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celtic-crossbow · 3 months

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Blood Ties Chapter 17

Series Masterlist

Warnings: Smut. It’s all smut. And a little angst. Maybe a lot of angst.

A/N: I will not lie. I’m actually pretty proud of this chapter. I feel like I wrote some decent smut and kept Daryl in character.

You snatched your sweatpants off your face and tossed them aside, sitting up on your elbows to peer at the man standing at the foot of the bed. Daryl was absently rubbing the side of his thumb back and forth across his bottom lip in a way that was almost hypnotic. You likely would have watched him longer if not having noticed that his eyes were cutting a slow trek up your legs.

The urge to shield yourself was immediate. You fumbled for at least the thin blanket to quickly cover up. The apocalypse didn’t allow for certain methods of personal grooming, such as shaving. You had a few disposable razors in your bag that saw to your armpits but hardly had the energy, time, or available water to spend on your legs. So, you just…didn’t.

As the sheet flipped across you, Daryl caught the edge in midair. “Whaddaya doin’ that for?” His tone was curious with a hint of annoyance, his expression reflecting the same.

“I, uh…” Suddenly, it wasn’t just your legs. It was your thickened waist, your breasts, the stretch marks. Nothing about you seemed desirable anymore. Where the hell had the confidence of those weeks in the woods gone?

“Damn, you’re thinkin’ awful loud.” The archer tossed the blanket toward the opposite side of the bed and leaned forward to wrap his hands around your ankles.

“I’m…a mess.” You tried to maneuver further up the bed but he instantly tugged you right back down.

“Ain’t followin’ ya.”

“I’m not…” With a heavy sigh, you fell back against the pillows to stare at the ceiling. “I’m not what I was back when we met.” His hold fell away, but you didn’t look toward him, fully expecting him to have walked away. You were convinced you were right when you heard the click of the door closing.

Then calloused fingers were back on your ankles, the rough pads making you shiver as they traced a line up to your thighs. He still hadn’t said a word, even as he hooked the waistband of your panties and dragged them down and then off. Before you could sit up, he was pressing his palms against the inside of your thighs and spreading you open.

Your breath stuttered. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t speaking. This was by far the most intimate situation you’d ever found yourself in with him. Broad daylight, no reason to rush. Sure, he’d seen you naked before but not quite like this.

Finally, you called upon enough courage to lift your head. Daryl was staring at your exposed cunt which was already embarrassingly slick with desire. His expression held no disgust, but a sort of lustful awe, the blue of his eyes barely visible around dilated pupils.

You dared not speak, not sure you’d even be able to while he stared at you like that. He released your left thigh to slide a finger through your folds, collecting the wetness on his fingertip before bringing it to his mouth. He smirked at you from around the digit, devouring your juices before releasing your other leg and bowing over you.

His lips met the skin of your belly, just beside the bandage, and then moved to do the same to the other side. Your breathing picked up when he took the hem of your sweater between his teeth and pulled it along with him on his ascent up your body, slotting himself between your legs. Releasing the material, he let it fall just below your chin. Daryl’s lips hovered just above yours, his eyes dancing back and forth between your own.

“Ain’t gotta worry ‘bout shit like that. I ain’t some kinda shallow asshole.”

You swallowed hard and nodded, lips brushing his with the movement. He smirked again and closed the minuscule distance between you. You responded immediately, opening to him when he licked the seam of your lips. His tongue slowly circled and danced with yours. Sighing into his mouth, you savored the familiar taste of him, unique and comforting.

He pulled away all too soon and huffed a quiet laugh when you whined. Up on his knees, he tugged on the bunched up material around your neck. You took the hint and raised slightly to pull the sweater over your head, only then noticing they had left your bra off when dressing you the night before.

“Don’t get whatcha worried ‘bout anyhow.” The archer added quietly, a finger caressing from the hollow of your throat all the way down to your navel. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with ya.” When you regarded him skeptically, you could see something in him shift, a sudden apprehension that hadn’t been there only seconds before. Daryl was quick when shrugging off his vest, taking no time at all to grab the bottom of his button up and pull it over his head.

In one gesture, he was offering you more than you could— or would —have ever asked for. You had felt his scars the last time you were together. You had seen glimpses when he was injured. Now you were being shown the damage at full capacity. Long, jagged, deep wounds that had healed over only to leave him with a permanent reminder of when they were inflicted, of who had inflicted them.

He wasn’t looking for pity and you wouldn’t give it. He was showing you what he saw as his own imperfections, what made him feel inferior and unworthy. He was combatting your fear by laying his own bare. You knew he was a man of action, never one to rely on words, but this? You had to mean more than a little to him for him to offer you this.

“Daryl.” You pushed yourself up to sit in front of him, face level with his chest while he stayed on his knees. You couldn’t ignore them, that wouldn’t help him heal. He needed to accept them as part of him, needed to accept that he wasn’t defined by his trauma. You pressed your lips to one just below his sternum, looking up at him from beneath your lashes. He had closed his eyes but when you glanced down, his fingers were curled into tight fists, trembling harshly. “Ssh, it’s okay.”

Daryl inhaled harshly when you laid back against the pillows again, a hint of panic present when he opened his eyes. He likely thought you were disinterested now that you had seen what he tried so intently to hide.

“You’re perfect.” There was a noise from the back of his throat, something akin to a whimper, then he dropped forward to bury his face against the side of your neck, battling whatever it was he was feeling instead of running from it or forcing it down underneath anger and isolation.

You remained still and silent, allowing him to work through it with only your fingertips rubbing up and down his biceps. Touching any of the scars, you surmised, would only send him spiraling. Not touching him at all would plant a seed of doubt at your last words.

It didn’t take him long to recover, not that you thought it would. He wouldn’t dwell on it, not now. Though you weren’t strangers, this was new. It was a transition on which neither of you wanted to place any strain. There would come a time for those discussions, to share those stories. You knew it and so did he.

When he moved away from your neck, he wasted no time in greedily sucking a puckered nipple into his mouth. The surprise had you arching up into him with a sinful moan, fingers twisting into his hair. “Fuck, it’s…it’s… sensitive.” His mouth left your skin immediately, your grip on his hair keeping him still. “No, it’s good. It’s good.”

The archer smirked and kept his eyes on you, teasing the pebbled bud with his tongue. His lips encased your areola once more, grunting against you when your hips jerked up, pushing your naked center into his groin.

You had been hypersensitive the last time as well, but nothing like this. Heat was pooling in your belly, your cunt clenched around nothing, your clit was stiff and throbbing.

Fuck.

You were suddenly afraid that you were actually about to cum just from his mouth on one nipple. “Daryl…ah…if you, fuck—” His chuckle vibrated over the delicate flesh just as he rolled its twin between his thumb and forefinger.

You were toast.

You came with a shout, pulling at the archer’s hair hard enough to break him away from your breast and elicit a sharp hiss. Your hips were rolling, rutting against him in a desperate attempt for friction to prolong the bolts of pleasure shooting through your core.

Daryl covered your mouth with his own, swallowing each sound. Your face was burning with embarrassment but you were finding it hard to care with his tongue dominating your mouth and his hands sliding down to squeeze your hips and still them.

“Barely touched ya.” He whispered as you panted. Keeping his hands firmly at your waist, he descended to position himself on his stomach, head between your thighs. You wanted to close your legs, but your needy cunt had other plans. Just seeing him there had your clit throbbing again, begging to be touched.

His eyes soaked up the sun’s glow, shining like clear river water while they held your gaze. Daryl puckered his lips to blow gently over your core, from top to bottom and back again. It had the desired effect, your pussy pulsing and clenching as he watched.

“Daryl.” You mewled, reaching for him. He made sure to stay just out of reach, the tips of your fingers barely brushing his hair. When you gave up and collapsed back onto the pillows, only then did he lean in to breathe on your cunt, the puffs of air gentle and hot. Such a simple thing had you keening and your upper body twisting back and forth. His fingers held tight to your hips to keep them immobile. “Please. Please just—ah!”

His tongue delved between your folds, circling your pulsing entrance before dragging up to flick your clit and back down. Your first orgasm left you sopping wet, the lewd sounds of him drinking down what had spilled were loud even over your heaving breaths. That particular thirst quenched, the tip of his tongue breached your opening, circling your inner walls with a tentative but eager curiosity.

For a fleeting moment within the sensual gratification, you wondered if this was something he had ever done before. His mouth was no stranger to your most sensitive areas, but not like this. Not deep and exploring, seeking and learning. He wasn’t just making an attempt to bring you to climax, he was taking cues from you. Each hitch in your breath, each jerk of your hips, he reacted and repeated, committing it to memory.

When he pressed deeper, his lips flush against you so that the length of his tongue filled your clenching hole, you arched off the mattress. Your fingers finally twisted into his hair and he allowed it, very clearly enjoying how the constant wiggling of the muscle inside you seemed to take you to new heights. His right hand left your hip, the pad of his thumb finding your stiff, throbbing bundle of nerves.

He pressed down, just enough to ignite the flames of sensation, and stoked them to an inferno with small, tight circles while his tongue began to pull from you and thrust back inside.

“Oh, god… oh, fuck, Daryl… I’m —” Breathless? Helpless? Seeing stars? On the edge? All of the above? Your body filled in the blanks when he hummed, his tongue pressed as deep as it could possibly go, his thumb almost roughly stroking your clit. The orgasm washed over you in crushing waves. You couldn’t even manage his name, let alone any other sound. Your jaw just hung open, your eyes clenched so tightly shut that stars and colors danced behind your lids. Your thighs trembled and pressed against each side of his head. He didn’t seem to mind, not that you were in any place to notice that.

When you finally began to become aware of yourself again, he was removing his hand to replace it on your hip, his tongue lapping loudly at the nectar still spilling from each pulsing aftershock of your climax.

By the time he had finished, rising to sit back on his heels, the entire lower half of his face glistened with your juices. He showed no shame in using his tongue to clean what he could reach, wiping the rest on the back of his hand, only to lick that off as well.

“Jesus,” you whispered. Your voice shook almost as hard as everything else. Your body felt like it wasn’t yours anymore, you were still floating somewhere in post orgasmic bliss even as your limbs followed your commands to reach for him. He took mercy on you and dropped down to brace himself above you with a hand on either side of your head.

You stared at his smirking lips for a moment before moving your heavy-lidded gaze to his eyes. Smug as he was, there was barely any of that pretty blue left around the lust that resided there. It seemed both of you had foregone your insecurities to become lost in one another.

The knot of desire that was forming below where your baby kicked was making your fingers clumsy. They brushed over the flesh of his stomach with each fumbled attempt to undo his belt. The muscles there twitched each time your skin ghosted over his own, his breaths stuttering. His restraint was flagging.

With a whine of pure frustration, you dropped your hands to the sheets and rolled your hips against him. He took the hint.

Daryl backed off the mattress and deftly opened his belt and zipper, sliding his pants and underwear down before kicking them aside. What neither he nor you expected was how quickly you were able to move to the edge of the mattress with only minor discomfort from the stitches and dizziness from the concussion. One hand landed on his hip while the other wrapped around his cock, your mouth practically watering.

The archer made a noise deep in his chest, a growl that went straight to your cunt like a spark of electricity. He was already hard, heavy in your hand. No kitten licks or teasing strokes, you took him straight into your mouth, using your hand on his hip to drag him forward.

A grunt punched from his throat, his hand going to your hair. It wasn’t the first time you’d sucked him off. You already knew how difficult it was to accommodate him. Forcing your throat to relax, you let the tears come, knowing they would. Your hand stayed around the length you couldn’t fit.

You’d have him in a frenzy in mere moments. If it was possible to smirk up at him, you would have. Instead, you blinked at him from beneath your lashes, watching with smug satisfaction as his head fell back when you slid him nearly out of your mouth, your hand chasing your lips. Hollowing your cheeks and pressing your lips firmly against the silky flesh, you set a rhythm, secretly hoping he’d let you finish him off that way. You’d only tasted him twice and it was addicting. Though, swallowing his seed with the product of aforementioned seed nestled in your belly seemed…odd.

Fuck. That sucked.

Maybe he could get off on your tits. That’d be hot.

What were you doing? You were missing the best parts. His other hand had joined the first in your hair while his hips twitched and jerked with the effort of not fucking into your mouth. He was already bumping the back of your throat, couldn’t go much deeper than that. Still, the thought of him using you in such a way had you pressing your thighs together, wetness dripping onto the sheets below.

“Goddamn, Y/N…” Daryl groaned, looking down to meet your eyes. Was there even any blue left in his? His right hand left your hair so he could thumb away the tears at the corner of your eye, his jaw clenched and visibly twitching. “Stop. Stop, stop, stop.” You pouted when he pulled his hips back, a string of saliva connecting your bottom lip to the swollen head of his cock. “Lay back. Now.”

You wiped your mouth, crawling backwards but only making it halfway up the mattress before he was stalking up the length of your body like a predator, pressing himself between your legs while careful to keep any weight off your belly. No words or kisses were shared as he entered you, bottoming out in one swift, hard thrust. He began pounding into you immediately, skin slapping so loudly that it was certain to be heard downstairs. Your hands scrambled for purchase, settling for a tight grip on his ribs.

“Oh, fuck, right there!” You moaned looking down to where he was pistoning in and out of you, splitting you open, not just your body but your mind and soul. You could barely see over the mound of your belly but it was enough to make you clench around him, your third orgasm already building. “Shit, Daryl, I’m gonna cum.”

And just like that, he stilled, the pleasure ebbing away so quickly that it brought tears to your eyes. He was watching you, wearing an expression you’d never seen on him before; soft and curious and warm. Loving?

Daryl lowered to his elbows, rubbing his nose against yours while kissing you in quick, soft brushes of his lips. You felt a whine become trapped in your throat.

“Daryl?” You whispered. He shushed you quietly, rolling his hips forward, his back arching to push deep, his tip bumping your limit. You gasped at the sensation, forcing your eyes to remain open and focused. A moment passed before he repeated the motion, accompanying it with a kiss so gentle that you could hardly believe it was coming from him.

Your hands traveled along his back, fingertips merely whispering across the raised scars. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even seem to notice. The next deep thrust forced a gasp from you, your head briefly tilting back to press into the mattress while your mouth fell open. The archer took advantage and pressed a kiss to the middle of your throat, his mouth catching your bottom lip when you lowered your head again.

You thought you might die. The amount of time he took between thrusts was agonizing, but just enough to keep the heat in your belly simmering. “Daryl, please. I need…”

“Easy.” He kissed the apple of your cheek, then your jaw. “Gonna getcha there. Gonna take care’a ya.” You knew, in that moment, that he didn’t just mean then, sexually. There was so much more behind the words, even if he didn’t mean for you to catch it. He should’ve known better.

You hummed, giving yourself over to the pleasure. Daryl moved his mouth along your neck, leaving sloppy, wet kisses while his left hand carved a path from your breast down to your belly, splaying his fingers open over the taut skin. It was instantaneous, your hand lowering to lie on top of his.

“Please.” You breathed, your free hand curving around the back of his neck to try and pull him closer. “Please, please.” You began canting your hips up to meet his, your release buzzing in your veins, just under your skin and ready to overwhelm.

“S’gonna feel real good. Just a lil’ longer.”

You whimpered, yearning for his mouth on your breasts, his fingers on your clit. “Please. I’m so… I’m so close. I need…” you trailed off, kissing his jaw, then his neck. “Please, Daryl. Touch me.” You sighed when his hand reluctantly left your belly, calloused fingertips creating a fiery tail up your side and against your breast, his mouth gentle on the soft swell. “Yes, mmm, feels so good.”

You felt him twitch inside you with an unintentional jerk of his hips. He was close too, try as he may to continue drawing it out, to continue savoring it.

You whined against the shell of his ear. “Daryl.”

“S’alright. Let go.” His pace increased minutely while remaining calm and deep. His hand ceased teasing your nipple and traveled down between your bodies, his middle finger pressing against your clit. With the grunts and whimpers unabashedly flowing from his mouth, it didn’t take your climax long to tear through you.

You knew you were crying out, but it sounded foreign. Muted. You were surrounded by Daryl, his warmth and sounds and movements. Even though your own blissful haze, you felt him trembling, and heard him shout. The contractions of your inner walls milked and milked, draining every drop of his spend to pull it even further within you. You were grounded by him, yet the two of you were suspended together, thriving off the waves the other was riding.

He continued to fuck you through your orgasm, prolonging each pulse of his own. He only fell still once your body melted below him. The archer’s forehead fell softly against yours, tired but satisfied blue eyes searching your own for any signs of discomfort.

Panting harshly, you brought a shaky hand to his cheek, smiling softly when he closed his eyes and leaned into the touch.

“I love you.” You hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but his closeness, the overwhelming safety, the feel of him softening inside of you. It just felt so…right. How could you not tell him?

His eyes opened slowly, wet and shining, but no tears were allowed to fall. His expression shattered your heart. It wasn’t rejection, but reluctant acceptance. He lifted his head and looked away.

He was going to run. The intimacy you had shared with him should have been enough, but you just had to fuck it up. Just had to open your mouth.

There was no going back now.

“Daryl. Daryl, look at me.” He was slow to follow through, but he did, unable to hold your gaze but he was trying. “I love you. I love our Thumper and I love you.”

After a moment, his expression crumbled and he turned his head away again.

“Ya shouldn’t.”

Daryl didn’t run. In fact, he had moved off of you and lifted you up to position you correctly on the pillows. You were certain he’d leave then. When he rounded the bed, he grabbed his pants and underwear to quickly slip them on before lifting the blankets to crawl in beside you.

He didn’t speak, not a word while pulling you into him, your back against his chest. His hand went straight to your belly, thumb stroking back and forth.

The silence felt suffocating and you wrestled with the urge to apologize. Apologize for what? Loving him? Why would you apologize for that? You wouldn’t. No matter his flawed reasoning as to why you shouldn’t love him, whatever it may have been.

You remembered the book you had seen in his bag. Was he afraid he would hurt you? Hurt the baby? Maybe he didn’t see it, but you did. He’d never hurt either of you. Daryl was brash and rude and sometimes just unreasonably angry, but you knew his hands would never touch you with the intention of harming you. You knew that he would struggle with even punishing little Thumper, reprimanding for bad behavior in the way a parent should. He would be afraid. He was afraid.

And as long as that fear remained dominant, there would be a wall between you that you couldn’t scale.

Or maybe he just didn’t love you like that. He cared for you, of that you were now certain.

You had fucked up by making him privy on the feelings you held for him. He had only started allowing himself to be vulnerable with his own emotions and then you dropped that bomb. You inwardly cursed yourself.

You started when he moved, his hand sliding off your belly, lingering on your hip before pulling away completely. You didn’t turn to him when you heard the shuffle of clothing. He was putting on his shirt and vest, his gun and knife holsters. You knew when he paused, could feel a change in the air and his eyes on you. And then the door opened and closed, leaving you to stare at the crossbow leaning against the wall.

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word-wytch · 8 months

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Don't Stand So Close To Me — Chapter 14

Eddie x Teacher!Reader

Chapter 14/? 18k. Series Masterlist

✏︎ An invitation to The Hideout answers some long burning questions.

✏︎ Series Summary: Forced to move back home to Hawkins after your fiancé cheats on you, you begin to fall in love again with an audacious 20 year old metalhead, only there’s one problem — he’s still in high school and you’re his English teacher.

While you struggle starting over in a place you never thought you would return, Eddie struggles feeling stuck in a place he can’t manage to leave — until you offer to help him. Of all the lessons learned, the most important are the ones you teach each other.

✏︎ Series CW: forbidden romance, slow burn, true love, smut (18+ mdni), internal conflict, student-teacher relationship, 10 year age gap, mutual pining, sexual tension, emotions, drama, angst, character development, happy ending :)

Chapter CW: kissing, heavy petting, jealousy, protective!eddie, drinking, smoking, fluff

Tuesday, December 10th 1985

Winter crept in like a lamb. It nipped at your ankles when you got out of bed, beckoned you to hibernate in the warm cocoon of soft sheets and heavy blankets. The room was a lightless cave, the sky still as dense as midnight. Feet shuffling blindly at the floor to find your slippers, you clicked on the small lamp atop your nightstand to offer some light to your habitat.

Standard routine — making shadows on the wall as you brushed your teeth, emerging out the door to the dark hallway, squinting under the harsh light of your kitchen. Two eggs over easy. Two pieces of toast. One phone that hung to the right of your small kitchen table like an omen as you dipped the crust into the yolks. Looming. Waiting. You swallowed a feeling with your next sip of coffee; flutters that danced down your throat and settled in the pit of your stomach.

By the time you returned to your bedroom, the sky touched your sheer curtains with the palest blue. Your clothing was already laid out neatly on your dresser, poised like soldiers in a row — thick ribbed stockings; plaid wool skirt; stiff white blouse; cream knit sweater.

As you suited up, stripping yourself of warm pajamas to brace the chill of your formal attire, your eyes drifted to an object on your desk. Powder blue and collecting a fair amount of dust; an IBM Selectric II typewriter. It was more or less a decoration now, pushed against the wall to make room for piles of papers in need of grading. Still, you liked the way it looked; cheery against the drab apartment wall, like something a real writer would have.

It was a trusty old thing, still chugging along despite countless college essays hammered into the grey keys. It had been your only company in the wee hours of many mornings such as this one, only then there had not been sleep to separate you from the night before. Sturdy and dependable, it captured your imagination too, letter by black inked letter.

Fastening the buttons of your blouse in a methodical rhythm, you could almost trick yourself into believing it was any other morning, except today there was something else you needed to do before you left, and the clock on your nightstand let you know in glowing red that your window to do so was closing.

Cold linoleum creaked under your stocking feet as you padded into the kitchen, stomach twisting into knots as you approached the phone. If you were going to do this, it had to be now.

Running your finger down the laminated tabs of the well-loved address book on your counter, you flipped to the section labeled “J”. After scanning a dozen hand-written names, you found the one you were looking for. It was a mess of chalky white-out and hasty scribbles. Last name replaced, same with the phone number and address. You weren’t sure why you didn’t just write it all fresh under “P”, perhaps it was something about not wanting to erase the history entirely.

You took a deep breath and snatched the phone off the receiver. Pressing the cold plastic to your ear, you glanced down at the numbers in blue pen and whispered them quietly to yourself as you slowly, hesitantly, clicked them one by one into the cream button pad on the wall.

You stared across the kitchen in sober contemplation of your life choices as the phone rang. Again. And again. And again, until a familiar, groggy voice answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey! Janet!” you greeted brightly, sounding far too awake for 7:06 AM. In your nervous haste, you almost forgot to tell her who was calling.

“Oh… hey there,” came a hesitant voice on the other line, a sharp squeal cut through the static followed by a hush.

“Hey, um, I know it’s like, super early and totally last minute but I wanted to catch you before I left for work. Listen, I’ve had a hell of a week already and I was wondering—and I totally get it if you can’t, but—well I was wondering if you’d be up for going out tonight. Like say around eight-ish?” You bit your lip and grimaced, twisting the gummy cord around your finger.

The pause was filled with the rattling of tiny fists against plastic. “Oh! Well let’s see,” she said in a voice that was suddenly very awake. “The kids will be asleep by then, or at least they should be,” she chuckled, “and Bob doesn’t go to bed till after eleven anyway, so I’m sure he’ll be fine if I escape for a few hours. I mean I’ll check with him but I really don’t see why not.”

It was equally as promising as it was a relief; the excitement that crept through her voice.

“Great! Yeah, I figured you could probably use a night out.”

“Oh gosh, you don’t even know the half of it,” Janet laughed. “So where were you thinking? You wanna just go to Pal-Joeys again?”

Pacing toward the counter, you braced to offer your suggestion. “Actually, I was thinking we could go to The Hideout, I hear there’s a band playing tonight.”

“The Hideout?” she asked through an incredulous smile.

“I know,” you breathed nervously, “it’s not really our um, regular haunt, but that’s kinda why I want to go, you know? Shake things up a bit. Everything’s just been feeling so… routine lately, you know?”

Janet’s sigh was deep and heavy. “Oh trust me, I know.” A bright coo crackled through the telephone line.

“Like, I kind of want to just…” you coiled your finger deeper into the phone cord, glancing at the glaring red clock above the stove, “I dunno…pretend to be somebody else for a change.”

“You know,” she started, a quiet mischief creeping into her voice, “I could really stand to be somebody else for a night too.”

You paused in your pacing as a smile cracked across your face. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Gosh, do you know your birthday was the last time I went out? Seriously! And before that I don’t even remember. Sometimes I look around and it’s like, man I used to be fun. You remember when I was fun, right?”

You chuckled, drifting back to memories of truths and dares, of creeping down her dark basement steps with freshly painted toes. “You still are fun, Janet.”

“Well maybe you can help remind me because sometimes I look in the mirror and I swear I don’t even recognize myself. Really! I swear I see my mother more and more and that’s what’s really terrifying.”

“You mean you don’t see Bloody Mary anymore?”

Janet’s cackle would have woken the whole house had it not been wide awake and eating Cheerios already. “No that’s just at my parents’ house, remember?”

You snorted, leaning back against the counter. “I think we screamed so loud we woke the neighbors. I swear that bathroom is haunted.”

“That’s what I’ve always said! You feel like you’re being watched, right? My parents still don’t believe me. Oh well, not my problem anymore.”

You laughed, the knot in your belly releasing slightly before you glanced at the clock again, 7:13. “Crap, I’ve gotta get going. So I’ll see you at eight tonight? At The Hideout?”

“Yeah, should be fine. I’ll call you if anything changes. Ah!” she squealed, “I can’t wait.”

“Glad you’re excited,” you chuckled, gripping the smooth plastic. “Ok, see you later.”

“Bye now!”

You hung the phone back on the receiver and stood in the blaring silence of your kitchen, frozen by the impact of your choices. It was real now. In a matter of about thirteen hours you would be getting in your car, driving down a dark road, and parking it at a seedy bar where you would see Eddie for the first time in public. Your feet felt glued to the floor, but as the clock blinked to 7:15, you willed them to move.

Before taking the dark road that led to a seedy bar, you would first need to get in your car and take another road — to work.

You cursed the cold. Cursed it as you hurried across the parking lot to find your car covered in fractals of frost. Cursed it vehemently as you worked the glass with your feeble plastic scraper, shaving holes just big enough to see out of your dashboard and rear window as the clock on your wrist ticked on minute by precious minute. You cursed it audibly when you turned the key and the engine whirred, and whined, and refused to turn over. It must have heard you, because after the fifth time of stomping on the brake and snapping your wrist forward, the engine roared to life.

You rode in on a wave; a daze like the fog that escaped your lungs in shallow breaths. The sun rose above the frozen farmlands, casting its golden-pink light across the empty fields. Out here the roads stretched on for miles. Flat and straight, with little variance in elevation. There was nowhere to look but straight ahead. No curves to surprise you, just you and the rumble of the salt-dusted road, bumping along in silence as an anxious fog rolled across the landscape of your mind.

A sea of students swept you through the front doors of Hawkins High and into the bustling office. Amidst the flurry of ringing phones and voices settling into the cadence of their roles, you grabbed your punch card and stamped the date and time in line with the rest. Pushing the metal handle of the heavy glass door, you exited the humming reprieve of the office and into the din of the main hall. Your boots made hollow clicks against the glossy tile, wind at your face as you marched forward, dodging roughhousing students and hall monitors rushing toward them.

Goodness was a mantle. A strap that dug into your shoulder; heavy with books, and papers, and responsibility. You wedged your thumb beneath it, shrugging it up onto the padded wool collar of your coat as you strode on, vision locked ahead as chaos swirled around you.

Your mug left a ring on the big desk; a remnant from where you’d sloshed it coming down the hall. You’d tried to be careful; slow and deliberate in your pacing when you left the teachers lounge with it, but when a blur of wild curls drew your gaze, your footing faltered. At least you missed your shoes.

Coat hung on its solitary hook and grade book stationed at the center of the desk, you took your place in front of it. Clutching your clipboard, you glanced across the rows of desks, down at the rows of names, beside the rows of boxes that your green pen would fill with neat little P’s and A’s like it did every day. Bell after bell, swipe after swipe of your eraser at the board, the fresh sticks of chalk dwindled to nubs. Question after question, the patience in your voice grew thin.

Between the bells at the top of fourth period, you stood poised like a sentinel outside the door to your classroom. Arms folded across your knit sweater, you sighed, shifting your weight back and forth between your tired feet, offering gentle smiles as your students filed through the threshold of the door. You smelled him before you saw him; the waft of leather and cigarettes with notes of shampoo more prominent than usual.

Against the flow of traffic, Eddie Munson brought his salt-licked combat boots to a halt in front of you. Thumb hooked under the heavy strap of his backpack, he offered you a smile so broad it crinkled the corners of his eyes and made your knees want to give.

You tightened your arms around your sweater, over the hard plastic of your faculty lanyard, and breathed a shy, girlish greeting. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he mimicked, shifting his weight with a less than subtle restlessness as his dark eyes drank you in. They darted back and forth between yours, plush lips parted and primed with words. You felt them brimming impatiently behind his eyes, saw them in the pink flash of his tongue as it darted out to wet his lips.

Out here in the bustling hallway, with eyes that watched and voices that echoed off the polished tile, Eddie edged a bold foot closer, dove in, and ghosted the shell of your ear with his burning question.

“Will I see you tonight?”

The words were a low, hot rumble — rippling from your ear down your spine, pooling deep in your belly. His heat thawed your shoulder as he hovered there, lingering for each aching second it took you to eke out your response.

“Yeah,” you whispered into his curls.

Pulling back with a blinding grin, he tipped his head and ducked into the door of your classroom.

The slam of a locker made you jump. Arms crossed to shield your pounding heart, you stood there in the middle of it all, swimming in a sea of passing bodies, struggling to keep your head above the waves. It surged with images of a lighted stage, of bottles, and tables, and a dark corner for both of you to hide in. The bell echoed loudly down the hall, shrill enough to wake you from the dream you were surely having. Donning your mask, you took a deep breath and dove in, shutting the door behind you.

______

Eddie swung open the heavy back doors to his van, piercing the darkness with the dull yellow overhead light. Gravel crunched under his boots as he leaned in to grab the first amp from the stack, like a pile of black Christmas presents awaiting unwrapping. The night air bit at his fingers, stars twinkling in the patches where the clouds gave way above the tree line. Tightening his grip around the thick gummy handle, he hoisted it and followed the pale path the moon offered out of the side parking lot toward the patio behind The Hideout.

It wasn’t much; a stout fence in dire need of a paint job that caged in a few meager picnic tables. They still had umbrellas in the middle, wrapped tightly like mummies for the winter. He knew the back door would be open, it always was. Turning the weathered knob with his free hand, he welcomed the heat that wafted toward him. He could almost say he welcomed the piss smell coming from the bathrooms as his heavy boots thumped down the dark linoleum hallway, but that would be a stretch. Accustomed was a better word. Familiar was a better word.

Stale beer and cigarettes soon drowned it out as he entered the dimly lit bar, stopping to plunk the heavy amp down to his left on the stage, which was little more than a raised platform painted black. The thud drew the attention of the five usual suspects at the bar, and Eddie wondered which one of them was responsible for playing “Free Bird” on the jukebox.

Bill raised his hand, tipping his baseball cap back in a friendly nod as his fingers splayed. “‘Ey, Eddie!”

He returned the gesture of a single raised hand and flashed a smile before turning down the hall again. Eddie took a deep breath at the door to calm his pounding heart before pressing it open. He couldn’t believe he had been crazy enough to suggest something like this. That soon enough, you would be perched atop one of those rickety stools at a tall, sticky table, watching his every move, listening to his every note. The chill of the night air was a welcome thing, sobering and distracting from the heat that was creeping up the collar of his thick, leather coat. As the gravel crunched under his boots again, headlights blinded his vision.

He could hear the bass pounding from the outside of the small sedan as it rolled up beside his van, followed promptly by another. After a moment of squinting, the headlights shut off with the rumble of the engine, leaving him in the darkness once again. Seatbelts clicked and laughter emerged from the open doors as his friends tumbled out into the parking lot.

“What the fuck took you guys so long? We left at the same time,” Eddie groused.

Dave lumbered over and sighed, a smirk playing on his broad features in the moonlight. “Jeff had to take a shit and he parked me in.”

Jeff rolled his eyes, swinging the door shut with a huff as Gareth laughed into the night air.

Eddie sighed, glancing toward the tall stack of amps and drum heads sitting backlit in the rear of his van. “Ok, well we’ve got like forty minutes to get our shit together so start hauling.”

Dave groaned, cracking his back with a twist of his hefty torso. “Ugh, can you at least let me hit this doob before you put me to work?”

On any other night, Eddie would have welcomed the suggestion, but his nerves were traveling to his hands now and he itched to move them. “Dude, it takes us like an hour to set up, we don’t have time right now. We can smoke after we get this shit on stage.”

Jeff quirked his brows suspiciously, “Dude, since when do you care that we’re on time for anything?”

“Yeah seriously, we’re late like every week,” Gareth added.

Eddie balked, searching for the answer in the treeline, one that excluded you. “It just—if we’re ever gonna play anywhere else besides here we’re gonna have to start getting our shit together.”

There was a lukewarm pause as the band considered his answer. By the looks on their faces, Eddie wasn’t entirely sure if they bought it, but it was the best he could come up with and the statement was true. Dave broke the silence with an exasperated sigh. “Come on. I’ve been jonesing since we got to Gareth’s. His mom is so anal we can’t even smoke outside.”

“That’s ‘cause you reek when you come back in,” Gareth defended.

“At least I don’t reek of ass like you,” Dave chortled.

Jeff didn’t miss a beat. “That’s debatable.”

Gareth’s cackle wafted into the frigid air as he pointed a pale finger at Dave.

“You wanna find out the hard way?” Dave’s eyes glimmered wildly as he hooked an arm around Gareth’s shoulders, locking him into a power noogie position.

Gravel shuffled under their stumbling feet. “Let go of me you asshole,” Gareth gritted through a strangled laugh. Jeff only egged them on, howling uproariously like he had tickets to the show.

Eddie dragged his hands down his face with a deep, seething breath as Dave ground his thick knuckles into Gareth’s mop of hair, kicking up rocks and pivoting as Gareth attempted to pry away. This was his circus, his monkeys, and he would have to step up and be the ring leader if they were going to take the stage at all tonight. “CUT IT OUT!” he hollered.

Dave paused, arm still locked around Gareth’s neck. “Come on, we’re just having a little fun. You remember fun, right?”

Gareth groaned weakly, looking up at Eddie with pathetic eyes. “Who’s we?” he choked.

Eddie’s expression didn’t budge from its scowl. With a roll of his eyes and a resigned huff, Dave released his arm and Gareth stumbled backward, gasping. “Fine, captain killjoy.”

A heavy plume of fog left his nostrils as Eddie stormed toward the back of his van, weaving his arm through a thick ring of cables to rest on his shoulder before hoisting another amp from the stack. Gravel shuffled behind him as the others followed suit.

You were risking a lot to come here. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint you.

______

The silence gnawed at you, filled you with an itching discomfort as you thumbed your dresser knobs. Staring into your open shirt drawer, you faced off with your biggest decision yet — what to wear tonight.

The chasm of options laid before you in neat, folded rows. An excavation site of cardigans, and turtle necks, and things you hadn’t unearthed in years. You ran your fingers through the layers of folded cotton, peeling them back with deep consideration.

Nagging thoughts crept in like whispers over the softly ticking clock, pinball plunger pulled and ready to fire. With a determined huff, you stepped back from your dresser and padded down the hallway, out into the living room.

Your skirt pooled around your stocking feet as you crouched down in front of the long wooden cabinet that housed your records. Fingers dancing over the worn cardboard spines, you flipped them softly forward as you perused one by one, walking steadily until one of them fell open to a scene; a painting of a man hunched over with sticks tied to his back that hung on a wall of peeling paper. You paused, pulling it out to scan the track list. This would do.

Placing the the record softly on the felt pad, you lowered the needle to the ridges, and with the press of a button, a crackle roused the room.

Hey hey momma said the way you move

Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove

A smile, like a crocus peeking up from the snow, bloomed across your face. You cranked the volume, wrapping yourself in a sound that would carry to your bedroom.

Your fingers found the tiny metal tab behind your waist, and with a downward tug of the zipper, your wool skirt became a puddle on the floor. Peeling back the layers, your tight sweater joined it in a heap, your thick stockings lay deflated on the pile, the buttons of your stiff blouse worked free until it was a crumpled afterthought. The chill that kissed your skin was a welcome thing. Goosebumps raised like the current flowing through you as your near-naked silhouette danced across the wall to approach the open drawer once more.

Emboldened with a curious delight, you began to dig. Past the crust of crisp blouses, beneath the squishy mid-layer of cardigans, down into the sub-layer of camisoles and tees, deeper and deeper until finally your fingers made purchase with a soft treasure.

It fell open as you unearthed it, the solid black gone grey from washing, the white letters and arched angel cracked and faded: Led Zeppelin — United States of America 1977.

It happened on a Sunday in April, which began as most Sundays did, with you hunched over your powder blue typewriter in a race between the clock and the keys. You had it down to a science. At the speed you were typing, a rough draft could be finished by dinner, and the final could be churned out by cutting into a few hours of your sleep. A worthy sacrifice, as your final grade was on the finish line. This, like countless others, was how you planned to spend your day — until your roommate found you.

You remembered the way she leaned against the wooden frame of your bunk bed, amused, watching the paper you hammered with black-inked letters grow longer and longer. Finally she spilled it; as of an hour ago, she was down one boyfriend and up one ticket, and now it had your name on it. When she dangled it between you and the tidy rows of text, your hands froze over the keys.

You eyed the invitation — temptation printed on a neat, orange strip. Free admission, at a price.

The show was sold out. It had been for a long time.

Your class was at 9:00 AM tomorrow. A late paper took twenty percent off your grade.

You loved the band dearly, had a bigger crush on Robert Plant than you’d openly admit to anyone. Fights had broken out over tickets nation wide. You had no idea when they would play the states again.

The clock ticked on beside you, the long hand grazed past three. Maybe you could churn out the rest in the next few hours. Maybe the rough draft would be enough. But the realist in you knew neither would happen if you seized the ticket. Your grade would never recover, your streak of straight As you’d kept since grade school would come to an end. Your GPA would dip for the semester.

On April 17th, 1977, you left your paper sitting unfinished in the typewriter to see Led Zeppelin play Market Square Arena. You didn’t know it then, but it was the last time they ever would.

On April 18th at 9:00 AM, you showed up to class with empty hands and a brand new shirt.

You had altered your souvenir; taken scissors to the collar so that it draped off your shoulder. Time and your washing machine had made Swiss cheese of the bottom hem, so you cropped it. You admired the handiwork as it draped off you now, the way the black strap of your bra peeked out from the slope of your shoulder like a coy secret.

Pulling open the lower drawer—opened far less frequently than you would like—your knuckles grazed the bottom of the smooth wood interior as you peeled back the layers of folded denim. A crease of black jumped out from the sea of blue, and you examined it. It had a nice worn-in fade for only having lived in your dresser a few years, a flatteringly high waist, and most importantly, tapered legs that could easily be tucked into the tall, black boots sitting in the back of your closet. Your bare legs welcomed the barrier against the chill, and you caught a glance at your rear as you hiked them snugly upward. They hugged you in all the right places, as the music electrified the air, you transformed.

A vision of you — sprawled across a blanket on the quad with your face in a book. Making shadows on your dorm room wall while transmuting fantasies to black-inked pages. Strolling down a lamp-lit street, face to the stars, fueling your wild imagination. Here, in your reflection, the ghost of you looked back.

You painted her darker than normal, swapping the usual chapstick for a deep, dusty red exhumed from the bottom of your makeup bag. Eyes smoked and cheeks dusted, you drew out the beauty from angles of your face with every stroke.

Coat donned and purse in hand, you paused at the front door, glancing over your shoulder, down the hallway, toward your coffee table piled with papers. There was another ghost of you here — tucked into her slippers and cozy robe with the voices from the television as her only company, flicking her green grading pen down rows of questions.

On December 10th, 1985, you left the papers sitting on your coffee table to see Corroded Coffin play The Hideout. With a decided twist of the handle, you pushed out into the cold night air.

Light pooled in sparse puddles as your boots echoed off the rough pavement. Stillness whispered on the wind as crisp remnants of fall scuttled across the asphalt. The apartments behind you were a tapestry of glowing squares, pictures of the rest of Hawkins tucking into their slippers and washing their dishes, grabbing their blankets and turning on their televisions.

You grabbed your keys and unlocked your car, and when it roared to life with a swift flick of your wrist, a strange exhilaration coursed through you.

It rose like the moon over the barren fields, thrumming in your chest, spreading to your limbs, alight with something wild and teeming as you drove past rows of lighted windows—vignettes of tired routine—and stopped at the same red sign you did this morning. Your fingers twitched over the turn signal leaver — an impulse to flick up, to turn right, to settle into the familiar rhythm of your muscle memory. This time you pressed down, pressed your foot to the gas, and cranked the wheel left.

Cruising boldly down the straight and narrow road, fields and farmland faded in your rearview mirror and soon there were trees on the horizon; dense and dark. Gripping the wheel as the silhouette closed in, the corners of your mouth drew upward, pulled by a wild, awakened force. Headlights illuminated pale, naked limbs. Eyes beamed back at you from the shadows. You cranked the volume on your stereo, and as you braced for your first bend, something deep within you—dormant and restless—howled.

______

The water was so cold it burned. Eddie cursed the old plumbing, instantly regretting having the decency to wash his hands in the first place. Soap just barely rinsed, he twisted the lime-scaled handles and shut it off. With a trembling hand, he grabbed one of the last paper towels. Gareth’s kick drum echoed down the narrow hallway, thundering just like his chest. He glanced at his watch again. 7:56.

Eddie took a ragged breath, chucking the crumpled paper at the overflowing trash bin in the corner. It bounced dejectedly off the wall and onto the dirty tile. With a deadpan glare, he left it where it lay. Hands barely dry, he felt for the flask in his pocket. Screwing the tiny cap and flicking it open, he tipped it back. Eddie welcomed the burn. It chased down his throat and settled in his stomach with a warmth that radiated, instantly numbing his nerves.

Meeting his own eyes in the tiny, smudged mirror, he gave himself a final glance over. His curls were holding; fresh and clean from this morning, fluffed by the icy wind in the trips from van to stage.

Here, in the dingy confines of The Hideout, words like freak and loser lost their stick. Words he could shake like a dog at the door. He’d fashioned them like armor in the daytime; a shield in hallways and in lunch lines. What was stickier were feelings. The feelings that came with chewed pens and answers left blank. The feeling of lectures slipping like a sieve through his brain. The feeling of stares and stifled laughter, of staring numbly at the board, of filling the silence with bullshit instead of an answer.

Microphone feedback squeaked outside. The dull, heavy walk of a bassline. Laughter. Cymbals. That kick drum again. Eddie took another swig, searing the flutters in his stomach.

He wanted to be good for you. Seen under stage lights instead of fluorescents.

Good like an answer he knew.

You saw the sign first, peeking from behind the trees — simple, effective, and yellowed with time. The Hideout: a hole in the woods. Tucked around the bend you now braced against, it sat like a neon beacon. The chipped, grey exterior faded into the shadows, leaving only the holy glow of Budweiser and Miller Lite signs to guide you to the promised land.

Pulling into a spot along the narrow parking strip, you faced off with your destination. Looming and real. Frozen as reality stared back at you in the glare of your blinding headlights, you gripped the steering wheel and looked around. There were a few other cars beside you, but none of them Janet’s. Around the left of the building there appeared to be more parking, and the stout silhouette of a two-tone van you did know the owner of. Pinballs hammered in your chest.

When you arrange a time to meet someone, you are always punctual. Perhaps a life organized by bells on timers trained you to be this way, but the thought of entering alone filled you with dread, and part of you wondered whether you should wait out here for her. Your hands were starting to shake, and not from the cold.

The list of crazy things you had done in your life was a laughably short one, but this made the top by a long shot. As you turned the radio down and sat in the wake of your rumbling engine, the questions grew louder. Serious questions about where you thought this night would go, about where you wanted it to go and if you would truly go there.

Suddenly your headlights felt too bright, like a beacon drawing eyes from the woods, or even more terrifying, eyes from the building. You promptly flicked them off and waited, staring dead ahead at the chipped grey siding. It was fine. You were fine. At least you could no longer see your breath. You could hide here as long as you wanted.

“Alright man, it’s doob o’clock,” Dave said with a satisfied stretch as he took in the stage setup.

Eddie ripped another frantically scribbled setlist out of his spiral notebook and shoved it at him. “No it’s eight fifteen and we still need to do soundcheck,” Eddie scathed, glancing at the door. “You can start by plugging your mic in, Jesus Christ.”

Dave huffed annoyedly through his nose, squatting down to find the cord with exaggerated difficulty. “Yes sir,” he mocked. Eddie shot back a testing glare. “Dude, what’s up with you tonight? You’ve been on one since Gareth’s.”

“Yeah, you ok man?” asked Jeff.

The knots tightened in his stomach as the attention of all three of them closed in around him. “Just—let’s just get our shit together…please,” he deflected.

Glancing around frantically, you wondered, for the hundredth time, where the hell Janet was. You couldn’t be that surprised that a woman with two small children was late, but your exhaust was making a smokescreen of the parking strip, and you wondered if anyone inside had noticed, if anyone could hear the low rumble of your engine and questioned why this strange woman was idling. With an irritated sigh, you turned the key, leaving you in deafening silence and leeching cold. You could hear your breathing now, your pounding heart, the squeaking of leather as you shifted in your seat. What one of the kids got sick? What if she called after you left?

What if she isn’t coming?

Eddie’s eyes lingered at the door as he clicked the pedals with his feet, plucking a soft, testing melody into the mic. His watch glared under the stage lights, confidence fleeting with every minute that ticked by. Gareth snapped his foot petal with a deep thud. Dave walked out a bassline before squealing feedback made the whole bar flinch.

The strum of a chord made you jump. Booming and electric, you heard it through the walls. They were starting. They were starting and you weren’t there. Gripping the steering wheel, you tossed your head back in an anguished sigh. You sure as hell weren’t going to stand him up. As you glanced around the parking lot one last desperate time, the bitter conclusion rose like bile — you may have to do this alone. Seatbelt clicking under your gloved thumb, you steeled yourself for the cold, for the eyes of strangers in a strange new place. With a decided pull of the handle, the door opened to the frigid night air, and you emerged from the heat into the unknown.

You met your reflection in the glass of the entrance as your hand gripped the weathered knob. Pinballs fired off at lightning speed — a jackpot multi-ball bonanza. Checking your hair one last time with eyes locked on your own, you turned the handle with a determined sigh.

A bell dinged above your head, and winter’s chill gusted in on your heels.

The whole room turned at once — at you. You, from the front of the classroom. You, from behind the big desk. You, in the doorway of The Hideout. Across a dark sea of scattered tables, poised on an altar of sound and light, Eddie Munson smiled at you — brighter than all of it.

The door fell shut behind you. Hot under the gaze of what seemed like the entire bar, it suddenly felt like you were the one on stage. Standing there like a deer in headlights in your long wool coat and clean black boots, you surely must have looked as out of place as you felt. Shoulders rolling back to counter your thrumming nerves, your boots left the rug and found the tacky linoleum as you approached the bar that lined the left wall.

Eddie busied his shaking hands with tapping another test melody into his mic, pausing when he heard a voice over his right shoulder.

“Is that…?” Jeff pointed toward the back of your head.

Gareth’s eyes lit up in recognition. Dave peered over with a shit-eating grin. “Did you invite her?” he mouthed.

Eddie’s face betrayed him, burning like it did under the fluorescents. Burning to greet you at the bar, for the liberty to patronize it, to offer you something more than his aching gaze.

“No,” Eddie lied, “but I may have told her we play here on Tuesdays.” He struck the strings with the weight of his frustration, drowning out any further questions with the opening chords to the first song on the setlist. The others took their cue with chuckles and shaking heads. Heart pounding like the kick drum behind him, Eddie’s fingers found the frets, tugging a muscle memory from deep within as his eyes stayed fixed on you.

There was an older man in a sweatshirt behind the bar. The owner, you figured, by the way he was standing — arms crossed, stance wide, unafraid to take up space. By the way he was looking at you, like he wondered what would drive a new face to his establishment on a random Tuesday night in December. From the glances the others passed between them, the feeling seemed unanimous.

“How can I help you?” he half shouted against the chugging chords, leaning against the bar with a curious smile.

You braced with your brightest grin, placing your gloved hands down flat on the waxy bar. “Hi! Yes—um,” you scanned the selection under the neon lights, the liquor bottles of all shapes and sizes reflected in the dirty mirror behind them. The bar back was tightly cluttered with old stickers and hand-written notes taped behind the cash register, with half-empty bottles of bitters and bobble heads nodding to the palpable vibration. Having no interest in standing there awkwardly while he fixed you a cocktail, you selected a bottle of Coors.

He nodded and ducked to open the steel, magnet-plastered fridge beneath the cash register.

Your gaze, like a magnet, drew back to the stage. It was all you could do just to watch him — the way his curls fell gently at his cheek, the way they bounced with every strum. There was a tension lingering just under the curve of his lashes. The music was fast and loud, purely instrumental. You recognized nothing about it but the genre. Head dipped in concentration as his left hand tapped a frantic melody into the frets, he raised his eyes bravely to meet yours.

He wasn’t the only man staring. It was hard to ignore; the man in the baseball cap to your right as you stared right through his line of sight. You pinched off your gloves and shoved them in your pockets to occupy your hands.

A bottle cap plinked against the bar top. “Two bucks,” the owner stated, slinging a towel over his shoulder.

You fished through your purse, feeling those eyes on you as you opened your wallet, as you slid the bills right under his gaze across the waxy counter. You snatched the cold bottle and raised it to your lips. Turning over your shoulder, your eyes clung to Eddie on stage, to his tendons as they flexed to pick a rhythm at the strings. His was gaze a soft and yearning thing, a contrast to the sharp and punchy chords that left his fingers.

“You know these guys?” the man in the cap asked finally, pointing to the stage. Your eyes shot toward him in surprise, lips still pursed at the bottle. He had that working man sort of look. Average features, subtle crows feet, a whisper of sandy stubble across his strong jaw. His grey-blue eyes were gentle, but brimming with a heated curiosity.

You used the much needed swig to buy yourself a second. Did you? The cold, bready fizz sparkled down your throat. You supposed you didn’t have to specify how you were acquainted. “Yeah,” you answered simply, plugging your mouth with the bottle like a dam.

A bell rattled behind you. Grateful for any disruption, you whipped around quickly to break the connection. Janet lit up as soon as she saw you, a mixture of relief and apology playing out on her face as she strode across the room. Tight blonde curls emerged from her lowering leopard print hood. “Oh my god I’m so sorry,” she lamented, arms opening to embrace you.

Relief washed through you like a warm buzz. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it!” you said as your nose took a dive in her soft, perfumed curls.

“Sarah would not stop crying, it took forever for me to finally get her to sleep. I swear babies have a sixth sense, they always know when you have fun plans,” she said through a laugh. Her lashes were long and thick with mascara, eyeshadow a solid sky blue so vibrant that it popped even in the dim neon glow.

Janet ordered a margarita. There was nothing new to speak of, really, over the electric roar of the band, but you tried to listen. Intently, you tried to listen to the new words her son was saying, to offer some lukewarm update about how work was going, but your eyes had their own agenda.

The rolled cuffs of Eddie’s tight, acid-washed jeans bunched against the pull tabs of his boots as he tapped the rhythm with his heel. There was no jacket for him to strain against, no flannel to constrict him, no sleeves on his T-shirt in December. It was more than you’d seen of him yet. Ink flexed with each generous swell of his bicep, and with every attack, he would flash you his ribs through the hand-hacked holes.

“Mmm,” Janet mumbled, sipping off the top of the very full, salt-rimmed rocks glass. “Come on, let’s get cozy,” she said with a wink and gestured toward the tables. The air was thick with smoke wafting from the bikers at the bar. Eddie tapped out another lick and peered through a few stray curls as you followed her across the room to a high top, back and center.

You wanted to be closer. Close enough to see the umber of his eyes, the ridges of his knuckles as they plucked the strings. There were a few shorter tables down in front, back about five feet from the stage. But as the beams of light bounced off the glossy wood and over the seats in blinding white, you were grateful for the shadows ten feet would afford you.

Janet stripped off her coat to reveal a tight black dress with long sleeves and sequined, padded shoulders. It hugged just above the knees of her sheer hose, punctuated with sharp ankle boots.

“Look at you all dressed up! You look stunning.” You meant it, she really did.

Janet’s smile was a shy deflection, but hiding just beneath it, a glimmer of belief. “Thanks, this thing’s been sitting in my closet for like a year now. Can you believe it? I just felt like, you know, if I’m going out I’m gonna dress up goddamn it,” she laughed, punctuating with a slap against the table. “We coulda gone to Benny’s, I still woulda worn it.”

You laughed, for the first time since you’d talked to her that morning. Unbuttoning your coat, you let it drape over the metal back of the stool behind you.

“You’re not looking too shabby yourself,” Janet said with a wink before taking a sip.

“Honestly I’ll take any excuse I can get to dress down,” you said with a sheepish huff, propping your elbows on the sticky table before bringing the bottle to your lips.

A nervous crackle wound its way through Eddie’s stomach at the vision of you. You, perched on a stool in a dive bar. You, in jeans and a t-shirt. You, arching forward just enough to grace him with a sliver of your back. It was real — you, here. He soured a note, and those words he shook off came creeping back in as he fumbled through the next lick. But you didn’t seem to notice. You propped your cheek against your knuckles and let the warmth of your eyes usher his doubts away.

When the song came to a ringing conclusion, Janet’s cheer was uninhibited, clapping her hands above her head. It drew eyes from the couple seated at one of the lower tables, from the bikers at the bar, from the band. Your applause was more demure, but you couldn’t mask the brilliance of your smile.

“Thank you, thank you,” Eddie said into the microphone. “Looks like we really have a crowd tonight. Seven drunks.”

The room erupted with hollers and cheers.

The bassist muttered something to the other guitarist and the two shared a laugh, casting their eyes towards you. Suddenly your face grew very hot. Of course they recognized you, Jeff was in your second period class. You anticipated this, and yet it was the realness of it all that shook you — the hard stool beneath you, the stares you could feel as your finger idly traced the cold condensation on the glass. Pinballs fired off at rapid speed. You drowned them with a tip of the bottle.

Eddie shifted, clicking the pedals with his foot. “Ok, so this next one is uh, definitely not an original.” He breathed a laugh into the microphone, glancing up at you — at your shoulders, hunched in shy defense, at your worried brow and downcast gaze. He wished he could reach across the room, lift your chin with his words and draw you from your shell. “Anyway, you’ll uh, probably recognize this one,” he said, to you.

Eddie nodded to the band, counting off silently before they struck a chord together — a low, droning thing, gritty and slow as the bass walked steadily over the foundation. Eddie swayed back and forth, rocking in time with the beat like a march, resting his heavy-lidded gaze on you. Across the divide of scattered seats, you — at the small table, saw him — on the big stage. His nimble fingers struck the chords with an ardent conviction, and the ice in you began to thaw.

Suddenly the beat changed pace. Gareth smacked his drum sticks together to count off, and the first two chords sparked instant recognition. A smile rose up in you — a wild and thrumming thing, radiant and rising until it cracked through.

You knew what was coming. Two chords, quiet taps for a count of sixteen, and then those two chords again, like a one-two punch, booming and building with anticipation. Again, and again, as the energy rose in the room. You caught the wicked glint in his eyes as his hands—those hands that fidgeted and fumbled with dog-eared pages and chewed up pens—wielded power. A surge of electricity swirled through your stomach, crackled because you knew what was next.

Eddie took a deep breath, and opened his mouth.

Generals gathered in their masses

Colors. Warm and bright, tingling like a shockwave from your chest down to your seat.

Just like witches at black masses

In your secret daydreams, you often wondered what his voice sounded like in song.

Evil minds that plot destruction

Tried to guess from his deep hums and brilliant laughter.

Sorcerers of death’s construction

Now, it suspended in the air like a battle cry, reaching out across the chasm of tables and chairs.

In the fields the bodies burning

Surging like a wildfire.

As the war machine keeps turning

Swirling through the darkness like a strange magic.

Death and hatred to mankind

Reaching out like it wanted to touch you.

Poisoning their brainwashed minds

And so you let it.

Oh lord, yeah!

The music rocked and swelled. Like a balm reverberating through the air, it softened the hunch of your shoulders. Like an antidote, it dissolved the knot in your stomach. Like an arrow, it pierced the shell of you.

Janet took a generous sip of her margarita and bobbed her head to the rhythm. You caught her gaze from across the table and shared a laugh, a mutual knowing through squinted eyes and shaking heads that this was, in fact, a Tuesday night in December, and the two of you were here.

As the cold drink warmed your limbs, you became acquainted with the hard curve of the stool beneath you, with the of rings left behind on the glossy table, with the crowded ashtray. Acquainted with the smoke that wafted through the air and the darkness that enveloped you like a blanket. The music settled over the room, and as you settled into that heavy buzz, you started to get the feeling you might actually enjoy yourself tonight.

Janet needed no convincing. Her first margarita went down easy, leaving nothing but the ice and her hot pink lipstick on the rim before they finished their fourth song. When she returned from the bar with one in each hand, she placed the extra in front of you. Her treat, convinced they were better than Pal Joey’s, insisting that you try it even with a few sips still lingering in your bottle.

It surprised you — the balance of lime, and liquor, and something else you couldn’t quite place. It surprised you how it easy it melted the tension in your stomach, how it encouraged you to lean in a little more, to let your shoulders drop.

Eddie noticed it, peeking out from under the coyly dipping collar of your shirt; bare and soft as you leaned against the table — your shoulder. He missed a note. Cursing silently, he glanced down at his fingers and tapped into that deep, subconscious part of his brain again where they knew just where to go. But when he closed his eyes to find it, the image remained painted to his lids — a ripened fruit, tempting but too far to taste. Across it, a stripe of black hazard tape, a trail he itched to follow.

There was a hunger in you, stirring more with every song, with every decadent flash of his pale ribs. He was good. Stadium good. Those nimble fingers tapped the frets, making them sing in a way that made you wish you were wire and wood, looking at you in a way that made you think he wished the same. He stroked the neck of his instrument with a reverent touch, attacked the strings with a holy power, like a wingless angel with a spotlight halo. You whispered a silent prayer, venerating him from your faraway pew in the only way you could — with your eyes.

The animal stirred in its icy den, roused by the warmth of his voice as it stretched across the bar. It stirred in that place you rarely acknowledged, rarely indulged as you considered what other talents his hands might have. You considered the shades of those sighs and swallows he took before painting the air, considered what they might sound like if he showed you. It settled and throbbed in that low, blooming place, and you smothered the feeling with a cross of your legs.

Busying yourself with what remained of your beer, you shifted your shoulders to face him directly, leaning your free arm against the metal back of the stool with an ease that Eddie considered looked almost as good on you as the shirt did. Your lips lingered on the rim of the bottle before parting with a soft pop. He swallowed.

There was a gap between you; a sea of scattered tables and wide open ears and eyes amongst them. What could he possibly say from his position? From a microphone on stage? A thousand words ached on the tip of his tongue and he swallowed them with a sloppy chug of water as the applause bought him a moment to consider.

The white lettering across your chest jumped out at him from the shadows like a bright idea. Eddie swiped droplets from his mouth and turned to his bandmates, bringing them into a huddle as the noise drowned out what he was saying. Whatever it was, after some deliberation, they seemed in agreement about it.

You hadn’t seen Janet like this since the summer between your junior and senior year of college. She was always a happy drunk; talkative and bubbly, spilling over with laughter and the sort of wild enthusiasm that a child at a carnival might have.

“I wanna dance,” she said longingly, glancing toward the stage as she slumped in her seat.

“Maybe we can go to a club next time,” you joked as you downed the remainder of your sweating drink.

The band assumed their positions again. Eddie tapped the pedals with his feet and rolled his shoulders back with a deep, collecting breath. His eyes found yours across the room, brimming with such a longing you wondered anyone else could sense it too. After the longest second, he snapped his head over his shoulder with a steely conviction and nodded off a count before making his attack — the opening riff to Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”.

Your hands shot to your face.

Suddenly Janet perked up, inspired by the catchy rhythm and her own suggestion. “We should dance! Will you dance with me?”

You balked, shrinking down. “There’s like… six people here! I don’t think it’s really that kind of—”

“Oh come on, please? What’s there to lose, huh?”

Oh, only my last remaining shred of dignity in front of my students. But you couldn’t say that. “Janet,” you hissed. “We are not—I can’t—”

Her three margaritas had a different opinion. They reached across the table and grabbed your hand. “Come on, live a little! That’s what we came here to do, right?”

You buried your face in your other. The truth was you wanted to. You wanted a closeup of that smart smirk, of the sweat beading down his temple as he strummed the punchy chords he hand-picked just for you. You wanted the fantasy, the memory, the experience. It was convincing — her pouting pink lips and pleading eyes, almost as convincing as the tequila coursing through your veins. The truth was you left your better judgement at home on the coffee table. To her giddy satisfaction, you surrendered. Dragging you from your seat, she led you to the front of the stage.

Eddie’s smile could have blinded you, even through the shy web of your fingers. Cheers erupted from the bar, from the whole band, as Janet shimmied her sequined shoulders to the beat.

Eddie opened his mouth again, this time with an ardor you could feel in your bones.

You need cooling, baby I’m not fooling

He crouched down to level with your eyes. I’m gonna send ya back to schooling

You lowered your hand to mask the girlish grin that cracked across your face.

Way down inside, honey you need it

They were breathtaking up close — his eyes. Sparkling with an energy you’d never seen before. Rich umber alight with something you couldn’t quite place, too mesmerized by the promise his tongue wove through the air.

I’m gonna give you my love

I’m gonna give you my love… oh!

He straightened with a backward toss of his head, and you found the word you were looking for in the droplets that flung from his curls. Power.

Wanna whole lotta love?

Janet—having an absolute field day over the spectacle—offered you her hand like she wanted to tango. Freeing your face with a brave sigh, you accepted with a slap of your palm in hers. She tugged with a childish delight, and you took your cue — spinning into her waiting arm and shooting back out with a flourish dredged up from some long forgotten place. The room became a blur of sound and light, of cheers from the bar and the stage. You stilled to find your footing, landing on his eyes.

You’ve been learning, and baby I’ve been yearning

He dipped down again. All them good times baby, baby, I’ve been lear-er-nin’, he punctuated with a shake of his head. He could see the whole vision of you, bright and clear under the stage lights. A wildness lingering just behind your eyes, a fragment unseen until now. It pounded at the cage of your chest, rose up in the shallow breaths you caught before Janet snatched you away again. He swore—silently on a deep inhale—that he would do everything in his power to coax it out of you.

Way, way down inside, oh honey you need it

I’m gonna give you my love

You couldn’t remember the last time you really danced. The last time you felt a rhythm with your body and followed its blind inspiration. No rhyme or reason, no plans or choreography. It felt awkward at first, like trying on skin fresh from the wash. Feeling your feet shuffle against the tacky linoleum, finding the rhythm of yourself with a room full of strangers as witness.

Somewhere between the beams of light and the wink of Eddie’s rings beneath them, you found it. Like a memory rising up, sweeping through you like a current. Visions of a stadium, roaring as a lion struts the stage with his golden mane, as he commands a sea of thousands with his voice. There was an animal in you too, wild and careless.

It grew wilder when the music dropped to nothing but percussion. When the room fell away to nothing but the heat from Eddie’s eyes, sparkling with play. It made your hips want to sway a little more, your legs want to dip a little deeper to match his wildness with your own. Imbued with a sudden, potent energy, he struck his wicked instrument as the rhythm and melody unraveled.

Janet took it in stride, leading you in a rocking shimmy as you swayed to the change in tempo. Light danced on her sequined shoulders as she tipped her head back in a blissful cackle. You followed her lead, eyes fixed on her with a surging power in the knowing of whose eyes were fixed on you.

The air was a cool kiss against the sliver of skin where your shirt left off, daring you to show a little more. With a twist of your arms toward the spotlights, you blessed him with the dip of your back — the alluring shadow of your spine that trailed into the high waist of your jeans. He panged with the urge to follow it, fell to his knees and wailed through his fingertips.

You broke from Janet’s pull to face him, eye-to-eye level, watching reverently as the sweat glistened in his clavicles, as his pelvis jutted into his weapon to eke out his solo. Howling for you with each stroke of its neck, each bend in its strings as you matched his rhythm with your hips. A secret world, just you and him, the rest fading out into nothing. He swore, like a spell in each note that he wove through the air, that somehow he would make it last.

From his knees, Eddie grabbed the mic off the stand, and with a wordless nod earned by years of friendship, Jeff took over the melody. To the delight of the crowd, he stripped himself of the weight of his instrument, setting it carefully off to the side.

You’ve been cooling, baby, I’ve been drooling, he crooned as he crawled forward.

All the good times, baby, I’ve been misusing

You played with him there. With your shoulders, with your eyes locked no more than a foot from his. Desperate to touch him, you worshiped every bead of sweat that fell from his temple, every wet curl that strayed from the nape of his neck and hugged the strong angle of his jaw. What left his lips next dripped with such fervent intention you that you couldn’t keep your hand from your face.

Way, way down inside

I’m gonna give you my love

I’m gonna give you every inch of my love

I’m gonna give you my love

He was pure energy; raw and manic. Free in the way that wild things are. He snatched your breath away, dragged it to his den and had his way with it as he queried the chorus to you. There was wildness all around; in glinting sequins and megawatt smiles. In the flashes of limbs under the lights. In the rhythm you carried with your whole body now, moving in a way that was both so foreign and natural all at once.

You wondered how it looked from the outside; you and him. From the bar it might have looked like drunk spontaneity. From the stage it might have looked like a stint of support for the arts. You wondered, with a twinge of fear, if the others could feel the longing too or if you had masked it well enough as a performance.

The music dropped out to make way for the final lyrics.

Way down inside, he belted into the silence, punctuating with a deep inhale. Woman, he shouted, locking eyes with you for a pregnant second as the world came to a halt, you need… he drew a deep breath in the space the two chords allowed him before wailing the final word at the ceiling — loooooooove!

You felt it with every cell of your body in one suspended moment. Felt—for the first time since you could vividly remember—truly and completely alive. With a crash of cymbals and an electric instrumental boom, the rhythm—and the world—reconstituted around you, swirling with a vibrant energy that swept you away.

His dark eyes opened with a wicked glint, and his next breath left his chest as a command.

Shake for me, girl. I wanna be your backdoor man!

You obeyed with a shimmy of your shoulders and the room went wild.

______

Janet left you with a tight, perfumed hug. A gentle reassurance that yes, she was fine to drive home. She left you in the vacuum of slamming guitar cases and distant voices as the jukebox picked up where the band left off. Left you to sober up to how idle and awkward you felt sitting at the table you once shared with her, picking at the peeling label on the wet, empty bottle.

When you heard footsteps approaching, a part of you was grateful for the prospect of someone—anyone—to talk to, though it wasn’t who you hoped. Instead, it was the man in the cap from the bar.

“Hey, love the shirt,” he remarked, glance lingering a little too long over the text across your chest.

“Thanks,” you said shyly, gaze drifting back to the bottle.

He stepped closer, setting his can on the table. “I take it you went to that concert?”

“I did, it was really last minute actually.” You told him the story. You told him with your words and gestures, twisting in the tall stool to face him, but it was Eddie that drew your eyes. Crouched down with one knee bent beneath him and the other straining against denim slits, he collected his pedals into a tiny, vintage suitcase. There were words coming out of your mouth, but faced with the rigid angles of his thighs, you were helpless but to stumble over some of them.

It was then that you noticed he had already been staring, though not at you, at Bill — with a simmer behind his eyes.

“Man, I woulda killed to go to that show. I was working a double when tickets went on sale and a buddy of mine said he was gonna camp overnight for us. Well, he ended up getting into a fight with his girlfriend and flaked out. ‘Course they were sold out and closed by the time I left work.”

You expressed your genuine sympathy.

“Boy I was pissed at him then, but even more pissed after Bonham died. Like damn, that was my last shot, man!”

“I’m sorry you had to miss it. It was quite the show.” You told him what you could remember. The setlist, the stage, what they wore.

Eddie watched closely, carefully darting between you amidst the gathering of cables and closing of metal latches. He watched your hands come to life like he loved so much, like you always did when you were explaining something with fond enthusiasm. Helplessly, he watched the way Bill leaned closer, the way his hand and forearm made themselves at home on your table. The simmer hissed and bubbled behind his eyes.

“Anyways, it’s good to see such a lovely new face around here. One with great taste, I might add. Made my night.”

The simmer kicked up to a full, licking flame.

“Oh, well thanks. I don’t get out much,” you said with an awkward chuckle.

Bill stepped closer, as if his next point was something he had to lean in for. “By the way, and I hope this isn’t too forward, but… you’re a great dancer.”

Eddie watched your hand dive behind your neck, your face contort into a feeble smile, your shoulders hunch, your eyes glance down. He could hear the distress in your beautiful laugh and he boiled so hot he could have seared a hole into the back of Bill’s head.

He extended his hand. “I’m Bill, by the way.”

Eddie wrapped the cable in hasty circles around his forearm. Heat rose behind behind his tight lips and exited in short fumes.

“Hey man, have you seen the drum key anywhere?” Gareth called from behind him.

It barely registered. The world was a fragment now. A red-hot, narrowing tunnel reduced to a singularity — Bill’s hand.

Bill’s hand; hovering like a salacious invitation, too close to the soft swell of your belly. That open, rugged palm — weathered, experienced, and free. Free to reach into his wallet, to reach across the bar, to hand you a drink, to wander all sorts of places where Eddie could not.

You, ever polite and always accommodating, reached back.

He touched you.

Eddie’s vision narrowed red. Helplessly, he watched Bill’s fingers snake around the back of your hand and squeeze, linger at your palm as they released. A coil wound through his body. It rose up like bile — up through his spine, into his shoulders that rolled forward and back with a deep, seething breath. Up, up, into that primitive space at the base of his skull where words and civil manners had no place.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Eddie dropped the cable.

The world blurred in the wake of his target and in five swift steps he was at your side. “Hey, Bill. Uh—” his senses ebbed back to him with a curious look from the man he’d shared countless drinks with. A man he would call his friend had he not breeched a sacred distance, a contract he knew nothing of. His vision was clouded, the coil tight and hot.

“She’s um,” he continued quietly, a murmur he had to lean in for. An urge seized his hand. The urge to claim, to slip across the divot of your back and pull you close where you belonged, to but the noise from the stage and the eyes that followed forced his hand deep into his pocket. He swallowed his frustration, hoping the simmer in his eyes would be enough to convey what he meant. “She’s with me, man.”

A throb from that low, blooming place, rose up in a full body yes. In the arch of your back, in the dip of your eyes as you caught the desperate heat from his.

Bill blinked in honest surprise. “Wait, you mean,” he pointed between the two of you, eyes darting back and forth with a confusion that only deepened the insecurity of everyone involved, “you’re—”

“Yes,” Eddie hotly interrupted. The coil in him released slightly, a low rumble replaced by a surge that settled in his cheeks at the trembling, nervous laughter in your voice.

Flutters roared through you all at once, spinning the room well beyond the scope of the liquor that lingered in your veins, heightening your senses to the warmth radiating from the aching nearness of his body to yours.

“Well, hey man, we were just talking—”

“Yeah—well,” he glanced at you, an apology playing out in the widening of his eyes as the coil cooled to sobering embarrassment. He wished he could bury himself, open a trapdoor and take you with him. A parade of stomping feet and slamming cases trudged on behind him from the stage. He prayed the din was enough to mask the conversation.

“It’s ok!” you nervously exclaimed to both of them. “Really. Besides, I—I need to sober up anyway before I go home, so… it’s really ok,” you soothed to Eddie specifically.

Eddie’s pulse thrummed in his hears, his body a livewire of stress and embarrassment. “Ok. Well, I just, um… thought I’d let you know,” he concluded to Bill, desperate to string together some semblance of dignity. He dipped his head toward you until his voice hummed lowly in your hear. “It’ll just be a few more minutes. I gotta get the rest of this shit cleaned up, and then we can, um—” his eyes darted back and forth between yours in wordless exasperation.

“Yeah,” your body whispered, overriding any protest of your noble mind. To what you were agreeing to was unimportant. Whatever he wanted.

Eddie nodded and pivoted toward the stage in a swift exit.

In the wake of his absence was an awkward pause, a space Bill was quick to fill with words. “Well, um, it was nice to meet you,” he said with an awkward dip of his head.

“Yeah, you as well,” you said, a feeble anchor to the spinning room. Bill’s gaze hesitated with a flash of disappointment before returning to the bar. It was all you could do to just stand there a moment, heart pounding in stunned realization as the space whirled with the clammer of footsteps, the thud of equipment, the clinking of glasses. Suddenly the weight of your aloneness in the middle of it all was crushing. You retreated to the down the short hallway and ducked into the bathroom.

She’s with me.

In the muffled quiet of the dimly lit reprieve, the words echoed louder than ever. You were almost afraid to check your reflection, to look yourself in the eyes and face the person who ached to hear them repeated, but you did, and she surprised you. Something about the way your lipstick feathered clean in the center from the kiss of the bottle, the way your mascara settled at your lower lashes in the delicate lines beneath. It was oddly flattering, like the shadow of a good time.

You liked who you saw, and perhaps that scared you most.

Jeff’s laughter echoed down the hallway and the pinball trigger snapped again. What the fuck am I doing?

You would ask yourself this question as you pressed the tip of your boot to the dirty toilet handle, as the cold water woke your skin, as it dripped onto the salt-stained tile, as you dropped the soggy remains of the last two paper towels into the overflowing trashcan.

When the clammer of footsteps and slamming of the back door faded to nothing more than distant murmurs from the bar, you slowly cracked the door and peered into the empty hallway. Your boots clicked tentatively against the tacky linoleum, emerging from the shadows as you drew a steady breath. The stage was dark, the men perched on stools had their backs to you, all roaming eyes cast down over drinks — all except one.

Eddie stood in the middle of it all; hands on hips, damp curls clinging to his neck, chest still heaving from movement and stress. He locked eyes with you, and you could feel relief in his sigh from the apron of the hallway.

Your smile was a shy, timid thing, blooming to a helpless grin as the softness of his features heightened into focus with each progressive step. As the distance between you closed to less than a foot.

“Hey,” he breathed like a soft apology.

“Hey,” you answered, like you always did. A nervous crackle of anticipation wound through your gut.

“I um,” Eddie wrung a hand behind his neck, flashing a dark tuft of hair that made the animal in you stir. “I need to cool down,” he admitted with a raw, candid urgency. He patted his pockets. “I’m gonna step out for a cigarette… if you… wanna…” he nodded toward the back hall.

Yes. Anything, the animal growled. You simply nodded and went to grab your coat.

Eddie snatched the heap of leather from the railing by the stage and draped it over his arm. He ushered you forward with a sweep of his palm through the air, catching your eyes with a softness that threatened the strength of your knees. A giggle escaped you — honest, uncontrollable, automatic. Clutching your arm with a coyness that surprised even yourself, you shuffled in front of him, the towering presence of his closeness like a tingle at your back, a safety in the thud of heavy boots behind you.

The night air was a cold refreshment, a sobering reprieve from the hot, smoke-dense air of The Hideout. Your lungs helped themselves, filling to the brim, releasing just a little of the tension that was mounting before you arrived. It left you in a thick fog, drifting out into the empty patio, catching the glow from the singular bulb posted by the door. Eddie pulled it shut with a soft thud and shrugged on his coat in a rattle of zippers and chains.

Silence. A howl of the wind through naked limbs. A sigh that left both of you at once.

Eddie dipped his head in subtle reverence as he crossed in front of you, placing his hands on the short, wooden fence to your right. He paused a second, drawing a deep breath before spinning around to face you, hands splayed in an open plead. “I am so fucking sorry.”

Your mouth hung open. “A-about what?”

He ran a hand through his hair with a ragged sigh. “About Bill, about how I acted, a-about…” he swallowed, “what I said…”

An O trembled on your lips but never made it out. “It’s fine, really—”

“It’s…it’s not. It’s just that,” he huffed, “Bill was hitting on you a-and you just looked so uncomfortable and…” it drove him fucking crazy. It lit his blood on fire. It made him want to grab a man who’d bought him countless drinks by the collar and ram him into the wall.

You stepped closer, close enough to see the whites of his eyes in the darkness, the shadow of his pinching brow. You’d be lying if you said it didn’t stir something in you. Hearing those words. Hearing the ones he said now in profuse apology. “Eddie,” you soothed.

He closed his eyes; a split-second relish of his name on your lips. “It—” he sighed. “It wasn’t cool, to say that…” he shook his head before meeting your eyes in soft earnestness, “in public.”

The breath froze in your lungs. Out here the world fell away to the rustle of trees, to a darkness that cloaked you like a blanket. You were alone. Truly alone. A question tugged at your heart, twinged on the tip of your tongue but felt still too bold to leave it. What would he say, then, in private?

It played out like a tape behind his eyes — the curl of Bill’s fingers around your hand. It was such a simple gesture, benign outside of context. Yet there was something deeper, something that wound like a serpent through his gut. It struck, and stung, that in one fell swoop, Bill had touched as much of you as he had. That Bill could do as much in public as he could only manage beneath a shadow.

“Anyway, now that… that’s out of the way,” Eddie shook his head as he fumbled with the zipper of his pocket, curls feathering his delicate cheekbone, gaze cast down in weakly hidden shame. He procured a box of cigarettes, thumb flipping it open with an ease earned by years of habit. Popping one into his mouth, he paused before snapping it shut. “Y-you want one?” he mumbled. It seemed rude not to ask, but the question felt dumber by the second as it hung in the air. You were good. Good like 6 AM coffee, like the early morning sun. Good like the buttons on a crisp, white blouse. Yet here he stood, hand extended, offering what little he could — an experience.

Goodness was a mantle. A weight that kept your shoulders back, your lips pressed tight, your head cast down, your feet in slippers, your curtains drawn. Eddie Munson stood beside you, rugged and regal like a dark knight, arm outstretched in humble offering. With hesitance, you eyed the invitation.

Out here you could be anything — a vagabond, a runaway, a princess escaped from her castle. A woman who spends Tuesday nights at dive bars and smokes cigarettes with men in leather jackets. Anything you wanted.

You wanted to taste it. You wanted the flame, and the smoke, and the raw, ragged air that wound through your lungs and left like a beacon that soared toward the sky.

You wanted to be bad for him, and so you accepted.

The cigarette almost dropped from Eddie’s mouth in shock. He fumbled another from the box before tucking it into his back pocket. With a flourish, bending in its presentation as if it were a single rose, he offered it to you.

Never in a million years could you have imagined it. You, in a position like this. Him, in a position like that. Least of all that it would be so wildly romantic.

You accepted with the tips of your fingers, your index and middle, brushing ridges of his knuckles with feather-light indulgence. They closed around the offering, pausing for an aching second before drawing away with it.

Eddie closed his eyes, so quickly he could have masked it as a blink, but you caught it. The sigh, the swallow, the batting open with a burning hunger as he relished in the barest fulfillment of what he’d been craving since he saw you this morning — to touch you.

The cold nipped at your knuckles as you took in the foreign sensation between them, admiring it like a sinful adornment under the moonlight.

With a flick of his thumb, the parentheses of his mouth lit up in a warm glow. He took a few quick puffs, smoke billowing from his nose and the corners of his lips before taking a long drag. Satisfaction exited his lungs in a deep sigh, a billow that rose toward the twinkling sky. He turned his attention back to you. “Here,” he offered gently, beckoning you closer with a gentle come hither motion, readying his lighter.

You held your hand out gingerly, willing the trembling of your fingers to cease with little success.

Eddie closed in, bringing a finger to his lips as a gentle suggestion. “Put it in your mouth,” he said, unable to suppress the boyish grin that surfaced from the words.

You did as he told you, held it in your smirk, searched for your next instruction in the depth of his eyes but found only delight. Delight in the whole sight of you; the way it dimpled the swell of your lips, in the attention of those dutiful shoulders, like you wanted to be good at misbehaving. Delight in the fact he was teaching you something.

Eddie leaned closer. “Like this,” he instructed softly, framing his own with his long, ruddy digits before taking a quick drag. Obediently, you mirrored him, like a natural smoker would, like they did in the movies and inside the bar.

The flame ignited between you, flickering in the wild wind. Eddie cupped it with his other hand, forming a shield with the curve of his knuckles — gentle and protective. The fire caught the tip of the slender roll, but his palm was far more captivating. Inches from your face, you could study it closer than ever, plush and glowing — the broad heart line, the soft meat of its heel.

A deep inhale had smoke ghosting over your tongue. Eddie pulled away to reveal the ember and you took your cue. The drag you took, long and determined, left you coughing.

Eddie couldn’t suppress his chuckle, couldn’t mask the crinkle of his eyes as you—from behind the big desk and before the big board—were swallowed in a clumsy cloud of smoke.

“Are you laughing at me?” you asked through a giggle of your own.

Like oxygen to a flame, his laughter only brightened. “I’m sorry, you’re just… so…”

“So…what?” You gave him a look, trying to suck your dignity back through the end of the cigarette.

A million words ached on the tip of his tongue. The wind ripped across the small, frozen field, shyly disappearing in the treeline. Out here there were no bells, no footsteps, no concrete walls to listen. Eddie watched those fingers of yours pull away from your lips, blow a billow toward the open sky, and one in a million came tumbling out.

“Beautiful.”

A puff retreated back through your lips, froze in your lungs. The truth hung like smoke in the cold night air, rolled around in your chest, warmed your body from head to toe. Eddie plugged his mouth with another draw to prevent more from slipping out.

There was space for the truth out here. Space like a vacuum, vast and quiet. A shyly muttered “Thank you,” was all you could manage to fill it with.

Eddie raked his fingers through the damp curls at the nape of his neck, cheeks pinking visibly, even in the dim glow of the single light on the other side of the patio. He leaned against the fence and met your eyes again, nervous breath rolling over his plush lips.

His movement, like a magnet, drew your feet across the pavement. Deeper into the shadows with the gentle pull of his eyes. The tobacco settled in your body with a comfortable heaviness as you drank him in, and you suddenly grasped the appeal.

Out here he seemed even taller, shoulders stacked over slender hips as he leaned into the fence, an ease that washed over him with each generous draw, like the stress was rolling off into the shadows. Out here he took on a different posture, different than the one under fluorescent lights. Different than the one in the small chair next to you, the one with hunched shoulders and downcast eyes.

You tapped the ash of the cigarette off with your finger, like a natural smoker would. He smirked at the gesture, and you caught the twinge of pride in it this time.

Out here he could be anything. He could be clever and daring; a roguish enchanter. A man who casts spells with his fingers and charms with his words. Anything he wanted.

He wanted to make your eyes light up.

Eddie took another drag, hollowing his cheeks before sending out smoke in deliberate puffs with his tongue. It left his mouth in rings, hovering in the gap between you before drifting across the patio.

He got what he wanted. A gasp left your lips, eyes twinkling brighter than the stars. “What?! I didn’t know people could actually do that!” You exclaimed, delighted like a child on Christmas.

Eddie blew the rest off to the side and returned a blinding smile. It was more satisfying than the cigarette — the fact that he could do it, make your face light up. The fact that he had the power.

“How do you do that?” you asked, ever inquisitive.

His instructions were simple; take a big drag, hollow your cheeks, make the shape with your mouth, and push the smoke out with your tongue. Simple enough, from the sound of it.

Your first attempt failed, miserably. Uproariously.

“The shape is critical,” he reminded through a chuckle, “it’s gotta be like, a perfect O, not an oval.” His eyes lingered over your lips as you tried his suggestion, struggling to will his mind away from the gutter.

Your smile made it hard to maintain. “Wait—wait, hold on I think I got it.” You tried again with great focus, sending out puffs with your tongue that looked nothing like rings. It was worth it though. Worth making a fool of yourself for the amusement that colored his face, for the bright laughter it earned you. “Ok, fine. Maybe not.”

It looked good on him, just like it did on stage. This knowing that drew his shoulders back, made him lean with a powerful ease. The knowing that he was really good at something, that he could show you.

“It’s a bit advanced,” he said with a wink before taking another deep drag. He puffed a ring and cast it forward with a push of his hand, like a spell through the air. It broke on your nose and you relished in the soft sensation of his life-force ghosting over your face.

It was all you could do just to look at him — rugged and regal in the way that only he could be. It was dangerous and thrilling; how alone you were right now. His aura pulled you closer, eyes tugging at those burning questions, serious questions at war with your lingering buzz. You broke the silence with the truth; soft and sincere. “You’re insanely talented, I hope you know that.”

The curve of his lashes dipped shyly with a little puff through his nose. They raised with a sparkle that cut through the darkness. “Thanks, it uh… comes a lot easier to me than chemistry.” He tapped off his ash on the pavement.

You tucked your free hand into your pocket with a bashful shuffle of your feet. “Well, good thing rockstars don’t need to know chemistry then.”

Eddie scoffed and gave his eyes a quick roll, unsuccessful at hiding the brilliance of his smile. Heat crept up his neck, and he soothed it with a wring of his hand.

There was a gap between you; a space you were too scared to breach. The two of you filled it with shy chatter as your cigarettes dwindled to nubs. It was easy, to talk to him. About music, about anything. Easy because you gave each other turns to take it; the space. It almost made it easy to forget who you were to each other before you came out here, who you would go back to being tomorrow.

The cold was wicked and relentless; biting at your knuckles as you tapped the last ash. Even the tobacco’s heavy warmth sinking to your feet couldn’t stave it off. It was a Tuesday night in December, and the wind made sure to remind you.

Eddie followed your eyes toward the door. “It’s ok,” he reassured. “Nobody comes out here. We’re safe.”

His words sparked a tingle in your chest, a pulse of heat; low and thrumming. Neither could halt the shiver that seized your limbs.

“You ok?” he asked gently, stepping close enough to almost feel the heat from him.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You blew on your hands, rubbing them together feebly to fight the cold. You were stubborn to surrender, determined not to end your stolen moment by succumbing.

It was all he could do just to look at you. You, shaking like a leaf in the wind. You, with longing eyes and trembling lips. You, with your soft skin and softer soul. His fingers burned, wrestled with the silence, and the distance, and the howl of the wind through the trees. They warred with the ticking clock, with the chill against his precious moment, with the threat of it winning. Suddenly his fingers—bolder than they’ve ever been in his life—twitched to animation. They toyed with the cold metal zipper at his neck, and in one decided tug, he opened up for you. “Here,” he offered.

You froze, more than the cold could ever manage, as you eyed the invitation — the warm leather cave, the exposure of his heaving chest. Your lips parted but words would not come. You wanted it — the heat, the tight embrace, to be wrapped in his aura, to feel his laughter with your palms.

Your noble mind as it cast its disapproval like a shadow toward your heart, but your hands and feet were deaf to it. Boots shuffling boldly against the rough pavement, they filled the gap between his. You accepted with the tips of your fingers, delicate and tentative, like his skin was a hot iron and yours at risk to burn. You watched them disappear into the darkness, felt the soft cotton warmth as it enveloped you. With trembling slowness, you traced the divots of his ribcage, settled into them like grooves, felt him gasp into your palms when the ice that you’d become found the velvet, heated skin under his arms.

“Sorry—”

“Hah—hmm—no-no it’s ok,” he grimaced, pinning your hands beneath his arms to stop your recoil, as if the pain of the freeze hurt less than the pain of its absence. “I—ah—I asked for this.” His chuckle was a warm vibration, a flutter as the cage which housed his heart contracted.

A shiver racked your body as you thawed. Whether it was nerves, or fear, or the chill that had settled deep in your bones long before you stepped foot outside, you were helpless to control it.

“Come ‘ere,” he breathed with equal care and need.

You submitted, tracing his contours as he pulled you closer — head against his solid shoulder, into the soft pillow of his hair, into the source of his scent: leather and tobacco and the sweet, salty musk of his skin. You closed your eyes and basked in it, nose buried in his curls, drawing in deeply to steady your rattling chest.

Broad palms splayed across the fabric of your coat, pulling you deep into the comfort of his heat, tracing your waist to settle in a place they burned to be — your lower back. “It’s ok, you’re ok,” he murmured into your hair, bracing you tightly as your whole body shook.

You could have died here, buried yourself in his arms and made him your tomb. They would find you in the morning; frozen like a sculpture. Left out for all of Hawkins to see, to point and say terrible things. It wouldn’t matter. You would have died happy.

His heart was pounding with disbelief. You, here, in his arms. You could feel it through your coat, hammering against your chest, into your palms at his back. Eddie felt your breathing slow, your body soften and relax. He crooked his forearm firmly to your back, to the place where it belonged, fingers curling like a cage around your waist. Out here he could be anything — strong and stable, a haven for your tired bones to rest. Anything, for you.

In the dark leather cave there was a landscape for your hands to study. The satin liner grazed your knuckles as your hands explored the angles of his shoulder blades with tentative slowness — down along the muscles of his back, the dip of his spine, the birdcage of his ribs; expanding and contracting, deep and steady.

He was real, here, in your arms. Two swelling lungs. One beating heart. Two hands that clutched the wool barrier between you. One solid shield of a chest. One humming column at your cheek. Eddie Munson; wildfire. Close enough to thaw you. Close enough to burn you to the ground.

Your hands settled at the slim taper of his waist. Pliant and yielding under soft cotton, swelling with each ocean breath. His cage around you tightened, and you breathed him in, felt him swallow, felt his hips slot against the groove of yours with sensed belonging.

The animal in you keened with curiosity, emboldened by the dark. Your hands wouldn’t dare beyond the roadblock of his belt, but they would move in slow strokes up and down his back. A gentle comfort, a mask for your indulgence.

A quiet moan rose up in him, one he couldn’t swallow. The best he could do was cloak it in a sigh. It hummed against your ear; your cheek so close to the crook of his neck you could almost taste it. You breathed him in again, lips pressed to his soft curls against tough leather as the smoke, and musk, and crisp night air filled your lungs.

His hands were less patient; dipping toward the slope of your hips, pawing at thick wool, thumbs drawing aching circles there. It earned an arch from your back, a grasp from your hands at the soft cotton barrier.

There was an animal in him too, preening at the cant of your hips, at the rub of your neck against his. With a dip of his chin he could sink his teeth in, but his noble mind willed it away, settled for the scent of you instead — soft like powder, warm and inviting. The heels of your palms drifted toward his belly, and the animal threatened to rear below his belt.

“Ah,” it leapt out his throat.

Hands freezing before reaching the healthy swell, you drew back from his shoulder, checking in. Your lids hung with visible weight, pupils blown by more than just the lack of light, dizzy from his touch. He could do that with his hands, he thought; a split-second revel before concern sobered your features.

His disappointment was palpable, like he’d burst some great bubble. “Mm—no, it’s fine, please—” please don’t stop. His arms around you tightened, eyes pleading with words he wasn’t bold enough to utter, even in the darkness.

A shadow of guilt fell across your face. Guilt for your greedy hands, for your lost control, for your bad behavior. It was a pitiful sight; worse than the one he saw yesterday. Worse because it was here. Worse because he was closer than he’d ever been before.

There was a gap between you; space for the cold to seep between your hearts. Space for the fear that he’d broken the spell. That you didn’t see him anymore, but your student instead.

You thumbed his soft cotton shirt, buried in the shelter of his coat. Eddie Munson — frenetic and compelling. Beautiful in the way that wild things are. Breathing life into your numb hands with each ragged swell. You studied him closely; his soft cupid’s bow, his pink, plush pout, the angles of his worried jaw, the pining in his eyes.

Want. A wild, elusive thing. A summer wind. An admission at a cost. Want didn’t budge. Want looked you dead in the eyes and tightened its grip.

Eddie knew what he wanted, burning like a question on his tongue. He knew he had to be the one to ask. He was terrified — of the question, of the asking, of the fact that he may never get another chance. Your hands grappled with it, clung like they feared he would vanish. He felt the ache in them, the want, the fear, the frustration. It opened up a narrow passage, and he entered with the boldest thing he had ever done.

He asked you with his forehead first. A gentle nod forward; the softest collision. A tickle of curls. A rock back and forth of his strong, sturdy brow. A smile even you couldn’t hide. Your hands released, settled at the dip of his back in quiet permission.

He asked you with the bridge of his nose. A delicate slope. A tender nuzzle. Rigid bone under soft flesh. Cold, round tip. Roaming the map of yours with heated intention as he swayed like a dance in the moonlight. You closed your eyes, surrendered to the fantasy. Felt the heat of his cheek, the pang of his palm at your back as he pulled you closer.

He asked you with a tilt of his chin, and brought time to a halt.

There was a gap between you. A fractional distance bridged by the ghost of his breath. Within it; every party that you never went to, every basement you were never led away from, every page you never shared, every experience you never had. Goodness was a mantle, heavy from a lifetime on your shoulders.

What did freedom taste like? The question brushed across your lips like a warm invitation. You were desperate for the answer. Wanted it more than anything, ever, in your whole entire life. Wanted it for you, for only you. For once.

Eddie asked the question. You closed the gap.

A sigh left both of you at once. One you could taste this time, humming against the plush cradle of his lips. Freedom could have melted you. It threatened the strength of your knees, but his arms were stronger. Locked against each other in the shadows you borrowed, your lips began to explore, to express every secret wish the two of you had dreamt apart.

Freedom tasted tentative at first. A slow drag of his lips, a languid slip that rippled to the dormant parts of you. Catching like tinder as they grazed over yours, hot with an ache you could taste. It was sinfully exquisite; tasting the curve of his smile, the hyper-real rasp of his stubble as those lips—the ones that shot you smirks from down the hall and spilled over with song—found a rhythm with yours. Broad palms clutched the wool at your waist like you’d slip through a crack if he didn’t hold on.

Freedom was slick. It tasted like cigarettes, like a thousand unsaid words ushered past the border of your mouth. You could taste every one on his tongue, soothed them with the slickness of yours. Every aching word, dripping in each soft caress. Diving like a dance, echoed in the soft, wet smacks when you parted. You devoured them like you were starving. Every sigh, every hum, every color that left his lungs slipped eagerly down your throat.

The wool at your back was a nuisance. Eddie pawed at it, desperate to feel the shape of you through the fabric, to store it in the vault of his mind, to play with it later in private. He halted his hands at your hips, willed them decent, rationed with the small working part of his brain that your lips would have to be enough. He relished in the way you accepted him. The way you spread for him, parting eagerly for his tongue. The way your lips closed around him, rocking as he prodded like you’d done it before. Like you wanted to elsewhere.

The spell was broken. The line, miles away. There was a hunger in you, sudden and surprising, roused by the very first taste. Eddie palmed your hips with an urgency that stirred you. Like a bear in the spring, thawed by the heat of his touch, you devoured him. Devoured him with the wholeness of your splayed hands, tracing up his pounding ribs, dragging across the expanse of his broad chest. It heaved under your touch; solid muscle under soft cotton. You devoured his moan; a hot, strangled thing that escaped his plush lips. Like a match to the strip your tongue, you ignited.

His hands lost their patience. Breaking from your waist, they dove behind your ears to cradle your face. Your face. Your jaw, your delicate cheeks he caressed with the rough pads of his thumbs, as if the swell of them—the rigid bones under soft skin, the absolute realness of you in his arms—could wake him from the dream he was surely having. He was tasting you, tasting the want on your tongue. More satisfying than a four course meal, more satisfying than anything he’d ever tasted in his life. You wanted him. More than that, you savored him; the taste of his hot, eager tongue as it slipped against yours.

Freedom was delicious. Bold and complex, acrid and rich. Full bodied. A smooth, sweet finish. You could have drowned in it. Drowned in the angles of his hands, in his tender strokes, in the sopping heat of his mouth. Drowned in his eager sighs, in his scent. Drowned completely if he hadn’t held your head above the surging waves.

Eddie was good like a midnight snack. Good like a wide open road. He was good at this. Good at knowing how to ask and answer. Good at at finding the rhythm of you.

You broke for air, stilling against the bridge of his nose, afraid to look him in the eyes just yet, to break away from the safety his shadow provided. Safe from the world, safe from consequences, safe from the thoughts that battered at the door of your mind. Safety was fragile and fleeting. You knew it, he knew it. Your breath mingled in hot bursts as you steadied your spinning world for a quiet moment together. You felt him smile—heard it—big and bright as it cracked across his face. The air stung your cheeks when he took his hands away. Leaning back against the fence, he tugged you closer, further into the safety of the shadows, enveloping you in the crook of his heat.

It was good like this — the angles of you and the angles of him, fitting like they always belonged. It felt safe to explore them, to paint his pounding chest, down the soft swell of his belly, stopping at his hips. With a thick bob of his Adam’s apple, he closed the gap again. It was chaste this time, peppering your lips with space to breathe between each kiss. They were slow and savory, steady and sure. They lingered long enough for you to get another taste, to capture that plush Cupid’s bow and let it melt across yours, to flick your tongue over his soft bottom lip and taste him there too.

You could taste his need when he greeted your tongue with his own. It was safe to show it here. Safe to let the animal inside him bare its teeth. Safe to let the animal in you do the same. It growled when he nipped at you, hooked its claws through his belt loops and tugged. It was a quick, testing thing, and your sound let him know that he passed. He lapped it up hungrily, soothed it before inflicting another.

It ached in a frightening way, in that deep, low place. Throbbed awake with each delicious bite. It scared you how quickly the path was veering south, but the pooling warmth encouraged his travels, let him go wherever he wanted. When his lips strayed far enough to track your jaw, a shrinking voice shrieked danger, but the rest of you simply submitted.

Claws braced denim and leather, offering yourself with a tip of your head. Reverently, he accepted, setting his pace with a dizzying slowness. He worshiped you with every latch, every press, every lingering smack, darting his tongue out to taste the forbidden angles of your jaw. It was greedy but good. To him, to you. Letting go this much. Letting him go this far. The trail cooled in the night air, and he settled at the precipice of your neck.

His breath alone was enough to melt you; heavy with the weight of his new position. Heavy with desire, with the weight of thousand fantasies he never thought would come to pass. He drank in the cocktail of your scent; concentrated, warm, deliciously real. In the throws of your own heaving chest, sobered just barely by the pregnant pause, you awoke to your position: open, vulnerable, completely at his mercy.

He tasted your swallow, felt your breath hitch when his warm, wet tongue found your pulse. Lathing there a moment, lingering and slow, he savored you. Savored the ridges of your neck, the way your head lolled to the side, like a feast laid out for him. He stored the image in his mind, packaged it carefully for when he would surely be starving again. His lips soothed where his tongue left off, over and over until your strangled sound stirred a fiending hunger. He bared his teeth, and you shattered.

Freedom was falling apart in his arms. Crumbling into pieces and letting him grapple you whole. Letting him capture you in his maw and lap up your ruin. Letting him, letting him. His teeth dragged dull and slow, tingling every waking cell, turning you to putty completely. He dragged a moan out of you. A full one, loud and clear. He tucked it away, buried it deep alongside your squirms and your touch.

The door opened.

Cold air shocked your lungs. Head snapping over your shoulder, you broke his latch and Eddie hissed a curse at the separation. With daggers, you both assessed the intruder.

The silhouette of his cap gave him away. He might have even kept on walking but the gasps and the shuffling feet made him turn. “Oh shit,” Bill flinched back in surprise. “Sorry man I thought you left.”

Eddie’s arm tightened instinctively, pulling you as close as he wanted to earlier. Reflexively, you pushed away. It was a strange tug of war — his pride and your fear. “Yeah—no we’re still here,” he snapped.

You swallowed your pounding heart, sobering completely under Bill’s gaze. Suddenly your claws retracted, your hands felt wrong where they rested, shame bit at your neck along the cooling trail he left behind.

Even in the backlit glow of the singular light, you saw it painted clearly on his features — the judgement, the disbelief, the questions rising up but not daring to come out. “Well um, sorry to interrupt. Have a good night,” Bill said with an awkward raise of his hand before making quickly for the parking lot.

Footsteps faded over gravel and left a silence in their wake, thicker than the stillness from before.

Eddie breathed a sharp sigh through his nostrils, brows lowered as he seethed toward the parking lot. The cold was setting in again. Your nose, and ears, and fingers stung with it. The rest of you stung worse; chest numbing, caving like a can under the weight of what you’d just done.

When the flick of distant headlights made you brave enough to face him, frustration painted his features. He pawed at your coat, desperate to salvage what he could of his precious moment. “Anyway, where were we?” he muttered, eyeing your neck with a tilt of his head like he was about to dive in again.

Your hand at his chest stopped him, and the look in his eyes was wounding. “Eddie,” you warned softly. A slow, heavy sigh left his nose, one you could feel with your palm. “I need to go.”

Crestfallen after a desperate, hesitant second, his arms went slack. Your hand dropped, leaving a fierce chill behind. One more, his lips begged, but struggled to release. Please.

It hurt, to crumble like this after all you had built. With the roar of Bill’s engine, the fantasy shattered around you. The carriage became a pumpkin, your gown turned into rags. Shrill bells rang out in the distance, coming surely as the sun would rise. Pinballs thundered as that sweet oval face—the one from the back of the room and the chair next to yours—pouted with lips still swollen from where you had broken your contract.

“I’m sorry,” you mouthed.

Gathering himself with a deep breath, he straightened to a dignified height, conviction filling the cracks in his composure. “I’m not.”

It was terrifying — the prospect, the consequences. What it meant for you, for him, for the world you’d have to face tomorrow.

Most terrifying of all was how good it felt to hear him say.

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A/N: Thank you all for your patience on this one. It took me nearly all summer to finish but I'm really proud of how it turned out. Please let me know what you think! I've missed hearing from and connecting with all of you. Next one won't take nearly as long, I promise. 💕

Taglist: @mermaidsandcats29 @toxicjayhoo @ooo-protean-ooo @jadequeen88 @wroteclassicaly @kissmyacdc @mantorokk-writes @loveshotzz @storiesbyrhi @cursedyuta @trashmouth-richie @carolmunson @keeponquinning @munson-blurbs @blueywrites @alottanothing @bebe07011 @idkidknemore @alizztor @godcreatoreli @ethereal27cereal @munsonsgirl71 @emxxblog @siriusmuggle @sidthedollface2 @big-ope-vibes @dollalicia @lma1986 @catherinnn @eddiemunson4life420 @readsalot73 @barbiedragon @ladylilylost @3rriberri @princess-eddie @nightless @eddieswifu @thew0rldsastage @chaoticgood-munson @hanahkatexo @eddiemunsonsbedroom @beep-beep-sherlock @averagemisfit03 @vintagehellfire @haylaansmi @sllooney @lunaladybug734 @callingmrsbarnes @ajkamins

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MASTERLIST ⎮ AO3 ⎮ KO-FI

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson older reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x teacher!reader #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fluff #don't stand so close to me

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silkscream · 3 months

Text

CHAPTER 5: NOT THAT I'M ANYWHERE

ੈ✩ gojo satoru x reader, geto suguru x reader

In your prelude to adulthood, he’d driven himself wild about the physicality of you next to him. Smothered by him since the summertime. He liked that the two of you spoke in tongues, kiss-shaped secrets.

ੈ✩ chapter cw/tags: explicit content (18+ mdni) , oral sex (f receiving), nonconsensual voyeurism, alcohol usage, angst

ੈ✩ wc: 6.1k

ੈ✩ a/n: more satoru antics... featuring a curveball thrown by suguru. surprise

playlist ✸ read on ao3 ✸ series masterlist

December, 2008

You arrive a bit late, not that Satoru minds. For some reason, he had this nagging thought in his mind that you wouldn’t come at all, and he was trying to make peace with it all day. Luckily, you show up, a roseate blush adorning your cheeks that matches your lipstick. He wants to kiss it off of you. Tear off your sweater and the black tights stuck to your legs.

You situate yourself in between Shoko and Utahime, who are both engaging in the stash of alcohol in front of them that you knew belonged in a glass cabinet in the dining room, pristine and locked up.

You hug your knees, watching Shoko and Satoru bicker about the rules of whatever game they’re attempting to force everyone to play. You accidentally make eye contact with Utahime, who smiles at you graciously as she fixes one of her pigtails. Every one of Satoru’s friends was beautiful, which suited him. You didn’t feel like you could be part of them.

She offers you a beer and you take it even though it isn’t your favorite. When you try to swallow it down, you catch Suguru’s eye. He gives you a teasing smile.

“Shoko, you always want to play strip poker. If you wanted to see Hime’s tits, I’m sure you can just ask—”

The brunette pushes Satoru roughly on the shoulder, an irritated noise groaning in her throat.

“No, you just don’t know any other fucking card games. Don’t act like you don’t always want to get everyone naked, too,” Shoko protests.

“I will not accept such slander on my birthday—”

“It’s not even midnight, yet, idiot!” Utahime interrupts.

You and Suguru share a look, which makes you look away quickly as you snort. You feel Satoru watching, but you don’t indulge in his gaze. You used to imagine a red string between the two of you when you were in school. You would stalk the halls alone, walking past him and make enough brief eye contact with him that you would assume his eyes were on you, always. You’d exist in the world just for him to watch. You’d feel his gaze on your body even when both of you were barely teenagers.

A bottle of wine makes its way into your hands, passed around from Utahime on your right. You chug the way she does, needing the release of inhibitions. When you look up to see Satoru looking at you, he nearly gives you whiplash from the way he stumbles over to you in the circle and snatches the bottle from you.

“That’s enough, Twigs!”

“No, you’re way drunker than me!” you retort.

“You’re a lightweight, baby,” he purrs. “I care about your brain cells.”

“You’re more of a lightweight than she is,” Suguru chuckles.

“Shut up, Sugu!”

“Leave him alone,” you laugh. He’s disarmed enough for you to grab the bottle back, which leaves him pouting. He rolls his eyes as he watches you share it with Suguru.

The feeling inside his chest isn’t burning. It isn’t. If anything, he likes that you’re enjoying yourself considering the shitshow on Shoko’s birthday. If anything, he wants you on his lap laughing.

“Are we doing strip poker or not?” Shoko drawls, taking a large swig out of her sake.

“I don’t even know how to play that,” you whine.

“Put on a movie,” Utahime suggests, nodding toward the flatscreen.

“Booooooring,” Satoru complains.

“You’re just a pervert who wants to see everyone fuck, Gojo.”

Satoru looks at you briefly with a shit-eating grin on his face. His eyes are starry. The length of his body exudes arrogance. “Maybe I do. It’s my birthday, anyway.”

“Not midnight yet, stupid,” you remind him. “I’ll figure out poker if it means you’ll behave.”

“No promises.”

Half an hour passes and the rules of the game don’t register in your brain, though the rest of the group helps you enough to get by. It doesn’t seem to matter anyway considering how drunk everyone is, therefore the rules are getting loosened and lost as the game progresses.

A movie is playing on the TV per Utahime’s request – an American horror film that was released last month. It’s mostly uncanny to you considering it’s American, and the vampire storyline doesn’t make much sense to you. Werewolves end up getting involved as you absentmindedly watch the screen and the plot is forgotten by you.

You’re left in your tights and your bralette. It takes over an hour to do so – meanwhile, Shoko and Utahime were down to their bare tits; Satoru and Suguru are down to their boxers.

The inclusion of the movie has everyone as distracted as you. Suguru eventually falls asleep on the couch while Shoko and Utahime retreat to the kitchen to make cocktails. Considering it’s been at least fifteen minutes since then, you assume they’re somewhere else in the house.

“Those two are definitely fucking,” Satoru deadpans, his eyes still on the screen. “Oh fuck, are they decapitating that guy?”

“I mean, he’s the bad guy that wants to eat the main character, right? It only makes sense.”

Satoru rests his head on your lap. It reminds you of the sight you saw at Shoko’s birthday party. Your throat tightens. When the movie ends, Satoru nestles himself into your stomach like a cat.

“I wanna go to bed.”

“So go to bed,” you say softly.

“Come with me.”

“Okay,” you breathe.

You follow him.

Satoru’s bedroom is an oasis. You felt weary about getting so used to it for months, but his soft sheets and king-sized mattress have begun feeling like home since September. Not to mention Satoru’s affinity for spooning you, arms around your waist, and a leg draped over yours to cage you.

He doesn’t give you much time before he has you pushed onto the bed, his larger frame engulfing yours as he kisses you and runs his hands along your soft body. He grins at the way you moan for him and grinds his hips into yours because he knows how wild you get when you can feel him. You buck your hips up the way he expects you to. You’re malleable in his hands, just the way he likes you.

“Satoru, w–wait—”

“What is it?”

“Got a present for you,” you laugh. You crawl to grab the coat you came with to fish something small from the pocket. You cover his eyes with your hand. “Okay, just— close your eyes. It’s not that special but I wanna put it on you.”

He closes his eyes. You slip a ring on his hand — a silver band with a glittering turquoise gem. It’s not extravagant, nor were you sure if it was Satoru’s style, but it had spoken to you in the tiny shop you were in and it mirrored the color of his eyes.

“Is this how you’re proposing to me, baby?”

“Shut up,” you say, rolling your eyes. “Don’t make a huge deal out of it. You can open your eyes.”

When he settles his gaze on the ring you’d placed on his left index finger, his gaze softens. The stone is as bright as his eyes and it’s also elegant. Elegant in the same way you are, he thinks.

“It would look good with what you usually wear,” you stammer. “And– it matches your eyes or whatever. A good luck charm and stuff.”

“Twigs,” he grins. “I love it.”

He almost says he loves you with how drunk he is. But he knows better. He’d rather show it through actions, anyway. Mostly, he wants to fucking eat you out with how sheer your black tights are and how little fabric your bralette provides to cover your breasts.

“Wanna give you head,” he mumbles, parting your legs.

“I feel like I should be the one that– aah!”

He’s yanked down your tights and underwear in half a second, mouth already closing in your pulsating clit. He moans at the taste of you and how wet and warm you are.

So fucking sweet. You were made for him ever since you’d entered his life.

“S-Satoru–”

“This is all I want, baby.”

“But–”

“But what?” He stops, pulling away as he wipes off your slick from his mouth. He looks at you for a second, brows raised.

“Nothing. Happy birthday, Satoru,” you coo. You stroke his hair with your fingers, then settle your warm hands on both of his cheeks. Cupping them. Reveling in the blush of his pale face. When both of you look, you see that the clock on his bedside table is close to one in the morning.

“Thank you,” he chuckles. His laugh is saccharine-sweet, dulcet in your ears. “I want to indulge in my gift, now.”

“Okay.”

You let him, because how could you deny him? There’s no way in your right mind you could let go of him right now — it all feels so fucking good. The way he kisses you like he wants to suck out your bone marrow, plush lips on your clit as he massages it with his tongue.

You whine when you feel the loss of contact. Of course he wants to tease you, ease you into turning into a brainless puddle for him until you beg. He sucks love-bites into your inner thigh while he rubs his long fingers along your folds in a languid motion. He chuckles at the sound of you whining.

“What’re you whining about?”

“Want your mouth.”

“Let the birthday boy take his time, yeah?”

You squirm in his grasp, bucking your hips up, desperate for him to bury his face in your wet cunt like you’re his favorite dessert. He groans something, snapping a mumbled command at you as he continues to teethe on the delicate skin of your thigh.

His mouth cascades down your thigh, pressing a kiss to each of your knees.

“What if I made you cum nineteen times? Doesn’t that sound fun?” he teases.

“N-no, I can’t take it–”

“You sure? I’d do it if my dick physically could. You can cum as many times as you want, though.”

“Satoru–” you groan.

He simply laughs, then licks a stripe from your knee up to your clit. When you feel his tongue again, you shiver. His white lashes flutter when you whimper. You reach down to smooth his hair back to see his eyes darkened with lust.

He’s sloppier than usual because of his inhibited senses, but he makes a mess of your pussy as he laps up the taste of you. Every rhythmic pass of his tongue over your clit sends sparks to your stomach and short-circuits your brain. You remember the first time Satoru had eaten you out months before, how he’d made you cry. It’s similar to how you feel now.

He moans against your cunt as you close your legs around his face, but he pries them apart and takes a handful of your ass to squeeze. You mewl when you feel his hand slap the soft skin of your ass, and you can almost hear him laugh.

You can barely say his name fully. Your voice only comes out in gasps. You have to keep yourself from crying out when you feel his fingers enter you while he sucks on your clit. Your eyes roll back in ecstasy.

Satoru loves to spoil you. It’s his favorite thing to fuck your cunt with his tongue, laving your clit until you’re melting before he switches his method. The combination of his tongue with his fingers inside your hole has you convulsing. He loves to watch your face during it. His own is spellbound and hungry.

After you cum, you’re begging for him.

“Satoru, let me–”

“No,” he breathes. “Want you. Stay still for me, sweetheart.”

“I– I can’t–

“You can,” he laughs, slapping your ass again. “And you will.”

Your head is in the clouds, high as can be, and far away from reality. The way Satoru thumbs over your clit while his mouth works on your pussy has you nearly ascending. Drunk and crumbling, squirming underneath his touch. Desperate for him. Pathetic for him.

“Oh, fuck, you look so good,” he pants. “Fuck, just like that. Let go for me.”

“Oh my god–”

“You’re gonna wake the whole house, baby.”

“You said– Sugu was a d-deep sleeper– aah!”

Your head is full of air. Your cunt is petal-soft, throbbing from his touch, and he makes you come undone above him again as he laps up your cum right before he sucks hickeys into your thighs.

You whine at the feeling of him nipping you, pulling his arms toward you. He groans, grunting as he hits the mattress face-down.

“Satoru, let me return the favor—”

He swats you away when you try to touch him, which surprises you.

“I’m okay.”

“What? It’s your birthday.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbles, his cheeks red. He’s breathing hard, panting like an animal. Your eyes widen when you realize.

“Satoru, did you just cum in your boxers?”

“Babe, I’m so fucking drunk—”

“You came in your fucking pants from eating me out!” you laugh.

Satoru groans as loud as can be, an annoyed grunt in his throat rolling out into a petulant roar. He runs his fingers haphazardly through his hair as he enters the bathroom, shutting the door and locking it behind him.

“Satoru!” you beckon, knocking on the door. “It’s okay to come fast—”

“Go to bed, woman!”

You can’t help but laugh, realizing there’s no point in arguing with him. If you knew any better, you’d assume he was jacking off right now into the toilet just from having to face you after getting embarrassed.

That might be true, to be fair. It’s hard to look you in the eye when you smell so fucking good and when you look at him like that—

“Fuck,” Satoru grunts before he releases into the toilet. He’s never cum so much in one night — certainly not so much in a night where he consumed so many different kinds of alcohol.

It didn’t matter, he supposed. You were the only real drug to him.

He feels grateful when he returns to your sleeping figure in his bed, breathing soundly. Satoru is too drunk to remember how much Suguru hates falling asleep anywhere that isn’t a bed. Too drunk to care about what room Shoko and Utahime might be fucking in. It didn’t matter.

He’s nineteen now and dead-tired, satiated after eating you. Maybe a little in love, too, but he’s too drunk to think about it very hard. He’ll shut off yearning’s broken record the same way you do. He only cares about your warmth at the moment. The softness of your skin lulls him to sleep.

“How are you the first one up? And you’re making pancakes on your own birthday?”

“Twigs helped me, duh,” Satoru says, turning around to meet a disheveled Suguru stalking toward the kitchen island. “She knows how I like ‘em.”

“Good morning, Suguru,” you greet him, placing a plate in front of him.

“Oh, she uses my name now.”

You laugh while Satoru rolls his eyes, shoving a strawberry in his mouth along with a dollop of whipped cream. He notices your constant glances at him, grinning at you teasingly as your eyes rake the expanse of his bare back and grey sweatpants. You’d had to resist him this morning, complaining about your hangover and the fact that he’d woken up at 7 am sharp like a little kid. You’d let him fuck you in the shower, anyway. It had woken you up, at least.

Shoko and Utahime emerge minutes later, to which Satoru teases them about their midnight excursion.

“At least tell me what room you guys stayed in so I can get the sheets cleaned, my god.”

Utahime bickers with him as Shoko watches with amusement. Satoru argues back, bored, eyes drifting to you across the table as you talk to Suguru about some book the two of you have read before. He’s absentminded, mostly thinking about the way your mouth parts when he hits the right spot in your cunt, and how plush your thighs are, especially with hot water running down your body–

“You dickhead, you aren’t even listening!” Utahime seethes.

“I don’t get how you’re so stressed out this morning. Shoko didn’t give it to you good enough?”

“Satoru!” Shoko whines, punching him on the arm. She’ll surely excuse herself for a cigarette within the next five minutes because of him.

“These are really good,” Suguru smiles, nudging you with his elbow.

“Thanks. They’re Satoru’s favorite.”

Suguru opens his mouth to speak again, but not before Satoru reaches over the table to wipe blueberry syrup off your bottom lip. The action dazes you, has you blinking up at him.

“So messy,” he chuckles. You roll your eyes.

He has the urge to switch seats so he can be next to you and talk your ear off, be the one to make you laugh. He frowns when you ease back into your conversation with Suguru effortlessly. He decides to be a nuisance in other ways. Kicking your feet under the table. Sneaking sips of Suguru’s orange juice.

You looked good together. It put a lump in his throat, thinking about how Suguru would ask you to go with him to the party. How you would say yes.

Satoru contains himself. He’s distracted by your face anyway, the way your nose twitches, and the way you bite your lip when you think. He’s barely tuned into the conversation. Something about international politics. Anticipations for Jujutsu Tech. A Grade 3 curse that nearly wiped out Utahime before Suguru caught up to her.

“How are you going to get to Grade 2 if someone who isn’t even a first-year yet is saving your ass, Uta?” Satoru yawns.

“Utahime-senpai,” she corrects, grumbling. “And Geto-kun was just at the right place at the right time–”

“You were cowering a little,” Suguru adds, chuckling.

“Hey, leave her alone,” Shoko scolds the boys. She turns her face to you. “I don’t know how you can stand being around them all the time.”

“Aren’t you always around them?” you ask.

“Well, yes, but they’re a package deal. Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. I don’t think Satoru even had friends when he met Suguru–”

“Hey!” Satoru whines. “Twigs is right here.”

“You’ve been holding her hostage since she was a child. That’s Stockholm syndrome at this point,” Suguru jokes.

You smile a little. Satoru knows better. When he glances at you, you look away. If you were in a better mood, maybe you would’ve laughed, because there was some truth to it.

Satoru swallows down the rest of his coffee, too sugary, tooth-rotting. He thinks about how he would pretend to kidnap you when you were kids. Cops and robbers. Trapping you in the nest he’d made in his tree house for hours, forcing you to play video games with him. He would try and fail to braid your hair and you would feed him sour gummy worms.

It had been a while since the two of you had innocent fun like that, he realized. In your prelude to adulthood, he’d driven himself wild about the physicality of you next to him. Smothered by him since the summertime. He liked that the two of you spoke in tongues, kiss-shaped secrets. He wants to be alone with you again even if he’d had you in the morning and the night before.

“I’m a victim,” you huff, sarcastic but lighthearted. “Save me, Suguru.”

Satoru frowns at that. You stick your tongue out at him, trying not to appear flushed when you take in Suguru’s laugh.

You weren’t sure how Suguru felt about you, but you knew you hated that he had an inkling to your relationship with Satoru. Maybe he knew that the two of you were fucking, but that particular aspect didn’t matter. It was the fact that it was easy to figure out that you were attached to Satoru like an accessory, his pet since he was young. A chew toy.

When you talk with Suguru alone, you find that you feel separate from Satoru for once. Your own person. You could exist as yourself, and you found the idea of Suguru liking you for yourself rather alluring. Not that Satoru didn’t like you for you, but it was… different. He had always known you, possessed you. Like you were assigned to him, almost.

A sick part of you enjoyed that, at least when he was inside you. At the moment, in front of his friends, it makes your skin itch.

December, 2008 (One week later)

The last month of the year is a dull ache. Swollen numbness. Frostbitten heart.

The shock of warmth inside the kissaten makes your cheeks hot despite your face feeling frozen moments before. It’s Western-inspired and cutesy with its overflowing hanging plants and vintage movie posters.

You think about texting Satoru, knowing how much he’d indulge in the sweets, though you refrain. He would never be able to let you study. How he received such high marks in school was beyond you — he had to have some kind of attention disorder with how distracted he could get and his outright refusal to be academically sensible. And yet, he was at the top of the class.

For the first time in a while, you don’t care much for your exams. You don’t really care much about anything, lately. The thought of attending university in the spring hadn’t yet come to fruition in your head. Nothing remotely tangible — the future is a void where reality should be. Ironically, the fantastical nature of Jujutsu Tech started to sound more and more appealing the more time you spent with Satoru and his friends. You curse how easily influenced you are. If you feel small where you are now, you would certainly feel small there.

Thirty pages into your book, your brooding is interrupted by the presence of another. A glass is pushed towards you, green with whipped cream on top. When you look up, a cat-like grin beams back.

“This seat taken?”

“Not at all,” you say. “Is this– for me?”

Suguru shrugs. “They fucked up my order. Wanted a regular matcha, not whatever… this is.”

“A matcha… float?”

“Something like that.”

“Thanks,” you laugh.

Suguru’s hair is up like it always is, in a half-up bun with the rest of his hair down. His broad body drowns in an oversized black sweater. A vision of comfort. You always liked that he smelled like white tea and pine.

“Where’s your guard dog?”

“Hm?” you look up at him quizzically, eyes narrowed. “Oh. Ah, probably home, I dunno. Don’t you usually keep track of him? Package deal and all.”

He laughs and holds his jaw in his palm as he leans closer to you. Satoru was obsessive when it came to you, Suguru had noticed. He wasn’t sure if Satoru knew – always oblivious to the shit that fell out of his mouth. He was arrogant that way, not that Suguru cared. He could sense that you cared, though.

You’d never been alone with Suguru, you realized, nor had you ever been this close to him. He always had an air of aloofness about him from afar, but the crease in his eyes brought comfort up close. It made sense that Satoru kept him around. He was grounding and stable whereas Satoru was unconventional and wild – the moon that controlled the tide.

In between them, you felt like a stray.

“He’s obnoxious when you’re around. Barely gives you any room to breathe, that brat.”

He says it with a playful tease in his voice, yet still apologetic. Maybe Satoru was more of Suguru’s pet, able to be tamed by him.

“He’s alright.”

You smile shyly into your matcha float, hair falling into your face. Suguru gets it – Satoru’s weird fixation with you. Attached to you like a baby blanket. He could feel guilty about wanting to steal you away, but the desire wasn’t for the sake of cruel entertainment. He was merely curious. He liked your face. Your mannerisms.

Suguru’s name gets called from the counter. You watch him collect his drink and a plate of ogura toast.

“Have you eaten?”

“Suguru, you don’t have to offer me your food after you just gave me a free drink.”

“Fine,” he smiles. “It’ll cost you then.”

You shove him in the arm, gently. Bashful. He thinks it’s a good look on you.

“Sorry. You were studying, weren’t you?”

“You can stay,” you shrug. “Just don’t be too distracting.”

“So you think I’m distracting.”

“I didn’t say that.”

You can’t resist his Cheshire-like grin, robbing you of your pride. Satoru did mention that Suguru slept around more than he did, which surprised you at first considering how quiet and reserved he seemed. Now, you understand why, examining him as he flips through the pages of the book he brought. He was beautiful.

The hour passes quietly. You steal a few glances, but nothing major. Suguru wordlessly feeds you small pieces of his toast dipped in the red bean jam, surprising you at first. Blushing when his fingertips are so close to your mouth.

Satoru would be pissed.

“Okay, I’ve had enough,” you sigh, rolling your shoulders and resting your head on your folded arms.

“Of my company?” Suguru asks.

“Never.” You shake your head. You yawn. “Of studying.”

Bleary-eyed, you look at him, hiding your face less. His eyes are dark, absorbing light. The inverse of Satoru’s clear blues. You scrunch your nose when the boy pokes your cheek.

“Hey, you doing anything for New Year’s?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” you admit. “I barely know what I’m doing for Christmas.”

You’ve never celebrated New Year’s like other teenagers. Maybe you’d stay up watching television with your mother, sharing a barely-alcohol champagne as a treat. The clock would turn and you would go to sleep. It was always quiet like that in your household.

The same would go for Christmas – you hadn’t been to church in years even though your mother insisted. On some odd years, you and your mother would show up at the Gojo household and help make breakfast, and watch Satoru open endless gifts.

“You know about the annual Gojo formal, right? For New Year’s?”

“I do.”

“Would you like to go with me?”

He waits patiently, even though you must look like a deer in the headlights. You aren’t sure if you heard him right.

“Like as– as a date?”

“Sure,” Suguru answers. “As friends. Or whatever you’d like.”

You echo the statement in your head, mulling it over. Whatever you’d like. Was he flirting with you?

“Did Satoru put you up to this?” You pick at a loose thread on the sleeve of your sweater, blinking at anywhere but his face. He had to be asking out of pity. It wasn’t like Satoru would take you, you knew that. You didn’t belong at one of his parties.

“Hey, don’t,” he coos. You had only started spending more time with Suguru in the past few months, usually with Satoru, yet it seemed that you didn’t mind when he touched you. It still shocks you a little bit, but it mostly comforts you – the way he caresses your chin softly, turning your face to look at him.

“It was my idea to take you.”

You want to ask who Satoru is going with, but you think it would give the two of you away, regardless of Satoru’s lack of discretion. As if Suguru didn’t already know about your feelings. You’d be naive to assume so, but you still didn’t want to have to talk about it all so candidly. It was easier to swallow it all down, to keep Satoru like a secret the way he kept you.

“I’ll think about it,” you smile meekly. “I should check with my mother, anyway. I’ve never… attended one of the Gojo parties as a real guest.”

“Let me know,” Suguru nods. “Shoko and Uta mentioned they wanted to take you dress-shopping.”

You aren’t even sure if you can afford a dress suitable for the formal. Maybe you could borrow one of your mother’s old kimonos. You’re dazed trying to process it all. You imagine standing next to Suguru at a formal event and it lights your insides on fire.

“I’ll let you know.”

Satoru’s birthday, a week prior

He’d woken up past midnight to blue light flooding the room – the television on standby in the otherwise dark room. Suguru rolls his neck, head swimming from alcohol and a bad taste in his mouth. They all were probably playing video games in Satoru’s room upstairs.

Losers.

He trudges upstairs to take a piss and brush his teeth but pauses at the crack of warm light outside of Satoru’s room. He hears you whine. Rasps of pleasure rumbled from the deep parts of Satoru’s throat.

When he steps forward and tilts his head, he sees you. Sprawled like a ragdoll, heat-flushed from the boy’s tongue in your cunt.

You curse pornographically, palm to your mouth after an outburst. Satoru laughs darkly.

Gonna wake up the whole house, baby.

You said Sugu was a deep sleeper.

Apparently not.

The nickname coming from your mouth – mewling, teased out by Satoru’s large fingers in you – hearing it makes Suguru’s cock twitch in his pants. The sight of you is seraphic. Hair a mess on those stupid luxurious bed sheets. Bralette barely hanging off your tits and stockings down to your ankles like a real mistress.

If it were him, he’d use more fingers, he thinks. You could take it like a good girl like Satoru calls you. A princess.

Suguru remembers your reaction to being called that. It had awoken him in a small way back then, something on the brink of hunger, now full-fledged as he watches you.

Maybe he’s dreaming.

He’d had his fair share of weird homoerotic experiences with Satoru. Boyish flirting that would end in wrestling. Drunk open-mouthed kisses before Shoko would pick them up to go to the movies. Absent-minded touching.

They’d fucked the same girl at least once, never together. Satoru never cared about any of them. Suguru would be kinder to save face. You, though – you were beyond a dream. Of course, Satoru was obsessed with you. It was the first time the idea of sharing irked him, Suguru realized. It was why he nearly kept you on a leash, tight-lipped whenever you were mentioned.

Sometimes I want to kidnap her, I swear. Never leave her out of my sight.

“Fuck.”

He adjusts his pants, palming his dick just a little, knowing he should probably go to the bathroom already in case he gets caught. He groans quietly at your noises in tandem with Satoru’s.

The two of you look like angels. Bodies snug like puzzle pieces.

Satoru is kissing you, marking you up. Suguru can taste your skin in his mind, the shape of his name in your mouth. He wonders what you look like when you’re crying. He thinks of glistening cheeks. Heart-shaped bruises.

He could get you both alone, maybe, if Satoru wasn’t so goddamn stubborn. Possessive. Suguru wouldn’t be surprised if you were already branded by him, a tattoo of his name on you.

For now, he leaves to go to the bathroom.

Mid-December, 2008

You miss the summer. Before the white plague of snow and seasonal depression, you might even admit that you were a little happy. Wrapped around your lover’s finger, of course. Heart bursting like new lilies.

It takes more than a few missed texts for him to come barging into your room unannounced, interrupting your hypnagogic peace. He frowns at the sight of you in bed and flips the record you were playing – an old Ryuichi Sakamoto from your mother. He’s annoying as he crawls into bed with you, all six feet and three inches of him engulfing the bed. He playfully snaps his teeth at you when you try to shove his face away.

“So clingy,” you mumble.

“You like me that way,” Satoru says. “I don’t like when you ignore me.”

“I have a life separate from you.”

A lie. Nothing occupies you much, these days.

Satoru yanks down your sweater and bites your shoulder. He must’ve been bored to come all the way to your house just for this. A puppy running out of toys to play with. Apparently, he has teeth like one, too.

“Stop,” you grit. “You’re so annoying.”

He insists on tangling his long legs with yours despite your short-lived struggle. You’re nose to nose. It reminds you of when you were both small, seven years old, and sleepy. Swapping words of a made-up language and Pokemon cards.

He was annoying then, too, tugging at your sleeve and pulling your hair at any opportunity he could. Spoiled rotten. It was probably one of the worst things about him.

“So rude,” he pouts, curling into you. He inhales your scent and pauses. You don’t notice, but discontent flashes in his sky-blue eyes underneath his sunglasses.

“Weird. You smell like Suguru.”

“How would you know that?”

He rolls his eyes. He wears Suguru’s clothes sometimes, knows what his mouth tastes like. It was always clean, similar to himself, but somehow more masculine. Earthy, like a forest. Not that Satoru would relay the details to you.

“I recognize it. That and his residuals on your clothes. Six Eyes, remember?”

“I ran into him today. We had lunch together.”

“Oh,” he murmurs. “I didn’t know you guys hung out.”

You clear your throat, avoiding his gaze.

“He asked me to your family’s New Year’s formal. As a date.”

Satoru clenches his jaw, unfairly irritated. He refuses to let it be known, but his poker face is starting to crack.

“What did you say?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

He knows it’s selfish of him to be pissed off. No matter how much he wanted to claim you, he ultimately wouldn’t. He didn’t even particularly care about the formal, anyway – considered an afterthought. As usual, he didn’t think ahead. Didn’t imagine the hurt look on your face when you asked him who he was going with. Of course, it didn’t even occur to him that you would want to go.

“Mei,” he answers. “A family friend of sorts. It was my parents’ idea. Sort of a networking thing, I don’t know.”

“Have you slept with her?” you ask, hiding your face.

“God– no. Mei Mei doesn’t care about anything except status, anyway,” he stammers. “We’re friends.”

“Like how you and I are friends.”

“What? No– I mean,” Satoru sighs. His heart sinks a little when he tries to touch you and you turn your head away. “It’s different with us. You’re different.”

“I know I’m different, thanks,” you mumble.

You wish he wasn’t so close to you. You wish the smell of him wasn’t so sweet, so captivating. The warmth of his body next to yours. You wish he’d leave.

“You know what I mean. Hey, look at me. Don’t be mad.”

“I’m fine,” you snap. “Will you let me nap?”

“No, because you’re upset about me having a family obligation–”

“It’s not about her, it’s about–” You choke up. He wouldn’t understand.

Family obligation. The statement makes you laugh a bit. You flash him a sardonic glare as he stares back. He would never understand what it felt like to be lesser. Barely second-best, barely an option. You imagine him in a suit, his arm around a prettier girl, a girl that exudes the same opulence as him. Cut from the same divine cloth. It would never be you.

Maybe you shouldn’t feel angry. If it was something that his parents forced him to do, being upset about it wouldn’t change anything. But the mere fact of it reminds you of how long you might have with him – if any of this was worth the trouble.

“Never mind,” you mutter. “I understand.”

He frowns, his eyes pleading for more from you.

“Makes sense for me to go with Suguru, then, I suppose.”

“Oh.”

Satoru almost winces at the sound of Suguru’s name. His throat tightens.

You’re right. If anything, beyond a date at the formal, perhaps Suguru deserved you more. He was more polite. Golden-hearted. Never as trivial or obnoxious as Satoru. Always honest. The thought of you two together makes something in Satoru’s stomach lurch.

Your face is calm, suddenly. A little blank. There’s nothing left to say.

#gojo smut #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jjk smut #geto x reader #geto suguru x reader #gojo satoru x you #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk x you

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gracie-rosee · 4 months

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Empyrean Clothing

If I could borrow a minute of your time. I promise it’s worth it :)

I took it upon myself to put this together, since I really enjoy the detailed world Rebecca Yarros has laid out for us. Plus, as an artist it’s good to have solid references. And a lot of these are somewhat book accurate to the descriptions of some clothing and styles I can recall.

It bugs me when people see a fantasy world and immediately think: corsets, tight leather, sexy dresses, ball gowns, billowing capes, and eight million buckles. So here’s how I see the clothing in this series.

Let’s start with the War college and flight leathers:

I don’t think their uniform resembles any kind of prep school/academy uniform whatsoever. Their uniforms are quite literally flight uniforms. So, I take a lot of inspiration from real life flight jumpsuits you would see from pilots and astronauts. Simple enough for daily wearing to classes, yet durable and efficient for flight maneuvers and lessons. Leathers are worn on top of uniforms.

Have any of you ever tried to do a simple cartwheel in a waist-snatching leather corset with cutouts in all the weird places? I doubt there would be much range and ease of mobility. Leather is great for flying, but they’re also fighting, too.

Flying also requires high altitudes and extremely cold weather and wind. I imagine one would wear clothing to cover their neck and face while in flight, in addition to goggles. (Seriously, where did the goggles go in the fanart/fanfics I’m seeing?) Practicality over aesthetics.

Other necessities would be gloves. Being able to grip your dragon and wield weapons is a must.

For more casual, everyday clothing:

Lots of sweaters. Buttons rather than zippers. More casual, yet always always so practical in a way that you could jump into flight or channel a signet that requires physical exertion. Complete and total range of movement would be required. From what we’ve seen, it’s a cooler climate, not just during the winter, and everybody works. There was two instances I can recall where someone wore something other than pants and that was Violet’s skirt for Reunification Day and her dress later on in book 2.

Even Scribe robes are very practical and efficient:

And now for my favorite.

High ranking officials, nobles, and royalty:

I often think of Liam and Xaden’s family. High ranking officials, wealthy families, and powerful signet wielders would have more flaunting style. To show their signet, to show their wealth, status, or position. And yet, and YET! Still practical. You could jump onto the back of a dragon at any time. The extravagance would often lie in the details. Hand crafted embroidery, or Deverelli silk sashes. Almost no jewelry would be worn, but I think expression could be shown in extravagant hair colors and makeup styles.

Again, while I did reference the book for most of this, the rest is my interpretation of what I think fits the series the best. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!

#fourth wing #iron flame #the empyrean #violet and xaden #xadenviolet #liam mairi #dain aetos #violet sorrengail #rhiannon matthias #xaden riorson #rebecca yarros

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vintageshanny · 26 days

Text

Waiting for Love - Part Seven

Letting Go

Content: December 1970-February 1971, infidelity, smut, fluff, 18+

Catch up here: Waiting for Love series

Early December 1970

“So you’re telling me Elvis was laying here in this very bed last night?” Roxanne buried her face in the pillow and inhaled deeply. “The pillow smells good,” she said dreamily.

“Hey! He’s mine,” Vivien laughed, snatching the pillow away and clutching it to her chest. “Only I get to smell him. And taste him,” she added in a muffled whisper as she lowered her head into the pillow, feeling a little tingle at the memory of him telling her he hadn’t been in anyone else’s mouth since hers.

“You like swallowing him down?” Roxanne asked, crinkling her nose in disgust. “I always just go in the bathroom right away and spit it out when Michael does that in my mouth.”

“Spit it out?” Vivien sounded like she didn’t even know that was an option. “No, I like it. I love the look on his face when he, y’know, finishes,” she giggled. “It feels magical to make him feel so good. Don’t you ever feel that way about Michael?”

“What would be magical is if he ever felt like returning the favor,” Roxanne muttered, trying to quell the feelings of jealousy that were bubbling up. She was happy that Vivien looked so happy, she really was, especially after these last few months of uncertainty, but the look in Vivien’s eyes when she talked about Elvis made Roxanne question if she’d ever really been in love with Michael at all. “So, when do I get to meet him?” she asked, trying not to bring down Vivien’s mood.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Vivien said nervously, fidgeting with the hem of her green sweater dress. “Are you going to be polite to him? And don’t tell him I told you anything about his…penis,” she said, her voice dropping to an embarrassed whisper.

“Don’t worry, hon, I won’t tell him how in love you are with his foreskin,” Roxanne teased as Vivien’s face flushed hotly. “I just figured I’d say something like, ‘When are you gonna divorce your frigid wife and marry my best friend Vivien?’”

“Ha ha, very funny!” Vivien retorted. “You are not saying that!”

“Fine,” Roxanne sighed. “I’ll just think it and send the message telepathically.”

“Okay, I’ll allow that,” Vivien giggled.

“Speaking of penises, did you guys do the deed last night?” Roxanne asked nonchalantly.

“Not the full deed,” Vivien blushed as she thought of what they had done and how intimate it felt. Too intimate to even share with Roxanne. She felt somehow protective of the way Elvis had sat in front of her and stroked his most private, sensitive area while he looked in her eyes, softly moaning. She quickly continued before Roxanne could ask any more questions, “I think I might be ready soon though. He told me that he loves me.” Roxanne’s eyes widened with surprise, and a look of concern flashed across her face. “What? You, um, think he’s just saying that to make me feel better?” Vivien whispered nervously, her stomach dropping.

“No, honey, no,” Roxanne quickly cut in. “I’m just worried about you. He’s telling you that, and I’m sure he feels that way, I mean why wouldn’t he? You’re sweet and beautiful and funny. But he disappeared on you for four months. And he is still living with his wife. And he hasn’t made any move to change that yet, right?”

Vivien could feel her stomach tightening up into knots, all her hope from the night before seeming to dissipate. “Well, what am I supposed to do?” her voice quivered. “You told me I should go for it, and now you’re saying I should just forget about him? I can’t do that.”

“No, Vivien, I don’t know what I’m saying. I just want you to be careful.”

“How do you be careful falling in love?” Vivien asked, brushing a tear off her cheek. “You either love someone or you don’t, right? You have to let go of the doubts. You can’t love someone halfway.”

“Maybe you’re right, Viv,” Roxanne gave her hand a little squeeze. “Just follow your heart and see if it was meant to be. Just know I’ll always be here for you, okay?”

Vivien nodded just as they heard pounding on the door. Vivien jumped up and ran to the living room, wondering whether it was possible that he’d come back so soon. “Elvis! You’re back!” she exclaimed, her spirits immediately lifted into the clouds.

“Of course I’m back, baby,” he said, wrapping her in a big hug. “I didn’t like havin’ ta sneak out earlier, but I didn’t wanna wake ya, and I had some things ta take care of. I had ta come back though cuz I just got some big news and you’re the first person I wanted ta tell.” Elvis was almost breathless with excitement.

“What is it?” Vivien asked eagerly.

“I’m gonna be gettin’ an award next month - the Jaycees Ten Most Outstanding Young Men award!” Elvis was beaming like a little boy, and Vivien had to stop herself from giggling at how cute he looked.

“Don’t you get awards all the time?” she asked, smiling.

“W-w-well sure, but this is different. This ain’t for jus’ singin’; this is because they think I’m a good person. They recognize how I try to be good and help people and ever’thing.”

Vivien’s heart melted that the award he wanted so badly was just to be recognized as a decent human being. “Well, I think that’s the perfect award for you, then. They couldn’t have picked a better man.”

“Ya wanna celebrate, baby?” Elvis whispered as he leaned down and nibbled on her ear.

“Oh, am I interrupting something?” Roxanne asked, wandering out of the bedroom at that exact moment.

Vivien blushed as she pulled away from Elvis’ embrace. “Elvis, this is my best friend Roxanne. Roxanne, Elvis.”

“Oh, the famous Roxanne,” Elvis exclaimed as he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. “I understand you’re to thank for the dress Vivien used to try to seduce me at the movies when we first met.”

Roxanne laughed. “That would be me, yes,” she said. “And apparently it worked?”

“Well, it was actually her copy of The Prophet that did me in,” Elvis said with a smile.

Roxanne’s expression turned serious. “You seem very kind and charming, Elvis, but as Vivien’s best friend, I need to warn you that you better not break her heart.”

Elvis looked surprised for a second before responding. “I’m just hoping she doesn’t break mine.”

Vivien and Elvis both smiled as Roxanne whispered, “Okay, he’s pretty good, I’ll give you that.”

*************************************************

January 12, 1971

“Honey, I need ta see ya. I’ve been practicin’ this speech for the award ceremony, and I wanna know what ya think.”

“Okay, do you want me to come over?” Vivien asked, never sure of the etiquette for asking if the man you love’s wife was home or not. It had been so difficult to not get to spend Christmas or his birthday with him, although he’d sent her over a beautiful pair of emerald earrings. She prayed that next year would be different, that she wouldn’t have to ask if she was allowed to come over.

“Yes, if you could, I really need ya.” Elvis sounded relieved.

Twenty minutes later, Vivien was walking up the driveway to Graceland. Elvis must have told the security guard to expect her because he opened the gate without a question. Before she could even knock on the door, Elvis flung it open and pulled her upstairs to the study next to his bedroom.

“I-I-I’m so glad you’re here, baby, I’m gettin’ nervous, I jus’ really wanna do a good job,” Elvis seemed agitated in the same way he’d been before filming the concert documentary last summer.

“Elvis, you’re going to do great.” Vivien looked over what he’d written. “Wow, this is really beautiful and heartfelt. I think people will love it,” she said sincerely. “I just wish I could be there with you, to support you.” She smiled wistfully.

Elvis pulled her onto his lap and stroked her back tenderly. “I wish ya could too, baby. It’s just not time yet. But remember, we’re in this together. You’re supportin’ me just by bein’ here now. I love ya, honey.” He laid his head against her chest, soaking in her warmth and love for him.

“I love you too, Elvis. It’s just hard.” Vivien swallowed harshly, trying to fight the tears that were welling up.

“Honey, ya make things hard for me all the time,” Elvis said, trying to hold back the laughter at his own dirty joke.

“Elvis! I’m being serious!” Vivien said, laughing in spite of herself.

“Me too, baby, me too, just touch it and see,” he groaned, lifting his head to kiss her as he grabbed her hand and rested it on his crotch. “See what ya do to me?” he murmured between kisses. “The way you’re always so sweet, always here when I need ya, it-it-it turns me on, baby.”

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to take care of you then,” Vivien whispered, sliding off his lap so she could kneel between his legs and unzip his pants. “If you’re gonna get this speech right, you need to be nice and relaxed. I have the perfect trick for that.” Elvis panted softly as she pulled out his dick and set to work on her mission to relax him, her tongue caring for every part of him.

*************************************************

February 2, 1971

“Hey, princess! Did ya like Daddy’s show last night?” Elvis scooped Lisa into a big hug as she came charging into his bedroom suite at the hotel.

“Yes! Elvis sing so good and dance funny,” Lisa giggled.

“Not Elvis, baby, call me Daddy,” Elvis laughed as he tickled her tummy.

“Okay Elvis!” Lisa tried to tickle him back with her little fingers.

“I’m glad ya enjoyed your birthday, my yittle Yisa.” Elvis blew a big raspberry kiss on her cheek. “You’re gonna go with Mommy, and I’ll see ya at home in jus’ a few weeks, okay?”

Priscilla cleared her throat where she’d been hovering in the doorway. “Should I, I mean am I supposed to come back for closing night?”

“Uh, n-n-no, ya ain’t gotta come back, that’s alright,” Elvis responded as he pulled her in for a hug, partly just to avoid making eye contact.

“Oh, okay,” Priscilla sounded surprised but almost relieved. There was a certain freedom in accepting that things were coming to an end, in letting go.

As soon as they’d left, Elvis went to the phone and lifted the receiver, his heart beating with excitement as his long fingers dragged the rotary dial around. “Baby? I need ya out here with me. Don’t worry ‘bout packin’ anything. I’ma take good care of ya, honey. How soon can ya leave?”

*************************************************

One week later

Vivien sat nervously on the edge of the bed in Elvis’ giant hotel suite, eyeing the dress he’d laid out for her to wear. She hadn’t actually gotten to see him yet, and since it had been almost a month, she felt nervous, hoping he would be as excited as she was to be together again. Joe had picked her up at the airport in his usual gruff manner, although he had kept his judgments to himself this time. Elvis must have given him a piece of his mind.

True to his word, Elvis had provided everything she might need - a whole rack of sparkly dresses was hanging in the closet, with matching shoes and even a handbag. She would have been worried they were Priscilla’s, but they all still had the tags on from some swanky boutique. One dress was draped across the bed with a note on top of it.

Sweetheart, wear this tonight. I want everyone to be green with envy that you belong to me. -EP

After wiggling into the dress, Vivien examined herself in the full-length mirror. The dress was emerald green with little rhinestones sewn in that sparkled in the light. The fringe on the skirt swished when she walked, and the dramatic halter top V-neckline was so deep and tight that she thought she might pop out of the fabric if she moved the wrong way. It was certainly the most daring thing she’d ever worn, even more than the dresses Roxanne lent her.

As she studied herself, the conversation she’d overheard at work replayed itself in her mind. She thought her boss had seemed sympathetic when she told him she needed two weeks off for a family emergency. She felt bad about the fib, but she could hardly tell him the truth. Later, as she walked by the lounge, she’d heard his voice drifting out into the hallway as he talked to one of the other lawyers. “A family emergency, right! I heard rumors she’s been whoring herself out to Elvis Presley, if you can believe that. I always thought she was a good girl, but you never can tell these days…”

As they had that day, tears started stinging her eyes. Vivien tried to push all that out of her mind. Elvis wanted her here with him, and nothing was going to ruin that for her. She slipped on a pair of strappy gold sandals and headed toward the door.

After Joe dropped her off at her own booth toward the front of the showroom, he leaned in and smirked. “I’ll get ya during the last song so we can get back to the suite safely. We wouldn’t want ya gettin’ lost in the shuffle of all the women.” Vivien just nodded, tight-lipped, and rolled her eyes as he walked away. Jealousy did not become him.

Vivien was in a state of euphoria as Joe led her back to the suite after the show. There were really no words that could explain the magic of seeing Elvis up on that stage, sharing his gift with the world. Vivien felt like she’d been under a spell watching him, a spell that might never be broken. She waited anxiously for him to arrive, ignoring the glares and curious looks from Joe and the handful of other people who were waiting for the man of the hour. Her heart skipped a beat when Elvis burst through the door with some of his entourage. He looked absolutely stunning, still glistening with sweat. Beauty and sexiness radiated off of him. Vivien smiled as she noticed how the green on his jumpsuit perfectly matched her dress. Elvis caught sight of her and his face lit up as he gathered her into a big hug and planted a kiss right on her lips.

“Y’all can go, I’m tired tonight,” Elvis announced to his crew as he turned back to Vivien with a wink. Everyone cleared out with a slight air of disappointment.

“Are you tired, baby?” Vivien asked with concern, brushing a sweaty lock of hair off Elvis’ forehead. “Did you want to lie down?”

“Naw, honey,” Elvis said with a sly grin. “I jus’ wanted ya all ta myself. I missed ya so much.” He leaned in and caught her lips with his, pushing his tongue gently into her mouth. Vivien softly moaned and Elvis pulled back with a blissful little smile on his face. His smile widened as he looked down. “Y’know the way ya fill this dress out honey, reminds me of our first little pool party where ya decided to come right outta your top and seduce me with your womanly wiles.”

Vivien tilted her head back and laughed. “Oh, it was me doing the seducing? Not you giving me a swimsuit that was two sizes too small?”

“Honey, all I know is that I was tryin’ ta have serious discussions with ya, and your eyes kept wanderin’ all over me,” Elvis teased. “See? You’re even doin’ it now.”

Vivien blushed as she realized her eyes were indeed taking in every part of him. He had removed his heavy gold belt, and every contour of his body now seemed visible through the tight black and green jumpsuit. She put her hand on his chest and then let it trail gently down over his lean stomach until it rested softly on the bulge below his waist. “Can you really blame me when you look this sexy?” she whispered. “I want you so badly.”

Elvis’ eyes sparkled as he responded, “You’re looking quite sexy yourself, baby.” He deftly reached behind her neck and untied the halter straps of the dress, letting the fabric fall down to Vivien’s waist, her soft breasts on full display, her hardened nipples showing just how aroused he made her. Elvis cupped her breasts with his warm hands and leaned down to kiss and lick each nipple.

“Elvis,” Vivien moaned softly.

“Yes, baby?” he murmured, rolling the rest of the dress down and helping her step out of it.

“I’m, I’m ready,” she whispered. “I’m ready to give you every part of me. I want to belong to you completely.”

Elvis stood straight up and looked at her with surprise. “A-a-are ya sure, honey? I want ya ta really be sure.”

Vivien nodded and pulled him close, her naked body trembling in his arms. “I’m nervous, but I’m sure,” she said softly, reaching to help him peel off his jumpsuit, still damp with sweat. Elvis looked at Vivien shyly as he stood before her in just his briefs. “You look more nervous than I do,” she teased as she pulled his underwear down his legs and took in the beautiful sight of his bare body.

“I-I-I jus’ wanna make sure it’s perfect for ya honey,” he said, blushing a little bit at the pleasure she took in looking at him. “You’ve waited a long time, so I want it to be special.”

Vivien smiled at his sweet thoughtfulness. “It will be perfect and special because it’s with you. I’ve been waiting for love, and now I found it.”

Elvis helped her onto the bed and laid himself on top of her, gently kissing her lips before he reached down to guide himself in. He rubbed his hard dick against Vivien’s clit, her arousal growing as she felt his silky soft skin right against her most sensitive spot. “Ya sure you’re ready baby? It might hurt a little at first, but I’ll be so gentle. I’ll take care of ya honey, okay? You just gotta relax and let go.”

Vivien nodded and kissed his soft lips. “I’m ready to let go, Elvis. I’m ready to give you everything.” She could feel his tip start to enter inside of her, her body opening up to accept all of him.

Tag List: @whositmcwhatsit @lookingforrainbows @arrolyn1114 @thatbanditqueen @missmaywemeetagain @ellie-24 @be-my-ally @from-memphis-with-love @pebbles403 @deniseinmn @everythingelvispresley @little-laamb @annapresley8 @leapresley @littlehoneyposts @epthedream69 @atleastpleasetelephone @gatheraheart @richardslady121 @helen06dreamer @arg-xoxo

#elvis #elvis fan fiction #elvis fan fic #elvis smut #elvis x oc #waiting for love #i love this man

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thyme-in-a-bubble · 1 year

Text

what if I don’t wanna be patient?

plum, chapter thirteen

warnings: Joel Miller x reader, smut, MILD SPOILERS for the last of us (both games and the hbo series), slow burn, age gap (20 years), timeline wise this is set in between the first and second game (so when they live in Jackson), heavy angst, rape recovery, ptsd, kissing, foreplay, dry humping, light choking (hand on throat), crying

word count: 866

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“Wow,” Joel giggled as you unexpectedly used all of your strength to yank him inside, “hi.”

Your lips not wasting any more time, immediately latched onto his, kissing him needily as you kicked the door shut behind you, “I’ve missed you.”

“Plum, it’s only been a few days,” he chuckled against your lips.

“Yeah, well I still missed you,” then added as your fingers tangled in the buttons of his dark green flannel, “a lot.”

“Oh, yeah?” he hummed as you backed him up towards the couch.

“Yeah,” you beamed in between pecks, “I really wish I could go on patrol with you, be out there just the two of us, but Maria still doesn’t think I’m ready,” then grumbled, “which is complete fucking bull shit.”

“You will get there, just be patient,” the back of his legs hit the couch and your grasp on his broad shoulders guided him the rest of the way down.

“And what if I don’t wanna be patient, huh?” you smirked, straddling his lap and capturing his lips in another hungry kiss.

After nearly ripping the last of his buttons clean off, you parted just long enough for you to lift your warm sweater over your head, your fingers swiftly seizing the hem of your t-shirt, the last layer that remained before your bare boobs sprung free in front of his face.

Snatching your hands before you got the chance to shred any more clothing, Joel caught your dilated pupils and checked, “you sure?”

“Please Joel, I want this,” you begged, practically on the brink of tears. Still noting the hesitation in his eye, you wiggled a hand free, placed it on his bearded jaw and told him, “I’m not gonna break,” feeling his hold still not yield, “you won’t break me. Please, I want this so bad, I want you, I wanna feel you, I wanna feel all of you.”

Searching your eyes, his form slowly relaxed beneath you, the elated giggle that bubbled out of your throat as you noticed caused a smile to bloom on his stern face and his body to soften even further.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” you uttered adoringly.

Tightening his grasp on the edge of your shirt, Joel slowly lifted it up, his large palms swiftly smoothing down your wild hair as the cotton neckline messed it up.

“I missed you too,” his breathy tone made it difficult for you to stay back and let him get a good look at you, the urge to have his lips again being absolutely excruciating. Feeling his fingers drift down from your head to where his eyes were glued to, your hips instinctually rolled down against his thighs as he uttered, “you are so beautiful,” sounding nearly hypnotised as the soft light glowing from the window behind you cast a halo of light around your perched form.

Curling an arm around your waist, his hand stretched down and breached the waistband of your jeans, promptly using the hold to yank you even closer towards him, a move that made you lose your breath.

You couldn’t hold back the needy whine that flowed out as you felt his prevalent tent poke against your throbbing core.

“Fuck Joel,” you shuttered as he grabbed the back of your neck for another taste.

Tongues danced against each other, moans were exchanged like the breath you shared, both for your wandering hands weren’t shy to explore the other’s body as you desperately rocked down against him.

Although as one of his hands let go of the toe-curling hold it had on your pebbly left nipple to slide up towards your face, it never fully arrived at the assumed destination as his fingers unexpectedly enclosed around your throat. His hold was gentle, simply resting there in an effort to keep you close, but unfortunately, that wasn’t how your body understood it.

Freezing up at once, your breath got caught in your throat as tears instantly welled up in your eyes. Your whole body started shaking as your heart-breaking voice burst through your partner's haze, “Joel.”

Snapping out of the ecstasy at once, he reeled back and took in how quickly your whole world had flipped upside down.

Hearing him suck in a breath that never truly flowed out again, he swiftly grabbed his shredded flannel, balled up beside him, and draped it over your trembling shoulders, though his fingers just hovering as he did, being too scared to truly touch you again.

Your hands still frozen, mid-air, right in front of your body, you wept, “I-I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no, I’m sorry. I’m-, fuck, I’m so sorry, plum.”

As excruciating memories flared up throughout your traumatized form, you still kept on blubbering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I want this, I really really want this,” your jaw clenching in fury as you felt your body betray you, “you gotta believe me, I wanna-, I-…” your plea got snuffed out as your sobs took over and you jaggedly sunk down and buried your face in his chest, your fingers eventually gaining enough strength clutch against his warm frame for an ounce of support.

“I know you do, I know…”

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covetyou · 5 months

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jester little bit more

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist ⋆ series masterlist

pairing: Dieter Bravo x plus sized contortionist f!reader rating: Explicit (18+ only!) warnings: clowns, vaginal fisting, protected PIV, inappropriate use of grease paint, drug reference, slightly subby Dieter, the hand tattoo, reader is referred to as Sparkles and has a briefly mentioned latex allergy. word count: 4.4k summary: Dieter drives you to distraction all day, so you go to give him what for, only to get more than you bargained for in return.

A/N: A gift to my beloved @sp00kymulderr - a simple mention of it a month ago (to the day!) is quite literally all it took to convince me to write a clown fist-it-fic, you are my muse, my inspiration. happy holidays bb

not clowny in an intentionally scary/horror way, but if you really hate clowns probably do not read. this is a different reader, same clown!Dieter to send in the clown.

follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future work

ooh ahh, jester little bit, ooh ahh jester little bit more...

You notice it through your whole act - the burning hot stare of Bravo the Clown as you twist and turn your body into shapes for the awed masses. You never felt more beautiful, more alive, than when you were contorting yourself like this, soft rolls bunching at your sides, rippling fabric and making your sequinned costumes glitter under bright lights with each undulation.

It's when you see him start to adjust his red clown pants that you have to calm yourself, stop yourself from unrolling from your position, stomping over to him, knocking that stupid wig off his head and slamming him into the ground. You don't want to kick up a fuss, not in front of a crowd, and you just know the bastard would like it anyway. He usually did.

Closing your eyes and taking a deep breath, you move through the motions of your set. Contorting this way and that, bending a leg here, twisting there, until you're taking a bow and hurrying backstage to give that fucking clown a piece of your mind.

But Bravo the Clown is nowhere to be found.

Probably in that filthy fucking trailer of his already. He never did like sticking around for the finale, always taking off his own performances, sometimes forgetting he even had two and leaving straight after the first was finished. So, you wait it out, standing with your arms crossed, ignoring anyone's attempts to communicate with you. By now they know the score - once Bravo the Clown had pissed you off, there was only one thing that would solve it.

You rush through the final bows of the night, plastering a sickly sweet smile onto your face before all but running back to the dressing room. No one bothers you, letting you tug off your costume in peace, the tight lycra slinking from your body and landing in a heap on the floor. Throwing on your shorts and a sweater, you stomp from the tent - your make up can wait, you're going to go talk to that asshole before he gets too high to function.

Approaching his worn trailer, you slam the flat of your palm against the old door. "Bravo! Hey! Asshole! Open up." The light is on and you can hear movement but you slam again anyway, imagining his face right beneath your palm as you smack it against the door.

The door wiggles, bowing a little where it gets caught on the latch, before flying open to reveal Bravo the Clown, who almost comes flying with it.

"What do you want, Sparkles," he grumbles from around an unlit joint. You snatch it from his mouth just as he's about to light it, and watch was he feebly reaches for it with a pathetic grabby hands and a scowl on his face.

"Who the fuck do you think you are, Bravo?" you say, pointing your finger into his chest, pushing him back into his trailer and following him in. "Do you know how distracting it is, you practically getting yourself off in public like that? I'd be just as much to blame as you if you were caught, and you are not ruining this for me."

You slam the joint down onto his vanity, the discarded grease paints rattling with the force of it.

He looks so sad and pathetic like this, though maybe it's his choice in make up. He usually opted for a classic, simple clown face, but lately he'd been mixing it up. Today he has sad eyebrows drawn above his own, making him look more like a sad puppy than a man.

"You took the outfit off," he mumbles, huffing out a sigh of disappointment.

"Yes, Bravo, I took my work outfit off, now that I have finished working. You can take yours off too y'know, you don't have to live in this shit." You gesture to his obscene get up, the red pants still strapped up and his striped shirt still buttoned to the top, collar securely in place. The only thing he was missing was his wig, which was thrown onto its shelf with the others.

He smirks at you, a ridiculous gesture beneath all the make up, and starts to unbutton his shirt.

"That is not what I meant, and you know it."

"Whaddaya mean?" he says, rubbing his hands down the front of his shirt to get to the last button.

You roll your eyes at him. You weren't in the mood for this, you tell yourself. Not for him, not for any of it. "Quit clowning around, Bravo. Just tell me you won't do it again. I can't risk this job."

"No can do, Sparkles. Y'know, your ass looks huge when you bend backward like that. Can't help what you do to me." He's adjusting his pants again, just as he was back in the big top, only this time you can see the tent in them easily through the thin fabric.

"You can help it, and you will help it," you say in a low tone, walking toward him to jab your finger into his chest once again. "Or so help me, I'll have your ass kicked out of here."

"Hey," he says raising his hands in surrender. "Can't help that I know what you look like all bent up like that under that tight costume. Bet the crowd would like it just as much as I would if you didn't wear it at all."

And there it was. You fuck a clown one time - okay fine two times...three times, it was only three times - and now he won't let you live it down, constantly chasing you whenever he couldn't get his dick wet by other means.

"I know you like to pretend you don't want a piece of Bravo the Clown, Sparkles, but we both know that ain't true. Who came to who first? I know I wasn't the one desperate to get my pussy pounded. And last time? You were wet before you even got here, you were practically humping my leg before I even got anything off you. Even now, don't think I don't know how this is going to end. You're not mad that I find you sexy, baby, you're mad that I turned you on in the middle of your set."

You're going to actually fucking kill him. It doesn't matter that he was right, it was the principle. You snarl at him, ready to snap, when he's pointing between the two of you, a question on his face.

"Are we gonna hate fuck?"

"You are unbelievable."

He's pulling his shirt off and sliding his suspenders over his shoulders already. With his discarded shirt, he swipes the sad expression from his face, exposing his golden skin. He definitely knows where this is going. "You didn't say no."

"We're not fucking, Bravo," you say, crossing your arms. If this is how he wanted to play it, you were going to play right back. "You owe me. Big time."

His eyes light up, this could be the best day ever for him for all you know. "Oh, hell yeah I do. I've been bad, let me make it up to you. Please?" He's on his knees hands clasped together, pleading, before he even finishes.

You roll your eyes at him again, biting the inside of your cheek. He knew you liked him pathetic, but this was new entirely, and you couldn't hide how much you were enjoying it, even if you were still angry. You nod down at him, giving him silent consent to do what you suspect he's been waiting to do all day.

Bravo the Clown, never one to disappoint a captive audience, dives right in. Head first. Straight for your crotch. He pulls your shorts to the side, exposing your pussy to him and starts licking at you with abandon, digging his tongue as far between your legs as he can, eager to taste you. You have to hold on to his hair, still sweaty from his wig, to stop yourself from falling over.

It had been a long time, you consider. At least a few weeks. It was the least you could do, and he did owe you. And if you ended up having sex, what did it matter, it would be because it was what you wanted and he owed you.

You spread your legs wider, and Bravo moans into your cunt, nodding along as you hear him mumble thank you straight into your pussy. That does something to you then, and you throw your head back with a moan of your own just as he sticks a finger straight into your slick hole.

Your legs can barely take it, already strained and exhausted from your set, and now desperately trying to hold yourself up as a clown eats you out on his knees. He sense it, sees how your legs start to quiver before you're even close, and within seconds he's pulling you to the messy floor of his trailer. He pushes you down onto your back, and you let your body go limp as he dives back into your pussy mouth first, tasting every inch of you. It's sweaty business, being a circus performer, but Bravo the Clown didn't seem to mind. Quite the contrary, he seemed to love it, the hotter and stickier you were the better.

Pent up aggression had already seemed to do half the job for him it seemed, and when he curls another finger into your core you're shaking again for a wholly different reason.

"Fuck, so close. Keep going."

Between your legs, Bravo the Clown groans loudly. The sound is muffled, but that doesn't stop it from rumbling straight through you as his tongue swipes rapidly over your swollen clit. You grab his hair, your belly bunching and curling on one side as you reach for him. His hair is a mess, and your fingers tugging at the strands do nothing to help, but seeing him such a mess, framed between the thickness of your thighs makes you tug his face into you harder, bucking into his face as you go.

His free hand comes up to hold you, tattoo'd forearm pinning you down whilst his fingers grip your belly, creating soft little divots in your flesh with the pressure. You grab his wrist, fisting a fluffy robe discard on the floor in your other hand, anything to anchor you down as you get closer and closer to release.

It's the third finger that does it, slipping into you so easily where he'd worked you open with two, dragging his fingers from side to side to pull your walls apart, pushing down when inside you to make you feel fuller than you were. You're coming with your head thrown back and eyes squeezed tight, fingers clawing at his hair as his tongue continues its dance over your throbbing clit. Your hips go from chasing his mouth, pushing into his tongue, to desperately trying to be free from the overstimulation.

When he pulls back, his whole face is wet - forehead with a sheen of sweat from his efforts, and his lower face glistening with saliva and the wetness of your own cunt. The remnants of white paint caught in the creases around his nose are gone, likely smeared into your own skin and the matching halo of white around his face is further smudged into his hairline, looking like a mad professor streaked with gray where you'd dragged your fingers through his hair.

If you weren't still so annoyed with him you'd be licking it all off, tasting yourself mixed with the sweat on his face, paint be damned.

"Fuck, you look so good when you come, Sparkles."

He looks drunk, or high, or a combination of the two. You laugh at how ridiculous it is. A clown drunk off your pussy, fingers still slowly working away inside of you, your flimsy shorts still yanked to the side.

"Consider yourself lucky, Bravo," is all you say as you let your body flop back onto his floor. He shuffles forward a second later. Probably adjusting his dick for the millionth time tonight, you think.

When you finally open your eyes again, he's sat on his ass, his fingers inside you feeling more like a massage than anything else. You could, should, tell him to stop, but you're too boneless and relaxed to care. He catches you looking, and not a moment later a sly smile is pulling at his cheeks.

"You're so bendy," he says, wiggling his fingers in you. "And stretchy," he splays his three fingers wide.

"Bet you're stretchy everywhere," he says, waggling his eyebrows - his actual eyebrows visible for once now that he's swiped off all the paint.

"Bravo," you say as a warning. You knew what he was getting at. You'd made the mistake of making that little confession whilst high with him one night. It intrigued you, sure, and you'd be lying if you said you hadn't tried to fit your own hand in yourself just to see, of course. But you couldn't quite reach, the angle wasn't quite right, and as flexible as you were, more than four fingers by your own hand seemed too awkward to fit. When he offered you a hand that night, you'd both descended into giggles and you thought it was all forgotten. Well, obviously not.

"Please," he begs, eyes softening behind the dregs of his eye make up - blue and smudged and looking more like icy bruises than make up now. You doubt your own looked much better, your eyes already feeling gritty from screwing them closed whilst covered in glitter.

"I owe you, remember?"

"...Fine."

It's with a triumphant look that he pulls his fingers from you, dragging your shorts down your legs and leaving a wet trail of your juices in his wake. He throws them into the pile on his bench, no doubt you'll have fun looking for those later, and he bends down to kiss the swell of your lower belly, thanking you in the process, before sitting back on his haunches.

You think you're wet enough, relaxed enough, his hand already coated with your slick, to take him. Bravo the Clown thinks differently, and reaches over to his vanity for the first grease paint he can get his hands on.

"Don't you -"

But he's already doing it, smearing a thin layer of white paint over the broadest part of his hand, almost covering the small tattoo by his thumb in the process.

" - dare." You sigh and he simply shrugs as if to say what before plunging two fingers back into your slick pussy, curling them up into you and dragging along your walls, making you fall back with a moan yet again. This fucking clown.

A third finger slips inside you, quickly followed by a fourth, and you're sitting up on your elbows on the floor of his trailer, watching him as he's singularly focused on your hole stretching to accommodate his digits. The triangular tattoo on his wrist may as well be a neon open for business sign with how it's directing his, and your, eyes straight to his fingers being slowly engulfed by your pussy.

A quick look up at you and a small nod of your head is all he needs to push forward, applying pressure to his hand and slipping it further and further inside of you.

You gasp when you stretch over his knuckles, your brows knitting together. Even with your legs spread wide, there's a small burn, a stretch, as he pushes into you. But then he sinks in past the hard ridges of his knuckles and his hand gives a little more, leaving you feeling impossibly full. You made a living off of stretching and twisting your body into seemingly impossible positions. There wasn't a stretch you hadn't felt, but this was something new - the ache of a stretch you'd never felt before.

"Amazing," he mumbles, fucking his fingers into you past the knuckle then back out again. They start to slip in with ease after a few moments, and you reach down between your legs to feel him as he pushes in.

"More," you moan, knowing only half of his hand is in you. If he hadn't smeared grease over his hand to lube himself up, you'd still be able to see that tiny tattoo. You wanted it inside you.

A slow push of his hand again and his whole fist is breaching you. He submerges his hand into your heat, the slick pooling at your entrance from your earlier release and the grease on his hand making his hand suddenly slip all the way inside of your pussy. If you felt full before it was nothing compared to this.

You whimper, watching him watch you as you take his fist.

"Oh fuck."

You're going to come again already. You know there's no stopping it. Especially not when he brings his other hand up to hold you still, swiping his rough thumb back and forth over your clit as he twists his fist from side to side, getting a feel of you from the inside out. You grab at his wrist, holding it steady and rock your hips, shallowly fucking yourself on his fist.

You feel the first spasm without warning, clamping around his hand so hard you'd expel him from your body if you weren't holding him so tightly in place. Your whole body quivers, quakes, shaking like some haunted hand puppet controlled by Bravo's fist.

Seeing stars, or maybe it's the glitter caught in your eyes, you fall back as you shake, the pulsing between your thighs unrelenting as you feel yourself gush and soak his hand. Your moans and twitches die down, and your death grip on his wrist finally releases.

Now that he's free, Bravo the Clown takes this as a cue to start up again, pulling his hand out of you in one continuous movement.

"Oh - nnhg."

Your back arches off the trailer floor at the slow drag of his fist, and caves back in when he pushes back in. You let yourself curl back up to watch again, too curious by how his fist looks moving inside you to fully give in to the fullness overwhelming your body.

Punching in and out, the rim of your swollen pussy stretches across his fist, and you watch, mesmerized and crying out, as the paint smeared on his hand fades and the tattoo usually hidden by his gloves comes back into view, only to make a disappearing and reappearing act inside of you. Before now you'd licked every single one of his tattoos, and now more than ever you wanted to do it again.

"Oh, god yeah."

"That good?" he finally asks, his voice thick and heavy. Looking up at you for only a second before being drawn back to your cunt with wide eyes.

"Your body is amazing," he says enthusiastically, as if you're the first person to ever be fisted, and he dives back in again to lick around your spread pussy, sucking your clit into his mouth with a wet slurp.

"Dee!" You squeal, falling back with a thud. You want to watch, you really do, but you just can't. Not when it feels like this.

"So now you know my name," he mumbles from around your clit, trying to suck it back into his mouth a second later. Your pussy is squelching, wet and dripping all over his hand, down his wrist, onto the floor of his trailer and whatever unfortunate item of clothing it is you're laying on. It's going to be soaked and you don't care. All you care about in the moment is his fist, still moving, fucking you so full and leaving you so empty, and the flick of his tongue over your clit.

"Gonna come, gonna come, Dieter, - oh, g- fuck."

He moans, nodding into your clit, shoving his fist straight into you and rocking it back and forth inside of you, leaving you full as he flicks your clit to orgasm.

You clamp down on him, pussy tightening around his entire fist as you come, spasms shooting through your pussy until you're a writhing twitching mess, begging him to stop the movement of his tongue. He does, but can't resist kissing your clit one last time, tongue peeking out to swipe across it, grumbling laugh leaving his chest when your entire body twitches at the act before collapsing into a heap.

He's breathing as heavy as you are when you look up at him a second later.

"Please can I stick it in? Please?" his eyes do that infuriating puppy thing again. You look down at him, still panting as his fist rocks in you slowly.

"Fine," you whine, the only reluctance in your voice from him having to remove his hand to get his cock in you. "But you know the rules."

"Yeah, yeah, wrap it up," he mumbles, pulling his hand from you with an ease you would've been embarrassed by if he hadn't got you so worked up and if the subsequent orgasms hadn't turned you into a liquid human being. He reaches over with the same slick coated hand to grab at a tin under his trailer bench. Opening it, it looks to be his weed stash, or what's left of it, but he knocks aside some loose rolling papers to pull out a gold packet.

"Latex free, baby," he says, shaking the packet between two fingers. It was sweet, really, that he remembered your allergy.

Dieter is pushing his pants down his thighs a second later, pulling his cock free from their polyester prison. You almost ask if he needs a hand, if he's hard enough, but a quick glance and you know. His pants have a wet stain on the front of them, precum leaking from the tip of his cock whilst he fisted you. From the looks - length rock hard, tip swollen and angry, slit still dripping for you - he's painfully engorged, desperate to relieve the ache in his cock with your warm, wet, pussy.

Tearing the wrapper with his teeth, he rolls the condom down his cock. As much as he owed you for distracting you all evening, you couldn't deny there was something about this man when he was a desperate, needy mess for you. It was your body that did this to him - the soft rolls of your belly as you contorted yourself, the swell of your ass as you bent backward, the broadness in your hips, the strength in your arms.

He fists his cock, and you watch him nearly lose it there and then. Biting back a laugh, you reach out, pulling him over you until he's slotted between your legs. Any other day and you'd be trying something more adventurous than missionary with him, but right now you didn't trust your limbs to keep you up, or Dieter to last more than a few seconds.

He lines up with your slick hole, and pushes in with a shaky breath, stilling once he's seated inside you. You think for a second that he might be asleep, but then his hips start slowly moving.

"Why d'you always feel so good?" he asks, face close to yours you can see the paint caught in his wrinkles more easily now.

"Magic pussy."

He laughs, raspy and scratchy in your ear, tucking his face into your neck. "Sparkles and her magic pussy. That's a TV special I'd like to see. Could probably pull a rabbit out of- oof."

You hit him, and it only makes his hips pump faster, snapping his mouth shut to concentrate.

The sound of the wet slap of his skin against yours fills the trailer, his balls squelching against your dripping cunt with each thrust. He's moaning and grunting in your ear, whispering about how good you feel, how great you looked, about that fucking bodysuit and how much he loves how wide your legs can stretch. At that, you wrap them around him, pulling him in tight to you, forcing his thrusts deeper. For as much as he pissed you off, you still trusted him, had an affection for him you would never admit to, neither publicly or to yourself.

"Uh - oh, fuck, Sparkles. Lemme. Please let me..."

Feeling between your bodies, he tries to touch your clit again. You knock away his hand, threatening to ruin his orgasm if he so much as tries to touch you one more time. He whimpers in your ear, settling his hand on your breast instead, squeezing and relaxing his grip as a distraction from his own orgasm tingling through his bones. You know what a threat could do to him and from the feel of him alone you know he's holding back more than ever. If his balls were any tighter and his cock were any harder you'd think he'd burst.

So, you do something you said you would never do for any man, and you beg, just a little bit, whispering softly and sweetly into his ear as his cock fucks you full.

"Come, Dieter. Come in me. Please."

And he does, groaning deep and low, deafening you in one ear with it as he empties his balls into the condom inside of you. You grip him hard, hugging him tight to you as he shakes on top of you.

He looks totally fucked out and ridiculous when you next look to the side and see him, face smooshed into the plush robe you'd been laying on. One of your own eyelashes is stuck to his cheek, along with a streak of glitter. You can't even imagine the state of your own face, but he doesn't seem to mind it when he finally peels open his eyes.

"You wanna get food and smoke pot?"

The man was a joke. Infuriating. A total and utter clown in every sense of the word.

But you always knew what you were getting with Bravo the Clown. It's what drew you to him, it's what made you trust him. Everything he did was written as plain as day on his face, or tumbling from his mouth in a stream of consciousness. Most of all, it was nice to be soft and pliable, as much as you were strong, with someone who wouldn't use it as a weapon against you.

And you would never say a single word of it to his face, opting instead to suck a hickey into his shoulder, tasting the sweat from his skin as you draw a bruise to the surface.

"Fine, but you're buying. You still owe me."

soz to my tag list for this: @jupiter-soups @wannab-urs @bean-is-reading @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @youandmeand5bucks-blog @bbyanarchist @vickywallace @kamcrazy123 @valkyreally @ashhlsstuff @a-literal-goblin @ariundercovers @iluvurfather @stevie75 @toxicanonymity @thesevi0lentdelights

follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future work

#dieter bravo x reader #dieter bravo x you #dieter bravo x f!reader #dieter bravo smut #dieter bravo fanfiction #dieter bravo #the bubble fanfiction #fic: carnal-val #tw clowns #coveted fics

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daffodil-mania · 4 months

Text

Study Date

High school!Sam Winchester x fem!reader. No smut, but there is a lot of making out. Mildly suggestive language.

Author’s notes: I’M BAAAAAACK! Sorry that this isn’t part 4 to The Itch, but up until very recently I’ve been stupid busy and incredibly stressed. Part 4 should be coming soon though! Thank you all for your patience <3

—

You glance anxiously at the clock on your bedside table, peering at its digital face as butterflies beat against your ribcage. Sam should be here any minute now. It’s freezing outside, and steady streams of cold air waft through the window you’ve opened for him. You feel like you can’t sit still, so you cross your room to the standing mirror that hangs from the back of your closed bedroom door. You turn this way and that in front of the mirror, inspecting your outfit with a keen, nervous eye. You’re still in what you wore to school; a form-fitting black sweater paired with a trusty pair of jeans. Upon closer inspection, you realize that the jeans do very little for your ass, so you decide to swap them for some more flattering pajama pants. There, you think, satisfied. Now you look cute, but not like you’re trying to look cute.

You turn away from the mirror and snatch your hairbrush from your desk and give your hair a few quick passes with it. You’ve just set the brush back when you hear a rustling noise. You snap to attention, and whip your head to look over at your window. Sure enough, the rustling continues, and with it comes the faint sound of grunting. You slowly move to the window, just in time for a hand to slap down on your sill. You jump as a second hand joins the first, and then a head, followed closely by the rest of Sam’s lanky body. You grin as he plops down as gracefully as he can into your room, batting away your gauzy curtains. You close the window quickly and with a shiver.

You feel a pair of hands grasp your waist and then slide along your front, and you’re pulled back into Sam’s toned chest. You wiggle yourself around so you can face him, and you’re greeted by the sight of Sam smiling dreamily down at you. Your stomach turns madly as you wrap your arms around his neck. “Hi,” he grins, and you grin right back. “Hi.”

You’ve barely gotten the word out when a chaste kiss is pressed against your lips, which is quickly followed by a series of more hungry, determined kisses. The cold air from outside still clings to Sam’s jacket, providing a nice bit of relief from the heat that surges through you. Sam pulls away, catching his breath, and you glance down to where your bodies are pressed together, arching a brow. “Is that a snake in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?” You quip, looking back up at the brown-haired boy who towers above you. Sam rolls his eyes, but you don’t miss the blush that spreads across his already flushed cheeks. “You know, I’m starting to think you only see me as a piece of meat,” he says dryly, pulling away from you so he can shed his jacket and shoes. You gasp dramatically, feigning shock, and place your hand over your chest, grasping at imaginary pearls. “What gave it away?” Sam chuckles, and plops down on your bed. “So, Mae West, do you want me to help you study for this test or not?” You pout, but dutifully trail over to the bed. “You’re no fun.” Sam grins at your mock disappointment, and gives you a swift peck on the cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it worth your while,” he promises, making you clench. Evil bastard.

You relent with a sigh, and open the top drawer of your bedside table, producing the flashcards you had prepared. You hand them to Sam before crossing over to your CD player, turning the volume up ever so slightly, just in case. Your parents love Sam, but they’re unaware of your late-night “study” visits, and you’d like to keep it that way. No need to tarnish their image of their perfect daughter and her respectful, gentlemanly boyfriend.

Sam clears his throat as you flop down on your bed, rolling over so that you can lay flat on your back. Sam opts to stay in an upright position while he quizzes you. “Ready?” You nod, mentally gearing up for the questions. You feel pretty confident about them already, having gone over them dozens of times since Mr. Warner announced the quiz last Friday, but you figure some extra prep can’t hurt. Besides, who could turn down some quality time with Sam and those puppy-dog eyes of his?

“First question: what is the difference between a prokaryotic and a eukaryotic cell?”

“A eukaryotic cell has a membrane bound nucleus; a prokaryotic cell does not.” Sam nods. “Yup,” he says, popping the ‘p’. “Next question—”

“So, do I get my reward yet?” You cut in, rolling over onto your side, propping your head up with one of your hands. Sam rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “You know, patience is a virtue,” he teases. “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing I’m not Catholic,” you shoot back playfully.

Sam’s on you before you can blink, hands scrambling up your sides to tickle you. You squeal and try to writhe out of his grasp, but it’s too late. Sam’s wiry, but he knows how to use his lean frame to his advantage. You can squirm all you want, but he’s putting most of his body weight on your lower half, making escape damn near impossible. “I yield! I yield!” You manage to stammer out between giggles. “Oh, no. You’re not getting out of this that easily,” he smirks, keeping you pinned while he continues the assault on your ribs. “S-Sam, seriously! I’m gonna pee my pants!” He hesitates briefly, and you seize your moment. You buck your hips and push, catching Sam off guard. This knocks him off of you long enough for you to scramble up and off of the bed. You don’t get far, though, when one of his thick hands shoots out and grabs you, pulling you back down to the bed. You find yourself under him once more, but this time he merely hovers above you, caging you in with arms at either side of your head. He moves some of the hair out of your face and tucks it gently behind your ear. “You’re getting better at that,” he compliments with a smile, green eyes twinkling. “Thanks. I have a pretty good teacher,” you purr. Sam sucks in a breath as his face flushes scarlet. “What’s wrong, pretty boy? I didn’t fluster you, did I?”

Sam kisses you fiercely and with an animalistic groan. You return the kiss eagerly, pulling him down so his body is flush against yours. The kiss continues to get more and more heated, your tongues battling for dominance. After a few minutes of this you’re starting to lose your cool when Sam pulls off of you. You blink up at him, dazed and uncomprehending. “Wha-? Why did you—”

Sam smiles at you, syrupy sweet and endlessly patient. He leans down close, and your heart starts thumping so fast you’re worried it might explode. You feel Sam’s lips gently brush the shell of your ear. “Because,” he breathes, “we have to get back to studying.” And with that, Sam’s completely off of you, picking your flashcards up from where they had been strewn carelessly on the floor. You groan in frustration, sitting up as you adjust your clothes and try to recover your senses. Sam sits back down on your bed, and runs a hand through his brown locks before he speaks. “Next question; what is…”

—

Author’s notes: I hope y’all enjoyed this lil blurb! Happy New Year lovelies 🥳🎉

#sam winchester x reader #fluff #supernatural #sam winchester #sam winchester x female reader #spn #daffodil-mania

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thelimzard · 6 months

Text

Happy Trick or Treat to @heckitall for @rottmnt-secret-gifting

Surprisingly, I was your partner. I'm sorry it arrives last minute. I genuinely thought the 5th is included in the deadline :,D.

I decided to keep my piece of art more simple with shadowing. A bit different from what I usually do. Shadows or light only casted to signal depth or something peculiarly shiny.

I also added 2 pngs as a reference to the multiple pngs added in the ROTTMNT series.

You wanted to see something creative from me? Oh buddy! You're in for something!

First a short run down on who the heck these kids dressed up as:

Raphy - He is Frankenstein. Him and Donnie tried to go for a brother-partner look. Donnie also stole an old sweater from Splinter, which is WAY too big for Raph. But it's perfectly fitting for a small Frankenstein. The patches on his shirt are red and blueish purple. They both worked on this shirt together, after all.

Donnie- he is the brains. The professor. The one who created the monster. Or... well... how he imagined him. He is a scientist.

Leo- A blue axolotl. I first thought of making him dress up as a pirate as a reference to him dressing up as a pirate in the series. Buuuuut I kinda wanted to bring the axolotl from your pfp into the artwork. And what character is the blue character? It's Leo! So Leo became a blue axolotl.

Mikey- Mikey wouldn't settle for 1 costume, so he wears 2... or 3? He is a dinosaur pirate! With a cape... so maybe he is a hero dinosaur pirate... The youngest had no spot-on plan for his costume and just went with EVERYTHING. I'd say he did well.

Now- What the hell is that monster of a pumpkin!

You see- Donnie found something interesting when getting Raphs sweater... an unknown shiny object. It was hidden within... He showed his treasure to his brothers, but Leo snatched it and fed it to the pumpkin they carved a day before.

The pumpkin came to live! Raph? Totally amazed! Leo? He figured the pumpkin responds best to candy. So he lures it with a basket filled with it. Mikey is in for a free ride on their pumpkin! And Donnie is very suspicious. Science says that pumpkins just don't come to live...

However, the boys would get in trouble towards the end of Halloween. They lost more and more control over their pumpkin. Splinter did save them in the end.

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt trick or treat exchange #rise krang #rise mikey #rise turtle tots #happy halloweeeeeeen #rottmnt raph #rottmnt fanart #rottmnt leo #rottmnt donnie #pumpkin come to live

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olsenmyolsen · 8 months

Text

Vigilante

master list

dark master list

Post Hawkeye Series - (Female Reader X Kate Bishop)

Summary: You get saved by Clint Barton... or so you thought.

Word Count: 3.3K

TW: Guns, Men

You don't know why you moved to New York.

Okay, that's a lie. Yes, you do. You got a nice fancy job in the old Stark tower that paid you slightly more than you were qualified for.

Plus, you were determined to make it on your own. To prove to everyone back home, including your mother, that you could make it. Be someone. Look adversity in the eye and say fuck you!

But fucking adversity left you drained. Tired every day after working way longer than should be legally allowed. No time to socialize or find people with your interest. Not that you had much besides keeping up with the Avengers and binge-watching your three favorite sitcoms. You thought about getting a cat. One named Liho you saw on an adoption website, but a day later, the cat was snatched up.

Regardless, you wanted more from your life.

So here you were, walking home alone late on a Friday night after your numerous train stops.

Now, the part of the borough you lived in wasn't bad; it just had too many things going on with insufficient outlets. Speaking of that, there was another item on your list: find a new place.

As the late winter air nipped the sidewalk, you started making your way to your place when you turned the corner, finding yourself at the sight of a half dozen men in tracksuits.

You crossed your arms over the front of your cream-colored sweater and put your head down. Maybe if eye contact was lost, they would miss you.

If only.

"Hey, where are you going?" You didn't dare to look up as your Doc Martens hit the ground a little faster and harder. "Hey! Lady! We're talking to you." A second voice called out from behind you before a third one stopped you. Physically. With your head down so well, you didn't see the man until you fell on your butt on the dirty sidewalk.

"Now, now. We're not here to hurt you. We want to get to know you." He spoke, sending chills down your body. You began fumbling with your bag while doing your best to keep an eye on the ugly man with the funny voice. "Hey!" A fourth guy reached down and snatched your brown leather bag. "You won't be needing this!" The man laughed as he held up your pink can of pepper spray.

You were probably about to do something dumb when it happened.

THUNK

You watched as an arrow came and shot the can of pepper spray the guy was holding up. It sent the contents of the can directly into his eyes. Blinding him and leaving him a burning mess as the guys around you ducked in shock. You kept her head low, too. Not wanting to get sprayed or accidentally hit with an arrow.

But wait. Why would you get hit? That's when you smiled. An Avenger!

You crawled away from the crying man and lifted your head to look in the direction the arrow was fired but saw nothing on the rooftops.

The man behind you still screamed in pain as another one decided he was done and started to take off. But that's when you saw another arrow being fired from the laundry mat rooftop. You couldn't make out the shape of the person, but a bow and arrow gave away the identity. Clint Barton.

You watched as the arrow flew in front of the guy before it broke apart and formed a giant net. Wrapping the guy up and taking him down into a store window, knocking him out.

2 down. 4 to go. You thought.

But the tracksuit guys must've thought the same thing as one of them ran up to you and grabbed you. Pinning your right arm behind you. You tried your best to fight him off, but your slaps and swings didn't do anything, especially when he started to bend your arm.

You silently cursed yourself. You really should've taken those self-defense classes Collen Wing told you about.

"Show yourself, and we won't hurt her!" The man spoke in a heavy, accented voice. You winced as he tightened the tight grip he had on you. "Ow!" The man told you to shut up as the three other guys started forming a circle around you.

Safety in numbers and whatnot.

"Come out!" One of them yelled, making you smile. You knew an Avenger wouldn't give themselves away. Right now, they have the upper hand. The element of surprise they lose that and they-

"Alright! Here I am!"

Huh? You widened your eyes as a female voice loudly spoke from that same rooftop. Shit. You thought. This wasn't Clint Barton. This wasn't an Avenger. It was some girl playing vigilante...

But then the voice stepped into the glow of the moon.

You took back what you said.

This wasn't some dumb girl playing vigilante while risking both of your lives. This was some beautiful dumb girl playing vigilante, risking your lives.

Her pretty black hair and sharp jawline had you hooked.

Just wait till later when you got close enough to look into her eyes and take in her figure.

"Don't hurt her!" The voice called out as they took more steps on the rooftop before she was at the edge. What was she doing?

"Shoot that one!" The guy with his hold on you yelled to the other three guys. But as the three readied their guns, it was already too late because when you looked back to the rooftop, she was gone. "Fuck!" The guy to your left yelled. "Where did she go?!"

They were now growing more panicked, and you were loving it from being scared to amused in a couple of minutes. Don't get it twisted. You were still greatly concerned for your safety and well-being, but watching the guys who appeared to be tough now start freaking out over a girl with a string and two sticks was a little funny.

"Wait, I think I see-" Before the guy to your right could finish, an arrow was fired from an unknown direction, hitting him in the right arm. Like the guy before him, he was out like a light. When you squinted your eyes at the arrow, you could see it had a label on it. A label!

'Zzzzz,' you internally laughed and slowly couldn't wait to see who was saving your life.

3 down. 3 to go.

"Shit!" The guy behind you yelled. "Bro, where did that come from?! Where did it come from!"

"Over here!" She gleefully cheered!

The guy with his hold on you swung you around to the right as he tried to find her. "Fire!" He commanded the last two guys. "But-" "Do it!" You attempted to shout no, but it was too late. The two guys took some steps forward and started firing their guns. Silenced, of course. But as their bullets were fired in the direction they thought the girl was, from the corner of your eye, you saw her run across the street to your side of the road.

You tried your best to get a better look at her but failed. The last thing you saw was purple and a ponytail bouncing back and forth.

"Stop!" The one behind you, who you were now calling Dudley (Even though this was certainly not his name.), yelled. "Go check it out, bro." "You go." "I'm holding the hostage, bro!" You rolled your eyes and sighed. One of the three gave you a look but scoffed. "Fine! I'll check it out."

He began to walk forward and cross the street. "Anything?" Dudley asked. The one near the shot-out car was about to respond when he bent down. "Hey! Bro, it looks like she left an arrow-" As he grabbed it, it shocked him, sending him to the ground convulsing.

4 down. 2 to go.

"Fuck this!" The other grunt said as he took off running. Unknowingly to right where she was. So, as he was too busy yelling back at Dudley, the girl dressed in a purple superhero suit with her bow and arrow stepped out from behind a parked car and tripped him with it. He crashed into the sidewalk, and as if she had done it a thousand times before, she twirled her body around and pulled out an arrow, sending it right towards you.

Wait towards you?

Towards you?!

You tried your best to move out of the way! But the last tracksuit guy kept his hold on you; besides, it was too late. The arrow made contact!

Your eyes closed when it happened, but a second later, they were open. You weren't shot! Right? "Oh shit!" The girl from down the block yelled before she took off running towards you. "Don't move! Don't move!"

You were held hostage and witnessed a single woman take out six guys like an Avenger. You most certainly were not leaving.

When she finally made it in front of you. Your breath hitched. She was even more gorgeous up close. Now you could make put the details of her face. Her jaw still sharp, but her lips looked soft like pillows. She had a scratch on her chin and a bandaid on her left eyebrow. Her eyes were a mix of grey and blue. They briefly darted at you before she passed right by you. Wait...

You turned your body as she stopped two feet behind you. "Oh no, no, no!" She put a hand to her head and looked down to the ground. You looked down as well and couldn't believe your eyes.

"I didn't mean to pick that arrow, I promise! I don't even know why I carry it! I mean, what's the point of labeling these arrows if I'm not looking at which one I pick!" She rambled as you couldn't fathom what you were looking at. Sure, you heard the stories of Scott Lang. You went to see Rogers: The Musical. But in front of you on the sidewalk, you were looking at a couple-inch-tall Dudley, and you couldn't believe it.

You pushed your finger into him, knocking Dudley over.

"Hey, don't do that." The girl scolded you, making you look up at her. "He just held me hostage. Are you serious?" She dropped her mouth and closed it again. "I mean, you're not wrong, but now he's.. well.. that.." She looked back down to the ground. "What should we do?" She asked aloud. "We?!" You lifted your eyebrows to her, making her snap her head back to you. "Yeah. I was saving your life!"

"Well, I didn't ask you to use the shrinking arrow!"

"I didn't mean to!" She whined and looked back down at Dudley. "Wait, where is he?!" You looked back down and squatted, but you didn't see him either. "Quick check your shoes." She frantically looked at you. "I didn't step on him!"

"Check them!" She responded, checking hers. You rolled your eyes and checked.

"He's not here." You replied as you looked down the street. "Ummm.." The ponytail-wearing girl looked where you looked. Running under street lights was a rat that looked like it might be a little too big for its size. "You don't think-"

"No!" She quickly replied and turned her head. "I saved you. End of story." She waited for you to agree. "Okay. You saved me." You said as Kate pulled out her phone. "I'm reporting this. The police should be here soon." You didn't really hear here as your eyes traveled back to the rat. Further away. It's not smiling.. is it?

"Are you hurt?" You looked back at her. "Huh?" She smiled and took a step closer. "I asked if you were hurt. It looks like they didn't rough you up, but it's always nice to check." She smiled at you again, this time showing off her pearly whites. Fuck she's cute. Like really cute. Oh wait, it's now your turn to talk... "Fine, think, I am." You closed your eyes and let out a frustrated sigh, missing the lifesaver scrunching her nose as she laughed. "Sorry. I meant to say I think I am fine." You opened your eyes just in time to see her nod as her eyes looked you over.

Was she checking you out?

"Good." She replied with a nod, and she was about to say something else when: "You have pretty eyes." Excuse me?! Why did you say that?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!?

The archer seemed to be surprised by your statement and blushed. Hard! "Well, thank you. I must say, usually, people thank me or offer to buy me pizza, but this is nice, too." She laughed, breaking the nervous air you made happen. "I'm so sorry!" You groaned "Yes. Thank you for saving me, and I'm sorry for saying what I said. Not that it's not true. You do have pretty eyes. And your smile is great! Plus, I'm in love with your hair- But I didn't mean to say it aloud. It was just for me. But that doesn't mean-"

"Kate Bishop." She stopped you with two words while smiling. Holding out her hand. "What?" You questioned.

"Hi. I'm Kate Bishop. 23. I just saved your life, and this is our first time talking." She made a gesture to her extended hand. You sighed, relieved, and shook her slightly rough but still soft hand. "Thank you for saving my life, Kate Bishop. I'm Y/N Y/L/N. 25." Kate smiled as she felt your hand in hers. Soft. She thought.

"It was an honor to save such a beautiful lady with even prettier eyes," Kate said, making you blush, and a butterfly get pregnant in your stomach. "Do you flirt with all the people you save?" You questioned, still shaking her hand. Kate responded with a shake of the head. "First time."

"Then I am honored." You couldn't stop the smile that crawled onto your face as she dropped your hand. And neither could Kate watching you. "So, are you sure you're all good? No scratches or anything?" Kate asked, looking only into your eyes. "I'm all good. Now." You said.

"Do you live around here?" She asked. "Bold of you." Kate rolled her eyes. "I'm asking because I want to ensure you get home safely."

"Sureee." You said but lifted your hand and pointed to your building. "Right there." Kate looked at it and didn't like it, but not everyone could live in their mom's penthouse apartment after their own apartment was set on fire. "I'll walk you." Kate put a hand on your backside and started moving the two of you along. Passing the knocked-out guy on the sidewalk.

"Police should be here soon." She said when she saw you look at the guy.

"Okay." You replied as her hand rested now fully against you. This was nice, and your body couldn't help but remind you. Having someone care for you and touch you...

"Kate?" You asked as you were now getting closer to your place. "Do you do this often? The Vigilante thing?" Kate nodded immediately. "Practically all the time." She beamed. "I'm still new, but I was trained by Clint! You know Hawkeye!?" She enthusiastically proclaimed.

"Clint Barton trained you?!" You couldn't believe it. "Yep! Check it out!" She dropped your hand and pulled out her phone. On her Lock Screen was a picture of her and Clint with a golden retriever. "Oh my God! Holy shit! That's amazing!" A part of you wanted to say this was fake and that there's no way, but she did take out six guys and make it seem like fun, so you'd believe her regardless. Plus, she flirted with you. And checked you out!

"So, do you have a cool nickname? Wait, are you an Avenger?!" You stopped in front of your building and turned to Kate with all seriousness. "Are you?!" Kate did one of those yes/no faces. "Kind of. It's a grey area considering the Avengers aren't like a proper thing anymore, but yeah, I guess I am." She nodded and smiled. You smiled back. "That's so cool." You said.

Kate looked from your eyes to your lips and back to your eyes. You both noticed. "You know..." She cleared her throat. "I could send you some pics of Clint and me if you want?" She asked, knowing what the answer would be.

"Oh yeah?" You caught on. "Yeah.. and maybe then I'd have your number." Kate bit her bottom lip before you agreed. "Having the number of the person who saved my life would be important. You know, in case anything like this were to happen again." You spoke as Kate put her number into your phone before sending herself a text. "Well, I hope nothing like this happens again," Kate said, handing you your phone before she continued. "I mean, I would save you, of course, but I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

That warmed your heart in more ways than one.

So, with pink cheeks, you turned to look at your building. You were about to walk up the steps when you stopped yourself. "You know.." Kate looked at you with peaked interest. "The police haven't come by yet, and we both know how dangerous this area can be.." Kate lightly nodded. "Plus, I'm enjoying getting to know the archer who saved me. So maybe we should keep walking.. together."

Kate smiled at you and took your hand in hers. "I know a safer place we can walk to."

"Lead the way."

Kate smiled and started pulling you further away from your place just as cop cars went speeding by the two of you.

"Thank you." You spoke as the flashing blue and red lights became a dot. "For saving me and all that." You flustered. "It's no problem. I would've done it anyways, but it helps that you're pretty and..." Kate trails off in thought before her eyes widen. "Maybe tonight you'll get lucky."

That made you laugh in a mixture of shock and nervousness.

"What!?" You exclaimed as your cheeks went from pink to red. "What?" Kate looked at you as if she said nothing wrong. "What did you say?" You asked.

"I said maybe tonight you'll get to meet Lucky."

She most certainly did not.

Right?

"Lucky?!" You asked. Kate released your hand and pulled out her phone again, showing you the Lock Screen. She pointed with her thumb at the golden retriever. "Lucky." You nodded and retook her hand once the phone was put away.

"So we're going to your place?"

That made Kate blush and realize she would have to say something sooner rather than later.

"Well... yeah. It's way safer, and I figured we wouldn't want to stop talking anytime soon, so why not.." Kate sheepishly looked at you, but all she saw were joy-filled eyes. "I'd like that if I can make one request."

"Okay?" That made Kate nervous. "I want a kiss. Like in the movies. Cliche."

Kate squeezed your hand and stopped. Now that made you nervous. "I mean, unless I'm totally reading the signs wrong." You sputtered. "In which case. I'm joking. This was an attempt to wanting more from life, and it was a joke at the same time somehow, so please igno-"

Kate kissed you to shut you up and because the signs were right.

From the moment Kate ran up to you after shrinking that guy, she had never seen a girl more beautiful. And let's remember she fought the Black Widow's sister. Her not-so-subtle flirting, along with your flustering, had made Kate's stomach do flips.

So kissing you was the easiest decision she made all night. Well, that and saving your life.

When Kate's pink lips left yours, you knew you were never leaving New York.

dividers by @/benkeibear

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minologistt · 9 months

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DEVOTION | JJK mini-series

in which jungkook is your friends with benefits who confessed his love for you and spends a week trying to prove his love to you.

genre fwb -> lovers

warnings jk passed out, sexual talks in public again, new pov😝

tag list -> @mochminnie

S.LIST

THURSDAY

i’m not sure how i got here.

maybe it’s because i didn’t eat much last night? or maybe i was running around in the heat with nothing to eat. whatever it maybe, it got me to this position today.

“check his pulse!”

“he’s alive just passed out!”

“get him on the stretcher asap, this heat isn’t good for him!”

ah that’s right, someone called the ambulance..

as they pulled me along, i finally opened my eyes a bit. questions were being thrown at me left and right. i turned my head side to side to try and make sense of who is saying what but it’s all a blur.

everything became clearer once i spotted a cropped knitted sweater, i’ve seen it many nights ago but i can recognize it any where. i quickly began unbuckling my seat belt.

i didn’t care about the paramedics yelling at me to return or the people staring at me with their mouths agape. i was dead set on catching up to her.

“hey sir! those flowers!” i shouted as i took out some money to pay the man for the bouquet. i kept running even as i snatched up the flowers.

i finally caught up to y/n. she was about to turn the corner but i stopped her just in time.

“you walk-“ i had to catch my breath a little. “so fast for someone who has no where to be..” i then remembered the flowers and shoved them into her chest. i watched as her face light up with what seemed to be genuine appreciation but then it fell just as soon as it came.

“what’s this for..?” she asked me while examining the flowers like they were something foreign. she looked cute while doing it, her hair and makeup today were light. i see she opted to really show off her natural hair type. unfortunately i think i took too long to respond because she snapped her fingers at me. “helloooo, earth to jungkook-“

“it’s koo, you know that,” i pouted at the usuage of my proper name.

“not the point, i asked what these are for?” she raised an eyebrow and tilted her head.

“well i wanted to apologize about yesterday.. maybe i was overreacting about namjoon, not jimin though! but you get what i’m sayin.”. i rubbed the back of my neck nervously and avoided eye contact with her. when i did look at her, she seemed at a lose for words. i don’t enjoy apologizing to anyone and she knows that, i prefer to think i’m somewhat right and move on.

“oh well.. thank you koo, that’s very thoughtful of you.. i—“ i quickly cut her off and smiled brightly.

“i love you too y/n!”

“not what i was going to say jeon.” she narrowed her eyes to a glare.

“you thought it though!” maybe i’m delusional or straight up insane but i saw something change in the way she looked at me.

“fuck you.” she walked around me but i followed behind her.

“that’d be hot.” i smirked as i put an arm around her waist.

“i’m not letting you fuck me anymore.. you’re so annoying,” she said with a roll of her gorgeous eyes. her pretty lashes fluttered as she did so.

“whaaat why not, you should totally lemme hit it, especially from the back because—“

“shut up!” she covered her ears but never pushed me away.

we continued on our path to wherever she was going but to me this was the path to winning her heart for sure!

#bts fanfction #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #jungkook fiction #jk fanfic #jk x reader #jungkook x female reader #jungkook x you #jeon jungkook fanfic #bts fic #bts fanfic

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danafeelingsick · 7 months

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UH OH, SHOULD'VE STAYED HOME

[Takes place after episode 3, in which Clark Kent is sick with an actual stomach bug this time and Lois takes care of him.] AO3 | masterlist

Stay tuned for the art I made for this fic!

CONTENT WARNING: graphic descriptions of vomit, nausea, fever, stomach ache, sick at work shenanigans, belly rubs, back rubs, some emphasis on comfort, caretaker Lois for the most part, somewhat horny descriptions? (nothing out of the ordinary), established relationship (to-be?)

WORD COUNT: 7,7k~

A/N: so, you know how in episode 2, Clark uses tummy ache as an excuse and hurries off? and like a few scenes later Lois muses about taking care of him? I took that personally, this might be my longest one shot yet.

omg i love them sm. great series, recommend. 8/10, because it's too short and a bit rushed. this could contain spoilers? idk, superman media is super old already.

Clark Kent was already half awake when his alarm went off, but couldn't bring himself to roll over and turn it off, or rather, smash it to pieces. His body felt so unusually heavy he was considering drifting back to sleep for just a few more minutes, to try and compensate for the restless night he had.

It had been too much optimism to think he would be able to sleep on a full stomach, especially when he was sure he was coming down with something nasty. The worry alone had been enough to turn his stomach, worry that he mistook it for hunger, which turned out to be nausea. Now all of those late night snacks seemed like an even worst idea.

His thoughts of regret and self-reflection were interrupted by his roommate coming down the bunk ladder, the clunky footsteps on the metal were even louder than the alarm, making his head pound. Clark buried his head under the pillows until it was manually turned off, and he swore he had heard it sigh in relief. One less broken alarm clock for the count.

“We're gonna be late for work if you don't get up", Jimmy shouted from the other side of the room, rustling through his drawers.

“Need five more minutes...”, Clark grunted, relieved when all he heard was a chuckle and his roommate stepping away, instead of blankets being snatched from him.

Despite gaining those extra minutes, he sat up after two, suddenly bothered by the feeling of humid covers, even the shirt he had slept in was drenched in sweat. It was a choice between enduring the heat or a headache from the bright artificial light. He chose the latter and dragged himself out of bed.

By the end of his extra time, he was already in the shower, sweaty clothes hanging from the laundry basket, with hot water falling on his back, his head swimming with the steam.

Clark caught his mind wandering to the Daily Planet and the day full of errands that waited for him, and... Lois. The two hadn't known each other for long, but Clark already knew that he had to be careful around her. Careful wasn't the right word. Every day she was coming closer to pinning down Superman's identity, and he was growing out of ways to hide it.

The kryptonian bit down on his lip when a wave of dizziness crashed over him, holding onto the wall with half a mind to not use his force on it. A soft groan escaped his lips as his hand wandered to his belly. Whatever he had eaten last night was not sitting well, it felt like his stomach was doing somersaults.

On top of that, there was a tight full feeling resting on the upper part of his abdomen, it looked round and firmer to the touch as well, like whatever was there refused to digest. Embarrassed by the thought of it being noticeable under his sweater, he rested his hands over it until the feeling was mostly gone. It was enough for him to step out of the shower and dry himself off.

It came back moments later, while he brushed his teeth. With a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair still wet, he suddenly felt shivers crawling up his back, and choked around his toothbrush. His mouth flooded with odd-tasting saliva, overpowering the minty taste.

It felt like he was going to vomit, even though that notion was foreign since he had only gotten sick a handful of times as a kid, rarely as an adult. He spat the frothy toothpaste and stared inside the sink, realizing he could hear the churning in his stomach. He hadn't felt anything like this in a while, he could consider himself lucky.

With shaky hands, he turned on the faucet and rinsed his mouth out, trying hard not to gag.

That was bad, he couldn't vomit now… Clark focused on his breathing and on his hands holding onto the sides of the sink, his vision was starting to narrow, out of anxiety, or he was even sicker than he thought. He didn't think he could make it to the toilet, sprinting would only make things worse. If he ran into the wall, he would go right through, and that was a whole other issue.

Shaking, he glanced up, catching his own piercing blue eyes in the bathroom mirror, looking glossed over and unfocused, his expression pained and miserable. He looked pale, he looked nearly green.

His lips puckered as he fought against the urge to gag and lost, his tongue rolled out with a thread of saliva joining the sink. He really didn't want to puke, he was running late already, but that did little to stop his stomach from trying to turn itself out. He swallowed hard, a soft hiss escaping through gritted teeth, and wrapped one arm around his middle, trying to keep his footing. If he found out whatever had gotten him sick, he would never eat there again.

“EuUrRgh!”

Clark hunched over and dry heaved, feeling his stomach roll under his hand. His lips pursed as he felt something burn in the back of his throat, flooding his mouth. He closed his eyes and coughed a thin stream of lumpy vomit, something sickly sweet acidic mixed with minty toothpaste in his tongue, forming a disgusting taste

Before he even had the chance to spit he was retching again, bringing more of what he had eaten the night before in a watery and clumpy surge. He tasted the stale donut leftovers in it, and gagged, trying not to think about it. It was gone with the running water, he didn't need to see it.

He turned off the faucet after washing his mouth but didn't move away from the sink. His head was pounding even worse now, but at least his stomach didn't feel as full, now it was tender and sensitive like an open wound. Not much of an improvement...

“Clark, your phone is ringing and it's Lois~”, just as he was starting to relax, Jimmy knocked repeatedly on the other side of the door. ”I gave her your number, you don't mind right? Of course you don't mind.”

To say the startled Superman jumped was an understatement, he flew, taking a chunk of the sink with him.

"I-I-I'll be just a minute", he sputtered, scrambling to piece it together.

His roommate was waiting for him as he came out of the bathroom, half-dressed, looking even worse than before. He must've noticed it right away, his blue eyes now looked a bit red at the bottom, like he was holding back tears.

"So, are you going to tell me what's up or I'll have to guess?", Jimmy interrogated him with crossed arms, his phone dangling from his hand. "We're late, y'know?"

A second of silence hung between the two before Clark sniffled. “I… think I'm sick.”

Jimmy couldn't think of another time where he looked as much like an abandoned puppy. Now he regretted the accusatory tone.

"Another one of your migraines?”, he asked, relaxing his posture as he handed his phone back. Clark had frequent ones, and Jimmy never acknowledged it, but it sometimes made his blue eyes look like, well, he wasn’t sure either. That didn’t seem like one of those, however.

“Don't know...”, Clark mumbled, and his eyebrows furrowed with pain as he stepped away. “Think I ate something bad.”

Jimmy nodded, he had seen him raid their fridge last night but nothing there seemed bad so Donuts and sandwiches were the first thing that came to mind. He knew Clark had a big appetite and he was always snacking whenever he could, the possibilities were endless. That scene was quite familiar, seeing him trying to soothe a bellyache, rubbing circles over it with his eyes closed, and lips pouting. Only this time he did look like he was about to fall over.

“I think you should stay home today—”

“No, not going to leave you two to do all the work. It's not fair”, Clark interrupted, briefly scrolling through his phone, with a strained expression.

“We'll manage without you. Besides”, Jimmy crossed his arms, his tone had something of suspicion in it. “You really don't look well.”

“I can't...”, Clark interrupted, showing the screen.

Lois had left a couple of texts, clearly written in a rush, but summarized meant: “Come ASAP, thought of a new plan. We're going to get that interview!”

“Alright, since you're not going to listen. You hurry, and I'll hurry. Five minutes”, Jimmy sighed, already on his way to the bathroom. “Oh, and you're eating something on the way because our fridge is empty!”, he added, trying to ignore the welded gash in the middle of their sink.

Clark grumbled but focused on tying his shoes instead of arguing.

True to his word, Jimmy stepped out of the shower in five minutes, and another five later, they were leaving the apartment. Clark was already looking a little better now that he was outside, with sunlight and fresh air, though it didn't take long for him to get too hot inside that thick pullover he always wore. He cuffed his sleeves, still managing to do it neatly while Jimmy dragged him to the nearest sandwich shop.

“I don't think eating and —uRp, walking is a good combination”, Clark commented, muffling a meaty burp into his fist. His face grew a bit red, but at this point, he couldn't tell if it had been out of embarrassment.

“It's actually good for digestion. Look it up”, Jimmy argued, crumbs of bread and lettuce falling off his mouth.

Clark wasn't convinced that would make any difference, his optimism was failing him today, but there wasn't much room for it when his stomach felt like it was waging war on that cheesy steak sandwich. Why did he have to pick the greasiest option out of a health and diet menu? Each bite was weighing on his belly like a rock.

He covered another queasy burp that brought the taste of acid to the back of his tongue, the sandwich was sitting atop that stubborn mess of food, refusing to digest. He risked another bite, he needed food in him after throwing up earlier, but had to hold back a gag as he tried to swallow. Nope, he was done.

“Do you, uh, want to eat my half?”, he offered, awkwardly pulling his jumper down, feeling like his waistline had grown several inches.

“Yeah, you're definitely sick. You usually eat mine”, Jimmy shoved the last bite into his mouth. I’m full too. Just wrap it, and you can eat it later.”

Clark produced a disgruntled noise but complied, and stuffed the half-eaten, now lukewarm sandwich back in its paper bag. He suspected that he would indeed be tasting it again later, but the thought still made him shudder. By the time they reached the Daily Planet, the young journalist had resigned himself to the fact that he was going to be feeling queasy for the rest of the day.

Inside the break room, he went to store his leftover breakfast in the fridge, finding another sandwich already there with a note stuck to it. A fishy stench leaked through the homemade wrapping, permeating the air. Then it clicked:

“To the prick who stole my Sandwich. This sandwich is for Steve. Not for Clark. Don't steal it, Clark. – Steve”

Labeled a thief after he had eaten his by mistake, and left his weird combination of mayo, tuna, and avocado for him, sounded like something only a jerk like Steve would do. Clark rolled his eyes, made sense why he was feeling like shit now. He had thought his usual sandwich had gone and in the end, he could barely stomach it. The mix of textures was so odd, and the taste was just wrong, but he wasn't about to throw food away.

He gagged at the memory, then again at the smell, and hurriedly shut the door. Fuck, not again. He jogged over to the trash can, not trusting himself to use super speed, and hunched over it, trying to breathe. The whole room smelled now.

It took a minute of breath control, swallowing and spitting the excess saliva, but he thankfully managed to keep his breakfast, even though now his stomach was sensitive all over. He pulled on his sweater, trying to make room for it.

Scowling, Clark filled a plastic cup with water, drinking it whole in tiny sips. The cold liquid was refreshing on his throat, which still felt a bit tender from the earlier spell. It took his mind off the swirling nausea for a moment. He stepped out of the break room with another cup, entertaining the thought of pinning charges of biological terrorism on Steve.

“Found you, Superman!”, a familiar voice shouted from down the hallway. Clark felt his soul leave his body.

He spotted Lois, he had spotted her giant green jacket first, but regardless, both were now marching in his direction.

“I-I-I think you have the wrong guy”, Clark stammered, nearly dropping his cup.

Lois stopped in front of him, both hands on her hips, now grinning. “And that's what I'm going to say when my plan works.”

“A-Ah! Haha”, Clark fake-chuckled, then swallowed hard, it felt like his stomach was running laps now.

“Wow, you went pale. Hope you're not hiding anything from me”, she half-joked, giving a playful look. ”So, what took you so long, Smallville? Didn't see you out jogging this morning.”

“I, uh... overslept”, ‘Smallville’ muttered, cocking his head in slight embarrassment. It wasn't a lie, for the most part, but he didn't feel like Lois needed to know the extent of his bad morning.

“Yeah, I can see that”, she commented, pinning him down with her gaze. “You do look a bit tired.”

“I, uh....couldn't sleep well”, he admitted, resting his hand on the back of his neck. He suddenly felt hot and dumb, as if he had been cooking under the sun for too long.

“Aw, is the stress already getting to you?”, she asked with a wince of sympathy, reaching one hand out to cup his cheek, but stopped midway, thinking twice about it.

“I guess you could say that...”, Clark muttered with a small sigh, eyeing her with a bit of hope, he somehow wanted her to…? He wasn't sure. “So, uh, what's your plan? I thought you already had gotten your interview with Superman”, he tried to change the subject.

“Oh that, I can't publish that! He lied to all of my questions”, the aspiring journalist said, waving a hand as she dug through her pockets, bringing out her voice recorder. “But I already revised them, there's no way avoiding these. And I already know how we're going to get another interview with him.”

Clark felt a lump of cold anxiety drop in his stomach, and it must've shown on his face because Lois eyed him with curiosity.

“What if he was being honest? He didn't seem like the type of guy to... lie”, he said, taking a sip of water to hide the shudder in his voice.

“I thought that too, I mean, he looked so—!”, she paused, flushing. “Uh, nice. Anyway, and when have you even met him?”, she raised an eyebrow, but before he could respond she was already grabbing his hand. “It's easier if I just show you the murder board. I spent all morning laying it out. Come on.”

Clark let out a yelp but didn't put up a fight as the shorter woman dragged him through the corridor. He couldn't tell if it had been her hand on his, or the way his body was already feeling awful, but his head suddenly felt hotter, his legs weaker. He didn't have it in him to resist.

Inside their provisory office, among cabin files and dust bunnies, Lois sat Clark down in one of the chairs, and he was grateful for that, right as he thought he was going to keel over. Jimmy was already there, trying to make sense of whatever Lois had pinned to the murder board.

“There, don't sleep, okay?”, she commented, and Clark was once again grateful for Lois' tunnel vision when it came to a story. She patted his back briefly before walking up to the board, bumping playfully into Jimmy on her way.

The wheels squeaked as she pulled it to the front, slamming her hand on it, and dropping some of the thumbtacks in the process. “So, here is the plan.”

Clark tried but couldn't pay attention to what his senior was saying, his gaze wandered across the board before it settled on the table, the only thing that didn't seem to be warping and tilting before his eyes. His head was starting to ache again, making it difficult to focus on anything. He blinked a few times, and brought an empty cup to his lips, feeling its contents sloshing in the back of his throat.

Jimmy took up the talking before Lois had the chance to ask anything else, he couldn't tell if it had been on purpose, but he was thankful either way. Clark slipped a hand under the table, then under his pullover and shirt, gently rubbing his queasy tummy. He could feel the organ churning under the taut skin, the food sitting there like a rock. He regretted every second that led to it.

The queasy-looking journalist silenced a sickly burp into his hand, swallowing back the trickle of viscous sizzling bile that threatened to come up. It tasted cheesy, greasy, and highly acidic, he couldn't think of a worse combination, but soon found one when he realized he could taste something spoiled as well. He had to suppress a fit of gagging, disguising it with a hand on his mouth when he caught Lois glancing in his direction.

“Come on, we're not risking our lives just to get another interview with Superman, that's not happening —”, Jimmy tried to argue, but he only caught part of the discussion.

Clark winced as a hot flash of nausea crashed into him, hitting him like a truck, though he had experienced that before, he didn't have a better description. His abdomen clenched, producing a string of bubbly complaints. He leaned forward, hugging his midsection tightly, feeling it gurgle unhappily under his thick sweater.

A soft moan tumbled out of his lips when his abdomen tightened involuntarily, that same awful anticipation taking hold of him.

“Um, are you okay there, big guy?”, Lois' voice broke through the stupor. “You've been silent.”

“S-Sorry”, the shaky young man whimpered, with his chin to his chest, curled even further into himself. “I-I really don't feel good right now...”

Lois gave a hum of sympathy, putting whatever she had down before her soft steps trailed his way. Jimmy didn't sound as graceful, he ran along the table, stopping right by him.

“Hey, what's wrong? What are you feeling?” she called with a slight tremble to her voice, and put a gentle hand on his shoulder, trying to get his attention.

Clark winced at her touch but didn't try to pull away, looking up was a bad idea. It felt like the whole room was spinning, only making him feel dizzier.

“My stomach hurts…”, he whimpered, his voice barely audible.

“So, his stomach's been bothering him since morning”, Jimmy explained.

“Oh, is that what those sounds were?”, Lois whispered, speaking off to the side, though her sick coworker still heard it, and froze under her hand, his face taking a whole another tone of red. Did she hear that?

“Yeah, he threw up too", Jimmy continued, which prompted his friend to raise his head and give him a strained look of bewilderment, his friend only shrugged.

“What!? And you still let him come into work?”, Lois' hand briefly left him as they went up, in a sign of exasperation.

“Well, he insisted!”, he tried to defend himself, and Clark felt a pang of guilt.

”R-Really, it… wasn't as bad this morning”, he tried to argue, glancing up at the short woman, who was scowling now, thankfully not at him.

“That is not—! Ugh, forget that”, Lois took another look at the puddle of sweat that used to be Clark, noticing that he was shivering noticeably now, his clothes already damp. “Hey, are you alright? Do you need anything?”

“I-I don't know, I think I’m— urP!” he began to answer, not really sure where he was going with it when he was cut off by a wet hiccup. The woman opened her mouth as if to speak, but shut it as she heard a sound akin to a reverse gulp coming from Clark.

That was the only warning he needed before his hand flew up to his mouth, in an attempt to stop the watery bile from flooding past his lips. He was up on his feet in a second, and out of the office in the other.

Lois called after him a second too late. She had barely seen him run off, she had only noticed after he was already gone.

The sick Kryptonian was too concentrated in not vomiting down the front of his sweater to realize that he was walking too fast for a regular human. Thankfully, the hallway was empty, he didn't have to worry about explaining anything to anyone. His boiling stomach lurched with every step, lunging against his abdomen as it sent its contents gurgling up his throat.

He pushed past the door to the restroom, and thankfully found it empty, though he didn't reach the stall in time. Something hot and acidic surged past his throat, quickly filling his mouth with more than it could hold. His cheeks ballooned out behind his hand, his throat convulsed, forcing the sour watery vomit through cracks of his fingers and down the front of his sweater.

Groaning with disgust, he pushed himself into one of the stalls, dropping to his knees just in time for his stomach to push out the rest of it. Clark didn't think he would end up like this, on his knees retching inside a toilet bowl, because of a stupid tuna sandwich.

“BlEeuUrRrghH!”

At least he was due some mercy, all that came up was mostly water, at first, spurting out of his nose. Hot acrid water that dyed the bowl a cloudy brown. Though it didn't look like it would leave a stain, it tasted absolutely awful, like drain cleaner with an aftertaste of grease. He gagged hard on the thought of it and began to dry heave.

Scowling, a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead, infiltrating behind his lenses. He could feel himself shaking violently, a horrible nauseating heat latching onto his skin. He wanted nothing more than to take his sweater off, but he didn't think he could uncurl from the miserable position he was in.

A pained moan dribbled out of his lips as he gave into another fit of loud dry heaving. His abdomen spasmed under his tight damp buttoned-up shirt, the fabric clinging to it by sweat. It was like he was being suffocated by it.

Clark clung to the ceramic bowl, though his vomit-covered hand couldn't get a grip on it, and burped up a stream of viscous runny puke. He winced at the violent splash, it almost sounded like an open faucet. He gagged hard as he felt the solid parts passing through his gullet, bits of sandwich his sick stomach couldn't digest.

“Kh—”, he coughed as the vomit finally tapered off into a sirupy trickle, and spat out what still clung to his tongue. The disgusting cheesy taste of his breakfast was so evident now, with some rotten aftertaste he didn't want to dwell on.

For a moment or two, Clark hovered over the toilet, panting heavily. Drool and sick hung from his lips, thin ropes waving along with his breathing, which was the only sound apart from the muffled churning of his upset guts. His belly kept clenching unproductively, struggling to bring up what remained inside of it, only worsening the dull ache of his sore muscles. The dizzying nausea hadn't eased one bit, though he kept heaving, it would be a minute before he had the strength to let any more out.

A shaky hand came up, wiping vomit all over his sweater, then absentmindedly tugging at his neckline. Once, before a tiny button went flying. Reminded of his superhuman strength, he eased his grip on the toilet bowl and slinked back.

It could've been minutes or just a few seconds, he couldn't tell exactly, but something pulled him out of his feverish daze. A knock on his stall, a careful one made the door creak as it was pushed ajar. He froze, ready for the worst his anxious mind could come up with.

“Clark? Are you in there?” It almost didn't sound like Lois, but it was her. He didn't think he had ever heard her so livid before.

He looked over to find a pair of familiar sneakers peeking under the gap, shifting nervously. He even saw the small manicured fingers sneaking in to pull it closed, allowing him a little more privacy.

“H-Here Lois, ngh…”, he groaned, and though he still felt dizzy he put in the effort to flush out the toilet, hoping the smell hadn't already permeated the whole restroom. “I'm here.”

“Oh, good! I've been looking for you everywhere”, she exclaimed, her voice still shaky.

“Sorry for running off, I felt really sick all of sudden”, he replied, sitting back on his knees. It was a struggle to keep his voice from cracking when it felt like he had swallowed sandpaper.

“You don't have to apologize for that”, she sighed, her feet kept fidgeting. “Are you alright? Did you… um, throw up?”

“Y-Yeah”, he admitted, his face flushing with embarrassment, and grabbed a few pieces of paper to wipe his mouth with. “I think it was something I ate.”

“Jimmy told me so, said you weren't feeling well this morning”, she commented, and he heard her fidgeting with something in her pockets. “He went out to buy medicine, I only found headache pills around here.”

Any medicine would be a lifesaver right now, but Clark couldn't even stomach the thought of swallowing anything.

“Anyways, I brought you some water”, she added, followed by the sound of a bottle being agitated. “Can I come in?”

Clark gulped anxiously at the idea, he didn't want the girl he liked to see him like this, but the idea of being left alone was even scarier.

“Okay… come in.”

The door opened then shut with a small click, Lois actually bothered to close it properly, even though the stall felt small with someone of Clark's size inside, the short woman made up for it

While he took up half of the space, she barely filled a third. The squared space felt noticeably warmer too, just by being close to him she could feel the heat rolling off him.

“Hey, big guy” she greeted softly, shedding her puffy green jacket as she crouched behind him.

“Hey…”, he glanced over his shoulder, offering a tired but genuine smile under a sleeve he ran over his mouth. It tugged on her heartstrings seeing his misty eyes. “Sorry, I'm not doing so hot right now…”

“It's okay, I'm here now to take care of you”, she told him, rubbing his arm, and offering a reassuring smile of her own. “Anything you need, okay?”

He mouthed an “okay” before he had to swallow again, feeling his stomach jump, this time he could tell it was from the nerves rather than the nausea. Something about being in a tight space all alone with Lois, no matter how gross the actual situation was, made him anxious.

Those thoughts were quickly banished as she busied herself cracking the bottle open.

“Here, drink. You need to replenish your liquids”, she humored, handing him the water bottle.

Clark mustered a nervous chuckle before he took it, too eager to notice her fingers might've lingered on his for a moment too long. She did note how much they were trembling, though.

“So, how are you feeling?”

“A little better now”, he responded after a small sip, trying to return her good humor, and Lois chuckled softly, raising an eyebrow. “I don't know…”, he gave a more sincere answer this time, resting a hand over his belly. “I feel… hot? and dizzy… and a little… hm, nauseous still.”

Lois hummed, looking at his oversized hand distractedly rubbing his belly, picking up on the bubbling sounds she hadn't before.

“I'm sorry you don't feel good. Food poisoning is never fun”, she cooed, in a tone that should've been mocking but quickly took a side of sympathy. He chuckled too, the bottle's rim still on his lips. “I think you might be overheating in that big sweater, though.”

“You might be right…”, he panted.

Her hand wandered to the rim of his jumper, playing with it before she offered, with a smirk: “Wanna take it off?”

He gulped, then nodded, putting the water bottle down, and raised his arms just enough for her to pull it off.

Without it, he almost looked like another person, his hair was up in spikes, his blue tie was messed up and his glasses were crooked. The white dress shirt he had underneath was nearly see-through, with a couple more buttons threatening to pop off. Lois looked away for a moment, convinced the heat was getting to her as well.

“Better?”

He hummed, while adjusting his glasses and combing his hair down, coming off a little weaker than he meant to. In reality, he was still feeling quite groggy, and his head was pounding, not to mention…

“You don't sound sincere”, she commented, her eyes now fixed to his hand, which in play was fidgeting with the buttons of his undershirt. “Does your belly hurt?”

“A little…”, he started to reply, but as if to punctuate his answer, it gave a low grumble that Lois heard and had to disguise a snort. “Hah, I guess… a lot”

“You're a bad liar, Clark”, she pointed, smirking.

He would have blushed if his face wasn't already a feverish red. Instead, he lowered his eyes and simpered.

“I think we have a hot water bottle somewhere in the break room”, Lois commented after a moment of silence, bumping him in the shoulder to lift his spirits. “It helps a lot with cramps.“

Clark made a noise at the mention of it, a mix between a grumble and a snort that drowned out as he took a swig of water. While it soothed his sore throat, it was getting hard to ignore the way it seemed to slosh inside of him, sitting heavily on top of his undigested meal.

Another noise, one of surprise, escaped him when a small hand came to rest on his cheek. Instead of flinching at the feeling of cold fingers, he nearly melted, putting his hand over hers before she could retrieve it. In turn, Lois widened her eyes at the heat rolling off his skin.

“What are you doing?”, he asked, holding her there.

“Checking if you… have a fever”, she responded, with a mix of surprise and embarrassment at his reaction. His hand completely covered hers. “Can I?”

“Ah, right… Go ahead”, he gave a sheepish look before letting go.

Now flustered, her hand glided up, resting the back of it against his forehead, his once fluffy bangs were flat and soaked in sweat. A soft hiss left her mouth, all that was left was steam to come out, his skin was nearly sizzling, and she didn't even think it was humanly possible.

“Do you think I have a fever?” Clark humored her. “That would explain a lot…”

“Definitely, I don’t even need a thermometer to know”, she half-joked, brushing off a few damp strands of hair. ”You're burning up, and covered in sweat too…”

“Feels really hot in here”, he muttered, growing a little groggy from what she was doing to his hair. “Your hand is cold, feels nice."

Lois gave a small hum, cupping his cheek again, and caressing her thumb over his cheek. He seemed to relax as she did it, closing his eyes and sighing, though his eyebrows were still furrowed, and his throat kept moving.

“I might have an ice bag for you if we go to the break room", she mentioned. “How about it? There's a nice sofa there to rest.”

Clark considered the offer for a second, or rather, the mental image of falling asleep on her lap, he would've said yes then and there. Then he felt his stomach tighten, and was reminded of the nausea swirling in the pits of his stomach.

“I don't know, Lois… I really don't think it's safe with me, guh, like this”, he replied, looking up at her with a frown.

“Aw baby, are you still feeling sick?”, her voice took a more comforting tone as she ran her fingers through his bangs. “Do you think you might throw up?”

“I– I don't know…”, he echoed, swallowing thickly, enough in his mind for him to miss the nickname. “I think…?”

Lois sighed, still holding him, she could feel him letting more and more of his weight onto her, and worried he might be getting weaker. Her eyes wandered down to his collar, where a faulty button left a peek of his chest out, and quickly went back.

“You hadn't eaten much today, have you?”, she asked.

“Just, gulp, half a sandwich since I woke up”, he responded, his expression crumpling in disgust, as if recalling his previous meal wasn't the right move.

“Do you think that might've been it?”, she asked as he pulled away from her, going back to fidgeting with his buttons.

“No…”, his lips trembled as he said, like he was trying not to gag. “I– , had something from the fridge yesterday. I— muRp, excuse me.”

He pressed a fist to his mouth, closing his eyes and swallowing convulsively as he recalled the taste of that horrible tuna sandwich.

Before Lois had the chance to ask anything else, he was crossing his arms over his middle, groaning with nausea. She scooted closer, wrapping an arm around him in a somewhat awkward but still comforting hug. He leaned on her, even if everything in him said to pull away before he vomited all over.

“Ugh… my stomach's churning again”, he moaned, curling into a tight ball. “I really don't want… puke.”

“Well, if you need to”, she told him and heard an airy gulp in response. His face scrunched in what looked like disgust, but it could've been frustration from the way he shook his head. “Hey, I know it's bad, but it's your body's way of helping you through this.”

Clark mused about his options, his expression still pinched in pain. He could feel his stomach bubbling, the bile constantly at the back of his throat, like a boiling pot threatening to spill over. He looked up at her, at the cute frown she had on, and felt guilty worrying her like this.

“Lois, I think you shH— uRp!”, he opened his mouth and his body made the decision for him, letting a wet burp come up without warning. He cupped his mouth, wide-eyed.

Before he even could apologize, he was muffling another into his hand, trying to swallow the acidic saliva flooding over his tongue. Lois, on a calmer note, placed a hand on his back, gently guiding him to lean over the toilet.

“It's okay, just let it happen”, she told him, rubbing slow circles in an attempt to put him more at ease. It didn't seem to be working, she could feel his muscles tensing under her.

Clark was about to ask her to stand outside, he really didn't want her to see him like this, but he didn't seem to have a choice. Hell, they weren't even dating yet, and she was already seeing such a gross side of him.

Groaning, he draped his arm over the seat and hunched over, resting his head on the meat of his wrist. This way his head was mostly inside the toilet, affording him a smidge of privacy. He stared at the clear water below, taking deep careful breaths, feeling his stomach churn, his breakfast working its way up his throat.

“Ngh—”, he whimpered when his abdomen caved in, bringing a weak airy gag and a river of salty saliva to his lips.

It couldn't get worse at least, he told himself. Lois was there, rubbing his back and trying to keep him calm, seemingly unbothered by him being a contagious funk. Clark clenched his eyes shut, tears prickling his eyes, and dry heaved loudly, feeling her flinch at the harsh noise echoing inside the bowl.

“That's it, try to get it up”, Lois urged in a gentle voice, stroking his back as he retched again, louder but unproductive. “Keep going.”

He tried again, sucking in his abdomen and whimpering pitifully when it felt like a punch to the gut instead of the relief of emptying it.

“Easy…”, she instructed, her other hand wandered down, grazing his sore pained tummy over the tight shirt.

Clark shivered as he felt her touch it, letting out another needy whimper that made her pull away.

“I-It's okay, you can, gulp, touch there”, he managed to say before he was gagging again, his voice thick with nausea.

“Ah, got it”, she responded, now sounding flustered. “I’ll be gentle.”

Her hand found his stomach flat under the shirt, humid and warm, clenching in preparation for another harsh dry heave. A soft whistle escaped her lips as she realized she could feel the muscles of his toned abdomen underneath the clammy skin, even his stomach lunging as he gave another, this time wet-sounding heave.

Humming with sympathy, Lois tried to rub her open palm up and down, trailing from his belly button to just below his ribcage, gently kneading into his bruised tummy as she went. The surface felt firm, his stomach was full and bloated underneath. No wonder he was feeling so uncomfortable, there seemed to be a lot in there making him sick.

Her poor boyfriend-to-be let out a queasy moan and belched, the sound turning thick and wet as he forced it out.

“There, try to get it up”, she instructed, patting his belly and widening her eyes as she felt it gurgle underneath her fingertips. That seemed like it did the trick.

“H— urp! EUrGhH!” Clark made a miserable sound as he retched into the bowl, the violent heave turned hauntingly wet as vomit gurgled out of his mouth.

Lois winced as she heard it connect with the water inside the bowl in a sharp splash, hearing him choke up and spit out the rest of it. While that seemed to have been just the liquid he had drank, the strong acrid smell still reached her quickly, making her shift with a slight discomfort.

“There you go, let it out”, she whispered, trying to keep the disgust away from her voice.

Clark dry heaved again and his whole body seemed to follow the motion. His back arched forward, his musculature showing through the damp shirt, shoulders hitching as he strained. She felt his stomach lurch under her palm and braced as he brought up more of his stomach contents in a lengthy surge, some of it spurting out of his nose with a hiss.

He couldn't get a breath in as a second wave came up without warning, sounding thicker on his throat and heavier as it fell into the bowl, making a somewhat soft splatter. Lois didn't want to dwell on what it meant, but from how much he was straining she already had an idea. She could feel his stomach deflating under her fingertips, pumping itself empty.

“There you go, let it all out”, she encouraged him, rubbing his back, to which he responded, or at least tried to, with a weak groan.

“I'm, hrk— s-sorry…”, came the garbled apology, punctuated by harsh gagging.

“Aw, baby… It's alright, don't apologize”, she frowned, tempted to just scoop him up into a hug, but another loud dry heave made her think twice. “You're doing great.”

“No, I'm— urgh, this is so gross…”, he moaned, sounding completely clogged. “You shouldn't have to… hRk, see this, muRp!”

“Aw, Clark, it's okay, really. I don't mind being here with you. I wouldn't just leave you like this either”, she responded, sounding timid as the sentence went on. He, on the other hand, didn't have much time to dwell on it as another flash of hot nausea slammed into him.

Clark could barely keep his eyes open, but at a time like this he was almost thankful, his vision was blurry with unshed tears, which meant he couldn’t see much of the mess he was making. Retching harshly, he choked up another thick stream of his undigested sandwich and stomach juices, feeling the clumps passing through his throat.

He sucked in a greedy gasp of air, choking up another lengthy wave of vomit not a second later. There was so much that for a moment he couldn't breathe as it gushed out his nose, burning through his airways. He coughed violently as it tapered off, noticing the disgusting taste hanging from the tail end. He knew better than to think too much about it, but now he could taste a pull of spoiled fish at the end.

“EuRrGhH!”, he moaned, mustering a third consecutive wave before he was left panting so hard his lungs were whistling in his throat.

“Hey, remember to breathe”, Lois told him, but Clark seemed too caught up in his own misery to take her advice.

It felt like his stomach was trying to turn itself out. He clenched his eyes shut, tears of exertion gathering on his eyelashes, his throat still working through the last bits of vomit.

“Breathe…”, she instructed him, her hand still on his stomach, grounding him.

Clark lunged forward, nearly losing his grip as a harsh retch tore out of him, choking up a trickle of viscous bile into the toilet. He kept gagging for a solid minute, runny puke dribbling inside the toilet as his stomach continued to wrang itself empty, trying to get rid of any traces of that disgusting sandwich he had eaten yesterday.

A moment or two passed of Lois shushing him while he continued to heave weakly, the involuntary motions growing more sparse. It felt like his stomach was finally empty, even though it kept clenching, leaving his abdomen sore.

“Think you're done, big guy?”, she said, patting his back.

“Mrgh… hm-hmm”, he made a pained noise before humming, though it still took another minute before he felt confident enough to raise his head.

His face was an utter mess of orangish-brown vomit, drool and snot hanging from his nose and lips in thick slimy ropes, some of it coating his chin. He instinctively brought a cupped hand under it, trying to keep the mess from dripping on his shirt, but Lois was quicker, handing him a handful of rolled paper.

“Think you got it all out?”, she asked sheepishly, while he blew his nose.

“Think so…”, he rasped, his voice completely shot.

“Um, here, rinse your mouth out”, she instructed, bringing the water bottle to his lips and tipping it so he could take a sip. ”You don't have to swallow, just to get the taste out.”

After he swished and spat out, she flushed the toilet, glancing at the swirling vomit inside and grimacing. She could make out bits of green lettuce among the murky orange mess, and lowered the lid before she had the chance to see anything else.

Turning her gaze back to him, she found his junior intern sitting there like a lost kid, misty-eyed and sniffling, staring at the ground through half-lids. His color hadn’t improved much, in fact, he looked more green than pale now, with a feverish blush still burning on his cheeks.

“Hey?”, she called, waving her hand in front of him. He raised his head weakly, blinking. “Are you alright now? Still feeling nauseous?”

“Huh? No, I… think I'm empty now", he responded, though that didn't exactly respond to the question. His stomach was settled now, though it felt sore, like he had just done the worst workout of his life.

“That's good, I think? At least you got out whatever was making you sick”, she commented, to which he had to put a hand to his mouth, covering a gag. “You must have a pretty weak immune system, huh? I mean, you were last week too.”

“O-Oh, yeah, I was, yeah”, he feigned a chuckle, recalling the lie he had told her, when he needed to fly back home. His face quickly dropped. “Lois, I'm sorry you had to see this, I really didn't know what to—”

“Clark, it's okay, really. You don't have to apologize for being sick, or for needing help. None of it is your fault. I'm here, okay? For whatever you need”, she silenced him, cupping his cheek again. A small smile played on his lips, before he nodded, finally convinced. “Now, do you think we can go? It's not exactly hygienic to be on a restroom floor.”

“Ah! Y-Yeah, you're right“, he chuckled, putting his hands on his knees as he struggled to his feet. Lois followed, lending him a shoulder to lean on.

“Come on, big guy. If you play your cards right, I might even make you some chicken noodle soup when we get to your place”, she said playfully.

“Wait, really? That does sound good”, he replied, blue eyes sparkling with a naive and hopeful look.

“We'll see”, she smirked. “But now, what you need is to lay down and rest.”

He didn't argue, looking forward to the possibility of falling asleep on her lap, to her small fingers brushing through his hair, to her scent. At least there was some good to be taken out of this situation.

#emetophilia #tw emeto #sickfic #emeto fic #m.y a.dventures w.ith s.uperman #m/y a/dventures w/ith s/uperman #c.lark k.ent #c/lark k/ent #l.ois l.ane #l/ois l/ane #sick at work #dana//writing #dana//emeto fic #my writing #tw vomit #emeto art #fever whump #stomach ache whump #male sickie

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