#How to Tell if That’s Laundry in That Basket or a Dead Guy

[thatsbelievable]

[peachesofteal]

Heartbeat / Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of Heartbeat. Same pairing as Picture and I got you.

Simon Riley/female reader 3.9k words - part of the Sassy series - AO3 Warnings-Tags: 18+ Minors DNI, pregnant reader, pregnancy complications, Simon is soft for you, flashbacks, emotional hurt/comfort, medical inaccuracies, military inaccuracies, violence. You're slipping in and out.

“But not the thick crust kind. The thin kind, well done. Tell them-“ You heard the sound of a door being shut, and the little jingle of his keys.

“I know, Sass. I know.”

“that I want it with black spots top and bottom. And extra cheese! Last time they forgot it and-“

“Sass.”

“Yeah?”

“I got it.”

“Erm, right.” You hang up the phone with a sigh, rubbing a circle on top of your belly. All you can think about is that pizza right now. Gooey, cheesy pizza with a crispy crust. Your mouth practically waters and you cast a glance at the full laundry basket in the living room with a sigh. Tiny baby clothes aren’t going to fold themselves.

You yawn when you finish, little pants and shorts and onesies all categorized and stacked into piles across the coffee table, sorted by color and size so you’d know where to put them in the dresser. You grab two of the piles to bring upstairs, the idea of a nap sounding better and better as the minutes tick on, and you’re already thinking about how you can convince Simon to feed you the pizza while you lay in bed. A twist in your lower abdomen makes you wince mid stairs, and you groan. Being pregnant is for the birds. When you get to your room, you feel a twinge in your belly, this time stronger, and it nearly causes your knees to buckle. Alarm bells ring in the back of your mind. That didn’t feel normal. You try to take a deep breath but white-hot pain blooms across your body, the sharpness making you gasp, and you fumble for your phone, trying to get the screen unlocked while your body trembles.

“F-fuck.” You hiss against another surge of pain, leaning against the side of your bed for support, dropping the phone completely. It clatters to the ground a few feet away and your legs give out, your body falling to the floor with a thud.

The ceiling of your bedroom is the last thing you see before everything goes black.

Soap whistles. 

“Shew, Sass. You’re lookin’ pure dead brilliant.” Your skin goes hot across your nose.

“Shut up, Soap.” 

“You got a date or something?” 

“Or something.” It wasn’t a date, not really. Just a few drinks with another operator from this base. The 141 had been here for a month, between ops, and Price said you didn’t leave for Belize for another three weeks still. You were bored. You were tired of waiting around. 

“Who with?” Gaz pipes up from the corner and you roll your eyes. 

“It’s not a date. I’m just getting off base, having a couple of drinks, no big deal.” A blur of shadow catches your gaze behind Johnny, and you track it with your eyes until it steps into the light. Ghost. 

“You’re goin’ off base?” he asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest. 

“She’s gotta a date, LT!” Soap practically shouts. Underneath his seemingly innocent smile, there’s a smirk of something hidden. Something he knows that you clearly don’t. You glare at him. 

“It’s not a date, I-“ 

“Did you get going off base cleared with Price?” Ghost tilts his head. Is his stance a little wider? You sigh in exasperation. 

“No. I didn’t think I had to considering we’re ‘consulting’ and this is not a state sanctioned op.” Johnny’s eyes dart between the two of you. Ghost says nothing, just studies you. His eyes travel from your feet to your mouth, and heat blossoms in the pit of your stomach. You turn on your heel and Soap yells to your back. 

“Have fun!” 

You’re sitting at a table, across from your ‘not date’, Johnathan. Very nice guy, communications specialist. He’s spent the last two weeks making small talk with you in an effort to get you here, off base, where he can try to lay it on. Which he is. Trying to lay it on, that is. Succeeding, you weren’t so sure. He was cool, you guessed. Talked a lot. 

“So, I forgot I don’t actually know what you’re doing at Humphrey’s?” You bite your tongue. He didn’t know because you never said. You tried to keep your affiliation with 141 off the radar when the lot of you were on a base. You’re about to launch into some drawn out, confusing explanation, but he makes a weird sound in his throat and looks over your shoulder. 

“Holy shit. Is that Simon Riley?” he practically whispers in awe. This. Cannot. Be. Happening.

You turn nonchalantly to see the giant man in the skull mask standing in the doorway, Soap and Gaz filing in behind him. 

“Yeah. Guess it is.” You’re going to kill all of them. 

“He’s infamous. Like a legend. I heard a rumor the 141 was here but didn’t believe it. Did you know he-“ 

“Aye lass!” You close your eyes. 

“Soap.” You grit out when he gets closer, smug grin plastered on his face. He’s had a few beers, you can tell by how relaxed his posture is. Ghost looms behind him like the god damn grim reaper. 

“Who’s your friend?” Johnathan stands immediately, extending his hand which Gaz takes readily, making introductions like this is some group social outing. Soap asks him what he does, and starts peppering him with questions, effectively stealing the entirety of his attention. Your ‘not date’ devolves into anything but a date in a matter of minutes. 

“Sorry about your date, Sass.” Ghost’s voice rings out as you exit the bar, and you turn with a glare. 

“Are you?” He doesn’t say anything, just watches you from behind the mask until he’s pushing off the side of the building and heading back inside.  

The room is incredibly white. Sanitized. Your eyes flick back and forth, trying to figure out what’s going on. It’s loud, and there are people talking. The ceiling tiles are the ugly kind, small porous patterns bobbing and weaving above your face. More noise. A ripping sound. And then, another. Cool air. You think you hear Simon, above it all. Maybe. He sounds off kilter, unnerved. That’s odd. What’s happening? Somebody shines something bright in your face and you wince. Jesus. Blind a girl, why don’t you? You hear Simon, again. He’s saying your name, first and last. Not your call sign. You want to protest. Then he says your birthday. Your blood type. You try to turn your head, but you can’t. It’s stuck in something. You feel a pinch. Simon. You try to say his name, but another pinch in your arm steals your breath. You fade away.

Your lungs are screaming, tac vest compressing your chest as you sprint across the building before diving forward behind a half wall. 

“This was not the plan.” Gaz says from behind you, and you nod. You knew that. This was definitely not the plan. You were operating so far outside of the plan right now, and you still had not set your charges. 

“Look, take-“ shots pop and whiz by your head, forcing you lower. Your low position is a disadvantage against where these guys are sitting a floor above you, and you’ll both need to move in a matter of seconds. “Take this.” You shove the drive into his hand. “And meet Ghost and Soap at rendezvous.” He stares at you like you’ve lost it. You feel a little bit like that too, but it doesn’t matter. 

“I can’t leave you here!” more bullets fly between the two of you, and you lean forward to peek, firing off a few shots before turning back to him. 

“I am telling you to. I will be right behind you.” before he can argue, you press the button for your comm. “Gaz is enroute to rendezvous location, over.” 

“Roger. What’s your location?” Soap’s voice crackles across the radio but you ignore it, giving Gaz one more beseeching look before you start to crawl towards the other side of the room. “Sassy, location. Over.” Soap radios again. You duck around a corner, walking low in a crouch to make your way down the stairs and into the dimly lit hallway. When you don’t answer, you hear the radio click again, but nobody calls through. A few seconds pass, and then- 

“Sass report your location.” It’s Simon now, and you can practically hear the sound of his teeth grinding. You were breaking protocol. Smashing the plan to hell. Ignoring your superior. 

You were operating blind. 

When you come to the first set of joists, you set a charge, fingers flying over the wires until you were satisfied. Fifteen seconds, not too shabby. 

“Come in Sass.” He calls again, something different in his voice this time. A low vibrato, the echo of mounting desperation every time you don’t answer a call. Your eyes catch your next chokepoint, the long beam running along the first floor. You’re underneath it in a beat, but the charge is giving you an issue, forcing you to close your eyes and take long, slow breaths to steady your hands. Too long, it’s too long, those guys could be on top of you any second, this is taking too long, it’s- “Sass. Report your location. Now.” You take another deep breath, counting in and out until your hands still and the wires cooperate. “Report your location Sergeant, that is an order.” You rip the comm from your ear and toss your radio to the ground. The pit in your stomach widens, threatening to suck you in whole. Simon never calls you by rank. 

You’re blinking and staring at different ceiling tiles now. These are a softer color, like a beige. You think. Everything is fuzzy. You blink again, but this time your eyes stay shut. You try to force them open but it’s too hard, and you huff in frustration. Wherever you are, it smells like disinfectant and bad mess hall food. You wrinkle your nose. Simon laughs quietly in that gentle, throaty way that you only get hear every now and then. Simon?! You really want to open your eyes. Really, really bad. You try, and then try again but can’t, so you try to speak instead. A hand smooths over the crown of your head, and you swear you feel the press of a mouth against your cheek. None of it matters though because you slip back under in a heartbeat.

“Don’t use my name right now.” Simon is yelling at you. He steps closer, close enough that you can see the cracks in the paint around his eyes. “You had no idea what you were doing out there!” He roars, thrusting a finger in your face. “You were operating blind, like a fucking idiot.” Your mouth falls open in shock. “Are you a bloody idiot, Sass?” His raised voice has captured Soaps attention, who drifts closer to where the two of you stand. You glance at him. “I asked you a question.” Ghost snaps, and you feel like melting in the ground. Soap steps between you both, hand out towards Ghost like he’s trying to catch a wild animal. 

“Take it easy, LT.” 

“-from her too, because I don’t want ya to end up with my ugly mug.” It’s Simon, and you can feel the vibrations of his words through your skin, but you can’t see. Everything is dark. “Hopefully, you’ll get her smarts. She’s really smart. Smarter than me. Good with words, and puzzles. Everything.” You want to protest, but your mouth feels like cement, and you can’t even get your eyes open. “You got real lucky, havin’ her as your mom. I’m not gonna be… as good as she is. At this.” The sound of his voice fades and you frantically try to hold onto it before you fall into the inky black of sleep.

He’s watching you pace back and forth, your fingers tapping a staccato rhythm across your belly. You don’t need to look at his face to know he’s clocking your every step. You can feel weight of his eyes, the searing heat of his gaze working its way under the collar of your shirt. 

“I don’t want you here. You can’t just… keep showing up and sitting in my driveway. That’s called stalking.” 

“The other night-“ 

“Was a fluke. I’m fine. I had a moment of weakness but I’m fine.” He doesn’t say anything, just tracks you from where he sits on a tiny kitchen chair. They’re really normal sized, but he dwarfs the one he’s in, jean clad thighs spread wide, arms crossed in front of his chest. 

“Sass-“

“Don’t ‘Sass’ me. Just-“ He stands and your words die in your throat. You turn on your heel mid pace, eager to escape whatever it is he’s about to lob at your armor, whatever weapon he’s wielding that will undoubtedly breakdown your defenses. 

“Sass.” He cuts you off, hands folding over your arms, holding you still. You immediately look at your feet. You’ll break if you look up at his face, and he knows it. “Look at me.” Rage flickers in your blood. 

“No.” You step away, slipping out of his grip. “Fuck. You. You don’t get to just waltz in here, after everything, and pretend it’s all okay because you said you’re sorry. Because you have some self-awareness all of the sudden.” 

“I don’t think everything’s okay, and I regret what happened. I-“ 

“You… You’re such a dick. You pushed me away!” Your voice warbles a little and you swallow it down. “And then you did worse, and I’m so… I’m so fucking angry with you. You were supposed to have my back.” 

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. Your job didn’t get messed with. Your boss and… your… me, didn’t make a backhanded deal to get rid of you! I trusted you. I-“ 

“I know.” 

“STOP saying that.” You’re really yelling now, words flying out of you with no filter, anger taking control of your mouth. “You don’t know shit, Simon Riley. You only know about yourself, you don’t care about me, or this baby, you’re just here to alleviate some weird guilt.��� A shadow flickers across his face, and the baby jams his foot into your left ribs, making you wince. Simon takes a half step forward and reaches out towards you, muscles tense. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing.” You grit your teeth and shake your head. “Your son likes to play soccer with my organs.” You tap your foot impatiently, rubbing your hand in a circle. You usually hum, but you won’t in front of him. Something about it feels too intimate.

This time, when you blink, everything feels a lot clearer. You can tell there’s a tube in your nose, and something, a few things probably, are taped to both of your arms. The lights are bright, and they feel like they’re shining up under your eyelids into your skull. Someone makes a pitiful noise, a half whimper, half groan. No, not someone. You. You blink more rapidly, trying to clear your vision, and turn your head from side to side. Where… where are you? What’s happening? 

“Sass.” It is Simon. Simon’s here. You try to speak but the only thing that comes out of your mouth sounds like garbled nonsense. “Shhh, sweet girl. It’s alright. You’re okay.” Thick fingers stroke across your cheek. Where are you? What’s happening? What’s- 

The pain. The baby. 

Your hands press across your body, eyes wide with panic. The baby, the baby, what happened? Simon’s big hand envelopes yours. You wet your lips with your tongue.

“Baby.” You croak, but it doesn’t really sound like baby, it sounds more like abby, or bubby, or something. Why is your tongue so heavy? Why is your throat so dry? You focus on your bump, trying to feel for your son’s movement or kicking. Your chest suddenly feels tight, and the beeping sound in the background gets steadily faster.

“Hey, hey. Everything’s okay. You’re okay.” You watch him look up over your bed, eyes fixing on something you can’t see before coming back to you. “I need you to calm down. Take a deep breath. Just try.” You do, feeling your chest expand a little further and he rubs his palm in a soothing circle against your belly. “Good girl. Another one.” You get a deeper breath in this time, and his eyes crinkle, just a little, so that you can tell he’s smiling behind the mask. “That’s it. Just relax for me, alright?” You hear the click of a door, and a woman’s voice. She approaches you from the other side of the bed, speaking in low tones to Simon, who doesn’t take his eyes off you. When you glance over at her, she gives you a warm smile.

“There she is!” She says as she presses some buttons on the machines next to your bed. You hear the scrape of a chair and feel the sudden lack of Simon’s presence. You try to call his name, but it doesn’t come out right. A big hand bleeds warmth onto yours.

“I’m right here.” He’s sitting now, head just about eye level with you. Oh. You want to ask him what’s going on, what happened, but your eye lids tug low, and you yawn. “Go back to sleep, Sass. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Where did you learn to cook like this?” You raise an eyebrow. 

“It’s just shepherd’s pie.” 

“Better than a ration pack.” You snort, stabbing the last piece on your plate with your fork. 

“It’s not that hard.” You sigh, leaning backwards. Simon finishes too, and then reaches across the table for your dishes. “I got it.” You say, hand flying forward to stop him. Your fingers brush across the skin of his wrist and you shiver involuntarily. 

“You cooked. Let me.” He rolls up his sleeves, bending forward so he can reach into the sink. He’s washing dishes in your kitchen, the realization settling into your brain as his arms dip below soapy water with a sponge. It’s so… domestic. You feel like you’re in a daydream. You pull yourself onto your feet and say his name over clink and clatter of Ikea plates and the running water, his broad back flexing when he turns to look at you. He wipes his hands on the dish towel. 

“Sass? What is it?” He leans down to catch your eye, brows furrowed. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing.” You whisper, and watch his face, every quiver, every twitch of every muscle, everything you’ve never seen before. You wonder if the baby will have his nose. Maybe they’ll have the sandy blonde hair too, or the deep brown eyes. “Simon.” You say his name, and he frowns, probably thinking you’re about to try to throw him out, again. “I want… I want to trust you. I want to believe you, but this-”

“Give me a chance.” 

“How? You… you wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t pregnant.” His mouth abruptly closes, and he stares at you for a few long seconds before speaking. 

“I think… I would be. That somehow, I would’ve found you again, pregnant, or not.” You take a deep breath. 

“Why did you do it? Why did you shut me out? Why did you have Price get rid of me?” He’s silent for a long time, eyes trained on the ground before he reaches out to take your hand. When he looks at you again, you see it. The fear. The pain. The trauma, rippling across his face clear as day. When he speaks, his voice breaks.

“I was scared.” 

The next time you wake up, Simon’s face is squished next to your ribs. He’s wearing the black hoodie, with the hood up over his head, and the civilian face mask. You clear your throat, grasping for the cup of water sitting just out of your reach, and he’s awake and lifting the straw to your lips before you can even blink.

“Hey.” Your voice sounds a little better. He doesn’t say anything at first, just stares at you for a while. It feels like forever until-

“Bloody hell, Sass.” He slumps forward in the chair, sliding the mask down his face and pressing your palm to his lips. You smile at him, but the stupid tube across your nose tickles, and you reach to yank it free. “No.” He grabs your hand and brings it down by your side. “Leave it be.”

“Simon, what-“ You’re cut off when there’s a knock at the door. Your OB stands on the other side when it opens, her face carefully blank.

You’re sitting across from Ghost, listening to Gaz and Johnny ramble on and on about an op that went south last year, too many things going wrong in one day. 

“It wasn’t the worse we’d been through though, huh LT?” Johnny laughed, ribbing the larger man with his elbow before catching a death glare. You smirked. 

“What about you?” Gaz piped up, raising an eyebrow in your direction. You took a sip of your beer, slowly. These guys didn’t know too much about you, and you didn’t like to divulge too much. Getting too personal with them would be a mistake, you know it. 

“I made a mistake with an IED once. It was on a teenager, thought I had it. Two power sources.” You didn’t say anything else. You didn’t have to. The look Soap gave Gaz was enough.  

“You lose ‘em?” Ghost breaks the silence. 

“And a few others.” Nobody says anything. Ghost nods, eyes never leaving yours. He knows. Better than anyone. 

It’s placental abruption. Minor, or as close to minor as you can come without having to deliver, spurred on by your high blood pressure and previous abdominal trauma, risk factors both you and her have discussed at length. A pang of guilt stabs into your heart. You’ve been shot. Stabbed. Blown up. Worked a burn pit. Inhaled a million different chemicals. You knew this, and still decided to keep the baby. It was hard not to feel the weight of your decision. What if it had been worse? 

She gives you a sympathetic look as she explains, and Simon traces his thumb across your knuckles in the same pattern, repeatedly. You nod robotically as you listen, fingers curled in his.

“So, I want to send you home, but you’ll need to be on bedrest. Ideally, we would like to get you to thirty-four weeks.” Six weeks of bedrest. You stifled a groan. Simon is going to be insufferable. You sneak a look at him. He’s watching and listening like a hawk while she talks about activities you can and cannot do, things you should watch out for, the importance of keeping your stress level non-existent. Once she’s done, she promises she’s going to get you out of here as soon as she can and leaves the two of you alone again.

“I wanna go home.” You whine, scratching at your arm where the IV port is while beating back a yawn that’s creeping up your throat. He looks down at you and your heart breaks. He’s afraid. You squeeze his hand and try to comfort him, even though there's not much you can give. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“I know. And I’m gonna take you home as soon as they let me.” He combs some hair away from your face with his fingers, careful not to get them caught in the tangles. “Just rest for now, okay?”

“Okay.” You mumble, already feeling the pull of exhaustion again. An errant thought enters your mind before you fade away. “Hey. Did you get extra cheese?” He laughs, and you slip peacefully into the warm embrace of sleep. 

[kiddbegins]

Neighbors - Jay Halstead

Requested? Yes

Word count: 1,198

Warnings: nothing major, bug mention

A/n: Idk if you wanted them to get together in this but tada

Masterlist

[Can I request an image with Jay Halstead in which the reader and Jay don't get along very well since the disagreement they had at the hospital when they met because of a patient. And one night the reader comes across a FLYING cockroach in her apartment and starts screaming and Jay helps her get rid of the insect. ]

You didn’t hate Jay Halstead. No, he was just the annoying guy from two doors down that frequently got on your nerves. First off, you met in the Med ED when one of his friends got brought in. That first interaction alone was horrible.

He tries to tell you (a doctor) how you should take care of his friend (a police officer) and you guessed it, Jay was also a police officer. No medical training whatsoever. But he one upped you, went over your head and got his brother to take over the case.

That was just the beginning of it all. Ever since then it’s like he was always there to push buttons. He never took his laundry upstairs in a normal time. You’d go down to put a load in and his clothes would be in the washer.

You of course didn’t dare move them instead leaving a note on his door telling him to ‘finish your fucking laundry’ which sure he listened to, placing the same note back on your door with a thud as he carried his now dry basket of clothes into his apartment.

Not only that but he always, always, managed to park just a little over the line in the parking lot which at the right time made parking nearly impossible. And since it was assigned parking it wasn’t like you could just move somewhere else. Though you did get your karma a couple times.

Parking as close to his driver side door as possible so he’d have to do gymnastics to get in the vehicle. Always earned you a sharp glare when you passed in the hallway.

He was as fed up with it as you were but that didn’t stop him from parking like an asshole. Like tonight. When he parked slightly crooked over the line and you just so happened to be pulling in behind him.

With a bite of your tongue you did what you always did, pulled up nice and snug to his truck and got out, shooting him an innocently sweet smile as you locked the doors and headed inside.

If looks could kill you’d be dead on the ground right now but that didn’t matter. All you wanted to do was get inside, take a shower and go to bed.

The elevator upstairs was taking forever and by the time it was coming to the ground floor Jay had made his way inside and next to you.

The silence was full of tension as the doors opened, a young couple walking out with their dog, breezing past. Jay shockingly let you inside first, following and stepping to the side with the buttons and signaling to be brought up.

“Was that necessary?” His voice cut the silence as he kept his gaze on the numbers changing above the door.

You rolled your eyes, leaning against the opposite corner, “Don’t park like a dick and that wouldn’t happen,” you replied with a shrug, watching as he shook his head just slightly. The door opened seconds later and the two of you split towards your apartments.

His was just down from yours and completely bare compared to the floor mat outside of yours. The rainbow ‘welcome!’ Sign had seen better days but you didn’t mind its wear and tear as you went inside, shedding the outdoor layers the were a necessity in the cold of Chicago.

Your next stop was the bedroom for clothes and then the bathroom to shower. Which you basked in, the warmth of the water holding you in longer than you wanted it to.

As it grew slightly later you moved to the kitchen, deciding to make something small for dinner before something buzzed by your ear.

Absentmindedly you swatted it away, continuing on with the food making before whatever it was, landed on your arm, pulling a loud scream from your mouth, brushing it off quickly and pulling back against the wall.

Your eyes followed it around the room, the door to your apartment flying open, “Are you okay?” Jay nearly tripped coming inside, his eyes zooming around the entrance to your apartment.

The bug landed on the counter, a whine leaving your mouth before you looked up at the man that usually you’d hate seeing but right now we’re so thankful for. Shakily you pointed at the counter, “There’s a bug.”

Part of you was embarrassed but the way his shoulders relaxed as he stepped further into the kitchen made you feel the slightest bit better. “Seriously? You screamed bloody murder over an insect?”

“First of all, it landed on my arm. Second of all, you’re the one that came barreling in over it.” You rolled your eyes, arms tightly wrapped around you. Bugs were the last thing you liked dealing with. You could do blood, pus, vomit. All the nasty doctor stuff.

But not bugs. “I thought you were hurt.” Jay sighed, looking around. “Where are your paper towels?” He asked, following the line of view where you pointed again.

With a sigh he ripped one off the roll, slowly going towards it. “Wait don’t kill it-“ Jay faced you.

“What?”

“He’s just a bug, he doesn’t deserve to be killed just because I hate him and want him gone.” You slightly stepped forward, reaching into the cupboard above the sink, trying so hard not to disturb the winged insect.

Jay raised his eyebrows, “So the bugs a he now?” He teased, watching as you grabbed a glass and handed it to him.

“Shut up, just, get him so you, I, we, whatever can get him the hell out of here.” You spoke quickly, Jay raising his hands up in defense before placing the glass over the bug.

He turned to you once more, “Now what? You have paper just lying around?” His words were sarcastic but in actuality you did.

You brushed past him, grabbing a page from the magazine you had on your living room table, ripping it out and handing it to him. “That work?”

Jay nodded faintly, “Yeah..” He took it, successfully trapping the bug in the cup as he lifted it. “I’ll let him out the window,” The man offered, walking to the living room where you pulled a window and its screen open for him.

Once it was gone you took the cup from him, a light smile on your face, “Uh, thank you.” You muttered, walking away quickly to the kitchen to wash it out. Whether it touched it or not that glass was tainted.

“Yeah, no problem. Hey, next time try not to scream like you’re getting killed unless you’re actually getting killed.”

“Oh yeah I’ll do my best.” You rolled your eyes once more, glancing over at him. “No promises though. I hate bugs,” You added, flipping the cup over to let it dry.

Jay nodded faintly, “Well, you know where I am if you need an exterminator.” You shot him a look, “Or remover.” He tagged on before giving you a soft smile, “I’ll see ya.”

With that he left and you couldn’t help but look at the door when he was gone. Maybe he wasn’t that horrible of a guy.

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Tags: @mrspeacem1nusone @everything-fandom

[nickfowlerrr]

series masterlist

part one • part two • part four • part five

happy golden days of yore • 3

pairing: dark!bucky barnes x curvy!reader

warnings: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat. 18+ ONLY. future parts will contain noncon smut. 40s misogyny? pet names. masturbation. i’m just gonna say, reader is detrimentally non confrontational 🫣.

words: 2.9k

notes: so glad you guys are enjoying this miniseries! there’s only a couple parts left and i’m really excited to share them. 🖤

You awoke to the smell of bacon and coffee floating through the air and 40s jazz music playing from downstairs. You never would have thought Bucky Barnes was a morning person, but it’s not like you knew him at all. You grimaced at the memory of your lost thong and decided to try and sneak around the living room before you went into the kitchen. You got ready really quickly in the bathroom before you snuck downstairs as quietly as you could.

You moved all the cushions, pillows, and your throw blanket but couldn’t find it anywhere. It wasn’t on the stairs, or under the couch, or still in the laundry basket. You had no idea where else it would be.

“Looking for something, sweetheart?” Bucky’s voice startled you as you were on your knees, in a slightly compromising position with your ass in the air, looking under the couch one last time. You sat right up and turned to him, surely looking like a deer in headlights.

“Oh, I just thought maybe I left something down here last night,” you tried to explain without having to really explain.

“What is it, I can help you look?”

“It’s nothing, really, I-”

“Tell me,” he instructed.

“It’s just..an article of clothing,”

“What does it look like?”

“It’s black…”

“That’s descriptive,”

“It’s not a big deal, honestly,”

“Why are you being so skittish?” he asked, eyes narrowing. You got scared all of a sudden, more worried he was thinking you were up to something than anything.

“I’m not, it’s just-...I’m looking for my thong,” you told him.

You avoided eye contact for a moment but when you risked a glance at him, his face was blushing a light pink.

“Oh,” he responded, a lopsided nervous smile breaking out on his face before he schooled his expression. “Well, uh, I haven’t come across it, but if I do, I’ll make sure to..return it.”

He spun on his heels to walk back into the kitchen as you grimaced at yet another not so great encounter.

“Coffee’s on if you take any,” he offered as you passed through the doorway.

“Thanks,” you replied quietly before grabbing a mug.

“I hope you don’t mind I used some of your groceries,”

“No, not at all, feel free,” you assured him. “I brought plenty.”

“And I hope you’re hungry, food’s almost done,”

“Yeah,” you breathed, “smells great.”

“How’d you sleep?” he probed, almost too casually.

“Alright. Woke up once or twice, but,” you trailed off. “How about you?” you asked back politely.

“Best sleep I’ve had in three months,” he acknowledged.

“Three months?”

“I’ve been gone for work since September. Most of my sleeping, the little I got anyway, was done on jets, motel beds, or couches.”

“Sounds grueling,”

“I’ve had worse,” he brushed off as he set a plate down before you. Two pancakes with some of your berries on the side, some bacon, and an egg.

“Thank you so much,” you beamed. “This looks amazing. What time did you get up?” you asked as you glanced at the time to see it was only nearing 8:15.

“I’m usually up by six, habit I guess,” he answered as he sat down with his own plate. Of the three other chairs at the table, one on each side, he took the seat next to you rather than the one across. His build was big and the table wasn’t, so though it seemed a good enough distance to prevent it being awkward, he still felt really close.

You simply nodded in response before looking down at your plate. You took your fork and cut into the stack of pancakes and prayed to any being that was listening that they would be good. You weren’t the best at hiding your initial reaction to things and you knew he was watching you take that first bite.

You were pleasantly surprised at the fluffiness. They were warm and buttery and your eyes closed in tantalizing delight. You couldn’t have stopped the small, sweet moan that you made if you wanted to.

“Oh my god,” you muttered, your hand coming up to cover your mouth as your lashes fluttered open, your eyes meeting his intense ones, nearling drowning in the blue before you looked away and back down at the food. “These are incredible. I never would have pegged you for a chef, but wow,” you complimented.

He laughed then, a beautiful sound you would’ve admired if you weren’t still slightly hung up on the look you swore you caught in his eye just a moment ago.

You ate breakfast with a much chattier Bucky than you’d met the night before. He asked you a lot of questions; what you do for work, where you live, what you do for fun, hobbies, friends, even asked about your relationships. He was quite the smooth talker, which you really weren’t expecting. There was this easy charm about him that made him seem disarming. It was almost hard to believe this was really once the man known as the Winter Soldier. Though every now and again, this look came over him. Almost imperceptible and always fleeting, but you couldn’t ignore it once you noticed. Something dark was lurking within him. Whether that was just the presence he gave off, if you were being biased because of what you knew he did for work, or if it was really there in him, you weren’t sure. But the weather was supposed to be clearing up by tomorrow, so you wouldn’t be sticking around to find out.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After breakfast, you went upstairs to get some alone time. That was the main reason you had come to the cabin in the first place, to just get away from everyone and everything. You pulled your laptop out and decided on a movie to watch while you packed most of your things away. You wanted to be ready to go in the morning. You were fine leaving the decorations, the food, and the few items you had in the kitchen, you had your own stuff at home.

There was a knock on your door and you paused the movie and walked to open it. Unsurprisingly, you found Bucky on the other side.

“Long time no see,” you joked.

“Would you mind not having your door shut all the way?” he asked bluntly. You were slightly taken aback by his change of mood, but didn’t want to upset him any further than you apparently already had.

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, no problem,” you acquiesced.

He stood a lot taller than you and it was easy for him to look into the room behind you. He furrowed his brow when he saw one of your half packed bags on your bed before shooting you a questioning look.

You were really taken aback now, totally lost as to why he was looking at you the way he was.

“Going somewhere, doll?” he asked. There was an edge in his voice that was clear despite his attempt to hide it with a closed lip smile.

“Yeah, the uh, weather’s supposed to be cleared up by tomorrow so, I’m just getting my stuff packed,” you answered uneasily, attempting to hide your discomfort with a smile of your own. You only hoped yours wasn’t as see through as Bucky’s.

His tongue jutted out past his lips as he took in your answer before he nodded. “If you need help taking anything to your car, let me know.”

“Okay,” you breathed with a nod in return as he turned to walk away. “Thank you,” you added, watching him descend the stairs.

His behavior had you worrying you were being rude, but you couldn’t justify staying in his cabin for another three weeks just because he said he didn’t mind. It felt weird. You tried to shake off the feeling and returned to packing more clothes.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of the day passed pretty quickly. You stayed upstairs for the most part but went down for food and water every so often. You heard Bucky coming in and out of the cabin a few times, but had no idea what he could be doing out there. It was possible he was getting more logs from the wood shed but he wouldn’t have had to go in and out as many times as he did if it was just that. You figured it wasn’t really any of your business, though and carried on with yourself.

You seemed to have a hard time with the thought that maybe he was upset at you. It was odd because that feeling wasn’t a common occurrence in your life. You didn’t normally care what people thought of you, but the idea that you had bothered this guy so much was getting to you.

When you’d made yourself lunch, you made him a sandwich, too. He was doing some kind of work on his tablet while he sat on the couch in the living room. You set the plate down on the coffee table that was in front of him while you held yours in your other hand.

“I don’t know if you’ve eaten or not yet, but,” you started as you pushed the plate toward him. He looked over from his work to the plate and then up to you, almost surprised before a charming smile grew on his face.

“Thanks, sweetheart. That’s thoughtful of you,” he said appreciatively.

You smiled back before you headed to the staircase, feeling slightly better about the tension that you felt was so evident earlier. You were clearly reading into things.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You pulled the pan of chicken from the oven as the timer on the stove began ringing. The smell of Italian herbs filled the air as you set the baked chicken to rest. You’d just finished the mashed potatoes and the broccoli was ready to go, too.

You hadn’t planned on making another dinner tonight, but Bucky came by your room and asked you if you wouldn’t mind and you just couldn’t bring yourself to say no. You didn’t want to be rude and it was your last night here. Plus you figured you wouldn’t be cooking like this again for a while, you couldn’t remember the last time you had cooked this much for yourself since you had moved out on your own.

You assumed the timer going off prompted Bucky to head to the kitchen because he appeared shortly after. You served both of you and sat down at the table once you got the glasses of water.

“So, uh, I’ll probably be heading out early tomorrow,” you began as you cut into your chicken breast.

“So you said,” he replied shortly.

“Right. I don’t know if you’ll be up when I leave, so I just want to say thank you, again,” you looked up at him, almost shy, nervous. The energy shifted yet again at your mention of leaving and he seemed a bit peeved.

“You mentioned John would come up here in January, did you want to set a date?” you asked, treading lightly.

He looked at you then, thinking for a moment before he spoke.

“I’ll call you,” he answered stoically.

“Okay. I’ll write my number down before I go,”

There was a tense silence between the two of you as you continued to eat.

You were growing more and more uncomfortable until Bucky cleared his throat, taking a sip of water and swallowing hard, sucking his teeth before he spoke.

“So, you have plans when you get home?” he asked, causing you to look up from your plate to him.

“No,” you shook your head, “not really.”

“Just tryin’ get out of here as fast as you can, huh?”

“Wha- no. It’s not - I’m not,”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I get it, you don’t have to explain. All alone out here with the one time Winter Soldier. Doubt many would’ve stayed as long as you have already,”

“Really, Bucky. It’s not that. You seem like a really great guy. I just, I know you said you like your solitude, and I do, too. And I hate feeling like I’m intruding in your space. I think it’d just be better the sooner I go,” you tried to explain without offending him again.

He nodded softly as he averted his gaze, something akin to sadness swimming in the depths of his blue eyes. The apparent vulnerability had you rethinking what you’d thought about him previously.

“Well, thank you for dinner, doll. It was delicious,” he said as he stood from the table, taking his nearly empty plate to the sink before you heard him head upstairs.

“Great,” you muttered to yourself under your breath, feeling absolutely awful.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You finished up in the kitchen after Bucky left and made sure to clean up the mess from dinner. You found a scrap piece of paper and wrote down your name and number before putting it up on the fridge with a magnet. You went upstairs and did one last go over your room, making sure you had everything ready to go in the morning. You grabbed your towel and a pair of pajamas and headed to the bathroom for a quick shower before you went to bed.

As you stood under the warm water, washing the suds of soap off your body, you thought you heard a creaking from the other side of the bathroom door. You peeked your head past the shower curtain and saw who you could only assume was Bucky’s shadow passing under the door frame. You quirked a brow, wondering where he was going but didn’t give it much more thought as you returned to finishing up under the water.

As you were drying off with your towel, you cursed under your breath as you realized you’d forgotten to grab a bra and a clean pair of panties. You bit your lip as you considered just running across the hall with your towel wrapped tight and pjs in your arms or just putting your pjs on and forgoing the undergarments completely. That wasn’t a problem for you normally, in fact it was a slightly common occurrence, but regrettably, the sleep shirt you’d grabbed was near see through and if you ran any risk of bumping into Bucky when you ran to the room, you’d rather it be in your towel than with your chest on display.

You finished drying off as best you could before rewrapping the towel around your body. You held your pjs under your arm and opened the door to scurry to the room, only to bump directly into a waiting Bucky.

His hands came out to steady you and you felt your skin warm beneath his touch.

“Oh my god,” you floundered as you gripped your towel tighter.

“I’m sorry, doll. I was just about to knock and ask if you needed anything taken to your car before I went to bed,” he explained, hands still holding you.

“I think I got it,” you chirped, just wanting to move past him already. You moved to sidestep him and only then did he drop his hands. You tried to ignore the way he had been looking at you from the moment you bumped into him. Heavy and dark. As you scampered past him into your room you could still feel his gaze on your curvy, rounded figure.

“Good night,” you called as you entered the room and turned to shut and lock the door behind you.

“Night, doll,” he said quietly as he watched you still.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You only woke up once during the night, but the reason why was more disturbing than it had been the night previous.

You had left your door just barely ajar and put one of your duffle bags right behind it before you went to bed. You didn’t think Bucky would come into your room while you were sleeping or anything, but the night’s earlier encounter just had you feeling a little more vulnerable than you’d already felt.

Still, with the door partially open you could hear all the weary creaks of the cabin and the bumps that sounded from out in the hall. And with Bucky’s own door open, the noises from his room easily made their way into yours.

You thought you were imagining things at first, but the more awake you became, the more clearly you heard the sound of barely restrained grunts, and the wet squelching noises that only seemed to get rhythmically louder in sync with them, coming from across the hall.

Your heart was racing as you realized what it was you were hearing.. As you realized what it was that Bucky was doing.

You squeezed your eyes shut as you tried to roll over without causing the bed to squeak under your weight.

You tried to tell yourself it was only human. Everybody does it. Who were you to judge what someone else does in the supposed privacy of their own bedroom in the middle of the night. Still, the thought of his eyes on you, his heavy gaze trailing up and down your body the way it did - the way it had even when he first saw you…there was something a little too intense there. It wasn’t right to assume things about people, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that your image might be somewhere in his thoughts as he got himself off.

You pulled a pillow over your head as you laid on your side and, gratefully, fell asleep sooner than you thought you’d be able to as you tried to ignore the strangled moan that sounded from across the hall and the odd sensation it sent through you before the near silence of the cabin returned.

[mangoisms]

i'll be the dangerous ledge (you be the parachute)

summary: in which you manage to have a meet-cute in your apartment building's laundry room with tim drake.

━ chapter one: short of breath | read chapter two

━ pairing: tim drake x f!reader

━ word count: 4.3k

━ warnings: none

━ masterlist

Rose Oaks’ laundry room is dead at eleven-thirty in the evening. 

You retract the thought as soon as it forms. 

No, no, not dead. Silent. Calm. Yes, that’s better. 

In Gotham City, it’s best not to associate things or people with the word dead. Lest you, you know, tempt fate. 

While it is true that Rose Oaks, your fifteen-story apartment building situated between Chinatown and the Upper West Side, is safer than the previous complex you lived in in Burnley — it has a doorman and everything, how fancy is that — you tend to err on the side of caution. 

Of course, you’re also contradicting yourself since you’re coming down to do your laundry at eleven at night and if your parents knew, they would be very disapproving. 

But no one is perfect. 

And anyway, you’re halfway done. You’re moving your clothes and towels from the washing machine to the dryers, pouch of quarters rattling around in the pocket of your hoodie as you go. 

Kneeling in front of the open dryer, you tense when you hear the door open. You peek around the dryer door, watching a guy your age — early twenties — walk inside with a laundry basket propped on his hip. 

Your eyes quickly catalog lean muscles, dark hair, and pale skin before you force yourself to turn around and finish tossing in the wet clothes bundled in your arms, detangling some of them as you go. 

When you stand, turning back to the wall of washers, you glimpse his back, shoulders stretching out a white t-shirt. 

You go back to the washers you were using, a couple feet away from him. He is dumping his clothes inside. All of them. You get it. You were raised to separate your darks and whites and bright colors but when you have to pay to do laundry, you cut corners when necessary. 

You only separated your stuff for a few months before you got tired of paying the extra dollar and fifty to run another load. 

You bend forward to pull out another armful of clothes, careful not to let the whole world see the few pairs of underwear there, then turn and go back over to the dryer to throw them in. 

When you step back to the washers, you glimpse the guy intently studying the back of the bottle of laundry detergent. Like it’s got the secrets to the universe and not just the instructions on how to use it. Another bottle sits on the edge. Wait a second…

You pull out another armful, cross the room to deposit it into the dryer, then on your walk back, you squint to get a good look. 

Oh, yup. Fabric softener. Yikes. You don’t even think that can be used with these washers? The cheap ones that last, like, two decades and don’t exactly rotate like a regular front-facing washer does but rather very aggressively spins. 

Like the cherry on top, he seems to be using the measurements on the cup, the ones that the instructions tell you to use but you shouldn’t because you don’t actually need that much detergent, the companies are just trying to get you to use more and thus buy more. 

Oh, you can’t look anymore. It’s just too much. 

You grab your final armful of clothes, toss them in the dryer along with a dryer sheet and close the door. You just need your towels now. 

The guy is doing the fabric softener now. You look away, opening the lid on the other washer.  

Inside the circular washer, your towels are plastered to the sides. You reach down to unstick them. See, this is what you mean. It’s just cheap. For such a nice building, they should have better washers and dryers. Or better yet — apartments with an in-unit set. But this one was in your pay range and only half a mile from the school, which did sway you. 

No matter. At least the laundry room is in the same building. Your old apartment complex had a separate building for it and you hated making that walk. 

You throw in your towels and a dryer sheet, then shut the door. 

Behind you, you hear a similar sound. 

You stick your hand into the pocket of your hoodie, where your baggie of quarters is. Opening it, you mentally count out twelve quarters. A dollar and fifty for each load and you have two. You also hate that. Having to pay. You’re already paying for rent and utilities, you have to pay this, too? All landlords suck but Gotham ones, you’re convinced, are even suckier. 

You slot in the quarters until it beeps at you. You press start, then do the same for the other one. 

You turn and catch the guy scratching his head, glancing between his phone and the frayed poster on the wall that advertises the app you can download and use to pay for the washers and dryers. 

The thing is, the app stopped working, like, two weeks ago. Previous encounters with others in the laundry room assure you that everyone else is experiencing it. So, you have to do it the old-fashioned way and pay with the dusty seldom-used coin slots. 

You almost prefer it. With the app, you had a minimum limit of ten dollars when reloading money and oftentimes you aren’t doing more than two loads. You hated seeing the money leave your account. 

More head-scratching. You take pity on him.  

“It’s not working.”

His head snaps to you. It is with something of a sucker punch that you realize he is cute. Gorgeous, really. Black hair falling over his forehead into blue eyes that blink at you. 

Your heart does a weird wiggly thing at his attractiveness. You’re no good with pretty people. No good at all. 

Ignoring the sudden bout of nerves, you gesture to the poster. “The app isn’t working, right? It hasn’t for two weeks now. Dunno when they’re gonna fix it. You have to use the coin slot.”

“Great,” he sighs, his voice a mellifluous tenor. 

He puts his phone away, then reaches into the pocket of his sweats, pulling out a wallet. 

“Who carries coins these days, anyway?” he mutters, making your lips twitch; the quarters do not magically appear by the way he closes his wallet, puts it away, then looks at the coin slot, deliberating. 

You don’t think anyone has ever stolen another person’s clothes. At least it hasn’t happened to you but you can’t speak for the other tenants in this building. Still, you wouldn’t run upstairs and just leave your clothes in there. Even for a few minutes. 

But it doesn’t really matter, anyway, in the end. You already know what you’re going to do. 

“Here,” you say, pulling out the baggie of quarters and opening it again, venturing closer to him. 

“You don’t have to —”

“Don’t worry about it,” you say, shooting him a small smile. “I wouldn’t want to leave my clothes here if it’s not on, either. Just one, right?”

He seems to accept his fate, nodding. 

You pull out twelve quarters like last time. 

“For the washer and the dryer,” you say when he opens his mouth to presumably protest. “Just in case.”

“I’ll pay you back.”

You laugh. “In quarters, too?”

Amusement shines in his eyes. His lips quirk. “If you’d like.”

“No repayment necessary,” you tell him. “Really.”

Collected quarters in hand, you extend your hand and he opens his beneath yours. Your hands brush as you pass them to him carefully, making sure they don’t fall to the ground. That would be embarrassing. 

“Thanks,” he says, sending you a grateful look. 

You nod and put your baggie of coins back in your pocket. “No problem.”

You turn away, making for the door, pleased to have helped. 

You see him again the following weekend. Same time. Eleven PM on Saturday night. Your laundry slash cleaning days. You like to wait until much later in the evenings; the laundry room can get busier earlier in the day, especially the afternoon. There is never a short supply of washers to use but the dryers can be a scarce commodity if it’s busy. You’d hate to have a basket full of wet clothes and no dryer to put them in. 

At this time, only a couple washers run and a few dryers hum. 

When you slip inside to move your clothes from the washer to the dryer like last time, Detergent Boy is already there. 

Except not with a bottle of fabric softener or a bottle of liquid laundry detergent but… laundry detergent in powder form? 

What is he doing, conducting some kind of experiment? 

You also wonder about the lack of fabric softener. Did that not go well? You thought it might not. Too bad. 

You wonder in general, about him. He seems rather… confused about everything regarding, hm, laundry. 

He looks over his shoulder at your entrance, lips ticking up when he sees you. That does funny things to your heart.

“Hey,” he says. “Is the app working?”

“Is the — oh. No. Still doing it the old-fashioned way.” 

You are briefly confused at the question, considering he was inside before you, though he hadn’t yet started the machine. Then you realize you are stepping in empty-handed and he must’ve concluded by that that you had already thrown your clothes into the washer and you are now moving them to dry. 

Huh. He is… observant. Or maybe it’s normal and you’re just too used to dealing with the short attention spans of your kids at school. It’s probably that. 

You are a teacher’s aide at the freshly-opened Gotham Pointe Academy, a middle and high school combined into one, funded heavily by Wayne Enterprises, located in the Upper West Side. You assist the kind but scatterbrained teacher, Ms. C, in sixth grade social studies. 

The pay is good, which is due to the aforementioned funding by Wayne Enterprises. WE seems to be on a public education kick recently, pouring money into not just Gotham Pointe but the existing underfunded schools in the city. 

You won’t complain. The state of many in-city schools is not great. Things are better in the ones in the suburbs, you’ve heard. And of course, private schools like Gotham Academy have no issues at all. At least when it comes to funding, anyway.

“I figured it wouldn’t be working yet,” he says as you go over to the washers, lifting the lid. His is a few over from yours. 

“Yeah, I have no idea when they’re going to fix it. The office says we need to talk to the app’s support but I feel like that’s a cop-out.”

“Oh, for sure,” he says, making you grin. “So, can I pay you back?”

“You really don’t have to,” you chuckle, lifting the wet clothes from the washer and turning to cross over to the dryers.

“It’s only fair,” he insists, eyes following you, making you a little more proactive in making sure he doesn’t get an eyeful of your bras and underwear in your laundry. His eyes are on your face but still. “How about I pay for your load? I know you already paid for the wash but I can do the dryer.”

No skin off your back. Why not?

“Alright,” you say. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”

You pause in your transport as he lifts a baggie of quarters out of the pocket of his sweatpants and quickly counts out twelve.

“It’s —”

“I know,” he says. “But that’s how much you gave me last time, so. Use it next week.”

You can tell he isn’t doing it to make sure he doesn’t owe you, but rather he really is trying to pay back the kindness you’d afforded him. It’s a warming gesture. Here in Gotham City, the citizens are wary at best and downright nasty at worst. You understand why. They are bombarded with attacks from literal clowns and other terrifying figures who do the things they do just for the fun of it. Then you have the gangs, preying eagerly on the desperate souls of this city, and with a corrupt government that gives little to no shit about its people, there is no shortage of desperation. It’s their fault first and foremost, you think. A government has to take care of its people; they work for them, not the other way around. And the police are equally as useless. 

But not all hope is lost.

No, you think, accepting the quarters from him with a grateful smile. Not all.

You get back to moving your clothes. He gets back to studying the instructions for the powdered detergent. Really, you think. What’s up with that? It’s not a money thing, you think, since living here is a tad more expensive than other parts of the city and anyway, you saw his phone last week — it’s the newly-released WayneTech phone that came out, like, a week ago. It’s on the market for upward of a grand, which is a crazy amount of money to pay for a phone. Your phone — WayneTech, because yes, they do have good tech and you like the interface, you’ll admit that — is several years old. In fact, a present from your parents when you moved here at eighteen to attend Gotham University.

You yourself are a strong proponent of the detergent pods. Don’t need to measure out your own detergent each time you do a wash. Just toss that bad boy in there and boom. That’s it. You have vague memories of your mom using liquid detergent before switching over to the pods, which you still use, naturally. If it ain’t broke and all that. 

It’s both a little difficult to withhold your questions about his changing detergent use, as well as squash down any impulses to inform him about detergent pods’ existence.

But you manage to hold your tongue. If not because he helped to pay your dryer load and next week’s washer load, then because you don’t want to push his limits. Kind as he may be, kind as you want to believe him to be, he is still a strange guy that you do not know. A strange guy who lives somewhere here in this building, too. 

No matter how much his behavior concerning detergent — laundry — mystifies you.

But of course, that only continues to get worse.

The next week, he is using… detergent tablets?

You didn’t even know detergent existed in that form.

This time, you cannot help but stare.

You coincidentally managed to align your times properly, so you have your basket of dirty clothes to be washed and he does, too. 

“What’s with the continued experimentation of laundry detergent?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

He looks at you, blinking, before you remember yourself and shake your head. “Sorry, you don’t —”

“No,” he says, a tad sheepish now. “No, it’s fine. I’m, uh…” he trails off, cornflower blue eyes flickering to his basket of clothes, then the tablets in a shifty manner.

Oh, wait…

“You… don’t know how to do laundry?”

“I know how to do laundry,” he says quickly, defensively, then grimaces. “I’m just figuring out the… schematics.”

Something about that, about the determined intensity on his face as he looks at the washer, makes you laugh. Really hard.

“Hey,” he protests.

“I’m sorry,” you giggle. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you, I swear. I just —” it’s cute. In a weird way. In a way that shouldn’t be cute because come on, what guy your age doesn’t know how to do his own laundry? You are suspecting some wealth to his background, in that case. What with the expensive phone he had. Or just a guy who never did his own laundry and had his parents do it. 

But no. Despite that, it — he is cute, looking at you with a sulky expression.

You grin at him. “Genuinely, I’m asking genuinely, but what’s stumping you?”

He eyes you. There’s that familiar Gothamite suspicion. 

“Come on,” you say, unable to kick the grin off your face. “I wanna help. As someone who’s been doing her laundry the same way for the last decade, I can help.”

He sighs, crossing his arms. “I’m just figuring out the detergent, that’s all. I… didn’t use to do my own laundry and now that I’m on my own I’m trying to get it to how Al — the last person who did it did it. Haven’t been able to pin it down.”

“So, that’s why you’ve been experimenting.”

Pink settles high on his cheeks and he gives you a slightly petulant look. It’s ridiculously endearing. God, he’s cute. It’s not fair. 

You rub a hand over your smiling mouth. “Look, my advice? Just use these.”

You reach into your basket to grab the baggie of pods. 

“Hm.” He turns a critical eye over them. You bite your lip to fight off a bigger grin.

“Don’t have to measure anything,” you say, barely managing to keep the laughter out of your voice. “Just toss one — or two, depending on the load — in and you’re gold.”

“Interesting.”

You can’t help the giggle that slips out but he doesn’t seem so sulky about it now, his lips twitching too as he shakes his head at you.

“I’ve seen it at the store, you know,” he says, watching you set it aside and start throwing your clothes inside the washer. “I would’ve gotten there eventually.”

You have to laugh at that. 

“Well,” you say, laughter still in your voice as you set your basket aside and pick up the baggie. “You can try it out now, if you’d like. I thought I’d need to split my clothes into two loads but it fits.”

You glance at the washer, your thick coat taking up a lot of space. 

“Mostly, anyway. So.” You jiggle the bag with the two pods at him. “And I swear they’re straight from the container.”

He snorts. “I wasn’t even thinking you sabotaged them but now I am. Good job.”

“Hey, I have nothing against you! What reason could I have to mess with your clothes?”

“It’s Gotham. No one needs much of a reason to do anything.”

“Okay, Mr. Cynic.”

He chuckles and turns to dump his clothes into the washer, too. You pull out one of the pods and drop it in, then lean forward to change a couple settings for the wash, switching the water from cold to hot. A necessity, these days. God knows the kinds of germs the kids pass onto you. You started working with them last year in September and immediately got your ass kicked by a nasty head cold. You think your ears were clogged for a good three months after that. 

With it now being the start of February, your immune system is, like, juiced up. You’re fairly certain you are resistant to most, if not all, diseases. The CDC wishes it was you. 

You pass off the baggie to him and he pulls out the last pod. You nod approvingly and take out your other baggie from the pocket of your hoodie, counting out the quarters and slotting them in until the machine beeps at you. You press start and it whirs on. 

Next to you, Detergent Boy does the same.

Hm. You should get his name.

Just so you don’t have to call him that in your head. Yep. Not at all because you would very much like the name of a cute guy… And certainly not because you’re starting to think you do need to make a friend other than Ms. C and your coworkers… Your brother says it doesn’t count if it’s a person from work. And the kids don’t, either. Whatever. Spoilsport. 

You had friends in college but most of them left the city. High-tailed it for Metropolis or some other city that didn’t continue to break records when it came to crime and corruption. Which is fine. You get it. Sort of. 

“So, since you’ve apparently been checking out my detergent use —”

“Nooo, it sounds weird when you say it like that. I just noticed while we were talking, okay. Not to mention you kept staring at the instructions like they were the Rosetta Stone or something.”

He flushes and seems to decide to drop that topic so that he doesn’t have to respond or acknowledge those words. You grin. 

“Anyway,” he presses, rolling his eyes at the look on your face. “I think we should probably introduce ourselves.”

“We should, should we?” 

A voice in your head that sounds like your brother mutters, As if you aren’t dying to know his name.

You promptly tell it to shut up.

“Just so I know who to blame if my clothes get messed up. Or if the washer explodes.”

You burst out laughing. “You’re funny!”

He grins at you. It’s a nice look on his stupidly pretty face. “I’m Tim. Tim Drake.”

Oh. 

A lot of things make sense, suddenly.

But you shove that realization aside in favor of telling him your name. “Nice to officially meet you, Tim Drake.”

He echoes your greeting with your full name and you have to ignore the way the butterflies in your belly go a little crazy at hearing the syllables of your name on his tongue. 

Tim picks up his empty basket and so do you, the two of you wordlessly making for the exit.

“So, can I ask if you just moved here?”

He holds the door open for you. You nod in thanks and step out. 

He shakes his head in response to your previous question. “I’ve been here a while. Just haven’t, ah, been doing my laundry here.”

“You mean someone else was doing your laundry,” you say, unable to stop yourself from poking fun at him. A side effect of spending forty plus hours with preteens every week, you’re sure. 

He groans as you two come up to the elevator; he presses the button to go up. The laundry room is on the ground floor, towards the back of the building. Not in the basement or something, thankfully. That would just be the cherry on top of all of this.

“Hey, I’m not judging,” you say, shooting him a small grin.

“Really? ‘Cause it kind of feels like you are.”

Ding. The doors open. You two step inside. On the panel on his side, he presses the button for the fifteenth floor. On your side, you press the button for the fourteenth. 

The doors close.

“I’m not, I swear. I guess if I had some kind of maid —”

“Butler.”

You cannot withhold your snort. He rolls his eyes. 

“Right, right… if I had a butler or something, I wouldn’t do my own laundry, either. Although, it is kind of a hazard, so I’m not sure — oh, I don’t mean like that, shut up,” you say, flushing at the raised eyebrow he gives you. “My clothes are no dirtier than anyone else’s. They’ve just… got a lot of germs.”

It’s Tim’s turn to be cheeky.

“Riiiight. I bet they do.”

“I work with kids, alright,” you whine. “They’re germ monsters, man. It’s not as bad as kindergarteners or something, definitely not, but six graders still aren’t the epitome of health and cleanliness.”

He laughs at your tone. “So, you’re a teacher?”

“Teacher’s aide,” you correct. “Don’t have enough experience for that yet, no matter what PS 125 was trying to tell me when they offered me a job.”

He grimaces. “Their retention rate gets worse every year. I don’t blame them.”

“Well, I blame the city. Stupid government. Where the hell are my taxes going? Not to anything worthwhile, that’s for sure.” You shake your head. “Anyway. What about you?”

Even if he is Tim Drake, adopted son of billionaire Bruce Wayne who owns the burgeoning Wayne Enterprises, a company that rakes in billions but at the very least turns over a decent chunk of it to the city. Even with that, Bruce Wayne has a fortune and you’re certain that extends to his son — his children. Especially since you can vaguely recall some incident where Tim was, like, CEO? Briefly. Very briefly. When you were in your teens, actually. He was, too, so your mom smartly said he was more than likely just a figurehead. No seventeen-year-old should run a company. Not even seventeen-year-old super-rich and equally-as-educated Tim Drake, you think. 

But your attempt at equality goes a little wayside as he coughs, uncomfortable.

“I, uh, am not working right now. Not full-time, anyway. I do some work for WE. IT and R&D.”

You laugh softly at his attempt at overcompensation. “Dude, relax. I’m not judging you. Well. I’m not judging a lot.”

“Thanks,” he says dryly.

You grin. “I just mean it’s nice that you get a choice. It should be like that for all of us.”

“Universal income?”

You point at him. “Tell your dad about it.”

Tim tilts his head thoughtfully. “It was brought up, actually, a couple years ago. The city refused. Said it would make people ‘lazy.’”

“Those bastards.”

He laughs and you decide you very much like making him laugh.

The doors slide open to your floor. 

“See you later, Tim,” you say, giving him a two-fingered salute.

His eyes crinkle. “Later as in when our cycles are done and we have to put them in the dryer?”

“Of course! Oh, wait, I have a question, just to, heh, cover our bases regarding your lack of laundry knowledge —”

“Oh, come on.”

You grin, pausing by the doors, keeping a hand pressed to them so they don’t close on you. “You are using dryer sheets, right?”

“Of course I am.”

A pause.

“Every time you put your clothes in the dryer, right?”

He starts jamming the close doors button, averting his eyes. “I’ll, uh, see you later.”

You step out, grinning. “We’ll make a laundry master out of you yet, Tim Drake.”

The last thing you see before the doors close is him smiling. 

reblogs are appreciated!

[heyhihellowhatsup0]

Project Freak - Eddie Munson x Reader (Enemies to Lovers)

Warnings:  Angsty af...Some smut...probably more if I do a part two?? 18+ Only. (Do not interact if under 18)

Summary:  You’re partnered up with the person you’d never be caught dead with. But the more you work alongside Eddie, the tension continues to build amongst eachother.

A/N: My first Eddie fic! I’m anxious af but if it doesn’t flop maybe I’ll do a part two?? Also I found the .gif on Pinterest so if anyone knows who made it DM me so I can give credit!

You tapped your pen against your desk and tried to ignore the teacher’s request. You pretended you didn’t hear it and like nothing had changed. You acted as if you weren’t just told you had a huge project due in two weeks and the teacher was assigning the partners. You didn’t just suck in a breath when the teacher told you were going to be partnered with Eddie Munson. The one guy who you couldn’t stand. 

And you knew Eddie wasn’t your biggest fan either. He always teased you in your cheerleader uniform when you walked by, you were pretty sure he started a rumor last summer about you when you and your father moved out of the trailer park and into a house, and the few times you did speak to him he gave you the dirtiest looks. It was safe to say the feeling was certainly mutual without any genuine reasoning. And now you were forced to work together.

Jason gave you an apologetic look as the bell rang and you bolted out of your seat and headed towards your locker. But Eddie quickly caught up when you were half way down the hall and tapped your shoulder to get your attention, “Pardon me, princess. A word?” he asked you sarcastically as he leaned up against your locker while you continued to ignore him, “Yeah, okay. You’re not fucking up my grade in this class so you tell me how you want to go about this,” his eyes went to your legs in the cheer skirt and then he quickly reminded himself who he was speaking to.

“That’s cute. This is like what? 14th grade for you?” You snapped at him while you exchanged your books out in your locker. You didn’t even know why you were wasting your breath on him, “How about we just divide the work up and hand it in in two weeks?” you noticed the way Eddie’s brown eyes were on you when you gave him a glare.

“No can do, princess. We have to present in front of the class. It’s half our grade and I’m not getting up there unprepared when you and I both know I’m gonna get the blame for it,” you knew Eddie was right about that. As much as you didn’t care for him, you did always feel bad how people judged and looked at him. Getting the short stick was never easy.

You let out a sigh, “Fine. Let’s meet up after school and get this over with,” you countered with a sharpness to your voice. You just really wanted this conversation to end so you could go about your day and forget you were partnered with him, “Or do you have some clients to tend to?” you sneered as if Jason didn’t buy pot for you from Eddie.

“As long as you don’t have to go cheer for guys throwing balls in laundry baskets, I’m all yours, sweetheart,” Eddie wasn’t afraid to speak back to you. Eddie could care less about your popularity. “Meet at my place at 4. I’d give you directions but I think you know it pretty well?” He knew how you wouldn’t tell a soul you ever lived in a trailer. A part of Eddie wanted to leak that information to Jason and his buddies but he had no energy to do that. So he let you keep your secret between the both of you.

You flipped him off and turned your back to him, “Get away from me, fucking freak,” you shouted loud enough for people walking by could hear as you walked away. Eddie was a prick in your mind and the last person you wanted to be spending your free time with, “Go to hell, Munson…” you mumbled under your breath as you continued your dread for this project.

Eddie watched from the distance as you walked up to the trailer and knocked on the front door. He took his sweet ass time getting up and made his way over to you spitefully. Opening the door with a grin on his face as he welcomed you with a sarcastic cheer, “Welcome home,” he teased as he extended his arm to invite you inside, “Wow, all dressed up for me?” he nodded to your uniform with a playful wink.

He couldn’t stand most of the cheerleaders but what he couldn’t stand most was how he never pegged you for one of them. You had lived in this trailer park for years and even though you barely spoke to Eddie, he didn’t think you were one of them. You would at least smile at him from time to time when you crossed paths or would drop off a casserole you had made for Eddie’s uncle Wayne when you knew he worked late. There was a side of you Eddie once saw he thought was gentle and kind.

And then your dad bought a house in a cul-de-sac and just like that, everything changed. Suddenly, you made the pep squad and were dating all the most popular guys in Hawkins. The trailer park and Eddie never existed in your eyes. You didn’t even think twice when you began rolling your eyes at Eddie in the hallway for no apparent reason. So he did the same in return. 

You pushed past Eddie with a scoff, “Let’s get this over with,” you sighed as you brought your books into the living room. You took a seat on the couch and began to open one up when you noticed Eddie was staring at you, “What is it, freak?” you asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s your fucking problem with me, Y/N? Or am I just a reminder of your former life that may have been better so you project that onto me?” Eddie actually paid attention this year in psychology and he was glad he did because he saw the look on your face when he called you out for it. He was right. He knew it.

“Can we just get to work, please?” you dismissed the question as you turned the page in your book. You weren’t going to let Eddie The Freak Munson speak to you like you were a child. Even if you knew you were acting a bit ridiculous. “You don’t know me or anything about me,” you added with another aggressive page flip.

Eddie looked down at you and licked his lips and reached down for you on the couch. The next thing you knew, you were sitting on Eddie’s lap and straddling his legs and his eyes met yours, “I know you’re a fucking brat who puts way too much energy into hating me,” Eddie’s breath was on yours and your eyes went to his lips for a moment, “Why do you hate me so much, sweetheart…?” his voice was like a raspy whisper that made you tense from the inside.

“Shut up,” you told Eddie as you tried to pull away but you didn’t. You didn’t want to. There was something about the way Eddie was looking at you and how his hands were on your waist that you suddenly found yourself craving. But you were never going to be honest about that, “Why do you hate me?” you retaliated.

Eddie laughed bitterly while his hand traveled to your ass, “Because you’re a holier-than-thou, selfish brat who thinks she’s better than me,” he answered as he squeezed your ass. He smirked when he heard you whimper slightly so he did it again.

“And you’re a fucking freak and a self-righteous prick,” you seethed through your teeth when you looked at him. “Who also thinks he’s better than me,” you added smugly. It took two to play this game and you weren’t going to let Eddie speak to you like that.

“Well, well…aren’t we quite the pair then,” Eddie answered in a snarky tone with a dry laugh. He felt his cock harden up against your leg and neither one of you could ignore it even if you wanted to.

The next thing you knew, your lips crashed against Eddie’s and you were grinding your hips into him. Moaning into a kiss while Eddie’s fingers roamed through your hair. As the kiss grew deeper, so did your neediness for Eddie and your tongue found his with ease as you massaged them together with passion.

How the hell were you making out with Eddie Munson? And why were you liking it? The way Eddie’s hands traveled towards your inner thigh made your core start to ache while you sucked a harsh bruise against his neck. Your hips moved into Eddie’s where you felt his hardened cock and you could tell how big he was which only turned you on more. You haven't felt this way with any other guy. Not Jason. Not Billy. This was…different.

It was better.

“Is it pissing you off I’m making you wet, princess?” Eddie teased as he snaked his fingers into your pants. He could feel the dampness as his fingers brushed against your underwear which made his cock twitch for you, “Knowing I’m clearly the one you want right now?” his lips brushed against yours while he found your clit through the fabric of your underwear.

“Shut the fuck up, Eddie and make me cum…” you didn’t want to play his games. But you did want Eddie. You wanted him to help you reach that high and get you to where you needed. There was something about his touch that you wanted. “Please…” that was as nice as you were going to get and Eddie knew that.

Slipping his fingers inside, Eddie circled your clit tantalizingly slowly but the way you moaned told Eddie more than he needed. Smirking against your lips, he removed his hand from your pants and pecked your lips, “Well…look at the time. You better get going,” he carefully took you off his lip as he adjusted himself with a grin, “Maybe next time, be a bit nicer,” he teased.

“I…what? I said fucking please!” you rolled your eyes at him. You weren’t going to let him know how annoyed you were even though it was written all over your face how horny he had made you. He had just driven you up a wall and now…he was punishing you? “You’re serious?” you took a deep breath as you stood up from the couch.

“Scouts honor, sweetheart,” Eddie threw up his hand like he was taking an oath. He shrugged his shoulders and gave you a look, “But I’m really glad to know I can make you that wet. Guess you have a thing for freaks,” Eddie added before you slammed the door in his face, now pissed off, horny, and craving that release that you both knew only Eddie could get rid of for you.

[buckysgrace]

26. Strangers

Part 26 of Every Little Thing!

Gator Tillman x fem!oc

Daphne becomes suspicious of Gator's new case and how overprotective he becomes.

CW: Unprotected sex

Gator was late again. By the time he returned from work the moon was high in the night sky and she’d retreated to bed to read by her lamp light. It was a nice way to take advantage of the fact that she no longer got to read as much as she liked. The only issue was that she couldn’t keep Gator off of her mind. She was worried for him.

She sat up on the edge of the bed, listening to the sound of the front door opening and then closing. It wasn’t much longer that she heard his steps coming up the stairs, making her shut her book completely as she rushed over to meet him at the door.

She wasn’t sure what overcame her, but as soon as he took a step through the doorway she had her arms around him. She breathed in his musk, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist as she nestled herself against his cool body.

“Hey,” He chuckled as he touched her shoulders gently, squeezing her tightly in response. She sighed deeply as she rested her chin against the crook of his neck, just glad to have him back, “Sorry I’m so late.” He mumbled as he swayed them back and forth. She brushed her nose against the crook of his neck, knowing that he didn’t have to apologize for working. 

“It’s okay. How was your day?” She asked him, then noticed the solemn look on his face, “What happened?” She questioned him worriedly, stepping back so she could better let him explain. He chewed on his cheek, thinking to himself before he opened his mouth. 

“Alvie ran off into a ditch,” He spoke slowly, “He uh, didn’t make it.” She looked at him surprised, her eyebrows raising on her forehead as her eyes widened in shock. She processed his words for a moment, trying to understand what he was saying. 

“Nugent is dead?” She asked him, seeking clarity as she watched the way he looked away from her. He rubbed at his bottom lip, nodding his head softly before he stripped out of his vest.

“Yeah,” Gator said slowly, “It happens.” He dismissed her, trying to act like it was no big deal as he slowly removed his hat next. She watched the way he ran his hands through his hair, clearly looking frustrated before he turned to face her again. 

“Are you alright?” She asked him softly as she held onto his bicep, “I know you worked with him for a long time.” She told him gently, remembering that it had only been a month ago that they’d brought the twins up and introduced them to everyone.

“Things happen,” He responded gruffly, “I’m fine.” He moved away, beginning to strip himself out of his clothes as he roughly tossed them into the dirty laundry basket. She held her hands over her stomach, trying to think of the best way to comfort him. 

“Well what’s going on?” She asked slowly, “I mean that guy shot up the gas station and killed an officer then. Now Nugent is dead. Is someone on the loose?” She asked him seriously, beginning to feel a little scared. She always left the doors locked, but she suddenly wasn’t sure about having the twins sleeping in their nursery. Perhaps they needed their cribs moved into their room for a while. 

“We’ll find that guy,” He said stiffly, more to himself than anything. She felt her heart flip inside of her chest, fearing for the worse as he flicked the bathroom light on,“No. Nothing bad is happening. Don’t worry about it.” He tried to tell her again. She shook her head, walking forward to hold onto him. 

“I worry about you,” She mumbled into his chest, “I don’t want you to get hurt.” She breathed out against his skin, worried that something bad would happen to him. It was scary to think about. She didn’t like thinking about it. 

“I’m fine,” He told her as he tilted her chin up towards him, “See? Nothing’s wrong.” He moved his head about, grinning like she had nothing to be worried about. She watched him, still feeling like there was something wrong. She knew he wouldn’t like it if she continued to pester, but she couldn’t help it either. 

“Can you take some time off?” She asked him gently, genuinely worried that something may happen to him. Her safe town suddenly felt very dangerous. She didn’t like that. 

“Maybe after this,” He grinned as he cupped her chin and tilted her face up towards him, “Don’t tell me you miss me that much.” He teased her, making her feel a little bit better as she rested against him. She pulled her lips into a soft grin as he continued to caress his fingers across her skin. 

“I always miss you,” She giggled in response leaning up a little further so her lips could brush against his, “I get awfully lonely.” She replied as she linked her fingers through his pant loops, then tugged him closer.

He brought his mouth against hers, agonizingly slow as he gripped her chin between his fingers. He gave her a soft squeeze, dragging his lips against hers gently. She breathed in the taste of him, savoring the feeling of his lips as she moved to play with the hair at the nape of his neck. 

She stalled against his mouth, freezing softly at the soft sound of cries that came from the room next door. Gator’s lips continued to brush against hers gently before he came to a halt, exhaling roughly. 

“Shit,” He groaned as he rested his forehead against hers, “It’s like they know.” He shook his head, making her smile as she squeezed at his muscles again. She leaned forward to kiss the tip of his nose.

“Take a shower,” She told him gently, “There’s leftovers in the fridge. Relax for a bit.” She told him softly, almost fearing to let him go as she made her way out of the room. She kept feeling like he was hiding something, like there really was something more sinister lurking about. She tried to push those thoughts away, knowing that it wouldn’t help anything. She trusted Gator. She had to. 

-

He was gone again early in the morning. She hadn’t even heard his alarm go off. She exhaled, resting against the mattress for a long moment before she dragged herself out of bed. It was later than usual, meaning that the twins would also be off of their schedule. 

She still had a gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach that remained long after she got the twins changed and fed. She tried to shake it off, reminding herself that today was officially Halloween. It would be a fun day, even if the babies were too little to do much with it. 

“Aren’t you handsome?” She grinned as she petted Birdie, noticing the way he was lingering to her side today. She’d dressed him in a little caterpillar outfit, which he had thus far left alone, “Oh boy. That’s not nice to tease.” She told him, watching the way he moved out of reach from Knox. Knox huffed in protest before falling back onto his bottom, looking irritated as he reached for a fresh block to chew on. 

She tried to text Gator throughout the day, little updates and check-ins just to see if he would answer her. He never did. She knew he was just busy, but it did nothing to help the little voice in the back of her head. 

By late afternoon he returned, his loud boots signaling his return as she worked on prepping for dinner. She perked up, quickly scrubbing her hands clean and then drying them right as he entered the door.

She was at his side again, attaching her arms around his waist tightly once again as she breathed in his strong cologne. She rested her chin into the crook of his neck, giving him a tight squeeze as she did her best to lift him up. She failed, not even getting the heels of his feet up before she dropped him. 

“Hey,” He laughed, looking down at her in wonder before he pressed his finger against her chin, “What’s going on with you?” He looked at her, his eyes full of humor as he analyzed her features. She leaned against him with a deep sigh. She allowed herself a moment to stare at his handsome face.

“I miss my big, strong man,” She teased him as she rocked back and forth on her feet, “The babies are sleeping.” She explained, watching the way his eyes drifted around the room. He turned towards her again, giving her a soft smile before he linked their fingers together. She paused, noticing that he wasn’t taking his uniform off. 

“Ah,” He nodded his head, glancing around at the final decorations she’d thrown up, “Did you put this up for us?” He smiled again, though he had a guilty look on his features as he peered around. She nodded her head, liking the little lights and decorations she’d found. She had a fake cat, but Birdie kept attacking him. 

“I thought we could watch The Nightmare Before Christmas tonight. Then Hocus Pocus if we can stay awake,” She laughed, knowing that it was harder and harder for them to stay up past eleven, “I got those matching pajamas too. Aren’t they cute?” She told him all at once, excited at the prospect of spending time together. She had no idea how she’d managed to miss him so much when he’d only been busy for a few days. 

“Yeah,” Gator asked as he looked over the four sets of clothing, “Really cute.” His eyes drifted over them for the longest time as he went silent. She watched the way he set his jaw, how he roughly gulped as he shifted his hands to his hips. 

“What’s wrong?” She asked him gently, feeling nervous as she brought her hands against the outfits again. She tilted her head, doing her best to meet his guilty eyes. 

“Uh,” He paused softly as he brushed his fingers over his belt, “I won’t be back until late tonight. Something came up with the case and I need to be in Minnesota.” He looked up at her finally, his eyes remorseful as his words hit her. She parted her lips, nodding her head gently. 

“Right now?” Daphne asked, trying to hide her disappointment as Birdie brushed his face against her ankle, “That sucks that they didn’t give you more of a warning.” She said gently, nodding her head as she tried to diminish the big plans that she had set up for them. There would always be more Halloweens. She knew his job was important. Someone needed his help. 

“It does, I’m sorry,” He said quickly, “You can always stay with dad and Karen. Or maybe Noelle would want to stay over?” He explained his suggestions to her, but she dismissed him this time. She didn’t want to go anywhere else but the house. 

“I can handle the fort on my own,” She laughed as she listened to him, “It’s only Halloween night. You know, when all the ghosts and witches and demons come out.” She teased him, tilting her head sweetly as she did her best to earn another grin from him. He looked at her seriously this time. 

“Not funny.” He responded, sounding a little more stern to her surprise. She parted her lips, unsure of how to approach the subject from this point. She bent down to lift Birdie, earning a purr of approval from him. 

“Seriously, we’re fine,” She told him gently, “You have a hard job. Will you be okay?” She asked him this time, feeling like there was still something else going on with him. He pulled his lips into a frown before he nodded quickly, like he didn’t want to think about it too deeply. 

“I’m always okay.” He reassured her, stepping forward again so he could kiss the side of her head. She sighed deeply, closing her eyes as she wished that he’d stay with her. She wished she could be just a little more selfish. 

“You know, I think you should be benefitted some sort of time off after getting your arm hurt on the job.” She told him seriously, blinking quickly as Gator continued to squeeze her gently. Birdie wiggled in her arms, apparently not too pleased with Gator holding onto him. 

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” He said with a soft laugh before he kissed the top of her head again. She grinned, liking the sounds that left his lips.

“I don’t think that’s how your father works,” Daphne clarified, “Just please be safe. I don’t need you losing another arm.” She said seriously, unsure of how that would go about. He snorted as he pulled away. 

“I’m fine,” He tried to reassure her, but she wasn’t quite comforted by his words, “Make sure and lock the door behind me, yeah?” She looked at him curiously, then turned to look at the time on the clock. It wasn’t even dark yet. 

“Right now?” She asked him seriously, watching the way his expression hardened again. She frowned, not quite understanding what the big deal was. 

“Please.” He replied with a softer tone, his expression turning gentle once again. She nodded her head, setting Birdie down on the couch as she followed him to the door. He still looked regretful as he watched her, which made her feel just a bit better. At least she knew that he didn’t want to go either.

“Be safe,” She told him seriously as she leaned over, ignoring the cold wind as she pecked his lips, “I love you.” She said softly, watching the way his lips grew into a bigger grin before he repeated the words back. 

She walked around the other side of the house, peering out the window and watching the way his truck slowly disappeared in the distance. Birdie jumped up next to her, sitting on the counter as he peered out the window in the same manner. 

She went along with her plan, although it felt different spending so much time without him. The twins were fussier than usual too, both of them falling into a tear of puddles anytime she had to set them down to do something else. Even if it was quick.

She didn’t like asking for help when it was this late at night. She was sure that her mom would come over, but it didn’t feel right. She should be able to do this on her own. She knew that it was inevitable, that Gator would eventually have to do a night shift or two. She just wished it wasn’t so back to back.

She kept checking her phone, hoping for some sort of update from him but receiving silence in return. She sighed, knowing it wasn’t his fault but desperately missing him all the same. Birdie stayed to her side again, like a second skin as he followed her in and out of rooms. She figured he could sense her growing anxiety too.

“I know,” She mumbled as she had both twins sat into the breastfeeding pillow, trying to ignore how much they’d outgrown it. She hadn’t used it in some time as she hadn’t been very successful in breast feeding. They were both whining again, their eyes fresh with tears, “I miss him too.” She told the both of them, hoping that Gator would get home soon. 

Carrying them upstairs together was impossible so she started with Knox, who was sleeping heavier than Piper. Once she confirmed he wouldn’t stir from his crib, she returned back downstairs for Piper.

Only by then, Piper had grown fussy once again and now had fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Daphne quickly apologized, dried her eyes and bounced her back and forth to soothe her. She carried her upstairs slowly, getting her calmed down just a bit before she entered the nursery.

“You’re so sad tonight,” She mumbled as she sat in the rocker with Piper, slowly beginning to rub circles against her back as she nestled her head into Daphne’s shoulder, “See, if you said mama first maybe this wouldn’t happen.” She teased Piper, smiling to herself as Piper continued to sniffle and wiggle herself closer to Daphne’s chest. She reminded herself that it hopefully wouldn’t be much longer. He’d be back. 

-

The next morning went a little smoother, though she kept tripping over how closely Birdie was sitting underneath her feet. Piper was still fussy, but Daphne was now wondering if she was coming down with something as she kept sniffling and sneezing. She was warm, but not running a temperature yet. 

She’d set out a few pots and spoons onto the floor, letting both of the twins play around with them as she worked on breakfast. She was a little behind on their schedule, but figured they were already out of the loop anyways. It couldn’t get much worse. 

“Hey!” Gator’s tone surprised her, nearly making her drop the carton of eggs from her hands. Both of the twins jumped as well and the slow but sure sound of them beginning to cry rang into the air. She sighed as she set the eggs down, then went to comfort them on the floor, “I tried to call, you didn’t answer.” His tone sounded off, like he was scared. 

“I must’ve left my phone upstairs,” Daphne blinked in confusion as she began to bounce Piper in her right arm. It wasn’t like he had ever answered her texts anyways. She held the pacifier up to Knox’s mouth with her free hand, waiting for him to calm down too, “Sorry, they were both fussy last night and she keeps-, where are you going?” She asked him in confusion, unsure of where he was disappearing to now. 

He stomped up the stairs, taking two at a time as he gripped the railing and moved like he was on a mission. She waited, watching the way Knox sniffled and gripped the pacifier before he went back to smacking his little palms against the pots on the floor. She walked towards the stairs quickly, holding onto Piper as Gator vanished upstairs. 

“Gator,” She yelled up after him in disbelief, holding onto Piper as she continued to whine, “What are you doing?” She glanced towards Knox, but didn’t trust him to not attempt to stand if she left. She couldn’t carry both of them up the stairs either, it was too hard for her.

“Did anyone come by?” His voice was loud as it carried down the stairs. She furrowed her eyebrows together, turning to see that Piper wore the same look of confusion. She shook her head, growing more concerned. 

“What?” She asked him seriously, not understanding why he’d be asking that unless something was wrong. He appeared again, poking his head out of their room just enough so she could see him. 

“Daphne,” His tone was tense, “Was anyone here?” He asked again, more sternly this time. She shifted Piper in her arms as she began to whine, clearly wanting to be held by him instead. 

“Who would be here?” She asked him seriously, shaking her head as he dipped back into the bedrooms again. She sighed as she turned to look down at Piper, looking at the sadness that was swirling in her eyes

“Nothing is out of order then?” He asked, finally returning down the steps. He looked around the living room next, then the kitchen as he rubbed his palms across his pants. Piper grew fussier, holding her arms out towards him as a shrill sound left her lips.

“No one has been here,” She replied, although she felt an uneasy feeling growing in her stomach as Gator took Piper from her arms. He paused, rocking her back and forth before he kissed the side of her head, “What’s going on?” It was her turn to be stern. She held her hands out in disbelief, needing answers from him this time. 

“I just panicked,” He mumbled as he bent over to pick up Knox, who had dug his tiny fingers into Gator’s pants in an attempt to stand, “It’s nothing.” He shook his head, holding them both close to his chest. She rolled her tongue around the top of her mouth, knowing that he was lying to her. 

“You thought someone was inside the house,” Daphne told him seriously, “That’s not nothing. What’s going on? Why were you gone so long last night?” She demanded of him, frustrated that he kept sneaking around her questions. He sighed deeply before he pressed a kiss to Piper’s little fist.

“It’s just the case we’re working on,” He responded as he brushed his cheek against Knox’s, “I just let it get to me.” He mumbled underneath his breath, avoiding eye contact with her as the twins continued to snuggle to him. 

“You’re lying.” She told him seriously, trying to keep her anger at bay. She knew it wouldn’t do any good to get mad at him for not telling her. It would only make him keep even more secretive. She just wanted to make sure he was safe. That’s all that she wanted. 

“Someone left a note in dads house,” He mumbled softly as continued to hold both of the twins in his arms. She winced a little bit, hoping it wasn’t hurting his sore arm, “In the girls room. I just got scared that they came here too.”

“Why would someone do that?” She asked him, suddenly feeling scared herself. She couldn’t imagine someone breaking into Roy’s house. He always had it well guarded for his own paranoid reasons. If someone got in there, they could get their house with no issue. 

“I don’t know,” Gator sighed, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He said seriously, still looking tense as he looked over the twins as if he was ensuring that they were alright. Piper squealed in response, her eyes bright as she stared up at him. 

“I’m sort of freaked out right now,” She laughed underneath her breath, “What’s going on?” She could feel her heart fluttering roughly inside of her chest as her own worries grew. No matter how many times Gator would try and dismiss her, she knew that something had to be wrong. She chewed on her bottom lip, wishing he’d be honest with her. 

“I need to go check on dad,” Gator mumbled as he slowly set a squirming Knox back down, “I know, I know. I’ll be right back though.” He looked guilty again as he handed Piper to her. It took a minute to get her situated, as she continued to lean forward to try and attach herself to him. He brushed his fingers through her hair, looking like this was killing him. 

“You haven’t slept at all,” She reminded him, feeling bad as Piper started to cry again, “Do you have to go?” She asked him seriously as she began to bounce Piper, trying to calm her down as her cries began to grow louder. 

“I’ll be back,” He replied with a nod of his head, “This shouldn’t take long.” He lingered for a second, bending over to pepper a few kisses against Piper’s forehead. She reached her tiny fists out, looking frustrated as her cheeks began to grow red. 

“Alright,” She agreed with him, because she really didn’t know what else she could say. He’d go regardless, “Just please hurry back.” She replied, shrugging her shoulders in defeat. He exhaled roughly before he nodded, then turned on his heels as he left them once again. 

She sighed deeply, unable to fully process that he was out of the door again as the sounds of both of the babies crying grew louder. She shifted them onto her lap on the couch, bouncing both of them in an attempt to get them to calm down. 

She felt like her nerves were frazzled by the time he returned again, which wasn’t much longer, just as he had said. Still, Piper had been inconsolable since he left. She finally got her to sleep, but didn’t have the heart to let her go. She felt bad for her. 

“Are you done being a busybody?” She asked him, watching the guilt spread over his expression as he kicked off his boots. He worked on removing his jacket next, then his gun. He kept his hoodie on as he walked towards them. 

“For now,” He replied as he sank down onto the couch. He smiled as he reached forward, picking up Knox who had begun to scoot towards him, “I’m sorry.” He said seriously, his eyes regretful as he pulled Knox onto his lap. He kissed his head softly, smiling as Knox offered him his pacifier. 

“You can’t apologize for your job,” She mumbled as Piper continued to snooze against her chest. She knew she should keep them on the same schedule, but she didn’t want to wake her when she clearly didn’t feel good, “Did you get hit?”

“Uh,” He paused, “Just a little bit.” He rubbed at his cheek, narrowly avoiding the bruise that was underneath his eye. She watched the way he quickly turned away, smiling as Knox started to kick his feet. 

“I’m going to have to wrap you in bubble wrap,” Daphne mumbled as she continued to look at his black eye, “The same guy get you?” She questioned him, feeling worried. She hoped that it wasn’t someone too dangerous. 

“Something like that,” He mumbled as he leaned forward, holding Knox up into the air so he could brush his forehead against hers, “You smell good.” He took her by surprise, making her smile as she looked up at him. 

“You smell like smoke,” She said seriously as she rubbed her hands across his jawline, “Like really bad.” She cracked a smile, trying to make the conversation a little lighter as Knox giggled in his hand. He nodded as he sat back down, pulling Knox up against his chest. 

“Sorry,” He chuckled as he rubbed the back of his head, looking deep in thought for a moment, “I’ll go clean up in a minute.” He replied, looking like he wanted to do anything but that as he stared down at the way Knox had lazily rested himself on his lap. 

“That sounds good. You should rest,” She told him softly, watching the way he continued to look at Knox, “Did something else happen?” She questioned him gently once again, hoping that he would trust her enough to open up. 

“They caught the guy that shot the officer, you know at the gas station,” Gator replied slowly, “He drew on dad so he had to shoot him.” His tone was flat as he spoke, like he didn’t know how to fully think about it. She raised her eyebrows in surprise, leaning forward this time so she could comfort him. 

“Oh,” She frowned as she squeezed at his fingertips, “I’m sorry you had to see that.” She told him truthfully, sure that it had to be pretty scary. He chewed on his bottom lip as he nodded along with her. 

“Nothing unusual,” He said dismissively, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He mumbled as he bounced Knox up into his arms as he stood. He grinned, dipping his face down so he could pepper kisses across Knox’s face before he sat him back down on the floor. 

“I’ll make you some lunch,” She offered, “Is a grilled cheese alright?” She asked, doing her best to gently shift Piper around in her arms. She was sure that she could cook while continuing to hold onto her. 

“Sounds fucking amazing,” He laughed, “Thank you.” He kissed the top of her head, his lips lingering against her skin for a few seconds. She closed her eyes, thinking about how deeply she missed him too. 

He inhaled his sandwich once he was done in the shower, returning in only a pair of gray joggers as she worked on getting a bottle ready for Knox. She tried to find something to say, but was unable to do so as she awkwardly tried to twist the lid of the bottle off with one hand. 

“I can take her,” Gator said softly as he reached for Piper, “Is she sick?” He sounded worried as he picked her up, his eyebrows knitting together at the way she started to fuss before she calmed back down into his arms. He held her tightly, gripping her the same way he had with Knox earlier. 

“She might be coming down with something,” Daphne confirmed as she moved her shoulder around, her arm sighing in relief as the muscles were no longer straining, “She didn’t sleep well last night.” She told him gently, speaking the truth but also not wanting him to feel guilty for something he couldn’t help. 

“Poor girl,” He mumbled as he gave her cheek a few kisses and swayed her back and forth in his arms, “I’m sorry for leaving you alone.” His tone was full of regret as he brushed his long fingers through Piper’s thick hair. 

“You can’t help it,” She told him gently, confirming that the milk was at the right temperature before she bent over to give it to Knox, “It wasn’t too bad. I didn’t have to hear you snoring.” She teased him, watching the way Knox began to inhale the bottle in a similar way to how Gator had chowed down his sandwich. 

“Funny,” He laughed as he shook his head, looking content as he continued to swaddle Piper to his chest, “I missed the three of you. A lot.” He mumbled as he rested his cheek against the top of Piper’s head. He inhaled deeply, looking like he was worried that she might be upset with him. 

“We missed you too.” She told him seriously, smiling softly as she leaned over to kiss his cheek. She was still worried, but she trusted him. If he said everything was fine, then it was fine. 

-

Gator was attentive that night. She wasn’t sure how he managed to stay awake, even though she was certain that he didn’t sleep the night before. He laid on the floor with both of the twins, playing with them and then later helping them feed. He handled the diaper changes and also the bottle feedings. She had a feeling he felt more guilty than what he was letting on.

“Are you coming to bed?” She whispered softly, brushing her fingers through his hair as he rocked Knox in the rocking chair. The little night light was shining in the nursery as Piper laid peacefully in her crib. Knox was deep asleep as well, but Gator still held him tightly. 

“Yeah,” He mumbled softly, his eyes glazed over in a sleepy haze as he looked down at how Knox had his lips pursed together, “I was just waiting a moment.” He replied as he brought his finger against Knox’s cheek.

She smiled gently before she bent over to kiss the top of his head. She stayed there for a moment, inhaling the scent of his shampoo from his shower earlier. He moved his body closer to her, sighing softly as he rested against her. 

“You’re doing a great job,” She told him then, feeling like he needed to hear it, “The twins will be so happy to hear that their daddy is such a good guy, that he takes down all the bad guys.” She giggled as she pulled away, a little surprised at how his features remained stoic.

“I hope so,” He smiled stiffly as he shifted Knox in his arms before he stood from the chair. He cradled their baby to his chest, holding him closely before he bent over to brush his lips against hers, “I’ll be there in just a second.”

“Okay,” She mumbled, blinking softly as she watched him. She nodded her head, enjoying the way his eyes sparkled from the night light, “I’ll see you in a minute.” She told him gently, moving slowly as she turned back down the hallway.

She wanted to press more about what was going on, but knew that it would do no good. He was stubborn. If he didn’t want to talk about it, he wasn’t going to without a fight. She didn’t want him mad at her. Not when he was clearly stressed about work. 

“Sorry,” He mumbled as he walked into the room, smiling softly as carried a bag inside. She looked at it curiously as she finished rubbing lotion onto her legs, “I just hate putting them down sometimes. I missed them.”

“It’s alright,” She told him honestly, watching the way he flicked the main light off and turned his lamp on, “They missed you a lot too.” She replied seriously, knowing that was part of the reason Piper had been so fussy. 

He nodded his head, looking happy with her answer as he slowly sat down on the bed. He covered his face with his hands, sighing deeply as she scooted towards the bag that was left open. She looked at it curiously, glad that it wasn’t filled with guns but also worried about the amount of rope and duct tape inside. 

“What’s this?” She asked as she held up the mask that had fallen from his bag, “You went trick or treating?” She asked him, raising her eyebrows as she inspected the Jack Skellington mask in her hands. 

“Undercover,” He said quickly, “I did not get any candy. I swear.” He replied with a hint of a smile, looking tired as she scooted closer to him. She crossed her lips, pursing her lips into a grin as she held it up to his face. 

“Mhm,” She hummed as she moved the mask over the back of his head, “Huh. Not bad.” She replied, tapping her fingers across the side of his mask. She tried to blame it on him being shirtless, but she knew that wasn’t really the case. 

“You like it?” He asked, tilting his head in a manner that had her insides clenching together in awe. She chewed on her bottom lip as she slowly nodded her head in agreement as a warmth spread down between her legs. 

“You look pretty sexy,” She giggled, then gasped as he pushed her back onto the bed, “What are you doing?” She chewed on her bottom lip, hoping that it was going somewhere.

He looked slightly menacing as he crawled over her, his muscles bulging as the light from the lamp danced off of the side of his mask. She breathed in heavily, chewing on her bottom lip as she felt his warmth spreading to her body. 

“Shh,” He teased her as he looked down at her from the mask, “Just relax.” He mumbled, moving his casted hand to grip her chin. She fell silent, unable to speak as her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. She stared up at him, trying to keep her hips from moving up against him.

He brushed his fingers over her hardened nipples underneath her pajama shirt. He tilted his head, watching the way she squirmed underneath him before he moved his hand further down. He sat on his knees, kicking her legs far apart before he began to tug her shirt up over her shoulders.

She gasped as the cool air settled around her skin as a fire settled through her veins. He leaned down, tilting his mask up just enough to free his lips as he brought his tongue down against her sensitive buds. She moaned, arching her chest up towards him as he brought his wet tongue down against her nipple.

Jolts of electricity spread through her body from the sensation and a rough moan left her lips as he flicked his tongue down across the bud again. She whined, rolling her hips up towards him this time as she felt her clit throbbing in anticipation.

“Hm,” He hummed against her nipple, sending vibrations down her body. He dragged his fingers down her sides. She watched the way his mask fell back over his face, covering him as he gripped her pants. He quickly pulled her pajamas down, followed by her panties as he left her exposed, “So pretty.” He mumbled as he dragged his right fingers through her wet folds.

He lightly dragged them across her clit, making her gape as he collected her slick along his fingertips. He inhaled deeply, his chest falling and rising as he slid two fingers inside of her easily. She moaned as he pushed his fingers to the brim, only stopping once his cast pressed up against her.

“God,” She moaned as she rubbed her hips up against his long digits. He curled them inside of her easily, tsking his tongue against the roof of his mouth as she continued to grind up against him, “S’nice, baby.” She whined as he dragged his fingers deeper inside of her wet walls.

He leaned down again, pushing the mask up so he could lick at her nipples once again. He wrapped his lips around her sensitive bud as he continued to grind his fingers into her fluttering cunt. She cried out as she rested her hands near her head, moaning as curled his fingers deep inside of her.

She moved her hips with his movements, enjoying the way he easily slid inside of her hole. He brought his teeth down against her nipple, biting softly as she arched up against him again. She licked her bottom lip, whining as the pleasure grew deep inside of her.

“Gator,” She whined as she fought the urge to latch her thighs around his wrist, “I want you.” She told him seriously, breathing out roughly at the way he lifted his face up towards her, HIs mask was still in disarray, revealing his wet lips to her. 

“You want my cock?” He mumbled, sending her stomach twisting into knots again as he slowly withdrew his fingers from her cunt. He brought them up to his mouth, making a show of it as he licked his fingers clean. She whined as he gripped her wrist with his free hand, then brought her palm against his bulge.

“Yes,” She replied, whining as she rubbed her palm against his hard cock, “I want your cock so badly, daddy.” She whispered softly before she quickly sat up. She didn’t have to remove the mask to know that he was smirking, probably cock as she quickly pulled his pants down. 

She slowly brushed her palm around his hard cock, admiring the way her fingers struggled to wrap around his girth. She pumped him slowly, earning a low groan from him. She grinned, chewing on her bottom lip before she took the opportunity to shove him back this time.

“Fuck,” He hissed as he shifted onto the pillows, pushing the mask up over his head as he eagerly watched the way she straddled his lap. His eyes stayed glued to her body, searching over her curves and tits as she reached down between their bodies to grip his cock again, “You’re so beautiful.” He mumbled, making her face flush as she quickly turned away from him.

She couldn’t fully process his compliment, taking to sliding his pink tip inside of her wet walls. She felt her eyes flutter shut at the sensation of being stretched out. He moved his hands to her hips, gripping her tightly as she adjusted along the length of his cock.

She breathed in sharply, feeling like she was inhaling more of his cock as he slowly thrust his hips upwards. She shifted on his lap, resting her palms down against his abdomen as she slowly moved herself along the length of his cock.

“Oh,” She whined, her eyes shutting in awe as he pressed her back down onto his cock. She moaned at the way his cock curved inside of her, hitting her bundle of nerves. He grunted in response, his eyes filled with hunger as his eyes glazed over her body, “Jesus Christ.” She moaned out, unable to think of any other words as she focused on the way his cock pressed deeply against her spongy walls.

His groans grew louder as he dug his fingertips into her skin, holding onto her tightly as he began to move her body up and down his cock. She whimpered as she closed her eyes, her boobs bouncing from the rough way he was moving her.

Her legs trembled around him, her cunt clamping down along his thick girth as the sound of their flesh meeting filled the room. She looked down at him, admiring the way his features knitted up into pleasure. She moaned, leaning down to press her lips against his.

He kissed her roughly, his mouth sliding against hers blissfully as they captured each other's sounds of pleasure. He dug his heels into the mattress, holding her tightly as he began to roughly rock his cock into her. 

She pulled away from his mouth, her forehead falling against his as she cried out from the overwhelming pleasure. She felt her toes curling in awe as her muscles began to clench together as she felt her orgasm growing near.

“Fuck, fuck,” He hissed roughly, his breath warm against her cheek as she continued to shake above him. He held her tightly, keeping her in place as his thrusts became faster and more brutal. She felt his cock throbbing inside of her, sending her over the edge, “That’s it baby, taking my cock so good.” He grunted as her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

She trembled above him, her orgasm crashing over her as she clamped down around his cock. He continued to mumble and groan, whispering dirty words to her that she couldn’t quite understand from how foggy her brain suddenly felt. 

Her arms felt weak as she fell against him, her sweaty chest brushing against his as he pressed into her deeply. His cock slid inside of her, pressing into her to the brim as he came with a loud groan. His spunk painted her walls, filling her with his cum.

She panted against him, shaking a little bit as he rubbed his palms across her backside gently. She whimpered as she rested her cheek against his, trying to get her heart to stop racing. He tilted his head towards her, slowly brushing his lips against her own. 

“S’alright?” He questioned between rough spurts of breath. He paused before he kissed the corner of her mouth again, making her giggle softly as she wrinkled her nose up.

“Yeah,” She smiled as her heart continued to flip around inside of her chest, “I’m tired now.” She replied dramatically, squealing at the way he smacked her backside. She wiggled her face into the crook of his neck, enjoying how close they were for once.

“Poor, baby,” He mocked playfully as he continued to rub her sides, “You scared me earlier, you know.” He mumbled as he rubbed his fingers across her spine. She inhaled softly. 

“I’m sorry,” She told him truthfully, “I didn’t even think about having my phone on me.” She replied, moving her head further towards his chest so she could hear his heartbeat. He hummed in response.

“I know,” He told her as she continued to listen to the way his heart was moving underneath her ear, “I just want you to be safe.” He mumbled a little softer. She began to wonder what could be so dangerous that he felt like he had to hide it from her. She continued to rest against him, hoping that he wouldn’t be so worried once the case was over. 

[basketsys]

We're sick so I wrote a stand up comedy script about being a system called "Late night insomnia (and fever) driven system themed stand up comedy" or just "Dudes Inside Disorder"

[Sources from some jokes are in the bottom of the post, if you click any of the little numbers they will send you to the original Google document I used for writing]

Hello and welcome to this mess of a show, my legal name is unimportant since you are not the government to be concerned about it but you guys can call this sack of meat and bones “Basket” or “Basket System” if you want to quote on quote full name us. A little background about that name, it is supposed to be more like one of those baskets that you often find in farmer markets full of fruits and berries and stuff, but you can kinda also see it as a dirty laundry basket too because, to be fair, these clothes? They stink a bit now, you just can't smell from your chairs which is probably better for the sake of both of us.

You didn't need to know that but, oh well, I'm already over sharing tonight, what a little more to throw at the mix.

If you don't know what a system is, don't worry, I will explain, a system is a little silly thing the human brain does where it gives you silly guys to live with inside your brain alongside you. And if you're already thinking “I never met a system before nor heard about one ever” then it might be because of 1 out of 3 reasons: Either a. You must really live along with people without trauma or problems which, good for you, b. We only tell very close friends or partners about this kind of stuff so someone might not want to cause problems in the relationship or something along those lines, or c. Damn, you might be the problem. Like sincerely, you must be the reason why we don't talk about it so openly and only so secretly and we have to be like the LGBTQ community almost getting out of the closet and all that.

And honestly if you are the type of guy that heard about the people in your head stuff and immediately thought “Oh like that one movie, Shattered” then yes you are the problem so me and my other 50 friends are coming for you, except that when I mean my other 50 friends I really mean 1 body with 50 people in their frontal lobe.

Because really, get that movie out of the way, the people who did it are hated so much by thousands of people who actually suffer from this, including us. So let's clear up what a system really is like.

Being a system is more like living in a house with so many roommates you lost count and also almost never see and then one day you go to the fridge to get that one snack that you were saving for later, and then going to said fridge and not finding it and immediately screaming “WHO THE FUCK ATE MY SNACK?!” except you scream it internally and not out loud in front of your parents who are already disappointed in the fact that you either keep saying that you can't remember your childhood, which I'm sure they worked so fucking hard to give you a memorable one (/s, shaking head, dead stare), or the fact that you are a little too fruity for them and you don't want them to know so soon how mentally ill you actually are. And after that you just start planning murder and then suddenly and without any notice you just hear someone behind you saying “Calm down, it's fine, we can get it later, it's no worry” and you're just there mid planning going “When the fuck did you fucking appear? Like dude, at least make a little sound. Also this is my problem, it doesn't concern you.” and the guy just responds with “It does concern me because in fact you're planning on murdering my son. You're planning the murder of 6-year-old Timmy here over a snack.” and then you just don't know how to feel, either you feel like an asshole or you still keep going on with your plans because technically they can't put you in jail for beating the shit out of a child that resides inside your frontal lobe.

Yeah, just to be safe, never ask a system what crimes have been committed inside that brain, because in fact, it might be a lot. Some might even say arson and you'll be so glad that the fire 10-year-old Sarah did was in a safe space and not in a forest unlike a middle-aged singlet woman making a baby shower.

Oh, right yeah I haven't talked about how we call you guys, right. Systems refers to normal people as “singlets”, comes from the word “singular”. Yeah we have to pretend we are singlets a lot. Either it's school, a job, social media even, Thanksgiving, Christmas, for government papers like a birth certificate, imagine if the government creates a law for systems where we have to update the birth certificate everytime we get a new silly guy in the headband they just attach the list of names and date of splitting to the already 1 page long certificate using tape or staples, the list would be fucking endless and we would contribute a fucking lot to global warming. It's not like we even care about the headcount a lot, we also sometimes don't keep count of how many people are in this sack of bones and meat. Also it's hilarious when you start talking about introjects because you might as well be committing either illegal cloning or identity theft in the eyes of the government, so. Yeah better to not keep track of the infinite amounts of Wilbur Soot's in every system and how many each body has as well, they would end each shift like “How many Wilbur's did you count today?” “Today was a chill day, only 22. Like 5 different bodies, it was cool. One of them was trans I think.” like it's no longer ‘How much did they pay you this week?’ it's ‘How many times did you have to press ctrl+v this evening?’.

The government would be like “You wouldn't download a movie” or even “You wouldn't download a car”, well, guess what bitch, I fucking downloaded a car and his fucking name is Lighting McQueen.[1]

Honesty sometimes I feel like introjects are like Rule 34 even, if there's a character there's an introject, especially if there's a lot of attention on that media, oh boy. I'm just gonna say, the quantity of Marvel introjects I've seen, even worse than when DSMP was popularized. For you who are not zoomers, that's something off the internet which was basically a theater club to say the least, don't ask, you don't wanna know, you don't ask more questions about it nor say why did Dream actually needed to stay in jail forever because if you do you're gonna get doxxed. And it's not fun, look at us we change identity every random amount of time because of this exact same thing. Just kidding it is not because of that, it's because someone was mean to us at the ripe age of 8, so now we're fucked up mentally[2] (with an up-beat voice). Now, we're 15 fuckers in a trench coat with one goal, taking a nap, and also trying to figure out who ate the last of the fettuccine Alfredo. I'm looking at you, Alejandro. (looking at nothing) You could've just left a note. I won't be mad for eating my leftovers (nodding at audience while mouthing “Yes, I will” )

What's also fun about this (whisper: “it is not, not really”) is that, you don't only get DID, the “Dudes Inside” Disorder, you also get a fun little combo of other mental illnesses so you don't miss out on the offer, like a McDonald's promotion where you just pay $2 extra and get something else, the same here, you get a little bit more fucked up and you get a new guy and a mental disorder, like ADHD, autism, OCD, BPD, Bipolar, PTSD, anxiety, the whole DSM-5 diagnosis criteria. Like yeah they can come free with your new guy, even bundle up and the newbie could also be like “Oh my God, I wanna front and experience life like I have never been more alive” a then when they experience life and also with the several other disorders and even sometimes disabilities that the body can have they're just like “…I don't want to be here anymore, I wanna go home” and then there's the one alter who's been there for the last 5 years just looking from afar and saying “You must be new here, welcome to hell” like an old war veteran while they're just, what, 17?

And then you do the math and realize “Goddamn that 17-year-old was 12 when they appeared” and to that I say, and in complete honesty, the people that can appear can already come pre-traumatized like a pre-cooked meal that you just pop into the microwave. It's no longer “I can fix him” now it's “I will get him so he goes to therapy himself”.[3] I got that one off system Tumblr, it's fine the amnesia will make them forget they ever did that joke. Also, you're not even the one checking what's available in the alter market, the brain just looks and analyzes the world like a menu like “What do I need at this moment, a medium ugly half dead man? No, too fruity. Boy failure male wife wet cat? Too pathetic. An intergalactic teenager from another species, a completely different civilization with completely different culture, skin colour, inhumane features and an asshole personality? (Gasp) Yeah I'll get that. Excuse me, I'll get the Karkat Vantas, directly from Homestuck, don't do any of those fancy AU stuff, I'll get the original. Can I make that a combo? Yeah, give me the social anxiety, extra shake. Want this to get called a nervous system[4] instead of whatever name they made up for themselves, thanks”

Another thing that also changes a lot is how you consume content, either a song, a series, movie, you name it. You guys are just out there saying “I want to watch this movie” let's take Penguins of Madagascar as an example, and you just get through the movie, silly movie, funny even, you enjoyed it and then never think about it again until that one night you're scrolling Netflix, great. But as a system? Oh boy.

As a system, you have to pray to finish the movie sometimes. Either someone else wanted to see the movie too and can be a child or an adult so now either they kicked you or you're getting a friend to chat with during the movie, sometimes even babysit but everything cool, you finish the movie and mission accomplished, you survived.

Or also what can happen is a secret third thing which we all just sweat cold at night. If you get through the movie, amazing, you made it, now pray so Riko doesn't follow you home like a demon attached to you, don't matter which fucking God you have to pray to, even if it's the angel inside your brain you got from reading the fucking Bible back when you were on Sunday school or fucking Zeus, you just do. You're atheist? Not anymore, you need all celestial help you can get so he doesn't appear ever. You heard his voice? No you fucking didn't. Just keep walking. You don't wanna hear it from the host, or the system manager, asking when and how did we get an arsonist terrorist spy penguin that can puke bombs at will and also doesn't communicate very well. Anyways, just smile and wave…wait, NO.

One last thing I want to talk about is how diverse sometimes the alters in systems can get, they can be transgender, cisgender, human, non-human, straight up animals, demons, angels, a fucked up drawing you did when you were 12, anything. And also leaves the room for them to be part of the LGBTQ community and also form families and relationships in the same system.

For example, remember Timmy? The 7-year-old about to be murdered? And how this guy just said “That's my child?” yeah, we just, start saying shit like that, sometimes is because of the memories that they have before forming or it can be just because they saw a child and said “Yoink, now you're my son” like there's a 50/50. But a lot of systems consider each other family and that's actually very nice. Even internal dating happens, genuinely. Which yeah, it is already pretty fruity to have silly little guys inside you, now they're actually gay?[5] Damn, okay box of fruit loops, we get it, calm down. That's actually what one of our singlet friends told us when I explained my relationship with my fucking husband which lives with me in the same frontal lobe, and to be fair, he's right, if we actually bought each one of them their own pride flag we would be broke in no time, like. It was to pick a single struggle, not to grab a handful of them. It said it on the sign “Take one”.

Moving on, you know, hopefully I live long enough to see a system meeting expo-like event, I want to see the posting of the event saying something like "Thank you for coming to our meeting! We had a thousand attendees in this event" and then someone as an outsider just saw like 6 different bodies in front of a Starbucks.

Some references:

[1] Came with this one with a friend system

[2] Sysblr

[3] Sysblr

[4] Sysblr

[5] Close singlet friend

[joehawke]

Hey Stephen Drabble

Or: a shittily written Drabble written at 2am loosely based on Eddie writing the song Hey Stephen by Taylor Swift.

Or: Taylor swift x steddie? Count me in.

There’s things that Eddie likes to keep to himself, locked away in a box that’s lost it’s key; things even Wayne and the boys don’t know. Stupid things like how he doesn’t entirely know how to swim, just figured doggy paddling would be enough (and can you blame him? His parents were never around to teach him, and it’s not like the trailer park had a pool and you wouldn’t catch him dead at Hawkin’s community pool), or the way he secretly binges cheesy romantic comedies when Wayne’s on a night shift, because can you blame him? He’s a hopeless romantic at heart. Stupid things really.

So despite the heavy metal front that Eddie tends to put in place when it comes to writing for corroded coffin, he has one more secret that he likes to keep sealed in his box of classified information if you will; he’s a sucker for a good love song. And listen, don’t get him wrong, he’s well aware that some of the best metal artists of all time have written some of the most beautiful love ballads, but there’s something just so intimately soft and sweet about a basic slow love song. Sue him. So yeah, what if he has an entirely separate song notebook filled to the brim with easy chord progressions and cheesy soft melodies? He’s just a guy. In all fairness, in all honesty and retrospect, he hasn’t touched that stupid journal in a little over a year, what with the whole end of the world-inner dimension to hell thing, and he had figured he wouldn’t come close to opening it’s broken spine in awhile, but one Steve Harrington makes it almost impossible to leave it to sit and collect dust on his shelf like he had planned.

He’s been back from the hospital for a little over two weeks now, resigned to strict bed rest since leaving the dingy corridor that was the government “suite” in the hospital (also known as the basement wing, and isn’t that sweet of them), and despite his best efforts at attempting to be a big boy and be alone, Harrington hasn’t stopped playing nurse. Steve Harrington, dethroned King of Hawkins High, has basically set up shelter in the Munson’s humble abode (thank you government hush money).

Eddie’s a simple guy, he can’t complain if Steve wants to play nurse, he can however fuss about the stupid butterflies that have built cocoons in his stomach for the last month. Which leaves him to now.

It took some convincing, but after almost an hour of Eddie attempting to compel Steve to leave and go check up on the others, and with Wayne at work, Eddie’s finally got the house to himself. Despite Steve’s persistent voice in the back of Eddie’s head telling him to stay put on the couch so you don’t rip your stitches, I’ll be back in less than two hours. I mean it Eddie, Eddie crutches over to his bedroom diligently, careful not to let his crutch get stuck on wadded up clothes (and yeah, Eddie’s surprised Steve hasn’t started doing his laundry yet at the rate he’s been playing mommy). He sits on the floor near one of his basket made bookshelf’s and rummages through for his notebook. When he finds the one he wants, he flips through steadily with his tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration as he looks for a blank page and a pen. He’s had this itch in the back of his mind (or heart?) for the last month now, and it heavily revolves around Steve Harrington’s lips. But because that’s impossible, he does the next best thing. He writes.

He’s not even sure how long he sits on his dirty floor writing away and strumming chords on his guitar before he hears the familiar cut off of Steve’s beemer pull up. Eddie quickly curses to himself before getting up so fast Steve would have an aneurysm had he seen him, quickly crutching back to the couch. He barely makes it in time before he hears the sound of Steve’s key in the door (Steve’s key. Steve’s key. What is Eddie’s life.)

“Hey Eds.” Steve says as he takes in Eddie on the couch. And isn’t that something; Eds. Eddie had to bite back a literal purr the first time Steve had called him that.

“Hey Stevie,” Eddie replies, careful not to give himself away. Steve eyes him carefully, like he can see right through Eddie. “So how are the others?”

“Good. Yeah. What’s up with you?” Steve asks, his brows furrowing as a small questionable grin places itself on his mouth. Eddie waves his hand in dismissal, failing miserably at being stealthy. (And since when was Eddie a bad liar? The man tells stories basically for a living. But can you blame him when Steve is looking at him like that?).

“Nothing! Just uh - hungry. You did tell me not to move a muscle Harrington, remember that conversation when you left me to fend for my poor old self?” Eddie says dramatically, giving Steve puppy eyes. Eddie watches as Steve suppresses an eye roll.

“I made lasagna last night to heat up for tonight” Steve says, and huh, when did Eddie miss that?

“Right. Of course you did”

“I’m going to go wash up and I’ll be back to plate up some dishes for us, okay?” Steve says, before heading back to the opposite end of the apartment. Eddie sighs in relief as he finally allows himself to slump back against the couch.

After Steve washes his hands, he heads into Eddie’s room, shucking off his jeans to put on a pair of sweats. He reaches down to retrieve his car keys in his pocket, when he comes eye to eye with one of Eddie’s open notebooks. And huh. That wasn’t there when he left. He picks it up, going to close it, when he sees his name. Look, Steve knows he shouldn’t snoop, he’s well aware actually, but you can’t blame him when his name is written in bold curly letters.

Steve knows he should stop reading, knows this is personal, but the lyrics have his heart lodged into his throat and he can’t bring himself to look away.

“— you might have me believing I don't always have to be alone. 'Cause I can't help it if you look like an angel, Can't help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain, so come feel this magic I've been feeling since I met you. Can't help it if there's no one else, Mmm, I can't help myself.

Hey Stephen, I've been holding back this feeling, So I've got some things to say to you (ha) I've seen it all, so I thought, But I never seen nobody shine the way you do. The way you walk, way you talk, way you say my name, It's beautiful, wonderful, don't you ever change.

Steve’s breath hitches at the lyrics written down, of what he can only assume as the mention of what he saw in the upside down and how Eddie’s thoughts still somehow manage to correlate to Steve.

Hey Stephen, why are people always leaving? I think you and I should stay the same, 'Cause I can't help it if you look like an angel, Can't help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain, so Come feel this magic I've been feeling since I met you. Can't help it if there's no one else. Mmm, I can't help myself

Tears well up in Steve’s eyes as he reads the meaning behind the first sentence, and then the meaning behind every one after that. He brings his free hand up to his mouth as he continues to read.

They're dimming the street lights, You're perfect for me. Why aren't you here tonight? I'm waiting alone now, So come on and come out and pull me near And shine, shine, shine

Hey Stephen, I could give you 50 reasons why I should be the one you choose. All those other girls, well, they're beautiful, But would they write a song for you? (Ha-ha)

I can't help it if you look like an angel, Can't help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain, so, Come feel this magic I've been feeling since I met you, Can't help it if there's no one else

Mmm, I can't help myself If you look like an angel, Can't help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain, so Come feel this magic I've been feeling since I met you Can't help it if there's no one else

Mmm I can't help myself. Myself

Can't help myself, I can't help myself

Oh, oh, oh”

Steve didn’t even hear Eddie’s crutches as Eddie makes his way into the room. Steve looks up just in time to see the ghostly look on Eddie’s face.

“What are you doing?” Eddie asks, harsher than he means to, and maybe it’s the way Steve stands there speechless, or the tears in his eyes as he looks up from the words on the paper, but Eddie cringes in to himself. Steve must thing he’s a freak, and Eddie doesn’t blame him, if the shoe fits and all.

“I - Eddie -“ Steve stutters out, gripping the notebook tighter.

“Just - just save it. I’m a freak, I get it okay. Can we please just forget about this” Eddie asks, leaning on his crutches for support as he walks farther into the room before snatching the book away from Steve’s vice. Steve flinches slightly, before nodding, and Eddie just barely misses the tear that cascades down Steve’s cheek, and if this were any other scenario, Eddie would wrap his palms around Steve’s cheeks, wiping away the salty storm with the pads of his thumbs, but this isn’t any other scenario and Steve probably hates him now.

Eddie shoves the notebook under his pillow hastily before sitting down on his bed in a slump, looking anywhere but at Steve. He sees Steve go to move before he hears him.

“I uh - I gotta go. Wayne’s almost home” Steve mumbles out, before rushing out the door. Eddie hears the faint click of the front door open and shut and listens as Steve’s beemer pulls out of the lot.

Fuck.

I got tired and couldn’t finish, do I do a part two?

[betterbooktitles]

I was standing in the green room of the posh comedy club in Chelsea where I’d been hired as a publicity assistant. I was waiting to go on, taking deep breaths. The room, like the rest of the club, was unnecessarily fancy. Most green rooms are the size of broom closets. Most comedy green rooms are broom closets. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve eaten chicken strips from a red plastic basket while standing up, the basket resting at eye-level in front of me on a stack of extra chairs, next to a bucket and a mop. Why not? That’s what a comedian is. Another piece of furniture in the utility closet. The important part is that people come out to drink, not if the talent is happy. I know a comic who was asked to mop the floors at a club after a particularly bad set. What a business!

As I breathed in deeply and counted backward from ten, I was staring at the long purple padded bench along the wall with its too-tall back and its too-small seat. The only way to sit comfortably was to have perfect posture, and even then, half my ass hung off the front of the bench. So I stood and I sweat and I panicked. At 20, I was not ready to go in front of a packed room of strangers in a Manhattan nightclub that happened to employ me during the day. The feeling that I was not ready was verified a few minutes later. I didn’t bomb per se, but when I look at old tapes from this era, I not only cringe at my delivery but also at the exhausted and forced laughs from the crowd. It wasn’t bad. But I wasn’t good either. If people saw me in the bar after these sets, they’d look at me with baffled recognition like I was a character actor from a TV show they had seen years ago but couldn’t quite place, rather than the bland guy who was talking at them about “how Facebook is weird” from the stage less than an hour ago. I was forgettable.

A fancy dressing room is not required for comedy. Neither are high ceilings or good food in the showroom. Often, those flourishes are a detriment to a good comedy space. You want a cramped but air-conditioned hole in the wall. The backroom of a bar. A tiny theater. The club where I worked felt like someone had built the Titanic on land a few blocks from where it was supposed to make port at the Chelsea Piers. The mirror that covered most of one wall, the cabinet space, and the ornate but un-sittable benches all felt like Herman Melville’s description of fireplaces in bedrooms: they were “the luxurious discomforts of the rich.” It was a nice green room and a nice club by any standard, but knowing how sad and cramped the basement office space was, how much it smelled of dead mice down there, how the black seats in the showroom looked comfortable but felt spongy when you sat on them, how the show was never as electric as it should be, all added up to a feeling of unease. It all felt like money thrown at a problem that didn’t exist. Comedy was doing fine in worse venues. This place could not last. The space felt like most of what I discovered while working in Manhattan: it’s awe-inspiring, charming, and jaw-droppingly expensive, but eventually, you remember that parts were built on literal trash or a swamp. The rats are creeping in, the basement is flooding.

In the swanky green room, a toothy radio personality and sometimes-comedian was giving me unsolicited advice, holding my shoulder to relax me. I was wearing a bright red American Apparel shirt and black skinny jeans, my uniform for all of 2007. The only time I wore anything else was the day I ran out of clean laundry, so I bought a ThunderCats t-shirt on the way to work. My coworker, a perpetually hungover nightlife photographer asked me multiple times if my shirt had a Bacardi logo on it. “No, man. Much sadder. It’s a cartoon I barely remember.”

The radio DJ kept trying to talk me out of my visible nervousness. He was giving off a lot of step-dad-trying-to-earn-my-trust energy. He kept saying I was going to be great. He squeezed my shoulder and leaned in like he was about to softly tell me “I want to say one word to you, just one word: plastics!” He kept emphasizing his speech by using his other hand to tap me lightly on the chest with three fingers as he spoke.

“You need to calm down. All that matters is that crowd, man. All you need to do is listen to that crowd. They’ll tell you what’s right.” 

It took me a decade to realize that advice is bad. Crowds are notorious for having subpar ideas and executing them in terrible ways. Crowds are responsible for the Reign of Terror during The French Revolution. Crowds love public executions and storming federal buildings and silent discos. Real psychotic stuff. I’m not a big believer in the Oscar Wilde adage that “everything popular is wrong.” I love the NBA and Egg McMuffins. But anytime a big crowd is focused on something besides sports or music, I am wary. Specifically, I’ve seen a lot of comedians who are one bad breakup away from turning a stand-up show into a Men’s Rights Activist meeting, and crowds adore them.

Read the rest of the essay here

[natashadied4oursins]

Dark Eliot: The World We Live In

Summary: Eliot was finishing up a job for Moreau when he discovers a witness hiding. Moreau doesn't allow witnesses to live, but that doesn't mean Eliot can't have a little fun with her first, right? (Read all the warnings!)

Pairings: Dark!Eliot/OFC (unnamed, mid-twenties)

Warnings: rape/non-con (non-violent, but rape is rape, right?), explicit sexual content, Eliot with no conscience, Eliot is creepy, language, oral, murder (mentioned), dead bodies (mentioned).

You are responsible for your own media consumption! Don't like? Don't read.

Rating: NSFW, 18+

Minors: Do Not Interact. Do Not Read. This isn't for you.

A/N: This is completely fucked up; I don't know how else to describe it. I couldn't find any Dark Eliot fics, so I decided to write one myself. The result is…pretty fucked up. This is very OOC for the Eliot we know and love, but is it necessarily OOC for the Eliot who worked for Moreau? Maybe. You decide.

Eliot is a gentleman assassin without a conscience, he rapes someone, and is a creepy motherfucker. The rape isn't violent and Eliot doesn't get mean or angry, but…rape is rape, right?

I'm an amateur writer, so friendly feedback is welcome.

I'm also new to posting on Tumblr, so let me know if I messed up somewhere.

Word Count: 6,370

Dark Eliot: The World We Live In

Eliot was making his final sweep of the property to make sure he didn’t leave behind any evidence that could lead back to him or Moreau. It was a pretty straight forward assignment. Twelve guards, one housekeeper, and two targets. Eliot was a nice guy; he didn’t make them suffer…unless he didn’t get the information he wanted.

He thought the primary target, the husband, would be a tough nut to crack given his reputation and criminal enterprises. Eliot was surprised he gave up the information after only a couple of minutes of…questioning. No worries; it just meant more time to train after being debriefed by Moreau.

Something caught his eye as he passed the upstairs bedrooms. Luggage. Closed and put to the side, but out in the open nonetheless. In the daughter’s room. Damn! The kid wasn’t supposed to come back home until the end of the week. Too bad for her; she looked pretty cute in the surveillance photos.

He knew he got all the guards, but he’d noticed during their skirmish that there were two more stationed upstairs instead of downstairs as usual. He didn’t think anything of it after he killed them all. Now he knew they’d been there to protect the daughter. Maybe that was why the husband gave up the information so quickly; so Eliot would leave without ever knowing she was there.

Eliot knew she’d be hiding in the closet. They all hid in the closet. Still, he made sure to search other potential hiding spots on his way: under the bed and desk, behind curtains… The walk-in closet wasn’t very big, but it wouldn’t be since the house was over 150 years old. He suddenly got the feeling she wasn’t hiding in the closet, but he had to be thorough.

He pulled the rope hanging from the trapdoor in the ceiling. He knew it led to the attic; the walk-in closet had been a hidden room 150 years ago. The trapdoor didn’t look like it had been disturbed. Again, he got the feeling she wasn’t in the attic, but he couldn’t tell Moreau she got away because of a feeling.

Eliot was all the way inside the attic when he head noise coming from the bedroom below. Fuck! He knew she was still in there! He jumped down through the trapdoor and ran into the bedroom in time to see the girl picking herself up from the floor. She’d been hiding in a large wicker basket used for dirty laundry. Smart girl.

She was nearly out the bedroom door when he grabbed her by the waist and tossed her onto her bed. “No!” she screamed, “No!” She struggled underneath him; he had to pin her down with his body. He held both her wrists in one hand over her head while the other held her by the neck. He didn’t put enough pressure to strangle her, just enough for her to know he wouldn’t be letting her get away.

His breath caught when he got a good look at her. Big, bright brown eyes; dark hair in a messy bun with stray curls against her soft, tan skin; plump pink lips; and a fierce determination not to look scared. That was cute. Of course she was scared.

“Aren’t you a pretty thing?” He leaned down until their noses touched. He let himself inhale her scent. Cherry blossoms. How sweet. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school, little girl?” he teased. She didn’t say anything, breathing heavily under his gaze. “How do you expect to get your Master’s degree if you don’t take your last final?” Her eyes widened at his knowledge of her personal life.

Eliot chuckled at her innocence. Of course he knew all about her. He did his homework on the target’s family, and he was always thorough. Now that she was more than a pixelated image on a screen, he wanted to learn more about her…in depth.

He should be kind and put a bullet in her head. Normally he would have already, but he just…didn’t want to at the moment. Not that it mattered what he wanted. The only thing that mattered was what Moreau wanted, and he wanted no witnesses. Well, Moreau would get what he wanted after Eliot was done with her.

He took his time to admire the girl’s beauty. In his line of work, he’d seen plenty of beautiful women, some were over-the-top beautiful that just made them, ironically, less appealing to him. This girl was the right kind of pretty. Gorgeous, but down-to-earth. Normal. Not that the poor girl lived a normal life.

He tried not to think about the disappointing way their evening together would end and focused on the here and now. And now...there was some straining going on in his pants that was getting very difficult to ignore. But he wasn’t going to rush it with this girl. No, the pretty thing deserved so much better than that.

Eliot reached over and grabbed the long scarf hanging off one of the bedposts. The girl struggled while he tied the scarf around her wrists. Poor thing knew what was coming. He didn’t want her to be scared, but people don’t always get what they want, do they? He knelt on the bed and awkwardly carried her up to the headboard and tied her wrists to it. She cried and begged him to stop the entire time. That was going to get annoying really fast.

He positioned her on the bed to make her as comfortable as possible. Luckily, her bed was already made so there were fewer lumpy spots that would poke her. Once properly situated, he caressed her cheek and said as gently as he could but loud enough for her to hear, “If you keep yelling like that then I’ll have to gag you, and I don’t wanna do that.”

She stopped screaming and continued her shallow breathing, her chest rising and falling underneath his own. “There we go; I knew you were a good girl.” He played with the loose strands of her hair in between his fingers. “I want to be able to hear all the little noises you’ll make when I make you feel good.”

She pulled against her restraints and gave him a disgusted look before sobbing.

He wondered how experienced she was. She was young; had she ever had a real orgasm? The thought of her writhing in ecstasy because of him had him grinding against her to ease the tension in his pants.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. It would be Moreau. Eliot was supposed to have given him a status report by now. “Would you excuse me, darlin’? I gotta take this.” He got off the bed but made sure to give her a sweet kiss on her forehead. “Don’t go anywhere,” he breathed against her skin before giving her a wink.

He left her room closing the door behind him. He didn’t know why he did that; it didn’t matter what information she ended up overhearing.

“Damien!”

“Eliot! Everything ok? You usually don’t keep me waiting.” Moreau wasn’t angry. He knew Eliot was a responsible and loyal foot soldier. They were even friends to a degree.

“I got one more witness to take care of. The daughter.”

“The daughter? You said she’s not due back from university until this weekend.”

“I dunno what to tell ya. She’s here now.”

“Well hurry up. Take care of her and come back.”

“Actually, Damien,” Eliot scratched the back of his head. “I was hoping to take my time with her...if you know what I mean.”

Moreau chuckled at the other end of the phone. “Spencer! I didn’t know you were the type to entertain…reluctant companions.”

Eliot chuckled back. “I usually don’t! What can I say? I think I’m in love.”

Both men burst out laughing like he’d made the funniest joke of all time.

Moreau sounded like he might have been crying with laughter. “Oh, Spencer. You’re always so serious and professional I forget how funny you can be.”

Eliot wiped the tears out his eyes. “I’m tellin' ya. She brings it outta me.”

Moreau waited for his laughter to finally die down. “Well, who am I to stand in the way of true love? I’ll check on you later to see if you…need more time.”

“I appreciate it, boss.”

“Of course! You deserve a treat every once in a while.”

Eliot ended the call; glad to be given the green light. They were in the middle of nowhere. No one had any idea of what had happened, so he didn’t have to worry about police interrupting them. They could take their time.

He found the girl struggling harder than ever against her restraints, which he expected, but he knew she wouldn’t be able to escape the intricate knot he'd made. He leisurely made his way back to the bed watching her staring back at him desperate and scared. She eventually stopped pulling at her wrists, beginning to accept what was going to happen.

He dropped his cell phone on the bedside table along with his gun and knife. He wasn’t a big fan of guns. They made people overconfident and sloppy, but they served their purpose when he granted his targets a quick and painless death.

He slipped off his shoes and socks and pulled his shirt and beater up over his head and tossed them aside. The girl’s eyes watched him as he took off the rest of his clothes. Her eyes lingered on his chest and then to his very ready cock.

“Are you checking me out, darlin’?” he teased. Of course he worked out, but a nice side effect was that women liked the end result. He bent down to wipe the tears from her eyes and caressed the bottom of her trembling lip with his thumb. “Now. I don’t usually do this,” he said a bit shyly, “But a girl like you…” he took his time scanning her beautiful features, “…is hard to resist.” He grabbed his knife without looking away.

The girl gasped trying to keep her body out of reach of the blade, but Eliot climbed over her trapping her waist between his knees. He slowly and deliberately cut her cute, flowery pajama tank top from top to bottom. She seemed to understand that he wasn’t going to use the knife to hurt her. At least not yet. She stopped struggling, but a few whines escaped her mouth.

Eliot cut the sleeves of her tank top and pulled the fabric from her body, tossing it on the floor, and put the knife back on the nightstand. “A girl like you deserves to be worshipped,” he licked at the pulse on her neck. She tasted so good. She tossed her head aside facing away from him, but that only gave him better access to her neck. He licked and nibbled where her neck and shoulder met eliciting a whine from her. He smiled recognizing that kind of whine, but he wouldn't gloat just yet.

“You deserve to be taken care of,” he breathed and teased one of her nipples with his tongue. The poor girl was trying to hold back any sounds that might give away any…pleasant reactions she might've been having. He slipped as much of her breast as he could in his mouth, running his lips tightly around it, licking and sucking at it. “I’m gonna make sure I do both.” He turned his attention to her other breast and gave it the same treatment.

The girl squirmed underneath him, but she also arched her back pressing herself further into him. Eliot was happy to oblige. He bit her nipple making her jump, but he ran his tongue circling it to soothe the sting. She seemed to like that.

He ran his hands along her sides and down to her curvy hips. He left open mouthed kisses from her chest to her belly taking his time to savor every spot. “Damn, you’re gorgeous.” He stuck his tongue in her belly button surprising her. He smiled against her skin.

His fingers found the elastic of her matching pajama shorts and panties and slowly slipped them off leaving kisses down her leg in his wake. He brought her other ankle over his shoulder to kiss it. He let his hands feel every curve and muscle in her leg giving her goosebumps.

Her head was still turned away from him, her eyes skewed shut, her body tense. He didn’t want to hurt her; she needed to relax. Hopefully she’d figure that out in time. He kissed her leg all the way up to her hip. His nose was level with her pussy. Her slick, glistening, wet pussy. He took a deep whiff of her sweet arousal making him dizzy with need.

“Mmm,” he hummed crawling up to her ear. His dick rested on her belly. “I knew you’d be ready for me, baby,” he teased. She sobbed and gritted her teeth. “No, don’t be upset,” he cooed. “It’s a good thing. So you don’t get hurt.” He took her head in his hands making her face him. She opened her eyes. She was scared but still determined to be strong. “Unless you’re into that sort of thing,” he smirked. “Are you?” he asked running his tongue against her lips. “Are you into getting hurt?” He didn’t wait for an answer; he knew he was being a smart ass.

He crushed her lips with his own licking them open. She clenched her teeth closed and whined, not wanting to open up for him. He ran his tongue across her teeth. “You were being such a good girl,” he said a hint of warning in his voice. “Let me taste you. Please?” She still didn’t let him in. He leaned his forehead against hers for a few moments and sighed. He pulled away and met her eyes. “Please,” he begged. He wouldn’t hide the pleading in his voice. “I don’t want to get angry. I want us both to have a good time.” Her eyes widened in terror; maybe now she would do the right thing. “Will you let me taste you, baby?”

Her nose was scrunched up, defiant and angry, but she knew what was good for her. She nodded her head. He sighed, smiling. “I knew you were a good girl. You’re such a smart girl.” He kissed her softly at first, taking his time. She let him slip his tongue inside to mate with hers. She didn’t move her tongue at first, but decided to do what he wanted for self-preservation or need. He didn’t know which, but he really didn’t care. She’d be rewarded either way.

His kiss became hungry and sloppy; he wanted to devour her. He wondered if she felt the same…then she released a needy whine. She lifted her hips, her juices smearing his stomach. He pulled away from her so they could catch their breaths. “Don’t worry, baby,” he panted. “I told you I’d take care of you.”

Her eyes were desperate but also angry at herself. He wished she wouldn’t be so hard on herself. They were just doing what humans had been doing since the beginning of time. Nothing to be angry or embarrassed about.

“I’ll take good care of you.” He kissed her forehead and lowered himself down her body until his mouth reached her weeping pussy. She whined as she tried to close her knees together, but he forced them apart. He raised her legs over his shoulders and onto his back. He held them firmly in place holding onto her thighs.

Then, at long last, he dragged his tongue across her opening tasting her juices. She was the sweetest thing he ever tasted. Her weak moan only added to it. He took another lazy lick making her writhe under him. She tried to close her legs together again, but it was impossible, so she stroked his back with her legs in an effort to get his mouth closer to her pussy. Eliot didn’t need encouragement to eat her out, but he knew she couldn’t help herself.

He opened her up with his fingers exposing her sensitive folds like a blooming flower. He wrapped his mouth around as much as he could, sucking and licking at anything he could reach.

“Uhhhh!” she whined pulling at her restraints again, but for an entirely different reason. Her hips bucked into his mouth wanting him to go deeper. She let out a guttural cry. Eliot thrust his tongue into her trying to find her sweet spots, but it wasn’t enough for his baby. She was growing desperate. She needed relief. “Puh…” she sputtered then whined. “Please!”

Eliot lifted his head to look at her, licking any of her still on his mouth. He was going to give her what she needed, but if there was a chance he could hear her say the words… Fuck, he might burst.

He pushed himself up so they were face-to-face with each other. She was crying and whimpering her eyes pleading into his. She was beautiful. “P…Please!”

“‘Please’ what?” he asked her gently, stroking her tears away. She skewed her eyes shut, embarrassed. “Come on, baby,” he whispered in her ear stroking his cheek against hers. “Tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you. I promise.”

She let out a long, defeated cry. She was going to say it. Eliot looked from her eyes to her lips. He lifted his eyebrows in anticipation. “Say it, baby.” Say it!

She let out another cry before meeting his eyes. “Please!” she said. “I need to cum.”

His breath caught at hearing the words and the desperate need behind them. He closed his eyes to savor the moment not expecting any more when suddenly…

“Please make me cum! Please,” she sobbed, “I need you to help me cum!”

Shit, now he was going to cum; he was going to cum if he didn’t calm the fuck down. He took deep breaths until he knew he was back in control.

He opened his eyes. “Of course, baby,” he stroked her hair. “I’ll help you.” He gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “I’ll take care of you.” He ran his fingertips down from her cheek, to her neck, between her breasts, across her stomach, and finally, to the curls of her mound. He gave her a long, slow kiss as he pushed one finger into her hot core. He swallowed the cry that came from her mouth. “I gotchu, baby.” He caught her bottom lip in his teeth before shoving his tongue back into her. He pumped the finger in and out of her lubing her up even more. He added a second finger, stroking in and out of her. He curled his fingers inside her hitting the right spots.

She cried out again. “Please!”

He dipped his thumb in her gathering enough juices before searching for her clit. There. He found it. Right there. She was already spasming around him grinding into him so his thumb would move; she had a good grip on his fingers. He made slow circles around her sensitive nub making her sob uncontrollably. He continued pumping his fingers in and out of her and curling his fingers while his thumb circled her nub faster and faster.

She moaned as her breathing quickened and her thrusting became more erratic. She was getting close. “That’s it, baby,” his kiss turned wild, animalistic. “That’s it,” he growled devouring her mouth.

She released a long cry as her body stilled and shook in place. He didn’t stop his fingers; he kept pumping her, curling into her, flicking her clit prolonging her release. “You’re doing so good, baby,” he said against her ear.

He watch her face, her eyes tightly shut, her mouth wide open but only able to make guttural sounds. She whined as she starting coming down from her high. He slowed down his stroking and finally stopped, playing with the tiny hairs on her pussy. He peppered kisses on her temple. “You did so good, baby. I’m so happy.” He swept his hand from her pussy to her hip leaving a trail of her cum. He caressed her hip. “I’m so happy, baby.”

She turned her head away and started crying, ashamed. No! He didn’t want her to feel bad. He wanted her to feel good. “Don’t you start crying now,” he said more firmly than he intended to, but it did the job. She pressed her lips together trying to stop crying, but letting the occasional whine slip through. “You got nothin’ to be ashamed of, ya hear?” He turned her face back toward him leaving some of her cum in her hair and the side of her cheek. He gave her a gentle smile. “You didn’t do nothin’ wrong,” he whispered. “You done so good, baby. Ok?”

She searched his eyes her eyebrows skewed in confusion and fear. She sniffed and nodded to satisfy Eliot and bit her lip to keep from crying. Eliot nodded along with her, smiling. “Ok. Good.” He pecked her lips appreciatively then rested his forehead against hers, breathing deeply, savoring the moment. He ran his fingers down her side and her hip and stopped at her pubic hair.

Eliot kissed her nose before pulling back to see her eyes. She was waiting in anticipation, not knowing what was next. Of course she had every reason to be scared, he just wished she wouldn’t be scared longer than necessary. He wasn’t going to kill her right now.

Sadness washed over him at the thought of killing her. Of letting her go, leaving him alone once again. He hadn’t cared about being alone before, but this girl…his baby, was making him see things differently.

No. He was being selfish. She needed to die; she was a witness. He just had to enjoy the little time they had together.

He focused on the present. She was alive right now. She was smart, beautiful, and such a good girl. The thought made him smile. She’s such a good girl.

“Baby?” She let out a little whine. “You think you got one more in ya?” he asked shyly. Her face scrunched up and she shook her head. “Please?” He kept playing with her pubic hair. “I just gotta be inside you, darlin’.” He ran his index finger along her opening. “You taste so good and you smell so sweet.” He took a deep whiff of her neck. “And you’re just so tight.” A second finger joined the first running up and down her opening, going a little deeper playing with the folds inside.

He nuzzled her nose with his own while she sobbed, her body shaking. “Will ya let me be inside you, baby?” He raised his eyebrows hoping she’d say yes. “I sure would appreciate it. Otherwise,” he grimaced and let out a sad sigh, “we'd have to end our night together...right now.”

She shook her head frantically. “No! No, no, please no!”

“I don’t want it to end early neither, baby,” he tried to reassure her. “So, what do ya say? You think you can go one more round?”

She sobbed uncontrollably as she nodded and closed her eyes.

“Thank you, baby!” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll be as gentle as I can. Promise.”

He pushed a finger into her still wet core and pumped it in and out a few times before adding a second finger. He spread his fingers apart inside her stretching her, hoping it was enough to prepare her.

He kissed her as she kept sobbing. “Baby? It’s hard for me to kiss you right when you’re cryin’ like that. Think you could stop...for me, please?” She let out one more sob before pressing her lips together. When she was sure she would stop crying she opened her mouth and took deep breaths. She opened her eyes and nodded.

“That’s my girl.” He kissed her sweetly and tenderly. She deserved nothing short of gentleness and kindness.

He scooped as much of her juices as he could on his two fingers and spread it on his hard cock. It was already leaking pre-cum, but he wanted to lubricate it as much as he could.

He smiled down at her excitedly. “Nice and slow now…” He grunted trying to hold back and only allow the tip to enter her. He kissed her after she started moaning. “I know, baby. I know.” He entered her slowly stroking in and out of her inch by inch. He kissed her and gave her reassurances and praise the entire time as she moaned in pain. “You’re doing so good, baby. Almost there…” He felt her squeeze around him; just once, but...Damn!

He released a low, guttural cry after he was all the way inside her and started panting. “You ok, baby?” He caressed her cheek as her tears ran down to her hair. She let out a sob and nodded. “You’re so tight. I knew you’d be tight, baby.” He kissed her cheek then her lips. “You’re such a good girl.”

He kissed her deeply and played with her nipples as he slowly slid in and out of her, hoping to distract her from any pain. It worked; she started clenching around him making him cry out.

Soon it became easier to slip in and out of her and that quickened his pace. Her moans of pain turned into moans of pleasure which only made him go faster to chase his release.

She’d wrapped her legs around him so he could thrust deeper into her. He steadied her arched back so he could suck her nipple making her clench again. He knew they wouldn’t last long, but he wanted to give her as much pleasure as he could. He switched nipples then reached between them to find her clit. She squeezed his cock at a pulsing rate. As much as he wanted to cum right then, he wanted to make sure she got what she needed first. He continued pumping in and out of her while she tightened around him.

His fingers circled and flicked her clit more quickly making her thrust more erratically until her toes curled behind him and she stilled, spilling all over him. He kept his pumping and his ministrations on her clit to keep her going.

“You’re doin’ so good, baby,” he said kissing and nibbling on her neck. He held her close and witnessed her throes of ecstasy. “Yes, baby! You’re so beautiful!”

His release came and he clung to her as he rode his own wave. He gave her all he had until they were both seeping out of her and onto the bedspread below. He became lightheaded and started seeing stars; it was otherworldly. This girl…this woman…this goddess…gifted him with this ethereal sensation.

When he finally came down, she was already catching her breath. He carefully pulled out of her making a mess below them. He rested his head on her chest, careful not to crush her with his weight, as he basked in the afterglow of what she gave him. He could stay there forever...

Unfortunately, he lived in the real world. The dark, cruel, unforgiving world. She was too good, too precious for this world; it would actually be a gift to take her away from it.

The sadness was creeping back in.

He wouldn’t let them find her naked corpse. She deserved better than that. He’d dress her in clean pajamas and tuck her into bed. She’d be a sleeping angel...but he couldn’t leave any of his DNA behind; he'd have to torch her bedroom and her lovely corpse. The world didn’t deserve her beauty anyway.

He took a deep breath before lifting his head to meet her eyes. Poor thing was terrified. Shaking. Crying. “What now?” she asked, her voice trembling.

He gave her a small smile. “Now, we get you cleaned up.”

He headed to the small en-suite bathroom and brought back a couple of towels. He cleaned himself up first then grabbed the other towel to clean her up.

“What…? Why…?” It was all she could say. They were fair questions. He usually wasn’t so delicate with people before he killed them. She was different.

He wiped down the mess they made on the bedspread as much as he could...not that it mattered, but it was good manners. He tossed the towel aside and started getting dressed. The blood on his clothes had dried out considerably.

He grabbed the used towels off her bed. “Now let’s get you some clean pj's.” He made sure to smile so he wouldn’t scare her as much.

He put the used towels and her dirty pajamas in the laundry basket she’d used earlier as a clever hiding place. He gathered the other dirty laundry that fell out of the basket earlier and put them back inside. Now her room wasn't so messy.

He picked out some underwear and pajamas from her chest of drawers. He could only dress her in her underwear and shorts since she was still tied to her bed. He put the pajama top over her chest anyway to cover her up. It was a cute little ensemble. This set had puppies and kittens all over them.

He stepped back and regarded her fondly. He was glad she was finding it hard to say anything; she was just mumbling and whimpering. It was cute, and it allowed him to take the time to remember how she looked at that very moment. Innocent, angelic, and beautiful.

The sadness hit him full force. The thought of never seeing this lovely creature again was constricting his heart and crushing his lungs. He took a deep breath to steady himself but he felt tears fill his eyes. He turned around and wiped his eyes. “Sorry, darlin’.” What was wrong with him?

It suddenly became too much to be in the same room as her. He put his weapons away and grabbed his cell phone before leaving. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart,” he assured her before closing the door behind him.

He walked over the dead bodies as he reached the railing. He took deep breaths; he had to clear his mind. He needed to be reasonable. Logical. He couldn’t…

No! It was a bad idea. It was selfish and it would require a whole reworking of his service to Moreau. He gripped the railing tighter as he fought between considering and rejecting his really bad idea.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he called Moreau. Eliot froze when he heard his voice. Damn, he never freezes!

“Eliot, what’s going on?” Moreau asked when Eliot didn’t answer right away.

“Nothin’,” he finally said.

“Where are you? Did you enjoy your little treat?”

“That’s actually what I’m callin’ about. I’m still at the house.”

“Oh, you took your time with her. You’re such a romantic, Eliot!” Moreau chuckled.

Eliot tried to laugh along. “Ha! Yeah. So, Damien, I’ve got a really big ask.”

“Really?” Moreau was surprised. Eliot didn’t usually ask him for favors. “I’m intrigued.”

Eliot took a deep breath. “It’s the girl. I wanna keep her.”

“Keep her?! That is a really big ask, my friend.”

“I know!” Eliot couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. “It’s crazy, but I’ve never asked you for anything, Damien. I’m asking for this.”

Moreau let out a long sigh. “Having a pet is a big responsibility, Eliot. She’d require a lot of attention, but most of all, you’d have to train her. She’s a witness. She can’t just go off wherever she wants and talking to whoever she wants, so someone will have to look after her when you’re away.”

“I was hoping you could loan me out one of your guys until I find someone myself.”

“I can’t believe I’m even entertaining such a ridiculous idea!” He let out another sigh. “But you’re my best guy. My number one, and you deserve to be happy.”

“Shit! Are you serious?” Was Moreau actually going to say yes?

“You can’t get attached, Eliot!” Moreau warned. “If you’re unable to control her…you’ll have to put her down. I don’t want to see my friend sad and moping around because he grew too attached to his pet.”

Eliot chuckled. “Who you talkin’ to, Moreau? I don’t get attached.”

Moreau laughed back. “Yeah, I know. I just wanted to make it clear what could happen.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Because it’s you, Eliot. I would only allow this for you. You can keep her.”

Eliot felt like a boy on Christmas morning. “I can?! Oh my god, thanks, Damien! I owe you big time.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve earned it. I want you here for a debrief by tomorrow afternoon, then you can have the next few days off to get her settled.

“You got it, boss. I can’t thank you enough.”

Moreau chuckled. “Your gratitude is all the thanks I need. Hearing you so excited brings me so much joy!”

“Yeah, yeah, fuck off, Moreau!” Eliot chuckled.

“Ha, ha, yeah! See you tomorrow!"

Eliot put away his phone and rubbed his hands together excitedly. Oh, shit! What if she didn’t want to come with him? He could just take her, but if he couldn’t control her he’d have to kill her. He would have to give her the news delicately.

He knocked on the door before going back in. Why did he do that? Was he nervous? Shit, what was wrong with him?

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said softly.

She’d been struggling against her restraints and crying but stopped as soon as Eliot walked in. She was so persistent; he liked that about her. In her struggle, her pajama top slipped off exposing her breasts.

He sat beside her on the bed and carefully covered her back up. He pulled back the sweaty hair clinging to her face to see her better.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Are you going to kill me?”

Eliot smiled at her as he stroked her chin. “Looks like somebody found their voice again,” he said playfully. “That’s good ‘cause I gotta ask you somethin’.”

“I don’t want to die!” She sobbed, her lip quivering.

“I don’t want you to die neither, sweetheart,” he told her leaning closer to her. “But that’s up to you.”

“What?!”

“Now, I could leave you here. I’d make it real quick and painless, I promise…”

“No, no, please!”

“Or,” he said over her pleas so she could hear him. When she stopped, he continued. “Or you can come with me. You’d have to give up your whole life. Whatever career you saw yourself doin’, any plans for your future…well, they’d all be gone.” She scrunched her eyebrows and gave him an incredulous look. “I know that’s askin’ a lot, and it’s not fair. It’s real selfish of me, and I’m sorry. But you’re a witness to what happened here tonight, and my boss don’t like to leave witnesses.” She sobbed, tears coming out of her eyes. “He said I could keep you, but you gotta behave. You can’t go ‘round trying to leave or start talkin’ about what you seen here.” She whimpered. “I promise I’ll do my best to make you happy. I can find us a fancy place like this to live to make the transition easier for you. I know you’re a classy gal and you’re used to livin’ in luxury, so I’ll do my best to give you that lifestyle. And once I know I can trust you to be a good girl…there’s so much more we could do together! So much we could see and experience! Whaddaya say?”

She looked at him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows; she kept sobbing and crying. Eliot waited patiently for her to stop and catch her breath. It was a big decision and she was, understandably, overwhelmed.

“Why?” she finally asked. “Why did you kill my parents? Why?”

Why? That was a big question. Should he tell her about her dad’s business? How he became a threat to Moreau? Who Moreau was? Who Eliot was and what he did? The poor girl had been sheltered her whole life; did she really want to know the depths of the darkness of this world?

“It’s just the world we live in, darlin’.” He didn’t like it any more than she did, but to survive in this world, you had to do things you didn’t want to do. Although he was sorry that she wouldn’t get to live the life she deserved, he wasn’t sorry about keeping her in his life. She would be a bright light in his dark world.

Eliot helped her dress into something more appropriate for traveling and helped her fill a duffle bag with some clothes and personal items; he could only let her keep one photograph of her family. He dumped the laundry on her bed, found some cleaning supplies to use as an accelerant and lit it up.

He picked her up, her hands tied in front of her; he had her carry her duffle bag. “I got a question for you, sweetheart. Why’d you ditch your last final?”

She blinked at his completely unimportant question. “It...it wasn’t required if we got A’s...on the first three exams.”

Eliot gave her a big smile. “I knew you had a good reason; you’re such a smart girl! Now close your eyes, sweetheart,” he told her. “You don’t need to see all the bad stuff that happened out there again.”

He kissed her forehead and held her close as he carried her away to their new life. He would take care of her and make her happy. They were going to be so happy together…unless she gave them a reason not to be.

[chezzywezzy]

Yandere Eddie Munson (5/13)

Word count ; 4.2k

*Edited.

He spared me but a glance before getting off of him. He was panting like crazy, and Dustin started cursing like crazy. His eyes were wide with fear and blood stained the walls. I couldn’t help but slide onto the ground, grabbing at Chance and pawing at his head.

“Oh my god,” Eddie panted. “Oh my god, oh my god. I didn’t kill him. I couldn’t have. He’s not dead, right?”

“What the hell is going on? W - why are you here?” Dustin boomed, flailing his arms.

I was still afraid, pulling my head to his chest. His heart was beating. I placed my finger on the side of his neck. He had a pulse. Oh my god, he was just knocked out. He was knocked out, but if Chrissy’s body had been discovered and the guys had been interviewed, then the police were on their way to my house and - and -

“Is he dead?” Eddie screamed, clothing the side of his head and pacing. “There’s no way. I - I can barely lift a laundry basket —!”

“H - he’s not dead, Eddie, calm down —“

“Oh, he’s not? Oh, thank god - oh, my god, I have to go. Y/n, we have to go —“

“What’s going on?” Dustin shrieked, wildly switching attention between the both of us.

“Uh, um, well, Chrissy’s dead, and everyone will think it’s me or her or us but probably me and I didn’t kill her and we have to go —“ Eddie cut himself, grabbing my upper arm. I staggered to my feet, clenching my jaw. I could barely recognize my surroundings as Eddie started dragging me to the door.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can’t just beat up Chance and kidnap my sister! What’s going on?”

“Hey, man, it’s not kidnapping, okay, little buddy? We’re just, uh, going to hide from the cops and as society knows it, I’ve technically kidnapped her —“

“What?”

“Hey, we could at least leave out the front door, doofus!” I exclaimed. “I - I need to shoes and I need to change —“

“Fine, fine —“

“Whoa, what —“

Dustin stepped into the doorway, but with one gentle nudge, Eddie could easily shove past. His grip of my wrist was painful, but his knuckles were pale and he was obviously afraid. If the cops weren’t going to chase him down now, they definitely were. And why was I even joining him? I mean, sure I didn’t know what to tell the cops, and sure, the cops could think he just drugged me, but —

We ended up at the front door, Dustin chasing after us. I kneeled and pulled on my sneakers, still snuggly wrapped in my animal onesie. I heard distant police cars, and I was frightened. I stumbled to my feet, reaching for the door —

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, we don’t have any time!” Eddie exclaimed, girlishly squealing with fear.

The floor abandoned me as his arms swooped underneath me and he pulled me off the ground. I squealed, quick to wrap my arms around his neck. He kicked the screen door and it flung open. I was surprised with how sprite he was. Everyone was screaming. I was screaming, Dustin was screaming, and I was screaming.

Our neighbors were staring through the window, but Eddie ran right around the corner of the house and right into the wilderness. I could still hear the police sirens and the car had probably pulled up to the house by now. However, we progressed over the hills. I was surprised how fast he was for someone who claimed to be so athletic. But then again it must’ve been the adrenaline talking.

We made it over the hill, but suddenly, Eddie Munson stubbed his fucking toe - or something like that. I screamed again as his body slid down the muddy ridge and we ended up at the base of a stream. I coughed, and Eddie was clearly struggling underneath me. He pushed me off.

“Hey! Fuck you —“

“Oh, you have legs, do it yourself —“

“You’re the one who was taking forever —“

“Oh, so I’m slow, now —?”

“Shush! Okay, shush, I need to figure out where to go fro here.” Eddie pressed his finger to my mouth, glancing around wildly. “Uh, uh, okay. The way to Rick’s place —“

“Who is Rick —“

“Shush!” I finally fell silent, sending him a deadly glare and swiping at his hand. Luckily, my lovely onesie was yet. He licked his finger and thrust it into the air. He was frozen in place, and I just made sure to give him the nastiest ‘you are the world’s biggest dumbass’ glare.

He was still waiting for something, rollicking his finger and pacing in a circle. He refused to meet my eyes, instead looking anywhere but, and whistling absentmindedly. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew at my hair, and his face lit up.

“Aha! Okay, okay, we are going…” My eyes widened in surprise. Had he actually figured it out? 

“I, uh, actually don’t know. I’ve just, uh, seen it in movies and thought I could give it a try.”

I facepalmed instantly. “Oh. My. God. You know what - I’m going home —“

“Whoa, wait, no, fine.”

He grabbed my fluffy-white-unicorn-onesie-covered arm and stopped me as I turned away. I quirked a brow incredulously, massaging my forehead and pulling the hood over. The unicorn horn drooped disappointingly, but I still made sure to send a fierce glare, pouting my lips.

“Please? If I can just figure out where uh, Oak Street is, I can figure out from there. Yeah? Cool?”

I gave him an incredulous stare. “Oak Street is literally to the right of us, Ed. Remember that this is the river that goes underneath Oak Street bridge? Because it is.”

“Ah-h-h,” he mused. “Well, uh, off we go. Yeah? Yeah. To Rick’s.”

“Who the fuck is Rick?”

“Language, missy. I’ve never heard you so vulgar.”

“Can you blame me?” I snickered, the tenseness slowly rolling off my shoulders. We walked side by side, and if not for the circumstances, I would’ve found the walk pleasant. “I mean, you, Eddie Munson, have flipped my world upside down over night. You almost gave my best friend drugs after forcing me to sit in on your campaign, we witnessed a seance in your house, you stowed away in my bedroom like a creep, you beat up my boyfriend, and you kidnapped me. I’m not exactly sunshine and butterflies at the moment.”

He chuckled lowly swinging his shoulder into mine.  “To be fair, Chrissy came to me. And, to be fair, that beating was a long time coming —“

“Hey, no it was not —“

“All I’m sayings that it’s payback for hitting you, quote unquote, only once.”

“You know, the only reason I know you don’t have superpowers is because I’m sure you’d put them to more insane use.”

“Such as knocking trash cans into your boyfriend.”

“Precisely.”

Silence fell over us and we continued walking. The way to Rick’s place, whoever that is, was very suspicious. However, it was also very tiring. I was more than glad that I both got my shoes before I was ‘kidnapped’ and also had my own two feet to walk in. Because, believe me, Eddie Munson had no such upper body strength.

~~~

“…So, then Chrissy definitely had a vendetta against me ‘cause she punched me in her sleep —“

“Sh - shu - shush!” Eddie exclaimed. He held up his pointer finger blinking in focus. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“A car.”

I gasped, pushing the chair away. We abandoned our steaming cups of coffee at the dining table. Eddie was slick, leading me through the back door. Indeed, upon further inspection, I heard a car ignition go silent. I heard distant chatting, but it was all extinguished. 

Eddie took me out back. He had a tight grip on my wrist, tugging me every which way. We heard people walking right into the front door and it bashed open, giving us the chance to run across the open field to the other part of ‘Rick’s place, of whom Eddie still hadn’t told me who he was.

We arrived at the boat house, where Eddie told me earlier we’d stow away in case there were any visitors. And seeing as it was the same day of my supposed kidnapping, I thought it was way too soon for visitors. Especially since it was late night and I wanted nothing more than to sleep upstairs on the suspiciously stained mattress.

We weaved around the front. Eddie opened the wooden door just enough for us to sneak in. It shut silently behind us, and I examined the room vaguely. There was a lot of machinery, rusted or otherwise, and there was one small boat in the water. Another was against a wall, covered in a tarp.

“There’s not that many places to, uh, hide Ed,” I commented quietly.

“Uh - uh, I’m sure there is,” he tittered. He released me, but just long enough to eye the boat with the tarp. “Okay, yeah. That works —“

“Can we even fit —?”

“We better.”

I gulped down my anxiety. We began moving through the room. There was a lot of things to avoid. However, Eddie, rather panicked and afraid, allowed his shirt to get hooked on one of the machinery. I gasped, about to call it out, but Eddie didn’t realize until an echoing squeak resounded in the shack as he dragged it with him.

Eddie quickly swatted his jacket free, muttering curses underneath his breath wildly. His pace quickened, but the moment we got to the said boat, he stared expectantly.

“Get in,” he demanded lowly, clearly terrified.

“Wh - you weigh more —!”

I didn’t really have the chance to argue, though, because he reached down and pulled up the tarp.I let out a loud yelp as his hands wrapped underneath my armpits and he somehow managed to shove me into the boat. I complained the entire way, but when Eddie straddled my waist and threw the tarp over our heads, my voice became obsolete.

There was vague talking. People were coming close. And yet, as Eddie shuffled on top of me, I became aware of the close proximity.

His arms were propping him up on both sides of my head and, even in the dark, I knew we were making tense eye contact. Some of his luscious curls tickled my cheeks and I could feel his breath against my lips. Our legs entangled and his chest pressed against mine. I felt warm. And I didn’t like it.

What if he —

“Hello…? Is anyone home?”

The door squeaked open and I almost gasped, but one of his hands slunk over my mouth. He buried his head on the over side. I could feel him shaking and he was breathing heavily. My heartbeat was accelerating in my chest and I swore on my living mother that it was because of the strangers.

“What a dump!” someone else commented, although I vaguely recognized that voice. I started to wonder.

We heard tons of squeaking. Two people were right nearby and something was grabbed. Eddie’s thumb rubbed the skin underneath, clearly for him own sanity, and his nose dug into my hair.

And suddenly, the tarp was whacked. Everything crinkled, and I heard Eddie grit his teeth. The tarp was continually whacked, and I heard,” What are you doing?”

Dustin. Dustin was here, and probably with his friends. I wanted to poke Eddie, but my arms were paralyzed beneath him and his grip on my mouth was suffocatingly tight. His breath was labored from being hit over and over again.

“He might be in here!”

“So take the tarp off!”

“If you’re so brave, why don’t you take the tarp off?”

The tarp was still being hit, and my fingers tried flexing toward Eddie’s warm chest. I could only prod him gently, and seeing as his shirt and jacket had inched up his torso, I felt ow sweaty his exposed flesh was. I could only imagine that he’d get bruises from being hit so many times, too.

“Hey. Look over here,” a voice called. Max. “Someone was here.”

“Maybe he heard us. Got spooked and ran.”

“Don’t worry,” Dustin piped sarcastically,” Steve will get him with his trusty oar.”

“Eh, I know you’re think you’re pretty funny, Henderson, but considering that everyone in this room has nearly died a hundred times, personally, I don’t find it funny in the slightest —“

The moment the stranger had ceased his attacks, Eddie suddenly pulled away, hobbling to his feet. He let out a terrified battle cry, and I could only hear muffled ‘wait, wait, wait’s being shouted. Let out a gasp as Eddie took the entire tarp with him and started pushing the ‘attacker’ toward a wall. I could only gawk as the tarp slowly slid off and I was left to try and it up. Emphasis on try.

Everyone was shouting at Eddie, absolutely terrified, and then I realized. Dustin was beside me, pulling me to my feet. And I caught a glimpse of a sharp, shiny object being held to… Steve Harrington’s… neck. Eddie was apprehensive and clearly didn’t like the guy. But everyone was trying desperately to cal him down.

I stumbled out of the boat while Dustin clung to me desperately. Everyone was shouting and Eddie’s face continued to contort warily. He was still shaking head to toe. I gulped, exclaimed,” Eddie, stop!”

“Eddie! It’s me. It’s Dustin. This is Steve. He’s not going to hurt you. We’re here to help. Hey, Steve, why don’t you drop the oar?””

Eddie finally glanced at us warily, but his eyes eventually landed on me. He eyed me up and down, noticing that Dustin was still hugging me tightly while Max and a girl from band, Robin, was somewhat behind.

The moment he did, though, Eddie was implored further to jab the knife closer to his throat. He grit his teeth. Clearly he was distrusting, seeing as he only knew Dustin and the others were total strangers. I released a shaky breath, and as the others clamored on desperately, I reached toward Eddie’s shoulder.

“Eddie, hey. Down, boy.”

He spared me a glance, and his chocolate orbs swirled in disscontempt. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped. “What are you doing here?” he seethed.

“We’re here for you,” Dustin insisted.

Robin agreed,” We’re here to help.”

“Eddie these are my friends! You know Robin. From band. And Max. The one who never wants to play DND?” Eddie watched him, glaring vaguely. “We’re on your side.”

He motioned to himself. I wrapped an arm around his shoulder regardless, while my other remained on Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie glanced between us two siblings before withdrawing the knife. He started panting and everyone let out sighs of relief. I separated from my dearest brother and made my way to Eddie.

The said man leaned on the wall, clearly thinking back to that night’s events. His eyes were wide and his chest heaved with labored breaths. I shakily placed my hand on his shoulder trying to prevent the sense of mourning that arose within me. 

As I reached for his shoulder, his hand snatched my own. The weapon clambered to the ground and he brought it to his chest. He gripped it with both hands, using it as a stress-ball. I sighed. And, as hard as I tried to mask the memories, they resurfaced. 

And Chrissy was still dead.

He began sinking to the ground. I sighed. I needed the comfort, too, and Eddie understood. We went through the same thing. I sat on the floor, him still holding my hand in a death grip, and he leaned his head onto my shoulder. With my free hand, I pet his soft and incredibly tangled locks.

Dustin began crouching down, and he spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “Eddie. We just. Want. To talk —“

Dustin had been progressively reaching out to the man, but the moment his hand got even close, Eddie flinched and let out a low grumble. That made Dustin pull his hand away, and I couldn’t help but frown. I nudged him slightly and sighed.

“Ed, they’re our friends —“

“Yeah, well, who the hell would believe what we saw?”

Everyone was crouching nearby, still aware that he had a weapon beside me. Eddie was trembling and I had to shut my eyes for a moment to prevent any tears from falling. “We want to know what happened,” Robin implored.

Eddie sniffed loudly, and he was genuinely on the verge of tears. “You won’t believe me,” he accused. 

Max narrowed her eyes and nodded quickly. “Try us.”

Eddie, with his eyes glued to the woman, seemed to catch the point. “I… just… I’m not a murderer or a kidnapper —“

“We know,” I interrupted, hushing him. “Okay, okay, so… Chrissy was having a really bad few days. She kept… hallucinating, or seeing stuff, and she wanted to buy drugs from Ed. We made a deal, free drugs for her if I showed for the, uh, campaign. We went to his trailer after. We left Chrissy alone for only a second to find it, but when we came back, she was…”

“Frozen,” Eddie intervened.

“Y - yeah. She didn’t respond to anything, like when we were in the bathroom during lunch. And then, the lights started flickering like crazy, and, and…”

“She floated!” Eddie hissed in disbelief. “Crying blood, breaking her bones. It was… impossible. Her body just, like, floated up into the air. And she just, like, hung there. And her bones, uh, hm, hm, hm…” He kept flexing my hands and I had to bite my lips from releasing a sob. Just talking about it hurt me. “Her bones, uh, started to snap. And her eyes, man, it was like something inside pulling on it. I - I didn’t know what to do! So, I - I… I ran away. And Y/n, like, fainted, and I was scared and - and… we… I left her there.”

Eddie glanced up to meet the crowd’s oddly calm expressions. He scoffed in disbelief, shaking his head. “You probably think I’m crazy. B - but she saw it too.”

Dustin frowned, shaking his head. “No. We don’t think you’re crazy at all —“

“Don’t bullshit with me, man, I know how this sounds!”

“We’re not bullshitting you,” Max suddenly spoke up, expression serious and dismal. 

“Look, what I’m about to tell you might be a little… difficult to take. And Y/n, I’m sorry that we - I - never told you, but… You know how people say Hawkins is… cursed? They’re not way off. There’s another world. A world hidden beneath Hawkins. And sometimes… it bleeds into our’s.”

“Like… ghosts?” I asked, voice shaking. I almost panicked when Eddie released my hands, but he was quick to wrap his arm around my shoulder and hold me to his chest instead.

“There are… some things worse than ghosts,” Max answer eerily. 

“These monsters… from this other world… we thought they were gone. But they’ve come back before. That’s why we needed to find you guys.”

“If they’re back again… We need to know.”

“That night, did you see anything? Dark particles, maybe?” Robin prodded.

Eddie shook his head, furrowing his brows in thought.

“It would almost look like dust. Swirling dust.”

“No, man, there was nothing you could see, or, uh, touch… Right, Y/n?”

“Nothing. We tried to wake her, but… she couldn’t move. It was like she possessed or in a trance or… I don’t - know…” My voice cracked unwillingly, which made Eddie squeeze my shoulders reassuringly. 

Dustin’s eyes widened slightly. “Or under a spell. A curse. Vecna’s curse.”

“Vecna?” Steve and I spoke up at the same time.

“An undead creature of… great power.”

“A spell caster,” Eddie seconded.

“A dark wizard.”

“You guys are…” Everyone turned to me expectantly. “…Total nerds. Um, Dusty-buns, how… do you know all about this?”

Everyone suddenly laughed awkwardly, and Dustin had the most awkward laugh of all. He rubbed the back of his neck, and I became rather suspicious. A low growl emitted and I knew I wouldn’t like the answer. 

Dustin refused to make eye contact, instead muttering,” Well, let’s just say while you were off at cheer practice and the animal shelter, we were off killing cool monsters with a girl who has mind powers.”

“You could’ve died!” I squealed angrily. “You never thought to, I don’t know, tell me —?”

“Would you have believed us?”

“Well, no, but I would’ve kept it in mind —“

“Exactly!” Dustin exclaimed, shutting me up. “Can we just - can we just go home now? Mom is worried sick —“

“Okay —“

“Whoa, whoah, whoa!” Eddie interrupted, yanking me closer. I tried struggling a bit in irritation, but he continued,” You can’t just rob me of the only person keeping me sane —“

Steve, while rubbing his forehead in annoyance, broke through,” Dude, it would be better for you if it didn’t look like you kidnapped her —“

“Yeah, man? Well, I don’t really care —“

“Children, please!” Robin shouted at the top of her lungs. Everyone fell silent. She stomped her foot, and I Was still frozen as Eddie held me to him. “How about, instead of bossing her around, we ask what poor Y/n would like to do?”

Eddie tensed further, and an embarrassed grin stretched onto my face. My hands were very hidden, but I waved them anyways. Everyone was expecting a yes or no answer, but I honestly had no clue what would be better. Eddie definitely needed the support, but I was also still in my pajamas from last night and… Chance. Right. Chance and Jason and all my friends were…

“Well, uh, is Chance alright?”

Eddie and Dustin groaned audibly, but I ignored them completely. Steve immediately asked,” Chance? Your, uh, boyfriend? What does he have to do with any of this?”

“Well, when hew found out about Chrissy’s death, he came to visit and found Eddie cornering me quote unquote, menacingly. He attacked, but, uh, somehow Eddie knocked him out. For a second, we thought he was dead.”

“He had it coming,” Eddie muttered stubbornly. And if I was able to look at him, I would have sent him a glare.

“You know what - Chance is fine,” Dustin answered unwillingly. “Happy? If you came home, maybe you could satiate that insane temper of his. He literally almost fought the cops when he found out you were, uh, politely kidnapped.”

“Eddie isn’t polite in the slightest, I’ll have you know…”

“Not true,” the man interjected. “I have gifted you with many a ring pop.”

“Oh my god, you’re obsessed,” I groaned. 

“So, you noticed —“

“Can we go home now please? Also, we literally don’t have any room in the car,” Max sneered. “I’m out. Dustin, hurry up. I’m tired and we’re clearly not going to get anything done at the moment.”

Everyone mumbled in agreement and I pouted. It was vaguely my fault for being so indecisive. They all mutually agreed it was for the best, especially with mom having given Dustin a curfew out of sheer panic. I clawed myself free of Eddie’s clinginess, rising to my feet.

Dustin was quick to catch on, pouncing at me for a hug. I felt how scared he was, even if him and his friends feigned normality and bravery. Just feeling him safe and sound was enough to bring tears of joy to my eyes, and I rubbed his back.

Everyone watched as we finally pulled away from one another. I placed a quick kiss to his forehead, which usually he would reject, but he appreciated the notion.

“Um, uh…”

“Sorry to break up the reunion, but I’m tired and scarred for life,” Eddie sarcastically remarked. “Can you, uh, come back when you have actual food instead? We’re kinda starving here.”

“Uh, yeah,” Dustin agreed. “We’ll… come back tomorrow.”

I swiped his ball cap off of his head suddenly. Out of instinct, he went to make it, but he froze. We made brief eye contact and he strained a smile.

“We’ll be back soon.”

[strangerthingsfanfics]

Hurt

Pair: Eddie X Fem reader

Warning: slight mentions of drug usage. Some spoilers.

Summary: Y/N, has been dating Eddie, for a while now. Everything was normal until Vecna started chaos.

A/N: Requested by @hellfirewritings

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was finally the last day before spring break. Everything and everyone was starting to get back to normal after what happened last year. You were so excited because you and Eddie, had plans for spring break. Y’all were gonna do a road trip from Indiana to Maine. Everyone was excited about the basketball game tonight. Eddie, You, Dustin, Mike, and the rest of hellfire club were excited for the end of this campaign. While walking to lunch you saw Eddie, on the table yelling about how he’s the freak while the jocks are throwing balls into laundry baskets. You couldn’t help but laugh. Once he saw you, Eddie had to yell “There’s my lovely GIRLFRIEND.”. Everyone in the cafeteria just rolled their eyes. Once he got down he told you that he had to go make a deal. Normally you would go along but he said his client wanted to keep it private. “I’ll see you tonight sweetheart.” Eddie, said while kissing you.

It was finally the end of school so students either went home, to the game, or to the hellfire club. You, Eddie, and everyone else was waiting for Dustin, Mike, and Lucas’s stand in. You weren’t surprised when you saw Erica, while Eddie, was. He didn’t think a child would know how to play. You knew Erica, was gonna prove him wrong and she did. He was surprised, while everyone left. You and Eddie, were packing up a certain cheerleader came in asking if Eddie, had something stronger on him now. You were surprised to see Chrissy, you never thought she would be the one to smoke. While walking to Eddie’s van you could tell she was nervous. “You have nothing to be scared of, I’ll be here. I’ll get you blanket and we can watch a movie.” “Uh that would work.”. By the time all three of you got to Eddie’s place, Chrissy was less nervous. You offered Chrissy a drink and while getting it you went to go help Eddie, look for his stash. After finding it y’all went back to Chrissy, but y’all found her in some weird state. Eddie, tried to snap her out of it, but it wasn’t working. That’s when Chrissy, started to float up the celling, you tried to get her down till you started to hear bones popping and snapping. Then Chrissy, body did fall on the ground. You and Eddie, look at each other and ran. You didn’t know what to do or where to go. Both of you were freaked out. You knew sooner or later the police and everyone would be on Eddie’s tail.

It was a day later and y’all were hiding in the boat house. Dustin, Robin, Nancy, Steve, and Max found y’all. They told you everything. At first you didn’t believe it but you remember what happened to Will and he suddenly wasn’t dead after his “body” was found. They told both of you stay hidden and hide if someone comes looking.

A couple days have passed and you heard that the basketball team was looking for both of you. “Well this is one eventful spring break.” You said while laughing. “It is but after this I promise me and you are getting the hell out of this town.” Eddie, said while pulling you. You were about to kiss him when you heard a truck pull up that’s when you saw the basketball team. Eddie, hid and told you to make them go away. While walking to door your heard Jason telling some of his crew to go to the back and look. Jason walked to the front door and was surprised to see you. “What you doing here? And where is your freak of a boyfriend?”. “First off Rick, is my uncle, and I don’t know I haven’t seen him.”. Right after you said that one of the guys ran to Jason and said they saw Eddie, in the boat house. You ran for the back but Jason grabbed and was about to hit you till you punched him. He was surprised and tries to grab you but ran to find his friend. You made it to the boat and got like 3 miles before Jason and his friend found both you. They swam out to you before Jason’s friend went under and came up floating. “Oh man not again.” You said. You and Eddie, looked at each other and gave a sad look. You look at Jason and just put your head down. You turned around and just heard bones breaking. Eddie, paddled faster and Jason, saw police lights and saw towards them. You and Eddie, made it to skull rock. While Jason, was telling the police everything. “I heard Y/N, saw not again and gave Eddie a sad look. He’s a freak and play that satanic game. He caused my friend to float and made has Y/N under some spell and causing her to do his dirty work!” Police just looked at him like what the fuck. They didn’t believe but they will put out something that your missing.

Once everyone got to you and Eddie, the older kids decided to go to the upside down while the younger kids distract the police. While being the upside down y’all got attacked by the demo bats. You didn’t get bit by them but Steve did. After walking around for awhile, Nancy, said she had guns in her house. Y’all walked to her house and found out y’all were stuck in the past and the only way to get back home was to go to Eddie’s house. On the way there you kept hearing a clock sound and thought you saw a clock. You ignored it and thought the upside down was tricking you. After getting to Eddie’s trailer, you kept hearing it more and more but ignored it and thought everyone else was hearing it. Right after Robin climbed out of the upside, you were after her. All you remember was Steve, telling you to go but then everything went black. You were in your grandma’s house and saw a weird looking creature. It said it was Vecna and said it was your time. You tried to run but kept seeing many things from your past that you tried to hide. You kept hearing the clock sound get louder and louder. You ran to your childhood bedroom, but Vecna was in there. He got you and grabbed you “it’s your time Y/N.”. Right before he was about to kill you heard your favorite song and saw a weird gate open up to Eddie’s trailer. You knew you had to make it to the gate or you would be dead. You felt your old lamp and grabbed it and smashed it against Vecna’s head. Which causes him to drop you and you ran for it. While running Vecna’s tentacles were reaching out for you. You made it to the gate just in time if you were running slower you would’ve been done for.

Once you got out of the trance Steve, caught you before you hit the floor and Eddie, ran to you and held you. After that you climbed through the other gate. Eddie, found his cassette tape and put your favorite song in and gave it to you. You and Eddie, went to your place and saw a note saying your parents would be back two weeks after spring break. You just sat down on the couch and started to cry. Eddie, saw and just held you. “Hey, you’re okay. I promise I won’t let him hurt you again. How about we go take a nice warm shower together and after that we’ll just lay down for the rest of the day.”. “That would be perfect.”

Eddie, got up and got you new clothes and made sure the water was perfect for you. After that he picked you up bridal style and carried you all the way to bathroom. He made you get in first and once you did he got in and just started to wash your hair and wash your body gently. He kept whispering sweet things into your ear. Eddie, wanted to cry from knowing you got hurt and he wasn’t there to protect you. He felt like he failed as your boyfriend. You turned around and saw tears in his eyes. You held and his face and said “you’re an amazing boyfriend, you did more than enough to stop him from hurting me more. Let’s get dry and go cuddle on my bed.” Eddie gave you small smile, and made sure to put your favorite song on repeat for the whole night. While laying down in your bed, Eddie, was holding you tight and never gonna let you go. After laying for awhile you started to get tired and slowly start to fall asleep. Once you did fall asleep Eddie, noticed and just held you tighter. Right before he went to bed he made sure the song was playing and gave you goodnight kiss on your forehead.

[collecting-stories]

Inventory - Daryl Dixon

Request: you can write anything tbh! just something small and sweet, if you don’t mind :) (daryl anon)

A/N: This is honestly just random established relationship fluff or something.

The Walking Dead Masterlist

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

You weren’t entirely sure that you liked Alexandria. It felt like someone had captured the old world in a time capsule and you were viewing all the things that you had forgotten about. Shower pressure and hot water and actual running water weren’t things that you took for granted and you’d practically cried in the bathroom when the toilet flushed but all the other parts felt uncomfortable. Like clothing that didn’t fit you anymore. You weren’t Daryl, waiting with his hand on a gun for the moment everything went to shit, but you certainly weren’t about to done a cardigan and act like a soccer mom getting ready for a bake sale either. You would let Carol handle the assimilating and gossip. Or at least the former, the latter, you couldn’t escape.  

“I wouldn’t’ve pegged him as your type.” Olivia mentioned, hellbent on making inventory a gossip session.  

“What?” You looked away from the open garage door to where Olivia was stacking cans of corn and writing down their number in her composition book.  

“Daryl. I noticed you watch him a lot...is that like, you guys got a thing going on or you just looking?” She asked.  

You paused in your rearranging of cans to look back out the garage door again. Daryl was across the street talking to Aaron and Michonne and you tried to formulate an answer that made sense for Olivia and for you. She hadn’t technically asked if you were ‘together’ (that ominous word that felt so weighty when you said it to yourself) but she was definitely asking for a definition. Were you more than friends, absolutely. That wasn’t even something you needed to think about. You certainly weren’t sharing beds with your friends the way you did with Daryl. But he’d never given any definition to your togetherness and somehow, even defining it felt like such an archaic thing. Another piece of the old world pulled from the time capsule.  

“I mean...” you shrugged, “both I guess?” There was a thing, for lack of a more concrete term, but you also liked looking at him a whole lot. You’d been enjoying looking at him for a while now and sometimes on the road you’d thought, if something happened, who would you look for in a crowd. It wasn’t just that you liked the view, it was that feeling of something that anchored you into the moment, made your head a little less dizzy, made all this more bearable.  

“I guess he’s not bad looking.” Olivia laughed a little, her cheeks reddening at the thought and you wanted to agree. He most certainly was not bad looking. And you had told him so plenty of times, in the privacy of your own room. “He doesn’t seem very...” she paused, looking over at you as if she had caught herself speaking out of turn.  

Small talk and social etiquettes felt like something you’d left behind too, far too used to being direct with people. It almost felt odd for her to be so unforthcoming.  

“Friendly?” You asked. She didn’t need to say it for you to know what she was thinking. It seemed to be a consensus throughout Alexandria. The community had differing opinions about all of you but the one thing they all agreed on was Daryl’s lack of acceptable behavior. He wasn’t particularly friendly with any of them (aside from Aaron maybe) and he acted more like a caged animal than someone who was grateful for shelter and protection.  

“Uh, yeah.” Olivia nodded, pink cheeks staining darker, “I mean, I’m sure he talks to you, of course...it’s just, I’ve never found him to be particularly...warm.”  

Warm, you felt like the word echoed in your mind once she said it. You’d never really spent too much time thinking about the way you would describe Daryl, he was just, himself, and that was it. You didn’t linger on what he was, what you expected him to be. Even if you didn’t ever think of yourselves as ‘together’ you knew exactly what you were.  

You thought about offering up a defense for him, explaining that he was warm. He was being wrapped in a blanket on a cold night or feeling the sun on your shoulders in the early morning. It wasn’t something you considered often, that you felt like you needed to name, but you knew it right away. The words came on the tip of your tongue, like you’d been waiting to think them. But you didn’t get the chance.  

Daryl came up the driveway while you were staring at him and the softest of smiles graced your features as you watched him, giving a small wave. Maybe you wouldn’t have thought about it if you hadn’t been talking to Olivia but, as Daryl held your gaze the whole up the drive, you were reminded of when you might’ve categorised his behaviour as more shy than reserved. Now it felt like he held back because he chose to, deciding what parts of himself other people got to see. When you’d first known him it was more a defense mechanism than an ordinary occurrence, and he’d never been comfortable meeting your eye.  

“Did you come to help with inventory?” You teased, already hearing the grumbled response in your mind before he said it.  

“Just passing by,” he replied, glancing over to the far corner where Olivia was still sitting, notebook open in her lap. “Morning.”

You wondered if she was scrutinising the interaction. Trying to see for herself what you saw in Daryl, as if that was possible.  

“I’ll go check to make sure we’ve got all the dry foods from upstairs.” Olivia announced, standing from her spot and bumping her chair back against the sorting table. It rattled but nothing fell over and she went so quickly out of the room she looked like she was power-walking.  

“What’s a matter with her?” Daryl asked, taking your water bottle from the ground by your chair and unscrewing the cap so he could drink some.  

“She was asking about you, weren’t your ears burning?” You joked.  

He glanced down at you, unamused, before finally taking the bait, “why’s she asking?”  

“Said I stare at you all the time.”  

“So quit staring.” He capped the water bottle and set it back in its place before fiddling with different cans on the shelves, pulling them off and reading the labels.  

“Easier said then done,” you replied, grabbing your notebook off the shelf in front of you, “besides, I don’t wanna forget what you look like.”  

“Why? You going somewhere?”  

You scrunched your nose at his words and shook your head, “no, but you are right…saw you talking to Aaron.”

“Think ya watch me just ta spy on what I’m doing.”  

“I’m right though, you two are headed out?” You asked.  

“Don’t make it something it ain’t…I’ll be back in a few days time.”  

Daryl was good at coming back when he left, you knew it from experience. He’d come back when he’d left with Merle, he’d come back when he’d left to find Beth, when he went off on his own to hunt he always came back. As sure as you were that he would leave, you were just as sure he would find his way back again. It wasn’t something you had to think about or reassure yourself of but sometimes it was easier to give in to that worst case scenario that sat in the back of your mind.  

“I know,” you said it like you were promising him, “but that’s a few days without seeing you…who am I supposed to look for?”  

Daryl set down the can of beets he was looking at and walked the short distance back to you. His hand wrapped around the end of your ponytail and he gave a gentle tug, guiding your head all the way back so you were looking straight up at him. You thought it was probably a good thing Olivia wasn’t here, she’d seemed scandalised enough at his presence in the room, you could imagine all the things she’s knock over if she saw him now, one hand holding your ponytail and the other on your neck as he leaned down and kissed you.  

It was a softer kiss than the hold implied and you considered the juxtaposition of Daryl’s softness and roughness your favorite thing about him. It’d taken a while, to see the soft bits, but now you saw them all the time. How he kissed you so comfortably, like he’d always been doing it. His tongue brushing your bottom lip almost teasingly but he pulled away before you could do more, standing back up straight and dropping his hands. He gripped the back of your folding chair and you leaned against his hand, feeling them press into the skin between your shoulder blades, bare from your tank top. You kept your head tilted back, a little more comfortably though.  

“When do you leave?” You asked, half expecting him to tell you he was headed to the gate now. Your brain still felt a little dizzy from the kiss but that was a normal occurrence.  

“Tomorrow morning.” He replied, letting go of the chair to run his knuckles along your spine. “Shouldn’t be longer than a day or two.”  

There was a quieter bumping noise and a soft curse as Olivia peeked back into the doorway, a few boxes of pasta haphazardly held in her arms. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”  

“It’s alright,” you replied but truthfully you were just being nice. Because Daryl had already retracted his hand you felt goosebumps on your skin in his absence, as if your body was trying to chase the sensation of him.  

“Ya need help?” He asked, motioning to the boxes as she dropped them onto the sorting table.  

“Would you mind? I’ve got another laundry basket full of them to bring down here and I dropped like five on the staircase.” She explained, following after him to point them out.  

Daryl disappeared through the door, Olivia right behind him, and you went back to organising the latter half of the alphabetically arranged cans. Olivia tended to be more loose-lipped than her other Alexandria counterparts and you couldn’t help imagining her asking him questions, trying to dig out some part of a person under the cold exterior he’d given off while he was here. Searching for the warmth she thought was lacking. They weren’t gone long, Olivia’s chipper voice carrying down the stairs.  

Daryl came through first, laundry basket piled high and the slightest hint of a glare as his eyes met yours, as if you’d somehow put him up to the task of helping.  

“You can set them on the sorting table,” Olivia instructed, “I’ll go through them once I’m finished the canned goods.”  

Setting them down, Daryl just nodded in agreement. You stopped from saying you’d see him tonight, in case that information was somehow on a need to know basis. But he was obviously being less purposefully withdrawn than you’d thought because he took another sip from your water bottle before telling you the exact thing you’d been too reserved to say.  

“I’ll see ya tonight,” he promised, putting your water bottle back and giving your ponytail a playful tug before leaving back down the driveway.  

You watched after him until he turned the corner and was out of eyesight.  

“I can see why you like him so much…” Olivia finally said, getting your attention as you looked back at her.  

“What?” You asked, wondering if he’d said something to her that changed her mind.  

Her cheeks tinged pink again and she looked down at her notebook, “I wasn’t trying to spy or anything…just, you know, wanted to bring those boxes in.”  

You nodded, prompting her to continue.

“I saw him kissing you…” she let out an airy sigh, “I’d be staring at somebody all day if they kissed me like that.”  

[mimi-cee-hq]

Laundry Days - Aran x f!reader

Summary: Three times you picked up his underwear and one time you missed doing it.

Genres, other tags: fluff, slice of life, humour, meet cute, domestic fluff, not suggestive lol, married under 25, neighbours to married lovers ;)

Words: 1.6k

Warnings: manga spoiler

This is for @neoheros & @coophi's 2021 Summer Haikyuu!! Writing contest. (Okay I'm pretty shy at first so it feels a little scary to tag you two but here's my piece.) I was going for the married under 25 prompt but ended up doing neighbours to lovers too. :D

Don't mind me spreading the underrated characters agenda as well. lol.

*****

A few articles of clothing spilled out of the dryer and onto your feet. Oops. Your neighbour must have forgotten them. You should've checked first.

Your own damp clothes sat inside the washing machine next to it, waiting for their turn to enter the dryer. It wasn't possible now.

You sighed, retrieving the phone from your pocket and scrolling until you saw the name of the neighbour who lived a floor below you.

Ojiro Aran.

You were sure this was the right person after a second look at your texting history. Who'd bring the garbage to the curb, where the lawnmower was kept, and keeping the duplex's stairway clear were some of the conversations you had with him.

You had yet to meet the guy, but he seemed amicable enough.

After shooting him a text, you thought to give him a call instead. Perhaps he'd think a phone call was strange. However, your clothes were damp and you shouldn't leave them for long. Was he even home?

You sighed. Crouched down, you returned the clothes on the floor back into the machine. A scarf, several socks, and a knit hat made their way back inside. But what was this?

Underwear. Men's underwear.

You scrunched your nose as you lifted it from the cold, tile floor. Was that a hole in it?

Click.

"Sorry I just saw your text!" a tall, dark-skinned man blurted out as soon as the door was unlocked.

"Oh! It's alright! I only texted you a few minutes ago!" you quickly explained, waving your hands in front of you.

You shouldn't have done that. The underwear was hanging from your hand.

"Ummm…" Aran scratched his cheek, eyes retreating from you.

"Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry!" you spat out, tossing the incriminating object to him. "It just fell out of the dryer when I opened it so I went to pick it up!"

Once in his hands, he recognized it as the one with the seam coming undone. "I… umm… should probably have thrown this one out."

"Umm… yeah… you probably should." Those words slipped off your tongue before you could catch them.

"I- I guess I'll go now," Aran said hastily.

He shut the door.

You let out a breath. That was awkward. Heat continued to linger in your body and you weren't sure who was more embarrassed by the encounter.

Wait. His clothes were still in the dryer. Did you dare ask him back?

The door slowly creaked open and Aran peeked his head into the room.

"I forgot something, didn't I?" Aran sheepishly asked.

"Yeah." The corners of your mouth lifted into a smile. "Yeah, you did."

"I'm Aran by the way."

"Y/n."

You never thought this would be how you'd meet your future husband.

*****

The office chair in your apartment was a comfortable spot for folding clothes. The webcam caught your face as you chatted with Aran whose image filled the monitor.

You smiled. Your husband was winding down after a long day with the team and decided to check up on you.

"I'm alright," you told Aran. "I miss you though."

"I literally just saw you yesterday!" he said. "I miss you too."

After that fateful yet awkward encounter with him in that laundry room two years ago, you had run into each other more frequently at the front doors of your duplex. Your classes ended at similar times four out of your five school days. You were surprised he even started a conversation with you. You wouldn't have been able to bear the embarrassment. Fast forward to a confession, a kiss and a rock-embedded ring, and you got a small, snowy wedding during winter break.

It was back to the books for you now, and you dreaded it. Chores seemed much better, easier. Plus doing them for your newly-wedded husband? You got giddy about that.

You quirked your brow, lifting a familiar piece of clothing from the basket.

"Hey, I thought you threw this one out," you mentioned to Aran, dangling his underwear in front of the camera.

"I did! That's, uh, probably a different one."

"Just how old are these?"

"Hey! Wait a moment! Are you folding clothes?"

You avoided the eyes on the screen. "Maybe."

"You have your paper due in a few days! I told you I was going to do it after flying back home."

"I know…"

Aran's eyes narrowed at you, a trademark expression of his. "You're procrastinating again, aren't you?" His tone implied disapproval.

"But I'm still being productive!"

"Y/n…"

"Okay, okay. I'll stop." Your foot pushed the basket away, sliding it across the floor. Maybe you could fold them after you hung up.

Aran must have read your mind. "Show me what the laundry bin looks like."

You groaned. He saw right through you. Complying, you removed the clipped webcam off the monitor and directed it at the pile of unfolded clothes.

"It better be like that when I get home."

"Alright," you said with a pout.

"Love you."

"Love you too."

Must he stop you from doing chores? They were a simple reminder you were married to him, as if the gold on your finger wasn't enough to show you.

You were his wife.

A smile snuck into your lips whenever that thought crossed your mind. The honeymoon phase was a peculiar, strange, lovely stage.

Yet it was fleeting.

*****

You groaned as you stood in the middle of the bathroom. Aran's white track pants hung off the counter, the red t-shirt he got for free from first year college laid on top, and of course his underwear, which likely went through hundreds of washes, remained on the floor.

Great.

You rubbed your temples, your headache getting worse by the minute. It was Saturday morning, and Aran, who was nowhere to be seen, had left his mess behind.

I'll clean it up later, he would tell you. You knew his mother had spoiled him, always picking up after him. You understood why he was like this, but why couldn't he just start doing it now?

"Do you have this problem?" you asked your friend through your wireless headset.

"What problem?" she asked.

"Does your husband always leave laundry around on the floor?" You pinched the bridge of your nose. "Aran never picks up after himself."

She laughed. You weren't sure if it was because you were a young, amateur wife or if she understood all too well.

Knowing her, probably a bit of both.

"Okay two things."

You listened.

"One, don't say always or never. That's lying."

"I'm not lying," you snapped back at her. You began to regret asking her.

"Are you sure he never picks it up and always leaves it on the floor?"

You left no comment.

"Exactly."

"Okay fine, but that still doesn't solve the problem. If only he just did it, it would solve everything–"

"Number two," she interrupted.

You groaned at her and she gave an amused snort in return.

"If you weren't picking up his underwear, it means he's dead."

You were aghast.

"You know I'm right."

Still aghast.

"What? No husband, no mess."

"I can't believe I asked you for advice."

"But it's true."

"Ugh," was all you could utter. She had several years more of marriage experience than you, yet you didn't want to acknowledge it.

You hung up the phone after you finished deciding today's outing with her, but you hadn't addressed the issue in front of you. Your head throbbed again.

Sighing, you picked up the underwear.

A few minutes later, the front door opened and you dipped your head into the hallway. Aran shuffled grocery bags through the door and into the kitchen. He yawned, placing the milk, eggs, and other items into the fridge.

A familiar coffee brand peeked out of a bag on the floor. Right. You didn't have your coffee yet because there wasn't any left.

You wrapped your arms around Aran and relaxed against his broad back.

"I can't put the food away like this," he said with a chuckle.

"You left your clothes in the bathroom again."

"Oh shoot!" He dropped a bag and started towards the bathroom but you tightened your grip on him.

"I put them away already," you told him. His body relaxed and he caressed your arm around his waist.

The honeymoon phase was a fleeting phase, novel tasks turned mundane, but your love for him grew deeper still.

*****

Aran was away again, this time at Tokyo in preparation for the Olympics. He eagerly called you during breaks, wishing to see his favourite person – although your hands were full as well.

"I miss you," he told you, his smile displayed on the screen.

"And I miss picking up your underwear," you told him with a smirk.

Like clockwork, he narrowed his eyes at you with a comeback. "Why don't you say you miss me like a normal person?"

"Because I'm your wife. I'm special," you told him as he rolled his eyes. "I wish I could be there though."

"You wouldn't be able to spend that much time with me anyway," he said. "Besides, one of us needs to stay home."

"I know." You smiled.

"I gotta go," he said as Atsumu yelled in the background. Aran blew a kiss at you.

You snorted. How cheesy. You returned the kiss anyway.

Hearing a mischievous squeal behind you, you told him, "I gotta go too."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

After you hung up, you turned around and sighed. A soggy wet diaper sagged on the floor and the little guy jumping in the crib giggled at you as if he did the funniest thing in the world.

You rolled your eyes and smiled before picking up the diaper.

"Alright kid. Let's put a diaper back on you and wash your sheets."

*****

I hope you liked it. This is a little different from what I usually write but I hope you still enjoyed it!

I blame Aran's current concern for giving me this idea along with the person who suggested I write Aran fluff. (As well as the seasoned wife I know who told her husband, "If I wasn't picking up your underwear, it means you're dead." lolll.)

I hope you stick around my blog to check out my other works! My current work in progress is a fake dating Suna series. I can't believe we're on chapter 10!

If anyone is interested, I have a Google form for my taglist.

[neonponders]

I’ve never written Murder Boyfriends before, but @cuepickle ‘s art is just so lovely and powerful.

Based on this and this 💗 💜 🖤 (impending smut ahoy)

• • • • • • •

I just want to help, he’d said.

I just want to make things right, he’d said.

Steve said a lot of things. But he moaned incoherent words and exclaimed sounds he didn’t want anyone else to hear when Billy Hargrove steamrolled into his life, his feelings, and his goddamn morals.

Billy Hargrove wasn’t...right. He was twelve different shades of wrong, punctuated by Caribbean blue eyes and decorated with bronzed waves and curls. Steve knew he had a superiority complex, but he hadn’t known it was this bad.

Thing is, if he’d known, Steve couldn’t guarantee whether he’d change anything. Because knowing Billy Hargrove is a murderer would also mean Steve knew what his lips tasted like, and their softness against his neck.

All Steve had known was that Sheriff Hopper was missing, and his parents, being the upstanding white people that they are, deferred nearly every inconvenience to the police. And the police answered, because fat wallets keep their lights on, like everyone else.

But the Sheriff’s phones kept ringing. And maybe Steve had his own complex after so much time with Nancy, because he parked out front and strolled right into the Sheriff’s office.

The secretary wasn’t there.

Neither were the two deputies.

Steve tucked himself between the desks to pry apart the window blinds. Their cars were still here -

Steve’s head rotated at a sound he knew. He knew it in the way a memory piqued but he couldn’t place where or why. He followed it into the chief’s office...where Billy Hargrove sat at the desk - Hopper’s own chair - and ate a crisp apple from the strange pile in the waste paper basket.

“Billy?”

“Hi, Steve,” he smiled. Ankles crossed on the desk. A perfect, violet crescent framed the side of his eye. An indigo shadow rested in the inner corner of the other one. Either way, Steve’s first red flag was that he ached with concern more than itched for the nailed bat in his trunk.

“What happened to you?”

Steve thought the guy might choke, the way he tipped his head back to laugh while chunks of apple sat in his mouth. Naturally, it took him some time to chew and swallow before he said, “I finally stopped being afraid. And I started being responsible. Not the way he planned, though.”

“Hopper?” Steve frowned.

Billy did not answer immediately. He licked the apple like it might drip juice and beckoned, “Why don’t you sit down? I want to see you.”

The only lights on were in the main room where Steve stood. Ghoulish, fluorescent bulbs while Billy sat in shadow and vague, evening light hatching through the Chief’s window blinds. There was some kind of irony there: Steve in the fake, green-tinged light, and Billy in the natural...honest darkness.

Steve peeked behind him, surveying the room but finding no warnings apart from the negative space where people should be.

He stepped into the office -

“I’ve always liked looking at you.”

Steve paused on the carpet. Billy had said it loud enough to hear, but with enough air in it that Steve couldn’t tell if he was drunk or hadn’t meant to say it aloud. Then he tried to sit in one of the chairs -

“Over here. Sit on the desk.”

“What?” Steve blinked at him, suddenly very aware that the light gave Billy full view of his face but Steve only got the glow in that dark blond hair.

A strong leg pushed Billy away from the desk. The apple tumbled onto its pile of brothers, discarded as he pat the desk. “Sit right here.”

Steve shook his head all at once, beginning to backpedal out of the room. “This is weird.”

“No shit. This whole town’s weird. I’ve been reading some personal files in this room. I guess the Chief thought he was being smart, but...I’ve been hiding my whole life. I know where people hide things. A lot of things make sense in this place, now. The rat pack Max hangs out with. And you. A lot of things makes sense about you, Steve.”

Steve shrugged and his hands clapped against his thighs. “Okay? You’re not special for seeing my report cards.”

Billy’s features froze, but only for a moment, and then laughter burst out of him. “Steve, please sit down. God, I wanna touch you.”

Steve Harrington is a simple person. He’d officially been single for far too long, struck out every time he faced a woman - and a couple guys who were too scared or oblivious to do anything - and he just...

He wanted.

He wanted to be touched and if Billy was offering - Hot Stuff Hargrove, Baby Doll Eyes Billy - then Steve couldn’t help but take. He’d been so patient with everyone. He waited for Nancy to be ready. He accepted defeat when everyone walked away from him with rolling eyes or obligatory smiles.

Billy...talked. He talked and talked. He’d always been a talker; on the basketball court, barking orders as a lifeguard. Always talking, or letting his radio talk for him.

But Steve sat on Hopper’s desk and felt the warmth of Billy’s palms seep through his jeans. He held onto Steve’s calves as he talked. Talked about terrible things. Broken plates and abandoned things. Being the abandoned thing. Being the broken thing. He talked for hours before finally fucking Steve on that desk.

He’d started slow. Just unbuttoning the jeans and then leaving them alone. It would be another half hour before he took off Steve’s shoes. Every time Steve looked behind him - as if asking for someone to come in, to interrupt, to break this dark dream Billy wove around him - Billy said, “Look at me.”

“I’ve been looking at you, Billy.”

A small smile twitched on his lips. “Good.”

It would be another hour before he said, “I think my dad killed my mom.”

Less than a minute before he added, “He had it coming. Feel bad for my step-mom, though. But she was a screamer. So was the tall deputy. Things can finally be quiet now.”

Steve sat very still as arms circled around his pelvis and Billy just...hugged him. Pressed his face against Steve’s soft belly and inhaled his scent. Warm laundry and Steve Steve Steve.

He couldn’t be sure how things evolved into sex. Steve was already trapped in Billy’s web, so all he had to do was decide, to give the web a pluck and Steve felt the vibrations.

He planted his hands on the desk, lifting his ass for Billy to wrench the jeans and underwear off in one go. They got stuck on Steve’s feet, bunched up so Steve had to figure it out himself as Billy pressed himself over top of him.

The green desk lamp fell with an ominous clank.

Steve finally got a leg free and wrapped it around Billy’s ass the same time teeth found his neck. The warning bells that had been ringing since he got here felt far away; church bells too high over the town to actually make a difference in the goings-on.

Billy marked him up like he had paperwork to sign. Steve’s deed was his, and Billy moaned and grunted with every sigh he wrung out of Steve. Every squeeze to his waist made him moan, and he outright whimpered when Billy licked up his neck. For how much Billy gripped, bit, and sucked, he moved surprisingly gently below the belt.

“Gonna get lube later,” he said in that way again, traveling down Steve’s body as his thoughts escaped into the air. “I’m going to have your ass every which way, Harrington.”

Steve could only gasp as his tongue shoved inside him with no preamble. “I-I-I didn’t shower - ”

A guttural, breathy hum ricocheted from Billy’s throat and into Steve’s chest, knocking Steve’s head back like a rock on the way there. Billy’s stubble and gross wetness made Steve feel filthy in the best way. His cock lay heavily on his abdomen, spurting precum every time Billy’s hands squeezed the backs of his thighs.

Steve came like he’d never been touched in his life. His breathing picked up and he rutted against Billy’s face twice before making a mess of his shirt.

Billy took his slowly fading erection into his mouth, jerking himself off almost violently in a matter of seconds.

When Steve stepped outside, the air smelled like the sunrise even though only the faintest bit of blue had begun to dilute the darkness. And as the sun rose, Steve had never felt worse. It was like seeing a demogorgon for the first time, but instead of minutes, it stretched into hours.

People were dead.

Presumably Chief Hopper too.

Billy, he...he...

He showed up to Steve’s house with a smile and freshly laundered clothes. Steve had showered but looked like he hadn’t slept in a month. Billy only tipped his head back toward his car. “I’ve got two bank accounts freshly inherited. Let me buy you lunch.”

Steve wondered if Dustin’s comic book villains drove Camaros.

Billy bought him lunch. Bought him a chocolate milkshake too. Steve didn’t want to think about his ability to swallow those down so easily. Or how he interacted with the waitress like he wasn’t covered in red and brown love bites delivered directly atop Chief Hopper’s desk. He didn’t want to think what having all of Billy Hargrove’s attention on him did to his squirming...pleased...insides.

He didn’t want to think as Billy fingered him in the backseat.

They didn’t even fit back there but Billy moved with what felt like the strength of three men. It was arousing, being manhandled like that; any fear Steve ought to have held in his gut tapped its disapproving toe outside of the vehicle. The way Billy sucked behind his ear, gripped his hips so he could slot himself right in between Steve’s legs and rut his dark pink erection against Steve’s...

The way he bought Steve more milkshakes.

And a fresh tire rotation because his car veered to the left.

And filled him up in the darkness of Steve’s bedroom, making Steve bounce on his cock as he licked the taste of him off his lubed up fingers - 

“You haven’t even kissed me yet.”

It just...came out.

The husky lust cleared from Billy’s eyes when Steve said that. Terror must have filled Steve’s eyes because Billy gently cradled the side of his head.

This is it. This is how I die. Wanting a freaking kiss from a psycho -

“I thought you’d be the one to do that.”

Steve blinked vacantly at him. He could feel Billy’s heartbeat inside his ass and the guy just smiled -

“King Steve. Never thought you were shy - mmph.”

Billy’s bravado melted against Steve’s mouth. He hummed as he felt Steve’s precum on his belly, soaking them both with what he did to him, did to Steve and all of his flawed moral systems.

Steve pushed Billy onto his back with his kiss, tongue desperately tasting and exploring his mouth as his fingers laced behind Billy’s neck.

Until Billy reached up and pulled Steve’s hands apart, just enough for the bases of his palms to sit on both pulse points.

Billy did it himself: made his cheeks go pink and his chest flush red. But Steve made his ass slap against Billy’s thighs. Made Billy’s jaw go slack and his orgasm slow. Made his eyes water and his chest heave when he could breathe again.

Maybe that was his chance. His chance to make things right.

But with an empty Sheriff’s office down the road, and still no one the wiser, Hawkins wasn’t living by any sort of right anymore. The only right that Steve knew, was Billy’s hands making him feel powerful and precious.