#easter sunday in a fic

[viking-raider]

The Golden Egg - Cotton Candy Fluff

Summary: It's Easter! So, you and Henry have an Easter Egg Hunt. One for Kal, then go head-to-head against each other, to see who can find their eggs the fastest.

But what happens, when Henry finds the Golden Egg, you left him.

Pairing: Henry Cavill/Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Warning: G - Cotton Candy Goodness, Soft!Henry, Fluff, Kal, Short Person Joke, Competition, Easter, Competitive!Henry, Domestic Bliss, Instagraming, Surprise Ending

Inspiration: It's Easter. I wrote this in an hour. This video of Good.Boy.Ollie on instagram.

Author’s Note: I hope you enjoy this! Line divider by @FIREFLY-GRAPHICS!

If you would like to get notifications for my writing! Just follow my Tag List blog, @VIKING-RAIDER-TAGLIST and turn on the notifications for it! It’s that easy! @VIKING-RAIDER-LIBRARY

“So, explain this to me again?” Henry laughed, folding his arms over his heaving chest, as he laughed.

“I wanna do an Easter Egg hunt for Kal.” You repeat to yourself, narrowing your eyes at your near hysterical boyfriend.

“The Bear doesn't get the concept of Easter, let alone an Easter Egg hunt, babe.” He howled, his curly head rolling back with its mirth.

“So!” You huffed, pouting at him. “I think it's cute. I also want us to do one. To see who can find the most. The fastest.”

Henry sobered up a tad at that. “All right, babe. You're on.” He smirked, cupping your face in his hands and gently kissing your forehead. “Which do you want to do first?”

“Kal.”

“Done.” He nodded, dropping his hands and looking over the colorful sea of plastic eggs and prizes to put inside of them, that you'd come home with a short time before. “You know, my fans would absolutely eat this all up.” He remarked to himself, biting the corner of his lip and thinking it over, then glanced at you.

“Can I film it?”

“If you want to, Puppy.” You replied, grabbing a four pack of jumbo eggs and ripped it open.

“Sweet, I'll be right back. While you figure out what you're doing--” He waved his hands over the cluttered dining table. “Here.” He chuckled, before rushing off.

Looking over the prizes, you picked out a cute dog toy. It was made of rubber and looked like a throwing stick. You had gotten it cause Kal was a beast of a chewer, when it came to his toys, and this one was supposed to be nearly indestructible. Fitting it inside the bright yellow, jumbo egg, you dropped a couple of Kal's favorite peanut butter and blueberry treats in with it, so he had something to sniff out, then closed it.

You had a reasonable amount of the eggs filled up for the hunts, when Henry finally came back into the dining room, kissing the back of your bent head.

“Everything is set up.” He informed you, casting his eyes over the booty. “You want some help?”

“That would be nice, thank you.” You replied, tilting your head back, smiling appreciatively at him.

“Is there a method to your madness?” He asked, pulling up a chair beside you.

“The eggs on the right are Kal's.” You motioned to the cluster. “I don't fancy getting a squeak toy or dog biscuits, during my hunt.”

Henry's face twisted and he shook his head. “No, I don't either.” He snorted, dropping some chocolates into the egg he grabbed.

“All right, here we go!” Henry exclaimed, grinning, as the two of you finished hiding the eggs, all while his phone recorded on a tripod, he planned on editing everything down later on. “Kal!” He called out and smiled, as the Bear came charging through the open slider and into the backyard.

“Are you ready to do your hunting?” He asked, bending over to scratch the Akita all over.

You and Henry had made sure to hide his eggs in, more or less, obvious places. But a couple had Kal working for them, like one small egg slipped between the braided fabric of his rope pull. Kal was slow at first, sniffing at the eggs, letting out little snorts as his nose picked up the scent of his treats inside of them. You were worried for a bit, that it was a flop. Making your heart sink. But when Kal found the stick toy, it was as if something magical sparked inside the Akita.

And he went wild.

Kal started zooming around the entire yard, diving into the manicured bushes and making them shake as he ran between them and the border fence. He rooted around the patio furniture, nearly knocking over Henry's big, green grill for a hot pink egg that was there; containing three different treats. He finally tackled the last egg, one of the jumbos, behind a large stone planter.

Bouncing around it so ecstatically, Henry couldn't take it from him to open and reveal what was inside.

“Kal.” Henry cracked up. “Let's see what Mama put in it for you, Bear!” He finally managed to swipe it away from the pup and crack it open, discovering the surprise. “Oh my god! Look, Kal!” He dissolved into a fresh fit of laughter, holding out a plush, taffy-pink, pig.

Kal bounced on his front paws, so he stood on his back legs and took the toy out of Henry's hand, finding the noise maker with his mighty jaws and causing the lightly stuffed pig to scream out a stream of oinks.

“Do you like it, Bear?” You giggled, grinning at him, relieved that Kal's egg hunt had ended so well.

“That pig is going to drive us bonkers, until he murders it.” Henry said, wiping tears from his bearded face.

“I know it is, but I couldn't help buying it.” You confessed, watching Kal go to town on the poor thing. “Look how cute it is, and he clearly loves it.”

“Right, well.” Henry sighed, composing himself. “Kal's hunt is over. Now, it's time for our Battle Egg-royal!” He proclaimed, a competitive expression coming over his face. “You're going first. So, go inside and I'll hide your eggs.”

“Very well.” You nodded, kissing his cheek.

“Mind yourself!” He called, as you headed inside with Kal. “No cheating!”

“I would never!” You huffed back at him, feigning insult.

Henry grabbed the basket of eggs he had made for you and got to work hiding them all over the backyard, pausing in front of camera for a moment, a cheeky look on his face, even though it wasn't live, he couldn't help it.

“No, watching my stream, babe!” He laughed, then went back to hiding the rest of his eggs.

Satisfied with where his eggs were, Henry opened the slider and called you back outside.

“I have the stopwatch pulled up on my mobile.” You said, handing it over to Henry.

“All right.” He nodded, taking it from you. “Ready. Set.”

He stood there for a moment and you stared at him.

“Henry!”

“Huh? Oh, right. GO!”

Rolling your eyes, you shot off the patio and started searching the area. Henry trailing after you. You found the first egg balanced on a stone column that a pot of flowers were situated on. Shaking it, you heard the egg-shaped chocolates inside. Henry held out your Easter basket, so you could store your found eggs and not worry about holding them or accidentally rediscovering them. You found a jumbo egg next, inside Henry's grill, which had you giggling.

“Oh, that's so cruel, Henry.” You huffed, finding your last three eggs lined up in a row, on top of the fence, out of your reach.

Henry smiled at you, triumphantly, his nose wrinkling cutely. “Hop, short stuff.”

“You'll pay for this later, Cavill.” You warned, narrowing your eyes at him and jumped for the eggs, just managing to grab them, without knocking them into the neighbor's yard on the other side.

“I doubt you can put anything out of my reach, Bean.” Henry quipped, winking at you, then glanced down at your phone. “Eighteen minutes.” He smiled, kissing your cheek. “Not a bad time, babe.”

“Thank you, now get your butt out of the yard!” You said, pointing towards the house.

“Yes, ma'am.” He nodded, obediently. “I'll take your basket inside with me.”

Biting your lip, you glanced around the yard and quickly got to work, trying to find the hardest places for him to find his eggs. Wanting payback for the shenanigans of those eggs on the fence. You even moved a few eggs a couple times, feeling like they were too easy to find, before you finally let Henry come back into the yard with you.

“It took you longer to hide them, than find them, sugar butt.” Henry commented, amused as he scanned the yard, trying to give himself a head start.

“I wasn't making it easy for you.” You said, setting up the stopwatch. “Ready. Steady. Go!” You barked, jumping up and down.

Henry quickly hurried off the patio, his first target was his grill. You had put an egg there for Kal and he had put one there for you. So, he had felt you'd follow that theme. But, alas, when he opened the hammered dome, he found it egg free. Eyes narrowing, he looked around and under it as well.

Still, no egg.

“Come on, Puppy.” You laughed, wickedly. “I said, I wasn't going to make it easy on you.”

“True.” He hummed back, shooting a narrow eyed look at you, before slowly scanning the yard again. “AH-HUH!” He exclaimed, spotting a small point of neon yellow under the hedge, that led towards the side of the house.

Making for the egg, Henry happened to catch the flicker of something out of the corner of his eye in the process and came to an abrupt stop. Turning towards it, he gently parted the flowers in the stone planter and reached inside, plucking out a pastel green egg. He held it up with a smirk, his blue eyes sparkling in the mid-afternoon sun.

“Two already!” He said, dropping the egg in his basket, and grabbed the other one.

From there, your strategy steadily went downhill. He found three more eggs within a span of a minute and five after that. You looked down at the stopwatch and felt your stomach clench. Henry's hunt was six minutes in and he had found almost all his eggs, leaving him on course to beat you.

“There you are, little bugger.” Henry grinned, finding the turquoise egg in the drain spout. “What's the time, love?” He asked, dropping it into the basket with the rest.

“Fifteen minutes.” You informed him, sighing.

Henry's arms shot up into the air. “Yes, I win!” He grinned, wiggling his muscular body in a victory dance.

“No.” You shook your head at him.

“What?” He frowned at you. “You found your last egg in eighteen minutes and I just found mine at fifteen, baby.” He explained to you, his arms falling back to his sides. “I beat you by three minutes.”

“But you missed one, Bear.” You told him, calmly.

“Where?” Henry snapped, blinking at you.

“Right there.” You said, pointing to a gold egg resting peacefully in the grass, at the edge of the paving stones, near his grill.

Henry's eyes narrowed at you. “What is this, babe?” He asked slowly, cocking his head at you. “There wasn't one there, when I started my egg hunt.”

“I don't know what to tell you.” You remarked, biting the inside of your cheek, fighting the twitching of your lips. “Perhaps you need glasses, old man.” You teased, as he crossed over to the egg. “Why don't you open it?” You suggested, once he had it in his hand.

“You do know it's Easter and not April Fool's day, don't you, honey?” He asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at you.

“Oh, I do.” You nodded, finally allowing yourself to smile at him.

Henry looked at his still recording phone. “If this thing blows up, you know who to blame, guys.” He quipped, popping open the plastic egg and found a folded piece of paper inside. “What, are you proposing to me?” He chuckled, saying it for shock value.

That was until he finished unfolding the paper and concentrated on what it was.

You move to stand before Henry, smiling up at him, while his mouth gently fell open and his eyes grew. “Happy Easter, Henry.” You cooed at him, resting your hands on his hips.

“Is this-” He gulped thickly, looking between you and the paper. “Is this—real?”

“Mmhm.” You nodded, tearing up, seeing his blue eyes start to glisten and his breathing shutter as he became choked up, emotional. “I found out last week.” You explained to him, taking the sonogram from him. “So, I thought this would be the coolest way to tell you. To train you for future Easter egg hunts with the help of our four legged son.”

Henry caught you up in his arms and spun you around, his blue eyes blurred with tears of overwhelming happiness, while burying his face into your neck as he held you tight against his body. He sniffled into your neck and you hugged him tight, feeling content.

“Christ alive, I love you.” Henry cried, tears dripping down his bearded face, as he set you back down on your feet, then looked over at his phone, just then remembering it was recording. “We're pregnant!” He announced, beaming.

[yinyuedijun]

I feel so crazy over aventurine guys

[thecryptidenthusiast]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[oopsalltes]

happy slightly belated easter from DIM naoto in a bunny suit because i hauve covid /q

[are-we-really-doing-this]

Sam Rivers 🐣Easter🌷 Sunday

[brown-little-robin]

40: Patience

part one | previous | next | masterlist | ao3 version

“I felt your fear.”

Thad is still in a fighting stance, chest heaving. Joey needs to calm him down before they get into any details.

“Let’s sit down.”

Thad drops straight to the floor. Words tumble from him. “What do you mean? How did it happen?”

Joseph spreads his hands. Thad looks from his hands to his face and back again, anxious-fast. Joseph wishes that telling the boy to calm down would work, but it won’t. First, Thad needs to be told the truth.

Joseph signs, “It was like a dream. I felt scared, but I knew I wasn’t scared. It was your fear.”

“Are you sure?”

Joseph nods. He lowers himself to the floor and shivers at the cold metal. He’s starting to realize that taking care of Thad will involve a lot of sitting in strange places.

“Okay.” Thad looks at the dark ceiling for a second, frowning. “Okay. Okay. I think I know what happened.”

Joey puts his hands in his lap. 

“There’s two options. One: this was a fluke caused by whatever the spirit in the speed force did to me. And two: this is the way that our lightning rod connection will manifest. Either is possible. I know the speed force allows speedsters some level of access to each other’s emotions; it’s all in the history books. I just don’t know if this is permanent or not.”

“We have a lightning rod connection?”

“Oh!” Thad sounds flustered. If the light was brighter, Joseph guesses he'd see Thad blushing. “Yes. It worked. I can feel it. Can you?”

Hmm. Joseph wonders. He meets Thad’s eyes and concentrates—

—and feels himself sliding out of his corporeal form. No!

He stops, but the damage is done. Thad shudders.

“What was that?!”

Joseph raises his hands and smiles sheepishly. “I was trying to find the lightning rod and I accidentally started to possess you. Sorry.”

Don’t be scared. Please don’t be scared.

“I couldn’t move,” Thad says. “I could still see you, but I couldn’t move. How does that work?”

Joseph shrugs. “It takes a second. I’ve been told that people can see my eyes change color before I possess them.”

He waits for Thad to say what everyone does: some variation of an awestruck or terrified the whites of your eyes turned black!

“Sooo,” Thad says. The fear has left his voice; he sounds intrigued. “You paralyze people before you actually attack, like a parasitic insect.”

Joseph tries not to grimace, but his face has always been too expressive for his own good. Thad cringes.

“Sorry. I’m sorry—”

Joey flicks his fingers from his palm, forgiving him. He didn’t mean it cruelly.

Thad was raised as a weapon. He was dehumanized for so long that it must be normal to him, comparing himself and others to terrible things.

Thad is silent for a moment, but his manic energy is still coiled under his skin; Joseph can see it in the way his eyes move, darting around the dark room. ‘My old lair’, Thad called this place earlier. ‘CRAYDL’.

So this is where he grew up, this… birdcage of wires and tubes. Even though Thad told him some about his childhood, Joseph never imagined a place as bleak as this. And it shares a name with his CRAYDL? There are things here that Joseph doesn’t understand but that he doesn’t dare ask about. Not yet.

“Joseph?”

“Yes?”

“We have a problem.”

Joseph’s focus sharpens. Thad licks his lips.

“I kidnapped you.”

Joseph laughs. He knows it’s the wrong response even as he does it, but honestly, the word kidnapped referring to Thad whisking Joseph away is funny.

“No, you don’t understand. I kidnapped you!”

Joseph’s fey amusement vanishes. Thad is in actual distress. He signs, “Yes. You weren’t in your right mind. No one is going to be angry at you.”

No one could be angry at Thad for acting on impulse for once in his life. After he announced that he’d never been happy before in front of everyone, too!

Thad is cringing, as he always does when Joseph says something gentle that he can’t immediately believe. But he leans toward Joseph, a flower toward the sun.

“Wally West was chasing me,” he points out.

Joseph gestures for Thad to go on.

“He…” Thad glances up and around again. “He’ll want to know why I ran away.”

“I’ll explain.” It’s the least Joseph can do. “Don’t worry.”

Thad searches Joseph’s face, searches like he’s looking for lies or “but”s or “just kidding”s. Joseph looks back. Finally, Thad relaxes a little.

“Okay.”

Joseph watches him for more questions.

No questions come. Joseph gets up and stretches casually. Thad watches him with big, wary eyes shining like pools in the dim green light, and Joseph gets the impression of a cat trying to read human body language.

“Do you want to go home?” Joseph asks.

“What, to Max’s house? Uh… well, yes, I'll have to go back eventually, but first I have to explain to Wally West, and ask Zatanna about antidepressants—oh grife! What time is it?”

Antidepressants? More things Joey will have to figure out later. Thad sounds like a stressed-out businessman, and he's almost shaking with anxiety again. Joseph checks his phone for the time. There’s no signal, but the time is correct. He turns it around so Thad can see it.

“1:26?! Zatanna only has about half an hour left! Joseph, what do I do? I can’t run—”

Joseph snaps his fingers. Thad’s mouth snaps closed.

“Calm down.”

Thad takes an obedient, exaggerated breath, but he’s still awfully tense.

Joseph tells him, “We don’t have to do everything right now.”

“I need to talk to Zatanna, she said she had an hour to talk after—”

“We’ll contact her later.”

“But—”

Joey puts his finger on his lips and hisses shhhh.

Thad falls silent immediately. Everyone always stops and stares at him when Joey makes a noise. There’s a moment where they feel like he’s about to start speaking. It’s effective, and Joseph tries not to use it.

Joseph finger-spells Thad’s name. “Thad. Remember we talked about how you don’t have to be in charge anymore?”

That makes the boy’s shoulders hunch.

“…Yes.”

“You don’t have to be in charge right now.”

Thad makes a low, growly sound.

Joseph makes a ‘come at me’ gesture.

As if he was just waiting for permission, Thad snarls, “Everyone’s been postponing everything for so long. I’m sick of it. I want to be done with all this stupid indecision!”

Joey nods.

“I hate this,” Thad hisses. “I just want to be finished. Is that too much to ask?”

Oh, now that’s suicidal thinking. Joseph will need to handle this carefully.

Joseph signs, “You just want the decisions to be over.”

“Yes!”

Thad’s fingers squeeze his arm, tight, too tight.

“I just want to be settled,” he says, quieter. “I can’t go on like this, waiting and waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“I understand,” Joseph signs, with a surge of pity for the boy. He remembers when he was a child and people made decisions about him that he couldn’t contribute to. “I’ll try to get you settled quickly. But some of it you’re going to have to wait on.”

“What parts? Why?”

“Medication,” Joseph signs. “Antidepressants. That’s a big decision. You can’t rush into that.”

“But I—” Thad huffs like he’s irritated beyond words. “I’m depressed! I need antidepressants! It’s not that hard of a puzzle!”

Joseph winces. “I wish it was that simple. There are some pros and cons you don’t know about… risks… Listen. We’re going to take that very slow.”

Thad grimaces at him for a moment. Then he collapses into a discouraged slump. Such a little teenager.

“Why does everything have to be so slooow,” he groans into his hands.

Joseph snaps his fingers. Thad peers at him through his fingers.

Joseph raises his eyebrows and signs, “You’re patient, right?”

Thad laughs. It’s a hysterical little laugh, but it’s genuine.

“Yeah.”

“You waited six hundred twelve years. You can do a little while longer.”

“As long as I’m with you,” Thad sighs. “I really can’t live with Max much longer. I’m on my last nerve.”

Joseph nods.

“You’ve done good. Not much longer now.”

“Yeah,” Thad says, and he bares his teeth in something similar to a smile. “Not much longer now.”

After a few companionable minutes, Joseph gets Thad to vibrate them both up to the surface of the earth. His phone has bad reception inside ‘the lair’, and he wants to contact Thad’s family. He lets Thad watch him text Wally and then Max, assuring them that everything is fine and they can come pick up Thad and Joseph in a minute. He signs the texts with a sunflower emoji because he’s fairly sure that Thad would never use an emoji, even if he was pretending to be Joseph. As a subtle way of assuring the family that Thad didn’t murder him and then steal his phone, Joseph is fairly proud of it.

Thad fidgets beside him, shoulders shifting and fingers digging into his own arm. Joseph puts away his phone and looks down into his face.

“Can…” Thad loses confidence, then visibly steels himself. “Can we go back down there for a while?”

Joseph nods. There’s no rush now that the family has been informed.

Thad takes Joseph down again. The vibration leaves Joseph briefly feeling like he’s knocked the head of an electric toothbrush against his tooth, but inside his entire body.

The sensation fades fast. His eyes adjust to the dim green lights again, and he finds Thad not spending a private moment looking at his former home, as Joseph had expected, but looking at Joseph.

Waiting.

It must be an eternity for Thad, sometimes, Joseph thinks. Staring at him while his mere human body adjusts to Thad’s lightning-quick actions. He’s grateful Thad is willing to wait… and that he shows no signs of impatience about it. Thad is just standing there, hands behind his back, serious yellow eyes staring at Joseph like he’ll never get tired of it.

After a moment, Joseph prompts, “Want anything?”

Thad bites his lip.

“Can I… touch you…?”

Aww. He’s slipped back into feeling awkward about asking for affection while he was gone. Joseph smiles at him and nods, opening his arms.

Thad takes a step forward and then stops inhumanly fast.

“Actually, I… was hoping that maybe…”

Joseph smiles encouragingly at him. “Yes?”

“Could you, be on the floor, and I could—”

Thad’s face is all scrunched up with the effort of asking. Joseph sits and opens his arms again. Thad stops talking with a relieved sigh and plops himself down in Joseph’s lap.

He’s heavy. Not as heavy as he should be, though, poor skinny boy. Joseph holds him tight, finds himself beginning to sway, and gives into the impulse. Thad sighs again and goes limp.

He’s had a long day, huh?

Joseph wishes he could whisper it to him. His hands are taken up by holding him. Oh well. The cuddles will have to do.

[thnxforknowingme]

A year ago (approximately, because Easter is like that), I sat in a Starbucks in Washington DC and made this silly graphic on my phone to post a snippet of Miles To Go on Easter Sunday (which also happened to be my birthday that year). I was in the midst of a month-long trip to visit friends and family across the Eastern US, making up for cancelled pandemic travel and trying to figure out what the hell my next step in life was.

I’m currently sitting in a coffee shop in Nashville - my first stop on that trip in April 2022, and where I ended up moving to last summer. I don’t know what my next step will be, but I’ve been enjoying this one pretty well.

This means it’s been over a year that I’ve been posting WIP Wednesdays and Six Sentence Sundays (although certainly not every week), so a hearty thank you to @forabeatofadrum for getting me into this. It’s been such a fun way to share my writing and reflect on progress (or lack thereof). It’s also been so fun to see other people share little bits of writing or other creations - I genuinely look forward to it every week. The past couple years have been some of the most productive for me as a writer in my whole life, and what’s made them especially enjoyable is the community that I feel among other glee writers and readers. So thank you to everyone reading for making something special together.

Anyway, I do actually have some writing to share lol. I am now turning my attention back to working-title-Disaster-Boys. Here are seven sentences from that:

"I haven’t worked out the details yet. I’ll have to make up the credits some other time.” He pressed his fingertips to his temple. “God, I hope this doesn’t mess with my financial aid.”

“Kurt,” Mr. Schue said, his face suddenly lighting up. “I might have an idea.”

A Journey medley? Kurt thought to himself, but held his tongue.

While I haven't actually written anything new for the draft yet, yesterday I finally started creating a calendar for the story, which I think is gonna be super helpful. Below the cut is a photo of my extremely messy first draft of that (with some of the more spoilery plot points redacted).

Tagging @backslashdelta @special-bc-ur-part-of-it @blurglesmurfklaine @starpunchsoup @cerriddwenluna @quizasvivamos @rockitmans @redheadgleek @calliopemelpomene @coffeegleek @caramelcoffeeaddict @jayne89 and anyone else who wants to share! Thank you for being here :)

[wndaswife]

(fic request) pls write this w nun!wanda (if you want) 😵😵😵

to worship and submit | wanda maximoff & fem!reader

Being the daughter of the man that leads the church choir means attending the services when you run out of excuses to be anywhere else, but a young woman who's recently joined the parish to become a nun has begun to make your time there worthwhile.

Word count: 7419

Tags: smut, fluff, humour, sacrilege, quite literally fucking in front of a crucifix, even i feel slightly guilty for writing it, strap-ons, rough sex, spanking, slapping, spitting, degradation, praise, daddy kink, mentions of masturbation, sub!wanda maximoff, dom!reader | MINORS DNI

A/N: SO... i did do some research for this fic... but only SOME... meaning some of the info may be incorrect fyi!!!

gif credit to evilly

Every Sunday since your dad joined the church as their choir leader, you’d been making yourself busy in advance just in case he’d ask if you wanted to come to the services. 

You were proud of your dad — really, you were — because he loved music and loved the community the church brought him, and the church was closeby to where your mom worked as an elementary school teacher, so your parents were able to work together when there were community events that involved both the school and the church.

Though, being happy for your dad didn’t mean you also had to be happy when he invited you to the services.

Sometimes you’d attend special occasions like Easter and other holidays and church events wherein your dad prepared his own assortment of music and such for the choir to play, but only because you were there to support him and what he was passionate about — music and community and his family.

Such events were big deals at the church he volunteered at because it was well-known for its large community; the church itself was closely connected to a nearby convent where it had close ties to the nunnery there, as well as having one of if not the most ornate architecture all preserved within a historically-significant religious landmark.

But for the last few weeks, he hadn’t asked you to go with him because he was so busy with the new influx of students joining from the Catholic elementary school your mom worked at; they were all there singing on the weekends for their volunteer hours, but at the very least, your dad said they were still enthusiastic and friendly kids.

So on the morning of one of the very rare occasions in which you hadn’t had anything planned for the Sunday because you weren’t expecting him to invite you as he hadn’t for the last while, your dad invited you to the service.

You could’ve truly made up an excuse and flat-out lied about being busy, but it’d been a while since he asked and you knew he’d been working hard with the new students in his group, so you supposed it wasn’t so much trouble to accept his offer, even if you did groan it out in a superficial fit about having to get out of bed earlier.

It wasn’t that you not being religious had anything major to do with avoiding going to church, because you didn’t entirely mind when your religious parents brought you to the services for special occasions, but rather because you didn’t very much have the patience or sufficient concern for the readings and worship to attend the nearly-two-hour services.

That was truly your most pressing issue with attending the Sunday services with your dad, but today was different, with an unexpected experience to make you dread going even more than you did previously.

“Excuse me?” a timid, unfamiliar voice chirped from behind you.

You turned to see a young woman standing by the doorway of the back hall where the entrance to the choir balcony was. 

Typically, you sat around there when your dad was conducting because you weren’t very involved in the church enough to sit at the pews nor were you part of the choir. 

But from where you were sitting, you weren’t entirely uninvolved as you could still see and hear the services — it was the perfect spot. 

“You aren’t allowed to sit here,” the young woman told you, running the pads of her two fingers along the edge of her sleeve. 

Her dark brown hair was neatly pulled back into a conservative bun and she was wearing a black plain dress with a modest plain scoop neckline to show the buttons and collar of the crisply-ironed long-sleeved white blouse underneath that all of the church’s nuns wore, but the simplicity of her outfit and the uncovering of her hair meant to you that she was presently studying at the church to become a nun. 

“I’m the choir dude’s daughter,” you said with a polite smile and looked away, expecting for your response to be all the elaboration she needed. 

In a way that was subtle with the intention not to be offensive but in that very manner was offensive in itself because of how irritating her caution was, the woman cleared her throat. 

“I-I know,” she pressed, “but this area isn’t open for seating. For anyone.”

When you didn’t answer for a moment as you stared at her, she quickly said, “I’m sorry. They told me to tell you.”

“I’ll find a spot in the pews,” you answered and collected your things. 

From the corner of your eye, it seemed that she wanted to offer a seating alternative just to make up for what she was forced to tell you, but there wasn’t very much else she could offer. 

That Thursday, you were back at the church to pick up an ironed uniform for your dad; it was for a special event set for the upcoming Sunday, and the church pressed it for him and everything. 

It was a nice gesture.

They were nice people.

On Thursdays, there were only morning services and events for children in another spacious room where they could colour and play with the church’s team leaders and nuns. 

But in the afternoon — which it now was — there wasn’t anything going on. 

When you arrived, the church was still and warm with gentle sunlight shining through the stained glass windows and casting a myriad of colours against the pews. 

You looked over your dad’s text again and walked through the directions he told you to take to get to the back halls of the church, just a few turns from the stairway that led up to the choir balcony. 

The room where you were to pick up the uniform was as pretty as the rest of the church; it was a small prayer room with a pedestal and stained windows and red carpeting, but it was much cozier and probably hadn’t been used for prayer for the group size it was designed for in a little while.

You could see through the glass door the folded uniform for your dad on the windowsill behind the pedestal with a name tag placed on top of it ready for pick-up along with a few other clothes for some other church volunteers. 

Upon entry, you closed the door quietly behind you and stepped into the room where you could now see a small table by the window and a familiar young woman sitting with a notebook, jotting a few things down from what looked like a leather-bound book. 

“Can I just get my dad’s uniform from there, or do I need to sign it off or something?” you asked, announcing your presence. 

She looked up from the notebook and at you then to the uniforms on the windowsill. 

“Oh, you’re…” She paused and thought for a moment. “The choir conductor’s daughter?”

“Yeah.”

“I can sign it off for you,” she replied and smiled. 

She stood from the table and walked around it to the uniforms, where a piece of paper was set beside the line of neatly-folded clothes.

You watched as she jotted down a few things onto the paper with a pen before carefully picking up the packaged uniform and turning to hand it to you.

“Thank you,” you answered. 

“Of course. Have a good day,” she replied and bid you a goodbye before heading back to the table by the window. 

You were on the way to leave the room, but you couldn’t, for some odd reason, take your eyes away from the way she lowered herself into her seat and resumed her notetaking. 

She didn’t notice when you changed your direction and walked towards the table she was sitting at until you were perhaps just a metre away from her, when she then looked up from her notes and up at you. 

“Did I give you the wrong uniform?” she asked, worried and now standing up from her chair. 

“No,” you answered quickly and waved your hand.

She stayed standing, curious as to why you walked back. 

“Hard at work?” you asked, pointing at her notebook. 

Confused for a moment, perhaps by your curiosity in speaking with her, she looked over to her notebook and then back at you with a friendly smile, “Yes, a little. They gave me something to study from. I’m just taking notes.”

Carefully, you reached forward and spun her notebook around so you could read it. 

Her curiosity seemed to spike when you leaned forward to read her notes, and she looked at you with a small smile. 

“Um,” she started awkwardly. “I want to apologise for earlier this week. For making you move seats.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” you replied and looked up from her notes to smile at her reassuringly. “I know they just made you tell me because you’re new.”

The young woman seemed reassured, her shoulders even relaxing a bit when you said it. 

“You’re still… What do you call it? Like, you’re studying to be a nun here? Not fully one yet?”

She shook her head. 

“Yes, I’m in the study period before becoming a novitiate,” she answered. 

Your fingers ran over her delicate handwriting, feeling the indentations of her pen against the paper.

“To worship and submit,” you read aloud from the notebook. “Fascinating.”

She caught onto your twinge of sarcasm but approached it with humour, laughing a little and conceding, “It is a bit medieval, but an important quality, I’d presume.”

Reflecting suddenly on how young the woman seemed much younger than the other nuns, you asked her, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

She was a bit older than you, but still quite young.

Her hair was down now, though still neatly brushed and free of frizz and tucked behind her ears. She was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt and an ankle-length black skirt patterned lightly with gardenias. 

“How did you get into wanting to be a nun, anyhow?” you asked and moved your attention away from the notebook and towards her. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“I-I don’t?” she inquired, almost sounding nervous at the implication that she wasn’t training herself properly. 

“I mean, pious and submissive — sure,” you said, referring to her notes, which made her seem a bit flustered, “but not like a nun.”

She questioned curiously, “More like…?”

After humming aloud in thought, you turned to her with your hip laying against the edge of the table and suggested, “Elementary school teacher. Vet. I don’t know, something like that.”

She was pretty — truly. 

Cute, even. 

“When I was younger, I wanted to be a vet,” she told you, smiling sweetly. 

“Changed your mind?”

“Younger as in quite young, perhaps around ten,” she recalled. “My parents are both rather religious and ever since I turned fourteen it’s always been their intention to have me join a congregation.”

Interest piqued, you asked, “And your intention for yourself was…?”

“For myself?” she repeated as if taken by surprise. 

You nodded once. 

She paused for a moment to hum thoughtfully before saying, “I was happy to follow whichever path my parents intended for me.”

“You find passion in nunnery?” you asked. “Genuine question — not judging.”

“Of course,” she answered. 

Your phone buzzed in your pocket and you quickly checked it to see that your dad had messaged asking if you were able to pick up his uniform.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been holding you back from something,” the woman apologised and stepped to the side to allow you to leave.

Sliding your phone back into your pocket and adjusting your dad’s uniform in your hand, you replied, “No, not at all. My dad’s just impatient. I should get going now though, since here’s a few errands I have to run before noon.”

She nodded in understanding. 

“It was nice being able to talk with you,” she then said. “I haven’t been able to talk with very many people since I came here. It’s all just been about studying and the church.”

Before you left, you made sure to ask for her name, to which she replied telling you it was ‘Wanda.’

Cute name.

It’d been quite a while since you ever attended the services two weeks in a row. The last you did was during the last half of August the first year your dad started conducting the church choir, during which you had nothing else to do but wait for classes to start — so you went to the services.

This time, because the church was celebrating something special, your dad asked both you and your mother to attend the service because he’d been working on preparing a set of songs for the occasion.

Under the guise of being a supportive daughter, your parents didn’t second guess why you were so willing to attend the service this week, nor did they ask if there was a certain individual you were perhaps a bit excited to see again.

Truthfully, you couldn’t stop thinking of Wanda since you last saw her a few days ago. There was much to her you felt laid dormant and sleeping, awakened only just in the slightest during the conversation you had with her. She was kind and curious, but also painfully naive. 

She was a few years older than you but knew far less about the truth of her own ambitions and strayed perhaps not even a foot’s distance away from behind her parents’ shadows.

Wanda was interesting, but intrigued you for far too long for her to be only that. Though you couldn’t very well figure out what it was about her that made her bounce around in your head like a pinball until an unassuming evening.

It was sincerely an unrelated act when you first started, travelling your hand down between your legs in the silence of the evening to relieve yourself of the pent-up stress from classes that’d come over you during the last few days.

Truly, it was completely unrelated to Wanda and anything and everything about her when you started, and even during, until you reached your peak of release and found your imagination flashing with curiosities about what she looked like under her garments, how she’d squeal if you spanked her ass and if she’d like it, or how she’d cry out in sheer pleasure if you forced her down and made her take her spankings regardless.

For a moment afterwards there was guilt, but every day onwards there was curiosity, wondering for hours about what you’d seen when you reached that point of pleasure during which Wanda was your only muse.

You’d like to tell yourself it was only that curiosity that guided your willingness to attend the service with your parents, but it was something else entirely too — something completely carnal.

For the first hour of the service, Wanda was still nowhere to be seen. Because of the church’s connections with its convent, the nuns had a large role in some of the day-to-day happenings, but mostly during important church events like what you were presently attending.

Wanda wasn’t a nun yet; she was yet to be even a novitiate as she had mentioned, and so perhaps she just didn’t get to attend events like these. 

Though you personally found that counter-productive, you weren't one to complain about the convent’s decisions, but you did wish you got to see Wanda.

If she wasn’t one to be able to attend such events, when would you see her next?

After coming to the realisation that you probably just weren’t going to see her today or perhaps even for a little while, you excused yourself after having been present for nearly all of your dad’s song arrangements and with enough time to be able to be back from the washroom with well-enough time to catch the rest of his songs.

To your surprise, you saw the very woman who’d been on your mind for the last hour was sitting in the hall by the stairway that led up to the choir balcony. She was wearing the same outfit as she had been the first time you met her, with her hair done up in the same way too.

“Excuse me, but you aren’t allowed to sit here,” you teased, approaching from the right and walking into the hallway.

She quickly swiped at her eyes and began to apologise before she raised her head and saw it was you who had spoken to her, and you who now stood beside the bench she was sitting on.

Though she smiled and seemed relieved and happy to see you, you could tell that she’d just been crying — alone in this hallway away from the service and the nuns and sitting at the far end of the bench so as not to be seen by the people attending the mass.

Wanda stood, running her palms down the sides of her dress with a friendly smile while saying, “You’re here.”

“Yeah,” you answered distractedly as you focused on the slight redness of her eyes and the tip of her nose. 

You then asked once you were sure she’d been crying, “Are you okay?”

Suddenly feeling self-conscious after realising it must've been obvious that she’d been crying, Wanda carefully wiped under her eyes again and even tried making herself seem less dishevelled by tucking her hair behind her ears before you took her hands away from her face and made her stop fidgeting with her appearance.

“Seriously, what’s wrong?” you pressed.

Dismissively as to not bring any more attention to herself, she told you, “It’s really nothing. It’s nothing to bother you with.”

“I wanna be bothered,” you answered lightheartedly. “Come on.”

Wanda smiled at your gaiety and you urged her to tell you what was wrong once more before she finally exhaled in surrender though she didn’t sit down before speaking, implying that in spite of the fact of giving in to you, she wasn’t very well planning on delving too deep into what had been bothering her.

“Earlier today, I had accidentally misplaced the leather book I’d been studying from — the one you saw me with a few days prior, if you can remember,” she said. “And I was scolded terribly for it. It was quite deserving as it was an important collection of notes and such, so I do not question from where my scolding had come, but it seems to me that all I’ve done since I started here is get myself in trouble with the other nuns.”

Here, you tried taking her hand and urging her to sit down, but she wouldn’t, and slipped her fingers out of your hold.

“They found the book in one of the small prayer rooms I’d been studying in, so at the very least it was not a mistake of ruining the integrity of the book by losing it completely, but rather the very principle of having been given something so important and misplacing it,” she continued.

Wanda swallowed and seemed to be contemplating whether to go into more detail, and you could tell that there was something else that had been bothering her that didn’t exactly have to do with misplacing the book.

Before she had the chance to make a decision, there was a passerby who came from the service in search of the restrooms, which interrupted Wanda’s train of thought as she and the man exchanged a brief hello.

“We can go somewhere else,” you offered, taking her hand and heading down the hallway with her. She didn’t take her hand away from you this time, but instead told you that she only needed time to be on her own and that she was fine now. 

The only other place you knew was the prayer room you picked your dad’s uniform up in, and fortunately it was unlocked.

You ushered Wanda into the room and she smiled at you from behind and you led her forward to one of the front seats in front of the altar, regarding you with admiration for the effort you put into wanting to express your concern for her and make sure she felt heard. 

The early morning beams of light shone through the stained glass like they had that afternoon you’d come here a few days prior, but the room was far less stuffy now, familiar and almost reminiscent of something nostalgic. 

The feeling could easily be because of the fact that you’d been envisioning what you could remember from it nearly every hour since that past Thursday, with the room in the background of your mental portrait of Wanda. 

She settled down in the seat beside you, feeling encouraged more so because she wanted now to be closer to you rather than solely to sit and talk about what had been bothering her. 

But she could partake in the latter if that was what you asked of her — and it was. 

“I know that I hardly know you, but I’ve been here for nearly a whole month and you are the person I feel closest to,” she confessed.

You felt flattered, though you knew telling you that she felt close to you wasn’t exactly the point of why she said that. 

Wanda further reflected aloud, “I’m getting nowhere I’m supposed to, not finding the call to God like both my parents and the nuns told me about though I have even given it plenty of time. I studied English in college and yet can find not even a little interest in my religious readings.”

While she thought in silence for a moment, you didn’t interrupt her. 

When she found the words to verbalise what she’d been meaning to say, she began with a question: “Do you remember when you asked what my own intentions were for myself? On Thursday?”

You nodded. 

“It’s ridiculous, but I can’t even recall the last time I sincerely asked that to myself, but perhaps in shallower terms, such as wondering where I might be in a few years or what I might do with my time in the convent.

“But never what I wanted — never who I wanted to be.”

After a moment, when you were sure she wasn’t trying to find words to express herself nor contemplating whether to say something, you asked, “And do you know who you want to be?”

For a brief moment — half of one, really — Wanda looked thoughtful, and then she said and gestured to her clothing and the prayer room, “Not this.”

“So then, what?” you inquired further. 

You teased, “A vet?”

Wanda giggled and sat back a bit in her seat. “Perhaps if I were ten,” she said. 

Then more seriously, she added, “But now, I’m not very sure.”

“How did you come to realise what you were interested in?” Wanda asked. “For example, your studies. What are you studying?”

She was talking fast, obviously very invested in your conversation together and also rather curious about you. 

You thought that was cute; you liked Wanda. 

“I’m studying philosophy,” you told her to which she straightened and was eager to hear more about. “But with studies, it’s different, because you’re talking about more personal matters. Academics are far different from personal paths.”

Wanda seemed a bit disappointed because she was looking for a definite answer, but what you explained certainly made sense to her. 

She pondered about something then instead asked, “So about personal matters, then. What about those?”

“What about them?”

“Give me a principle to follow,” she sought. “Something I might be able to apply here. Something as general as you’d like it to be, but applicable.”

Her steadily growing smile made it clear that though she was certainly looking for advice, she also thoroughly enjoyed exchanging quips with you and exploring more about you. 

In a way, she was as eager to learn about you than how to help herself, if not more so. 

You hummed thoughtfully and Wanda watched as you were deep in thought. 

“A principle for you,” you said, “could easily be that it’s okay to be selfish, to think only of yourself when you’ve spent so long doing anything else.”

Wanda asked, slightly amused but far more curious, “You recommend hedonism?” 

“To you?”

She nodded. 

You replied, “Indubitably.”

If you hadn’t already been thinking of Wanda in painfully great amounts before that morning, then you certainly were afterwards. 

The third week came around and by then Wanda was banging against every square inch of your skull like an intruder, necessitating the need to be seen and thought of every other minute in any way you could.

Perhaps the relationship you developed with her thus far was one of friendship and nothing more, yet her persistence that never strayed too far from your mind seemed to you that she had become reminiscent of something greater than a platonic figure. 

In any case, you had to muster the ability to ask your dad in the most nonchalant manner you could if it were possible for you attend Sunday’s service. 

You did it in a way that did not make it seem to him that you were about to become a familiar face in the church, but rather that someone had simply happened to ask you for help during the last service and wondered if you might be able to attend the next ��� which is quite literally what you told him. 

It wasn’t a lie. 

Not even when you said that it was a young woman who was studying to become a novitiate at the convent that was curious about the choir and the other volunteers and had asked you about it last week, because Wanda did truly ask about the choir and the other people who volunteered at the church once. 

But that wasn’t at all the reason why you wanted to attend the service that Sunday. 

“Y/N,” a voice called in a hushed tone when you passed the hallway leading up to the choir stairway where your dad had already walked up towards. 

You slipped away from the people filing into the pews and quickly came to Wanda’s side. 

“Don’t you have places to be aside from fraternising with the guests?” you teased as she took your wrist and led you towards the room you both seemed to like talking in the most. 

“After last week’s ordeal with the book, I’ve been put on some kind of probation from participating in the services so I have more time to study independently,” she told you, not seeming particularly worried.

She added, “On Sundays, the convent is rather empty, so they wouldn’t notice that I’m off not studying. Though I could very well say I chose to study in one of the extra prayer rooms here.”

“And I’m sure they remember how much you love the prayer rooms here,” you said, wiggling your eyebrows at your reference to her having lost the book in one of them. 

Wanda faked a laugh in the driest manner you’d ever heard and you nudged her arm to which she told you to stop joking around with her so she could tell you something important. 

She closed the prayer room door and sat you down beside her. 

From a small bag on the chair to her left, she pulled out a small dictionary. 

Here, you were tempted to make fun of her and ask why she was carrying around a dictionary so tiny, but you recalled that she had wanted to ask you about something serious. 

She flipped open to a page she had bookmarked. 

“Hedonism,” she read aloud. “In philosophy, the belief that pleasure and the absence of pain is the most important principle in determining the morality of an action.”

Wanda looked up at you from the dictionary. “This is what you meant?” she asked. 

You nodded. 

Curiously, you inquired, “Do you agree with it?”

She looked back down to the page in which had written three definitions of hedonism, the third being the one defined by philosophy. 

The first two you could not quite read upside down. 

“I have never heard of it in such detail before the time you mentioned it last week,” she said, running her eyes over the words in contemplation, “but it’s interesting.”

“What would be your first endeavour to pleasure, if you had to make a guess?” you asked her.

Wanda ran over the words of the definition again with her eyes, perhaps still deep in thought about it or absently doing so while she contemplated an answer to your question. 

“My first?” she repeated. 

You looked down at the dictionary page now that she was holding it at a slightly different angle that oriented the letters better for you. 

The first definition read, ‘Pursuit of pleasure.’

And the second — you had to tip your head to the side a bit to decipher it — read, ‘Sensual self-indulgence.’

During your deep concentration, Wanda had come to an answer to your question, and it wasn’t until she leaned forward and kissed your unsuspecting lips that you realised she had even stopped looking at the page. 

It was the uttering of her muffled words against your lips that triggered something deep within you, perhaps equally as restrained as her own. 

An unfinished sentence, but one on its own nonetheless. 

‘I want…’ she had uttered, breathless and with one hand cupping your cheek and feeling with the pads of her fingers the softness of your skin. 

With that, you hastily reached forward and grasped at her ass, lifting her from her seat and stripping her down so she was in nothing but her undergarments. 

The paths of your nails streaked red against her pale skin while you devoured her every step of the way, your lips following every inch of skin that became exposed to you while your hands made quick work of unzipping her dress and unbuttoning her blouse. 

She sighed when you kissed her breasts and squeezed your hands around her waist and hips, taking her selfishly and finally spreading her legs and sitting her down in your lap. 

“Are you…” you began between breaths, pausing to figure out your wording and sitting back in your seat to look at her. “Have you had sex?”

Wanda giggled, finding your question amusing. “Of course I have,” she replied and took your hands and placed them on her hips again. 

“Cocky,” you jested, hooking your thumb under the clasp of her bra and releasing it so it snapped against her back, causing her to arch her body into you with a soft gasp. “Thought you might’ve been abstinent or something.”

“I don’t mean to be cocky,” she said in a low voice. “But I am certainly not abstinent.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“Only if you choose to be.”

“I choose to be,” you said with conviction. “So for whom should I be jealous, then?”

“College students.”

You gasped superficially.

“You fuck college students? Exclusively?”

“No!” she laughed. “I mean I haven’t been very active since my time in college.”

“Haven’t had sex since college?”

She corrected, “I didn’t mean that either.”

“So what did you mean?”

“This conversation is like pulling teeth.”

“Why? You want me to fuck you hard against this floor right now, baby?” you asked. The very crudeness of your words, albeit teasing, made Wanda’s breath hitch, and so within that reaction you found her first tell. “No foreplay or anything?”

“This isn’t foreplay?”

“Hardly.”

“Then what is?” she asked though sounding slightly pouty about it. 

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re all turned on and impatient from just that. Teasing gets you off?” you pressed. “Didn’t even have to be told how I wanna see your gorgeous ass bruise when I fuck your cunt from behind like you’re my sick little fucktoy whore?”

Her hips twitched. 

“Y/N…” she muttered, perhaps out of impatience or forewarning for how you were teasing her, either way you could not tell and weren’t very rushed in trying to figure it out. 

You pulled her bra down and released one of her breasts, slapping it lightly with your fingers and causing her to gasp before pinching one of her sensitive pink buds. 

There would be no indulging her past what you were willing to indulge; you were careful not to touch her more than what was intentional. 

You bucked your hips up under the guise of adjusting your seating, grinding your stiff cock against the soaking panties which were now beginning to soak your pants. 

Her cunt was sensitive beyond the thin fabric, causing the strap to rub her perfectly through her soft, swollen folds; you could practically hear how sticky she was without even looking. 

“What is that?” she quickly asked, looking down between her thighs. She tried moving back to get a better look, but you quickly held onto her hip with your other hand and pulled her harshly back to her original position, making her throbbing clit rub directly onto your cock. 

A strangled yelp was breathed past her lips. 

“Don’t move unless I tell you to, you understand?” you told her. 

She nodded.

“Everywhere else in this building, there is only one God, but here in this room, I am yours. You will listen to what I tell you and take what I give you, even if it hurts. You’ll be grateful that I make you hurt as much as you will when I give you pleasure.”

In spite of everything, Wanda repressed a tiny smile and said, “You’re scary when you’re authoritative with me.”

You laughed through your nose and replied, “I can get scarier.”

Her smile widened into a grin and Wanda’s hand came to the back of your neck when you leaned forward and kissed her, one arm circling around her waist and carefully slipping her off your lap as you stood from your seat. 

“We’ll get caught,” she voiced concern against your lips.

“Then be the lookout.” 

You made sure she didn’t trip on her way up to the podium, and soon you had her chest laid flat against the lectern and facing the front doors, the shadow of the large crucifix behind the both of you casted against the red carpet from the morning sun shining from behind the stained glass. 

Wanda listened as you unzipped your pants and when she made an attempt to turn her head and look at what you were doing, you put your other hand against her upper back and pressed her back down, reducing her line of sight to your face and shoulder and nothing else. 

Her clothed cunt was prodded at, the stiff tip of your strap finding her hole through her panties and nudging at it teasingly. She groaned impatiently and reached back to take hold of your hand, to grab onto anything and urge you forward.

In response, you spanked her harshly and made Wanda yelp out in surprise and wince.

“You dirty, impatient slut,” you spat.

She immediately whimpered, “I’m sorry, daddy.”

That satisfied something in you that you hadn’t even known you wanted, and you were more than happy to share in that satisfaction.

You hummed and tucked a finger under the waistband of Wanda’s panties, making her twitch impatiently while also doing her best to listen to her orders. Then you laid your hand flat against her lower back, rubbing her supportively and making a warm flush form across her face.

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Wanda?” you asked, looking up her bent-over half-naked body to the back of her head.

She nodded.

“Good girl,” she confirmed with a nod.

Gently, you squeezed her ass and danced your fingers up to the waistband of her panties that you finally pulled down, exposing her gorgeous, glistening cunt.

It took just as much resistance from you not to shove your cock right into her as much as it took Wanda to not thrust her hips back and grind her clit against your strap.

“Why don’t you tell me all you’ve been studying about the last little while?” you said, running a hand down her ass and sliding a thumb into her pussy, feeling heaps of pride with the way you slipped inside with no resistance. 

She was incredibly wet and so, so warm.

Distracted by the way your thumb probed shallowly at her hole, giving her just enough pleasure to make her throb but just short of enough to satisfy her entirely, it took Wanda a few moments to regain her focus before she finally asked, “S-Studying? About what?”

“You’re a smart girl, Wanda,” you encouraged, slowly sliding your thumb out and grazing the pad of it lightly over her swollen slit and across the hood of her clit. “Methods on how to be a proper nun. For example, swear yourself to the Lord, abstain from sex, so on and so forth.”

Wanda swallowed and tried her best to focus with the way your thumb began spreading her cunt out, revealing to you the glistening folds of her pussy. She began stuttering and finally squeezed her eyes shut hard enough to be able to recall some of her studies.

“Um, there was…” she uttered and ran her fingers along the edge of the wooden lectern, “living in modesty; not showing off one’s body in any crude manner, not partaking in pleasures of the flesh.”

Three of your fingers began rubbing slow circles against Wanda’s hole, squelching against her dripping cunt and making her tremble and moan shakily.

“And what next?” you asked.

“I-I can’t… Can’t focus…” she told you helplessly.

Your thumb flicked at her clit and Wanda’s body jerked forward. 

“One more,” you urged. “Come on. Give me one more good one and I’ll fuck you with my cock. You want that, don’t you?”

Intentionally, you began to focus on her clit now, having your index finger graze it as your middle and ring finger slowly began delving in and out of her sticky hole, purposefully making it even more difficult for Wanda to find the words for herself.

“I want… I want that,” she shuddered, hanging her head and squeezed her eyes shut again.

“So, then, give me one more.”

Wanda’s breathing deepened as she tried her hardest to focus. 

With every intention to make it more difficult for her, you reached up with your other hand and pulled her bra down, allowing you access to knead her breast and feel her nipple harden against the palm of your hand.

She whimpered into her arm and bit down on her bottom lip.

You stepped forward and removed your fingers from her cunt to rub the length of your strap through her pussy, wet fingers taking hold of its base and running it through her swollen folds.

“A-Ah, Y/N, please…” she mewled, though neither of you were quite sure whether she was begging for you to stop and allow her to think thoroughly or for you to have mercy on her completely and just fuck her.

“One more,” you reiterated and aligned the tip of your cock with her entrance. 

You placed both hands on her hips and began pulling her backwards, fucking her shallowly and watching her pussy take your cock with just as much anticipation as Wanda was struggling to withhold.

She hugged around you beautifully and it was truly only the tip; you couldn’t wait another moment to fuck her until she was begging for you to fuck her until it hurt.

“A-Another,” she finally trembled out, “is to be, by nature, a woman of submission, to worship your God and seek no amount of personal domination over–”

Fully satisfied with her answer and terribly impatient yourself, your fingernails dug into Wanda’s hips and you jerked her ass back against you, forcing her to take your entire cock in one swift movement.

She cried out and you wrapped a hand around her waist, running your nails down her side and feeling an inexplicable need to mark her, to cause her pain, to reduce her to a whimpering trembling, bruised mess so cock-drunk that all she’d feel for the next three days is the aftermath of being rough-fucked like a slut.

“Hit me, please, daddy,” she begged, wrapping her fingers around the edge of the lectern and arching her back.

So you did — repeatedly. 

You spanked Wanda over and over, having the sound of your palm meeting her ass echo through the room and only reiterating to the both of you how she was much less of a nun or a student or any reflection of purity, but a braindead nympho whore good for nothing but getting her pussy fucked raw.

She was a loud fuck, crying out in whimpers and moans and other strings of partially-comprehensible words telling you how good your cock felt and how much she loved getting fucked by you.

The playing organs and belting choir playing during the service muffled Wanda out, but Jesus Christ, if any of them out there had been able to hear her getting fucked down the hallway, they might just think for a moment that it was the calling of an angel or at least something in some way divine.

But none of them would ever know what it looked like to fuck Wanda from behind, pulling her up with their hand around her neck so you had access to slap her face and spit into her mouth like you could, pinching her clit and fucking her through to her third orgasm.

How beautiful she looked, sweaty and a mess with her long brown hair fanned out and stuck in strands against her back, crying out in equal parts pain and pleasure and finding herself incredibly pleased by being used like a filthy object.

And you’d make sure no one else could get the chance to see the sight but you.

“I’m gonna come again, Y/N,” she cried, breasts pressed against the cold wood of the lectern and arms pressed against her back. “This is my last, please, I can’t take anymore.”

You let go of her wrists and wrapped an arm around her waist, lifting her from the lectern. She was arched at a slight angle so your arm could assist in continuing to fuck her, but she was now much closer, and she was now able to loll her head back against your shoulder.

“This is the closest thing a slut like you will ever get to heaven, angel,” you told her, kissing her temple. “Make your God proud and come on my cock, filthy bitch.”

Wanda reached back and held onto you for support while her eyes squeezed shut, her lips parting as a silent cry escaped her, her third and final orgasm coming over her without mercy.

You squeezed at her breast and leaned your head down and bit at her shoulder and up the back of her neck, getting in as many markings of your ownership as you could.

She sighed out and uttered your name, to which you ran your hands up her stomach, one hand moving up to her face and gently tilting her head over so you could kiss her lips.

Her knees buckled out and you carefully set her down on the floor before sitting down beside her. Wanda panted heavily into your chest, one hand on your knee and the other arm wrapped around your shoulder. 

You had your arms around her waist, rubbing her back supportively and whispering in her ear words upon words of how beautiful she looked, how good she’d been for you, then soon confessing how much you’d been thinking of her over the last few weeks, how much of your mind she occupied and how much of your time you spent thinking of her.

Wanda liked hearing that last part most, but she particularly enjoyed when you told her how it felt to masturbate to her, to imagine her looking up at you and choking on your cock at your final point of release, and how really being with her was plenty more enjoyable and, quite frankly, more beautiful than you ever could’ve fantasised about on your own. 

The both of you were on your knees, sweaty with the labour of sex and kneeling in each other’s arms at the foot of the towering crucifix, whispering and giggling to each other all the equally sweet and dirty confessions you could exchange before the service was over.

[covetyou]

egg hunt

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist ⋆ series masterlist

pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader rating: Explicit (18+ only!) warnings: oral sex (m! receiving), balls, questionable use of sex toys, semi-public blowjobs, eggs, Joel is a giant bunny, feelings, misunderstandings leading to angst. word count: 5.9k summary: Catching Joel dressed as a giant rabbit in your backyard wasn't on your bingo card for things to happen to you this year. But, what waits for you beneath the bunny suit, and in his basket, aren't the only surprises you'll have tonight.

A/N: truth be told I find eggs genuinely, criminally funny in every possible way, as well as disgusting, so happy Easter!

These egg things are hilarious, but also not nearly as fun as they seem, though if I'd had the genius idea to stick 'em on some balls I imagine I would've had a much better time tbh.

follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future fics

You almost don't notice, too busy shoving your cup harshly against the ice dispenser before taking a long, deep, gulp of the cold liquid. But then you see it, and it's not the shock of cold to your esophagus that makes your eyes widen, spluttering icy water before sucking in a desperate breath.

No. It's the ghostly white figure rummaging around in your backyard on all fours.

You duck down just as it stands, holding on tightly to the counter edge with both hands, before crawling to the backdoor to check it's locked, keeping you safely inside away from whatever this thing was. But, just as you reach for the latch, the creature stands on two legs, stretching back with two thick arms on its waist.

The figure is broad, and tall, and... dressed in what appears to be a giant bunny onesie. Even with it's head covered in a white hood, bunny ears flapping as the creature bends and moves, you know what it is. Who it is. You'd recognize those shoulders just about anywhere, and no one else would pull something like this at 9pm on a Sunday.

It had been weeks since you last saw him, but you can't say that was a surprise - what you had wasn't exactly a regular thing, if it could be called a thing at all. That doesn't mean you hadn't been hoping for it, counting down the days to the next holiday in hopes you'd see him again - There was no denying your disappointment St. Patrick's day came and went with no sign of a leprechaun and a pot of gold. Now, he was finally here, dressed head to toe in a bunny suit, doing fuck knows what to your lawn.

"The fucker..."

Unlocking the door, you slink out into the night, sliding it closed behind you before creeping across the yard. This was new, getting to be the one to surprise him. He may have been in your yard, but with each soft step of your foot on the grass it looked like you were finally going to one up him.

But then he turns around, looking toward the house and seemingly straight through you for a moment...

Before his eyes focus on you in the dark, and everything in his hands goes tumbling to the ground as he practically leaps out of his bunny suit.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ."

"We've got to stop meeting like this," you say watching Joel's giant bunny ears flap in the air with his movement as he bends, reaching down to the grass to pick up the basket he dropped.

"You half scared the shit outta me, what're you doin' out here?" he grumbles as he rights himself.

"What are you doing out here? It's my yard. You Bunny Joel this time?" you joke, crossing your arms over your chest in a not-so-smooth attempt to cover yourself. Getting properly dressed had been the last thing on your mind when you stumbled down the stairs, legs still jelly and head still fuzzy from post-orgasm bliss. The only thought that registered was how damn thirsty you were as you tugged a worn, old shirt over your head and made your way to the kitchen. It wasn't cool enough to blame the temperature shift on your quickly puckering nipples, and you didn't feel like explaining where your panties were or why your thighs were simultaneously sticky and slippery. You're just grateful you put on anything at all, and at the very least it was long enough to cover your ass.

Joel smirks, your fruitless attempt at modesty not going unnoticed. "Ain't no regular bunny, darlin'. I'm the Easter Bunny."

"And the difference is...?"

"Eggs."

You laugh, folding yourself over a little as you giggle into the night. The whole get up really is ridiculous enough on its own, yet here you are discussing the nuances of being a giant bunny with a man more fond of playing dress up than anyone else you'd ever met.

"Eggs?"

You spot them as soon as the word leaves your mouth - four colorful eggs sat neatly in his basket, and another nestled into your flowerbed. Only, they don't look like normal eggs at all. Squinting in the dark, the yard lit only by shitty solar lights you'd bought online last summer, you can make out the neat patterns swirled all over them. This was not the handiwork of some enthusiastic child dying eggs for Easter - they looked professionally painted. Joel shakes the basket at you as you continue to squint at it, and you realise not a single one has cracked or broken, even after being dropped on the floor.

"What are they? Egg shaped bouncy balls?"

"Got some balls right here if you're really that interested," he jokes, looking obscene as he waggles his eyebrows at you beneath the hood of the bunny onesie. "Here, they're just these... things. My brother got 'em for me as a joke, it's a long story."

He passes you one of the eggs, the surface smooth and cool in your hand. There's writing on it that you can just about make out, but you still have no clue what you're holding as you turn it around in your palm.

Sensing your confusion, Joel offers a choice gesture, as he explains that they're for "Y'know."

It clicks. Well, sort of. You know for sure then that they're not something you could sneak away for some solo playtime, like with the plug he dutifully left on by your bedside so many weeks ago but maybe, like the contraptions Joel had strapped over his balls your last two encounters, you could enjoy them together.

"Wait, so... you're giving me a thing for anatomy I don't even have?"

"No it's not like that, I just thought - I, well, shit."

"I'm just fuckin' with you, Bunny Joel. Though giving me a gift that's really a gift for yourself is a bit of a dick move."

"Ain't a dick move if you like 'em, sweetheart. And it's Easter Bunny Joel," he corrects with a wink, smiling at you as he drops the basket on the ground to pull at his neck tie. The man looks good in pink, you think, as he fiddles with the floppy satin.

"Y'know, Easter Bunny Joel doesn't quite roll off the tongue."

"Don't it?"

"Nope," you say with a pop, pinching the material of Joel's Bunny onesie to feel the fabric between your finger tips as your roll the egg across the palm of your other hand. "Think you need a better name than that."

"Okay, I'll bite. What you got in mind?"

You're walking your fingers down his chest now, dancing them in a criss-cross pattern across the fastenings at the front of the suit until you reach his hip and slowly you drag the tips of your fingers closer to his crotch until you're cupping his bulge. You wouldn't say he's entirely flaccid, there's certainly something there, but the length of him still feels pliable beneath your hand as you stroke over the front of his costume.

"I was thinking... Flopsy," you say with a squeeze of your palm against his cock, biting back a laugh when you hear him hiss a breath of night air through his teeth.

"Real funny."

"What? If you're committed to the bit, I can be too," and before he can protest you slip the fingers of your free hand between the fastenings on the front of his suit. You can feel his skin underneath, hot and sticky, trapped beneath the synthetic fabric of the bunny costume. At the very least, he's topless under there, and eager to find out more, you quickly yank at the front, grinning devilishly at Joel as the fabric pops open slightly.

"You really wanna be gettin' into this out here?"

"You scared, Flopsy?" you say, with another squeeze to his now much harder cock. "That side is up for sale, and Janet is out of town until Tuesday. No one's seeing anything. Unless you're scared someone might hear something... but I guess you'll just have to keep quiet."

"F- you're gonna be the death of me, darlin'," he mutters, pulling at his pink tie so it hangs loosely around his neck, giving him better movement to look down at your hand where it strokes his cock over the soft plush of the rabbit costume.

You tug again at the suit and with a rapid pop pop pop, the remaining fastenings hiding his chest from you pull open, revealing him to you and... he's a mess. From the neck down he's covered in streaks of paint, multicolored blooms splattered across him, dusting his ribs like a rainbow of bruises.

"Kid had some powder paint stuff - y'know that festival of color thing? Well, kid had some left after a party with a friend from school... had a little fight in the yard earlier before I dropped her back with her mom for the week," he explains quickly, rubbing a hand nervously against his chest and smearing the splattered rainbow there. You make a mental note, adding has a kid to the very short list of confirmed facts you know about Joel. It's not exactly a surprise revelation, all things considered - the costumes had to come from somewhere, and most grown men don't just have fairy wings and toy bows and arrows lying around.

"Well, Flopsy, you make a mighty fine canvas, but I think I might need a hand with this."

The egg you'd been turning in your hand is deposited back into his grasp just as you tug him forward giving him a peck on the chin as you look at him expectantly. Joel knows he shouldn't pull you toward him and kiss you out here, he thinks he knows that the expectant look is nothing to do with kissing him and everything to do with the egg in his hand, but he does anyway. Slotting his mouth against yours, he pulls you into his chest, the sweat of his skin transfering blotches of paint from his chest to your old shirt. But you don't care, holding yourself tighter to him, pushing your fingers underneath his hood to card them through his hair. Joel groans into your mouth when your fingertips rub at his scalp. You're in half a mind to call him such a good bunny but the air, and the thought, is knocked out of you the next second when he presses a hand against your ass, pulling you further into him so he can grind his hardened length against your lower belly.

It's been far too long since someone held you against them like this, and far too long since Joel had had someone like you in his arms. As he kisses and kisses you, you're starting to feel more and more insane, and maybe you are - maybe accepting this man into your home with such regularity is the mark of insanity, some kind of as-of-yet undiscovered syndrome that's going to be named after you.

Eventually, you muster the strength to pull away, slapping a hand gently to his chest and nodding down to the egg gripped in his fist. You're eager to see it in action, even if you still can't quite picture what it is.

"C'mon, open it for me. Gotta properly thank the Easter Bunny for bringing me Easter eggs."

Joel slips the wrapper of the egg, something you never could've figured out on your own without decent lighting to guide your way, and presses a thumb into the side of it, popping the top off the egg in one smooth movement.

Before he can hand it to you, you slip down to your knees, bare shins resting against the cool, damp grass. It's a beautiful clear night, not trace of the moon in sight just yet, but the glimmer of stars sparkling relentlessly overhead regardless. You hadn't noticed how hot you'd gotten, but being around Joel always seemed to do this to you. Your cheeks felt hot, your heart beat faster, and your head felt slightly dizzy - the result of it emptying itself of all thoughts except the ones that made you make questionable decisions it seemed. Of course, this time the heat wasn't just from proximity, but from that damned fabric of his costume, the synthetic fibers making you feel sweaty as you held onto him. The grass beneath you is a welcome relief against your warm skin, sending the fine hairs on your body prickling at the sensation.

"This how you say thank you to everyone? On your knees?"

"It's how I say thank you to giant bunnies, Joel," you quip back, pressing a kiss to the softness of his belly. You litter a string of kisses down the trail of hair until you reach the boundary of the bunny suit. Whether he's commando or you have another layer to get through, you don't yet know, but you waste no time finding out. With the hook of your finger and a final swift pull, the last fastenings bursts open, revealing Joel's heavy length straining against the front of his boxers. Where his tip tents the fabric, a darker patch blooms, turning the gray practically black with precum.

In your dreams, and there had been many of them, it didn't go like this. Dream you rarely went three rounds with themselves before Joel popped up to come fuck her brains out. Dream you was clever. And, as good as your solo session this evening was, you can't help but have a little regret for ruining yourself before the surprise main event. It was like eating a big meal right before someone suggested getting pizza. You could (and damn well would) eat pizza, but you couldn't enjoy it the same way. Pizza or Joel, you were going to savor it as best you could.

"Such a tease, Flopsy," you murmur as you kiss across his covered cock, nuzzling your face into it and watching in glee as his hand grips the opened egg that little bit tighter. Your fingers are pulling again, this time tugging down at his waistband. Joel is in half a mind to rid the egg of its shell and use the damn thing as a stress ball. It had been too long since last time, and since he last came two fucking days ago, to be seeing you on your knees for him in that flimsy t-shirt. It felt like a gift from the heavens and divine retribution wrapped up in one you shaped package.

As you pull his cock from the confines of his boxers, feeling the deep pulse of the blood in his veins as you wrap your fingers around him, you can't believe your luck at getting to see it in the flesh again. As brilliantly as your mind can concoct the image of it, the reality of it is so much better than any fantasy. Before you let yourself get lost in it, you reach for Joel's hand, grabbing the egg back from him and watching the top fall to the ground and roll across your lawn.

"It stretches. Goes over and you just - uh - stroke with it I guess."

The inside is far from what you expected. You almost find it gross, the translucent white interior far squishier than you expected that it'd be bordering on slimey if it was wet too. Joel laughs down at you, seeing your face as you try to work out what the fuck you're holding, pulling it free from the rest of the shell and seeing a hole stuffed with a plastic tube. You can see what he means now, and you let a soft oh fall from your lips as you tug the tube filled with a sachet of lube from the middle of the toy. You feel inside, running your fingers over soft ridges, and you can only imagine how nice it must feel sliding wetly up and down a cock and, not for the first time in your life, you wish you could experience it yourself. But, the next best thing is right in front of you, and that'll have to do.

"These feel good?" you ask, his eyes turning glassy as you examine the inside of the stroker while your hand still tugs slowly up and down his cock.

Joel sighs deeply, nodding down at you, the obscene bunny ears still flopping on his head with each movement. "S'good. Nothin' like the real deal but, yeah. Feel nice."

Gripping Joel's cock in your fist, you begin to stroke gently up and down, sliding his foreskin back and forth over his cock until he's steely hard beneath your palm. The solar lights are starting to dim, their charge from the day already running out, but you can still see the dusky red tip, and the blue of the vein that runs down his shaft. You squish the toy in your other hand, the temptation to taste too strong to just leave all the fun to the squishy silicone. So, you press a delicate kiss right to the tip.

"Oh fuck," Joel hisses.

"Missed it," you confess on your knees with another kiss.

"Yeah? Well, s'all yours." Mine.

"Really? Your bunny wife not going to chase me out of my own yard?"

"Know damn well I ain't got a wife, I ain't the cheatin' kind, darlin', don't you worry."

And that admission alone sends your aching cunt throbbing between your legs, wishing even more desperately now that you weren't completely wrecked and oversensitive from your ill-timed playtime upstairs.

"Good," is all you say before taking his head in your mouth with a swirl of your tongue, a satisfied moan vibrating against his tip as you taste him properly for the first time in 4 months. "I've been thinking about doing this."

"Yeah? Been thinking about sucking my cock?"

"Mhm."

"Shit."

A simple continuous swirl of your tongue and small bob of your head was apparently enough to have him gripping his hands into tight fists, clearly fighting some internal demons to keep himself from coming so soon. Your mind absolutely fizzes with it, that this man wants you, likes what you do to him so much that you can have such an affect on him. And when you suck lightly, his head tips back so far the hood slides back off his head. All you can see is the underside of his jaw from where you look up from your knees, and when looks back down at you with heavy eyes, he looks the most normal you've ever seen him. He's not Santa, nor Cupid, and the costume that had rendered him Bunny Joel just a second ago instead drapes around him like nothing more than a soft, white coat.

"Thought about you tasting you," you mutter between mouthing at his cock, slicking his entire length with your saliva. "Having you come in my mouth. On my face."

Joel groans again, much louder this time and you can't help but laugh, mouth pressed to his balls, at his feeble attempt at silence. You press the tip of your finger, egg still clutched in your fist, to his dribbling slit, and drag a tooth grazing kiss across his sensitive ball skin as you silence him with a whisper.

"Shh, Flopsy. You don't want us to get caught."

"Fuckin' Flopsy, I should -"

But you don't hear what he should do, because you engulf his tip with your mouth once again and Joel finds himself speechless as you immediately slide your lips further down his slicked length with ease. You work him in your mouth, sucking him as you move up and down. He can't stop moaning, he doesn't even try. He should, he thinks. You deserve better than getting caught in your backyard doing something like this, but all he can think about each time you move your tongue just like that is how fucking good your mouth feels.

He feels like he's going to come. Your hand is massaging gently over his balls, your mouth working his cock to a near frenzy, and he is absolutely, one hundred percent sure he's going to come. You know he's almost there. If the groaning wasn't enough, the tightening in his balls and the twitching of his cock were a clear sign he was about to blow.

Then you stop.

Just like that, your mouth is gone. Your hands too. And he's having to force himself to look down at you where you stare in awe at the stroker in your hands, glistening with lube you'd poured into it as he bit his lip and fought off coming, untouched, into the breeze.

You want to use it on him, to listen to him groan as you stroke him with the soft silicone, and watch his every move as you work him over the edge. And his cock, as if calling to you like some kind of siren of the sea, beckons you in, accepting an offering of one last kiss before you raise the stroker.

"It's so stretchy," you gasp, as you slide the toy over the tip of Joel's cock. You can pull it almost all the way down the length of him. You make a few experimental twists and jerks, before settling into a slow rhythm, teasing him just as you'd teased yourself and dragged out your own orgasm upstairs.

It's interesting. Slipperier than your own hand, easier than your own mouth, but not quite the same as either. You can't feel him like this, and you certainly can't taste him.

"Do you like it?" you ask, and Joel doesn't quite know what to answer. He does like it - he likes having your hands on him any way he can get it, but he can't feel you in the same way like this. And it's definitely not as good as your mouth, or any other hole of yours he's fucked.

There's just enough light to see his face give a noncommittal twitch and you're peeling the toy off of him, sucking his tip back into your mouth quickly, moaning as the taste of him hits your tongue.

"Good, because I prefer it like this too."

"Fuck, yeah."

Now though, you have a lubed up, saggy egg in your hand and nowhere to put it. Until an absolutely inspired idea hits you square in the face and you're grinning with Joel's cock in your mouth.

He barely sees the fiendish look in your eye, just notices as you pull off him again, and he could scream. Then, something smooth and cold coats his balls. Your fingers are cradling him delicately, thumb and forefinger stretching open the toy until with a gentle wiggle, his balls are encased in the squishy silicone. And holy fuck, is it like nothing he's ever felt.

"Don't think that's how you use it, darlin'. But, shit, it's good," he gasps as you gently massage his balls through the toy. It's like having a soft cool mouth encasing his entire ballsack, while your actual mouth kisses delicately all over his cock. "C'mon now, stop your teasin', gotta come in the pretty fuckin' mouth."

He's back in your mouth before he even finishes his sentence, your mouth sounding wet an obscene as you work him up and up and up all over again. You draw him in deeper, his cock meeting the back of your throat, over and over, his hand coming to cup your face and delicately wipe away a tear from your watering eyes. Fuck, you're wishing more than ever that you could just jump on him, that your cunt wasn't wrecked, or that it didn't matter, that you could go infinite rounds and still want to be touched again and again. But that wasn't you. You had a limit and, even though you'd reached it, the want in you didn't go away and neither did the slick feeling between your legs or the deep throb of your pulse beating away in your clit.

Joel's fingers grip tighter on the side of your face, a soft thrust of his hips meeting every movement of your head. Catching his eye almost kills you then and there with his cock wedged at the back of your throat. He looks as wrecked as you feel, dark eyes shining down like black holes from space now that the light from your solar lamps has all but fucked off. The paint and rabbit ears almost fade away into the background as you hold yourself down on his cock, making yourself whine around him. You're starting to think if you sucked his cock for long enough you could make yourself come totally untouched, but you don't want to think about it. You can't.

He takes over then. Each slip of your lips down his cock met with a gentle hold, until you both do it all over again. It's easier to hold for longer each time, almost feeling deeper with each slide of his cock across your tongue, the taste of his precum making you salivate as much as having your mouth filled and occupied is.

Then, he presses you down, holding your head as you moan and whine and try desperately to swallow around him, to take more of him as he only seems to get harder.

"Not so Flopsy now, huh?" he asks, releasing you and pushing your head down on his cock once more.

He's fucking into your mouth now, small shallow thrusts hitting the back of your throat, your hand working the toy slickly across his balls as he moans more desperately than you've ever heard him moan before. Despite your teasing and edging, he's the one holding back now, the feel of your mouth on his cock, your nails scratching at his belly, and that damned toy sliding across his balls far too much for him to want to let go of any time soon.

But fuck is he close, and if he's not careful he's going to ruin it for himself by holding back and exploding without warning. He's waited too long for that to happen.

"I'm gonna -"

"Mhm!" you groan around his dick, nodding as much as you can with it in your mouth. You steady your hand against his waist, taking over all movement as he stills the slow gyration of his hips, bobbing your head faster as you suck him down. The swirl and flick of your tongue is positively relentless, and everything feels so wet and warm and fucking perfect that he knows he's a goner.

"Hn-uhhhhh, fuck. Ah, fuck, don't stop, don't stop, fuck, ugh!"

He bursts, salty in your mouth, filling your throat as you swallow around him, massaging and gripping his heavy balls as they twitch in your palm through the thick silicone.

You're only a bit of a mess when you pull off of him. Your lips are swollen and tingly, your hand slippery with lube, but you are totally, utterly content. The slick feeling between your legs is still there, so is the throb, but you're as satisfied as you could possibly be.

Pulling yourself to your feet is another story. Your legs have gone a bit numb from sitting on your knees for so long, and you stumble as you fight to right yourself, Joel catching you just before you tumble into the flowerbed. You laugh in his arms, his mouth pressed to yours as he swallows the sound, consumes it, wills it to make home in his body so he never forgets it.

Joel's fingers work their way under your thin shirt. He'd been looking between your face and your nipples the entire time you were on your knees for him, and he suspects you're entirely naked under there. When his fingers meet your sticky thighs, he thinks he's hit the jackpot, and is ready to return the favor through the haze of his own orgasm, when you stop him.

"I, uh... sorted myself out not too long ago. A few times."

"Damn, if I'd known I woulda come right up and helped you out myself. Thought you were sleepin', house was dark. Jus' playing with this sweet thing all along, huh?"

If he had known, he would have known how much you thought about him as you fucked yourself on your fingers. He would have known how you used the plug he left on your bedside table more than any of the others, crying his name out into the lonely expanse of your bedroom as you came quicker, and harder, than you had any right to. If he had known, he'd know how well and truly fucked you were over a man you still knew practically nothing about.

Of course, you knew some physical things. You knew what he looked like naked, how broad he was and how sweaty he got when he fucked you. You knew what he sounded like groaning into your mouth or laughing at a silly quip you'd thrown at him. You knew what he tasted like, and what you tasted like off of his tongue. But that was where your knowledge of him ended. You didn't know what he did for work, or if he even liked his job. You didn't know his favorite food or color. You didn't know what he sang in the car. You didn't know where he lived or what he drove - you didn't even know his full name, and you knew exactly why.

You were scared. Terrified, actually. Terrified to really get to know him, to break that blissful illusion of the tall, dark stranger who rocked your world on a seasonal basis, only to find you didn't like him at all. Or worse - that he didn't like you.

So, when you walk him through your house, egg disposed of and hands washed, listening to the soft snap of his suit being closed up around his bare body, you desperately try to ignore the longing ache in your chest, stopping any request for him to stay, to take you out for coffee in the morning before it stupidly tumbles out of your mouth. That's not what this is.

Instead, you wordlessly reach for your keys, smiling sweetly to him as if you hadn't just been waging war against yourself inside your head.

"What're you doing," he says, pointing to the keys held in your hand. "Goin' somewhere, or comin' home with me?"

"No, smart ass, this is a key, it locks doors. Just gonna lock up after you leave."

Joel's smile drops from his face. And you don't know why, but it has alarm bells immediately blaring in your head.

"What?" you ask nervously, eyes darting around his face as if you're trying to read his mind as he takes a slow step toward you, a frown slowly pulling his brow down as he pieces some mystery together.

"The door locks when it closes, then you the take the key and lock it again after?"

"... Maybe? Yes?"

"Wait. And you're tellin' me you do that every night."

"Yes, I lock my door every night Joel, what's wrong with that." Obviously your lock was no match for his lock picking skills, but you didn't consider that Joel perhaps didn't know how locks worked at all.

"What's wrong with that is you're unlocking your door every night and leaving it unlocked all night."

Your blood turns cold. You don't know why. You could just not believe him, or test for yourself, but something about his reaction, and his seemingly easy ability to get into your house, tells you that what he says is exactly right. It's your turn for your smile to drop, and you can feel it slip off your face just as your heart starts rapidly hopping in your chest.

"Oh. I - I thought..."

"It ain't that kind of lock, sweetheart. You never checked it after lockin' it?"

"No. No I - My last place, the lock, I had to - oh my god." There's dread now. A sickening cocktail of feelings swirling through your body, turning you red hot and cold over and over as you think of all the things that could've happened, how lucky you were they didn't, after all this time. Damn near a year, and you hadn't figured out how to properly work your own fucking door.

"How d'you think I been gettin' in? Didn't exactly climb down the chimney or fly in through the window the last two times. Maybe shouldn'ta done it that first time, but your tree was driving me mad, seein' it bare like that every time I drove past. You weren't in and the door was open, was only gonna be quick and then..."

You're not listening. Your heart has just stopped like it's been hurtled into a brick wall at 100mph. "Wait, you drive past my house?"

"Where else am I gonna fuckin' drive?!"

A thousand million volts straight to your chest, and your heart is beating again, racing, your voice raising with it, brandishing the pointy end of your key at him like it could save you now. "Have you been stalking me?"

"What? No! I live down the fuckin' street, I drive by to get to my house, I thought you knew that."

"Down the street?"

"Yes. I'm hardly gonna come from outta town just to fix your lights and your sink and fuck off again. I was just... bein' neighborly, I guess."

"You've been in my house fixing my shit without me here?"

It's just revelation after revelation. You can't believe it. You can't believe yourself for one, but you can't believe him either. Only you can. You very much believe him, and you hate that you do and you hate that, deep down, you know he's right and you're exactly the kind of idiot he's undoubtedly thinking you are.

"You ain't fuckin' noticed?! You had a light out in here, your kitchen faucet was drippin', your railin' in your hall closet was bust... you didn't notice anythin'? Are you even fuckin' in that pretty head o' yours?"

Suddenly you're feeling very stupid. The door is one thing, the minor home repairs another, but you'd been under the impression you were both on the same page this entire time. That it was some silly game you played, two strangers who had next to no clue about each other. All this time he knew who you were, but you were too fucking preoccupied and distracted and stupid to see that he was right there.

The heat in your checks crackles in your ears, misting over your eyes and making your entire body feel fuzzy. That fight or flight you'd been wondering about for the last few months has suddenly decided to make an appearance, settling on both as you fight back tears with a quivering lip.

"Get out." It's silent fury, building white hot as the seconds tick by with him standing, staring at you like you're the one dressed as a giant rabbit and not him.

"What? Darlin', c'mon, it's okay -"

"Get. Out." You wrench the door open, pushing him and his stupid fucking bunny costume out, shoving the basket of eggs into his arms once he crosses the doorway.

"Bye." You slam the door, the stupid fucking self locking door, and slide down it, head in your hands. You have never felt so fucking stupid.

taglist: @jupiter-soups @wannab-urs @bean-is-reading @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @youandmeand5bucks-blog @bbyanarchist @vickywallace @kamcrazy123 @valkyreally @ashhlsstuff @a-literal-goblin @ariundercovers @iluvurfather @stevie75 @toxicanonymity @thesevi0lentdelights @sp00kymulderr

[alotofpockets]

Easter hunt | Grace Clinton x Reader

Where you create an easter egg hunt for your girlfriend's birthday

A short little fic for the birthday girl!

Woso masterlist | Words: 870

-----

A lot of fans were surprised when they found out that you and Grace were dating. You were the definition of sunshine and grumpy,and golden retriever and black cat, but the people close to you had no doubt about it. You loved Grace, and Grace loved you. 

That is why it was to no surprise to your teammates that you had an elaborate plan set in place to celebrate your girlfriend’s birthday. You had asked them for help setting everything up, while you made sure that she would have a great birthday morning. 

Since Grace's birthday fell on Easter Sunday this year you planned to give her her gifs in the form of Easter baskets throughout the day. Far from the grumpy or black cat vibes you gave out to the world, but in Grace’s eyes you were a sweet, soft, and caring person, and you would do everything to bring a smile onto her face. 

After some morning cuddles, you headed into the kitchen together in your pyjamas, where the first basket was standing on the counter. Grace had no idea of your plan, but gravitated right towards the bright blue mixing bowl filled with ingredients, and baking tools. “What’s this baby?” She asked while looking through it. “Your first birthday Easter basket. Happy birthday, my love.” She ran back your way and jumped into your arms. “You are the sweetest, thank you so much!” You hold her tight, while you smile into her chest. “Of course, you’ve been saying you want to bake more, so I thought what better way to start than making pancakes or waffles for your birthday breakfast.”

You were dancing through the kitchen together, to one of your favourite playlists, while mixing ingredients together to create a batter. Grace went for blueberry waffles, and they tasted delicious. After some more soft moments together in the kitchen, you got ready to head to practice, where the next surprise awaited your girlfriend. Celin had been your biggest help in setting up the surprise for you. So, when you arrived Celin was the first one running up to wish Grace a happy birthday, after which she handed Grace a basket. Grace looked confused between the both of you, “Good luck on your Easter hunt!” You and Celine said at the same time. The girl’s eyes lit up, you made an Easter egg hunt for me?” Celine pointed to you, “She did all the work, I just hid the eggs around the training grounds.” 

Grace was running around like an excited little kid collecting the plastic eggs, showing them off every time that she found a new one. Her excitement over the silly little activity you had planned was one of the reasons you loved the woman so much. “Did I find them all?” She asked when she hadn’t found any for a couple of minutes. “Open the eggs, and you’ll know.” You said with a smirk. Finding the eggs was not the only part of the game. Inside each plastic egg was a puzzle piece, meant to reveal a hint to where her next Easter basket present was waiting for her. 

She put together the pieces that she had, and realised she was still missing two. You knew that with the ones she was missing she could still flip the puzzle and read the clue, but what was the fun in not completing part one of the game? So you told her she needed to find the last two as well. With a couple of hints from Celine, she managed to locate the eggs. She rushed back to where she made the puzzle, to add the missing pieces. She flipped the puzzle and read your scrambled Easter egg message. To find your basket, you must look in the place where the Easter bunny practises its hops. She thought for a moment, and then she realised that they had practised their high jumps in the gym last week. “Is it in the gym?” She asked you, with shrugged shoulders you responded. “I don’t know, let’s go look.”

Of course Grace had guessed right, and her next basket was waiting for her amongst the weight rack. Another basket filled with goodies, this time there was a variety of gardening supplies, some tools, and flower seeds. Gardening was another hobby that Grace wanted to pursue more, and you wanted to make sure that she had everything she needed to start. Grace looked through all the stuff in the basket, and couldn’t believe you had listened to her ramble about hobbies she wanted to explore. “Thank you so much, you are the best.” She said as she hugged you again. 

Once she was done with the Easter hunt, you and the team started training. You were thankful for the staff, who allowed you to plan something special for Grace during a part of the training, to be able to celebrate it with your friends. 

You had more planned for the rest of the day, but for the following hours your focus would be on training. But you were going to make sure that Grace had the best birthday, like you tried to give her every single year.

-----

💗 If you enjoyed this fic, please consider liking, commenting, and reblogging! You can also supporting me by leaving a tip 💗

[blurredcolour]

Born To Be Yours

[One-shot | Sequel to We'll Meet Again]

Eugene Roe x Nurse!Female Reader

Despite the end of the war in Europe, violence still finds its way to the men of Easy company. Thankfully, Eugene knows just where to find you to get them help.

Warnings: Language, Weapons, Canon Typical Violence, Smoking, Treatment of Wounds, Medical Procedures, Hospital Settings, Questionably Written Cajun Accent, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes [Kissing, Necking, Dry Humping] - 18+ ONLY

Author’s Note: Slight warning - the events of this fic are centered around the shooting of Sergeant Charles E Grant. The title of this fic is based off the song 'Yours' by Vera Lynn. For your reference, the Cajun pronunciation of cher, Eugene's term of endearment for the reader, is 'sha.' Just to help you really imagine it in your head. This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the HBO series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 3887

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

This kind of thing wasn’t supposed to be happening. Not here in Austria after the surrender of the German army. Not today, the anniversary of D-Day. And yet here Eugene sat, balanced over a stretcher bearing a motionless Grant, holding an IV of blood above his head as Speirs sped down the road toward Saalfelden where the 47th Field Hospital was set up on the edge of town. Talbert rode in the front seat, frequently glancing back at them over his shoulder.

It was a miracle Grant was still breathing after receiving the headwound, continued to breathe through the frantic bandaging and loading onto Speirs’ jeep.

“Where’s the nearest surgeon?” The Captain had barked and Gene had answered easily, known it immediately, because the nearest surgeon was with you.

After parting ways in Titz, following that very eventful Easter Sunday, your hospital had stayed precisely where it was intended to be – twenty-five kilometers behind the line as they advanced across Germany. You had surprised Eugene by sending your next letter not by post, but in the pocket of an ambulance driver who had been all too happy to receive a pack of smokes from you for his trouble. Your ingenuity had opened his eyes, and he’d sent his own reply back two days later, postage paid with chocolate from his rations.

Being able to write one another without the censors having a say, to share every detail of your daily lives without fear of the letter going missing – as long as you each chose a trustworthy deliveryman of course – was a relief after all the delays in communication the pair of you had previously endured. Eugene was admittedly disheartened when he learned that your station in Austria would be in Saalfelden with the majority of the 101st Airborne while Easy and the rest of 2nd Battalion found themselves a further seventeen kilometers down the road in Zell Am See.

There remained a remarkable number of things for him to do, and the lack of ambulance traffic, while a blessing, severely impeded your correspondence once more. In short, Eugene was feeling awfully guilty about the fact that he had not managed to visit you since the war in Europe had ended. As the jeep pulled up outside the requisitioned gymnasium that had been turned into the 47th Field Hospital, he was not certain if he hoped you were there or not.

He jumped off the back of the vehicle as Speirs and Talbert grabbed each end of the stretcher and the three of them rushed toward the building. Eugene hurried a few steps ahead to pull the door open, wincing a little as Speirs shouldered it open fully, sending into the wall with a ‘bang.’ There was a scurry of footsteps from down a hallway to the right before you stepped into view, clad in your white and brown striped hospital dress, a brown cardigan over top with the sleeves pushed up to your elbows. Concern etched your features.

“Follow me.” You said quickly, rushing to pull open the next door into the gymnasium itself. “On the table right there please, sir.” You gestured to a makeshift exam table built of filing cabinets and a cot.

“Chief Nurse?” A young woman poked her head out from behind a privacy screen and Eugene nearly tripped over his own feet.

Last he’d heard you were Assistant Chief Nurse, promoted after your natural leadership of the group of nurses during your nine hours of capture. You’d gone and gotten yourself promoted again. He fought the urge to grin at you proudly as they carefully set Grant down as instructed.

“Shirley, go fetch Dr. Brock from his office immediately.”

“We need a surgeon.” Speirs rasped and Eugene watched the girl halt her progress across the room and look back to you questioningly.

“Dr. Randall then, quickly.” You amended, shifting to begin triage on the patient by checking his vitals as Speirs took Grant’s hand in his tightly.

Shirley fled the room, returning in less than a minute with a dark-haired man wearing a white coat in tow – surely Dr. Randall. A cigarette hung for his lips as he looked to Eugene for the hand off.

“Shot in the head with a pistol, maybe twenty minutes ago? Bandaged and given blood by IV.”

He saw Shirley hand you a chart out of the corner of his eye and you quickly noted these things along with the vitals you’d been taking when the surgeon had walked in. Dr. Randall leaned down to lift the bandages, inspecting Grant’s wound.

“Jesus.” He muttered.

“What?” Speirs asked, looking to him quickly.

“He’s not gonna make it.” Dr. Randall said, taking a slow drag on his cigarette.

“Ya can’t operate on him?” Eugene asked incredulously. This man was a surgeon, this was his job.

“Not me. You’d need a brain surgeon. And even if you had one, I don’t think there’s any hope.” Dr. Randall rubbed at his eyes, obviously just as worn out from the endless number of casualties he’d born witness to, before walking off.

Eugene’s eyes slid to meet yours where you remained next to the spot recently vacated by Dr. Randall; felt his throat clench painfully at the look of deep sympathy you were sending him.

Speirs took a breath and turned to Talbert, breaking the stunned silence that had fallen over the group. “You find the shooter, I want him alive.” He pointed at him for emphasis before turning back to Eugene. “Come on help me.”

“What’re you doing?” Talbert asked, grabbing the end of the stretcher.

“We’re gonna go find a brain surgeon!” Speirs declared before they were off and running back towards the door.

“There’s a German hospital further into town, follow this road for five blocks then hang a left.” You spoke quickly, hurrying to hold open the doors to ease their progress back to the jeep.

“Thank ya, Ma’am.” Eugene nodded quickly, ducking slightly as it had begun to lightly rain while they were inside.

“Take care.” Your voice shook a little and Eugene looked back to you once he’d resumed his perch on the back of the jeep, watching you wrap your cardigan tighter around yourself as you stood in the rain, staring at him intently until the vehicle jerked into motion as Speirs took off in the direction you had instructed.

The hospital was easy enough to find, thanks to your directions, and Talbert secured another jeep there to carry out Speirs’ orders to find the shooter. The brain surgeon was not currently on duty, but Speirs was undeterred and demanded his home address, from which he fetched him out of bed to operate immediately.

“It will take several hours.” The German surgeon had warned them when Speirs had asked where the waiting room was.

“We’ll wait.” He had replied flatly, and Eugene had followed after him as a nurse led them into an empty room filled with worn chairs and a few side tables with outdated German periodicals.

Eugene watched Speirs sink into one of the chairs while he found himself unable to sit down, wandering the perimeter of the room quietly, mind turning over all manner of things, but always coming back to how reluctant you had looked to see him go. The guilt within him had multiplied astronomically – he had been a fool to not rush to see you the instant he could, and now your first interaction since Easter was purely professional and surely terrifying. Precisely why he had been so very reluctant to admit his feelings to you in the first place.

“Doc, if you’re not going to sit down, go talk to that pretty Chief Nurse, would you?” He muttered, pulling the garrison cap from his hair.

Eugene’s head whipped up to look at his commanding officer in shock. Shock at the fact that Speirs had had the wherewithal to notice the looks you had been exchanging over Grant’s prone form. Shock that he was allowing him the liberty to visit you. Pure shock.

“Otherwise, it’s going to be a very long couple of hours.” There was a dangerous edge to the man’s voice that made Eugene swallow nervously and nod sharply.

“Yes sir, I’ll be back in a few hou’s then, sir.” He moved to slip out of the waiting room.

“Be careful out there, Doc.” Came Speirs’ parting command and Eugene nodded once more before heading out into the street, thankful that the blackout was no longer in effect and he had the assistance of streetlights to retrace his steps back to the Field Hospital.

He made a much quieter entrance this time, finding the nurse, Shirley, at the desk near the door in the gym.

“Oh, you’re the medic from earlier – how is your man?” She asked in a hushed voice as she stood.

“In surgery with a German brain surgeon now…I was wonderin’ if I migh’ speak ta you’ Chief Nurse?” He tilted his head, and she nodded quickly leading him down the hall to an unassuming office door.

“She’s still here, working late again.” She laughed softly and knocked.

“Thank ya, Ma’am.” He nodded as she nodded in return before heading back into the gym as your door swung inward.

“Gene…” You breathed in surprise, peering into the hallway as if to confirm he was truly alone.

“Cher…” He murmured in response, tremor in his own voice this time, and your fingers wrapped around his wrist, pulling him into the moderately sized office.

Your arms pulled him into a tight embrace as you nudged the door shut with your foot. He buried his face into your hair, fingers curling into the knit of your cardigan against your back.

“I’m right here, Gene.” You sighed soothingly, arms holding him so tightly, so warmly, Eugene was convinced you might actually be able to fuse his broken pieces back together. To make him feel whole again.

“Merci, cher.” He managed to find his voice after a moment, pulling back slightly only to press his lips to yours tightly in a physical expression of his gratitude.

Eugene felt the tremble that rolled through your body in response, his hands gripping you tighter as your fingers wended their way into his hair making him shudder in return. There was something about your touch tonight that felt like he was playing with fire, your entire presence loaded with explosive charge that could set him off at any moment. He pulled his lips back quickly before he did something wildly inappropriate in your office and panted against your mouth.

“M’sorry I haven’ come ta visit ya.”

Your response was a breathless laugh that made him bite the inside of his cheek.

“I’ve barely left this office. I’m beginning to think this promotion was a curse disguised as a blessing.” You smirked and stole one more kiss from his lips before straightening to look over his face warmly.

“It’s late, and I know ya don’ work nigh’s no mo’e…” He tried to keep the admonishing tone in his voice light, but he was admittedly upset you were working after midnight, something that even he was aware was unusual for a Chief Nurse.

“You know too much, Gene.” Your fingers smoothed his hair gently, restoring order to the strands you had put into disarray, a fond smile stretching his lips as he truly adored hearing you call him ‘Gene.’

His heart had nearly stopped when it had appeared in your letters but to hear it leave your lips was heaven itself.

“Let me walk ya home, tha man who did tha’ is still out the’e.”

He watched your eyes widen before you frowned deeply, shaking your head in dismay. “Did you find the hospital?”

“German brain surgeon’s operatin’ now…”

You took a slow breath before nodding. “I usually have an MP escort me, are you sure you don’t have to get back?”

He shook his head. “Grant’ll be in surgery a few hou’s longah. Cap’n Speirs won’ leave ‘till it’s ovah. Told me ta ‘go talk to that pretty Chief Nurse’ if I wouldn’t sit still.” Gene smirked ruefully and you blinked rapidly before biting your lip.

“Perhaps we have not been nearly as subtle as we thought, Gene…”

He laughed softly under his breath as he watched you turn to collect your things, sliding a small utility bag over your shoulder before turning out the desk light. The desk itself was still covered in stacks of files and he couldn’t help but frown as it seemed that your late nights had barely made a dent in the work your new position had foisted upon you.

“Wait here.” You said once you’d locked your office door and walked a little further down the hall to knock on another door.

He could barely make out another man’s voice, it didn’t sound like Dr. Randall, so presumably Dr. Brock, before you swung by the desk in the gymnasium to wish Shirley a good night. One last stop at the MP office to the left of the entrance where you informed your usual escort you had someone to walk you home before the pair of you were able to step out into the damp night. Thankfully, the rain had stopped falling but the puddles on the ground were plentiful as Eugene offered his arm. He could not help his fond smile as you took it without hesitation, hugging his elbow close as you walked side-by-side.

“I’m quite close to the hospital actually.” You gestured down the road and he nodded, turning that way.

“Tha’s how ya knew…”

Your soft laugh made his stomach quiver slightly though he did not miss the yawn you tried to smother.

“Ya been workin’ late a lot, cher?” He prompted softly, vigilant to your surroundings but so far, the streets were quiet.

“Mm.” You nodded slowly before sighing. “Seems the Chief Nurse before me was not such a fan of paperwork. Maude was a fantastic leader, we’re lucky to have her as the Assistant Director of Austria base, but if I had known what was awaiting me in that office…well I’d probably have asked to help her more when I was her assistant.”

He felt you tug on his arm and looked down to you quickly to see you pointing across the street to a modest apartment building.

“We’re quartered here.”

Eugene nodded and led you across the street as you fished for the keys in your bag. He couldn’t help but notice that you were in fact only a few blocks from the German hospital where Grant was still undergoing surgery. He said another silent prayer to guide the hands of the surgeon to success as you led him up to the building entrance.

A pair of sharp cries cut through the night, making the both of you freeze briefly.

“Hey!”

“Stop right there!”

The voices were still a block or so away, but belonged to men that Eugene knew a well as his own family.

“Inside cher, now.” He said quickly, pulling you toward the building.

“Second floor.” You uttered quickly and he pushed you up the stairs front of him, hands on your hips as he could hear the voices of Talbert and Malarkey growing closer, accompanied by footsteps splashing through puddles and the rumble of a jeep engine close behind.

You stopped at an apartment door and Eugene noted your struggle to line the key with the deadbolt, gently but firmly taking it from you to unlock the door and push you inside. He was quick to close and lock the door behind him, wanting you nowhere near the drunken madman who had already killed at least two people tonight. He heard you take a breath as you turned back toward him and he gently covered your mouth with his palm, shushing you softly as he listened for further noises from the street below.

They sounded as if they were right outside, their voices rising up through the stairwell as his wide eyes bored directly into yours.

“Yeah, that’s him!”

“Get in the jeep you son of a bitch.”

The sound of the engine faded off into the night and Eugene waited a full minute before lowering his hand from your mouth, the only sound remaining being the pounding of his heart in his ears. He heard you suck in a breath, the only warning he was afforded before your lips collided with his. He stumbled slightly, startled a moment, before the adrenaline in his veins was transformed into white hot desire. His hands clutched at your lower back, pulling you tightly against him as he blindly stumbled toward the doorway he had glimpsed upon entering your apartment.

He felt your body impact with something behind you and pulled back from your lips quickly to see he had backed you into the kitchen table. He felt you rise up onto your toes, seemingly intent on sitting on the tabletop and his hands quickly seized your hips, aiding you in your efforts by hoisting you the last bit of distance. He could not help the smirk that graced his features as you gasped at his strength; hard-won through years of training and carrying wounded from the battlefield. His mouth quickly returned to yours, shuddering as your tongue met his eagerly, your fingers once more burrowing into his hair.

Eugene’s lungs began to ache from a lack of oxygen and he reluctantly pulled back from your lips only to begin trailing open-mouthed kisses along your jaw and down your throat. Your shaky exhale filled his ears as your fingers began to tug at the buttons of his OD jacket, sending his own in search of the same on your cardigan. As he pushed the fabric out of the way, he slid his hands along your sides, sucking at the hollow of your throat, exhaling hotly against your skin as you parted your legs for him.

“Cher…” He rasped against your skin, gulping at the whimper that fell from your lips as he stepped closer, nestling between your thighs.

Your body felt so hot against him, even through his ODs and wool trousers, he was helpless not to press as tightly to you as possible, not even leaving a hairsbreadth of space. Your fingers curled into the front of his wool shirt, hips bucking against his slightly as you whimpered again.

“Gene!” Your gasped and he kissed you fiercely as his lower abdomen grew heavy with arousal, blood rushing to his already hardening length as he rutted against you obligingly.

The moan that rattled from your throat into his mouth had his head swimming, his baser instincts immediately taking over, demanding he do anything and everything to draw that sound from you again and again. His hands shifted to grip your thighs, pulling your body even tighter to his as he continued to move against you, delighting in your repeated cries of pleasure which he devoured hungrily. He barely noticed your persistence against the buttons of his uniform shirt until he felt your hands sliding around his torso with only the thin barrier of his undershirt separating your skin, a groan falling from his lips as he tore them from yours.

“Merde.” He hissed, screwing his eyes shut against the salaciously delicious friction between your bodies.

“Mm! I know that one…” You giggled breathily against his neck before your lips were on his skin, making his hips rock sharply against yours.

“Feel so good, cher.” He groaned again, hands shifting beneath the hem of your dress, beneath the hem of your slip, to find the bare skin of your thighs. Quite possibly the softest thing he’d ever touched.

“Yes, Gene.” You whined against his kiss-dampened skin. “Don’t stop.”

He grunted in agreement, fingers tracing higher to grip your hips, increasing the friction yet again as he rutted his fully hard cock against your underwear. The moan that fell from your lips contained an almost anguished tone and he had to grit his teeth against the desire to climax at just the sound of it. Your fingers were digging into his back through the cotton of his undershirt, hips echoing every motion of his as his fingers delved past the edge of your underwear to curl into the soft flesh of your buttocks.

“Oh god Gene I’m…” You panted, head rolling back, and he nodded vigorously, eyes latching onto your face, desperate to watch you fall apart in his arms.

Eugene had long been convinced that you could do everything with grace, and you once again proved his assumption correct as your eyelashes fluttered against your cheeks, your mouth falling open to emit a soft wail of pure ecstasy. Burying his face against your neck, he cursed harshly as his hips bucked sharply, all sense of rhythm and control abandoning him as his orgasm immediately overtook him. Sliding one hand out from beneath your skirt to brace against the table lest he collapse onto you, he smiled sheepishly as you grinned up at him, your lower lip caught beneath your teeth.

“Sorry, Gene…” You murmured, running your hands along his back soothingly, your chests brushing against one another as you both struggled to catch your breath.

He shook his head quickly and then tensed. “Do ya….are ya the only one billeted in he’e?” He glanced back toward the hallway, suddenly aware of how much noise the pair of you had made.

Your bright peal of laughter caught his attention, and he turned back to you quickly.

“You ask me that now, Gene?!” You teased, gripping the back his neck to pull him down for a lazy kiss as he huffed a laugh against your lips in reply. “No, just me. Chief Nurse perk.”

He relaxed with a nod, straightening slowly as his legs finally felt like solid muscle and bone once more.

“The washroom is just down the hall if you wa–”

“Be my wife.” The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them.

He had intended to make more of a spectacle of it. Hell, he had intended to have a ring to put on your finger. But the way you were looking up at him now with glossy eyes still hazy with pleasure, crinkled at the corners as you smiled his favorite smile to date – he was helpless to hold them back.

Eugene held his breath as he watched your eyes widen, your mouth drop open, as his unexpected statement hung in the air.

“Are you…proposing to me Eugene Roe?” You exhaled and he gulped roughly.

“I understand if ya don’ wanna marry me, I still have ta go ta tha Pacific an’…”

“How could I say no, Gene, when I was born to be yours.” You eyed him softly but there was something about your words, and the way your lips were twitching with mirth, that tugged at the back of his brain.

“Cher are ya quotin’ Vera Lynn again?” He huffed and grimaced playfully at your answering laugh, yet felt his heart begin to beat double time as your hands cupped his cheeks and your expression grew serious.

“Eugene Roe, I would love to be your wife.” You nodded firmly and sealed your acceptance with a firm kiss that made his heart soar.

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

Band of Brothers Masterlist

Tag list: @ronsparky, @fuckoffthanos, @bcon24, @phyllisthefirst, @footprintsinthesxnd, @she-wolf09231982

[thedeviltohisangel]

All The Things I Did (Interlude): My Little Bunnies

a/n: happy belated easter to all those who celebrate! i wanted to write john & cass' first easter as parents and it became a 10 page fic with smut/fluff/angst. read on to meet their twins, meet cass' parents, learn more about her family history and so much more. and to the anon who sent an ask about them getting a bloodhound, yes. he is here. this was a real labor of love but it is my gift to you. i hope you all love it and please come let me know your thoughts on this little family. xoxo

warnings: smut

When Cass was quiet, it meant she was thinking. And since they had left the driveway of their beach house, she had been quiet. A notebook in one hand and a pen and leash in the other, John thinks she was attempting to memorize her to-do list for Easter Sunday.

“You know part of the reason I was convinced into coming here this weekend was your insistence on family walks,” he looked down at the two little bundles that were already gazing right back at him, “tell Mama she can relax for one night.”

“I’ll relax after everything goes off without a hitch tomorrow. It’s their first Easter and our first time hosting a holiday and the first time my family is seeing the house and-” She paused as Gale let out a sound of discomfort and started to squirm in the carriage, Cass quickly reaching down and smoothing a finger over his cheek with a coo. He quieted just as quickly at her touch and blinked up at her sleepily. “There, there my sweet boy. I’m right here.” Not for the first time, and not for the last time, John was endlessly amazed by his wife. How she managed to be a mother, a wife and still impress the brass in DC was beyond his comprehension. He hadn’t known it was possible to fall more in love with her and here he was. Falling in love with her more and more everyday. 

“We Egan boys get cranky when you aren’t around to dote on us.”

“Is that so? Do you agree with that, Butter?” The bloodhound gave a gentle bark in answer which John took as his agreement. “Well, Miss Penelope does have a habit of looking at every plane in the sky while she waits for you to come home.” He grinned so wide his eyes crinkled at the corners.

“That’s my little lamb,” he said with a gentle tickle to the top of her tummy, her giggles making her parents laugh right along with her. “And what about you? What do you do all day while you wait for me to come home?”

“Oh, I just stare longingly out the window because the thought of you not being around paralyzes me, Lieutenant Colonel Egan.” Cass held her hand to her forehead and feigned hysteria.

“I guess it is kind of beautiful here,” John relented as their walk took them to the beach. The waves were crashing against the sand as the sunset laid a pink backdrop to the view. He lifted his arm and Cass fell into his side with ease.

“I told you so,” she murmured against his chest. Cass had loved growing up on her family’s estate outside of Charleston. She had learned more about life running around that land than she ever had anywhere else. But every summer her mother would take her and siblings for Kiawah Island, where her father would join on occasion, and she would roam free on the sand and in the sun. There were no boys trying to dance with her and her mother didn’t yell at her for being barefoot and she was able to laugh loud and run fast and there were no consequences. “You see that gray house with the white balconies a few hundred yards that way?” She pointed in the general direction and John shaded his eyes to look. 

“That’s not a house, Cass, that’s a mansion.”

“That’s my parents house. My dad built it for my mom when I was little,” she said sheepishly. When she had been old enough to truly understand love and relationships, she had thought it was the most romantic thing. Had seen how happy it made her father to provide for her mother. How happy it made her mother that it was hers and only hers and almost a monument to the life they created together. “Since then, I’ve always wanted to raise my own family here.” John watched her caress the cheeks of their sleeping children with a smile.

“All I ever want, Cass, is for you and Gale and Penelope to be happy and safe. Nothing else matters to me.” The white house that was surrounded by trees on one side and the beach on the other had been a dream of Cass’ for a long time. She had told him about it back at Thorpe Abbotts and he had dreamed about it in his bunk on those cold German nights. Dreamed about buying it for her and carrying her over the threshold and filling it with their love and the pitter patter of little feet. 

“Lucky for you, that’s all I want, too. And maybe some more kisses.” 

“You’re saying I don’t kiss you enough?” he asked with raised eyebrows. She shook her head.

“Not nearly enough.” John had worked overtime for months to set aside enough for the down payment. Had turned down her father’s offer to buy it as a wedding gift. He had wanted to get this for her, for his wife, all on his own. She was the reason he was alive. It was only a drop in the bucket for what he owed her. 

“It’s talk like that that got us here in the first place,” he whispered with a nod towards the carriage. “You being a little kiss thief.” Butter whined with displeasure.

“He doesn’t like when you’re snarky to me.” Their chests were pressed together now, his nose bumping hers as he laughed. “You’re the one that spent his whole puppy life telling him he had to be my guard dog,” she added with a gentle poke to his chest. Cass had just sweet talked her way into convincing John that Butter was meant to come home with them, having found him in a horse stall at her family’s place, when he asked if she wanted to take a drive to the beach. She thought he meant somewhere close but as they drove past the turn for Folly she began to get an idea of where he was taking her. She remembers her heart sinking when SOLD was in big red letters on the sign. John had asked if she wanted to take a look around anyways. For old time’s sake. 

“Yeah and when he successfully chased that crazy bird away from you last month you were very grateful for it.” He scratched behind the hounds ears for good measure.

“I was. Seagulls scare me, you know that.” Ever since one had snatched her lunch right out of her hands on the very beach they were looking at when she was still in pigtails. Cass had told him that story while they walked around the house. Her hands wistfully touching the floors and her smile at the scent of the water making it hard for John to keep the secret in. She had known back then she was pregnant, hadn’t found the right time to tell John yet and hadn’t known there were two baby Egans on their way, but had told him she hoped this house made a family happy. That they loved it the way she had as a little girl and didn’t change a thing. He had told her to close her eyes and hold out her hand. And she looked confused at the cool metal that he placed in her palm, understanding registering when she opened her eyes and saw it was a key.

 What do you say we fill this house with our family, my love?

----

As it was most mornings, her nightgown was bunched around her waist as she gasped into John’s mouth. She was gently rotating her hips while his fingers gripped her hips tighter and tighter and his hips thrusted up into her slowly. 

“Fuck, John,” she moaned as he sat up and kissed her roughly. 

“You close, baby?” It was always a bit of a race to get there before the twins woke or before a housekeeper or nanny knocked on the door to get the day started. John wished he had all the time in the world every time but wouldn’t trade the moments he had with her for anything, no matter how quickly they went. “Look me in the eyes, my sweet girl.” His thumb found her clit between them and pressed until she threw her head back.

“Don’t stop, please don’t stop,” she panted as she knocked her forehead against his. John wouldn’t even dare to think to stop as she came undone around him and his own finish followed instantly. He fell back against the pillow, her lips on his the entire time, and stroked her cheek gently as he tried to regain control of his breathing. “Think they’ve got five more minutes in them so we can-” The sound of one baby crying pierced the tranquility followed in quick succession by the other. 

“That’s a no,” he remarked with a smile. “They probably think if they cry loud enough, you won’t make them dress all fancy and go to church.”

“They are always perfectly well behaved at church.” Butter’s barking joined the cacophony and the bubble was fully burst. “If you let him out and start the coffee, I can change diapers and get their clothes out.” He gave her bottom a gentle pat as she begrudgingly let him slip out of her. 

“Hey, Spook?” Cass turned from where she was slipping her underwear on. “I love you.” Unable to keep herself from blushing, she pecked him one last time before the craziness of the day settled in. 

“Hey, John?” He hummed with delight as his nose rubbed against hers. “I love you, too.”

----

True to her word, the twins behaved like angels at their first Easter mass. Gale had only tried to kick his shoes off for a few minutes and Penelope had only required John to make silly faces through one hymn. Cass had rolled her eyes on their way out the door as her husband produced two stuffed bunnies from behind his back and tucked them between their fingers. She had reminded him they each had a whole basket of stuffed bunnies waiting to be opened by the fireplace and probably many more arriving as gifts later in the day. One more from their dad couldn’t hurt was all he had to say.

The house was near mayhem when they arrived back. Caterers had taken over the kitchen, their house manager Alice was leading a small army in pillow fluffing and men with white gloves were polishing glasses in the dining room. John was once again reminded how differently he and his wife had grown up.

“Mr. and Mrs. Egan, Happy Easter, I hope you had a wonderful morning.” Alice reached for Cass’s purse and gloves, taking them before smiling at the sleeping twins who each had a head on one of their father’s shoulders. “I can have Joan take them off your hands, sir.” 

“It’s quite alright, Alice, I think the three of us are going to find a cozy spot on the beach to keep out of my lovely wife’s way.” 

“Perhaps someone could find them an umbrella and blanket and chair?” Cass inquired as she began to walk towards the kitchen, handing Alice her hat as well along the way. “How’s the ham looking? It smells wonderful.”

“Yes, ma’am, we’ll get the beach set up for them. And the ham should be ready to carve exactly as we scheduled dinner for.” John side stepped around a group carrying boxes down the hall. “That would be the two options for porcelain Mrs. Cooper sent for your consideration.”

“Porcelain?” John thought it was a simple family dinner. He didn’t think it would be such an affair when Cass broached him with the idea of hosting.

“Yes. And if I pick the wrong one then I will never hear the end of it.” She turned back to Alice. “I’ll need to see a complete place setting of each one.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll have them get right on it.” 

“What happened to you not wanting to be reduced to a housewife?” John asked as he walked towards the back door, Cass opening it for him and following him down the back steps and onto the sand. 

“I just want everything to be perfect today. I’ll be back to the Spook you know and love as soon as this is over.” 

“First, I love all of you, all the time. Second, I heard you talking to Alice and Joan about hiring more staff, that word is honestly beyond my comprehension, when we go back to Virginia.” Cass took Penelope from him and laid her gently on the shaded blanket that had been set up, her hand brushing over her curls and kissing her forehead gently. 

“And? You don’t want the help?”

“I thought the two of us were getting by quite well on our own.”

“I can’t put off going back to work any longer and I want someone I know and trust with them during the day. And if Alice or Joan are watching them, then they need someone else to do the things they have been doing.” Sure her and John had figured out a rhythm. But eventually Cass needed to get back to doing the work she loved. Rediscover who she was just as Cass and not just as John’s wife or her children’s mother. “Besides, they aren’t watching them so I can go to tea or try on dresses. I need to get back in there. You know what they’ve been saying about Korea.”

“Is that what you’ve been worried about? It’s a few years from anything active, Cass, if anything at all.” She wasn’t used to the anxiety that coursed through her veins after she had the twins. Wasn’t used to feeling her chest so heavy when she thought about how hard this world was going to make it to protect them. 

“Yes, but if I can even do one thing to help prevent them from having to live through a war…” She trailed off and wiped angrily at her eyes, lifting Penelope against her chest and kissing the top of Gale’s head where he still rested against John. “I don’t want them to ever have to experience anything like what we went through.” He gathered her into his side and kissed her temple.

“We went through that so they could live in a better world,” he said softly. “Came out the other side because right here, right now is where we belong.” She looked up with a laugh as she noticed Butter trotting his way over to them, his nose sniffing at Gale and Penelope before he plopped on his side in the shade. 

“If it bothers you, I’ll tell them all to go home and never come back. The five of us can figure the rest out.” 

“No, they’re fine. It’s just not how we did things in Wisconsin. It’s taking some getting used to.” He had assumed Cass came from money when he met her. The well-manicured nails and silk nightgowns and impeccable table manners cluing him in. He just hadn’t realized he was marrying into a Carolina rice dynasty. It came with multiple homes and polo matches and hunting trips and acres of land and hundreds of employees in the home and around the burgeoning corporation. For so long, Cass had thought marriage and kids were not in the cards for her so the structure of a household was a non-existent problem. But then she had fallen in love with John Egan and married him in London and spent two years dreaming of their future and the comforts of her childhood had found their way in.

“Well, Butter, you keep an eye on these three while I pick out porcelain and tie drapes and whatever the heck else a lady is supposed to do these days.” With one last kiss to the top of her daughter’s head, her son’s head and her husband’s head, Cass was off and pulled into a million directions upon re-entering her home. Whenever she could, she would look out the window at her husband tickling their tummies or helping them put sand in a bucket or carrying them to dip their toes in the water. She knew none of the material things around her mattered. And if it made John more comfortable to get rid of them, she would in a heartbeat. She only needed those three humans and the one furry family member to be happy. To be fulfilled in this life beyond her wildest dreams. Any threats on the horizon be damned.

----

Cass waited anxiously for her parents' new Italian sounding car to pull into the driveway, her siblings, extended family and some of the local friends her and John had found already socializing about the house and grounds. She had taken a sip of her husband’s whiskey she was so nervous. 

“Baby, I know for a fact your dad is going to be too focused on the twins and the other grandchildren running around to even care about the way I carve the ham. And who cares if your mother doesn’t like the color of the shutters? I didn’t spend a whole weekend painting them for her.” He had for Cass. She had spent days deciding between two shades of green that John thought were exactly the same but had provided his minimal input when asked. 

“I rewarded you handsomely for your efforts, Mr. Egan.” John remembered. They hadn’t left their bed for days after Cass couldn’t stand the sight of him sweaty and with a pencil tucked behind his ear working on their house any longer. She had had her way with him and John had taken on many more projects around the house ever since. And every time, his wife was unable to maintain even a shred of decency. 

“I never got that round two you were mentioning this morning, Mrs. Egan,” he mused as he drifted closer and closer until his hands wrapped around the small of her back and her arms draped over his shoulders.

“We have a house full of guests,” she giggled as he nipped gently at her lips. 

“Yes but the babies are occupied which means no little angelic interruptions.” She moaned as he pressed a searing kiss to her lips, her toes curling in her new heels. 

“Not even on Easter Sunday can you two find a sense of decorum?” 

“Shush, Gale, they’re in love,” Marge said with a gentle slap to his arm. If Gale Cleven had a nickel for everytime he had caught the two of them in various stages of passion, he would have been able to use the profits alone to buy a similar house to the one he was standing in.

“Oh, I am so happy you were able to make it!” Cass kissed Gale on the cheeks eagerly and let out a squeal of delight as she wrapped Marge in a hug. “I’ve got you both all set up in the guest room furthest from the nursery so you can hopefully sleep in peace while you’re here.” Before John could even say his own hello, Cass and Marge were off towards the backyard with their heads close together as they whispered. 

“Well, we did always say they’d be thick as thieves,” he remarked as he grabbed the suitcase Marge had abandoned by the door. “Up this way.” Gale smiled and nodded politely at all the strangers that were dressed in black and white, bustling in and out of the kitchen and dining room with haste. He could only imagine how it was driving his best friend crazy.

“Who would’ve thought? John Egan having ten people cook his Easter dinner for him,” Gale teased as John set the suitcase down in the guest room and dropped himself into the armchair by the window. 

“I hear it’s being served on porcelain,” he mused back. Gale settled in the chair across from him. 

“It’s a beautiful house, John. You’ve got to be proud of yourself.” John stared out the window and nodded.

“Yeah, it is. Makes Cass happy to be out here.” It wasn’t that she was unhappy at their home in Virginia but John knew she missed South Carolina. Missed the beach and her family being close by. 

“And are you happy?”

“With her and the kids, always. Just learning this new side to her is all.”

“That seems to be what marriage entails. Learning to love something new everyday.” The hum of a car engine broke the comfortable silence between two old friends and Gale peeked out the window with a low whistle. “Is that a Maserati?”

“That it would be, Buck. You want to come distract my mother in law with your good looks for me?” When John and Cass had their more official wedding last year, Buck Cleven had been the hottest commodity. The women of Charleston hadn’t given him a moment to breathe. 

“No I think you’ve got the Cooper women under control, Bucky.” Gale clapped him between his shoulder blades. “Now where’s that beautiful baby you named after me?”

Cass was at the bottom of the stairs waiting with a baby on each hip, Gale kissing their sprouting curls on his way to find Marge on the beach, and John forgot all about anything negative he had been feeling that day. 

“Say hi Daddy, we were looking for you.” The twins smiled like they always did when they had their parents attention solely on them. The sound of Cass’ voice bringing them a calmness only John could ever begin to relate to. 

“Hi, my little bunnies.” John took Penelope onto his own hip, kissing her cheek around the stuffed bunny ear that was between her teeth, Cass reaching to tuck a few of his curls back into place. “I thought you preferred them all messy.”

“I do but-” the door opened and the words died in her throat. 

“Cassandra Ann, that dog of yours does have a habit of sticking his nose all over the place.” 

“Hi, Mama. Happy Easter to you, too.” John whistled for Butter who came and sat at his side dutifully. “Hi, Daddy.” She pressed a kiss to each of her parents’ cheeks and almost cringed as she saw the line of valets carrying colorful baskets into the backyard. The level of stuffed animals entering her home was reaching a near suffocating level. 

“Oh, John, how handsome you look this afternoon.” Cass rolled her eyes as her mother stepped forward to kiss John’s blushing cheeks.

“Thank you, ma’am, you’re looking very lovely yourself. Sir.” He shook her father’s hand firmly, smiling when Penelope reached for her grandfather instantly. 

“Cassandra, aren’t you going to show me around? I’m very curious as to which place setting you chose.” She looked at John to say I told you so before guiding her mother down the hall. 

“Of course. We can start in the dining room if you’d like.” John felt like a bad father as his son looked at him with wide blue eyes over his mother’s shoulder as they disappeared around the corner but he would make it up to him with something sweet after dinner.

“Can I offer you something to drink, sir?” 

“Whiskey, John, thank you.” While John had had to work his charm hard on Mrs. Cooper to convince her he wasn’t a street urchin there to steal her daughter, Mr. Cooper had taken no convincing to know John was the right man for his daughter. Had sat down for one dinner with the two of them and saw how they looked at each other. How he had kept a hand on her protectively the entire time. Had seen the absolute gratitude in Cass’ eyes that John was alive and next to her every time she looked at him.

“I told Cass you’d be more interested in the grandkids than the way I carved the ham later,” he pointed out as Penelope was filled with utter glee at the way her grandfather was tickling her cheeks with her bunny.

“Cassandra has always been my most perceptive child yet, on occasion, forgets that is one of her own most formidable qualities.” John handed him a glass, bringing them together with a clink before taking a sip. “How is my daughter doing?” 

“This one and her brother keep her busy and she’s looking forward to getting back to work. But she’s good. She smiles everyday, I’ll always make sure of it.” Penelope’s lower lip began to wobble and John gathered her against his chest just as the first tear rolled down her chubby cheek. 

“I can go find the nanny-”

“I’ve got it, sir.” John kissed her forehead gently and she quieted. “She’s just like her mother. Pouts until she gets a kiss then she’s fine.” Now she was focused on the fabric of John’s tie and trying to get it into her mouth. Yes, Mr. Cooper thought, Cass had made the perfect decision to marry this man.

“Son, if I may offer a few pointers on carving the ham.”

----

Hours later, after bellies were full and babies were sleepy, the house was beginning to calm down. Cass had shed her stockings and tied her hair back and accepted Marge’s offer to put the twins to sleep. There were people finishing dishes in the kitchen and packing away porcelain in the dining room. Alice was orchestrating the entire effort for which she was grateful, her fingers wrapping around the neck of a bottle of whiskey and heading towards the small fire that was glowing on the beach.

“You hiding from me?” she teased as she dropped a kiss to the top of his head and sat in the chair next to him.

“Never, baby. Was just having a cigarette before coming in to help with bedtime.” Cass wanted him to quit but was starting with not allowing him to smoke around the kids. She handed him the whiskey and took the cigarette from his fingers, inhaling a few times before putting it out in the sand. 

“Marge asked if she could put them to bed for practice. I ran away before she changed her mind,” she giggled. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked around a pull from the bottle.

“Everything.” 

“Spook, you know my ego needs specifics.” He opened his arms, summoning her into his lap, and closed his eyes in peace as her head settled under his chin.

“Not letting me chase you away all those years ago. Not divorcing me when I showed up at your bunk bed in Germany. Our babies.”

“I had very little to do with those two but I’ll take it.” She kissed him gently, lovingly. Without a care in the world and in no rush. “Everything to your liking today?”

“Yes. I promise we won’t host anymore holidays for awhile.”

“You pick the right porcelain?” 

“Of course not.” John laughed and she joined in, taking her own swig of alcohol. “And I was very impressed by your knife skills at dinner.” John kissed the tip of her nose.

“Your dad told me it was important the man of the house not treat it like carving a ham but like he could use the knives to protect his family.”

“Did he?” she asked with a furrowed brow. 

“I think he was trying to convince me to take it more seriously. It worked.” 

“It certainly seemed it did.” Cass twisted her finger around the loose curl in the middle of his forehead as he looked out towards the ocean. “I do have one last ask up my sleeve.” Slowly undoing the buttons of her dress, John was more focused than he had been all day. Between her breasts was an Easter egg with hearts painted on it. 

“I would’ve joined in on the egg hunt had I known, Cass.” 

“Open it.” As soon as he had it in his fingers, her lips were on his jaw and down his neck and he had an inkling what might be inside. He could barely read the words she had written as the blood rushed from his head to between his legs. Round two? His lips were on hers in an instant, John groaning as his hand slid up her thigh and found nothing but bare skin. She made quick work of his belt and zipper, sliding his waistband down just enough to free him. 

“Fuck, baby, no time for teasing.” His hands lifted her hips and he sunk into her with a contented sigh, his lips latching onto her collarbone as she found a steady pace. “Want the neighbors to hear how good I make you feel.”

“John,” she whined as his hand wrapped around her throat and squeezed gently. Unable to hold himself back, he laid her onto the blanket and used the new leverage to increase the pace, her legs hooking around his hips and urging him to go harder and faster. “You’re going to make me cum.” 

“You look so pretty when you cum, baby,” he cooed into her ear as he felt her clenching around him. “That’s my good girl, taking me so well.” His wife looked so good underneath him. Like she truly was made to be his. 

“Fuck, right…there…oh, God,” she arched her back into him as her orgasm washed over her in a waves, John’s hips stuttering as he moaned into her mouth and she took all he had to give her. “I love making you moan.” John was handsome and rugged and all the masculine words that she could think of. But he was also so damn pretty.

“Good thing you’re so good at it,” he said as he nuzzled into the side of her neck. “You’ve worn me out, Mrs. Egan.”

“Can you carry me to bed?” she murmured as her own eyelids were growing heavy. 

“Just let me hold you like this for a few more minutes.”

“Hey, John?” He kissed the side of her neck in acknowledgment. “I love you.”

“Hey, Spook?” She smiled in anticipation. “I love you, too.”

And if Gale earned another nickel as he was closing the blinds that night, no one needed to know.

[hellfirenacht]

Wing Man Part 9

Fic Summary: Steve 'the Hair' Harrington is your best friend, and is constantly striking out. Sick of this, you two make a deal; you'll wing man for each other. Hooking Steve up with dates is easy, but he finds himself struggling to find you a date. At least, until Dustin starts talking about his new cool friend Eddie.

Chapter Summary: You and Eddie go on your first date, but the past always lingers. 6.5 words

(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8)

Note: Y'all get to be a little horny in this one. As a treat <3 Also the poll results said you don't mind small details of what you all are wearing, and that you wanted to dress moderately slutty so I tried to keep that in mind. Enjoy!

Eddie kept his promise. For the next few days the two of you found yourself talking on the phone a lot between work shifts, band practice, and school. Late night talks became the norm, the two of you spending your evenings opening up to each other bit by bit. 

You told him about Family Video and gave him the scoop of which of his peers were renting from the back rooms, and he told you about his own shifts at the Hideout and about the weird things his drunk usuals would say. Bev had been giving him shifts again, which was at least a small steady income compared to his usual dealings.

The next Tuesday you had gone to the Hideout with Eddie, this time with him picking you up and dropping you off after. It wasn’t a date, not exactly. It was just two people who had an interest in each other hanging out with other people. Eddie had said the main reason it wasn’t a date was because he was technically working, and he didn’t want your first official date to have his band mates tagging along. Of course, that didn’t stop them from giving him knowing looks and giving him shit whenever your back was turned. Eddie would carefully keep tabs on how often they would do it, and would make them pay later during their campaign. 

That was fine with you, you were still more than happy to just spend time with Eddie and learn more about him. Watching him play guitar was mesmerizing and it was nice to be able to gawk at him in peace during his set without Steve telling you to close your mouth and stop drooling. 

After the set and dropping everyone else at home, the two of you had spent another two hours in his van just talking. Now that everything was out in the open, that awkwardness that had been between the two of you had faded into nothing. You found that talking to Eddie was as easy as talking to Steve, and you loved hearing about all of his stories from Hellfire and hearing him talk about his music. 

The only reason the two of you didn’t stay up until morning parked in front of your apartment building was because Eddie was reminded by you that he was still in school and needed to get some sleep for class the next day. When you kissed his cheek again before sliding out of his van he made a mental note to beg Bev to go on with Corroded Coffin on a Friday or Saturday for once. 

Halloween was on a Thursday this year, and you had made it very clear to Keith that you were not going to be working that night, or the next day. You had saved up all your bartering chips of overtime and days where you came in when anyone else couldn’t. You had put in your time off request three months in advance. 

Work could have you any other day of the week, but Halloween was yours and yours alone. You’d work Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Arbor Day, and Groundhog Day. You’d forgo Easter Sunday, New Years Eve and Day, and you wouldn’t bat an eye at Valentines day. But Halloween? That was yours and yours alone. 

It was the one day out of the year that you felt like you could be you. Even after the monster that is Hawkins High tried to strip you of being yourself, you pushed through and came out the other side of graduation with a new determination to never water yourself down again. You worked your ass off to save for your own run down apartment, to find clothing that you loved and not just what your peers told you to wear to blend in. 

If you wanted to show up to a shift on Halloween dressed as Han Solo with a Teddy Bear, you damn well could and no one could stop you. Not even Keith. 

But lucky for you, when the schedule for the week was posted that Monday, your name was thankfully cleared for Thursday and Friday. Keith could handle himself for those two morning shifts, and Robin and Steve could handle the evenings. It’s not like Family Video was really busy or open late on Thursday nights and you trusted Steve and Robin to handle the Friday rush. 

You woke up that Thursday feeling like it was your own personal Christmas. You took your time to wake up, have breakfast and get ready for the day. You almost called Eddie before you remembered that it was still a weekday and he would be in school. Besides, it would be weird to call him before your first date, right? 

Steve had given you a crash course on first dates over your shared shifts. His advice was a mixed bag to say the least. Every time he gave you insight into the male mind on how to act or dress or talk on a first date he would then backtrack when he remembered who he was talking to and who this first date was with. 

“Listen, you got this far by being a weirdo.” Steve had finally said after the conversation had basically gone nowhere. “I guess keep talking about eating bats and fake being drunk and you’ll get the guy.”

“You know, when you put it like that I’m starting to see why maybe this whole casual dating thing hasn’t worked for me in the past.” you had replied. 

Most of your Halloween was spent by yourself, but that wasn’t a bad thing. You started off with a nice slow morning of carving your annual jack o'lantern, having learned the hard way to not put it out early, lest it rot or be smashed by asshole kids in the neighborhood. The afternoon was spent around town, just taking in the crisp fall air and the decorations set up by all of the shops.. 

The hypocrisy in this town was stunning sometimes. Every other day of the year you had been followed by whispers of the Satanic Panic and any idea that something other than the norm might be related to something more nefarious was ostracized. Sometimes you could understand where the fear was coming from, after all the Byers kid had disappeared, presumed dead, and then had come back all within a week a few years ago. Barbara Holland had been killed by chemicals in the Hawkins Lab. There was even the fire at the mall that had killed the police chief, as well as the local lifeguard. It seemed like every single year some new tragedy would strike the small town. 

You couldn’t wait to run away to somewhere else. 

But for now, the day was yours and the night was Eddie’s. Your stomach flipped every time you thought about meeting up with him tonight. You had built up this production a lot over the past few days. You had seen the shadow cast about once a month since you were old enough to go at 18, give or take a few times where you had other plans. 

Each time you had gone, you had checked the board hoping to see the announcement that they would be opening auditions to be part of the cast or crew. But the show was tight knit, and that rarely happened. 

But at least that meant that tonight you could share something with Eddie other than your origami. Not that you were embarrassed by your hobby, but compared to running a D&D campaign and being in a band, it didn’t feel like much. 

You never seemed to run out of things to talk about with Eddie though, during your late night talks on the phone. When you weren’t captivated by his tales of running Hellfire or the inspiration for his music, you two would talk about everything else. Music, movies, the occasional small town gossip, anything you two could think of. You had already compiled a small list of movies that only one of you had seen, because all new relationships always start with “What do you mean you haven’t seen this movie?!”

That’s how you and Steve and Robin had bonded over those first few months. It probably wouldn’t be that much different with Eddie. 

After a long stroll through the town, a quick stop in to your favorite coffee shop for a treat, and a bout of window shopping in the Halloween aisles of local stores, you made your way home. You considered dropping by the high school to see Eddie as the afternoon came to a close, but you didn’t want to seem desperate. You’d see him soon enough anyway. 

As the evening went on, you popped in a few thematically appropriate movies that you watched between doing your hair and make up and passing out candy to kids who came up to your door. You may or may not have saved some of the best candy for yourself. And Eddie. He liked Snickers right? You hoped he did. 

You were ready a good two hours before you needed to meet him at the theater at midnight. You were starting to wish that you had invited him over to pre-game before the movie, but unfortunately you had listened to some of Steve’s advice and were left sitting around in your fishnets and dark lipstick for your first date with Eddie. The only thing you weren’t wearing yet were your tall boots which you only broke out for this showing because they were too uncomfortable to wear anywhere else. 

Steve had relented that you were going to dress weird for the date, considering the day and the nature of what you and Eddie were doing, but he said it’d be too weird to get ready with him. 

You decided that next time would be different. Next year, you’d have Eddie over all day, and the two of you would spend the day carving pumpkins and listening to music and arguing over what movie to watch as you passed out candy. Eddie would probably be stingy with the candy so that there would be leftovers for the two of you at the end of the night, and you’d be giving bars out by the handfuls. Maybe the two of you would cough up the dough for some full sized candy bars for kids with really fun costumes and-

What were you doing? You weren’t even officially dating yet, the first date hadn’t even happened! You were getting ahead of yourself, and thinking way too far ahead. You didn’t need to be thinking these domestic thoughts about a guy you barely knew. 

Get your shit together. You scolded yourself. Let’s try and go on one date first, then maybe have dirty thoughts about him and then I can have mushy domestic thoughts about him if things go well.

You were really hoping things went well. 

After around 10 pm the trick-or-treaters tapered off and you dumped the remaining candy in your bag for the movie. Your hand itched for the phone around 10:30, your brain telling you that it was getting late and that you should call Eddie now if you wanted to talk to him before bed, and you reminded yourself that you’ll see him in an hour. 

The hour could not go any slower. 

“Steve, I’m freaking out.” you said into the phone the second he picked up. “What the fuck am I doing?!”

“You’re going on a date with Eddie Munson to a midnight showing of a movie that has no plot.” he yawned. 

You resisted the urge to hang up on him and instead paced around your living room, holding onto the phone. 

“Steve, I’m serious!” 

“So am I, the more you talk about the movie the less sense it makes.” 

You lightly smacked your head against the wall. “How do you do this every week with different girls?! I’m going on one date and I feel too damn antsy.”

The chord to your phone stretched to its limit as you walked towards your bookshelf and pulled out your senior year yearbook, flipping through it. 

“Dating is like any other skill, you have to practice and actually do it to be any good.” Steve sighed into the phone. 

“I hate that.” you said, looking through the Ms. Maddison... Morrison.... Munson. 

No photo available, what the actual fuck? You flipped through the book, to the club section but there was no trace or whisper of the Hellfire Club at all in the 1984 Hawkins High yearbook. 

“This was your idea.” Steve reminded you as you pushed the book away and reached for 1983’s yearbook. 

“And? I have a lot of ideas and not all of them are good.” You flipped through the book, trying to find Eddie’s name and photo. Why hadn’t you thought of this before?

“So... are you chickening out, again?” You could hear the mild annoyance in his voice. 

“No! I’m just... I’m just nervous, alright? I haven’t been on a date since Junior year. Wait no, there was that horrible study date in Senior year. It’s been a while okay?” you groaned. 

You scanned the Ms again, stopping for a split second to snicker at Chris Morrison’s horrible yearbook photo. His hair was an unfortunate overgrown sandy haircut that looked like a bad mix of a mullet and a bowl cut, with a fringe that fell in his gray eyes. His face was stoic and he looked like he wanted to kill whoever was in charge of the camera. 

A few photos later was Eddie Munson’s Junior year photo. Somehow seeing his face in your yearbook made your shoulders relax a little bit. You at least could confirm that you had indeed gone to school with him. His face was softer looking, and his hair fell just below his jawline.You saw a peak of his Hellfire shirt, the same one in Chris’s photo. He was smiling, well as best as a teenage boy who doesn’t want to get his photo taken would smile. It was endearing, and something in the back of your mind started nagging at you that this Eddie looked more familiar. 

“Hello? Anyone home?” 

You snapped back to reality, remembering that you were on the phone with Steve. “Yeah, sorry I got distracted. What was that?” 

“I said you shouldn’t be nervous.” Steve repeated. “You like him. He likes you. It’s not that complicated. He wouldn’t have shown up that night if he didn’t have an interest in you.”

“Oh, but what if it is that complicated, Stevie?” You sighed dramatically. “After all, the three of us seem to be horribly unlucky in love.”

“You’re telling me.” Steve admitted. “Three dozen dates later and I’m still looking for that spark.” 

Steve had been head over heels for Nancy Wheeler, and had his heart crushed. You hadn’t had any luck in love ever, with only a few failed dates under your belt from high school, and two one-night stands. Robin... you couldn’t get a read on her. She seemed to have a crush on someone, and Steve definitely knew who it was but they weren’t telling you. It hurt a little, but you knew that the two had a bond that you wouldn’t be able to touch. If Robin wanted to tell you, she would. 

Okay, you did ask and make sure that the person she was crushing on wasn’t Eddie. The last thing you wanted was to date someone who your friend had feelings for. Thankfully, Robin had quickly cleared up that she didn’t even know Eddie and therefore can confidently say that she had absolutely no feelings for the guy, romantic or otherwise. 

Steve spent the next half hour calming you down and talking to you as you flipped through your high school yearbooks, picking out Eddie’s photo in each one. There was even a small blurb about the Hellfire Club in your freshman yearbook. As you delved deeper in time, his hair got shorter and shorter, and he looked more and more familiar. 

Where did you know this guy from? 

When the clock struck 11 pm, you said your goodbye to Steve, checked yourself out in the mirror one last time, and made your way to the theater. 

It was twenty minutes until show time when you parked your car and made your way into the lobby. The yellow lights illuminated the crowd of people who had shown up for the annual midnight screening, and you took a deep breath as you scanned the crowd. 

Just for tonight, you felt like you could breathe. 

Freaks and weirdos from all over had come together for a night of sex jokes, aliens, music, and yelling at a screen. The room was filled with people covered in leather, and lingerie and costumes from both the show and other media. There were a few familiar faces, and you spotted two people that you recognized from the shadow cast in the corner. They looked... upset. Not at each other, you recognized the way they were talking to each other. You and Steve and Robin had given each other the same looks before when Keith had fucked up the schedule or a customer pissed one of you off. 

Whatever was the matter, the two quickly finished their bitch session and made their way back into the theater. You wondered what that was about, but didn’t have time to think about it too hard because a hand fell on your shoulder. 

Your breath caught in your throat when you turned around to see your date. Eddie’s hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, which really showed his jawline and really long neck you wondered what the square of his jaw would feel like against your lips. He hadn’t ditched his battle vest or leather jacket you weren’t complaining and he was wearing a cropped shirt . You had to force yourself to not look at his exposed midriff you’ve never wanted to bite someone’s hips before holy shit, or note the fine trail of hair just below his belly button that dipped into his dark ripped jeans where a peak of blue boxers were peaking out. Did he taste as good as he looked?!  He had swapped out a few of his rings, but the obsidian one on his right hand stayed, and the chains on his jacket, bracelet and wallet made a noise with every movement he made. What would that sound like if he was on top of you? 

A small voice in the back of your mind told you that Dustin Henderson could rent any movie he ever wanted ever forever as long as you worked Family Video. 

You pushed those sudden X rated feelings down, and smiled up at him. “Hey, I’m glad you made it.” you managed to say, tongue tied as you thought about what you’d rather your tongue suddenly be doing- 

Eddie’s eyes drifted down your outfit in the same way that you were sure you had just looked at him. The idea that he might also be thinking similar thoughts about you made your heart race before he turned away. He was now looking around the lobby with wide eyes, taking in all the different people his expression was somewhere between elation and disbelief. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many freaks in person.” he said, his eyes darting around to the crowds of people. 

“You aren’t at Hawkins High and these aren’t children.” you said, watching his expression. “It’s why I like coming here each month. I get to meet people who are more like me.”

Eddie took in the scene, and you took in Eddie. Horny thoughts aside, you wondered how often he got to see people who weren’t cut from the standard Hawkins cookie cutter. From what he’d told you during your late night calls, his social circle was tiny. His only friends were in Hawkins, except for one Ronnie Ecker. 

You had escaped the monster that was Hawkins High School, even if you were still stuck in the beast of a town. You didn’t have much room to judge his smaller group when Steve and Robin were the only ones who you reliably hung out with on a regular basis. Even then, you knew that the two of them had a connection that went deeper than just coworkers and people who went to school together. 

Did Eddie have someone that he connected with the same way Robin and Steve did? There were so many things about him that you still wanted to know about him. 

A voice called your name, and your eyes lit up as you saw Robin and Steve walking over to the two of you. Excitement then shifted to confusion, wait, what were they doing here? Did they come here to crash your date? That didn’t seem right, not after Steve had put in so much effort into making sure that this date actually happened. 

You and Robin hugged and Steve gave a slightly awkward hello. Eddie was looking between you and your two friends, looking just as confused as you felt. 

“Hey, Robin!” you said, trying to figure out what was going on. “What are you guys doing here?”

“You invited us a month ago, remember?” Robin asked. “You made a big deal about dragging us to the Halloween showing this year and Steve and I got tickets. But don’t worry! We know this is a date so me and Steve are going to sit at the opposite side of the theater and make sure that we don’t bother you. Of course, Steve said that we shouldn’t come but we had already bought the tickets and I wanted to come and see this again.”

Oh... oh shit. Right. You had done that, hadn’t you? Before you and Steve had even started this whole thing, you had been bugging him to come see it with you. Robin had come and done it once with you earlier at the end of Summer, but Steve hadn’t been able to make it. 

In a sea of lingerie, leather, and sequins, Steve stood out like a sore thumb in his yellow sweater and tall hair. For once, he looked like the odd one out. Robin had always had a slightly edgier style, and with her sharpied black nails and chain necklaces, she fit right in. 

You were going to give Steve so much shit for it later. 

“Look, I didn’t expect us to actually come out tonight until Robin called and demanded I pick her up.” Steve said, apologetically. 

“I see what’s going on.” Eddie spoke up, looking between the three of you. “Mom and Dad are here to chaperone your first date.” 

You threw your head back and cackled at the joke, laughing unabashedly. 

“Steve’s the single mom with six kids.” Robin said. “But I’m not Dad, I’m more like the cool weird aunt.” 

“‘Why am I always the mom?!” Steve demanded. 

“Because you have six kids, Steve, keep up.” you pointed out. “But we all know Dustin’s your favorite.” 

“I’m telling Wheeler.” Eddie chimed in. 

“I’m not the mom, I’m the babysitter!” 

“You literally gave Max lunch money two weeks ago.”

“That doesn’t mean-”

“Oh look! They’re starting to tag the Virgins!” You suddenly said excitedly. 

Steve and Eddie stopped and stared at you, as your eyes darted to the two cast members that you had seen earlier. Whatever they had been bitching about was now put aside, and they were now walking around, each holding a bright red tube of lipstick. They had approached some guy and drew a giant V on their forehead. 

“Right, I didn’t really tell you about this.” you explained. “So at each showing, if you’ve never seen the movie in theaters you’re called a ‘virgin’. So, there’s a bit of a hazing ritual for newcomers. They call it the Virgin Sacrifice here. Basically, they draw a V on your forehead, and then before the show starts they’ll have the Virgins come up on stage, do some sort of dare or task, and then the movie starts.”

“How bad is it?” Steve asked as Robin grabbed his arm and started dragging him to the cast members. 

“It’s usually not that bad.” You said. “When I was a Virgin Sacrifice a few years ago they had me ‘Pledge Allegiance to the Lips’ and taught me how to do the Time Warp on stage while the sprayed me with silly string.” 

“When I went they had all of us blow up a bunch of red balloons and then hit them with thumb tacks when they were still in our mouths.” Robin laughed. “They called it ‘The Great Cherry Popping’.”

“Oh my God, I remember that one guy had crazy lung capacity and blew up like, ten in a row!” you cackled. 

“What do you think they’ll have us do?” Eddie asked, and for a second your brain froze as you felt his hand wrap around yours as you started to approach the cast members. You could feel the metal of his rings, warmed by his skin, pressing into yours. 

“They always mix it up every month so it’s hard to say.” you said. “But they always go crazy for the Virgin Sacrifices on Halloween.” 

“Got a fresh Virgin for you!” Robin says, shoving Steve in front of the Columbia actress who looked Steve up and down as if she were going to eat him. 

“Aww, a cute little Virgin just for me?!” she squealed. “You shouldn’t have! Come here, Big Boy.”

Steve didn’t have much time to react as a large V was placed on his forehead with the lipstick. He didn’t seem to mind, however, when Columbia leaned over and gave him a big kiss on the cheek, leaving a large lipstick stain. 

“You know, maybe I’m seeing the appeal of this.” He said as you pushed Eddie up next. 

“A two for one deal for ya, Columbia!” you said proudly. 

“Two?!” Her eyes lit up, and you could tell that she was having the time of her life. “Is it my birthday?!” 

She looked at Eddie and pushed his bangs back as she drew the V on his forehead and gave him a smooch on the cheek as well. You could already tell what Steve was thinking when he looked at you. Probably something like It’s not normal to let another girl kiss your date or something like that. And okay, fine, you were planning on wiping the lipstick off of Eddie’s face before you went in for the kiss tonight, but you didn’t see any reason to be jealous. You knew exactly what was going to happen tonight. Hell, when you first came you ended the night with three different lipstick marksI Really, Steve and Eddie were getting stiffed tonight. Besides, Eddie hadn’t given you any reason to not trust him, and why start anything if you didn’t trust a guy?

“His name is Eddie.” you offered up and Steve gave you another look that you translated to Are you wing manning your own date?! You ignored it. 

“What a coincidence! My boyfriend’s name is Eddie!” Columbia said excitedly. “You two even have the same leather jacket! Do you also ride a motorcycle?”

To your delight, Eddie didn’t miss a beat. “Not yet, but I might one day. Just a van for now.”

“Ohh, I bet a lot of fun happens in the back of your van.” she winked, and you could see a slight blush spread across his cheeks and the tips of his ears. “You should come join me and my Eddie for dinner next week, we’re having Meat Loaf!” 

You and Robin burst into a fit of giggles at the joke, as Eddie and Steve made eye contact for a moment and just shrugged at each other. Columbia gave Robin a wink and sauntered off to another group with their own Virgin to sacrifice.

With your Virgins freshly marked, snacks in hand,  and the doors to the theater opening, you parted ways with Steve and Robin as they made their way to the front row and you made your way to the back with Eddie. 

“The back row has my favorite call and response.” you explained as the two of you made your way to an open pair of seats. “And there are a lot of lines that are standard with every show, but if you can think of a good one, don’t even hesitate. Just call it out, okay? I’ll also warn you when people are about to start throwing things.”

“So, this is a bad movie where we are encouraged to yell and throw things?” Eddie asked, a wide grin on his face. “And where we sit depends on what we say?”

“Yes, it’s complete chaos.” you said. “I love it. Every show is always a little different because of the audience participation. Keeps it fresh, you know? Also, if you sit in the back you won’t get popcorn on your hair.” 

“Jeff dumped a bucket of popcorn in my hair once.” Eddie said. “It took me a week to get all the kernels out.”

“How the hell did that happen?!”

“I was sitting down, he was walking over with popcorn to bribe me for some roll, and then there was popcorn and butter everywhere.”

“I take it you didn’t give him the advantage he wanted?” you giggled. 

“No, he desiccated a snack in front of the Dungeon Master. He’s lucky I didn’t kill his character off when that happened.”

“The more I hear you talk about Hellfire, the more I wish I had been able to join in school.” you sighed. “You always sound like you have so much fun.”

“You... sometimes I do run some one-shots.” Eddie said, messing with one of his rings. “I haven’t done a game for beginners in a while but I could get the others to suck it up and run one for you.”

A warmth burned in your cheeks and you smiled at him. “Really? You’d run a game for me just so I could play?”

“Oh yeah, but just so you know, your movie isn’t the only thing that has its own hazing ritual.” Eddie smiled at you. “I tend to go extra hard on new players, just to make sure that they’re really up for the challenge of being in Hellfire.” 

You can go extra hard on me. You just barely managed to keep that as an inside thought with the way he was looking at you with those intense doe eyes. You definitely didn’t miss the subtle way his eyes darted to your lips for just a split second. 

Oh, you were so going to kiss him tonight. Not yet, not right now. If you went in for the kiss now, you just knew that you wouldn’t want to stop kissing him. And as much as you wouldn’t mind that, you also really wanted to share this experience with him. 

“So, is that a Hellfire thing, or a you thing?” you asked. “Did any former Dungeon Masters have hazing rituals, or are you just that sadistic?” 

“Chris didn’t need to haze anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.” Eddie said. “Hard to haze new players if he never let anyone new play.”

“Touche.” 

“He was actually in the theater program the last semester he was with Hellfire.” Eddie said suddenly, as if he had just remembered. “He got roped into doing backstage work for the Spring play and ran Hellfire into the ground. He’d always change the schedule of when we could meet up, and then get pissed with everyone when he couldn’t keep up.”

“I heard that doing tech for the shows is always a lot of work.” you said. “But it really sucks that he got pissed.”

“He ended up fully quitting Hellfire halfway through the semester, and that’s when I took over.” Eddie explained. “I had already been running the club anyway, but that just made it more official.” 

The lights in the theater flickered on and off, signaling the start of the show. 

“They’ll probably call you up to be part of the Virgin Sacrifice.” you said. “If you want to back out, no judgment. Your hair covers your shame, so you could probably duck out”

“I’ll do it.” Eddie said. “It’s only fair, if I run a one-shot for you and refuse to go easy on you, the least I can do is get on stage for your interest.” 

Had anyone ever shown this much interest in something you cared about? Robin had come with you before, and Steve had to be dragged here but this felt different somehow. Shit, the more you talked to him, the more you were tempted to ask him to leave the theater right now and show you the back of his van. 

“You know, I really always wanted to be part of the shadow cast.” you explained. “I’d love to be on stage as Columbia or Janet, hell I’d even love to be Riff Raff.”

“You want to be on stage in your underwear once a month?” Eddie raised an eyebrow. 

“It looks fun, but they never have auditions. It’s a pretty tight community, so you really have to know someone to get in. The most I’ve been able to do is sign up for clean up duty after the show. They give you tickets to the next show if you do that.”

The house lights went down, and you waited for the stage lights to come on and for the cast to come up and introduce the show and start the Virgin Sacrifice. The idea of seeing Steve and Eddie up there made you so giddy, and you couldn’t wait to tell Eddie more about the cast. 

But the stage lights never came on. Instead the movie just went and started and soon a bright red pair of lips were on screen, singing to everyone. 

They were skipping the Virgin Sacrifice? You had been going to this show for years and they never skipped the Virgin Sacrifice. And on Halloween? What was going on?

You were disappointed, but there was no use letting it ruin your evening. You shook it off and focused on singing along and teaching Eddie the important things to shout and when. How could you be too disappointed when Eddie was having so much fun? He was a natural, and witty and was quick to pick up on the jokes. 

It helped even more that he was still holding your hand. 

But something felt off during the whole show. There were a few members of the cast that you didn’t recognize, and they were giving a less than stellar performance. Choreography was wrong, the lip syncing was off, and Janet’s bra and slip were too... sexy. You also felt the man with the long sandy hair playing Rocky would have better been suited for Riff Raff.

Whoever coordinated this show, didn’t do a very good job. You felt bad that Steve and Eddie’s first time at the show wasn’t the best, especially after you had talked it up so much. 

If Eddie noticed the lackluster performance, he didn’t say anything. Maybe you were being too nitpicky, he was having a blast after all. Eddie was cracking jokes, and his voice carried through the theater so well even the front row fuck the front row! could hear him. 

As the credits rolled, and everyone made their way out to the lobby, you met back up with Steve and Robin. 

“That movie made even less sense than when you told us about it.” Steve said and you just shrugged. 

“I never said it made sense, I just said it was fun.” 

“I wouldn’t mind coming back.” Eddie said. “I wonder if they’d consider a live band to go with the stage actors.” 

You had to stop yourself from dropping down to your knees. One knee or two, you hadn’t decided yet. 

Robin yawned and you caught a glimpse of a lipstick mark on her jaw. You made a note to ask about that later. “If I’m out any later, my parents are gonna kill me. I still have school in the morning.” 

“Alright, let’s get you home.” Steve said. “See you two around.” His eyes darted down to where your hand and Eddie’s were still clasped together before pushing Robin out of the lobby and towards the parking lot. 

You and Eddie followed behind, but didn’t head straight for your cars. The two of you moved to stand below the yellow lighting of the yellow marquis. You watched as Eddie leaned against the brick wall and lit a cigarette, blowing smoke that disappeared under the clear sky. 

Under this lighting, you had a familiar feeling. There was something in the back of your mind, like a picture that was made of the same smoke coming from between his lips. Every time you reached out and almost had it, it disappeared in an instant. Something about the way he looked right now gave you a faint memory of being nervous, but not in a bad way. 

“That might be the first time I’ve ever felt normal.” Eddie said, looking at you. “I didn’t realize how many freaks there really were in Indiana.” 

“There are freaks and weirdos everywhere, if you know where to look.” you said. Eddie pocketed his lighter and took another drag. “Most people hide it though. I’m glad you don’t.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s nice to see someone really being themselves in this town. You’re a breath of fresh air.” you looked out at the street, watching as people got in their cars and drove out of the parking lot. You caught a glimpse of the Columbia, only catching her by her hair and make up as she rushed out of the theater towards the parking lot. “I... even if this doesn’t go anywhere, I like you.” you admitted. “I want to keep being friends.”

Eddie frowned and faced you. He had dropped your hand to light his cigarette, and you noticed his hand move towards yours before stopping and falling back to his side. 

“Is this your way of letting me down easy?” he asked, and your heart broke seeing the confusion in his big brown doe eyes. 

“No!” you said quickly. “No, not even a little. No. I want to see you again. A lot.” 

Eddie’s face relaxed and this time he did take your hand. He dropped his cigarette and snuffed out the butt with his sneaker. You took the hint and moved closer to him as well. 

“You like me?” he asked, and you liked the way his dimples showed when he smiled. 

That was the high sign. You didn’t even care that he still had a lipstick mark on his cheek, when all you could focus on were those warm brown eyes. You started to lean in, and you felt Eddie’s free hand move to your arm and up towards your shoulder. When he got close enough to count his unfairly long eyelashes, you closed your eyes-

“Eddie? Eddie Munson?”

Reality snapped back into place as you two heard a voice. You looked at Eddie’s face first, and there was an intense look in his eyes. His hand fell from your arm, while you tried to decipher what his expression meant. 

You turned around to see who he was looking at, ready to kill whoever had interrupted the moment. 

You hadn’t recognized him on stage as Rocky. The man's long sandy hair was now tied back and his overgrown fringe still fell into his gray eyes. He had filled out since high school, and he wasn’t wearing that stony scowl that had been his staple all through the years you’d seen him. 

“Chris Morrison?!”

a/n: This chapter turned out way longer than expected and I still didn't fit everything into it! I had a whole other scene planned out, but that just means I have the motivation to start on the next part!

ALSO I think I might have run out of blogs to tag? It won't let me tag anymore blogs for the tag list but you can also find this story on AO3 and sub there as well!

Dividers by @strangergraphics

Tag List: @k8loo @terrormonster55 @sp1dyb0y1008 @crocwork-clockodile @ali-r3n @mxcheese @josephquinnschesthair @gagasbee @peaches-roses-sins @witchwolflea @vintagehellfire @royale1803 @cumslutforaemond @prestinalove @browneyedgirl320 @perpetualmessmachine @thebook-hobbit @mistonk @cultish-corner @grishaversecaptivated @sortagaysortahigh @halialex1119 @bakugouswhOr3 @siriuslysmoking @pookiesnatcher @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @takemetoneverlandbabe @killjoynotes @maelibo @themunsonator5000 @wheels-of-despair @woodlandsubshrub @ghcstpyre @pedroschka

[iamqueenpotato]

I Hate That I Love You- Part Four

Azriel x Reader

A/N- Hi beautiful people! Here is part four! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter yesterday if you celebrate it. If not, I hope you had a wonderful Sunday :) This part was surprisingly longer than I thought it was going to be. Also, I made a header for this fic. I thought it may be easier than finding random photos of nature for each part haha okay I'm done rambling, enjoy!!

⚠️: None(I think)

Word Count: 3.5k

Part One

You absolutely despised this place. Two days in, and you were over it. You hoped there was something of importance to report to Rhys, but there was absolutely nothing different about this camp. The fact of not finding anything started getting on your nerves. And of course, Azriel was as well.

You knew sharing that cabin would be an interesting venture, but he was everywhere. Always waiting in the sitting room or in the kitchen. He lingered and yet never said a word to you, but then again, you left the rooms so quick you never gave him the chance to speak. But after being cooped up in your room for hours, you decided to leave the cabin, wearing your leathers. You walked out the door, and there he was, chopping up wood off to the side. Shirtless.

Your eyes lingered for far too long, the way his arms flexed as he chopped each piece of wood, the sweat that gathered on his abdomen even though it was freezing outside, you knew he was stunning but in this moment you were reminded of it. You stared long enough that his shadows alerted him of your presence. You quickly moved your gaze away, a blush creeping up your cheeks. But you knew he caught you staring. He placed the axe down before walking towards you. You met him halfway.

“Shouldn’t you put a shirt on?” You asked, not moving your eyes from the tree behind him.

“Does it distract you?” He cocked an eyebrow, a small grin on his face.

“Don’t see why it would.” You then looked at him. The second your eyes locked, it was as if he lost all confidence. You brushed past him, not wanting to waste anymore time around him.

“Where are you going?” He caught your arm, pulling you back to face him.

“To do our job.” You pulled his hand off you. Letting it fall back to his side. And to be far from you. “I will be back by dinner.” You moved past him again. Leaving him and the cabin far in the distance.

It was the same thing as the last time you walked around this camp. No one seemed out of place or acted like they were doing something they weren’t supposed to. But you weren’t ready to go back yet. Perhaps if you waited a couple more hours, Azriel would have left.

You sat down on a nearby bench, attempting to control your breathing. You couldn’t stop replaying the hurt look on his face when you told him the two of you shouldn't be acquainted anymore. Why did it have to be so frustrating? Why did your heart and mind have to betray you so? Why couldn’t you just move on.

You closed your eyes, focusing on the rapid beats of your heart and not the way his entire being took over your mind. To say you were annoyed was an understatement. It was as though the universe only wanted to remind you of the torment your heart had been through.

“You dont belong here. Females don’t serve a purpose unless they are in the kitchen or the bed.” A male spoke up, causing an eruption of laughter to echo throughout the camp. You opened your eyes, finding a group of males around you.

You stood from your seated position on the bench, straightening your leathers. “So what I’m hearing is the only thing in your miserable life that has purpose is your hand?”

The males fell silent. The one that spoke bared his teeth at you. “Let’s see what sort of warrior you are.”

“I dont want to hurt your manhood.” Your tone was stoic, unbothered.

“You truly think you can beat me?”

You looked at your challenger, he was twice your size, muscles filling each inch of his leathers. Scars decorating his face.

It's too easy. “Don’t go crying to your comrades when you get beat by a female.” You teased, stretching as the other warriors moved in tandem to form a circle around the two of you.

Widening your stance, you brought your closed fists up your face, watching as he did the same.

The male advanced first, throwing hits left and right, but with simple slips to each side, you easily dodged them.

He left his chest open instead of guarding his body the moment after attempting to knock you down. So you threw your fist, colliding it with his diaphragm, sending him flying backward, unable to catch his breath. He attempted to stand from his kneeled position, but you were on him in an instant. Landing a solid right hook to his jaw. You threw yourself behind him, holding him within a chokehold. There was a part of you that wished he put up more of a fight. The mother knows you had more anger to spare.

He tried to break free, but you held your stance firmly, pulling tighter on your hold. Until you felt those taps on your forearm, did you let go.

The circle of Illyrians around you gasped and snickered as you pushed the male off of you. Not sparing a single glance towards any of them as you walked out the circle, wiping the small bit of sweat from your brow.

You found your seat back on the same bench, watching as two males helped your opponent off the ground. You gave him a slight wave, smiling as he kept his gaze to the ground.

“That was quite intriguing to watch, quick and efficient. Good.” An unfamiliar voice spoke up from behind you.

You turned to face him. He was an older male. Dark brown eyes and gray hair. He wore Illyrian leathers but you had never seen him before. His wings had plenty of marks and scars from battles, but his demeanor was off, like he was hiding something, being somewhere he wasn’t allowed. Secrecy loomed over his entire being. He held his hands behind his back, staring down at you with curious eyes.

Overall, he made you uncomfortable.

“Thanks.” You turned away from him, hoping he would take the hint. But instead, he walked around, standing right in front of you. “Can I help you?”

“I dont believe we’ve met. What is your name?” The man questioned, kneeling down in front of you.

“Why does it matter?” You stood from your seat, avoiding stepping any closer to him. There was something about this man that had put your nerves completely on edge. Maybe it was the tone in his voice or how he looked at you.

You sensed his movements, the arm that was outstretched to grab you. Pivoting, you snatched his wrist. He smiled. “Such talent. And heightened senses. Is each member of the inner circle as talented?” His smile grew wider, and you dropped his wrist.

“Who are you?” You placed your hand on your dagger that you had strapped to your thigh. Moving backward a few steps.

But the sound of footsteps behind you made you turn, your dagger held firmly in your grip toward whoever approached. You found an Illyrian warrior, his hands raised in surrender. You lowered your blade, and when you turned back around, the other male had disappeared as if he wasn’t even there in the first place. “Did you see that man?”

The other male shook his head, looking around the area with you as you spun in all different directions. You re-sheathed your dagger, mentally noting each feature of the strange male. You would have to talk to Rhys about it when you returned.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m Surin.” He held out his hand, you took it warily. “I wanted to offer you a drink.”

“For what?” You responded, eyeing the Illyrian for any tells of something peculiar.

“For kicking Besian’s ass.” Surin smiled, his wings relaxing behind him. “That brute has been giving me hell for the last month, it was quite satisfying to see him laying on the ground so defeated,” You smiled this time, you could tell this male meant no harm. “So that drink?” He asked once more. You nodded, letting him lead the way.

Surin was an attractive male, though he didn’t look like most Illyrians. He had blonde curly hair and soft green eyes. His tan skin was painted with the few scars he had, but his features didn’t give off that war scorned look. You didn’t know exactly what he did or what battles he faced but the torment of death and suffering hadn’t taken over his soul yet or perhaps he didn’t let it get to him as the others did.

The two of you sat close around a fire he put together on the outskirts of the camp, drinking some liquor that he had in his tent. The sun had fallen far behind the mountains. The bottle you shared was halfway gone. You were dressed down to just your undershirt and pants. Surin brought out a light jacket for you to wear, but you enjoyed the cool air that hit your skin. The two of you talked about whatever. You found out he never wanted to fight. Secretly, he wanted to be a baker, but his family sent him to train anyway. “So your boyfriend is okay with you fighting random Illyrian soldiers?” Surin changed the subject, and you only looked at him with a puzzled expression.

“What do you mean, boyfriend?” You questioned, but you choked on your drink as soon as you realized. “Azriel?!”

Surin laughed, filling your cup with more amber liquid. “We all thought the two of you were together.”

“What in the world made you think that?”

Surin took another long sip from his cup. “He was constantly around you. The two of you seemed connected at the hip. He was like this overprotective guard dog to you. Anytime one of us stared at you for too long, he stared us down with such anger. It terrified everyone.”

You laughed in disbelief. “We used to be best friends. But we were never together.” It hurt to speak the truth, but it needed to be said. “And never will be.”

“Well good to know.”

You looked over the rim of your glass at Surin. His cheeks were slightly red from the alcohol. “Why is that?”

Surin leaned closer. “I know this is very forward of me, but,” He stilled inches away from your face. “Can I kiss you?”

Maybe it was the liquor or the stress of being back and the desperate need for some sort of relief, but you nodded. Surin moved the glass away from your lips, his hand reaching up to hold your jaw as he moved in to kiss you.

His lips were soft, and he moved with purpose. You moved your hands around his neck, his other hand resting on your hip. He moaned softly against your mouth when you combed your fingers through his hair.

Surin closed the remaining space between you two, pressing his body against you, lowering you softly onto the ground below, his hands explored your body, lightly trailing underneath your shirt as he deepened the kiss, it had been awhile since you had been with someone, the way he touched you felt new, exciting.

“Y/N.” Azriel’s voice broke through the silence. Fantastic. Surin started kissing down your throat. Placing soft kisses across your collar bone. You were shocked that the male on top of you was unphased by the sudden interruption.

“What do you want, Azriel?” You groaned. And Surin froze.

“Shit.” Surin whispered against your skin. You could feel his entire body stiffen against yours. You rubbed your hand up and down his arm to let him know he had nothing to worry about. You turned your head to look at Azriel.

“You told me you would be back for dinner.” His voice was emotionless as the two of you stared at each other.

“My plans changed.” You felt Surin snicker on top of you. Causing you to smile. Azriel scoffed, not saying a word before disappearing into his shadows.

You turned back to Surin, kissing him quickly. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

He nodded, moving off of you to stand, helping you afterward. He leaned down, placing a kiss on the spot underneath your ear, his hands sliding across your waist. Sending shivers down your spine. “Lead the way Y/N” He whispered. You grabbed the bottle of liquor, walking him back to the cabin.

The morning after your head ached. The sunlight agitating your eyes. You vaguely remember Surin leaving, kissing you goodbye before he slipped through the door. To be honest, you didn’t know why you slept with him. Maybe it was just a distraction, but however you saw it, there was no going back. But you felt no regret.

You slipped into something more appropriate before heading to the kitchen. Only to find Azriel leaning against the counter, a scornful look pointed towards your direction. “What are you looking at?”

“Who left this morning?” He asked. His hardened glare never ceased.

“Oh you don’t remember? You rudely interrupted us last night by the fire. After that, I decided him and I needed somewhere more private.” You stated, and something flickered over Azriels eyes, anger possibly? No that’s not right. Your head was pounding too much to determine anything. His silence didn’t help either. You pulled a mug from the cabinet, looking back at Azriel. “Do you want the details or something?” You teased, noticing how bothered he was by the fact you had brought someone to bed, he seemed to show it clearly across his features, yet he could only stare at you, so you thought why not see how far you could get with this conversation.

You moved closer to him, never losing eye contact. “Do you want to know how he bent me over? How I screamed his name as I rode him to our climaxes? Is that what you want to hear?” Your voice grew louder, and yet he still remained silent, his shadows slowly creeping up and around his shoulders. He wasn't allowed to be bothered by this. He has no right to be this way toward you. “What changed Azriel? You would never care about such frivolous things. In fact, you ignored everything about me, and now you feel you have the right to judge me for everything I do. How the hell is that fair?” The anger had broke free. You couldn’t tell if you were screaming or the room surrounding the two of you got eerily quiet.

“You can’t trust those males.” He seethed, fists clenched at his side.

“Stay out of my sex life, Azriel. I don’t question your choices in females.” You bit back, leaning back against the counter. “How about you fly back to Velaris, fuck- Oh, sorry. Make love to your pretty little fiance. Maybe then you’ll be easier to deal with.” Azriel flinched. You struck a nerve within the shadowsinger. You knew you shouldn’t add fuel to the fire, but you weren’t going to hold back anymore. He deserved this. At least that is what you thought. “Perhaps then I can enjoy the company of more males while you’re gone.”

Without any warning, Azriel was on you in two strides. He caged you against the counter, his firm body pressed against yours. He grabbed your hair at the base of your skull, yanking it backward, forcing you to look up at him. Your heart pounded within your chest, your eyes wide as you gaped at him. There was no movement between the two of you, only the feeling of your chests rising and falling together. His face was too close to yours, your lips just a small movement away from his. His scent surrounded you like a fog. His eyes darkened, and there was no tell to what his motives were. It felt right but so wrong at the same time to be pressed against him like this. You knew you needed to push him off, but your limbs felt numb. “Get off of me.” You seethed, but your voice sounded breathless. You could only hope he didn’t notice what he did to you. The air between the two of you was blatantly tense. It was like each of you had a knife to the others back, unsure who would stab first. Yet it confused you only more. Why is there even tension at all? If you could even call it that. Maybe you had been too close to him for too long.

His hazel eyes shifted back and forth as if they were studying each and every one of your features. Deciding what his next move was going to be. He looked down at your lips, but you twisted your head to the side as much as you could against his grip. His eyes shifted back to yours. “We have training in an hour, go take a shower.” His voice was hoarse as he released his hold on your hair, backing far away from you. “You reek of sex.”

You watched as he stormed out the door. You looked around the cabin, trying to distract yourself in any way possible. Your eyes drifted towards the sink, filled with dirty dishes and an empty plate. Next to the sink sat a plate still filled with food. Did he cook last night? A sudden rush of guilt fell over you, your head spun, nothing made sense. You wanted to scream, to cry, but his touch had left your body frozen. You needed to calm your thoughts. Your only hope was that the shower would help. “I will not falter. I will stand tall.” You whispered over and over to yourself before heading toward the bathroom.

When you walked outside, Azriel didn’t look at you. “Lets get this over with, I have an engagement party to attend in a day.” Azriel began walking, never once glancing over his shoulder at you.

“Sorry Mr. Shadowsinger. Don’t let me impede on your happiness.” You snapped, his shoulders tensed. You slowed your steps, creating a decent distance between the two of you.

A small group of new young warriors waited for you and Azriel at one of the training rings. They stared at him in fear but threw hateful looks your way.

“How is she supposed to train us?” Guess the events of yesterday didn’t reach everyone’s ears.

“She is highly capable of training incompetent males like you.” Azriel snapped. “We are going to show you basic moves of how to fight with a dagger as well as defending against someone wielding one. Afterward, you will spar with one another until you get it perfect. I’m sure you all are capable of that.”

You swore the Cauldron was cursing you. Couldn’t it have been swords. Something that would keep Azriel at a further distance. You sighed loudly before preparing yourself.

The two of you took your stance. Pulling out your dagger, you charged first, swinging downward at him before cutting upwards, Azriel dodged each strike beautifully, and it only pissed you off. You advanced with more aggression, and with each move of your knife, you added a punch, he blocked each of them until his steps faltered slightly, and you twisted the knife in your hand, hitting him square in the nose with the hilt.

You smirked at him, but his face showed he was anything but thrilled. He advanced this time, leaving you to block his throws. He was throwing various combinations at you, and it was your turn to slip up. Apparently, he wasn’t holding back anymore either, because with the hit to your stomach you had let through had sent you flying, your back colliding with the mud. You inhaled sharply, groaning as the pain grew over your body.

You saw him run up to you, an apologetic look across his face. But you were determined to show that he could not beat you. So, you swept your legs against his, knocking him down. You slid across the mud over to him, sitting on his chest, pinning his arms down with your legs.

You held the dagger to his throat, the two of you covered in mud, breaths winded and lost. And as he tried to break free from your hold, you felt it. The one thing you dreaded wouldn’t happen.

The damn mating bond snapped within your chest. It felt so strong that you thought everyone around you felt it, too. It filled your body with a light that was unwelcome. It consumed you like a wildfire, suffocating the air from your lungs. In any other situation, this was your dream. All that you had ever wanted. But damn the mother. Why now. Why him.

“Fuck.” You cursed. It was all you could manage to get out, the only word that replayed in a loop within your mind and Azriel could only look at you with confusion.

You stumbled backward off of him, dropping the dagger into the mud. Azriel’s lips were moving, concern filling his gaze. But you couldn’t hear a thing. It was as if your head was stuck underwater. You blinked a few tears that threatened to fall away as Azriel reached for you, but you ran.

Far away from what the Cauldron damned upon you.

Taglist: @honestlywtfisgoingon @fanfictioniseverything @marina468 @positivewitch @maviee @blurredlamplight @bookslut420 @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @elle10 @dragonstoneprincess @holywolfsstuff @reiincarnatiion @valeridarkness @feiwelinchen @sv0430 @kennedy-brooke @emturtles @nightcourtwritings @zephyg-06 @chantalleke91 @katherinereid @shadowsingersmate24 @shadowsinger-654 @nobody00sthings @lucyysthings @turkishgirlslife @tcris2020

(Tumblr is being weird. It won't let me tag certain people .-.)

[nimona-week]

Nimona Week Day 1/March 31: Pride, Graffiti, Phoenix

It's Day 1 of Nimona Week, Easter Sunday, and Trans Day of Visibility!

Today's prompts are Pride, Graffiti, and Phoenix.

(Yes, @zyrafowe-sny couldn't resist a resurrection joke.)

Please create and share some new fanworks or recommend existing fics and fanart (including your own)! We'll be reblogging tagged posts.

Prompts & Tagging System | FAQ | Graphics | Fic Rec Guide | Art Rec Guide | AO3 Collection

[mrsjellymunson]

Hello, Stranger

Pairing: Eddie Munson x gn!reader, Eddie Munson x you, Eddie Munson x reader

For @lesservillain’s excellent Strange and Spooky Stories Halloween writing event for the prompt: ‘Stranger’

Summary: A stranger comes in to buy weird stuff at odd times, and as the cashier at the local hardware store you’re not quite sure what to make of it…

CW: 18+ (MDNI), fluff, maybe SFW though caution for mature and dark themes and allusions to crime and violence. Flirting, li’l bit of awkwardness, some swearing. Both Eddie and reader are in their 20s. Reader’s gender and appearance are not described, they can be whatever you want. No use of y/n. Time period is not mentioned, and any inaccuracies/inconsistencies about history, equipment, American schooling (I’m not from around these parts) or science are deliberate and artistic oh yes they are. No smut, I thought I’d better assess whether I could string a semi-coherent story together before attempting to add that 😆

WC: ~6.2k

A/N: I love gore, revenge movies, murder shows, true crime, science/biology/forensics and DIY (sort of), so this prompt seemed like a perfect fit. There are tiny Easter eggs from The Equalizer, Breaking Bad, 80s crime TV, The Blacklist and John Wick in here - let me know if you spot any! This is the first ‘proper’ fic I’ve posted so I’d love to know what you think. Comments, reblogs and feedback are hugely appreciated and very welcome!

(Also this is my first attempt at dividers too, I hope they worked, I literally have no idea what I’m doing!)

Yep, you were ‘that’ weird kid. Your friends in Middle School had called you a freak because you brought squirrel tails and chicken feet to show’n’tell.

“But look! If you pull this tendon it makes the claw close! Isn’t that cool?!”

No, apparently that was not cool. Especially when demonstrated against your teacher’s finger...

You’d visit a friend whose father was a doctor, begging to read his medical and pathology text books, and preferring to look at pictures of dissected and diseased organs and spontaneous human combustion over braiding your friend’s hair or talking about boys.

And, apparently, scoring a class-topping 9.5/10 for your rat dissection also wasn’t the social merit badge you thought it might be, even amongst your science-abreast academic peers.

So what if you had a strong constitution. And a love of anatomy and pathology. And then compounded it with a love of true crime, particularly serial killers and forensic methods. Surely there were worse things to be interested in?

By the time you’d finished High School you’d learned to mask your enthusiasm, covering your (apparently, socially unacceptable) fascination for all things ‘gross’ and ‘murderous’ (your friends’ words) by choosing science majors like human anatomy and pathology, criminal behaviour and forensics.

People just thought you were clever, nerdy, a scientist. You never let on that you were itching to actually experience some of these things for yourself, in real time, with your own hands…

You work the evening shift at the sprawling out-of-town homewares store on the road running out of Indianapolis towards a tiny town you’ve never been to (Hawksville? Hawking?). You work a few evenings a week plus alternate Sundays, currently in the gardening, kitchen and hardware department. It wouldn’t be your chosen section of the store (in the short time you’ve been there you’ve had to amass a lot of knowledge about tools. Also, how to politely deflect the regulars’ offers to share details of their new projects, lest you get drawn in to a half-hour discussion about u-bends or rawl plugs), but the hours suit you and fit around your college classes, and the employee discount comes in handy when things in your shitty apartment break down or your roommate carelessly breaks something, again.

The final few hours of your shifts were usually pretty quiet, barring the occasional domestic plumbing emergency, or a bored Hawkins housewife coming in looking for batteries.

You don’t mind spending your evenings amongst the tools and machinery, it gives you a chance to flick through the latest copy of forensic magazine or True Crime, or work on your college assignments.

One thing that does make the slow evenings more entertaining is the unusual clientele. A nerdy-looking guy with a moustache needing releasable cable ties, cooking oil and a large plastic sheet at 9.30pm must have an interesting backstory, right?

You find yourself concocting fantastical vignettes about the oddballs that pass through, giving them the most amusing or disturbing story you can think of as they glide by in the night.

The guy with the cable ties? Too easy. Clearly he’s got a ‘special friend’ and an interesting evening planned. TBH, that’s probably not even fictional. You call him Salacious Scott.

The friendly, rotund lady who regularly comes in for for buckets and sawdust? You know it’s Mrs Henderson, who is trying to go self-sufficient and has recently installed a composting toilet, but you prefer to imagine she’s actually a madam with a ���specialist interest’ playroom, who you brand Madame Urolagnia.

The paranoid guy with a beard and thick glasses who won’t tell you his name, buys a lot of vodka from the liquor store nearby and comes in for plastic pipe, cladding and those slot-together foam mats for kids? He tells you he’s into martial arts and these make safe weapon facsimiles for training, but you reckon he’s actually some kind of government agent. Your imaginary name for him is Mysterious Murray.

One oddball in particular has caught your attention, and not just because he’s easily the handsomest customer you’ve had in a while.

Wait, no, you didn’t just admit that; you just find him interesting, that’s all.

It was his speed and demeanour that had struck you first, rushing in, hand atop the bandana on his head, gangly legs in ripped jeans looking like they were trying to run in two different directions at once, large, dark eyes wide as he’d frantically looked around the store.

“Uh, rope, I need rope, where’d you keep the rope?”

You’d blurted some instructions and he’d headed off, not looking in your direction.

His leather jacket and swinging chains certainly commanded attention amongst the flannel and blue denim that was usually in your line of sight, and you’d found your eyes following him, catching sight of him moving between the aisles from your position behind the counter.

He’d moved towards you with a sturdy knife, a shovel and 3 rolls of duct tape that he’d collected on his way to the checkout, arms full (he didn’t pick up a basket), when you’d ventured,

“I’d recommend the next brand up, if you want something stronger with better sticking power? It costs a little more, but it’s better quality, so overall you’ll use less”, (silently thanking Mr Wheeler’s recent diatribe on the merits and pitfalls of various brands of adhesive tape, remembering the detail because he’d gone so far as to demonstrate by sticking small pieces of it to your skin. It was a weird interaction for sure, but also oddly informative).

He’d lifted his head to look at you and your eyes had connected for the first time. Your eyes widened, and you think you spotted a slight twitch of a smile at one side of his mouth.

Oh, he’s actually really cute.

“Uh, okay, if you think that’s best”.

He dropped his eyes from yours and, after unceremoniously dumping everything else onto your counter, he’d exchanged the rolls and returned.

You’d both paused, you don’t know for how long, and you’d wondered how someone buying rope could be so captivating. But the spell was broken as you’d both spoke simultaneously:

“Did you find everything you need?”

“I’m kinda in a rush, so…”

You’d both chuckled nervously, and you’d set about ringing up his purchases, noticing that a small smile definitely now graced those previously harried features.

He’d paid with a handful of old, crumpled bills pulled from his jacket, politely declining your offer of a bag, and then he was gone as quick as he came, hurrying out into the night with the swish of the automatic doors and a breeze of parking lot-scented night air.

You didn’t know why anyone would need rope and a shovel at that time on a weeknight, but with this particular guy, who you dubbed The Stranger, you found yourself thinking that you wouldn’t mind finding out.

You’d unintentionally spent the rest of that evening coming up with fantasies about that particular customer, although, unusually for you, quite a few of them hadn’t actually involved what was on his receipt…

When The Stranger next comes in he’s after heavyweight garbage bags, more tape and a saw, but seems in slightly less of a rush.

He pauses at your counter for a few moments, making polite conversation, asking how long you’d been working here, whether you were working late tonight.

Is he trying to… flirt? Surely not…

“Thanks for the tape recommendation by the way, it was a real lifesaver. That stuff’s really good, I definitely have a new favourite!”, gracing you with a broad grin (oh fuck, that was a sight) before he was on his way again.

Another time he bought shears, tarp and a large quantity of painting coveralls.

The next trip involved wire cutters, buckets and a wet’n’dry vacuum.

You begin to enjoy The Stranger coming in buying random shit at odd hours. You can’t quite make him out. He buys a lot of gardening and decorating-type equipment (plus he’s almost single-handedly keeping the cleaning product aisle in business), but he dresses like neither - always in tight, ripped jeans, shredded band tees and his signature leather jacket. You’ve never seen him covered in leaves or dirt, and his clothes have zero paint on them. Those coveralls must do a really good job…

You build up a rapport of sorts with him. There’s always a polite, verging on friendly greeting between you, and you let him know when there’s special offers on tarp and garbage bags, and what days there are deliveries of latex gloves and those painting coveralls he seems to like so much. (Sometimes you’ll even stash a few of the latter for him under the counter if there’s a holiday weekend coming up, knowing Hawkins’ husbands will be out in force and not wanting him to miss out.)

But the ‘fantasy vignette’ and forensically-inclined parts of your brain begin to overlap, and start to tickle your imagination. It’s almost as if each selection of items he buys could be used to either dispatch someone, or dispose of a body. But that’s crazy, right? He seems way too nice to be a serial killer. And mob activity in this part of Indiana? Nah. That wouldn’t happen around here.

Would it?

It’s a quiet Friday night when you next see The Stranger. He’s picked up bolt cutters, pliers, some metal trays, a sledgehammer, a mop, and, most bizarrely of all because you’ve noticed he’s not usually one for personal safety equipment, ear defenders.

Again, he’s basket-less, barely able to contain the items piled up in his arms. They topple as he arrives at your counter, and some end up partially covering your open magazine.

“Shit, I’m really sorry about that.”

“Oh, no problem, honestly. I probably shouldn’t be reading on the clock anyway”, you say, slightly bashful, as you move the crumpled magazine out from underneath his items, smoothing it down. The Stranger’s eyes are locked on your hands, and as they move across the page they reveal a headline about a recently apprehended serial murderer and some photographs of a variety of grisly-looking, bloody weapons.

“That looks… interesting, watcha reading there?”, he remarks, leaning in.

“Oh, this? It’s about a new guy they’ve just caught over in Europe. He’s fascinating, he used such a variety of tools and methods that at first the police didn’t even think to link the crimes. Ingenious, really, when you think about it. So creative!”

You look up, and The Stranger is regarding you with an unreadable expression. Does he think you’re weird, babbling on about this murderer like you admire him? Or is he actually impressed with your enthusiasm?

“Sorry, I’m a true crime buff, it’s a bit of a pet topic of mine. And I’m studying forensics at college, so it’s kind of like schoolwork too.” You chuckle nervously, arms moving in front of your body and shoulders subtly curling in on yourself in embarrassment.

The Stranger seems to sense your discomfort, and shakes his head, making his curls bounce, smiling and chuckling along with you.

“No, yeah, uh, me too with the crime thing, actually. Well, not so much the reading, I’m more of a hear-it-through-the grapevine, hands on kinda guy.”

‘Hands on’? WTF does that mean?

“Oh, cool, coolcoolcool”. Smooth…

As you scan his items your fantasy vignette tickles your brain again.

No, don’t be silly…

You bag everything up this time, insisting it’ll be easier to carry, handing them to him and taking his crumpled bills.

Your curiosity is more than piqued and you can’t hold it in any longer. Feeling bold, you ask, “So, what’s all this for?”

“Huh?”

“The- the stuff. What’re you doin’ with it?”

The Stranger looks at you through his lashes, not speaking.

Shit, you’ve overstepped, he’s gonna leave, find a different store and you’ll never see him again.

“Uh, well, some people I know out near the big city are, er, planning a, uh, party, with a few of their, um, associates, and I think it’s gonna get pretty loud, hence the earphones. I, uh, don’t usually get involved in stuff until later in the evening, y’know, after all the main fun’s over.”

You look a little quizzical.

He thinks for a moment.

“I tidy up, but I sorta make it a bit more fun for everyone. Bring a bit of pizazz to a usually mundane part of the evening. Kinda thing.”

You process for a few moments. The ‘Mob Cleaner’ vignette you’d fantasised about screams loud and long into your cerebrum.

Nerves give way to curiosity, and you brashly ask, “So, what exactly is it that you do?”

“I’m kind of a cleaner, I guess? If someone has a problem that they’ve had dealt with and they wanna make the cleanup more, um, interesting, I’m the guy they call.”

Probing further, you clarify, “So you don’t make the, uh, mess, you just clean it up. Creatively?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

He explains he’s still quite new to the job, and kinda fell into it. His boss and his mentor are both encouraging, saying his USP is truly original (Unique Selling Point, he explains when you look confused), and that he definitely ‘has potential’. He’s learning a lot as he goes, but his enthusiasm seems to be appreciated and he wants to do well.

“All you really need is a strong stomach, imagination and a flair for the dramatic!”

He illustrates his last point by making jazz hands by the sides of his head, offering you a generous smile. Yeah, you can see how that particular part of the job comes easy to him.

“Oh, well, it sounds like fun. I hope you have a very successful evening!”

“Okay, well, thanks again! I’ll see you.”

You watch him leave, noticing in particular how well his jeans fit tonight.

What’s that saying again - I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave…?

You shake your head to rid yourself of the lewd - and crazy, yeah, totally crazy - thoughts you’re having about The Stranger and encourage yourself back into work mode.

As you busy yourself and tidy your counter you notice something small and white on the floor in front, about the size of a credit card. It must’ve fallen out of his jacket as he fumbled for cash.

Cash. Always cash. Never credit card, never cheque, never — anything traceable…

You round the counter and pick it up, thinking you’d save it and return it to him the next time he comes in. It’s a business card. The text is unfussy and clear, but glossy, bold and slightly gothic. It’s a company name above some text and a pager number, but it may well be the most intriguing piece of writing that you’ve ever come across:

E.M. Creative Disposal Services, Apprentice to Mr Kaplan & Associates, For dinner reservations call: (555)-666-6969

It’s another quiet night, but there’s already a couple of people at the counter when The Stranger arrives. Mr Sinclair needs a pipe wrench and a plunger (you don’t envy him his evening), and Mrs Wheeler has come in to buy double-As for the second time this month (although this time she also added gardening gloves and secateurs to pad out her basket. Not that you’d judge either way).

You spot The Stranger’s curls before anything else, bobbing in the fluorescent lights as he comes through the entrance doors. He spots the queue and immediately joins it, glancing towards the counter and visibly brightening when he sees you behind it. He’s carrying the sledgehammer he bought last time. As you start to ring up Mrs Wheeler’s batteries you see him examining the head of the hammer. Frowning slightly, he moistens his thumb with his tongue and rubs at one corner, then polishes the same spot on the front of his jeans.

He reaches the counter, receipt retrieved from a bundle pulled from inside his jacket.

You greet each other with a quiet ‘hey’. He continues, “I, uh, wanted to return this. Can I do that?”

“Yeah, sure, lemme ring it through the till. Can I ask why? Company policy,” you shrug, almost apologetically.

“Sure, uh, well you know that phase ‘using a sledgehammer to crack a nut‘? Turns out a sledgehammer does indeed obliterate the, uh, nuts… Let’s just say it wasn’t really suitable for the project I had in mind. I think I need something…”

Lighter? Easier to aim?

“With a little more finesse?” You venture, eyebrows raised, hoping you haven’t completely misread things.

“Yeah, finesse! I like that”. He beams widely at you tilting his head slightly, revealing the most gorgeous dimples you’ve ever seen, and it’s all you can do to hold on to the edge of the counter while your knees gently fail beneath you.

“Umm, you want some help choosing?”

He readily agrees and you direct him to the hammer section, both of you discussing the merits and disadvantages of various models as you choose ones from the display and encourage him to feel their weight and balance. He seems impressed, clearly not expecting you to be so well-versed in the finer aspects of hardware.

“Y’know, you really know your tools!”

You squeak out a bashful, “Thanks.”

You slip into self-deprecating mode and brush off his compliment, saying, “It comes with the territory I guess. I’ve picked up a lot working here. Plus I just sometimes browse the shelves, thinking of nefarious uses for random household objects.” Hurriedly adding, “For school, of course!”

You cringe a bit, thinking this must make you look like some kind of weirdo, but The Stranger takes it easily in his stride, commenting, “You know, you’d be surprised to learn just how much of a marketable skill that can be.”

You chat some more and he eventually chooses a smaller, less unwieldy hammer, and after he pays you part ways again.

You still desperately want to ask him exactly what he used that other hammer for, what ‘Creative Disposal Services’ actually means, and what the hell have dinner reservations got to do with any of this?

The next night you see The Stranger he saunters in at about 8:30. He has a different energy about him this evening, seeming both more relaxed but also somewhat on edge. He’s not in his usual ratty band tee tonight, you notice, and no leather jacket either. Instead he’s wearing a what looks to be a clean, maybe even pressed, electric blue raglan shirt with black half length sleeves. You spot a crimson guitar pick necklace that you’ve not seen before dangling from a twinkling silver ball chain, resting against his sternum and resplendent against the blue.

Observing his forearms for the first time you notice how attractive - and (oh!) tattooed - they are. Toned and veined, their shape and his mix of tattoos are shown off to perfection by that sleeve length, and a leather and chain bracelet that adorns one powerful-looking wrist. The glint of his chunky silver rings accentuates his large hands that peek out of his jeans pockets as he wanders over to you. He’s still in tight black jeans, but they seem a little… neater than usual. And he’s not in a rush. It’s almost like he’s not working, maybe even making an effort.

You feel a frisson of excitement - could it be that he’s come in just to see you?

Exhibit A, m’lud: Scrubbing up well.

He heads straight for your counter, and you greet each other with your characteristic friendliness.

He spies the hefty text books you’ve spread before you, and leans onto the counter to get a closer look.

“Watcha workin’ on tonight, Doctor Quincy?”

You swallow at the cute nickname, voice cracking slightly as you start to tell him about the assignment you’ve got. It’s about evidential tool marks, and how pathologists can identify what’s been used as a weapon or tool of dismemberment.

The Stranger tries to play down his interest, but his demeanour betrays him as he presses for more details, even asking if he could maybe read the finished piece.

That’s weird, right? People don’t read other people’s science essays for fun. Do they?

But you agree, promising to bring him a copy when it’s done.

The conversation lulls, and The Stranger twists the pad of one of his thumbs against the counter, seemingly a little nervous, though you can’t imagine what about.

To break the silence you slip into work mode, but for some reason drop your voice a couple of octaves and murmur,

“So anyway, what is it that can I help you with, sir?”

Wait, is he blushing?

“Um, oh, uh, I actually don’t have a shopping list today, I was, uh, just gonna browse, I guess.”

He backs away from your counter, giving it a few rhythmic slaps with his fingertips before turning away from you and ambling off into the store. He returns a few moments later with a small hatchet and mid-range fold-out knife, plus two rolls of his now-favourite tape.

“You can never have too many of these, amirite?”

He gives you that dimpled smile again, and you feel your stomach do a full (though anatomically impossible) 360° flip.

Observing his lack of focus and comparatively small selection of items, you wonder if he really needs those things, or whether he’s just picking them up as an excuse to come in to the store. Your chest heats up a little at the thought.

Exhibit B: Small, possibly unnecessary purchase. The evidence is mounting up.

Seeing the hatchet, your eyes light up with enthusiasm as you remember something.

“Hey, we just got some new stock in that I think you might like, y’know, if I’m not overstepping or anything.” You finish with a nervous chuckle.

You smile at him nervously through your lashes, skin heating even more in case this is suddenly all a bit too familiar.

He grins, responding, “Sure, go ahead!”

Your smile broadens and relaxes as you turn away from him and walk to the back shelves, crouching down and retrieving something in your arms.

Standing quickly and turning, you notice his eyes widen and immediately flick up to yours, a slightly alarmed expression on his face.

Exhibit C: Was he checking you out when he thought you wouldn’t notice? (Also, is it getting hot in here?)

With a loud thunk you lay two (frankly, terrifying-looking) multi-tools out on the counter in front of him. One looks like an oversized, overspec-ed Swiss Army knife, and the other could easily pass as a prop from an exorcism-themed horror movie. You over-excitedly explain the features of each, saying, “This one has a hammer and an axe, plus screwdrivers, pliers, a saw, wire cutters, a magnesium rod”, you look up at him quickly and ask, “do you ever need to start fires? Plus, it has…”, you wave your hand dramatically over your favourite part of the item, like you were showing it off on a shopping channel, and stretch out the syllables of the final two words for emphasis, “…a bottle opener…”. You raise your eyebrows and grin widely, like this must surely be the deal breaker.

The Stranger laughs, throwing his head back with deep-throated barks from the centre of his chest, and then he chuckles a little, bringing a strand of hair over his cheek and a curled finger to his lips. You’re slightly distracted by that glimpse of his extended neck (god, you want to gnaw at it), and that laugh? You wish you could’ve recorded it somehow.

You quickly compose yourself and continue, switching to the ’horror prop’ product, “And this one has fewer features, but I like it for its simplicity, robustness and practical charm. It’s an axe, hammer, nail puller and pry bar. And it even has a rubber coated handle, so you can still use it safely even if your hands are wet. For, y’know, whatever reason…” you finish, slightly abashed.

“Aw, Pumpkin, this is the kindest thing anyone’s done for me in a while, thank you.”

Pumpkin. PumpkinPumpkinPumpkin. Exhibit D: A term of endearment!

He takes some time to examine both articles, testing out their various features, hefting them in his (large, strong) hands (stop it!).

“I love them. Y’know what, I can’t decide. I’ll take both. What’s the damage?”

You visibly brighten, a squeak of delight that you hope he didn’t hear inadvertently leaving you as you puff up with both his term of endearment and your ever-growing customer service confidence.

You check whether he’d still like the other items he’d brought to the counter, and apart from the duct tape (“You really can’t have too much of this stuff!”), he allows you to reshelve the rest.

He watches, enthralled, as you wrap his new tools in the store-issue brown paper reverently and carefully, as though you were wrapping an expensive gift in a fancy department store, the pair of you sharing bashful looks and half smiles as you work.

As he hands over the now-unsurprising crumpled bills and takes his change his hand drifts closer to yours, glancing his fingers over your palm and lingering for just a moment. There’s a little hitch in your inhale, and you think you see his ears redden a little.

He gathers up his purchases in his arms carefully and gently, and he backs away from your counter slowly.

“I guess I’ll head out then. Uh, I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, I guess you will, uhh-”

“Eddie. My name’s Eddie.”

“Okay, I guess so, Eddie.” You say his name slowly, like you’re testing out the syllables in your mouth.

You continue speaking, offering your name in reciprocation.

“Yeah, yeah I know your name, it’s kinda on your little badge there.” A tiny nod indicates the plastic rectangle pinned on your apron strap near your left shoulder.

Your cheeks heat again. “Right, of course. Ha!” You inwardly cringe. Well, that could’ve gone better.

He’s still backing away, getting dangerously close to an intricately balanced display of colourful children’s watering cans. You’re about to say something, but he turns just in time, ambling towards the illuminated exit with a mumbled, “Okay, bye then. Thanks again for these…” lifting the packages in his arms, and turning to look over his shoulder a couple more times before he finally reaches the door and disappears into the parking lot.

“Hey, d’you know anything about wood chippers?”

It’s been a week since you’ve seen The Stranger Eddie, and you turn abruptly to find him walking towards your counter.

His question throws you out of your stocktaking zone (you’d been focussing on ordering enough plastic pumpkin-shaped buckets for all of Hawkins’ kids this Halloween), but you quickly slip into customer service mode and ask for more details.

Eddie explains, using mostly his arms, that he needs one that, “throws everything everywhere”. You finally work out that he means the type where you feed stuff into a hopper on one side and the shredded debris is forced out of a raised chute on the other (as opposed to the more gravity-based ones where stuff is fed into the top and simply falls out the bottom).

He’s passing it off as being involved in some avant garde student art project, a performance piece involving feeding a load of wood and, uh, paint, yeah, paint into a wood chipper and having it spray out the other side. He blusters that the students are trying to make a point about climate change, or maybe it’s deforestation, he can’t seem to decide.

He explains that the piece is to be performed indoors, that there’ll be quite a few people present, and that he also needs a large quantity of tarp and coveralls because it was likely to make a huge mess.

This is the clincher. You’re absolutely convinced there is no art project, and what’s go through that chipper is more likely to be a human body. Or, given the amount of effort being gone to, and Eddie’s flair for theatrics, probably more than one.

“What size branches?”

He looks at you, confused. “Huh?”

“The, uh, limbs. What size will you be shredding? Some of the smaller models won’t cope with thick trunks.”

He swallows. His eyes meet yours, and he licks his lips. You can’t help but stare at those full, pink… Look away! Just look away!!

He subtly smirks, slowly moves his hands across the counter, and, gently taking hold of one of your hands in his, loops his other finger and thumb around your wrist.

“Um, definitely thicker than this…” - he extends your arm towards him, and moves his other hand slowly up your skin until he gets to your upper arm - “…and maybe a little thicker than this, too.”

You hope he can’t feel the burning sensation that’s erupted up your arm. You know he can’t possibly hear your racing heartbeat or detect the adrenaline that’s coursing through your veins, but you’re acutely aware of both just the same. You briefly ponder whether you’ll need to get a fire extinguisher from aisle 7.

“Umm, how about I show you what we’ve got?”

Composing yourself, barely, you take him to the large garden implements section, explaining that for larger trunks and limbs he may need something towable.

Under the guise of working out whether various models would be suitable, you take the opportunity to dig a little and find out what kind of vehicle he drives. It’s a van, so roomy, practical for carrying a lot of equipment that needs to be kept out of sight. Well, this all tracks.

Also, your brain helpfully suggests, it could potentially be romantic, a private little hideaway where you and he could… No! Stay on topic, you’re at work for god’s sake!

As you debate the various choices you find you’re occasionally leaning into each other, shoulders and elbows lightly bumping, you stealing glances at his chiselled jawline when you think he isn’t looking.

Eddie eventually decides on a mid-size towable model, and as you arrange for it to be delivered to the collection bay he bids you goodnight and disappears out to his van.

‘Art project’, huh? I don’t think so…

You don’t see Eddie for a couple of weeks after that, and you begin to wonder whether he doesn’t like you. Maybe you went too far, did you bore him? Did you frighten him off? Did he feel pressured into buying those gadgets or the expensive wood chipper?

Maybe he’s finally realised you’re a weirdo, like everyone at school eventually did?

Trying to get out of your funk you steel yourself and ask your department manager, Keith, whether he’d seen an odd, metal-looking guy in the store at all.

“Nah, not recently, but someone like that did come in a few weeks back, asking about when you’d be working. Something about your product knowledge helping him with a job, or whatever. I told him your schedule, I hope that’s ok.”

So you haven’t missed him, and maybe he’s not avoiding you. Good, that’s good. Exhibit E: He’s been asking about you?? Oh fu-

You’re startled out of your reverie by the sound of someone slapping two plastic packets down onto the counter.

“Oh, hi Mrs Wheeler, let me ring those up for you…”

On his next visit it’s clear Eddie is restocking his cleaning supplies, and he’s even deigned to use a small trolley this time to transport the heavy and bulky items.

As well as multi-surface cleaner, mops, cloths and some heavy duty gloves, you notice his trolley also contains numerous bottles of chlorine bleach.

“Big clean-up job tonight, huh?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I guess so. I need to leave the place without any trace of the, uh, performance this time.”

“Depends what you need to clean up, I guess. Y’know, chlorine bleach doesn’t necessarily get rid of everything.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, it’s fascinating, common misconception by the way. Chlorine bleach gets rid of visible stains, so that’s great if your main concern is aesthetics. But you can still detect haemoglobin, if you have access to the right tools and solutions.”

Eddie looks bath engaged and confused.

“A-heema-whatnow?”

You snicker.

“Haemo-, y’know what, never mind. Blood, basically. So actually, oxygen bleach is your best bet if your biggest concern removing all traces of, let’s say, blood and DNA. Whilst it doesn’t necessarily remove all the marks, it does degrade everything biological to the point where it’s undetectable. At least, with the tests we currently have.”

Eddie leans his elbows on the counter, giving you his full attention, resting his cheeks on his knuckles and pushing his dimpled grin up even further. Emboldened, you talk at length about haemoglobin, DNA degradation, specialist chemical solutions and alternative light sources.

He stays there, rapt, until you come to a natural stop. Just before he straightens up he quietly mumbles, still smiling, “Fucking incredible”.

With a deep breath he returns to the aisles to procure both types of bleach, pays and heads out into the night with a cheery, “Wish me luck!”

The cleanup must’ve gone well, because Eddie’s back a few days later and is making conversation.

“Hey, um, I remember reading once about some guy in England, years ago, who, like, melted people. You ever heard of that?”

You contemplate for a moment.

“Oh, d’you mean the Acid Bath Murderer, John Haigh?”

“Acid bath? Yeah, that sounds familiar.”

“Y’know, that’s actually one of my favourite case studies! It was one of the stories that first got me interested in true crime. 1940s England, dude thought he could get away with it if there was no body. Nope, sorry! When I first heard about it I thought it was really inventive, though he actually took the idea from a French guy who’d already done similar. Makes you wonder how many undiscovered dissolved bodies there might’ve been before and since, huh?”

You wax lyrical for a little while on the relative merits and disadvantages of the dissolving of human bodies in acid, even relating an anecdote about how your lab partner once chose the wrong combination of acid and beaker type, finishing with, “Hoo-boy, that was a mess!”

You become a little awkward, aware of how long you’ve been talking and the possibly-disturbingly-creepy level of detail you’ve gone into, though Eddie doesn’t seem to mind and presents somewhat like he’s paying attention in a chem class. Regardless, you decide to change the subject.

“I meant to ask last time, how did that wood chipping project go?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, really good, thanks. Y’know that advice you gave me about the chipper came in real handy. It was quite the show!” He looks gleefully at you, flashing that brilliant smile. A few small fireworks quietly explode in your innards.

“I’m so glad! Did the client like it?”

“Oh yeah, baby, they were thrilled!”

Baby. That’s new. You like it, and you add it to your growing mental filing system labelled ‘Evidence that Eddie might like me’. You can’t even remember what letter you’re up to now, you’re just enjoying stuffing it fuller every time he graces you with another morsel.

“They even gave me a nice bonus, for my ‘theatricality’.” He begins to lift his arms, but stops himself, resisting doing the jazz hands things again, reasoning there’s only so many times he can do an impersonation of a court jester before it puts someone off. “Said they’re gonna recommend me to their buddies too.”

More softly, and a little bashful, looking through his lashes he adds, “Kinda wish you could’ve been there, actually.”

Oh my, is he blushing again?

“Yeah, me too. I’d love to see you work sometime…”

“You would?”

Okay, he’s definitely blushing.

He leans in over your counter, close, so he can say in a low voice,

“Uh, just so we’re on the same page, you know what I do has nothing to do with art projects, right?”

Holding his gaze, and with your voice surprisingly steady, you swallow before confirming, “Yes, Eddie. I know.”

He huffs out a stuttering breath, and the air between you seems to heat.

He lifts one hand and rubs the back of his neck nervously.

“Hey listen, uh, I dunno if this is a little too forward, or weird, or y’know, whatever,” He’s rambling now. It’s adorable.

“I was kinda gonna ask you if you wanted to get milkshakes sometime, but, uh, maybe you’d actually wanna come out on a job with me? I’ve got one coming up on Sunday that I could really use an extra pair of hands on. I could pay you of course, y’know, for your time.”

You want to blurt out that, for him, you’d willingly burn the world and everyone in it for free. Instead, you smile wide, and settle for,

“Well, my tutors are always encouraging us to get real world experience…”

“Great, so I’ll pick you up at the end of your shift?”

“Sure, Eddie. I’ll look forward to it.”

You’re both grinning, stuttering messes.

“Great! Great. Uh, okay then, I guess I’ll see you Sunday?”

As he turns to leave, you stop him with one final question.

“Just one more thing Eddie. Should I bring my own coveralls..?”

If you got this far, thanks so much for reading!!

Comments and reblogs make my world spin, do let me know what you think.