigeon thinks she knows best, and for a while, she did. Maybe she still does, on some things. But, on this,” he squeezed your hands, “She has no right to decide what I want for myself. And look - I know I’m not…” he scoffed, “ boyfriend material, or whatever the shite, but when I saw you in the kitchen, stealin’ my shirt, drinkin’ out of my mug, sleepin’ in my bed… I couldnae say no. I’ve been sayin’ no to myself a lot, lass. Lettin’ my whole life rush by me. You hit me like a punch, so you did. Woke me up.”

You held onto every word like it owed you money, watching his face for any signs of the playboy you’d been warned about, but finding only Johnny. It was hard to protest, but your heart was tearing in two thinking about your friend and her brother. You sighed,

“Johnny, I can’t…”

“I know you cannae betray her. I know that. I know you won’t. But, you’ll let me, won’t you? Let me pretend that I can have you, just for tonight. I’m back in Sakhra tomorrow morning, but tonight I’m here with you. Just once, I’d like to know what that feels like.”

“And what happens to me?” You were whispering for some reason, matching his low voice, telling a secret you didn’t know how to keep, “What happens when you’re in Sakhra and I’m still here? Alone.”

He sighed, rucking his hands through his hair and standing up, pacing in the kitchen like he was waiting on bad news. Johnny shook his head, staring at the floor as he admitted,

“I dinnae ken what to do…”

You stood and joined him in the dimly lit kitchen, following some old recipe without a name, kneading dough that shouldn’t rise, baking bread you shouldn’t be breaking. Your hands found his broad, warm chest and you let him curl his arms around you.

“Just tonight, then,” you whispered again, as low as you could so that the angels might not make it out.

His whole body responded to your concession, lighting up like a fire in a hearth,

“Aye, mo mhèirleach, just tonight. And tomorrow, I’ll be gone, and you can call it a dream.”

He bent to kiss you and you dissolved into him like sugar into hot water, syrupy and sticky, cloying and saccharine. You were engulfed in his scent and his heat; he folded in and out of each of your senses, buttery smooth and suffocating. His hands were everywhere all at once, furious in their grasping, and eager to put skin on skin.

You were lifted, like you weighed nothing, frothy and light, spinning against his body until your legs wrapped around his hips. He walked you to his room, shouldering open the door with a cruel shove, suffering no obstacle. You fell, having been released from him, feeling like you would tumble forever downward before bounding on the soft mattress, the same sheets that held your secret sins holding your brazenness now.

You reached for his shirt and his buttons, and you were stopped. He held you, panting and breathless, shaking his head,

“No, thief, not you. Let me.”

Lost and pliant, you let him take you apart, peeling your clothes away, piece by piece, kissing the skin as he revealed it. Your blood rushed through your body, chasing his mouth, pooling in your lower belly, exciting your flesh, swelling your folds. You felt it tingle, and you reached for him again, trying to pull him on top of you.

That was what he wanted, right? What all men wanted. A sheath for their blade? But, oddly enough, he didn’t take the bait. Instead, he shed his shirt and pants, joining you on the bed, his face lingering by your belly, kissing you softly, licking your thighs and leaving little bruises on your hips with his mouth. Johnny finally found his way to your core, much to your aching relief, planting slick, languid kisses against your mons and lips, sucking at their softness.

He moaned like he was the one feeling the pleasure, looping your legs over his arms and moving your body up the bed with a purposeful shove, still suckling from you like a bee from a flower; as if his life depended on his work. You couldn’t help but run your hands through his hair, the silky smoothness of his mohawk too tempting to tug and scratch at his scalp.

If you did, he rewarded you for it. Every tug of his hair earned you a whining groan, and long gentle scratches on his head meant that he would gaze up at you through those long eyelashes with a heady, feral hunger. He lapped at your slick heat, fucking you with his mouth, eating you in a way you hadn’t imagined possible.

You were sobbing out long, growling cries of pleasure, begging him for more and more. He was all too happy to obey. When you came, he would edge you through it, pulling you along the crest of each wave of your pleasure like a buoy through the tide, keeping you afloat so that you might feel each and every salacious ebb of it.

“That’s it, lass. Come for me. Such a sweet cunt, like honey…”

You lost track of time, of everything. The only thing that existed was Johnny’s mouth on your pussy, and you were his prisoner. He could have told you to light yourself on fire and you would have hurried to do it. You were burning anyway. Your body was aching from the tension of coming over and over, sweating into the sheets from your exertion. Typically, he would have been begging for his turn by now, but Johnny was not a typical man.

You tried to stop him. You pulled his mouth away with some difficulty, making him face you, motioning for him to come and take the position his cock had generously earned between your thighs, but his mouth would hear none of it, shaking his head and returning to his post, dutiful and insatiable.

“Johnny, please…I’m - I can’t…” You couldn’t form words.

He smiled at your plight,

“Want another, mo mhèirleach? I’m so close. Give me another, lass. Please.”

He sucked at your clit with a dedicated fury, his hands pulling you in to his mouth, lapping right at your coiled nerves, fraying them, sparking them like kindling. You cried his name, hoarse from doing so, and you watched as his face contorted with pleasure as he thrust his hips into the bed, shamelessly humping the mattress, coming from your ecstasy and the little friction he could find.

Johnny called out for you and you held his hand, looping your fingers in his as you had in the castle, in his car, helping him come down from his high. He panted, recovering bit by bit, slowing his movements, kissing you chastely in all of the spots he’d been torturing.

He crawled up your body, finally, covering you with his hulking mass, sweating and heavy. You were trapped in his arms, your hands feeling his chest hair for the first time, cradling his face, watching him smile from utter bliss.

“Thank you, love,” he kissed you on your mouth, meaning it.

You chuckled, breathless,

“Me? Goddamn. I should be thanking you. Are you sure you don’t need me to…”

You reached your hand down to peel his ruined boxer briefs away from his softening cock, wet and messy from his orgasm on the bed. He caught your hand in his, stopping you,

“No, you cannae break your promise. You haven’t, thief. Dinnae worry. It was me. Just me. I just…needed to know.”

He curled you close to himself, folding you into him completely, and you slept there with him, naked atop the sheets, not caring who might see you.

DAWN OF THE NEXT DAY

You woke before he did, still curled inside of him, cocooned in his warmth like a reluctant butterfly, your wet wings still remembering his sweet work. Your breathing must have changed, because he woke too, looking down at you pleased yet hungry. He kissed you, soft as could be, and his fingers found your pussy just as they had when he’d been half-dreaming of you. Johnny touched you with confident purpose now, whispering in your ear so that you could feel his warm breath inside of it,

“Morning, mhèirleach.”

You gave him Shakespeare, teasing him for his love of poems. It was too fitting not to,

“Morning? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear…”

He was extremely pleased with your offering, raising his eyebrows, wanting you to continue. You did,

“Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree: believe me, love, it was the nightingale.”

He put on his best face for remorse, trying to remember his part,

“It was the lark, the herald of the morn. No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks do lace the…uh…

“Severing…” You helped him, smiling like a fool.

“...severing - um… clouds in yonder east…”

“That was good!” You kissed his cheek, rewarding his attempt, and then, sobering, you asked him, “Do you really have to go?”

He became serious with you, sighing into your skin,

“I do. But, I’ll text you all my mornings until we have another, aye?”

“Another? I thought you said we wouldn't…”

“I know what I said, thief.”

You kissed him until the last moment, and the click of his door as he closed it behind him made your heart ache. You lay there wondering about consequences and lovers and families and their houses until the sun sliced through the glass and into your eyes, glossy and full of uncertainty.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Chapter 06

#cod mw2 #cod #john soap mactavish #soap x reader #soap mactavish x reader #john mactavish smut #johnny mactavish #john mactavish x reader #cod mwii #call of duty fanfic #johnny soap mactavish #guile and guilt

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blackdiamond1038 · 6 months

Text

Secret Life Secrets

Session 6

Green- Successful

Red- Failed

Scott: There is an assassination hit out on you from a non-red. If they do at least 10 hearts of damage to you (or through another’s actions) or you die, you fail. You have one shot to guess who it is and make them fail even if they already dealt the damage. (You must still get involved in conversations.)

Pearl: You are an imposter. You must approach any or multiple reds and secretly tell them this task. They can give you any task to damage a green player. If you successfully damage 3 different green names (for any amount) from their instructions, you pass. A yellow can call you out as a traitor at any stage.

Gem: Nothing you say can be true for 30 minutes. If you tell the truth, you must start the timer again.

Jimmy: Task 1: Replace the water under the pink diving board with blue glass. You must not be caught. You succeed if they take damage from diving off. You fail if they find it or refuse to jump. Task 2: Punch another player into lava. It can be lava you have placed. [Died before succeeding or failing]

Mumbo: You are Grian’s terrible butler. You must do anything they say, but always get some aspect of it wrong. You can tell them you are their butler, but no one else. Task 1 [as a red]: Cause any amount of damage to a non-red using an anvil. Task 2: Build a TNT cannon and successfully hit a base from at least 50 blocks. Task 3: Strike a deal with a non-red to cause at least 3 hearts of damage to another non-red. You succeed when they have dealt the damage. [Died before succeeding or failing]

Grian: You declared yourself incorrectly successful last session. You must re-roll for harder task. [Re-roll for harder task] Etho is going to get a warden to the surface. You must get a wither. Make them do battle. You can work together to make this battle happen. The fight must take place in a central location.

Etho: You ended up with Pearl’s book at the end of last session. You must re-roll for harder task as punishment. [Re-roll for harder task] Grian is going to get a wither. You must get a warden to the surface. Make them do battle. You can work together to make this battle happen. The fight must take place in a central location. Deep dark can be found at -671 -30 1875.

Lizzie: Task 1: Use redstone to damage a non-red player. You cannot hit them with the item, it must be a machine or trap of some kind. Task 2: Summon a mod using an egg to deal any damage to a green. [Succeeded, but died before pressing the button]

Impulse: You are in a game of chicken with Scar and Bdubs. You pass if you win more than 3 chicken competitions. Anyone can declare a round of chicken as long as it’s something that will cause damage.

Bdubs: You are in a game of chicken with Scar and Impulse. You pass if you win more than 3 chicken competitions. Anyone can declare a round of chicken as long as it’s something that will cause damage.

Scar: You are in a game of chicken with Bdubs and Impulse. You pass if you win more than 3 chicken competitions. Anyone can declare a round of chicken as long as it’s something that will cause damage.

Skizz: You are now the therapist of the server. For the rest of the session, you must guide and give other players advice in a professional manner. The advice does not need to be good advice. You must help players to acknowledge and negative feelings. You cannot directly solve their problems, you are there only for emotional support. You fail if called out by a yellow. You can pass early if you give therapeutic advice to every other player at least once. You can only help someone if they appear down or frustrated.

Joel: You are Scott’s assassin. You must deal a minimum of 10 hearts of damage to them to succeed. You can use other people or any means you please. But if you are called out by them as the assassin, you fail, even if you already dealt the damage. They only have one guess.

Martyn: Task 1: Hit a green name with a sword until they block you with a shield. If you kill them, you also succeed. Task 2: Cause any amount of damage to a non-red using an anvil. Task 3: Strike a deal with a non-red to cause at least 3 hearts of damage to another non-red. You succeed when they have dealt the damage. Task 4: Summon a mod using an egg to deal any damage to a green. [Unfinished this session]

BigB: Everytime someone takes damage, tell them much too late how it could have been avoided. If you see them about to take damage, you must also warn them too late.

Tango [Ren]: You have an imaginary friend who is exactly like Tango. Talk to Tango as if they follow you around the whole session and are part of conversations. You must interact with other players.

Cleo: Everyone else knows what your task is. Figure it out and do it. They can’t tell you what it is but they can say warmer and colder when you attempt something. A yellow cannot call out this task as everyone already knows what it is. You cannot ask, you must attempt to do it. [At the end of all non-red player’s tasks, the rules for Cleo’s task were explained. This is what it was: Cleo’s task is: “Stand in a circle of different kinds of flowers and spin” You can’t tell her what it is, but you can say warmer and colder as she tries to figure it out. You can tell her when she’s done it. The rest of the server knows her task, she does not. She has to figure it out.]

This session was absolutely insane.

Lemme know if I missed something!

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todoriin · 3 months

Text

tidal waves | ayato is looking for a spouse. he comes to you.

cw: mentions of pregnancy, ayato kind of toxic (sry), coercion, manipulation, arranged marriage, unrequited love, ambiguous ending.

“Our new diplomatic relationships with Fontaine are moving along smoother than I imagined.”

The blue-haired head of Kamisato Clan sits before you comfortably, happily relaying the events that occurred during the time he was away from Inazuma. The sunlight shines delicately over you, creeping through the leaves of the sakura blooms that hang overhead. Often, the leaves fall around and onto you, summoning drizzles of pink.

Ayato remains the centre of your attention, though, the colour palette of spring enchanting when it is surrounding him.

“I’m happy to hear that. Trustworthy and hardworking, that’s our Yashiro Commissioner for you,” you praise, raising your cup of tea to your lips.

“No doubt this will bring forth some interesting business opportunities for you, correct?”

“Of course, as with any nation. However, my greatest concern with Fontaine is the travel time, but with their advanced technology, I doubt any rigorous human effort will be required during the process. I’m hoping it will be smooth for both parties.”

A long time ago, you were ashamed of how long you could talk for. Now, with someone like Ayato listening to your every word, you don’t withhold any (negligible) information.

(There is no news that will escape Ayato. He knows more than he lets on and has ears placed at all corners of Inazuma. Try as you may to keep something from him, the only thing you can truly control is when and how the information reaches him.)

“Please, feel free to keep me updated. I am fascinated by Fontaine’s productivity with their machinery, I would love to learn more.”

With a humble bow of your head, you reassure him you will invite him so he may see for himself when the time comes. “Why did you invite me here, Ayato?” You ask, setting down your now empty tea cup with a clink.

“Oh, yes, thank you for coming on such short notice. Hopefully you did not have to cut out any important matters for this meeting, did you?”

“I will always have time to see you. Arranging my schedule is no trouble if the Yashiro Commissioner needs me.”

He blinks twice before his expression melts into something softer. “I am delighted to hear that. As for why I summoned you here today, well, I am hardly as young as I was when I first took up the mantle of Yashiro Commissioner. With every passing day, I am increasingly aware of my age.” He begins, violet eyes as unreadable as ever as they gaze into you, unyielding. It’s always hard to look away when you first get a glance.

(If you were to describe Kamisato Ayato, you’d compare him to an ocean. On the surface, harmless with his calm and predictable waves, reflecting the light of the sun in ripples, tempting you to take a step in.)

“Even Chiori made a comment about having to make me look younger.”

“Stop it- the wrinkles around your eyes aren’t that deep-”

“-Y/n. There is still no heir to the Kamisato Clan or the Yashiro Commission.”

“You won’t be giving up the mantle any time soon though, right?”

“Rest assured, I have no thoughts as such, but it is now the time to think about matrimony.”

You’re not sure why, but your stomach feels like a falling anvil, premonition settling in your bones like lead. “Why did you call me here, Ayato?”

An answer formulates in your head before he even needs to open his mouth, and it sounds out an awful song, one that causes your ears to bleed and knees to buckle.

(You take your first step into the sea. The sand is silk beneath your feet, and the water splashes with your every step. You keep going until the water is up to your waist, knocking against your chest with each wave.)

“I want you to be my spouse.”

No matter how many surprise meetings you have sat through with alarming news, none will ever shake you to your core like this one. For all the news of lost shipments, pirates that confiscated your products, and investment failures, nothing would have ever trained you for an occasion like this.

Professionalism is a delicate mask, and Ayato knows exactly how to chip away at it.

“No- no, I couldn’t,” you begin, nothing but a jumble of feelings that have turned you inside out like a kimono. “Ayato, I refuse.”

You? A Commissioner’s spouse? How detestable. You know the last thing Ayato could wish for you is a life of misery, confined to the chains of propriety, social etiquette, and societal management, but you also thought you’d be the last person he’d consider to be wed to.

All these decades of friendship, was it just so it could lead to this finale? Did you ever know him like you truly thought you did?

The monster disguised as a man sits himself beside you, sinking to his knees, and the white, rich fabrics of his attire pool around you.

“I can promise you happiness, Y/n. Mora, safety, whatever you need, I’ll be at your beck and call.”

Happy? Married?

His gloved hand finds yours. It’s not warm, and his touch feels inhuman, but you don’t have it in you to pull away from him. “In collaboration with the resources from the Yashiro Commission, we could make your business operations much more efficient.”

“Can’t you find another partner? There are no shortages of elites who are looking for potential partners in Inazuma. I could talk to some candidates on your behalf to organise a meeting, I am certain no one could ever reject your hand in marriage-”

“-Then, why are you?”

“Why are you so persistent that it must be me?”

“There are… no other individuals like you. I recognise that not all marriages need to be formed from love, but that does not exclude friendship. Our companionship is one I trust, you are my ideal candidate.”

“I would not make a good spouse.” You omit to tell him of your carefree qualities, that you have a business to run, and that you could not imagine a life bound to another, even if he is someone as dreamy as the Kamisato head. “I could not make you happy.”

“Guaranteeing my happiness does not have to be your duty.” His hands delicately trace the lines on your palms, you protest against the way they naturally curl at the sensation.

“Then what will be?”

“Producing an heir to the Kamisato Clan.”

He does not miss the way you shift uncomfortably in your position, or the subtle displeasure that clouds your eyes. Ayato’s not sure how successful he can be if he remains this persistent, every attempt seems to only push you further away, but if there’s anything he’s good at it is biding his time. The best lesson his time as the Yashiro Commissioner has taught him it’s that patience leads to success, and he’s willing to give you some time to figure it all out.

“I do not want to force you into something you do not want to partake in. You may have some time to think, I await to hear your answer once you are ready.” he gets up silently and quickly. It’s strange. You feel like you disappointed him.

He strides out of the gardens, tea and sweets untouched. For all the years you have known him, this is the first time he leaves without escorting you out, showing you the retreating figure of his broad back.

What will you do? Ayato, above all else, is cunning and calculating; a terrifying trait of his. Everything he wants, he eventually gets, the art of patience is one he has mastered. The only thing you can liken him to is a fox biding its time to catch its prey.

You will not remain ignorant to the fact that it appears this time, you are his prey.

He will find subtle ways to intercept in your business, he will take advantage of everything he knows about you and use it to your demise, everywhere you turn, he will be there. How long will it be until he sinks his teeth into you?

That day, you go to sleep with an uneasy heart. You feel like you’re playing with a lit bomb, juggling with it so that it will explode when it is out of your hands.

Three weeks later, you receive news that a shipment of yours suddenly caught fire, destroying everything that you were exporting, harming few of your employees in the process.

Your time is up.

(His hand grabs your ankle, and pulls you under.)

#ayato x reader #kamisato ayato x reader #gn!reader #tw manipulation #tw pregnancy #genshin x reader

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clanwarrior-tumbly · 9 months

Note

‘realize’ for the word ask thingy!! -galaxy

I see this and I raise you:

Doll!Reader helping Ken realize that horses exist in Barbieland

..........

"You weren't kidding..we really did have horses here all along.."

"Glad you finally realized that, Ken." With a small chuckle, you turned back to your horse, taking the pink plastic brush to her mane as you gently combed through the fluff.

"There you go, girlie...how do you keep getting these knots, hm?" You cooed, to which she snorted in reply, seeming content.

All the while, Ken couldn't stop staring at you both in awe, still trying to process what he was seeing before his very eyes.

A horse in Barbieland.

If only he knew they existed here, too, before he decided to take over everything and reinvented patriarchy.

The one time you decided to come into town....was when this seemingly perfect paradise was rapidly transformed into "Kendom", where the Kens took over the dreamhouses and attempted to rewrite the entire constitution.

They attempted to brainwash you as they did other Barbies into servitude, but since you weren't a Barbie yourself...it didn't really work.

Yet Ken, aka Beach Ken who went to the Real World with Stereotypical Barbie and returned as a completely different person, tried convincing you to stick around, showing off all the horse-themed stuff he had.

Despite you being a doll literally centered around equine care, he kept talking over you, spouting nothing but inaccurate horse facts and firmly believing he knew more than you.

As far as he was aware..horses only existed in the Real World, where men rode them and owned them and were the ultimate symbols of manhood.

When he made a jab at your job and refused to believe it's your actual profession, you snapped and nearly ripped his horseshoe chain necklace off of him, embarrassing him in front of all the other Kens, before you called out to your horse.

His jaw dropped as he saw her appear out of nowhere, and you mounted her and glared at him, mockingly asking if he still believed they're only from the Real World. Then you galloped all the way back home, refusing to hear his response.

You haven't returned since, and he struggled to maintain his image as a manly and "cool" leader after that revelation was dropped on him like an anvil.

After all was said and done, and Barbieland was restored to its former glory, Ken decided to go look for you. After realizing that patriarchy didn't make him happy, he wanted to make amends (and see your horses, but mostly make amends) and admit that scorning your job was shitty.

He kept rehearsing what he was going to say during the long walk to your home....but ended up faltering at your doorstep, becoming an anxious wreck until you let him in.

You weren't inclined to, at first, although seeing as he no longer wore that stupid mink coat and instead had a tie-dye hoodie that said "I Am Kenough", you figured he finally had some sense knocked into him.

Plus, the fact that he walked all this way was surprising..until you remembered Kens didn't drive cars or use bikes.

Even so, it's obvious that he genuinely wanted to make things right.

So both of you talked for a while, with him concluding that he felt stressed and unsure of what to do with his life now that Barbie's out of the picture.

He felt like he didn't belong anywhere near her dreamhouse, and he wasn't ready to go back to the Real World anytime soon. He just felt...stuck.

You didn't have too many words to comfort him with, given you've never been there and you've never dealt with the complex human emotions he just started experiencing himself.

But you did know how to cheer him up.

So you took him outside to one of the fenced arenas at your ranch, whistling for your horse, and she came trotting over.

Ken was awestruck, watching you tend to the gentle creature as you finished brushing her mane. He stepped closer to the fence, unsure of what to do or what to say...or even if he was allowed to be this close.

However you could see the look in his eyes, and the hesitancy in his body language, and ultimately relented.

You couldn't stay mad at him for eternity.

"You can pet her if you wanna."

He blinked in surprise, before looking at your horse again and cautiously reaching out to her face. For a moment she stared at him, and the abrupt snort made him flinch away.

"I-I...don't think she likes me.." He frowned.

"It's okay, Ken. She only acts like that 'cuz you're reaching for her mouth and don't have any food. Here. Let me help."

You took his hand, ignoring the way he stared at you with a growing blush on his face while you guided him. But eventually his focus shifted back to the horse as he felt soft fur beneath his fingertips, eyes widening as he looked to see his hand resting just above her nose.

Her ears flicked to the side, though besides that..she didn't react in any hostile way.

He was in childlike amazement, gently petting her and brushing his fingers through her mane. And you stepped back, allowing the two to bond, before noticing the tears welling up in his eyes.

"Are you alright?"

"Y-Yeah...this is just awesome. She's nothing like the ones on those stupid TVs we had."

"Nope. They can't compare to her." You chuckled, leaning against one of the posts with a warm smile. "She's the real deal."

#clanask #galaxy anon #barbie movie x reader #barbie x reader #ken x reader #ryan gosling ken #one word prompt

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possible-streetwear · 18 days

Text

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tackytigerfic · 4 months

Text

Drarry ~ E ~ 10k ~ Blacksmith Draco ~ Unspeakable Harry ~ attractive adventurer Teddy Lupin

Written for the @drarrymicrofic song prompt Who We Are by my countryman Hozier. "Oh Christ, hold me like a knife" inspired this one.

A gift for my dear friend @sitp-recs who means so much to me and who inspires me to look beyond my own drarry-centric brain and see the beauty in Teddy Lupin other characters. Happy belated birthday, Livvy!

Love and thanks to @maesterchill and @sweet-s0rr0w who lend their brilliant brains to me and always make things so much better.

Please check tags and author's notes for warnings!

Wield Me

You’re not an easy man to track down,” Harry said from the doorway, where he was leaning like he was meant to be there. Draco hadn’t heard him arrive over the greedy roar of the flames in the forge, the measured exhaled rhythm of the bellows.

Harry was sweating already, top lip shining, cheeks pink with heat. His t-shirt had damp patches under the arms, a dark spreading vee across the chest.

“You have to really want me to find me,” Draco told him, taking a lazy sort of pleasure when Harry smiled at that, as Draco had known he would. “And anyway, you saw me last week at the pub.”

“Doesn’t count,” Harry said, succinctly. “That was pleasure, not business.”

Pleasure, Draco thought, the word rolling over him, something physical in it, like the memory of spilled beer and low lighting and, much later, Draco’s mouth swollen from the feel of Harry’s stubble, and then he remembered himself and cast Harry a chastising look.

“Are you just here to distract me, or do you have a purpose for this visit? Only I’ve got a lot on, so…” He gestured at their surroundings, the low fervid light from the forge, the fat-bellied leather bellows, the anvil sitting squat, backlit against the flames. Harry followed his movement, his eyes catching on the faint gleam of tools sitting on the workbench and beyond that, the display shelves where metal winked through the faint haze of smoke.

“I need to commission you,” Harry said.

Read the rest on AO3

Image: Octavian Dan on unsplash

#drarry #drarry fic #rowing and writing #i actually wrote myself out of covid with this one #had to take a break from the final scene of my long wip as my brain wouldn't work #had started and abandoned this one already #but then it spilled out while I was recuperating #v satisfying #brain clearly needed a change of pace #and by change of pace i mean kissing teddy lupin

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2kmps · 7 months

Text

Morning Routine

howl pendragon x reader | 1,534 words

synopsis; it could never just be a peaceful morning in the castle. not while howl was around, not as long as he had time to disturb your bath.

notes; book!howl-coded bc he's a massive fucking brat here, slice of life moment, implied established relationship, roughly proofread, written 2021.

The cataclysm that was your life often began just as dawn broke across the sky, all with its hues of pink and orange spearing through the shroud of night. You knew it not by the caress of light seeping through the slithers of space between your curtains, nor by crowing roosters in their tragically optimistic song. In fact, by comparison to what you typically endured, a rooster would by far be your preference.

At that point, you had become attuned to stirring right around that time as it was; the fog of sleep still sat in your mind like an anvil, inciting your head back to your pillow for just a bit longer. You always resisted because it would never amount to anything anyway.

So there you sat, legs hanging like lead over the edge, shoulders and back rolled forward in such a way you felt the pull of gravity teetering you towards the floor.

You eyes were the last thing to adjust, keeping them closed for the most part until you found the bravery in you to put forth your feet and stand.

Most days, however, you waited for the castle to erupt.

And that it did.

Although notoriously not an early-riser, Howl had quite gotten into the habit recently for reasons you didn’t bother to explore, aside from petty teatimes with Sophie. His gait was unmistakable as he pounced down the stairs, attempting all the lightness of an antelope in his movements, but only ended up like a clumsy giraffe stumbling down them.

You thought you caught a waft of his new cologne or another from the gap beneath your door.

From there, you listened with an increasingly steady heart, anticipating the next things to come.

Below your feet you heard a mishmash of voices, all their owners very distinct, though their words were dulled by the splintery floorboards supporting your feet, and probably the fact your ears were still deafened to most sounds right now.

Sophie was likely asking what everyone wanted for breakfast, encouraging Michael to fetch you out of bed, to jab you a couple times in the ribs with a broom handle if you were being particularly fussy. He gave some affirmative, you were sure, listening to the lethargic groan of staircase.

Next came Howl’s voice, damn bold, bright, and too fucking chipper for this early in the morning. He was speaking with rapid succession, you could only assume it was a complaint about burnt bacon, or insisting he cook up his own eggs. It wasn’t unfathomable the dolt made mention of some travesty Sophie committed yesterday as well.

“Why you—first thing in the morning! This is what you let fly out of your flap?! I should’ve known you’re no good. Eat your bacon! Shush!” Sophie’s screech was clear and loud, jolting you upright from the remnants of your sleep. “The eggs are fine, you buffoon. There’s nothing—no, there’s nothing wrong with them!”

“I shouldn’t have to make breakfast every morning!” Howl rejoined, being the only thing you could discern through the floorboards before an awful, cacophonous contest of bellows erupted from downstairs.

You rose to your feet then, swaying back on your heels for just a second as you propelled yourself towards the door, throwing it open against the wall just as Michael’s knuckles had come forward on it to knock.

“Oh, mornin’, figured you were awake.” Michael said, rubbing away the sleep in his eyes. “I think Calcifer overcooked the bacon, but you know Howl.”

“Mmmya,” came the grunt from your throat as you sidled past him in the doorway, onward towards the bathroom, missing the kid’s utterly apathetic, distant stare after you.

Even with the thick door shut and the ferocious hiss of water gushing into the bathtub, you still heard traces of their argument downstairs. You tried to pay little heed to it as you sat along the rim of the rub, a foot hiked across your knee as your fingertips glided in a dance across the rippling surface, testing the temperature by plunging your hand to the wrist, smacking your palm on the bottom of the tub.

At this stage in the morning, you didn’t have the capacity to understand and express emotion let alone meditate whatever their spit was today.

As the mirrors dotted throughout the bathroom began to fog, steam swirling around you in white puffs that touched your skin the same as a warm breath; familiar yet always new enough, you shucked off your night clothes and stepped in carefully. You had ran the temperature too high, but your shared frugal nature with Sophie made it but impossible to drain the tub—or worse, use even more water.

The heat nipped at your toes, searing the pads of your feet as you bounced from one to the other. It crept higher to your shins, to your thighs and groin, hips, waist, and finally the rest of you as you slowly submerged your body beneath the fragrant waters. The eucalyptus and lemongrass floated inside your nostrils as you breathed; both a classic, yet harmonious meld that brimmed your lungs and parted from your lips.

“Ah! I knew it! You were the one who stitched a patch into my suit! Michael, look at this hideousness! I can’t wear this!” Howl lamented, his sheer agony managed to seep through the crevices in the floorboards into the bathroom.

You weren’t sure how.

There was a pause, presumably of reluctance before Michael offered his thoughts. “Why not? It looks fine to me.”

“Michael!” Howl exclaimed, his voice jumping a to a higher pitch, clearly affronted. “My own apprentice says such things. Where did I fail? Was it when, out of the kindness of my soul—my very being, Michael, when I let Sophie start sleeping on the cot?”

“Can’t you pipe down?” said Sophie in exasperation. “Some people are trying to enjoy their morning. Now, stop being a baby and go put your suit away.”

Of course, the fighting did not end, and you resigned to drowning out their voices to incoherent shouts for the sake of enjoying your bath. Even still, your eyes floated about the bathroom lazily; noting the many absolute useless trinkets that decorated the walls, to the bottles of dyes and cosmetics rammed haphazardly atop the sink, stacked thoughtlessly.

It was much the same on the adjacent rim of the bathtub touching the wall, Howl’s collection of mysterious dyes, shampoos, scrubs, and washes were all in unmarked glass bottles.

You thought some even glowed.

You could barely bring yourself to look above the containers at the white walls stained like an artist’s palette after a time of mixing, dabbing, adding, and stippling. It was mostly curiosity that led you to reaching a hand above water, attempting to dig a nail under a splotch of vibrant red, grimacing once you realized it was not coming up.

“God, he just needs to suck it up and take some bleach from his sister.” You groused, scraping dutifully at the stain with some hope any amount of red would chip away.

You had anticipated for the fighting downstairs to eventually migrate to the top floor. It was less an attempt of escape on Howl’s part and more of his desire to complain to you until the evening at this new wickedness of Sophie’s.

Predictably, feet pounded up the staircase, rattling the oddities on the walls and jingling others as the hallway exploded with all the ferocity of a thundering stampede. You heard first the noise stop at your bedroom door, Howl’s voice echoing your name urgently before tromping onward.

The eucalyptus was getting deep into your muscles at that point, you didn’t even consider the fact that the tips of Howl’s boot-clad toes peeked beneath the bathroom door.

For some reason, you expected a smidge of courtesy and rapping knuckles against the wood door, not it swinging open hard enough to strike the wall behind it and bounce off it.

Howl surged forward into the bathroom, swiping the steamy air with his suit as he thrust it out at arm’s length. “Look! Look at what what that sad old woman did! Can you see it? This patch is hideous, and right in the elbow! I’m beside myself, you need to stop her—”

“What in the living hell, Howl!” You shouted, unsure of what parts of you were appropriate to cover, so you simply ripped the shower curtain over until all except your head was hidden. “I don’t care! Get out!”

Howl let out a horrified gasp, clutching the suit jacket closer to his chest. “You don’t care? What world am I living in that my sweetest, my beloved does not share in my pain? We swore ourselves to share agony and hardships and—”

“Oh my god, Howell! I’m trying to take a bath! Scram!” The first bottle flung was in plastic, an orange dye to be precise. Your hands felt along the cluttered wall for anything else light. “Git! Git! Git!”

Howl ducked around your onslaught, nearing closer to the door as he went. “That awful woman! Look at how she’s rubbed off on you! I won’t forgive her.”

“Holy hell, Howell! Go!"

divider by; @/anlian-aishang

reposted from my deleted blog, cardeneiv

please interact and reblog if you enjoyed!!

#hmc imagines #hmc fic #hmc howl #howl hmc #hmc book #hmc #howl x you #howlscastle #howl's moving castle #howls moving castle #howl pendragon x y/n #howl pendragon x you #howl pendragon x reader #howl pendragon #howell jenkins #2k writes

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vivwritescrappythings · 1 month

Text

Twenty-Five

eddie munson x gn!reader

A self indulgent fic for my birthday today. I always cry on my birthday, no matter what, and this was inspired by my own boyfriend who is so lovely and sweet and Eddie reminds me of him all the time. But, nevertheless, treated this one like a diary entry more than a fic.

You always cry on your birthday, and this is the year Eddie finds out.

tw: crying, talks about death, panic attacks, angst, hurt/comfort, gender neutral reader but also heavily girl coded bc this is a self indulgent fic about my own life and I identify as a girl, not proofread

Word count: 2.8k

There’s something horrible about the way that time just keeps going no matter what. No stops, no returns. There’s no warning that something just happened for the last time, no flashing signs that say: Stop! You’ll never get to experience this again so savor it!

Everything just moves on and moves on and moves on.

Your thoughts are cyclical in nature, it takes you give or take 365 days to get to the same spot: crumpled somewhere private, crying. When you were young it used to be your parents’ walk-in closet, you would curl where your mother’s skirts met your father’s jeans and sob until you could hardly breathe. In your teen years the big meltdown would take place in your car, the beat up SUV felt like your own box of privacy to cry into the palms of your hands after school. You had to hide under the cover of your comforter in your dorm room, praying you were silent enough that your roommate didn’t notice.

This year is the same as any other, you feel like an anvil has been placed on your chest the second you open your eyes. Sunlight diffuses through the sheer lilac curtains over your bedroom window, tinging the morning with an eerie, dreamlike quality. Normally you find the color to be pleasant, mystical rather than gloomy.

Eddie is still asleep next to you, your gaze pulled to the gentle peace that has settled on his face. He’s never still and calm like this, you like to take your opportunities to absorb him in this state when possible. You resist the urge to press a kiss to his pink lips, deciding to let him catch these last few hours of sleep that you yourself have been deprived of.

He’s always been better at sleeping than you, the beginning few hours of most mornings spent on your own reading or watching some show in the other room. It doesn’t matter if you’re at his trailer or your apartment, you always wake up when the first dregs of sunlight hit your eyelids.

You pull yourself from bed with a soft groan, stretching and blinking in an attempt to ground yourself. Of course, it isn’t sufficient, the dizzy feeling of dread curling around your shoulders like a blanket as you emerge from your room into the modest kitchen of your single-room apartment. The bedroom door closes with a soft click behind you, just enough to shield Eddie and let him rest.

There are still a million tasks that you need to accomplish today. You’d made progress yesterday evening, dusting and scrubbing and rearranging every corner of your apartment in an attempt to make it look like no one had ever lived there. It was mostly accomplished, dishes still in the sink and pillows on the couch rumpled where you had been watching television.

While the coffee brews you set on your first task of the day, pulling the mixer out of a cupboard along with a large bowl you’d gotten from the thrift store. Baking while Eddie is asleep will be easier, his fingers no longer poking into the bowl for a taste or his puppy-dog eyes set on you like a weapon in an attempt to convince you to let him lick the spoon. The bowl you used to mix the cake batter yesterday sat in the sink, licked so clean that if you didn’t know any better you would have put it away.

It’s a miracle he didn’t make himself sick.

You put a record on to fill the emptiness, trying to keep your mind busy with tasks and noise so you don’t have a moment to sit down and think too much. By the time you flip to the B side, the red velvet cake you made was decorated in a thick layer of cream cheese frosting. You haphazardly press sprinkles onto its surface as decoration, not trusting your ability to pipe lettering on it.

It’s decent enough, you remind yourself to set your perfectionism aside as you return it to the cake stand in the corner of the kitchen and set about fussing with the rest of your apartment.

It’s easy enough to distract yourself while you have things to do. You don’t rest, jumping from one thing to the next in a journey that leads you from washing the dishes in the sink to straightening up the couch cushions to folding every blanket strewn across your living room.

But you can only keep going so long.

Eventually you run out of tasks, or out of steam. You’re not sure which hit first as you allowed yourself to fall onto the couch with a huff. The dread comes rushing back all at once, nearly paralyzing you as you gather up one of the meticulously folded blankets and cover yourself with it.

No matter what, no matter how many birthdays come and go, you always feel the same devastation of the years going by. With a start you realize that this is your first birthday that you no longer consider your parent’s house your home. It startles you, making you think back in an attempt to identify when the last time you referred to it as your home was.

What are they doing now? Surely they are awake by now, but they haven’t called. Probably giving you privacy, not wanting to wake you up in case you had a wild night to kick off your birthday weekend. It was rare, but it could have happened.

You should call them, but the thought of even talking to your mom right now is making your throat close. It’s all too much, everything is going too fast. You still remember your fourth birthday party, the one with the fairies and the cheap wings made of coathangers and your mother’s old stockings that all the little kids decorated. It gets you thinking about how you used to make crowns with her out of construction paper, emblazoned with crayon butterflies.

A sob wrenches from you before you even realize you are crying, it’s a horrible strangled sound that you hardly recognize as your own. Tears blur your vision as you check the bedroom door, praying that Eddie hadn’t heard.

After a few moments without movement, you let the tears fall and the misery engulf you.

It’s confusingly irrational and rational at the same time, the contradiction eating you up inside as you consider having an annual crisis over the inevitable death of your parents while still actively having the crisis. Your hysterics feel ridiculous, you’re twenty-five now, your frontal cortex is fully developed and you should be able to move on with the idea that someday they will be gone.

Gone.

Jesus. You wonder if every child feels this way or if you are the only one. The soft cushions of the couch welcome you as you slouch onto them, shoulders shaking as your face wedges into the corner of the sofa. Once the floodgates are open you can’t stop them, thinking about how there will eventually be a day that it's the last time you speak with them and you’ll never know it until it already happens.

You helplessly remind yourself that you always tell them you love them before you hang up phone calls, before you leave their home after weekend get-togethers and holidays and family dinners. But will you regret not spending more time with them? Will you look back someday and wish that you had spent more of your fleeting moments with people that were all too temporary despite the fact that they meant everything to you?

Do people with siblings feel like this? The solitude that comes with the idea of the death of a parent? You don’t know, doomed to be an only child and always carrying the burden of it on your shoulders and your shoulders alone.

You don’t know how long this meltdown lasts, crying and crying and crying about grief that is yet to happen, regrets you don’t even know you will have. No matter how hard you try to be rational and firmly rooted in the present, you find yourself mourning people who are still alive every year on the day that should be a celebration.

A gentle hand on your spine startles you from the spiral of your thoughts, shame and grief and guilt fraying your nerves as you choke on a sob. You stiffen like you are electrocuted, your shoulders curling in as you compress closer to the back of the couch.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Eddie’s voice is still groggy from sleep, raspy and soft in all your favorite ways.

You can only imagine his confusion, he probably woke up expecting you to be reading a book or finishing up your birthday cake instead of burrowing into your couch in a fit of tears.

Eddie has never been around for the quiet parts of your birthday, the moments where you hide yourself away and wallow. You’ve been friends for ten years now, dating for two of them, but you’ve still managed to keep this secret in the hollow of your heart and bear your misery alone.

“It’s okay,” you exhale, the simple words a staccato as you try to catch your breath. Your face is soaked with tears, you keep it mashed against the couch as you try to stuff everything you’re feeling back into the neat little box it sprung from.

He lets out a soft breath, his fingertips start to move up and down from the base of your skull to where your ratty and holey pajama bottoms hug your hips. “If it’s okay then what are you doing out here crying?”

You know the second you face him the temporary dam you have managed to build will come crashing loose. Eddie nevertheless manages to squeeze his long fingers into the space between your shoulder and the fabric of the couch, slowly turning you on your back to face him.

He looks so sweet, his hair gathered in a loose bun at the nape of his neck and his brown eyes round with concern as he looks down at you. Instead of sitting on the couch he’s kneeling next to it, his face closer to yours than you anticipated. You’re sure you look like a disaster, skin red and splotchy and eyes bloodshot. No matter how many times you rub the back of your hand across it you can’t stop your nose from running like a faucet and your lips are so swollen.

Eddie cups your cheek with a calloused hand, rubbing your tears away with his thumb as his brows furrow. “C’mon, baby, talk to me.”

The plea is so genuine that you immediately whine despite your attempts to steel yourself against your emotions. You burst into an additional round of tears, crying so hard that you are nearly choking. Despite your attempt to explain, your words are unintelligible, distorted by your sobs.

Eddie’s arms curl around you, warm even through the thin fabric of your sleep shirt. With no help on your part, he manages to pry you off the couch and into his lap, cradling you against the seat of the couch. As always, he just knows what to do.

He coaxes your head to find the curve of his neck, his fingers caressing the back of your skull as he remains silent. Rather than try to understand what’s going on right now, he just lets you cry it out.

Your tears soak into the back fabric of his cut off Metallica shirt, your arms winding around his torso as you cling to him. Eddie is so solid, he always has been when it comes to you. After knowing one another for a decade, he knows how to handle your storms, how to bring them down to a manageable size and get the gray clouds to go away.

Eventually the sobs slow, you take greedy pulls of air as your fingers twist in the fraying bottom edge of the shirt Eddie is wearing. He claimed there was something he found overstimulating about where the hem originally landed on his lanky frame, cutting it so slivers of his pale stomach were visible any time he moved. Your fingers pressed along the line of skin just above where the elastic of his boxers hung low.

“Do you, uh, just ever think about how everyone is gonna die?” In retrospect, you’re not sure if that’s how you’d phrase the question. It comes out mumbled and wet-sounding against his shoulder, your eyes squeezed shut as you attempt to explain.

He hums his acknowledgment, leaving you empty space to fill. It’s the telltale way he pulls things from you, knowing that if he doesn’t say anything you will babble to fill that silence.

“It’s stupid.” You squish yourself closer, briefly wishing that you could just sit inside his skin. “I just, uh, always think about how, like, when I get older on my birthday that everyone else gets older too?” The way you say it makes it sound like a question rather than a statement.

Again, just a sound of acknowledgement.

“It just is so shitty that everything goes so fast and my parents are getting older and someday I won’t have them and even though I’m older now I don’t even know anything and I have no idea how to do anything without them,” you babble, your gasping breaths interrupting the stream of consciousness spilling from you.

Now that you’ve started you can’t stop. “It’s like my birthday is a marker for how much time is changing and it feels so fast and I’m not ready to be by myself and get even older.” A few tears squeeze out of your eyes, your fingertips pressing into his torso.

“Why am I like this?” you whisper, the question defeated and soft.

“Because you are the most caring person I know, baby,” he murmurs in response, his arms winding around you completely as his hands rub up and down your arms. His cheek squishes into the crown of your head, his warm breath against your scalp. “But nothing is happening yet, and I know the way your brain works makes it feel so real to you even though it’s not real. It will be someday, but you can’t think about it like this right now.”

You nod slowly, trying to take deep breaths. The years of anxiety and guilt and paralyzing fear seem to melt away under his reassurance. “Never talked about this with anyone before,” you mumble into him, feeling deflated.

“You don’t have to do everything by yourself, baby,” Eddie says, pressing a quick kiss to the crown of your head. The two of you are in a tangle of limbs on the floor of your living room, holding each other close.

You nod against him, the simmering pot of emotions finally slowing down. “I love you,” you say, your words sounding thick and wet and so small.

“I love you too.” The way Eddie says it, you can hear his smile.

You don’t know why you keep this all to yourself, why you let everything bottle up and the emotions consume you. But you’re so thankful that it’s Eddie you have to talk to.

You finally lift your head, lip wobbling as you look up at him with wet eyes. His pink mouth is twisted into a smile, a kiss stamped against your forehead. “There you are,” he murmurs, a tinge of excitement in his tone like he just won a game of hide and seek. A hand comes up to wipe away the tears slicked across your cheeks, his calloused fingertips rough against your skin.

“Happy birthday, baby,” Eddie says, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. The cliff you were teetering on feels so far away now, your ribs no longer cracking apart under the weight of your guilt.

“Thank you,” you whisper, a sheepish smile settling on your face as you tilt your head up toward his. Eddie presses his lips to yours without hesitation, a hand caressing your jaw as he kisses you with such a fervor that you don’t think you can ever deny the fact that this boy loves you.

His brown eyes are soft as you pull apart, flicking over your face before settling on your gaze. “Now, how about we get dressed and go get some birthday waffles from the diner,” Eddie suggests, nudging your cheek with his nose. “Your mom told me she always makes you waffles for your birthday, but with my luck I’d probably burn your kitchen down.”

You laugh, Eddie’s expression coloring with pride as the sound rattles from you. “Yeah, okay, let’s go,” you murmur, nodding as you start to stand.

Eddie joins you, looping an arm around your shoulders and tugging you to the bedroom of your apartment. He keeps pressing kisses to your forehead, whispering little quips to you that keep earning peals of laughter.

He’d bend over backwards or lasso the sun just to make you smile, and you realize that Eddie is your favorite present this year.

#stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #reader insert #eddie munson x gn!reader #joseph quinn #eddie munson fluff #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things season 4 #eddie munson angst

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becauseicantthinkwritings · 1 year

Text

Teeth

Part 8!

Werepanther! Billy Russo x Female Reader

Masterlist

Warnings: Robbery, knives, angst.

A/N: Look, *deep breath* I'm sorry.

I should just forget about him, you think to yourself on the walk home.

It was embarrasing, you hadn't seen him in days since he left you in that elevator, and the absence of him managed to make you feel even worse.

He hadn't been home either, you'd kept the curtains parted so that you could catch any movements in his windows. So far, nothing.

It had made you feel so upset and you couldn't even figure out why. Maybe you were getting too attached to him.

Exposing yourself so intimately, sabotaging your work relationship and there was nothing to be gained from it anyway. He just wasn't interested in you like that.

You were maybe a little glad too, at least you knew you weren't in any trouble for the little show you'd put on.

Or were you?

What if his stoicism towards you was because he was planning to fire you.

No, no, it made no sense, his phone call after he'd seen you had been too intimate. If there was going to be any consequences, it would have happened by now.

Right?

Ugh, you didn't know, and you just wanted to forget this had ever happened.

You sigh, tugging your phone out and absentmindedly trying to book an appointment with your therapist. Maybe she would help you feel better about your new work environment.

Your shoulder bumps harshly into someone, and you raise your head to apologise.

You've made a wrong turn somewhere, too taken in with your phone to notice that you've turned down an isolated alleyway.

"S-sorry." You murmur, backing away, only to bump into another figure.

Holy shit this was bad.

"Give me the bag." The first man says evenly, angling his head toward the pale pink handbag hanging off your elbow.

"Please, I don't want any trouble." You say, pocketing your phone quickly, carefully pressing the power button a couple of times to send a distress signal. You had it set so that Dani and Amy would receive alerts if you needed help.

The first man, pulls a knife out of his pocket, you watch warily as the blade springs out of the handle with a wicked glint. You can feel your phone begin to vibrate endlessly as your friends try to call to figure out if this was accidental or not.

Your heart is racing, but you find that your thinking is razor sharp, only a little bit of panic swimming through you.

If there had been only one man, running would have been a good option, but with the second man at your back, you have no choice but to surrender your bag.

Your work laptop was in there, and your wallet, you really hated to lose either one of those things.

The man takes it from you and then steps closer, his knife still pointed in your direction.

"Now the jewellery and the phone." He prompts.

Your hands shake, you needed to find a way to keep holding onto your phone.

You tug your watch off easily, and your earrings, they were just cheap pieces that were your favourite, but ultimately replaceable.

The panther necklace, was not, and you would not give it up without a fight, however stupid that would be.

You extend your watch and earrings to the man, letting them slip from your hand at the very second and watching it fall.

It's that moment, with one man distracted, you turn to run.

The other man is fast, he reaches for you, pushes you into the nearby wall.

You're stunned for a moment, and you feel the scrape of his nails as he tears your necklace off your neck, and when he gets in close to grab your phone, you bring your knee up to kick him straight between the legs. He bends over in pain, and you take the opportunity to slip away, running as fast as you can out of the lonely alley. You don't stop until you're out in a public place.

You reach for your phone, pulling it out, several missed calls from both Dani and Amy flood your phone.

You update them quickly, and they direct you to the nearest police precinct.

As you head there, you dial Anvil's IT department, explaining the situation so that they can restrict access from your account to the server.

You're sitting in the precinct when Amy makes it to you. She takes you into a hug, pulling back to study your form.

Her eyes catch the two deep scratches on your neck, short red lines where the man's nails had clawed into you while ripping your necklace from your neck.

She hugs you again tighter than before, surprising you with her strength.

"I'm okay." You mumble against her shoulder.

Honestly, you couldn't feel a thing, your emotions had been shocked numb from the minute you'd seen the knife.

What rotten luck, to have experienced what you have, essentially hitting some type of morbid trifecta, a murderer, a stalker and now a thief.

You find yourself laughing into Amy's shoulder, and you can't stop.

She pulls back in shock, looking up at you.

You laugh harder when you see the concerned expression on her face.

"There's too many plot points," You try to explain to her, though you're not sure you're making any sense, "If my life was a book this would be a shitty amount of coincidence."

There's a quiet silence as she takes in your words, observing your laughter, and notes the way your eyes fill with tears.

"Oh love," She murmurs after a moment. "Multiple bad things happen to people all the time."

Your laughter turns sour, something awful fills your throat, your lip trembles for a small moment as you fight the emotion, and then like a dam breaking, it spills from you in little sobs.

"This is too much," You gasp, feeling her arms squeeze you tighter as you cry, "Why do these things keep happening to me?"

You cry harder against her, she soothes you with her embrace.

"They took my necklace." You say sadly against her.

She makes a sympathetic sound. She knew how much it means to you.

"We'll get it back, love, didn't you have a tag in your bag just for this reason?"

"Yeah," you sniffle, "there's one in my wallet, I gave the cops access to find it, and Anvil also has something on the laptop."

"See? Don't lose hope yet."

You sigh, there was a location on your wallet and laptop, but there was no guarantee that the necklace would even be in the same place. You felt so disconnected now, so unsafe. There was no panther coming to protect you here.

"Why don't we go home? If the police find anything, they can call you. Waiting here is too tedious." Amy suggests, and you nod in agreement, sniffling a little and pulling away. She tugs a tissue from her little bag and you accept it gratefully.

You don't live too far from the precinct, and a ten minute drive in a taxi and you're there.

Amy doesn't leave you, and Dani arrives when you're in the shower.

You sit with them, enjoying tea in your living room, and after a long talk about your ordeal, and the endless reassurances from them that you're safe now, they decide to distract you with Studio Ghibli movies.

It sort of works, though your most recent ordeal reminds you of your past ones.

Somehow, you think that your past experience with the murderer, made this one more manageable, it's probably why you had a clear head from the moment the man pulled out the knife. However bad this was, it was nothing compared to being hunted in the woods at night.

A knock at your front door startles you, and you jump at the booming sound.

Dani reaches to pause the movie, and for a moment you're too stunned to move.

"Who is it?" You call, pulling the sheets away from your body and rising to a stand.

"It's Billy." He answers, voice muffled through the wood.

You suck in a breath, trying to ignore the shocked expressions on Amy and Dani's face, making your way to the door and taking a small breath before opening it up.

You don't get much of a word in before you're being pulled right into his arms.

You stand there, shocked beyond reason as his arms encircle you. Your body responds eagerly to his embrace, relaxing against him so easily that it would scare you if you could be anything other than shocked.

Your arms lift, wrapping around him to return his hold, wondering how on earth you ended up in this position.

It feels so right to hold him, to pull him even closer and feel him respond by tightening his embrace, until it feels like a hug between old friends.

His scent wraps around you, and you rise onto your toes, eager to catch more of the jasmine and oak that his body smells of.

How on earth does he make you feel so safe? So protected in a way you haven't felt in such a long time.

"Are you hurt?" He asks after a moment, large hand cupping the back of your neck as you pull away.

"I'm okay." You say simply, watching the way his eyes roam down your face and stop at the scratches on your neck.

He lets out a slow breath, fingers trailing over your neck, his thumb brushing the deep welts.

You gasp when his thumb swipes a little too close, a frown forming on his face.

"I lost my company laptop-"

"-That's alright," he soothes, "It's not the first time, and my consultant helped me put some vigorous security protocols into place."

You find yourself grinning at him, and he smiles back.

"If you need anything, anything at all, please call me."

You take a moment, looking into his eyes, trying to figure out how he could be so cold one moment and so surprisingly warm the next.

"Okay."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

He lets out a shaky breath, before you know it, he's placing a careful kiss to the top of your head and your heart is doing rapid palpitations at the sensation.

You say goodbye to him as you close the door, waiting a moment before snapping the lock shut.

You turn in shock, leaning against the door, eyes wide and breathing rapid.

"Ohmygod." You rush out, turning to look at Dani and Amy in a 'can you believe that just happened?' type of way.

"I thought you said he doesn't like you." Dani says with a tone of confusion in her voice.

"He doesn't." You answer, not fully sounding quite so sure.

Amy huffs.

"I don't know about you, but that man quite clearly and obviously wants you bad." She states.

Oh how you wish it were true.

You're barely able to sleep all night, despite the fact that you know both your friends are asleep in other rooms or your apartment. You're less lonely than usual, and arguably a little more safe, and yet still, you can't relax your body for long enough to sleep.

The only thing that really calms you, is the reminder of what it was like to be in his arms.

You roll onto your side, pulling a pillow as close to you as possble, wrapping your arms around it and imagining that it's him.

Your brain refuses to accept the placebo, too focused on what's missing, his scent, his hearbeat, the warmth of his body- you flop around angrily, deciding to watch videos on your phone instead of sleeping.

You don't notice it's morning until you spot the sunlight spilling through the gaps in your curtains.

You let out a long sigh, sitting up and moving to your living room.

Both women are already awake too. Amy takes one look at you and sighs.

"Not a wink, huh?"

"You know me so well." You reply with a teasing smile.

They both have to get to work, and you reassure them that you're actually not doing so bad, you'd been able to get a few days off of work yourself.

"Call us if you need anything," Dani says, kissing the top of your head as she leaves, "Or call that hot boss of yours."

"He doesn't like me like that!" You call out to them as they leave, and you hear their laughter through the door, no doubt disagreeing with your words out of earshot.

You sigh, sipping on your coffee with indignation.

You spend the day lazing around, looking up the application processes for getting new identification and replacing all the additional cards you had in your wallet.

You'd already called the bank and put in a request to freeze your cards, still holding out hope that you might be able to get your wallet back instead of having to go get new cards for everything.

You frown, raising your hand to your neck, feeling for the necklace you lost, hating that you felt like something was missing all throughout the day.

When you get a call from the precinct in the afternoon, telling you that your bag had been recovered, you'd been so happy to hear it.

You'd gotten dressed, grabbed your keys and your phone with the intention of grabbing a taxi on the street, but suddenly found difficulty in actually leaving your apartment.

What was going on with you?

The idea that leaving your place meant you were at risk of being attacked again sent so much fear down your spine that you shut your door and curled up on your couch in distress.

You were scared.

Simply put, the very thought of being out in the open, so vulnerable, filled you with trepidation.

Someone could attack you again, maybe even finish the job this time. The photo of you leaving Amy's apartment comes to mind.

You didn't know if someone was still following you. What if they were? What if they were waiting for you right outside?

How many close calls could you have before you ran out of luck?

The memory of his voice comes back to you.

"Promise me." He'd said.

You take a deep breath and pull out your phone.

A/N: Don't hate me

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