#he needs a motel room because it can never be fully his

[munson-blurbs]

Living After Midnight (Failed Rockstar!Eddie x Motel Worker!Reader)

♫ Summary: You once again found yourself face-to-face with Eddie not even twenty-four hours after he checked into the motel, and your interactions left you with more questions than answers. (3.8k words)

♫ CW: slowburn, strangers-to-lovers, angst, drug use, parental conflict, poverty, grumpy Eddie, eventual smut (18+ only, minors DNI)

♫ Divider credit to @hellfire--cult

chapter two: here today

Bzzzzzz!

Your alarm clock blared its tinny ring at 1 PM. The sun was bright, a welcome change from yesterday’s overcast skies and steady rainfall.

You stretched as you awoke before shedding your oversized shirt and shorts, padding over to the shower and waiting a full five minutes for the cold water to turn lukewarm. The thinning bar of soap formed sad suds in your palm, and you lathered your skin as best as you could.

Despite your best efforts, you kept thinking about your encounter last night—that morning, really—with Eddie Munson. There was a cocky edge to him, evident by his initial refusal to put out his joint, but at least a shred of humanity; after all, he did eventually comply. There was even a semblance of…something that’d you’d shared in your brief interaction.

Or maybe it was just your imagination, the summation of your exhaustion and his high.

The towel scratched as you dried the water droplets from your bare skin, and though the cloth dampened, you could have sworn that it wasn’t wicking any moisture. Dad had been saying for years that he’ll invest in new linens “as soon as business picks up.” But business never picked up enough to do anything more than barely break even for the year, so the ancient towels stayed.

Picking the lint off of your purple T-shirt, you tucked it into your jeans and shoved your feet into your sneakers without bothering to unlace them first. One look in the mirror determined that you definitely needed makeup to look half-decent, or at least awake. There was no earthly way you would sacrifice a minute of precious sleep, so you swiped on some mascara in favor of an intricate routine and quickly fixed your hair. 

You plucked a granola bar from the stash on your dresser: your usual breakfast, tossed into your backpack as you headed out the door towards the lobby. The bus would be arriving in about five minutes, giving you just enough time to get to the stop before the doors closed. Barring any traffic, it followed a consistent schedule; one of the few certainties in life. 

“Hi Dad; bye Dad,” you called out, stopping in your tracks when you saw an obviously irritated Eddie standing in front of the desk, his arms crossed over his chest and his foot anxiously tapping. At least he was fully dressed this time, clad in a faded band t-shirt, ripped jeans, and the same denim jacket he was wearing last night when he’d first walked in. “Everything okay?” 

Dad motioned to Eddie. “Our guest is having some issues with his TV,” he said, his raised eyebrows indicating that the guest was being quite persistent about the matter. “Can you help him?” Before you could answer, he looked at Eddie and explained, “my daughter’s better with this technology stuff than I am.”

There was a temptation to argue that it was probably just a matter of smacking the side or replacing the remote batteries, but you didn’t have time to waste. “Yeah, sure,” you relented, turning to Eddie and waving him over. “Come on.”

Eddie waited to speak until the two of you were completely alone. “That was your dad?” 

You nodded, shoving your hands in your pockets and keeping your walking pace until you reached his room. 

“So what’s the problem?” you asked as he turned the key in the lock. It stuck for a moment before it fully unlatched, and he opened the door with a shove.

“The reception’s shit,” Eddie muttered, keeping his fingers splayed on the door so you could walk in first. “Every time I try to put on MTV, it’s all static. Tried it last night, too, but I figured it was because of the storm.” He gestured to the now-sunny skies. “But that shouldn’t be affecting it anymore.”

You offered a wry smile, the way you always did when delivering bad news to a guest. “Nothing’s wrong with the reception,” you explained, “there’s just no cable.”

“What?” His brows shot up in disbelief. “How is that even possible?”

“It’s simple.” You shrugged. “Cable costs money, we don’t have money; ergo, no cable.”

Eddie raked a hand through his messy curls. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.” His feet could have worn holes in the floor with the way he was pacing. “Where can I watch MTV around here? Like, is there a bar or something?”

“Yeah, I mean, there’s one right down the—” You turned to the window but stopped mid-sentence, your stomach sinking as you watched your bus fly past. You heaved a dejected sigh as tears prickled at your eyes embarrassingly, and you blinked them away. 

It’s okay; I haven’t been late at all this semester, you silently reminded yourself. You could take one of the dollar cabs that runs up and down Jamaica Avenue. It wouldn’t get you exactly where you needed to go, but it would be close enough.

Eddie remained oblivious to your inner turmoil, eyes trained on the TV. “Fuck,” he grumbled, sucking through his teeth. 

“The clock radio plays music,” you offered as you hiked your backpack higher up on your shoulder. “I know it’s not the same as watching videos, but–”

“It’s not about the stupid videos!” he snapped, curling his palm into a tight fist and biting down on his forefinger knuckle. Dark eyes exuded distress, and you couldn’t help but think that his sheer panic mismatched the problem’s minimal severity.

You recoiled at his sudden outburst and took an instinctive step back. He noticed this, his expression instantly softening. His hand unfurled and fell to his side. 

“Shit, I–”

“I’m gonna be late to class.” You composed yourself, straightening your posture and forcing yourself to meet his gaze. “But the bar is right on 144th and 89th.”

He sputtered as he searched for the right words to apologize and explain himself. If you had time, you’d wait for him to unscramble his thoughts, but you were already behind schedule now that your bus was long gone.

You strode across campus like you were on a mission, feet flying over the pavement. The cab had left you at another bus stop closer to school, and that bus had thankfully arrived on schedule. At this rate, you would only be ten minutes late to class. 

Sweat trickled down your back from midday sun’s warmth and your fast pace, but you kept walking until you reached the lecture hall’s double doors. This class was a smaller one, only twenty or so students, so there was no sneaking in unnoticed. 

You shot your professor an apologetic look that she accepted with a polite nod, sliding into your usual seat next to your friend Nora. 

“Is everything okay?” Nora whispered, moving her own bag from the chair. The concern on her face was palpable; if you weren’t able to make it to class, you would have called her. 

“Yeah, just stuff at the motel going haywire as usual,” you reassured her with a small smile, digging out your notebook and a pen. You flipped to the first blank page and scribbled today’s date next to the right-hand margin. “What did I miss?”

Nora shook her head as if to say, nothing. “She just gave back last week’s homework. I grabbed yours, too.” She handed you a sheet of paper with a bright red A+ on top. “I figured if something had happened to you, you could be buried with your most recent perfect paper.” 

She winked, and you rolled your eyes to mask your burgeoning pride. 

Truthfully, you’d worked hard on the assignment. You might have already been accepted to graduate school, but NYU’s prestige didn’t come without a hefty price tag, and you still needed to apply for scholarships in order to afford it. 

Now was not the time to slack. 

You tried to pay attention to the lecture, but your mind constantly drifted to the way Eddie had behaved in his room, having a meltdown like an overtired toddler. The man who had lost his temper over a television channel was starkly different from the one who had readily swapped playful jabs with you the night prior. 

Maybe whatever buzz he’d managed to acquire before you’d interrupted him had made him uncharacteristically pleasant, and today’s outburst was indicative of his true self. 

You bit the inside of your cheek and willed yourself to focus on the case study being presented on the board rather than your own personal Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

Try as you might, you couldn’t shake the mystery that was Eddie Munson. Guests had had their choice words with you before—there was a reason why you had pepper spray at the ready—but this felt different. When most guests screamed like he had, they were specifically angry at you; it was the reaction you had expected when you’d told Eddie that he couldn’t smoke pot in the motel. Others simply were not in their right minds and didn’t realize that they were shouting at a random woman and not their mom or childhood bully or the monster under the bed. 

Eddie differed from both categories in that he’d recognized his mistake. That he was frustrated at the situation, not at you. That he had started an apology that he might have finished If you had stuck around.

Or maybe he wouldn’t have. Maybe he would have continued yelling, face growing red with rage. Maybe he would have stopped his tantrum but stormed out to the bar without a second thought. 

You looked down at your notebook page, still blank except for the date. 

Maybe you should stop playing this game of what-ifs and actually listen to the lecture. 

After your professor handed out the rubric for the final paper and dismissed the class, you and Nora made a beeline for the food cart outside the building. Dining hall food was too expensive and bland; besides, Niko knew both of your orders by heart. 

He greeted you with a chipper smile as soon as you approached the cart. Bacon sizzled in its own fat, drowned out only by the sound of the chopper scraping against stainless steel as Niko scrambled the eggs.  

“Better enjoy this nice weather while it lasts,” he said, fuzzy gray brows pinching together. He grabbed two styrofoam cups from a stack and filled them with coffee. “Temperature’s s’posed to skyrocket this summer.”

You grimaced, pulling a few bills from your backpack’s front pouch. “If food service doesn’t work out for you, Niko, you should look into meteorology.”

He brushed off your sarcasm and adjusted his apron over his protruding belly. He added cream and sugar to the coffees and slid them towards you. “Been doin’ this a long time,” he said, gesturing to the food cart set-up. He took your four singles and handed you back two quarters, doing the same for Nora. “Longer than you two’ve been alive. And some things never change: you kids always have somethin’ smart to say.” 

Your mouth watered as he toasted the rolls and added a slice of American cheese to yours before combining the ingredients into hearty sandwiches. He carefully wrapped them in tinfoil and handed them over. 

You smiled, uncovered the sandwich, and took a hearty bite. Melty cheese oozed out from the roll and clung to your lip, and you collected it with the tip of your tongue. “At least we’re consistent,” you teased, waving goodbye as you and Nora walked to the bus stop. 

“What went down at the motel today?” Nora asked, chewing her food as she spoke. “I mean, I’ve seen you get to class early during a blizzard,” she added with a knowing grin. 

You remembered that day, February winds whipping around you and cutting through your layers of clothes like a knife. The snow stung your nose and cheeks and made it nearly impossible to see three feet ahead of you, but you’d made it to class before the professor had even arrived.

“Nothing really,” you tried to say nonchalantly, taking another bite of sandwich to keep your mouth busy. You don’t want to think about the way Eddie had raised his voice at you this afternoon; more specifically, the shame that tugged at you for being disappointed. You’d had one decent interaction with him and you’d foolishly assumed some kind of mutual respect had been built, but it all boiled down to the basics: he was a guest at the motel who would be checking out on Friday, and then you’d never see him again.

Nora wrinkled her nose, not quite believing you, but any further interrogation was interrupted by the bus squeaking to a stop. You dropped the five quarters into the tray before squeezing your way through the aisle.

“Just…” Nora dropped her voice to avoid drawing the ire of your fellow commuters, grabbing onto a pole to steady herself, “you didn’t need to break out the pepper spray or anything, right?” 

You gave her a grateful smile. “Nothing like that. I promise.”

“Good.” She reached over and gave your hand a small squeeze, careful not to brush up against anyone else. “Because I need my study buddy in one piece.” 

“I’m fi—” The bus lurched forward suddenly, the driver slamming on the brakes just as the yellow light turned red. You tightened your grip on the pole and planted your feet into the floor to keep your balance until coming to a complete stop. The other passengers grumbled and groaned as they shifted, leaving trails of mumbled sorry’s in their wake.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority would likely cause your demise well before any motel guest could get to you.  

It was barely after six PM when you got back to the motel. The sun began to creep down from its pedestal into purpling clouds and teased dusk’s beginning. Horns honked as rush hour traffic dragged along the expressway as though their cacophony would make the other cars evaporate into thin air. 

You had about four hours before your shift started; it was just enough time to work on the paper, take a quick nap, and boil water in your electric kettle to make some Cup Noodles. 

“Hey.”

You looked up to see Eddie leaning against the wall, a cigarette burning between his pointer and middle finger. It was freshly lit, but he still extinguished it under his foot before stepping closer to you. His brown eyes flickered from the ground to your face and back down again. 

“Hi.” Short but polite, your customer-service smile didn’t quite reach your eyes. You could see Mom through the glass door, leafing through paperwork that was almost certainly a stack of past-due bills. 

Eddie shoved his hands in his pockets, scuffing one Reeboked heel against the pavement. “I went to that bar you told me about.” He said it all in one breath as though he expected you to take off running. 

“Oh.” One corner of your mouth quirked up in a hesitant half-smile. “Did you, um, did you get to watch your show?”

He nodded, a forlorn look clouding his eyes. His right incisor dug into his lower lip. “Yeah. Thanks.” He paused, and you started for the door once again before he spoke up. “Sorry, I—you said you had a class today?” he asked, clumsily tripping over his words.

There was no sense in lying; not with your backpack hooked over your shoulders. “Mhm.” 

“Were you…” His tongue swiped nervously over his lips. “Did I make you late?”

You shook your head. “I got a dollar cab.” Not quite a lie, just omitting the truth. At this point, you were willing to let him smoke weed again if it’d result in easy conversation.

Eddie bit the inside of his cheek, head tilted slightly as he assessed your response. He seemingly accepted it at face value, exhaling a quiet, “that’s good,” and fumbling in his pocket for another cigarette. 

You took that as your cue to leave and ducked into the lobby to greet your mom with a quick wave. She returned it with a weary smile, eyes creased at the corners. The soft lines etched into her forehead had deepened over the past few months. The Reagan-Bush trickle-down economy era might have come to an end, but its remnants still affected small businesses and the even smaller people running them.

“How was class?”

“Good.” 

The usual exchange, no real information revealed. The mother-daughter song-and-dance performance of the ages. As long as neither of you disrupted the routine, the music played on.

Ten PM rolled around too quickly, and you plodded into the lobby with a stomach full of sodium-drenched noodles and your tote bag full of books. A street light flickered outside, more off than on, illuminating the sidewalk in a hazy glow every so often.

Mom handed over the register keys and placed a kiss on your cheek before she left to go to bed in the room she shared with Dad. Nighttime was the only time they got to be together uninterrupted, and it was spent sleeping.

That wasn’t what you wanted. When–if–you found somebody to share your life with, you wanted to have conversations with topics besides financial upkeep. You wanted to talk about meaningless topics and make each other laugh. You wanted to lay with your head on their lap, gazing into their eyes and revering in the beautiful silence. Nothing forced or planned. Just being.

You positioned yourself behind the desk, spreading your supplies in front of you. You’d managed to draft the opening paragraph for your essay before sleepiness overtook you and you’d had to nap, and your goal tonight was to revise it to perfection. The upcoming weekend would be spent at the public library, nose deeply buried in every psychology book they owned while you outlined the body.

Red pen marked up your page, commas added and removed three times over. Arrows shifted sentence order, while some sentences were altogether crossed out with heavy lines.

It was perfect. It was all wrong. You loved it. You hated it.  

Maybe I should scrap it altogether and start over. 

Your palm pressed to the notebook page, ready to tear it out and crumple it into a ball with jagged edges that would dig into your skin. 

“Hey.”

In your intense focus, you hadn’t even heard anyone walk in. A rookie mistake; somebody could have snuck up on you and you’d be none the wiser.

Eddie stood there, a folded one-dollar peering out from between his thumb and forefinger. He shuffled to the desk and held out the money, his eyes offering a silent apology. 

“I owe you for the, uh, cab,” he mumbled, lips forming a tight, nervous smile. “And don’t argue with me. I know my bullshit made you late, so…” He flitted his free hand as if dismissing potential concern.

You clicked your tongue in mock disapproval. “You’re not from New York City, are you?”

Eddie shook his head with a laugh, fingers scratching at a stubbled patch along his cheek. “How’d ya know?”

“A New York man knows better than to tell a New York woman not to argue with him,” you teased, capping your pen. “Also, you tried starting a conversation with me earlier, and any New Yorker knows that’s a cardinal sin.”

“Having a conversation?” 

“Making small talk with a stranger.”

His nose crinkled in adorable bewilderment as though the thought never occurred to him. “We’re not strangers. We met last night.”

The innocence of his remark drew a genuine laugh out of you. “I see the same people on the bus every day,” you told him, “and they’re still strangers. Being more than mildly aware of someone's existence doesn’t mean I know them.”

“Fair point,” Eddie conceded, leaning in slightly, “but I’d argue that we know each other’s names, so we’re not total strangers.”

Humming your acknowledgment–but not necessarily agreement–you plucked the dollar from his grasp and tucked it into your back pocket. “I’ll put this towards your bill.” 

“Oh, yeah. About that.” Eddie cleared his throat and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Are there any pawn shops around here that’ll buy a guitar?”

“No, sorry.” There had been one down the street but it had already been shuttered for a few years. Guests would go there all the time to hock whatever they could to pay for another night at the motel.   

He let out a long, disappointed sigh. “Shit. Okay.” The playfulness behind his eyes faded. “Um, thanks anyway.”

He turned away from the desk, shoulders slumped. You knew that look all too well; it was the stance of someone who just needed life to cut them a break.

“Eddie?”

He swiveled back around, his curls a half-second behind. “Yeah?”

“Do you know how to re-wallpaper a room?”

“Huh?” Your question caught him by surprise, and he took a moment to collect himself. “I mean, yeah, kind of. I did it for my uncle’s trailer once. But I’m not, like, a professional.”

You smiled. “No professional experience necessary.” You gestured to the various spots on the wall where the paper was cracked and peeled. “If you can make this look presentable, you can stay a few more days. Free of charge.”

His expression immediately darkened, eyes narrowing and crossed arms closing off his body. “I don’t need charity,” he asserted through a tensed jaw.

“It’s not charity; it’s a favor.” The harsh reaction caught you off-guard, but you refused to let him unsettle you again. “Look around: do you really think we can afford to hire someone to install new wallpaper?” 

You didn’t bother to wait for his response before continuing. “We need to fix this place up, and you need a roof over your head.” Shrugging casually, you held onto the hope that he would also view this as a mutually beneficial offer and not a pity handout.

Eddie just scoffed, a rejection in itself, compounded with a growling reprise: “I said, I don’t need charity.” 

Spikes jutted out from his words and pinched your skin, each one a reminder of your uncanny ability to worsen every problem you tried to solve. 

Offering a job to someone you barely knew? He gave you a buck to pay for the cab you only had to take because of him—not exactly the best character statement. The man could be a serial killer who preys on low-budget motel owners and you’d be none the wiser, signing his checks like you weren’t his next victim. 

Maybe next week, you could hire Ted Bundy to change bed linens. 

“Understood.”

He looked at you so intensely his pupils should have bored a hole right through you. Behind his eyes wasn’t an ounce of hate or even anger. 

It was raw shame. 

I’m sorry got caught in your throat and didn’t reach your tongue until he had disappeared back down the hall, out of sight. 

--

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[zepskies]

This is very very niche one, but how would Beau, Dean and Ben react to seeing reader has breast reduction scars, and that’s how they find out about it since she never mentioned having one? I won’t be offended if you ignore because again, it’s very specific 🤣🫶

Hello my lovely friend! @chernayawidow

Ooh this is very niche, but I'm okay with that! I love a narrower prompt. It makes it easier to imagine, to be honest. And I can safely say this is the first time I've gotten a request like this. 😘

*cracks knuckles* Here we go!

Pairings: Dean Winchester x F. Reader, Beau Arlen x F. Reader, Soldier Boy/Ben x F. Reader

Tags/Warnings: 18+ only on this one for some smuttish behavior. Description of surgical scars, body insecurity and body appreciation.

Headcanon: How Dean, Beau, and Ben would react to seeing your breast reduction scars.

Dean Winchester

Let's start with Dean...

The first time he spots it is after a hunt, in the room of this week's grungy "motel crap."

He notices the edge of some kind of scar under your breast when he accidentally walks in on you changing.

He only sees it peeking out from the edge of the bra you're trying to hook on. It's black and lacey, and it immediately attracts his attention (in more ways than one).

"Dean!" you gasp. Your face sports a wild blush. "Learn how to knock, damn it!"

Shit! He remembers himself with a shake of his head and a placating hand in the air as he spins away. "Sorry!"

Of course, he's not going to say anything then. He wonders if it was a hunting injury, from before he met you.

He buries that curiosity...until you two finally start dating.

The subject doesn't come up, however, until you have sex for the first time. Dean has you underneath him in his bed. Kisses are feverish, hands exploring each other's bodies like a pair of teenagers making out. He can't lie to himself, he kind of feels giddy like a teenager.

But he notices that you're self-conscious about him getting your shirt off. You almost stop him with your hands on his wrists.

Dean hesitates. His hand are already under the hem of your shirt, but they become more soothing along the curve of your waist.

"Everything okay?" he asks.

Biting your lip, you nod and encourage him to continue. He goes slow, but he eventually takes your bra off, and he sees them.

Faded, pink scars (small circles around the nipple, with an anchor line stemming down the middle of the breast, and a small curve line underneath).

A younger, less mature Dean might not know what to say at first.

He might ask, with a note of caring, "What're these?"

He also might feel the need to lighten the question with a joke (not at your expense), of which you might not appreciate in the moment. And he'd very earnestly apologize.

And he might ask if he can touch the scars, softly tracing the outlines.

You would explain to him that it wasn't a hunting injury, or anything like that.

The answer is simple: You had breast reduction surgery. If you feel comfortable enough with him, you'll share the reasons why. (To reduce your lower back pain, and make it easier on your body to live your life and do your job. And the truth is, you feel better.)

A Dean in his 40s would probably have seen this before, and know what they are. But he'll still be curious on why you did it, because he's curious by nature.

He'll want to make sure you feel comfortable with him, asking you if the scars are still tender, and where you'd prefer to be touched.

But the scars don't faze him.

"I like 'em," he later says, with cheeky green eyes, and his tongue moving lazily between your breasts.

You giggle at that, carding your fingers through his hair. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he smirks. "I got me a little tiger. She's got some pretty stripes."

You laugh fully at that, and your body trembles with it underneath him. It makes him smile against your skin.

You're a beautiful woman, and he feels lucky to have this chance to be with you. Not just in your bed, but trying to be together.

Because it's a chance he didn't think he'd ever get to have again.

Beau Arlen

Ah, my Cowboy Sheriff...

He first notices it on the summer you two start dating, when you two go swimming at the lake. It's Montana, so the water is still pretty cold, but you both are too high on the giddy feeling of a budding romance to care.

He sees the edge of a crescent shaped scar under your breast, under the sexy bikini you're rocking. It piques his curiosity, which is already near insatiable at the best of times.

So much so that when he next has you in his arms in the water, and his arms are wrapped around your waist, with your arms wrapped around his neck, he gains enough courage to ask you, thumbing gently at the edge of raised flesh on your skin.

"What's this, darlin'?"

You're matter-of-fact about your answer, telling him it's your breast reduction scar. It's also a subtle way you test men.

You can tell a lot about someone's character by the way they react to things like this. Especially when it's something you might've been insecure about at first. But these scars are just a part of your body now. Though they'll fade even more in time, there's a chance they might always be there. So you've accepted this, and don't find cause to hide.

Beau takes your response in with a nod.

"You're...okay with it?" you ask.

Beau smiles and presses a tender kiss to your cheek. "What's to be okay with?"

"Yeah?" you lightly press. You smile at his beard scratching your cheek. You turn your head, and he gives you a proper kiss.

"Of course, sweetheart," Beau says. And he means it.

He's a father. He watched many a change happen to his ex-wife's body over the course of pregnancy, birth, and over a decade later of natural developments with age. He's aged and changed too.

So superficial things like stretch marks and fading scars aren't going to deter him in the slightest from being with you.

His thumb edges around the hem of your bikini, sliding under the tie in the back. His smile grows a bit cheeky, while yours becomes knowingly suspicious.

"Maybe you'll let me get acquainted," he hedges. His voice deepens with southern drawl and flirtation.

Your heart beats faster, and your smile deepens.

"Okay, Sheriff...but only if I get the same privilege." And your knees begin to slide his swim trunks down his hips under the water, at the same time he unties your bikini.

Soldier Boy (Ben)

Aw geez, this cheeky motherfucker...

Ben would easily be the most unfazed.

This man's gotten "around," so to speak. He's pretty much seen it all in his 102 years of pussy plowing. (Minus 40.)

You're different, however. You're more than that.

You were the first one to treat him like an actual person when he made it out of Russia, back to the States, back to New York, after dealing with Homelander and ending that piece of shit at Vought Tower.

While the whole world either looked at him like an oddity or a terrorist, you saw a man, displaced from everything he had known.

A man entirely alone.

Until you.

Still, it took all the patience he had within him to even get you to agree to date him. And you were cautious about physical intimacy. At first he thought you were shy (or worse, a fucking tease).

Or maybe...maybe you were afraid of him.

"It's not that," you tell him firmly. You feel comfortable and safe in his arms. You look up into his eyes, and he can't help but kiss you. You cling to him tightly, like you're starved for touch. His touch.

He sits down on the edge of his living room couch and brings you down with him, to straddle his thighs. You take his face into your gentle hands and briefly look down at him with a smile.

He sees things in your eyes that he's never seen from a woman before. Softness. Genuine caring. Maybe even something deeper.

But you tense up a little, the second his hands venture under the hem of your blouse.

"What's the matter?" he asks. His brows furrow. He can't fucking figure you out. You seem to be into him (and more), but you don't want him to touch you.

You hesitate. "It's just...um..."

With much effort, Ben controls every impatient, borderline callous remark he wants to make and squeezes your hips.

"Just tell me, baby doll. You're not gonna shock me."

You smile at the sight of his grin. You let out a breath and take off your blouse yourself. Ben eyes you hungrily as you bare yourself to him.

You unclip your bra and his eyes are drawn to your breasts...and then the scars. Just like you feared they would be.

But he doesn't look disgusted or put off. He just raises his brows at you.

"Is that what the fuck you're worried about?" he asks.

Your throat constricts for a moment as you rest your hands on his chest. You can feel the warmth of his skin through the fitted shirt.

Ben dips his chin and catches your downturned gaze. Then his head bows a little further, and he traces the scars lightly with his tongue.

Your breath hitches. Your eyes widen as you watch him, but pleasure tingles delicately down your spine and across your skin as his tongue swirls around a nipple. He lifts you up higher against him so he has easier access. All you can do is cling to his arms, sink your fingers into his hair, and moan wantonly as he ravishes your body.

By the end of the night, he knocks every single insecurity out of your head. (And you both sleep soundly, fully sated in his bed.)

AN: Whew! 😮‍💨 Feel like my fingers ran a marathon. I got into this one deeper than I thought I would! I hope it hit all the right notes. 💕💕

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[parkerflix]

— when he sees me

jeremiah fisher x gn!reader

genre: angst (lol)

synopsis: loving jeremiah fisher was hard. especially when he’s in love with someone else.

wc: 1.05k

part of the 1k celebration!

loving jeremiah fisher was always hard. you had only eyes for him, and you knew he only had eyes for belly. you tried desperately to distance yourself from those feelings, knowing you were putting more weight on your interactions with him.

every glance, every moment spent with him you ended up analyzing, trying to figure out if he felt even a fraction of what you felt. more often than not, you had to convince yourself that you were correct.

it felt like a bucket of ice had landed on top of your head when conrad and you came from his fina. seeing belly and jeremiah kiss knowing both you and conrad could come out at any moment made you stomach drop. it was the harsh wake up call that you needed.

conrad had interrupted them, and it all blurred in the background, your thoughts getting louder and overpowering. conrad took you away from them, taking you instead to help pack up his room.

you felt jealous, sadness and anger. belly wasn’t supposed to be with you guys. it was a last minute addition, and you felt jealous of her. she had the attention and affection of both fisher boys, while you pined over the younger fisher. it felt like a movie where she was the protagonist, and you just ended up being a unimportant side character.

the car ride with everyone was uncomfortable, and you tried blocking it out by putting in headphones. the cat’s movements made you drowsy, and it wasn’t until conrad slightly shook you awake that you noticed that you guys had stopped at a motel.

the atmosphere between the 4 of you seemed tense, and you felt out of place with their love triangle. they all bickered about the bed situation, and you felt as if the room was closing in on you.

running out of the room, you gasped for a breath and took a seat next to the vending machines. a tear rolled on your cheek and you hastily wiped it off, not wanting to let your guard down.

your name was called, and you looked up to see jeremiah standing there.

“are you okay?”

you nodded and took in a deep breath.

“yeah. i’m okay.”

he eyed you as if he didn’t fully believe you.

“are you sure? you ran out of there pretty quickly. i’m sorry if you feel like you’re in the middle of this whole thing—”

you squeezed your eyes shut and waved him off.

“it’s fine.”

“i know it’s an unfair position to be in, being stuck with all of us especially when belly and i-”

you stood up and balled your fists, letting your nails dig into the palms of your hands.

“jeremiah. i said it’s fine. can you drop it?”

you never were short with him, and it caught him off guard.

“what’s with you? are you upset at me too?”

you exhaled and your eyes darted everywhere but his face.

“it’s nothing. i don’t want to talk about it.”

“cmon, you’re my best friend. are you mad because we didn’t tell conrad?”

of course. he thought you were mad for conrad’s sake.

“no, jere but seriously drop it.”

“i wanna know what i did though! i cant stand you being mad at me.”

you felt like you were going to throw up, the words escaping you before you could react.

“i’m upset because of the kiss.”

your eyes widened and jeremiah stood there with a confused look.

“the kiss? it wasn’t intentional that conrad would see, he sort of just—”

“god! it’s not about conrad! why do you assume my feelings are about conrad? it’s because you kissed her.”

“it’s because i kissed her? what does that even mean?”

you sighed and slumped your shoulders. you knew you couldn’t run and hide from it like you always did, and you weren’t even sure if you wanted to.

loving jeremiah fisher was hard, and you were tired of it being one sided. you wanted to be free of your feelings for the curly-haired fisher, wanting to just be his friend without analyzing his every move.

“i love you jeremiah. i have for a long time. so yeah i’m upset because you kissed her.”

“i-”

“do you know how hard it is to be your friend but be in love with you? do you realize seeing you look at her the same way i look at you kills me? no. you don’t. because everything is about conrad and how he feels and how belly feels and how you feel. i cant keep doing this to myself. it’s not fair.”

“doing what?” his words came out like a whisper, so faint that if you weren’t standing face to face you wouldn’t have heard him.

“this” you gestured between the two of you “this friendship. i cant do this anymore. at least not right now. it hurts too much.”

he was silent, mouth shut and his eyes holding a swirl of emotions.

“listen. i’m going to go back into the room, and i’ll take the bed with conrad. he’s aware of how i feel, and it’s just gonna be easier. we’ll talk in the morning.”

you pushed past him, and walked back to the room. pulling conrad to the side you kept him up to speed, ignoring the obvious longing and jealous look belly was giving you. it felt ironic that she was jealous of you when you were nothing but jealous of her.

the rest of the night went with you ignoring both belly and jeremiah. curling into conrad’s side, you finally let the tears fall silently and soak his shirt. he wrapped his arms around you, the two of you understanding how the other felt.

come morning, you quickly got ready and dressed before everyone else was up. getting out of the room you quickly found cell service and ordered an uber.

the car came for you quickly and you climbed in, making sure you had all your bags. you sent a text to conrad letting him know you left early for home and to not tell the others and turned your messages on mute.

putting your headphones in, you finally let yourself really cry, leaning your head against the window.

loving jeremiah fisher was hard, but you knew getting over him would be harder.

[the-night-moves-writing]

Sisterhood

Winchesters x Sibling reader (sibling bond ONLY)

Castiel x Winchester Reader (Platonic)

Summary: When Castiel goes off the deep end and becomes god, he finds he still has a soft spot for the smallest winchester

Warnings: angst, reader is mute for a lot of the fic, Descriptions of a panic attack, mentions of John Winchester being a bad father

Characters: John, Castiel x Reader (platonic), Dean x Reader (siblings), and Sam x reader (siblings), very small amount of destiel (you can see it if you squint)

Word count: 1746

A/N: Hi guys! I feel like i might post a little bit more now that i'm back, also there is a part two (and maybe three) in the works for this! i will create a list for you to be able to find all the parts and link it to my masterlist once i get it all set up. Also now i am on A03 and i will link that to my masterlist here in a little bit too. Anyway sorry for the long authors note, heres the fic. <3

I think of ways to turn the tables and fear what happens when they turn, the anger he fills in turn fills me with uncertainty and anxiety. His father passed the hate down the table, passed through graves and passed through cradles. He said he could never turn out like him, he was different. He kept those he wanted to protect at arms length, never fully giving himself the right to feel and to be loved. The one exception to the rule was Sam. Little brother Sammy, his whole reason for continuing on was to take care of Sam and protect him. Then here I came into the picture like a wrecking ball through the perfectly built motel room. 

Left on the doorstep with nothing but a note that read: John i could no longer take care of our child so i give them to you. May they grow to be strong and better than the both of us. There was no name left on the note but my father John Winchester knew who it was from, some random lady in a bar. He never wanted to deal with me so he placed me into Dean's caring arms. Dean was not only my brother and caregiver but also my dad in my eyes. So Dean and Sam became my whole world my entire life, until Sam left us for college. Being only 6 at the time I had a very little understanding of why he left but Dean always just said he left us. So I hunted with Dean and John, well less hunting and more researching for them and learning everything I could about the lore so that I could be helpful to Dean and John and take Sam's place in hunting. 

 Then it was just me and Dean hunting and I learned the basics.  When Dean went to get Sam from college because John had been gone for a few days on a hunting trip i was so angry, how could he leave us and how could Dean still want him back especially when i was 10 and more than capable of helping dean. Then he came back and we were together again and things were good, until Dean died and Sam dropped me off at Bobbys. I was 13 years old and I could hunt with him, I didn't want to be away from both of my brothers. Bobby thought that I needed a car though so he let me rebuild one with him so I rebuilt my sweetheart, I couldn’t call her baby despite me loving the car, a 1965 mustang. A nice little two seater that I had painted green. I used the car to visit where Sam had Dean buried, all the time. Bobby was concerned at how much time I spent at his grave but I couldn't help it. 

I had lost both of my brothers and the only family I had ever had and I was grasping at straws, I lived but it was my spirit that was haunting Bobby's house. I had become basically mute within these past months and Bobby was trying everything to get me to speak again. So when Dean returned out of nowhere I stayed by his side, though it worried Dean how quiet I was. I never left his side though which helped to ease his anxieties and when the entity was following Dean we had bigger things to deal with. I stayed far away from Sam not being able to look in his eyes after being left again. Then we met Castiel. I was very worried and very scared. Somehow Cas picked up on it though and constantly eased my fears, he could tell why i didn't trust Sam and unlike Dean accepted and understood it. Cas easily became a good friend to me because I didn't have to speak with him and he didn't have to try to understand human norms with me. 

Dean and Sam were both worried about this new found friendship between me and the angel but they saw the way that I was opening up. Saw the way I was becoming happy again and they just couldn't interfere. Everything changed when I turned 15 Castiel died and Sam went to hell. Cas came back though like always and when Sam didn't have a soul and Dean was searching for a way to return his, Cas stuck by me cared for me and kept me safe. He answered when I called and he took care of me. He takes care of me and is the only person I can trust. Then I hit 16 and the worst period of my life began, Cas declared himself the new god. The sadness I felt in my chest, crushing my heart.

For the first time in almost 4 years I had something to say 

“Cas STOP!” I said

Everyone turned to stare at me, and Cas turned to walk towards me. He took my hand

 in his and said,

“I am extremely proud of you my very devoted little one” 

His tone borders on threatening and dipping into enjoyment and pride.

He looked between Dean and Sam and myself before he spoke once more

“I expect complete devotion from you all…” he paused for a second, taking a breath before turning to me. The look in his eyes was no longer the soft and comforting look I had grown accustomed to. 

“…you have proven that you will speak for me in what you consider dire situations, so I command you to continue to do so” his gaze softened “ You have always been my favorite, my little one. Please do not give me any reason to punish you.”  

I, not being able to meet his gaze any longer, turned to look at the ground. My favorite person was now gone and there was nothing I could do to bring him back. I could follow him and leave my brothers again, leave my family. Or I could stay and lose the person I'm closest to in the whole world.

I could hear Dean and Sam shouting but I felt like my head was being pushed underwater, I couldn't breathe and I could feel the tears begin to run down my face and splatter on to the floor below. My vision was blurry and it was so loud everything was so loud, my entire life was falling apart and there was nothing I could do about it. I was completely hopeless and useless, I wasn't good enough. Good enough to help Sam and Dean with hunts, or protect them from going to hell, I couldn't do anything. I could feel my breathing quicken and my chest tightening. 

“STOP” Cas’s voice cut clear though the air, he turned from the boys walking towards me. My thoughts, eyes, and breathing were still shaky and unfocused. At some point I had ended up on my knees sobbing.

“Obviously I cannot leave the care of you to these two, my little one, I better take you with me.” He stated, me not hearing him, though it was more a threat to the boys. Dean finally noticed me and ran over and moved to be on his knees, Sam hot on his trail following suit to kneel in front of me.

“Hey hey hey your ok sweetheart, I promise. I got you, deanies here, don't worry.” Dean said, bringing up the nickname I used to call him trying to calm me down. Dean and Sam continued their calming words till my breath returned to normal. Cas was still staring at us from afar. He looked at us for a minute before speaking 

“If you wish for me to let you keep your sister I expect obedience Dean, I do not want to fret over her as i try to rebuild heaven. I could always just take her with me if that would make you more compliant.” His voice booming and loud

“P…. please let me stay” my voice is still shaky and rough not only from the panic attack but from years of not using it.

“This is not a decision for you to make, if i dont think Dean is capable of caring for you then I won't hesitate to bring you with me.” He said to me 

“Remember for almost 4 years I was the only person you spoke to. I know everything about you, and Dean cannot care for you as much as I could, little one.” Castiel’s voice seemed to soften when speaking to me. Dean could no longer take the former angel speaking as if he could not care for HIS siblings any longer.

“I’ve taken care of her my entire life Cas I think I know what I am doing.” He said a little bit pissed and it showed through his voice.

“I am no longer Cas to you Dean, you may refer to me as lord or god but never speak as if you are close to me again.” The statement was heartbreaking for the hunter, who always had a ‘profound bond’ with the angel.

“Another thing you say you have cared for them yet they were mute for four years, and you have caused so much damage to them. Do you really think you can care for them better than I?” Cas asked him completely serious

“I tried Cas you know better than anyone that i tried for almost two years, but i can't MAKE them talk” Dean was full blown angry now. Making me more frightened

“I TOLD YOU TO NOT CALL ME CAS.” Cas said his voice booming off the walls, he brought his hand up to slam Dean into the wall

“Stop, stop, stop please, I’m sorry, I'm so sorry, please just let me stay.” you cried out

“You have no control over my actions, little one. Dean had been given too many warnings, but seeing as you want to stay I will allow it, but believe me I will be doing check ups, and if I believe that you are not being cared for I will not hesitate to take you. You are still only a child who needs to be protected.” Cas said putting Dean down, Sam running to help him, Cas then turned from me to the brothers before speaking one last time.

“Heed my warnings. I am not going to repeat myself.” he said before disappearing, leaving the siblings alone in the warehouse.

[thursdayinspace]

So many feelings about Mulder’s emotional journey and how it affects his relationship with Scully from early on over iwtb to the revival, related to this post and everything @deathsbestgirl says about the parallels between the scenes. In "Detour," we see Scully coming to his room with wine and cheese and he promptly runs off without even telling her what he's doing. In "Plus One" in the revival, he waits for her behind a closed motel room door. He makes the offer for more this time around. It's her choice what to do with it.

In "Detour," when Scully comes to his room offering to spend a nice evening together, just the two of them, Mulder really isn't ready. He has so much on his mind and so many things keeping him from being with her. A lot of that is down to the fact that his -- their -- search for "the truth" takes up so much of his life. He knows how he feels about her, but acting on it would be a tectonic shift in their lives. And sometimes he also is simply too caught up in his quest to notice. Sometimes, maybe, he takes her for granted. In any case, it's too much. He can't risk what they have because there is so much at stake. Their search for truths, but also his heart.

Then there's Mulder in iwtb who has no idea what to do with himself. He knows he loves her and he wants to be with her, but he also gets so caught up in the work after being cut off from the world for so long. He's directionless, lost, torn between all the things he wants, just looking for anything to hold onto that will give his life meaning. In "Detour," he has a purpose, and he knows she's with him on that. In iwtb he has no purpose at all and something is not quite right with their relationship, which is all he has (which is also part of the problem). He's in nowhere-land and just looking for something, anything. He has no idea what he wants apart from wanting her, but being someone's partner is not enough of an identity for anyone. He has nothing that defines him.

In the revival, he knows what he wants. The work is undeniably important to him, but what he wants is a life with her, in which they can both be their own people too. From his intense, focused drive in the early years over his directionless despair and depression in iwtb we get a Mulder in the revival who is settled, secure in his goals and needs, even if it hurts. He has accepted his pain too. He knows. And he will wait. He doesn't pursue the fixing of their relationship frantically like he used to do with his search for answers. He's there, he's hers, and she can take him up on that when she's ready. And if she's never ready, he's still hers. The way he loves her is so gentle and calm, even in the moments where it becomes apparent how desperately in love he still is with her. But he makes the offer, and when she comes to him, he's there, waiting. And the important part is: he can do that because he has a place in the world. He knows who he is. He no longer carries the entire weight of the world on his shoulders, and he's also no longer floating in space. He doesn't have all the answers. He still wants them, but the search doesn't define him in the way it used to. Neither does his relationship with her.

In ftf he tells her that she made him a whole person. I'm not sure he was able to fully grasp the meaning of that at that point, but that doesn't make it any less true. She helped him keep his course and not give up. He could keep going because he wasn't alone and because she challenged him. But he needed something to be challenged on. He exists in extremes in the earlier years and in iwtb. In the revival, he has found a middle ground and he has found patience and the ability to stand still. To wait. To not be all or nothing anymore. We still see him doubting himself and his beliefs, wavering, being insecure, and we see her being there for him when that happens. He's still Mulder, and he still needs to Believe. But now he's become the one with the wine and cheese. It's there for her whenever she wants it.

[gurugirl]

The Con Artist | Part 3*

Summary: Harry's being cold toward you and it drives you crazy, but your attitude is making him nuts, so when there's a bit of car trouble what else can be done but find a dingy motel in the middle of nowhere even when you're both getting on each other's nerves? Surely the detective will remain professional with you.

Warning: Graphic descriptions and details of smut, unprofessional cop behavior, use of handcuffs (not the fun kind)

11.8k words

A/n: detective!harry x criminal!reader. This is part 3 of this series. The Con Artist Masterlist

◈ ◈ ◈

Harry was doing everything a good detective shouldn’t be doing. He should have never walked up to you at Victory Park and he certainly shouldn’t have approached you at the Warwick and then brought you back to his room. He shouldn’t have kept you in his custody at all. He had nothing to keep you for. But he wasn’t ready to give up yet. Oh, and there was the fact that that moment he was lapping at your breasts with your fingers in his hair. This was also a bad idea.

You arched your back upward pushing your ribcage into Harry and he moved his hands along your sides and over your nipples. He couldn’t resist you which is why it was so frustrating when you were acting like a brat toward him because all he wanted was for you to be nice and easy. But you weren’t easy. Nor were you nice and it drove him crazy. He was used to women being very eager and sweet toward him, throwing themselves at him even because they wanted him to see their best side. But you didn’t care what Harry thought. Your attitude was infuriating but he liked the challenge of you.

Harry lowered his mouth and kissed downward to your belly button. You were still fully clothed, as was he, but he had your white t-shirt pushed up above your breasts with your bra pulled down so your tits were exposed.

But then as Harry brushed his mouth over your belly button he heard your stomach gurgle, which reminded him why you were in his motel room in the first place, and he suddenly realized with a bit more clarity that the situation had gotten out of hand. He pushed himself up and groaned. You were so pretty and so ready for him. He knew he could take this as far as you’d let him, and it seemed like you were more than ready for whatever he wanted. But he needed to remain strong.

He rubbed his hands over his face and then he felt your warm hand grasp his elbow. He opened his eyes and looked at you. You’d already pulled your shirt back down over your breasts and were sat up. You had a look of question on your face. It didn’t make sense to you why he’d stopped. That wasn’t something you were used to. It felt like rejection.

Harry lowered his hands from his face and frowned, “I’m sorry, Y/n. This is my fault and it’s fucked up. This is not supposed to happen. We shouldn’t be engaging like this. I’m responsible for everything here.”

He got up from the bed and tilted his head back as he looked up at the ceiling and then he paced from the front door of the motel room to the bathroom door. Back and forth, hands on his hips and trying to work out in his head what he was going to do.

You watched him as he lifted his arms and bent them at the elbow and cradled the back of his head, still pacing. He was in distress. He’d busted up his own boundaries and fucked up the case. All because he couldn’t control the dick-brain he got when he was around you.

“Okay… here’s what we’ll do,” Harry lowered his arms and walked back toward the bed, but didn’t sit down, “we’ll leave now and go to your mom’s, and then we’ll head to LA. It’s about 8 am so your mom should be awake, right?” He looked at you briefly before he began to pace again, not wanting to allow himself too much time to scan you and take you in with your messy hair, kiss-swollen lips, and flushed cheeks.

You nodded, “Yeah,” you spoke in a soft voice. You didn’t like this at all. Your brain was still confused about everything. About how you felt about the detective and what it meant that you were actually going back to LA with him.

Harry nodded and exhaled a deep breath, “Right. Okay. Well, let’s get our things and get out of here. We’ll go to the bar and get your car and I’ll follow you to your mom’s.”

You stayed in Harry’s car as he ran in to settle up for the night at the motel. Before he went into the office he pointed at you and gave you a warning, “I’ll be watching you. Do not run. I will catch you. I run faster than you and can probably go for a lot longer than you. So don’t even go there.”

His words didn’t help the state of your panties or your brain. Of course, his stamina was good. Look at him. He’d catch you and tackle you down in his strong arms and carry you back to his car with ease you were sure of it. That kind of sounded like fun. God, he was so hot. If he were ugly you’d have probably tried harder to get away from him somehow. Maybe. But then again, if he were ugly you’d never have kissed him in the first place and none of this would be happening.

You drove your car to your mom’s, with Harry following behind you. You made no attempt to run or speed off with your car. It would do no good. Harry’s car was far faster than yours. It would just be a big mistake to do anything like that. Then he’d have more of a reason to keep you in his custody or send you to jail.

Harry joined you in your mother’s home. She was still in her pajamas, her hair in a bun on her head as she sipped her coffee and offered some to you both.

“Yes. That would be great. Thank you, ma’am,” Harry answered your mother. He needed some coffee for the long drive ahead. You declined.

You noticed how your mom was eyeing Harry. She’d never seen him around so you introduced him as your friend from LA. You went with the story that you’d be back in a week to get your car, and that you needed to go back to LA with Harry.

“I don’t understand. You just got here yesterday. You said you were going to stay for a week.” Your mom was disappointed. You hated disappointing her.

“I know. I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll be back, though, and then I’ll stay for the week.”

Harry drank his mug of coffee and took note of the house and everything in it. The pictures on the walls and in frames stood up near the entertainment center with you. You were a cute kid too. Harry really wanted to see your childhood bedroom. Mostly just for curiosity’s sake. He knew so much about you, yet he didn’t know the small details that made you who you were. The house and everything in it told him a different story about you, filled in some of the particulars about you that he noticed once he began to make contact with you. It was always like this with a person of interest, a suspect. There was always more to them than met the eye or what evidence and background checks could find. There was always more to the person than just a bad criminal who deserved punishment.

“What do you do for a living, Harry?” Your mom asked. She was curious about the tall, handsome stranger. She didn’t believe what you told her. She knew you were fibbing but she wouldn’t push you. She never wanted to be pushy with you, even when you were growing up. It was one of the things that made you love being around her. She let you tell her what you needed in your time.

Harry cleared his throat and placed his mug down on the kitchen counter, “I work in tech. I set up network configurations for hospitals and clinics in the US and parts of Europe. I help run project management for my clients and they like to have me in person when I set up a new configuration so I can train onsite IT or tech people,” he glanced at you and then back to your mom.

You hated lying to your mom. Not just because lying to your mom made you feel awful, but because you knew she could smell the bullshit. 

“Really…” Your mom said, leaning her hip on the counter and crossing her arms over her chest.

Harry nodded, “Yes, ma’am. It’s a good gig.”

“Sure sounds like it. So you two only recently met then is what I’m gathering,” she kept her eyes on Harry.

“Yes. We actually just met randomly,” you interjected, “I was sitting in a park drinking coffee and Harry was lost and well, anyway…” you laugh and look between Harry and your mom, “I gave him my number because I know the area well…”

“Oh, I don’t blame you for giving him your number, darling. Look at him,” She nodded toward Harry, “Sorry, Harry,” she quickly said, “I just can see that you’re an attractive man is all.”

Harry chuckled and shook his head, smiling at your mom with his dimple making its appearance.

“Well, we should really be going. I just need to grab my bag,” you said as you began to leave the kitchen. You didn’t want to stand there and lie to your mom anymore. And plus, you were still reeling from the hot kiss you shared with Harry so everything felt very confusing for you. You’d barely had time to process anything.

When you got back into the kitchen, rolling your bag behind you Harry and your mom were standing closer and she was laughing at something he’d just said.

Your mom turned to look at you, “Harry was telling me how he just found out you hate orange juice.”

You cinched your brows together and glared at Harry, “Yeah. He ordered me a liter-sized cup and was surprised when I told him I didn’t want it. It’s disgusting.”

Your mom and Harry laughed again as if they were good buddies sharing old stories about you.

Before you left you promised your mom you’d return the following week. She still didn’t understand why you were leaving exactly, but she sighed and gave you hug, “Call me if you need anything, Y/n. I love you, honey,” she spoke into your ear when you hugged her goodbye.

When you and Harry got onto Highway 5, headed South toward LA there were few words spoken. You were feeling things that were very complex, but so was Harry. Clearly, you were both attracted to one another. But your goals were not aligned. Harry was a detective and you were in trouble for a serious crime.

And it was confusing mostly because you didn’t know what to expect. You had a feeling he was not being totally honest with you. That perhaps you weren’t meant to really be in his custody. But what could you do? No one would believe you over a cop. And there was a part of you that sort of thrived off the potential for adventure and drama. You were a career thief after all. Excitement and making bad decisions were sort of your thing. Maybe that’s the real reason you didn’t try harder to get away or to alert someone to what Harry was doing. Or… and this was a big OR… he was doing everything by the book and had a solid reason to keep you in his custody and he just wasn’t telling you why.

From your conversations with him, he mentioned he fucked up, and that he had nothing substantial on you. But you weren’t totally sure of how this sort of thing worked. And you felt like you could trust Harry not to hurt you. At the very least.

When Harry looked over at you after an hour and a half of driving he realized you were so quiet because you were asleep. Cute when she’s quiet. He thought to himself.

He’d really dug himself into a deep hole with you. He didn’t know what he was going to do once he got you back to LA. He’d take you to your apartment and perhaps search for clues. If he could find a watch or jewelry that you’d stolen then that would be all the evidence he’d need. He noted the gold bracelets on your left arm and wondered if you stole them.

He reached his right hand out and put the tip of his middle finger on one of the bracelets to push them apart. He watched the road, then looked to your wrist, then back at the road.  You had five on. They were thin and had different finishes and textures. Some were slightly thinner than others.

Suddenly the car thunked over something and the wheel turned hard to the left, causing the vehicle to veer over the lanes and into oncoming traffic.

Harry tried correcting the wheel but the car was traveling at about 60 miles per hour and it was nearly impossible to bring the car back to the right.

He had been lucky there were no other cars on that stretch of road at that very moment. The car came to a screeching halt on the opposite side of the road facing the opposite direction you’d been headed. Harry gripped the wheel tight and looked over at you as he placed the car in park.

You blinked your eyes open when you felt what you thought was Harry making a sharp turn. But when you moved your head to look at Harry you saw him looking at you and the car was stopped just off the highway on the shoulder.

“What’s going on?” You asked as you stretched your arms overhead. You weren’t yet aware of what had just happened.

“Stay here,” Harry spoke quickly as he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. He went to the front and you watched as he checked his tires and then slammed his hands down on the hood of his car, “FUCK!”

Harry ducked down and inspected closer and all you could see was the top of his head, his dark curls looking like he’d styled his hair that way but you knew he woke up looking like that. Disgustingly handsome.

Harry rounded the vehicle and got back in, his heavy body falling into the driver’s seat and making the car jostle slightly. He slammed the door closed and plucked up his phone, dialing a number and putting the phone to his ear.

He cleared his throat and you stared at his profile, “What’s going on, Harry?”

Harry shook his head and shushed you and that pissed you right off. You weren’t one to be shushed.

You unbuckled your seatbelt and opened the car door to see for yourself what was wrong since he didn’t feel you were worth informing before making the call he was on.

Harry hopped out behind you, “Hey! What are you doing? Get back in the car, Y/n!”

You ignored him the way he ignored you. A flat tire. More than just a flat tire. He hit something big. The tire was a goner but the entire wheel would need to be replaced as well. The bumper even had damage.

You felt Harry’s hand grasp around the back of your arm and he pulled you with him back to the car, “Get back in the fucking car. I need to call someone to get a tow,” he opened the door and you yanked your arm away and shot your nastiest, meanest look at him before plopping into your seat and Harry closed the door.

It took about forty-five minutes for the tow truck to arrive. You and Harry were in a small-town North of Sacramento. The only shop that the car could be towed to wouldn’t look at the vehicle until tomorrow because they’d be closed by the time you arrived, but they were fine to let you leave the car on their lot overnight.

If you wanted to go all the way into Sacramento, that could take another hour and Harry found that he’d need to make an appointment at a shop prior to arriving. Most were booked up for the day. So, towing the vehicle to a small-town shop and waiting for them to look at it tomorrow would work just as long as there was a place to keep the car overnight. The shops in Sacramento wouldn’t allow the vehicle to be parked overnight on their lot without an appointment.

“Why don’t you just arrange something with the police? You’re a cop so you should be able to get in anywhere and have your wheel fixed. Right?” You eyed Harry in question. He was awfully quiet, and he was very angry. You could tell he was frustrated and didn’t want to be bothered.

“Because I’m not. And just because I’m a cop doesn’t mean it’ll be fixed any faster. Just…” Harry leaned his head back onto the headrest and closed his eyes, “stop. Okay? I need a break. I’m not in the mood to answer your questions right now.”

You kept silent after that. You kind of wanted to look at your phone and scroll through social media. Text Raechel. Read a book you downloaded. Anything.

But Harry took your phone before you got on the road. He said it was to make sure you didn’t try anything. Even after kissing you the way he did, meeting your mom, and seeing how you didn’t speed off in your car, he still held his hand out and told you to give him your phone before he backed out of your mother’s driveway.

So, you sighed and crossed your arms over your chest, and turned to face the window. You stayed like that until the tow truck arrived, hopping out the moment it backed up in front of the car.

“Goddamnit! Why do you need to jump out of the vehicle like that? Just… fuck…” Harry said as he ran up behind you.

You didn’t respond nor look at him. He was being a dick and you weren’t going to give him even an inch of your attention. He didn’t want to talk so you weren’t going to engage with him.

You and Harry squeezed into the cab of the truck. It was a bench seat that could fit no more than three people. You sat in the middle and the guy driving took you to the shop that said they’d look at the car in the morning.

Harry’s body was warm and solid and it felt really nice. You ignored the way your mind began racing with the possibilities of that evening. You knew you two were going to need to stay overnight in the small town. Harry hadn’t told you that but you’d come to your own conclusions when you heard him talking to people on the phone about at least letting him keep the vehicle parked overnight.

A half-hour later, the car was being placed on the lot and Harry paid the man who then drove off and left you and Harry alone again. Harry turned his back to you as he walked toward the car. He pulled out his bag and your suitcase from the trunk and a few other things in his glove box and backseat. You stayed away. To give him space. To give yourself space. You paced on the concrete pad near the shop as he leaned against his car and fiddled with his phone. You imagined he was looking for a place to stay or calling an Uber or taxi or something.

“Fuck!” His booming voice startled you and you turned to look at him. Now he was standing and pacing. Harry was not in a good mood.

But of course, he wasn’t. Everything that had happened, everything that had gone wrong, was all his fault. If he hadn’t approached you at Liberty Park that day none of this would be happening. In fact, he might have caught you already and had you in custody (legally) and probably in jail. But now? Now he was fucked in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with his case blown, a criminal in tow, no car, and no motel nearby. And now no cell reception.

You rolled your eyes and took a deep breath. Perhaps he needed help. This was in your best interest as well to see if you could assist. You hesitated at first, thinking how funny it would be if he couldn’t get a taxi or a hotel, but then the thought burst when you remembered you were with him and you’d much prefer to sleep in a motel than in a car in a shop lot.

“Want me to see if I can find a place…?” you spoke as you neared him but Harry put his hand up.

“Shhh… Stop. I’m fine. I’ve got it taken care of.”

He didn’t actually.

Twenty minutes later you realized Harry was glancing in your direction. You felt his eyes on you so you turned to look at him, “What?”

Harry scratched the back of his neck and sighed, “Can I borrow your phone to look for a motel? Looks like you’ve got better service than I do out here.”

You rolled your eyes and shrugged, “You have it in your possession so go for it.”

Harry huffed at your remark and the way you were snide with him, “Don’t get annoyed with me. I’m doing my best here,” Harry countered.

You walked back toward the shop, the loose gravel underfoot moving and rolling when you placed your foot down. You sat on the stoop and looked up to see Harry walking toward you.

He held your phone up to you, “Can you unlock it?”

You tapped the phone and put your face in the view and it unlocked right away. Harry sat down on the stoop next to you and began looking for a place to stay. There were very few options and the only motel that seemed to be open was a half hour out. But it was your best bet. Harry called the motel and you could hear someone on the other line, chipper and squawky. Harry winced at the noise and you laughed to yourself at his reaction.

“Yes, hi. I’m looking for a room for the night. Do you have anything available?”

You kept your eyes on Harry. The voice on the phone rattled off at least five or six sentences and Harry sighed, “Yes. That’s great. Uh… anything with two beds?” He glanced over at you before looking down at his lap.

You stood up and walked away back toward his car. You really didn’t feel like being near him. He was mean when he was in a bad mood and it was making you feel angry as well. You hated to feel angry. Especially when the anger was no good in this situation.

You leaned against Harry’s car and watched the road. There were no cars to be seen driving around this area. You could hear the sound of an interstate or highway off in the distance but couldn’t see it. There was a grass lot across the street and a small empty fenced parking lot up further off the road.

“Okay. We’ve got a room. I’m going to call a taxi to get us there,” Harry spoke as he walked toward you.

Harry used your phone to call a local taxi company. Uber wasn’t available.

When Harry locked your phone he slid it into his back pocket and leaned on his car next to you and crossed his arms over his chest.

It was silent. Which was preferred. You didn’t want to hear him make any more comments or say something out of anger.

Your phone began to ring after about five minutes of peace and Harry pushed himself off the car and lifted your phone to his ear, “Hello?”

Harry began walking toward the shop and you followed because you were curious. On the front door of the shop was the street number and Harry spoke it into the receiver and paused, “Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. We’ll be here.”

He locked your phone again and put it back into his pocket and then walked past you toward his car.

You followed.

“Was that the taxi? When will they be here?” You asked, frustrated that Harry wasn’t giving you any information.

Harry stopped and turned, “Yes. Twenty minutes.”

You frowned at him, “Why are you treating me like this is my fault? I didn’t do anything wrong here Harry.”

Harry rolled his eyes and grumbled something under his breath as he turned away to continue walking back to his car, “Because you’re difficult and you’re a criminal that I can’t trust but have to keep with me. So I’m not having the best day when it’s got to be shared with someone like you.”

You stopped in your tracks. That kind of hurt, actually. You wouldn’t admit that to Harry but the fact that he just made it sound like you were some low-life criminal who was a burden to him made you feel sour in your stomach. You turned and walked back toward the shop to sit on the stoop and wait for the taxi. You didn’t want to be next to Harry for 20 minutes in silence.

The sun was bright and warm in the sky. It felt nice on your skin. You hadn’t changed or showered, or even brushed your teeth and when you began to sweat the tiniest bit you were beginning to look forward to getting to a motel room, even if you had to share it with Harry. A shower would feel nice.

The taxi pulled into the lot and Harry lifted his bag and your suitcase and popped them into the trunk of the white car with large lettering on the side RAAHAUGE TAXI SERVICE.

You slid into the back seat and Harry got into the passenger seat in the front.

Bob was the driver. He was nice. Talkative. Harry was annoyed, you could tell, but he was nice and made conversation with him. It was good to know Harry wasn’t mean to everyone he was annoyed by. Just you.

When you got to the Arbuckle Inn Harry was quick to get out of the car and get your things from the trunk. You bid Bob farewell and hopped out to follow Harry to the office of the motel.

Inside it was dark and the carpet was beige and there was a drip coffee maker with powdered cream, red straws, sugar packets, and tiny white Styrofoam cups on a bench. You decided you were ready for a little coffee. Your stomach was feeling better. In fact, you were starting to get hungry, but you just knew telling Harry that you were hungry would make him angry so you stuck with lobby motel coffee and powdered creamer to tide you over until he was ready for food.

Harry was given a room key with a bright green key chain attached with the words A Better You printed in white.

The room was at the end of the property near the road. There was only one bed and the TV was from the 90s. The dark green shag carpet was dusty and the beige curtains were too. You pressed your hand on the bed and this time, it felt like a mattress. Not the best mattress, but anything was better than the one you attempted to sleep on earlier.

Harry put his bag on the end of the bed and began rifling through it. You excused yourself to the bathroom.

The bathroom was just as charming as the room. The toilet, sink, and tub had blue porcelain and the mirror that was tacked to the wall above the sink was yellowed at the edges and cracked. The shower curtain was due for burning, but it would only be for a night. You couldn’t get too picky you supposed.

You brushed your teeth and splashed your face with water and heard your stomach grumble.

Back in the room, Harry was lying on his back on the bed with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together behind his head. He popped an eye open when you opened the door.

“Shower up, take a nap, watch TV. Whatever you need. We’ll figure something out for food later. I saw a small convenience store just up the road before we got dropped off.

You nodded silently and went through your suitcase to gather up something to wear. It was warm out and you needed to cool down.

You pulled out your soft pajama shorts and a black t-shirt along with your toiletries bag, “You don’t need to go to the bathroom before I step in do you?” You asked the man who was taking up a significant portion of the bed.

He shook his head and closed his eyes.

The shower was exactly what you needed. It felt so good to wash your body and your hair. When you got out of the shower you brushed your teeth again for good measure.

You ran lotion over your skin and moisturized your face and then just as you were about to put your clothes on, Harry was knocking at the bathroom door.

“What’s taking so long?”

You rolled your eyes and shook your head. What an asshole.

“I’ll be out in one minute,” you shouted through the door as you slid your shorts up your legs and put your toiletries back into their rightful spot. You tucked your dirty clothes under your arm and opened the door. Harry was standing right there looking as angry as ever.

You ignored him, walking right past to your suitcase to put your things away.

Harry stood behind you and you jumped when you realized he was so close, “Get on the bed.”

You furrowed your brows and shook your head, “No. Why?”

Harry lifted the handcuffs and raised his brow, “Because it’s my turn to use the bathroom and I need to make sure you don’t run off. On the bed,” he pointed behind you.

“Can you at least let me have the remote for the TV?” You said, pointing toward the table the TV was sitting on, the remote right next to it.

Harry closed his eyes and then nodded in annoyance, “Yes. Sit.”

You sat down and Harry took your wrist and cuffed it to the headboard and then tossed the remote to you before he disappeared behind the bathroom door. You noted that he didn’t take any toiletries. You wondered if he brought any or if he’d just forgotten to bring them into the bathroom.

You clicked the TV on and it took a second for the screen to brighten. When the screen had warmed up you flipped through the channels for a bit until you landed on something somewhat entertaining.

You heard the water from the shower in the bathroom turn on and then you settled your back into your pillows, or what you assumed were your pillows since you were cuffed to that particular side.

The bed felt nice under your body. You closed your eyes but you remained conscious. It just felt good to stretch your legs on a comfortable bed and your eyes were a bit heavy too.

Not long after you’d felt yourself relax totally into the bed you heard the bathroom door open. You opened your eyes and noticed Harry was only in a towel wrapped around his waist. He quickly went to his bag and pulled out some clothes before glancing at you and then walking back into the bathroom, and closing the door.

You were unsure of how to feel. There was something between you and Harry, obviously. Attraction at the very least but that didn’t count for much. You did trust him but he didn’t trust you, you thought to yourself as you looked at your cuffed wrist. Which didn’t feel good. Especially after what he said about having to keep you with him. Like you were that bad. As if you’d really gone out of your way for all this.

Harry reappeared, dressed in sweatpants and a white t-shirt. His hair was wet, which was also attractive. Unlike your own wet hair. You hated how you looked with wet hair. Not cute.

Harry moved his bag off the bed and onto the wooden chair next to his side of the room. He walked around the bed toward you and this made you sit up as you watched him. He pulled a key from his pocket and clicked it into the cuff on your wrist and released the spring so your arm was free. You rubbed at your wrist as you watched Harry turn and walk back to the other side of the bed, sitting down and putting his back to the headboard, stuffing his pillows behind him. He stared ahead at the TV screen.

Annoying. He was the one that was annoying.

After a few minutes, Harry cleared his throat and you could see from your peripheral that he turned his head toward you but you didn’t move your neck to look back at him.

 “I’m sorry,” was all he said. You saw him turn his head back toward the TV.

You sat for a moment to think about his “apology”. But it only made you angry. Sorry? Did he think that’s all he needed to do to make himself feel better for how he’d treated you?

Finally, after you began to imagine yourself punching him in the jaw a few good times, you turned to look at him, his hair still damp and drying, “For what?” You crossed your arms over your chest. You wanted a real apology.

Harry took a deep breath and you saw his jaw clench, the one you wanted to punch really good and he turned to face you. His soft green irises on your face, “For how I treated you. I…” he pursed his lips, “was rude to you because I was frustrated and wanted someone to take it out on. But none of this your fault.”

You kept your arms crossed over your chest, not letting your guard down, “Oh? And so you don’t think I’m an annoying burden you’re forced to bring along on this trip? You don’t mind someone like me here with you? I’m the one who’s been forced into this situation, by the way.”

Harry inhaled deep through his nose, his face set in a serious expression, “I don’t think that you’re a burden. No.”

You pressed your back into your pillows and set your eyes back on the TV screen. You guessed that was something. The apology would probably be all you’d get from him.

“And for this morning. When I kissed you. That was inappropriate and I don’t what’s gotten into me. So, for all of it. Sorry.”

You looked down at your lap and shook your head. This whole mess was weird and unfortunate. Confusing.

The silence was awkward and uncomfortable between you two. The TV was obnoxious with commercials that seemed to go on longer than the episodes of I Dream of Jeannie.

When your stomach growled Harry turned to look at you, “Hungry?”

You nodded, “Mhmm…” but kept your sight on the TV.

Harry sighed waiting for you to look at him but when you didn’t he felt himself get frustrated at you again. He knew he deserved your cold shoulder but he didn’t like it. He wasn’t used to being treated this way by women.

You could feel his frustration. You knew he didn’t like your little attitude but you weren’t a pushover. An apology was nice but he’d need to start being kind to you. Harry was hot as fuck but that didn’t mean you would go easy on him. Not at all. In fact, because he was so attractive you found it more fun to fuck with him a bit. But he also deserved it.

“Look at me,” he said.

You scoffed and shook your head before turning to look at him with your brows raised in annoyance.

“Why are you so difficult? This is a hard situation and your attitude is not making this any easier.”

You cocked your head to the side and squinted your eyes at him before you allowed a mocking smile to take over your features, “Me? Difficult? Never. You on the other hand, Harry… quite an asshole if I do say so myself. You’re the one who’s making this situation worse than it needs to be. You should get over yourself.”

Harry’s nostrils flared and he took a deep breath, “You’re a criminal, Y/n. You seem to keep forgetting that. I am treating you far better than any other cop would. You should be thankful.”

You laughed and rolled your eyes, “Oh god, you’re right. Thank you so much, Harry. You are my hero. My savior. Should I suck you off now so you really understand how grateful I am to you for keeping me in your custody?”

The look Harry gave you was quite intimidating. You immediately regretted your words when he stood from the bed and turned the TV off. He stood at the end of the bed, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Harry had not really met anyone quite as mouthy as you, except for his sister. Most people quickly acquiesced to Harry’s wishes. Even before he was a cop. Harry’s natural charisma and character kept people very compliant and easy to deal with for most of his life. Harry usually got whatever he wanted if he just asked for it (within reason of course). But when he donned his uniform or told anyone he was a cop, well, there was never any argument. No one back-talked him or questioned him. No one mouthed off to him in jest or sarcasm. Your attitude wasn’t something he really knew how to navigate.

You were sure you should keep your mouth shut but you couldn’t help but goad him, “Nothing is wrong with me, Harry. I’m just great. I love being held captive by a cop who probably doesn’t have a reason to hold me. I love being forced to lie to my mom about what’s going on. I love being kissed and touched by someone who actually despises me and finds me to be less than he is. This back-and-forth is just amazing for my confidence. I thrive off of being degraded and treated like I’m shit.”

“Stop!” Harry shouted and you startled a bit at his volume. He was pissed. Harry ran a hand through his hair and walked toward the window. He looked out and then turned back to you, “Yes. This is not ideal. I know how terrible this feels for you to be forced to come with me. But if it were any other cop on this case they would have let you go with Oregano,” he spoke the name as if it were an annoying word to say, “to let him do god-knows-what to you because intervening like I did means the case could be blown. I did that for you!”

You sat with your mouth closed. That was true. He did get you out of that mess and risked all of the work he’d done on the investigation. You understood his frustration but you didn’t understand why he was being so cold toward you. It also hurt your feelings that he kissed you and then went on to practically ignore you once you got on the road back to LA. One moment he was flirting with you and smirking with that dimpled smile and the next he was bossing you around and telling you how he couldn’t trust someone like you. You needed him to understand you were frustrated as well. He wasn’t the only one with feelings.

You got off the bed and put your hands on your hips, “I know. I thanked you for helping me, Harry. And what you did was your choice. I never asked for that so the idea that I somehow owe you my sweetness and obedience is absurd. Thank you. Okay? I truly appreciate what you did.” You stepped toward him so you could get a better look at his face, “What else do you want from me? You can’t just flirt with me and kiss me one moment and then treat me like garbage the next. I’m a real person with feelings too. None of what happened was my fault. So why are you being so mean to me?”

Harry pulled his lips into his mouth and looked down, walking toward the window and then back toward the TV nodding his head in thought. You watched him as he turned and walked away again toward the window, head down and then he stopped. You moved toward him, anticipating that he’d turn around to answer you. You wanted to see his face as he spoke.

“Because I don’t know how to deal with you. And I’m not trying to be mean to you or anything, that’s just because I’ve never… fucked up like this before. Not with someone like you…”

You scoffed, “Someone like me. You asshole…”

Harry turned quickly cutting off your words, “No. That’s not what I meant. Someone like you means… like… you’re just not like anyone else. You’re rude, you lie, you steal, you talk back, and your whole attitude is sardonic. But none of that is bad,” Harry ran his hand through his hair with his eyes on yours, “it’s just different and I’m not used to it and I don’t know how to deal with it.”

You’d met plenty of men who didn’t like your little attitude. Your mom always told you never to trust men who didn’t like it or who tried to tamper with it. She always told you that if a man deserved you, he’d learn to understand you and would even love you more for it. So hearing Harry tell you this was no surprise. Not to mention you were pretty sure he rarely got defiance from anyone. Harry was tall, broad, and intimidating with a deep voice, and searing bright green eyes. Plus he was a cop.

“Okay. Fair enough. I’ve heard I’m hard to deal with. But why kiss me and do whatever it was that you did? What was that about? Is this a job for you or not?”

Harry pursed his lips to the side and nodded before answering, “I don’t know,” he took a small step in your direction, his eyes were soft and his lips were parted the smallest bit. You noticed he had the smallest spattering of facial hair over his top lip and just beginning at his jawline and chin.

You stayed silent as he kept his eyes on yours. He looked like he was still in thought, trying to figure out how to answer you. His jaw clenched and he drew his eyes down to your black t-shirt then back up, “I’m sorry. I… there’s probably a great answer here somewhere but I can’t find it. I only can say that I’m…” you watched his throat bob as he swallowed, “an idiot probably. I like you more than I should actually. You’re cute and smart, and well,” he reached his hand up and scratched the back of the neck, “I kind of like the way you confront me and how you’re not scared of me. So I’m caught off guard because I shouldn’t be feeling this way. Because this is supposed to be a job.”

You weren’t expecting his answer. It only confused you further. You stitched your brows together as you listened to him. You felt like everything he just said was a compliment. Like what you’d want any handsome man to tell you. Except for the job part, but still.

Harry reached a hand up toward your face and pressed his thumb between your creased eyebrows, “I’m not doing anything but making you miserable, it’s not fair to you.”

You brought a hand up and placed it over Harry’s wrist to pull his touch away. The intimate nature of what he’d just done had you perplexed. Yes, he’d kissed you and had even eaten you out (before you realized he was a cop), but there was something between you two. Maybe it was just pure attraction. But there was something so absorbing and provoking about him. Something that had you excited and drawn in.

You heard his deep exhale and watched his lips turn downward with the smallest pout. He thought he’d overstepped but you shook your head, “I’m not miserable. I’m… a little curious about what’s going to happen. I just don’t want to go to jail, Harry,” you looked between his eyes as you spoke, “You’re confusing is all.”

Harry looked down to where you’d placed your hand on his wrist and back up to you, “I’m confused by you too.”

The moment lasted for minutes. There was no air between you two when you looked into his soft green eyes. It had happened before. It was like he had you enchanted. But he clearly felt the same. As if there wasn’t anything to stop the chemical reaction between you two. You both tried. God, you both denied yourselves and had been able to pull away but there was only so much strength you had left. When you were forced to be in close proximity to him, looking at him with his wet hair and hungry eyes…

“Harry…” you spoke his name softly, quietly when he took the smallest step in toward you, a hand finding your jaw, his thumb at your cheek. His fingers grasped the side of your neck.

You couldn’t stop the way your limbs were filled with currents and buzzed with electricity when he brought another hand up to cup your other cheek. Everything felt hazy, exciting, and wanton.

“Y/n…” his voice was just as soft as yours and he said your name as if it were a question. As if he was asking your permission for what you both knew was to come next.

You knew he shouldn’t. You shouldn’t. It was better to treat this as what it was. But how would you be able to resist him when he couldn’t resist you for some reason? You weren’t sure where the instinctive draw came from. But if he felt it when he touched you, the way you felt it when his finger touched your cheek it was not something to be easily denied. Not anymore. Not when you had nowhere to go. Not when he was in so deep.

Harry’s face drew near to yours slowly. You both understood what was happening. The grumble in your tummy had been replaced with a new hunger the moment he touched you. He had gotten you all riled up and angry, and you’d done the same to him, but the derivative was that you both wanted the same thing in the end. Even if you shouldn’t. And that had you both on edge. Mad even.

“I fucking don’t know what I’m doing here,” Harry spoke his words in breaths that fell warm against your lips when you closed your eyes as his face was too close to keep eye contact any longer. You felt the tip of his nose nudge yours and the moment you turned to nudge your nose into his your lips met again. The push and pull of the kiss, the heat of anger and confusion, the twinkling of need and want and lust as the undercurrent of everything all culminated into an aggressive embrace that felt deprived and needy. Maybe even a bit ridiculous given the circumstances.

You pushed Harry down onto the bed. Your hands couldn’t seem to find a proper landing place. Neither could his. Your tongue and wet lips would not stop their assault. Harry moaned when he felt the bed under his back and he pulled you over him. You had very few thoughts in your brain but all you knew was that Harry was a good kisser. Yes, it was a bit wet and raucous but he put emotion into it which sent your body afloat. You placed your palms over his t-shirt-covered pecs and pushed yourself up. Harry had his hands on your hips, squeezing.

You watched him closely as you started to pull the bottom hem of his t-shirt upward to peel it off. Harry shifted under you and pulled at his shirt, sitting up a bit to finish taking it off. Then he took your black t-shirt and slowly began to move it upward. You lifted your hands over your head and the cotton material was gone in a flash. You hadn’t bothered with a bra or panties under your clean clothes. You weren’t really sure why mostly because it was hot out and even inside the motel room you were a bit sticky from the heat.

Harry’s hands moved upward from your waist to your breasts, his thumbs circling your nipples softly. You stayed perched in his lap and watched his large hands encase your tits. You weren’t sure what to do with your own hands as you placed them on his shoulders and closed your eyes, allowing yourself to just be in the moment. You didn’t know how long Harry would allow this to continue. Perhaps he’d stop again like he had the last time.

When you felt his wet lips kiss the tip of your left nipple you sighed and put your fingers into his hair. You hoped to a god you didn’t believe in that he’d just let you have him for the night. That he wouldn’t stop.

Harry moved his mouth to your right nipple, gently licking and kissing just the tip which left you with goosebumps and a carnal need to be devoured by him. You knew what his mouth was capable of and you wouldn’t mind having it again.

When he moved his mouth upward over your clavicle and to your neck, slowly then to your jaw you tugged at his hair to pull him back. You needed to look him in the eyes to speak, “Please don’t stop, Harry. I can’t handle it anymore,” your words were cut short when Harry’s mouth landed on yours and he cradled you close to his chest before moving you down to the bed, your back hitting the comforter below.

Harry didn’t answer you with words but his lips on your skin were all that you needed to know he wasn’t planning on stopping. Not this time anyway. With the delicate pucker of his lips under your jawline and his hands softly dragging down the sides of your body you felt his fingers find the elastic of your waistband before he moved his hands upward again to your arms and moved them above your head.

With his hips squared with yours, he gently lowered himself between your legs, causing you to part your thighs to give him room.

“Ahhh!” You moaned when you felt him stiff over your center. He softly rutted himself downward over you and your hips instinctively lifted upward toward him, pressing your crotch to his already thickened prick.

Harry moved a hand from where he was holding your arms above your head and grasped your outer thigh, moving it flat to the bed as he continued pressing kisses to your lips and licking into your mouth. Harry gasped in between kissing and lapping at your mouth before he began to move downward again. He stopped when he met the top of your ribs under your breasts and looked up at you, “I’m gonna lick your kitty again. Make you come. And if you still want me I’m gonna fuck you,” another kiss to your skin and a gasp from your lips with his eyes still on yours, “keep your hands above your head.”

So you did what the detective wanted. You kept your arms lying flat above your head as Harry’s lips moved down slowly, warm and wet, soft.

Your shorts were easily dragged down and off your legs, leaving you bare before him. You still hadn’t shaved your pussy or trimmed even. You also hadn’t shaved your legs since the night you went to the Warwick so you were a bit prickly. But Harry didn’t seem to mind any of it. He sat back, his large hands grasping the back of your knees, making you bend your legs as he pushed your thighs together and knees toward your chest.

He began by kissing the back of your thighs. The way he was drawing it out was making you crazy. You wanted his big mouth on your pussy again but he wasn’t giving you what you wanted so fast. When you groaned and craned your neck up to see him, you could only see the top of his brown curls until it disappeared as he kissed lower, your legs in the way. With your hands above your head, you couldn’t lean up to watch him as you wanted, so you just laid your head back and closed your eyes to let him work his magic. You knew it was magic because the first time he ever ate you out he made you come. Which isn’t typical of any guy. There’s usually quite a learning curve.

When Harry settled himself down further you heard him inhale and then speak, “Tasted so good the other night. Needed to get my face between your legs again,” he dabbed a kiss flat over your slit and you moaned, trying to pull your head up to see him, but he was now lowered over your pussy and with your knees bent up to your chest you couldn’t see his face, only his shoulders and arms.

The moment his tongue found your crease and dug in and upward you were lost. Like a soul floating in the atmosphere, wandering the earth in search of a body to possess. It wasn’t long before Harry released your legs and his fingers were submerged into your warm entrance. You were so needy. It had been too long since you’d really been with anyone. You spent so much time luring and thieving that you didn’t do a lot of fucking.

Harry’s tongue and his fingers on you were a joy to your body. The noises you were making had him chuckling and smiling as he continued sucking your clit and fucking you with his fingers. It had also been long forgotten that you were meant to keep your hands above your head because your fingers were in Harry’s hair as you were bucking upward and panting his name. Harry had one free hand which he used on himself, you noted because now you could see him since your legs were spread apart and Harry had pushed his joggers down past his hips. You could see his shoulder and his arm moving in a steady rhythm, he was stroking himself as he was making you come in his mouth with a shout. A ridiculous noise left your lungs when you quivered and tried to close your thighs around his head, but Harry didn’t stop until you calmed. Your chest was heaving in harsh breaths when Harry sat up, his hands still down the front of his sweats, stroking himself slowly.

“Let me give you a blow job, Harry,” you sat up and placed your hand where his was. Your other hand pushed at his joggers to bring them down further and Harry’s darkened pupils and wet lips were sultry and you just wanted to show him your gratitude.

Harry began to shake his head no but you pushed him at his chest gently and sat up to your knees, “Let me, at least a little. Want to taste you more in my mouth then you can fuck me,” you looked up to his darkened eyes with a small smile, “plus I could use a few minutes.”

Harry smiled, a closed-mouth smile, one side of his mouth quirked up a little more as he leaned back and pushed his sweatpants off and then spread his legs for you. You rearranged yourself to settle in between his legs and took a deep breath.

And like the time before, you started off licking all around his long shaft and upward until you’d wetted him with your saliva and ran your tongue over his tip. Harry’s lips were parted as he watched you and you braced yourself for sticking him in your mouth. You were sure you couldn’t take him in all the way quite yet but you were gonna give it a shot.

When you wrapped your lips around his sensitive tip he let out the smallest pant and put a hand up into your hair, moving it to the side so he could keep watch. Using your tongue flat under his shaft along the vein you dipped down further, taking him into your mouth a little more and you used both of your hands to stimulate the base of his cock where you couldn’t quite get to with your mouth.

You pulled back and spit down over him, your eyes on his, and then smoothed your saliva down over him. He was nice and slick in your hand and then you sucked at his tip, running your tongue along the underside of his frenulum and dipping it into his small slit. He moaned. Finally a moan, a noise you knew was from pleasure.

You kept at it, bringing him into your mouth a little and then focusing your attention on his tip, keeping your hands on his shaft to stimulate him fully.

Each time you dipped down to bob over him for a moment you really had to open your mouth as wide as possible. He was thick and god you didn’t think you’d ever be able to take him all the way in.

You lowered yourself the tiniest bit and looked up at him for a moment and he was watching your mouth and your eyes already. He looked like he was in heaven and that’s really all you wanted. So you chanced to take him deeper and his tip scraped against the back of your throat and you gagged, pulling off of him, coughing. You kept a hand at work as you wiped your mouth and Harry smiled at you. Just before you could go back down Harry used his hand in your hair to cradle your face as he sat up, “S’enough. For now.”

“Sorry, I am out of practice, and you’re just…” you felt a little embarrassed. You were sure he’d had better. Not that you weren’t good, but Harry’s prick was not average in size, which was what you’d been used to working with in the past.

Harry chuckled and shushed you, “You’re amazing. Felt really good. We can try another time if you really want. How do you feel?”

You cleared your throat and raised your brows, “Good. Uh…” but before you finished your sentence Harry had pulled you in for a soft kiss and you tasted yourself on him. Harry’s mouth was addictive. The way he kissed you felt like you were the only person in the world. All of his affection and attention was focused on you and the kiss and it made you dizzy and unfocused. You moved your lips with his and drew his tongue into your mouth, sucking it in as you put your hands on his shoulders.

Harry pulled you in closer, his body flush against yours and his dick pressed to your tummy, warm and still damp from your saliva, “Do you want to have sex with me? I brought condoms,” Harry asked as he moved his lips against your mouth.

You nodded and squeaked out a yes when Harry grabbed your waist and nudged you down to the bed. Harry got off the bed, the mattress releasing his weight, and you pushed yourself up a little to watch him. His body was so well built. Broad and nicely muscled, soft at the edges, barely a dip where his waist met his hips. His lats were well shaped too, the man clearly worked out regularly. You knew cops had to work out, but Harry was in exceptional shape. He not only worked out for his job, but he worked out to look good too. Then the tattoos. The smattering of hair at his chest and where his happy trail gradually got thicker toward the base of his shaft. God help you.

Harry climbed back into the bed with the condom wrapper in hand lifting it up so you could see it as he tore it open and slowly positioned the rubber over his tip to roll it down his shaft as far as it would go.

Harry climbed between your legs, pushing them apart as you lowered your back down to the mattress, keeping your eyes on his, “We’ll go slow. I can tell your little pussy needs some attention, Y/n. Yeah?”

You bit your lip and nodded. Harry’s cocky smile had your heart pounding. You knew he was gonna tear you in half with that prick of his and you couldn’t wait to feel it. And he was right. Your pussy needed some attention.

Harry kissed you gently as he moved a hand to the back of your head, cradling the nape of your neck and the underside of your skull. You placed your feet flat on the mattress, knees bent and the front of Harry’s thighs were pressing into the insides of yours. He pushed himself up so he could see your face and you put a hand down between your body and his to grasp his cock. You smoothed him through your slick crease and his nostrils flared when he groaned.

“Please fuck me,” you nearly purred when Harry pushed forward and the tip of him slid to your entrance. You moved your hand once he was positioned and grabbed onto his shoulder as he continued to drive himself inward, pushing past your tight muscle and into your wet insides. Your breaths deepened, and Harry's throat bobbed as he swallowed thickly.

“Fuck…” he whispered when he drew back and plunged in deeper. He didn’t lie when he said he’d go slow. Excruciatingly slow. But it’s what you needed. To adjust to him. To really feel him as he entered you, deeper on each thrust. Your insides split apart to make way for him as he entered and drew back, pushing himself in and then out. Slow, steady strokes as you sighed and began to relax under his motions.

“Okay?” Harry breathed out the question. He was very much feeling your tight walls squeezing his condom-covered cock. But you were so wet he was easily able to slip in and out.

“Yes. It feels good, Harry…” your own words were a whisper when he continued rocking into you slowly. It did feel good. Too good. Now you’d never want to sleep with anyone average-sized again you were sure of it. Having a thick cock parting your walls and thrusting in so deep felt like sustenance. His ridges were dragging against your sensitive spots inside and reaching into you like you hadn’t felt before. It was as if all of your nerve endings were being roused by his prick as it pushed and pulled within you.

Harry dipped down to press his lips to yours, his cock continuing to slowly drill into you. You kept your legs spread, feel flat, and thrust your hips upward at each dip. Harry kept his hand at the back of your head and his other he used for leverage so he wasn’t crushing you.

His center was being wetted by you and soon, the sound of his cock plunging into your hole was slushy and sticky sounding in the room and then the noise was met with the creak of the bed underneath as Harry began to fucking into you a little faster. You’d opened up nicely for him, perfectly and he was able to press his dick in completely, totally sheathed by you.

Harry paused his strokes and pushed himself up, removing his lips from yours, “Need a second. Fuck your pussy feels good on me,” he panted his words. You moved your hands up to touch his pecs and feel his hair and the rounded muscles underneath. His nipples were hard and you wanted to suck on them but he was just out of reach with the way he hovered over you.

Harry opened his eyes and looked down at you, his lids low and his gaze dropping to your tits, “Fucking beautiful. Why are you so naughty?”

You laughed and clenched around his cock and Harry gasped and widened his eyes, “You’re begging to be punished aren’t you?” he said with a laugh.

You offered him a cheeky smile, “Of course, not detective. I’m a good girl.”

Harry licked his lips and grinned, “Yeah? Good girls like being fucked by the cop who’s gonna send them to jail?” He thrusted upward sharply causing you to yelp.

You responded your words breathy, “Maybe I don’t want to go to jail. Hoping the pussy is good enough to make you forget anything about the case,” you bit your lip.

Harry repeated his sharp thrust, the grin still on his face. Now his cock was deep inside of you, so far in that he wasn’t pulling back anymore, just digging into you further on each thrust, pushing you upward slightly. The ache it caused in your tummy was delicious and you moaned in ecstasy.

“We’ll have to see about that,” another roll of his hips upward, “but you’re still a bad girl, Y/n.”

When Harry shifted his legs he sat back a bit and dragged your hips with him, the back of your thighs were laid over the top of his so now he could watch himself plunge into you. He began to fuck into you like you were a naughty girl. It was hard and relentless. He was smacking into you, his thighs working himself in and out rapidly and your body was being rocked up and down, and tits bouncing like a rag doll. Harry began moaning a little louder, his cock was feeling the tightness of the new position, and the view he had was making him lose it. Your pussy might just be good enough to make him forget everything. Might be.

Your gasps and moans came out on each thrust of Harry into you. You grasped onto the comforter and your mouth dropped open wide when you felt his fingers press and rub your clit up and down. The sensation of being fucked hard, with a thick cock, and having your clit stimulated at the same time took your breath away. Your body wasn’t your own at that moment. The orgasm that you felt coming was not something you could stop even if you wanted to. Harry was trying to fuck an orgasm out of you because he was about to come himself. Your body and your attitude, your noises, and your hot wet pussy were insane. He was losing control. But he had no wherewithal. Not at that moment. He didn’t want it. He only wanted you and his release.

If you had neighbors, they certainly could hear you. There was no mistaking what was happening in Room 8 at the Arbuckle Inn. Not only were the walls thin and old, but the bed was also rocking, and Harry was fucking into you so good and hard that the thud of skin smacking was almost louder than your own moans and Harry’s grunts and gasps. But god it felt so good to get fucked. Finally. And it wasn’t just getting fucked by anyone. Harry’s attention to detail was phenomenal. He knew to get your clit in on the action too. So many times you’d been getting it good by some guy but you usually had to help yourself in the clit department. But Harry played your body exactly like it needed to be played.

Harry held your left thigh in place as your right thigh slid off of his thigh down to the mattress, your body rocking up and down on each of his plunges. He never stopped moving his fingers.

When you felt the soft tickle of your orgasm begin to blossom over your center and outward toward your thighs you sucked in a sharp breath and felt your legs shake. Harry let out a moan, so loud and so sexy when he looked down and saw your body tremble as he pounded into you. His moan caused you to tip, your small entrance muscle tightening and pulsing and your walls clenching over his cock as he continued to push into you, feeling you squeeze around him as you came with a cry.

Harry didn’t wait for his own release, he choked out a moan and poured into his condom, thrusting upward harshly into your cunt, dipping deep into you, imagining his come coating your cervix and your slick walls, his balls tucked up against his body, releasing his come.

Sex. That’s what you needed. Real sex. Not just a dildo you pumped into your pussy while watching something on Pornhub. Sex. Sex with a man. Sex with Harry.

You both breathed heavily and Harry’s weight over your chest felt hot but comforting. His chest rose and fell rapidly and you could feel his heart pounding in his chest. You put your hands on his back and softly rubbed your palm over his smooth skin. Harry moaned and nuzzled his face into your neck, his arms moving up to cradle your head. It felt nice to be held. Even if it didn’t mean anything. Even if Harry was still taking you to jail. The sex and the affection were something you’d been missing.

But it was no different for Harry. He hadn’t had sex with anyone in a couple of months. Not since he’d started seriously working your case. He’d been busy and hadn’t had time for a fun night out with a quick lay. And even a quick lay didn’t always do it for him. He had no trouble getting someone to fuck. Which wasn’t always his favorite way. He liked a bit of a challenge, and always preferred someone with a bit of fire under their personality. But that was not always so easy to come by. Many women were easy and sweet and that was nice for a quick thing but it didn’t feel like anything more than just sex. Sex with you was forbidden and fiery. Your attitude drove him nuts but it made his cock twitch and his heart race.

“This is nice,” he spoke into your neck and you nodded and hummed.

When he lifted his head his hair was a mess and his cheeks were pink. You loved his bright, clear green eyes. Harry could very well be the most attractive man you’d ever met. Or maybe it was just the post-orgasm bliss you were feeling.

“Yeah. Needed that,” you whispered when you drew your hands up into his hair.

Harry’s brows stitched together and he swallowed, his throat bobbing. He looked at you with worry on his face, “I’m fucked.”

In more ways than one, detective.

Part 4*

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[emeraldsummers]

Smoker!Dean headcanons (aka if Dean was a smoker throughout the series)

As a teenager, Dean would smoke whenever he could get his hands on a cigarette, but it was pretty rare. Money was too tight to buy them, and it wasn't worth the risk of stealing them, but occasionally, Dean was able to trade for loose cigarettes. He loved the head rush and loved feeling like an adult.

Pre-series, Dean didn't start smoking in earnest until he started doing hunts without his father. John didn't like the smoking, so Dean hid it from him. Still, money was tight, so Dean only smoked a few cigarettes a day at most. His favourite thing in the world was being whiskey buzzed and sharing a cigarette with a girl.

Dean never, ever smoked inside the Impala.

Seasons 1-2 Dean is still smoking a few cigarettes per day, properly addicted at this point, and irritable when he isn't able to get a smoke break. Sam is constantly bugging him to quit, and Dean pretends he could quit any time he wants to. Sam gets non-smoking motel rooms whenever he can, which annoys the hell out of Dean.

Season 3, with the demon deal looming, Dean starts smoking more now, and by the end of the season, he is fully chain smoking regularly. Sam finds it gross but generally allows it to slide because he knows Dean needs it.

Season 4, Dean comes back from Hell with zero physical dependence on nicotine and decides to treat it like a fresh start. He doesn't smoke. He uses his experience with smoking to try (and fail) to empathize with Sam's blood addiction.

Season 5, Dean starts smoking when he's drunk, which turns into smoking when he's stressed, which by the end of the season, when he almost says "yes" to Michael, turns into him smoking all of the time again.

When he lives with Lisa and Ben, he tries to quit for their sake, but he still sneaks a cigarette outside on really bad nights. Lisa pretends not to notice.

Season 6, the smoking continues, but not as heavy as season 5. Sam is actively annoyed about it at this point, and Dean has long stopped finding smoking to be fun.

Season 7, as Dean spirals downwards after Cas' betrayal, he smokes much more heavily. It's starting to affect him physically, especially without Cas to heal him. He starts saying things like, "I'm getting too old for this." Since he isn't able to drive the Impala for most of the season, he smokes in the cars they steal, which really bothers Sam.

In Purgatory, Dean has no choice but to quit cold turkey, which is miserable, and once he's home, he continues that streak into seasons 8 and 9, his longest smoke-free period.

Unfortunately, demon!Dean picks up smoking again, and even when he's cured, smoking becomes one of his coping mechanisms for quelling the Mark.

Seasons 11 and 12, he struggles with trying to quit, going anywhere from days to months at a time without smoking before falling back into it. When Cas dies at the end of season 12, he begins chainsmoking again along with regularly getting black-out drunk, and Sam really worries for his brother's health.

After Cas returns in season 13, Dean begins working to quit again in earnest, creating a system with Sam, Cas, and Jack's help. This time, it sticks through the end of the series, but Dean does heavily consider starting up again as he spirals towards the end of season 15.

Post-series Dean is trying to maintain being smoke-free, especially since Cas is gone and Jack is hands-off. He knows any damage he does will be permanent this time, and he doesn't particularly feel like dying of cancer. But it turns out the boredom of the world not ending is worse for his cravings than the stress was. He starts smoking weed, trying to convince himself it's a proper substitute, but eventually, he just smokes weed because he likes it.

[farfromstrange]

Do No Harm

CHAPTER SEVEN: Downward Spiral

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Summary: After agreeing to go on a date with Matt, you start realizing the weight of your decision, and your thoughts begin spiraling. In a moment of need, you turn to the only close friend you have in Hell's Kitchen, hoping she can pull you away from the edge of the very steep cliff your trauma is trying to throw you into.

Warnings for this chapter: ANGST (the caps feel appropriate here), mentions of domestic violence, suicidal thoughts, allusions to a suicide attempt, allusions to sexual assault, mentions of being taken advantage of by a superior, (I guess you could say) mentions of hypersexuality, self-loathing, PTSD, some foreshadowing, mental breakdown, alcohol, Season 1 related plot (spoilers)

Word Count: 6.4k

A/n: Surprise! I'm posting early because I'm going to see my family this weekend, and after I had an epiphany at two in the morning and spent 3 days writing this, I got it done, and I'm actually quite proud of this (or maybe it's the caffeine). Anyway, heed the warnings because the topics of conversation in this are pretty dark. That's why I highlighted the angst. And if you haven't watched past episode 1 of Season 1, this might spoil some things for you. (Also, I have no idea how this turned into a beast with a word count over 6k. Sorry in advance.)

Read Chapter 7: Downward Spiral here on AO3

You don’t know what came over you.

You typed in Matt’s number in a moment of weakness, and once you heard his voice through the line, you gave up on being careful. You gave up on denying yourself what you’re so desperately craving, and you abandoned all rational thought.

For him.

You promised not to get attached to someone ever again—let alone a man. You started a new life in Hell’s Kitchen to find your way back to normalcy. You took all the necessary precautions, and even though you look back at the shreds of your old life every day, you are never going back.

Two years. That is the longest you have managed to stay in one place ever since you left California. But you still haven’t found your way back into the real world.

You have been guarding yourself, afraid of having your heart broken, afraid of losing this chance at a new life, and afraid of the man who ruined you. 

Every time you close your eyes, you see his face. You hear his voice in the back of your mind. He’s everywhere, even when you don’t want him to be. 

It’s easier to put a wall between yourself and everyone else. A wall no one can break through, not even yourself. You trapped your soul for the sole purpose of keeping yourself alive after you made the hardest decision of your life. When you ran, you believed your life was over, but you have always been too much of a coward to end your misery. God knows you’ve tried, but even a trained doctor can’t fully understand death, and some things just don’t work out the way we want them to. 

Drunken one-night stands can’t possibly compare to a meaningful emotional connection, but they satisfy the need for physical intimacy. At least for a little while. It killed you; slowly, almost pathetically, but sleeping with strangers in dirty motel rooms did a better job than you ever could. 

For the longest time, you used sex as a coping mechanism. You let strange men use you because that is the only way you know how to be with someone else. You let them hurt you to feel something, anything because pain is better than feeling nothing at all. But when you finally got settled in Hell’s Kitchen, thanks to Claire, you stopped. 

You locked up your heart and threw away the key. You started to shield your body the same way you have shielded your soul. You retreated into a shell of restlessness and constant fear of every little sliver of hope you feel being taken away from you. 

You have nowhere else to run, which is why keeping a low profile is so important to you, but after two years, don’t you deserve to finally live? 

We don’t exist to just survive; we exist to live the life we were given. You are Olivia Clarke now, not the broken girl you left behind, but every time you think about it, his voice returns and backs you into a corner that you can’t escape from. 

Every time you see the scars on your body, all you want to do is rip the skin off your bones and feed it to the dogs. 

The men you slept with while you were running from your past saw you as a mere object, and you are used to being seen that way, but it was isolating nonetheless. They didn’t care about your scars, they only cared about what you could give them. They treated you like he did without lifting a finger. 

Even though you don’t do that anymore, it still weighs heavy on your wounded soul. 

Matt treats you like a person. He can’t physically see, but he still sees you. He sees you in a way no one has ever seen you before. And he is gentle, and patient, and—

You scream into your pillow. Your nose still hurts, but it is nothing compared to how fast your heart is beating. 

To you, Matt is perfect. You know that no one can be perfect, and you should be careful, but he makes you feel things you have long denied yourself. He makes you feel wanted. Desired. Like you can be yourself around him and still be worthy of his attention. Like you matter. And he has a certain way of being around you that makes you feel protected, almost. 

You don’t need protection. You have made it this far without a bodyguard by your side. You know how to fight your own battles better than most, but you can’t deny that you wouldn’t mind being saved by him. 

You wouldn’t mind those hands he always wraps around his cane to wrap around you instead. He can’t see your scars, but he can feel them, and as terrifying as that thought sounds, it also excites you. 

You’re treading dangerous territory, but God, he won’t leave you alone, not even when you’re trying to sleep. He could offer you a sense of normal that you have long missed. He could teach you how to be a person again. And maybe, just maybe, you could let yourself be cared for by him. 

You roll back onto your back when you need to breathe, one of your hairs getting stuck to your lip. You let out an annoyed huff. There won’t be much sleeping tonight, you’re sure. Not when you keep thinking about tomorrow.

“You’re not fifteen anymore,” you mutter to yourself. “What is wrong with you? God!”

It’s almost too surreal to believe that this magnetic force of a man managed to retrieve some of your long-lost hope, and he only had to call you beautiful once for you to be completely smitten. 

When he allowed you to take care of his injuries on the first day you met, you didn’t think a person could be this guarded yet so vulnerable at the same time. He’s breaking under an invisible weight that must have been on his shoulders for years, maybe even decades. You’re painfully aware of other people’s feelings, and it wasn’t hard to tell that Matt carries a lot of unresolved pain with him. Always. He reminds you so much of yourself, it’s like staring into a mirror. Two broken halves of a whole. 

Your thoughts won’t stand still, no matter how hard you try. You’re stuck inside an invisible hourglass. Not even heaven knows what will happen once time runs out. You don’t understand why you’re overthinking this while, at the same time, knowing exactly why. And you hate it. 

There is a part of you that you can never get back. A little girl who grew up too fast. A girl who didn’t know any better. A broken teenager who wanted nothing more than to escape and live a better life than her parents could ever give her, and when she did manage to escape one hell, she found herself in a new quarter of purgatory built just for you.

You used to think that maybe you just bring the worst out in people, but after seeing the worst of humanity outside of your broken relationships, too, you’re not so sure about that anymore.

The fact that you don’t understand why you can’t stop your usually so intelligent brain from spinning out of control makes you want to claw at the walls of your apartment that threaten to cave in on you.

Part of you wants nothing more than to run and never look back, but you can’t run forever. This time, you wouldn’t be running from the Devil; you would be running from a fear of your own feelings. Human feelings. Feelings that have a high likelihood of recurring, and then you will have to run again. 

You can’t run from reality forever. It’s a different reality now, but it’s a better reality. That is a rational thought, but being rational currently has no place in your mind, so you’re spiraling, and all because a nice guy asked you out for coffee. 

You find yourself in a cab a few minutes later, wearing a pair of sweatpants, and an oversized shirt, with an untouched bottle of wine in your bag. Your worn-down sneakers are not the appropriate footwear for today’s weather, but you couldn’t be bothered to pick another pair. 

You’re aware that it’s late and maybe you should have texted, but you’re already here, and Claire told you that you could always come to her, even if it happens to be the middle of the night. If the rule still stands after she suddenly decided to stay at your co-worker’s place without a proper explanation, you’re not quite sure though. 

You knock. At first, no response. You knock again. The floorboards creak on the other side of the door. 

“Claire, it’s Liv,” you call out.

You can hear the exact moment the person inside the apartment starts to panic. The floorboards creak again, more frequent this time, and it sounds almost as if Claire is turning the room upside down. You raise your eyebrows. 

Before you can knock again, the lock finally clicks, and she opens the door. She’s more of a mess than you are, and that is put lightly.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Claire greets you. “What are you doing here?”

You blink a few times. “Hello to you too?”

She sighs. “I didn’t mean—I’m sorry, it’s just been a long night.”

“I can see that,” you answer. “Are you alright?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” She looks you up and down. “What happened to your nose?”

“It’s a long story.”

“No shit.”

“Yeah. Can I, uh, come in?”

She hesitates before stepping aside to let you in. “Sure.”

You take a quick look around the apartment. Nothing seems out of place. A bowl of cat food stands in the corner by the kitchen. The window in the living room is open, but it seems intentional. 

The scent of antiseptic lingers in the air. You’re not sure if your nose is betraying you as you breathe in, but the smell is familiar. Bandages, disinfectant, and salve. You don’t want to question it, but you can’t help it. 

“Did you hurt yourself?” you ask. 

Claire blows her nose behind you. If you didn’t know better, you would think she was actually sick. She shakes her head upon hearing your question, but there is a faint blush on her cheeks. 

“What makes you think that?” she retorts. 

“Oh, no particular reason. It just smells very… hospital-y. That’s why I asked.”

“I, uh, I had to put a bandage on my leg earlier ‘cause this stupid cat decided to scratch me after peeing everywhere.” She sniffs. “Had to clean the wound, that thing—“ she nods toward the cat sitting in the cat tree, “and then the apartment. Maybe that’s why.” 

You follow her gaze toward the little furball resting on his cat tree. You approach him, but Claire seems less pleased at the prospect. 

“Be careful. He’s pissed.”

“At you,” you correct her. “Also, you’re having an allergic reaction, and—if he really, honest-to-God scratched you—very probably an infection. Why are you even staying here?”

Your voice rises in pitch when you reach the sleeping cat. “Hello, you.” You stroke his fur. He only opens one eye to sniff you, but once he recognizes you, he starts purring. For a moment, you forget the reason why you even came here. 

Claire exhales loudly. She scratches her neck, her skin threatening to break out into hives. “It’s a long story,” she says. 

You glare at her over your shoulder, your hand still stroking up and down the cat’s back as he settles back into a deep sleep. “I’m worried about you."

“That’s sweet of you, but I’m fine.”

“You called out of work and told Shelly you were sick.” You straighten up and turn back to face her. “You’re not sick, Claire.”

She sniffs as if to prove her point.

“Your immune system is overreacting by producing Immunoglobulin E. The antibodies are traveling to the cells responsible for releasing chemicals into your body, causing you to get a stuffy nose and break out into hives. You’re not sick. You’re allergic to cats and sharing an apartment with one. There’s a big difference,” you state. “Look, I know it’s none of my business, but you have to admit that, from where I’m standing, your behavior looks a little suspicious.”

“I’m going through some shit, alright?” she says. “And it’s a lot easier to deal with them here than back at my place. That’s why I called in sick.”

You don’t know what to make of her answer. It’s vague. You don’t like vague answers because they often indicate a bigger problem. It is one thing for you to deal with your demons on your own and refuse to talk about it with your best friend; it’s another thing entirely to keep a dangerous truth from the person you’re closest with, one that could potentially lead to worse consequences. If Claire were a naturally secretive person, maybe you would understand, but she isn’t like that. She isn’t you. 

She’s the only person who knows your entire story. She saved your life. You can’t imagine her keeping secrets from you that might end up hurting her. 

You dare to ask, “Are you in danger?”

She shakes her head a little too fast. “I’m fine, Liv. Really.”

“I’m sorry, but I have a hard time believing that.”

“It’s…personal.”

“Personal? Oh, my. Are you sleeping with Luke again?”

Claire stammers. The look on her face suggests that she didn’t expect you to jump to that conclusion. “What? How did you even–”

“Are you?” you repeat your question. 

The last time she slept with Luke Cage, she lied to you about it. She knew you would worry. It’s only natural for you to come to that conclusion now. Except that Luke is in prison, serving his sentence, and it doesn’t make sense. 

“How would I sleep with an incarcerated man?” Claire deadpans. 

“I’m sure you have your ways,” you say. 

“You’re grasping at straws.”

“That’s… true, but it’s coming from a place of love.”

She responds with a sigh. “I don’t wanna fight.”

You join in. You exhale, slowly lowering yourself down on the couch. “I’m sorry,” you murmur. “Just tell me you’re okay, please.”

She offers you a gentle smile. “I’m okay,” she says. 

“Thank you.” 

You choose to believe her. For the time being, at least. 

The silence tugs at your brain cells. You obsessed over Claire’s situation because you didn’t want to face your own, but now that your thoughts have regained the freedom to roam and cause irreversible destruction, you start spiraling again. 

You reach into your bag. 

“You brought wine,” Claire points out. 

“Yep,” you say. The bottle weighs heavily in your hand.

“You need a glass?”

You unscrew the top. “No.”

She doesn’t listen. Claire makes her way into the kitchen, reaching for the wine glasses in the cupboard. “Does this have anything to do with why your nose is all blue and swollen?” 

You shake your head at her question. “That was a patient I tried to sedate. No, I, uh… I have a date,” your voice falls flat. 

The wine glasses move back into the cupboard. Claire turns around, her eyebrows moving up to her hairline. “Come again?”

“I have a date.”

Saying it out loud makes it real. Something so surreal cannot be real, but it is. You have a date with Matt Murdock. Your heart begins racing again, and you feel the same desperate urge to scream into the nearest pillow again. 

You take a sip of wine straight from the bottle. You have a date with a nice man who, for the first time in two years, made you see some resemblance of light at the end of this endless tunnel of despair, and the thought alone is terrifying. Because how are you supposed to live after just existing for the longest time? After you dedicated your life to the act of survival?

Claire steps out of the kitchen and in front of you. “Liv, that’s… that’s amazing!” she says. She sounds like a proud mother. Maybe she is. 

You want to shake your head, but you can’t find it in yourself to do anything other than put the bottle back against your lips and take another sip. The alcohol burns down your esophagus into your stomach, spreading a warm feeling through your fragile body, and into your broken soul. 

“Or not,” she corrects herself upon seeing the expression you’re carrying. Your eyes are empty. “I’m confused,” She pauses, “Are we not happy about the fact that you’ve finally got a date after two years of being miserable?”

If she puts it like that, you feel even more miserable. Another sip of wine finds its way down your throat. 

“Okay, maybe you should put the bottle down. I’m sorry if I said something wrong–”

“It’s not you, it’s me.” You put the bottle down. 

Claire sits down next to you, but you get up before she can take your hand and look at you with that caring look she always gives you when she’s worried. You’re not even mad that she played your concerns down when you expressed them and now she is expressing concerns about you; you’re mad at yourself. 

She watches you. “You have a date. That’s a good thing. It means you allowed yourself to finally say yes to someone interested in you, right?”

“No,” you shake your head. 

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer.”

You’re pacing over the creaky floorboards. “The last time I went on a date with someone was after my intern year.”

Her gaze softens. “You told me that,” she murmurs. 

“He took me to a restaurant,” you tell her. Your lip quivers as you speak, and your nails dig into your palms until they draw blood. You can barely feel it. His face is right in front of you. “It was a nice restaurant. He paid for me, even offered me his jacket while we were walking home. It was the best date I ever had. And then he kissed me on the doorstep before wishing me a good night.”

“I know. You told me all of that before. But you couldn’t have known that he would turn out to be who he turned out to be. He was your boss. He had no right—”

“That is precisely the problem, Claire!” your voice breaks. “The guy I met, he’s… his name is Matthew. He’s… he is so nice to me. He cares. He treats me like a human being. He… he’s respectful. He called me beautiful. I don’t even know how he knows that. He just… he was so nice to me, and I feel so comfortable around him. I haven’t felt this comfortable around a man in so long. I… I wanted to go out with him. I flirted with him, for fuck’s sake! And when I’m with him, I finally feel wanted again.”

“But you know who else was nice to me when I first met him?” you say. “Who was respectful? Who said I was the only real thing in this world, the only important thing in his life, and that he loved me? You know who made me feel safe and wanted, and who said he cared about me? John said that I was the most beautiful woman on this planet, and I fell for it because he was nice to me. He–”

“But that guy isn’t John,” Claire cuts you off. She raises her voice only slightly—only enough to make you stop and stare at her, tears streaming down your cheeks. You’re miserable. You’re a mess. It is truly embarrassing. But she doesn’t look at you any differently.

“Don’t you think I know that?” you snap back. 

“Liv–”

“Every time I close my eyes, I see his face. I’m 32, and I can’t sleep without a nightlight most nights because I wake up in a cold sweat. I can’t drop a glass without going into shock. I can’t look in the mirror without feeling his hands on me. Without feeling disgusting and worthless, and…” You can feel the shiver traveling up your spine from the thought alone. “I can’t exist without feeling like he should have killed me when he got the chance.” 

“Liv, I know you’re upset, but please, don’t say that,” Claire says, her voice gentle yet assertive.

“Why? It’s true. I wish he would’ve killed me. He took four years of my life that I can never get back. At least if he’d killed me I wouldn’t have to suffer now.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t want you saying things like that.”

“You don’t get it,” you say. “Every time I look in the mirror, I want to vomit because I see what he made of me. I can’t even meet a nice guy and allow myself to like him without seeing his face and hearing his stupid voice in my ear, telling me—telling me that no one will ever love me, that he tainted me, and that I will never be free of him because I can’t exist without him.” You break into a sob. 

“And he was right, you know,” you cry. “I ran from him. I made the hardest decision of my life after years of living in his shadow, and I almost died. Because of him, I can’t trust a kind and respectful man who treats me like a person to actually be kind, and I recoil at the thought of someone being gentle with me. Something is seriously broken inside of me, Claire. Very, very broken.”

Claire opens her mouth, but all she can do is bear your tirade. She knows that if she speaks now, you will find another reason to shut her down. This is your pain talking. It’s a powerful avalanche set out to cause destruction on a global scale.

“With Matt, I—” you exhale. “I was myself around him for the first time since I ran away, and he didn’t shy away. I had hope, Claire. I felt like I could finally step into normal life again after settling down here, and I thought I’d have a chance,” you say. “But I just have to close my eyes, and John is right there to ruin everything for me. He is always right there, and I can’t fucking escape him. That’s the problem. That’s why I can’t be happy about this date because I’m fucking terrified. I can’t go through this again. I—I can’t give myself to someone again because there is hardly anything left of me. He took everything, including my ability to love another man ever again, and that thought is fucking with my head.”

You fall silent. The tears continue running down your cheeks, and you bury your face in your hands. Your knees are so weak. You don’t have it in you to hold yourself up any longer. You drop to the carpet, crying into your hands, but you don’t sob. You stay silent because your pain is so great, you don’t know whether to scream or shut down, so you scream internally and shut down from the world around you because you can’t face it. You can’t face Claire. 

The couch creaks. Her feet brush against the carpet. “He abused you,” her voice borders above a whisper. 

She kneels beside you, her hand reaching out—but not touching you. She knows what lines to cross and which to better leave untouched.

“What he did to you wasn’t your fault. He’s a cruel man with cruel intentions.” When you don’t shy away from her proximity, she finally places her hand on your shoulder. “You did the impossible. You survived. You’re here now because you chose to save yourself, and that is so admirable,” she says. “It’s been two years. You’re safe here, you’re not alone anymore, and I know it hurts and it is terrifying, but it’s a good sign that you want to feel more of what this guy made you feel.”

“But I can’t,” you choke out. 

“I know, and I wish I could help you, but I’m not a professional. The truth is, John may have made you feel like there is nothing left of you, but you’re not Olivia Clarke. You’re still you. You’re still…” Claire takes a deep breath before she utters your name. Your real name. The one you were given when you were born. 

The mention of your name makes you shiver. “She’s gone,” you say. “He killed her, but he left her body alive.”

“She’s not gone, she’s just buried very fucking deep. I mean, you said it yourself. You could be yourself around this other guy, and he took you for who you are. That isn’t Olivia, that’s you. And it’s such a good sign that you want to go out with him. That you like him. John hurt you, but he didn’t break you beyond repair. Please, you have to remember that.”

Your tears slowly subside. Her words finally manage to reach your rebelling mind through your ears. Even though everything feels like it has been wrapped in cotton, she manages to get through to you like no one else. It was a subconscious decision to come to her, but perhaps your soul knew something that you didn’t, and you can’t say that opening up didn’t help. 

The mess slowly subsides. Left behind is nothing but hot air, and the words Claire decided to share with you. 

You look up to meet her eyes. She smiles down at you. “I just… I don’t want to feel like this anymore,” you whisper.

“That’s why I think you should go on that date,” she tells you.

“Yeah, but who wants to sign up for a mess like me?”

“Seems like he does. And if he’s a good guy, he’ll like you regardless of your mess.”

“You know it’s not that easy.”

She shrugs. “I hate to break it to you, but you can’t pretend it never happened. And you can’t give John the satisfaction of putting your life on hold because of him. That’s just giving him what he wants.”

“I don’t want to give him what he wants,” you’re quick to answer.

Claire hands you a tissue, and you take it gratefully, wiping your runny nose and the salty tears stuck to your dry skin.

Her words stir something within you; even though you don’t want her to be right, she is. Matt may not deserve a mess like you, but if he’s truly a good guy, it can’t hurt to see if it would work between you. And when your past comes out eventually, there is a chance that he won’t abandon you. A slight chance, but a chance nonetheless. That’s a positive outlook you still have to learn how to adapt.

“C’mon.” Claire helps you off the floor and onto the couch. 

You reach for the bottle of wine instantly, but she takes it away from you. She screws the top back on and places it aside, far out of your desperate reach.

“This is not the answer,” she says, “talking is.”

“Can’t we talk and have wine?” you counter.

“Not when you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”

You sniff, wiping the remaining tears on your cheeks with the tissue. 

“We need to take care of you, and alcohol won’t fix your problems.”

Once again, she isn’t wrong. You let out a defeated sigh before dropping your head in her lap. 

A long time ago, you used to be an affectionate person. The fear of being hurt again, of someone raising their hand against you, took that away from you. With Claire though, it’s different. You know she won’t hurt you. She’s not that kind of person, and you can say that with complete certainty. 

Claire Temple is not a violent human being, except for when the people she loves are in danger, but only then. 

She gently brushes the hair out of your face and crumbles it into a messy bun at the back of your head. She wipes at your nose and the last of your tears before they can dry out your skin more than it already is. The past couple of days have taken an emotional and physical toll on you. 

You wince slightly when you notice how sore your nose is. It isn’t broken, but you still got hit. You’re not quite healed yet. A shiver rolls down your spine. 

Shaking her head, Claire gently removes her hand. “You always get yourself in trouble when I’m not around,” she mutters. 

You scoff softly. “Maybe that’s a sign.”

“A sign for you to be more careful, yeah,” she says. 

“Now, where would be the fun in that?” You try to joke, but your voice falls flat with the weight of your exhaustion. 

Claire offers you a chuckle, but it’s more of a pity laugh than anything else.

You sigh. You know that you’re not an example when it comes to the significance of making the right decisions. Not at all. 

“Did I ever thank you for saving my life?” you ask her then, breaking the silence between you in two.

She leans back against the cushions. “Once or twice.”

“Not nearly enough then.”

“I don’t know about that. I mean, if you hadn’t come into Metro General with your hand in a man’s chest cavity, I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to help you. You chose to stay.”

“Well, I had my hand on his vena cava, so, letting go would have been unfortunate for the poor guy.”

“That’s true.”

“But if you hadn’t disobeyed protocol, risking your job by putting your trust in me, I wouldn’t have had a reason to stay.”

Claire looks down at you, and you meet her eyes. “That sounded a lot like a love confession,” she nudges you.

You roll your eyes playfully. “You wish.”

“Hey, I’d understand it if you were in love with me. I’m hot.”

She never fails to make you laugh, even when you feel like a truck has rolled you over and broken every bone in your body. That is one of the many qualities you value about her. She’s a good person with a good heart, and she is the kind of person you could trust with your life and she would always make sure that you come out on the other side unharmed, mentally and physically. 

If she hadn’t taken you under her wing, you’re not sure where you would be, but it surely wouldn’t be where you are now.

When your laughter quiets down, you nod. “I can’t argue with that. You are hot. If you weren’t my friend,” you say, “I’d ask you out.”

“And if I were into women, I’d say yes,” she says. 

“I appreciate that.”

“Speaking of dates though–” She stops when you sigh a little too loudly. Claire shoots you a stern glare before she continues, “Promise me you won’t cancel.”

It’s not a question, it’s a statement. She wants you to mean it. You won’t lie; canceling your plans with Matt did cross your mind, but after Claire worked her magic on you, you can see a little clearer. The fog that kept your mind clouded has started to lift slowly but steadily. You’re no longer spiraling as fast as you have before. 

If you could wash your hands and wash him off of you, it wouldn’t be as much of a problem as it is, but you’ve tried. You have tried washing all memory of him off of your body, out of your mind, but he’s a resilient son of a bitch. John will always try to drive a wedge between you and a normal, happy life, the question is just if you will allow him to do so without even being near you, or if you will finally allow yourself to crawl out of the dark hole he tossed you into. 

You can’t do it alone, and asking for help is terrifying. You have spent the past two years trying to push through. Unfortunately, your healthy coping mechanisms won’t work forever. 

You sigh again, a little quieter. “I won’t cancel,” you tell her, your voice barely above a whisper, yet still so very certain. As certain as you can be, anyway. 

“Thank you.” Claire reaches for the wine bottle next to the couch. “You deserve to be happy.”

“Hm,” you can only murmur. 

“What?”

“What are you doing with the bottle?” you ask. 

“Drinking,” she says. 

“Now I feel betrayed.”

“You should celebrate the fact that you found a Matt, or whatever his name is, and not another Mike.”

You promptly sit up. “Hold up. Pause. Rewind. Mike, like your ex?”

Claire takes a sip of the bottle. A storm rages behind her hazel eyes. You have never seen her that conflicted before. 

“Is he the personal reason why you’re subjecting yourself to a constant allergic reaction by staying here?” you ask. 

The pieces slowly start falling into place. She nods. “Not Mike Mike, but yeah. It’s always the Mike’s.”

Your jaw drops. “I feel like you skipped some chapters there. You met a guy and you didn’t tell me? What–”

“He met me,” she corrects you. “I didn’t tell you because we’re not a thing. Let’s just say there’s a reason his name is Mike. That’s why I’m here.”

Claire takes another sip. You watch her closely, trying to catch her in a lie, but it seems like she’s telling the truth—or a version of the actual truth, but that still makes it true. She’s giving you as much as she can after you cried your eyes out to her. 

You clear your throat, lowering your voice. “But you’re not in danger?” you ask to clarify. 

She shakes her head. “I just have shitty taste in men, even if it's platonic, apparently. It’s like… I’m trying to exist, and then I find a stray cat in a dumpster, but the stray cat has been stabbed and needs medical attention.”

“But you’re allergic to cats and you’re not a vet?” you try to make sense of her analogy. 

When she lets out a sigh and nods, you figure you came as close as possible. It still doesn’t make sense to you, but when does anything? At least when it comes to romance and people’s love lives.

You decide to push a little more, “Did you actually find an injured guy in a dumpster?” 

She shakes her head. The reaction comes a little fast, but you don’t question it. “No, that–that was just an analogy,” Claire says. 

“And Mike is the stray cat in that analogy? But not your Mike, another Mike?”

“Yeah.”

“Dude, you’re frying my brain cells.”

“The single one you still have, or did you buy new ones?”

You try not to laugh, trying to look like you are genuinely offended, but your lips still curl up into a smile. “Shut up,” you mutter. You reach for the bottle, against better judgment, and take a sip.

Claire shakes her head. “What I’m trying to tell you is that, if he’s a good guy, you can’t let him slip away. You can’t let a good thing slip away and possibly end up with a–a Mike kinda guy for the rest of your life.”

“I know.” You look down at your hands, your broken fingernails, and sore knuckles from the constant scrubbing. “I just wish I could understand what he’s doing to me without questioning my entire existence.”

“Some people are just that enigmatic,” and she sounds as if she knows exactly what she’s talking about. 

You wonder about Mike. Not her ex-boyfriend but the one she mentioned. He sounds like he has no sense of self-preservation, and he may not even be a good influence. He reminds you of yourself, and that’s creepy—you don’t even know him. 

And then there is Matt, who is also so eerily similar to you, but in different ways. It’s more of an emotional connection. His heart is in the right place. And unlike the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, he doesn’t have a savior complex.

Why did he even come to your mind? His existence should not be playing into the equation. You brush the picture of his chiseled chest in that tight shirt away, or the way he looked even more dangerous with that smirk below the the mask. 

You hand the wine bottle back to Claire. If you don’t cut yourself off now, you will melt into a puddle of embarrassment. 

Your focus should be on Matt and Matt alone. You have to try. Claire was right. You can’t sacrifice your happiness because you’re scared—you can’t give the man who dedicated his life to breaking you and your confidence down the satisfaction of cowering in fear every time a man shows an interest in you. A good man. A man who could make you happier than he ever had. 

You won’t run this time. You will face the situation head-on. You owe that much to the little girl who dreamed of a life beyond the hell she grew up in, the same girl who was obsessed with finding her soulmate and still believed in true love. Above everyone, you owe it to yourself. No one else matters quite as much as you do. 

And for the sake of seeing what could be instead of wondering what could have been, you have to try.

Tag List: @shiorimakibawrites @allllium @siampie @auroraslibrary @roseallisonparker @abucketofweird @thatonegamefish @capylore @kniselle @sumo-b98 @peachstarliight @danzer8705 @kakamixo @littlehappyperson @atemydadforbreakfast @stevenknightmarc @zheezs14 @shouldbestudying41 @kiwwia-wiwwia

[phillippadgettwrites]

Dropped Call, Chapter 2

Rated X / 3700 words / posted on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

They’re in Lakeland, Florida and it’s been pissing rain since they hit the tarmac in Tampa. Between the inability to keep his loafers dry, the fact that he forgot his glasses, and the lack of cable in his motel room, Mulder is in a seriously bad fucking mood. He even turned down dinner with Scully, something that is typically the highlight of his day on assignment, to spare her from his grouchiness. He always hates himself when he’s an asshole to her for no justifiable reason, and right now he doesn’t possess the capacity to regulate his emotions as effectively as he’d need to to avoid it. 

At this point, he’s come to the conclusion that the phone call was some kind of hyper-realistic dream or fantasy. Given, the facts don’t totally line up in support of that theory, but it’s easier to operate under the belief that it never happened than it is to accept the idea that it did happen but will never be spoken of, much less acted on. Easier than accepting that he unwittingly divulged graphic details regarding his sexual fantasies about Scully to Scully herself, and she was so horrified that she can only cope by acting as though the phone call never took place at all. 

But was she really horrified? His memory of the exact words spoken by each of them isn’t especially sharp, given that he thought he was speaking to Electra, but he’s pretty sure he remembers her asking him questions, goading him into sharing more. And he knows that he correctly recalls what she said about “enjoying other meals,” because by then he knew exactly what he’d done and who he was speaking to, and the high he experienced in light of her confession lasted well into the following day, right up until he knocked on her door with a paper bag containing tom kah gai in hand. 

She hadn’t acted strangely, aside from the general lethargy caused by her cold, and that in itself struck him as strange. She ate her soup, smiled at him while he detailed the creative ways he’d wasted time that morning in her absence, and then yawned and said she was going to take a nap. It’s not that he was expecting her to bring up the phone call or kiss him goodbye or something, but he thought things would feel…different. He certainly felt different. 

But weeks have passed, and she has more than fully recovered from her cold, yet there is nary a hint of increased sexual tension between the two of them. In fact, there’s been a distinct lack of their typical casual flirtations, almost like they’ve regressed. What conclusion can he come to other than she’s just not interested? She seems to want to pretend it never happened, and for lack of a better option he’s done the same. 

He calls the front desk again, hoping that he’ll get someone other than the exceedingly unhelpful young man who offered apologies regarding the lack of cable, but no solutions. After speaking to the night shift manager at length, his options are to move to a room clear on the other side of the complex, or go without. 

“Let me think about it and call you back,” he says, then slams the phone down on the receiver with more force than is necessary and flops onto the bed.

Within seconds the phone is ringing and he picks it back up, expecting to hear the night manager on the other end. 

“Yeah?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

He can hear the ghost of her voice through the poorly insulated wall between their rooms, a murmuring, indecipherable vibration. 

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I was going to ask if you wanted the rest of this pizza, but I kept getting a busy signal so it’s probably cold now,” she says. 

“I’ll never understand your aversion to cold pizza,” he says.

She makes a noncommittal little noise, and then they are quiet for a beat. 

“So who were you talking to?” she asks. 

Her voice is a bit higher than normal, giving away her attempt to appear disinterested in the answer, and that, in turn, piques Mulder’s curiosity. 

“Who do you think?” he replies, just to see what she’ll say. 

Scully scoffs as though this confirms what she already suspected. 

“Please send my regards to Electra,” she snarks. The reference to their previously unmentionable phone call sends a shock of adrenaline through him. He can’t think of anything to say, so he just doesn’t say anything. “What time do you want to head out tomorrow?” Scully says quickly, changing the subject, and he can nearly feel her embarrassment radiating through the wall. 

“Nine?” he suggests, and she grunts her agreement. There’s another pregnant pause, and he decides to seize the opportunity. “I told Electra about what happened,” he says, his heart pounding loudly in his ears.

“Oh?” Scully says after a beat.

“Mmhmm,” Mulder replies, summoning courage. “She said you’re going to put her out of a job.”

Scully huffs an uncomfortable little laugh. 

“I highly doubt that,” she says quietly. 

They’ve never had an issue with awkward silences. As many hours as they spend in one another’s company, it’s just not possible to avoid lulls in conversation, and he’s long appreciated the fact that Scully doesn’t try to fill them with meaningless drivel. An unfortunate side effect of this is that on those occasions where they are intentionally avoiding a specific topic of conversation, the weight of those unfilled silences is practically unbearable. 

He wants to ask her so many questions. Why didn't she tell him it was her? Was she disgusted by what he said? What did her cryptic comment about “enjoying other meals” really mean? Is this a door she never wants to open, or does she just need him to open it for her so they can both walk through? 

“I’m sorry about that, by the way,” he blurts out, inexplicably compelled to keep them on this subject. “We’ve never talked about it, but I realize that it was probably really weird for you and…sorry.”

Part of him knows he’s fishing for information. If she accepts his apology, he can take that to mean that an apology was due. If she refutes the need for one, that will tell him something entirely different. 

She doesn’t do either of those things. 

“Well, I could have hung up,” she says, her tone inscrutable. 

“But you didn’t,” he says, equally ambiguous. 

“No,” she says. 

The silence is so fucking heavy it makes him feel sick. 

“Why is that?” he ventures. “Just out of curiosity.”

He hears her pull in a slow, deep breath and then expel it in a huff. 

“I’m not sure,” she finally says. He can’t tell whether she’s obfuscating. 

“Were you offended?”

“...No.”

“Surprised?”

“Very.”

“Was that surprise of the pleasant or unpleasant variety?” he asks, switching the handset from one ear to the other so he can wipe his sweaty palms on the bedspread. 

He’s listening so intently that he hears both the wet sounds of her tongue moving around inside her mouth in search of words, as well as the creak of bed springs as she shifts uncomfortably on the mattress.

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” she says after a time.

What the fuck does that mean? He wonders. He could logically conclude that she was into it, between the not hanging up, the asking of questions, and the hesitance to outright say whether it bothered her. But this is Scully, and the risk of making an incorrect assumption is not one he is willing to take. 

“How long have you been talking to her?” she asks, and at first he doesn’t understand the question. Talking to who?

“Oh, I was actually talking to the front desk,” he says, realizing that he never corrected her. “The cable in my room is out.”

“Oh,” she says. “So you didn’t really tell her about what happened?” 

Her tone is strange and foreign to him. She sounds uncertain, insecure almost. 

“I did, a few weeks ago.”

“Hm.”

“To answer your question, I’ve been talking to her for….I guess a little over a year now,” he says. 

This would typically be an embarrassing thing to disclose, but her active participation in a phone call of the same nature makes him feel like she doesn’t really have a place to judge. He also finds her curiosity regarding Electra compelling, though he can’t really say why. 

“Oh,” she says, sounding surprised. “That’s a long time. With one person, I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He can tell there’s something she’s not saying. Something she wants to ask him, or wants to know but is unwilling to ask. He has an overwhelming urge to tell her everything, to detail the ways that talking to Electra helps him cope with having to bury his feelings for Scully every weekday between the hours of 9-5, plus most weekends. He wants to tell her that it’s not just about sex, though it was the night he ended up with her on the line. That Electra knows exactly what Scully looks like, down to the little mole on her upper lip, and that she snorts if he manages to make her laugh hard enough. That for every time he’s jerked off while telling Electra what he wishes he could do with Scully physically, there were two phone calls where he kept his pants on and told her how tormented he is by his inability to get closer to her emotionally. 

“It’s not always like that,” he says, opting for a less detailed disclosure. “Most of the time when I talk to her, we just talk.”

“About what?” she asks, and he immediately feels his face get hot. 

“I feel like you already know the answer to that,” he says, equally mortified and irritated. It doesn’t seem fair for her to feign ignorance at this point. 

Scully is quiet, but he knows her mind is racing. He can feel it, a frenetic crackle against the shell of his ear. 

“I guess I do,” she says when he’s just about to ask if she’s still there. “I don’t want you to think…” she starts. He waits for her to find the right words. “I don’t want you to think I was offended or that I’m upset about what happened,” she says carefully. “I realize that it might seem like I am, so I just wanted you to know that I’m not.”

“Okay,” he says uncertainly. This is good news, in a way, but it’s also non-news. 

“I also owe you an apology,” she continues. “It was inappropriate of me not to tell you as soon as I realized. I violated your privacy, and I’m very sorry for that.”

“No apology needed,” he says. A beat passes. This is ridiculous. “Can we just—Look, I know this is awkward, and I know you’re a private person, but can we just—”

“I don’t think I’m ready to do that,” she interrupts him, her voice urgent and a little afraid. 

He takes a moment to absorb this. 

“You’re not ready to talk about it,” he says, and she hums in confirmation. “But you’re….interested? Open to it? Eventually?”

“Eventually,” she repeats. “Not now.”

“Okay,” he says, satisfied that he understands the situation. “I can and will respect that.”

“Thank you.”

“See you at 9 tomorrow?”

“Yep.”

He hangs up the phone and folds his hands over his belly, staring at the dusty popcorn ceiling as he thinks back through it all. A little smile plays at the corners of his mouth. Eventually isn’t something he can necessarily look forward to, but it’s a hell of a lot better than never. 

The phone rings, and reaches across the nightstand to answer it. 

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

Mulder’s eyebrows furrow. The voice is definitely female, but he can’t immediately place it

“Hi. Who’s this?”

The caller clears her throat. 

“Uh, this is…it’s Electra,” she says. 

A hot flush spreads out over his entire body, and there’s a slight ringing in his ears. 

“Hi,” he says, sitting up. “How are you?”

“I’m well,” she says. “What are you doing?”

He hears the vibration of her voice from the other side of the wall, the cadence of it a millisecond ahead of what comes to his ear through the phone. 

“I’m just relaxing,” he says. He suddenly doesn’t know how to behave. “I’m at a motel and there’s no cable in my room.”

“Oh no,” she says. “What are you going to do to entertain yourself?”

Her tone is awkward and unconfident, but he understands what she’s going for and plays along. 

“I don’t know,” he says, swinging his feet over the side of the bed. “Any ideas?”

“Well,” she says, her voice just this side of shaky. “You could tell me about another one of your fantasies, if you want.”

There is a rush of blood to his lap that makes him momentarily lightheaded. She’s really doing this. 

“Okay,” he says, but his mind goes blank. What is she hoping to hear? What if he says something she finds offensive? This is a lot harder when he knows it’s Scully he’s talking to. “Give me a second to think of something.”

“Last time we talked, you said you had other fantasies of the same nature,” she says hesitantly.

“I do,” he confirms. “I just…sorry, you just caught me off guard.”

“I can relate,” she says with just a hint of coyness, and that makes him relax a little. 

He lays back down on the bed and closes his eyes. If he’s going to do this, he has to pretend it’s really Electra on the line. 

“Okay,” he says. “Something that’s important to know for context is that she loves to take baths.”

“She?”

Mulder opens his eyes, taken out of the moment. He never has to specify with Electra; there’s only one “she” he’s ever referring to. 

“My partner,” he says reluctantly. 

“Oh,” she replies. “Okay, go ahead.”

Mulder closes his eyes again and lets the image of his fantasy fill his mind. The tiled walls of Scully’s bathroom, the bright smell of her lavender bubble bath, her dirty clothes in a heap on the floor by the tub. 

“One of my fantasies is that I stop by her apartment unannounced, and I hear her call out for me to let myself in. So I use my key, and once I’m inside she tells me that she’s in the bath.” He pauses to see if she has any commentary on this, but she says nothing. “I start talking to her through the door, which is something I’ve done a handful of times, but in my fantasy she tells me to come in.” Another pause. All he hears is her even breathing. “She’s in the bath, but it’s so full of bubbles that I can’t see anything. I sit on a little stool beside the tub and we keep talking.”

His heart is pounding. He can’t just say this to her. 

“And then what?” she asks. Mulder swallows. 

“And then…I end up touching her under the bubbles,” he says, glazing over the rest of the details and making use of a euphemism. 

Scully laughs a little. 

“I think you may have skipped some things,” she says gently, and he cringes. 

“Sorry. I don’t want to be too graphic.”

“Why?”

“I guess I’m worried I’ll offend you,” he says. 

“What if I promise not to be offended?” she offers. 

“Is that something you can reasonably promise?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“Okay,” Mulder says, sucking in a steadying breath. “I’m sitting next to the tub and we’re talking. After a while some of the bubbles start to dissolve and I can kind of see her body. Not details, just sort of the contrast of her skin, and—” he pauses, then forces himself to say the next part. “I can see darker areas, like her nipples and her pubic hair.”

Scully hums, an indication that she’s following along. That she’s listening. 

“She’s talking about how much stress she’s been under. I think in the fantasy I kind of know that she’s been having a hard time and I’m worried about her.”

“Interesting,” Scully says, her voice breathy. 

“Why is that interesting?” he asks. 

“Oh…just…I guess I find it interesting that her emotional state factors into your fantasy,” she observes without judgment. “That was also true in the previous fantasy you shared.”

He doesn’t miss the fact that she’s referring to herself in the third person. And she isn’t wrong. 

“So she’s talking about how stressed out she is,” he continues, shifting his hips around as his erection begs to be touched, “and I tell her I can help. I ask if she’ll let me.”

“What do you say, exactly?” she asks. 

He reaches down and gives his cock a squeeze. “I say something like, ‘I know what you need,’ and then I look at her body under the bubbles. I’m not very explicit.”

“Why?”

“Because in this fantasy we’ve never done anything like that before, so I wouldn’t just come out and say it directly. That would be too forward for her.”

“So you want it to be realistic?” she asks.

“Sometimes.”

“Okay, so you tell her that you know what she needs. What does she say?” Scully says, getting them back on track. 

“She doesn’t really say anything. Her eyes get wide, and she looks down and realizes that she’s slowly being exposed. She’s embarrassed, but she’s also excited.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she’s not telling me to get the fuck out of her bathroom,” he says lightly, and she laughs. 

“So what do you do next?”

“I reach out and touch her knee, which is above the water. And then I watch her face as I run my fingers down the inside of her thigh.”

“You don’t kiss her?”

“Not yet.”

“Does she stop you?”

“No. She just looks at me. Her eyes are still all big and her mouth is open. She’s breathing hard. And then she moves her other leg to the side.” He swears he hears the tiniest little moan slip through the phone. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“What?” she asks, though it’s unclear whether she’s asking what his question is or if she’s just confused by his divergence from the story. 

“When we talked before, when I told you about my other fantasy?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Were you, um…did you touch yourself?”

She’s quiet for so long that he gets his dick out and gives it a few strokes before leaving it to rest, stiff and aching, against his belly. 

“Yes.”

His dick lurches, standing at attention briefly before it flops to the side. He doesn’t want to come before this is over, lest his post-nut clarity ruin the rest of the experience, so he tries to touch it as little as possible. 

“She moves her other leg to the side so I know without a doubt that she wants it. When I touch her, she closes her eyes and moans right away. Even under the water I can feel how wet she is. How slippery. I ask her again to let me help, but this time I say, ‘let me make you come, Scully.’”

She gasps a little, and he realizes that he used her name. He’s never used her name with Electra. 

“What does she say?” Scully asks, nearly whining. Her voice is high and tight, and he wants to know so badly if she’s touching herself again now. 

“She says, ‘we can’t.’ But she’s pushing her hips into my hand even when she’s saying it so I don’t stop. I know she wants it. I put one finger inside her and she just…she melts.”

“Oh,” Scully breathes out. It’s unclear whether it’s commentary on the story or a vocalization of whatever she’s doing over there. 

“I get rid of the stool and I kneel beside the tub so I can kind of lean over into it for leverage. And that’s when I kiss her. Or I try to, but she can barely kiss because of what I’m doing to her with my hand. I add a second finger and she’s throbbing like crazy.”

“Yes,” Scully says in encouragement. 

“Are you touching yourself?” he asks quickly, his tone unchanged from his narration.

“Yes,” she says again. 

Mulder squeezes his cock in his fist. 

“Me too.”

Another, “Oh.”

“I curl my fingers up towards her belly, and then I get my thumb on her clit. She’s holding on to the sides of the tub for leverage and practically fucking my hand, she wants it so bad.”

“Uh huh.”

He can’t hold back anymore. He strokes his cock frantically fast, pumping his hips up off the mattress as though thrusting. He no longer has the capacity to worry about how graphic he’s being.

“Then she comes. She comes so hard she can’t speak, can’t breathe. And her cunt is just…god she’s so tight. And all I can think about is how good it would feel to be inside her when she’s coming.”

Scully gasps, and suddenly the line goes dead. Through the wall, he hears a long, low moan, and then a series of high staccato whimpers. He explodes forcefully into his own hand, sending ropes of cum up as far as his chest and completely defiling his last clean T-shirt. He still has the phone propped against his ear and his cock in hand, slippery and quickly softening, when he hears a click, and then her voice comes back through the open line. 

“Mulder?”

He sits up quickly, which makes his head spin. 

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking, can we leave at 8:30 tomorrow? I’d like to stop for some decent coffee if we can make time.”

Mulder blinks stupidly, disoriented. 

“Uh, yeah, 8:30 is fine. Are you…you’re good?”

“Yeah, I’m great,” she says simply. 

“Okay. Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight. Sleep well.”

Mulder sets the phone back on the receiver and looks down at his cum-streaked lap and belly. That absolutely happened, there is no doubt in his mind. 

[attempt-at-fanfic]

The Other Angel

Michael and Max sat at opposite ends of the table in the motel room, not glaring at each other just watching. Analysing each other, waiting for the other to have the smallest reaction. There was no hate between them more a… distaste. Michael didn’t really like humans (apart from Adam) and Max wasn’t a fan of archangels. Funnily enough after dealing with both Lucifer and alternate reality Michael, she didn’t really feel like hearing, seeing or talking to anymore archangels as long as she could help it.

Adam, who wasn’t in control of the vessel right now, was astral projecting sitting on the chair between them trying to not laugh at how ridiculous they were. He should have known this was going to happen, they were practically identical (guess he had a type). Deeply loyal to a fault but also very untrusting of strangers, protective of what (or who) they care about. So ,in theory, they should get along but the reality wasn’t looking that bright and Adam wasn’t sure how much more he could deal with this bizarre throuple’s therapy.

“So…we all just going to sit here in silence all day or…” he tried to start. Max tilted her head to the side, still watching Michael, she smirked. Adam knew what she was doing, she did this to every annoying customer she used to get at the diner, she was trying to get a reaction out of Michael, baiting him. Adam sighed “Cmon guys, we need to make this work. And to do so you guys actually need to talk. You both promised you would do that?” They both huffed. “I’m willing to talk. If she’s willing to listen.” Michael said. Max shrugged “Maybe I would listen, if you had anything interesting to say angel.” Michael clenched his jaw showing his annoyance, this made her smirk widen.

Adam shot her a look, it was hard to be annoyed at her though. He cared for Michael but his love for Max never stopped, and after all this time seeing that she hadn’t fully change. He missed her, during the 10 years in hell and last few months felt like a dream to be back with her. After everything they had been through, they were still those dumb kids staying up to ridiculous times at night watching TV, and eating way too much candy, while his mum was at work. “Michael, why don’t you start then, since you’re actually being cooperative” Max scoffed, glaring at Adam “Why do you not like Max?” Michael rolled his eyes. “Cmon buzzard, the quicker we do this the quicker it’s over.” Max said moving in her seat. She tilted her head to the other side “Then we can go back to our mutual hatred.”

Michael looked her in the eyes “Why didn’t you try to get to the cage?” This took Max by surprise, she opened her mouth but nothing followed. “Because the way I see it, you keep saying how much you care about Adam and how you missed him yet, you never even attempted to get him out. Not once.” Max remained quiet. It was Michael’s turn to smirk “I guess you are just like the Winchesters. Family matters until it becomes inconvenient. How long did it take until you forgot about the cage completely?”

“You son of a-“ “Max!” She stood up out of her chair, she looked like she wanted to hurt Michael. “You have no right to question me like that!” Michael glared at her “No, actually I have every right too.” Max glare down at the angel “Listen here you over-grown, magic turkey. I don’t have to explain myself to you! You and your fucked up family have been screwing me over from day one, and you’re here acting all high and mighty! Well you know what Mike’s, at least I didn’t throw my brother in hell! At least I didn’t tell the other to fuck off! And at least I didn’t leave one to deal with my shit in heaven after getting myself thrown in the cage!”

This caused Michael to stand, his eyes glowing blue. “Watch your mouth!” She smiled “Don’t even start that shit. Trust me after dealing with Luci, I can assure you, you are not even close to being scary.” The two of them glared at each other. Adam cleared his throat to get their attention. “Can you both sit back down and calm it.” He looked between them expectantly. Michael begrudgingly took his seat again but Max remained standing, glaring down at him.

“For your goddamn information, angel! I did! I looked everywhere for an answer! I tried everything! Nothing worked! And the winchesters-“ Max paused to stop her self from crying. “I asked Sam and Dean, they told me it was impossible! Even Castiel said it wasn’t possible!” She leaned forward on the table. “So don’t you dare try and throw that in my face.” Adam sighed “Max, sit down please.” She glared at Adam but sat down anyway. Adam looked at Michael, glaring at him to apologise. “I’m sorry I didn’t realise.” Max’s gaze landed on the floor as the uncomfortable silence returned to the motel room.

“Max, why do you have a problem with Michael?” She looked between Adam and Michael. “Aside from the obvious stick up his ass.” She looked over at Adam, who wasn’t impressed. She sighed “Let’s called just ‘bad experiences’ with Archangels, especially ones called Michael.” She looked at Michael again just glaring at him. He had a confused look “What does that mean?” Max looked away, tears quickly forming under her eyes, she shook her head. Adam and Michael look at each other. “Babe….what’s wrong?” Adam leaned forward, towards Max. She calmed herself down, “I…don’t wanna talk about it.”

She sighed, sat back and then looked at Michael “Look… I’m not gonna trust you, not for a while. I recognise that’s on me cause I know you’re not your brother or the weird alternate universe Michael. Don’t ask. I just……I just need time. Please. Can you give me that?” Michael looked at her, scanned her face, and for the first time since Michael met her, she was vulnerable. It shocked the angel, he wasn’t use to that, the open vulnerability. “Ok” he said quietly “I will try my best to not make that worse for you.” She smiled, before turning to Adam “Happy?” He smiled at both of them, “It’s a start. A good one”

Alex stood up “Good, now I’m hungry. I’m going to get food, if you boys want to join you can.” She walked out. Adam turned to Michael “That means she wants us to go with her but doesn’t want to asks. Michael stood up “I will never understand that.”

Adam laughed “You will.”

[shesthejukeboxhero]

Don’t Blame Me

Billy Hargrove x Fem!Reader (AU)

Warnings: Angst, Violence, Swearing, Alcohol, Parent Loss (flashback), Bullying (flashback) MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH!

Summary: What would have happened if instead of Billy being flayed, it was his girlfriend? (Title and ending inspired by “Don’t Blame Me by Taylor Swift)

A/N: I apologize for not posting in such a long time! I just needed the time to sit down and write this fully because who would want to read a part 2 when I could easily finish it in one part? Anyways, I hope you guys really enjoy this, it has been in my mind for a long time now.

“Oh Lord, save me, my drug is my baby, I'll be usin' for the rest of my life, Usin' for the rest of my life”

You had made plans for after graduation. Work hard all summer, move to California the day after Labor Day. You knew the day he asked you out formally that the two of you were endgame.

He got a job at the pool, you got a job at the new record store in the mall. Some days, he’d meet you at the mall for lunch, or you’d drive up to the pool to see him on your break. Sometimes, the two of you even rented a hotel room to spend the night together without fear of your families noticing. That’s what you were doing that night.

After stopping at your house to get some clothes for the night, you were driving to Motel 6, where Billy was waiting for you. Singing along happily to the Blondie song on the radio, you knew tonight was going to be a good night, until it wasn’t.

It came out of nowhere. The object shattered the windshield of your silver Ford Escort, sending your head straight into the steering wheel. Stepping out of your car to inspect the damage, you notice a weird gooey substance on the windshield.

“What the fuck…” you mutter to yourself when a random squeal and rustling in the bushes sounds out just a few feet from where you are now.

“Who’s there?” You say, suddenly becoming more panicked.

You move towards the bushes to investigate the sound but you suddenly get swept off your feet and you start getting pulled towards the steel mill.

“Let me go! Please, let me go!” You scream as you’re pulled down the stairs, gripping onto the top stair for your life, but the force is too strong. The creature now towers over you, like a giant tentacle. It latches onto your face and drowns out your screams.

Somehow, the creature lets go of you long enough for you to sprint out back to your car and drive away. You don’t know what the fuck just happened, but you know you HAVE to get away from that steel mill.

Eventually you spot a pay phone on the side of the road, and you pull over and sprint to it as fast as your legs can go. Dialing 911, you start getting flashbacks to being pulled down to the steel mill.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

As the flashbacks get more rampant, the lights start flickering more and more, when suddenly, it goes dark. It’s too quiet, not even the dial tone of the phone can be heard. Stepping out of the pay phone, you look around cautiously. As you walk back out into the road you spot a group of people hiding in the fog.

“What do you want?”

Dead silence.

“I said, what do you want?”

Suddenly a figure starts walking towards you. As they get closer, it’s a clone of yourself.

“To build. I want you to build.” Your clone says in a distorted voice, much different from your own.

“To build what?” You say, scared for your life.

“What you see.”

“I don’t understand.”

A crack of lightning sounds and the next thing you know your clone and the crowd are gone.

“I don’t understand! What do you mean, I don’t understand!”

Billy waited all night for you to show up, but you never did. He knew this was unlike you, and figured you’d have a good explanation when he came to visit you at work today. As he walks into the record store, he sees you wearing short shorts and a tank top, something you never wore unless it was incredibly hot out (which it was not that day.)

“Where were you last night?” He says, point-blankly.

“I had a change of plans.” You say, with no emotion in your voice.

“Take him, Y/N. He’s perfect” The voice says in your head, and you feel yourself losing control.

“Please, Y/N, tell me what I did wrong.” He says, looking into your eyes, which just feeds the monster’s desire to take him as the next victim. Feeling your control start to slip almost completely, you realize you have to get Billy out of here, quickly.

“GO AWAY BILLY, PLEASE!” You yell at him, and you see the hurt expression on his face.

“Fine.” He says, leaving without another word, and you mentally sigh of relief. He’s safe, for now. The black veins go back into your skin, and you run to the break room and grab one of the water bottles out of the fridge and chug it, grabbing the other one to cool your face down.

“Y/N, are you okay?” Your co-worker, Daniel says as he checks back in from his lunch break.

“Take him instead.” The monster says into your head. Without thinking, you approach Daniel and grab him by the neck.

“Y/N what the fuck are you doing?” He chokes out as he starts to lose consciousness.

“Relax, it will all be over soon.” You say with a soothing voice.

The days blend together, where your body is moving without you even knowing. Taking whoever the flayer tells you to take. The old lady at the grocery store, the little boy throwing a baseball against a brick wall downtown, anyone. You don’t even feel like yourself anymore, a shell of a girl who once had it all.

Meanwhile, Billy was working hard to figure out how to get you back. Max filled him in on the supernatural beings of Hawkins, so now he knows what happened to you.

“So, what worked for Will was getting him super hot. Is there a way to do that?” Max asks Billy.

“I don’t know… maybe trapping her at work?” He says, trying to come up with a way to save his girl.

The plan is to trap you at work on the day you work by yourself. Billy will barricade the doors from the outside while Eleven turns the thermostat up from outside the shop, while Max and the rest of the party stand outside. As Billy hauls all the materials to the back door, he feels his anxiety rush over him, worried for how you’re going to react. He shoves that feeling aside and quickly barricades all the doors beside the glass front one so you don’t see him until it’s too late. After returning to the front of the store, Eleven starts turning the thermostat up. As the numbers get higher and higher, the control over your mind is lower and lower. It’s getting too hot, and you know that he will be angry.

“It’s up all the way.” Eleven says, wiping the blood from her nose.

“Now we wait.” Max says, standing just behind her brother as he nails the wood planks into the walls of the store to barricade the door.

Your hands clench under the counter, fighting to keep any sanity you have left, but it’s getting to be too much to bare. Meeting Billy’s eyes through the window, your eyes start to water. Walking over to the door’s window, you desperately call out to him.

“Billy please…”

“Y/N…”

“I didn’t mean to!! He made me!”

“Who made you do what?”

“The.. the.. the black thing… the giant shadow!”

“Y/N, please, we only want to help you.” Billy rests his hand against yours through the glass window, and that’s when it snaps. Punching through the window, Billy jumps back in shock. Kicking the wood planks away from the door, the group knows they need to act fast. Lucas fired his wrist rocket at her head, but that just made it angrier. The veins blacken all over your body and you smash through the door, but Eleven slams your body hard against the back wall of the store. Getting her weak enough, you reach your hand out and strangle her but that’s when Mike slams one of the wood planks against your head, giving Eleven enough time to throw you through the back wall of the store.

You walk down the steps to the basement of the mill, where Daniel is waiting, with all the rest of your victims.

“What happened.” Daniel says calmly.

“They know. They know I’m the host.” you say angrily.

“Who attacked you?”

“The girl. Nearly killed me.”

“She cannot kill all of us though.” He says, gesturing to the large crowd behind him.

A few days later, after meeting up with Nancy and Jonathan, the group decides to search for the flayed in the void. You, Daniel, Daniel’s Parents, The Holloways, and Doris Driscoll are all confirmed victims of the mind flayer.

After the attack at the hospital, you and Daniel stand waiting as the mini flayer, comprised of Daniel’s father and Tom Holloway’s bodies, returns to the mill, you look at him and say, “It’s time.”

Back at the cabin, Eleven is deep inside the void searching for the flayed. While the kids argue about why she shouldn’t be in the void for as long as she has been, Billy and Nancy are busy calling local businesses to ask if they have any missing chemicals. Suddenly, Eleven removes her blindfold and says, “I found her.”

You’re sitting alone on your bed in your bedroom, surrounded by floral wallpaper and music posters. Suddenly, you look up and see Eleven. A tear slips from your eye as you show her the possessions you caused, before slipping into an old memory of your own.

It’s the day of the annual Halloween party at Tina’s. You park your car and walk up to the party, dressed in an angel costume. Sipping on red punch, you bump into a shirtless Billy behind you.

“Excuse me, angel.”

“Sorry…-“

“Billy. Billy Hargrove.”

“Y/N. Y/N L/N.”

“What do you say we leave this lame party and you can show me what heaven looks like, doll.”

Suddenly, the memory starts to fade away as a new one starts. In this memory, there’s a much younger version of you, kneeling beside a hospital bed. She sees it’s a woman who looks a lot like you… your mother.

“Daddy, when will mommy wake up?”

He doesn’t respond.

“Daddy?”

That memory fades into a new one, where you’re no older than 8 years old, where you’re sitting on a bench outside at recess, when a group of girls come up to you.

“You know L/N, you’d be a lot less ugly if you actually tried.”

“Yeah, you need a makeover.”

Looking up at them, you say, “No thanks…”

“Too bad.” One of the girls pulls out a pair of scissors, cutting a chunk of your hair off. They laugh as tears fall from your eyes and that’s when it fades to one last memory: the night you were flayed.

She watches as the object hits your windshield, to your desperate call to 911, to getting dragged down the stairs. Not being able to take it anymore, Eleven returns to the cabin to find it empty. Lights flickering, Eleven calls out to Mike.

“He can’t hear you.” You say, in a deeper voice than normal.

She gasps as you step out from one of the rooms.

“You shouldn’t have looked for me.” You say, stepping towards her menacingly. “Because now I see you. We can all see you.”

Eleven backs away, scared.

“You… let us in. And now, you are going to have to let us stay.”

Eleven trembles as you step close to her.

“Don’t you see? All this time, we’ve been building it…. For you. All that work, all that pain, all of it, for you.”

Eleven sobs as you stare at her, intimidating her.

“And now it’s time. Time to end it. And we are going to end you. And once you’re gone, we are going to end your friends.”

“No!” Eleven yells, sobbing.

“And then we are going to end everyone.”

Eleven returns back to the cabin she came from, sobbing. After telling the group everything, they hear a snarl from outside. Will’s neck flares up, and he says, “He’s here.”

Nancy arms herself with a shotgun, and Jonathan and Billy arm themselves with axes. The cabin shakes and then suddenly stops, and that’s when a tendril slams through the window towards Eleven. Billy slams his ax down on it, but it turns to attack Billy. Nancy distracts it long enough for Eleven to tear it apart, but then 2 more fly in. Struggling, she finally tears them apart, but then the mind flayer itself destroys the roof, wrapping one of its tendrils around Eleven’s ankle. Jonathan severs the tendril with the ax while the rest of the group pulls Eleven away from the monster. The piece wrapped around her ankle embeds itself in her leg but Mike rips it out. After Eleven tears it apart, they flee the cabin in Nancy’s car.

After stopping at the supermarket, they flee with fireworks in tow. The flayer sends you out to find them there, but you were too late. Dipping your fingers in the blood left behind from Eleven’s leg, you use it to track where they’re headed— Starcourt.

When you arrive, they are outside working on Nancy’s car, which was tampered with. You rev the engine of your car, getting the attention of the group. They hurry back inside while Nancy fires at you as you floor your car towards the mall, when suddenly a car slams into yours- Steve Harrington slammed the rich guy’s car into yours, giving them time to escape. Spotting Mike, Max, and Eleven trying to escape through a back entrance, you hurry out of the burning car to get them.

“Take the girl, ignore the others.”

Cornering the kids in the hallway, Max starts telling you positive memories, like when you and Billy went to prom together (you promised him you’d make it worth his while afterwards…), and when you helped her get ready for the snowball. None of it works though, and you slam both her and Mike into the wall, knocking them out cold. Knocking Eleven out as well, you hoist her over your shoulder and carry her out to the center of the mall to present to the mind flayer.

Leaning over her, Eleven starts to wake up. She starts telling you details from the memory she saw— the one of you and Billy on Halloween.

“It was Halloween… Billy was there… he called you angel… your little halo and your wings gave it away…. You were pretty, very pretty. Billy loved you the moment he saw you…”

Hearing the memory, a tear slips from your eye. Climbing off of her, you turn to face the mind flayer. As it shoots a tendril out to take Eleven, you stand in front of her, taking the tendril in your chest.

“NO!” Billy yells out, watching the tendril sink into your body as you fall to your knees. The flayer lets go of you because Lucas begins firing fireworks at it, distracting him. Billy runs over to your shaking body, barely conscious.

“Angel, please, don’t leave me…” he says, caressing your tear-stained and blood covered face.

“Billy, it’s okay…” you say softly. “I’ll be okay…”

He lifts you into his lap and holds you close. “But I won’t…”

“I’ll love you forever… just put the blame on me…”

“It’s not your fault, Y/N. Don’t blame yourself.”

You cough up blood. “Billy please, let me go… I love you…” you say, holding his hand before slipping into unconsciousness.

He stays right there, feeling the muscles in your hand fall weak as he still holds your hand, even when the paramedics try to remove you from his grasp. He sits in front of your grave, knowing you wanted him to move on, but he just can’t let you go. You were his drug, and he’ll keep on using the memories of you for the rest of his life.

[salamandergoo]

This was written in snippets on a discord server, thought I’d clean it up and slap it here! Haven’t been able to stop thinking about roadie Steve 💕 There’s a lil bit of spice in here, just to keep things fun :)

Steve, after everything that happens, doesn’t really know what he wants to do. Working at Family Video is… fine, but Robin is finished with her gap year and now she’s getting acceptance letters and scholarship offers from colleges and trying to decide where to go.

She keeps asking him if he’ll be okay and Steve tells her to go because he’s excited for her! She’s excited too! And yeah, they’ve had nights where she stays over with him and they cry about how they won’t get to be attached at the hip, but they can’t stay in Hawkins, it’s not realistic. They’ll never be… okay, if they stay.

She goes off to college and absolutely loves it, she thrives there, and they’re in constant touch, but Steve feels like he’s lost a part of himself. His platonic soulmate, the woman he’s so used to just… being there, is gone. So when he’s invited to a Corroded Coffin gig, he jumps in, thinking that if nothing else, it’ll be a solid distraction from his wallowing.

They’ve played a few cities in Indiana, a frontman accused of satanic murders is pretty great for their image surprisingly enough, they’re just waiting for Gareth to finish school before they jump in fully. The show is pretty local, just barely outside of Hawkins city limits, but it’s refreshing for Steve to be… somewhere else, just for a night. And the gig is fun! Steve can’t hear the words to the songs too well, can’t keep up with the music so great, but he can feel it in his chest. And he loves the energy of it.

Partway through, something goes wrong with one of the amps and they’re trying to get it fixed. Steve offers to give them a hand, and in just a few minutes and some tinkering he has it working again. And the pats on the back from the guys and the bright smile from Eddie sparks something in Steve.

The next day, he finds himself in the library, checking out books on electrical equipment and instruments and anything he can think of, and starts reading up. By the time Gareth graduates and CC has a few shows set up, Steve comes along. He’s able to handle any technical difficulty they come across, he’s the guy making sure it all goes smoothly.

And suddenly they’re recording their first album and blowing up and Steve is their go to guy for live shows, he’s the first person on their payroll. For awhile, he’s the only one, he runs everything that isn’t playing music, but eventually, a few more hands are needed.

Eddie makes it clear that Steve is in charge, naturally trusting him to be the head of the road team.

The band is doing great and soon enough they’ve upgraded from Eddie’s van and Jeff’s station wagon to an actual tour bus. Eddie is so amped about it and it’s hard not to let his energy be infectious.

Of course, driving across hours of plains dims some of the excitement, but Eddie and Steve start to come up with… interesting ways to pass the time. Ever since they left Hawkins, Steve’s eyes have been wandering a bit. Turns out metal heads are his type, who could’ve guessed?

At first it was making out in an alley in Indy with a girl who had shaved hair and piercings shoving him against the wall and making him beg to eat her out. Then it was the boy in a leather jacket in the mosh pit in the middle of summer, sweat slick skin covered in ink and a gentle hand but commanding voice in a motel room. And then it was his own fantasies, covering his mouth as he touched himself in a shared hotel room bathroom thinking about Eddie, who else?

So there’s an ongoing game of gay chicken and Eddie hasn’t been quiet about his own conquests along the way. It’s little things, Steve shifting a little closer to Eddie on the bus, a hand on the thigh that creeps upwards, whispering in hushed tones just a little too close.

It finally snaps in California, a sold out show attended by Argyle and Jonathan (who moved back out west a few months after the world didn’t end). They’re slipped a few “party favors” before heading off to a motel for the night, a reprieve from the rumbling, uncomfortable mattresses on the bus. One of the rooms only has one bed because of a booking issue and before anyone can complain, Eddie snatches the key and declares that “Stevie’s with me”.

So the band splits up to go to the rooms, Eddie has to wait while Steve inspects the bed closely to make sure there’s nothing gross, and then they settle in, still sticky with sweat and buzzing with adrenaline. Eddie lights a joint and teases Steve a little with the way he groans and sighs as he takes a hit, but Steve gives as good as he gets

He straddles Eddie’s lap and asks to shotgun in this pretty, lilting voice, cocking his head in a way that makes his eyes, sparkling with mischief, catch the light just so. And Eddie isn’t going to deny a pretty boy on his lap, not when he’s seen Steve in those tight jeans. He takes another hit and tugs him in by the shirt collar, breathing out the thick smoke into Steve’s waiting, parted lips. And Eddie is treated to the sight of thick eyelashes fanned against freckles cheeks, the expanse of pale skin on Steve’s neck as he tilts his head back to avoid blowing the smoke back in Eddie’s face.

And Eddie can only restrain himself so much as he leans in and kisses the faded scar that cuts across Steve’s adams apple. Steve licks his lips and is looking at Eddie’s mouth when he opens his eyes and something between them snaps. He leans in and whispers, “kick me if I’m misreading this” before kissing Eddie on the lips. It’s firm, but not messy, charged and searching. Eddie has to take a second to remember how to move his limbs, holding Steve tight around the waist, careful not to bump the lit joint against his shirt.

He kisses back, but it’s not enough, he needs more, wants to ride out the low thrum of the coming high with Steve. He pulls back just long enough to take another hit and lifts a hand to cup Steve’s jaw. He breathes the smoke out, letting his tongue trace Steve’s lip as he takes it. Steve holds the smoke like a fucking expert, tangling his tongue with Eddie’s as he lets the smoke back out from the corner of his mouth. Eddie distantly wonders if he looks like a dragon like that, a thought that has him giggling. And then it’s really hitting him that he’s 1) a rockstar 2) making out with his high school crush Steve Harrington and 3) absolutely rock hard.

Judging by the pleased expression on Steve’s face when they part for air and the way he grinds his hips down slow and teasing, he definitely noticed that last part.

[lunartadpole]

1 ¦ 2

inspired by this post :))

(Tell me baby, do you recognize me?)

Eddie graduates by the skin of his teeth - and with the help of some pity points from the higher ups at Hawkins High School, a makeshift apology for the town-wide manhunt for him - and he is left with the age old question that plagues most, if not all, graduates: what now?

He doesn't know what to do with himself, doesn't know what he's good at. Sure, there's music, he can play the guitar decently but he doesn't know where to take that. And that leaves him in a bit of a slump. His whole life Eddie has been tethered to this town, itching for some grand escape or for something to call him, begging him to chase it down. He's wanted to get the hell outta dodge for so long, he never actually thought he'd see the day where he'd just…go.

So he graduates. He hobbles off that stage, still in his crutches as his legs still aren't fully able to support his weight again, and it doesn't feel nearly as good as he dreamed of, though he guesses that once one looks death in the eye, fights off hoards of literal, real life monsters, menial things like finishing school with possibly the lowest grades imaginable matter less than one thought. And he stays, in Hawkins, just for another month or so. Just until inspiration hits.

He gets a job alongside Steve and Robin at Family Video, because if he wants out he's gonna need the money, and becomes a natural third to their duo. They work many shifts together, mostly mucking about to pass the hours; arguing about movies, laughing at annoying customers, gossiping about Steve's failure of a dating life. It's nice. Eddie finds something in that, friendship. Not that he didn't have friends before all this interdimensional mess, but there's a difference here at Family Video. 

There's a difference with Steve.

Eddie never thought he'd see the day where he actually liked Steve Harrington. But he soon discovered that they had a lot more in common than Eddie would have ever thought; and it's not that Steve suddenly likes D&D, or that Eddie gets a newfound appreciation of Basketball, it's that they're both adrift in the ocean of life, aimlessly floating with no direction, no plan on where to go. 

Eddie stays for another month. His friendship with Steve only grows when he invites both Eddie and Wayne to stay at his house. Prior to this they'd been living out of a motel half an hour outside of town, thanks to their humble trailer getting ripped in half when the earth split open. Eddie declines at first, but Steve is insistent. 

"It's not like I don't have the space," Steve shrugs. "Big house, gotta fill it with something. Why not you?" 

The Munsons move into Loch Nora. Wayne is icey at first, unsure about this whole arrangement and untrusting of the Harrington boy despite Eddie's insistence that Steve is not like his parents. But soon enough, Wayne and Steve hit it off and it's like they've been friendly for years. Eddie walks in on them, more often than not, watching football and screaming at Steve's state-of-the-art TV, sharing a beer and a smoke on Steve's porch. Wayne catches Eddie lingering in doorways, just watching, and flashes him a knowing smile. 

"He's one of the good ones, that boy," Wayne comments one night. They're watching Steve in the kitchen from the dining room while he cooks, in his absolute element. There are times where Eddie just, sits and watches Steve when he's preparing dinner; the concentration on the boys face, reading recipes written in feminine handwriting out of a battered notebook, and the utter joy when things go his way, is enough to bring a smile to Eddie's lips and a warm feeling through his body. 

Eddie felt that warmth then, watching Steve hum to a song he's been trying to remember for the past week, and it's been driving Eddie up the walls hearing that same poppy tune over and over - but it hasn't really. "Yeah," Eddie agrees with a nod, "He is." 

The summer breeze rolls in quicker than usual. 

Eddie spends his time in the blistering Hawkins heat in the pool, surrounded by his friends. He doesn't mind that, despite Robin's constant begging and his own teasing to show off Harrington's skill in the water that earned him the title of Captain of the Swim Team, Steve never gets in the water with them; he seems perfectly happy to lounge on the deck chairs with Nancy. Sometimes, when Eddie looks over at them, the two are staring off at the pool with some glazed over expression, the very same he has when he remembers the sound of Chrissy Cunningham's bones snapping. So he doesn't ask, knowing that Steve will tell when he's ready. 

When they're not in the pool, they're inside with the aircon blasted, watching movies, eating ice cream. Sometimes - read: very often - Steve opens his home to the kids, who eagerly accept under the pretense of continuing whatever campaign Eddie's been cooking up. Steve takes the gang on drives to anywhere and everywhere, and sometimes, late a night when everyone's gone off back to their own houses, he and Eddie will go on their own personal trips; down long, straight roads with the music - which they bicker excessively about - blasted up as high as the car will allow and the windows rolled down. Eddie sticks his head out the window like a dog and Steve will tell him just that. The feeling of wind on his face provides him that escape he longed for, reminds him where he wants to be, gone. 

But Hawkins in fall is beautiful, Eddie did always love watching the leaves change colour. The summer breeze disappears and is replaced with that wild, sharp chill that always made his muscles ease up. But something changes in Steve during the autumn. He quietens, and the nail studded bat makes it return beside the front door. Eddie never presses, instead buying candy in bulk and renting scary movie after scary movie for them to watch leading up to Halloween. Steve falls asleep during one of these movie nights, unconsciously tossing and turning until things almost get violent and he wakes in a cold sweat. Eddie is there to hold him, to wipe his tears while he opens up about everything; Barbra Holland, the pool, Nancy Wheeler and the word bullshit, the Russians. And Eddie just holds him while he melts in his arms, the heat of Steve's body only adding to that warm, fuzzy feeling churning in Eddie's stomach. He does something brave that night. 

Steve and Eddie share their first kiss watching Micheal Myers terrorise Jamie Lee Curtis. 

Halloween comes and goes. That chill in the air turns to a bite of frost. Eddie never did like going on long journeys in the cold weather. 

Winter is spent getting drunk and getting high. Because there's not much else to do. The town experienced a bad storm that year, leaving Steve and the Munsons locked in Loch Nora for a week and a bit. They build a snowman in the front yard, have snowball fights with Robin and Nancy and Jonathan. Steve makes a killer hot chocolate. 

He discovers that Christmas at the Harrington house is one of beauty when Steve puts up the decorations. Hundreds of Christmas lights light up the street at night, and don't even get Eddie started on the tree - huge and intricately decorated with at least a hundred ornaments, each with their own desiccated place. Steve hangs them up out of muscle memory, like he's done this a thousand times. It's during this time Wayne starts to get antsy about their living situation, concerned about what happens when Steve's parents come home for the holiday, but again Steve reassures them. 

"They're not coming this year, so don't worry about it." 

They worry about something else, but they never ask. 

When it gets too cold, Eddie steals Steve's sweaters, Steve curls into the warmth of Eddie's body at night and Wayne lights the fire so the boys can huddle around the fireplace. Eddie doesn't think he'll ever forget the sight of Steve's head resting in his lap, face tinted with the soft glow of the flame. Eddie runs a hand through the infamous hair, untangling any knots with his fingers. It's soft. Eddie doesn't think he'll forget that. Steve gets Eddie a new guitar for Christmas, the one he's been talking about all year; that almost makes Eddie ashamed of what he got Steve, a mixtape full of the songs they listened to on their night drives in summer, but that shame disappears when Steve's eyes light up brighter that any of the lights hanging on the tree. They kiss under conveniently placed mistletoe. The snow soon thaws and Eddie weaves crowns out of blooming flowers for his first boyfriend.

Seasons come and go. Days blend into weeks which blend into months. And the more time Eddie and Steve spend together, the less he thinks about leaving. The year ends with a kiss at a small gathering of friends. The spring season is in full bloom before he knows it, then summer, then fall, then winter, and through it all Steve is still at his side. There's an 'I love you' somewhere stowed in Eddie's chest, and he tries to find the bravery to say it to Steve any chance he gets - when he nurses Eddie back to health from a common cold, when he makes Eddie's coffee in the morning, when he holds Eddie close after a nightmare. Steve has told those three little words more times than Eddie can count, but he just…can't get the words out. They're in there though, waiting.

He thinks he's going to say it, the day he drives to the store to pick up some groceries, one December morning in '87. He has it planned, a quiet night in with Steve's favourite meal homemade by Eddie, treating his boy. Then, as he's scanning the aisle for the ingredients, he hears it. That all too familiar sound. Whispers. The hair on the back of his neck stands up, like someone's watching him, and sure enough when he turns there is. A small group of five, look to be around his age, sneering, mumbling amongst themselves. And suddenly it's March, 1986, and people he's never spoken too are demanding his arrest, calling him a murder. Suddenly it's Summer '86, and some punks trashed the front window of Family Video, the words hunt the freak painted over it. 

Suddenly, Eddie realises what fucking time it is and what time he's already lost. His skin begins to itch and a scowl finds its way on his face as he recalls his comfort over the past year, his complacency. He leaves the store without buying anything, racing down the road to Loch Nora desperate to get the fuck out of there as soon as he possible can. He doesn't care that he doesn't have anything to chase, doesn't care that he can't do anything yet, Eddie can't stay in this town anymore; not when the people still torment him, look at him like he's Satan himself and cower in fear. 

He throws his things in a bag, gathers the decent amount of money he's managed to save up, and just as he's about to leave he notices that the Christmas decorations are up again, that perfect fucking tree towering over him a constant reminder of the part of himself he willingly gave away. He thinks of Steve, bitterly, liar, and how they're not the same at all. Because Steve might be content with being lost in the ocean, no way out, no plan, no path. But Eddie will not fucking waste away in a town that hates him. 

He thinks of Steve, lovingly, darling, but it's not enough. It would never be enough. 

Eddie writes a note for Wayne and Wayne only. He's gone before the ice can thaw. 

December, 1891

Eddie Munson is walking home to his apartment when he sees Nancy Wheeler. 

He's got a good thing going on here in New York. Though it was rough at the start. He drove aimlessly for weeks, sleeping in any dingy motel he could afford, but after he found a severed finger underneath his pillow he decided that sleeping in his van was the safer, and cheaper, option. 

He camped out in Ohio for a month or three, working at a roadside dinner washing dishes. Then it was on to Kentucky, which lasted an extremely short while, before North Carolina for the summer. New York was never in the plan, not that he had one, but something so far away from small town Indianna sang his name and there he went. 

It was…different to say the least. Eddie had never seen so many people in his entire life, it was easy to get lost in the crowd. For the first four months, he was entirely alone, working three jobs of stocking shelves, wiping down tables and bartending at clubs just to get by. But that didn't bother him, not in the slightest. Because he may have been living out of his van, but at least here people didn't cower away from him. At least here there were others like him. Other 'freaks'.

It's not like Eddie didn't know there where other gay people in the world, but christ sometimes it hard to remember your not the only one when middle aged women are shielding their children from you, and dickheads in school carve those ugly words into your locker every morning. 

It was these others who let him crash on their couches when winter rolled around and the van became uninhabitable. Then eventually, it was these others who let him move in permanently. They were like him, in more ways than just the obvious. They too had nowhere else to go, no plan, no path, but desperate to find one. Lost in the ocean and trying to swim. 

Things started looking up at the beginning of 1989. All that time, alone in the back of a van, gave Eddie lots of time to thing; about what he was good at, what he wanted to do with himself. And, as it turned out, years of scrawling down D&D campaign ideas had paid off, because Eddie was quite the story teller. And after months of rejection letters and disappointments, one literary journal gave him a publishing deal.

He wrote short stories, mainly, fantasy ones of course. He wrote of dragons and monsters, of evil wizards and an unlikely band of heroes. He wrote of a prince, who was brave as he was kind; who loved his kids despite his insistence that they were nothing more than a nuisance in his life; who was handsome to boot and had hair like silk.

Who loved the local bard when the town roared he was a witch. 

…that story might be just for him. 

And sure, of course there were times he felt a tad homesick. He writes letters to Wayne from time to time, just so his Uncle knows he's okay, but he never gives his address for him to write back, he doesn't know why. Maybe he's scared that Wayne will come find him, drag him back to that shithole town, or maybe it's because he doesn't want a reminder of the town that hated him.

(Or maybe, Eddie doesn't want to know what's changed in his absence. Doesn't want to know how everyone is, how well they're doing without him. How a certain someone is doing without him.)

Which is why, when he sees Nancy Wheeler walking towards him, he freezes. 

Nancy hasn't changed since the day Eddie saw her last. Her hair may be a bit longer, a bit more unruly, but her eyes still have that curious glint to them, and her smile just shows her cunning intelligence. And she's still beautiful. 

"Eddie?" She says, disbelief flooding her tone. "Oh my god, is that you?" 

Dumbly, Eddie stands there, frozen among the crowd of people bustling to get to wherever it is they're going. Nancy fixes him with a look, taking the sight of it in and her the smile on her face grows. She runs forward and wraps him up in a hug, letting Eddie get a smell of her lavender perfume that also hasn't changed since '86. And just like that, all other concerns he had fade away. 

He hugs her back, burying his face in her curls. "Nance? Oh Jesus, what the hell are you doing here?!" 

When she pulls away her eyes are fiery. "I could ask you the same thing." She jabs his chest with a pointed finger. But her gaze momentarily softens. "It's so good to see you. Are you busy right now? I just got off work, I was gonna go for some coffee?" 

Eddie smiles, knowing damn well he's about to get the interrogation of his life. "I'd love that."

The coffee shop, at least, provides some much needed warmth from the winter weather. New York somehow gets far colder than Indianna during Christmas, and Eddie never did well in the cold. 

Nancy buys him a coffee. He can tell by the way she holds herself that she wants to demand where he's been and why he left, but she won't ask. Not yet. Eddie's grateful for that. 

"I live here now," she says instead, "Well, temporarily, so far. I got a paid internship at The Times as an investigative journalist. Hoping they give me the job soon." 

"That's incredible!" Eddie exclaims. "God, I wish I knew you were here. I would've let you buy me a coffee sooner." 

She stirs her tea with a spoon stiffly. "Yeah maybe you should've left a number before you took off. Or, well, anything."

And yeah. Okay. He deserves that. But ouch Wheeler.

He clears his throat. "So, uhm, is Jonathan here with you?"

"Uh, no." Nancy's eyes crinkle in a way where Eddie feels like he's missed out on something. "We broke up." 

"Shit, I'm so sorry I shouldn't have-" 

She silences him with a wave of her hand. "No, don't. It's fine. It happened a while ago, just after you left actually." She coughs. "I'm seeing someone else now. But hey, what about you? How have you been?" 

Eddie tells her about everything. About the severed finger in the motel, about sleeping in his van, about working three jobs, about his writing. He tells her more than he means too, things he hadn't even admitted to himself yet, but Nancy always brought that out in people. 

"I won't even lie, Nancy, I've been missing home so much." At this stage, they've been talking for two hours, the cafe is slowly emptying and the sun is slowly setting. "Like, the city is great, I fucking love it here, but I just…" he trails off, not knowing how to describe the gaping void in his chest when he thinks about Hawkins. 

They sit in silence for a bit. Then, Nancy says, "Yeah, we all miss you too. Especially the kids- sorry, not allowed to say kids anymore. Mike keeps busting my ass every time I call him that."

"Shit, yeah. What age are they now? Eighteen?" 

Nancy nods. Eddie leans back in his chair, feeling incredibly old. 

"It's true, you know. They miss you. A lot. Dustin tried to get Hopper to file a missing persons report. They thought you'd been kidnapped or something." 

Shame paints Eddie's cheeks pale. He never did think about the kids' reactions to him leaving without so much as a goodbye. 

Nancy huffs a laugh, "Mike took over your little club too. Though I think Erica does the whole game master thing."

Erica Sinclair, god he misses that little spitfire. 

"Lucas is captain for the Tigers as well. Oh and Joyce and Hopper? Yeah, they're married now." 

"No way!" 

"Uh-huh," Nancy's curls bounce as she nods. "Had their wedding in July last year. And Steve is-" 

Nancy Wheeler does something then that Eddie has never seen her do. She falters. She doesn't even try to hide the obvious hurt and hate she has for Eddie in that moment, her eyes glare daggers at him. He thinks she's about to rip him a new one, list off all the reasons he's a shitty person in alphabetical order, and leave him, alone forever. 

Instead,

"You should come back. For Christmas I mean" she says. "We've all been doing this thing now for the last couple years where we all get together, it's great really. I think everyone would love to see you." 

"Everyone?" he asks, hesitantly. A picture flashes in his mind: a boy's head in his lap, face illuminated by a flickering fire.

"Everyone." 

Later, when Eddie's packing his suitcase, he'll blame his decision on peer pressure and how he knew if he said no, Nancy would just continue to wear him down until he agreed. But deep down, he knows that it was because the thought of going back to Hawkins- no, back to his family , filled him with that familiar warmth he hadn't felt in years. 

"Yeah." he deflates into the chair. "OK, sure. It'll be fun." 

Nancy smirks. Never a good sign. 

[castieldelamancha]

"C'mon Cas! I've told you a million times,"

"Dean" he tries to interrupt Dean's speech, to not avail.

"I really don't like the whole zapping thing and-" finally it seems to register where they are because Dean stops talking and lets out a, very manly if you asked him, screech instead, "what the fuck, Cas?!" He closes his eyes tightly, and Castiel sighs, reaching out to put a hand over Dean's knee, he marvells at the way the simple touch makes the tension in Dean's muscle start to slowly ebb away from them. It takes Castiel's breath away, even if he doesn't need to breathe, this intimacy and trust.

He still keeps his eyes closed, which makes Castiel shake his head fondly at him, "Dean, I won't ever let anything happen to you, you know that."

Dean takes a deep breath, then comes a muttered "yeah." He puts his own hand over the one Castiel has on his knee.

Dean opens his eyes and looks around, gasping loudly, Castiel looks down at the long line of dots formed by the distant car lights as people make their way back home for the day, the air is cold up here where they are sitting side by side looking down at the bridge from one of its colossal towers, so he takes off his trench coat and passes it to Dean who doesn't say anything but takes it with a light blush on his cheeks, probably due to the cold.

Dean puts the coat on, wrapping it close around himself and, when Castiel isn't looking, he presses his face to the lapel, breathing in deeply. 

"I thought we both needed a break." 

"Huh," Dean looks up at the night sky, "I usually go to some bar for a beer when I need a break, but this is so much better." He looks down once more, tensing slightly at the impressive distance between the road below them and their seat, "it all looks so tiny from here." The people and their vehicles, and even them compared to the structure they are on and the vastness of the sky above. Their troubles and worries.

"It does, humanity will never cease to amaze me, you keep coming up with such clever solutions to all your problems, your collective work has gotten you so far." 

Dean hums along his agreement, still looking around them, Castiel doesn't think Dean, or many other humans nor angels for the matter, have seen what they are seeing now, so he lets him be, soak it all in, sharing a comfortable silence that wraps around then with a safety and warmth quite similar to the ones Castiel's coat is offering Dean right now.

Time flies by as they sit there, pressed together as they unconsciously move closer as the hours pass by, both of them pointing at things so the other can see them.

"There is a ship, right there, it's headed this way."

"Dude, Cas, not all of us have a grace powered laser focus vision, I can't see that shit from here."

Too soon for their liking it's time to go back, to their motel room in the other side of the country, to their research, to their end of the world.

"Thanks, Cas." Dean says, with a gentle tone, he reaches out and wraps his arm around Cas' shoulders pulling him closer in a one-armed hug that has the heart of Castiel's vessel doing strange somersaults inside his chest, "for everything, really, for the break and for, well," he stammers,"for being here."

Castiel nods once, slowly, solemnly, "I am glad you enjoyed it." 

"Yeah, man, totally worth the week 'm gonna spend without going to the bathroom." Dean laughs.

Castiel rolls his eyes at him, and, feeling bold, instead of pressing two fingers to Dean's forehead, as usual, he turns to fully face Dean and cradles the side of his face.

In just a blink they are back at the motel room, Sam snoring lightly the other bed on the room, Dean and Cas sitting on Dean's bed, Cas' hand still cupping his cheek.

[pisspope]

Free Radicals

zeke yaeger x reader

word count: 1.0k

cw: afab!/fem! reader, reader gets called princess, baby, beautiful, vaginal sex, mentions of oral sex (f! receiving), dirty talk, praise kink

When you had started dating zeke in earnest, you knew that him meeting your parents was an inevitability. You knew they would fall for the whole charismatic nutty professor look hook, line, and sinker, would go absolutely mushy over his dry wit and piercing eyes. It would be an easy visit, casual and comfortable.

And all Zeke had to do was keep his mouth shut when pleasant dinner table banter turned to politics. Because as kind as they could be to you and your potential suitors, when it came to politics they were, well...

"Fucking troglodytes," Zeke hissed out, pistoning into you with reckless abandon. "Can't believe pussy this good came out of that fetid fucking womb."

You groan into the motel room pillow despite yourself, drowning in the venom that drips from his every word. He grips your hip tightly with one hand, the other bringing a half-finished cigarette to his lips. His two biggest vices held close, possessive.

"Who do they think they are, talking to you, talking to me like that, a fucking guest? Jesus H. Christ..." He grunts through a clouded mouth, too pissed and too busy fucking you to breathe out properly. "Speaking of, when's the last time they read a goddamn book? Besides the Bible, I mean."

It's a rhetorical question, of course. Because Zeke has a third vice, one he can't hold in the palm of his hand: bitching.

He moves to rub what's left of the cigarette out on the bedside ashtray, grips you tighter with his other hand to make sure he doesn't pull out of you in the process. You arch your back higher from the feeling of it, assured in the knowledge that there will be five fingerprint bruises on you by morning. The heady tobacco scent envelops and surrounds you, every breath of secondhand smoke coating your insides in soot. Every part of you, every muscle, bone, and nerve ending, stained with him.

"Fuckkkkkk, you feel so good, baby," he moans out, bringing his now free hand to the back of your head, tugging hard at the base of your skull so you're forced to look at him. And what a sight he is, chest heaving and red, mouth agape, wiry blond beard sticking up in all directions. He's a vision, a goddamn Adonis, not that you'd ever let him know that. He'd never let you live it down.

"Think they know? Think they know that the second they kicked us out they were sending you to this?" He's practically babbling now, but his enunciation is still so clear, so performative. He wants you to hear every word.

"Their poor little princess, banished to the sleazy motel to be fucked senseless by her evil heretical lover. I hope it makes them sick."

He slams his hand to your neck, twists your head just enough so he can catch your lips in a hungry kiss, groans falling from his throat as he tastes you. You accept everything he gives you, relishing in the knowledge that you belong to him so fully.

"You're mine. All mine."

It isn't long after that his thrusts become erratic, both hands now clenched around your waist to hold himself steady. The room is bathed in the sound of your sex, of the wet slap of him sheathing himself so deep in you, of his own low groans and curses, of the musty old mattress squeaking in protest. It pushes Zeke's senses into overload, and he chokes out your name, your only warning before he pulls out and coats you in his white hot release.

He crashes, hard, pushes you onto your back so he can fall onto the pillow of your breasts. You whine, still unfinished and disgusted by the sheets clinging to the cum painted across your back, but you give in. This is how it goes with Zeke when he gets frustrated, gets into a situation that he can't talk his way out of. Usually, walking out and having a smoke is enough to take the edge off, but sometimes he needs something more. Sometimes that more is a quick trip to the backseat of his car, legs pulled over your head so he can tongue fuck you until his beard glistens. But other times it's like this, where more is him throwing you onto a mattress and abusing your cunt, venting his stress 9 inches in.

And really, you don't mind it, because you know he needs it, and it brings you joy to know that you're the one giving it to him. Plus, once he's really come down, once he's stopped waging war behind his eyes, he always, always pulls you close and returns the favor. It's beyond intimate; exhaustion paints his eyes as he ruts into you, slow and steady, be it with fingers or his overstimulated cock, his own orgasm all but forgotten as he watches you come undone beneath him. When you finally relent, clenching and quivering around him, he pulls out agonizingly slow, presses a kiss to your forehead, and tells you every sweet nothing that materializes within him.

"So beautiful," he murmurs, consciousness already wavering. "Look so pretty, cumming all over me like that."

It's... not poetry, but you never doubt that he means what he says. Frankly, if he came at you with Keats or Frost you'd think he was dying. So you take the meager compliments his jaded heart can muster, and know that he's trying for you. Only for you.

"It's a shame about my parents, though," you muse, and he huffs in affirmation. "I really wanted you to fuck me in my childhood bedroom, ynow?"

He chuckles, a throaty staccato that still manages to make your stomach flip. "Oh, I'm corrupting you, aren't I? When we met you wouldn't have even thought of something like that."

You hum, pretending to think about it. You're glad he's back to normal, jovial despite the circumstances. "Maybe I just wouldn't have said it out loud. You don't exactly have a monopoly on lewd thoughts, Zeke."

"Hmm," he turns to his side, gazes at you through heavy-lidded eyes. He'll be asleep within the minute.

"I'll see what I can do."

And if he's all apologies and sincerity tomorrow, showing up at your parents' doorstep with flowers and a handwritten note, well. Who's to say what caused such a radical change of heart?

[talesmaniac89]

A Measure of Worth

Pairing: Dean x Reader (She/Her)

Summary: Dean cannot stop the protective rage building in his after a hunt that nearly went wrong. But when she questions her self worth, Dean is left questioning everything

Word Count: 2611

Warnings: Depression, low self-esteem, self-hatred, questioning self worth, self sacrificial tendencies

Y/N = Your name | Y/E/C = Your eye colour | Y/H/C = Your hair colour

“What the hell were you thinking (Y/N)?!?” Dean’s voice echoed in the small motel room as he threw his duffle bag on one of the two twin beds before turning on his heel again to face the woman still standing in the doorway. Her jaw set and (Y/E/C) eyes blazing with a barely restrained fire as bright as her beautiful soul.

“I was thinking I saved your ass Winchester,” She huffed back, the sound of her voice still sending pleasurable shivers up and down Dean’s spine even as he was seething in protective rage.

It was just the two of them on this hunt, with Sam sitting it out to handle research of another hunter’s case back at the bunker. That alone had put Dean’s nerves on edge from the very start. The thought of just him and her, alone for days on end, was enough to set his pulse racing as he fought the feelings that threatened to slip past greedy lips if he let his guard down even a little bit. But he couldn’t…

She was just so goddamn perfect. And he… Well, fuck, he was Dean Winchester; broken beyond repair. (Y/N) deserved better than him. She deserved heaven itself.

Hell, she was heaven.

She was just so goddamn good and bright. Leaving him stealing glances at her as he feared he’d just burn up if he looked at her straight on. Fighting the need to shield his eyes and revelling in the beauty and warmth that surrounded her. Like the soft evening sun, settling against his skin and letting him soak in it, enjoying the moment. 

Just being around her made him feel like he wanted to be a better man. Made him feel like he was safe, that this fucked up world was worth saving. She was the light at the end of the tunnel. The first break of daylight after a rough night. She made it all feel like it was worth it. Like there was still some reason to keep fighting for the unfair world that kept kicking him when he was down, if only because it was the world she lived in. 

Or at least, that was what he normally felt. Right then and there; standing fuming and furious on the motel room carpet, all he felt was fear. 

Dean was afraid. Terrified for the foolishly brave woman who was glaring at him, framed by the dim evening light behind her back and the motel room door. Refusing to back down even though she’d put herself in harm's way again. Just like she always did. 

She was always so goddamn ready to sacrifice herself to save him… To save anyone really. Never understanding that if anything ever happened to her, there’d be no more him. If she got hurt, or… Fuck. Worse…

He’d lose the only good thing he had left in this godforsaken world; her smile.

“Wrong! You weren’t thinking! You could have gotten yourself killed. That fucking werewolf was coming…” Dean shot back as he tore his eyes off of her to stalk towards the middle of the motel room. The aching, searing need to keep her safe forced him to stay in constant motion as every single nerve in his body screamed at him to wrap her in his arms and never let her go.

“I knew what I was doing Dean. I’m not new to this. I can handle myself,” (Y/N) shot back, not letting Dean finish his sentence. Where his voice was loud and shaky, hers kept a dangerously low volume. An icy chill replaced the intense heat of the earlier fury as she finally stepped fully into the motel room and let the door swing shut with just a little bit more force than necessary.

“You say that, but all I saw out there was a fucking greenhorn. You know we don’t act before we think. Those kinda reckless actions get people killed in our business,” Dean shot back, turning back to face her once the outside world was fully shut out and he was alone with her again. Unable to stand not seeing her when the new breaks to his heart from the close call were still so damned fresh.

“You’re one to talk. You always throw yourself headfirst into a fight. I had to act. If I hadn’t then that werewolf would’ve launched itself on you instead. Luckily, I make a fairly good target,” She quipped back, stalking towards him, shoulders squared and eyes blazing.

“You’re not a target damn it!” Dean was yelling, he knew he was. Fuck, he hadn’t meant to raise his voice at all, yet that was all he seemed capable of doing. 

He’d told himself, on the whole deathly silent car ride back from the hunt to stay calm. To just talk to her; to make her understand how much she meant to him without letting the full extent of his feelings slip. But, he couldn’t help it. She was just so goddamn good, and yet so stupidly self-sacrificing. 

Just like him.

The explosive quality to his voice had her falter slightly. Teasing the smallest microscopic flinch from her as she took a step back from the pure protective need rolling off of him in waves. Yet, the slightly raised volume in his voice didn’t deter her for long.

As soon as she’d stepped back she was pushing forward again. Crowding him as she funnelled the unused adrenaline from the hunt into the current fight instead. 

“I kept the damned mutt from biting you didn’t I?” Her own voice rose until it bounced off the faded motel room wallpaper and ricocheted back at the two of them in the middle of the small, claustrophobic motel room. Each searing word heating up the air around him as Dean struggled to catch his breath.

“I can take care of myself Dean,” She continued, fire simmering into ice cold anger as she stepped even closer to him. Until she was nearly close enough for Dean to just reach out and…

No.

He had to keep her safe. And though, with the mix of protective anger, adrenaline and pure adoration that was flooding his veins, he was aching to kiss her, he couldn’t. The arms of Dean Winchester were not a safe place to be. Hell, she’d be safer far, far away from him. Though he doubted he was selfless enough to let go of her in that way, even as he was actively holding her at an arms’ length.

So, instead he kept his resolve strong and wet his lips as he funelled all his love for her into the desperate need to make her see she didn’t have to risk herself to save him. That, in doing so, she’d just end up hurting them both.

“Then fucking prove it!” His voice rose with hers, with words so very different from those he really wanted to say.

“I think I just did! I kept you safe didn’t I? I thought that’s what my role in all this was,” She shot back, not willing to budge and still somehow believing her nearly fatal attempt at shielding him was the right thing to do. Her words hit Dean hard, like a fucking battering ram to the solar plexus. Leaving him slightly winded as his next angry words came out a bit lower, though no softer in their delivery.

“Your role? You’re a hunter (Y/N). Not a freaking shield,” He growled, holding her bright eyes with his green ones and refusing to let her look away as it was now his turn to crowd her. Walking her backwards towards one of the faded paisley print walls until her back hit it with a soft thud. The sounds of her back against the wall lulling everything into a momentary heavy silence. Tense with fear and desperation and something more… 

Something fragile.

“Why not? That’s all I’m good for…” Her voice was barely even a low whisper when the words finally came. The hurt staining each soft syllable like a fucking bullet to the very core of him. 

She sounded so small, so tired. And all Dean wanted was to wrap her in his arms and brush the hurt away with calloused fingertips against her soft skin. Her quiet delivery stood in complete contrast to the earlier angry yells that had left her only seconds before, as her eyes moved from his to look down at the little space remaining between them.

The barely-there glance at the space made Dean painfully aware of how close she was. Fuck, his lips were barely inches from hers. But, as her words sank in, they just as quickly pulled him out of that train of thought. His eyes instead shooting up to try and catch hers again.

“What? Why would you…” His voice echoed her breathless whisper and came out soaked in the same pain as hers. Since Dean always hurt if she was hurting. After all, she had his heart, and whatever damage was done to hers was mirrored on his where he’d slipped it into her hand when she wasn’t looking.

“The world needs you, Dean. You and Sammy. It always had. All of this? It’s all about the two of you… It’s you people turn to, you people trust. Me… I’m just… I’m dead weight,” She sighed, the fight fully draining from her tense shoulders as she leaned fully against the paisley wallpaper and kept her eyes downcast.

“Why? (Y/N)… You know that’s not…” Dean’s words were sticking in his throat. Caught in the hurricane of hurt that wanted to leave him like a strangled sob as the reality of her thoughts sank in. 

She didn’t think she mattered. 

Even though she was everything to him.

“It is Dean. I’m not as strong as Sam and you. You’ve been hunting for years. I’m just holding you back. If I can help keep you safe so you can live to fight another day… That sounds like a good way to do my bit for a safer world,” She ended her words with a defeated shrug. Like her lot in life had already been predetermined for her. But no, Dean knew, without a doubt, that she was meant for so much more than that.

“No… God, no, sweetheart. You don’t get to say that. You matter,” He choked out. Unwilling to let her minimise her role in his life in that way. But she wasn’t listening; her eyes still downcast into the small space between them.

“Do I? Sometimes I feel like I could just… Disappear. And no one would even notice. There’s always other hunters, other friends… Other people who’d do more,”

“But there’s only one of you... (Y/N), you might not always see it, but you’re amazing. You matter to the people around you. You’re the bright spot in someone’s dreary day. Hell, You’re my bright spot,” Dean argued back, though his voice remained soft and soothing; a barely there whisper meant for her ears only and the vast universe of feelings trapped in the few inches of space between them.

“But…”

“No buts sweetheart. Let me say this,” It was Dean’s turn to cut her off now. Not wanting to hear her say another bad word about his world. Because, hell, she was his world.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met (Y/N). Your smile, your voice, your talents and your drive; they shine. Sometimes you leave me breathless. Hell, sometimes you’re so bright I have to fight the urge to shield my eyes in fear that I’ll just… Burn up from all this…” Dean swallowed hard as the word ‘love’ threatened to spill from his lips. It was basically a conditioned reflex by now; yet he still had to take a second to wet his lips and breathe before he found his voice again.

“It’s ok to feel down, it’s ok to struggle. We all do from time to time. But rely on us. Rely on me. Your heart is just so big; you just feel things a little deeper, a little harder. And damn it if that isn’t just the most beautiful thing ever. You love so deep… And the people who matter, they feel that; they know it, they love you for it. And I…” Dean stopped, drawing in a shaky breath as he broke down the walls around his own bruised and battered heart; offering it up in sacrifice to her. 

Even if it wouldn’t mean much.

Hell, if his soon to follow rejection and heartbreak could help prove that she was loved, then Dean would willingly offer it all up to her. Swallowing hard, he let his head fall slightly forward, bridging the gap between them until his forehead rested against her crown of (Y/H/C) hair.

“I love you (Y/N). I told myself I wouldn’t say it… I’m not good enough for someone as perfect as you. But I do love you. With every single part of my tattered and broken heart,” Dean’s voice was just the ghost of a whisper as he delivered them into the soft strands of hair framing her face and hiding her eyes from him. And, just as quickly as he’d dared to bridge that gap, he pulled back again. Afraid he’d said too much, been too forward, and bracing himself for the rejection that was sure to follow.

Yet, it wasn’t a hurt that left those beautiful lips like sweet nectar. No… As her big doe eyes, wet with unshed tears, finally lifted to meet his, Dean found salvation in them, not rejection.

“Me too… I love you too Dean,” Though Dean didn’t recognize the words at first; muffled as they were by the walls he was hastily trying to rebuild around his heart in hopes that he’d still be able to stay her friend; a role he treasured more than anything else on this earth.

 “I know you don’t feel the same and… Wait… You what?” Dean stumbled over his words as her response finally sank in. His voice caught in his throat as green eyes widened incredulously at the miracle in front of him.

Lifting his hand, Dean held his breath as he replaced the space between them with feather light touches. Fingers ghosting over her collarbone and her jaw, in the same way his eyes had done countless times. He needed to touch her; to ensure himself she was really there. That this wasn’t just some self-serving fantasy that would only aid in his heartbreak down the line. But (Y/N) was there…

She was there and she loved him.

“You love me,” He whispered, this time his words were not a question. As his palm cupped her warm cheek, he felt more than saw her tiny nod as his hand swallowed the barely-there movement. But it was enough. Hell, that tiny nod was enough to shift his whole world. Shaking it off of its axis as he felt at once both giddy and struck down by sudden vertigo.

No… This time his words were definitely not a question. They were a prayer, an awestruck gasp. He just needed to re-confirm her feelings for himself as he felt her below his fingertips.

 “I do,” (Y/N) said, her voice shaky as she finally dared to meet his eyes properly again. And as her smile slowly brightened even further, Dean leaned in and tasted the sunshine on her lips with a soft kiss shaped like the million little ways he loved her.

She was finally his – and Dean finally felt worthy.

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