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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?

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

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.

She’s with me.

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.

______

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

[ooo-protean-ooo]

She’s Trouble

(Eddie Munson x Female Reader)

Summary: Tired of trailing behind, feeling like you don’t matter much, you decide that 86’ isn’t only going to be your bestfriend’s year.

Pairings: Eddie Munson x Female Reader

Word count: 16,185

Warnings: Language, violence, mentions of drug usage, blood, NSFW, smut, drinking, Eddie is angry and sad in this, masturbation, slight voyeurism, breeding kink, vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, angry sex, creampie, angst, fighting, rough sex, Dom!Eddie, and MORE!

A/N: I started writing this based off the scene of Eddie smirking at the cheerleaders he lets by after his cafeteria speech. And, well… it’s spawned itself a new life and turned into a whole lot more than I planned. But so is the life of an author, am I right? ;) Eddie is a dick in this, Reader is a lot more vocal than I’ve written before. I wanted to do something a bit different and I hope this accomplishes my mission?

I wanna thank @littledemondani for helping me out of my brain fart on which direction to take this! Also, do check out her masterlist, which is pinned at the top of her blog (it won’t let me link it here). She’s an incredible author and a fellow Eddie Munson slut, and one of my longtime best-friends! ♥️

Side note: I’ve also shifted a few things in the timeline of the show, for obvious reasons. The whole Eddie/Chrissy thing doesn’t happen on the same night as in the series. Chrissy and the reader have a good interaction and Eddie is a dickhead, but his reasoning will be explained. Also, while the reader is wearing a bustier top, this is an all inclusive fic, where the reader can be anything you imagine! I believe anyone can wear anything that they choose to—regardless of their size, so don’t let that bit of the story deter your perception, as I’ve left it open-ended! ;)

Enjoy! I’ve got a lot coming up soon! Part twos of multiple fics, prompts, plus other goodies! <3 - Kristen

~*~

You watch the way that he tries to be cute and coy towards them, attempts to impress with a dramatic wave through of his hand. Short skirts, tight little tops, bouncing ponytails, and a shitload of generic gossip on their painted lips—they pass by, everything included but those damned pom poms. Apparently they are giddy at his little show of calling out every group but your own in the cafeteria. Your eyes roll so hard that you feel a protesting sting, ignoring it to stab your fork into whatever creation is wiggling on your lunch tray. All the guys—freshman to seniors, and you—the only girl since founding, and Hellfire Club’s treasurer/manager to Corroded Coffin—make up the outsider table.

This year, however, you’ve felt so fucking off base with this group and their antics that you’re getting exhausted pretending to care about their shit when they don’t respect you or yours. Dustin, Lucas, and Mike are always the sweetest to you, even with Lucas joining a sport, he’s still quick to always give you a smile and a nod whenever you pass him in the halls. They’re young, unlike Eddie and the older guys. You’re finally a senior this year, but still behind your bestfriend by a year in age. All this used to be okay, Eddie multiplying how much he repeats the grade, you trailing behind him like a lost puppy without any brain of her own, but now—it’s unbearably smothering.

And thus, it’s been building. You’re over bringing chips that are from your personal stash and using your gas to go buy smokes with your small work paycheck, or clean equipment for Eddie’s band, or stay up all night just to design campaign posters for Eddie, only for him to be so fucking stoned that he doesn’t even appreciate it, nor remember it.

“Fucking fake losers,” Jeff mutters.

“So fake,” Gareth agrees, both looking towards Eddie as he settles himself back down, wiggling his brows at you.

It’s an unsettling pressure that boils inside you, crackling, and as soon as you look into your best-friend’s brown doe eyes—it all comes apart. “You wanna talk about fake?” Your chest pumps a rush of adrenaline, helping careen the words off your tongue before you can stop them. Everyone’s attention snaps quicker than you’re prepared for, eyes wide and shocked. Sure, you’re vocal and sassy, but never outwardly angry. “The fact that all of you will condemn the basketball players, but would give up any of your seats at our table for one of the bitches in a skirt that they chase, if they popped their gum or batted an eyelash. You’d all be a bunch of drooling, little horndogs.” You can feel your heart racing with each pronunciation of a word, rising from your seat, knuckles white from gripping the edges of your yellow tray so hard.

You hear Dustin whisper a ‘whoa’, but your vocal vomit doesn’t stop.

“Frankly? I’m fucking sick of all this.” You pick the tray up and slam it down for good measure, unwrapping your messenger bag from around your seat, and you leave the table of gaping young men behind you, not even indulging yourself in Eddie’s bugged out, concerned stare.

You don’t even have time to throw your bag across your chest, when Jason Carver shouts out from behind you, “Damn, look at Munson’s slut go!”

It seems your group aren’t the only ones taking an interest in your outburst. Your breath is engorged in jagged pants of pitiful air, a fire coursing through you faster than you can handle, your skin singing, prickling with goosebumps. Your cheeks redden in humiliation, your feet swiveling and carrying you, fast and quick to their table, you throw your bag off, body like some damned slow motion track. Everyone notices Eddie’s antics, but you’ve never garnered any attention. It’s a surreal high.

Your combat boots click across the cement flooring, your hair like a dead weight across your back. Carver and his entire group are expectant, chairs scraping across to get out of your way. It’s all such a blur that you don’t even know your fist has collided with Jason’s face until you feel the pressure bite into your knuckles, a crunch beneath your force. He shrieks, his friends jumping to his aid, your stance shifting, ready to take anyone on. Your ears are bubbling with a murky static, applause in some direction, shouts in others.

Your name is being shouted from two different directions, the one you see stomping angrily towards you belonging to principal Higgins. He’s calling for help, shoving his finger in your face, motioning to your shirt. “This Hellfire Club does nothing but cause trouble!”

You snort, completely coming off your hinges, shaking the ends of your shirt, before stepping back and flinging it over your head, leaving you clad in your jeans and a leather bustier top no one could ever picture you owning. You’ve always kept your shit to a minimum to draw less attention, but you liked the support it provided your breasts with. You spin around, hands in the air, using the shirt as a lasso, tossing it at your old table. You begin to giggle, honestly wondering if you should visit the school nurse, but uncaring. Higgins is literally sputtering, making you snort, waving a hand. “I’m a slut, I’m trouble. Anyone have anything else to add? No? Yes?”

You bend back over to snatch your nap sack up, motioning to Higgins. “Lead the way to your office, Sir! Please fucking do.”

The pep in your step as your principal is angrily leading you from the masses is such a euphoric feeling, you’re sure you’ll never feel again in your life. You can taste the drama on your tongue’s tip. You don’t even spare your friends a glance, not wanting Eddie to have a morsel of satisfaction. This is your moment. Not as Eddie Munson’s best-friend, not as his groupie. As Y/N, Y/N Y/L/N.

~*~

Eddie Munson has been clutching your discarded Hellfire shirt, doused in your perfume that is brimming his nostrils full, damn near trembling for the past twenty minutes that finish up lunch. He can’t move, that swelling between his legs keeping him glued to his seat, all the images of your fist soaring into Jason Carver’s face, ripping off your clothing in front of Higgins and the entire damned school. He went from concerned, angry at how you acted, to so fucking turned on that his stomach knotted up, sucking him to where he’s seated, his cock throbbing in his jeans. He’s never seen you like this.

The guys are silent, unsure what to say, how to even go about comprehending the you they just saw, that even Eddie himself has never heard of. He knows one thing for sure—okay—two. He has to find out if you’re okay and what’s going on.

~*~

You roll your eyes at the lovely note, signature of a three day suspension secured by Higgins at the bottom. Crumbling it up, you slide it into your back pocket, rifling through your pin tattered bag for a cigarette. You already know where you’re gonna go, and it sure as hell isn’t home. No one is there and no one is gonna care about your minor indecency. You can forge your mom’s signature, much like you do every good grade you bring home that she’s never around to see, or every comment from a teacher about how your folks are missing out.

It’s quiet at your house, your space. You parents more or less sleep there when they’re not gone on business. Pinching the filter, you cup Eddie’s stolen Zippo, that ashy hiss helping beckon that sweet bitter taste in past your lips. You don’t desire that home front solace right now, craving different scenery.

Maybe I’ll get lost…

You feel like Hawkins is your oyster, and you’re eager to explore on your own terms, by yourself. You’ve got your smokes, your pocket knife, and a pen and paper. That’s enough for you to make a decision.

Skull Rock it is.

~*~

One thing about Indiana is the ever predictable bite of hot weather that March brings. Spring is automatically Summer in the Midwest, and this is no different. Your leather top had stuck to your skin in an uncomfortable crunching press, making you eventually discard it, leaving you topless, your only accessories a chain with your birthstone pendant and a thicker silver chain, with a cheesy little guitar charm (a present from Eddie) nestled between your breasts. Your form is shaped against the rock behind your bare shoulder blades, a cool sensation that has you tilting your head back, stretching your neck, treetops breezing above you—tall and luscious. You smile softly, undoing the flap on your bag and seeking out your Walkman and sunglasses.

In moments your eyelids are fluttering closed, shielded from sun rays, your Walkman clicking in place, readying Heart’s Barracuda to nick your ears, coasting in welcomed caresses. It’s not thick heavy metal, but it’s you. And in the serenity of these woods, another cigarette you allow yourself—you begin to drift off in a galactic solitude that is solely your own. You’d learnt how to count beats, read sheet music, even sing a few notes from Eddie, so getting into your song’s groove isn’t hard for you, your fingers wrapping around your chain, tapping underneath the swell of your breast along with the chorus. You’re off the precipice and gone, demolished to the point you don’t hear the familiar footsteps, the sound of your name, or leaves and dirt crunching beneath white Reeboks, nor do you hear a throat-deep groan at his discovery.

~*~

Eddie and you always share this in synch kinda shit, which creeps a lot of people in your circle out. Eddie, however, welcomes it today. When he couldn’t find you after abandoning his lunch, spent what was left of the day attempting, only for Henderson to tell him he’d heard you’d been suspended for a few days—he made it his personal goal to find you. Your parents are gone so he knows the times you do and don’t like to be at home by yourself. And with the way you lashed out at everyone, you won’t go anywhere he has easy access to.

That leaves one place. Skull Rock.

~*~

The drive feels shorter to Eddie this time, but the walk longer. He has to shed himself of his denim and leather, tossing it over his shoulder and clambering up the path towards finding you, keeping your club tee in his back pocket. The more he walks, the more he wishes he brought a drink or his smokes, which remain on his dash. If he’s wrong and you’re not here, he isn’t sure if this is reality anymore. This day has been one big mindfuck.

Thankfully, as he hears a loud tone droning over the clearing, a soft hum, his heart patters in his chest, nostrils inhaling sharply. He rounds the corner’s pathway, already calling your name, his eyes widening, jaw unhinged, fists clenching at his sides. You’re reclining against the boulder’s curve, black shades perched over your eyes, hair draped across your neck, your boot clad ankle crossed over the other, a cigarette perched into your puckering pair of lips, your layered chains swaying, slumbering against your skin, and fuck—your tits, Eddie winces, gripping himself to adjust—frozen.

He can’t not notice how your nipples are reacting to the air. He can’t not detail your shape, how your waist is formed, zeroing in on the baby bat you’d gotten to match his larger ones, inked into your ribcage, and he certainly isn’t forgetting your jeans that are settled over your hips. His eyes glaze over, heat prodding his flesh, shrouding him a veil of desire and raw ache. You don’t notice him, calls of your name falling on mainstream rock’s ears. He doesn’t think approaching you is smart, like a cat and mouse, your behavior for once—unpredictable.

Has Eddie just not been paying attention to you that much lately?

Suddenly, when he’s debating a cowardly retreat, baiting his internal monologue for an excuse, your audible gasp is heard, his name crushed between your gritted teeth.

Fuck.

~*~

In all of his glory—stands your best-friend. He’s balling and un-balling his fists, eyes darting rapidly, tongue sucking against his teeth, feet ready to carry him far away. And the more he avoids your stare, the angrier you get. So what, you’re not good enough to look at because your breasts are out? Modesty to a back burner, you take your crossed arms off your chest, scraping your smoke out on the rock, pushing your glasses into a perch upon your head, body facing Eddie as you stand.

I dare you.

Your eyes complicate a challenge—craving him in your proximity, and hating his grunge blanketed sight. Eddie’s neck is a really pretty thing when he tenses, his jugular agitated against a harsh gulp of air. He answers you by meeting you in the clearing, palms sweaty, scrubbing over his back pockets. It’s a cool damned drink of water, as if you’ve been without, making thee Eddie Munson squirm. But he’s still your best-friend, and you are half naked.

Covering yourself back up so he will look you in the eye, you tuck your arms into a push beneath your sternum, forearms shielding your nipples. It’ll have to do.

“Eddie, what the fuck are you doing here?” You snap before he can voice a concern or a question.

Tethered to deep breathing techniques, Eddie is insulted, and is biting back in his acidic response. “After your own personal talent show antics at school, I was worried about you. Excuse-the-fuck-outta-me, Y/N.”

A bitter laugh comes from you. “Oh, you’re focused enough on my shit to actually be worried about me? How kind of you, Edward Munson.”

“Why the fuck wouldn’t I be worried about you?” Eddie is raising his voice, sizzling in a cautious rage. He’s usually happy-go-lucky with you, but you’re pushing these fucking buttons he isn’t aware he’s been hiding.

“You really need a list of reasons? Wait,” you say, moving to circle him, pinching your thumb between your teeth, “you’re probably, completely oblivious, because I’m just Y/N. I’m not your club, not your band, not one of your groupies that flounce around for an ounce from you, then leave your ass for their jock boyfriends.”

“Whoa, whoa!” Eddie raises a hand, rings clattering together. “When the fuck did all this start, Y/N?”

Your arms fall back at your sides with a loud ‘thump’. The heating has settled, your high wearing off, truth remaining as to why you’ve been upset in the first place. A caverning hurt carves its place into your chest, igniting an anguish that drowns you. You’re defeated. “It started when my best-friend forgot that I’m my own person and not his servant. Or maybe it began when my person was so stoned that he barely acknowledged a test I fucking flunked to stay up and make his campaign posters—which, may I add—he also gave zero fucks about-“

“So all this is because I didn’t kiss the very ground you walk on for some posters that you practically begged me to make, and wow—your A+ average went to an A. Curse me into the deepest depths of hell, please.” His bracelet slides down his wrist as he palms his heart.

Maybe you’re not the only one who is changing. Eddie hasn’t ever disregarded you in such a crude manner. Your tongue is practically salivating in need to layer on biting and cruel words, things you won’t be able to come back from. You remain silent, mulling over what to say, glaring, docked, stinging prickles of tears. It’s an elating elevation when the words do come. “I’m your best-friend, Eddie. Not your little groupie. I’m tired of you preaching about conformity, when all I do is conform to you. You don’t ever let me pick music, you always take for granted I’ll give you and the guys rides when your van isn’t working, despite if I might have something to do that doesn’t involve an all male ensemble. I spend my money to buy you cigarettes and snacks for the meetings. I manage gigs, I clean your band’s equipment.”

Eddie sniffs, looking pointedly at you, doe eyes dark and growing increasingly fed up. “Didn’t know you were keeping a tally, Y/N.”

“That’s… That’s all you’re taking from everything I just said to you, Eddie?” You can’t keep that hurt out of your tone this time.

Eddie shrugs, crossing his arms, coldly spitting out, “Seems to me like you’re sick of me. And that’s not my problem, that’s yours.”

Your head is swimming in turmoil, all your acting out and emotions swirling into a mindfuck. He doesn’t care. You’re standing here finally pouring your entire soul out in heaps and your person is pouring gasoline on the pieces, dangling a match.

“I’ve never kept a tally, Eddie. I do these things because they make you happy, and that makes me happy, but it fucking sucks when you don’t appreciate them or care about anything in my life, either.”

“That’s what you really think, Y/N?” There’s a flatline in how he’s speaking to you.

“No,” you murmur, “it’s what I know.”

Eddie’s jaw clenches, teeth grinding. He kicks at the ground with the toe of his shoe, brows raising. “Breaking Jason Carver’s nose and my cold, dead heart.” He splays a hand across his chest. Those rings, which are always a comfort to you, reflecting off the sunlight, dripping in judgement.

Your trembling wavers, crackling sentence structure falling apart. “Eddie. Don’t.”

“No. Fuck you, Y/N. Seriously, fuck you!” He shouts, snapping a finger in your direction.

Your hands rub up and down your goosebump soaked skin, finalizing what you need to do. Heaving in a deep breath, a sentence escapes your lips. And you pray, pray Eddie will heed this warning and value what you have enough to understand, to work it out. “Maybe it’s time to fess up to the fact that 86’ needs to be a bigger year for us both.”

Mind reader. A power you’ve never wanted more than in this moment as you claw at the cusp of your best-friend’s reaction. Outwardly, Eddie shifts, Adam’s apple bobbing, thumb swiping underneath his nose. Your mouth waters, throat reflexes threatening a fountain of vomit. And Eddie takes your warning, slaying through it, every bit of ground beneath your boots threatening to cave in.

“You’re right. Hell, Carver is right. You do act like my slut. And you have every right to change it, because it’s only holding us both back. And it probably has been for a long time.”

Kicking you would’ve hurt less. You’re unable to see Eddie’s form longer, muddled to a watery silhouette, your brave bravado dissipating. You won’t beg him. You’re nothing to him anymore, he’s just confirmed. You try not to think about the first time he taught you how to dance before your first snowball, or how you both snuck Jim Hopper’s cigarettes when you’d get in trouble at school and be sent to see him for minor misdemeanors, or Eddie’s pride when he managed to get you on stage to sing one song with the band, rubbing circles on your back the whole time you both sang to a trio of drunks, or splitting beers on his van’s roof and nearly breaking limbs when it started raining and you had to climb down, how he taught you to drive in the fancy neighborhood and you knocked over the mayor’s mailbox, when you watched him buy his ‘sweetheart’, tears in his eyes at a possession so gorgeous and all his own, his hands gentle as they held you the nights you cried from one stupid thing that felt massive to you, when he was your person and you were his.

Your wet, quivering breaths are what you hear. Birds chirping, wind rustling, even Eddie’s heavy breathing drowned out. It takes what feels like eternity, before Eddie is slashing the quiet, guarded and stoic. “You need to put a fucking shirt on.”

Your jeans are covered in tear drops from a bowed head, fingers shaking hard enough that your knuckles roll into a crack at the motions. You wipe your tears in time to see Eddie hold out your Hellfire shirt—second edition—his being the first. His reverie breaks briefly, and you think… maybe. It’s gone in those brown eyes that you can no longer read or recognize. Filled with loathing and disgust at you, his last words imprinting on your psyche, a physical recoil.

“On second thought. You won’t be needing this anymore.” Eddie makes his way around you and finds his lighter atop your bag, flicking a flame to life and nudging it at the end of your shirt. It catches quick, burns fast, like every fiber of friendship with Eddie Munson.

Eddie tosses the tattered, charred remains to the forrest floor, pocketing his lighter, walking away from you and out of your life.

~*~

He can’t stay any longer and watch you fall apart, not when he’s running away from his cowardice. And he does, run. He moves and clambers, stumbles until he’s from you and the cries that he hears pour off your lips. His chest is thumping sporadically, pulse in his blurry vision. His five fingers catch a tree, slamming, splintering, a sob breaking free of his tear soaked lips.

Eddie Munson forces himself to remember how unsure you looked in your dress when he held you around your waist, never feeling more himself in his entire life than he did with you— at thirteen—during some cheesy school dance, how you entertained his tunes so he could teach you the counting method he uses for his music to move your feet to the beat, all your encouragement every time he hit a new note, or your midnight phone calls to ask what he’d like on his posters, your body trusting him to keep you safe on those nights when everything became too much for you in your life, but you had tried to hide it, or when you both snuck in to see Carrie when you were pre-teens and you couldn’t sleep without him, so he made a makeshift mattress next to your bed for a month, about that time you were so tired from an all nighter that he had walked into his room and found you curled up in his bed, using his vest as a makeshift pillow, your nagging him to study more, because he’s always capable of anything he sets his mind to, and those cookies—the only thing you can bake without having to call for Hawkins fire department—a container you’d brought for him and his Uncle, still sitting on his kitchen counter.

He was your person and you were his. And now? You’re gone. Eddie runs away. He keeps running, leaving you to your own miserable anguish, drowning in his own, getting himself in his rust bucket and going back to his trailer to get completely fucked outta his not-so-right mind.

~*~

By the time your suspension is over and you can no longer barricade yourself into your room and finish off another bottle from your dad’s liquor cabinet—it’s sheer dread. You’re not only the freak who broke Hawkins Highschool’s Prom King’s nose, but you’re the freak without anyone by your side—a true and thorough outsider. As you stand outside your school, nails pinching into already weakened threads dedicated to your bag’s strap, you’re really regretting those couple of drinks this morning and how you’d poured more vodka into a flask to take your Tylenol with. Hell, it’s not like you can get a fix from the school dealer anymore, is it?

Those damned double doors are louder, a jolt to your already throbbing headache, fluorescent lights sparkling in your retinas through your shades that cover a nursing hangover and distraught, red and puffy eyes from a three day sob fest. Each step your boots make sounds like you’re walking to your death, your outfit—sans any Hellfire related attire—is all yours. Your two chains limited to one, Eddie’s gift waiting in a cardboard box you’d half-assed assembled, and tossed in random shit he’d given you. The deeper you get into every hallway, making simple turns you know like the back of your hand, your nausea grows as to what might be awaiting around each corner. Or who. It’s a short lived relief upon arrival at your locker.

You pinch your shades off, raw eyes protesting the moment fresh tears staple your skin in brushes. In red letters, diagonally capitalized across your door contains what you haven’t wanted to face since it happened.

The freak got dumped

You choke on your salvia, throat wet and enduring a suffocation strong enough to have you gagging on the piece of toast and water you’d forced your famished form to consume this morning. You barely make it into the toilets before double over and expelling everything, diaphragm on fire, bones vibrating through tosses. Hair dangling in your face, plastered to your mouth, you sniffle and tremble, vision blurring. You ponder getting yourself fucking expelled, but you made this whole ordeal about it being your year. If you retreat now, what will that do? Mustering all your strength, your courage, you flush your bile, clean off your mouth and face, pop a mint, take a swig out of your flask, and make your way to your first class.

~*~

By the ever popular lunch time, you have managed to clean your locker and pinpoint the culprit (an ashamed that a girl broke his nose, Jason Carver), but neither of you speak on it. You keep your head down, you focus on your school work, you take your Tylenol, and you sip on your vodka. Enough to keep an edge off, but not enough to send you down a despairing hole filled with regret and torment. You know you’re being stared at as soon as you hit the line to get your tray. It’s fake smiles and refusal to acknowledge it that gets you in search of an aisle, and hopefully out of sight. You aren’t so lucky…

“Hey, Y/N! Over here!” You hear an all too cheery voice belonging to Dustin Henderson. It halts you in your tracks, a wince causing a physical recoil.

It’s not his fault you and Eddie no longer have anything resembling a relationship, and he apparently has not told them, and they’ve not seen Jason Carver’s masterpiece.

Good.

What isn’t good is that Eddie is very much at your old table and you know it’s unavoidable. You wished you had borrowed some concealer for your under eyes, but it’s too late. There’s a grand staircase cloaked in invisibility beneath your feet, your stomach knotting in crushing vices, your cheeks stained with red. You walk to your former friend group, trying like hell not to side eye Eddie Munson. Keeping a steady focal point without blinking against your scratchy lower lids is damn near impossible. And guys are going to be guys—much to your chagrin. Gareth is drawing further attention where nothing needs to be, popping off with a, “Damn, Y/N lookin’ like she went on a bender.”

“A week long bender,” Jeff chimes in.

Biting the inside of your cheek between your teeth, you shrug a shoulder. Better them having knowledge of your binge drinking celebration than knowing about how messed up you are.

Don’t look at Eddie. Is your mantra for today.

He, on the other two hands, is not prioritizing that same aspect.

“So what if I did? I know of about ten girls who can drink your asses under the table, myself included.” You smirk, gripping your tray’s edge.

“Been holding back on us?” Gareth is grinning from ear to ear. It eases your shouldered weight tremendously, breaking tension in your table’s ranks.

“You gonna have a seat or what?” Mike Wheeler interrupts, his hands flipping towards a desired target, one that you wish you could keep pretending you never knew.

Fuck it.

You really crave for some divine intervention to help you, because meeting those chocolate brown eyes that are distraught, angry, and rimmed red—your heart constricts to painful blows, windpipes crushed beyond speaking capabilities. Eddie’s been somewhere off planet earth with that kinda high, you remember seeing his demeanor that way only a handful of times, including this one. Maybe he does care? No, doesn’t matter, don’t go there. It’s over and done.

Still, that idiotic, massively moronic part that Eddie owns of you—it’s billowing hope. Eddie Munson dashes it in seconds flat.

“No.”

You glance away, jaw twitching to control an automatic quiver. Dustin is laughing it off as a joke, someone else asking why. Eddie reclines his legs in your empty chair, loud enough to get your attention back. He wants me to see.

“No traitors.” It’s a simplistic answer, aggressive, no room to argue.

Ever-the-curious-freshmen, Dustin and Mike peg their leader for questions. You halt it, tone breaking apart, fingers tucking into your shirtsleeve as you balance your lunch on one hand and wipe across raw flesh to clean fresh tears from your eyeline. That’s when Eddie does look away.

Coward.

“It’s okay, guys.” Is what you say.

“What’s going on?” Gareth asks.

“I won’t be around meetings or practices anymore, but I’m still here if anyone needs anything, okay? You know where my locker is, and where I live.” You pat yourself on the back for that robotic but truthful statement.

“Unless you’re sick of everyone else too���” His deep voice rumbles.

Like a deer in headlights— you’re frozen, a blinding rage of hurt and red hot anger pouring over you in a storm. You explode. Picking up the first thing in your sight, which happens to be on your plate—a glob of some chocolate goop (possibly a brownie)—it’s slung directly at your former best-friend’s crisp white Hellfire shirt. Your second cafeteria incident that, yet again, everyone notices. Eddie yelps, shouting out your name in brisk spits.

You further it, abandoning your food in a repeat of days ago, floating to his side and shoving him back two steps. Eddie stops his rapid shirt swipes and immediately presses his form into yours, chests smashed, food squishing through your top. His hair is frazzled from the humidity, his toffee colored irises slowly polishing into a thick black gloss of dilated pupils. He sucks his tongue against his teeth, swaying into you, not touching you with those hands, an air about him that is beginning to swarm your initial reaction and bend it over, fucking it into the next decade. He’s taller than you remember, but you latch onto your own, tasting that cigarette soaked breath, lips hovering over his, hot tears matting your lashes.

Whether it’s regarding his inability to respond to your reasoning for this whole situation, his lack of expression, your self-disappointment for something roused inside you at his huffing proximity, you crown him with a title off a jagged voice box, damp in her sorrows, just as Dustin steps between you two, gently prying. “You’re a fucking coward, Eddie Munson.”

Teachers are starting to flock in, and you shake your head, hand over your eyes briefly, before sprinting in strides from the room in search of a place to collapse.

~*~

If you had told yourself at the beginning of the school year that you’d be in a camaraderie with the girl’s bathroom—you would have laughed. And if your mind had convinced you otherwise, you’d have expected Eddie to be right beside you, arm around your shoulders, sharing his lunch, making stupid jokes, coming up with lame ideas to make you feel better, but in that endearing Eddie Munson kinda way. You let out a soft cry, giving up on that stinging beneath your lids. You’re a hot mess and the whole building probably knows how alone you really are now. When the outcasts cast you out, where else can you go?

Clenching onto the sides of the ceramic sink, bag slipping off your shoulder and onto the floor, you keep your head bowed between your shoulder blades, not noticing someone come in and approach you, a gentle set of fingers laying upon your shoulder. Through foggy vision you can make out the green colors of her uniform and her perfectly straight ponytail, her face seemingly concerned. Your laugh is exhaustion on steroids, expression bombarded with emotion. “Okay, what the fuck is next? A girl craves some independence and the whole school turns against her. Let me guess, your boyfriend sent you to get even? Why don’t I make it easy for you and you can call your friends in here, and… and—“

Great.

Your lungs start to burn, your ribcage pounding with an erratic heartbeat, throat feeling like it’s been dusted with a thick blanket of ash. You’re panicking in front of Chrissy Cunningham. That alone has you feeling more pathetic than ever before in your life, and it worsens your heaving sobs—broken and unguarded. Chrissy’s eyes are drinking you in, irises glossing over with tears of her own. She grasps your other shoulder and squeezes, not releasing her hold on you, her soft voice strong when she speaks, but gentle enough between the expanse of your shared airspace.

“One, two, three, four. Okay, now deep breath in, and release it for me, Y/N.” She’s actually calming you, keeping you steady on your feet, which feel as if they’re sinking into the flooring below like led weights.

“Chrissy…” You aren’t sure how to articulate, still alarmed and attempting to breathe with her.

“I’m right here. Just keep breathing and counting with me.” And you do. And that’s when it hits you.

She has experience with this mind numbing panic too. That otherworldly anxiety. You feel a connective pull towards the cheerleader—seeing—not this persona you’d imagined, but her calming features, her easy going manner towards you, how she lets you find your lifeline, but also lends you her own in case you need it. When your breathing slows, she gives you a look, a silent communication of question. You may be able to breathe a little easier now, but it doesn’t stop the weight of your situation from crashing down and demolishing what’s left of you.

“Can I… I’m gonna hug you, is that okay?” At this point, if she’s going to put a sign on your back you don’t care. You need the human connection, the comfort. You agree and your schoolmate takes you into a light grip, but folds her arms around you and lets you bury your cheek against her perfumed sweater.

You both stand in the embrace, no trace of awkwardness, a sense of kinship and knowing. It’s when you pull back that hint of a questionable concern with her, wiping your sore eyes with a hiss. She notices.

“Are you here because of Jason? I just need to know.”

“Jason was a dick, Y/N.” Her language shocks you, having only heard her be proper before.

You laugh, your first genuine giggle in days. It’s contagious, as she joins in, hip jutting against the sink. “No, I’m here on my own terms. I promise. I saw what happened with your friends…”

“Yeah, I can imagine how everyone must be amused right now.” You bite your lip, facing away.

Chrissy gives you a saddened smile, but attempts to reassure. “I know this is gonna sound incredibly lame coming from me, but you’re stronger than all this, Y/N. The way you’ve stood up for yourself these past several days… I admire it.”

You frown deeply, wondering if this is a trick, because no way is Chrissy Cunningham admiring someone like you.

“You admire a loser that can’t even manage her own newfound independence?”

“No,” she says with a pause, looking down at her French tip manicure, before facing your curious gaze once more. “I admire your ability to stand up for yourself, despite what everyone is saying or doing to you. It’s a good quality to have, one that many of us are afraid of, you know?”

There’s this hollow pain in her eyes and your continued recognition has you pulling her in for another hug—this time for her benefit, rather than yours.

“Looks like we’ve fallen into the cliché trap, Cunningham.” You grin, pulling back.

Chrissy tilts her head, curious. “What do you mean?”

“A freak and a cheerleader thinking the same as what their peers think, and getting each other totally wrong.”

Her sweet eyes light up, her head nodding. “That’s exactly it.”

You share a knowing smile, a newfound bond forming. Chrissy situates her small shoulder bag, pulling out a compact and tugging you by your sleeve. “C’mhere. Let me fix that.”

She takes a gentle hand, not rushing as she speckles your sore under eyes with her own stash of makeup. After she blends it with soft fingertips, she snaps the lid closed and places it back in her bag, turning you to the bathroom mirror, brushing some of your hair through, giving your back a rub. “Is that any better, Y/N?”

Your circles are mostly covered, puffiness disguised enough where you won’t be embarrassed. You look and feel much better, and you’re overwhelmed with gratitude for the blonde at your side. You incline yourself into a swivel, leaning in her direction. “Chrissy Cunningham, I think you’re one of the sweetest people I now kinda, sort of know.”

Her giggle is infectious, and she gives you another squeeze. You drop down to swoop your messenger bag into your arms, grabbing out a your notebook and a pen, scribbling your home phone on it, hesitating, before handing it over. “If you ever need to talk to someone about all the bullshit, whatever it is, consider me your new confidant.”

She holds the simple sheet paper as if it’s another lifeline and you’ve just given her a treasure. Going back into her own bag, she has a cute little pink embroidered stationary paper that she jots her number on, and uses a smiley face to dot the i in Chrissy. Seconds later, her friends and a group of other girls burst into the bathroom, gossip on their lips. You and Chrissy flash each other a secret smile, and you make another hasty retreat.

~*~

Eddie had to hear a bunch of shit from the guys, overly bearing questions sounded off by Henderson and Wheeler. The eventual revealing by a passerby group of cheerleaders about your specially decorated locker, had surprised him too. As if there’s not already a weighted dagger wedged into his ribcage, one interlocking into his heart muscle—he lost control with his bitter mouth again, and it fueled your temper. But deep down, deeper into those subconscious recesses, you both felt that ignition start, a kind of coercing heat that is waging an internal war in Eddie’s head. His sole reason for blocking you out and refusing to talk about anything with you in the woods.

Eddie Munson is in love with you. Eddie Munson needs to fuck you.

It’s something he’s always done—built walls, got high, stayed drunk, coped with humor, hid behind his guitar or his campaigns. And without his right hand woman, he feels naked, too vulnerable to all the bullshit he’s tried to keep out. And your absence has become a set course for his weakening concentration on anything that isn’t you. His ultimate warrior princess is also his Achilles heel. Your feelings in wanting to branch out, they scare Eddie.

His brain is flipping logic into thinking you are seeing what everyone else sees in him: freak, failure, piece of shit, a nobody, a criminal. He pushed you out before he could pull you back in—easy, abrupt. And it’s not just changing him—no—he could smell your vodka soaked breath across the table, see your eyes swollen and glazed—absent. For the first time in years you weren’t wearing your limited edition shirt (thanks to him), and Eddie isn’t sure why he expected you to still have his chain around your neck. It fucking hurts.

As the room slowly falls back into their daily routine, Eddie loses his appetite and leaves his herd behind, urgent to get the fuck outta this building, out of Hawkins. Hell, maybe even the country. Like you, however, Eddie Munson’s retreat isn’t one that is unscathed. In his urgency, he smacks straight into you, stumbling over his own clumsy ass feet, gripping your forearms to keep you both steady. He’s processed your scent before he even takes in your beautiful features.

Fuck…

You look less like you’ve been partying all weekend, but Eddie knows better. Your pupils are dilated to the bright overhead lights of the hallways, making your sclera more visible. It’s bloodshot red, lower lids swollen and tinged a rough crimson beneath the fresh makeup that Eddie now sees. He swallows and looks away, but he doesn’t let you go. His grip isn’t harsh, it’s simply what it’s always been with you two. Easy and sturdy, safe.

You’re the first to downcast your gaze, focusing more on your shoe wear than on Eddie. It kills him. Even through these notions, this fear, whatever anger you’re both harboring, it’s as if this whole damned school and everyone passing you two are mere bodies, Eddie Munson and Y/N Y/L/N floating, tethered. His stomach churns its lunch contents, teeth clenching tightly. You make a brisk dart off, but Eddie attempts to catch you, instead tugging too hard on your shoulder strap, causing your bag to dump and spread out its contents at his sneaker clad feet.

Eddie’s eyes are quick to see it before you realize. Shining underneath hallway lights, scattered amongst notebooks and pens, is a small flask. His brows perch, he crouches first, scooping it away from your jutting hands. Gareth’s words rewind and play on repeat in his head.

“Damn, Y/N lookin’ like she went on a bender.”

The way his heart rate spikes, hostilely spitting that acid all over his lungs, battering his throat muscles with a pummeling storm. He’s already sure what he’ll smell if he presses the lid to his nostrils, but Eddie has to feed his anxious curiosity, unscrewing the cap with nervous hands, sniffing, shrugging off your grabs. It burns his mouth from its strength, his distraction giving you enough leeway to wrap your hands over his fingers and pull. Eddie locks your digits within his own, second thoughts gone. Against everything inside him he is getting angrier by the second, the anger masking itself, easier than being petrified and scared in front of you.

And Eddie is scared. Is he really so fucking stupid to think you weren’t at all affected by any of this?

“What the fuck, Y/N?” Your fingers sliding through his own, flood him, prickling every vein running beneath his skin, cutting off his blood flow—scorching.

~*~

Having Eddie’s hands on you again, his body so close, despite your shame at his discovery, it’s a feeling that comes more natural than breathing. You avoid his question, feeble grasping docked.

“Why do you have a flask full of fucking vodka?”

“Will you keep your voice down!” You hiss the words, finally breaking off him and retrieving the rest of your items on the scuffed up floor, and securing them back into your bag, Eddie holding back your liquor.

“Did you drive to school drinking this crap? Tell me you didn’t, Y/N, cause’ I swear to god—“

You chortle, a humorless boom smacking across your chest.

“Eddie, this faux best-friend act is getting old. Your on and off switch is enough to drive anyone to drastic measures. But don’t flatter yourself into thinking I’d be an idiot and drive drunk. Not even for you.”

His irises that are glossy with concern, they cave to dilating pupils, an animalistic rage priming them. “Oh, you have got to be the most clueless bitch alive, Y/N.” He steps towards you, frame towering slightly. You’re not afraid, never fearing if he’ll do something, because that is not Eddie, no matter what. But, you are very much dripping with rage at his words.

He pockets your flask in his left back pocket, rings clinking against it as he pats it for good measure. You try to dive around him, beneath his arm, but he swoops in on his own, using that strength for his slender frame, literally scooping you into a half bring-away, only discarding you back onto your feet once you’re both outside. You try to shove at him, palms resting on his stained club shirt. The bell has rang to signal your free period, but you don’t give two fucks, giving up and being the one to leave.

“Who’s the coward now, huh? You’re gonna walk away from me when I call you on your shit, Y/N?”

You spin on your heel, dirt and gravel specks crunched beneath your step. “I thought I was a clueless bitch, Eddie? A traitor? Or, your slut.” You scoff, crossing your arms.

Guilt briefly flickers across his features, but he shuts it down tenfold. “Just because we’re fighting doesn’t mean I want you to destroy your fucking liver or your life. Jesus Christ, you really think I’m that big of an asshole?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore!” You fling your hands into the air. “One minute we’re at each other’s throats, the next you’re up my ass. I don’t know what to do here, Eddie.”

“Thought you craved some individuality and independence.” Though there’s meant to be flare behind the words, Eddie’s tone has splintered across each word, voice breaking apart. Your guts sink into your ass, as does a particularly pointed swallow that stabs at your jugular.

“Didn’t say I wanted to be completely independent from my best-friend.” Your own response is gentle, voice soaked with impending emotion.

Fuck. Stupid fucking tears burning again. Not right now.

Eddie’s attention snaps back on you, proximity closing in. His jaw clenches, he moves it from side to side with a closed mouth, sniffing, whistling air through a wet breath. “Feels like you’re leavin’ me and I can’t do anything to stop it…”

It makes sense suddenly. A catapult of truth slamming right into your chest, spreading throughout your body.

He thinks I’m leaving him. That I want to leave him.

As if the last seventy two hours haven’t happened, better yet, as if they haven’t mattered in the grand scheme of things—you’re the one that meets Eddie, reaching to push that curly hair from his eyes, his head downcast and posture sullen. His brown eyes are brimmed with tears that spill over his lash line, a permanent frown creased between his brows, mouth red and spit slick. Those freckles on his nose are suddenly very prominent to you. You’ve never seen Eddie Munson this vulnerable. Your heart shatters, the ache so physically strong that you have to remain close to him to hold on and find that strength again.

How could you have gotten this so monumentally wrong? Maybe if you’d have expressed what you meant more instead of feeding off Eddie’s anger. His communication and yours both need nurturing, but your sudden shift in mood must’ve made him feel like you wanted to abandon him, not just do things for yourself. He may not realize that yet, but you do. And it fucking sucks.

“Eddie. I’m sorry.” It’s all you can say in the seconds that your heart heaves into your throat.

He shakes that shaggy mane. “Don’t need anyone feeling sorry for me, especially you.” He backs away from you and you see his entire expression crumble, tears spilling onto his cheeks.

That pain drowns your throat, seeing him cry because of your lack of explanation and mutual avoidance. You chase after him, running around to block his view, unable to let him go, gripping onto his waist beneath his jacket to keep him planted. Another familiarity. He tenses beneath your touch before relaxing.

“Eddie, will you please listen to me? I think I know what’s going on now.”

“And look who is the one flipping her emotions this time.”

“Because, I… Eddie, I—“

“What lame ass line do you want me to buy, Y/N? You think I’m not used to worthless promises or idiotic reassurances? Yeah, good.” His sentence is fragmented, voice rough and breaking apart on each word. “You know I still care about you, but I don’t need you to lie to me, you don’t owe me a damn thing, I promise you—“

You press a finger to his quivering lips, halting him. There’s a shift in the atmosphere, a pause in the universe, your legs heavy, fingertip stroking along the plumpness of your best-friend’s full, lower lip. Eddie’s chest is moving up and down swiftly, tongue against his teeth, that warning look. You fail to heed it and Eddie’s hands tremble at his sides before he gives up and cups the sides of your face, bringing your foreheads together. His lips part to speak, your finger still on them. “Think we’re in trouble here.”

You can do nothing but nod as his declaring statement, inclining your head further, nose nudging his own. It doesn’t feel as if you’re standing any longer, every mean thing that Eddie has said, every disproportionate attempt of yours to communicate—obliterate, shrouding you both in the process. His breath is hot as his mouth opens and he sucks your finger inside, tongue licking its tip, biting the digit between those milky white teeth. It sends that throbbing nudge, snapping between your thighs, making you arch into your best-friend. You whisper his name and his fingers move along your jaw, across your ear, sliding through your hair and rubbing a pathway to your necks’ nape, sending an army of goosebumps across your flesh, the coolness of his rings stimulating your skin.

“Yeah, you feelin’ it too?” Your lids flutter closed, Eddie using his thumb pad to brush the corners of your lashes, signally for you to open them. “Didn’t say you could stop looking at me, did I, sweetheart?”

You grind against him, unable to stop. Your last several days, everything between you both is on hold, these buried urges able to finally win out. This dominant side of Eddie Munson has you an inward and outwardly quickening pile of mush and hormones, of fucking need. Eddie about loses his cool when you obey him, pupils blown, mouth looking parched and in need of his kisses. He leans, walls starting to slip, resolve crumbling, his pouting mood long gone.

Years of built up tension and confusion, being rightfully by one another’s sides, it all comes apart, the seams, begging to be repaired into what it has to be now.

You envelop his hold on you, hands sliding into slips beneath his jacket, around his waist, tracing over his back, before dipping under his armpits and grasping his shoulders, knuckles pushed down by his leather jacket. One more step and he’ll kiss you. He’s closing a gap, no more breaches, you tapping his shoulders right down to the blades in encouragement. It’s parted mouths hovering over one another, cigarettes and vodka, school lunch and weed, it’s—

“Hey, guys! Higgins is so pissed off right now… After that shit went down in the caf, he’s ready to expel you, Y/N! Pretty fuckin’ sure.” You hear Gareth approach, and just like, Eddie releases you.

You have to steady yourself, want simmering into a slumber in your belly, not yet gone, but still reminding you where it lives. Your glare is directed at your mutual friend. Eddie, feeling as if he’s been doused with ice cold water, and the moment is shattered, you see those walls rebuilding rapidly, and she shrugs off your hand, leaving you and Gareth, and that slickness that has collected in your panties.

~*~

You aren’t sure just exactly what Eddie is feeling, but you’re very aware of what you are. So driving to his place once you know Wayne has left for the night shift—it’s a no brainer. You’d debated bringing Eddie your box of treasures, even your necklace, but you can’t bring yourself to do it. Maybe, maybe your best-friend doesn’t want you to…?

Want.

A dynamic shift in your relationship, or what it used to be. You can barely sit still as you wrack your brain through all the levels of hazy blurs. So much has happened in three days, but… today, with Eddie nearly kissing you on the mouth, and you nearly grinding against him in the Hawkins High parking lot—yeah, you two have to talk about all of this. As you squirm in your seat, hands tightening around the wheel, that approaching trailer park sign signals your arrival to his residence. You can’t stop the way your heartbeat feels as if it’s ping ponging around in your throat, or that anxious twitch of your mouth’s corner—forget even attempting to deny your cascading memories of the way his chocolate irises wore an expression unlike anything you’ve ever seen on Eddie Munson.

His trailer comes into your sights, that tickle swooping your guts and holding them hostage. You swallow a thick ball of anxiety, parking next to his van, cutting your engine. The lights are all on and you’ve got no excuse to chicken out. It’s your year too, right? Fucking fuck it.

With your keys clutched in your palm, you make your way to Eddie’s trailer, rasping on his door lightly. You don’t hear his music blaring, so he might be reading, planning a campaign, writing some music he’d mentioned wanting to practice with the guys soon, get a feel for its sound—just last week. You have given about three octaves of knocks and are about to give up, head pressed the door, thinking he was just lost in lust earlier, and maybe you’d fucked up on your end beyond repair. Exhausted by the stampeding pain that brings your insides, you flip the Munson’s spare key off your key ring and unlock the door. A bold move—albeit—a very stupid one.

That familiar scent of Eddie and Wayne’s shared carton of cigarettes hits your nose, along with the leftovers from dinner you see sitting out on the stove. Your cookies, which have been devoured, are missing their note. You panic, briefly thinking Eddie probably trashed it, only to come back from that brink seconds later. It’s not what you’re here for. You glance at the couch and it’s empty, not even Eddie’s usual indent on the cushion is there.

Swinging your keys from your pointer finger, you peek down the small hallway to Eddie’s closed door, light spilling out underneath. He could be sleeping, possibly ignoring you, or he snuck out the back door…

Your feet make an echoing squeak across the trailer’s flooring structure, your fingers twisting the knob and pushing, pausing, deciding to go ahead. If he wants you to leave then you’ll go, if he’s asleep, you’ll go, if he left… You can’t fathom that thought, another ignorance that you partake in. You aren’t sure exactly what you expected, but seeing your best-friend’s tallish frame, with his back facing you, lean leg propped atop his mattress, right arm bent at a very clear angle, his left propped on one of his many amps he’d apparently moved since you’d been here last—is sure as hell NOT it. Eddie���s curly hair ruffles and is jostled across his shoulders with each movement his arm makes, his delicious ass clenching as his body thrusts into his rhythm, the outline of his chain on his perspired neck and damp strands of dark hair—clear. You don’t have to hear the thick, slick and wet stroking to know what he’s doing to himself.

You cross an ankle over the other, squeezing your legs together tightly, trying to bounce on the balls of your heels to get relief. Your fingers white knuckle his banged up door handle, your mouth parting. Whether it’s that bond you two share, or your very visible labored breathing, Eddie’s shoulder blades pinch together, his motions abruptly cut. He turns as if caught doing something he shouldn’t be—definitely something you aren’t prepared to handle. It’s like your mouth is speaking for you, eyes in a trance, enslaved to your lustful abiding.

Fucked out, blown up pupils shave off the color of your irises, your tongue gliding across your teeth, that take a turn to sink into your bottom lip, your toes curling in your shoes. You feel hot, body battered in melting flames that won’t cease, won’t let you get in a normal burst of air flow. You know without having to fix your posture that you’ve made a mess between your legs, panties soaked to hell—completely ruined. You’re honest to fuck not sure if you can make it out of here in an upright position, that painfully strong ache tackling your cunt, breaking off your common sense, leaving you Eddie-drunk. Helping yourself to a swiping look between his legs, he’s still got a ring clad hand wrapped around a very generous girth—shiny—a length that leaves saliva pooling on your tongue’s tip.

His chest is slick with sweat, tattoos glossed beneath, nipples hard from the cool air let into his bedroom. Which, you note, is really fucking hot, and the window is steamed up. Your eyelids flutter in rapid blinks to help you reign yourself in, but all you see are glimpses of Eddie’s fist around himself, that creamy and swollen head, full balls on either side, trimmed curls at the base of his shaft. You want to die. And oh, what a sweet and sinful death that would be.

“Mhm… fuck.” You say through the gap between your panting mouth, words take the opportunity to bust free, joining a high pitched whimper.

Eddie’s chocolate eyes are completely black, leaving no room for anything else but purely raw desire. They widen, a sharp heave in his inhaling chest, abdomen flexing as he holds himself tightly. When you don’t move Eddie takes the initiative, slowly approaching, a softness there beneath the want and knowing. He reaches your space, still giving you enough, but you’re able to still feel that radiating body heat. Neither of you speak, because what is there to say right now?

You’d be a pleading mess of profanities, apologizes, and begging to be taken and used.

Thankfully, Eddie makes another move before you. His spare hand joins your own on the door knob, fingers brushing your knuckles, encouraging, giving you one more opportunity if you’re in distress or uncomfortable. You hook onto his offer and you surprise you both by finding something to say after all, throat parched, yet still damp with wanton rasp. “Start touching yourself again, Eddie. Please?” Fuck, well there’s a beg.

Eddie, assuming you want a show, nerves being dipped in lava and left to forever sizzle and smoke—gives in, both of you shutting his door and closing the two of you off from the outside world. He doesn’t wait for you to back away, pushing his hips to a rise, his cock gliding through his closed fist. You let him lean over you, frame against his door, watching his legs spread to widen his stance, obeying your plea. He almost asks, but assumes it would be too hopeful if you would want to touch yourself in front of him too. You’re out of your mind, common sense obliterated for all eternity, watching your bestfriend practically pin you to the door and fuck himself in front of you.

Those sounds you’ve imagined, pictured, they’re even more pronounced in person. Some low enough that it’s a stifling whimper, a needy sobbing. If you don’t do something about the gnawing throbbing between your thighs, it’ll be total combustion. There’s an empowerment that winds itself around a pulsating set of nerves in one’s decision to masturbate in front of their best-friend. That coolness works itself in your palms, your fingers tossing your keys over and onto Eddie’s dresser, toeing off your shoes, his eyes steamy in their grasp on your every move.

You’d wished you had brought your camera to photograph his expression when you walk over to where he stood in front of his bed, turning to face him, your fingers undoing your jeans and the zipper, a resounding echo in the room, Eddie’s tongue poking out on his upper lip, he holds himself around the base, the urgency to fuck his hand as you take your seat on his mattress and scoot with your back to the wall, hips lifting to help you pull off your jeans and panties. You struggle momentarily, but neither of you are saying a word, gazes steady and unwavering.

Discarding your clothing with a soft thump onto his floor, you’re heartbeat thumps in your throat, ribcage taking an unsteady hammering of its resounding drumming. You heed Eddie’s silent command to continue, agreeing to this turning point between you two. Your thighs fall open and that sticky want strings to your swollen folds, glistening in the creases of your thighs, your cunt sopping wet. You’re dripping, and Eddie isn’t missing it when your arousal finally does drizzle from your neglected pussy and onto his bedsheets. You shift to get comfortable, hand cupping yourself, immediately smothered in your own juices, legs falling into a drop, toes finally able to curl without the barrier of your shoes, bunching Eddie’s sheets.

Eddie watches you from where he can see, still eager to be closer, but unable to stop himself from stroking along his length, teasing that vein that runs alongside his cock. You do it again, rubbing your palm up and down your lips, a crude squelch causing Eddie to almost black out, and you shiver. He releases himself, heavy and hot between slim thighs, and he’s moving. He puffs out a gravelly hiss from pursed lips, stalking towards you and giving a cat like crawl across his own bed, planting himself shoulder to shoulder with you to your left. He must be feeling the overwhelming change that is occurring, as he reaches for your hand to give it a reassuring squeeze.

You gravitate towards your hand, fingers slipping through your slickness, your head bowing in embarrassment. Eddie grips your chin and tilts you his way, shaking his head, that same hand dropping to your thigh and lifting to pull up and to the side. And he looks. He fucking memorizes you between your legs with these little mewling coos of appreciation that cement themselves into your subconscious. You do the same, helping yourself to an up close and personal view of what he’s been hiding.

Eddie leans forward and cups the nap of your neck, his other hand taking your wrist and removing it from your self-touches, shushing your protesting whine. He brings it up to his mouth, which is hovering close to yours, your own fingers pressed against your lips, and he licks a straight stripe up your creamy covered palm, humming underneath his breath as he does so. You want to slap him and ride him on every available surface in this trailer. You’re the one to speak, having to.

“Eddie…” It’s a meek little trail-off.

Eddie lets go of your wrist and uses that hand to pull his cock off his stomach, a wet patch left behind in his happy trail. He still doesn’t let your neck go, his fingertips tapping an invisible beat, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He’s laughing, tufts of air settling across your mouth. You narrow your gaze, moving to shut your legs, Eddie’s hand quickly preventing the action, stroking the meat of your inner thigh. “Only fair if I’m exposed, sweetheart.”

“But… you’re laughing.” And it hits you then, why he’s really chuckling in that Eddie Munson way. It’s an incredulous and mind boggling turn of events. Best-friends that broke up when they were never together, now side by side and in a very compromising situation.

You grin and falter into his embrace, your hand working its way into a wind around his neck, taking sweaty strands in scoops between your fingers, his pick chain draped across your knuckles. Eddie licks across his bottom lip, tapping your hips as he moves, your hands falling, and sprawls his legs into a propped spread, cock neglected and flushed, much like the rest of his skin, that you’ll die if you don’t put your marks on. He’s motioning for you to turn in a slow facing position in front of him, and that’s how you end up—vulnerable, so fucking vulnerable. He’s muttering words, huddled and unintelligible, reaching out and tugging you to him by your ankles, stopping, resting, eyes dark as they do a once over to gauge your mental stability. When you don’t protest, palms splaying out to keep yourself upright behind you, Eddie lets his legs flatten against his sheets, a smirk pattering his lips, indenting its knowing presses beside his mouth.

His exhale catches on a ragged breath, a passionate declaration signing off on what’s about to occur, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he pulls you close, your ass resting on his hairy thighs, waiting, held, his arm wrapping around your lower back and lifting you completely into that ink splattered, silk-slick chest, his skin sticking to your long sleeved t-shirt, ruining it with sex-soaked perspiration. You think that there’s nothing—no—you know that in this entire world, no matter what, that whatever will happen to you is never going to compare to the moment when Eddie’s maneuvering hands glide your wet cunt over his cock, using your drenching heat as his own personal lubricant. Your ankles lock around his waist, no choice from the close band that your best-friend has re-tethered you to him with, leaving no room or space where you’re not touching or breathing in the other. Your arms curl around Eddie’s neck, hands draped down his back as you help yourself to pinching and clawing the flesh beneath, relishing every little grumble and groan off his pretty lips. Your face takes solace in his neck, nosing your way through his curly hair, nose bumping his chain to lift so that your mouth can claim him.

“Fuck.” His throat constricts around a swallow, your teeth sinking into a piece of Eddie’s flesh and biting, releasing, lips closing over that angry spot to soothe, tongue tasting salt, licking it off, indulging.

He lets your have your way with his neck, a particularly harsh slap landing on your ass in following of your mouth on his jugular, letting your tongue following that curvature into his jawline. You don’t stop his wandering hands, you don’t dare fight off his vice grip on the globes of your ass, his kneading, using as them leverage to place you right where he wants you. You let him take control, an unspoken agreement, a having to have. Your head falls back as Eddie rolls his hips beneath, rocking his lap, solid presses that drag his fat cock over your embarrassingly wet pussy, scattering your thick arousal and smearing it across his happy trail, getting caught in that patch of curls at the base of his shaft. You’re dripping all over him, quite literally. Caught on a trapped hum, hung in its hisses between your clenched teeth, you croon into Eddie’s neck, your stomach tightening, that velvety drag of his dick through your swollen folds making your lids flutter closed, colors dotting in their dances—translucent.

You aren’t sure where to move your hands, comfortable with having them shred Eddie’s back and empty out the past few days of frustration and desperation. Eddie encourages, palming handfuls of your ass, creating a cresting twist, a thigh trembling rub of sopping wet desire. He’s merely whimpering, appreciating, not overly vocal until his swollen head catches your neglected clit, and his head drops back, fingers pinching so tightly into your skin that it burns.

“Oh, shit. Dammit, baby.”

You’re simpering on a series of whimpers, agreeable and speechless. Eddie is feeding off it. “Yeah? You needing this too? Little clit feels so good rubbing on my dick, sweetheart. You want me to do it again?”

When you’re not immediately able to be vocal, Eddie pulls back a little, shoving his hand between your thighs and drags his rings directly through your arousal, coating them in a glittering shine. His first real touch where you need him the most. You both inhale sharply. It’s the pain from the cool metal of his jewelry that makes it feel so fucking good. He curses, telling you how messy you’re being, flinging his hand in your sights, dragging you in a pry off of his neck, holding your jaw and flashing his knuckles.

“See what you did, messy little angel. You gotta clean em’ now for me.”

His eyes are so fucking demolished, brown crushed beneath a midnight sea of black and insatiable attraction. You’re mewling, tongue lolling out, licking that metallic onto your tongue, sloppily sloping around his knuckles, lips suckling what your tongue can’t catch, your own taste fresh off your mouth. That’s when Eddie brushes a calloused thumb across your bottom lip, tugging it down to expose your teeth, and he brings your lips to his, a feral groan stealing your breath, sharing your juices in your first kiss. It’s a shift in the energy you share, a no going back, no running away, a fate sealed. Eddie loses all control and flips you off his lap, pinning you beneath him, kissing you with such feverish vigor that your hand tangles into his messy curls, and you pull, hard.

His tongue licks your lips open, greedily removing what’s left of your taste that remains. It’s noisy and nasty in the expanse of his small bedroom—diabolically sinful. One hand caresses your throat’s expanse, the other dropping down with a snapped wrist between your thighs, palm smacking your cunt, a guttural groan vibrating from his mouth into your own. Saliva strings on the break away, Eddie’s gaze switching to watch the hand on your cunt, out of it.

“Your pussy always this wet, baby? Or is it just for your best-friend?”

“Only for you, Eddie. Always you.”

Fallen into the depths of satisfaction, Eddie permits a slender digit to drag down your slit, taking that thick honey with it, a squelch echoing in the room when his finger wiggles its way inside of you. You clamp around him, chest heaving with shaky breaths.

“Jesus Christ. You’re gonna drown my dick when you let me fuck you, aren’t you?”

You’re incoherently babbling, tapping the hand that’s on your throat, hungry for it. “Tighter.”

Eddie’s brow raise is comical, a surprise coating his features. “So miss Y/N likes it rough? Never woulda guessed.”

You gulp a pump of air that vibrates across his hold, trying to gain more depth from his finger. It’s moving in exploration of your softly wet walls, an excess of arousal being pressed out upon that squish. Eddie tightens his hold on your throat, before he taps his fingers to your jugular and releases, hand toppling down your side and caressing, bringing. “Fuck, my best-friend’s got such a perfect little pussy. S’ made to be destroyed and used.”

You’re nodding so hard that the motion causes a cracking pop in your neck, Eddie laughing that noise under a cute breath. He’s thick with it, wiggling in a second finger and causing you drop your hands back behind you and push into the sensation, chasing, hunting it.

“Desperate to get away from me all week, now look at you. What a whore.”

Eddie has a mouth on him, something you’d always wondered about in your daily daydreams and nightly fantasies. As vocal as when he’s singing with his band. He’s saying words to you, snapping your attention, you’re whining as his fingers leave your cunt, and he’s pulling you into him so hard your lips split apart, cushioning his cock, cradling him in that overwhelming slick. He must not have meant for that action to cause it, as he jumps when you do, this feral look flickering behind those heated orbs. You know… it’s time.

Eddie is barely able to stand, clumsily bringing you with him by a laced grip in your hands. He gets you upright and you’re dizzy, his hands taking purchase on your shirt (the only remaining piece of clothing on you), and rips it with gritting teeth and anger, as if he’s pissed it’s not the club shirt, or sickened with himself for destroying yours—you’re not sure. Spit pools at the corners of your mouth as you let him tear off your tattered tee and yank your bra down, impatiently yanking the clasp apart and discarding it, helping himself to your tits, closing those plush lips over a nipple. Your hand wraps around his throbbing cock, fingers barely touching around the width, squeezing him—tugging. His hips stutter and he whines against your breast, teeth biting the flesh with a harsh precision.

Your other hand works its way through his wet curls and massages his scalp, tenderly altering in beckoning strokes, ones that switch off into root tugging pulls. Eddie’s hands keep your breast cupped, switching off to the other, whilst you dip lower and fondle his balls, letting your pinky drop off and scratch into his inner thigh. He’s doing that humming thing underneath his fucked out tone again, and you’re focusing your attention on his cock, thumb pad stroking that weeping slit, spreading it around and over that vein, enchanted with how it causes a thin bright shine over him, your own cream matted into the curls at the base of him, pathed up his stomach. His mouth leaves your chest and those big hands grip your cheeks, both of you watching as you jack him with a sticky tug.

Fuck me.

“Who’s the whore for his bestfriend now, Eds? You gonna admit that half the shit I’ve done this week has gotten your dick so hard you can’t decide what you’ve hated me for more,” You say, pausing to twist your grip, making him fold into your holding hand, “my smart mouth or how much you need this.”

Your powering dominance is short lived, hand falling off his erection, with Eddie kneeing you into a shove until your back collides with his desk, his arm reaching around to push most of its contents off and onto the floor, not caring where any of it goes. He nudges your thighs apart and slots his lean frame between, thumb catching the corner of your mouth, his instruction clear, yet awaiting your consent to cross this no back-stepping boundary. “M’ gonna fuck you right here, and you’re goin’ to watch me take you, Y/N.”

You’re pretty sure you’re gonna pass out at any given moment.

“I’m gonna watch you, Eddie.” You agree, zoning out and sprinting after your pleasure.

“Good girl.” Eddie breaks briefly, mouth on your shoulder, hand winding your hair around his fist and tugging it back so hard that the ache inside of you becomes an inferno. He finds the underside of your chin, voice honey-hot. “Because you’re not leaving this room until there’s a puddle of me running back out of your cunt.”

You launch forward so fast that Eddie falls into you, chest smashing against your breasts, your lips crashing into his for a brutally intimate kiss. You sink your teeth into his bottom lip and tug, biting down so hard you taste copper—licking it up and making Eddie’s cock jump. His ring covered hand attaches itself to your throat and he drags you off your prop against the desk, spinning you around and securing you to it, those hairy thighs pressing into you, wet cock so close to where you need him the most. His hand wraps around your hair again and lifts your gaze to that small opening in the mirror where posters and his most prized possession hangs. You’re flushed and soaked with sweat, mouth swollen and streaked with red from biting into Eddie’s plump lip, your pussy dripping thick strings of your creamy essence, slowly slithering in dangles from your pussy and onto the floor.

“You’re so fucking messy, Y/N. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, baby?” Eddie is like the devil on your shoulder, and you, you’re his angel of eternal damnation.

You’re about to beg, but Eddie saves you the trouble, his fingers tapping in tips down your spine, caressing, stroking, before they spread your lips apart and dip inside, palm flat. “Should fuckin’ split you open, do it raw. Cum so deep inside that you end up pregnant with my baby and have no choice but to always think of me, be around me.”

Though there’s a tease behind his passionate words, there’s this primal exclamation that overtakes you and you clamp down on his fingers. A series of fast paced images are vivid in your mind. Your tummy swollen and breasts heavy, Eddie having you bent over like this—one hand on your belly, the other on your throat, feeling your pulse galavant beneath his touch.

“Y/N… Fuck, sweetheart.” He’s so fucked in his descending tone that the depth is gruff and tipping off his diaphragm, you imagine. He presses his cheek against your own, chin resting on your shoulder as you drink each other in, in the mirror’s expanse, Eddie’s tone weak. “You really willing to carry my kid?”

You meet his eyes in the cluttered mirror, nodding, a softness carving out permanent residence in your features. It’s a topic you’d never shared with anyone else, never banked too much on thinking about, but beyond the idea of how hot this all is, you can’t imagine a scenario like this that doesn’t involve Eddie Munson. Vulnerable and barely above a brisk whisper, you’re answering him with, “Yeah, Eds. Want a family with you.”

At your admission, he lets his hand go in languid thrusts. You groan and let your head shift, but Eddie is jerking you back to stare into the glass, both of you panting and on the cusp of an out of body experience. It causes you to grin, licking your lips as your best-friend pumps those experienced digits to cause a purposeful squelch, his rings clinking together. His hard cock is pressed between his own stomach and your back, that pre-cum pooling onto your lower back and smearing in streaks down your ass. You’ve had more than enough teasing and you’re well aware that Eddie has too.

His look briefly falters, turning to mouth at your chin, a silent question. It’s you who uses your words, or rather, trembles in your feeble attempt. “Eddie, just put your cock inside me, or I swear I’ll—“

He’s smirking wildly at your slack-jawed expression when his fingers slide out of you and stick together with your cum, to which he helps himself to and coats his cock, then lines himself up and presses the thick head into your opening, leaning down to bite at your shoulder and leave an exposed imprint. Your legs feel like jello and he hasn’t even fucked you yet. He’s going to ask you to beg, and you’re an all in willing participant. Surprisingly, though, he doesn’t. He inhales sharply, you hold your breath, and both of you watch him sink into your slick and soft cunt, inch by inch, until his balls rest against the globes of your cheeks.

You’re still holding your breath, releasing it when you feel him sigh, grip on your hair loosening a little, too caught up in the fact that he’s where he belongs, after so much time doing without this. Your legs are about to buckle, jerking, toes curling against the carpeted floor, overwhelmed by everything that’s happened, and by your best-friend’s cock throbbing in your aching pussy. “E-Eds…?” It’s a pathetic cry of a question.

Eddie’s brows pinch together, sweat beaded between. He grips your jaw and his fingertips tap you back to meet his mouth, hovering over your lips. “S’ okay, sweetheart. Let me take care of you.” He briefly drops the playful gimmick, reassuring you that he’s right here with you.

It’s more than enough to have you arching back into him, a brash pummeling of his hips that sends you into the dresser, having to reach out and catch yourself. Eddie is quick witted, gripping your wrists with one hand and pinning them behind your back, stepping with you in toe, elongating his arm to snatch those handcuffs on his wall, that cold metal biting into your wrist, that dull noise presenting itself as the cuffs lock you into place, Eddie gripping onto the chains’ excess expanse, using it as a leverage. A sliver of a chalky moan trickles off your kiss-swollen lips, appreciative. The way Eddie is manhandling you has you so fucking euphoric that you’re sure you’ll be in a comatose state before either of you can cum. Your best-friend’s large hand finds purchase in your hair again, drawing his hips back, the other on the chain of the cuffs—steadying himself into a rhythm, riding you like all that matters is your destruction and his ultimate ownership.

Eddie Munson has owned you since the very moment that you two met.

The way he’s executing such precise and rough thrusts, making sure you’re high on the bring up, toes pressing into the carpet, that you’re stuffed full of his fat cock until it hurts, twitching in overstimulation, sore and fluttering walls eager to be soaked in everything he has to give you, that you are taking in every inch, catching every ridge, leaving you a shambled, panting mess, in pieces only being put back together again when Eddie will allow your release. His hair is tickling your shoulder blades, his fingers leaving the cuffs to press into your mouth and curl over your tongue, relishing in how you gag around the digits. You’re weak, so fucking weak for him, and he knows it.

“Can’t wait to hear you gag on my cock, Y/N. If you have trouble with these bad boys?” He puts an emphasis, wiggling his fingers against your tongue, giving them a secondary push to over extend your gag reflexes, his dick twitching inside you.

You bite down on his fingers, sucking them in, accepting his challenge, willing it to happen. His balls slap into your ass, heavy and hot, every movement causing the metal to rut into the skin of your wrists. He’s got a steady tempo going, alternating it by dipping his hips to bring you with him, letting you nearly collide with your chest flush to his desk. He reaches up and shoves that poster back by peeling tape, revealing more of your fucked out forms. Your eyes widen at your disheveled and unrecognizable appearance, Eddie using your cuffed hands as reigns. Riding you so hard that you can’t breathe anything but his hot air curling around the shell of your ear.

“Dammit, you are such a good girl for me, Y/N. Always pictured you takin’ my cock, but you’re not even crying yet, just taking what I give you.”

Yet… Fuck me running.

Your scalp is tingling with a prickling crowd of flames from his harsh grip, his other hand reaching to smack your ass, using some mechanism on the cuffs—albeit—struggling with his spit soaked fingers that were just in your mouth, to unlatch them and discard them at your feet, and he watches the flesh of your ass cheek redden and jiggle beneath his biting palm. You fist your fingers into a strewn pair of his blue denim jeans left on the desk top, dipping your forehead down and arching your back, trying to look between your own legs from this new angle to see Eddie’s cock cradled in your puffy lips. He tuts at your unsuccessful action, forcing you back into watching him doing his hard work—the hardest he’s worked at anything (sans his band or the campaigns, if he’s being honest with himself)—to make this unforgettable for you. He hits that spot located inside, the one you have to strain an arm to barely graze, and you lose all coherent capabilities.

“Eddie… that’s, oh my god, oh FUCK. Right there!”

Eddie’s throat crumbles under a weak pant, which ends up coming out as a whimper. He remains firm, however, still using your hair to keep you right where he wants you, his other hand reaching around to pet his own shaft as he slides out just enough to make you wetter.

“Yeah, baby? That spot gonna make somethin’ happen for you?”

You don’t answer, mumbles and babbling gibberish. He shakes that precious head of his, curls tickling your back and shoulders, a sigh breaking free. “Sorry, sweetheart. Can’t believe we’re doin’ this in front of you. Both my girls right here with me, one of them at my fuckin’ mercy.” Your attentions snap over your shoulder and you see Eddie looking at his fucking guitar, that is one of the only things remaining on the mirror. You gape, but aren’t surprised in the slightest.

He continues on, pretending he doesn’t see your partial seethe. “Makin’ a mess all over me, but I bet you like to see it too, don’t you?” He sinks his teeth into his lower lip, still talking to the inanimate object. “Both my sweethearts are such sluts for their owner.”

You can’t help that rattle that clamps around your bones and slices through your spinal cord, seizing your abdomen, right down into your cunt. Owner? You have zero time to warn him, ask if you can, alarms unprepared, skin slapping on skin, his taste on your mouth, his breath on your flesh, that slippery glide that has cum running down your thighs, and it’s a sudden wave crashing over your insides and drowning them in your painfully interstellar-esque orgasm. Your eyes burn with tears as you watch your best-friend feel what’s happening, realizing. He’s covered in your release, and instead of being mad, he is influencing you like the little devil that he can be, plump lip pressing to your ear lobe with one continuous command. “That’s it. C’mon, Y/N. Drench my dick.”

You wish you could bottle the feeling of your first orgasm with Eddie Munson, your best-friend—forever. Finding yourself growing into that vulnerability that comes with the high, you seek to find solace in Eddie’s arms, whimpering at the overstimulation of his thick cock. With that connection still in tact, Eddie is spinning you around, dick sliding out with a messy mixture of arousals covering you both—his member completely doused in your cream, painting the trimmed curls at the base of his shaft with even more of you, slicking back some more of that happy trail. You want to be embarrassed, but as he’s red faced and struggling to breathe, you know that there’s no need to be. He steers you back onto the bed, falling easily between your spread thighs, drawing them up and around his waist.

He presses his forehead into your own, kissing each corner of your mouth, rings circling in dusting sweeps on the apex of your thighs. His voice is a shivered whisper. “Fuck, baby. You okay?”

There’s words on your tongue, Eddie’s taste on your mouth, things you’ve known for years, but are unsure if Eddie has, or if this is something he needs because he’s afraid you’ll abandon him, but that he doesn’t feel what you do. Your head is spinning and Eddie brushes sweaty strands of hair off your forehead, taking his cock through your swollen folds, pressing that spongey head into your clit—both of you crying out. “Y/N, m’ right here. Care to join me?”

And god help you, the way that you look at him. Really allow yourself to see him this way—unabashed—it stirs all those feelings Eddie has bottled down since forever. You press your thumb into his mouth, your other hand sliding down to grip onto him, gliding your hand back and forth, relishing in how his abdomen tenses, muscles flexing, body gravitating towards whatever you’re willing to bestow. He doesn’t let you touch him much longer, taking what your hand isn’t around and guiding it back into your cunt, that scrumptious burn brimming you, making your thighs drop open, back arch, only to tighten your ankles around him, digging your heels into his ass. He suckles your fingertip into his mouth, licking the digit in until it’s down to the knuckle.

Your head presses sideways, cheek on his pillow, inhaling his shaving cream and that spicy scent. He pauses his movements, making you frown in displeasure. He lets go of your spit tainted finger, gripping your chin, a possessive fire overcoming him. His irises remain completely black, putting you deeper into that comatose trance of agonizing sin. “I want you to fucking say it, Y/N.”

You start a beginning questionnaire, Eddie shaking his head and pressing in harder on your chin, fingers splaying across your jaw, rings pinching your chin in the most delightfully painful of ways. “Say you want me, tell me you fucking need me. That you’re not tired of me, and that you’re proud to be the freak’s slut.”

Your hands wind around his back and you sink your nails in as hard as you can, bearing down on him, sucking him in deeper, both of you in a state of no return. His hand tickles down from your face and grips your neck. “Still sick of me, baby?” He situates your gaze, lifting his hips to a raise so that you can see where you’re connected. You’re inconsolable, that fire already blazing your gut, turning every sense into nothingness.

When Eddie starts back up again, he slams himself into you so hard that your vision goes dark and you shred your own bottom lip open, body moving closer to his wall due to the force. He’s licking beneath your jugular, words sensual and filthy, making your entire body spike in a sudden electricity. “Gonna cum in every hole you’ve got, so you remember that they’re mine.”

This time you’re more than ready to give him a warning, body beginning to shake beyond your control, breaths stuttering in your chest. Eddie reaches down between you, calloused thumb flicking your clit. Everything is so fucking wet and the way it sounds in the expanse of Eddie’s small room, it has you opening your mouth, out of control and greedily begging for more.

“Eds, harder. Please? Almost…”

He’s grinning in that special way that weakens you—heart and soul, body and mind. “So much more than a slut.” His thrusts become choppy, his own babbling tone turning into Eddie-speak. “You are way more than you know, Y/N.”

You fondle his pick chain and bring him into your immediate airspace, mouths hovering. He’s nearing his end, cock getting fuller inside you. “Need you to tell me how much you love me.”

You both completely go slack. Eddie stops himself all together, body trembling, head bowing. Your heart rate increases, feeling as if you’ve skipped a staircase thousands of feet in the air and you’re now free falling.

Love… You don’t have to think twice.

Your hands move to cup his face, holding on, your eyes shining with tears at all overloaded emotions and senses. “I love you so fucking much, Eddie.”

At your admission, those beautiful eyes—dark with remains of passion—they fill, and he gives you his all, driving his cock into you in calculated presses, trying like hell to get you to cum first. When he speaks, his voice cracks apart. “Let me know that you’re right here with me, Y/N.”

“I’ve always been here, Eddie.” Is what you manage, thumping your hand against his wrist and helping him bring his fingers back to your clit.

He doesn’t let you look away, noses smashed together, sticky foreheads pressing, hair curtaining the apples of pink, sex stained cheeks. Your eyes widen as that knot begins to tighten in your stomach, unraveling so violently that Eddie has to grip your quivering thigh in one hand, the other keeping steady on your clit. You dig into his back, other hand tugging on his hair, and Eddie is giving a throaty seduction. “That’s it, be my good girl and cum again for me.”

And you’re coming apart at your very core, every cell exploding and rebuilding, gluing yourself to Eddie to seize the ache that scrambles your insides and leaves you breathless. He’s cursing, keeping his finger on your clit to help you coast over the high, immediately following you with the lowest, sweetest, whimpering moan that you’ve ever heard. Both of your eyes still drinking in the other’s pleasure, tears spilling over your lash line as Eddie’s hips cease and he holds, his cock swelling and that soft, creamy warmth coating your sore walls in spurts. He collapses onto your chest and you hold him there in a vice hug, his hand still trapped between your exhausted bodies. He gently eases it out, groaning around the wetness that he’s all too eager to sample until the layer of shine is off his fingers.

Holy shit and fuck me…

Your legs fall to the side, unable to stay upright any longer, Eddie keeping a hovering hand to soothe your shaking. He kisses your neck with a plush mouth, his chain dangling between your breasts. You’re petting his hair—which is so soaked it’s as if he’s been in the rain or come from the shower—off his forehead, wincing as he slides out and keeps himself by your side. You gasp and he joins, fascinated by your cum and his own seed pouring from your cunt. He raises up a little. “Mhm. Let me see?”

He props your thigh, sliding his fingers back and forth, zoned in on his bedsheets being ruined from the literal puddle of your shared cum that runs from you. Seconds pass and he grins widely, plopping onto his back, his fingertips caressing your shoulder, down to your arm. It’s a comfortable quiet, even with the intense meaning of the words that were spoken, until Eddie starts with a, “So..?”

And you cut him off, trying to get your uncomfortably hot body closer. “So I love you. And I have never stopped needing you, or wanting you, Eddie. I just hope all this wasn’t because we were fighting and you got scared I would leave, and —“

He doesn’t let you finish this time, that chocolate-ly brown ring swinging back around his pupil in a brisk develop, showcasing the moisture in his eyes. “I was scared because I love you so damn much that I would charge headfirst into Mordor, or some alternate dimension without any weapon or any shield, just for you. You gotta know that, Y/N.”

His softness, that glittering fragility, it makes you seal your mouth to his, kissing him full of your feelings. He cups the nape of your neck, drawing in closer, thumb coaxing a shiver from you as it passes over a certain spot behind your ear. On a wet break away, you’re nodding your head. “Guess we spent all week fighting when we should’ve been fucking and talking about our feelings.”

Eddie smirks, then is serious. “Be that as it may, I’m sorry I’ve been shit at showing you I appreciate all that you do for the guys and me. And for forgetting that you are your own person too. S’ not like I meant to, I swear. I just get so fucking caught up and I shouldn’t take for granted anything that has to do with you or with us.”

“Have I ever told you that you’re my best-friend, Eddie Munson?”

While it’s still true, you’re wondering when the words leave your lips. Eddie just fucked you so hard you probably won’t be able to sit down for a week or walk upright for hours, so friendship isn’t exactly the most appropriate term anymore, is it?

Eddie taps his fingertips to your temple, drawing your dazed expression, clinging to the cosmic connection once more. “M’ yours, Y/N.”

“Oh yeah, Munson?” You’re so high that you could fly out of here right now and make rounds around the whole globe. Your chest is aching with a tempo that promises new hope and ease.

Eddie is giddy too, that wide set smile, cheesing. “Just gotta get you a new shirt.”

The memory of your old club attire being one with the forest floor seems like so long ago. Eddie knuckle grazes your cheek, apologetic. You shush him. “I ruined yours, so we’re even.”

There’s a mischievous glint in his eyes and he’s tackling you beneath him, pinning your hands in a lace above your head. “Nah, we are just getting started on bein’ even, baby.”

~*~

Tagging: @littledemondani @prettyboyeddiemunson @gothbitchshit @thisishellfire @ethereal27cereal @likedovesinthewnd

-I really need to form a bigger tag list! I’m sorry :/-

Lemme know if you want on my general tag list, please! :)

[ooo-protean-ooo]

Prince Steve is lost in the deep dark forest.

Decided to draw Steve inspired by Ayes and Kleo’s fic However Wild - and heavily inspired by the art of John Bauer.

The fic is a fairytale, so I wanted to infuse this piece with some Swedish fairytale vibe, as a little twist is my own :)

[ooo-protean-ooo]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

If Robin, Steve and Eddie were cats

[ooo-protean-ooo]

I feel like they would just suffocate each other while they sleep

[ooo-protean-ooo]

OH MY GOOOOOD

Robin and Eddie accidentally show up wearing matching flannel shirts and curly high-bun hairdos and Steve pulls them both into a Steve sandwich group hug like

Steve: Awww, my favorite lesbians are matching

Eddie: Excuse you! How come I have to be a lesbian, huh? Why can’t Robin be one of your boyfriends?

Steve: Do you wanna be my boyfriend, Robbie?

Robin: No, I do not.

Steve: She doesn’t want to be my boyfriend, Eds.

Eddie: Well I don’t want to be your lesbian!

Steve: Wooooooow.

Robin: Didn’t know you were dating a homophobe.

Steve: Me neither. 😔

Eddie: (indignant bird noises)

[ooo-protean-ooo]

i think i’m in love with you.

[ooo-protean-ooo]

Oh my god I love this

Steve gives Eddie the pink teddy he wins at the fair, sort of as a joke but also kinda hoping he'd like it. Eddie had joked about it being "mighty impressive, big boy" and that had seemed to be it.

But a few weeks later, Steve is round Eddies and he still has the teddy on his bed, in the open, propped up by the pillows. Steve tries to be casual when he says something like "oh hey, he's still here".

Eddie is quick to correct; "her name is Strawberry. And of course she's still here, she lives here."

He doesn't notice the chronic case of heart eyes Steve gets, too busy going into the backstory he gave her; befriending dragons, marrying the king... Steve is determined to win her a friend.

[ooo-protean-ooo]

Just popping in to send you love, my dear friend 🤍

I love and miss you♥️♥️♥️🥺🥺🥺♥️♥️♥️

[ooo-protean-ooo]

HAHA!!

you look pretty…

[ooo-protean-ooo]

I NEEED THIIIISSSSS

Maybe - Eddie Munson

Summary: When the hot older man in the neighborhood becomes a regular at your coffee shop, you can't help but let your shameless flirting take over. And maybe, just maybe, the fantasies are reciprocated. CW: 12k words, 18+ !!! modern!Eddie, older!Eddie, d/s dynamics, daddy!kink, slight ddlg themes, soooo many fucking pentanes I'm sorry, choking, slapping, oral (f receiving), sex, lots of flirting

AN : Wow , it's been so long since I have actually sat down and written a full fic and holy fuck did I miss it. I hope you guys enjoy my entirely self indulgent older Eddie fic. As always, I love you so so so much and if you enjoy it please share and leave feedback <3 - Vi

“There’s no way you’re old enough to know or like the Grateful Dead,” The deep  voice shakes you from your scrolling. 

To be fair, a customer hasn’t come in in almost 45 minutes, leaving you with no more counters to rescrub, and cups to restock. So, yes, you’ve been scrolling. 

“I know you’re not about to quiz me,” you joke back to the man in front of you. He must be at least in his mid 30s, his long curly hair accompanied by tattoos all across his arms. You’ve never seen him in the small coffee shop before, which is weird considering you know just about everyone in this town, but you can already tell he’s a joker.

What you don’t expect is the way his smirk makes your cheeks get hot. 

“Alright alright, no quizzes…today,” he smiles, glancing over the menu. You pretend to make yourself busy pulling a shot of espresso, trying not to look at the way he bites his lip while he’s focusing.

His eyes look up to meet yours, knowingly. “I’ll just have an iced Americano.”

You nod. “Small or large?”

“Large.”

You chuckle. “What?” He asks, a playful glint in his eyes. You try to bite your tongue, you really really do, you shouldn’t be flirting with this man.

But you’re a barista, and honestly, it’s part of the job. “Nothin,” you say, eyebrows raised as you pull up his total on the small screen in front of him. 

He taps his card to the screen without even looking. His eye contact with you only falters as he scans over your body. “No no, let me in on the little joke,” he taunts.

You move over to the espresso machine, and there’s no way he’s not looking at your ass. You’re so lucky there’s no one else here.

“It’s just that,” you start, holding back your own laugh. “Of course you get an iced americano. You’re not at the old dad level of drip coffee, or hot americano, yet.” His eyebrows raise at that.

You focus on pulling your espresso shots. “An iced americano just makes sense,” you shrug. 

He leans on the end of the counter. “You think you got me all figured out?” 

“I didn’t say that,” you challenge, a little nervous you might have upset him. It wouldn’t be the first time you tried to charm a customer and they didn’t bite. You grab the large cup and scoop ice into it, your back toward him as you try to think of ways to mend the situation.

He claps his hands together, making you jump slightly as you pour water over the ice. “Okay, 20something barista with tattoos, what’s my star sign?” 

You scoff. “Really?” You ask, staring him down, holding your ground as you realize he enjoys your banter.

“Watch the-” He interrupts. You poured water all over the floor. Super smooth. 

Shrug it off.

You inhale and purse your lips, your tongue poking your cheek as you know he’s got you flustered. You pour the shots in the cup, plop a lid on and hand it to him over the counter, leaning over slightly as you do. He doesn’t back away, and the close proximity makes your heart pound. “Hmmm,” you hum, using your observation skills as an excuse to check him out.

He doesn’t waiver at all, just swirls the cup in front of him as he waits. 

“Aquarius or Scorpio,” you decide. It’s a little bit of a shot in the dark but - 

He laughs. “I knew you’d believe in the star shit.” 

You mouth drops and you put your hands on your hips, in disbelief at his little game. “Tell me I’m wrong!” You prompt him, but he shakes his head and sips his drink. 

“Tell me you’re not an aquarius or scorpio,” you ask again. 

“That’s irrelevant.”

“So I’m right,” you laugh, wiping down the counter and walking to grab more rags from under the counter. You hear him shuffling on the other side of the counter as you come up and start to clean the spill you made moments before. 

“It’s good coffee,” he smiles, then turns to walk toward the door. 

You can’t help the smile that adorns your face as well. “What’s your name?” You call out before he leaves. 

“Eddie,” he does a small bow. 

You roll your eyes. “See ya tomorrow Eddie,” you smile. 

He leaves with a nod of his head. 

And that is how you met Eddie Munson. 

Over the next few weeks, the flirting was shameless. It started only when you two just so happened to be alone, him finding his way into the shop every morning you happened to work, before anyone else came in for the later shifts. It always started the same, a small, knowing smile gracing both of your faces as you gave him a simple, “Hi Eddie,” to start his day. 

“Hi dollface,” he’d sometimes respond. Other times it was, “Hey honey,” or maybe even a “Mornin’ sweetheart.” He might have even called you sweet cheeks once, but the days start to blur. 

As the time goes, you learn more about him, what he does for work, that he has a real piece of work for an ex-wife who he has to try and appease constantly to see his son, that he works in music production and teaches private lessons, as well as being a pretty big nerd with his favorite movies and tv shows. He asks about you, and what your life is like, but you only give him small details, knowing that you fall hard and this was simply a 10-15 minute work transaction to look forward to most days. 

You kept up your customer service appeal, while also flirting with him, trying to make it so he would absolutely never know if you had a bad day. But sometimes it’s not that easy. 

“Mornin’ sweetheart, how are you?” The brown eyed man asks, his voice taking the air away from you. 

You had been hoping he wouldn’t come in today. 

“I’m alright Eddie. Want your usual?” You ask, avoiding eye contact as you start on his drink. 

“Yeah,” he responds, but he’s hesitant. He waits for your witty banter, a sly comment, or even a smile in his direction but it doesn’t come. 

“Hey,” he says, his voice softer. “Did I do something? I can absolutely fuck off if you want me to,” he chuckles. 

You immediately feel bad. You don’t want him to think he’s doing anything wrong. “No no no,” you say, trying to smile. “It’s just a weird day.”

“It’s already weird?” He chuckles. “It’s a Tuesday at 7AM.”

You sigh. “It’s my birthday.”

For one of the first times since he started coming into your store, Eddie is quiet. 

You slide his drink across the counter. “See? I didn’t want to make it awkward. Birthdays are just weird,” you laugh. 

His eyes are distant until they look up at your own. “Happy birthday,” Eddie says, a small smile on his pink lips. 

“Thanks,” you reply softly. 

“You deserve a good one. Go celebrate yourself,” he says. You nod slowly, knowing this is the talk you always get on your birthday. You never know how to celebrate, and quite honestly don’t want to anyway. It’s been a weird day for you since you were a kid and it’s only gotten slightly more socially acceptable to disregard it as a whole as you’ve gotten older.

You both just stand there, the air different than before, and you regret having said anything at all. 

Thankfully, another customer walks in, making you go to the register and put on a smile. 

“See you tomorrow,” Eddie says, and you just reply with a wave of your hand as he walks out the door. 

You’re not sure why it happened, and honestly don’t even really want to admit it, but you felt like after that day you had to try and keep your conversations with Eddie to be even more casual. No more flirting. 

“Hey baby bear,” Eddie waltzes in, grin wide as he sees you behind the counter as per usual. 

You try to hide your smile, trying to focus. “Baby bear?” You ask. You hate how much it makes your stomach twist with excitement.

“Yeah,” he smiles back at you, leaning on the counter. You swear it always feels like you two are the only people in the goddamn world. Not like anyone could walk in at any moment. 

“You’re like a cute little bear,” he says, and it looks as if he didn’t mean to, almost like he surprised himself by saying his thoughts out loud. 

You focus your attention on the espresso machine. You swear suddenly you’ve never made a coffee for this man in your entire life, your hands fumbling awkwardly with the ice cup.

From the corner of your eye you can see how he is tapping his fingers on the counter, looking around the shop as if he’s never seen the wallpaper before. Is he embarrassed? 

“What are you up to today?” You ask, trying to ease some of the tension. 

Eddie whips around to look at you, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise that you are still talking to him. “Taking my boy out to the park for some kids concert thing they have going on,” he says casually. He tries to play it off like it’s something he does all the time, but you know when he spends time with his son, especially doing something he loves like listening to music, it means a lot to him. And, honestly, it makes your heart swell to see him be a good father. 

“That’s adorable,” you smile. 

Eddie smiles but looks away from you again. 

Sometimes you wish you could just go across the counter and hug him. He seems so safe, so open and funny and flirty and sweet. 

And then you remind yourself you barely even fucking know him and he’s simply a flirty customer at your coffee shop. 

“What about you bear? Doing anything once you're off work?” 

You add cinnamon to the top of his iced americano, a habit he’s now picked up since you started doing it for him. He loves that you do it now without him even asking. 

“Mmmm,” you hum, wiping down the counter as you hand him his drink. You try to avoid eye contact and make busy, attempting to stick to your plan of giving distance with him. 

“I think just being boring and getting groceries, cleaning, making some dinner,” you admit. 

Eddie sips his drink and leans forward on the counter, watching you pretend to be busy working. “I don’t understand,” he mutters. 

Your eyebrows quirk up as you lean over to restock milk. He takes a peak at your ass and has to refrain from readjusting himself right there in front of you. Something about you turns him into an insatiable teenager again. 

“I just don’t understand how a sweet thing like you doesn’t have plans on a Friday night,” he says, his eyes lifting from the ground to meet your own when you face him. 

You bite your lip and chuckle, trying not to roll your eyes. “I like my own company,” you shrug. And it’s true. Going out has never been your MO, and you haven’t been asked out on a proper date in God knows how long. You make an effort to see your friends, but sometimes the best nights are the ones where you’re chilling by yourself.

“Smart girl,” he says, nodding as he backs away from the counter slowly. 

“Have fun at the park Eddie,” you say, trying to ignore the ache in your heart that so badly wants him to stay and entertain you.

Eddie chuckles, revealing that smirk that could make anyone a little nervous. He’s so goddamn handsome. 

“Have fun…with yourself,” he says, his voice a little lower than usual. You feel your breath hitch slightly, caught off guard by the not-so-subtle innuendo. 

You try to say something quick in response, but he winks at you and walks out the door before you can. 

So much for casual. 

As night comes and you have mindless reality television playing while you indulge in some pasta, you find yourself scrolling instagram. Your coffee shop is only a popular spot because of its social media presence and aesthetic, which makes people who would never drive through the small town find a reason to stop and take pictures. You’re looking through the new followers and seeing how the stats are doing when a familiar name pops up as someone who liked a recent picture of latte art : @ munsonnmusic 

You stare at it for a minute, the temptation oh so real as your thumb hovers over the screen. 

You have to. 

You click on his handle and scroll through his profile, which is exactly as you’d think a 30-something would be on instagram. Low quality pictures of guitars and studios, a few promoting his business, one or two of his son and funny things he probably saw on the street, with even less pictures of himself. The one that he does have, though, is from his birthday a few months ago when he turned 37, which also makes him a fucking Scorpio. 

You laugh to yourself. What an idiot. 

What you didn’t realize, was when you laughed at his audacity, you liked his picture. 

And what you never would’ve known, is that he got the notification on his phone and his heart immediately skipped, because he recognized your name not only because it’s you but because he has already stalked your page countless times. You don’t post like some mid-20’s kids, in fact you post much less, but there are one or two really good pictures that show off your curves that he may or may not have taken advantage of in his own alone time. 

But you liked his picture, on a Friday night at 11PM just after you gave him the knowledge that morning that you would be alone tonight. 

He followed you immediately. 

You hadn’t noticed since you were already dozing off on the couch and had to be up at 5:30AM yet again to open the shop in the morning. 

-

You thought you were dreaming when you saw it in your rush to get ready. Eyes blurry and head fuzzy from sleep, the new follower on your instagram didn’t seem to make any sense. Eddie? No. 

You fully ignored it and rushed your way to getting ready, hair in some braids and a tank top with jeans to adorn your languid body. Caffeine was a desperate need. 

It wasn’t until about 10 minutes before the shop opened that you felt the buzz on your phone. You figured it must be your boss asking you to check something, but it wasn’t. It was an instagram notification. From munsonnmusic .

Your eyes squinted at your screen, staring at the DM in shock. All it read was a little coffee cup and a question mark. 

“☕?”

You don’t respond. Instead you make yourself an iced americano and re-wipe the already clean counter. 

He walked through the door 15 minutes later. 

He enters with a smirk on his face, a knowing smirk that has you biting the inside of your cheek. The tension in the air was thick. He had your instagram, and you had his. Suddenly this customer-barista interaction felt a lot bigger than the small coffee shop. 

“Good morning sweet thing,” he says, his brown eyes seem slightly darker this morning. 

You inhale slowly. This felt like a game of chess. 

“Good morning Eddie,” you reply, slightly too formal. You don’t begin making his drink like you usually do, instead you stand perfectly still behind the register, your arms crossed over your chest. 

You caught the way his eyes flicked down to your chest, no doubt seeing the way your tits look pressed up as you cross your arms over them. You feel your heartbeat in your throat. 

“How was your night in?” He asks, but with a hint of suggestiveness. Like he knows your secret - a secret you don’t know. 

You can’t get a read on him. The typically quick banter is replaced with this tension that you could feel weighing on your chest, and between your legs. “It was…” you start, averting your eye contact. 

“Chill,” you decide. 

Eddie chuckles. “Chill,” he repeats. 

You nod, not sure where else to go with this. “Chill,” you say again. “Want your usual?” 

He quirks his head, his eyes narrowing some as you pull the iced cup from behind you. He scoffs. 

“What?” you ask, so unsure of where he is at the moment. 

“Alright bear, we can pretend you didn’t stalk my instagram and like one of my pictures last night. That’s fine,” he shrugs. 

Your heart stops and you swear your face turns bright red. There’s no fucking way. 

Unless…God you were an idiot. Of course that’s how he found you. Why would he go out of his way to find your instagram?? 

“That was an accident,” you say, trying to save yourself from the embarrassment, and horribly failing. 

He laughs, “Honey, it’s okay. I found it kind of adorable. I guess that’s how kids flirt nowadays.”

You throw ice into the cup and stare at him with an open mouth. 

“I wasn’t - that wasn’t me flirting with you,” you stutter. You’re absolutely losing this battle. 

He nods slowly, his smile growing on his face. He loves seeing you flustered. “Right, right,” he says. “And I don’t flirt with you every morning,” he shrugs sarcastically. 

God, your head feels fucking dizzy. So he’s admitting that he knows what he does to you every morning? You never thought he would actually intend anything behind the banter, thinking he looked at you like a kid, not someone he would actually…see in some capacity outside of work.

You’re stuck in place as he wanders to the far side of the counter, waiting expectantly for his drink. 

“You know I wasn’t fully sure after your birthday, felt like things changed. But now I’m not so sure,” he says, leaning on his elbows on the counter, looking at you. 

So he had caught on to your shift, and he didn’t like it. You never would have thought that he actually cared about your little interactions every day. You need to get a grip. 

He’s probably just messing with you, embarrassing you for accidentally liking a picture from months ago like a loser. “So you’re going to act like you don’t flirt with every barista you talk to?” You quip, both trying to gain some ground in the conversation, but also trying to see what exactly he is getting at. 

He rolls his eyes as you pull the espresso shots for his drink. “Only the pretty and witty ones with tattoos,” he smiles. Your cheeks redden immediately. 

You pour water into his cup and float the shot on top before swirling it slowly as you walk toward him. 

“Are we going to act like you don’t flirt with every customer like this?” he retorts with a dimpled grin. Your hand stops swirling the drink as you decide your next move. You look up at him with long lashes and big eyes, and instead of handing him his drink you hold it hostage on your side of the counter. 

“Only the handsome witty dads with tattoos,” you smirk, feeling bold. 

His smile mirrors yours as you hand him his drink and brush hands. You swear you feel an electric shock run through your body as his ringed fingers touch yours. Your bold exterior melts immediately as you sharply inhale at the touch. 

He can’t believe the effect he has on you, knowing that you do that and more to him. 

“Thank you for the coffee baby,” he says softly, his voice dropping in a way you haven’t heard from him before. 

Your heart pounds, and your thighs clench together. 

“Always,” you smile softly. 

He smiles back at you, and if you didn’t know any better, his eyes flick down to your lips, making you bite them out of habit. He inhales deeply before taking the coffee and walking out of the shop. 

You swear you could faint right then and there. 

What the hell just happened? 

With what all started as a harmless flirtationship with your regular customer has possibly turned into something…dangerous. This man was at least ten years older than you and had a child and an ex-wife - and was extremely sexy, a musician, and hell he knew how to talk his way around. 

Maybe to him this was just entertainment. He could just flirt with the little barista and go about his life, getting a small thrill out of flustering you. You tried to be colder, not give him the time of day, but you fucked up going on his instagram. 

The problem is that Eddie was your perfect type of poison. Older, attractive, confident, tattoos, witty, and gives you attention…nevermind the small stories you two have shared shows you have more in common than you may have thought. And it makes for you wanting him in between your legs. Desperately. 

And you’re terrible at hiding it. 

The entire rest of the shift you were distracted, your mind going places about Eddie that you had tried to avoid before, but found impossible now. 

By the time you were off, you barely even remembered most of the day, it felt like it passed by in a haze. 

You checked your phone and found notifications from Eddie liking a handful of your pictures. Specifically ones that had your full body in them. 

And a DM waiting for you:

E: “Just had to tell you how pretty you looked today.”

You waited to respond, trying to clear your head from everything that is him, try to think a little clearer and come up with your own intentions before moving forward. Regardless of what he wants, you have to try and be honest about what you want. 

After a shower, some food, and a nap, you respond. 

Careful, if you keep saying things like that I might actually start to like you.

You bite the skin around your fingernails as you await a response, a bad habit you’ve had since childhood. It says he hasn’t been active, so you put your phone down and try to indulge yourself into a book as you relax on the couch. 

No more than ten minutes pass before your phone buzzes. 

You’re ashamed at how fast you pick it up to check. 

E: Aw, and here I was thinking you already did, baby bear. 

You smile to yourself as your thumbs hover over the screen, unsure what to send next. It’s hard when you can picture Eddie at home, maybe just in some sweats, maybe he’s in bed or on his own couch, looking at pictures of you, thinking about you…

Your hand starts to drift between your legs. 

God just thinking about him makes you wet. 

Don’t get ahead of yourself mister. 

You stare at the screen, letting your slightly lust drunk brain take the wheel as you slowly circle your finger over the small bump of your clit in your panties. You feel your stomach turn when you see the little bubble indicating he’s typing. 

E: You make it so hard. 

Your brain immediately thinks of other things. 

E: I like when you call me that. 

You literally groan out loud. This is dangerous, so dangerous. You know how you get when you connect with someone, and you’re so so scared Eddie just might want to fuck. Which, honestly, would probably be incredible, but there’s no way you wouldn’t want him to baby you after. 

Sometimes you hate how vulnerable sex can be for you. You have a hard time just hooking up, especially if you get into that subby space you often fall into with the right person. And there’s no doubt in your mind that, if he acts anything like he already does, Eddie would do that to you. 

But you’re already clouded with lust and figure it can’t hurt to fuck around a little. 

What’s hard, mister?  You taunt. You know exactly what you’re insinuating. 

E: Now you’re the one who needs to be careful baby

You smirk to yourself as you continue to slowly rub circles between your legs. You can’t help but wonder if he’s touching himself too .You have no idea how far to take this. 

You bite your lip as you remove the hand in your pants.  Is that what you want? Me to be careful?

You wait anxiously. If he asked you to come over right now you would have a really fucking hard time saying no. And you hate it. 

The typing bubble pops up and disappears again. 

Then pops back up. 

E: I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. 

You already begin typing out a response, but he’s faster. 

E: But what I really want is for you to be with me right now. 

Your mouth drops open and your heart beats faster. 

Is it bad I want that too? You ask genuinely. As much as you wish you could be upfront and take the lead with it all, you can’t. You’re way too nervous to look like an idiot kid flirting with a grown man. Maybe this is just some little fantasy for him, and not something he would actually act on. 

E: No sweetheart, not at all. It’s great. But I should turn this stupid phone off before I say something really bad. I’ll see you in the morning? 

Your heart drops. Of course he wasn’t going to invite you over tonight like some college hookup. You don’t even know what you were thinking. And now you have to see him at work in the morning and, what, act like everything is cool? Fuck.

You just send back the coffee emoji and put your phone down. 

Needless to say your dreams are filled with images of Eddie’s mouth and hands all over your body. 

You were anxious. You were waiting for him to walk through the door all morning, but as the time passed, you lost hope. Maybe he regretted messaging you. Maybe he was embarrassed or ashamed. Maybe he just couldn’t face you. 

It’s 10AM, and he’s usually in by 7. 

You sigh and turn around to cut up some lemons and wash mint. Maybe you just need to call an old hookup, get it out of your system so you can stop thinking about Eddie. 

Then the door opens, and he walks through, a little flustered compared to his usually calm demeanor. 

You can’t help the small smile that takes over your face seeing him come in. But you don’t want to give it up too easily. 

“You’re in late today,” you mention, keeping your attention on cutting the lemons in front of you. 

He chuckles, amused that you pay attention to the small details, like what time he usually comes in to see you - buy coffee. “Sorry bear, had to drop the boy off at baseball practice this morning,” he smiles. 

You nod, unsure of what to say next, unsure of how to continue after last night. You feel extremely vulnerable, and it sucks because you know you could just tell him not to bother you again, to not message you, but it’s the exact opposite of what you want. 

“You’re quiet again,” he notices. 

You inhale a shaky breath at him calling you out. Of course he notices you- “Fuck -f fuck,” you mutter, having cut your hand slightly from the lemons. 

Eddie immediately is concerned. “What? What are you okay?” He asks, leaning over the counter, trying to get a view of where you are gripping your hand and running it under the sink. 

“I’m fine, it’s fine, just slipped the knife,” you say, inhaling through your teeth as the water stings your hand. 

You wrap a towel around it quickly before facing Eddie. His face is full of concern, his brown eyes like a puppy’s. “It’s really okay Eddie,” you assure him, trying to ease his worried features. 

“Let me see,” he says with a nod of his head. 

You shake your head no. “I said it’s fine - do you want your -”

“I said, let me see,” he interrupts, his tone more commanding. You still at his voice, immediately making you weak as he shows how much he cares. You slowly unwrap your hand and extend it to show him.

He holds your wrist lightly as he looks at the small cut. You have to refrain from wiggling under his hold, the way he is so tender with you makes you want to cry right then and there. 

It really is nothing, just a small cut that felt a lot worse because of the lemon stinging it in the process. 

“You should leave it wrapped so you don’t get espresso dust in it,” he says, but it’s less of a suggestion and more of a command. You nod in response, pulling your hand back toward you. 

His eyes meet yours and it feels as though the air stills between you. His eyebrows are still slightly knitted together from concern, his biceps look huge as he crosses his arms across his chest to take you in. 

“You okay?” He asks seriously. 

You nod, but quickly look down at the register to punch in his order. “Hey,” he calls your attention. 

“You sure?” he asks again. You sigh and your shoulders drop from the tension you were holding in them. 

“Yeah, yeah Eddie I’m fine,” you smile softly at him. But the knit between his brows doesn’t rest at your response. 

His hand comes to rub his chin. “Not just from the lemons. Are you okay after last night?” 

You wish you could throw yourself out a fucking window. Why is he so goddamn receptive? It’s almost worse that he notices and cares so much. It would almost be easier if he could just use you and then never talk to you again. Instead he has to have a fucking heart. 

You try to laugh it off. “Nothing even happened last night,” you fake smile, then punch in his order and begin to move to the espresso machine. 

He scoffs as he pays, then throws a 10 dollar bill in the tip jar. You try not to roll your eyes.

“Really?” He smirks, back to being playful. “Guess I need to not hold back so much.”

You smile and shake your head, still too shaken to make eye contact with him despite feeling his eyes absolutely trained on you. 

“No idea what you’re talking about,” you lie. 

“Mmmm,” he tuts in response. “Then look at me,” he challenges. You shake your head no as you finish making his drink. You know you’re a goner once you get sucked in by those big brown eyes. 

“Baby,” he warns. The word makes your breath shake. “Look at me,” he repeats.

You finally do let your eyes meet his as you hand him his drink, and you immediately feel weak. You can’t hide the effect he has on you, and it’s not fair. You wish you were better at this, wish you weren’t so goddamn transparent and easy to read. This is why you don’t let people in easily. 

“Aw, there she is,” he taunts. You lean on the counter between you two on your elbows, your head dropping to your hands as you groan. 

He chuckles at your dramatics. He can’t let it show, but you have the exact same effect on him. He could drop to his knees for you at any moment. He loves your wit, your banter, your eyes, and the way you look at him like he knows all the secrets in the world.

His hand moves hesitantly, checking behind him to make sure no one else is walking in or by the store, as he places a finger under your chin to bring your gaze back up to him. “Don’t hide baby,” he smiles at you. 

You pout. You are absolute putty in his hands. “I’m trying to be good Eddie,” you whine. You’ve been hurt so many times before, you told yourself you wouldn’t get caught like this again. 

“And you are,” he assures you. “I’m the mean man who has a hard time resisting you,” he admits. 

He releases his hand from under your chin and backs up from you with a chuckle. One of his hands goes behind his head as the other points at you leaning over the counter like a pouting kid. “Should I find a different coffee shop baby? I don’t want to make your life hard,” he asks genuinely. 

“No, please no,” you say immediately, standing up tall. You come back to yourself as best as you can. You don’t want him to leave, you don’t want to lose him, even if it’s just losing the daily interactions. You don’t care if it can’t be more. 

He exhales with a shake of his head, his curls bouncing back and forth as he tries to regain control of himself. 

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” he smiles with tight lips. You go to say something, anything to make him stay. But you know you can’t, you shouldn’t, so you just smile back. 

He grabs his drink, but before he leaves he shoots you a dimpled grin. “Keep your hand wrapped up please,” he says.

You roll your eyes. “Yes sir,” you mock reply with a salute.  

But it makes him groan. “Can’t say that shit to me sweetheart!” he calls as he leaves, the door closing all too slowly behind him as you watch him walk off.

God, you’re in trouble. 

-

You manage to make it through the night without messaging Eddie. It took everything in you, but you did it. And when he messages you in the morning with a “ ☕?” , you just reply with a thumbs down. You have the next two days off and maybe, just maybe, you can shake Eddie from your system. 

You called your friend, Joanna, to come over for a movie night. You welcome the distraction, listening to her rant about her boyfriend problems and how much she hates grad school. The night starts out easy, very chill, until she gets a text from said boyfriend. 

“Why the fuck is he out right now?” She yells over the television, standing up from the couch as she shoves her phone in your face. 

It’s a picture of her stupid boyfriend out at a bar, posted on one of her other friend’s instagram stories. 

“He said he was just ‘hanging out’ with the boys. He didn’t say he was going to a fucking bar,” she vents.  She starts pacing the small living room. You stare at her from under your blanket on the couch. 

“Maybe he’s hanging with the boys at the bar?” You say, trying to ease her anger. She may be overreacting, but her boyfriend hasn’t been known to be the most reliable and loyal type. 

“Get up, we’re going,” she says, grabbing your hand.  She starts to drag you toward your bedroom as you protest.

“What? No no no Jo please I just want to stay in,” you whine. 

“This is an emergency!” She cries at you, going through your closet and changing her baggy shirt for one of your tanktops. “If you’re really my friend you’ll come with  me to confront him!” 

You roll your eyes. “I am your friend, even if your boyfriend totally fucking sucks,” you say, grabbing the small cropped shirt from her hands and throwing it on your bed. 

“Sweats off, jeans on, tiny shirt on,” she says, throwing more clothes at you. She starts snapping. “Let’s go, no time to waste!”

You groan as she stomps out of the room to the bathroom and applies some lipstick. You change into the high waisted jeans and top and shake your hair out of its clip. You don’t bother with any other makeup. You grab your keys as she grabs hers and try to drone console her as she starts word vomiting about him possibly hooking up with some girl at a “sleazy bar”. 

Jo drove, much to your dismay, but she said she needed to so she could focus, plus she knew exactly which bar he was at. 

It took no more than 15 minutes to get to the bar, red and blue lights flickering with a few men smoking cigarettes outside the front door. They whistle at you two, but Jo is on a mission as she marches past them, dragging you behind. 

You enter the bar and scan the floor with her. But just as she sees her boyfriend, you see someone else - Eddie. 

He’s at a pool table with two other men who seem to be playing against Jo’s boyfriend and his friends. And he looks so fucking good. 

He has a ciggie hanging out of his mouth and is wearing dark maroon dickies instead of his  usual black jeans. A fitted black shirt adorns his top, accentuating his build and his tattoos in the dim light. He has a necklace with a guitar pick, and his usual set of rings on. His hair is loose and messy, his cheeks slightly red from the flush of the bar. 

You’re stopped in your tracks as Joanna marches toward her boyfriend. She is on such a rampage she doesn’t realize you’re barely following behind her as she confronts her boyfriend. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” She yells. You stay behind her slightly, trying to escape embarrassment as her boyfriend and friends all look at her like she’s crazy. She pulls his hand and stomps toward the front door, passing by you in the process. “We’ll be back,” she says, and leaves you standing in disbelief. 

That’s when Eddie sees you. 

His face goes from twisted confusion at the interaction, to a dark smirk as he takes a drag from his cigarette. 

You don’t move. You meet his gaze and immediately look away, trying to see if you can find a bathroom to hide in until Jo is done with her screaming match. But your view is blocked by the man in black now standing in front of you. 

Without the separation of the counter like at the shop, you realize how much taller and bigger he is than you, and it’s even more intimidating. He keeps some distance, but not much. 

The bar is loud, but you swear it seemed to close in to silence as he stood in front of you and checked you out. He wasn’t hiding it at all. 

“That your friend?” He smirks, nodding toward the front door Joanna just walked out. 

You nod slowly. “Gotta love her,” you say. Eddie chuckles. 

“You want a drink? They might be a minute,” he suggests. Before you can answer he has his hand on the small of your back, lighting you on fire from his touch, and guides you to the bar. 

He orders for you, as you look at him in silence. You can feel the little devil in you coming out as he smirks your way. You let yourself check him out again as he does the same to you, both of you sipping slowly on your drinks as you let the silence fill the air between you. 

“Never thought I’d be lucky enough to see you past 10am,” he says. 

You laugh. “I could say the same to you mister,” you smile. 

His knee knocks into yours, and suddenly it’s significantly harder to breathe. His presence truly lights you up in a way you haven’t felt in a long time. It’s electrifying and terrifying. 

His eyes move from your own to the way your lips wrap around the straw of your drink. He adjusts how he sits, leaning slightly closer to you, making heat rush to your core as his hands frame you between the bar and the chair. You look up at him with doe eyes, and it makes his cock twitch in his pants. 

“Tell me what you want baby,” he says as if he’s asking you a deep dark secret. 

You swallow thickly and hesitate on your words.  He can sense your nerves, and it turns him on even more seeing how nervous you get when it actually comes down to it. The flirty, charming and funny girl is suddenly all small and nervous when the big bad wolf gets too close. 

His smirk grows. His ringed fingers come down to where your knees are touching, tapping softly against the surface of your jeans. “Maybe you just want to keep this at the shop, and that’s okay,” he assures you. 

Your heart is beating so hard you swear he could probably hear it. His hand dances up a little higher, just slightly above your knee. You stare at the way his fingers trace along your leg, caught in a trance. 

“Maybe,” his gravelly voice makes your eyes meet his own again. “Maybe you want to be a little tease and never hear from me again,” he shrugs. 

You shake your head softly, making his smile grow even larger. His hand moves up more, giving you goosebumps under your clothes. Your thighs squeeze together and it doesn’t go unnoticed by him. The glint in his eyes is dark. 

“Maybe you want me to pull you into the bathroom, rip off these tight little jeans, and fuck you against the wall,” he whispers just loud enough for you to hear over the music and chatter of the bar. 

You’re about to protest, to tell him that’s not what you want at all, but he already knows and stops you before you start. 

“Or maybe you want me to take you home and fuck you properly, like a good girl should be, like you know I can, like you’ve thought about before,” he smirks. 

Your small whimper confirms it all for him, but he still has to say - “Or maybe you just want me to fuck off, what do I know?” he grins, leaning back away from you and removing his hand from your leg. 

You’re speechless, your mind rattling with desire and nerves. You want it so badly. You want him so badly. 

“What about Jo?” You ask, your voice smaller than usual. 

He shrugs. “I think she and her shithead boyfriend will be entertained all night.” 

You look down at your hands, then place them on his knees, tapping just like he did to you, but in a more tentative motion. You want your nerves to go away, but it’s all so much. 

“You,” you start, swallowing to ease your suddenly dry throat. “Um, Sometimes I get kind of, um,” you stutter, not sure how to explain that you fall into subspace, and it makes for one night stands extremely difficult for you. You don’t know how to check to see if he is able to hold that space for you, despite having the gut feeling that he can, and will. 

He looks at you patiently, kindly, watching as you struggle to get the words out. He doesn’t know the full story, but he can tell you’ve been hurt before. As much as he wouldn’t like to admit it, he also knows you both connect in a deep way that he doesn’t even understand yet. In all honesty, he would’ve already fucked you to just get it out of the way, but he knows it’ll be more than that. You walking into the bar is kismet, he was ready to play a long game. 

His hand comes to the side of your face, drawing your attention back to his eyes. “You get kind of small baby?” He asks, no judgment in his voice. 

Your eyes start to feel watery as you nod in response. “I already know sweetheart,” he smiles at you. 

“You do?” you whisper, your voice not having the strength to ask. 

His smile grows, and that alone eases so much of your anxiety. “I could tell since the first time we touched, and by how you talk to me, how nervous you suddenly get, how your voice sometimes changes,” he explains.

Your cheeks heat up. Are you really that obvious? 

“Is that bad?” You ask, desperately wanting his reassurance and praise. 

He shakes his head immediately. “No, baby. Not at all. I’ll take care of you, promise,” he assures you. 

You find yourself slowly leaning in toward him, wanting so badly to connect your lips to his. But he diverts, using his hand on your cheek to tilt your head down and kiss your forehead instead. You close your eyes and sigh, kicking your feet slightly in the chair. 

“Not yet,” he whispers in your ear. He stands up, taking your hand in his. He throws some cash on the bar and pulls you to stand up. “Let’s go,” he smiles down at you, then wraps his arm around your waist and guides you out of the bar. 

Your mind is already feeling a little fuzzy being so close to him. You feel like you’re floating, like this is all just some insane dream you’re in, not like it’s actually happening. 

The brisk air outside brings you back a little, and you search for Jo’s car in the parking lot, suddenly remembering why you were here in the first place. “Wait,” you say, stopping to look for her. “I don’t see Jo’s car,” you mutter.

Eddie shrugs, “Told you.”

You sigh and pull out your phone, seeing three missed calls from her and a bunch of texts about “leaving to work things out,” “whoever you were talking to was hot” “sent you money on venmo for an uber” and “call me when you get home”. You roll your eyes.

“C’mon,” Eddie encourages you, seeing your exasperation with the friend, and remembering why you say you might like to spend time by yourself in the first place. 

He guides you to a black truck and opens the door for you while guiding you in by your hips. You swear every touch flusters you more and more. You never want his hands off of you. 

The drive to Eddie’s feels quick. His hand doesn’t leave your thigh, and your gaze continually drifts from his profile to the road. He drives safer than you’d expect, and doesn’t waste time on small talk. 

His grip on the steering wheel is tight, and the one on your leg isn’t any more gentle. He breaks the silence that had started once you two got in the truck. 

“If you want to stop at any time, even right now, just say ‘red’, okay?” he says. The confirmation that this is really happening has you nearly shaking in the seat. 

“O-okay,” you stutter. Get a grip, you think to yourself. 

Eddie squeezes your thigh. “You’re so fuckin’ cute when you’re nervous,” he chuckles. 

You look out the window next to you, avoiding the heat you feel from him. “I’m not nervous,” you mutter - a bold faced lie.

“Okay sweetheart,” he says condescendingly, patting your thigh before moving his hand just slightly farther up your leg. You gulp, and resist moving your own hand to his, trying to keep your composure. 

He moves it up just a little bit farther as he pulls up to a red light. His full attention turns to you as you stare at the dark, empty street. You breathe heavily and he raises an eyebrow at your lack of resistance. 

“Oh, gonna act tough now?” he challenges. You turn to face him and shake your head no, putting your hand on top of his and squeezing it. 

“That’s right, because you don’t need to be all tough around me, right baby?” he coos. The way he talks to you goes straight to your core, making your brain fuzzy. It’s too easy for him. 

You see the light turn green and point to it. “Lights green,” you say, trying to get his attention off of you so you can try to regain focus. 

“Answer me,” he replies. “Tell me you know you can let go and let me take care of you,” he urges you, not moving an inch despite the green light in front of the car. 

“I- I know,” you respond, but it’s not good enough. 

“C’mon baby you know better. What do you know?”

You shut your eyes and try again, trying to let the words you say be true, and it pulls at your heart. “I k-know you’ll take care of me,” you whisper. 

“Good girl,” he smiles, then goes past the green light. 

It’s only a few more blocks before he’s pulling into a driveway of a one-story home. It’s modest, but still nice, and private with some land. You can’t tell much in the dark, but it looks like he has a lot of space to himself. 

Eddie unbuckles your seatbelt for you and jumps out of the driver's seat, coming to open your door before you can even try. 

He holds his hand out for you and walks you to the door, hand in hand. When inside you’re slightly surprised by how put together the whole place is. Sure, there are a few jackets here and there, some toys for his kid, and maybe a cup or two, but other than that it’s nice. There are posters and tour photos everywhere, as well as a nice record player and really nice looking stereo. There’s a tv that looks like it hasn’t been touched in a while and, from what you can see, the kitchen looks retro and cool as well. 

Eddie lets you observe, watching you get comfortable as he throws his keys on the counter. 

“This is nice,” you smile. 

He shrugs. “It’s alright,” he replies, then turns toward you. He looks down at you in a way that makes your heart thump out of your chest, and the heat between your legs only increases. 

He brings his hand to your face, letting his thumb trace over your lips. “So pretty,” he mutters, and it makes you scrunch up your face, trying to turn away from the compliment. But his hold on your face grows firm instantly. 

“Uh uh,” he tuts. “When I compliment you, don’t run, you say ‘ thank you ‘, understand?” He instructs you, his tone serious but calm. You haven’t given up control like this in a long while, and as hard as it feels to let go, you try to allow yourself to listen to his instructions. This is what you’ve been wanting. 

You nod and he smiles softly at you. 

“Let’s try again,” he says. “Because I really do think you’re so beautiful, have ever since I first saw you.” 

It takes everything in you not to squirm and run under his gaze. But you lock yourself into place, let yourself give in to his hold. “Thank you,” you say, thinking you were strong, though it comes out barely above a whisper. 

“Open,” he instructs, and you do so immediately, opening your mouth as he pushes his thumb past your lips. You wrap your lips around the digit and your eyes flutter closed, moaning as you feel yourself slip deeper and deeper. 

He gives your cheek a light tap, making your eyes open as you continue to lick around his thumb. “Eyes on me sweetheart,” he mutters, his own eyes getting that dark intensity as he watches you. 

“Slaps okay baby?” He asks. 

You nod again, mumbling a “mmhmmm” around his thumb. He holds your face and raises his eyebrows, silently asking you to answer again. 

You do so as best as you can with his thumb still in your mouth, “Yes sir.”

He smirks, and gives your cheek a slightly harder slap, one that stings a little, and it makes you smile wide. You keep his thumb between your teeth as you smile and look up at him, the adrenaline running all through your senses. 

“Thank you,” you say shyly.

He leans down to kiss your now red cheek, and it makes you stiffen slightly, feeling his lips so close to your own. He hovers over your cheek, giving small wet kisses in a path from your cheek to the corner of your mouth. 

He stalls there for a moment, neither of you moving, just breathing each other in as he removes his thumb from your mouth. 

Your eyelids are heavy, both seeing him and sensing him at the same time. 

“Can I kiss you?” he asks. Your stomach twists at the idea, your core pounding in anticipation between your legs. He didn’t have to ask at this point, but the fact that he did made you feel incredibly safe. 

“Please,” you reply, though before the word is fully out of your mouth his lips are on yours. 

It’s a passionate kiss, his soft full lips connecting with your own, first just as two lips meeting, then as two melting together. He leads easily, his hands gripping your face as yours find his arms. It’s intense but not too rough as he backs you up against the wall, locking you in place with his lips and his body pressing up against you. 

The gasp that leaves your throat is one of pleasure, and it makes Eddie groan lowly in response. He breaks the kiss to slot his leg between yours, giving you the slightest bit of friction to your core as his forehead rests on your own. 

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so fucking long,” he admits. 

You give his lips a quick peck in response. “I’ve thought about it lots,” you reply, and he quickly reconnects his lips with your own. 

This time, though, his leg is pushing up into your center and you start grinding against it. Your kisses become more broken as the friction starts to heat you up, your breathing becoming ragged.

Then his ringed hand comes to your throat. He chuckles at your whine, at your involuntary grinding on his leg. “Aw baby, so needy,” he says, taunting eyes starting into your own. 

You struggle to breathe, getting slightly lightheaded from the choking and pleasure mixed into one. 

His demeanor grows more and more dominant as he watches you fall apart beneath him. You want to reach out and touch him more than anything, but your fumbling hands can barely reach the clasp on his pants before his hands stop you. 

Both hands immediately grab your own and pin them above your head to the wall, causing you to gasp. You resist slightly, and it makes him add even more pressure to your wrists.

He’s looking down at you with dark eyes, his leg still pressed against your core, now almost too intensely as he holds you in place. 

“Did I say you could touch?” He asks. 

His voice both scares you and ignites you. You’re putty in his hands. 

“No d-” you stop yourself, not sure if that’s an honorific he wants to use, though you so desperately want to say it. Immediately one of his hands lands a sharp crack across your face, causing you to yelp, leaving your cheek stinging. 

Your mouth hangs open as you look up at him with slightly wet eyes. His jaw is clenched. 

“Don’t hold back,” he says. “Say it.”

You hesitate, knowing that calling him the ‘d’ word will absolutely drop you into the most vulnerable space. 

But you want it so, so badly. 

His free hand comes up to squish your cheeks together. “It’s either that, or ‘Sir’,” he tells you, giving you the option. 

You whine and whimper, but he doesn’t let up, only presses your wrists together harder. 

You muster all the courage you have, knowing it’s the entire reason you’ve wanted him in the first place. You’ve been wanting this feeling again for so long. 

“Daddy,” you breathe.

“Fuck,” he groans, pressing his hips into yours, and you can feel just how fucking hard he is through his pants. His hands release you only to find their way to your ass, squeezing hard as he motions for you to jump. 

You do slightly and he catches you, holding you on his hips as he connects his lips again with yours. You wrap your legs around his waist, your arms around his neck. You feel like you’re floating, the heat between you two palpable. 

He breaks the kiss to walk toward what you can only assume to be the bedroom. As he does, you rest your head on his shoulder, giving little kisses to his neck as he squeezes your ass. 

He drops you on the bed, making you giggle as you land on your back. 

“Stay here,” he says to you in the dark. You do as you’re told as he walks away, apparently moving to flicker on a small bedside light, just bright enough to create a light warm hue in the room.

As he walks back over to you, he takes his shirt off and your heart immediately beats harder. Your eyes widen as you take in his tattooed frame. His light skin is littered with ink, as well as toned with some muscles that make you clench around nothing. You stare up at him as he goes to remove his rings on his nightstand. 

“No no,” you stop him. “Leave them on,” you request. He raises an eyebrow at your tone. 

You recover quickly. “Please - please leave them on,” you correct yourself. 

He smiles at you, and obliges, putting his rings back on his fingers and coming back to crawl over you on the bed. 

“So sweet, but so naughty,” he says, placing kisses on the side of your neck. His hands roam your sides as your body contorts to his own, trying to feel all of him on top of you. He grabs the hem of your shirt and lifts up as you raise your arms, revealing the little white bralette you had thrown on in your hasty leave of home. 

He immediately goes to your chest, pushing your tits together and kissing them, sucking on the skin hard enough to make you whine. 

“Oh fuck fuck,” you gasp, feeling him leave a hickey on your breast. You want to run your hands through his hair, your fingers are practically twitching, but you know better. He licks the sore spot as he undoes the heart clasp at the front of the bralette, exposing your chest fully to him. 

“God baby you’re so fucking perfect,” he praises you, groping your tits in his big hands. The sensation of him massaging your tits alone has you arching your back to be closer to him, nevermind being able to feel the bulge of his dick on your waist as he straddles you.

“Thanky ou Daddy,” you whine out, trying to adhere to the small rule he gave you earlier.

At your response he comes back to meet his lips with yours, one of his hands getting lost in your hair, gripping it just a little harshly. “Such a good girl,” he says, and you whine. 

He releases you and starts kissing down your neck, exposed chest, tummy, and to the top of your jeans. He unbuttons them agonizingly slowly. You watch with glossy eyes as his strong hands undo your jeans and roll them down your legs, wasting no time and taking your panties with them, leaving you bare in front of him. 

He looks at you hungrily, his hands gripping your fleshy thighs and spreading them apart. It all feels so intense, feeling so bare in front of him, but all you want is for him to touch you.

You whine as he stares at you, wiggling at the lack of touch. 

“I know baby, I know,” he says softly, his left hand slowly tracing down your thigh and dancing dangerously close to your dripping core. 

“I just have to admire your pretty little pussy, so wet for me already,” he says. You turn your head in embarrassment, your eyes immediately rolling back as his finger dances over your clit. 

You’ve been dreaming about this for weeks now, wanting Eddie’s touch to consume you and fuck, he knows what he’s doing. Despite his demeanor, he’s so gentle, so delicate, touching you as if you could break underneath him as he circles your clit. 

He studies you, watches your breathing and how it changes, seeing which spot and tempo seems to work best. You can’t help the little whimpers that escape your lips as he rubs your wet pussy with perfection. 

“Fe-feels so good Daddy,” you moan, your hips starting to grind against his patient hand. 

“Doing so well for me baby,” he admires you. “Gonna let me taste you sweetheart? Gonna let Daddy taste this pretty cunt?”

You groan at his foul words, the questions themself nearly pushing you to an early edge. “Yes please, please please,” you beg, though it’s unnecessary as Eddie attaches his mouth to your clit, his finger moving toward your entrance. 

He moans the second he tastes you, and you do the same, immediately feeling a rush of pleasure consume you. 

To no surprise, He moves his tongue expertly. He starts with slow, deliberate circles, applying just enough pressure to ignite all the senses and nerves around your cunt. You swear you don’t even know how to pleasure yourself this well, and it’s a feeling you never want to stop. 

“Oh my - fuck yes,” you moan, and he hums in response. He’s just as elated to have you like this for him, coming undone in his bed, naked and vulnerable and oh so sweet. 

He picks up his pace and starts to press his finger into your core, curling it just right to rub that spot inside of you as he licks and sucks your clit. 

Your legs start to shake. “D-daddy yes yes please,” you whine, not even sure what you’re asking for. Your body feels ignited and absolutely euphoric as he continues relentlessly, moaning into your cunt at the sound of you coming undone. 

“I feel, it feels,” you stutter, trying to verbalize the ball of heat building in your lower belly, feeling the nerves of your spine begin to light up. 

He only comes off of you briefly to say, “Ask me.” You know even through your hazy brain what he means. 

It’s almost too late. “Pl-please please Daddy can I c-cum,” you gasp. 

“Cum baby,” he grunts into your cunt, making the ball of heat explode. Your vision goes white as your back arches and toes curl, your legs squeezing around his head as he refuses to let up, making sure your orgasm lasts. You swear you’ve never felt anything like it, and can barely comprehend how long your high lasts, until you feel Eddie crawling up your shaky body. 

He brings his wet lips to yours making you taste yourself as your tongues collide. His hands don’t waste time undoing his pants and pulling down his boxers, letting his dick spring free and hit his stomach. 

“Wanna taste you,” you whimper, opening your lidded eyes to see him already starting to grind against you, his dick thick and long. 

“Fuck baby, I just need to be inside you,” he grunts. 

You can’t help the blissed out smile that takes over your face, knowing that he wants this just as badly as you do. 

“You taste me next time, okay sweetheart?” He reassures you. Next time? Next time. All you can think about is that he wants you again, already. 

The thought consumes you as you feel his pink tip push against your entrance. Despite being extremely lubricated from him pleasuring you, you know it’s going to stretch you. 

He starts slow, and you can tell he’s holding back just for you. You gasp as he breeches your entrance, stretching you out. 

“Shh. shh baby I know,” he coos, bringing his finger to your mouth for you to suck on while he invades you. 

Your legs shake slightly as he continues forward, each inch lighting you up inside. 

You whine and whimper around him as he mutters, “Fuck, such a tight little cunt, so fucking perfect for me - just for me isn’t it?” 

You nod and whine as he bottoms out inside of you, nearly collapsing on top of you as you both groan at the feeling. You feel incredibly full, so warm with his body on top of yours, so safe being surrounded by him.

He starts slowly moving his hips, and the sounds you make are music to his ears.

“Feels sso so good,” you moan, and he brings a hand to your throat, squeezing as he leans up and begins to pound relentlessly into you. 

“That’s right, take it baby,” he grunts, his hand squeezing your throat as your cunt squeezes around him. 

He takes your spread legs and puts them on his shoulders, leaning over you slightly to give him deeper access. You moan loudly, whining at how deep he goes inside of you, you can feel him in your fucking stomach. 

But the way he changes his thrusts to rub inside that spot inside of you makes your vision see stars, and he can tell. 

“Oh that’s the spot huh baby? Holy fucking - fuck,” he can barely keep it together himself as he watches your tits bounce, your face contort with pleasure. 

This orgasm is coming on faster, your hands moving to grip his arms, nails digging into him as you can barely take the pleasure. 

“FUck fuck,” you groan, head thrown back. 

“Yeah give it to me, cum on my fucking cock,” he grunts, giving your face a slap and holding you down by your throat as he hits that spot inside of you without mercy. 

You cum with what feels like a wave of pleasure that takes over your whole body. You feel it everywhere, and Eddie can’t hold himself together at the sight. 

“Oh you’re so fucking - look at you -” He stutters, almost stopping his thrusts to prevent himself from cumming, but your eyes shoot open.

You look up at him with wet eyes and swollen lips. “Please, please Daddy please cum in me” you beg, watching as he tries not to fall apart above you. 

But that does it for him, he can’t control it. “Fuck baby, go-gonna fucking cum in you, fill you up,” he grunts, his thrusts stuttering as he falls apart.

You watch in awe as his eyes close and his flushed face contorts with pleasure, feeling his warm seed coat your insides. 

He falls on top of you, riding out his own high as your legs fall open, allowing him to press his chest against your own. His forehead meets yours as he brings his lips to meet your own swollen ones in a breathy kiss. 

Your eyes open wide as you separate, looking at him like he put the stars in the fucking sky, and you know you’re in trouble with how much you liked that - like him. 

“Thank you,” you whisper, taking your bottom lip between your teeth as he kisses your forehead. 

“No, thank you sweetheart,” he replies, bringing his nose to brush against your own. 

You stay close like that for a while, just breathing and taking each other in. You didn’t want him to pull out, didn’t want to lose the feeling of him inside of you. But after a little while he did, falling to your side and bringing you to cuddle on his chest. 

His hand comes to rub your head, brushing your hair and kissing your cheeks and forehead with a hum. You let yourself enjoy his sweaty scent, the hormone filled room making it feel like you were lost in a cloud. 

“You okay?” He mumbles, using his hand to turn your head up to face him. 

You nod. But you get worried immediately at overstaying. You don’t want to impose. 

“I should - uh I should pee,” you say, moving to get up. 

He nods, worried that you’re regretting everything that just happened. He holds his hand out to help you stand up on shaky legs, and much to your surprise, he walks with you to the bathroom, his arms on your waist. 

“I can walk,” you giggle, his hands guiding you to the toilet. 

“Mmm,” he hums, “I’m really not so sure about that baby bear.”

You giggle as you sit on the toilet, and he stands at the door, but faces the other way. You go pee and wash your hands with Eddie standing guard. The second you stand in front of him he sweeps under your legs and carries you bridal style back to the bedroom, making you a giggly little mess  in his arms. 

He sets you gently on the bed, and sits next to the bedside, rubbing your legs as he looks at you softly. 

“Do you want to take a bath or just shower in the morning?” He asks. Your heart jumps to your throat - he wants you to stay. 

“You- uh, you don’t have to it’s okay,” you stumble over your words, not wanting to impose.

“I want to,” he interrupts you, immediately silencing your thoughts. “Get comfy, let me go get some water and snacks. Text your friend that you’re home safe,” he says with a wink. 

You smile at his words, feeling warm and taken care of as you cuddle up under his covers. You reach for your phone on the floor next to your discarded floors and text Jo that you’re safe. 

The exhaustion of the night starts to wash over you, your eyes starting to feel heavy as your head rests easily in Eddie’s bed. 

He comes back into the room wearing a pair of gray sweats hanging lowly on his hips, carrying two water bottles, a banana, and some popcorn. He smiles at the sight of you in his bed, warm and small and safe. 

He sets the snacks on the nightstand and kisses your forehead, making your eyes flutter open. 

“So cute,” he smiles. “Want a shirt, baby?” 

You nod and he grabs one of his big band tees as you sit up. “Arms up,” he instructs, and you do as you’re told, letting him pull the shirt over your naked frame. When your face pops out of the top, he holds your cheeks lightly, bringing your lips to his for a kiss. 

He pulls away slowly, and it scares you how full your heart feels. 

“Are you gonna let me be here for you sweetheart?” He asks, moving his hands to hold your own. 

You smile shyly. “I think I'd like that,” you reply. 

“Not just tonight,” he corrects himself. 

Your eyes start to water. He’s just too sweet, too perfect,  it doesn’t feel real. 

“You mean it?” you ask/ 

“As long as you let me be here for you, I will,” he confirms. 

And you smile because maybe, just maybe, this is right.   

[ooo-protean-ooo]

nsfw — 18+ only, harringrove smut

Billy inhaled the smoke into his lungs and let it out with a soft puff. The boy in the passenger seat beside him was still rambling on about something or other. Not that Billy wasn’t listening— just it was really fucking hard to pay attention to what Steve was saying when he looked that damn good.

Fuck— Harrington. Billy hadn’t been lying when he’d called him “pretty boy” so soon after they’d first met. ‘Course he was able then to pass it off as teasing, taunting, even. Like a good, old-fashioned, high school rivalry. No one would possibly read into that.

Billy guessed it was different if you were on the receiving end of said taunting, since reading into it had gotten Steve to where he was now, sitting in the front seat of Billy’s infamous Camaro. In an empty parking lot.

“And so then, somehow, I got roped into giving them rides everywhere and—”

“Jesus, Harrington!” Billy interrupted, throwing his cigarette butt out the window and onto the asphalt. “Do you ever shut the fuck up?”

Steve snapped his mouth shut fast, turning towards Billy and looking almost hurt in his soft eyes. But upon catching the wicked grin spreading across Billy’s face, his expression shifted from absolutely appalled to slightly confused, and yet, intrigued.

“Um…yeah?” Steve began hesitantly. “I do shut the fuck up, mostly when I’m not being forced to carry the whole conversation, Hargrove.”

And there was that bitchy, “King Steve” attitude Billy had heard so much about. Good, he thought, all the more satisfying when I’m the one to make him close that pretty mouth.

Billy smirked at Steve’s pouty lips, his huffy shoulders, now facing more towards the passenger side window than straight ahead, and huffed a laugh.

“And what’s so funny to you?” Harrington snapped. His snarl reminded Billy of, mmm, an angry kitten. He was just about as intimidating as one and twice as cute. “Y’know, I don’t appreciate you asking me to hang out with you, and then the second I do, you—”

Billy scoffed, interrupting him again and still smirking.

“Y’know,” Billy mimicked his tone, “you keep talking, and all I can hear is you begging me to shut that mouth for you.”

Steve’s eyes widened in shock, “I— I don’t— um, what—”

Billy rolled his eyes, “C’mere, pretty boy.”

He reached forward, his fingers finding the nape of Steve’s neck, just barely brushing through those famous Harrington locks, and gently pulled him closer. To Steve’s credit, he didn’t pull away, and soon Billy’s hand was cradling his jaw, he was leaning in, and Harrington was letting him.

Billy hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath, but then their lips touched, and Billy definitely sighed. Steve’s lips were melting onto his, and fuck yeah— so this is what kissing Steve Harrington felt like.

Billy guessed he couldn’t blame the girls he’d heard tittering at school about “making out with Steve” accompanied with dramatic, dreamy sighs, cause this was something else.

He’d intended for this kiss to break the ice, get his intentions across, etc. But he hadn’t accounted for the softness of Steve’s lips, the barely-there flick of his tongue, and the intensity with which he returned Billy’s initial touch.

Harrington’s palms were cupping his cheeks now, and though he seemed content to let Billy take the lead, he mirrored each of his touches with a growing passion.

Billy’s hands were everywhere in an instant, Steve’s thighs, his neck, his chest. They dipped inside his jacket, and the boy shivered into his touch. Billy smirked into the kiss at the reaction he’d elicited and decided right then and there that he needed more.

He fumbled for the hem of Steve’s shirt, unwilling to tear their mouths apart, and upon finding it, slid his hand underneath the fabric and up the soft bare skin. He traced the outlines of Steve’s curves, the firm edges and contours of his muscles, up into a patch of hair dancing between his pectorals that Billy hadn’t even known existed until this very second.

“Shit, fuck,” he muttered into Steve’s mouth. Billy’s cock twitched in his blue jeans at the feeling on his fingertips. If he’d been half hard before, he was definitely fully up now.

He reached up into Harrington’s pretty brown hair and tugged, effectively tipping the boy’s head back, and breaking the kiss. Steve let out the prettiest moan Billy had ever heard as his lips pressed against his neck for the first time.

Billy showered the pale skin with kisses, soft at first— then harsher, biting and sucking, and relishing in the gasps and moans that fell from those pouty lips.

“Billy,” Steve sighed, his hands roaming all over the tan skin of the boy in front of him. “Shit— Billy—” he forced each word out in a new breath, almost like he was gasping for air. “Fuck— I—”

“Hmmm?” Billy hummed, letting the very tip of his tongue trail up towards Steve’s earlobe.

Steve was grabbing onto his thighs, thumbs brushing the outline of Billy’s dick, over and over again, like he was willing the fabric separating them to disappear. “N-need— Ohh.”

Steve’s moan was nothing short of sinful when Billy let his hand drop to the boy’s crotch, where, as he’d hoped, his jeans were now tenting painfully. “Mm, what do you need, baby?”

Steve only hummed as Billy pressed the heel of his hand against his hardness, like he couldn’t remember what it was he’d needed.

“Use your words, hm? S’all you wanted to do a second ago, remember?”

Steve squeezed his hand over Billy’s dick again, “Wanna— feel you?” He’d said it like a question, but suddenly Steve was moving, pressing Billy back into the seat and climbing into his lap. He straddled him easily, sitting back onto Billy’s upper thighs, maneuvering until their clothed erections were pressed against each other.

Billy sat back and watched as Steve pecked his lips once before attacking the buckle of his belt.

“Holy fuck, yes,” Billy groaned as he watched the angel sitting atop him prying at the leather that sat so snuggly around the denim at his waist. He lifted his hips up to give him a hand and started working at Steve’s own belt.

When they’d both succeeded in ridding each other of the offending material, Steve had the button of Billy’s jeans popped and the zipper down before he could even blink. He was working Billy’s cock out of its confines by the time Billy found any words at all, and even when he did, all he could come up with was—

“Eager there aren’t we, Harrington?” though it didn’t come off quite as confident as he’d hoped. Not when his hips were practically rutting up into Steve’s hands on their own accord, and his breathing sounded like he’d just hiked a damn mountain.

“I guess we are,” now it was Steve’s turn to smirk, though his hips were moving slightly too, like they were fighting to meet Billy’s. His breath was warm and somehow sweet, and tendrils of his always-perfect hair clung to his sweaty forehead. He guided Billy’s hands to the button of his own jeans, and muscle memory must’ve been helping cause thank god Billy managed to free Steve’s length without too much fumbling.

Steve pushed first his own jacket off his shoulders, before coaxing Billy’s off. He slipped off his shirt, but left Billy’s shirt on him, opting instead to only unbutton it all the way, leaving the bronze expanse that was Billy’s chest fully bare to him.

“Touch me, Billy,” Steve murmured, and Billy coaxed him up onto his knees so that he could tug his jeans and boxers down as far as their position would let him.

Steve’s hands were on the back of the seat on either side of Billy’s head, and Billy took this golden opportunity to not only grab Steve’s ass, but also to tip him forward enough to bury his face in that soft patch of hair on his chest.

Their cocks were trapped against their bare stomachs, sliding and rubbing against each other as Billy pulled Steve’s hips towards him over and over again. Steve’s tip was leaking pre-come all over, and Billy was dying to taste it. Next time. Right now, he needed to come. Fast.

Something about the most perfect boy he’d ever seen basically, practically riding him was proving to be way too much for his brain (or his dick) to handle. He reluctantly released Steve’s ass, giving him a harsh squeeze and a little smack, before holding up his palm to Steve’s mouth.

“Spit,” he ordered. Steve obliged and sat back a little, allowing Billy to grab both his own aching cock in one fist and Steve’s in the other.

“C’mon, doll,” he panted, rhythmically stroking his own dick while the fist around Steve’s remained still. “Fuck m’fist. Wanna see you put on a show for me.”

“Fuck, baby!” Steve moaned loudly at Billy’s words, deciding that yes, that was hot as hell, so he’d do as the blond commanded him. He braced his hands on Billy’s shoulders for an experimental thrust of his hips.

“Thaaat’s it,” Billy praised him as he slowly gained speed to match the other’s fist. “So good for me, aren’t you?”

Steve whimpered, nodding as the pressure in his dick only seemed to build. His release was coming fast, but he desperately wanted to wait for Billy. Luckily, Billy must’ve felt Steve’s cock twitch in his fist.

“Yeah, baby?” he huffed as Steve pressed their foreheads together briefly before tossing his head back in pleasure. Fuck, he was beautiful. “You gonna come for me?”

Steve nodded and whimpered again, his eyes pleading, like he was begging Billy to keep talking.

“You wanna come all over my fist, Stevie? All over my chest, huh?” Billy wasn’t gonna last much longer. “You wanna come with me, baby?”

Those must’ve been the magic words, because Steve gasped like Billy had just given him a gift, “Yes, please— let me— with you!”

“That’s it, doll. Perfect,” the blond panted back in short breaths. “I’m gonna come, you gonna come? C’mon— oh fuck yeah—” He grunted, his forehead dipping onto Steve’s chest as white ropes shot from his cock, covering his fist and splattering against Steve’s stomach.

“Shit— shit, Billy!” Steve called as the other’s orgasm pushed him over the edge. Streaks of creamy white covered Billy’s fist and chest as he worked them both through their releases. Steve shuddered against him when he let go to grab a towel from the floorboard, hunching over his body, caging him in and not caring that he was smearing their cum all over both of their chests. He sighed, satisfied, and Billy couldn’t help but bask in the post-orgasm glow, Steve Harrington in his lap, his hot breath fanning over his neck.

“That’s right,” he murmured. “I gotcha.” Steve kissed his hair softly and laid his cheek on Billy’s shoulder.

He was hesitant to do it— he usually never let himself relax after sex, but he couldn’t bring himself to push Steve off. More than that, he didn’t want to. He wanted to sit here, run his fingers up and down the boy’s back, comfort him or calm him, whatever he needed. He wanted to pull him close and hold him tight; this felt nothing like the after-sex usually did. Somehow, this was safe, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Yep, Billy decided. Cleanup and the towel could wait.

beta’d by my love @hintsofhoney i love you I love you

Work for @billyhargrovebingo and @steveharringtonbingo

Squares filled: B3 "Put on a show" (Billy bingo) and A3 "Harringrove" (Steve bingo)

Title: do you ever shut up?

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 1.9k

Tags: Smut, literally just car sex, no penetration

AO3 link

[ooo-protean-ooo]

Oh my gooood he’s so pretty

#something shifted when this video dropped

[ooo-protean-ooo]

Daaamn.

Insatiable.

Part Two for Undeniable.

Thank you for the overwhelming love and support on my previous fiction. You all had me absolutely gushing and I hope the follow on pleases just as much as the first. Enjoy babes! 😘

Warnings- Fingering. Teasing (oh, so much teasing.) Slight primal Eddie. Hair pulling. PIV unprotected. Hint of masturbation (Eddie.) Breast play, nipple sucking. It’s just full of smutty goodness. Let me know if I missed anything.

The mist coats your skin like dew when you step into the shower, streams of hot water seem to calm your exposed nerves and it’s absolute bliss. The gentle hum rebounds from the walls around you, builds a safe space of heat and water, settles deep in your bones.

Warm hands encase your waist, pull you in, pull you closer.

Eddie’s weight bares around you like a thick blanket, suds of wood and vanilla fill your senses, bubbles gather in the creases of your skin, lather like foamy white of the ocean waves. The cloth glides across your stomach, Eddie’s latter hand follows, leaves tracks in the soap as he washes you.

“This is new.”

The flick to the jewellery on your stomach catches your attention, the small pendant glistens under the cascade and you feel Eddie smile into the nook of your shoulder from behind.

“I thought it was cute.”

“Oh, it is very cute.”

Eddie smooths the cloth over your chest, let’s the soapy suds lather the mounds of your breasts, admires the resistance against your hardening nipples before slipping the cloth between your thighs. The water feels like silk as it falls over your body, the touch washing the most intimate parts when he creates a tender sensation, drawing the cloth over your pussy, gentle and soft.

He drops the cloth, it lands with a sloppy thud against the tiles at your feet, the material quickly replaced with fingers. It’s smooth and delicate, the water creating the perfect slip of assistance as Eddie dips two finger’s between your lips, spreads them softly. Eddie’s arm pulls you closer, resting the palm on the soft of your stomach.

Pads of his fingertips graze your clit, the motion is so feather light that it tingles, sends a new wave of warmth to radiate through, mix with the steam and settle in the core of your stomach. You relax against Eddie, it feels likes you mesh when he gains pressure, his frame moulds around yours, fills the contours and keeps you steady. Your head buries in the dip of his neck, the musty oak aroma seeps into your senses, washes away with the cascade of water and Eddie’s fingers slipping inside you. It’s calculated movements and precise precision, it’s unbearably slow and drawn out, it teases every nerve inside— leaves you whimpering in the humid air and mixed heavy breaths.

Eddie’s tongue dances across the sparse of your neck, twirling and sucking the skin between teeth. Your whole body ignites, washing away with the stream of water when you bare down on Eddie’s fingers, your orgasm rippling in waves.

The following morning is complete chaos. You had managed to overfill your coffee, twice. The static radiates in the air, buzzing in a unbearable high pitch, your own body unforgiving in releasing last nights antics.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You seem a little unstable this morning.”

Your Dad perks up over his mug, back resting opposite the counter from you.

“Yeah, just you know, one of those mornings. How did work go?”

“Actually, I think it worked out. The team is back to basics, I don’t think there should be any more interference.”

You watch his shoulders slump, like the words themselves ease the weight. Last nights efforts wear on his face, his eyes dark in tint, body drawn and tired. The pinch of guilt bubbles in your stomach, makes it coil in a silent reminder and the bitter taste doesn’t wash away with your sip of coffee, like you had hoped.

“That’s amazing, Dad. So less late nights then?”

“Not quite.” He mumbles around the rim of his mug, let’s the steam warm the apples of his cheeks momentarily. “At least until the end of this week. Then it should go back to normal.”

You went to reply, broad your smile and actively show your excitement but when Eddie had rounded the corner, your whole mind blacked out.

It was like someone had come up and kicked your feet from under you, your chest filled with violent butterflies, hoards of them banging against the cage of your ribs— Making your heart stutter.

Eddie in all his fucking glory rounded the corner. His body’s dripping in jewellery from the chains around his neck to the one clung to his hip. The ripped Judas Priest shirt did everything for his arms. Toned muscle peeked through the torn fabric, trails of tattoos out and on full display, pictures and words seemingly springing to life across his skin. Thighs, wrung in the tightest jeans you had ever fucking saw. The material divots in the definition, follows the contours and hugs all the best features. Rips and slashes torn across his thighs and knees and at this point, you’re even questioning if he is dressed at all. It’s a glorious fucking sight when the gleam of morning hues catches the rings adorned his hand, chunky silver braided across his knuckles, the slight protrusion of veins snake up his hand and dear fucking god.

“Jesus, are you okay?”

Your Dad lunges forwards, his own mug discarded when he reaches for your own, that had seemingly slipped from your grasp.

Hands engulf the porcelain, catches it before it collided with the floor, shattered into pieces.

To bad you couldn’t say the same about your sanity.

“Yeah, uh, sorry.”

Your eyes advert anywhere but at him. Your mind reels in double time trying to look distracted, look busy. But it’s inevitable hopeless, you find yourself looking more on edge than intended so you settle with playing with the strings of your pyjama pants instead.

Your Dad gazes you with a look of concern, it’s evidently genuine but offers a look of question and you simply shake your head and smile, watch as he turns and starts to wash the mug and remains of breakfast behind you.

“I don’t start work until 8, I was thinking about heading down town, what do you say?”

Your dad doesn’t look up but you do.

Eddie’s hair is dripping. Locked curls sopping in the watery residue, skin dewy and soft. The reels flip images of oak and vanilla, of bubbles and soap, wet fingers and gentle touch— Has your tongue slick with saliva from the memory.

“Yeah man, count me in.”

Eddie replies, opens his mouth and speaks but his eyes are solid, locked intently on yours.

“There’s a record store just opened up. I haven’t ventured far in yet but the outside looks promising.”

The voice echos behind you, incoherent noise like static. Eddie reaches the counter, bends at the waist and uses his elbows as support when he leans on the top. His chain dips in the collar of his shirt, you see the vine of inky black crawl from his chest up and over his shoulder, watch when he dips his head, winks.

“Now, you have my attention.”

It’s absolutely filthy. The drop in syllable, drawn out and slow when he talks. It’s clear as fucking day exactly who Eddie’s response was directed at, apparently not as obvious to anyone who wasn’t you because your dad picks up the conversation, carry’s on like normal.

The air is thick. It’s strung out and heavy. Full of tension that bares a straight line between you and Eddie, a invisible string that pulls, pulls so hard that you have to physically ground your feet, stop from mounting the counter top and devouring Eddie whole. His expression is quirked, his gaze steady. It’s almost possessive the way he holds the conversation, laughs when it’s needed, asks questions but his attention, his vision is evidently locked on you. He bares his teeth when he smiles, quipped and smug, his eyes follow when you shift your footing, watching, always watching. His tongue darts out, runs in slow motion when he drags it across his bottom lip. Plush and pink, coated in a sheen of saliva before he sucks it between his teeth and it’s driving you insane.

“I’m going to hop in the shower, then what do you say we head off?”

Your dad turns from his position, faces Eddie in question.

“Sounds good, big boy.”

Your dad chuckles at Eddie’s response, like it was some long running joke you didn’t quite understand and heads upstairs.

It’s humid and way to fucking hot in the kitchen, your skin prickles in attention when Eddie comes and pins you against the counter, both arms caged beside your waist. It’s so fucking hot and the air is becoming harder to swallow. It’s borrowed time at this point, it’s minutes lasting seconds when your hands gather in the front of his shirt, white bleeding into your knuckles as you pull for desperation. It’s messy. All teeth and no reason, it’s absolute wreckage the way Eddie sucks your bottom lip, tugging at the corners in a pinch as he nudges your jaw sideways, takes revenge on the pale of your throat.

“E—Eddie, you can’t.” It’s all breath no real noise. “My dad will see.”

There’s a growl against your throat, vibrates the skin underneath before a heavy hand comes and clasps over your mouth. The sting of metal burns your puffed lips, sends pain to pleasure, sends you further into exhilaration. Eddie bites, bleeds a array of colours into your skin follows with groans of satisfaction when you whimper into the palm of his hand.

Eddie frees his latter hand, trails up the curve of your waist, dips his fingers in the soft parts before slipping up and under your shirt.

“Mm, this for me?”

He cups your exposed breast, calloused fingers gaze the bare of your nipple. It’s tiny sparks that prick your nipples to erect, hardened under the excitement of touch when Eddie palms your breast, feels the weight and teases. You instinctively arch to his hand, press your chest further into his grab, desperate for the sensation, desperate for more.

Without breaking contact, Eddie dips from your neck, his hand still firmly held across your mouth as he pulls your shirt up, bunches it right up to your neck and latches onto your breast.

Your chest heaves with the lack of air mixed with the sudden motion, wet and slick, Eddie takes your nipple into his mouth. Rolls the bud across his tongue, sucks and licks like it’s a damn ice cream. He’s non bias when he moves to the other, giving just as much enthusiasm as the latter. It’s a pitiful noise that gets pulled from your throat, the overwhelming feeling of wet and heat across your chest, saliva coats your skin and your body is on fire. He’s rough and needy but takes his time, savours the feeling, the noises, the taste. And when he releases, straightens your shirt and brings his hand to the front of your pyjama pants, smiles right into your fucking soul when he tugs the strings.

Your stomach coils. Tension builds in the core and bubbles on impact, your pussy flutters at the thought and all you can do is whimper, tug his shirt, attempt to pull him closer when Eddie’s fingertips dip below the waist band.

And then it stops. Everything around you comes to a screaming holt, it’s like running into the woods along a path that ducks and weaves through overgrown trees and moss to only be stopped by a unsuspecting brick wall.

“Ain’t that a shame, sweetheart.”

Eddie’s come to rest his forehead against yours, slowly removes his hand from over your mouth. Your lips leaving a wet mark behind.

“I’m not nearly done with you yet.”

Eddie steps away, takes his position back behind the counter and you are all out confused. What the fuck?

It’s just in time. Just when you were quick to open your mouth you’re just as quick to shut it up when your dad walks back in, keys in hand. You hadn’t even heard the shower stop running, hadn’t heard anything but the mixed up puddle that Eddie had left you in, completely zoned out in touch and taste to even realise.

It’s a long afternoon. Your body still tingles from this morning, electric waves burn through your bloodstream and nothing seems to dull as the hours pass. It’s absolute torture, makes you want to stand under a cold shower until your insides stop trembling.

Instead you opt to sleep it off.

It’s black. Everything is draped in darkness when your eyes suddenly jolt open. It’s baring in around you, feels like it’s seeping into your airways and you start to panic, the weight bares heavy on your chest, it’s restricting and absolutely terrifying.

“Shh, baby. It’s just me.”

Eddie’s got one knee propped on the side of your bed, he’s cautiously leaning over you. It’s hard to see, the atmosphere around still so dark, but you feel the brush of his hair against your chest, feel a sturdy hand trace the soft of your stomach.

“Jesus, Eddie. What are you doing? What time is it?”

“It’s past 6, your dad hasn’t left yet. So you got to be quiet for me, okay baby?”

You feel the contact of his mouth just above your belly button, the cool dip of wet ignites your skin as he licks trails in small circles before tugging the jewellery of your stomach piercing into his mouth.

The weight shifts, you feel the bed dip as Eddie manoeuvres himself above you, hands splay beside your head and instinctively you spread your legs, make way for eddie to slip between them. The contact is clearly evident, the strain of Eddie’s cock mounds into your pussy, the thin fabric creating the barest of barriers when Eddie ruts forward.

“Fuck.”

Eddie’s moaning right beside your ear, it mixes with the soft whimpers that spill from your mouth. Your hips meet his in the middle, your own body sourcing out the feeling as Eddie humps harder against you. The black fills with breath and pants, it’s a desperate play seeking pleasure, you both fucking up against each other, the friction all to much and not enough at the same time.

“I want you, Eddie. Please.”

It’s more begging at this point, your pussy so far teased to almost over simulation that the soaking wet mess seeping through your pyjama pants cooled the inside of your thighs.

“Yeah? How do you want me, baby. Tell me.”

Eddie’s slipped a hand under your ass, lifts your hips higher and further, pulling you closer, pressing the curve of his cock deeper against the material— feels like there’s barely anything there at all anymore.

“Ah, fuck. I—Inside me. I want you to fuck me.”

“Good fucking girl.”

Eddie brings his hand from under your ass, slips it into the side of your pants and pulls. He’s lent back on his heels, needy wasn’t the right fucking word, the way Eddie tears your clothing from your body. It was possessive, primal.

Eddie’s shifted from his own pants, bunched up fabric collects at his ankles before he settles back on the balls of his heels. It’s dark, still so fucking dark. But you follow the silhouette, trace the lines of broad shoulders and spread thighs, see the outline of his cock in his hand as he fucks up into his own palm. Sweat glistens under the little light sparing through the window, watch as his thighs twitch under the pressure, twisting and tugging at his cock, strands of hair fan in the shadow.

“Come here.”

Eddie reaches out into the mass, your hand follows, seeks and finds it immediately. Eddie tugs you into his lap, his cock slips through the lips of your pussy, nudges your clit as you feel him out.

It stings. The fresh stretch when you sink your hips onto his cock, slowly but still so fucking big. It fills you whole, has you feeling like Eddie’s cock is sitting right in your stomach. It’s shaky, the first couple of try’s. You work your hips in a pace that’s comfortable, settles the throb of pain when Eddie spreads his thighs further apart, pushes the head of his cock to meet the soft spot of your pussy. Eddie’s shoulders take your weight, you use them a leverage, when Eddie’s hands come to grip your hips, your thighs protest as you bounce on Eddie’s cock. Sickly sweet sounds of skin on skin pulse through the room, Eddie’s hips come up and meet yours when you slide back down his cock. Eddie drifts his hands, comes to rest them under your ass, encourages you further, deeper.

“Oh my god. Fuck, Eddie!”

“Shh, baby.” Eddie mounts your breast, sucks a hardened nipple into the warmth of his mouth, licks and plays with the sensation. “Your dad’s downstairs.”

You knew you should be quiet but every nerve in your body is screaming in exhilaration, the stretch and drag of Eddie’s cock with every bounce has your nails leaving permanent marks in the crescents of Eddie’s shoulders.

“Wouldn’t want your dad to hear those pretty little noises, hm?”

Eddie brings a hand to knot in the back of your hair, his knuckles twist in strains as he pulls your head forward, rests his forehead with yours.

“Don’t want him to see you riding my cock like a filthy little slut.”

It’s all whispers, dirty tainted words mixed with heavy breaths and groans. Eddie bares the words through gritted teeth, growling like instinct, at the image— has him thrusting up and fucking your harder.

“B—But you feel so good, Eddie.”

It’s absolutely pitiful, whiney, high pitched whisper that strangles it’s way from your throat, leaves you feeling desperate and fucked out.

The heat burns a trail from your toes, your stomach boils in anticipation and you know you’re so very close. Your actions become needy, bouncing and fucking Eddie’s cock for your own selfish pleasure, between slick and skin paving the perfect combination.

“You’re close baby, huh. I can feel it. Fuck me until you’re screaming baby. Come on.”

Eddie’s got a solid fucking grip on your ass, the latter twisted into the crown of your hair and he’s mercilessly fucking up into you. Eddie’s words play on repeat, rebound and come back to the start, it sends you further, has your orgasm baring down on his cock in rapid waves. You would have sworn you bit your lip so hard that you felt the trickle of blood seep from the broken skin. Your pussy contacts in spasms, you feel Eddie’s own release mix with your own as he burrows his face into the curve of your throat, sinks his cock as far as it will go into the hollow of your pussy.

It’s a sticky, wet, hot fucking mess when you peel yourself from Eddie, your legs sit like jelly, your thighs burn and your pussy throbs. Eddie cradles you in his arms, presses kisses to your temple. It’s overwhelming, the embrace, it’s soft and gentle, you wanted to stay forever but the distant voice of dinner calling from downstairs has you both scrambling for clothes.

Dinner is nice. Your dad has always been a fantastic cook and conversation is flowing all to normal. Your dad apologises once again for leaving tonight, hopes dinner will smooth the process and you have to fight to urge to tell him that the late nights aren’t as bad now.

There’s jokes and banter, causal conversation and when your dad informs you that there’s apple pie to come, Eddie pops a carrot in his mouth, smirks.

He looks directly at you.

“Can’t wait for dessert.”

[ooo-protean-ooo]

Undeniable.

Part two - Insatiable.

Older!Eddie x Fem!Reader.

He’s your Dad’s best friend but when temptation comes to strong, you just couldn’t turn away.

This fic is inspired by the amazing edits of @eddiemunsons-missingnipple, which make me absolutely feral. 🫠 (pictures used in header created by @eddiemunsons-missingnipple )

Warnings: There’s a age gap. Reader is 20, Eddie is in his 30s. Fingering. Choking. Size kink, maybe? (Eddie is big.) Dirty Talk. Eddie is tattooed to the max. Teasing, a lot of smutty goodness. Dirty thoughts and easy temptations, it’s just filthy, babes. 😘 (let me know if I missed anything)

It started small.

Like a ever present dip that strung low in your stomach, it’s soft, subtle and you almost always missed it. The creep of warmth that prickled the tips of your toes, made your chest bubble like tiny explosions weaving through your bloodstream, left you feeling slightly left of centre with no real reasoning.

It was small, dismissive and evidently so fucking obvious.

You weren’t sixteen, freshly twenty, straight out of your adolescence but you were anything but naive. You knew by the second time the feeling had woven it’s way through your hormones like stitching, pulling, twisting, tightening the thread that lead directly to your cunt— that this was every bit of what you knew it was.

It was wrong. Instinctively and morally, it was everything bad, dangerous and wrong in the world to fragile to even think about— to impulsive, playful, thoughts of sin and lust, desire and temptation— It was fucking carnage and you wanted to dip your fingers, smooth the rough edges like rippled water, you wanted to ravish and explore— let the filth cover your skin like dirt and regret.

You wanted to devour, tempt and play with him.

You could take it. That was no hesitation. Everything he could dish out, you would lick clean and ask for more.

“Hey! Look, I got to go, alright?”

The hand waving across your line of vision breaks the border between your subconscious and draws you back to reality.

“Yeah, yeah. Of course. It’s fine, I’ll see you when you get home.”

He shuffles the jacket over his shoulder, the puff slowly dissipates when he zips it all the way up, a concerning smile plays his lips before stuffing the keys into the side pocket and hoisting his bag on his shoulder.

“Try to be good. It’s a late one, don’t think I’ll be back until morning, 6am at best.”

There’s a slight wince in his expression, it falls and tugs his frame along with it, the weight shifting his stance when outstretched arms pull you in.

“It’s fine, Dad. I have a whole night planned, full of pizza and shitty movies.”

You run little circles at the middle of his back, the thick jacket restrains most of your touch but he gestures with a smile in response regardless, he huffs a laugh, nods and heads for the front door.

You genuinely felt fucking terrible most days, your Dad loved what he did, strived for the best in all aspects of his career and it was truly admirable but sometimes when the days would turn to weeks and the nights would stretch longer and longer, he felt guilty, leaving you for so long, though every reassurance you noted towards him felt like it fell on deaf ears you tried none the less.

Except this time, you weren’t alone.

The gentle hum of water swam through the pipes and trickled like notes through the wall, no, you definitely weren’t alone.

The occupied upstairs bathroom was proof of that, housed by one Eddie Munson.

It was like a cruel twist of fate that landed him on your doorstep, like a perfectly timed occurrence when your Dad mentioned that Eddie was in town and would be staying over the weekend.

You had met Eddie before, many times before, see Eddie was your dads best friend. Childhood friends, in-fact.

The pipes creaked, shuttered to a holt when the water turned off. It was like a alarm that vibrated the walls, sent signals telling you to vacate before he came downstairs, telling you to hide. Four minutes. That’s exactly how long it took for you to take the gap between Eddie leaving the bathroom and going back to his room. You stumbled upstairs, each step seemingly drifting further apart with each stride until you hit the top, feet planted and making a line straight to your bedroom. It sounded good, planned perfect, down to each second until you collided with something that held resemblance to a brick wall, knocking you clean from your feet.

The patches of water residue seeps through the fabric of your shirt, bleeds and stains your skin underneath but the searing heat that bares the curve of your waist sticks like molten from the hold as Eddie bares your weight, keeping you grounded, keeps you from falling.

You feel the muscle pinch, flex beneath your palm, the water soaking between skin, seeps from one pore to other beneath your hand.

It’s soft reels of time, like everything is in slow motion, your eyes rake over the sparse of dewy skin coated in a sheen of water, drops leaving tracks as they follow the contours of definition, the inky black images show so much more refine up close, each placed line and shading painted, stained, perfectly across his chest.

Curls cling to the dip in his shoulders, wet ends create a pool in divots of his collar bone, strands of black glisten from the recent action— everything is so wet.

It’s a sickly wet that drys way to quick, beads mirror your face in tiny droplets painted across canvas that you want to reach forward and taste— the border between water and salt, the cool on your tongue mixed with the taste of him.

“Sorry, I uh, are you okay?”

The wind catches in your throat, sucks any air and words along with it when you finally land in his line of sight— deep, dark eyes fluttered beneath eyelashes that study you.

“Yeah, sorry.”

It’s a pathetic response, it’s all breath with no voice and it makes you want to sink further than you already were.

“Maybe, I should—“

In a instant Eddie let’s go. Hovers slightly to make sure you have your footing but removes himself completely, from touch, from space, stepping backwards. The loss of contact winds you without the actual impact, makes you want to run, makes you want to stay more.

“I’m sorry.”

Eddie’s apology is quiet, knowing.

“No, please. It was my fault.”

You pull a semblance of a laugh, a dry attempt at trying to lighten the strain that had set in the air. Eddie bites back with a smile, it’s lop sided and it quirks his lips to dimple the hollow of his cheeks.

“It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

You can’t help it. You smile. It’s small and shy, makes you dip your head to hide the growing heat that burns to the tips of your ears.

“I was just about to clean up, make a pizza, want to join?”

His voice is thick, syrupy like honey but dark like malt, it bares rough in the back of his throat but cheery none the less. You sense the hope in his words, a strained branch in offering to deescalate the situation so you nod.

“Yeah, would love too.”

The painted skull on his throat bobs along with his adams apple when he smiles, reaches behind him and opens the door and you’re quick to take the message, heading back downstairs.

It’s a mess. The whole kitchen is laid out in flour and dough, ingredients spread across the island, once were in bowls, now a muddled mess of vegetables. Eddie’s got a ball of dough, fingers and knuckles need the springy texture to a mould and he’s helplessly coated in the powdery substance. It clings all the way up to his elbows and flecks decorate his hair.

“Are you laughing at me?”

Eddie side eyes you, the gleam reflects off the light and back into you but you can’t help it. You both look a absolute mess.

“Can you blame me? You said you were good at this.”

“Hey, I am. We got dough right?”

“Yeah, and so does the kitchen floor.”

There’s a drop in his expression, a pouty look before he dips his fingers, finds were the flour has collected most and smears your cheek. The white powder blends with your laughter, to slow to avoid his actions, instead you mimic.

Fingers dip into the bag of flour, you watch Eddie hesitantly step backwards, eyes squinted in a daring gaze before you leap forward, your hand smearing white across his shirt, the trail of your hand print perfectly centred on his chest. The walls bounce with laughter, rebound and echo with squeals when Eddie comes for you. You dip and weave managing to duck under his arm before twisting on your heel and feeling the collision of your back into the counter, but that wasn’t what caught you off guard.

Somewhere between the push and pull, Eddie had reached across mid duck and when you came back up, cashing in to the counter, Eddie had caught your throat.

It was a obvious mistake, a miss of direction when you twisted the other way but the evident pressure was unmistakable. You whined, a needy gasp that slipped way to quick before you could even try to swallow it back down, the flush of your cheeks burn through the rapid of your heart rate and you lean forward. Against all better fucking judgement, you chase the feeling, you lose yourself in the hallow of boring eyes that look back at you, to far gone in the abyss— Your mind swept in a fog, dragged by your ankles and left you looking from the outside in.

“Shit, I’m sorry. Fuck.”

Eddie moves quick, takes three steps backwards, hands raised like a wounded soldier.

“No, no. You’re okay.”

It’s breathy and loose, you mask a laugh behind in desperation to carry the banter, not make it awkward, though you very clearly already had.

He laughs but it’s weak, cautious and when he turns to finish working out the discarded dough, you don’t miss the slight tremor to his movements, the way he swallows thick.

“So, how have you been?”

You pick the vegetables, try to place them back in their respective bowls, busy hands keeps your tone light— Friendly.

“Ah, you know, here there and everywhere. Can never seem to keep my feet planted long enough to enjoy much.”

“Maybe you should settle here. You always seem to drift back.”

You catch him wince slightly and realise maybe it had come across more bitter than intended. You knew Eddie hated it here, ever since high school, or so your dad says.

“I’m sorry, I mean, you just seem—“

“No.” He laughs. “You’re right. It’s like I can’t keep away.”

There’s a playful hint in his smile when hooded eyes glance your way, just for a second. It settles deep in your stomach, the churn that pulls and tightens.

“It’s okay, if you ask me, the town is cursed.”

He laughs at this, it’s deep and throaty when he nudges your shoulder, reaches across and offers the jar of sauce.

“I think you’re on to something there. So, what’s kept you?”

You reach across to spread the sauce on the dough, watching the red seep and blend with the stark white, Eddie steps back, lets you manoeuvre in front of him to reach the sides.

“Dads wanting me to move to collage.”

You hum in response, evening the sauce into the sides, dipping into places you missed.

“And what do you want to do?”

It rumbles like a distant thunderstorm, his breath seeps across your neck from behind you, the warmth pricks bumps along your skin. The slight brush of his chest makes contact with your back, sends your mind deeper into oblivion.

“I, uh, I don’t know yet. Maybe travel.”

“Here.”

Eddie reaches around, leans into you as he guides your hand in smooth circles.

“It’s easier if you cover the whole area in one motion, the sauce will spread more easily.”

His chest moves in perfect waves as he breaths, the pressure pressing into your back with each inhale and it only sends yours into unease. Each lined breath comes short and uneven, it’s a wall that’s compressed against your rib cage, shrinks with every small move, slowly suffocating.

You nod back, willing yourself to pull some kind of composure but when his hand holds yours steady against the wavier of motion, just the view of his hand engulfing yours, sends your hormones in active overdrive.

“That’s it. Just like that.”

It’s over. Your heart shutters to a complete skip, missing several beats as your pussy throbs. It’s a dull ache that nips painfully and if you don’t find a way out now, you weren’t going to be able to stop.

“Are you okay?”

Eddie’s now leaning over you, his hair fans your shoulders, the angle of his words ring like a perfectly chimed bell through your ears as he runs a pad of his thumb over your knuckles— The task of spreading sauce long forgotten.

You instinctively lean into his touch, your throat catches on dry air, leaving a strangled groan to brush your lips. If it weren’t for Eddie keeping your hand so stable, you’d be a complete fucking wreck.

“Am I reading this wrong?”

No, god no.

“Eddie..”

“Just say the word, I’ll back off.”

No, please. Don’t.

“I don’t—“

“We’ll forget it ever happened. Go back to normal.”

But, I want it too happen.

“No, please. Eddie.”

Your hips sink backwards, finds the dip between his thighs and you grind, it’s slow and pitiful, pulls the most needy whine from your lips. Breath is sucker punched from the hollow of your chest, a tension snapped after it had been so far strung out and the gasp that hinders in your throat when Eddie pushes back has all reason bailed and running for the door.

“Fuck.”

The spoon is long discarded and Eddie’s now got both palm’s following the contour of your waist, his fingers dip in to the curve of your frame, touching and teasing the exposed skin.

It’s a helpless battle of push and pull, your heads rolled so far back it now sits in the dip of Eddie’s shoulder, while his hands play puppet along the underside of your breasts— curious palms test the water, squeeze the soft skin underneath, lengthy fingers creep to come full circle and caress you. The warmth spreads like wildfire through your veins, the pinch of fingers as he toys with your nipples has your mouth gapped and hiccuping gasps of air, it all feels like fire and ice and it makes you strain harder— Your hips arching painfully back in search of friction as his ever present bulge presses harder back, looking for one of the same.

“Jesus Christ.. Fuck.”

Eddie groans into the sparse of your throat, the mumbled words pressed into flesh when he moans around the soft of your throat. Teeth graze, pinch, bite. Sink so deep that the skin threatens to break, it’s a purple stain that bleeds instead.

“Fuck, Eddie. Please.”

It’s a complete fucking disarray when Eddie takes hold of your waist, fingertips bruise when he spins you around and hooks two palms under the back of your thighs, lifting you up like you were nothing. Your ankles meet at the small of his back, your hands graze the definition of muscle along his arms when they link around his neck. Your ass perfectly cupped in strong hands and you can absolutely feel the mess created between your thighs. It’s soft and wet, humming with pressure that begs for release and when Eddie places you on the opposite counter, needy hands drag you to the edge, it’s a collision of lips and teeth.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

A fight for air between heated kisses, Eddie’s forehead rests against yours as his fingers work at unloosing your jeans.

Black eyes bore into yours, it’s a pit of lust and desire, the edges burning with flames when he mutters the sentence, each lingering stare silently asks permission with every pop of button he releases and you simply moan back in response, in approval.

An arm slings around your waist, Eddie hoists you up slightly, enough to get a pull on your jeans and pull he does. The thick material drags down your thighs and gets tossed at his ankles.

Eddie’s taken two steps back, enough room to give way to remove your pants and underwear, now, he’s standing there— All tall and built. He’s not overly muscular, toned, but his presence is big and demanding. In one swift motion, Eddie reaches behind him, grips a handful of material and effortlessly slips it over his shoulders and head, leaves him in low hanging sweats— A curtain of curls follow suit, leaving the strays still damp to cling to the dip of his temples. The display of tattoos is mesmerising, his torso, chest all littered in black and white art, tales of story’s and pictures of moments— It’s absolutely beautiful.

“Like what you see, sweetheart?”

There’s a dark ring to his tone, it pulls from the back of his throat is a rasp, a growl almost.

You nod your head, all dumb and shy, feels like you’re drunk just from the view.

“Fuck, baby. You can’t do that.”

You whimper, small and needy, watch as his cock twitches beneath his pants.

Eddie does growl this time. It’s predatory and deep, has you white knuckling the edges of the counter when he comes closer. Your whole body is limp on impulse, reacting to the man in front of you. You knew how you must look, all drawn out and needy, not exactly how you expected to play this out but the tables quickly turned when Eddie shown a slight hint of dominance.

“What did I say?”

Eddie’s hand comes to cradle the side of your throat, gentle, holds you there while he nuzzles into the latter side, breathes in the scent. He’s slotted perfectly between your thighs, a puzzle piece meant to be, and his painfully hard bulge presses into where you are most vulnerable.

“You’ll have to remind me. I forgot.”

It’s absolutely dripping in tease, has your confidence spiked and you wanted to test the waters, see how just how far you could sink before you drown.

“Don’t fucking play with me, baby girl.”

“Ah, Eddie!”

Teeth hook into your throat, skin pinches when he releases, slides his hand to cover the front of your throat.

“Mm. A little fight in you, huh?”

The pressure is evident, it’s spreads across your throat where fingers pinch the sides, tips your head back to bring your vision to his and it feels so fucking good. Your body tingles all over, feels like there’s a flood baring through your bloodstream, making everything heightened— sensitive.

Even if you wanted to fight back, you couldn’t. The palm encasing your throat kept its firm hold and the desperate whine that leaves your lips was anything but expected when you felt Eddie’s latter hand smooth up your thigh. It’s a trail that burns, leaves behind a tingling sensation that scorns your skin. Eddie’s fingertips graze the slit of your lips, teases the sensitive flesh and when the pad of his thumb rolls over your clit, so do your eyes, falling helplessly into your head as the wave of euphoria blankets your senses.

“Na uh, baby, look at me.”

Eddie’s fingers dip into your entrance, your slick making it to easy while his thumb stays steady circling your clit. The intrusion has the walls of your pussy fluttering, they clench around the thickness of his fingers, drawing them in to the knuckles.

Your head falls forward, caught by his grip as hooded eyes strain to focus on the man in front of you.

“That’s it. Good girl.”

His eyes swallow you whole, pull you in head first and you had no plans on stopping it. Eddie’s fingers find a pace, pumping in and out of you, his thumb never leaving your clit. Your entire body trembles from the high, your senses so far on alert that it has you internally screaming. Your stomach washes in waves, the draw of pleasure been brought to the surface, you can feel the bubble, the drop.

“Oh god, Eddie.”

The curl of his fingers has you tipping over the edge, your pussy fights with every draw of his fingers, the heated pressure against your throat sends you further. It’s all a collision of white heat and pleasure, has you babbling and moaning complete chaos.

“Oh fuck, Eddie. I’m going to—“

“Eyes on me, baby. I want to watch you.”

The second your vision locks with his, you’re brought down in crashing waves. Your pussy contracts, leaves your thighs shaking. It’s intense and hard, the release rushes through your system in a whirlwind, boils your blood and leaves your head in a blissed out fog.

Eddie removes his hand from around your throat then his fingers, slowly. Let’s the ride of your orgasm slow before placing the two finger’s between plush lips. His tongue darts out, swirls and sucks the evidence of your cum from his fingers. It’s a fucking sight to see, dark eyes follow your motion before he releases with a soft pop.

You absolutely should be completely fucked out, your body heavy is evidence of it but the need still claws in the pit of your stomach, the hunger that bleeds and screams for more.

You reach out and pull Eddie back in, your ass slipping further to the edge from the slick created when your mouths meet in a tangled mess of lips and breath. You wanted to feel him, taste him. You wanted to explore and trace and Jesus Christ, you just couldn’t get enough. Your hands weave in a knot in his hair, groans vibrate through his chest at the action as you abandon one hand to reach between you both. Finding the hardness that hid beneath his pants, eager hands work through to slip between the barrier of material and skin.

“Ah, Jesus. Oh fuck.”

Eddie moans against your lips and you smile in response. Your hand sinks and wraps around his length, your palm working in slow strokes, doing what you could with how much you had to work with. Eddie was big. Thick and lengthy. You’d be lucky if your fingers could touch around the girth and as Eddie fucks up into your hand, you realise just how much bigger he was.

“Jesus Eddie.”

You hadn’t really need to say it, Eddie knew.

You break from the kiss, slip your other hand out from his hair and tug the left side of his pants down. Eddie chuckles, helps the process by pushing the remainder down, his cock still grasped in your hold and fuck where you right.

Eddie wraps a hand around yours, uses the other to hook a finger under your chin and dips his head into your line of vision.

“You doin’ okay, sweetheart?”

There’s humour in his tone. Your eyes are blown out when you nod, smile. Spreading your legs wider with invitation.

Eddie places both hands to cup your face, presses forward and you feel the gentle nudge of his cock spread your pussy. It slips perfectly, your slick making easy way when he breaks the head in. The stretch burns, it’s subtle but there and when he inches further your throat breaks out in a pitiful cry.

“You’re doing good, baby.”

Eddie’s forehead rests against yours, his gaze holds yours in reassurance when he presses further. It’s unmistakable the width that your pussy is being stretched, its a mix of pain and euphoria, leaving behind the most delicious throb.

“That’s it, baby. You’re taking me so well.”

“Oh, Eddie. Fuck.”

Eddie’s thumbs run the pad of your cheeks when he bottoms out, you whimper against the movement, the pain easing from discomfort to pleasure and it courses through your system like a new high all over again.

Eddie draws out and thrusts back in, his rhythm is steady, slow. Each drag pulls new waves, each one has you moaning for more. The pleasure undeniable, it brings forwards a hunger that seemed to be starved, a pulsating heat that hooks your arms around his neck and has Eddie’s palms resting on your thighs, spreading you further. It’s absolutely filthy the image in front of you. You watch Eddie’s cock disappear in the hollow of your pussy between your legs, fingerprints stain your thighs as Eddie picks up the pace, his hips crashing against yours in a wet collision.

“Jesus H Christ, you’re so tight.”

Eddie’s tattoos flex along with his thrusts, the pictures and words dance across his skin, the black ink shining with sweat.

“Fuck, oh my god.”

“Ah, right there, oh fuck.”

Eddie’s railing you with relentless force, it’s a sticky wet fucking mess, echos of skin and moans bounce around you and his cock feels so fucking good. Your chest hammers against your rib cage, air seems to be long gone with every thrust. His curls stick to the creases of his forehead, his eyes watching you intently, almost possessive.

Your hands weave into the back of his hair and settle just at the nape, knuckles knot around the curls and you pull, Eddie’s head jars back momentarily and when he comes back to eye level there’s a flare of desire that bares straight to your centre, ignites a wildfire.

“Fuck, you have no idea what you do to me.”

Eddie grits out between teeth, the rumble in his tone matches the harsh imprints his hands leave upon your thighs, blunt nails scarring the skin.

“Show me, god, please.”

It’s down right fucking pornographic the moan Eddie emits, he wraps his arms around your waist and without falter, without removing himself he lifts you from the counter and lays you out on the floor beneath.

Before you even tried to protest, Eddie has your legs hooked over his shoulders, your knees press to your chest as he fucks into you. It’s deeper, the thrust of his cock hits the soft of your pussy and has you throwing your head back, even the contact with the harsh floor doesn’t register— Just Eddie’s cock sending you into complete fucking meltdown.

“Like this. M’ want you spread wide fucking open.”

He’s not shy, he pounds away with force and perfect precision, dips his head into the curve of your neck and his moans are like the perfect melody, ringing loud and hard.

“Oh fuck, Eddie. Jesus.”

“Let go, baby. Let me fucking feel you.”

Your stomach churns, the warmth bubbling with one last thrust into your soft spot and it has you clenched tight around his cock. Your orgasm baring down like a earthquake, leaving your thighs trembling and your body fucked out.

“Fuck, good girl, you feel so fucking good.”

Your pussy is soaking, Eddie fucks your orgasm right to the very edge, coats his along too. His thrusts wavier, you feel his cock swell and you reach out, grip his waist and urge him deeper.

“Shit, fuck, I’m going to cum baby.”

His eyes search yours in a hasty need, searching, asking.

“I’m covered, fill me up Eddie, please.”

It’s bares more a whine than a moan, the desperation drawn on every word.

“Holy fuck.”

You feel the hot substance coat the inside of your pussy, Eddie’s release seeping into the most intimate parts and it’s has you on cloud fucking nine.

Eddie sinks above you, his weight rests lightly above yours, the air is thick and humid, filled with heavy pants for air and raspy ends of lingering moans. Eddie rolls over, loops an arm and takes you with him, curled up beside him, tangled in arms and legs and it’s absolute bliss.

Eddie chuckles softly, nudges into the crook of your neck.

“Well, fuck.”

[ooo-protean-ooo]

You’re done when he says he’s done, Steve.

[ooo-protean-ooo]

HNNNNNN STEEeeEEeeeVVIiiIiiEee

Please tell us everything about going dumb on Steve’s cock like… like I feel that dick is so big it actually makes you go empty in the head and he knows it!!! and he loves teasing your for it, asking about your weekend plans while you’re trying to uncross your eyes and muffle a confused huh??

contains; gender unspecified reader; steve fucking r from the bottom; cock drunk reader; praise and some condescension from steve! 18+ only!

“What’re we doin’ this weekend?”

It’s all muddled even if Steve is right under you. His hips slowly thrust in and out of you at a depth that makes him feel like he’s in your lungs. The only thing you can think of, other than how huge he is, is how to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Nearly lined up with the movements of his hips.

He laughs softly and asks again. “We’re seeing a movie, right?”

You can hear him a little more, but you don’t care about whatever he’s saying. He brings you into his chest, wrapping his arms around your back. He fucks into a little faster and harder, biting his lip. “Mmm, honey, got you all fucked out, huh?”

You feel the vibration of his chest as he speaks against yours. You still can’t talk. It feels like the tip of him is pressed against the back of your throat. He touches you elsewhere, trying to prolong your pleasure, and you finally whine right as he hits your sweet spot.

“There ya are,” he coos.

“Huh?” you moan, realizing vaguely that you’re drooling onto his shoulder.

“Nothin’,” he chuckles, “just keep being pretty for me, okay?”

“‘Mmmmmkay.”

He loves when you’re like this. Can’t even speak from how well he fills you up. Can’t focus. Just to see what happens, he thrusts up hard and quick.

You wail something - maybe his name mixed with a swear. Your thighs tighten around him and your nails dig into his shoulders. You gasp and moan, pushing him to do it again. Same reaction. Steve can hardly stand it.

“What would you do if I really fucked you? Huh?” he whispers in your ear. You can hear him now. “Bet your head would explode. Could you take it?”

“Uh-huh,” you moan, pitchy.

“I don’t think so. Look at you now,” he sighs, continuing those soft, long strokes. He pulls his arms away and moves you backwards so he can see your face. Eyes half crossed, mouth agape, drooling. “Holy shit,” he rasps. “My cock got you that messed up?”