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#I NEED ANGSTY STEVE
plistommy · 2 years
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Steve was waiting for Eddie so he could surprise him…
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starrystevie · 1 year
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eddie figures out that he likes steve all because of nancy fucking wheeler.
it isn't often that they find themselves hanging out just the two of them, quite the opposite. this is the first time they've ever done it and the only reason nancy is even stepping foot inside the munson's new government-provided trailer is because she's having a crisis.
"but what does it mean," she asks, voice muffled as her lips wrap around the opening of her beer bottle before taking a swig. her cheeks hollow and her eyes shut against the feeling of the carbonation bubbling up before she fixes eddie with a glare that he doesn't think is for him. "it didn't... feel this way with barb."
and eddie's just sitting there on the couch, rolling a much needed joint for both of them, trying to follow along with what nancy is saying. she's pacing a hole in the carpet and her hands are flying around in a way that eddie himself does when the wheels in his brain are spinning too fast.
"... what didn't feel what way?"
nancy glares at him again and he gets the feeling that it's directed at him this time. he feels himself shrink under her eyes and wants to raise his hands up in surrender (he gives in and does indeed raise his hands in surrender).
"i think i'm in love with robin, please try and keep up."
eddie stills, his hands in the air and mouth open in shock. nancy's still muttering about something but his brain is stuck on the being-in-love-with-robin part of her tirade. it's not an issue, not in the slightest, and sure he's heard of people who... but he's never met someone who actually-
"are you even listening?" nancy asks, her tone firm. she has a hand on her hip while the other is clenched tightly around the neck of her beer. "what am i supposed to do?! am i just supposed to kiss her and tell her that her eyes are my favorite color and that i miss her when she leaves a room even for just a minute?"
"how should i know?! i'm not in love with robin!" eddie responds and he knows it's the wrong answer by how nancy's whole face falls in the span of .02 seconds. she looks like she's on the brink of tears, frustrated or hopeless or sad, and eddie doesn't know what to do with that either.
"but... you know. what about steve?" nancy's voice is soft now, and paired with her puppy dog eyes, eddie almost doesn't process what she says. "how'd you know with him?"
and if eddie thought he was stunned before, this takes the cake. a nervous laugh bubbles out of him, his face hot and heart pounding. his arms feel a bit like liquid and he doesn't know if he's even breathing anymore.
"nancy, i'm sorry but i think we're on two different wave lengths here." he needs to do something with his hands so he starts to fiddle with his lighter, flicking the zippo open and shut until the clink of the metal sounds too loud in the quiet room. "i don't.... love steve."
tears start to roll down her cheeks and yeah, eddie definitely messed up somewhere. she's wiping the drops away furiously like she's surprised they even dared to show up and she's biting her lip in a way that looks like it hurts.
"what are you talking about? of course you do." her eyebrows furrow which makes her look even angrier or disgusted and eddie feels like they're on a tightrope in his living room that's about to snap away from underneath them.
"well yeah, i... love him," he stutters over the words, "like i love you and rob and everyone. but not like... love love."
nancy's laugh sounds way too harsh for it to have come out of her. "are you sure? you stare at his ass more than i stare at robin's." she takes a deep breath, ignores the gasp of indignation that her statement gets out of eddie, and tilts her chin up like she's taking the high ground.
"i do not!"
"do too! and you're always looking for him when you walk into a room, like it doesn't matter if we're there, you only look for him. and you sit right next to him even if there's an open seat that's more comfortable. and you have this little, i don't know, tic when he smiles that makes you wiggle your fingers and you-"
"wheeler, you gotta stop."
"-always listen to him and he does all of that back for you and it's so obvious. i can't believe you didn't know you were in love with steve! you do everything that i do for robin and i'm in love with her so it must mean you're in love with steve and- holy shit i'm in love with robin."
the silence after nancy stops rings loud in his ears. honestly, he hadn't really given it any thought before but it makes sense.
the very idea of steve has his heart feeling a way it hasn't since he was nine and tracy nichols gave him a shiny rock on valentine's day. he does always look for steve when he enters a room, his very presence calming and dependable. he does sit next to him no matter what, their sides pressed together, heat radiating between them like a blanket. and god, when steve smiles, he does have to move his fingers, something to get out these jolts of energy that he feels licking through his veins.
steve is good and steve is a bit of an asshole but eddie likes that and suddenly the line between platonic and romantic seems to have vanished because holy shit, how did he live for the past year without spending every day loving steve harrington?
eddie reaches for the half rolled joint, licks at the paper to close it and lights up quickly. he holds the smoke in his lungs for probably too long but couldn't care less because he's now having a crisis of his own thanks to nancy.
"goddamnit," eddie hisses out as he exhales. "i'm in love with steve."
nancy looks smug, her arm extended as she waits for eddie to pass the joint to her before taking a hit. "that's what i'm saying."
"but i'm not... you know."
nancy rolls her eyes. "it's not going to bite you if you say it, eddie."
"i'm not gay."
the silence seems louder now as the paper on the joint sizzles. there's a dog somewhere in the park barking and he can hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.
"neither am i." nancy responds quietly with a shrug of her shoulders. "but i am for robin. and you are for steve."
she passes the joint back over to eddie and stands up from the couch, wipes off imaginary crumbs from her pants like she didn't just turn eddie's world upside down.
"i think i'm gonna go. i have a lady to woo." nancy looks happy. it's a good look on her, one he doesn't see all that often what with everything that's happened to them in the past year. she deserves it, he thinks, happiness.
"let me know how it goes," he calls to her as she stops at the trailer door.
"i will." with a tilt of her head and a with a gleam in her eye, she gives eddie yet another look that he doesn't know if he wants to try and decipher. "you should call him."
eddie snorts and takes a hit, rolling his eyes as he stares up at the ceiling so he doesn't have to look at nancy's all knowing eyes. it isn't that he's scared to call steve, it's that he's terrified. petrified. what would he say? what would steve say? he just figured out that he loves him, he hasn't had time to prepare a whole speech to declare it and-
"eddie." nancy's voice is sharp but certain and part of him thinks that robin is a lucky woman to have nancy wheeler falling in love with her. "trust me. call him."
after she's gone, he finishes the joint. he sits in the silence of his trailer and pulls hit after hit of sticky smoke until it's down the end and burning his fingertips. he stares at the ceiling some more, contemplates what to say, how to say it, how to do anything without throwing up.
he wonders if wayne knows, if he saw what nancy saw, what he thinks of eddie falling in with a guy. he wonders if this will change everything. wonders if it'll change for better or worse. wonders if he'll have to skip town and change his name like he imagined doing after he was cleared of murder.
picking up the phone is easy, dialing is easier when he has steve's number memorized like the back of his hand.
"hello?" steve mutters like he's been roused out of sleep. his voice is scruffy and somehow soft and eddie knows he's going to throw up.
"steve."
"hey, man. is everything okay?"
and it makes eddie's heart flutter in a way that a generic question shouldn't but damn it, he's in love. he's allowed.
"yeah, yeah. everything's good i just-" eddie sighs, scrubs a hand down his face to stop from twirling the phone cord in his fingers. "do you wanna maybe come over? watch a movie or something?"
eddie can almost hear the smile in his voice when he breathes out a yes, thanking whatever higher powers there may be for nancy wheeler.
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mangywayway · 2 months
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"The Boy who saved them All"
.
And here is my piece for the @harringrove-relay-race! ✨✨
Was this all a big excuse to draw them in a more fantasy setting? Yes, yes it was. Sue me. I honestly just decided to try and have fun with it and I did; there is still stuff that I will like to change? Yes. But I also like this piece a lot and that's the most important thing.
The first idea was to make it more gorey and stuff (as in, Billy with his chest open etc). Didn't end up doing it and went more on a "symbolic" route but who knows, maybe in the future 🤔
"Fun" fact: the dragon is supposed to be the Mind Flayer. I tried to make it more like similar to the series but that giant jelly thing was giving me an headache because I couldn't understand how the fuck it was made so, DRAGON (still Mindy and Flayer tho). Also tried and wanted to make Steve cry gold (cuz, the tears are worth their weight in gold kinda stuff) but I don't think I managed (so this is way I'm writing it here lololol).
ANYWAYS, thanks for not falling asleep after reading all of this and please, get your arses ready because the next work that's going on in an hour comes from the fantastic @kaizenkhaos ✨✨ so up up everybody and go and show them all your love 🫡💖✨✨
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blushweddinggowns · 8 months
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Would love to see your take on 23 or 28 good potential for fluff or angst or maybe both?
I am such a fluffy bitch! I can't help myself. If I get another one of these I will do angst because I need to work on that. But for now fluffy bullshit is my safe place <3
But I will say this tickled my uh not sfw brain, so watch out for a possible ao3 E addition the other prompt. Maybe! (Probably. the potenial of "Come and get your fix" is insane) But this is "Was it worth it?"
~
Honestly? You'd think Steve would be used to this by now. He was just not the guy that anyone wanted to be with. First there was Nancy, the worst heartbreak he ever had. Then there was Robin, which was better but still kind of sucked. Until Steve realized that oh, wow, this girl is literally my long lost sister. So with that, he had to admit that he was pretty grateful that she was gay as hell. The alternative would have been an absolute disaster. But even before all of that, girls just didn't like being with him. Or at least staying with him.
He was too much of a hopeless romantic, too clingy, too weird. He always fell beneath expectations. People expected him to be cool, suave, to actually match the whole "King Steve" label and be the high school dream boat that he should be. But...Steve just wasn't like that. He wanted too much too fast, always opening up and sharing shit that made people uncomfortable. That made them pull away and find someone less annoying. So he'd retreat back into the popular boy thing, be charming and a little dickish, find a new girlfriend, and start the process all over again.
People just... didn't like going there with him. Not when there were better options. It felt like the only one who could really handle him was Robin. And lately... Eddie Munson.
Eddie Munson who was currently in the middle of crushing all of his feelings into the dust.
He thought...Steve wasn't sure what he thought. But it felt like over the past year they had been moving somewhere, to something more. They were friends by circumstance, from all the Upside Down shit and then with Steve being Dustin's chauffer to the hospital for visits. It had all been so simple at first. They would all talk as a group, it would be fun, and then they'd be on there way until Dustin called him up next. Until one day Steve just went by himself. He wasn't quite sure why he did, but the bright smile that lit up Eddie's face when he saw him made sure that he'd keep doing it.
And they would talk for a long time. For a stupid amount of time honestly, all the way until the nurses kicked him out for getting Eddie too rowdy and excited. But it didn't stop when he got out of the hospital. Steve just started going to house, helping him and his uncle out as they got to know each other more. It's not like he had anything else going on. He just never expected Eddie Munson of all people to slowly become the center of his life.
They just... clicked. In a way that no one had expected, least of all them. They were so different, but they also weren't. Not in the ways that mattered. Besides, Steve liked all the play fights and debates they would have over music and movies. He liked ribbing each other over their taste in clothes and their mutual inability to get girls. He loved it even more when Eddie came out to him in the silliest possible way.
"I can't get girls because I'm gay as fuck and they can sense it. You can't get girls because every straight woman that lives here is apparently stupid. Can being too hot ruin your dating life?"
At the time it had made Steve laugh. It also stirred... something in his chest. Something warm and nice that he didn't have time to examine, not when he was too busy reassuring Eddie that yes, he's okay with it. But no, girls couldn't smell it on him. Not that Eddie cared but Steve actually had 0 clue on why no one was interested in him. Just because he was gay didn't mean the girls of Hawkins high knew that. Why weren't they fawning over him? He was so freaking pretty, and creative and fun and...and that's how Steve realized he wasn't as straight as he thought he was.
And because Steve was Steve that meant that he had to make things weird. He started doing stupid shit, like staring at Eddie's perfect mouth all the time, wearing his clothes with permission, just to smell him throughout the day. They started giving each other little nick names, stupid shit that was so close to being romantic. Like sunshine and angel. They started sleeping in the same bed together, spending more nights with each other than apart. Steve would wake up with Eddie wrapped around him, clinging to him like...like they were something more.
And it felt good. Comfortable and safe. And Steve really thought that this had been different. That whatever was going on with him had to be going on with Eddie too.
But now here he was, standing shell-shocked in his kitchen while his very good friend was trying to talk to him about his crush. His crush that had nothing to do with Steve. It wasn't exactly shocking that Steve had made all of that flirtation up in his head. It wouldn't be the first time, he was just delusional like that.
But that didn't stop his heart from breaking when Eddie said, "So...there's this guy whose like, insanely hot? And I think he might be into me. But... I don't really know what to do about it."
Steve really did not want to hear about this. He didn't like it, the horrifying thought of Eddie getting a boyfriend. Because what partner would be cool with them cuddling up together in bed? Who would be down to have their boyfriend's creepy buddy hanging around them all the time? Calling them stupid shit like sunshine? It wasn't going to happen. And acknowledging that hurt...so much more than Steve had expected.
But Steve was a good friend. That was probably the only thing he had going for him. He'd get past it. He always did. He was just going to have to completely restructure the life he had built around Eddie. That's all.
He shoved his feelings back, smiling despite the fact that he felt like he was dying a little inside, "Oh yeah? Tell me about him."
Steve wasn't sure why he asked that. And the dreamy smiled on Eddie's face when he started talking wasn't helping, "He is just awesome dude. Total catch, an absolute sweetheart. And he just fits with me y'know? And, um, I think he feels the same way. But I'm not sure. I'm too much of a bitch to even ask if he's into dudes. I don't know if telling him is worth the risk."
Part of Steve wanted to be a real piece of shit with that. To tell him that yeah, it's not a good idea. He's probably straight and definitely wouldn't be good for him. They wouldn't love him like Steve could. But that didn't exactly count as being a good friend, did it?
Steve kept it all back, his smile tight when he said, "I think that sometimes the risk can be worth it. Do you think he's worth it?"
Eddie laughed, like Steve said something funny instead of trying to be sincere. But he was smiling, staring down at the counter as he fiddled with his rings, "If it worked out, it would probably be the best thing that ever happened to me."
Steve really really did not need to hear that. He could feel his eyes getting wet. He needed to wrap this shit up and send Eddie on his way to mystery man's house before he started crying, "If that's how you feel then go for it man. He'd be lucky to have you."
Steve's voice broke on the last word, something he tried to hide behind a cough. He just wanted this to be over already.
"I think I'd be lucky to have him," Eddie said with a shrug, "But... do you really think I should? Just go for it?"
"Yeah dude, why not tonight even? If he's not doing anything else you can just hop right over," Steve was willing to sign up for anything that got him out of here faster.
Eddie laughed again, completely out of place. He was circling the counter, coming to a stop in front of Steve with a nervous little smile, "You really think so?"
Why did he have to look at him like that? With this big doe eyes, filled with hope. It was silly, what Steve thought didn't even matter, this had nothing to do with him. But that little fact wasn't helping to clear the lump in his throat.
Steve nodded, not trusting himself with words. He expected Eddie to grin, thank him, and head out into the night to profess his love for some other dude. But that's not what happened.
Instead Eddie settled his hands on Steve's shoulders, giving them a firm squeeze. He looked nervous, but excited, his eyes boring right into Steve's. He took a deep breath before blurting, "I'm in love with you. Like full-blown. A-And it's probably way to early to be saying that but it's true Steve. It's been driving me fucking insane, because I like want you man. In very non-friendship ways."
Steve stared at him, his mouth hanging open like an idiot. He didn't-wait-huh? What? That can't be right. Eddie couldn't have been talking about him because he didn't-he wasn't-but... now that Steve thought about it, who the fuck else would he be talking about? How would he even have a chance to meet someone else when they were attached at the hip?
He felt so stupid. And so relived. He didn't even know what to do with himself, besides stare at Eddie like a moron. And his silence wasn't helping anything.
"I-um, thought that you might feel the same way since, y'know. Everything. And I know you're not gay-"
It was true, Steve wasn't gay. Not entirely but, "I can be gay for you. I'm so gay for you. I might as well be an Eddie-sexual at this point-"
Steve didn't have time to finish his cringy spiel, not when Eddie was pulling him closer and smashing their mouths together. Steve would thank him later for it, but for now he was too busy melting into his arms.
He felt weirdly good when they finally pulled away, almost like he was high. Just from one little kiss.
Eddie was grinning at him, looking at Steve like he was the best thing that ever happened to him. And what an insane thought that was huh? But Steve would take it.
Steve smiled up at him, taking the time to wrap his arms around Eddie's neck, "So...was it worth it? The risk?"
Eddie rolled his eyes, his hands wandering downward to rest on Steve's hips. And then Eddie was actually lifting him into the air and onto the counter, settling between his legs like the gesture didn't just send Steve into a tailspin. Why was that so hot? When did his nerdy friend (boyfriend?) become so smooth?
Eddie chuckled before leaning back in. He pressed a light kiss to the side of Steve's lips, sweet enough for him to know it would be burned into his memory until the end of time, "Like you have to ask."
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artiststarme · 1 year
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Ex-fucking-cuse you
Thank you to @carlyv for the title idea! I don’t know if I really like whatever this is but other people seem to so I’ll leave it be. Let me know what you guys are thinking in the comments!
~*~*~*~
Whenever he had shared his feelings in the past, he’d had them stomped on. From crushes to life goals, anyone he’d ever confided in had laughed in his face. The first memorable time had been when he told Tommy about his crush on Heath Sellers at recess in fourth grade. Tommy H. told him that he wouldn’t be friends with a fag and if he ever mentioned liking a dude again, he’d kick his ass. That circumstance really showed Steve that he couldn’t trust anyone. If he couldn’t share what he was thinking with his best friend, who else could he tell?
The second time was with Nancy Wheeler. Steve told her he loved her even though he knew it was too early into their relationship and he knew she was still grieving Barb. But he still told her and all she did for the first few times was call him an idiot afterwards. Steve loved too much and too hard. Sure, after a few weeks she said it back but Steve could tell it wasn’t genuine and was most likely said out of pity.
The fact that she called him bullshit just two weeks later kind of cemented that fact in his mind.
It made him feel sort of hypocritical. He told the kids to be open and honest, prided them on their communication. And then he neglected to do the same. He hid his nightmares and semi-suicidal thoughts behind an impenetrable wall that no one in the Party could breach.
Until Eddie.
For months, Steve hated Eddie because it felt like he was stealing the kids away from him. He was jealous that they shared a common interest that he couldn’t understand and was gearing up for the kids to leave him behind. But then, Eddie told him that the kids worshiped him and he’d been jealous too. Jealous of the cool babysitter that influenced their actions in DnD and could do no wrong.
Steve felt like Eddie could truly see him, could understand Steve, and liked what he saw. He could tell that Eddie was going to be a great friend of his, or more. He liked more.
But when he ran back to the trailer park after flambéing Vecna, he saw a blood soaked Eddie being cradled by Dustin. His slow paced jog turned into a full blown sprint. Steve yanked Eddie out of Dustin’s arms and made a mad dash towards the portal in his trailer. He wasn’t going to lose the one guy that made him feel more understood than anyone else had ever made him feel.
The girls and Dustin tearfully followed them but Steve couldn’t spare them any attention. He was solely focused on the sluggish bleeding of Eddie’s wounds.
“Ow, Harrington. Calm the fuck down.”
“Eddie?!” The metalhead’s eyes were blurry but somewhat focused on Steve’s face. “Hey man, you have to stay awake. When we get out of here, you can teach me all about your shitty yelling music and nerd game, okay?”
The blurriness lifted slightly as pure offense filled his face, “ex-fucking-cuse you. That “shitty yelling” is true music unlike your Tears for Fears garbage or whatever the hell else you listen to. I have taste. And yeah, Harrington. I will be teaching you Dungeons & Dragons when we get out of here. Lugging my body out of here when I was trying to make a noble sacrifice is disgraceful.”
“You’re not allowed to die, Eddie.” Steve said, panting with exertion and stress.
“That’s not up to you,” and then he passed out.
“Fuck!” Steve screamed. That fucking dramatic shit, if those were his last words, Steve would bring him back just to kill him again.
Steve’s feelings were threatening to overcome him as his hands shook while he put Eddie into the car. Nancy held one of them and gave him a look of meaning. “I’ll drive.”
“Um, yeah, yeah. Okay, thanks. Henderson! Keep pressure on his wounds. We need to stop the bleeding.” He desperately put pressure on the worst of the wounds on his torso and prayed to a god he no longer believed in.
And then they sped towards the hospital.
Steve was there when Eddie woke up, just as he had been in the four days he’d been unconscious while recovering from shock. He was trying to read the dancing letters in The Hobbit but when he looked up and met Eddie’s eyes, the book dropped from his hands.
“Didn’t take you for a fantasy nerd, Harrington.” Eddie mumbled, his voice hoarse but unwavering.
“We need to talk about your theatrics, man. You almost gave me a heart attack, Eddie.”
“Oh, we’re on a first-name basis now? If I’d known all I had to do was risk my life to be in King Steve’s court, I would’ve done it a long time ago.” Eddie smirked at him.
“I’m not a king anymore.” Steve said and shook his head. It’d been a long time since anyone had called him that and he didn’t like the way it sounded on Eddie’s lips either.
“My apologies, Steve. You’re not a king, you’re a paladin. And that’s better than any noble.” Eddie said wisely.
Steve had no idea what the fuck any of that meant or what a pal-man was but he could listen to Eddie rant at him for hours as long as he kept looking at him like that. His face was fond and his lips, though scarred with a vicious bite marring their softness, smiled softly at Steve.
He coughed a bit to clear his throat and tore his eyes from Eddie’s lips to his amused eyes. “Um, do you said you were going to explain your screamy metal shit?”
That got Steve his desired reaction and Eddie squawked. “You motherfucker-”
As Steve listened to his enraged ranting, he made himself a promise. He was going to be more like Eddie. He was going to be more free with his feelings and he would find a way to talk to his friends about them. But for now, he’d listen to Eddie’s virtriolic soliloquy about the merits of metal artists and the importance on nonconformist music in “this sweaty armpit of a state”. And Steve couldn’t be happier.
@doubleb11 @nburkhardt @zerokrox-blog @newtstabber @carlyv
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laundrybiscuits · 1 year
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“Eddie,” Robin says, eyes wide in a way that means trouble. “Edward Munson, I sincerely hope your last will and testament is in order, because you are going to completely and totally die when I tell you who just got hired at Scoops Ahoy.”
Eddie groans. “Don’t tell me Tammy Thompson is giving up on her Nashville dreams.”
“No, I hate you, shut up forever, you’ll never guess.” Robin pauses, then in a dramatic whisper she’s definitely picked up from Eddie himself, says: “Steve Harrington.”
“Jesus. No shit?”
“Yeah, I have to train him. Oh my god it’s the worst. He’s so bad at, like, everything.”
She shoves at his shoulder until he moves out of the doorway of the trailer, and flings herself backwards onto his couch. “Like! Okay! I showed up to my shift thinking it would be a completely normal day in which I would be bored out of my skull distributing frozen dairy products to the flotsam and jetsam of Hawkins, and Ned’s like, hey Robin, you’re showing the new guy the ropes today. And then that freaking jackass has the freaking nerve to say—” Her voice drops a full register. “Uhh, nice to meet you, I’m Steve. Nice to meet you! God!”
Eddie cringes sympathetically, sucking air between his teeth. There’s a special kind of indignity to being so completely and utterly below the radar of Hawkins High royalty, even former bearers of the crown. It’s not as if Hawkins is a big town; Eddie’s pretty sure he could pick every single person in the graduating classes of ‘84 and ‘85 out of a crowd. He’ll probably be able to do it for ‘86 too, though he’s trying not to think about it too hard. So he’ll be a senior again (again) this fall, whatever. It’s fine. It’s whatever.
Once in a while, he wastes some time really, really wishing he’d gotten to know Robin earlier in the year. Maybe even last year. For undying friendship reasons, yeah, but also because with her in his corner, he might’ve actually passed enough of his classes to fucking graduate on his second fucking try.
But he’d only actually met her, like actually met her for real instead of passing her in the hall sometimes, when he’d let himself get suckered into rejoining band. It wasn’t like he could’ve brought his guitar in, but he let it slip to Miss Genovese that he could read music and keep time, and they needed someone to wallop the bass drum, and he figured a little experience fucking around with percussion might be the one thing he could salvage from the year. He’d just…been so goddamn tired of feeling stuck, spinning his wheels. Music was something he could actually handle; something he could actually get better at. Something he could master. He's man enough to admit he needed a win.
The actual songs were all stuffy Holst and Sousa numbers, but they’d had some fun technical bits he spent his evenings hammering out for a couple weeks. And then right around the point when he’d gotten good enough to get bored and think about quitting like last time, it had somehow wound up that shooting the shit with the gangly weirdo in the trumpet section was one of the best parts of his day. Unfortunately, by the time they’d gotten close enough for her to start bullying him about homework and shit, it had been way too late to save his chance at walking that ‘85 stage with assholes like Steve fucking Harrington.
Not that Harrington would’ve even noticed, apparently.
“Anyway, the one singular saving grace about the entire situation is that he looks even dumber in the sailor costume than I do, so at least that will make me feel better about my life until he gets fired for burning down the ice cream freezer or something like that. Eddie, I cannot stress this enough: he is so bad at this job.”
Eddie very tactfully does not bring up the litany of screw-ups that Robin’s admitted to over the last couple weeks since she started at Scoops; he just says, “Buckley, it sounds to me like you might be in need of some quality relaxation time this fine evening. I can offer you a nice cold beer, some herbal refreshment…or a fiendishly weird new song to learn with an intro riff that'll make you cry.”
Robin, inveterate nerd of his heart, sits up immediately and chirps, “New song, please!” just like he knew she would. She’s going to run off and elope with his acoustic one of these days, and he’s not even mad about it.
“Coming right up, m’lady,” says Eddie. “I promise this entire Harrington situation will be over before you know it, and neither of us will ever have to think about him again.”
(ETA: First chapter of this fic has been edited/expanded and posted on AO3)
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collectivecloseness · 10 months
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(Small thoughts about Yan! Fruity four) Thinking about when another incident like the first with the Yan! Fruity four would happen again 😌 like CLEARLY that won’t be the last time for it to happen—- like what happens if Nancy deliberately pushes the reader off somewhere somewhat high after they have a disagreement in public. And without the reader even being aware of it. They can all play doctor while readers legs heal, but would Nancy even tell the truth about what happened, and even if she did, what would they do about it?
BROOOOO. I s2g I could talk about the yandere fruity four so much, thank you for contributing 💕
(Cw: yandere, physical injury)
There’s been tension between you and Nancy recently, it’s obvious to at least her. No like big arguments or anything (nothing for you and the other three to be suspicious of afterwards, type of deal, even though she wasn’t planning this) but just small things. At first Nancy wavered between being pissed off, and feeling bad because she just wanted you back in her arms, where she could apologise and baby you in her lap and have you hold her back. But recently it’s been more Nancy seeing you in the wrong.
This time you had visited Nancy at her work. Her office at the newspaper’s was a few floors up, and you’d come to bring her some lunch from a local restaurant she liked, and hang out with her during her break. Which was when an extremely annoying coworker of Nancy’s knocked on her door, and asked who the beautiful madame she had in her office was, with a big smile, and a friendly bow to you.
Suffice to say, Nancy was pissed. Yes of course you are beautiful but you aren’t available!! Nancy’s already started off in an angry mood, because of a particularly harsh dream she’d had last night (one where she woke up, knowing at least she didn’t act that angry and malevolent towards you as she had in those scenes from her sleep, and maybe you should be grateful she always keeps her cool, maybe you need to realise how hard she really tries for you). Not to mention work had been shitty, she’d even been snappy at her coworkers she usually got one with on better days.
Of course she’s been a little better since you came to surprise her at work, not only with a meal you remembered she’d liked, but just because you wanted to hang out with her! Maybe she was being a little pissy with you recently, considering you still came to spend time with her like everything was normal still in your loving relationship. But then you’d shaken off Nancy’s, admittedly heated, comments about her asshole coworker. He was flirting with you, right in front of her, and you were waving Nancy off!
Not only that, but as you both binned your lunches and Nancy was starting to walk you out her office, you were starting to argue with Nancy, just because she wouldn’t calm down because you were acting so crazy and ungrateful and stupidly ignorantly blind for not seeing he was obviously flirting with you, and you were taking his side! Over Nancy’s! Your supposed girlfriends!
Not only that, but now you’re accusing Nancy of being possessive??! Like she’s not just trying to protect you!?! Like she ALWAYS DOES!? AS IF SHE’S NOT CONSTANTLY PROTECTING YOU, WITH THE OTHERS, AND PROTECTING YOU FROM EVEN KNOWING HOW HARD SHE TRIES TO LOOK AFTER YOU, EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU?!!!
And you’re saying your going to tell her other partners just how out of your boundaries she’d been lately. Like you’d been thinking about this forever! You were going to tell her partners that you didn’t like her behaviour, when you were the one who didn’t care that someone was flirting with you! Even though Nancy clearly knows your lovers better than you do, because why would they want someone flirting with you either, especially since they’re not stupid, they know how easy the things they love, you, could be taken away from them.
Or did you only not care, or even like, this guys advances because it was around Nancy? Would you have been more defensive, more confrontational, less dismissive, if you were around one of your other lovers? Maybe you loved them more than her? Maybe you just didn’t care about Nancy that much at all really. Maybe you had it twisted. Maybe you didn’t think you needed her to protect you anymore. Maybe you didn’t want her!
“Hey y/n stop walking away from me!”
STOP RUNNING AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!
You’re both on the second floor stairwell, you walking faster the more annoyed you get, like you just can’t wait to leave Nancy, while she’s chasing you, still trying to get you to just be on her side.
She pushes you when your back is turned. It was just heat of the moment, she was so angry. Even though she feels that anger still as you fall by her hands, she also feels panic, and her hands want to reach out for you, to save you, even though her body stays angrily out in push mode.
Your body rolls not sideways, but from the front, as you fall. Nancy walks down the flight of stairs slowly once you’re on ground, your scream cut off short when you hit the platform.
She checks you’re still breathing, a small kissing of her teeth as she’s glad you’re fine, and then lifts your cheek to check your head on the side where you fell, finding no blood pouring onto the floor. Another good sign. At least she doesn’t have to think too hard about her, admittedly impulsiveness, being too stupid.
Nancy shakes you, with a “y/n?” But as she looks again at the, dry, concrete floor platform at the end of the stairs, and Nancy looks back to your knocked out form on the ground, she realises this was a bad place to push you.
Nancy looks at way your body fell, and even though she still feels pissed at your response, and Nancy can tell through some introspection that she doesn’t really feel, quite, guilty over what she’s done, she is still worried about you. She doesn’t want you to be hurt. She could never dream of that for you! You’re so important to her, you’re her love, of course she’d protect you from injury. The guilt sets in a little via dread seeping into her lungs with a gulp. Not because she believes she was in the wrong still, but she didn’t mean to hurt you badly! She’d never take it that far. Not at least for this!
She should have controlled herself, she should have been the smart one, done something else to solve all this! Nancy goes to the emergency phone in the stairwell and dials 911, looking only at your passed out form and keeping her eyes sharp for any movement or groans from you. “Hello, 911, wh-“
“I need an ambulance.” Nancy gives the address straight away, the floor as well, keeping calm so no one would waste time while trying to get you the help you needed. But then when she was trying to figure out how to explain what happened, a more frantic voice started bubbling out of her. Hoping it would make the responders come quicker, make it seem like your fall was a big issue, all as Nancy explained how you’d tripped, and fallen all the way down the flight of concrete stairs.
Her frantic expressiveness leads to Nancy starting to call for help, with a louder voice now, yelling in the echoey stairway, so some people in her building come come, and she could order them to go get help as well. She doesn’t need anyone else because she’s enough to help you. Nancy doesn’t need a crowd, it won’t help you. Nancy’s the only one who should be soothing you right now, stroking your hair, calling you honey, trying to lure you awake with your musical name, comforting you... But if someone could find a doctor in the building that’d be good.
Nancy could know more about your condition then, or get you help if you need it more immediately. Obviously worries about you breaking something like your back are there, although Nancy hopes those stairs can’t have done that much. But as she strokes your arm and continually calls your name, someone, actually one of her bosses, having run to find a medical professional in the building, finally in your sleep she notices you twitch. Your hand flexing, and Nancy hopes that it’s not just an involuntary muscle spasm, or a hint of further injury, and it’s actually a sign of you being able to move.
Her managing editor comes back with someone who must be a medical professional of some kind, Nancy’s first question, after “Are they alright?!” Because they immediately skid to your side, with a neat looking backpack thrown to the floor. A crowd has also followed them, Nancy getting slightly pissed that they’re all blocking the doorway, even though the paramedics would obviously yell at them to move when they arrived. She just focused on brushing your cool cheek and listening to what this off duty emt, who was a lifestyle writers husband, had to say. Clearly a lot of lovers visiting over lunch.
With this group of people though, it at least allowed Nancy to take you as her priority. Spotting one person in the crowd, and looking them in the eyes as she beckoned them forward. Mostly because she spotted the pen in their front pocket. They even tore off their cardigan to write on their arm, no one who worked at the newspapers seemingly carrying any paper, jotting down the number of Steve’s home, and the message Nancy wanted them to call with. Telling the others what had happened, that you’d fallen down the stairs at her work and were unresponsive, and to meet her at the hospital as she’d be going in the ambulance with you.
She knows Steve’s house is a bit far from her work, so by the time the ambulance arrives, which should only be several minutes from now, you and Nancy would already be at the hospital. The others would be able to give your name at the front desk, and meet Nancy there. Who knows where the doctors would have taken you by then...
Nancy’s holding your hand the entire ambulance ride. When she’s walking there with you, still unconscious on the stretcher out the building, and some idiot who doesn’t move so they can watch the action bumps into her and nearly knocks Nancy’s hand out of yours... Nancy swears she could kill her. Next time she saw them, she swears they’re done.
She only lets you go when the paramedics tell her to, Nancy watching closely as they shine lights in your eyes, to also see if you respond. When they ask “Y/n? Can you hear us? Nancy’s here with you.” Her heart skips a beat. She hopes you’re comforted, you push more for her, knowing she’s right be your side. And she also hopes you don’t know that she pushed you.
This was another thing Nancy stupidly hadn’t thought about when she was trying to teach you a lesson. What if you knew? What if you felt her hands? What if you remembered? What if you hated her. What if you told the others? What if you told everyone?
Some doctors tell Nancy to wait outside as you’re strolled into a closed off room, neck brace covering the pretty necklace bought by all four of your lovers, a symbolic present for when you first became part of their family, that you always wore.
She didn’t want to risk being thrown out, so Nancy waited outside fretfully, but quietly, trying to walk up and down to see inside the room, with no such luck. They were taking forever with you! What did they know?
Nancy hears Eddie, Steve and Robin, long before she sees them. And not even because she was so accustomed to the sounds of their running patterns, or because of the people complaining in the hallways about people running, but because she could her your lovers calling your name terrified.
They all rush up to Nancy, pulling her into a hug, Robin squeezing her arms tight around Nancy as she sobs, while they ask where are you, and what have the doctors said, what even happened?!!
Nancy says you fell, and the others feel a mix of guilt for her, and also anger, like they would have caught you if it was them, but before they can continue the doctors are rolling you out, now attached to some iv, and they’re all reaching for the sides of your hospital bed, following you as they ask what’s going on. Their eyes wandering all over your body because you’re still not awake. Hands reaching to gently hold you, they just need to touch you, but so scared of accidentally hurting you.
The doctors and nurses walk with you and your lovers as they try to get a word in edgeways, explaining your injuries.
You hit your head in a couple of places, falling down those hard stairs. Luckily, you shouldn’t need to be placed into a medically induced coma, and there’s no signs of permanent damage, they predict you’ll be awake in a couple of hours, and will monitor your brain extremely regularly.
You were lucky only one of your legs was broken. Your left was still pretty fucked up, bruised and bashed to hell, some battered and torn muscles, a dislocated knee, sprained ankle, a two fractured toes. Even though only your right leg was broken, it was however was broken in two places, your tibia and fibula. Luckily though this meant, depending on how much your left leg hurt, you’d be able to use crutches within a week or so, if necessary. A wheelchair was more recommend for now.
Even Nancy knew the others would not be letting you get up to use your crutches to limp around. It would be the wheelchair, or being carried in someone’s arms, if you weren’t being tucked tightly into bed where they could be with you while you rest. Until doctors recommended the crutches to help with physical therapy and healing, then they’d be infighting with each other between trying to help you try as hard as you can, versus being too worried and wanting to coddle you into not straining yourself. Even as one of them, Nancy knew them so well.
You had only a sprained wrist, although it looked very beaten, all the damage was seemingly superficial, with a possible dislocated shoulder, and a deeper scrape on your forearm, from where you probably tried defending your head as you fell, this explanation plummeting sobs from three of your four lovers in the room. But again, that would heal, and a lot of your arm injuries were very minor for what they could’ve been.
A crack in your ribs however was present. Small, you’d still be able to walk soon, but another injury to add to the list. Your hips were fortunate to be undamaged, but just further up your torso was littered with deep bruises, especially discoloured around that bottom rib, the markings all over; something Steve would discover an hour later, when going to loosen your bra, because you always said it hurt if you fell asleep in it, and while trying to snifflingly ease your pain, he instead caused himself and the others more.
A small patch of scrapes littered up the very side of your cheekbone and head, just to the left of your hairline, and a nurse warned them not to be alarmed if any bruising or swelling in your face started to appear soon.
They all winced at this mention, Eddie seemingly being the only brave enough one to reach out at that point, and lightly stroke his fingers under your cheekbone, just past where those nasty scrapes were. He stayed doing so, knowing he was comforting you, even if asleep, until a nurse wanted to patch them up a bit, as they hadn’t exactly been high priority. When Eddie moved, he kissed your lips too, a loving gesture that he knew you’d feel, a promise to you he wasn’t going far at all, he was going right back to your other side and stroking your bare arm there. Eddie had just wished his kiss had worked, and awoken you from your dreadful, cursed, state, so he could really be your fairytale hero. He hoped you still thought of him as that anyway, even while like this.
At this point, it’d been a few months since the baseball bat ordeal. It had been slightly forgotten by now, at least not thought about very often. And with the shock of you being injured, with that hurried phone call from a scared stranger about you sending chill’s down Steve’s spine, Steve’s words shocking fear right into the hearts of Eddie and Robin, watching you here, hurt, unresponsive in their arms, the shock wasn’t making them think back to past events. They were all just too scared for you. Upset that you’d been so hurt, and they hadn’t been there to help you, to catch you, to be with you, to save you.
Even if you’d fallen down at home, their stairs are soft and carpeted, you have rails you can hold, you’d have been surrounded by your loves, the ones who’d always help you the most.
You were so much safer at home. This is what the always feared, but pushed aside for your happiness. You shouldn’t just risk going out into that harsh world.
When you wake up, after a few hours and lots of different doctors coming in and doing things, Eddie Steve and Robin burst into tears. Nancy’s too nervous to cry. All four come closer, swallowing you in a hug, close knit sweat and tears and cried panting breaths and sobs and whispers of your name all enveloping.
Eddie already laying in your bed with you, because he screamed if any of the other three tried to move him, and so they decided to stop, especially since he wasn’t on any wires and he wasn’t hurting you. If anything maybe he was really healing you. And he had some slight trauma with hospitals after people were hurt during the fight against Vecna, so they let him be close to you.
Eddie stayed curled up laid out by your side. Sniffling, stroking your smooth cheek, away from your scrapes, and your messy hair, his dark puppy eyes just staring at you. Breathing through his mouth, until Nancy eventually handed him a tissue. Just wanting to lay there, his hands still gently holding you, and watch you, laying right there with you, until you woke up.
Robin had been sitting in the small space on your bed on your other side, too scared of holding your hand with the iv in, but blubbering words to you faster than you’d probably be able to hear even if you were awake, her hand never leaving your less injured forearm though. Trying desperately not to sink her nails in to you too tight, and also shaking so much she was afraid she’d accidentally let go. Some of her words including swearing that she wasn’t going to let you out of her sight again. Sweeter things, like she’d be there for you. And upset rambles that she’ll never let you leave home again, and she’d rather have you chained to her than out of her reach again. Things too frenziedly mumbled, and in a tone that the others understood Robin probably didn’t even realise she was saying, or care she was so upset, but sentiments everyone was silent at because they couldn’t deny, they’d all been thinking things on other levels of those ideas themselves.
Steve wasn’t afraid to hold your hand with the pain meds injected in, he was gentle. He didn’t touch near the needle, but his thumb rubbed up and down warmly, his hand never left yours, fingers interlocked, with a reassuring hold.
He’d moved the armchair in the corner of the room right up to the bed, Robin’s feet resting on top of his legs, which kinda helped both of them, as he leant his elbows by her own thighs, staring deeply at your sleeping face with the most intent brown eyes. Blocked from the view on the opposite end, of Eddie’s dark brown eyes wetly staring at you on his own side too.
Steve held his chin up with his hands, the only reason his leg stopped bouncing in intervals was Robin’s own legs on top of his. Sometimes bringing your hand up, and holding his chin with that too, whenever he leant his head down to kiss it, tears falling and rolling onto your cool skin also. “Please baby. You gotta wake up. Come back to me y/n.” Steve would whisper occasionally to you. Just like how they’d all talk to you. Quietly, but uncaring if the others heard, because their love was private enough in this room with their family.
Although sometimes the cries of words were loud and shattering instead.
But Steve’s other phrase he repeated a lot, with those eyes kept on you each time he said it, the only words he’d have to look at you for, were “I promise.” He never elaborated. He probably wasn’t even thinking about it. But Steve had so many promises for you. Promises to be a better boyfriend. Be the man you deserve. Be your protector. Bring you back. Look after you properly. Do anything and everything for you. Steve promised all of this, if only you’d come back to him. He knew you knew what he meant though. Of course you did, your love was strong enough for that, Steve knew you understood him.
When you awake, the first thing you say is “Are you okay?” Because all you can see is the faces of the people you love most crying, red, and heartbroken. Heartbroken, but so relieved.
And God... if that being your first reaction to waking up in a hospital bed, doesn’t just prove to them that you are extraordinary. You are so perfect, you’re so kind to them, so so loving and so egregiously loved, and that you are too good for this harsh world, someone who needs to be protected from it, no matter what they’ll do anything to do that.
The second thing you ask is of course “What happened?” Waking and feeling groggy, coming out of your state of unconsciousness, too shocked and bleary, and of course pumped full of pain meds, to really feel any pain right now.
Steve asks how you feel while Nancy asks you to try and move something, over the top of each other. Steve uses the call button quickly, and as you’re getting used to the weird feeling, and the sight, of having a big chunky cast on one of your legs, you wriggle your toes on your opposite foot effortlessly.
Something you get drowned in praise for. Which you can’t deny, feels good. You’re always praised by all four of your lovers, so much so sometimes, but you could get used to being smothered in praise just for wriggling your toes. Or maybe that’s still the daze.
Having your lovers shower you in, careful, hugs and kisses, people swapping who’s holding your face and looking down at you so lovingly, all the kind wonderfully praising words down at you with genuine meaning, and most of all, watching your partners faces go from tear stricken to smiling like they’re high, full of a shoot up of relief, finally happy, pride for you, hopeful, a few tears still falling from a couple of them, but falling because their eyes crinkle as their smiles stretch so wide showing their beautiful teeth it must be hurting their lips. Laughs coming from their throats with a certain roughness from their past crying, and so many loving words surrounding you more and more, and more.
Relieved that you can move, they all saw it for themselves, and having already called the doctor, you ask again what happened.
Boy does Nancy feel relief with that question. Of course you still look groggy, not that anyone would say that of course, all four of them were cradling you in their hands and calling you beautiful. The heartfelt, starry and teary looks in the others eyes, they are being so genuine when they say that. They’re seeing you open your eyes again, looking at them, and bruised or not, you are beautiful.
But Nancy does believe you’ll be none the wiser. Which is lucky for her, again. One cynical part of Nancy’s brain does speak up then, thinking that it’s probably better that their luck run out soon, otherwise Nancy may be less apprehensive doing worse things in the future. Worse things for you. Of course Nancy would only do what’s best though. She just has to try and remember that.
And maybe remember that she’s supposed to be the more restrained one of the group. After last time as well, she definitely doesn’t want to let the others down too. And she wants to be good enough for you, she just wants you to still love her, that’s what’s good enough for Nancy.
Needless to say you’re not being left alone at that hospital. Because you woke up some time before visiting hours were over, the hospital only allowed one person to stay overnight. Steve and Nancy both tried to see if there was any leeway, but with no luck. Surprisingly Robin was the one who nearly got into a big argument with the nurse who had told them so. But luckily Steve had managed to calm her down (and grab her before she could leap at someone).
Whilst Eddie, done with begging, simply stayed nuzzling into your collar, his small tears weeping against your skin whenever he buried his face more. While the others argued he was pretty quiet, wanting to spend his time all with you, and happy with your petting and loving scritching of his head and curls back. At least he got to be with you for longer, and while the others fought.
But Steve and Nancy revealed to a shaking with adrenaline Robin that they needed to stay lowkey. And she let herself be calmed by Steve’s hug, while Nancy rubbed her shoulders, the three all turning to look at you in the now quiet of the room, and Eddie peering up at you too. Honestly you were used to having their eyes on you by this point, very used, but this was a whole other level.
Your other three lovers were actually very valiant, and all agreed Nancy should be the one to stay, before anyone could even put their name in the hat. She’s the one who watched you fall, she’s the one who had to check on you and wait with you, they all let her go first. Something Nancy bowed her head at, with a pink faced thank you. But they all knew it was an easier decision, because the three were breaking back into your room as soon as lights were out for the night.
And it was pretty easy, no one questions you when you look confident with where you’re going, and everyone who worked at the hospital was too tired to even notice them. So half an hour after saying bye, and holding Nancy’s hand and chatting about what she must’ve been thinking when you fell, you had your three loves quietly coming back into your room, and kissing your lips with slight teariness again, because they’d been panicking so at not being able to see you for those past 32 minutes.
You are even more of a princess now, than when you first agreed to go out with all of them
You’ll never have less than two people in your room, more like three, but mostly all four of them. Someone will only be gone when they’re leaving to get you breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks from your favourite places, so you don’t have to eat that yucky hospital food.
You’ll only be minus two when one of them needs to have a cry or talk to another, and they don’t want to do it in front of you. Steve, Robin, or Eddie would leave, and would usually be followed by one of the others, when caught with that obvious need to talk.
You’re brought a different bouquet of flowers handpicked individually by each one of your lovers every single day. The first time was hospital flowers, because no one wanted to leave so far when you were still so freshly hurt. The wounds of it were fresh with them as well. The McDonald’s only across the road got a lot of money that first day. But when you sweetly asked for pizza the next day at lunch, everyone scrambled to see if anywhere would deliver, or where the closest- you said you wanted Pizza Hut? Got it. Where the closest Pizza Hut was.
Presents and anything you needed, anything you wanted, anything they felt the urge to get, was brought to you. Either by them, or asking others to grab stuff, so they could stay with you. They loved knowing they had such good friends that they could genuinely rely on, in times like this too.
They felt better watching you brighten up with your visitors. Dustin came, bringing some board games and other items you might want with a key Steve gave him to their place, and a backpack full with half melted chocolate. As well as a hospital gift shop card, and you only brightened up more that Dustin completely forgot the cheap price sticker on it, but it was so endearing and gave you a good needed giggle, not that you let Dustin know what you were giggling about, and you were coddled over for grimacing in pain because it hurt your cracked rib.
Joyce and El visited, El having hand drawn a get well soon card and having picked out flowers and chocolates in the gift shop downstairs, because she’d never visited someone in a hospital before (for something not life threatening too) and she’d learnt it was something you were supposed to do. Joyce had been lovely, because she’d given you that mom hug, and you’d just held on and burst into tears at her warmth, and her scent, and her tenderness, and her hug. It was the first time you’d cried all day, you didn’t even know why you did. But you loved having Joyce there. Yes your partners brought you comfort, but Joyce had such a parental vibe, she really made you feel like everything was going to be okay, and you were looked after, and loved.
Even Hellfire club stopped by, with more sweets for you. Mike nearly getting hit in the head by Eddie and Steve and Nancy because one of the packs he handed you was already open and half eaten. He hadn’t even had those ones, it was Gareth. But with every friend visiting, and your partners, your family, always around, so encouraging, you felt so loved and taken care of.
And after a few days, with lots of final pestering questions to your doctors by your loves, you were released back home. Already having a schedule Nancy had two copies of in a folder of your medical information, of when you were to come in for physical therapy. Your injuries needed some extra work, especially your broken leg, but keeping up with your meds, having people help you with physical tasks around the house, looking after your wounds, and coming to physical therapy, you’d be back to normal in no time!
Your doctor affectionately nicknamed you ‘The Tank’ for having come out pretty okay from just a nasty accident. You were sure he’d used that name for plenty of patients, but it made you smile every time anyway. And with the reassurance from all your friends, your family, you felt strong too.
Well, strong and their princess. You could be both. They told you so!
Just because you were back from the hospital, didn’t mean you were any less delicate, and precious, and babied and worried over by them. In fact, you were sure someone would have a nervous breakdown as they transported you from the hospital, to Steve’s car, to your wheelchair to the sofa.
Steve was going to carry you to bed tonight, and then they’d all help getting you to the bathroom, to your wheelchair to go to the garden, and to be in the living room with them.
You wanted to feel like you were still part of the household team, and go to the dining room to eat, and watch tv with them at night on the sofa, and explore the garden for fresh air with them all.
And honestly, if you hadn’t phrased it like that initially, they might’ve fought harder to keep you only in your bedroom. But they couldn’t deny you after that... how could they! Of course they’d carry you everywhere around the house! They’d take you to watch the sunset glisten against Steve’s pool and sit by the flowers every single evening! Of course they’d do that, you could still interact like you were a normal part of the family, of course they’d do that for you! Anything you ask! They’d do that of course because they love you!!!
And that’s what they do. They try to keep you in bed a little in the mornings, so you’re comfortable. When everyone moved into Steve’s parents house when they weren’t really coming back to Hawkins, Steve tried to get the biggest beds for everyone’s rooms. Enough so five of you could fit, usually if you were all snuggled up to each other at night.
Everyone was pretty wary around your injuries, but having been unable to do so in the hospital, the first night home was spent with you comfortably in the middle of your own bed, and the others trying to give you space, but cuddled up as close as possible, all trying to at least have a hand on you. Sure Robin woke up with a fright because Eddie nearly kicked her off the bed, and when everyone was awake, Nancy was baking because Steve had been like a sauna all night apparently, when she was so squished to his bare back, clinging to his chest and trying to not lie on the edge. But they were happy because they got to be close with you, and you were very happy about the situation too!
Luckily by your window sill, there was a cushioned seating area, that could be used to sleep on if necessary, so that was used some nights as well. There being plenty of big comfy chairs, bean bags, and blow up mattresses around if absolutely necessary also.
You’re of course brought breakfast in bed. Steve wanted to give you healthier stuff to help you heal quicker, but he was also so upset about nearly, potentially losing you, and that you were hurt, he wanted to do everything to make you happy, anything, so he’d bring you the biggest and best breakfasts, on the mornings he went for them.
Steve and Eddie were usually the ones who lifted you, being the tallest and strongest, and no one wanting to risk dropping you when you were like this, although Robin sometimes helped them. They kept your wheelchair on whichever floor you were on, so in the mornings someone could wheel you to the bathroom. No one had wanted to leave that first morning, even when you told them you just needed to piss. Eddie and Robin stayed babbling to you on the bathroom sink, while Nancy and Steve ravaged through gift bags downstairs to find the new bubble bath you’d gotten. And then, admitting your ribs hurt, you eventually accepted Eddie and Robin’s help to haul your thighs back into your chair.
Bath time you were treated even more like a queen, constantly being asked if the temperature was okay, and have whoever was on duty asking if the bin bag tied around your leg, over your cast, was okay too, not wanting it to be too tight or hurting you. It was awkward and hurt a bit to get in the tub, they could all tell, and they hated watching you like this, but they’d stay. Of course they did. Usually multiple of them, just to chat with you, and fight over who got to wash you. Any room you were in, usually so were the other four, unless they were doing something.
They light scented candles, and someone will sing a tune, and they’ll make sure it’s all lovely. They looove just being able to help you relax, styling your hair, and taking the time to gently pick apart and brush any knots out of it. Usually someone got to work with your hair while another washed you. Technically you could probably do that part yourself, even though your arms and ribs were a bit injured, but it could hurt even a tiny bit, and they wanted to wash you, they wanted to treat you like a queen, they wanted to worship you, and they wanted to help you. So of course you wouldn’t complain. And they are sooo gentle around your injuries. Which unfortunately, there are quite a few of. One of the things they hate about bath time is seeing those bruises look worse and worse on your body. You’re still their beautiful girl, thats not changed at all, they just hate seeing you hurt.
They will insist on carrying you back to your room to get you changed, because surely it must be more comfortable to sit on your bed than the bath tub, and they chuckle each time you give a suggestive wink as you mention them carrying your naked and slippery body back to the bedroom. Oh what will they do to you now?
It makes them smile each time. Eddie and Steve will be shirtless carrying you too, at first just so their shirts didn’t get wet they’d say, but that very quickly in the next sentence devolved into a much more flirty sentiment. You loved at least being able to fawn over their bare chests, touching them, and sometimes teasing them too, even if you couldn’t do much with how fucked up you were right now.
They love dressing you up in their own clothes, and it’s not like you’re complaining, or you can easily change back. You love being able to smell them on you, and be comforted by their outfits. Sometimes they bicker over who gets to change you, only because they know they each want to put their own clothes on you. You sometimes get your own very comfy ones though, or your favourite shirts. That and the new clothes they’ve bought you, because your lovers are all compulsive shoppers when it comes to gifting you with things, you learnt way back when they first were trying to court you. It’s a good thing the shared household has a very good income, especially with what was left and still given by Steve’s parents.
They’ll carry you again down the stairs, but then you’re put in your wheelchair if not the sofa, and Robin and Nancy will argue it’s their turn to hold you (push you about) this time, although it ends up being largely shared.
“Maybe you should keep me away from stairs. You know, because of my track record of falling off them?”
Nancy gulps, freezes, but it’s not noticed by anyone, Robin and Eddie still walking besides you, transfixed on your crack of a smile, dealing with their own pounding hearts at the memory of you getting hurt, twice. But Steve smiles back in his joke with you, jostling you carefully up in his arms as he says “Yeah, that’s why I’m taking you downstairs.” The four of you chuckle, and Nancy quickly steps in place behind. It’s a good job they’re all obsessed with you.
If any of you thought at all on this, how you’d ‘fallen down stairs’ twice around her and been knocked out, the coincidence would point a glaringly obvious finger at Nancy. And she’s already got plans in place depending on who or how many of you figure that out first.
Once you’re down, and Robin’s getting chided by Nancy for doing wheelies with you in your chair, you get to decide what you all do. But they’ve all also come up with lots of fun activities themselves! So you’re not stuck bored or having to think too hard, you don’t need to strain yourself, there’s four of them here for you!
Steve and Robin nearly die when Eddie wheels you into their work one day early on. You’ve come to pick out about a weeks worth of films, and they couldn’t be happier having you visit! It makes their heart feel good, and painful things, seeing you out and about like usual, but just in a wheelchair.
They also get slightly scared not having you at home, even though you’re with them. But of course you’d ask Eddie if you two can go out and how could he refuse you! They all have a great time with you at Steve and Robin’s work, the three are just slightly more... protective. Like when people come in and start knocking over tapes because they’re clumsy, or don’t care, or a car outside is going way too fast, near the glass windows of the store. They spend some time just huddled around you in a circle, still laughing and joking around with you, and your lap stacked full of tapes.
Your great idea of a bbq was really nice, because not only did everyone have fun watching Steve in his ‘kiss the chef’ apron cooking (regularly put onto Eddie as well, which he wouldn’t complain about if he got attention, and, kisses) but you all got to spend a long afternoon outside together. It felt really good for you.
You could sit in the outside seating with everyone else, go around with Robin to smell the flowers, watch Eddie throw Nancy into the pool after she’d clearly teased him about something. And although Steve caught your pout, telling him that you wished you could go in the pool, you soon had a bucket of warm, chlorine, water, to paddle your foot not attached to a cast in, and had Eddie spraying you with a water gun he’d found to also help you ‘experience the pool’. He refused to tell Steve where he found them. Although within an hour he’d given you one as well ‘to hide’, so you could pull it out against the others at the funniest opportunity presented to you.
You’d all prepared some lovely cold food and treats in the kitchen together, before going out and eating some skilfully grilled things by your lovers, and kissing a lot of chefs, and Nancy even had her camera out to take lots of pictures together. It had been really lovely. It had felt refreshing. And it proved to you you could have fun, have normal good days, even being kinda injured right now. And your four lovers started to tear up with smiley faces, when you told them how good this day had been, as you kissed each of them with an “I love you so much.”
Anything and everything, all for you, from all of them.
Even when you can start to walk, they still like carrying you around. They encourage your attempts, and reward your efforts, even though, holy God, you feel like you’re constantly being rewarded at the moment. But they still get nervous. A toss up between wanting you to get better and improve, and being so scared you’re not ready and you’ll hurt yourself, and just wanting to do all the hard work for you.
You have to tell them having one person in front of you and one person behind you kind of impedes your ability to walk in any direction, but with people behind you and at your sides, sad they can’t hold your hands, you manage to soon be strong enough to use your crutches. Everyone’s happy your arms are feeling better, and strong too! Although they do keep the wheelchair around, just in case.
Eddie has a bet with you to keep you going strong, about when you’ll next be able to bench press him. At some point the terms of the bet switch to ‘when you’ll be able to throw Eddie against a wall’ and no one can quite trace when that happened. Robin makes a show of fawning over your ‘muscly’ biceps though, and disrespecting Steve’s ‘lack of them’.
Very soon you have the four of them individually (and together) drooling starry eyed over how they have such a strong girlfriend, who they’re so in awe of.
When you push Eddie’s face away as he kneels by the sofa arm after teasingly chattering on and on about his warrior princess girlfriend, and ‘biting into pure muscle’, he pretends to be so thrown back by your mighty hand. And then faints from how intimidated he is by your strength. And turned on. Which gets the remote thrown at his head by Robin. And Eddie fake faints again.
And then you tell Eddie he’s bullying you for faking being knocked out, when that’s basically a trauma for you! And then you get smothered in kissies by your boyfriend!
And eventually your also there girlfriend, who is trying to shove Eddie back after two full minutes of being left out, like Robin was as strong as Eddie pretended you had been.
They all have a little bet of the next time they’ll be able to sit in your lap again - with the caveat of ‘DON’T STRAIN YOURSELF TO DO SO EARLY THOUGH PLEASE MY LOVE’
They drive you to physical therapy, and you always get to go out somewhere as a treat afterwards. They all felt frozen on the spot, after your first session, where you used your crutch to go all the way to the front of the line by yourself, and began ordering your ice cream sundae, but they at least started to calm when they realised nothing bad had happened. And after some talks with each other, where they knew they would not let anything happen to you out there, when you were with all of them.
You hadn’t really noticed yet, but you kinda assumed you hadn’t been out anywhere on your own, because they were worried you wouldn’t be able to comfortably get yourself there and back home without their help. They do slightly wonder if they’ll feel any... less like this, once you’re fully healed up, and probably wanting to go out there on your own again.
...That’s a bridge they’ll cross when they come to it. For now, they loooove being able to spend all their time, taking care of their poor, sweet, lovely girlfriend.
Obviously Nancy is very smart, and I feel like as a yandere it only helps with her manipulation. So she probably wouldn’t tell the others what she did. No need for them to know right! You didn’t know, and neither did anyone else, so why would her other partners need to? There’s no proof, she made sure after the others got to you at the hospital that there hadn’t been any cameras around. So there was no evidence and she was singlehandedly protecting her family herself (by not letting her get arrested and the family being torn apart, as well as the others secrets potentially looked into more).
She knows they’d just be upset. Of course, there’s no reason for her to let that happen. They’d be angry with her, and they’d probably feel guilty and conflicted about letting you in. She doesn’t think Steve would, unless you’re begging him for a truth and Nancy hasn’t been sinking her claws (in a sweet way) into him recently. Robin would also probably be too anxious to tear the family apart, and to tell on Nancy. Nancy had had to tell Robin off, in only medium ways, once or twice, but Nancy also knew Robin was a good girl. But she was also your girl. It would be rocky.
Eddie... Nancy could still trust him, but she could see him being the most tricky out of the group. Tricky to control and predict as well.
She could see Eddie snatching you up and taking you away from her and the others, driving you away in that shitty van to lead a life with you elsewhere, just the two of you.
Eddie had grown used to being alone before they all came together, whereas Steve and Robin were terrified of it. If Eddie was scared for you, he’d steal you away in the night, and Nancy wouldn’t underestimate Eddie’s sneakiness when necessary, including taking you on your own willingness thanks to him, and she wouldn’t underestimate Eddie being content with you being his family, not having you in any harms way, being happy with you. And with only one family member to call and meet up with. Only one other person he cared about like that. Easier to cut ties with the town he wanted to leave before this relationship started.
It also meant Eddie only had his Uncle Wayne to look out for in the town he left. The only one to warn in case any of the others, his nephews ‘ex friends’, started acting weird. Only one person to set up precautions with, in case he was used to lure you and Eddie back.
It’s not like Nancy would ever hurt Mike, who was in Hellfire with Eddie. And she wouldn’t want to do anything to Dustin either, she also knew Steve would not allow that to happen, and Nancy would definitely lose Steve if she hurt Dustin. That would be the best way to get Steve to not only hate her, but fight back against Nancy. Lose Steve, and you, and probably have Eddie gain Steve... and then Robin would probably leave her and join... Not that Nancy was thinking about hurting Wayne. Or anyone, of course not. Eddie just had the most options, as well as a lot of other ticks in the category. ...Nancy just thought too much, was all.
It was just all around easier to not involve them. Besides, Nancy couldn’t deny that when attention wasn’t poured on you, she liked the extra forehead kisses and tight hugs from the others she’d gotten back when she first could have told the truth, the love for her having seen such a dreadful sight, watching you fall, being the one to call the ambulance so fretfully. Poor Nancy, she was so brave to them, so in need of some extra love. And she truly loved all of them, including you.
Nancy would do the right thing. And that was not letting her family be torn apart.
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90sbee · 6 months
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one thing you gotta know about me: if you put a tragic beefy blond dude in any sort of media i consume i will simply lose my mind btw. now i have to defend them forever and call them my babies for eternity. i am collecting these men.... conducting my research on why they own my ass like this.
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imfinereallyy · 1 year
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Steve Harrington thought a lot about what could have been over the years. He thought about Nancy, and how he could have been a better boyfriend. He thought about his parents, and how he could have done more to uphold their expectations. He thought about Robin, and how he wasted so much time not knowing her. He thought about the kids and every instance where he could have stopped their pain if he had been seconds earlier. Perhaps what Steve thought of the most though, was how he could have saved Eddie Munson.
But to Steve Harrington, it was clear he couldn't do anything really, except for regret.
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paint-music-with-me · 2 years
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This movie hasn't even come out yet but I am thriving in the chaotic potential it has as a Steddie AU.
It's called Ticket to Paradise and its premise is: divorced couple go to their only child's wedding and try to sabotage it due to their own insecurities about why they got married to begin with.
Listen I know it sounds weird but idk I love it? It's very exes to lovers trope and I love the trailer!
Now hear me out:
It's years down the line, I wanna say, maybe Dustin is in his early 20s right? He decides to marry Suzie for sake of plot.
He moved out of Hawkins for college, while Steve is stuck where he is. So that distance is felt and it makes Steve feel like shit though he tries to push it aside.
Meanwhile Dustin made a new friend called Eddie in college. Obvi, D&D club. Ofc Dustin gushes about Eddie to Steve and Steve obvi gets a bit jealous.
So lo and behold, Dustin sends a wedding invitation to Steve, out to Hawaii or some tropical paradise, ok? And ofc Dustin names Steve as his best man yay! And he's also sharing that title with Eddie so there's that. (Steve tries not to dwell on that a bit)
When Steve arrives, he gets all ready to meet this Amazing Eddie Munson that he's heard so much about. And when he actually meets him?
Boom! He was a goner! Absolute love at first sight....though he won't ever admit it because oh wow, Eddie is a bit of a firecracker.
He won't lie, Steve does feel a bit out of place. Dustin has these new friends and he can still get in groove with everyone from Hawkins. Steve feels like it's already an honor to be named Best Man, he didn't need to be vying for Dustin's attention. He can't help but fade in the background until
Eddie just won't let Steve be alone. They get into all kinds of messes around the island! One time when Steve wanted to swim in a secret pool he found in the tropics out of the resort, obvi Eddie followed - it was full of leeches. Another time they were supposed to do a scavenger hunt - they got lost. When they had to do a performance for the bride and groom, they accidentally threw a shoe at the DJ and knocked them out (they didn't perfect their choreography).
Bottom line is that this wedding was the most fun that Steve had in a long time. All the feelings of inadequacy and loneliness faded when he was with Eddie.
Maybe - just maybe - coming to Dustin's wedding alone wasn't going to be the downer fest he thought it would be.
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sirendoesomestuf · 2 years
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bitches look at how to be freed by vecna you need your favorite song played, and how octolings were freed from the octarian hypnotism they needed the calamari inkantation played, and yet still say ‘no, a splatoon au would not be perfect for stranger things’???
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soapyscoobert · 2 years
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Uhh I was thinking about stranger things- I like it lots but I just never bring it up..
I’m like 90% sure Robin is going to die in season five.. It just makes sense in my head- I’m worried for Steve if she dies, because yknow they’re platonic soulmates and all. The toll that would take on that man. If it’s an Eddie and Dustin situation where he is in a situation of needing to run and get out there, he wouldn’t leave her he would rather die before leaving her he would have to be dragged away from her to leave her. There needs to be more angsty Robin fanfics (because pain) I might write one we will see
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Watch "SMUTTY CLASS READING #shorts" on YouTube
I need this storyline with stucky 😍🥵😂
Bodyguard x CEO's gay son
Bodyguard!Steve as nomad Steve x CEO's gay son Bucky as Seb's Carter look or 2011 look
Like this:
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I need this.
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laundrybiscuits · 1 year
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(wait for the season to come back to me tag)
Eddie doesn’t want to tell the kids yet. Steve kind of understands, but he also knows Dustin’s never going to forgive him for holding out like this. He cancels his biweekly lunch with Dustin twice before sitting Eddie down and saying, “We gotta tell him something.”
“Fuck off,” says Eddie.
“He’s twenty-five years old. He can handle it.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“What the hell are you worried about, then?” Steve snaps. “I can’t keep lying to him, man! It’s not fucking fair! Just because you—”
“Steve,” says Robin. “Come on. Cool your jets, hotshot.”
Steve realizes he’s been kind of yelling, then. He also realizes that he’s standing over Eddie, who’s folded into a defensive crouch, and Eddie’s nails are in serious danger of ripping the couch cushions open. Eddie doesn’t look scared, exactly, but his face has gone inhumanly still and blank. It’d probably be worrying if there was any space in Steve for worry.
The anger’s still roaring full-tilt through Steve, though. He gets like this sometimes for no goddamn reason at all, and he knows it’ll pass in a minute, but right now the urge to break something is so, so strong.
“Fuck,” he snarls, and wheels around, storming into the kitchen.
He runs the tap just so there’s some noise as he tries to get his shit under control. Robin comes in after a little while.
“I’m—going to the gym,” Steve says, still gripping the sink hard.
“Okay,” says Robin. “Be safe.”
———
When he comes back, Eddie’s not in the living room.
“I told him he could hang out in my room for a while,” Robin says, before Steve can work himself up into a panic. “I think it would be good for him to have, like…his own private space. Not—I’m not talking about kicking him out, obviously. But maybe we could figure out a partition or something in the living room?”
“Yeah, sounds like a good idea,” says Steve. “God. I’m so sorry. He knows I’m sorry, right?”
Robin flicks him on the forehead. “Yeah, he gets it, dingus. I think he called you an ambulatory fountain of penitence once. Like, a perpetual apology machine.”
“Sure,” says Steve. “Got a lot to apologize for.”
“Nope, we’re not doing that,” says Robin, patting him gingerly on the shoulder. “I’d hug you but you’re all gross and sweaty. Go shower, you’ll feel like a person again.”
He does feel like a person again after a shower, but the Dustin question still hasn’t been figured out. He tries to bring it up again after a few days.
“I wouldn’t even have told you guys I was back if you hadn’t kidnapped me,” says Eddie, picking at his dinner. Vegan stuff is usually okay, weirdly enough, so Steve’s been learning to cook with tofu. He’s not sure if Eddie actually gets anything out of it on a nutritional level; he hasn’t asked.
“Yeah, I know,” says Steve. He’s trying pretty hard not to get mad again. It keeps him up sometimes, thinking about how easily Eddie could’ve wandered into a different bar that night. He hopes that they would’ve crossed paths sometime anyway, being in the same city and all, but maybe not. He just doesn’t know.
“So you get it, right?” says Eddie. “Why I don’t want to put that on the kids. They’ve all, like…processed it and everything. They’ve moved on, just like you did before I came back and fucked up your life again. And you didn’t even really know me.”
It’s not like he’s saying it in a mean way, but it’s deliberate. He’s watching Steve carefully to see how it lands. Steve takes a deep breath; he can do this right, this time.
“Eddie,” he says. “You know I’m glad you’re back, right? You’re not fucking up my life, I’m happy you’re here.”
“You seem a little stressed for a guy who’s supposed to be happy.” Eddie leans back and smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. “Just seems sometimes like maybe it would’ve been better for you if I’d stayed, like, a story from your past.”
“No,” says Steve. “No. No. Never. It—might’ve been less complicated, maybe. But not better.”
Eddie looks down at his plate, silently fiddling with the golden-brown chunks of fried soy protein, and Steve realizes it might not just be about how the kids will react.
“Hey. You know it’s going to be fine, right? Dustin loves you. He wants you in his life, whatever that means, and you know he’s not gonna do anything to make you uncomfortable. Plus, he lives like one town away and has his own car, so if I keep putting him off like this he’s just gonna show up here one day and then we’ll really be screwed.”
It’s kind of a joke but it’s also really, really true. Eddie laughs, some of the tension finally dropping out of his shoulders, and says: “Okay. You’ve worn me down, Harrington. Alert the brat pack.”
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collectivecloseness · 3 months
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I’m still not feeling 100% unfortunately, but my brain is absolutely swimming with the want to write, I just think full fledged fics are off the table for another day or two because wow I am not doing well
But I would really really love to hear your guys thoughts/hc’s on yandere!characters/polys and chat about them!
Please feel free to send in any of your thoughts on any character/poly/scenario with (eg, yandere Eddie, yan fruity four, yan steddie etc) and I will write and write about how brilliant and correct you are but also how that could all go down and what that could look like and potential worldbuilding and etc etc etc 👀
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kiwi-bitchez · 3 months
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The Girlfriend Experience
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Eddie Munson x Reader
Summary: Eddie doesn’t think he’s cut out for dating. Self-resigned to a life of one and done hookups, you’re determined to make him see that he has the capacity to be a worthy companion… for when the right girl comes around. Fake Dating AU, classic corny fic for a fav corny troupe, Stranger Things canon divergent ofc, 18+ smut (see warnings below), big dick energy but also slightly emotionally unavailable!Eddie, yada yada yada, you know the drill. 
Content warnings: AFAB reader with she/her pronouns, use of y/n, alcohol, smoking the devil’s lettuce, mention of panty stealing, food consumption, semi-public sex, fingering, PIV, Dom-ish!Eddie, oral (m and f receiving), pierced dick Eddie because I said so!, unprotected PIV sex, hair pulling, mild angst but nothing too angsty just like one heated conversation and Eddie feeling a little worthless but happy ending I promise
Word Count: 20k ahhhhhh!!!
A/N: Thanks to all those who comment and reblog! Your feedback and engagement makes my heart soar and keeps me motivated to write this filth! Sorry for the gargantuan length, in very-me fashion I always ending up writing one behemoth fic every so often rather than just separating it out into chapters. Also, realizing after the fact that I use the brand name ‘Goodwill’ a lot in this fic, which maybe not everyone might know is a thrift store, not sure if that’s just an American thing or not but figured it was worth noting. 
“I guess I’m just not boyfriend material, ya know?” Eddie shrugs.
“Don’t say that, Eds,” your eyebrows pinched together, “different qualities are important to different people. Not everyone is looking to date a Steve, or a Brian, or a whoever. I’m sure someone is out there looking for an Eddie.”
“It’s not that,” he shot a look towards Steve, who, despite your analogy, was unfortunately everyone’s type and the textbook definition of boyfriend material.
“I just don’t think I’d be very good at gooey romance stuff, or even like, passable boyfriend behavior. I mean, look at me, I hardly take care of myself, I’m loud, I have no money, I’m basically every dad’s worst nightmare, do I need to keep going?”
“The nightmare thing can actually be a bonus,” Steve chimes in, “the whole bad boy persona can be a huge draw for most girls.”
“Sure Steve,” Eddie’s voice grows exasperated, “I’m the mysterious bad boy until they realize I’m a huge loser who runs not one but two dungeons and dragons groups. Real fuckin’ attractive I’m sure that is.”
“Shows you’re committed to something…” you trail off when his eyes tell you to stop coming up with a positive spin for every excuse he gives. 
This whole discussion had started because of something that happened at the bar last night. A small group of you decided to meet up for drinks, your usual group of pals. It was a Thursday, so the bar wasn’t too busy. Your friends all squished into a booth in the corner, chatting and catching up over a plate of shared nachos, when Robin started making frantic gesture at you and Steve.
“Please just say what you’re trying to say instead of this elaborate charade,” Steve makes a few mocking hand signals back at her.
“Okay, one at a time, and keep it subtle,” her voice lowered to a whisper, for some reason, “over at the bar, some girl is totally flirting with Eddie.”
You and Steve both turn around. “I said not at the same time!” She whisper yells. 
There was, in fact, a pretty girl with shiny hair and glossy lips doing a half fake laugh and pressing her manicured hand to Eddie’s bicep. You whip back around to find Robin with her mouth hanging open in a “can you believe this is happening” way. 
“Good for him,” Steve swivels back around too, “She’s pretty hot.”
You return to your nachos, pretending there wasn’t a ping of jealousy in you. Eddie was your friend, that had been made abundantly clear.
When Robin introduced you to all her friends from high school, you had easily gotten along with all of them. You especially got along with Eddie. He was funny, authentic, abrasive at times, but a truly good person at his core, creative, protective, you could go on.
After getting to know him a bit, and developing a budding crush, you had made a few passes at him. Nothing too forward, just small compliments here and there, open ended offers to hang out that never lead anywhere.
It’s not like he flat out rejected you, but any feelers you were putting out to see if there was potential there were met with him looking past your flirtatious intent and just being his goofy, friendly self. He treated you exactly the same way he treated everyone else, which was awesome, except for when it wasn’t. 
“Oh no,” Robin’s gaze was not subtly fixed on the unfolding scene at the bar, you and Steve watched her face drastically shift from confused, to a cringe, to an eye roll.
Still half whispering, as if Eddie could even hear your corner of the bar, “He’s totally blowing it. DON’T both turn around at the same time again.” 
“Okay, so,�� she starts before either of you can even confirm that you want to know, “she was totally laying it on thick, like you could see it from all the way back here. And he must have said something off putting, cuz all of a sudden she like went cold on him and pranced away. Shhhhh, okay okay, he’s coming back.”
She was acting as if she wasn’t the only one gossiping. You and Steve were innocent bystanders in all this. 
“WHAT was that?” She immediately blurts out when Eddie returns to his seat, fresh drink in hand. 
You and Steve share a side glance to sigh at Robin’s inability to be subtle, god bless her. Eddie shifts around awkwardly and lets out a forced dry laugh, taking a long sip from his drink before facing the wrath of a curious Robin. 
“Oh, that,” he gestures to the bar as if she could be asking about anything else, “some girl. Not sure.”
“Not sure? Eddie she was FLIRTING with you,” Robin all but yelled, causing Steve to scan the bar to see if the girl in question had landed somewhere within earshot. 
“I know that,” he hisses, “She just… wasn’t my type…”
“Okay sure, hot girl in a tube top and no bra isn’t your type, riiiiight,” Steve rolls his eyes.
“It’s just,” Eddie was so over this inquisition, “she asked if I wanted to get coffee.”
You, Steve, and Robin all give him a blank stare, trying to decipher what he could possibly have against getting coffee with a hot girl. 
“That’s like,” he gets defensive, detecting the wall of confusion facing him, “something people do on a date. Coffee is serious, and I’m not a very serious guy.”
“What do you mean ‘coffee is serious,’ coffee is like, as casual as you can possibly be?” Steve’s tone now emulated Robin’s from earlier, half whispering, half yelling, all scolding towards his friend. 
“That’s just not really my speed. Coffee dates and flowers and hand holding and all that,” he was avoiding eye contact with all three of you, “Yeah, she was hot, sure, and maybe if she had been like ‘hey lets go fool around in the bathroom’ then I wouldn’t be here having this lame ass conversation with you three. But I don’t do coffee dates, so I’m not gonna waste her time and pretend like I’m that sort of guy when I’m just not.” 
“Well good on you for not leading her on, cuz I’m sure you could have agreed to the coffee date and still gotten lucky in the bathroom,” Steve mumbles, and you smack the back of his head lightly to scold him. 
“So you only date girls who’ll fuck you in a bar bathroom the first time you meet?” You redirect your now equally scolding energy to Eddie.
“No!” He runs his hands through his hair, “I don’t date. Anyone, really. At all. Ever.”
“Oh,” you think for a minute, realizing in your few years of friendship you never had seen him with anyone, or heard him mention a romantic interest of any sort. 
Leading you to your present conversation, you and Steve continuing to question Eddie on his decision to reject the hot tube-top girl at the bar and why he felt like coffee was such a scary commitment. 
“You guys know me,” he continued to defend his stance, “If I took that girl out for coffee she probably would have picked some fancy hoity toity place and I wouldn’t know what anything on the menu meant, I’d probably spill something or like, get crumbs everywhere, and the bill would be way more than two coffees should be. It would have been a waste of both our time.”
He was staunchly refusing eye contact with the two of you, knowing he’d be met with something along the lines of pity. 
“Fine, we’ll drop the subject,” you shoot a look to Steve, “but I just need to make sure you understand that not every girl likes expensive coffee, or flowers and handholding, or whatever your expectation of girls and dating is. There’s plenty of girls who have similar interests to you, who feel the same way about PDA and mushy romance stuff that you do. You do know that, right?”
“Of course I do, y/n,” you could practically feel his eyes rolling at you, “but girls like that sure as fuck aren’t here in Nowhere, Indiana. Even if she was, I’m sure I’d still find a way to fuck it up given that I’ve had exactly zero serious girlfriends and the closest thing to a date I’ve ever been on is when you me and Steve pooled our ski ball tickets to win that ugly stuffed turtle.”
The memory of what you had all agreed to be the world’s ugliest stuffed animal caused all of you to crack a smile. Steve had silently agreed to change the subject, not wanting to dig Eddie any deeper into his pit of self despair. 
Steve’s mouth was half open, about to suggest that the three of you have a smoke and watch one of the rental movies he brought over, the words just about to escape him when you harshly cut off any chance at ending the pity-party.
“Date me!” You exclaim, without much thought. The shocked look from both boys caused you to rapidly back pedal , “You can date me, as practice!” You said it as if it was the simplest concept in the world. 
When met with gaping mouths and confused stares you continue on, “You and I can be fake boyfriend-girlfriend for like, a month, and I’ll tell you everything you do wrong, and like generic do’s and don’t’s, so that way the next time some hot girl hits on you, you can be all like ‘Coffee isn’t really my thing pretty lady, but I’d be down to get drinks sometime’,” you did a silly impression of Eddie’s voice, and then switched to a high pitched one to impersonate what you assumed the girl at the bar sounded like, “and then she’d be all like, ‘Oh yeah that sounds greaaaaat, getting coffee is just like, a generic catch-all thing that most people say when they want to get to know someone better, but you can buy me a drink’ and then the two of you will ride off into the sunset and it’ll be great.”
Still no reply.
“It won’t be all romantic and gooey, I promise I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. It’d be a way for you to get some honest feedback and catch up with the stuff most people have to learn the hard way.” 
“I suppose you are the most brutally honest person I know,” Eddie doesn’t sound convinced. 
Steve just looked between the two of you with eyebrows raised, not knowing if giving his opinion on the matter would be appreciated or not. “I guess I would’ve appreciated someone telling me that most girls don’t want to be asked out with a pickup line from a John Hughes movie, would have saved me a few dozen rejections.”
“I’m pretty sure Robin did tell you that…”
“I don’t know y/n,” Eddie scratches his head. 
“It’ll be easy. Ask me out.”
“Huh?”
“Ask me out, for practice, ask me out on a date like I’m a pretty girl you met at some metal show or a DnD convention or something like that,” you stand in front of him with your hands out as if to prompt him to say something. 
“Will you go out with me?” He sounds more like he’s asking himself if he even wants to be asking the question.
“No.”
“What the hell!” He throws his hands up.
“I said no because that wasn’t a very good effort. Go out where? To do what? You’re asking me, a pretend stranger, out on a date Eddie, not if I want to go have a smoke with you.”
“Ughhhh,” he spun around and tried to get some sympathy for Steve, who unfortunately was on your side with this one. 
“A compliment or two doesn’t hurt as well,” Steve added, deepening Eddie’s groan. 
“Hey pretty stranger lady,” his voice was laced with sarcasm, but at least it wasn’t disdain, “you seem really…” he hesitated to find his words, “cool? Would you like to come see my band play this weekend at The Hideout? We-“
“No,” you cut him off.
“WHA-“
“Eddie, you can’t ask a girl to watch Corroded Coffin play for your first date with her, that’s like date four or five material, no girl wants to go sit by herself at a bar to watch some guy she just met play an hour of heavy metal. She would have to know you a little bit more for that to feel organic. Pick something more generic, like coffee.”
“I think you seem cool, would you like to get coffee with me?” it all came out as one monotone mumble from him. 
“Sure,” you wait for him to lift his head up to make eye contact with you, “But coffee isn’t really my thing, maybe we can go out for drinks?”
“Oh fuck off,” he flopped back onto the couch next to Steve. 
“See, now we have our first fake date, and then you can ask me to be your fake girlfriend, and then you’ll be so comfortable with emotional vulnerability that you can find a real girlfriend to take on real dates.”
“Yeah, I suppose it could be beneficial,” Eddie was slowly coming around to the idea. He knew that he was oddly charismatic at times, but he was just always too self conscious to follow through with the whole romance thing.
This maybe wasn’t a bad idea, because he knew you weren’t the kind of person who would make fun of his hobbies, or put him down if he slipped up, the sorts of things he was always afraid of girls doing. Sure, he’ll agree to the girlfriend experience. 
After a night of movies and pizza with Steve fake-third-wheeling, you made sure Eddie knew that the fake-date was actually happening, that the two of you would go out for drinks this weekend as your first official practice date. 
After giving it a bit of thought, you realized that you and Eddie had never hung out alone. In your feeble attempts at flirting with him all those months ago you had invited him to have movie nights or grab a bite to eat, but he always showed up with Steve and or Robin in tow.
As the night of the fake-date rolled around, you’d be embarrassed to admit it to him, or Steve, who didn’t care to hide how skeptical he was about this whole idea, that you went through your normal pre-date routine. You took some extra time on your hair and makeup, exfoliated in the shower, chose an outfit you felt confident in, added a few spritz of perfume for good measure too. 
Eddie rolled up in his van, only a few minutes late, but a few minutes was very impressive compared to his typical chronic tardiness. The two of you agreed to just grab some food and drinks at your usual spot, considering you and Steve openly agreed that it would be a good first date spot in theory. 
“Hey,” he reaches across the center console to pop the door open for you, “you look nice.”
It took you a second to register as you settled into the passenger seat, and then whip around with your arm outstretched to give him a high five. He scrunches his face at you.
“High five me Eddie, that was really good! I know you usually open the door for me anyways, but the compliment right away, A+,” you flop your hand down to gently slap his, still gripping the steering wheel. 
“Don’t patronize me, y/n,” deep down he knew you weren’t trying to talk down to him, and deep down he hadn’t even given complimenting you a second thought, he really did think you looked great in your date get-up. 
On the ride over to the bar, the two of you discuss some logistics. Considering all of this is just practice dating, you don’t expect Eddie to pay for you, but you explain that in theory if he had been the one to ask you out then he should be the one to pay for the first date. 
“To me it’s less of a gender thing and more of a who asked out who thing, but I know some people would abide to the stereotypical ‘the man always pays’ standard, which is why you’d just have to be honest on date like two or three about what you enjoy doing and what sorts of things are in your budget. You can still have fun and be thoughtful without spending a lot of money.”
He asked a few questions, like if he should have gotten you flowers for a first date, or what he should do if someone asks to go to a fancy restaurant that he surely couldn’t afford. You tried your best to give solid advice, but always reminded him that every person is different and every relationship is different, so all he can do is be honest. 
You take up a spot at the bar and both order for yourselves, splitting some fries and slipping into some easy conversation. 
“Am I supposed to, like, beat someone up if a guy tries hitting on you in front of me or something like that?” you nearly choke on your drink at his question. 
“Eddie, no,” you answer, also questioning, “why the hell would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “My buddy Jeff was with his girlfriend at this punk show before they were even together, and some guy made a creepy comment to Amanda and Jeff just decked the guy in the face. He say’s that’s what made her want to date him, cuz he defended her honor or whatever.”
“I guess that’s sort of circumstantial, but I prefer my dates to not engage in any sort of violence,” you sip your drink, “even if it’s for my honor. I’d like your face a lot less if you were all bruised up.”
“Well I never said I would get hit,” the two of you were laughing a bit now.
Over a few cocktails you went over some first date etiquette with him. PDA and being touchy, how to follow her lead and gauge if she’s the type who wants everyone at the bar to know you’re together, or keep it strictly platonic to start. How far of a grip on the leg is too far up, that sort of thing.  
“So if she does something like this,” you fake laugh a bit too loud and, lean into his personal space, and then run your hand from his slender down his arm, “that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to fuck you, but it’s pretty close. You’ve at least got a green flag to get a little closer to her, tell her she looks nice, maybe offer to buy her a drink.”
“I know how to tell if someone finds me attractive, y/n, I’m not stupid,” he said casually, “obviously that girl the other night was hitting on me, I’m not blind. I wasn’t going to ask to buy her a drink or try and get lucky in the bathroom because I was out with my friends. I can find a quick fuck in a bar on my own time. I was having fun with you guys, I wasn’t going to abandon all of you to talk to some stranger, even if she was hot.”  
“Oh,” you processed his comment, “Steve would be happy to know he ranks above tube-top girl.”
“Steve would be happy to be above tube-top girl in any context,” he jokes. 
“You really just find random girls in bars to fuck?” You question, not in any sort of judgmental way, just curious. 
“Not specifically, I guess I did make myself sound like some serial bar-bathroom type of guy. I never really had girls interested in me when I was in high school, at least the first four years of it. Then when we started playing regular gigs at The Hideout it was a little easier to find girls who were interested, but it was always that they were more into fucking some guy who could play guitar and was in a band, so it usually just always happened on-site, probably cuz they had an actual boyfriend or husband to go home to. Girls think I’m fun. Which isn’t untrue, I do enjoy a romp in the Hideout bathroom, or the back of my van, or wherever we end up.”
“So that’s what all those blankets are back there for,” you say with a fake scowl, referring to his van set-up. 
“Not exclusively! They make a cozy nest for smoking blunts and listening to tapes too!” 
You return to your drink, trying not to think too hard about the girls that Eddie brings to bar bathrooms or his van or wherever. 
“I just find the energy of those situations very different from like, talking and getting to know someone. Fucking is easy. I’m not interested in ruining that by adding emotions and the looming feeling like sex is contingent on me acting a certain way or checking a certain number of boxes for someone.” 
He shrugged, and you could understand where he was coming from, sometimes a quick fuck or hookup could be cathartic and easy. But it also saddened you to think that Eddie believed he had to get in and out before the person on the other end got the chance to know him. 
Moving away from the subject of his inability to be emotionally vulnerable, the two of you practice some cheesy ‘first date’ questions as you had called them. As your drinks started to settle into your system you were having more fun being silly with him, pretending to be a stranger on a first date. 
“When’s your birthday?” You ask, twirling your drink straw with your finger and making some fake flirty eyes at him to accentuate the facade of asking him a bunch of questions you mostly knew the answers to. 
“August 9th,” he flips his hair over his shoulder, joining in on your fake ostentatious flirting. 
“Oh my gosh, a Leo! This will never work out, cuz I’m an asparagus…”
The two of you nearly fall out of your bar stools laughing, realizing you meant to say Sagittarius. 
“Okay, let’s get you home Asparagus,” he helped you up, having kept his drinking to a minimum so he could drive you home. 
“Wait, wait,” you grabbed his arm as the two of you exited the bar, “can we go back to your trailer?”
He raised an eyebrow at you, “that’s a little presumptuous for a first date missy.”
“No, no, this isn’t girlfriend y/n asking, just regular friend y/n, who thinks it would be a lot of fun to smoke and watch a movie without Steve there spewing all his annoying fun facts, like, we get it, you read the little insert inside the tape while you were bored at work!”
Eddie did agree that the idea of packing a bowl and watching a few movies with you didn’t sound too different from what his plans would have been otherwise, so he agreed, as long as you promised not to give him any dating advice while hanging out as friend y/n and not girlfriend y/n. 
Although you promised to try your best, you immediately started lecturing him on t-shirt borrowing and the potential weight that could hold in a relationship when he offered to give you some more comfy clothes to change into. 
“It’s important to know!” You emerged from the bathroom in one of his oversized shirts and a pair of boxers, “Some girls are very touchy about it. Any shirt you lend her to sleep in, you have to be willing to sacrifice for life.”
“For life?!” Eddie finishes making a bowl of popcorn for the two of you, swallowing his words when he sees you in his clothes, an unidentifiable emotion rising in him at the sight of you so cozy and integrated into his space. 
“Well maybe not life,” you plop down onto the couch, “but do NOT ask for it back. Most girls will give it back once it stops smelling like you.”
“If she gets my shirt, can I have her underwear?” He asked without thinking, the weed he had just smoked with you hitting him a bit too hard in that moment. 
“Oh my god,” you squeal and bury your face into a pillow, “la la la la, pretending like I didn’t hear that!”
“I’m just saying!” He laughs at you, now curled up into a ball, “fair is fair, right?”
“I guess it depends on the girl,” you mumble. 
“So I’m guessing not you, by your reaction.”
“Eddie!” You smack him with a pillow, “I don’t know, no one’s ever asked!”
“If my girlfriend isn’t going to ask before stealing my shirt for an indefinite amount of time, I think that gives me panty privilege.”
“Wow Eddie, if I had known you were such a perv I would’ve reconsidered being your fake girlfriend,” you say sarcastically, with no real judgement behind it. The idea of him wanting to steal your underwear dampens them ever so slightly. 
“Don’t worry babe, I won’t do anything pervy to you unless you ask nicely,” he shoots a wink at you, which you meet with an eye roll and a turn away to hopefully hide the heat rising in your cheeks. 
The two of you carry out your platonic movie night as planned. You suppressed any urge to note on his actions from a romantic lens, and he ignored the itching desire to sling his arm around your shoulder or pull your legs into his lap to get more comfy on the couch. 
“Can I sleep here Eddie,” you ask after movie two, “too sleepy to move.”
“Sure, I can take the couch and you can have my bed. It’s been a minute since I washed the sheets but it shouldn’t be too bad…”
“Nonono,” you mumble, “Your legs will totally hang right off the end of this thing. I’m conked out anyways, I can crash right here I promise.”
“Ignoring that you’re my fake girlfriend, I’m not letting you sleep out here on this lumpy thing. You’re taking the bed, no arguments.”
He helps you up from the couch, letting you keep the blanket that’s wrapped around you, snaking his arm underneath it and pulling you from the couch by your lower back. You were slightly taken aback by his assistance, body still limp from your relaxed state, your torso easily arching into his. Your arms fly up to grab his shoulders, steadying yourself with an awkward giggle. 
“In the real world, a time like this would be good for a first kiss,” you make note of your closeness, the way he swept you up off the couch and held you steadily as you made your way to your feet. 
“I know that, y/n,” his face was closer to yours than it had ever been, making your words hitch in your throat. 
“Well, I’m just saying,” you turn your head to avoid the tension, “I’m sure the way you kiss your bar-hookups isn’t the way most girls who’re looking to date you long term want to be kissed for the first time.”
‘Oh yeah? And how do you presume that goes?” He kept his hand planted on your lower back.
You pretend to act wildly drunk, throwing yourself at him and letting your limbs go a bit heavier than they already were. “Ohmygod guitar man, I’ve had like, six dirty Shirleys, please finger bang me in the bathroom,” you slur your words and let your tongue loll out the side of your mouth as if to lean in for the world’s sloppiest and most uncoordinated kiss.
“First of all,” his voice was very serious, “I don’t hook up with girls who are too inebriated to stand, let’s get that straight. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even have our first fake kiss like this on account of the drinking and smoking, gotta make sure you’re in the right headspace. Secondly,” 
He spins you around and quickly backs you up against the wall that stood a few feet behind the couch. His hand sliding up in between your shoulder blades, blanket now slumped around your waist, his other hand suavely cupping the side of your cheek, His hips angled into yours, pinning you back against the vinyl, almost collapsing back into it. 
He pressed against you, not aggressively, but enough to let you know that if you were to try and squirm away he had the capacity to keep you right where he wanted you. He accomplished this all in one elegant motion, leaving you a bit dazed.
As you started to snap into reality, he moves his hand from your cheek down to grab your chin in between his thumb and the knuckle of his pointer, angling your face directly up at him. 
“If you were some girl in a bar, it would be like this.”
The moment before your brain turned to absolute mush, you silently cringed at the thought of what you must look like, mouth hanging open, eyes glassed over, body instinctively sinking into his touch. Pathetic, you were sure of it. 
Sure, Eddie did think you looked a little helpless, but he also thought you looked perfect. Exactly as he had imagined you to in this situation. Of course he had thought about you before, like that.
Of course he had felt an immediate spark with you when you had first met. But he never flirted back, or lead you on, because as much as he was attracted to you and enjoyed your company, he knew that it wouldn’t work out. He wasn’t relationship material, and you were the picture perfect girlfriend that he didn’t deserve. 
He spoke directly into your parted lips, mouth hovering just far enough away to toe the line of ‘holy shit, is he going to?’ But no, as he made very clear, he wouldn’t kiss you under these conditions. He had made his point, and slowly backed off and let you find your footing. 
As soon as he was sure that you were steady, he backed away and started down the hallway. 
“I might have an extra toothbrush stashed away somewhere, let me look…” he ducked into the bathroom, leaving you stunned in the kitchen, head swimming and your stomach traveled up into your throat. 
He was teasing you, he must be. That was his little way of getting back at you for thinking you could give him dating advice. If he was unsure about his capacity for romance, he was going to make sure you knew he was more than capable in other ways. Understood. 
You shook your head, weeding through your inner monologue of how he could possibly look at you like that and then just walk away. Your shock gave him just long enough for you to to not notice him splashing cold water on his face in the bathroom while he “looked for a toothbrush.” 
The two of you decided to ignore the lingering tension from the events in the kitchen, not a peep of fake-girlfriend talk from you for the rest of the night. He did find you that toothbrush, and the two of you moved through a too-easy domestic routine of getting ready for bed. 
You told him that you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you knew he was cramped on that couch, and that you were fine with sharing a bed. You mumbled something about  getting around to bed sharing etiquette at some point anyways, and sleepily pulled him into being your little spoon. 
Eddie lay there, trying not to twitch or fidget, relaxed as best he could into your cuddled form thinking about how horrible of an idea all of this was. He was convinced all it would take is roughly ten more minutes of you burying your face into his hair and making cute little sleepy noises for him to fall irreversibly in love with you. 
But what was he supposed to do? Move and wake you up? Never. 
You rolled around enough in the night to wake up in a less intimate position than when you had fallen asleep. You knew Eddie was a deep sleeper, and took it upon yourself to creep out of bed and back into your day clothes, make a pot of coffee, and watc a bit of TV before he roused and joined you in the living room. 
“Why didn’t you wake me?” He rubbed the crust from his eyes and was pleasantly surprised to see you had brewed a whole pot of coffee to share. 
“You looked so peaceful and cozy,” he shook his head at you, as if that was no excuse for letting him sleep an extra forty minutes.  
After a slow morning, he agrees to drive you home. 
“So this is the part where I say ‘Eddie, I had such a wonderful time on our date. I’d love to do it again sometime.’ And then you agree and tell me when you’re free. It’s best to be super direct and make plans to get together again soon, cuz then it’s not an awkward who’s-gonna-call-who-first sort of thing.”
“Uh-huh…” he stares at you blankly. 
“But for our sake, let’s just agree that I’m in charge of planning our next date. Okay? I’ll do it from the perspective of what I think most girls would enjoy, so you can steal it for the future. I’ll call you later.” 
You hop out of his van before he can agree, and leave him with a “Thanks for letting me stay over!” As you bound away from his view. 
He squeezed his eyes shut the moment he caught himself checking your ass out as you walked away, and let his head rest down on the steering wheel. He was fucked. How the hell was he supposed to tell you that you needed to stop being his fake girlfriend without disrupting the homeostasis of your friendship?
On one hand he could lie and say he doesn’t want your advice, making you think he didn’t enjoy your company, which was entirely untrue. On the other hand he could tell you the truth, and you would never be friends the same way again. 
He drove home with the music too loud, and patiently awaited your call later that evening to iron out the details of your second fake-date. 
Per your instructions, he let you pick him up this time with the argument that you were the one taking him out this time. He didn’t know what you had planned, but let himself fall to the mercy of whatever you had decided was an exemplary date fore him to ‘steal in the future’. 
You picked up two coffees and rolled up to the trailer park, popping a mix-tape he had made you ages ago. 
“Hey, I thought we said no paying for each other with fake-dating,” he objects to the coffee sat in the passenger cupholder, some abomination of mostly cream and sugar, the way you know he likes it. 
“Yes, that’s true, but you smoked me up the other night, and this coffee was like a dollar fifty, so don’t worry about it,” you give him a look that tells him to drink the damn coffee and not sass back, to which he complies, even though he smokes you up expecting nothing in return about every other weekend. 
The two of you sip away and listen to Eddies ‘must-know-to-be-my-friend’ mixtape and arrive shortly at the strip mall across town. This was a regular weekly stop for both of you, the strip of connected stores containing the Goodwill, a pet store, the pharmacy, and grocery. A pretty mundane collection. 
“Okay, what are we doing at Greg’s?” Eddie gestures to the grocery store, the back of his mind running through the grocery list he’s been making for this week anyways.
“What’s the perfect date?” You ask, and answer for him, “a romantic picnic. But gathering supplies is half the fun. Picnic food supplies at Greg’s, some pills to get fucked up at the pharm, some turtles or something to let loose into the wild from the pet store, and then hats, cups, blanket, etcetera from the Goodwill.”
He turns to you with the most bewildered stare, which sends you into a fit of giggles.
“Okay, I’m joking about the pills and the turtles,” you nudge his arm, “but won’t it be sweet to get together some picnic supplies and then drive out to lookout point? We can still swing by the pet store to check out the ferrets though.”
To Eddie, the idea of a date involved him doing something he didn’t want to do, some awkward small talk, and spending money on shit he truly thought was useless. This didn’t sound half bad. You would “work backwards so the food purchases come last” according  to your reasoning, and he followed you in tow without any arguments into the Goodwill.
“So I’m thinking…” you start to wander into the aisles of used clothes and knick knacks, “maybe a blanket? A basket would be sort of corny, but if we find one for cheap I don’t see why not. Surely two glasses for drinking, and maybe some sun hats?”
Swiveling back around to see a half stunned Eddie, who was still processing how in the hell this was your idea of a romantic date, you grab his hand and pull him to the bric-a-brac section. 
After it got through his thick skull that the same place he had uncomfortably tried on new pants throughout his growth spurt, and picked up his daily-worn leather jacket, had the same potential to provide some silly, cheap, used items to add some flair to this picnic. 
Silly and cheap was right up Eddie’s alley. The two of you picked out mismatched champagne glasses, one with the engraved name of a couple who got married in 1943 and the other a flashy rose color with baby angel carvings dancing around the sides. 
You luckily find an on sale beach blanket, and the two of you pick out some very goofy sun hats. A floppy farmers hat for you, and a bedazzled trucker hat spelling ‘hot mama’ for Eddie.
Through the midst of your giggles and debate on whether you should buy a wooden bench to bring out to your picnic destination, Eddie found himself having a really good time with you. 
As promised, you visited the pet store and checked out the ferrets and fish and geckos. 
“If you could have any pet, what would you want?” You asked him, noses pressed against the chinchilla enclosure. 
“Jaguar,” he said, a little too quickly.
“For real, dummy,” you knock your hip into his.
“I don’t know, we never had enough space or extra money for pets growing up, so maybe someday if I had enough room for it to run around I’d like a dog or something,” he tells. Eyes still transfixed on the chinchilla behind the glass. 
“I can see that,” you imagine Eddie with some mutt from the shelter, wrestling around and giving it lots of scratches behind the ears. 
Skipping the pharmacy, you pop into the grocery store and assemble what may be the world’s most eclectic picnic. 
“That’s the definition of a picnic, I’m pretty sure,” you explain after Eddie insinuated that the gingersnap cookies you grabbed, along with grapes and a block of cheese, wasn’t exactly a meal, “you know, just a smorgasbord of whatever we want!”
Admittedly, Eddie had considered a handful of pretzels and a beer to be dinner on more than one occasion, so he couldn’t argue with you. Quickly catching your drift, the two of you picked out an assortment of snacks and some ingredients for pb&j sandwiches. 
“I thought picnics were supposed to be classy?” Eddie holds up the Wonder bread and bag of potato chips with a look that suggested his question was rhetorical.
Your response was simply to raise the, admittedly cheap, bottle of champagne you grabbed to accompany with your meal, more for the irony of drinking the bubbly liquid out of your new used glasses with your sticky sandwiches than anything else. 
You pack your supplies into a tote bag, not having found a suitable basket at the thrift store, and drive across town to a dirt paved road that leads to a nice lookout point with a view of the lake. 
“Let’s walk down the path a little bit, but not too far,” you grab the blanket and tote bag from your trunk, motioning for Eddie to put on his ‘hot mama’ hat and carry your other auxiliary supplies, “I do not fuck with bugs.”
“I’ll protect you,” Eddie puffs out his chest, making you both giggle.
“From bugs?”
“Yeah, I’ll punch a mosquito right in the face, to defend your honor and all that.”
“I know I told you not to do that, but a mosquito might be the exception to the rule.”
You found a nice little clearing not far from the car, a spot that still had a nice view but was a bit more secluded. Eddie sat pressed right up next to you, making your sandwich ‘to be a proper gentleman’ but simultaneously spilling a glob of jelly onto your leg.
“Shit,” he doesn’t think twice before leaning down and slurping the grape flavored blob off of your bare knee, tongue poking out and licking the spilt jelly from your skin.
“Eddie!” You squirm away, barking out a surprised laugh. 
“What! Your knee is clean, wouldn’t want to waste perfectly good preserves, or a napkin.”
You feel your skin tingle where his lips had touched you, for only a moment, but you still felt it. He was so confident and casual in his movements, not having any hesitation to grab your hand or brush your hair out of your face. It wasn’t under the guise of fake romance, he had always been like that. Not touchy, per se, just sure of himself. You’d never seen Eddie do anything half assed, that’s for certain.
After the conversation you shared the other night, you were unable to stop your mind from wandering to thoughts of what Eddie does with those girls in bars, if he touched him with the same confidence and sureness he put into everything else he did. 
It was wrong to let your mind go to such dirty places about someone you considered a friend, but you couldn’t manage to feel any guilt. He had offered that information freely, so who were you to punish yourself for staring a little longer at his fingers, conjuring up the context in which he’d bury them inside you against some grimy bar bathroom. 
The date was all peanut butter smiles and bubbly laughter that floated up into the trees. Silly, yes, but neither of you could deny there was something sweet, maybe even romantic about it. A cheap meal in the woods shared between two friends in ill-fitting fifty cent hats, but an undeniable touch of romance lingered nonetheless. 
Eddie started to realize that maybe the whole dating thing wasn’t as uptight and scary as he had initially thought. It could be easy and fun, with the right person. And fuck, if he could even imagine doing this with anyone but you. 
Like most things Eddie did, he did not consider any potential consequences before acting. You looked so pretty sitting there in the sunshine, sipping from your cheap ‘Martha & Dave ’43’ glass, a few sandwich crumbs dotting the corner of your mouth.
What else was he supposed to do other than lean over and wipe them away with his thumb, stroking your soft cheek and feel the warmth of your skin beneath his palm. 
“You had some,” he uses his other hand to motion at his own mouth, “and I suppose this is the sort of moment where I’d ask if I can kiss you.” 
You find yourself a bit dumbfounded, his big stupid hand on your cheek and those big stupid puppy dog eyes unrelenting in making everything he says seem so genuine.
“Are you?” You find your voice, only half embarrassed at how shy it comes out.
“Am I what?”
“Are you asking me?”
“Yeah,” his answer comes out in a way that insinuates that he never meant anything other than that, that he was always asking to kiss you, he wasn’t asking in theory, in another universe, in the context of advice. 
“Okay,” you found yourself behaving like Eddie, not really thinking of consequences before your words and actions spoke on behalf of your instincts.
Everything so far had been so easy. Your fake first date at the bar, curling up next to him in a haze, making up stories about what sort of people donated the fake palm tree or the Garfield mug at the Goodwill, imagining Eddie running around a yard with a puppy, lounging in the grass and eating your assorted picnic snacks. It was all effortless.
Suddenly, being kissed by Eddie sucked the ease from your lungs and sent your mind spiraling into a cacophony of bells and whistles and giant swirling red flags. If this is how he kissed you, casually across some half eaten peanut butter sandwiches, you’d spend the rest of your days yearning to know how he kissed someone with true intention. 
Of course, his intentions were all there, but the lingering knowledge that all of this was happening under the umbrella of “you giving him advice” or “helping practice for the next girl” poisoned any true feeling he poured into it. He cupped your cheek, soft, let his lips press into yours delicately for a moment before he felt your breath hitch, opening his mouth just enough to deepen the kiss and capture your lower lip fully. 
He was more careful, gentle, methodic with his movements and so receptive to every little signal your body gave him, it was unlike any first-kiss, heat-of-the-moment-kiss, in-the-throws-of-passion-kiss, any of it. Like hell you’d ever tell him that, inflate that big ego that fuels his snippy comebacks at you, but Jesus, was it remarkable. 
While at war with yourself internally, your heart was on the precipice of exploding in your chest from the way he snaked his hand into your hair and pressed his forehead against yours to catch a breath. You suck in a sharp breath and feel that stupid cocky smirk creep up onto that pretty mouth of his.
“’S that sufficient for a first kiss?”
“Fuck offfff,” you were still a little out of breath, smacking his chest and flopping back down onto the picnic blanket, throwing your arms up and rolling your eyes at him, “if you’re so damn confident, maybe we just should fake break up, cuz you don’t seem like you need my advice.”
“Nooooo,”he slumps down next to you, burrowing his head under your arm so he can pop up right next to your face, “I’m learning a lot, I promise! This date was so fun, and cheap! I would have never thought any of this could be remotely romantic. I’m hopeless, y/n, look at me.”
He wriggles around and gives you a big fake pout, “If left to my own devices I would probably do something horribly embarrassing or off-putting, like…” he digs his head into the crook of your neck and blew a fat, wet raspberry right into your skin, making you yelp and squeal, but his position half on top of you pins you down. 
“See!” He pulls up for air, you were in a fit of screaming giggles, “I’d go right in for a kiss and just,” and he does it again, leaving you gasping for air, trying your best to tickle his ribs to get him off of you, but not minding the close contact by any means. 
“Now I’m not so sure,” he pulls back to give you a minute to catch your breath, “it seems like you enjoyed that, so maybe survey says I should pull that move on the ladies.”
Your airy laughter subsided, but he stays half pinning you down to the blanket and the lumpy grass underneath.
“I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I’m not grateful for your help,” he says earnestly, catching your gaze, “it’s just… this isn’t what I need help with.”
As his statement is processing, you find his lips back on yours, his torso pressed flushed with yours and his wild mane of hair coming down to curtain around your head. He doesn’t take it too far, but kisses you as earnestly as he had before, giving your lip a slight drag with his teeth and running his hand up from your hip up the side of your ribcage, leaving you arching slightly into him by pure instinct.
Before your head got too dizzy again, before you could really throw yourself into it and say fuck it and kiss him back the way you secretly wanted to, he pulled back.
“That.” his voice was even, you hated how needy you felt and how even keeled he could be milliseconds after stealing the air from your lungs, “It’s the rest of it,” he threw his hands up and gestured to all the food and knock knacks around you, “it’s this stuff that you make seem so easy, so forgive me if I lay it on a little thick when we get to the parts I’m actually good at.”
“Just,” you sat up a bit, grounding yourself and formulating a response despite your brain looping the past twenty seconds back infinitely, “don’t do that again.”
“Okay,” he sat back and popped a grape into his mouth, “sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” you knocked his knee with yours, struggling to articulate how you felt without showing too much of your hand, deciding to just be candid, “I just- I liked that a little too much if you know what I mean. And this is strictly business, or education, maybe?”
“You liked it when I pinned you against the wall the other night,” he said matter of factly, “I think you liked that a little too much too, and you still took me on this fake educational business date.”
“Yeah, well, you caught me,” you threw your hands up in defense.
“Which one is it though?” He asks and you don’t quite understand, “are you a sweet kiss on the picnic kind of girl, or an up against the wall kind of girl?”
“That’s none of your business, as far as fake-dating is concerned,” you say a little too quickly, “and no you can’t have my panties.”
You say it with a smirk, but he doesn’t press any further. He turns and does that Eddie-thing he’s so good at, just changing the subject and shifting the vibe completely away from what might have been a stale moment or awkward pause. He starts asking if you like green or purple grapes better, going off about how he used to put them in the freezer as a kid. 
The remainder of your date went without a hitch, of course. You picked away at your picnic until the sun started to set, and once the sky started turning purple you made your way back to the car. The drive home consisted only of easy conversation and no further mention of the kiss, well, kisses that had transpired. He hopped out of the passenger seat with a ‘thank you’ and a ‘see ya later alligator.’ 
A scalding hot shower, a restless night of sleep, and too many cups of herbal tea the next morning did nothing to quell the noise in your head that blasted those moments over and over. You couldn’t stop picking apart whether he had thought about it for even a millisecond, and felt embarrassed that you could think of nothing else. 
It was simply an amplified version of what your whole friendship had been up until this point. You silently admiring him and wishing he would look at you the way you looked at him, and settling for friendship over heartbreak. 
Pushing it aside to the best of your ability allowed you to get through your week, but you had the lingering feeling that the next time you saw him would strike you with warm cheeks and a scrambled mental state.
Guilt had started to seep in at the corners of your mind, but you reminded yourself that you shouldn’t punish yourself for having romantic or sexual thoughts about someone you simply found attractive and compelling, it was your actions that would determine the validity of your guilt. 
“Long time no see, loser,” Robin hollered from the pool table across the bar, where she was likely kicking Steve’s ass. 
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” you shrug off your coat and plop down at their regular booth, knowing her jabs were entirely empty. You notice Eddie’s leather jacket hung up by the wall, and scan the bar to find him ordering a drink. 
There was a silent mutual understanding that you’d keep the fake dating thing to a bare minimum when out with your friends like this. Even though Steve was well aware, and therefore Robin was too, you figured tainting your social time with the performance of romance is the exact reason Eddie turned down the girl at the bar in the first place. 
“For the lady,” Eddie waltzes over and hands you a drink.
“Oh, thanks,” you take it with a confused smile, “you didn’t have to do that.”
“You bought me coffee last weekend,” he sat across the booth from you, “plus I’m trying to get better at buying drinks for pretty girls, right?”
You remind him that he doesn’t have to keep tabs on things like coffee, but you appreciate the gesture regardless. As per the past few times you’d been out with your friends, you expected him to put a pause on the flirting, but it seems to be bubbling over tonight. You weren’t complaining, but admittedly the arm around your shoulder or the noticeable way he checked you out when you got up to refill your drink took you by slight surprise. 
Sneaking in to claim the always occupied dart board for a challenge against Eddie while he uses the restroom, you keep your eyes on the corner of the bar to signal him over once he returns.
“You need a partner?” A man suddenly appears behind you, a little closer than you’d like but the bar was crowded, so you’ll let it slide. 
“Oh, I was just waiting for-“
“Let me fill in until your friend gets here, we can get you warmed up, yeah?” His tone wasn’t too pushy, but you didn’t love the look he gave you when making that comment.
Awkwardly staggering for a second, unsure weather to just agree or tell him to fuck off, “He really should be just a minute-“
“Or maybe less,” Eddie comes up right behind you and pulls you possessively into his side.
Your head whips up to see him with a devilish smile, his hand on your waist and the fire behind his eyes telling his guy to get lost.
“Oh, sorry man,” the guy starts backing away with an apologetic look.
“Yeah, better luck next time, pal,” Eddie snakes around to take the guy’s spot in front of the dart board.
He had his darts in hand and took his stance to start the match, gesturing for you to do the same. 
“What was that,” you ask with a slight joking tone, but seriously curious.
“What?” He doesn’t make eye contact and instead throws the first dart, “I’m not allowed to get fake jealous?”
“You’re allowed to feel any fake emotion you want, I guess,” your tone is somewhere in between a joke and a question. 
“You’d feel fake jealous if I was getting blown in the bathroom by some chick rather than playing darts with you, I bet.”
“Okay,” your tone shifts to defensive, “getting blown is very different than some guy asking to play darts with me.”
“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you,” Eddie turns to face you, having thrown all his darts, “for real.”
A moment lapsed where you didn’t register that your mouth was hanging open in disbelief, the look in your eyes Eddie immediately clocked as lust and bottled up to store away for a later time. 
“I knew the scary dog thing would work,” his ‘i-told-you-so’ tone rubbed you the wrong way, but he wasn’t wrong, “you said girls weren’t into that, but you totally looooove that I defended your honor.”
“Don’t give yourself too much credit, I said girls wouldn’t be into it if you punched him,” you rolled your eyes.
“I don’t know, babe, I think you liked the whole ‘back off of my woman’ act.”
You mumble out a ‘whatever’ and let him have this win, which he was clearly reveling in, trying to focus instead at beating him at darts. 
“Just don’t pull shit like that on a first date, acting too possessive off the bat is a huge red flag for a lot of women.”
“I thought we weren’t doing dating advice tonight?” You don’t even have to look at him to know he’s got that stupid sarcastic smile.
“Yeah I thought so too,” you fail at your attempt to beat him in darts, as well as your attempt to not flirt back with him. 
He insists on collecting all the darts, picking up the ones haphazardly strews across the floor from failed attempts to hit the board. 
“I’m no pro or anything, but I think you’d hit the board a lot more if you fixed your stance.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you flip him the bird and take back your red tipped darts. 
As you steady your arm to aim your first shot he comes up behind you and grabs your hips, causing you to let out an unexpected squeak. He adjusts your stance, not aggressively, but with some force, twisting your hips and using his big combat boot to sweep your foot around so you stood more sideways. 
“You’re standing straight on,” he backs up, allowing you to secretly catch your breath, “and all your shots are veering to the right. If you plant your feet more angled you’ll hit the board.”
You wanted to roll your eyes at him, miss on purpose to show him he’s full of shit. You flippantly toss the dart, not trying particularly hard, and it hits. Not a bulls-eye or anything like that, but a lot closer than your previous attempts had been. 
“Good girl,” he comments, leaning in to breech your personal space just enough to make your blood boil.
You drop the remainder of the darts in your opposite hand onto the floor and whip around to face him, half jokingly smacking him on the shoulder. 
“Oh my god, fuck off!”
You’re met with his trademark shit-eating grin.
Truthfully, Eddie hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off you all night. He’d spent the night after your picnic date with his hand in bis boxers, squeezing his eyes shut and remembering the little gasp you had made when he grabbed your waist, the hum in your throat that bubbled up when he kissed you pinned against the blanket, that night and every night since. 
“Oh, you don’t like that?” that joking tone he uses to cover up what he actually wants to say. 
“Shut up, you know I do,” you didn’t even try to stifle your reaction, knowing it was his intent to get under your skin.
“How would I possibly know that,” he playfully looks up at the ceiling and around the bar, hands clasped behind his back now, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“You better cut that shit out, unless you plan on doing something about it,” you manage the most assertive tone your wobbly insides could muster, a little shocked at yourself for actually saying what you were thinking. 
“I’m not much of a planner,” he gracefully takes a stance next to you and rips all three darts, not great shots, but all hitting the board, “I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy, you know that.”
“Well your pants better make up their mind if you’re playing boyfriend tonight or not,” your insinuation was heavy but you had fumbled your hand, and he had already seen all your cards at this point, so there was no reason to bluff.
“The real question is,” he leans in, his imposing figure crowding your space in a way that made your head spin, “do you want me to play boyfriend? Or do you want me to play guy who fucks your brains out in the bar bathroom?”
Your eyebrows pinched together for a millisecond, and before he could decipher your expression you grabbed his hand and started storming through the crowds hoarded by the bar. Why the hell a seedy downtown bar has a single stall family bathroom with a changing table is beyond you, but you drag him inside and slam the lock down behind you. 
“You’re not allowed to treat me any differently after this,” you start to fall into the sinkhole of oh my god what the hell is about to happen, but are cut off by him pressing you against the closed door the exact way he had handled you against his kitchen wall that night weeks ago. 
“Not unless you want me to,” he doesn’t hesitate to get his mouth on yours, immediately pulling your mind from wondering what the vague sticky substance on the door pressing into your back could be. 
“I mean, you’re not allowed to fuck me and then never talk to me again,” you say in between moving lips and tongues, giving him a moment to bury his face in your neck, "Promise me."
“Oh don’t worry about that,” he pulls back, “we can go get coffee tomorrow and you can give me a full performance review. Promise.”
Your annoyed eye roll quickly turns into them fluttering shut as he licks a stripe up to the junction behind your ear that has you melted into a boneless puddle between his pressing hips and the door. He drags his teeth across your lobe while leaning into you with a black denim clad thigh.
“Why don’t we make a deal,” you let out, voice breathy and unfocused. Before he can even pull back to reply you continue, “if you’re half as good at this as you claim to be, and can make me cum in this dingy bathroom, I’ll let you take me back to your trailer and you can do whatever the fuck you want to me.”
He was leaning in to seal the deal with a kiss before he could even process your request, because yes of course, a million times yes he’s taking this deal. Despite the rouse of you playing bar hookup for the night, and despite the idea of bringing you back to his place and finally doing what he’s wanted since the day he met you absolutely terrifying him, he nods and kisses you. 
It’s electrifying. His confidence only spurs you on to kiss him harder, grip his hair a little tighter, say the things you would only imagine in the deepest parts of your mind. The feeling of his grin against your lower lip and his fingers quickly unbuttoning your jeans fuels your fire. 
“You sure you know what you’re getting into,” he mumbles playfully, pulling you away from the wall with a gasp and leading you over to the tiny built in counter against a mirror by the sink. 
“Well I’m certainly not letting you fuck me against any of these sticky surfaces,” you note as you’re lifted onto the counter covered in mystery substance, “and I think you need to earn it.”
Of course it was no surprise to you that Eddie was good with his fingers. You probably could have told anyone that long before this impromptu bathroom hookup. Egging him on and challenging him in a way you were sure he wasn’t used to was well worth abandoning your assumptions. 
“Oh yeah? I think, if you’re lucky, I’ll earn it more times than you can count before the night’s over,” he positioned himself in between your legs, pressing your torso into the mirror behind you as he leaned in for another heated kiss. 
He pulled your ass to the edge of the counter, and looped his thumbs into the waistband of your unbuttoned pants. You were quick to assume that he’d yank the fabric right off your legs, preparing to lift your ass from the counter to assist.
Eddie paused, pulled back and gave you a look that asked ‘you’re sure about this?’ and when a dreamy smile spread across your cheeks he melted into you with a kiss that turned your stomach inside out and made your pussy flutter.
He snakes a hand from its grip on your torso down into your unbuttoned pants. You arched up into his touch, wanting to urge him to get on with it and get your pants and underwear out of the way, but appreciating how much he seemed to be reveling in feeling you for the first time. 
“So fuckin wet,” he mumbled against your lips, his fingers only feeling up your cunt from outside your underwear. He pressed the fabric into your slick center, following the path up to your clit and then teasingly back down to where your panties were soaked through.
“You weren’t lying when you said you liked this a little too much,” he’s rolling his hips ever so slightly against your spread thigh as he rubs your clothed pussy, his teeth sinking into your lower lip as he moves the material aside and sinks two fingers right into your wet cunt with ease.
You were sure that you’d retrospectively have a million quippy compacks that come to mind, but in this moment it was impossible to come up with words when his fingers were buried inside you, still, just letting you squeeze around them, and his hard cock straining against his jeans nestled against the inside of your thigh.
He slowly drags his finger’s up from your hole to your clit, and you let out a whine of desperation as he fully removes his hand from your damp underwear. 
Before you can manage the breath to tell him to please, for the love of god, get on with it, he brings his fingers up to his lips and gives them a long suck, never breaking eye contact with you. 
“Yeah,” he sighs out and presses his forehead against yours, “I might like that a little too much too.”
Protests and urging words catch in your throat as he yanks down your pants and underwear with one quick pull, not even needing you to lift your ass off the counter more than it already was. He was methodical and moved with intention, folding up your pants neatly and shoving your soaked panties into his back pocket, shooting you a wink. 
“Eddie, please,” your overdue complaints are finally bubbling over. You hardly finish your plea before his face is buried in your neck, and his fingers are sliding right back into your needy hole. 
The top of your head rests against the mirror behind you, exposing your neck and arching your back into his touch. He sucks and nips at the soft skin between your collar bone and ear, all while letting his two middle fingers pump slowly into you.
“Mmmm,” he mumbles into the crook of your jaw, “such a good girl for me, perfect pussy squeezing my fingers so tight, can’t fuckin wait to feel you soak my cock.”
Nearly orgasming at his words alone, your eyes flutter shut and you let out a moan of his name as he lets his thumb drag circles across your clit. “Eddie, please, just like that, I-”
“Oh, suddenly she’s not questioning my abilities?” he says with a biting smirk, “What was that about me not being half as good as I think I am?”
“Fuck,” you want to raise an eyebrow and shoot something back, hold out and make him work for it, but after hardly two minutes of his fingers rolling inside you, hooked up to drag along that perfect fucking spot, you had no choice but to feed his ego and let him win. 
“You wanted to make your little deal,” he pumps a little faster, making your head loll to the side and mouth hang half open, “I’ll sweeten it for you, babe. I say we can get this pretty pussy to come twice all over my fingers before anyone even knocks on this door.”
“Yes,” is all you can squeak out, “yes, please.”
If Eddie was being honest, he was a few half-thrusts into your thigh short of coming in his own pants from how hot you looked. Your eyes glassed over, pretty lips parted and gasping his name, perfect cunt sucking his fingers in. 
The hand not occupied by your gushing cunt slid up to cup the side of your cheek, forcing you to look into his fiery eyes. “Feel’s good?” he questions, knowing the answer and not expecting a verbal response.
He drags the pad of his thumb up to your parted lips, running it along your plush bottom lip and dragging it down a bit, relishing in how under his spell you were. His thumb slips into your mouth and you immediately wrap your lips around it and suck. 
“Good girl,” his thumb on your clit is rubbing more focused circles, “suck on that and keep your voice down, don’t want the whole bar knowing what a good little slut you are for me.”
Jackpot. 
A muffled moan around his thumb and the spasming of your inner walls signaled that you were hitting your peak. He drags the spit slicked digit from your lips and quickly replaces it with his lips and tongue, kissing you with fervor as he feels you ride out your orgasm on his hand. 
“Mmmmmmm” you moan, somewhere between a pleading whine and a sigh of satisfaction into his lips as his fingers don’t let up. 
Under different circumstances you would tell him to slow down, give you a minute to catch your breath. Eddie was stubborn, this you knew, and he had already made it abundantly clear that one orgasm wasn’t going to be enough. 
He pulls back from your lips, loving the sharp intake of breath you swallow as your cheeks continue to flush and eyelids keep fluttering. 
“So fucking good, came all over my fingers,” his gaze locks in on where his hand was buried into your cunt. “Gonna give me one more?”
Of course you would, whether it was up to you or not. He did slow up for a second, just enough for you to regain your grip on reality before he started curling them up again. 
“Eddie,” you whine out, eyes nearly crossed and unable to focus your attention on his face, hands, anything other than his boner poking into your inner thigh, “wanna feel you.”
The hand formerly gripped tight onto the edge of the counter snakes forward and pulls his hip into you, a permanent indentation of his stiff cock molding against your skin. 
“Not yet baby,” he rolls his hips forward, giving you a delicious feel of how it would be if he was inside you, but instead pushing his fingers a touch deeper and then pulling his hips away, “one more and then I’ll take you home. You’re gonna let me ruin that perfect little cunt, right? That was the deal?”
“Yes,” you gasp out, his other hand moving from your hair down to rub fast tight circles on your clit, the other hand still pumping steadily inside you.
“That’s right, I know this pussy is gonna take me so well. You’re already drooling for my cock, so fucking perfect.”
You feel it building up again, that sacred double orgasm that only ever came during your alone time in the shower or when you were so desperate for release that your hand didn’t stop after the first, but never with another person, never like this. 
His smile nearly touched his ears at this point, pulling back to take in all of you as your eyes screwed shut and thighs threatened to break his wrist at how fast they snapped together. 
Hitting you like a punch to the gut, your abdomen tightened and released rapidly, air sucked from your lungs and his hand working you through it between your clenched thighs. 
Yeah, maybe this was a bad idea. 
If you were in a cartoon, stars and chirping birds would be swirling around your head as you slowly came back to reality. He gave you some space, and begrudgingly gave you pack your panties after you hand out your hand and gave him a stern look.
“I’m gonna go tell the others that you aren’t feeling great and I’m taking you home,” he makes sure you’ve pulled your pants back up before unlocking the door, “Take your time, and I’ll meet you at the van, okay? I’ll grab your stuff.”
“Yeah,” you still feel a little flustered, looking back into the mirror and smoothing down your hair, “thanks.”
He shoots you a wink before slipping out, giving you a moment to collect yourself and splash some cold water on your face. Okay, so you’re doing this. 
Any nagging feelings that this might ruin things or that he’s only teasing you because of your arrangement are quickly squished down into a deeper compartment of your brain, overtaken by the post orgasm bliss and wandering thoughts of what might happen next. 
You peek your head out of the bathroom door, and slink your way to the back door without passing your group table or a stray Steve or Robin. The fresh air equalizes your buzzing thoughts, and you spot Eddie, already in the driver’s seat of his van. 
“You good?” He asks as you hop into the passenger seat. You won’t let him have the upper hand, just because he made you come twice in under ten minutes. 
“Yeah,” you gather as much assertion as your voice will project, “You good?”
“F’course,” he starts backing up, you internally roll your eyes at the way his outstretched arm muscles and curved neck make your stomach flutter, “Just wanted to make sure I passed the test.”
You sit in silence, not wanting to give into the cocky game he clearly wants to play, yet know that he’s entirely correct in his assumption that he’s driven you completely crazy. Once he’s on the main stretch of road, finally rolling to a stop at a red light you let your hand migrate across the center console, dancing its way into his lap. 
As you hoped, his cock was still half hard and apparent underneath his jeans. You let your hand draw circles next to it, loving the little twitch you get when you run your nails against his thigh. 
“Easy there, tiger,” he lets out a huffed laugh, with just an edge to his tone that suggested you were getting yourself into something you’d soon regret. 
“C’mon Eds,” you let your head fall on the corner of the headrest, gaze angled over at his tight grip on the steering wheel while your hand dancing around the bulge in his pants, “you’ve been pushing this thing against my thigh for the past twenty minutes, forgive me for wanting a better feel.”
You put on a pretend pouty face and flash him your best puppy dog eyes to ward off any incoming snippy comments from him. He rolls his pretty eyes at you and silently bites the inside of his cheek as you feel up and down his lap, grazing his growing cock with each pass. 
“Forgiven,” through gritted teeth, he squeezes his eyes shut as your fingers circle around his head, now taking visible form beneath his black jeans. He internally reprimands himself for losing focus on the road, and zeroes his concentration on getting back to his trailer as fast as this van can take him. 
You have your fun watching him wiggle in his seat, feeling his thigh muscles clench under your palm every so often. You weren’t full on jerking him off over his pants, but you were certainly relishing in the feeling of his dick getting harder and harder with each occasional pass of your hand.
He parks diagonally across the lawn in front of his trailer, not giving a shit where the van ends up as long as it’s stopped. He wanted to dash around the vehicle and scoop you out of your seat, throw you over his shoulder and take you inside to continue with whatever this evening had in store for you.
The second his hand stalled on the clutch, shifting the van into park and taking a moment to let his mind wander to what would happen once he got you inside, you were already halfway out the van and skipping up the steps to his front door. 
Entering his trailer, you start taking off your coat and shoes, trying to act as normal as possible. Your facade of keeping it cool entirely shatters when he enters behind you, calmly clicking the door shut and patiently waiting for you to finish unlacing your boots.
You remain crouched down, darting your eyes up at him, deciding against being a brat and undoing your laces as slowly as possible to keep him waiting. Any caution you had was long swept away by the wind, and he’d taken control in your little bathroom tryst, so it was your turn to say fuck it and just do what felt right. 
And in this moment, there was only a few quick movements and about six inches of space between you and Eddie’s semi-hard dick. One shoe was only half off, haphazardly kicked behind you as you pivoted onto your knees and had your hands moving eagerly up his tensing thighs.
“Can I?” Your question was half formed and he was already nodding. 
You’d teased him enough on the ride over, you wanted him, now. Pants quickly unbuttoned and blue checkered boxers pushed down to his knees, and you were about to go feral and just go for it when a silver glimmer adorning his thick cock caught your eye.
Your mouth was already half open, but your jaw nearly unhinged and hit the floor when the pierced head of his dick falls out of his boxers and lands at your eye level. 
Unmoving, mouth agape, you look up to make eye contact, ripping your eyes away from the shock of two silver balls on his cockhead. He knew it was nice, he wouldn’t have bedazzled it if it wasn’t, but the look you were giving him sucked all the unwavering confidence from his body for a split second, suddenly feeling weak in the knees at the sight of you slowly sicking your tongue out, not making any contact but waiting. 
He took the base of his dick in his hand and gave it a few precautionary strokes before angling it down and slapping your wet tongue with the tip a few times. 
You were two and a half seconds away from being entirely fucked out. If he pulled away and asked you to crawl on all fours to him, you’d do it without a second thought.
You let him slide his cock gently against your outstretched tongue a few times before coming to your senses and wrapping your lips around him, moving your hand to replace his and move against the length that your mouth couldn’t yet reach. 
All it took was a few steady bobs of your head, hand twisting and eyes still focused upwards on his face, to have him biting his knuckle and looking up at the ceiling to ground himself to try and not bust on the spot. You love this, of course, seeing him visibly spiral paired with the salty taste of precum already leaking from him. 
The hand not jerking him off comes up to the back of his hip, gently pushing against him in tandem with the movements of your head, encouraging him to shallowly thrust into your mouth.
“Jesus fu-“ he grunts out, not wanting to overestimate your encouragement, but unable to keep his hips from rolling forward slightly with the push of your hands and the bob of your lips. 
After an unexpected snap of his hips that sent his cock sliding into the back of your throat, making you gag slightly, a pang of guilt struck through him for pushing too hard. That was, until you let your head pull back a touch to catch your breath, but a long string of spit connected your lips to his cock, and a wild smile broke across your face that nearly sent him to the moon. 
You dove back in and pushed his cock all the way into the back of your throat, going so far that your nose pressed into the patch of dark curls that sat above his perfect dick. Focusing your breathing through your nose, you make a point to constrict your throat a few times until you feel him twitch inside you.
Pulling off with a gasp for air, you notice his eyebrows pinched together and gaze locked on you. 
“I like how these feel,” you comment, letting your pointed tongue dance around the metal balls on his tip.
He shudders and you clench your thighs at the sight of his stomach muscles tensing up when your tongue makes contact with the underside of his head, right where it meets the shaft. 
“If I let you fuck my mouth until you come, are you still going to be able to give it to me in a bit, or are you a one and done kind of guy?” You ask with a playfully teasing tone, but genuinely want to know if you suck him off to completion if the night will be over or not. 
“Fuck,” he spits out, more blood rushing to his cock at the idea of coming down your throat, “I’d fuck you all night if you’d let me babe.”
Half a second doesn’t pass before his cock is back in your mouth, hips shakily moving forward with your movements, gaining confidence as you flicker your eyes up at him through your lashes, the glimmer in them telling him he can take what he wants. 
“Fuckin’ look at you,” he comments to himself, “takin’ it all.” 
“Mhmmm,” you hum around him letting your tongue roll around his tip each time before he pushes his cock back down your throat. 
“You think you can get away with teasing me like that? That shit you pulled in the van back there, you think it’s cute to try and get me all riled up?”
You nod, tongue out and saliva coating your lips and chin. You could tell he was close by the way his words came out staggered, and his hips started snapping towards you in a new tempo, like his body was chasing it. 
Grunts and moans pulled from his chest fill the space mixed with the hums of satisfaction you let out while you take him deeper and faster. Moving in for the kill, you carefully slip your hand up in between his legs, cupping his balls, trying your best not to startle him. 
“Oh fuck,” it was a pitch of his voice you’d never heard before, a new tone especially reserved for the moments before orgasm, “you’re gonna make me fuckin come, y/n, y/n, I’m…”
The feeling of his balls constricting in your hands cues the warm wash of come sputtering down into your throat.
Getting the feeling he’d appreciate a bit of a show, you continue to jerk him off and pull off his cock slightly, letting the tip balance onto the tip of your tongue and the rest of his load spills out into your open mouth, some landing around the corners and onto your lips. 
“Christ, y/n,” his chest is heaving, his eyes finally pulling from you to squeeze shut for a moment. 
Once you’re sure he’s looking at you again you swallow down the salty white substance and lick the excess off your lips. You take his head back into your mouth, sucking just enough to clean off the tip and lap up any stray drops. He’s sensitive, you can tell, so you stop torturing him and place a final kiss right in between the two metal balls. 
You thought of asking him if the piercing hurt, or maybe make a comment about the two matching tattoos on his hipbones, ink of his you’d never seen until now. Before your brain can jump from swallowing his come to making post-nut chit chat, he’s yanking you up off your feet and wrapping you in a searingly passionate kiss. 
In your past experience most guys wanted you to drink some water or brush your teeth after they came in your mouth, at least before kissing you. Not Eddie. The way his tongue immediately slipped into your mouth, you almost believed he was trying to get a taste for himself. 
“C’mon,” he whispers in between slotting his lips with your, “Bedroom. Now.” 
He takes your hips in his hands and spins you around, causing a surprised yelp to bubble up from you, making him chuckle behind you as he walks you down the hall, keeping his hands on your sides. 
You knew where you were going, there were only so many doors in his tiny trailer, and you’d been here plenty of times before, but you liked the feeling of his hands pushing you forward, guiding your movements and steering you down the hallway into his room. 
Before your knees can hit the bed he spins you back around and captures your lips in another heated kiss. His hands trail up your sides, letting his fingertips slide beneath the hem of your shirt and push it upwards until your ribs were exposed. He pulls away from your face, leaving you leaning back into him, not wanting the kiss to end. 
“Up,” he pinches the sides of your shirt in his hands, and signals with his chin that he wants you to lift your arms, which you comply. 
It slides up and off of you, his hands quickly darting back to unclasp your bra, seemingly without even trying. This makes you roll your eyes, but the realization that you’re bare before him eclipses the thought of making a snippy remark about what a man whore he is. 
Flat palms caress your sides and move up to cup your breasts, his tongue pressing into the side of your neck. 
“These too,” his thumbs dip into your pants, managing to wiggle under the waistband of your panties as well. You’re going to do it yourself, but he gently pushes you back onto the bed, letting you flip back into the unmade blankets. 
“I wanna see you,” he pops your pants button and waits for a nod before sliding your pants and underwear down your legs. 
In between the blowjob and now, he’d tucked himself back into his pants, pulling his boxers and jeans back up, still unbuttoned, but covering him back up as his cock returned to a half hard state, unlikely to stay that way for very long considering how things were going. 
The scene of you now sprawled out onto his bed, naked and needy for him, and him standing above you, basically fully clothed, had a flood of lust traveling south between your thighs.
“So fuckin’ gorgeous,” you burned under his intense gaze, raking down your body and soaking in the image of your skin laid out against his flannel plaid sheets. 
He crawls over you, letting his body melt into yours, the center seam of his jeans pressing against your soaking core, just as it had when he had you pressed up against the door of the bar bathroom.
Rocking gently against you, you feel his cock already starting to harden again. His tongue moves against your neck, hands roaming freely against your skin, arching into his touch. 
His breath was heavy against your lips, he was already starting to lose himself, and he knew he wanted to make you come with his tongue at least once before his dick came back out, but it was already pulsing between his legs, growing rock solid with every little whimper that came past your lips. 
Your fingers intertwined themselves into the tresses of his long, messy hair. You use your new grip to pull his face as close into yours as your bodies will allow, smushing his nose up against your cheek and foreheads plastered together. The weight of his body on yours, and the lovely rocking motion of his hips against yours stopped as he pulled away and hooked his arms under your knees. 
He slides off the side of the bed, feet returning to the carpeted ground and yanking your body to the edge of the mattress. You let out an unexpected giggle, body limp like a rag doll, moving wherever he wanted you. 
He leans back over to give you another deep kiss, teeth dragging against your lower lip and tongue sliding gracefully against yours, before he slides his mouth down, stopping to lap up at your nipples for a moment, not letting any part of your skin go untouched as he takes his time moving down to where you want him most. 
Wiggling around on his mattress, your body is begging him to get on with it, but he loves to make you squirm. He takes his time licking up your hip bones, kissing from the innermost part of your thigh all the way down to your knee, and then back up the other side. He even takes a long moment to suck a dark purple bruise into the meat of your thigh, biting down on the flesh and licking over the skin to soothe it, noticing how your back arched a little when he bit down harder. 
“Please Eddie,” your voice is hardly above a whisper, whimpering and whiny.
“All you had to do was ask nicely,” he has that too-cocky tone again, but it’s long forgotten once his tongue is buried in between your thighs, lapping up the excess of wetness already pooled there.
“Ohhh,” you let out a moan, sucking in a sharp breath and allowing your body to relax under his focused touch. 
His hands push up from your ass to the crooks of your knees, moving your legs back to either side of you, strong palms finding their resting place on the backs of your thighs, keeping your legs spread wide open for him while he buries his face deep in your cunt. 
“You-“ the start of a compliment, or maybe a request, escapes your lips but the sudden harsh suck of your clit into his mouth has you speechless and moaning, “Mhmmmmm, uhhhhhhh.”
The sloppy wet sounds of him making out with your pussy are enough to drive you wild, your hands originally balling his sheets in your fists quickly move to the top of his head, resting atop his mop of messy curls. 
“Y’can give it a tug,” the first half of his statement spoken directly into your pussy, “I don’t mind a little pain.” He shoots you a wink and keeps his eyes locked on you as he lets his tongue lap a fat long lick up your slit, and then leaning back down to encourage you to tangle your hands into his hair. 
Coming to either side of his head you grab two points of purchase, locking your fingers in at the roots and feeling him hum into your cunt when you grabbed it a little tighter. 
Your hips start to quiver, so he brings one hand from your thigh up to your lower stomach, pinning you against the bed, and still keeping you spread open with the other. 
Working a steady rhythm against your slick center with his lips and tongue, he can tell he’s found the spot you like most by your open mouth and tight eyebrows.
“Ohmygod,” your chest starts moving with heavy breaths, you can’t bear to keep yourself up any longer and flop back down flat onto the mattress, eyes screwing shut in pleasure. He lets go of his anchor on your tummy and returns his hands to your thighs, allowing your hips to wiggle and wriggle against his face to chase after your own pleasure. 
“Pleasepleaseplease,” one glimpse of his big brown eyes looking up at you and his nose pressing deliciously into the spot above your clit has your head reeling, “please don’t stop, fuck.”
Rather than reply, he just continues to devour you at that steady pace, your thighs almost snapping shut around his head . 
“Uh huh, right there, oh fuck Eddie I’m gonna-“ 
A strangled moan rips from your throat and your back arches off the mattress, his hands quickly come to wrap around your thighs and keep your center held closely against his face. He’s pulling your hips flush with his face, despite your spasming torso and gushing core. 
As your orgasm peaks, your hips angle themselves to push up deeper into his face, and he uses his leverage against the backs of your thighs to lift your ass, the entire lower half of your body now off the mattress and sliding backwards as he keeps his moving tongue glued to your clit. 
He climbs up onto the mattress as you slide back, the grip he had on your legs was sure to leave a sore memory of him unwilling to let your coming pussy away from his face. 
When he finally pulls away, your hand pushing at his forehead to prevent overstimulation, both of you gasping for air, his knees are propped under your thighs, and your hips are propped up right at perfect level with the bulge in his pants. 
“Fuck me,” you say through catching your breath, not as an expletive but rather a demand, “Eddie, I need you to fuck me,” your voice was whiny and desperate. 
“This okay?” he starts pulling his dick from its constraints in his unbuttoned jeans, not even shoving them halfway down his thighs before he had that pretty pierced dip dragging through your open and ready folds. 
“Yes, inside, please,” you were chasing after his length, while he tossed his shirt off. He teasingly ran it up and down your slit before sinking into you, collapsing down to press your lips into a kiss to swallow your moans as he slid the whole thing in slowly, making sure to take his time and fuck you right. 
He grabbed the back of your neck and pressed his forehead to yours, finally sheathed all the way inside you and stilling for a moment to relish in the feeling. Pulling back so he can watch your face as he pumps his first few thrusts, he knows he’s beyond fucked. 
“So fucking good,” you slur out, eyes almost crossing from how deep his cock was hitting your insides.
“Yeah? This pussy’s god damn perfect, fucking made for me,” he articulates each thought with a snap of his hips, “suckin’ me right in.” 
“Wait, can we,” your voice had a little more weight behind it unlike the airy moans he’d grown obsessed with in the past forty minutes.
He pulls back, and rather than finish your thought you slip him out of you and roll over, shuffling up the bed and positioning yourself face down ass up, knees spread and back arched. 
“You think you can handle it?” he asks jokingly, swatting your ass playfully and then landing a second, harder smack on the flesh when he notices you pussy clench around nothing at the sensation of him spanking you. 
“Want you to fuck me hard,” you mumble into his pillow, wiggling your hips a little bit to jiggle the fat of your ass, “I know your cock is gonna feel so fucking good in me this way, wanna feel that fucking piercing back in my throat from the other direction.”
“Jesus Christ, y/n,” he was genuinely a little shocked at your words, slowly learning that your freak side might match his. 
You expected to feel his cock slam into you once his hands came to spread your ass apart, but instead the mattress dipped and he was licking another fat stripe from your clit all the way up past your second hole, running this back a few times until you were moaning into the pillow and thighs were tensed up from the attention he was giving you.
“Sorry babe, just needed another taste,” he pushed the head of his dick into you, and moved the first few inches agonizingly slow into your soaked hole. 
“Eddie please, need it, need you,” he loved that his sheets were balled up in your fists, using the tension of the material to bounce yourself back onto him. You only manage to slide back down about three quarters before he’s tightly gripping your hip and pulling out half way again. 
“Tsk tsk tsk, you need to learn to be patient, pretty girl,” he’d thrust it an inch of so, and then slowly pull back, making you whine and start to feel tears bubble up in the corners of your eyes. 
“Want it so bad,” your cheek laid flat against his pillow, and you could catch a glimpse of him behind you out of the corner of your eye if you craned your neck a bit. You sounded so desperate, but you knew he liked it, liked hearing how badly you craved him. 
He starts moving in and out of you, firm grip on your ass never wavering. Restrained grunts left his mouth as he fucked into you, causing your eyes to practically roll into the back of your head. He leans down to place a soft kiss on your shoulder blade, despite how viciously he's pounding into you. His head cranes down to your shoulder, his hand coming up to brush your hair out of your face. 
As his long fingers move your hair away from your eyes, you push your head back into his hand, not wanting to lose contact. He tentatively runs his hands up into your hair, taking a soft grip on your roots.
“Is this what you want?” he whispers, “you like it rough?”
“Yes,” you manage to squeak out, “fuck, pull my hair, spank me, do whatever the fuck you want to me, please.”
His vision practically goes black with this new unrestricted passion, allowing himself to thrust into you as hard and as deep as his hips would propel him, twisting your hair in his grip and pulling you up from your laid position, quickly letting your hands jump to his headboard to support you as your head was pulled back. 
You tried to bounce back onto his cock, wanting to feel him as deeply and wholly as your bodies would allow, but you could hardly keep up with the pace he had set. 
Your ass bouncing against him and the occasional glance he caught at your fucked out expression spurred him on to fuck you even harder. He had your hair pulled back so tight that your back was pressing flush up with his chest every so often, and he took the opportunity to snake an arm around you and hold your chest up flat, his other hand moving down to rub frantic circles on your clit.
“You’re gonna make me come like this,” you manage to croak out, voice hoarse from the harsh bend in your neck. 
“Nuh uhh, no,” his voice was gruff and commanding, right into your ear and sent a shiver down your spine. 
He pulled out of you fully, and had you flipped around flat on your back again before you could even open your mouth to complain. 
“Need to see that pretty face when you come on my cock,” he lines himself up with you again, pushing into you and making a mental note of how the bulge of his cock looked pressing up from the inner part of your lower stomach. 
And of course, your face screwed up in pleasure, puffy lips and sweaty brow, slack jawed and panting his name would be something Eddie wouldn’t be able to forget even if he tried.
His thumb found its way to your clit to pick up where he had last left you, steadily building to an earth shattering orgasm. Talking you through it, knowing you were close by the vice grip your walls had on his dick, in between grunts he spilled out some “good girl”’s and “right fuckin there, that’s it.” 
When he felt your thighs tense up, and the muscles in your neck strain against the soft skin he’d previously had his lips all over, he knew you were nearing the finish line. 
“So fucking perfect, feel so good wrapped around me,” he managed to sweet talk you without altering the pace of his hips, “That’s it, come on my cock, give it to me.”
With that, your body can’t help but throw itself over the edge of pleasure. A deep grunt rattles in your chest, and you lose all sensation other than the wild pulsing in between your legs. You can’t be bothered to worry about what your face looks like, or if your thighs are squeezing him too hard, you only feel the riptide of an orgasm shattering through you. 
The animalistic noise that Eddie grunts out, his wild gaze locked on your face only makes your body shake with pleasure even harder. He had that instinct that most men lacked, to keep the exact pace and motion when your orgasm hit rather than speed up or slow down, it was a gift, a talent. 
Of course he wasn’t going to change a thing about what he was doing, look at you. You were so fucking perfect, shaking and coming all over him, those sweet noises and the beautiful squelching between your thighs. He’d rather die than change a single thing about this moment. 
He stilled only when you paused to catch your breath, and within seconds was flipped over by the power of your thighs onto his back.
Unexpectedly, you began to ride him, trying to match the pace he had earlier set. The aftershocks of your orgasm still washed through you, but you seized the moment to get him right where you wanted him. This angle was different, deeper and more connected. You roll your hips and bring your hands up to his hair, foreheads pressing together once again. 
“You’re making me feel so fucking good,” you manage to breathe out into his lips, he quickly comes to the realization of what’s happened and shifts the angle of his hips to hit you even deeper. 
“I’d give you everything, if you’d let me,” he doesn’t let a single thought pass in his mind before the words slip out, “always.”
Your lips capture his in a kiss that has far more emotion behind it than two friends play-dating and fucking for fun. His hands come up to grasp your cheeks, your hips continue to roll down into his with purpose. 
“I’m- Where-“ his words are hardly intelligible in between breathless kisses, but you know what he means. 
“Inside, please, need all of you inside me,” you try to keep your voice steady so he hears you loud and clear, wanting to give him the exact attention he had paid to you, “Please Eddie, come inside me.”
His hands travel down and guide your hips to fuck down onto him one, two, three times before he’s groaning in your ear and letting out the prettiest and most vulnerable sounds you’ve ever heard form him. 
The swell of his cock inside you makes you drape your head into his neck, focusing on riding out his orgasm and making sure he was twitching in the aftershocks of his orgasm before you let up. 
When you felt his grip on your hips tighten, signaling that he’d had too much, you sink all the way down one final time and let your body lay limp on his, pulsing cock still filling you up. 
His chest rose and fell harshly with his recovering breaths. You could feel his heartbeat pulsing up through the spot on his neck where your ear laid on his sweaty skin.
Silently awaiting the inevitable tap on the shoulder, the slow pull out and post-sex cleanup process, you try to savor every passing moment. But it doesn’t come. Eddie wraps his arms around your midsection and holds your limp body close to his, letting his cock start to soften inside you. 
You nearly fall asleep like that, all wrapped up in him, until you recognize that you should pee and clean up to avoid a UTI. You slip off of him, and hear a disappointed groan from him. He makes cute grabby hands at you as you cross the room, making you roll your eyes, but something deep inside you flip flops with how sweet he’s being, so caring, so unlike the picture of himself that he had painted for you. 
You give him a wet hand towel to clean up the remnants of your activities, and slip back into bed with him per his insistence. You doze off for a while, until the rising sun peeking through his blinds catches your eye, striking you with the sudden decision to stay and face the music or leave and let it settle. 
You’d already regretted it, but weren’t ready to have the “hey, so I know we had fake boyfriend-girlfriend sex, but I actually really like you so what should we do about that?” conversion with him, so instead you take the cowardly path and tiptoe out of his room in the early morning hours, leaving behind your underwear on his nightside table with a scribbled note saying to call you. Hopefully that was enough of a signal. 
Apparently not,
Days pass, and no call. 
It was all starting to get to your head. While you had gone through the stages of being nervous that you had done something wrong, that he was avoiding you to spare you the rejection, thinking he regretted what had happened and didn’t want to face you, who was so obviously into him it was painful, you’d just now turned a new leaf. Fuck that. If he was too much of a coward to call you, you'd hope he'd at least give you the decency as a friend to tell you the truth, you deserved to be angry, and you deserved a response. 
After stewing in your feelings for longer than felt healthy, you just get in your car and start driving to his trailer. If this all blew up in your face at least you wouldn’t have to keep biting your nails and waiting for the phone to ring. 
Three deep breaths, and a quick moment to gather your thoughts, and suddenly your body acted on instinct, putting the car in park and walking up to pound three concise knocks on his trailer door. 
“Just a second,” he hollered from inside, giving you a few seconds to be stricken with regret for showing up unannounced without a plan on what exactly to say. 
“What do you- oh, y/n,” he was in a pair of plaid pajama pants that hung low on his hips, shirtless and hair still damp from a recent shower, “uh, hey?”
“Oh, hey,” your tone was laced with annoyance, “I left something here last week and I’m here to get it back. If you don’t mind.”
“What- oh,” he’s a second too slow to realize you mean the underwear you had purposefully left behind with that note. The note telling him to call you. Which he never did. 
You were left standing on his porch steps, arms crossed and shooting daggers out of your eyes while he stood there in the doorway, an apparent guilty expression plastered on his face while he rocked back on his heels to buy some time to figure out what to say. 
“You don’t have to invite me inside, if you can just grab them and give them to me, and I’ll be out of your hair,” you say flatly, recognizing if he does as asked then this might be the last time you speak to Eddie Munson. 
“No, no, uh, you should come in,” he steps aside to let you in, “we probably shouldn’t have this conversation on my front steps.”
Avoiding eye contact, feeling an overwhelming mix of anger, confusion, and betrayal, you step inside and don’t make any effort to move into the space. You just stand by the door and give him an expectant look. Either he could go get the underwear, or he could grow a pair and say something to you. 
“I, uh-“ he looked so defeated you started to feel bad for using such a pointed tone, but then you remembered the days and days that passed without hearing from him, “I’m sorry, that I, y’know…”
“Yeah, well I don’t really care if you’re not looking for any post sex recap conversations, because you’re obviously pretty sure of yourself in that department,” the words flew out before your mind could even conjure them up, “but you fucking promised me that you wouldn’t do this, so can I please just have my underwear back and I won’t bother you again.”
He runs a hand through his hair letting out a deep exhale and searching the ceiling for words, “I know, I-“
You cut him off, your thoughts were ripping through you now and you were going to say your piece whether he asked for it or not, “You said you wouldn’t pull this shit with me, but I guess our friendship isn’t substantial enough for you to see me any differently than you do every other girl you throw away after you’ve gotten what you want. You clearly don’t want any more advice and you clearly don’t want to be my friend, so please, just give me my shit so I can go.”
“That’s the fucking thing y/n, of course I don’t want to be your friend,” his gaze still fixed on the ceiling.
At this point you were seconds away from just storming out, letting him keep your underwear as some twisted little trophy for breaking your heart. 
“Yeah, crystal clear Eddie.”
“Being your friend is already hard enough, and I knew this shit was a bad idea, the whole trial-girlfriend thing. But how the fuck was I supposed to say no to that? The girl of my dreams offers to do all this no-strings-attached romantic shit, I’d be the dumbest man alive to turn that down.”
You just give him a blank stare, your scalding anger twisting into a more confused frenzy of bees swarming in the pit of your stomach. Eyebrows pinched together, you just stare at him until he finally makes eye contact with you. 
“And yeah,” he goes on, letting all his words out like a big exhale in the same cadence that you had just hurled all your angry words at his, but his tone was filled with guilt as opposed to rage, “maybe we let it go a little too far, but I would never say no to you, I couldn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t know what the fuck to say to you after, but that’s exactly the reason I’m not good enough for you. The more we kept that fake dating shit up the worse it was gonna get, so I’m sorry, but I can’t keep spending time with you like that, because it’s starting to fucking hurt.”
“Hurt,” you say with a dry laugh, which almost scares him, “YOU’RE hurt? Give me a fucking break Eddie. I know you don’t see me that way. So what, you’re too scared to hurt my feelings? You’re doing a wonderful job, keep it up.”
“What the fuck do you mean, not see you like what?”
“Don’t pretend to be dumb Eddie. When we first met I tried so hard to get your attention, asking you to hang out, and you always blew me off. It’s fine that you don’t want to date me or whatever, but at least just tell me that, don’t fuck me like I’m special or something and then toss me aside. I deserve better than that.”
“Yeah, y/n, you do,” his voice was no longer guilt stricken, and was on the same straightforward plane as your last responses, “you deserve so much fucking better than me, that’s why I could never let anything between us happen. I don’t call girls back. I’m rude. I don’t take care of myself, let alone others. I like to smoke, and drink, and get head from girls in bar bathrooms and never learn their names, and that’s not the kind of person that a girl like you dates. I’m a fun quick fuck. You’re the kind of girl that after three dates he’ll already have a ring picked out. You’re everything, and I’m nothing, so forgive me for sparing you of that.”
Your bones are frozen and the beat of silence gives him the opportunity to spin on his heel and start down the hallway, presumably to get your panties. 
Snapping back into it, you let out a louder than expected, “Hey,” and you start following him, not taking long to catch up to him in his bedroom. 
“You,” you point a finger at him, and start to feel the rage bubble up again, “don’t get to decide that you’re unloveable. And you don’t get to tell me what kind of girl I am. Have you ever considered that maybe the reason you’re so lonely and miserable is because you choose to be? You don’t get to decide what I deserve, I do. And I really fucking like you Eddie, so forgive me for acting like it.” 
You snatch your underwear off his bedside table, and give him a look, not fueled by anger or resentment, but empathy. 
“I’m going to leave. And if you don’t want to see me again, that’s fine, but if you do, you can call me. Goodbye Eddie.”
You feel out of your own body, floating above it all and rewinding the conversation over and over, body on autopilot taking you home while your soul stayed behind and relived his words over and over, unsure if you feel better or worse than when you showed up. 
Days pass by again, and you take his silence as more of a response than anything he had said to you during that conversation. You try not to wallow, but you feel scattered and distraught, at both the prospect of losing Eddie and having to deal with your shared friends, would they allow you to dance around each other, or would they flat out choose him and shut you out? Would group nights out bowling suddenly just turn into the occasional one-on-one coffee with Robin? 
Until suddenly, on a random Tuesday afternoon when you've gotten home from work and are relaxing on the couch in your pajamas, three knocks are at your door.
At this point you figured it was over. He hadn't called and he'd made no effort to continue the dialogue. So a thought of Eddie doesn't even cross your mind in between the couch and opening the door.
And there he is.
In a suit, slightly descheveld in Eddie fashion, and holding a slightly wilting bouquet of flowers. Posture straight and brave face, but expecting your brutal edge upon answering the door nonetheless.
"Hey?" you're somewhat at a loss for words answering.
"Hi," he seems like he's running lines of a play in his mind, "I was hoping we could talk."
You reluctantly let him in, and he hands the flowers to you, as if it was a normal occurrence for him to bring you such a gift.
"First off," he starts, hardly breaching your living room entrance before starting his apology, "I regret the way we last left things, and I'm sorry for leaving you waiting for a response."
He flicks those big brown eyes at you and you can't help but give him the benefit of the doubt, he always was so sincere with his words.
"You're amazing. And although I'll remain adamant that I don't deserve someone like you in my life, I've been thinking a lot about what you said, and I'm sorry that tried to tell you how to feel."
You remain stoic at your seat on the couch, watching him shift his weight and bare his soul to you.
"You're perfect. Nice, funny, sexy, brave, all of it. And if you're willing to give me a chance, I don't know why the fuck you would, but if you are, I want to put aside all my bullshit and try this out, if you'll have me."
He stood there for a moment, letting you take in his request, bouquet in hand and suit adorned.
"And I owe you a few dates, for real."
As hard as you want your exterior to be, a smile cracks through.
"Okay, but know I don't fuck until the third date, at best," you jab, breaking his nervous exterior and visibly relieving the tension from his shoulders.
"I'm somewhat of a refined gentleman myself, so that won't be an issue," he bows and extends a hand to you.
You pull him down by the hand onto the couch with you, wrapping him up in a deep kiss. He was worth it, and you both knew it was worth the shot to try.
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