𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧
summary eddie munson is super weird. he holds your hand too tight, he has a fascination with your neck, and he can’t give a hickey to save his life. good thing you’re super weird, too. [20k]
warnings two losers falling in love!! vampire!eddie munson, ditzy!reader (kind of), fem!reader, smut mdni (p in v, unprotected sex, oral fem receiving, general heavy petting and kissing, praise), fluff, hurt/comfort, angst (eddie struggling with guilt and grief). canon divergent (the events of volume 2 take place but there’s a mostly happy ending i.e. everyone good lives and everyone bad dies) TW eddie doesn't have suicidal thoughts, but he does think about it briefly. not with intent or anything like that though. requested here for my halloween party <3
(㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ)
Eddie Munson never wanted to be a vampire, and he wants that on the record.
It's a ridiculous existence. It's embarrassing. It's nothing like all the movies and books promised him.
He's looking at you, Bram Stoker.
In Eddie's mind, Stoker’s nothing less than a liar and a sycophant.
"Who's dick were you bouncing on, Stoker?" he demands to know, kicking fallen leaf mulch under his feet angrily. "Need'ta fucking impress some vampire lover with your over-exaggerated, over-powered, ridiculous descriptions? Great. Hope it was worth it. Meanwhile I'm here, self-esteem half the size of a grain of rice because I can't scale a building with my bare hands."
Eddie would know. He's tried.
He's not genuinely angry with Bram Stoker, but he'd rather take his frustrations out on a guy who's been dead for a hundred years than take them out on the demobats, because he doesn't want to even think about the demobats. They're all dead too. Not before they'd had (see: devoured) their pound of flesh and changed his life for the worse, though.
He shakes his head to drive out the memory like water in his ears. It's easier to pretend none of that shit in the upside down ever happened. (Impossible to pretend. He begs himself to try anyway.)
He’s pissed because science fiction has promised him a lot of things and reality has delivered on none of them. No super strength, no impermeable skin. He is faster, but that's more a reflexive thing than anything else. And being faster doesn't make running fun. That’s impossible.
Sunlight breaks through the treeline and his skin crawls. Science fiction didn't get that right, either. The sun doesn't hurt. It's just really, really annoying.
He covers his eyes, winces at his itchy hand, pulls his sleeve over his fingers and covers his eyes again. "This blows," he says, and means it.
In Dracula, the sun nulls Dracula’s supernatural abilities. Eddie doesn’t have any abilities worth nulling, unless you count echolocation.
He doesn’t.
He walks another five minutes up the road toward Forest Hills when he realises you're behind him. His senses are enhanced now as a bat’s might be, hearing fine-tuned and dialled up every second of the day — which makes living in a trailer park where everyone thinks he's a murderer an acute misery — but he's as prone to distraction as anyone else. Especially when he gets stuck in a memory.
Eddie throws his gaze over his shoulder and finds you thirty or forty feet away, talking to yourself under your breath. He knows you more for your sounds than your appearance. To be able to put a face to your mindless babbling is a mystery solved. Of course you look like that. A skirt made of soft looking fabric bounces over two cute thighs, a pretty lacy corset type of thing that isn't too tight outfits your top half. You look more like a vampire than he does.
"Hi, Eddie," you call.
His eyes widen, a deer-in-the-headlights kind of surprise. If you notice how he's frozen you don't show it, continuing to push your bike toward him. The tick of the wheels grows louder as you get closer, two hands on the handlebars with wrists draped in bracelets, both silver and fabric.
Besides your jewellery, your arms are bare. You must be freezing.
"Hey," he says.
He doesn't know your name. He doesn't know how you know his, and he’s too awkward to ask.
Your sounds peak as you close the gap. The wet scrape of your dirty black canvas shoes over shining asphalt, the soft puff of your breath, the clinking sounds of whatever trinkets you have in your bag. If he focuses, he can make out the tiniest pinches of fabric. Your short sleeves rubbing against your arms, your bra straps stretching over your shoulders.
Eddie takes a deep breath and tries to diminish his senses.
"Where's your van?" you ask curiously.
"Piece of shit kicked it in the middle of town. Just my luck."
You pause at his side, looking him up and down obviously but without the judgement or irreverent disgust he's come to expect from near about everybody in Hawkins.
"That's not good," you say succinctly.
It's such a genuine response that Eddie can't find it in himself to be sarcastic.
"God awful," he agrees sullenly.
You nod and start to walk again. Eddie falls naturally into step beside you, matching your pace without thinking.
"You should get a bike."
He laughs. Coughs to cover it up. "Yeah?"
"They're way more reliable than a car, and it doesn't hurt the zone."
Eddie squints. "The o-zone?"
"Is there another one?"
You're still so serious that he spares you the ridicule he might dole out to anyone else. If Dustin had said something like that he would've ripped the kid a new one, but you're rather sweet in an odd way. You have a soft manner of talking — each word sounds like you've thought its pronunciation through meticulously beforehand.
He ignores your question and points at your bike, ring catching the sun. "Why aren't you riding it?"
"My chain slipped."
"So much for reliable."
That makes you smile. Eddie feels it like a punch, a flat palm slapped into his chest.
"You can't put the chain on yourself?"
A brisk breeze whips your hair, your earrings. The left kisses your cheek, a silver heart-shaped hoop with pink beads that click together. You lean into it, face tilted to one side as a perplexed smile plays on your sticky lips. "You can do that?"
"Sure, you pull it back around the gear. It's easy." He hesitates for a moment, and then feels guilty about hesitating. "I'll do it for you, if you want."
"The guy in no. 62 has been charging me ten dollars." You don't sound as angry as you should, in Eddie's opinion.
"I'll do it for nothing."
You beam at him. His chest feels like a bruise.
Pretty girls don't like Eddie. Not before Chrissy, not after. He's trying to work out your angle, what it is that you want.
Or maybe you don't know.
As soon as you find out who he is, you'll turn your pretty nose up at him and walk the other way. He shouldn't smile at you, he definitely shouldn't fix your bike.
He can't help it. He's so starved for positive attention that he follows you all the way through the park, westside to east.
He checks the driveway of his own home and smiles mildly when he spots Wayne's new car. It's new in the sense that it's different. It's actually way older than the one he'd had before, the one he'd pawned to pay for Eddie's — well, Eddie's everything. His check-ups, his court dates, his goddamn bail. In the same way that this trailer isn't the trailer, but an older, smaller one as far away from their first as possible.
Kid, if I had the money…
Wayne hadn't needed to finish. If he had the money, they'd leave. Leave Hawkins, leave Indiana. Settle down in some other mediocre Midwestern state with all the same creature comforts and none of the "You were acquitted but literally none of us believe you didn't kill someone," motif.
All they have now is debt, each other, and the Great Munson mug collection.
Eddie keeps his head down as they pass the old trailer. Nobody lives inside now. Only termites.
He can taste blood by the time they reach your home. Far from the metallicity of his human blood, Eddie's blood now harbours a bitter taste. Not quite like coffee but with that same overwhelming earthiness. He pulls his teeth from the bitten flesh of his bottom lip and quickly raises a hand to his teeth, alarmed.
No knife-like points. Normal teeth.
"Are you thirsty?" you ask him.
Eddie flinches and drops his hand. You've parked your bike against the wooden lifts of your porch and are halfway up the steps to your front door, hand clasped loosely on the railing.
His heart fucking pounds.
"I have grape juice?"
"Right," he says hurriedly, "right. Yeah, that would be awesome."
Duh, you meant juice.
You send him another endearing smile and pop up the last of your steps and into the front door. It's not locked. He doesn't follow, thinking you must live with somebody (who's gonna know exactly who he is and tell him to get lost).
He turns his attention to your bike instead. It's easy enough to fix. He rolls the bike so its handlebars are resting against your concrete driveway and covers the top bar of the metal body with his sneaker to stop it from toppling. He rolls up his sleeves and bares his arms, but pulls them back down immediately when he remembers the white-purple whorls of scar tissue lurking underneath.
"Fuck," he mutters. Everything is a reminder, all of the time. He can't escape what happened.
It's everywhere.
He's getting his fingers under the chain when you reappear. You've layered up, bracelets and naked arms hidden by a black hoodie.
The wind blows and your skirt shifts. From his position he can see a ladder hiding in your tights where your inner thighs are pressed together. He whips his gaze up like a high-school perv caught sneaking peeks in the girls locker room and notices the stitching on your chest for the first time.
"You like Dio?" he asks excitedly.
"Who?"
He wilts. "Uh, your hoodie. Dio."
"I got it for three dollars in the bargain bins," you supply helpfully, all pep as you climb down the stairs and offer him a glass cup adorned in dainty enamel flowers. "Is Dio good?"
He waves his hand at the glass apologetically. "Two seconds…" Lifting the chain with the second hand, Eddie tugs and then feeds until the links are lined up with the bumps on the big chainring. The skin on his fingertips get pinched and his eyebrows pull together in pain, but it's a mild irritant at worst and after a moment the chain is back in place.
He pulls his hand away and wipes dark grease down the front of his jacket. "I think I did it."
You're glowing, earrings like a metronome as you ask, "That fast? You're awesome."
He turns the pedal and your back wheel spins in time with his heart. You're awesome. When was the last time somebody who wasn't Wayne said anything like that?
Although Dustin had told him he thought Eddie was a much cooler, more fucked up version of the guy from Van Halen the other day.
You're just saying that 'cos we're both called Eddie, Eddie had said morosely.
Learn to take a compliment, dude.
When they aren't pity compliments, he might.
Eddie lifts your bike back onto the wheels to show you that it's working perfectly. You giggle your evident pleasure. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" you say, super sweet even as grape juice sloshes over the rims of your flowered glasses and drips down your fingers.
"Here, let me," he says, taking the glasses from your purple-stained hands.
You kiss your hands clean which is a thing, a lot to watch. Eddie admits to himself that he thinks you're really pretty, recognises that that is a bad thing to think considering the likely very short life span of your acquaintance. God knows you won't be saying anything as friendly when you find out who he is.
"You're so nice," you say. It feels like you're talking more to yourself than him. "Thank you. It's slipped off three times this month, and ten dollars is ten dollars. Wait, do you want ten dollars?"
"My services were administered charitably.”
Your smile grows. You accept your glass and take a small sip, eyes lit up as Eddie steers your bike one-handed to rest against the porch.
"Do you wanna come inside? I don't have any of the Dio, but I have Blondie."
He holds in a throwaway comment about real rock and roll, astounded that you’d ask him. "Your folks aren't home?"
"I'm twenty-two."
Eddie squints at you. "Seriously?"
"You didn't think so?"
He shrugs. It's not that you don't look twenty two. Or even that you don't act twenty two. But it's been a long time since he met somebody living alone in the park. Forest Hills is where poverty comes to settle.
"A boyfriend?"
"Just me and mister Porterson."
"That your grandpa?"
"That's my pet fish."
He smiles. It's his first real, authentic smile in days. He's genuinely elated by your offer and your attitude, but he doesn't know how to handle it, struck with a sudden nightmare of you, afterward, telling somebody you'd invited him in and he'd tried to hurt you. It isn't fair of him to assume you'd do anything like that. You've been nothing but sweet and sincere this whole time.
Eddie hasn't let his guard down in a long time.
You're giving him this wide-eyed, imploring look that promptly suffocates any fear.
And in a week, when she finds out who you are and feels betrayed, feels tricked? What then, Munson?
"You know what happened?" he asks.
"What happened?"
"Two years ago. Chrissy… Chrissy Cunningham?"
Don't say her fucking name.
Your expression clears as clarity blooms. You take a step. He needs a second to realise you've come forward rather than away, fingers twitching toward his hand.
"I know about it. I'm sorry that happened to you."
He stares.
This is a trick. Two years and he can count the amount of people who believe him on his two hands, and only because they'd all gone through it with him. Sometimes there are outliers, logical people who seem to realise Eddie couldn't have killed all those people, couldn't have been in all those different places without leaving any evidence behind. And sometimes there are people who agree he didn't kill Chrissy, but he's a coward for leaving her to die. (She’d already been dead.)
Eddie doesn't know what he thinks. Wayne sets the record straight every now and then with a clap on the shoulder. You did what every parent wants their kid to do. You lived. I can't ask for more than that.
"You don't believe it?"
"That you hurt her?" You hold his gaze, face practically impassive. "No, I don't believe it."
He pulls in a breath that fills every inch of his chest. "I could learn to like Blondie," he says.
—
You're standing in the driveway of Eddie's trailer with a heavy bag over your shoulder, face to face with a man who kind of looks like him but not really. You assume it's his uncle because who else could he be? If you hadn't seen him here you'd never guess.
"Eddie's mom must've had strong genes," you say. You bring your shoulder up toward your cheek thoughtfully. "He didn't get any of your face. Was she pretty? Eddie's really pretty."
"She was," he says, peering down his nose at you.
"I got sandwiches. Do you want one?"
"What kind?"
"I have ham and cheese, or ham and lettuce and tomato, or I have pumpernickel cookies. Is Eddie a vegetarian?"
"Why?"
"'Cause I only brought one cheese and cucumber, and I have dibs."
He climbs down the last couple of steps and is still taller but definitely less imposing, face covered in scratchy salt and pepper stubble and crows feet deeply embedded into the corners of his eyes. He looks like a man who has been tired for a very long time. You make a mental note to bring him some lavender for his pillow on your next visit.
"You're Eddie's new friend?"
You nod your head briskly. "Yes, sir. I'm Y/N."
He opens his box of camels like a pro, bottom pressed to his chest. He tucks a cigarette between his lips and pulls his lighter out. He doesn't light it.
"It's nice to meet you," he says eventually, voice warming.
You search through the mess of your skirt for the zipper on your bag and peel it open, pulling out your tupperware of cookies and cracking them open to release the fragrant smell of cinnamon and almonds. It's a heady scent, fitting for the holiday season approaching.
You offer Eddie’s uncle a cookie.
"Thought pumpernickel was bread," he says gruffly, taking one.
"It is, but there's this little town in France that makes these every year at Christmas and they call them pumpernickel biscuits," — he takes a bite and winces at the hard snap — "you're s'posed to dip them in hot chocolate."
"You don't say."
You nod happily and he moves aside to let you pass.
"Thanks, kid."
You turn back to him with your fingers curled around the door handle. "Of course! It's really nice to meet you, Mr. Munson, sir."
"Wayne is fine."
You laugh and repeat his name in a similarly rough voice, letting yourself in as Eddie had told you to do. You find him immediately in a man-made corner of the living room, pale and in his pyjamas. The trailer is open planned, a living room they’ve divided by propping a couch against the kitchen counter, a slim hallway leading to a cramped bathroom and the single bedroom. It's exactly like in your home.
You're somewhat surprised to see him in pyjamas. Eddie doesn't wear comfy looking clothes out of the house — you've only ever seen him in jeans and jackets like a real rockstar.
"Are you ready?" you ask.
You've invited him to come and search for bugs with you. Catching any kind of bug, whether beetle or butterfly or spider, is really scary, but you need to be able to catch them to draw them.
You'd expressed this to him over the phone and he'd said, "I can come and help. I have good reflexes."
He rubs his hands over his knees. There's a blanket pooled around his feet, a quilt he must sleep with, and the room is decorated with not a whole lot of stuff but enough to make you take a step back.
"Is this your room?" you ask, enchanted.
"Kind of." He pulls his hair from behind his ear, obscuring a pale cheek. "I don't think I can come with you today, I'm sorry. I meant to call you."
You toy with a dark thigh high sock as you ease out of your shoes, height drastically decreasing. "That's okay, we can stay here. I brought you a sandwich. I brought you two sandwiches," you correct.
He nods. Rather sadly, in your opinion. "Alright. Thanks."
You step over a tented paperback and hand off the cookies before sitting down beside him on the couch he's occupying. It's smaller than the one against the wall and round like a clam, lots of room for your legs to stretch out.
"I feel like a pearl," you say.
You and Eddie have been friends for a little while now. Long enough for you to realise he's either depressed or mentally unwell in some way. You hardly mind keeping him company on his bad days if he needs somebody, so drawing bugs will have to wait.
His hair is limp, not totally greasy but not super clean either. His face looks fresh enough, though the bags under his eyes make you frown.
You pull your purse into your lap, thighs covered by the thin layers of your midi skirt. "I have just the thing for you," you murmur.
"Yeah? Bring me another bracelet?"
You like that he sounds eager. Making his bracelet had been a challenge, lots of knotting and double knotting, three restarts and one small under the breath tantrum. It's not anything special, black and white hearts seven strands wide, but he'd been very appreciative.
"No, but I can make you another one if you want. I mastered the inverse chevron last night."
He hums. You pull a saran wrapped sandwich from the depths of your crowded bag, glad to see it's mostly intact. When you open it up you find that it's the ham and lettuce and tomato one, so you drop it into his lap haphazardly and move onto the next.
"Aha! Here," you pull a cucumber from your sandwich. "For you."
He takes it between two tentative fingers. "Thank you?"
"For your eyes."
"There's cheese on it."
"I'll still work," you assure him.
"M'not putting cheese on my eyes."
You laugh because he probably shouldn't put cheese on his eyes, cucumber adjacent or otherwise. "Okay, don't. I'll make you a hot towel."
He drops his hand on your arm as you go to stand. You like how he touches you, soft but not scared. "You just got here. Stay here." He pats you nicely. "Tell me about work last night."
You settle heavily into the seat beside him, your thigh to his thigh, your hip squished against his hip, doughy flesh separated by nothing more than a strappy tank top and a cotton long-sleeve t-shirt. His heat quickly becomes yours, a sinking transference of warmth.
"Well," you begin, cheek turning into the couch to face him. "It was mostly okay. I dropped another plate, but this time it didn't have a stack of waffles on it."
He smiles ruefully and sinks back as you had. Neither of you eat your sandwiches. "Progress. Taking it out of your pay?"
"Yes, definitely."
"Discrimination."
"That's what I said! I said, Sarah, I was born with butterfingers and you know that."
"She didn't budge?"
"Dishwashing all week next week. Whatever, though, 'cause it's Saturday."
He laughs and shakes his head, his gaze dropping to your neck. He does that sometimes. You can't blame him; you wear a varying assortment of necklaces because you think they're pretty, and you're glad he likes them too.
"See my new one?"
"What?"
"New necklace." You look down at your chest and pull the newest addition from between the cups of your bra. "It's real silver."
"It's nice."
"It's surprisingly heavy. Wanna feel?"
"That's okay," he says, slightly strained.
Right, you think. I'm talking a lot.
You press your lips together in a mild pout and look at him through appreciative eyes. He's a very pretty boy, all soft and pale and sweet dark curls.
"Do you want me to put your hair up?"
His lips part before he talks. "I don't know if you should."
"Sure I should. It's getting in your eyes, right?" You take his hand where it's laid unsuspectingly in his lap and slip the hair tie from around his wrist, his fingertips tickling the inside of your palm. "Sit forward, Eddie."
He takes a deep breath, holds it, and sits up. You twist and then realise you need some more height, pushing a leg under yourself to kneel next to his lap.
You weave our fingers softly into the hair at the front of his face and rake away in lieu of a brush. After it's mostly tamed you pull it all into one hand and wrap the tie at the base of his head. You hum to yourself as you go, pleased when his lovely curls behave.
"Voilà," you announce, moving back on your haunches.
He breathes out. "Thank you."
You reach for a curl you'd missed at the very front and encourage it behind his ear. He has subtle indents in his cheeks today like he's in need of a good meal, and his skin is colder than it should be when you flatten your palm.
"You need something to eat," you fret. Your fingertips stroke under his eye, your thumb his smile lines.
He moves away slowly.
You pull your hand back into your lap. "Maybe we can go out and get something, if you don't like the sandwich?"
"What?" he asks, pale lips taut as he simpers at you. "Are you kidding? This is about to fix everything that's wrong with me."
His enthusiasm emboldens you. "It so will! There's ham and cheese too, if you prefer that one."
"Get it! I'm gonna eat both of them." S
Eddie eats both of his sandwiches and you eat your own, the two of you with your heads dropped back against the couch as you watch TV. There's a guy you've never seen before running around the streets of Chicago city centre looking for people to be in his play. Eddie's seen it before. He repeats dialogue in time with the characters, performing each line. Impressive, what with how tired he looks.
"What did he just say?" you ask, mouth full of cucumber.
"He said he's gonna throw himself off a bridge," Eddie informs. "Poor guy. I know the feeling."
You swallow harshly.
"Seriously?"
Your sad tone surprises him.
"I- No, I'm kidding," he says, scratching the base of his throat, friendship bracelet his only adornment.
His nervous itching makes you even more worried.
"If you did wanna do that, you can talk to me-"
He baulks, tongue poking out past his lips as he licks the corner of his mouth. "Thanks, sweetheart," he says, pet name like a kiss. It sounds silly but it really feels like one, right in the centre of your chest. "But I'm fine. Promise. It was a bad joke."
"Okay," you say, letting your suspicion shine through. You hold his eyes.
You haven't known Eddie long. It feels like you met yesterday, though really it's been two or three weeks. You fit together in a way you hadn't expected and adore more than you can articulate, two funny puzzle pieces.
"Well, I just wanted you to know. I like being your friend, I don't want you to disappear."
He laughs and licks his lips, a rough, chesty sound. "I don't want you to disappear either."
Tires crunch outside, a shushing sound and then the sharp shriek of a jeep being put into park. Eddie perks up considerably, his shoulders straightening.
"Hey, Chief," Wayne calls.
Trailer walls. Basically made of cardboard.
"Hey, Wayne. Where's the kid?"
You can't hear what Wayne says after that, words stolen by the TV.
"Is that Chief Hopper?" you ask, trying to catch a glimpse of him through the mostly shuttered blinds.
"Yeah, he- He's friends with Wayne."
"Why's he wanna know where you are?"
"'Cause I got into so much trouble."
You bite your tongue. His tone is hard, not stern but almost, and you realise you've overstepped as you usually do. You want to apologise but you don't want to pick the wound, eager to gloss over and make him smile again.
"It's pretty cool, isn't it?" you ask him.
"What?"
You spread your legs wider to slide onto your thighs and make him the taller one again, legs bent in a 'W' shape. "Coming back from the dead! First Will Byers, then Hopper."
Something surfaces in his expression. An irony.
"The undead," you croon, aiming for a smile, a laugh.
He cracks. "The undead," he agrees, smiling in bemusement. His eyes are a funny shade of brown.
—
Eddie shoo’s you home early that night but tries to do it kindly. He feigns exhaustion, a facade that's difficult to uphold when his entire body is thrumming with want. If there's one thing Eddie hates about being a vampire (there are literally hundreds of things he hates, but this one's special) it's that he wants to hurt the people he likes a thousand times more than the people he doesn't.
He can't explain it. Your blood is more appealing than any lonesome stranger's. Your pulse is practically music to his ears when you sit beside him. He'd kill himself before he ever hurt you, though. Or that's what he likes to think. Whether he has that amount of control is debatable.
No. He would kill himself before he hurt you, or Wayne, or any of his friends.
Steve can see the way that he's feeling on his face.
Hopper's delivery set to one side, a tall glass with blood congealed in a sticky ring at the bottom, Eddie curls under his huge quilt and tries not to pass out. Blood sate feels the same as a thanksgiving food coma. It's awesome.
He hates how good it feels.
"Stop feeling guilty," Steve says.
"He doesn't look guilty to me," Dustin says beside him, taller than the last time Eddie had seen him but still miles off of Steve's tall stature. He's changed his hat again, this one a garish green. It's not a good look.
"He looks like he's napping," Robin says, delighted.
"Can you guys go home?" Eddie asks.
"Shithead."
"What Steve means to say," Robin corrects, grinning her huge, catching smile, "is that no, we aren't going home. We brought games."
"I don't wanna play games." He does. Eddie needs the distraction, because eventually the blood sate will fade and all that will remain will be self-revulsion and a cruel desire to do something awful.
"I do not care even slightly," Steve says, deadpan, as he sits right there next to Eddie where you'd been sitting before. Steve's nowhere near as soft and he doesn't smell as nice, but Eddie's honestly glad someone is willing to sit next to him at all.
"Ouch, what the fuck?"
Dustin looks up from where he's sat himself on the floor. Robin giggles in her seat on the coffee table.
"Munson, are you fucking shedding? I just got stabbed."
"They don't work like that. They retract."
Eddie feels at his broken gums with his tongue. There's a clean incision where his fangs come out and then snap back inside after a time. They're remarkably thin, fitting in front of his natural incisors neatly.
Steve grumbles, hips lifted and hand searching under his butt for whatever it is that jabbed him. He retrieves exactly what Eddie had been expecting but hadn't had the forethought to prepare a lie about with a shocked gasp.
"Is this an earring? You don't have your ears pierced."
He swallows, knowing it's a very guilty gesture, and meets Steve's eyes straight on.
Funny how Steve's hair speaks as much as his expression, bobbing as he nods his head to emphasise each word, "Munson, do you have a girlfriend?"
Silence.
"...Not really."
"Holy shit," Dustin says, sounding extremely pleased. "No way."
Robin tucks her short hair behind her ears, hands paused in disbelief at her neck. "Actually?"
"I have a friend," Eddie admits.
"Thank god," Steve says, dropping your heart earring onto Eddie's thigh. The silver feels extremely hot over his pyjamas, like it's been held in the centre of a blistering hearth.
"I really thought Steve was gonna have to take one for the team and give you a pity handie," Robin says agreeably, scratchy voice coloured by genuine awe.
Eddie groans, "Harrington, get this shit off of me. You know I can't touch that."
"I forgot," Steve lies. "Can you wait? My hands are busy."
—
He has Steve put your earring between two pieces of kitchen towel and holds onto it. He doesn't see you for a week, and he keeps your damn earring in his pocket that entire time worried it's gonna slip out and brand him at any second.
Finally, you call him. He pretends he wasn't waiting.
"Hello," you say, like you're announcing something.
"Hey. How are you?"
"Eddie, I need your help. Badly."
He flinches up where he'd been leaning casually, hard enough to make Wayne jump. Eddie smiles at him placatingly and mouths a poor sorry, turning away to pretend there's a semblance of privacy to be found in such close quarters.
"Are you okay?"
"I gotta find a rainbow leaf beetle. Do you have a torch?"
"...What?"
"They only come out at night, so I'm gonna go look but I don't have a torch that works."
He relaxes, the lilting cadence of your voice enough to make his whole night. You sound so pretty even through the phone. He suspects you could hold any pitch, deep or high, and you'd still sound nice.
It's all in the way you — he says this with love — perform the words. You speak like each word you're saying has equal importance, and it's calming.
Even when you say stuff that's nonsense to him.
Right now, you don't sound upset or even worried about not having a torch, simply curious to know if he has one. If he focuses hard (and he's been trying not to, as you deserve your privacy) he can hear you all the way across the park, shifting from foot to foot in your bedroom, carpet crushed under your heels.
The action makes him think this might be more urgent to you than you'd first admitted.
"I have a torch." He also has amazing night vision. Like, impeccable. "Can I come help?"
"You want to?"
"I'd love to. Are you going out tonight?" He leans back to glance out the window. "The rain is finally stopping."
"Yeah, tonight! Is that okay for you? We could go tomorrow if you can't."
You're willing to change your plans now that he's asked to go with you. It's a gesture as lovely as you are. Eddie doesn't think you'd ever think it of yourself; your kindness is so intrinsic you don't notice it, like the fine stitching of a leather bound book. Integral and widely unappreciated.
"That's perfect."
Wayne raises an eyebrow when Eddie relays the conversation. "You're going out in the middle of the night with this girl to… look for bugs."
Eddie crosses his arms over his chest. "I swear."
"Be honest with me, kid."
"I am!"
Wayne swirls his coke can around in his hand as he thinks, a reluctance evident in his scowl. Eddie knows he's way too old for a guardian's oversight like this but he lets Wayne have a say because Wayne loves him, and Eddie doesn't ever want to put his old man through the turmoil he went through when he ran away. If that means a curfew in his twenties, Eddie's okay with that.
"If you're going to have sex with this girl, I'd prefer you did it here. You have to treat women with respect."
Eddie shivers, full body. "Wayne," he groans, covering his face. He can feel his cheeks pink under his palms, that's how quickly his embarrassment rises.
"I know you're more responsible these days, and you're a grown up. If you want a girlfriend and you want to do adult things with her-"
"Jesus Christ."
"- then that's alright. You don't have to fool around outside."
He drags his hands down on his face, pained. "It's not like that. You met her, you know she's…"
"Strange?"
"Alternative."
"No, you're alternative. She's cooky."
"Don't," he says. He knows his uncle isn't actually being cruel, so he lets it lie and fights for his own cause. "We aren't messing around. She genuinely wants me to go find these bugs with her. And…" He hates himself. "She has her own place, you know? If we were going to-"
Wayne seems stricken by the same mortified embarrassment as Eddie, raising a calloused hand in surrender. "Spare me."
"Thank you," Eddie says, spinning on his heel to hide in the bathroom for a while. It's only when he's sitting on the closed toilet does he realise Wayne hadn't mentioned his more dangerous ailment. For a time, he'd been a normal (debatable) person having a normal (horrifying) conversation with his dad. Not a vampire. Not somebody who ruins everything he touches.
—
"It's so quiet," you whisper.
For you, Eddie thinks.
You're in the forest surrounding the aptly named Forest Hills trailer park, wielding your borrowed torch carefully into the dark. Eddie's following in your footsteps, trying not to smell everything that's on you today and failing.
You smell like a person as everybody does. Over that is your soap, a faint hint of milk and honey that sticks to your skin even after you've washed it away. Over that is your deodorant, 'unscented', and over that is your perfume, which he likes most. It's a mix of smells, some Eddie doesn't know and some he does. There's lavender, though that might be down to the bunch you'd brought for his uncle wrapped in newspaper, and there's something fruity he can't quite put his finger on, all of it wrapped up in a cloying pairing of vanilla and coconut.
"Eddie?"
"What?"
"Are you okay? You're almost as quiet as the trees."
If only you knew the trees aren't quiet.
"I'm alright," he says quickly, catching up to you where you stand a few feet ahead. "What are we looking for?"
Best change the subject. How to explain he'd been smelling the notes of your perfume?
"They rest on tree trunks. You have to be careful, any sudden sound or light will scare them away. But if you flash the torch on them, they shine like oil stains."
He loves when you talk. "Where'd they come from?"
"Place called Snowdon. They're so rare, they think there's only about a thousand alive there."
"Well, how did they get here?"
You laugh under your breath, so quiet he would've missed it if he wasn't enhanced. "I don't know. How do beetles get to different places?"
"They fly?"
A twig crunches under your shoe.
Eddie tips his head to the side, thinking. "If there's only a thousand, how-" He stops, your circle of torch light growing further and further away. "Are you sure that they live here?"
"No, but if they do we'll be the first to find them."
"So they've never found any out here? In- In the midwest?"
"Not yet. Where'd you go?"
He shakes his head in an affectionate disbelief. "Right behind you."
You search in silence for a while. Eddie wishes he could say he was mad, or even mildly annoyed, wishes he had even the slightest regard for his own time, but really he thinks any time with you is time well spent. Especially if it's helping you do something you want to do. Whether you find your rainbow leaf beetle or not, he feels better knowing he's out here with you to keep you safe and in company.
Conversation is sparing. He doesn't mind. Your footsteps fill the sound and he finds even that stupid detail charming, the crunch, the pick up. His own are silent, a rare advantage to his terrible affliction.
"Any other beetles you want me to keep an eye out for?" he whispers.
"I'm not sure…" You turn to face him, torch pointed at your shoes. Rubber toes touched together, you lean in until you're all he can smell. Perfume. Blood. "If you see any cool spiders, too."
"You have the mason jar?"
"You know I do."
More than you realise, he thinks. The glass clicks in your bag.
There's enough light reflected to see the most minute details of your face. Your nose, the circle of your irises but not their colour. He suspects Eddie from early '86 wouldn't have been able to see hide nor hair, and it wouldn't shock him if you were technically blind right now.
"Thanks for coming out with me. I was gonna ask you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, but I didn't want to come on too strong." He can sense your smile even though he can't see it. It's in the way your breathing deepens. "I know I can be a lot to deal with."
"Who told you that?"
"What?"
Eddie doubles down.. "Who told you that?" he sounds heartbroken.
He kind of is. Yeah, you're weird — Who cares? Who isn't? — but you're not a lot to deal with. He doesn't 'deal' with you.
"Everybody tells me that. All the time."
"Everybody's stupid." To say it so loudly, scathingly, is sweet. It's therapeutic. "They are. This whole town is stupid."
Your fingertips touch his thigh. He's willing you to turn the torch up and see his face, because he has a lot of feelings on display that he isn't brave enough to say out loud.
"You never make me feel stupid," you say softly.
"You're not."
You giggle breathily at his vehemence, fingertips pressing in with a touch more pressure before you pull away and shine the torch deep into the trees.
"This whole town is stupid," you mumble. "But not you."
He thinks of his friends who are definitely stupid, but he loves anyways. He's about to add them to the not-stupid (subjectively) list when he remembers Steve's discovery: your earring burning a hole in his pocket. He'd been carrying it for long enough now to forget all about it.
"Hey, I have something for you."
"You do?"
"Don't get too excited. It's not a gift."
He digs in his pocket for the tissue paper wrapping and hisses in shock as the silver plating of your hoop graces his index finger. You shine the torch at him. His eyes ache like he's been stabbed and he slams them closed, hand pulled to his chest.
How embarrassing.
"Eddie, what happened?" you question loudly.
He winces at the sudden overstimulation. Slowly, he blinks, and finds you staring at him in a worry that softens every feature, even your nose. He doesn't know the logistics.
"It's okay. Stabbed a paper cut on the back. Your earring's in my pocket, the heart?"
"The hoop? I thought I lost it." Your worry turns to confusion and then melds into joy. You step forward and fish in his jacket pocket for your earring.
"Steve found it."
"'The hair'?"
"Yeah, the hair."
You both laugh and yours heightens when you find the earring, pulling it out like a knife to be brandished. "Yes."
"I meant to tell you a dozen times that I had it."
"You're the best."
There's a crunch of wood somewhere to the left like something heavy falling over.
The forest sprawls in every direction and the trees tower, their presence looming as skyscrapers. The wind ruffles the topmost branches and their trunks groan with pressure. It's enough to freak Eddie out super sense or not, feeling suddenly like he couldn't protect you. He could hear the individual droplets of drool dripping from a lynx's bloody maw, and he can sense each twig underfoot before he takes his next step, but none of that is going to keep you safe in the face of real danger.
"Maybe we should head back," he says tentatively.
"Okay. Do you want to come over?"
His breath catches. "You want me to?"
"Yeah, we can watch movies, I have leftover pasta."
That sounds more like what he should've been thinking. "I don't wanna keep you up."
"What kind of pasta?" he asks.
The torch flickers. "With the tiny tomatoes. You'll like it, super creamy."
"How do you know?"
"You like Alfredo," you say astutely, hitting the torch into the palm of your hand. It flashes weakly, the shadow of the trees flickering and so dark they're violet.
"Try tightening the handle."
You turn the barrel of the torch and the light switches off completely. You try to undo what you've done to no success, the sound of plastic rubbing plastic almost as loud as your heartbeat. Your pulse falters and then grows to racing when the light fails to come back on.
"Eddie," you say, sounding unsure. It's a new sound on you. "I don't know where we are. How are we gonna get home?"
Your admission is like a dousing of ice water over his head. "You don't know what direction we came from?"
"No, do you?"
Eddie wouldn't know if he couldn't hear the sound of the electricity pylon buzzing somewhere to the right. But how can he explain that? "Uh, we were turned around."
You creep to his side and grab his arm with both hands. "Are you sure?"
"Hey," he says gently. "Hey, it's okay. I know where we are. We'll be fine."
"Are you sure?" you ask again.
"I'm positive."
You take a deep breath that doesn't erase your shakiness, a failed attempt at self-soothing. "I really don't know where we are."
"You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"
"Not really… I don't wanna get lost out here."
"You won't. I know how to get back. C'mon," he prompts, pulling his arm to encourage you forward.
You let go of him and navigate a few steps by yourself. He weaves through the trees, waiting for your heartbeat to slow.
It doesn't. He opens his mouth to reassure you again when you gasp, kicking your foot against a root and tripping. You barely fall, catching yourself on the trunk of a tree, and Eddie remembers himself. You can't see the trees. That's why you're worried. You can't see anything.
Then the smell of blood hits him like a freight train.
—
Your hand stings where you caught yourself, palm scraped down against harsh bark.
"Shit," you mumble.
You're panicking badly, and you're confused as to why Eddie isn't. Not only was it fucking stupid of you to come out here with only one torch, it was stupid of you to assume you'd remember what way was home. It was stupid of you to come here tonight for that stupid beetle, and stupid of you to drag Eddie along. You're an idiot, and now you're bleeding.
Your eyes sting with tears, pain like a popped seal. I'm so stupid.
"Hey," Eddie says, his tone silky soft, "you're okay. Let me help you up."
You hold your hands out.
"Eddie, this is weird." Hopefully he understands that weird means scary.
He takes your hands, fingers closing slowly over your bloody palm. His breath is loud as he pulls you up toward him like he's panicked but his grip stays kind, and you abandon the notion when he rubs over your knuckles with his thumb. "It's alright."
He doesn't sound the same.
"Eddie, we can't see."
"We'll go slowly, okay? I'll put my hand out and we'll walk around anything that gets in the way."
"Yeah," you say hurriedly, heart bump-bump-bumping against your ribcage.
He keeps one hand, the injured one, and starts to drag you slowly through the trees. His grip tightens as you go until it starts to ache, until it feels like it might bruise.
"Ouch, Eds. You're hurting me," you say, going for a lightly teasing tone and missing the mark.
Instantly, he eases off. "Sorry, sweetheart. You hold onto me, alright?"
You do as he'd asked, hand clinging to him as he leads. He doesn't squeeze you again, walking slowly as he'd promised, and the closer you get to the edge of the forest the clearer it becomes. Light pollution from the centre of town leaches through the trees like water trickling from an overflowing basin.
His second hand is in his pocket.
"Here," he says after you've traversed to the very edge of the forest. "There's the park. We're bona fide explorers."
He looks out toward the park and you look at the side of his face. Something isn't right. Something uncanny.
You drop your gaze from his face to your joined hands. They come apart, blood smeared in both your palms like two halves of a dripping heart.
—
There is something weird about Eddie. As a residential freak of Hawkins you think you're an authority in this, and you don't feel guilty for judging him. Your brain can't stop going over your night in the forest. For days you play the scenes back and for days you lose the details. You forget how the wind had tousled his hair, how he'd smelled, what he'd said.
You remember the way he'd squeezed your bloody hand. You remember the way he'd spoken, strained.
Not strained like he didn't want to comfort you, he had, but strained.
Restrained.
You're poking at the shallow cut half-healed now in your palm at work when a dude walks in, very tall, handsome, and gunning straight for you.
You straighten your badge and hide your bracelet heavy wrists behind your back, receding slightly as he approaches. He slows in front of you.
You have a light bulb moment.
"The hair," you say.
He scowls. "He told you that, huh. Typical."
"You're Steve?"
"That's me." Steve crosses his arms across his chest, his back to a booth, your back to the diner bar. "You're Eddie's new friend."
"What counts as new?" A month and a half doesn't feel so new to you.
"Trust me, you're new."
He has the strangest patch covering the outside of his left wrist, the same peculiar scarring that you can see on Eddie's waist when he reaches for a glass out of the kitchen cabinet. You don't ask because you're not a dick no matter how curious you find yourself, but it makes your heart skip. What is that? You'd assumed Eddie's was road rash. Now you're not so sure.
He tucks it under his arm.
You meet his suspicious gaze.
"You want coffee?"
"No."
You kick your foot, shoe sliding over the shiny waxed floor with a squeal. "Is Eddie okay?"
"Did you want to come to a party next Friday?"
"No," you say honestly. "Like a cult?"
"What?"
"Are you initiating me into your cult?"
He finally smiles, eyes creased with amusement. "I'm inviting you to our club."
"Club where you chew on each other?"
You look pointedly at Steve's wrist.
"No. Club where we play board games and drink jiffy pop. Come or don't, doesn't matter."
"If it doesn't matter, why are you asking me?"
It's a strangely intense conversation to have this early in the morning. Patrons chatter about work, coffee gets poured. The diner smells of syrup and sugar and bitter cold-press. You're both in work apparel, both refusing to move back. If this is some kind of shovel talk then that's fine, and if it's a test you're determined to pass, even if Eddie's been super weird lately.
"I'll come if you promise not to eat me," you say.
"It's really not that kind of club."
—
"I had the weirdest visit in the entire world today," you declare, stopping in front of Eddie's porch with a smile.
"Yeah?" he asks without looking up, guitar in his lap and pen scribbling over a lined notebook.
You wait for him to stop before you continue, leaning forward with both arms braced on the porch by his feet. "Steve Harrington came to see me, and he was super mean. You said he was nice."
He frowns at you. "I told you he was a dick."
"You like him when you tell me stories."
"How mean?" Eddie asks, patting the seat beside him.
You climb up onto the porch and plop down onto the couch, worn leather cold with the weather and damp in the seams.
You take a strand of his hair and curl it around your finger. "Not really super mean, but he was, like, acting like I killed a baby."
"He's like that."
You sigh and lean your cheek against the couch cushion, watching Eddie's stubble move as he tamps down a teasing smile. "He invited me to a party next weekr."
"It's not a party- Sweetheart, what are you doing?"
You tickle his cheek with the end of his hair. "Nothing."
"M'gonna sneeze."
You tickle him again, fine dark strands brushing over his pale cheek. He's a very ashen guy, you've found. Likely because he barely goes out in the sun and he doesn't eat enough. You draw circles around the apple of his cheek and grin softly at his growing smile, a sweet, silly thing.
"I'll tickle you back," he warns.
"Promise?"
He steals the curl back and tucks it behind his ear.
"You're not a cannibal, are you?"
Eddie chokes on air. You startle at his coughing and move to pat his back, palm slapping a steady rhythm into his shoulder. When he calms down you run your hand down the length of his arm, long sleeve t-shirt soft beneath your touch. You linger at his wrist and decide to hold it.
He drops his pen and your hand travels until he's caught your thumb. He kneads it in his fingers.
"I'm not a cannibal. Why would you think that?"
"I don't, but you and Steve are in your club, right?"
"Hellfire wasn't like that," he says heatedly.
"No, not- Not that one."
He doesn't say anything.
"You have… He has this scar, on his wrist. Like something bit him, or-" He turns to you and he looks formidable and upset and himself, not mad at you but raw emotion in his expression anyhow. It's gone as quick as it came.
"When all that… stuff happened," he begins quietly, "we got hurt. A couple of us."
You drop your head, ashamed at having pried. "I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me anything else."
"Don't be sorry…" He squeezes your hand and lets it go. "Don't worry about it."
"Okay."
"We usually call ourselves a party, these days. Not a club."
"Do you really play board games and drink jiffy pop?"
"Sometimes we get really crazy and order a pizza. You should come."
You realise as he says it how much his wanting you to go had mattered to you. Eddie's your friend, and you don't think that you're going to stay friends much longer.
"You think your friends will like me?" you ask, voice descending to a new kind of gentle.
He puts down his guitar and his notebook. His full attention is something you've come to really enjoy, not because of the hunger you often see flitting across his face — though that's neat —, but because of the inklings of adoration clinging to his smile when he looks at you. His blinking lashes. He smiles at you and just slows. A usually frenetic boy calmed.
"Maybe not Mike. Mike doesn't like anybody. Except for Will," he muses.
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Who do you like?"
"I like all of them." He juts his cheek toward his shoulder, conceding, " I think Dustin's my favourite. He's funny. He's funnier than I am, and he's the smartest kid I've ever met. And he knows it."
Your eyes focus on the pink outline of his upper lip as he speaks. It's a pleasure to be this close, and see him in this kind of crazy detail. When you go home tonight you might try to draw him. You'll probably forget.
It's the kind of smile that deserves to be immortalised.
"I really like your smile," you tell him, hoping it'll last a little longer.
It stretches. The pink outline turns white. "Shut up."
"I do. I've seen a thousand different smiles but I've never met someone who smiles like you do."
"How's that?" he asks, edging toward you, face a mirror in which you can see your own charmed expression.
"Like you," — you shake your head with your lips parted — "know a secret. Something you won't tell anybody."
His smile abruptly ends.
You've nothing if not a talent for saying the wrong thing.
"A good secret," you amend.
He picks up his acoustic and gives it an experimental strum. "Maybe one or two," he agrees.
Relief catches you. You nibble at the inside of your lip and watch his fingers work over the neck of his guitar, tipping your head so you can read the words he's markered over the body.
"This machine slays dragons," you murmur to yourself. "Yeah? How many?"
"Just the one."
"Save any princesses?"
"Not yet." He plucks at the strings, lost in thought, before turning to you with eyebrows raised. "Can you play?"
You exhale out of the corner of your mouth as he pushes the guitar into your lap, an arm coming around your shoulder, the other reaching to guide your curled forefinger to the strings. You turn to face him, watching him talk with a growing fondness.
"It's easy, I swear. We'll do Call Me. Blondie's basic, even a baby could play it."
He realises you aren't listening and raises his gaze, shiny brown irises stuck on your lips. This close, it would be worse if he didn't look at them.
You glance at his, an obvious thing, half a wish. If he only lifted his chin.
Your breath mingles.
"It's easy," he says again, a murmur of his usual volume as his gaze pulls back up to yours. "I'll show you."
You wonder if he can hear your heart pounding; it's deafening. You wait, and you wait, and you turn your eyes back to his guitar and clamp your fingers down against the struts so he can't see them shaking with adrenaline.
—
Eddie sits beside Steve and tries not to admit to himself that Steve Harrington is, horrifyingly, his best friend (along with the rest of the party, obviously). Steve is the closest in age and Eddie can't make excuses (though he tries and tries and tries), Steve understands how much Eddie doesn't ever want to talk about anything that's happened to them, so he talks about literally everything else instead.
"It was the weirdest pawn shop I've ever been in. They had, like, a wall of combi's playing the same video at the same time but all slightly delayed."
Eddie blinks.
Steve turns his head from the TV, having expected a response. "Did you say something?"
"No." Then, because he's not a dick. "Sorry, Harrington. Want me to sit on your other side?"
"What for?" Steve says. Not because he denies how he's hard of hearing, but because he denies having conversations with Eddie.
He does end up moving to Steve's other side with a pathetic excuse. "I can't see the TV."
Steve doesn't say a word until he's sat down again. "Sorry I was mean to your girlfriend."
"Yeah, what was that about?"
"I was cranky because it was early and I don't want her to damage the integrity of the party." He gives equal weight to both reasons.
Eddie snorts at him. "Since when do you care about the integrity of the party?" Steve barely acknowledges that they are a party. He thinks that's a very nerdy way to say friends.
"Since always, dipshit."
"And inviting her to join the party was the solution because…?"
Steve drinks the rest of his coke and pretends to really care about what's on TV. "If," he begins after a minute, refusing to look at Eddie, "something happens with her, and something happens to you, that damages the integrity of the party."
"Steve," Eddie says, jaw dropped down to his chest, "do you have a crush on me?"
"Oh my god," Steve mutters. "Oh my god," he says louder. "I can't stand you."
To prove his point, he gets up from the couch with a wrinkled nose, stops to tap his shoe gently against Max's where she's sitting in the armchair across from the coffee table, and disappears into his kitchen.
Steve Harrington cares about me enough to give Y/N the shovel talk.
He feels kind of great about it.
But he's not sure your the one who needs warning.
That night in the forest, Eddie had almost snapped. There are rules to follow if he wants to keep people safe, self-imposed, Hopper-imposed, and he's broken too many with you already, the most important being no close proximity when he's hungry. Eddie doesn't even realise he is hungry half the time. He'll be standing by you and he'll want to touch you, and suddenly it's like he's three weeks in to the month without sating.
He thinks about kissing you and suddenly he's thinking about biting you, and hurting you, and it's literally tearing him up from the inside out.
How can he want to do that to you?
"You look so depressed and pathetic," Dustin says out of the blue.
Eddie pouts and falls back into the couch, Steve's fancy throw falling onto his shoulder. "I used to like you," he says, taking in Dustin's outfit with a kind of parental approval. He's getting older and it shows, slightly more handsome than he had been — he's kept all his baby weight and it suits him, his full cheeks surrounded by the softest brown curls Eddie has ever seen. The outfit stays immature, a funny t-shirt and ill-fitting pants.
"Sad. You have a sad face," Dustin says.
"Go play with your nerd squad, please."
He doesn't listen, collapsing in Steve's still-warm seat like a cheap tent and crossing longer, thicker arms over his chest. He smiles at Eddie genuinely. "Where's your girlfriend?"
"No."
"Where's Y/N?"
Eddie tips his head so he can see past the coffee table and points to where you're almost hidden, sitting with Robin on the floor by Steve's sideboard. You have a basket of tapes in front of you, the two of you trying to choose what's going in the stereo. Eddie prays for anything but Blondie.
You will most likely choose Blondie.
"What does she like?" Dustin asks curiously.
"Everything, kind of. Why?"
"I wanna know what to say when I talk to her."
Eddie smiles at his friend's face, a soft, surprised thing. "I don't know if she knows anything about the radio but if you're happy about it she'll be happy too. She's a good listener."
Dustin picks at a piece of lint on his t-shirt bearing a white and black print of a dog wearing sunglasses. "So you talk to her?" he asks without looking up.
"I mean, yeah. What else do you do?"
"With a girl that likes you? Huh, let me think." Dustin laughs and ruins his own sarcasm, pointer finger laid against his chin in a show of thoughtfulness.
"It's not like that," Eddie says lightly.
"It could be."
"Could it? I mean… I don't even know if she'll stick around. And I feel bad 'cos I can't be honest with her."
"Why not?"
"Hopper said he would literally put me in the hole if I even thought about it." There's no need to expand. Dustin would know better than anyone what he's talking about.
He cringes at the thought, self hatred a hot poker down his throat. He must've said it to Dustin a hundred times when he finally came around from his coma (that wasn't a coma, but a death, and then a rebirth). I can't believe I put you through that. I can't believe I put you through that. I'm so sorry.
I'm just glad you're alive, Eddie.
And for a while, Eddie hadn't felt the same. The world he'd woken up to was hard. There had been lawyers and grief and guilt and becoming. He doesn't have the words to describe how it feels to become something new, something that needs to hurt people to live, something that will hurt people to live, whether Eddie wants to or not.
The loss of choice is suffocating.
Though moments like this with his friends– they don't make it 'worth it', they're just how it had to happen. There isn't a scenario where Eddie could give up. He can't leave Wayne, and he can't leave Dustin. He can live with the grief of what he is if it means other people don't have to live with grief of what he isn't.
"Eddie, are you okay?"
He's missed something. Dustin isn't the only one looking at him.
He curls a hand around his forearm subconsciously. "I'm fine. I think I'm gonna go to the bathroom, actually. Gotta piss real bad."
"Eddie-"
"I'm fine, Henderson." He puts on a good show, patting Dustin's arm. His heart, usually so slow these days, has enough life in it to ache.
He can't have been in the bathroom for five minutes when somebody knocks on the door aggressively. He's expecting Steve, pissed at his disappearance and likely preparing a speech on attention seeking behaviours and how they're hurting the youth of America, so he opens the door with a tired glare.
He finds you, beaming and pretty, dressed ridiculously nicely for his idiot friends.
"Hi," you say. He can hear something from Blondie's Parallel Lines playing from the living room, familiar because it's your favourite album. "Any room for me?"
Eddie moves back. You close the door behind you. The bathroom becomes a vacuum of your sounds and smells.
"They didn't have any Dio," you say with a smile.
"I honestly wouldn't expect any different."
"You could've brought some tapes, your mix from the van," you suggest. "I love that one."
"Which one?" he asks, and he can't help it, whenever he's with you his voice crops to a dulcet murmur. The urge to speak to you as you speak to him is unconquerable.
"One with the winking smile on the slipcase. I really like it."
"You can have it."
You lean against the sink. "I can?"
"Mm. Whatever you want." Especially when you look like this.
You smile at him, your 'thank you' smile, all sticky fondness and mischievousness. He has no idea what you're thinking.
"'S a small bathroom in a huge house," you marvel. Your voice echoes "Where does he shower?"
"There's an upstairs bathroom."
"Two bathrooms? That's-"
"Audacious?"
"I was gonna say overkill."
Your candidness has him shaking with laughter. He clutches at his sides, arms crossed and leaning forward. You visibly take in his appearance, eyes panning slowly over his clean hair. He'd taken care to look like somebody you might want to look at tonight.
"Why don't you sit down, Eds?" you ask, eyes creased with an unreadable emotion.
Eddie feels blindly for the toilet lid and pushes it down so he can do as you ask, wondering why you're asking.
"You look very handsome today."
He hugs himself. "As opposed to every other day, when I don't?"
You take a step forward, a second, hands playing with the hem of your shirt. Your outfit today is delightfully simple, a pressed black t-shirt long enough to cover the waistband of your pleated skirt. There's an expanse of thigh that makes his heart beat spin out, one longer than the other where your thigh-high is falling down.
He wants to pull it up.
"C'mere," he says.
You take that last step between his shoes and he reaches out, getting his fingertips under the elastic of your sock and tugging it upward over the soft fat of your leg. Your hands come up to his shoulders for balance, and you say, "No, you look handsome every day. Today you look very handsome. I made the distinction."
He covers your thigh with both hands, looking up into your face as you look down. "You look really pretty today," he says boldly, fingers spreading behind your knee.
"Thank you. Do you like my t-shirt?"
It's a screen print of Debbie Harry. Eddie tries not to roll his eyes. "I love it, but your dedication to Blondie is seriously worrying, sweetheart." He gives your leg a short squeeze and pulls the most giggly smile out of you yet.
"Like Madonna."
"No!" he bemoans.
You laugh and grow closer, arms on his shoulder, a hand threaded into his hair. "Cyndi Lauper?" you suggest.
He puts a hand on your waist as you move in for a hug. Your arms wrap around his neck and the tops of his shoulders, cheek crushed to the top of his head.
He'd ask if you were okay if he thought you weren't. You're not upset or seeking comfort. You're affectionate. You've been getting more and more touchy for weeks, as he has. Stolen touches, your almost-kiss on the porch last week.
"No, not Cyndi Lauper," he says, his hand skirting around your back to pull you in properly.
"R.E.M?"
"God, no. Where are you hearing all this junk?"
"The radio."
"Tuned into the wrong station."
You pet the back of his head. "Yeah," you say softly, "I think I was."
The hug is shorter than Eddie wants it to be. You make one of your happy sounds and pull away to get your hands on his face, stroking curls from his cheeks with a protective touch. "Handsome," you say, turning your hand to stroke his cheek with your knuckles. "Pretty. You have really big eyes, Eddie, so brown, and so…" You tilt your head to one side, face inching forward.
He turns his face to suit, to fit, breath held as you close the gap.
"So pretty," you murmur, and kiss him.
His hands are limp and then alive, one clutching your hip, one splaying against your chest. He can hear the thud of your heart clear as day — you're bumping with excitement as you kiss him. It's a delicate, tender thing, the party suddenly far away, the music drowned by the sounds of your breathing. You kiss as you talk, as you move, gentle but with bursts of ardency. Your lips are a blissful heat, the tip of your nose smushing into his as you part your lips over his.
He lifts his chin higher, his neck craned to receive you. He's savouring every movement. Each pause for breath that you take. The feeling of your inhales over his quick-bruising lips.
Your hands play in his hair so sweetly it makes his eyes burn with an embarrassing amount of emotion. He screws them closed and squeezes up your waist, steadying himself as you feel along his bottom lip with the tip of your tongue.
You don't get much further than that, seemingly pleased with your own brazeness or perhaps his touch, eyes glowing with mirth as you pull away.
"Sorry," you breathe, not sorry at all. "You just really looked like someone should be kissing you."
You're flushed. Eddie can practically see the heat emanating off of your cheeks. He can feel it.
He stands up, your pulse a ringing in his ears. The wet valves of your heart opening and closing.
"Eddie?" you ask quietly, lifting your head to meet his eyes as he walks you back into the door.
His gums sting. A click.
It's a compulsion.
His hands curl around your elbows, holding you in place. Your eyes are wide with confusion, your lightly swollen lips parted. He can see the tiniest slip of your pink tongue.
He holds your gaze as he leans in. Your eyelids flutter closed. You wrap your arms around him as he descends, totally trusting.
He's a meaner kiss than you are. He starts slow but swiftly loses a handle on it, kisses short but insistent, hot presses like little crescent moons against your barely open mouth.
His hands move up your arms, a near vice-like grip until he finds your sleeves. His fingers slip underneath, hands hungry for your warmth.
You make the worst sound anyone has ever made as he moves back, like something has been ripped from you. A gutted gasp, near silent.
He placates as he wades back in. Thumbs rubbing your arms, lips mouthing damp kisses down your face. The corner of your pout, the hill of your chin, the skin under your jaw. Your head tips back against the door with an audible thud. You exhale hard.
Eddie can't feel his hands.
Your pulse hammers under his lips. He kisses it once. He can't think. He can't breathe.
"You're always cold," you whisper, your hands drifting lazily under the fabric of his t-shirt. Your fingertips trail up his spine. "But your lips are warm."
He kisses your neck, his lips parting slowly, a hair's width a second as he sucks your skin into his mouth gently. It's barely a kiss. He does it a second time. A third. You start to laugh, a golden sound.
The point of his fangs touch your skin and you stop.
Eddie closes his mouth abruptly. His hand leaps to your neck and he feels your heart skip as he holds you still. "I'm sorry," he says, nose rubbing over the damp spot he's left behind, your teased skin.
Your heart hikes again.
"I'm sorry," he repeats. He pulls away, an agony.
"It's okay," you say. Your breathlessness says otherwise.
Eddie takes as many deep breaths as he can stand, wanting to clear his head and filling it with you instead. Your everything; your smell, your skin. Your limp hands against his back.
"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asks when he gets a look at you, your unreadable expression. He takes care to keep his head angled down so you can't see the lower half of his face.
"I don't think you could."
You cup his cheek in your hand and he leans into it, his weight against yours.
"I wanted to tell you something," you confess.
"What-" He licks his lips, wincing when his fangs slide into his tongue and scrape grooves across his taste buds. "What was that?"
"I know you…" You pause, fingertips rubbing at his cheek.
Does she know? Eddie thinks, horrified. He hadn't realised how scary waiting could be. A thousand worries condensed into a handful of seconds. Does she know?
How could she not?
You press your palm to his cheek with more insistence. "I don't want you to think you have to hide anything from me. I know you have scars," you say, fingers sliding into the soft baby hair at the back of his neck. "You don't have to cover up. You don't have to cover any of it."
"I won't hurt you," he says, trying to convince himself.
"I know."
-
You stay a while longer. Eddie's friends pretend that you hadn't been alone in the bathroom for an inordinate amount of time together. You thank them all silently and less so, trying to talk to as many of them as you can.
There's Lucas, who's really, really nice, and his girlfriend Max, who's less so. She gives you an unimpressed look through her thick-lensed glasses, but you compliment her crutches and she comes around.
There's Mike, who actually isn't anywhere as bad as Eddie had described him. He's not frosty or standoffish, he's sweet and he asks questions. There's a girl with him that you don't catch the name of, and a boy on her other side.
There's Dustin, who you adore immediately, Robin, who you adore more, and then there's Steve.
Steve offers you a pretzel like you're more than familiar. He strolls right up to you with a bowl of them in hand and doesn't leave until you've eaten half of them.
There's a couple of people you don't manage to talk to at all, and you feel guilty about it all the way home.
"What if they think I'm rude?" you ask, tired eyes locking onto the stereo system. The time blinks analog in the dark, 12:59AM.
"They don't, don't worry about it. You have lots of time to get to know them, anyway."
You hum and turn to his face, indulgent because you know he can't look back. "You're not too tired to drive, are you?" He's spent. Yesterday had been one of his bad days.
"I'm fine."
"You say that all the time," you observe, dropping your cheek into the passenger seat's headrest.
"I'm fine all the time."
"Liar."
"Nuisance."
You huff a laugh through your nose. The strands of his friendship bracelet, the small beads at the ends, swing like pendulums in the gap between his arm and the steering wheel. You can see the rough skin of a scar creeping out from under his sleeve.
"Mike was really nice," you say.
"He has a bleeding heart."
That feels accurate. "He reminds me of you."
Eddie rolls his eyes. You feel for every detail, the strange tension between you like a gaussian filter over everything. He's gorgeous in a horrific way, heartbreakingly pale, eyes dark as pitch, hands restless. They squeeze alone the wheel, thick fingers curling tight until his knuckles are stark white. Running down the back of his hands are veins like rivers. They're more purple than green.
"Eddie," you say, playful, a tiny bit insecure.
"What?"
"Wanna stay the night?"
His hand moves forward on the wheel like he's revving a motorcycle, the tendon in his wrist rising to the surface. He clenches. "Not sure it's a good idea."
"Just to sleep. It's late."
"I don't know if I can sleep next to you."
You don't wanna say please. You don't want to ask Eddie to do anything he can't or doesn't wanna do.
He pulls up outside of your house with his mind already made up. He gets out of the car and you follow his lead. He locks it, shoves the keys in his pocket as you join him on the path up to your porch.
He's been in here enough times to know what it looks like, but for some reason you find yourself checking his face, worried about what it is he thinks of your things, all your mismatched trinkets, your stained glass lamps, your life as you let yourselves in. He ducks through the beeded curtain into your bedroom wary that they'll get tangled in his hair like they sometimes do.
"Do you wanna call Wayne?" you ask, gesturing to your telephone on the right hand side, nestled between a stack of books and a cup full of coloured pencils.
You pull your knee up to your chest and unlace your shoes one at a time. Eddie punches the number into the phone and holds the receiver to his shoulder to do as you're doing. It takes him less time to pop his sneakers off than for you to get out of yours. He's just taken the phone back into his hand when Wayne picks up.
"Wayne?" he asks softly. "Didn't wake you up, did I?"
You can't hear his response.
"I'm gonna stay with Y/N tonight. Yeah, we had a good time. Yeah…" His eyes drift to you as you peel out of your thigh highs.
"Yeah, I'm still here. What?" He meets your eyes and it feels accidental, because he throws his eyes to your bedsheets and turns his face to the wall. "No," he says firmly.
You scrape together something to wear for bed and some fresh underwear and leave for the bathroom, telling yourself that nothing is gonna happen so don't get your hopes up but not wanting to get caught out if it does. You freshen up, brushing your teeth and washing your face.
You stare at yourself in the mirror and wonder if you should've left your face-powder and your mascara on. Maybe even the skirt. You'd looked nice and pretty for the party. Now you look like yourself, still pretty but without those extra touches. Will he care? Does it matter?
You debate your pyjama pants considerably.
There's a lot happening.
Eddie is… Eddie is something else. He's different, you'd known that for a long time, and his kiss had confirmed it.
He's something out of a science fiction book.
Well, nobody's perfect.
Whatever he is, he'd kissed you. You'd kissed him and he'd responded, he'd come back for more, and now he's sitting in your bed when he could've gone home. You bring your hand to your neck and crane to one side, fingertips poking at your unbroken skin. His hickey's haven't even bruised.
You screw the pants up and drop them into your laundry basket. You take off every piece of jewellery on your person.
"Do you wanna use the bathroom?" you ask from behind the beaded curtain. "I left a new toothbrush for you on the sink."
"Yeah, desperately, I…" He takes you in as you emerge. Fresh-faced, bare-legged. As naked as you've ever been in front of him, physically and otherwise.
Eddie meets you where you're standing. He's ditched his jacket, and for the first time since you met him you can see the full length of his arms.
"You're not wearing your bracelets," he says, looking between your bodies. His hand twitches toward yours.
"You have tattoos," you say.
"They were better, before."
There's a misshapen mess of black splodges near the crook of his elbow broken up by scar tissue. One arm is less scarred than the other, an almost perfect flank of white skin.
"Is that a puppet? He's super spooky."
"Mh-hm."
You bring your hand to his tattoo and feel over the skin. It doesn't feel like it's there. Eddie holds your wrist and the two of you move together, your fingertips stroking up until you're wrapped around his bicep.
Eddie brings his free hand to your collar. His index finger straightens, encouraging your chin up so he can ease forward and kiss you. He's firm, eager, and your lips curl up into a smile underneath it. He turns his head to the right and you fall left, smile worsened when you feel his own start to form.
He nudges your nose. You take it for a telling off and laugh. "Sorry," you apologise, kissing his top lip.
"You're making this difficult," he chides.
Despite any sternness, Eddie loosens his grip on your wrists to slide his fingers between yours, pressing your joined hands to your chest. He leans back down and he's careful, almost methodical in the way he kisses. Chaste pecks, hot and precious as tiny stars.
You reach for his waist.
Eddie kisses you a final time and steps back. "I'll be back," he promises.
You lower your chin, flustered and perplexed by his sudden departure.
Walking around to the right side of the bed, you click on your bedside lamp — a beautiful glass and foiled contraption that throws dainty stripes of stars and hearts over everything close in the dark — before climbing in. You sniff one of your pillows experimentally, trying to remember when you last changed the bed. You decide they're acceptable even if they really smell like your hair oil and flip them around to be safe, plumping them up with your hands.
You've curled up on your side and almost succumb to your fatigue when Eddie returns, bringing with him the smell of spearmint and a fuzzy feeling in your stomach as he shuts off the light and sits on the opposite side of the bed, facing you. The hair around his face is damp with water, baby hair's limp.
"I'm sorry I don't have anything for you to wear, I-" Youre cut off by your own gasp as Eddie kisses you, his hand on your neck, his nose bridge sliding into your own. You hadn't been expecting it, and it's no less dizzying than any other kiss he's given you today.
"It's okay," he murmurs lowly, lips pressed to your lips, "have to wear you, is all."
You huff a laugh into his mouth. "I swear I'm always laughing when I'm with you," you muse as Eddie dedicates himself to your bottom lip. You cup the back of his head. "You're amazing."
Eddie groans and eases back. "I'm not good with words, sweetheart. To tell you how I feel about you."
You push one of your legs toward his knee. "...You can show me."
He shifts in the bed until he can lean over the entirety of your chest, hands cupping your face and lips poised hovering over your own, a millimetre of space between your mouth and his. "Okay," he says quietly.
He dips down. You can feel his bottom lip tremble, and then he's kissing you too hard to feel it anymore. You wrap loose arms around his back.
"Are you sure?" you whisper to him.
He rests his nose against your cheek, eyes closed, drawing the tiniest left to right. "I want you," he reassures.
"And you're okay?"
"Yeah, sweetheart. I'm okay. Do you want to?"
"Yeah. More than anything."
Another loving kiss against your cheek, Eddie moves down, down, down. "Tell me if I do something you don't like," he murmurs, top lip dragging and leaving a line of dampness to the base of your throat.
He adorns the canvas of your neck in half-moon contusions, big hands caressing your shoulders, your chest. You hold your breath as his fingers pass over your nipple, fighting to keep in any embarrassing sounds.
Eddie disagrees with his plan of action. You shiver as he brings his lips to a close and his bottom teeth scrape upward, as he pulls his head up and says, "C'mon, angel, breathe."
He follows his command with a manipulative touch, a circle over your nipple that makes you shudder. He kisses you and it feels like a thank you, pressure, a heat as his palm smooths over the bump of your tummy to your thighs. He squeezes the outside of one and for a while you can kiss him back, and then he pulls your thighs apart and you break away. Eddie follows, kisses you even when your reciprocation is weak.
He pushes your thigh flat to the bed.
You feel the heat of your excitement start to grow. Your stomach aches with the want to be touched.
"You're like a space heater, you're that warm," Eddie says, hand coasting down the inside of your thigh. He squeezes until fat melds under his fingers. "Are you scared?"
His whispering in your ear, his hand as close as it is to where you want it, it winds you up like a coil. You sigh as his thumb strokes the edge of your panties, sound coloured by an awful, devouring desire.
His face presses further into yours in reaction.
His touch is like the tide. He wades in, away. His thumb strokes inward over something soft and then his whole hand moves back to your thigh.
"Teasing," you utter.
"A little… Why, is there something you want me to do?"
His clueless whispering is infuriating and exciting at the same time. Your heart races and you can't discern if it's more lust or love.
"Touch me," you plead, pouting, knowing he's a pushover.
Anticipation stabs like a needle in your tummy as he slides his palm over your cunt completely. He rubs a careful, almost casual rhythm into your panties with the breadth of his fingers, lips kissing a lazy stripe up to your forehead, where he rests his face. You both watch his hand move past the valley of your rising chest.
"M'gonna pull these off, yeah?" He sits up, fingers pushing under the sides. "Lift your- yeah, thank you, sweetheart."
You buzz with his pet names, his soft voice, the feeling of your panties sliding up to your knees and his gentle exhale. You swear you can feel it fan over your slit. "Shit…" he moan, pulling at your spread cunt.
He looks like he's in pain, eyebrows pinched together and murmuring curses as he circles the wetness gathered at your entrance. You turn your head searchingly as he starts to ease his index finger inside your heat, a gentle probing.
One becomes two. He muffles your sighing with firm kisses, amorous praises, "That's it, baby, relax," as he works you open, fingers wet with slickness but not enough. He changes his position, pushing his middle and marriage finger inside and curving as his thumb slides up your slit looking for the bead of your clit.
Slow, slow circles. "There, huh?"
You shiver as he pushes in deeper, fingers as far as they can go. He spreads them wide, drops reassuring kisses all over your face when you keen. It's so new to have him kiss you at all, and to have him touching you — you're melting into nothing right there in his hold.
"I got you. Tell me if it hurts, okay?"
"Want you to- I want you to fuck me," you murmur, arms wrapping around him so you can hide your face in his neck.
"Fuck. Fuck, baby. Gonna fuck you just as soon as I can fit," he murmurs back, sinking three of his thick fingers into your snug cunt. He pulls wetness out with every thrust, a line of slick dribbling down onto the sheets underneath. He wipes it upward and pushes it back inside, his chest heaving. "Y'so tight, gotta take my time. Take our time." He rubs his nose against your head until he can kiss the highest point of your cheek. "Make sure you can take it."
"I can."
It doesn't bear repeating how quietly you're speaking, a mouthing inaudible under the wet, rhythmic thud of Eddie's pinky finger slapping your sticky cunt as he ups the pace of his finger-fucking.
"I don't think so," he coos, pulling his fingers from your cunt and making a show of spreading them wide. Your slick ribbons between them, almost invisible in the dark. "Ruin your sheets before any of that, maybe."
Eddie sits up and gets his hands under your armpits. You laugh as he tugs you up so your shoulders are on top of the pillows, but you don't have time to be confused. He quickly moves to kneel at your feet and pulls your leg over his shoulder, your back lifting unevenly from the sheets.
He starts with a sweet kiss pressed to the skin closest to his mouth, your lower thigh, and then works his way up, open mouthed, barely kisses at all until his hair whispers against your sensitive cunt and he's nipping at the stripe of skin between your thigh and the place where you most want his attention.
"Pretty," he says into your damp skin, lips shining. You reach down to stroke his hair behind his ears, worried he's gonna get it dirty.
He looks at you from between your thighs, his eyes dark in the dim light, their lashes long and soft where the outermost flutter into your skin. He's lovely.
He holds your gaze as he pulls back to your inner thigh. "Pretty everywhere," he says salaciously.
His lips part over your skin and you think he might bite you, a bruising hickey, but he pushes you down flat to the bed by your hips and kisses your clit, a simple kiss. Your fingers weave deeper into his hair. Your fingernails scratch lightly against his scalp, every tiny lick or kiss reflected in the minute tightening of your hands.
He goes slow, mouths down, kisses wetter and wetter as he reaches your entrance. "Poor girl," he murmurs, hands pulled down to further scandalise. He sinks two fingers inside and laughs into your cunt. You squirm.
"What happened? You're dripping on my fingers." Your thighs draw closed around his head as he curls his fingers against a soft spot.
"Eddie, can you-" You swallow. "Please. Please."
He pries your thighs open and rubs them soothingly, lapping at the heat of your cunt in face of your pleading. His tongue appears broad and flat up the centre of you until he's kissing on your clit, fingers pumping in rhythm. Your fingers work into his hair and he groans, the vibration enough to make you whimper under his mouth.
He laps at your clit messily and you tip your head back, breath coming in tight pants. You don't know what you say, only how you say it, desperate "please,"s and keening "Eddie,"s.
His thrusts grow in enthusiasm, fingers rubbing eagerly against something sweet. You pull your legs up and nudge his face to your cunt insistently, thigh shaking as you hold it up. Eddie doesn't need any more encouragement, his pretty pink lips suckling at your clit until you see stars. You make a pained little sound and try to move away from his kissing, startled at the intensity of your high.
Eddie lets your clit pop out of his mouth with a lewd, slick sound, his hands moving under your thighs and pulling you closer. "Good girl," he says, rubbing his wet face against the inside of your thigh. He inhales hard as you are, though he pauses to kiss your kneecap and pat your leg. "Good girl, sweetheart."
"I'm sorry," you say breathlessly, hands pulling his hair from his face. Pleasure rolls through you in hot waves.
"For what?"
"Tugging on your hair," you explain, shoulder pulled up to your cheek.
Eddie kisses your tummy lovingly and climbs on top of you to do the same just under your chin. "It’s okay, sweetheart, I like that shit. That was good, huh?" he asks, lips dropping down to yours all wet and warm.
He's not bragging, he's genuinely asking.
You nod into his kiss, your hands coming up to his sides. You swear your ears perk up as he unzips his jeans and eases them down, a hand disappearing into the mess of fabric. He moans quietly at the first touch.
You move his hair out of the way to watch. Eddie tugs at the length of his cock with a cruel hand, a short dribble of pearly precum sobbing down the tip and under his fingers. He spreads it as it goes, the slickness emphasising the ridges and veins of his cock. You can see it throb, if you look close enough.
He sits back and eases his jeans and boxers down enough to reveal a thatch of curls that brush his hand with every pump downward.
"You okay?" he asks, smirking.
You pull your shirt over your head and your chest warms at his adoring smile. "Will you take off yours?"
He doesn't hesitate like you worried he might. He sheds his t-shirt, pulling the fabric over the back of his head and dumping it off the side of the bed.
You take in his chest and it's abundance of ragged scarring still purpled with newness. He has a tattoo over his heart, a black whorl of legs and eyes. Fine dark hair crawls from the middle of his chest down his navel, joining with the thatch of coiled hair surrounding his aching cock. You shuffle forward and wait with two tentative hands held aloft until he says, "It's okay," before you touch him. You run your hands down the soft slopes of his waist.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not anymore."
"Can I kiss it?"
He snorts. "Prefer you kiss something else."
That really makes you laugh. You dot a kiss against his jaw and can't make yourself stop, dropping them all the way to the skin behind his ear. Your hand creeps lower as you go, held to the curve of his tummy. His skin is hot to touch the lower you go, and his stomach feels solid, a heaviness you know all too well.
"Can I touch you?" you whisper into his ear.
"Please."
You drop your forehead against his chest and he brings his hand up to cup the back of your head. His cock pulses as you wrap your hand around it, skin smooth and slick as you palm slowly up and down. You watch in awe as a bead of precum wells at the tip, Eddie's rough breathing loud overhead.
"Lie down, Y/N," he says, hand moving behind your naked shoulders.
"What way?"
"How do you want it, sweetheart? We'll do it whatever way you want."
You think about it. Whatever way you want. No matter how indulgent, you know he means it.
"Will you spoon me?"
He pushes you gently and follows behind, dragging your body into his front and angling your hips, cock hot and prodding your back. He gets his hand under your knee and pulls it up, splaying your cunt. You jump in surprise as he pushes his cock through your folds, tip rubbing against the still sensitive bead of your clit.
Eddie wraps his arms around you, hugging you from behind. "You wanna put it in for me, baby?"
You reach between your bodies and take his sticky cock into your hand, shifting until the head nudges against your hole. He sinks in inch by inch, arms tightening around your waist and grinding you down onto his cock until you're whimpering.
You grab at his arms with your hands and tether yourself to him as he starts to rock his hips, his thrusting tender and his face turned into your neck.
He presses his hand flat to your abdomen, an anchoring point as he moulds your weepy cunt around his length, each slovenly movement into your heat spreading you that little bit wider.
"Fuck," he says finally, sounding seconds from a black out. "Oh, fuck- You're tight. Gonna fuck you open slow, okay?"
You're pretty sure you'd let him do just about anything. You bring his hand to your mouth and kiss every white knuckle, every freckle you can see on the back, and when he bottoms out your cover your lips with his stolen hand to smother a tearful gasp.
Eddie's thrusts are spearing in their steady rhythm, a dirty slap ringing with every punching thrust forward. You curl in on yourself and hide your mouth in the sheets, wet pants smothered by fabric. Eddie's grip falls to your hip, where he pulls your body back and forces your cunt open even deeper.
His cock pushes into your sweet spot sudden and emphatic. You moan and he stills, rutting into that same space without pulling out until you're babbling his name, body knocked forward with every thrust.
Eddie turns your face toward him as much as he can without hurting your neck, your moans echoing in time with each thrust. "There you go," he says, "wanna hear how good it feels."
If he cares that you can't answer him he doesn't show it, arm coming up under you arm to grasp at your chest, your breaststroke soft and aching under his hand as he squeezes tenderly. His cock kisses at the sweet spot inside you intermittently; you're dizzy with it.
Eddie can't keep quiet either, his moans breathy, his breath hissing between his teeth when you clamp down around him. "Fuck," he begs, dragging his cock out of your heat, "fuck, Y/N."
He says your name like the syllables alone are appraising.
You can tell when it gets too much for him. He slows. His face drops into your shoulder, and he matches his pace to the wet kisses he leaves behind. Your wetness feels stickying, each of his thrusts snug.
His breath hitches, ragged pants accompanying every slow push of his hips. "Where's my girl?" he asks, eyes still closed as his hand abandons where it'd been squeezing the bump of your tummy to search further downward, fingers disappearing into your folds, short curls wet with slick. He can't find any purchase. You roll your hips, chase his touch and the pleasure that comes with it.
He groans into your shoulder. It sounds more pain than pleasure.
"Are you okay?" you ask, trying to turn in his arms. He holds you in place. "Eddie?"
"Yeah, fuck, I'm okay." He grinds up into your cunt. "Fuck, you're perfect."
"Will you kiss me?"
He does. It's nowhere near the bruising press you'd wanted. It's too careful.
"Listen," he murmurs, "I'm gonna get you on your front, okay? Gonna make you feel so good," he promises, waiting for you to nod before he pushes your shoulder away from him and climbs up behind you. You lay flat on your stomach and Eddie settles on your thighs, a heavy weight.
He pushes into your cunt with two fingers first, the new position allowing for a new pleasure. He pumps in and out and swaps his fingers for his cock quickly after, bearing the full weight of his body into your back as sinks to the hilt.
You both moan in time, hands fisted in the sheets.
He kisses your neck, lips parted, and his teeth feel so sharp that your heart sinks as it had in the bathroom.
"Eddie-" you start.
He pulls away, stops every movement.
"Eddie," you say again. What are you supposed to say? You both know what he is.
There's a lull where neither of you knows what to do filled by your too-fast breathing.
"I won't hurt you," he says, hands rubbing up the length of your back and then under. He holds a hand over your heart. He drops his lips to your back. "Do you want me to stop?"
He must feel your pulse calm under his touch, but he still asks again when you don't answer. "Do you want me to stop? It's okay if you do. You're okay, baby, I promise."
You steal a pillow from against the headboard and rise up on elbows. Your admission comes weak but completely honest. "Fuck me, Eddie, please... I want you. I want you-" Your murmuring's interrupted by a sharp breath as Eddie starts to move again, the head of his cock pushing into your cunt, a slick, perfect feeling.
He moans from the back of his throat as his cock pushes into you again and again, hips smacking the dough of your ass as his pace quickens. You hug your pillow tightly, tears popping up in the corners as he ruts deep.
"Being so good for me," he groans, clamped down on your hip with a vice-like grip. "Fuck, you feel so good. Fucking clinging to me every time I pull out, baby, Christ." His blasphemy is punctuated by a thrust that has you sliding up the bed, sheets wrinkling under your arms. You spread your thighs and wetness pools at your clit as his pelvis thrusts into you, driving pleasure so deeply it aches in your hips.
You moan pathetically and reach back to hold his hand, wiggling your fingers. He takes it in one and presses your arm against your lower back with the other, struggling to maintain a steady pace as he gets close to cumming. You're a babbling stream of sounds as he fucks in deep, swollen sweet spot tapped against mercilessly.
He throws himself back on his haunches, cock dragged out of your heat.
You pull your legs out from underneath him and curl onto your side to watch, eyes wide as white spurts of pearlescence jump out of the head of his reddened cock and drip down the bumps of his fingers. He leans back, his stomach and thighs tensed with every pump.
He groans through a smile, moan's coloured by a happy, relieved laughter. "F-uck," he drags, fisting his cock dry.
He meets your eyes as the last of it slides down onto his stomach.
You smile softly. "Fuck," you mumble.
Eddie wipes his hand in his jeans like a fucking hooligan and tucks his cock back into his boxers with a wince, and then he collapses on top of you. He's sort of nice about it, his arm over your shoulder and his face behind your ear.
"Fucking beautiful," he praises, dropping his head back on the bed so you're face to face. "You're so fucking pretty. So perfect." He kisses you. "You're perfect," he repeats, staring intently into your eyes.
You pull a hand from between your legs, smelling of sex. Eddie literally couldn't care less if he tried, and he lets you take his face into your hand without complaint.
He gets his arm under your arm and starts to rub your back. "You want me to take care of you again?" he asks, eyebrows raised gently. "Yeah?"
And you would let him, you would, but you need to see them for yourself.
You touch your index fingertip to his lip.
"Can I see?" you ask.
He loses his boisterous joy, tamps it down. He realises that he can't lie, that he hasn't been lying, and he nods. You tremble as you pull his lip up over his canine tooth, excited and scared.
A sharp, exceptionally white tooth pokes out of Eddie's gums. You're taken aback, though you'd known exactly what you'd find.
A fang.
Blood oozes at the gums.
"You're bleeding," you worry aloud, touching your finger to the dark beading at the base of his tooth.
Eddie's eyes rove over your face thoughtfully. He pulls your hand away from his lip and sets it on his neck instead. "They always do that. The gum heals, breaks when they wanna come out."
"How often do they come out?"
"A lot more since I met you. Whenever my adrenaline spikes, they seem to think it's… feeding time."
That is a dizzying thing to learn.
You're not sure how you feel, but you know one thing: he's Eddie. "It's too bad," you say, forcing a lightness that turns real more easily than you expect. "I really want to kiss you right now."
He strokes your cheek with his thumb. "I really wanna kiss you too. Maybe a small one?"
You find yourself leaning forward, unafraid.
He kisses you once, twice, three times, the two of you holding each other's faces and covered in mess. Slick and sweat and blood. The hearts and stars from your lamp spray over his hip and paint him with pinks, greens, oranges, a rainbow cutting over his trim waist. You rest your hand overtop, feel his keloid scars like hills under your fingers.
"My boyfriend's a vampire," you mutter, bemused at fate.
Eddie blinks at you. "I'm your boyfriend?"
"Yeah, I think so. Don't you?"
Eddie pulls you into his chest and doesn't let you go for a long, long time.
-
Your first time watching a blood sate is weird.
For one, Chief Hopper is firmly against it. He's got his kid with him, the boy from the party that Mike had been so heavily doting on, and if he didn't you might think he was a pretty scary guy.
"I think this is stupid," the chief says plainly. "I think this is stupid, I think you're stupid," — he points at Eddie where he's sitting sickly in the round couch — "and I think you're plain crazy, kid." He points at you last.
You beam at him. "People have said that about me."
His kid laughs.
"Will," Hopper says tiredly, "go sit in the car."
"Look, Chief, I know I messed up, okay, but she kind of stuck her hand in my mouth and I didn't really have a choice."
Wayne looks at you with new eyes. "You did?"
You nod at him faux-seriously.
"And what gave her the inkling that you might have had something in your mouth worth looking at?" Hopper says, which is hilarious. You laugh behind your hand.
He gives you a disapproving look that you completely ignore. If you'd taken notice of disapproval you would've stopped having this much fun years ago.
"Uh, well, she might have… felt them?" His pitch rises.
Hopper looks like he's about to blow a gasket when Will says, "What was he supposed to do? Never talk to anyone new ever again?"
"He did a lot more than just talk to me," you say. There'd been a fixed bike, phone calls, lots of sandwiches, bug hunts, an entire sketchbook full of drawings.
"I told you to wait in the car," Hopper says.
Will grins and raises his hands in surrender. "Bye," he mouths. You wave.
Hopper waits for the door to close before he continues. "I get it, when you're a teenager you think your hormones are the end of the world-"
"I'm almost twenty three."
Hopper pinches his hand closed. "But you do not understand the danger that you are creating here."
"Like a stake-ing," you whisper, very very quietly. Eddie's the only one who can hear you, and he laughs so hard he snorts.
"I'm glad you find this funny." Hopper's tone could not imply the opposite any more.
He hands Wayne a paper bag that audibly sloshes and stalks out, his anger a palpable cloud of steam rising off of his shoulders. Eddie seizes up beside you at the sound, lips parting as his fangs come through. You don't touch him because you value your blood inside your body, only slide away from him and smile. "You okay, handsome?"
"Kid, maybe the chief is right. We don't know how Eds is gonna act with you here," Wayne says.
You nod respectfully. You like Wayne, and he knows about all of this stuff more than you ever could.
"No," Eddie mumbles, putting his hand out for you across the couch.
You take it without thinking.
Wayne sighs. You can hear him grumbling as he disappears from view into the kitchen and puts a pot on the stove. There's the sound of a bag being punctured with a knife, a wet slosh. Eddie's grip on your hand tightens.
You're still fascinated that he even drinks blood in the first place. That's wickedly sickening. Wicked, because it's cool that he's a vampire, with his impressive hearing, senses and smell. But sickening, because if you had to drink a pint of blood every couple of weeks you'd throw up.
"I read about a new blood-sucker."
Eddie raises his heavy head. "Another bug?"
"No, a finch! A vampire finch. They're really pretty, Teddy. They're small and brown with long beaks and they drink blood because there's barely any water on their island." You give him a loving smile. "They aren't parasites. S'just how they had to change to survive."
He squeezes your hand, this time on purpose.
"Are you gonna come and have it in here, Eddie?" Wayne asks, one last shot at separating the two of you.
"I'm okay," he says loudly. His eyes trace your smile. "Really."
It can't be fun to have two people watch you drink a warm mug of blood, but Eddie finds it funny. He keeps laughing every time he brings the rim of the glass to his mouth.
"I can't do it if you're looking at me," he says.
Wayne rolls his eyes and looks away. You cover your face with both hands and part your fingers to spy on him through the gaps. He makes it look easy, draining the mug basically in one long pull, though his hunger turns violent as the cup empties. He chokes. Blood trickles down from one corner of his mouth.
You automatically want to reach over and wipe it away. Wayne grabs your arm before you can and gives you a fatherly look that says, I wouldn't do that if I were you.
"Shit," Eddie says, slamming his now empty mug down on the coffee table. It makes a grating sound like a ground mortar and pestle. He sits as far back on the couch cushions as he can, nausea clear on his face.
"Deep breath," Wayne says.
"Fuck, Wayne."
"You're aces. Deep breaths."
Your heart hurts watching Eddie like this. He covers his mouth with eyes closed tightly and breathes hard through his nose. Already there's colour coming back into his face, not a lot but anything is an improvement. He'd been practically grey.
When Eddie pulls his hand from his mouth blood has spread over his lips and jaw. Your eyes widen.
"I'll get the shower running," Wayne says, slapping his knees as he stands. He stops before the hallway. "Good job, Eddie."
The boy in question slouches into a ball on the sofa and nods into a cushion. You wait for the sound of Wayne pulling the shower cord that turns on the hot water before you stand up, head tipped to one side.
"You okay, handsome?".
"Tired."
"You want a hug from me?"
"Is anyone else offering?" He opens one eye to peek at you and grins at your distraught expression. "I'm joking, I'm kidding. C'mere, before I start bawling." You sit and then flop onto your side, pulling your legs up next to his. "Such a frowny face." His voice is adorably tired.
"Better than yours. You look like someone from Night of the Living Dead, baby."
Eddie's arm lies limp like a dead fish over your waist. "Lemme nibble on your brains," he says, words thick as dark honey, eyes closed. "Just a snack."
You're waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under your feet. No way your boyfriend, your cries at the end of every movie, brings you flowers because he felt like it, won't step on cracks in the sidewalk boyfriend just skulled a glass of O-negative like it was a milkshake.
You feel guilty as soon as you think about it. He's not confined to all his softest parts and he never will be. He's snarky and angry and loud. He plays guitar like a real rockstar and he doesn't take anyone's shit. He's a survivor. A glass of blood every now and then was never gonna stop him.
You keep wondering if you should let him suck your blood. It could be hot. It could also probably be the worst idea ever, a relationship faux pas up there with proposing after a month or saying I love you on the first date.
"What are you thinking about?" he asks.
You brush the hair out of his eyes with your ring finger. "Embarrassing relationship fumbles."
"Oh yeah? Like letting your girlfriend watch you drink human blood from a mug shaped like Woodstock?"
"Least it wasn't Snoopy."
"God forbid."
"Is it always like this?" You stroke your hand down his face and rub along his jaw with your thumb. "D'you always get sleepy?"
"Yeah." He turns his face so your hand covers his mouth.
You've stopped wearing silver jewellery, your wrists bare besides the endearingly awful friendship bracelet he's constructed for you. Not a friendship bracelet, he'd corrected. You're not kissing other friends, are you? Because that's really gonna put a downer on this whole thing.
You dip your forehead to his chin and the two of you lay there in silence. You can smell blood, a thick, metallic stick permeating every corner of the room. It's especially strong between the both of you.
"Do you wanna bite me right now?" you inquire without opening your eyes.
"Not really. Blood sate kicks in quickly. It's the worst for, like, the first ten seconds after. Now I wanna sleep, but Wayne's gonna make me shower."
"Maybe I can shower with you."
"I'm sure he'd jump for joy if you suggest it."
"Really?"
Eddie kisses your hand. "No," he says with a giddy laugh.
"I'll pretend I'm gonna sit on the toilet. Keep watch."
"How will you stop your hair from getting wet?"
"I'll lean out."
Eddie laughs even more than he had been, peeling laughter that warms you from the inside out as he kisses your hand again. "That'll definitely work."
Wayne clears his throat.
"Shower's hot. I'm going out. For an hour." Eddie perks up. His uncle looks him dead in the eye. "Don't make me regret this."
And while Wayne had been under the impression you and Eddie were gonna have some grown up fun together in the shower, what you really do is an innocent act of affection: you wash Eddie's hair.
"You have to lean your head back," you chide.
"I am."
"More than that."
"There's no room."
You're lucky you both fit. You're freezing standing behind Eddie, the only relief the warm water that trickles down from your hands to your elbows as you draw circles in his scalp, working the shampoo into a fine lather.
"How did you get blood here?" you ask, scratching rusty flakes from the hair behind his ear.
"I don't know. It gets everywhere. Like eyeshadow."
You push your chin over his shoulder. "You wear eyeshadow?"
"For shows."
"Really?"
"Is it hard to believe?"
You encourage his head under the water and rake your hands through his curls, encouraging the soapy water down to the ends with patient hands. "Lip gloss too? Hey, can I do your makeup?"
"Maybe tomorrow," he bargains. While the shower has helped to wake him up, lethargy remains thick and unshakeable as adamant.
You kiss the wet ridge of his shoulder blade, picturing his pretty face decked out in dark liners and sticky balm. "Thank you."
"I haven't worn any in a long time. Haven't played a show in a really long time."
You wring the water out of his hair and search in the steam for his conditioner. It's mostly empty. "You could put on a show for me. I never got to see you play," you say, shaking it really hard. A dollop collects in your hand and you work the dregs through the ends of his long hair.
"You want that?"
"I think you're the best guitar player in the world."
You're not joking. He's the best, and he plays guitar. And he's pretty good, semantics aside. You love sitting out on the porch with him and listening to him play old rock songs off the top of his head. You could watch his hands move over the strings for hours.
"If that's the case, I can definitely put on a show. Make-up, costume, stage dives. The whole nine yards. Anything for my girl."
You roll the ends of his hair between two coated palms and step back. "There. You have to let it soak in for a couple of minutes."
Eddie turns with a grin, angling his chest and hair forward, away from the stream.
"Whatever will we do?"
You wipe an escaped streak of blood off of his bottom lip and smile. "I have no idea."
You kiss. Eddie leans down and you move up, damp noses glancing off of each other. You're used to short kisses, never enough to make his heart race in case it prompts an unnecessary appearance of his fangs, so when Eddie encourages your lips apart to wade in deeper you pull back questioningly.
"Blood sate. I'm 'sated'. They won't come out."
Your jaw drops. "For real?"
He shakes his head with a pleased smile. "For real. Kiss me sick, sweetheart."
You throw your arm around his neck and drag his face to yours, kissing with an ardency that both surprises and amuses him. He laughs into your open mouth until suddenly he's not laughing at all, only breathing, pushing against you with the same urgent force and the same adoring smile.
"Does this mean you can give me a hickey?" you ask enthusiastically. Eddie has yet to give you a proper love bite.
He leans back under the show spray and pulls you in with him, laughing when you dissolve like rice paper in his arms, finally warm. There's never been a sweeter sound.
/\^._.^/\
thank you for reading! | my masterlist | my halloween party
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Colt Seavers x fem!reader
&
Tom Ryder x fem!reader
Summary: When Tom Ryder cockily asks Colt if he can share you with him, your boyfriend is initially disgusted. You? You're less disgusted—
Genre: SMUT (nsfm)
Warnings: it's a LONG one, threesome, p in v, unprotected sex (only in fiction where babies or STDs don't have to exist 💖☺️), oral sex (m receiving), Eiffel Tower? kinda, praise, slight spanking, degradation, good cop and bad cop dynamic, sweet and stupid pet names, daddy kink, Colt and Tom low-key high-key dislike each other in the beginning, polyamorous relationship implied in the end if you squint, FILTHY SMUT (i don't know what came over me i just can't get them both out of my head)
~ ✨ something for my ryan gosling and atj girlies ✨ ~
TOM RYDER MASTERLIST
Colt leans against the steps of Tom's trailer, his back against the door as he bandages his arm. He'd just been blown out of a building, thrown around, and now his entire body hurts.
The only good thing right now is that he sees you.
"Colt," you say, running up to him, careful not to trip over the gravel, and as you sit next to him, you look him over, "you okay?" you whisper, your eyes round as you take in his appearance and touch his cheek. He smiles at you, looking completely love-sick as he tucks some hair behind your ear.
"Hi," he says, his voice soft.
You smile at him, "Hi," you lean in and kiss his lips. When you pull away, you run your hand in his hair. "You did so well in your scene. Did it hurt?" you ask him seriously.
Colt shakes his head and with a pained chuckle, he lifts his arm and gives you a thumbs up. "It's the job, cupcake," he smiles and grunts when he moves his arm. You caress your hand down his cheek, your concern evident.
"I'm gonna find you some water," you say, determined, and jump up, smiling at him as you walk away. Colt's enamored gaze lingers on you for a moment until his peace is broken by Tom Ryder's presence.
"Is that your girl?" he asks, emerging from his trailer dressed in only the pants of his costume and a towel wrapped around his shoulders as if he'd just done the most strenuous exercise of his life—which he hadn't because Tom Ryder doesn't do his own stunts.
Tom whistles and brings the straw of his juice box into his mouth. He says, "How'd you secure a girl like that, Colt? She's way too hot for someone like you."
"Charming as always, Tom," Colt groans and stares up at his coworker, "Don't you have anything better to do than creep around? Go sign some posters or something. Learn your lines, I dunno, just stop bothering me or my girl."
Tom chuckles. "You're the one leaning against my trailer looking like a broken-down rat."
"And whose fault is that?" Colt hisses. He stands and rotates his shoulder around.
"Take it up with Gail! 'M not in charge of those things." Tom raises his hand in defense, and then his small smile turns into a smirk.
"But, we're friends, hm, Colt?"
Colt glares at him, his tone deadpanned. "Sure, Tom. We're friends," he says sarcastically.
"And friends share, don't they?" Tom leans against his trailer and crosses his arms, a dangerously arrogant gaze in his eyes. "You wouldn't mind sharing your girl, would you? She's cute."
Colt's frown deepens and he hears you walk back to him. He narrows his eyes and points at Tom menacingly. "In your fucking dreams," he says and then turns to you as you hand him the glass of water you'd found.
He thanks you and then his smile vanishes when he sees you look up at Tom, your gaze on his toned abs. Tom seems over the moon that you're staring.
"Hi, doll," he says, sounding cocky.
"Hi," you answer him, clearly flustered that you're speaking with the Tom Ryder and Tom clearly knows this. He opens his mouth to answer you but Colt isn't having any of this. Your boyfriend hooks his arm around your shoulders and guides you away from Tom.
"That's enough movie stars, sweetness, let's go home," he whispers in your ear.
"Think about what I said, will you, Colt," Tom calls out, his tone light and you feel your boyfriend's hand tighten around your shoulder instinctively.
In Colt's truck, he's quiet as he grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turn white. He doesn't even ask if you want to do donuts, which is uncommon for him.
"Are you okay?" you ask him, moving to the center and putting your hand on his thigh. "Is it because of what Tom Ryder said? What did he mean?"
Colt's jaw clenches and he dismisses your concern. "Don't worry about it, cupcake," he says but you do worry.
"I am worrying. Please tell me," you say, in a tone you know Colt can usually never resist. Only this time, he does.
"No."
You narrow your eyes at him. "Well, now I'm thinking of the worst possible scenario."
"It is the worst possible scenario."
"What is?"
"Tom Ryder getting his filthy hands on you—wait," Colt's head snaps to you, his eyes round, realizing what you just did and you crack a remorseful smile.
"Why would Tom Ryder get his hands on me, Colt?" you whisper, ignoring how your mind plays every possible scenario of Tom Ryder having you in your head and you don't hate them.
Colt lets out a sigh and rubs his eyes. "He just said some stupid stuff—as usual," he pauses for a moment, "He asked if I could share you with him."
You stare at Colt, confused. "What?"
Colt senses your confusion and puts a hand on your thigh. "It was an awful thing to say, don't worry about him. I told him no, of course."
You blink at him, taking in what he'd just told you. Tom Ryder wanted you? He'd asked Colt to share you. You know you shouldn't, but you feel flattered. The Tom Ryder had the nerve to ask your boyfriend to have you?! Did Tom desire you that much?
"Oh," you say, your voice fading at the end, because what else could you say?
Colt turns his head back at the road, but he gives you a side-eye. "Oh?" His voice sounds tense.
You snap out of your daze and immediately shake your hands in the air. "I mean, oh–as in–gross. I'm not interested or anything! I only want you! Why would he even ask that, he's such a creep!" you say, meaning it.
Colt's shoulders untense a moment and he sighs. "Yeah, I know baby," he says, "I trust you—it's just a weird thing to imagine, y'know?"
You nod but your mind wanders to the image in question and you feel warm.
"Yeah, but you don't have to worry! I don't want Tom Ryder. He's a dick," you say. It's true. Tom Ryder is a dick and you would never even think of cheating on Colt.
Colt Seavers is lovely and he treats you well and you mean every word you've said to him—you love him.
But Tom Ryder is still Tom Ryder.
* * *
Over the next weeks or so, you visit Colt more often than usual. You don't even realize you're doing it but you start putting more attention into your outfits, your hair, and your makeup. Of course, while you don't seek out interactions with Tom Ryder, they do tend to happen more frequently.
Colt seems to notice this too and his blood runs cold when he sees Tom wink at you as he leans over you to grab a prop from behind you.
It isn't Tom's wink that annoys him as much as it is the way you look at Tom. Colt feels like someone just punched him directly in the stomach and it makes him feel so stupid.
He needs to talk to you.
On his way over, Tom walks by him and smirks at him. "She's even cuter when she's trying to be," he taunts and Colt restrains himself from socking him.
"Y/n." Colt's hand skims your arm when he approaches you and you turn to him, smiling so innocently he almost feels ashamed. "Hi, baby," he whispers, his voice soothing as he pulls you into him and kisses your forehead. You wrap your arm around his torso and kiss his nose.
"Hi, Colt," you say happily, "I saw your stunt. It was absolutely amazing!"
Your boyfriend smiles and he hears the sincerity in your voice. He caresses a hand down your cheek and his tone is kind when he says, "I need to talk to you."
Your smile disappears. "Is everything okay?"
Colt takes your hand and leads you further from the crowd of crew members around you and his thumb strokes across your palm. "Yeah, yeah, everything's fine I've just noticed you've been slightly distracted lately."
You tilt your head. "Distracted?"
He nods. "Yeah. Distracted. With Tom." His eyes drift to your exposed thigh.
Your stomach drops and you make a face. You look confused and Colt can almost see the wheels turning in your head. "What do you mean?" you ask, your voice a little shaky as you pull down your skirt to cover more of your thigh subconsciously.
"Do you remember when I said Tom wanted me to share you with him?" Colt asks bluntly and he sees your eyes widen in realization.
"N-no," you lie.
Colt frowns. "Liar," he says calmly and crosses his arms. He sees your hurt expression and his eyes soften. "Okay, listen, baby, I just want you to be honest with me. If you're suddenly all attracted to Tom Ryder, I think I deserve to know because I love you, and if y-you want to explore something with someone like Ryder—"
You panic and cut him off, holding onto his arms. "Colt, I don't want anyone else. I love you," you say, your hands moving up his arms so you can cup his cheeks and you kiss him.
You pull away and bite your lip, deciding to be honest with him because you can't deny what you're doing anymore. "But," you pause and Colt's blue eyes bounce from your features with panic.
"But, I- I am slightly—turned on by the idea of um—Tom."
Colt sees the embarrassment on your face after you say this and his breathing picks up. At first, he doesn't quite know what to do about this information. He stares at you and when he sees you squirm under his gaze, he takes your hand in his.
"Thank you for being honest with me," he whispers and then pauses, contemplating what to say next. "So, what do we do from here, baby? I-Is um—sharing—something you would really want to try?"
You nod, looking up at him with wide eyes. "But, only if you're comfortable, Colt. It can stay a fantasy otherwise. I promise."
Fantasy.
That word hits him hard. So this is something you really want, something you've actually spent time thinking about—something you've fantasized about.
The thought alone makes Colt's cheeks turn pink as blood rushes to his dick. He sighs and brings his hand up to your cheek again.
"I don't want to deprive you of want you want, especially if the third party is so fucking willing," he mentions Tom with a slight spike in his tone but bites his tongue, "but I don't know if I can handle watching you be with him. Of him having you completely. I don't know if I can deal with that asshole getting to have you like that," he says honestly.
You nod. "I understand," you say.
Colt lets out another sigh and twirls some of your hair in his fingers. "But, I suppose we could find a compromise. On my terms, not his." He sees the look in your eye shift from slight disappointment to excitement as you imagine the possibilities. Colt's chest burns and he can't deny his temptation at the thought.
He's so fucked.
* * *
Tom Ryder's bedroom is dimly lit and there is a faint smell of cologne and aftershave in the air as steam comes from his bathroom.
You're sitting on his King bed, the satin sheets feel soft under your fingers and against the exposed skin of your bare thighs. Colt stands in front of you, his arms crossed and his expression hard as he watches Tom come out of the bathroom.
Tom's wearing a blue and white robe with nothing but a pair of blue slacks, his toned abs on full display. His curly blond hair sprawled messily across his forehead and he smirks at you. Then, his eyes shift to Colt. "Loosen up there, man. You're making me nervous. Sit," he says and points to a modern-looking armchair in the corner.
"Don't tell me what to do," Colt snaps back and Tom raises his hand in mock surrender. You look between them, moving your hands to rest between your knees as you hold your breath.
Colt stares at Tom, his jaw clenched. "Okay, Y/n and I discussed some rules beforehand," he says and he doesn't like the way Tom rolls his eyes but he doesn't address it. "If you don't follow them, it just gives me a reason to beat your ass, capeesh?"
"Yeah, yeah," Tom nods and sits on the bed next to you, not touching you yet but your skin prickles at the closeness anyway. "Get on with it then."
"Firstly, I don't want to see a single bruise or mark on her," he says sternly, "she's not yours to mark. Secondly, her safe word is red and if she says it, you stop immediately no ifs or buts, and lastly, you can do whatever foreplay you want but no fucking."
Tom frowns, narrowing his eyes. "Excuse me?"
"No. Fucking. Her," Colt says again.
You listen to them, feeling like your entire body is on fire as you try and ignore how soaked your panties already are.
The feeling only worsens when Tom turns to you and asks, "Is that right? You don't want me to fuck you, sweetie?" His voice sounds like velvet and you squirm under his gaze.
"Hey," Colt snaps his fingers and Tom turns to look at him again, "Do not speak to her yet, you fucking dick."
"Fuck, alright, no need to get your panties in a twist, man," Tom grumbles and runs a hand in his hair. "I understand, okay? No fucking the pretty girl. Can we just do this? I'm getting fucking blue balls over here." He adjusts his pants and you can't help the way your eyes drift to the outline of his dick.
He's already hard.
"You okay, baby?" Colt asks you, his voice much softer now, "You still wanna do this, yeah?"
You nod.
Colt waits for a verbal reply.
"Yes, I still want to do this," you say, looking between Tom and Colt, your cheeks burning. Tom smirks at this and his attention turns to you, his blue eyes sparkling as he takes in your appearance.
"You're so sweet," he murmurs as he leans in, his lips attaching to the skin behind your ear. You gasp, feeling his hands around your waist as the fabric of your skirt accidentally bunches up a little. Colt inhales, hesitating but ultimately relenting as he sits on the armchair and his gaze fixes on you and Tom.
You make a small little squeak as Tom lifts you up and gently tosses you further up onto his bed, the soft mattress bouncing as you hit the multiple pillows Tom keeps on his bed. In seconds, his knee slots between your thighs as he hovers over you, and his lips find your neck, gently kissing your skin.
Your hands find the sleeves of his robe instinctively, accidentally pulling them down in your haze as you arch into him, the feeling of his lips overwhelming you.
Tom chuckles when he feels the rob slide down his shoulders and he hums into your neck, "Eager little thing, aren't you?" he says as the robe falls down until he's now completely shirtless.
Colt feels his stomach tighten as his hands clamp around the armchair. The sound of your pretty moans—the ones you used to make only for him fill the room and it takes everything in him not to rip the velvet armrest of Tom's stupid chair.
Tom's lips trail down your neck, his hand coming up your arm as he hooks his finger in one of the straps of your tank top, pulling it down your shoulder. You moan, arching into him again as his other hand finds your thigh and he positions your leg around him, his hips lowering to grind into yours.
Your skirt is now bunched around your waist, your wet panties very visible to anyone who looks—and both Tom and Colt are definitely looking.
"So fucking pretty," Tom groans, stroking your thigh as he moves to hover his mouth over yours, "Such a good girl," he says and then his lips crash into yours, kissing you passionately.
Colt feels hot and cold at the same time as he shifts in his seat. He wants to stop this, to tell Tom to get the fuck off of you, and to stop kissing you. You're his. His heart skips when he hears your small little whimper and he sees your eyes watching him from behind Tom's shoulder.
Instantly, he recognizes the look of arousal on your face, and something inside him shifts. He can't help the way his dick twitches in his jeans.
You moan into Tom's mouth, feeling his other hand now lower the second strap of your shirt until it's also bunched at your waist. Tom disconnects your lips just to see you in your bra and he licks his lips. You stare up at him, chest rising and falling rapidly as your body tingles all over and your pussy aches for him.
Tom unhooks your leg from his body and then effortlessly shifts you so that you're straddling his lap. His muscles flex as he holds your waist and unhooks your bra. As soon as your breasts are revealed, Tom's mouth finds your nipples as he sucks. You gasp and wrap your arms around his neck, leaning into him as your cheeks press against his head, his soft curls caressing your skin.
"Tom," you whimper, feeling like you're in heaven as he makes you feel good. "Tom," you whine.
Tom squeezes your ass, disconnecting his mouth from your hardened nipples and he looks up at you through his lashes."Mm, I love it when you say my name, sweetheart," he moans and kisses between your breasts, "Say it again. Louder. I want him to hear you say it."
Colt hadn't even realized he's started to palm himself through his jeans until Tom's voice jolts him and he frowns when he hears you again.
"Tom!" you groan, chanting his name like a prayer, "Tom, Tom, Tom," you plead, tears brimming in your eyes as the entire sensation overwhelms you. "Please," you whimper.
"Please?" Tom taunts, his hand finding your hair as he pulls on the strands so you can look down into his eyes. He sees how lidded your eyelids are and how blissed out you look and his chest swells with pride, "Fuck, you're such a slut."
Colt's jaw clenches at the degrading name but he doesn't move, his hand only working harder on his dick.
You whine, "Tom, please, please, please," you beg, "I need you."
"Hear that, Colt? Your girl wants me—no sorry, she needs me," he taunts and then shifts you again, his hand still in your hair.
You squeal, his movement causing you to lift from his lap and shift to your knees as Tom does the same. He presses your back against his chest, holding you so you're looking at your boyfriend and then his other hand grips your jaw.
"Tell him how good I'm making you feel," he whispers in your ear, biting your earlobe.
Colt sits up, staring at you as his hand still moves over his dick. Fuck. He sees Tom's hold on you and while he's slightly worried, he also trusts that you'd use your safe word if he was hurting you.
Plus, he can see how much you like this from the expression you're wearing. "H-he's making me feel s-so good," you whimper in a small voice, looking at Colt with teary eyes.
Tom laughs and then he lifts your hips, sliding down your dress and tank top so you're only in your panties. You groan, suddenly feeling Tom's hand press on your back. You whimper as you bend down, your ass pressed right to his crotch.
Tom moves his hand from your back to your hair again, pressing you into the mattress as his thumb soothes circles on your scalp. You can see Colt from the position you're in, your eyes lidded as you feel Tom's other thumb trace over your panties.
"Shit, man, she's so fucking wet," he chuckles, looking at Colt directly as he taunts him, "So fucking needy all for me."
Colt lets out a groan, wanting to unbuckle his jeans and make his own ache go away.
You whine as Tom presses his fingers against you, teasing you with his thumb as he presses you further into the sheets, muffling your sounds. He slaps your ass before resuming his movements. "Be still," he reprimands, slapping your ass again as he presses one of his fingers into you.
You cry, feeling so good as you look at Colt. Tom's fully fingering you now, his thumb adding pressure to your clit as he pumps his finger in and out.
"Colt," you whimper, watching your boyfriend as he rubs himself over his jeans. You can tell he's aroused to the point where it must be painful and you desperately want to please him. You whine again as Tom continues his movements, his other hand gripping your ass. "Colt, come here, please," you manage to say between your breathy whimpers and you sense Tom hesitate at your words, a little confused.
Colt stands, his eyes blown wide with lust as he walks over to you and looks down at you, your hair spilling over the bed as you look up at him. Tom has slowed down his movements, which makes you whimper and Colt strokes a hand in your hair. He looks at Tom. "Don't stop making her feel good," he demands sternly.
"Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?" Tom grunts, staring daggers at Colt now as he completely pauses all movement, "Get the fuck off. You said she was mine for tonight," he sounds almost whiny and Colt rolls his eyes.
"I never said she was yours," Colt corrects him, "you can always fucking leave."
"You're at my house!"
"Please," your voice cuts into their arguing, your eyes still teary as you try and push back against Tom's fingers. You can barely form coherent sentences. "Colt, T-Tom, please," you whimper, needing them to do something.
They fall silent and look at each other, hatred still simmering underneath but in the end, they both decide you're more important.
Tom grunts and he continues to finger you as he strokes a hand over your back. "Yeah, yeah, no need to beg me, sweetie," he says, his voice unusually soft. He pulls out his fingers and then goes to pull down his pants.
"Woah," Colt says and Tom sends him a glare.
"Relax," Tom says as he pumps his cock a few times, positioning his dick over your panties and sliding it up and down. "Daddy needs to feel good too," he grunts and you gasp, loving the new feeling as wetness slides down your thigh.
Colt stares at Tom like he's gone insane but his thoughts quickly drift to you when he hears your small whimpers. He looks down, his thumb still stroking in your hair. You look so pretty like this, all at his mercy. He slides his hand down to hook his thumb in your mouth.
"Wanna make me feel good, baby?" he asks, his voice smooth. ‘
You nod, looking up at him with anticipation as he pulls out his thumb with a pop. He goes to unbuckle his jeans, looking at you with a smile as he sees your mouth open automatically as he prepares himself for you.
Colt brings the tip to your lips, asking for entrance and you part your lips. You feel him grip his hand in your hair, encouraging you. "My good girl," he whispers as you hollow your cheeks around him, taking him in. You try your best not to be distracted by the feeling of Tom's cock against your pussy as you focus on pleasing Colt.
You whine around Colt when Tom slaps your ass, "Dirty fucking slut," he grunts.
Colt snaps his hips into yours, fully fucking into your face now and watching how drool pools at the corner of your mouth. He likes the sounds you're making for him. His cock drags across your tongue and you can taste his pre-cum. You whimper when Tom picks up the pace behind you, holding onto your hips for support.
Colt pulls out of your mouth just in time to hear your pleas. "Please–I-I want him to fuck me," you whimper, your voice strained from just having his dick in your mouth. "I wanna be fucked, please, please, Colt." Tears spill from your eyes.
Tom chuckles from behind you, his hand gripping your hips harder, and before he can make any snarky remark, Colt snaps, "Shut up," and then holds your chin.
"You wanna be fucked, baby? Alright. Tom, switch with me."
For once, Tom doesn't protest Colt's demand.
He's just happy that he can put his dick into something now.
You feel them move around but you don't look up, your breathing harshening as you prepare for what's coming. You feelColt's familiar hands on your waist as he hooks his thumb in your panties and pulls them down. You gasp as his dick teases your pussy and Colt leans over, pressing a reassuring kiss to your shoulder blade as he praises, "You're doing so well my baby," he praises as he moves forwards and you groan, clutching the sheets.
You're so lost in the pleasure Colt's providing that when Tom's hand holds onto your chin, his dick bobbing near your mouth, your eyes widen in surprise. You look up at him, sticking out your tongue for him and Tom smirks as places his dick in your mouth, immediately using you.
The feeling of Colt's dick dragging in and out of your walls is tortuous but oh-so-good. Every thrust of his hips sends you further into Tom's cock and you gag, feeling so degraded and used but in the best way.
Colt's soft praises as he fucks you mix with Tom's lewd comments as he fucks your mouth hard. If this is heaven, you never want to leave.
After a while, you start to feel slightly lightheaded because of Tom's dick clogging your airflow. You've already come twice around Colt's dick and your pussy is feeling so overwhelmed. You hear Colt groan in the way he does when he'sclose and you clench around him, wanting to make him feel as good as you feel.
When he finally comes, you moan too, and feel him spill inside you. At the same time, you reach for Tom's thighs and tap them, telling him to pull out. When he does, you gasp for breath.
Tom wipes his thumb across your lips, wiping the drool, and then he smirks. "I know you said no fucking, but c'mon," he says, his voice low and hoarse. "I want a piece of her too."
Colt grunts and shakes his head, riding out his high inside you. "Fuck off, Ryder."
You moan, your body rocking back and forth from Colt's thrusts.
"One fuck won't kill you," Tom hisses, holding your chin, "Sweetheart, you want me to fuck you, don't you?" he asks you, looking into your eyes.
You can't help but nod, "Y-yes," you whimper, "Please," you whine, needing this.
Colt senses the desperation in your voice and he can't exactly blame you. You must be so overwhelmed with pleasure. He strokes your neck and then pulls out. You whine at the loss. "You want him to fuck you?" he repeats, his voice strained.
"Yes, yes, please, I need him too. Colt, please," you say, desperately. "I wanna feel him too."
Colt knows he can't deny you anything as he nods and Tom's smug smile returns. You feel like you're stuck in a hazy cloud of pleasure as your body is manipulated. Your eyelids flutter and the next thing you feel is Tom's hard cock against your pussy as you feel yourself being lowered onto his lap.
You whimper, falling forwards onto Tom's chest as you make small breathy sounds and his cock stretches you open even more.
"Be gentle with her," Colt warns him, his voice slightly tense, "She's tired."
Tom holds in a grunt, his cock twitching inside you as he fully sits you down onto his cock and then lifts you again, repeating the movement.
He presses his lips to your ear. "Just sit there like a good whore for me, okay? Daddy'll do all the work for you," he murmurs, his voice hoarse and it sends a shiver down your spine. You nod, resting your cheek against his chest and you can hear his heartbeat as he fucks up into you.
"Good girl," he soothes, his large hand over your hair as his pace picks up. "Making me feel so fucking good."
Your legs tremble, letting out pants and whine as the core aches. It doesn't take very long for you to come around Tom's cock, your third orgasm of the night, your body feeling warm and limp as you finish. You aren't even sure how Tom still has the strength or the energy to continue moving you up and down as his hands grip your hips. He shifts you so his lips press against your ear, his grunts overwhelming your senses.
"Hey, are you okay?" Colt asks from somewhere but you can't seem to pinpoint where, as you're too exhausted to think and your mind turns completely blank.
Tom continues to drag you up and down his cock, his voice mocking in your ear. "We really fucked you dumb, didn't we?" he chuckles, groaning. "Shit, I'm gonna come," he bites down on your earlobe and calls you his slut as he spills himself inside you. You feel so full and dirty as his cum mixes with yours and Colt's.
Your eyes roll and all your muscles relax. You slump forward even more, hitting your nose in the crook of his neck and making a whining sound. Tom holds you up, his touch uncharacterized gentle as his thumb strokes your cheek. He shifts you off of him, careful with you as your head hits the soft pillows. Your eyelids flutter, your chest heaving as you hear the mumbling of voices and feel the bed dip from around you.
"She's okay, yeah?" you think it's Tom and you feel someone's fingertips on your skin.
Another dip in the mattress.
"Yeah, I think," Colt whispers, his voice soft and calm as he soothes you. "You're okay," he whispers and his voice eventually lulls you to sleep as the world around you turns dark.
When you wake up again, you're tucked under the warm covers, your cheek pressed into silk pillows. You stir, blinking, and then shift onto your back. You feel clean—like someone had wiped away the cum and taken a warm cloth to your sensitive skin. You sit up halfway and look around Tom Ryder's dimly lit room and then you look down and realize you'rewearing one of Tom's shirts.
You can hear low voices from the balcony of Tom's room and see Tom and Colt having what looks like an oddly friendly smoke for two men who seemingly hate each other.
Tom's wearing his robe again, his blond curls still messily sprawled across his forehead, as a cigarette hangs between his lips and he lights it up.
Your boyfriend seems relaxed as he leans his forearms on the balcony and looks out into the cool night. He shifts his head and smiles like he does just after he'slaughed and you wonder what Tom had said.
"Colt?" you call out, your voice small, and immediately, both men walk back into the room—Tom's cigarette discarded on an ashtray on his balcony.
"Hello, cupcake," Colt whispers as he stands beside you. When he sees you sitting up fully, he tuts and pushes you down a little as the mattress dips and his thigh touches yours. "Shh, how are you feeling?"
You look between them and sense no tension or arrogance from Tom as he stands at the end of the bed, a small smile curling his lips. He moves closer and sits on the other side of you, his tone light when he says, "You did so well for us."
Colt nods, agreeing with Tom for once, and his hand finds your hair. "So well. You had fun yeah, pretty girl?"
You nod, looking between them once more as you look flustered. "Y-yeah," you admit. "It was really good."
Tom's smile widens and he sniffs. "Good," he turns to Colt, "Told ya she'd like it, man."
You expect your boyfriend to be upset by Tom's quip, but instead, he chuckles and his thumb moves to stroke your cheek.
"Mhm, I suppose you were right, Ryder," Colt whispers and you feel like you've woken up in some alternative universe where Colt and Tom are now friends.
You wonder what they'd spoken about while you slept but whatever it was, they're on way better terms than they had ever been. Tom's much nicer to Colt on set—which isn't much but it's good because whenever you visit, he'll sometimes join you for lunch. As time goes on, you kind of feel like when Tom and Colt are around you, you have two boyfriends.
And you can't say you dislike that.
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So, I *think* I've calmed down enough to form coherent sentences about this trailer now, after watching this about a gazillion times. 😂 There is just SO much in this and I still can't believe it's all real.. I feel like people have already dissected every single frame anyway, so here are just my poor two cents (that's a lie, it's an essay lol), I'm sure 90% of this has probably already been said lol, but I just had to write my thoughts down, so there you go. 🫠
But first, can I just ask you guys this.. Does anyone else feel SO friggin overwhelmed every time something huge like this drops? 😂😭 Like, I LOVE the collective excitement and freaking out over all this with the fandom together in real time, and maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm watching the trailer live and within like fifteen minutes there are already a bazillion notifications, messages, people have already made hundreds of theory posts, edits, fanart and shitposts, meanwhile I'm sitting here still looking at the FIRST FRAME and trying to process what I'm even looking at. lmaoo Like, it takes me SO long to take it fully in, calm down and look at ALL of it in detail, while I go radio silent for like two hours, making people think I just died watching the trailer, I guess. lmaooo So.. sorry if it takes me forever until I even go on here and look at everything you guys are posting. 💀 <3
Anyway, so first of all, I'd like to just generally say... Everything about this blew. me. away.
Look. After like 20 years of watching BioWare's entire animation catalogue of the same 25 movements in every cutscene, that it would make you jump every time a character but even slightly moved differently than everyone else, we're now getting a game that is SO INCREDIBLY CINEMATIC, SO SMOOTH, unlike any BioWare game before. A game where everyone just moves and expresses emotions like their own person, making everything a hundred times more immersive and impactful!!
Not only that but there's a BioWare game now with PHENOMENAL LOOKING HAIR and REALISTIC HAIR PHYSICS. Guys, do you understand this is HISTORY??? lmao We've been asking for this for YEARS and it's happening!! 😭
And the cinematography? THE CINEMATOGRAPHY?? Just looking at that very FIRST LOCATION SHOT alone. The camerawork, the composition, the fluidity of movement, the shift of focus, the lighting, the use of MoCap, the facial expressions... As someone who spent a *LOT* of time using the flycam to make cinematic gifsets of DAI, where - with all respect to the devs - 90% of the camerawork basically consisted of "zoom in/zoom out"... this. blew. my. fucking mind.
Like, they did it. They mastered the Frostbite engine on all fronts. And it truly hurts my heart seeing people compare this to Fortnite or whatever, when in my opinion this time they actually managed to find a perfect mix between stylized and realism, in favor of making the characters even more expressive and this coupled with the use of MoCap and the incredible cinematography will make these emotional scenes hit SO hard and.. ugh, I just love it so much. 🥹❤️❤️
With this being said, let's dive into it!
Okay, so I know this is super random, but it was literally the first thing I noticed about this trailer. lol Did you noticed that it said "BioWare" *before* "Electronic Arts" in the beginning, unlike that first... controversial reveal trailer, where it was the other way around? 😂 Not reading anything into this of course (or do I? lol), but.. Idk, I thought it was.. interesting. 👀
So we start off with the first of many amazing tracking shots, with the camera orbiting around Rook in this place devoid of color or life. The note at the bottom made me chuckle "Game engine footage with some costum camera angles", I was like "Oh, so they used the flycam to make this?". lol So some shots of these will look different in the final version (what kind of spoilers are they hiding?? 👀👀).
I do hope that next shot DOES end up in the game though, because holy SHIT, that FIRST wide shot already blew. me. away.
Look at the COMPOSITION of this.
Actually, you could probably take every single location/wide shot of this trailer and hang it on your wall. lol But seriously, the way this place just looks... dead. It makes me think of "void" rather than Fade.. like an ancient graveyard. The raw Fade looks generally creepy, but this is haunting even for that. There's no life, no color, no motion. It's all broken and crumbled. Almost like it reflects Solas' feelings. People are speculating if this place might change depending on Solas' state of mind.. This is the Fade after all, but Solas is here physically and this being the place that was supposed to be the new prison for the gods.. It's probably different from the rest of it.
We also see all seven statues of the pantheon from the ritual site again. Solas "I have the high ground", *literally* talking down to Rook, while standing on two separate cliffs (how did Rook even get there, I wonder? lol), like there is quite literally a rift between them (for now..!) and Solas is keeping a distance, as always. We still don't know how that connection between the two even works, I assume Rook can only contact him while asleep? But to think that this is the place where he is trapped now, where he is even more isolated than ever before, is making me so emotional. ;-;
I love how it's just black and white though. It gives the scene a destinct atmosphere that might be important, if this is where we get to see Solas doing a lot of introspection. In the art of filmmaking, the absence of color is often used to force the audience to focus on the contrast, textures, and tones present in the image, which can evoke a deep sense of emotion.
And speaking of emotions...
"You have no idea what you have done."
We had already heard that line before, but something about that booming, echoing effect they used on his voice sent a shiver down my spine!
"The blighted elven gods walk free. And all because you disrupted my ritual."
To me, he *sounds* much more frustrated here than he *looks* when saying that. lol He looks incredibly worried though, and just so tired. A moment ago, he was SO close to achieving his goal after hundreds of years of preparation and then he failed again... and now there is this completely clueless stranger who got him in this situation, but who he has to rely on now to stop these gods, when he's unable to trust anyone, and yet he can't even yell at them too much, because he *needs* them. He must be so exhausted.
And yes, it is kinda funny how they put "elven gods" in quotation marks. lol
Thank god he still has his freckles though. ❤️ We're actually seeing a lot more texture on his face here than in the gameplay showcase. And yes, not only did he get his eyebrows microbladed but apparently he's also sporting eyeliner and lipstick now. 😌✨✨ The only downside to the lack of colors here is that his super purple eyes are not poppin' anymore. lol
"You battle against gods. They will not rest until you are on your knees. Fearful. Cowering. Helpless in the face of such power."
I love how they play this line so early on in the trailer, that it makes you go "WAIT... IS THAT- NO WAY" and not until the end do we get the confirmation with the most amazing entrance ever.
We then get a shot of what I think has to be Treviso in flames and Ghilan'nain symbolically coiling her tentacles around a crow statue's head, as she's probably about to take over the city. 👀 *falls on my knees the second I meet her in the game* lol
Then there's the shot of this horrifying Blight.. lump.. growth thing that has completely devoured an elf (and several other bodies it seems) with a hair style that has everyone wondering if this could be Felassan! 🥺🥺🥺 As much as I would LOVE for Felassan to make an appearance.. I kinda hope this *isn't* him.. because good god, whatever happened to this persom here must be pretty traumatizing (are they even still alive?) and also, how do we get them out of there? lol Either way, seeing as there are Harding, Bellara and Neve accompanying Rook here, this might be earlier in the game (and this is them dicovering that the Blight is already spreading rapidly?) and yet it already shows us that this Blight is on a whole other level than anything we've seen before, and it's taking every living thing.
Then we see another snowy place (or might this be within the same area?) that's also in huge parts taken over by the Blight. You can also see a dead(?) dragon lying on the ground at the bottom right corner? 🥺
Then Elgar'nan literally pops up right next to Ghilan'nain, and btw, I love how I can't even tell where her body begins or where it ends in this shot. lmao What ARE you, Ghili?? 💀
It looks to me like maybe she was struck by a bolt/spear from a ballista or something? The Grey Wardens tried to take her out maybe? Looks like the power of Elgar'nan's mere presence blows the Wardens away then lol, like they're just insects to him.. and in the blast we can see a person that looks like Evka?? <3333 (please don't die here though 😭)
Then we're getting a first glimpse of a dragon that shows up multiple times in this trailer. Also, to me, it looks so much like the dragon from the Golden City vinyl cover, which has me like 👀👀👀👀
Next there are a few scenes from the prologue we've already seen in the gameplay showcase, but it's coupled with new lines from Varric, that have me super worried. :(
"Rook, you've got this. I've seen your work. You're clever, adaptable. And you don't know when to quit.
My first reaction to this was "Oh god no, that sounds so much like a "passing the torch" kind of dialogue to me" as in Varric either dies (PLEASE NO but it IS super suspicious how he's not seen or mentioned in any other scene so far) or retires his role as the leader of this group and hands it over to Rook. And he just sounds... weary. 🥺 I wonder what he means by "your work" though? Is he talking about things Rook has done before Varric recruited them? Or is it maybe later down the line, after Rook has already proven themselves to be a great leader? 🤔
Then we get another shot of that one dragon and our first look at Harding with the bruised face (whoever did this, come fight me!) and some poor person tangled in.. something, I'm not sure. lol
Then there's a super quick shot of the floating building in Minrathous, followed by Rook opening a gate Aragorn style, which leads me to believe that this is actually somethere IN that floating building maybe?
But the fact that Rook and everyone else seems to be wearing casual clothes in the following shots, plus the architecture in the background has me wondering if they might be at the Lighthouse actually? 👀
Especially because in the very next shot we see Rook, Bellara, Neve and Harding all in casual clothes again in front of a giant eluvian and I wonder if that's the mirror that we've read about in the Game Informer article. The special eluvian at the Lighthouse that can take you anywhere? :o
Speaking of the Game Informer article, it also told us that Rook, Harding and Neve went back to the ritual site after what happened in the beginning, which is probably what we're seeing here!
"You want allies to go after the elven gods. I've got places to look."
Well, good thing we have a clever detective on the team that apparently knows people who would willingly fight some gods. lol Notice how Harding's face is still injured in this scene. 👀 So I assume whatever happened to her must've happened at the ritual site? Btw, I love how the trailer makes it look like they're all in casual clothes and the second they're stepping through the eluvian, they're in full gear? 😂 (I'm sure those two scenes take place at different times though.) It's crazy how much different the Arlathan Forest looks now, without the cataclysmic storm and all. I love the lighting, the colors and the soft rain! :3
Then we get another gorgeous location shot to hang on the wall. <3 My guess here is definitely Anderfels, given the landscape and those "pillar ring" things we've seen before (I still have no idea what those are, the funniest guess is still griffon training flight path 😂 But something tells me those things will be important.).
"I'll be damned! A griffon!"
Davrin and Assan!! <33333 And the dialogue makes it sound like this might be the first time they meet each other?? 🥹🥹 Followed by a scene of Davrin taking care of business and what might be the return of children in DA?? 😭 Seeing that little girl made me so happy, because that was actually one of the few things on my wishlist for DA4, because I always felt like children make the world feel SO much more real and immersive and besides Kieran, children were completely absent in DAI.
Am I trippin or does it look like this child is smiling here, while running away from a horde of darkspawn?? 😶 Kids in the Anderfels are build different, I guess. lol
"In war, victory."
CHILLS!!
Then we see Assan again, who is pinning down a.. thing I can't identify. lol I'm very curious about all those cages in the background though.. 🤔
We then get one of the shots that made me freak out the most, because it's a flippin *underwater* shot of elven ruins??? 😱😱
We know it's elven because if you look very very closely, you can see a Halla statue in the distance, to the left side. I'm immediately reminded of the stories about Arlathan having sunken to the ocean floor! There's also still all that mention of Ghilan'nain's grey "goop" that smells like the ocean and another shot later on of a dragon (Elgar'nan?) emerging from the ocean! 👀👀👀
And aside from all that, it's just such a sick level design!! 😍 What do these ruins look like if you enter them in the game? How do we get there?? There's an eluvian in the middle of the ocean on the newest map that's included in the Collector's Edition! 👀👀 If that one flippin theory of mine actually turns out to be true and there are somehow two parts of Arlathan, one on the ocean floor and another in the center of the Fade/the Black City, I'll do a triple backflip. lmaoo
Then Lucanis jumps in with some incredibly smooth fighting moves against the Venatori... and PURPLE WINGS!! So we were right with our speculation about the reveal trailer! Why does he have them? Is it some connection to a pride demon that revived him? 😂 I don't know, but it looks SO cool!! And after showing off, we hear his first line "I'm ready" with that sweet sweet accent, which is just the cherry on top!! <333
What the heck is up with the sky in this one?? My first thought was the Lighthouse?? 😍😍 Because if you look closely, there are a few wolf head ornaments on the walls? 👀 And this could be in the Crossroads and just like a real Lighthouse, there's a light on the top..? 🥹
Then there's Bellara using some magical device, that looks super similar to the things that were next to the big eluvian in that other scene!
Which makes me think that this might be where we help Bellara find this artifact in order to get the eluvian at the Lighthouse to work properly (since it doesn't seem to work right without Solas, according to the Game Informer article).
"I've never seen this before. There's something kind of exciting about it!"
Not gonna lie, that line and that weird looking device gave me Peebee flashbacks from Andromeda, which I honestly wasn't the biggest fan of. 😂 But Ghil Dirthalen (member of the community council) responded to me a few weeks back on twitter and confirmed that Bellara is nothing like Peebee at all. lol So that's a relief. 😂 I'm really looking forward to learn more about her and every time I see her magical gauntlet, I'm reminded that we're *definitely* not in Ferelden anymore. lol
Anyway, we then get a few shots of the Deep Roads?? Kal-Sharok??? 👀👀 And of course, there's Harding's big reveal of her new magical powers! The animation on this looks sooo amazing!!
Like many suspect, the Titans' awakening might have something to do with this! I totally agree with what Ghil Dirthalen said on twitter recently and, rather than this being Harding having Solas' petrification powers, it's actually Solas who has the powers of the Titans/stone sense/whatever Sandal did to those ogres back then lol. (I need Sandal to return and be her "teacher" or something 🙏❤️) We know of Solas' orb, which was likely created by obtaining the heart of a Titan. And if the Titans are connected to the Forgotten Ones, Fen'Harel was once considered their ally in Dalish legends. 👀
Also, if you look closely, you can see that the moment her powers are triggered, we see the blue glowy effect all over her body, like glowy lyrium veins almost?
And that in turn could hint at something in connection to her blood? So that big injury we see on her (which is still visible in this scene btw!) was maybe the moment her blood came in contact with something that awakened these powers? (We need Valta back to explain! lol)
"What is happening to me?"
That delivery gave me chills again... She is frightened. Ali Hillis is so good. 🥺🥺🥺
Next up is the Grand Necropolis and people have already pointed out that the ceiling we see at that entrance hall or something looks like a GIANT rip cage?? 💀 (What kind of creature would be THIS big???)
First look of Emmrich in-game!!! And he's wearing a fancy new outfit!! And I paused at the perfect moment to catch Rook already falling in love with him, clearly. lmao
There are two characters next to the gate that could be anybody, really. Myrna from Tevinter Nights or Joanna from the short story "The Flame Eternal"? The guy on the right is actually giving me Executor vibes?? 👀👀👀
Then there's Giant Skeleton Monster (Manfred's mom?), and don't even ask me what this could possibly be. 😂 I just hope we don't have to fight THAT (we totally will 💀). I got flashbacks of the Human Reaper endboss in ME2. 😭😭
"Let the Fade draw close!"
There's something kinda... posh about the way he says this? 😂 Like, he's not really intimidated by Giant Skeleton Monster and it's just another Tuesday in the Grand Necropolis and Professor Volkarin is just doing his every day job. lol
Then there are two shots of what I think is somewhere in the Anderfels but snowy again, like that area in the beginning where Elgar'nan and Ghili showed up? And a destroyed watchtower that is occupied by the Wardens. Then we get a *third* and final shot of this beauty again.
"Draw the dragon out into the open. Then attack."
I assume that's Taash?? Sadly, that shot of her drawing her weapon is all we got from her in this trailer, but she looks awesome!! <333 We're gonna be Lord of Fortune buddies, even though we might disagree on the matter of dragon hunting lol (look, I don't want to *fight* dragons, I want to be *friends* with them 🫠😂❤️ I want to see them live their best lifes.. for the most part (I get to the Elgar'nan dragon and the blighted "twin dragons" in a second lol))
We see the docks of Minrathous for a split second and then a first glimpse at a romance scene between Rook and Neve? 👀 At the Lighthouse maybe?
"You and me Rook. Maybe that's what scares me."
What does she mean by that exactly? Does Neve have commitment issues? lol Or is this more like a "We're a dangerous match, Rook. We'll be too powerful of a couple. Like Bonnie and Clyde." kinda statement? 😂
And THEN... Well, then we get probably THE most badass looking introduction/entrance of any character in DA yet. lol And YES, I freaked out SO hard.
SHE'S BACK. Returning like the QUEEN that she is. 🙏 And of course, she has to come down a flight of "stairs" again. lol (And no, Claudia Black did not lie, she just wasn't contacted at the time. 😁) Gosh, that transformation is so SMOOTH. I could watch that forever, it's so darn beautiful. 😍 Again, the way this is done, cinematically.. just *chef's kiss*.
In retrospect, it seems almost like a given that she would be back because.. well, everything about the way DAI ended. lol Flemeth wanted her to inherit her "godhood", and she looks more than ever like her mother now. Remember the designer notes on that last scene in DAI.
Flemeth intends to let Solas have the power, so long as she can pass the essence of her godhood onto Morrigan, a gift Flemeth had always planned for her daughter yet one Morrigan misunderstood as hostile possession.
So, what exactly is she now? Did she receive whatever Flemeth sent through the eluvian at the end of DAI? Does she carry Mythal now?? If so, does Solas know (I NEED a conversation between those two technically "half-siblings", because Flemeth/Mythal is both their "Mother"? 😂)?? Remember when I said that this one dragon that appears multiple times here reminds me a lot of the dragon on the vinyl cover with the Golden City, which is very likely Mythal? So my very first thought was that the dragon is actually Morrigan?? lol Just throwing that out there.
It seems to me that she is with the Dalish/Veil Jumpers in the Arlathan Forest now? (Btw, if you look closely, you can see elven mosaics in COLOR in the background? :O)
"These are the times in which legends are born or slain."
That line goes so HARD aHhhh. Also, speaking of slain, that new outfit is slaying too. <33 Her return also means that the Well decision and potential consequences are back on the table, which will definitely keep me up at night again. 💀
That moment right there. She is everthing. ❤️❤️❤️ I wonder if we're gonna see Kieran again?? 🥺🥺
We then get the most impressive tracking shot and choreography of what I think is Teia and Viago fighting some Venatori?? <333333 Like, seriously, the way the camera is following his movements in this shot without a single cut, makes me think of something like flippin Games of Thrones' Battle of the Bastards. 😱 And those hair physics on Teia as she's swinging around?? Absolutely amazing.
Followed by Lucanis and.. is that Zara Renata (the character with the best name ever lol)?? Fighting over an ominous glowing staff. lol We know these two still had unfinished business with each other after the Wigmaker Job in TN.
Then we get our first in-game look of my man MANFRED (🎉🎉🎉🎉), proving yet again to be the most fashionable character in the whole game, using his pelvis effectively. lol I love him so much.
Then there's another terrifying shot of Giant Skeleton Monster, which almost looks like it's in command over the crowd of people here, like they're possessed or something? Uhg.. As if this thing wasn't scary enough. 💀
"Our gods are back. Our gods! How do we stand up against that?"
Again, CHILLLLS!! Chills all over. It's gonna be so interesting to hear what the Dalish, Bellara or Davrin think about all these revelations!
Then we see the Wardens again, confronting one of the super duper blighted "twin dragons" we see at the end (more on that later).
We see Neve using a barrier or something against a guy who wears the same armor as her, so maybe the Shadow Dragons are corrupted, too?
Then we see Rook dramatically tossing a sword on a table at Weisshaupt? And holy moly, Davrin in that new armor here looks FINE. 😍
Back in Treviso, we see a cool finishing move from Rook, obliterating a poor Venatori guy. That bow on Rook's back though (I need it)! :O
"I believe in all of us. So let's get it done."
That little pep talk from Rook certainly worked for me. lol Like, whatever it is we're doing here, I'm so pumped, let's gooooo!
Then we get literally a millisecond of a frame, where you can see Ghili lying on the floor.. with the lyrium dagger stuck IN HER CHEST??
EXCUSE ME?? They wouldn't just spoil her death like that, right?? lmao Also, that adds another billion questions about this damn flippin dagger and at this point the list of questions is getting so long that I've completely given up speculating. 😂💀 We see how Rook tries to retrieve(?) the dagger but the power it emanates pushes them back?? What the heeellll.
And then I died. No, really. lmaoo
What can I say.
I cried. I screamed. My soul left my body.
It happened. We FINALLY saw him. The Dreaded Wolf, He Who Hunts Alone, Roamer of the Beyond, God of Rebellion. The one everyone's been talking about since flippin 2009. And by GOD, he lives up to his NAME.
He's dreadful, he's horrifying. He's a monster, a nightmare. He's perfect. And just like Solas, he's just a Little Guy and bald. 😭😭😭
...At least in comparison to this dragon!! Look at that friggin SIZE DIFFERENCE. Someone measured the size by comparing them to Rook, who we see for a split second before Fenny leaps in. So, make no mistake, Fen'Harel IS the size of a high dragon, like he was described in Tevinter Nights... It's just that this blighted dragon is HUMONGOUS. lol That dragon, let's call him Elgar'nan, because we all KNOW, right?? Who else could it POSSIBLY be?? He's got the horns, he's the dragon on the vinyl cover with the Blighted Black City, he's ENORMOUS!! I've been saying this forever. Fen'Harel vs Elgar'nan, Battle of Gods was all I ever wished to see and FUCK, I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WISH CAME TRUE. 😭😭😭
And look WHERE they are fighting!! It's Minrathous, you can clearly see the floating building in the background!! Which means the Dread Wolf is OUT. He's no longer trapped, or in the Fade. Remember Sandal's prophecy "When he rises, everyone will see". And he HAS RISEN. lmao And look at the lighting!! It's the same dim, gloomy RED we've seen at the end of the reveal trailer with the eclipse. "AN ECLIPSE AS FEN'HAREL STIRRED". IT'S HAPPENING. Remember the 2020 teaser MURAL.
Is this the Black City or is it the floating building?? Either way, it's BLIGHTED. In the trailer, Minrathous has clearly been completely taken over by the Blight. "All the world will soon share the peace and comfort of my reign", that's what Elgar'nan said at the end of the 2023 teaser, and what better way to take over the world than to start with the biggest capital in Thedas, a nation which built their own empire over the ruins of Elvhenan, ruled by the most powerful mages!
And I am SO scared. You can see Elgar'nan snapping Fenny. The dragon is blighted, and maybe so is Fen'Harel. He's also clearly been through so much. "The Wolf chews his leg off to escape the trap.", is what Cole said in Trespasser. I don't think he always looked like that. In the murals and the 2022 cinematic, he has a lot more fur. And I can't help but think about the devs saying that Solas wasn't always bald either. lmao How are they connected.. are they one and the same.. are they bound to each other.. we still don't know. But I'm SO. F*CKING EXCITED. TO FIND OUT.
Those few seconds of this scene were breathtaking and whoever made this trailer knew exactly what they were doing, because the editing is so perfect as Fen'Harel charges at Elgar'nan in slow-motion and the music cuts out completely while that beautiful wolf howl can be heard and you can almost HEAR everyone's jaw dropping on the floor. lmao THAT's. how. you. do it. *standing ovation* *sobbing*
Okay. Breathe. Moving on. We gotta get to the end. lol
The very next shot is SO funny to me, because we literally just got to see Elgar'nan, the biggest flippin dragon we've ever seen in DA and it's followed by a shot in which Elgar'nan looks SO tiny next to Ghilan'nain. lmaooo
His ego doesn't allow to appear small though, I guess, so he f*cking levitates to top her in height. lmao These two ancient clowns are already killing me.
What's interesting though is that this is the exact same angle from which we left off in the gameplay showcase. And Solas is nowhere to be seen, so... did he literally just "poof" away right there into that Fade prison?? lmao
We get a quick montage of all the lovely monsters we will face. Like I mentioned, there's the Elgar'nan dragon taking a swim in the ocean, I guess? (I hope he drowns. lol) And a shot of what I think is Irelin (from TN and The Missing) doing.. something with some magical device. Someone fighting a magical "automaton" in the Arlathan Forest. lol Harding doing her THING again, acting like Toph from Avatar, literally bending the flippin earth, like a true Child of the Stone!!
And right before the end, there's one of my personal favorite shots, Rook basically bitch slapping a Pride demon into full K.O.?? lmao
The trailer ends with a final beautiful shot of Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire. lol No, seriously. A SUPER blighted pair of angry dragons, seemingly at the same snowy place that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain popped up earlier in the trailer. 👀👀👀
So, they might have something to do with this? There was a dead dragon lying on the ground in an earlier shot, so maybe the elven gods revived them? If I see Blue and Red, I'm of course immediately reminded of lyrium.. whatever that means. Or, given that they seem to be attacking Grey Wardens in this place... maybe we are looking at an altered form of Archdemons?? Or something similar to Corypheus' dragon? 👀 There is an interesting theory floating around that Ghilan'nain might look like *that* because she somehow merged with her lover Andruil. As I mentioned in the beginning, Ghilan'nain seemed to have been struck by a spear or something.. and in this shot, you can see that the red dragon is pulling a spear out of its body! Sooo... maybe that actually IS her?? And she somehow transformed into two different blighted dragons, representing herself and Andruil??? The tinfoil hat is strong with this one. lol
ANYWAY. The release date is revealed to be 31st of October, making this the best Halloween of all time!! Not only is it perfect because of its origin, Samhain, the thinning of the Veil between the living and spirits.. But also because we all get a chance to dress up as Manfred, walk into the store, buy the game and then go Trick or Treat (but mostly trick) in the name of Fen'Harel, the Trickster God. 😂😂💜💜💜
And that's it!! Now we only have to wait two months before we can all lose our collective shi— NO WAIT, OF COURSE WE'RE NOT DONE YET.
WHAT THE HELL
IS THIS
EXCUSE ME, how do you throw this in there in the background at the very last second, HELLO??? A rocky object, split in half. HUH, WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THAT BEFORE.
Oh, you sneaky sneaky people. The mural depicting a Titan's death.... Remember the description of this place in DAI's files.
"A final eluvian is situated in a beautiful bolt-hole where Solas has painted murals. Fen'Harel was here and wanted to make sure nobody ever found what the other gods were doing. This place was the breaking point for him that turned him against the gods."
Whatever this is... I think it might be the very reason why all of this is even happening. The Evanuris mined the Titans' blood and "something else" before they collapsed and sealed the Deep Roads with stone and magic.
"Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast."
"What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The People must rise before their false gods destroy them all."
I'll leave it at that. I'm so so so flippin excited. I want to thank all the devs involved, I'm so full of joy and can't wait to finally return back to Thedas in October. 🥹🥹🥹 (And if anyone wants to get me that "Rook's coffer" collectibles thing for my birthday two days after release, my address is— naah just kidding!! ..or AM I?? 👀😂😂)!! 💜💜💜💜💜
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