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eternalstrigoii · 7 days ago

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You know you don't gotta pretend, baby, now and then

Remmick x F! Reader x Joan x Bert Fluff-adjacent? Vampire-kissing bisexuality with no real plot.

You rolled up to the street fair on your bicycle. You weren't supposed to go. It was late, and you'd had work; you'd passed through when the sun was still high in the sky and the vendors were freshly assembled. You knew it would be back tomorrow. That you should go tomorrow, instead, but you hadn't. The sun was a gilt orange streak in a watercolor sky. Globe lights cast a welcome warmth over the throngs of party-goers, and you were just gonna stop real quick. Just for dinner. Nobody wanted to cook on a Friday, least of all after work. But they were playing good music in the big, white tent. It had been a long time since you let music get to you. Music made people honest, and, shit, you weren't ready to be honest with yourself again. You wandered a little up and down the repurposed road. Didn't look at anything beyond the edible offerings -- not yet. Didn't have the money; didn't have the time. There was only supposed to be an hour left when you'd left work, so you foot-tapped to the band while a woman about your mother's age made you a burger over hot coals that you devoured a little too quickly. They were playing songs you knew. Songs you sang in the bath this morning. Your friend's house had just gone onto market almost nine months to the day after she died. (She wasn't the nice old woman she pretended to be, and you resented that when she was alive. But she used to ask you to go dancing. Don't you ever have fun?

No, you'd said, and you'd tried to sound like you hadn't meant it.)

Music made people honest, and, tonight, you were being honest with yourself.

It took you a minute to get closer to the stage. To work your way from parking your bike at the sidelines to lingering on the fringes. A girl you knew from school all those years ago was dancing with her parents. She was engaged, now; led a damn successful life in your eyes. A beautiful, dark-skinned woman in a floral dress kept smiling over, inviting you to join the group of dancers in front of the stage.

You didn't even notice them, at first.

Card tables dotted the occupied street, docked with folding chairs. They weren't out of place at one, but there was still something about them that drew your eyes. Maybe it was her, her knowing smile a familiar twist upon scarlet lips. Maybe it was the man whose knee she sat upon; he looked at her like the sun rose and set because of her, like the thunder of the music was all her doing. Maybe it was him. The one alone. The way he looked at you, as if he had never laid eyes upon so divine a splendor.

You smiled to yourself as you looked away. The bright, brassy horns had you swaying. If you'd had a place to lock your bike, maybe you would’ve gone closer. You had to keep an eye on the small things left in your basket, didn't you?

They didn’t say a word to one another. She just stood, taking her man’s hand in one of hers, and led him through the narrow pathway between tables to where everyone gathered to dance to a song you’d never heard.

You’d decided that you liked it before they ever reached you. Their friend hadn’t gotten up, yet; he watched them make a bee-line for you, her hand outstretched to take one of yours. She had two, after all. One to hold on to her man, and one to welcome you.

Oh, hell, you had your money on you. You could be brave for a couple minutes.

You shifted away from the poorly managed park tree you’d been standing under in order to take her hand – and, almost automatically, offer your own to her man.

He caught it as tenderly as he held hers. Brought your knuckles to his lips. You liked the way it felt – the kiss for a greeting and the still-rough callouses that told you he was good with his hands. Some evil little part of you wanted to file that away for later, like it was something you should come back to. Like there was gonna be an after.

Maybe there was. They sure were pretty enough.

You stepped off the curb and practically into her arms. She was just a little taller than you, and the way her eyes caught the light reminded you of the way fireflies danced at midsummer. That close, you had to blink to try to corral your thoughts – pretty didn’t cut it. Not face to face.

“Come dance with us, sugar.” Her thumb traced your knuckles on the opposite hand. “We’ll let’cha go when you’re ready.”

You let them both guide you into the throng, maybe intentionally avoiding the part of you that knew you weren’t ever gonna be ready to leave.

You knew the next song. So did they. Steps morphed into swaying, and then into dancing, as easily as the music carried you. Her man used your interlaced hands for an excuse to loop his arm over your head, to guide your body in between theirs. You gave yourself over to how it felt to be against another person, your head tipping back against his chest as you ran your thumb over her gold wedding band.

His teeth looked sharp when he smiled down at you. Oh, if your feet weren’t occupied, it would’ve curled your toes.

Remmick got up while you were dancing, finally leaving the fringes for the refuge of the party. He liked the way your voice lilted when you sang back to them. It fit into their harmony. He stood nearby just a little longer, perpetually waiting. Perpetually hopeful that, despite the lack of liquor in your system and knowing that you had not meant to stay, that you would. That you might linger, still, after the band was done.

The song ended. The band took a minute to absorb cheers – including the rowdy white boy whoo! from over your head that made your laughter sound like bells against it. You had to let go of one another to clap for them.

You looked back toward the card tables when you did. But you didn’t see him.

Remmick avoided acknowledging the pleasure he derived from your momentary disappointment. He wasn’t ready to break the seal, to let himself have that temporary freedom you, and they, were already reveling in.

Not when another song started and Joan’s sweet-cream laughter bubbled into the still-warm night. They sounded different when he wasn’t holding them back. Everyone did.

It was easy to dance like you were the only two people in the room when she had a hand on your waist. When dancing with her became dancing with him, and you had to laugh at your newfound ability to avoid stepping on his toes by staying light and bouncy on your own. You twirled back around to her, your arm draped around her shoulders. Her skirt fanned out around both of your legs as you roped her into the spin.

You weren’t thinking. Granted, you’d made a point of it thus far, but you really weren’t thinking when you were that close, and she was that beautiful, and her red lips were parted in the most ecstatic smile you’d ever seen.

You kissed her. If you didn’t do it then, you never would. You kissed her in front of her husband, in front of who knew how many strangers in however many degrees of sobriety, and you couldn’t even blame anything but yourself. You kissed her, and she sighed against your lips like she’d been waiting for you to do it all night, and the whole world let out its breath. Because she kissed you back. Because her hand stayed at your waist to keep you close to her while she did, and her fingers pressed ever so tenderly into the baby hair at the back of your neck, and the part of you that should’ve been asking questions and voicing doubts had gone completely silent.

She kissed you the way love builds, letting you have the lead until she was ready to take it from you. Until you remembered, with a quiet hitch of your breath and the sudden jerk of your head upward at the hands that settled on your waist – one over hers, their wedding bands overlapping – that you weren’t, in fact, alone.

“Don’t quit on accoun’a me,” he drawled, so low and inviting that what was left of your good sense dropped right out of reach. He moved in when your wide eyes and parted lips uttered no objections, and you found yourself straightening to meet him. Kissing him was deeper, somehow; his teeth were as sharp as they looked, and you couldn’t help but run your tongue along them as he drew your back against his chest. If she kissed you like how it felt to fall in love, then he kissed you the way it felt to be wanted – so hot it was heavy, so slow that the taste of him, whiskey smooth, lingered in your mouth afterward. Her fingers trailed sweetly down the front of your throat while you kissed him, and your insides came alight the way a spark starts a wildfire. Her stroking thumb became a kiss along your pulse. Another, a little lower. Again just above your collarbone.

He withdrew slowly. A string of saliva connected your mouth to his. It might’ve been the hottest thing you’d ever experienced.

“You wanna see them out, baby?” he asked. Maybe you, maybe her, maybe both of you. “Or you wanna head out before they’re done?”

You didn’t have the words to answer. You didn’t have the words for much of anything. Your eyes dropped from him to her, and that darling, doe-eyed look made her smile as she brushed her lipstick and his spit into your lower lip with her thumb.

Your insides quivered.

“Couple more songs won’t hurt.” She sounded satisfied with the way your breath trembled against her skin. She withdrew her red-stained thumb and, almost like your eyes weren’t locked on her, popped it into her mouth to taste you both.

You could’ve swooned. Might’ve, a little. His hands never strayed from your waist, though his low, warm laughter sounded an awful lot like agreement.

“I’m Joan, by the way. This’s Bert. Remmick’s around here somewhere.” She reminded you of their third so casually that you couldn’t restrain the urge to look for him again – at the packed card tables, first. Then along the tree-lined fringes. You could feel the guitar in your chest, all of a sudden, and the thrum of it felt like celestial relief when you finally met his eyes.

He smiled. Raised a hand to wave like they weren’t both just kissing you for anyone in the world to see.

And you, you dumbass, you waved back.

At least they didn’t laugh. Even if they smiled at one another like you couldn’t see them in your periphery.

He moved more easily through the crowd than you’d imagined. He was a lot better built than you realized, up close. The warm light made his eyes shine. They were beautiful. He was beautiful, and you might’ve been the luckiest person in the world for bein’ the one he looked at like he did.

“Can I cut in?” he called over the song. He extended his hand to you, not that there was much in the way of room to do so.

“Yeah. Yeah, ‘course you can!” You gave him your hand.

Maybe some part of you expected to dance with him the way you danced with them, but, no – his eyes softened when he touched you. He drew you close like you were old lovers in a polished dance hall, his free hand coming to settle at your lower back. Yours rose instinctively to rest on his thick bicep. (You had to stop yourself from flexing your fingers around it – dear lord, had Aphrodite ever made a man, it would’ve been this one.)

“I hope you don’t mind,” his accent seemed to shift with his steps – a little southern here, a little foreign there – “I know you were havin’ fun.”

“I’m havin’ fun now,” you admitted. “I don’t usually do things like this.”

“Dance with strangers?” he asked, like he hadn’t seen you kiss both halves of a married couple. His married couple friends, no doubt.

“Any of it.”

No, the kind of dancing you did had no rhythm or time with the music. Being in his arms was being in another world. He danced with you like there was no one else on the street.

“This might sound sad, but this is the most fun I’ve had in a very long time.” You always understood why people did things they shouldn’t do, but never quite like this. The rush of it was supposed to feel good, it wasn’t supposed to feel clean. Honest.

He gave you a close little twirl, like he couldn’t dare let you get far. He might’ve been thinking of what to say to you so it didn’t sound like he was put off by that. Maybe he was. Maybe he was put off by all of it and that was why it took him so long to join the three of you.

You draped an arm over his broad shoulders. Brought his finely muscled chest closer to yours. There was a flicker of surprise in his face that he had a hard time keeping hidden.

“I’m not like this usually. I think a lot. About everything. Maybe too much.” You usually articulated yourself better, too. “I just wanted to let go for one night, you know? Not even a night, an hour. I just got off work, and life’s been hitting below the belt, and I’m just…”

He knew. That was the kind of person who gravitated to him, in the end. The ones he gravitated toward. People called it a radar, nowadays, didn’t they? Birds of a feather and everything associated.

“Doubt you wanna hear me preach about the ails of society on a night like this,” he teased.

You laughed, but gods did it feel nice to hear someone else say it. To know, just for one night, that you weren’t alone.

“Not tonight,” you admitted. “But maybe some other.”

Remmick looked at you like he didn’t understand, at first. You weren’t quite sure how to interpret that. You were worried, all of a sudden, that the look on his face was not one of surprise that you were asking him to see you again, but that you would ask him to see you again. And maybe it was the borderline self-destructive urge to do something with your life before you completely lost control of it rearing its ugly head, maybe it was the candied taste of Joan’s lipstick on your mouth reminding you of your ability to do brave and brazen things even when you felt insignificant, but you leaned in one more time, and you hoped to whatever god might hear you that he didn’t think that being kissed meant less because you’d already kissed someone else.

He didn’t.

He didn’t know what to do with his hands. The one that had been at your lower back while you danced stayed there. The other came up to cup your face. He started kissing you back, then, as the wonderful callouses on his fingers brushed over your skin.

Turns out you liked kissing him. You liked the way his touch shifted from tenderly exploratory to settling at your jaw with his fingers splayed around your earlobe. You liked the pressure of his mouth and how it steadily increased; the way his lips parted against yours just enough for your teeth to catch on his lower lip. You sure liked the sound he made when they did.

Some part of you noticed the off things. You could feel your heart drumming on your ribcage, but not his, not even with him this close to you. Come to think of it, you hadn’t felt it from Joan or Bert, either. Maybe you just weren’t paying close enough attention. Maybe there was nothin’ off about the consistency of his spit when he slipped you tongue – it was viscous, like plasma. Like a big dog’s post-drink drool. And it tasted raw.

Didn’t stop you from letting him draw as close as your covered bodies would allow. He tipped your head back a little, his fingers knotting in the fabric of your shirt like he wanted something he didn’t have the words to ask for.

Your hands ran down his arms, praising and appreciating at the same time. You would’ve kept going if he didn’t pull back just a bit to let you breathe – to let the sweet night air whisper for you to gather your senses.

“Alright, everyone, there’s two songs left. Let’s give it up for the band,” the lead singer called, and you could hear them cheering, still close to you.

“I’m not ready for this to be over,” you told him. You weren’t ready to hop back on your bike and ride home. Pretend that you hadn’t eaten until your mother went back to bed and you could sit around without making yourself something else. You didn’t want this magic to fade.

“Doesn’t have to,” he replied. Each section of the band took their turns getting cheers – the horns, the drums, the guitar.

“You wanna come home with me tonight?” You shouldn’t offer, but you shouldn’t have done a lotta things. That was the problem with breaking seals, you could never get them back on again.

He searched your face like he was looking for something in those words. Some insincerity, maybe. The idea that it wasn’t him you were inviting home. Or that you weren’t inviting him home at all – that, somehow, in the flicker of a second, you’d changed your mind.

“I’d like you all to come back with me, if you’d like. If you don’t have somewhere else to be.”

Joan leaned back so you could see her all wrapped up in her husband’s arms. “We’d love to.” The look she gave Remmick was a little pointed, a little more on the loving side of chastising than you should’ve been familiar with.

“Let’s let ‘em play us out.” You shouldn’t be making that decision for everyone, but, “You owe me a couple more dances.”

He had that look on his face again, like you were the most divine of splendors. Like there was something about you that he simply couldn’t put into words. Maybe into song, if he was lucky. Maybe one day.

Half the town knew you got home safe, that night. Between you and Joan climbing on your bicycle together to try to outrun your boys to the clamor of your voices as the four of you walked along singing. At least you were in harmony. At least, at last, you were finally having fun.

#Author's Note: I'm bisexual and it's all of your problem now. '/Them/?' comments will be put in the suggestion box (holds out trash bin)#Remmick x Reader #Remmick x Reader x Joan x Bert #Joan (Sinners)#Remmick (Sinners)#Bert (Sinners)#I'm With The Band (Musical Vampire Polycule)#This One's For You (Series)#< -- Adjacent.#Inspired by real life events (comma) hopes and dreams (comma) and Drunk (And I Don't Wanna Go Home) by Elle King #No Beta We Die Like Stefan #This is about to be the only fic I can post for this fandom without a warning banner isn't it.

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