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featherandferns · 2 months

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rumours (fic)

jj maybank x grumpy!fem!reader | HEAVILY inspired

content warning: mentions of drinking and smoking; absent parents

word count: 20k.

blurb: your life has been surrounded by rumours, and so has JJ Maybank's. One night, out of the blue, he strikes up a conversation with you. From there, the rumours only grow, and some rumours are far worse than others.

There was a rumour that you and your sister weren’t allowed to date until graduating high school. That one was true, until March of Junior Year.

Kildare Academy was full of spoilt assholes.

Well, in fairness, not everyone fit into that category. Some people were spoilt but bearable, and some people were assholes but not particularly spoilt. Rafe Cameron was the perfect culmination of both. He was in your junior year despite being a senior. He flunked so hard last year that the academy insisted that he retake it to graduate with a subpar diploma. At the yacht club, it had been the talk for about two months, much to the displeasure of Ward and Rose Cameron. You’d found yourself sharing nearly every class with Rafe since the year started and, man oh man, was it torture.

He found you the perfect bear to poke, never passing the opportunity to make a jab about your clothes or your face or your overall demeanour. The latter to mean that you weren’t the most approachable of people. Whilst you self-described as tempestuous, others might prefer the term ‘heinous bitch’. Rafe Cameron knew how to push your buttons it seemed, and you in turn knew how to bite back just enough to leave a mark.

“I can’t wait to get out of this town,” you complain to your friend Mia. “If I have to spend another seventeen years surrounded by these half-wits then I’ll pull a Sylvia Plath, I swear.”

“Clearly today has been a good day,” Mia chuckles. She’d known you long enough for the bitter grump of your character not to phase her. “Rafe bothering you again?”

“He’s intolerable,” you tell her, indirectly answering her question. “In music today he thought it’d be funny to put cola in the trombone. Men blow my mind with their stupidity. God knows how the patriarchy was even formed with how little brain cells they use.”

The two of you walk down the stairs of the school, heading to the parking lot amongst the herd of students. The spring weather is finally creeping in now that you're in March. The floral smell of blossoms hangs in the air, embracing the world in a warmish breeze. The briefly pleasant moment is rudely interrupted by none other but the devil-boy himself. His bright red Mercedes whips into the throughway of the parking lot. He doesn't seem to care about hitting anybody. To him, others are like bowling pins: he’d probably take delight in taking someone out.

You and Mia ignore him as you walk up to your car. At least, that was the plan, until you look up from your keys in time to see your younger sister Charlotte hopping into the back of Rafe’s pimped out ride per his offer.

“That’s an interesting development,” Mia remarks.

You watch as Rafe revs the engine - grinning like the pompous asshole he is - before jetting away. He narrowly misses knocking some poor kid off his bike in the process.

“It’s disgusting, is what it is,” you correct, promptly blinking away the surprise.

You follow Mia into your car, tossing your track bag into the backseat, and start up the engine.

Charlotte was only fifteen. She was young, innocent, carefree and (more often than not) insufferable. You couldn’t be more different. Whilst Charlotte searched for the good in people, you tried to find ways to stay as far away from them as possible. The only tell that you were related were your features. The same nose and same chin, you taking your father’s eyes and her your mother’s. At school, Charlotte enjoyed pretending that she didn’t know who you were. Your reputation didn’t pair well with hers, and at fifteen, nothing was more important to Charlotte than popularity. Those things didn’t matter to you. What someone thought of you didn’t make much difference to your mood or your future. Studying on the other hand? That was the stuff of consequence. Nevertheless, you cared for your sister. Her cushioned upbringing made her vulnerable. She had been sheltered by your family’s wealth and because of your father’s obsessive protectiveness, her experiences with boys were minimal. That to say, having her in Rafe’s line of sight certainly made you uneasy.

You drive home chatting to Mia about the plans for the weekend - planning to head to The Wreck for lunch on Saturday - but you can’t stop thinking about Charlotte sat in the back of Rafe’s car. When you pull up outside Mia’s house, she pauses just after opening the door.

“What do you think that was about? With Charlotte and Rafe?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” you reply, turning down the radio. "But I’m not gonna let it go any further.”

“Amen,” Mia agrees. With that, she gives a small wave and climbs out the car. “See you tomorrow.”

“See ya.”

When you pull up outside your house, you spot your dad sitting on the porch. He’s probably reading notes about the latest case he’s taken on. As one of the best lawyers on Figure Eight, he always has plenty of work to be chipping away at. Sometimes it feels like he has a new client every week.

You make your way up the neatly kept garden path, the creaking gate giving you away.

“Afternoon sweetheart,” he says, not looking up.

“Hey dad,” you reply, walking up the steps.

“How’s your day been? Made anyone cry yet?”

“Not yet, but the day’s still young,” you return, only half joking. With that, he glances up. “How’s the case?”

“Long. Boring. Don’t let on that I said that.” he says. “Where’s your sister?”

Before you can delight in telling, as if manifested into existence, Charlotte comes floating up the pathway. Her ridiculously short white tennis skirt floats in the wind like a dove’s feathered wings taking flight. Not one hair is out of place and not one eyelash misaligned. You resist the urge to roll your eyes as she makes her way up the stairs.

“Where’ve you been?” your dad immediately quizzes.

“Nowhere daddy.”

“How come you’re later home than your sister?”

“Well, somebody wouldn’t give me ride,” Charlotte replies, shooting you a glare. Her perfect smile takes on an edge when you lock eyes.

Your dad sighs and looks up at you. “We talked about this. Until Charlotte gets her license, you drive her to and from school. Y’all are both heading to the same place anyway, so what’s the big whoop?”

“She hijacks my radio and plays fluffy pop crap.”

“Taylor Swift is not ‘fluffy pop crap’. She’s the bible itself. You’re just not used to listening to good music,” Charlotte replies.

Swallowing your anger, you correct your stance, folding your arms across your chest. Biting back a smirk, you say, “ask Charlotte which guy drove her home today.”

“Don’t change the—Guy? What guy?”

Charlotte’s face goes to drop but she recovers quickly. Taking a reproachful step towards your dad like he’s an unpredictable stray dog, she talks in a sickly-sweet voice.

“Now, daddy, don’t be angry, but there’s this boy at school and I think he—”

“Believe me, I think I know what he’ll be thinking,” your dad immediately cuts in. “And the answer is no. It is always no.”

As your little sister’s eyes flash to yours, you grin victoriously. Enjoy, you mouth to her. The angry twitch in her brow is delightful.

“Daddy, this is ridiculous! I’m the only girl in high school who isn’t dating!” Charlotte whines.

“You’re fifteen, you don’t need to be dating. And you’re not the only girl. She isn’t dating either,” your dad replies, shoving a thumb over his shoulder in your direction.

“And I don’t intend to. I got bigger fish to fry,” you say. Charlotte’s deadly stare hardens tenfold. “Besides, the boys in this town are whack jobs.”

“Like music to my ears,” your dad practically sighs. Very rarely do you seem to please him, but your stance on boys appears to be the one common ground the two of you have. “Now y’all both know the rule: no dating ‘til you graduate.”

“This is so unfair! The two of you are so unhinged!” Charlotte goes on. She seems about a minute away from stomping her feet and waving her fists like a toddler throwing a tantrum. You’re only half ashamed to say that you relish in every moment of it.

You see, Charlotte was a daddy’s girl. Pretty, pink and poised, she loved the theatrics of Kook life. At the yacht club gatherings and the monthly dinner parties, the two of them would soak up every minute whilst you’d skulk in the back, headphones in and bitch-face on. You’d never much connected with either of them. Your mom understood you well, but she wasn’t around now, so, what did it matter? All the Kook crap was just that to you: crap. Fickle people who were so rich that their nerves were deadened, leaving them to enjoy nothing more than gossiping about everyone and everything. Whilst one half of the island waited tables and sweated out in the sun day-and-night to keep the lights on, the other was complaining about their golf clubs not being shiny enough. It was all crap.

“Alright, fine. Here’s how we fix this. Old rule out, new rule in. You can date,” your dad says to Charlotte. Her smile is instantaneous. As your mouth goes to gape open in horror – the thought of Rafe Cameron snapping up your sister like a crocodile preying on a bunny – your dad makes your day. “…when your sister does.”

“What!?”

“Har har,” you grin.

Charlotte points accusingly at you. “But she’s a mutant! You couldn’t pay a guy to date her!”

Your grin only grows with the thought.

“Then I guess you’ll never date. Oh! I like the sound of that,” your dad gloats. God, you have never loved him more. “Now get out of my hair, the both of y’all. I need to get these notes done for tomorrow.”

“Thanks dad,” you chirp, promptly heading into the house. Charlotte is quick to follow.

“You’re evil,” she hisses.

You shrug, back facing her as you start up the stairs. “And you’re spoilt.”

“Urgh! Has it ever occurred to you that you’re like clinically insane!?”

“Don’t care!” you sing-song before darting into your room, closing the door behind you. Through the wood, you hear Charlotte let out a shriek.

Smiling, you dump your school bag and take up shop at your desk, hoping to get some studying done, peaceful at last with the thought of Rafe Cameron never getting near your sister.

There was a rumour that when JJ first spoke to you, you spat in his face. That one was false.

“Hiya princess.”

The rasp of a guy’s voice interrupts your conversation about the yacht club’s annual spring-ball with Mia. Slowing turning your head to your left, you come face to face with a dirty-blonde haired boy. He looks to be about seventeen. His skin is slightly glossy, presumably from sunscreen and sweat, and there’s a smirk hiding behind his smile. That’s when you know that this boy is trouble.

“You talking to me?” you ask, unimpressed.

“Who else?”

“Hopefully anyone,” you say.

Mia snorts. You look away from him to share a bemused look with your friend. This guy cannot be serious…

“You need’a hand there?”

Eyebrows pulling together, you glance at him. He seems to think you’re confused about what he’s referring to, nodding down to the Sprite bottle in your hand. The cap’s still on. The truth is, you’re confused as to why he’s even talking to you at all. Wordlessly, you lift the bottle to your mouth and secure your teeth around the cap. There’s the satisfying click-crack as it comes lose and you spit it on the floor by his feet. Then, holding his gaze, you take a drink. His eyebrows quirk up in surprise.

“That’s, uh, certainly one way to get a guy’s attention,” he says, chuckling to try and regain some charm.

“My mission in life,” you return. Then, before he can cook up something else to say, you turn to Mia and loop your arm in hers, guiding the two of you to the exit of The Wreck. You’d been planning on heading out anyway, having finished your lunch earlier, and this was a sign from the universe that whatever good time you’d been having was officially over.

Unfortunately, the guy doesn’t seem so easily deterred.

“I’ll pick up at eight then?”

“Oh, yeah, eight. Uh huh,” you agree dismissively.

He falls in step with you on your left, hands casually shoved in his short pockets, combat boots loudly thudding on the wooden floor.

“Well, you know, the night I take you to places you’ve never been before.”

You see his boyish grin in your peripheral, making you whip your head around to meet his stare.

“Where? The seven-eleven off main street?”

His lips part, blundering for some quick-witted reply, but you don’t give him chance.

“Do you even know my name, screw-boy?”

The smirk is back, full force. Tilting his head slightly, self-assured, he replies, “I know a lot more than you think.”

“Doubtful. Very doubtful,” you assure.

Finally, you and Mia seem to shake him. He doesn’t follow you to your car door and he probably made the right call, because you were moments away from using the bottle of Sprite as a weapon. As you unlock the car, Mia leans against the side of it.

“What was that all about?”

You spare a glance back to The Wreck to find him stood there, glancing inside the building as if debating heading back, scratching the back of his neck. His misplaced confidence seems to have dwindled significantly. Ah, success.

“God knows."

“You know, I think that’s JJ Maybank. One of them Pogues who hangs out with John B,” Mia says.

JJ seems a fitting name for him, you think. You vaguely recall seeing the Pogues hanging around. Kiara from the academy seemed quite close with them. You watch as he pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lighting up and taking a drag. Gross.

Pulling open your car door, you look back to Mia. “Come on. Let’s hang out at the beach.”

“Yeah, and far away from that nutjob,” she snorts, walking around the car to the passenger side.

As you go to climb in, you find yourself looking one final time to the entrance of the restaurant. The messy haired boy is nowhere to be found. Good riddance, you think to yourself. Happiness restored, you swing into the driver’s seat and shut the car door.

There was a rumour that your mum was in witness protection. That one was false.

You weren’t entirely sure how it got so late but it was nearly one in the morning. Having spent the past three hours studying, you’d sort of lost track of time. Your eyes nearly bugged out of your head when you’d checked your phone screen.

“Goddamn,” you mumble. Pushing away from your desk, you close your notebook and switch off your lamp.

Walking to the bathroom, you don’t bother closing the door. You know your dad’s asleep by now and with his own en-suite, there’d be no reason why he’d need to use this bathroom. Charlotte is probably asleep too: beauty rest and all that. You turn on the faucet and pull your hair out of your face. You wash and dry and reach for your toothbrush. That’s when Charlotte appears.

“Oh,” she startles. “Didn’t know you were still up.”

“Could say the same to you.”

You take in her pyjamas. They’re Roller Rabbit, selling at $150 a set. Pastel pink and plum purple, they sit sweetly on her dainty frame. You on the other hand are dressed in an oversized t-shirt that you got given for free at an indie film festival, and a pair of boxer-short bottoms.

“Cute pjs,” you tell her.

“Thanks. Daddy bought them for me,” she chirps.

Charlotte makes a b-line to the vanity. She opens the drawer and retrieves the tweezers. You watch her in the mirror as she tames her already perfect eyebrows. She makes eye contact with you through the reflections, taking in your own nightwear. “You could try a new look, you know? People might like you if you weren’t so hostile.”

“I’m not hostile,” you defend. You put toothpaste on your toothbrush, breaking the line of gaze. “I’m annoyed.”

“Potato potata. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if people didn’t like me.”

“You forget that I don’t care what people think,” you reply honestly. What would it matter if some thought you unwelcoming? Everyone ends up as bones in the ground anyway.

“Sure you do,” Charlotte says. “At least on some level.”

It’s too late in the night (or early in the morning) to argue. Instead, you start brushing your teeth. Charlotte goes on pimping and preening her appearance in the mirror silently. She produces a jade face roller and begins massaging her cheekbones and jawline. It takes everything in you not to roll your eyes. As you’re rinsing out your mouth, you see Charlotte’s extensive skincare routine continue. If someone was to walk in, you’d think she was heading to the Oscars at the crack of dawn. She unbuttons the top two fastenings of her polo pyjama top and shrugs it down enough to reveal her collarbones, taking the effort to jade-roll them too. That’s when you notice the string of pearls around her neck.

“Nice pearls,” you comment, putting your toothbrush away. They did suit her, as did most delicate jewellery.

“Thanks.”

“Dad buy them for you too?”

“No,” she says. “They’re moms.”

Your stomach twists like a viper. “Moms?”

“Yeah. Daddy found them in a drawer last week.”

“And what? Now you’re just gonna start wearing them?” you say aghast, spinning around.

She frowns, looking over her shoulders. “It’s not like she’s coming back to claim them any time soon.”

You scoff. “You’re woefully missing the point.”

“Whatever,” Charlotte mumbles. She looks back to her reflection, smiling at herself, lifting a hand to fiddle with the small beads. “I think they look good on me.”

“Well trust me, they don’t,” you lie before promptly leaving the bathroom.

There was a rumour that you wrecked Rafe Cameron’s car. That one was true.

“Morning Lucy,” you greet, walking into An Offer You Can’t Refuse.

“Morning. Early start for a Saturday, don’t you think?” Lucy replies from behind the counter.

You shrug and shift your tote bag further up your shoulder. “Wanna get first dibs, I guess.”

“Well, all the new stuff is back there, like always,” she says, gesturing with her head to the far end of the store.

You were somewhat a regular at the shop. It was the only spot in town that sold old movies. Not old movies like the nineties. Old movies like the early 20th century: the black and white classics, with extravagant sets and telephone-voices and an untouchable charm that modern things just couldn’t quite capture. You weren’t a film snob exactly. You’d sit through a Marvel movie and tag along with Mia to see the latest cheap jump-scare horror. But those weren’t as gripping, as enthralling, as captivating as the classics. Somewhere along the way, you’d made it your life mission to see every old movie on earth.

Flicking through the cases, you pick out a couple that had been sat on your list. One was a thirty’s flick and the other from the sixties. Lucy settles up with you and you slot one in your bag. You keep the other out to read the back, scanning over the summary as you walk out the door.

“Nice car.”

Stunned, you stop and look up, finding none other than JJ Maybank. He’s sitting on the bonnet of your car with such carelessness that one would assume he owned it.

“Are you following me?” you outright ask.

He looks offended by the insinuation. Gesturing across the street, he says, “I was in the fishing shop. I saw your car and I came over to say hi.”

Rolling your eyes, you put your movie in your bag and continue to your car. “Hi.”

Before you can reach for the handle for the door, JJ slides over, effectively blocking it and forcing you to meet his gaze once more. You catch a whiff of his cologne. It smells more modest than some of the fancy crap the guys at school practically drown themselves in.

“You’re not much of a talker, are ya?”

“Depends on the topic. My car doesn’t really whip me up into a verbal frenzy,” you return, folding your arms across your chest.

JJ takes a moment simply watching you. It’s annoying. First, he interrupts your pleasant weekend by wiping his grubby cargo shorts all over your car, and now he’s trapped you in the most disinteresting conversation of all time. You quirk a brow, hoping that your displeasure reads plain and clear on your face.

“Can I help you?” you prompt, annoyed.

The smile he gives you is less cocky than usual. It’s almost curious. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

You frown. “Afraid of you? Why would I be afraid of you?”

He shrugs. “Well, most people are.”

“Well, I’m not,” you counter.

Whatever he was thinking before seems to have passed. His grin turns smug again, as quick and smooth as the moment dusk turns to flat-out night.

“Well, maybe you’re not afraid of me, but I’m sure you’ve thought about me naked, huh?”

Oh, brother.

You gasp, feigning your fluster by lifting a hand to your sternum. “Am I that transparent? I want you, I need you, oh baby, oh baby.”

With that stellar performance, you practically shove him out the way whilst forcing the car door open. JJ seems to take the hint and backs off, shoving his hands in his short pockets. He watches you climb in your car and he pulls out a cigarette in the process. You’re half-surprised he doesn’t keep blabbering away. JJ doesn’t seem as wounded this time by your dismissal and you’re not sure whether that ticks you off more. As you glance in the rearview to reverse out the parking spot, none other than Rafe Cameron drives up behind you. He then parks illegally in the middle of the parking lot, blocking you in.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“What is it? Asshole day?”

Rafe shuts off his engine and walks past your car with a faux swagger in his stride. It makes you sick.

“Do you mind?” you loudly ask him as he goes by.

He doesn’t even spare you a glance. “Not at all.”

Your blood is bubbling under your skin, boiling up your nerves and burning up your patience. Doing one last glance at the Rafe’s back as he walks away from you, you don’t think twice before pulling your keys out the ignition. Getting out the car and slamming the door shut, you storm over to the ugly Mercedes. With the car key positioned between two fingers, you lean down slightly and dig it through the paint and into the metal, dragging it along in a satisfying streak. The sound is as pleasing as nails on a chalk board. One cut doesn’t seem to diffuse your anger enough, so you go in for a second. You debate doing a third but better to be safe than sorry. So, you pocket your keys and start walking home. You can pick up your car tomorrow. As you go to leave, you catch JJ’s impressed expression in the reflection of Rafe’s blacked out windows.

There was a rumour that you and JJ hooked up at an outdoor movie night. That was completely false.

Over the dialogue over the movie, the swell of the orchestral music, and the mumbled chatter of friends and families, you can’t hear the soothing lap of the sea waves on the sand. That didn’t take away from the beauty of the scenery. Twilight had painted the sky in the most ethereal pinks, purples, oranges and blues. The boats which had taken anchor looked like shadows with how the sun had dipped. Huge trees framed the waterline cinematically. You can’t seem to help glancing at the view every now and then. It feels like something from a coffee table book. No wonder the beach was your mother's favourite place to be.

There were few island traditions which you liked, but the movie nights were one of your favourites. From March onwards, they ran bi-weekly. A huge screen would be put up in a lawn and people would come with deckchairs and picnic blankets and take up space on the grass. Snacks and cakes and drinks would be shared in the jovially calm atmosphere of the evening. There was a snack bar over near the bathrooms selling bags of candy and pre-prepared tubs of popcorn. When you hadn’t been shooting looks to the view, you’d been looking to the snack bar, debating buying some. At the rumble of your stomach, you relent.

“I’m gonna go get some snacks. Want anything?” you ask Mia in a whisper.

She doesn’t look away from the film when she shakes her head.

“Okay. Be right back.”

Standing up, you whisper out apologies to other movie-goers as you slink away from the lawn, venturing to the snack bar. It’s only when you’re seconds away do you recognise JJ Maybank. He’s wearing longer pants this time, still of the cargo material, and an old t-shirt that says Pelican Docks on the left breast. It looks well-worn at the sleeves. His hair is tucked under a cap. The most notable thing you pick up on is the fact that he isn’t smoking. Every other time you’ve seen him outside, he’s had one of those cancer sticks stuck between his lips. It’s annoying to admit to yourself that he looks good.

Ignoring him, you head straight to the girl manning the snack bar.

“A bag of Sour Patch kids please,” you smile, holding out a couple of dollar bills. She exchanges them for a bag of sweets. Candy in hand, you walk over to JJ.

“If you’re planning on asking me out again, you might as well get it over with,” you tell him, already disgruntled.

He looks away from the movie screen. “You mind? You’re kinda ruining this for me.”

You frown, glancing between himself and the film. “You like ‘Singing In The Rain’?”

JJ shrugs. “Course. Don’t you?”

The guilt from assuming is overshadowed by your curiosity. Before you can think of something to quiz him with, he’s talking again, eyes fixated on the actors.

“I mean, it’s no ‘Casablanca’ or ‘Some Like It Hot’, but I’ll take it,” he says casually.

Your eyebrows must shoot up into your hairline. “You know the movie ‘Some Like It Hot’?”

“No doy. It’s a classic,” JJ says. “Jack Lemmon is a natural in roles like that. It’s kinda rogue of me to say but I gotta admit, I think he’s better in that than in The Odd Couple.”

The question ‘you know The Odd Couple?’ is on the tip of your tongue but it’s silenced by a loud crash in the movie, catching your attention. You watch the theatrics of Cosmo as he performs ‘Make Them Laugh’, and you can’t help but smile. It’s one of your favourite parts of the movie.

“You know, I saw you earlier and I was gonna come over,” JJ admits, drawing your gaze to him once more. “I’ve never seen anyone look so sexy without even trying.”

The pre-teen at the counter snorts, clearly having overheard. When you and JJ look to her at the same time, she flushes bright pink and presses her lips together in embarrassment. It makes you laugh though, and when you look back to JJ, he’s holding back too. The sunset and reflection of the screen is painting his face in a youthful glow. The smile on his lips seems more genuine than before; it’s no longer bolstered up with ostentatious flare. His self-assured demeanour remains though. You can see it in how relaxed he stands, shoulders loose and back.

“You’re not surrounded by your usual cloud of smoke.”

“Yeah, I quit. Turns out they’re bad for you,” JJ says.

“You think?” you mirthfully reply.

Come with me to the keggar tomorrow night,” JJ asks out of the blue.

You don’t roll your eyes this time. In fact, you’re not even annoyed. Instead, you find your smile growing. “You never give up, do you?”

“Is that a yes?”

You chuckle under breath, passing your candy bag between hands and turning to return to Mia. "No."

You begin to walk away.

“Well, is that a no then?” JJ calls. Someone shushes him abruptly.

Sniggering, you call back, “no!”

“Nine tomorrow night! I’ll pick you up!”

“Hey, shut it, man!”

“Sorry, dude. Jeez,” you hear JJ mumble.

You bite back your laugh, making your way back to the film. Mia is waiting impatiently for you. Taking your spot on the blanket again, you fight the urge to look back over your shoulder to JJ. She takes the bag of candy despite her earlier turn-down.

“What took you so long? You missed the best song,” she whispers.

You shake your head and steal a gummy, eyes fixating on the screen again. “Doesn’t matter.”

And then, you’re lost to the cinema.

There was a rumour that you threw up on JJ’s shoes at the keggar. That one was (unfortunately) true.

You know you’ve made a mistake braving going downstairs for a snack the moment your foot hits the final step.

“Daddy, it’s only for one night!”

Charlotte is there, whinging away, stood beside her friend Laura. You didn’t like Charlotte all that much but you liked Laura even less. Whilst Charlotte was losing her sense of humanity bit by bit, Laura was a hollowed-out husk dressed head to toe in Shien. Maybe if she had a stellar personality you wouldn’t care, but she didn’t. She was cruel, two-faced and you trusted her as far you could throw her. So, you were obviously thrilled to find her stood in your house.

“You know anything about a party?” you dad asks you, roping you unwillingly into the conversation.

You shrug, shaking your head no.

“Of course she doesn’t know, she’s a cave troll,” Charlotte snarls.

“That’s a new one,” you mutter under breath, starting for the kitchen.

“If she isn’t going, you’re not going,” your dad tells Charlotte.

“Urgh!” Charlotte exasperates. She rushes over to you, taking you by the shoulders and forcing you to meet her gaze. You’re a little surprised to find how genuinely desperate she is to leave the house for a dumb keggar. “Can you please forget that you’re completely wicked and just be my sister for one night. Please.”

You suck your teeth, feeling your conviction dwindle. Suddenly the half-completed page of notes about maths drops in your priorities. Charlotte seems to notice. The puppy-dog eyes come out in full effect - the ones that she used to get the new Mac book and the ones that she used to get your old pair of converse when they suddenly became trendy again.

“Please,” she begs, doubling down.

You sigh, shaking your head as if in disbelief of your own actions. “Fine, I can make an appearance.”

Charlotte looks over to Laura and they begin to squeal, hopping up and down like the floor is lava. You realise that she’s wearing the pearls still, but before you can think much more about it, you’re trapped in a hug. Everything tenses, from your head to your toes, and it isn’t over soon enough. You open the downstairs cupboard and retrieve a jacket to combat the spring breeze that’s likely going to haunt the beach at this hour. Your dad is lecturing Charlotte and Laura as you shrug it on; you pass them to the door.

It's a little frightening to open the front door and come face to face with someone who you’re not expecting to be there.

“What are you doing here?” is the first thing out of your mouth when you meet JJ’s eyes.

“Nine o’clock, right?” he replies.

It’s impossible to bite back the smile that’s coming to your face at the sound of his voice. When did that start to happen?

“Well, I’m little late, so,” he admits almost sheepishly.

You blink out of your stupor with that. A man who can’t even be on time for a date that he practically begged for – once again, the bar is on the floor.

“Whatever, I’m driving,” you tell him, brushing past and down the porch steps. He follows.

“Nice digs here.”

“Thanks,” you reply. You pull open the front gate and it creaks like it might snap off any moment.

“Y’all rich and can’t afford to oil that damn thing?"

“Help yourself to it,” you jokingly quip back. You pull your keys out your coat pocket and unlock the car. “Hop in.”

The drive to the keggar is mostly quiet. JJ points out the turnings you need to take and you refuse to let him turn on the radio. He goes to put one leg up on the car seat but must see your sideways glare, making him stop. Instead, he rests an arm on the window frame and taps his fingers along to a non-existent beat.

He’s dressed rather nice. Quite casual, but you supposed for a keggar, it didn’t much matter. It wasn’t like you were dressed to the nines either. A grey sweater hangs slightly big on his frame, but it sits on his broad shoulders a little too nicely. He’s wearing a pair of black cargo shorts which are muddied with dust on the thigh, probably from biking, and those damn cargo boots again. No cap this time, he lets his blonde hair sit mussed, seemingly from running his fingers through it. That’s something he seems to do. A lot.

When the two of you park up, the beach is already buzzing. It’s swarming with people from your school and his, yapping away to one another. People are passing drinks and passing out. Some are carrying coolers in and others are shot-gunning the moment their feet touch the sand. Sighing, you mentally prepare yourself for a hellish night.

JJ tries to walk beside you but you seem to be one step ahead every time. He takes to following your tail around the keggar as you survey the scene. A girl vomiting in the corn; a group passing around a bong; a group of horny dirtbags jeering and cheering as two girls make out. A brunette girl comes stumbling over, practically throwing herself at JJ.

“Kiss me,” she slurs, clearly hammered.

JJ doesn’t look too thrilled but it doesn’t keep you from rolling your eyes and continuing on.

“Not tonight, girly,” you overhear him say. You then hear his footsteps behind you once more.

His popularity among the Pogues is startling. Soon enough, someone else is coming up to him, followed by a third. You overhear good-humoured conversation kick up, spirits high, and the smacking of hands as they enact a brief handshake. It seems a good opportunity to ditch him.

The moment of freedom is over quicker than the final week of summer. Rafe Cameron, in all his knobheaded glory, saunters over.

“Didn’t peg you as a keggar girl,” he tells you. Even on the night, you can’t catch a break from him.

“You know me: full of surprises,” you return dryly.

“Surprising in that outfit too. Nice to see the puppies out today,” he says, licking his teeth as his eyes shamelessly flit down to your top.

You roll your eyes. “Eat crap creep.”

Rafe doesn’t seem to be finished. He follows after you leisurely when you walk around him. “Your little sister coming tonight?”

“Stay away from her, Rafe,” you warn.

“Oh, sure, sure, I’ll stay away,” he nods, raising his hands in mock surrender. The most wicked, twisted grin sinks into his skin. “But I can��t promise she’ll stay away from me.”

Your disgust must read plainly on your face. Rafe chuckles darkly, apparently finished with the interaction, and you watch as he makes his way over to his pack. You shiver out your repugnance and distract yourself by making another lap of the keggar, hoping to find your sister in the process.

Unfortunately, you’re not quick enough to get to her before Rafe. He’s fiddling with a strand of her hair, looking down at her in a way that she might think is doting but you can only read as looming. Your stomach sinks as he notices you, jutting up his chin proudly.

“Yo. Look who found me,” he taunts.

Intestines are now in your shoes as you spot his hand looping around her waist and laying grip. Charlotte tangles her fingers into his, a red solo up in her other hand, and goes to lead the two of them away. You quickly dart after her.

“Charlotte, wait, can I talk to you?”

“Don’t address me in public,” she hisses, horrified.

You hope your expression is as pleading as hers was earlier, but it mustn’t be, because she continues to move away from you.

“Go, enjoy the night,” Charlotte says. She probably thinks she’s being nice, putting your mind at ease, but it makes you all the more concerned. “That’s what I’m gonna do.”

Looking around as if something or someone might tell you what to do next, your eyes fixate on the coolers. You soon find yourself taking a swig of tequila. It burns as it runs down your throat; you close your eyes with wince.

“I’ve been looking all over the place for you!”

You open them to find a very disquieted JJ.

“I’m getting trashed bro,” you reply, lifting the bottle up in proof. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do at a party?”

“Not with that crap,” JJ replies.

Rolling your eyes, you take another shot. “Whatever. I’ll catch you later.”

Then you’re walking away from him and weaving through the crowds. The trashy RnB music playing over a loudspeaker thumps through the sand and rattles through your bones. You find yourself collecting drinks like a pre-teen collects trading cards. With each sip, the alcohol goes down easier and easier, and your control becomes lesser and lesser. You’re only half sure of the time. Nobody here looks familiar to you and you have no idea where Charlotte has gone. The thought of her with Rafe has you reaching for another drink but it’s taken from you before the bottle can meet your lips.

“Hey!”

“How about I have this one?” JJ offers.

You snatch it back. “No way, this one’s mine.”

Was that your voice? Jeez, maybe you’re more drunk than you thought. That doesn’t keep you from necking the whole thing, some dumbass cheering you on. Dumping the bottle in the sand, you pull a face to JJ, extending out your arms as if to say ‘see – what you gonna do about it?’ .

The makeshift dancefloor becomes randomly appealing. The rhythm of the music seems to have finally crept out of the ground and into your bones, and you stagger your way to the crowd of dancing, swaying drunks and begin to move to the music. Closing your eyes, you drag your hands up your sides and into the air, hips dipping and diving to the song. It isn’t your usual thing but you find the groove to it. The reason you lose it is the elbow that suddenly jams into your back. You wince in pain and tumble forward, balance screwed from all the drinks. The ground comes to meet you surprisingly quick and you don’t have time to put your hands out to save your head from hitting a stuck-out branch from driftwood.

“You alright?”

It’s JJ.

“I’m fine,” you slur.

When you go to stand, everything is spinning. It makes you slip in the sand and nearly face plant a second time.

“You’re not fine. Alright, come on,” JJ mumbles as his hands gently take your biceps. You grumble out complaints as he helps you off the ground.

The music drifts away from you as JJ guides you somewhere. The shakiness of the world makes you feel nauseous so you opt with keeping your eyes closed. There’s a throbbing from where you hit your head.

“Can I talk to you?” someone asks. You don't open your eyes to find out who.

“Not right now, man. I’m a little busy,” you hear JJ return, patience clearly dwindling.

“Can you give me a second?”

The firm but friendly hold JJ has on you momentarily vanishes. You hear the crunch of sand as he walks away a few steps but you’re too busy fighting to keep yourself upright to see where he’s gone. Just as you’re about to lose the fight, JJ’s back, catching you and steadying you on your feet.

“Woah, woah,” he chuckles. “Come on.”

As the mayhem of the party fades, you find the pounding in your head to lessen. You’re slowly lowered to sit on a piece of driftwood.

“This is so patronising.”

“Leave it to you to use big words when you’re smashed,” JJ says.

Braving to open your eyes, you find JJ digging around in his cargo pockets. “Why are you helping me?”

“I’m worried you might got a concussion,” he tells you. He produces a small box from his pocket, no bigger than the palm of his hand, and he cracks it open.

“You wouldn’t care if I never wake up,” you snort. The scrunch of your brows has you reaching up to the stinging pain of your head wound. Before you can touch at it, JJ’s pulling your hand away by the wrist.

“Sure I would.”

“Why?”

“Cause otherwise I’d have to start taking out girls who actually like me.”

“Like you could find one.”

“See? That right there, makin’ me swoon, mama,” JJ ribs. He reaches out for your face then. “Alright, this might sting a little.”

His fingers are warm as they touch your skin. He lightly coaxes your head up and back by the edge of your jaw. You watch with half-blurred vision as he concentrates, gently dapping what must be an alcoholic wipe to your cut.

JJ has a pretty face. Dimples that are visible even when he isn’t smiling. A soft jawline that sharpens when he’s flexing, whether it be in concentration or aggravation. The long slender nose sits nicely on his face, guiding into surprisingly neat eyebrows and eyes with lashes so long Charlotte would cry with envy.

The wipe hits the deepest point of the wound. Flinching back, you hiss in pain.

“Sorry,” JJ mumbles.

“S’okay,” you quietly reply.

He finishes dabbing the blood away and sighs, pulling the wipe back. JJ seems to notice your stare at that point, flitting his eyes down to meet yours.

“What?”

“Your eyes have a little grey in them,” you observe.

His lips twitch in a smile. Maybe it’s the warmth of the booze, but you’re half sure that the boy blushes. Your eyes glance down to his lips, the one part of his face you haven’t yet analysed. JJ clears his throat and removes his hand from your head. He litters the wipe on the beach floor and shoves his hands in his short pockets, creating some distance. He doesn’t move any farther away from you though.

“How’d you know to do all that?”

“Cleaning cuts?”

“Mhm,” you say.

“Kinda have to learn, when you grow up in a house like mine,” JJ vaguely replies.

You spare a glance at his side profile to find his eyes trained ahead in an almost vacant stare. He comes back to himself, looking at you.

“So, uh, why’d you let him get to you?”

“Who? Rafe?”

“Uh huh.”

“I hate him,” you state.

JJ purses his lips and nods. “Fair ‘nough.”

Someone whoops out to another in the far distance. You try to ignore it, instead focusing on the susurrus of the wind, the sighs of the sea, and the steady inhales and exhales of the boy sitting beside you.

“So, your mom a nurse or something?” you ask.

“My ma?”

“Yeah. With the cut cleaning and all that.”

“Nah, she ain’t a nurse,” JJ replies. “Fact, I don’t know what she is. She ain’t around anymore.”

“That sucks,” you say.

He shrugs. “Happened a long time ago. She walked out on us so guess there can’t be much to miss, right?”

“I guess,” you agree, though you’re not sure if you fully do. For some reason – maybe because of the alcohol blurring your barriers – you find yourself telling him, “My mom walked out on us too.”

“Really?”

You nod, and instantly regret it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It gave the yacht club something to talk about for like a year,” you say, cracking a smile.

JJ grins. “You Kooks gotta have your gossip.”

“Oh yeah,” you whistle, nodding. “Otherwise we’d actually have to start making conversation about shit that matters. Or realise how little we all like each other.”

The two of you laugh and lock eyes. His dimples are now out in full force, teeth shining in the off-cast street lamp glow and enchanting moonlight.

“You know, you’re not as vile as I thought you’d be.”

His smile only grows. “Thanks. I think?”

The pulsating pain in your head seems to vanish for a moment. You think it’s because of JJ and his weirdly wonderful ways. You think it is, until you realise it’s because your body is distracted by a whole new problem.

Head whipping down, you aim away from your shoes and somehow directly at JJ’s.

And then bam: vomit.

There was a rumour that you and JJ hooked up in the back of your car. That one was false.

It’s abnormal seeing JJ sat behind your steering wheel. His elbow is propped up on the window ledge, knuckles cracked as he grips the wheel at the top, guiding it with the other hand. You keep stealing glances. He focuses ahead on the road. It’s pitch-black asides from the glare of the headlights and the few and far between streetlamps. You’re not entirely sure how you got to this point with him, to have him driving your car and to find yourself completely okay with it.

The playlist that the radio is humming out changes to the next song. You instantly feel your body soften in the passenger seat with the swell of violins and cellos. Naturally, gradually, they find a melody. It’s solemn and serene all at once.

“I love this song,” you hear yourself say.

“What is it?”

“Love Theme, from Cinema Paradiso,” you reply.

JJ’s lips twitch with curiosity. “Never heard of it.”

“It’s my favourite piece of music of all time,” you tell him. “It makes me cry.”

“Really? Don’t know if any song’s ever made me cry.”

“Then you’re listening to the wrong things,” you're quick assert.

JJ chuckles at that, but he doesn’t disagree.

The piano chimes in now; steady waltz-like chords which complement the strings flawlessly. You sigh and watch the world pass by through the window. After throwing up, draining the alcohol from your body in the least flattering of ways, you feel more stable. There’s still a blur to the edge of the world hinting that you’re not fully sober but you no longer feel out of control. The three mints which you had the moment you got in the car helped to freshen your mouth.

“It’s a pretty song,” JJ observes. You’re surprised that he’s listening to it. “Is it meant to be happy?”

“Sort of. It’s the third version. There’s three reprises of the song throughout the film. The movie’s sort of a culmination of genres. It’s a love story about Salvatore and Elena, this girl who he’s completely infatuated with throughout his teens. But it doesn’t work out. It’s also about his relationship with Alfredo, this old man who runs the cinema. Salvatore falls in love with cinema and Alfredo is like a father figure to him. As he grows up, he’s pushed to leave the small town and live his life.”

JJ whistles lowly. “That’s a lot’a unpack.”

“Sorry,” you meekly reply. Maybe you rambled on a bit too much.

“Don’t be. It’s interesting,” JJ says.

You glance over to him and see him smiling, and you struggle to bite back your own, looking back to the road.

“You seem to have a thing for movies,” JJ notes.

“I love them,” you sigh, pushing your hair behind your ears. The music builds at that moment, with the wind instruments taking control of the melody and pushing the emotion to another level. You find your eyes slipping shut on reflex. It’s with them closed that you find the confidence to admit, “I want to write movies for a living. But nothing like the new crappy things. Films like the old ones. The ones with real emotion and meaning behind them. I’m so sick of the cheap rewrites and remakes. All the CGI junk that fills the cinema now and the empty scores.”

“So, why don’t you? Write movies, I mean?”

As JJ asks you this question, he pulls up outside your house.

You scoff. “Yeah, my dad would just love that. He wants me to go to school for accounting or economics. Something with ‘a future’.”

The engine shuts off but the song continues to play. JJ glances down at the radio, his eyes scanning over the song title. He seems lost in thought, or perhaps lost in the music, and you feel a small smile settle comfortably on your face. He’s so pretty in this light. He’s pretty in any light.

He seems to remember himself, coming out of his stupor in a similar manner to how he did back on the beach. Looking up to you, JJ catches your gaze. He reflexively switches off the radio, cutting the song off and enveloping the two of you in silence.

“You uh,” he begins, gesturing lamely to the house, “don’t seem the type to ask for your dad’s permission.”

“Oh what? Now you think you know me all of a sudden?” Your tone is teasing. It’s so different to the usual bite it has from your other interactions.

JJ shrugs. “I think I’m starting to.”

The honesty behind his words has your lips parting, somewhat taken aback. The bad-boy façade that he hides behind seems to have slipped tonight. You hold his gaze and he offers you a warm, tender smile. There’s a nervous yet excitable thrum in your chest. It's terrifying.

“Yeah, well, the only thing people know about me is that I’m scary,” you say dismissively.

“Well, I’m no picnic myself, so,” JJ muses.

And it’s things like that which catch you off guard. Your efforts to push him away and close him off are so easily dismissed. He seems to have a talent for peeling away your walls and it never feels intrusive. Instead, it makes you feel seen. Understood. It’s something that you haven’t really known since your mom walked out. Mia understood you to an extent, but you weren’t sure that she knew you. You weren’t sure if you’d ever let her, as awful as it sounds.

“Well, thank you. For driving me back,” you quietly say.

JJ nods. His eyes never stray from yours. He’s so beautiful it’s unfair.

“Course. Anytime.”

He takes a breath and it’s shaky, tempered with nerves, and that’s when you wonder if his heart is beating as fast as yours. If his stomach is full of butterflies too, bringing about the most addictive of anxieties. As his tongue darts out to dampen his lips, you find yourself taking the leap. Slowly, so slow that you’re not sure you even are, you lean forward to him, letting your eyes slip shut. In the moonlight, in your car, after the conversations of the night, you finally feel as though you have seen the real JJ, and he’s seen the real you.

A second passes.

Then another.

Then a third.

You hear the rustle of clothes and the creak of the car seat as JJ shifts. It makes you open your eyes. He’s watching his fingers trail along the leather grip of the steering wheel, knuckles uncomfortably tight and lips rubbing together.

“Maybe we should do this another time,” he eventually says.

For a moment, you just sit. You take him in. He doesn’t appear cocky or disgusted, or even amused. He seems timorous. It’s so confusing and irritating that you find yourself defaulting to anger. It’s that anger that smothers the burning hot embarrassment you feel deep in your chest. It conceals the crumbling disappointment of not having his lips on yours. Suddenly, you want to be as far away from him as possible.

You scoff and push open the car door. It slams loudly behind you as you storm back up to the house, arms wrapping around yourself in comfort as you feel your heart painfully pulling at your throat. The sting of tears is hard to fight but you manage to keep them at bay until you’re in your bedroom. It’s there that you feel safe enough to cry.

There was a rumour that JJ tracked you down in a movie shop. That one was true.

Have you ever had so much on your mind that it’s physically impossible to concentrate, even on the simplest of things? Ever since the keggar three days ago, that’s how you’ve felt. Studying was more gruelling than usual. You would start reading an exert from Romeo and Juliet and somehow, you’d find your mind drifting to the sound of JJ’s voice on the beach, telling you about his mom. Watching movies was no longer an escape because any guy on screen had you back in the passenger seat, basking in JJ’s beauty. Even now, stood in An Offer You Can’t Refuse, you find yourself staring blankly at the back of a DVD case, trying to make sense of the blurb.

Sighing, you give up and shelve it. You wander back to the main throughway of the store and look at some of the more recent releases. Tugging your cardigan tighter around you, you round the end of the shelve, heading for the exit, to instead come face to face with JJ.

It’s a shame that your stomach twists unpleasantly at the sight of him.

“Excuse me, have you seen ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s?’ I’ve lost my copy?”

You hold back a grunt and opt to roll your eyes instead. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard there was a secret screening,” JJ tells you, humour lining his words.

You scoff. “You’re so…”

“Charming?” he offers.

You breeze past him.

“Wholesome!”

“Unwelcome,” you correct.

“You’re not as mean as you think you are, you know,” JJ suddenly tells you, tone taking an edge.

Mystified, you return, “and you’re not as badass as you think you are.”

“Oh, somebody’s still got their panties in a twist,” JJ quips.

Spinning around, you raise a finger threateningly. “Do not for one second think you had any effect whatsoever on my panties.”

JJ lightly taps your hand away. “What did I have an effect on then?”

It’s moments like these that you’re thankful your mouth is quicker than your mind. “Other than my upchuck reflex, nothing,” you lie.

JJ sighs, frustrated.

In the corner of your eye, you see the movies of the week. The universe works perfectly sometimes. Snatching up a copy, you shove Breakfast at Tiffany's in JJ’s chest before leaving the shop.

It sucks to be mad at JJ. You don’t want to be, but you don’t know how not to be. The whole night felt like an oxymoron. There was a moment when things felt so perfect and then he shattered it. It was abnormal. All that hard work to get you out on a date; the time taken caring for you and driving you back, checking you got home safe; and the conversations that felt far from empty and false…And then nothing. You knew JJ wasn’t a virgin. Not all rumours are based in truth – you knew that – but when it came to JJ Maybank, it was common knowledge that he had a way with girls. You weren’t the first girl for him to lay eyes on, and you certainly wouldn’t be the first girl he’d kiss, so why did he suddenly seem so discouraged? It didn’t make sense.

Whatever.

You close the car door and start up your engine.

You had more important things to sort out than deliberating over JJ’s intentions. Since when had a man ever interrupted your life before? There were some math notes which needed finishing back at home, and a track meet practice to prepare for tomorrow. Life was bigger than some pretty teenage boy.

Catching your eyes in the rearview mirror, you harden your gaze. “Get a grip.”

Your day doesn’t seem to improve when you get home. Whilst you’ve managed to put thoughts of JJ to bed, letting the irritation rest, your dad seems unwilling to give you peace. You walk through the door to hear himself and Charlotte talking animatedly about the Spring Ball at the yacht club.

“I’m not sure,” your dad sighs.

“But daddy, I’ve gone to them before.”

“But this one’s different. The guys there are older now. You’re older now. After last year, and our reputation, I’m just…”

The creaking floorboard before the kitchen doorway gives you away. Charlotte jumps at the chance to lasso you in.

“What if she comes?”

“She has a name,” you mutter, heading to the cupboard for a snack.

“I mean, if your sister goes then you can go, but I doubt she will.”

“She will what?” you ask. Cereal bar in hand, you tug away the wrapper and take a bite.

“Go to the Spring Ball.”

You guffaw loudly. “Yeah. No.”

“Knew it,” your dad says.

“Oh, come on! What’s wrong with the Spring Ball?” Charlotte carps.

You roll your eyes. “They’re stupid and performative and in bad taste. And old-fashioned. It just makes me feel icky. Whilst the Cut are trying to raise money to renovate the parks, we’re throwing balls for the fun of it. Plus, they’re boring. It’s just a bunch of rich morons talking about other rich morons. No offence, dad.”

“Plenty taken,” mutters your dad.

“You’re exhausting,” Charlotte tells you. “And unhinged.”

“Thanks,” you grin before taking another bite of your snack. You go to leave. “I’ll be upstairs.”

There was a rumour that JJ snuck into your school. That one was true.

You started running track following your school guidance counsellor’s advice. It was after you kneed Kelce so hard in the balls that he had to go to the nurse (you pride yourself for that achievement daily). Track was a good way to let off steam though. The world felt smaller and simpler on the circuit. You felt as though you could run away from all the things that were bothering you: Rafe, your dad, Charlotte, your mom. And now, JJ. The steady beat of your feet hitting the sand-topped track works like a metronome for your musings.

You’d heard the rumours that had been circulating about the night of the keggar. Charlotte hadn’t told you what happened between herself and Rafe, but there was a rumour that he didn’t drive her home. Apparently, someone called Louis had given her a ride back. You’d seen him at school every now and then. He’d only transferred a few months back so there wasn’t much to know about him. He seemed harmless enough though. Compared to Rafe, a rabid dog would be preferred.

“Good pace!” your coach praises loudly to you as you complete a third lap.

You’re panting in the warm sun. April was right around the corner now and the temperature was picking up, bit by bit, every day. Slowing to a jog, you direct yourself to the benches and retrieve your water bottle.

As your swallowing your third sip, you hear the loudspeaker system crackle to life. At first you don’t pay it much mind, assuming it’s one of the band members checking everything is working for a game tomorrow night or something. But then a voice is droning out of the speakers. It has a Carolina twang to it that is more common on the Cut and a youthful rasp that’s now all too familiar.

JJ.

‘Morning you wonderful Kook folks.’

You stare wide-eyed at the speaker.

‘Y’all are probably busy preparing your caviar or whatever the hell it is that you be doing out here on Figure Eight, but I’m here to read something I prepared. Brighten up your day and all that.’

Surely you have heatstroke. Surely this is not happening.

“’I’ve come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is, and always will be, yours.’”

Sense and Sensibility. You glance around the field as if to check that you’re not the only one hearing this and - yep, you’re not.

“‘Me? I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of what I saw, I’m scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all, I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.’”

Dirty Dancing. Lips twitching into a smile, you’re in disbelief. Some people are sniggering at the cheesiness, others are completely befuddled by the whole thing. It is rather random. If you didn’t know what he was doing, you’d be confused too. Well, you still are, in fact. Did he know you'd be at the track today?

“And my personal favourite, ladies and gentlemen: ‘No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing. Badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.’”

Your perplexed smile turns more sober with that. Something trills in your chest – most probably your heart – and you nod in quiet approval.

“Alright then, Kooks and…Kooklemen. Y’all have a blessed day.”

The speaker clicks off with a crackle and some people on the field whoop and cheer, laughing and jeering. You shake your head and finish your drink, grinning like an idiot.

Maybe, just maybe, you can find some room to give JJ another chance.

There was a rumour that JJ Maybank spent his free time fishing. That one was true.

JJ Maybank was like a candy bar. He had a way of being sweet without being sickly, and he stayed on your mind the same way one gets chocolate stuck between their teeth. After asking around, you’re told that the best place to find the so-called delinquent was at a local fishing spot, down some old jetty. The floorboards creak unnervingly with every step you take. The sun is high in the sky, it only being mid-morning, and you find JJ easily. He’s perched on the end of the jetty, leaning forward against the rotting wooden railing. In one hand he’s supporting a rod, the wire of which is submerged deep in the water, waiting for a bite. There’s a small cooler by his feet alongside a bag of fishing tack. The back of his t-shirt has a large circular graphic on it. It’s well washed but you can make out the ‘sex-wax’ text.

“Yo,” you call out.

He startles then turns. There’s a strange flurry of emotions that cross over his face in a second when he lays eyes on you.

“Hey. How’d you find me?”

“I have my ways,” you reply, finishing the journey to him.

JJ moves so his back rests against the fence, body now facing you, and you pause a comfortable foot or so apart.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh?”

“I was kind’a an asshole at the movie store, the other day,” you say, uncomfortable in your confession. The proud twitch of his brow doesn't go unnoticed. “So, I figured it was only right to fess up.”

“Mhm. Anything in particular brought this on?” JJ wonders innocently.

You smile at that, rolling your eyes. Nevertheless, you play along. “You know, it’s so weird. This voice came over the speakers at school yesterday and it got me thinking.”

“Oh? You know who it was?”

“I don’t know,” you sigh, scratching your hairline. “Maybe God?”

“You sure it weren’t an angel?” he checks, tongue poking through his teeth with his boyish grin.

“Nah, but he sure had the voice of one,” you play along.

The entertained lift of JJ’s brows makes your smile flatten into something more genuine.

“Did you get in trouble for it?”

“For breaking into Kook Academy and hacking your intercom?” JJ asks. His face scrunches up as he shakes his head falsely. “Nah.”

“Mhm. Sure.”

“I’m a pro, sweetheart. I was in and out, like an ops-mission,” he recounts, using his free hand to gesture lamely like a discount spy.

You roll your eyes once more and move to stand next to him, separated only by the cooler. Leaning your arms forward on the jetty fence, you sigh and close your eyes, basking in the sun.

“What’re you doing right now?”

“Right now?” you say, opening your eyes to look at him. He nods. “Nothing much.”

“Wanna go to the break? Hear the waves are meant to be pretty sweet today,” JJ asks.

Your lips twitch at the corners. His seem to mirror. “Sure, yeah. Sounds good.”

“Sweet. Lemme just pack this stuff up,” he says. “My friend’s lent me his car for the day so we can ride there in that.”

There was a rumour that you nearly drowned when you went surfing with JJ. That one was completely made up.

The water is so blue you can almost taste it. The gradient of blues and aquamarines is mouthwatering in beauty.

Sighing, your feet sink into the sand, desensitised to the burn on the soles of your feet. On one shoulder you have your rucksack. It’s packed with snacks that the two of you picked up from a local shop: granola bars and a large back of chips, that sort of thing. JJ found some cans of soda when turfing through the cooler. Tucked under your other arm is a surfboard that JJ’s letting you borrow; there were three attached to the roof of the beat-up camper van he’s borrowing. JJ’s carrying a tattered looking picnic blanket that he dragged off the backseats and his own board. It seems JJ’s surfboard is the thing that is the best kept out of all the belongings he has.

JJ whistles. “Pretty good swell, huh?”

“Hell yeah,” you agree.

He walks in front and dumps the picnic blanket, lazily spreading it out with his foot. You put the rucksack down with it before leaning down to place your board carefully on the sand. As you go to stand, you find your eyes falling on JJ’s back. He’s tugging off his shirt, lats and triceps tensing and relaxing with the quick change. You can’t help but stare. The guy’s in good shape – nobody can disagree with that. He turns and catches your eye just before you can divert your gaze to the water, frowning as if assessing the waves. There’s an amused smirk that comes to his face, cocky like always.

“Enjoying the view?” he asks.

Your face scrunches in deliberation. You pretend that he’s referring to the sea. “Yeah; the waves look pretty strong.”

“Mhm,” he hums, entertained.

It’s then that you decide to seek some revenge. Casually, like the whole situation doesn’t make your heartbeat with elated anxiety, you pull your top off, revealing a crotchet-style bikini top. Living in Kildare meant that bikinis instead of underwear were sort of a given. Unbuttoning your shorts, you wiggle them down your body before stepping out and tossing them on the blanket. Glancing up, acting as if you’d completely forgotten JJ was there, you quirk a brow. He’s staring shamelessly at your body.

“Something up?”

“Not yet,” he mumbles.

It’s hard to bite back your smile. Hard, but not impossible. Dipping down to retrieve the board, you strain a little as you lift it.

“Come on. We’re wasting daylight,” you tell him, walking past towards the water.

“Yes ma’am,” you hear him say.

The crunch of sand behind you tells you he’s following. Then, his pace picks up and he’s rushing past, taking a moment to dab at your head jokingly.

“Hey!”

His laugh is light like buttercream frosting. You chase after him, towards the break, and soon enough you’re sliding atop of your board and paddling through the wake. JJ’s just a bit ahead. His back glistens in the sunlight with saltwater. You swallow your pride and dignity and let your eyes trail up his legs and butt. The water makes his clothes stick more than usual. He steadily rises to his feet, finding his balance on the board in such a natural manner that one would think he was born on it. The way he leans forward and back is effortless. He tames the waves like a creature of the sea, dipping on the currents and following the dives. You can’t help but sit up on your board for a moment and watch. His face is tight with concentration but the joy is as clear as the water. The sharp edge of his jawline teases you as you watch him surf. The tremble of your heart and knot in your stomach isn’t unfamiliar and yet it still catches you by surprise. To distract yourself, you paddle out some more before rising to your feet.

You know the old saying ‘time flies when you’re having fun’? You never much believed it until today. The two of you must have been on the water for an hour. Somehow, simultaneously, the two of you agree that it’s time to call it off. The scratchy over-washed cotton of the blanket is only slightly uncomfortable on your legs as you sit. JJ takes your rucksack and digs about for a snack. You opt for taking in the quietness of the beach; it feels as though you’re the only souls for miles.

“Who’s this?” JJ asks.

You glance over to find JJ holding up a photo he’d taken from your wallet. A part of you wants to make a jab about how he’s snooping around, but you don’t. Instead, you smile weakly.

“My mom.”

“Oh,” JJ says, looking back down at the photo with new interest. “She’s pretty. Can see where you get your looks from.”

“Thanks,” you smile.

JJ reaches back into the back and pulls a can of soda free. He tosses it to you and you crack it open.

“I go through phases of having it in there,” you say, nodding down to the photo that he continues to hold. “Sometimes I want it around and other times I don’t. I know that probably sounds dumb.”

“No, it doesn’t,” JJ responds rather easily.

He tucks the photo back away in the wallet, safe and sound, then grabs a can of sofa for himself. He reclines on his elbows. Your eyes fixate on the shark tooth necklace hung around his neck on a discoloured piece of yarn. It rises and falls with each steady breath he takes. As your eyes trail down his stomach, you notice the water droplets drying in the sunlight. In a desperate effort not to stare, you find yourself watching him crack his feet, outstretching them on the sand. Crossing your legs, you take a sip of your soda and glance back up to his face. Then, you follow JJ’s line of sight to the water. The routine of the waves pulling in and pulling back, over and over, is calming in a way few other things are. As the sky’s mosaic of colour darkens by the minute, the water reflects it back like a mirror with a pretty shimmer.

“Sometimes I wish I had a photo of my ma.”

“Don’t you?” you ask, looking to him again.

He shakes his head. “My dad went on this crazy rager when she left and burnt up all her stuff. I was too young and stupid to take a photo for myself and hide it somewhere.”

“Bold of you to assume that you’re not still those things.”

JJ snorts, shooting you a glance. “Thanks.”

You smile back but correct your manners. “Seriously though, that sucks. I’m sorry.” It’s a lame understatement for the reality of it, but it’s all you can think to say. Tenderness isn’t something that comes very naturally for you.

He shrugs, looking back to the water. You know he’s trying to act like it doesn’t bother him, and maybe if you’d only met yesterday, you’d believe it, but there’s something about his composure that tells you that it isn’t true.

“I just wish I could remember what she looks like, y’know?” he says, looking to you once more as if seeking affirmation. You give a small nod. “I mean, I can’t even remember her voice. Not that it should matter. Fuck her, right? She’s the one who left.”

He takes a hasty sip of his soda, breaking eye contact. You frown and watch him, and deliberate whether to speak your mind. I mean, of course you’re going to, but it feels good to deliberate first.

“Well, no, not ‘fuck her’,” you eventually say.

JJ looks to you, eyebrows knotted: bordering on angry.

You continue. “I think it ain’t that simple. It’s why I go through phases of having that photo of my mom in my wallet. You can be mad at someone and still miss them. At least I think you can. They’re not binary things, or mutually exclusive. So, I don’t think it’s as simple as ‘fuck her’.”

There’s a moment where JJ just looks at you, as if he’s soaking you in the same way the two of you are basking in the warmth of the sun. It’s a certain kind of stare; the kind where you don’t feel calculated under his gaze but unquestionably seen. There’s a momentary concern that you’ve offended him but then JJ gains this almost-smile that’s becoming more and more familiar to you, and he nods.

“I’ve never really talked to anyone about her before,” JJ confesses.

You smile sadly. “Me too. About my mom, I mean. Dad shuts down when I bring it up and Charlotte…She remembers things differently.”

“Well, it’s nice to talk about it.”

“Yeah,” you agree. “It is nice.”

The whispering of sea waves melts into the sound of songbirds and geese, singing and squawking in a weirdly melodic harmony. There’re crickets in the dunes which chime in from time to time and you take a moment to look back to the water, close your eyes, and enjoy it all.

“So, what’s your excuse for it?”

“My excuse for what?” you wonder, never opening your eyes.

“You know.” There’s a soft scrape on your skin as JJ kicks some sand off his feet and onto yours. “For acting the way we do.”

Sighing, you deliberate on how to answer. JJ has this way of opening you up. With others, you were hard-shelled and closed off, but like a pistachio, he knew where to pry just right to get you to spill. It was like he already knew the password so you never questioned letting him through the door.

“I don’t want to care what people think of me. It makes no difference, whether I impress them or not, so what should it matter? Why should I waste my time with it?”

“‘Makes no difference?’ Like makes no difference whether they stick around?” JJ wonders.

You open your eyes and look to him, a little taken aback by how easily he translated your words. “Sure. Like that.”

“Like your mom?”

It doesn’t affect you when he asks that. If someone else were to, your fury would spike suddenly and you’d snap. Say something you’d regret. But maybe because JJ might understand more than others, it doesn’t. So, you nod.

“Yeah,” you quietly reply. “Like my mom.”

“I get that,” JJ muses. It’s with that small token that you feel comfortable to elaborate.

“I think it really came clear after she left, how fake people can be,” you say. “Seeing how all our so-called friends reacted. At the Yacht Club, my dad was the laughingstock. Everyone talked about him, about mom leaving, like they didn’t know him. Like he wasn’t this great guy - which he is - and like they hadn’t been drinking cocktails and pints on his tab for years. It was so fake. That’s when I realised that people will think whatever they want to, even if they say another thing. So…why bend yourself backwards to try and change it?”

Sniffing, JJ nods in understanding as he digests your story. His toes dig into the damp sand and you find your own spare hand reaching out and playing with the grains, sifting through them soothingly.

“What about you? Why do you act the way we do?”

“I guess the same, in a way,” JJ replies. You notice that he likes to gaze ahead when he talks about himself, like eye-contact is too painful. Too vulnerable. “With my dad being who he is, people just assume the worst about me. I’m sick of trying to prove them wrong. They’re gonna think what they wanna think so what’s the point, right?”

“The ones who care enough won’t judge a book by its cover. They’ll get to know you and see through all the bullshit,” you assure him.

His head turns with that. Unblinking, he asks, “like you?”

You’re momentarily stunned by the bluntness of the question but soon enough, you’re smiling at him.

“Yeah. Like me.”

When JJ smiles, his teeth peak through in this adorably youthful way. There’re dimples that poke through his cheeks and no tension in his forehead or jaw. Just happiness. You like him like this, all tousled and sun-kissed and seawater bathed. It’s strange. Sitting here with him on the beach feels like the first time you’ve ever been to the water and truly appreciated it. It’s like you’d always thought you would sink, so you never swam. But now, with JJ looking at you the way he is, and the way the two of you seem to click in an inexplicable manner – as if you’d been the two missing parts of the other’s jigsaw puzzle – you realise that maybe you were wrong to make such an assumption.

“It’s weird. We come from such different lifestyles but I don’t think anyone understands me as good as you do.”

JJ’s voice is quiet but not small when he tells you this. It’s a private thought that you’re honoured for him to have shared. There’s only one way you can think to answer.

Leaning forward, you leave your drink abandoned on the blanket and cup his jaw, fingers damp from condensation. His lips meet yours willingly. The kiss the two of you fall into makes your feelings for him all the more obvious to you, and all the more terrifying.

There was a lot of rumours about the both of you. Some were true, and some were not.

JJ drops the campervan off at his friend John B’s house. It’s this quaint fishing shack that could definitely do with a lick of paint on the boarding, and a few fresh nails to keep the porch from caving in on itself. But it’s homely by how clearly lived-in it is. There’s no emotionless ornaments like in your house; only fishing gear, empty cans of beer by the stairs leading up to the front door, and far-from-new throw pillows. You wait on the grass at the bottom of the stairs as JJ heads up to the door, skipping one of the steps entirely. He raps with his knuckles on the door before letting himself in.

“Yo! John B, you home?”

“Back here!” you hear a guy call back. JJ vanishes into the house, car keys in hand, ready to hand them over.

Shoving your hands in your short pockets, you glance out to the backyard. There’s an impressive sized tree from which a hammock hangs, and a less than stable looking jetty. A sort-of shed stands, filled with all sorts of tools and gear, and a half-waxed board lies on a table.

“Alright, let’s bounce,” JJ says, reappearing. He hops off the porch and grabs your hand like it’s second nature, guiding the two of you away from the house.

“You known John B a long time?”

“Since kindergarten,” JJ replies.

“Damn. Don’t think I’ve ever known someone that long. Well, apart from Charlotte.”

“What’s her deal, anyway?”

“Who? Charlotte?”

“Yeah. Like, is she as conceited as everyone says she is?”

Your brows quirk up. “People say she’s conceited?”

Watching JJ fumble and stumble over his tongue is entertaining. He looks to you, mildly panicked. “Well, like, I don’t say that but—”

“I’m just messing with you,” you grin. He unconsciously gives a small sigh of relief. “I know she’s conceited. And spoilt. And bratty.”

“Hm. Sounds like you’re really fond of her,” JJ chuckles.

You laugh under breath and rock your head from side to side in deliberation. “She’s hard to love but harder to hate.”

“That’s ice cold, girl,” JJ whistles.

The moment your feet hit the tarmac of a main road, you realise that you’ve been following the blonde-haired boy blind.

“Where are we going, by the way?”

“To mine.”

“To yours?”

JJ seems to catch onto the innuendo. He looks to you and adds, “my bike’s there. I can give you a ride home.”

“Oh.” Something inside you sinks with disappointment. You don’t dwell on it though. “Thanks.”

The weight of JJ’s fingers nestled between yours is casually intimate. Usually you’d feel coddled and clammy and want to pull away, but instead you feel safe.

“What’d you think I meant? When I said we were heading to mine?” JJ asks you.

You quirk a brow and pull a face which seems to be answer enough. He cracks up. “I mean…I’m down if you’re down…”

“Slow and steady, JJ Maybank. Slow and steady,” you return with a grin.

“That’s my motto baby,” is his sultry reply, topped off with a wink.

You’d be lying if you said your body didn’t flush with that comment.

“You’ve got a reputation, JJ. I’m not gonna be another notch on your belt,” you jokingly say.

JJ rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, half of my reputation is bullshit rumours.”

“Same here, amigo.”

“Yeah, I’ve gotta admit, I’ve heard some pretty batshit things about you,” JJ tunefully says.

Smirking, you turn to look at him. “Oh really? Like what?”

He takes a moment to think. The eventide light shadows his skin like a painting. “The state trooper?”

Ah. You remember that one. Bobby Cromack spread a rumour that you’d kicked a state trooper in the balls during a protest. On accounts that no protest ever existed that month in Kildare, that was a lie.

“False,” you say. You take the opportunity to debunk some of that you’d heard about JJ. One that you were certain wasn’t true was the rumour that he ate an entire turtle raw. “The turtle?”

He blows a raspberry. “Bullshit. The college guy?”

“Hearsay,” you say. Apparently, a friend of a friend of someone at Kildare Academy saw you at a frat college party in Wilmington, snorting coke off some guy’s chest. Incredible how easily fake news flies. “The hooker?”

“Lies,” he debunks. So, JJ didn’t lose his virginity to a prostitute. “The Banksy side-gig?”

You guffaw. “Complete crap.”

Yes, it appeared that people at school thought you were spending your free time running around Kildare, throwing up mediocre spray paint art as an act of rebellion. Stunning.

“Damn. You’re just full of disappointments, ain’t ya?”

JJ leads the two of you up a small dirt road and through a culmination of trees and shrubs, a house begins to emerge. It’s slightly bigger than John B’s but still small. It is somehow even more banged up, but not in an inviting way like his friend’s. No, this place looks desolate and lonely. Sad even. You feel a sympathetic tug when you notice JJ’s shoulders tense at the sight of it. You’re not even sure he realises that he’s doing it. There’s a bright red bike that you recognise; it’s sheltered under a small shack in the garden. It seems that neither of you are ready to close off the conversation yet. Instead, JJ takes you to the steps of his porch and the two of you sit. You lean against one pillar and him against the other. The wood is splintering and the paint is peeling off in strips. Facing one another, you slot your feet between his staple combat boots.

“Tell me something true.”

“Something true?” he checks, rubbing at his jaw. You nod. “I don’t like snakes.”

Laughing, you shake your head. He seems to like your laugh, smiling at the sound and sight. “No. Something real.”

JJ reaches out and plays with one of your laces.

“Something nobody else knows,” you explicate.

“Okay,” JJ nods. He retracts his fingers from your shoe, using his hand to help him keep his balance as he leans forward. You can smell the salt on the skin of his neck from the sea as he presses a kiss to your skin. There’s something sensual about the warmth of his breath on the apple of your cheek.

“You’re sweet,” he says. Your lips push together, suppressing your smile, and JJ pulls back only to move to the other cheek. “And sexy.” He pulls back so he can plant a kiss on your lips. You love how JJ kisses. “And completely hot for me.”

You guffaw, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes. “You’re amazingly self-assured, has anyone ever told you that?”

He frowns momentarily before nodding, saying, “I tell myself that everyday, actually.”

The smile that his joking response brings you quickly fades when he kisses you again. There’s something different about this kiss. Something passionate, and emotive, and sensuous. When his hand reaches up to cup at the place where your jaw fades into your neck, you find yourself leaning into his hold, deepening the kiss. The brush of his tongue on yours sends electricity shooting from your head, down your spine, straight through your toes. It’s over all too soon. When he speaks, he’s close, and he asks his question against your lips.

“Go to the Spring Ball with me.”

“What?” you dumbly ask, eyes slowly opening.

“The Yacht club spring ball. Go with me,” JJ clarifies.

Your smile doesn’t falter as you gaze into his eyes, admiring the flecks of colour. The answer is easy. “No.”

His brows gently tug together. Smiling, he repeats, “come on, go with me.”

“Is that a request or a demand?” you half-joke. The magic of the moment is dissipating as quick as vapour. He doesn’t reply but the way he holds your gaze suggests that he’s still waiting for an answer. “No.”

“No? Why not?”

You pull away now. “Because I don’t want to. Because it’s a dumb tradition for fake rich people.”

“Come on! People won’t expect you to go. Plus, it’d be a laugh seeing the look on those Kook asshole faces when you show up with me, don’t you think?” JJ prompts.

You frown. Something manifests in your gut. It weighs heavy like a stone. Cocking your head, creating more distance between the two of you, you ask, “why are you pushing this?”

JJ’s lips part. You see them try to form words but nothing comes out. It makes you prod further.

“What’s in it for you?”

He turns, sitting fully on the porch, feet side by side on the step below. You watch his side profile and notice how his jaw ticks and tightens, like he’s annoyed. Like you telling him no has annoyed him. That stone turns into a rock.

“So, you’re saying I need a motive to be with you now?” JJ asks, tone clipped.

Your anger ticks. “You tell me.”

He scoffs and shakes his head, glancing out to the unkept yard. Suddenly, he looks to you. There’s a dark, twisted look on his face that’s so scarily unfamiliar. “You need therapy, you know that? Has anyone ever told you that before? Like you’re actually sick in the head.”

The words hit like darts aimed straight for your heart. You swallow the pain and keep your gaze steely but your voice gives you away. It’s shrinking and holds no conviction as you say, “answer the question, JJ.”

The ugliness of him only grows as he shakes his head once more. There’s a sick smile on his face that comes and goes quick like a hurricane before he sardonically says, “nothing, alright? Just the pleasure of your company.”

The rock in your gut is a boulder; it makes you feel like you’re sinking into the ground. The shock barely has time to settle before he delivers another blow. You watch JJ dig into his short pockets and pull out a pack of cigarettes, shucking one free and propping it between his lips. He said he was quitting. Scoffing, you reach out and take it as he searches for his lighter. You toss the cigarette carelessly on the ground before getting to your feet, hastily walking away from him. It’s like you can’t get away fast enough. Your arms wrap around you in a far from comforting hug the minute you feel obscured by the foliage. When you realise that JJ isn’t following you, your head dips and lips tremble. With the call of a songbird, your mind flashes back to earlier that day, at the beach, and your tears finally start to fall.

There was a rumour that your sister wanted to go to the spring ball with Rafe. That one was (thankfully) false.

Academics don’t hurt you the way people do. Math equations can’t talk back and Shakespeare quotes don’t bite. Throwing yourself into your studies seems the best way to get your mind of JJ’s cruel words. The look on his face when he snapped at you was so different to the way he’d been with you before. It was cold and callous and downright mean. It was also befuddling, how defensive he got. JJ and Spring Ball didn’t seem like the most obvious pairing to you. You knew that JJ liked to stick-it-to-the-man and get under the Kook’s skin, but pushing the spring ball just to take the piss was so abnormal. Maybe that was what hurt the most.

You’re halfway through analysing a sonnet from Romeo and Juliet when there’s a soft rap on your bedroom door.

“Come in!”

It creaks open and you glance over to find Charlotte. She softly closes it behind her. Then, she takes a seat on your bed.

“What’s up?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” you say, closing your notebook. Spinning around in your desk chair, you face your younger sister.

She takes a moment to gather her thoughts before speaking. She stands out like a sore thumb in your bedroom, amongst your old movie posters and tapestries and postcards, and the deep grey and white of your bedsheets. Her blossom pink skirt doesn’t quite fit the theme.

“Why don’t you want to go to the spring ball? Is it just to keep me from going?”

You sigh and look away, down at the floor. Shaking your head, you say, “no. I just don’t like the yacht club people. You know that.”

“You act like you’re not one of us,” Charlotte tells you.

“Because I’m not,” you reply quickly, offended. She quirks a brow.

“Look at where we live! At the car you drive! We’re in a lucky position in life and it’s stupid to act like that isn’t true!”

“I can acknowledge my privilege without leaning into it,” you say.

You weren’t stupid. You knew your socio-economic status gave you an advantage in life. Not once had you ever had to worry about money, or not having dinner on the table, or not being able to go for coffee. Your dad worked hard to get to the place where you were at now; it wasn’t handed to him. Nonetheless, spending more time with JJ, seeing his and John B’s homes, made you realise just how easy you had it. That didn’t mean that you liked the frivolities of the lifestyle, though.

“Look, I know you think the yacht club is dumb and fake and all of that stuff,” Charlotte reals off. “But I actually care about it. I really do. It means something to me.”

“But it’s so—”

“You can preach all you want, but it won’t change my opinion,” Charlotte interrupts. You slam your mouth shut. It’s a fair point (something she rarely makes). “Look, there’s a guy that I really like, and he wants to take me.”

“Rafe?”

“No.” She says it in a way that makes you think she’s almost amused at the thought. “Louis. He’s actually nice.”

“Actually?” You check.

She smiles and nods. She has a pretty smile. “Yes. Actually. But daddy won’t let me go if you don’t and I really want to go.”

You swallow. It’s clear where this conversation is going now. Sighing, you look out the window. It’s windy today. Blossoms keep getting blown from the trees and they pass by your window like fake snow.

“The thing with the yacht club isn’t just as simple as not wanting to get all dressed up for some dumb tradition,” you admit. “I don’t like how they treated dad, after mom left.”

“I know,” she says. Then, after a moment’s thought, adds, “But that wasn’t everyone. Remember how Mrs M brought us casserole for a week? And Mr Cameron invited dad out on a fishing trip? Some people are fake, that’s true, but not everyone. Not everyone has ulterior motives.”

That last sentence has your eyes snapping back to hers. She doesn’t seem to realise what she’s said. In fact, it looks like she’s waiting for you to tear into her like you usually would. But when you take her in, you see a sweet fifteen-year-old girl who’s a little tightly wrapped in cotton wool, who wants an excuse to wear a pretty dress and dance to trashy pop music and get to know a cute guy. The thought of keeping her away from that makes you feel guilty. Plus, if you’re there, at least you can keep an eye on her from the outskirts. Check that this Louis isn’t just another Rafe in disguise.

“Fine.”

She blinks at you, confused. “Fine?”

“I’ll go. We can go.”

“We can!?”

The way her whole face lights up like New York at night makes the night of horror already worthwhile. Starting to smile, you nod. The hug that Charlotte fires at you nearly sends you falling out of your chair. As much as you hate hugs, this one might be the best one you’ve ever had from her.

There was a rumour that JJ’s dad beat him. He never told you that was true, but you had a feeling.

JJ’s house seems eerily quiet. It isn’t the sort of quiet that makes you feel as though nobody’s home. It reminds you of the quiet in the movies when the hostages are hiding from the bad guys. The kind where nobody wants to step on a twig and give away their location. Something about it stops you from heading up the porch and knocking on the door. You’ve barely rounded the corner of the house, about to see what you can spot around the back, when someone is grabbing at you from behind. It’s a man, you can tell by their arms. One wraps around your middle, fastening one of your arms to your side, and the other comes to cover your mouth. It muffles your panicked yelps.

“Calm down, calm down, it’s me,” JJ’s whispering frantically in your ear.

It doesn’t stop your struggling though. He’s barely pulled you away from the house before you shake free, shoving him off you. He takes you by the wrist then, guiding you into the marshland.

“What the hell, JJ!”

“Shut up, alright? He’ll hear,” JJ shortly replies.

You do as he says begrudgingly and let him take you further from the house. Eventually, JJ lets go. He takes a second to catch his breath, bringing his arms up to clasp his hands behind his head, back facing you as he paces.

“What’s going on?” you ask.

He shakes his head. “Don’t matter.”

Turning around, it seems as though his whole demeanour has reset. Well, almost. There’s a tension in his muscles that he can’t fully shake. You overlook it the same way you overlook the bruise forming near his eye. It’s brown and purple. Definitely caused by more than a tap on a doorframe.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I had to come see you,” you say. Suddenly, with the spotlight on you, the confidence that Charlotte instilled within you falters. “About the other day.”

“The other day?”

“Yeah, on your porch…” you clumsily say.

JJ raises his brows, changing his weight from one leg to the other. It seems easier to fixate on his cap rather than meet his eyes. It’s green and purposefully frayed on the edges; it compliments his skin tone well. Swallowing your pride with a sigh, you awkwardly twiddle your fingers.

“I came to apologise for how I reacted.”

“You did?”

Your eyes dart down from his hat to meet his. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have questioned your motives. It was dumb of me, and stupid, and…dumb.”

“Said that one already.”

“Shut up.”

“Right.”

You sigh and rub at your forehead like this conversation is causing you a headache. It turns out pride and stubbornness are sisters.

“Anyway, I just wanted to come and say sorry and see if you still wanted to go. Maybe,” you rush out.

“You wanna go to the spring ball?” JJ frowns.

“Yeah. Charlotte wants to go and my dad—You know what, that doesn’t matter. Because you’re right,” you tell him, cutting yourself off in the process.

His eyebrows almost shoot into his hairline with that. Something tells you that he doesn’t hear that phrase a whole lot.

“It would be funny to rub it in the kook-club faces. And maybe I’d actually enjoy the night if I went with you.”

JJ purses his lips and plants his hands on his hips, looking off to the greenery. You know what he’s doing. He’s basking in this moment, with you stood, tail between your legs, and milking it for what it’s worth. It isn’t exactly amusing, but it does somehow ease your anxiety.

“So, you’re saying that I’m right and that you want me to take you to your fancy spring ball?”

“Yes,” you reply through gritted teeth.

“Huh.” JJ nods, pulling a face. “So this is what it feels like to be right…"

Silence.

"It’s oddly unsettling.”

“Look, do you wanna go or not, cause I’ve got plenty of other things I can do with—”

JJ makes it to you with two large strides. Your face is enveloped by his hands as he guides your lips to yours in a smooch-like kiss. It’s awfully annoying how all of your worries seem to melt away with that one gesture.

“Yes. I’ll go with you,” JJ says the minute he pulls back.

You want his lips on yours again already, but you practice restraint. Bringing a hand up to lay over one of his, you look up into his eyes. God, he’s so dreamy.

“I’m sorry for questioning your motives,” you repeat, more sincerely now.

JJ swallows before nodding. “You’re, uh, you’re forgiven. I’m sorry too, for saying the things that I did. I gotta pretty ugly temper sometimes and I just speak without thinking.”

You missed the smile that comes to your face. Nobody makes you smile like JJ does. Nobody gets you like JJ does either. As if trying to tell him so, you lean up and kiss him again. You can feel his smile against yours, melding and merging like you’re two of the same souls. You assume that this is JJ’s way of saying yes; he’ll join you to the spring ball.

There was a rumour that your sister punched Rafe at the spring ball. That one you weren’t sure about.

The yacht club was a cream building with pastel green shutters and doors. It stood in front of the beach, surrounded by perfectly trimmed green fields and a stone’s throw from a golf course. Several flags stuck out of the thatched roof, waving proudly in the air. For the spring ball, the porch had been decorated with ivy and flowers. Purple and blue blossoms were intertwined with foliage and string-lights, dancing up the poles as if growing. The main event was held in the back, facing the sea. The extensive decorations continued, only now with white sheer-like fabric hanging from place to place, creating somewhat of a shelter. A makeshift dancefloor was put down using wooden boards directly before a small stage for live musicians to perform throughout the night. Tables for snacks which looked as though they’d been meticulously crafted by God himself lined the back wall of the building.

“Holy crap,” you can’t help but mutter at the sight of it all.

JJ whistles lowly in wordless agreement. His fingers intertwine with yours, squeezing, and you look up to him.

“Ready for this?” he asks.

“Are you?”

He grins with that. “Baby, I was born ready to show these Kooks a good time.”

You roll your eyes, smile flowering on your features, and guide the two of you up the porch. The moment you pass Mr and Mrs Johnson, dressed in the over-the-top attire, you hear their hushed whispers. It makes your smile grow.

JJ manages to snag a couple of drinks for the two of you from the bar. You sip and lead the two of you outside, into the belly of the beast. Adults stand chatting away, gushing falsely over their lives. Did you hear the Carol got accepted into Yale? Oh, isn’t it just marvellous! You spot Charlotte fairly quickly and it brightens the night. She’s dancing with Louis, giggling like a child on Christmas morning, and he’s watching her like she hung the stars shining in the sky above.

You and JJ find a quieter spot to the side to people watch. Your leg rests against his as you perch, sipping on the champagne.

“You look beautiful, by the way,” JJ says, breaking the silence.

Looking to him, you smile. He’s the only person who can make you bashful. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I kinda forget to say earlier,” he admits, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. You love when he does that. It makes you giddy to know you have that kind of effect on him.

“Well, what I think you said was ‘wow’,” you correct.

You know that’s what he said. You think the look on his face, somewhat mesmerised, and the way that the words made your heart hammer like you’d run a marathon, will be permanently etched in your memory.

JJ smiles, looking down to his shoes. You have no idea where he got them from. They’re seemingly brand-new leather loafers, starkly different to his worn-down combat boots.

“You don’t clean up too bad yourself, Maybank,” you clumsily compliment.

He shrugs, confidence somewhat boosted. Glancing down at you, he asks, “Oh really?”

“Mhm. Kinda like you in a penguin suit,” you say.

You fix his collar just for an excuse to touch him. He seems to realise this, wrapping his fingers around your wrist to hold it steady before dipping his head down. Your lips meet his in a chaste kiss that has your toes squirming.

“You wanna walk around. Show my penguin suit off to a few more people?”

You laugh quietly, nodding. “Sure.”

The peruse of the party is probably heightened by the alcohol that JJ keeps managing to sneak for the two of you. At any opportunity, you’re whispering in his ear or his in yours with jokes and jabs about people’s outfits. Rose, looking like lady liberty. Mr Dulany, here to haunt us from his grave. As the night rumbles on, you find yourself actually enjoying it. Somehow, someway, the two of you find yourselves on the dance floor. You’re letting JJ swing you around in some makeshift jive to the mini orchestra’s upbeat rhythm. His theatrics have you practically doubling over. JJ was born with two left feet and then some. You don’t care though. It’s perfect.

When the song ends, there’s a lull as the band catches their breath and sips on some water. The crowd applauses, including yourself, and JJ nods at you as if approving of the talent. It makes you laugh even more. Just as you go to make a joke about it, an all too familiar swell of violins emerges from the stage. Your lips part, head darting over, hands pausing mid-applause, because there’s no way. There is no way that they’re playing what you think they’re playing.

The melody materialises out of the melancholic chords and your heart breaks into a million pieces. Cinema Paradiso: Love Theme.

You scoff in wonderous disbelief, extending a finger dumbly to the stage as you look to JJ, mouth agape. He’s grinning, watching you like he was waiting for your reaction. It patches your heart back together in an instant.

“They’re…” you begin to say.

He nods. Leaning forward, beside your ear, he tells you, “I called in a favour.”

You pull back suddenly, meeting his gaze, checking for some sign of a lie. But he isn’t. He’s smiling, sweet and safe, and you can’t help but step towards him and wrap your arms over his shoulders, around his neck. He accepts your embrace willingly, hands finding solace around your waist. JJ holds you against him as the two of you sway. You practically hide your face in the lapel of his blazer, smiling like a drunk. He did this for you. He remembered this specific song, this specific reprise, for you. The weight of the realisation nearly brings you to tears. Nearly.

In this cocoon of JJ, it feels as though the music coils around the two of you like a snake, trapping you in the lovingly lugubrious song. It ties in perfectly with the distant sound of the ocean. That’s when you realise that you’ll never be able to hear either of those things again without thinking of the seventeen-year-old boy who busted his ass to win you over. You have no idea what you did to deserve him, or what possessed him to pursue you, but whatever it was, you’re eternally grateful.

It takes a split-second to register the hand shoving at your shoulder. It pushes you apart from JJ, making you stumble over your heels as they catch in your dress. After untangling it, you look up to find Rafe’s back facing you. Stepping around him, about to intervene, you see JJ’s face. Something about his expression stops you. He looks anxious.

No.

He looks terrified.

“Look, I didn’t pay you to take out her psycho sister just so some little punk can take out Charlotte instead.”

In that instant, JJ looks like someone who’s just found out his whole religion is a lie, and it’s his fault.

The words parse together slowly. Each syllable as it registers feels like another vice wrapping around your lungs, robbing you of air.

Pay you…

To take out…

Her psycho sister…

JJ isn’t looking at Rafe. He’s not even acknowledging that he exists. He’s staring at you. It doesn’t feel like his usual stare; the kind that makes you feel like he can see you through smog. No. It makes you feel exploited.

That’s when you finally find enough oxygen in your body to form some words.

“Nothing in it for you, huh?”

That same God-awful feeling from the other days returns but tenfold stronger. The urge to just get as far away from JJ as humanly possible. The urge to run. You turn and rush away from the dancefloor, from the crowds, from whatever chaos is bound to follow Rafe like a shadow. From JJ. From the only person you’ve ever really trusted since your mom.

Even though you’re outside, the air feels suffocating. You’re trying to navigate your way around the building, to the carpark where you can call an Uber or just walk home. Anything, anything¸ but stay here, near him.

But JJ’s persistent. You’d known that from the moment you met him. You can hear him calling for you, his voice desperate, and it makes everything hurt even more. He’s faster than you, especially when you’re wearing heels. When he catches up to you, his fingers wrap around your upper arm.

“Please! Please, just lemme explain!” JJ pleads.

“You were paid to take me out by the one person I truly hate.”

You shake him off and turn to face him. He looks guilty as sin and you can’t do it. Can’t bare it. Turning again, you continue to walk away.

“I knew this was a set up.”

The gut feeling from the porch is so horrifically ironic. You should have known. You should have known.

“It wasn’t like that!” JJ insists.

“Really?” You snap. He grabs for you again and you stop, meeting his gaze. You’re not sure how you’re not sobbing. “What was it like? A down payment now and then a bonus for sleeping with me?”

“No, look, I didn’t care about the money, alright!?” JJ desperately insists. You can’t seem to look away. His eyes hold so much feeling but it all feels so lifeless now. “I…I cared about you.”

It all feels so fake.

“I don’t believe you,” you whisper.

Shaking your head, you swallow thickly. The tears finally come, teasing at your waterline, stinging like Rafe’s words from moments ago.

“You’re so not who I thought you were.”

JJ almost physically winces. You push his hand off your arm and go to leave but he’s relentless. He takes you by the wrist with a firm grip, his other hand taking you by the jaw. Then his lips are on yours. The kiss isn’t like the others. It’s dirty and disgusting and disingenuous and desperate, and you shove him off by the shoulders. You glance over him, wet cheeked, like he didn’t cause this. But he did. He hurt you. He hurt you.

This time, when you walk away, JJ doesn’t chase you. Maybe that’s what hurts most of all.

There was a rumour that JJ was paid to take you out. That one was horrifically, painfully true.

When your mom left you cried for a week. Endlessly, morning through to night, tear after tear. It would sometimes pass, but then it would hit again, out of the blue, like a boat colliding with an iceberg in the sea in the vast darkness of night. But after a week, you didn’t have anything left. You just felt hollow and empty. Then you promised that you wouldn’t cry about her anymore.

“You want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down.”

You sigh and try to focus on the comforting black and white picture on your laptop. George Bailey stands beside sweet little Mary, stood in the night.

“Hey, that’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon, Mary.”

“I’ll take it.”

The gentle knock on your door is almost a blessing. It’s hard to distract yourself from the awful pain in your chest.

“Come in,” you call out.

Charlotte creeps in, closing the door behind her. She leans against it and looks at you. You’re wallowing in your bed, tucked under a blanket, surrounded by comfort snacks that Mia brought for you and tissues.

“What’s up?” you ask her when she doesn’t speak.

She shakes her head and walks over, climbing onto the bed. She crawls around so she can lie on her back, and you wordlessly turn yourself over, rest your head on her stomach, and begin to cry for what feels like the millionth time. Her fingers lovingly stroke your hair, soothing you through your pain. Suddenly, you’re immensely thankful for your sister. You wouldn’t want her any other way than how she is, no matter how whiny and spoilt she can sometimes get.

“Charlotte?” you sniffle.

“Yeah?” she quietly asks.

It feels like another splinter cracks into your heart as the confession falls from your lips. “I really miss mom.”

She’s still a moment, and then she’s wrapping her arms around you, hugging you tight and close. For once, you don’t pull back. You let yourself be held by your little sister.

“I know,” she whispers. “I do too.”

There was a rumour that JJ regretted what he did. You weren’t sure if that one was true, but you wanted to know.

About a week after the spring ball, you finally brave the outside world. The old movie shop is your first point of call considering you made your way through all your ‘to be watched’ films in the past seven days. It’s nice knowing that you won’t run into anyone in the shop; that you can lose yourself to the world of fiction in sepia and black and white.

The brass bell chimes as you walk through the door.

“Hiya Lucy,” you say.

She glances up from the spreadsheet she’s ticking at, smiling at the sight of you. Then, as if something dawns upon her, she’s waving out her hands for you to pause. “I have something to give you!”

“Oh?”

You didn’t put anything on hold. Wandering over to the counter, you lean against it as Lucy ducks down to rummage for something under the desk. Eventually, she heaves an old typewriter onto the counter.

“What…”

“There’s a note, too,” she says, bobbing back down to search.

Whilst she looks, you reach out a finger and trace it over the iron letters. They’re cold and a little dusty, and beautifully ornate. It’s painted black with gold accents. You’ve never seen something so beautifully vintage. Maybe your dad or Charlotte put it aside for you, as a pick-me-up. You can’t imagine it to be very cheap, not with the quality it is in and the year it was made.

“Here,” Lucy sighs. She holds out a small envelope for you. You take it with a small thanks and open it up.

For you to write your movies.

The two initials printed in black ink make you pause. You stare at it, throat constricting painfully at the sight. You look to the typewriter again and then back to the note. Just like everything else with JJ, you’re overcome by a confusing concoction of emotions.

Remembering Lucy, you flash her a hopefully unbothered smile and tuck the note in your back pocket.

“Thanks, Lucy,” you say. You brace yourself and lift the typewriter with a huff.

“You got it?”

“Yep, yep,” you strain, beginning towards the door. Some nice old lady holds it open for you as you struggle out, hollering a farewell to the storeowner as you go.

The whole drive home, the typewriter watches you. It watches you as you park and it watches you fight your way up the stairs. Finally, in the quiet of your room, you sit and digest the note. It’s funny that a one sentence message has left you so stumped. But you don’t know what it means. An apology, most likely. But is that enough? An apology for lying to your face for over a month. For letting you open up to him and for letting you believe that he was doing the same, only to find out there was a paycheck at the end.

It's so frustrating that no matter how you try to, and no matter how much easier it would be if you did, you just don’t hate him. You don’t. You can’t. You can’t believe that everything that happened between you was a front. Every little anecdote and gesture, ever look and kiss, was all an act. It just can’t be. Just like you’d said to JJ on the beach, feelings aren’t mutually exclusive. ‘You can be mad at someone and still miss them.’ Is that what this was?

Pulling open your desk drawer, you turf around for some pages of plain paper. You tuck them into the typewriter and practice a few of the keys. There’s the aesthetic clack as they mark the page and the ping when the edge of the page is met. Once you feel confident in how it works, you slot a new piece of paper in the machine and sigh. And then, you begin to type.

I hate the way you talk to me

And the way you cut your hair.

I hate the way you drive my car.

I hate it when you stare.

I hate your big dumb combat boots

And the way you read my mind.

I hate you so much it makes me sick.

It even makes me rhyme.

I hate the way you’re always right.

I hate it when you lie.

I hate it when you make me laugh

Even worse when you make me cry.

I hate it when you’re not around

And the fact that you didn’t call.

But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you.

Not even close.

Not even a little bit.

Not even at all.

You reread the poem time and time again. It feels like healing, in a strange way, almost as if you’re soothing your wounds with a homemade balm. Finally, for the first time in a week, you feel yourself give a genuine smile. Gently taking the paper from the typewriter, you deliberate what to do with it. The answer comes to you clear like the water at daybreak.

There was a rumour…

Like clockwork, you find JJ on the fishing jetty. His back is to you once more, only this time he’s wearing a loose navy-blue button shirt. Those same cargo shorts and those same combat boots adorn his lower half. His long, tousled mousy-blonde hair is out free, not buried under a cap: your favourite style on him. You make your way down the jetty slowly, giving yourself time to change your mind. There’s a nervousness in your stomach and it doubles when JJ glances over his shoulder at the sound of footsteps. The moment he sees you, he leaves his rod propped and turns around fully.

“Hey,” he breaths.

You come to a stop in front of him, leaving a safe distance. “Hey.”

“What, uh…I didn’t know you were coming here,” he eventually says.

You shrug. “I didn’t know I was, ‘til now.”

He nods, uneasy, and pushes his fingers through his hair. His wonderful nervous fidget. You love that one almost as much as the neck scratch.

“The typewriter?”

“Hm?”

“The typewriter. What’s that for?”

He shrugs, gesturing out to you. “For your movies. So you can write those films that you wanna make.”

“But what’s it for?”

JJ catches your gaze and flounders. He shakes his head and glances off, inspecting a corner of the jetty. You take a step forward but he seems to think you’re going to leave, because suddenly he’s looking up at you again and talking. “I’m really sorry about how everything went down.”

You pause in place and watch him. In one of your hands is the poem, folded up into a tiny rectangle, withered at the seams from fiddling.

JJ shakes his head. “I’m not proud of it. At first, I was happy to. I mean, I was getting paid to take out some random chick. I don’t come from much and that amount of money can stretch a long way.”

“I know,” you quietly say.

“No, you don’t,” JJ says. He isn’t exactly angry; it seems he just wants to be clear. “My dad’s a deadbeat, alright? He gets fired from every gig he gets and I gotta help keep the lights on. It ain’t your fault, and I’m not blaming you, but you don’t know what it’s like living from paycheck to paycheck. You ain’t ever had to worry about going hungry, or not having gas or power for a week, or going without internet for a month. So, when Rafe offered me $50, course I said yes. I’m a scumbag who’s dirt-broke with no fucking morals.”

You can’t help but close your eyes. It hurts to hear him talk about himself like that. It hurts to hear him admit to taking the money.

“But then I actually got to know you,” JJ continues.

He’s watching you when you open your eyes. Gauging your reaction.

“And I meant everything I said to you. I didn’t make any of that shit up – the real stuff. And I meant it when I said nobody has ever understood me like you do,” JJ tells you. His voice is thick and weighty with emotion.

You purse your lips in a bid to keep from crying. “What about the movies?”

“Well, I didn’t like them all that much before I met you,” JJ admits. “But you’ve made me a fan. To be honest, they make me think of you.”

“And the typewriter?” you can’t help but ask.

JJ’s lips tease to smile. “Well, this asshole paid me a whole bunch of money to take this really cool chick out. But I messed up and I fell for her, so I had to do something useful with the money.”

Your thumb brushes over the paper of the poem. It feels like a safety blanket. You can’t tear your eyes from his and it seems he feels the same. He nods, gently, as if confirming whatever doubt you have.

“I don’t expect you to just forgive me. I know you don’t trust easy and I threw that in your face. But I don’t wanna lose you. I want you around forever, if you’d let me.”

The heaviness in your gut is gone. There’s a feeling of enlightenment that washes over you. Here, stood before you, honest and open, pockets empty and heart on a platter…You find yourself taking a chance. The pain from your mom leaving you without rhyme or reason fades behind one simple fact: all people are different people.

You no longer want to give JJ the poem. It doesn’t feel right to, at least not right now. Pocketing it, you dampen your lips and deliberate.

Eventually, you nod, “I’ll let you. It’ll take time for me to trust you again, like I did before…But I don’t want to lose you either.”

JJ’s smile slowly grows. It’s your smile, the one he saves just for you, and you feel the pain already passing just by seeing it. Stepping towards him, you make the first move to reconnect. He’s more than happy to accept, pressing his lips to yours in a tender, tired kiss.

“‘Sides,” you say, looking up at him, arms thrown around his shoulders. “Everyone knows the best movies are when the couple gets together at the very end.”

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj x reader #jj #outer banks #outerbanks #obx #obx fic #jj maybank fic #jj fic #outerbanks fic #10 things i hate about you

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ghost-proofbaby · 1 year

Text

twenty four hours (modern!eddie munson x fem!reader)

HOUR ELEVEN

in which a line is crossed, and a lie is told.

→ tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn

→ warnings: strong language, smut, upside down does not exist, fingering, oral (m receiving, allusions to f receiving), p in v (be like eddie and r! use protection!), use of mean nicknames (slut), ass slapping, hair pulling, minors dni

→ wc: 7.5k+

→ a/n: the smut has arrived! shout out to @abibliophobiaa and @myosotisa my loves for helping me, but also horny hours in general haha. the pep talks were very much needed and very appreciated.

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

11:00 ──────ㅇ─────────── 24:00

SIX MONTHS EARLIER

A drink. What you need is a drink.

The moment Robin and Steve brought up the small get together, you’d agreed instinctually. It had been a long month, hard and full of life throwing unexpected punches your way, and the only way you could think to soothe it was with terrible mixed drinks in your friend’s kitchen.

First, it had been the tire on your bike popping. Which in itself wasn’t a catastrophe, but you realized very quickly that going out and about around campus was nearly impossible on foot. You’d shown up to most classes late, not adjusting for the fact you were far slower when walking across campus than you were riding. And then it was your classes; the teachers were already upset as it was in your smaller classes regarding your perpetual tardiness, but to top it all off, every assignment seemed to not be enough. No matter what you submitted, what changes you made to essays sent back to you, it was becoming more impossible to maintain a resemblance of a respectable GPA. You’d nearly flunked a test in your humanities class, when you’d asked for a professor to go back a slide for notes they’d glared and refused the reasonable request. When you’d not understood a question on your literature homework and sent an email plenty of days in advance, the teacher only got back to you once the due date had passed.

And the dates. The terrible, terrible dates of the month.

There was the first guy, who had been kind enough. A simple meeting over coffee and by the time the lattes were cold, you knew there’d be no second date. That was fine. You could live with that.

The second guy had more potential. A first date in a bar was almost a red flag, but after a fun game of pool, you’d agreed to meet again. The second date was at a restaurant that you learned he’d taken his ex-girlfriend to; actually, you’d learned a bit too much about his ex-girlfriend that night. She was the only thing he could talk about, and when you’d later explained that over text for being your reason against a third date, he’d called you every crude name in the book.

And the final guy. A guy you’d really liked, that you’d been messaging back and forth since a month before. He was a busy guy, a bartender and full time student, and you understood – you really did. But he was charismatic and lured you in over the phone, and you hadn’t been so giddy for a date in a while. It felt like there were sparks, like he might be the one.

He didn’t show up. Last night, you’d sat like a fool at the restaurant you two agreed upon for two hours before realizing he wasn’t showing. Sipped your way through two ciders, even picked on an appetizer of fries, telling yourself he’d show up. He was just busy. He’d show up.

He never showed up. He didn’t even text you. The waiter had waived your bill for the night, but his look of pity only made your stomach twist worse.

Pathetic. You felt pathetic.

“We’re all getting together at my place tonight,” Steve had whispered to you during class that morning as you two were packing up things as the lecture ended, “Everyone’s just going to hang out, drink, let loose. You should come.”

And so you came, overly optimistic about the entire idea. You didn’t even think to ask if Eddie was going to be here – even he couldn’t dampen your excitement at a break after the month you’d had, even with his recent mean streak.

Mean. You’d never thought after that first night you’d be able to describe him that way. Cold, sure. Callous, perhaps. Indifferent, of course. But mean? Mean didn’t seem like something others saw Eddie as genuinely capable of. Steve always ranted about how good of a guy he was, Robin would tell fun stories of nights out with him and how much of a good time he was, Nancy considered the guy her best friend. You knew your new friends, and you didn’t take them as being the type to befriend someone so unkind.

But you didn’t see the good guy, the fun guy, the best friend. Whenever Eddie Munson was around you, his guard was up and his words were sharp. They cut through your unbridled disappointment with ease, reminding you that you were not his friend. You weren’t even sure if you were an acquaintance.

And sure, you took it too far at the diner. You could admit that, even before Robin scolded you. But to see him sitting with someone not from your friend group, to see him being so kind and endearing to someone new, had burned you with fury like no other. If he could treat some blonde he’d surely matched with on a dating app so sweetly, why couldn’t he afford you the same warmth? Someone he saw nearly weekly?

So you went for blood. Except, you were the only one wounded in the end, after the silent treatment you’d had to endure as you watched Eddie clench his jaw and pretend you didn’t exist.

“What are you drinking tonight?” Steve smiles when you enter his kitchen, brows still furrowed in careful thought over your miserable month, “I’m guessing something strong?”

“The strongest thing you’ve got, Harrington,” you reply, trying to shake back into excitement. It was going to be fun. You were going to drink with friends, partake in silly conversations no one would remember come morning, and you were going to have fun.

Steve holds up a bottle of vodka, a name brand you don’t care to acknowledge, along with a 2-liter of Coke, “Think this’ll work?”

You nod, and he pours. When he hands you the crystal cup reeking of overpoured alcohol, you take a sip and nod.

Oh, yeah. Two of these and I won’t even remember Mr. Stood-Me-Up.

“I heard about your date,” Steve means well, but the reminder is the exact opposite of what you want. You’re quick to glare at Robin, who throws her hands up in defense.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” you quip, taking a larger second sip. If you weren’t trying to pace yourself, you’d probably chug the entire thing, “Not much to talk about, anyways. Got some free food and alcohol out of it, at least.”

“That’s good! I bet you dodged a bullet.”

I probably didn’t. “We can only hope.”

Steve pours himself a drink as well as Robin, and you can hear Nancy and Jonathan already chattering in the living room. No sign of Eddie so far. Maybe he wasn’t coming, and you’d finally caught a break.

“To forgetting the names of men who suck,” Steve chides as he raises his glass, and Robin mirrors him. You hesitate for a moment, a fraction of a second.

You were starting to believe it wasn’t them, it was you. You were the common denominator of all the terrible dates. Did sparks not fly with the Coffee Boy because you dampened the fuse? Was two-date-chump only talking to you about his exes because you didn’t provide anything interesting enough to take his mind off them? Surely, it had to be your fault that you were stood up the night before. Surely.

You pull from your pity party, and nimbly raise your glass. The rim hardly brushes that of your friends’ cups, but you all throw back your poisons of choice regardless. They don’t seem to notice the way you’ve begun to float within your head, the way you’re crashing through violent waves of pathetic self-hatred.

It was you. You’re the problem, and you’re the only one who can solve it. Eventually.

Robin is dramatically gagging on what you think might be redbull and vodka as Steve silently grimaces at his straight whiskey, clearing his throat before he says, “Okay, I know you don’t want to talk about last night, but Robin mentioned you’ve had a few dates this last month. Anything worth sharing? Any luck?”

There’s a snappy remark of clearly not on the tip of your tongue when the doorbell rings down the hall, and the three of you all turn your heads as Nancy calls out that she’s got it.

—

HOUR ELEVEN - 2:00 AM

Once Eddie starts kissing you, he can’t stop.

It isn’t soft, nor caring – the moment his hands meet the flesh of your hips, it’s bruising. He doesn’t even break for air as he fumbles with the knob blindly, giving a final twist of his keys before the door swings open behind you and the two of you stumble backwards into the sanctuary of his apartment. It’s all teeth, it’s all desperation, it’s the accumulation of a year of snide remarks and low-blow insults all coming to head as he kicks the door shut behind you and spins so that your back meets the wood.

Your hands are tangled in the curls at the nape of his neck and– oh God, when did you reach up and grab at his hair in the first place?

He groans at the force of your fist, and it suddenly doesn’t matter. You don’t care how they got there – you only care to keep them there.

He finally breaks the kiss, spit trailing between your lips as you both gasp out breaths, “You-” he dives back in, capturing your lips between his in a harsh and quick action before another break, “fucking-” another break, another gasp. He remains close enough that each harsh exhale flows right into your mouth, down your throat and into your lungs, “infuriate-” this time, he pauses, not moving back in for another kiss as his forehead is pressed hard against yours, eyes wide open and boring into yours, “me.”

The venom that laces the words don’t scare you. It’s all verbal aposematism, rehearsed and practiced hatred that bears no weight, not anymore. Not as his hips are digging into yours and another tug of his hair has him putty in your hands.

You know the dance well. You know the next step.

“Good.”

His next kiss is even more vicious, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip and making you whine into him, one hand finally unraveling from his curls to find purchase in fisting the leather of his jacket. There’s a fine line that neither of you are daring to cross, only toeing as teeth and tongues clash.

This time, when he pulls away, you’re the one chasing after him. You don’t care about breathing; you care about his lips on yours, sucking all the smoke and oxygen from your lungs.

He’s the one to finally cross the line. A hand comes up to your throat, not nearly as rough as it should be, as he keeps you in place with the back of your head pressed to his front door. A pleading mewl leaves your lips of its own accord.

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t be so desperate.”

The line’s been crossed, the chords all snapping between you two. There are no invisible strings tying you to the man before you, the man that has you aching between your trembling thighs and erratic breaths. Only gravity.

“Me? Desperate?” your voice nearly fails you as you lean into his touch surrounding your throat, preening forward so that your lips brush his, “I’m not the one fucking off to porn magazines that look like you, pretty boy.”

You’re both on the same side of the line now as you watch his eyes darken. It’s a sensitive topic, a bruise you’ve chosen to prod out in the hopes that he’ll break at the same alarming rate as you.

You need him to fuck you. You need him to use you, to throw any caution or revelations to the wind. You want him to push you so far you can’t remember your own name, let alone all the emotions that travel the channels between you.

“Think you can do any better than my hand, baby?” he questions as he buries his head into the crook of your shoulder, breath and lips leaving a buzz along the skin he comes in contact with. His fingers tighten ever so slightly, and your head rushes with a weightless bliss.

Your pulse is against his thumb, drumming beneath the pressure of it as you reply, “Do you think you can do any better than mine?”

A dozen insinuations layer the words, and he catches every single one. Your lashes flutter into your eyesight, lids growing heavy as he lifts his face from your shoulder and looks at you wickedly, grin spreading treacherously.

“Are you trying to tell me you touch yourself to me?” he taunts, pressing closer, “You thinkin’ of me at night when you get lonely, all desperate and pathetic, wrapped up in your own sheets? Do you wish it was my fingers, and not yours?”

Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. “In your dreams, Munson.”

“Of course,” he chuckles, “I thought that was a given. Don’t tell me you’re so dumb you’ve figured out I get myself off to your lookalikes, but not that I dream about you, sweetheart.”

The thought of it makes your stomach flutter, your thighs clench. He’s quick to shove his knee between your legs, letting you drop so that your crotch nearly brushes his thigh. But the distance remains and no relief from friction comes, he makes sure of it as his fingers finally lift slightly, letting the blood rush back to your head and into your cheeks.

“Is that what you were thinking about in the bathroom?”

His movements finally falter. You almost have the upperhand again, you almost have him back in your palms, back down to your height in cockiness.

You take his silence in stride, a smirk gracing your own face, “Oh, you were, weren’t you?” you pause, and drop a hand to his torso, nails raking over his shirt and making him suck in a sharp breath, “You thought I wouldn’t hear? You were being so awfully loud, y’know. Surprised you didn’t say my name.”

He breathes back to life, hand unwrapping from your throat to grip your chin, his thumb just barely making contact with your bottom lip as he tugs softly, “You would have fuckin’ liked that, wouldn’t you? As if I didn’t feel you get so hot and bothered by me on the bike,” it’s your turn to freeze, realizing your fears were valid, and he laughs lowly, “Oh, yeah, baby. I felt that. Hard to miss when you were clinging to me like I was your goddamn savior. What were you thinking about, hm? I bet you were thinkin’ about just that – me moaning for you, cumming for you. I bet it drove you fucking crazy, didn’t it?”

“What were you thinking about in the bathroom?” you whisper as his thumb presses harder into your lip, “Show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

Your hand finally drops to its destination, cupping him through his sweatpants, wrapping around his girth.

He’s big. Bigger than you had expected, and he knows you’re shocked by the way you still once more, cocking his head at you with the utmost confidence.

He’s fucking lucky to be packing. It’d be a shame to be such an asshole and not have the ability to back up all his talk.

“You want me to be honest right now?” he asks, a thread of seriousness binding his words. You don’t hesitate to nod, even with his grip on your chin, “I was thinking about your mouth. Thinking about those pretty lips wrapped around my cock. I was thinking about you on your knees and those eyes looking up at me, all teary as I fucked your mouth.”

Your grip on him tightens, and you make the daring move to suck the tip of his thumb into your mouth, making eye contact as your tongue swirls around it.

“Fuck me,” he groans, throwing his head back, his grip immediately falling slack on your face. You see the opportunity and take it, surging forward to latch your lips onto his exposed neck. You start with light kisses, pressing them in rapid succession down the vein that lays poorly hidden by the stretched skin, pausing once you get closer to where the expanse meets his jaw.

“I’m trying to,” you taunt before sucking hard.

He moans loudly, echoing off the walls of his apartment, the hand still on your waist turning into an even more impossibly tight grip. The hand that once held your face has come up to tangle in your hair, gripping you by the roots and pulling you away just as the blood vessels on the surface have burst and bloomed in full shades of red and pink.

Your scalp burns as he pulls you to be face to face with him, eyes hard as you keep your hand on his clothed dick. You can feel him twitch as your palm at him, no longer caring about being desperate. You were desperate. You wanted him to give up the game, set aside the chase, and ruin you. You wanted his neighbors to hear as you chanted his name like a prayer, as every memory of every reason as to why you resented him fled your system with each thrust of his hips that could pin you to the wall.

“Is that what you want?” he’s no longer teasing you, his tone sounding as if he were asking for permission now rather than taunting you any further, “You want me to ruin you, sweetheart?”

The chase is nearing its end, and you nearly shatter with anticipation.

With one last trick up your sleeve, one last attempt to break him, you shrug as if you aren’t flushed and terribly flustered to the point of no return, “I guess. That’s one way to pass the time.”

When he breaks, it is sudden, and it is unkind. One moment, your break is aching from being pressed against wood, and your core is throbbing as you consider dropping to his thigh to find your own relief. The next, he’s throwing you around carelessly as his mouth slots to yours once more.

Just as it doesn’t matter how your hands found their way into his hair, it doesn’t matter how he pulls you from the door and navigates you to his couch. Your mind isn’t focused on where your body ends up, it’s focused on the feeling of his lips, chapped and pressing to yours eagerly. It’s focused on the way that the weight of his hands pressed tightly to your lower back feels. It’s focused on the overwhelming spice of his cologne, the smell of the night air still clinging to his cheek, the taste of his salt water as you dive under and let yourself begin to drown.

He’s consuming you, lungs and all. Limbs and all. Mind and all.

It’s a bad decision. This is going to be both of your downfalls, and you should stop before it goes too far.

You don’t stop it. Neither does he. All he does is throw you down to sit on his couch as he falls to his knees in front of you, bringing a palm to each knee and spreading your legs as he settles between them.

He’s the prettiest you’ve seen him yet. Even prettier than the first night. His lips are swollen pink, puffy and still lingering with your spit. Your mark on him, the first of many you need to leave, right along with the bruise on his neck. You wonder how hard you’d have to bite to bring blood tonight, you wonder which other spots on his neck would make him melt against you as you explored him fervently and left a whole collection of bruises that spell out your message very clearly – he’s mine for tonight.

His chest heaves as his eyes stare up into yours, hands gripping each of your knees. Even through the cotton, your skin is burning from his touch, your wildfire still thriving as you navigate this ocean he’s thrown the two of you into. A man-made river, more like it. It was made by his hand, it was created treacherously and with purpose against you, and yet you’re still here wading in it, also by his hand.

“Tell me to stop,” he begs, unexpected as his hands squeeze you, his eyes zeroing in on his palms as they travel up to your thighs, pulling you closer and making your back slide down the cushion from the position you’re seated in, “Tell me you hate me.”

For a second, you almost tell him you can’t. You can’t tell him to stop. Not as your leg lifts and his shoulder fits perfectly into the ditch of your knee, not as his hands creep further up to the band of the borrowed sweatpants. And once his fingers curl into the waist, knuckles pressing to your soft skin, you know you won’t.

“Don’t stop,” you whisper, making his eyes shoot up to meet yours again, “I hate you, but don’t you fucking dare stop.”

Quickly, at an almost impossible rate of speed, he yanks the sweats down off of you. They’re tossed behind him into a pile on his living room floor, uncared for and quickly forgotten.

Once your skin is exposed to him, he’s planting messy kisses linearly up your shin, over your inner knee, until he reaches your thighs. Marks are left in his wake, shades of deep maroon fading lilac as he nips and sucks against them just as you had to his neck.

“Show me yours,” he mumbles into your skin, fingertips pressing indents as he openly mouths over the hickies left behind.

“What?”

“I showed you mine, now show me yours,” he insists with wild eyes, hair hardly contained by the bun that once contained the curls, “When you touch yourself, what do you think about?”

“You,” you sigh out as he presses another kiss to you, even higher up now, growing dangerously close to your cunt.

“What about me?” he pushes, staring up as he removes contact, “Use your words, baby.”

“I-” you can’t think clearly, mind muddled with smoke and the image of him there before you, on his knees, “I think about your fingers instead of mine. How thick they are, how they’d feel.”

His smile shows little satiation, “Go on.”

You’re so focused on getting the words out, you nearly don’t notice a hand loosening its grip on your thigh, inching up to your panties, playing with the lace edges.

“I think about how deep you’d go, how you’d curl your fingers just- fuck,” you cut off with a gasp when his fingers slide beneath cotton, brushing over your wet folds.

“Just fuck?” he mimics, pouting slightly, “Afraid I’ve never heard that one before. Might need you to demonstrate for me. How do I curl my fingers just fuck?”

“Fuck you,” you whine, writhing beneath his touch as your ankles lock behind his head.

“I’m trying to,” he pitches his voice to mock your own, and you regret ever saying the words to him. He clicks his tongue against his teeth, shaking his head, “God, you want me to fuck you so bad, it’s making you stupid.”

His fingers stop teasing you as he finds your entrance, circling only the tip of his pointer finger to gather the slickness. Your hips buck, the desperation clawing its way through your entire body now, leaving ash and destruction in its path before Eddie brings an arm across your waist to hold you down to the couch firmly.

“Beg for it,” he commands, voice shooting straight into your chest, “Be a good girl and say please, yeah?”

His finger still circles your entrance, teasing but never quite pressing in, leaving you a whimpering mess. You begin to wonder if there will be any sign of how hard his forearm is pinned against you.

A battle of both your prides. He can feel you burning up now, he sees the flames dancing and he’s willing to play with them rather than give in to you.

You have to bite your lip to avoid letting the please on the tip of your tongue slip out for him. You’re still fighting him, still defying him.

“I have been far nicer to you than you deserve,” he continues his taunts, a grin growing when he catches the way you’re physically holding back, “We both know it, so just say it. Say the word, and I’ll keep playing nice.”

His finger breeches your entrance slightly, and you gasp, head thrown back immediately, “When have you ever been nice?”

He tsks, removing the tip of his finger, letting it glide up between your folds before it stops just short of your clit, “Oh, I’m always nice. You just never seem to notice.”

You think about it again. All the acts of kindness that went under the radar, all the times you’d buried in an effort to continue to harbor detestation for the man before you. He’s right – he probably doesn’t realize it, but he’s far more correct than you’d give him credit for at this moment.

“Please fuck me,” you whisper to the ceiling, before swallowing hard and leaning your chin back down, looking him in his eyes as you decide to give him more than he asked for, “Please ruin me.”

You’ve watched a mirage of emotions flush across his face on every possible occasion. Anger, distaste, aggression, laughter, annoyance. But you’ve never seen want quite like this grace his features.

“Gladly.”

His fingertip circles your clit, once, twice, three times, applying the perfect amount of pressure to have you crying out before he’s removing his forearm and nearly tearing your underwear to move it to the side and thrusting two fingers into your desperate cunt immediately.

You sob out and nearly double over, the sting and stretch making you keen as he wastes no time. You’ve said the magic word, you’ve played his game, and now, he’s returning the favor.

He’s playing nice. And, God, is nice quite the word to describe what he’s doing to you as he pumps his fingers into you, thrusting them in as deep as his knuckles allow before he curls them and brushes the spot that could make you scream with the right skill set.

He has the skill set. He notes your clenching on his fingers, and he curls again, with more intent this time.

Maybe the thin walls only apply to the inside of his apartment, if you’re lucky.

“Is this what you want?” he questions, leaning in so close to you that you feel his breath wash over you, “Is this what you meant by ruining you?”

You nod, finding it becoming increasingly harder to speak as you gasp, “Y- Oh, fuck. Yes. Ple- fuck. Please.”

He pauses, and you nearly scream out in frustration and protest before he rips your underwear off of you, dragging it down your legs and forcing your ankle to unlock from behind his head as he fights with the flimsy piece of cotton. You expect him to throw it, to let it join the sweats, but instead, he brings them to his face. He’s wolfish as he looks up at you, taking a deep breath in with the cotton pressed to his nose, not saying a word but watching you clench around nothing as he finally tosses the panties over his shoulder.

You see them catch on the coffee table, nowhere near the sweats.

“Smell so sweet, baby,” he coos, bringing his fingers back to you, his tongue peeking out to lick his lips, “I might just have to tast-”

A phone ringing cuts him off. The trill cuts through the silence, piercing both your ears, making you look at each other in fright.

“Don’t answer it,” the words burst out before you think them over. You don’t care about your friends right now. You don’t care about the bet.

You care about his fingers back inside you, curling and hitting that spot you’ve spent endless nights fighting to find without success. You care about getting his clothes off of him, of your eyes tracing over his skin and the ink you’ve yet to see. You care about his cock, springing to attention, before he’s sheathing it inside of you and bringing you both to utter bliss.

A phone call is at the bottom of your priorities right now. You just don’t care.

“It’s your phone,” he counters, glancing behind the two of you to where your phone is buried in the heap of black clothing, “I’m not answering it. But…”

“I’m not answering it, either.”

“If we don’t answer-”

“Eddie, I could fucking care less,” you sit up roughly, leaning in as close as you can in the compromising position, “We’re not answering it.”

The phone continues to ring, and he looks between you and it in clear confusion, “They’ll just keep calling-”

“Let them,” you insist, “If you don’t get your dick in me within the next minute, I’ll call this entire thing off,” you add on the last part as you reach out and your legs fall off his shoulders, hands replacing where your knees once rested as you bring his lips into yours.

Teeth, tongue, salt water, ash. It drowns out the final few rings as you continue to tug on Eddie feverishly, forcing him to rise from his position on the ground and kneel on the edge of the couch, a hand balancing him upright by gripping the back of the couch. Your kiss is all the convincing he needs.

“Fuck, fine, fine, I-” he cuts off, removing himself from you long enough to shrug off his leather jacket, to reach up and grab the collar of his shirt, yanking it over his head. The bun has officially unraveled to completion, curls flowing down over his collarbones and shoulders. You can’t keep your hands off him, fingertips immediately pressing into the exposed skin, “Just give me a second.”

He stands, and you whine, making him snicker as he kicks off the grey sweatpants.

“So impatient,” he teases, and you watch his face light up in delight as you can only bite your tongue in response. There’s something more there, something to be considered later. Later, when you aren’t aching for him. Later, when the moment of desperation has passed, when his waves retreat from your shores and you find yourself capable of breathing fresh air once more.

Later is not now.

The moment he’s down to just his boxers, you’re done waiting, doing as he had for you and dropping your knees to the carpet below.

“Hey, what are you doin-” he’s interrupted by you leaning forward, looking up at him intently as you kiss the tip of his dick through his boxers. Your lips come in contact with the wet spot clearly forming, and you can see the shiver roll down his spine, “Oh, fuck. What the Hell happened to me… me getting… me getting my dick in you…” He’s trailing off, unable to focus as your fingers slip beneath the waistband and tug down, his dick slapping against his exposed stomach.

“It still counts if you fuck my mouth,” is all you say as his boxers pool at his ankles, and you don’t even wait for him to step out of them.

Your phone is ringing again. You can feel the vibrations through the floor as you wrap a hand around his base, as you lean forward and place a proper kiss to his leaking tip, swirling your tongue in the precum.

This time, the two of you don’t argue about answering it. It’s hard to as your mouth is full of him, and his is full of curses.

“Jesus Christ, I- Fuck, right there,” he’s gasping as you wrap your lips around the tip fully, just as you’d done with his thumb, sucking gently and making his hand fly down to rest on the back of your head.

You bob down a few times, hollowing your cheeks and taking him deeper and deeper until your nose presses into the coarse hairs resting at the base. You pause, letting your nose press into him as you breathe deeply, feeling him hit the back of your throat. Your eyes water, just as he described, and you take pride in the way he can’t even look at you now.

You pull back, letting him drop from your mouth, smiling widely, “Better than your hand, right?”

“Fuck off,” his hand rest at the back of your head grips the hair there, tangling up as he shoots you a glare.

“Say it’s better than your hand, and I’ll fuck you off,” you press, letting a hand travel to fondle his balls, pinching the skin delicately, watching his reaction roll through him like waves.

“I- Fucking obviously,” he hisses as you smile, leaning down and pressing kisses along the shaft, “God, of course your mouth is better than my fucking hand. Of course it fucking is.”

“It better be,” you goad before taking him back into your mouth. This time, you suck harder, and his grip on your hair is painful once more.

“Shit.”

He’s at a loss for words, devolving into guttural groans and babbling moans as you quicken your pace, determined now.

You wanted to ruin him. After a year of his bullshit, after suffering through every fight and every argument, every passive glare and every turbulent comment, you want to make them man standing over you crumble to pieces.

Except he wasn’t just crumbling, he was shattering. Splintering apart as his hips started to thrust to meet your mouth, as you choked around him and refused to let up, resorting to stuttering inhales through your nose as you pressed your face back to his pubes, swallowing accidentally and making him nearly scream.

“Shit. Shit- stop. I’m going to f-fucking cum, stop,” he’s pulling you off of him suddenly, gasping for breath, not letting you refuse and push him over the edge.

You’re smug as you lean onto your heels, wiping your mouth clean of the spit that strings from your bottom lip to his red tip with the back of your hand.

“I think I win,” you state plainly, as if you weren’t currently taking heaving breaths, desperate to catch your breath and have his hands back on you.

“Win? Wh- It’s not a fucking competition,” he scowls, raking a hand down over his face, chest flush.

“It is, and I fucking won.”

“Yeah? You think you won, baby?”He recovers quickly, you’ll give him that. He goes from a complete mess to a force to be reckoned with in an absolute instant, stepping out of his boxers and kicking them from his warpath before he reaches down to tug you to your feet, “In that case, if this is a competition, I think I deserve a second chance.”

You open your mouth to be a smart ass, to say something cruel or something mean, but he steps back before you have the chance.

The look of want has turned stormy, confident and eliciting. A hurricane beckoning to you as he snaps his fingers.

“Take your fucking shirt off, and get on the couch, all fours.”

“I-”

“Now.”

There’s no more fires, no more oceans, and no more petty arguments left in you. You listen to him.

You throw off the sweatshirt, his sweatshirt, as he goes to one of the tables beside the couch and opens a drawer roughly.

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter, unhooking your bra as well, fully naked and aware that his eyes weren’t on you yet, “You just keep fucking condoms in your living room?”

“Who said I was looking for fucking condoms?”

“Oh, my bad. I just assumed. Should have known you were getting me naked just to go searching for fucking Narnia in your drawers.”

You were wrong. He was looking at you, and you’re only made aware by the sharp slap across your bare ass at the comment. It makes you spin quickly, looking at him and his set jaw.

“Couch. All fours. Now.”

“You’re such a sore loser,” you snark, taking a few steps back, trying to ignore the way the sting on your backside has your clit throbbing.

“You have no idea, baby,” he says without a hint of joking, looking back down into the drawer and continuing to dig as you turn away from him again.

Despite feeling exposed, you do as you’re told – you get onto the couch on all fours as he requested, knees digging into a surprisingly soft cushion that surely hadn’t felt that way earlier in the night when you’d attempted to sleep on the piece of furniture. You don’t dare to glance back at him over your shoulder when the drawer finally slams shut, hearing his heavy breathing as he returns to you being enough to force you to shut your eyes and take in a sharp gasp.

“Still feeling like a winner?” his voice winds around you, nearly choking you as you feel a feathering fingertip trail across your lower back.

“Always,” you lie breathily, voice betraying you as it shakes.

You feel the couch dip from behind you, legs spreading as Eddie fits himself between your calves, one hand latching onto your hip.

“God, I can’t wait to fuck the brat out of you.”

Without warning, he’s lining himself up with your entrance and pushing in, taking all the breath from your lungs as you collapse down onto your elbows and your cheek brushes the cushion of the couch.

It burns, his cock forcing you to stretch and accommodate you, filling you at an unbelievable rate.

You knew he was fucking big, but you hadn’t considered the consequences until this moment, as he truly feels as if he’s just begun his ruining of you.

“Fu-” the curse is lost in your throat, a small gasp as you press yourself down even further into the couch, mind swimming.

“Oh, no,” he tuts, sounding completely unaffected until he leans down over you as he bottoms out. When he gets closer, you catch it – the hitch in his breath, the way he pauses before he can speak, “That won’t do, sweetheart.”

He brings a hand back to your throat, just as he had when you two first entered the apartment, when the fight for dominance first began. It’s more from the pressure of his forearm across your chest, but the pressure is still applied on both sides as he guides you to straighten up your body against him, making him hit new angles that have you hissing out.

“I said on all fours, not just waving your ass in the air like some slut,” you clench around him at his words, and he chuckles breathlessly, “You like that, don’t you? You like being my fucking slut.”

You can only moan in response as he slowly pulls back his hips, feeling every inch of him beginning to retreat from you at an agonizing pace.

“You’re pitiful,” he groans into your ear, pressing his thumb further against your throat, cutting off the circulation for only a moment. Just long enough to send a rush to your head, “You say you hate me, say you can’t fucking stand me, but get cock drunk just from me putting it in. I’m only getting started and you’re speechless.”

You can only continue your pathetic whimpers, reaching back to grasp onto him before he tuts once more.

“Pathetic, baby.”

He slams back in, letting you drop forward. This time, you keep yourself up on your hands, letting out more small gasps, all of the noises getting half stuck on your tongue.

“But you’re winning, right?” he taunts, accentuating each word with a thrust as he begins to pick up his pace, “You’re the winner here, right?”

You don’t answer him, nearly drooling when he reaches forward and grabs up your hair, curling it around his wrist carefully before he pulls. It hurts, it makes you clench down on him, it has you babbling out nonsense you’re completely unaware of.

Each time he snaps his hips forward, his skin collides with yours, ricocheting off the walls around the two of you. Your arms shake, but you stay steady, refusing to collapse beneath him and the euphoria that scathes you.

He pulls your hair harder this time, making you arch your back into him, “Tell me you hate me.”

You cry out, feeling him hit even deeper as his free hand forces your hips to meet every thrust.

“Say it, baby. Tell me just how much you hate me,” he huffs out, clearly barrelling as quickly to his own release as you are, “Say you hate my guts,” another sharp thrust, and his balls slap against you, catching your clit and making your knees shake, “Say you can’t stand me. Go ahead, baby, say it.”

“I hate you,” you weakly respond, eyes tearing up as you feel your gut twist. Your fire, your blooms, his ocean. He’s making good on his promise – he’s ruining you, and you’re reveling in the wake of it all. Embers char you from the inside out, and your brain fogs over in pleasure.

“Say it like you mean it.”

“I m-mean it,” you gasp when he reaches around, chest pressing to your back, finger hovering over your clit, “Fuck, right there, please. I mean it. Please, please-”

“Say it again, like you really mean it this time, and I’ll let you cum.”

He stills, deep inside you, waiting with bated breath as his chin ghosts over the back of your shoulder. You stare straight ahead. If you glance down, you’d find your hands turned to fists, his ring still glittering on your finger.

He’s destroyed you. To unimaginable levels. You can’t comply with his request, not without becoming a liar, because it occurs to you that the man currently wrecking you is not a man you’re capable of hating. You hated the situation the two of you were in, you hated the year wasted, you hated the looming pressure of your friends awaiting a return call, you hated the words exchanged between the two of you with the intention of cutting deep. You hated many things surrounding him, but you didn’t hate him.

At Eddie’s core, he is still the man you first met. He’s finally drowned you, dragged you to the bottom of his ocean, and you can see that now. The man that first reeled you in at the bar never left, simply shrank away, hid himself away from you for some unknown reason that you hate. The man that dazzled you, enticed you, provided you with the opportunity of safety still exists.

“I hate you,” you grit out, fisting at the cover of the cushions, your entire body on edge. From him, from revelations, from a build of hate that had been misdirected for far too long.

“Good,” he gasps out, mouth falling open and against your skin, teeth grazing you, “Then this changes nothing.”

You don’t have time to ponder, or wonder why he didn’t mention the feeling being mutual. Once the words leave both of you, his finger connects with your clit, working an expert pattern that has you preening as his vigorous thrusting returns. It’s harsher than before, pain and pleasure blurring together as your scalp aches, your vines tighten, and your flames erupt.

Your vision whites out, and you don’t hear your screams of relief as much as you feel them. Your throat is hoarse, tears leak from the corners of your eyes, and the tension vanishes from your muscles.

Your arms collapse finally, and you don’t fight the way your cheek presses against rough fabric as his hips begin to stutter, his own ecstasy flooding over him before he’s crashing with you.

The two of you stay that way for a second, skin on skin, words lingering in the air, threatening to vanish. You don’t care – you match your breathing to his as he doesn’t pull out immediately.

A vibrating comes from the floor amongst the shared bliss, both of you too fucked out to move to go answer the phone. The money doesn’t matter anymore, not to you.

Everything aches. You come to realize just how rough the two of you had treated each other, pains ringing out from your throat, from your ass, from your abused cunt. Your knees are surely marked from the couch and floor alike, your scalp is screaming in relief without Eddie’s grip against it.

You don’t regret it. You don’t regret any of it, except a singular lie.

I hate you.

What a brilliant, foolish, laughable, bullshit attempt at a lie.

taglist: @catherinnn @haylaansmi @gaysludge @paprikaquinn @manda-panda-monium @audhd-dragonaut @amira0303 @blushingquincy @hellkaisersangel @eddieslittlewh0re @ajkamins @prettyboy200 @munsonzzgf @blue-eyed-lion @digwhatudug @madaboutjoe @wickedslashdivine @sweet-villain @somespicystuff @big-ope-vibes @jadequeen88 @sylviin @emma77645 @notbeforelong @lolalanaie @lo-siento-ama @happy-and-alone @micheledawn1975 @aysheashea @moon-huny @munsonswrld @bambipowerblueaddition @averagestudent03 @bakugouswh0r3 @mattefic @mxcheese @bietchz @nativity-in-black @tlclick73 @stezzil @vngelis @coley0823 @folklorebau @luvmunson86 @theherothesavior @keene200213 @hargrovesswifee @m-chmcl-rmnc @cherrymedicine13 @iunaelumen777

taglist is now closed.

#twenty four hours #my writing #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fic #very terrified because i feel like expectations are so high #please be kind i'm gonna have a PANIC ATTACK #i didn't read this back :) if you see mistakes don't @ me #let's hope for the best smut is between yall and god

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dark-and-kawaii · 5 months

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༺ 𝒫𝓇𝑜𝒻𝑒𝓈𝓈𝑜𝓇’𝓈 𝒫𝑒𝓉 ༻

Au Professor Raphael

Summary: Your grade depends on your willingness. Professor Raphael misuses your body well, and you can’t help but to come undone under his touch. Does your grade even matter at this point?

Note: I saw this gif and went absolutely feral.

Age Gap - Professor/ Student relationship - Vaginal Penetration - Creampie - Handcuffs - Slight Voyeurism - Tav is 18

You told him you’d do anything to raise your grade, begged him not to flunk you because your parents would be so disappointed in you… Now, as you bounce up and down on your professor's lap in his car you wonder how they’d feel if they found out about this instead…

The thought of being caught has your tight young cunt gripping his cock like a vice. Your hands struggling to find their way into his lucious brown hair, but the cuffs he placed on your wrists bind them behind your back. You feel his lips kiss down your neck, nibbling softly against your skin, his glasses grazing you just as well and the sensation nearly makes you cum right there. His cock feels like it was made for you, each ridge and vein caresses your walls and drives you crazy.

“Professor!”

Raphael, your professor, loved to fill you up before school started, loved knowing your young cunt was carrying his seed throughout the day. He knew you’d struggle to keep it all inside you, your skirt doing little to conceal it if it were to find its way dribbling out of you.

The windows in his car fogged, “S’good! M-more!”, your ass jiggled each time it slapped his thighs. Raphael grabbed onto your waist and started moving you even faster.

You felt him grow and swell inside of you, knowing he was getting close to his limit. He was going to make you take it, was going to fill you with more than enough for your womb.

“Let’s hope that your little birth control pill is still working,” he chuckled darkly, “what a shame it would be to find yourself carrying your professor's bastard child.”

Your eyes widened, the thought hadn't occurred to you. You weren't even sure the pill would do much after how many times he’s cum in you this week already. You started to slow your hips, unsure of what to do. Did it even matter at this point?

Raphael tightened his grip on you, forcing your movements to stay steady, his own hips thrusting up into you at an unrelenting pace.

Your thoughts trailed off, biting your lip at the thought about just the other day…

He kept a nice little bullet attached to your clit, waiting for you to enter his class before he could start his little game. A game, that’s all this was to him…

Raphael would wait for the room to settle down, wait for him to turn his back on his class so he could write on his board, book in hand concealing the little remote in his hand. When the moment was right, your cruel professor would switch the bullet on medium speed. You’d never see the devilish smirk that danced across his face as you squealed in your seat, your body jolting up as you tried to contain yourself.

“Quiet now, it’s rude to disturb the class while I’m trying to teach.” Your cheeks burned as you fought the urge to squirm and grind against the chair. Raphael would look at you every few moments, making sure you were obeying his rules. You could barely focus as the pleasure built up inside you. Raising your hand, you’d ask to excuse yourself, but of course he’d never agree to it, “you’ll have to wait until after class.”

You wanted to scream at him, but the fear of failing his class kept you from speaking out, not only that but the other student’s that were watching. So you sat there, legs clenched together and toes curling into your shoes as you fought to control the sensations that would wrack your body.

With your head laying on the desk, your legs shaking, he’d turn it off, “See me after class Tav, your behavior has been unacceptable.” He’d tell you to see him after class, that he needs to discuss your poor behavior in class, that you distracted far too many other students.

When your professor, Raphael, asked you to stay after class, you knew you'd end up splayed out on his wooden desk, hands clenching the edges to hold on.

"I do remember you saying you’d be willing to do anything to raise your grade up, right?" his fingers trailing over your ass that peeked from your short skirt, “so start being an obedient little pup.” ~Whack, Raphael would smack your ass hard enough to leave his mark.

He’d flip up your skirt to reveal the full extent of your pink lace panties, before he slowly pulls them down to pool at your feet. His fingers teasing your core and you twitch in response. You’d whine, embarrassed that you’ve allowed this to happen with your own professor, but even more embarrassed that you’d look forward to him sliding his much older cock inside you.

"How about we change that test score of yours from the other day into an A, princess." he said as his finger found your clit, slowly rubbing circles over the sensitive bud.

“P-please, I need to pass.”

He’d remove his finger, and you always felt a bit disappointed, but his fingers always found their way to your mouth, “Open.”

Your eyes flicker to his, questioning his intentions, but the look he’d give you told you not to ask questions. His thick digits slid into your mouth, pushing the salty taste of your cunt against your tongue. The sound of his belt unclasping and his draws falling to the ground as he positioned himself behind you.

"Now let's see how much you want that A." he would say before he slams his cock deep inside your wet folds.

The feeling of your walls stretching and clenching around his girth was something you still weren't quite used to, but the feeling had your eyes rolling. You’d push back into him, words of encouragement slipping from your mouth, “please use me! Fill me! Do whatever you want to me, Raphael!”

He was older, probably not one that should be fucking such a young thing like yourself, but here you were. His thrusts would be slow and deep, filling you in the way you always needed. He was unlike the other guys you’ve been with. He knew how your body worked.

"You're such a good girl, taking my cock so well. Maybe I should keep you on the edge of failing until the school year ends.” He’d grip your chin and forced your head to the side so he could lock his lips with yours, his tongue demanding entrance.

His free hand traveled between your legs, finding the little toy that rested against your swollen clit.

"Don't you dare cum yet." He told you before pressing the button, forcing the vibrations to start up again.

You were in a state of pure bliss. You knew that you shouldn't be here, that you should’ve studied like any other student, but all you could think about was how much you needed your professor to ruin your cunt now. That this was the only way to pass.

"Such a needy little thing aren't you." he would tease.

"Please!" you'd beg, "please, I need it. I can't fail this class, Raphael."

He'd groan, his pace increasing.

"Please Professor, I need it."

He loved to hear you call him professor. It was so taboo, and the thrill of fucking a student was a fantasy he was happy to make come true.

"Oh god." you'd cry out as the orgasm built inside you.

"Don't."

His hand wrapped around your throat and squeezed.

"Cum."

His hand squeezed tighter, your eyes widening.

"Not."

The sound of the door opening, and a female student entering would have both of your heads snap in her direction.

"Until."

You'd try to close your legs, your face burning, but his cock never left your heat.

"I."

You were so ashamed.

"Give."

But he never stopped pounding into you.

"You."

He was determined to finish, and that was it.

"The."

The other student looked just as embarrassed as you.

"Authorization."

The door closed and you heard a little laugh, “what a slut!”

What a perfect time, Raphael told you, “Cum for me, my good little pup.”

Your eyes closed, and you'd bite your lip, moaning at his command. His cock hit that special spot, his fingers rubbing your clit to completion.

"Yes! Oh God, I'm cumming!"

"Good." he'd hiss, his seed painting your walls, a sight he wished he could see.

When the two of you finished, he cleaned the mess he made and help you get dressed, his lips brushing over yours as he whispered, "see you in class, tomorrow- on second thought, come early. I’d like you to meet me by my car."

Which is exactly what you did…

#bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #raphael bg3 #bg3 raphael #tav #raphael x tav #raphael the cambion #Raphael the professor #bg3 au #bg3 smut

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iliketangerines · 2 months

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Good day Tangerine, I hope you're doing well. Sorry if I have many requests for you, I hope it isn't too much of a bother. But I really love your writing and I was hoping you'd be fine with writing fluff?

With a reader who's struggling with her classes to the point that she's going to flunk because that subject is weighing her grades down. Still, she hides this and tries to study harder with her own but can't understand it. When Bi-Han catches her staying up late one night, crying, he offers to teach her.

At first, he's like your typical strict Asian mother who would snap when you don't understand, but when you begin to tear up, he realizes that being rough won't help you and tries to teach you softly. Turns out all you need is practice and patience.

just need some patience

a/n: i'm imagining like a teenager bi han who's still training to be grandmaster rn

pairing: bi han x gn!reader

warnings: none :)

Bi Han usually isn’t up at this hour, late at night and wandering the compound

for some odd reason, he can’t fall asleep and had tried to stay as still as possible to try and trick his body into going to sleep

but it hadn’t worked and so now he was heading to the training rooms to try and work out some of the energy when he passes by the library

no one else should be awake at this hour, and yet the light was on

Bi Han stalls for a moment, wondering if he should go in and see who’s there or just worry about himself

his curiosity wins out, and he finds you at a desk, back bent and feverishly scribbling something onto a scroll

you’re in one of his classes with one of the masters, usually sitting in the front and furiously taking notes as they go over the lesson for the day

he walks over to you silent, and you don’t even notice, too absorbed with what you’re trying to learn, and he recognizes it as the homework one of the masters at the Lin Kuei had assigned today

you write feverishly and have no idea he stands right in front of you until Bi Han squints at something you wrote and says that you got it wrong

the chair nearly tips over with how you jump out of your seat, but you place a hand over your chest and let out a wheeze as you say that he had scared you

he scoffs at you ready to give you a quick retort, but then you press him further about what you got wrong, nearly jumping out of your seat and over the table

Bi Han raises an eyebrow at you, wasn’t it obvious?

pointing at where you made the error, he explains that you should’ve done this instead and takes the pencil from your hand and writes it down

your eyes narrow in confusion, and in a meek voice, you ask him to explain why what you had done was wrong

this was stupid, and he didn’t really want to be here right now

stepping back toward the exit of the library, Bi Han tells you it’s self-explanatory and goes to blow off some steam in the gym, but then you grip onto his arm tightly

he has to fight all instincts to flip you onto your back and crush your bones, but you fall to your knees with a loud thump as you continue holding his hand and start to beg for him to teach you

you’re failing this class, and at this rate, you’re pretty sure that master at the Lin Kuei hates you because of how close you are to flunking

you need to pass this class to continue on with your training at the Lin Kuei, so could you please please please teach you

your eyes are wet and sad, and Bi Han feels like he’s looking at a kicked cat that was sitting in the rain all day as your lower lip starts to tremble as you try not to cry

letting out a frustrated breath, Bi Han rolls his eyes and agrees, and you start to thank him profusely

he just picks you up the scruff of your neck and drags you over back to your seat and sits down in the chair and starts to explain to you what you were doing wrong

you’re slow, so much slower than him, and he doesn’t understand why you just don’t get it

his voice grows shorter, snappier, as you get the following problems wrong over and over again, and his patience snaps, hissing at you and asking why you can’t figure this out like everyone else

you flinch backwards, and your voice wobbles as you try to explain that it just didn’t make sense, that you just can’t figure it out

Bi Han sees how tears start to well up in the corner of your eyes, and he realizes how he’s completely distracted you from learning

he takes a deep breath, collecting his mind for a few moments, and mutters out a quick apology to you before going back to the problems

maybe explaining the problem and method in a different way would help you better, and so he formulates a plan, tapping the pencil against the table as he thinks

he writes a few practice problems for you off the top of his head and hopes they make sense, and he walks through them with you

your wipe your tears away and go through them slowly and thoroughly, learning each step and going through the problems quicker and more confident with every solved question

a few hours later, you had finished the homework with flying colors, and Bi Han felt a sense of pride well up in his stomach

was this what it felt like to lead others? perhaps training to become grandmaster wasn’t so bad after all

the sun barely peeks over the horizon,and Bi Han realizes that the both of you have stayed up all night in the library

but you give him a big grin, and you wrap your arms around him tightly, hugging him before scurrying off with your schoolwork back to your quarters to wash up and squeeze in a quick nap

he sits in the library in silence, trying to process the action, and his cheeks heat up as he thinks of how your chest pressed against his

shaking away the thought, Bi Han goes off to his quarters to freshen up and get ready for the day, but he goes through the rest of the day with a smile on his face, thinking of how you had smiled at him

perhaps he would have to continue your late-night tutoring sessions

#mortal kombat #mk #mortal kombat 1 #mk1 #mk1 2023 #mortal kombat fluff #mortal kombat x reader #mk x reader #mk x you #mk x y/n #bi han #bi han mk1 #mk1 bi han #bi han x reader #bi han x you #bi han x y/n #tangerine answers #tangerine writes

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thebestbooksaround · 11 months

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This is a Buddie fic rec list where "one of them isn't a firefighter" That makes me warm and happy every time I read them <3

Part 1 || Part 2

Exploding Coffee Machines by inkinmyheartandonthepage (@inkinmyheartandonthepage) | 9k | General

Buck couldn’t be blamed for falling in love with his neighbour. He was powerless against the Diaz boys and wanted nothing more than to be swept up in their everything. Buck thought that Eddie felt the same, that their feelings of more than just being platonic best friends was mutual. Buck had been hopeful that Eddie inviting him to his boss’s house to meet his friends and co-workers meant that they were taking a step in the right direction.

A step that now Buck was going to be late for OR Buck gets burned at work and worries that he's blown his shot with Eddie when he runs late to meet his friends.

What is Love For $2000? by fayevian 17k | Mature

On the screen, the camera pans down as they introduce the contestants. Mary, on her 3rd day winning streak, is a dowdy teacher type. Center stage is occupied by a graying man with loopy handwriting named Auggie. And all the way to the right is… Evan. Damn. --- One night when Eddie can't sleep, he discovers the hottest Jeopardy contestant of all time (objectively). With the "help" of his team and his fairly good working knowledge of Twitter, they devise a plan to get Evan (from Jeopardy) to slide into Eddie's DMs. It works surprisingly well.

i like you so much (it's kinda gross) by brewrosemilk, stardustbuddie (@gayhoediaz) (@wh0re-behavi0r) | 10k | Explicit

Buck Buckley (@/firefighterbuck): @/eddiediaz I’ll never be able to tug your hair now, huh?

Eddie Diaz (@/eddiediaz): @/firefighterbuck It’s against the rules, anyway. You don’t look like a fighter, though. What situation would we be in that would make you want to tug my hair?

(Or: Eddie is an MMA fighter and Buck thirsts on twitter.)

you make the world taste better by farfromthstars (@buckactuallys) | 11k | Teen

They follow the room numbers down the hallway until the last door on the right. It’s slightly ajar, and when Eddie knocks politely, it opens further.

“Hey,” a cheerful, male voice says. “You guys are early!”

When Eddie spots the source of the voice, he nearly swallows his tongue.

The man is tall, with broad shoulders and huge arms, a sunny smile on his face that looks so genuine Eddie can’t help but smile back. There’s a splash of pink over his one eye, his hair is just the slightest bit curly, and his eyes are startlingly blue. He’s also about 80% legs, and leaning on a cane to walk.

Belatedly, Eddie remembers that he should say something too, not just stare at this guy approaching them.

“Uh,” he starts eloquently. “Sorry. This one was getting impatient at home ~ Newly arrived to LA, Eddie decides to take his son to parent/child cooking classes. The instructor is so much more than he expected

stupid people. by brewrosemilk (@gayhoediaz) | 160k | Explicit

New in Los Angeles, and having recently admitted to himself that he's gay, Eddie figures that hiring a sex worker might be a good way to keep his private life cut off from his job and his son. A way to keep things from becoming too complicated.

It works. For a while.

your dreary mondays by hammersmiths (@henswilsons) | 33k | Teen

“Wait, you need a sitter?” Chimney says. Eddie nods. “Maddie’s brother got back in town a few nights ago, he’s looking for work.”

Eddie frowns. He doesn’t know much about this mysterious brother of Maddie’s – doesn’t even really know much about Maddie, either, aside from being Chimney’s girlfriend – but he’s pretty sure every time he’s been brought up in conversation it’s not been particularly inspiring. “Is this the brother who flunked out of college because he spent all his tuition on a motorcycle?”

Chimney colours a little. “Um. No?”

or, Buck babysits Christopher and Eddie is—fine about it, actually.

one single thread of gold (tied me to you) by heartbeatdiaz (@heartbeatdiaz) | 4k | Teen

Eddie doesn't know much about Chris' science teacher, except that he's his son favorite and apparently knows everything there's to know. ( Those were Christopher's words. )

So when he enters the classroom, expecting an old man dressed nicely but a little old-fashioned as the science teacher, his whole life crashes to a halt.

"Evan?" The man who's leaning against the desk, looking at some papers, suddenly startles and looks up at Eddie with wide blue eyes.

"Holy shit," It's what the man says after spending at least a minute opening and closing his mouth. or; Eddie met Evan when he was a bartender in Peru and Eddie was on vacation with his cousins. They had a one night stand and Eddie woke up the next morning to an empty bed and a disappointed heart. Just for the same guy to end up being Chris' teacher years after.

always glad you came by foxwatson (@eddiediazes) | 5k | Teen

Buck is the incredibly kind but incredibly straight bartender at Eddie's local gay bar. Eddie is trying very, very hard not to be pathetically in love with him, and is failing miserably.

“Hey, you’re back,” Buck had said, greeting him with that sun-bright grin, and Eddie had yet again been reminded why he’d started questioning his sexuality.

“Well, I get one night off a week. And tonight I could really use the drink.”

Buck’s brow had furrowed, and he got Eddie his favorite beer without even asking again what it was. “You need to talk about it? Assuming I read you right and you’re the kind of guy who talks to a bartender instead of a therapist.”

Eddie had winced theatrically. “Ouch. That obvious, huh?”

“Hey, man, you’re the one that told me you started coming here on your coworker’s advice. Feels like something you’d get from a therapist, if you had one.”

see the stars with my morning eyes by trippedandfell (@trippedandfell) | 3k | Teen

“So,” Buck announces, sitting down between Hen and Chimney at the concessions stand. “I think Eddie’s trying to get me to sleep with him and his fiancée.”

or: Eddie calls Lucy his partner. Buck extrapolates.

walking on sunshine by fallingthorns (@fallingthorns) | 5k | Teen

“Shut up,” Buck grumbles at the dog. “It’s not a crush.”

Buck walks out of the room, out the backdoor, and into the yard, trying to ignore his large and judgmental dog following behind him.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Buck tells him as he gets the hose out to start watering his plants. “Keep it to yourself.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Buck startles and drops the hose, doing a quick 180-degree turn and coming face-to-face with Eddie. He’s clearly standing on something, elbows folded over the top of the fence and chin resting on them as he looks at Buck. His expression looks almost fond and it kind of makes Buck want to both preen and die of embarrassment. -- Or, the one where Buck owns a doggy daycare, has a large dog with an attitude, and is hopelessly in love with his new neighbor.

Under Any Roof by moncuries (@moncuries) | 10k | Teen

Eddie Diaz does not need a noisy neighbor on top of all the shit he's trying to work out.

But he does make really good mac and cheese. -- “You know,” And Buck is meeting his eyes now. They’re uncannily blue. Like Kool-Aid or popsicles. “If you want, I could show you what I get up to up there?”

What? WHAT? Eddie feels heat spread from the tips of his ears to his toes. No way had he just gotten propositioned before sunrise in the decrepit hallway of their apartment building. “Um. No.” He backs up until his calves brush the door to 101. “Thank you, really. But no.”

my house of stone, your ivy grows by stayeven (@demieddie) | 7k | Mature

When Eddie resigns himself to buying sex toys in person—despite the popularity of online ordering now—he expects to be embarrassed and overwhelmed. What he doesn't expect is to leave with a crush on the employee with captivating blue eyes.

and we can stay all day by trippedandfell (@trippedandfell) | 3k | Teen

“So let me get this straight,” Hen says, once she’s stopped laughing at him. “Your nerd crush-

“-Evan Buckley,” Eddie miserably interjects.

“Your nerd crush,” Hen repeats, waggling her eyebrows. At the kitchen table beside her, Chimney is grinning like Christmas just came early. “Read your drunk tweet and then sent you animal facts via DM?”

or: Buck's a zoologist. Eddie's pretty sure he's in love.

#Fics I love #Buddie #Eddie Diaz #Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley #911onfox #911 fan fiction #buddiefanfiction #Buddie fic #911 #911 fox #911 abc #911 on abc

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it-happened-one-fic · 11 months

Text

Thats How You Know - Leona

Author Notes: This fic is actually for the @briarvalleyarchives "Anthems of Old" event. It was inspired by its namesake song, "That's How You Know" from the Disney film Enchanted. It's surprisingly nerve-wracking to be posting a fic for an event, but I had fun writing thing and had to curb the urge to not just rip of the scene from the film. As per usual, reader is gender neutral. I hope you enjoy.

Type: Fluff/ romantic/ gender-neutral reader/ sfw

Word Count: 1782

“You know he likes you, right?” Ruggie had leaned over to look you in the eye better as he voiced his question, but you looked away as soon as his words registered.

His question drew a sigh from your lips that didn’t quite match the odd smile on your face as you kept your silence. You weren’t quite able to answer his question, even as Ruggie frowned at your silence.

The truth was that, in a lot of ways, you felt like Leona did like you just as much as you liked him. But he never really did anything to show it if he did, which left you with questions.

How could you really know if he did like, much less love, you?

Despite what others said, you weren’t certain. You knew you liked him. After all, you’d taken to picking up on his interests, worries, and other such little tidbits that made up the individual that was Leona. They’d affected you, becoming interests and worries of your own.

What had started out as curiosity and wanting to get to know him better had swelled from there. You’d fallen in love with Leona. And while you knew that Leona didn’t hate you, the matter of romantic interest was….. Well, it was a whole other can of worms that you weren’t nearly as confident about.

Or at least you weren’t until recently.

It had started out simply enough, with a small note being left on your desk on top of a stack of books. The note itself was pinned in an elegant but largely unfamiliar hand and mentioned the upcoming practical magic test.

Something you knew you were going to flunk, what with your lack of ability to practice magic.

But after just a little bit of studying, it became clear that maybe you had a better chance of passing than you had thought.

The books in the mysterious stack handled the subject well, showing intensive instructions for how to draw an appropriate magic circle that would help you pass the test without having to actually use magic.

That wasn’t what really caught your attention, though. What caught your attention was the signature on the reverse side of the note, which you hadn’t found until you’d given it a closer inspection.

Elegant and small-lettered, the signature was barely noticeable but easily capable of causing a smile to appear on your face.

Leona Kingscholar.

You’d known he’d helped Ruggie get caught up with the rest of the school in terms of tutoring and having uniforms when he’d first come to NRC, but you’d never expected him to help you.

Perhaps he did care a bit more for your concerns and troubles than you’d thought….

You’d thanked the Savannaclaw housewarden after you’d passed the test, but he’d brushed off your gratitude with an almost trained ease.

“You help Jack out with his work, so if I give you stuff, I don’t have to tutor him myself,” A lazy smirk had spread across his features. He’d looked over his shoulder at you as he’d walked off, throwing a final comment back at you, “Less work for me that way.”

His words had caused you to frown slightly, but you shrugged them off. He wasn’t wrong after all. You and the other first-years often studied together to help each other with your problem subjects. If you could teach Jack things, then Leona wouldn't have to worry about it. Though you were pretty sure he’d never bothered with that in the past either.

But what followed the next day had you forgetting your previously dismissive thoughts.

You and Grim both stared down at the bright yellow flowers that greeted you from your doorstep. At odds with the otherwise dreary day, they smiled brightly up at you from the discolored wood of your porch. They were one of your favorite flowers from the ones you’d seen since coming to this world, simply due to how happy they looked.

You frowned at the blooms even as you knelt to collect them. They were tied with a rough cord, an oddly rugged touch to such a sweet sentiment.

You fingered the cord slightly before taking them inside to plop in a glass of water before heading off to the botanical garden for Potionology class.

Except when you at last reached the botanical garden, you froze. Staring at the familiar yellow flowers that greeted you, yet again, with smiling faces from alongside jaggedly cut stems that had no doubt been where your little bouquet had once resided.

It could have been a coincidence that Leona spent large amounts of time in the botanical garden where these pretty little flowers, that perfectly matched the color of yellow he wore on his dorm uniform, grew.

It was a color that was slowly becoming one of your favorites as the days wore on and was possibly one of the reasons you did like these flowers so much

Either way, the oddness of it all was enough to make you wonder and smile to yourself at the possibilities.

You were still smiling as you were chopping the potion ingredients and you almost missed the grin Ace was wearing when he leaned over closer, “So, anything interesting today?”

You frowned, immediately suspicious since you knew good and well that Ace didn’t bring those flowers when he’d just claimed they aggravated his allergies mere seconds ago.

His question, though, was incredibly fishy considering that getting a bouquet of flowers from an unknown sender was definitely an interesting start to your day.

“I got some flowers this morning…. Some of those yellow ones you said you were allergic to,” You eyed him skeptically, but he merely snorted.

“Ooh, got an admirer, have we, Prefect?” He bounced his eyebrows at you before laughing at your eye roll and continuing on.

“My day had a weird start too. First thing this morning, Deuce informed me that Jack apparently overheard Ruggie telling Leona that you couldn’t read minds.”

The redhead’s grin was sly now as he shouldered you playfully, “Weird, huh? Would’ve thought everyone knew that. After all, if you could read minds, you wouldn’t have needed those books to help you with the practical magic test, right?”

You blinked in surprise at the redhead, ignoring the teasing tone he used in favor of thinking about this new information.

The rest of class went by in a blur until Ruggie came trotting over, an exasperated expression on his face, “Y/n, hun, help a guy out?”

You sighed almost immediately at his wheedling tone but found yourself turning to face him anyway, “What is it, Ruggie?”

You were fully prepared for some sort of grand tale about how he had too many jobs and needed help running something to a class or that he’d found some sort of new couple deal and wanted to go on a fake date in the name of sales.

But it was none of those things. Instead, you were met with a sandwich being shoved into your hands, “Give this to Leona for me. I haven’t got the time, and he’s miffed with me anyway. You’re a real pal, bye!”

He was skittering away, waving with his signature snicker, before you even had a chance to object. You glanced Ace’s way only to be met with a rapid head shake, “Oh no, he gave that to you. You’re on your own, Prefect.”

The redhead backed away like you were carrying a bomb and quickly abandoned you to your newfound work. You rolled your eyes at both of the men’s dramatics but turned on your heel, striding towards where Leona always napped with a sandwich in hand. You had some questions you wanted to ask him anyway.

You stepped into the clearing to see him sitting there with some food already in front of him, causing you to frown at the sandwich in your hand.

He looked up at you with his tail flicking in an oddly energetic fashion behind him. Unlike you, he didn’t seem to be surprised in the slightest bit. In fact, he almost seemed amused by your confusion.

“About time you got here. I’d almost begun to suspect that Ruggie had somehow missed you,” His words were delivered with the customary smirk, and all of the various pieces snapped into place.

“So, the flowers were from you?” You grinned slightly as you sat down across from him and started unwrapping the sandwich in your hand, only to find that, rather than his preferred variety, it was your favorite kind of the sandwiches offered by the cafeteria’s deli. A rare luxury that you couldn’t usually afford.

Leona looked down at the food in front of him and, instead of answering your question, posed one of his own, “So, have you got an answer for Ruggie’s question yet?”

Your eyes widened slightly at his nonchalant question, and your mind went racing back to just a couple of days ago, when Ruggie had been questioning if you knew how Leona felt about you. “You heard him?”

Leona grinned outright at your shock, “Oh yeah, I heard the whole conversation.” He looked up at you, ears twitching almost pointedly as he leaned back. Totally relaxed despite your own embarrassment.

“You ought to pay better attention to your surroundings. Herbivores like you have to be careful if you don’t want someone catching you off guard.”

He was so smug, but you found yourself recovering from being flustered as a thought registered, “But that’s how you came to know how I felt. Right?”

He snorted before leaning forward, entering your personal space with a single easy motion that had your previous confidence failing you, “I already knew. You’d already proved that plenty of times.”

Mercifully, he leaned back, “So, have you got your answer?”

You found yourself smiling slightly at his question this time despite how pleased he seemed with himself.

Because of course you had your answer. After he’d done so much to prove that he did care and that he paid special attention to you, how could you not?

He’d known that you’d needed help on a test, that you liked those flowers in that specific color, and that you liked this sandwich. They were all little things, but those little things made up who you were. And he’d taken the time to do all of those things just to show you that he did care and did like you because he’d overheard Ruggie’s question and correctly interpreted your own concerns even though you hadn’t voiced them.

Paying attention to little things like that and taking the time to reassure you…. That's how you know that someone loves you.

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cherrychilli · 5 months

Text

Slip of the Tongue

A mini series I 18+ I Enemies to lovers

Chapter three

Chapter Summary: Things turn sour in the days after you scramble out of Eddie's trailer, leading to an interesting confrontation at your old alma mater.

Chapter warnings: Oral sex (m)

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It’s been a week since that day in Eddie’s bedroom.

During that time, you hit the books, powered through your shifts, made it to every lecture and finished your midterms, now holding the fruit of your labor in your hands.

You managed to score in the 90’s again, relief filtering into your lungs with deep, calming breaths because it accounted for 25% of your final grade. With your academic progress still intact, you slipped the glowing results sheet into your bag, allowing yourself to think of your neighbor again.

And as weird as it is to say, you do feel strangely grateful for his contribution.

You’d awoken the day after bolting out of Eddie’s place with your head already crowded with thoughts of him but admittedly, having slept better than you had in a long time. He’d talked a big game and he delivered – the encounter having unwound you enough to get back to work with renewed focus.

So yes, you were grateful but also, you were furious.

Seven whole days had passed by and you hadn’t seen Eddie once.

You tried not to read into the fact that for that entire week, you didn’t hear him play his guitar once. Tried not to let your chest cave in when you didn’t catch him outside working on that tetanus trap on wheels he called a van when you took off for work. Tried not to grit your teeth when you didn’t run into him even when you returned home. Every trace of him gone.

It wasn’t that you wanted to see him exactly, but you couldn’t ignore how his absence made you feel – like a mistake he was trying to run away from.

On day four, the day after your exams, you’d even gone so far as to try wheedling some answers out of Wayne when you passed by the older man on your way to work, attempting to be as inconspicuous about it as possible.

It wasn’t uncommon for you to share a few polite words with Wayne whenever you ran into him but it was out of the ordinary for you to bring up his nephew in any other context that didn’t have to do with a noise complaint.

Segueing into it as gracefully as you could manage, you tried to make it sound as offhand as possible, like a casual observation rather than the heavily rehearsed thing that had consumed your mind all day.

“It’s been pretty quiet in the park lately. He sick or something?”, you asked him while toing at some nearby gravel like your own interest in the question was waning.

You refused to say Eddie’s name, afraid that just by mentioning it, it might put a crack in the eggshell thin mask that holds your hurricane of emotions at bay.

As you had expected, Wayne regards you with some surprise – catching his nearly imperceptible squint, his craggy brow crinkling too. It was both unavoidable and understandable. You would have reacted the same way if you were him.

The weight of his second long silence borders on excruciation, something almost surgical about the way he assesses you. Dissecting you is what it really felt like but thankfully, he shows you mercy.

“Says he’s got things to do at school – doubt there’s any studying involved though”, he lets out a huff, a dry, almost laugh that conveyed his long suffering history with his nephew’s unbeaten record for flunking.

Eddie willingly spending more time at school? The same boy who once climbed down out of a second story window, slipped and hauled ass on a sprained ankle just to get out of taking a math test?

So he was avoiding you.

Despite the bitter taste clawing at the back of your throat, you mustered up a laugh of your own and hoped it was convincing enough, waving goodbye to Wayne as you parted ways.

For those seven days you blocked out the thought of Eddie as best you could but now that your exams were no longer a concern, you were finally free to confront the spineless louse.

If he thought he was going to be safe holed up at your old alma mater he was dead fucking wrong.

Treading fire onto campus, you marched through waves of highschoolers, making a steady beeline for the drama room, remembering that was where he held those weird meetings with his weirdo friends in their weird matching t-shirts.

The teenagers hastily parted off to the side in an effort to get out of your way, some of the seniors who recognized you beginning to whisper, speculating as to what brought you back and looking so incensed.

Stomping up to the room, you let loose all that had been simmering inside you – all that frustration from being evaded and those acrid feelings that felt too close to rejection, parting the doors open forcefully with both hands. It makes for your desired entrance when they swing back and bang closed behind you like a thunderclap, startling the boy who’d been busy scribbling in his notebook getting ready for his next campaign.

His pen clattered to the floor from where it flew out his hand and bounced off a nearby theater prop. You can’t be sure given how abrupt it was but you think he might have yelped too, a high pitched eep like some sort of puppy who had its tail stepped on by mistake.

Sitting askew on his carved wooden throne, Eddie’s cast in warm hues of orange and yellow underneath stage lights and candlelight but nothing shines brighter than the sheer surprise overwhelming his face. It pleases you more to recognize the unmistakable tinge of fear he’s incapable of hiding behind his wide eyes when they land on you.

Good. He should be scared, your mood far from friendly as you turn to lock the door behind you and retrieve the key, clutching it tight in your palm.

Was this overkill? locking him inside with you? You didn’t think so. Not after he’d weaseled his way out of talking to you for an entire week. You weren’t about to leave room for him to plan an escape route too.

You stepped closer to where he cowered at the D&D table, your lips pulled into an imitation smile, curved up exactly like one but so clearly absent of any sweetness or warmth, only radiating danger.

To Eddie, your menacing saunter resembled a cobra leisurely winding its way up to cornered prey, jaw seconds away from unhinging to swallow him whole.

He flinches when you slap down your results sheet on the table, now crumpled from how you had it clenched in your fist on your way over here. Better the paper than his neck you supposed although truthfully, you were still on the fence about that.

“Uh, what’s this?”, he finally dares to speak, a nervous croak of a sound that scratched its way out of his throat, cautiously leaning closer to examine the paper. The spiteful devil perched on your left shoulder chittered and sneered, whispering all sorts of encouragement to make you reply with spite, to make some underhanded remark about how you’re not surprised he couldn’t recognize anything that didn’t have a row of F’s stamped all over it given it’s his second time repeating senior year.

But the lenient angel on your right shoulder leaned in and spoke reason into your other ear, dulcet but insistent reminders that you only came here to inquire, not injure.

The devil withers away with a snarl when you clench your jaw, holding your tongue at bay, unable to spit that kind of venom at Eddie.

Before now, your main gripe with him was his disruptive influence, the way he wedged himself into your life like a splinter caught underneath your fingernail with his head rattling music and blood boiling snark. Grinning like his biggest pleasure in life was annoying you enough to darken his bedroom window day after day with a face full of fury and a mouthful of fuck you’s. He was too carefree for your liking as well, able to shrug off his plummeting grades when a minor slip of yours would have you digging out your emergency pack of cigarettes to chain smoke the stress away in secret. But taking shots at his intellect like all the other assholes you went to school with felt too…slimy.

The same assholes who had looked down on you and your trailer park background. The same assholes who rolled their eyes when you got accepted to your College of choice. The same assholes who cackled when you had to enroll in a nearby Community College instead when your family’s finances fell in the red.

Maybe you weren’t a cobra after all, only masquerading as one.

“My midterms. I passed”, you answered him flatly, watching recollection flash across his face.

The stress it had caused you was the reason why this all started in the first place after all.

“Couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t helped me out”, you added pointedly, tone almost accusatory.

Even under the vivid stage lights that paint his complexion like a sunset, you can still make out the way his cheeks pink up at the vague mention of what had happened in his bed that day.

“Oh, uh– that’s great”, he offered you something that resembled a smile, face so twisted with nerves that he couldn’t get his lips to curve up the right way. Jesus, you’d never seem him like this before. He was barely recognizable and for the first time in your life, you found yourself preferring his usual tornado presence and boisterous anti charm.

“Yeah. So, why’ve you been avoiding me?”

His jaw tensed at that, throat bobbing as he swallowed. Obviously, you hadn’t come by to say thank you.

“Listen, the club will be here in an hour. They already know I’m in here so just give me the key and…we’ll talk about this later, okay?”, he attempted to negotiate with you in the same way one might try to approach a skittish horse, overly cautious with an undertone of fear, holding out a shaky palm to collect the key but you weren’t about to give in now.

“What, so you can find somewhere new to hide?”, you sneered.

To show him you’re serious about seeing this conversation to the end you make a show of dangling the key to the drama room in front of his face – his only hope of escape, but it’s what you’re doing with your other hand that gathers his attention.

Hooking a finger into the neckline of your t-shirt, you pull it low enough for your cleavage to show, soft swells sitting high on your chest, framed by pretty lace. And despite the dread trickling down Eddie’s spine, thick like tar, one thing becomes abundantly clear in that moment.

He’s only a man.

The little flash of tit is enough to trigger his hormones. Stupefied, he takes in an eyeful, committing the contours of your breasts to memory – the newest entry into the sordid vault of his spank bank before he’s able to snap out of it. He attempts to snatch the key from you but he’s too slow, stomach cartwheeling as he watches it disappear into your cleavage when you tuck it away for safe keeping in your bra cup. Honestly, he can’t decide if he’s more upset about it or turned on.

Face twisting with exasperation, he locks his eyes back on yours.

“You’re being ridiculous!” he accuses with increasingly reddening cheeks.

Unbothered by the claim, you shove a couple of dice and a few of his notes aside to sit yourself on the edge of the table, arms crossed underneath your breasts, showing your defiance.

This isn’t like when he’d gotten you to beg for your release, chipping away at your resolve with his touch and tongue until you crumbled under the weight of ecstasy. You’ve molded yourself into an imposing shadow of the girl who came undone on his sheets, obstinate and immovable and it’s clear that you’ll sooner wear him down for an answer even if it means being stuck here in this room all night than leave without one.

Eddie’s hardened expression falters as he realizes this, sighing. Relenting.

“Fine”, he slumps back in his chair.

“I didn’t mean to…I didn’t know what to say– “

“Bullshit”, you cut him off with an icy scoff. Eddie Munson at a loss for words? Sure. And Steve Harrington’s a bald virgin.

“It’s not bullshit”, he attempts to deny, some heat behind his words.

“Do I need to remind you that you’re the one who offered to help me “relax” in the first place?” you bit back with heat to match.

Your rebuttal has him silent – both of you knowing he can’t argue otherwise.

“Where’d all that bravado go, Munson?” you poke again just to see the vein at his temple bulge but he doesn’t answer, jaw set firm.

You’d hoped to scare it out of him at first or even force it out of him by locking him in here but for once that metalhead menace is tightlipped and damn good at it.

Taking another moment to consider your options you gird yourself to ask the one question you’ve been dreading. Casting your eyes down, arms tightening under your breasts, the key shifts into an awkward angle, jabbing your soft flesh but it’s not nearly as unpleasant as what you have to say next. You weren’t sure if you wanted to hear the answer but you force it out, tongue turning more sour the longer the question sat there unasked.

“Do you regret it?”

It’s the way your tone loses all of its heat, crumbling slightly at the end of your question that makes him feel like the world’s biggest jackass. Another awful second of silence passes before you’re startled by him shooting out of his seat, chair screeching noisily against the floor as its forced back so quickly, his hand reaching for yours but he stops short of your fingers touching.

This close, you can smell him again. That same scent that clung to his bed. That same scent that hung on your hair. The same scent you reluctantly washed away in the shower that night you got back home. It makes you feel woozy, like a cloud full of pheromones to the face. If he takes one more step, you’re afraid you might leap up and bite his chest through his shirt like an animal in heat.

“I don’t regret it”, he answers you, gentle. Honest.

And just like that, all the anxiety you’d carried around for a week unravels with those four words. In its place, relief strummed on your ribs like nimble fingers plucking strings on a harp, a hopeful tune building up to a crescendo inside your chest. But you don’t let it show – forcing an impending smile away, keeping your expression unreadable because you liked the way he looked back at you, sweating with uncertainty.

“Okay – then you wouldn’t mind me returning the favor, would you?”, you rose up from the table, placing a palm in the middle of his chest.

“Huh?” he stumbles back, the back of his knee connecting with his chair.

“Fair’s fair right?”

With a little effort, you push him back into his seat, dropping down to kneel between his legs when they spread for you.

“Shit shit wait- really?”, he sputters as your fingers climb up to his belt, working open that damn handcuff buckle you’d become curious about to the point of near infatuation in the last few days.

You roll your eyes in reply like his question is a nuisance to you, growing excited under the surface.

Popping open the button on his jeans and pulling down his zipper, you can see that he’s already half hard underneath his boxers, a thick outline of his cock growing more prominent.

He’s warm in your hand when you pull his jeans and boxers down to grasp him, watching it spring up, feeling him grow harder by the second. Your fingers are dwarfed by the size of him although you already expected that after what you had seen in his trailer.

Eddie tenses when you bring your face closer, lips parted, breath puffing against his flushed, throbbing tip. Just a little more and-

“But before I do, you’re going to tell me why you avoided me”

He blinks back at your wicked smile and sharp eyes, plummeting.

“You’re fucking evil, you know that? First you hold me hostage and now you’re going to interrogate me with your fist around my dick?”

You grin back, squeezing him mostly gently, the warmth of your hand alone enough to make him feel compliant.

“Do it or I’ll stop”, you threaten sweetly.

Somehow, he likes the sound of that even less than the fear of you doing something like snapping it clean off.

There’s something so perversely satisfying about getting to use his words against him – withholding his release in the same way he had done with you. Being on the other side of it, you now understand why he enjoyed it so much, the potent thrill of being in control.

“Fuck okay”, he lets his head fall back to thud against the back of his throne, the column of his neck stretched and bared for you to see the way his Adams apple bobs in his throat with a thick swallow.

“I thought about you all the time…” he starts, tipping his chin down to look at you again, eyes dark and shadowy from this angle. “Shit, I couldn’t sleep after what happened in my bed – had to get away because I knew if I saw you again, I’d just drag you back there”

Something about the image of him manhandling you, maybe even hauling you over his shoulder, all overcome with unbridled cave man lust for you as he takes you back to his bed brews excitement in your bones. You only hoped it didn’t show on your face.

“And I knew that- well, I thought, because you didn’t actually say, but all you wanted was a one time thing…right?”, he asks, a hint of disappointment in his tone.

That was your intention when you first climbed into his bedroom, yes. But now…

“You seemed to hold back just fine when I came in here”, you skirt around the question in favor of focusing on what he’d said before that, starting to stroke him slowly as a small reward for his honesty.

“You scared the fuck out of me”, his breath grows shorter now that you’re moving your hand. “And we’re in school – didn’t think you’d actually come down here. You liked this place less than I did”

That’s true, you did. You just didn’t expect him to have noticed, let alone have remembered that fact. Guess all that ganja didn’t total his memory completely.

“Well, I couldn’t just let this go on after everything that happened”, you state plainly, twisting your wrist slightly around his base before pulling back up to trace his tip with your thumb.

This time he doesn’t shy away from the vague mention. You can almost see the memory reflecting off his umber eyes as it replays in his mind.

“Didn’t even want to throw my sheets in the laundry”, he admits, a throaty timbre to his tone that makes you stroke him faster.

“That’s gross, Eddie”, you deride, nose wrinkling but he can see right through it. He recognizes it easily – the same forced disgust you’d showed him when he flicked his tongue at you and offered to get you off, trying to hide how much you liked it.

“Could still smell you on them even after they were washed you know – even though I knew they were clean. Like one of those subconscious things or whatever. Every time I thought of you, I felt like I could still taste you on my tongue”

He’s clearly done holding back, no longer the shrinking Dungeon Master you’d stormed in on not too long ago. This is the Eddie you knew well and knowing the thought of you had affected him to the point that it impacted his senses, haunting him even, makes you rush with pride.

“I never got to taste you”, you suddenly recalled, surprised you’d forgotten even for a moment considering how much thought you’d given it in the few days prior.

And with that you leaned forward, lips parting, tongue seeking his cock, licking from the bottom of his veiny shaft up to the head.

The slow, wet drag of your tongue along his sensitive skin is the kind of sensation that will not leave him quietly, groaning around all kinds of expletives as his palms clamped down on the armrests of his chair, knuckles turning white.

Taking the first few inches into your mouth, you wrapped your lips around him and sucked slowly. Swirling your tongue around the leaking tip, you get a proper taste of him, collecting a dribble of precum before pulling off. The texture of it is silky on your tongue as you sucked the mix of tangy and salty sweet onto the roof of your mouth, letting it slide down the back of your throat like honey and swallowed.

“What else did you think about?”, you asked, missing the sound of his voice as you moved to lick along his shaft again, tongue feeling around the veins adorning it.

How he’s able to keep up a conversation when you’ve got your mouth on him like this he doesn’t know. Maybe it’s the fear that you might threaten to stop again. Maybe it’s the way your eyes look up at him all cloudy with need and your thighs clench together when he talks about the thoughts he’s had about you.

“Everything we didn’t get to do that day. I know we only agreed on helping you out but after watching you tidal wave my bed I couldn’t help myself”

The crass description nearly makes you snort against his dick despite yourself; your whole face going supernova with a mix of amusement and embarrassment. It makes Eddie grin.

“I thought about this a lot. I couldn’t believe it but I knew – you wanted me in your mouth back then too, didn’t you?”

Imparting a little honesty of your own, you answer him with a whisper, licking off another clear bead of precum from his slit. “I did”.

Eddie's eyes lit up, lips turning up into a smirk. “Watching you leave after that was torture, you have no idea. You’ve ran that smart little mouth of yours at me for years – hated missing my chance to shut you up for once”

That earns him a deadpanned look and calls for a warning.

You bring a hand down to squeeze his balls and smirked when he groaned, this time nearing on pained, hands releasing the armrests with his palms held up in surrender.

“Okay okay! Easy. You’re a soft spoken delight, alright?”

With a pleased chuckle bubbling up your throat, you relinquish your hold to massage them gently instead, rolling them in your palm, continuing to stroke him with your other hand.

“Did you think about fucking me?”

“Yeah…”, he answers at the end of a thick gulp.

“How?”

“Huh?”

“How would you fuck me, Eddie? rough?”

He considers it before answering. “Not at first…but yeah, I’d – fuck, do that again? – I don’t think I could be gentle for very long because I know you can take it”

It’s like he’s reached inside of you and flipped a switch you hadn’t even been aware was there. You’d been wound so tight for so long. You needed him to use you.

“Could you be rough with me now?”, you asked, triggering a sly quirk of his eyebrow.

“You asking me to fuck your face, sweetheart?”

There’s that cocky edge again and you're quick to spar with it.

“Yes or no, Munson?”, you return, all stony faced. There won’t be any begging from you today.

He frowns when you pull out his last name again.

“Aren’t we beyond that now?”

You grin back, too stubborn for your own good.

“No”

Eddie's frown fades, a grin stretching across his face to match your own.

“Open your damn mouth”

Ringed fingers weave into your hair as you part your lips for him, allowing him to breach the wet velvet of your mouth. His girth puts some strain on your jaw but you’re able to accommodate him, tongue cradling the underside of his cock as it glides over the muscle. You’re doing well so far, letting the hand on your head, firm but gentle, guide you down until the tip of his cock bumps the back of your throat and you gag.

“Go on – choke a little for me”, he grunts.

Tears wet your eyes as you try to breathe through it, throat squeezing back against the intrusion, saliva pooling in your mouth as it begins to drip past your lips.

Eddie starts to thrust into your mouth and you take him as far into your throat as you can manage. Your nails dig into his thighs through the short, ragged pumps, past even what you thought to be your limit when your nose presses close to his pelvis, brushing the thatch of hair at his base. You find that you like how he smells there too – musky and masculine.

The sounds you pull out of him make your core ache – every hitch of his breath, every choked off moan, every rumbling groan and throaty grunt. But you stamp down the hot roiling in your belly and ignore the sticky need pooling in your panties because you really did mean what you said about returning the favor. It was your turn to please him, sidelining your own pleasure for the time being in the same way that he had done for you. Not that there wasn’t any pleasure to be derived from being in your position.

The part of you that was greedy savored every sound and liked knowing you were making him feel good – that all those noises he was making was because of you. And the part of you that was competitive took pleasure in knowing you were proving he wasn’t the only one here with a skillful mouth.

Growing more and more used to it, you take it well as he fucks your throat and he tells you as much.

“Knew I was right about you. Knew you could take it – Christ, yes, just like that”

The praise makes you bob ardently, saliva soaking his cock, trailing down to his balls. You’ve adopted a pace of your own now, Eddie’s fingers still tangled in your hair but no longer guiding you.

"Shit– I’m gonna cum. where do you– "

You pull off his cock, his eyes trained on your wet, swollen lips gasping for air, your hand taking over to pump his spit-soaked length.

“Do it in my mouth”, you finish for him, desperation staining your tone.

You take him in your mouth again, not all the way this time, using your hand to stroke what you can’t fit past your sore lips anymore.

“Fuck – oh g- fuck”

Eddie’s hips jerk and then it happens – you feel the hot lines of his release begin to spurt onto your tongue, tangy and creamy thick. You swallow it down with his dick still in your mouth, throat contracting around his twitching, spent length. You pull off slowly until it’s just his tip your lips are wrapped around, lingering on it, sucking it like you don’t want to let go. You’re forced to let it slip from your mouth when his groans near pained again, sensitivity proving too much for him now.

Sitting back on your haunches, you watch his chest puff up and down while he recovers, head thrown back against the back of his chair.

When he’s able to, he puts his softening cock away, redoing his jeans before he pulls out a bandana from his back pocket and offers it to you.

“It’s clean I promise”.

The sweetness of the gesture makes your stomach flutter. Managing a meek ‘thank you’, you use the dark material adorned with bones and skulls to wipe your lips and chin of the sticky mixture of saliva and Eddie’s spend.

Next, he offers you a hand and you take it, letting him help you off your knees and on to your feet.

“Listen, I’m sorry for last time. When you had to leave, I mean. And for avoiding you after that”, he informs you, much more tender than you're used to with him.

“I didn’t even get to uh…”, patiently, you wait for him to finish but he doesn’t, watching his face twist, all conflicted. You can see the thought ping pong around inside his head, wishing you could just reach in and pluck it out for yourself but he brushes it off before he’s able to share it with you, leaving you wondering.

“Never mind. Jeff and Gareth are going to be here soon and you probably don’t want to be seen in here with me like um, thisss”, he drags out the single syllable, unsure of a more tactful way to phrase it.

You don’t need to ask him to know that “thisss” means you look like a fucked-out mess because that’s exactly how you feel with your unruly hair and your sore jaw.

Just as before, there’s too much that’s been left unsaid but the threat of another close call has you reluctantly fishing the key out of your bra, tossing it at Eddie while you attempt to tame your hair back into something presentable, wiping off your damp cheeks too. You’re yet to realize that you haven’t returned his bandana, still clutching it in your hand.

Eddie catches the key though he doesn’t make a move towards the door, staring down at his palm like he’d just been gifted a bar of gold.

“It’s warm”, he says quietly, one of those thoughts that wasn’t meant to be said out loud but slipped past the barrier of his lips quicker than he could notice, you surmised.

It’s kind of cute actually – that dopey, spellbound look spilling over his face.

“Unlock the door, Eddie”, you sigh, subduing a laugh. At least you didn’t accuse him of being gross again like you would have an hour ago.

“Oh, right”

He steps over to the door while you gather yourself, daylight shining into the dingily lit room when he unlocks it and pulls it open.

After a quick look around outside to make sure no one sees you leaving, he steps back and holds the door open for you but you linger.

…all you wanted was a one-time thing…right?

No. Not anymore.

You weren’t sure what the two of you were now. Neighbors who got each other off? Former enemies but not really friends with benefits?

The specifics didn’t matter. At least, not right now. All you knew was that you didn’t want whatever this was to end.

Turning to Eddie, you say something you never thought you would. Not to him.

“My family’s gone for the weekend. You can come over tonight…if you want”

The smile that crosses his face is both warm and cocky, much like the one he’d flashed you from his window when this all began.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah”, you soften but only slightly. Unsmiling but not inimical.

“Oh, and if you stand me up?”, voice heating up, you jabbed a finger against his chest, right between the L and the F of his Hellfire shirt. “Try to run away again?”, you jab again and he staggers a step back, wincing when you press over the same sore spot again. “I’ll nail your balls to your front door, understand?”

For a moment he stares back at you. Stunned. And then, true to the freak riddle that he is, he smiles back even brighter.

Tag list - @honey-flustered @cryingglightningg @cadence73 @taccobelle @mrsjellymunson

#eddie munson smut #stranger things smut #eddie munson #stranger things #eddie munson x reader

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ashotofogdensoldfirewhiskey · 8 months

Text

Want

“--and you’d think, after rereading the chapter twice that I’d have a bleeding clue what Vector was on about, but I haven’t. The OWL is going to be a complete disaster.”

“You could always fall asleep in the middle,” Harry suggests, smirking. “I’ve heard that’s an effective way to get out of OWLs.”

“Excellent advice,” Ginny snorts. “And anyway, what are you on about, ‘fall asleep in the middle'? I thought you had a vision?”

It’s odd to joke about what was arguably the worst evening of his life – the worst evening in a life already rife with horrific evenings contending for the top spot – but he finds that the twinge of grief and regret doesn’t come. Not while her warm hand is clasped in his. “I did,” he says airily. “After I fell asleep.”

“You’re a terrible influence,” she snickers, smacking his arm lightly with her free hand. They’re not taking the most direct route from the Library to the Gryffindor Common Room, choosing instead to meander lazily in the relative privacy of the nearly-curfew corridors. They’ve ended up somewhere on the fourth floor, somehow. “What’ll you do when I flunk out of Hogwarts, eh?”

“You won’t,” he answers.

“I might,” she says warningly, and then she heaves a great sigh. “I suppose I could stay at home and help Mum with the chickens, assuming she doesn’t murder me…”

She’s joking, but Harry thinks he sees a glint of something resembling genuine worry in her expression. He’s reminded irresistibly of himself in the days leading up to his expulsion hearing, how he’d gone to Sirius, hoping desperately for reassurance that expulsion wouldn’t mean the end…

“If you do, we could always just move to France,” Harry says. “According to Fleur it’s better there anyway.”

Ginny raises an eyebrow. “‘We’?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, nonchalant. “You’re not ditching me here to do NEWTs alone.”

Ginny stares at him, and then a smile spreads across her lips. “Yeah, alright. But not France. I’m not going anywhere Fleur thinks is good.”

“Wherever,” Harry shrugs easily. “I’m not fussy.”

Ginny tugs at his arm so he’s facing her, and then she backs him slowly up against the craggy stone wall of the corridor, and he feels his heart quicken. “What about Siberia? Would you go there?”

She’s pressed herself up against him, her hands snaking up around his shoulders, and he’s finding it difficult to think at the minute. “Siberia could be nice.”

She presses her lips against his, so soft, and his breath hitches in his chest. Before he has the chance to melt into her, she pulls back, but only just. Her eyelids are fluttering, and her lips still ghost against his as she whispers, “The Sahara, then?”

“Sure,” he agrees, not caring where he’s agreeing to as long as she’s there, and then he’s kissing her. He wonders vaguely if he’ll ever get used to this: the feel of her pressed up against his chest, the way his life seems so much brighter now that it’s lit up with her fiery glow, how dangerous wanting has become now that all he wants is her.

He kisses her, and pulls her in closer, and the want nearly swallows him whole - to touch her everywhere, to have her for more than just a fleeting moment, to escape the sword hanging overhead, poised to slice him open along the seams she’s only just sewn together.

Siberia could be nice, really. No prophecy, or Horcruxes, or Voldemort. Just Ginny, her skin dappled with freckles, and the cackle of a laugh that he loves coaxing out of her.

He might be free to want her and actually have her there.

#hinny #canon compliant #hbp missing moment #hinny fluff

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shoyoist · 2 years

Text

— 𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐎 𝐆𝐎𝐙𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐔 !! : baji keisuke.

content: fem!reader. college au. strangers to friends to lovers trope. baji is a delinquent, still. reader is implied to be rich and rather innocent. ~ fingering. spit. manhandling, slight breeding kink, mating press, raw sex, rough sex, praise.

word count: 4.6k

⠀⠀⠀⠀— . ｡˚ ♡ what happens when the sweet lil honors student decides to be nice and help the failing college student/delinquent out?

when baji makes it into college, it's by the slimmest fucking chance. he barely makes it. but baji's always been one to follow through with what he's set his eyes on doing — so by no means is he going to flunk out of college once he's got in.

he's struggling, though, and it's no help that most of the other students are a little wary of him. there’s nobody around that’s willing to lend him a hand. but that’s warranted, you suppose.

he is after all, a delinquent with a ton of street cred on his back, and has made a name for having a complete lack of hesitation to use his fists to make his way out of any given situation.

he looks it, too — and rumors are always strengthened by appearances.

he's got those wild, sharp eyes and that whetted smile, and he's a big guy. muscles showing through the thin shirts he shows up to classes in, his toned thighs and calves on display at the behest of the tight leather pants he always wears.

the chains and rings he wears, and the booming motorcycle he rides just makes his deadly image more refined — not to mention the fact that he's already picked more than a couple of fights on campus his first semester.

but you see how he tries so hard in class.

you've never spoken to baji keisuke in your life before — but today is the start of the fourth week in a row that you've walked into the library after class, to see baji sitting at one of the tables by himself, surrounded by books as he stares at a printed question sheet with a scowl on his face.

as an honors student, a soft spoken girl that takes her father's car to school every day, and dresses in pastels and skirts, you're the opposite of baji keisuke in every way. you're nervous, and unsure if he'd even listen to you, or just laugh your words off and render you unable to ever meet his eyes again.

but you do it anyway. you walk up to him where he's sitting at his usual table, and clear your throat. "baji?"

and when he looks up, features so sharp and rugged, the pen he's twirling in his hands so tiny compared to his large palm and fingers, your breath catches in your throat — but you speak up anyway. "hi. i'm from your class?" you say, giving him a smile.

"whaddya want?" he asks, after almost a full minute of looking you up and down. you feel nearly insecure as you stand there and wait, wondering if he doesn't like the look of your plaid sweater, your cute boots or your skirt.

you open your mouth to answer him, but he cuts you off — "you wanna hop on my dick or somethin'? because if so, scram."

"no!" you blurt out, feeling your face heat up in an instant. he raises a thick, questioning eyebrow at you then, and you stutter, trying to form your sentences back on your tongue after his embarrassing accusation. "i— i just wanted to know if you'd like some help!"

"huh?" baji grunts, putting his pen down. "what's that mean?"

"with your work!" you say, gesturing to all the books laid out on the table. "you know? i've seen you here a lot recently, working on your homework and stuff. so i just wanted to ask if you wanted some help."

"with my studies?" he asks, like he's still unsure. and when you nod, you see his eyes slowly light up — because even baji knows you’re one of the smartest students. "really? ya wanna tutor me?"

"not for money or anything." you quickly affirm, in case he lands another quip about how he doesn't have money to give you. "just ... as a classmate. as a friend. we could be study partners, if you like."

"study partners, huh." he muses, resting his chin on his fist as he thinks about it. then, he gives you a grin (that automatically makes your heart flutter, because god, you can't deny it — he's hot). "sure."

he pats the chair next to his, offering you a seat, and you take it.

hence, you started on your semester long journey of being baji's study partner, making fast friends with him and finding out that he's a sweet, funny guy alongside the rough, loud personality he's got.

your curiosity on why a gangster like him would try so hard in college, or wish to attend school at all, is satiated when eventually, he tells you about his domestic dreams of building a cozy little life for himself, opening up a pet shop, perhaps expanding it into a vet clinic if he can pass his course and get licensed.

baji’s ambitions are only strange to you for the first half of your time with him. the more you get to know him, the more you realize that his rugged, untamed appearance and personality is all just who he is on the surface level.

apart from how surprisingly cute he is when he’s learning, he's so nice to you — walks with you to class, offers to drive you on his bike to this really good coffee place he knows during breaks, brings you a little gift on your birthday — and by the end of the semester, you're sure you've about fallen in love with him.

and thankfully, with your help, his grades do go up.

he scores well enough that he manages to pass and secure his spot in college for another year — and though his achievement was not much compared to your top results, he's so happy about it.

"princess," he says (because he calls you princess now) as he flops onto the couch in your bedroom (because somewhere in the midst of the semester, you've also moved your regular study spot from the library to your house). "have i thanked ya properly for all your help yet?"

"what do you mean?" you ask, perched on the edge of your bed, watching him manspread, feeling proud when he shoots a satisfied glance towards the marksheet laying on the couch beside him.

"i mean," he sighs. "i gotta thank you, right? you're savin' my life here."

"by studying with you?" you giggle, and he meets your eyes with a lazy tilt of his head, watching as you smooth your skirt out over your knees. the early winter sun that pools into the room through the window is watery — but the light catches in his bright gaze anyway, increasing the intensity of his stare. "it's okay. you've bought me enough coffee over the days to pay me back, i think."

there's a moment of tense silence, before he gets up from the couch, and walks over to you.

when he stops only a foot away from your seat on the bed, and asks, "is the door locked, princess?" you feel a shiver crawl up your spine — but you nod, assuring him that the door is locked.

and with that, he climbs onto the bed on top of you, pushing you down onto your bed.

your heart jumps, as your back hits the mattress, his hands coming down to dig into the sheets on either side of your head, as he grips them to hold his weight over you.

"can i thank you?" he rasps after a second, voice soft — hovering over you with his lips only inches away from your own. your heart picks up pace, and your pulse hammers in your ears as you fight to keep eye contact with him. as you try to think of an answer.

and well, fuck, you never thought something like this would happen, when you first took pity on the delinquent in your class, and offered to help him with his studies.

you were just being nice — but as you’d just been thinking of a moment ago, over the course of the time you've known baji, you've found out that he's got so much more to him than his delinquent’s face.

you know he’s gentle with animals, that he works so very hard to be the best he can be, and that he's a loyal friend. you know he likes peyoung yakisoba, and that he secretly reads shoujo manga. you know he prefers your red hair ties over your pink ones. you know the most important thing to him is that his mother is happy (and you know what they say. a man who's good to his mother, will be good to his wife).

you really do like him. so you nod once more, but he sees the hesitation in your eyes, so he asks again. "is this really okay?"

you blink up at him, once or twice, before gathering the courage to ask. "baj— keisuke. do you like me?"

"i do." he replies without a beat missed, gaze bright as he locks it with yours. and just those two words cause your heart to warm up so many degrees, an instant shot of delight — but you ask again. "really?"

he licks his lips, seeming a little nervous, now, as he hovers over you. "really." he says. his heat spills into you through the minute distance between your bodies, as he collects the words onto his tongue. "i fuckin' love you, princess. never thought i'd be such a sap for someone, but i am. i like you, a lot. i want you."

it's strange — because although you love him, you've never thought he'd return your feelings.

you've always thought and decided that things would end as quickly and smoothly as they'd started. that you'd help him, and he'd receive your help, and that would be that. but now, the situation's changed. in an instant.

a little voice at the back of your head wonders that hey, maybe this is just the delinquent taking his chance with the unassuming, innocent little girl in his class — but you brush the thought aside. you’re not stupid. you know baji’s a good guy.

you swallow, throat going dry as you realize what will happen once you answer. "i like you too, keisuke. in fact, i think i'm in love with you, too."

baji laughs at that, an affectionate little heh, leaving his lungs before he takes in another breath. "can i kiss you, then?"

"you can do whatever you want." you say.

and instantly, he's kissing you.

it’s almost too quick, his tongue pushing hungrily past your lips and coiling with your own, searing and needy as his hands clutch your waist, crawling under your top to feel up your skin, soft and supple under his calloused grip.

a mewl falls from your lips when his fingers brush against your tits, and he moves his hand back to that spot, giving the soft flesh a squeeze and laughing when you gasp, your body rocking under his.

your own hands lift up, somewhat unsure, to palm at his muscled chest, tugging experimentally at the hem of his shirt. "take it off," he grunts, into your mouth. "hah, never been touched like this before, have you?"

"haven't." you mumble shyly, and baji's eyes glow dully when he hears it. he yanks the top off of you, and you feel vulnerable as you squirm on your bed, wearing nothing but your skirt and panties as he ravishes you with his eyes. "yeah? gonna show ya how good lil' things like you should be treated, then." he says, placing a hand on your thigh and feeling how you shiver at the touch.

he doesn't move it before you pull his t-shirt off for him, coaxing you to go ahead and do it, and allowing you to run your eyes over his muscled torso for a bit. then, his hand inches up your thigh as he kisses you again, fingers so large and thick as he makes his way between your legs. "so pretty f'me."

"mm," your face burns again, the same way it had the first time you ever spoke to him, and he'd asked you that embarrassing fucking question — but it's funny, since what he said is now about to come true. in a way. "y—you, too."

"aww, princess thinks i'm pretty?" he coos, and laughs harder when you cover your face with your hands, unable to meet his eyes as he teases you. "fuck, you're so cute. lettin' the gangster boy fuck you after you help him pass in school, eh?"

"i— this wasn't my intention." you whine, but baji cuts you off by pressing a thumb against your clothed clit — and it's even more embarrassing when your body automatically jolts, thighs closing around his arm as you flinch in reaction to the sudden stimulation. "yeah, but ya like how it's goin', mhm?" he grins, showing off those canines again, and fuck.

"i do," you breathe, as he keeps his thumb over your clit, rubbing little circles into it and making it throb. it's hard to focus when he's doing it, but then he leans in for more kisses, and you've never felt such sweet, yet rough warmth before in your life.

"i know you do." he says it into your mouth, before sliding your panties aside and easing a finger into your cunt. it feels hot, delicious even with just one damn finger, and you moan, the sensation so unexpectedly good. "see? all fuckin' wet 'n i didn't even do much yet."

"please," you kiss him again, curling your hands around his face. "want it already."

"tch, patience, baby." he clicks his tongue, letting just the one finger slide in and out of your slick pussy, and you know he's going to put two in next, and then three, stretching you out just right before he gives you his cock.

and for something you've never thought about much before, you need it so damn bad. with baji towering over you, body so muscled and toned and hands so hot and good, mouth so skilled at showering you with both kisses and praise, you need him like never before.

the chain on his ripped jeans jingles as he pushes his knee between your legs, opening them wider, before he whispers, just like you’d guessed, that he’s going to give you another finger. his free hand grips your fluffy blanket harder, putting more of his weight onto the mattress and making it creak a little. “move up a little, princess. give me some more room.”

so you get further back onto the bed, and he climbs on after you, letting his pants join his t-shirt on the side of the bed, with your own top — the bold black and grey colours so starkly contrasting your bedsheets as he casts it all aside.

“ya hear this pussy singin’ for me?” he chuckles, and the way your cunt gushes harder when he slips a third finger in is so good to him, your face flushing with humiliation, he can’t bother prepping you any further before he gives you his cock.

“she’s beggin’ to have me.” he taunts, loving the way you’re getting so shy and embarrassed, no matter what he does or says. “you do some begging, too, won’t ya? let me hear you.”

and you steel yourself, feeling so full with just his fingers in you, forcing your moans and gasps to be quieter as he curls them in and finds your sweet spots so easily. “want your cock, keisuke. please. need to be filled all up.” he stares at you, doe eyes and swollen lips so pretty as you’re spread out under him, and with a whispered fuck, he pulls his drooling cock out from where it’s been straining under his boxers this whole time.

“see that, princess?” he sighs, relief washing over him as he grips the thick length, allowing himself a few pumps with his fist. “this cock? ‘s all yours.”

baji’s fucking huge — as he grabs your wrist and guides your hand to touch him, you feel the hot, stiff length of him up, and you really don’t know how you’re going to take it.

but you will — oh, god, you will, because you haven’t even felt him yet but you know he’s going to send you to heaven with just his cock.

“want it,” you plead. “I’ll take it for you. if it’s all mine, then give it to me. please.”

“shit,” he groans, when you run your fingers softly down his cock and back up, smearing the precum collecting at his tip onto your fingers as you go. “for someone that hasn’t done any of this, you’re fuckin’ good with your words.”

“‘m a smart girl,” you give him a smile, and his lips are tugged into yet another grin when he sees it. “smart girls know what to say.”

“yeah, yeah you fuckin’ do.” he assures you, before he tugs the panties off you and throws them onto the floor behind, grabbing you by the back of your thighs and pushing them up, your skirt splaying out on your stomach as he folds you in half and reveals your glistening pussy to him.

“let’s keep this skirt on, yeah?” he asks, eyes on your cunt, on your little hole that he’s about to fill right up. “y’look pretty with it on.”

“anything.” you beg, eyes fluttering shut before you open them again, watching as baji’s hair falls in curtains around his face, his brows scrunching together as he frowns in focus, lining his cock up with your cunt. “just want you to fuck me.”

“alright, alright, baby.” he grunts, voice going heavier, as he finally pushes his cock in. first, it’s just the head — and you think the stretch is manageable, that you can take him well enough.

but then he rolls his hips, forces your cunt open and makes you take all of him in, and fuck.

“keisuke! no— no, not so much at once!” you cry, and he’s barely able to answer, with the way your pussy sucks him in so well despite your protest, warm and wet and so god damn tight.

“you’re fine,” he stutters, nails digging harshly into the plush skin of your thighs as he pushes himself balls deep into you, bending you further so your knees are pressed against your chest. “you’re just fine, princess, fuck. look at ya. pussy so pretty all stuffed.”

he stays still for a moment, allowing you to adjust to his size, razor eyes going soft and almost dreamy as he feels your walls cling to him, so deliciously hot. when he nudges his tip to your cervix, you flutter around him, and he hisses, precum drooling into you furiously.

you whimper as the pain dissipates and blooms into saccharine pleasure, the rough grip he’s got on you and the thickness of his cock in your little cunt, together with the praise he’s showering you with — it’s enough to make you cum in almost one go.

“you got this,” he pants, pulling out just a little before he pushes in again, the wavy tousles of his hair bouncing lightly with every move. “your pussy’s fine.”

you open your mouth to reply, but no sound comes out, the moan catching in your throat and your eyes rolling back into your head as he finally starts moving. the messy squelching of your cunt with his thrusts would embarrass you, if he weren’t throwing stars into your vision with each slap of his pelvis against your clit. “k—keisuke!”

“shhh,” he exhales, gritting his teeth as he steadily increases his pace, building his way up to his own high. you’ll cum hard enough, even if he doesn’t try too hard, he knows — his cock is big, he knows how to fuck good, and you’re an inexperienced little thing.

a sweet, beautiful, inexperienced little thing.

he watches keenly, biting his lip as he goes back and forth, watching your pretty face, eyes wild with pleasure as you watch how his length sinks into you, and then out, and then back in again.

“c-can i,” he groans, waiting for you to look up and meet his eyes before he continues. “go faster, princess?”

“mhm!” you cry without hesitation despite yourself, so eager to please — so needy to have more, more, more.

and god, he's going to cum, he can feel it as he takes his pace even further — your little pussy's just too tight, too hot 'n wet, it's enough to send a man straight to seventh fucking heaven.

he knows already that you'll be fine even if he gets a little rougher than intended — he sees how your eyes are rolling back, how your sweet lips are stretching into a dopey, open-mouthed smile with each hard hit of his cock at your cervix.

you want it, want it all — you're innocent and pure but god you're a devilish little thing at heart.

he'd treat you nicely, be gentle and take things slow like how he'd planned to do at the start, but you want it so bad, he wants it so bad, and there's just no stopping it.

“open that mouth wider for me baby,” he rasps, and you do it instantly, making him laugh as he gathers a ball of saliva on his tongue and spits it out, watching with a heavy throb of his cock as it lands right on your cute, pink lil tongue. “swallow f'me? hah, atta girl~”

and with that, he gives you the first mean thrust of his cock into your cunt — the squelch of your cunt is loud, only second to your moan and third to the grunt baji can't help but let out, when he feels just how tight your pussy is gripping him.

“relax, princess,” he huffs, the muscled panes of his chest pressing against your tits as he buries himself as far inside you as he can go, before pulling back out and going back in again — filling your lovely little room with the lewdest sounds—

the slap-slap-slap of skin against skin, your fucked out whines with each roll of his hips, and the messy sounds of your pussy along with the breathy groans he's spilling into your ear; it's so, so fucking good.

you're stuffed, and as baji whispers hoarsely with his lips against your cheek that he's gonna cum, you moan again, telling him you're gonna cum too, and you don't know what you're begging for anymore but you beg, “please, please, please, please— mmph!”

and he's kissing you again, muscled body trapping you in place as he pounds into you relentlessly, now in short quick thrusts that offer your sweet, gummy spots another kind of kiss after kiss with his fat tip.

“let me cum in you, princess? can't — can't fuckin' pull out, 's too good,” he groans into your mouth, and fuck, you've never felt this good and this loved and this full before in your entire damn life.

“inside, kei, inside.” you agree, voice all high and breathless, your words falling right onto his tongue as they tangle together when he deepens the kiss. “want your cum in me, kei, please.”

and it's not the hug of your velvet walls around his cock, or the plush, warm feel of your pretty body under his, or the claw of your fingers at his back and his arms that undo him—

but it's the way your voice calls out his name so cutely, saying kei, as you ask him to breed you full, that makes him cum.

the band in his lower stomach tightens and then snaps — and with a low, ravenous growl into your mouth, he cums. “f—fuck.”

his cum is hot, thick, filling your pussy with white and coating his cock in a milky film as he keeps thrusting in and out of you, refusing to slow down even as your own orgasm washes over you and your tiny little cunt clenches even tighter around him, making it almost impossible for him to move.

“mmm, kei! fuck, cumming, fuck, fuck, so good!” you babble, tongue lolling out from your mouth that's parted in your effort to catch your breath, and he'd laugh, chide your language, but you feel so good he's been rendered speechless.

his own mouth is open in silent curses, breath catching in his throat as he fucks his cum deep into you, feeling how your pussy flutters obediently, eating it all right up.

he listens to your cries of pleasure, head falling onto your chest, his cheek squished against your tits as he breathes you in, basking in the hot bliss you're giving him as he smacks his hips into yours sloppily, such a wet mess forming between your bodies — your skirt is soaked.

“fuck, princess, i love ya,” he hisses, as you milk him through. “this pussy's mine and only mine, alright?”

“mhm,” you nod, and he grins, vision cloudy as he looks down at your pretty face. “all yours, kei.”

“can't take that back after ya said it, alright?” he breathes out, hot over your chest. “tell me ya love me, baby.”

“i love you,” you gasp, as he slows down, bringing his hips to a stop against yours and letting go of your thighs so you can tangle them around his waist again. “i love you so, so much, kei, you don't know.”

“hey,” he chuckles, getting pulled into you as he tries to give you a peck on the cheek. “i love you so much, m'kay?”

“no, i love you more.” you pout, and he nips at your bottom lip, teasing the tender flesh with his sharp teeth. “this ain't a competition, princess. i love you the most.”

“mmm,” you huff, knowing that you both should really get up and clean things up, if you're done — but he feels so nice, so warm and heavy and comforting on top of you, and you want to stay like this forever. “sure. i'll let that go, for now.”

baji only cackles fondly at that, giving your swollen lips a kiss and then another on your teary cheek, before laying back with a satiated sigh. “so what are we now? still just friends? study partners, even though you've effectively hopped on my dick now?”

you feel your face get hot at his words, giving his shoulder a gentle slap as you pout again. “no, what you are now is mine. all mine.”

and there's a little pause, before he lets out another chuckle. “bloody hell, you really do fuckin' know what to say.”

“of course.” you smile. “anyway, study sesh at your place tomorrow? same time?”

“hah, what fucking study sesh when the semester just closed, hm?” he grins, and your eyes twinkle as you reply — “mmm, i don't know. a study sesh like the one we just had, maybe.”

and his grin widens, canines flashing as he laughs. “can't say no to that, princess — you're on fire. and by the way, you're mine, too.”

“mhm.” you reach up, tangle your fingers in the thick, dark locks of his hair and pull him in for yet another kiss, smiling at how he shuts his eyes so cutely just before your lips meet. “i know ♡♡ .”

#₊˚ପ⊹ REKHA™.#₊˚ପ⊹ NYCHTA.#baji smut #baji keisuke smut #baji x reader #baji keisuke x reader #tokyo revengers smut #tokyo revengers x reader #tr smut #tr x reader #baji headcanons #baji drabbles #baji x you #baji x y/n #baji fluff #tokyo revengers drabbles #tokyo revengers headcanons

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