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bettyfrommars · 1 year

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I'm on Fire//biker!older!Eddie x fem!artist!Reader//biker!Steve//90's au//Part 10

🚨18+Only, smut, oral (m receiving), talk of erection, size kink, swallowing, biker gang, biker!Eddie, biker!Steve, talk of drug use, threats, talk of violence, financial trouble, mention of jail, smoking cigarettes, alcohol consumption, trouble at home, co-parents!Stobin, suggested custody issues, angst, underlying fear of retaliation. Word count: 8.7k

This is mostly just a sweet lil chapter to heal some wounds, right before some old wounds start opening.

Series Masterlist

A/N: I tried to make this part completely void of angst, but alas, I did not succeed. I'm working on a summertime one shot idea for the boys to go to a bike rally with all of the shenanigans that could possibly ensue; it should be a wild one. Big love to my beta @michellecrusher for deciding that this chapter could use a touch of smut.

As always, I'm honored to be on this ride with you and look forward to any and all interactions. Comments, messages, reblogs; it all means so much to me and is what keeps this little world going ❤️‍🔥

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I'm on Fire Part 10: I got a bad desire

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Landing with your face on the puke-stained, beer dribbled carpet of the Velvet Hammer, dusted in a sprinkle of cigarette ash, was not how you wanted to start your evening. You hadn’t even realized you hit the ground until you heard Steve’s voice demanding everyone get the fuck out of his way as he parted bodies to get to you.

And then, Erika’s voice: “I don’t know what happened...she just...fell. I promise, I didn’t touch her!”

People were murmuring around you and Steve was saying your name as you started to come back to reality, taking a deep inhale, blinking back to life. He knelt and propped you up into a sitting position, and that was when the embarrassment of what had just happened began to wash over you, making you wish that a hole in the ground would swallow you up.

“Do you think you can stand?” Steve asked while his big hands found positions under your arms in preparation to lift you up. You turned your head to look at him; his wayfarer sunglasses had fallen from the top of his head to the tip of his nose, and they were about to slip off, but his concern was more with not letting you go.

“What happened?” He asked as he pulled you to your feet, taking a second to grab the sunglasses off his face and throw them on the bar. “Did someone push you?”

“Please. Get me out of here,” you begged as one of your arms went around his shoulders, and one of his hands secured itself at your waist.

He set you down on a chair in front of the employee lockers and told you he’d get someone to cover the door for him while he took you home, or he’d see if one of the girls could stop by.

With your hands between your knees and your shoulders slumped, you began to come to terms with everything as he picked up the phone in the office.

“Wait,” you stopped him. “I can’t afford to miss a day of work, Steve, I’ll be fine. Just...just give me a second to catch my breath.”

Steve understood what a hard spot that was to be in; he lived it almost every day of his life. He put the receiver back down on the cradle.

“What did that bitch say to you?” Steve asked, putting his foot up on the bench.

You shook your head. “That’s just it, she’s not a bitch,” you chewed your lip. “She just saved me from making a huge mistake. I owe her.”

Steve was on his way back out to the floor when you called to him. “Hey, does Eddie have any female friends who are redheads, that you know of? Really pretty, tattoo on her bicep? Someone he’d feel comfortable enough with to let stay at his place?”

Steve popped his knee out and put his hands on his hips, frowning. “No one that he’s...dated, I don’t think,” he rubbed his chin in thought. “But there’s Max, she’s more like a sister to us. I just tattooed her a few weeks ago. Her hair was like a bright, candy red. Why do you ask?”

You turned away from Steve and squeezed your eyes shut, a sob caught in your throat. The sudden rush of relief at so many groundbreaking realizations had your emotions on the verge of short-circuiting. Eddie still had quite a bit of explaining to do, but the tight bud of your heart was blooming like a rose in your chest once again, full of hope.

----------

Meanwhile, Eddie was officially going stir crazy. “I need to get out of this house,” he told Robin has he hitched through the kitchen, careful not to put too much weight on the hip was right below his wound. He was wearing his jeans unbuttoned, so they hung a bit low, bangs swept across his forehead, and one of Steve’s white wife beaters that was too small for him. The thin material exposed the tattoos on his chest and stomach, as well as the ones scattered from neck to hands. He’d spent the afternoon watching cartoons with Oliver, which was enjoyable, but relaxing and sitting still for long periods of time just wasn’t in his DNA.

Also, he wasn’t sure if it was an affect of the morphine, but he’d had another one of his nightmares early that morning, before dawn, and shouted himself awake, covered in sweat. It was the same dream that had tortured him off and on for over a decade; the one where he’s being attacked by a swarm of flesh-eating bat creatures, they’re all taking big bite out of his flesh, and he wakes up to the feeling of choking on his own blood.

“Over my dead body,” Robin challenged, moving from the stove with a wooden spoon covered in macaroni and cheese in her hand.

Eddie’s eyes traveled to the spoon and then back to her face. “That can be arranged.”

“Seriously, dude,” her shoulders sank. “Don’t make me hog tie you to the couch. I promised Astrid we’d keep an eye on you for another night.”

“I have a business to run, Rob,” he said as he hobbled over to grab his leather from the back of the one of the dining chairs. “If this were a hospital, they would’ve kicked me to the curb by now.”

Robin went back to the stove to stir the powdered cheese in with the noodles. She knew that no one could stop him if he wanted to go, and she really couldn’t blame him.

With her back to him she said, “if you end up getting some type of infection and your foot falls off, I won’t ever forgive you.”

Oliver came trotting out from the other room to say goodbye, and he raised his arms for Eddie to pick him up, which he did—and Robin glanced over just in time to see the grimace of pain flash across Eddie’s face as he settled the boy on the wrong hip at first before switching him to the other side. She shook her head, certain he would pop his stitches by the end of the day.

“Steve brought your bike up the hill,” she let him know, while she packed up some medications for him to take. “Your girlfriend is at work by now, I believe.”

Eddie’s eyes snapped to hers as he put Oliver down. “Why’d you call her that?”

“Isn’t she?” Robin challenged, raising her eyebrow. “I can tell you knew exactly who I was talking about.”

Eddie couldn’t help the smile that twitched across his lips.

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The Velvet Hammer was packed that night, and by the end of your shift, after very little food, no sleep, and one blackout, you were a bit wobbly on your feet. Steve had to work as security for a while longer, since there was a bachelor party in attendance that was getting a bit rowdy, but he demanded you let him walk you to your car while he had a smoke.

“So, I like Astrid,” you told him. He held out his cigarette to offer you a drag, but you declined with a wave of your hand. “What’s going on with you two?”

“Going on?” Steve put the cig to his lips with thumb and forefinger.

You adjusted your bag on your shoulder as you made room for a group of people to pass on the sidewalk. “You know what I mean,” you insisted, knowing full well that he did. “You two seemed really close last night. I was just curious.”

“Oh, I’m fuckin’ in love with her,” Steve announced with a shrug, as if it were common knowledge. “We just don’t have a conventional relationship, I guess. No one seems to understand it but us.”

You wondered, sincerely, how many women Steve had been in love with in his life. But, you could tell that there was, indeed, something special about the connection he had with Astrid. You wondered if Eddie looked at you the way Steve had looked at her last night.

Steve hung around to make sure you got in your car okay, and then you chuckled to yourself as he sauntered off, flirting with a group of women who were walking by, asking them to come by the bar and keep him company. You were about to maneuver your way out of the precarious parallel spot you were wedged in when your eyes locked on a piece of folded paper held to the windshield under one of the wipers.

At first, you thought it was ticket of some sort, like maybe you were in a no parking zone or something. But then, at closer examination, you realized it was made with blue-lined notebook paper.

It was a handwritten note.

The street was fairly busy that night with cars zooming around town, so you were cautious as you dashed out to pinch it free and pull it back into the safety of the car with you.

It was a...little paper origami duck? Or some kind of bird? You turned it around, inspecting the intricately folded parts, giggling curiously as you did so. You unfastened the delicate edges, careful not to rip it in haste. Finally, you were able to press a flat, albeit crumpled, half sheet of paper against your steering wheel, your heart shot into your throat, melting there like a fat stick of butter.

It was from Eddie:

I miss you. Come to my place so we can talk? It doesn’t matter how late.

-- E

P.S. Oliver wants to make this into a swan for you

Hopeful tears pooled at your lash line and you checked your watch; it was just after 11:30. Surely, they’d be keeping him at Steve’s for another night? But, if so, he would’ve said that and not, specifically “his place”. You tried to fold it back exactly the way it was, failed miserably, and ended up folding it in half without messing up any of the edges to place it safely in your middle console.

For a few seconds as you sat in your car with the radio on, listening to Nearly Lost You by The Screaming Trees, you wondered if you should play hard to get, if maybe rushing over to his place was not the right game to play. But really, truly, you didn’t give a shit about any of that.

You were blinking excessively and yawning, and you had this feeling like, if you rested your head back against the seat, you’d fall asleep right there in your car. But, you took a few deep breaths and patted your cheeks. You brought a can of Coke in your bag from the bar and cracked it open to guzzle some of it, thinking maybe you’d need to go home first and change? Or go straight to Eddie’s? Fall asleep in your car was still an option.

Fuck.

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Earlier that day, around 5 o’clock, Eddie hissed as he dismounted his bike at the garage, clutching his side, trying to mask the spasm of pain, only to see Wayne watching him from the main garage. His uncle nodded in greeting, just wanting to make sure Eddie was okay, as he wiped his hands, and then turned around to finish what he was working on. So much of the communication they shared was silent, but understood.

He had the note in his pocket that Oliver had made into an origami animal, and he wanted to tidy up his place a bit before he did some work, just in case you did actually come over. If you didn’t, he wouldn’t blame you—it had been an especially long 24 hours. But, damn, he really needed to see you, to try and fix whatever had gone wrong, if he even could.

He still didn’t know what Charlene had done to upset you, but his mind reeled with the possibilities.

Eddie had ripped the bandage off his cheek on the way over, so there was just an angry gash there with a few stitches holding it together like a twist tie to a bunch of hammers, and he didn’t realize how much he resembled Frankenstein’s Monster until the new office assistance choked on her soda at the sight of him.

“Rough night?” She asked. Her name was Dana and she’d worked at garages before, but never for one that was affiliated with an MC.

“You could say that,” Eddie returned as he headed over to one of the metal filing cabinets to look for something.

Dana had a few “while you were out” slips of paper she had filled out with phone numbers and people who had wanted to speak with Eddie or Wayne, and she went over them with him while she chewed a red piece of gum.

She finished the last one and then, “oh, yeah, and someone called here looking for a…” she checked the piece of paper. “...Steve Harrington?”

Eddie nodded, taking something he needed out of the file before shutting the drawer. “He’s a buddy of mine. What’s the message?”

Dana scratched her head. “She didn’t say what it was about, just said that it was a personal matter,” she showed Eddie the pink piece of paper with a phone number and name on it. “Said her name was Christina? I don’t recognize the area code.”

“Could you look up Steve in the address book in that first drawer and relay the message for me? He’s in there under Dingus. I gotta run this out to the---”

Dana spelled out Dingus on the piece of paper, without questioning it, and then looked at the round clock on the wall, nervously. “Actually, I should’ve been gone a half hour ago. I need to pick up my daughter from--”

Eddie waved the papers in his hand. “Of course, I’m sorry I’ve been...distracted. Do me a favor and call him when you get in on Monday? I’m sure it can wait till then.”

The name Christina did not ring a bell at the time, but later on, he’d wish that it had.

--------

You decided to go home first to freshen up a bit, but also, you wanted to pick up the photos to show Eddie. Katie was asleep, but you made yourself some coffee and tiptoed around, wishing you had time to shower because you reeked of secondhand smoke, but then realized Eddie probably wouldn’t notice anyway.

You were nervous as you pulled into the gates of the compound; your heart was racing and your palms started to sweat. His black and chrome bike with the menacing, purple flock of bats on the tank was parked right up close to his door, and you angled your car right in next to it.

Once you turned your car off, you could hear the faint sound of music drifting down from the open window in his apartment. The song was Love You to Death by Type O Negative, and you glanced up just in time to see his shadow pull from the window, as if he’d been standing there, watching you drive up.

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Up in his apartment, Eddie cracked his knuckles, ignoring the fact that the skin on them was still raw and one of his fingers was probably sprained because it throbbed like a motherfucker. He wanted to make sure everything looked okay before he ran down to meet you at the front door. The TV was on mute, he’d been watching Unsolved Mysteries, but now an episode of the X-Files was starting. There were clean sheets on the bed—just in case---and he’d been on his hands and knees cleaning the bathroom for a good half hour. There was a vanilla candle burning on the nightstand, and he had lit some Nag Champa incense earlier to try and mask the fact that he’d just smoked a couple cigarettes to calm his nerves. He turned the music down a tad and wondered if Type O was too on-the-nose for such an evening, like maybe you’d think he was setting some tawdry scene, when in actuality, he listened to their music all the damn time. He had on the only pair of dark denim Levi’s he owned without holes in them, a black Faith No More shirt that had the neck and sleeves ripped off of it, and his black converse, which were a nice change from the heavy boots he always wore. He slipped his rings on and used his pinky to clean some sleep out of his eyes just before he headed down to greet you.

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You were just about to knock, knuckle poised in the air, when the door flew open.

“Hey,” Eddie stood there looking flushed, lips parted, dragging one hand down his stomach as his pupils dilated to take you in.

You gulped. “Hey. Is this too late? I wasn’t sure if you really meant---”

“Oh I really want you here,” Eddie stepped back, holding the door open with his body.

You were just going to walk through without making any physical contact, but then you found your body being sucked against his, as if by some gravitational pull, and you both sunk into each other. He was quick to put his arms around you, hugging you tighter, securing you to him as if your body was oxygen.

“I know we’ve got a lot to talk about,” he planted his lips on the top of your head, only removing them to speak. “I want to make it right, baby. I don’t ever want to hurt you, and I would never let anyone hurt---”

“I believe you,” you answered, moving further inside, wanting to get behind closed doors with him.

There were old, squeaky wood stairs that led up to the narrow hallway, and you held onto one of his belt loops as you followed him up, pausing so he could open the door and extend his arm for you to enter.

“So, this is where the magic happens,” you teased, taking in the open space that was bedroom, living room, and kitchen all in one. There were Iron Maiden and Slayer posters on the wall, a Harley Davidson plaque, as well as your painting, which was the first thing anyone saw when they walked in. Directly to your right was a hallway that looked like closet space and a door to a bathroom. It was a spacious, warehouse style loft with wood floors and a few round, woven rugs.

The windows...the windows were huge.

Eddie snorted at your comment, and was just about to turn around to take you into his arms again, when you bolted over to start busying yourself with lowering the curtains, starting with the window that faced the other side of the street.

“You really should keep these closed,” you told him, leaning over a table with a turntable and an 80’s style boombox. The pull did not work for the second curtain, and your frustration was mounting as you yanked at it, just as Eddie stepped over and put his hand on the cord.

“Let me do it, baby,” he met your eyes, trying to see if he could guess what had triggered such a frenzy.

While he finished dropping the blinds, you took the photos out of your bag, extending them when he turned around. You sat down at the end of the bed and watched his face as he slipped the contents out of the manila envelope to look at them.

He glanced at you a few times as he flipped through the photos, and his expression ebbed from confusion to anger and back again.

Eddie was shaking his head, hair hanging down, his strong fingers curling as if he wanted to crumple them up. “These aren’t...this is not what it looks like,” his eyes searched yours.

“I know,” you looked down, biting your top lip with your bottom teeth. “Erica told me you were set up. And Steve told me about...your other friend.”

The muscles in Eddie’s jaw tensed, teeth grinding, as his eyes narrowed on the window where most of the photos had been taken from. “Some fucker has been watching me this whole time?” The irrational part of Eddie wondered if the guy was over there, somewhere in the abandoned building, right at that moment. Maybe he should go over and introduce himself, possibly break the guys face with his own camera. Break his hands and throw him out the third story window while he was at it.

The photos were starting to make Eddie feel sick with rage, so he put them back in the envelope. Your bloodshot eyes fluttered and he could see how tired you were.

“Who would do this?” You asked, earnestly. “More importantly, why would they do it? I haven’t been here long enough to make enemies. Not of this caliber, anyway.”

Eddie put the envelope on top of the kitchen counter and sat down next to you on the bed with a heavy sigh. He had his hands resting on his knees, but then he took a chance and slid one arm over to interlace his fingers with yours, and you let him. He squeezed your hand. “It’s a long story, but a while back I made a mistake and got involved with this woman who--”

“Charlene Gregson?” She’d always been at the top of your list for someone who would have the motive for something so unnecessarily heinous.

“That’s the one,” he brought your hand over across his leg. “That’s where I went last night, to try and stop her, I suppose. I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

That made a laugh bubble out of your chest for some reason. “What was your plan? Crash through her gates on your motorcycle on a cloud of smoke and seek vengeance?”

Eddie shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, it always works out in the movies.”

You giggled and pulled away, but then he tugged you back, and you were still smiling as he scooped his hand around your cheek and pulled you in for a kiss, little hiccups of laughter erupting between kisses tongues slipping in ever so gently; Mulder and Scully having a conversation on the TV in the background. You held onto his wrist, sinking deeper into the yearning that you always felt for him, pulling back only to rub the tips of your noses together, lips grazing.

“Stay here with me tonight?” Eddie whispered, pressing his forehead to yours. “I want to hold you.”

You were sure, you were almost positive, that you had just fallen asleep for a second while he was talking, and you blinked hard just as he lifted his eyes to meet yours.

“But I stink, I smell like the Velvet Hammer. I didn’t have a chance to shower,” you mewed, feeling your body slump further into hibernation mode as the adrenaline from the past two days wore off.

“You don’t stink,” Eddie assured you. “You can sleep in one of my shirts, and you can use my toothbrush, if you don’t mind my germs.” He had your hand in his and was holding it to his chest as he watched your face.

“I figured you’d have plenty of extra toothbrushes here for all of the copious amounts of women who sleep over,” your exhaustion was making you feisty.

Eddie gave an exaggerated sigh. “Well, I do have a few extras for emergencies. But I’ve never offered up my own personal toothbrush before.”

“Goodbye,” you chirped, standing up, ready to leave.

But Eddie chuckled and caught you around the waist, throwing you down on the bed next to him with a bounce and a grunt.

You were doing a poor job of stiffing your own laughter as you tried to keep a serious face, but then he moved to crawl on top of you and you watched his face seize in pain. He stiffened and put his hand over the area where his knife wound was, easing himself onto his back. While Eddie silently prayed that he hadn’t ripped his stitches, you went around the side of the bed to click the lamp off. You turned the TV off too; the music was on low, but that you didn’t mind.

“We are quite a pair tonight,” Eddie mumbled from the bed, slightly incapacitated, as he watched you moved around his apartment.

You loved the idea of sleeping in one of his shirts and hygiene and all that jazz, but in that moment—you weren’t sure you could last another second. Your lids were heavy and your conversation skills were at an all time low. With rubbery limbs, you climbed on the dark blue comforter of his bed and curled against him, making sure it was the side he hadn’t been stabbed on. Flat on his back, Eddie’s eyes never left you, and he was ready with his arm high and outstretched for your head to make a pillow out of his shoulder.

“I can’t keep my eyes open for another second,” you yawned. You grabbed his chest to pull yourself closer, like he was a pillow, and he kissed your forehead.

You kissed the gash on his cheek, nuzzling the hair just above his ear, planting more kisses as you went. Eddie felt his cock spring to life in his jeans and he was too exhausted to do anything about it. You cupped your hand on the side of his neck, kissed the corner of his mouth, and then finally let your cheek fall to his shoulder with a flop.

Eddie took hold of your leg at the crook of your knee to pull it across his hips, needing to feel your weight, not wanting to let you get away. He closed his eyes, drowning in the feel of your soft puffs of breath on his neck, your chest moving up and down on his arm. He planted his lips to your head again, giving a few audible smooches before he rested his torn cheek lightly against you.

He wrapped his arm around tighter, bringing you closer. “You know, Robin called you my girlfriend today,” he admitted, a low laugh rumbling from his chest.

The only response you could manage was, “mmmpfm?”

The stubble of his jaw grazed your forehead as he contemplated what he was about to say. He’d just been stabbed, and it made him consider his mortality, and the time he had left.

“I was thinking,” he breathed. “If you like the sound of that, maybe we could, make it official? That is, if you could ever see yourself having a dirtbag like me as a boyfriend.”

Your body had gone limp and, in the following seconds while he waited for a response, he heard a soft whistle in your nose and a snore catch in the back of your throat. A few drops of drool started pooling from the side of your mouth and made a wet spot on his shirt.

Eddie chuckled, peeking down at you, but trying not to move too much, not realizing he was about to drift off to sleep as well.

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You weren’t sure what time it was when your head rolled off of Eddie’s shoulder, jerking you awake, but it was dark outside, and you were still in the same position you were when you passed out: hand loosely cupping his neck, and your leg stretched across his hips. His head had rolled to the side, away from you, full lips parted, and the blue glow from the stereo cast a moody light on his skin, making his cheek wound look like something out of science fiction.

Still half asleep, you kissed the exposed muscles of his throat, right at the spot where the dark lines from his back tattoo came up across his neck, and your hand slid down his chest; you didn’t have a plan, you just wanted to feel him. His breathing was steady and shallow, eyeballs dancing under his lids. Your hand met with the top of his jeans, and then your eyes widened at the bulge that was causing a huge gap from skin to denim.

You slid your leg off of him, letting your hand move down a bit further, and your hand had to widen over his clothing to pass over the expanse of his arousal there.

Without even realizing it, you had started thrusting your hips against him, working your core against his hip, and then you lifted up to kiss his chin, aching to find his mouth with yours. You’d gone over to his place with every intention of being intimate with him, and nature had intervened with other plans, but you still wanted him to know how bad you wanted him, how much you craved him every second of the day.

Eddie groaned awake to return your kiss, and one of his hands grabbed your face. “Who is this greedy girl?” He mumbled against your mouth, his eyes droopy.

You straddled him, keeping your knees low, at his thighs, careful not to hit his wound. You started to move your core up and down along the bulge under his jeans, and then you leaned forward to brush your lips against his as you spoke. “You’re so hard, let me take care of it.”

Eddie whimpered a little in the back of his throat. “You can take whatever you want, baby,” and then a visible shiver ran through his body at the mere thought of your mouth on his cock.

You inched your way down, sucking hickeys into the dark tattoos spread across his stomach and chest, avoiding the medical tape from his bandage. Eddie moaned and threw his head back as you licked along the inside of his hip, unzipping his jeans to pull them down.

No boxers underneath, his huge cock sprang free, and the sight of the pre-cum already dripping from the pink tip made your mouth water. Eddie bit his lip while he watched you from under hooded eyes as you took control, pulled his jeans down further, and straddled his leg.

You bent over, and kept eye contact with him as you licked all the way down the shaft, and then wet the tip with your mouth, flicking your tongue along the slit, cleaning up his primal release.

Eddie pupils were blown, his lips parted as he watched.

“Whose cock is this?” You asked, teasing the tip with your wet mouth, planting hungry kisses down his shaft.

Eddie choked a little in the back of his throat. “It’s—it’s yours baby.”

He was already rock hard—throbbing, even---and your core flowered open beneath your clothes, soaking your underwear to the point that you actually had to reach down and touch yourself as you sucked him. Eddie noticed this and it made him mumble, “fuckbabyfuck,” as his leg squirmed, digging his heel into the bed.

You worked the tip of his cock with your hand while you sucked one of his balls into your mouth, and you couldn’t help but smile a little at how crazy it was making him.

Somehow, between sleeping on someone else’s couch and working, Eddie had neglected to jerk off recently, and so he was about to….

“Fuck, baby, right there,” he hissed, bucking his hips. “You’re gonna make me…”

You went back to work, gripping him with hand and mouth in tandem, lips stretching to take all of him, eyes watering, swallowing his tip in the back of your throat every so often, as he watched you with a furrowed brow, cursing under his breath.

Suddenly, his breath started to hitch, and the fingers of one of his hands dug into the comforter. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum baby...if you want it...like that…”

He was warning you as if you’d pull your mouth off and jerk him the rest of the way, but you wanted all of it in your mouth. You moaned as you sucked at the tip, pulling the orgasm out of him, saliva dripping down his balls.

Eddie let out a whimper and his leg jerked just before he stilled, and you tasted the salty sweetness of his warm cum shoot into the back of your throat in bursts. You drank his spend like his dick was a straw, throat busy swallowing every drop, moaning as you did so. You milked the tip for all he could give you, and then you cleaned him up with your greedy tongue, planting kisses on his cock when he was done with his release.

Eddie stared at the ceiling, slightly shook. “How are you so good at that?”

You sighed a quick laugh, licking your lips, as you made your way to the bathroom to finally brush your teeth. When you came back out, he was already asleep.

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As your eyes opened and adjusted to a sliver of buttery light peeking in from the curtain, your mind put you in several places. First, you were in your childhood bedroom, feeling like you needed to get up and ready for school, and then you were in the more recent bed in the house you shared with Katie. But, then the Iron Maiden poster came into focus and you were slammed with the realization that you had passed out in Eddie’s bed and it was already morning. Your intention had been to take a nap for an hour or two, but now you were alert to the idea that Eddie might still be somewhere in the room.

You remembered falling asleep on Eddie’s shoulder, waking up hungry for his cock, but now you were facing in the other direction, there was a blanket over you, and someone had taken your shoes off. It was Sunday, so the garage was closed, but you could still hear voices down below and the sound of a car engine revving. You reached your hand behind you to pat the bed, but only found an empty space; either Eddie was in the bathroom or he had already gone downstairs to start his day. God, what time was it?

You rolled over to crawl across the bed to look at the digital alarm clock, inhaling the smell from Eddie’s pillow as you went, and choked a little when you saw it was almost 9:30.

“Holy shit,” you mumbled, throwing the cover off of your body. You couldn’t remember the last time you slept in for that long. A fear that you’d be late for work gripped you, but then you were reminded that you were no longer the director of a gallery, and your new job didn’t start until cocktail hour.

You found your shoes tucked neatly against the sofa, and on the kitchen counter in front of the coffee pot was a note propped up like a little tent with your name on it.

I had to run a tow.

I hope you’re here when I get back.

Thank you for taking it like a good girl last night.

-- E

Eddie and his little notes. You grinned as you folded it up and put it in your pocket, because of course you’d be saving any note he ever left you till the end of time.

It was then that a heavy fist started pounding on the door down below. “Helloooo? Anyone? What the hell do I gotta do to get some service around here?”

----------

Even though the mechanics were all off that day, the towing business was a 24 hour thing. There was another Coffin King named Lou who was usually able to cover some nights and weekends, but when Eddie found himself stuck with a pickup at the worst possible time, he tried to focus on the money and be grateful for it.

He’d considered waking you up to see if you wanted to go with him, but you were sleeping so peacefully, he didn’t have the heart to disturb you. He woke up with his cock so achingly hard thinking about what you did to him in the middle of the night, that he had to jerk off as quietly as possible in the shower that morning. He was sure you’d heard the grunt he barked when he came, thinking about filling you up, listening to you tell him how deep you wanted all of him inside of you.

The last time he went this long without having intercourse with a girl that he had feelings for was maybe his freshman year in high school. The crazy thing was, he was enjoying the feeling of waiting and making it special; even though the holding out part was totally accidental, and he would’ve jumped at the chance to bury himself inside you that very first night you met.

But the way you took care of him last night, holy shit: he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He couldn’t tell if he had really found the Holy Grail of women, or if his feelings for you had made it as intense as it was; possibly a bit of both. He was seized with memories of your mouth on him off and on while he was on the job, and he’d have to slyly adjust himself in his jeans. He couldn’t wait to get back to you.

He started to whistle as he rounded the corner to re-enter the compound, hoping that your car was still there, hoping that he could….

But he spotted a different car in the lot right next to yours that hadn’t been there before, and you were coming out from out of the garage with your hand shielding your eyes, looking deeply concerned.

------------

You considered just letting whoever it was keep on knocking, but at one point, the person yelled: “Eddie! I know you’re here! Don’t make me take your bike for a spin around the block!”

And so, you put your shoes on and went down, wholly unprepared for what you would find.

There were two smiling faces practically pressed up against the glass of the main door as you descended the stairs. One was a guy with a mop of brown curls, and the woman with him had beautiful olive skin, black hair, and wore glasses. They both waved enthusiastically, happy to finally be acknowledged.

------------

“What the hell, Henderson?” Eddie parked the tow truck and jumped down, wallet chain flapping against his jeans. Eddie waved to you across the way, as his mouth opened into a toothy grin, exposing actual cheek dimples, that you’d maybe only seen him wear once or twice.

“If it isn’t the Dungeon Master!” Dustin came toward him with his arms out. “What the hell is up with you and Steve? You’re the two hardest losers to find!”

They hugged, and then Eddie tousled Dustin’s hair, mussing it up. “You haven’t changed a bit, you little goblin.”

Next to you, under the shade of the awning was a very pregnant Suzie, who you’d also just met. She was in a purple floral dress with a white collar, and you’d pulled a chair around for her to have a seat.

“I love to see my Dusty Buns happy again,” she said, passing her hand over the globe of her belly as you both watched the two men embrace. “We should’ve moved back sooner, but life just got away from us.”

“How do you all know each other?” You were just barely able to introduce yourself before Eddie pulled up, and so you had no idea how close the gang was.

“I’m surprised the boys never mentioned Dustin to you? They went to high school together; they’re all really close. Steve is basically Dustin’s surrogate father,” she giggled, lifting her sweet moon-shaped face to you in a soft smile.

You did feel a little self-conscious about not knowing, but there was a good reason for it. “Well, I’m...Eddie and I are…kind of a new thing.” But then you remembered that you did know a little bit about one of their old friends. “They’ve mentioned Max to me. I guess she visited a couple days ago? I didn’t get to meet her though.”

“Maxine is a riot!” Suzie exclaimed. “You’ll get you meet her and Lucas when the baby is born. They said they wanted to be here for the actual birth, but who can really tell when that will be? I’m due in a week, but I was born two weeks early, and my sister’s newest baby was born almost a month late,” her eyes got glossy. “Boy, I really can’t imagine holding this baby in for another hour, let alone another month.”

Eddie had his arm around Dustin’s shoulders as they approached, and he gave him a playful knuckle rub to the head before they parted.

Eddie greeted Suzie, and she went to stand up to hug him, but Eddie quickly bent over and kissed her on the cheek so that she wouldn’t have to move. He swallowed as he took in the enormous state of her pregnant belly. “Shouldn’t you be...resting? Is it too hot out here? Should we go inside? Are you comfortable in that chair?”

Suzie laughed. “My god, Eddie, you’re as bad as Dustin. I’m fine, I promise. I’m trying to shake this baby loose; this little person has rented out my womb for long enough.”

Eddie met your eyes and kissed you on the lips before he put his arm around you and pulled you against him.

It was the wrong side, again, and he winced.

Dustin noticed the look of pain. “What the hell happened to you?”

“He got stabbed,” you volunteered with a sheepish look on your face, tilting your head to Eddie’s shoulder.

“Oh, of course he did,” Dustin said, his mouth wide. “What else would Eddie or Steve be doing on the weekends besides mortal combat?”

Suzie looked concerned, but Eddie assured the group that he was fine. He looked you in the face as he said: “So, did you two get to meet my girl?”

Your cheeks got warm, and you ran your hand up and down his back.

“Only briefly, before you rudely interrupted,” Dustin let him know, moving behind Suzie’s chair to put his hands on her shoulders. Dustin had been worried for a while there that Eddie would never move on from his ex, and that he would always be in a dark head space in regards to romance, and so seeing him with you made his heart feel light.

“You see Steve yet?” Eddie asked. “He’ll be pissed you didn’t come to see him first.”

“Um, not like we didn’t tryyyy,” Dustin raised both eyebrows. “No one was at the house and the tattoo shop wasn’t open yet. I talked to him on the phone a few weeks ago, but we weren’t sure when we’d be in town.”

Eddie thought about that for a second. It was very odd for neither one of them to be home, especially on a Sunday morning. But, there was a chance Robin took Oliver to a shift at work with her and Steve had spent the night at Astrid’s, depending on how early Dustin had popped by.

“I’ll find him,” Eddie assured them both. “Are you staying at your moms house.”

“Hell no,” Dustin responded almost too quickly. “I mean, I love my mother, don’t get me wrong, but she’s been driving us up the wall lately. We’re renting a house a few blocks away from her until everything is finalized at our new place.”

They all made a plan to meet up as soon as they could figure out where Steve and Robin were, and once they were gone, Eddie turned to you, cupping your neck to pull you against him.

“Is it okay that I introduced you as my girl?” He stroked his thumb across your chin as he asked it, chocolate eyes unsure if they should meet your gaze or watch your mouth.

You lifted up to brush your lips across his, tongue peeking out only slightly, making him groan a little. You searched his eyes, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. “Is that what I am?”

Eddie put his hands on your lower back and brought his head back, wanting to see your whole face. “You tell me. I wanna hear it. Are you my girl?”

You were nodding yes before he even finished. “I’ve been your girl for a long time now, silly boy.”

“Yeah?” Eddie breathed in a chuckle, his cock growing as he met your sweet, eager mouth. He paused only to admit, “I’ve wanted you to be mine since that first day we met.”

----------

Of all the places Steve had hoped to wake up on Sunday morning, a jail cell was not one of them.

He made bail, and Robin was there to pick him up, giving him a dirty look as she did so. He had his sunglasses on, his Coffin Kings cut in his hand, and a cigarette bobbing between his lips as he got into the passenger seat and shut the door. The “seek and destroy” tat on the side of his neck displayed loud and proud.

“Nice shiner,” Robin said under her breath.

“Yeah, well, you should see the other guy,” Steve said, cupping his hands to light his smoke. His black eye was the only visible mark on him, but the dude he had a tussle with had gone to town on Steve’s ribs, and there would definitely be bruises there.

She made a face as she backed out of the parking spot. “You smell like vomit.”

He ignored her observation. “Where’s Ollie?”

“I dropped him at Astrid’s,” she said as she pulled her own sunglasses down from the top of her head to cover her eyes. “I didn’t want him to see this.”

“Why are you acting like this was all my fault?” Steve blanched, flicking ash out the window as they turned out of the courthouse, Somebody to Shove by Soul Asylum playing on the radio. “You don’t even know what happened.”

“I don’t have to know, Steve, that’s the point,” she barked. Her frustration with him was also mixed with a generous amount of worry. “When are you going to grow up and start walking away from danger instead of headlong into it every chance you get?”

“Oh I get it,” Steve said sarcastically. “So, you don’t care that Tina is back in town, and this had everything to do with her?”

Robin hit the breaks and turned to him so fast, a chunk of her hair stuck to her bottom lip. “What do you mean Tina is back in town?”

“Now you care?” He tapped his knee as he took another drag.

Robin felt like she forgot how to breathe, so she pulled over to park haphazardly along the sidewalk at an angle.

She turned the car off but left the air on. “You know how I feel about Tina, but please tell me you didn’t hit her.”

“Oh, fucking of course not,” Steve balked, snapping his head to look at her. He gestured to his black eye with the two fingers holding his cigarette, “this was courtesy of her new fiance. I think they were both on crack. They were waiting for me when I left work last night. Now, all of a sudden, out of the goddamn blue, Tina wants to see Oliver.”

Robin was shaking her head, gripping the steering wheel. “No, no, absolutely not,” she said, definitively. “She disappeared when he was 3 months old. No. There’s no way. She’s a drug addict, she’s a narcissist, no. Not a chance in hell.”

“I know, Rob, believe me. It’s not going to happen, okay?” Steve assured her with a wave of his hand. “At least not until she cleans her life up.”

Christina, Oliver’s biological mother, didn’t have a nurturing bone in her body, and never wanted anything to do with her son, but the fear had always been in the back of his head that one day she’d pop up like a mean, STD rash.

Robin felt her eyes getting moist and she wiped at her cheeks angrily. “Where are her and her fleabag fiance now?”

“Oh I put that scumbag in the hospital so hard,” Steve threw the rest of his cigarette out the window and licked his lips. “He’s lucky I didn’t put him in a grave. I’m sure Tina’s already changed her mind, you know how fickle and selfish she is. They were most likely on a bender and thought they’d come through town and fuck with us. They’re probably on their way back to Memphis by now. I don’t want you to worry about it, okay?”

Robin swallowed a few times, trying to allow him to comfort her. She never expected or intended to fall into this roll and be a mother to Steve’s son. But, it happened. Oliver was their son now, and she loved him as much as if he had grown in her womb. And, she would fight to keep him safe with the same level of conviction.

Steve sniffed and adjusted himself in his seat. “Thank you for bailing me out, by the way.”

Robin snorted as she started the car. “Dingus, I could barely afford the gas to drive over here, and you think I had the cash to bail you out? Get real.”

Steve frowned. “Who was it, then? They said I made bail. Otherwise, I’d still be rotting in there.”

“I assumed it was Astrid? Or Eddie?”

Steve shook his head. “Eddie doesn’t know, and Astrid is in the same financial hole we are.”

Robin put the car in drive but kept the break on. “Well, who was it then?” She posed the question as both of them searched their collective data bank memories for a close friend nearby who had more than two pennies to rub together, or something valuable to use as collateral.

Hours later, they still couldn’t think of anyone.

----------

You left Eddie reluctantly so that he could go look for Steve, and you could take a long awaited shower and throw your nicotine-saturated clothes in the wash. The business card with John Gregson’s email, phone number, and private extension was on your dresser, and you stopped to pick it up as you walked across the room. You meant to bring up the situation to Eddie, but the timing was never right. Was John trying to mess with you in the same way his wife wanted to mess with Eddie? You didn’t get a bad feeling from him, but now, after everything with the photos and Charlene paying people off, you weren’t sure.

A voice inside whispered that John could be an ally if you impressed him, and he had the notion to take you under his wing. John was the one with all the power at the end of the day, and if Charlene could play with fire, well then, so could you.

You decided to give him a call first thing Monday, and hopefully make a consultation appointment with him to get a taste for what type of art piece would suit his tastes and needs. You wondered if it was for his office or home? If it was a piece for his personal space at home, would you bump into Charlene while you were there, commiserating with her husband? The idea of getting under Charlene’s skin and making her sweat a little scratched an itch in you that you had not been able to reach for a while.

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Part 11

Eddie after reader is done with him image courtesy of @tenthmoon

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It's so damn cool that some of you have made it this far and continue to want to know what goes on with reader and our boys! It warms my heart in a way I'm having trouble expressing in words xoxo

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Taglist for my other Hell's Belles and Coffin Kings ❤️‍🔥 @texasblues @sidthedollface2 @hideoutside @lilpotatobean2 @dandelionnfluff @munsons-mayhem28 @eddiemunson95 @tlclick73 @clincallyonline17 @kelsiegrin @stylesxmunson @nope-thanks @lofaewrites @layla-loves-ed @seventhlevelofhell @corrodedcoffincumslut @whatwedontdointheshadows @falling-solar-system @miarosso @kurdtbean @micheledawn1975 @lma1986 @emxcast @secretdryrose @bexreadstoomuch @ms1oftheboys @dream-a-little-nightmare @hellv1ra @manicmagicmayhem @etherealglimmer @unfocused81 @notsobubblybaby @trufflshuffle12 @aysheashea @leilalaufeyson02 @ireidsmut @trixyvixx @tenthmoon

#eddie munson x reader #eddiemunsonseries #eddie munson fic #bikereddiemunson #bikersteve #older eddie munson #older!eddie #eddiemunsonsmut #90s au #90s music #older steve harrington

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whoisshel · 8 months

Text

Trick or Treat, Freak

pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

word count: 2964

tw: swearing

previous part

It’s finally Halloween day and you have been jumping off the walls with how excited you are; you really can’t wait for everyone to see your and Eddie’s costumes. You just have to get through school and then you can enjoy your favorite holiday. You also have to somehow make it without getting into any trouble. Halloween is usually the day you get sent to the office the most; your record is three times in one day. You’re not even getting sent to the office for pulling any pranks it’s just because you’re so excited you can barely sit still or shut up. So far today you haven’t gotten into any trouble, but for some reason, Robin decided to drag you to the library to study.

They’ve been in the library for fifteen minutes and your leg has started bouncing uncontrollably. As you’re looking around the room, trying to distract yourself, you notice Nancy sharpening her pencil for longer than she needs to, and Nancy looks like she’s lost in her head with the way she’s staring off and looking more concerned by the second. you started to stand up to go to Nancy, but Steve beat you there. Steve pulls Nancy into one of the little rooms in the library and you see what Nancy has been staring at for so long; a girl that looked like Barbara.

After a few minutes of Nancy and Steve being in the room, they come out of the room but Nancy doesn’t look any better. Steve sits back at their table as Nancy walks out of the library after telling Steve she’ll be right back.

You turn back to face Robin and whisper, “Hey, I’ll be right back, I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”

“‘Kay,” Robin mutters, not looking away from her homework.

You stand up and walk out the door quickly to be able to catch up with Nancy. Out in the hallway, you notice Nancy rush into the bathroom wiping tears from her face. You follow her into the bathroom and see Nancy standing in front of the sinks, looking at herself in the mirrors.

“Hey, you okay?” You ask once you’re standing in front of Nancy.

“Yeah,” Nancy replies, barely above a whisper. Nancy shakes her head at her weak attempt of trying to convince both of them that she’s not upset. “It’s just, I want to tell Barb’s family what happened to her.”

“Woah.” You stop Nancy from saying any more. Leaning down, you check under the stalls to make sure no one else is in the bathroom. Seeing that no one else was, you stand back up straight. “We can’t tell them anything, you know that.”

“I know, bu-but, I want to. The whole thing is eating me alive and now they’re selling their house to pay for a private investigator to find out what happened to her.” Nancy stammers out, waving her hands around trying to explain the whole situation so someone would be on her side.

“A private investigator?” You get stuck on that one detail which sets Nancy off into a long rant.

“Yes, and they can’t afford it, so they’re selling everything because they just want to know what happened to their daughter. Which is why I think we should tell them and maybe it’ll give them some piece of mind and then they won’t have to continue looking for them and paying so much money-”

“Nan-Nancy!” You grabbed ahold of Nancy's shoulders to try and calm her down. “Nancy, we can’t do that. That sucks, it really sucks, but we can’t tell them. We could get into some serious trouble if we did that.”

Looking down at her shoes, Nancy muttered, “That’s exactly what Steve said.”

“Well for once, I agree with him. We can’t tell anyone, okay?” You looked at Nancy with a stern look even though Nancy would barely make eye contact with you.

“Okay.”

—----------------

You are sitting in your living room with your mom while you wait for Eddie to pick you up. Pam doesn’t know how to feel about her daughter’s costume, she's a little bit shocked but also kind of finds it funny. Most teen girls want to dress up a bit more scandalously on Halloween, but nope, not her daughter; You did the complete opposite.

“And this is what you and Eddie decided you wanted to dress as?” Pam pointed her wine glass up and down in your direction.

“Yes Mom, how many times are you going to ask that?” You let out a loud sigh and rolled your eyes at how much your mom was bothering you.

Pam chuckled lightly, putting her hands up, “Hey, it doesn’t bother me. This is better than what I’ve seen other girls your age wear.”

“Mom, it’s 1984, girls dress a bit slutty-er now.” You crossed your arms, not believing what your mom was saying right now.

“Don’t I know it.” Pam scoffed, then took a sip of her wine. “You know, back when I was your age-”

You were very thankful at that moment when a knock was heard from the front door; you couldn’t jump up faster. Opening the door, your eyes grew wide at how amazing Eddie’s costume looked.

“Wow, you look great!” You exclaimed, giving Eddie a once over.

Eddie looked down at himself with a big smile, “Ya think?”

“Oh yeah, I love the beard.” You stroked lightly on the long fake beard so it wouldn’t come off.

“I love how yours turned out too.” Eddie pulled you closer to him by your waist and gave you a short kiss. “You’ve got the headpiece and everything.”

“Thank you.” You gave Eddie another kiss.

“You ready?”

“Yeah.” You stepped out the door, then turned sticking your head back in your house. “Bye Mom, I’m leaving now!”

“Okay, be safe, I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“See you tomorrow!” You yelled back before shutting the door. As you and Eddie were jogging to his car, you jumped on Eddie’s back. Eddie quickly grabbed onto your legs so you wouldn’t fall.

—----------------

Eddie and you had been at Tina’s party for about an hour now, Eddie had sold quite a bit of weed making a lot of money. The two have gotten a lot of weird looks since they showed up to the party, they weren’t quite sure if it was because they were at the party or if it was their costumes, but the couple could care less about what people thought of them. You didn’t like that every time Eddie had to go and do business you were left alone. You understood that he needed the money, but you wished Robin was there with you; this just wasn’t Robin’s thing. Luckily, Nancy showed up not too long ago. Unluckily, Steve was with her.

As you were refilling your cup at the punch bowl, next to a guy in a bed sheet and a wreath around his head, Nancy came up beside you looking into the bowl. “What’s in this?”

“Pure fuel! Pure fuel! Whoo!” The guy next to you shouted, pounding his fist on his chest and making him burp.

“I think that means alcohol in stupid,” You answered Nancy’s question, looking at the dude with disgust.

Nancy grabs a cup, puts some punch in the cup then starts chugging the drink. All you can do is stand there looking completely shocked at this once naive girl downing a drink that is more alcohol than juice. Steve walks up to the two girls, leaning his back against the counter. “Hey… whoa, whoa, whoa! Take it easy. Take it easy, Nance.”

“We’re just being stupid teenagers for the night. Wasn’t that the deal?” Nancy quips at her boyfriend, she then dunks her cup back in the bowl and starts chugging again before walking away.

After watching the whole thing go down, you turn to Steve laughing at the defeated look on his face. “Wow! What did you do?”

“What?” Steve turns to lean his arms on the counter, trying to find his girlfriend in the crowd. “Who says I did anything?”

“Nancy’s passive aggressiveness says you did something.”

Steve hung his head, “I have no idea what I did.”

“You should probably figure that out, cause she’s way out of your league.” You give a pat on Steve’s back.

“I don’t have to take this from someone dressed as a nun,” Steve said, looking at you in disbelief.

You looked Steve up and down, “And who are you supposed to be?”

“I’m Tom Cruise.” Steve pointed at himself, he once again couldn’t believe what the girl in front of him was saying.

“From The Outsiders?” You were very confused by his costume. You weren’t a big fan of Tom Cruise. “He wore a jean vest in that.”

“No, I’m him when he’s in Risky Business.”

“Never seen that.”

“You’ve never seen-”

“Hey Virgin Mary, need some help being christened. I’d be way better at it than loser Harrington.” You and Steve stop your little argument turning to face the new kid, who you found out was named Billy and is from California and is also apparently a complete asshole.

“The fuck did this douchebag say to me?” You and Steve looked at each other with disgusted looks then turned back to face Billy. “That’s actually the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I don’t know what's worse, you thinking I’d sleep with you or thinking I’d sleep with Steve.”

“Hey, wow, don’t bring me-”

“I thought you were dating that cute prissy girl, not this freak.” Billy points over to you with the hand that is holding his cigarette. “Although I can understand why you’d want a freaky girl on the side. You just earned a bit of respect from me Harrington.”

“Excuse you-”

“Hey, watch your mouth-” You and Steve both continued to yell at Billy at the same time. Steve’s eyebrows and his eyes narrowed, while your eyes went wide and eyebrows went up, but you were both pointing your fingers at Billy.

“What’s going on here?” Eddie’s voice came from behind you and his arm wrapped around your waist, stopping the yelling from you and Steve

“Oh great, another freak.” Billy chuckled, “And what are you supposed to be, Jesus?”

“Good to know all that cologne hasn’t damaged your brain cells too much.” Eddie snapped at Billy. Not wanting to deal with this bullshit anymore, Eddie moves his arm to lay across your shoulders to turn you away from them. “Come on Y/N, let’s leave them to their pissing contest of who gets to be king of the school.”

You turn your head to look over your shoulder at Steve with an apologetic look. He was trying to help you in that situation, Eddie just didn’t know after the amount of shit Steve’s friends have given him over the years. As much shit as you give Steve, you know he’s trying and is becoming a better person.

—----------------

A few hours later, and a few drinks later, you are once again by yourself as you wait for Eddie to finish a deal. As you’re standing against a wall to try and keep a distance from the crowd, you see Jonathan walk through the door. You blink a couple of times to make sure he’s actually there, and he is in fact at the party talking to a girl.

You walk over to Jonathan, stumbling every few steps, and wrap your arms around Jonathan’s neck causing him to stumble forward a bit at the added weight. “Hi Jonathan, I didn’t know you were coming to the party?” You then looked over at the girl Jonathan was talking to and an even bigger smile grew on your face as you became more excited. “Hi Samantha, isn’t her costume amazing, Jonathan? Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees… love them.”

Your words started slowing down as you slurred a bit, and became distracted by a commotion in the kitchen. Looking over you saw a very drunk Nancy and Steve fighting over a red solo cup. When Steve’s hand slipped from the cup the drink went flying back and spraying all over Nancy’s shirt.

“Oh shit.” You chuckled, still leaning on Jonathan you turned back to look at the two as you continued laughing. “That’s not good.”

The three of you stand in the same spot talking, well Jonathan and Samantha talk while you stare off sipping on the water Jonathan grabbed for you. As the two are talking, Steve storms past the group and out the back door. You continue to look the way he went, only slightly hearing Jonathan say something about Nancy before walking away, then decide to follow after Steve. When you get outside, pushing past all the drunken teens, you spot Steve sitting in an empty area on the grass. Walking over to him, you plop next to Steve on the grass who continues to look down at the grass with a gloomy look.

“Hey, Steve.” You sound a bit awkward, not totally knowing what you should say.

“What do you want Y/N?” Steve mumbles, as he picks at the grass.

You put your hands up feigning surrender, “I come in peace. Just wanted to check to see if you were okay?”

Steve looks over at you in suspicion, wondering where this nice version of you is coming from. He then looks forward, not wanting to look at you when he talks about what happened. “She said that I’m bullshit and that we killed Barb.”

“I think the fact that she can’t get complete closure on Barbara’s death is really tearing her apart, but I told her the same thing you did; there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Exactly!” Steve yelled, throwing his arms up. You chuckled at his outburst, but you both died down seeing the looks you were getting from everyone. Steve went back to his heartbroken state, “she also said, like we’re in love.”

“Like you’re in love?” You asked, wondering if you heard him right.

“Yeah, that we’re not actually in love,” Steve explained, he continued to look anywhere but at you. “Well, I am, but I guess she’s not or something.”

“I’m sorry, Steve.” Steve finally looked over at you and saw that you were actually apologetic. “She does care about you, she’s just confused about what she’s feeling.”

Steve started to look more upset and a bit baffled at what you were saying, “Confused? What is she confused about?”

“She’s never been in love before, so she doesn’t quite understand it, and then…” You paused trying to come up with your next words wisely, “Then, when you add another person to the mix, it becomes more confusing.”

“Jonathan?” Steve croaked out, you could only nod at the question with a sympathetic look. Steve dropped his head again, then looked back up with a fake smile trying to change the subject. “Have you ever been in love?”

A soft smile appeared on your face at the question, “Yeah, you could say I am.”

“Ah, with Eddie Munson.” Steve slightly grumbled Eddie’s name.

“Yes.” You chuckled at Steve’s dramatics, “I love Eddie.”

“Mmm, I just don’t get you two.”

You rolled your eyes, “Don’t ruin it, Steve.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Well don’t.”

“Okay, okay.” Steve chuckles, giving up on their little banter. They sit in a comfortable silence staring at the party full of drunken teens enjoying their high school years with little responsibilities. Steve looks over at you as you continue to stare forward with the look of adoration on your face. He follows your eye line and sees that you’re looking at Eddie who is goofing around with a guy dressed as, what Steve can only assume is, a character from Star Wars based on the lightsaber. “Do you think someone can be in love with two people?”

You looked at Steve, confused about where this question came from, thinking he didn’t want to talk about Nancy and Jonathan anymore. “Yeah, I believe you can love two people. You can’t always control who you fall in love with.”

Steve only nodded, understanding what you meant but didn’t know what else to think about it all. You slapped your knees deciding that it was time to get up and leave. You tried to get up but struggled a bit so Steve helped steady you and stand up the rest of the way. “Alright, I think it’s time to go. I am drunk and also a little bit high, to be honest.”

“Do you need a ride?” Steve asked, still holding your arms.

You then noticed how close you were standing and took a step back causing Steve to drop your arms. “No, that’s alright, I’m going back to Eddie’s place.”

“Right, Eddie, well I should also go back in and find Nancy to bring home.”

“Um, actually, I think Jonathan did that.” You cringed at the realization that that's what Jonathan told you and now you have to relay it to Steve after the conversation you just had about those two.

Steve let out an exaggerated sigh, bringing his arms up then quickly brought them back down lightly smacking his legs. “Great, that’s great. Well, I’m going to head home, you have a great rest of your not.”

“Alright, sorry, goodnight.” You winced, giving Steve a small wave as he turned to quickly leave the party.

Once Steve was out of sight, you walked over to Eddie and wrapped your arms around his waist hugging yourself into his chest. Eddie brought his hand to rub your back, kissing the crown of your head. “Ready to go home, baby?”

“Yeah.” Your voice was muffled from your face being buried in his chest.

#eddie munson x reader #stranger things x reader #steve harrington x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson imagines #eddie munson x fem!reader #joe keery imagines #joe keery x reader #joseph quinn #joseph quinn imagine #joseph quinn x reader #stranger things imagine #steve harrington #stranger things #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x fem!reader #stranger things fanfic

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loveinhawkins · 1 year

Text

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 ao3

Joyce drops off Will, El and Mike with more homemade food after they’ve had dinner, which makes Steve smile.

“Tell your mom I’m not gonna have enough space to put all of this in the fridge.”

“You can just eat some of it and then you will have space,” El says, matter-of-fact, “like what Eddie is doing.”

Eddie pauses in his eating of Koogle chocolate spread straight out the jar.

Steve laughs loudly.

Eddie sighs, leans into the melodrama of it. “Damn, right for the jugular. Haven’t I suffered enough?”

El makes a show of thinking in response. Eddie watches her with infinitely growing fondness, how she fights to keep a straight face, unable to stop her smile from breaking through. “No.”

Eddie slumps against the counter like he’s just received a fatal blow.

“Hey, person without a cast,” Steve says dryly, “help put some stuff away, this isn’t a hotel.”

“I dunno, Harrington, you seem like the type to have monogrammed dressing gowns and shit.”

The tips of Steve’s ears turn a damning red.

Eddie pounces on the sight with a delighted grin. “Oh dear god.”

“Eddie—”

“Holy shit,” Eddie whispers, like he’s found the Holy Grail. “I was just talking out my ass man, but. You do.”

“Only ‘cause Robin—it was one joke Christmas present, all right?”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

They all make short work of putting the food away, but the kids linger in the kitchen, like they don’t want to say goodbye just yet.

It’s funny, Eddie has distant memories of Hawkins characterising Will Byers as a quiet little kid when he went ‘missing’, but there’s hardly any of that shyness now. The only slight hint of uneasiness Eddie can discern is that every so often, Will’s hand will rise up as if to scratch the back of his neck, like he’s hardly aware that he’s doing it; he spots El catching his hand in hers once, gently pulling it back down—does it in such a way that it never draws attention.

If anything, Mike is the quiet one, which is tripping Eddie up; he’s so used to his vocal commentary at Hellfire. He can’t tell if it’s just general post-nearly end of the world exhaustion or—something else. He doesn’t know what.

From the way Mike is standing, shoulders occasionally hiking up to his ears, Eddie gets the feeling that he doesn’t want to be asked about it.

Will does the majority of the talking, spends most of the time making references to what went down in California that Eddie can barely follow, revels in teasing Dustin about Suzie—

“Wait, Henderson’s girlfriend is real?” Eddie says.

Dustin glares at him. “Hey!”

Steve nods seriously. “I know.”

Dustin spins around, pokes Steve in the side. “Hey.”

Bizarrely, this prompts Will into an enthusiastic rendition of NeverEnding Story, which makes Dustin groan as if he’s been plagued with it for centuries. But there’s a celebratory sound to all of it, to the way Will sings cheekily, even the way Dustin is rolling his eyes—like they can’t believe they can afford the time to just be silly.

Under the cover of the kids’ laughter, Steve leans forward in his seat, catching Eddie by the wrist.

“Hey, later could you—would you mind helping me up the stairs? I wanna…” He pushes back his hair, grimacing. “Got, like, a sink wash in hospital, but it wasn’t that great.”

There’s a self-conscious air to how he speaks, how he keeps fiddling with flyaway strands of hair.

“Yeah, man, no problem,” Eddie says, matching Steve’s lowered volume. Still look good to me.

They wait until they’re alone—Dustin leaves in Joyce’s car, too, with a firm, “I’ll be back,” flung over his shoulder; Steve snorts, “Sure thing, Arnie.”

Once they conquer the stairs, Eddie’s shoulder aching from Steve needing to lean on it, Eddie optimistically believes that the rest will be plain sailing from here.

Steve’s set up on a stool, and Eddie’s standing in the bathtub, about to see how far the shower-head can stretch.

Steve is in the middle of saying, “Oh, just watch out, don’t think I changed the temperature from when I last—”

Eddie’s elbow catches on the dial. He shrieks as he’s immediately hit with a blast of cold water.

“Jesus Christ,” he wheezes, finally managing to switch the shower off. His hair is sopping wet. “How am I the freak? What kind of monster takes a cold shower willingly?”

And Steve laughs so hard that he nearly falls off the stool, as if the light-heartedness of the kids earlier has lifted his spirits, made him giddy.

“You look,” he says, through a raucous fit of giggles, “like a drowned rat.”

“Excuse me? Oh, tread very, very carefully, Harrington,” Eddie says, raising the shower-head in warning.

Steve raises an eyebrow coolly. “You’re bluffing.”

Eddie is, in fact, not bluffing.

“Oh wow.” Eddie makes a low whistle, like he’s just discovered a rare antique. “Why isn’t this behind glass? This shit is history; it should be preserved.”

Steve blinks, gives him a sardonic look from where he’s lying on the bed, leg propped up with pillows. “Pretty sure I’m not the only person to own a Hawkins Phys. Ed T-shirt.”

Eddie scoffs, shaking out the shirt with a pointless flourish before putting it back in the closet. “Yeah, but you, like, wore it.”

“Oh, sorry, I misunderstood you, man. So I’m the only person ever to wear a Hawkins Phys. Ed T-shirt.”

“You know what I mean, asshole.”

Before Steve got round to actually washing his hair, they had spent a lot of time just goofing around, trying to soak the other. While attempting to ensure that it was a fair fight, that Steve didn’t overbalance on the stool, Eddie ended up nearly braining himself on the tub’s faucets—but maybe he really did suffer a head injury, he reasons, otherwise there’s no excuse for what he says next.

“You made it part of your whole thing, you know? Like, yeah, people wear clothes, but you wore outfits.”

Steve laughs, rolling his eyes. “Shut up. You’re making me sound like a sitcom character.”

“Oh, but you were,” Eddie says, grinning with the knowledge that he’s about to be very annoying. “Did you see yourself in the school corridors? You walked like you had your own theme music, man.”

“Says you,” Steve retorts. “I think a laugh track would’ve helped your cafeteria sermons.” And before Eddie can attempt a theatrical gasp of offence, Steve points at a baggy sweater in the closet. “Hey, gimme that one, it’ll do.”

Eddie actually puts some effort into properly aiming the shirt when he throws it, but Steve almost drops it. Eddie turns, ready to tease him, because Steve Harrington is hardly known for fumbling a catch, but stops when he sees the stricken look on Steve’s face.

“What is it?”

“I just—I just remembered,” Steve stutters out, eyes wide. “Shit, Eddie, I’m sorry. Your vest.”

Eddie stares, uncomprehending. “Come again?”

“Your vest. Damn it, I didn’t even think to ask for… they must’ve cut it off me or—”

“Oh, Jesus,” Eddie says, and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. He shakes his head to try and clear it of the awful image they must’ve cut it off me conjures up then says, with fervour, “Steve. Don’t worry about it. Like, honestly, truly? Do not worry about it. I really can’t stress how much I don’t give a shit.”

Steve frowns, clearly still unhappy about it.

“I’ll just steal one of your polos and call it even.”

Steve smiles weakly; Eddie still counts it as a win. “Mm, I have it on good authority that the Phys. Ed T-shirt is highly sought after.”

“Damn, what idiot said that?”

Eddie turns while shutting the closet, glancing over at Steve as he does so. That’s when he sees it, sees Steve’s bare skin as he takes his shirt off, about to change into the sweater—

There’s no bandages wrapped around his middle anymore. They have healed faster than any normal wounds should, but that fact doesn’t diminish the way Eddie’s stomach lurches at the sight: the gouges in the skin from the bats, and several deep, ragged claw marks. There’s a sudden ringing in his ears; the wetness of Steve’s blood on his fingers…

He feels his knee slam against the bed frame distantly, like it’s happening to someone else. Then Steve’s hand is wrapped around his wrist, and he’s thrown back into his body, and he tilts—

“Hey, hey, you’re all right,” Steve says, and he pulls Eddie down to sit on the bed.

Eddie sways, tries to stand up again—but that just makes the sudden faintness worse.

“Woah, take it easy,” Steve murmurs, and Eddie blinks and blinks until his face swims into view, eyebrows drawn in concern. “God, you feeling okay? You went white.”

“You were bleeding,” Eddie says stupidly. He squeezes his eyes shut, tips his head down and just breathes.

And then he feels Steve gently guide his hand to rest over the wounds. Places it there, puts his own hand on top.

“Not anymore,” Steve says simply.

Eddie traces the marks. They don’t feel overly cold which helps. His hand rises and falls with every breath Steve takes.

Steve keeps his eyes on him, doesn’t let go of his hand until Eddie can stand again.

Steve has already drifted off to sleep on the couch when the phone rings.

Eddie picks it up with a quiet, “Hello?”

“E-Eddie?”

At first, Eddie doesn’t recognise the voice on the other end. It’s only when his name is repeated that the realisation hits.

It’s Mike.

Eddie has never heard him sound so uncertain, not even when he was first invited to sit at Hellfire’s lunch table.

“Hey, Mike,” he says, can’t stop a note of anxiety bleeding through. “What’s up?”

“It’s… it’s Nancy,” Mike says. He starts off almost reluctant, as if he’s worried about breaking some sort of sibling code by mentioning her, but the sound of his true fear quickly overrides that. “She—she left, and she told me she was gonna, um, call you, or something? I don’t know, but she… she’s not back yet and I… I don’t think she did. Call you.”

“She didn’t,” Eddie confirms, grabs a piece of his hair and pulls.

Mike’s voice pitches a little higher; he sounds very young. “I don’t know where she’s gone. Eddie, she didn’t even take her car.”

“Okay, okay.” Eddie’s eyes dart about the room, land on Steve’s car keys. “Hey, Mike? It’ll be okay, man. I’m gonna go get her.”

He heads for the door in a mad dash, one arm through his leather jacket. Before he goes, he takes the time to write Steve a note—if he wakes up, Eddie figures that there’s no point in him just sitting there alone, worrying, so he settles for something that will hopefully make him laugh instead.

Back soon. Totally not stealing your car. Cross my heart. On an unrelated note, I took your car keys. -E

He finds her at the trailer park, of course. Sitting right by his and Wayne’s place, in the spot where…

She’s hugging her knees, pressing the side of one cheek into them. Her boots are muddy again.

Eddie gets out of the car with more noise than is strictly necessary, so she’s not startled by his approach.

“This wasn’t the deal, Wheeler,” he says mildly, sitting down beside her.

She’s shivering.

Eddie tries very hard not to look at the trailer; it’s just a shell now, it’s just…

“Sorry,” Nancy says, too quiet. “I was… gonna call but. Lost track of time.” She sniffs, mumbles into her jeans, “Had enough of driving.”

“Why?” Eddie asks carefully.

“Because.” Nancy sniffs again. “I had to drive Jason Carver around town.”

For a moment, Eddie forgets how to breathe.

“What? Why the fuck would you even—? He could’ve—”

He stops talking abruptly as Nancy shakes her head, looking scarily calm about the whole thing.

“No. He would’ve killed you immediately. Not me; he’d have to think about it before he… It was… a calculated risk, I guess.”

Eddie barks out a sharp, fearful laugh—remembers Steve saying that him and Nancy were too similar and thinks yeah, no fucking kidding.

“Wheeler,” he breathes, “that was a stupid move.” It feels inadequate for what he actually means, which is some panicked stream of We’ve come too close to losing people, but the terror cuts down his words, makes them small. Stupid.

“He had a gun,” Nancy says, voice flat. She hovers a hand over her side, and Eddie doesn’t need to see it to know that there’ll be a mark there, from where the gun was pressed into her skin.

“Jesus Christ. Are you—”

“I’m fine. He didn’t…” Nancy sighs. “He didn’t do anything, really. I did most of the talking. Just… drove around. Stopped in a parking lot, right where one of the cracks… It’s still visible, only a little bit. Then I just. I asked him.”

“Asked him what?” Eddie says hoarsely.

Nancy’s smile is grim. “If he believed it,” she says. Her voice is as cold as steel. “If he could honestly sit there and think that a boy, that you could have done all this. And I could tell from his eyes that he didn’t, but that he was in too deep. Too cowardly to…” She seethes, spits out the next words: “I told him he could go rot.”

“Wheeler,” Eddie whispers. “God, please tell me he didn’t hurt you.”

She reaches for his hand. Squeezes. “No. I promise. He’s… everything’s being dealt with. It’s bigger than you,” she says, not unkindly. “Plus there’s—we’ve got some, um.” A tiny smile, a proper one. “Unique resources. It’s getting buried, Eddie, I swear, everything to do with you. I’m—we’re working on it. We just. The idea is to, um, replace one paranoia with another, that’s how we sell the—not a full lie, just…” She sets her jaw. “I don’t want you to be looking over your shoulder, ever again.”

Eddie has countless replies on his tongue, namely, What the fuck does all that even mean?

Is this why he’s hardly been given a second glance in the street?

Out loud, he says, “That… sounds like a helluva lot of work. You—you don’t have to—”

“I needed to.” Nancy smiles weakly. “That was the whole plan, right? Find Vecna, kill him. Clear your name.” Her smile falls. “I don’t like… I don’t like things being left… unfinished.” She sighs, repeats, voice small, “I needed to.”

It sounds different this time. Like if she didn’t have that objective, she’d fall apart.

It throws Eddie. How can he be that important? But he looks in her eyes and can tell she means it with all her heart.

“Eddie, I…” She looks down at the ground. Briefly presses the back of her hand to her mouth. “I need to apologise to Steve. To you.”

Eddie stares at her. “No, I’m… kinda confident that you don’t.”

“No, you.” Her hand starts to shake in his. “You don’t understand.” She looks at him, eyes filled with tears. “I saw it. I saw everything. When he—when Henry showed me… there was so much of it, and it was so fast, and I. I just convinced myself that I was wrong. But then, when I saw you driving. And Steve. There was… this look on his face. And I knew—I knew he was going to die, because Henry… he showed me what he was going to do.”

Eddie can feel himself pale. Nancy withdraws her hand, turns away from him.

“I’m sorry. I thought I could stop it, if I just kept it in my head, it wouldn’t… oh, God.”

“Wheeler. Wheeler, look at me.” Eddie waits until she does, her face wet. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it.”

She moves forward, trembles in his arms. “God, Eddie,” she says, distraught, “it was awful. The whole thing.”

“Yeah.” Eddie leans his head against hers, shuts his eyes. “Fucking sucked.”

“You wouldn’t stop screaming,” Nancy whispers. She jerks her head over to where Eddie parked Steve’s car. “You fell there, and I—I was so scared you wouldn’t get up again. I told you that you had to let h-him go, and it. It was like you couldn’t hear me, and a-all I could think was I’m going to lose them both.”

Eddie inhales. Exhales. She’d gotten him out. Time for him to return the favour.

“Nancy. Come on.” He gently guides her to stand up. “Time to go home, ‘kay?”

Mike’s waiting outside when Eddie drives up to the house; the headlights illuminate him, his too short dressing gown, his gangly teenaged vulnerability.

Nancy fumbles with the car door handle. Sighs through a sob. “Oh, Mike.”

Eddie watches them embrace, how they cling to one another. He sees Mike raise his hand while still holding onto his sister, sees him mouth Thank you.

Eddie doesn’t pull away until they’re both safely inside.

The fact that he’s driving Steve’s car helps him keep it together for the rest of the drive: the thought that he cannot be seen in public having a breakdown in it.

And then he’s back at Steve’s, and Steve is still asleep, thank God, and there’s an uncontrollable tremor to his hands when he sets Steve’s car keys on the table.

Shit, is he going to throw up? He might.

Oh no you don’t. You’re not waking Steve by upchucking onto the rug, get it together.

“You’re fine,” Eddie says, tugging harshly on his hair. “You’re fine, you’re fucking fine.”

He forces himself to breathe in and out as the wave of everything crashes over him, until he no longer sees the trailer park flash across his vision, like a ghostly afterimage.

When the worst of it is over, he perches on the arm of the couch, then carefully hovers his hand near Steve’s face, just so he can feel him breathing.

See? He’s right here, you’re not… not back there. Not anymore.

Steve stirs very slightly at the movement.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Eddie whispers, still catching his breath through the remnants of panic.

Steve makes a soft, questioning noise. And then Eddie feels a finger, tracing letters on the back of his hand.

OK?

Eddie smiles tremulously. “Yeah, I-I’m… I am now.”

Eddie stays up all night.

It’s not so bad, not when he gets to see Steve wake up for his early morning meds, taken so he can have breakfast with the upcoming dose in a few hours.

“Huh? You’re never…” Steve yawns. His hair is soft from being air dried last night, falling into his eyes. “Never up this early. Not normally.”

“First time for everything,” Eddie says, which is easier than my heart was beating too fast to sleep.

Steve doesn’t call him out on the obvious dodge, still drowsy, growing even more so after he takes the pills.

“You bored? Can put something on if you want, but Dustin might’ve left a… a tape in the, um…”

Oh, there you go, Eddie thinks fondly, and watches as Steve falls asleep mid-sentence.

Some time later, he’s not sure when, the sun starts to poke through the curtains. It’s a dull kind of brightness, but still bright enough to make his eyes blink a little more… and more…

He’s been moved to lie on the inside of the couch. Eddie turns his head, feels the warmth of someone next to him. Steve.

“Hi,” Steve says, looking down at him with a smile. “You want some breakfast? Dustin dropped off doughnuts.”

There’s sugar at the corner of Steve’s mouth, like glitter.

Eddie hums, low and lethargic. “Maybe later. Just… mm.” He goes to rub at his eyes, but his hand stills then falls away from his face, a lassitude to his movements. “Five more minutes. Gotta… rest my eyes, just for…”

“Sure,” Steve says, and there’s affection in his teasing when he says, “You go ahead and ‘rest your eyes’ for a few more hours.”

“Mm…”

“Nance called,” Steve says, soft as anything, like he doesn’t want to wake Eddie if he’s already fallen asleep, but still wants him to know. “She’s okay. She says thanks.”

Eddie reaches out, eyes closed, pats Steve’s knee clumsily. “S’good.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, quiet. Eddie can feel him smoothing hair off his forehead, tracing his finger down his nose—makes it impossible for him to even try opening his eyes.

He barely catches it, nearly drifting… But he swears he hears Steve murmur, as if to himself, “You’re so good.”

“You’re warm,” Eddie mumbles without really meaning to.

Steve chuckles, so gently. Keeps stroking that soothing pattern, from Eddie’s brow down to his nose. “Am I now?”

Oh, you don’t know, Eddie thinks, and everything’s fading now, the world going all soft and indistinct, like cotton wool. You don’t know what it was like. I never want to feel you be that cold again.

#the self sacrificial steve agenda #steddie fic #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #nancy wheeler #eddie and nancy #nancy and mike #mike wheeler #eddie and mike #steve and nancy

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anangelwhodidntfall · 2 years

Text

Matching Bracelet’s: Eddie Munson

Stranger Things Masterlist

word count: 1.2k

description: Eddie and Serafina were best friends and in love with one another in middle school before she moved..Now almost six years later Eddie learns that she’s back.

"You like my bracelet Henderson?" Eddie asked Dustin who had been staring at the chunk of silver for the last twenty minutes.

"I do... it just looks a lot like the one our friend Serafina wears." Dustin said making Eddie stop eating because he hadn't heard that name in ages.

"She's in town?" Eddie asked because the last time he saw you was in middle school before you moved to California and you two lost touch.

"Yeah she moved back over the summer, I think she mentioned something about taking care of her grandpa." Mike said shrugging his shoulders as Eddie sat there processing the info about his first true love being back.

"Did you ever ask her about the bracelet?" Eddie asked after a few minutes.

"Yeah, all she says is that someone special gave it to her a long time ago and if you wanted to know she lives next door to Mike." Dustin said.

Eddie nodded his head as he couldn't believe that she was back after all these years. The two of them had been best friends before with Eddie being a year ahead of her, but promising to show her the ropes when she got to high school. He remembers how heartbroken he was when learned that she was moving because of her mom's new job and he remembers giving her the bracelet as a way to confess his feeling without really doing so.

"That way we'll always be together and you won't forget me." He said clasping the bracelet around your wrist.

"As if I could ever forget you, Eddie. I'm going to miss you." You said wrapping your arms around him slowly fighting the tears.

"I'm going to miss you sweetheart." He said tightening his grip on you as he fought his own tears.

Eddie was nervous, to say the least as he stood by the van waiting for Dustin and Mike to get her. I mean would she even remember him? Did she even want to see him, I mean why didn't she come to see him when she got back to town?

Serafina sighed as she heard the doorbell ring, it had been a long day, and was ready to relax. She opened the door and saw Dustin and Mike standing there but what caught her attention was the van parked in the driveway.

"Hi, guys, what brings you by?" She said greeting them with the handshake they had all come up with.

"Umm, there's an old friend who would like to say to you." Dustin said as her eyes lifted from his and over to the van where a boy who reminded her a lot of Ozzy stood, only when she really focused on him did she realize who it is.

"Eddie?" She asked almost as if she wasn't sure as they approached each other.

"Yeah, it's me, sweetheart." He said smiling as she threw her arms around him.

"I've missed you, where have you been hiding?" She asked him.

"I should be asking you that question but I missed you too. Do you have time to catch up?" He asked her as they pulled apart.

"For you always." She said saying her goodbyes to the two younger boys as she lead Eddie into her house.

The two of them walked down the hall towards her room where she let him head in first while she check on her grandpa to make sure he didn't need anything. Eddie walked into her room admiring how decorated her walls were with various posters of her favorite movies and music, he laughed at the Prince poster above her bed, but what caught his attention the most was the picture of him and her from middle school that sat on her dresser.

"Sorry about that, it's just with his health issues lately I like to check on him." She said walking into the room.

"No need to apologize, how is he doing? I feel bad that I stopped coming by and checking in on him." He said taking a seat on her bed.

"Umm not too good, his heart is really weak and my mom can't afford to hire someone so I offered to take some time off of college and take care of him. Eds don't feel bad, he understands and still thinks so highly of you." She said.

"I know but it's just that it's when he told me that you were coming home that Christmas and you didn't, I was disappointed, and then it seemed like that's when stopped talking so it felt weird to keep coming by." He said making her sigh as she remembers how heartbroken she was that Christmas.

"Eds I wanted to come home that Christmas to see him and you but something happens that not even knows about...he thinks I got sick but in actually I was....." She said swallowing the lump in the throat as she remember what had happened that Christmas.

"Hey...Hey, you don't have to tell me if you're not ready..." He said squeezing her hand.

"No, you deserve to know why one day I just stopped calling and visiting which was really hard for me to do and I hate myself every day for allowing that to happen...Like I don't deserve to still have someone like you in life." She said as the tears slid down her face.

"Sweetheart look at me..... I can tell something happened to you but even if that wasn't the case for us drifting apart I wouldn't be mad because it was bound to happen but I'm going to always be here for you no matter what...... I love you, Serafina." He said making her eyes widen at his confession.

"You love me?" She asked quietly unsure if she heard him right.

"Fuck! That wasn't supposed to come out at least not yet." He said running a hand through his hair.

"Well if it's any consolation I've been in love with you since middle school." She said making him look at her.

"You have?" He asked her.

"I have I just didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to ruin our friendship and then as I thought about telling you that's when I got news of us moving so I decided to keep my mouth shut figuring it was too late to say anything but my feelings never died." She said looking at him.

The next she knows is that his lips are on hers after all this time, and boy was it everything she imagined it would be. They stayed like this for a few minutes with her finding their way to his until they had to break for air.

"God that was better than Imagined." He said leaning his forehead against hers.

"You imagined kissing me?" She mused as he rolled her eyes.

"Every day before and after you left.... you know me giving this bracelet as a way to confess my feelings without doing so." He said making her smile.

"I never took it off, because even when we drifted apart...I knew you were always there for me..." She said making him smile.

"Where does this leave us, sweetheart?" He asked after a few minutes.

"As much as I would love to jump into a relationship I've dreamed about for ages, I think we need to spend some time catching up and re-getting to know each other and if you don't want to do that then I understand." She said.

"Are you kidding me, sweetheart? I waited almost six years to tell you that I was in love with you, so I think I can manage to wait a little longer." He said giving her another squeeze and placing another kiss on her lips.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson angst #eddie x reader #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fluff #stranger things 4 #stranger things x oc #stranger things x reader

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munsonsduchess · 2 years

Note

Can we get more domestic Eddie and reader? I wanna hear about the proposal!!

So I’m gonna do this one as headcanons bc I don’t think I can stretch it into a full fic

♡ You and Eddie had been sitting in his trailer smoking and listening to music

♡ Nothing you guys hadn’t done a million times before

♡ There was something about the way that the light filtered in from the setting sun outside and just happened to hit you that made Eddie’s breath catch

♡ He loves you with every fibre of his being. You’re literally the love of his life

♡ People will say that you can’t be the love of each other’s lives because you’re both still so young but sometimes you just know

♡ Eddie knows. He’s known for a long time

♡ There’s just something so intimate about spending time like this. He could do it forever

♡ He wants to do it forever

♡ It might be the weed talking just a little bit but Eddie wants to be with you just like this for the rest of his life

♡ He doesn’t have a lot of money and he can’t afford to buy you a really nice engagement ring and he knows you’re not the type to care about stuff like that but he wants you to know how much he loves you

♡ His own family had broken up when he was little. Mother dead. Father in prison somewhere. He’d been so unsure of things when Wayne had stepped in. Didn’t think he was worth what Wayne was trying to give him.

♡ He knows better now. He knows his worth. He knows how much Wayne loves him. How much Wayne loves you

♡ He worries that your parents won’t approve. That it’s fine for their daughter to date the town menace but not to marry him

♡ What can he offer you other than love? How many times has he heard someone say love doesn’t pay the bills?

♡ He has to steady himself because it’s now or never and he doesn’t want to miss this opportunity

♡ When he calls your name you almost don’t hear it. Eddie’s speaking so softly. When you do turn around he’s fiddling with his rings which is how you know he’s nervous

♡ He wants to say something romantic. Something profound. Something that they’d make a shitty John Hughes movie about. It doesn’t happen that way

♡ The words sort of fall out of his mouth all at once and you have to ask him to repeat himself because you definitely didn’t catch that

♡ ❝ Will you Marry Me? ❞

♡ You sort of look at him for a minute trying to figure out if he’s serious. Eddie’s heart is beating so loudly in his ears he’s sure he’s about to have a heart attack.

♡ Then you say yes. You say that one little word that means so much. That means the world to him.

♡ Now is his turn to look at you. To figure out if you really mean it.

♡ There’s a lot of yelling. So much so that Wayne who usually leaves you two alone to mind your own business (whatever business that might be) comes running into the room.

♡ There are tears. From you. From Eddie. From Wayne. Good tears though. Happy tears.

♡ Your parents are just as thrilled. They can’t wait to start calling Eddie their son in law.

♡ Eddie can hardly believe his luck. From a lonely kid no one seemed to want or care about to the happiest man on the planet.

♡ It might not have been the most traditional proposal in the world but you wouldn’t change it for the world. If in twenty years it’s you and Eddie sitting in his bedroom getting high together and ignoring the outside world then you’ll be the happiest woman on earth for a long, long time.

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minniesmelody · 2 years

Text

The busy bean

𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: Eddie Munson x Barista!GN!Reader

𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: Y/n works a part time job at a popular coffee spot in Hawkins, a certain someone comes in and reunites with them.

𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: slight bad words? Not really but like ‘damn’ and stuff

𝗣𝗢𝗩: first person - Y/n

•••••

It was a fall Friday afternoon in Hawkins, so the coffee shop wasn’t as busy today than usual, Monday’s are worse, especially in the morning.

I can’t wait to finally save up enough money from this dumb job so I can afford collage.

Literally bored out of my mind here and this job can be a little stressful at times, from the espresso machine getting clogged up to raging customers yelling and complaining that their coffee was too sweet or had too much ice.

‘Ding’

Sound coming from the front door of the coffee shop, telling me someone has entered the shop.

“Hi, welcome to The busy bean coffee shop, what can I get cha?” I said, looking up at the customer afterwards.

Well I’ll be damned.

Eddie Munson.

I remember being in high school together, same grade and everything. I faintly remember being paired up a few time for projects and assignments in Mrs. Clicks history class. I do remember the essay we worked on together that was about the first World War, and when I say ‘we’ I actually mean ‘me’ since he was only present for 50% of the project and put about 5% of effort.

“Yeah um- can I get a coffee, like just a small black coffee and one of you’re chocolate chip cookies?” He said, not even looking to see who I was, instead looking down and pulling out some money out of his wallet.

I didn’t even respond, just getting a small sized cup and started pouring some pure black coffee into the cup and placing a lid on it.

I turned towards him now to reach down and grab a chocolate chip cookie out of the glass case, also filled with other sorts of sweet treats.

“Wait…do I know you?” I looked back up a him, left eyebrow raised and a finger pointed at me.

“Kinda yeah, we were in Mrs. Clicks class together, we got paired for a few assignm-“

“Y/n! Oh my god, it is you, wow” he said with a giggle “what are you doing working here?”

I smiled from seeing how happy he was to see me again, I was a bit of a loner and only left the house when I felt like it or when it was necessary like work or something.

“I uh, yeah no I uh I’m kinda working here to save up some money so I can afford college, my parents don’t have much money after their divorce so you know-“

“Oh I am so sorry about that, but that’s good, you’re working yourself to get to college, lots of people skip college or don’t even think about it”

I nodded “yeah so, what are you still doing here? In Hawkins I mean”

His face fell a little at what I just said.

“I um, I’m kinda still in school, I failed…twice so”

“Oh”

“Yeahhhh but I’ve been trying really hard this year, can’t wait to finally walk that stage and flip everyone the bird and run like hell out of here”

I giggled a little at his response. “Certainly sounds like you are determined this year”

“ right…um anyways how much do I owe you?”

“Sorry right right” I started messing with the cash register until I got his total “that will be 3.35”

He handed me four one dollar bills, I went to give him his change back until he stopped me and said “keep the change”

I won’t even lie I blushed a little at that.

“Also, do you have a marker? If so is there any way I could get you’re number? I’d like to catch up sometime if that’s okay with you of course”

“I- Uh yeah hold on” I said, looking around the supplies needed for orders until I grabbed a marker from the little bin of them, almost knocking down the cup of straws in the process. Grabbing his cup and writing my number, drawing a little star next to it.

“Amazing, thanks Y/n, I’ll see you around hopefully and I’ll definitely be calling soon” Eddie said, grabbing the coffee and the bagged chocolate chip cookie.

Maybe this job isn’t as dumb as I made it out to be.

•••••

A/n: another kinda sort fic but I haven’t really seen any coffee shop Eddie fics so I definitely wanted to write something including him and barista reader <3

#eddie munson #eddie munson blurb #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson smut #imagine #fanfic #steve harrington #stranger things #stranger things imagine #eddie munson masterlist #stranger things smut #hellfire club #aesthetic #coffee #coffeshop #barista

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bonniebird · 2 years

Photo

Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Requested by @boomhauer

Halloween event

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Make a request

“Hey, hey, hey!” Eddie said as he shoved through the crowd at the end of the aisle you’d left, twisting and turning so he wouldn’t bump into anyone. He ran your way and several people looked over at you. Whispering among themselves.

“So there’s a horror movie marathon at Hawk cinema. Old horror movies every night up until Halloween night. Apparently, there’s a new one on Halloween. Want to go? Jeff said he could get us cheap tickets if we go in when he’s working?” He went on. You headed down a new aisle.

“Did you really follow me all the way to the supermarket just to ask me that?” You asked. He’d seen you across the road and hurried over. You’d ignored him and hurried inside but he continued after you. When you tried to reach a jar on the top of the shelf next to you he reached up and grabbed it for you, setting it in the basket hanging off your arm.

“Well, I just figured you’d want to do something tamer this year. You said you weren’t feeling up to much.” Eddie smiled and leaned in as you ignored him and read the back of a packet in your hand.

“I’m busy.” You answered eventually.

“All week?” He asked, finally catching on that something was off.

“Well. you know. Work and stuff.” You answered dismissively. Eddie followed you as you went to pay and helped you bag your items. He bickered with the store owner a little when he came out from the back to check that Eddie hadn’t stolen anything. Eddie had been coming in for years, pocketing small items or candy and on occasion food or snacks before Wayne had taken him in for good. The shop owners were always a little wary of him now. In a town like Hawkins, everyone was. Once he started dressing the way he did during his first year of high school, rock shirts and his denim jackets over an old one of Wayne’s. The zip on the sleeve had been broken so he found a chain that he could use to fix them up.

You’d been friends with Eddie for a while. For more than a while, You’d been at primary school with Eddie though you hadn’t made friends with him until the second year.

Shortly after your eighth birthday, your mum had left. You’d been dropped off at your grandma’s, a pink and white double-wide trailer with fixtures from the seventies, driven off and left you to wait for your grandma to come home that evening. Eddie hadn’t been staying with Wayne then but he came over and handed you a long orange ice pop and waved you off when you said you didn’t have any money for it. Your grandma had arrived in the evening after a nine-hour shift. You liked her but she was the sort of person that you didn’t mess with.

She’d sent you to school that day and you’d felt fine. Until it came to your PE class.

Your mum had tied your trainer laces for you so that you could just slip them on. They were second hand and she couldn’t afford a pair of velcro ones so she tied them for you when you couldn’t do it. You’d sat at the kitchen table while she made you laugh about the laces.

Eddie recognised you from when he’d spent the night at Wayne’s when his mum hadn’t come home. He’d spotted you sitting on the steps at the edge of the field while everyone grouped up. He had been hiding to avoid running around, as he often said, sports wasn’t for him.

“Are you ok?” He had asked you. You snuffled and wiped your eyes on the sleeves of your PE jumper.

“My laces came undone.” You had said quietly. He stared down at your shoes and then looked up at you.

“You can’t do them?” “My mum does them for me but she’s gone. My Grandma says I should just do them myself.” You said quietly. Eddie stared at you, soft brown eyes going wide and then he smiled.

“Oh! I’m good at laces.” He said as he got down on his knees and tied them for you. Once he was done he patted your knee and smiled at you. “See. No problem.” You’d tearfully smiled and finished wiping your face on your sleeve.

“Thanks.” You’d said quietly.

Once he hit high school people stopped picking on him and started hurrying out of the way. He adopted his band of merry hellions and soon you became lumped in with his group. Which hadn’t bothered you in high school. But now years later. It still seemed to bother other people. You’d been invited to a Halloween party. A calm adult gathering that was going to mean boring conversation and drinks. Which wasn’t your scene but could maybe be an into making friends with your coworkers.

“So what, you're just too busy to celebrate Halloween? It’s your favourite holiday.” Eddie said as he leaned on the side of your car as you put your shopping bags in the boot of the car and slammed it shut.

“Eddie Munson, we’ve been friends for years. But everybody thinks I’m weird for hanging around with you. I just wanted to spend Halloween without you. So people would think I was normal." You snapped finally. Eddie’s eyes went wide and he stared at you for a moment before nodding.

“Oh.” He mumbled.

“Eddie… I.” You started to stay but he pushed off your car and backed up.

“No. No, it’s ok. I’ll see you around.” He said and walked off. You stared after him feeling awful. You hadn’t meant for it to come out the way it had. The guilt ate at you for the next few days. When you finally attended the Halloween party your hope that it would help you build some bridges died immediately. No one really spoke to you and every time you spoke up there was an awkward lull in the conversation. Deciding to leave early you headed home. Stopping at traffic lights on the corner you looked across and saw Gareth and Jeff hurrying to the cinema.

With a huff, you turned into the car park and went to the ticket booth. “(Y/N)? Right? That Munson guy got you a ticket and left it for you.” The person working the booth was vaguely familiar. Though in Hawkins everyone was somewhat familiar at the least.

“Thanks.” You muttered and took the ticket. You spotted Gareth and Jeff sitting down and Eddie near the back with his legs kicked up with a bucket of popcorn tucked under one arm.

“Hey.” You said when you approached him. Eddie took a moment before turning to you.

“Hey.” He answered, parroting you.

“I. Um.” You weren’t sure what to say so you stared at his shoes up on the back of a seat.

“Figured you’d get bored. Saved you a seat.” He muttered and gestured to the empty seat further in the row. Gareth spotted Eddie as he and Jeff managed to get into their row of seats which was empty. He waved enthusiastically, which Eddie returned with a friendly gesture and a head nod. He got up so you could take the seat next to him at the very back.

“I’m sorry.” You said quietly. Eddie didn’t acknowledge your apology but offered you popcorn. You put your feet up on the seat in front of you and took a handful of popcorn.

“Your shoelace is undone.” He muttered and leaned forward to tie it for you. When he was done he patted your leg.

“So. Did you make new, less weird, friends?” He asked.

“They wouldn’t talk to me. Every time I spoke they all stared at me like I said something weird.” You muttered. Eddie hummed and put an arm around your shoulder.

“Well, I could be boring and normal if you like. What’s your opinion on taxes? Hmm. Shoes with pointy toes and suits. Blah blah blah.” Eddie said and you laughed as he pulled a face and made a voice that would have been fitting for the monopoly man. He leaned his head against yours as the movie started and the lights died down.

“I am sorry Eddie. I didn’t…”

“I know. I get it. Just. You were the last person I thought would say something like that to me. I guess I just assumed it wouldn’t ever bother you.” He mumbled. His fingers drummed on the back of your chair as he looked at you.

“I guess it’s just Hawkins. I figured they’d be reasonable if they saw me behaving like a proper adult.” You said with a sigh. Eddie wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

“Who wants to do that? Rock out and have fun while you can before you have to have a hip replaced.” Eddie said and grinned at you as the previews started.

Eddie tags:

@linkpk88 @babypink224221 @prettyplant0 @hardladyheart @bluejaysaysstuff @wittiestrain184 @im-ilvn @slxthxrxn-sxmp @jamie-c-bower-simp @aprilfire18 @im-eating-rn @skylermoyer @writerfulltime

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #bonniebird #halloween2022

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bluemoose86 · 2 years

Text

Rachel x Astrid Snippet

*Not my gif*

Pairing: Rachel Chu/Astrid Leong

Summary: What if Rachel ran into Astrid while trying to leave the wedding?

Inspired by my Rachel x Astrid brain rot and my question of how tf did she get to Peik Lin’s house. She didn’t drive herself to the wedding, Peik Lin obviously wasn’t there, and she didn’t see Oliver at all. I guess she could have Uber’d or something but it’s much more fun to imagine she ran into Astrid and she gave her a ride there

Warnings: anxiety, panic attack, hurt/comfort (I didn’t really get into the comfort though)

Word count: 640

DISCLAIMER: This is an unfinished fic. I may continue it in the future if the urge hits me, but as of now, I have no plans to do that. Anything written in brackets [like this] is not part of the story itself, but necessary context.

✨Read Below!✨

[Rachel’s POV. This is during the wedding, just after Eleanor showed Rachel the PI’s photographs.]

Her heartbeat roars in her ears. Everyone is screaming. Laughing. Laughing at her. They’re always laughing at her. She can feel it pressing in on her, crushing her under the weight of their expectations, forcing the air from her lungs. She wades through the crowd, desperately searching for an empty corner or an exit or something because if she doesn’t get out of here right now she will suffocate to death.

She pushes past a clump of people and comes face-to-face with Eddie. He says something. She can’t understand a single word. But she understands when he laughs in her face, and when the others around them join in. She stumbles in a different direction because she can feel her mask starting to crumble and the tears starting to fall, and she refuses to let them know they finally won.

The giant fans at the edge of the dance floor catch Rachel’s eye. There. She shoves some guy out of her way, beelining for the empty space, when Bernard comes crashing through with his pants at his ankles and his hands all over Alistair’s actress girlfriend. The piranhas descend, laughing and pointing while the photographers snap as many pictures as they can before Bernard hobbles off. Rachel backs away, trying to leave the way she came, but she’s caught in their net. A minnow in a sea full of sharks.

The tears are welling up faster than she can choke them down, and Rachel knows she can’t keep this up much longer. A narrow path opens, and she barely hesitates before she elbows her way through. A glass shatters behind her. She can’t afford to stop and look. Further and further she swims, but the sharks seem to multiply instead of thinning. She nearly runs into Auntie Alix and Auntie Felicity. They laugh at her the same way Eddie did, and she wants to be hurt, but she can’t even bring herself to feel surprised.

Shoving past them, Rachel all but sprints for the empty space she can see up ahead. A sob falls from her lips before she can stop it. She bumps into someone else—this time a woman in a bright pink dress—but doesn’t bother to apologize. Wait—pink dress?

“Rachel?”

She freezes. Astrid’s voice is as soft as ever, but it cuts through the chaos like an answered prayer. Rachel turns towards her, and the rest of the world falls silent. Astrid’s dark brown eyes are filled with concern, her face creased into the same worried expression she’d worn at Araminta’s bachelorette party. That time, Rachel had been able to keep herself together. She picked herself up and put on a brave face so none of Araminta’s idiotic friends would know how rattled she was. But now, staring at probably the only person at this entire wedding she can actually stand to be around, she can’t hold back the flood any longer.

Rachel bursts into tears and buries her face in her hands. “Oh, God,” Astrid says, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. “Okay. Come on, Rachel. Let’s get you somewhere quiet.”

Astrid leads her away from the party until the screams and cheers fade to a dull roar.

[Astrid sits Rachel down somewhere quieter. Rachel cries for a bit before she realizes what a mess she’s making.]

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says. She leans back from Astrid, hurriedly wiping her face. Her fingers come away stained with mascara, mimicking the blackened tear streaks on Astrid’s pink dress.

Astrid’s frown deepens. “What?”

Rachel gestures vaguely at the ruined fabric. “Your dress.” The words come out shakier than she would like. She clears her throat, trying to steel herself. “God, I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t worry about that,” Astrid interrupts. Her satin voice is still gentle, but firm enough to know that this was not an argument Rachel would be able to win. She reaches for Rachel’s hand, twining their fingers together. “Please. It’s all right, I promise.”

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! If I write anymore, I’ll add it onto here.

#god that gif makes me want to start writing again fr #THAT LOOK #crazy rich asians #cra #rachel chu #Astrid Leong #constance wu #gemma chan #rachel x astrid #astrid x rachel #fanfic #fic snippet #wlw ships

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barbienese · 2 years

Text

please don’t go

fem!reader x eddie munson

reader is with eddie in the upside down, when things go south.

“i need you ed, please don’t go.”

warnings! major season 4 spoilers, death, angst, do not read if you wish to be spoiled. not proofread i was rushing like a mf

—

You landed with a plop on the bed as you jump through the gate back into Hawkins. Dustin pulls you up, as you both patiently wait for your boyfriend to come through.

“Cmon Eddie! Hurry up!” You yelled.

The demobats were closing in. You could hear the screeching and the echoing thud as they pounded against the door.

He, however, had a different look in his eye. It was look of determination, or better yet, a look he made when he was gonna make a bad decision.

“Ed, what are you doing?” You asked desperately, wanting him to get through the gate.

Your eyes widened as he grabbed and cut the sheet that connected Hawkins to the UpsideDown.

You screamed, “Stop it! Eddie!”

Dustin had the same look of pure sadness in his eyes and Eddie moved the mattress away from the entrance, eliminating the chance for a soft landing later.

“Eddie what are you doing?” Dustin yelled.

Your boyfriend sighed, glancing at the soon to be busted door and then to you and Dustin. “I’m buying more time.”

“No! You don’t need to!.” You paused, looking around for a way to jump back through the gate. “Eddie please don’t - don’t do this!”

You and Dustin watched helplessly as Eddie grabbed his weapons before disappearing from view.

“F-fuck,” You mumbled, as the pair of you scrambled to catch up to Eddie, who’d long gone. “We gotta go!’

“Yeah no shit!”

The room had since been trashed, and there was nothing sturdy enough to get yourself through the gate back into the UpsideDown. Back to Eddie.

You couldn’t afford to lose him. He was the only thing you had going for you. Your parents were journalists, all caught up in the Hawkins supernatural shit. And outside of your immediate friend group? Nothing. You’d moved into Hawkins at the start of senior year and you and him had been inseparable since. He’d introduced you to the Hellfire Club, and through that, Mike, Dustin and Lucas. You’d gotten close with Dustin especially, the group sort of viewed you guys as the parents and Dustin as your son.

That’s why when all the news of him being a supposed “satanic cult leader” spread through Hawkins, all eyes fell to you as his “second in command”, because you happened to be his girlfriend. Your parents weren’t even supportive in the slightest, almost immediately ordering you to stay away from Eddie and cut off all contact with him. You didn’t listen though, and banded together with Dustin and the rest of the gang to locate your missing boyfriend.

“Y/N, you’re to break up with him. I’m not letting my daughter date a—“

“—I haven’t seen him, he’s been missing ever since this whole thing started.”

“Have you seen the news? They’re saying he killed those kids.”

“Are you serious?” Your parents were dumbfounded. “He’s not a cult leader Mom. We play dungeons and dragons. How do you believe the nutjobs at the news station over your own daughter?”

“Honey, listen—”

“—No! You fucking listen to me!” You yelled. “Eddie Muson, my boyfriend, is missing right now. Okay? Your future son in law, is missing! And I’m not gonna stay away knowing he’s probably fearing for his fucking life right now. So you, and Jason, this entire town, and whoever you’re talking to right now to get your next ‘big story’ can go shove it. He’s not a satanist Mom, wake the fuck up.”

You’d paused while looking absent-mindlessly into the gate. You suddenly backed up, before running and leaping into the gate. You were about to fall when you grabbed the vines that covered the gate.

“I’m coming Ed!” You yelled as you pulled yourself through, landing rather harshly on your back, winding you. Normally, you would’ve laid there, but there was no time to waste. Eddie needed you. And you needed him.

You can’t remember the last time you’d ran as hard as you did. You didn’t even know you could run that like that. You didn’t stop either, running directly towards the horde of bats circling in the distance.

—

Something happened which caused all the bats to plummet to the ground, and you breathed a sigh of relief realizing you wouldn’t have to fight off any more.

Your feeling of relief very quickly disappeared when your eyes fell on the familiar body laying in the clearing.

“Eddie!” You yelled as you hobbled over to his body. His hair was stuck to his head, and his body was littered with bite marks left by the demobats. Your boyfriend was bleeding out, and it didn’t look good.

You pulled him into your lap. “Eddie.. I told you not to—”

“— It’s bad right?”

Your eyes filled with tears, “No Ed, it’s fine. W-we just need to get you to the hospital. We helped Steve, and w-we’re gonna help you okay?”

“Okay.” Eddie was choking on his own blood, as it continued to flow from his mouth.

You looked around for Dustin, hoping he’d called somebody. “Dustin! Anybody! Help us please!” Your screams echoed.

Desperation continued to grow as you tried to lift your boyfriends body up. However, you couldn’t, your back was on fire.

“Y/N, just give me a second.” You ignored him, hissing as pain shot up your back. “Y/N! Please.”

Your hands softly caressed his face, which had formed into a weak smile.

“I didn’t run away this time, right?”

You softly sighed, “N-no you didn’t Ed. I’m so proud of you.”

Fear and running away had always been something that affected your relationship with Eddie. Whenever things got tough or scary, Eddie would shut down and take off. That was his way of protecting himself. His reasoning was always “I didn’t know what to do, so I did what I do best. I ran away.”. However, after the first few times it happened, the two of you manage to come up with way to stop him from shutting down.

That’s how he fell in love with you.

You weren’t like his last relationships, where they saw him as a sex object. You made him comfortable enough to be open and vulnerable, even allowing himself to break down in front you. There were times where he would show up at your front door, and the broken look on his face told you everything. From there, he would lay on your chest, crying you ran your hands through his hair, reassuring him that he was safe. He loved that you understood why he felt the need to run away, and were willing to work with him to stop him from doing it. From then on, you two were soulmates. You’d never felt more comfortable with a person before him.

The sounds of him choking on his blood had gotten slower, and that beautiful smile of his had since faded.

“Look after Dustin for me?”

“N-No Ed, you’re gonna do that yourself after we get you to the hospital.” You turned to look in the direction you came from, “Help! Somebody please help us!”

“Say you’re gonna do it, Y/N.”

“N—”

“—Say ‘I’m gonna look after Dustin’.” You were shaking your head. “Say it.”

You were sobbing at this point, “I’m gonna look after Dustin.”

“That’s my girl.” He smiled weakly.

“Don’t go,” You begged, lightly shaking his head. “I need you Ed, please don’t go.”

“I think it’s my year Y/N.” He weakly exclaimed, “It’s finally my year.”

That’s the promise you guys made at the start of the year when he told you about him getting kept back, that it was finally gonna be his year.

“Eddie Munson! Class of ‘86! Woohoo!” He would excitedly exclaim as the two of you would dance around his trailer, practicing for the real day. “I’m gonna take that diploma and I’m gonna run like hell outta there. Then we’re gonna leave Hawkins, together.”

You giggled, “Really?”

“Fuck yeah.” He exclaimed, pulling you into a kiss.

“I love you Eddie.”

“I love you too.”

With that, the light from his eyes drained. He was no longer there.

Eddie Munson, the love of your life, was gone.

#stranger things4 #eddie munson #eddie stranger things #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #eleven #mike wheeler #dustin henderson #lucas sinclair #angst #eddie x reader #stranger things #eddie munson angst #x reader

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kitkatpancakestack · 3 years

Text

For @ktinaj who requested another outsider POV from our favorite Target employee of Buck and Eddie setting up their wedding registry. In light of recent unsavory events with certain guest cast members, please accept this offering of established buddie because they are telling a queer-ass love story and it is a beautiful fucking thing to behold.

You can go read this and the rest of the interior designer!eddie series on ao3!

Tamara Boone’s Saturday begins like most of her Saturdays do: snooze her alarm clock five times, throw on whatever half-way decent red shirt she can find in her closet, drink directly from the coffee pot on her way out the door, and roll into Target five minutes late and still ten minutes earlier than everybody else.

She situates herself behind the customer service counter and pulls a piece of gum from the pack under the desk. There will be some time before the morning rush of returns, so she slides her tablet out of her bag and pulls up her resume. Weirdly enough, simply walking around with a master’s degree under your belt does not automatically grant you access to some unseen, prestigious job market. In fact, she somehow feels even more pigeon-holed than when all she had was an undergraduate psychology degree worth about as much as two cents and a candybar. The only thing that’s changed is the size of the student loan payment she makes every month.

Whatever. She won’t be a part of the red-shirted commune forever. She just has to keep telling herself that.

A slight drizzle starts up outside, which either keeps people out or compels them to descend on Target like a bunch of wet, angry vultures. About an hour into her shift, the store is still mostly empty, so she prays to god it’s the former. Sometimes she can’t stand the boring dull drum of an empty store, but she might not mind it today.

Of course, that’s when Shea crashes into her like a bat out of hell with her box braids—blue this time, Tamara notices—swinging wildly behind her.

“Code red!” she hisses, eyes wide, wrapping her hand around Tamara’s forearm. “Tam, this is not a fucking drill. I swear to god. I saw a ring this time. A ring.”

Tamara frowns, tries to transition her brain from her pathetic resume-building skills to the apparent crisis happening before her. “What?”

“Blondie!”

Blondie . . . “You mean Buck?”

Shea rolls her eyes. “Dude, you never name them. Can’t build that kind of attachment. Didn’t anybody ever teach you that?”

“That’s for animals, dumbass. Now please pretend you are capable of emoting like a normal person and tell me what is going on.”

“Blondie,” Shea continues, already tugging Tamara off the stool. “I was outside smoking—I mean, I was outside putting change in the Salvation Army bucket—and the three of them rolled up like they usually do on a Saturday, but I saw it, dude. Blondie’s left ring finger. That shit was catching the light, Tamara, and on a side note, aren’t they both firefighters? How the hell could Hot Brunette Guy afford that rock on a city salary?”

“You have to stop calling him that, Shea,” Tamara mutters, but inside her stomach is twisting. She stopped lying to herself long ago about how invested she was in her favorite quirky group of three, and this is a decidedly exciting development. “Where are they?”

“Where else? Home Goods.”

Tamara beckons over a newer employee, who jogs up to her in a crisp polo and even crisper khakis. Poor thing. That wouldn’t last long. “Mason, I need you manning customer service today.”

Mason nods, because he’s too new to know any different. “No problem!”

“Come on,” Shea persists, and then she yanks Tamara along with her to the Home Goods sections. They peer around the corner of an aisle, and sure enough, there they are, angled toward each other, bickering in front of lamp shades, of all things. The kid is nowhere to be seen.

Beside her, Shea bounces on the balls of her feet. “Wait for it,” she sings, dragging out the last word. And then it happens. Buck rests his left hand on Eddie’s shoulder, as if to emphasize whatever point he’s trying to make, and the ring effortlessly catches the stale, fluorescent Target lighting.

Not to be melodramatic, but something in Tamara is reshaped and reformed in that moment. “Holy shit.”

“I know, right?”

“Holy shit.”

“That’s what I said!”

“You don’t think . . .”

“Wedding registry!” Shea finishes, clapping her hands together.

Tamara tries to shush her, but it’s too late, and Eddie flicks a glance around to check what the commotion is, doing a double-take when he recognizes her. He says something to Buck, who also turns, and flashes his megawatt smile.

“Finally,” he says, toward Eddie, “I can get a third-party opinion to tell you you’re crazy. Tamara, can you help us out?”

Shea snickers. “Yeah, Tamara, go help them out.”

Tamara edges forward, and doesn’t fail to notice how Shea pretends to be busy so she can eavesdrop. She stops beside the two men. “How can I help? I should mention, though, before we start, that we still don’t have a wider selection available in the back.”

Eddie’s face warms and he averts his gaze. Buck shoves his hands in his jeans pockets and rocks back on his heels, looking pleased. “Apparently, I don’t have good taste in anything. We’re loading up our registry, and Eddie always said you have good judgement, so maybe you can be my eyes.”

The stoic, fussy brunette man before her said she has good judgement? Tamara Boone, Compulsive Student Loan Borrower, has good judgement? A revelation. “Wow,” she says, for lack of anything better, and then, “you’re getting married?”

“Oh, yeah!” His hand flies out of his pocket, and he shows her the ring. “Nice, huh?”

“Really nice.”

“Yeah. I told him he could wrap dental floss around it and I still would have said yes.”

Tamara flicks a glance over to Eddie, whose face is giving her shirt a run for its money. “I’m going to kitchenware,” he mutters. “Buck, please collect Christopher from the video games when you’re done.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and disappears from sight. Tamara doesn’t miss the way Shea sneaks after him, skulking through the aisles like a secret agent.

“You know,” she says, and Buck turns back to her, “Most couples do the whole wedding registry thing online. Benefits of the great technological advancements in this here twenty-first century, and all.”

Buck shrugs, hands returning to his pockets. “Yeah, well, my fiance is a different breed. There is, supposedly, nothing that can beat spending four-plus hours in person deliberating between two blenders that function the exact same, but apparently give different aesthetics. So. We’ve been together long enough for me to know when to back down.”

“You sure you want this for the rest of your life?”

She says it in jest, mostly, but also with a degree of genuine curiosity, because she’s seen relationships completely crumble over significantly less. Buck stares off in the direction Eddie disappeared in moments ago, a sickeningly fond smile relaxing his face. “Yeah. He is without a doubt the fussiest, most annoying person I have ever shopped with my entire life, and sometimes he makes me want to put my head through a wall.” He looks back at her. “But, you know, he’s the love of my life. I wouldn’t put my head through a wall for anybody else.”

And, fucking hell, that should not be as romantic as it is.

“Anyway.” He claps his hands together, and her gaze is drawn, again, automatically, to the way the ring catches the light. “Wedding registry. Can you help me out?”

So, they spend the next indeterminate amount of time checking items off the registry. They pass Eddie every once in a while, who is always statuesque and lost in thought, and Shea is always there, mocking him when she catches Tamara’s eye. Once they check the final item, the familiar clack of a pair of crutches ambles up to them.

“Ah, Chris, there you are. I was just about to come find you.”

Christopher smiles, bumping his shoulder affectionately against Buck’s side. “I’m hungry.”

“We’re gonna stop at Pizza Hut on the way out.”

“Uh-huh. And where’s Dad?”

“You know where your dad is.”

“Having a mental breakdown because he can’t decide on a color scheme for the bathroom?”

Buck snorts, tries and fails to look reprimanding. “Chris, that’s extremely hilarious, but don’t you ever say that in front of him.”

“It’s true, though,” he mutters, but doesn’t press the point.

Tamara clears her throat. “Anything else I can help you with?”

Buck declines, and she more or less shadows them as they make their way over to kitchenware, where it is uncertain if Eddie has made any meaningful progress. She regroups with Shea, and once the two men resume their particularly fond brand of bickering, they begrudgingly return to the customer service desk.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Shea says, once Tamara has relieved Mason from duty.

She sticks another piece of gum in her mouth. “Nope. What’s it mean?”

“Next step is always a new house. And a new house means furnishing that house.”

“Shea, for someone who always gets at me for being too invested, you are reeking of hypocrisy right now.”

“I’m just saying.” Her eyes trail the group of three as they congregate at a check-out line. “Man. All I did was stalk the guy around Kitchenware, and I miss him already.”

Tamara props her tablet back on the desk. “You’re working late tonight, right? Don’t worry. He’ll be back.”

“There’s no way. Blondie would never let that happen.”

Tamara doesn’t say anything, because even though she doesn’t know them, she knows them.

And, sure enough, as predictable as the sun rising and setting every day, forty minutes before closing, Eddie makes his way to the customer service desk. His hair is matted over his head in wet tendrils, dripping onto the shoulders of his sweatshirt. Still raining, then.

“Hey,” he says.

Tamara perks up, catches Shea’s eye where she’s adjusting a wrack of athletic pants. “Hey. I have to warn you, we close in forty minutes, so whatever magic you need to make happen has a time limit.”

He winces. “No, it’s . . . it’s nothing for the registry. This is sort of something I couldn’t do while I was here.”

That piques her interest. “Oh? What can I help you with, then?”

“I ordered it ahead of time. The instructions said to come to the customer service desk.” He slides the receipt across the counter.

“Got it. Gimme one sec.” She eases off the stool and shoulders through the door to the back. Sure enough, there’s a single object sitting on the bench, with a receipt taped to it and Edmundo Diaz on the label. She hauls it back out and hefts it onto the desk. “Here it is.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” He tucks it easily under one arm. He turns to leave, and if she doesn’t ask, she knows the curiosity will kill her.

“Wait,” she blurts out. “What is it?”

There are universes of memories and secrets in the tiny smile that crooks up one corner of his mouth. “It’s a breadmaker.”

“A breadmaker?”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t want him to know you were buying him a breadmaker?”

The tiny smile blossoms into something warm and beautiful. “He probably won’t even remember, but we saw one on a call once, before we were engaged. Before we were even dating. And he said he always wanted a breadmaker, but it felt like something you only get when you’re married, because it should be shared with the people you love. It never made sense to me, but it made sense to him.” He shrugs, shakes his head. “Anyway. Thanks, again. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

He leaves, and Shea takes his place.

“What was it?” she asks.

And Tamara replies, “A breadmaker.”

“A breadmaker?”

“Yeah.” She rests her chin on her fist. “You know, Shea, I think they’re gonna be together forever. I think they were meant to find each other.”

“What is this? Miss True-Love-Doesn’t-Exist is waxing poetic about soulmates?”

“You need to quit accosting me and start closing this place down.”

Shea gives her signature dramatic eye roll before sauntering off. Tamara counts out the till, finishes her other duties, and then swings her bag over her shoulder as she exits the automatic doors. It’s still raining, and she turns her face to the sky, but it doesn’t feel like a punishment. It feels like a promise.

She smiles, and heads to her car.

#buddie #a drabble #interior designer!eddie #buckley diaz family

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milenadaniels · 3 years

Text

Before the Night Fades, 8.6k - POV Outsider on Buck/Eddie double date shenanigans (AO3)

“I have a bottle of champagne, four champagne flutes, one engagement ring to go into one of those champagne flutes, and a note to deliver it all to table 34 with dessert,” Tomas explains, wide-eyed, throwing his hand back to the prep station where said champagne is waiting on ice next to four flutes and a small ring box.

“Okay?”

“Okay so there’s two men and two women and I have no idea who’s getting proposed to. I’m not even 100% on who came with who."

---

Or, EddieAna and BuckTaylor double date and it ruins everyone's night.

The nearly-post-COVID return to normal rush is going exactly as well as management at the Tilted Cactus expected it would, which is to say it’s going as miserably as the waitstaff at the Tilted Cactus expected it would.

The owners lost a lot of money to lockdowns, diminished capacity and the general (extremely warranted) paranoia of co-mingling in public during an international plague for the sake of overpriced appetizers. And despite accurately predicting the business would boom once the doors re-opened, management didn’t feel the need to account for more staff to serve said business.

So despite owing $34k on her student loans (that’s after a generous gift from both her parents and her maternal grandmother), barely being able to afford rent in LA, and the utter lack of career prospects, Mere is taking a break in the backroom, next to the dirty mop bucket, mentally running through her finances before she officially gives her notice.

She can’t quit, she knows that.

Turns out leaving New Zealand for LA with nothing but a dream and the idea that if Taika could do it so could she was not the most future-proof plan she could have come up with. The starving artist thing was so 2010.

But Mere’s made up her mind. She’s not made for this abuse. This is bullshit. She’s going to pack up, go home, and you know, do...something else. She’ll figure it out.

Mere pulls herself up from her indelicate crouch on some empty crates and goes in search of a piece of paper — or a fucking napkin, who cares — on which to write up her official resignation.

“No, in section 3A,” she hears Tomas fake-whisper. He’s one of the few new hires to grace these hallowed halls and still thinks it’s disrespectful to talk shit about customers even in the backroom. Umida, a five year veteran of this distinguished profession, has been trying to disabuse him of this particular nonsense.

“Where the fuck is section 3A, Tommy? We have sections 1 to 9, we don’t have any letters.”

“The new sidewalk sections have letters, to distinguish them from inside.”

“You mean sections 10 and 11?”

“...Mr. Peters said they’re using letters.”

“Mr. Peters can swallow my entire ass. The sidewalk sections are literally right outside the door from 9, why would they not be called 10 and 11?”

“Or ‘Hell On Earth’ and ‘Kill Me Please’, as we call them colloquially,” Mere offers, startling Tomas as she pushes through the swinging door she’d been hiding behind. Patio dining is highly encouraged and an excellent way to dine if one has patios. The Tilted Cactus does not have patios. It has a temporary license to put tables on the dirty sidewalk outside their restaurant, where waitstaff get to weave around pedestrians, dogs, and carts like they’re completing an obstacle course.

“Yeah, those work,” Umida agrees, emphasizing her point with a dispirited index finger in Mere’s direction.

“Okay, whatever,” Tomas says with a pained eye roll. “Can you please just check it out and let me know?”

“What’s happening?” Mere asks. She’s leaving this popsicle stand (ideally, on fire as she walks away slowly into the night) but she’s also starved of both human attention and the inherent drama of the culinary world so she’ll be damned if she misses out on one final showdown.

Tomas takes a breath to steel himself. “I have a bottle of champagne, four champagne flutes, one engagement ring to go into one of those champagne flutes, and a note to deliver it all to table 34 with dessert,” Tomas explains, wide-eyed, throwing his hand back to the prep station where said champagne is waiting on ice next to four flutes and a small ring box.

“Okay?”

“Okay so there’s two men and two women and I have no idea who’s getting proposed to. I’m not even 100% on who came with who.”

“You don’t have gaydar where you come from?” Umida asks in perfect deadpan.

Tomas glares harder, crosses his arms and juts one hip out. “I come from San Francisco. We invented gaydar. I’m saying I’m pretty sure the guys are together, but I’m also pretty sure they’re each with the women they’re sitting next to. So figure that out.”

“Like a double thruple?” Mere asks, now actually becoming curious.

“Like a ‘I don’t know what y’all are smoking this far north but I don’t understand your weird relationship dynamics and I’m still on probation and I can’t lose this job because I can’t move back in with my brother because I will murder him and I can’t be an only child with aging parents in this economy so can you please just go out there and tell me what the fuck is happening so I can throw this ring at the right person and punch out sometime before I ‘accidentally’ fall on the meat clever downstairs?’ kind of situation.”

Umida and Mere share a glance.

“Okay, well, don’t despair, new guy,” Mere says with a pat on his arm. “Save the meat cleaving for the capitalist elite. We got you. Let the pros handle this.”

“What did the note say?” Umida asks. “One ‘e’ or two? We can at least eliminate half of our options.”

Tomas does not check the note to spot whether the note-taker had written ‘fiancé’ or ‘fiancée’. He stares them down and fips the note in his fingers so the text faces them.

“It says ‘finance’.”

“Ah.”

“We’re going to need a more hands-on investigation, then,” Mere announces.

—————————-

Mere goes first, only because Umida was on her way to swap a side dressing for her table when Tomas intercepted her.

Mere carries a jug of water and makes the rounds of the outdoor tables, trying to hold in her visible distaste for the pseudo-patio vibe the owners tried to make happen out here. There’s a bike stand and a taxi stand two feet from where people are trying to have a romantic dinner. Every now and again, the LA traffic gets rowdy and noisy, completely butchering the atmosphere. There’s a shitty speaker funneling in some Frank Sinatra but it really does nothing to help.

But after this mystery is solved, none of this will be her problem anymore.

Like Tomas said, there are two men and two women sitting like cardinal points around a round table. The women are on the north and east ends, the men on the south and west ones. Two of them are brunets, one a redhead, and one a blond. They’re all disgustingly gorgeous.

And that’s all she’s got.

“The ravioli sounds so good,” the brunette woman says, casting a look at the brunet man to her side.

“Yeah, it does,” he says.

“Mm,” the blond man disagrees. “It’s got feta.”

“What’s wrong with feta?” Asks the redheaded woman.

“Absolutely nothing is wrong with feta,” he responds with a superior smile directed at the man next to him who’s preemptively adopting the look of someone ready to hear some bullshit. “Unless you have an underdeveloped palate and are simply overwhelmed by such strong delicacies as a moderately salty cheese.”

“Okay, don’t talk to me about an underdeveloped palate, Pennsylvania,” the other man responds, posturing despite the softness of his eyes.

“Hey, I said nothing to besmirch the great state of Texas. Texas is a wonder of culinary delight. I’m saying you’re...a simple man.”

“Feta’s disgusting and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on,” the brunet says with smug finality, holding the other man’s eyes until they’re both smirking and looking back at their menus.

Well then.

Mere’s a little bummed as she fills the water at table 36. She’d been hoping the mystery would run longer than 2 whole minutes, but these guys are definitely together. So the mystery will only come down to who’s getting eng—

“Thankfully Chris inherited a more refined palate,” the blond man — Pennsylvania — chirps as the last word.

“He did,” the brunette woman chimes in with a playful smile. “He loves my cooking. You both loved that greek salad I made last week, didn’t you? That had feta in it.”

“It did!” the brunet man replies, slipping his hand overtop hers. “And I loved it. So clearly context is a factor.”

Mere almost spills the rest of the water all over the lady at table 38 as she takes in the man and woman mooning at each other. Though if it’s any consolation, the redheaded woman looks as unimpressed as Mere feels.

“Yeah, I have no idea,” Mere reports back to Tomas.

“The redheads are playing footsie under the table now. That’s one couple at least right?” Tomas asks. The two of them are parked behind the bar where they can see through the window outside but the exterior tint prevents anyone outside from seeing them. The bar is still used for pouring drinks but the stools are gone — can’t maintain 6 feet between them — so the staff pretty much have the run of this corner of the restaurant.

“He’s not a redhead,” Mere mutters, looking out the window to catch the action. “It’s like a dark blond. And I don’t know, I’m pretty sure the two brunets are together, but then blond guy’s foot is way into the other guy’s space.” For a moment she’s distracted by just how damn long his legs are. “That’s certainly...familiar.”

“They’re lesbians,” Umida declares when she returns from dropping off plates at table 32.

“They’re lesbians?” Tomas parrots skeptically. “I did not get that vibe.”

“I could see lesbian for the redhead, I think,” Mere says. “Don’t know about the brunette.”

“Lesbians come in all flavours,” Umida informs them haughtily. It’s the start of Pride month and her hijab is held together by an “Ally” pin. “You can’t tell someone’s orientation just by looking at them.”

“But you’ve declared them lesbians,” Mere points out.

“Because lesbians are approaching their table and only lesbians know other lesbians.”

“That’s definitely not true,” Tomas reproaches.

“No, she’s right, lesbians coming up!” Mere watches as two more unfairly gorgeous women approach with two young boys in tow. Honestly, screw LA and their beauty standards. The parties look surprised to see each other, but they clearly know each other well. One of the boys stays with the women, but the other one breaks off to join the table.

“No, I mean you can know lesbians without being a lesbian.”

Umida and Mere ignore him.

“Okay, that’s one of their kids, right?” Umida asks. “Lesbians babysitting for date night?”

“He’s got Pennsylvania’s curls,” Mere agrees. "That's the blond guy, by the way, I think he’s from there. Brunet guy is Texas for the time being."

The boy reaches the table and is pulled into a strong hug by Texas, who then directs him to a hug with the brunette.

“Oh, unexpected.” Mere would have sworn he was a dead ringer for Pennsylvania. “But okay, that confirms the hand-holding I saw. We have a set of parents. And unless this is a super modern table, I don’t see the parents being here on dates with other people.”

“Mm, I don’t know.” Umida dithers. “That’s like an auntie hug, not a parent hug. Like if she is the mom, the kid is not happy with her.”

“Wait,” Tomas says.

The boy is wiggling out of Brunette’s grasp and rounding the table to Pennsylvania who’s waiting with a wide smile and open arms, and instead of letting go after, the boy finagles his way onto Pennsylvania’s lap to steal a breadstick. Pennsylvania reaches into the basket for another breadstick to pass to the little boy still waiting with his moms and Mere’s heart tugs a little.

Texas watches on from across the table with unrestrained fondness. His leg shifts to press against Pennsylvania’s who looks up with a smile.

“Boom, gay dads!” Tomas crows.

“And lesbians,” Umida adds.

“Redhead definitely has no part of this,” Mere notes. The woman is smiling but it’s polite and practised, not warm or welcoming. “I guess the brunets could be siblings maybe? Really close siblings?”

Finally, the babysitters make to leave so Pennsylvania kisses the boy’s temple and guides him back to his feet. Texas presses his own kiss to the boy’s curls as he passes, saying something they can’t make out from behind the glass. Brunette gets only a wave as he leaves.

“Gays and lesbians,” Umida concludes smugly.

“Okay, good,” Tomas sighs with relief. “So we know who the couples are, now who’s gettin—”

“Um,” Mere interrupts, pointing at the table.

Redhead’s foot is making its way up Pennsylvania’s leg and he shoots her a grin.

“For fuck’s sake,” Tomas spits as he walks away.

“Did you even take their order yet?” Mere calls after him. He doesn’t answer.

———-

Mere gets pulled away because now that she’s not quitting in outrage until this table 34 drama is over, she figures she should actually get back to work. Happily, having not seen her for the last 20 minutes, Mikael figured she had left or died and had taken over her section. She agrees to split half the tips with him and lets herself be pulled back into the tide of madness.

“Got it figured yet, Tim-Tam?” she asks when she passes him near the bathrooms.

“The guys are sharing their orders,” he says despondently.

“That’s not that incriminating. I split my orders with people. I’m not about to pay full price to discover if I like something.”

“No,” Tomas glares before gesturing to the window with disgust. “They’re sharing their orders.”

Tomas stalks away to hopefully take an herbal break to calm down and Mere goes back to the window just in time to catch the insanity. Mere feels Umida come up behind her and tries to suppress her shiver when her “what in all that is holy” skates across her bare shoulder.

Pennsylvania has just finished piling some of his spaghetti on Texas’ plate, which is exceedingly normal. But now Pennsylvania is reaching for Texas' burger.

“He didn’t cut that,” Umida notes.

“No, he did not.”

They have pretty messy burgers at Tilted Cactus, ones that are hard to share because if you cut them down the middle they tend to lose structural integrity. Of course, this isn’t a big concern if you’re sharing already-bitten-into burgers. Which these absolute freaks are doing.

“Gays and lesbians,” Umida declares again, the earlier smugness replaced with an air of disgust.

But when Umida walks away, Mere watches Brunette wipe something off Texas’ cheek and frowns. One throuple and redheaded side piece? Maybe?

————

“I’m struggling with lesbians as a theory,” Mere tells Umida the next chance she gets at the pickup counter. “I want to believe, but…”

“Yeah, I’m doubting now too. They’re almost exclusively talking to each other. But then I realized it was more getting-to-know-you conversation and this would be a hell of a weird first date.”

“Huh, so heteros all around?”

“Well, I also caught on that they’re spending all this time talking to each other because the guys are like in their own world. Finishing each others’ —”

“Sandwiches?”

“Exactly,” Umida grins, unexpectedly delighted by the reference. “So I don’t know. I really don’t envy Tommy.”

“Me either.”

“Hey Manish,” Umida yells out to the other side of the pickup window, “I’m picking up for Lenore but she’s got a two-seater, why do I have four dishes here?”

“Because Lenore can’t write for shit,” Mere says, picking up the order slip and squinting at the scrawl. “These are for table 24, not 29. It’s a four-seater.”

“Alright, well I guess you’re helping me, then,” Umida says with a wink.

Umida is fully capable of carrying four dishes on her own but she’s asking Mere to come with her so Mere’s already reaching for the plates, hoping the blush on her cheek can be written off as heat from the kitchen.

————-

During a slow stretch, Mere takes it upon herself to refill water and wine glasses in section 10.

From table 32 she can hear them talking about elementary school workloads.

“Oh, ah, I meant to let you know,” Pennsylvania says to Redhead, sitting up in his seat. “I can’t make it to the movies next Friday, can we move it to the next week? I should know my schedule by Wednesday.”

“Sure,” Redhead says with a hint of bite to her pleasant smile. “But I thought you had Friday off.”

“I do,” Pennsylvania says, his lips curving into a small, excited smile, “but Christopher won his class’ public speaking competition and they’re doing a kind of show of all the winners for the parents, and it’s on Friday.”

Mere moves around table 34 and heads for table 36 next, but catches the looks of discomfort on every face aside from Pennsylvania’s. He doesn’t realize he’s said something wrong, but the rest of them have.

“Isn’t that just during school hours?” Brunette woman asks.

Texas hesitates before saying, “yeah, but we’re taking him to Universal after to celebrate.”

Out of pity, Mere doubles back to table 34 and reaches for his water glass to fill. People tend to keep their drama buckled while the waitstaff is there. And sure enough, Redhead glances up and paints a tense smile on her face.

“Yeah, not a problem. That sounds exciting.”

There’s a bite to her words, and by the way his shoulders tense and his fingers curl more tightly around his fork, Texas seems to have picked up on it.

————-

By the end of the entrees, most of the staff have caught onto Tomas’ predicament and one by one everyone from the table-bussers to the cooks have gone out for a smokeless smoke break to try to be the one to divine what the hell is happening at table 34.

None are successful.

“This isn’t even like a romantic date,” Mani laments. “Like none of them are that dressed up and they’re talking about like natural disasters and shit. I don’t get a proposal vibe from like any of them.”

“Who even goes on a double date to propose? Who does that? It’s so tacky!” Gabby says from behind the bar where she’s helping herself to a quick nip before she heads home.

“Who still thinks the ring in the champagne bit is a good idea, is my question. It’s a choking hazard!” Mere says. “How romantic to start off your engagement with a trip to the ER.”

Tomas ignores them all. He looks about 10 minutes away from saying to hell with his probationary status and drinking the next hour away straight out of the vodka bottle at his elbow. “I know it’s Pride and I should be representing but I could really do with a little heteronormativity right now.”

—————-

Tomas is stalling.

Table 34 asked for dessert, of course, and when he vaguely floated the idea of champagne, Texas had readily agreed, so this is happening. The champagne flutes are lined up on a tray, the champagne in them is warming with every minute that passes, and he is no closer to figuring out what to do.

“What if I put all the glasses in the middle and they have to pick which one they want?”

“Okay but the person getting proposed to tonight likely doesn’t know?” Mikael says.

“What if you pretend you didn’t see the instructions?” Shania pitches. “As if we can ever write stuff down correctly anyway. Just say it said to bring out the champagne but nothing about the ring being in a flute! Just hand it back to the proposer and let them get it done.”

“You think we don’t know who the proposee is but we know who the proposer is?” Tomas bites. “If I knew that, Shania, I could have just called them away with a phone call or something and asked them who to give the flute to.”

“Geez,” Shania exclaims, hopping off the bar counter to walk away. “You try to help…”

“And then there were three,” Mario announces as he comes back from another completely unnecessary round of filling water glasses outside.

Tomas’ head snaps up from where he’d been staring into the countertops. “What?”

They all rush to the window and sure enough: Redhead is gone.

“I didn’t see her come in,” Mere says, almost breathlessly. If she’d come in to use the restroom, they would have seen her.

“No, she’s gone-gone,” Mario supplies. “Said she had to get back to work but I’m pretty sure she just wanted out. That’s the chick from the news, you know?”

“People still watch the news?” Mere wondered aloud.

Tomas tsks. “Redhead was the least probable suspect!”

“Well we can rule out Brunette and Pennsylvania as a couple, right?” Umida asks, waiting briefly for the gathered crowd to nod. “Okay, so we’re down to the brunets together, or Pennsylvania and Texas.”

“Or polyamorous,” Mikael sniffs. Mikael is trying polyamory. He doesn’t know there’s a bet going on how long he’ll last. It’s a fine relationship style to get into but one he and his jealousy and insecurity issues are deeply unsuited for.

“Apologies, Mikael, or polyamorous. So you have...yeah, 3 of 3 options left for that ring,” Umida grimaces.

“Wait!” So-Hee cries. She’s supposed to be hosting at the entrance but COVID-19 protocols mean people don’t show up earlier than 5 minutes before their reservation so the podium isn’t very backed up. “What does the ring look like? That could be a clue, right?”

They look to Tomas, whose face is blank.

“You didn’t look?” Mere accuses him, though to be fair it never occurred to her either.

So-Hee pounces on the deep purple velvet box without waiting for Tomas to answer.

“Please god,” Tomas mumbles, grabbing the box out of her hands and prying it open with almost reckless enthusiasm.

All six members of staff currently on duty at the window crowd around, many heads bumping together to catch a glimpse. The ring nestled in the box has a slim, dainty band with a solitaire diamond jutting out proudly, with filigree details on either side.

“Oh thank sweet baby Jesus, that is a woman’s ring!” Tomas nearly yells.

“It could be a man’s ring,” Umida protests weakly, almost sad to see the drama come to an end.

Mere’s a little put out too if she’s being honest. But even if they couldn’t tell from the design, the sizing is way too small to fit on either of table 34’s men’s fingers, as So-Hee demonstrates by plucking the ring up and sliding it onto her own tiny finger.

“Yeah, get it stuck on your sweaty fingers, So-Hee,” Tomas protests almost hysterically, feeling his win come into danger. He wrestles it back off her finger and shoves it back in the box before taking a deep cleansing breath.

“Okay, I’ve got a dessert course to deliver,” he says, the picture of calm professionalism as if he hasn’t spent the last hour losing his entire shit.

———-

They should disperse then, but like brothers in arms after battle, all of them feel the need to stand guard as Tomas prepares to deliver the goods.

Some of them, like So-Hee, stand because they’ve foolishly become emotionally invested in the upcoming nuptial bliss.

Some of them, like Umida, stand because they fell in love with their version of events and they feel the need to properly mourn for what might have been.

“They’re co-parenting that boy,” Umida grumbles. “We all saw that! They can’t deny that!”

And some of them, like Mere, stand because they really can’t be bothered to get back to work.

But stand together they do as Tomas plops the ring in one flute and carries the tray out.

“Excuse me,” comes a voice off to the side of their group.

So-Hee, ever the consummate people-pleaser, actually turns to take care of the customer. The rest of them stay fixed at the window. “Yes, sir, can I help you?”

“Maybe? I couldn’t help but notice that young man taking some champagne out.”

“Yes, would you like to order a bottle as well?” So-Hee pokes Mikael. “We’d be happy to bring some out to you.”

“Ah, no,” the man says. “Well, yes. But I’ve already ordered some. I called earlier, when I reserved my table.”

Mere stiffens, her sixth sense borne of years of customer service piquing. Beside her, Umida takes note as well.

“I asked that champagne be brought to the table with dessert, and I left a box...one that looks a lot like the one on your counter there. And I’m sure it’s just a coincidence but I couldn’t help but want to make sure it’s not my ring that just went out to that other table.”

Mere’s wide eyes spring to Umida’s.

“Oh my fuck,” Umida whispers.

Then they’re both racing for the door.

“Wrong table, wrong table, wrong table,” Mere mutters under her breath as she dodges a stroller and a dog walker trying to reach Tomas —

“Oh, Edmundo!” Brunette exclaims brightly.

Umida’s hand braces Mere like a soccer mom in a car.

It’s too late now.

There’s nothing they can do but watch this trainwreck happen.

Happily, Redhead vacated the seat nearest to them so they have an unobstructed view of Brunette’s eyes filling with tears, of Texas’ wide eyes, and of Pennsylvania’s face losing all colour.

From context, Texas is the Edmundo Brunette is so pleased with.

But Edmundo is shaking his head, his brow furrowed. “I...wha— ”

Pennsylvania comes back to himself first, though the smile he paints on his face is strained and frail. “Ah, con — congratulations.”

“Wha— Buck, no.”

Pennsylvania — Buck — stands up from the table like a colt learning to walk, his eyes darting across the table without landing anywhere. “I — ah — I should let you guys celebrate.”

“Buck, no, I—” Edmundo’s voice is firmer now, his hand darting out to reach for Buck, and Brunette starts to catch on that nobody’s getting down on one knee with a flowery speech.

“Edmundo?” she calls, her bright smile dimming.

Edmundo looks torn and trapped in equal measure, and Mere wonders for a heartbreaking moment if maybe he’s as confused about his relationships as the Tilted Cactus employees have been tonight.

With a sigh, and a reminder that she’s out of this place like Cinderella at midnight, Mere falls on the proverbial meat cleaver. Stepping around Umida’s still outstretched arm, Mere weaves herself in front of Tomas just in case there’s any physical fallout, and pitches her voice low so the neighbouring tables will have to strain to listen in.

“Excuse me, my name is Mere, I’m the assistant manager. I am so sorry to inform you there’s been a terrible mistake. We’ve delivered a ring to your table that was destined to another this evening. We apologize deeply for any confusion this has caused and we will of course be comping your meals.”

“It—Oh.” Brunette’s eyes land on the ring on her finger, and her remaining excitement implodes into embarrassment so quickly and resoundly that Mere’s surprised it doesn’t produce an audible sound. The fingers of her opposite hand grip the ring and pause for a moment before slipping it off. There’s no box to slip it into so Mere holds out her hand, the other tucked neatly behind her back.

“Thank you,” Mere says quietly. “Please forgive us for the mistake. We will be investigating what happened so it never happens again.”

“Of course,” Brunette says lightly, forcing some life back into her voice. “I’m sure you didn’t mean any harm by it.”

Her eyes lift then and take in the scene across from her. Edmundo and Buck still standing, Edmundo’s hand wrapped round Buck’s wrist to keep him from leaving, and her eyes shutter once more.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to freshen up,” she says politely, rising from her seat and escaping into the restaurant.

Edmundo watches her go but says nothing, frozen still, holding onto the man beside him.

With all eyes more or less off them now, Mere gathers Tomas and Umida and hauls ass back into the restaurant.

————-

The ring is cleaned and inspected by Gareth, its actual owner, who is amiable enough to not escalate the situation further. His fiancée-to-be is none the wiser on any of these happenings — luckily their table, 29, is indoors — so his proposal is still on for the next course. But, just in case it doesn’t go the way Gareth hopes and he turns on them, Mere preemptively comps their meal too and congratulates him before he’s reseated.

On her way back to the kitchen, she grabs Lenore and uses the last hour of her completely fake authority to formally bar her from ever answering the phone again, or taking notes from the phone, or writing anything anywhere ever again. Lenore, having heard about the drama at table 34 and having seen the crying woman rush to the bathroom just now, accepts with little resistance.

And Mere, heart heavy with the weight of what they’ve done to this poor woman, mentally shakes her fist at her own curiosity and need for schadenfreude. If she’d bailed on this place an hour ago, she wouldn’t be leaving with this heartache by proxy.

As if beckoned by her thoughts, Brunette emerges from the bathroom just as Mere is crossing in front of it. She looks better, her tears packed away, and her cheeks only slightly reddened. Mere is about to offer her something — a glass of water? wine? a whole bottle? — when Edmundo steps into view. Mere doesn’t break stride until she’s behind the protection of the pay terminal privacy partition where she can see them but not be seen.

“Hey,” he says softly, his frame pretty loose and relaxed for a man who looked so troubled moments ago.

“Hey,” she returns with a forced smile.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know—”

Brunette cuts him off with a hand. “It’s not your fault. They made a mistake. It happens.”

Edmundo nods.

“But…” Brunette continues, fidgeting with the strap of her purse. “For a moment, it didn’t seem far-fetched that it...might be real, you know? I know we’ve been taking things slow, but we have been seeing each other for nearly a year now. And I thought… I don’t know what I thought, but it...it didn’t seem so far-fetched.”

Edmundo’s shoulders have grown tense, and it doesn’t escape Brunette’s notice. She smiles sadly.

“But then I looked up and you weren’t even looking at me. You were looking at Buck. You were so scared he would leave and that — that just doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean, even if the...the ring was a big misunderstanding, wouldn’t it have been better that he leave so we could talk about it privately? But you were scared, because he was upset… And if he was...I don’t know...upset that you hadn’t told him about this, you could have caught up later and discussed it, cleared it up.”

Edmundo says nothing, but he hangs his head and gnaws on his lower lip.

“But you were scared. Scared of him leaving in that moment. Scared...that he’d leave with the wrong idea? That he’d leave thinking you were — we were... ” Brunette sighs sharply. “I think I’ve been a fool.”

“You haven’t—” Edmundo tries to say.

“No, I have. It’s felt so many times like there’s been a third wheel in this relationship, and I genuinely didn’t realize until now that it was me. And maybe I’m naive but I’d like to think you didn’t realize it until today either. That you’re just as big a fool as I am. And maybe Buck is too.”

Edmundo opens his mouth twice to say something but nothing comes out. In the end, he settles on, “Ana, I’m sorry. I...didn’t realize. I don’t even know if I understand what I realize. But I...I know you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met and you didn’t deserve this.”

Brunette — Ana — smiles again sadly, and if a touch bitterly, she’s entitled to it.

“Thank you,” she says softly, before fidgeting with her purse strap again. “I’m going to go. You’ll...say goodbye to Buck for me?” Edmundo nods.

“Goodbye, Edmundo.”

“Take care, Ana,” he responds.

Ana takes a few steps before stopping and turning. “Good luck. I think…” she shakes her head before repeating, “good luck,” and leaving out the side doors.

Mere unglues herself from the privacy wall and slinks sadly back to the bar where she finds Tomas and Umida already halfway through a glass of red each. There’s a third, untouched glass waiting for her.

“We’re horrible people,” Mere decides. “Brunette and Texas just broke up.”

“We didn’t do this,” Umida protests half-heartedly. “Technically, Tomas did.”

“Ugh, you ass,” Tomas sputters. “The note said table 34, you all saw it. It’s Lenore’s fault.”

“It is Lenore’s fault,” Mere agrees before downing half her glass like a shot. Out the window, she can see Pennsyl — Buck — slumped in his chair, staring at the tablecloth. There’s a fresh bottle of wine on the table, two empty glasses at his and Edmundo’s places. Mere raises a glass at Tomas for the gesture.

“If they don’t end up drinking it, I’m taking it home,” Tomas says, “I already wrote it off.”

That’s fair.

Unfortunately for him, when Edmundo gets back to the table, he immediately pours them both a very full glass.

Buck straightens out in his chair, looking concerned and looking around for Ana, who doesn’t materialize. Edmundo says something that has Buck relaxing but looking guilty. Then Edmundo shuffles closer and puts a hand back on Buck’s wrist.

“Okay, back to work,” Mere orders. “We’ve intruded on this drama way too much already.”

When she finds her way back to the bar some twenty minutes later for a totally appropriate reason, table 34 is empty.

————————

A year later, Mere finds herself sitting on the Tilted Cactus bar counter on a Friday night, legs swinging and popping olives like they’re mints. She ended up not quitting her job the night she intended to. Between the excitement, the drama, and the on-duty alcohol, she was feeling pretty chill about sticking it out at the Tilted Cactus a while longer.

But she ended up quitting two days later when the owner found out about how she impersonated an assistant manager and gave her hell for it. She could have stayed, he wasn’t really going to reprimand her. But listening to him talk down at her while her stomach filled with dread at the idea of having to apologize and walk back into that hell hole…nah. Fuck the Tilted Cactus, fuck the owner, and fuck two weeks’ notice. They weren’t getting a minute out of her ever again.

She took the gamble of taking out more student loans and was wrapping up her EMT certification. She’d be in an ambulance soon enough, actually helping people. Not the dream that got her to America, but one that would suffice for now. Make up enough karma to get her feet back under her.

“The lesbians are back,” Umida announces excitedly in a whisper as she fits herself between Mere’s legs against the bar.

“Which lesbians?”

“THEE lesbians,” Umida returns, pointing out the window.

“Those are two guys, babe. Three if you count the kid.”

“They’re lesbians,” Umida insists, waving her hand to dismiss the kid from her labels. “They have strong lesbian energy.”

“You’re claiming them for your people?” Mere grins fondly. It’s the start of Pride again and Umida’s Ally pin has been traded in for a lesbian-flag coloured hijab secured with the updated BIPOC Pride flag pin. She’s very pretty in pink, right down to the lipstick Mere isn’t allowed to kiss off of her until her shift is up.

“I am, they’re mine. I claim them.”

“Wait,” Mere squints, trying to pin down the familiar feeling she’s getting, “are those…”

“The guys! Eddie and Buck. I told you they were semi-regulars now. And we were right, that’s totally their kid. I don’t know how, especially since we know they weren’t together before that night, but he’s their kid. My money’s on one of them being trans because he’s literally their spitting image combined.”

Mere sighs happily and hugs Umida to her. “Well, I’m glad some good came out of that night.”

“Umida?” a young voice asks from across the bar. In the year since the reopening, a slew of new hires have joined the ranks to replace all the veterans leaving and Mere barely recognizes anyone anymore. She saw Mikael (unsurprisingly single again) a couple of weeks ago but he’s clearly on his way out too. Tomas lasted until his probation was over before quitting. Umida, in no small part because she was the longest lasting employee, was rightfully promoted to the role of assistant manager. Mere still hopes she’ll leave this hell hole soon but in the meantime, at least she’s getting paid. And authority looks really good on her.

“What up, Jerome?”

Jerome pushes his dark blue fringe back and holds up a sheet of paper. “I have a note here to deliver a ring to a table with dessert but it doesn’t say who’s supposed to get it.”

“Oh my god, no, no way,” Mere laughs and tries to push Umida away. “Let me out of here.”

Umida’s arms close around her hips, preventing her escape.

“Calm down. I created a form so that night doesn’t happen again. Jerome, did you use the form?”

“Um, yeah.” He shakes the sheet of paper in his hands. “I mean whoever took the call did. They checked off the table number, and it’s a ‘fiancé’ not a ‘fiancée’, but it’s a table with two guys so…”

“Okay, but there’s a field for the name, did they fill it out?”

“How am I supposed to know who they are from a name though?”

“Oh my god, kid, you schmooze,” Umida says. “You roll up to their table, you lay on the customer service thick and introduce yourself and ask their names. People are idiots, they’ll tell you, just like that.”

Jerome cocks his head in contemplation. “Yeah okay, but no, there’s no name. It’s blank.”

“But you made a form,” Mere mock whispers.

Umida turns on her, her eyeshadow catching the bar lights as she narrows her eyes. “This is not the form’s fault, don’t you blame this on the form! The form has a field for a name! The form provides!”

“The form is flawless,” Mere agrees quickly, running her hand down Umida’s arm soothingly. “You can’t account for user error.”

Umida glares harder before looking up to the ceiling in supplication.

Mere, who has never in her life been able to resist picking at a scab, asks, “what table is it?”

Jerome checks the paper. “34.”

“The cursed table. The cursed lesbians!” Mere gasps, squirming out of the way when Umida tries to pinch her side.

“Well it’s not like the kid is a contender, so it’s 50/50,” Umida points out. “Much better odds than last time.”

“And to be fair, if the wrong guy gets the flute, he can just improvise and propose with the ring in hand,” Mere continues. “Overall, much less exciting drama than last time. 3/10 for me.”

“Thank god. Yeah, let’s do that.” Jerome walks away with his marching orders and Umida turns to Mere. “I have to actually go work. You gonna hang out here?” She’s off in a half hour and they have tickets to the back row of the latest Marvel nonsense.

“I got booze, olives, and an unobstructed view of my favourite drama. I’m all set.” In lieu of a proper kiss, Mere lifts Umida’s hand and kisses her wrist, delighting in watching her girlfriend’s eyes soften. She blows Mere a kiss and flits away to put out fires.

Mere is usually on her phone while she waits for Umida but tonight she watches table 34. The guys — Eddie and Buck, Umida reminded her — are across the table from each other, Eddie is relaxed in his chair but Buck is leaning forward, elbows on the table as he tells their son a story that has him cackling in his seat. They’re not holding hands, but anyone looking can see they’re together. They have ridiculous heart eyes for each other, and from her vantage point she can see those long legs intermingling again, one knee occasionally jostling into the other. Little tangible reminders that they’re there and together.

She saw hints of this that night, and to see it have taken hold and blossomed...suddenly she’s really invested in them having a great night. One of them planned this night out, wanted to surprise the other, and she doesn’t want that going to waste because of a blank field on a form.

Mere’s wearing a dark long-sleeve blouse, not too far off the dress code, so slips off the counter, snags the backup apron they always leave behind the bar and ties it around her waist. One of the newbies whose name she doesn’t know watches her from the host pedestal and Mere raises a fierce eyebrow at them until they go back to minding their own business.

She rinses out a jug and fills it with water and ice and slips back into her customer service posture to make the rounds of the tables in section 10.

“Well now, I recognize you handsome folk, don’t I?” she schmoozes when she gets to table 34, picking up Eddie’s glass first to fill.

Eddie doesn’t place her and she doesn’t blame him, he was under a lot of stress that night. It takes Buck a second but he gets it.

“Oh hey, yeah! Weren’t you — “ Buck cuts himself off awkwardly and casts an eye to Eddie and the kid. “You, ah, gave us our meals for free! Because of the, um, mix-up.”

That’s enough for Eddie to place her, and where Buck relaxes back into his chair as she fills his glass, Eddie goes stock still.

Bingo.

“What mix-up?” the kid asks.

“Ah, they put something in our drink by accident,” Buck lies without lying. “Real choking hazard! So they gave us our meals for free.”

“That’s dangerous,” the kid says.

“It was dangerous,” Mere agrees, filling his glass. “Choking hazard was right. Could have turned a really great night all wrong with a trip to the hospital.”

Eddie’s brow furrows slightly and Mere struggles to keep a neutral face.

“It’s never a good idea to hide things in food. I don’t know why people keep trying instead of just calling us for advice. We have tons of ways to help people with surprises.”

“I completely agree,” Buck says. “We’re actually firefighters and you wouldn’t believe how many accidental choking calls we get.”

Eddie swallows, his eyes looking mildly panicked.

“Firefighters!” Mere schmoozes harder, smiling at the kid as he gets excited again. “Well I certainly feel safer then.”

“Ah, you probably shouldn’t. I was actually one of those calls once,” Buck says halfway through a smile and grimace, pointing to his throat where there’s a faint scar. “Emergency tracheotomy on the floor of a restaurant. But that wasn’t a surprise, just, ah, too enthusiastic about the breadsticks.”

Eddie’s looking decidedly gray now, eyes laser focused on the scar.

“Okay, well I’ll just go ahead and clear these,” Mere says, jokingly reaching for the bread basket until Buck laughs back.

“I’m better now, promise! Small bites, chewed thoroughly!”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” she dithers dramatically, nodding to the kid. “If I leave those here, can I trust you to keep an eye on your dad?”

“Yeah!” the kid agrees with a toothy grin.

Buck’s cheeks redden quickly but he’s still smiling, his head ducked shyly in a way Mere doubts is due to her teasing. Eddie, meanwhile, is still looking poleaxed though fondness is fighting its way back in.

“Well, I was just subbing into this section so this will be goodbye for us but it was great to see you guys! Enjoy your evening!”

“Thanks, you too!” Buck says with an easy smile. Eddie manages a “thank you” and Mere has to restrain herself from patting his shoulder as she walks away.

She’s only just returned the apron to the bar when she sees Eddie walk in and head straight for the host before being led to the back.

“Ready to go?” Umida asks, back in her unsensible heels and cross-chest messenger bag.

Mere takes the hand she extends but tugs her closer instead of following her out, before saying the worst thing she’s ever said in her life, “Actually, do you mind if we stick around a little longer?”

“Something good about to happen?” she asks, peeking out the window.

Mere tugs her in closer and leans her chin on her shoulder. “I think so.”

Twenty minutes later, when Jerome passes by with a tray of assorted chocolate treats and two overturned coffee cups, Mere and Umida find themselves bracketed by half the front and back staff. Gossip still spreads like wildfire it seems.

Buck’s overturned coffee cup and plate is the last thing Jerome puts on the table, and as soon as it’s down, he excuses himself. He keeps a professional pace until he’s past the exterior doors and then he’s racing to take a front seat at the bar.

Eddie turns over his cup but doesn’t reach for the carafe, he wipes his hands on his jeans instead.

“Oh my god, he’s so nervous,” Jerome whispers.

“The kid is so in on it,” the host whose name Mere never caught says, and they’re right. Where Eddie’s tensed up, the kid is bouncing in his seat like he knows something’s coming.

“Come on, guy,” a bus boy mutters, checking his watch. His break is almost over.

Mere’s heart is beating hard in sympathy with Eddie’s as they all watch Buck ignore his coffee cup in favor of serving their kid from the tray. Then he signals to Eddie’s plate, who can’t not lift it for the offered chocolate tortes. Finally, there’s chocolate on everyone’s plates and Buck sits back to try a piece of brownie and Eddie can’t take it anymore.

He motions to the carafe and Buck perks up, finally reaching for his cup. But just as his fingers close around it, some idiot’s dog barks on the sideway, calling his attention away. His fingers flip the cup without ever looking at it, or the plate underneath it.

“Oh come on,” Umida moans.

The dog passes with its dumbass owner and Buck puts his cup back down, or tries to, but finds something in the way. He tries again, pushing the intrusion away with the bottom of the cup.

“Oh my god,” is whined in Mere’s left ear and when she turns her head she’s surprised to find not another Tilted Cactus employee but a customer dressed to the nines, pearls and all.

“Ma’am, did you —”

“Shh,” the woman returns, her eyes never moving from the window. Mere turns back too.

Finally, Buck has managed to push the offending items off the plate and settle his cup down and it’s a nail-biting few seconds where it actually looks like he’s going to reach for the carafe and go about his business.

But like a true wingman, the little kid points directly at it, prompting Buck to push the napkin aside and pick up — the ring.

Buck freezes, holding the ring between his thumb and index. His cheeks flush and a smile begins to break over his face before he looks startled and the smile falls abruptly away.

It’s about this time Eddie realizes that proposing by recreating the night they got together was never going to be the best idea when the impetus to their relationship was an engagement ring accidentally sent to the wrong person.

Eddie vaults out of his seat and into the empty one next to Buck, wrapping his hand around the one holding the ring, and bringing his other hand to his cheek to gently turn his head until Buck is looking at him. They can’t tell what he says, but they can watch Buck’s eyes fill with tears, watch as Eddie gestures to their son who’s smiling wide and reaching out for a hand, which Buck instantly provides. His attention comes back to Eddie then, who’s saying something that gets them both looking a little fragile and it’s hard to say if he actually popped the question yet but Buck is surging forward to kiss him hard and fast. Eddie gives as good as he’s getting for a moment before he slows them with small, gentle kisses. And when they finally break apart, Eddie plucks the ring from Buck’s fingers and slides it onto his ring finger as Buck watches, his eyes wide and half incredulous.

Outside, the nearby tables break out into applause, startling the trio and reminding the two men that they are indeed out in public. Eddie acknowledges the applause with an embarrassed hand and waits until they have a modicum of privacy again before taking Buck’s hand and kissing right near the where the ring now sits. He then reluctantly shuffles back into his seat.

Inside, Mere is hugging Umida to her with a strength buoyed by love. Around them, the staff are starting to disperse, some wiping their eyes, some with goofy grins on their faces.

“Young man,” the lady in the pearls says to Jerome, holding out her credit card, “I want you to charge that family’s meal to my card.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s very generous of you.”

The woman sniffs delicately and leaves without another word. Hopefully Jerome knows where she was sitting…

“I’m glad she did that,” Mere says into Umida’s shoulder, “I was going to, otherwise, and I’m a broke-ass student.”

“I would have pitched in,” Umida says, her voice soft and pensive. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Mere agrees, sliding off the bar counter for the last time. “Oh, hold on.”

She gets closer to the window and turns the flash off of her camera before taking a pic.

“I think that’s bordering on creepy now,” Umida says without judgement.

“It’s not for me.” Mere sends the pic off with a note and three ring emojis.

They don’t make it out of the restaurant before her phone dings.

“What does Tomas have to say?” Umida asks with a smirk.

Mere pulls up the text and reads, “Gays and lesbians. Both, at the same time. Never doubting Umida’s gaydar again.”

Umida laughs victoriously, which shouldn’t be as sexy as it is, and Mere lets her drag her by the hand down the street, letting the nostalgia from tonight settle in her chest.

If there’s anything she misses from working the restaurant scene, it’s getting this glimpse into people’s lives.

Yeah, most of the work was gross, obnoxious, or mind-numbing. But every now and again, she got to be a part of strangers’ stories. Got to be there for the happiest days like graduations, or bridal showers. And even the sadder stories could be beautiful sometimes, like when she got to be extra kind to the elderly woman coming into the restaurant alone for the first time in ten years, or watch a family have their last supper together before their kid moves away for school. It’s just all so human and some kind of wonderful.

She hopes her career as a paramedic will have just a little bit of that kind of magic.

#911fic #buddie fics #buddie #my fics #okay this is fic 2 of 2 for pov outsider for me!#completely opposite tone of the last one this is just fun and dumb :P #hope y'all like it!#my posts

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tails89 · 3 years

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Buddie*Prompt = Eddie + Fever

Hey there friendo! Thanks so much for the suggestion. Hope you like.

Send me a bingo prompt.

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Eddie pulls his quilt tighter around himself as another shiver rolls through him. He needs to get up for work. He needs to get Chris ready for school, but everything aches, and his limbs feel like they’re weighted with lead.

He’s not surprised that he’s managed to come down with something. Chris had been sick earlier in the week and Eddie had used up most of his personal leave staying home to take care of him. There had been a small part of him that thought that maybe he'd managed to avoid it, but apparently not.

With a soft grunt he manages to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. He just needs a shower, he thinks to himself. A long hot shower will help clear the congestion he can feel building in his chest and help warm him up again. He just needs to make it to the bathroom.

It does help. A little. Eddie feels marginally more human as he makes his way out to the kitchen.

Chris is already there, carefully carrying two bowls across from the cupboards to put them with the box of cereal and milk already on the table.

When he’s done, he sits and waits for his dad to join him.

“Are you sick, Dad?” Chris asks after watching him for a moment. “You look like me when I stayed home from school.”

“I’m okay,” Eddie reassures him, filling both bowls with cereal and reaching for the milk. The idea of eating anything right now makes his stomach churn uncomfortably, but he knows better than to go to work on an empty stomach. “I don’t think I got enough sleep last night.”

It's not quite a lie. Eddie had spent most of the night tossing and turning, his body shifting between too hot and too cold. Chris doesn’t question it though, so Eddie takes a couple of careful mouthfuls of cereal and focuses on keeping it down. Once he’s had something to eat, he can dose himself up enough to get through the day.

After breakfast he sends Chris to his room to finish getting ready for school. With no prying eyes Eddie takes a second to let his head drop into his hands. His skull feels like it’s about three times too small for his brain and everything just aches. He lets himself drift for a moment, gearing himself up to finish getting ready for work.

“You look like shit.”

Head jerking up, Eddie catches Buck leaning in the doorway. He hadn’t even heard the front door open.

“I’m fine, just tired,” Eddie says, waving away Buck’s concern and rising slowly to his feet. For a second the room swims out of focus before everything snaps back into place. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll be ready to go.”

“You’re not seriously thinking about going to work, are you?” Buck asks, concern etched into his face. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t afford to take more time off,” Eddie says, wincing as the words grate against his throat. “I took all that time off to watch Chris and—”

“Because he was sick,” Buck says, cutting in. He steps into the room and into Eddie’s personal space. “And now you’re sick.” He reaches out to press a palm to Eddie’s forehead. “Jesus Eds, you’re hot.” He seems to realise what he’s said just as the words come tumbling out of his mouth and flushes.

“You think I’m hot?” Eddie tries for humour, but it falls flat when his legs are shaking just from the effort of standing.

“I think you’re delirious,” Buck jokes herding Eddie through to the living room and over to the couch. “That’s the only explanation I can come up with for you thinking you’re okay to work. Wait here.”

Dropping gratefully onto the couch, Eddie lets his head tip back. He can hear the soft rumble of voices in the distance—Buck and Chris talking somewhere in the house—and lets the sound of his two favourite people wash over him.

“Hey.”

Blinking owlishly up at the figure standing over him, Eddie realises he must have fallen asleep again.

“I’m going to take Chris to school. Will you be right here for a bit?”

Eddie pushes himself upright. “I just need to finish getting ready.”

A hand on his shoulder stops him, and it shouldn’t be this hard to resist, but he’s already sinking back down into the cushions.

Buck has the quilt from Eddie’s bed bundled up in his arms. “I’ve already called Bobby to let him know you won’t be in,” Buck tells him, draping the quilt over Eddie. “And once I’ve dropped Chris off, I’ll pick some things up from the pharmacy. You’ve only got kids medicine in the cabinet.”

“I love you.” The words spill out to hang in the air between them and even if Eddie is sick and feverish and not quite thinking things through, he means them, with all his heart.

“I—” Buck’s face does something complicated before settling into a bashful smile. “I love you too, Eds.” He fixes the quilt and straightens, calling to Chris, “You ready buddy?”

“Yep!” Chris makes his way over to the couch to say goodbye. He wraps his small arms around Eddie. “Don’t worry Dad, Bucky will help you feel better.”

“I know. Love you kid.”

As he watches Buck ferry his son out the door, Eddie feels his heart swell in his chest. He wonders how he managed to get this lucky, to find someone like Buck who cares so much. They’ve only officially been dating for a few weeks, but Eddie knows. Buck is it for him.

#911 #buddie #eddie diaz #christopher diaz #evan buckley #evan buckley x eddie diaz #911 ficlet #911 bingo #fever #my911fanfic

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irasciblesoul · 3 years

Text

PICTURE IMPERFECT.

@captbenscn

Time has become a relative thing as off late.

He either has too much or not enough so he ignores the passage of time. Tries to pretend that he isn't wasting away in an assignment when in reality there were other places he would much prefer to be. Like back with Olivia, or spending with his mom who is technically living with him but he isn't home enough to see her. See Eli soccer games, have brunch with his daughters. Go fishing with Dickie, or simply have family dinner.

He is missing time with his family, that much was obvious but it was far easier to pretend that time is standing still while he is in the mind of Eddie Wagner. Elliot has never been a fan of under cover work, the strife that comes with it, the damage that it can cause mentally something he had always been weary off. Especially after the one time he got shot in the job. If it wasn't for Olivia he would be dead... He owes her so many debts of gratitude. Many times before has the now captain saved him from drowning. A vast of different occasion that had time and time again solidified his feelings for her. The thought of marrying her soon still gets him so excited. Even now as he moved around the ring, sparring with Reggie.

"You looked way too pleased with yourself." Reggie commented and Elliot just shrugged. Slowly taking off his gloves. Once the task was done, Elliot, Eddie, turned to the other guy. "Well, I think I've been doing alright..." Trailing off, the detective reached for a bottle of water, taking a generous gulp while his hand reached for his back pocket, his phone. He doesn't unlock it right away, waiting for the other male to get distracted enough for Elliot to do so. "There's a lady." It was a statement that has Elliot looking at Reggie and that smirk upon his features. Thank God for a good poker face. "Not the right time." Was all Elliot said before he is throwing the bottle at Reggie who catches it with a huff, walking away from Elliot.

It was the perfect opportunity.

Unlocking his phone, Elliot went through his messages. Nothing worthy of note, not until he see the unknown number. He should know better. He should leave it to Jet to check it out but there's curiosity brewing in him, especially when this line was encrypted and nothing that Jet doesn't deem worthy should go in. But being who he is, Elliot open the text and the sight of it just made his stomach churn. Self control is finite resource Elliot rarely had much of to begin with. His brain is trying to process the image, tries to detached Olivia from the other man that had dared to kiss her, but all he manages to feel is pure unadulterated anger. Hands gripped the phone tight, right eye twitching just enough. Elliot is swallowing thickly, trying, extremely hard, to keep a leash on his anger but all he managed to do is punch the first thing he finds and thank God it was a punching bag.

B R E A T H E. B R E A T H E. B R E A T H E.

"You alright there...?" Reggie comes back, all dressed up and Elliot groaned. Right, he has things to do.

Taking a deep breath, the detective turned to the other. "I'm fine. So what's the plan for the evening?" He can't afford to lose it, not now.

"We are visiting a few places, gonna collect some stuff."

Elliot nodded, moving towards the locker room to get ready.

By the time he reached Olivia's apartment, it was three am and Elliot was doing fairly better now that he did when he first saw the picture. He stood in front of the door, debating if it was a good idea or not to tackle this head on. Elliot shouldn't be here to begin with. As careful as he was doubling back and making sure he didn't have a tail, one never knew and he certainly didn't want to put Olivia in danger but his heart won over, drove him to her because he needs to knows, needs to see how she is doing. So taking a deep breathe, he knocks on the door. Somehow he just knew she was awake. He could feel it in his heart.

#( Daybreak / Main verse. )#A lot of context sorry.#captbenscn

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tngrace · 3 years

Note

“I really need you” please!

Thank you nonnie. this is gonna be another coda/extension of 2.03 with members of the 118 making an appearance in the story. I tweaked some of the dialog, and who said and did some things to make it fit where I was going with this. Plus it gave me an excuse to watch parts of the episode again, especially stealing the fire truck scene. 😍🤣

And @moviegeek03 thank you for being so wonderful and becoming a trusted friend. Have some of that TK whump we discussed. 😉 i’m pretty sure this is the most whump I've ever written in one setting. This also ended up being more Judd & TK focused than Tarlos.... not sure how that happened. 🤔

Prompt was from this list. I'm officially closing that list but please feel free to send me a request if you have one and I'll see if I can do anything with it.

4 word prompts masterlist- find all completed fics & requests waiting to be written here. I've got 2 left to write after this one.

TK was exhausted. They'd been working the wildfire for a week, getting little sleep. Out of state crews were to be arriving any minute, and he was hoping that would mean they could catch a break. He just wanted a little rest, and to talk to Carlos. The few texts they'd exchanged wasn't enough anymore.

Before he was able to find a quiet spot for a call, his dad called a meeting with all the out of state crews that had arrived. He let's out a deep breath and throws on his jacket, before joining his crew. Out of town crews made him uncomfortable just because he wasn't sure he could trust them. With his team, they knew each other's moves and thoughts as they worked together. He knew they needed the help, but he was leary. His leariness remained especially when he saw some guy constantly staring at Marjan. It set his already frayed nerves on edge.

TK is gathering shovels and picks with Mateo when he learns Judd, Paul and Marjan are abandoning them with one of the 118 crew members. To say he is not happy about it would be an understatement. He tries to put on his best face though, and he can’t turn off his friendly personality even though he tries when he realizes it's the guy who stared Marj down. Plus Mateo is doing his damnedest to engage him so TK throws in his own comments to try and help because he knows how personally Mateo takes things and he just wants to protect him.

The work is hard and tiring on his already tired body. Plus Buck just doesn’t seem to want to engage with him. TK understands though; Buck is probably feeling just as abandoned as he is by his team which he tries to convey to Mateo. At least TK still has Mateo; Buck was left by both of his other team members. As they’re comparing their wildest calls, TK sees a burning car rolling down the hill at top speed at them. He doesn’t even think; he just reacts diving towards Buck with a yell at Mateo to look out.

He collides full force with Buck, knocking him out of the way. He can feel the air knocked out of himself as well as they collide with the ground. They’re up and moving before his body can even process possible injuries, the adrenaline spurring them on. Once the fire is out, and the dog is reunited with his owner, TK doubles over to catch his breath. He can feel the struggle, knowing he must have sustained some bruising to his ribs when knocking Buck out of the way. He feels a twinge in his ankle too, but ignores it. He can’t afford to be hurt though with it being all hands on deck, so he takes as deep a breath as he can and stands back up before anyone can notice.

“So that was weird,” Buck says to him as they watch the guy retrieving his dog from Mateo.

“Right?” TK says with a confused look on his face.

“Nice moves by the way. Good reflexes,” Buck says with a smile on his face before he walks off to get back to work.

“Yea you too,” TK says watching the scene and still mentally trying to asses himself. He has enough medic training to know what he should be feeling for, and when all he can come up with is the soreness in his ribs, he decides to push on.

After that, Buck opens up more to them also explaining his fixation with Marjan earlier, and it makes the day pass faster. TK does his best to ignore the aching in his ribs and ankle. Buck notices how off TK would get at times, especially when he wouldn’t take a break from digging, but he brushed off every attempt Buck made at making sure he was ok. Mateo has noticed the same thing, but he also knows when to push and when not to push TK.

By night fall, they’re heading back down the mountain, still discussing their wildest calls, and TK is limping and having to pause his talking every now and then to catch a breath. His ribs and ankle are throbbing now, and he just wants some Tylenol and bed. Mateo effectively ends their pissing contest on who has the wildest calls, but before he can even contemplate the fact that Probie was the voice of reason, they encounter the rest of their teams minus his dad and Hen.

They tease them about already having their feet up, but one look at Judd and Marjan and TK knows somethings wrong. “What? What’s wrong?” he asks feeling the panic building under his skin. It’s not ideal for his ribs, but he can’t stop it, not with the way they’re looking at him.

“You didn’t hear did you?” Marjan finally asks finding her voice first. TK is looking between all of them as he hears Buck ask, “hear what?”

Paul speaks up then, explaining how his dad and Hen went up to provide air support to find the missing kid. TK’s eyes never leave them as he listens, his breathing becoming more erratic the longer Paul talks. When he hears the fateful words that the chopper went down, he’s almost positive he stops breathing. He feels his world tilting; he feels his knees giving out, but before he hits the ground again, Judd is off the back of the ATV so fast TK is not sure how it happens.

“Woah there brother,” he says his arms coming underneath TK to catch him. TK can’t stop the whine when Judd’s hands connect with his sore ribs. “What the hell?” Judd asks him as he holds him up.

“Uh... I might can help with that,” Buck says when TK refuses to answer Judd. He explains how TK saved him from the runaway car, and how he’d been limping and breathing weird ever since. He explains that he tried to get TK to take it easy, but TK insisted he was fine and kept working.

“Of course he did,” Judd says before muttering under his breath about idiot little brothers.

“Uh... Judd,” Paul and Marjan say at the same time as TK’s erratic breathing becomes extremely apparent and his eyes glass over.

“Fuck,” Judd grunts as he takes more of TK’s weight. “Let me get him calmed down and then you can check him over,” he tells Eddie before more or less dragging TK off to the first quiet spot he can find. They’ve been down this road with TK’s panic attacks before, and Judd seemed the best to handle them.

He gets TK seated before coming around in front of him and placing his hands on TK’s shoulders. “Hey kid. Eyes on me,” he says as one of his hands come up to cradles TK’s neck to keep his head from lolling too much. He can tell TK has really worked himself up this time, by the glassy look in his eyes and how TK doesn't appear to hear him. “TK! Look at me,” he says sternly as he finally gets TK’s eyes on him. He takes TK’s hand and places it along his own chest so TK can feel his breaths.

“I’m gonna call Carlos and you’re going to focus on breathing,” Judd tells him digging in his pocket for his phone while making sure TK stays with him. “Slow and steady,” Judd reminds him as he focuses on keeping his own breaths even for TK to match.

“Gracie!” Judd says when she picks up. “I need you to get me Carlos. TK is having a panic attack, and he needs to talk to him,” Judd relays. He knows she’s working tonight, and he’s not sure about Carlos so he did the only thing he knew would guarantee Carlos would answer. It doesn’t take Grace five minutes before she has Carlos on the line. Judd quickly explains what has happened and that he needs Carlos to talk to TK.

He puts the phone on speaker so he can go back to holding TK’s head up. “Alright Reyes you’re on speaker. He can hear you,” Judd relays and he steadies his breathing once more for TK.

“Ty, you’re ok. I’m here. Judd’s there. You’re whole team is there. I know you’re tired. I know you’re exhausted, but I need you to focus on breathing for me ok?” Carlos murmurs softly. Judd can tell TK is focusing more listening to Carlos and he tells him to keep talking.

Slowly but surely TK comes back around and his breathing is more even. “Carlos,” he finally says in a choked whisper when he realizes his boyfriend is talking to him.

“Yea love, I’m here,” Carlos says as TK finally reaches for the phone from Judd.

“You good? You’re not gonna kill over on me are you?” Judd asks him as he sees TK sitting up more on his own.

“I’m good,” TK promises as Judd finally passes him the phone.

“Five minutes little brother, and then I’m letting the Army medic check you over,” he warns before giving TK time to talk to Carlos.

TK takes the phone off speaker, but he knows Carlos has already heard. “Ty? Why is the medic looking you over?” he asks TK with worry clearly seeping through his tone.

“Judd’s being overprotective as usual,” TK says but he knows Carlos doesn’t buy it. He lets out a sigh and then winces when his ribs twinge. “I’m tired, exhausted really. I saved one of the other guys from a different team today from a runaway car. The collision with the ground may or may not have bruised my ribs, and I may or may not have tweaked my ankle, but I’m fine,” he tries to stress not wanting his boyfriend to worry anymore.

“Tyler,” Carlos stresses knowing TK is not fine. If he was fine, Judd would not have had to call him tonight.

“Ok, I’m not fine,” TK admits trying to hold his tears off. “I’m hurt. I’m tired, so tired. Dad is possibly hurt or dying or we don’t know. He.. He crashed in a helicopter and no one’s heard from him, and I just... I just got him back from the cancer, and I just almost lost him last week. I just.. I can’t... I can’t... I can’t do this again. I can’t lose him. I can’t... ” he gets out in a rush with his breathing hitching and his ribs protesting.

“Easy Tiger. Breathe,” Carlos calms. “Breathe TK. It’s going to be ok.” TK tries his level best to control his breathing and stop the tears once more.

“I just really need you,” he gets out as a few stray tears fall. “I don’t think I can do this.”

TK can hear background noise and Carlos talking to someone in Spanish, before Carlos is telling him he will come. “Wait? Who was that? Where are you?” TK asks knowing Carlos rarely uses his Spanish unless he’s on the phone with his family or on a call where he needs to use it. TK doesn’t think Carlos is working, which means he must be with or around his family.

“I was at my parents,” Carlos tells him. “But I’m coming to you, ok?”

“What? No! You can’t!” TK says feeling the panic rise once more. Carlos won’t even broach the topic of his parents with him, and TK doesn’t know why. He hasn’t had the time to question Carlos on it either between Tim’s death and being called out to assist with the wildfire, but TK knows it’s something. But the last thing TK wants is to pull Carlos away from his family knowing how little time Carlos gets with them. Besides he doesn’t want Carlos near this fire either.

“TK it’s fine. I can be there within three hours. Just breathe baby,” he says when he hears TK’s hitching breath once more.

“Carlos no. Don’t. Stay with them, please,” TK begs the tears falling faster now despite how much he tries to stop them. It’s amazing how broken down and non-cooperative the body can get when it reaches the stage of exhaustion TK is in. He doesn’t want Carlos’s parents to have a bad impression of him if they know about him, or for them to be mad he’s pulling Carlos away when they rarely get to see him. It's causing his panic to rise once again.

Judd has returned to force TK into being checked over and notices the tears and erratic breathing once more. “Damn it kid,” he says as he kneels in front of him again. He once again places TK’s hand along side his chest, before putting the phone back on speaker. Carlos is doing his best to get TK to listen and calm down, but Judd finally has to speak up.

“It’s not working. Look I’m gonna see if I can get him calm,” he tells Carlos who then explains what happened. Judd sighs knowing TK’s mind is just too worn down at this point. “Drive safe,” he tells Carlos before hanging up knowing it’s useless to try and tell Carlos to stay in Austin.

“Alright kid, breathe with me,” Judd instructs as he forces TK to focus on him and breathe. Once TK is breathing normally again, Judd motions for Eddie to come over and check him out. The others have gone to the command tent to see if they can reason with the Commander. Judd would love to be in there helping them, but he knows his anger would get the best of him because he knows what the Commander is going to say. Besides TK needs him and that is his top priority right now.

Eddie checks TK over, noticing the dark bruising along his ribs. He feels of them making TK wince as he apologizes but they both know it has to be done, and while they don’t feel broken, with the bruising he thinks one might be cracked. “I’m good,” TK tries to say, but Judd ain’t buying it.

“Just let him wrap your damn ribs kid,” Judd says tossing Eddie an ace bandage. “I know you’re not gonna stay in the tent and rest, even though that’s where you should be, so at least let us make sure you’re not going to do more damage.”

TK finally relents and Eddie does his best to stabilize TK’s ribs. He then moves on to check TK’s ankle, and once his boot is removed, the swelling is obvious. Eddie feels along it and determines it is just twisted. TK had come to the same conclusion, so he lets Eddie put a brace on it to keep from making it worse. Eddie leaves them with it once he’s finished his medical assessment, knowing Judd probably needs a minute with his kid brother.

“Look I know I’m not going to be able to keep you sidelined on this,” Judd started getting a definitive agreement from TK making Judd rolls his eyes hard. “But I want you to be smart about it, and try not to make your injuries worse.”

TK does agree to that, even though they both know once he's caught up in the moment, he'll forget his promise. He doesn’t want to be laid up anymore than Judd wants him injured. “Now wanna tell me why talking to your boy sent you into another spiral?” Judd asks as he helps TK up and towards a picnic table.

“Not really,” TK murmurs as he drops down to rest.

“Fine. I won’t make you talk if you don’t want to. I know what that’s like. But you know I’m here for you bub.” At TK’s nod, Judd announces he’s going to find them food and water and for TK not to move. TK decides he needs to inform his mom what is happening, so while Judd is gone he calls her. He’s just wrapping up the call when he feels someone walking up behind him. He assumes it’s Judd returning with the promised food and water, he had no plans of touching, but is surprised to see it’s Buck with pizza.

Even though Judd had told him not to move, TK is up and moving as Buck starts to talk. He doesn’t think he can handle any small talk, and he doesn’t want to talk about how he is. He just wants to find his dad, even though he knows deep down he is in no position to go out looking for him. Even though he knows it, he doesn’t think it’s going to stop him, especially when Buck holds up keys to the fire truck.

They grab their go bags and sneak through the command center. TK is a little slower than he’d like because of his ribs and ankle, but Buck is patient with him. TK tries to talk Buck out of going so he doesn’t get fired as well, but Buck doesn’t back down. TK is thankful because he knows he’s not fully up to going this alone. He gets frustrated easily when Buck doesn’t explain his total plan and tries to divert him from the 118′s truck. He just wants to get in it and go before Judd finds him.

It doesn’t take long for Judd to gather everyone up when he gets back to the table he’d left TK at and finds it empty. Eddie is the first to piece it together when he realizes Buck is also missing. They grab backpacks and race off to the fire trucks, splitting up to surround them when they see two bodies trying to sneak around. They flip on their flashlights and Judd speaks up before the guys make it to the 126′s truck.

“Hey! Dumbass! Dumbasser!” Judd calls out making them both freeze. TK knows he’s screwed by Judd’s tone of voice. He slowly turns to face Judd and realizes Paul and Mateo are with him. He sees Buck looking the other direction, so he can only assume Marjan and Eddie are there. “Did you stop and consider the consequences of what you’re about to do at all?” Judd asks shining his light on TK making him wince hard at the bright light as Paul shines his on Buck.

TK’s theory of Marjan and Eddie coming in from the other side is confirmed when they both speak up. “You obviously don’t know Buck.”

“You two didn’t seriously think that you could sneak off and drive into wildfires did you?” Marjan asks in an accusatory tone, making TK scrunch his face with a wince feeling like a scolded kid.

“Yes?” he says, more like asks, timidly. He’s hurting, he’s exhausted. He just wants to find his dad and sleep for a month. He wants this stupid wildfire over with so he can go back home.

“Well that ain’t gonna happen,” Paul finally pipes up. TK feels the defeat creeping in until Buck stands up to them. “You think you’re gonna stop us?” he asks.

“Stop you? We’re going with you,” Mateo supplies like an excited puppy going on his first adventure. “Come on let’s go,” Eddie say as everyone starts loading up.

TK and Buck share a look as everyone jumps into the truck. TK gives Judd a skeptical look making Judd roll his eyes. “Just get in the damn truck before I change my mind,” he huffs helping TK climb up. Once everyone is in, they take off up the mountain to find their captain and Hen.

Judd does his best to keep TK from over-exerting, but it’s useless. As soon as the truck stopped, TK was out and racing for the helicopter despite his limp. Judd watched from the sidelines as TK crawled all over it, screaming for his dad. He knew they weren’t there though; he knew Owen would’ve tried to get them somewhere safer. He can see the defeat creeping in to TK’s face. He decides to take the lead and tells everyone to fan out. He grabs TK and makes him come with him so he can keep an eye on him. He takes the backpack off TK’s back so it’s less he’s carrying and exerting himself.

Once Hen and Owen are found, Judd can’t stop TK from climbing into the mine to get to his dad. He knows TK is probably doing more damage to his ankle and ribs, but he can’t stop him. They’re able to get both Hen and Owen out safely and loaded in the trucks. TK sits next to his dad the whole way back, telling him over and over he’s going to be ok even though Owen is unconscious.

Since they were able to complete the rescue safely, their reprimands are minimal. Once they’re dismissed from the Commander, Judd steers TK to the medical tent. “No argument,” he says gruffly when he sees TK start to protest. “You are hurt. You are exhausted, and brother, I’ve lived through the kinda panic attack you hard earlier. You are resting. You are getting fluids and a proper medical assessment even if I have to tie your ass to the bed.”

“That won’t be necessary Judd,” they hear turning towards the voice. Carlos is standing there in uniform watching them. He’d used his badge and uniform shamelessly to get through to San Angelo as quickly as he could after hanging up with TK. He hadn’t explained it to his parents, just told them he had to go, and here he was.

TK’s eyes filled with tears before he could stop them. Carlos had really come. He was here. TK all but collapses in his arms, and Carlos catches him as always. “I’ll leave ya to it,” Judd says clasping Carlos’s shoulder before he goes to check on the captain.

Carlos gets TK over to a bed, and TK clings to him when Carlos tries to lay him down. “I’m not going anywhere Tiger,” he whispers as he finally gets TK stretched out. A medic comes and checks TK over, Judd having sent her over after detailing what he knew of TK’s condition. She starts an iv to run fluids before listening to his lungs. She doesn’t think anything is broken, but she does advise he take it easy in case one is cracked. She elevates his ankle wrapping it in ice and suggesting he rest for the time being. Carlos sits by his bed the whole time carding his finger through TK’s hair.

“I’m sorry you left your parents,” TK says quietly.

“Don’t,” Carlos tells him as he softly kisses him. “You needed me, and here I am. I always said I would come if you needed, and that doesn’t change just because I’m visiting my parents.”

TK gives him a sleepy nod, Carlos’s fingers working like magic as always to relax him. “Rest TK, and then we’ll go home and you can rest some more.” TK turns into Carlos’s touch giving a sleepy nod, before he lets his body succumb to the exhaustion and he falls fast asleep.

The out of town crews are dismissed while TK is sleeping. Eddie and Buck both check in on TK and see Carlos sitting beside him watching him sleep. They leave their numbers and well wishes with Carlos before following Hen to check on the captain. They let her have a moment with him, while they say goodbye to the rest of the team. The 126 decide to all catch some sleep now that the wildfire is contained. They know they’ll be dismissed to return to Austin soon, but they all need some much needed sleep. They check in on their Strand boys before they all crash for some much needed rest.

It’s the next day before they load the truck to head home. TK decides to ride back with Carlos letting his dad have room to stretch out in the back of the truck to rest as Judd drives them home. He’s still feeling the exhaustion, and he’s glad they have mandated time off. His head lolls against the window as Carlos drives them home. He knows over the next few days they’ll have to talk about his panic attack and how he freaked out again over Carlos’s parents, but for now he’s just glad to be back with Carlos and almost home.

#tarlos #tarlos fic #911 lone star #911 lone star fic #4 word prompt fic #writers life #big brother judd #judd & tk #126 & 118 #i love a fire fam #this is more fire fam than tarlos #but i got my tarlos moments in there

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